Pokematic's 2023 Cedar Point Adventure

Hey everyone, so because I grew up within a reasonable driving distance to Cedar Point in Sandusky Ohio, and that meant that I went to Cedar Point rather frequently for special events; my mom's side of the family would go once a year with everyone (Aunt, Uncle, Tanman, Grandpa, Grandma, Mom, Dad, and VikingPolak), my school would go there for special field trips (I went there with mskate for a physics class trip and I went there with my band class), and some times I went with the boy scouts. Since I was able to get a decent deal on a season pass I decided to get one for the 2023 year and not just for the summer. I'm very glad I did because I was very busy over the summer and only was able to get there at the end of September. I asked my mom if she wanted to go and we went over the weekend. I thought I could get a reduced ticket due to my season pass, but because it's special Halloween Saturday events (called "Halloweekend"), mom had to get a full price ticket, but that was OK because we got a special bundle of "all day dining, ticket, and parking" (my pass already had parking, but it was cheaper to get this bundle than to get the 2 separately, like "all day dining and a day ticket was $110" while "ticket and parking and dining bundle was $100"). Whatever, we were going to have 13 hours in the park for food and fun.

Mom got to our condo so we could get to the park right when it opened, and we got going almost right when she got there. We ended up having a problem because traffic put us like 30 minutes later than expected. That sucked, not just because it was less time for rides but also meant the all day meal was going to be less than we could fully maximize (we can get another meal 90 minutes after the previous meal), and while there is 1 hour of leeway for max use that gets eaten up by the lines. Oh well, we got to the island and scanned my QR code for the parking. We parked at row 33 section C, kind of far from the entrance but it was OK. As we were going in there was a marching band that was parading around the parking lot. It was kind of interesting. As we were going in I saw some people in costumes and I didn't really connect that people were going to be wearing costumes, then mom told me and it made sense.

Once we got in we got some pictures with the 150 year sign and other memories, and I made a dash to the first restaurant, Hugo's Italian Kitchen. I got a slice of pepperoni pizza and cheese bread and we split it. Since this was kind of close to the entrance we'd come in from the Breakers (the on property hotel), our first ride like always was the Ocean Motion (or "Ocean Potion" because it was Halloween themed). This is the ride where you get on a ship and it swings you back and forth. It was a pretty short wait, only had to wait about 10 minutes which was pretty great. The next ride we wanted to go on was the Sky Ride (cable cars), but unfortunately it was closed (get used to this statement). Oh well. After the ride we found our way to what used to be Bearenstain Bear Land and is now Peanuts Land. When I was little this was THE place, and my favorite think was the sandbox backhoe thing (or as we called it, "the digger"). I apparently spent hours playing on it, because I wanted to make as big a hole as possible, and my uncle tried to bribe me to go do something else. Unfortunately the sandbox (or maybe it was a gravel box) wasn't there anymore, so mom and I spent time an appropriate amount of time looking for it but unsuccessfully. We did get to meet Sally from the Peanuts, which was fun.

After the bust with the digger we went over to what is kind of "the pier area," where it has a bunch of rides that are reminiscent of pier rides and carnival games. The funway arcade was in the area and while I didn't have any a lot of desire to spend the day playing arcade games, I might have wanted to play a round of pinball since I love pinball and it's not exactly easy to find anymore, and I remember it having a pretty good selection of games. Unfortunately they downsized A LOT and was more a mirror maze now. Oh well. The main things we did was ride "scrambler type" rides; troika and calypso. Troika is basically the normal scrambler but also goes up in the air in a fun way of the 3rd dimension. Calypso is also like the normal scrambler only it's on an angle and can only hold one person. It's pretty cool. We were going to ride MaxxAir, but unfortunately it was closed. After the rides it was time to eat again, and since we were close to the new Cedar Point Grand Pavilion Restaurant and Bar, and we had unlimited food, we decided to give that a try if we could. It presents itself as a high end restaurant and we were unsure if it was going to work for us, but it did support the meal plan and it was really high quality food. This time we got the steak and lobster bisque; I had the steak and mom had the lobster bisque. It was really good, and not just for amusement park food. We both thought "Gog and Pop (the grandparents on mom's side) would love this place."

