Triskadekaphobia?

Run!  Get cover!  The sky is falling! It’s FRIDAY THE 13th!!!

Many people are afraid of the number 13, as it supposedly brings them bad luck.  Sure, there’s that whole movie franchise.  Others, on the other hand, embrace it, as to stick it to the bad karma.  Me? I’m somewhere in the middle.

Now while I have borderline OCD when it comes to the superstitious rituals I did during the Yankees World Series run, I also know that what hat I wear, what mug I drink my coffee from, what color underwear I choose has absolutely no bearing on the outcome of a game, especially since I’m not the one on the field.  But correlations get made especially when over 60% of the time I’m getting favorable results, and while it can be fun, I know it’s completely ridiculous.

So is the fear of the number 13.  Actually, I had no choice but to drop the whole thing, or I’d never be able to leave the house.  When I first moved to Delaware, the apartment complex’s mailing address was actually on US 13, a road I take every day.  I work on the 13th floor, even though this building has two half-floors in between, so I’m really 15 floors above the street, but I’m still pressing a button next to the number 13.  Again, I’m not about to move or quit my job over this.  I can’t be bothered to have a fear of the number 13.

But when I was a kid, on the first soccer team I played for, I wore 13.  We finished in last place.  We were winless.  So maybe there’s truth in all of this?  What was A-Rod thinking picking 13?  Well, two years later, I was on a first place team, and it took A-Rod a few more years to get his World Series ring.

But I’ve been home sick today.  And the doctor’s diagnosis?  Bronchitis.  Probably would have been a cold if I went yesterday.

The real food comparison for New York/Philly bragging rights

Now while I’m a born-and-bred New Yorker, I’ve been in and around Philly pretty much since 1997.  While I used to hate the place when I first got down here, and left twice only to be pulled back in (hell, you go to where the jobs are), I’ve gotten used to the place.  It has its quirks, and some good qualities about it, but it’s no New York.  It’s no comparison. 

There’s a whole lot of shtick in the newspapers on how New York can try to improve cheesesteaks (My answer: they can’t.  If you want one, hope in your car or take a train ride.), or how Philly can improve pizza (My answer: again, they can’t.  It’s the local water that makes the dough perfect.).  And still, there’s two things down here that don’t improve the two locality’s mainstays, just something different: (cheese)steak as a topping on pizza is one thing I haven’t seen in New York, and it’s pretty fucking good.  And I’ve once had (down here) a shop that made a reuben cheesesteak.  Yes, corned beef on the griddle, chopped, with Swiss.  It’s not a cheesesteak by any stretch, but a good gutbuster.

So there’s no point in putting pizza and cheesesteaks head-to-head.  New York makes the best pizza, and I wouldn’t dare buy a cheesesteak outside a 25-mile radius of the Liberty Bell.  It’s comparing apples to oranges.  There needs to be an apples-to-apples comparison.  Hoagies vs. heroes?  They’re both sandwiches, and it’s just semantics.  Philadelphia cream cheese is something you put on New York bagels, and goes into New York cheesecake. 

There is one thing that both cities love, and can brag about: soft pretzels.  They’re quintiessential New York, and quintiessential Philly.  They’re the same, but different.

philly.com

The shape of the Philly pretzel is what throws the out-of-towners for a loop.  They look like soft pretzels, but were squished together.  I joke that they look like they didn’t have enough baking pans and too much dough, so they squished them together.  What they really resemble are Philly row-homes.  What happens is when you break them apart, the long edges don’t get a full dousing with lye, and don’t get the crust.  It’s not quite like when you pull the knot apart, and it’s all soft inside; it’s somewhere in between.  They’re usually sold in multiples, or you can buy the whole office a box of them.  And now chains of pretzel bakeries are springing up all over Philly and the surrounding burbs.

Now the New York pretzel is very New York.  They have a traditional pretzel shape, and are BIG, just like everything in New York.  Where are they made?  It’s none of your business.  How long ago?  Why are you asking so many questions.  But what makes them good is them they’re heated on a street cart over charcoal.  They take on a little of that lighter fluid and Kingsford flavor…a little bit disgusting when you put it in black-and-white, but it’s that warmth that gives it that little extra umph.  You can find them at your favorite dirty-water-dog street vendor.  So, life’s full of risks, and who knows when’s the last time that guy washed his hands, but hey, it’s New York!

