Pun City's Celebrity Encounters and Strange But True Confessions

This blog is headed to the Weird Al Yankovic show at Summerfest tomorrow, so Pun City figured it would put one up a day early. Two sources of inspiration here: one was a MySpace "survey" asking for 10 random facts about you. The other was an article/post on si.com where they were talking about encounters with famous people, in particular athletes. Without further ado:

10. This blog enjoys the music of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Hilary Duff. It's good stuff, have a listen some time.

9. Pun City has never exceeded 5 dates with the same girl. This might be common in the blogging community, but them's the breaks.

8. This blog sometimes prefers taking statistics to actually playing video games. Playing is often the means to the end of the statistics.

7. While working for Enterprise Rent-A-Car for two summers, this blog found over $20.00 in change in the rental cars each summer.

6. This blog was once accosted by a man playing church league softball for calling a ball that had hit the plate a strike. All balls that hit the plate are strikes. The ball clearly had hit the plate. This blog was a volunteer umpire pressed into duty 2 minutes before the game. Key words here: volunteer, accosted, and church league.

5. This blog's most recent video gaming system is Playstation 1. The NES and SNES are good enough for now. But this blog is waiting until they create a system where the graphics are better than real life.

4. Pun City has a hat and shirt rotation that matches up 223 hats with 223 shirts. This blog grabs the next one up in the closet every day, as detailed here. On Sunday, a Wisconsin Basketball shirt came up in the order. This was notable in that Pun City was headed to Marquette basketball season ticket renewal. After arriving in full Wisconsin regalia, the MU workers told this blog "You are about 90 miles east of where you need to be....." "Argh! It's, like, blinding! Ahh! Red shoes!" Once the initial pleasantries were dispensed, Pun City had a seat and awaited its appointment time. Minutes later, a female worker emerged from the back with a Marquette t-shirt. She presented it to Pun City, saying "We're going to ask that you wear this in to the appointment, because otherwise they're going to rip you to shreds in there." This blog graciously obliged, now knowing that the t-shirt order is self-sustaining.

3. Pun City doesn't eat breakfast. In college, this blog found out that it was a huge waste of time. It also noticed that gaining weight is easier when you eat breakfast. Pun City is a firm believer that breakfast is the least important meal of the day.

2. Pun City has attended 14 of 30 NCAA men's basketball conference tournaments in the last 4 years. The goal is to get to all 30 in Pun City's lifetime.

1. Pun City was half of the first (and still only) doubles victory for Grafton tennis at the WIAA state tournament.

Athletic encounters:

This blog has had brief encounters with quite a few athletes and coaches in its time. This blog didn't play against any famous athletes head-to-head, but was able to meet a few for a few minutes.

1. Homer and Bryce Drew - Both were at the Mid-Contenent Conference tournament in Tulsa, OK, watching Valparaiso's women play and this blog approached them for autographs. Homer was very gracious and amiable, every bit the gentleman that his public image projects. Bryce was on his cell phone but was happy to sign and as nice as you can be while talking on a cell phone yet still addressing the autograph seeker.

2. Marcus Allen - Kansas City Chiefs training camp in River Falls, WI. One year Pun City's brother and this blog asked him for an autograph just as he had refused a group of about 15 regular autograph hounds. In fairness to them, he said he couldn't, although he seemed to wish that he hadn't turned down the group and probably wouldn't have if he had known we were there. The next year, this blog was able to get his autograph. Pretty nice guy.

3. Joe Montana - Also Chiefs training camp. Very elusive, would never sign for any more than the bare minimum it took for him to get from his dorm into the meal hall. This blog realizes he had a lot of demand for his time, but that was a little poor.

4. Jim Larranaga - Cinderella George Mason's head coach, at the CAA tournament in Richmond, VA. He was in a concourse watching a game prior to GMU's matchup later in the day. This blog handed him a jersey and asked for his autograph. He nodded and signed in blue on the green part of the jersey, thus obscuring the autograph. (This blog had hoped he'd sign on the white number, but oh well). A very brief encounter, for as affable as he seems in the media, he came across as very introverted during this particular meeting.

5. Shane Battier - Hotel lobby in Indianapolis, IN during the 2000 Final Four. Duke was not in the Final Four, he had just completed his junior season. This blog believes he was in town for a summit on collegiate athletics as a student-athlete representative and probably as an NABC All-Region team rep. The hotel was hosting a pep rally for Wisconsin's fans. He had to get through the crowd to get to his destination, and was working the crowd very well, giving high fives and saying something to the effect of "Alright Wisconsin! Go get 'em!" He seemed pretty cool to be doing that when other student-athletes (like Brian Cardinal and to a lesser extent Marcus Fizer) and head coaches (like Steve Fisher and especially Bob Huggins) just shuffled past trying to avoid all fans. Cool guy, Pun City's a fan.