CGB Emerald Bowl Tailgate Recap
aka: "Meeting Internet People In Real Life, and Then Shotgunning Cheap Beers With Them"
I'll admit, I was a little apprehensive when planning this tailgate. I had no real idea if 5 people or 50 people would show up. I couldn't know whether the weather would hold. I had never tailgated at AT&T park before, and wasn't sure what it would be like. My wife even got a ticket to the CAA event (where a number of my friends would be), and I had fears of the event being me and 4 other dudes drinking beer under a tent in the rain for 4 hours. Would people show up? Would they even be able to find the tailgate? Would everyone bring chips, and no one bring dip (the Alanis Morissette definition of irony)? I had no way of knowing.

Thankfully, people did show up. Calfan and his friend Rishi (no, not that Rishi) found me almost as soon as I got out of the car, actually, and the TheNick pulled up next to me soon after. Setup went pretty quickly, actually, as it basically consisted of unloading my car and putting up the EZ-Up tent (big, BIG shout-out to OskiWeeWee for hooking us up with the tent).
Maybe we'll get a bigger sign next time; hopefully, no one had too much trouble finding us.
After that, it was pretty much your standard tailgate, except that I was meeting pretty much everyone for the very first time. People I see on the internet every day, but had no idea what they were like in person. Turns out, Rishi (the real one) looks nothing like the guy in his avatar picture (though royrules22 does uncannily resemble Jughead, and HydroTech has been accurately described as 'an anthropomorphic "Script Cal" logo' in the past). I gotta say, it was pretty cool meeting y'all.
I also really enjoyed meeting all the lurkers and semi-lurkers (those who have accounts but almost never comment) who stopped by. We get lots of comments from a solid core of readers, but it's pretty cool knowing that more of you are out there, and I'm glad some of you felt welcome enough to stop by and say "hey".
We had to put the tarp over the tent to cover the corporate logo printed on it.
Notables from the event:
Favorite Tailgate Contribution - I loved the dogs and the chips and dip, but I especially appreciate the inspired soul who brought by an entire box of See's candy. ¡Muchas Gracias!
Strangest Tailgate Contribution - Diet Pomegranate 7-Up? Really? AndBears says it's actually pretty good, but I haven't had the inclination to try any yet (I've got most of a 2-litre bottle leftover in my garage).
Best Surprise - Meeting people that I only know from the internet, and having some of them turn out to be Real Live Girls! Yes, it's true, there are real girls on the internet!! Very cool.
Worst Surprise - Bringing my propane grill, but totally forgetting both propane and matches (the starter on the grill broke the first time I used it, but I guess that's what $40 a Target buys you).
Tailgate Savior - My friend Kevin, who coincidentally happened to by tailgating only 50 feet away. Kevin came through in a big way with an extra propane tank and an extra lighter, saving us all from a meal of cold (but thankfully precooked) hot dogs and sausages.
Worst Moment - Standing in line for the Port-O-Potty behind a couple of girls having an extended conversation about their Uggs and how their $200+ jeans made their butts look. This went on for, like, 10 minutes. I wanted to stab myself in my eye with my beer bottle.
Best Moment - Watching Rishi and HolmoePhobe spill their cheap beer everywhere while shotgunning Silver Bullets. I later joined in, but I just had to take pictures first.
My favorite part of this picture is the faces of the onlookers in the background.
Final Tally Of Leftovers - I brought a cooler of about a dozen assorted quality beers that were in my fridge, including Newcastle, Sierra Nevada Celebration, Heineken, and Pyramid Hefeweizen. I came home loaded up with 1 Newcastle, 1 Mirror Pond, 1 Red Tail, 5 Heineken Keg Cans, 6 Diet Cokes, a package of Hebrew National hot dogs, a box of Cheeze-Its Party Mix, unopened bags of Tortilla Chips, Lay's Sour Cream and Onion and Dorito's Nacho Cheese Chips, 2 tubs of dip, and the aforementioned bottle of Diet Pomegranate 7-Up. Awesome! If we do this again, I'll have to unload all of this stuff back on you people.
Thanks also to HydroTech and CBKWit, who made an effort to swing by the tailgate even though they both had other plans for the day. I know some of you guys had wanted to meet them, and I was glad not to be the only GoldenBlogger present. To those of you who missed out on meeting TwistNHook, well, some might say you lucked out, but I'm sure he'll make an appearance at a future event. Keeping him away from Cal football seems to be something only his wife can manage. As for those of you who want to meet Yellow Fever, well, he lives in New York now, so the odds of that happening anytime soon are not great.