Found on Dreamer7112's flickr

Oh, I’m really scared! Your hurt my feelings! As IF!!!

Well, in case you’ve been living under a rock (and according to a former classmate on facebook, she has been), the New York Yankees are playing the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series.  Now if anybody knows me, I’m a die-hard Yankees fan.  I’ve been through the good and the bad.  I’ve been to probably 100 games at the old Stadium.  I watch just about every game on TV, or catch it on the radio.  When it comes to baseball, I’m no bandwagon fan.  I can’t say the same about hockey or football, but that’s not the point here. 

Anybody who knows me knows there’s hardly a time I don’t wear a ball cap.  More often than not, it a Yankee cap.  Each year, because I’m a superstitious asshole, I buy a new one and wear it the entire season.  This year it’s a white one commemorating the inaugural season in the new Stadium.  I got it in April, and have worn it every day since.  Pay attention…this is important. 

In addition to the hats, I have a pile of Yankee t-shirts.  I own a couple jerseys.  Oh, and the pictures on the wall.  And the flag outside.  And a couple of jackets.   My wife got me a real nice Yankee jacket.  It’s the same one the team wears in the dugout.  And now that fall has finally come around, and it’s a little chilly in the morning, I’ve been wearing it for about three weeks now.  In addition to the same hat I’ve been wearing since April. 

Picture this with a Philadelphia background, and you get my drift.

Now I take the train in every day from the suburbs into Center City Philadelphia.  As I strive to be on time to work, and as a creature of habit, I take the same trains, sit in the same cars, and essentially run into the same people.  But now that the Yanks are playing the Phils in the World Series, they’re approaching me, and telling me how brave I am for wearing a Yankee jacket in Philadelphia.  Brave?  BRAVE???  Brave is running into a burning building.  Brave fighting in Iraq.  Brave would be wearing a klan robe in North Philly.  But I’m wearing a fucking Yankee jacket!!! Do these people really think that there’s a 90% chance that the crowd would beat the shit out of me if I actually went to Citizens Bank Park?  Are Philly fans really that dumb?

Do you really want me to answer that question?

 I’ve spent over five years in Boston back before they broke the so-called Curse of the Bambino, and in all that time, I’ve taken my fair share of heckling both inside and out of Fenway Park.  I’ve gotten in heated exchanges, but it’s never gotten into fisticuffs.  Good for me for knowing where to draw the line.  But I’ve been in situations, seen the line drawn, and know where to zip it if necessary.  Again, I still have a pretty face. 

Bottom line, the Philly fans still don’t know how to heckle.  While Sox fans will yell at you from across the street that “Yankees suck”, the only thing Phillies fans know how to do is mutter “Phil-ees!”  This is also the same crowd where the largest word they know how to spell is Eagles, but again, another topic for another time. I guess all these years playing in the National League with the Mets hasn’t prepared Phillies fans for a good verbal heckle.  (Damn, I never did write about my trip to Shitty Field!  I should get on that in the next couple of months!) 

Bottom line, Sox fans will tell you to your face that you suck, while Phils fans will just be obnoxious, but without the personal attack.  I guess there is some truth to the slogan “City of Brotherly Love”.

Blog Psychic, Episode 3

There’s a lot of chatter regarding the predictions for the World Series, especially down here in enemy territory.  Rare is it when the Post and the Daily News have the same back cover…SHUT ROLLINS UP!!! 

My evil plan would be that the New York Football Giants would play the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, and win.  And the twin-bill nightcap of Philly/New York, the Yanks would win Game 4 of the World Series for a sweep.  Now while I’m pretty confident the G-men will beat the Iggles convincingly, especially coming off a loss to the Cardinals, I wouldn’t expect the Yanks to sweep.  I say they do it at home in Game 6, which means they’ll do it in five.

