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My NBA education continues; last night I took in my first NBA draft. I stayed up and watched all the build up of the draft, as well as the opening hour before switching channels to watch Argentina v USA in the Copa America. I’ve been following the Oden/Durant media circus for a while now. Oden looks like the real deal, and I’ll be watching him eagerly at Portland, whereas Durant seems an equally good pick. The whole concept of the draft is so exciting – especially compared to other sports like football where you’re lucky if you get 60 decent transfers in a pre-season, never mind in one night.

I wasn’t so keen on all the interviews with mothers, and the tedious questions they asked the draftees. I thought it was pretty harsh them asking Durant why he should be the #2 pick if he can’t bench press a certain weight – when most others in the draft pool could (surely if he does his thing on the court it doesn’t matter what he can bench press?). All the players answered politely and graciously. For a football fan it was a strange, but welcome, change from the bickering and sly digs between players/clubs that come to light when transfer speculation arises.

I was quite disappointed that the Knicks had traded away their #9 first round pick in the Eddy Curry trade last year, as well as their second round pick to Portland, leaving them with a pretty average #23 first round pick. You can’t really make any waves with a pick that late in the draft – but Knicks GM Isiah Thomas made a few moves last night, all whilst I’d flicked over to watch Argentina (gutted! All the action for ‘my team’ came when I turned over!).

After drafting DePaul sophomore small forward Wilson Chandler at #23 in the first round, they traded Channing Frye and Steve Francis to Portland in return for power forward Zach Randolph as well as guards Fred Jones and Dan Dickau. But they weren’t finished there, the Knicks also managed to acquire the draft rights for Demetris Nichols (but surrendered their 2008 second round draft pick in doing so). What does this mean? Well the Knicks managed to bring in four players from Portland, in exchange for two, after already getting Wilson Chandler in the draft.

I’m not going to lie. I know almost jack shit about these players, I’ve only really been following the NBA for a few years now and Portland haven’t really been on my regular scouting list (although they may be now with Oden!). Much is being written about Randolph, many Knicks fans feel he may be the addition that makes us playoff contenders. His career high 23.6 points-per-game last season was ranked at 12th in the league (not bad) and at 25 he’s still got plenty of time to improve on that. I’ve read nothing but good things about his game on offense, much like Curry, but also similar to Curry there’s much written about a lack of defensive ability. But most are in agreement that Curry/Randolph is a good look. While still coming to terms with a lot of the terms and tactics of basketball, I’m simply left with a ‘wait and see’ attitude.

Dickau and Jones are both five year NBA vets, so their experience will be valued. I’m a little sceptical about what this means in terms of our guards – Dickau/Jones join Marburry, Crawford, Richardson and Nate Robinson as Knicks guards. Some might say 6 Guards for 2 spots isn’t cramped, but it just means Nate Robinson will see less of the court, and I love Nate Robinson. The little guy is so entertaining to watch. Although Nate averaged 20 mins-per-game last year, so I guess he’ll still get involved.

Can’t say I know much about Chandler. Watched a short youtube vid of a college game he was involved in, but couldn’t really draw much from it at all. He’s 20-years-old and averaged 14.6 points-per-game as a sophomore last season. Scouts describe him as having ‘exceptional leaping ability’ and he is known to be a good rebounder and defender (something the Knicks need). He’s 6ft 8 and 230lbs.

If I knew little about Chandler, I know NOTHING of Demetris Nichols. Having read up on him I now know Nichols, like Chandler, is a 6ft 8 forward. He’ll be 23 by the time the new season rolls around. Scouts describe him as “doing most of his damage from long range, but he’s improved as a mid-range shooter as a senior.” They also write that he’s a good athlete who’s quick off the floor, but needs to develop more of an ‘in-between game’. I’d be lying if I said I fully understood that. Like I said, some of the terms haven’t quite registered yet.

What I’ve drawn from this is that with Curry/Randolph the Knicks will basically look to pound the ball inside and outscore teams in the paint. Basically just two big, strong, aggressive dudes who are gonna be hard to deal with from a defensive perspective. The guards we got from Portland just seem to be squad players, fodder in the trade rather than part of the bigger picture, yet Chandler and Nichols have got very kind words from Isiah Thomas – so I guess Randolph, Chandler and Nichols could all bring something to New York for next season. Hopefully that something is a playoff spot.

