Hands on Astronomy

I came across a quick little article about how us amateur astronomers can put in our "two cents" in a new web-based project called Galaxy Zoo. The cool thing is that this project wants to enlist the general public's assistance to help the Sloan Digital Sky Survey classify a million galaxies. This endeavor will help scientists better understand how the cosmos evolved by asking participants to distinguish the subtle differences, for example, between spiral and elliptical galaxies. Apparently the human brain is more adept at figuring out these variations than a computer program. After folks do a short online tutorial, Galaxy Zoo will show galaxy images to participants in the hopes that we could spot any minute differences between galaxies, and maybe even to decide which way a particular galaxy is rotating! Exciting stuff to be involved with I say.

So Long Sidle

The original CSI show lost a major character last week as CSI-Sara Sidle left the show. I wonder what Gil Grissom will do now without a love interest? I'm sure he'll figure something out.

Not only did CSI lose a huge component to it's award winning cast, but it lost a major hottie. I've got to admit that she was one of the main reasons why I watched the show. There's something about her, Jorja Fox, that is, that really struck me. I think it was her eyes. She has these amazing soul piercing eyes that just pull you in. And the thing is, as Sara, she really didn't do anything to draw attention to herself such as wearing revealing clothes and etc. To me, everything starts with the eyes-- it could be eyes of blue, or in this case, her dark-colored eyes.

Maybe the television audience will be blessed with her presence in another show before too long. Let's hope.

Climbing the Great Wall of Yao

My brother sent me this link of the San Antonio Spurs' guard Manu Ginobili slam dunk over the Houston Rockets' center Yao Ming last week. Talk about a ferocious facial. Manu's elbows were in the rim!

Here it is, check it out: Manu's dunk.

Healthy Television

I've become a big fan of NBC's reality television show, The Biggest Loser. You gotta say that this show is probably the best in terms of providing a healthy lifestyle. I love to see these folks change from their old, obese selves into the lean, healthy machines most become at the show's end. Even the contestants who get voted off the show during the season continue the exercise regimens learned in front of America and look just as great.

Over the past several months, I've told my friends that I wish I could join the cast just so I can workout all day and eat well. Of course when I tell my friends this, they usually raise an eyebrow and say that I don't need to do that. Well, they have a point. Even though I'm quite overweight, I'm about at that halfway point for those guys who start off near or over 300 pounds. I'm about 255-260, down from near 280 a couple years ago. I just wish I had more time to lose the 30 pounds or so that I think would be a good weight for me. Now if I was on this show, I'd probably be voted off before too long because I'd lose the weight too quickly. A good problem to have I guess.

A Good Week for Astronomy

Here are few quick astronomy hits for this week.

First of all, did anyone see or hear about that amazing spacewalk by a couple of astronauts over the weekend? Wow! I found some wonderful pictures on Space.com that described the dangerous mission to fix one of the space station's solar arrays. The astronaut dangled precariously off the space shuttle's robotic arm in order to untangle some wires. That electrified array carried upwards of 100 volts of electricity. And talk about getting the right guy to do the job-- the guy, Dr. Scott Parazynski, is a former emergency room doctor! It took him 7 hours to get the job done, including a harrowing hour to get back into the shuttle. I bet his parents are very proud of him.

Last Saturday I read that there would be an interesting celestial conjunction in the eastern skies later that night. However, I didn't think that I would have to be up in the wee hours of Sunday morning to see it. No, I wasn't out and about doing who knows what, but I did happen to be out of the house for a few hours between 2 & 5 am because we took our daughter to the emergency room. It was nothing serious thank goodness, but there it was, almost in a straight line up and down from the horizon, a beautiful conjuction-- starting at the bottom, Venus, the Moon, Jupiter and Leo's alpha star, Regulus. Even though we were up because my daughter fell ill in the middle of the night and everything turned out alright, seeing this conjunction made me feel that everything indeed would be alright.

