My favorite is the Curse of Billy Penn (my emphasis):

The Curse of William Penn is an alleged curse, sometimes used to explain the failure of professional sports teams based in Philadelphia… Atop City Hall at Broad and Market Streets in Center City… stands a statue of William Penn, city founder and original proprietor of the then-British-colony of Pennsylvania (meaning “Penn’s Woods”). By tradition—though not by law—no building in the city rose above this statue, until, in March 1987, a glass skyscraper called One Liberty Place opened just three blocks away. One Liberty Place dwarfed City Hall by 397 feet (121m)…

Philadelphia sports teams had just before then enjoyed an enviable run of success: the … Phillies had won the 1980 World Series and the 1983 National League pennant; the … Flyers had won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1974 and 1975, and were a regular presence in the finals (to wit, 1976, 1980, 1985, and 1987); the … Eagles had appeared in Super Bowl XV; and the … 76ers had won the championship in 1983, as well as making the finals in 1977,1980, and 1982. …. Construction on One Liberty Plaza began in 1984, one year after the last championship season in Philadelphia.

Unlike other “curses” that seem to strike particular teams (Boston Red Sox’s Curse of the Bambino, Chicago White Sox’s Curse of the Black Sox…), this evil is said to have struck four professional teams in the same city, and has now drawn “first blood” with an untimely death.

I have a solution.

Move the Billy Penn statue.

It’s simple. Hear me out. The new Comcast Center is presently being built. Besides housing the owners of two of the teams franchises, it will be the largest building in Philadelphia. Construction is still going on. So move the statue. Yes, the statue of Billy Penn. Move it. Top off the Comcast Center in style and break a quarter-century curse.

The logistics are there. The statue weighs 27 tons. And I did a little research on helicopters (when I say little, I mean I searched Google once). The Heavy Lift MI-12s (HOMERs) can apparently lift 36 tons in flight… so it must be possible to move this guy.

And what do we put atop City Hall in Billy Penn’s place? How ’bout that Rocky statue that has a hard time finding a home. What Philadelphian wouldn’t mind throwing tax money towards that?

This has bugged me since I moved into the city. It’s not something that I noticed in the suburbs so much, probably because suburban streets are more well lit. Certain city streets are sometimes so poorly lit that they appear straight out of a horror movie set, and you back-in-black guys love to cross the street at the most random intervals at the most random times — dang near invisible to the naked eye. I can’t even count on my fingers the number of times I have almost hit someone decked out in an all-black night-camo outfit.

This is, by no means, a racist comment, and I hope no one takes it as such. I’ve seen men (usually men) of all color wearing all black clothing… each of them more hidden than the next. Yes, men of color darker than mine (which is a Casper-esque pale-white) are harder to see in these outfits, but this is an Equal Opportunity Rant. You’re not Johnny Cash. You’re not Chuck Norris. Cut the shit.

If for some reason you insist on wearing black from head to toe, for the love of god stay on the fucking sidewalk… and don’t walk out in front of my car expecting me to see you.  I don’t care what you do, but give me some sort of damn sign that you are there. Next time, I’m not stopping.

* Disclaimer: The foul language is a result of frustration from a near accident of this ilk earlier this night. You’re going to have to deal with it.

that is all.

no. i lied. speaking about cars – why the hell won’t the automobile industry regulate the placement of gas tanks. every car — driver’s side, rear of the car. i don’t care where they standardize the tank, as long as they do it! it would solve a world of confusion at gas stations. think about it… if every tank was in the same spot, every car would enter and leave the gas station in the same orientation. there wouldn’t need to be any backing up, rotating, turning around, old women crashing into the side of my 1990 ford taurus station wagon because they didn’t know where there tank was. i hope to god someone figures this out.

Dig out car from 14 inches of snow. Pull out of spot. Grab empty or full trash can. Replace car with said trash can. Go on your way.