All in all, it seems this was a pretty decent night for the Knicks. They went into tonight with one late pick in the first round. What they left with was a pair of draftees (including their original one), and they managed to shift some dead wood (Francis/Frye) to bring in three new players.

Read Isiah Thomas’ thoughts on draft night by clicking HERE.

Another day, another youtube vid. As I continue the “most stressful experience one can have” of moving houses (I read that somewhere) I can’t really be arsed to write anything at the moment, so I’m stickin’ with the super-fly vids homez…

I’ve all but convinced myself that I can afford to buy a 360+GTA4+ProEvo+NBA08 come October. So now I’m not so worried about having to buy a console simply for this one game - I’m just marvelling at how good it looks. Granted most of this trailer is made from cut-scenes and stuff that isn’t actually in-game but that’s not to say the scenery/graphics of things won’t be this good. You can tell that cars and buildings will be well polished, you can see the interior of buildings will look nice and shooting through car windows is going to be tremendous. I hope you’ve circled October 16th on your calendar as the day GTAIV comes out. Nah, it’s not sad - everybody’s doing it.

For screenshots, news and the previous trailer visit www.rockstargames.com.

The official video for Kanye’s new single, “Stronger”:

The Arctic Monkeys headlined Glastonbury on Friday night. They promised a surprise cover during their set, and with it they paid tribute to Shriley Bassie (who also performed at Glasto this weekend) by attempting “Diamonds are Forever”. Here’s how it went:

A bit tame, but interesting nonetheless.

Click here to download Arctic Monkeys - Diamonds Are Forever (MP3).
Click here to download the b-side on their new single - The Bakery (MP3).

www.thehoosiers.co.uk / www.myspace.com/thehoosiers

This week’s new artist of the week is London-based up tempo indie/pop trio The Hoosiers.

You may have hummed along to their first single “Worried about Ray” on the radio with little or no idea of who was behind it. I know I didn’t, and I didn’t even question it.

Stumbling across their myspace page I recognised a song or two instantly and was hooked by the other songs they’ve done. I can safely say I was a fan straight away. They’ve a front man with a lot of vocal presence along with well polished instrumentation - which leads me to think it’s only a matter of time before The Hoosiers ‘get big’.

They’re touring the UK for the next two months (on and off). The dates are on their myspace page (top of this post). They’re playing pretty much everywhere. If you like their stuff go along, I imagine they’d be pretty good live because their music is pretty energetic.

Anyway, here’s “Worried about Ray”, “Goodbye Mr A”, “Worst Case Scenario” and “A Sadness Runs Through Him”. Enjoy!

The Hoosiers - Goodbye Mr A

The Hoosiers - Worried about Ray

The Hoosiers - Worst Case Scenario

The Hoosiers - A Sadness Runs Through Him

I always had Jessica Biel down as a broad broad. The kind of chick that could beat you up if she wanted to. Fairly big shoulders, sure I recall her being more muscular than this… but I was wrong, she looks stunning in this GQ photoshoot.

She stays pretty covered up in most of her films, which would explain the tomboy stereotype she gets. All I can say about these pics is “wow”. Stunning legs, a nice rack, gorgeous figure in general and she’s hot from the neck up too.

Well played GQ. Again.

Yesterday my girlfriend went on an absolute rant whilst I spent a few minutes looking at Xbox 360 and PS3 stuff in GAME. Literally, just a few minutes. She’d spent the hour prior to this trying to find a piece of jewelry to match a top she’d just bought and we went in some shops twice because Amy wanted to double check just how close some of the shades of jewelry were. Then she bitched when I spent a fraction of the time looking at some of the new gen consoles.

The rant was directed at my financial situation, which was fair, but evolved into a more general attack on how computer games were “sad” and “a waste of money”. I fought back and compared her endless accessories and make up purchases as “a waste of money”… big mistake. You don’t want to say that to a woman. I didn’t anticipate that as an attack on her appearance, but it ended up a pretty fierce discussion that I couldn’t escape.