News flash: There's an exploding comet in our skies! Comet Holmes, which is a fuzzy spot in the constellation Perseus, has become a surprise to many astronomers. Comets as they enter the Solar System, usually have a increasingly long tail as it nears the Sun, however in this case, Comet 17P/Holmes is tail less. No one's unsure how long the comet will last at its present state, but experts say it could last weeks, if not months. Check it out before it's gone!

And last, but not least, astronomers have found a star outside our Solar System with at least 5 planets. This is the first time that a star has been found with at least 5 planets. The fifth was found to orbiting relatively distant from its home star, but is much bigger than our planet Earth.

A Tale of Two Stars

In the last week or so, two sports superstars made headlines from opposite ends of the contract negotiation spectrum. Not only was each case different in how the contract was handled, but it also showed how each decision impacted their respective team and sport. The stars I speak of are Tim Duncan and Alex Rodríguez. And if you delve deeper into each instance, you'll notice a stark difference between the apparent selfishness of the two and how that selfishness has taken one to sports championship immortality and the other still waiting for his first shot at a championship.

The Rodríguez story started the night the Boston Red Sox clinched their second World Series championship in three years. During the telecast of the Series' game four, the sportcasters and sports reporters broke the news that Alex Rodríguez would opt out of his contract with the New York Yankees, thus setting him onto the free agent market. What he and his agent, Scott Boras, did was step into the limelight that should have been strictly for yet another historic Red Sox playoff run.

But we all know that this is nothing new with Rodríguez and Boras. They seem to make every contractual agreement about them and how much money Alex (Scott) will garner. Who can blame them really? They're really good at what they do and we're here along for the ride. Some poor sap of a MLB franchise that will pay through the nose to have Rodríguez play on their team. Alex will continue to hit like none before him has, yet will he and his team be around come World Series time? Who knows. Whatever team picks him up may not have enough money to field a decent team anyway because Rodríguez will demand an astronomical amount of cash to fulfill his (Boras') need.

And then there's Tim Duncan. Selfish, Tim Duncan that is. Yes, he is selfish. Even Tim has caught the selfish bug, where it's all about "me, me, me." However, it's not about how much endorsement money he needs to make. Or about how many times he's on the highlight reel each night. Or even about how many shots he needs to take. For Tim Duncan, it's about winning. He took an apparent pay cut when he signed his contract extention this week so that it will pave the way to re-sign Manu Ginobili and even another top free agent down the line. What all this means is that he has set up himself and his teammates for more years of championship runs. This the good kind of selfish that the NBA needs, and the sports world for that matter.

How the Mighty have Risen?

It's somewhat surprising. It's something quite remarkable really. It's even a little bit unbelievable. The thing that is surprising, remarkable, and unbelievable is the gritty and gutsy rebounding of the University of Michigan's football team after their 0-2 start.

Prospects were bleak for a winning season after that debacle in losing to lower tiered Appalachian State in their home opener and then the following week losing to a very talented Oregon Duck team that's fresh off a defeat of USC and is currently ranked #5. Yet weeks later, Michigan finds itself undefeated in the Big Ten Conference with more than meaningful games (re: important now) still yet to play against Michigan State, Wisconsin and the season finale at home against Ohio State.

Go figure. Big Blue still has a chance to make up for those two early season losses and even making it to a BCS bowl if they win out. It probably won't happen, but they're still in contention after all this. Go Big Blue!

The First Polish Texans

A few weeks back I made a trip home to South Texas to attend the funeral of a dear aunt, my dad's only sister, and along the way, we passed through many small towns including one that stuck in my mind. Although we didn't drive directly through this town, but the highway we used was a few short miles down the road from Panna Maria, Texas-- the first Polish settlement in the United States of America.

Several years after Texas became a state, a large group of Polish immigrants settled in an area that is now approximately 40 miles southeast of San Antonio off of State Highway 123. Many of the surrounding communities are made up of the descendents of the initial Polish settlers.

