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-   -   [rant]Idiots Stockton Style (https://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=190630)

dda 20 Apr 2006 06:52

[rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
My local government is run by idiots.

In the last year and a half my local government has built a minor league baseball stadium (criket with round bats and extra bases), a nice shiny new arena for various other sports including indor soccer and hockey. They also built a multi-level parking garage between the two properties.

They spent many millions of dollars on the sturctures and they are fairly decent facilities though on a small town scale.

I am a baseball fan and bought season tickets to support the local economy even though I knew that out of 70 games I would probably attend no more than 10.

I have been peeved this season that though my seats are in an exclusive section of the baseball stadium, I am treated like they feel I am just waiting for the chance to cheat them out of something.

After getting into the park through the gates showing my ticket and allowing them to inspect my wife's purse, not to prevent her carrying in a bomb or a gun, but really for the purpose of making sure she isn't attempting to smuggle food into the stadium where they over charge you for everything, we head toward our rather pricey seats.

When we get to the nearest entrance leading to our section, we are barred from going in this way because it would cause us to walk past the even more exclusive section (luxury boxes). They somehow think that my wife and I might run amock and dash into one of the luxury boxes and create some sort of disturbance.

No. We must walk on to the next two entrances to our area. One of them is a ramp for the disabled which runs back the way I came in order to gain altitude. I have to walk out of my way to use this ramp. I turn toward option number three and find that they have blocked it off so that it cannot be used at all because they don't want to have an extra person man this area.

So I turn to go up the ramp. i am stopped. I must show the attendant my ticket again lest I be trying to sneak in to sit with my betters. But is this enough? No sir! I must wait while the attendant initials the back of my ticket and then fits a wristband, which has to be torn off to get it off, to my wrist. All of this so that I would not be able to pass my tickets off to some low-life friends who could then breach the bounds of gentility (Stockton style) and sit with their betters. The section I sit in is never more than half full.

So I am put upon and treated like a common criminal, not to be trusted just to get to my seat. Should I want to leave my section to go anywhere I have to take the out-of-my-way-to anywhere-I-might-want-to-go ramp then go out of my way to come back where I am greeted by the attendant to whom I must stop and let her look at my armband, just in case I am trying to pull a fast one.

I decide that I will buy my wife and myself an overpriced hot dog. Now, I am not proud of eating hot dogs but at athletic events I find myself craving them but one key element of a HOT dog is the it should be HOT. I don't think that it is asking overmuch for the f***ing hot dog to be HOT! I get, instead a room-temperature dog on a cold bun. It is really hard to f**k up a hot dog more than it is by its nature, but the "new improved concessions" have managed to do it. They recruited all over to come up with an idiot who can't even set up a system whereby I could get a fully heated hot dog.

I might mention that the fairly short line I had to stand in was 15-minutes to get through in order to spend $7 to buy two piece of s**t cold dogs but that might be mean spirited.

Now, I will talk about the part that really made me mad.

When I arrived for the game I decided I would pay the $5 to park in our shinny new parking structure. However, when I got there I found that it was not open. All of the nearby parking had been taken so I had to drive four blocks away in order to park in a city parking lot instead of the one that I helped pay for as a tax payer.

I didn't want to park in free parking on the street about the same distance away because in driving by I could see where several cars had had windows broken out and felt that I really didn't want to deal with having my stereo stolen.

When I had to walk by the parking garage which was closed, I found that the city was paying just as many individuals to stand out and make sure no one tried to sneak into the closed structure as they normally do in order to charge people to go into it. I was told that there weren't enough people using it on a regular basis to justify having it open! I wanted to hit something or someone but then thought it might be unseemly and besides they were much younger and fitter than I and could clearly kick my ass. (Life is often cruel this way. To have been Chuck Norris for just a few minutes......)

I went in to the stadium and endured all of the indignities previously expressed. As I sat in my seat I had a lovely view of the empty parking garage taunting me beyond the left field fence. When the sun went down I became aware that every f**king light in the entire f**cking structure was on, continuing to spend my tax payer's money to light a parking lot which I was not allowed to park in!

Where is Guy Fawlkes when he is really needed?

Yahwe 20 Apr 2006 13:09

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
In Britain ****ing up sport stadiums is the job of national not local government.

we take our ****ing up more seriously than you :(

midge5 20 Apr 2006 16:19

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Yahwe
In Britain ****ing up sport stadiums is the job of national not local government.

we take our ****ing up more seriously than you :(

Swansea council took up the mantle all by themselves for the Liberty Stadium :up:

20000 seats and only two ticket booths, that made for a fun queue.

All Systems Go 20 Apr 2006 16:26

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by midge5
Swansea council took up the mantle all by themselves for the Liberty Stadium :up:

20000 seats and only two ticket booths, that made for a fun queue.