She was trying to convince me that I didn’t need to get myself in further debt buying an Xbox 360. And she’s right, for now. The new GTA and Pro Evo will be out in October and there’s no way I can go without them. Especially as I’ve now sampled Xbox Live on a mate’s machine. The PS2 just won’t do now anymore.

But calling games “sad” and a waste of time/money had me thinking.

I got to reminiscing about some of my favourite video game memories. Anybody who is a console/gaming buff will know that games can provide you with some of the most satisfying and happiest moments of your life. Not in the sense that you’ll win a race or a fight and say “this is the happiest moment of my life” (that would be sad) but looking back on time spent at a machine you raise a smile and wish you were still playing THAT game like you used to. Know what I mean?

I’ve invested so much time over my 20 years on this earth to Football/Championship Manager that I dread to think what the total time playing it would be. Months rather than days I’d expect. But they were some great months, let me tell you. On the first Champ Manager to have a viewable pitch with little dots running around (CM4?) I created my best ever team, in a game that spanned about 20 seasons – with Parma. I turned them into a footballing dynasty that swept the Serie A pretty much every year, won the Champions League a few times (something I rarely ever do) and was just generally packed with south americans (always a wonderful feat, they play the ‘beautiful game’ like its supposed to be played).

Equally happy times were spent playing it alongside mates. I remember back in the days of my early teens when me and a group of friends could spend 24 hours solid taking turns at what we then called ‘Champ’. One time in particular stands out when we managed to cram a whole season into one night of the summer holidays. As Inter Milan I won the league on the last day of the season because the keeper who I’d just signed (from a friend who was Fiorentina) saved a penalty in the dying minutes. This meant another of my mates finished second and I won the league. That was wonderful. I also had an epic three or four season online game with my good friend Toby, which we’ll always know as “eye-talia” in which we faced off as Inter (me) vs AC Milan (him) and that game produced so much hilarious banter it didn’t even matter who won overall (if we’re counting I picked up the most trophies ;)). That and loads more fun times can be attributed to football/champ manager. Wonderful game.

Legend of Mir, which most people probably aren’t familiar with, was another superb game that absorbed a large amount of my life during my teens. I could have been out binge drinking and fingering girls I’d never met before in parks – but I opted in favour of this MMORPG during my early teens. That’s not to say I was antisocial. But the days when you were too young to get a job, too bored to watch TV and in a rural community where there is nothing else to do – Mir provided the perfect solution. I’ve got some great MSN contacts from my time on there (to this day, I speak to some of those guys daily and consider them as dear as any ‘real’ friends I have). Mir was this huge lord-of-the-rings-esque online world full of castles, caves and dungeons – with thousands of other people running around on there too. It completely captured my imagination, yet there’s been so many similar games since it (World of Warcraft, etc.) that I’ve not even looked at because it’ll never come close to recreating those great memories.

Zelda’s both old and new have always been great sources of entertainment for me. Me and my sister are two completely different people and never really converse in anything but small talk, and its been that way since we were knee high – yet each and every Zelda game brought us together. Its not an understatement to say that it’s the only thing in the world that’s ever done this. We’d sit for hours and try and work out the puzzles in Ocarina of Time together. That meant a lot to me, and is probably why I consider it my favourite game of all time. I’ve not played the Windwaker or any of the more recent versions because me and my sis have both grown up now and sitting together for hours on end to play this game isn’t practical or realistic at our age.

Of course, Grand Theft Auto has provided me with hours of entertainment. Every single installment. GTA3 and San Andreas more so than the rest. GTA3 blew my mind because it was in 3d. It really was like stealing cars and committing crime for real. Never have I found so much fun in wasting time on a game. I remember once spending the better part of an hour blocking a highway and watching the cars smash into each other, then killing anybody that survived. Sadistic? Maybe, but 100% fun. Turning GTA on, going on a random killing spree, then turning it off didn’t seem like a waste of time at all. Infact it was every bit as good as doing a mission. The scope of San Andreas was even more mind boggling than GTA3, and I expect GTA IV will be every bit as memorable for me.

