I've been to several Detroit Lions games at Ford Field. This year though was the first time that I ever went on Thanksgiving. While the result of the game was familiar, the Lions lost 34-12, the experience of going on Thanksgiving was completely different from the experiences that I've had before.
For starters, traffic was a nightmare. We left for the stadium at 11:00 a.m., and because of parade related traffic, we didn't arrive at the stadium until 12:10. Since Woodward was closed down, we had to take Cass to get to the parking structure and it seemed like everyone else was doing the same.
Once we were inside the stadium, I was surprised to see that so many Green Bay fans had bought tickets. When we found our seats, there were Green Bay fans on either side of us, directly behind us, and in the row in front of us. There were so many Packers fans in fact, that a loud "Go Pack Go" chant broke out near the end of the third quarter. The woman seated in the row behind me said that she had come all the way from Wisconsin just to go to this game, and it appeared that many other fans had done the same.
Another interesting experience was the halftime show. They show it on TV, but it's cool to see how they set everything up in person. This halftime show featured five or six different musicians performing the hits of Motown to celebrate Motown's 50th anniversary. The performance only lasted about seven to eight minutes, but it was obvious that a lot of work went into it. They had about 100 kids doing a choreographed dance, and more people behind the stage running the effects.
One experience remained the same: drunk people, although for this game, there seemed to be more of them than usual. A man sitting next to the Packers fans behind me was drunk before halftime, and in the second half he started throwing popcorn at the Packers fans next to us. Naturally, since he was drunk, he had terrible aim and most of the popcorn ended up hitting me and my mom. Fortunately, he ran out of popcorn fairly quickly and he left before we had to get security involved.
Overall, it was a pretty good experience despite the final score of the game. Hopefully, we will be able to go again next year.
Showing posts with label General blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label General blog. Show all posts
Friday, November 27, 2009
Week 3, blog #5
Today is the busiest shopping day of the year: Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. It's the day when retailers offer huge discounts on most of their merchandise in an effort to lure in early Christmas shoppers. According to this article, people were lining up at midnight, at least twelve hours before most stores opened, just to get the first crack at these deals.
I was not one of those people. Having a successful Black Friday shopping experience is all about strategy. My strategy this year was simple. My plan was to wait until the afternoon, around 12:30-1:30 and then go shopping. By this time, most of the huge morning crowds have left to go to lunch, traffic is less congested, and lines aren't as long. Some people might say that waiting until the afternoon might mean that the items you want will be gone. I've been doing this the past couple years, and I have found that this is not necessarily the case.
This year I went to Target and Best Buy at 14 Mile and John R; this is also where the Oakland Mall is so there is normally a lot of traffic. I was able to find everything that I wanted with relative ease. When I was at Target, the employees were in the process of restocking the electronics section so they had everything I was looking for. At Best Buy, they had everything that I wanted with the exception of one DVD, which I later ordered online.
I left my house at 1:30 p.m. and I was done shopping by 2:30. I had no problems parking and I did not have to wait in line at all at either store, which was surprising.
According to this article, most reports indicate that crowds were up this year compared to last year. The massive shopping crowds had a positive effect on one local business: Thunderbird Lanes day manager Ed Heichel said that business was booming all day long, and that they passed their sales from last Black Friday by 4:00 this afternoon.
I guess timing really is everything. I didn't have any issues today because while I was shopping, everyone else was apparently bowling.
I was not one of those people. Having a successful Black Friday shopping experience is all about strategy. My strategy this year was simple. My plan was to wait until the afternoon, around 12:30-1:30 and then go shopping. By this time, most of the huge morning crowds have left to go to lunch, traffic is less congested, and lines aren't as long. Some people might say that waiting until the afternoon might mean that the items you want will be gone. I've been doing this the past couple years, and I have found that this is not necessarily the case.
This year I went to Target and Best Buy at 14 Mile and John R; this is also where the Oakland Mall is so there is normally a lot of traffic. I was able to find everything that I wanted with relative ease. When I was at Target, the employees were in the process of restocking the electronics section so they had everything I was looking for. At Best Buy, they had everything that I wanted with the exception of one DVD, which I later ordered online.
I left my house at 1:30 p.m. and I was done shopping by 2:30. I had no problems parking and I did not have to wait in line at all at either store, which was surprising.
According to this article, most reports indicate that crowds were up this year compared to last year. The massive shopping crowds had a positive effect on one local business: Thunderbird Lanes day manager Ed Heichel said that business was booming all day long, and that they passed their sales from last Black Friday by 4:00 this afternoon.
I guess timing really is everything. I didn't have any issues today because while I was shopping, everyone else was apparently bowling.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Week 2, blog #4
NFL wide receiver Chad Johnson is a strange guy. Excuse me, it's Chad Ochocinco now. For those of you that didn't know, he legally changed his last name to match his jersey number. He wears jersey number 85, and "ocho cinco" means "eight five" in Spanish. Because of antics like these, Ochocinco has gathered a mixed reputation amongst NFL fans. Most people either love him and think he's hilarious, or hate him and think he's an annoying attention seeker.
