Please join the ESPN tournament challenge group. The Poop, as always. Vote early and often. Do one for the kiddies, one for the wife, one for the family dog.
Showing posts with label Pizza Parlor Derek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pizza Parlor Derek. Show all posts
Seeing as how this is Syracuse's final year in the Big East it seemed like a good idea to get to as many games as possible in the old cities before those games were no longer played. I couldn’t go to UConn because it was a Wednesday night, there is no MSG game vs. St John’s but that rivalry is continuing, Rutgers did not host SU this year (maybe I should have planned this better) but we did get one more game against Seton Hall at the Prudential Center.
Billy and Michael were in, Pizza Parlor Derek drove up for the occasion and the entire Beers mispochen made it, though fashionably late.
First order of business was to eat at Dinosaur BBQ, a Syracuse staple, of which the Newark location is basically right in front of the arena.
A really good idea. Such a good idea that everyone else thought of it too. I arrived 3 hours before tip time and was told there was a 4-hour wait. Not sure how reliable that is because so many people were just camping out at their tables and not leaving until the game starts. So we gave up on that and tried to other restaurants which were just as crowded. Then we stumbled into Loft 47, which had an entire section that was closed off. We literally grabbed a table and some chairs and moved it into the seating area. This seemed like a great idea at the time until we realized no server was assigned to a table that previously had not existed. The service was terrible, I was given crab legs instead of a crab lump and it took almost an hour to bring our food which I had to scarf down. But it’s better than standing around Dinosaur for 4 hours.
We finally arrived at the game in plenty of time to take our seats. Seton Hall and the Prudential Center releasing tickets piecemeal, at first offering only the lower bowl. Once that sold out they offered the first two rows of the upper level. And since Ticketmaster now allows you to choose your actual seat, by clicking on a dot, I chose seats that were perfectly aligned with center court. The view was amazing. The seats weren’t great as in being close to the floor, but it was sort of like sitting right behind home plate in a upper level at a baseball game. You’re not close, but the vantage point is amazing.
We got a really good look at the 2-3 zone which got torched early. But then the Orange got hot, especially Brandon Triche and ended the half on a 22-9 run.
The rest of the game was pretty unremarkable with SU maintaining a solid lead, but not blowing them out. The best part was the crowd reaction to Fuquan Edwin's baskets. (They're not booing, they're saying Foo.) I tried to convince one of the Beers kids to change his name to Fuquan but they're too savvy for that.
One annoying trend that has emerged recently, and I am guilty of it too (especially when I am unable to check in at a game on Facebook) people spend way too much time on their phones during games. You pay for the ticket, you're surrounded by thousands of people, presumably some of them are your friends and all you do is text on the phone. I forbade people from using their phones while the ball was in play. Pizza Parlor Derek blatantly disobeyed me. I thought he was very disappointed that we didn't get to eat at Dinosaur. But turns out he was just tweeting. After the game I read several funny tweets from him which I would have enjoyed had he just said them to me.
But after the game we did retire to Dinosaur for a drink (not a brisket) and I had a nice chat with PPD. And next time we'll know that we have to arrive at Dinosaur four hours before game time in order to get a table. Unfortunately, there won't be a next time.
Bruce Springsteen started a recent concert by yelling to the crowd "hello, Ohio." The concert was at the Palace of Auburn Hills outside Detroit, Michigan. He said it a couple times before Steve Van Zandt (who looks a lot like the guy who played Silvio on the Sopranos -- maybe I should do a WDYGMR?) told him they were in Michigan. The Boss said the mistake is "every front man's nightmare."
For those who don't get the reference in the headline, for some reason "Hang On Sloopy" is an Ohio State song (complete with shouting "O-H-I-O" during the lulls in the song). Even harder to explain is why Bruce plays it at concerts. And most disturbingly, Pizza Parlor Derek went to a Springsteen concert, but in an effort to beat traffic he left right before what he thought was the final song, only to learn later he missed "Hang on Sloopy." Pizza Parlor Darren hasn't spoken to him since.