It looks good though, all pretty and white :p

It should age really well.

IncubusGod 20 Apr 2006 17:09

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
There's only one answer.....FIRE!

I am Idler 20 Apr 2006 17:24

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by midge5
Swansea council took up the mantle all by themselves for the Liberty Stadium :up:

20000 seats and only two ticket booths, that made for a fun queue.


Haha, thats just awesome

Nodrog 20 Apr 2006 17:33

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
What sort of capacity do the larger American baseball stadia have out of interest? It's a popular sport over there so I assume you get a fair few thousand going to games, but do you have anything thats on the scale of this or this?

dda 20 Apr 2006 18:14

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
Baseball is a more intimate game and stadia for major league baseball is usually in the 45k-50k seating. Football stadia at major football (American version) universities run fro 60-110k.

Minor league baseball at the lower levels (read Stockton) have much smaller stadia. Ours holds about 5k. Our arena holds about 10k. Even on a small scale, we manage to screw things up.

*sigh*

Nodrog 20 Apr 2006 18:38

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
Yeah fair enough, I just googled and there are some pretty damn impressive foobtall stadiums. I couldnt find any 100K+ ones though, which colleges have these?

I'm sure Stockton park is lovely :)



edit: apparently this holds over 100K, but its not very nice :(


edit2: holy shit, the atmosphere at that would be unbelievable. The perspective apparently looks screwed up because most of the stadium is below ground-level, so it looks small street-level outside :cool:

Phang 20 Apr 2006 18:48

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
How does the Coliseum of Michigan compare to the Maracana?

Nodrog 20 Apr 2006 18:57

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
Having never been to either I cant say, but the Michigan one looks like it would have more atmosphere. Looking at the photos is like looking at soccer stadiums before they went all seating - the crowd looks completely packed in.

None of them are nice looking as the Nou Camp however, which is imo one of the 10 most impressive buildings in the modern world.

midge5 20 Apr 2006 19:00

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
The Maracana can currently hold around 77,720 seated and 103,022 with standing room. It is now undergoing renovations that will increase its all-seated capacity to around 100,000.

The Estadio Azteca in Mexico is bigger at 115k, looks nicer as well. This is also bigger than the Michigan football stadium which holds 107,501 and also looks horrible in my opinion.

lokken 20 Apr 2006 19:30

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
You need a roof in stadia to keep the noise in or else it just doesn't work. If you have a big enough stand at one end of a ground (with no corners as then the sound goes sideways), the fans are capable of generating something so loud that you can literally feel the sound from the other end. A running track normally is a big factor in ****ing things right up.

Villa Park, Stamford Bridge and Anfield in England are the kind of stadia that are probably potentially the best for atmosphere as they are built like this, have about 40000 capacity or more and have stands close to the pitch.

Although this is only a 20000 seater, and quite frankly a rotting block of concrete Fratton Park, this ground is capable of generating tremendous amounts of noise, so it's not just the stadium, it's the people you put in it. On top of this it features the last remaining stand (the one on the left) built by the great stadium designer, Archibald Leitch.

dda 20 Apr 2006 23:17

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
The Los Angeles Collosium is over 100,000 and was the home to the 1932 and 1984 olympics.

The University of Michigan has the largest stadium.

The University of Tennessee is over a hundred k I believe.

The University of Alabama's stadium will be at about 93k this year. I went there to a game last year and shared the stadium with 81,000 fans and they were building additional seating most of which was luxury seating.

The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California is also in excess of 100k. There may be some more but I don't know them off the top of my head.

1-X 20 Apr 2006 23:40

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
and did these other stadia treat you like crap or is that just a local custom?

dda 21 Apr 2006 01:11

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (a town of about 80,000 folks), whenever there is a football game are inundated with 80k+ fans. They manage to have information on where you can park and where you can catch a bus to get to the stadium.

I didn't have premium tickets so whether they would have branded me to reach the promised land or not, I don't know. However, I suspect that the big buck boys get their asses royally kissed in Tuscaloosa.

The hot dogs were HOT! \o/

This weekend (Friday noon through Sunday 6:00 p. m.) Stockton is hosting the 24th (or so) annual Asparagus Festival, honoring our local agricultural produce. The city fathers have had several key arteries shut down since last Sunday. The streets will not reopen until next Tuesday. 9 days of disruption for a three day event seems inefficient to me.

Another example of Stockton stupidity: The city powers that be planned to have two events at two different venues in downtown Stockton in the near future. They then began to plan a third event for the same day. This third event was to be a bicycle race which would circle the area around the other two events. It would have required the closing of all of the streets via which anyone would have been able to reach the first two events. Brilliant. Unfortunately or fortunately the police chief actually noticed that this would be a disaster and pointed it out to them. They reluctantly scheduled the bicycle race for a later date.

