"Whooah, we're half way there"

There's something I'll never understand about the die-hard sports fans of the world. I enjoy sports, I enjoy going to sporting events and even talking about sporting events. And I'm not talking about the guy with the jersey or the girl with the big foam finger. They're cool with me and I get their excitement. But the guy at the Raiders' game wearing the Darth Vader suit or the skulls and spikes? Or the guy at the Sabercats' game with the green Mohawk and face paint? I really don't understand that.

Raiders fans have a bit of an excuse. Their families could be multi-generation fans. It's like racism: They grew up with it, and it's really all they know. But the San Jose Arena Football team was founded in 1995, which means that at some point in the past 13 years, this guy who is at least 40, made a conscious, if not entirely well-thought-out decision, to become a crazy fan of a new team playing a sport that is very exciting, but let's face it, not quite in the mainstream. I don't mean to sound elitist or snobby (despite the implication that, like racists, Raiders' fans are ignorant) but the Philadelphia Soul is owned by Jon Bon Jovi, making him by far the most famous name in the Arena Football League. The second most famous name is probably Richie Sambora, another of the team's co-owners and lead guitarist for Bon Jovi.

So this started because my dad had made some comments about how cool it would be to go to an arena game. The field is only 50 yards long (usually played at an ice hockey arena) and instead of out-of-bounds there is a padded wall. I looked into tickets and found a family pack of four that came with four hot dogs, four bags of chips, and four sodas. The seats were behind the end zone, 10 rows back so I dropped $60 and took along Adam and Jaedon because it's always cool to take 3-4 generations of a family on an outing (besides which, I had to buy seats in multiples of four).

Other than the exhilarating quick-paced gameplay, they do a lot to get fans into the game, and the things they do are all of a certain type. Let's say that there are a lot of things that would be really exciting and interesting if I was really drunk and they did several of them at the game.

Before the team comes out of the locker room fog billows out of the tunnel and a motorcycle revs its engine unseen somewhere. Suddenly some dude wearing a Sabercats shirt and a bandanna on his bald head rides a Harley out to the 25-yard line prompting Adam to lean over and ask, "Who the hell is that supposed to be?" I shrug and smile at the ridiculousness of it all as the team runs out to fireworks and applause. Now, drunk Zac would have loved the Harley, the no helmet wearing, the cheerleaders and the fireworks; sober Zac just liked the latter two.

The same AC/DC song plays every time the Cats kickoff (they scored 70 to the LA Avengers' 42 so it was very often that the intro to "TNT" played in the arena) which can get a little repetitive - but drunk Zac would have eaten it up (it is a great riff and it didn't actually get old until the last two times they played it because I was pretty tired). Though sober Zac understands and supports the decision to film from above a group of skinny blondes in green tank tops and show them on the big screen over and over throughout the night.

Maybe it's because my dad isn't a die-hard sports nut, or maybe, like Howard Stern said in his autobiographical movie when his station switched to country music, "I just don't get it. Explain it to me. And maybe it's 'cause I went to college, and I never drove a truck and had sex with my daddy's sister."

That said, at one point they came out with a slingshot and asked "Who likes T-shirts?" I definitely yelled that in fact, I did. And when the same guy that rode the motorcycle came out with a pneumatic shirt-launching gun my first thought was definitely, "That's how Maude Flanders died."

Jaedon, when the motorcycle dude rode onto the field with a cheerleader on the back, asked me, "Why is that girl riding with him?" She was getting a lift to the far end of the arena to hand out free pizzas to the people in row 24 of section 103 but at the time I didn't know that and told him the truth without hesitation, "Because chicks dig motorcycles."

I mention all the weird parts only because they were all so much fun. I don't want to sound like a snob because it was a great game, and very exciting to watch. I'd absolutely go back again (I'd gone once before years ago when I won tickets from channel 20) especially if I can rock the same deal we had last night.

Late in the third quarter, Jaedon told me that it's a good thing I don't live in LA anymore, because they were losing by a lot. I told him yeah, but told myself that it's a good thing because if I did still live there I wouldn't have bothered to come up to go to an Arena Football Game with my family. And if I was only up for a weekend I wouldn't take the time to go to a game in San Jose, which makes nights like last night the exact reason I'm back for good.

One awesome, please

Despite years of warnings from my mother, today I took some candy from a stranger.

I found myself in the mall, of all places, and as I was walking out an old mustachioed man whose job it is to replace the candy in those machines they have called out to me. "Hey buddy, can I borrow your hands for a second?" I walk over and he asks me to hold open a long plastic bag as he pours, from a box, multi-colored Smartie-esque candies that are the size of golf balls.

The box weighed about 5 pounds or so, so it takes about 30 seconds of careful pouring to get everything where it needs to be. As he's done he says thanks and I take a half a step away before he asks, "You want a couple?" I think to myself: "What am I, going to not take free candy?" I reach in and take out a pair as the old man tells me, "Thanks a lot. I don't care what they say, you're a good guy." This cracked me up to no end as I walked away and popped one of the balls in my mouth (that's what she said).

But before I left the mall, and before I scored candy and was told that all my detractors are wrong, I went into a store that sells board games, drinking games, chess sets, stickers, gags and magic, swords, and has a walk-in humidor. I don't know what it was called, but if anyone ever asks me, "Zac, I'm looking for the world's awesomest store because I'm running low on awesome. Do you know where I can find one?" I will tell that person, yes. It can be found on the bottom level of Newpark Mall, of all places.