I’d always wondered what happened to Ron Lim, the sick-ass penciller behind some of my favorite comics of the ’90s. Well, he’s here. One less thing to think about, y’know? Here’s some more:
- The New York Knicks are 16-24 heading into today’s game against the Big Nonconformist and his Arizona Fiery Hot Clusters of Gaseousplosion. If Dominant Team Pringles can go 3-2 over its next five games, then this (click STOP on your browser once the page opens up) will have come partially true, and I will have accurately predicted the Knicks’ record through the first three-plus months of the season. I will be insufferable. And then, because my fivesight (one better than foresight, you see) is spectacular, the pain of a winless February will commence. And I will be suffering. In all things, balance.
- Did anybody else find it a little weird that NBA.com dispatched a photographer to LeBron James’ hotel room to take pictures of him watching the inauguration with his kids? There’s nothing wrong with the pictures per se (except maybe that they’re boring, but that’s to be expected, since the whole goal is to document a guy watching something on TV), and I understand that LeBron’s culturally important and famous and black, which means media outlets felt the need to pay attention to the way he responded to/consumed Barack Obama taking the oath of office, etc., etc. It just seems sort of, well, dumb. I mean, editorially, what was the endgame there? Did they hope that as soon as John Roberts started spitting his game, LeBron would start freaking out, smiling wide, throwing chalk technology murdering rosin mixture up in the air and emitting unbridled seven-octave hosannas? Seems unlikely, but hey, I don’t know the guy. Then again, it’s possible I’m engaging in some inverse rationalization here; the project probably strikes me as dumb simply because of how uneventful and staid the photos are. I’m still not 100 percent sure why it initially struck me as kind of creepy, though … may need to unpack that a bit more. (Big hat tip to LeBron 2010.)
- The adventurously titled New York Mets Online makes the argument that my favorite squadron should re-sign Pedro Martinez. In a recent podcast, Bill Simmons made a similar point, suggesting the Mets bring Pedro back as a clubhouse guy (Kevin Millar with a Jheri curl on a diet of a little bit of mangu and an egg?) and an enticement/insurance policy in a run for Manny Ramirez. But since Omar Minaya seems intent on killing my soul by saying the Mets aren’t looking at bats (despite a projected everyday lineup that features Brian Schneider, the rotting carcass of Luis Castillo, uber-unproven Daniel Murphy, and possibly both Ryan Church and Fernando Tatis), the Pedro handcuff wouldn’t seem to add anything. More importantly, while I’m all for stockpiling arms (especially when, as is the case in Flushing, you’ve only got one reliably good one), it just seems karmically and psychologically unsound to expect Pedro Martinez to be cool with competing for a slot in the back-end of what will ultimately be a middling starting rotation. Even if he doesn’t have it anymore — and let’s be clear: he doesn’t — Pedro just can’t be Tim Redding, or Claudio Vargas or even Bartolo Colon, a guy with a much more comparable resume who’s been forced into swing roles in each of the last two seasons. He was a lightning bolt, a benevolent dictator … if he hangs it up now, fans can write off the last 2.5 seasons as an injury-riddled mess and remember him the way he should be remembered. The longer he pitches, the harder it’ll be to do that. Let another team participate in fading that memory; it shouldn’t be us.
- A cool post over at Pounding the Rock lists the 21 “real, honest to goodness guys who matter” in the NBA. Hard to argue with any of the selections; have a fun few minutes trying to make an argument for an omission, then hit their site to comment and complain. (The only two so far that I feel I could argue for: Steve Nash and Chauncey Billups.)
- I don’t like power rankings, but I do like the guys at Talkhoops.net and I have been reading their rankings today, so linking there is only fair. However, disrespecting Dominant Team Pringles by devoting the comments on their team to Raptors talk … that’s a paddlin’.
- After getting put on to sites like The Passion of the Weiss, Nah Right and 2dopeboyz by goatman, I’m starting to pay attention to hip-hop again, which has been very rewarding. One conundrum, though: I’m having a lot of trouble with this Asher Roth kid. My introduction was the video of him performing “I Love College” on Carson Daly (who’s still alive, which is nice), which I did not like AT ALL. Then I came across his “A Milli” freestyle, and I dug his lyricism and flow. Which led me to download his mixtape, “The Greenhouse Effect,” and it’s more of the same … some great wordplay and inventive ways of jacking good beats mashed up with some horrendous winking joke tracks. Hmm. To help me resolve my internal conflict, I’d like very much if my half-dozens upon half-dozens of readers can weigh in and tell me how to feel about this: Should I like Asher Roth, or should I dislike him?
Back, hopefully, with something more real tomorrow.
this is the city line. 