Philly Today

I don’t normally post videos on this blog, but this is one of the greatest videos I’ve seen on YouTube in quite a while. Especially being from Philly and having watched Allen Iverson’s press conference live on TV back in 2002, I thought this Steve Porter remix called “Press Hop” was brilliant. Not only does it take a rant about practice and makes it into a hip-hop song, but it also includes the clip of Terrell Owens crying (near the end of the video). What Philadelphia sports fan can resist that? It also features clips from other famous coaching press conferences: Jim Mora, Dennis Green, and Mike Gundy. And of course, a drunk Joe Namath thrown in for good measure. It is an extremely well synchronized audio and video masterpiece. Enjoy!

The main highway I use to get to work everyday will be under construction for the next year. Starting in July, two of the roads I use to get to that highway will be closed for a couple of months. Summer is officially here and will involve detours and lots of traffic. Today, I read a story that spells even more bad news for vacationers in Long Beach Island, NJ. Construction will begin on the Route 72 Causeway next month. Hmm, I believe that would put it smack dab in the middle of tourism season! Construction in July on the only bridge to the island, that sounds smart to me. I think we will be hearing more about these type of projects in the coming months due to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which is designed to rapidly create jobs and puts emphasis on infrastructure projects. But you can’t help but think this is pretty bad timing. The project is supposed to last until November. In the meantime, I will be hoping my own daily commute doesn’t get even longer than it already is.

It’s hard to believe that it was a year ago today that I started Philly Today. My first post was about the Phillies and how great Adam Eaton was pitching. My, how things have changed since then! I continued to stick with topics happening in the Philadelphia region but also random stuff that I felt like talking about. Interestingly, it is one of my early posts that has by far given me the most traffic via both Google and Google Images. That is the story and picture of the Montauk Monster. For those of you who may have missed it, or those who simply forgot, I will share with you my 25 favorite posts from the last 365 days. I have my own reasons for them being my favorites, and if you don’t agree… well too bad. By the way, they are in date order, starting with that first post about Adam Eaton and that weird finger hole in your baseball glove.

The weather is heating up and so are the Phils

Pump you up

Slip ‘n’ Slide

Slip ‘n’ Slide Part 2

Montauk monster: bizarre beach creature thingy

Why aren’t I here yet? Because your commercial is friggin annoying

Montauk monster beach creature update

Heeeeeyyy! Who are you again?

What’s with the Fish song in the pre-game introductions?

Try it: message encrypted by Microsoft Word thesaurus

Back in the day beverages

Not the Northern Lights but pretty cool looking

Happiest day of my life

McDonald’s wants us all to be Nuggnuts

Adolf Hitler can’t have his cake or eat it, either

Eagles make playoffs, Lurie slaps wife

Some more random observations

Cello scrotum hoax finally revealed

Best thing about PA? Illegible license plates

Lobster theft lands man in hot water

This Kool-Aid tastes funny

Seen in and around Philly

The zombies are everywhere

Don’t put away that Snuggie just yet

People I deal with everyday

By the way, as I am finishing this I realized that this right now is probably one of my stupidest posts of the year. I just threw a bunch of links up. Who in their right mind is going to click on 25 links to see old stories? Oh well, that was the only idea I had, so I am not going to change it now. Enjoy!

Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, now has another claim to fame: Rock-Paper-Scissors capital of the world. I am not making this up. It is serious stuff; check out the website at www.rpscityleague.com. We are coming down to the wire for this season, on June 13th the next champion will be crowned and win $1000. This is actually one game I am really horrible at. I don’t know why but I can never win. Perhaps I will need to attend one of these competitions and become a fan of one of the players. They have names like Hand Turkey, El Toro Papaya, and The Fighting Mongooses. And I will need to pick up the t-shirt shown below.

I have a last name that can also be someone’s first name. This can have a lot of drawbacks, one of which is that people think I must be an idiot. Let’s say for argument’s sake that my last name is Carl. So when I call to make a doctor’s appointment and they ask for my last name I say, “Carl”. Their response? “No, no, your last name, dear”. My response? “You know what? You’re right. I’ve been on this planet for 29 years and I still don’t know what a last name is.” Okay, maybe I didn’t actually say that, but I should have.

Yesterday I got an e-mail from a co-worker that started off, “Dear Carl, blah, blah, blah”. I could only shake my head at that point, like I usually do. In my reply I was sure to sign my name simply “Bryan”. She writes back, “Thanks for the quick response Carl!” Now, I don’t work with this person all that much but we’ve been in the same department for a while and I know her freaking name!

