A former federal prosecutor, George Parry, has an interesting Op-Ed in the Inquirer this morning, noting that Philadelphia has fallen on hard times indeed - even the Mob is moving out.
Up from a high of 80 members, the small but once-feared Mob is now down to a mere 10 or so guys on the street, with another 10 or so cooling their heels in prison. Far from being a triumph of police work, the author argues, it is a mark of how big a mess the city has become.
"It means that we have so little going for us that we can't even attract and keep a decent-sized organized-crime family. Things have deteriorated so badly that not even these bums want to live and commit crimes here."
Hooray for us.
Of course, on the up side, the Inquirer also reports that the top selling item at a local pet boutique chain is a woolly Michael Vick chew toy for your dog to nibble on while you watch the Eagles.
At least that's something.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
My beer tried to kill me
I have a few cases of almost forgotten homebrewed beer in the basement and I figured I ought to fish some of it up before it loses any appeal. So this afternoon, I hefted up a partial case of a nice IPA I brewed last fall and set it down in front of the fridge. I leaned over to clear some space on a shelf. Then I heard a pop and felt a searing pain. I looked down and realized a bottle had exploded right between my legs, driving the neck and cap straight up into my undefended crotch.
Let me tell you, this hurt a very great deal. Perhaps more than a great deal.
I guess it beats a piece of glass in the eye, but I will be remembering this for a few days.
The only good news is that, based on the aroma of the exploded bottle, the hop character has held up pretty well over the last 10 months. As long as the remaining bottles don't blow up on me, I am in for a few reasonable glasses of beer.
Let me tell you, this hurt a very great deal. Perhaps more than a great deal.
I guess it beats a piece of glass in the eye, but I will be remembering this for a few days.
The only good news is that, based on the aroma of the exploded bottle, the hop character has held up pretty well over the last 10 months. As long as the remaining bottles don't blow up on me, I am in for a few reasonable glasses of beer.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Fun with English
We were wandering through the wilds of Arizona recently when we happened upon a remote hotel and diner kind of place. The guests appeared to be mostly German and Japanese. One of the Japanese men was wearing a shirt that caught my eye. Under the logo for something called "The California Surfing Company" it said:
"Sports requires a balance of mind when practiced with patience, it's very pleasant. Surfing."
I don't recall seeing that one at the T-Shirt shops of Venice and Malibu.
"Sports requires a balance of mind when practiced with patience, it's very pleasant. Surfing."
I don't recall seeing that one at the T-Shirt shops of Venice and Malibu.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
The truth comes out
Apparently, my awful secret has been revealed. Much as I pose a humble American journalist, I am in fact the illegitimate child of a Russian drifter named Shemp and famous film actress and Princess Grace Kelly.
There. I said it.
There. I said it.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
What a way to go
I have no idea if this little bit of code is accurate, but it is an amusing way to consider how to drink yourself to death. It suggests that I would need to down 26 bottles of delicious Mirror Pond Pale Ale by Deschutes in a three hour period to be sure of finishing the job:
Created by Bar Stools
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Truer words
I was cleaning up some old computer files this morning and ran across the remnant of a letter I wrote to a friend in 1996 (Yes, a real postal letter. Remember those?). In it, I relate how relatively quiet life was - I was getting ready to take an exciting new job, my wife was prospering at her job, we had gone to see old friends. And I opined that a quiet life is a good thing:
"Truth be told, I like it that way," my smug 28-year-old self wrote. "When you're very young, you think you want to spend every day tackling deep philosophical questions and saving the world. Get a little older and you realize that cold beer, color television (with a remote), and soft toilet paper are about all a man really needs on most days."
I really wish I had known how true this is. And how much truer it continues to get.
"Truth be told, I like it that way," my smug 28-year-old self wrote. "When you're very young, you think you want to spend every day tackling deep philosophical questions and saving the world. Get a little older and you realize that cold beer, color television (with a remote), and soft toilet paper are about all a man really needs on most days."
