The Audacity of Dope

The fine folks over at iMeem linked up with the homies U-N-I for a Los Angeles edition of their “Keys 2 The City” series.  In chapter one, Thurz & Y-O give you a basic introduction to the crew and we even get some footage of them on the court.  Which reminds me…every time I see these dudes, we’re supposed to get out there and play but it always falls through.  They’ll be up here in Seattle this weekend for a show on Sunday the 7th at Nectar (with Blu!), so perhaps we can finally do this.  Bring your game fellas.

I saw this on Sportscenter last night and was telling everyone about it.  Ho-lee-ish.  Andre Miller’s ankles are permanently damaged.  This is one of many reasons that Rose was the clear #1 choice in the last draft.  Dude is a player.

On the other side of the spectrum, how awful is that announcer?  Wow.

Shout to Real Frequency for posting this up.

Yeah, it was offsides, but that finish was still ill.  Plus, we all know Robin hates his right foot, so that makes it even doper.  And “le double” on his more familiar left:

If the Gunners can play the mid-table teams the way they played Chelsea and Manchester United, this could be an incredible 4 team EPL title race.  RvP’s the man.  Shout to the homey Didier though…when he gets back in form, Chelsea should be the favorite.

Hahahahahah…I’m not mad at this at all.

I haven’t been posting up my CrossFit workouts for a while, mainly cause I do ’em so often, this blog would be nothing but workouts and wack lyrics.  Plus, it’s a little weird to keep strangers up to date with my personal workout log, but ehhh.  I felt like I did well on “Christine” tonight, so I figured I’d post.  Sue me.

Christine: 3 Rounds for Time

500m row
12 deadlifts (bodyweight)
24 box jumps

My dude Mikey suggested this one, and since we did a lot of arm stuff the day before and I’d never tried Christine, I was all for it.  The rowing felt great (one of my better exercises) and the box jumps were fairly easy (except for the final few when your legs are shot).  We used Mikey’s bodyweight, so I only had to lift 135lbs, 20 less than my own BW.  It’s still a decent lift and you feel it on the final round.  I finished in 12:32.  Blaow.

Try this one if you have a rowing machine at your gym.  Or if you’re in Seattle, you could always man (or woman) up and come to a free workout at Foundation CrossFit with us on Saturdays @ noon.  Or you could be lame and get fat during the winter.  Your call.

Damn, a sad day for one of my all-time favorite players.  This is the kind of news that makes me feel old as hell too:

Los Angeles Clippers point guard Jason Williams announced his retirement from the NBA today, ending his 10-year career. Signed by the Clippers as a free agent on August 7, 2008, Williams did not appear in a game for Los Angeles.

Williams enjoyed a 10-year NBA career that saw him take the court for three different teams, (Sacramento 1998-2001, Memphis 2001-2005 and Miami 2005-2008). A member of the NBA Champion Miami Heat in 2005-06, Williams started all 23 playoff games and averaged 9.3 points and 3.9 assists for Miami in helping to win the organization’s first title.

The West Virginia native leaves the NBA with career averages of 11.4 points, 6.3 assists, 1.3 steals, 2.4 rebounds while shooting 39.6 percent from the floor, 32.5 percent from three-point range and 81.6 percent from the foul line in 679 total games. Williams finishes his career with a 2.77 assist-to-turnover ratio.

He enjoyed his best statistical season in 2001-02 when he averaged 14.8 points, 8.0 assists and 3.0 rebounds for Memphis. In his four seasons with the Grizzlies, Williams became the club’s all-time assists leader and all-time leader in three-point field goals attempted in addition to being named the NBA’s Most Improved Player for the 2002-03 season by Sports Illustrated when he finished tied for second in the league in assists per game.

Originally drafted with the seventh overall selection in the 1998 NBA Draft by Sacramento after one season at the University of Florida, Williams was named to the 1998-99 NBA All-Rookie Team following an electrifying first season that saw him average 12.8 points and 6.0 assists. Over the next nine seasons, Williams emerged as one of the most dependable point guards in the NBA, averaging double-figures in scoring and at least five assists per game in eight of his ten years in the league.

