Randy Moss A Raider...

Well it looks like Randy Moss is a Raider and I am pumped about it. The initial rumors we heard a couple months ago included Philip Buchanon who I did not want to lose and I really wanted to keep our #7 pick but now that it is only Napoleon Harris going along with #7 and a late pick I don't mind it as much. I would have loved to keep #7 to get a stud like Derrick Johnson or if we went WR, which I highly doubt b/c of the resigning of Porter, my boy Braylon Edwards but looking at it, it's a risk I'm glad to take. Granted Randy's got his off-field problems but maybe the change of scenery to Oakland will do him some good. The Raider Nation will embrace him and besides where else would he fit in than Oakland? All we need next is Ricky Williams to join him and we're set. A talent like Moss cannot be denied, when he is on, he is the best WR in the game and makes unbelievable plays.

People look at who is going to throw to him but Kerry Collins throws a great deep ball and Moss will definitely open up the lanes for Jerry Porter since everyone will be keying in on him. The Raiders still need a RB who can handle the load along with help pretty much everywhere on defense. I'd love to see David Baas fall to the 2nd round but we'll see how that works out. Another need is QB, we need a young QB that can come in and learn the system to take over in a couple of years.

The combine has started and the NFL network will be bringing more behind the scenes stuff that football junkies like me love. I can't wait to see the numbers Braylon busts out, they are going to be unreal. Also I hope that Marlin Jackson has a good showing and can move his way up the draft. Clarett supposedly put up 22 reps of 225 today but that hasn't been confirmed, just an internet rumor, but either way I'm interested to see what he's going to do because knowing Al Davis and the Raiders if he has a decent showing he's someone I can see them taking a gamble on in the 3rd round, hopefully they don't but it wouldn't surprise me.

Trade Deadline

The trade deadline has come and gone and some big trades were made for once. None being bigger than CWebb going to Philly for garbage. I understand that they want Peja to be their guy and all but to trade away a 20-10 guy for absolutely nothing is just ludicrous. They didn't even end up saving that much in cap space or salary since the three players they took on have bad contracts. Double bonus for me since 1. it will make the Suckramento Queens worse and 2. Webber should kill the eastern conference putting up better fantasy stats for me.

Baron Davis is gone to Golden State, good trade for them, they needed a big name and didn't have to give up much to get him, although he is a risk due to injury. It's a risk I wish the Lakers would have taken but once again a deadline has come and gone with no changes. Stupid Jack Haley had to open his mouth and kill the Boozer trade, granted I don't like Boozer that much but he would have definitely solidified our lineup.

The Knicks definitely made some stupid moves, they took on more salary of shitty players and it makes no sense. Houston did pretty well with their smaller moves for role players. The big winner of the trading season goes to Philadelphia though, they pick up CWebb for nothing and then they unload Glenn Robinson and get Rodney Rogers along with Jamal Mashburn, although Mash is probably not gonna play again. The Spurs got a great deal picking up Nazr Mohammed for more depth at center and they haven't done anything to move them as the favorite to win the championship this year.

The ridiculous trade is courtesy of Boston and Atlanta which sends Antoine Walker back to Boston for Gary Payton, a couple fillers and a first round pick. Not only is it funny since Walker was hated in Boston and run out of town and is now back but that Gary Payton will have his contract bought out by the Hawks and he can go elsewhere. Initially I heard that it was going to be back to Boston but he could end up going to Minnesota or some other contender where he can have an impact and try to get his ring.

Michigan Basketball finally picked up a win after a long losing streak. Although the win was against Penn St, a win is a win. Hopefully we can close out the season on a winning streak and sneak into the NIT. Yes I know its sad that we're trying to sneak into the NIT but with all that's happened this year it's the best we can ask for.

