The World According to Mike
Burgers, Bikes and Bickering
Today was an interesting evening. When I got off work and started the long trek to my car because the building that I work in is no where near the parking lot, I said to myself, "Dang, it's really nice out today." I thought about either going out and riding my bike and making the most of the weather or going to In 'N Out. Once I got home, I came up with brilliant idea. Why don't I do both? I'll ride my bike to In 'N Out and earn my burger.
My wife is in Monterey visiting her family and she took our puppy dog with her. I just fed the cats and the fish and got my bike ready for the ride. I grabbed my cinch up bag, loaded my keys, wallet, and bike lock in it. I decided to try out Google's new bike routing on Google Maps. It gave me a route that included going down the Iron Horse trail which is understandable and tried to keep me on roads with bike lanes. I ended up taking a slightly different route. The total mileage for one way was 4.6 miles and Google estimated it taking 27 minutes. The return trip was estimated at 32 minutes. There is a really steep hill on the way I set up the GPS on my phone, loaded some tunes, and I was off. This will be first good ride of the year for me.
I arrive at In 'N Out in 22 minutes and I'm pretty gassed. I'm clearly out of shape. Whatever, it's time to eat. I only had a small bag of Doritos and a soda for lunch so I was pretty hungry. I ordered 2 cheeseburgers animal style, well done fries and water instead of soda. I sat down and started digging in. It was so good to have an In 'N Out burger. I really missed it during Lent. I sat at the bar stools facing the cash registers. As I was eating, I noticed a group of young people come in; 3 guys and 2 girls. The guys go up to the register and order while the girls go to the bathroom. The guys were clearly flirting with the girl working the cash register. The guys make their order and sit at one of the booths. The girls come out of the bathroom and one of them goes to the line to order while the other is clearly ticked off. She goes to one of the guys and starts yelling at him about how he should have waited for her. She has a point but she starts yelling and cursing at him so that everyone in the place can hear her. He tries handing her some money so that she can order something for herself. She refuses a couple of times and then he throws the money on the floor at her feet which I thought was extremely rude. She picks up the money and throws it right back at him. She refuses to sit with the rest of them. They all get up and move to another table so that they can sit a little closer. She decides to be a big baby and sit at a table much further away. It was rather entertaining dinner theater.
I couldn't finish eating my food so I asked for a bag to take the second cheeseburger. Normally, I could eat 2 double doubles plus the fries and a soda without even thinking about it. I guess it's a good thing that I am not eating so much.
I head back to my bike which I had locked up as securely as I could and am relieved that it's still there in one piece. I gather my gear and mount up. I never like exercising on a full stomach. The last time I did that, I nearly puked and in the past, I have actually puked. I took it pretty easy on the way back. I still had my cup of water in my hands so it wasn't easy to ride without spilling it all over myself. I finished it quickly and dumped it in the nearest garbage can. There are cans every so often along the trail.
After dumping the water cup, I decided that I should push myself in bursts.I'll pedal as fast as I can for about 2 minutes and then take it easy for a bit. I blasted down the trail and hit a top speed of about 35 mph. Before I knew it, I had reached the steep hill on Bollinger that I call Mt. Cornelius. I took my time going up the hill and I was still extremely winded. I shouldn't expect to be in middle of the summer shape at the beginning of spring. After the hill, I rested up for about 30 seconds and then it was time for another burst. This time there is a section of straight but not too steep down hill with only one light. I started my run and managed to time the light perfectly so I didn't lose any of my momentum. The GPS clocked me at maximum speed of 41 mph during that stretch which was the fastest I had every managed to get going on the bike. I knew I was going pretty fast even before checking the GPS because as I blasted past the cars at the light, I was more than half way to the next light before the first car was able to catch up to me. I looked over at second driver that caught up to me in the nearest lane and he had a look of astonishment. That made me feel pretty good. Riding that fast is a total adrenaline rush. This is why I love riding my bike.
Who Am I?
The 2010 census has started and a letter went out from the 3 bishops of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United States asking all members of the church to enter their race as Coptic. Some people disagreed with the idea and started a petition asking that we should enter our race as White or Caucasian. This got me thinking, who am I?
Some people believe that since Egypt is part of Africa, that we are African American. I think a lot of people used this to their advantage when there was affirmative action order to take advantage of the situation. If I stand in a group of African Americans, I will not blend in or be mistaken for a fellow African American.
