I am a former Trailblazers season-ticket holder who became a parent a little over a year ago.  I now spend most gamenights alone in my man-cave.  I have always been an "upper-deck" sort of fan--plenty of yelling, screaming, standing up.  It is my birthday next week, so I went to tonight's game against the Bobcats and decided to splurge and by Lexus Club level seats.

If you ever have the opportunity to sit in section 216, it is a rather different experience.  Sitting center court, facing the team benches is a rather nice view, and the all-you can eat buffet included in the ticket price has very good food. The level of actual enthusiasm in that section, however, would be described as modest at best.  For example, during the fourth quarter "Joel Pryzbilla" chant, there was approximately one fan (besides myself) in the entire section who was cheering.  I think this is the quietest section I have ever sat in.  Overall, I would rate the view as A+, and the enthusiasm of the section a C-.

As I am a technology enthusiast, I found it particularly interesting sitting immediately behind the main TV cameras for the Comcast broadcast. In that spot (the very front of section 216), there are 5 TV cameras going at all times.  The main cameras are al HDTV and made by Sony, with Fujinon Digipower lenses.  The tripods in use are absolutely massive.  Since few fans ever get to sit in the seats immediately behind the cameras, I thought I would snap a couple of pictures, to share a "behind-the-scenes" look at the production.   

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If you were not among the 11,140 fans at last night’s game, chances are you didn’t get to see much of it since the Blazers and Comcast in their infinite wisdom decided not to televise it.  Funny thing about the tickets for the game.  They were printed by ComcastTix.com.

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I am a freshly minted season ticket holder for next season, so I will be going to all of the home playoff games.

Last Thursday, I got a friendly e-mail from the Blazers informing me that as a season ticket-holder, I would have access to extra playoff tickets before they went on sale to the general public.

That pre-sale started today at noon.

At exactly 12:00, I started calling, and calling, and calling.  I got numerous busy signals, "your call cannot be completed as dialed," "the cell phone you are trying to reach is out of service" and even one time I got through to a fax machine.

At 1:06 PM, and precisely 127 phone calls later, I finallly got through to an actual Blazers employee who informed me that all of the available pre-sale tickets were sold within the first hour, so I was too late.  He did inform me that on the 16th, there were "a few" tickets left that were going to be on-sale to the genaral public, but that the chaos to get those tickets would be even more intense.  He told me that the phone system was so jammed at the Rose Garden today that they couldn't even make outgoing calls.

Blazermania is on the rise!

Yesterday was a completely Blazer-centric day for me.  Started with taking the car into the shop to get the oil changed, and the maintenance guy wanting to talk about the 6-game winning streak that the Blazers had at home against the Lakers.  I wasn't wearing and visible Blazers stuff at the time, but the mechanic must have just thought I looked like a Blazers fan, or else he talked to everybody about the Blazers. Either way, this interaction made me think, "Blazermania is back!"

I went to last night's game.  The ride in on the Max was packed with Blazer fans.  My wife and I proudly wore our "Beat LA" T shirts.  There was a little gentle mockery of the one Max-rider wearing a Kobe Jersey.  I overheard a 70+ year old man say to his buddy, "You couldn't pay me $100 bucks to wear a Kobe Jersey."

I have a friend from work that also works at concession stands at the Rose Garden. She has been trying to get me to come to her concession stand multiple times previously, be we have never connected. We went to her stand last night, she sees me, says to her friend at the cash-register, "I told you he'd come!" And then proceeded to have the entire concession stand sing "Happy Birthday" to me. (Yesterday was my 29th birthday).

Since we arrived early, we stopped by the fan-shop over by gate A7.  We browsed through the kids clothes and giant foam fingers, and made it to the back of the shop.  To our absolute horror, we discovered that the Blazers fan shop was selling K*be jerseys.  Now I understand supply and demand, and the K*be jerseys were definitely selling, but the Blazers should never ever under any circumstances sell any Lakers product.  I cannot believe that the main Blazers store is now a supply-house for the enemy. 

Let's pretend for a moment that California seceded from the rest of the United States, and civil war ensued.  Lets also say that California's army uses special bullets that are colored yellow or purple.(No one would use gold-colored bullets).  Let's say that the USA army uses bullets that are Red, White or Black. 

The California side of the war has no use for Red, White or Black bullets because they won't work in their weapons, and the USA side of the war has no use for the yellow or purple bullets because they won't work in their weapons. 

You better believe that at the Army-base Bullet store for team USA, they won't selling yellow or purple bullets.  The bottom line is this:

You don't sell ammunition to, or for the enemy.

The point of the Army-base store is to equip  our side for battle, not the other side.  The Army-base store won't sell equipment to the enemy just for the sake of $$.

The Blazers should not sell K*be jerseys.