How's the weather where you are? We've been pushing the 80s here in Orange County, and the surf has been anywhere from 7 to 20 feet. It's been great for most of us who like to watch big surf. And great for those who like to surf big waves. But bad for a few who got sucked out.
We're still geeked about the Rose Bowl in two weeks, and come Monday, we'll be watching the 10 day forecast on a daily basis. But for now, USC fans have had fun watching their school's basketball team exceed expectations. Tonight, USC won its 9th game in a row. And the prior victory was a solid margin over 17th ranked defending national champion North Carolina. The Trojans have not won 10 in a row since the 1970-1971 season.
The local pro team has been fun to watch, too. The Lakers are starting to improve, and Kobe Bryant's recent 62 point outburst was just incredible. I'm disappointed that he sat out the 4th quarter. They didn't sit Jordan down when he was pushing 70. Wilt didn't sit down when he scored his 100 point game. At the end of the 4rd quarter in his big game, Wilt had 69 points. That's just 7 more than Kobe had at the same stage of the game. We might have just missed out on the second 90 point game in NBA history.
Matt Leinart missed out on Sports Illustrated's award, but The Sporting News made him "Sportsman of the Year." Excellent choice. However, Leinart was temporarily ineligible for the Rose Bowl this month for looking at a camera and saying "stay tuned for ESPN" or something like that. He's back, now, though, and will be able to play.
Still, I wish they had announced that whole deal before the reinstatement. Maybe I could have bought a pair of Rose Bowl tickets for less than $1,200.
USC 55 Texas 40 might be the future score of the Rose Bowl, but it is also the current graduation score between the two football programs. USC's 55% rate is far better than Texas's 40% rate.
Do any of you agree with me that a company called Champs Sports should be banned from sponsoring a bowl game unless that game decides an actual championship? Does it make any sense that Colorado, which lost its last two games by a score of something like 645-3, is even allowed in a stadium that has the word "Champs" anywhere near it? That sucks.
The only thing that sucks worse is knowing that I will wake up on New Year's Day and have exactly zero bowl games to enjoy that day. These kids don't play Sunday football until they declare themselves for the draft.
So the only game worth next Sunday will be the "Bush Bowl," wherein the 49ers and the Texans battle to see who can lose and solidify their position in the race to suck the most and get the right to draft Reggie Bush.
One bad thing about USC's success: it used to be that if you wore USC gear around town, and you saw someone else decked out in USC gear, you could connect a little bit, maybe flashing a V for victory and get a "Fight On!" in return.
With USC's bandwagon rolling at top speed, there are a ton of people wearing cardinal and gold USC garb who never set foot in the Coliseum, and couldn't tell you the name of any USC players besides Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart. You say "Fight On" as you pass these people and they look at you like you are a kook.
I went Christmas shopping tonight and just missed Leinart, who bought some footwear for his girlfriend at Lady Foot Locker in South Coast Plaza. I was there to pick up a (pre-paid) pair of shoes for my wife, and they mistakenly tried to give me two. Lucky for them, I am an honest person.
Last week at Disneyland, I found a 512 MB xD memory card for a digital camera. Lucky for them, too, that I'm an honest person. I was tempted to keep it, in case the camera we were going to buy for my daughter uses xD, but I turned the thing in to lost and found. This week, when I picked a camera with SD cards (of which we alreadly have some) over a slightly more suitable camera with xD cards, I thought back and hoped that the people who lost that card I turned in got it back.
South Coast Plaza is a great place to people-watch. It is very well segregated. The pretty people go everywhere except Sears. The ugly people, of course, go to Sears. A few of us dare to venture in both Sears and the beautiful people stores.
One thing I really like about South Coast Plaza: if you buy jewelry, the sales clerk will giftwrap your purchase for free, and will even offer to wrap some of the other presents in your bags from other stores. The don't do that at the Puente Hills Mall.
As always, I spent weeks planning. And now I have to spend hours buying. My Christmas shopping began in earnest today around 2:00 p.m. I figure I'll be done by 1:30 p.m. tomorrow. Less than 24 hours. That is my goal. My car is already full of presents, so I'm taking the Jeep in the morning. The trek begins again at 0700 hours.
When they wash their back windows, SUVs that have rear windshield wipers look like happy little puppies wagging their tails. My Jeep has that feature, though, and it doesn't look like a happy little puppy. That's either because I'm getting it up so early tomorrow, or because it knows it is going to be sold, and its money used to buy a trip to London next year.
Mmmmm. London.
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