Off To Vancouver...Again

Fight Night At The Playboy Mansion

Kimbo v. Shamrock

Calzaghe v. Jones

Monday Night Football

Has Anyone Seen Ohio State?

The “Game of the Century” between USC and Ohio State turned into the “Blowout of the Century” as most people predicted and I was at the Coliseum to blog the game from the press box.

The Standard

Tournament House

It's Not So Much Me...

…As it’s Roenick. While I was at 8 Rinks, a huge building in nearby Burnaby that contains (you, guessed it) eight hockey rinks, including the practice rink of the Vancouver Canuck, I chatted with Jeremy Roenick about doing a mo-cap session with players that were babies when he was drafted some 20 years ago. “I feel like a father figure,” he said. “I think could actually be there fathers.” The first thing I think of when I see Roenick working on a video game is that scene in Swingers when Vince Vaugn is playing NHL ’94 and he says, “It’s not so much as it’s Roenick,” as he’s destroying the “finesse” Kings with Wayne Gretzky. “My abilities in Sega Genesis were all time,” he said. “I became friends with Vince Vaugn a few years later and he told me that he grew up in Chicago and he had to put me in the movie in someway just out of respect so I thought that was cool.” While there may not have been any fighting in that game, there will clearly be fighting in NHL ’09 as Roenick and Dion Phaneuf playfully went at it in a mock fight that the developers captured digitally.

Welcome Back

OK, I know I haven’t updated the blog in a week but blogging is a little like working out for me. If I don’t do it for a few days I completely forget about it. While I was in Canada, I couldn’t update my blog and I was met with the craziness of USC-Ohio State when I got back to the States.

Excuses aside, Vancouver was amazing. As I’ve said before, it is one of my favorite cities in the world and I can’t wait to go back during the Olympics. After staying at the Sutton Place every time I’ve gone to B.C., I stayed at the Opus, a trendy hotel nestled in Vancouver’s equally trendy Yaletown. It’s where NHL players such as Jeremy Roenick, Dion Phaneuf, Patrick O’Sullivan, Drew Doughty and Josh Harding were also staying before there motion-capture session the next day.

After checking in, I met up with my friend Cabbie, who hosts the popular “Cabbie on the Street” series in Canada and is one of the coolest guys you’d ever want to meet, and a few other soon-to-be friends such as Peter Girgis, who could run for mayor of the city as his Glowbal Group is the equivalent of SBE up north. A night with Peter in Vancouver is like rolling in Hollywood with Sam Nazarian. All I can say is if you’re ever in Vancouver, go to his Italian Kitchen and get the Kobe meatballs, you’ll thank me later.

Vancouver Airport

Oh, Canada

I'm off to Vancouver, easily one of my favorite cities in the world, for
a couple days. I'm going to be chatting with a few NHL players for an
upcoming story that I'll tell you about later but in the meantime I'm
going to get on this plane and brace myself for some Molson and poutine,
which I believe is the Canadian equivalent to peanut butter and jelly.

Swimming At The Hearst Castle

Hearst Ranch BBQ

Cambria Pines Lodge

Best Buddies Challenge

The beautiful thing about the Audi Best Buddies Challenge is the different ways you can experience it. There is a 100-mile bike race (not a chance), a 62-mile bike race (get real) a 15-mile competition (maybe next time) and this year they added the Carl Lewis Challenge, which was a 5K run. Seeing as how I had already been through a 10K run last week, the 5K was a piece of cake as I finished in a little over 30 minutes and raised about $300 for Best Buddies.

Driver Detail

Dinner With The First Lady

Quail Lodge

Drive Me Crazy

Living In The Fast Lane

I've never been a big car guy. I wish I were. My cousins are all car freaks, rattling off names, models and numbers all the time that mean absolutely nothing to me. There is, however, one car that I will never forget: the Audi R8. After I had lunch at Rocky Point, overlooking the Pacific in Monterey with some of my friends, one of them, who works for Audi, let me drive the R8 for the afternoon. It's the first time I've ever driven a car worth six figures ($125,000 to be exact) and it was even more breath-taking than the views besides me as I hugged every turn on the Big Sur Coast Highway on my way to Ocean Ave. As Ferris Bueller would say, "It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up."

