Month: October 2008

Phillies Parade

I know I’m counting my chickens, but as far as I know none of the Phillies read this blog. ?In 1983 the parade took place on a Thursday after a Tuesday victory. ?That means a parade could be as early as Wednesday.?

The Sixers won their championship on a Tuesday night, and the parade was held on Thursday afternoon, June 2, 1983. After a ride down Broad Street, the ceremonies would culminate at the Vet. School day or not, I wasn’t missing this. (Thanks, Mom.)

Philadelphia and Tampa Bay: A Odd Rivalry

Could the 2008 World Series cement an already budding rivalry between the cities of Philadelphia and Tampa Bay? These places couldn’t be more different, but for some reason their paths have crossed. Granted, the Rays play in St Petersburg and the Buccaneer’s play in Tampa, but we’ll ignore that inconvenient fact.

Facts:

Philadelphia:? The City of Brotherly Love
Population: 5.8 Million
Latitude and Longitude: 39? 53′ N 75? 15′ W
Claim to Fame: Cheesesteaks, Rocky, original USA capital

Tampa Bay: An Actual Bay, not a City
Population: St Petersburg 248,098, Tampa 382,060
Latitude and Longitude: 27? 58′ N 82? 32′ W
Claim to Fame: Humidity, Phillies Spring training, Your grandparents live there

History:

The Eagles traded up in the 1995 to get Mike Mamula and the Bucs settled for 7 time pro bowler and future Dancing with the Stars star, Warren Sapp.

Sapp and the Bucs faced the Eagles three straight years in the playoffs (2000 – 2002) with the Eagles winning the first two, but the Bucs winning the 2002 NFC championship game and eventually beating Oakland in the Superbowl. Many in Philadelphia consider the 2002 NFC championship game to be the worst of all the recent playoff losses, especially since this was the last game ever played at Veterans Stadium.

If that wasn’t enough, the Bucs and the Eagles played the FIRST WEEK of 2003 and the Eagles lost the first regular season game at Lincoln Financial Field.

It’s not isolated to football though…

In 2004 the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Flyers in the Eastern Conference Finals and went on to win the Stanley Cup.

I think the 2008 World Series could set off a new era of rivalry between the cities.

Update: Look what they’re writing!

A CHANCE TO REASSERT OUR DOMINATION OVER ALL THINGS PHILADELPHIA

Little did many know that the Rays ticket to the World Series was punched as soon as the Phillies won the NLCS. It was fate.

In 2002, after two straight playoff blowouts at the hands of the Eagles, the Bucs finally broke through with a win in Philadelphia in the NFC championship game. The Bucs went on to win their first Super Bowl.

In 2004, the Lightning beat the Flyers in seven games in the Eastern Conference finals. The Bolts went on to win their first Stanley Cup championship.

Now, the only thing that stands between the Rays and their first World Series trophy is, of course, the Philadelphia Phillies. Nothing gives a Tampa Bay sports fan more pleasure than helping the City of Brotherly Love keep to their losing ways.

I didn’t even know that the Bucs beat the Eagles in their first ever playoff game.

in?their first-ever playoff appearance,? the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 24-17.? That was December 29, 1979.

Plus, the Phillies are the only American pro team to LOSE 10,000 games.? They blame it all on some?Curse of William Penn.??No?wonder?the Jan Brady of Northeast Cities has the least happy fans.

Anyway, in both hockey and football, Tampa Bay vs. Philadelphia has become quite a fun rivalry.? And now a Tampa Bay team has the opportunity to beat a Philadelphia team in baseball, too.? It all starts Wednesday.

At least we have That One on our side.

Over a week ago, Barack Obama, a diehard White Sox fan, pledged his support in these MLB playoffs to the Phillies. His reasoning was this:

?I think that I?m going to have to root for Philly potentially because my campaign manager is a fanatical Phillies fan and I don?t want him mad at me for the next few weeks.?