After seeing this news on a messageboard, I noticed someone also posted up a little J-Will highlight reel.  If you’ve ever talked to me on AIM, now you know where the “55” in the name comes from…

I watched that last highlight in person at Key Arena and I’ll never forget it.  He had just pulled off a great play and followed it up by freezing Gary Payton (at that time, the NBA’s best defender) and kissing it high off the glass.  Even the Sonic fans went crazy for that one.  R.I.P. Seattle Supersonics.

In case you haven’t heard, in light of the recent economic crisis, John McCain has decided to suspend his campaign to try to help solve the problem.  Sane people will look at this maneuver and realize it’s a fairly desperate attempt to avoid pwnage in Friday’s debate, but McCain clearly hopes that his campaign can spin it positively.  Expect to hear a million surrogates talking up the idea that “McCain is showing he’ll put his country ahead of his campaign.”  That sounds nice, but unfortunately, it’s patently false.

McCain’s inability to get any sort of grasp on economic issues (remember: this man has admitted multiple times that he doesn’t understand how the economy works) has lead to an awful performance on the campaign trail the past 2 weeks.  With the Palin bounce fading quickly, and even beginning to negatively affect the ticket, they were increasingly desperate.  The idea that if McCain returns to Washington to sit in on some meetings and provide his voice, this $700 billion bailout will be hammered through is absolutely laughable.  Whether it happens or not, it will not be because of John McCain.

So why did he insist upon suspending the campaign and ducking the first debate on Friday?  Simple: he’s getting hammered on the economy.  As I’ve blogged about before, anytime an actual important issue or policy is talked about, the Republicans lose.  That’s why they want you to worry about flag pin lapels or pigs with lipstick.  Once the economy became the main focus, McCain’s campaign went down quicker than his plane dur– no…wait…I’m better than that.  Anyway, he’s losing ground all over the place and in order to stop the hemmorraging, he pulled this stunt.  It’s akin to calling a timeout when the other team is racking up points, only in this case, you were already out of timeouts.  Shouldn’t this be a technical foul?  Where’s Chris Webber?

This is not a legitimate reason to suspend your campaign and try to postpone the beatdown you’re going to receive at the first debate.  Now, Barack handled this as professionally and stately as possible.  He knows exactly what McCain is doing and his remarks above could not have been better.  Thankfully, I’m not running for office, so I’ll say it:

For a “war hero,” where is your vaunted courage Senator McCain?  Take your beating like a man and go to the first debate on Friday.  You’re running scared, but it’s understandable.  Barack has Ali-like swag right now, and you’re about to be on the receiving end.

I’m breaking this out at the next opportunity, no question.

Swiped from HHU.

Alright, I’ve been slacking on my crossfit posts, but I swear I’ve been killing the workouts lately.  One of the best parts about crossfit is that it’s really easy to see your improvement and I’ve been increasing damn near all my scores lately.  Saturday’s “Rainstorm” over at Foundation CrossFit started with 200m walking lunges to get our legs nice and jelly-like before we got into “Tabata This.”  From the CrossFit FAQ:

“Tabata Intervals ( 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest repeated 8 times) is applied in turn to the Squat, Rower, Pullups, Sit-ups, and Push-ups with a one minute rotation break between exercises. Each exercise is scored by the weakest number of reps (calories on the rower) in each of the eight intervals. During the one minute rotation time allowed the clock is not stopped but kept running. The score is the total of the scores from the five stations.”

Relatively simple, right?  20 seconds on, 10 seconds off…for 8 times…at each of those 5 exercises…and count only your lowest round.  I got my PR of 47 with 6 pull ups, 12 sit ups, 6 calories on the row, 12 squats, and 11 push ups.  Seeing as how I was able to knock out 8 calories on my last round of row and 15 push ups on the final round there, I’m guessing I didn’t quite push myself as hard as possible.  Next time I’m shooting for (at least) 7, 13, 7, 14, and 13.  Let’s get it.

For time. Complete all reps of each exercise before moving to the next.

100 pull ups
100 push ups
100 sit ups
100 air squats

Blew my PR out the water by 45 seconds and finished in 18:01.  “Yep yep” – Teddy.  In related crossfit news, I’m thoroughly obsessed with handstand push ups.  Shout to Foundation.