Who originally sang “Coming to America”?
Lawchair Larry
I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. It was on this date 25 years ago that Lawnchair Larry flew 16,000 feet up in the air with nothing more than a lawnchair and some helium balloons. He got a little nervous and called in a Mayday on his CB before shooting out some of the ballons with a BB gun he had brought along. He then began drifting slowly back to earth.
Sweet!
For some reason, Pat Gillick has it in for Chris Coste. The real life Rocky who gave the Phillies amazing at bats in their late season run last year was brushed aside so that the Phillies could pay $2 million on a catcher who is, without question, the worst at his position in baseball. Then, Coste came up a couple of months ago when Ryan Howard went down. He gave the Phillies some solid at bats, then was unceremoniously dumped to Reading. So what will happen now that Werth is on the DL and Coste has been called up? He will probably hit .333, throw out a few runners, and then be sent back to Reading so that Barajas can hit .209, not throw anybody out, and have runners slide through his legs. It makes perfect sense.
Our Beloved Mayor
The Mayor is spending his workday waiting in line for an iPhone. And who can blame him? It’s not like we are leading the country in murder, so if we he wants to spend a day just lounging around in line , why not? Crisis? What crisis?
Phillies News and Notes
Lots of Phillies stuff to talk about. Our dreadful bullpen blew it again last night. I am no longer on the Charlie-hater bandwagon. I have decided to devote all of my energy to the Pat Gillick hater bandwagon. For him to pretend like we didn’t need bullpen help desperately, and instead spend his extra money on the worst catcher in baseball and the worst 3rd baseman in baseball is absolutely pathetic. I don’t get mad at Charlie most of the time when it comes to pulling pitchers anymore b/c he is always facing a double edged sword: tired starter or dreadful bullpen? And that is entirely Gillick’s fault. And he refuses to actually work to find a young guy with potential in somebodies pen and make a trade. Why bother, when you can just pick up Jose Mesa?
*Bill Conlin today says Charlie is to be commended for the job he’s done thus far.
*My man D-Mac has a cover story about 10,000 losses. Good article, especially the opening.
*Sports Illustrated gives us the lovable loser treatment in their handling of the 10,000 losses. You have to read some of the great Phillie quotes over the years. Hilarious.
Cool facts about Philadelphia in the Metro
In this weeks column, I wrote about some fun Philadelphia facts. Please list some of your favorite Philly facts below.
Quizzo News and Notes
First, I played with some of the Satan’s Minions at Nodding Head on Sunday. Irish John was hosting. He seems to be a bit mellower than he used to be. First time I’ve ever played his quizzo where he didn’t tell a single person, “Shut the **** up, you stupid ****.” (To be honest, I was a little disappointed. The highlight of his quizzo is always when he gets really pissed.) The quiz was pretty good. More minutiae than mine, I think. I couldn’t really help all that much. He doesn’t really ever venture into my wheelhouse, which is US history and sports. We won though, pretty easily, at least partly because Mike of the Minions is the King of Minutiae. The next night I went with D-Mac and a few of the Chin Omelettes over to New Deck. (We were gonna play Dark Horse but DH John got sick.) Not a bad quiz, pretty good mix of questions. The New Deck isn’t my favorite bar in the world, and the food was so-so, but the food and drinks were pretty cheap. We lost to the Sofa Kingdom by 3 points, and finished out of the money. I still like Dark Horse quizzo better than either of these quizzos, but they were perfectly good.
Palestra Jon wasn’t so lucky. He played out in the burbs. Here were his thoughts: I went out to check out some suburban Quizzo at Iron Hill Brewery in Media. Nice place. Bad Quizzo. 5 rounds. …ALL POP CULTURE, straight out of trivia book. A numerical question 11 to each round, almost impossible (how many pounds of meat can a wolf eat at one sitting—20). To show how bad this crowd is, they asked only one general knowledge question out of 50—In what war was the Battle of the Bulge—only 1/3 of the teams got that right. On the good side, $3 homemade microbrews and cheap appetizers.
Finally, the Satan’s Minions took a field trip to Kildare’s last night for their award winning quizzo. They said that it was ok, but there were several major problems. First of all, length. Three and a half hours long. Then, all the questions were worth one point apiece, except for one question, which was worth ten. That question? “What Kildare’s bartender was named Best Of Philly by Philly Style Magazine?” Teams could also joker that round, so if they knew the bartender, they could get 20 points for knowing it. This question took place in the first round, so anyone who didn’t know it essentially lost after round one, because they had to work out of a 30+ point hole. There were six rounds, all with topics. They were: 2 audio rounds, Cartoons, Animal House, Headlines, and Advertising Slogans. There were no history, gegraphy, science, or politics questions. According to Mike, “I think they had to keep all the questions pop culture related, or they would have upset the crowd, which consisted entirely of idiot drunken frat boys.” The quizzo also featured a chugging contest (which, I have to admit, is kind of a fun idea.)
Anybody out there played any good or bad quizzos lately? Let us know what you recommend (and which ones we should stay away from) below.
Online Trivia
Jonesing for some trivia and can’t wait ’til tonigh? In that case, take this Global IQ test from Newsweek.
Das Efx with Ice Cube
http://www.youtube.com/v/yQbhlf5fjjI
Chiggity Check Yourself Before you wreck yourself (Clean version). Here’s an interiew with Das EFX where they talk about an album that is expected to be released early next year, and here they are on MySpace.Around the Horn
–Margate Lucy is getting a makeover. Wow, has it really been over three years since I hung out inside of Lucy?
-Internet radio is on hiatus today in protest of a recent ruling that caused royalty rates to skyrocket. I knew this online digital music thing was just a fad. I’m gonna make a fortune selling all the cassettes I’ve been hoarding the past few years!
-The shocking murder/suicide of Chris Benoit and his family may have had something to do with steroids, not surprisingly. The number of pro wrestlers who die before they turn 50 is staggering.
-Happy birthday to Willie’s favorite player Michael Vick. I heard that for his birthday he got a new puppy!