It's Official: Lakers vs Celtics

Lakers Vs. Celtics
Thursday June 5, 2008 at 8:30pm

This will be a good series. Sweet Baby Ray has found his jumper. KG is yelling at himself and banging his chest like King Kong. Pierce is Pierce. And how about the Rondo Floater, that is the pass or the shot. Then there is first time MVP Kobe Bean Bryant and the FIBA allstars. With International connections Pau Gasol, Vujacic, Radmonivic, Ariza (he's gotta be from somewhere), Turiaf, and Mbenga, the Lakers are deeper than....well let's just say they are deep. Throw in Odom (can he guard KG?), Fisher, and Jordan "The Poor Man's Mike Bibby" Farmar and this should be a great series.

Things that could kill the series:
1. The refs. Let's face it, Kobe took 100 ft's vs the Jazz and maybe 20 vs the Spurs. Coincidence...maybe. Throw in the fact that this series has betters going wild from coast to coast, the tradition of the franchises, and the ratings sure to hit the roof, the refs gotta keep it interesting.
2. Kobe. He is either going to be great or god awful. He is a NBA Finals Virgin. Sure he has been there, but never was he driving. He has road shotgun for the first 3 and now he has the shiny new car. His first chance out on his own will he try to be a one-man wrecking crew or play consistently team friendly.
3. Doc Rivers. Enough said.

My prediction.
Lakers 4 Celtics 2.
I really would love to see the Celtics pull this off but in the end I just think LA is too deep. Add their depth with the most potent offensive player in the game (see point 2 above), I don't see how they could blow this one. Pau/Odom can match up with KG, with a little Turiaf for a breather. They have a ton of wing players to throw at Allen and Pierce. Plus Kobe is guaranteed 25 ppg. Don't forget Ray Allen always add a little fire under Kobe with the strange fued that they have. If Ray Allen carries his flame throwing jumper over to the next series and Kobe returns to 2006 status of "I'm not passing the ball to anybody unless 3 people are guarding me mode", then it will be a Celtics runaway. I don't see that happening, so Lakers will take it.

Graduation Day or Halftime Show

Isn't this just a little awkward? I wouldn't have been bold enough to get some chest action with the leader of the free world. Let alone get the heisman?


And the Sammy Sosa walk-off?

Youtube of the Day

To catch a predator - this show is addicting.

Man Allegedly Milks E-trade, Schwab of $50,000 by Collecting Lots of Free 'Micro-Deposits'

Talking about getting over. He must have needed some extra gas money.

A California man has been indicted for an inventive scheme that allegedly siphoned $50,000 from online brokerage houses E-trade and Schwab.com in six months -- a few pennies at a time.

Michael Largent, of Plumas Lake, California, allegedly exploited a loophole in a common procedure both companies follow when a customer links his brokerage account to a bank account for the first time. To verify that the account number and routing information is correct, the brokerages automatically send small "micro-deposits" of between two cents to one dollar to the account, and ask the customer to verify that they've received it.


Michael Larchent allegedly used a script to open 58,000 online brokerage accounts in the names of cartoon characters, and other aliases.
Hank Hill courtesy Fox Broadcasting Largent allegedly used an automated script to open 58,000 online brokerage accounts, linking each of them to a handful of online bank accounts, and accumulating thousands of dollars in micro-deposits.

Largent's script allegedly used fake names, addresses and Social Security numbers for the brokerage accounts. Largent allegedly favored cartoon characters for the names, including Johnny Blaze, King of the Hill patriarch Hank Hill, and Rusty Shackelford. That last name is doubly-fake -- it's the alias commonly used by the paranoid exterminator Dale Gribble on King of the Hill.

The banks involved included Capital One, Metabank, Greendot and Skylight. Largent allegedly cashed out by channeling the money into pre-paid debit cards.

A May 7 Secret Service search warrant affidavit (.pdf) says Largent tried the same thing with Google's Checkout service, accumulating $8,225.29 in eight different bank accounts at Bancorp Bank.

When the bank asked Largent about the thousands of small transfers, he told them that he'd read Google's terms of service, and that it didn't prohibit multiple e-mail addresses and accounts. "He stated he needed the money to pay off debts and stated that this was one way to earn money, by setting up multiple accounts having Google submit the two small deposits."

The Google caper is not charged in the indictment. (.pdf)

According to the government, Largent was undone by the USA Patriot Act's requirement that financial firms verify the identity of their customers. Schwab.com was notified in January that more than 5,000 online accounts had been opened with bogus information. When the Secret Service investigated, they found some 11,385 Schwab accounts were opened under the name "Speed Apex" from the same five IP addresses, all of them tracing back to Largent's internet service from AT&T.

Largent is free on bail. He's charged in federal court in Sacramento with four counts each of computer fraud, wire fraud and mail fraud. He didn't return repeated phone calls Tuesday; Representatives of E-trade, Schwab.com and Google also didn't return phone calls.

NBA Roundup

Celtics vs Pistons
Will the real Celtics please stand up? As you watch the game tonight, a few nuggets to take a look for:

1. Does Maxiell/McDyess win the battle? They have dominated this series, even though Maxiell seems to still be logging scrub minutes. They are killing the Perkins/PJ Brown "Expiring Contract" combo at both ends of the court.
2. Does the Boston Three Party show up? Not that the C's can't win if these three don't play great, but they have to play darn good. Ray Allen's good nowadays is solid defense and 12-16 pts and hitting timely free throws. Pierce looked like he was in a Hannibal Lector suit put on him from Tayshaun Prince. And KG, well he was KG.
3. Where's the bench? Eddie House can't pull a Lindsey Hunter on his best day, but he better start diving for loose balls Rodman style if they expect anything out of him. How big has Stuckey been for Detroit? Wow.

Lakers vs Spurs
It is officially over. No way the Spurs pull a RedSox and come back from 3-1. The Lakers are too big and too fast for a number of teams. The only chance the Lakers don't win the whole thing is if Mr. MVP returns to 2006 form and shoots them out of the game.
The Lakers have the best bench in the league, and more importantly a bench that knows their roles. Farmar, Walton, Vujacic, Turiaf, Ariza. That is tough to beat. Throw in Bynum next year, I would assume that Odom may become expendable.

Youtube of the Day

This is messed up.

Youtube of the Day

Kobe - give it up.