Tradition

With all the hype about Notre Douche the past few weeks, I thought that a reality check was in order.

"You're going to hear all about the Notre Dame tradition and you know what, it doesn't mean a thing unless Knute Rockne leaps out of the ground and tackles you. Their field has one hundred yards and two goal posts, just like every other football field. When you put those black shoes on tomorrow, and you put on that jersey without your name on the back, and you put on that plain helmet on, that's tradition, PENN STATE'S tradition."

- Joe Paterno (before Penn State's 24-14 victory over Notre Dame in 1982)

Thanks Joe. This football season is going to be amazing.

Tags: Penn State, Notre Lame, & College Football

L.A. BABY!!!

Last weekend I went to the city of Angels for a visit and some Entourage style fun. Here's what happened:


Thursday night my cousin Rob and I arrive after what is possibly the most boring drive ever in the US, outside of driving through Montana. There are 20 mile stretches where you don't see a house or a building, just mountains and power lines and cell phone towers. I'm not kidding about this; there was a three mile long cow farm. All you saw was cows and it smelled something fierce. I was terrified to light up a cigarette for fear that our car would become a 90 MPH fireball going down highway 5. We rented a Buick Lacrosse and let me tell you, that thing gets great mileage. And of course that car being a rental, we beat the hell out of it. Alwasy get insurance on a rental! We arrived at 10:45 PM. We crashed at Rob's friend Hiro's place for that night just off of Wilshire blvd. He has a great condo with multiple balconies. We went to a place called Busby's. Rob used to live in LA for three years before he moved here to San Jose so he knew the spots. Busby's is a place where a lot of UCLA chicks go and now I wish I went there. The women are model hot. There were these two hot chicks, a blonde and a brunette, who were dancing your typical slut dance with each other. They were quite the eye candy. I went to smoke a cigarette. One quick aside; people smoke in bars in LA all the time. All the bars are outdoors in a sense, so there is always a designated smoking room which has a vent. They should do this with bars in Jersey and NY and I wouldn't bitch as much as I do about not being able to smoke in bars. As I was smoking my cigarette, I saw the blonde and brunette talking at a table close to me. The brunette looked sad and looked to be on the verge of tears. Some meathead douchebag approached them to hit on them and the blonde said to him: "Do you mind? Her girlfriend just dumped her!" It's amazing the things you overhear. This brunette was quite a hot lesbian. After the bars, we went back to the condo and drank until we passed out watching Full Metal Jacket.

Friday was a late morning. We had breakfast at a Cafe. The front page of the LA Times was all about anti-semite Mel Gibson. I'm just wondering when South Park will do a parody of this recent Mel debacle. They should have Mel Gibson doing community service for Kyle's family as punishment. The possibilities for Cartman would be funny. At noon we checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Marriot in Beverly Hills. Beverly Hills was disappointing. There is Rodeo drive and very rich places, but the majority of it is run down and middle class. I did see Kobe Bryant on Rodeo drive which was very cool. We relaxed in our hotel most of that day and we went to Santa Monica that night. The bars on Santa Monica are small and packed. We barhopped all night. The last bar we got into turned out to be a NY Yankees bar. WE'RE EVERYWHERE BABY! I was 1:30 and the bouncer wasn't letting anyone in. He was wearing a Yankees shirt and told him to hook up a Jersey Yankee fan. He asked me, "Who's number 51?" I answered, "Bernie Williams, try something hard next time." He let me and Rob right in. The bar was decked out in Yankee banners, pictures, and when they closed, they played New York, New York. After the bar, we walked to a pizza place and devoured a whole pie by ourselves. We decided to walk back to our car because in our barhopping, we acyually traveled a mile or so away from the car. On the way, we saw a bicycle that had been robbed. The chain was still locking the bike to the tree, but the wheels, handlebars, seat, chain, gears, everything was gone except the main frame. Also we found a stuffed donkey on the sidewalk and kicked that around for a few minutes. Drunk people are amused easily. We drove back to Beverly Hills and passed out.

