I don’t want to bore you with ancient history, but the rise of the Desipio empire actually began nine years ago when a younger, but no less handsome, Andy Dolan emerged from the primordial ooze of the Internet and started writing columns (some funny, most bad) for an NBA focused Web site called onhoops.com (God rest its soul.)

Why am I boring you with news from the 20th century? Because the NBA regular season ended yesterday and I didn’t even notice. If we didn’t have a damn fine Austrailian NBA expert to post columns and remind me, I’d have no idea.

This is a bad thing. In America we only have five major sports seasons to pay attention to. You have baseball, the NFL, college football, college basketball and the NBA. Golf is only on TV so you can sit in the house on a really hot July Sunday and say, “Wow it looks hot out there” as you watch lumpy men sweat through their plus-fours, and you struggle to get the strength up to turn the thermostat from 72 to 70.

NASCAR doesn’t count, because if you’re going to drive 500 miles at 200 MPH you either need to be fleeing the highway patrol, or at least end up in a different state than from whence you started.

Whence? Never mind, I’m on a roll.

Hockey sucks, and tennis is ridiculous and so we just have five to pay attention to.

And I couldn’t do it. And I used to be a fan!

So I’m recommitting myself to the NBA this playoff season. I’m going to watch. I’m going to pay attention. When Earl Cureton makes a big bucket for the Pistons you’re going to read about it. When Rik Smits is leading the Pacers through the best 3-of-5 first round, I’ll be there! I like the looks of the Reggie Lewis led Celtics, I think Rony Seikaly’s Heat are a tough draw in the first round and Pistol Pete has New Orleans on the right track. Out west, it’s time for Aguirre and Harper and Blackmon to whip Roy Tarpley into shape, I love Alex English’s Nuggets and as always the title goes through the Rambis Lakers.

So this weekend, lets put the TV on CBS, kick back and listen to the great calls from guys like Dick Stockton, Hubie Brown, Billy Cunningham and Tommy Heinsohn. Oh, boy is this great!

You know, really, that was a lot of typing just to drop Earl Cureton’s name. But I think it was worth it.

And, I want to see a promotional poster for Denver’s NBA franchise that says:

“I love Alex English’s Nuggets!” — Andy Dolan, Desipio.com

I guarantee you that Jim Edmonds loves them, too.

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In the early season it’s pretty obvious that the Intrepid Readers of Desipio are going to hang out here during daytime Cubs games. So far the Cubs have had four such weekday games and we GameCasted two of them. The other two games prompted numerous hits to the Daily Doses for that day because you, the intrepid readers, had no other place to post. So, starting today, and continuing every day when I can actually remember to do it, I’ll open a new discussion thread for that day’s game. Our goal, every day will be to end up with more posts than what those pansies on Baseball Primer get for theirs.

I shouldn’t call them pansies, because I like Baseball Primer, but their Game Chatters aren’t as much fun as ours. But then, who has more fun than we do, doing anything?

If you really want to irritate yourself, try the Cubs.com message board or even the well-meaning guys at Cubstalk.com during games. There’s enough paranoia and self-flagellation on those two to fuel a religion.

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Today’s Mark Prior Achilles update is that it is still attached! Yay!

Last night George Ofman was on with North and Buffone and he went into full scale panic mode—again. He still maintains the Cubs and Prior and Nixon and Clinton are all lying about Prior’s injuries. He says he talked to “scouts” who say Prior’s elbow is what’s really hurt. He points to proof that Prior’s elbow is about to fall off as the fact that he has pain in it when he throws. Did George ever stop to wonder is said pain is being caused by the fact that he throws one day, his foot hurts and he can’t throw, then he waits a few days and then throws again? It’s like jogging once a week and wondering why your calfs and thighs are sore every time you do it. Until you get into your routine and actually work out every day, this stuff happens. In the past week or two Prior’s been able to throw regularly and it’s no coincidence to this trained medical professional (or whatever) that his arm’s not sore any more.

So shaddup, Ofman.

This morning, Mike Murphy went off on Dusty for starting Corey Patterson “too late”. He says that Corey struck out four times yesterday because he didn’t know he was going to play until the last second. Honestly, I think Corey struck out four times because he keeps swinging at fastballs he couldn’t hit with a step ladder. But that’s just me.

Ozzie Guillen’s pretty sure that his bullpen is a problem. He knows that Billy Koch is a disaster, Damaso Marte is pitching horribly, Shingo (was his name-o) is bad, Cliff Pollitte is scary and the great and handsome Kelly Wunsch’s arm fell off. So what’s he going to do at the end of games? Who’s he going to close with?

Desipio asked Ozzie and he answered in Spanish, but lucky for you, I had four semesters of Spanish at the Harvard of the Midwest, Northern Illinois University.

Ozzie’s answer: “Los individuos que tenemos son buenas jarras, ellos apenas necesitan echar mejor que tienen. Los pienso voluntad, yo tengo muchos de confianza en Billy Koch y Damaso Marte, they’re que va a ser bueno. El Cliff Politte’s consiguió un gran brazo y el Señor Cero conseguirá algunas salidas grandes para nosotros.”

Desipio’s translation: “We screwed. We have no change. Dees es no fung. No fung at all. Billy Koch sucks and Damaso Marte blows. The Cliff Pollite ees bad and Mister Zero couldn’t get me out. No fung.”

At least that’s what I think he said. I could be wrong.

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By the way, here’s what the actual Spanish quote was when I wrote it in English:
“The guys we have are good pitchers, they just need to pitch better than they have. I think they will, I have a lot of confidence in Billy Koch and Damaso Marte, they’re going to be good. Cliff Politte’s got a great arm and Mister Zero will get some big outs for us.”

And then it translated to this using Babel Fish “Los individuos que tenemos son buenas jarras, ellos apenas necesitan echar mejor que tienen. Los pienso voluntad, yo tengo muchos de confianza en el billy Koch y Damaso Marte, they’re que va a ser bueno. El acantilado Politte’s consiguió un gran brazo y el señor cero conseguirá algunas salidas grandes para nosotros.”

There’s no way that’s even close.

Funny. But not close.

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So apparently, nobody who wrote a game story on Matt Clement’s pitching performance noticed that he couldn’t throw a freakin’ strike yesterday?

Dusty’s tired of curses. Again.

Billy Koch giveth, and Curtis Leskanic giveth right back.

The Bears’ schedule is out and they play on both Halloween night (remember last time…eww) and Thanksgiving. They can ruin two holidays! How nice for them.

Groucho wants the Bulls to start over. Again.

It’s kind of handy to have Todd Walker around.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut for an idiotic take on an innocent comment made by The Franchise.

What a happy surprise for the fans in the centerfield bleachers. They didn’t have to watch Tom Goodwin yesterday, after all.

The Franchise is not worried.

Kobe may be a scumbag, but he’s good at basketball.

The Wizard of Roz wonders if the Cubs might build some bleachers under the existing bleachers at Wrigley. Just as soon as some genious invents translucent ivy.

Ray Allen wants some “amenities” in the Sonics locker room. Is that what they call hookers these days?

Damn, the Cubs could have used Dontrelle’s bat, much less his pitching.

T-minus two months.

America’s finest news source with a bishop who’s tired of the church scene.