THAT 70s NBA CHAMPIONSHIP: So it's Spurs vs. Nets in the 2-double-O-3. Your mandatory ABA jokes are: they should go back to the red, white and blue ball, everyone should wear afros, the away team should have to be on drugs. Or vice versa--as long as homecourt advantage means something. There you go.

How 'bout Steve Kerr last night? And Stephen Jackson? Jackson's game is probably more impressive, since we all know Kerr is great--maybe we didn't think he could still do what he did last night, but he's been resting for months, it's not like Horry and the Lakers where they were forced to give a bench guy major minutes. But Jackson, like the rest of the non-Duncan Spurs, has been prrrretty sketchy throughout the playoffs, so I personally didn't expect him to do what he did last night. I thought the Spurs would go into the dump-to-Duncan offense yet again and we'd have game seven and Dirk back and Dallas and destiny and everything. I guess all the Spurs need is to have one of their great yet erratic players to have a good game (Parker, Jackson, Ginobili) and to have it happen a few times in a series and the Spurs can win win win.

Anyhow, I love the Spurs, I love the Nets, there's nobody for me to really hate on either side ( if Dallas had won I would have brought the Najera hate to my viewing experience) so here's hoping the basketball gods give us a good series. I really want to see at what point Byron Scott wheels out Dikembe Mutombo. And how well Parker can play in the face of a Kidd onslaught. And the Martin-Duncan matchup. And whatever Manu comes up with. So many questions, so much intrigue.....I feel like Bill Walton, "the GRAND STAGE of the NBA" and all that. Oh man, how I wish ABC had the Albert/Van Gundy/Fratello team, the best on TV which had their final broadcast together last night. Where's that mute button....

NEVER MIND FANTAGRAPHICS: Save Eros Comics. Everybody else can go get published at Top Shelf or Alternative or wherever, but without Eros the high-quality porno comics we all know and love will disappear. So--for the sake of the dirty picture stories--save Fantagraphics. And never mind the irony.

AND I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE: But here's Charlie Murtaugh explaining to you, too, why The Usual Suspects stinks on ice. Maybe he can explain next why so many people like The Shawshank Redemption--another godawful, inexplicably popular movie. I mean, what is it? Tim Robbins getting prison raped? Morgan Freeman with one facial expression? A Steven King movie that people who hate Steven King can watch in relative comfort with King fanboys? What?

ANYHOW: Did anybody catch O'Reilly last night? How did Jacob do?

FEED YOUR O'REILLY HATE: I was looking around for the transcript of Jacob Sullum on Bill O'Reilly last night and I didn't find it but I did find a previous one. And a whole bunch of other ones of poor Bill getting out-argued. Cooool.

EWING THEORY UPDATE: Yes, it took a blow with the Mavs beating the Webber-free Kings, but here's Buck Harvey in the San Antonio Express-News implicitly endorsing it:

Nelson might have evened the series if he'd had Dirk Nowitzki. Years from now, when they look back at this series, everyone will see Nowitzki's absence as the difference.

But the Spurs' staff said afterward they wished he'd played. They said this privately, too, because it sounds nutty: The Mavericks were actually better for one night without Nowitzki.

The other Mavericks came harder and looser, freed from expectations, with a chance to divide up Nowitzki's shots. When Steve Nash, Nick Van Exel and Michael Finley all tossed in threes early for quick leads, Nellie was on his way to getting credit for everything.

He's writing about game four, which the Mavs lost, and not game five, which they won, but it still applies.

THANK YOU, WASHINGTON POST SPORTS SECTION: Teams Without City Need No Pity. Preach on, Brother Strahan:

But if New Jersey has its detractors, it also has its champions. New York Giants defensive end Michael Strahan, whose team plays just a few parking lots and overpasses away, has friends on both the Nets' and the Devils' rosters and believes "New Jersey could become the new sports mecca of the United States.

"There's nothing wrong with New Jersey," he says. "Everyone thinks New Jersey is this horrible place full of chemical plants and Tony Soprano look-alikes, but it's absolutely beautiful once you get away from the area right around the arena. There are parks and golf courses everywhere. This is the Garden State, man."

