- Joined
- Dec 22, 2011
- Messages
- 47,474
I thought I would take this space to tell a few stories from the wonderful weekend in Hogtown...and please feel free to share your own stories...
And y'all probably know the extent to which I have stolen the use of the ellipsis (...) from Hunter S. Thompson...that and the Pyramid Lead and the Symbiotic Trapezoid Quote...so let's talk about the Death of the Gator Dream, shall we...
Even though UM only gave me 2 of my 6 requested tickets (and they were next to the UM tunnel, but I needed AT LEAST four), I found myself perusing TicketBastard for four together...which I found at great cost, though my sale of the tunnel pair offset my pain and suffering...
But it was not until I arrived (LATE!) at the game that I realized I had hit the jackpot. First, a bit about THAT. Apparently, the deep-pockets UiF Athletic Department had installed new "self-checkout scanners" for the students to use on the east side of the stadium. Unfortunately, the contracted with the same guy who set up the Taylor Swift presale website, and the system crashed. So as we saw swarms of hot, sweaty (and HOT) coeds coming OUT of the line, we realized that we needed a backup plan, so we switched over to the northeast corner gate.
So after a long and disorganized process that was only slightly less painful than having general admission tickets to see The Who at Riverfront Coliseum, we finally burst inside of the swampiest swamp of The Swamp, much like Ace Venture got out of the mechanical rhino, or the Snoats brothers escaped from jail. And nearly immediately, I almost collided with the thick, ropy calf muscles of 7'22" Gator center Olivier Rioux.
After getting past the giant, we got to our gate. Now, one of the lesser known facts about The Swamp-*** is that even if you THINK you have come in on the ground level, OH NO, the stadium is even deeper. So if you are in the lower 35-40 rows, you are now going to DESCEND. I like to think it is because the stadium sank into the muck, but who knows. Also, Stonewall Jackson is no longer disclosing his architectural secrets. The takeaway is that everyone who walks into the stadium gets disoriented and has no idea where to go, until some slow-moving part-time Hogtown resident (who has a full-time job at the DMV) can stare at your phone for 7-19 minutes before telling you where your seats are.
So we reintroduced ourselves to bright sunlight shortly after Miami went up 7-0. So I led the way, ahead of my brother, sister-in-law, and niece. I found the row number (hand painted on the cement nearly 100 years ago) and moved our seats. Unfortunately, some people from the wrong row were there, but they quickly left.
Another little-known feature of The Swamp-*** is that the stadium has two numbered sections immediately next to each other, with the seat numbers on the recycled aluminum benches going from 1-30 before suddenly starting over again at 1. So we had Seats 27-30, and the next seat over was Seat #1. We were between the 35 and 40, in the 25th row.
And there's this tall white dude in the next seat over who, even though he sees the other people LEAVE my seats, has decided to appoint himself the Interim Ticket Checker. Out of nowhere, without me saying anything, he demands to see my tickets. So I told him "no" and proceeded to set up in MY seats (knowing full well that the seat numbers were also painted on the seats nearly 100 years ago). But I know my way around The Swamp-***, and I proceeded to evaluate this guy in much the same way that Ferris Bueller evaluated the French Maitre'D.
Now, it's midway through the first quarter. I start looking around, and to my EVERLASTING DELIGHT, I realize that my seats are RIGHT NEXT TO the parents of the Gator players (not the recruits, the actual players). Regardless of the audience, I start to do my usual gametime trash talking, where I shout out lots of jokes and deep cuts to entertain the surrounding fans who have a firm knowledge of every Gator insult posted on CIS for the past 15 years.
"Worst coach in the SEC!"
"Two Gator legacies just flipped to Miami!"
"Does it hurt, does it hurt?" (how many Robocop fans do we have out there?)
"Go, Gators, get up and go HOME!"
"Slingblade Billy is getting fired at halftime!"
"Run up the score, Mario!"
and of course when they played Tom Petty at the beginning of the 4th quarter, I sang "The Gators backed down!"
After the 4th quarter started, I didn't say all that much, we were killing those *****, and everyone knew it. Keep in mind, I kept everything pretty clean, my niece was there, and there were three small children sitting directly in front of me with their parents (Canes fans, the one boy had one of Xavier Restrepo's gloves).
Then right before the end of the game, Mr. Amateur Ticket Taker finally speaks to me a second time. And he asked me how old I was. Now, I was sensing some tension and drama in the air, so I played along.
The tall **** next to me starts to ask me some non-sequitur about "how old do I have to be to be this annoying", so I start going off on him with a torrent of words, some of them profane (sorry, kiddies, but Wu-Tang is for the children). I didn't do anything, but I was certainly curious to see if my verbal abuse of this ******* was going to provoke some sort of physical reaction on his part.
Then he tried to pull some passive-aggressive ****, where he started to talk to the UM fans sitting behind me, in order to pretend to be the "rational" person. He starts telling people (for no good reason), that he was from the Pacific Northwest, and that apparently his son played for Mario at Oregon and that Mario was a good person. Meanwhile, I'm thinking "this guy is trying to have a ****-measuring contest, when I've known Mario and Luis since undergrad?" So my brother is trying to get me to change seats with him, and I'm telling him "no, I'm fine", but I was having yet another French Maitre'D moment.
A. You can never go too far.
B. If I'm gonna get busted, it is not going to be by a guy like that.
I figured that if the cops showed up, I would tell them my name was Abe Froman. Anyhow, after the guy gave his curriculum vitae to all of the fans sitting behind me, he shut his mouth and eventually left. We stayed until the final knee was taken, though we know Mario is not all about that knee life.
So if anyone knows the name of a tall white jackass who may or may not have a son who has or has not played football for Oregon and/or another son (or the same one) who may or may not play for Florida, let me know.
