-Oklahoma is boring. You'd think they'd at least offer real beer most places to make the drive a little more interesting, taking US 69 does not lead to much scenery, outside of Lake Eufala, which was fairly awesome.
-Anyone want to guess the number of times I made a joke about the signs for &69- Business&? Let's just say they all involved the phrase &69-Pleasure&, and combine that with the fact I'm not all that creative/funny, I just tell the same joke to 450 different people. Even if it only mildly works. Quantity of jokes, not quality!
-We went through/by Checotah, hometown of Carrie Underwood. The popular debate when passing the football on the stadium involved estimating number of BJs given by American Idols under the bleachers. You know, assuming we're all terrible people. Which maybe we are.
-I somehow made the drive in almost exactly 5 hours, which was incredible considering we had an extremely long layover at a Wendy's, I think in McAlester. This led to a debate about why they would &ruin the sanctity of the greatest of all frozen dairy desserts& by introducing a vanilla variety. It's like people who dip their fries in the frosty, or don't eat it with the plastic spoon- would you also try to spruce up the Mona Lisa with some crayolas? Also, I'm in the market for my very own frosty machine, random ebay searches over the last 10 years have not been fruitful- so if you know any disgruntled Wendy's employees... have them contact me through my Gatorsfirst.com Inbox!
- The importance of above drive time was to make happy hour at Powerhouse Seafood and Grill. We went to dinner with like 35 of Arkansas finest, thanks to an arrangement by a friend of Gatorsfirst Arkansas grad. I didn't ask what sea Fayetteville was close to, but did enjoy half price oysters and some tasty draft beers.
- Later that night, the idea was to hit up Willy D's Piano bar, which was also the idea of Kevin Brockway from gatorsports.com. I mentioned in his comments that the locals did not appreciate our referring to the bar as 'Billy D's'. Also, we didn't hang around the piano bar, we went to Zooloo's, which was a small bar featuring Karaoke. Here I saw two candidates for a Future Jesse Colston, time traveling back to take in a weekend of Gator basketball. We also got booed and cursed at for walking in here with Gator attire. It doesn't bother me when the best someone can do is &Fuck the Gators!& Really, how do you talk trash if you're a fan of another team at this point? 'Yeah you won the last 2 NCs, but you won't win this time?'
- Side note: if you want to be more accepted in a hostile crowd, it helps to have 3 hot chicks with you, especially if they do a fantastic karaoke of Journey's 'Don't stop Believin'
-O, the ground was covered with ice in a lot of places, and pretty much every non-paved area was covered in snow.
- Saturday morning was for 'Hog Haus': a brewpub with some fantastic beers. Note: by 'morning' I mean lunch. The game was at 2, and we didn't get up til like 11 due to previous night on Dickson Street.
- Met some more random Gator fans at the bar of Hog Haus, said they don't think it will be hard for us to make a return trip for the football game in October.
- Service was not good. Took over an hour for me to get a sandwich off the lunch menu. They weren't even full when I ordered it. Ended up wolfing it down and having to set off on a trek for the stadium.
- Don't ask anyone in Arkansas how far something is. The minimum walk to them is 30 minutes, and they always say it's uphill. No one believed we were walking from Dickson to the stadium. For the record, only like half of it was uphill (some of it has to be downhill too, right), and it took 10-15 minutes.
- We were the flash of beauty (i.e. orange and blue) in a mass of ugly. Or something more poetic. At one point, while trying to find my cousin and give her tickets, I loudly said in my cell phone &You'll be able to see us, the glow of champions in a sea of mediocrity&. I'm an ass.
- So the game sucked. What do you want me to say? I did read where one of Florida's football recruits has high jumped 2.08 m. That's roughly 84 times Nick Calathes' personal best. I was screaming at him to just throw one down. His family swears he can dunk. This is not good when it's addressed in a column. (http://www.gatorsports.com/article/20080121/NEWS/179897764/1056/GATORS02)
- Arkansas fans love Steven Hill. He's tall, he used to look like a mountain man (and still does). But other than blocking Calathes' layups and throwing down 2 alley oops, he wasn't very useful. He's supposed to do that stuff when he's taller than most in the college game. He had 5 points. all off alley oops, because he got fouled on a third and went 1 for 2 on the free throws.
- The other point I'll address about the game is everyone talking about how terribly we played. Yes, we played terrible. But we lose that game 9 out of 10, probably. We played terribly because we were playing against a good team in a tough environment. We played terribly because we have young ball handlers who didn't respond to getting abused by a physical defense. We played terribly basically for every reason you worried about this team from the start of the season. We start two guys under 6 feet tall. We have no post depth, and Speights isn't the big physical post player we need. We also did the same old thing that happens in our ugly losses, and tried to answer deficits by jacking up 3s (started 0 for 13 or something). But hey, we won the second half! Note: physical play is always a trait of an Arkansas team. They used to foul continuously for 40 minutes, because the refs don't call everything, and it still takes teams out of their rhythm. For the record, I'm not disputing it's a good tactic, I'm merely stating our team right now doesn't handle this style, and probably won't this season. You need to go through an SEC schedule and be experienced. And truthfully, none of our guys are.
