I really have no excuses here, I’ve come up with every reason possible not to blog in the last ten days. It started with “I’ve got the last two finals to focus for” – which we know is BS cause I will blog before I write my will even if I have six minutes to live. Then I moved onto “I can’t blog tonight my brain is fried from school, gimme a day off.” Again, even the marky markiest of marks out there knew this was a rouse cause I will blog for LIFE even in the most dire situations. Finally I came with a real excuses “I’m in Vegas.” But really if I was a TRU blogger I would have brought the lappy and dropped live updates from the LUXO like my man B-Simmons. Even as I returned from Vegas I spit in the kid’s faces, “I just don’t have the energy to blog in Alta Loma.” Come on now, we all know I don’t do shit in Alta Loma – cause there’s not a damn thing to do. So anyway, on the third day I rose again – and here I am back on the sticks like Brad after a first round elimination in the UCI Smash Bros. Tournament. So as I like to say (since I often credit for myself for starting it), ‘Pack a lunch’ cause this blog is about to get outta control as I do my best to unleash the lengthiest entry in the history of the AL blog game.

We Start off in the Sports World
Teeing off with the U.S. Open which ended this afternoon. What a classic final round; Phil on the move, Tiger falling off the face of the Earth, and only a single player managing to drop an even par 70 on Sunday in a major. The USGA sure went out of their way to dick over the players this year. The course average was somewhere around 78.7 on Sunday, a mere stroke every two holes over par if you’re scoring at home. I was lovin Tiger’s ass getting bitch-slapped every which way all through the week at Shinnecock. The only way that could have gone better was if his ass missed the cut. But I don’t know what I would have done with myself then, I might have just spontaneously combusted out of pure excitement.

Anyway, everyone watching the golf thought Phillip was a lock to take the trophy as soon as he made that charge on the back nine. Johnny Miller was doing his best Brad Curry imitation however, jumping on that Mickelson bandwagon just in time to curse him into a three-putt from about six feet on 17. Like Lil’ Flip it was Game Over from there on out. But I gotta give credit to Retief takin the title, he made four or five huge 10-20 footers in a row on the back nine. He won that title with his putting, he deserved his second title. And I don’t want to hear a bad word about my man Duval – he is too gangsta to even care what he shot. He’ll win another major within two years. It may be an X-Games major – but it will be a major.

Next Up, Baseball
I just saw on ESPNews that Gagne saved his 81st straight game – who cares. MORE important by about 1000x the D-Rays just won their 11th game in a row. I need to get on hatworld.com yesterday and get that D-Rays hat sent to my doorstep.

In real news, the Angels fell off as predicted and the A’s were there to capitalize. My Oaktown boys have risen to the top like they always do and they currently rest behind only the Yanks and Red Sox in the race for best record in the AL. They will end there of course and face off with the Sox again in the first round of the playoffs. This time hopefully there will be no choke of the 2-0 lead they will take in the series.

As I was drudging through the rumors section of ESPN insider (big ups to B-Curry) I saw that Barry Zito was one of the “big names” on the list of possible trades as we approach the deadline. This is FANTASTIC news. I have been lobbying for them to move Barry ever since he won the Cy two years ago. He is clearly the third of the big three pitchers, and I wouldn’t mind going with Harden and Blanton – or even Redman if the A’s can get a real hitter for him. And you know they could cause his stock is huge in MLB for some reason. I say trade him while you can get a big name hitter in return. Eventhough I’m not a big Beltran fan, I would like to see the A’s pick him up right now. He would seem to be the best available player out there that the A’s could handle – unless they pick up Sweeney instead from the Royals.

On the fantasy front I just got turned down when I offered another owner Chipper Jones for Oliver Perez and Nate Robertson. I was shocked. Did anyone ever think Nate Robertson would be a deal breaker. She told me she wouldn’t make the trade because of Nate Robertson? I thought I was in an alternate galaxy. Anyway, it turned out much better as she counter-offered with Oliver Perez and Manny Ramirez for Andruw and Chipper Jones. I made that decision in about half a second and all of a sudden my hitting just got a huge bump. I really don’t need Perez but he can ride pine and develop while Manny gives me the hitting help I was seeking. Don’t bother asking me how my team is doing, I don’t even check the league enough to know what place I’m in. If any of you have been in fantasy baseball with me before you’ll recognize this trend. I am WAY too lazy to put up with a 162 game season of fantasy baseball.

Time to hit the Hardwood
I hardly even know where to start. The Lakers were abused in so many different ways I barely had time to absorb it all and fully enjoy it. I’ll readily admit that after game 2 I thought the Pistons were gonna be in trouble. I mean come on, Kobe hits a miracle three that ends up crushin Detroit’s heart in OT. I thought for sure Papa Stern was takin this to the Kings/Lakers game six level of only a few years ago – and the Flakes would take the series in 7. But Nay!

