NBA is Back!

Obviously LeBron's really excited to not win another championship. Here are the Top 5 reasons why I'm excited:


1. I don’t have to show my face in public with Quinn anymore.

Without an NBA season, I needed another way to get my basketball fix. That meant attending BC basketball games with Quinn. Initially, I thought this was a pretty simple solution. That is, until I realized that Dave thinks it’s completely reasonable to wear a pea coat, sweatpants and slippers to a basketball game. Like I don't already have enough on my plate trying to avoid former lovers whenever I come to campus. The last thing I need is someone committing social suicide in the seat right next to me.

The worst part, though, is that Quinn’s completely oblivious to it all. When I asked him about it, I believe his exact words were, "It's a good look." Listen man, don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. You look like a clown. Libby, if I were you, I would get out now. I know you’re probably waiting to see how this whole “lawyer” thing works out, but let me save you the trouble. Dave doesn’t have what it takes to be a good lawyer. It’s not in his DNA. Successful lawyers are always arrogant hard-bodies, not the soft-spoken type that you can push around like a shopping cart. Seriously Dave, it’s a good thing you didn’t pay a dime for undergrad, because this is $150,000 you’ll never see again.


2. I get to be considered an expert on something, even though I secretly don’t understand how basketball works.

It’s true. I really don’t know what I’m talking about. I only played organized basketball for two years. Like, that’s pretty much the same amount of time that Teodora’s been driving a car, and I don’t think anybody is ready to call her an expert on that.

It’s actually pretty crazy when you think about it. The amount of unwarranted credit that I get for being a “basketball guy.” Like yeah, I understand the superficial things. I know that Phil Jackson loves the Triangle, and Al Skinner loves the Flex. But I literally have no idea what that really means, and I definitely couldn’t distinguish between the two. But like I said, I only played basketball for two years. And even though I had the legendary Peter Roby as my coach, there’s only so much you can learn when the team’s most effective offensive strategy is isolating Igor on the wing.

3. Brenny probably doesn’t read CelticsHub, so at least some of my writing can elude criticism.

At the Boston College School of Law, Brenny learns about torts, contracts, and how to be an asshole. And boy is he good at it. I mean, the kid placed in the top third of his class for the rough draft of a memo he wrote. That kind of legal talent doesn’t just grow on trees, people. And since 3 months of law school obviously makes you an expert on everything in life, Brenny has also decided he’s going to criticize each and every one of my blog posts. “Listen, Sal. I’m not gonna sugar coat it. Blogs just aren’t doing it for me.” Listen, Bren. I’m sorry you’re like the Rob Gronkowski of interpreting blogs and only laugh when I write things like “Tom no like Albies.” Pardon me for trying to work some underlying themes and motifs into a comprehensive piece. Why don’t you go try a few Kaboomspikes in the backyard and you can laugh when it comes back and hits you in the face.


4. Hyatt and Tom can go back to arguing about sports instead of trying to solve America’s problems.

I mean, at least when you guys yap about Stephen Curry’s ability to play point guard, you have the slightest clue what you’re talking about. Unlike when we’re at Union St. and we have to listen to you guys talk about corporate greed and the distribution of wealth in this country. Because that shit’s embarrassing.

Honestly, Sam, I’m surprised you didn’t get a job offer when you went down to Occupy Wall Street. Because you’re great at talking out of your ass, and everyone knows that’s the only prerequisite to succeeding in Finance. But to each his own, right? If you want spend your days working for social and economic reform, be my guest. But don’t shove it in our faces every chance you get. Some people are revolutionaries. And some people just like showing up to their cubicle every day so they can have enough money to spend at Tavern on the weekends. That’s just the way the world is.


5. I can go back to being a man again.

I’m not gonna lie, I kinda went soft during the NBA lockout. I know I have a reputation as being the ultimate man’s man. You know, the kind of guy that Brooke wishes she could date. But without the NBA to keep me entertained, I found myself doing a lot of borderline feminine things. Think about it. I went apple picking even though I don’t have a girlfriend. I watched Pan Am for 3 weeks just so I could tweet nonsense at Mel about it. And every Facebook status that I’ve posted since September, I wrote with the intention of getting Libby to “like” it. But now that the NBA is returning, hopefully I can get back to doing regular guy things. You know, like going to the bar with all my boys, watching some hoops, and hoping that Ben Dyer picks up the tab before it ever gets back to us.

Why Traveling in Europe with Mike Salvucci was a Really Bad Idea

Just crushing Ruffles in the Mediterranean Sea. Nothing to see here.



Editor’s note: This is the first guest blog in the history of Albermarle All-Stars. Not gonna lie, I’m kinda nervous about it. I mean, if Mike and Dave are funnier than me, it's gonna be a tough blow to my self-esteem. Basically won't have anything else going for me in life.

