Track of the day: Madison Strays / Last Train

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I'm the last person to catch on to the Grey Album (not to say I didn't hear about it a while ago, but I'm neither a Beatles nor a Jay-Z fan), but I'm finally coming around. If you're still in the dark, check this out for a description AND free mp3s of all the tracks. My favorite is "Encore."

The songs themselves are cool, but the video that somebody made for encore is SICK. This is a must see.

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If you don't live in a cave (I guess I'm saying if you went to Harvard or Yale) you've probably seen this...gotta respect the Yalies for this one...

Of course it's nothing quite like this.

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Forwarded to me by Rosa: radio indie pop. The nice part is a) no commercials and b) you can skip songs if you want. Giddyup.

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I have rediscovered my love of the NBA...which is ironic given all the bad press the league has gotten recently for, well, you know. But being in a fantasy basketball league and reading a lot of the Sports Guy will charge you up. Plus, I HATED the Lakers, so the past five years were often kind of grim for me.

Basketball was my first favorite sport, and I maintain that being a stat junkie as a kid greatly helped my mental math skills. Of course I knew the most about basketball well before I ever had the internet--the early '90s were my quan, when I collected the shit out of basketball cards, especially my faves--David Robinson, Jordan and Glenn Robinson. I used to essentially memorize my basketball almanac each year, from which I could learn about every NBA player's strengths, weaknesses, and stats (of course). It also had historical stats and profiles of the best college teams and top 100 players. I'm still amazed how fascinating I found it all...I could read that thing all day.

There are a ton of great young players out there at the moment, most notably LeBron (who's tough not to like) and Dwyane Wade (yes, that's the correct spelling of Dwyane, and besides the Marquette connection he also happens to be a good guy with sick moves). Plus I still love the Bucks, who look at least sort of promising. I saw them beat the Pistons last Saturday while I was at home. Mike Redd is a STUD. Still my fave player is Desmond Mason.

Predictions:

NBA Champs: I'm gonna go with the Spurs. They've got a superstar (Duncan), good complementary players (Parker, Manu), tons of willing role-players (everyone on the team besides the first three), a great coach (Pop), AND THEY LIKE EACH OTHER. They're a good group of guys who have won before. They're my favorites.

I never bought into the Pistons too much, obviously they're the champs but a week before they played the Lakers (who had a couple of superstars that hated each other, some former superstars who hated being there, and no depth beyond that) no one thought they were going to win. So I say fuck all the Piston cocksucking, and fuck all the little kids showing up at a Bucks-Pistons game in Milwaukee wearing Pistons gear. I used to root for the Spurs over the Bucks, but never did I wear my Spurs gear or obviously root for them at Bucks games. It's called respect for the home team.

As for college, my random good team and random good player I will root for this year are Syracuse and Hakim Warrick (OK, so it's the same as last year). I hadn't really paid much attention to college hoops until Marquette made their run a couple years ago, and upon watching the final I really took a liking to Syracuse and Jimmy Boeheim. Warrick was a sophomore on that team and had the block that essentially saved the title for them, and now he's their senior lynchpin, a 20-10 guy (or a little less) who is 6'8", only about 220 lbs, but can walk on air. Plus they have a little white point guard named Gerry McNamara who can bomb threes like a motherfucker. Good deal.

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I was listening to some Swedish music the other day and I got to thinking again about how that country has, without doubt, the most quality music per capita (that is until NYC secedes and becomes its own country). I don't know what Norway and Finland's problem is. Here's my Swedish-only mix cd, the guilty pleasure shit should be pretty easy to pick out:

1. The Hives / Hate to Say I Told You So
2. Caesars Palace / Jerk It Out
3. The Soundtrack of Our Lives / Sister Surround
4. Kent / Pärlor
5. Mando Diao / Mr. Moon
6. The Legends / There and Back Again
7. The Sounds / Dance With Me
8. Ace of Base / Cruel Summer
9. The Cardigans / For What It's Worth
10. Sahara Hotnights / Who Do You Dance For
11. Dungen / Du E För Fin För Mig
12. The Soundtrack of Our Lives / Nevermore
13. ABBA / Fernando
14. The Cardigans / Lovefool
15. Kent / Things She Said