Pouring a Forty For This Blog's Homie, Paris Hilton

First off, as has been this blog's recent trend, Pun City is going to regurgitate another website's recommendation and give this link to an extremely hilarious video clip:

http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/Paris%20Hilton%20Jake/video/x27niv_paris-hilton-jake-byrd?from=rss

Now that the link-o-the-week is out of the way, this blog can move back to the trip recap.

Previously, on Pun City....

...and Scene.

Trip Recap #9 - March 9th, 8th day of the trip. The night before, this blog had gotten back to the hotel and inserted the room's keycard into the door. (Yes, the room had keycards, this blog was as stunned as anyone, but hold that thought...). Inconveniently enough though, for the second night in a row, the keycard didn't work. Also, the backup keycard did not work.

After last night's card not working, and several minutes of being accused of rubbing the magnetic strip against my credit card's magnetic strip, the hotel had courteously provided two non-working keycards as a sign of good faith. This time, armed with both keycards as proof of the recurring, inexcuseable problem, this blog marched into the nice moron's, er, hotel manager's office. The following is an approximate transcript of the conversation:

Pun City: "Hey, the keycard didn't work again. Actually, neither of them did."

Moron: "Did you rub them against each other?"

PC: (Shaking head, lifting hands skyward, and using 'Goddammit, we've been through this before, and why would anyone do that anyway?' face) - "No."

M: "Did you have them next to a credit card?"

PC: (Visibly incensed): "Ugh! No!"

M: "Oh, well, it's too cold for them to work, here's a new one."

AAAAAAHHHHH! Why would you even accuse the customer of doing something ridiculous like that if you were just going to use the cold excuse anyway? You had the cold excuse built in, this blog probably would have just let it go! Fricking Jaghole!

Customer's always right, eh?

Not at Absecon's Rodeway Inn. This blog would like to clarify so that Pun City is not involuntarily libeling the other Rodeway Inn in Absecon, which this blog briefly stopped at thinking it was this blog's lodging. The one at 200 E White Horse Pike, which is technically in Galloway, is the problem one. There are a couple others on E White Horse Pike that this blog can't vouch for. The one this blog briefly stopped at gave good directions to the lousy one.

This blog does seem to recall the wake-up call actually happening at the requested time this day, so that was a surprisingly good start. That gave Pun City some time to head over to Hamilton Mall. This was a solid mall. Lots of sports offerings in the mall, this blog was pleasantly surprised by a store called "Fadz" in the mall. This blog is equally surprised by how little information there is about the retail outlet online. If you can find something, let Pun City know, because this blog came up empty.

In a final non-basketball note, this blog inadvertantly used a full-service gas station. This blog didn't even know it was full-service until some dude came out of a booth and asked how much this site wanted in the tank. Since this blog would have preferred to pump its own gas, and the guy didn't speak too much English or do anything notable, this blog didn't dole out a tip.

The games of the day were Xavier vs. Rhode Island; and Saint Louis vs. George Washington. GWU slashed SLU, and Rhode Island beat the #1-seeded Musketeers. During the Xavier game, this blog struck up a conversation with a guy sitting in a nearby group. He was wearing an Illinois shirt and somewhat rooting for Xavier. He was there with Xavier fans but not really a Xavier fan himself. He asked what Pun City was doing there after this blog told him that it was a Wisconsin fan. This blog told him that it was just travelling alone and that every year Pun City just packs up and heads to a bunch of conference tournaments. After digesting that for a minute, the Illini fan smiled and said, "That's every guy's dream!" He then proceeded to tell everyone in his group what Pun City was there for, and it was some pretty good vindication for this blog's odyssey.

Some band notes:

Xavier's band played Jet's "Cold Hard Bitch," Europe's "Final Countdown," Smashmouth's "I'm A Believer," the theme from Blues Brothers, and Low Rider.