Ochocinco further cemented his reputation as an attention seeker by signing up for a Twitter account. The NFL has already prevented Ochocinco from tweeting during games, but he still maintains an active presence on the site.
In fact, this past weekend, Ochocinco was involved in one of the most interesting Twitter-related stories that I've heard. He's now calling his Twitter account the "Ochocinco News Network (OCNN)." Ochocinco has started rewarding followers of the OCNN on Twitter with special offers. Last weekend, while the Bengals were in Pittsburgh to play the Steelers, Ochocinco tweeted that the first two people who walked up to the concierge at his hotel and said "Ochocinco" would be treated to a shopping spree at a local mall where they could get anything they wanted, "within reason" of course. And he followed up on his promise: http://twitpic.com/pjvgz.
In addition, he's gone to the movies with fans, and posted when he's on Xbox Live so fans can challenge him to a game. This past week, he offered to send an autographed jersey to two random fans who retweeted a message that he posted. Ochocinco seems to legitimately care about his fans, and he shows it by taking time from his own life to show his appreciation. He may still be an attention seeker, but he seems like a genuinely good guy.
Ochocinco further cemented his reputation as an attention seeker by signing up for a Twitter account. The NFL has already prevented Ochocinco from tweeting during games, but he still maintains an active presence on the site.
In fact, this past weekend, Ochocinco was involved in one of the most interesting Twitter-related stories that I've heard. He's now calling his Twitter account the "Ochocinco News Network (OCNN)." Ochocinco has started rewarding followers of the OCNN on Twitter with special offers. Last weekend, while the Bengals were in Pittsburgh to play the Steelers, Ochocinco tweeted that the first two people who walked up to the concierge at his hotel and said "Ochocinco" would be treated to a shopping spree at a local mall where they could get anything they wanted, "within reason" of course. And he followed up on his promise: http://twitpic.com/pjvgz.
In addition, he's gone to the movies with fans, and posted when he's on Xbox Live so fans can challenge him to a game. This past week, he offered to send an autographed jersey to two random fans who retweeted a message that he posted. Ochocinco seems to legitimately care about his fans, and he shows it by taking time from his own life to show his appreciation. He may still be an attention seeker, but he seems like a genuinely good guy.
Week 2, blog #3
When I logged into Xbox Live on Wednesday, I saw something interesting in the "My Community" section. Starting this week, Xbox live users can download an update that will allow them to connect their profiles on Facebook, Twitter, and last.fm to their Xbox Live account. Users can then use their console to browse these sites, allowing them to view status updates and tweets from their friends, and to update their own status. This is what the application looks like as seen on Xbox Live.
I gave this a try Wednesday night. Probably the coolest feature is the one that searches though your Facebook friends for people with Xbox Live accounts. I was able to add some new friends to my Live account; people that I already knew through Facebook, but who I didn't know were Live users.
The last.fm feature is also a great addition. Before, if I wanted to listen to music on my Xbox, I had to put in a CD or rip a CD to my hard drive. Just putting the CD in was a problem, because I couldn't play games at the same time, and ripping the CD was time consuming and it took up a lot of disk space. With the last.fm feature, I can listen to every song that I've added to my last.fm library without needing to have the actual CD stored on my hard drive. I've been using last.fm since 2007, and I've accumulated almost 19,000 song plays. I can now listen to most of those songs from my Xbox, as well as several themed radio stations.
The only drawback of these new features so far, is that they cannot be used while you're actually playing a game. To access them, you need to quit the game and go back to the Xbox dashboard. Hopefully, that will be addressed in the next update.
I gave this a try Wednesday night. Probably the coolest feature is the one that searches though your Facebook friends for people with Xbox Live accounts. I was able to add some new friends to my Live account; people that I already knew through Facebook, but who I didn't know were Live users.
The last.fm feature is also a great addition. Before, if I wanted to listen to music on my Xbox, I had to put in a CD or rip a CD to my hard drive. Just putting the CD in was a problem, because I couldn't play games at the same time, and ripping the CD was time consuming and it took up a lot of disk space. With the last.fm feature, I can listen to every song that I've added to my last.fm library without needing to have the actual CD stored on my hard drive. I've been using last.fm since 2007, and I've accumulated almost 19,000 song plays. I can now listen to most of those songs from my Xbox, as well as several themed radio stations.