Next ride I wanted to do was windseaker; the amusement park swing ride that goes up 300 feet in the air. Like, the amusement park swing ride is kind of "a step up from the carousel" where it lifts you up like 20 feet in the air and swings you around in seats on a chain, and while it's fun it's a very calm ride. Windseaker on the other hand is that, but they strap you in like a thrill ride, then it lifts you up 300 feet and swings you around high above everything else in the park. Like, it's scary because the only thing between you and death is a heavy metal cable. It's not even that fast, it's just "I am actually hanging high above the ground, this isn't an illusion like a roller coaster." Oh well, maybe next time. Since this is Halloweekends and we don't like getting scared, we worked our way to the "scary section" before it got scary. The "scary section" was in the back of the park so we started going back there with the plan that if there was a walk on we would ride it. While walking to the back in true Halloween fashion there was a graveyard decoration set-up, but the headstones were very creative. Instead of puns or famous people, it was rides that are no longer there. I got my picture with my favorite gone ride, the Demon Drop. It's a ride that puts you in a cage, drops you in a free fall that then angles into a slope, and then brings you back. When they were selling it a friend wanted to buy it and put it in his backyard. His backyard was really big (like a triple lot), so it's possible it could have fit, but there were probably zoning laws that would prohibit it, plus, it is probably a major power consumer and expensive. Here's my picture with the tomb stone.

On our way we road Iron Dragon, the smoothest and easiest roller coaster in the park probably. It's a fun hanging boat cart roller coaster, and it didn't take very long for us to get on. After Iron Dragon we found our way into frontier land (the start of the scary part), and while there wasn't much there we did find a fun family joke with pony rides (my my, aunt, and her cousins were at some place with pony rides and my one aunt didn't want to ride the pony, and it's been something everyone has teased her about for 50 years). There was also a peting zoo, and I petted a camel and a llama. One of the llamas had an underbite and I tried to do an impression of it.

We didn't find much else in frontier land, but we did find the wave swinger; the amusement park swings. Sure, it wasn't super great, but it was still a fun little ride. After that it was time to eat again, and we went to the Frontier Inn where we got pizza on a half role and a salad cup of grapes. It was good to have some fruit and split pretty well. After eating we went to the cedar creek mine ride; a mine cart themed roller coaster. It was a 20 or so minute wait, and it's an old ride that didn't really work for "modern American bodies" where we weren't really able to fit (mom couldn't get in and I barely got in and was rather uncomfortable the entire time). Oh well, wouldn't recommend. After that we made our way to the back of the park and there wasn't much for us. There were only 3 rides, Maverick, the train, and Steel Vengeance (Maverick and Steel Vengeance are both roller coasters). Maverick is a pretty new ride (12 years now) and has a 95 degree drop, but the fast pass line was a 45 minute wait and the stand by line was like 2 hours. Uhh no. Then Steel Vengeance was closed, and the train had to wait for the ride to get there and was just a train, so this area was kind of a bust.

We made our way over to the Camp Snoopy area where they have Gemini, Soring Eagles, Monster, and the Happy Fryer. We walked around Camp Snoopy because Camp Snoopy is great, a place for slightly older kids. We almost met Lucy in her witch costume, but it was right as she was leaving. I did get a picture with the therapy desk.

Camp Snoopy is mostly kids rides that we wouldn't be able to get on (camp bus, woodstock express, red baron airplane ride), but then there was Linus's Beetle Bug which is just the tilt-a-whirl. Mom was like "we don't have a kid" and said "it's just the tilt-a-whirl, they'll let us on," and they did let us on. I got kind of dizzy and remembered "I don't really like the tilt-a-whirl." After the ride we went to the Happy Fryer, a restaurant that specializes in French fries and corn dogs. I always wanted to try it since the mascot looks so friendly, but could never justify spending that much on fries. However, since we had the all day meal deal, we got the mini-corn dogs and fries. I'm not a big fan of corn dogs (if I eat a hot dog I want some char), but these were pretty good, and the fries were amazing. We each ate about half of the mini corndogs and half the fries.

