Magical Britain 2010:

Hey everybody, I know that I haven’t done a very good job of keeping my blog updated. Like all of us, I have been too busy to keep up to date.

Anyways, I am writing these next few entries to recount my 3 week trip to the United Kingdom. I hope you all enjoy the coming blogs that I hope should be completed shortly.

Sunday 16/5/10- Tuesday 18/5/10

Cities/sites visited: Los Angeles, Heathrow Airport, Edinburgh (Scotland)

After a hectic morning of packing I was finally ready to catch my flight for London. We were all excited to start our summer off right with this amazing trip; it was going to be a great trip, what could go wrong? We got through security without a hitch and were on the runway about to take off for our flight for London when our flight was cancelled due to the ash cloud from the volcano in Iceland. We were then held on the plane for over an hour while Air New Zealand made final arrangements for hotels that night and our flight the next day. The entire process was hellacious, as we were not able to get into our hotel room until nearly 10 PM. It was an exhausting and disappointing day, and sleep came very easy for all of us.

The next morning, Monday, we were all ready to leave for LAX by 9:30, were on the plane by noon, and in the air by 1. On the flight we were served two different meals and had hundreds of hours of personal entertainment at our fingers. The flight took about 10 hours and we were in London before we knew it.

We landed in Heathrow at 6:30 AM Tuesday morning, and that was an extremely weird experienced. Monday was completely lost to us as it was spent over the Atlantic Ocean. After about two hours we were able to solidify new arrangements for our flight to Edinburgh that we missed the previous day. Our new flight took off for Edinburgh at 4:45 PM, which meant a 10 hour layover in Heathrow…a miserable experience…

We landed in Edinburgh and were out of the airport and on our coach by 7. The weather that first day in Edinburgh was perfect. It was warm, the sun was out, and it was green for as far as the eye could see. Our first stop was the hostel where we were able to unpack and rewind. The girls were very happy that we were at the hostel as they were able to take a shower for the first time in two days.

Once they were ready, it was time to meet with our teachers. We were given a map of the city and tips on how to “blend in.” My first meal was at a pub called The Conan Doyle, the food was generic for pub food, but the beer was pretty good, Belhaven Best.

After dinner, we decided to find another bar to find some more drinks. So we crossed the street and went to a joint called The Street. It was a very odd place with a disco ball and blaring techno. We sat down for a drink, and started taking in the scenery. It took the girls about 15 minutes to find out that we were at a gay bar, and that everybody was staring at me…Needless to say we left the bar shortly after and decided to try and find another bar.

An important part of pub culture is that they all close at 11 every night. We were all disappointed by this, but every once in a while we were able to find a bar that was licensed after 11. Fortunately, we found this place right up the street from the hostel called Walkabout. Of all the places we found, it was an Australian bar in Scotland…

It was a very cool place with a very cool bartender who gave us some Australian beers for only £1.50 and talked with us for a while about living in California. It was a fun time, but we were all ready for bed soon after we left the bar. The next day was going to be our first whole day in Edinburgh.

I hope to have the next few days covered and posted shortly.

Until next time!

A Long Time Coming…

September 26 to December 25. I am sorry for the long absence; school took all of my free time. Well that, and video games of course…

 

Anyways, Merry Christmas everybody. I hope you all enjoyed your holiday, and that you got all that you wanted.

Personally my Christmas wishes were fulfilled. I just finished installing Windows 7, as well as a pea coat among other clothes. So, all in all, it was a good day for me. The rest of my holiday has not been so grand. I spent last weekend in Seattle with my family for the funeral of my grandmother, so I am sure you can all imagine that this holiday season has been somber.

In other news though, there are many issues worth discussing that I have not been able to talk about.

1. Tiger Woods: We cannot be that surprised that this happened can we?
   

   He's a billionaire that can get whatever he wants. I'm not excusing his actions, but as some point we just have to let him live his life. I have no doubt that he will regain his status as the world's greatest golfer.
   

