The Adventures of Aaron Proctor

I hope everyone has a safe and Happy New Year’s celebration!

Don’t forget today is the last day (yes I extended I one day) to vote in the 2007 Year End Awards. Click here to do so. I’ve already received hundreds of responses. Votes after midnight tonight will not be counted.  I’ll be posting the results sometime later this week.
- AP

Courtesy of the Crime Scene blog.

Click here.

- AP

Guess who got married yesterday?

Coleman likes his martinis shaken, not stirred. I should also learn to take pictures of the bridge AND the groom, not just the groom.

The Pasadena Weekly’s very own Andre Coleman!

Lots of famous Pasadena dignitaries were there - including (click on the links to see a photograph)….

Yours truly (taken wayyy afterward)

The Pasadena Weekly’s Joe Piasecki!

The Pasadena Weekly’s Carl Koz and some random guy named Jake who likes wrestling and Porterhouse steaks

Pasadena Star-News’ Larry Wilson

And here’s video of Andre and Sheila cutting the wedding cake.

And here’s video of me trying to walk like Vince McMahon does to the ring (including laughing about tearing his quad while walking like that).

Congrats to Andre & Sheila! It was a fun day!

- AP

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQEmGC6VK8k

- AP

Umm…”beautiful” (?) Jersey City, NJ… 

I was reading an entry on a professional wrestling message board I frequently visit. One of the guys who runs the site lives back east and wanted to find a hotel to stay at for an upcoming set of Ring Of Honor shows in the North Jersey/New York area.  He wanted to book a stay at an Econo Lodge in Jersey City, NJ (not one of the best places on Planet Earth, in my humble opinion).

So, being the smart fellow he is, he checked the quite-useful Tripadvisor website to see what experiences others had staying there.  Much to his chagrin, the reviews were not quite what he had hoped.

The following are excerpts from some of the most disturbing yet hilarious hotel reviews I’ve ever read (click the link to see them in full):

• “The lobby rug was nasty and dingy and looked like there was dried blood on it! The other patrons checking in the hotel before us looked as if they were of the vagabond, crackhead, prostitute variety! The check in desk was behind bulletproof plexiglass. There was no elevator. The room had a musty odor we couldn’t find the source to or get rid of, the shower curtain had furry, black mold all over it and there was no free cable!”
  
• “There were gang symbols carved in the bathroom door, ridiculous amounts of mold on the shower curtain, blood on the bathroom mirror, ash all over our “non-smoking” room, and several other gooey substances throughout the room that I don’t even want to think about.”
• “My car, along with four others got broken into in one night. Even then, the people working there refused to help and even insulted me. When the police came and took their report, the officer told me that he’s almost certain that the hotel people were in on the crime.”
• “The front desk was extremely rude and called my room at 1 o’clock in the morning and asked if my husband was there because if he wasn’t he wanted me to come down to the desk.
• Recently stayed at this Jersey City Econolodge for one night due to inclement weather on our way to NYC. We should have turned around and left but the entire area was booked.
  For starters, the lobby was filled with unusual characters exchanging money. The stairwell was extremely dirty. Our room door shut, but let light through all the way around because it was so loose. The headboard of the bed had “Ryan loves Kelly” carved in it all the way across in 8 inch tall letters. There was a halfhearted attempt to cover this with a marker, so we know that management was aware of it. The lamp in the corner was held together with electrical tape. We had an emergency blanket in the car that we took out to cover the bed with. We slept on top in our clothes.
  I’ve stayed in Econolodges before so I know not to expect the Ritz, or even Holiday Inn for that matter. This wasn’t a budget hotel, this was a nightmare.

LOL.

I decided to see if any hotels in Pasadena received similar reviews.  Obviously, all of the “hooker motels” in Eastern Pasadena (oh don’t try and tell me places like “Lucky Star Motel” aren’t breeding grounds for Craigslist Erotic Services) don’t even get listed - but I did find some for the Vagabond Inn on Colorado:

