Lonely Island: stays killin it.

DREXEL 52-Louisville 46

HOT DAMN. Drexel just beat #21 Louisville! I'm excited as shit right now. Drexel's strength was also their weakness tonight, they played very physical which threw Louisville out of it's rhythm, but also put the Dragons in foul trouble. Surprisingly only one of our players fouled out, but with a pretty shallow team that can be costly. Either way, big win and as long as we take care of St. Francis (PA) it gives some great momentum going into the Syracuse game.

Dear Lousiville: FLOCKA!

GET THAT BALL OUT MY FACE!!!

Chris Fouch, our top scorer (14th in the nation in PPG), was off tonight (10 pts), but luckily Gerald Colds picked up the slack offensively (20pts) and added a little defense as well (#11 above). We have some true freshmen on this team that gained some great experience tonight, and hopefully the solid play continues.

Who Am I, Dave?

I took the whole month of November off, but I am way more active on Twitter now (@crunkbear). Since Dave hasn't posted shit in mad long (albumoftheweek.net) I'm taking over for him. In honor of some his mix posts I decided to post one of my own this week. He normally does ones for holidays or seasons or some hipster shit like that, but mine is simple, it's the I Love Me mixtape. All rap, and all songs about how great the rappers are (or how great the shit they have is).

Let's get to it!

1) The Champ-Ghostface Killah




2) Blow Up-J. Cole



3) Kinda Like A Big Deal-Clipse ft. Kanye West



4) 99 Problems-Jay Z



5) Thank Me Now-Drake



6) Money Cash Hoes-Jay Z



7) Shottas-Juelz Santana ft. Cam'ron and Sizzla



8) Wow-Kanye West



9) What Them Girls Like-Ludacris



10) Popular Demand-Clipse ft. Cam'ron



11) Hero-Nas ft. Keri Hilson



12) No. 1-Rick Ross ft. Trey Songz and P. Diddy



13) On Top of the World-T.I. ft. Ludacris and B.o.B.



14) Trapstar-Young Jeezy



In full Dave fashion, here is the zip file so you can listen to these trill tracks anytime you want!

http://www.zshare.net/download/8342544877aa0066/

Put this shit on blast in your whip and let the world know who's bawss (Rick Ross is the bawss, not you)

Week 8 Picks

I know it's been mad long since not only a picks post, but any sort of post, so hopefully this makes up for it slightly. I just realized that I should have used Halloween music, but listen to the end of the track and it will explain why I'm not going to correct for that.

Here be them picks!

FOLLOW UP

Another thing I love about the South:

They are obsessed with football. High school football is super legit down here and college football is outta control. If I hadn't come down here twice already, there's no way I would be as interested in college football as I am now. Here's to having both Saturday and Sunday locked down from September through January now.....

Another thing I hate about the South:

They have no clue how to establish an internet connection. They didn't do it well in Georgia and they haven't done it well in South Carolina. I can't even use youtube here. This ish is outta control and unacceptable.

5 Best Things About the South

Boom, followup post. Let's get right into it.



5) The weather
--Though Alex might disagree, the weather is super trill. Now, I've never been in the South in August, so that could change my mind, but right now I'm loving it. It's been mad warm and not raining at all. I have been told that in the summer you don't want to go outside, so that could kinda suck, but I'd take this weather in October anytime.


4) Cost of living
--Stuff is so cheap here. Gas is mad cheap, rent is mad cheap, strip clubs are mad cheap (though it seems like you get what you pay for....), tickets to football games are mad cheap (Jim Jones: Scalpers!). It just seems like your money goes a lot further down here, which is always nice, especially since my last trip was to Europe where American money is basically toilet paper.



3) Everyone is nice
--I'm sure there are A-holes, but everyone I have encountered has been real nice. When I was looking at colleges niceness was something I avoided (sounds weird) but it is a refreshing change of pace now. Fast food employees are nice to you and don't seem like they despise their job like they do in the Northeast. It seems like the only people who aren't nice are greedy ass ticket scalpers who be trying to snatch your ish.



