Four on the floor...

1. Been down this road before, but now it really seems true -- the iPhone will be on Verizon in January! No, really. It says so here. Honest.

2. Wow -- great change in the weather! After, like, 10 days of heat and humidity it's in the 70s and dry today.

3. The Phillies could be SCREWED! With Polanco and, (much) more importantly, Utley gone for a while (gulp ... maybe longer), and Lidge back to SUCKING -- we are starting to worry about The Sons of Uncle Charlie.

4. The Playmaker! His flag football team improved to 2-0-1 with a win this morning. He had 3 catches, good for 2 TDS.

The Diesel efffing sheeeet up @ camp!

At The Playmaker's flag football camp this week, they award a Camper of the Day from the previous day. Today, they announced that Monday's Camper of the Day was ... wait for it ... The Playmaker! Needless to say, upon the announcement we went all Joe McCoy and yelled, "Diesel!" (Hello?!? There are over 50 kids in camp and he was the first one honored.) And it was another Bill Simmons Moment, as we brought Our Dad along with us. (Oh, yeah, The Playmaker scored a touchdown in his game.)

The boy becomes a man...

The Playmaker started his flag football camp this morning, frying in the 90+ degree heat from 9-12. He then had a private swimming lesson from 3:30-4. Around 5 PM, we were outside riding bikes with The Playmaker's Sister when he came out to shoot hoops. Without saying a word, he began working on a new shot. Gone was the two handed push shot from the waist that propelled him to be the Unofficial MVP of the second grade league last winter. In its place was a correct shot form. Left hand on the side of the ball. Right hand cocked back, elbow and arm making a 90 degree angle. Was it an instant success?!? No. In fact, it took him about 10 shots before he got one to fall. However, over the next 15 minutes he got much better. And that improvement continued while we played three games of 1-1. The Playmaker has always balled like a man. Now he is beginning to shoot like one.

Verrrrrry classy...

Menu for SJH24 Summit...

If LeBron can have a summit of his millionaire NBA friends, then so can we.

Ours will be the SJH24 Summit and it will be a summit of 6 peeps. (In addition to us, there will be, of course, SJH24, along with Our Wife, Our Dog, The Playmaker's Sister and The Playmaker.

The menu: Cheese & crackers, Kielbasa, Potato wedges, Grilled shrimp, Skirt steak quesadillas and thick slices of Montreal rubbed ribeyes.

Oh, yes. There will be alcohol. Lots of it. And it will be good.

1st day of summer...

First day of summer for us today. A productive/fairly busy day. By 9 AM we had already humped the elliptical for an hour and cut the lawn. By 10 AM we were hitting golf balls on the driving range and then putting with The Playmaker. (Mixed in with cruising around in the golf cart with The Playmaker's Sister doing the driving.) We went all Bill Simmons and brought along Our Dad for golf and then lunch at the 99. The afternoon brought swimming lessons and a trip to the market for tomorrow's SJH24 Summit. There will be alcohol. And it will be good.

Three & out...

1. Ended the school year today! Poof...182 school days done and accounted for. In the anticipation of the the day, we totally forgot to mention the weigh-in yesterday. We shed 3 pounds and are now down a total of 21.5. We still have another 18.5 to go.

2. As for tonight's NBA Draft, it now seems the Sixers will play it safe and take Evan Turner of Ohio State! The exciting part, however, is the possibility that Turner will allow Philadelphia to trade Andre Iguodala.

3. Great to see J-Roll back! Things will settle down and the Phillies will be back in first by July 4th at the latest.

Three & Out...

1. The Celtics have no one to blame but themselves! Hard Impossible to believe that no one has brought up the fact that the Celtics cost themselves the NBA title by tanking the regular season. Pee-Pee, KG and Rasheed Wallace all gave about 60 percent during the 82 game regular season grind. Had they won just 7 more games, they would have had home court advantage in the finals. And there's no way the Lakers would have won a game 7 on the parquet floor. Instead the Lazy Three got away with murder during the season and had to pay for it in June. Sorry, losers. And stop with this sheeeet about the series turned when Kendrick Perkins hurt his knee. Let's see...Perk missed one game. But LA's Andrew Bynum basically missed three games.

2. 2012 is quickly coming for Osama! The President continues to make things easy for Mitt Romney and the Republicans. By relieving Gen. Stanley McChrystal of his duties in Afghanistan, he has seriously hampered Our War Efforts. Osama continues to be the most inept President since fellow Democrat Jimmy Carter.

3. Derrick Favors continues to skyrocket! It looks like the 76ers are still wed to Ohio State scorer Evan Turner, but Favors is still lurking in the shadows. Good gawd, man, some are calling him the next...wait for it...Dwight Howard.

Zzzz...

Workout. Teach. Mow lawn. Workout again. Ugh.

The Spaniard...

I can't say enough about The Spaniard...

Father's Day dinner...

Celebrating the return of the Phillies' offense = Cheesesteaks for dinner...

Love it...

Alas, the Celtics will grab #18 tonight...

The signs are all there. It's a mortal lock. The Boston Celtics will, gulp, win game seven tonight and claim their 18th NBA Title.

And just how, prey tell, will the Celtics do this on the road minus starting center Kendrick Perkins?!?

