Some things seem obvious - like not sticking the knife in the toaster to retrieve the stray piece of bread, or trusting our beagle to behave herself when meat is within jumping reach on the table. The rule to not pour water on your laptop keyboard, and to keep your cell phone out of the sink should be equally as clear, even to those who aren't threatening to be our next generation of intellectual leaders. Yet somehow, I did the unthinkable just over a week ago, when I dropped my BlackBerry, including its holster, fully into the water. Only now is the device coming back to its full senses.

To send one's BlackBerry for an unnecessary swim seems best left to others. "Oh, that will never happen to me," I thought, snickering when a good friend of mine told me he once flushed away his cell phone in a public rest room. "I'd never do that."

Yet, the Friday before last, an inadvertent elbow threw the BlackBerry and holster into a bathroom stall at the office (water fully clean, mind you), with a big splash, sending me quickly reaching into the porcelain pool to get my geeky connection to the outside world. Water poured out of every one of the device's orifices, and the BlackBerry gasped for life, propelling ridiculous strings of text onto the screen, numbers and letters alike, and repeatedly prompted me to "assign a hot key for * on the speed dial".

No buttons I pressed did anything. I couldn't even turn the device off, after wrapping it in tissue paper, and seemingly tilting the BlackBerry at every possible angle to shake what I thought would be the last drops. Then the scroll wheel stopped working, and if you've ever had a BlackBerry, being unable to use the scroll wheel is like driving a car by putting it in neutral and sticking your leg outside of the door to push it along. It can be done, but it's ridiculously hard, and not worth the effort.

A friend of mine suggested a home remedy - pack the offending Blackberry in a sealed sandwich bag full of rice. The rice presumably would suck away all the water vapor from inside the device, and could potentially restore it back to life. For 48 hours last week, I did just that, and when the BlackBerry emerged, I no longer saw the beads of water behind the screen, taunting me, but the scroll wheel remained totally useless. But I still needed the BlackBerry, and took it with me to Tampa last week, though it had been hobbled by its near-drowning experience.

Relearning how to use the BlackBerry without the scrollwheel was frustrating, but it could be done. I could navigate my e-mail by hitting the T/Y key to move up, and the B/N key to move downward. To navigate through menus, I would type the first letter of the selection, and hit it repeatedly if more than one selection started with the same letter. But it was rough. I contemplated taking it into IT, falling to my knees and pleading user error, or making some excuse on how they gave me a bum device and they were no better than the spawn of Satan. But I couldn't do it. I would just plug along, crippled, but not defeated.

For a week, we lived with this. Colleagues mocked me. I growled at this useless electronic appendage attached to my hip, one that might never forgive me for 8 seconds of idiocy. And then, tonight, as if all was forgiven, it came to life again. I twirled the scroll wheel, and the BlackBerry had taken me back, as a lover would following a heated quarrel. All was forgotten, and the device is back to making me happy again. Once again, I can do more than e-mail and dialing memorized phone numbers. I can surf the Internet again, I can jot notes in the notepad, or play embedded games. Though I had threatened the BlackBerry's life by drowning, it came back, and I've learned my lesson - for now, until I really want an upgrade. Then I'll see if its rectangular shape lends well to skipping across the lake.

Listening to ''Steve Lawler'', by Rise 'In (Nalin & Kane Vocal M (Play Count: 4)

When I first joined 3Cube in early 1999, we had big dreams about a universal number that would follow you anywhere, delivering e-mail, phone, faxes, and would never need changing. There would be no such thing as a work phone, house phone, cell phone, or fax number, but instead something more simple and direct. "Call Louis" or "Let me send Louis this e-mail" and it would get to me, period.

While in the last few years, we keep hearing about "convergence" and this move to a single device, it's certainly not gotten perfect. I have a Blackberry from the office that gets my work e-mail and can access the Web in a limited way. But it doesn't get my personal e-mail, it doesn't answer my desk phone at the office, and if on business trips, I have no access to the home line. Seven years later, and we're still doing this?

I tend to think I'm fairly easy to get ahold of. Heck, my e-mail and cell phone number are posted right here on the blog, and the URL is fairly self explanatory. Yet, this week, I bumped into a friend at a trade show whom I hadn't seen for a full year. We hadn't gone out of our way to avoid each other at all, simply gotten busy, and drifted apart to some degree. When I hugged her quickly as a greeting, I could tell something was wrong. She seemed cold and stand-offish. Had I gone too far in expressing familiarity? Was she unhappy? I immediately asked her how she was doing and what was going on, and her answer surprised me.

She said that she thought I was avoiding her, and worried that I had put her on my "s--t" list, for reasons unknown. She said she had sent multiple e-mails and called or sent text messages, and they had gone nowhere. I was befuddled. I couldn't honestly think of more than even one message that had gone unanswered, and jokingly offered to take a lie detector test. Given my phone number and e-mail at the office haven't changed in six years, including the time she and I worked together in 2003, I was lost as to how she could have tried to reach me, and didn't get through. It just didn't make sense.

