Philly Today

Today, January 31 has been declared Top Dropper Day. You know that little Entrecard “Drop” logo on the left hand side of this blog? That’s where I show ads for other great blogs who have visited Philly Today and dropped their card, and I visit their site and drop back. So to be a top dropper means that you visit here quite often. I really appreciate it. The following 10 sites are the top droppers here in the last 30 days. That means if nothing else I can count on at least 10 visitors on most days. Woo hoo!

Special shout out to my #1 top dropper The Junk Drawer, who has somehow managed to drop on me 31 times in 30 days despite the fact that the limit is one drop per day. Here are nine more top droppers:

The Path to the Pegasus Letter
Beyond Left Field
My Random Day
Positive Real Estate Professionals
Republic of A
Crotchety Old Man
Jenn Cooks
Rich Talks Real Estate
Out of the Blue

Thank you all for visiting and I will continue to do the same.

Wing Bowl has somehow become a Philadelphia tradition. They must be doing something right because it’s their seventeenth year and the arena is always sold out. It is the creation of a local sports talk radio station as a diversion for a city that never wins the Super Bowl. Basically the Friday before the big game a bunch of people head to the Wachovia (or is it Wells Fargo?) Center at 6AM to watch a competitive chicken wing eating contest.

In the past, several contestants have gone on to win bigger and better eating contests around the world.But after Joey Chestnut (pictured above) won Wing Bowls 14, 15 and 16 they decided this year to only allow first-time, non-professional eaters. A local guy named Super Squibb blew away the competition by eating 203 wings! Is a new career in his future? Only time will tell. I have never been to Wing Bowl but I hear it’s just an excuse to drink all day. I’m sure a good time was had by all.

We only got a few inches of snow on Wednesday, but it also came with a nice layer of ice on top. Since it melted a little bit and re-froze overnight, it makes for some crunchy and slippery snow. It is so much fun to watch my dog outside in it. She can pretty much walk on top without breaking the ice, but she slips and slides all over the place. Of course, I cannot walk on top of the ice, but it brings me back to a simpler time when I was a kid and much lighter on my feet. I could slide across the ice with the greatest of ease. One time, I even created a little miniature golf course. I punched small holes in the layer of ice for cups, and then I tried to see if I could sink one of those orange Mylec balls using my street hockey stick. Okay, I was a dork. That got boring pretty quickly, so I wound up and hit the hardest slapshot I could. That hockey ball must have skidded 300 feet across the ice. To use one of my favorite quotes, the length of one football field.

For all you men out there who play the cello, you can finally rest a little easier. According to a story from CNN, a condition named “cello scrotum” that has been talked about for 34 years is not a real ailment. Its inventor, British lawmaker Elaine Murphy, admitted in a letter to the British Medical Journal that the whole thing is a hoax. She and her husband made it up after reading about the real condition “guitar nipple” in the journal in 1974 and decided to take it one step further. Nobody noticed the hoax until last year, when a researcher actually made a reference to cello scrotum, prompting Murphy to finally come clean. I guess she figured the jig would be up once people realized you don’t really rest the cello on that part of the body. I think it is a great prank and it makes me wonder if I could somehow convince people of the existence of an ailment I made up. Maybe something sports-related, in the same tradition as tennis elbow or swimmer’s ear. I will have to think about it.

Don’t think that this will become Random Thoughts Tuesday just because I also did it last week. That wouldn’t be very “random” now would it? Unfortunately, this is all I’ve got to say today:

1. I use Windows XP and always rely on the Show Desktop icon in my toolbar. When I use someone else’s computer that does not have this icon, I get really frustrated having to minimize each window individually.
2. I was driving the other day behind a car whose license plate read: SEXYLDY. When I passed by the car, I took a look at the driver and I was very disappointed. The second part of the license plate was true (I think) but not the first part. Whoever at the DMV allowed her to get this plate should be fired.
3. Speaking of, did you ever wonder why the World’s Sexiest Man changes every year? I would think that would stay fairly consistent, unless the reigning champ dies or gets really old or something.
4. I hate when the weatherman reports there will be “a mix of clouds and sun”. Yeah I could have guessed that myself. Can we be more a little more specific please?
5. I love Outback Steakhouse. I eat there whenever I’m in the mood for authentic Australian cuisine.

People in the Philadelphia region are excited about finally getting a Major League Soccer team, which will join MLS in 2010. I was looking around on the website for the local newspapers (Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News) and they have a poll running about the soccer team. They want people to vote for the name of the team, but when I saw what the choices were I couldn’t believe it.

• Philadelphia SC (soccer club)
• Philadelphia AC (athletic club)
• Philadelphia City
• Philadelphia Union

These choices are not just boring, they are just plain horrible. The first two? How generic and uninspiring can you get? City and Union just don’t make much sense either. Forget the fact that the team will actually play just outside the city (in Chester, PA). Even the stereotypical animal or bird name, or a name that starts with a “Ph” (see Phillies, Phantoms, etc.) would be better than this. They do put in a choice to write in your own name - any suggestions?

Vote here .

Former major league baseball player Jose Canseco can’t resist going after members of the media in Philly. Just a few months after getting knocked out in the first round by local sports anchor Vai Sikahema  in a celebrity boxing match, Canseco and morning radio guy Danny Bonaduce squared off in the ring on Saturday night at an ice skating complex in Aston, PA. This match lasted a bit longer but Canseco could not pull off a victory, despite being 80 pounds and 10 inches bigger than his opponent. They ended in a majority draw after three rounds. Not that I’m big into celebrity boxing, but perhaps Canseco should just quit now and spare whatever credibility he has left, if any.

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, students have organized a giant snowball fight, one that they hope will go down in history. The Guinness Book of World Records lists a snow fight in 2006 by over 3700 students at Michigan Technological University as the largest, but these students hope to take it even further. Invitations were sent through Facebook to a group with over 4000 members. There are ground rules set, including don’t throw snowballs at innocent passers-by, buildings or cars. The event will also be closely monitored by school officials, police and medical responders. It will be interesting to see how many kids show up for the event in single digit weather. And how can you declare a winner for the fight with so many people involved?

My wife is my inspiration in many ways. She also gives me lots of blog ideas which I am more than happy to use. It keeps me from having to think too much. Here is another one from a link she sent me. It is a blog called I Found Your Camera. No, I don’t know the person who writes it or anything like that. But it’s a great concept and it can help lots of people, but only if they know about it. So I am writing about it today so that all four of my readers can be made aware.

It works both ways. If you find someone’s camera, you can send pictures and vital info to the blog. If you lost your camera, you can check here to see if there’s a chance it was found. If you recognize anyone in the pictures you can make sure they visit the website. There are a bunch of success stories already and they have a Facebook group as well. Wow, finally a blog that actually helps people and not just a bunch of useless, meaningless babble. On that note I will stop talking now.

This happened in Oklahoma on Wednesday. A wildfire burned 5 acres in the town of Jones, evacuating an elementary school there. The fire was put out and thankfully, nobody was injured. Several trailers did burn in the blaze, however. The cause of the blaze is already known. It was caused by a squirrel that was on fire.

No, I am not making this up. The squirrel must have somehow touched two power lines at the same time and fell onto the grass. That’s a lot of damage for a squirrel to cause. Then again, I never thought they were the smartest of animals. When I was in high school, I woke up one morning to find 4 dead squirrels floating in our pool. You know how they are always playing “follow the leader”? Well, they must have followed the leader right off a tree branch that hung over the pool, and that was the end of that. I hope the victims of this fire have insurance that covers acts of squirrel.