2. Hulu.com is amazing.
   

   I have been spending a lot of time on the site recently watching many shows. I love this website. I spent close to 10 hours on hulu watching Parks and Rec, Arrested Development, The League and Family Guy. Though I watch Family Guy regularly, I have never sat down to watch Parks and Rec or Arrested Development. These shows, by the way, are hilarious. It is worth checking out.
   

   
    

   The League is a new show that I got introduced to by my friend Ryan. He found it on FX, and I kept up with the first season on hulu. The League is a show about five high school buddies who are in a fantasy football league. This show is amazing. I can honestly say that it is the first show that I ever watched a whole season of. This may be weird, but as a kid I never devoted a lot of time to watching tv series, instead I watched cartoons, the news, and ESPN. These were shows that did not have long drawn out stories, but instead allowed me to jump in and watch at any time. In case you haven't figured out, I enjoy things that do not require a lot of attention. You can look at the up keep of my blog for a prime example.
   

3. Bowl season is here!
   

   The next 7 days are a football fan's paradise. There are going to be something like 30 games played between tomorrow (12/26) and January 7^th. And I am here to inform you on which games to watch and which to avoid, consider it my Christmas gift to you! Hi-lighting these games are, of course, the BCS games. Those include the Rose Bowl between Oregon and Ohio St. The Fiesta Bowl, which is the only other game featuring two unbeaten squads in TCU and Boise St. The Orange Bowl which has Big Ten power Iowa and ACC Champion Georgia Tech. The Sugar Bowl where you can see Tim Tebow's last game as a quarterback as Florida faces off against Cincinnati. Finally, there is the BCS Championship game between #1 Alabama (13-0) and #2 Texas (13-0). Out of these five games there look to be two games that are not worth watching (The Sugar and Orange Bowls).
   

   
    

   Here are my five most anticipated bowl games this year
   

   1. The Fiesta Bowl (#4 TCU vs. #6 Boise St.) January 4^th: as stated earlier it is the only other bowl game to feature two undefeated teams. It will be exciting to watch as we can see which perennial mid-major power is the best as Boise St. looks to avenge its only loss of the last two years.
      
   2. The National Championship Game (#1 Alabama vs. #2 Texas) January 7^th: The championship game wouldn't be a championship game if it didn't feature the two best teams in the country. Unfortunately, due to computers and "old" money, we do not have that. This, is the next best thing though, as the teams who have sat at 1^st and 2^nd in the polls all year square off for the Championship.
      
   3. Champs Sports Bowl (#15 Miami vs. #25 Wisconsin) December 29^th: This game should be good as two programs steeped in tradition meet in Florida for a chance at post-season glory. Look for Miami QB Jacory Harris to shine as the Big 10 again looks to be outmatched on the national stage.
      
   4. Holiday Bowl (#20 Arizona vs. #22 Nebraska) December 30^th: This game features Arizona's high octane passing offense against the greatest defensive force in the country. Defensive Tackle Ndamukong Suh (yes that is a real name, and yes that is his name) is the best defensive player in college football in a while finishing 4^th in the Heisman voting. He nearly single handedly beat Texas a few weeks ago; look for him to do more of the same in Sand Diego.
      
   5. The Rose Bowl (#7 Oregon vs. #8 Ohio St.) January 1^st: There is reason why the game is called the Grand-Daddy of Them All. Pasadena rarely disappoints us as the pageantry of the event will be proudly put on display all afternoon. Oregon looks to be the favorite in this game as Ohio St. is playing short-handed after a few players were suspended.
      
4. The Dodgers
   

   They are at it again. I am becoming more and more convinced that the baseball gods hate me, and that my beloved franchise is slowly turning into the Red Sox. It has been 20 years since the Dodgers last won the World Series, and though they have had very good seasons the last two years, it all looks to be self-destructing right before our very eyes. A divorce! Are you kidding me!? This once proud franchise is quickly becoming the laughing stock in all of baseball, hell maybe even in all of sports. Consider that, the Raiders seem to be in better hands right now with Al Davis, than the Dodgers do. We had a promising nucleus of players, including Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, James Loney, Russell Martin, Clayton Kershaw, and Chad Billingsly. Now, it looks like those will be the only players wearing a Dodgers uniform in 2010, as the front office will not have enough room in the budget for more players. Thus, leaving me to wait another 20 years for my beloved Bums to win the pennant. I am a hopeless romantic, which is why I love baseball, so I guess I have signed up for this, but this is nuts. Somebody must be looking down laughing at me right now as I write this.
   

