The Aqua Teens Shut Down Boston

Holy toledo, even our local ABC affiliate out of Portland just ran a local bit about the electronic signs that caused havoc in Boston today, with the shutdown of bridges and highways. The good news is no one here took those signs seriously, but it is nice to see that there is vigilance by people somewhere on the lookout for "suspicious looking" things that are out of place. Jury's still out on whether or not this is a smart or dumb move on the part of Turner Networks, the bottom line is that this is good publicity for the upcoming movie.



First heard this on the radio a couple of hours ago (KPNW Sports Talk, which has a Fox News top of the hour news break; I was kinda stunned to actually hear "Aqua Teens" and "fair and balanced" mentioned in the same breath.


EDIT AT 6:30 PM PST: Charles Gibson on ABC News called it a "stupid stunt" on his lead off story on their evening newscast, while NBC played it off a few minutes in as more harmless than anything.



FIRST STORY



BOSTON.COM

Stu Inman, R.I.P.

A sad day for all Blazermaniacs across the globe as the man responsible for putting together the lone NBA Championship title team from the city of Portland has passed away at the age of 80 at his home in Lake Oswego, OR.


In addition to the Red Hot And Rollin' Blazers of the 1976-77 season, he was also responsible for assembling the Blazer team that had perhaps the most popular players of all time, in terms of appeal to the local community, which would be the teams that played in the 1990 and 1992 NBA Finals with players such as Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, and Jerome Kersey. Those teams were also aided with some shrewd trades as well, getting the veteran Buck Williams from New Jersey and Kevin Duckworth from San Antonio, the latter coming in exchange for the disgruntled College Player Of The Year Walter "The Truth" Berry, who wouldn't work that hard upon joining and then found himself at the end of the bench wondering why he wasn't getting more playing time than Kersey.


Of course, to the general sports fan at large, he's still best known as the man who passed over Micheal Jordan to grab the fragile Sam Bowie, and it is not our place here to revisit the reasons for the decision. The rest of Inman's draft record in Portland will show that he had a good eye for spotting talent, starting off with having back to back Rookie Of The Year winners in Geoff Petrie, from the first Blazer team on 1970-12, and Sidney Wicks in 71-72. In the Wicks draft, he also selected the hard working fan favourite Larry Steele in the third round, the same round he would also select Lloyd Neal the next year, and these two players were extremely valuable components on the championship team that would be assembled in the next couple of years.


Also, he was keen enough to make sure that the Blazers got ahold of power forward Maurice Lucas and guard David Twardzik in the ABA dispersal draft of 1976, the final pieces of the championship puzzle that was coached by Jack Ramsay. Interestingly, Twardzik himself had been drafter by Inman and the Blazers back in 1972, but since Twardzik had attended college at Old Dominion, that was the reason that he stayed close to home to play for the Virgina Squires of the ABA instead of flying across the country to play for a new expansion team that wasn't very good at all. Oh yeah, I do believe that a gentlemen named Julius Erving was playing for the Squires at the time, not a bad teammate to be with I'd say.


It was sad that the championship team that Inman assembled fell apart in a haze of injuries and bad feelings in the wake of the 1977-78 season collapse, where the Blazers had blasted off to a 50-10 start, serious contenders to best the Lakers single season victory total of 69, only to be eliminated in the first round by the Seattle Supersonics in a 4-2 series.



I can still hear people going "LaRue WHO?" when Inman picked the Loyola (Chicago) center of North Carolina's Bob McAdoo in 72-73, which is still a pick that Blazer fans have puzzled over for years.


Through the good and the bad, rooting for the Blazers was always fun (at least until the Jail Blazers showed up :rolleyes: ), and Stu Inman was largely responsible for many of the excellent memories that I have today, especially in the way that being a Blazermaniac really was a communal-type activity; I know of people who normally wouldn't give much thought of sports becoming enamored of the team and quality of people who played for the franchise. Thank you for you work Stu....it was really appreciated.


STU

Oh Mama, This Really Is The End

...to be using a computer without a floppy disk in them (severe apologies to Bob Dylan for that preceding awful rhyme. :embarrassed:





This move will come as no surprise, but one more step toward the actual demise of the floppy disk, the long standing storage device in the computer world for years and years, is at hand with the announcement that PC World computer stores will no longer be selling the item once stocks on hand are gone.



Of course, no one really mourned the passing of the first really big floppy discs, so I would assume that there won't be much of an outcry, it'll just be the sole remaining task at hand for the disks still in my possession to serve as a reminder of my first days learning computing basics back in the early 80's.



