On the roadtrip, one of the places that left an indelible mark in my memory was the quick day we spent in Oklahoma. At the Motel 6 in Norman, the overnight desk clerk was originally from Metarie, LA who had evacuated after Hurricane Katrina.

The next day we came upon billboards pointing to the Toy & Action Figure Museum in Pauls Valley just south on the I-35. We had to go.

Religion and politics aside, I found the folks in Oklahoma very welcoming. That’s why when hearing about all of the tornadoes sweeping through the state on consecutive days has me worried.

It doesn’t look good in Moore, OK, but I hope the casualty numbers are as low as possible.

I decided it was time for a new look here. So voila. I actually didn’t take too much time and effort on this. Maybe I should have?

Anyhow an update: in the Slayer story below I wrote that Jeff Hanneman’s death was not caused by alcohol. Unfortunately it was. I apologize. Then again compared to the mistakes that CNN made during the Boston Marathon bombing manhunt, my mistake was a little more on the smaller end of the spectrum.

Another update: as you can see in the photo above I returned to the NBC4 studios. I was doing a small one-minute-or-so segment on “Going Roggin” just introducing myself. I also made fun of people from Montreal. But thanks to “technical difficulties” my segment didn’t air last night.

I’m convinced I’m the technical difficulty. But it’s all right. I had no makeup and was a sweaty mess. So I would say that I’m disappointed, but not really.

Because I love hockey, I put on the Toronto-Boston Game 7 on the television close to me in the press box before the Dodger game started. Someone also put the game on in one of the dining room televisions also. The game looked over. Toronto had the 4-1 lead early in the third period, Boston was down 4 defensemen and Toronto just looked faster.

Only problem was Toronto took it down a gear while Boston threw everything and the kitchen sink. Next thing you know in the final 90 seconds with Boston still trailing 4-2 with goalie Tuukka Rask pulled in favor of the sixth attacker. Boston does it twice to tie the game. In fact they also had a 3-on-2 rush in the waning seconds before Toronto goalie James Reimer poke checked the puck away albeit dangerously.

It was a great game, a great ending. And the funny thing is instead of watching all of the Dodger pregame ceremonies the eyes were fixed on this game. Patrice Bergeron scored the OT goal about a minute or so before first pitch at Dodger Stadium, and then I could concentrate on that mess that proceeded in front of me.

Sure a lot of people talk shit about hockey, that it’s a dying sport. But in moments like last night, it doesn’t matter that the NBA is playing. People are interested in these sorts of things. Maybe it’s not all about hockey, it just happened to be a hockey game that it happened in.

Well I’ll be out tonight for the second round series that will be ignored by everyone outside of California: Kings-Sharks.

I ran into Fred Roggin yesterday who said I was too hard on myself in my assessment on my television debut. I thought it was funny, the story that is. So it makes it worth it, right?

I was watching CNN today, and they made a big deal of this Jodi Arias person. I’m still trying to understand why her case is so interesting. Two replies I got on Twitter:

@jimmybramlett Because of the brutality, lies, smirking, and general dragging the victim under the bus.It’s not gonna be tolerated.

— Lori Donald (@Lori_Donald) May 8, 2013

@jimmybramlett Because men are dopes. ;))Women know what’s goin’ on, and we’re not gonna sit by and let this liar walk free w/out argument

— IToldya So (@I_ToldYa_So) May 8, 2013

My reply was, well how about all of the other murder cases going on around the world? I have yet to hear back.

What disturbs me is the amount of women who attended this trial. Most of them seemed ready to strap her into an electric chair. Their blood thirst was just about as vicious as it was against Casey Anthony.

I don’t know whether or not they did what they were accused of doing. But my point remains: why should I care about their cases more than any other murder trial that is going on around the country?

I’ve been waiting for an answer to that question for over a month, and I’m still waiting. Anyone?

Aside from covering the Dodgers and the Kings, I went to Cole’s the other day and took this picture in the urinal.

I also made my television debut which I chronicled here.

I also did the Kings first playoff game this season and thought the lights were pretty.

I went to Roscoes and had some chicken and red beans and rice.

Slayer on their Facebook page announced the passing of guitarist Jeff Hanneman.

My first introduction to Slayer was in 1994 when Divine Intervention was released. They were on Loveline back when Rikki Rachtman hosted it, and to be honest I don’t remember much of anything about the show with one notable exception.

To promote the album, they played the song “Serenity in Murder” which they jokingly introduced as their love song.

I bought the album, and so things went.

Jeff was the one in the band who was fixated on Nazi history which shows up on songs like “Angel of Death”.

When you hear a musician dying from liver failure, you automatically think of booze and drugs and all of the other fun shit that is available in that line of work. But when you realize he had been suffering with necrotizing fasciitis after being bitten by a spider last year, you just shake your head.

Slayer was Slayer. Talk to any metal fan about any band. Oh Metallica are sellouts. Pantera are pussies. Everyone has a complaint about every metal band with one notable exception: Slayer.

I know they were in the middle of writing a new album with Jeff, so I don’t know if they will continue on.