1. Boston ain't shooting 33 percent again tonight! And that includes a dreadful 21 percent on treys. They may not be lights out tonight, but they can't possibly shoot as poorly as they did Tuesday night.

2. Ron Artest will not hit three treys tonight! He just won't.

3. Yes, Perkins is out, but Andrew Bynum is playing on one knee! He was a huge factor early in the series. The last two games, he has given the Lakers N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

4. We have no stats to prove this, but the team that gets blown out ALWAYS plays MUCH better in the next game! Everything went LA's way in game 6 -- Artest hitting three pointers, Kobe racking up...wait for it...rebounds, Pau Gasol nearly getting a triple-double, Lamar Odom grabbing Khloe Kardashian's ass 10 boards. Good gawd, man, Sasha Vujacic got 9 points in 14 minutes. On the Boston side, only Ray Allen played what could be considered a good game (19 points). KG, Pee-Pee and Rondo all had ho-hum games. What are the chances that all three go into the tank again tonight?!? Yeah, that ain't happening.

So we think it will be fairly close tonight, but we see Boston winning comfortably.
Celtics 91-Lakers 82.

Not long...

Best we can do...

X X X...

Very interesting, indeed!

Phillies 5 Red Sox 3

Hamels showing large onions today!

(Great signs from last month at The Bank...)

Best for last...

Your Phillies lost their final game of the season today, 10-7, to (ironically) the Red Sox. Our defense was only so-so, but our offense was great. The Playmaker had his best offensive game of the year, going 3-4 with 2 doubles and 2 RBIs. His first double was a screaming line drive to right field. His other double was a virtual bomb to deep left field -- it would have been a triple, but there was a runner in front of him clogging the bases. The Playmaker was our starting pitcher and was one of the few kids who actually threw strikes with some gasoline mixed in.

It's good to be The Mayor (or is it?!?)...

As the Phillies limp into The Fens tonight (fresh off...wait for it...being shut-out again), we will be there -- nine rows from the action. We fielded not one, but two offers of tickets to the game. (We opted for the seats behind the Phillies' dugout over the ones behind home plate.) Sadly, we don't have any interest in going. They have always struggled in interleague play and the Red Sox always seem to kick the sheeet out of them. With Jamie Moyer throwing (BP) tonight, things will get ugly in a hurry. (And with the suddenly sucky Buster Blanton going tomorrow, things don't figure to improve much.) If it was up to The Mayor, we'd be couch bound tonight. Alas, The Playmaker wants to go.

Ugh.

Best we can do...

Derek Fisher: Great guy...clutch baller

One Laker even Boston fans can't hate.

The Future...

Phillies' first round pick Jesse Biddle

6'5", 235 pounds...

140 strikeouts in 59 innings...

Hits 96 MPH on the gun...

Sheeeet...

One must be careful not to make rash verdicts after a single game in the NBA Finals. (Especially when there are, like, 12 days off after each one.) The Lakers won game one easily. A good friend, a huge Celtics backer, e-mailed us and said Boston was D-O-N-E. That they would be swept by LA. Now that the Celtics have evened the series, we feel very confident in our initial prediction: Boston in 5. While many have scoffed at that, let's examine what we know to be true. The Lakers have one great player, Kobe, and one very good player, Gasol. That's it. Anyone else, can just be considered average, at best. (Though Bynum's 21 point, 6 rebound, 7 block effort probably make him above average.) Slide over to Boston. Do they have a truly great player? No. But they have one very good one in Rondo. And you can make a case for Pierce and Allen (especially after last night) being very good. Bare minimum is they are good players, as is the rapidly aging KG. Simply put, Boston has more players who are good.

We hate the Celtics. But we can't deny the fact that they are days away from winning another NBA title.

Lakers & Celtics...

We say whoever wins tonight wins the series. Unfortunately, we see Boston winning tonight.

Ugh.

Lidge is back!

Well that sucked...

Went without computer access for nearly three hours. You would have thought we took a bullet to the gut we were so miserable. Got the connection up in running to catch Brad Lidge's perfect 1-2-3 ninth inning to beat the Padres, 3-2.

The other Phillies won their game tonight, 8-6. The Playmaker shook off two straight poor at bats (popping up with the bases loaded and then fouling out to the catcher) to win the game in the top of the last inning with a two-out bases loaded double to center field to score two runs. For the night, he was 2-4 with 3 RBIs. He got an ass chewing from the manager followed by a kiss on the forehead after popping up with the bases loaded and one out. Low and behold, later he was in the same spot and smoked the game winner to center. For the season, we are now 5-4.

Oops...

Having major computer issues.

Rollin' out with Guy Fieri...

Took the family to The Fens last Sunday to watch the Red Sox and Royals. Had great seats. Completely shaded and 10 steps from a private (and air conditioned) restaurant. Perhaps the highlight was standing on the elevator and seeing Food Network star Guy Fieri get on with his family. Apparently the rest of the peeps in the elevator were clueless, as we were the only one to recognize him underneath his hat and behind his sun glasses. Good guy (no pun). Actually, great guy. Totally down to earth.

This is how they roll in Fenway. A guy loser changes the scoreboard by hand every inning.

Jon Lester.

And more Jon Lester.

Not quite sure what Yuke is doing in this one.