It's Glorious. Fresno Famous has relaunched, and let's just say Jarah and her brilliant band of indie rockers made my redesign look like it's straight outta 1996. Tags? Blogs? They just blew my mind.
Hope you all had a nice Xmas. I spent some quality time in Fresno and got a nice look at all the newest strip malls near Woodward Park. I'm not gonna lie: They're pretty plush.
UPDATE! Famous has been down all morning... Word around the offices is that their hosting company shut them down from too much traffic. They are, truly, blowin' up.
Reminds me of my old Fresno Apple II User Group days. Big rivalry, those two gangs.
To all my loyal Fresyes readers, Merry Chrismakkuh and a Happy New Transit Agreement. Provided we can get to the airport, we're heading to The Cold Blooded City that They Call The 'No on Friday. Save us some of those kick-ass mountain views.
Meanwhile, speaking of the NY transit strike, check out the very newest in "new journalism." The New York Times breaks out this really cool Google Map "charticle" chronicling readers' commute stories.
Snatched from our own backyard: The USC Trojans have successfully lured Bullard High wide receiver Anthony McCoy with promises of Hollywood starlets, sunny weather, hot-tub limousines... or, at the very least, a disciplined football program. Can you blame the guy?
"Yeah, I'm a Trojan," McCoy tells Scout.com. "Coach Seto came by my place last week for an in-home visit and we had dinner, talked and watched highlight films. After that we started talking about what I wanted to do and that's when I came out with the commitment."
Anthony had narrowed his final choices down to USC, Cal or Fresno State before deciding he'd had enough of the recruiting process.
"I always wanted to go to USC and I got tired of stalling. It was time."
Some evidence on Flickr that the recently documented Fresno "brain drain" has a long history: "Dan Hadsell, Sr. was my grandfather's (John Hadsell), father. He was raised in Fresno but later the family moved to Berkeley so he could attend the University of California."
On Saturday morning, I awoke to a ruckus outside my apartment window. Looked down and saw 20 belligerent, presumably intoxicated Santas stumbling into the uptown 6 subway station. Turns out they were in town for SantaCon 2005! (image via Productshop.)
-I'm going to lay off the Bulldogs for one post and give Pat Hill a brief respite. Instead, here's a fascinating New York Times magazine profile of Texas Tech Coach Mike Leach, who's raising eyebrows for his unique offenses, which spread out the linemen and allow his quarterbacks to set passing records. (Prior to Texas Tech, Leach did some hard time at my alma mater, Cal Poly, among other small football programs.) A couple tidbits:
The offensive linemen positioned themselves between three and six feet apart -- on extreme occasions, the five linemen stretched a good 15 yards across the field. At times it was difficult to tell the linemen from the receivers. Strictly speaking, they were not a line at all, just a row of dots. ''The offensive line splits -- you look at them, and you're just shocked,'' Schwartz said. ''It scares people to see splits that are that wide.''
''He makes them nervous,'' Leach's agent, Gary O'Hagan, says. ''They don't like coaching against him; they'd rather coach against another version of themselves. It's not that they don't like him. But privately they haven't accepted him. … They dismiss him out of hand. And you know why? Because he's not doing things because that's the way they've always been done. It's like he's been given this chessboard, and all the pieces but none of the rules, and he's trying to figure out where all the chess pieces should go. From scratch!
I don't know why I torture myself and continue to follow Fresno State football. In 2001, when we made the cover of Sports Illustrated, the Bulldogs blew it. This year, more of the same: Build up a case for national respect -- and then, once everyone starts paying attention, piss it away.
In case you didn't hear, Fresno State lost -- again -- on Friday, this time to Louisiana Tech. The game killed Fresno's shot at winning the WAC, a conference that elicits puzzled looks when I mention it to friends in New York.
The bloggers say it's be time for Pat Hill to polish up his resume. He can't create a team disciplined enough to play a full season of football. And while he's ready for "Anyone, Anytime, Anyplace," that apparently doesn't include teams in his own conference. There's some brilliant analysis over at the Fresno State Bulldogs Blog, and here's a good rant from Mike Dorktown:
Shut up Pat Hill. Shut up Fresno State players. Shut up Fresno fans. Shut up about deserving to be in the Pac-10 or the Mountain West.
We haven't been the best team in the Western Athletic Conference in over six years. Fresno's not even a big fish in the small pond of the WAC.
It has become obvious, over the years, Pat Hill doesn't give a shit about playing WAC teams (or he can't get his players to).
So please, everyone, be happy we're in the WAC and SHUT UP.
There's more Monday morning quarterbacking over at the Beehive.
A Fresyes Xmas: It's the Most Profitable Time of the Quarter
Just in time to celebrate the birth of Jesus: The Fresyes Store has expanded! We've got a whole slew of new items for sale, from stocking stuffers (buttons, greeting cards, mousepads) to kids' clothing and big-ticket gems like the Fresyes messenger bag -- which is guaranteed not to shoot your eye out. Ho. Ho. Ho.
It seems we've been missing some gripping episodes of "Yacht Rock" lately -- including the appearance of the Central Valley's own Steve Perry in episodes #3 and #4.
To bring you up to speed, Channel 101's "Yacht Rock" re-enacts the exciting history of "smooooth" music in the early '80s, featuring the likes of Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald, Hall & Oates, Toto and Christopher "Theme from Arthur" Cross. We can imagine this is how the music-making magic really happened -- give or take a vicious street fight involving John Oates.
As the guy from Toto said: "I've found that the root chakra is my taint." (via Stereogum)
Fresyes is a web collective whose current interests include (but are not limited to) rock music, the central valley, new york city, chipotle burritos, "granny gridlock" and people who hamper the flow of pedestrian traffic.
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