   
    

    Oh, well. This has been 1200 words of goodness. I hope it went down smooth and was refreshing for you all. I hope to update this soon, which shouldn't be a problem considering I have nothing to do over the next month other than to watch tv, drink, and spend time with family.

Until next time,

This is my view from the cheap seats.

Viral Internet Clips

As many of you know the internet can be a dangerous place. Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and even this blog manage to make hours go by as quickly as minutes, creating a death trap for those of us try and do homework. So with that I have decided to make a quick list of viral internet clips that are some of my favorites.

Starbucks "Eye of the Tiger"



A classic commercial I think, and it is definitely one of my favorites.

Those of you reader who have heard me talk about www.FunnyOrDie.com will be able to guess some of the following videos. They are all well done, clever and funny, of course.

Green Team

Green Team from Will Ferrell

Bat Fight, a game of honor and diplomacy

BAT FIGHT with Will Ferrell from Will Ferrell

High Five Hollywood

HIGH-FIVE HOLLYWOOD! from Will Ferrell

Sean Connery and Celebrity

SNL Celebrity Jeopardy 9-29-01 - watch more funny videos

This is a short list of some of my favorite internet clips.

Other websites and comedians that you should Google or visit

Nick Thune
He had a show here at CLU my freshman year. I thought he was pretty good, and he is in the movie Extract with Mila Kunis.

John Lajoie
Fairly funny guy, raps about being normal, and sings about love. He is on YouTube and FunnyOrDie

A few clever web series

www.clarkandmichael.com

www.backontopps.com


Those are a few of my favorites. I hope you enjoy them. It has been tough for me to keep updating my blog regularly, but I will make a better effort to continue to provide all of you an excuse to not do what you originally got on your computer for. After all, what fun is the internet if you cannot get distracted?

Until next time, this is my view from the cheap seats.

Labor Day Weekend

Phew one week of classes done, 14 to go. Ok ok, 3 days of classes, but its all the same right? I am mostly moved into my room now so now I have to just get used to my daily schedule, which should not take too long to do.

This last week was great for one reason though, college football has officially started. And though many of my Top 25 teams lost this weekend there should not be too many changes made to it this week.

The ACC is a very weak conference. They did not look any good in any game this weekend, winning only 1 game against a FBS football team. Though it is the league with the most parody, there is no one team that strikes fear into anybody. Tyrod Taylor is not the answer folks.

I did learn a very good lesson on Saturday while at the USC San Jose St. football game. Ungodly heat + too many beers too fast = Extreme dehydration. I should have learned this after last year's USC Virginia football game in Charlotte, Virginia, only there was an added element to that equation, humidity. That made for an unbearable experience, where nearly half of the stadium suffered from heat stroke and dehydration, I wish I was making this up, but it was really bad.

Anyways the game was a Grade A beat down as USC won 56-3. There really is not much to say about this game, other than that 18 year old true freshman Matt Barkley looked really solid in his USC debut, though he does face a very tough Ohio St. team in Columbus, Ohio next week, this is a game that I, and most of the rest of America is very excited to see.

Who did not see the Oregon Boise St. game? LeGarrette Blount's football career may be over, but he does seem to have a promising career as a boxer. It is too bad that such a competitive game is remembered for this incident, but holy cow, what a shot!

There were lots of great games this weekend, including two near upsets of Big 10 schools Iowa,



and Ohio St.

In non football news, today was the first wiffle ball game of the school year. Though I was losing through 4 1/2 innings it was not finished as we spent close to thirty minutes fine tuning the rules and other issues that may arise with our games. Now that we got most of the issues ironed out, games will occur regularly, and a name for the field will be coming shortly.

Also I leave in 10 days for North Carolina. My cousin is getting married next Friday so it will be fun to see the family and miss a few days of school.

