Gardea

When I was like 6 or 7 years old, my brother Rick was just learning to speak and put words and sentences together. He quickly became a master at stringing funny stuff together, and remains a master of comedic timing to this day. I don't remember when it happened, but one of his best malapropisms ever was combining the words "great" and "idea" to form one of the words I have loved most in my life, "gardea". I think this word should be propagated throughout the English speaking world. I'm perfectly content to keep it within the family, but then again, not really. I felt to share it with all, and there you have it. Maybe the word should have an apostrophe, but I wouldn't know where to put it, since the 'gar' part was a mispronunciation of 'great' by the young Ricky. I guess that would place the apostrphe near the front, rendering it g'ardea, but the word combines before the 'dea' part, so maybe it should have two apostrophes, to make it "g'ar'dea", but nah. To simplify, I'll just leave it with no apostrophe. My brother's contribution to the English language is:

gardea: noun. - A great idea. "Ricky interjected saying, 'I've got a gardea - let's start a shell company in the Cayman Islands and sell bootleg Simpsons gear'."

Sunday Morning Bubble Gum

One of the great things about going to church at one in the afternoon on Sunday is the chance to listen to A Prarie Home Companion on NPR before I head out. There's always great state fair type acts, and this was no exception. This is Kristin Andreassen, who apparently sings with a group called Uncle Earl from Boston, MA. I read somewhere this song won the "Lennon Award" for best childrens song two years ago. I don't know how big that is, but it's a good thing it finally got to my ears. Hope this player embeds correctly. I think it's called Crayola Maybe I was all ready for bubble gum becasue I watched Madagascar 2 friday night and was all ready for bubble gum and sunshine. In any case, Enjoy.

Don't be like a baby....

Haha! I live about a block from Yao's restaurant. Who's in?

And also, why is this supposedly funny? I don't get it.

He's Baaaack!

The stud of the world

Manu Ginobili has rejoined his squadron. The ship is beginning to be righted, and in a major way.

This s#!? is bananas, yo!

George Hill and Roger Mason, two guys whose names make them seem more like CPAs or lawyers than NBA ballas, have been meshing nicely with the team in his abscence, and kept them at .500 while Manu and Tony Parker have been out. Hill, a rookie out of IUPUI of all places, has had three straight 20+ point games and Roger Mason has hit a game winner, is shooting from 3 at something like a 52% (for real??!?) clip, and is fitting into the Spurs' game plan like few first year Spurs have. The guy is a quick study. All this spells good news as the Spurs develop this season - when Tony Parker returns, the Spurs will have the best set of guards they ever have, and I'd dare you to name a team that has a better 1-2 punch at BOTH the 1 and 2 slots. I'm excited. I'm optimistic, and I'm glad I never jumped the gun and thought the season was over. Things are looking good in the backcourt.

Up front, there is, of course, room for concern. Outside of "Spock/Groundhog Day/The Tinman/Greatest Power Foward ever" Tim Duncan, the ranks are looking thin. Ian Mahinmi would be a welcome addition if he could rebound at about 7-8 a game in 25 minutes, with a block or two average a game. he looks like he has the potential to be a servicable weakside defender, and hopefully could get a few off the ball buckets and hopefully average 4-7 points a game. But it looks like that will be a tall order. He's been hurt to start the season and has only really played in the D league. the one NBA game I have seen him play in was pretty OK, but I wonder if he'll be able to provide the help tim needs on the boards. Kurt Thoma and Fabricio Oberto are steady, but that's easy to say becasue they are both like 64 years old. Hopefully Pop is able to utilize what he's got and develop Ian sufficently to give that kid some confidence going into the postseason. Time will tell.

For now, I'm excited for the prospects of small ball with the 6'6" and under crew of Manu, Mason, Hill, and TP around Timmy at some point.

Manu dropped 12 points in 11 rusty minutes on 3-4 shooting, with a nice dunk down the lane. If he can be 4/5 as efficient playing real minutes, I really like the Spurs chances this year, Even though the Lakers look great and Portland, Houston and Utah look to figure into the mix - not to mention NOLA! (wow, they have their work cut out for them) It's going to take a lot of work, and definitely some luck for my team, but still like our chances.

Roger Mason, esq.

Images: © Getty

Intricate Simiplicity

There are increasingly detailed answers within the increasingly simple.

At least that's what I'm guessing.

tastes like the letter Z

If wisdom is knowledge rightly applied, I freely admit to a lack thereof.

I took an antibiotic for a persisting illness and kept on forgetting to sugarcoat it. - I don't know what this stuff was made of, but I imagine it tasted the way fermented uranium would.

I'm all better though, so it worked, but every time I took this stuff the pill lodged in my throat and the taste stuck around the back of my mouth.

I guess that's why they call it medicine.

My barber told me that the cause of all sickness is an imbalance of water in our systems. He may be onto something, but I think it's a tad more complex than that.