NBA Finals 2009 - Game 1

***Please note: The pictures below were taken with my little point and shoot. I know that doesn't inherently mean crappy pictures, but we were running late on the way in so I was snapping away haphazardly and once inside, taking pics at 8x zoom in a dark stadium, even with cranking up the ISO, still leads to pretty crummy pics. Although, I guess I get a few points for even realizing I could switch to manual mode on the point and shoot and kind of know what I was doing, right? Anyways, I would have loved to have the SLR there, but I had low hopes of actually getting it through security. Okay, you've been warned.***

Now that the Lakers just pulled out a nail-biter of a win for Game 2, how 'bout we look back at Game 1. You know, the one they won without giving their fans heart attacks. Staples Center was nothing less than a big 'ol Purple and Gold party on Thursday night. More Laker jerseys than you could shake a stick at and everyone smiling and in a festive mood. Great way to get the series started. In addition to all the Lakers fans, there were also a few folks sporting Magic gear. Including a group decked out in Superman capes. They got booed well before they ever entered the building. Once inside we got t-shirts. Jim quickly put his on to disguise the blue work shirt he was wearing. Good call. Tip-off was quickly approaching so we grabbed our usual grub and settled in to watch the teams warm-up. Um, if you didn't know this was a finals game, well, the ridiculous number of cameras on the court would be enough to clue you in. The Magic were introduced first. Boooo! Then the Lakers! YAY! The hoopla before the Lakers take the court is quite spectacular and the fans go gaga for it. The video shown on the screen changes throughout the year and for playoffs, it changes for each series. Pictures don't do it justice. Finally, the Lakers are introduced. Magic Johnson presented the game ball, which the crowd loved. After checking in at the scorer's table, they were off and running. Dwight Howard shot (and missed) a bunch of free throws. The Laker girls kept us entertained during timeouts. End of the first half and Lakers were up by 10. Kobe stopped for a quick interview before heading to the locker room. The half-time entertainment was, um, interesting. The is the Red Panda acrobat. She balanced multiple bowls on her foot and then tossed them up and caught them on her head. I kept expecting a spill, but there was none to be had. It was strangely impressive. The third quarter started off with a bang. The Lakers quickly opened up the lead and the crowd was pumped. By the fourth quarter, it was pretty obvious that it was going to be a blow-out, but the Lakers kept pounding - and none more so than Kobe.Why? Well, I think it probably had something to do with wanting this: That'd be 40 points - A Finals Game record for him.

The fourth quarter is also when a bunch of shenanigans occur during timeouts. The first - celebrity watch. The jumbotron featured Andy Garcia, Billy Idol, David Arquette and of course, Jack Nickelson. Kayne was also shown, but I couldn't get my camera up fast enough. Besides the real celebrities, the Chili's Fan of the Game is also highlighted on the jumbotron. The kid that won this week was particularly awesome. He wore not one, not two, but 6 jerseys from various Lakers players one on top of the other and kept lifting them up to reveal another and another and another, would get to the last one and start all over again. Hilarious!
Before we knew it, the pain the Lakers inflicted on the Magic came to a close. Lakers win! Wheeee! On the way out, we ran into the Superman crew again. They look a bit worse for wear, no? They were heckled so much as they left Staples. Teeheehee.

Next stop:

For a guaranteed celebrity sighting in Los Angeles

head to a Lakers game. Sit in the 100s or 200s section and bring your binoculars. It's really that simple.

Since we've been splitting season tickets, we have seen a multitude of celebrities from various areas of entertainment. Will Ferrell, David Beckham, Nick Lachey, Andy Garcia, Gwen Stefani, Kayne West, The Game, Toby Maguire, and the list goes on and on. And Jack Nickelson is a fixture at games as much as Kobe Bryant, Phil Jackson or the crazy guy from Westside Rentals who annoys everyone with his ridiculous timeout dancing.

Living in LA for over 10 years and seeing celebrities both at games and out and about is fun and kind of exciting, but not something that necessarily casuses me to swoon. Tuesday night, on the other hand, was a completely different story.

Case in Point #1:

Jim and I typically get to the games early and eat dinner at the bar tables situated next to the VIP entrance. It's like dinner and a show! We participate in heavy people-watching and play a game known as "Daughter or Date" - basically, is that hot young chick with that old dude his daughter or his date. Sadly, in LA, it's often times a date. :/

Anywho, we're enjoying dinner when Jim says "Oh, I got a good one coming up." All I can see is an older, bald guy with glasses and the back of a girl's head.

Me: Hmmmm, I really hope she is with a business associate, but her attire sure isn't work appropriate.
Jim: Yeah, I'm saying date.
[They walk forward and she finally turns around]
Me: Wow, she is beautiful.
[They continue towards us, grabbing the programs from the guys right below us]
Jim: Yeah, she is really pretty.
[The girl smiles from ear to ear]
[pause]
Jim: Wait a minute, I think that's...
Me: MICHELLE KWAN!!!