Luckily, I convinced her I still cared, and apologized profusely for having wronged her, unintentionally. Had I not bumped into her, more than 2,000 miles away from home, we could still be stuck in limbo, and she'd still think I was a complete jerk who discarded her and her husband into the ever-rising pile of former friends. If we had a real universal device that followed me to and fro, she could have broken through and gotten me, and we could have avoided this unnecessary heartache. It's time for somebody to lead. Will it be the Blackberry? Will Google or Apple do it? The world awaits.

Listening to ''Yael'', by Jellisimo (Play Count: 3)

Cross-posted at Sactown Royalty...

With David Stern's recent announcement that the Maloofs had reached out for help to keep the Kings in Sacramento, it signalled a realization by the league that the city is a real boon for the NBA, that the Kings' fan base is one best preserved. This moment of clarity comes years after seeing the Hornets leave Charlotte, comes amid the SuperSonics' talk of leaving Seattle, and with examples throughout professional sports of mid-market teams struggling to stay alive.

In one of the more prescient pieces on Stern's intervention I read, by Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski, it was clear that Sacramento was a beacon of hope for cities not named New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. The Kings have proven that a team can both survive and thrive in a city that doesn't yet sport a 7-figure population. And while Arco Arena isn't centrally located, and doesn't have all the amenities of some of the most modern arenas, Kings fans put butts and cowbells in seats game after game, and have turned the facility into one of the most hostile in all of professional sports.

He writes:

Make no mistake: The biggest issue in the NBA isn't about toy store basketballs and bad behavior technical fouls, but the stability of its most successful franchises. Sacramento has a league-best streak of 317 sellouts at Arco Arena, which has been the loudest arena in the league and the most anchored to its franchise. Pound for pound, cowbell for cowbell, there's a good case to be made for Sacramento as the best market in the NBA.

David Stern and the NBA want to squash any talk of the Kings leaving Sacramento right now. Aside from Las Vegas, and potentially San Jose (not really), there are no great markets for the NBA to move to now. The league has expanded to 30 teams, and as baseball has been so roundly criticized for in years past, you've seen a dilution of talent across the board, somewhat masked over by the influx of foreign players.

Those who have been anchored to the NBA as their major league of choice should take a look over the sports page and see what has happened in Major League Baseball to gain an idea of how complete mismanagement of mid-market franchises can drive a wedge between rich and poor. The Kansas City Royals, Milwaukee Brewers, Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Pittsburgh Pirates start every season off knowing they won't be printing playoff tickets. The Florida Marlins have snaked two championships, only to have the owner gut the team the next year following major losses. The Oakland A's, moneyball aside, are now leaving Oakland and getting as close to the San Jose border as they can without having the Giants file a lawsuit over territorial rights.

As Sacramento Kings fans, we are very lucky to have the league, and the Maloofs, understand what a disaster it would be for the team to leave the city, and despite having recently completed one of the worst-managed campaigns ever, having them signal they want to stay. The NBA needs Sacramento. Don't you think Sacramento needs the NBA?

Listening to ''Sincere (Pulser Mix)'', by Firewall (Play Count: 3)

Last week, Cal's defeat at the hands of the Arizona Wildcats left us extremely frustrated. Having won eight straight contests prior to last week's game, the Cal Bears were rising in the national rankings, and discussions of them being one of the strongest "one-loss teams" to challenge for the national title were growing strong. But with a single 24-20 loss in Tucson, the Bears returned home completely out of the BCS standings.

With that said, the team still remains tied with USC at 6-1 in the Pac-10 conference standings, and with a win tonight, they would be almost guaranteed a spot in the Rose Bowl, barring an unthinkable collapse against conference doormat Stanford in the official "Big Game". Yet, not many are giving Cal a chance to pull it off. The team, ranked #17 in the nation, is going down to Southern California to face the Trojans, ranked #3 overall in the country, where they have won 22 consecutive contests at home, and 18 straight contests in November. Not even my father-in-law, though usually supportive of our Bears, could pick them in his weekly football pool. "They don't have a chance," he told me yesterday. "I'm sorry."

With that said, we're still going to be watching. My wife and I will head to her father's house tonight and see the big game unfold on TV, hoping that Cal will have shaken off last week's horrible outcome, and can ride the strength of Marshawn Lynch, DeSean Jackson and Ryan Longshore to an unexpected victory. We will be yelling at the TV tonight in support of our Bears, and surely, at least at some points, in frustration. We don't despise USC the way we do Stanford, but there's nothing good to say about that school, the University of Spoiled Children, or as my wife says, the University of Second Choice.

While the rest of the nation takes in the Michigan/Ohio State game (OSU is winning 41-31...), we're still focused on the West Coast, on our Bears, and on what could be the opening for Cal to reach the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1959.

If you're near a computer during the game, follow along at "The Band Is Out On The Field".