Watch a football game at the Meadowlands... check.

In a random turn of events, I ended up scoring a ticket to Sunday's Sheagles vs. Giants game at the Meadowlands.

All I had to do was be the designated driver, which suited me fine since a bottle of beer went for $7.75 in the stadium, which is insane. I just drank during the tailgate and not during the game and the post-game tailgate. The first tailgate was lunch, and the second one was dinner.

The folks I was with take their tailgating seriously.


We weren't the only ones who brought supplies, and pictured above is the full backyard grill, a case or two of beer, 15 bottles of wine and a veritable smorgasboard of all kinds of food that we brought.

And yes, that's snow on the truck (In Pennsylvania near Trenton, N.J.). There wasn't too much snow at the Meadowlands though... but I assure you it was freezing (literally) and there were some snow flurries. I'm still waiting for some real snow to hit the city, though some are forecasting for some real snow here later this week.

Being outside from about 10 a.m. until the evening, I got my fair share of freezing cold, and stinging winds.

Some folks were wandering the parking lot selling gloves and Giants stocking caps (and probably making a mint). Though the Giants (and Sheagles) gear they were selling was totally unlicensed, so one of the nearby salesfolk actually got taken away and cuffed by security. Don't mess with NFL infringement rights... apparently they take that shit seriously, word.

Despite the freezing and the game technically being in New Jersey and the Giants playing some fugly looking football (we lost 20-14), it was a lot of fun.

On a fun side note, each week the tickets to the games feature a picture of a different Giants star, and in a wonderful coincidence the tickets for this week's game all had last week's proud titleholder NFL's "Thug of the Week" - Plaxico Burress! Unfortunately, it can be a fairly competitive title to earn...

So while his recent trouble with the law and his accidentally shooting himself in the leg kept him from joining the Giants in their ugly on-field performance, at least he was there in spirit.

Here's a fun (and sad) team-by-team look at the widespread criminal issues that have been ongoing in the NFL since 2000. That might make for a fun blog to keep up... Hmmm...

Back from Texas, but not without my hotel spoils...

Ahh... the spoils of any long hotel stay. I know, I'm a weirdo, but I love to horde hotel toiletries. There are worse habits, right?

As for a last interesting Texas thing... I originally rented a car in Fort Worth, Texas, and then drove it down to the Houston area where I spent the rest of my time. So I wasn't sure exactly where I was supposed to drop it off in Houston since there are all kinds of rules and potential fees associated with "one-way" rentals. So as I'm combing my rental agreement, I notice some fine print on the very bottom...

"For rentals originating in the City of Arlington: The City of Arlington
requires that an additional tax of 5% be imposed on each motor vehicle rental for the purpose of financing a portion of the Dallas Cowboys complex development project approved by the voters of the city on November 2, 2004."

While different, creative public funding methods are not uncommon for stadiums and such, it still made me laugh a little bit. I'll have to ask my friend from Arlington if she remembers voting on the issue.

Of note, I went to a Rangers game while I was briefly in Fort Worth and it's right by the new Cowboys stadium under construction and that thing is looking pretty schnazzy (and expensive looking).

At least in Tampa when they got the voters to approve sales tax increase to support the new stadium (Raymond James), they included money for schools and etc., too... since when they previously put just the school tax to a vote without the attached stadium tax, the vote failed... which is kind of sad, right?

So they practically had to trick the citizens into supporting education by sneaking it into a vote on a new football stadium. That way the folks who wanted a new stadium, but hated children voted yes and the people who didn't want a stadium but knew it was the only way to get the education money also voted yes.

And folks wonder why other countries may be giving us a run for our money in the global economy in a lot of ways, hmmm...

Anywho... so my cable was out when I got home... an I'm still not sure why. It has just solidified my decision to just stop paying for cable, since I don't watch enough TV to warrant it.

I had read on the Houston Chronicle's site while in Texas that CBS was going to start putting full episodes of classic shows on YouTube, and for some reason I was thinking I had read that included Knight Rider. I was mistaken. It was in fact MacGyver I was thinking of... so when I looked for some full Knight Rider episodes, this is what I found instead...



I remember people saying something about a burlesque dancer being on the "America's Got Talent" show, but I didn't remember the Knight Rider strip. Classy.

Heck, in all honesty, the clip was probably better than watching a whole episode anyway... it had the awesome music, KITT, the Hoff and a stripper all packed into under two minutes.

So while there were no full Knight Rider episodes... I eventually found the MacGyver episodes but they didn't have the one where he ends up in medieval times and hangs with Merlin (which I swear was always the one on TV when I was home sick from school), so I decided to skip on watching one of MacGyver's ingenious escapes and looked to see what other shows they had... and they totally have original Star Trek episodes, which is kind of neat.

I watched the one where they end up in the 1930's. A classic of course.

I think on of my favorite parts has to be where Kirk explains Spock's appearance to a cop by saying he is Chinese and his ears are pointy because they got caught in a mechanical ricepicker when he was a child. The political correctness was overwhelming.