Believe or not, Panna Maria, Texas does indeed have its own website and one should visit it to brush up on its history. Better yet, if you find yourself in South Texas, take State Highway 123 south from San Marcos and you'll see signs pointing in Panna Maria's direction. You could also take US Highway 181 south from San Antonio towards Corpus Christi and you should come across highway signs prior to arriving in Karnes City pointing you towards Panna Maria.

Stupidity abounds

Here's a quick rant:

NFL quarterback Michael Vick got himself in trouble again during this past week for apparently having marijuana in his system. Well, you can't fault the dude since he no longer has to conform to NFL rules and regs because he's not playing right now, but what kind of idiot is he though? The guy is already in so much trouble for his dogfighting charges and now he's in a different kind of legal trouble because of the drugs. He's really showing to us all that he wants to make a positive change in his life.

And on a similar vein of thought, what about these immigrants getting deported from a Dallas suburb? It's the same kind of stupidity. Here's why: to begin with, these folks were in jail for breaking the law in some way and the City of Irving is running checks with the U.S. Immigration department to make sure these public offenders are here in the country legally. Sounds like a good plan, right? I don't have a problem with sending law breaking, illegal immigrants back to their country of origin. Nor do I understand all the hubbub concerning this policy. There's all sorts of upheaval and protests going on because of the City of Irving's proactive stance. People feel that they are being singled out because of their ethnicity; most of the deportees are of Hispanic origin. Unless the offenders are jailed illegally and their human rights were violated, there should be no hesitation in making sure any of these folks are legal residents of this country.

You would think that if you're here illegally that you would try to stay as clean as possible so that way you won't have any chance of being kicked out. Keep your nose clean, so to speak, and maybe, years down the line, you can get some sort of amnesty to stay in this country rightfully and legally. In Vick's case, you'd think that he would steer clear of any sort of illegal activity since he's also being indicted by the State of Virginia. And there's still that issue of reinstatement back into the NFL that he has to contend with when he's completed his jail time.

Nature and Man versus Man

I just read an article about a guy on Galveston Island who got into some legal trouble for shooting a cat. The thing is that the guy, Jim Stevenson, is a naturalist and bird expert. Stevenson, who was charged with animal cruelty by a Galveston County grand jury, is the founding member of the Galveston Ornithological Society and insists that the cat he shot belongs to a feral cat colony that threatens the Island's bird population. And what makes matters worse is that Galveston Island is a natural stopover on an active bird migration route that crosses the United States. Some of Stevenson's neighbors and friends see him as a "respecter of nature," but others think otherwise, especially the "owner" of the cat involved in this case, John Newland. Right now there's a lot of legal wrangling going on regarding whether or not Stevenson broke any state laws.

I consider myself a animal lover and have owned several pets at various times in my life, so I feel for both sides of this case, but are these feral cats a natural part of the local environs? Probably not. Do these cats pose a threat to the birds in this area? Stevenson's actions deem it so. Unfortunately, people who "care" for these animals only exascerbate the problems associated with feral animals. And if one person decides to "care" for these animals, he or she should think about keeping these "pets" indoors, capture them in order to have them spayed or neutered, or have them moved to another location for de-feralizing, so as not to endanger the naturally occurring animals and their habitats of a given locale.

Perhaps it's not Mr. Stevenson's responsibility to take on this polemic endeavor to make the ferals cats go away, but those who care for these feral cats in some way, should bear some of the responsibility that goes with helping them survive in the wild.

Sore Loser

I just read that Kanye West said that MTV "exploited" Britney Spears for ratings. Duh! Doesn't he do the same thing? Doesn't he exploit MTV for his own personal gain? Not only did he say this about Britney, but he also complained about not winning any awards and said that MTV disrespected him. Wow, tough words from someone who was MTV's darling just a few short years ago. Yo, sorry dude, you can't win 'em all!