Other fun news: since last "blogging" (that is a stupid word by the way, but it is a rant for another time) I went to the Upright Citizens Brigade. A cheap and funny experience, something extremely rare in LA. We saw Kevin Nealon, and he did about 15 minutes of stand up that night, which was very cool to see up close.

Is it me or is Carrot Top unnecessarily yoked? I just saw him in a commercial and I think that I will have night mares for a while, so naturally I thought that I would share the experience with you. You can thank me later.

If you are able to check out the ESPN the Magazine that is out now (the NFL Preview issue). There were two really interesting articles in it about Bill Belichick and another about Rob Thomas. Unfortunately I cannot find the article online, this was about the best I can do.

Last thing; for those of you who like the paranormal and AM radio check out this show. For those of you in the LA area (Thousand Oaks included) it is on 640 AM from 10 PM to 5 AM.

Ok that should be it for now, I will post a new top 25 and a quick NFL preview later this week. Leave comments with your thoughts, or if there are any other topics you think I should cover...

This is my view from the cheap seats.

Troy

College Football 2009

As I have said in my first blog I am a huge college football fan. One of the best things about being a college football fan is that everybody has an opinion, no matter how stupid an uninformed it may be.

So as any passionate fan I am here to express my ideas the best way i know how, MY BLOG. Here I will let you know who I think will win each conference, and reveal my top 25.

BCS Conferences

ACC Atlantic- Florida St.

ACC Coastal- Virginia Tech

ACC Overall- Virginia Tech (most talented team in most mediocre conference)

Big 12 North- Nebraska

Big 12 South- Oklahoma

Big 12 Overall- Oklahoma (this time they earn it)

Big 10- Penn St. (most talented team in underwhelming conference)

Big East- Pittsburgh (very surprising that this is still a BCS Conference)

SEC East- Florida (like it was even a question)

SEC West- LSU (Alabama and Ole Miss are pretenders)

SEC Overall- Florida (again, was this even necessary)

Pac 10- USC (7x defending champion)

Top 25

1 Florida

2 Oklahoma

3 USC

4 Texas

5 Penn St.

6 LSU

7 Cal

8 Alabama

9 Virginia Tech

10 Boise St.

11 Georgia

12 Ohio St.

13 Mississippi

14 Oklahoma St.

15 TCU

16 Oregon

17 BYU

18 Georgia Tech

19 Iowa

20 Illinois

21 Pitt

22 Utah

23 Florida St.

24 Oregon St.

25 Nevada

Also keep an eye out for Arizona, Baylor, Clemson, Miami, USF, and West Virginia as they all could surprise this year.

These are my thoughts on the season, what do you think?

Other tidbits

Michael Vick is set to make his debut for the Eagles today. Should be interesting to see how he is received and how the Eagles offense runs with him in the Wild Cat formation.

Also true freshman Matt Barkley was named USC's starting QB today. This could be the beginning of an amazing career for the 18 year old kid from Mater Dei High School.

Sad story about how a local kid made some bad choices and now faces a long time behind bars...

The Dodgers took 2 of 3 from Colorado, extending their lead to 4 games in the NL West. New pitcher Padilla did enough, and the bull pen held on for the victory. Still a long road ahead for the Dodgers and the offense needs to pick it up right away and start scoring.

This is my view from the Cheap Seats for now...

Another Day Another Blog

I have only one week until I move in to school.....luuuuucky me I realize.

Anyways there were a few things of not that have happened since I last posted on here.

1) I have not won at Wiffle Ball, 4 game losing streaks are never fun, and this must be changed.

2) I was on ESPN last Sunday at the LLWS West Regional Final, it was really cool to see my mom, Kyra, and myself in HD on the channel I watch way too much.

3) I went to the Thursday and Friday games of the Dodgers Cubs series, this will be touched on later on in this post.

4) Heat SF Michael Beasley checked into rehab today. Surprising to an extent, but we could all tell that something was wrong with him, atleast a little bit right?

5) Brett Favre is back! Vikings Super Bowl contenders? Maybe, nobody else in the NFC looks very convincing. Philadelpia maybe, especially with Michael Vick, but how will the respond to the tragic loss of defensive coordinator Jim Johnson.