Your spot will go untouched. Whether it’s because people are too lazy to get out of their car to move the trashcan, or because they fear that they will get shot or their car’s windows busted in for moving the trash can, I don’t give a shit. All I know is that I don’t have to dig out another crevice in the mountain of snow for my little nugget of a car to hide in. It’s a fucking beautiful thing.

city.living / lesson.two :: Spray painted trash cans scare the bejesus out of wanna-be parkers.

In the car, I hear on KYW1060, an all-news, all-the-time radio station, “Tonight, April 1st, the winning lottery numbers are 6… 6… 6…”

666!? 666 — the well-known “sign” for the devil! Pope John Paul II died Saturday April 2, 2005 at 9:37 pm GMT (2:37 pm EST). In the very last PA lottery results before he died, Satan rears his ugly face.

I have to admit, even I got a little bit goose-pimply at the ludicrous irony. I called up my sister Sara, the soon-to-be Master of Divinity from Harvard University. I love weird coincidental stuff like that: the pope dies, and Satan spreads a little Lottery Love. Check it out for yourself, if you do not believe me (click photo to enlarge):

On an unrelated note, my room flooded again, and I have to stay in to clean it out. So pissed. So when do I sign the bid for this new house?

And they are, seriously. The front 3 guys are damn good, and the one guy (the one that I think looks like Rob Thomas from Matchbox 20) does a damn good Robert Plant. They shouldn’t be doing covers; they have amazing voices and are so talented with the gee-tars.

Anyway, I was watching this one couple. The girl was dancing on the dance floor, mainly with her girlfriends, but with some of her guy friends. Perfectly harmless, and having an awesome time. Her boyfriend came over, yelling. He yanked her away from her friends, not allowing them to have a good time. Her friends gave her multiple glares. She obliged and followed him 10 feet away, to the bar, obviously disappointed. But she wouldn’t say anything. She put up with it. He would then proceed to turn to his buddy and ignore the girl. She tried to go back to hang out with other people, and he got mad and pulled her back to him. GIVE HER SOME FUCKING BREATHING ROOM. MY GOD!

It was fucking insane. I wanted to go right up to him and punch him in the nuts. I can’t stand that kind of crap. She tried to go after another 15 minutes of being ignored or talked down to. She managed to sneak away, but he followed her and yelled at her on the dance floor. “Would you quit it!!” No trust. No fun. He wouldn’t let her have any fun, and he wasn’t even attempting to provide any entertainment. He wouldn’t let her leave his side, and he wasn’t even paying attention to her when she was there.

Asshole boyfriends, I tell ya, the nicest girls are with them. And they don’t realize it. “Yeah, you’re a great guy… for me to poop on!” I swear, one of these days, these girls are gonna wake up and regret it. Oh well, it’s not like I’ll see this girl ever again, but I wish her well. The guy wasn’t even a good looking guy. She needs to reevaluate.

So let me calm your impulses by letting you know what I think of the costly crap that I have bought (okay, some of it is actually pretty cool).

Ronco Food Dehydrator

Anthony and I ordered this late at night for 3 easy payments of $29.95 (now ONLY) 2 easy payments of $29.95 (plus $25.00 shipping and handling – which is absurd in itself). We wanted to order this guy to turn the Murphies from Flounders Produce Markets into dehydrated products we could sell. Murphies are the products that had to be taken off the shelves because they are too bruised or overripe. It was a great idea….

But it was so damn messy. They never show all of the prep work that goes into getting the fruits and vegetables (or beef) prepared to go into the dehyrdrator (or any other food product for that matter). You have to slice the food into tiny slivers so that they will dry properly and get crisp. This involves peeling the fruit first. You also need to soak the fruit into Orange Juice for both added flavor and to prevent browning of the fruit as it dries. So after peeling, slicing, and soaking, you place the fruit onto the trays and stack them high. You need to be careful what you put together because flavors will mix (due to drippage and proximity issues).