After food we went to the pipe scream. It's a ride where it spins you around and goes on a half pipe back and forth. The other time we went on one of these rides was at Universal Studios in the Nickelodeon section. I remember my cousin didn't want to go on it because "it was in the little kid section," but we managed to convince him that it was an actual ride for big kids (because it is). It was quite fun. After that we went to the eagles ride, a kind of swing ride but where you control the beak and control how high and low you go. We were going to go on Gemini but it was closed. While waiting for the eagles we saw them test Gemini, and mom heard someone saying that the Gemini was opening up, and since I wanted to go on it I decided to get out of line and wait for it to open since it would be a walk on. Unfortunately it was just a rumor, and I waited around for about 20 minutes for it to not open. Oh well. After giving up on Gemini it was time to eat again and we went to BackBeatQue, a barbecue place. We got brisket and a salad. While I was getting the food Mom met a nice family and started dancing with them. It was the kind of fun thing that her recently deceased friend would have done, and she made a good temporary friend with the mom. The food was pretty good, a decent "normal restaurant quality." Cedar point is doing REALLY good with the restaurants and having "real food."

With this we're now out of the scary part of the park, back sweet dreams. There were some pretty cool pumpkin art pieces, and no more "scary clowns" things. There wasn't much in terms of rides on our walk for a while, but there was a lot of cool decorations, like the pumpkin art. The first ride we road was another classic, the Corkscrew. It's a really simple roller coaster, a hill and dip, a loop, and a cork screw that goes over the walking path. Can't say for certain, but it was likely one of the earliest looping rides in the park. After the corkscrew we went on the Super Himalaya. It's a ride that spins around going up and down while playing a vintage pop song. Really fun ride. Then we next ride was the Power Tower, a ride that drops you or shoots you up. It's also one of the few rides that can be seen from the Breakers, I remember watching it from our hotel room when I was little. Years ago I did the "shoots you up" one and didn't like it, so we did the "drop you" one. Since mom and I were 2 riders, we got pulled ahead of the line because there was an opening for 2 people. As we were riding it I regretted keeping my crocks on, they didn't fall off and if they did they would just fall down where there weren't any people (because safety zone for falling objects), but they didn't fall off so I was good. After Power Tower we went to Coasters, a diner themed restaurant that sells hamburgers, fries, onion rings, and some other things I don't remember. Mom and I got the cheeseburger and frings (half fries, half onion rings), and a pile of pickles from the condiment bar. Quite good. After dinner we watched a little bit of the live show just to say we did. In the past it was a laser light show and I really enjoyed it, but because Halloween it was a live stage concert. It was pretty good, the music was Halloween themed I think, and if it wasn't the costumes sure were.

Now we made our way over to the first "really big ride" of the day, Valravn. I think the story of this ride is it's like Norse or something, but whatever. It had a posted hour wait, but we were OK with that since we were kind of getting to the end of the rides we haven't done anyway, and the queue line time estimate didn't seem like it was getting updated. The wait was shorter than that, maybe like 45 minutes, so that was a bonus. However, even if it was an hour it was worth it. It's kind of an "open train" ride, where your seat is isn't in a ride car and there isn't much of a floor. But the real thing is that there's a 90 degree drop and multiple spins and loops. REALLY fun. After that I road the Blue Streak, probably the oldest roller coaster in the park and maybe one of the original ones. It's a very basic wooden one, big drop with some bumps and turns, but it's history and I had to ride it. Mom didn't join me though because the old rides hurt her, and I wasn't feeling the best afterwards either, but still fun. Since it was time to eat again we made our way back to Cedar Point Grand Pavilion so Mom could get the funnel cake shrimp, and I got the baked sweet potatoes because I like sweet potatoes some and wanted to see what these were like. They were a nice sweet side, but I'm not sure I'd get them again (texture was kind of weird for me). Once again, real food with the meal plan.