First off it is a fantastic season right now in late August. Football season is RIGHT around the corner, which is always good. Pennant races are heating up, unfortunately the Dodgers are struggling a little bit, bringing themselves back into the division race that was all but locked up at the All-Star Break. Plus this week is the Little League World Series, an amazing experience that every 11-12 year old baseball player wants to participate in. Williamsport, PA is a baseball Mecca, much like Fenway, Wrigley, Cooperstown, and Dodger Stadium.

As I have mentioned, I went to watch the LLWS with Kyra and my mom. We saw the Chula Vista, CA team over whelm the Northern California Granite Bay team. It was a great game, at an absolutely immaculate facility in San Bernardino. After winning the West Regional, the Chula Vista team traveled to Williamsport. Through two games they have yet to allow a run, and have hit 10 home runs. They are an early front runner to win the world series, and play undefeated SouthWest Regional Champion San Antonio, Texas tomorrow night. The LLWS provides hours of great entertainment for me every summer, as it is great to see these kids play and have fun like kids.

The last two weeks were very fun week for me regarding . Two weeks ago I went down to Anaheim, with Jon, to watch the Junior Circuit Angels take on the defending American League (Junior Circuit) Tampa Bay Rays. I am a huge Dodger fan who does not really ever root for the Angels, but I did not go down to watch the Angels, I was there to watch the starting pitcher of the Angels, Trevor Bell. As kids Jon and I played against Trevor, and we have been following his career after he was made the 37th over all selection in the 2005(?) draft by the Angels. With amazing seats we were able to watch Trevor pitch very servicably in his Major League debut with 5.1 innings pitched allowing 9 hits and 4 ER striking out 4 and only 1 walk. He got introduced to life in the majors twice by AL home run leader Carlos Pena, as he hit HRs #30 and 31 against Trevor. In his next start Trevor got some run support and help on defense and he got his first win against Cleveland on the road at "The Prog," formerly known as Jacobs Field. It is very crazy to see a somebody whom I struck out against many, many times pitch in the Major Leagues.

Last Thursday and Friday were a lot of fun as well. I went to both Dodger games for free as well. The first game I went with my friend Xavier. He had never been to a game before so I decided to show him the ropes. We ended up meeting some of his friends from high school and migrated around the stadium in un-used seats eventually finding our way down to the club level next to the Luxury Suites. It was here that we watched Russell Martin hit a grand slam to put the game out of reach en route to a 7-2 victory over the Cubs.

Friday night was a great experience as well. I received free seats to the Dug Out Club and the seats were in the front row, meaning I was closer to the catcher than the pitcher was. On this night I also had my first stadium beer, Bud Light was the basic choice of course. I also saw my second 1-hitter in person in as many years, though this one was not quite as dominating, as the Dodgers held on to a 2-1 victory, taking the first two against the Cubs.

Ok enough with the personal updates, and on to my opinions on burning matters...

Michael Beasley, former high school teammate of OJ Mayo was allegedly checked into a Texas rehab center for drugs and depression. This is never a good thing to see, especially to such a high profile talent. His freshman, and only, season at Kansas St. was amazing. He rewrote the Big 12 record book that former Texas F Kevin Durant rewrote the year before. This has made him an easy choice for a top 5 draft pick to the Miami Heat. It did not take long for the loopy eyed Beasley to find himself in trouble with the NBA. At the rookie symposium he was involved in an incident involving women in a hotel room that had the smell of weed, not a good start. I will say that though this news is shocking, it was not quite surprising given his complaints of laziness and general apathy. Things that he has of course sluffed off.

Brett Favre is back everybody. Nobody can really be surprised can they? If this dance was rediculous two years ago, then where are we now? Thankfully ESPN did not beat this story to death as they have in years past. They would cover every breath of Favre so in depth that it made ESPN absolutely unwatchable for weeks at a time, thus draining me of my manna... Favre is in Minnesota and has made the Vikings the sexy pick in the NFC. They have a decent RB in "All Day" Adrian Peterson and great weapons on the outside that should be able to develop with a real QB who can throw the ball down field. Tavaris Jackson is not a starting NFL QB, not now and probably not ever.

