Baseball Hollywood Stops Cadillacs and TV Spots

Here we are nearing the end of July. I just got my Mustang back from the shop, looking sharp again. I can finally end this tailspin of negativity that started back on April 22nd. Seriously though, I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders now that this whole situation is over and paid for by that lady's insurance. On to the good stuff. Sunset and Palmtrees in LA:


As Timothy Olyphant says on the Indie 103 sports report every morning...Joe, let's talk baseball. I was going to live blog the Homerun Derby last week Bill Simmons style, but I didn't realize that it airs live. For some reason I thought it would air delayed at 8 pm pt. It instead started at 5 pm pt while I was at work. Good thing too because it would have been a waste of time. That was hardly a Homerun Derby, it was more like Homerun Drought. Someone get those guys some steroids. There weren't even enough Homeruns for Chris "Back-Back" Berman to get on my nerves. I was going to crack an old Simpsons joke about having implied oral consent and not expressed written consent for use of the game, but I forget how it goes.

In other baseball news, there is a Redsox minor league team called the Lancaster JetHawks that play about an hour from me. Even better news, every Monday is all you can eat Baseball food for $10. I'm definitely going to check this out, I'll let you know how it is. The Lancaster park is Homerun crazy because of the wind. Two players have had a game where they homered four times. This has never happened in professional baseball before. Should have held the Homerun Derby at this place.

Moving on, Gattis visited last weekend. He had a job interview in the City of Angels. Breaking-news is that he got the job and could be on his way to LA. Saturday night we cruised to Hollywood in the Cadillac rental I've been driving. This song by TI came on the radio while we were on Hollywood Blvd. "Ya see the Cadillac swerving down Hollywood Road on the flyest spur in Cali effing Hollywood Ho's." I got a good laugh out of it. (and out of some of these pictures, Ballin')

Lastly, Bobby's television commercial has been posted online.

You heard him, come visit LA.

Harry Potter and the Sunburned Pale Kid

After Lyons left I spent the next two weeks locked in my apartment re-reading the Harry Potter series to get prepared for the final book. Ok, this may have been partly due to a sunburn I sustained while spending two hours at Venice Beach. Yes I used sunblock, yes there was a giant white square on my chest from where Harry Year 3 blocked out the sun. But Seriously, I am so excited. I can hardly wait until Saturday to get The Deathly Hallows and finish up this 7 year investment into the Harry Potter series. I'm going to miss Harry, Hermione, and Ron.

This gets us from the final week in June into the first week of July. Crazy, it is July already. This also marks 3 full months in California, 2 in HB and 1 in LA. Because I spent 2 weeks pretty much alone in my apartment reading and watching movies I don't have much to say about early July. Here are some single sentence movie reviews:

Thank You for Smoking: Over-rated, hardly funny, and under-used Adam Brody. **

Hollywoodland: Not as long and boring as most reviews claim. ***

Miami Vice: I got 15 minutes in and shut it off. *

MI3: Vintage fun Tom Cruise action. ***

Serendipity: I am a sucker for this movie...or maybe just Kate Beckinsdale (Piven and Cusack can't hurt either.) ***

Lastly, here is one thing in Hollywood I missed because of work. These events are literally 15 minutes down the road from me. I should go to one. (Photos: Yahoo/Reuters)

If you think you are too cool for Harry Potter, you are wrong. Just read.

The Lyons Visit

The week that Bobby flew out, Mike Lyons flew in. Here is a rundown of The Lyons Visit.

Mike arrived at LAX on Friday night (on the same flight as Delonte West.) Finally my excuse to be a tourist in LA had arrived. That night we drove down Santa Monica Blvd. into Hollywood. When we came out to LA a year prior for Spring Break we felt lost in Beverly Hills as we tried to find our way from Rodeo Drive to Century City. Now a year later we were driving past these sites down the same streets we walked. We went to Jones (same place I went for my birthday) for dinner because it's easy to get into. After having buffalo chicken and marherita pizza we drove down the Sunset Strip. Lyons felt like he was at an amusement park. An amusement park with extremely good looking women.

Saturday we woke up pretty early and hit the road. We took a scenic drive up the coast to Malibu where we stopped at Zuma Beach and the Cohen Mansion. Ok so the Cohen Mansion is private property and is gated off, so we couldn't really see it, but the other houses in the area were pretty sweet.

The Future Lyons Residence, aka The Lyons Den.

Imagine attending Malibu High?

From Malibu we drove down to Venice Beach for lunch. We sat on the beach for a while then walked the streets. Classic Lyons Pose:

After a pit-stop at the LA Chalet (my apt.) we drove to Beverly Hills to see Robertson Blvd. and the Beverly Center. On the first cruise down Robertson we saw the Ivy Restaurant, but no celebrities. We went to the Beverly Center for an hour or so and returned to Robertson. This time there were paparazzi swarming from every direction to photograph Djimon Hounsou (Blood Diamond, Gladiator, Amistad) and Kimora Lee Simmons leaving the Ivy.

Photo Credit: JustJared.Com. Mine came out too blurry because Lyons was trying to get in the way of my picture.

Next we headed down the 405 to Huntington Beach. We arrived just in time to play some volleyball against Sutton and Josh. We went to HB favorite Las Barcas for dinner. We grabbed a table near a large one eyed homeless looking man who entertained us while we waited for our food. His topics of conversation ranged from never trusting anyone in the medical field to "Manny Fernandez" star of the Boston Redsox. Later Saturday night we met up with Sutton and Jenny for drinks on Main Street. Huntington is a good time.

Sunday we again woke up early and hit the road for San Diego. After stopping at the elegant McDonalds in Newport Beach for breakfast, we cruised down PCH through Orange County. Upon arriving in San Diego we scalped $7 standing room only seats for $35. Apparently Redsox fans had taken over San Diego and drove the cost of seats up like crazy. Petco Park in San Diego is a great stadium, we took the time to walk around and explore running into the Eagle family and Jamie from my Bentley softball team. We got to see a great pitching match-up, Peavy vs. Beckett. The Sox won a close game. After leaving San Diego we met up with the Eagles for dinner at Fleming's Prime Steakhouse in La Jolla. Probably the best steak I've ever had. Thank you to the Eagles for a delicious meal and a great evening in SoCal.

Lyons spent 8 straight hours watching Entourage on Monday while I worked. I dropped him off at the airport after catching a bite to eat in Brentwood. Thank you to Lyons for keeping me busy on my first weekend "alone" in LA.

As I finish this post I realize that this all took place a month ago, unreal how time flies, so... more updates coming shortly.