• Just OK. $65/night. The room was fine, but there was actually a condom wrapper on the bed, and a plugged bathroom sink. Hall carpeting was filthy and brought the appeal way down.
• I had stay at that dump for 2 nights.
  At the beginning clerk couldn’t find my reservation that I made few weeks in advance through Orbitz.
  The room I got seemed to be built as a addition right above clerks office.
  The room arrangement was very unusual. The toilet sit was of a size for 5/6 years old. While sitting on it you can’t reach for toilet paper. This room had a lot of noise coming from a stair case and from hidden behind the wall window overlooking the main street (Colorado Boulevard).
  Next day I couldn’t reenter the room because clerk made a mistake and issued to me the magnetic key for 1, not 2 days for which I made the reservation.
  At the second night things got more interesting. The elevator stopped working. Through the night people were walking on the stare case which was close to my door and were making a lot of noise.
  Not being able to sleep at 1:30AM I decided to go to the rest room. Before getting there I am getting a telephone call from the clerk downstairs with a complain that that my waking in the room is disturbing him and other guests. Next day I left that place leaving behind running water in the shower, sine it was impossible to shot it down.
  If you are above 100lb stay away from that hotel. You won’t be able to sit on the toiler, walk in the room or use their swimming pool, which has a size of slightly oversized Jacuzzi.

I find it funny how someone finds a condom wrapper in their hotel room yet still says it was “just OK”.
I guess it could be worse when you could be staying at the Econo Lodge in Jersey City, NJ.

- AP

Don’t forget to visit to the Balian House to look at the awesome lights and buy a $3 Santa Hat that lights up from a guy smoking a cigarette selling them out of the trunk of his car.  Oh, the holidays.

I believe it is the power company’s favorite house in the Pasadena/Altadena area.
- AP

From this week’s P-Dub:

It’s been kind of a tough year for Mayor Bill Bogaard.

Arguably Pasadena’s most popular elected official in recent memory, Bogaard has won the title of Best City Official in our annual Best Of Pasadena readers poll each occasion since 2004 — and that category didn’t exist the previous year.

But criticism lobbed Bogaard’s way in the past six months over his support for the Rose Parade float celebrating the upcoming Beijing Olympics, the handling of the ongoing development of the Heritage Square affordable housing project and the drafting of a ballot measure to continue the city’s Utility User Tax — with aggressive, ongoing coverage of it all appearing in this newspaper — appears to have been less than enjoyable for the seemingly unflappable city leader.

For having helped bring the China float to Pasadena, the Metroblogging Los Angeles Web site last week gave Bogaard the title “Grinch of the Year.”

Also last week, we asked the mayor (along with even more questions about the Rose Parade controversy and Measure D) if he had any New Year’s resolutions the Weekly could share with the rest of Pasadena.

“Be serious, be funny … whatever,” we advised. On Thursday morning, he offered a response titled “Learning from Experience” that covers all three.

“New Year’s resolutions are important business, and I am giving serious study to what mine should be. It’s wise to learn from experience. To identify the lessons of 2007, I am researching the best authority I know: recent issues of the Pasadena Weekly,” wrote Bogaard.

Already it looked like the joke’s on us. And here it comes:

“Based on this work, it seems likely that my New Year’s resolutions will come out strongly against — that’s right, against — the Rose Parade; the Olympic Games; the United Nations; Pasadena Ballot Proposition Measure D; fiscal responsibility; and affordable housing,” he continued.

“The primary lesson of this year, for me, is ‘No good deed goes unpunished!’”

Read the full article from Joe “The Big” Piasecki here.

I wasn’t aware of this but apparently the laughs don’t stop if you’re Bill Bogaard!

The PW failed to mention, however, that Bill continued on talking about his resolutions.  In fact, he had exactly 10 more of them.

How do I know?

From the home office in Sioux City, Iowa….

BILL BOGAARD’S TOP TEN NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS 

10. Begin ad hoc committee to find out who shot J.R.
9.  Increased “naked time” with Claire.
8.  Tax Proctor’s Top Ten Lists
7.  Start a blog called “Deep Thoughts With Bill Bogaard”
6. Eat right, stay in shape, and slap Madison around a little more.
5. Enter and win hot dog eating contest.
4. Finalize next year’s Rose Parade float with Bin Laden.
3. Add more A’s to last name.
2. Quit humming “Simply The Best” by Tina Turner when walking out to the dais.
1. Actually find out what happens in “the fullness of time”.
- AP

Why didn’t anyone protest last year when we let assistants to the Imperial Commander In Chief in the parade?
There’s still a lot of chatter lately about the protests aimed at the stupid Chinese float appearing in next week’s Rose Parade.

It’s hilarious how people are asking City Council to protest. Why not just go out and do it without asking? This is Pasadena we’re talking about - cops aren’t going to beat you with night sticks in front of a worldwide audience. Nothing is going to happen. I actually kind of hope a riot breaks out because it would be the story of the century around here.
If I wanted to protest something, I’d just go and do it - I wouldn’t ask Bogaard & Co. what they thought.

