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November 28, 2006

Battle against Ohio State

Lets prevent Ohio State from tearing a piece of history away from USC. Lets win this years 2006-2007 season and take that BCS bowl championship away. Arizona here we come. Everyone get their tickets, its available now for reservations so reserve them now! $135 each, i'm going to probably sell them if i do get them.

Big Balls Pete

USC head coach Pete Carroll was named the 2006 Pac-10 Coach of the Year and the famous "big balls pete" slogan was started famously during the Cal 2006 game when the students from USC started chanting the big balls pete during the score being even at 9v9 during halftime. This is only done when 4th down is present and the chance of bringing another first down or a successful touchdown can exist. Hand movement must correlate together with an up down motion with alternating movements such as this below,

November 25, 2006

USC vs. Notre Dame

The win before a crowd of 91,800 at the Los Angeles Coliseum was the Trojans 55th in their last 58 games. They're 20-0 in November games under coach Pete Carroll, and have won 33 straight home games.

Final Score: 44 v 24 USC

Winter Season Starting!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope everyone had a good meal and enjoyed their dinner with your family and friends. As for me, I had a blast celebrating it over two days with my family and we had the traditional turkey with sushi on the 2nd day. It was a blast and I enjoyed the sushi even more.

Winter season is almost starting and I can't wait until it rains/snows on Monday. If it does, its a very good sign that the season is off to a very strong start. Lets just hope it can last and my new skis can take advantage of the extra long season mother nature has brought upon us.

If anyone needs passes, I will be selling Mountain High passes for $42 per adult 8-hour pass (retail: $49/59). If you're looking for rental+passes it will be $55 (retail: $65/75)

November 20, 2006

Got the new skis

I got some new skis for the upcoming season and I can't wait to go! Please snow soon... Please

November 17, 2006

Playstation 3: The story

With having the Playstation 3 launch on Friday November 17, 2006, Mike Langford and I decided to buy one of these devices to sell on eBay. As soon as we got to our destination in Costa Mesa and Irvine, we were met with long lines of geeks, thugs, and very avid entrepreneurs in each location. Here is the story of our adventure:

8:30pm

Our first place to check out was the Costa Mesa Best Buy about 45 minutes off USC near the 405 freeway. The line was seriously about 50 people strong and had two lines for the same store. The estimated unit arrival for this store alone was near 15. The odds Mike and I were going to get it required finesse and a bit of luck to get, so we decided to screw this and head for Irvine Fashion Island.

11:00pm
We arrived to the Circuit City in Fashion Island and we were greeted with security guards and a very desperate looking mob outside waiting for the PS3. The lines for this store didn’t start up until 3am and everyone was just circling around the store entrance waiting until the 3am deadline.

12:00am
This was the closing time for Fashion Island and I felt this was the time to make my move. As the security guards at Fashion Island (about 5 guards) decided to clear the parking lot, there were plenty of bystanders who were causing a scene of anger and confusion. While Mike and Karim decided to go get gas and food, I was left alone to make my master plan. I decided to stay in the parking lot and risk getting a ticket and getting arrested for trespassing. The circuit city store had no line, and they had 15 PS3’s at this time. I was pretty enthusiastic about my chances right now and hid behind some columns and some trash cans to make my quick lineup until 3am.

1:30am
By this time Karim, Will, and Mike arrived back with my food but I was already feeling the effects of the pressure trying to hide from the police. They had guards searching through the parking lot and on the property near circuit city and I felt like I was running away from Alcatraz. After waiting for a few minutes, my body was feeling fatigued and I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle this for another hour so I gave up. This was my big master plan but failed. As I was walking down the steps and into the parking lot into the hands of the police, I thought of something else more genius that would get me and all my friends inside the store.

2:00am
As I was walking down into the hands of the Newport Police now, I thought up of a story that I was a circuit city employee and just came off the late shift here at 11:00pm. The officer named P. Miner was present and he questioned me about who, what, where, and how PS3’s were going to get released. I told him about 15-20 units were there and the release was going to happen at 5am with vouchers from the store itself and I also showed him the OFFICIAL line for the PS3 launch. After I showed him and said that this was the line blah blah blah, he believed me and said to wait here so he can discuss with his partners on what to do next. At this time I was feeling confident that I would be the one in line and securing my own spot but then a bombshell dropped on me. They asked for my manager’s phone number with my name and my personal contact information too. At this time I was like “shit, cats out of the bag, they’re going to arrest me for fraud” but in reality I was very cool and gave him my number including Will. After I gave the numbers, I fled into the parking lot with the mob of about 300 people and talked to will about the incident. At first he freaked out and said he wasn’t a manager at Circuit City and can’t impersonate another person but we made up a name and did a story to convince the officers in line to put me in charge of the whole distribution thing with the line. After calling and having Will (aka Peter Assistant Manager) yelling at the officers for waking him up (pretending he just got off his shift and was sleeping to work the next day), he sounded damn convincing and the officer was very apologetic about the whole verification and calling in the wee hours of the night.
After that was clear, I was given access to the line and was told to bring 15 people out of the crowd to stand in line. I picked 6 of Jon’s friends including him with, 4 of my own friends, 5 other USC buddies of mine and we proceeded to the line. When the crowd saw that we were getting in line, a riot started to ensure and the police had a hard time letting my group go. The mob was yelling “WTF, WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE”, “why are they getting in line and not us?” “HE DOESN’T WORK FOR CIRCUIT CITY”, etc. Pushing and shoving started to occur and my group got lost in the mob while I managed to get around 5-6 people in line with me. We had police protection and backup did arrive bringing the security to about 8, and police to around 20. When the sergeant of the Newport police came up to me asking who the 15 people in line was, he wanted me to point them out of the mob and soon after the crowd started begging and started yelling for my attention “PICK ME PICK ME”. As soon as the crowd got more desperate, I saw that this was not going to work out since there was an immense pressure from the crowd trying to prevent me from picking anyone from my group. Everyone started yelling and throwing stuff so the police said to me “Fuck this, get your fucking group out of here”, and I had to leave with my only chance of standing in line at this point. I was so close but had no cigar, everyone dispersed and everyone followed me thinking I was some circuit city employee while people were coming up to me wondering how the fuck we got in line. When some components of the crowd didn’t participate with the evacuation of Newport, they started bringing out the tear gas and bean bag shotguns so everyone started running and hiding behind cars just incase they started to use those weapons against us. When I saw those weapons being displayed, I got an image in my head like this