BBC STORY

Eagle Carrying Deer Head Cuts Power To Thousands

Weird story out of Alaska about the hungry bald eagle, its dinner of a deer head, and a power line. Unfortunately, it ends badly for the symbol of our country.



EAGLE

You Don't Need Pants......

...for more than the victory dance, apparently. Gotta love the zany people over at Improv Everywhere. While their mission of invading a Manhattan Best Buy store with a lot of people dressed somewhat like a Best Buy employee will always be one of my all time fave events, their recently documented current mission of NoPants2k7 on the New York City subways . Nice that they picked a weekend day for the mission, I wonder how many people I know would be brave enough to engage in such an activity? I know I would.



NO PANTS

FA Cup 5th Round Draw: Spurs At Fulham

Oh joy, another chance to exhibit less than stellar road play? We'll all find out during the week of February 17/18.



FA CUP

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Movie Trailer

Dang, with this one coming up, that'll make it, what, four movies that I'll have actually paid to sit in a theater within a 12 month period? (Those'd be Borat, Pan's Labrynith, Reno 911 and this one). Looks good to me so far.

Reno 911 Movie On February 23rd

Not just about promoting upcoming music releases, but also movies about a ridiculous television show about inept cops. Sometimes great, sometimes grating, nevertheless the Reno 911 show was one of the last things I ever made a point to catch (at least since both Insomniac and Chappelle's Show went off the air). Sorry gents, endless repeats of MadTV doesn't do anything for me, though to be fair, I'm sure endless repeats of MST3K back in the day didn't do anything for a lot of people either. Bring back the Sports Monster!


Anyways, the Reno 911 cops have a Myspace page out, I saw this in the previews before the Borat movie. A lot of ridiculousness in it........just like in real life.



MY SPACE

The Triffids: Calenture & In The Pines Released Feb. 20th

Because it's never too early to start reminding, or educating, people that the next installment of Triffids reissues for the states, released by the wonderful people at Domino Records, hits the stores in just a couple of weeks, on the 20th of February.


The two albums are basically bookends of the Triffids styles, In The Pines was a superb collection of relaxed tracks made by the band, in a shed in the middle of nowhere basically, after they signed an international recording contract with Island Records. Calenture, the first album released by Island, is a wonderful collection of thoughtful songs enhanced by the luxury of studio time and money. (i.e. it's slick by comparison).


As always, the twenty years I've been listening to this wonderful band have not diminished my opinion of them one bit, a great thing to have in this era of "flavour of the month" type musical styles and artists, where often a career will last no more than two albums. Their mix of rock, country, pop and soul, with a bit of the avant-garde thrown in for good measure, plus non-embarrassing lyrics, has always hit the spot.


Besides, the eighth anniversary of singer David McComb's tragic passing is this Friday, February the 2nd. R.I.P. always David, and thank you for the wonderful music.





FEBRUARY 20TH

The Lost Art Of The Mixtape

A nice piece in today's Guardian by Sean O'Hagan about the mix tape, always a labour of love from the creator for various modes of consumption: as a chance to show some one new your broad musical taste, a chance to gather various songs under a single theme, as a means of communication with your friends, a way to get ahold of some songs that might otherwise be impossible to acquire, etc.


Lord knows I've got a couple of boxes of cassettes still on hand, for like most people, there are lots and lots of memories associated with these items, not to mention the aforementioned songs that I don't have on a CD anywhere, such as rare b-side single tracks or from various compilation albums that didn't find their way onto a regular issue album. In the grand scheme of things, these couple of boxes don't take up that much space, and while it's not likely I'll ever buy another Walkman in my life (I have no interest really in an Ipod), there are still loads of cassette players out there to do the job, not to mention software that will let one record the rare songs to your computer in digitized form.


Part of the charm of the tapes, especially the non-themed ones, was working on instinct on what song would follow any other song, such as one might hear on a good radio station that would have an eclectic play list, not the predetermined garbage we get from the likes of Clear Channel. If it wasn't done right, as O'Hagan notes, some of these tapes could take an average of 5 hours to compile, by which time one might lose a little patience and rush to complete the job that night.


This article is also a great companion to the book edited by Thurston Moore a couple of years ago entitle Mix Tape: The Art Of Cassette Culture.


The tape above is not mine, just for illustrative purposes only, though my titles would often have a similar title.




