Knicks @ Heat

The Heat had the upper hand the entire game. The Knicks fought hard, though. They didn't let the game get totally away from them, and at the end, there WAS a point where it was down to a four-point game. It was incredibly intense - the Knicks had a serious chance at a comeback. But, in the end, the Heat prevailed...there were a few fouls and a three-pointer that sealed the deal, if I remember. The final score (double-checking with ESPN) was 98 - 106 Miami.

Islanders @ Rangers

Rangers win 7-2. Big surprise there, lol.

Actually, the Islanders scored two goals over the Rangers in the first period. For a few minutes there, they hada a 2-1 lead. But the Rangers tied it up by the end of said first period, and just took that puck and ran with it.

Well played, Rangers. Well played.

Christmas B-Ball

Bulls @ Knicks: The Christmas-colored uniforms were a nice touch. Also nice, keeping the Bulls from scoring for something like seven, eight straight minutes. Knicks ended up taking it with a score of 103-95. The Bulls just fell apart there at the end, it seemed.

Incidentally, the Magic used their magic on the Celtics and managed to keep Boston down for a loss. That was a bit surprising and definitely intense. (They won over the Celtics 86-78)

Also, Lakers-Heat -- I haven't watched basketball long, but LeBron James' big thing about choosing his team, which dominated ESPN disproportinately and made it a pain to check my baseball scores last summer, have made it so that I can't stand Miami. They ended up beating the Lakers 96-80.

Boston Celtics @ New York Knicks

That was one hell of an intense game. Apparently a Celtic said it wasn't a rivalry, but that was a daaaaaamn good game. 118-116 with 0.4 seconds left, after the Celtics playing aggressive catchup to the Knicks at every turn, and I believe it was Stoudemire that threw a THREE POINT SHOT...

The ball left his hands after time ran out. He missed it by a fraction of a second.

It was agony, elation, and crushing, crushing agony.

What a good game.

Wow.

First time I really paid attention to a basketball game and wow, what a game.

The Thief and the Cobbler (+ Recobbled)

Honestly, someone had shown me this movie a few years ago, and I didn't mind it. I'm not going to say I LOVED it, because it wasn't anything exceptional. It was very Yellow Submarine-esque, though, which I appreciated. Plus, the Thief's random thoughts were epic and memorable, to me. Though they made the movie kiddie and goofy, I found them hilarous, personally.

The Nostalgia Critic recently reviewed The Thief and the Cobbler and, put simply, he ripped it a few new ones. Honestly, with his criticism of the Thief's thoughts aside, I couldn't argue with him. The musicals bugged the crap out of me, but I'm also just not a musicals person, generally. At the end of his review, he did say that the 'Recobbled' version of the movie, the one which used final film footage, storyboards, and the like to tell the story it was meant to be told by the orignal director, was pretty good.

After that, I decided that it was time to see what this 'Recobbled' version was all about. I found it on YouTube and I have to say...what the Critic said was right. It WAS pretty good. There was significantly less dialogue - neither the thief nor the cobbler spoke for the duration of the movie, with a few exceptions for each (a few for the thief like 'ow' and '*SCREAM*', the Cobbler with one line at the verrry end)...it was mostly everyone else and the animation itself carrying the story. Scenes were explained better (since they were shown in full), ideas were developed more, and there were no musical numbers anywhere. While I'll admit I missed the thief's thoughts, that's all that I could say was missing. It was so, so much better than the finished (Miramax) version. And it was a bit more mature, I'll say. Who knew that the scene where the thief crawls up a toilet (don't ask) was actually him crawling up into a covert sex scene? And that the backscratcher scene would actually serve a purpose (foreshadowing, omg!)? There was just so much that clicked and it was told beautifully with nearly no words. And it had the definite lighthearted, nostalgic feel of a sixties movie (when the movie was started), with the high-pitched chorus of singers poking in every so often.

But yeah, it was REALLY good!