2) The food
--Southern food is super trill. BBQ, soul food, fast food (southern only chains), it's all great. I've eaten more BBQ this week than I have in a long time, and it's all been amazing. The best was probably found in Johnson City, Tennessee at Dixie BBQ. The food was outstanding, but the decor coincided with the Worst List #1. The concept of the BBQ buffet is also a great idea. Since BBQ is meant to be slow cooked and sit around, it really doesn't lose much when served buffet style like other cuisines do. Plus BBQ buffets fit in nicely with #4.

Honestly, these girls would probably get a B grade at most, while in the Northeast it would probably be a solid A

1) The girls
--Southern girls are absolutely gorgeous. They know how to dress up and the accent is killer. Whoever came up with the idea that girls need to dress up for football games like they're going to a cocktail party is a genius and should be given an award. Taking these trips down South has definitely increased my interest in blondes (Jing moment) and really made me think about what I would do for a girl (go to church?? ennnnhhhhh, debatable). Walking around Athens on game day was a complete sensory overload in the best of ways.

5 Worst Things About the South

After spending a full week in the South, there are a lot of things I really enjoy, but some things that they can approve on. Here are the top 5 worst things about the South.



5) It smells
--I'm not sure why, but the South smells. In both Georgia and South Carolina I've run into this weird sulfur smell in the air and I don't know exactly what's causing it. Alex apparently was told that in Athens it's caused by a nearby syrup plant, plausible, but it doesn't explain why it's persisted in South Carolina. A quick google of the issue did not reveal any answers.



4) Guys with a southern accent/stupid people
--A southern accent on girls is amazing, but it just makes guys sound like idiots. I was going to make this one saying that the people are kind of dumb, but I'm not sure it's true (probably is, updated to just come out and say it). At the very least they sound a lot dumber than they do in the North and the accent is largely the reason. However, the accent alone isn't the reason I say that they're dumber, the guy holding a sign advertising Dominoes upside down didn't help their case. Southern taxi dispatchers are also idiots.



3) They drive slow as hell
--Man, they are way too relaxed down here. Apparently no one is in a hurry to get anywhere because it seems like almost everyone drives at or below the speed limit. This is particularly frustrating on backcountry single lane roads. Come on people, pick up the pace!



2) No one works here
--I wanted to stop at a BBQ place in South Carolina but almost all of the ones I looked up were open 3-4 days per week. Right now I'm in Charleston, SC (very touristy city) and all the stores close at 5, I guess it's good for work-life balance, but how does anyone make money here?! If this is Southern living, sign me up.



1) Their history
--I'm sorry, but as someone born and raised in the Northeast, I can't get over the confederate flags. I can understand the argument that it's just about Southern history, but if people don't realize what it stands for now they're idiots (see number 4) or they're just blatantly racist. Luckily #4 basically prevents the bumper stickers saying the South will rise again from coming true.


Now, as I said at the start, there's a lot to like about the South. That post will be either coming tonight, or tomorrow.

Week 4 NFL Picks

Here y'all go! As always, these picks are guaranteed winners.

Week 4 Picks

Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Falllon: Hip Hip History

Not that they're creating history, just reviewing it. Fallon did a surprisingly good job on it and The Roots (Philly what) killed it.

Week 3 NFL Picks

After a 1 week hiatus, my picks are back!!!!! As always, put as much money on these picks as you can, they are a lock.

Week 3 NFL Picks

Smart child

Everyday I get more into SEC football. I don't know if I'll ever get to this kid's level of commitment to his team (not sure who his team is though).

Oh God No

Two of the worst artists of all time have made a song together, let the Armageddon count down begin. 50 Cent and Soulja Boy have teamed up on a diss track against...anyone. I don't think it goes at anyone in particular so it appears to be a generic "I'm better than you" track. According to a tweet from 50 he believes that this track will " f**k the club up" and he referred to it as "riot music." Far be it for me to attack someone elses music critique, but 50's statements are patently false. The rapping is incredibly weak (it sounds like someone else wrote it and they are reading it for the first time) and the beat is nothing to crazy over. Take a listen below and voice your opinion in the comments.

Soulja Boy ft. 50 Cent-Mean Mug

The NFL is BACK!!!!!!!!!

And you know what that means....NFL picks of the week!!!!!

For those of you who don't know, I do my picks a little differently, so here you go:

Ben's Week 1 NFL Picks!!!!

WTF?

No commentary needed:

And The Winner Is......