Another possibility is to consider myself to be White, Caucasian, or Anglo Saxon. Some people consider anyone from North Africa to be in this broad category. When I look at myself in the mirror, I don't see a white person staring back at me. I don't consider myself to be anything remotely related to white.
Why not just call yourself an Egyptian? Well, there is a problem with that too. Egyptian doesn't really refer to my ancestry. Egypt, at this present time, is primarily an Arab country. Just because Arabs control the country doesn't mean that I am one of them. That's like telling a Native American that they are white because white people came and conquered their country. My last name means "The Egyptian" and I don't think that name got to me because I am descendant of an Arab that took over Egypt. I have that name because I descended from the original inhabitants of Egypt that later converted to Christianity and are now known by the name Copts. Egyptian has a connotation of being Arab and Islamic. I am neither of those things. I am a Christian Egyptian and the word that best describes who I am is Coptic.
Now you might be asking, why does this matter? The Census requests that you choose a race. Since the United States consists of pretty much every race on the planet, this is useful information. Let's say for example that the US government after the census now knows that there are 10 million Copts living in the United States. (10 million is just a made up number that I chose for this example) Now let's say that something happens in Egypt and 7 Copts are gunned down after the Nativity Liturgy. Normally, the US government wouldn't give a crap about any human rights violations toward Copts in Egypt. But if they knew that there was a fairly significant Coptic population in the US, they might take some action.
Another problem that I have is the idea of coming out and saying that the 3 leaders of the Coptic church in the US are wrong by creating a petition. These men didn't get to be leaders of the church by chance. They were chosen by God and should be granted some level of respect. By coming out and saying that they are wrong, a line is crossed.
Some people believe that since Egypt is part of Africa, that we are African American. I think a lot of people used this to their advantage when there was affirmative action order to take advantage of the situation. If I stand in a group of African Americans, I will not blend in or be mistaken for a fellow African American.
Another possibility is to consider myself to be White, Caucasian, or Anglo Saxon. Some people consider anyone from North Africa to be in this broad category. When I look at myself in the mirror, I don't see a white person staring back at me. I don't consider myself to be anything remotely related to white.
Why not just call yourself an Egyptian? Well, there is a problem with that too. Egyptian doesn't really refer to my ancestry. Egypt, at this present time, is primarily an Arab country. Just because Arabs control the country doesn't mean that I am one of them. That's like telling a Native American that they are white because white people came and conquered their country. My last name means "The Egyptian" and I don't think that name got to me because I am descendant of an Arab that took over Egypt. I have that name because I descended from the original inhabitants of Egypt that later converted to Christianity and are now known by the name Copts. Egyptian has a connotation of being Arab and Islamic. I am neither of those things. I am a Christian Egyptian and the word that best describes who I am is Coptic.
Now you might be asking, why does this matter? The Census requests that you choose a race. Since the United States consists of pretty much every race on the planet, this is useful information. Let's say for example that the US government after the census now knows that there are 10 million Copts living in the United States. (10 million is just a made up number that I chose for this example) Now let's say that something happens in Egypt and 7 Copts are gunned down after the Nativity Liturgy. Normally, the US government wouldn't give a crap about any human rights violations toward Copts in Egypt. But if they knew that there was a fairly significant Coptic population in the US, they might take some action.
Another problem that I have is the idea of coming out and saying that the 3 leaders of the Coptic church in the US are wrong by creating a petition. These men didn't get to be leaders of the church by chance. They were chosen by God and should be granted some level of respect. By coming out and saying that they are wrong, a line is crossed.
Getting a Haircut
I hate it when my hair gets too long. I have been wanting to get a hair cut for the past couple of weeks and finally decided to get one during my lunch break at work. I headed over to the Supercuts near my house instead of the one closest to work. The last time I went to one closer to work, there was this Vietnamese guy who was obnoxiously gay. I don't have anything against homosexuals but this guy so gay that he made sure that everyone knows about it. But that's a subject for another blog entry. I wanted to avoid this guy not because he was overtly gay but because he has a super thick accent and I can't understand a thing that he says. When I finally figure out what he is saying, he acts like I'm stupid for not knowing in the first place. To add to that, he did a pretty lousy job on the haircut and was kind of violent with me, pushing my head back and forth and left and right.
I get to the Supercuts next to my house and there is no one waiting. The lady at the front desk has me sign in anyway and then the other lady comes to the sign up sheet and calls my name. I was the only customer in the building. Whatever, time to get my haircut.