Dropped shot(s) and Winner

Over the Labor Day weekend, I spoke to my dad and youngest brother about the US Open and about tennis in general, and spoke at length about how I felt about the Williams sisters, Serena and Venus. I said that they should win every tennis tournament they enter because of their tremendous talent, BUT because of their occasional mental lapses, they usually don't play up to said talent. I consider myself a fan of theirs and cheer for them at every chance, but they sometimes do not play up to their potential. So it did not surprise me to hear Serena say what she did after losing to Justine Henin. It's really sad that she had to stoop to that level than to admit that Henin flat out beat her. And by the way, has anyone noticed that Henin has won 7 major titles in her career?! She's quietly moving up the majors list...

And speaking of winning, how 'bout Roger Federer? That guy is the best player I've ever seen. Through the years my favorites have been John McEnroe, Jim Courier, Goran Ivanisevic, Andre Agassi and Roger Federer. I like to call him the Tim Duncan of the tennis world, because all he does is win. He wins without too much flair. He wins without too much fanfare. He just wins. Sure, he hasn't won the French Open, but neither did Pete Sampras and he really never made it past the opening rounds. Federer on the other hand has usually met and lost to Mr. ClayCourt, Rafael Nadal in the laters rounds. Pete never had to compete with such a clay court specialist. Roger is on the verge of being the all-time leader in majors.

The Bonds Burden

It's been a few weeks since Barry Bonds passed Hank Aaron on Major League Baseball's all-time home run list and he's still slugging away. At last check, he was at 760 and unless he hurts himself rounding the bases or taking first base on an intentional walk, he'll probably finish the season at or about 770 home runs. Not bad for an old guy, huh? Back on July 24th, Barry Bonds turned 44 and for him to still be productive is a miracle all onto itself as he's hit 26 home runs, driven in 59 runs and is hitting a pretty solid .280 so far this season.

Although he's never tested positive for steroids, just the shadow of performance enhancing drugs over the last third of his career is unavoidable. I hate to sound like a Bonds apologist, but it's hard to dispute the numbers he's put up. And the one thing I hold on to when talking about his numbers is his bat speed. Sure he's bulked up tremendously, but to still have the flexibility to get around those pitches on the inner half of the plate, is incredible. One would think that he'd be too big to get around those pitches, much less hit them over the outfield fences. But therein lies the conundrum-- he's strong enough now to get them over [insert head scratch here]. My argument is still that you cannot teach bat speed.

I've always thought that he had reached a point in his career where he had to do something significant to his workout regimen in order to keep up with the younger and stronger players that now make up this league. Perhaps some sort of anabolic steroids were included, but where's the proof? I still haven't heard of him failing one of those tests yet. And if it ever comes out that he did do it, MLB may have to share some of the culpability.

Whenever Bonds calls it quits, he may end up somewhere around 800 career home runs. And yet, someone down the line should eclipse him. It'll probably be Alex Rodríguez who will break the record, barring a major catastrophe. I remember at one time that Ken Griffey, Jr. as the one to surpass Hank Aaron's record, but his body thought otherwise. Too bad for us. We would not have had to worry about the burden Barry Bonds has put on one of the most cherished and sexiest records in all of sports history.

Not so new now

Several months ago, I stumbled across a very good music cd and I can't tell you how much I dig this album: Astralwerks SXSW New Music 2006. It quickly became one of my favorites and I would say it's the best compilation cd that I've ever listened to, save for one that a friend made for me. Well, maybe not, but holy moly, is it good. This is who's on it, along with a few comments.

1. Beth Orton Conceived
A wonderful start to the album with a mix of Orton's vocals and instrumentation.

2. Willy Mason Oxygen

3. Sondre Lerche Everyone's Rooting for You
Reminds me those jazz/big big band standards from way back. Good to know that good jazz is still being made today.