THE UNIVERISTY OF GEORGIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Though there were plenty of reasons to support both Georgia and South Carolina, but ultimately it came down to this:

versus this:

Are you kidding me South Carolina? The chicken (now that I'm against them it's time to start the disses) on your logo is actually kinda trill, but this is how you translate into mascot form? Dude looks like it's wearing a skirt, and those feet, chickens have talons and you give it toeless feet? Weakest sauce ever.

A few of the other reasons that Georgia won out: I don't have to do any actual research to learn about this team, all I have to do is ask Alex about them and he'll drone on for hours, it's perfect! Young Jeezy made a song referencing the Bulldogs which automatically gives them street cred, I was not able to find a similar song for South Carolina. Similar to that, a review of notable alumni revelead the following:

South Carolina: Hootie and the Blowfish (not sure if this is even a good thing)

Georgia: Kim Basinger (nuetral), Alton Brown (awesome), Brian Burton aka Danger Mouse (cool), Wayne Knight aka Newman (...awesome, I guess...), R.E.M. (better than Hootie), Ryan Seacrest (negative, probably cancels out Kim Basinger), a NASCAR driver named Buckshot Jones which is the most baller name ever (awesome)

Buckshot himself, I really pictured him as a grizzly old man, I think it would have been a lot cooler if he was.

Bottom line, Georgia wins that by a landslide. I avoided sports stars (other than Buckshot, but his star power is debatable) intentionally since they both have big sports programs, this was more about the intangibles.

In addition to the reasons above this also gives me more reasons to wear things with an English Bulldog on them since it's probably my favorite breed of dog. I can also wear Georgia clothing and when people ask if I went there I can say "nah, I'm just letting you know I'm a G"

Maybe they have UGA gear for the elderly so I can wear it and say I'm an OG.....

And Another One Bites The Dust

With the college football season starting on Thursday my time to commit to a team is running out so I guess another contender needs to go. In case you've forgotten, the remaing teams are: Oklahoma State, Georgia, and South Carolina. In basketball I like to support mid-majors, but clearly in football I'm BCS all the way, don't really have an explanation for that.

Without further ado, this sucka is outta here (highlight as always):

Oklahoma State University

Who am I kidding, everyone knew it was going to come down to a battle of the Kresovich's with the elder pushing for SC and the ignorant younger one shilling GA. Hoenstly, there wasn't much of a reason to root for OK State in the first place. Yeah there's a family connection, but I don't think they really pay that much attention to the team anyways. Plus Oklahoma is called the Show Me State, what's up with that? As a slogan goes, that's pretty weak sauce.


A format change to note, now that it's down to just two teams remaining the next post will be announcing the winner. There will be no blackout, so whatever logo or indication you see is the team that has received my committment (for 1 year at least, as Tennessee painfully found out).

A New Contender!!

A dark horse has entered the race for my college football support! Eastern Washington University has emerged out of nowhere with their absolutely ridonkulous bright red field!


No, a certain booster of another team in this competition has pointed out that they are not a D1 team, however I never said I was looking for D1. Some people may say that this is a rip off of Boise State's blue turf, and it may be, but it has much bigger implications. This now gives a clear distinction as to who the Bloods and Crips should be rooting for (I think the Crips lucked out on that one) and it will also appeal the gamers desperately searching for a college football team (probably not many). Bottom line, this throws a big kink into the competition.




Pysch, I can't root for them, if I ever saw one of their games I would probably go blind and I'm not really down with that.

Another elimination tomorrow folks!

National Signing Week Update 2

Another day, another loser! It's elimination time again and one of the aforementioned teams will not be getting a rose tonight. What they will be getting however, is a lifetime of ineptitude since they will not be receiving the good luck that comes with my support (just ask the past two world series winners).


And the loser is (once again, highlight to reveal):

SYRACUSE ORANGEMEN

Syracuse is already the team I support through March Madness, and I'm just not ready to commit to them full time (gotta play the field a little). Additionally, as a football school they don't have much to offer. One of the main benefits of rooting for them would be going to the Dinosaur BBQ if I were to ever see a game of theirs, but I can go to the Dinosaur anyways, so who cares.

Additionally, Syracuse's most recent notable alumni is Donovan McNabb who has only played for teams that I cannot support in any way, shape, or form. That doesn't play a major role in my decision, but it certainly doesn't help.