Today another person at my company (I don’t really know her) called me at my desk. I answered, “Hello. This is Bryan.” There was a few seconds of silence on the other end, then: “Oh… I thought your name was Carl.” She sounded genuinely disappointed in the fact that it wasn’t. Sorry about that lady. Take it up with my parents. I, for one, am pretty glad they didn’t name me Carl Carl. That would be even worse; people would still mix up my first and last name but I would not even notice.

I actually watched the Preakness yesterday. Although I love sports, I will be the first to admit I know nothing about horse racing, nor do I really care to. I have been to the race track maybe three times in my life and have won a total of $4 in that time. So it is fun for once to watch a sport that I really don’t care about and make completely ridiculous predictions. Is this how women feel when they watch football (clearly I am making a generalization here)?

I did not even pay attention to what the odds were or the racing conditions. I made my pick based on one thing and one thing only: the horse that had the coolest name. Obviously if I had bet money for real, I would have put a little more thought into it. I was rooting for Musket Man, which was clearly the coolest name. Then I could not believe that I was upset when he came in third behind everyone’s favorites: Rachel Alexandra and Mine That Bird. But now it’s over and I can go back to not caring, until the Belmont Stakes when I will pretend to care again.

I read today on some Fox website that the English language is close to its millionth word. According to the official Global Language Monitor, a new English word is born every 98 minutes. At that pace, June 10 will be the big day. But what will that millionth word be? This article predicts the word could be “noob”. This statement confuses me for several reasons. “Noob” is just an abbreviation of the word “newbie”. So that would be like saying that Rachael Ray invented a new word because she now sells a dog food called Nutrish. Also, how do we know when something becomes an official word? Isn’t “noob” already a word if we’re using it? And what dumbass is predicting what that word will be? It’s supposed to be something that we don’t know about yet. Like a word I just made up now: solohydrofication. But the millionth word will not be that one, because it’s already been invented. Yes! Word number 999,555 has been taken care of by me. I will get around to defining it later. 

For anyone who commutes into Philly, uses Market East or Suburban Stations and enjoys the street musicians there, you will now see signs that look like this:

That’s right, starting in August, they are requiring musicians to apply for a permit to play in the concourses. The permit allows you to perform for three hours each day for a month in one of seven designated spots. And effective immediately, no amplification ever! While it’s cool that SEPTA is recognizing that these musicians help to enhance the city experience, this whole permit thing kinda takes some of the fun out of it. I am thinking of applying for a permit myself. I can sing a little, I used to play the trumpet in middle school and I can play a mean recorder too. Wish me luck!

Today’s thoughts:

•  I work at a place where we have to constantly read Standard Operating Procedures. We have to take a quiz to show that we understood what we have read. Today I saw a safety SOP that actually asked the question: Horseplay and fighting will be tolerated. True or False? Well, without even reading the SOP I know that is false. When is horseplay ever tolerated? Ever since we were kids we have been told “No horseplay”. Nobody ever bothered to tell us what horseplay is and why it is called horseplay. I mean, really. What a funny concept. Yet it is always one of the top rules at the pool or on the bus. I was tempted to answer True so that my manager would have to sit down with me and explain the answer in more detail.
• Speaking of work, I occasionally get an e-mail from a colleague that has the disclaimer: Please excuse spelling errors, sent from Blackberry. Now I finally understand. A Blackberry is a device that makes people bad spellers! So what’s your excuse when you’re not using the Blackberry?
• When someone does a commercial as a spokesperson, at the end they’ll say, “And tell them I sent you”. Now sometimes there’s a discount that goes along with that. But how do I know for sure? I would really feel like a dumbass going to a dealership to buy a car, and in the middle of negotiating, say to the salesman, “Uhh… by the way, I thought I’d mention that Bill Bergey sent me.” Of course the 20-year old salesman will have never heard of the NFL linebacker from the 70’s, and look at me like I was nuts.
• When I see a commercial that says, “Our laundry detergent cleans better than the leading brand” I always wonder if your product is so great, you should already be the leading brand. There’s got to be a reason you are not leading.

Here in Philly, the temperature is near record highs for the past couple of days, with the mercury hitting 90 degrees. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if I hear about Philly being a future destination for the Snuggie Pub Crawl. Apparently it is sweeping the nation, with just this past week Seattle and Chicago having hosted it. The first one was held in Baltimore back in January and a bunch of other cities have followed. I just think the idea is a ridiculously great one. Snuggies are those blankets with sleeves that you’ve seen on infomercials. I believe there is another brand called the Slanket. Whatever you call it, it’s a blanket you can wear, and what better way to travel from bar to bar than in a nice comfy blanket with sleeves that you can wear around? I will keep you posted for more Snuggie events as I hear about them.