Steve Nash & Baron Davis: Step Brothers

The greatest thing I've ever seen.



Haha. Damn, Nash can cut a rug. "Let's get some music dude."

LOL

This appears to be Steve Nash and Baron Davis.



Probably for a commercial or something.

Air Penny Overload pt. VI, Carl English sighting

Another HOH exclusive to drive us non-Harlem residents crazy. I'd say enough with the Foams, but you can't go wrong with the original Orlando color. This latest Foamposite is supposedly close in design to the first retros, but the insoles will have a penny coin print on them. Very cool. An easy pass for me since I don't want to empty out my wallet on eBay, but a real handsome piece of footwear nonetheless.



A few days back, Carl English and team Canada took on USA in a pre-Beijing exhibition game. English looked good for the most part, going right at Kobe Bryant on both ends and getting to the line at a fair rate (where he unfortunately clanged a bunch, but that's beside the point). He still strikes me as a guy who'd be a solid player in the NBA, but he's making money playing ball overseas, and that's not a bad way to get by.



I'm really bummed that I'm not going to be able to watch the UH men's basketball squad this season. I liked what I saw from some of the new guys last year, and with Roderick Flemings coming in, the team could be real exciting. The scuttlebutt is that Flemings could be the best player we've had since Anthony Carter, and I guess there's some merit to those rumblings considering that he was heavily recruited by schools like Kentucky and Georgetown. The general consensus is that he's an NBA prospect in the making, but we'll see. Or in my case, not see.

Hangover

Way too much to drink last night.



But it was fun.

One more week...

So a couple of days ago, my boss tricked me into thinking we were going on one of our weekly marketing excursions, but it turned out that he was throwing me a surprise going away party. The entire staff showed up, and we went mini-golfing and had lunch afterwards. It was nice. You know how sometimes people at the office will slap together a farewell party for someone just as an excuse to have some cake during lunch break? This was nothing like that. My boss even got me a swank new laptop bag, and I honestly got a little choked up over the whole thing.



I'm stoked about starting my new job, but not quite so stoked about leaving my current one.

Suns to sign Matt Barnes

For the vet's minimum. Not a real splashy move by any means, but I like it a lot. You can never have too many high-energy guys, and Barnes is a decent shooter who has had big performances in the playoffs. He's probably an insurance policy in case Grant Hill goes down with an injury, but he'll definitely contribute off of a suddenly decent looking Suns bench. If they can sign Brian Skinner to a contract and find a serviceable backup for Nash, I'd actually be pretty happy with the Suns' offseason moves.

Anderson Silva? Or Fedor?

It's official. Silva is a goddamn killing machine.



Elsewhere in the MMA world, Fedor walks right through Tim Sylvia at the Affliction show. I'm just as excited as the next guy about the possibility of Fedor vs Couture, but Couture beat Sylvia by decision after 5 rounds; Fedor was choking Sylvia out 30 seconds into their fight. Not to say that Couture couldn't pull out a win against Fedor, but the top pound for pound guys (for what it's worth) are clearly Fedor and Anderson Silva, with BJ and GSP right on the cusp.

Air Penny Overload pt. V

I've just now realized that the "Chicago Bulls" colorway of the Penny 2 is actually a "Miami Heat" scheme. My guess is that the retro Penny 2 went into development about the same time Penny signed with the Heat early last season, and someone ended up throwing together a conceptual rendering of this bad boy .



My hope is that they'll eventually conjure up schemes for all of the teams that Penny played for. The "New York Knicks" Penny 1 is hands down the hottest Penny 1 to date, and this Heat colorway for the Penny 2 ain't half bad either. If they do a "Phoenix Suns" Penny III or something, I'm going to go apeshit.

Reading Gone Wrong

Reading:
Everything is Illuminated
Jonathan Safron Foer

I've been reading on the beach during my leisure time, if only because the activity of reading on the beach so effectively epitomizes the word "leisure." Unfortunately, I can't honestly say that I've had much opportunity to be particularly leisurely of late, but you take what you can get. Oddly enough, my ability to tan properly has become virtually nonexistent over the years, which is further compounded by my lack of competence at laying a proper, balanced coat of sunscreen on myself. Given that I successfully completed several chapters of my book while laying out in the sun, my entirely iffy coat job means that I currently look like I'd gotten into a battle with someone who attacks exclusively with open-palm slaps to the solar plexus. But no biggie. I'll just keep my shirt on over the weekend, and hopefully I'll be back to looking like a normal human being come Monday.