Sorry Syracuse, but I still love your BBQ.

National Signing Week Update 1

Two big items for today, a team is eliminated and one team steps up their offer.



First things first, the team that I will NOT being supporting this fall is.................




Highlight to reveal the team (gotta keep that drama):

TEMPLE OWLS

Why eliminate Temple? Well the reality is they never had a chance. I'm not going to root for any other Philly team in any sport and that's that. There is way too much hate in me to let that happen, plus Temple isn't good at football (or anything else for that matter) so it would really be a waste.


In other recruiting news, South Carolina has upped the ante by offering full access to the Executive Suite! I assume this means free food and booze, but as it was pointed up, it also means dressing up and watching with people who don't care. This makes the competition much more interesting....

National Signing Week

A lot of colleges have been contacting me trying to get me to commit to supporting them this coming year. Last year I threw my weight behind Tennessee due to an article in Sports Illustrated about Lane Kiffin, but since he's a douche, I'm in the market for a new school. Here are the top contenders.

Temple Owls
Pros: Philadelphia school that isn't full of a-holes (i.e. Penn, Nova), I could actually see a game live
Cons: Screw Temple, Drexel is the only school in Philly that matters


Oklahoma State University Cowboys
Pros: Some of my closest relatives support them, underdog status vs. Oklahoma
Cons: Do I really care that much about anything Oklahoma, orange ain't my color


Syracuse Orangemen
Pros: Close enough to hometown status, used the hear their games on the radio from the guys next to us at the farmer's market
Cons: That darn orange thing again, seems like they've sucked for a long time


University of Georgia Bulldogs
Pros: Their mascot is an English Bulldog, I love English Bulldogs, AK can tell me all I need to know
Cons: AK can tell me all I need to know (probably more than I want to know), they're in the south



University of South Carolina Gamecocks
Pros: Gives me an excuse to wear clothing with the word "cocks" on it
Cons: Pretty much everything else about them


Over the next few days I'll be eliminating contenders until I come up with my final decision. If you have things that would sway me, or new candidates, please drop a note in the comments. Make sure to include your reasoning as to why I should be a fan.

Cribs: Crunk Bear

AK did his cribs post, and I forgot I had pics of my new apartment, so I figured I'd throw 'em up here so my millions of followers can check it out.

This is the living room which you walk into directly from the street (I'm on the 1st floor). My TV is not as new as AKs so it is not included in the picture, haha.


The kitchen is a bit on the small side, so I went with the hanging knives and pots and pans. The wall is like solid plaster so I had to drill into first to mount the stuff, major pain in the ass.


Baller ass dining room. You can see the living room at the far end and the kitchen is between the two (bathroom is opposite the kitchen). The windows on the right are actually kinda cool, they look onto a building next door, but they are those distorted windows so you can't really see what's there but light still gets through.


This isn't where the magic happens, this is where REAL LIFE HAPPENS! I need to put up more pictures and ish. You might be asking why there is a door in my bedroom, well that door leads to....



PATIO SNITCHES!!! The girl before me left the lounge chairs which was super trill. I'm trying to grill as much as possible during the summer, and I might even need to continue in the winter...

That basically concludes the tour, I have a basement with a washer and dryer as well, but pictures aren't spectacular so I won't include them. I'm pretty happy with the place and the neighborhood and I'm definitely hoping to get a couple of years out of it.

You Know I'm Living

MY CARAMEL HAS PATRON IN IT!!!!!! I'M RICH BITCH!!!!!



This was taken at Distrito, a high end Mexican restaurant in Philadelphia. It's owned by Jose Garces who has a lot of different restaurants in Philly and is an Iron Chef on Food Network. The food was pretty good, it was tapas style so lots of small plates shared amongst people. It can be tough to do that with a large group (10 people) but it was nice to get to taste a lot of different dishes. The best were probably the kobe beef tacos and the duck queso dip. Somehow it only came out to $25/person, which was great because I thought it would be a lot more. The food was well prepared and very well presented (don't have any pics though) and I would definitely go back. Boom, restaurant reviewed.

It'll Get You Drunk!

