Searching for Philly Cheese Steak- BG

From a sports perspective this weekend did not go so well for me. It started on Thursday with an embarrassing Celtics loss and continued on Saturday with a Syracuse loss to Villanova. A loss in which they gave up a 102 points and the phrase "defense" had no meaning once again. More on that in a bit. The B's losing to the Flyers at home in OT, capped off a pretty miserable day sports wise for me and I was in enemy territory the whole time. That's right I was in Philadelphia, home of the famous "Philly Cheese Steak". I set out with a goal of indulging in a nice Philly Cheese Steak because they are supposedly the best. You come to New England you try the chowder, you go to Buffalo you try the wings and when you go to Philly you have to try the cheese steak. The following is a first hand account of my weekend filled with partying, sporting events, and of course the quest for the Philly Cheese Steak.

Friday morning began like any other morning. I got up, got in the shower, but today I didn't go to work, I went to the bus terminal. I had 6 hours of total bus time ahead of me. I was first traveling to NY to meet my girlfriend, Morgan, and then the two of us were headed to Philly to meet her sister. The first 4 hours to NYC were not bad. I had rented two movies on iTunes to watch on my ipod, the only problem was that I could not get that awful image out of my head of, Sasha Vuja-Bitch and the llama a.k.a Pau Gasol celebrating on the parquet floor. There is no way even a Lakers fan can like Vuja-bitch, right? Vuja-Bitch thinks he's important, so apparently now he won't wear green anymore. Words cannot describe how much I hate this guy so I am just going to stop. As far as that game went it is pretty simple. They got outplayed. They were lucky to even go into OT because the Lakers were awful from the line. Anytime you have Big Baby Davis taking critical 18 foot jump shots you need to draw up a new game plan. Everyone around the team and in the Boston print media keeps talking about Big Baby's "growing confidence" with his jumper. Who is giving him confidence? Where is he getting this magical confidence? You know in middle school when you were at a school dance and you were dancing with a chick? Suddenly, you get a boner and the only thing you can do is stick out your ass a little bit, because you do not want brush it up against her? Well that is what Glen Big Baby Davis' jump shot looks like. The Boner Jump Shot. Its embarrassing, but maybe that is his "Growing" confidence (pun intended).


Anyhow, back to the bus ride. My feel good movie of the year so far is Eagle Eye starring Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan. Its a little far fetched, but the leading movie at the Oscars this year is about a guy who ages backwards, so who cares if its far fetched. Its got good action scenes, a good plot, and the ending makes you feel like you have accomplished something by watching the movie. The only reason I bring this up is to answer one question. Michelle Monaghan is hot, right? I am sure everyone has seen The Office where they debate the merits of Hillary Swank. I think it might be time to start debating Michelle Monaghan. I cannot tell. In movies like Mission Impossible III she is hot, but in Gone Baby Gone and Eagle Eye she is so-so. Remember it is not whether you would do her, its is she hot? The other movie I watched was the movie College, which was beyond awful. It was way more far fetched than Eagle Eye, mainly because this smokeshow wanted to jump this fat kid's bones the entire movie. If these two were the last humans on earth in real life, she would hump trees or horses instead of this kid. Inexplicable.


We finally arrived in the Land O' Chez Steak at 6pm Friday evening. Morgan's sister Ali picked us up and we headed out to Villanova for a night of partying at Villanova.


(Side Note: The worst designed road in the history of mankind is I-76 going out of Philly. Upon driving on it for a couple days I immediately called for the road designer's arrest and subsequent execution. I was quickly informed that due to the large number of problems/complaints with the road, that the man actually killed himself some time ago. So I got my wish, sort of. I will now make my reservations in hell.)


We showed up at the home of four beautiful young college coeds. If I say anything else I will get castrated, so I'm moving on. I was informed that we were going to this BYOB sushi place at 8pm. Naturally, the down side with going out with 5 girls and only 1 other guy is that we did not get to the restaurant until closer to 9pm and the line was out the door to get in. Scratch that idea. Instead we went to this Mediterranean BYOB place across the street. I new the moment that we walked in something was going to be off, because while everyone was about 25 years older than us and had one bottle of wine for their tables, we walked in with a 30 of Natty Light and a massive jug of white Carlo Rossi. Saying that we got only a couple looks would be a very large understatement. Throw in the fact that the Kabob/Rice combo meal tasted like large slim jims covered in sulfur, you could say dinner sucked.


To wash the taste out of my mouth, I drank my fair share of Natty Light at dinner. I am not going to try and be like that homo Tucker Max and say I drank a handle of Jack and a 30 rack while getting blown at dinner, but I was feeling good. We showed up a pregame party and this apartment made my old fraternity house look like the Sistine Chapel. It was that bad. The kids were actually really cool and I met this one kid who I swear was my friend Gumby 2.0. This kid was about 6 feet tall 140 pounds soaking wet. He was hammered and was physically a wreck. His hand was clearly broken in multiple places, he had a gash across his nose, and a fierce black eye. I asked him what the hell happened and he proceeds to tell me that 3 days ago him and his friend set up a ring and bare knuckle boxed each other for no reason other than so people could place bets. He could only hold a beer with two fingers because the others were not functional. When I told him that he should probably get that checked out he simply replied, "I'll be fine. You only live once." I didn't and still do not know what he meant by that, but god bless him. We went out to a few bars and the night ended with me sleep walking all over the house holding a full body mirror that I had lifted off the wall and was threatening to smash it on the ground. All in all it was a good night. Villanova catches a bad rap sometimes and they call it Villa-No-Fun. People also compare it to BC, probably because they are both Jesuit schools. From my one experience there I completely disagree, I had a blast.