Me & My Music

Listening to:
Rachael Yamagata
Happenstance

Sometime after my PowerBook hard drive crashed last summer, I vowed to work on what I had dubbed an "uber-streamlined version of my music library." That ending up going nowhere for whatever reason, but since I can't realistically bring my entire CD library with me to Japan, I've really got no choice but to take care of it before I leave. I'm actually kind of shocked by the sheer amount of albums that I have that I don't even like, but I guess it's inevitable that you outgrow some of the junk that you listened to in high school. Regardless, I've decided to actually go through with pawning off most of my albums anyway, a task that I thought would be a lot more difficult for me than it's turning out to be. Ripping music is sort of a lame way to be spending my days off from work, but it's actually kinda fun, so whatever. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but there's something very, very satisfying about scrolling through your iTunes library in "Cover Flow" mode.

Air Penny Overload pt. IV, Boredom Victorious, etc.

On it goes. The first pictures of a new colorway for the Penny 2 have surfaced. I never really liked how the Penny symbol was on the side of the shoe for the white/white joints, and the same goes for the black/red ones pictured. Still, not a bad looking shoe, though there's no way in hell that I'm going to be able to afford all of these.




Listening to:
Cowboy Bebop OST 3
BLUE

So, about a week removed from doing nothing but talking about Air Pennys and playing Persona 3, I've found that I'm currently doing nothing but talking about Air Pennys and playing Persona 3. There's something undeniably cyclical about everything that I've been doing lately, but I suppose that it's somewhat forgivable given that I'm in the midst of a transition phase. I'm nonetheless pretty bored with my life at the moment, so I guess it's a good thing that big changes are imminent.

Air Penny Overload pt. III, Me vs Boredom

Ok, now they're just messing with me. After officially announcing every sneaker in the Penny line, Nike has leaked pictures of the Air 1/2 Cent.



The shoe is essentially a fusion of all of Penny's sneakers, most notably the Penny I and the Foamposite One. I don't see any Penny IV in the design, but I'm guessing that there's an inner sleeve in the shoe similar to that of the IV. I'll be honest, I'm not really into fusions, but I'm digging these A LOT. Probably because the shoe represents what the Air Penny V might have looked like. The bad news? $190.00 a pair, retail. Ouch.


Playing:
Shin Megami Tensei
Persona 3 FES
(PS2)

I've been bored out of my mind recently, so I've been playing me some Persona 3 in an effort to combat this boredom. Unfortunately, the game actually routinely puts me to sleep, not because it's a dull game by any means, but because I've been playing P3 in some shape or form since December. I've got FFXII, which I've yet to play, just sitting next to my PS2, but I keep coming back to Persona for some reason. I honestly don't remember the last time that I played a game this obsessively. Still, it's almost a contrite obsession, where I'll play the game because there's nothing better to do at 10:00 PM on a weeknight, not because I wouldn't rather be out and doing something else. On top of that, the reality is that I don't think I've enough time to beat FFXII in less than a month, especially given my somewhat lax gaming habits. Oh well, I suppose it's all for the best. At least the sun is finally out, so I'll probably be spending more time at the beach now.

Chrono Trigger DS!

Word is that it'll be just a port of the game with a couple of additional features, but I wouldn't wish for anything else. I've actually grown more partial to Chrono Cross over the years, but Chrono Trigger remains one of the few games that I'd be willing to buy multiple incarnations of. Along with the original SNES version and FF Chronicles (FFIV+Chrono Trigger) for the PS, the upcoming DS release will likely mean purchasing the game for a third time. Which is fine. It's not like I've got a ton of other upcoming releases on my radar.

http://www.square-enix.co.jp/ctds/

NB 574: "For Love or Money"

Speaking of New Balance, I found a place selling the "Purple Rose" 576 that I've been after. And I think I might have to get them.