The Eagles are the only other NFC team that has the weapons to compete with the Vikings, and Donovan McNabb is WAAAAAY over due for a title. The Eagles must survive a very difficult schedule in the NFC East, but Andy Reid has always been able to get his team ready to play, and I don't expect anything different this year. (They also have potential super weapon Michael Vick, who could make or break the year)

Must watch TV this week. E:60 Tuesday on ESPN at 4 PT. Plaxico Burress talks about the night he shot himself! That is somebody who made bad decisions to lead him to all but end his very promising NFL career, should be interesting to see how he will explain away that fateful night as he awaits the start of his 2 year prison term.

I will try and post again by Saturday, but that may be difficult as it is move-in day Saturday.

Any thoughts on the NFL or anything else I have written about let me know.

One more thing, go to www.tweshuffle.blogspot.com My older brother started a blog that I will be contributing to regularly as well. It is a different take on video games that some of you might appreciate.

That is my view from the cheap seats this week, until then

Troy

The Dog Days of August...

When I was originally starting this entry into my blog I was going to talk about the Dodgers, and about they were slowly but surely sliding back to the rest of their division and losing control on the play off race. Then I came across something online which brought me back to some good times with my friend Jon.

That's right folks, Wiffle Ball. This is a lot of fun, and is a necessity everytime I go over to Jon's house to hang out. Unfortunately we do not have the facilities or space for a Picture Show Park at the Pine Yards, but we certainly make do with what we have. In fact, last night, we played our first game with our new lighting set up. The lights made it just as bright as day, and allowed for some good Wiffle action, even though I got blanked 4-0. Our games are a lot of fun, obviously, and are typically more high scoring.

Our rules are pretty basic:

If you cannot field the ball cleanly on the ground it is a Single.

If the ball passes you, whether or not you are able to reach it, it is ruled a Single.

If the ball bounces off of the Kitchen wall or Patio cover it is a Double.

If you are able to reach the Den/Parent's bedroom wall on the fly it is a Triple.

On the roof, over the kitchen or the den, and over the driveway fence is a Home Run.

We have even set up a strike zone and back stop.

Strike outs are just the same as in normal baseball, if you foul a ball back into the strike zone with two strikes, it is the equivalent of the catcher catching a tipped 3rd strike, and counts as a strike out.

Three walks in a row, or Four total walks in an inning, gives the batter a Base on Balls.

Most every thing else is an out.

We have foul polls and an amazing lighting set up, as mentioned earlier, and I hope to get pictures on here shortly.

Jon and I normally play 1 on 1, but we have played 2 on 2 and even 3 0n 3. Fielding rules are changed when there are more players involved. In our more common 1 on 1 games Jon's little brother, Alex 'Jandro' plays with us as well, acting as a DH, and his ability to rake varies upon when he decides to hit the ball.

With more games to come in the near future we hope to add more people to our rotation. Updates will surely follow from Hurricane Park on the Ondrejko Grounds.

I am also looking to play Wiffle Ball with people at CLU, we can definitely get some good day games going there, hopefully organize some people and play this Fall!

Other interesting tid bits...

Yesterday I went down to USC to see Taylor Mays and the Trojans in a scrimmage. First of all, Taylor Mays is an absolute MONSTER. Secondly, it was pretty cool to be down there and be so close to all of the players and see how hard they work. It is quite a sight to be sure, and if you are looking to kill an afternoon you should definitely check it out as it is free.

Also tomorrow I think I will be going to San Bernadino to see the finals of the West Regional for the Little League World Series. I have never been, but have always wanted to go, so it should be a lot of fun, and am quite excited. Look for me tomorrow on ESPN!

Also here is hoping that David Wright and Hiroki Kuroda make quick recoveries from thier injuries. I saw both and they were equally chilling. Ian Kinsler also took a nasty hit off the head, and I hope that he will be OK as well, though he was able to remain in the game.

That is my view from the Cheap Seats for the time being.

Troy