Philly Today

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!