THOUGHTFUL THURSDAYS: ARE YOU SURE IT'S NOT FRIENDLY FRIDAY?

Here's a thought...

It feels like Friday. I keep having to remind myself it's Thursday, Thursday, Thursday. Halloween is tomorrow and I'm nearly ready. I still have to get a cane, white gloves and some gold facepaint. Mr. Peanut here I come! Tonight I need to have Jen draw the peanut ridges on my shirt and make the little white hat band that reads "Mr. Peanut."

Oh my, I'm hungry. I had an early lunch, which is always tough for me. My stomach usually only stays full for 2-3 hours. Good thing I have a fast metabolism. If I didn't, they'd have to use a crane to get me to work every day. Can you imagine if you had to travel to work by crane? That would be equal parts cool and embarassing. Costly too I imagine.

Here's another thought.... The Phillies won! If you know me, you'll probably hear me mention this fact for the next several months. Get used to it.

Tonight is October 30th (aka "Mischief Night"... or is that an East Coast-only thing?). I was supposed to be preparing to see Neil Young but then he decided to cancel because some of the workers at The Forum are on strike and he doesn't want to break the picket line. This is bullshit for so many reasons. I respect Neil's principles here but apparently these guys have been on strike on and off for two years! Why would you book this show at The Forum!? Since I ordered through this special pre-order site (not Ticketmaster) I have to mail my ticket back to get a refund. I could always keep the ticket and go to the rescheduled show but since there's no date for the show, just "sometime in 2009," I think I'll have to vote with my pocketbook on this one and return the ticket. After all, I just pre-ordered his stupid archives on Blu-Ray for 300, even though they'll still probably never come out... I could use a $100 refund.

Damn, Neil. The economy sucks! Why are you putting me on the street?

THE PHUCKING PHIGHTING PHILLIES HAVE JUST WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm too drunk with excitement to write Wagonwheel today. This is fucking unreal. I'm still expecting another game.


WE WON

WE WON

WE WONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TOPICAL TUESDAYS: RAIN RAIN GO AWAY

What's another few days after waiting my whole life, right? My baseball hating girlfriend thinks that baseball players are "wimps" for not playing in the rain. That's the current situation in the World Series, where the clinching Game 5 was put on suspension after the rain got a bit out of hand. Now they're tentatively set to resume the final 3.5 innings tomorrow night.

BULLSHIT!

They should've called this game long before the Rays tied it at 2-2 in the top of the sixth. Jen may think that not playing in the rain is reflective of how un-manly baseball players are, but that's obviously insane. The outfield has a great draining system so rain doesn't matter that much. But if you add a shit load of water to dirt it becomes mud. There were puddle on the field! Puddles. That's neither safe nor fair.

Anyway... here's the biggest problem. I was emotionally ready to win last night. I was in the mindset for celebration. I'm sure I'll get pumped up again but it suddenly feels out of reach. The intoxicating euphoria of the moment made me actually think that the Phillies could win The World Series. Now I've returned from this delusional land of prophetic trumpets and I'm reminded that in the past 25 years Philadelphia sports teams (in the major 4 sports) are 0 for 7 in Championship Series'.

Let me get a bit more specific, because I know you care SO much.

Since May 31, 1983

HOCKEY: Flyers are 0 for 3 in the Stanley Cup Finals (85,87,97)

FOOTBALL: Eagles are 0 for 1 in the Superbowl (that miserable 2005 loss to the Patriots... We kept it close but that's worth little once McNabb started puking).

BASKETBALL: The last team to win a championship! When I was 19 months old! In 2001 the Sixers made it back to the finals and lost to the Lakers.

BASEBALL: The Phillies were the first team to lose during the "Curse" era, losing the World Series to the Baltimore Orioles in Oct of 1983. They would go on to lose in 1993 as well on Joe Carter's demoralizing homerun off Mitch "The Wild Thing" Williams.

So there you have it... Not much reason to believe... Prove me wrong fate.

MUSIC MONDAYS: OH ELTON

I finally got the chance to see Elton John live. Some of you out there may laugh at Elton and I'll concede that he's a bit outrageous and does have some terrible songs. But he also has a good five or six classic or near-classic albums. This was the Vegas Red Piano show so it was a bit of a different experience. I knew David LaChapelle directed it but I had no idea that it would be just as much his show as Elton's. Outrageous is an understatement. I expected some cursing, maybe some nudity in the videos and what not. But an inflatable pair of titties that shot out stringy milk from the nipples? And phalli aplenty! Bananas and the like.

Elton sounded great as well. Usually you expect performers' voices to degrade into "death rattles" as they get older. Elton's voice actually did degrade considerably in the 80s due to growths on his vocal chords. But the surgery must've been successful because he boomed out the hits! And I must say, for a show that was pretty much all hits, he chose wisely. The highlight? Either a very extended Rocket Man (complete with outtakes from the video where Justin Timberlake plays Elton) or a heart-wrenching "Someone Saved My Life Tonight." SSMT was accompanied by one of the odder videos I've ever seen. It started with a guy playing a younger Elton, sticking his head in an oven. As Elton "dies," his spirit leaves his body and starts dancing with this creepy naked woman with a blonde fro and ice skating with a bear. At one point the creepy woman has a fire-cracker/sparkling thingy sticking out of her special region. I'm a pretty literary guy, but I'm not quite sure what to take from this one.