4. The Concretes Chosen One
This song could belong on a Grey's Anatomy soundtrack.

5. Hot Chip Playboy

6. Small Sins Stay
Another future Grey's Anatomy track. Great singable chorus.

7. Athlete Half Light (Michael Brauer Mix)
I once woke up with this song in my head. Needless to say, it's a catchy tune.

8. Placebo Infra-Red
My initial favorite because of it's beat and grit but the song's intent is a little out there: song for the obsessed.

9. Sia Breathe Me
Ahhhh... what music. I get the sense she's channeling Jewell, Tori Amos and even Sarah McLachlan. Dig the marimba, too!

10. Audio Bullys I'm in Love

11. Candi Staton When Will I?
Speaking of channeling, along the lines of a female Otis Redding. Fantastic.

12. k-os Crabbuckit

13. Stephanie McKay Tell It Like It Is
Wow. This is instant head-bobbing music. Lyrically smooth, rhythmically moving.

14. The Juan Maclean Tito's Way

15. VHS or BETA You Got Me (Baby Daddy Remix)
Sounds like this one was taken straight the '80s New Wave dance movement, but with an updated twist.

16. Prophet Omega The Right Thing
Ooooh yeah. This song just rocks!

17. Fatboy Slim Weapon of Choice
This song was made famous by its video starring everyone's favorite funky actor Christopher Walken.

The Bard in Love

I saw Shakespeare in Love the other day for the first time in several years. Actually, the last time I saw this movie was during its initial theatrical release and at that time, it didn't strike me as a bonafide Oscar winner. Sure it was a good movie, with a wonderful premise and equally impressive performances by Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes & Geoffrey Rush, but Academy Award winning material? No. Perhaps Oscar voters were too turned off by Saving Private Ryan's intense realism to give that epic the Best Picture nod.

Anyhow, several years later, I found this Shakespeare movie much more inviting and real. This probably stems from having matured enough to understand and feel the true emotion associated with it. The passage in the film where Shakespeare wrote the sonnet with probably the most famous first line in literature, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" hit me like lightning bolt. Wow, I knew exactly what he meant and in the movie's context, I grasped the sheer intensity of the sonnet's intention.

Chalk it up to maturity or in my case, life experience, but my eyes to a better extent now see the greatness of this film. I can relate on some levels to the gamut of emotions encountered by Shakespeare that was translated onto the silver screen by this 1998 film. My personal experiences since 1998 have let me appreciate this fictionalized tale of William Shakespeare's life.

(But I still say Saving Private Ryan should have won that year's Best Picture Oscar!)

UnOriginal Okies

On the way home the other day, I saw something that really irked me for some reason. Maybe it was just an accumulation of seeing these things every so often that set me off, so to speak. The object of my irritation was an Oklahoma Sooners fans' upside-down, chrome Longhorns decal. Occasionally you'll see Sooner fans wave a crimson flag adorned with an upside-down white longhorn. I've never really understood why they would choose the upside-down 'Horns symbol as their symbol of choice, perhaps just to rile their UT neighbors, but to me, this only smacks of unoriginality.

In my eyes, this means that they are not necessarily pro-OU, but anti-UT. Do they really care more about dissing their archrival than promoting their own university? Who knows.

And another thing... the formal name of the aforementioned university is The University of Oklahoma and not vice-versa. So why do Sooners call their school OU? Seriously, what's up with that?! Like one of my good friends, who happens to be from Oklahoma, once told me it's a part of the state's culture- "where else would a state choose mistletoe as their state flower?" Mistletoe is a parasitic weed.

Only in Oklahoma, I guess.

Nice try, but it doesn't compare

There are people out there that say that Canada's healthcare system is better than what we have here in the United States. Yeah, maybe... Then there are others that say that some of our European counterparts also have a better system than we do. Uh, yeah, it's possible. But the thing is that the US has too many low income, poverty striken families in this country to have a true universal system. And I doubt that our first-world counterparts have the same percentage of folks that live near or below the poverty line.

