Again?

"But to me it seems quite clear
that it's all just a little bit of history repeating"
--History Repeating, Miss Shirley Bassey

Wasn't that a 'Crombie song at some point? How great were some of those soundtracks, by the way? The only bummer about great 'Crombie music was that I got sick of songs before they even got on the radio, and then when they're on the radio all the time, I couldn't stand them anymore. Another 'Crombie song reference in a minute, but first I must explain the lyrical reference.
June 6, 2001. The heavily-favored Lakers come into Staples Center for Game 1 of the NBA Finals against the Larry Brown-coached Philadelphia 76ers. Allen Iverson goes off (48 points), the Lakers (other than Shaq--44, 20 and 5--wow) struggle a bit but manage to force overtime, where Philly somehow ends up on top and emerges with a 107-101 victory.
June 6, 2004. The heavily-favored Lakers come into Staples Center for Game 1 of the NBA Finals against the Larry Brown-coached Detroit Pistons. Chauncey Billups goes off (22 points), the Lakers (other than Shaq--34 and 11) struggle mightily and Detroit emerges with an 87-75 victory.
Aargh.
Let's hope the rest of history repeats itself as well, since the Lakers obviously ended up winning that 2001 series, rebounding to post four straight W's en route to title number two. It's definitely not a sure thing, however, with the kind of defense those Pistons were playing. Getting the ball inside to Shaq seemed to work every single time (he was 13-16 from the floor and 8-12 from the line), but somehow that didn't seem to be a priority for most of the game. They were content to get off-the-dribble jumpers from Kobe, Fish and Rush, and Mailman couldn't knock down an open j to save his life.
Yet again, they toy with my emotions so much, it's painful. At least there was very little time to stew in frustration before the Sopranos started. Good finish, Johnny Sack going down. It sucks that we have to wait like a year, but that's how television goes. Only have to wait one more day, however, for the next episode of the Best Damn Sports Show Period, baby. Yeah.
Okay, so Abercrombie music reference number two.
May 31, 1999. Scott and Side hard at work at the Glendale store, with perhaps our favorite song of the duration of our employment playing (possible exception: that Collective Soul song, "na-na-na-na government"). That's right, you've got your name in lights, you're a superstar.
So Side makes an off-hand comment to these girls that occasionally us employees like to get up on the counters and have Dance Party USA at random times, so they should come back and check it out sometime. Of course, they decide to come back like an hour later and take Side up on his offer. So he comes to the back a little nonplussed (btw, Junior Soprano used this word tonight) and not sure how to go about making this happen. Jordan Eiler, Brandon Goode and myself leap to his aid, genuinely excited about putting on a show for these chicks (I hope they were hot, I really don't recall). Feeling like it needed to be worse than it already was, we all put on girls' clothes (why was this a good idea?) and got up there on our counter--store still open and full of customers, by the way--to dance the night away.
It was obviously a good time for my mom to come into the store and deliver some birthday cookies. She probably went to counseling for a while after seeing that image of her son--might have been a little disturbing. Hopefully the girls went home entertained though, that's really what it's all about. I'm guessing that wouldn't have happened at a store not managed by Stephanie Fig, but maybe that's just me. I should have worked there longer, if only to have more stories like that to tell.
Side mentioned something in the Ramblings about not being sure if a girl's hot or not (Uma Thurman and somebody else, I don't remember). Definitely hate that. Met a girl at a party Friday night, pretty sure she was hot. She came down to the beach today, went to the AVP with me and a couple other people--didn't think she was so hot today. Then she came over for the second half of the Lake Show and for Sopranos, and dang it, she was hot again. Why do things work that way?
Game two of our Westwood Recreation basketball league tomorrow night, I'm already getting excited. We won our first with a Pistons-esque defensive philosophy and time management skills and now we'll have a deeper bench this time around. Full game report coming, maybe not tomorrow night (thank you so much, Outlook sports), but soon enough. Peace.