Ranking the 5 new H-E-B Spurs Commercials

For the uninitiated H-E-B is a local grocery store in the great state of Texas...  If you live in the City of San Antonio, there's a good chance that you and your family opts to shop here for food.  If you also happen to live here, there's a good chance you blindly follow the Spurs so it makes a lot of sense to pair the two every year for commercial spots.

H-E-B and the Spurs released 5 new commercials and here's how I rank them in respect to "goodness".

1.) Cooking Class - Quality humor in this commercial... Kawhi Leonard owns up to having freaky large hands.  Patty Mills has a Crocodile Dundee "Knife" moment too.

2.) Chicken Retreat - Not only does this put Manu front and center, it celebrates the diversity that the Spurs have in the locker room.  I can only imagine how many times these guys have to repeat themselves to each other behind closed doors.

3.) New Boat - Kawhi Not?

4.) Stronger than Coyote - I should have ranked this one a little higher because it features the Spurs mascot "Coyote"...  It gets downgraded because it features Green and Mills, which is the equivalent of a Lisa Simpson episode on the Simpsons.

5.) Gifts for LaMarcus - I get why they made a commercial of the team welcoming LaMarcus to San Antonio...  but it has corny dialogue and we never get to see a funnier side to LaMarcus.


Game 2: Spurs 102 - Nets 75

San Antonio Spurs welcomed the Brooklyn Nets in their 2015 Home Opener...  A big to-do around here because the Spurs just completed a 100+ million dollar renovation on the AT&T Center.  In addition to all the buzz surrounding the opening game of the season, Central Texas was recovering from heavy rains.  Tony Parker had to miss morning shoot around because of floods out in Beorne, Texas.

16 effortless points by Leonard

Starting Line Up

Spurs rolled out the same starting five...  these guys had a slow start, but they collectively had another productive outing without playing more than 30 minutes.

  1. PG - Parker - 10 points
  2. SG - Green - quietly scored 8 points
  3. SF - Kawhi - 16 points and 10 rebounds
  4. PF - LaMarcus - 10 snooze worthy points with 11 rebounds
  5. C - Duncan - 15 points and went 7 for 7 from the Free Throw line

Game 2 Observations

Former Spur and horrible play by play announcer Shawn Elliott

So I was quickly reminded as to why I hate watching Spurs games on Fox Sports Southwest...  The booth is filled with pair of homers - Bill Land & Shawn Elliott who have precious fuck all to add to the game you're watching.  You get zero insight on what's occurring on the court.  It's a 2.5 hour slurp job on anyone wearing the Sliver n' Black.

I may have to figure out a way to hear a radio broadcast and turn the tv volume off...

The Spurs had a slow start tonight and I'm not really sure why they couldn't get it going at the beginning of the game.  I had a number of distractions going on in the first quarter so all I could gather was that the team wasn't in sync until the second half.  I have a theory tho'

Spurs completely blew out the Nets in the 3rd and 4th quarters which allowed them rest their starters and get their bench players some much needed minutes.  The biggest surprise was seeing the 7 foot 3 inch Boban Marjanovic. He's slow, but has freakishly long arms and very big hands.  He had 6 points/5 rebounds/2-2 from the line in 5 minutes.  I'm not sure where they found him... I'm pretty sure he's a cave man that they chiseled out of ice.

I was happy to see that University of Detroit Mercy Titan (Ray McCallum) saw some minutes tonight and also pulled down 2 points.

Halloween @ Werk

Those of us us who live the "Office Life" know that its hard to pull Halloween off successfully at Work.  You don't want to be distracting and its hard to find a costume you can wear for 10 hours.

I tapped into my love of old Luchador films this Halloween and came to work as Mil Mascaras.

Not pictured in this shot - Blue Demon, my favorite Luchador.  El Santo was ok... but I ride and die with Blue.  Mil Mascaras was a mask I never owned, but wanted to have in my home in the event an opportunity arose to wear it.


Christmas Uniforms : 2015

Just peeped the new 2015 San Antonio Spurs - Christmas Day uniforms...

I'm a big fan of Script Font atop Basketball Jerseys and these have a hint of "Kringle" to them that really works for me.

I'm not sure if Rhiannon would like a Spurs Jersey to wear around the house or to games... but I gotta get her take on these during the game tonight. 


Game 1: Spurs 106 - OKC 112

Spurs pulled a difficult season opener opponent for the 2015 season...  OKC has all the makings of the team to beat in the West. The team has learned how to play stretches without Durant and Westbrook.  They've also put together a deep bench that will allow them to go far.

 The starting 5 for the Spurs tonight are:

  1. Duncan - I can't get over how good he is and he's pushing 40
  2. Parker - Solid game.
  3. Kawhi - Beast Mode. 
  4. LaMarcus - Thicker this season... maybe its the new uniform?  (Blew a big rebound at the end of the game)
  5. Green - I can't believe he's in the starting five...  (his poor shot selection with 13 seconds in the 4th qtr killed the Spurs)

Pre Game Observations:  I really dig the new alternate road uniforms.  They're similar to the Sunday Home Grey's they wear... but these are all black.  I think Uniforms look silly on adults - but I could see myself wearing Diaw jersey around the Apartment.

