The Celtics do NOT get a free pass if they lose Game 7 on Saturday. Any fan that claims the Celtics are playing with house money at this point—therefore rationalizing a loss to Miami in the final game of the Eastern Conference Finals—is a complete buffoon.
The reason I’m bringing this up is because I already know how the narrative will go if the Celtics lose on Saturday. The “ESPN experts” will say something like, “It was a valiant effort by an older Celtics team…a team no one expected to make it this far. They should be proud of putting up such a good fight, especially if it is the last stand for the Big Three.”
The ignorant fans will be talking months from now about how they didn’t expect this team to A). make the playoffs, B). beat Atlanta in Round One, or C). Advance to the Conference Finals. The subtext being, “Yeah, it sucks they lost, but since we didn’t expect them to make it this far, we can’t be too upset that they fell short of the Finals.”
Fuck that.
You know who would never entertain the idea of “playing with house money?”
Kevin Garnett.
Just listen to one of that guy’s postgame rants and you’ll realize he expects to win the NBA Championship every time he steps on the court.
The Celtics should have ended the Heat series in five games, considering they outplayed Miami in games two through five. Just like they should have ended the 76ers series in five games as they outplayed Philadelphia in games one, three, four and five.
This isn’t a team that lacks so much talent compared to their opponents that we should feel lucky they’re winning. They have plenty of talent; they’re just as healthy as every other playoff team (just ask Chicago about Derrick Rose or Miami about Chris Bosh); they have three future Hall-of-Famers and a former Coach of the Year. They are not outmatched.
Sure, win or lose on Saturday I’ll still be proud of the fight they put up this postseason. They certainly could have come up with plenty of excuses to bow out early. But since they have gotten to this point—and proved that they belong in the Finals just as much as any other team—I think it’s only fair that we expect them to win.
If you’re a Celtics fan, it’s understandably lazy to be happy they made it this far and not expect anything more. Be better than that. Expect this team to be in the Finals. The old guys taking the floor on Saturday night certainly will.
Do you hate the summer TV schedule as much as I do? Are you confused by why the best TV shows all take their hiatus from June – September? I actually tried to research why all the TV stations give their best shows the summer off, but I couldn’t find any legit info. My best guess is that back in the times before DVRs, TiVo and On Demand, these networks realized that summer is when families take vacations and spend a lot of time outside…meaning that’s when people are least likely to be sitting in front of their TVs every night. But now with so many different options to tape your favorite shows, doesn’t it make sense that the schedule would adjust and there would actually be decent shows on during the summer months? Apparently not.
I took the trouble of monitoring Entertainment Weekly’s “What to Watch” section for three weeks in May to see what new summer shows they were promoting. Sadly, here they are:
United Stats of America – Twin comics make statistics about the USA interesting (doubt it) – History Channel, Tuesdays
The Devils Ride – Inside look at the conflicts and drama of a motorcycle club in San Diego (there was already a show like this that I didn’t bother to watch, wasn’t there? Sons of Anarchy?) – Discovery Channel, Tuesdays
Around the World in 80 Plates – Competing chefs travel the world and learn about international cuisines, then try to cook the local flavors (sounds like every other cooking show) -Bravo, Wednesdays
Common Law – Cop partners have a problem—with each other. So their captain sends them to couples’ therapy (what an incredible twist on the typical cop show! Two men that have to go to couples’ therapy! Groundbreaking stuff!). – USA, Fridays
Mom Caves– An attempt to show the world that moms need their private spaces for relaxation just like men need their man caves (every woman I know relaxes by watching trashy TV and reading gossip magazines. So this show is about a room with one TV and a bunch of magazines? Boom, show over) – HGTV, Saturdays
Pregnant in Heels – A “pregnancy guru” helps expecting moms through the joys and perils of having a baby (I’m not sure I even have a comment here. This woman apparently helps pregnant women deal with major dilemmas…like how to go on a date when you’re eight months pregnant. Sounds awesome) – Bravo, Tuesdays
Duets – A play on those other singing competition shows…only this time the judges actually sing with the contestants (I don’t listen to Kelly Clarkson or John Legend sing regularly, and I don’t even know who Jennifer Nettles or Robin Thicke are. So it’s doubtful I wanna hear them sing with wannabe singers) – ABC, Thursdays
I Cloned My Pet – This might have been just a one-episode show, but basically it follows people who had an obsession with their pets, and those pets died, and now they’re trying to clone the dead pet, or something.
