I miss the days of Tiger Woods winning nearly every tournament he entered. He’s my favorite golfer of all time and he’s a big part of the reason why I started playing golf.
While he won’t win this year’s British Open, I hope he plays well. With all of the injuries, coach changes, swing rebuilds and off-course drama, Tiger’s days of domination are long gone. But I’m rooting for him to turn back the clock.
I know the TV execs and advertisers are salivating at the possibility.
Fish Tacos at Tacos Ensenada
Any time I’m in Duarte, California, I make a stop at Tacos Ensenada. It’s a small taco shop that serves excellent fish tacos: lightly battered and fried fish served on warm corn tortillas with fresh pico de gallo, cabbage, and crema.
I’ve already raved about Tacos Ensenada on Yelp (read my review here), so I’ll just say here that the tacos de pescado are still muy delicioso.
My wife and I love the USC Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena. We attended a few of their Fusion Friday events last summer and today’s Nepal Cultural Festival and Earthquake Relief Fund was our first visit this year.
The festival happened to fall on Second Sunday, when the museum offers free admission. We made the trip before noon and were treated to traditional and fusion Nepalese music and dance. There were a few crafts tables where you could make your own Nepalese mask and one of our favorite food trucks, the India Jones Chow Truck, was there.
Of course, a trip to the museum wouldn’t be complete without a walk through the museum itself. We liked the copies of Snakes and Ladders that were available for play; as explained here, the ancient game originated in India and is still played by children today in its modern version, Chutes and Ladders.
We enjoyed the Visualizing Enlightenment: Decoding the Buddhist Iconography exhibition. This exhibit featured a six-foot Buddha wood carving from over 500 years ago, with an explanation of its details.
The weather warmed up as the day wore on, but the pleasant vibe kept everyone in good spirits, as performers and audience mingled and danced together in the courtyard. It was a good-for-the-soul Sunday Funday.
Scrabble Flash
I have a lot of fun with this little version of the classic board game Scrabble. It’s perfect for solo play and offers a quick fix for Scrabble junkies.
The rules are simple: try to form as many 3-, 4-, and 5-letter words as possible in the allotted time using the electronic tiles. The tiles randomly choose five letters to work with during a game. They sense when a word is formed and give little beep to know you’ve scored. There’s also another version of the game where you try to form as many 5-letter words as possible.
Since there’s no board or opponent, this is a really stripped down version of the game. Scrabble purists may object, but it’s a handy game to have on the road or when you want a quick session of word play.
Best of all, no opponent will ever challenge your word choice. To paraphrase the poker saying, the tiles speak.
Pictured above: the end of a game when Scrabble Flash reveals the maximum number of words that were playable.
Episode 7: The Force Awakens
I’m trying not to get too excited about Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. I refuse to click on all of the news, gossip, and photo links. I avoid fan arguments dissecting every little detail from the two official teasers. I don’t Google anything related to Episode VII.
But then this happens.
What an AWESOME clip. It’s exactly what all of us diehards want; what I call the anti-prequel approach to making the film. As much as George Lucas and his team advanced CGI special effects during Episodes I-III, those films lacked the heart of the original trilogy. The attention to special effects took precedence over the writing and direction. How else to explain Natalie Portman’s worst acting to date?
Sure, perhaps J.J. Abrams is going overboard with the back-to-basics approach to special effects and forgetting all about the script and his actors. But I doubt it. He seems to be genuinely excited about his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and the fans are clearly behind him as he tries to give them a film worthy of the Star Wars legend.
Of course, the fans have also promised to rename him Jar Jar Abrams if he screws this up. I can’t wait until December.
Ken Stabler, Oakland Raiders.
My love of the Oakland Raiders goes back to the 70s, when I would watch the team with my dad. If the Raiders were down at halftime, my dad would tell me not to worry since they were a second-half team. More often than not, the Raiders would come back and win the game, just like my dad predicted.
I was in elementary school when Ken “The Snake” Stabler led the Raiders to all of those comebacks. One of my first memories of football on television was when the Raiders beat the Chargers on the Holy Roller. At that age I had no idea what had just happened, but it was ruled a touchdown and I was excited that the Raiders had won again (the play resulted in the NFL changing its rules the following season).
It’s a shame that Stabler isn’t in the Hall of Fame. He was one of the best quarterbacks of that era and if I was on the NFL committee, I’d propose a new rule: anybody involved in more than one game with a nickname is a Hall of Famer. Stabler was on the winning team in The Holy Roller, the Ghost to the Post, and the Sea of Hands.
Rest in peace, Snake.
Love Letter
To celebrate our anniversary, I took my wife out to eat and I surprised her with a few new games: Scrabble Flash, Ticket to Ride USA 1910, and Love Letter.
We were hooked on Scrabble Flash last year when my sister-in-law bought the game. It’s a fun, high-tech version of the classic board game. It’s an outstanding solo player game and I love the fast-paced play.
I wrote about our addiction to Ticket to Ride earlier this year. We played countless games before downloading the app for our tablets, where we ended up playing most of the time. So, to rekindle our passion for TTR, I bought the 1910 expansion. We’ll be putting this to the test soon and I’m already fired up to try out the new rules.
Finally, no anniversary would be complete without a love letter or, in our case, the Love Letter card game. I’ve heard nothing but good things about LL and it seems like it’s our style of game: easy to learn, with some strategy, and games that don’t take all day to play.
“We won the World Cup, baby!” – Abby Wambach
That’s Abby Wambach at L.A. Live, the first stop of their victory tour across America. It’s been a few years since I’ve been down to the Staples Center for a championship celebration, so it was nice to be amongst the red, white, and blue-clad crowd paying tribute to the 2015 World Cup Champions.
My wife and I made the hour-plus journey from the Inland Empire to show our support for the team. There were fans from all over and we ran into a few friendly faces on this mild July morning. Making our way to the celebration, I thought about all of the young girls in attendance with their parents, friends, and siblings. Was one of the next national team players here? The sentimental side of me hoped so.
At precisely 11am (just like the game itself, soccer players are prompt), the team made its way to the stage. They thanked us fans, their teammates, coaches, and staff, before dancing away into the afternoon to Queen’s “We Are The Champions.”
It was the perfect celebration for the perfect team.
American Outlaws
I liked Dave Zirin’s piece this morning, “Why I’m Done Defending Women’s Sports,” especially when he wrote, “Frankly, it’s insulting to the athletes involved to even conceive of it as if they need defending. It’s time to go on offense. It’s time to write more about women’s sports and be part of the grassroots struggle to do what the sports networks and sports-radio talking potatoes won’t do, and that’s tell the stories of what is happening in women’s sports.”
The numbers back him up. The final last night drew over 22 million U.S. viewers, which shattered the record for most-watched soccer game (men or women) and put it on the same level as last year’s World Series Game 7 and this year’s NBA Finals Game 6.
While the women’s game worldwide is not as popular as the men’s version yet, the packed bars, private parties, and growing legions of American Outlaws are proof that the audience is there.
USA! USA!
The first 16 minutes of today’s World Cup final was the reason why soccer is called The Beautiful Game: four goals for the Americans, a hat trick for Carli Lloyd (topped off with an incredible strike from midfield), and the team’s third World Cup title.
It was stunning, unbelievable, and awesome.
Not sure what else I can say about watching my country win the most prestigious futbol tournament in the world. I’ll just end with my favorite hashtag during international play: #OneNationOneTeam