I'm all about helping those who can't help themselves, but there are many folks out there who can work but choose not to. They unfortunately choose to ride the back of the welfare system as far as it is allowed. We can't afford to have a universal healthcare system because we have too many poor folks- they would flood the market, so to speak. We just need to get folks to work. What would be nice is to have a system that would reward those who do have a steady job. This system would alleviate the lower-middle class of the astounding insurance premiums they have to pay. Many families go without providing their respective families health insurance because these deductions from their paychecks are much too high to afford on their meager salaries.

So you have these people who are hard working and are making a decent living, yet they cannot afford to have the least bit of health insurance, and in the end, have to go on Medicare/Medicaid or some other type of public assistance to take care of their families. If health insurance wasn't so expensive, they would be able to fend for themselves. And therein lies the problem. Those who should, really can't.

You have to commend Michael Moore for going after the medical industry in his new movie, Sicko. I'm glad that someone has infiltrated the industry and helped bring out some of its negative aspects. Hopefully, what this will do, is show the people at large that something needs to be done to our healthcare system, because it does need work. There are too many corporations out there are making too much money off of those ever increasing insurance premiums. And there are far too many physicians getting kickbacks because they prescribe particular drugs from a specific drug company. Making a quick buck at the expense of others is not necessarily the American way.

Politicians are speaking more and more of making changes to our beleaguered healthcare system and that's a great thing. They are finally realzing that there is a problem. And realizing that there is something amiss, is the first step.

Interstate rivalry

Rivalries get a little nit-picky and that's what's going on between Dallas and San Antonio, albeit somewhat under the radar. A couple years ago, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban casually described the San Antonio Riverwalk as a brown, muddy mess. Of course he said that with a lot more flash than I could achieve, but you get the picture. I will not deny the San Antonio River's varied brown hues, but the actual river itself does not the Riverwalk make.

To me and to those who still live there, the Riverwalk is first and foremost a tourist trap, with scenic views and a few top-notch restuarants lined along the river, but the Riverwalk is much more than that. City leaders back-when had the foresight to build this unusual feat of engineering that would not only serve as a money magnet for businesses, but also as a necessary tool for flood relief. The Riverwalk portion of the SA River is a part of a larger flood control project that encompasses a great deal of central San Antonio beyond just the downtown area. Through a series of pumps, dams and even tunnels dug beneath the city, flood waters are diverted away from downtown San Antonio. During the major flood event of October 1998 (see my previous "top ten weather events" post) , there were stories written afterwards saying that if the current pumps and tunnels were not in place, the business along the Riverwalk would be under 6 to 8 feet of flooded river water.

I hate to say this, but a few folks here in Dallas will mock and put down something that they don't have and need. And I am referring to two specifics things here. First, the city of Dallas needs another downtown attraction to bring tourists dollars to an anemic downtown district and to revamp its levee system. There has been an initiative in the works to upgrade the levees and revitalize the Trinity River. I hope that it passes only if it's intended to serve as a safeguard against major flooding and if it becomes a scenic park that's a stone's throw from downtown.

The second and last thing I want to comment on is how all this got started in the first place. As usual, this came about because someone would rather point out something negative about someone or some city in this regard, than to realize their own shortcomings. You can't blame Mark Cuban or any Mavericks fans in Dallas for feeling the least bit jealous of San Antonio's successes that stem from the San Antonio Spurs recent run of 4 NBA championships. Petty comments only reinforce the shame connected with them. Don't knock what you don't have or need.

It has a nice *RING* to it!

Houston, for while, was known as "Clutch City" during the Olajuwon era in the mid 1990s. If you want to look at what happened in the 2006 Finals, you can call Dallas, "Choke City", after the Mavericks debacle against the Miami Heat. And you can even group Tony Romo's botched snap in last season's NFL playoffs in there as well. With all this said, I'd like to call San Antonio something new after the Spurs clinched their fourth title in nine seasons:

"RING CITY"

I gotta say it has a nice "ring" to it...