The only drawback of these new features so far, is that they cannot be used while you're actually playing a game. To access them, you need to quit the game and go back to the Xbox dashboard. Hopefully, that will be addressed in the next update.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Week 1, blog #2 - No more Farmville invites please
I don't care that you need help fertilizing your crops in Farmville. I don't care that a lonely pink cow wandered on to your farm and you need me to "adopt" it or it won't have a home. It doesn't really exist, so I don't really care if it has a home or not. I don't want to join your mafia in Mafia Wars. I'm sorry, but that means you'll have to find someone else to help you rob imaginary jewelry stores and carry out fake mob hits. And I really don't care that you just got a new high score of 1,235,837 in Bejewled Blitz. It just doesn't interest me.
If you've been on Facebook lately, you've almost certainly been invited to participate in one of these increasingly annoying games. According to this article, Farmville has 63 million players between the U.S. and U.K. Some days, it seems like I get an invitation from most of them asking me to help them with their farms. My news feed was cluttered with people updating their Farmville and Mafia Wars progress and asking for help before I finally figured out how to ignore updates from those applications. I even became Facebook fan of "not playing Farmville," but that hasn't stopped the requests.
One of my Farmville playing friends, Melissa Garland, explained why Farmville is so addictive. Garland estimates that she's been playing Farmville for about four months, and that she spends about five or six hours per day either playing the game or checking her farm's progress.
"I guess I just want to beat my friends," Garland said. "I don't why I play it so much. It's really a stupid game."
I definitely agree with her on that last point. At least she's agreed to not send me any more Farmville requests. Now if I could only get the rest of my friends to do the same.
If you've been on Facebook lately, you've almost certainly been invited to participate in one of these increasingly annoying games. According to this article, Farmville has 63 million players between the U.S. and U.K. Some days, it seems like I get an invitation from most of them asking me to help them with their farms. My news feed was cluttered with people updating their Farmville and Mafia Wars progress and asking for help before I finally figured out how to ignore updates from those applications. I even became Facebook fan of "not playing Farmville," but that hasn't stopped the requests.
One of my Farmville playing friends, Melissa Garland, explained why Farmville is so addictive. Garland estimates that she's been playing Farmville for about four months, and that she spends about five or six hours per day either playing the game or checking her farm's progress.
"I guess I just want to beat my friends," Garland said. "I don't why I play it so much. It's really a stupid game."
I definitely agree with her on that last point. At least she's agreed to not send me any more Farmville requests. Now if I could only get the rest of my friends to do the same.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Week 1, blog #1 - The state of bowling
I'm writing this blog from my laptop at Thunderbird Lanes in Troy, MI. It's 10:30 p.m. and 41 of the center's 46 lanes are currently in use. Not bad for a Saturday night, but unfortunately there haven't been too many nights like this lately for Thunderbird. The poor condition of the Michigan economy is certainly having an effect on area bowling centers.
Thunderbird General Manager Bruce Heichel says that so far this fall, the center has only generated $10,000 in nightly revenue once. That one time was partially due to a company that booked nearly all of the center's lanes for a special event. He said that the center used to eclipse $10,000 more often in the past, especially on Friday and Saturday nights when open bowling is most popular.
The silver lining in all of this is that league revenue is actually up from last year, according to Thunderbird's night manger, Bonnie Roe. Roe said that leagues were bringing in about the same amount of revenue as last year, until Oakland University's Chaldean American Student Association (CASA) started an 18 team league on Tuesday nights.
Open bowling revenue is still not what it was last year, but Thunderbird is trying to boost sales back up by offering several different special rates, including $1 games on Sundays and $1.99 shoe rental on Fridays. Thunderbird's sister center, Fairlanes Bowl in Madison Heights, offers an all you can bowl special from Tuesday through Thursday. Thunderbird is considering running a similar special in the future.
Judging by tonight, these specials seem to be having some effect. The staff here at Thunderbird anticipates that as the weather gets colder, business will pick up even more. Even in the bad economy, bowling remains an affordable source of entertainment.
Thunderbird General Manager Bruce Heichel says that so far this fall, the center has only generated $10,000 in nightly revenue once. That one time was partially due to a company that booked nearly all of the center's lanes for a special event. He said that the center used to eclipse $10,000 more often in the past, especially on Friday and Saturday nights when open bowling is most popular.
The silver lining in all of this is that league revenue is actually up from last year, according to Thunderbird's night manger, Bonnie Roe. Roe said that leagues were bringing in about the same amount of revenue as last year, until Oakland University's Chaldean American Student Association (CASA) started an 18 team league on Tuesday nights.
Open bowling revenue is still not what it was last year, but Thunderbird is trying to boost sales back up by offering several different special rates, including $1 games on Sundays and $1.99 shoe rental on Fridays. Thunderbird's sister center, Fairlanes Bowl in Madison Heights, offers an all you can bowl special from Tuesday through Thursday. Thunderbird is considering running a similar special in the future.
Judging by tonight, these specials seem to be having some effect. The staff here at Thunderbird anticipates that as the weather gets colder, business will pick up even more. Even in the bad economy, bowling remains an affordable source of entertainment.
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