The YAYsports! NBA Blog Resurrection (Part 3)

First off, we read all about the Cavs-Hawks game last night, and it sounds like LeBron is bored again, despite the strong second half and the win.

You know what would be great for this team? Same thing that would’ve been great the past two years – a new coach.

Moving on…as you may remember/know/dream about, we left Los Angeles back on December 10th, drove across the country to Cleveland, indoctrinated a couple readers in the League of Roundie Henchmen, drove to Chicago to spend time with the family, then drive back to Los Angeles, arriving here on January 1st.

That’s 3 full weeks away, and we learned much about the world and such – most of all, it really reminded us how much we hate LA. If the movie business were only based in a Midwest suburb somewhere.

Anyway, here we go:

1) Sara worked the front desk at our hotel in Ohio. We were instantly smitten with her, and she instantly thought we were some kind of scumbag from Los Angeles. Over the course of the week, we learned one of the great things about hitting on romantically courting hotel front desk girls – they can’t go anywhere and they have to at the very least smile continually.

By the end of the week, Sara had invited us to her company Christmas party, although we have idea if she was being sarcastic or not. Regardless, we weren’t going to be there anymore. Perhaps she knew this, or perhaps we were in love with each other. One day we’ll attempt to find out.

A side note: we borrowed the tape dispenser from the hotel and never gave it back. We asked them if we’ll always be remembered as, “That Guy Who Stole the Tape Dispenser,” only to be told we’d be remembered anyway. Click on to read more -

We take that as a compliment, although inside we’d rather be the tape dispenser guy, just because we bet there are lots of people they “remember anyway”, right?

2) The SP and Ben Cox are offically Roundie Henchmen – if they want to recount their experiences in semi-detail, they’re welcome. Both were troopers in the face of great turmoil, and we thank them both for their loyalty and hard work.

3) We celebrated New Year’s Eve early, in a Chili’s in Claremore, Oklahoma. Most of what went on, we can’t tell you, but here are some snippets.

* Some Mexican guy wanted to fight us – he kept saying his name was “Hot Sauce”, and then offered us the company of his girlfriend for $25.
* At least one of the people there believed we were Hugh Grant’s kid.
* The manager wouldn’t slow dance with us for anything in the world. We begged, pleaded, and offered to tip the bartenders $100 each if she’d slow dance just one song with us. No go, plus she scolded us as if we were a child. Then she told the bartenders how scolding patrons can help be a better bartender.
* We kept calling it Chi-Chi’s – it was an honest mistake, but we made it probably 6 different times.
* Everyone wanted us to go with them to something called a “Racino”. The big sell was they sold drinks until 4 in the morning. We refused – drinking until four in the morning doesn’t hold the appeal it used to, and since nobody could explain exactly what a “Racino” was, we just couldn’t commit.

There were allegedly some sort of races there, and there was gambling. Dogs? Horses? People? Either they weren’t saying, we weren’t understanding, it was all illegal, or we’d had too much of the local moonshine. One will never know.

* Susie and Mandy are the best bartenders ever, and we’re going back just visit them, if nothing else.

4) On the drive to CLE, we had two people with us – one of whom was obsessed with hot dogs. Seriously – he always wanted to stop for hot dogs. Odd as hell – he also had a table saw in his living room – to some extent we think we may have transported a serial killer across the country…and LIVED TO TELL ABOUT IT. In fact, when we’re 50, that’ll be our story.

Anyway, we drove straight through, stopping once at the other guy’s mom’s house for an hour. (We shall call him Snowboarder.) Because of the extreme drive times, Serial Killer and Snowboarder suggested we try Red Bull.

We’d never had it before, so we did. (Sugar Free only – we’re like that.) Now, one Red Bull in, we thought it was odd – it had a strangely bitter aftertaste or something. Regardless, we drank three more within 30 minutes.

By the end of the trip to CLE, the backseat was filled with empty cans – here’s our official rankings of the various drinks you can get in this sector:

1) Monster No-Carb
2) Rock Star No-Carb
3) Red Bull Sugar Free
4) Rock Star Sugar Free (Can someone tell us the difference between this and #2? Besides the color?)

Our official analysis of this type of product? Never pour it in a glass, because you’ll see that you’re actually drinking some really vividly colored battery acid.

Never, ever, EVER drink another one after your chest starts to hurt. Wait at least two hours – not only does this allow your hands to stop shaking, but it gives you something to do on the road, ie watch the clock.

Other things that happened on our trip of note:

1) We don’t know if it’s good or bad that we get along as well today with high school girls as we did when we were in high school. We’ll say this – we could never be a teacher, because daily exposure would break us. We’d break – for sure, no doubt.
2) The tour bus of 50 Asian students in Arizona. Each and every one was eating a Dove bar from Dairy Queen, with looks on their faces that said, “We are experiencing America right now!”
3) The ticket we got in Texas was cool, cause we pretended we had a Texas accent the whole time, in an attempt to get out of it. Despite our excellent, “Howdy, sir,” we think the California license plates and the bear head in the backseat gave us away.
4) Nothing we can speak of.
5) That other thing we can’t speak of, because they said we can’t.

GOOD DAY!