The twelve days of thank-you letters

December 27, 2007

What was your true love thinking by bringing you a menagerie over the 12 days of Christmas? Seriously, that’s a tree, five rings, ten animals and 63 specialists. In 12 days.

You’re angry, aren’t you? That’s a lot of clean-up.

Tony at Other Men’s Flowers (or John Julius Cooper, 2nd Viscount Norwich CVO - whichever) has uncovered the original correspondance from the woman who recieved those 79 gifts and is releasing them, one thank-you letter per day.

The First Day of Christmas
The Second Day of Christmas
The Third Day of Christmas

Pop over and check it out. And stay tuned.

Tags: Random Links |

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MiscAsst.com

December 27, 2007

Nearly a new year, an all new website.

As was promised, Misc. Asst. has made the leap from driscocity.com spin-off to full out Web site - now it’s a blog on its own, not a side folder on someone else’s site.

Nothing much more has changed, yet. The upcoming four day weekend could promise a new layout and some added search features. But until then, be happy with the new site: www.MiscAsst.com.

Update your RSS feeds as well: Misc. Asst. RSS feed

Tags: Misc.Asst., Blogging |

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Season Ticket Review - Ho, ho, ho

December 26, 2007

Game 6 – Fort Wayne Mad Ants (4-6) at Sioux Falls Skyforce (3-7). December 25th, 2007.

Christmas day. A time to revel in the spirit of giving, to rejoin family after time apart, to celebrate all that has been given throughout the year, both meaningful and superficial. It’s a day to eat too much, a day to talk too loud, a day that commonly ends in an exhausted, yet pleased sigh and a drop into a warm bed.

Christmas day in Sioux Falls means something even more. It means Skyforce basketball in front of what usually ends up being the biggest crowd of the year.

This year, we faced the Fort Wayne Mad Ants - Detroit’s pet franchise and the team that sits just one game ahead of the Skyforce in the standings. It’s a relatively new rivalry - in fact, it’s brand new; the Fort Wayne Mad Ants are celebrating their inaugural season as members of the D-League.

Last year, we were the Detroit affiliate, and we benefited from their youngest future star, Amir Johnson. This year, we were dropped in favor of the Mad Ants - a team actually owned by the Pistons - and now we’re saddled with the Charlotte Bobcats in its place.

I mention all of these impressive big-league connections because I’m a little self conscious of our minor league status. Most of my friends see the Skyforce as a trinket on the basketball landscape, a knick-knack not worth much attention, let alone a season-ticket induced fandom.

“We’re for real!” I’ll scream. “A real team with a real coach and real jerseys and everything!” and my friends, many of which have strong connections to Minnesota and, therefore, the Timberwolves, just smile and shake their heads.

As if the Timberwolves could beat the Skyforce this season.

Tonight we entertained a real sports fan - Kerrie’s uncle Bernie, from Virginia. He’s an aficionado. He has years of sports knowledge tucked away and can spot things I never even think to look for - footwork, unbiased ref calls, the release of a shot.

In addition, he’s got some great connections. Enough that he has courtside tickets to Georgetown basketball. See that bald guy to the left of the scorer’s table? That’s Uncle Bernie.

That’s our guest. That’s what the Skyforce have to live up to - the unflinching brunt of a knowledgeable sports fan with tickets to one of the most sought after shows in the Washington D.C. area. Suck it up, Force. Don’t embarrass me for the hype I built up.

As if notified of the importance of Bernie’s visit, the Skyforce were on their game. Like, seriously on their game - great shooting, great defense and a drive to win. Maybe it was the crowd - a typical, “get us the hell out of the house!” Christmas crowd - or maybe it was the idea of moving up a spot in the standings. Either way, the Skyforce simply blew the Mad Ants out of the building.

And hey - some guys got a little chippy, and some guys got thrown out. The Mad Ants became frustrated, some flagrant (and flagrant-2) calls were tossed around, and the crowd became a seething pit of hatred, calling for Mad Ant beheadings and mass slaughter.

Less violently, this was the first game I really took notice of J.C. Mathis - both good and bad. The man has some great footwork (thanks, Bern!) and moved around defenders like they were stuck in epoxy. He sliced shots up and in, and developed the statement dunks when needed.

But then he wouldn’t give up the ball. He took shot after shot, leading the team in both scoring and off-balance, no-pass shots. Still, he ended with 29 points on 13 of 19 shooting, so at least he was making the shots he was blindly taking. David Bailey managed to do the same thing, except he couldn’t hit an inside shot all day (1-8 from inside the three-point line). Thankfully, he took enough long shots (4-5 from three-point range) to make his game worthwhile.

