Go Home.

Take a Load Off.

Little late with the weekly wrap.  I was trying to finish up Chapter 16 of First Birthday, and I did post it in the Other Writing section for my loyal handful of readers. 

Shaping up to be an interesting weekend.  The Phillies series with the Cardinals could get an extra boost of intrigue if Matt Holliday arrives for his Cardinals debut.  The Cards acquired Holliday from the A’s this afternoon for some prospects.  Holliday has had an up and down year in Oakland, but should benefit from a return to the National League.  The move probably makes St. Louis the team to beat in the Central, just don’t tell me it’s going to help Albert Pujols.  The guy can’t play any better.  It’s not possible.  It should be a good three game test for the Phils, and hopefully Holliday arrives, at least by Sunday.

In other Philly sports news, the Eagles are about to start training camp.  Camp!  It’s hard to believe.  I actually told someone I was going to take a wait and see approach to the Eagles this season.  I’m not sure that is possible, but it is my goal.  I know that they have a nice team on paper, so I’m not going to get caught up in the highs and lows early on.  I’m already seeing a lot of Eagles coverage in the media, but one of the most interesting stories will be the loss of Jim Johnson.  The Eagles highly respected defensive coordinator is still undergoing cancer treatments, and has been officially replaced by Sean McDermott.  McDermott was the former secondary coach.  For the impact, you can read this article by Sal Pal.  He knows a lot more than I do. 

Finally, I’ll be headed to a BBQ tomorrow.  The host, JP a sometimes blog commenter, said he would like a mention.  JP and his wife Kim recently had a son, and I’ve begun to speculate about his actual existence seeing as how we weren’t invited over to see the lad.  I guess tomorrow will be the moment of truth.  I’ll be scouting out his t-ball potential for the dream team I’m planning on forming in 2014, and also will try to get him into a similar pose to the one above…cause that would just make good blogging. 

Have a great weekend everyone…

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Shorty Right There’s Anecdote Ten. Ten. Ten…

Happens.

I had birthdays on the brain today.  You know I had this theory once that your 19th birthday was the most insignificant in your life, and everything after 21 you probably didn’t care all that much about celebrating.  Well, for the most part that’s held true.  I once had someone tell me that my twenties would fly by, and I’d wonder where they went.  That’s pretty much true as well.  I’m not sure if time flew, or if I did irreparable damage to my brain on my 21st birthday.  An anecdote:  For your pleasure. 

So, I think I’ve mentioned here that my 21st birthday didn’t get off to the greatest start.  My car got stolen that morning, and then the cop accused me of being in on a drug deal.  Pretty standard Lancaster.  You have to rebound, though, and I tried.  I tried my damnedest.  I proved many things that night including the beer before liquor axiom, and that tolerance…while helpful, is hardly invincible. 

It all  started at Fatback Steakhouse.  I think I went with JCK, and maybe a couple other people.  I don’t remember.  That’s where I started laying down the beer foundation, aka the biggest mistake of my life.  At this point in my life I didn’t really drink hard alcohol, and so it was second nature for me to order a couple beers with dinner.  Everything seemed fine. 

The great thing about Lancaster is that you can go on a nice little tour of townie dive bars for your birthday, and they’re all within walking distance.  We started at the immortal Hildy’s.  Hildy’s is probably the greatest dive bar in the World.  It opens at 6 in the morning, and immediately has a “happy hour” for the night shift employees.  It’s poorly lit, is littered with regulars, smells badly, and isn’t much bigger than a luxury SUV.  Luckily, my birthday was right in the middle of the week, and it was a slow night at Hildy’s.  Mostly townies, and the small crew that had gathered to celebrate my big day.  Apparently, I wasn’t as popular as I thought.

I paced myself for a while, but then JCK, using the height of his craftiness starting mixing in various shots until I got to the point where I no longer cared what I drank.  I think one of the final of the many mistakes I made that night was criticizing a shot for being too weak.  From there on…the details kind of come and go. 

I know we went to Brendee’s. Brendee’s is like a really upscale Hildy’s.  As you can see, they even have a website.  I know immediately upon walking into Brendee’s I was given a shot that was on fire.  I was supposed to drop it into something else, and then drink.  I dropped the shot from about 3 feet above the glass…and probably narrowly avoided burning the whole place down.  From this point on…I wasn’t too popular at Brendee’s, which is a shame, because I think a few more people had come out to meet us. 

Legend goes I threw up in the bathroom at Brendee’s, and we started to head back.  On the way back to the apartment was where I uttered the famous line, “has anyone seen my f***king car?”  No luck.  Instead of being put to bed at this point, JCK decided to “show me off” to some of our other friends who did not make it out.  I was prone to doing this with JCK, so I can’t really blame him.  Most of what I know is second hand, but at various points I believe I was demanding to be put on camera, and preaching about the efficiency of throwing up “in a trough”…or something like that. 