This is when things got pretty lucky. GateKeeper, one of the newer roller coasters which is another "open train" coaster with a left and right view of either Lake Erie or the park depending on which side you're on, had a 5 minute wait. Earlier in the day this had like a 1 hour wait, but now it was basically a walk on. We road on the one side that gave us a view of the park, and then we road on the side that gave us a view of the lake. It was really cool. After that we had maybe 1 ride left in us (it was like 11 PM now), and so we ended the day by riding the Giant Wheel (generic name for Ferris Wheel). Since it's a nice calm ride and everything would be lit up, we wanted to do this as our last event. It ended up being a good way to end the day since we were right, there was a lot to see. Because of science and balance we ended up riding around multiple times, but that was OK, gave us a lot of time to see things. After the wheel we went to wild mouse to see if it was a walk on but it wasn't and we were done. I got one last meal for the night back at the same restaurant we started at, Hugo's Italian Kitchen. I got a pizza pocket thing and a Caesar salad with the intention of eating it the following day. However when we got to our hotel I'm like "I want to see what this is like," and so I ate the pizza pocket thing and it was great, and then after showering I passed out because I was so tired.

The following day we had some continental breakfast and headed home. I was still really sleepy so I mom drove home while I slept. The only thing of interest is we didn't think about checking our gas so we had the fuel light come on and had to find gas quickly. Thankfully there was a gas station within eyeline of where we were and made it. Once we got home we said our goodbyes and went about our Sunday. It was a really fun day trip. We rode a fair amount of rides and gorged ourselves. I kept track of how much we saved using the dining plan, $109. Considering the meal plan was $33, we ate $142 retail worth of amusement park food. Granted, ever meal was like $16.50 or $21, and "not captive customer" prices would probably be $10 or $15 for what we got, but it's still an amazing deal. Multiple times I asked mom "I wonder what the high score is." And the Sunday after our fun I had like 1 actual meal because I was so full. Definitely worth it if you ever go to a Cedar Fair amusement park, but only get 1 band for 2 people. Even if you don't split everything like Mom and I did, alternating works well too. We basically paid for the hotel with what we saved in food, yay. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Pokematic's WWE Summer Slam 2023 Adventure

Hello everyone, I have quite an interesting adventure that happened. So IRA my brother in law is a pro-wrestling fan, collecting the action figures and watching the events, and having gone to a big event in Texas some years ago. And despite having a lot of similar interests and people saying "you seem like the kind of person that would like wrestling," I'm just not into it. In my youth I stayed away "because it was all fake" like they were trying to deceive their viewers with sport (and maybe my parents had a hand in it because I wasn't allowed to watch things with immitigable fighting), then when I was an adult I watched a match with IRA and see "of course it's fake it's obvious stage fighting, they aren't even pretending it's real, it's no different than the sit-coms and prime time drama series I watch," but by then I'm like "it's a soap opera arc, trying to get in now would require catching up on years of story lines and there just isn't enough plot to engage me," so it's still not my thing. Nothing against anyone who enjoys it (a quick glance through my past content shows I'm not one to cast stones at "unconventional entertainment"), but I'm just not into it. So when my father-in-law basically told mskate "I need Pokematic to go to Summer Slam with IRA in Detroit, I'll pay for everything," I was kind of conflicted. On the one hand, stay in the good graces of my in-laws, bond with my brother-in-law, and have an all expenses paid weekend trip to a major event while staying at a "luxury" casino hotel that was sure to be a great story. On the other hand, I don't enjoy pro-wrestling or gambling, and as the weekend grew closer I kept having commitments to where I wasn't able to relax, and then the "concert in my parent's back yard" party my college friend throws every year got postponed to this weekend and I was really looking forward to that, which sucked (plus, even though Detroit has gotten better somewhat recently, it's still "dangerous Detroit," there's a reason IRA needed someone to go with him this time even though he did one in Texas without help). Oh well, I took it as an opportunity to see what it would be like to travel with me when I'm excited about a thing (because I get very excited about things).

Friday was the "get there" day. I went to work like normal, packed up my electronics and snack foods, and drove to the Motorcity Casino Hotel. This is the second time I've been to Detroit for a big event, and it wasn't super easy getting to the hotel. I struggled a little to find where to park, because my GPS didn't do a great job of taking me to the parking garage and the parking garage didn't make it easy to distinguish what was the VIP entrance and what was the normal entrance. I got a bit turned around and had to drive into a bad block, turning around in a parking lot of some abandoned building, and found my way to the parking garage. I technically parked in the casino garage and not the hotel garage, but it didn't really matter since it's all the same property and casinos are open 24 hours. Mskate and IRA got worried I was going to get toed, but that didn't happen.

