Eins, Zwei, Drei

"Now you may try to subtract it
But it just won’t go away
Three times one? What is it?
One, two, three!
And that’s the magic number"
--The Magic Number, De La Soul

That title is just "one, two, three" in German, folks, a language I've used all too often since studying it for seven years in high school and college. Boy, that sure wasn't a waste of time.
The number three is, of course, my favorite number, and I bring it up today for two reasons: it's the third straight day I've blogged before our morning meeting, and it's the third straight day of post-basketball physical pain. Interestingly enough, the two are related, and here's how. Because of the pain, I'm exercising less (I can't run on the treadmill and there are many liftings that I can't do without hurting, so there's only a few things I'm doing), meaning I get out of the gym and into work earlier, meaning there's more time before our morning meeting to write. So there's that (I'm digging that phrase too, sorry to bite it). I think I'm like Sesame Street this morning: today's blog is brought to you by the number three...
- The jersey number of the greatest shooter in the history of college basketball, Mr. Alex Dillard. Had more range than anyone I've ever seen, bombing from upwards of 30 feet with ease, and had no conscience, which is a must for a shooter. He was buried on the bench at Arkansas behind Corey Beck, Clint McDaniel, Scotty Thurman, Davor Rimac, Roger Crawford & Co., but when he got time, man, could he light it up. The game I'll never forget was one that John May had taped, and I got to watch a few days later, in which Big Al played just 25 minutes and scored 39 points, hitting 12-of-22 three-pointers on the night. That's sick. In another game, he hit for 16 in the last three minutes of the first half. In his two-year career as a Razorback, Dillard hit 185 field goals. 138 of them were threes. My hero.
- The jersey number of me, circa 1995. I was #14 as a sophomore and junior, based largely on the influence of one Jason Berns, but we were ordering new uniforms senior year and Coach asked me which one I wanted. I asked whether or not it had to be an existing number (to my knowledge, I hadn't seen a #3 in a Spartan uniform before), and strictly because of the Al Dillard factor, I requested--and received--#3. Good call on my part, I must say.
- The number of Riddell boys in the world--well, there are probably more Riddell boys in the world than three, but only three that really matter to anyone reading this right now. Most of the time it's really only two, but the black sheep occasionally returns from the great north to re-enter his name in the hat and become significant again. That's a joke. This is far and away the most significant three in my life, without a doubt.
- The number of consecutive titles the Bulls (MJ series 1), Bulls (MJ series 2) and Lakers (Kobe/Shaq) won during my high school, college and post-college years, respectively. It's a nice round number to win, and evidently all parties involved got bored after the third one, or there would have been more to come. Three is also the number of titles the Showtime Lakers won while I was cognizant of their existence ('85, '87, '88), because the '80 and '82 championships were won before I knew what a basketball was.
- The number of the month in which my father (your father) and the younger suss were born, in 1948 and 1981, respectively. A belated happy birthday to Suss (and to Eric Irvine, and to Coach Hofman, I think).
- The number of times Christopher Walken (aka Bruce Dickenson) emerges from the sound booth to request more cowbell from Gene and the guys in Blue Oyster Cult. Technically, he talks about it four times, because the last request is two-fold ("I gotta have more cowbell, baby!" then the "I've got a fever..." line), but three times works for me.
- The number of years (plus a few months) I got to live in "the back house," which could have been the greatest thing in the history of mankind. Living with the quality guys that stayed there (Darter, Frandsen, Mattesich, Bautista, DiGuilio, Djang, Langford-for a summer, Drenckpohl-also for a summer, Leonhardt-I hardly knew ye, Bower and Braun) was a blessing in and of itself, but the financial situation made it that much better. What a generous family, those Shuppers.
- The number of good sports teams in Southern California. Not the Lakers or Clippers, or the locked-out Kings or Ducks. No professional football to speak of, so what do we have? Dodgers (technically, because they did make the playoffs last year, even though the Pads will finally overtake them this time around), Angels and USC football. That's it. So sad.
- The number of networks showing vastly inferior programming on Wednesday nights at 9 p.m. "King of Queens" and "Yes, Dear?" "Alias?" "American Idol" and "Simple Life 2:Interns?" Nope, it's "The West Wing," still the smartest show out there, even in spite of Sorkin's departure. Last week's fight between Josh and Toby sets the stage for a great one tonight.
I'm sure there's more, but I've got a meeting to get to.
And oh by the way, I haven't heard too many bad "literally" uses in recent times, but this morning, Colin Cowherd got me in double-fashion. He was talking about this NFL body-mass index thing, and here's his gem: "On paper, I'm literally Randy Moss." First of all, "on paper" is a figurative expression, so you can't follow it up with the word literally. Second of all, not only are you not Randy Moss, you're not even close. It's not like the "I'm Tiger Woods" commercials or the epic "I'm Spartacus" scene (now stolen for a Pepsi ad), because those are figurative and symbolic, respectively. Cowherd is neither figuratively nor symbolically Randy Moss, so this thing upset me quite a bit this morning. I'm so lame. Peace.