The Blot Joins The Gallery At The Shell Houston Open

The Blot attended his first PGA event, the Shell Houston Open at the Redstone Golf Club, Saturday with my buddy Threefron. While I had attended a few senior tour events (a.k.a. the Champions Tour) back in high school, this was the first time I had ever seen the current and future stars of the PGA live. While I’m sure most of you are wondering if watching golf live is fun, after Saturday I’d have to answer a resounding yes. The weather Saturday was amazing, and with Threefron as my guide we traveled the golf course in search of the games biggest names.


While my main goal was checking out Phil Mickelson, we ended up seeing pretty much everyone still in the tournament. While Mickelson definitely had the largest gallery, the highlight of the day was following Freddy Couples on his last three holes of the round in which he went birdie, birdie, birdie and was just a few inches away from the cup on the 9th hole from hitting a hole-in-one eagle.

While Couples had a sick third and final round of the tournament, his second win at the Shell Houston Open was not to be and he finished the tournament tied for 4th. Instead the tournament trophy went to Texas native Johnson Wagner for his first win on the PGA tour. Wagner led the Shell Houston Open from wire-to-wire and won a tournament purse of $1,008,000 and 25,000 FedEx Cup Points.


From everything I’ve read the media coverage of the event has been extremely positive and Mickelson has already been quoted as saying the tournament was so great he’ll be back next year. (link) Obviously it’s harder to follow the whole tournament when you’re walking the links, but it was pretty cool to see all the local golf enthusiasts wondering the course talking golf with complete strangers. While I couldn’t take part in much of the conversation concerning shot selection and ball placement because I was having a hard enough time tracking the ball through the air, attending the event was really fun and I’d recommend even mild golf enthusiasts to go to an event the next time a PGA tournament is in your town. Just make sure you have your own Threefron to lead you around the course and tell you who’s in the tee box and how far they just hit the ball.

Fergie at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo

Since The Blot always aims to please his readers, I thought I could cover the 2008 Schaeffer Eye Center Crawfish Boil in Birmingham, AL while talking about my recent trip to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo at Reliant Park. You see Aly dragged me to the rodeo this year to see Fergie, one of her favorite pop stars, perform. Fergie also happens to be the headliner of a stacked lineup at the 2008 Schaeffer Crawfish Boil, which includes 3 Doors Down, Flo Rida, Seether, Gavin DeGraw, T-Pain and many others.


The Blot’s not the biggest fan of the rodeo, but it is something different to do. Plus, if you’ve never been to a rodeo I recommend going to see the bull riding. It’s so much more impressive than anything you’ve ever seen on TV. But we, like most of the audience, were really only there to see the Dutchess.


Fergie lived up to the hype and was well, pretty ferg-a-licious. Even though the sound at Reliant was horrific, Fergie had the crowd of 72,777 eating out of the palm of her hand. For being pregnant she put on a really good show and even performed multiple one-handed back flips, which really ignited the crowd. The only thing that bothered me was that she ended up singing more covers than her own music. Obviously Fergie only has one album of songs, but that should be enough to fill up a show that only lasts a little over an hour.


Instead, we got two medleys of classic rock songs. While classic rock isn’t necessarily her strong suit, Fergie pulled it off really well and the songs sounded great. I just wish we had heard more songs off The Dutchess and from the Black Eyed Peas catalogue of music instead of “Santeria” by Sublime along with “Live and Let Die” and “Barracuda.” All in all the show was pretty good, but I hope the rodeo gets the audio problems fixed before the start of next year’s event. I’m just glad Fergie performed because otherwise I would have gotten stuck going to listen to some country music, which The Blot really abhors.

Lollapalooza 2008 Lineup

The official 2008 Lollapalooza lineup was released today and it seems that the rumor of Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails headlining the music festival proved true. Not only that, but the newly reformed Rage Against the Machine are also making a headlining appearance after much speculation that they would be headlining Lollapalooza last year. It seems like the 90’s love fest will be in full swing on August 1-3 at Grant Park in Chicago, IL for Lollapalooza 2008. I have to say the lineup is exceptionally strong considering one of the non-headliners, Kanye West, headlined the festival just two years ago.


Lollapalooza 2008 Lineup
Radiohead
Rage Against the Machine
Nine Inch Nails
Kanye West - Wilco
The Raconteurs - Love and Rockets
Gnarls Barkley - Bloc Party
The Black Keys - Broken Social Scene
Lupe Fiasco - Flogging Molly
Mark Ronson - Cat Power
The National - G. Love & Special Sauce
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - Louis XIV
Explosions in the Sky - Brand New
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Gogol Bordello
Dierks Bentley - Okkervil River
Amadou & Mariam - Blues Traveler
John Butler Trio - Girl Talk - Your Vegas
Eli "Paperboy" Reed & the True Loves - CSS
Battles - Steel Train - Jamie Lidell
Bang Camaro - Butch Walker - The Blakes
Mates of State - Tally Hall - Spank Rock
White Lies - Brazilian Girls - Magic Wands
Chromeo - Electric Touch - Duffy
Innerpartysystem - The Kills - The Postelles
Rogue Wave - The Parlor Mob - The Go! Team
Bald Eagle - Mason Jennings - Krista
The Gutter Twins - Ha Ha Tonka - Yeasayer
Witchcraft - Grizzly Bear - We Go To 11
MGMT - Sofia Talvik - The Weakerthans
Booka Shade – Santogold - Black Kids
Black Lips - Dr. Dog - Nicole Atkins & the Sea
The Ting Tings - Kid Sister - Office
The Cool Kids - What Made Milwaukee Famous
Does It Offend You, Yeah? - The Whigs
Manchester Orchestra - Foals - Uffie
The Octopus Project - Cadence Weapon - Ferras
De Novo Dahl - Noah and the Whale
Margot & the Nuclear So and So's - K'NAAN
Serena Ryder - Newton Faulkner