Our Neighborhood Friend, The Bachelorette

We're going to take a quick break from "BFMC" and "waiting for Tim to post my nomination to the show" to allow me to share with everyone the story of my remarkable day. I'm going to start this post off on a little tangent (where I decided to spend this fateful day), tangent off that tangent and tarentino it back full circle so bear with me, the punch line is worth it for all fans of WWT (after all, it is this story that allowed me to finally fulfill my bucket list item of being an official contributor to this blog).

So today was Bay to Breakers 2010 in San Francisco and I would like to know (or at the very least, get an conversation going with our followers as to) how has there has not been a TV show and/or movie based around this event? At the VERY least there should be a reality show featuring the races participants. There is so much material to cover here between all the traditions (tortilla throwing, naked running, salmon running down stream, etc, etc, etc) you could track the float preparation, comment on the effect this day has on the homeless, even feature random tourists that may not know what's going on and happen upon a CalTrain leaving the city on a sunday afternoon? (see pic)

"Why is everyone on this train so sleepy at 3pm on a sunday" - Random Tourist

Oh yea, and some people even show up to run. I can see the next great sports movie having B2B as its center piece. The race will have its 100th birthday next year, Bill Simmons - can you please get on this project ASAP?

So, back to my day, the group of friends I do this race with recently retired our theme of being employes of a crime lab in a random international cities (see pic)

After "CSI: Mexico City ('07), Havana ('08) & Pamplona ('09) the CSI theme has been retired

This year we went with "Prep School Boys" mainly because it was cheap (we all had most of the makings of the costume), it was easily identifiable by others, and most importantly, had a wide range of props to facilitate interaction with other 'racers' - the one drawback being that we were called Harry Potter all day. On the train ride up the big winners for props were the jump rope and the hula hoop. These led to impromptu physical challenges, lots of hooting and just general mayhem that shouldn't really be allowed to happen on public transportation at eight in the morning but it is and that's why we love CalTrain.

Once I was on the race course, I instantly lost all but one of the my group friends. I had to turn to my bag of props to make new friends... enter my red ball. I started what would be a legendary game of dodgeball and it was me versus an unsuspecting B2B-2010 crowd. I learned a few lessons early: Don't throw the ball at people holding cups of liquid, electronics, small children or dogs. Males wearing full body costumes (eg. Gumby or any farm animal) generally won't be able to feel it or won't care = easy outs. Also, totally nude males generally aren't

moving very fast and are also easy outs but watch where you hit them (for their saftey and for sanitary reasons). What about women you say? Women generally do not like to be hit with flying objects thrown by men they do not know (especially if it hits them in the face). However, a close range soft toss in the leg, or back, followed by a quick "You're out" can go over quite nicely, especially if they get it quickly (ie. aren't severely intoxicated or severely out of touch). Oddly enough it seemed like the women who were by themselves or in small groups fell into the category of pleasant outs most often, which we will see later... I can only describe what transpired from about 9:15AM-1:00PM as the most epic run of dodgeball since Average Joe's Gym won the ADAA International Championship in Vegas. I was getting everybody out. It didn't matter if you were a Water Mellon, Waldo or A Baywatch Life Gaurd. You were getting knocked out. What is that? A Ninja Turtle with an elevated position trying a sneak attack from on top of a line of porto-potties...

Boom! You're out too, Raphael

I SWEAR I EVEN GOT FRICKIN PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA OUT. Kenny Powers had nothing on me today.

Then came the magical moment. About 1:04 PM I spot a lone female just off the side walk on Fell street on the grass. EASY TARGET. Direct hit right in the back! However, the grass killed momentum of the ball and my precious accessory lay at the feet of my latest casualty. Luckily this lovely young lady immediately understood what had just happened to her and laughed (1 point for her). She picked up my redball and tossed it back to me (2 points). She looked at me and I had that dreaded feeling I was going to say something that was going to make me sound like a drunk guy trying to pick up on a stranger. "Wait, do we know each other?" was the best I could come up with... but it was honest. I really felt like I knew this girl from somewhere. I continued to come up empty in the split seconds to follow as I racked my brains trying to figure it out.

"No, I don't think know each other" She responded with a smirk that completely frightened me.

I was almost positive I knew her so what is she smiling about? Oh no... "Did you go to Syracuse?" was the next best thing I could think of.

"No" Whew.

"Well what's your name?"

"Ali..." (Blank stare from Me) ".... I've been on TV lately" I felt like I just got hit in the face with a red ball. Now it all makes sense. I do know you! you just have no idea who I am.

"Do you get, 'I think we may be friends but I'm not sure' a lot?" was my killer follow-up. She laughed and so I proceeded to pepper her with all sorts of questions (most of which she could not answer obviously) and got the all important photographic evidence then walked just under 5 miles to tell my Blog supervisors in person. The most important take aways from our chance meeting can be summed up like so: Ali is a sharp girl with a good sense of humor who can have a conversation with a confused stranger and not make him feel like an idiot. She can obviously can pull off "Sporty Hot" (last BS reference for this post I promise Liz) "Rose Ceremony Hot" and my personal favorite "Crying girl hot" Ali has all the tools to be a great Bachelorette. If this season doesn't end with two people who are 'both there for the right reasons' I would put that on Mike Fliess' team of Male-herders and letting guys like 'Shooter' on the show. After watching Shooter, I feel like maybe my interaction with her (throwing something at her) was actually more pleasant than some of her recent run ins with guys...