Hip Hop Squares – A hip hop take on the old Hollywood Squares show (seems like it’s geared towards a specific viewer, and it’s not me) – MTV, almost every day
Men At Work – Four men navigate work, friendship and women (I’ve actually watched a couple episodes of this show as it’s the only sitcom on this list. It’s pretty terrible…recycled jokes about one of the guy’s girlfriends wanting to have sex too often…there’s the stereotypical ladies’ man, the nerd, the guy who just got dumped and is depressed, and the normal guy. Don’t waste your time) – TBS, Thursdays
It’s a sad list of shows. But do me a favor and let me know if there are any shows on this summer that are actually worth watching. And do yourself a favor and go see some movies instead of watching Pregnant in Heels. Specifically go see The Avengers in 3D. You won’t be sorry.
I would never have thought the answer to that question could be Yes until about a week ago. Up until then I figured she thought I was reasonably handy—like she knows I know the difference between a phillips head screwdriver and a flat head screwdriver, but probably assumes (correctly) that I can’t change the oil in a car by myself. Have I ever changed a flat tire? Hell no. But have I successfully started a camp fire? Of course (lighter fluid, starter log and match light charcoal).
But then a week ago I rented a moving truck, and on Wednesday night we packed all of her and her roommate’s things into the truck. On Thursday morning, I helped her roommate drop off all her stuff at a storage unit, leaving only Julie’s items in the truck. After I drove home , I looked in the back and saw that boxes had flown around all over the place. Makes sense since the roommate’s items were gone and there was nothing holding Julie’s items in place anymore. When I called her and told her I was busy rearranging the truck because this happened, she told me to leave it alone until she got home to fix it. But she didn’t say it in a “Gee, Ross, I know you’ve got a lot to do today” kind of way. She said it in a “You’re probably gonna fuck it up even worse so just stop” kind of way. I admit I’m not the world’s greatest packer, but come on…
And then today, I’m on the phone with her (she’s in San Francisco, I’m at our new apartment in LA), and she asks if I tried to setup this tiny metal file cabinet thing we bought from Ikea. I told her I hadn’t, and she literally said, “Oh good. I don’t want you to try to do it and screw it up so just leave it for when I get back.”
Of course I was flabbergasted, and she quickly backpedaled saying, “I just figured you’ve never setup Ikea furniture so you might not know how to do it correctly.”
First of all, I’ve setup plenty of Ikea furniture, but that’s besides the point. Anyone who has ever been to Ikea or seen a piece of their furniture knows it’s made to be 100% idiot proof. The furniture and their corresponding directions were made so even my unborn nephew could easily build a dresser from the womb. Like if you just empty the Ikea box onto the ground, there’s a 66% chance the different pieces will put themselves together for you.
And just so everyone knows how big of an idiot my girlfriend really thinks I am, here’s a picture of what she didn’t want me trying to setup:
Eight total pieces, two different types of screws. Lucky for me, she just inadvertently gave me permission not to lift a finger around the house for the next 16 days while she’s gone.
Many people think of me as a sports jinx. It’s basically an annual tradition for me to tell my friends which new Red Sox player’s jersey I bought so they can groan about how that player is about to either be traded or severely injured.
But facts are facts. All it took for the Boston sports teams to go on a never-seen-before championship run was me moving to Boston in September of 2001. Only five months later, the Patriots kicked off the Decade of Dominance with their first Super Bowl. Over those four years at Boston University, the Patriots won three Super Bowls, the Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years, and the Terriers took home the Beanpot Championship three times.
Coincidence? Maybe. But then I move out to San Francisco and only five short years later, the Giants are celebrating their first World Series Championship in like 50 years.
And if we wanna go even farther back in my lifetime, didn’t St. Bernard’s High School make magical championship runs in Football (division six, but still) and Basketball once I enrolled?
So when the LA Kings win their first Stanley Cup Championship in the team’s 45-year history tonight, just remember that I moved to LA six days ago. I’m the exact opposite of a sports jinx.
I’m open to relocating to any city as a good luck charm as long as all my living expenses are covered by that city’s taxpayers. Who wants me?
I’ve been living in LA for six days, and the reason for the move was to jumpstart my writing career. And maybe in those six days I haven’t written a single thing, but I’ve never been so sure that my screenwriting career is secure.
