Guitar Hero

This weekend in LA was great despite sitting in traffic for an hour outside of the Rose Bowl parking lot only to watch a crappy football game v. Notre Dame. Besides that it was a great time hanging with the UCLA lads, cocktailing, and living like a 21 year old. Unfortunately, these old bones can't handle it and I'm sick as a dog.

I'm probably sick due to lack of sleep last weekend and the Playstation Game Guitar Hero is to blame. Never being one for video games, this game may be the best pre-party device since Jenga and King's Cup. I think I'm the last person on Earth to play it so rather than explaining it, I advise you check out this link. Or this. Or this. Its basically guitar karaoke, but maybe 100 times better than that.

Not only is it super fun to play, its great fun to watch and sing along to the great songs that the game has. Francis has three different versions so we had over 60 songs to play. (My fave was Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water...pretty simple on the easy level.)We meant to go out on Friday night, but ended up getting a single drink at a Hollywood bar and returning to the crib to play for another 3 hours.

I highly recommend it.

Lately

The blog has been on a bit of a hiatus lately. This has not really been a conscious decision, just the way things go, I guess. I have also received a number of emails commenting on my lack of posts, which at least made me feel appreciated. It also wasn’t for a lack of material. September was a pretty busy month for me, filled with highs and lows. Among the highs:

• My first ever trip to Washington DC. I was there for four days for work and thought it to be a great city. Beautiful, colonial architecture (I think that characterizes it), a lot of bars, full of young people, and great energy. The monuments were surprisingly moving, particularly the FDR monument. Unlike the other more famous monuments, this is more of a sculpture garden where you walk through a series of sculptures that show images of American life during FDR’s tenure accompanied by one of his quotes. His famous quotes showed an absolute mastery of the English language and I could only think how far this country has fallen, as I tried to think of one single noteworthy quote from our current knucklehead president.
• After DC I headed to NYC for a long weekend and had a great sighting. While hanging with a group of friends at our old local haunt in the East Village, Natalia told me to look across the room and who did I see? The great Jemaine Clement (the bespectacled one above) of Flight of the Conchords. Quite the sighting. I wanted to join him in a rendition of “Hiphopopotamus”, but thought better of it.
• Soccer season has started and I'm playing in a 30 and over league for my second year. Great fun, although I've probably lost about 8 steps since my heyday.
  

Among the lows:

• My Ipod is dead after I dropped it.

• My car is starting to have mechanical problems.

• The Dodgers ruined my chances to enjoy postseason baseball.

• UCLA got hammered to a pathetic Utah team, ruining their chance at relevance…again.

Aside from these highs and lows, I haven’t blogged much because during any free moment I have, I am watching TV, DVDs actually. One of my favorite things about traveling to China is the opportunity to purchase DVDs for a low low low price. This most recent trip I picked up Season One-Three of the HBO series, The Wire. I have been addicted to the show ever since. I just finished Season Two last night, and without hyperbole, this is the best drama I have ever seen on television. Even better than the Sopranos.

The writing is superb. The characters are realistic and interesting, and the show is directed with a gritty presentation of the urban decay in Baltimore, Maryland. Its basically a cop show that goes into wiretapping and other facets of undercover cop work in great detail, but also does a great job of presenting the criminals (drug dealers and traffickers so far) as not just bad guys, but more as well-thought out business people working in a black market sub-economy of their own. My friends on the SFPD have also told me that it is the most realistic cop show of all time. I absolutely endorse it!

This weekend I am taking a break from The Wire and heading down to LA for the long weekend (Christopher Columbus- blah, Columbus Day off- sweet). I can only assume that there will be some blog-worthy events taking place, and am committed to updating here as soon as possible. Unless I get discovered while in Hollywood and end up as a comedy writer, which would probably mean no more blog. I’m not above selling out at this point.

2007 MLB Playoff Prognostications

I wanted to quickly post my picks for the 2007 MLB playoffs. I did this once before in 2004 with shockingly poor results, but here goes nothing:

Colorado v. Philadelphia

The two hottest teams in baseball face off here and it’s a tough choice. I’m going with the Phillies in 4 mostly because they have 3 legitimate superstars in their lineup (Howard, Utley (UCLA), and Rollins). The Rockies have a damn good hitting order as well, but they may be too excited to just be in the playoffs. Also, I watched the play-in game v. San Diego the other night and I realized that the Rockies looked like a college baseball team— all young, white dudes. I almost took them on that premise alone, but since I’ve never been the biggest fan of fraternities, I’ll go with the phighting phillies.

Chicago v. Arizona

I’m still shocked that Arizona is even in the playoffs and even sports the best record in the NL. So weird. I’m taking the Cubbies in five. This time I think the team with the bigger payroll wins. I’m going against my usual approach which would be to take the team with the better bullpen if there’s no other differentiating factor, but I hate the DBacks, so I went that way. Also, Soriano, Ramirez, Lee, Zambrano are used to the big stage. Only Eric Byrnes (Bay Area guy and UCLA) has some prime time experience, and that’s as a studio host.

New York v. Cleveland

I think all things are coming up ARod this season, so I expect him to have a monster postseason resulting in the Yanks paying him $35 million a year for the next ten years, giving him a seat at the United Nations, and ownership rights to all of Staten Island. Jeter is money, their pitchers are rounding into form, and this x-factor pitcher, Joba Chamberlain, may make a big difference. Yankees in 4.

Anaheim v. Boston

These are my two least favorite teams in baseball. I hate Boston fans and I hate that the Angels are taking over as THE SoCal baseball team over my beloved Dodgers. That said, I’m going with the Angels here. I remember talking to a co-worker earlier in the year and looking up and down the Red Sox lineup and thinking, “this ain’t that great.” I trust Manny and Papi in big spots, but guys like Drew, Lugo, Crisp, Varitek, Lowell (despite his great year), Pedroia could be handled. Plus, everyone is expecting Yanks-Red Sox part XVI, so I’ll play the contrarian. Also, the Patriots are looking like the best NFL team of all-time, why should Boston get all the sports mojo in 2007.

I’ll go with Phillies over the Cubs. I went back and forth on this one, but then realized it’s the Cubs, so they’ll lose. Phils in 6.

Yankees over the Angels in 5.

World Series- Yankees over the Phillies in six games.