SO ANYWAY: What's the good-natured bet between Governor McGreevey and the mayor of Anaheim going to be? Half of Bruce Springsteen for all of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride? I'd pull that trade in a minute. We'd have a diminished Bruce (I'm not specifying which half of him we'd keep, and hopefully Anaheim wouldn't catch on until it was too late) but you could stick Mr. Toad in the middle of Great Adventure and I'd finally have a reason to go there. Or on the boardwalk in Wildwood--that would rock. Go Devils! Win us the best thing Uncle Walt ever came up with.

It'd be a better bet than whatever crate-of-Jersey-tomatos vs. crate-of-Mickey-Mouse-ears they've probably already good-naturedly shook on. Ah well.

GARDEN STATE PRIDE: Your New Jersey Nets and your New Jersey Devils are playing for the NBA Championship and the Stanley Cup. Two franchises with limited fan support because they play in an arena in the middle of nowhere. Two franchises that--I mean--I'm not even sure why they exist, except somebody must be making a buck off them; there's no crying need from us Jerseyites for them. Apathy is our credo, that whole valley of humility between two mountains of conceit thing. And yet, here we and they are. Wow.

Don't be fooled, though, whenever anybody says anything about New York on national broadcasts. These are Jersey teams--New York couldn't give a crap. Why do you think I hate the Knicks so much?

RIC BUCHER IS HIGH: There's no way the Spurs should go after Jason Kidd off-season. None. Not the way Tony Parker's been playing. Get somebody who will keep your team distinctive when David Robinson retires--get Jermaine O'Neal or Brad Miller. But don't get somebody who's going to minimize Tony Parker. It's crazy.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, YOUR 2003-2004 CLEVELAND CAVALIERS: LeBron James, Dajuan Wagner, Ricky Davis, Carlos Boozer, Darius Miles, and Zydrunas Ilgauskas. With Paul Silas or Jeff Van Gundy coaching. Yikes. Not that I'm expecting them to win a lot of games or anything, but a team that was entertaining and nutty last year (and was a League Pass favorite) just got more entertaining, nuttier, and better to boot. Will Ricky get crazier and become a true locker room cancer or will he prosper under an actual good coach? We shall see.

COOL LITTLE BIT OF SPORTS REPORTING: Mitch Albom hangs out with Joe Dumars on NBA Lottery night. Of course, it's interesting because the Pistons had a happy ending: they get to pick second in the draft, which was as high as they could get this year, due to an earlier debacle where they would get Memphis' pick if it wasn't #1. All signs point to Darko in Detroit next year.

NEVER MIND ANNIKA: Michelle Wie wants to win it all:

[I]t's well-documented that Wie wants to compete on both men's and women's tours, with the ultimate goal of slipping on a green jacket at the Masters. "I would like to play in the Masters by winning either the U.S. Amateur or Public Links or by reaching the top world golf ranking," she said.

Lofty goals indeed. But not surprising to her father, B.J. "She also wants to be the first female to earn a PGA Tour card and become the truly number one player in the world," he said via e-mail. "Although these goals are very difficult to achieve, she seems to enjoy setting the highest standard and works really hard to reach that level. "

B.J. believes the Boise Open will be a good first step. "This opportunity will be a crucial stepping-stone for Michelle to experience what the PGA Tour feels like much in advance of her golf career. We want Michelle to take advantage of this opportunity to gain more experience from playing with PGA Tour members on one of the best golf courses in the country."

As Steve Sailer has suggested, if any woman is going to play at an equal level with men, it's going to be someone who has always played against men--like Wie.

ONCE AGAIN: Head on over to diNboT's, download "I'm Watching 4 U" and listen to it until you can't remember what the original music Britney sang to sounded like. It's working for me.

OH COOL: Plan to keep traditional Big East rivalries alive:

Initial planning for a future without Miami, Boston College and Syracuse included exploration of a plan proposed by former commissioner and Big East founder Dave Gavitt. It might be the best plan for salvaging college football and basketball in the Northeast.

The plan calls for a confederation or alliance, with two eight-team leagues - one for basketball and one for football. Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese would serve as the chief executive officer of both leagues and a commissioner would be appointed for each.