I don't think I've stated here before, but I have a HUGE girl crush on Michelle Kwan. HUGE. I almost fell off my chair from excitement and then started kicking myself that I was sans camera. Because literally, we were maybe 15 feet away from her. We also realized that television does not do her justice. While I've always thought she was pretty, she is really stunning in person. And her outfit? FIERCE. Black silk romper, gold 4" heels, high sleek ponytail and dark smoky makeup. Oh, and to set the record straight, it was obviously a business associate that was accompanying her to the event. Phew!

I really wanted to go down and ask to be her bff for the night, but Jim thought they might kick me out for being a stalker. What a party pooper!

Case in Point #2:

Late in the 4th quarter, during a timeout break, they do "Kiss Me" for entertainment. This consists of putting two people on the Jumbotron and expecting them to kiss. It elicits a lot of aaaahs and laughs from the crowd and eats up a large TV timeout. Everything was pretty normal until they got to the last two couples. First up, Dustin Hoffman. Aaaah, so cute when he attacked his wife with his lips. ;) And then they panned to the last couple. My first thought is "Wait a minute, that looks like Jessica Biel."

You know where this is going, right?

Oh yeah, JUSTIN EFFING TIMBERLAKE was sitting courtside directly below our section. OMG! He was a total ham and the crowd lapped it up. Do you think I could watch the rest of the game in peace. Um, no. I kept cutting my eyes to him every few seconds and watching his interactions with Jessica (which were quite sweet, really).

For me, these are easily two of the best celebrity sightings I've had at the game. Okay, Kayne is a close third, but still.

So, the moral of the story? If you have out of town guests or if you're ever visiting LA for the first time and want to ensure a celebrity sighting, get thyself to a Lakers game stat!

Fun Friday

I was off today, which is always nice. And I needed to do something to keep my mind off of something I'm waiting to hear back about (yeah, never heard anything, so it's good that I didn't keep myself glued to the internet), so I headed out in the late morning for some shopping and whatnot.

First stop, Century City mall to return a birthday gift the hubs wasn't wild about and a pair of shoes that didn't fit quite right. Maybe because it was Friday or maybe due to the beautiful weather, but everyone just seemed to be in such a great mood today. Totally great vibe from other shoppers and sales people. Love that! When I was returning my shoes, the guy happened to mention the Lakers, which started a whole long conversation about the team and Kobe and what it takes to be a champion. What should have been a 5 minute in-and-out return turned into a 15 minute chat session with several guys on the floor and the store manager. By the end, I had the original guy's card and a promise that he'd order in some shoes in my size so that I could come in and try them on without having to order everything online first. <3 Seriously made my day!


Next stop was J. Crew so I could order a swimsuit from their catalogue that I sorta fell in love with. Hopefully, it fits well, but I think it'll look adorable with my Juicy Couture tube dress cover-up that I bought last season. When I gave the girl my home address, she totally broke out of her customer service rep persona and exclaimed "OMG, I am just so excited, my team from LA won last night and I am still just so happy about it!" I'm telling you, everyone has Lakers fever! Love it!

My last stop was Border's to see if they had the Ben & Jerry's ice cream recipe book that Kay had suggested in my previous post. They did, and it was much less expensive that I had expected. Score! I briefly flipped through it in line and it looks great. Thanks for the suggestion Kay. :)

After finishing up at the mall, I swung by Williams Sonoma. There were a few sale items from their website that I wanted to see if they had in store, but sadly, it was a bust. I did take a closer look at the food processors and am a little closer to figuring out which one I want.

I finally made it home in the late afternoon and had a quick lunch and watched an episode of Top Chef and Step It Up and Dance. Then it was time for a short walk to the grocery store to pick up stuff for dinner. Lately, when we've had dinner in on a Friday night, I've made either pub grub or takeout-type foods as it's a fun way to close out the week. And since we haven't had mexican food in, oh, at least a couple of days, I opted for chicken fajitas for dinner. Combine that with chips and salsa and margaritas and it was a great end to the week.
And oh yeah, GO LAKERS!!

Weekend Rewind

Friday
My workday ended at 3:30pm (wheee!) and then I was off to run some menial errands (drycleaning, grocery store, etc) before meeting up with my trainer at 6pm. Fifteen minutes into the session and I asked him to remind me that the next time I wanted to reschedule our Wednesday session for a Friday night, to tell me it was a dumb idea and that he wouldn't do it. :/

After the brutal hour was up, I headed home, took a shower and changed into comfy clothes. Hubs had followed the directions I left for starting dinner to the letter, which left me with grilling the steak, dressing the baked potatoes and quickly making a salad. Add in a bottle of red wine and there you have it. Simple, but so good! I can't remember what we watched on TV, but I do know we turned in around 11pm. We're so old!

Saturday
Such an early morning. Ugh. We needed to be at the Rose Bowl by 9am so that we could participate in the new "select a seat" program for season ticket holders. It was gray and chilly outside, but the fans were all surprisingly chipper. Once our group was called in, we were ushered into the locker room to listen to a brief intro on how it was all going to work. The guy was funny and straight-forward and the locker room itself was just beautiful! Millions of dollars of renovations transformed it into a space where a board meeting would be just as at home there as a collegiate football team.

