Digi-Blog goes to Cowboys Stadium (and finds cheerleaders!)

ARLINGTON, Texas — Welcome back for another episode of the Digi-Blog, the exciting new craze that’s sweeping the Internet and allows me to tell you a story with a significantly diminished chance of misspelling a word. Why? Because I use pictures!

If you’ve missed past episodes, don’t worry. Our tours of SEC Media Days, Falcons training camp and Stillwater, Okla., are right here, on demand.

Today, we’re off to Texas to tour the Cowboys’ new stadium, which is called, oddly enough, Cowboys Stadium, I believe because Fort Knox already was taken and Dallas owner Jerry Jones wasn’t sure how “Six Flags Over Jerry” would look on a T-shirt.

I’ll be brief.

♦ It’s big: Three million square feet, sitting on 73 acres.

♦ It’s expensive: They claimed on the tour it cost between $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion to build. But I’ve read $1.8 billion. Maybe that was without a Kroger Plus card.

♦ It’s absolutely ridiculous: You know how slower 265-pound football players suddenly became faster 295-pound football players after they started juicing? That’s Cowboys Stadium. Take the Taj Mahal, stick a needle in  its rumpus room, and watch what happens.

OK, let’s find this place . . .

♦ ♦ ♦

It’s supposed to be on this street. But given Tony Romo’s playoff record so far, this seems a little presumptuous, don’t you think?

♦ ♦ ♦

Oh no. There it is: The Death Star. And it’s fully operational!

♦ ♦ ♦

I am not making this up. This is the line to BUY tickets to tour Jerry’s Palace of Gluttony. The cost on this day: $17.70. Yes, accounting — I have the receipt.

♦ ♦ ♦

And this is the line to WAIT for your tour after you buy your tickets. I waited over one hour.

♦ ♦ ♦

Not a shock. Just like at every museum or amusement park roller coaster, you have to walk through the gift shop, either before or after. In this case, I stood in a line that ran through the Cowboys’ Pro Shop for about 65 minutes. Nothing I really wanted here, though.

♦ ♦ ♦

Wow, guess it’s kind of a big game here, too. Nice T-shirt. Not even mocking. But no — I’ll pass.

♦ ♦ ♦

And I’ll also pass on the $25 autographed pictured of former Cowboys cornerback Everson Walls. (By the way, he wouldn’t look at me. Why? Because it’s supposed to be $10 just to take his picture.)

♦ ♦ ♦

Hey, now! May just have to get me one of these . . .

♦ ♦ ♦

We’re in! Here’s your first view. See that big thing hanging from the ceiling? Well . . .

♦ ♦ ♦

Here’s a better view. That scoreboard is the world’s largest HDTV. Dude next to me had the best line: “I want my wireless Playstation right now.” The two long sides of the scoreboard measure 160 feet wide and 72 feet tall. I’ll stop while you go outside and look at your house and think about that. Even the “small” screens facing the end zones are 58 by 28. All together: That’s about 24,000-square feet of screenage, baby. DON’T SIT SO CLOSE: YOU’LL GO BLIND! Still can’t grasp the size? Try this: Know that 52-inch flat panel TV you’ve been eyeballing? Well, this is like 4,920 of those put together.

♦ ♦ ♦

I’ve been told those black tiles on the concourses are imported from Canada, and they were admired by the Jones family because they have specks of blue. They cost $35 each. But all I know is . . .

♦ ♦ ♦

This is the sign to the press box elevator, and it’s made of cardboard.

♦ ♦ ♦

OK, seriously? I totally lost count of the bars. It’s not the first time that’s happened to me. But it’s the first time that’s happened when it was 11 in the morning and I was sober.

♦ ♦ ♦

This is one of the martini bars. And there were a lot of those, too. And, yes, that is a crystal chandelier. And, yes, there were three of those in this bar.

♦ ♦ ♦

And this is what happens to somebody when you get a bad martini at halftime. “Damn’t! I said TWO olives!”

♦ ♦ ♦

See those open concourses? You can purchase “standing room” there for $27. They’re called “party passes.” True story: The Cowboys sold 30,000 party passes for the home opener against the New York Giants. Fans were lined up shoulder to shoulder, 40-deep from the railing. Most couldn’t see the game so, of course, they had to watch on one of the 4,500 TV sets.

♦ ♦ ♦

This is what one of the suites looks like. If you move the couches, the floor actually opens up and reveals a hot tub. Naw, just kidding. That’s at least six months away.

♦ ♦ ♦

Those are actually  field-level suites, the first of their kind in a football stadium. You obviously can’t really see the game from them. But the suites come with the first two rows of seats just above them, and the tables down below have the advantage of being right next to cheerleaders. Cocktail tables and cheerleaders. OK, give me a minute to catch my breath.

♦ ♦ ♦

Pledge break! Or at least it seemed that way. This goomba represents the starving billionaire, who I guess needs your help. So he stopped everybody right in the middle of the tour to give the hard sale on joining the “True Blue” Cowboys fan club for $20. He said the membership gets you 15 percent off the 80 percent markup in the Pro Shop. Actually, I added the 80 percent part of that equation. In the mean time, dude, you can go . . .

♦ ♦ ♦

. . . Out! These windows slide open. The tour guide said some some real technical stuff about how many panels there were, and how much they weigh, how much they cost, but I wasn’t paying attention. But I caught this:  These windows are at both ends of the stadium. Because of the needed pressure in the building to keep the roof up, you can’t open a window at one end without opening one at the other. Otherwise, according to our guide: “It’s a big mess. The pressure will blow out the windows on the other side. My guess is, a few wigs and toupees would be caught in that twister.

♦ ♦ ♦

This is my personal favorite part of the stadium. The Dallas players take a left out of the locker room, a left through a door way and then walk down this ramp onto the field, below that big star light. That’s not even the really cool part. Do you know what’s on both sides of the ramp?

♦ ♦ ♦

More bars! Yes, you too can be a completely plastered Cowboys fan and yell things at your favorite players as they walk  right past you and onto the field before the game. Question: Has it occurred to anybody that this situation might be, well, highly flammable? OK, on with the tour. By the way, since we’re on the ground floor near the locker rooms, shouldn’t the cheerleaders be down here somewhere?

♦ ♦ ♦

Bo-ring. Tony Romo, Marion Barber, blahblahblah . . . Not wasting my time going in there. I’m outta here …

♦ ♦ ♦

Hey now! It seems as though everybody followed me down the hall. And it’s open! Dirty Old Man of Arlington, I salute you! Onward . . .

♦ ♦ ♦

Well, it looks like we’ll have to settle for another series of one-dimensional relationships. But can you believe this locker room for cheerleaders? Trust me when I tell you there were mirrors EVERYWHERE! And each pep gal has their own dressing cubicle and a pose picture right above their name. After looking at all of the pictures — several times — let me just interject here that whoever scouts for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders probably should be working in the team’s personnel department.

♦ ♦ ♦

That’s about it. This is outside the stadium. That’s a statue of Tom Landry, the former great Dallas coach, a simple man of simple needs who never would have envisioned what’s on the other side of that wall. But do you know what the funniest thing of all is? Do you know what Jerry Jones hates? Do you know what drives Jerry Jones crazy because it sits right across the street from Cowboys Stadium and there’s nothing he could do about it? Right across the street from this great symbol of excess sits . . .

♦ ♦ ♦

. . . a Walmart. And I’m guessing the shirts are cheaper over here.