Truth is "Hang on Sloopy" is the official rock song of the state of Ohio, thanks to this resolution passed in 1985. It's worth the time it takes to read.
Emboldened by his team's awesome Rose Bowl performance over the Penn State Shittaly Lions, USC linebacker Rey Maualuga saw Erin Andrews standing on the sideline and tried to USC PPD's old 1:30 AM Darwin's move on her.
Sorry Rey, that only works only the drunken sluts at Darwin's. You're gonna need a little more to impress a classy broad like Erin Andrews.
Speaking of PPD, his New Year's Resolution was to revive the Pizza Parlor. And if past performance is any indication of future results, this resolution will have fizzled out before we reach February.
Pizza Parlor Derek is Commissioner of the Main Event Fantasy Football league, comprised mostly of Poopheads. Each year at the draft, PPD presents the winner (this year it was Billy) with his prize money, and a large mock check, like you see when corporations donate money to charity. This year PPD went above and the call of duty and actually went to FedExKinko's and printed the check. Then he mounted it on a foam board provided by El Greco.
While I admire his hard work, I think it's a little too far to go for fantasy football.
Josh and Pizza Parlor Derek will be attending the Music City Bowl and they came up with a great idea to make some money off the deal. Buy some extra tickets and sell them to rich alumni or students with rich parents, once the bowl teams were announced. All season they were rooting for the Music City Bowl to get teams with traveling fan bases so they could resell the tickets at a profit. When Kentucky and Florida State were announced as the teams PPD triumphantly declared "cha-ching!" Since then things haven't gone to well. First there was an eBay debacle and a missed voicemail that could have solved the whole thing. Now there's this, at least 20 Florida State players were suspended as part of a cheating scandal. Doesn't seem like many FSU alums will travel to see a depleted team get their asses kicked. Sorry guys. Apparently the players took an internet test to which they were given the answers before or during the exam. This doesn't surprise me at all. Bobby Bowden is a cheater and he has no scruples. He has always recruited bad guys, and hid behind Jesus and forgiveness when it came time to penalize his criminal players. Remember when the Ol Ball Coach said FSU stood for "Free Shoes University?" And then a few years later Peter Warrick and Laveranues Coles were given a deep discount at Dillard's. Even though they committed the same infraction they were given much different penalties because at the time Warrick was a better player. Coles is so angered by the unfair judgment that when he does those hokey introductions of himself for ABC games he gives credit to his high school and won't mention FSU. Everyone loves Bobby Bowden because he's been around a long time and he has a folksy charm including his famous "player flew" speech, but he's a despicable enabler who is willing to bend the rules to win. Florida State should use this latest scandal as an excuse to put the old man out to pasture.
With college football season heading down to the wire Pride Pageantry Derek and I are having our annual debates. Since he came out with the Paul Poll (which doesn't quite encapsulate my view, but it's flattering), I decided to ask him some burning questions about college football that have come into The Poop's mailbag.
1) Why do you call Texas A&M, “Texas ATM”? – J. Smist, Bangor, Maine
Sometimes the best explanations are the most obvious, it has nothing to do with Dennis Franchione’s “fund-raising skills”, this is Texas A&M’s logo:
It looks like it was originally designed to go on somebody’s hand towel. The untrained eye may think the school is actually Agriculture Texas Mining. Hence the name Texas ATM.
2) Is Les Miles gutsy or stupid? Will these risky fourth down calls catch up with him eventually? –B. Raftery, Lincoln Tunnel Vegetable Stand
Les Miles is everything great about college football. He’s brash in both his press conferences and his play calling. I love how he went to Nick Saban at the end of Saturday’s game and said “You have a great team.” Did he mean the current Alabama team or his LSU team? We’ll never know. But here’s the thing, everyone knows Miles wouldn’t last four games in the NFL. In fact, his personality put off so many of the stuffed shirts at Michigan when he was an assistant that if Lloyd Carr doesn’t beat Ohio State in two weeks Miles probably wouldn’t even get his job. Yet for Cajun Nation, he’s perfect. I hope Miles becomes the Paterno or Bowden of LSU, his play calling can only get more mind boggling with age.