I really wish I had known how true this is. And how much truer it continues to get.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
The one that got away
Comedy is, as Steve Martin observes, not pretty. An internal filter, while it may be an excellent social survival mechanism, is often death to perfectly good humor.
There is one straight line that I have always regretted passing up, a regret so deep that it has been slightly life altering.
Back several years ago, a friend typed a post on a discussion group, a post she called "A Purple Brassiere":
All my life, I have worn white, and beige, with the occasional black
for evening. Last shopping trip, I decided to chuck it all and go
PURPLE. It's bright, easter-egg purple. And I bought bright baby
blue just for fun too, but that doesn't have quite the same effect.
Ladies, let me tell you, it is amazing. No one can see it, of
course, with the type of stuff I wear (being 40 and saggy and all)
but I KNOW IT'S THERE. It has put a swagger in my step and a bounce
in my stride. I highly recommend it. I had me a red one once, but
it just made me feel slutty (not always a bad thing), but this
purple makes me feel marvelously . . . something. Can't find a
precise word. It's wonderful.
My immediate impulse was to write:
"Now you know what it's like to have a dick."
But of course I restrained myself. And I have regretted it often, 'cause that is some premium comedy right there. From that moment, I resolved to say whatever the hell that comes to my mind, consequences be damned. Sometimes I have regretted that too. And sometimes I cannot live up to such a high standard. But it is a noble aspiration.
There is one straight line that I have always regretted passing up, a regret so deep that it has been slightly life altering.
Back several years ago, a friend typed a post on a discussion group, a post she called "A Purple Brassiere":
All my life, I have worn white, and beige, with the occasional black
for evening. Last shopping trip, I decided to chuck it all and go
PURPLE. It's bright, easter-egg purple. And I bought bright baby
blue just for fun too, but that doesn't have quite the same effect.
Ladies, let me tell you, it is amazing. No one can see it, of
course, with the type of stuff I wear (being 40 and saggy and all)
but I KNOW IT'S THERE. It has put a swagger in my step and a bounce
in my stride. I highly recommend it. I had me a red one once, but
it just made me feel slutty (not always a bad thing), but this
purple makes me feel marvelously . . . something. Can't find a
precise word. It's wonderful.
My immediate impulse was to write:
"Now you know what it's like to have a dick."
But of course I restrained myself. And I have regretted it often, 'cause that is some premium comedy right there. From that moment, I resolved to say whatever the hell that comes to my mind, consequences be damned. Sometimes I have regretted that too. And sometimes I cannot live up to such a high standard. But it is a noble aspiration.
Friday, June 12, 2009
On Having Children, Pt. 2
My older son today got an award on the last day of school - everyone in the whole school gets something, so some of the categories are distinctly weird.
But our credulity was strained to the limit when he reported the pin he received was for "Best Aggression." Not only would this be wildly out of character for my son, it seems like an utterly bizarre thing to reward outside the context of, say, football camp or the Marine Corps.
But then we figured out it was "best progression," based on his amazing progress in Math this year.
It makes a lot more sense, but I am strangely disappointed. "Best Aggression" is actually kind of a cool category, now that I think about it.
But our credulity was strained to the limit when he reported the pin he received was for "Best Aggression." Not only would this be wildly out of character for my son, it seems like an utterly bizarre thing to reward outside the context of, say, football camp or the Marine Corps.
But then we figured out it was "best progression," based on his amazing progress in Math this year.
It makes a lot more sense, but I am strangely disappointed. "Best Aggression" is actually kind of a cool category, now that I think about it.
How cool would this be?
Usually, I am not fond of being injured, but I must say I am madly jealous of this little kid. How come I couldn't get hit by a space rock?
A 14-year old German boy was hit in the hand by a pea-sized meteorite that scared the bejeezus out of him and left a scar.