But don’t count out the sweep just yet.  Go Girardi wouldn’t pitch CC Sabathia on Games 1 and 4 if he didn’t think he’d have a very good chance of winning them.  So let’s assume he does win both.  Game 2 is AJ Burnett vs. Pedro “Who’s your Daddy?” Martinez.  Pedro is older, and will have to work very hard against a Yankee lineup that will look at a lot of pitches.  I say he’s doesn’t make four innings.  The Yanks pounce on the underbelly of the the Phillies bullpen and win Game 2.  Game 3, Andy “Mr. Most Wins in Postseason History” Pettitte vs. a shaky Cole Hamels.  Get in Cole’s head, he’ll cough up runs, throw a hissy fit, and the game.  And look at that…a four-game sweep.

Game 2, 2004 ALCS

So you heard it here…book a flight to Vegas, and you can thank me later.  Hell, if the NFL didn’t dick over Delaware, you could have driven here instead.  Well, you could bet on the Giants, but you need two more games for the parlay (sucker) bet.

There's always room on the shelf for one more.

Nobody would be saying anything if it wasn’t the Yankees playing…

Oh my God!  The world’s coming to an end!  The sky is falling!  A major-league umpire made a bad call.

Game 4 of the 2009 ALCS had more “bad calls” than a usual game.  I’m not going into detail about Swisher and the pick-off attempt, Swisher and the tag-up, or Cano/Posada on third.  Or at least I don’t want to.

Let me first squash the conspiracy theorists.  The Yankees have not paid off the umpire squad.  They have not bought the World Series (yet, but they’re no different than the Red Sox…again another argument for another time). 

So-called “bad calls” are bad because we, in the confines of our living rooms, enjoy a view the umpires do not have.  There’s all kinds of cameras covering a typical baseball game.  I believe the YES Network employs no less than 17 at a typical Yankees game.  Hence, we, the viewing public, can enjoy MULTIPLE camera angles showing the action from different points of view, in super-slow-motion, and if you have it, in high definition. 

Umpires, on the other hand have a very different point of view of the action.  They’re at field-level, not tens of feet above the action like the cameras up on the middle deck or the outfield, up on the backstop, or even on top of the stadium.  Sometimes where they be may not be the best angle to see what really happened.  Take Nick Swisher tagging up on third.  The instant replay showed Tim McClelland looking down the line into left field.  He’s looking for the catch, not if Swisher left the bag early or not.  It’s impossible to be looking at two things at once.  Now I know some of you will say that umpires have “blue” eyes…one blew this way, one blew that way.  But seriously…

Or here’s an every-game example.  The batter hits a ground ball to short, he fields, and fires to first.  Where’s the umpire?  He’d behind the first baseman in foul territory.  He doesn’t have the best point of view to see when the ball hits the glove.  That would be somewhere inbetween the pitcher and the first baseman.  So the umpire looks at the bag to see when the batter hits it, and listens for the snap of the ball hitting the glove, and makes the call from there.  Bottom line, he doesn’t have a clear view of the ball.  But one of the TV cameras sure does.

I challenge anybody to come off the street and do what the umpires do.  They’re pretty much on the road for the entire season, unlike the players who are home for 81 games.  The umpires are standing the entire game in the heat or the cold.  And they’re expected to be the pope.

But for the most part, we wouldn’t even know if the umpires were even making bad calls if it weren’t for all the instant replays on TV.  Now I’m not saying all these camera angles are bad for watching the game at home.  But if Major League Baseball wants to expand the instant replay beyond the current home run call, there needs to be some serious structure in place, and it needs to be used sparingly.  While the guys in the TV control trucks do an excellent job getting the replays up, many times they’re being shown while the next guy is up to bat.  While I hate limiting the number of challenges the NFL has (so the coach can’t be right a third time?), games in the playoffs are long enough as it is.  Adding an extra two or three minutes here and there can really drag things out.  It’s bad enough when they add an extra 30 second commercial after every half inning for the national games as it is.

But what we really need, not right now in the playoffs, but say next year on some random game, is the umpire cam.  Fos has buried cameras in the pitchers mound, and we’ve even had “catcher cam”.  Why not make the umpire wear that mask, so we, the great unwashed, can see exactly what the umpire sees as he’s hunching OVER the catcher so he can see the plate to call balls and strikes. 

And to further the point, how many times do you see grainy black-and-white footage from decades back, and see umpires making “bad calls”?  They had, what no more than three cameras back then?  And none of them were in the outfield.

Sure umpires have a job that people love to hate, but it’s all part of the game we all know and love, that is baseball.

Got this on twitter last night...