Sorry, but Samuel Jackson doesn't have ish on this:



I can't imagine what a 60% ABV beer would taste like, and I probably won't find out anytime soon. It's (relatively) reasonably priced at $45 for .333 liters compared to the recently announced 55% ABV beer that is $760/bottle, though it comes wrapped in a rodent carcass (?!?!). I won't be writing a review of it anytime soon, but I expect K to shortly.

I should have tried this

This seems like it's making its way around the web, hopefully it's new to some of you guys



Maybe I should have tried this out when I was taking flying lessons. Not sure if they would have continued after that though...

Eh....

This post will probably elicit some hate in the comments, but I think it's a pretty ill track. His other stuff seems pretty good too...

Huge Europe Mega Post

Disclaimer: this post is really long, 4 pages in Word long, if you don't want to read it just look at the pics. I'll try to put captions on all of them.

Many of you know that I was in Europe last week, but if you didn’t know that, now you do. I had two cousins (who are sisters, Maggie and Caitlin) that were studying over there and figured I may as well take the opportunity to visit them. I spent two nights in Paris and 6 nights in London and overall it was an extremely trill time. I’ll try to stick to the chronological order of the trip:

Flew out of Philly around 6PM on Friday the 18th on British Airways. The flight was from Philly to London-Heathrow and hen Heathrow to Charles De Gaulle. My plan was to try to sleep the whole flight since I would be arriving in Paris around 9:30 AM and hopefully I could just act like it was a normal morning. Unfortunately my plan did not work as well as I hoped. The flight itself was nice and I had an open seat next to me but I had a lot of trouble falling asleep and probably only got around 3 hours of the 7 I hoped for. Note to others: if you take Simply Sleep and still have trouble falling asleep, don’t take more, it just dries you out completely. The layover in London was uneventful and I got into Paris fine.


I took the train from CDG to the Chatelet stop in Paris which is a big station. It was at this point that I realized I probably should have gotten a map of Paris before I left… After wandering the streets for 20 minutes I was able to find a map and figure out how to get to my cousin’s hotel.

View from Maggie's hotel, Les Halles fountain in the square

She had some meetings and lectures so after ditching my stuff I wandered around the area (Les Halles area for those in the know). It was a pretty touristy area with a lot of shops and restaurants and it was near the Pompdou Modern Art Museum. Once she was finished we walked across the Siene to check out Notre Dame and Saint Chapele. Notre Dame was really cool and the architecture was amazing. We didn’t wait in line to go inside but just walking around the outside was good enough.

Notre Dame

Ridonk detail on Notre Dame, can't imagine doing all that by hand.

After that we had dinner at a little bistro with some of her friends that was really good. I had a maple syrup glazed duck breast and lava cake for dessert. We also had a very good bottle of Rosé. By that point I think the jet lag was starting to hit me and I hung out for a bit at her hotel and then walked over to where I was staying and crashed for the night around 11PM.
The next day I did my own walking tour of Paris. I headed over to the Louvre which was about 5 minutes from my hotel and checked out the exterior (the lines to go in were way too long). Once again, the architectural detail was awesome.

The Louvre and it's glass pyramid entrance

From the Louvre I walked down the Champs Elysees which is one of the main roads in Paris. Very touristy again with lots of shopping (3-story Louie Vitton store) and restaurants. At the end of the Champs Elysess is the Arc De Triomph which I believe was built by Napoleon and is also the finish line of the Tour de France.

Arc De Triomph, site of many Lance Armstrong dominations

From there I cut through side streets to the Eiffel Tower. As you might be able to tell I’m not a line person, so I wasn’t about to try to go to the top of the tower, plus, I’ve been in taller buildings already. I did walk under the tower and then down the grass park area that extends away from it (think Washington Monument and the National Mall).

Do you really need a caption....?

Quite a few things to honor Americans, I was surprised. Also saw stuff for Woodrow Wilson and George Washington.

After that I met up with my cousin again and we checked out some different shopping areas in Paris. By that point it was time for us to go to a group dinner with her school group. I thought the dinner was good and I got to hang out with her friends more (one of them is Thai and her mom owns a tiger farm….). After dinner the entire group went to the Moulin Rouge since the school purchased tickets for them. Most people already know but it’s a cabaret show with lots of singing and dancing and… boobs. The guys wear ridiculous costumes and the girls wear equally ridiculous costumes, except without tops. Made the show much more entertaining. The tickets also came with champagne, so that was pretty cool. We went to the late show so by the time it ended everyone was pretty dead.