Since coming to university the only game I’ve ever really had time for is Pro Evolution because it involves everybody in our flat. And all of our male friends/guests too. It’s crazy the amount of times that there’s been a stranger in our flat and I’ve just been like “fancy a game of pro?” and we’ve sat there for an hour or so with banter as if I’ve known them for years. Highlights include numerous thrashings of flat loud-mouth Mark, a 9-0 win over the second-best player in our flat (after me), Stato, and he was Man Utd at the time! There are too many goals to mention. Way too many. Well worked passing goals, thrikers from 30/40 yards, bizarre goals that have bounced in from no where, chipped goals, stupid mistakes – anger, laughter, joy – Pro Evo has it all. And it produces it on a daily basis.

Goldeneye and Mario Kart produced hours and hours of 4 player fun when I was a youngster. Me and three other mates could sit there for pretty much a whole day and have a marathon of these two games. Nothing else mattered in the world when you were going all-out to win on Yoshi’s Island or Toad’s Turnpike. I was always Wario. And I always left with a smile on my face. There was never a ‘bad’ game of Mario Kart.

Before the days of Playstations and N64s there were the old school Mega Drive/NES games. Super Mario Brothers, Sonic and Zelda all used to have me glued to the screen. They were so basic that today’s kids would probably laugh at them and label them “crap” but back in the day I loved them. When I was a kid I’d have been more than happy to spend my whole life playing those games. I’d be fat, but it wouldn’t matter because I’d never need to leave the room.

I had a lot of fun with Matt on his Dreamcast back when they were around. We used to play Virtua Tennis for hours – doubles or singles – yet we never got to beat Master/King. I’ll always remember how much we loved that game because it made up for how awful we were on the tennis courts in real life. Equally memorable is how much we laughed when he bought Virtua Striker. That was one of the worst games I’ve ever seen. We laughed so hard and for so long that I gave myself a serious head ache and had to go home. It hurt. Matt took the game back the next day.

Matt also gave me the memory of playing a Wii for the first time. That really took me back to being a kid. I only ever played a couple of games of golf and tennis, but the fact it involved all of your energy and body movements to work the thing rather than just being a handheld controller was thrilling. The brief time I spent on the Wii was as fun as any hour I’ve spent on any other game, although I’m sure that the novelty soon wears off. However, I am 100% convinced that Golf on the Wii is more fun than golf in real life. I didn’t think I could get that excited about games anymore but it made me realize that these new gen consoles are still every bit as entertaining and appealing as the first consoles were. Sure people will say they’re just better in appearance but as an experience they just keep getting better and better.

And with that being said I’m DEFINITELY going to get myself an Xbox 360 when I’ve a few hundred quid spare. The brief spells I’ve had on Xbox Live have convinced me that there’s many more golden memories to be had. All-in-all you just can’t beat video games. I don’t care who thinks they’re sad – they’ve entertained me so much and for so long that I firmly believe an extra hour should be allocated to every day where by law you have to play video games. That would fucking rule.

So… what are your favourite video game memories?

Here I am posting yet another music video. This time I’m happy to say that the video does the song justice, unlike Lupe Fiasco’s awful low-budget attempt at “He Say She Say”. Common’s “The People” is sure to be one of the stand out hip hop tracks of 2007, and as always Common came with an on-point video to match. “The Game” was good, “The People” is even better:

Common’s new album “Finding Forever” is out on July 27th.

If you’re a fan of hip hop music - real hip hop music - then it’s a must have.

Hey guess what?

My ‘blog’ is now bi-lingual!

When the French aren’t riding bicycles in their stripy black/white tops they can now convert this site into French, and when the Russians are browsing this small section of the interweb because they’ve run out of vodka they can read it in their native Russian too!

Hell, you can now read rw.com in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and a host of European languages too.

Why? Well why the hell not?

Plus it makes me look smart…

Language translations are available on the right hand side menu bar (near the bottom).

Too good not to post.

This is “Machete”, a fake-film trailer from Quentin Tarantino/Rob Rodriguez’s Grindhouse (mentioned in my previous post). There’s a whole host of these fake trailers throughout the film - but this is easily the best.

Just one question, why isn’t it being made for real? It’d make a fantastic film.

“THEY JUST FUCKED WITH THE WRONG MEXICAN”… Maybe they’ll change their minds and make it… Fingers crossed.