Hey Kellogs, do you not think we graduated third grade?

I may not be as bad as Seinfeld, but there’s typically a half-dozen boxes of cereal on top of my refrigerator.  More often than not, I’ll reach for the grown-up healthy stuff, but every now and then I’ll reach for the box of Froot Loops. 

I know I’ll sound like a girl here, but one of my favorites is Special K with Red Berries.  Since I eat my cereal dry (keeping the tradition alive for over 30 years now), I love the dehydrated strawberries.  It kind of reminds me of the astronaut food that was all the rage in the 1980’s. 

It’s delicious.  Nutritious.  So sacred it won’t dirty your dishes.  Wait, that’s Imus’ One Sacred Chicken to Go.

The thing I take issue with is the name.  Granted I appreciate it’s not called Estrogen in a Box.  But the term “Red Berries”?  How much do you have to dumb it down for the mouth-breathers?  You can’t use the exotic term “Strawberries”?  Even Cletus the slack-jawed yokel knows what the fuck a strawberry is.

Or is it that there’s a mixture of different berries in the red family.  Perhaps red raspberries?  Cherries?  Those little red berries on my evergreen bush?  Nope.  I checked the ingredients, and there are definitely no evergreen bush berries.

So Kellogs, if you’re paying attention here, why not change the name to Strawberry K?  Send me an e-mail and I’ll give you my bank account number so you can wire me the royalties. 

I get mine from Costco.

Hey, Steve Buckley! This is why Yankee fans hate Sox fans…

I spent many a painful year going to school and working in Boston, starting back when the Sox couldn’t suck enough, and they couldn’t even sell out Fenway, even against the Yanks…long before all these bandwagon fans came out of the woodwork.  But through my astute observation (basically it was as plain as the nose on my face), Sox fans had a huge inferiority complex when it came to the Yanks.  And they blamed everything on the Curse of the Bambino.  Sox aren’t winning?  Curse of the Bambino.  Train broke down?  Curse of the Bambino.  Girlfriend dumped me?  Must be that damn curse.  But what it came down to was that the average Sox fan was one-dimensional, only knew one thing, and clung on to the past, reluctant to change, and only spit out the company line when confronted by out-of-towners.

And it’s this one-dimensional character flaw where they lead that battle cry, “Yankees suck!”  So the Yanks are playing the Sox?  Sure thing, yell your face off.  But Cleveland’s in town and you’re still chanting “Yankees suck!” and Cleveland is going to the playoffs and the Sox aren’t?  Sad.  10-year-old kids getting into my face in Fenway?  Pathetic. 

Now that doesn’t mean that there aren’t intelligent baseball fans in and around New England.  They’re just few and far between.  I used to hang out and drink at bars with a bunch  of old townies, but once they saw that even though I’m a die-hard, I can have an intelligent baseball discussion, they took me in. 

Now while living/working up there, I used to take the T all the time.  And since this was before the days that any jackass with a computer could come up with a blog/news source, I’d read this thing called a newspaper.  Now like most large cities in this country, there were two big dailies…the Globe and the Herald.  The Globe was a broadsheet format, and catered to the upper crust.  I’d get the Herald, because I’m a sucker for a tabloid format.  It’s just easier to read on the train.  And I didn’t mind the Herald.  Three pages of comics, and decent (albeit slanted) sports coverage.  Remember this was the paper the still dedicated two full pages to each of Clemens’ starts in Toronto, as if he still played in Boston…kind of how Green Bay still loved Favre when he went to the Jets. 

Now what I liked to do was read it cover-to-cover and scream in my head back at the columnists, sports or otherwise.  The only one that called a straight shot was Michael Gee, but he has other unrelated issues.  Now I know journalism is supposed to be impartial to an extent, but these guys were delusional borderline insane.  Oh, wait…it’s just the inferiority complex coming through again. 

Fast forward a couple of years.  The so-called curse has been broken, they won two World Series, and the Sox fans are as miserable as ever.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

This past September, Boston came to the Bronx to play one last three-game series against the Yanks.  What started as a lop-sided 0-8 season series, the Yanks were on the precipice of tying it up at 9-9 with a three game sweep.  On the Friday night pregame (September 25), Yankee announcer Suzy Waldbaums interviews Boston Herald sports columnist Steve Buckley.  (Go onto itunes and download it yourself.)He give her the usual fluff, that the Sox don’t care that the Yanks are in first and the wild card is just fine (I don’t buy it one bit).  He does make the point that it’s not like the Yanks get a first round bye like they would in football, but like he said out of one side of his mouth, and then out of his other, if you don’t have home-field advantage, you have to play that fifth game on the road. 

