A Call To Dawgs: Arizona State-Georgia, 9/20/08

This is your formal invitation to West Coast Dawgapalooza 2008, otherwise known as the Arizona State-Georgia game on Saturday September 20. It's only 5 1/2 months away, so start sifting through the couch cushions for that spare change. I am locked and loaded: flight, hotel, car, tickets, the whole nine, so I thought I'd share some info for anyone who still has plannin' to do.

Here's what you need to know:

Flights
Kayak.com is the best flight search engine that I am aware of. Rock it.

Orientation
Here's a Google map of the Tempe area to get you acclimated. Zoom in, zoom out, and cruise around to figure out the lay of the land in and around ASU & Tempe.

Hotels
Trip Advisor is the best hotel site going. Here is a list of the 45 hotels in Tempe ranked according to user reviews; it is a great place to start your hotel search, as you can read several traveler reviews in addition to the usual info. This is the best resource I can recommend for finding a hotel in Tempe.

Of course, you can also stay north of the river in Scottsdale, but it's definitely a higher pricepoint. Here's the trip advisor list & ranking of Scottsdale hotels.

If your into the staying with the team thing, the UGA football team is staying at the Marriott Phoenix Airport {ranked 41 of 158 hotels in Phoenix by tripadvisor}, and rooms are currently available for $139 a night.

Tickets
Thanks to the work of Paul Westerdawg, we have found out the deal with tickets from the ASU ticket office office

ASU single game tickets go on sale August 13th.

ASU season tickets are on sale now {more on why this is important in a minute}.

First off, here is the Sun Devil Stadium seating plan for reference:

- The UGA section {the tickets that UGA will be selling to it’s own fans through the UGA ticket office} for this game will be sections 231-236.

-You can buy, today, any seat in sections 212-230 for $99 for a season ticket.

Let me repeat that: for $99, you can buy, right now, an ASU 2008 season ticket for all 7 home games. Last year face value on these tickets was $42 per game. So you can buy $320 worth of face value tickets for $99.

This is amazing because:

1. You will have ticket in hand

2. If you buy in section 230, you will be adjacent to the official UGA sections, and with the number of UGA fans going out I am willing to bet that section 230 is going to be much more red and black than gold and maroon.

3. With your ticket to the other 6 games, you can either:

3a. Attempt to sell them, on your own, on Craigslist, Stubhub, Ebay etc. You could sell them for way below face and make up the approximately $50 above a single ticket face value that you paid for your ASU-UGA ticket

3b. The ASU ticket office told me that you can return any of the tickets that you don’t plan on using, and each year they donate those tickets to charity {last year it was Boys & Girls Club of Tempe/Phoenix} and will provide you with a receipt of your contribution that can be used as a tax writeoff.

4. Note also that if you want better seats and aren't as worried about proximity to the UGA section, sideline tickets in sections 201-211 with seatbacks start at $149 for a season ticket. Also, with the $99 tickets in sections 212-230, note that sections 222-226 have seatbacks although they are a little farther away from the UGA section.

I have purchased my tickets in section 230. My recommendation is to call ASU ticket office and get your tickets in section 230. The ASU ticket office is open Monday- Friday from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. PST. Their phone number is 480-727-0000, and this season ticket deal can only be purchased by phone {you can't get it on line}

Think of it this way:

Why wait until August 13 to pay $45-50 for a seat which could be who knows where in the stadium when today you can buy a seat adjacent to the UGA section, for $50 more?. And with that $50 more, you are getting about $250 more worth of tickets to the other 6 games that you can either sell to get your money back {and if things work out you could end up going to ASU-UGA for free, or even getting paid to go}, or you can give back to the school, donate to charity, and get a $250 tax writeoff?

This is a no brainer.

The UGA ticket office has not announced a point total cutoff for season ticket holders to purchase the tickets that UGA has in sections 231-236, but everyone thinks that they will get more requests than the total number of tickets they have and that they point total cutoff will be significant- the buzz is that it will be at or above the point cutoff for Georgia/Florida road game against a good opponent tickets {20,000 - 30,000 points}.

Tailgating
Note that for some unknown reasons that are alien to the average SEC fan, tailgaiting is NOT allowed in university "parking lots and structures" until 3.5 hours before kickoff, and although public consumption of beer and wine is legal, public consumption of hard liquor is not. No, I am not kidding. Don't ask, because I have no fucking idea, either. Not sure yet how to work around this yet; maybe just rock the bars and then walk to the stadium; not sure at this point but we'll figure it out. But if you are planning on setting up your tailgate early in the a.m., it looks like that isn't happening. I know: weak sauce.

Golf
Golf Arizona
Metro Phoenix Golf Guide

That's all I can think of. I am beyond geeked about this for more than just the game and the fact that several friends are flying out. I also took the week after the game off work, and I'm renting a car and leaving Phoenix on Sunday to explore Grand Canyon, Zion, and Bryce Canyon National Parks for a week, then driving to Vegas the following Sunday and flying home from there.

So there's all the information you need to make it happen. First beer is on me.

