Incredi-BULL

Thanks to a very generous donor (or at the very least, a donor who was out of town for New Year's), Britney and I scored tickets to the Bulls-Cavaliers game last Saturday. Several of our roommates were jealous, but hey--Brit and I had to work New Year's Eve night, so we were the only ones home in the morning when these tickets became available.

The United Center is just a short walk from our apartment, so we saved the $20 in parking other people paid (actually cheap for Chicago). The stadium was packed with people and, oddly enough, Beatles and Eagles tribute bands. Our seats were in Row 3, which meant when we waved down by the seats ahead of us, people could see our hands on TV.

What we could see was a whole lot.

We sat right behind the Cavaliers, near one of the hoops. The players looked HUGE, and we could even hear them talking on the court. The Chicago Bulls dance team, called the Lovabulls, performed during TV breaks/timouts and when they weren't doing that, they did little distracting dance moves near the hoop. Then there was Benny the Bull, who would also be annoying if he wasn't so funny. The Jesse White Tumblers performed at halftime; when they came out Brit screamed, "This is the best day ever!" These kids are mad good, and Jesse White was even there with them.

The Bulls also do a promotion along with McDonald's that for every game, if the Bulls win with 100 points or more, everyone gets a free Big Mac. Near the end of the game, when this became a very real possiblilty, you could tell the crowd was no longer cheering for the Bulls to win, but for the Bulls to score 100 points. With about 7 seconds left the Bulls were sure to win with 99 points, but thanks to a foul the Bulls had 2 free throws. When Deng missed the first one, the entire crowd groaned. And when he made his second, people were on their feet. Oh, America.