The Lou

Really, I'm writing this entry for therapeutic purposes. This post isn't about sports and it also isn't a short work of fiction. I'm basically just recounting some of the more major events from last weekend. I thought I would never be the guy who just blogs about his boring life, but here I am, and here you are, so I'm guessing you're just as bored. In case you didn't know, I was in St. Louis from Thursday the 25th until this morning (Sunday). While I did have a great time and was able to catch up with one of my all-time best buds' (Zoid), there were a few things that did not go my way during my stay in the gateway to the west. I need to get these things off my chest because it was a little ridiculous.

My mini-vacation (well, I guess I've been on vacation for a while now) in St. Louis began on Thursday. I departed from a chilly, overcast Minster around 10:45. Shortly into my trip it began to rain, which would have made the remaining 6 hour drive miserable for most mortals, however I enjoy a challenge and I met that challenge with an unprecedented ferocity. I listened to "Eye of the Tiger" for the last 5 hours and 45 minutes of the drive and conquered the sheets of water spraying from semi's that rendered me legally blind. Hammertime-1, Mother Nature-0. To Mother Nature's credit, I am currently winning the vast majority of my contests by much more than 1. If I weren't so busy trying not to slam head-on to medians while I was visually impaired, I may have taken the 6 hour downpour as an ominous sign that my trip would steer me into many potholes, so to speak, along the way.

Bummer #1

I arrived at Zoid's apartment on Thursday night and we basically just hung out and went to bed (probably could word this sentence differently to minimize how gay it sounds). I awoke Friday to find that Zoid had gone to work and Cathy (Zoid's girlfriend) and I quickly became bored. We decided to make the 1/2 hour drive to downtown St. Louis (Zoid lives in the 'burbs) so I could see some stuff. I wanted to see the new Busch Stadium, so after parking and feeding the meter for two hours, we walked to Busch. While we were walking around their new stadium we saw an open gate being guarded by a guard (fitting, huh), so I asked him if I could quickly get in to take a sneak peak at the field and maybe snap off a picture. The guard did not oblige, I guess he thought I was a terrorist or something, also I was wearing my Reds hat, so that probably didn't help my cause.

Bummer #2

Cathy and I then took a 15 minute walk over to the Arch. Cathy said when you're at the top of the arch you can see down into the stadium, and basically, the rest of the city, so that sounded pretty awesome. I was excited for this, how many people can say they have been to the top of the arch, without lying? I was about to become one of those peoples. We walked up to the counter to sign up for the tour where I saw a sign which read, "tours start every ten minutes." There was also a sign hanging right next to the previous sign which read, "next tour begins at 11:50." At the time I read the second sign, it was only 10:40, so I guess someone setting the tour times is not competent in mathematics. The trouble was, since there was a 2:00 max on parking meter's, and we were all out of silver, we didn't have enough meter time to wait for an hour and then take an hour tour. So, I still can't morally say that I've been to the top of the St. Louis arch.

Bummers #3, 4 and 5.

I love Zoid, but I have to be honest, if the Buckeyes weren't playing their sweet 16 and (possible) elite 8 games in St. Louis, I probably wouldn't have made the trek to Missouri. Zoid informed me that it was his girlfriends' and one of his other buddies girlfriends' birthday and they had made dinner reservations for Friday night. I was left to fend for myself in a foreign town, for one of my biggest sports games of the year (3). Luckily, the official Ohio State bar in St. Louis is located less than a mile from Zoid's apartment, so I just decided to eat and watch the game there. Basically, I ended up driving to St. Louis to watch a game at a bar, by myself. Zoid felt pretty bad about leaving me hanging but I told him it wasn't a big deal and that I really wanted to watch the elite 8 game, so we decided to cross our fingers and actually go to the elite 8 game on Sunday. The Buckeyes lost on Friday (4), however, and I was a "Grumpy Gus" for the rest of the night. So obviously, we couldn't watch the Buckeyes on Sunday (5).