All Hail the Champs

Last night the San Antonio Spurs won their 4th NBA title in 9 years in a 4 game sweep of the Cleveland Cavaliers. In winning their 4th championship, the Spurs joined the Boston Celtics, the Minneapolis/Los Angles Lakers and the Chicago Bulls as NBA franchises that have won at least 4 championships. I don't know about you, but that's pretty elite company and the word dynasty should now be mentioned when referring to the present day San Antonio Spurs team.

It was another day at the office for San Antonio as the Cavs did not prove to be as formidable a foe as the Spurs' Western Conference opponents. I personally did not think that the series would end in a four game sweep but maybe in five or even six games, so it was a little surprising to see them win like they did. The Spurs totally outmatched the Cavaliers in all aspects of the game. LeBron James, after having a coming out party against the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals, looked human. He never got in a rhythmic groove where the game came to him, as in his 48 point explosion against the Pistons. He hardly took advantage of his size/strength against Bruce Bowen. If Bowen looked like he needed help, a quick double-team came and forced James to look at other options. Otherwise, Bowen played a remarkable defense against the future Michael Jordan type player of the NBA.

I love to watch the Spurs play defense. It's all about teamwork. I usually look away from the ball to see how the defenders move through the picks and screens set up for the offense. If a defender gets picked off on a pick down along the baseline, another teammate will pick him up and will guard him for as along as necessary. From time to time you'll hear about a motion offense where the players move all around the court, well in this instance, you can say that the Spurs have a motion defense. Their defensive rotations are crisp and their one on one defense is superb from the starters down to the bench players. They all have a job to do, and seen by their four championships, they do that job extremely well. Everything they do revolves on their defense.

Speaking of a coming out party, Spurs point guard Tony Parker, otherwise known as the 2007 NBA Finals MVP, has vaulted himself onto the list of elite point guards. He pretty much outplayed every point guard the Spurs encountered: Allen Inverson, Steve Nash, Derron Williams, & Larry Hughes/Daniel Gibson. He might not have outplayed them all numberswise but he outhustled them fairly handily. Hence why the Spurs won.

I will be the first one to say that this Finals series was rather boring. It was anticlimactic. You can even say that it was a foregone conclusion that the Spurs would win the series unless some miraculous event occurred. Prior to game four, I heard people propose something like reseeding all the playoff teams from both conferences in order to get a meaningful Finals matchup. One of the talking heads on ESPN said that the Finals would end up being the Spurs against the Phoenix Suns. Most, if not all would agree with that outcome as that was the most entertaining series in this years' playoffs. Right now, it is not unfair to say that most of the talented teams reside in the Western Conference and might be for while as the top two players in the upcoming draft, Greg Oden and Kevin Durant should be drafted by the Portland Trailblazers and the Seattle Supersonics, respectively.

Who knows if the Spurs can duplicate this year's magic next season, but hopefully the league will finally realize what kind of franchise they have residing in San Antonio. It's a team led by the most consistent, fundamentally sound player this side of Michael Jordan in Tim Duncan, who is considered to be the most unassuming and plain superstar in the league, and by my reckoning, is the only tattooed Spurs player. They have a young and supremely talented point guard in Tony Parker who is now considered one of the top players at his position. Then there's Manu Ginobili. What player in the league is more unselfish than this guy. This all-star caliber player is asked every year to come off the bench in each game, but is entrusted to secure a Spurs win with the ball in his hand at crunch time. There's nowhere like him. Nor is there a team out there like the Spurs who thinks defense first, led by it's defense minister Bruce Bowen. Whether or not the NBA wants to consider such a team a dynasty, but it is hard to miss a group of players that thinks as one and that thinks of only one thing, winning a championship.