3) Why do BC fans call themselves “Superfans?” –K. Sullivan, Brookline, Massachusetts
Because they pack a 100,000 seat stadium and travel all over the country to see their team…um wait…maybe because the title “Superfans” was so unoriginal they were afraid Syracuse was going to come up with it first. (The real history is here.) Better yet, are those T-shirts waiting for students at their dorm upon checking in or do they cost $5 at the bookstore? How does every student get one and how much money does BC lose on Flutie jersey sales because of it?
4) If Kansas wins out by beating Missouri and Oklahoma would they deserve to leapfrog LSU and Oregon in the BCS Standings? – R.C. Jayhawk, Lawrence, Kansas
First of all, they still have to beat “I’m 40!” this Saturday on the road, which would be the Jayhawks’ first tough test 10 games into the season. But the question isn’t about the first 10 games or Kansas’s putrid out-of-conference schedule, it is predicated on Kansas winning the Big XII and in the process gaining two marquee wins (Missouri and Oklahoma). Aside from the fact that both games would be neutral site games leaving the Jayhawks without one marquee road win, not one, this resume would have to be measured against a team with quality wins over Virginia Tech, South Carolina, Florida, Auburn, Alabama and then either Georgia or Tennessee. They would have to score 76 on Oklahoma for them to pass the “eye test” and get voted over Oregon (the best looking team in the country right now with three quality wins). The polls and computer rankings have made college football less about who someone beats and more about who they don’t lose to. When measuring two BCS conference teams, it may be time to rethink that.
5) If Kansas wins the National Championship how long before Mark Mangino has gastric banding and appears on the cover of People Magazine under the headline “I Can See My Toes Again”? – K. Alley, Thousand Oaks, California
So much Kansas talk…anyway. Mangino winning a national championship would be fantastic and I am rooting for it to happen despite the scenario I outline in question 4. If he did the talk show circuit like the Red Sox are doing now, he couldn’t do Regis and Kelly, Jay Leno would have to switch his furniture. No way Mangino goes through the same procedure that almost killed Charlie Weis, that’s not a fun way to die. In fact I think he goes to White Castle induces a heart attack just so he can “go out on top”, literally.
Because Pride Pageantry Derek has essentially given up on another blog to chase cyber bitches on MySpace (2 posts on The Pride and the Pageantry since 9/24), and because tonight's Thursday night game is a huge Big East title, and because Derek's picks suck anyway, and because I have a strong feeling about this game, I'm going to offer my two cents.
south florida (-2) at RUTGERS, over/under 52 Vegas Algebra Says: South Florida 27 Rutgers 25 Every year there's a Cinderella, in fact last year that team was Rutgers. Every year that team gets knocked off. And this season in college football has been particularly full of upheaval. Rutgers will win this game outright by running the ball and killing the clock while not making turnovers. So take Rutgers and the under.
The man with the gay smile turns 30 years old today. For his 30th birthday he received a Sirius Satellite Radio and reacted like a small child who just got a new bike for Christmas. I hope he used his new radio to listen to his Broncos win a tough road game with a last second field goal. And I hope that in the next 30 years Derek spends less time chatting up girls on MySpace and more time writing for the Parlor and the Pride. But that's a selfish wish, it's probably better for him to keep chasing cyberskirts.
Pizza Parlor Derek changed the PP in his name to Pride Pageantry in honor of his new blog, "The Pride and The Pageantry." Pride Pageantry Derek has been working dilgently for a month to complete his preview and he did it just in time for tonight's kickoff game featuring his #1 team, LSU. Other team previews of specific interest to Poopheads, #5 Michigan, #12 Penn State and #25 Syracuse.
Traffic, dropping Diesel at the kennel and a ridiculous lack of sleep almost made Mrs. Poop and I late to the rehearsal dinner but we got there just in time to shower and hustle to the rehearsal for Bill to explain to us what a chuppah is.