When the fury settled, what was left was the strongest Skyforce showing of the year. Over 50% shooting from the field and from three. Two players with a double-double and seven players in double figures. Every quarter won, no lead squandered. Even a justifying ejection by Fort Wayne’s brute, Corey Minnifield.

So maybe it’s not a Wizards game. It’s hardly even a Georgetown game. But one thing’s for sure - the Skyforce are competitive, and they’re nothing to look down your nose at. As long as the team can play like this every week, they’re no longer semi-pro. They’re all out pros.

Skyforce 116, Fort Wayne 88.

Tags: Sports, Basketball, Sioux Falls Skyforce, Sioux Falls |

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Happy Merry Christmas!

December 25, 2007

Happy Merry Christmas to you and everyone!

Tags: Random, Black Marks on Wood Pulp |

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Season Ticket Review - The start of something long

December 23, 2007

Game 5 – Los Angeles D-Fenders (8-3) at Sioux Falls Skyforce (3-6). December 22nd, 2007.

I haven’t been to a Sioux Falls Skyforce game since December 9th – a less than stellar and rather boring loss to the Dakota Wizards.

Since that day, I’ve been completely in the dark. I know the team had an NBA player assigned, then rescinded the next day. I know that this coming Christmas Day game is against the Fort Wayne Mad Ants – a Deadspin favorite, I’ve heard. But other than that, it’s as if the team has been completely hidden from my view.

In a way, they have been. Since canceling our Argus Leader subscription, I no longer make searching for the Skyforce score my top goal every morning. Instead, I get to work and completely forget the team is around. I don’t hear any updates aside from the very rare Skyforce team e-mail, and I don’t hear the scores. For all I know, the Skyforce are still 1-5, reeling from that Dakota loss.

It’s part laziness and forgetfulness on my part, sure. But it’s also a block in technology on their fault. The Skyforce website – and the D-League in general – has no RSS feed. None. So the news isn’t brought to me – I have to go search for it. And I simply don’t do that anymore.

What the Skyforce should do is this: condense the news updates and game scores into one feed. Release it to the public. It won’t take much to set up, and fans like me won’t have to go blindly searching through an already difficult to navigate website to find the most recent score. Let’s bring things into the second half of the decade, please. No RSS feed? Come on!

Had I been paying attention, I would know that after that Dakota loss, the Skyforce won two of three. A win against Dakota in Bismark and a win against the Rio Grande Vipers (behind Elton Nesbitt’s 26 points on 57% shooting, including 5 of 5 from behind the arc) tripled the team’s win total from one to three. A tough overtime loss in Iowa – after coming from 13 back at the start of the 4th quarter – seemed to back up any claims of competence. Maybe we were a good team, just off to a bad start?

In comes LA – a team that had won five in a row, and at 8-3 was one of the best teams in the league. The last time the Skyforce faced a team that had won five in a row, they beat them – the Idaho Stampede.

We weren’t so lucky tonight. Not at all.

It was a rough game all around. We shot 36.6% from the floor. We fell behind early. Aside from Carl Elliot (11 points in the 1st alone) we looked like a group of zombies.

I was about to write a scathing couple paragraphs about Jason Klotz, our current stiff-at-center, a Skyforce tradition started years ago with Joe Dabbert, but a series of boneheaded mistakes (including two three-second violations, a stupid foul, a missed lay-up and promise of several more oafish moves thus cementing his status as a 6-foul space hog) was followed by a few flashes of brilliance – one of which was a great hustle play that led to two points and a foul. So he’s saved, this week at least.

So really, my only beef – and it’s a big one – was the foul shot discrepancy. 31 shots for LA. 13 for the Skyforce. All other things being equal, we’re already at an 18 point disadvantage.

The solution is simple – stop allowing opponents to have their way in the paint, and start getting into the paint offensively. We foul too often on shots, and we don’t drive to draw our own fouls. It’s enough to make you hang your head, like a kid that just won’t learn. Even Sierra was growing tired of it, throwing her own fit long before her parents could start yelling at the team.

And with that, we left. The end of the 3rd quarter saw us losing, again, depending on the jump shot, seemingly afraid of being touched in the paint – a team of fragile beauties relying on marksmanship with un-trued guns. We don’t have the balls to drive inside. Either that, or we don’t have the skill to execute when we try. It’s frustrating, obviously – we see the other team drive and cut through into the pain without effort, laying it in for an easy basket or drawing the natural foul.

It happened pretty often last year with Mo. It seems like we’ve passed the tradition on to Nate.

So here we are – fewer wins than anyone in the league minus the always horrible Bakersfield Jam with games against two division rivals. If we lose both, we’re nearly five games out of 1st place after just 12 games.

I hate to say it, but it’s going to be a long season.

Skyforce 86, Los Angeles 97.

Tags: Basketball, Sioux Falls Skyforce, Sioux Falls |