The five remaining football schools - Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Rutgers and UConn - would anchor an eight-team all-sports league. Temple would likely be asked to rejoin that league. Louisville and Central Florida are two possibilities mentioned to bring the membership to eight.

There also is talk of congressional action that could help the Big East maintain its Bowl Championship Series status.

The second league would start with the six remaining non-football Catholic schools - St. John's, Seton Hall, Villanova, Georgetown, Providence and Notre Dame - and two additions from a strong pool that would include DePaul, Marquette, Dayton and Xavier.

According to Gavitt's plan, the two conferences would play intraleague games in a weekend basketball festival to begin the season at Madison Square Garden, then play four crossover games during the season to maintain longtime Big East rivalries. The games would count in the overall standings.

Remember: Big East=basketball.

ENCOURAGING BIG EAST OPINION: Curiously from Mike Harris of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, a paper not in a Big East city:

Louisville.

Cincinnati.

Memphis.

There you go.

That's the solution to what is ailing the Big East Conference, a league that has the departure of Miami, Syracuse and Boston College hanging over its proud head. The Atlantic Coast Conference wants those three, and most observers think the ACC is going to get those three. That has the Big East in something of a tizzy.

De-tizzy yourself and let them go graciously if that's what they indeed decide. Shake hands, pat backs, wish each other well and get on with life.

This is a setback. This is not a death sentence.

More:

The football would not be as strong. The Big East would be losing a powerhouse (Miami), a very strong program (BC) and a once-solid program that is starting the downward fall (Syracuse). It would be gaining two solid programs (Louisville, Cincinnati) and one that could use some propping up. Being in a league with the likes of Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh and West Virginia - a league that would have a BCS slot - could go a long way in that propping up process.

Eventually, it could be just as good. Few imagined the Big East would be as good as it is now, and look what happened.

Basketball-wise, the league is losing things in reverse of football with the current national champion (Syracuse), a very solid program (BC) and a program that has faded some after a few good years. But the additions would be a bonanza. You'd be adding a glittery assortment of coaches in Louisville's Rick Pitino, Cincinnati's Bob Huggins and Memphis' John Calipari. Throw those three in to a league that already has Connecticut's Jim Calhoun, West Virginia's John Beilein and Notre Dame's Mike Brey and you have a coaching all-star club.

It would, of course, be a geographically silly Big East, unless by East you mean "East of the Mississippi."

PROBABLY HOPELESSLY UNREALISTIC BIG EAST/ACC SQUABBLE SOLUTION: Why don't the viable ACC and Big East teams form a pan-East coast football megaconference? You could have a Big Atlantic Coast North:

Syracuse
B.C.
Pittsburgh
UConn
Maryland

A Big Atlantic Coast Central:

Duke
North Carolina
North Carolina State
Virginia
Virginia Tech
West Virginia

And a Big Atlantic Coast South:

Clemson
Georgia Tech
Florida State
Miami
South Florida

Everyone else can go sod off, including the godawful Rutgers program. UConn we leave in because 1. though probably godawful, they haven't been proven godawful yet, and 2. they only went Division I because the Big East told them to, so let's have a little pity. Otherwise, you're stuck with an ACC with two geographically isolated members with no natural rivalries with the rest of the conference. Kind of like Miami and the Big East right now. Who let them in, anyway?

REMEMBER YOUR LOTTERY CONSPIRACY THEORIES: Bill Simmons is saying Chicago or New York is getting LeBron. We shall see.

OH WAIT--THE NBA LOTTERY IS TONIGHT AT 8: Sorry about that. Don't sue, please--it's an insolvent republic.

NBA LOTTERY TONIGHT AT 8: Imagine if the Clippers got the first pick. Even Donald Sterling couldn't screw up LeBron--right? Right?

BY THE WAY: Doesn't Boeheim saying he doesn't want to leave mean Syracuse isn't going to leave? I though he was, like, God up there.

ONE OF MY QUESTIONS ABOUT THE BIG EAST/ACC FIGHT GET ANSWERED: Me, who has approaching zero interest in college football but has always been a college basketball fan: who will be in the new Big East? The old Big East; that is, whatever happens, the Big East will remain a basketball conference:

Forget half of what you read out of the early days of the Big East meetings. That was when only the football schools were in Florida, which means all the spin about kicking the Catholic schools out of the league was one-sided.