After the briefing, we were released onto the field to survey the available seats. We opted not to donate this year, but we were still able to move 1.5 sections closer to mid-field and move over into actual seats as opposed to the benches. Score!

At this point, it was only 10am, so we took the next few hours doing some house-hunting. We found a few neighborhoods that appear to be somewhat affordable and very cute. [Really the term "affordable" is all relative, we're still talking Los Angeles here folks.] There were a few houses in particular that we really liked from the street and planned to see the inside later in the week. Alas, we found out the next day they were already in escrow. Wah! :(

For lunch, I was craving the "after-school special" (cream of tomato soup and grilled cheese) from Doughboys and talked Jim out of visiting Phillipe's for it. Big mistake. Our lunch was just icky. My soup had a strange smoky flavor to it and the grilled cheese was basically flavorless. Jim's breakfast quesadilla should have been called a "grilled onion quesadilla" as that is the only thing you could taste in it. :/ Phillipe's would have been a muuuuch better choice.

To make up for lunch, we visited the Ice Pan, a new ice cream shop that makes your ice cream right in front of you. Jim had vanilla with berries and I had low-fat chocolate with strawberries. Both were tasty, but I think the whole concept is just a fad and won't last long. I'd still rather have Golden Spoon. [shrug]

We also quickly ran through Target so Jim could check out the latest Wii stuff and I could try and get some new sports bras. And wouldn't you know, it looked like they had just restocked their activewear section so they actually had ample sizes and colors. Yay! I picked up 4 of the seamless camisole sports bras from the C9 line. Jim tried to also convince me that we needed DWTS for the Wii, but I opted out, especially as we already have Rock Band on pre-order.

By the time we got home, we were both exhausted so we flipped on the NBA playoffs and Jim napped while I read a book and kept a half-eye on the game. I managed to not get up the rest of the evening though, as we ordered PF Changs for dinner and Jim was forced volunteered to go pick it up by himself. It was just okay, but it still meant I didn't have to cook. The rest of the night was spent watching Sports Center and our favorite show, 48 Hours Mystery.

Sunday
We both, finally, got to sleep in for a bit. I doctored up some frozen Kashi waffles for breakfast and then we got ready and headed down to my ILs house for lunch. A quick stop at DSW and Bristol Farms provided gifts for the mommies. I ordered my own mommy a Sigg bottle earlier in the week and the silly company didn't send it until Saturday. Ah well, I called her to wish her a happy mother's day and say the gift was on its way.

We had a pretty large group (ILs, both BILs, MIL's bestie and her son, hubs grandma) and it was good to see everyone. One of Jim's brothers picked up El Burrito Jr. on his way to the house (my jr. super deluxe veggie burrito was delish!) and then we capped it off with strawberry shortcake for dessert. Mmmmm. I spent some time after dessert chatting with my MIL about her elbow (it's still a mess and they are considering a 2nd surgery to try and fix it; they've even told her she may never be able to pick up a bag of groceries with that arm again) and I could hear the ridiculousness that was the 4th quarter/OT of the Lakers game from the other room. The dejected look on everyone's faces said loud and clear that things hadn't gone well. Boooo!

Jim and I headed back to our apartment in the early evening so he could get some work done and I somehow managed to motivate enough to go for a short run (gotta make use of those new sports bras). When I got back, I was all energized and made quick work of 4 loads of laundry, cleaning the kitchen and getting my stuff ready for the next day. And again, yet another weekend that went by far too quickly!

MVP! MVP! MVP!

That was the backdrop to last night's Lakers playoff game. From the free t-shirts, to the signs, to the chants of every fan in the packed arena, to the trophy being presented to Kobe Bryant before the game, a whooping 12 years after joining the league. MVP! It was loud and boisterous and crazy and so much fun! A wednesday night in Los Angeles people, and the lines to enter Staples Center were down the street when the doors opened. The energy was palpable even an hour before tip-off. You were hard-pressed to find someone not decked out in purple and gold. Hell, even some of the "suits" streaming in from offices just up the street put on the free t-shirts to get into the spirit of the night. Just before the trophy presentation? You could count on one hand the number of empty seats. In Los Angeles, on a wednesday night, folks. Unreal. Although, I guess it's fitting seeing as how that word also perfectly describes this entire Lakers season.

A card set-up for fans to sign for Kobe The official t-shirt for the evening Another MVP t-shirt we grabbed for free on the way into the stadium Showing off our Lakers pride! Sign says it all So many cameras to capture the trophy presentation on film Getting ready to present the award to Kobe The crowd loves it!

And on the energy from the MVP trophy presentation and Bryant's command to "...get this party started!", the Lakers came out swingin', jumping to an early lead and never really letting the Jazz get back into things. The team looks good. They look pumped. They look like they're out for blood. They look like they could be champions come June. 6 down, 10 to go!