Now for a problem with semantics. I was going to get there first and mskate told me "the reservation is in your name, see if you can check-in." I did arrive first and so I tried to check in, and I was able to check in but had to put a credit or debit card on file. This was going to go on my father-in-law's card but I didn't have it with me so I put my card on file. When I book hotels I always pre-pay with hotels.com gift cards I get through swagbucks, so I assumed dad-in-law did something similar, but he didn't and then I had a $900 pending charge on my account. When mskate and IRA got there she was all "I told you to wait," and I'm like "no you told me to see if I could check in, and I was able to." I was able to transfer the charges to the right card, and the receptionist was kind of confused annoyed that I was changing the card less than 10 minutes after checking in, but whatever. Dad-in-law also didn't get a room with 2 beds so we had to get a roll away, which I can't remember the last time I had one in a room (it was one of the last times my grandparents, mom, brother, and I shared a hotel room when I was a kid, but I don't know when that specifically was since we did that a lot). All's well that ends well though.

Aside from 1 king bed, the room was pretty OK, but definitely not $450 a night in my opinion though. The bed was decent, and there was a chromecast in the TV which meant we didn't need to bring our fire stick which was cool, and the shower was nice and tiled with a cool bathtub that was separate from the shower, and there was a big whole wall windows that gave you a nice view of some bad parts of Detroit (there's the Ambassador Bridge to Canada, the GM corporate building, a burnt out wearhouse, some drug dens, overgrown vacant lots, perfect encapsulation of Detroit). When my dad and I went to Sault Saint Marie to find one of the last analog broadcast TV channel where we also stayed at a casino hotel the price was like $250 a night for a room of pretty equal quality (no "wall of window" or fully tiled bathroom, but better view and better neighborhood). Maybe it's because this was because there was a big event and supply and demand, maybe I'm too caught up on location and the rest of the amenities made up for it, maybe the other hotel does more business as JUST a casino and this one gets more business of people coming without throwing their money away in the casino, but whatever the reason it didn't seem like it was really worth what was charged. Whatever though, not my money.

Dinner was pretty good. There was a food court with a Little Caesars, burger place, taco place, Chinese place, bar, closed breakfast place (it would be open in the morning), and the buffet. I would have enjoyed the buffet, but I wasn't hungry enough for it, plus the Chinese place had beef and broccoli with a side of fried rice, which ended up being the better option for me. After eating we went to the casino. Mskate and IRA had never played casino games before, so it was kind of interesting for them. We put $1 in a penny slot and they played some without knowing what was happening. After winning 3 cents we went to the fountain drink station and got some drinks. We walked around some, played another slot machine that ended up being a 2 cent machine and went down by 7 cents. Mskate and IRA were like "I don't get this, I'm done." We walked around some more and found a keno machine. I like playing club keno every so often at restaurants so I decided to try it. Unfortunately the game wasn't very user friendly and I ended up losing 60 cents. Oh well. IRA wanted to play "the game with the ball" but social anxiety stopped him, so we found the cash out machines, found our way back to the room, and that was basically it for them for the rest of the night.

After some rest I decided to explore the hotel and casino some more. I don't know what I was hoping to find, but I figured I'm here might as well. I wandered around and decided to play a couple slots. I put in $1 and lost about 40 cents. I wandered around and found an automated roulette table. I saw I could make bets of 50 cents, so I decided to give it a shot, placing 50 cent bets on black, red, odd, even, first half, second half; just the ones with the highest odds. After about 5 minutes I realized that the minimum bet was $5 and none of my bets were being placed. I cashed out my nothing and wandered around some more. I got another free drink at some point and that made wandering around feel less awkward. I found myself at the lounge and listened to one of the live songs. I think it was Motown. After the lounge I found another automatic roulette table, and this time I decided to do a full bet. I put it on red and the ball landed on red, so I ended up being up about $3.50. I decided to quite while I was ahead, get another drink, and go back to the room. The whole adventure took about 1 hour, which was a nice break from the family. The rest of the night was just hanging out and then bed.