That’s what happens with “good” fruit. When you are dealing with Murphies, you need to cut all around the inedible areas. This takes sooooo much time and adds to the mess, tenfold. So it would take about 4 hours to prepare the trays. Then you wait for what, something like 48 hours, until the fruit gets crisp (or less time if you like it chewier).

This thing does actually work. And the dried food tastes pretty damn good. We never sold the fruit for obvious reasons (homemade doesn’t quite cut it for retail markets… we were young and had vivid imaginations and dreams, thinking that this would be a huge hit in the store). Instead we ate them at home.

So, when all is said and done… the dehydrated fruits took waaaaay too long to prepare, let alone dry out. And the mess took forever to clean (ever try to clean up spilt Orange Juice after 3 hours of sitting? Man, it’s stickier than stank manjuice). The Ronco Food Dehydrator lasted, and was used, for a good 30 days. A waste of money, indeed.

6 Second Abs

Okay okay, I gave in to this one. Fitness infomercials are the worst, and I do not enjoy watching them as much as the other fun gadgets. But on this one, the name caught me. 6 Seconds, eh? Well I surfed the net looking for a cheaper price (no impulses this time). But I couldn’t find anything cheaper. I ordered it from Walmart online. It got shipped here a few days later, and whomp – still haven’t used it too much. And this was months ago. I am too lazy with this thing to even watch the DVD that came with it. I have tried it all of maybe 10 times. I bought it thinking I could get done in 6 seconds… that would be clutch. But noooope. This is just a machine that clicks as you do your sitting crunch. The clicks are supposed to take 3 seconds down, 3 seconds up.

It sounds like a good idea, in theory, because technique is so important in lifting and fitness. But man am I fucking lazy. I can’t my ass upstairs to watch the DVD since I only have a VCR downstairs in my room. So intead, I do work out for just those 6 seconds, claiming to myself that that’s the correct technique. Can I hear an AMEN?

So it cost me $60.00. I still think I will use it once I can watch the damn DVD in private. Maybe. From the little I worked on it (for about 15 minutes a time), I found the resistance to be minimal on the sucker. They offer an upgradable “red” band that doubles the resistance of the other bands – at another $30.00. How ludicrous is that! Just leads me to think that it’s a crapshoot. I did feel burn, but for my fat ass who doesn’t work out at all (except minimal dumbell work) I still only felt a little burn. For someone in a shape other than pear, this may not be such a hot deal. But someone not mirroring my physique probably does *real* crunches, which nothing beats (so says Juice).

What if the creator of the site wasn’t as good hearted as I would expect him to be? What if he didn’t (alert: computer dork speak) hash the password into the database using somethign like an MD5 hash or even a secure algorithm like RSA. What if he, instead, stored the password as a plain-text word in his database. Well he, or anyone working on the site, would have access to that password. That’s kinda scarey. I can’t vouch for the many sites that are around. I only trust myself with my one financial password. I am hoping that I do not cross a less than honest financial website.

I guess my warning is this: if you are going to keep the same password for everything, then PLEASE change it at least once a year… if not more frequently.

I guess my warning is this: if you are going to keep the same password for everything, then PLEASE change it at least once a year… if not more frequently. If someone found out your password, they could get basically anythign they wanted. What lead me to also worry ws the fact that my screenname is available on most sites: floundies. So my username is the same on almost any site that I need to log on to (90%). That’s already giving any hacker 1/2 of the information that they need! It is for this reason that I have started changing my passwords around every 2 months. Hmmm. This sucks.

This still leads me to want to create an Internet-wide username database. It’s a way of securing your *one* identity and would be used in a standardized fashion. You could change one password instead of changing 100 passwords. Shit like that. It’s a good idea, but practically infeasible. There’s no way of getting *every* site involved in this idea. At least I can’t think of any. I liked what Microsoft was trying to do (yes, I know… it is MS) with their Passport idea – it is something of the same idea. It kind of died down, but I thoguht it was neat. I only wish it was on a username basis and not on an email-as-username basis. Ho hum.