Give me "The Leaner" any day

Annie and I had a quiet, but much needed at-home Valentine's Day. We hadn't spent quality time together, sans kids, since the W. Bush administration. Our mornings were separately endured - she at the hair salon, where I had a dozen roses delivered via super secret courier, and me at a local mall, filling in as Big Cookie Cake decorator in a corporate-supported V-Day promotion. I anticipated doing more 'marketing guy' work, like standing around and looking confused, but demands were such that I had to put my limited decorating skills to work. While you catch your breath from "yeah right" giggling, realize I am not crafting wedding cakes here - just some colorful borders and Valentines-y messages using icing on ginormous cookies.

Let me be honest here: I hate malls on holidays. I'd rather work on 50-year old plumbing at the cottage than service crazed consumers at a cookie shop, but I try not to let this conflict of interests bury my enthusiasm for my job. But there were moments - two in particular - where my creative efforts in cookie design were genuinely appreciated by customers, and that made me feel good. Not as good as the text message that buzzed in my pocket when Annie got the flowers, but good enough to make my morning of work seem meaningful.

Our Valentine's evening began early, with New York strips on the grill (while still daylight), seasoned red skin potato wedges, homemade salad, and plenty of red wine. Maybe it was the wine or the lame comedy we watched, but our night ended early, too. This is finally getting me to the subject of this post...

Due to the early bedtime, I woke at 4:30am and could not get back to sleep. So I made my way downstairs and did what anyone else would do in my situation - watch 2.5 hours of the NBA's All-Star weekend on DVR! For those who aren't pro basketball fans, this event includes competitions of shooting, hamming & mugging for the camera, and dunking (sort of). For the record, I have claimed victory in several basketball skills competitions on lesser stages in my lifetime. Two free throw shooting competitions (Jr. high camp, and an impromptu high school practice competition, where I nailed 62 in a row); a 3-pt shooting competition as a sophomore or junior at a Christ In Youth conference, and a slam dunk contest (seriously) at the freshman orientation all-nighter at Grand Valley's fieldhouse. The dunking victory came on a 9-ft rim, but still, I won a brand new GVSU hat, so that's how you know it was real. I claim and remember these accomplishments both to boost my self esteem (sad, I know), but also to move closer to making my point: I can appreciate these skills competitions, but this year's NBA "jam" was more like a jar of spoiled apricot preserves*.

Nevermind the fact that the 3-pt shooting contest's participants were nobodies who also happened to SUCK AT SHOOTING 3 POINTERS, but the dunk contest fell to the saddest and lowest point in its history. In short, the Sprite All Star Sprite Slam Dunk Fest sponsored by Sprite became a rigged, gimmicky Sprite ad featuring some mediocre dunks. If you saw this event, you might recall the unending delays while defending champ Dwight (rhymes with Sprite) Howard set up false hoops, donned Superman capes (fresh last year, recycled this year), and tried to catch passes from random spectators on his way to a few o.k. power dunks. Then, the NBA's favorite tiny leaper of the decade, Nate Robinson, donned a Sprite-green uniform and shoes, and grabbed a green basketball to leap over the aforementioned Superman for his contest-clinching dunk. Alright - this dunk was okay, unlike his previous round dunk where he stepped off a guy's back. He's short! The whole point is that he can jump super high; so why is he using a step ladder?!

Worse than all the shenanigans were the announcers, including former 3-pt and dunk contest participants, who constantly fawned over the antics and acted like this was some great theater. Reggie Miller, bless his ugly...shooting form, mentioned "kryptonite" and "Lex Luthor" eleventeen-thousand times during Nate Spritenson's green-clad effort. HA HA HA - it's a Superman reference! Look, the great dunk contests of the 80s showed nearly the entire array of what humans can do whilst dunking a ball through a hoop, but they still had to do it, on the spot, cameras rolling, without missing! If you missed you got docked! Now, they allow you not only several full minutes, but 2 extra attempts if you don't get your goofy costume-enhanced dunk down the first 1 or 8 times you try it.

NBA: Get the stars back, drop the ridiculous props and teammate gimmicks, give them 1 attempt per round, 6 or 8 rounds, and put MJ, Dominique, Spud, Clyde the Glide, Kenny "Sky" Walker, Larry Nance, and Dr. J on the judges' table and give us our contest back! Gosh!

*Apricot preserves is the grossest jelly flavor of all time. If you say any other flavor, you are wrong!