Now, I have to cut this short... The Phillies are on... Up in the World Series 3-1

WILL THIS BE THE DAY?

I haven't seen a Philly team win a chamionship ever. The Sixers won in 1983, but I was 1.5...

Oh my. I'm nervous.

FRIENDLY FRIDAYS: FRUIT BRUTE

I've become obsessed with Fruit Brute. Who? Fruit Brute! Don't feel bad, I hadn't heard of him either. Surely you know Count Chocula. Well Fruit Brute was his cousin. Sort of. He was one of the other General Mills "Monster Themed Cereals." This motley crew of monsters was made up of the delicious chocolatey Count Chocula, the Strawberry pop of Frankenberry, the cool blueberry delight of Boo Berry and what I can only imagine as the tastebud explosion of Fruit Brute. They stopped making Fruit Brute in 1983 but I can't figure out why. If you look up the monster cereals on Wikipedia you'll learn that the initial batch of Frankenberry contained a dye that didn't break down in the body leading to what some dubbed "Frankenberry Stool." But yet they won't say who killed Fruit Brute. I suspect a silver bullet since that's really the only way werewolves die. Maybe it was a silver banana.

Now here's where the story gets a bit interesting. In 1988 they resurrected the Fruity Monster serial but this time handed it over to a new character named Fruity Yummy Mummy! Now come on. How can you kill off such an adorably wild mascot and replace him with a Mummy? Couldn't they have kept Fruit Brute and just had Frosted Yummy Mummy or Peanut Buttery Mummy? I actually remember Fruity Mummy well. I had thought the cereal was only my imagination, but apparently not. I guess the Fruity thing didn't sell because they discontinued The FY Mummy in the mid-1990's.

I think Fruit Brute should return. He's my new favorite advertising character. In other character news, I'm going to be Mr. Peanut for Halloween!

THOUGHTFUL THURSDAYS: THE UGLIEST FIELD

My thought of the day is that the Tampa Bay Rays (nee Devil Rays) play in the worst stadium in the major leagues. I know a thing or too about shitty stadiums, having endured twenty-something years of the now demolished concrete donut of Philly, The Vet. This Rays place is truly awful though. Probably the only good thing about it is that it's named "Tropicana Field" and Tropicana orange juice is pretty tasty.

So what makes it so bad? For one it's a dome. Domes usually suck. Retractable domes are fine because they can still grow real grass, but an all-year dome has about as much personality as a Lunchables pizza. Sure no rain delays, no wind, no cold. Great. Give me an American cheese and white bread sandwich while you're at it.

Let's take a little virtual tour.

Here's the outside



And the field, which looks a bit like a giant miniature golf hole.



Inside rotunda... at least they remind you of the delicious Florida OJ.



The outfield has a tank of sting rays for kids to pet, so I guess that's pretty cool too.



And a close-up of the dome



See all those catwalks up there? Well they're all in play! If it hits in homerun territory, it's a homerun, and if it hits the catwalk in foul territory, it's a foul ball. But I'm pretty sure that if it bounces back into the field, it's a playable ball. Absurd.

Tampa Bay (which isn't even a city.. it's a body of water) congrats, you have the worst stadium in sports... Oh, and go Phils! (Not that my team allegiance has anything to do with my opinion

WAGONWHEEL WEDNESDAYS: MISSISSIPPI

What's got four eyes but can't see? If you answered a blind quad-clops, you're wrong. The answer is of course Mississippi.

Three cheers for the Deep South! Here's another state I mostly drove the hell through because of my Southern prejudices. I got out of the car once, at a mall in Meridian, Mississippi. Eerily, three days later a disgruntled worker at some business establishment in Meridian shot up the entire office floor, killing six. Good thing it wasn't a McDonald's worker at the mall or I might've been shot.

I can't say much about the cities or scenic drives of Mississippi since I remained on the highway the whole time. The state has no mountains that I can rave about, no geothermic fields or canyons. Not really much that's noticeable from the road. I saw some pleasant trees.

Perhaps what I remember most about Mississippi is that the Meridian mall had ATMs from my mother's bank (which will remain nameless to protect her identity and the bank's identity). Seems innocent, right? Well this bank has no actual locations in Mississippi. So when the screen comes up that says "Unless you are a ___ Bank customer, you must pay a $2.00 fee," you almost definitely have to pay the fee. This may be okay in Bel-Air, but last time I checked, Mississippi was the poorest state in the country. Fortunately, the bank no longer has their ATMs in this mall. Not sure if they realized the oppressive nature of their ways or just found that it was no longer profitable.

So there's the four I's for you.