Long Weekend

Pretty good weekend overall, just did a lot of hanging out and also moved back to the back house. Stayed up extremely late every night drinking or moving so my sleep patterns are all messed up. The Dunk Contest was pretty sweet and although I missed on both my picks, everyone knows that J.R. Smith should've been in the finals and not Amare "Let's get by on Steve Nash' soccer skills because I can only power dunk" Stoudamire. The dunks by Amare were cool but it was only because Steve Nash was also an unbelievable soccer player, on PTI they said that he was good enough to be on the Canadian national team. But I gotta give it up to Josh Smith, he had some dope shit, especially the one over KMart.

The All Star Game was pretty sweet highlighted by Vince off the backboard cocked back the whole way and also Kobe's oop to Amare who took it up and under. Went out after the game to Dave and Busters to hit up late night happy hour which ended way too early so we came back to my house and drank some more until 4 am.

Kansas lost twice, sweet, but Michigan lost again, damn it and DH is suspended for the rest of the year. Even the NIT is looking like it will be difficult to get into which is extremely disappointing when I looked at this year as being a Tourney year and some. Next year it is and there are no more excuses, everyone should be back and healthy ready to go along with 3, possibly but unlikely 4 freshmen coming in to provide definitely needed depth so we no longer have to see John Andrews and Dani Wohl playing in games except when we're up by 30 points.

Hockey did its job of sweeping Notre Dame and along with the Ohio State loss to Michigan State there is a 3 point gap going into the final weekend vs Bowling Green. I don't care which seed we get as long as we make it to Grand Rapids for the Regional. US College Hockey had us as a #2 seed in Minneapolis which I definitely do not want to see. Hockey is all we have left this year and hopefully they can bring home another NC for the trophy case.

On the recruiting front we picked up a commitment from Brandon Graham, the #1 LB in Michigan and one of the top in the country. He is a huge pickup from Detroit, since LB is definitely a position of need in this upcoming recruiting class. There's a lot of stuff that went on since Junior Day was last weekend. Justin Boren, an OL from Ohio whose dad played at Michigan, picked up an offer as well and hopefully he'll be the next on board, he had an offer from ohio state after his sophomore year but he is from a Michigan family hopefully it shouldn't be too hard to decide.

With the trade deadling being a day away the Lakers are very active and rumors are flying everywhere from Baron Davis to Rafer Alston, Donyell Marshall and also Carlos Boozer. Jack Haley leaked a story saying Boozer was coming for sure but that seems to have fallen apart. Only one day away and hopefully we make some moves, apparently Dr. Buss mandated the team improve now and they make the playoffs, although if we dont' make a move part of me would rather get the lottery pick and improve that way, if we could get lucky with a top 3 pick and end up snagging a Raymond Felton or Chris Paul that would be awesome to form a backcourt with Kobe. Hope we can swing a big trade and make some noise though.

Finally, Barry Bonds sucks, I can't stand that stupid mother fuckin son of a bitch. You see how small he got now that he's off the roids, not many people I hate more than Barry Bonds and to get on that list you've got to be a real shit head. I hate Barry Bonds and those stupid San Francisco Faggots, I can't wait to see him not do shit since he's off the roids.

Duke Sucks

Duke lost yesterday to Virginia Tech of all schools, as Nelson Muntz would say HA HA! This has been a great week of college basketball, two schools I can't stand Kentucky and Duke have both lost. The bad part has been the continual downward spiral that Michigan is taking, hopefully getting Horton back on Sunday against IU and it being the game that Glen Rice gets his jersey retired gets the team up and can get back in the W column. I know a lot of fans have written the season off, as I have but I still have hope that we can pick up a few more W's and get into the NIT. Next year, barring another year of injury after injury, we should be back and we will be a load to handle. Sweet 16 or bust next year with a full team where we don't have to play 3 walk-ons a game.

Hockey's got a couple big weekends left against Notre Dame and Bowling Green, we're up 1 point on Ohio St so we need to sweep both of them so we can win the regular season title and hopefully put together a nice run to end the season so we can get put in the Midwest Regional.