"When it hit me it knocked me flying and then was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road," Gerrit Blank said in a newspaper account. Astronomers have analyzed the object and conclude it was indeed a natural object from space, The Telegraph reports.
...
There are a handful of reports of homes and cars being struck by meteorites, and many cases of space rocks streaking to the surface and being found later.
But human strikes are rare. There are no known instances of humans being killed by space rocks.
A 14-year old German boy was hit in the hand by a pea-sized meteorite that scared the bejeezus out of him and left a scar.
"When it hit me it knocked me flying and then was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road," Gerrit Blank said in a newspaper account. Astronomers have analyzed the object and conclude it was indeed a natural object from space, The Telegraph reports.
...
There are a handful of reports of homes and cars being struck by meteorites, and many cases of space rocks streaking to the surface and being found later.
But human strikes are rare. There are no known instances of humans being killed by space rocks.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Maybe I have changed my mind
I normally don't like practical jokes. In part this because I am susceptible to them - for a professional cynic, I am a surprisingly trusting guy. And also I seem to have an extra empathy gene - even when the joke is not on me, I simply cannot stand to see other people embarrassed. I begin to squirm at the mere idea that someone is embarrassed. This is why I have a hard time watching prank shows or game shows that involve public humiliation. I feel their distress just as keenly as if it were happening to me.
Except that I really must admit that this is the best prank of all time and I laughed until it hurt. To quote from The Smoking Gun:
A telephone prankster posing as a sprinkler company employee caused havoc Saturday morning at an Arkansas Holiday Inn when he convinced an employee to set off the hotel's fire alarm, smash windows, shut down electricity, and break a sprinkler head that flooded the building lobby. The bizarre incident is detailed in a report prepared by the Conway Police Department, which, as seen below, photographed the aftermath of the June 6 incident. According to police, Holiday Inn employee Christina Bergmann was at the front desk early Saturday when a male caller "identified himself as an employee of Grennel Fire Sprinkler service." The man told Bergmann that there was a problem with the hotel's fire sprinklers and that she "needed to pull the fire alarm to reset them," cops reported. "Bergmann proceeded to pull the fire alarm at this point, causing the audible alarm." Bergmann, aided by a hotel guest, would subsequently follow a series of directions from the caller that would result in about $50,000 in damages to the hotel's windows, carpets and electrical system.
That is what humor is all about. Inspired.
Except that I really must admit that this is the best prank of all time and I laughed until it hurt. To quote from The Smoking Gun:
A telephone prankster posing as a sprinkler company employee caused havoc Saturday morning at an Arkansas Holiday Inn when he convinced an employee to set off the hotel's fire alarm, smash windows, shut down electricity, and break a sprinkler head that flooded the building lobby. The bizarre incident is detailed in a report prepared by the Conway Police Department, which, as seen below, photographed the aftermath of the June 6 incident. According to police, Holiday Inn employee Christina Bergmann was at the front desk early Saturday when a male caller "identified himself as an employee of Grennel Fire Sprinkler service." The man told Bergmann that there was a problem with the hotel's fire sprinklers and that she "needed to pull the fire alarm to reset them," cops reported. "Bergmann proceeded to pull the fire alarm at this point, causing the audible alarm." Bergmann, aided by a hotel guest, would subsequently follow a series of directions from the caller that would result in about $50,000 in damages to the hotel's windows, carpets and electrical system.
That is what humor is all about. Inspired.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Party?
Wow, my control panel tells me I have 200 POSTS on my blog!
Do I, like, get an award or a pizza party or something?
No?
Shit.
Do I, like, get an award or a pizza party or something?
No?
Shit.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
On Having Children
Having kids means hearing strings of words that do not normally go together in regular conversation.
This evening, after depositing the children in bed later than I had intended, I heard a mighty cry from the bedroom. I stormed in, with my best Scary Dad stomp, to see what was up, and my youngest cried out "Evan was licking my pillow."