“Excuse me, Mayor? Yeah, I don’t like the fact you support this. Is it ok if I protest it? No? Sorry to bother you.”

WEAK.

Mayor Bogaard is like Dean Wormer.  The anti-China float people should build their own “Eat Me” float.  That’s actually a wonderful idea.

And, as you all know, I’m not down with the China float, but fuck if I’m waking up that early on my day off
- AP

There’s still time to submit your vote in the Aaron Proctor 2007 Year End Awards!

Over hundreds of votes have already been submitted.

Is Victor Gordo the worst Councilman of the year…or the best? Well, either way, he scored 4 touchdowns in one game against Arcadia High!!

Voice your opinion in something three-times more meaningful than the Best of Pasadena Weekly Awards OR the local elections!!! Time’s-a-wastin’!

Click on THIS LINK to enter your choices.

These guys hope you vote!

- AP

And, yeah, until I had the Internet, I had no idea what Boxing Day was either.

Thanks, Wikipedia.

Boxing Day is a public holiday celebrated in the United Kingdom, Canada, New ZealandAustralia and many other members of the Commonwealth of Nations on December 26, the day after Christmas Day;^[1][2]. and

 Origins

Boxing Day is a traditional celebration, dating back to the Middle Ages, and consisted of the practice of giving out gifts to employees, the poor, or to people in a lower social class. The name has numerous folk etymologies^[3]; the Oxford English Dictionary attributes it to the Christmas box; the verb box meaning: “To give a Christmas-box (colloq.); whence boxing-day.” Outside the Commonwealth, the day is celebrated with a different name.

• It was the day when people would give a present or Christmas box to those who had worked for them throughout the year.

• In feudal times, Christmas was a reason for a gathering of extended families. All the serfs would gather their families in the manor of their lord, which made it easier for the lord of the estate to hand out annual stipends to the serfs. After all the Christmas parties on 26 December, the lord of the estate would give practical goods such as cloth, grains, and tools to the serfs who lived on his land. Each family would get a box full of such goods the day after Christmas. Under this explanation, there was nothing voluntary about this transaction; the lord of the manor was obliged to supply these goods. Because of the boxes being given out, the day was called Boxing Day.

• In England many years ago, it was common practice for the servants to carry boxes to their employers when they arrived for their day’s work on the day after Christmas. Their employers would then put coins in the boxes as special end-of-year gifts. This can be compared with the modern day concept of Christmas bonuses. The servants carried boxes for the coins, hence the name Boxing Day.

• In churches, it was traditional to open the church’s donation box on Christmas Day, and the money in the donation box was to be distributed to the poorer or lower class citizens on the next day. In this case, the “box” in “Boxing Day” comes from that lockbox in which the donations were left.

• Boxing Day was the day when the wren, the king of birds,^[4] was captured and put in a box and introduced to each household in the village when he would be asked for a successful year and a good harvest. See Frazer’s Golden Bough.
  • Evidence can also be found in Wassail songs such as:

Where are you going ? said Milder to Malder,

Oh where are you going ? said Fessel to Foe,

I’m going to hunt the cutty wren said Milder to Malder,

I’m going to hunt the cutty wren said John the Rednose.

And what will you do wi’ it ? said Milder to Malder,

And what will you do wi’ it ? said Fessel to Foe,

I’ll put it in a box said Milder to Malder,

I’ll put it in a box said John the Rednose.

• Because the staff had to work on such an important day as Christmas by serving the master of the house and their family, they were given the following day off. As servants were kept away from their own families to work on a traditional religious holiday and were not able to celebrate Christmas Dinner, the customary benefit was to “box” up the leftover food from Christmas Day and send it away with the servants and their families.

In common usage, 26 December is continually referred to as Boxing Day whichever day of the week it occurs on.^[5] If it falls on a Sunday then in countries where it is a Bank HolidayStatutory Holiday is moved to Monday 27 December to ensure a day without work.^[6][7][8] As Christmas Day would therefore be a Saturday, Tuesday 28 December is also declared as a holiday in lieu. “Boxing Day” also had to do with the way in which the dogs, commonly now known as boxers, reacted to the donations in the church. If they barked, it was said that the church would receive a great sum of money and the town would have a prosperous New Year. the

In some Commonwealth countries, fixed-date holidays falling on Saturday or Sunday are often observed on the next weekday, so if Boxing Day falls on a Saturday then Monday 28 December is a public holiday; in the UK and other countries this is accomplished by Royal Proclamation.