Unfortunately no pictures allowed inside...

On Monday Maggie and I had to fly out around 4PM so that morning we (and her Thai friend) walked across the Siene to a pastry shop to get some macaroons for Maggie’s mom (my aunt Martha) and Caitlin.

So good!

After that we did some shopping at Le Bon Marche, which apparently is the oldest department store in the world, so I could get gifts for my family. We then went to another department store so her friend could do her tax refund paperwork for stuff bought there earlier. It was here that I saw some extremely depressing sights. This place has a boatload of luxury good, LV, Chanel, etc. so there were a lot of wealthy people walking around. However, while sitting at the tax refund area I saw a group of kids come up with all these shopping bags from these high end stores. They couldn’t have been older than 12 or 13 and these kids are buying Louie, Armani, whatever you can name that I (and most others) certainly cannot afford. Plus, to add insult to injury, one of these little kids pulls out brand new Beats By Dre, freaking $300 headphones that are probably even more expensive over there. It made me so angry.

Basically those kids life story.

The flight from Paris to London was only an hour long and it was uneventful. Customs between EU countries seems like a bit of a joke. We went through the non-EU/Nothing To Declare doors, and there wasn’t even anyone there to see what we were carrying, you just walk right through. We took the subway from the Airport to the flat my Aunt Martha rented for the week and met up with her and Caitlin. We went to a local pub for dinner and I had some legit English fish and chips with mushy peas which are a lot better than they sound.

Also, so good!

Tuesday started off with a Fat Tire Bike Tour of “Royal London.” Figured it was a good way to get an overview of the sites and get familiarized with the city. It lasted around 3-4 hours and exceeded everyone’s expectations. The tour guide was great and biking was great since you could see a lot more than walking but didn’t have the same constraints as a bus tour.

Looking baller on our bikes

The tour began in Hyde Park and went past: Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Prime Minister’s Residence, Westminster Abbey/Parliament, Princess Di Memorial, and The Albert Memorial. After the bike tour we went to Covent Gardens, which is a misleading name, since it’s really a pedestrian area with mad bars, haha.

Buckingham Palace, the Queen was in and holding a garden party that day. We weren't invited.

Trafalgar Square

Back of where the PM lives

Westminster Abber, home of 3000 dead people....

Albert Memorial, how baller is it to have a statue of you in gold.

Wednesday had one main thing on the schedule: England vs. Slovenia. We went to the Gloucester Arms pub which was near my cousin’s place to watch the game. Got there about an hour and a half early to get a seat, which was good because the place was packed to the rafters by the time the game started. Watching over there was pretty cool, people were decked out in flags and singing songs and doing chants for England (does the US have any songs/chants?). The most popular was probably “I’m England till I die, I’m England till I die, I know I am, I swear I am, I’m England till I die.” They did have the USA game on in one corner of the bar and there were some American fans, so that was cool too. It was a pretty fun experience and even though I watched the first half of England v. Germany at the airport there was surprisingly more German fans (fine by me, go Deutschland!!).

Booze money for the game! All the little gold ones are one pound.

That night we went to the London Eye which is a ferris wheel that is much more advanced. You can get views of all of London on a clear day (which it was thankfully). To do a full rotation takes about ½ and hour, so we got plenty of time to see all the sights. It had a direct view onto Parliament and Big Ben, so that was pretty trill.

The London Eye

View of Parliament and Big Ben from the Eye

A brief side note here: Kensington has some of the sickest cars I’ve ever seen in my life, and lots of them. We saw BMWs, Benzs, Bentleys, Maseratis, Rolls Royces, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, fully chrome Audi R8 (tacky but expensive) and probably some I’m missing.

Thursday took us to Wimbledon which was awesome. My family is really into tennis, so going to Wimbledon was really exciting. Though it seems pretentious it’s actually set up to cater to all people. A limited number of advance tickets are sold to member of the All England Club and people who “ballot” for them (basically enter a lottery). Then, on each day they have about 150 “show court” tickets (Centre Court, Courts 1&2) and about 6000 “grounds” tickets which get you onto any of the other courts.