The young lady that cuts my hair is blond but she's Asian and it's looks very odd. She has bleached blond hair but her eyebrows are dark brown.
She asks me how I want my haircut and I let her know how I like it. Now comes the part that I hate the most about getting my haircut. The person cutting my hair always seems to think that it's necessary to make small talk with me. They ask me what I do for a living and if I'm off work. They start talking about the weather or ask me how my weekend was or talk about some current topic in the news. I am horrible at small talk and I really do not like giving out personal information about myself to complete strangers (unless it's in my blog) so I find the whole thing pretty uncomfortable. To make matters even worse, this girl is rather well endowed in the chest area (She's got big boobs) and she's wearing a low cut shirt. Instead of moving around me to get at different areas of my hair like you would expect, she leans in closer and reaches around placing her cleavage directly in my face. When she doesn't reach around, her boobs rest on my shoulder or back. It almost seems as though she was doing it intentionally. Was this some kind of peep show to go along with the haircut? Did she expect me to give her a bigger tip because her boobs were in my face? I ended up giving her a normal tip of $3 for a $16 haircut but I bet her "technique" probably gets her big tips from most men.
I get to the Supercuts next to my house and there is no one waiting. The lady at the front desk has me sign in anyway and then the other lady comes to the sign up sheet and calls my name. I was the only customer in the building. Whatever, time to get my haircut.
The young lady that cuts my hair is blond but she's Asian and it's looks very odd. She has bleached blond hair but her eyebrows are dark brown.
She asks me how I want my haircut and I let her know how I like it. Now comes the part that I hate the most about getting my haircut. The person cutting my hair always seems to think that it's necessary to make small talk with me. They ask me what I do for a living and if I'm off work. They start talking about the weather or ask me how my weekend was or talk about some current topic in the news. I am horrible at small talk and I really do not like giving out personal information about myself to complete strangers (unless it's in my blog) so I find the whole thing pretty uncomfortable. To make matters even worse, this girl is rather well endowed in the chest area (She's got big boobs) and she's wearing a low cut shirt. Instead of moving around me to get at different areas of my hair like you would expect, she leans in closer and reaches around placing her cleavage directly in my face. When she doesn't reach around, her boobs rest on my shoulder or back. It almost seems as though she was doing it intentionally. Was this some kind of peep show to go along with the haircut? Did she expect me to give her a bigger tip because her boobs were in my face? I ended up giving her a normal tip of $3 for a $16 haircut but I bet her "technique" probably gets her big tips from most men.
New and Improved Domino's Pizza
Domino's Pizza has always tasted like crap. You bought Domino's pizza because you were looking for cheap pizza and not necessarily good pizza. Now they claim to have totally changed the way they make their pizza and improved upon by leaps and bounds. My wife and I ordered a couple of pasta bread bowls and a medium pizza last night. I have to say that I wasn't impressed.
The only thing that I could tell that was different was the pizza crust. It's the same bread that they use for the bread bowl and it's pretty tasty. It tastes fresh even on the day old pizza that I had for lunch today. The seem to sprinkle some garlic powder over the crust which makes it even better. But other than the bread, nothing seems to have changed. The sauce and the cheese still taste just as bad as it ever has. We didn't get any meat on the pizza so I can't attest to the quality of the meat products but the veggies were pretty much the same as they have always been. I think that Domino's should stick to their original strategy of being fast and cheap. That's the only way they are going to be able to make a good profit.
The only thing that I could tell that was different was the pizza crust. It's the same bread that they use for the bread bowl and it's pretty tasty. It tastes fresh even on the day old pizza that I had for lunch today. The seem to sprinkle some garlic powder over the crust which makes it even better. But other than the bread, nothing seems to have changed. The sauce and the cheese still taste just as bad as it ever has. We didn't get any meat on the pizza so I can't attest to the quality of the meat products but the veggies were pretty much the same as they have always been. I think that Domino's should stick to their original strategy of being fast and cheap. That's the only way they are going to be able to make a good profit.
iPhone Issues
I was in a conversation on Google Buzz about the Nexus One and the iPhone and I stated my opinion on Apple and their overlord authority and my displeasure with it. I figured I'd post it on my blog as well so here it is....
