As I posted late last week I attended the Bengals game with Ben (Cyberjag) who was kind enough to invite me along. In spite of several good reasons to get a bad attitude from the day's events I still thoroughly enjoyed the hell out of it. You see, it's the fellowship and camaraderie that makes the live event the best; that and a wonderful view from the upper deck.
As planned we met up at the The Huddle tailgate cook out; the food was as good as advertised. The Huddle guys were I enjoyed meeting the CSR members that stopped by: ALAC and his son, Tater and his friend (whose name escapes me), Revshawn and his dad, & Neil Spicer. Thanks for stopping by guys! We had just settled into some good Panthers conversation when...the downpour hit.
Yes we were not only soaked but standing in a small river of water coming down the parking lot, crammed under a tent like clowns in a car. It basically rained off and on from about 12:00am till the 3rd quarter. I paid $8.50 for a sliver of plastic with three holes and a Panther logo on it. Problem was I bought it about 30 minutes too late. Oh well, I was undaunted to say the least. I've suffered itchy underwear before!
More tales from the upper deck after the jump...
So the walk to the stadium and getting to our seats was fairly uneventful except for the occasional Bengal fans yelling ‘Who dey?'. There is also some college sounding, I assume ‘Bengals fight song' one group was singing. It was gay...So as I said earlier Ben has great seats around the 25 yd line upper deck. It was nice to be able to see the defensive alignments pre-snap and watch the kick returns set up, etc...see what was going on the sidelines. I was a kid in a candy shop soaking in the whole scene...literally!
We had some real characters around us, a Whoppi Goldberg look-a-like a few seats down and two couples in front of us we talked with throughout the game. I have to mention the lady sitting in front of me had this colorful tattoo on her lower back (some might call a tramp stamp, but not me;) ) and she was up and down yelling and cheering all game. It was a real distraction!
So as you would guess the first half, as far as the game anyway, sucked. It was amazing we stayed in the game early, thanks to the secondary. Ahhh, sitting there at halftime I didn't feel too bad. I still had hope. We actually got our first good cheer in watching the Pop Warner teams play at halftime. Those boys can chuck the rock!
So you know how the 2nd half started. It was at that point Ben said we were about to witness the absolute beginning of the Jimmy Clausen era, that he was going to lead a miraculous 2nd half comeback to pull a victory from the jaws of defeat and thereby validate his savior status! And then Clausen led his first ever TD drive. Yes, we actually handed the ball off to J-Stew on the 3 yd line, TD! I was feeling it too, Ben was a prophet in a yellow garbage bag! The defense stopped the Bengals and forced a punt. It was happening before out eyes. The savior was driving for a winning score, we were past the 50 yard line, Stewart has the ball!!!...and oh no. Okay...Let's go finish the beer! Ben has a theory though...that the Clausen era is destined to start in New Orleans...I'm thinking he's right!
A loss and a dreary day resulted in a short after-game party and an early ride home. I briefly considered stopping in Picasso's first for one last sip. But instead got into the flow of traffic and rolled. I do have one unrelated beef though, when I got to the I-275 on ramps the directional signs offered "Inner' and "outer' as options. WTF is that? What's wrong with North, South, East, West? I thought, "Well I don't want to go into town, I want to go out". So I took the outer and that cost me about 30 minutes getting turned back around. Call me a dumbass I guess. Rant over...
Like I said before in spite of the outcome I still enjoyed the game and hope to see another one this season. Hopefully then we can get a few more CSR members around and have more time to talk Panther talk. I think next time we will have more positive things to talk about.