Kicking Richard Reid to the History Books

Normally I don’t curse on this site, but I can’t help it for this post so eye-muff the kids.

One person who is on my all time shit list is Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. He, of course, tried to blow up a 767 while flying from Paris to Miami by smuggling a bomb in his shoe and is currently serving a life sentence at that Supermax prison in Colorado that is sometimes shown on the discovery channel.? Because of this jerk off every person in America has to remove their shoes every time they get on a plane. It’s an overreaction to an isolated incident and it’s exactly the kind of thing terrorists are trying to accomplish.

The point of this post is that someone has finally developed a device that can detect bombs in shoes without you having to take them off. Genius! I hope this gets implemented everywhere, immediately.

iTunes Genius

I finally got around to downloading the latest version of iTunes and with it came their new Genius playlist feature. Here’s how it works:

You pick a song in your library you like, hit the Genius button, and it generates a playlist from your library of 25 complimentary songs. I was skeptical, but tried it out. It first parses through your whole library and uploads that data to a central server somewhere (let’s call it Mother Brain) and cross references with thousands of other people’s libraries and musical tastes. So can Genius generate the awesomest mixtape ever from just one song? Will John Cusack and Jack Black use this feature as evidence of an impending apocalypse in High Fidelity 2?

Maybe. Here’s how it did when I selected Neighborhood #2 (Laika) by Arcade Fire…

  1. Neighborhood #2 (Laika) by Arcade Fire
  2. Five Years – David Bowie
  3. Slow Hands – Interpol
  4. Last Goodbye – Jeff Buckley
  5. Lua – Bright Eyes
  6. The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
  7. El Scorcho – Weezer
  8. We Are Nowhere and It’s Now – Bright Eyes
  9. Grace – Jeff Buckley
  10. Lover’s Spit – Broken Social Scene
  11. Caring is Creepy – The Shins
  12. Molly’s Chambers – Kings of Leon
  13. 12:51 – The Strokes
  14. Business Time – Flight of the Conchords
  15. Lazy Eye – Silversun Pickups
  16. I Summon You – Spoon
  17. My Moon My Man – Feist
  18. Vampire / Forest Fire – Arcade Fire
  19. Fake Palindromes – Andrew Bird
  20. Do You Realize? – The Flaming Lips
  21. Evil – Interpol
  22. Wolf Like Me – TV on the Radio
  23. Y Control – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
  24. Woman King – Iron & Wine
  25. In the Backseat – Arcade Fire

Not bad, but a little heavy on Bright Eyes. Let’s try another song: Coffee & TV – Blur

  1. Coffee & TV – Blur
  2. Every You Every Me – Placebo
  3. Alright – Supergrass
  4. Supersonic – Oasis
  5. The Charming Man – The Smiths
  6. Summer Babe – Pavement
  7. The Dark of the Matinee – Franz Ferdinand
  8. Lucky – Radiohead
  9. Monkey Gone to Heaven – Pixies
  10. Slow Hands – Interpol
  11. The New Pollution – Beck
  12. Here Comes Your Man – Pixes
  13. El Scorcho – Weezer
  14. She’s So High (Live) – Blur
  15. The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
  16. Out of Time – Blur
  17. The W.A.N.D (The Will Always Negates Defeat) – The Flaming Lips
  18. No Cars Go – Arcade Fire
  19. Mistaken for Stranges – The National
  20. For Tomorrow – Blur
  21. You and Me Song – The Wannadies
  22. Tropicalia – Beck
  23. We Used to Vacation – Cold War Kids
  24. One Big Holiday – My Morning Jacket
  25. Molly’s Chambers – Kings of Leon.

The way I’ve been using it is to create the playlist and not look at what was selected, preferring to treat it like a robot radio station while I listen to it on my commute. What’s cool about it is that it will dig down and find stuff that you probably forgot about and never got a chance to rate (if you rate your songs at all).