Lindsay has been home sick for the past 2 days with a combo of the flu and strep. Hopefully I can avoid getting sick from this.

The Cavs are playing like a giant piece of poop tonight. Giant feces. Really horrible against the Rockets. They shot under 30% in the first half but were only down by 5. Then they managed to play even worse. Well done.

I was right about the pundits and the Big East. On Pardon the Interruption, Wilbon commented on how the unranked Providence team beating number 1 Pitt spoke to the strength of the Big East. How anyone can beat anyone else.

Give me a break. That same argument is used to disparage the Big Ten but to uplift everyone else.

You suck!

Providence beat Pitt tonight. Let me guess what's going to happen next... All of the talking heads out there are going to say stuff like "This really speaks to the depth of the Big East Conference." "This is why the Big East is the best basketball conference in the nation; anyone can beat anyone." Etc, etc.

However, when a bottom feeder in the Big Ten beats an upper tier team all we hear about is how "The Big Ten is watered down." "The Big Ten is consistently over-rated." Etc, etc.

I really hope that for about 10 years running a Big Ten teams wins basketball and football national championships every year. Maybe, just maybe, that will shut them up for a while.

I'm a forge new and wondrous things upside yo head! - Mr. T.

I watched Burn After Reading last night. Terrible. It was really terrible. It wasn't good. It's the kind of movie where people who think they're smart think they're supposed to like it so they say stupid comments like "A comedic masterpiece" (ahem - Larry King). There's nothing comedic about it. Yeah, it kind of ties itself up at the end, but that's not exactly a ringing endorsement is it? It just wasn't good. It wasn't entertaining. It wasn't highbrow. It was just crappy.

That doesn't stop so-called smart people from raving about how fantastic it is though. Like I said, it's the kind of movie where if you don't get it you're supposed to pretend that you do and that's it's so intellectual that it must be terrific. Well it's not. I understand it and I also understand that it sucked. The end.

Due to reader request, the movie gets a rating of 2. Would definitely return it if I received it as a gift, and I'd smack the person who gave it to me upside the head.

Today was full of sound and fury but ultimately signified nothing for the Cavs. Rumors abounded that they were close to getting Richard Jefferson for Wally "Face" Sczerbiak and the big Shaqtus for Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic. I think in a "normal" year I would've been happy with those trades, but the chemistry on the team this year is so good and they're already playing pretty well, so I'm somewhat happy that they didn't go through.

It's interesting to think about what the team could've looked like though. Would they ever have played Z and Shaq at the same time? I think it's possible because Z doesn't have to camp under the basket like Shaq does. Z is shooting over 45% on threes this year, so he can easily extend the defense. Would LeBron be able to finish around the basket with Shaq tying up the middle though? Would there have been enough balls on the court at one time to keep LeBron, Shaq, Z, Mo Williams, and Richard Jefferson happy? Maybe, maybe not. I think winning goes a long way towards making people happy though.

As it is back in reality though, they're getting Delonte West back soon so he'll help with the defense. Hopefully the team can stay healthy for the rest of the year and has gotten their injuries out of the way now.

For Valentine's Day Lindsay and I went to Lola. The chef \ owner is Michael Symon, one of the Iron Chef's on Food Network. We saw him at the Fabulous Food Show earlier this year and we've wanted to try Lola out for a while.

We sampled a little bit of everything. I really wanted to try the beef cheek pierogie and they didn't disappoint. We also got the charcuterie, which is basically a plate full of different cured and smoked meats. I tried foie gras (duck liver) for the first time. It was inside of a Jagerwurst and was really creamy and super rich. We also got the Lola fries. They're seasoned with rosemary and sea salt and fried in pork fat. They were really good. By the way, in case you haven't noticed, Michael Symon is a big fan of meat and fat.

For the entree I got the braised lamb shank. They supplied a knife, but I didn't need it. It literally fell right off the bone. It was amazingly tender. I gave Lindsay a bite of it and she said "That's the best bite of food I've ever had." And she's not really a red meat eater. She got the wild striped bass. It was ok, but I'm not a big fan of fish.

We (and when I saw we, I mean me) went a little crazy on the desserts. We got 3 of them. The 6 AM Special, which was french toast with maple-bacon (sounds crazy but is crazy good) and maple syrup. It was really really good. We also got the sweet potato smores sundae. That was pretty good too. Lastly we got the peanut pie. It was my least favorite, but was still good. It had super strong lime frozen yogurt on it.

I think if we go back, next time we're going to go for the chefs table in the kitchen. The kitchen is exposed to the restaurant, so you can see everything going on, but it'd be a unique experience to sit there and I think we'd like to try it out.

I've been thinking about a lot of stuff for the past week, but apparently I've not been posting any of it.

Tomorrow I'll try to give a run down of the restaurant that Lindsay and I went to for Valentine's Day.

Today, however, something caught my eye in an article I was reading about towns that went from boom to bust.

