DAMMIT BCS!!!

I'm pissed off, so I'm going to tell the internet about it. The BCS again boned Boise State from any opportunity to get national recognition. "Well, they lost to TCU and didn't play anybody good all year!" says uneducated college sports fan. They beat the SEC East winner Georgia, additionally they lost to TCU on a missed field goal and TCU (10-2) is a talented team this year. That one loss definitely took them out of the National Champion game, that's completely reasonable but, I expected a good BCS Bowl match up between a decent SEC school like South Carolina (10-2) perhaps Arkansas (10-2) or a Big 12 team like Kansas State (10-2) or Oklahoma (9-3). Nope! Screw that! Y'all are going to play Arizona State (6-6) team who just fired their head coach and has lost to Washington State (4-8) and Arizona (4-8).

I fully respect Chris Petersen's decision on calling out the BCS after waiting patiently for 5 years and posting a record of 44-3 in the regular season and 3-2 in bowl games. Boise State is good dammit! I'm sorry that you can't make money off of a team that no one cares about but at least protect the sanctity of the game and allow the best teams to play each other. Also, I need to clarify that I am not saying Boise State deserves to play for the National Championship, they deserve to be in one of the four other bowl games the BCS hosts.

And now I'll vent on how stupid it is for Alabama & LSU to have a rematch. Very simply Alabama had it's chance and they lost. End of story. Let someone else lose to LSU this year. It makes no sense for two teams from the same conference to play each other, and it makes less sense that it's a rematch. So everyone can get a good mental image of how little sense this makes I'll paint you a picture.

I play my friend Frank in beer pong. Now, me and Frank are really really badass beer pong players, in fact we are so good that I'm #1 in the world according to robot-polls and he's #2 according to that same poll. We play and I beat him in a regular sanctioned beer pong event in my beer pong mansion. My friend Doug is also a very badass beer pong player he's ranked #3 by robots. Unfortunately I don't play Doug very often because I like to play at my sweet ass mansion that I only let really shady people play in and he only plays at his house which is kind of nice but he's got a few poor friends who aren't very established beer pong players.

So the BPCS (Beer Pong Championship Series) gives me a call and says that they are flying me out of my mansion to play beer pong in front of millions of people to prove that I am the best beer pong player in the world this year. I gladly accept and ask who I will be playing. They say Frank. I say, "Well, I've already beaten Frank this year, so I'd rather play Doug. I hear that Doug is pretty damn good this year."

They say, "Well, Sam that guy lost to some dick in Iowa, and so our robot advisers have deduced that Doug sucks ass."

I say, "I've beaten Frank once this year, so if he somehow beats me will we get a third game for the grudge match?"

They say, "Nope, if you lose, you aren't the best beer pong player in the world this year."

Well, I guess I'll play Frank again, but I really think it would have made a lot more sense if I played Doug I thought. Then it hits me! I know what can solve all of our problems! I call the BPCS and say, "Hear me out, I've been watching a lot of baseball, volleyball, basketball, hockey, soccer, chess, handball, 4-square, kickball and cricket, and in those sports they do something called playoffs! It seems like it's pretty smart."

They promptly said, "Don't be an asshole," and hung up. One and half months later I was watching Frank and Doug playing for the National Beer Pong Championship on Fox or CBS or NBC. DAMMIT BPCS!!!!

The End

Before You Say No, Just Hear Me Out: Part 1

San Marco, TX - 5:37 p.m. Jan. 11th, 2011

While laying on my couch watching Man Vs Food on the Travel Channel, I received a very heated phone call from a friend. Let's just call her TC. I answer my phone and she says, "I have an idea. Before you say no, just hear me out." Thirty minutes later TC picked me up from my apartment and we were on our way to Austin to rally two more folks, we'll call them Amy and Gerald, in our quest for New Orleans.

I'd say we were out of Austin's city limits by around 10 p.m.and by midnight we were in Katy, TX. By 2:30 a.m. or so, we were finally in Louisiana and decided that we should make our first stop in the beautiful town of Lake Charles, where we stayed in the six star hotel/casino aptly named Isle Capri.

