CARDRUNNERS

 

Andrew

I've had a number of people ask me if I'm still in Asia. I've been back for about 2 weeks now. I don't blame them. I'm so far behind on my blogging. This post is meant to get me back into real time.

Two Sundays ago I attended probably the most entertaining sporting event I've ever been to. I was in attendance for the Bulls double OT victory against the Celtics. It was Game 4 and must win for the Bulls. They were down in the series 2-1. It looked like it was over at the end of regulation, but Ben Gordon nailed a deep 3 to tie the game. I dislike Ben Gordon a lot. The guy has no basketball IQ. He is only out for himself. I think he fits in terribly with the Bulls given the addition of Derrick "the fucking man" Rose. You mix Ben Gordon's selfishness with Vinny Del Negro's lack of coaching skills and you will see some downright disgusting basketball plays. Nothing pisses me off more than the patented Ben Gordon dribble around and hawk up a deep contested 3 at the end of a game. That being said, the guy can hit shots when he's on. He hit this shot and it was clutch as hell. The Bulls were finally able to pull it off at the end of the second OT. Rose put up a near triple double (missed by 1 rebound I believe) to match Rondo's triple double. Rondo absolutely sliced and diced the Bulls. I'm not too surprised because the Bulls as a whole don't play D and Rose definitely doesn't play D. Although, Rondo put up a triple double against Orlando last night so you gotta give the kid credit. I digress. If you didn't watch the Bulls - Celtics series you really missed out. It was one of the best playoff series in the history of the NBA.

The Bulls have a deal that when they score 100 points in a home game that you attended, you get a free big mac. I've been at a few games where this applied, but I had never cashed in on it. Well, thanks to double OT, the Bulls easily scored over 100. We decided this was our day to take advantage of the deal. Maybe we shouldn't have. We went to the McDonald's right next to Wrigley still decked out in Bulls gear. We ordered a few Big Macs along with some fries and drinks. When we presented the coupons, we ran into trouble. We explained the situation, but the man at the window was still very confused. He went to get his manager who was no less confused. We explained that we just arrived home from the Bulls game and the Bulls had scored over 100 in a thrilling double OT victory. He wasn't buying it. We presented our tickets. The problem was the tickets were bought before the date and time that the game was announced, so they said Game 4, date and time TBA. He insisted that the Big Mac coupon we presented was from Game 2. We explained that Game 2 was in Boston. "Noooo" he replied, "Game 1 was in Boston. Game 2 was in Chicago." We literally went back and forth on this point for about 5 minutes. He wouldn't give in. Eventually we started to get pissed and the conversation got heated. He could tell we were getting angry and that we weren't going to give up, so he finally gave in. He tore our Bulls tickets in half too. Why? I don't know. What if I had wanted it for a souvenir? This guy spent over 5 minutes trying to stop us from getting a $2 sandwich that we rightfully deserved. Not to mention that McDonald's has been running this promo for at least a few years. Gotta love McDonald's.

Julia and I went to the derby last weekend. I decided to do it up and go the fancy route. We stayed at the Brown hotel which is a pretty famous hotel that is old as hell - like 1900 or so. I'd say we were the youngest people there by about 20 years. It was a fun experience though. I also got to try their famous "hot brown" sandwich. Not only does it sound like something you'd do to degrade a woman in bed, but it tastes amazing. It consists of turkey, bacon, tomatoes and some kind of sauce on top of a few pieces of bread. Simple, but brilliant. It was great for my hangover. See below.



I promise you it tastes much better than it looks.

There were a ton of people who clearly had a ton of money staying at the Brown. It was funny because everyone at the hotel was so dressed up the entire weekend. Besides when we went to the race I was wearing jeans. I definitely looked out of place. We saw a bunch of Bentley's and Rolls parked outside. We got a picture in front of one of them.



We were running kind of late on race day. We had been out drinking the night before and got a slow start to the day. It didn't help that I had to go pick up the tickets. I burned about 45 minutes doing that. We also had to eat. That's when the hot brown entered into my life. When we were finally ready to leave there weren't any cabs hanging around anymore. There were, however, unmarked police cars. Apparently some huge baller had the police on retainer. They would escort his Bentley stretch limo with a police car in front and one behind. After they dropped him off, they were hanging around the hotel and taking people for $50 a trip. I figure a cab would have cost about $40, so it was a very good deal. We obviously jumped at the opportunity. Our police officer driver turned on his lights and hit the gas. We knew we'd be in for a fun ride when on the first corner a car didn't slow down to let him out and he yelled out a few curses and honked his horn. He probably averaged about 70 mph on the way there. The speed limits on the streets we were on probably averaged about 35 mph. We blew through numerous red lights. When we got to the long line of traffic at Churchill downs, he just drove up the wrong side of the street. He then drove in through the gates and dropped us off literally 5 feet from where you walk in. It was great. Julia had never been in a cop car before. For me, it was much more enjoyable than the last time I was in the back of a cop car.

I got seats that were on the second deck but front row. I had been inquiring about seats for a few months, but I decided I'd wait unto the last minute to buy them because of the economy. I figured I could get a good deal. I paid about 1/3 of what I would have paid a few months earlier. Not bad. I had never been to a race before so I wasn't really sure what to expect with the seats. To be honest, I expected them to be like seats at any normal stadium. The way they actually worked was there was a "box" area that had room for 6 folding chairs. I liked that because we got to meet 4 other people that were in the box with us. They were all really nice people.

Here are a few pictures of our view and some zoomed in horse pictures.











If you aren't familiar with the Derby, they run a new race every 45 minutes or so. It provides you with a lot of gambling opportunities. I don't know shit about horse racing, so I naturally lost everything I took with me to gamble, but I half expected that to happen. It was a blast anyway. Everyone is there to put down some drinks as well. We started drinking as soon as we got there and hit it pretty hard. Mint Julips are terrible by the way. After our first Julip, we stuck to beer.

The main race was pretty amazing to watch. I said that I don't know shit about horse racing, but I've watched a decent amount of horse races in my day. I've never seen anything like what happened in the derby. The horse that won just took off. It cut across like 4 horses and then just put a burst on. Call it an old school Iverson crossover if you will. It was like the horse had a rocket attached to it's back or something. It made everyone else look slow as hell. The craziest part was that he was a 50-1 shot to win. Here is a shot of him burning the others down the stretch.



I would bet good money that my neon was the only neon to ever have been parked in the Brown hotel parking lot. I thought it looked pretty funny sitting out front. I'm somewhat pissed that there were average cars parked around it. This picture would have been amazing if it was sandwiched between a Rolls and a Bentley. Long live the neon!

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• Andrew
  

  Andrew
  Chicago, IL
  

  
  

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