PSA #1

My good friend Heidi runs this club where her friends (and friends of friends, and so on) meet every Wednesday at a different Los Angeles bar or restaurant for Happy Hour. Last night's destination was KODA Sushi & Sake in Silverlake. Now, I'm sure I've mentioned to people on numerous occasions that when it comes to restaurants, I have a terrible memory. I'll remember that I've been to a place, but I barely remember the name, and I never remember what I ordered. The experience has to either be incredibly great or excruciatingly terrible. Well I'll be remembering KODA forever. Unfortunately, it'll be because of the latter category. Here's why:

• Terrible food. The sushi was warm, and just not that great. They do serve that organic sake that you can get at Whole Foods however. So that was cool I guess.
• They ran out of Sapporo. How do you run out of beer during Happy Hour? When there's only about 20 people in the entire restaurant? What?!?!
• As we were sitting in the back patio, finishing up and settling the bill, I witnessed a rat scurry across a beam overhead. And I don't mean a mouse, I mean a rat. A huge one. And it came scurrying from the kitchen.
• Saw either the same rat, or a different one scurry across the same beam again. I would hope it was the same one, but it came and went in the same direction as before. And let me just reiterate. This is a RAT. Big enough that a girl sitting next to me was actually calm about it at first because she had just figured it was a cat.
• A fucking cockroach landing on our table. A fucking cockroach. Yes this all happened within a span of about 10 minutes. The waitress sheepishly comes and takes it away... but not to the alley or somewhere else outside, but back into the kitchen!!! Oh my god, this place.
• Another (or the same) rat going across the same fucking beam in the same fucking direction! Three rat sightings. I almost puked.
• We finally get the hell out of there, and decide to continue the drinking at some karaoke bar in Little Tokyo. Heidi leaves her car at the restaurant, and of course, when we get back, her car is locked in its parking lot. Just the perfect ending to a weird night.

Umm... so yeah... my public service announcement to all two of my readers... don't let the blue "A" in their window fool you. Do not patronize KODA.

Might as Well Chime In...

So this OJ thing. I figured I might as well give my two cents, since everyone else is. So here goes.

First, let's get the lighter stuff out of the way. The media is giving WAY too much attention to this. If the dream was to have him go away forever, then please, don't point the camera at him. Move on, next story please. It reminds me of the clip of the anchorwoman who made a big deal about Paris Hilton being the lead news story. Thanks a lot jackass, you just spent 5 minutes talking about how you don't want to talk about somebody. Welcome to the 21st-century media, I guess. And um... have you seen Marcia Clark? What the fuck?!?! She looks terrible. Wow.

OK, so I on to the slightly more serious stuff. So as you know, OJ Simpson has been charged with numerous counts of robbery and kidnapping stemming from an incident in Las Vegas over sports memorabilia. Based on the way information has come out recently, the credibility of the participants, and the actual crime (if any), things seem to have been blown way out of proportion, don't you think? He could possibly spend the rest of his life in jail over trying to steal back his own stuff? Really? If this was the NBA, we would label it a "make-up call".

And that's the problem I have with this whole thing. There seems to be this overwhelming sense that this is OK because he got away with double-murder about twelve years ago. Justice. The 'Al Capone' logic. Get him for something and lock him away forever, even if the offense is relatively minor compared to what we want to get him for. But doesn't that just take us back a dozen years? Have we learned nothing?

The original OJ case triggered completely different feelings amongst the general public, and those differences were normally seen to go along racial lines. The consensus was that Blacks either thought OJ was innocent, or wanted him to be found not-guilty regardless if he was or not. And non-Blacks generally believed that he was guilty, and wanted to see him put away forever. Well, this is bullshit. Why is it that the media thinks Blacks are these savages who condone evil and violence (eg: Michael Vick)? People will point to the images and video of Blacks reacting to the verdict as opposed to Whites. Let me tell you why the Blacks reaction was that way. It wasn't cause we were happy to see OJ acquitted. Fuck OJ. No one was thinking about that piece of shit anyway. The reaction was just a big "I told you so". For years, we had people ignoring us, or rolling their eyes whenever we tried to explain that the judicial system is not the same for us as it is for Whites. The reaction was, "Come on, it's the '90's. It's not like that anymore. Color doesn't matter." Maybe so, but money does. And that was our point. It wasn't a Black/White thing, it was a Haves/Have Not thing, a class issue.