At the rehearsal dinner, we practiced eating (I still know how!) and Mrs. Poop caught up on baby talk with Mrs. E-Z and Erin. The three of them even went across the street to a baby clothes store...and bought nothing.
Bill took a moment to introduce all of his groomsmen which led to the most inexplicable moment of the evening. When Bill was talking about me, Alison interjected "I swear they're separated at birth." Then Michael interjected "Mary J. Blige." I think he meant that Billy and I are brothers from another mother, and that mother is Mary J. Blige.
Friday night ended with everyone back at the hotel bar. Let me say this, I hate paying $7 for a beer ($21 for 3 yeunglings) but I really enjoyed the hotel bar. At these events I like talking to people I haven't seen in a while and the bar setup, with couches made it easy to hop from cluster to cluster and say hello to everyone, especially the people I don't see that often, like my long lost brother Smokey. And it's nice and quiet (I hate loud bars) so I could hear everyone, even Kristin who seemed to break out of her shell for the first time this weekend, which was nice to see. Plus when Pizza Parlor Derek finally walked in everyone cheered his arrival and he didn't even go upstairs, just started drinking with his luggage in the corner. After the hotel bar closed and they gave me my bill (I thought if you charge it to the room you don't really have to pay), I tried to get some sleep, as I was working on about 3 hours.
Mrs. Poop and I slept so late we missed the gay couples sight-seeing tour, but we did wake up early enough to get cheesesteaks for lunch, or so we thought. We sent Horse, Smokey and PPD to Jim's (or was it Rick's?), but the line was so damn long, that I didn't have time to wait, and Mrs. Poop and Baby Poop, didn't have the patience to wait, so Josh and I walked to Wawa. Wawa was a terrible way to introduce Mrs. Poop to cheesesteaks, but I enjoyed mine.
Then it was time for the wedding. We traveled around the city taking pictures in front of fountains, in front of the LOVE sign and in the middle of the street. Should be some cool photos for the wedding album.
The wedding was held in Philadelphia, so it was sort of weird, because you had this nice outdoor ceremony but you had the sights and sounds of the city.
There was a guy parallel parking a Prius, a hot girl on her way back from the pool, Horse staring at her, but most memorably, the valets somehow got stuck with a car that wouldn't start. So they were pushing this car, right behind the bride and groom, where we were looking, hard not to notice. But it was a beautiful ceremony, Billy stomped the glass easily on his first try, and he broke the glass, not his leg and the party began.
I love cocktail hours. And I was the first one on line and I took a huge plateful of shrimp, and yes I did offer them to Mrs. Poop, but she declined. I also had two Shirley Temples. I don't know who started the trend, but at the beginning of the night everyone was drinking Shirley Temples. The bartender told me that in 10 years of bartending he'd never served so many Shirley Temples to adults.
They also had lobster tails, which were delicious, and shrimp prepared several different ways. I don't know how many shrimp I had, but midway through my second huge plate, the ocean called.
Right after that they did a choreographed routine to "Candy Girl" by New Edition, but it was awesome and very creative.
All night the music was awesome, mostly because Billy (acting like Bridezilla) gave the DJ a very detailed list of songs and the order to play them in.
There was a hip-hop section and I could have sworn during "I Need a Girl" the ghost of my friend Coach came on the dance floor and sang "the sun won't shine forever but as long as it's here then we might as well shine together."
The night really started to pick up when he went into his "rock block" starting with "Living on a Prayer" and "Sweet Child O Mine." That had people, including the bride and groom, dancing on their chairs.
And speaking of dancing on chairs, we did a hora. No one loves a good hora more than me, but I felt a little lost without my partner in hora, TallSkott. Michael was a good substitute but too many non-jews were holding the chairs and I was calling for everyone to walk in circles, but it didn't quite work out that way. But most importantly, we kept the bride and groom upright.
