Blazers vs Blake Griffin in LA

We didn't come to LA just to see Manny. Our friend Mark hooked us up with the Nike suite to the Clippers season opener vs the Blazers which happened to be Blake Griffin's first NBA game.



Staples is an amazing arena. Its like what they probably hoped the Rose Quarter would turn out to be. Clippers fans suck though and we had to share the suite with a few who quickly backtracked on being fans once they were losing. But they did buy us beer after James won a bet with them. The Clippers still suck but Griffin is going to be a highlight reel every night.

Stalking Manny Pacquiao in Hollywood

My friend James mentioned it would be cool to go to LA and stalk Manny Pacquiao. That was all the convincing I needed so we headed down there. Ok, so we really didn't stalk Manny but we did hang out around his gym to try and snag some autographs.

We got to the Wildcard Boxing Club where he trains and it was a mad house. It happened to be media day for his next fight and there were crews there from HBO, 60 Minutes, and whatever the big TV station in the Philippines is.

We were just about the only people there to get his autograph due to James's shrewd negotiating skills. We didn't actually meet Manny but we met his brother and his hair dresser. We also ate at his favorite Thai restaurant, which is now my favorite Thai restaurant.

Cliff Lee vs. the Yankees

I picked up a cheap ticket for the Yankees vs. Rangers ALCS game 3. It was my first time at the new Yankee Stadium and that place is insane. Its like a really expensive mall where they happen to play baseball. They have pretty much every type of food from a steakhouse to sushi and a surprisingly large selection of beers.


Cliff Lee killed the Yankees and stadium priced beers killed my wallet. Oh well, he'll likely be playing there next year anyways and I got drunk.

Random shit!

Peruvian pan flute band!

Lupe Fiasco doing something!

Free booze tasting!

$160 scotch tastes like $160 scotch.

The City of New York

Since my trip all around the country fell through I decided to head east for a few days. I kinda dropped in on my sister who lives in New York, giving her about a 24 hour notice.

Overrated eateries

You know those microwave White Castle sliders at the grocery store? They taste as good as fresh ones. Lets face it, White Castle sucks.

Katz's Deli is world famous. Its where Harry met Sally! Its also overrated. I'm not saying it was bad, far from it. But $25 for an ok beer and a pretty good Reuben? I've had better.

Chopping down trees

As you probably know by now our trip ended prematurely in Boise, Idaho. Since I couldn't be out on the road, the next best thing to do was go to Eugene for the game against then #9 Stanford. ESPN's College Gameday was in town but I decided against going. Its a surprising amount of work waking up at 4 AM and getting drunk. Plus I needed to save some energy for the game which didn't kick off until 5 PM.

Somebody joked that we had the brownest tailgate at the stadium which I think was actually true. We had 2 Micronesians, 1 Italian, 2 black guys and a lot of Mexicans.


Tailgating.


They played Ducktales!


The view from here is nice.