Steve Jobs is a like a drug dealer. He pulls you in with the fancy new toy that you just have to have and before you know it, he's got you by the balls. You want to use that cool new iPod that you bought? You gotta get iTunes to load any music on it. You want iTunes to work on your computer? You gotta install Quicktime. That's all good and dandy until there is an update for iTunes and Apple slips in Bonjour and the Safari browser onto your computer. (Wasn't there an Antitrust suit filed against Microsoft for forcing Internet Explorer on users by packing it in with the Windows operating system?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft)
Now you use iTunes to get music on your fancy new music player and you what do you know, there is the iTunes music store constantly in your face when you open it up. It even has those stupid arrow links to buy music that you already have in your library. Isn't that convenient?
Then Apple comes out with a phone that incorporates the same cool music player that you are so attached to and you grab it up. Now your signed up for 2 years of servitude to His Royal Jobsness.
You're locked into this phone so you figure you want to use it to do some cool customization. Jobs let's you change the background photo but that only shows up when the phone is locked making it pretty much useless. At least they let you move the icons around. Okay fine.... install some third party apps so you can do what you want with it. Well Apple controls that too. You can only install apps that Apple says you can install. Do you want Google Voice? Apple doesn't allow it. You want to use any VOIP software? Can't do it. You want turn by turn navigation on your GPS equipped phone? Pay $10 a month to AT&T for their crappy app or pay $100 for a real navigation app. Google builds turn by turn navigation into the maps app but Apple won't let you do that. They make money off you buying an app for that.
Apple and AT&T set how you can and can't use the phone that you paid for. Would you buy a Dell computer if Dell told you that you can only install software on it that Dell allows? As long as you want an app that makes fart noises, shaking babies, cutting up kittens, drinking beer, making high pitched noises or brandishing a light saber, then there's an app for that. 100,000 apps and most of them are totally useless.
Time to circumvent Apple and AT&T. Jailbreaking! They call it jailbreaking because it's literally getting your phone out from under
the shackles of Apple. Now your phone becomes a powerful machine and allows you to do so much more, that is up until Apple releases an OS update which slaps the cuffs back on your iPhone. Now you're just like the guy in Shawshank Redemption getting butt raped by Apple and AT&T. You wanna watch Hulu on your iPhone? Apple doesn't support flash so if you want to watch that episode of Heroes that you missed last week, you're out of luck. That is unless you are willing to pay Apple and buy it from the iTunes music store.
The whole world is addicted to Apple's toys and now they come out with a new one. It's an iPhone but bigger and with no voice capability. It's useless. It's been done before and failed but it will sell because everyone is sipping on the Apple Kool Aid.
The accessories are a joke. Apple disables accessories left and right. Update your OS and suddenly you'll find that your third party car
charger doesn't work. It's not "Made for iPhone". You have to get "approved" accessories. How does an accessory get approved? The
manufactures has to pay Apple to get approval. Cha-Ching! $$$ More money for Apple.
Don't get me wrong. I love my iPhone. It's a revolutionary product but it could be so much more if only it were my phone and not Apple's
phone. I guess that is what the "i" in iPhone stands for. It's Steve Jobs saying "I" determine what you can and cannot do with "MY" phone. It looks to me like the Nexus One addresses a lot of the issues that I have with the iPhone.
Steve Jobs is a like a drug dealer. He pulls you in with the fancy new toy that you just have to have and before you know it, he's got you by the balls. You want to use that cool new iPod that you bought? You gotta get iTunes to load any music on it. You want iTunes to work on your computer? You gotta install Quicktime. That's all good and dandy until there is an update for iTunes and Apple slips in Bonjour and the Safari browser onto your computer. (Wasn't there an Antitrust suit filed against Microsoft for forcing Internet Explorer on users by packing it in with the Windows operating system?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft)
Now you use iTunes to get music on your fancy new music player and you what do you know, there is the iTunes music store constantly in your face when you open it up. It even has those stupid arrow links to buy music that you already have in your library. Isn't that convenient?
Then Apple comes out with a phone that incorporates the same cool music player that you are so attached to and you grab it up. Now your signed up for 2 years of servitude to His Royal Jobsness.
You're locked into this phone so you figure you want to use it to do some cool customization. Jobs let's you change the background photo but that only shows up when the phone is locked making it pretty much useless. At least they let you move the icons around. Okay fine.... install some third party apps so you can do what you want with it. Well Apple controls that too. You can only install apps that Apple says you can install. Do you want Google Voice? Apple doesn't allow it. You want to use any VOIP software? Can't do it. You want turn by turn navigation on your GPS equipped phone? Pay $10 a month to AT&T for their crappy app or pay $100 for a real navigation app. Google builds turn by turn navigation into the maps app but Apple won't let you do that. They make money off you buying an app for that.