So back to my point (that previous paragraph was so much better articulated in my head, but oh well, that's why I'm a programmer). Isn't it just as much a failure of the system if we can overreach on charges, make up some other charges (kidnapping? come on), and punish someone for not what they were convicted of doing, but for what we couldn't get them on twelve years ago? What's the difference? The reality will always be that the system hurts those that have pre-existing prejudices (race, notoriety, etc...) and benefits those with money.

Let's not bastardize the system for some twisted sense of justice. That's not justice. It's karma. And I believe in karma. Which means if OJ is convicted on these new charges and serves the possible maximum sentence, I will not shed a single tear, or waste a single thought on the man. Good fucking riddance.

And on that note, I promise to never bring the man's name up again.

Remix

I did this Nike Run Hit Remix 5-mile run today. I definitely had a blast out there. An estimated 10,000 runners, some pretty good musical acts, and cold beer at the finish all contributed to a fun morning. The one bad thing was the new shirts they had the runners wear. Nike is pushing their new line of some cotton-blend T-shirts, so instead of the usual Dri-Fit shirt they provide, they gave us these new ones. They sucked. Granted, they didn't get any heavier after sweating in them, but unfortunately, they don't wick away the moisture either. And it takes forever for them to dry. An hour or two after running my shirt was still soaked. Pretty disgusting. But other than that, here were some highlights:

• The Sugarhill Gang was pretty impressive for some old guys. They played one cut I hadn't heard before that was hot! If they keep beats like this in their repertoire, they might have enough for a comeback album.
• Dawn from En Vogue is still damn fine.
• The "Young MC Memorial" award for saddest performance on the mini-stage goes to Sir Mix-a-Lot. When you only have one cut that most people know, and when there's only what seems like one person checking out your show, it's just time to hang 'em up. So, he's located at the end of the course, and has probably had "Baby Got Back" requested one too many times for his liking, so he resorts to asking the women to shake it. But then he goes a bit too far by asking those same women to "show some pink". Classic. At least he went out swinging.
• Let's just say: young women... hot weather... small running (re: booty) shorts. Mmmmmm.
• Hammer. He's still got it people. And his dancers were out there strong too. I don't know if he's still able to pay them or not, but they were there representing.
• Heard some more "Jungle Fever" stories from an old college friend of mine. I'm so proud of her.

Oh, and CAL destroyed Louisiana Tech today, 42-12. GO BEARS!!

Quick Hits

• The news on Buffalo Bills tight end Kevin Everett is getting better every day. No witticism here, nothing funny to say, just really happy that the kid is doing better. Hope the news continues to get better.
• I've been teetering back and forth on the whole Obama or Hillary debate. If you know me, then you know who now has the edge.
• AWESOME column by Chuck Klosterman in the newest edition of Esquire magazine on ways to save sports media. Agreed with every point of his argument. As soon as this article is up on Esquire's website, I'll update the post and provide a link.
• It's too easy to bash Britney Spears. First of all, she was never talented enough to be on my radar anyway, and secondly, it's just sad. Hopefully she'll just go away. So we have to turn our attention to someone who truly deserves it. Kanye, it's about time for you to shut the fuck up. You have too much talent and intelligence to go around whining like a little bitch every time you don't win an award. Who gives a shit. It's an award... a tiny statue. The people who matter (record labels, consumers, other artists) recognize your talent. That should be enough. Your complaining makes you sound petty, arrogant and hypocritical. Oh yeah, you actually are all those things. And since your new album pretty much sucks, you have only one more album to get back in the good graces before you can just go ahead and disappear too.
• Thanks to my girl Melissa for this awesome find. And yes, I used to know the whole routine as a kid.