True Story.
For half the day I really thought it was Tuesday. Probably due to the fact that I was out of the office all day yesturday and the general awfulness of the installation job that I was roped into "helping" with makes me want to forget that day. The type of day that makes someone go home and drink in the shower. It's sort of scary though seeing as I have one of those day calendar things with movie trivia questions on it (today's answer was Natalie Portman, can't have a bad day on a Natalie Portman day) and so I most likely looked at the calender several times this morning. But no, I figured out it was Wednesday when the office went out to lunch to bid a fond fairwell to Tim and get free Mexican food. They had new lunch special menu's printed out and instead of having the same lunch specials everyday, they change. So I was all set to order some nice Tuesday special when my boss goes "Let's see what they have for Wednesday's" and I had a mini "duh" moment that I quashed with some chips and salsa. Along with the development's running up to my car in the rain this morning to give me breakfast, it was a pretty nice free food day. We were going to have free cake too but that got pushed to tomorrow, even though I rushed back from flawlessly setting up an LED sign to get a piece. The only thing that would top off my free food day better would be if someone showed up at my door with free dinner. Or head. That would be pretty good too.
I decided this afternoon that Jeb really needs to start video blogging and tape a new song each week that he makes up and performs to the internet populous. I may have to run this by him this weekend and maybe even bring my camera to facilitate the epic internet stardom that would be sure to follow.
As I mentioned before, my dad visited last weekend. And between discussions about baseball we had one about movie remakes or rebooting of franchises, which we both agreed was really lazy on a filmmaking standpoint. Sure the new Batman movies and Bond movies were good, but at least with James Bond movies, why not call it a sequal. Theres like 25 of them, and coming up with the plotline to a new Bond movie is about as easy as spelling words with alphabet soup. We did agree however that there are some movies that have always been considered classics but would be ten times better today with a remake. Some of these included Alfred Hitchcock movies (especially the Birds, which looking back is a hokey movie, but if it was redone, it would be scary as all hell) and Jaws. But overall I really think the whole Hollywood "reboot the franchise" thing is dumb as hell. I heard the other week that they were thinking about rebooting The Fantastic Four. Sure the movies were really stupid (I still haven't seen the second one, because the previews made me want to hit Stan Lee with a newspaper), but they came out like two years ago. And redoing them as dark as Batman wont make them somehow cooler, just make my eyes burn when I exit the theater. Come up with something new please.
Ok I'm spent, gotta think of a way to get free dinner.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Greenville FORCE
So this weekend my dad came to visit from Pennsylvania and so I was looking for things to do when he was here instead of just sitting around or going to bars (my parents don't drink). So I heard that Greenville was getting an arena football team at the Bilo Center and this weekend was going to be their first game. I asked him if he'd be interested and he said he was so we went.
We got there a little early, thinking that it could be packed from the advertising that I had heard. People were waiting but we soon found that plenty of seats were still available and we were given seats five rows from the field (for half price, a special they were running, that should have tipped us off). So we get inside and the game is supposed to start at 7. The Bilo center has been tricked out with a mini football field (only 50 yards) with the goal posts replaced with a hanging PVC apparatus. The field is essentially just a cement floor covered with some outdoor carpet surrounded by the bottoms of the old hockey boards covered with padding. Having little faith or low preparation beforehand, the field proclaims the Austin Wranglers instead of the South Carolina Force, as it should. In addition, the ends of the field are still uncovered cement. We sit there and 7 rolls around and the teams continue practicing on the field and the announcer comes on saying that the game would be delayed at least a half hour for "technical difficulties". They suddenly realize that they only half assed the field and start putting down the one missing end, sticking some outdoor carpet down with double sided tape. 8pm rolls around and they have barely finished the one side but start doing the vast team introductions and reading of pre-written sponsor selling points. That's right, they read sales pitches for all of their sponsors, after delaying the game for over an hour. At the same time they seem to have misplaced the outdoor carpeting from the one side and are just laying down some foam padding. The announcer has already referred to the Force as the Drive (Greenville's baseball team) several times. They lose the music for the National Anthem and the girl has to uncomfortably sing it without, which was a mix of different speeds and pitches. But finally at about 8:30 the 7pm game gets started.
