Good: Getting off work early on Wednesday evening (sort of); walking with my girlfriend to the stadium; getting a pretty awesome Giants Dasboot stein that shockingly didn’t feature any logos from some brand like Geico or Cialis; drinking a free beer along with four others in roughly 52 minutes outside the stadium (for only $5 per brew, about 1/5 the price of what a similar beer would cost inside the stadium); watching the Giants win one of the least stressful games of the season on the back of Brad Penny; getting my girlfriend mad at me after the game for spitting out sunflower seed shells on MUNI on the way home.
Bad: Paying $20 for a ticket to this weekend’s Oktoberfest By The Bay (for last night) and feeling like I was getting over on the system due to a $10 “coupon” redeemable simply by buying a ticket online; finding out that the $6 price listed for drinks was for small beers, while large beers ranged from $10-$12 each; finding out that instead of a German beer showcase, Oktoberfest By The Bay only serves four different types of Spaten and nothing else; buying two $10 steins that were made out of plastic and having my girlfriend’s stein stolen by some blonde marina types at the table next to us; waiting a half hour to check out the food line to see that it had grown from around 15 people to half the population of Brisbane; some guy with a penis balloon bopping my already-angry girlfriend in the head (due to the aforementioned stolen stein), causing her to find a safety pin in her purse and try to find the balloon guy so she could pop it before I convinced her that I’d really rather not get into my second almost-fight of the evening (the first: with the jewfro’d kid who came with the blonde thieves who was the only one to stick around and try to convince us that his klepto friends actually didn’t steal the stein).
The final analysis
Giants’ Oktoberfest: GOOD
Oktoberfest By The Bay: BAD (save your money)
— I’d have some NFL picks, but I figure it’s too late to matter and nobody seems to be reading them this year anyway. Instead, everyone still seems really interested in Michael Phelps articles from 9 months ago, as it was by far the leading pageview generator of the week. Either people are really tired of Bay Area sports, or they’re really intrigued by obviously photoshopped pics of stoners Olympians doing keg stands.
— Oh, and in the words of Mac Dre, Michael Crabtree can eat my ass and suck some dick with it. I don’t even care anymore. Get some tattle-tale draft picks from the Jets if you can, Niners, but it’s impossible now to envision a scenario where Crabtree signs and does something other than shatter every foot bone or get canned by Patrick Willis and leave the team in tears. It was a nice idea while it lasted, but Crabtree is absolute baby-cancer.
— Who the Giants shouldn’t re-sign after the season ends tomorrow: Randy Winn, Bengie Molina, Rich Aurilia (pretty safe there), Randy Johnson, Freddy Sanchez, Justin Miller (for the tattoo alone), Kevin Frandsen, Ryan Garko, Orel Hershiser and Brian Sabean.
— The only negative to watching sports on HDTV so far: seeing Charlie Weis’ ever-present trickle of snot that’s always treacherously close to going from nose-to-mouth.
— Hopefully someone can tell us because I have no idea: who’s actually good in fantasy football this year?
— Lastly, a plug: anybody who has even a passing interest in the Portland Trailblazers should check out a site my buddy Dave started writing for a month or so ago: Blazers Trail. Good luck to you my friend (and fantasy nemesis), and may Greg Oden come into camp weighing less than Shaq.
