i'm not sure if i've ever been less productive on a single day. even as an infant i'm sure i spent time studying the intricate furniture around me or the cute little mickey mouse patterns on my blanket. but today i just feel like an unshaven sloth-- and let me tell you, its no fun.

i think that my inability to get out of my pajamas today is probably related to my unending saturday. i woke up at six o'clock saturday morning and didn't get back to my comfortable bed until 4:30 this morning. it has been a long time since i pulled an all nighter and i am definitely too old for them.

the plan for saturday morning was to get up early and drive to oakland-- with the explicit goal of purchasing the warriors single game tickets that were going on sale at 9:30. now in most years, the warriors releasing tickets to the public would be probably be draw a crowd smaller than most high school football games around this country but this is no ordinary year. with michael jordan's immanent return to the nba, i would not be alone in my desire to see his airness again. when i arrived at the oakland arena at 7 am there was already a collection of 40+ cars parked in front of the closed parking lot. yes, there were cars that had parked on the 880 off ramp and joined them-- stopping my car in the middle of the street leading to the arena.

now this was an extremely unusual sight to me but i've heard that raiders fans will often park their cars in this fashion before starting their tailgate parties within the lot. fearing i would fall asleep and miss the onsale, i started reading and was able to an hour of time before the gates were opened. what happened next was very surreal-- as the gates were opened it was as if i was transported into a demented biathlon. all of the cars that had been parked outside were now racing to the box office, driving through the parking lot gates at speeds exceeding 60mph. car after car parked ahead of me and i could see drivers and passengers making a mad dash to the ticket office to queue.

after grabbing my cell phone (and locking my door) i raced up the hill towards the box office. (ok, racing is a relative term-- I'm much faster when i'm not running UPHILL). as i reached the box office i was slightly disappointed to see that i was probably the 150th person in line.... but as i looked back i noticed that about 400 people were now behind me in line-- and the box office wasn't scheduled to open for another hour and a half. as i looked around i saw three different acquaintances from college who were also in line. larry, a friend from taiwan was actually five spots behind me in line but had been waiting in line since 4:30 in the morning. i guess i just had a faster 'biathlon" time despite starting behind him in the pack. =p

i called my friend, wyman, to detail the madness and he said that he was on his way to join me in our attempt for tickets. misery loves company you know. as we waited the warriors began to distribute materials describing their mini game plans, packages with popular games that are marketed to help increase attendance "with value". as i looked them over i noticed that each package now included the washington wizards when they hadn't previously. uh oh. this was the perfect opportunity for the warriors to sell more mini plans (often with 7 or 13 games) because it was a guaranteed way for fans to watch jordan. i had even bought a plan 3 years ago from the warriors (during jordan's last season) to see him live before he retired. it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out-- the warriors were going to hoard the tickets and force people to buy mini plans.

i just hoped that they would release enough tickets so that i could get some-- i didn't wake up at 6 am for nothing, did i?

after wyman arrived i explained my theory to him and then we ran into morris, an old high school/college buddy who i haven't seen in a year. (yes, i let both morris and wyman cut in line-- the people behind me didn't raise a stink, so i couldn't NOT let them in line, right?) we were able to catch up and i truly enjoyed the opportunity to hang out with him again.

shortly thereafter, the moment that we were all looking forward to was upon us.... the box office was officially open. before you knew it rumors were abound-- there were only 30 wizards tickets available. the maximum number you could purchase wasn't 4 but rather 2... there are only a couple of tickets left. as the line moved slowly i seriously doubted that i was going to be turned away unhappy. they're going to sell at least 600 tickets right? they aren't going to let the 1500 people who had woken up early to get in line walk away unhappy are they?

a friend of mine, tim, was 50 spots ahead of me in line and had offered to buy me some lakers tickets because he had only planned to buy the tix for the wiz. i graciously declined but was severely disappointed when he returned from the ticket window to tell us that he was only allowed to buy 1 ticket for the game. not only had they sold out the wizards tickets but he couldn't even take a friend to the game with him. that sucks ass! he was bummed out but understood his relative good fortune-- the rest of us wouldn't even be able to watch jordan alone-- unless, of course, it was from the comfort of our living rooms. i purchased a couple of sets of tickets for the lakers and was only mildly disappointed. i guess i'll have to schedule a road trip to go see jordan now. =p

after running a couple of errands, i drove into berkeley and had lunch with an old coworker at la note, a french eatery that was attached to a jazz school. i think during the afternoons one can enjoy a cup of coffee and musicians practicing at the same time. that's a pretty cool concept. the food wasn't bad and it was great to catch up with yet another friend. i had some eggs, home fries and some chicken apple sausages... yum yum yum.

as i drove to wyman's place for a housewarming bbq/party i let out a vicious yawn... this was going to be a looooong day. wyman's abode, which he was sharing with some high school friends was a pretty cool place filled with tons of video games and dvds. and i thought that i had a lot of media. aside from having some tasty food and drinks the big goal for me was to get wyman's entire apartment wired to the internet. although i failed miserably i think that he appreciated my attempt at reconfiguring their computers and dsl routers. (editor's note: could i help it that his dsl provider configuration system was different than mine, rendering all of my accumulated knowledge useless?) i as left wyman's party humbled by his network, it was 8pm. boy, i could use a nap.

but rest was not in the cards... i drove to pick up ian (an avid reader of this humble blog) for his birthday dinner at the house of prime rib. we arrived at the restaurant early on time for our 9pm reservation but it appeared from the busy waiting area that they were very behind in seating guests. although i was still a bit full from the collection of desserts at wyman's i was able to enjoy a delicious english cut of prime rib with a terrific wine. (editors note 2: i don't really know how to evaluate wine but i'll assert that any wine over $75 is a fine wine until i learn otherwise.)

after a dinner and a lengthy chat we took our small gathering over to jeff's where we decided to play poker. i don't know about you but i've never been lucky enough to play poker with the "guys" so my grasp of the different permutations and games was pretty lacking. we played hand after hand of different games from the traditional seven card stud to strikeout and heaven & hell but one thing was pretty constant. i wasn't winning. =) thankfully we were only playing for nickels and dimes so my damage wasn't too bad.

we finished up at about 4 o'clock in the morning and i finally got into bed at 4:30. even after getting a good 5 hours of sleep this morning most of my day was spent in naps... i think i earned a day off though. =)