I grossly underestimated the strength of the one and only B-Curry. As most of you know Brad jumped on that Laker Bandwagon like every other fan they currently have – but about five years later than the rest of em. Anyway, just like the Clippers, Kings and Spurs before them the Lakers fell victim to being cheered on by Brad. As of now there is no documented proof of a team that Brad has actually rooted for winning a series. Some point to the Spurs beating the Lakers last year, but I cant quite give him credit for that as he was focusing most of his energy on a Kings victory over the Mavs – which of course led to Chris Webber tearing his knee and the Mavs in the Conference finals.

Anyway, it was great to see people like Kobe, Shaq and good ol’ Karl “I will do anything for a ring” Malone getting the short end of the stick in the NBA finals. I thank David Stern for not ruining my life and letting the Lakers take another ring to L.A. It was great to see my man Tay take home a title and remind the rest of the NBA in the process that they should have drafted him. However, not so fast my friend, you aren’t exactly Melo or Dwayne Wade. You make some good plays every once in a while and drop 20 points about once a month – but you aint headed to the hall yet. Keep your game tight and then run that lip. Secondly, is there anyone who you’d love to see win a title more than Sheed – of course not. My boy had been in need of a ring forever, and you know NO ONE in the NBA front offices or referee headquarters wanted him to win one. But Sheed did his damn well best to bring that title to D-Town and that he did. One love for the man Brad credits with the best Bum-beard in the NBA.

”The World’s Sport”
Most of you don’t care, but this is EURO 2004 damnit so we will touch on soccer for just a few words. We’re playin for the EURO title in Portugal this year, so it only seemed fitting that they played the opening goal against a week opponent like Greece to open the festivities. Portugal is a top 5 or 6 team in the world, so it wasn’t out of question that they could take a three or four goal victory over the Greeks to open play in Group A. But WOW I say. The Greeks SHOCK the home crowd and knocked off Portugal 2-1 to open EURO 2004. This is a tremendous upset. Unless Zeus was in net there was no way anyone won money on this matchup. Group play proceeded on with Greece ADVANCING no lessn after they managed to pull off a tie with Spain. Portugal recovered from the upset with two wins, the second of which sent Spain back home without even a trip to the quarterfinals. It was seen as a lock that Spain and Portugal would move on out of this group. Whoever gets to see Greece in the quarters gets a free pass into the semis -- enjoy it.

In Group B action England matches up with Croatia today in the final round of group play while Switzerland squares off with France. England is a point ahead of Croatia in the standings so if the Croats cant defeat England they’re headed home as well. France simply needs a tie to advance but will likely run over Switzerland anyway. The big game in this group took place on day two of the tourney as France stole a victory from England 2-1. England led 1-0 late as David Beckham stepped to the mic for a PK that would likely put the game out of reach. However, Beckham left the ball near the middle of the goal and French keeper Fabian Barthez made the save to keep the French within one. Zidane took over from there, scoring twice in stoppage time to give France a fantastic comeback win. It looks however like England and France will both still advance, with France seeing Greece in the quarters and England having to face home nation Portugal – so goodbye to the Brits in the quarters.

Group C is the site of controversy with only two games left to play. The Italians are bitching as usual, complaining that Sweden and Demark are going to play to a 2-2 tie on purpose, which would advance them both and leave Italy out in the cold no matter what they do to Bulgaria. But had Italy done better than tied Denmark or Sweden in the first place then they wouldn’t be in this little mess in the first place. Shut your mouths and go home. I hope Sweden and Denmark do screw you.

My boys seem to have dug themselves quite a hole in Group D. Germany has found themselves in some shit after only managing a tie with a weak Latvia squad. Now with only a one point lead over the Netherlands (who face Latvia next) it seems as if Germany will have to defeat the Czech Republic to advance to the quarters. On name alone this doesn’t sound too tough. But the Czechs are 2-0 so far, and defeating the Netherlands is quite a victory to have under their belt. This will be no easy task as Germany has looked horrible in recent weeks.

Here are my predictions for the rest of the tournament.
Quarterfinals:
Portugal over England
France over Greece
Germany over Sweden
Czech Republic over Denmark

Semifinals:
Portugal over Germany
France over Czech Republic

Finals:
Portugal over France

Now to the Ice
Please, you know we don’t do hockey in this blog. Next time we talk about Ice in the sports section it will be either snowing at a football game or Olympic curling.

Wilmbledon Time
One of only two tennis tournaments that I actually care to watch – along with the U.S. Open. However, I will not be giving you kids a full preview of the event. I will simply offer my pick of Roddick as the champ. I like Federer a lot, but Roddick’s serve has been completely out of control lately, as big servers often take the title at the All England Club.

And now, The Vegas
If you made it through the 2000+ plus words which preceded this section you deserve to read every word of the trip to Vegas that me, rasch, zack, touch and hardocore made. This could be done in little under a million words if donce correctly, but for the sake of time and energy I will trim this to only the finest of the highlights for you kids.