The evening took a turn for the better when they brought out the Viennese/breakfast table. There was your normal assortments of cakes and cookies but there was also a chocolate fountain. Chocolate was flowing from everywhere. You stick something in there, and it comes out covered in chocolate. I wanted to stick my head under but Mrs. Poop forebade me. So I had some chocolate covered Oreos. Then I got to the breakfast part. There were pancakes, and sausage and yes bacon. And it was midnight. I took a little breakfast, in the hopes I could sleep later in the morning. So as I was about to eat my bacon I noticed I had a pool of chocolate on my plate from where the Oreos had been. So I tried it. Chocolate covered bacon isn't as delicious as you would think it would be.
So to recap at this wedding I ate: a lot of shrimp (if I had to guess I'd say more than 50), 2 lobster tails, 2 chocolate covered Oreos, 3 chocolate covered bacon strips, and I drank 2 Shirley Temples and about 10 beers.
Yeah probably 10 beers, which is why at some point I found myself manning a bottle of Tanqueray pouring it onto the ice sculpture and into the mouth of my fellow Redskins fan, Christian. I guess my judgment of what constitutes a shot was a little impaired at that point because the bartender came over and confiscated the bottles.
As the night came to an end a couple of special songs were played giving the groom a chance to do his Vabilla Ice Dance, and immediately the bride's family drew up annulment papers.
And then Billy instructed the DJ to play La Bamba and hand the mic to Horse. A very drunk Horse. A Horse who had been getting disgusted looks from Mrs. Horse for the last two hours starting with his magical attempt to make a lime disappear. Here's the back story on La Bamba. When Horse was just a pony, he had to learn the lyrics for a 7th grade Spanish class. He's remembered them and uses it as his go-to karaoke song. At Michael's bachelor party, Horse delivered a rousing rendition. Well, he tried to duplicate that effort and the crowd was really into it.
Regrettably, the wedding had to end, but that didn't stop the fun. Nor did it stop Horse. He began a sing-along on the bus ride back to the hotel. He started off with his second favorite karaoke song "To Be With You" by Mr. Big, the song that got him attacked on the DC Metro.
Other songs sung include "Hail to the Redskins" (by just Christian and me), "The Humpty Dance" (the girl behind me knew every single word and even admitted later that yes, she uses words that don't mean nothing like "loopid" and that she did once get busy in a Burger King bathroom. The next morning I saw her wearing a shirt that said "real women don't date Yankees fans". Needless to say, I like her.), "Before He Cheats" and several others that aren't worth remembering.
Those of us who didn't want the night to end (almost all of us) hung out in the hotel lobby til 4am.
I also want to give credit to the best man E-Z who did a great job with his speech which had something to do with a man named Horace, Wheaties and Viagra.
E-Z's speech was really about finding things you aren't really looking for. That must have been a theme for the weekend because in the elevator banks on every single floor was a huge, pentagonal cylinder full of Hershey's candy, thanks to a group from the candy company that stayed in our hotel. At first I decided to be judicious and I only took 3 York Peppermint Patties. But with each pass by one of these chocolate havens I became bolder and bolder. By 2am when I was drunk I grabbed as many as I could and when I woke up the next morning after getting yelled at for putting them on Mrs. Poop's pregnant belly, I counted I had taken 35 York Peppermint Patties (not including the 10 or so I'd eaten up until that point).
The next morning I actually woke up in time for breakfast which was nice because I obviously hadn't eaten enough so I stuffed my face with a ton of bacon and got one last chance to talk to everyone and say goodbye to the happy couple and wish them well on their honeymoon and to thank them for a beautiful fun weekend.
Pizza Parlor Derek is back. I guess this is going to be his M.O. now, take three weeks off, post a few things for a couple days, then retreat into another funk. Imagine how pissed all you Poopheads would be if I allowed this blog to lay dormant for three weeks?
Everything works in cycles. We are getting older and we're getting married. Bill is towards the tail end of the cycle in the Kliq as far as marriage goes. So this bachelor party was sort of a last hurrah, at least until Pizza Parlor Derek gets married, but that could take a while.
