Sometimes I Love Dumb People

Presented without further comment...from me, at least...

 

The Onion article in question...plus a bonus!

#EverySimpsonsEver -- Day Ten

We are coming to the end. (Stop applauding.)

MUST-SEE!

8/30 12:00 AM ET “Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind” -- A Simpsonic take on "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" as Homer can't recall the events of the previous day.

8/30 12:30 AM ET “E. Pluribus Wiggum” -- Springfield moves up its election date (because Homer destroyed the town's fast-food restaurants) and it's now the first primary in the nation. Here come the presidential candidates and the media! And a new candidate: Ralph Wiggum! Pick a winner!

8/30 4:30 AM ET “Any Given Sundance” -- Lisa's school project is a short film about her family. Aspiring film producers Skinner and Chalmers enter it into the Sundance Film Festival. The Simpsons are going to Utah!

8/30 12:00 PM ET “Gone Maggie Gone” -- Not a bad episode, but to be honest I probably wouldn't include it here except for the brief, unexpected appearance of none other than the Phillie Phanatic.

8/30 1:30 PM ET “Eeny Teeny Maya Moe “ -- Moe hits it off with a woman he meets over the Internet. When they meet in person, he learns she's a little person. Will he screw it up? Well, yes. But it's surprisingly sweet.

8/30 9:00 PM ET “Once Upon a Time in Springfield” -- Krusty is forced by the network to add a female character to his show. Princess Penelope (Anne Hathaway) is a hit, which infuriates Krusty until he learns she's a longtime fan, and they fall in love. Anne Hathaway won an Emmy for this.

8/30 10:00 PM ET “Boy Meets Curl” -- Homer and Marge, along with Agnes and Seymour Skinner, compete in a new demonstration sport, mixed curling, at the Vancouver Winter Olympics. (Not surprisingly, the episode aired during the Olympics.) Lisa becomes addicted to collecting Olympic pins. Wikipedia says it was well-received by curlers and Canadians. Also, there's a sighting of a character from The Simpsons Movie...the movie only, not a character that has previously been in the series. And it's not Spider-Pig.

MEH. M-E-H, MEH.

8/30 2:30 AM ET “Dial “N” for Nerder”

8/30 3:00 AM ET “Smoke on the Daughter”

8/30 4:00 AM ET “Apocalypse Cow”

8/30 5:00 AM ET “Mona Leaves-a”

8/30 6:30 AM ET “Lost Verizon”

8/30 7:00 AM ET “Double, Double, Boy in Trouble”

8/30 9:00 AM ET “Mypods and Boomsticks” (The spoofing of Apple was okay. The Homer-fears-new-Muslim-neighbors-are-terrorists plot, not okay.)

8/30 11:30 AM ET “No Loan Again, Naturally”

8/30 2:00 PM ET “The Good, the Sad and the Drugly “

8/30 4:00 PM ET “Coming to Homerica “

8/30 5:30 PM ET “The Great Wife Hope”

8/30 10:30 PM ET “The Color Yellow”

Friday At The Phillies: Life Is (Sort Of) Tweet

There I was, sitting on one of those metal benches, with a crappy view of the game and annoying people around me, and I had no way to complain to you all!

Despite a bout of insomnia Thursday night, with only about a 3-hour nap Friday morning, I got myself to Citizens Bank Park for Friday's Phillies game vs. Milwaukee. As part of the Social Media promotion I previously mentioned, I got my special t-shirt (see photo at left). I got my $10 food/merchandise credit that paid for my jumbo hot dog and large diet soda -- well, not quite since it actually cost $10.25 -- and made my way to the Rooftop Bleachers.

The view from there is not really good. I think it's the worst place of all to see a game at CBP (see photo at right). Sitting above and behind Ashburn Alley, beyond the outfield fences, not only can you not see the area of the outfield closest to the fences, but the brick wall batters' eye in center field (one edge of it is in the bottom right corner of the photo) blocks even more of the view. And where I was, there's a light pole obstructing a bit of the view as well. Plus there are metal benches instead of individual seats.

All of this I knew already, even having never sat there before. Just walking by the area it was pretty obvious that it's not a prime location. The Phils first tried to market the Rooftop Bleachers just to groups, but now they sell individual game tickets and run special promotions (the Social Media one, singles nights, etc.) as well. Sitting there just confirmed what I already knew.

I figured that, being Social Media night, I'd be sending regular updates on Twitter, including the photos you see on this page. I thought I'd do score updates, mention the annoying people sitting around me saying and doing dumb things, and generally having fun. I figured wrong.

