Late on the Lake Show, and a remembrance

Woooooo!!! WOOOOOOOOO!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! LAAAAKKEEEEEEEEERRRRRSSSSSS!!!

Oh, wait. That's right: the Lakers won the NBA Finals a week ago. A week ago! And I'm just getting around to it now. Dammit.

I wish I could say that witnessing Laker victory from 7,500 miles away is just as sweet as experiencing it a bit closer to home, even from the East Coast of the US (as I did in 2000 and 2001). But it isn't. Not even close. I mean, which scenario would you choose:

(A) Watching the game in a crowded bar with dozens of rabid fans.

(B) Following the first half of the game at work via nba.com and Lakers Nation's Twitter feed (which was superb, fortunately) and then watching the second half in a quiet pub in Sydney at 11am on a Monday.

This isn't a trick question; it's an easy answer. But unfortunately, I don't have a choice in the matter. I had to take Option B. Although I guess I can't complain. Coming here, I knew I'd be making some sacrifices -- just as I knew I'd be getting a whole lot of benefits in return -- and I guess this is one of them.

I wasn't nearly as close or as emotionally invested in this Lakers team as I was in the 2000 or 2001 Lakers. Those teams... those were the championship teams that I loved the most.

Ironically, a year after those two titles, while I was on my first trip to Sydney, the Lakers won another one. And to make that championship even sweeter, they beat the hated Kings in a brutal seven-game Western Conference Finals on the way to their three-peat. Yet just like the 2009 Lakers, I didn't have nearly the same connection to that team.

Whatever. It's still awesome. I'll take it.

You know what I really miss, possibly more so than the thrill that would have come from being closer to this victory? Chick Hearn.

This is the Lakers' first championship since Chick died, just a few months after they swept the Nets in 2002. And seven years later, I can still remember coming off the plane from Australia that August, stepping onto US soil for the first time in half a year, and being greeted by my Dad, who almost immediately told me of Chick's passing.

I miss everything about Chick. His sing-song voice. His sayings. The excitement he brought to the game. His thinly-veiled loathing of Stu Lantz.* His connection to the Lakers, and to the city of LA.

*I have no proof of that, but I swear you could tell he didn't like Lantz, and I'll go to the grave believing it.

I can still close my eyes and picture Chick calling games, hear his voice. We'll never have another one like him, just like we'll never have another Vin Scully. So as the Lakers wrapped up Game 5 in Orlando last week, that was one of the first things that came to mind. Because as great as it was to see them notch up their 15th NBA title, it would have been so much more sweet to hear Chick calling it.

I'll let Chick close it out for us:

Throwin' some quick toss Kleinballs

The original idea behind the Kleinballs was to give you some quick, punchy thoughts on a variety of disparate topics. Me being me, of course, I've recently gotten a bit verbose with some of them. Not today, however, because I gots things going on! And I need to get some of them off my chest.

A FREAKING JOB!!! ONE THAT FREAKING PAYS!!! I GOTS ME ONE OF THEM!!!!

I ate chicken feet on Tuesday. A laborious chore to consume, with bones everywhere, but well worth the effort. Surprisingly moist and tender.

It's been comfortably over a decade now, but his words have always lived with me. And now they've paid off. So to Steve Nootenboom, I say THANK YOU.

Amazingly, the three above items are all connected. Some of you may be able to find the link between two of them. But how are all three intertwined? I'll fill in the blanks, and give more info on this job (that pays!), next week.

Current Lakers score: 88-60, with 9:15 to go. My lord, if they win the finals, that would be the ultimate icing on a week that's already been stupendous. (Oh, wait, I forgot: the NBA Finals go on for three months. Never mind.)

Needing to renew by visa but not knowing my future job situation, I booked a one-way ticket to Auckland the other week, for July 7. And now that I have a job (that pays!), I'm gonna make it a quick trip, and have booked a return flight for July 12. No idea what I'll be doing there yet. Maybe this will bring another venture into the wide world of travel books? I'll let you know when I know.

Congrats to Randy Johnson on win number 300. Now, to all those who think that we'll never again see a pitcher make it to that milestone: J-Poz has his rebuttal, and as always, it makes far too much sense.

The reason for my rushed post today? We gots a threeeeeeeee-daaaaayyyyy weeeeeeekennnnnddd coming up for the Queen's birthday! (Although it's not really her birthday at all. For all the basics, see my reading notes from last year.) A group of us are off to Hawks Nest, about three hours north of Sydney. Should be a nice, long weekend of doing nothing at all. Can't wait.

Next week: a job (that pays!).

Throwin' some Honoré de Klein-Balzacs

Does the title for this post work? Too obscure? Yeah, probably. Of course, the fact that it has nothing to do with anything in the rest of the post is probably more problematic.

I'm still playing cricket. It's winter here. Clearly there's a disconnect between those two facts with, you know, cricket being played outdoors and all. Yet there I am, every fortnight (they use that word here), playing in a winter competition with my friends. But we've been fairly lucky with the weather, with most of the days being cool but generally nice. Then last weekend happened. Cold. Wind. Rain. But we played. From 10:30 to 4. Calling it "miserable" might be one of the largest understatements I've ever made. It's a start.