Finally, a big thanks to my wife, AndBears, who did a lot of the planning for the event, and did basically all the work in designing and getting printed our new banners. Thanks, babe!
So, did the rest of you guys have fun? Should we do this again sometime soon? I'd be open to doing more stuff like this if there's enough interest. Let me know what you think, and how I can improve the planning in the future.
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38 comments
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Big thanks to Ragnarok for setting this up. It was fun.
www.californiagoldenblogs.com
by HydroTech on
Dec 30, 2008 3:33 PM PST
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Is that HolmoePhobe or Rishi
shotgunning the beer?
You ain't got it like Marshawn got it
by Thoroughbred on
Dec 30, 2008 3:40 PM PST
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The mystery will never die!
Please disregard the above ramblings as those of a clearly delusional fan.
www.CaliforniaGoldenBlogs.com
by TwistNHook on
Dec 30, 2008 3:49 PM PST
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i know the answer, but i’m not sure i want to out the guy…
So, basically, you gotta Go Bears!
by ragnarok on
Dec 30, 2008 5:24 PM PST
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I’m pretty sure that whoever is in the grey sweatshirt in the background of the picture was standing behind me during the game.
"After review, it has been determined that the previous play was not reviewable"
The Pac-10: where quality officiating happens.
by Berkelium97 on
Dec 30, 2008 4:19 PM PST
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Does it count as
shotgunning is more than half the beer ends up on the parking lot (not in the form of urine)?
by Montezuma's Revenge on
Dec 30, 2008 4:54 PM PST
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It counts as failgating
You ain't got it like Marshawn got it
by Thoroughbred on
Dec 30, 2008 4:57 PM PST
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I shouldn’t name names, but I would never spill that much beer shotgunning.
I have no new information on that at this time.
by Rishi on
Jan 5, 2009 9:55 AM PST
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I couldn't find the tailgate
I hate you all.
by kluge on
Dec 30, 2008 5:29 PM PST
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I actually had a hard time finding the tailgate too. There are a lot of tents in the parking lot so merely looking for a blue tent sort of means you’ll have to check around 20 tailgates. Perhaps a flag would be more helpful – like putting up a Cal flag and some sort of other flag up on a flag pole.
www.californiagoldenblogs.com
by HydroTech on
Dec 30, 2008 5:36 PM PST
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sorry bout that
i had no idea how big the parking lot would be, or how many other tents would be around…
So, basically, you gotta Go Bears!
by ragnarok on
Dec 30, 2008 5:47 PM PST
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How about you get a 30-ft inflatable computer next time?
Sheriff of the Welcome Team
In Spite of Twist!
by Spazzy Mcgee on
Dec 30, 2008 6:50 PM PST
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Someone told me it was a tent covered with a tarp, because they wanted you to hide the logos. That made it pretty easy :) But yeah, a flag would be cool.
by trisweb on
Jan 1, 2009 11:19 AM PST
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That’s a lot of tailhating going on…
Sheriff of the Welcome Team
In Spite of Twist!
by Spazzy Mcgee on
Dec 30, 2008 6:55 PM PST
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In my defense
Rishi hands me the beer, and while I’m talking to someone else, yells something incoherent and starts chugging. So I had to choose between properly preparing the can and getting out-chugged by Rishi (unacceptable) or wildly stabbing the can and trying to drink through a 0.5mm hole (which is what I did, resulting in much spillage).
I outworthless the Maharg.
by HolmoePhobe on
Dec 30, 2008 5:50 PM PST
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In my defense, I couldn’t even get the top of the can open, so I had to shotgun without a second opening and I still won.
I have no new information on that at this time.
by Rishi on
Jan 5, 2009 9:56 AM PST
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Also
Thanks to Ragnarok for organizing this. I feel much more inclined to post rather than lurk now, even though I was only at the tailgate for ten minutes (thanks to my dumbass friends who wanted to pre-tailgate in the fucking Sunset and didn’t realize that it would take an hour to get to the park on Muni).
I outworthless the Maharg.
by HolmoePhobe on
Dec 30, 2008 5:51 PM PST
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Damn, I missed the beer shotgunning!
I had a good amount of fun and would definatly be open for another get together. Now that we’ve broken the ice so to speak it might be easier to organize and plan the next one, so hopefully in the future we can put less burden on Ragnarok (and by extension, Andbears). Plus there won’t be a CAA tailgate for a non bowl game, right? So less people will have conflicting plans hopefully.
by norcalnick on
Dec 30, 2008 6:34 PM PST
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This was alot of fun
As mostly a lurker on CGB i enjoyed my self greatly. Putting faces behind the names of the post i read everyday. My only regret, not meeting the infamous twistnhook :(… all in all a good time and i will defiantly start to post more.
by HOUSE66 on
Dec 31, 2008 6:08 AM PST
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anyone try torpedoing a beer out of a glass bottle? I think it involves a flexistraw…
The opinions expressed in a FanPost are not necessarily those of the California Golden Blogs or any of its authors. However, they are just as important as the opinions of any of the authors. And doubly so as compared to TwistNHook!
by carp on
Dec 31, 2008 10:20 AM PST
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I considered going...