I finally made it back to my apartment, and crashed.  I got sick, again, in my bedroom…and woke up the next morning feeling worse than I ever had in my entire life.  I was a trainwreck.  For some reason, I decided it was imperative that I go to Constitutional Law class.  Well, that lasted about 10 minutes, before I ducked out the back door.  You can puke at Brendee’s, you can puke in the comfort of your own apartment, but you want to keep it together in Con. Law. 

I actually held it together for the rest of the day.  I know I stopped on the way back from class, and bought like 3 bottles of water…at which point I was spotted by BK from across the street.  I don’t remember what he said, but I know he was laughing his ass off.  Haven’t had another birthday like it since…

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The Brett Favre of College Football

Tebow Saving Himself for Marriage, the UFL.

It’s going to be the season of Tebow.  Can he win a second Heisman?  A third national title?  Is he the best college quarterback ever?  Answers:  who cares, maybe, goodness no.  It’s SEC media day, or preseason media week, or something.  I’m not in the media, so I don’t know the exact title, but we’re already being flooded with Tebow stories.  The biggest news so far?  Tebow was asked the old “Britney Spears” question during a press conference, and someone didn’t vote for Tebow as the first team pre-season QB.

I don’t want to delve to far into the first issue.  Everyone that knows of Tebow’s faith wouldn’t be surprised at the answer, and if you’re thinking about taking a shot at him…well I’d suggest typing “tim tebow girlfriend” into google.  At this point you probably get confused/frustrated, walk to the top of the nearest building, and throw yourself off. 

How do I react to Steve Spurrier not voting for Tebow as the pre-season first teamer?  Well, I think it’s pretty hilarious, and pretty classic Spurrier.  Spurrier is an attention whore.  Did we just figure this out?  He knows the press are only going to be talking about Tebow, so this is how he throws his visor in the ring.  He just hitched up to the old Tebow wagon.  Looks like South Carolina and its coach are getting some media attention all of a sudden.

Who cares about pre-season all conference teams anyway?  I know that SEC football is like the NFL in the South, and I probably don’t understand, but this doesn’t seem like that big of deal.  He wasn’t a unamimous selection.  He’ll be all right.  And Spurrier?  The guy’s a stone weasel.  He walks around with this idiotic “ball coach” persona…he’s just another fraud college coach that can recruit well.  Just put him in front of a room of reporters, turn off his microphone, and pull the string.  He’ll eventually talk himself out.

I’m hoping for another Tebow motivational post-game speech this year.  There’s never been a college player that worked harder, or prepared his team better.  So, where does he go from there?  Besides the CFL?  I’m not sure, but it’ll be a nice late summer into fall as we project and hyperbole the bullcorn out of Tebow’s career.  I’m going to invent a new offense that has Tim Tebow and Mike Vick in the backfield, and send it to Al Davis….just to speed up the process.

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Couple Questions.

Mike's Lemonade is about as Hard as this Kitten.

Just thought of a couple things tonight, the first being…who exactly is Mike’s Hard Lemonade marketing their product to?  Their commercials, while mildly entertaining, seem to emphasize the word ‘hard’.  Is this for people that don’t realize there is alcohol in it?  Because no one “hard” drinks Mike’s Lemonade.  It’s got to be one of the softest drinks out there.  If you want hard lemonade, here’s an idea…pour some Vodka in it.  Is the whole thing a joke?  Do they know that it’s a weak drink?  I’m just lost.  I wish they’d stop selling it.  It hinders the creative youth.  You make all these fruity alcoholic drinks and suddenly no one is drinking grain and Gatorade anymore. 

My other question is:  How did we as a generation not go insane listening to Nintendo music for 4-5 hours a day.  I have sentimental Nintendo moments, and I had one today, making a Baseball Stars reference.  It inspired me to play the game online, and I lasted for about 40 seconds before I had to mute the volume.  It’s literally about a five second loop.  I played this games for hours at a time as a kid, and never noticed a thing.  So I thought.  There could be a lot of answers here…someone should do a study.  In a related story…I’m not good at baseball stars anymore. 

Funny story today at the ACME.  I always catch little bits and pieces of humor at the ACME.  Last week the cart wrangler, who let’s just say faces some challenges, told me not to go to California until Michael Jackson was okay.  That’s a really good tip.  Then today I’m minding my own business, and this young employee is ranting and raving to an older employee about something.  I caught, “I’ll punch him.  In his face.”  Well, ok.  Then the older employee asked, “How old are you?”  The kid said, “19.”  Then they go, “Ok.  You’re 19.  And, you work at ACME.”  I didn’t catch the rest…but I’m sure there was a real moral there.

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