What in the Hell am I supposed to say to that?
This evening, after depositing the children in bed later than I had intended, I heard a mighty cry from the bedroom. I stormed in, with my best Scary Dad stomp, to see what was up, and my youngest cried out "Evan was licking my pillow."
What in the Hell am I supposed to say to that?
The Jolly Jeep of Doom
Small things make me happy - a good beer, a beautiful sunset, a perfectly cooked meal, comfy shoes. You get the idea.
But sometimes really big things make me happy, like a gigantic green four door Jeep Wrangler.
So when it became clear that my 2000 BMW was becoming prohibitively expensive to keep running (Like $11,000 in maintenance in four years), I knew we had to act.
Behold the Jolly Jeep of Doom:
Now all I want to do all day is go drive around in my Jeep. Even grocery shopping is more fun in a Jeep.
But sometimes really big things make me happy, like a gigantic green four door Jeep Wrangler.
So when it became clear that my 2000 BMW was becoming prohibitively expensive to keep running (Like $11,000 in maintenance in four years), I knew we had to act.
Behold the Jolly Jeep of Doom:
Now all I want to do all day is go drive around in my Jeep. Even grocery shopping is more fun in a Jeep.
Friday, June 05, 2009
Things I had forgotten about until today
Saw this posted on a local website I like and I was briefly transported back. Did we all ever look this young?
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Digusting?
I rarely read Nicholas Kristof columns, largely because I have a strict limit on the number of angry articles about Darfur I may read in a year (Just one. Thanks for reminding me of my impotence to cure man's inhumanity to man, Nick), but he has an interesting column today, which I read by accident at the gym:
Would You Slap Your Father? If So, You’re a Liberal
Seems that your relative tendency to be a conservative is correlated with how likely you are to find something disgusting. At least, that's what some researchers at the University of Virginia say. And if it's happening at UVA, then I am inclined to believe it.
But still, I decided to take the survey myself (actually, it's a bunch of related surveys, and it took some time to complete them, but it's not like I have any actual paying work today, so what the Hell).
Your Morals survey
And, of course, it isn't as simple as Kristof suggests, but the results are fairly interesting. Turns out I am very slightly more prone to be disgusted than the average of people who have taken the survey, but mostly related to actually contaminated stuff - spoiled meat, spoiled milk, that kind of thing. Stuff that might be called merely "icky", like touching a dead body or seeing rats, doesn't bother me much at all. But I knew that already. I wonder to what extent my experience as a cook skews my responses - I think I am particularly sensitive to food that is bad simply because I have been exposed to food so intimately all my life and it is so important for me to be aware of the quality and condition of ingredients.
I wonder if cooks are more conservative. Maybe that's another survey.
There are a couple of oddball problems with the survey. For example, the "sacredness" survey tries to gauge how likely to are to violate some core principle for money by asking you how much it would take to do certain things, such as shoot an endangered animal or curse your parents. They call it the "what would you do for a million dollars" survey. The problem at least for me is that I am not terribly motivated by money (or I wouldn't be a journalist, obviously), so I answered either I'd do it for free or I would never do it for any price to every question. I mean, if someone wanted to actually pay me to flip off my professor, I'd be glad to take their cash, but I might very well do it free anyway just to see what happens. But at the same time, even a million dollars wouldn't induce me to cut off contact with my family for a year.
Would You Slap Your Father? If So, You’re a Liberal
Seems that your relative tendency to be a conservative is correlated with how likely you are to find something disgusting. At least, that's what some researchers at the University of Virginia say. And if it's happening at UVA, then I am inclined to believe it.
But still, I decided to take the survey myself (actually, it's a bunch of related surveys, and it took some time to complete them, but it's not like I have any actual paying work today, so what the Hell).
