One thought and one offensive video

Mostly just to demonstrate that I'm still alive. By the way, in the last week I've driven from Charlottesville to Chicago, flown from Chicago to Charlottesville, graduated from UVA Law School, and flown back to Chicago. But back to that one thought:

If it wasn't for the NBA, no one outside of southern/central Texas would have any idea that there was a city called San Antonio. I mean, sure, the Alamo is there, but historical significance isn't really all it's cracked up to be in terms of national attention (visited St. Augistine. FL, or, for you non-UVA people, Jamestown, VA lately?).

And isn't that the NBA's biggest problem? The two best teams of the past five-to-eight years (okay, so I don't pay nearly enough attention to the NBA to justify writing this post) do their bidness in San Antonio, which is a non-entity on the national scene, and Detroit, which is frankly an ugly, boring city to the rest of the country (though it has a great airport, which I've visited twice in the past week). Moreover, those teams are defense-oriented, which to the non-basketball-obsessed public is dull, dull, dull. The second most exciting player plays in Cleveland, home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Drew Carey Show and (as far as America is concerned) nothing else. And while the most exciting player plays in L.A., he's surrounded by, well, stiffs.

So the Pacific Northwest is about to become the epicenter of professional basketball. The Portland Trailblazers got the first pick in this year's NBA Draft, with which they'll take Greg Oden. Oden is no Shaq, but he's an incredible defensive player who, teamed with Rookie of the Year Brandon Roy, will immediately make the Blazers a force in the Western Conference.

It should be noted that while I'm not really such an NBA fan these days (though with the sustained absence of player-to-fan violence, I've become determined to pay more attention to it as of tonight--we'll see if that holds until next season), my two favorite teams are the Timberwolves and the Sonics. So more interesting, to me, is that the Seattle Sonics improbably managed to nab the second pick, with which they'll take Kevin Durant. Now, even if Oden ends up being the more efficient player (which is likely), Durant is the kind of exciting player that fans love a lot more than they love defensive-minded centers, and Durant plus Sonics mainstay Ray Allen equals an exciting, fast-moving, high-scoring kind of team. So between the Sonics and the three-hours-south Blazers, the Northwest looks like it'll be the place to be for exciting basketball for the next couple years. So that's fun.

Speaking of fun, here's a scene that involves Will Ferrell acting with a toddler who is made to say some things that toddlers should really never say. I can't stop watching it or laughing at it. You've probably seen it, but it's worth watching again. (And again, and again, and again.) Can I have four beers?



Let's see if that works. And let's see if I can manage sitting through a 3 1/2 hour bar review class, which happens every weekday starting tomorrow. If not, this summer is going to be...really fun. And then I'll get a job at Starbucks or something.