I was thinking this past week wouldn't be exciting at all and yet some things popped up. I did not do a thing on Monday so let me skip ahead to Tuesday. On that night I went to the Florida Mall as I haven't been there in awhile. I was able to walk around and see that by the end of the summer there will be some new additions to the mall. I will go back there then. Wednesday I went with some people to a now familiar haunt, Hurricane Grill & Wings, for dinner. Everyone enjoyed their meals. Thursday, the only thing I did was watch the NFL Draft, which also was held on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon.
Friday, though, was quite the interesting day. Due to all the chaos in Baltimore, their Major League Baseball team (the Orioles) had a bad week as they were supposed to play at home. The Monday and Tuesday night games were postponed and they played Wednesday afternoon... in an empty stadium as no one in the public was allowed to attend. The Rays were supposed to play there this weekend but the series got moved to St. Petersburg and as it was so last minute for all three games only the lower bowl of Tropicana Field was opened and every ticket is general admission so you could sit wherever the hell you wanted. I couldn't turn down such a deal.
Before the game I did other things. I drove to Tampa and avoided Interstate 4. The traffic I dealt with made me wonder if I made the right choice; I had to put up with such things as multiple tailgaters and other forms of reckless/rude driving. I went to a MovieStop on the west side of town where I made some purchases. I then drove to St. Petersburg and on the way ate at one of my favorites, PDQ. I then found a spot close to the stadium to park and in I went.
People were smarter than I expected and many were already there by the time I got there and I thought I arrived early. I sat in the upper part of the lower bowl along the first base line. I picked a spot by some old people as to be honest I figured they wouldn't cause problems and they didn't. While walking around the stadium I ended up being by an ogre dad who was being an A-hole to one of his daughters and I could have done without him being a dick to her because “she doesn't smile in photos” (really, he got enraged by that) but I am used to this state being full of ogres. As for the game, they tried to make it as neutral was possible, and Baltimore batted second. This year MLB has the half-inning breaks only about 2 minutes to try and make it shorter. Even if it wasn't for that this would have been a very quick game. It wasn't the most exciting but that is OK. It only took 2 hours and 20 minutes for Tampa Bay to win 2-0.
As for the attendance, it was only 9,945. Tampa's hockey team was playing in a playoff game at the same time so that didn't help but unfortunately the crowds for home games are always not good and it's quite unfortunate. There were plenty of Baltimore fans there and that's fine. Thankfully most of the fans treated the Orioles fine considering the circumstances. There always has to be some meatheads but most were nice.
Saturday was a huge sports day between the end of the draft, playoff games in the NBA and NHL, and “that one boxing fight” which I did not watch a second of. Besides me mentioning in the past that I just don't enjoy watching boxing in general, the fighter that's undefeated is a pretty awful human being, his repeated beating of women and never apologizing for it being the worst part of it all. Manny's the lesser of two evils so I preferred him winning. I did predict on Twitter that something stupid/funny/ridiculous would happen and it would make me go “LOL, Boxing”. I re-watched an old movie instead.
From all the “rave” reviews I heard online, most people thought the bout was atrocious, with too much hugging, dancing and running away. So from that I did say, “LOL, Boxing”. However, those scumbags really got the last laugh with the way they gouged everyone and stole many millions of dollars for a real clownshow joke of a production, complete with Jimmy Kimmel, the (thankfully) retired Burger King mascots, and celebrities failing to sing properly. I know it's not nice but I do have a bit of schadenfreude from those people that paid so much money to a trash human being and to be honest, for a long while I was disgusted with how much hype this got and how organizations such as ESPN acted like an infomercial for the fight, drooling all over a repeated beater of women. Sigh... I guess I can at least laugh at all the comedy which came from the event, including Denzel Washington looking like “every black person's uncle”; note that is NOT my thought, just one I read from someone else. Those memes were quite amusing.
I did not do anything on Sunday, so I'll end this by saying I do not have much planned between now and when I return a week from today.
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