But I know they put a lot of thought into this, even if it was at my expense. So I’m going to allow it. Plus, we all know Brenny is itching for someone to breathe some new life into the site.


By Dave Robb and Michael Kirschner

When we were planning this trip Mike seemed like a pretty good guy to travel with. But boy were we wrong. It would be impossible run through every detail but here’s a breakdown of a day in Europe with Mike.

If you’re sleeping in a hostel with Sal you’re not actually sleeping at all. If you close your eyes its hard to tell whether that’s a table saw in the top bunk or Mike’s just dozing off. We’re not making any friends in a 8 person mixed suite with this kid. You know its bad when the 35 year old dude from Kenya is throwing shoes over at him at 5 am. Only when you’re just falling asleep around 9am does Mike dismount from the top bunk and tumble onto the floor, effectively waking up everyone in the hostel. He stumbles out of the room in his boxers and button down. More often than not Mike neglects to drink water or take his button down shirt off before bed. Which takes us to our next point.

When Mike’s hung over he does his best to ensure that we are completely aware of how miserable he is. During the morning hours were walking around some European city with this train wreck lagging behind and complaining about how ugly Prague is or how unimpressed he is by the Coliseum. This doesn’t end until he takes his first of two daily showers. Eating also brings him out of his PMS which doesn’t happen for him until the three sequential dinners from 4-7. We all know Mike prides himself as a great tipper back in the states. The American “Salvucci 25%” converts here to leaving 25 cents in Danish Kroner equivalent to around a nickel and a penny.

Mike’s a terrible tourist. He cant read a map and he couldn’t work a camera if his life depended on it. He’s been asked to take two pictures the entire trip. He’s 0-2 dropping the cameras both times. If you give Mike a map don’t expect anything more than him to treat it like a maze and start drawing all over it. Literally every single time we walk out of the hostel he starts walking the wrong way. After walking around for the day don’t expect to hear anything out of mike if its not about how sore his knees and back are. The Salvucci family: “great hair, bad backs”

In preparation for going out Mike sometimes gets in a quick back rehab session. This consists of him standing upright, hands on his waist thrusting his hips forward and making a sound similar to that of someone coming prematurely. If we had any friends in the hostel before this they now have requested a room change.

Mikes dry-skin issues become apparent when getting ready to go out. After his second shower he applies between four and five layers of moisturizer. This kid goes through more moisturizer than a teenage boy who just hit puberty. Speaking of stuff he puts on his face don’t get us started with the chapstick. Before leaving every night Mike recites out loud “phone, wallet, keys, chapstick minus phone”. Really bro. Chapstick?? This problem became apparent in Prague when we spotted him essentially surfacing for air during a dance floor make-out session only to apply another coat.

“Alright two issues here. One why are my eyes red. And two, why do I have an asian glow?” Mike screamed from the bathroom as we were ready to head out for the night. When Mike starts talking like this he has usually had a few drinks and is ready to hit the town hard. In the clubs Mike is like an uncaged animal, his only fuel is some obnoxious fruity fishbowl drink. Upon taking one of his fishbowls to the face its on to his go-to dance which shares a strong resemblance to the 85’ Bears Superbowl Shuffle. Chicks dig it...like 28% of the time.

Long story short, leave this kid out of the mix the next time you’re thinking of going anywhere further than the cape.

Madrid

"Throw your hands up if you love clubbing in Madrid!"




Americans do a lot of stupid things. We drive inefficient cars, eat fatty foods and even listen to Dave Matthews Band. But, by far and away, the stupidest thing we do is clean the house the night before the cleaning ladies are supposed to come.

In our house, the cleaning ladies come on Thursdays. So every Wednesday evening I get the same speech from my mom. “They’re not here to clean up your clutter. They’re here to vacuum and wipe the bathroom and sweep the dust out from under the radiator.” Listen, Mom, you don’t have to tell me. I’m scared shitless of the cleaning ladies.

Seriously, I feel more motivated to impress the cleaning ladies than pretty much anyone else on Earth. I mean, I’ve failed my fair share of exams in school, and I have absolutely no problem walking into class the next day and facing the teacher. But if the cleaning ladies were to walk into my bedroom and see clothes on the floor and empty Coke cans on my nightstand, I honestly don’t know what I would do with myself. I can’t even tell you the number of times I’ve woken up on a Thursday morning and shoved everything into my closet right before heading to school. Just the thought of them judging me in a foreign language is too much for me to live with. It’s like I can’t even defend myself.

But you know who wouldn’t get all worked up about the cleaning ladies coming? The Spanish, that’s who. Because the Spanish don’t give a fuck. In fact, they might be the laziest people I’ve ever met in my entire life. No wonder their economy is a sinking ship right now. It’s cause they go to the office for like 3 hours and then leave so they can go watch some soccer, eat some tapas and drink Sangria in the Plaza. No chance in hell they would lift the slightest finger if they knew the cleaning ladies were coming the next day.