Bummer #6, averted

If you've experienced the absolute thrill of meeting me, you'll know that I do enjoy the occasional alcoholic beverage. Most of my life, the beverage of choice was the wallet-friendly, smooth-tasting, Natural Light. A fine (wish I could still say American) product indeed. If my Dad was buying or if it was a special occasion, I would dabble into the Bud Light arena. Being that I've always had a love for Budweiser products, we decided to tour the Budweiser factory in St. Louis. This bummer almost occurred immediately. We arrived only to see a sign posted out front which read, "All Tours are full." Reluctantly, Zoid and I still decided to enter, just to walk around the lobby area and look at some of the knick-knacks they had sprinkled about. We then noticed an open door, and inside of that open door were people who just finished their tour and were drinking their complementary beers. Zoid and I snuck into this room (it was really easy) and began to drink a couple free beers, while we decided what we wanted to do for the rest of the day. We each drank two beers (you're only SUPPOSED to have 2 free beers) and thought we would leave. As we were walking out, we noticed that a tour was beginning, so we sort of shimmied to the middle of the pack and joined the group without ever showing the tour guide our passes, which we didn't have. It was a small victory but it felt good given the string of bad luck I had encountered on my trip. At the conclusion of our tour, we were lead back to the "free beer room" as I call it, and received two more free beers apiece, a major victory for myself and America.

Overall, St. Louis was a pretty good time and although a few things didn't really go my way, I did get to see one of my best friends' and spend some quality time with him, for which I am truly thankful. That's the stuff that really matters, not getting to see the inside of Busch Stadium or riding to the top of the Arch. I'm just sorry it took me over a year and a half to go see Zoid.

I love Pilates

Hello Hambino Hounds!!!!!!! Let me start off by explaining what I was doing during my little blogging hiatus. I spent some of my time studying for finals, writing papers, watching television, applying for jobs and of course, watching Television.

I spent most of my time however, learning how to play Backgammon, doing Tae-bo and Pilates, and practicing on my unicycle. Turns out, unicycling is one of the most difficult types of cycling one can attempt to do and I badly bruised my coccyx.

I’m not going to lie, some of that list was fabricated, but the unicycling stuff was definitely true. I’m thinking of joining the circus. Also, thanks to Tae-Bo and Pilates, I now have a delicate blend of flexibility and bulk, which is really paying off in my gymnastics classes. Enough about what I’ve been doing for the past couple of weeks, I’d like to talk about what I’ve been THINKING for the past couple weeks.

I was actually thinking about sports for a little bit and I think it was blogworthy.

I want to chat about the NCAA Tourney, which has been pretty amazing this year, unlike the past couple years, where there were very few upsets. Saturday Northern Iowa defeated Kansas, the overall #1 seed in the tournament. Northern Iowa had a terrific regular season and won the Missouri Valley Conference.

Kansas, on the other hand, had an even better regular season in a power conference, and was widely considered the best basketball team in the nation. If this were college football, these two teams would never have come within 100 miles of each other, but it isn’t. If this was college football, I could have watched Eastern Michigan, the MAC champion, play Eastern Carolina, the CUSA champion in the GMAC Bowl, and I wouldn’t have been less interested. Suppose this game started at 7:00pm EST. I would have watched Jeopardy, and probably dominated most of the show, and then I would have missed the final question, because I never get it right. I would probably have started to flip through the channels around 7:28, since Jeopardy just finished and realized there was a football game on ESPN2 between two teams that I don’t care about. At 7:30 I would have switched to Wheel of Fortune and rocked every puzzle until the last one, I can also never solve the last puzzle on Wheel. At 7:59 I probably would have looked around my kitchen and, provided it was my lucky day/birthday, I would have eaten some ice cream/ice cream and chocolate cake. After my cake/ice cream fiasco, I would have found it necessary to take a generous nap. I would arise around 9:00pm to go back to the only sporting event on Television, only to find that the GMAC bowl wasn’t even close, at which time I would probably pop in one of my Tae-Bo VHS’s and let Billy Blanks sculpt my body into a chiseled-masterpiece that would surely have made Michelangelo proud.