Administrators at three of the five basketball playing Catholic schools have told SportsLine.com they are adamant that they aren't leaving the league, and if there is a split, the main goal is to keep the Big East name, automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament and history. That includes its television contracts (Big Monday), its men's basketball conference championship tournament in Madison Square Garden and its record book.

The Big East name has value. Real value. And those five schools, all original founding members, will wage a holy war before giving it up. Especially against expansion schools such as Virginia Tech and West Virginia, which hardly ever seemed East, let alone Big East.

"We aren't going quietly," promised an athletic director at one of the Catholic schools. "Actually, put it this way. We aren't going anywhere."

I could personally care less if Miami leaves. I care a little more if B.C. and Syracuse leave--I mean, I'm a Boeheim hater but in an affectionate, "Oh cripes--Syracuse is melting down again" way. But I spent the earliest years I can remember in South Oranse, New Jersey, and the first words I ever read were "The Big East" so as long as there's a Big East that plays basketball and has Seton Hall in it I'm fine. I will tolerate no forced removal of basketball schools for the sake of football programs. My Northeastern consciousness can't believe college football brings in the amount of money it does, anyway. It can't around here, anyhow, so I can't see why football should be able to dominate the multisport Big East like this. But whatever.

Dan Wetzel, who I quoted above, says Notre Dame is the key:

NCAA by-laws state that when conferences break up or are formed, any group of six schools that have been together at least five years can maintain a league's automatic NCAA berth. This should be the central argument and most germane in litigation.

If Notre Dame goes with the football schools -- even if it remains a football independent -- then those schools should get the Big East name. If it goes with the basketball schools, then the case will go that way.

Either way, Notre Dame should be playing in the Big East in 2005. Ironically, no other school has such a guarantee. The Irish, in a sense, will get to choose all the other members.

More:

Even if there weren't religious ties, Notre Dame would be best served with its Catholic brethren in a new, expanded Big East Conference.

The Catholic schools provide the best entry into the major media, recruiting markets and alumni bases in the East, which is the point. Stay Catholic and ND will play in New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Providence and North Jersey (even before expansion). The conference tourney will be in Madison Square Garden.

The football schools -- with outposts in Southwest Virginia, West Virginia and rural Connecticut -- can't match that. It's not even close and will get worse when the football side expands to the South.

If the split happens, expect ND to go with the Catholic schools. The now-six members will make a claim on the Big East name and tradition. NCAA rules point to those schools winning the battle. A court of law might disagree, but that group would appear to have the stronger case -- 6 vs. 5.

The five football schools will have to find a new name.

I still hate Notre Dame, though. May they stay with the Big East, so that I may hate them on a regular basis.

BOOTLEG SCENE VERY MUCH ALIVE: Though Boom Selection is gone, there's a link there to McSleazy's Get Your Bootleg On, which has tons of things to download and listen to. I found diNboT's page via there, and you should really listen to everything diNboT's got. The 50 Cent vs. Devo thing is really choice, and the Britney Spears vs. Wire (who?) is amazing--it's A Stroke Of Genius for the new millennium, I tell ya. Or A Stroke Of Genius for the new summer of 2003. Crazy fast-paced culture....

I love these bootlegs, and I love the fact that there's still an active bootleg culture--I was worried. Bootlegs are Bizarro-world pop songs and I hope we have this Bizarro pop radio for years to come.

UNSOLICITED COMIC BOOK RECOMMENDATION: Buy Hsu & Chan. Or read them online, if you're the kind of person who can read comics online. They are the true heirs of Sam & Max.

IF YOU'RE WORKING YOUR WAY THROUGH BOOM SELECTION_ISSUE 01: And you might be, since people's are finally arriving in the mail--supplement your bootleg love with a little Freelance Hairdresser. I hope somebody puts together an Issue 02, even if Boom Selection itself is apparently dead. For those of us who, you know, don't have the time to sift through a jillion mp3s to get to the good stuff.