My Buddies

Here We Go

I've always had a hard time getting on little planes that seat about 20 with the propellers visible from the windows but it looks like I have no choice as my plane to Monterey is a little EMB120 Brasilia. This should be interesting.

The Waiting Game

Short Sin City

Champagne Shower

Come Fly With Me

Celebrities are never on time for anything, ever, so its no surprise
that we're still here chilling in Hangar 12 waiting for Sir Richard
Branson and the Entourage crew to arrive for the flight to Vegas.
They're blasting an Entourage themed soundtrack in the hangar featuring
M.I.A., The Ramones and Kanye West among others.

Entourage Air

I've never hung out in a hangar before, let alone a one that's been
converted into a swanky lounge with a red carpet and sultry stewardesses
pouring bottles of Dom Perignon and serving up plates of caviar and tuna
tartar, but that's what going on over in at Hangar 12 next to JFK. I'm
here for the debut run of Entourage Air, which is Virgin America's first
non-stop flight from New York to Las Vegas. As I get ready for the cast
of the show and Sir Richard Branson to show up, everyone here is taking
about the season premiere of the show, which we'll be screening on the
flight and will air this Sunday night on HBO.

Hey Coach!

So I spent yesterday with two of the Coors Light "reporter guys." You
know, the fans in those spliced up ads that sneak into a coach's post
game press conference holding Coors Light and ask zany questions. Well,
for the first time the guys went to an actual press conference as the
NFL held a press conference for its kick off concert with Usher, Keith
Urban and Natasha Bedingfield at Columbus Circle. The guys didn't
actually ask a question (maybe they were waiting on Dennis Green) during
the short presser although I think that had more to do with their Coors
Light being confiscated at the door than a lack of queries.

New York Hudson

I usually stay in a tiny hotel room when I come to New York. Not really
by choice, but its just that most hotel rooms in New York run smaller
than usual. The smallest room I've ever stayed in was at the Hudson, a
beautiful Morgans Hotel Group property located next to the Time Warner
Center in Columbus Circle. This time, however, I got upgraded to a suite
and as you can tell its bigger than my old apartment when I used to live
in the city.

Safe Landing

There's nothing better than flying an airline like Jet Blue or Virgin
America where you can watch live satellite television during the flight.
The only time its a bit odd is when you're in the air watching a
breaking news story about a fellow airplane experiencing difficulty and
being forced to make an emergency landing back at the airport you just
left from. Thankfully the folks on that American Airlines flight landed
safely in LA as did our Virgin America flight to New York.

New York, New York

I'm heading to New York today for a couple of days and there's only one song I can think of to get me ready for that trip.

Crafty Win

Go Humans!

Someway, somehow I finished the Nike+ Human Race 10K in Los Angeles yesterday. Even more impressive was that I finished in the middle of the pack with no training. Not that I would recommend that to anyone. I didn’t think there was anyway I would run the race, let alone finish it, but I began the race running behind Tiffani Amber Thiessen and I have to admit that basically got me through the first half the race before I lost her in the mass of red shirted humanity. At that point, I figured I had to finish it out even though my legs were giving up on me. The most amazing part of the race was the people lining the streets, supporting the runners. There was an old lady near the Staples Center holding up a sign that read, “Go Humans!” and kids lining Exposition Blvd. high-fiving runners and giving out waters.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt more relieved and tired than when I crossed the finish line. Thankfully I was able to go to the VIP after party set up near the Sports Arena where they served up an international buffet, drinks and best of all massages. I was able to unwind just in time for the post-race concert featuring Kanye West and Common in front of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum’s flaming torch. Maybe it was the runner’s high I was feeling at the time or the outdoor atmosphere, but I thought it was better than any of the Glow In The Dark shows I saw this year.

Come Around

I've been a big fan of M.I.A. since I first heard her in London about five years ago. She's blowing up these days thanks to Paper Planes being used on the Pineapple Express soundtrack. Still, Come Around is probably my favorite song of hers.