Thank you, Matt Drake.

Lauren's car got in a fight and lost, so, since Zeke's off wandering in Wyoming, we've been driving his car for the past two weeks.

And listening to his CDs.

Including a nameless mix he made in May.

Good to know he's still listening to the important stuff.

Pretty sure there were multiple nights in college when Zeke and I insisted that everyone listen to nothing but that song, over and over and over.

Don't let a win get to your head or a loss to your heart.

No such thing as too much of that line.

He Got Game is track 2 on the soundtrack to He Got Game.

Bumped into a fun little in process web community this morning.

An in process web community for listmaking.  A dot org in process web community for listmaking.

Kind of an awesome idea, I think.  And I'm curious about the dot orgness.  Might be as simple as a powerful aversion to ads.

Also curious about people's first lists, the ones that leap to your mind the moment you first visit listable.org.

Mine both involved the NBA: Basketball Players That Deserve Way More Love Than They Get and Basketball Players I Wish I Could Play Against (And Beat) Every Day Forever.

Just started following THE_REAL_SHAQ on Twitter. 

Gotta love his bio:

VERY QUOTATIOUS, I PERFORM RANDOM ACTS OF SHAQNESS

Actually the real Shaq?

I say probably.

Barry Schwartz made a presentation at the TED conference a few weeks ago about wise janitors.

Rules and incentives and virtue and dignity and wise janitors.

Made me think of Willie.

The Invention of Basketball is track 1 on Inside the Mind of Bill Cosby.

I don't truly love the NBA until the playoffs start, but I love the players I love year round.

Chauncey Billups, Steve Nash, and Ray Allen have been favorites for a while.  Shaq has always made me laugh, but he'll soon retire and graduate to my Hall of Fame Team.*  Kevin Garnett won me over last year.  And LeBron James just impressed me once again...

Don't pump fake me now.

Thanks to TNC for the recommendation.

*Charles Barkley, Dennis Rodman, John Starks, Danny Ainge, Hakeem Olajuwon, Vlade Divac, Muggsy Bogues, John Salley, and probably a few more that I can't remember right now.  Unusual group, I realize.  Funny the athletes that attract you as a little kid. 

I don't eat much fish anymore.  Unless I kill it myself, with a speargun.  And, yes, I know, that's weird, but I'll get into it another time.  For the moment, all I want to say is that even though I don't eat much fish, I do still have fond memories of fish eating.

For example, the night we had a celebratory Yanjing Browns basketball championship dinner at 独们冲 (not sure, actually, if there was a championship to celebrate, but we did win quite a few tourneys between 2004 and 2007, so it's possible; regardless, the point is that it was a bunch of happy, hungry, rowdy basketball players rolling into 独门冲), a night that rushed back into my mind after reading this chinabites blog post:

http://blog.chinabites.com/2008/07/23/spicy-roasted-fish/

I commented:

I think there's another Du Men Chong on the Dongzhimen side of Gui Jie. I vaguely remember going there once. Vaguely because whoever had arranged the meal explained as we sat down that spicy roasted fish wasn't spicy roasted fish unless everyone was dripping sweat while eating it. We found out moments later that the fish itself would have done the sweatiness job easily, but our host insisted that we get a jump on things by pounding a few rounds of 二锅头. And by "a few" I mean I don't remember how many. I think the spicy fish was pretty tasty, though maybe it wouldn't have been the same if my soaked and dripping head wasn't spinning and swaying in a grain alcohol fog.

I miss Beijing.