Abazu strikes again

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Lazy

The relief at being outisde of the valley for the summer is indescribable. I feel like I've been rescued.

The paper had something about record setting heat, a special election that will either rescue the jacked up state budget or just let it fail that hardly anyone from Fresno is showing up for, a 15-month-old ingesting meth, blah blah blah.

It all seems like a big joke, a terrible dream that you wake up from relieved as HEYUL that it's not real. Of course I'll be back in August, so I better keep in mind that the covers are coming back.

This thing here really is cool. You can type in any address in Fresno and find the last 50 crimes within a quarter mile, half mile, or whole mile radius. They even have color codes for what kind of crime it was. Try it at your own peril.

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Just read it.

Las Vegas

Oh baby!!

Obviously this isn't quite Fresno related, but hey, that means it's better.

So we went to the Fresno Grizzlies game Thursday night. I had free tickets to Thirsty Thursdays, Hell yea!! Turns out the road team was none other than the Las Vegas blah blah blahs. We got a couple beers in us and suddenly my buddies were yelling; "Let's get on the f-in team bus and go to Vegas!"

And we did!!!!...

Okay, not really. But we went home and drove to Vegas on a whim, arriving around 4 a.m. GREAT way to start a weekend.

First off, I've been to Vegas before, but I've never been impressed with it. I'm not a gambler and that doesn't help, but the scene is what really sort of perplexed me. Hardly anyone we saw was young, or even well dressed. At least 75% of the clientele at our hotel was older overweight blue-collar workers. Forget Las Vegas, call it Middle Ageas.

More importantly, I live for spontaneity (obviously) and excitement that's at least a little off the beaten path. I mean, if it ain't off the path at all, how can it really be exciting right? And certainly Vegas is seen as an exciting place. But dude, it was such an obviously controlled environment. You walk around in maze-like buildings. You drink out in the open. You play various games which are obviously designed so the house wins. And it's all there to take your money. Every bit of it. It just seems boring.

Anyway, the guys I went with were the most outgoing dudes I've ever met. They dominated the conversation everywhere they went, and they won most of their bets out of sheer confidence. Guys like that don't usually hang out with writers and vice-versa, so even as a non-gambler it was fascinating to just watch how they interacted with people.

One of them got down 500 dollars in a roulette game about 30 minutes after we arrived. He didn't even break a sweat. I once lost 5 dollars betting on a football game and got so mad that I cussed out the winner for his brief entry into the fool's paradise, and later apologized. So how this guy could do that I'll never understand.

By the end of the weekend both claimed they had actually made money, and lots of it. I think one said he made 500 overall and the other came out up 300. I don't guess they were lying, though I didn't keep track or anything.

Everything else I could say about the trip is probably not safe for the internet, but yea Vegas ain't for me, at least not until I hit my mid-life crisis.

Oh, oh yea. And whenever we told people at the tables we were from Fresno their eyes got wide and they said something about how lame it was. And I agreed wholeheartedly.

And now the weather...

I'm sweatin' my ass off!!

Back to the Frind...

Alas, my lovely vacation from the 'No is 'No more. However, this did give me an update of the airport. Whereas I have made fun of the FAT in the past for it's high praise of Yosemite Park at the expense of the city of Fresno, it has really outdone itself this time:

(Fresnomore sincerely apologizes for the insanely low quality of the pictures)

They now have life-sized replicas of the redwood trees to give off the impression that you are actually inside the park! It's gone from "Don't pay attention to the Fresno part" to "Don't worry, you're not really even in Fresno." Both baggage claim conveyors also have big pictures of the dome thingy now.

Another Fresno First happened today. Heading down to Target on Blackstone I noticed something peculiar; the Target was closed!

"Not our fault! If you're in Fresno, you've obviously missed the target anyway."

No idea why this Target is closed. Also, I didn't know the entire storefront can be covered a la the garage at your house. Cool! Except that I can't buy a dress shirt for 3 dollars now...

Lastly, while the Easter picnic shooting and the apparently-heated Bullard pool controversy are tempting, I'll leave you this Sunday with a more personal take on the weirdness in Fresno. You see, while my good buddy and fellow non-Fresnan Abazu was away, his cramped fridge became even more crowded:

This is yet another ongoing problem for him, as he gets less and less room for his own things. And I know what you're thinking; "Really? You're that biased that you're complaining about your friend's refrigerator? As if that one fridge represents every single fridge in Fresno?"

Yes, I am, but that's just it. There isn't one thing that makes this city weird, nothing you can definitively put your finger on. It's a multitude of small things that make no sense which eventually build into a cacophony that pushes you ever so slightly closer to insanity every day you spend here. Of which, this is a good example.

Abazu has a few grapes and a loaf of bread in the bottom shelf. Among the things you will find in this veritable Where's Waldo or Who's Who of Fresno Refrigerator Items are at least 3 bottles of liquor and an energy drink which all have been there since at least September (not sure why the liquor bottles need to be refrigerated), three separate loaves of bread (all open), at least two 2-liter soft drink bottles (in place since January), eggs, oranges which were placed squarely in the middle of the thing instead of a drawer (you know, where you'd expect to find them) and, as you can see, TONS and TONS of Tupperware (who knows if any of the food contained therein is any good at this point).

I once got bold and drank one of the energy drinks which lingered in the murky depths of the back right-hand corner of the fridge. Abazu received a complaint soon thereafter about how that drink would have been used for studying that night. Not only is this negligible on its own terms seeing as how old the drink was, there was another months-old energy drink in the back left-hand corner of the fridge that, apparently, neither party knew about.

If not yet convinced that this is a true Fresnism, remember two more things:

1. The people who push this fridge to its limits with bacteria-laden leftovers simultaneously refuse to use (or let anyone else use) the dishwasher because they view it as unsanitary.

2. Believe it or not, there is also a mini fridge on the other side of the room, itself packed with unused liquor bottles and a 5-gallon jug of spring water.

I'd drink from the liquor bottles in order to forget where I was, but then it would inevitably be the one night they were going to use them... Only

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.