Congratulations for beating the Orlando Magic, a team that was one game away from losing to the KG-less Boston Celtics. Sure I may offer a biased opinion in this post, but if you ask any person in their right mind (one with basketball knowledge) who would have advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals if Kevin Garnett was on the floor, they’d most definitely say “Celts in 4″. Not only that, but if the Magic were good enough to beat the Cavaliers in 6 games, then the Celtics would’ve swept their asses too.

Which brings us back to the series in question, and the team in question: the Los Angeles Lakers.

We all know what happened in last years NBA finals. The Celtics kept it exciting for a couple of games, but then decided to really play and absolutely spanked the Lakers in the rest of the series. What was so different about either team this season?

The Celtics lost a key player off the bench in James Posey, and lacked Kevin Garnett and Leon Powe in the playoffs. The Lakers? They acquired Adam Morrison and remained the same in all the important roles.

But let’s take a look deeper: Rajon Rondo improved on last year’s playoffs by averaging a triple-double in the 2009 playoffs. Mix that in with the improved play of Kendrick Perkins and the consistent play of the Big Three and that spells out another Lakers stomp in the Finals.

Ask anyone. If the Celtics were healthy, the Lakers wouldn’t have stood a chance.

So congrats to them, this one was a gift.

Boston – A 30-year-old Boston woman was hospitalized June 5 and results confirming that she had the swine flu virus came back on June 10, the Boston Public Health Commission said. The woman died Sunday.

Just when it was all starting to die down and people stopped freaking out, someone dies from swine flu.

I personally had forgot all about it and until now it had been in the back-burner, but now this. It’s terrible that someone with confirmed swine flu died, but I’m really hoping that it turns out she died from something other than swine flu.

I’m sick and tired of the nationwide panic.

In case anyone hasn’t heard, or doesn’t follow hockey, the Pittsburgh Penguins did infact defeat the Detroit Red Wings two nights ago to win Lord Stanley’s Cup. If you did some brief searching (the post prior to this one) you could see that I predicted this victory.

The score was 2-1 with a little under 2 minutes left and the Red Wings pulled their goalie. This means that they had one extra attacker, but no one defending their goal, which would mean that if the Penguins got the puck past neutral ice it was an almost guaranteed goal. The point of me saying that? If they had just scored one more goal it would have made my prediction perfect.

Oh well, I can’t change it. I guess I shouldn’t be greedy and should just be happy I predicted the win correctly. I plan on keeping track of all of my win predictions on this blog until the end of time.

Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Penguins

JP’s Pick: The Pittsburgh Penguins

Why the Pens? I don’t know.

Both teams have proven through and through that they belong in this series, and both have proved that Game 7 is the only place where it should be decided. It’s a toss-up in my opinion, and that’s why I pick the Penguins – because I’d rather see them win.

Sure it’s cool to see a team win back to back championships, but Tom Fitzgerald is an assistant coach for the Pens and I love that guy. Plus Sid the Kid has gotta start his run of championships someday, might as well start it sooner than later.

Final score: Penguins 3, Red Wings 1

Not only am I glad as fuck that Blink-182 is back together, it has made me realize once again that Travis Barker is an unbelievable drummer and he can take songs and make them more awesome than they already are – even take songs that totally suck and make them rule.

Example Number 1: Crank That Soulja Boy
Now I liked this song when it came out and everyone else liked it too, and it nothing really crossed my mind where I thought that this song could really be improved upon (besides the clearly deep and powerful lyrics). Man was I wrong.

Add Travis Barker and now I want to go play football and destroy everything in my path.

Example Number 2: Eminem – 3AM
I’ve heard a lot of good things about Relapse and I don’t doubt that this song was good before Travis Barker carefully crafted it into the beast that it is now, but I don’t think I ever want to hear the original version of this song because I think I’d be incredibly disappointed.

Now maybe I’m being biased because Blink-182 is one of my favorite bands of all-time, but I think it’s more likely that I’m completely right – Travis Barker is a wizard with a drum set and can make any song ten times better with a cymbal and a snare.

Disagree? Then tell me why.

I shit you not, Jimmy Fallon not only played Betty White in beer pong, he cheated to win.

Just moments ago on Late Night, Jimmy Fallon got his first ever beiruit victory against Betty White by hitting 2 cups. So not only did Jimmy Fallon play an old woman, he gave her a big “fuck you” by taking advantage of her naivety and novice knowledge of the game and conned her into thinking he beat her.

I’ll tell you what, from watching that I can guarantee I could take Jimmy Fallon down – lefty with a ten-foot handicap.

It’s almost as bad as the refs cheating for the Lakers tonight.

Crossing my fingers.

So by now I’m sure you’ve heard of the Air France flight that lost all 228 passengers after it plummeted into the Atlantic Ocean. Well an Italian woman was lucky enough to miss the flight and inadvertently save her own life.

That woman has died in a car crash just days later.

That’s some Final Destination shit right there.

I forgot all about this video. It’s an old one but if you’ve never seen it before, you gotta watch it. Hell, even if you have seen it before you have to watch it again. This shit is the real deal.

Those buffalo totally showed the lions what was up. Don’t mess with the herd.

Yes, you heard right, Yaz will once again be in a Red Sox uniform (or at least a minor league affiliate’s). It’s amazing to think that a 69 year old man would even think about making a comeback like this, the last time he played big league ball was in ‘83.

Alright so it isn’t Carl that the Sox are taking a gamble on, it’s his grandson Michael Yastrzemski. The Red Sox drafted him in the 36th round of this year’s draft out of St. John’s High School in Danvers, MA.

They have that same 'deadly hitter' stare.

Of course it’ll be a long while before we ever see this kid, but who knows – one day he might be a Sox star.

Or maybe we’ll trade him to the Yankees for fun.