I'LL TELL YOU SOMETHING RIGHT NOW: If the Spurs don't make their free throws, they can't win this thing. I don't think they can, anyway. It's a seven game series; all the Mavs have to is get hot four times--which they did in the previous two seven-game series--and they'll be outscoring the freethrow-clanking Spurs four times. I mean, 17 misses out of 48 free throws? Yikes. Hey, has the worst freethrow shooting team in the league ever won the championship? There's an obscure and probably meaningless stat for you to seek out.

ONE MORE MATRIX COMMENT: The Philip K. Dick influence is all in the "question reality" themes and nowhere else. If Dick was writing the Matrix, Neo would've still gotten out and possibly saved the world, but been unhappily married and in love/lust with a coworker. And his wife--someone who lived their life in the Matrix and wasn't ever thinking about getting out--would've had a much larger role. Dick did some weird stuff, but it all happened to real people. In the Matrix, we're not even sure who the real people are at this point.

I'LL SAY IT AGAIN: The Democrats need to raise Bush family-Saudi connections if they're going to beat him in 2004. It's the only way. Unless they're hooked on Saudi money too, which would be lousy for all of us.

RELOADED RACIAL STORYTELLING: It's funny--all the programs in the Matrix are gross ethnic stereotypes of one sort or another. Oracle is a refugee from The Color Purple; Seraph expresses himself via martial arts and can't pronounce his l's ("interrocutions" or whatever he said--they made sure he had a terrible accent too.) The Agents are the squarest white guys you've ever heard of. The Merovingian ees as Frahnch as Frahnch can be, mon ami. The Keymaster looks like a Korean immigrant shopkeeper, though he has no accent. Whereas none of the humans have any identifiable cultural origins, besides speaking unaccented English, and many of them--Keanu, Fishburne, that head general guy--are multiracial. Part of it is science-fictiony, probably; just speculation about the people of the post-nationality future would look like. And part of it is probably sly role reversal of Star Trekkish futures with multicultural crews that leave the white people in charge. The rest is your usual shavedy-head sunglass-wearing blather about our posthuman future without any culturally imposed standards or inhibitions blah blah blah blah blah. Not that the Wachowskis are saying that themselves, but it is in there somewhere, I think; Zion is like the whole internal reality of your dark-clothes wearing hipster whose external reality would be the matrix itself and whose viewpoint the Wachowskis are writing large, here, and making substantial. Anyhow, there's your analysis of the racial themes of Matrix 2. I dunno. The Matrix is our empty capitalist society, and people with strong cultural origins only exist as prominent features of the Matrix. What does this add up to?

HOW WILL YOU PREDICT MATRIX SEQUELS WHEN YOU HAVE NO MOUTH, MR. ANDERSON?: Watching Reloaded last night and sitting through the credits to get to the preview for Matrix 3 I realize my predictions are going to be dead wrong--there's no way Agent Smith was ever a proto-The One. Someone else (I forget where) suggested that the Wachowskis might be setting up something where the "desert of the real"--the scorched Earth, the machines, the baby farms, Zion--is another virtual reality. Which would explain (and here's your SPOILER) why Neo could kill a bunch of the rastabots by gesturing at them. Unless the machines are finding new ways to break into reality--the way Agent Smith apparently downloaded himself into a human--and thus Neo is as well. Or unless the Wachowskis are trying to make some point about, like, how can you ever really know anything, man, which would suck; I can't believe they'd destroy all the good will they built up with the first Matrix, which allowed them to get all philosophical and interesting in the second Matrix, by casting doubts on both realities and in a sense reducing the whole thing to Dallas, Season 8.

SYMPATHY FOR THE LAKERS: Poor Kobe. He really didn't think it was going to end, I think--he wasn't just out there, Iraqi Information Minister-style, spouting off about "you can't put us away, you can't beat us" or whatever he said and it being all bluster. He really thought the Lakers were going in win. Sorry, Kobe.

The rest of the Lakers--good riddance. I'm only sorry Rick Fox wasn't there to share the dismal moment.

LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE OVER: Lakers lose.