Saturday was the day of the big event, but first we had the whole day to ourselves. We went to the breakfast place that was closed the night before. Mskate had oatmeal, IRA had pancakes, and I had eggs and hash browns. It was pretty good, and IRA had left overs. After breakfast we went to the casino so IRA could play the automated roulette. He put $10 in, lost the first bet (I think he bet on high and it was low), then won on the second bet (I think it was odds), so he broke even. Better than losing, and now he can say "I played roulette." After some light gambling and some resting it was time for an event, the WWE pop-up store. It was a place to get official merchandise for the summer slam, and IRA was really into it. He got 2 t-shirts, a program, a stuffed slam buddy, an action figure, a hat, and an autographed Asuka funco pop. Now I think funco pops are stupid, but autographed is pretty neat I guess. They also had other funco pops (signed and unsigned), signed photos, toy championship belts, and high quality replica championship belts. IRA wanted a champion belt, but we convinced him that it was too expensive ($500) and he hadn't budgeted for it. If he goes to another one he'll probably get a belt, but not this time. The only thing I got was a picture with the Elton John walk out costume. It was pretty neat. Here's some video.

The pop-up store only took us to about 11 AM, and the doors to the event wouldn't open until 5:30 PM. I walked mskate out to her car (after proving that my car was still there), and that was OK. At some point IRA and I went back to casino to watch the roulette table just to watch the ball run while getting more free drinks. I made 4 hypothetical bets and "won" 3 of them. I could have won $15, but I didn't put money on the line so I didn't win anything. At some other point we got a personal 4-corner pizza from Little Caesars that we split before the event. I had half of it and my left over fried rice. At another point I went to the work out room and got in a good 30 minute work out. I played a game on an exercise bike that was pretty fun, then I did some high incline treadmill walking.

OK, now it's getting time. We got down to the lobby and were trying to order the uber. For some reason when we typed in "Ford Field" the app wanted to take us to somewhere in Dearborn. I looked up the address and that got us to the stadium. The uber got us to a service drive about a block away from the stadium because all the roads were blocked off, but that was fine. IRA and I got to the outside and he wanted to just get in line, but I said "no let's walk around some." I'm glad we did because there were 4 cars from other shows, and IRA was really excited to see them. Then we got in line and I ended up running into someone from my company. I didn't know him, but he saw the logo on the shirt I was wearing (my neon yellow work shirt) and that was pretty neat.

We had a little trouble getting the phone to see my ticket, but that wasn't a problem. We found our seats and dropped our signs off so we didn't have to lug them around while exploring. From there we walked around, took in the sights and looking for BigAl2K6 (because he said he would be there, and I wanted to meet one of my inspirations to getting into online content). Unfortunately I didn't see him, but if I end up being in the same building as him I can be happy (though hopefully I am able to meet him one day). This is when things got a little crazy, there was 2.5 hours until the show really started; the pay-per-view coverage started at 7PM, but the fights started at 8PM. I got nachos for a dinner-type thing, and then basically noodled on my phone. There was a good DJ, and the stage lights did some cool dancing, but there wasn't much else.

OK, now it's time for the main event. The first fight was between Logan Paul and Ricochet, and even though I don't care for pro-wrestling, I was into this one. For those who don't know or are reading this blog years in the future, Logan Paul was a very controversial youtuber. He and his brother Jake were popular on the dead platform vine, and then moved to youtube when vine died. Logan made a video where he went to a Japanese suicide forest and filmed a dead body, who's video ended up causing major monetization restrictions on youtube (called "adpocalypse"). He's also done a lot of other bad things from what I've heard, but the main one I know about was "the dead body incident." He now does pro-wrestling and is a major heel. I booed him like everyone else, and was yelling "go film a dead body." When the crowd was yelling "*** you Logan," I decided to have some political fun and yell "*** Joe Biden" some times. Logan ended up "winning" the fight, and that sucked but oh well, it was kind of fun being in the same room as someone that famous that I knew of.