I'd like to add him to my Christmas card list.
Here's a preview of the outside of this year's card:
The inside of the card:
And y'all probably know the extent to which I have stolen the use of the ellipsis (...) from Hunter S. Thompson...that and the Pyramid Lead and the Symbiotic Trapezoid Quote...so let's talk about the Death of the Gator Dream, shall we...
Even though UM only gave me 2 of my 6 requested tickets (and they were next to the UM tunnel, but I needed AT LEAST four), I found myself perusing TicketBastard for four together...which I found at great cost, though my sale of the tunnel pair offset my pain and suffering...
But it was not until I arrived (LATE!) at the game that I realized I had hit the jackpot. First, a bit about THAT. Apparently, the deep-pockets UiF Athletic Department had installed new "self-checkout scanners" for the students to use on the east side of the stadium. Unfortunately, the contracted with the same guy who set up the Taylor Swift presale website, and the system crashed. So as we saw swarms of hot, sweaty (and HOT) coeds coming OUT of the line, we realized that we needed a backup plan, so we switched over to the northeast corner gate.
So after a long and disorganized process that was only slightly less painful than having general admission tickets to see The Who at Riverfront Coliseum, we finally burst inside of the swampiest swamp of The Swamp, much like Ace Venture got out of the mechanical rhino, or the Snoats brothers escaped from jail. And nearly immediately, I almost collided with the thick, ropy calf muscles of 7'22" Gator center Olivier Rioux.
After getting past the giant, we got to our gate. Now, one of the lesser known facts about The Swamp-*** is that even if you THINK you have come in on the ground level, OH NO, the stadium is even deeper. So if you are in the lower 35-40 rows, you are now going to DESCEND. I like to think it is because the stadium sank into the muck, but who knows. Also, Stonewall Jackson is no longer disclosing his architectural secrets. The takeaway is that everyone who walks into the stadium gets disoriented and has no idea where to go, until some slow-moving part-time Hogtown resident (who has a full-time job at the DMV) can stare at your phone for 7-19 minutes before telling you where your seats are.
So we reintroduced ourselves to bright sunlight shortly after Miami went up 7-0. So I led the way, ahead of my brother, sister-in-law, and niece. I found the row number (hand painted on the cement nearly 100 years ago) and moved our seats. Unfortunately, some people from the wrong row were there, but they quickly left.
Another little-known feature of The Swamp-*** is that the stadium has two numbered sections immediately next to each other, with the seat numbers on the recycled aluminum benches going from 1-30 before suddenly starting over again at 1. So we had Seats 27-30, and the next seat over was Seat #1. We were between the 35 and 40, in the 25th row.
And there's this tall white dude in the next seat over who, even though he sees the other people LEAVE my seats, has decided to appoint himself the Interim Ticket Checker. Out of nowhere, without me saying anything, he demands to see my tickets. So I told him "no" and proceeded to set up in MY seats (knowing full well that the seat numbers were also painted on the seats nearly 100 years ago). But I know my way around The Swamp-***, and I proceeded to evaluate this guy in much the same way that Ferris Bueller evaluated the French Maitre'D.
Now, it's midway through the first quarter. I start looking around, and to my EVERLASTING DELIGHT, I realize that my seats are RIGHT NEXT TO the parents of the Gator players (not the recruits, the actual players). Regardless of the audience, I start to do my usual gametime trash talking, where I shout out lots of jokes and deep cuts to entertain the surrounding fans who have a firm knowledge of every Gator insult posted on CIS for the past 15 years.
"Worst coach in the SEC!"
"Two Gator legacies just flipped to Miami!"
"Does it hurt, does it hurt?" (how many Robocop fans do we have out there?)
"Go, Gators, get up and go HOME!"
"Slingblade Billy is getting fired at halftime!"
"Run up the score, Mario!"
and of course when they played Tom Petty at the beginning of the 4th quarter, I sang "The Gators backed down!"
After the 4th quarter started, I didn't say all that much, we were killing those *****, and everyone knew it. Keep in mind, I kept everything pretty clean, my niece was there, and there were three small children sitting directly in front of me with their parents (Canes fans, the one boy had one of Xavier Restrepo's gloves).
Then right before the end of the game, Mr. Amateur Ticket Taker finally speaks to me a second time. And he asked me how old I was. Now, I was sensing some tension and drama in the air, so I played along.
The tall **** next to me starts to ask me some non-sequitur about "how old do I have to be to be this annoying", so I start going off on him with a torrent of words, some of them profane (sorry, kiddies, but Wu-Tang is for the children). I didn't do anything, but I was certainly curious to see if my verbal abuse of this ******* was going to provoke some sort of physical reaction on his part.
Then he tried to pull some passive-aggressive ****, where he started to talk to the UM fans sitting behind me, in order to pretend to be the "rational" person. He starts telling people (for no good reason), that he was from the Pacific Northwest, and that apparently his son played for Mario at Oregon and that Mario was a good person. Meanwhile, I'm thinking "this guy is trying to have a ****-measuring contest, when I've known Mario and Luis since undergrad?" So my brother is trying to get me to change seats with him, and I'm telling him "no, I'm fine", but I was having yet another French Maitre'D moment.
A. You can never go too far.
B. If I'm gonna get busted, it is not going to be by a guy like that.
I figured that if the cops showed up, I would tell them my name was Abe Froman. Anyhow, after the guy gave his curriculum vitae to all of the fans sitting behind me, he shut his mouth and eventually left. We stayed until the final knee was taken, though we know Mario is not all about that knee life.
So if anyone knows the name of a tall white jackass who may or may not have a son who has or has not played football for Oregon and/or another son (or the same one) who may or may not play for Florida, let me know.
I'd like to add him to my Christmas card list.
Here's a preview of the outside of this year's card:
The inside of the card:
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