If Christmas Day falls on a Sunday itself then the Boxing Day holiday is automatically on Monday 26 December, and no Royal Proclamation is required. In such a circumstance, a ’substitute bank holiday in lieu of Christmas Day’ is declared for Tuesday 27 December, this being the next available working day - thus the Boxing Day holiday occurs before the substitute Christmas holiday.

Although the same legislation (Bank Holidays Act 1871) originally established the Bank Holidays throughout the British Isles, the holiday after Christmas was defined as Boxing Day in England and Wales and St Stephen’s Day for Ireland. St Stephen’s Day is fixed as the 26 December.^[9]

While Boxing Day is actually on December 26 many retailers who hold Boxing Day SalesNew Years Eve. will actually run these sales for several days following December 26 often up to

Boxing Day in the UK is traditionally a day for sporting activity, originally fox hunting, but as this is now banned, alternative hunts take place. Football, horse racing and cricket are also played. Boxing day is also the start of the IIHF World Junior Ice Hockey Championship.

Events:

• English and Scottish football matches
• Boxing Day Dip - in certain UK coastal towns (including Hartlepool, Hastings, Sunderland, Whitby, Tenby and most coastal parts of Cornwall), people wade into the sea on boxing day - often in fancy dress, and usually to raise money for a local charity.^{[citation needed]}
• Football Matches played in Northern Ireland
• Derby Magners League rugby matches played in Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

[edit] Australia and New Zealand

In a similar vein to the United Kingdom (see below), shopping occurs similarly in Australia and New Zealand, although some Australian states, including New South Wales are tightening restrictions on Boxing Day retail trading[2], deferring the post-Christmas sales to December 27.

Boxing Day is not formally observed in the Australian state of South Australia, instead what would have been the next working day after Christmas is officially titled Proclamation Day and a public holiday is observed. ^[10] However, it is still referred to as Boxing Day.

In Australia, Boxing Day has become a significant sporting day (similar to ANZAC DayBoxing Day Test Match is played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, often before the largest single day crowd of the Australian cricket season. In Sydney, the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race starts on this day. celebrations). In Melbourne the

In Canada, Boxing Day is observed as a holiday, except (in some cases) for those in the retail business. Boxing Day and the days immediately following are when many retail stores sell their Christmas and retired model products by holding clearance sales. Some shoppers will line up for hours at night (sometimes before midnight and after midnight on December 26) for retailers to open their doors. Except in Quebec, retailers often open their stores earlier than usual, such as 6 or 7 am. Some retail companies internally refer to the sales week after Christmas as the “thirteenth month.” (See Boxing Week.) It is similar to Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, in the United States. Boxing Day 2005 was the single largest economic transaction day ever in the history of Canadian commerce (according to Visa). Individual big box stores can even gross over CAD$1,000,000 on one single Boxing Day.

As an exception, most retail stores are not permitted to open on Boxing Day in Atlantic Canada, nor in some Ontario communities. (The Nova Scotia government eliminated its ban on Boxing Day openings in 2006; however, most retailers voluntarily remained closed. The ban was reinstated in 2007.^[11]) In these areas, most stores offer the same specials on December 27 that they would offer elsewhere on the 26th. This distinction is not well known in central and western Canada.^[12]

In Alberta, employers have a choice of giving their employees the day off on either Boxing Day or Remembrance Day, which falls in November.

From a sporting perspective, Boxing Day in Canada has many implications. It is usually on Boxing Day when the IIHF begins the World Junior Hockey Championship. This is a significant event for Canada and Hockey Canada which have done extremely well at this particular international event. Boxing Day is also the start of another international hockey tournament: The Spengler Cup. This tournament, usually played in Davos, Switzerland, along with the World Juniors, are aired on the two big sports networks in Canada (TSN and Rogers Sportsnet).

In South Africa, Boxing Day is known in the official calendar as Day of Goodwill. It is a day on which food, left over from Christmas Day, is ‘boxed’, (in picnic baskets, bags, cake tins, etc.) and family and friends head to the beach or any other place of relaxation to enjoy these left-overs. Food is shared and enjoyed together in this way. With the advent of the new political dispensation, this day was changed to ‘Day of Goodwill’to symbolise sharing and togetherness.

Boxing Day is a holiday of particularly British origin, but in many other countries worldwide, December 26 is also a holiday under various names. In most years December 26 falls on the same day as the St. Stephen’s Day.

- AP

— Next Page »