But there is one thing that the Spanish know how to do better than anyone else, and that’s party:

Here’s the difference between partying in the U.S. and partying in Spain. Say you’re out at a bar in Boston and the DJ plays a couple bangers in a row. Like “Bulletproof” and “I Want You Back,” or something like that. Got everyone dancing and having a good time and everything. Well, as soon as the second song ends, what automatically happens every single time? The DJ plays a Third-Eye Blind song because he knows everyone needs a breather. Most likely the “Jumper,” but occasionally you’ll get “How’s it Gonna Be” just to keep you on your toes. Because God forbid people dance for like three songs in a row without “mellowing out” for a bit.

Now take Madrid, for example. There’s like 1,500 people dancing their faces off at Joy at like 4:00 in the morning. Just Avicii and David Guetta for days. Then all of a sudden the DJ decides he’s going to play “Wonderwall” by Oasis. Not even kidding, not one person in the entire club knew what to do. Everyone just stood still and started looking around, waiting for someone to take the lead on this. I almost volunteered, but honestly I thought it was another one of those siesta things right in the middle of clubbing. Seems ridiculous, but they fucking love those siestas.

Fortunately, though, it turned out to be the only slow song of the entire night. Good thing too, because the line to dance with Dave Robb was literally out the door. I mean how can you resist that dance move where he acts like he’s a choo-choo train, speeding forward and then putting it in reverse? Like, it’s not an actual train, people. It’s just Dave!

We had to leave at like 5:00 am to ensure we caught our flight to Barcelona, but there were absolutely no signs of slowing down at Joy, even though it was a Thursday. But I guess in Spain it doesn’t matter if you have work, school, or the cleaning ladies coming, because life is a joke nobody does shit anyway.

Copenhagen

When Steve Jobs died, I wanted to do something to honor his memory. But since Steve was such a creative guy, I figured I should do something a little more original than simply update my Facebook status. So I looked all over my room until I finally found my iPod Sillyband. And I started wearing it again as a tribute to the man that has done so much for me. You scratch my back Steve, I’ll scratch yours.

But when it was time to pack for Europe, I couldn’t decide if I should bring the Sillyband with me. I mean tribute or not, we’re still talking about the second rarest Sillyband in the world here. Like, there’s gonna be professional pick-pockets everywhere I go. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

But in Copenhagen, I realized why I made the biggest mistake of my life. On Saturday night, Dave and I went out by ourselves because Kirsch was at Sensation. We went to a bar called Sjus, which was kinda like the Danish version of Cityside. Mostly college students, but enough weird older people to make you explore all your options first.

We had recently discovered that northern European girls love American guys. Everywhere we went in places like Germany, Denmark, and Holland we had girls coming up to us left and right (the other side of that coin, though, is that Spanish and Italian girls are way too intimidating to even think about approaching). So we decided to go sit down at a table and wait for them to come to us. Not 15 minutes later, and there are two Danish girls asking if they can have a seat. One of them was really cute too, but she immediately sat down on a stool next to Dave.

My girl didn’t need a stool because she basically decided to sit on my lap. Normally I wouldn’t have a problem with that, but this was a little different. I know I make fun of people a lot on Albermarle All-Stars, but I still make a point to never write anything about people’s physical appearance. You just don’t say stuff like that. With that being said, though, this was probably one of the Top 5 ugliest girls I’ve ever seen in my life. There’s just no escaping it. And the moment she spotted my iPod Sillyband, I knew I was in real trouble.

After she asked about it, I literally had to show her like 12 different times that it took the shape of an iPod. And even now, I’m still not convinced that she understood because her English was pretty awful. She asked if she could wear it, and even though I knew this was probably a bad idea, I still allowed her to try it on. Like, what was I supposed to do, say no?

Anyway, then she proposes a trade by taking off her ring and placing it on my finger. “In Denmark, when you make a trade you have to kiss with the other person,” she says. Fuck me. Fortunately, though, I’m pretty quick on my feet and told her my girlfriend would be upset if she found out about that.

A few minutes later, the girls ask us if we want to go to a club with them. Keep in mind; I was still trying to flirt with the cute one across the table throughout this whole scenario. I knew Dave wasn’t gonna pull the trigger, so I was just waiting for my opportunity. The problem was I couldn’t shake this other girl. I know you gotta slay a few dragons to get to the princess and all, but I couldn’t take it any longer. When the girls got up to go to the bathroom, I had to make an executive decision.

“We need to leave,” I immediately tell Dave, who laughs at me like I was joking. Asshole. But after seeing the look on my face, he goes, “Wait, you’re serious?” And even though I knew I would never see my treasured iPod Sillyband ever again, it was a better option than seeing how the rest of that night was going to play out.

