Foil in the Oven: More from Jim's Epic Chipotle Visit

The handsoap on the bathroom sink has appeared to be completely empty for about a week now. Every time I finish going to the bathroom, I think "oh shit, I should have brought in a new thing of soap." And yet, every time it pumps out soap as if it were completely full. It's really amazing.

oldie but a goodie:


As you probably already know, Weeksy and I had a great meal at the Cleveland Circle Chipotle last Thursday. I'm a big believer that "you never get a second chance to make a first impression" is just as relevant to the relationship between burrito establishments and people as it is to the relationships that people have with each other. Because I believe this, I was happy to meet Jim and prevent him from making any rookie mistakes that might forever taint his image of this fine burrito chain. It's not that I think the burrito wouldn't have been good if he had gone with a different set of ingredients. But, someone who goes in with no prior knowledge is most likely not going to maximize their enjoyment. The corn is the best example of this. Thanks to Ted (who chaperoned me on my first trip), I have never had a burrito at Chipotle without corn. It probably wouldn't be bad. But, it would be lacking a certain element that I notice and enjoy every time I eat there.

Anyways, we've had a lot of burrito talk this week. I won't discuss any more about the food that we ate. You can scroll down for that. Instead, I want to rehash some of the sports conversations that we had during the meal.

Now, for those of you who don't know, Weeks is Jim from Green Bandwagon , which is a much more well established site than the roomofzen. He is a great person to talk basketball, and really all sports in general, with. Our meeting (I call it a staff meeting whenever I get together with the other people on the site) came the day after James Posey signed with New Orleans, which naturally drew most of our conversation to basketball. We sort of brushed over it, agreed that it sucked, agreed that we'd both like Tony Allen and Eddie House back, and moved on.

Some issues upon which we touched (note, some day we hope to have a podcast. For now, this will have to suffice):

Sick footage of a young Dimebag Darrell (see Ted's post two below mine). From Dimevision volume 1:



1) Michael Beasley: You're probably tired of hearing me rant and rave on my soap box about how Michael Beasley was the best player in this year's draft. Well, I'm not going to stop. Weeksy and I expanded on this for quite a while, and agreed that the Derrick Rose seemed to be a product of media hype more than anything else.

Here were the main points of our discussion:

A) The notion that the Bulls should take Rose because "this is a point guard league" is based on very flawed logic. Every expert who said that followed it with "take a look at what guys like Chris Paul and Deron Williams are doing in this league." Well, Chris Paul and Deron Williams are two of the best players in the NBA. Sure, if Rose turns out to be as good as them then it will all work out. But, even then, why is this a point guard league? I feel like one person said it, and then it just caught on until everybody was saying it. One of the biggest knocks on the Celtics heading into the season was that point guard was a weak spot for them. They won the NBA championship. The team they were playing against had a point guard that is old as can be.

Look at what Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady, and Dwayne Wade have done. Why isn't this a 2 guard league? The point is that you need to have a well rounded team in order to be successful. The Bulls have a very full back court, and have Kirk Hinrich locked up for quite a long time. It seems to us like Beasley would have made sense.

B) Everyone has knocked Beasley's defense, but again the media have allowed the legend of his defensive shortcomings to spiral a little bit out of control. We both watched him play quite a few times last year, and he never stood out to either of us as a guy that can't defend. In fact, we both think that he seems like he will do just fine playing team defense in the NBA. The best example of a college player who I knew would struggle playing defense in the NBA was Charlie Villanueva. He was very lazy about rotating, and seemed to always be on a different page than his teammates.

Now, Villanueva was a UCONN guy so I watched him play a lot more than I watched Beasley. But, I have seen nothing to indicate to me that Beasley will be a liability on the defensive end. He might not be an all-NBA defender, but he certainly has the ability to play team defense. And, when you add his offensive abilities to that, you end up way ahead of where you started.

C) Jim has the summer off, and has been able to take in more summer basketball than I have. He assures me that seeing what Beasley has done so far in the summer league only makes it more clear that he is going to be an impact player right away.

D) Do we even need to talk about the character thing more? Practical jokes in the locker room....every team has somebody who does them to some degree. As long as fire arms and lubricant are not involved, I don't think it's a problem. Of course, there is the switching schools thing. But, I just want to point one thing out. If any of us had changed high schools, potential employers might have legitimate reasons to wonder why. But, when you are an athlete like Beasley, coaches from other high schools probably call you ALL THE TIME to try and recruit you. And, unlike many of us, he actually had legitimate reasons to consider changing high schools. He was probably always on the lookout for the best place to get exposure.

