This week the Packers travel out to the West Coast to take on the Oakland Raiders. This was the site of the infamous game where the Packers beat the Raiders the day after Brett Favre’s father passed in 2003. I know I wasn’t the only dry eye in the country that night with the performance he put on. But let’s get our favorite set of spiked shoulder pads and hate on the shitty, er I mean, city of Oakland
1) The squeegee was invented here. It’s a nice invention, I am just wondering why this technology hasn’t gotten across the Bay Bridge into San Francisco. I mean why do the 12 bums working every intersection in town have nothing more, than a wet piece of paper towel that probably is so overused that it might not be considered a paper towel anymore to clean my windshield against my will?
2) Every metro area has it’s bad areas of town, but in the Bay Area, they have three major cities in Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose, and they all dump their unwanted element in Oakland. It’s like what England did with Australia, only with black people.
3) Did you even realize you had a basketball team in town until a couple years ago?
4) The Wave was invented here. Before 1981, Cubs fans didn’t have to bring signs that read “No Wave at Wrigley” because the wave shouldn’t happen at a baseball game, despite being invented at a baseball game.
5) The people seem to have the wrong goals in life. Every block there seems to be a contest as to who can be the biggest freak show, for the purpose of standing out aesthetically, not giving a flying fuck about intellectually.
6) BART or Bay Area Rapid Transit. Is one of, if not the worst public transportation systems in the country. No wonder nobody in town can keep a job as they can’t get there on time due to the regular delays.
7) You know how many foods are shaped like dicks? THE BEST KINDS! Oakland invented the popsicle, which in order to eat one, you must make yourself look like you are sucking a dick. No wonder the homosexual population is thriving here.
8) Mountain View Cemetery is the most popular park in town. And yes, people have picnics in it. What goes better with a ham sandwich and a cheap bottle of wine than tens of thousands of dead people after all?
9) Oakland uses Hammer to advocate tourism in the town. Yes, Hammer! Seriously! This is a major American city. You can’t come up with anything better from Oakland to advertise it? Or wasn’t anyone desperate enough financially to lie to millions of people about the merits of this shithole!
10) Over diversification. While I generally applaud diversity as it exposes people to different cultures and groups, it is out of fucking control in Oakland. In a town with roughly 400,000 people, there are 125 different language spoken in that town. That means if you speak it, probably someone else in Oakland does as well, but aligning your language and gang might be an impossible task.
Bonus piece of hate: How in the holy fuck does the 8th largest city in a state have not one, not two, but three professional sports franchises. Oakland is home to the NBA’s Warriors, MLB’s A’s and NFL’s Raiders, and there are 7 cities with more people than Oakland’s 413,000. They are, based upon 2014 numbers from the US Census Bureau Los Angeles (3.92 million), San Diego (1.38 million), San Jose (1.01 million), San Francisco (852,000), Fresno (515,000), Long Beach (496,000), and Sacramento (485,000). Other cities that might eclipse Oakland in the next 10-20 years include Bakersfield (368,000), Anaheim ( 346,000), Santa Ana (334,000), Riverside (319,000) and Stockton (302,000).
Next week, we head to the Valley of the sun to play the Arizona Cardinals. A land so awash in retirees, that it is aiming to make Florida jealous. They did get one thing right, having your lawn on rollers is a really cool idea. I anticipate a large Packers presence there, I do know they are planning a Packers Everywhere rally somewhere in town. So let’s take our favorite airline and meet down there because it’s Spring Break bitches! Oh wait, that’s three months away.