Prague

Czech Kirsch out!



Back in college, when you hooked up with a random girl from the bar, your biggest fear was running into her the next morning in the dining hall. Unless of course, she was really good looking, but that usually wasn’t the case for me. There was nothing worse than walking into Lower on a Saturday morning and seeing her in the omelet line. Because no matter what, the situation is going to be really awkward. Your friends are there. Her friends are there. They’re all whispering about you behind your back. You don’t know if you should just say hello as you pass by, or if you should stop for some bullshit small talk. It’s usually a nightmare.

Well, I think now it’s safe to say that running into a girl in the dining hall isn’t nearly all that bad. In fact, in comparison to what Kirsch and I went through on Wednesday, it’s pretty harmless. Yup, you guessed it: a 4-hour walking tour in Prague with the two chicks we hooked up with the night before…

On Tuesday night we rolled into Prague at around 9:00 pm and immediately went on a Pub Crawl. We show up at the first bar, and surprisingly, there are these two cute American girls playing ruit against these Canadian bros. At this point, naturally I’m thinking this is gonna be too easy. Just right in our wheelhouse. Yeah, I was kinda up for a challenge tonight. Maybe try to win over a nice Czech girl or something. But when life throws you a meatball right down the middle of the plate, you’re obviously gonna hit it.

I go over and ask them if we can play the next game and then start introducing myself. Nothing too over the top. Not trying to win the game in the first quarter. But just letting them know that Kirsch and I are in the building. By the third bar, it’s basically a done deal and all that’s left to do is decide which one is going to get Lindsey, the blonde, and which one is going to get Marshall, the brunette. I usually don’t go for girls named after discount retailers, plus I wanted to keep my consecutive blondes streak going, so it turned out to be an easy decision.

Then we split up and took our respective girls to different corners of the dance floor, and start talking and stuff. She tells me that she’s studying in Copenhagen at DIS (the program that Kirschner is in), so obviously my immediate response is “No way. Me too!”

Now I’m on a real slippery slope. Despite my recent discovery that Kirsch is a social animal, I overheard that the rest of the architecture program was pretty cut off from the rest of the school. So when she asked me what I was studying, I just told her that I was in the same program as Mike and that we lived together, blah blah blah. Then I just pulled a few street names out of my ass, and then a few train stops in Copenhagen, and she literally bought the entire story.

Next thing you know we’re dancing and inevitably one thing leads to another. Generally, I’m not a huge proponent for making out on the dance floor. Like, there’s a time and a place for everything. But with that being said, it’s not like I’m not gonna say no. I look over my shoulder and see Kirsch is doing his thing too, and it looks like things are heading in the right direction for both of us.

The problem, though, were their friends. These two grenades that were too much for a wifed-up Dave Robb to detonate. They eventually exploded right in our target range, and we were forced to say goodbye to Linds and Marsh a little earlier than we were hoping. Seemingly never to be seen or heard from ever again. Then Kirsch literally asked a decked-out Prague pimp on the street where we could get some food, and we ended our night settling for some late-night Doner.

Fast-forward to 10:00 am the next morning. My hangover is so bad that I’m seriously considering murdering Dave and Mike for making me walk around in this medieval land. Like, I thought I was supposed to be on vacation, not in King’s Landing wanting nothing more than for someone to take a Zelda sword to my neck Ned Stark-style. We finally arrive at the meeting place for our walking tour, and I’m hit in the face with the only thing that could possibly make this situation any worse: the girl I spent 3 hours making out with in the middle of the dance floor staring me straight in the eye.

Amsterdam

So obviously this picture is spreading like wildfire right now and people are probably all up in arms being like "What the fuck is going on in Amsterdam?" So I thought I'd just address the whole situation before it got any more out of hand.

On Sunday afternoon we got into Amsterdam, did a few laps around town, ate dinner at Pino's Pizza (seriously) and then went to this sports bar at night to watch the Patriots game. There we are, just three bros chillin at a sports bar, when all of a sudden Hana Haver comes blitzing through like Troy Polamaulu and is all like, "You guys are from Boston, right?"

Next thing you know she brings her friends over and we just start hanging out. Watching the game. Having some drinks. And talking about the good old days back in Newton. See that's the thing about Europe. One minute you're not taking Jager shots out of test tubes with Hana Haver in Amsterdam, and the next minute you are.

And after the game ends, you better believe we're all going to a club to dance the night away. Hana suggested a more classy place, but that decision was immediately upended by Kirschner's "gut-feeling" about a random black door on a white wall in this sketchy alley. Sure, we were the only people in the entire place for about 20 minutes, but once the DJ started bumping WIll Smith all bets were off the table.