Saturday we decided to start early. I toured UCLA, Beverly Hills, and we hit Hollywood blvd. The stars on the sidewalk are cool, but get boring after a bit. I dropped a huge loogie on Tom Cruise's star and some tourists saw me do it and they walked away looking terrified. There was a guy dressed as a Storm Trooper for apparently no other reason than to be a Storm Trooper. On Hollywood we saw that there was a fan rally for the soccer team Barcelona, who was scheduled to play an exhibition against a Mexican team Guadelajara the next day. We found a perch and decided to see the world famous Ronaldinho. We waited.....and waited.....and waited for 5 hours. First, the emcees had to introduce other celebrities who were there. Newly crowned Miss Universe was there, some puerto rican slut, and all you guys should know by now how I feel about puerto ricans. She was not THAT hot. I saw hotter girls at the UCLA bar my first night there. After Miss Slut Rican Whore left, you'll never believe who else was there....Kobe Bryant again! He was following me. Then Barcelona came out after a LONG delay. The massive crowd cheered, but Ronaldinho came out last by himself and 5 bodyguards. You would have thought the Beatles were coming and it was 1963. After 15 minutes of some stupid interviews they left and I was royally pissed off that I wasted a day in the sun and didn't even get a chance to meet him. It was 7:30 by then. We drove back to the hotel through Bel Air, and let me tell you, THAT IS A SWANK AREA. At a stop light, a BMW stopped next to us and I turned and it was Elizabeth FUCKING TAYLOR! She looked like a mannequin with a pulse. So we got back to hotel room and rested for a while and we ate at a sushi restaurant. I discovered I LOVE sushi. After that we went to pick up a friend of Rob's and we made our way to the Standard. The Standard is a club on top of a hotel in downtown LA. It was featured in an episode of Entourage. We got there by 11, but we never got in. The club was reserved for hotel guests but they were being selective as to who else they were letting in. Needless to say I was royally pissed. We hung out in the lounge for an hour and we decided to go to Santa Monica to a tequila bar. We had some shots and chatted it up with the ladies, or at least atempted to. Remember in my San Francsco blog how I was saying that girls were easy to talk to in that city. Well, that is NOT the case in LA. Everyone is looking for a movie star or director, or screenwriter. We went to one of the very rare diners in LA. Coming from Jersey, you can't swing your dick in a circle without hitting a diner....here the diners are far and require at least a 20 minute drive.

On Sunday, we hit Venice beach. I saw the courts where they filmed the opening scenes of White Men Can't Jump and even shot at a basket....I missed. They don't have a boardwalk there, but the sand runs into grass and them there's the sidewalk. There are TONS of street performers. I stopped to watch this semi-famous guy. He's an Italian and his whole gig is to walk down the sidewalk and follow people an inch behind them and mimic their walk. It sounds dumb, but it is HILARIOUS! People will turn around and see him and get the shit scared out of them. I got some video of it on my phone and put it on my Mac if anyone wants to see it. There was also an organized rally of "anti-meat eaters" as they called themselves. One hippie chick was handing out pamphlets and I grabbed one as laughed out loud in her face. She said she would pray for me, and I told her that maybe she would taste good with some barbeque sauce. Being California, there were tons of anti-war protesters. After hours of soaking up that wonderful culture, we called it quits and drove back to San Jose.

Some final thoughts on Los Angeles: It's huge! The city is so large area wise. That was obvious, but there really are no tall buildings. It's more like a town that just never ends. You have to drive everywhere. Nothing is close by unless it's the bars on Santa Monica and on Hollywood, and even then you still have a five minute drive or a 20 minute walk. There is not one central downtown location....there are 3 of them and they are not close to each other and they are isolated. After we left the Standard, we had to drive 20 minutes to find that tequila bar. The roads go on forever there. I noticed one day we were on Crenshaw blvd. and I made a joke that we didn't bring our vests, and Rob told me that Crenshaw doesn't get bad for another 45 minutes. Wilshire blvd. even goes through South Central. Another thing, every street is either a boulevard or a drive. Very few avenues or streets. Jack in the Box is their McDonald's and it is good food when you're drunk. You can get cheeseburgers or tacos in one place! Every block seems to have a full service car wash. Rob tells me the best place to spot celebrities are at car washes. He says he saw Owen Wilson getting a Hummer cleaned at one once. Palm trees are really on every sidewalk and they are beautiful trees up close. I counted 5 lamborghinis and a bunch of ferrarris that weekend. All in all, it was a fun weekend and I think I would still prefer to live in San Francisco than LA, but I would fly down once a month to party there. Maybe I can get in line early enough and get into the Standard next time.


P.S. I know this blog entry is long Pineapples, so there is no need to tell me why you didn't bother reading it.



Tags: LOS ANGELES

College Football Poll:

1. Ohio State: Although, I more or less agree with this pick... how is a team that loses, basically, its entire defense suppossed to be better than the year before? Troy Smith is "ok" but should be a little more mobile due to the fact that Teddy Gin was a big ass flash in the pan.

