I guess you'd call it cowardice

They totally made my day. Poor Andy Summers. Time has *not* been good to him. But Mr. Sting, Gordon Sumner himself, was in fine form. And I still love me some Stewart Copeland. Back in the day (early 80's), I had quite the crush on him. Maybe that's why I thought he still looked pretty good for a geriatric. I'm totally kidding. He's only 54. And in case you were wondering, Sting is 55, and Andy is 64! No wonder he looked pretty to' up.

And when, oh when, did I get to the point that I thought 54 was "only 54"? I remember being 17 and thinking my 28-year-old teacher was ancient!

Couple of interesting notes from the concert:
They seemed to get along well enough when they interacted with each other
Andy's guitar strap had "OMG, YOU KILLED KENNY!" on it with a pic of Kenny's hooded head
Wrapped Around Your Finger was awesome - they had this entirely different drum set come up on risers, and Stewart played all these different percussion instruments standing up (chimes, xylophone, gong, etc.)
They had a mini jumbotron that showed the dudes if you were too far to see them - during one encore break, they portrayed the LCD images of the band from Ghost In the Machine (picture at bottom of post)
And during the last song, they flashed images of the band members in their heyday ... Ahhh memories.

And if you feel tempted to go to the police website to see what Stewart used to look like - don't. He looks like a corpse. I don't recall the Munster look being "in" during the 80's, but what the hell do I know?

Overall, we had a good time. We ended up being late to the concert and missing the opening band, Fiction Plane, also referred to as "Son of Sting" by me. Reason - we went to the Tampa Bay Brewing Company for dinner a little late (ahem, ahem, ryan got uber lost driving through the mean streets of Ybor (and yes, another aside - we went separately since Ryan already had a scheduled meeting south of Tampa for Thursday morning, so we got a hotel room and hung out in Ybor for the night)), but then we had some issues at the restaurant.

So we get there and the manager says, in a very questioning manner, "Table or Booth." We both say Booth. And immediately, he says "We don't have any booths." So, NATURALLY, I say - and mind you - this was in a VERY jovial, kidding, I'm-teasing-with-you kind of manner - "Then why'd you ask?" And he got really offended and said, very, very tersely - "Some people don't mind waiting, that's why." And it was pretty funny (in my head, of course) but I guess he was pissed at me.

Because the waitress thought we had ordered another round of the same beers, but we had really wanted to try different beers the second time around - she tried to send the beers back, but the manager wouldn't let her. She didn't tell us which manager, but I had a guess. She came to the table and looked like she was about to cry. She offered to buy us the other beers out of her pocket, and I was like, NO! DO NOT DO THAT! So that made me feel a little better about her service, but still crappy about the mgmt at that place.

She later came by with a new beer, one that Ryan had wanted, and said she wasn't paying for it - another manager had OK'd the new one. At that point, I had drunk one and a half pints of beer and was like, "Was it the manager in the green shirt who said NO? WAS IT?" And she said, "I can't answer that." I said "I bet it was. I think he hates us because I sassed him earlier." And by the look on her face, I knew it was the guy. PUNK! But that's fine, cause he got back at me for being sassy. And the waitress made a joke saying, "OK, no more being sassy to managers! He's usually a really great guy." I told her my story and she smiled, looked uncomfortable, and left. Hmmm, I wonder if she was uncomfortable by my story, or just me, a seriously buzzed woman chatting on the dish on her manager. Interesting.

We ended up taking a trolley to the concert and a taxi back. It was all good. But I missed the Son of Sting, which made me a little sad. (Sting's son's band opened up for them, yo.)

And that is the end of my crazy, wicked long, blog entry about my adventures in Tampa last night. Got back to work this morning and have been working like crazy ever since. Oh, and if you were wondering, Ryan's folks came over to our house and watched Owen and stayed overnight. So Owen had his first overnight babysitting event, but it wasn't bad at all for him cause he was at home the whole time. Although I think he'll be fine in another environment.

OK, that's really the end. Ciao.