One of the best shows I’ve ever been to was Slayer at the Palace (now the Avalon) in 1998. In fact I still have the bootleg t-shirt I bought outside the venue for $10. As to how a big homo ended up being a huge Slayer fan, I don’t know. I just like what I likes.

Margie Carranza, 47, and her mother Emma Hernandez, 71, were most certainly not the 30-year old, 6-foot, 270 pound black man Christopher Dorner. Their blue Toyota pickup truck, not the black/gray Nissan Titan that authorities were on the lookout for, was shot up with close to 150 rounds because they were delivering newspapers close to a home of someone affiliated with Dorner the police were protecting.

Carranza had a superficial wound in the hand and her mother was shot twice in the back, and both have recovered though her mother had a tougher time with things obviously. LA City Attorney Carmen Trutanich and the ladies settled the case for $4.2 million.

Good for them. The settlement will still need to be approved by the city council, but considering what a black eye this episode made on the city I’m sure they’ll approve it.

The Dorner manhunt was embarrassing for the LAPD. Not only could they not find Dorner, but they were shooting up people indiscriminately in an effort to get him. I’ll say this much for the Boston PD and the FBI for their recent manhunt, at least they had an idea of who they needed to target.

The ladies were supposed to get a replacement for their truck. It took a while, and when they finally got one it was a different model and they were told they would have to pay taxes on it. The issue was finally resolved when the City gave them $40,000 to buy a new vehicle.

I said it when the manhunt was going on, and I’ll say it again. Never before have I been scared that my octogenarian Korean grandmother would be in danger of being shot down by the police. With the police response looking like a shoot-first-ask-questions-later, what would stop them from doing the same with my grandmother?

When the Dorner manhunt was concluded with the burning of the cabin up in the mountains, people in Los Angeles were not out in the streets cheering on the police, the ATF agents, the San Bernardino Sheriffs, the FBI. Besides most of the people in Southern California didn’t feel threatened by Dorner: he was only targeting the police and their relatives. Even white people showed their disdain of the police.

Boston couldn’t have been more different. Obviously the people in Boston were under terror having been targeted in the bombing on Patriots Day. Also the authorities did a great job of not prematurely coming to conclusions like certain online and media outlets did *coughCNNandRedditcough*

No one was cheering for these two brothers to escape capture and leave the country like they did with Dorner. Innocent Bostonians weren’t getting shot up by the authorities. It was night and day.

There’s nothing deep or insightful about this. It was just that watching everything go down in Boston last week, the memory of the Dorner manhunt just kept popping up in my head.

Pictured here is an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins that Madd got me last night. I had a nice dinner at her place before skipping of to STAPLES Center to cover the Kings-Ducks game.

I’m looking forward to watching the livestream of Coachella tonight with James Blake, Simian Mobile Disco, Nick Cave & the Black Seeds, the Faint, Dinosaur Jr. and Dead Can Dance. I will not watch Red Hot Chili Peppers though. I’m a little fatigued from hearing the same song over and over again with different titles. It’s almost like bad reggae.

There’s a golf tournament going on right now that I’m trying my best to ignore. I’m failing that for the most part.

I admit it didn’t start off on the right foot. I was supposed to wake up at 7:15 this morning to make it to Dodger Stadium at 8:30 since they were going to open the clubhouse early at 8:50. But my alarm didn’t go off. My fault. I should have tested it last night since it was my first time using the alarm on my new phone.

Instead, I woke up at 7:55 and rushed to get out ASAP. Thanks to the 110 Freeway Toll Lanes, I zipped to the Stadium. Also thanks to emailing the Dodgers that I was going to be there I got to park in the normal spot and a seat in the press box proper instead of being relegated to the media dining room.

Just to tell you how late I was running, I had to resort to my emergency stash of instant coffee when I left my apartment.

But it was uphill from there. Talked to Justin Sellers for a little bit. Sandy Koufax made an appearance. Saw a transcendent performance by Kershaw, a 4-hit shutout of the Giants AND a solo homer in the bottom of the eighth inning to give the Dodgers the 1-0 lead.

A lot of times I bitch about how long the baseball season is, how much of a drag it can get. And it does. Some of these games in July and August are damn near unbearable.

But Opening Day is not one of those games. It’s a clean start. It’s the joy of the game. It’s the start of a journey unknown. It really is exhilarating. I need to remember this in July.

Last night’s Dodgers-Angels exhibition game was a bit rough. First of all I was running late, so I missed the tour of all of the $100 million improvements in the park. Also having been watching tons of hockey, having to sit through a three hour, 25 minute 9-8 game was a bit painful. I kept waiting for the players to fight or something.

But it wasn’t all bad. They provided us new chairs in the press box. Jim Hill really approved of them bouncing up and down on them.

This morning I woke up late and with a headache as if I just got ran over. Like I tweeted, if this is how I’m going to feel the morning after Dodger games it’s going to be a very long season.

But I’m not going to worry about that now. Tonight I’m bilking some friends for a free birthday dinner at a Brazilian churrascaria. Then there will be some punchy goodness.

Need. More. Coffee.