MATRIX PREDICTIONS: Mark my words, Agent Smith is the Darth Vader of this thing, the badass villain who's more memorable than any of the heroes. And he's going to turn hero by the end of the trilogy. The Wachowskis are Star Wars geeks, they know what they're doing; they know Hugo Weaving had all the cool lines in Matrix I. And Neo isn't The One--the old lady told him so. Therefore: Hugo Weaving is The One. I haven't seen Reloaded yet, all I know is there's a bunch of Agent Smiths in it because he's got the magic ability to replicate himself now, so if they all get deleted I'm obviously wrong. But I'm thinking he's either The One or woulda-coulda been The One but got too tempted by the Machine and turned to relentless hatred of all things biological. But he'll turn back in the end ("My GOD! Agent Smith--he--he just hit that other agent with that steel chair! You could here the clank ringing off his cranium....") and save the day or assist in the day-saving. Yep. Spurs in 6, or Lakers in 7.

OH MAN, I'M SUCH A GEEK: And so I will have to watch the new X-Men movie again in a non-geekish fashion, because the whole last scene there--I'm giving away the ending now, so watch out--the Professor Frink voice in my head was saying, "Oh jeez, they're just killing Jean because they need to do the whole Phoenix thing later. Where's the Shi'ar? Where's the Starjammers? Why doesn't Bobby get out and just freeze the water?" And my Professor Frink voice didn't even have its history right as I was comparing this Jean Gray death with her sacrificing herself on the Blue Area of the Moon which is all tragic and amazing and everything and not her first, original death, done purely for plot purposes, which this particular death of Jean Gray surely was inspired by. So I was simulatenously too geeky and not geeky enough in my first viewing--smugly lording my incomplete knowledge over the movie I was watching--and so I will have to watch it again, this time as a normal movie-watching human being.

One image that stuck with me was the death of Yuriko, who has the same healing factor, adamantium skeleton and--one assumes, given that Stryker has her doped up to do his bidding--tragic history as Wolverine. They gave Kelly Hu this amazingly pale, perfect face in this movie, which made for an interesting visual contrast during her fight with Wolvie as the cuts on her whitened face--looking nothing like wounds; they were, obviously, computer-generated blood-red lines drawn upon her face (unlike Wolvie, whose wounds always looked visceral, I guess) faded into nothingness. So when Wolvie pumps her full of liquid adamantium and she can't even scream as the slightest adamantium dribbles from the corners of her mouth and her nose and she cries two adamantium tears it was visually impressive--David Mack probably crapped his pants. And impressive that Singer was reserved in this moment when he could've had her head explode or something and gave a character whose history you mostly have to theorize out of thin air and a little knowledge of X-Men mythology some kind of tragic meaning. More than they gave the other megafox sadly dispatched in this movie, Famke Janssen, but as I said above her death is a plot-death. It's the little things that make these two X-Men movies great--little touches where they could've done nothing--and I hope they make a ton of them.

BASKTETBALL GODS SHOW A LITTLE LOVE: Maybe this is like the year the baseball gods removed the demonic powers Mariano Rivera had in the World Series against the Diamondbacks. Perhaps the basketball gods have decided, in their wisdom, that Robert Horry had made enough series-killing three-point shots. And so, it rattled out. Of course, there's no reason to resort to mysticism when you can argue that in a season where Shaq and Kobe have not had a lot of help and thus where Horry has had to play a lot more minutes in the regular season than he's used to he's bound to be worn down in a situation where he's usually fresh--in other words, if there was a moment in his career where he was going to miss that shot--his shot--last night was it.

And maybe, for once, the Lakers just aren't lucky this year. What did Napoleon say? "All very well and good, but tell me one thing; is he lucky?" Kobe even admitted it: "We're a tough team to put out....It has something to do with luck, something to do with our grit, our fight. Game 6, we're going to give it our all." Except they didn't have the luck last night, and may not have it this year. If the Spurs are smart, they'll realize they've been granted the kind of miracle a championship team needs and smother the Lakers in Game 6. If they don't, I do not like their chances in Game 7.