"Motown has been on the empty side for decades. An industrial boomtown during the first half of the 20th century, Detroit's population swelled from 285,000 in 1900 to 990,000 in 1920, reaching a peak of 1.8 million in 1950.

But starting in the 1960s, Detroit began a precipitous decline. Detroit's population is now 900,000--half what it was in the middle of the century--and many of its neighborhoods languish in varying states of decay. Most scholars blame rapid suburbanization, outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, and federal programs they say exacerbated the situation by creating a culture of joblessness and dependency.

Yet after more than half a century, countless scholars, politicians, community organizers developers and nonprofit workers have been unable to come up with a solution to fix Detroit."

The most interesting part to me is the "Most scholars blame ... federal programs they say exacerbated the situation by creating a culture of joblessness and dependency." You mean the kind of programs that don't force you to go get a job? The kind that reward you for having more and more children? The kind that give you everything that you need to barely subsist but never enough to actually get out of the rut you're in? I do believe that the government wants it just that way. The government wants to be your provider. Your parent so to speak. The more you depend on the government the more power they have over you.

So how do we break that? A lot of people have tried and failed. They've thrown billions of dollars at the problems only to see them get worse. What they haven't tried yet though is turning off the money spigot. People tend to get motivated when they're told they won't be getting any more handouts. Either that, or they starve. The problem is, in Detroit and other places, they're doing both. They're getting handouts and are still starving. The government is not the answer. Money is not the answer to all of lifes problems. Sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better. Sometimes things have to get a lot worse before they can get better. Well, we think it can't get much worse in Detroit, but I guess we'll see for sure.

Cleveland has been on the decline for 30 years. We've never managed to replace the huge manufacturing base that has been vacating steadily during that time. There's promise and plans out there, but there's too much hand wringing and bureaucracy to actually get anything done. I suspect that's where Cleveland and Detroit have a lot in common. It takes private money to revitalize a city. There's no way that federal, state, or local money alone can get it done. How many billions poured into New Orleans to rebuild it only to see that half of the population simply isn't coming back? You've got to have big plans and keep having big plans until they eventually take root. You can't just take one swing, not hit a home run, and then go home.

Last night I was told I was not allowed to pause the TV every 10 seconds and debate Obama as he spoke.

I disagree.

Lindsay then said that I should have my own State of the Union address. Not such a bad idea. I wonder if I could get on national television?

We watched the Cavs game yesterday. I'm going to try to see the positives of a terribly played game though.

1. They played terrible team defense. They didn't rotate on the pick and roll. They didn't pressure the ball. It was horrible.

2. Where was the rebounding? When I saw that they had the same number of rebounds as the Lakers I couldn't believe it. It seemed as though Lamar Odom was getting every errand shot and the Cavs were standing around dumbfounded.

3. They did not drive to the hoop. They settled for jump shots all day. If you were 6'8" 250 lbs wouldn't you feel like you could attack the basket? Wouldn't you like to try? Maybe you get tired of doing that and like to think of yourself as a three-point specialist.

4. Their exceedingly poor performances in third quarters bit them in the butt in this game. More than half of the time they give up big runs in the 3rd and have no answer. I can't explain it but I certainly get tired of watching it.

Still, after all that, they only lost by ten. If they manage to turn a few of those things around, they win the game. What's the biggest key? Not taking tranquilizers at half time. Seriously. What the crap are they doing in there? Are they getting massages and falling asleep? Valium is for AFTER the game, not during. Remember that.

Lindsay is going away for the night tonight. She'll be back tomorrow night.

You know what that means!

Oh yeah, it's time to get wild and crazy.

Maybe I'll stay up until 11 tonight. More likely... I won't.

I used a valuable tool tonight called leverage. I was helping out neighbors to get huge icebergs out of their gutters. It took about 90 minutes, but the pry bar really was a good tool tonight. The blocks of ice were at least 6 inches thick, but they proved no match for physics.

Yay physics.

Why do the Cavs allow bad teams to stick around in games they should dominate? The Cavs went up 10-0 to start to the game against the Knicks tonight. That should've been the game right there. Instead, they let a poor team hang in there instead of stepping on their faces when they had the chance.

As such, they nearly lost. To the Knicks!

They claim that LeBron had a triple double tonight, but I don't remember him getting 10 rebounds. Last I checked he had 9. Maybe they gave him some phantom rebound or something. I guess it wouldn't surprise me.

I watched a lot of the Purdue - OSU game tonight. Here are a few takes from it.

Keaton Grant likes to take 45 footers and has the range to hit them.
Calasan looks useless in far too many games.
The team defense leaves something to be desired.
J.J. is quickly becoming a very potent offensive player.
Hummel doesn't seem like that's that huge impact player that they're missing, but apparently he is. He extends the defense when he's on offense and is a good rebounder on defense.

Purdue should've won the game, but clearly (at least in my opinion) did not deserve to win the game. When you have the ball in the last possession of a tie game you need a much better look than a wild shot while you're falling down (whether you got fouled or not.)