Philly & Atlantic City Trip

I have some good stories to talk about in the latest edition here. This one will focus on my weekend trip to Philadelphia and Atlantic City. First I’ll set the scene. For the past several years, we’ve had an annual NBA trip set up. Who all is along for the ride? Other than myself, there was my cousin Ozzie, Mudcat, Rob (my high school’s b-ball coach), and Clay (Clark’s brother for those who know him by that). We load up in Clay’s van and we have plenty of room. I have the entire back to myself which I love since I get to stretch my legs out across the seat and just be a bum. I made sure to take my car sick pills or I would’ve been done real quick. That’s a must for any trip that I make over an hour or so. Ozzie and Mudcat had their own seats in the middle, while Clay did the riding and Rob took shotgun.



We made great timing. We made both ways, up and down, in about 6½ hours or so. There was no traffic anywhere and nothing that had us stopped for a while, so we were good. Usually we hit up sports trivia all the way up and back, but this year we switched it up some. One of the better sports trivia questions I’ve heard in a while was asked almost right from the start of the trip. Mudcat had this one saved up for a while and it was a dandy which should only interest West Virginia hoops fans. The question is “What 14 teams in West Virginia high school hoops history have NEVER made it to the State Tournament?” Some of these teams are straight up in the middle of nowhere as expected. Eventually, between the crew, all teams were named, but it took into a good way past the Maryland state line to name them all. These guys are awesome in their WV high school basketball trivia, I have to give them big ups for that. This question was a real toughie though. Out of the people reading, and maybe I’ll be wrong, I see ManDingo as the only one who has a legitimate shot of naming half or so of these on his own. I don’t have the answers right now, but I’ll try to post those one day. I said that we normally run sports trivia the entire time, but this year Mud brought along the latest Trivial Pursuit which focuses on pop and modern culture. We got things such as movies, video games, music, sports, entertainment, etc. 6 questions per card and we got the entire card right I’m guessing 4 or 5 times, which was really good I thought. There was a time where we lit it up for about 12 questions in a row. Mud did most of the reading. I’m not about to read in a car with how sick it’d get me, so I had it easy. We all had our areas we were good at. Rob was all over the 70’s trivia and anything dealing with movies. Well, Rob was big on anything actually. Clay was big on the 80’s and movie things as well. I handled a lot of video game, rap stuff, and 90’s questions and Ozzie being from the same era as me had the same things for the most part. The sports questions were a joke, but we figured that in a Trivial Pursuit type of deal.



Friday night featured the Sixers taking on the Hawks. This was good for the entire group. One is that the other guys are Sixers fans. Unfortunately I couldn’t see them play the Celtics this year since my Celts somehow beat down Philly last season by 30 and they couldn’t handle that again seeing it in person. So I get the second best thing and that’s seeing my favorite player, Antoine Walker in action. We had great seats and weren’t far from the floor. With the Super Bowl being today (my prediction is that the Pats win, 31-10), the number of Eagles fans in the area was amazing. I’m not just talking about the city, because that’s granted, but I’m talking about the Wachovia Center. There were Eagles chants all over the building, even during the basketball game. Sixers fans absolutely love Kyle Korver. Yep, the Ashton Kutcher look-a-like. It was Kyle Korver Jersey Night for the kids 15 and under. Allen Iverson was even wearing one of these during pregame shootarounds. This guy is like a rockstar to the teenage chicks. As far as the actual game itself, and I see them on a regular basis, you guys have no idea how bad Atlanta is as a team. The rest of the crew didn’t know what to think when I named every single guy on each team, benchies or not. Yes, even the Royal Iveys of the world. It’s sad how few hardcore NBA fans are around. It got to the point that I was scanning the crowd and lo and behold is legendary World B. Free. Rob wondered how I even was able to spot him and know him, but he was wearing this crazy decked out pimp suit. Then a few minutes later, World is out there (yes, that’s his real name now) presenting a check to some cancer foundation. I was all over it. Fear the NBA knowledge.



Anyways, the game wasn’t bad. Philly routed them though to the tune of 103-85. Here’s the starting 5 for Atlanta: Big Al Harrington, Toine, Obinna Ekezie, Ty Lue, and Josh Childress. Totally awful, totally embarrassing. Philly was dunking all over the place and they had to have 10 dunks at least. Rookie Andre Iguodala put down some sick sick stuff. Yes, I guess that’s double the sickness. My favorite play of the game though came in the first part of the 1st quarter to where AI came down the lane and threw this no look behind the head pass in Big Al’s grill. Nothing gets me more pumped than great passing. It goes underappreciated in the world today.

Before the Sixers game and I know this is out of order, but we had to hit up some Philly cheesesteaks or it wouldn’t be a good trip. We go to South Philly, where due to a decent bit of snow still on the ground, the area wasn’t as filthy looking as it normally is. Philly is a beautiful city, but there are sections that makes it look like redneck white trash. They must not care about littering up there as the cops actually have bigger things to worry about. Imagine that. The main commercial places to get a cheesesteak are Geno’s and Pat’s. I’m sure Philly has a zillion places to get a good cheesesteak, but since I’m a tourist, I want these and none other. I’ve always tried Geno’s, but wanted to get a word on Pat’s this year. They’re right across the street from each other and open 24 hours. I heard from ManDingo I believe (could be wrong) that Geno’s has better flavor, but Pat’s has more meat. This is definitely true. I can honestly say (and the other 4 guys with me too) that we’ll never eat Pat’s again. Geno’s is 10 times better as their meat has flavor and it’s not as greasy. I was VERY disappointed with the quality of Pat’s food. Both places have the same prices for their cheesesteaks and that’s $6.25, not bad at all. I always love seeing all the pics of the celebs that have been to these places. You name them and more than likely they’ve been there, it’s ricockulous.



