From the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade. Tell us what you had to eat this year!
OJB hopes that you had a great holiday — or at least on offering some respite from the horrors of everyday life under our increasingly desperation-generating economic and pitical culture.
This is your Weekend Open Thread! Talk about whatever you wish, within somewhat temporarily relaxed (but still present!) standards of decency and decorum.
About Greg Diamond
Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-retired due to disability, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally runs for office against bad people who would otherwise go unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that.
Corrupt party hacks hate him. He's OK with that too.
He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.)
https://wlogblog.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/15-strange-things-that-can-technically-happen-in-football/
Orange County Football Teams, in bold italic, (or champions of mostly OC-based divisions, in bold) (plus La Mirada, which should be in OC) in CIF Football finals next weekend!
St. John Bosco (Bellflower) vs. Centennial (Corona) ~~ Pac-5 (I)
[Big VIII, Marmonte, Mission, Moore, Trinity]
Mission Viejo vs. Vista Murietta ~~ West Valley (II)
[Leagues: Baseline, Foothill, South Coast, Southwestern, Sunset]
La Habra vs. San Clemente ~~ Southwest (IV)
[Leagues: Crestview, Empire, Freeway, Pacific Coast, Seaview]
La Mirada vs. La Serna (Whittier) ~~ Southeast (V)
Canyon vs. Brea-Olinda ~~ Southern (XII)
[Leagues: Garden Grove, Golden West, North Hills, Orange, Orange Coast]
Saddleback Valley Christian (SJC) vs. Grace Brethren (Simi Valley) ~~ East Valley (XIII)
[Leagues: Academy, Arrowhead, Desert Mountain, Freelance, Frontier, San Joaquin, Santa Fe, South Valley]
St. John Bosco, the #1-ranked team in the country, is in a league with five OC parochial schools, all of which it beat this year. So we sort of have to adopt it for this week. Or … we could root against it. Can we have some guidance from our Trinity league alums?
They’re unbelievable.
Centennial has a great program, they really do.
Bosco 48, CC 14.
Well, Centenniel is ranked #2 in the country, so they should do fine unless they somehow have to play #1. And what are the odds of that?
What I want to know is: for whom should OJB and its readers’ root! The team in the division with five OC parochial schools or the team that doesn’t “recruit” (ahem) against the other five parochial schools in its division? You know how much I’d hate to offend anyone….
Bosco.
I you, like me, can’t figure out the new playoff/bowl system, this page from near the beginning of the season should help:
http://www.maxpreps.com/news/fkSR2iglyk2_w0SqEkqx2A/maxpreps-california-bowl-game-rankings,-and-how-the-bowls-work-now.htm
For the current projections, you can check out this page: http://www.maxpreps.com/news/hu19N_hzGEa9uzyIBZIh3Q/maxpreps-california-championship-game-matchups.htm
Perennial powers De La Salle (from the North) and St. John Bosco (from the South) are projected to play in California High School’s “Super Bowl,” although if it’s not Bosco it will be Centenniel.
Among other OC + La Mirada teams, the ones expect to win (and advance to the regional championship that will pick members of the Divisional Championship games are:
MISSION VIEJO in Division I-AA
LA HABRA in Division I-A
LA MIRADA in Division III-AA
CANYON (Anaheim) in Division IV-A
SADDLEBACK VALLEY CHRISTIAN in Division V-A
In other words, of OC teams … only Brea-Olinda and San Clemente are being picked to lose. ARE WE GOING TO PUT UP WITH THAT, TEAM?
I’m not sure if this fits under a giant balloon-character rimjob photo, but it IS after Thanksgiving now, and Black Friday now, and Shop Small Business Saturday now, and this is when we play HOLIDAY MUSIC!
Or if you’re more adventurous, my version of Carol of the Bells (that I wrote when I was 23 or so)
As this WOT changed from a culinary to mostly sports section, let me mention a captain of the Anaheim High School soccer team, known as Jorge Flores then but now Jorge Villafaña. He will be playing at the MLS (Major League Soccer) championship match next Sunday, with his team from the soccer crazy city of Portland. Go Timbers!
BTW, what is going on with the local baseball experts?
An Open Thread can go in any direction — or all of them. I’m just noting my happiness about Brea-Olinda being one of the final eight in what I take to be probably the tenth or eleventh of the thirteen levels of the playoffs for 11-man teams. Still, that’s pretty good! Beat Canyon! (Although I regret once again that no one had the sense to name Brea’s athletics teams the “Brea Bears.”
I read Brandman’s statement in the LibOC and no wonder he/they did not send it to the VOC opinion section. I am posting this comment in this Open Thread because of three collateral issues :
1) David Vasquez. As you know I invited him to a yerba mate and Cunningham showed up! He brought a note from Dan C clarifying that he is not an advisor to the Young Dems …just joking. If Vasquez is a real person he needs to come forward otherwise he comes across as a fictional tool planted to do character assassinations.
2) Vern needs to take his breaks somewhere else, other than Dan C’s sauna. He gets abusively criticized in the most minuscule personal details.
3) Vanderbilt. I learnt there that his mother is from Peru. I was getting ready to invite him to eat empanadas, at the Argentine deli. A Chilean pisco may do it.
Yes, it says Peru. I’d ask him which it really is — I had thought it was Costa Rica, but I may have him confused with someone else — but the guy is such a straight arrow that he’d want to be contacted on the record, on his City email. Admirable, but inconvenient. Maybe you can ask him?
Learn about the immigrant experience from literature.
http://oedb.org/ilibrarian/coming-to-america-50-greatest-works-of-immigration-literature/
(This is mostly for my own future use.)