The other fight that was interesting for me was the battle royal where if anyone was thrown out of the ring they lost, mainly because there was a giant wrestler that did some impressive throws. With my martial arts knowledge of the body and physics a lot of the throws the wrestlers do are "easy;" not "anyone can do it," they still require a lot of strength, but they use a lot of the "stronger core and leg muscles" and are a lot of "balance you on me, then we fall." Kind of think of the difference between carrying a child that is holding onto you and the difference between carrying the same child that is asleep and not grabbing on at all. Well, the big guy lifted someone above his head and then just threw him out of the ring, basically using nothing but his arm muscles. I imagine the guy he threw was probably the lightest guy in the battle royal, but even then the lightest guy is probably at least 200 pounds so it's still really impressive. He was my favorite to watch just because he was generally doing things that "can't be faked."

Then the only other fight that I really remember was the Ronda Rousey fight. It was "an MMA fight," and that just didn't translate to pro-wrestling which is defined by exaggerated stage fighting. Like, wrestling is elaborate throws, hitting people with folding chairs, breaking tables, climbing on the roaps and jumping onto each other, and well telegraphed punches, all things that everyone can see. Even though it's clearly fake, it's still entertaining because of how over the top it is (at least I think that's the reason, I'm not a wrestling fan). MMA is real fighting, real punches and kicks, real grapples, and all of that is done in close quarters. Even though it's hard to see when not right at the ring or on TV, people still watch because it's a real fight. So what happened hear is the worst of both worlds, the close quarters fighting of MMA and the choreographed fighting of WWE. Everyone was chanting "this is boring" and yelling about how much it sucked. I mentioned "Ronda lousy," but that didn't take off. Maybe it was better with commentary and close-up camera, but that wasn't the case when watching in the stadium (which I'll now go into detail about).

So as I said, I'm not a wrestling fan. I've watched some matches with IRA and the commentary and camera work really makes it entertaining from what I can tell. A lot of things are "here's a thing that can only be seen up close," and even for the big throws type of things it's made more entertaining by the commentary as they explain "here's why it's entertaining" (kind of like exposition). The big title match had a big reveal twist at the end that was made exciting by a face reveal, and they went out into the crowd, and while that's all visible on TV it's not exactly easy to see when in the stadium. I wouldn't recommend going to an event like this unless you are REALLY into it and want to see it in person and "be in the same room as your favorite wrestlers," because it's really weird being in the audience. It's like "silent;" there's a lot of "ambient noise" of the fans yelling, but there isn't any "monolog or dialog" from the wrestlers or commentators. It's rather weird, and I know I'm not the only one who thought that as I heard other people say the same thing. The pyrotechnics were pretty cool though, as was the stadium energy.

OK, now it's over and time to go home. The show ended at midnight, and now it's time to get an uber back to the hotel. So, Detroit has come a long way in terms of danger, with a rather large police presence and lights after events like this, but "it's still Detroit," I had 2 ladies try to sell me flowers, a guy try to sell me candy, and another guy try to sell me his CD. It was very busy and crowded, and this was peak hours for high prices, making it very difficult. It took us close to an hour and 3 canceled rides before we finally got someone. IRA wanted to just walk back to the hotel, and I'm like "no, I wouldn't even do that in broad daylight, there is a zero percent chance I am walking 30 minutes through Detroit at 12:30 at night." After 2 cancelations I messaged "I will tip you $15 to keep this ride," and the 3rd driver said "$15 isn't worth the crazy crowd," and the other said "go to the FOX theater, it'll be easier to get you." I originally wore the neon yellow shirt to make it easier to pick us out from the crowd on TV, but then it was even more helpful because I could tell the drivers "we're both wearing yellow." When we got back I showered and went right to bed, and IRA just went to bed, and we got home around 1:15 AM.

OK, it's Sunday now. We slept in until about 10 AM, and then quickly packed up because check out was 10:30 and I had to get to church. Mskate kept calling to see how we were doing, and I'm like "no we need to pack up so I can't talk." We got out around 10:20, checked out, and threw our stuff in the car. I got IRA back to his parents, and then went to my parents and we went to mass together. I had lunch with my parents at their house and told them all the adventures. It was fun. Then I went home and then got ready for the week. It was a pretty fun weekend, though I really wish I could have gone to my friend's party instead. Oh well, it was quite an experience. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.