Blastoderm 21 Apr 2006 01:41

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Nodrog
Having never been to either I cant say, but the Michigan one looks like it would have more atmosphere.

Maybe you're wrong. Maybe there is no atmosphere. Like Highbury the Library.

Alki 21 Apr 2006 03:53

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
I live 5 mins from stockton. The one in England that is

Cannon_Fodder 21 Apr 2006 07:45

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
And they say americans aren't funny.

Nodrog 21 Apr 2006 23:27

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by dda
This weekend (Friday noon through Sunday 6:00 p. m.) Stockton is hosting the 24th (or so) annual Asparagus Festival, honoring our local agricultural produce

haha, I wasnt sure whether you were being serious

Dace 22 Apr 2006 00:00

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Nodrog
haha, I wasnt sure whether you were being serious



I've already missed one day of THIS GREAT FESTIVAL but if i get a flight quickly enough i might get there in time for their "Deep Fried Eating Competition"

On a serious note ... aren't the locals EMBARRASSED by the shitness of the festival?!

Cause if they're not they should!

roadrunner_0 22 Apr 2006 00:50

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Alki
I live 5 mins from stockton. The one in England that is



stockton on tees? in that case beware, you are very near MM and only about 25 mins away from me :D

Tactitus 22 Apr 2006 01:14

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Dace
On a serious note ... aren't the locals EMBARRASSED by the shitness of the festival?!

Cause if they're not they should!

The shitness of the festival is the entire point! Some examples from my state:

The Eelpout Festival
The Spam Jam
The St. Paul Winter Carnival
and my personal favorite The Minnesota State Fair

1-X 22 Apr 2006 01:24

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by roadrunner_0
stockton on tees? in that case beware, you are very near MM and only about 25 mins away from me :D

can't either of you just pay his bail?

Last Activity: 11 Jan 2006 17:24 :(

free the stockton one!

roadrunner_0 22 Apr 2006 01:29

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
i still say he has been burned as a witch for using 'new fangled technology' such as indoor plumbing, and, knowing stockton, possibly even the wheel

Vaio 22 Apr 2006 01:56

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
The Eelpout festival ?

It that going to be opened by Angelina Jole ?

dda 22 Apr 2006 23:35

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Dace
I've already missed one day of THIS GREAT FESTIVAL but if i get a flight quickly enough i might get there in time for their "Deep Fried Eating Competition"

On a serious note ... aren't the locals EMBARRASSED by the shitness of the festival?!

Cause if they're not they should!

Actually, the Asparagus Festival is considered to be the height of the Stockton social season.

San Joaquin County is blessed by other exiciting events however. There is the Manteca Pumpkin Festival as well as the internationally famous Dry Bean Festival of Tracy. I keep trying to get a beauty pageant to go with the Dry Bean Festival. I want to see what the winner would look like proundly wearing the MISS DRY BEAN across her chest.

Alki 23 Apr 2006 02:36

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by roadrunner_0
stockton on tees? in that case beware, you are very near MM and only about 25 mins away from me :D

i know :( scary aint it. You live in Newcastle? i frequently travel between Newastle and York. Uni, visiting friends and what not.

edit - I think he just got a job? maybe :S

pig 23 Apr 2006 03:36

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by lokken
You need a roof in stadia to keep the noise in or else it just doesn't work. If you have a big enough stand at one end of a ground (with no corners as then the sound goes sideways), the fans are capable of generating something so loud that you can literally feel the sound from the other end. A running track normally is a big factor in ****ing things right up.

Villa Park, Stamford Bridge and Anfield in England are the kind of stadia that are probably potentially the best for atmosphere as they are built like this, have about 40000 capacity or more and have stands close to the pitch.

The kop and the holte end are absolutely great, being witness to both at perhaps there most vocal (thats a lie, but the kop were loud when i was there) Its intimidating and deep.

The beautiful thing about the holte end is its ****ing massive and the sound stays in it and kinda moves around it and out. I love it as a place to enjoy football as its where we get all the singers sitting. My only regret about it is that its all seater (my dad has told me stories of the holte hittng 30k back in the terraces imagine that!) My other regret is that the away fans sit at the other end of the ground in the north stand, so im not too sure how loud we sound, although on our day we are loud.

The best picture of the holte I could find was this

Next time I go to the villa Ill see if I can get in a bit early and take some pictures, but to see it in its full glory you really need to see it packed this picture is the best I can find but even that doesnt do it justice. I have to say though for atmosphere Ive heard nothing but good about fratton park and next season is certainly going to be one of the grounds I visit (touch wood pompey stay in div 1)

Cannon_Fodder 23 Apr 2006 07:44

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
Are you sure you mean division 1?

lokken 23 Apr 2006 10:52

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
he must still work in barclays league money

pig 23 Apr 2006 14:57

Re: [rant]Idiots Stockton Style
 
woops


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