The irony of Mr. "Frankowitz"'s comment on my last post is that just over the past two weeks, as I drive to the gym at 5:30 in the morning, there are now streetwalkers out in the neighborhood. The first day I saw this I just thought, oh you're being silly, there are just several women standing on Western Avenue for different reasons. Then they were there again the next morning, and more obviously in "professional" garb. I slowed down a little bit to try to get a better look for two reasons--to make sure I was actually seeing what I though I was seeing, and to see if they were men or women (I am close enough to Santa Monica Boulevard that either--or something in-between, say, pre-operative--was possible). When I say I slowed down, I mean from about 35 to about 25. It's not as if I was stopping. Seeing even a hint of deceleration, though, one of them actually made a move toward my car. At that point, there was no more doubt, and I sped away vaguely uncomfortably.

Oh yeah--women. I think.

On a different note, I've actually been out drinking two of the last three nights, which is a serious step up in my social life. Last night was Tom Cantwell's birthday party, and I ended up being part of a motley group of probably as many as 25 at the Formosa Cafe in Hollywood. L.A. Confidential fans will recognize this as the place with the hooker who looks like Lana Turner who actually is Lana Turner. We thought we were going to have the back room for a private party, but there was a different private party back there full of middle-aged accountants for a woman named Celeste. (Tom sort of knew her, which is why we know that.) The back room was at the end of an outdoor corridor that doubled as the smoking area, and some power-trippy bouncer was trying to push us aroud a little too much. So one guy in our group started going around telling everyone at the bar that if they said they were with Celeste, there was an open bar in the back. Once the bouncer sorted this out, he came over and whined that if we did that, it defeated the purpose. I made the good decision of not pointing out that this defeated their purposes, but not our purposes.

Finally, a mini-rant on the Backyard Brawl. When WVU got a late first-half touchdown to even the score at 24, I knew it was trouble, but I was even more concerned when I heard Walt Harris's comments on his way to the locker room (and not just by his bizarre speech impediment). He seemed focused on the fact that we hadn't had success running the ball in the first half, and that we had to do that more in the second half.

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?! Yes, I understand that balanced offense is nice, but you scored twenty-four points in the first half, and had an 80-yard sure touchdown pass drop. How did you do it? By passing the goddamned ball down the field repeatedly and being successful at it. What did Harris do in the second half? He started handing the ball off for one yard over and over again, and throwing swing passes and five-yard passes to the tight end. God forbid you continue to do the things that scored you all those points in the first half! Why would we want to throw to #1? That would be too easy! Rutherford could've thrown for 500 yards, but Walt Harris didn't let him.

And yes, I know that being able to stop the run at least a little is also helpful, but I just don't get the second-half strategerry. At all.