First Saturday

Since I promised that I wouldn't talk much about sports this fall, this post (mostly) says nothing about the National Champion, #2-rated Texas Longhorns, who, incidentally, will be playing the #1 (for now) Ohio State Buckeyes in my hometown, the birthplace of everything that is, was, or ever will be cool - Austin, Texas, home of Tex-Mex, Barbeque, Live Music, and now the biggest television screen in the world: (in a deep voice) Godzillatron!



But I digress...

A few stories from opening day...

1) Jeff came by my house at about 9:30 in the morning, and rode with me up to the Target next to Tommy's McDonald's at William Cannon and 35 (Tommy is my best friend from way back, and is going in on season tickets with me.). I tell Jeff that I need to buy a set of sheets for my futon, so that Chris and Eileen Hairel, newly in Texas from DC, can sleep at my house that night (Are y'all following?). We go in, I find a good set of bedsheets for $20, and I throw it around the store with Jeff all the way to the front register...

...where I figure out that I forgot my wallet. That morning, I remembered my tickets, I remembered my keys, and even my digital camera, but the wallet - not so much. Jeff quickly put down the bedsheets, and shook his head on our walk to McDonald's...

2) ...where we grabbed breakfast. I got a $1 McGriddle and Jeff got a McBiscuit (Thanks, Tom). We strolled over to the drink station and discovered that there was no ice. As one of Tommy's capable minions trudged back to the cave to fetch a bucket of ice, an elderly woman (we'll call her Granny Mullet) strolled up. Like us, she discovered the machine was out of ice. Unlike us, Granny Mullet decided that her coffee was too hot, and dadgumit, she wasn't going to wait. To our incredulity, she reached out and hand-scooped some ice off of the ample pile beneath the spout - the place where the rest of us dump our ice - and dumped the cubes in her coffee cup. In case you're wondering, I'm alright, but I still don't think Jeff has recovered...

3) Finally, we got to the game, and beheld Godzillatron. 55 feet tall and 134 feet wide. Our season tickets are right beneath it - on the hot summer day, it was akin to being shaded by a second sun. Below is a view of it showing a highlight that caused the stadium to grow dusty all of a sudden:



In the first quarter, we thrice beheld Chuck Norris in living color on Godzillatron (he was in town to plug this), and thrice we lived to tell the tale.

And on we live. The Ohio State fans are coming to town, with scores to settle and couches to burn. We ready...