2. Texas: The fact that winning in the big twelve is easier than Paris Hilton will allow them to do well this year. Again, the only game on their schedule is against OSU and this year its in Austin.

3. USC: USC will be amazing.... last year. Jarret may get eaten up in the "Reggie Bush's parents just got lucky with that house" campaign as well which would make him inelligible. Can you take a team seriously with a guy named "Booty" as their QB?

4. Notre Dame: 3...2...1.... begin over hyping notre dame....... NOW. The fact that their secondary is horrible, and the fact that all those horrible players are back this year will be a huge thorn in their side. Luckily, Charlie Weiss is an offensive "genius" so they will still be mediocre at best this year. Their first game is against the NFL bound Calvin Johnson IN Atlanta, then they have the spread that PSU will probably run this year, followed by Steve Breaston..... good luck.... prepare to /slitwrists in South Bend.

5. Oklahoma: Yeah, Adrien is back.... so what... top 5? No fucking way!! Their schedule is so shitty that if they even lose one game they should get dropped 10-15 spots.

6. Auburn: Even though they got STOMPED by UW in their bowl game, they are still returning much of their team. They also have some talented freshmen WR's so watch out.

7. West Virginia: WVU will be sick this year. The team that destroyed UGA in the Sugar bowl is basically all back. In the underrated ( yes... I said it) Big East, they are the leading contenders to win their conference and possibly a whole lot more.

8. Florida: If Chris Leak finally steps up, watch out. Urban Meyer needs to stop trying to do all kinds of crazy shit. He has a great team. The formula for shitty teams is this
Crazy shit + shitty team = Suprise Victory
However, with talented players in a much harder conference
Crazy shit + great team = Suprised Team
Go back to the air attack, stop spreading 6 WR's out or whatever BS you are trying to pull, keep Leak in the whole year and the gators will roll.

9. LSU: LSU is like the Tennessee of the 90's. They are always in the top ten but never really go anywhere with it. The SEC west looks to be alot tougher than last year and I don't expect them to go anywhere again this year.

10. F$U: Wow, top 10... hopefully they can keep some of their players out of jail before the season starts. Don't worry, FSU goes no where, everyone knows they can't kick FG's.

11. Miami: Seriously... stop ranking these teams (Florida teams) up so high just so you can have your super ratings games in the first weeks of the season. Moss may not even play. Good luck Larry.

12. Cal: When your biggest fan is the lead singer of counting crows, you don't belong in a top 25 poll.... ever.......... ever

13. Louisville: September "Louisville is the best team in the country ZOMFG they are unstoppable." November "Louisville lost it's 5th straight to Directional Michigan."

14. Georgia: Led by Terry "Three Sticks" UGA is in a stacked conference and will probably struggle. They reloaded at key positions (besides QB where they devolved) so things may work out for them.

15. Michigan: A tough schedule in combination with the fact that the team keeps having to yank Chad Henne out of turkish bath houses before games will hopefully keep Lloyd Carr on the hot seat.

16. Virginia Tech: Crotch stomping Marcus Vick is no longer with the team. They have a decent, often injured backfield, and return much of their defense. However, they are in the GROSSLY overrated ACC and won't make it through without 2-3 losses, not enough to warrant a preseason top 20.

17. Iowa: Picked to win the Big 10 last year, the team is still loaded at all positions. Hopefully they just got a little bit better.

18. Clemson: Tommy Bowden is coaching for his life. We'll see how important it is to him.

19. Penn State: National Champions

20. Oregon: I still don't know how any school with Donald Duck as their mascot can be proud about anything. The Pac- 10 still sucks, maybe they'll break some games off... I don't really care either way.

21. TCU: See above for horned frogs... LT is no longer there... get over it.

22. Nebraska: Bill Callahan is a loser... get over it.

23. Tennessee: Well, look who made it into the top 25 after a HORRIBLE season. Apparently people think that Fulmer got the monkey off his back and can do well in the SEC. Not so fast, they still suck.

24. Alabama: Great defenses RULE the NFL.... college is another story. Gotta be able to muster more than 14 points on offense though. Through the last 6 games of the season, the Tide averaged 9.6 points per game. Good luck with that top 25 ranking if you can't score any points.

25. Texas Tech: Texas Tech scored 58 points in the game.... other team 65... Gotta have at least SOME defense. Can't Alabama and TT trade some players?







Tags: CHANGE TOPIC