The Houston Rockets (3-2) are actually off to an impressive start. Tonight they lost a heart-breaker 102-103 to the Lakers in overtime. It stinks that this game was not nationally televised because it was amazing. There has been so much talk of how the Rockets were not going to be nearly as good as they were last year without Yao and T-Mac. This team is good though. Trevor Ariza is playing great, everybody is starting to find their place on the team and there is plenty of room for growth on this team.

This game was tough to swallow, but the toughest thing is that our good team will probably not get any national respect because of the fact that there are no super stars on the roster.

Also, what’s up with booing Artest? Basketball is business. The guy signed with a team with a better chance of winning a championship. If you learned Yao would be out all season, you’d want to go to another team too. The man was a huge part of our team last year and I think many fans just forgot that.

I hate to be cocky but I will anyway because I enjoy it. I went 9-4 this week. I might not be the best sports writer/blogger but I’m having some success picking winners so far. For those following along at home I’m 75-41 this season. That’s around 65 % and that has to be pretty good. The Sports Guy, Bill Simmons, is 71-44-1 so far this season. This guy is smart and I only bring him up because he obviously does this stuff for a living…and I have a better record. I honestly have been avoiding his blog, which is great, just to avoid being persuaded by his picks. And I haven’t been on his blog until today. I mean he picked the Broncos, Bills and Browns this week. All picks I went against. Heck, I don’t even know how the man tied a pick…

Now let me be clear: I’m not better than Bill Simmons, you shouldn’t use this as some sort of reference to bet and since I’m bragging my picks might be bad for the last half of the season.

I’m going to go to sleep. I feel good about my first half picks and the Rockets beat the Jazz tonight. All you fools who thought the Rockets were going to be some chump team can chew on that. G’night.

This Halloween is going down as my favorite Halloween to date. Why you might ask? (‘Might’ being the key words as some are already leaving the website.) Well, for All Hallows Eve this year my beautiful girlfriend got tickets to the Rockets opener. She knows me well. We went to Toyota Center and watched the Rockets give the Portland Trail Blazers what for.

Trevor Ariza looked like an old friend we all know and loved name Tracy McGrady, especially in that number ’1′. He scored a cool 33 points, a career high for Mr. Ariza, and he looked silky smooth on the court. The man might make the Rockets look good.

One of my favorite moments of the night was during warm ups. Alex turned to me and said she liked the Rockets white warm up jerseys. Then the Trail Blazers came out and she said they looked evil. It was good versus evil. The Trail Blazers were playing a team that is barely a shadow of the team that beat them in the playoffs last year.

I was excited to see Chase Budinger, the poster boy for white basketball players. He was alright but they really didn’t need to use him much off the bench.

David Anderson looked awkward. He looked out of place and small. Every move he made looked spastic and weird. It seems like he’s second guessing himself. It really worried me.

I wanted Pops Mensa-Bonsu to play just so I could yell his name.

Chuck “The Chuck Wagon” Hayes had eight points. I’m not sure if that’s a career high…but I think it might be.

Clutch the Bear deserves an award. I’ve always told Alex how great of a Mascot he was and he delivered. We both laughed so hard at all of his stupid antics and he had some halloween costumes. He was Spiderman, A Knight, Superman (on a segway), Batman, a pumpkin, Wonderwoman and Michael Jackson throughout the night.

For the halftime show the Power Dancers, Launch Crew and my personal favorite: the Little Dippers (a group of kids who can dance better than anyone I know) performed Thriller. Which ended with Clutch in the MJ costume dancing like a pro. Seriously he had a smooth moonwalk.

It was the awesomest Halloween I’ve had since I was a kid. And Alex and I got a hot dog, beer and T-shirt as part of the ticket cost. Sweetness. (Although the shirt did say ‘guys night out’ and had beer glasses on them. Alex was none to pleased.) The Rockets look like they could get a playoff spot if they play that well every night. And for the record I might have the most amazing girlfriend ever.

The Houston Rockets introduced a new third, alternative jersey. It is a combination of the throwback championship jerseys and the current jersey. Personally, I never wanted to jerseys to change after the championship years anyway. Maybe it just has to do with those horrible pinstripe jerseys we had to deal with in the late nineties…what where we thinking? Can’t wait to rock the new ones!