August 20, 2008

No Excuses, Except This One

The Daily News has a story today about a dock owner in Margate who thinks the town wants her out so it can build condos or something.

The U.S. basketball team is being too distracting with its dunks for me to get into the story, so let's just cut to the chase: This woman breaks the rules occasionally, and the town occasionally busts her. She says that's unfair. (Really, it kinda does go something like this.) Here's my favorite part:

The impetus for the restraining order happened Aug. 9, when a police patrol boat stopped one of Scott's rentals for going too fast in a no-wake zone.

It turned out that the registration for Scott's entire fleet had expired on July 31, something she admits was her fault.

"I have no excuses for that," she said, as her black lab, Dock Dog, chewed on bamboo leaves. "I'm the mom running a mom-and-pop shop."

The only thing better than the excuse following the "no excuses" line is the important details of her dog's breed, her dog's name and her dog's bamboo leaf chewing. Very important details.

Dock owner sees Margate conspiracy [Daily News]

Posted by D-Mac at 09:29 AM | Comments (1)
Archives: Bamboo Leaves, Dock Dog, Dogs, Down The Shore, Excuses, Important Details, Margate

Abridged Daily News Columnists

None today! I love August.

Posted by D-Mac at 08:49 AM | Comments (0)
Archives: Daily News

August 19, 2008

Mascot Monday Spreads, Albeit Belatedly

Way back when I first started doing this website for PW the Good Day Philadelphia hosts were basically Jennaphr Frederick, Kerri-Lee Halkett and some dude who liked horses, George Mallet. Naturally, I was a daily viewer; one day, three mascots (a baby, a steak and a muffler) came in for some job promotion and Mascot Monday was born.

All the old Mascot Mondays were deleted from YouTube, sadly, though I will probably put them back up eventually (NB: in this sentence, "probably" means "will not.") But that's okay; news stations in Cincinnati are picking up the trend.

I think Monday is a better day for dancing than Friday, but it's a start.

Posted by D-Mac at 04:20 PM | Comments (3)
Archives: Dance Party Friday, Good Day Philadelphia, I Have Been Doing This Almost Three Years, Mascot Monday, Memories, WTF

Famed Blogger Interviews Tommy Chong

Digphilly's Teresa Masterson -- it's been a while! -- recently interviewed Tommy Chong, apparently. The interview is six minutes and forty-seven seconds; one can only imagine Dr. Chong had to be high to get through this. (Rimshot!)

Tommy Chong on Cheech, Tours, and of Course, Weed [Digphilly]

Posted by D-Mac at 03:54 PM | Comments (0)
Archives: August Afternoons, DigPhilly, Easy Jokes, Marijuana, Teresa Masterson, Tommy Chong, Weed

Developing: Michael Phelps Still Awesome

This morning CNN gave the "developing story" banner to one Michael Phelps, who was taking questions. Frankly, I can't believe this didn't get breaking news treatment. CNN ought to be ashamed.

A larger screencap of CNN's front page

Posted by D-Mac at 12:04 PM | Comments (2)
Archives: CNN.com, Chat, Michael Phelps, Olympics

Watermelon Finally Makes 'WSJ' Front Page

The Wall Street Journal today ran the above hedcut on this story about the number of resolutions Congress has passed. And you thought Murdoch was going to ruin the WSJ!

In an actual true story of leaders fiddling while Rome burns, this Congress has passed the fewest number of laws in the 20 years of record keeping; it has, however, passed the most number of resolutions honoring the New York Giants or recognizing soil as an "essential natural resource." (Really!) Some may find this a bad idea, but it would seem to me the fewer number of laws Congress passes, the less chance it has to screw up.

But, really, who would have thought it'd be the Democratic Congress that's passing fewer laws?

Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss, whose home state of Georgia has 24,000 acres planted in watermelon, pushed a resolution establishing July as National Watermelon Month. "As Mark Twain once said, 'When one has tasted watermelon he knows what the angels eat.' I encourage my colleagues to join me in acknowledging the wisdom of Mark Twain by supporting this resolution," Sen. Chambliss said on the Senate floor. The only problem: July is about 14 days late for a Watermelon Month. The crops come in in mid June.

Click here to continue reading "Watermelon Finally Makes 'WSJ' Front Page"

Posted by D-Mac at 11:04 AM | Comments (1)
Archives: Base Ball, Congress, Hedcuts, WTF, Wall Street Journal, Watermelon

Abridged Daily News Columnists

Fatimah Ali: You really need to read this one for yourself. I've been sitting here for a half hour attempting to do a proper abridgment of this column, and I just can't.

As we all know by now, China chose pretty little Lin Miaoke to lip-synch the national anthem in place of Yang Peiyi, who actually did the singing. Chinese officials thought that Peiyi wasn't pretty enough because of her less-than-perfect teeth.

This speaks volumes about China, especially when you think about how women have historically been treated so poorly there. (Foot-binding, unwanted female babies . . .)

See? This column goes from underage gymnasts to lip synching at the opening ceremony to John Edwards' infidelities to the media giving Edwards a pass to Obama's plane malfunctioning. No, really. You should just read it yourself. It"s apparently the only column today, so just go ahead.

Update: Oh, yes, I almost forgot to note the best part of the entire column, the plug for her brother-in-law's band:

When it comes to the lip-synching, I sought out my brother-in-law, bassist Marcus Miller (appearing locally tonight in the sold-out Thunder Tour with Stanley Clarke and Victor Wooten). He said that long before the pop duo Milli Vanilli was busted for lip-synching a decade ago, faking it on stage was common throughout the music biz. One reason, he said, is that, especially for female performers, attractiveness can be as important as talent.

Who knew attractiveness mattered for singers?

Posted by D-Mac at 10:20 AM | Comments (1)
Archives: Daily News, Fatimah Ali

Obama Will Be Moving Money

Although we were told it was important at the time, looking back it seems that Barack Obama's loss to Hillary Clinton in the Pennsylvania primary didn't mean much. Maybe that's why Obama didn't campaign much here and didn't shower the town in street money.

Rest assured the general election is a bit more important, and so the Obama campaign will be handing out billions of dollars come November. Maybe not billions, but there will be street money. Bob Brady says so.

"In the fall I think there is going to be an expectation of City Committee that just like in the Kerry campaign and just like in the Gore campaign there will be money moving into City Committee for election-day activity," said political consultant Ken Smuckler.

Ain't democracy grand?

Obama to pony up street money in November [Daily News]

Posted by D-Mac at 09:04 AM | Comments (0)
Archives: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Bob Brady, Street Money

This Is One Way To Put It

This is the strangest way possible to headline a story about a local Olympian who won a gold medal.

Local Olympian Stops Rowing Before End Of Race [NBC 10]

Posted by D-Mac at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)
Archives: Headlines, NBC 10, Olympics, WTF

August 18, 2008

Out-Of-State Winies, The LCB, And God

In the beginning, God created man and the ethyl alcohol molecule. Later, man discovered the ethyl alcohol molecule was psychoactive. In other words, he discovered how to get drunk.

Alcohol is officially endorsed by both God and Jesus, and as such it's one of the most popular drugs in the world. But even though God and Jesus both love alcohol, some people thought it shouldn't exist. So the U.S. banned alcohol and everything was fine except for the flagrant violation of the alcohol laws and the gang wars and the deaths from contaminated alcohol and (most importantly) the loss of tax revenue. America got rid of Prohibition and Pennsylvania founded the Liquor Control Board.

Officially, Pennsylvania hoped for the return of Prohibition, if only to shut down the saloons in Philadelphia (see, in some ways this Prohibition wasn't about alcohol at all!). But soon the state did discover the value of the tax revenue of drunks, and now it restricts the sale of "wine and spirits" to state-owned stores that usually suck.

