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Tailgating Fantasy

September 16, 2011 in Featured, Humor

Man dreaming about tailgatingThe 2011 NFL season is officially underway and that means one thing: fantasy football is one of the major topics of conversation in the tailgating parking lots. While tailgating this past Sunday prior to the Chargers vs. the Vikings game, I got to thinking. What would be my fantasy tailgate? If money and time were a non-factor, how would my dream tailgate look? This is what I came up with.

5:30 AM – Alarm. The sweet sound of John Facenda, legendary announcer from NFL Films awakens me.

5:35 AM – Shower

5:50 AM – Get dressed in shorts, Drink Like a Champion T-shirt and Flip Flops

6:00 AM – Huge “Madden Cruiser” style party bus pulls up with 30 of my closest friends and family.

6:01 AM – Step onto the bus, immediately handed a Bacon Bloody Mary.

6:02 AM – Bus departs for Qualcomm Stadium for tailgating prior to Chargers vs. Raiders game.

6:05 AM – Bus merges onto the freeway and soon discover that the Coors Light Twins will be our on-board cocktail waitresses and hostesses. Entertainment in the cabin is a running loop of old school NFL Films Crunch Course videos.

7:00 AM – Enter San Diego County and immediately joined by a 12 car police escort complete with lights a sirens. Presidential motorcades don’t get this much respect.

moses parting red sea7:55 AM – Arrive at Gate 1 for some Qualcomm Stadium tailgating five minutes before the gates are supposed to open. We arrive. Gates open. Think Moses parting the Red Sea.

8:00 AM – Bus parks within 12 parking spaces that have been coned off and reserved for us.

8:01 AM – A NASCAR pit crew comes out of nowhere and immediately unpacks the bus. The grill, beer pong tables, cornhole boards, tables, chairs and even the hi-def satellite signal is locked in in less than a minute.

8:02 AM – Step off the bus to a throng of cheers usually reserved for a Papal Mass.

8:05 AM – Surveying the grilling area of the tailgate, notice that Bobby Flay and Emeril Lagasse are nearly in a fist fight over who will be cooking. Flay wins by pulling rank with experience with grilling. Lagasse gets in a few good body shots but has to settle for cooking for someone else.

8:10 AM – Stop by one of the fully loaded bars. Get served by Isaac the Bartender from the Love Boat TV show. Hands me another Bacon Bloody Mary and of course the double finger point. Informs me that when he is on break, Sam Malone, Coach and Woody from Cheers will be taking care of us.

8:15 AM – A Las Vegas mobile sports book betting kiosk magically appears taking all kinds of action. Drop $10,000 on the Over.

8:30 AM – The Swedish Bikini Team pulls up in their own van and will be our waitresses for the day.

8:35 AM – Eggs Benedict, bacon, hash browns and screwdrivers for breakfast.

9:00 AM – Good friend points out the homeless bag lady rummaging through the dumpster scavenging for aluminum cans. Upon closer look I recognize it is the snobby, Homecoming Queen that turned down my feeble attempts to ask her out back in high school. Laugh uncontrollably.

9:15 AM – Play all the traditional tailgating games; cornhole, ladder ball, washers, polish horseshoes and dominate them all.

10:00 AM – First set of all the early NFL games are projected onto an 18-Wheeler sized flatbed screen. Picture if the Sports Book at Ceasar’s Palace was moved outdoors… but bigger.

10:45 AM – Play four games of beer pong simultaneously. Go undefeated.

11:15 AM – Gatorade shower of beer dumped over my head in celebration of my dominating performance. Immediately picked up and crowd surf the tailgate party.

11:45 AM – Raiders fans stop by the tailgating area. Immediately take off their jerseys and hats, place them in a pile at my feet. They douse the clothing with lighter fluid but I get to drop the match.

12:00 PM – Lunch consists of Surf and Turf, five imported beers and Baked Alsaka for desert.

Raining bacon12:15 PM – Tailgate is slightly interrupted by a short thunderstorm. Instead of water, it’s raining bacon strips.

12:30 PM – Tailgating gear gets packed up by someone who is not me.

12:35 PM – Helicopter lands in the parking stall adjacent to ours, picking me up to take me to MCAS Miramar. Hop into an F/A-18 Hornet to pilot the lead jet for the pre-game fly over.

1:00 PM – Low level fly over the stadium breaking the sound barrier while passing over the 50 yard line.

1:05 PM – Land jet and chopper back to stadium. Upon arrival back, a rickshaw pulled by a bikini clad Jaime Edmondson is waiting to take me to my seat.

1:15 PM – Kick off which is immediately returned for a touchdown. Chargers lead 7-0 with 14:43 to go in the 1st quarter.

4:35 PM – Chargers cap off a great seesaw battle with a 60 yard Hail Mary that is caught for a touchdown as time expires in overtime. Chargers not only win but earn home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Teams combined for 63 points. Hello Vegas Over!

4:45 PM – Back in the parking lot and the post-game tailgate is already underway. Despite having a police escort at our disposal, we opt for the post-game tailgate just because we can.

6:00 PM – Police escort out of the stadium while watching the Sunday Night Football game. Neck and shoulder massage by a bikini clad Kate Upton.