Apple and AT&T set how you can and can't use the phone that you paid for. Would you buy a Dell computer if Dell told you that you can only install software on it that Dell allows? As long as you want an app that makes fart noises, shaking babies, cutting up kittens, drinking beer, making high pitched noises or brandishing a light saber, then there's an app for that. 100,000 apps and most of them are totally useless.
Time to circumvent Apple and AT&T. Jailbreaking! They call it jailbreaking because it's literally getting your phone out from under
the shackles of Apple. Now your phone becomes a powerful machine and allows you to do so much more, that is up until Apple releases an OS update which slaps the cuffs back on your iPhone. Now you're just like the guy in Shawshank Redemption getting butt raped by Apple and AT&T. You wanna watch Hulu on your iPhone? Apple doesn't support flash so if you want to watch that episode of Heroes that you missed last week, you're out of luck. That is unless you are willing to pay Apple and buy it from the iTunes music store.
The whole world is addicted to Apple's toys and now they come out with a new one. It's an iPhone but bigger and with no voice capability. It's useless. It's been done before and failed but it will sell because everyone is sipping on the Apple Kool Aid.
The accessories are a joke. Apple disables accessories left and right. Update your OS and suddenly you'll find that your third party car
charger doesn't work. It's not "Made for iPhone". You have to get "approved" accessories. How does an accessory get approved? The
manufactures has to pay Apple to get approval. Cha-Ching! $$$ More money for Apple.
Don't get me wrong. I love my iPhone. It's a revolutionary product but it could be so much more if only it were my phone and not Apple's
phone. I guess that is what the "i" in iPhone stands for. It's Steve Jobs saying "I" determine what you can and cannot do with "MY" phone. It looks to me like the Nexus One addresses a lot of the issues that I have with the iPhone.
Google Buzz
Google Buzz just came out a couple of days ago. It's kind of hard to describe. It's sort of a mix between Gtalk and Twitter with location information built in. It's cool that I can talk to my friends using it but I've had plenty of ways to talk to my friends. There's Gtalk, Text messaging, Email and the good old fashion phone call. I'm sure the buzz around Buzz will die off soon.
The Muppets
When I was a kid, I used to come running home from school to watch afternoon childrens programming. One of the shows I used to watch was the Muppet Show. It was mostly re-runs from the late 70s and early 80s and I had no idea who most of guest stars were and frankly I didn't care. I was more interested in the muppets themselves.
One of my favorite characters was Beaker. He is the scientist's assistant that always get put in harms way. He doesn't speak. All he ever says is "me". I came across this video of Beaker performing "Ode to Joy". I think it would make for a great ringtone.
One of my favorite characters was Beaker. He is the scientist's assistant that always get put in harms way. He doesn't speak. All he ever says is "me". I came across this video of Beaker performing "Ode to Joy". I think it would make for a great ringtone.
I'm not full of it
Back on Thanksgiving, I was visiting my wife's family in Monterey. I told my wife's sister and her husband that I could tear a phonebook in half. I knew that I had done it once before and thought I could easily do it again. I was pretty much bragging about how I could do it. Then came the time to put up or shut up. We found the phonebook and I spent the next 20 minutes or so making a fool of myself. I kept trying and trying but I couldn't do it. Everyone was laughing at me. Especially my wife who was present the first time I did it and knew I could do it. I made an idiot of myself.
Recently, we got the 2010 phonebooks. In my neighborhood, instead of delivering them to each individual house, they placed a bunch of them next to the mailboxes. A week went by and there was still a pile of them at each mailbox. No one uses phonebooks anymore. Everyone just uses the internet. All the phonebooks were just going to get thrown out anyway so I figured I would make another attempt at tearing one. I picked one up and tore it pretty quickly. I was so excited that I grabbed a bunch more and started ripping them apart. I made a video of myself tearing one so that I can show it to those that laughed at me as proof that I'm not completely full of crapola.
Warriors get Robbed
That wasn't much of a foul. Usually they let you get away with murder in the final seconds of a game. To make a call like that knowing that it would decide the game is just awful. If you make that call, it better be very obvious that it was a foul. Needless to say, I don't agree with the call.