Everyone hiding and running away from the police over some stupid PS3’s, my god what has this world turned into? The behavior of hundreds of people was predicated over supply and demand and the chance that they too can make thousands of dollars on ebay.

I gave up at 4:30am and went to sleep. Its not worth selling over my soul even though I tricked the officers to have me and everyone I know stand in line out of the whole crowd. Create your own opportunities, that’s what I did.

At the time of this post, the average selling price for Playstation 3’s were at $2,500 each with the price buying it at retail was $600.

November 16, 2006

Playstation 3, the waiting begins

I never realized how hard it was to wait for something so trival and so useless in my whole life. Planning the logistics to stand in line while you compete against grown ass men is a sight to see. I'll be camping out tonight and hopefully everything works out as planned and I can get my hands on a PS3. I'm going to keep the device or sell it online for a small profit. Who knows, I put my chances at around 20%

November 09, 2006

Pac-10 Predictions

PAC-10 PICKS

Game The skinny Pick
Stanford (0-9, 0-6) at (-19) Washington (4-6, 2-5) Stanford finally proving it's worthy of the Ivy League

Washington, 27-10
(-1 1/2) Washington State (6-4, 4-3) at Arizona State (5-2, 2-4) Better known as the Red Cross Bowl (sprained a finger typing that)

Arizona State, 28-25
No. 21 Oregon (7-2, 4-2) at (-8) No. 7 USC (7-1, 5-1) Trojans won't Duck upset

Oregon, 24-21
(-2) Oregon State (6-3, 4-2) at UCLA (4-5, 2-4) Bruins fans are (again) getting antsy with Dorrell

Oregon State, 31-24
(-14) No. 8 California (8-1, 6-0) at Arizona (4-5, 2-4) Bears won't be Golden if they look ahead to USC

California, 30-14
Last week: Straight up: 4-1 (46-14 overall); vs. spread: 3-2 (28-25 overall)

November 06, 2006

USC Bulletin

No. 7 USC Football Hosts Top 20 Oregon To Start 3-Game Homestand

It's Homecoming at USC, in more ways than one as the No. 7 Trojans start a crucial 3-game homestand against ranked opponents. First up is No. 21/20 Oregon, making its first visit to the sold-out Coliseum since 2000 (the last 3 Trojan-Duck games have been in Eugene). The Trojans, who are playing one of the nation's toughest schedules, remain in control of their quest for an unprecedented fifth consecutive Pac-10 championship. Although USC historically hasn't fared well against a ranked Oregon club, Troy has been tough to beat in the Coliseum lately, as it is riding a 30-game home winning streak and a 21-game Pac-10 home winning streak (both are league records). And the Trojans are 17-0 in November under sixth-year head coach Pete Carroll, the nation's winningest active coach. USC, winner of 52 of its last 55 games, is coming off a dominating bounceback shutout at Stanford (coming on the heels of its only 2006 loss). In fact, Troy is sitting on a string of having scored 63 unanswered points in its past 2 games. USC--which has had an AP Top 4 finish (including national championships in 2003 and 2004) and a BCS bowl appearance in each of the past 4 years--has scored at least 20 points in an NCAA-record 60 consecutive outings and been ranked in the AP Top 10 for the past 54 games. USC is nationally ranked in total, scoring and passing offense. Efficient and productive QB John David Booty is coming off his fifth 3-TD passing performance of the year and is within range of USC's career Top 10 passing list in just his first year as a starter. His main targets both rank in USC's career pass receiving Top 10: All-American candidate WR Steve Smith and 2005 Biletnikoff Award finalist and All-American first team WR Dwayne Jarrett, who is the Pac-10's career touchdown reception leader. TB Chauncey Washington continues to lead USC's ground attack, running behind the likes of 2005 All-American OT Sam Baker and Rimington Award candidate C Ryan Kalil. The young Trojan defense (just 1 senior starter) tops the Pac-10 and is highly ranked nationally in total, scoring and rushing defense. After a 3-game drought, the defense came up with 3 turnovers last Saturday. Troy's key defenders include LBs Keith Rivers, Rey Maualuga (a 2006 Butkus Award semifinalist) and Dallas Sartz and DE Lawrence Jackson. PK Mario Danelo has been a near-flawless kicker. Oregon, coming off a 20-point win over Washington last Saturday, is guided by the Pac-10's senior head coach, Mike Bellotti (12th year). The Ducks' spread offense ranks among the nation's leaders in all statistical categories and is the Pac-10's best in total, scoring and rushing offense. Oregon has a multi-threat signalcaller in QB Dennis Dixon, one of the Pac-10's top receivers in WR Jaison Williams and a potent one-two rushing attack in TBs Jonathan Stewart and Jeremiah Johnson. MLB Blair Phillips, among the Pac-10 tackle leaders, anchors a defense that is especially strong against the pass. In fact, the game features the Pac-10's top 2 teams in total defense. PK Paul Martinez is highly ranked in field goals and scoring. The game will be shown live nationally on FSN cable.