cheerfulHow come when movie theatres have stadium seating, it's a pleasure, every seat is perfect and there's plenty of room to stretch out, but when you're actually in a stadium, the seats are cramped, your can't put your feet flat on the ground, because there's not enough space between you and the seat in front of you, and the seats go up so high, and at such a steep angle, you feel like you're suspended in ("what the muggles call") space with 1000 of your closest friends? The seats were okay, not great. Once I stopped shaking, I was able to focus on the field and enjoy watching Jacksonville rip the Pats to shreds, but I think it's safe to say that I'm not over my fear of heights. In case I do this again, here are my rules for enjoying the game. 1) don't look at the seats below you. 2) Don't look too far to either side. 3) Don't look across either. 4) Stay focused on the field and ball. 5) Shoot the stupid bitch with the camera who thinks it's fun the block the aisle when you're trying to get down and doesn't realize that you're about 21 seconds away from strangling her with her camera just so you can have something else besides DOWN to look at.
We were sitting above the end zone in section 336 in what I've just proved conclusively to myself are the worst seats in the stadium. Jill doesn't like heights any more than I do so that somewhat dampened the experience. She held on to her seat, the knee of the guy behind her, Craig, pretty much whatever she could grab. I held on to hoppie. Tightly. And he was good, he put his arm around me for much of the game, and was intensely comforting. What a guy.
So on the way in, I buy a bottle of water. 1lt. for 5$. I mean I am used to highway robbery. I do go to all day concert shows, I spend a lot of time in airports, and...5$. And they don't even let you keep the cap! (I'm suspecting that's because they were tired of the liter generated by people tossing the caps around, but...if I pay that much for water, I want to be able to cover it between drinks!) So that was annoying, wandering around looking for my seat making hoppie carry my open bottle of water (I was carrying it, but hoppie took it so I would stop complaining about wandering around carrying an open bottle of water ("oy! Was I thirsty!").) Beer is sold anywhere, but non-beer alcoholic drinks are sold only on the first level which is where Jill and Gracia went to satisfy their cravings: to be lower to the ground, or drunk enough to not care.
Down there, they ran into a guy who shouted "Nice tits!" at them.
The girls thanked him politely.
Drunks are so much fun.
From our seats, it was a little difficult to see the ball. For the first quarter both hoppie and I had trouble tracking where the ball would land on the field. About midway through the first quarter, it became easier and I could come closer to seeing where it would land. Jacksonville's returns were terrible, but the Pats couldn't string together more than two first downs per drive. Craig was telling me that his motus operandi was to track an individual player on the team rather than following the ball, since it's hard to take in everything at once. He felt this gave him a better perspective on the things you don't see on TV. I wish he'd mentioned that during the game instead of after, it might have been interesting to try.
snagglepuss2, what's your take on this? I don't know if I'd accept tickets for these seats again, but I'm willing to try live football on another day in seats that aren't quite so scary.The other thing that was irritating are the TV timeouts. At home, that's time you use to get a drink or go to the bathroom, or but, of course at the stadium, it's not nearly enough time for that. It's just enough time to get talking to your seatmates and lose track of what's going on and miss the next play.
Craig said he's not sure Rohan Daveys can handle being the backup quarterback, he's just not that good. Brady better stay healthy.
Feh. I learned to avoid some of it, by watching the cheerleaders, which I think was one of the best things about going live. On TV you seldom see the way the routines play out, because they focus on one shining face or shimmery pair of breasts, but live you can actually watch the squad(s)'s synchronized movements and get an actually feeling for what they're doing. They were cute, like pixies from our distance and I really enjoyed that.
We did get to see an interception, and, much as it hurt, it was neat to watch Jacksonville play like they actually were out there to play.
I had a great time and it was neat to be in the parking lot when the Foulk got his save. When he got the last out, I screamed and some tailgaters looked over and raised their glass in toast to me, and then the parking lot erupted with the cheers and horns of the gleeful.
One interesting oddity about the redsox game. We were listening to the WEEI Red Sox radio network broadcast, and so were the people near us, but they had about a 2 second delay. So in our car, you could hear the announcers and they'd finish but then you'd hear the last line or two from the other car. What causes that?