Long Island Calling

#1. Blog more!

#2. Stop blogging solely about SU basketball.

Well, one of these took care of itself tonight. In the quarterfinal round of the NIT, SU blew a 20 point lead and ultimately lost the game to UMass in the last 30 seconds. On one hand, I’m stunned. On the other, I am not because the same issues tripped them up this game that have all year- lack of bench and experience.

Sigh. Now I can stop paying attention to sports until football season.

But I can always look back on happier time, like this evening below, the night SU won the championship.

This is what happens when I’m feeling sick:

1) I go to sleep two nights in a row around 8:30 p.m.

2) I totally forgot that SU played ball last night

Of course, it doesn’t help that they keep putting my team’s game on the one ESPN station Cablevision doesn’t carry- ESPNU. I don’t know who to blame on this one- Cablevision, because generally speaking, they suck or ESPN- because they need to keep my school’s “favored nation” status going. Come’on…aren’t half of the staff there Newhouse grads?

Either way, despite TV programming irregularities, SU triumphed over Maryland yesterday. From what I read at this recap here, these kids are playing like they really want to win this thing, despite the fact that it is the NIT. Good for them and good for the fans! This bodes well for next year.

Oh yeah and um…March Madness started yesterday. It’s amazing how much I don’t pay attention to it when SU is not in. Though this game from last night caught my eye, Belmont almost beat Duke!

Now where me pills.

As predicted here earlier (and throughout the SU nation),  SU faces off against Robert Morris at the Dome for the first round of the NIT.  Robert Morris is a team? Sounds more like an accountant .  The game is on at 8 pm on ESPNU, which means I likely won’t see it, since Cablevision does not have this channel.

Get yo game face on

Editor Simon Dumenco aka “The Media Guy” at Ad Age has the best quote I’ve read so far about the potential Microsoft/Yahoo takeover. Here is the excerpt:

“Microsoft, the company that never really knew how to effectively innovate — unless you call leadership in derivative bloatware innovative — keeps grinding forward with its hostile bid for Yahoo, the company that forgot how to effectively innovate. Awesome! I haven’t been this excited since Sears and Kmart merged!”

For the full article, see here.

I “stumbled” upon this the other day on Technorati.

For the uninitiated, Technorati is the de facto blog search engine out there. According to their rankings 2 blogs have linked to me in the past six months and my ranking number is 2,910, 025. This means that 2,910,024 blogs separate me from the #1 ranked blog. Only a matter time…Endgadget! (hearing somebody laughing as I type this)

Still I wonder, who is client number 2,910,026?

This week’s Time Out NY features the key bars one should visit (or crawl to) when in my old neighborhood, the Upper East Side. For the UES pub crawl, the bars they recommend are actually accurate, but at the same time they remind me of what I don’t miss about the area:

Faux Irish bars-

The smell of Frat -

And general douchebaggery (a coveted marketing demographic) -

However, Time Out did give props to the best bar in the neighborhood, The Auction House. Good baroque atmosphere, nice seating and they play nothing but indie music. The type of place you’d normally find in the East Village, but somehow ended up in the UES.

As for my new hood- Great Neck, Time Out would not get very far because it seems like there are exactly

bars to go to. If anyone out there knows of any in the area that are worth visiting, let me know.

Otherwise, for the double Y chromosome, Alpha male types of the UES- happy drinking!

UPDATED- The deju vu continues.  Bounced out in the first game today against Nova. Ugghhhh… Jim Boeheim and the team better get used to seeing this banner:

And this year when we don’t make the big dance, Jimbo should keep his mouth shut.  Last year he had a legitimate argument.  This year he’s got nothing.

The upside- at least in the NIT, the frosh can get some more experience under their belts.  That can never hurt in the long run.

Sigh.

——————————

Same place, different year. Being an SU alum and megafan of the b-ball team has not been easy these past couple of years since Melo took us to the promised land. I got a taste and now I want back. As Rick James said “Championships are a hell of a drug”…or something like that.

Anyway, this is how it’s been since that great season:

2003-2004- No Melo, but still a solid team with Hakim, Pace and co. We lost to a respectable Alabama team in the Sweet Sixteen. Upsetting, but you know how hard it is to repeat.

2004-2005- This one broke my heart Fredo. Warrick’s final year. 27 wins and Big East Championship title. So what happens? They lose in the first round of the NCAA tourney to f***kin Vermont. That killed me! Forget what Boheim said the other week about the Pitt game. The Vermont loss was one of the worst since the Keith Smart’s shot in 87′ and the Spider’s win in 91′. When those happened, I was a kid who didn’t follow the team. This one though, I saw and it was worse than watching this year’s Oscar’s.

2005-2006- Scrantonicity! G-MAC personally tears a hole through the Garden and takes a mediocre SU team to ultimate victory in the Big East. Too bad he was playing with an injured groin the whole time, which caught up to him and the rest of the team in the first round of the NCAA tourney where we lost to Texas A&M.

2006-2007- The great white hope graduated and ultimately, another up and down year, with rising stars Eric Devendorf and Paul Harris working the Seniors who never really blew up- Roberts and Watkins. Demetrius, however, was the solo bright spot on the team and averaged 18 points a game. By the end of the year, we were on the bubble and then it popped. We did not get bid to the big dance and instead got sent to the Not Invited Tournament, where we played with the enthusiasm of Britney Spears‘ discipline coach. Clemson beat us in the quarterfinals.

2007-2008- Deju vu. While this year has also been a roller coaster ride, there is a considerable silver lining. We have some awesome new freshman, include co-Big East rookie of the year Jonny Flynn and Donte Greene. They ended up getting a lot more playing time due to the injury loss of Devendorf and Rautins, while guys like center Onuaku and juco transfer Ongenaet have really stepped up their game. But once again, the team finds itself on the bubble, after one too many avoidable losses, including the earlier mentioned meltdown vs. Pitt and the mystifying loss to South Florida, who’s Big East record was so bad that they didn’t even make the tournament this year.

So tomorrow it begins, the Big East Tournament. And guess which team is kicking the whole thing off:

If SU can least get to the Semis, they may have shot at the NCAA Tournament. If they make it to (or somehow win) the final game, we are in. But first up is Nova’. Not as much fun watching them lose as it is to watch the Philadelphia Eagles tank or SU beating Uconn, but a win would no doubt be enjoyable.

Let the games begin!

Okay, so my hiatus from blogging took a little longer than I expected, but with good reason…the wifey and I have moved!

Remember- the origin of this blog was to chronicle my transition from city life to the suburbs, but I left out a key detail when I started this thing back in December. Until about 3 weeks ago, the wifey and I were living in my in-laws’ house.

Now don’t get it twisted! My in-laws are fantastic, most likely better than yours and they were the most accommodating of hosts. We were newly married, the lease was up in the city and we had no place else to go. They let us stay there until we we got our act together and for that, I will be forever grateful.

So in that downtime, we were able to continue saving money and finally fulfill our true objective in moving to the burbs, which was to become homeowners. We were both sick of renting and for us to stay in the city and upgrade to a bigger place, it would have been lots of costs, but little return. We figured out that we had enough for a down payment to buy a place. Don’t get me wrong, I still miss the lifestyle accouterments of the city, but as much as I liked Luigi’s, it was time to move on.

So now, at long last, we are proud home owners, buying at the right time in this market and able to enjoy the benefits of living in Long Island - like um…a comfy train ride, mad food at Cheesecake Factory and driving.

As for where we livin’ now, see the picture below:

HOLLA!