Your Morals survey
And, of course, it isn't as simple as Kristof suggests, but the results are fairly interesting. Turns out I am very slightly more prone to be disgusted than the average of people who have taken the survey, but mostly related to actually contaminated stuff - spoiled meat, spoiled milk, that kind of thing. Stuff that might be called merely "icky", like touching a dead body or seeing rats, doesn't bother me much at all. But I knew that already. I wonder to what extent my experience as a cook skews my responses - I think I am particularly sensitive to food that is bad simply because I have been exposed to food so intimately all my life and it is so important for me to be aware of the quality and condition of ingredients.
I wonder if cooks are more conservative. Maybe that's another survey.
There are a couple of oddball problems with the survey. For example, the "sacredness" survey tries to gauge how likely to are to violate some core principle for money by asking you how much it would take to do certain things, such as shoot an endangered animal or curse your parents. They call it the "what would you do for a million dollars" survey. The problem at least for me is that I am not terribly motivated by money (or I wouldn't be a journalist, obviously), so I answered either I'd do it for free or I would never do it for any price to every question. I mean, if someone wanted to actually pay me to flip off my professor, I'd be glad to take their cash, but I might very well do it free anyway just to see what happens. But at the same time, even a million dollars wouldn't induce me to cut off contact with my family for a year.
Monday, May 18, 2009
The road not taken
Oh, how I wish I had been an ichthyologist. Not because I have any interest in fish - in fact, I usually find them disturbing and unpleasant, except when they are converted into Sushi or a well-timed Filet-o-Fish - but because it would be so cool to say "I am an ichthyologist."
Better yet, I want to be a "Freelance Ichthyologist."
That would make me happy.
Better yet, I want to be a "Freelance Ichthyologist."
That would make me happy.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Tasting Beer in the Future
Believe it or not, I actually managed to use this phrase in perfectly normal conversation recently. And it suddenly occurred to me that "Tasting Beer in the Future" would be an outrageously good name for an album or a novel.
Friday, May 01, 2009
Pubic humiliation
My favorite newspaper correction website, Regret the Error, has a lovely little piece this week on a lengthy correction in the Irish Times, lamenting that the letter L, "that slenderest and most treacherous of letter types," has somehow slipped from a key phrase, making the author appear to say that something was a matter of "pubic faith."
"This is a risk that serious newspapers, in which the word “public” will always feature prominently, run every day," the Times writes. "It wouldn’t be as big a problem if, for example, it was the ‘b’ that kept dropping out. But then we or the spellchecker would notice that. Whereas the lower-case “l” has a Judas-like ability to slip away unnoticed, with embarrassing results."
This happened to me once, as I have probably typed here somewhere before, when I wrote about a "poorly attended public hearing" in Greene County, Virginia. At least that's what I MEANT to type, except for that damned L.
The error slipped passed me, my editor, my publisher, and several other people who read the page as I was laying it out. It was only revealed the next day, when a local attorney called my editor and noted that "Had I known it was going to be a pubic hearing, I might have attended."
That is only slightly more embarrassing than the ad we ran in the same paper a year earlier in the annual Christmas special edition which wished us all "Peach on Earth."
"This is a risk that serious newspapers, in which the word “public” will always feature prominently, run every day," the Times writes. "It wouldn’t be as big a problem if, for example, it was the ‘b’ that kept dropping out. But then we or the spellchecker would notice that. Whereas the lower-case “l” has a Judas-like ability to slip away unnoticed, with embarrassing results."
This happened to me once, as I have probably typed here somewhere before, when I wrote about a "poorly attended public hearing" in Greene County, Virginia. At least that's what I MEANT to type, except for that damned L.
The error slipped passed me, my editor, my publisher, and several other people who read the page as I was laying it out. It was only revealed the next day, when a local attorney called my editor and noted that "Had I known it was going to be a pubic hearing, I might have attended."
That is only slightly more embarrassing than the ad we ran in the same paper a year earlier in the annual Christmas special edition which wished us all "Peach on Earth."
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