Life intervened and plans for Montreal were scrapped so we headed down to beautiful Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I don't golf so I skipped the Friday morning excursion in Delaware and the Thursday night trip to Buffalo Wild Wings where PPD managed to keep his fingers out of his eyes. You can read PPD's version of the events (which includes Thursday/early Friday).
On the trip down I called Bill and he told me they were on their way to Philly and they were going to grab something to eat ("we're not going to go out to dinner.") So I see a Roy Rogers on the Turnpike and I stop, maybe I would have anyway. I love Roy Rogers. One side note, I had been stuck in bad traffic at the northern most point of the Turnpike, then between exits 16 and 8a traffic was moving, but slowly. At exit 8A the traffic finally cleared and I was cruising. At that point I heard on the radio, "traffic backed up between exits 8a and 7a on the southbound side, for 13 miles". Totally untrue. This happens all the time. For the most part, traffic reports are complete bullshit.
By the time I arrive in Philly it seems everyone was waiting for me to go out to dinner. Bill is a douche. We walk to some sports bar. They say you can't get in with sneakers, until the saw 11 of us, at a time the restaurant wasn't very busy, so they decided to waive their no sneakers policy.
Instead of eating again I decided to drink my supper. At the time I was really pissed that out of 20 TVs, 19 were on the Phillies game and the other one was broken. But then I realized something that I've missed my whole life growing up in New York. We have two teams in everything. And in baseball and football, the population of New York City is split 60/40. In Philly everyone you see, everywhere you go, roots for the same teams. That's pretty cool.
After supper we headed to Show N Tel, which is a BYOB strip club. Because they don't sell alcohol it's full nude. And because you bring your own booze that are a lot of deadbeat lowlives.
One girl was wearing a very cute skirt/top combo with Phillies logos on it. I refused to give her a dollar.
Show N Tel has a thing called a hot seat. Basically you can bring a guy you hate and pay money to have a naked girl yank out his armpit hair, smack him in the face and twist his nipples.
I can throw a dollar bill and hit a balloon knot from 15 feet away.
Horse has sleep apnea. Michael and I diagnosed him while listening to his snoring and intermittent choking. Of course, this didn't bother me at all, I fell asleep in two minutes, but it kept Michael up all night. At 8 am he woke me and asked if I wanted to go to breakfast. I chose a few more hours of sleep and Michael enjoyed breakfast on his own, dining on french toast while getting annoyed by a gay waiter.
Saturday was paintball day. First we stopped at a local WaWa which has touch screen ordering which is a good thing but it can be very confusing. Because each screen presents you with a bunch of different options, if you get caught up in it and forget what you previously selected, you can end up with a tuna sandwich with chipotle sauce, provolone, pickles and sweet peppers.
If you ever have to get somewhere on time. Do not let Billy drive. Despite internet directions and several phone calls to the paintball place, we still made about 5 U-Turns including one where the sign said "paintball" with an arrow straight, and Bill made a right.
I'm not going to describe the paintball game in detail except to say some of us took it lightly, others took it seriously. Michael, Aaron and I had never played before and were just happy to run around like fools. Greco obviously plays a lot (even though it screws up his softball swing), as he came in full gear including a silly hat and a paint grenade. Horse also took it too seriously, as he does everything, and he pelted Josh with a barrage of paintballs that left Josh welted and furious.
Most of us bought paper thin camo suits which didn't really do much except make us look cool. PPD ripped his. It was fun to play but it was a little too hot and I tired quickly. I also got shot twice in the neck, which left huge red marks that look like hickeys. And one time I got shot right on the thumb which hurt so fuckin bad.
After paintball we went back to the hotel to clean up and get ready for dinner at Philly's finest steakhouse, Geno's or Pat's. We ordered in English and enjoyed our delicious dripping cheesesteak. I had wiz wid. I actually wanted peppers and mushrooms but Geno's only had onions.
