opening day

Yesterday I took the regulars and another couple to the Steelers (-6.5)/Texans home opener. Of course there were some minor electrical issues with the black limo, so we switched to the Escalade. I have a hunch we are about to revisit the same problems from a year ago with this frayed wire. Ahhh, if only I had a nickel for everytime this has happened - I'd probably have 85 cents. Smooth ride up. Surprisingly, no traffic whatsoever. We got to the stadium about 12:15pm. I dumped them off and parked in the crack district (my usual spot on Federal Street). I thought scoring a ticket would be difficult (nice weather, opening day) so I hustled down to the stadium. I ran into a scalper who had a "fan" of 5-6 tickets. I normally don't approach scalpers, but asked him how much for a single. He said, "Make me an offer, you tell me." I repsonded, "How about twenty?" He stammered, "C'mon man, it's 80 face." I started to walk away and he said, "Alright, 40." I resisted, "No, I'll go 20." He flashed me a look of tepid disgust, "Alright, 20." Truth be told, the closer I got to the stadium, there were plenty of tickets. Here's some candid advice for the "professional" scalpers. If you know there is a ticket glut, don't display your tix in a "fanned " format. It reveals your hand. In retrospect, this was an easy one. The next home game will not be - Monday night against the Purple Browns. As I made my way to the stadium, 4 blackhawks did a low level flyover. NICE. One of them had a Steelers logo painted on it. Bad Ass. I made my way to Gate A, took my usual place standing on a bench and watched the crowd go in. I hung out in the pit for the first half. Steelers looked tough, better than I expected (21-3 at the half).
They introduced Charlie Daniels at halftime. "He's here to sing his newest song In America." Well, he strolls out to the 50 yard line with an acoustic guitar. For some reason, they pipe in a different song though the Heinz Field PA. They've got him out there solo with an acoustic guitar and he's singing his song. Meanwhile, "The Legend of Wooley Swamp" is playing in the background. What a fuck up. I think Charlie, kept expecting them to switch the sound. They didn't. What made it truly funny was that he kept singing acoustic and they've got a song playing with a full blown band. This was the most disastrous case of lip-synching I've ever seen. I guess it's really not lip-synching though. With lip-synched shit, you can be a little off, but at least you use the same song.
Anyhoo, I zipped them back to Belldirty and went home to grab a shower. They called a couple hours later and the night was finished. Something was a tad askew when I dropped them off. Oh yeah. it was light out (around 7pm). The best news of the day - I found out they sell Lone Star beef Jerky at the Claysville Exxon. What a score. Speaking of scores...

Steelers 38
Texans 17

I almost forgot to mention. During the first half, this guy yells out, "Tom Brady got his leg broken. There is a god!" My section of the pit erupted in jubilation. A couple guys were high-fiving each other. Another inquired, "Sweet, who's Brady's back-up? I'm going to snag him for my fantasy team." It's nice to see people celebrate the misery of others.