And Tim Duncan really blew it last night, leaving Horry open, and he knew it. He had the most sheepish look on his face when Sager was interviewing him after the game, like he was embarrassed to have won. Hopefully this morning he wakes up and says to himself, "HEY! We won," and calls Tony Parker and tells him that and they go out and push the Lakers over the cliff. Remember, Spurs, aside from Kobe these are not the same Lakers of years past; they're either diminished or Jannero Pargo. And you can beat Jannero Pargo.

BUSY: Busy busy. Watch the Lakers and Spurs tonight at 9:30; since C-Webb went out this is the de facto NBA championship the Western Conference finals were supposed to be. Help us, Obi-Wan Ginobili, you're our only hope.

LOUSY STINKING SAN ANTONIO SPURS: The NBA. I haaaaaaate this game.

STUDYING: Be back in a few. Howzabout them Spurs? Huh?

HEY: Anybody ever read any of those Left Behind books? Any good? People say they're like Stephen King but for Christians but if they mean Stephen King in terms of plot that tells me nothing, if they mean Stephen King in terms of the infectious joy of writing that you get from a good Stephen King book that tells me everything. King is a great writer and a horror schlockmeister--not just the latter. What about the Left Behind guys?

FOUR GAME SIXES TONIGHT: That's a lot of opportunity for a lot of people to go fishing. That's like a whole fleet of schooners and whole lot of fish sticks afterwards. Will we have four series conclude tonight? Possibly:

PACERS AT CELTICS: The one most likely to end tonight, with Boston over Team Isiah. The Pacers don't look like they have a clue. I shudder at the size of the tantrum Artest might throw afterwards, or during.

WOLVES AT LAKERS: The other one most likely to end tonight. Poor Troy Hudson looks like he's finally cooled off, and the Wolves as a team don't look they'll be able to sustain the effort that got them Games Two and Three (and almost Four) again in this series. I don't know who you blame--when they were on the Wolves looked great. Blame Flip? I guess.

NETS AT BUCKS: The Nets aren't good enough to beat the Bucks in 6, methinks, and may opt to take a breather and pull away in the fourth quarter in Game Seven. That's the way the Nets like to drag things out.

SPURS AT SUNS: I dunno, I'm not putting this last because I'm definitely sure the Suns will win tonight--I just don't know what to predict. These teams could play in a 21-game series and go to overtime in the 21st game.

FUNNY LITTLE SHORT STORY I ENJOYED: Courtney Cox's Asshole by Jill Soloway. Via Daze.

SEX-SELECTIVE ABORTION: One in six female fetuses aborted in Rohtak, India. Via diotima.

THANK YOU, JULIAN SANCHEZ: "In other news, James Miller reminds us why, whenever a game theorist looks at romance, the first two thoughts to arise, in quick succession, are: (1) huh, that's an interesting way to look at it, and (2) wow, you never get laid, do you?" Yeah, thanks.

UPDATE: Radley Balko also rips Stanley Kurtz--which was what Julian's post above was actually about. A real fierce ripping, that you should read.

YOUR STATE OF BEER ADVERTISING REVIEW: It goes like this:

MILLER LITE: We have ads with a strong narrative drive (for commercials) and playful intelligence. The male desire for hot chicks is parodied and played up to at the same time. We're not afraid of alienating our (presumably) male audience by showing hot man-on-man action for the benefit of the ladies. Actual women appear in our ads.

BUD LITE: We make jokes wherein the male desire for hot chicks or cold beer gets him into crrrrazy situations. Think "Three Stooges"--not that there's anything wrong with that. Women exist only as the butt of jokes (like the fat lady in Marx Brothers movies, only hot) or to laugh at the guy when he is the butt of the joke. Animals inexplicably appear throughout our ads, since we're tying to hook 'em while they're young. No actual women--or animals--appear in our ads.

COORS LITE: We are the COORS. Your visual and biological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Thinking is futile. Analysis is futile. There is only images. There is only posturing. There is only having a good time. We are the COORS.

(No actual human beings appear in Coors ads.)

ELLE MACPHERSON BUILDS LEAD-LINED CRIB FOR CHILD: Jeff Taylor makes funny:

To recap, that's lead, a well-known health-hazard to young kids, vs. cosmic rays, not a threat outside of comic books or the minds of the bipolar.

You woulda thought Elle would want her kid to turn out to be a superhero....