This and That

by SonDog

---- The words "reciprocating saw" and "installing a dishwasher" should never be used in the same sentence. However, as DMo and I found out on Saturday while trying to remove my broken dishwasher in order to replace it with a shiny, new, state of the art dishwasher, sometimes you need to be creative and "modify" certain parts.

I turned down the option of a professional installer, in part, because of the $300 fee. After three trips to Home Depot on Saturday in order to buy parts and tools to complete said project by myself, I ended up saving a whopping $20 by installing it without the use of a professional. Some of you may remember the story about my obsession with Home Depot (or, as OZ calls it, The Store). But, as Tyler Durden would say, no matter what happens, at least I've got that dishwasher installation project figured out.

This is a professional. This is not a self-portrait. Looks easy, doesn't it? To the professional installers out there, I hate you.

---- After watching two Sacramento Kings' games with new SF Ron Artest, I'm inclined to believe two things: 1) This team is going to be pretty good when Bonzi Wells comes back and the team starts to feed off of Artest's intensity; 2) Head coach Rick Adelman is an idiot. Let me explain. In Artest, the Kings traded for the best on-the-ball defender in the NBA. Not one of the best, but THE best. So, two minutes into the game on Sunday against Toronto, Adelman, naturally, has the Kings play a zone defense. Wait... What? In Adelman's defense, the fence post defense that Mike Bibby played on Raptor's point guards Mike James and Jose Calderon (who?) somewhat forced him to make some sort of change. On three consecutive possessions in the third quarter, I witnessed Bibby and Miller play what could possibly be the worst pick-n-roll defense that Western Civilization has ever seen. Regardless, playing mostly zone through the game allowed the Raptor's to score 124 points. The words "Raptors" and "scored 122 points" should never be used in the same sentence, unless the "scored 122 points" is referring to the opposition.

One aspect of the Artest trade that excites me is the tenacious on-ball defense that this psycho plays. Remember, he's only a couple of years removed from being the NBA Defensive Player of the Year. He brings a toughness on defense that has been sorely lacking during the Rick Adelman era in Sacramento. That being said, as has been well documented, Artest's new teammates aren't exactly the best defensive players in the game. Still, Kenny Thomas and Kevin Martin are not horrible man-on-man defenders. Bibby and Miller may be awful defensively, but that's not going to change whether you're in a zone defense or a man-on-man defense. Therefore, if you have the best man-on-man defender in the game, why in the name of Zeus's butt-hole would you decide to put the team in a zone defense? I only have one answer: Adelman is trying to get himself fired.

By the way, the Raptors were FAVORED to beet the Kings on Sunday by 1 pt. They ended up winning by 1 pt. Kudos to the Vegas odds-makers. However, when was the last time Sacramento wasn't favored to win a game against Toronto? In the immortal words of Bill Walton, that's horrrrrrrrrible.

---- Hour 6 of 24 aired last night. I've read on a couple of websites that fans of the show now use "Flank 2 position" to describe a situation in which they are in trouble. Frankly, this is brilliant. I've already incorporated the phrase in to my day to day vocabular repertoire. If my office, if a buddy is searching something on the internet that he shouldn't be, and somebody of particular importance is approaching, I simply say, "Reed, you're in a Flank 2 position." I'll also follow that up with an email of high priority with a subject line of, FLANK 2 POSITION (you know, the one in Microsoft Outlook with the red exclamation point... by the way, I really, really hate it when people send those). Also, the now-classic Jack Bauer line of, "WHO DID YOU TELL!?!?!?!?" has echoed around the walls of my office this morning.

---- The Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy start next week... in case you were wondering... or cared. Living in a ski resort, I feel that I should be much more attached to the games of the 1 billionth Olympiad, but I'm not. Not at all. Not even close. The whole Bode Miller fiasco (like, how he refuses to stop his mouth from spewing forth ridiculous comments repeatedly) has put somewhat of a damper on it in terms of my enjoyment. I can't root for Miller anymore. It's not because he claims he has skied in an event drunk, which I sincerely, sincerely doubt is possible since you're plummeting down a mountain at speeds approaching mach-4. (Hell, I can't even stand upright when I'm drunk, let alone strap myself in to two feet rockets.) It's not because he accused Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong of "knowingly cheating." It's not even because he advocated more lenient drug testing. It's mainly because he's a babbling buffoon who irritates the hell out of me. If there is one person I want to see fail in painful fashion at the Olympics, it's Miller. God Bless America.

Bode Miller, skiing drunk. Yeah, sure. Okay buddy. Whatever you say.

---- And finally, what Super Bowl week would be complete without a top-5 Super Bowl list. Today's list is the top-5 munchies necessary for a complete Super Bowl party:

1) Chips and Salsa/Guacamole -- This is a staple. An absolute staple.

2) Chicken Wings -- Plenty of ranch dressing and blue cheese dressing is necessary to complete the awesome lethality of the chicken wing snack.

3) Cheese/Bean/Sour Cream/Guac Dip -- This is a relative to #1, but necessitates a category all its own.

4) Cocktail Wieners -- Just because it's always fun to say "wieners" with a straight face.

5) The Classic Vegetable Tray -- Nobody really eats this one until everything else is gone, but it's almost the Mozart of the five-piece band of munchies.