(Muff209 has a full report from the team's viewing party in Stockton last week. Enjoy. -- TZ)

So as I mentioned sometime last week, there was a Kings Viewing Party at Fats Bar and Grill in Stockton on Saturday. I wasn't sure exactly what a viewing party entailed but the idea of watching the Kings game with Big Mike, some Kings dancers, and Slamson seemed, well ok it didn't seem like a very enticing endeavor. But the promise of drink specials and a chance to audition to cohost House Party for a game did seem exciting.

Throw in the fact that I literally spent a little bit of every working day of 2006 at Fats and viola, consider my ass glued to a barstool. (I used to work next door, trust me, I'm only half as much as an alcoholic as that sentence makes me out to be.) The party was supposed to start around 7:30, I saddled up to the bar around 6:45 or so to make sure I had time to say hi to some old friends before what was sure to be a wild party started. That's about when things started to go wrong. (Surprise)

Bud Light, your official beer of the Sacramento Kings, was co-sponsering the event and boy did they trot out the big guns. No Budweiser rep was in sight. No Bud girls, no guy passing out drink vouchers, not even Budman. Instead our drink "special" was that we got to pay an EXTRA dollar for beer, but we got to keep our special "sixth man" pint glasses.  But only if you bought your beer individually. If you planned on actually doing something I like to call "actually drink" and bought a pitcher you were S.O.L. Not to mention I spent like half the night making trips to my car to deposit the 5 pint glasses I amassed before I decided to actually drink.

But let's get away from drinking for a sec. About 15 minutes before the game startedm Big Mike got on the stick and welcomed us to the viewing party. He then promptly left for the night. Don't worry, it's not as bad as it sounds, his wife had just called to tell him her water broke. (Congrats) After the courtesy applause Mike handed off to one of the guys from KHTK who took over for the rest of the night.

They raffled off a few prizes before tipoff while the Comcast crew sat up on the stage with a full setup, and noone auditioning. When I inquired about it earlier the woman setting up seemed excited that people were actually interested in trying out. Which really kind of set the stage for the night. Meaning, noone seemed to care that they were there. I recognized most of the people there as regulars, and half of the people I didn't recognize were wearing Comcast or KHTK lanyards. Throw in the fact that the game was another chapter in our non-rival rivally with the Warriors, the mood was lukewarm at best.

Sometime early in the 1st quarter Slamson showed up and did, well Slamsonny things. Like pump his fist in the air. And jump up on chairs. And...ummm, yeah, that was about it. The problem was Fats isn't exactly the biggest bar and they had set up about 8 rows of chairs in front of the big screen to clutter up what could best be described as the place where women not hot enough, and possibly too old to be called cougars go to dance when the Latin Magic Band is there. So Slamson's usual routine of cartwheel and backflips were out. Although a couple times he did motion for us to move the chairs to try it, his handler advised against it. So naturally he started signing autographs. A man dressed as a lion signing autographs in a bar.

Mercifully this is when the night started to pick up. First, the game was pretty decent and commerical breaks were filled with more raffle giveaways. People slowly started to trickle over to where the Comcast camera was and Slamson expanded to the schitck he does at the arena. Basically messing with the few fans who were seated in front of the TV and posing for pictures. (Sorry, none here, no camera)

At halftime I'd finally decided to go over and try my hand at the HPL auditions. I was told before I'd be asked some questions about the Kings, presumably to test my fanhood. And then I'd have to come up with a few slogans to pimp the Kings to the camera. I racked my brain, coming up with the best slogans my inebriated brain could muster. The best being "Sacramento Kings basketball, where...something happens." Although I was sorely tempted use "Sacramento Kings, try our thick creamy shakes." Alas, like most of the night, what was advertised wasn't exactly what happened.

With little warning they had me shilling for Comcast Sportsnet. Apparently that's what they meant by slogans. And I wasn't coming up with them, they were being fed to me. Which was probably a good thing. Oh and ENTHUSIASM, I apparently needed lots of it. So feel free to watch CSN to see a slightly drunk/way more stoned me doing overexaggerated hand gestures as I pimp Comcast in different ways. (you didn't know hand gestures=enthusiasm? You haven't been watching House Party.) Then I was asked a bunch of questions about the Kings. They told me before the questions might be who my favorite King (Keon Clark) is/was and other stuff to test my fan knowledge. Instead, it was quite literally an audition for HPL. First I was asked my opinion of the team this season. (Playing to their abilities, young team finding their way, blah blah blah) Then I was asked how I thought Coach Theus was doing. (good so far, but hard to tell until after trades happen) They did ask what my most memorable moment as  Kings fan was. I think I surprised them and went with the moment that bonds all Kings fans together, the 2002...well you know. Finally they asked me why I think I should co-host HPL with Koz, I kind of glanced over Koz, saying we were tight, using the over exaggerated hand gestures to cross my fingers to show just how tight we were. Then I ended with "and Kayte Christiansen is awesome." Which I thought was solid. Probably not gonna win, being a journalism major on what I like to call a hiatus, I'm well aware of my on camera weaknesses, namely I speak kind of softly and I was pretty drunk so I can only assume I was slurring. All in all about 7 people auditioned, although that's counting the Kings dancers.

Moving on, Slamson was in and out through out the rest of the night. I can only assume what he was doing, but starting sometime in the third quarter he was behind the bar. First he started posing with bottles of Bud Light for photos. Good sponser synergy there. Then he posed for some pictures of him pouring from the bottle to the specialty glass. I jokingly said "Hey Slamson, I need a Bud Light." To my surprise he actually slid the beer my way. Free beer from Slamson, score.

After it gets slightly more hazy. Sorry, nature of the beast. I do remember, them trying to give away some dvds that noone cared about. Everybody started paying attention during the last 3 minutes of the game. (Typical) After the game the KHTK guy who got stuck with Big Mike duties (and actually did a pretty good job. Although maybe it was because he was just less annoying) came back from the van with a bunch of mini hoops and basketballs for the office. I grabbed a couple.  After it was all said and done I came away with bit of schwag, a slight hangover, and like 10 pint glasses. Anybody want a Kings pint glass?