Earl's Not Stopping Phils Or Me

Remember those Phanatic Around Town statues I went around photographing? They've all been moved from the spots they stood at this summer, and they're going to be auctioned off to raise money for charity. But until that happens, all 20 statues are on display at Citizens Bank Park starting Friday. This is good because I'll be at the first game of this weekend's series against Milwaukee, and I can finally get a picture of the statue that was at the airport -- the only one I couldn't get, since it was behind the security lines and off limits to anyone without a plane ticket.

As I mentioned here, I got my ticket through a "Social Media" promotion and am supposed to get a "Life is Tweet" Phillies t-shirt. So I'll probably take a picture of that as well and tweeting during the game. If anyone's going to be there and wants to hang out, get in touch with me through email or Twitter. Don't worry about Hurricane Earl -- it's passing well enough offshore that any serious wind and rain will stay down by the coast. In a way, that's sad. One of the most amazing games I ever saw in person had a hurricane involved in the outcome. Here's my post about it on the Outsports Jock Talk Blog.

Meanwhile, the roller coaster ride continues. The same Phillies team that looked to be edging towards a fall when they were swept by Houston last week managed to win 6 of 7 on their road trip -- sweeping 3 from San Diego, winning 2 of 3 in Los Angeles and taking a wild 12-11 win at Colorado.

Phanatic Around Town

All this summer, the Phillie Phanatic is hanging out at various places around town. A project of the Phillies and Visit Philly, 20 specially-painted Phanatic statues have been placed at different locations. I went around and took pictures of 19 of them. The slideshow follows. If you want to find them yourselves, here's an interactive map.

A couple of notes: one of the statues is at the airport and is behind security. So I won't be able to get a picture of it unless a miracle occurs and I take a flight somewhere this summer. (9/5/2010 Update: All 20 statues have been moved to Citizens Bank Park for display pending their being auctioned off for charity, including the one at the airport, so I finally have the complete set of photos in the slideshow.) One of the statues is inside Citizens Bank Park, which means you'll need to buy a game ticket to see it. Finally, ignore some of the dates on the pictures. On the day I took most of the pictures, my batteries died and I had to switch, and the camera went back to the default settings. I did not take any pictures on 1/10/2008.

Phils: Great Start, But...Phanatic: Great. Period.

It occurs to me that I haven't discussed my baseball team since the season started. There are lots of good things happening with the Phillies...and some things that are bad not so good.

Good: The Phillies are off to a 7-1 start, their best start since 1993. After the last few years of poor starts, this is a refreshing change.
Not So Good: All of their games have been against woeful Washington and hideous Houston (who still hasn't won a game).

Good: The Phillies are scoring runs in bunches. In their 8 games they've scored 11, 8, 5, 8, 9, 2, 7 and 14.
Not So Good: Again, all of this is against Washington and Houston.

Good: In the only game they didn't score 5 or more, the Phils still won 2-1 thanks to Roy Halladay, who pitched a complete game. He's won both of his starts, allowing just one earned run in 16 innings, walking 2 and striking out 17. Halladay has completely lived up to his reputation so far. J.A. Happ won his first start as well without allowing a run...
Not So Good: ...but Happ was in and out of trouble. He only lasted 5-plus innings, throwing 104 pitches. And the rest of the rotation has fallen far short of Halladay's excellence.

Phillies: Here They Come To Save The Day

It's been a long, tough winter. Budget crises at every level of government, not to mention in millions of households. The absurd path to something resembling health-care reform. The Pope and his church continuing to minimize the importance of doing something about the child molesters in their ranks. The earthquake in Haiti. The horror that is this season's American Idol. A slut named Tiger Woods. "From Paris With Love."

And in more "important" areas locally, a pro football team that ended the 2009 season in heinous fashion and looks to spend 2010 falling fast into mediocrity, a pro basketball team that fell fast from mediocrity into incompetence (but no one cares anyway) and a pro hockey team that was touted as a championship contender, only to fall into a desperate fight to barely make the playoffs so they can be first-round cannon fodder. Speaking of stuff falling, let's not forget Snowpocaplypse, Snowmageddon and Snowverkill.

Enough bad news. Winter, like Donovan McNabb, is gone. Spring has sprung. You can tell because the Phanatic (as you can tell by the photo above, taken on Wednesday) has gone red for a week. The Phillies are back! The 2010 season starts Monday at 1 pm in Washington, with Roy Halladay making his Phils debut. Halladay! Celebrate! Now we've got Roy Halladay...and it's time to celebrate...okay, no more channeling my inner Madonna.