Myself having an excellent sense of self-control, got changed into casino appropriate attire and immediately went to the Blackjack tables. I had just watched "21" earlier so I knew I was going to come out on top. One hour, six beers, and $150 later I discovered that Jim Sturgess is a liar and counting cards should be left to Math Majors, MIT undergraduates and Asians. Realizing the error of my ways, I did what any fiscally responsible person would do and pumped tens into the dollar slots. Instead of getting a swift kick in my wallet's ass like I deserved, the cruel Jezebel known as habit gambling gave me a $350 payout and Sam's Club jumbo pack of false confidence. Additionally it gave me gas, board and booze money for the remainder of our escapade.

Back to the Blackjack table I went.

Anti-Parable:
Gambling is a son of a bitch. It ruins peoples lives, destroys families and transforms Johnny Football Hero into a wife-beating alcoholic. However, it's a lot of fun and it's a lot more fun when you're winning. So if you're going to gamble be sure you're a winner.

Our Results:

	Start	Finish	Profit
Amy	$50	$560	$510
Gerald	$100	$140	$40
Me	$180	$450	$270

With fairness to TC, she did not play. Three of us made $820, and gambling is bad. It was 5:45 a.m. we had all made money and had a hell of a day ahead. Bedtime.

Part 2 coming soon.

Before You Say No, Just Hear Me Out: Part 2

After checking out of our sweet room around 11:00 AM, we were back on I-10 headed to The Big Easy, The car ride was hovering around normal with occasional "almost stops" to see live baby alligators (a life-long dream of mine) when we arrived in New Orleans at about 2:30 PM.

Mind you we had nowhere to stay, very little knowledge of New Orleans geography and minimal funds. So, we drove to the first hotel that looked haunted in the French Quarters walked in and asked the concierge (French word) for a hotel room. He looked at us skeptically, pulled out a cute little notepad, jotted down something and slid the paper to me face down like I was getting an estimate on a kilo of cocaine. The next words out of my mouth were, "Per person or all together?" He responded adamantly and said, "All together."

So, lady luck reared her pretty little head in once again, meaning we paid $25 per person to stay in a hotel fifteen feet away from Bourbon Street. So far so good. We unpacked what little luggage that we had in the car and made our way to the greatest street in the United States of America.

We started pretty basic and slow. I was the only one who was semi-familiar with New Orleans, so I had to play tour guide. I offered life changing tour knowledge like, "Hand grenades get you really really drunk. They are sold right there," and "Last time I was here, I got hammered at this place, it was awesome." So, we went into this place, because it was awesome and they had live music. Now it was January, it was pretty cold, and it was the middle of the day, so needless to say this place was not very crowded, but there was still more people than most would have thought. The band was awesome. They asked us where we were from and played music accordingly. Also, due to the fact it was still daytime we were getting offered outlandish specials like buy one beer get three free.

We went from bar to bar for a while, following our ears to whichever bar had the best sounding live music. At about 5 or 6PM (things were beginning to get perpetually fuzzier at this point), the girls went back to the room to change and get ready for the evening. So, there we were two 22 year-old-boys on Bourbon Street, I went ahead and asked what Gerald was already thinking. "What strip club do you wanna go to?"

Surprisingly, Gerald had never been to a strip club, and it's a little difficult to explain the massive amounts of talent in a no cover strip club, on Bourbon Street, in January, on a Tuesday, during the middle of the day. For lack of a better analogy and to sound severely misogynistic, I felt like I had just bought myself a ticket to a discount petting zoo. A petting zoo that was relocated from Chernobyl. Regardless, Gerald had the time of his life and the drinks were reasonably priced and I promised him we would go to a "real" strip club were they don't squirt your hands with Purex on the way out.

After a few more drinks we headed back to the hotel to meet the girls and get ourselves ready for the evening. When everyone was good to go, we stopped by the strip club one more time to introduce TC to our new friends. She showed her gratitude by threatening to murder us after we held her down to her chair for a lap dance (on the house might I add).

A few more bars later, and a completely failed karaoke attempt, we ended our evening at my personal favorite bar in the French Quarters. None other than Pat O'Brien's Piano Bar. A very quaint little spot with two giant copper pianos facing each other and pianists that work for their tips just like the good ole days. Naturally, I asked the pianist to play "Piano Man" by Billy Joel about one-thousand times. She was a good sport and she played, and we sang.

There are other details from this night but they are pretty fuzzy. I can remember meeting some Australians who wanted to marry Texas girls and ride a bull. I bought a really awesome shirt at some point too.