Game 1 - The Spurs look good.  I think they're going to make a push to get a 2, 3 or 4 seed in the West.  They're a team that is going to make a deep run in the playoffs.  The loss tonight only hurts in head to head match-ups with OKC for seeding... I suspect they will bounce back nicely on Friday night.

I can't believe how well this team passes the ball.  I watched a good bit of the Bulls game on Tuesday...  I wish we could move the ball around as efficiently as the Spurs do.  The lights could go out in the Arena and the Spurs would still be able to move the rock up and down without dribble.

The starting 5 played really well together and the transition to the second line (Manu, Diaw, Mills, West, Anderson) was seamless.  The only Spur to not see any action tonight was my Detroit Mercy Titan - Ray McCallum.  

The bench in many ways out-performed the starting five.  Mills and Diaw had 9 each.  Manu scrapped together 11 points going 4 for 5...  West really looked good and pick up 8 points.  

The Spurs allowed Kawhi to explode for a regular season high of 32 points and I think this is a step in the right direction.  He took control of the game a number of times and he helped them pull within 2 points in the closing seconds of the game.  LaMarcus had a slow night only sinking 4 of 12 shots for eleven points.   I'm pretty sure he didn't score in the 4th.  He blew an opportunity to pull down an important board with 12 seconds left in the 4th and he wasn't a focal point of the offense in the opening 10 minutes.

I suspect this may change in game 2.

The Spurs are scary good and scary deep.  People around town will undoubtedly be bummed out tomorrow...   A feeling they're likely going to feel 30 more times until the playoffs.  San Antonio doesn't realize how good they have it sometimes.

Go Spurs Go?

Wanted to quickly plug a parallel blog I'm intending to fill with daily observations on the 2015 San Antonio Spurs basketball season.

I'm a die-hard Bulls fan, but the team the Spurs have constructed to top the West has peaked my interest.

You can click on the link above or click here: http://www.september29th/spurs/


2015 Spurs

My interest in the San Antonio Spurs peeked over the summer due largely in part to the addition of LaMarcus Aldridge and University of Detroit's very own - Ray McCallum.

I'm a die-hard Bulls fan, but the Spurs appear to have re-loaded in a way to propel them to the top of the Western Conference.  I haven't felt this way about a team since the 2004 Red Sox, where I watched 160 of the 162 Regular Season games... 

I plan to pen an entry after every game and reflect on what the team does on and off the court.  If time permits today, I intend to pick up the Sports Illustrated NBA Preview today - featuring Tim and LaMarcus on the cover.

Buckle up for what I believe will be an interesting ride.

Three Weeks w/the  Sport Watch

Lost in all the buzz surrounding my engagement to Rhiannon... I've been sporting an  Watch for the past three weeks and I'm loving it.

My interest in the watch was pretty strong at product launch, but I opted to keep this at the top of my Birthday wishlist items.  Interest in the watch came up again when my sister informed me that she was getting one for her birthday.  When Rhianon recognized my desire to get it sooner, she suggested the idea of being gifted a little earlier in the year.​

image.jpg

I naturally accpted the early gift and it's quickly become one of my favorite gadget grabs in recent memory. Outside of finally having a time piece on my wrist for the first time in nearly a decade, it's been nice getting at-a-glance notifications for texts and emails without having to dig out the phone.  

​You'd be amazed by how much time you save when you begin to carve out all the time you spend digging into distracting iPhone apps - you never intended to go into when you unlock a phone.

The biometric activity stuff has been the standout feature for me.  I began measuring physical activity over the summer with my iPhone when doing light workouts - but I found myself not recording a number of physical activities in a day because I didn't have the phone on me.    

​My enjoyement of the watch has even peaked the interest from my Fiance... who may be getting one also in the near future.

Testing the limits of my fandom...

Stop me if you've already heard this one.  You're an unapologetic fan of musical artist/band and you've gone to some silly extremes to completely have everything they have ever released on every conceivable format...  because it makes you feel inexplicably complete inside?

My love for the band BRAID, borders on 'unparalleled'.

  • Do I own all of their studio albums (on various formats)? [ 100% ]
  • Do I own all of their (sprawling) 7" releases? [ 90 % ]
  • Do I have a copy of "Killing a Camera"? [ YES.  Signed by the band on DVD ]

So now I catch wind that the band is planning to have their entire discography released on (wait for it) - Cassette on Polyvinyl Records in October.   Polyvinyl, added salt to the wounds by getting my favorite Screen Poster Artist (and former member of BRAID) Jay Ryan to do the artwork.

You get all of this for the price of $60.00.  You get to have one of 500 said box-sets on a format that I would never go out of my way to play...  I would simply keep it on my shelf, in hopes that another lifelong BRAID fan comes over so that I can rub their nose in it.

It's not the money...  I can go into a record store this evening, pick up 3 albums and drop over 60 bucks.  I can't seem to shake the feeling however that this commercial release of their back-catalog, is a desperate way to get late 30 somethings to complete something that was already fucking complete.

Stop finding ways to make me stop loving my favorite band.