Warriors @ Lakers
The Warriors were on a bit of a hot streak coming into the game last night having between a playoff team in the Phoenix Suns and the team with the best record in the NBA in the Boston Celtics. It was a 2 game winning streak and for the Warriors, that is a big deal. Now they had to go to L.A. to play the best team in the Western Conference who were tied with Boston for the best record in the NBA. Would the momentum continue? I didn't think it was very likely but you know I was still rooting for them.
The Warriors started off the game really well. You would expect that a 9-21 team going up against a 24-6 team doesn't really stand much of a chance. They held their own in the first half and lead by as much as 15 points. Things were looking pretty good but I knew the Warriors would run out of gas eventually and the superior size of the Lakers would take over. Come the second half, the Warriors lead quickly disappeared but they never really fell that far behind. For most of the second half, the Warriors were within 5 points or less. It wasn't until late in the 4th quarter that things started to really fall apart and the Lakers pulled ahead. Considering that the Warriors were playing against a better basketball team, (and I will be the first to admit that the Lakers are better) they put up a good fight.
Now we get to hear from all the Kobe Lovers out there that love to rub it in when Kobe has to score 44 points to be a lowly Warriors team. Frankly, the Lakers should have lead the entire game by 20 points or more. The fact that the Warriors were able to stick with them for 44 of the 48 minutes of the game shows that the Lakers have work to do.
So go ahead and sing the praises of Kobe all you want. You've all been brainwashed by the media and the NBA's need to build up Kobe as a superstar in one of the NBA's largest markets. The NBA needs someone to draw in fans like Michael Jordan did but Michael did it with class. Kobe needs the media to constantly kiss his butt and like lemmings everyone follows suit. It helps that L.A. doesn't have an NFL team so Kobe and suck up all the Hollywood fan dollars. Mark my words, the time is coming very soon when Kobe will be washed up. I can see it on the horizon. Give Kobe 3 more years and he will be a total has been. He'll be a role player like Grant Hill, Jason Kidd and Shaquille O'Neal. Enjoy the Kobe bandwagon while it lasts. I used to be a huge Lakers fan but Kobe made me hate the Lakers with his bad attitude and gigantic ego. I really hope he retires soon or gets traded so I can be a Lakers fan again. The problem is that they will still have Pau Gasol and the majority of Lakers fans are stupid. See the example below.
The best part about the game for me was when Ronny Turiaf sent Kobe packing when he tried to dunk on him on a fast break. EAT IT KOBE!
The Warriors started off the game really well. You would expect that a 9-21 team going up against a 24-6 team doesn't really stand much of a chance. They held their own in the first half and lead by as much as 15 points. Things were looking pretty good but I knew the Warriors would run out of gas eventually and the superior size of the Lakers would take over. Come the second half, the Warriors lead quickly disappeared but they never really fell that far behind. For most of the second half, the Warriors were within 5 points or less. It wasn't until late in the 4th quarter that things started to really fall apart and the Lakers pulled ahead. Considering that the Warriors were playing against a better basketball team, (and I will be the first to admit that the Lakers are better) they put up a good fight.
Now we get to hear from all the Kobe Lovers out there that love to rub it in when Kobe has to score 44 points to be a lowly Warriors team. Frankly, the Lakers should have lead the entire game by 20 points or more. The fact that the Warriors were able to stick with them for 44 of the 48 minutes of the game shows that the Lakers have work to do.
So go ahead and sing the praises of Kobe all you want. You've all been brainwashed by the media and the NBA's need to build up Kobe as a superstar in one of the NBA's largest markets. The NBA needs someone to draw in fans like Michael Jordan did but Michael did it with class. Kobe needs the media to constantly kiss his butt and like lemmings everyone follows suit. It helps that L.A. doesn't have an NFL team so Kobe and suck up all the Hollywood fan dollars. Mark my words, the time is coming very soon when Kobe will be washed up. I can see it on the horizon. Give Kobe 3 more years and he will be a total has been. He'll be a role player like Grant Hill, Jason Kidd and Shaquille O'Neal. Enjoy the Kobe bandwagon while it lasts. I used to be a huge Lakers fan but Kobe made me hate the Lakers with his bad attitude and gigantic ego. I really hope he retires soon or gets traded so I can be a Lakers fan again. The problem is that they will still have Pau Gasol and the majority of Lakers fans are stupid. See the example below.
The best part about the game for me was when Ronny Turiaf sent Kobe packing when he tried to dunk on him on a fast break. EAT IT KOBE!