So things go swimmingly for the better part of the three-plus minute interview, and she wraps things up by saying, “It’s my guess that we’ll be doing this back again in a couple of weeks,” referring to the fact that the way things were lining up, there was a very good chance that the two teams would meet up in the ALCS.  The Yanks were going to face the Tigers (or the Twins if they were to face a monumental collapse) whom they only lost once to this season, and the Sox always do well against the Angels.  It was a hey, who knows kind of moment.  And those writers and announcers all run into each other before and after games, so even if he doesn’t go on the pregame again, she was sure to run into him in the hallways at some point. 

But then he pulls the ultimate dick move if there ever was one.  He thanks her, and then says, “Oh, by the way, I’m going with the Tigers in the first round over the Yankees.”  This throws her off for a second, because she’d expect this from some guy in the Fenway grandstands named Sully, not a supposed professional journalist.   But she then throws it back at him, saying that if the Angels beat the Sox, then they won’t be having this discussion in a couple of weeks, which of course he didn’t like, so he tried to reiterate his original point, by saying “I love the Yankees but I love Verlander more.” 

BULLSHIT.  You hate the Yankees, Steve. 

And then Suzyn Waldman makes the asute point, that “Verlander has to pitch all three games according to Steve Buckley.”  Nice.  Call him an asshole right there on the carpet, but in a subtle way, so that his pea brain doesn’t realize you’ve just shown everybody listening that his logic is not only flawed, but on the same level as a 10-year-old.  You, know, the ones that think they’re cool heckling a guy wearing Yankee cap in Fenway. 

I get it.  I know you’re a homer.  I know you’re rooting for the Yankees to lose each and every solitary game for some unknown reason.  What happened?  Were the nuns mean to you in school?  Somebody run over your dog?  Did you get touched as a kid?  So WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?  GROW THE FUCK UP AND ACT LIKE A FUCKING ADULT, DOUCHEBAG!!!

You see kids, they typical Sox fan is so insecure, that he trysto play dirty, and thinks he’s all cool in doing so.  And what’s worse, they’re all over the place now like cockroaches ever since they won a World Series or two.  But we all know they’re  nothing but a bunch of babies.  Today’s they’re all backpedaling.  They’ll try to say that the Yanks have done nothing the past couple of years, going out in the first round of the playoffs.  But when they it happens to them, oh, no, they were robbed.  It was this excuse or that excuse.  Blah, blah, blah.

As we all know, Steve Buckley’s predictions were wrong on so many levels.  First, the Twins beat the Tigers for the division.  Second, the Yankees took care of the Twins in the LDS.  Besides, the Yanks could have beaten the Tigers if they had played them.  Third, the Sox got their asses handed to them, and couldn’t keep up their end of the bargain.  So Friday night, poor Suzyn Waldman will have to talk to somebody from the Angels media corps.  Oh well…

This is perhaps one of my favorite t-shirts I own:

I’d like to coin a term…

BOWM – Bitter Old White Man

I’m a Bitter Old White Man.  Well, I’m not really old, but I’m bitter, white, and last time I checked, I’m still a man.  I’m in my mid-30s, and may actually be part of the last generation that had it “tough”.  I think I missed the boat by about 10 years.  Today’s “kids” don’t know how great they have it.  Let’s compare how things were back in the not quite dark ages when I was in college, and what the happy-go-lucky student has today. 

I'm the younger one...

Back when I was in college, the only people that had cell phones were rich foreigners.  Laptops were prohibitively expensive.  And if you had one, you were just trying to show off.  The internet was in its infancy, and all we had was dial-up e-mail and news groups.  I was cool in my dorm, or so I thought, because I had a cordless phone, which meant you could walk down the hall and have a conversation.  Today, you not only have high speed internet, but it’s literally everywhere, even on your cell phone.

