I figured a blog posted a day after Christmas should get a wacky title like that. Sure, my actual Christmas wasn’t too exciting aside from what I did in the evening, but it was still a nice day and I’ll always have fond memories of Christmas from my days as a kid.
Monday the 19th was boring so I’ll skip ahead to the 20th. I decided to attend the college bowl game in St. Petersburg at Tropicana Field known cleverly as the St. Petersburg Bowl (I won’t list its corporate name). I was at the game in ’09 between UCF and Rutgers and while the game wasn’t the best the whole experience was a good time with the fans being into the spectacle, the bands playing music, people dancing around, and all that jazz. I could have done without people being stupid and arguing with each other, but otherwise I had a good time there. This edition of the bowl was Marshall, from West Virginia, vs. the school located in the southern part of Miami known as Florida International University. To delve into some dork talk, a conference that was supposed to send a team to the game wasn’t able to so they picked FIU as at least they are a state team and believe me, more important than anything else (including team and game quality) is having the “right” team go there in order to get many fans to go to the city and spend money there and then attend the game.
Before I even got to St. Petersburg, I decided to take a different way to the city rather than I-4; that stretch of road from Orlando to Tampa is almost always pretty brutal unless it’s late in the evening. I instead went west on 50 before making it to Toll Road 589. Sure, I paid a few bucks on tolls but the road itself wasn’t too busy until you got to Tampa, and it was less stressful than a typical I-4 drive. I stopped in Clearwater and a few places before making it to Tropicana Field. The main place was having dinner at Quaker Steak & Lube, a place I had been to once before down here in Florida. That Clearwater restaurant is the only restaurant they have in this state. I had my almost-always of a burger and fries; it was fine. I sat at the bar but I swear I just had a soda to drink. Some dudes were also eating at the bar and they had some wings. One guy decided to try out their hottest wings, the Triple Atomic. At least one was left over so I was asked if I wanted one. Given that the menu listed how hot the sauces were and the mild was listed as 740 on the Scoville Heat Units scale (the way how heat in food is measured) while the Triple Atomic was (no kidding) 500,000! I don’t eat foods that are too hot in general, and something that nuclear would just be bad news for me… and imagine it coming on the way out… plus, he actually had to sign a waiver (!) before eating those wings.
But anyhow, that guy had it and he tried to play it as cool as he could (in all senses of the term); you knew that he had to be hurting. Thus, I made the right decision there. After that it wasn’t long before I parked for the game; as I’ve done before the lot that’s on the corner of MLK Drive and 4th Avenue South is a nice place to leave your car, as it’s cheaper than parking at the stadium, it’s close by and best of all it’s right by an Interstate.
The experience at the game… it wasn’t quite the same as in ’09 but it was still an entertaining time. There seemed to be almost equal number of FIU and Marshall fans. I imagine those folks from West Virginia were happy to escape the cold and enjoy the warm weather. I got a shirt (as I did in ’09) and it looked chinsy compared to the ’09 one, but it was still fine-enough for me. The ticketing was different this time around so I sat in the upper deck, an area familiar to me at The Trop. There was plenty of empty seats by me so while that was nice, it meant there aren’t really any interesting stories to tell about the crowd in my general area. There was little in the way of whining and complaining and stupid behavior; I appreciated that quite a bit.
The game itself was no gridiron classic by any means. The offenses of both teams were so bad at times that it reminded me of the Bears teams of this year and past years! Marshall ended up winning 20-10. The attendance wasn’t all that great; at least the people there were happy to make enough noise. Despite the game being less than thrilling there was enough to keep me entertained. Besides seeing the image on the videoboard of a Marshall fan giving the camera the double middle fingers, there was a brief fight between a pair of football players right at the end of the game, which made me laugh.
Oh, and another great videoboard image was seeing a Marshall fan put up a sign plugging ESPN which also had a witty statement. The sign was to put down the Golden Panthers of FIU… or rather, “Panters”. Yes, the sign said “Panters”. Insert your own jokes about the state of West Virginia if you wish.
So, overall I had a fun time. It was nice being back at The Trop and it was also nice being in that area of Florida; I don’t get out that way too often anymore.
Wednesday was boring so I’ll skip ahead to Thursday. I went all the way to Deltona to watch a movie. I went to a new joint (run by Epic Theatres) that just opened the day before. They were showing the 4th Mission Impossible film on a giant screen comparable to the IMAX screens they have now at many AMC Theatres locations. The movie is what you’d expect: the plot is secondary to the action stuff, and the action stuff does deliver. It was a more satisfying spy story than what I saw in Quantum of Solace, that’s for damn sure. On the way back home I stopped for a bite to end at the Altamonte Mall; it was as chaotic there as you’d expect. On the way back I got a huge laugh: some idiot blew by me on the highway going way too fast. Soon after that, a cop noticed that guy's driving so a pullover took place. It took that idiot too long to realize it, but eventually he realized the flashing lights right behind him was to signal that HE should pull over. As I drove by, I literally lol'ed. That filled my heart with much mirth and joy!
I actually opened Christmas presents on Christmas Eve. The gifts were the usual; some giftcards, money, and clothing such as pajamas. It was good times, along with Christmas Day, where a big meal was had with my parents and some relatives. It was nice seeing them. In the evening I decided to go to Friendly Confines to watch the Bears play against the Packers. As they were open and offering up alcohol, I figured that was a good idea. And I was correct. Instead of listening to the football or even the Magic game, it was jukebox time there. If I would have had any small bills, some songs would have been picked by me. However, a lot of the selections I was fine with, so I can’t complain. It was a lot of rock songs (both modern and older), some rap songs which made me laugh due to how bad they were, and other things, such as rap songs I hadn’t heard since my days of going to college at Illinois State University, and yes, a dubstep song. If you don’t recognize that dance genre, it’s the “hip” thing these days and it has a lot of bass. You can go explore online for a better definition. The songs and eating some food and consuming some drinks was more interesting than the game. The new Bears QB was certainly better than Caleb Hanie, but that isn’t any tremendous achievement by any means. After a slow start, the Packers showed why they’re the best team in the NFL now and it took Chicago some garbage points at the very end to get the score to be as close as 35-21. As I was expecting Green Bay to win, I wasn’t that disappointed by the loss. To think that already, the Chicago game this upcoming Sunday the 1st is the last game of the season. It really flew by.
Then again, 2011 really did fly by for me. At least it was better than 2010, and that’s pretty much all I have to say about that. I have no idea how 2012 will turn out; hopefully things will become more exciting/interesting for me. As for my next blog on the 2nd, I’ll likely be lame and stay home for New Years Eve. At least I’ll be out to watch the big UFC pay per view on Friday night (I’ll be rooting for Brock Lesnar) and I’ll also be watching the last Bears game; so, I’ll have a few things to write about.
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