Larry Johnson

Penn State football has had a lot of players that have had pretty good NFL careers. Some of the most prominent of the past decade that I can think of are Kerry Collins, Kyle Brady, Lavar Arrington, Joe Jurevicius, and Bobby Engram. (Engram and Jurevicius were both the starting receivers on the Seahawks when I watched them beat the eagles the other week on MNF) However, Penn State has been cursed with running backs. Curtis Enis, Ki-Jana Carter, and Blair Thomas were all high profile running backs taken early in the NFL draft whos careers were big flops. Looks like this curse of the PSU running back may be over with Larry Johnson. He is having an awesome season, and will likely rush for over 1500 yards. I believe yesterday was his 7th straight 100 yard rushing game. He may turn out to be the biggest star of all the PSU players in the NFL.

bars

I heard somebody tell me this week how they had been to one bar over a 100 times. At first I thought that the person was exaggerating. But as I thought about it, I realized that over a span of 7 year since I've been 21, I've probably visited lots of bars at least 5 times each. So going to one place 100 times didn't sound like that much. I made a list of all the places that I think I’ve been to at least 5 times (includes places that don't exist anymore) followed by the approximate amount of times I think I've been there. Here are my estimates. I don't go out as much as I used to but these #'s sure add up over time.

Reading area bars
The Works (Kind of like Dave N Busters) - 5-10 times
1402 (The brownies of the Reading area)- 10-20 times

State College Bars
Darkhorse 10-20
Shandygaff 10-20
Players 10-20
Cafe 210 20+
SportsCafe 50+ (I'll probably hit 100 over the next couple of years)
Rathskeller 20+
Crowbar 20+
Saloon 10-20
Lions Den 20+
Gingerbread Man 10-20
Brewery 5-10

Philly Bars
Tiki Bobs 5-10
Finigans 10-20
McFaddens 5-10
Paradigm 5-10
Pluough and the Stars 5-10
Fat Tuesday 10-20
Manayunk Brewing Company 10-20
Chemistry 5-10


Philly suburban bars
General Lafayette 5-10
Great American Pub 20+
Brownies Plymouth 10-20 (I miss this place)
Brownies 23east 20+
Fox N Hound 20+
Rock Bottom 20+
The Barn 10-20 (I miss this place)
Boathouse (conshy) 5-10
Reeds 5-10
The Ridge 5-10

college hoops in Philly

One of my biggest dissapointments since moving into the Philly area over 5 years ago is that I haven't seen many college Basketball games here. (I've only seen one and that was a Temple game in 2003) I used to love watching college basketball growing up and went to lots of Penn State games when I was at school. Philly is arguably one of the best cities for college basketball. You have 6 division I schools in the area: Villanova, Temple, St. Joe's, Drexel, Upenn and LaSalle. Temple has a legendary coach in John Chaney and in the past been a power house team who usually makes the NCAA tournament (Although I know they've had a dry spell the last few years). Two Years ago St. Joe's had an undefeated regular season and ended up in the elite 8 during the NCAA tournament. Last year Villanova came very close to beating the eventual champion North Carolina in the NCAA tournament. This year Villanova is ranked #4 in the country and could have another great season. Sure I like the Sixers and I usually go to at least one game a year, but I think college basketball is much more exciting to watch in person. The arenas are smaller so you have a much more intimate setting. Plus I think they players play harder partially because they don't get paid and also because they play a lot less games so each game means a lot more than in the NBA. (You lose 20 games in the NBA you will probably have the best record in the league, you lose 20 in college and it's going to be a losing season) So one of my goals over the winter is to go to a college basketball game in the Philly area.

female leaders

Over the past couple weeks I have heard news about women being elected as leaders of countries. The African country of Liberia elected the first ever female president on the African Continent recently, Germany elected its first female Chancellor in Angela Merkel . I have constantly heard how Hillary Clinton and Condi Rice may run for President in 2008. So I tried to look at what countries have had female leaders and what countries have not. One of the biggest surprises to lot of people may be that the 2 most populated Muslim (http://www.aneki.com/muslim.html) counties of Indonesia and Pakistan have had female leaders (look below) while the US hasn’t. Here are some prominent countries with female leaders now or in the past.
UK – Margaret Thatcher. (You can also include some prominent Queens in power through history including Queen Elisabeth now, Victoria in the 19th century and Elisabeth in the 16th century)
India - Indira Ghandi
Israel – Golda Meir
Pakistan - Benazir Bhutto
Indonesia - Megawati Sukarnoputri
Philippines - Corazon_Aquino

It's just interesting how countries not exactly knows for women’s rights have had female leaders while many countries that you think of being very modern with women’s rights (US being most prominent, but others such as Canada, France, Italy, Japan) never had. This may change in 2008, but it’s hard for people to believe that Pakistan a country that basically founded the Taliban (one of the most suppressive regimes in terms of women’s rights) and where many high level Al-Queda leaders still hide, beat most western countries to having a female leader.