Bruin Bites: B-Diddy's Aliens, Baseball Notes, New Website (But Don't Thank Chianti)

The clock is ticking down to when our UCLA Bruins will be returning to San Bernardino for fall football camp, and with it, the official return of college football for 2013. With Pac-12 football media day still almost two weeks away, there is unfortunately a dearth of college football news (in fact, we seem to be mired in a recruiting funk, with seemingly little-to-no activity on that front). Fortunately, there's a handful of interesting nuggets to keep you entertained while we wait for football to return. Let's take a look at the various bits and pieces of news from around the UCLA-iverse:

• Beginning with hoops, our former star point guard (and BN favorite) Baron Davis has given a rather bizarre interview, claiming to have been abducted by aliens two weeks ago. While B-Diddy has always been an eccentric character, this new bit seems over-the-top, with Davis describing how he was poked and probed somewhere between Los Angeles and Las Vegas (which is all the more reason to fly to Vegas when you feel the need to hit the craps table), which begs the question of whether aliens do exist or Baron foundsomeone between the two cities that sells really good weed.
• Moving on to baseball, ace pitcher Adam Plutko put pen to paper on his contract with the Cleveland Indians, picking up a nice $300,000 signing bonus in the process. For more information on Plutko, including some thoughts from the Tribe's top scout, you can check out a follow-up on the Indians' official site. With the contract in place, Plutko will join the same organization as former UCLA teammate and fellow pitcher Trevor Bauer, who was traded to Cleveland in December.
• While we're on baseball, let's talk about another Bruin pitcher, one who we hope will dominate college baseball like Bauer and Plutko did. Redshirt freshman pitcher Tucker Forbes is getting himself geared up for next season by throwing for the New Bedford Bay Sox in wood-bat summer league action.
• Finally, you might have noticed that UCLA athletics has a new official website. Since Morgan Center seemingly has updated their 1997-era website into something that sort of comes close to being a 2007-vintage version (which is, technically, progress), you would think Chianti Dan would get some credit, right? Wrong. Guess who was behind the update? None other than Larry Scott's Pac-12 Conference, which did a complete re-design of all 12 member institutions' athletics websites. Interesting indication of the sad state of affairs at Morgan Center that it takes the conference doing a complete overhaul across the board to bring Chianti Dan's amateurish athletic department more up-to-date. But nothing should surprise us anymore when it comes to how inept and foolish Morgan Center can be.

Alright folks, those are your various bits and pieces of news from around the wider UCLA-iverse, as we creep closer to the return of college football. Fire away with your comments, thoughts, additions, and various opinions on all things UCLA in the comment thread.

GO BRUINS