Now onto the Atlantic City part of the trip. It’s only about an hour away, so we immediately hit up the AC after the game. I was the only one in the group who was looking more forward to the NBA part of the trip rather than the AC part. On the way to AC, I brought along Rounders so we had some gambling fever to watch on the DVD in Clay’s ride. As we were entering the city, and it must be a coincidence, the guys in Rounders were entering the city at the exact same time we watched the movie. There we saw it all, Trump Plaza, Caesar’s Palace, Bally’s, etc. Most of the big places are connected, so it’s a nice setup. I was surprised how big the actual area is though as I had zero clue about what the atmosphere would be like. As far as the casinos go, if I had to rank them, Caesar’s blew me away. They have an amazing place and some big time high rollers hit up this casino. Well out of our range, that’s for sure. We were in Bally’s for most of the night. This may surprise some, but I didn’t spend a dime betting. I’m not a betting guy and didn’t gamble at all. Still, it was a good time. The rest of my crew all lost pretty big though, so that’s never fun. Rob was big on slots, Clay got rocked at Blackjack, and Ozzie played for quite a while at the 3 Card Poker tables. Everyone and their brother must smoke at these places. That’s probably my complaint, but oh well. I got to see a big rumble inside the casino, so that was quality. This drunk thug went after a cop and the cop tackled him into one of the slot machines. After that, a few other cops came to help them out and it was a big wrestling match. Thug held his own, but that didn’t last and he was cuffed. He kept saying he didn’t do anything wrong. Sure you didn’t. While I was watching, I was standing by a few thugs and it was like a great And1 play. They were jumping around and screaming, that was classic. The only thing we were missing was the And1 announcer yelling, “Oh babyyyyy! Oh babbbyyyyy!” I had a good time watching the rich boys throw down money like it was pennies. I watched one dude lose $1500 and he didn’t care one bit and another guy played $600 on one throw-in. I’m sure it would’ve been a lot more over at Caesar’s, but this was a sight to behold.

In a sidenote here for the Canadian fans of the Blog, you’ll like this one. I wanted a comfy ride on the way to Philly, so I wear a pair of red and white Adidas pants and a Canada hoodie. It says Canada on the front and has the flag in the middle and on one of the arms. Why do I even have that? We have a college sports store in our area that has everything at $8 or under. Getting a hoodie for $8? That’s like robbing someone blind. I wanted something different, and if it’s a hoodie, I’ll wear anything pretty much unless it’s WVU football, Michigan anything, or Lakers gear. Of course that was the theme of the morning on the way to start the roadtrip. I got cracked on for the Canadian stuff and anytime during the whole trip that something Canadian was mentioned, I had to hear it. But I had to represent #basketball’s favorite country, so props to the crew for that.



After getting done with the gambling part after everyone was tapped out pretty good, we were walking to the hotel around 3:30. My buddies laughed at the fact that I wanted to see a good tittie bar up here instead of the jokes of ones that they are down in West Virginia. I won’t feel weird anymore about saying that tittie bars here are horrible. They’re that bad. They also joked with me that I was wanting to see some good black chicks. Hey, at least I’m honest on what I want to see, who cares. We see this place called Babes and figure why not. Hey, what else is a single guy supposed to do anyways? I didn’t spend anything on gambling, so I had money to burn. Mudcat went back to the hotel to call it a night, but the rest of the crew went in with me. I was the only one who did anything though, but that’s fine. I can respect the other guys going in there with me though since this was one of the things I wanted to see on the trip. One thing that bugged me was that I couldn’t wear my hat inside the place. Are you kidding me? To a guy, if you’re wearing a hat and it’s a rule that you have to take it off, that’s bad times. Maybe other tittie bars are like that, I have no idea. The cover was $10 and I paid for Rob’s way in. It was a real small place, but nice nonetheless. Even nicer when I saw some video quality thug chicks, so I knew we made a right choice. I have a real good story for anyone who wants to know online, but I won’t put that in here. Just ask me if you’re bored. They’re all made out to be what I expected and then some, the “BET Beauties” as Clay would call them. Unbelievable is what I’ll say and that’s not even a good enough word for this one chick. I got my money’s worth with her. It’s not as crazy as you’re first thinking, I didn’t do that with her, but still had a great time with some other things. Again, ask if you want. Cigarettes in here were $8.00 a pack, hah. Stupid smokers. We made another trip to Geno’s on the way back home and that’s never a bad thing. I got home on Saturday at around 4:30 PM. I got all caught up online with everything and then around 8:30 I said I’d take a nap. At 10:30, I was supposed to help Cork move stuff at his house, but that didn’t happen. My bad man, but I slept 3 hours the night before and 5 on Thursday night. As I went to get my nap at 8:30 PM, the next thing I know is that Mom comes into my room wondering if I’m ok. I see the clock and it says 8:30 AM. Hardcore sleep after a great trip. I realize this was a real long post, but I hope it was enjoyable for ya.

And since porn was a topic discussed (or a form of it) in this edition, I’ll leave with a website recommended from none other than The_Freak, #basketball’s roid rage expert, http://www.pornolize.com. Put in any website and it’ll change a lot of the words into funny stuff. Check it out, you know you want to. Anyways, let me know what you thought. More to come later in the week. Out.