AT&T Park (SF Giants) - America's Ripoff Joint

I love AT&T Park (aka: Pacific Bell Park, Pac Bell Park, SBC Park, and Telephone Park) because it is a beautiful stadium to watch games. Even sitting at the upper deck gets you great views of the park, the views of the water and East Bay, and doesn't require you to use binoculars to view the game.

But have you noticed that we are getting really ripped off? Like real badly...

Here's a list of things I think is terrible about the ballpark:

• Outrageous prices on tickets. They offer three levels of prices:
• Cheapest tickets are for games on Monday-Thursday.
• "Weekend" tickets are for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday games.
• "Premium" games are always against the Dodgers, New York teams, and some A's games.
• Then, the tickets for certain sections go for outrageous prices. Want the crappiest seats in the park? Go for the centerfield bleachers. Worst upper deck seats are the last five sections in left field. They sell for cheap, but who the hell can watch a game in those seats?
• The best seats, therefore the most expensive seats are in the "Lexus" dugout seats, equipped with padded seats, and you are so close to the home plate.
• Just how much for face value? It cost me about $125. This does not include any additional fees.
• The best seats for A's tickets is no more than $90. The cheapest seats for the A's is just $9! Come on AT&T Park.
  
• And how about those ticket fees? They try to nickel and dime you for every time you buy a ticket. If you purchase at a Giants Dougout location (except the ballpark location) or any tickets.com outlet, you get charged a 17% FEE. What the hell is this?
• The best time to buy tickets is when you visit the Dugout store at the ballpark or the advance ticket window. They have a much lower service fee.
• Here's an interesting fact, San Francisco Muni wanted to get a little more money to provide service to the ballpark. They wanted to propose an additional tax on game ticket fees. Hell no.
• To add insult to injury, Muni DOES NOT ACCEPT BART-TO-MUNI transfers when purchasing your ticket to return from the ballpark to BART. What little bitches! I get a 25 cent discount, and I WANT IT!
• And how about the food?
• These guys rip you off so badly. I can easily spend $25 at a ballpark for a half-assed meal. For that money, I can go across the street at Amici's and get myself a large New England Clam Pizza with a soda and possibly some pesto pasta!
• Why half-assed food? Here's something. I ordered a clam chowder in a bread bowl, and while the soup was OK, the damn bread was STALE! So dry, that the bread bowl soaked in soup was dry enough to make me cough for five minutes.
• And to add insult to injury...
• The Giants have now BANNED ALL OPEN BEVERAGES from entering the park, including bottles that have their seal broken.
• Their reply is that this is to prevent underage drinking.
• My answer: It is just another way to rip us off by making us fans purchase beverages that cost nearly three times its regular price at grocery stores and other places.
• Plus, I can't bring in my iced coffee drink from McDonald's

If the Giants wants to stop ripping us off with these outrageous prices, it's time for some changes.

1. Barry Bonds is gone, he was the star attraction, and now you are selling games with about 9,000 seats still available (this happened at last Friday's game). Also, the team is doing terrible. Reduce prices on admission tickets. Eliminate the SRO (standing room only) and use those prices to offer the hardest seats to sell (upper deck left field).
   
2. Lower food prices. It should not cost $4.00 for a Churro (Costco is only $1), and no little hot dog costs $4.50.
3. Cut back on some of these bogus "park safety" rules. Open bottles are OK, as long as it is not beer or liquor. Why not have the staff sniff the liquid? Alcohol has an obvious smell.
4. If you love watching them on TV, write to KNTV (aka NBC 11, the second worst local TV station in San Francisco) and tell them to give it back to KTVU, the ULTIMATE KING OF BASEBALL AND NEWS.
5. It is time to follow other major league parks and offer ALL YOU CAN EAT plans. Our neighbors, the Oakland A's have nosebleed top deck seats with all you can eat food and drink, like hot dogs, nachos, peanuts, popcorn, sodas, and ice cream. All for the starting price of $35 a ticket. AT&T Park management should use the upper deck left field seats (crappiest in park), and use them for all you can eat plans for a fair price. You'll get a great attendance boost, and with a good choice of food, will be extremely popular.

Well, there's my thoughts. Thanks for reading. If you have any comments on this, please post them on my blog site at: http://www.akit.org/2008/05/at-park-sf-giants-americas-ripoff-joint.html

SFSU - CSU/UC 10% Fee Hike?

I'm a little shocked that the Trustees of the California State Universities and the University of California decided to raise university fees 10%. Depending on where you go, some will be paying as high as $350 or as low as about $150.

What's the big idea about this?

Here's my take on the issue: We raise university fees (not tuition, supposedly it's provided "free" to all CA residents) because we don't have enough in the state budget to properly fund programs. So they take some real crazy measures to really screw with us.

Here's some good examples of screwing the students: You raise fees to: give university presidents and chancellors a fat ass pay raise or perks (why does SFSU's President Corrigan get a $1,000 housing and car allowance?), nobody wants to attend it because quality is going down the drain (i.e. turn a 30 student class into a 70 student class with only one professor to get more moola), and Arnold aint dishing out the dough to keep us happy.

Here's the big problem, we have public universities, and that means that tuition/fees should be much less or NONE to the students. With a raise in fees, that means that the poor and disadvantaged will never get a fair chance to get a B.A. or B.S. degree. We can still afford to attend community college for $20 a unit, but an A.A. or A.S. degree doesn't pull a lot these days when getting a job.

I guess George Carlin is right, everyone except the rich will be working for the corporate world doing labor for low wages.

Quality or Quantity of our College Education?

A good question for you, what is better for everyone? A quality college education or quantity for big bucks?

That's an argument that was put forward by one of my professors on Tuesday. He argued that his class a few semesters back was supposed to be a small one with less than 35 students. Currently, his class holds 70+ students! What's the big idea?

The CSU system is focused more on providing smaller, more intimate classes (like my graduate classes), not mega sized classes so that the state can rake in on your tuition/fees that keeps rising so high.

Think about this: Why is SFSU's Human Sexuality course has so many students (a TON OF STUDENTS)? You could think that it's because of the GE requirements, or because the students gets to watch some "amusing" videos, or maybe because the idea of sexuality is so attractive (it sells!).

I like small classes because it provides a more intimate environment for everyone, and you really get to know your professors much more (just don't get caught sleeping in class). I also enjoy that I can visit their office hours with little or no wait, and really get the help that I need. Mega sized classes feel so odd to me because there is always a wait for help, they prefer doing things online, and multiple choice tests is no help either!

I guess it is all about the money these days. Is it cheaper and profitable to have two professors teach 35 students each for the same course in separate sections or have one professor teach 70 students in one class section?

Maybe the Simpson's are right. In the future, school will be taught in triple decker seat classrooms and only one teacher on the TV will be communicating to hundreds of schools at once.

Let's summarize my rants:
Please don't break down our classroom walls to make mega-sized lecture halls.
35, maximum!
Stop raising our student tuition/fees!
I want quality, not quantity. It's like graduating from Berkeley with 50,000 other students at the same time; sure makes that name sound so pristine.