Dude. What a sucky birthday present, although it really was no fault of mine. In theory, a Lakers game against the Detroit Pistons was a fabulous present….but not if they lose. And they lost, 106-95. It was a dismal game. Not only that, we were seated around a bunch of Pistons fans, including one obnoxious guy who sounded like he was an Enimem wannabe sitting right behind me. It took all my willpower…

Anyway, here are the first pictures, including one of Jack Nicholson courtside. Our seats really were quite good, Section 107, row 7, seats 7 and 8. I took more pictures of this, and video, before my batteries went kaput. I’ll edit and post the rest of the photos tomorrow.

Sunday was Trinity’s birthday (hey, I was busy). I’d been planning for a long time to get him something really good for his 29th birthday — I know! He’s practically a baby! — but didn’t really decide until about two weeks ago what to get. I went back forth quite a bit on the iPhone, then thought about a Wii (too hard to get), briefly considered getting him a leather jacket or something else similarly decadent, then went back to the iPhone. Finally, I got inspiration from church folks. It was perfect! It was about in the price range I could spend, was something Trinity absolutely loves, and it was something we could do together (I’m always looking for stuff we could do together). Laker tickets!

I spent a few days quizzing everyone I knew about what game I should buy tickets for. One coworker suggested the Rockets game, but a sports guy said, nah, the Lakers will bury the Rockets — and they did. The sports guy also recommended the Pistons, and the more people I quizzed, the better that game sounded.

So I arranged to get the Friday off when the Lakers play the Pistons (this Friday), and Saturday, just to not have to go to have a random work day in what should be a fun weekend. I called Trinity’s boss to make sure he could have that night off (his company gives him a day off for his birthday). Then I bought the ticket through a ticket broker through my company’s corporate perks site (it really works!). I worried a little when the broker had the delivery scheduled for election day (I was working night shift, Trin working day, so there was a chance the delivery might have arrived when he was home), but it turned out they were FedExed early, on Monday.

So, you might be wondering, how did he react when he saw the tickets?

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