I'm more online. That's a thing now.

So I'm on Twitter now. I still have absolutely no interest in creating a Facebook account, so I might as well do this Twitter thing. I found myself following multiple people/organizations on Twitter, so I figured it would be easier to just make an account and follow them so I can track everything at once. This is mostly regarding sports, particularly the Memphis Grizzlies and Tigers. But it also allows me to enter Turbine's Twitter LotRO contests, and gives me a link when commenting on Casual Stroll to Mordor articles, so I made my Twitter account LotRO-centric. My name on there is Maladhros, my main character's name.

So, whatever. Follow me at twitter.com/Maladhros. Or don't. I don't have any followers, which is fine. I just want to reply to people and track tweets. I hate that I just wrote that, but really, you kinda have to these days. I have a basic (meaning slow) data plan for my cell phone now, and that's where Twitter really shines when I'm trying to keep up with what's going on, particularly when I'm at work.

In other me-centric news, I went the whole weekend without logging into LotRO. I wanted a break from the complexity of all those characters with all that stuff to do with all those people in my new kinship, so I re-downloaded Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on Steam and spent my spare weekend time shootin' at crap instead of swingin' axes at crap. Really felt a need to get back to my FPS roots. And I was busy this weekend. Mowed the front yard, did an epic amount of laundry, went shopping like three times. Watched The Matrix. So it was easier to just jump into an FPS and kill dudes for a few minutes. LotRO is fantastic, but you have to set aside more than just a couple minutes here and there to play it.

That's really one of my only major criticisms... Well done, Turbine.

Blake Griffin might be Superman.

I'm not kidding. This is getting ridiculous. I'm not a Clips fan, I mean, who is (really)? I mean, there's this video. There are several dunks in this reel that I have never seen anyone do before, ever. And it's only from the first two months of his career.

Now I want you to watch this one. It's his 47-point on 24-shot humiliation of the admittedly-terrible Pacers.

Total number of dunks: one. On a team rebound broken play (ok, Griffin broke it, he got stripped). Point is, he doesn't have to kill you in the no-charge zone. He can kill you on fade-aways and wild, double-clutch layups, just about anything but three-pointers.

Don't even call him Blake Griffin anymore, you might as well start calling him Clark Kent.

LeBron James says "ME!" really, really loudly.

I hope the Miami Heat miss the playoffs for the next decade or so. And I hope they win an NBA Championship exactly one year after James, Wade, Bosh, and Riley retire.

See, I have nothing against the Heat or their fans. I just really, really hate it when a bunch of players individually decide to join up on some random franchise solely to win a title or three. It's the absolute antithesis of team sports. They don't give a good goddamn about the Miami Heat any more than Bosh gives a shit about Canada. If Memphis had better winter weather and a larger television audience (and tons of salary cap space) they would have signed here. It would have had nothing to do with the Grizzlies, it would only be about where these three egos could go to win themselves some rings. The team doesn't matter.

It's the same reason I was sickened when Malone and Payton took, on their scale, pennies to play with Bryant and O'Neal in Los Angeles a few years ago. They weren't just bandwagon-jumping, they were influencing the balance of the league for self-advancement. Karma caught up with them by pointing a sniper rifle at Malone's knee during the playoffs, and the league was turned right-side up. I was thrilled.

Now it's happening again, only worse. These aren't aging stars trying to add a championship to their already-Hall of Fame legacies. It's three superstars in their prime, aided by a prima donna GM/coach, forming a Velvet Revolver-esque supergroup just to fuck with everyone else in the league. Well, fuck you, too.

Dynasties aren't supposed to be born this way. The New York Yankees way. That's fucked up. It's why everyone is screaming for MLB to do something, anything, to restore parity before baseball turns into the NHL, which, slowly but surely, it is. Dynasties are traditionally born of franchises with passionate fans who build teams the right way for years and years. They recruit players who want to be great and who believe in A. the team, and B. the franchise. Players who want to contribute to the legacy of, say, the Celtics, the 49'ers, the Packers, whoever.

Evidently that's not how it works anymore. Now, we have players who believe most of all in the overwhelming need to advance themselves and their individual agendas. Players who buy hour-long infomercials on ESPN to showcase... what, exactly? Themselves? Yes. Themselves. "Look at me! I'm going to win a championship! What? Oh, in Miami. Why, does that matter?"