Smokey having never been to either one, tried the steaks from both then offered a gourmet's analysis of the finer points of each one. I think he was disappointed that Boyz II Men wasn't out front singing "Motown Philly." This weekend did nothing to diminish the brotherly bond that Smokey and I feel towards each other. I really think I am more likely to be related to him than I am to Master Bates or Step On Me.
Saturday night we went classy and headed over to Crazy Horse Too. Things didn't really pick up until a group of African-American gentleman sat next to the stage with three huge stacks of bills. And they weren't just ones. The girls were loving it, and these guys were making it rain, heavily on the stage. Josh sensing an opportunity bought the guys drinks. And that kindness was revisited upon us tenfold at least. These guys were throwing so much money around, they easily spent 10 grand that night. At one point one guy threw a stack of 20 $5 bills onto the stage. And of course everyone was trying to guess their profession. They were either rappers, athletes or drug dealers.
The saddest place in the world is on the steps of a strip club at 3am, waiting for a cab that may never come. The girls were coming out in their sweatpants without makeup, and we were still sitting there.
This was made even sadder still by the fact that we don't have too many more of these opportunities left.
If you thought there was any chance that Trump was going to have his head shaved, you should have yours examined. But Pizza Parlor Derek makes an interesting point, you saw how much pub Wrestlemania got when they brought Trump in, imagine the crazy coverage it would have gotten had Trump agreed to do the job?
Pizza Parlor Derek is taking guesses on what he did for the first time this weekend. I think he has had sex before, even though he may not be able to remember back that far. I don't think he would ever root for Georgetown. And I don't think he carries a spare tire in his car so if he got a flat he'd have to call Triple A or PPKA. So that leaves only one thing. PPD bought a Carrie Underwood CD.
A really good idea. Such a good idea that everyone else thought of it too. I arrived 3 hours before tip time and was told there was a 4-hour wait. Not sure how reliable that is because so many people were just camping out at their tables and not leaving until the game starts. So we gave up on that and tried to other restaurants which were just as crowded. Then we stumbled into Loft 47, which had an entire section that was closed off. We literally grabbed a table and some chairs and moved it into the seating area. This seemed like a great idea at the time until we realized no server was assigned to a table that previously had not existed. The service was terrible, I was given crab legs instead of a crab lump and it took almost an hour to bring our food which I had to scarf down. But it’s better than standing around Dinosaur for 4 hours.
We finally arrived at the game in plenty of time to take our seats. Seton Hall and the Prudential Center releasing tickets piecemeal, at first offering only the lower bowl. Once that sold out they offered the first two rows of the upper level. And since Ticketmaster now allows you to choose your actual seat, by clicking on a dot, I chose seats that were perfectly aligned with center court. The view was amazing. The seats weren’t great as in being close to the floor, but it was sort of like sitting right behind home plate in a upper level at a baseball game. You’re not close, but the vantage point is amazing.
We got a really good look at the 2-3 zone which got torched early. But then the Orange got hot, especially Brandon Triche and ended the half on a 22-9 run.
The rest of the game was pretty unremarkable with SU maintaining a solid lead, but not blowing them out. The best part was the crowd reaction to Fuquan Edwin's baskets. (They're not booing, they're saying Foo.) I tried to convince one of the Beers kids to change his name to Fuquan but they're too savvy for that.
One annoying trend that has emerged recently, and I am guilty of it too (especially when I am unable to check in at a game on Facebook) people spend way too much time on their phones during games. You pay for the ticket, you're surrounded by thousands of people, presumably some of them are your friends and all you do is text on the phone. I forbade people from using their phones while the ball was in play. Pizza Parlor Derek blatantly disobeyed me. I thought he was very disappointed that we didn't get to eat at Dinosaur. But turns out he was just tweeting. After the game I read several funny tweets from him which I would have enjoyed had he just said them to me.
But after the game we did retire to Dinosaur for a drink (not a brisket) and I had a nice chat with PPD. And next time we'll know that we have to arrive at Dinosaur four hours before game time in order to get a table. Unfortunately, there won't be a next time.
