CARDRUNNERS

Last night I went to the Bulls-Pistons game at the United Center.  Its kind of a coincidence that I went to an NBA game after posting about basketball recently, considering I haven't gone to a basketball game at any level in a couple of years.

(If you don't want to read my long story there are pictures below)

I went with 3 co-workers and got the tickets through a company that my company works with.  These seats were pretty awesome.  We were front row right next to the tunnel where all the entertainers come out, not the players tunnel, the people that do stuff on court during timeouts.  When I say front row I mean of my section, we were not courtside, its hard to describe.  We got pretty hammered so we were clowning around with Benny the Bull and the old people that are dancers. 

The thing with sitting at courtlevel but behind people is that it hard to see the game so I wasn't paying attention.  Plus Dereck Rose or Allen Iverson were both hurt.  The Bulls pulled away in the second half but the most memorable part of the game ended up being in the final minute.  Everyone in attendence receives a coupon for a free Big Mac if the Bulls win and score over a 100.  Well, they had 98 points with 3 minutes to go so we were looking pretty good.  Brad Miller and Joakim Noah both missed layups in that time and they were trying to run out the clock.  Kirk Hinrich was fouled with 40 seconds to go, so he has to make both for everyone to get a big mac.  I should say that Kirk Hinrich had an awesome game, he had i think 25 points and he's a really good free throw shooter.  He made the first one...and missed the second!  The whole stadium booed the shit out of him.  Can you imagine any other situation where a guy scores 25 points in a winning effort and is still boooed by his home crowd?  He was laughing afterwards, the whole big mac thing is kind of a sideshow at the Bulls game.

After the game we went to the Kettle One club at the United Center,which a lounge for season ticket holders and stuff.  We had been drinking all game and decided to drink more afterwards.  So we're just hanging out when Craig Sager walked in.  Sager is the sideline reporter for TNT.  You may know him as the sideline reporter that wears goofy suits.  Now normally if I see a celebrity or someone like that I play it cool (I've seen a handfull in my day and I look the other way).  It weirds me out when people mob celebrities, don't people have anything better to do?  However, I've never been this drunk around a TV personality before.  So a co-worker and I approach him and ask for a picture as he's receiving 4 bud lites from the bartender.  He was really nice and granted us the picture we bullshitted alittle bit no big deal.  I walked back over to my friends and a couple mintues later the bartender approaches me.  She's like,"did you want to buy those beers for Craig Sager?"  What?!  I just asked for a picture, is Craig Sager trying to grease me for some beers.  He ordered the beers before i even approached him.  Did he assume some fan would show up and pay for them?  Was he buying the beers on speculation?  Of course none of that was true it was just mix up with the bartender.  Anyway, if I ever see Craig Sager I'll make sure to buy him a beer.

We held down the United Center and were literally the last fans to leave, not bad for a Tuesday.  Pictures below!

-Matt

  
Sager wore reddish purple pants and his coat color changed from blue to purple depending on the angle, that's one classy guy.  Look at my drunkass grin, that's embarrassing.


The loveabulls are hotter in person.  This was taken from our seats.


I want my Big Mac.  (I don't actually eat beef, but I would've eaten that burger)

Hey guys, long time no blog.  I guess I just haven't had a ton to talk about, certainly nothing as fun as going to Europe.  This upcoming week is my last week of classes for the semester.  I've been pretty busy with school, which has accounted for a good deal of my free time.  Here's a quick roundup of what else I've been doing:

• I went to the Yankees' home opener at the new Yankee Stadium.  It was a good game for 6 innings, then the Yankee bullpen took over for CC Sabathia and proceeded to give up 9 runs in the 7th and the Yanks lost 10-2.  I still had a blast though, the pregame ceremony was awesome.  It featured tons of former Yankee greats, Bernie Williams playing "Take Me Out to The Ball Game" on guitar (damn he's talented...), and an F-14 flyover after the national anthem, which was sung by Kelly Clarkson.  Really cool stuff.  The stadium itself is super nice, although our seats in the right-center field bleachers had an obstructed view of deep left.  There were flatscreen TVs that we could see the left field action on though.  The stadium has a wide open feel, so you can see the field when walking around the concourse.  We checked out an inning from behind home plate, just standing above the field level sections.  That was cool.  There have been lots of empty seats recently though because the Yankees priced many tickets way too high.  The good news is I'll be able to get some tickets at face value this summer, usually impossible.  Home runs have been flying out of the park at an alarming rate too, it's been a big news story lately and it'll be interesting to see how that gets sorted out.  It will also be interesting to see if Hank Steinbrenner can stop being a clown and just put Joba back in the bullpen already.  I'm not holding my breath, though.
• I've been rooting my Bulls on hard against the Celtics.  I'm biased but I think it's by far the most interesting first round series.  The Bulls really laid an egg in Game 3 but as I'm writing this they have the lead in the 2nd quarter of Game 4.  I'm confident in their chances, during the 4th quarter of game 1 I bet a friend that the Bulls would win the series, getting 2-1.  I like it a lot for that price.  The Powe injury provides additional help for us.  And D-Rose is the man (although Rondo has outplayed him in the last 2 games).
  
• I've been loving the nice weather!  It took forever to finally get warm in lovely old Ithaca but it feels so sweet now.  I'd be very curious to live in a warm weather place for a year and see if I still appreciated nice weather as much.  I think I very well might be a four seasons kind of guy.  Anyway, I've been taking advantage of the nice weather by playing a lot of golf and doing some daydrinking.  I'm really motivated to become a better golfer this year.  Getting into better shape since last year is paying off, I put a 4 iron on the green from 210 yards out the other day.  Last year I could only hit my 4 about 190.  Also, my roommate Shane used to be a 4 handicap in high school and still knows his shit pretty well, and he's been a big help with some adjustments.  I intend to play a bunch this summer and I'd love to get down to 15 handicap or so.  Another good use of the weather is my front porch.  Sitting out on the porch listening to music and either doing work or playing poker is much nicer than doing these things inside.  It's funny because when I was younger I'd often waste beautiful days inside playing video games and stuff.  Now I find it difficult to not go outside when it's nice out.  I guess I used to be kind of weird, I like it much more this way.
  
• Social life has been pretty good lately.  We've had some fun parties and mixers at the frat, as well as the aforementioned daydrinking.  We play a fun wiffleball variant in which the batter hits the ball and then immediately starts chugging from a pitcher instead of running, and he continues to chug until the fielding team hits him with the ball.  2 outs in an inning (only Ks or caught fly balls are outs), team scores a run if it gets down a full pitcher in an inning.  The pitcher is refilled each half inning.  It's a very fun game, I recommend giving it a shot.  Also, this coming Friday is Slope Day.  It's always a ton of fun, but I'm very disappointed with the musical selections this year.  The Pussycat Dolls are glorified strippers, but less attractive and with more clothes on.  And I'm not even a big fan of strippers in the first place.  Asher Roth is a guy who, to my knowledge, spent about half a semester in college, yet his hit song is about all these memories he has of it and stuff.  It's so fake and doesn't even make sense.  I'll probably end up going to the slope, but I don't even really want to.  We'll see...
  
• If you haven't been following Wiggins' blog, check out his last 2 entries.  Awesome trip reports from his Asia trip with lots of great pictures.  I'm very jealous of the water gun fight, among other things.