GWU's band played Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," Journey's "More Than A Feeling," and a medley of "Owner of a Lonely Heart" and "Smoke On The Water".

The SLU-GWU game ended up being Brad Soderberg's last game as coach of the Billikens. This blog sort of wishes it had seen Rick Majerus coach them, but this blog imagines it will probably get to see him coach live sometime soon given Majerus's affinity for the Milwaukee area and the number of teams in the area.

Next Trip Recap should be a good one. The Rodeway Inn manager's piece-de-resistance, the Atlantic 10 final of Rhode Island vs. George Washington, a drive back to Richmond to catch a flight, a stop at Maryland's Comcast Center, Selection Sunday madness, two flights and 3 airports. Two days, one game, and a whole lot of other stuff going on. Don't miss it, this blog plans on Next Tuesday. Hopefully a post in between there on other stuff.

VCU - Where Hunting Is A Major

Trip Recap #4 - March 4th, 3rd day of the trip. Looked up local malls online, determined that Charleston Towne Square Mall was probably the best bet. It was unique, easily the hugest Aeropostale and smallest Finish Line this blog has ever seen. Overpriced mall on the whole. This blog went to the food court, ideally would have gone to the Chick-Fil-A, but it was closed on a Sunday. Instead ended up getting way overpriced Burger King instead, as well as a cookie at some cookie place. Not a wasted trip, but certainly was hoping for more with the mall.

Part of why the trip was not wasted was that this blog stumbled upon the University of Richmond while heading over to the mall, which was very cool since this blog now knew how to get there for tomorrow, so more on that with the next recap, since this blog was planning on heading to Virginia Commonwealth's bookstore too.

Getting back to downtown Richmond, this blog entered the Coliseum to find that they had moved the "Ring of Champions" up a deck. This ring was kind of cool. Every year's tournament champion was listed on a banner showing the year. After the 2006 banner, instead of ending it, they had one up that said only "Who Will Be Next??"

So this was cool. Based on fairly small crowds the first two nights, they had them hanging from the 2nd deck. Well this night, they were hanging from the 3rd deck, which really was unexpected. This was because the "3rd Deck" was really just a few sections worth of extra seats situated above the 2nd deck in each end zone. This meant the signs really had to get crammed together to fit, since they had previously spanned a much larger pair of arcs on the 2nd deck.

Drexel faced off against Virginia Commonwealth in the early game. Some great signs from Drexel's student section, both aimed at VCU's students:

"VCU = UVA Rejects"

"Shouldn't you be watchin' Nascar?"

"VCU - Where hunting is a major."

VCU responded with a sign saying "Your Signs Suck"

At the half, there was a Special Olympics athlete that was delivering a speech to the crowd. It was a very touching speech, but funny in parts. This blog is paraphrasing and hopes it doesn't butcher his message, but he began his speech with (approximately):

"Before you start to get concerned, don't worry. I promise you this speech won't last any longer....than Britney Spears in rehab."

Totally brought down the house. Especially topical at the time, too. The part of the message this blog took home is that it hurts developmentally disabled people when you use the term "retard" derisively. This blog has tried to make it a point to avoid this phrase and believes it has been successful for the most part.

The hometown Rams beat up on Drexel after the half, so Drexel's NCAA tournament hopes, at least as far as their fans were concerned, had ended. (As it turned out, they probably should have made it over Arkansas or Stanford in hindsight).

In the nightcap, George Mason broke out the gold jerseys and upset favored Old Dominion, prompting George Mason's student section to chant "Lady Monarchs" at ODU, which this blog found funny. ODU's women's basketball program is a powerhouse, but Pun City is sure their men's program doesn't like to hear that.

The crowd of 11,200 was the first sellout in CAA Tournament history, so that was pretty awesome to be a part of. This blog had now been part of record crowds at the Colonial and Missouri Valley tournaments. A cool day, setting up a final between George Mason and Virginia Commonwealth tomorrow.