R-O-Y, like the award, get it?!?!?

During all of last season I supported the whole name thing. Brandon Roy, Rookie Of the Year. A fun little coincidence. In fact, I'm still kicking myself over not buying this shirt:

By the way, its funny that someone felt compelled to stick the word "MY" in before "ROOKIE OF THE YEAR," as if they weren't quite ready to believe the rest of the league would feel the same way. It reminds me of reading a Blazers team magazine in grade school with Clifford Robinson and Rod Strickland on the cover and the headline something along the lines of "You're All-Stars in Our Book!" We're used to notoriety, we're used to infamy. We are still getting used to relevance. But I digress...

I guess if its your job to write headlines and come up with cute gimmicks, its hard to let something like Roy/ROY go. I can see how these sorts of conveniences make your job a little easier. But Roy is no longer a rookie, so I was sort of hoping we could let go of this one now. Then I woke up this morning and read this headline summing up his preseason debut:

"Roy doesn't play like ROY"

Ugh. This will not go away. There's only one solution for Mr. Roy to escape this, he has to change his name. Its not even that hard. I put a few ideas in the list below. It might even be helpful for him to cycle through whenever he reaches a milestone, or combine them all into a single name that includes every honor possible (might as well throw the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes in there too, right? Believe in your dreams):

Brandon All-Star

Brandon First Team All-NBA

Brandon McChampion

Best Player Ever Al-Blazers Dynasty Cornerstone Shabazz

Hannah Montana and the Blazers go together like, wait, huh?

The wonderful Blazer spamming robot sent out an interesting opportunity today:

"Special Auction for Hannah Montana and Trail Blazers Suite Package

Your chance to bid on the SOLD OUT Hanna Montana concert!

Fourteen-year-old singer, songwriter and actress Miley Cyrus of the hit Emmy-nominated Disney Channel series 'Hannah Montana,' will perform her North American 'Best of Both Worlds' concert tour at the Rose Garden on Tuesday, October 30th at 7 PM. Don't miss your chance to see Miley perform both as a solo artist and as her popular television character Hannah Montana in an exclusive Rose Garden suite!

In addition, you'll receive a Trail Blazers suite to see Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge take on Chris Paul and the New Orleans Hornets for the 2007-08 regular season home opener on November 7th at 7 PM. "

Big companies love "synergy." No surprise, its probably on the top 50 fun/cool words to say list. When something is that neat-o, there's really no need for it to make any sense. You do it so you can reassure everyone you are indeed getting your synergy on. Synergy. Nice.

I don't know a whole lot about Hannah Montana, so I did a little investigating. Wikipedia says she's the daughter of former mullet kingpin Billy Ray Cyrus, so she must be awesome. Also, a guy who wrote for The Smothers Brothers, Dolly Parton, and (naturally) In Living Color wants to sue her show.



The auction ends October 19th at 10:00 AM. Just enough time to secure a payday loan. God bless synergy.

The allure of Finnish Hip Hop Culture

Our favorite embedded Invisible Finnish Hand Operative H.T. checked in again, and is bringing the crazy:

"Ugh!No, I haven't forgotten my special mission to keep bizarre sports blogs informed about how private Koponen is doing in the Finnish army. Since nothing new is happening and the Finnish league regular season is just three games old, I just decided to keep you entertained with this video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD7jO9KlE3g

--> especially wait for the basketball sequence.

That surely is worth watching.

H.T."

Here's the video. The computer I'm working on right now has no speakers, but even without sound this is pretty amazing:


There's only one Stig Dogg.

You have to wonder, will this glamorous lifestyle suck in our beloved Finnagler? In the States, when a young baller hits the big time friendships with rappers are assured. Fast cars, fast women, wave caps. Does this mean we'll start seeing Stig Dogg courtside? Will the Finnagler start throwing up the Invisible Finnish Hand after completing a sweet play? We can only hope.

Davis Cup Update, You CAN'T come

So, Davis Cup tickets went on sale at 10:00 AM this morning. As I was occupado, DeceptivleyQuick Operative Brrrrrrrrrrr! was standing by to purchase two of the $90 passes the exact second they went on sale. I was pumped. Then something bad happened. The following is a sequence of text messages I received from Brrrrrrrrrrrr!:

Time: 10:01 AM
im buyin tix son!
Kaaa!

Time: 10:13 AM
demand is high! I been queued at the tix page 4 ten mins already!

Time: 10:33 AM
its sayin they sold out!

And there it is. Subsequent calls and link clicking were met with ice cold blocks that any hot girl's fat friend would be proud of. Last weekend I wrote something about liking the fact that the event would be at the Memorial Coliseum. You know, the smaller space would make the crowd more lively and we would all be given a decent view of the action. This outcome didn't occur to me.

We're still looking for a way in. Connections are being contacted, but this is a very hot ticket. The scalper route is likely to prove beyond DeceptivelyQuick's budget. If you have ANY leads, please contact me. I'll give you...something we can work out. Not that. Or that. Freak.

Davis Cup Ticket Prices

As you may or may not know, I've been excited about the Davis Cup coming to Portland. Tennis has become my second favorite sport, and yet I still haven't seen a live match at any level. The gravity of this novelty is strong.

Being as it hasn't yet popped up on the official ticket site yet, I figured I'd share an email I got regarding ticket info:


"Davis Cup Final

Tickets on sale Monday at 10am!

Event Info:When: Friday, November 30 - Sunday, December 2, 2007
Time: Time Varies
Where: Memorial ColiseumThe USTA will host the 2007 Davis Cup Final between the United States and Russia at the Memorial Coliseum, November 30-December 2. The United States, led by Andy Roddick, James Blake and Bob and Mike Bryan, advanced to the Davis Cup Final with a 4-1 victory over Sweden in Gothenburg. Russia rallied on the final day against Germany in Moscow to win its semifinal, 3-2. This will be the first Davis Cup Final held in the United States since 1992... Read More...

Ticket Info:Prices: 3-day pass: $600, $420, $210 and $90

Ticket prices do not include applicable service charges

Onsale: Monday at 10:00 AM"

$90 isn't bad for a 3 day pass, and since its at the smallish-Memorial Coliseum I would think it would be a decent view. I may bite on this.

Blazers now recruiting mentally unstable

You heard me right, an email just popped up in my junk folder with this link recruiting for the positions of "BlazerManiac Section" and "Blazer Maniac Section Captain." I'm thinking showing up to the practice facility tomorrow with a video recording device could result in some good comedy.

I like the promotion idea, laughing at the people that like getting too crazy at games is always good times. If you are willing to publicly humiliate yourself to a higher degree than anybody else who shows up tomorrow, you will get season tickets with the expectation that you will bring the humiliation 42 times a year.

My prediction? The winner (at least of the captain position) will be a middle aged overweight white guy. Way to go out on a limb, right?

Fantasy Basketball Starts

I'll try to keep my fantasy basketball proclamations of love and pain to a minimum, I really will. But we're gearing up again, and there's too much anticipation in the air to let things go unsaid.

I am still dealing with the pain of last years second place finish, dealt to me via my opponents shrewd Travis Outlaw pick up in the final week of the season. The way he piled up stats in that span of garbage time was truly remarkable. The fact that a Blazer was used against me in such a way made it all the more traumatic, et tu brute?

Et tu indeed.

But now is a new season, I am older and wiser than before. A veterans grit forged by heartbreak. I must avenge my loss. If you would like to join the league I'll be playing in, email me at the link up top and we can roll. If you'd like me to join your league, I will definitely do that too. I have been dreaming of participating in a Finnish league, hopefully the Invisible Finnish Hand will reach out to me.