10 years ago, you had your home phone, and you got a long distance plan.  10 cents a minute was considered good.  Now, it’s all included in your cell phone plan.  With e-mail, how many different addresses have I had between different internet providers and jobs?  Now, with social networking, the e-mail address isn’t the defining category, but the person is the defining category.

Back then, the chicks were into grunge, and wore flannel.  Loose, oversized flannel.  And overalls.  And combat boots.  Today, it’s all tight-fitting, low cut shirts, short shorts, high heels.  And they’re easy to find, since they have the internet on their cell phones.

I currently drive a station car.  Not a station wagon, a station car.  A junker you drive to and from the train station, and nowhere else.  Why pay hundreds of dollars in car payments when it’s going to sit in a parking lot minutes from home every day?  The radio died, so I replaced it…with one with a cassette deck.  Most of my music (as bad as it is), is on tape.  But since the drive is so short, I don’t even bother to pop the detachable faceplate in.  What’s the point?  I adopted CD’s late.  I LOVED my walkman.  I went through many, because I wore the motors out.  I even wore some tapes out.  Today, I have two large BOXES of cassettes, and two more of CD’s.  Now, you can walk around with an ipod with every song you’ve even owned on it.  Do today’s kids even know what an album is, in the day of 99 cent downloads?

I don’t even want to go off about black-and-white televisions, TV’s without remote controls, and rotary dial telephones.

Reason 8,475,232,997 to hate Walmart

I don’t shop at Walmart.  My number one reason has nothing to do with how they treat labor, how they ruin small towns, or anything like that.  It’s rather quite simple: there is no Walmart near me.  In the vast suburbs of northern tax-free Delaware, Walmart is nowhere near where I live or where I shop. 

Walmart has a culture of low-prices, but they’re only pennies less than Target for any item.  It’s not worth the extra gas I’d spend to schlep all the way there.  But the other reason is that even if it’s the nicest Walmart in the country, it’s still a Walmart.  I don’t know how things are in other parts of the country (if I’m traveling from state to state, it’s to visit ballparks, not Walmarts), but Walmarts up here are cluttered and unorganized, have long checkout lines, and have a certain skeevy factor about them.  I’m sure I’m just stating the obvious, as there are countless blogs that go into this ad nauseum. 

Like www.peopleofwalmart.com.  This blog is hilarious.  It chronicles the “characters” that shop at Walmarts across the country.  Do a google search, and there isn’t a people-of-target dot-com.  And I don’t know what it is about Walmart, but it just attracts people like this, even up here.  You can imply some of these people live in trailers, or as we like to say in Delaware “manufactured housing”, but I’m sure some like in shacks, hobbles, caves, etc.  OK, but for a gem like this one, there’s always a story like this one to counter it.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/arizona-couple-suing-bathtime-photos-prompt-wal-mart/Story?id=8624533&page=3

So this couple has some pictures they want to develop.  OK, probably digital images, but who’s arguing semantics here?  Oh, that’s right, me.  So they have the obligatory pictures of their cute kids in the bathtub, you know, the ones all junior-high kids fear their parents will blow up to poster-sized and put on display at a school assembly, or simply whip them out when they meet the boyfriend/girlfriend before the first date.  Yes kids, we really do this for this sole purpose.  But it’s NOT to swap them creepy people on the internet who have to register with the local governments and are not allowed to give out candy at Halloween. 

Now I could insert a punchline about living in Arizona, or how Conservatives are ruining the country, or even how hippies are letting their kids run around the house nekkid.  But I think that in today’s society that awards fifth-place trophies and is hyper-letigious (I still think they should sue the BALLS off Walmart), I think the lesson learned here is to invest the money in a photo printer.

Hi, my name is Chris, and apparently, I’m a child pornographer…

Blog Psychic Episode Two

How long do we have to wait until Kanye West admits his interruption of Taylor Swift’s VMA acceptance was 100% and completely staged? 

And why do people make a big deal over this, as if we didn’t know this whole thing was staged in the first place? 

And how am I so sure it was staged?  Simple.  If I bum-rushed the stage, security would have tossed me out onto 6th Avenue quicker than the D train running underneath it.  You’re telling me that because Kanye was a celebrity security would just let him slide?  What if it was some creep like Woody Allen?  They’d put him on the next bus to Bellevue. 

Game, set, match.

Rack me!