Month: May 2009

Here’s a history lesson on bocce and some other fun facts…

 

Throwing balls toward a target is the oldest game known to mankind. As early as 5000 B.C. the Egyptians played a form of bocce with polished rocks. Graphic representations of figures tossing a ball or polished stone have been recorded as early as 5200 B.C. While bocce today looks quite different from its early predecessors, the unbroken thread of bocce’s lineage is the consistently common objective of trying to come as close to a fixed target as possible. The Romans learned the game from the Greeks, and then introduced it throughout the Empire. The Roman influence in bocce is preserved in the game’s name; bocce is the plural of the Italian word boccia, which means “bowl”).

 

The early Romans were among the first to play a game resembling what we know as bocce today. In early times they used coconuts brought back from Africa and later used hard olive wood to carve out bocce balls. Beginning with Emperor Augustus, bocce became the sport of statesman and rulers. From the early Greek physician Ipocrates to the great Italian Renaissance man Galileo, the early participants of bocce have noted that the game’s athleticism and spirit of competition rejuvenates the body.

 

My father is a fastidious Catholic, and while I share his faith, I do like to take the occasional jab at the Church to remind him that blind faith is as dangerous as mesh condoms…Writers side-note: During the 15^th century bocce was condemned by the Catholic Church, which deterred the laity and officially prohibited clergyman from playing the game by proclaiming bocce a means of gambling.

 

And I’m proud to be an American… The earliest record of a bocce court in America can be found at the southern tip of Manhattan.  Those of you in NYC that brave the 4/5 to work everyone morning would be more acquainted with the name “Bowling Green”.  The first President to have a bocce court was George Washington – the court was built at Mount Vernon in the 1780s.

 

As if you needed another reason to go to Vegas… Caesars Palace has a summertime lunch-and-booze service at its Italian restaurant, Rao’s. But rather than just have grilled food outside, the place is stepping it up with bocce courts and some Bocce Bellas (pictured above), ostensibly hanging out to help you with your game.

 

By: F.X. Galvin

#5 Villanova – Yea this place sucks

This lame university is commonly known as Vill-A-No-Fun. Seriously, this place has to be the most overrated school in the area. It has approximately 8,000 undergraduate and graduate students and has no luck at throwing a decent party. This school has no on-campus social life. None. Students leave this terrible campus for all other local schools or go to the bar.

Yes, the bar scene is half decent, it is the Main Line, but it is not comparable to Center City and Old City. You can only get so much enjoyment from Brownie’s 23 East, Wild Onion (or whatever it is called this week,) and ever other corner shithole on the Main Line. Also, basically none of the abovementioned watering holes are really in walking distance unless you have an off-campus house by one of these bars. So you have to risk a D.U.I. to get a load on because if you stay on campus you will get written up and if you go to a house party it will probably get busted by the lame ass Lower Merion police. It is a no win situation. Also, if you are underage, you take your perfect criminal record in your own hands by going to the bars but L.C.B. constantly raids the little shitty corner bars. Your rich ass will be raking leaves in even richer neighborhoods on Saturday mornings while other rich pricks drive by, and look at you like you just stole their 16 year old daughter’s V-card.

Next, the girls are hot right? Yea but they are pretentious bitches that only care about the size of your wallet, well essentially your father’s wallet. I did bang one Nova slut while in college but I sadly have to admit she was beat up in her face and downstairs. One of those hoagie and a hallway experiences that almost every man has unfortunately participated in. The pretentious attitude continues with the guys, which makes you want the pound the face in of every asshole dressed up in two polos with the collars flipped or rocking a blazer over a t-shirt at Brownie’s. Seriously you all should kill yourself, you losers. You have no standing to act this way. Villanova is an overrated bullshit school. Its not Penn, your not Ivy league, so why do so many of you crave to act that way? You are really not even to close to an Ivy school so knock off your pretentious attitudes.

There is a debate on how other schools in the Philly area are worse than Nova. Really, I disagree and again its my list, fuck you. I have been on the Nova campus plenty of times and it has never been fun. Seriously, look what these assholes do for fun. . . Let’s drive down to the Linc in Chet’s parents BMW with Chadwick, Bradford, and Carlton. When we get there, we should break in the stadium and steal a chair and a beer sign. You morons, you crave the attention of being smart but you do the dumbest possible thing ever. You try to break in a stadium that is littered with security cameras to steal a chair. You could have just asked “Daddy Warbucks” to extort the Eagles for a chair and a beer sign. That is the conclusion on why this school is so lame. When you have to drive 30 minutes to steal a chair to have a good time, it is time to contemplate a transfer.