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Patriots Tailgating Grill

September 13, 2011 in Featured, Mailbag, Tailgating Gear

New England Patriots Tailgating GrillFrom time to time readers will email us and submit photos of their own tailgating grill that originally started off as a Margaritaville Tailgating Grill and they have converted it to their own team colors and logo. We received an email today from Gregg in Groveland, Massachusetts who submitted a few photos of his New England Patriots Tailgating Grill. His email follows:

Love the website, you do an awesome job, I visit it daily. Keep up the good work.

I saw your both the Chargers grills you customized and was blown away. I realized I had to do the same. Still can’t stop singing that Chargers theme song. I think I watched that video you did a few too many times :) Just cant beat that song.

I tried to do something a little different with mine, as far as painting the head shield 2 colors. I thought the red, white and blue with front handle looked like a good combination.

I tried getting all the colors of the Patriots logo represented in the grill. It was a lot of work, but I am happy with the results. Just finished it over the weekend, and the kids and I had a ball doing a “test run” in the driveway grilling some hot dogs before the Monday night game. I am looking forward to its debut at Gillette Stadium this Sunday for the home opener against your Chargers! Should be a great game, can’t wait!

As you can see I painted my [propane] tanks as well. I have a special 5 lb tank that I use for tailgating. It’s very convenient. I bust out it’s “big brother” just for my space heater for the cold weather games, to keep the tent nice and warm.

One little trick I did, was I wanted to put that decal you see on the bottom pipe of the hitch mount, but the design of the plate brackets caused the license plate to hang halfway in front of the bottom pipe. I wanted that decal to be visible so, I made a $2 modification using two metal T shaped brackets I got at the hardware store. I just broke off a piece of them, and used them to extend the height of the license plate brackets.

I hope you like the grill and it is a worthy of addition to your gallery :)

Thanks, and best of luck to your Chargers this year (except this Sunday) :)

Now take a look at his New England Patriots Tailgating Grill. (Click the images for a larger view)

Pointing out a few things in the photos, you’ll notice that Gregg is also using a Tanksetter to widen the base on his “big brother” tank. Looks like he customized that and painted it red to match the Patriots color scheme. You can also see that he used some silver heat resistant paint for the grill lid. And on a side note, the idea to extend the license plate brackets so as to display his Patriots decal on the bottom tube of the swing arm was brilliant.

If you want to customize your own tailgating grill, you should check out the DIY post we did back in 2009. There you will see the step-by-step instructional video along with written instructions on how to customize your tailgating grill. Some questions that may not be answered in the video are answered at our DIY Grill FAQ section. In there we answer questions about where to find the the replacement caps, what type of paint to use and even includes a coupon code to use when buying the center logo for the grill lid handle.

If you would like to see more photos of other Custom Tailgating Grills, click HERE.

 

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Stop Getting Screwed Inside The Stadium

February 15, 2011 in Featured

Yankee Stadium BeerJoe Cahn, the self-proclaimed Commissioner of Tailgating likes to call tailgating “the last great American neighborhood”. What he means is that, while tailgating people are very friendly and will let complete strangers borrow a bottle of ketchup. This “neighborhood” in the parking lot harkens back to a time in America where no one locked their doors and instead of running to the store for a cup of sugar, you just went next door to borrow it from a neighbor.

I, on the other hand, like to refer to tailgating as “the great equalizer”. This means that since so many exterior forces are beyond our control, the one thing we can control is how and to what extent we can take our tailgating. As fans and tailgaters we can’t control ticket prices. We can’t control gasoline prices. We can control food and beverage concession stand prices. We can’t control parking fees. The one thing we can control is what we want to consume in the parking lot and how much.

By going tailgating, one could potentially avoid paying all the high costs of food and beverage inside the stadium. In my experience while a San Diego Chargers season ticket holder since 2004, I can recall three times buying something inside Qualcomm Stadium. All three times it was a bottle of water because it was an early season game in August or September and I had already downed the two bottles of water I was allowed to bring in. In my seven years as a season ticket holder not once have a purchased a hot dog, pretzel or beer inside the stadium. Now surfacing is evidence that not only was I saving money but probably was avoiding being cheated as well.

Back in January, a couple of astute Seattle Seahawks fans exposed the Qwest Field concessions of selling beer in 16-ounce and 20-ounce cups that hold the same amount of liquid. The perceived “large” cups of beer cost $1.25 more. Take a look for yourself.

I saw the above video a month ago and thought of posting about it here. I chose not to at that time thinking it was an isolated incident. I also held off because the Seahawks organization came forward soon afterward and revealed that both cups were 20-ounce cups. The “smaller” of the two cups was being sold for less than the large. Therefore those fans buying the “smaller’ beer were getting 4-ounces extra while paying the lower price.

Now comes along a video that was originally posted in May 2010 that shows a baseball fan doing a similar demonstration as the Seahawk fans. The real crime here is that the smaller beer costs $5 while the “larger” beer costs $8. Take a look.

The moral of the story? Stop buying beers inside the stadium.

Sure these two videos may be isolated incidents but then again, would you be surprised if this was pervasive in other places?

Bottom line, you know when you are buying your tailgating food at the grocery store, you are getting the sizes and quantities you expect. Eat and drink to your heart’s content out in the parking lot and save your money. It wouldn’t surprise me if that quarter pound hamburger inside the stadium is a tad on the light side even before cooking.

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