The Qeue

In addition to that, at 3 o’clock you can purchase resale show court tickets for only 5 pounds. So if people need to leave early the main evening games don’t just have empty seats. We arrived at Wimbledon around 9:30 to wait in the line “qeue” for tickets and finally got in around 12:00. Since most of my readers are sports fans, I assume you’ve heard about the 11 hour match between John Isner (USA) and Nicolas Mahut (France). A little background, at Wimbledon and the French Open, the 5th set does not have a tie-breaker, instead the winner must win by two games (for those who have no clue about tennis: men must win 3 out of 5 sets, a set is first to 6 games or if tied 6-6 a tiebreaker is held, and a game is 4 points (love, 15, 30, 40)). So in the 5th set if the players are tied at 6-6 they don’t do a tiebreaker, they keep playing games until one of them wins by two games. So this match started on Tuesday and was called due to darkness, it resumed on Wednesday to play the 5th set. Normally this would take an hour at most, but these two were pretty closely matched and when night fell on Wednesday the score was tied 59-59 in the 5th set. It had already eclipsed the longest match in history and it wasn’t over yet so the tennis world (and the sports world to a lesser extent) was abuzz.

A sight not seen often....

Well the first thing we did upon entry was head straight to court 18 since we knew that is where they would be resuming later in the day (rules say they can’t change courts). We waited in line at court 18 for about 45 minutes to get seats (no reserved seating, if you leave, you go to the end of the line) and once we got in we were staying put! We saw one women’s singles match and then it was time for the Isner-Mahut match.

Flavia Penneta, 10th seed.

You could tell that both were physical exhausted as they both looked shaky at the start while they loosened up. The match was really exciting considering the historical aspect of it and when it finally ended Isner won 70-68.

Isner post victory

Isner (left) and Mahut (right)

John McEnroe in the crowd (Yanks hat with a suit, nice)

ESPN in the house

I also have to mention, Isner graduated from UGA and AK would be proud since we repeatedly shouted Go Dogs and I yelled “win it for Uga!” (wish I had remembered which number Uga died last year). After that match we stayed at court 18 to watch the Bryan Brothers (USA) play doubles since they are the #1 ranked team in the world. Took a break after that and got some strawberries and cream and some Pimms and lemonade (cocktail). Went back to court 18 after and stayed until play was halted due to darkness. It was a really awesome time.

On Friday we went to the Borough Market and the Globe Theater (home of Shakespeare), and then walked over Tower Bridge to go to the Tower of London which house the crown jewels.

Globe Theater

They said the room where the jewels are stored is the most secure room in all of London and there has been only one attempted theft of the jewels. I can’t imagine how much value is in that one room since some of the crowns and stuff were blinged out like you cannot imagine. The Tower of London is also the place where traitors were sent to be tortured and eventually killed, so it wasn’t all jewels and fanciness. I’m pretty sure a shit ton of people died there, but don’t feel like looking up any estimates.

Tower Bridge

Tower walls

Protecting them jewels

Saturday we went to Harrods which is a huge, over the top department store. Like the ones in France it had mad luxury goods and I saw purses and stuff for like 4000 pounds, absolutely ridiculous. It did have a really cool food section though, haha. After that we went to Buckingham Palace for some close up views. Though the palace itself isn’t spectacular the fencing and arches and stuff is pretty cool. Lots of gold and ornate sculptures.

Buckingham Palace

Palace Gates

Trill ass statue

We then went back to Trafalger square to try to watch the USA v Ghana game at a pub. However, the one we went to had a really shitty TV and we got there early enough that we decided to just have dinner and then go back to the flat to watch it (very disappointing game).

Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery

Sunday was my last day so we went out for a true English breakfast (eggs, sausage, ham, tomato, and beans). After that we just walked around the Kensington area since I had a few more things I wanted to buy as gifts. The flight back was uneventful, however before it took off a chiller unit overheated and we were delayed two hours on the ground for it to be replaced, so that sort of sucked.

British Airways showing love for Ithaca!

Overall verdict: great trip. I liked London more than Paris, but the weather could have helped that and it was nice to not have a language barrier. Paris might be cooler if I went with someone who was conversational in French. Either way I’m really glad I was able to go and it was great to be able to see Caitlin and Maggie while they were there.

Random Pics:

So little space devoted to Budweiser, awesome

Cockfosters...seriously England?

Cockermouth! Seriously!