At this point, we went off about how most guys that get passed for character issues despite freakish ability end up fine. We talk about how Warren Sapp went twelfth and Randy Moss went 21st.

We then keep talking about how absurd it is that Randy Moss went 21st.

"Didn't they watch him play? What the fuck is wrong with them? He wasn't human in college!"

"But, remember, he's so good that it doesn't LOOK like he's running fast."

"Yeah, but don't they have combine numbers? Isn't it there job to know if he's so good that he doesn't look like he's running fast?"

"Dallas passed on him. When has Dallas ever been worried about character issues?"........On and on we went.

As a side note, isn't it strange that Warren Sapp went 12th, Randy Moss went 21st, and yet Lawrence Phillips went 6th. Of the three, I really think Phillips had the most legitimate character questions. And, I think we can all agree that he didn't exactly "pan out".

Anyways, by the end we were sure that Chicago had made a mistake. Weeksy finished it of by saying "by the time the season is about half-way over, I think everyone is going to be wondering how they talked themselves into Derrick Rose."


2) Remember when the Bulls Refused to Part with Luol Deng?


So, somewhere in here I mention that Villanueva left college too early, and we get into guys who either left college early or should have gone to college. I assert that Gerald Green should have gone to college. He is extremely talented, but far too undeveloped. Unlike Beasley, who can find ways to score while being double teamed, Green doesn't know how to score when someone has him squared up. He may have developed this in college. The transition from dunking over high schoolers to the NBA was not a smooth one for him.

Anyways, Jim says that he thinks Deng could have used another year. He then says "remember how the Bulls wouldn't trade him last off-season no matter what?" For some reason I thought that this was the funniest thing. The Bulls faded into obscurity so fast last season, that their whole storyline was completely forgotten. But, remember how firm they were on not giving up Deng. Paul Pierce was out there in the spring. Kobe was out there until the fall. There were real chances for them to make a move there. But, they literally would not part with Luol Deng under any circumstances. It seems funny now, partially because I had forgotten all about it. Probably a good move for them. Kobe wasn't very good this year.




3) WEEI sucks.

This conversation was very refreshing for me to have. And, I have made a lot of changes in my life since it happened. I now realize that I was driving around in a prison that I created for myself. There are no laws that say I have to listen to sports radio when I drive, especially if it sucks.

We agreed on the following points:

- Dennis and Callahan barely even talk sports. I don't like listening to them. Some assert that it's because they are conservative and I am liberal but it's not (although they are very dismissive of opposing points of view). It's not. I have no problem with people that have different views than me. I do, however, have problems with people that advertise a sports show and deliver me something totally different.

- We like Dale and Holley. In fact, they are the only legitimately good daytime show on WEEI. And, for this, they are mocked incessantly by Dennis and Callahan and also by the Big Show guys.

- The Big Show is absurd. Weeksy believes that the Big O could be good at his job if he cared more about it. I'm not necessarily sure if I agree, but I do agree that he is a million times easier to listen to than Steve DeOssie, Fred Smerlas, or Butch Stearns. I can't handle Tony Masserotti either. We both remembered the spring of 2007, the day after Paul Pierce had made statements that he didn't want to be part of the rebuilding process, when it was very clear that nobody besides Ordway had any idea about the state of the Celtics. Now, granted the people they had on were baseball and football people (I believe Smerlas was on because it was draft weekend) but IT IS THEIR JOB TO BE ABLE TO TALK ABOUT THIS STUFF!

And the Whiner line, the goddamn whiner line. It sucks. It's not funny. It's the same people saying the same shit every day. Jim thinks it could work as a weekly thing, maybe every Friday. I'm willing to concede this. Some of those jokes might be less not funny if I only heard them once a week.

- Mikey Adams is entertaining. That's about all I'll say.

Here, I mention that the Big Show guys mock Mike and the Mad Dog all of the time. It pisses me off because I know that WFAN is a much better station than WEEI. On top of that, Mike and the Mad Dog do a MUCH better job of talking sports in a knowledgeable way that reflects actual preparation. And, they talk about sports from all over the country. Weeksy agrees that Mike and the Mad Dog is far superior to the Big Show. I knew it already, but it feels good to hear someone who is a fan of all Boston teams say it.

Then, we wonder how in the world this could be the nation's top rated sports radio network. Sure, there are tons of Boston fans and they love their sports, but don't we have standards?

This is when I start to realize that music is a better option for me than Dennis and Callahan or the Big Show. I've been much happier since.