There are three main reasons for this confidence. Here are those reasons in the form of YouTube clips (I swear these are all real, meaning someone wrote the script, someone got hundreds of actors to willingly audition for these roles, and someone else spent millions of dollars producing and marketing these movies):
Eleven days of silence from the WBFF blog probably has people worried sick. Am I alive? Stuck under a pile of moving boxes? Busy selling movie scripts all over LA? Auditioning for my first (porn) acting gig?
Actually, in those 11 days, I spent five of them on a bender in Boston—Red Sox game, Celtics game, Wedding, Memorial Day BBQ, and a Wake (yes, my family typically serves alcohol at wakes…you know it’s a great idea)—I spent two of them packing four peoples’ lives into a moving truck, and I’ve spent the past four days unpacking in LA.
There might have been a post over the weekend if the company that was supposed to setup my internet and DirecTV service hadn’t completely boned me. The reason I pushed to leave San Francisco at 4AM on Friday morning was to make sure we had enough time to get to LA, unpack everything from the truck and have the TV setup so these guys could do their job when they showed up at 4PM that day. Only they didn’t show up and wouldn’t be able to until Monday. I put together a sob story for the sales rep, saying that they were hurting my ability to work from home without the internet, and that I had plans to have friends over on Sunday night for dinner and watching the Celtics game. He must have known that I have no job and no friends because he didn’t really compensate me much for this inconvenience. The company’s name is Bel-Air Internet, and they are on my shit list.
But I digress.
My favorite thing about moving out of an apartment is the discoveries you make in random places you haven’t checked in years. For instance, when we moved out of our college apartment, I’m pretty sure we found a mouse trap behind the mini-fridge that had a dead mouse on it…and that dead mouse had apparently died while trying to eat a smaller dead mouse. At the apartment in San Francisco, my favorite discovery was this jar of mayo in the cupboard. Expiration date: September ’08. I tried to take a picture of it next to something white so you could see the color discrepancy:
Pretty gross, but I ate the whole jar.
Up until a week ago, I had never been to a self-storage facility. I’m now convinced I’ll never go back to one. In my head, storing possessions at one of these places is as simple as driving your truck right up next to your unit and unloading. Kind of like this:
But reality is slightly different. Reality is parking your truck in a tiny, crowded garage where there is only one elevator that everyone fights over to get your stuff up to your storage unit. Reality is trying to navigate the world’s narrowest hallways with a dolly full of your possessions, while ducking under low-hanging pipes and lights. And unfortunately, reality means realizing your storage unit is elevated about 10 feet above you, and good luck carrying those 70lb boxes up the librarian’s staircase without killing yourself.
This picture doesn’t do it justice. But picture those top units being 10 feet above ground and having a wobbly staircase as the only method to haul your shit up to them
After living in my new apartment for three days, here are the additional positives I’ve found that weren’t obvious when we toured the place in May: the flushing power of the toilet, the perfect temperature in the apartment by keeping the porch door open at all times (no need to use the central air so far), and the amount of power outlets throughout the place.
And here is the one negative I’ve found: lack of lighting even though there is an endless amount of light switches on the walls. Seriously, there’s no overhead light in the living room, the bedroom or any of the closets. And yet, there are at least seven light switches that do nothing, like they want to be used for overhead lights. Even the kitchen is too dark in certain corners when the lights are on. How many lamps will I have to buy to properly light this apartment? It feels like more than five.
When Julie and I were moving in over the weekend, I was looking for one thing early on that I could start a huge all-out war over with her. I picked the way she puts the toilet paper on the toilet paper dispenser. I walked out of the bathroom on Saturday and said, “This just isn’t gonna work. You always put the toilet paper on upside down and I can’t live with that.” I expected a fight, but instead she told me she didn’t even notice how she puts it on, it’s not even worth thinking about, and she’ll do it the way I want. How dare she be so dismissive about something so important to me?
Speaking of the lady of the house…I folded a load of her laundry yesterday, and I never want to attempt it again. My clothes have basically two shapes: regular-looking pants and regular-looking t-shirts. My clothes are also made of only two possible materials: cotton and denim. I know how to properly fold these shapes and materials. Apparently a woman’s wardrobe consists of more variety: tank tops, strapless shirts, dresses with one sleeve, strapless dresses, skirts, shirts with a deep V-neck, normal length pants, three-quarter length pants, sweatshirts that look like shirts, shirts that look like sweatshirts, three different thicknesses of sweaters, belts that apparently go in the wash…and of course there are different materials that don’t want to fold like my cotton shirts. Even though by living together we’re merging a lot of possessions, I’m pretty sure we’ll continue to do our laundry separately.
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