Fresno Friday, with Ben Stein

My bracket isn't looking so hot right now. I picked Northern Iowa over Purdue for my 12-5 upset instead of WKU-whoever they played. I found out further that they don't pay for gas money either with the "free" movie tickets, so I figure that losing will actually save me money!

Elsewhere, I slugged out to the Ben Stein talk last night. It was crazy to see a world famous man up on the stage, especially one so underwhelming as Stein. He had a bit of a hunch back and was really short.



The stuff he said was quite interesting, and he sounded very left save for a few rather obvious exceptions. He openly blamed Republicans for the economic collapse and said Democrats were doing exactly what they needed to be doing. Where he got off was right at the end when he blurted out that he just freaking loved the military! Out of nowhere. And the crowd went freaking wild! Democrats need to learn this stuff.

A Q&A session followed which involved some nutty characters. Even I won't blame Fresno for this as unfortunately the people that speak up at public events are almost universally the people least qualified to do so. Some woman came up and said she predicted the exact extent of the economic collapse and wondered why the experts couldn't do it. He said, in so many words, that she was an idiot. Another kid claimed he had made thousands off of short selling stocks. He called this kid, again, an idiot in the most polite way I have ever seen.

Gay marriage came up. Stein said, very loudly, "WELL SOME PEOPLE THINK THE VOTERS SHOULD DECIDE AND THAT'S WHAT CALIFORNIA DID." and then, almost a whisper, "but one of my best friends is gay and he thinks the courts should decide, so I go with him."

The legalization of marijuana came up. Stein loudly said that he loved smoking weed in the 60s, and then backed off with the ridiculous argument that today's marijuana is too strong to be legal.

He even said at one point that the people of cities like Fresno were wonderfully helpful to others, but that Ivy-Leaguers (He even named schools! Despite being an Ivy-Leaguer himself) were greedy for money and thus couldn't be trusted.

And then, as the Q&A session ended, he AGAIN went on a rant about how much he looooooooved the military, and the crowd went wild again!!

In other words, he told half-truths and even some outright lies to pander to an audience that he knew was politically conservative and generally not that smart. No problem, he's a celebrity trying to win over a crowd. What scares me is, do actual Republicans do this?

Okay, not to get too far off-subject, a Fresno nursing home was fined $80,000 because a resident died of choking.

Don't forget to cheer on the Women's basketball team tomorrow night on ESPN2. Or, even better, go down to LA to see 'em. You can leave Fresno!!!! Go 'Dogs!

fmylife.com... you know, Fresno My Life

Filled out a tournament bracket yesterday even though I don't watch basketball. My apartment complex had some competition where you could win a Nintendo Wii. I figured why not, it's just a big guessing game anyway. After 20 minutes of jumbling through colleges I've never heard of like Siena, Binghamton, and Wake Forest, the chick at the counter tells me it isn't actually a Wii up for grabs... it's some movie tickets.

Go Kansas! If you guys win it all I can give the Watchmen even more money instead of bootlegging it!

I figured out today that what the Fresno Bee puts on the front of its web site doesn't match front of the paper. The top story online right now is about a paving worker who suffered first degree burns in a flash fire.

First off, don't they mean third-degree burns? I thought first degree burns meant stuff like sunburn. Surely it ain't THAT slow a news day.

Anyway, I'll figure out how to get the real front-page news soon, but first I need to make sure LSU beats Butler.

Lastly, according to VSP.com "Save Mart is no longer part of the annual Save Mart Shootout".

Well if they aren't, then what are they? And what is it? How? This is reminiscent of the old Louis C.K. act:

"...Why?"

"... Because some things ARE and some things AREN'T!"

"Why?"

"Well... you can't NOT BE!!"

"...Why?"


Don't worry, you'll figure it out tomorrow.

Fresno Falcons Suck Night

Looking at this morning's Fresno Bee, we've got a sex crime against a 12-year-old, a man arrested on drug charges, a burglary/carjacking, a rollover accident death, and, hey the Visalia police caught a guy attempting a carjacking! Sweet! But the devil's in the details:


According to the police report released this evening, the attempted carjacking happened about 10:45 a.m. [the robber], 42, of Dinuba pushed [A woman], 25, of Visalia out of the way as she was getting out of her car while she was holding her baby.

He couldn't get the car started, so he ran. Officers found him about a block away in the 300 block of North Jacob Street.

That whole getting keys thing didn't interest him, he's a valley criminal.

Women's BB:

I think women's basketball can be exciting. It's basically the only game in town here right now, so congrats to the team for making it into the tournament. Unfortunately, things don't look too good from here on out:

However, Charlie Creme's bracketology on ESPN.com Saturday projected the Bulldogs as a No. 15 seed playing No. 2 Stanford in San Diego in the Berkeley Regional.

"Shame on him," Wiggins said.

You go, coach!! Tell 'im off! How dare he pick our team as a 15 seed instead of... instead of some other team!

Good luck to the lady 'Dogs. Wait, that sounds bad.

Hockey:

(Guess where this happy kid is from? (Hint; It's not Fresno))

"Hockey!? Didn't that already fold embarrassingly mid-season?"

Yes, it did. But that didn't satisfy F-No. Turns out that, besides never reimbursing season-ticket holders (a.k.a. "suckers"), they owe money to children.

Here's the best part of the article:

The Falcons' employee who organized 4-H Night was laid off, and the ECHL franchise folded Dec. 22, midseason.

They seem to imply that, had he not screwed this up, he'd still have a job.

Right. And people in the Bay area are really excited to live only 3 hours from Fresno.

The Boise Idaho Steelheads held an official "Fresno Falcons Suck Night," offered cheap beer, and sold 800 extra tickets compared to a typical night.

I concur. Tonight I encourage all F-nomore readers to drink cheap beer, reflect on how much the Falcons suck, and um, figure out what the Hell a Steelhead is.