*CHEESE STEAK UPDATE* At this point in my trip I have still not had, smelt, or even seen a cheesesteak. I haven't really given Philly a chance yet, but I better get one tomorrow. If Philly keeps it up, its going right up there with Newark, NJ as the worst places that I have ever been.


Saturday we woke up early because we had to be at the Wachovia Center (25 min away) by Noon in time for tip off. This was suppose to be a good game to watch. When I saw that Nova was favored by 8 points, I almost sulfur slim jim'ed my pants and placed a bet Cuse +8. Again this game was an easy game to pick apart. Everyone say it with me: The Syracuse Orange cannot play defense! Villanova took what was given to them a.k.a 102 points. Jim Boeheim is also partially to blame. Villanova is a jump shooting team and they do not have much of an inside game. The way you beat the patented Jimmy B zone is by shooting over it from behind the arc and by getting the ball to the free throw line and hit open jumpers. Well I wonder if it was after Dante Cunningham's 11th or 12th made 18 footer that Jimmy B probably started to regret his choice of zone. On the flip side, Syracuse only has 2 1/4 defenders. Johnny Flynn and Paul Harris attempt to play defense and Arinze Onauku, when healthy, is half a defender. He wasn't healthy, so he becomes a quarter of a real defender. Hence the 2 1/4 total team defenders. When your other decent defender is Kristof Ongenaet a.k.a The Belgium Waffle, you suck defensively and probably shouldn't be playing man either. You might as well put scare crows out there for Rautins, Devendorf, and Jackson. You are screwed either way. This team can score with the best of them, 82 points should get you a win, but until they learn to play D, I see them struggling to make the tourney.
(Side Note on Rautins: Andy's first four shots went like this: airball, airball, side rim, and backboard no rim. He cannot play defense, he doesn't dribble drive, and he apparently thinks that he is European with the stupid fo-hawk thing going on. Clean it up dude. Your only use is your three point shooting, so maybe daddy Leo needs break out the burlap sack from your childhood and start beating you with reeds until you hit 100 three pointers in row like he did when you were little)

*CHEESESTEAK UPDATE* I don't know if I forgot to mention this, but I was pretty wasted the entire game and afterwards we went to the Philly McFadden's, which is attached to the Phillies Stadium. The McFadden's in Philly blows the Boston one out of the planet, not just the water, the planet. Anyway, to get a table was an hour and half. I asked if I could just get a cheesesteak and they said "Sorry sir, you must be seated at a table." To this I promptly replied, "I hate you" and walked away. Still no Cheesesteak.

We go back to the hotel, great place by the way, the Club Quarters. They have one is almost every major city and if you say you are with Deutsche Bank or Morgan Stanley or something like that they cut your rate almost in half. It was great. I have had a great time with my girlfriend's family and there friends, but so far its been pretty miserable sporting wise. The one bright spot was finding out A-Rod is in fact A-Roid. This really isn't a shock to me and it should not be to anyone else. I just hate A-Rod as much as anyone in baseball and this just validates my point even more. The real question should be whether his girlfriend, Madonna, was taking them too.

(Speaking of the Yankees, frauds, and pansies, if you haven't read this story about Roger Clemens' pre game ritual, this is a must read. Joe Torre and Tom Verducci are doing possibly the best job of marketing I have ever seen. I guess if you just completely sell your dignity and trust, than you can indeed prosper.)

*THE CHEESESTEAK FINALE* We go back out to Nova for dinner, but even when we got back to Philly at 11 I said to Morgan, I am getting a cheesesteak. We get off the train in the middle of Philly. The middle of Philly, walk 5 blocks to our hotel and did not see one pizza place, restaurant or bar. The place was quieter than a funeral. All I saw were homeless people strewn all over the place. It was so dead, they were not even begging for change. I wake up the next morning and get to the airport. Its 9:45am and I see a big food court in the terminal. Finally, I am going to get to try a Philly cheesesteak. Nope. They have a Sbarro, an Asian Walk, a wine bar, and a Jimmie's hot dogs. I was pissed. I finally got a shitty cheesesteak already packaged from one of the airport convenience stores out of pure principle. It tasted like rubber and it went through me in less than 15 minutes. I was defeated. I left Philly with cheesesteak blue balls, unsatisfied and emotionally hurt. Anyhow, the sports complex and Villanova were fun, but the city itself sucks. No wonder everyone there is miserable. I am getting tired and this blog has gone on way too long. And by the way I am still searching for Philly Cheesesteak.