SEAN O'HAGAN



THURSTON MOORE


The last tape I made, with inclusion of vinyl material, was a couple of years ago:

Side One:
Nick Cave-Jack The Ripper
Leftfield-Dusted
Cabaret Voltaire-Safety Zone
The Heads-The Damage I've Done
Rage Against The Machine_Guerrilla Radio
Wyclef Jean-Bubblegoose
Mudhoney-Tonight I Think I'm Gonna Go Downtown
Lyle Lovett-Sonja
Oasis-The Masterplan
The Orb-Toxygene

Side Two:
Crystal Method-Keep Hope Alive
Uncle Tupelo-Sin City
Primal Scream-Keep Your Dreams/Swastika Eyes
Smith & Mighty-No Justice
U2-Staring At The Sun (monster truck mix)
X-Burning House Of Love
That Petrol Emotion-Abandon
Dwight Yoakam-Thinking About Leaving
Alan Jackson-Pop A Top


For posterity, my all time most played tape, entitled Son Of E-Z Listening

Side One:
The Replacements-Swingin' Party
" -Here Comes A Regular
" -Skyway
Rain Parade-Carolyn's Song
" -Sad Eyes Kill
Rainy Day-I'll Keep It With Mine
" -I'll Be Your Mirror
Robbie Robertson-Broken Arrow
Rachel Sweet-New Age
Scritti Politti-Faithless
Squeeze-Black Coffee In Bed
Steve Kilbey-The Empire Mourns Her Son Without Tears


Side two:
Style Council-You're The Best Thing
Jonathan Richman-That Summer Feeling
Velvet Underground-Pale Blue Eyes
The Triffids-Trick Of The Light
School Daze soundtrack-I'm Building Me A Home
This Mortal Coil-Song To The Siren
Magazine-A Song From Under The Floorboards
Marty Willson-Piper-She's King
Tom Verlaine-Dissolve/Reveal
The Church-Disenchanted
Bruce Springsteen-I'm On Fire
Dream Syndicate-Someplace Better Than this

obviously a collection of tracks thar are more laid back.

Oregon 77 Washington State 74

The Ducks salvaged a split on their Washington road trip by beating the Cougars Saturday night at Friel Court 77 to 74. Oregon rallied in a game in which they trailed for practically the entire game to force overtime with Maarty Leunen calmly sinking two free throws with .5 seconds left, on a foul call that will surely aggravate Cougar fans for eternity.


The Ducks trailed by nine with just over 7 minutes to play, but once again Aaron Brooks led the team down the stretch with steely nerves. This team really does not show much fear or panic when things aren't going exactly as they would like to, the odd quickly launched three point shot notwithstanding. The Ducks, who were pounded on the boards in Thursday's loss to the Washington Huskies, claimed a 42-28 advantage their, which helped to limit the damage from their 19 turnovers.


Leunen was scoreless before he sank the two free throws at the end of regulation, and he also hit a three point shot early in overtime to account for this 5 points. However, he led the way with 10 rebounds and continued his stellar play on the defensive end with his hustle.


The Cougars' Derrick Low was had a terrific game, playing like his shorts were on fire, finishing with 37 points, 8 assists and just two turnovers. Some of his three point shots made were just incredible, he took them with no hesitation and lots of confidence. Also, as team the Cougars blocked 10 Duck shots in their relentless defensive scheme that didn't allow very many open looks at the basket.


The above pic of Leunen, before his two crucial free throw attempts, is one of my fave pics from this lively season.


REPORT

$7,000 Per Jumping Jack

$35,000 awarded to a Florida teen age girl after a settlement with the Pensacola City Council was reached. All of this after a city police officer ordered her to do some topless jumping jacks. Nice example of seeing what exactly a policeman thinks they can get away with these days. Sounds like a skit for a future Reno 911 episode as well.


JUMP JUMP

Spurs 3 Southend 1

Okay, so it was only Southend today in the fourth round of the FA Cup, but hey, it's the team that was on the schedule. Aaron Lennon was a joy to watch today, running up and down both sides of the pitch and creating chances for his teammates to score. Spurs took a 1-0 lead just 12 minutes in on a strike from Robbie Keane, and went further on the attack for most of the rest of the half, as the Southend defensive line looked harried all day long.


Lennon step up both Spurs goals in the second half, the first in the 49th minute by Jermaine Jenas, giving Spurs a 2-0 lead. Even though the final possession chart shows the visitors with a 53% possession lead, they had little to show for all of that, and they were the benefactors of a handball by Hossam Ghaly in the battle in front of the goal after Southend's only corner kick to set up a penalty kick from Freddy Eastwood in the 69th minute.