Weekend Roundup

Friday night I went and saw Once In A Lifetime, the documentary movie about the rise and fall of the New York Cosmos and the brief moment in the sun that soccer enjoyed in the US in the late 70s. The movie is excellent and well made, which I wasn't sure that it would be as the opening credits rolled and I realized that 1) ESPN was involved and 2) the movie was narrated by Matt Dillon. But it turned out to be well worth it. Pretty trippy to see the footage of Giants stadium sold out with 80,000 to watch a domestic league soccer match. And amazing that they paid Pele $1 million a year to come play for the Cosmos at a time when the highest paid baseball player, Hank Aaron, was making $200,000 a year. I found out yesterday that they are showing the movie on ESPN on September 20 - I recommend that you check it out if you live in a town with indie/Landmark-ish movie theater or catch it on TV next month - very good stuff.


Never saw him play, but apparently he was pretty good.

Unfortunately I didn't make it to see Ricky Bobby, but that will be remedied soon enough.

Floyd Landis' B sample came back just like his A sample, which was kind of a no brainer since they are the same urine sample placed into two different vials/bottles/jugs/whatever. The only way I can imagine that an A & B sample would ever not come out the same is if an error occurred in the testing procedure, like Kramer's makeout with the scientist screwed up Mayor Dinkins' cholesterol workup. They added this time that the testosterone was not natural to the body but came from an outside source. Either way, dude has been fired by his team, Phonak (who were already getting out of the sponsorship game entirely anyways because prior doping by their team members, most notably former lead rider Tyler Hamilton- the team will become iShares team next year). He will likely be stripped of his TDF title, which will be awarded to Oscar Periero who came in 2nd. But first will be an appeal process in front of some court.

On the one hand , the whole thing seems to weird too be believeable. Dude was tested I think 6 other times during the tour, both before and after that day, and came clean. The merits of using testosterone one time are being debated in the medical community, it just doesn't seem to make sense, but there currently are no other solid explanations for how it could have gotten into his system. I suppose all it would take is a spiked water bottle or two to do it, but that is impossible to prove definitively.

On the other hand, the fact that the failed test happend on the tail end of the most insane, superhuman breakaway performance anyone has ever seen is circumstantially tough for Floyd. Either way, it sounds like it will be a long, drawn out affair.

One interesting sidenote to all the doping allegations and suspensions this year that no one is talking about is this: can people please get off of Lance's nuts nut about him allegedly doping now? Dude was the most tested athlete on planet earth for 7 years, those tests were administered completely at random, anytime/anywhere, and he never failed a single test. Not once. With all the riders being suspended before the TDF this year and now these allegations against Floyd, those whispering (and screeaming) "dopee" towards Lance seem to have even less of a case than ever.

Invasor won the Whitney Handicap at Saratoga on Saturday in very impressive fashion, first dueling with Flower Alley and putting him away, then digging in to fight off the late run by Sun King. Very, very impressive by Invasor, in a completely different way than Bernardini's win the week before where he casually romped. This was tough and gritty, and with 4 wins in a row Invasor is on a roll. Flower Alley disappointed after being put away by Invasor- he only had one race this year so perhaps this race was just to get the rust off and he will be better next time out. Also, Bluegrass Cat romped in the Haskell and will likely go to the Travers to challenge Bernardini. Lava Man runs next in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar on August 20, and then the Travers Stakes goes down on August 26.


Invasor on the rail holds off Sun King.

Sunday I went to the Stern Grove festival to catch a free concert by Spanish Harlem Orchestra. The venue is cool, an outdoor amphitheater in a redwood grove, and the music was hoppin' - salsa, latin jazz, etc. They are very similar to Buena Vista Social Club only in their 40s. The coolest part was that of the few thousand in the crowd, almost half were dancing salsa in the crowd, shaking their shit and having a great time. Very fun.

Finally, G Love & Special Sauce straight-up rocked on Sunday night at the Mountian Winery down near San Jose. Another really cool venue, an outdoor amphitheater in a winery on top of a mountain with views overlooking San Jose and the South Bay. And the show was great. The man himself seemed to like it as well: "Last night was dope also; I played at one of the most beautiful venues I've ever been to--the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, CA. Its way up in the hills above San Jose. What a view." He also did his funny ass Crazy Legs Hirsch thing when he plays guitar sitting in a chair - hard to explain but funny as hell. Happy to hear Rodeo Clowns, didn't get that last time, and the cover of Snoop's Gin & Juice at the end was fierce.


Dude fucking rocks.

I would venture to say that 80-90% of bands are not as good in concert as they are in the studio, so when you go see them you are disappointed or not all that impressed. These guys are not in that majority - they are outstanding in concert.

Also, Toigah won the Buick Open - his 50th PGA Tour win at age 30. He is only the 7th dude to win 50 PGA Tour events, and becomes the youngest to hit the milestone, by a full three years (Nicklaus was 33). Tiger is now 7th all time in Tour wins, and he may very well be in 5th by the end of the year (Sam Snead 82, Jack Nicklaus 73, Ben Hogan 64, Arnold Palmer 62, Byron Nelson 52, Billy Casper 51). Que ridiculo.


He is pretty good, too.

Oh, and Ralphie is travelling to Athens for the Georgia-Colorado game. How cool is that? Won't be as cool as when she runs out in Boulder and the place goes apeshit, but it will be cool to have (in my opinion) the two best mascots in college football between the hedges on Sept. 23.


Ralphie & UGA on the same field? Sweet.

I was kind of hoping in the back of my head to make it back for that game, but it looks like it is not going to happen. I will defintely be in Boulder in 2010 though, as well as Tempe in 2009. Keep scheduling road games out West, Damon Evans, and make those Oregon and Oregon State games happen as well, s'il vous plait. Merci.

So there it is. I hope y'all had and excellent weekend yourselves.