- Lastly, I was not a quiet fan during the game. We had our little section of 8 doing a &de-fense& chant from the third level that supposedly you could hear. During maybe the only free throw attempted at our end of the court (first half), I successfully yelled 'BRICK!' during the silence and the guy missed it. I take credit. The second half ones I tried once or twice but I'm going with he was too far away. Anyways, I think some Arkansas-inians? took offense with me cheering for our team. It was only obnoxious because I was doing the opposite of their crowd. I found it obnoxious when they booed calls that were made correctly, or wanted a call when there were no-calls. The best part was when someone told us to &go back to Florida&, to which Krutch responds &gladly, but they hired me in Dallas& or something of that nature.
- After the game, we hung out at the player's exit for a little while, to at least show some support for our guys. Got to see Lucas, Allen, Tyus, and Calathes. Also the new coach, who I can never remember because they hired him while I was on my honeymoon (right before the Magic thing went down- also on my Honeymoon), so to me it's like neither ever happened. Such is life away from the 24 hour sports news cycle, when you've grown to rely on it. For the record, by our group of 4 and another 3 or 4 guys waiting outside that exit, we showed way, way more support than Patriots fans when their team's plane returned from the Super Bowl. If that's not an indicator of why they lost, I don't know what is.
- John Pelfrey apparently has a red H2. Or someone stole his parking space. Anyways, I'm fairly certain his car automatically allows Christian Laettner right of way whenever they cross paths. Pelfrey is sort of the forgotten man in what is probably the most famous shot in College Basketball history.
- After a short rest period upon walking &all the way back& to our hotel- which was, according to google maps, 1 mile away- we decided to hit up &West Mountain Brewing Company&. Apparently, the only thing they brew is false advertising and big batch of lies, because they didn't do anything but serve the menu of Tiny Tim's Pizza next door. It's seldom a good thing when the waitress tells you &the owner is lazy& when you ask a question about a restaurant. At least we ate off paper plates, I didn't have to worry about laziness translating to the cleanliness of dishes.
- Apparently a fun thing to do is to visit a place called Platinum. If you heard that name and said &that sounds like a strip club&, you're correct! They have 50 cent beers before 8, and 1 dollar after 8. The cover charge is 8 bucks. Of course, Arkansas has 'don't touch the girls' laws, I didn't see a single lap dance (outside of people paying 10 bucks to get on the stage), and they were some sort of sticker over their nipples, don't get fully nude... but if you're OK with these things, I guess you should check it out. Also, everyone in Arkansas smokes. And this place had me in tears with the thickness of cigarette smoke. One bonus was when Krutch turns to me and goes &That stripper's face is hideous. 'Hideous' has been my word of the day. But maybe that's just because we're in Arkansas&
- After the strip club, we went to Stir. Apparently the only place on Dickson with actual dancing and that sort of thing. At most bars people would rather sit around, smoke, and listen to things other than hip-hop. To each his own, I'm not a dancer, but this is what our crowd wanted.
- A cool thing to do at Stir is get into fights. I was watching a couple guys start a fight when behind me a couple girls got in a big fight. I know this because they jostled me quite a bit. This large chick would NOT let go of this other chicks hair, the bouncer was trying to tap her out with the sleeper hold. Then everyone got outside, more fights started, a bouncer got to slam some guy onto the sidewalk, and the police showed up, mostly all outside the club. And right outside this particular establishment were a crowd of people holding up religious type signs letting us know we were going to hell for frequenting the bars on Dickson street. Why did they assume we were all fornicators?
- If any bartenders are reading this, pay attention. Before I order, I scan the taps. Then I say &two coors lights& or whatever the case may be. Why do so many, including the guys at Stir, assume this means bottles? Why do people love bottles over draft beer? I've never understood this. Why offer bottles of the same thing you already have on draft? Branch out and offer more selection! Anyways, this irritated me, but happens pretty much everywhere, yet I seldom specify drafts. Mainly because it's so damn loud it's easier to order by putting up 2 fingers and saying 'coors light please'. But why are bottles the default choice? Someone please enlighten me. I'd be more OK with the default being cans. Cans are awesome because you can throw the empties around and crush them and stuff when you're drunk and they don't cause as much damage. Plus there's the whole environment thing.
- Anyways, the next morning featured the most delicious meal of our entire experience, breakfast at some bakery like 100 feet from our hotel. Bacon Egg and Cheese on a croissant is always a good call, so that's what I went with.
-We rushed home to watch the SuperBowl. Thoroughly exhausted. Should be interesting when we go back for the football game, considering now we know the ropes. Maybe I'll come up with a breathing system, because other than the smoke I didn't have a problem with most of the places we went.