Spurs then went on the attack as the penalty kick gave the visitors a sign of life, with Spurs all it sometimes takes is one momentary lapse of concentration, and it looked like Robbie Keane was denied an obvious penalty kick one minute later after being taken down in the box, ruining an obvious scoring chance. The referee did not agree, and Keane vented for the next couple of minutes, and drew a yellow card for his efforts one minute later. At this point, I thought Spurs were quite in danger of those aforementioned lapses of direction, but thankfully Lennon was on top of his game, and tore down the right side to find a sliding Mido in front of the goal for the final tally.


Actually, my favourite play of the game was one in which Spurs didn't score, it was set up by Lennon, again, with a terrific display of running and dribbling down the left flank some 60 yards, finding Didier Zokora just outside the box. Robbie Keane, recognizing the space in the Southend defensive live, took a step back to receive Zokora's pass, but missed the wide open shot in the 61st minute.


First Spurs match I've seen in person where Paul Robinson wasn't the goalie, in this one reserve Radek Cerny did a fine job with the couple of saves when he was involved with the action, though he was fooled badly on the penalty kick.


One final note: the momentary lapse of concentration was evident again in stoppage time, at the close of the 92nd minute, when Michael Dawson, inside the goal area, kicked a ball back to Cerny with a Southend player in extremely close vicinity. That Southend player created that chance by himself out of nothing, it was three Spurs in the back against him, he saw the ball go toward Cerny and decided to see what would happen if he pressed Spurs a bit. Well, he nearly got a goal for his effort if Cerny hadn't hurried up to kick the ball away.

Some final stats to further testify for the overall Spurs domination:



Tottenham Southend
Shots (on Goal)28(16) 9(4)
Fouls 10 14
Corner Kicks 15 1
Offsides 1 0
Possession 47% 53%
Yellow Cards 2 1
Red Cards 0 0
Saves 5 8




MATCH

Dedicated Sports Fan

Bless the passion of New England sports fans; here's one talking a mile a minute after last Sunday's AFC Championship Game loss by his beloved Patriots to the Indianapolis Colts, sounding like every other guy I've been around in a bar or at a tailgate after a tough, tough loss. This clip does include language that one might not use around their parents, and it's a good thing the Pats have won three Super Bowls to ease the pain of that loss just a very little bit; God knows how he would have reacted if he had a webcast after Game Six of the 1986 World Series.

Because If It Ain't Stiff............

...........no prizes for guessing the rest, especially after I put up a pic of one of my all-time fave tees, which promptly was stolen from me, though I still have a badge of that famous saying.


Some good news in the seemingly never-ending flow of reissues designed to make consumers buy yet another copy of a work they already own. BUT (and this is big but), these titles are indeed from the vaults of the legendary Stiff Records, a linchpin of the English New Wave scene of the 70's and 80's.


These albums, of which I've never seen CD versions of before, are being done right, with the usual plethora of bonus materials composed of b-sides and live tracks. Digital remastering as well, though some people like that aspect, but some people don't.


I know for certain that I'd like a version of the Wreckless Eric and Rachel Sweet titles, I had the Any Trouble album when it came out but sold it within a couple of years. Maybe it's time to revisit that one.


STIFF RECORDS

Spurs 2 Arsenal 2

Just got home to find out the score, it wasn't on television here, so I don't know what to make of the fact that Julio Baptista of the Arse scored three goals, once an own goal for Spurs early on.


Gut feeling, once again, is that this can't be good news if Spurs go the Emirates Stadium, their road woes are certainly well documented by now. I know, I know, oh yea of little faith. :shrug:


Reaction and pics (maybe) later........for now I gotta read up on this.


CARLING CUP RESULT

Car Pinball In Portland

Even though the television station broadcasting this is from Seattle. Even though I'm sure there are just as many hilly areas up there. Hmmm.



PINBALL

What A Rip Off!!!!

Folks in North Carolina got DORITOS, "beach combers" in England get BMW motorbikes. "It's great isn't it - a cross between a bomb site and a car boot sale," said one enthusiastic man helping to clear the beach from the "unwanted" clutter after a cargo ship spilled a large part of its contents at sea. Why don't half of these people show up when there's an oil spill?



STORY

Pictures Of Walls

Not just any ol' wall mind you, it's pics of walls full of graffiti. Some lovely stuff, such as the one of Faux News above. I've seen some crude language in some of the pics, so you have been warned.


TRUE WORDS?

Hate Your Life? Want A New One?

A big thank you to the wonderful StumbleUpon extension, without which I never would've found this beauty of an offer. Now you can assume the identity of a young Aussie male and become what he once was. How irresistible is that? Does this package include all of the seller's past sins? I would imagine that the church would have an interest in such a question. Any way, the current bid for this new look on life is at AU $19,100.00.



NEW LIFE