Tuesday, 11:40 a.m.
Tony touches down at the Las Vegas airport, already drunk after a few drinks on the plane. It takes us about a half hour just to get Touch’s bags and get rollin as his drunk ass stumbles around the baggage claim like a mouse lookin for cheese in a maze. Anyway, as we’re rollin out the airport we walk right past the master of the ankle lock himself – Ken Shamrock. The man, the myth, the legend was in town for his fight with Kemo coming up (well I guess yesterday) but it was coming up at the time. Shamrock is incredible to see in person. The man looks like he could break me in half with two or three of his fingerse. Tony’s drunk self steps right up and starts rappin wit him for a minute or two. I stand in awe wondering how often he makes the short flight from Vegas to San Francisco to hit up BALCO.

Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.
By now the Lakers are beyond done and the Rasch is hittin the bottle to pretend it isn’t happening.

Tuesday, 9:50 p.m.
The Rasch calls my cell phone asking where I am, we were sposed to meet at Bellagio. I had yet to leave Mandalay and told him to just meet me at Luxor in ten minutes, he says he’ll be there. About an hour later I call Mike back wondering where he is as I watch the roulette wheel bleed me away – needless to say his phone is off. After a few more hours of gambling and drinking I head up to bed at about 4 a.m. still not hearing a word from the Rasch. By now I’ve determined that he either:
A) Has been arrested
B) Managed to get kidnapped
C) Drown himself in the Bellagio fountains

At 5:30 we are woken up by a blacked out Rasch entering the hotel room as the rest of us have already passed out. All he can manage to say is “Oh I got stories!” Sadly, none of them end up with him being arrested. Apparently he managed to flush all his money down the drain on roulette while in a drunken rage post-Laker death. After losing every dollar he had he met Tony at Bellagio and managed to beg 25 dollars out of him. He heads straight back to roulette and places that 25 bucks on red – WHAM! It hits, and Rasch has 50 bucks. He takes this 50 dollars to the Bellagio Blackjack tables and emerges SEVEN HOURS later with 200 dollars – and is quite proud. This story will be part of his life for the rest of time.

Wednesday, 5 p.m.
The party begins at Caesar’s palace but before you know we it we have somehow made our way over to the Venetian. I don’t exactly remember transferring casino’s, but I definitely remember the craps table at the V. Me and T-Touch roll up into the Craps scene in all our loud ass splendor as usual. We quickly make friends with some 55 year old dude from Georgia – who might actually be as drunk as us. I am head to toe in Canes gear, and Touch is runnin’ on and on about his boys from BAMA, so the man goes off about his Dawgs – and within a half hour I’m pretty sure he wanted to adopt us. A short time later two other guys from Georgia come to pick up our homie for dinner, but he talks his wife into 10 more minutes at the table before they head to the buffet. At the same time this one cat rolls up with his girlfriend and starts spittin madness about FSU as soon as he sees my gear. I have no words for this man, just five fingers – one for each victory the canes have had over FSU in the last four years. This was easily the best night of the trip as the craps table was overrun by me, tony, and every other college football lovin man in the Vegas area. We had people reppin Bama, Miami, FSU, Ohio St., Georgia and Tennessee all within an hour. After the dice begin to run cold me and touch head back to the Luxo to pass out for two hours and rally again at midnight – this plan was fantastic.

Those are just a few of the stories collected from the first trip to Vegas since we’ve all been 21. But there will be many more trips to come, just pray to god that you get to join in on the next one.

Headin Back Down South
As early as tomorrow I may be headin back down to San Diego for a while. I have my new apartment on Friday at 9 a.m. which will be mine alone so that is nice. But I may start moving things down sooner into my old apartment so I can make the transition into the new one even faster. I don’t start summer school until late July, but I need to find a job now that I’m gonna be livin there. The plan is to deliver pizza for as many hours that they’ll give me, and then find another job to fill in whatever hours that I can. I need money like Tyrone needs crack, so let’s hop that I can lock up a job/jobs as soon as possible. And when school starts in late July – YICK – no one should have to take summer school.

But I am definitely ready to head back to San Diego for a bit. There is never anything to do in Alta Loma, so two weeks here is definitely enough for a single dose. Now that I’m 21 there’s a lot more to do in San Diego, and most of the people I know from school are staying in SD for the summer too, so it will be goin down in the D for the rest of the summer most likely.

Alright kiddies, this is the longest entry in the history of the AL blog game to date. I don’t want to hear any complaints about not enough blogging from you kids for a while now, cause I know most of you aren’t even gonna read trhough all of this in the first place.. And Tran, don’t try to tell me that the record is actually 10,000 cause we don’t count confessions as blogging around here – this is blog wordage ONLY. Step it up and try to knock me off the top of the mountain any time, I’m always here.

Brad, all I have to say is – 3,352

FLIP FLIP FLIP


Show em my ATO