We soon realize that the football is laughably bad. The referees call far too many penalties (especially unsportsmanlike contact, which happens at least ten times in the half). The players seem to have never practiced and its a little more than a sandlot game of football with sponsors. There's also unusual rules where extra points are added for kickoffs going through the uprights, and penalty points given to the other team for kickoffs that went out of the end zone (even though this only happened at certain times and not others). The loudest cheers happened when a poor pass by the Greenville quarterback flew into the stands and an 8 year old kid made a perfect catch to the roar of the crowd. Thankfully we made it to the half.
During halftime several hilariously poorly planned events occurred: the dancers' music was lost and they stood in the center of the field waiting for it to turn on before just running off the field, the cancer survivor's little daughter ran around the group of people on the field as her mother talked, like a little blond haired satellite. Then they sent the teams back out with five minutes left on the clock and they basically just waited around lost on the field until it ran out.
The third quarter was more of the same and by the end we had both had enough and exited the half filled arena.
It was so comically bad that I wasn't even sure if I didn't want to come see another one or not. In one way it was so terribly planned and played but almost to a hilariously entertaining way. I have never laughed so much at a sporting event. I get the feeling that with a group of friends and a couple beers it would be as good as an unintentional Harlem Globetrotters-esque spectacle.
We got there a little early, thinking that it could be packed from the advertising that I had heard. People were waiting but we soon found that plenty of seats were still available and we were given seats five rows from the field (for half price, a special they were running, that should have tipped us off). So we get inside and the game is supposed to start at 7. The Bilo center has been tricked out with a mini football field (only 50 yards) with the goal posts replaced with a hanging PVC apparatus. The field is essentially just a cement floor covered with some outdoor carpet surrounded by the bottoms of the old hockey boards covered with padding. Having little faith or low preparation beforehand, the field proclaims the Austin Wranglers instead of the South Carolina Force, as it should. In addition, the ends of the field are still uncovered cement. We sit there and 7 rolls around and the teams continue practicing on the field and the announcer comes on saying that the game would be delayed at least a half hour for "technical difficulties". They suddenly realize that they only half assed the field and start putting down the one missing end, sticking some outdoor carpet down with double sided tape. 8pm rolls around and they have barely finished the one side but start doing the vast team introductions and reading of pre-written sponsor selling points. That's right, they read sales pitches for all of their sponsors, after delaying the game for over an hour. At the same time they seem to have misplaced the outdoor carpeting from the one side and are just laying down some foam padding. The announcer has already referred to the Force as the Drive (Greenville's baseball team) several times. They lose the music for the National Anthem and the girl has to uncomfortably sing it without, which was a mix of different speeds and pitches. But finally at about 8:30 the 7pm game gets started.
We soon realize that the football is laughably bad. The referees call far too many penalties (especially unsportsmanlike contact, which happens at least ten times in the half). The players seem to have never practiced and its a little more than a sandlot game of football with sponsors. There's also unusual rules where extra points are added for kickoffs going through the uprights, and penalty points given to the other team for kickoffs that went out of the end zone (even though this only happened at certain times and not others). The loudest cheers happened when a poor pass by the Greenville quarterback flew into the stands and an 8 year old kid made a perfect catch to the roar of the crowd. Thankfully we made it to the half.
During halftime several hilariously poorly planned events occurred: the dancers' music was lost and they stood in the center of the field waiting for it to turn on before just running off the field, the cancer survivor's little daughter ran around the group of people on the field as her mother talked, like a little blond haired satellite. Then they sent the teams back out with five minutes left on the clock and they basically just waited around lost on the field until it ran out.
The third quarter was more of the same and by the end we had both had enough and exited the half filled arena.
It was so comically bad that I wasn't even sure if I didn't want to come see another one or not. In one way it was so terribly planned and played but almost to a hilariously entertaining way. I have never laughed so much at a sporting event. I get the feeling that with a group of friends and a couple beers it would be as good as an unintentional Harlem Globetrotters-esque spectacle.
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