All-Star Weekend, hope LeBron decides to dunk, it would be sweet, but if not with the current field of Amare Stoudamire, Josh Smith of Atlanta, J.R. Smith and Chris Andersen of New Orleans, I'm picking J.R. Smith. What I've seen of him is impressive dunk wise. The other three are taller, and more power dunkers. If not J.R. I'm expecting his teammate Chris "The Birdman" Andersen, he did pretty well at last years dunk contest but got screwed in the judging. Either way I expect the Dunk Contest Trophy to head to New Orleans, they need something good to happen there considering how bad their team is.

Weekend Wrap

Pretty good weekend overall, went to Heroe's for the first time in a while with Randy, BJ and Colin and drank beer for the first time in a month, but ended up eating too much and not even getting buzzed. Randy wanted to go to Commerce so we went, details in my Poker blog, not much just came back even after a couple hours and called it a night.

Saturday watched those damn sparties beat us again with our team of walk-on all stars. Dion played pretty well but aside from that, not much you can do when you've got 2 walk-ons on the court at the same time for much of the game. At least hockey swept their weekend series so we still have a one point lead over Ohio State for the CCHA lead. Hung out for a while then headed over to Hawaiian Gardens for a bit, solid session won a decent amount and headed home after two hours there, details on Poker blog.

Played golf with my parents on Sunday and halfway through the round this guy drives through because he's leaving his round early and I did a double take because he looked real familiar, then I realized who it was, NHL player Teemu Selanne, formerly of the Jets, Ducks and Sharks and now with the Avalanche. Came home and watched the Grammy's. Kanye got robbed, yes he did win 3 awards but he deserved more. Ray Charles was great and all but this last album of his wasn't. He just won with all those sympathy votes. It's all good though Kanye is gonna kill it with Late Registration, can't wait til that drops.

Poker separated

Since my poker posts were taking so much space I've decided to make a separate blog just for my poker exploits. Here it is: Still Got Outs or you can get it on the sidebar from links.

In honor of Braylon Edwards who is receiving the Biletnikoff Tropy tonight for winning the Biletnikoff Award as the nation's best WR this year. Picture is after we stormed the field after beating Ohio State last year in the 100th meeting between the two rivals.  

Big Wednesday

Norm Chow is now gone from USC, great news for the rest of college football and for me since I can't stand all these fake ass USC "fans" that popped out of nowhere the past few years, damn the bandwagon mentality in LA. The better news is that Matt Leinart may enter the supplemental draft because of this meaning SC would have worry about QB along with their losses at DL, although they shouldn't have much trouble this year since they're still so loaded. We'll see how much effect that Norm had on the offense and if it was really him or Coach Carroll as he claims. There's a lot of reports that Carroll wanted Chow out, but I bet he's gonna regret this move.

Also the 2nd best rivalry in all of sports behind Michigan-Ohio State takes place tonight as North Carolina travels to Duke. North Carolina is my next favorite school after Michigan and Duke is on the list of things I hate right above dry heaving and right below getting beat by a 2 outer on the river. Let's Go Carolina beat the crap out of those stupid dookies.

Westcoast Work

Working on the West Coast stinks for sports when Michigan plays at 7:00pm and it's only 4pm and I'm stuck at work. We put up a valiant effort against the #1 team in the country Illinois and had me on the edge of my seat at work. Can't really expect to win with Daniel Horton and Lester Abram, our two best players out. Hopefully the court hearing clears DH and he'll be back for state on Saturday. I'm surprised we even kept it close with all the walk-ons we gotta play. I'm proud of our effort today, hopefully we can build on that and get some sort of streak going to at least make the NIT. Next year we're really gonna be back for sure.

Welcome to the Westside

The past few weeks at work have been slow so I've been doing a lot of reading on the internet finding various blogs to go along with my daily message board readings and I figured I might as well make a blog myself to keep track of everything goin on. The main purpose I thought of this was to keep a poker journal so I can see how my play is and recall how all my sessions go. But in addition I'll keep it up to date with everything else going on, which for me includes sports and music and anything else I feel like writing about. I'll leave you with the two best players in the L, Kobe and LeBron.