For this game we have photos from Monica's Dad Photostream and also from a reader who goes by the handle Matt Chan.  Thanks to both of them for great photos.

Well, this Cal football photo essay starts where most of my posts start.  With a show from the CW.  No, not Gossip Girl (although, seriously, Blair needs to drop that high school attitude, she's at college now, I mean c'mon).  I refer to, of course the Vampire Diaries:

Yes, the CW had hired a plane to fly around in a circle over the campus with a big ad for their new Vampire-related TV show.  Which is great, because I was looking for something to do on Thursdays at 8.  Thank you very much, flying advertisement!

The morning started off with your standard tailgating action.  The game was at 1:30, which meant tailgating started at 10.  We tried to get Cougar meat, but apparently all that was available was puma.  Puma?!??!  Oh well, close enough.

Puma is remarkably delicious.  Also, I never ate puma and this is all a lie.  One of those sentences is inaccurate.  So, ya, not too much to report, except that there was some unfortunate amateurism when it came to shot-gunning.  A bread knife was used.  This might not seem like a major problem.  But it's jagged edges led to jagged aluminum led to more of a shotgun sip than a shotgun slurp.  And a few trips to the Tang Center.  Nonetheless, clearly, mistakes were made.  Heads will roll. 

The only other item of note from early Saturday morning was a rather large debate that consumed most of my focus.  Whether or not you can make a bong from an apple.  Not a pipe, that's easy.  I'm talking about a bong.  I think you would need a fairly large apple, but it's possible, if implausible.  Others disagreed.  It got fairly heated there for a moment.  I actually killed a man with a trident.  What do you guys think?  Can you turn an apple into a bong?  These are the important problems of the day! 

Cal had announced that this was National Championship Week.  So, they had banners and whatnot up around the place. 

Whether it was for individual National Championships:

Or some of the team ones:

It was impressive to see the caliber of athlete at Cal.  I'd like to think we have a National Championship blog here, but I couldn't find a single banner up about us.  Hmmm, clearly a simple oversight.  Berkeley is always alive the day of the gamedays with a lot of energies.  People like to try to fancy themselves up in anticipation of the games, too. 

Even bums on drums were looking a lot more together than normal:

The band was doing its standard pre-game concert at Sproul Steps.

via Monica's Dad

via Monica's Dad

  As I passed by, they must have just finished, because they were chanting the C-A-L chant instead.

Bob watched on.  His role in this Photo Essay increases infinity fold soon, so don't change that channel no matter how amazing Conquest Chronicles might be describing a recent muscle tear or CougCenter might be crying softly in its beer.

Also, there was some sort of major event going on at Faculty Glade.  I have no idea what this thing is.  Something alumni, I guess.  I dunno.

I settled at a new location just in time for the band itself to re-emerge back into my life.

They even stopped to play a ditty or two.  Despite my near constant screaming, they refused to play "Don't Stop Believing."  Someday I'll get them to play that.  I'm not going to stop!  Believing, that is.

Now comes the part that can only be described as The Greatest Story Ever Told.  Take that, The Bible!

This is where I experienced what can only be described as a Pentecostal Spiritual Awakening.  If by Pentecostal Spiritual Awakening, you mean "Greatest Moment Of My Life."  By now, most of you are aware of the never-ending saga that is Penis Vaginersson (link very safe for work, unless your boss hates 700 comment DBDs).  So, I see Robert Calonico, the director of the marching band.

So, I go up to him to say Hi.  I had planned on making a joke or two about it, but before I could get anything out about it he says the following with what I can only assume is complete seriousness:

"[Twist], you need to grow up.  You can't get me involved in this stuff, this Penis Vaginerson stuff, you drag me down into it.  You need to move on from this shit.  You need to grow up." 

It went on in a similar vein for about a solid minute.  I told him "Bob, this lecture you are giving me right now, this is the greatest moment of my life." 

It all went by in the blur of an eye, just a minute or so.  The band played on unknowingly in the background, Fight For California the soundtrack to the peak of my life.  Bee Tee Dubz, the man who I believe to be OskiSunBear was standing right there and can verify this. 