My point is, if Northern Iowa had a football program and won its conference, they would never have been able to play the #1 team in the postseason. They would have played in a crappy bowl, which basically wouldn’t matter. The NCAA Tourney is one of the greatest events in sports and I don’t even really like basketball (just ask me about the NBA). The tourney is filled with excitement and every team has a chance to win. Teams get to play the best and you have to beat the best to win, the way it really should be.

I get the argument that the lack of a tournament makes the college football season better because once you lose; you’re most likely eliminated. It makes every regular season game important, we sports fans have to watch every game. Here’s the thing about that argument, unless you’re in the SEC, 1 loss could mean that you finish outside the top 8 (I would propose an 8 team playoff), so that argument becomes irrelevant. Once a team were to lose its first game (teams rarely go undefeated in college football) the rest of the season would be crucial because 2 losses could definitely put teams on the outside looking in, so the small, 8 team playoff, could make the regular season even more exciting.

Boise State argument… Some proponents of a playoff, site that Boise State gets an unfair shot at the national title, they go undefeated and get passed over for a one loss Big-12 or SEC team. That is not what’s wrong with the current BCS system. The real problem is if Boise would actually make the Championship Game. If we just leave Boise out, who cares, there isn’t that many Boise fans and they wouldn’t bring much revenue for the game anyway. The real trouble would be if Boise does make the championship. What if a one-loss SEC or different power-conference-team gets passed over by Boise because Boise going to start at #5 preseason this year? It would be terrible; the championship would be a sham. If a non-BCS conference team could survive an 8-team playoff, I could definitely deal with that because they would have earned it in the postseason. It would be a tough pill for millions to swallow if we watch a Boise team beat Roast Beef Tech. over and over and then get lucky in a championship game.

I want to applaud NCAA Basketball for putting together such an amazing event.

GO BUCKS!

I Don't Really Think This Post Deserves a Title

Well hey there Hambino Hounds!

I was going through Today's list of things for me to do moments ago...

1. Do the laundry. Check

2. Go over Power Points for Chapters 5, 6 and 9. Check

3. Take my online Quiz. Check

4. Help under-privileged kids in Liberia. Finished.

Even though I had successfully completed these tasks, I felt like there was something I had neglected. HAMBINO1 Sports and Stories!!! I haven't been on here for a while.

There was a time when I lived by myself in a Loft in Mansfield, Ohio and sometimes my Mom would call me and I wouldn't answer. I then would proceed to not call her back for upwards of 3 to 4 weeks. She, of course, would assume that I had perished. She did not like it when I wouldn't call her back, but that's okay, she got over it. Long story short, I don't want to put my beloved Hounds through that process. I don't think I have posted since last Tuesday and I'm sure you've all been feverishly hoping that I'm okay. I appreciate that, and I am okay, so rest easy.

This is where I try to let the Hambino Hounds down gently. Over the past couple of weeks I have been employing my writing talents on a different project. I will probably continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Now, I definitely don't want to leave my precious Hounds in the dark but, you may be seeing slightly less of me in the short term. Rest assured though, good things come to those who wait. Also, the early bird gets the worm but you probably don't collect worms, so sleep in.

Another thing, I didn't have any topics in mind to speak of tonight so I'm just going to leave you with a few interesting statements I've heard or came up with over the past couple of days.

1. While watching jeopardy the other day: Clue: Phrase. Puzzle: All according to the Master Plan. I thought this was a bit strange because I've never heard anyone say that.

2. Smurfs are asexual, they don't even have reproductive organs under their little white pants.

3. I won $1,000,000 in the lottery. I took the $1 for 1,000,000 years payout option, so it should last me awhile.

4. My kids are going to love having their friends over to my house. I'm going to have the sweetest tv's, all the newest and best video games, heroin.

5. You'll have to excuse my sweat glands, they work very efficiently.

6. I walked up to my Dad and asked him, "Have you asked the doctor about our erectile dysfunction?"

7. I'm donating my toes to the people of Haiti. I don't really need them anymore.

Ok, I think that's about all I'm going to talk about tonight. I could be wrong though, because I'm halfway through a monster and it's 11:38, so I might be up awhile.

Until next time,

Your Fearless (not counting spiders) Leader