The biggest dead zone in the sports calendar

Welcome to Philadelphia

So, um, yeah, quiet time here at the old blog.

I could make the usual excuses; swamped at work, busy with family, terrible weather, chores, etc. Normally this is the time of year when I grind out some thinky pieces about the end of the NFL season, where the NBA is at mid-season, maybe even some fun fantasy baseball nonsense. Oh, and poker; sure, poker.

But honestly, I've just been taking the time off and actually catching up on sleep and fitness, along with the aforementioned work stuff. There's only so long that you can go on four or five hours a day of sleep, and tonight is looking like another one of those, before you just can't do what you want, at the level that it needs to be at.

There's also this: watching the Philly area teams in this era has just been a long, hard slog. The Sixers have tanked for years, and while it's not to be in the presence of grown ups with a plan, still. The Eagles have been taking an erratic path to irrelevance for years now, with no playoff wins in the Obama Administration. We don't watch hockey, but even the temptation to tune in for the playoffs has been a Flyer-free zone, and seems likely to be again. The Phillies have been one of the worst franchises in baseball for years, after a period in which they were one of the best. Oh, and they also went from one of the best announcing situations to one of the worst. Not good times.

So. My apologies for not giving words to the batspit insanity that was the All-Star Weekend Dunk Contest, where Aaron Gordon got totally robbed by producing work that was beyond 50, only to have Zach LaVine contribute "ordinary" 50s and eventually outlast him. That was honestly better than any dunk contest has been in a decade or more, which is admittedly dunking on short rims, but still. Gordon got his shoulders and *knees* up to the rim, dunked over a mascot on a spinning hoverboard, and somehow didn't win. Dude. Was. Robbed. The skills contest was also kind of fun, if only to watch the bigs fall over themselves to celebrate a win, and the 3-point contest was more Splash Brother Action, but the idea that the Dunk Contest was actually the best way to end the night was a welcome change of pace. It was so good, it overcome way too much Kevin Hart, and honestly, I've had dental visits that were funnier than Kevin Hart.

As for the Game itself, um, didn't watch. There's only so much Kobe Bryant a man can take, honestly, especially if that man keeps watching the Lakers in the doomed hope that his fantasy picks are going to work out. (Spoiler alert: they won't.) Why the Association has to go into a week-long dead zone around the AS Game, just when my Sixers were teetering on the edge of tolerable, I'll never know. I need my medicine, people. Get the supply going again. Especially when the Dubs give it pharmaceutical grade and beyond.

Baseball? Well, my research materials are finally in the house, so at some point, Research Will Begin and I'll have something to say about another year in which the team I root for (Oakland) and the team my friends root for (Philly) will not be, in any way, relevant. Woo hoo! Gotta love baseball, with its old-school franchise builds, clear evidence that Tanking Works (Houston, Hello!), and ever-increasing amounts of whiteness / lack of exciting offensive players / killjoys sniffing about how high scoring games are for mouth breathers. Good times. My draft's in six weeks, and I'm trying to figure out when I'm going to do my rankings, and if it's even worth it, given the number of Pure Nerds and Trading Whores in my league. (Answer: yes, but only because I've got my hands on some kids at below market rates that the rest of the league hates me for. That, and I don't make trades, because I Barely Haz Time To Wipe Or Spell Check.)

Anyway... more soon, I hope. Read up some of the old stuff -- honestly, we've been writing this blog for way too long, there's no way you've seen all of it -- and click on some ads, assuming you want to continue to encourage this sort of thing. Back soon. Make yourself comfortable.