I'm just about over the Lakers' loss, so I think I can write about it without grinding my teeth down to dust. Although I'm not even sure what there is to say. So I'll just say that I was shocked by the amount of venom that people apparently hold for the Lakers and Kobe, most of which only seemed to come out after they were clearly out of the series. People at my freaking work were jumping on the Bandwagon of Hate.

It's been a few months in the works, but with his recent post on Tiger Woods, Joe Posnanski has officially taken the mantle as my favorite writer.* And I'd like to proclaim that he should take the same spot on your Mantle of Love, too. I will caution that if you're not a rabid fan of the Kansas City Royals (although who among us isn't??), you may want to take a pass on some of his posts. (Just a warning that he has some crazy, crazy man love for Brian Bannister.) And if you're not a baseball fan in general, well, then you can probably pass on a couple more posts as well. Not a fan of sports at all? First: how dare you. And second, yeah, you can probably pass on a couple more posts. But even if you aren't a fan of sports at all and just appreciate, you know, amazing writing, you'll still find plenty to love. Such as the brilliant post -- and that is absolutely no exaggeration; I mean that as strongly as possible -- on Tiger. Tiger Woods, y'all.

*Heck, I've already stolen his little asterisk device (he calls it a Pozterisk), which is ridiculously addicting.

The days right now, with the sun rising after 7 and setting before 5, are ridiculously short. It's insanely depressing. But with the winter solstice the other day, it's all uphill from here! Good stuff.

Exhale

I was at work on Wednesday. Yet from 11 to 2, I was merely there in person, not mentally. For during those three hours, I was in my own world, listening to Game 3 of Lakers-Celtics on the Internet. And after being severely frustrated by the Lake Show for the first two games, well, nothing really changed. Because although they won, it was pathetic. There was Kobe, there was Sasha Vujacic and... and... yeeeaaaahhh, that was it.

I'm not going to recap the game here, because (a) I didn't even watch it and (b) you could find a recap much more comprehensive than whatever I could muster in a thousand different places. But my God, what a beast. I can't take this, especially when I feel so disconnected from the whole thing. And to make matters worse, the NBA has seemingly done all it can to screw me, because all seven games of this series (if it even goes that far) have started or are scheduled to start at 11am Sydney time on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday. Not one game on a weekend for me.

So there I was for Game 3: at work, listening to the game on headphones and doing all I could to not scream out in tortured agony as Kobe carried the team to a dubious victory. Could he do this at least three more times in the next four games? Yeah, I think so. Will he, especially if the other 14 dudes on team continue to piss their pants? Not so sure about that. But you better believe that I'll be listening, constantly teetering between maintaining my composure and being on the brink of releasing an agonized scream that would elicit quite a few bewildered stares from my coworkers. Fan-frickin'-tastic!

If this is what it takes...

...I'll take it.

Six years ago, the Lakers beat the Kings in an incredible Game 7 of the Western Conference and then went on to beat the Nets in the NBA Finals to cap off their Three-peat. I was in Australia.

I came back to the US. The Spurs happened in 2003, some strange experiment with Shaq, Kobe, GP and the Mailman went inexplicably wrong in 2004, everything got blown up in 2005, and the 2006 and 2007 seasons were worthless.

I came back to Australia. And now this.

Now, I'm not saying I'm the reason for this, but I'm just putting it out there. And let's also not give the Lakers the title yet. But this has been fun. Yesterday, I avoided the score all day (not that hard to do when no one else in this country cares), came home with a bottle of wine and watched the game. My neighbors must think I'm out of my mind because there were noises coming from my house. Oh yes. Strange, loud noises.

Admittedly, I haven't been following this team that closely, but from afar, up until last night, I've had a tough time convincing myself that they're capable of winning the title. Maybe it's because I'm just too used to Kobe? People call him the best player in the NBA, but I see some really good players -- Lebron, KG, Chris Paul, etc -- in the league. But after last night's performance? I guess I see that he is. And I guess the Lakers are capable of winning it all.*

*All without Andrew Bynum! All without Andrew Bynum! And I'd also like to note the crazy circumstances that have created the core of the team that we're currently seeing. The Lakers traded Shaq to the Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler and Brian Grant. Lamar's been huge this year, especially in tandem with Gasol. I mean, watching those two guys play off of each other has been really fun. And how did we get Gasol? Butler was spun to the Wizards for Kwame Brown, who was later traded to the Grizzlies for -- you guessed it! -- Frank Stallone. No, wait. I mean Pau Gasol. So that Shaq trade, four years after it happened, has hugely impacted the makeup of this team. Crazy.

Would it be better if I was back in the US to enjoy this? Absolutely. Just as when Jon Lester threw his no hitter the other week, there's no one here to share my excitement with. And I love being with others who get just as excited about these things as I do. But if this -- my sacrifice of being a few time zones away from the Lakers -- is what it takes, I'll take it.