… but given that I’m 14, would probably not partake in shotgunning beers, and rarely contribute to the blog I think it’s best I didn’t go. At least I can take solace in the fact that I’m probably the youngest reader of this blog.
by rollonubears on
Jan 1, 2009 12:06 AM PST
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well
Twist acts 12
www.californiagoldenblogs.com
by CBKWit on
Jan 1, 2009 8:57 PM PST
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You would have been totally welcome. You could have drank some Diet Pomegranate 7-Up and enjoyed the comically tiny dip table.
It's seriously too bad that there's no building or complex around that might have a large supply of sports drinks.
by thenick on
Jan 1, 2009 9:23 PM PST
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no way.
Both people on this blog called “roll on you bears” are 14 years old? Me too! What school do you go to?
Go Bears!
by RollOnYouBears667 on
Jan 1, 2009 10:49 PM PST
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Saint Francis
Home of Will Ta’ufo’ou (yes i had to look that up), and Mark Boskovich (academic all pac-10 FTW)
by rollonubears on
Jan 3, 2009 11:56 PM PST
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Oh cool. I go to Berkeley High (home of Eddie and Sean Young). Maybe next time they have a Golden Blogs tailgate we should go and bring like 5 friends each and take it over with teenagers.
Go Bears!
by RollOnYouBears667 on
Jan 4, 2009 10:39 AM PST
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That would violate Twist's parole
www.californiagoldenblogs.com
by CBKWit on
Jan 6, 2009 12:06 PM PST
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Thats a poor excuse of a shotgun
you upset cal fans who couldn’t make the game
by Bowlbasaur on
Jan 2, 2009 12:59 AM PST
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Thanks for setting it up ragnarok
It was very fun!
In other words, Go Bears!
by royrules22 on
Jan 2, 2009 1:15 PM PST
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PS
Diet Pomegranite 7-Up was me. It looked festive at Safeway.
I woulda had it, but I had too much beer, not enough drinkability.
I have no new information on that at this time.
by Rishi on
Jan 5, 2009 9:57 AM PST
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Nice to Meet Ya!
I stopped by for a few minutes to say hi and had a nice time. As I told Ragnarok, it was total coincidence that I saw the tailgate at all, but you set up just three stalls away from me so I couldn’t miss ya!
I met ragnarok, hydro, spazzy, thenick, and trisweb (and perhaps one of our female subscribers? I don’t remember, she didn’t mention her name). I had a nice conversation with all of you and it was really good to met ya in real life. (Hydro, I wanted you to drop some emerald bowl nolej and analysis on us, but you were too busy playing football to talk to us man!)
I had been tailgating since 10:30 am so I was more than a little buzzin by the time I stopped by the CGB tailgate. Hope I made sense guys! Sorry if I babbled endlessly Rags, Spazzy, and theNick! I get extra chatty and social when I’m buzzin! My wife had to come bring me back to our tailgate where our friends were wondering why the heck I had disappeared so long at the CGB tailgate. (By the way, in case you guys forgot I’m the dude in the blue windbreaker and the dorky “pikachu” beanie, lol. Actually it was a cheap Cal beenie I bought from some guy walking around the lot selling them. I’m bald so my head was freezing without it! But I swear that thing kept sliding off my head and creating those little ‘ear’ thingies on top. Oh well, good thing I’m too old to worry about being a fashionista!)
Fun tailgate and a great game, who could ask for anything more! By the way Rags, I saw you pass by my seat in the stadium, I guess you must have sat behind me? Did you hear my awesome cow-bells? ha ha.
Take it easy ladies and gents, it was nice meeting ya! GO BEARS!
by SonofCalifornia on
Jan 5, 2009 9:30 PM PST
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Nice meeting you too, SonofCalifornia. Thanks for dropping by.
www.californiagoldenblogs.com
by HydroTech on
Jan 7, 2009 3:27 AM PST
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thanks for the props...
and the tent looks great. i wish i had been there at your tailgate… especially since twist wasn’t there…. hahahaha…. twist, i kid! :D
by OskiWeeWee on
Jan 6, 2009 12:18 AM PST
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