Overcome with the incomprehensible awesomeness that was the moment, I actually immediately went over and collapsed on top of Ragnarok.  It was so unbelievable.  So amazing.  It was great for a variety of reasons.

1.  I've always wanted to have 2 father figures disappointed in me.  So, to finally reach that goal, that's great!

2.  The best parts of Borat/Bruno are when the other people genuinely take Cohen seriously and react in kind.  Now, of course, the difference here is that I never intend for anybody to actually take me seriously.  I thought I had made everything here sufficiently ridiculous such that nobody could ever respond genuinely and would just continue the joke.  Apparently, I was wrong and got that epic response from Bob. 

So, where does this leave me?  I can either escalate the insanity or just let it die.  I mulled it over for a bit, but I think ultimately my question was answered that day.  Because every single person that I told this story to (and believe me, I told this story to a LOT of people), sided with Bob.  Every one.  Every.  Single.  Person. 

Even CBKWit, who is an undead creature of the night.  That immortal creature said he was 100% in Bob's camp.  Even the dude who got arrested at UCLA last week agreed with Bob.  The man who spent most of the first quarter face down in the men's room at the Rose Bowl covered in his own vomit felt I needed to grow up.

Let's re-read that sentence again.  The man who spent most of the first quarter face down in the men's room at the Rose Bowl covered in his own vomit felt I needed to grow up.  This is when you know you've truly hit rock bottom.  And that's when I knew I had the greatest story ever told.

From there, we enjoying the rapidly en-heatening afternoon before heading over into the game.  I was not quite as concerned with being there early due to it being WSU, so I missed the band show.  I also missed warm ups.  Fortunately, Monica's Dad was there.

via Monica's Dad

(via Monica's Dad)

 (via Monica's Dad)

IMG_4346 (via Monica's Dad)

IMG_4360 (via Monica's Dad)

IMG_4390 (via Monica's Dad)

IMG_4418 (via Monica's Dad)

IMG_4420 (via Monica's Dad)

And Matt Chan got some great shots of the band performance:

via Matt Chan

via Matt Chan

via Matt Chan

BTW, note how the "GO" here painted it on.  Funny.

via Matt Chan

They handed out free crappy 80s-style sunglasses to all the students.  I used to go so crazzy over free stuff.  I realize now that, perhaps you are all wrong, because I have grown up, I didn't try to mooch anything!  ....once I got into the game itself.  I didn't try to mooch anything after roughly 1:30 PM.  Baby steps here, people.  Baby steps!  All of the CDT wore the glasses, you can see them modeling them here:

IMG_4540 (via Monica's Dad)

At the start of the game, they were being real hardasses about Section R again.  I mean it was ridiculously empty.  Just brutally empty.  But they were STILL all over it.  Poncho Dude stood up to the man.  First, one of the yellow jackets came over and told him to go.  He talked to them for a while and then the yellow jacket left.  Then,  a blue polo with radio connected to chest came over and talked to him.  No Go!  Poncho Dude holds strong!  Blue polo left.

Something must have happened, though, because Poncho Dude moved to the edge of the section one to the south (i.e. QQ).  Yellow jacket, blue polo, and (gasp!) GREY POLO show up to talk to him.  It looks like they are going to remove him from the stadium or something.

The odd thing is that the games where it is really easy to enforce this UNBELIEVABLY inane rule are the ones where you don't really need it.  In the USC game, where it was a veritable madhouse, nobody could enforce anything.  This game where it was "Pick A Section" day, they were booting people left and right.  They stopped after a few minutes, though.  Realized their uselessness very early.  And were surprisingly reasonable this game.  Where AndBears got threatened with police action if she didn't leave back at EWU, today CaliforniaBone managed to reason with one of the guys.  He said "Hey, there isn't anybody around here, if somebody comes around and says they wanna be there, we'll move."  It worked.  Shocking.

And with that, the game began!