The most-famous alcohol tax in Pennsylvania is the Johnstown Flood Tax, originally levied at 10 percent to help the Western Pa. town recover from a 1936 flood. Now the money goes to the general fund. As you might have guessed, the rate is now 18 percent, having been raised for reasons not related to flooding in Johnstown.

Yes, the state loves alcohol revenue. It gets better: The state once banned out-of-state wineries from shipping directly to consumers in Pennsylvania, because that makes sense. But a bunch of court rulings eventually made that law unconstitutional, so now somehow the state is going to make a new law that will do the same thing and (I guess, you never know) be constitutional.

All of this is being done to "protect the children," because allowing wineries to ship alcohol to Pennsylvania residents would make it easier for kids to get booze. They, apparently, do not have access to it now.

For more information, consult your local anti-Pennsylvania LCB bloq.

Pa. Lawmakers May Restrict Wine Shipments [AP/NBC 10]
Photo by RobotSkirts, Creative Commons license

Posted by D-Mac at 12:38 PM | Comments (1)
Archives: Alcohol, Johnstown Flood Tax, PLCB, Pennsylvania, Prohibition, Revenue, Taxes, WTF, Wine

They Went On Down (To Applebees)

A PR person sent this photo to PW of the women who lined 15th Street last week attempting to get a chance to audition to be one of Carey's Cuties (ha) on The Price is Right, where they would have the opportunity to point at a toaster. If they're lucky.

This is a wonderful country in many ways, isn't it?

Posted by D-Mac at 11:02 AM | Comments (2)
Archives: Awesomeness, Drew Carey, The Price is Right

Abridged Daily News Columnists

Stu Bykofsky: Oh, somebody give the Mummers Museum money!

John Baer: All those investigations of the legislature are costing you a ton of money -- in legal fees to help legislators get off!

Posted by D-Mac at 08:40 AM | Comments (0)
Archives: Daily News, John Baer, Stu Bykofsky

August 15, 2008

Ooh, Steve Earle!

Here's an ad for this weekend's Philadelphia Folk Festival; I just saw it on TV. It was apparently produced in 1971. It is awesome.

Posted by D-Mac at 06:22 PM | Comments (1)
Archives: Ads, Awesomeness, Commercials, Philadelphia Folk Festival

Links: Annoying News, Everywhere

Hey, there's nothing to write about. Really. So here are some links!

• There's a column on a Houston Chronicle blog titled Ranking Ed Wade's smartest moves. Rob, who sent this to me, added: "And it's not satire. Or parody." Sadly, that dude who punched out Ed Wade is not on the list. [SportsJustice]

• While you were sleeping this week, the Phillies were swept in a four-game set by the Dodgers. They're now back in second place, a game behind the Mets. [AP/Yahoo! Sports]

• With the annual pageant out of the city, Miss America Way has been renamed in Atlantic City. It's now called Convention Boulevard. Pretty soon they're just going to change the names of the streets in Monopoly just to spite the people who made that "New Monopoly." [AP/CBS 3]

• The dude who made the anti-cop rant pled guilty and was sentenced to house arrest earlier this week. Okay, so the cops just have to stay out of that house, I guess. Mhm, that's probably a good idea for everyone. [KYW 1060]

• OPRAH IS GOING TO BE IN SOUTH JERSEY!!! [AP/Courier-Post]

Posted by D-Mac at 02:42 PM | Comments (0)
Archives: Links

Your Lead Of The Year

In other news, we just lost power here at PW, and so my laptop is going to run out of power eventually. (Internet still works.) I'll be moving locations and shall be back soon.

Update: OMG I just remembered the Obama office is above us. TERRORIST ATTACK BY JOHN MCCAIN!!!

Group To Announce Discovery Of Bigfoot [CBS 3]

Posted by D-Mac at 12:26 PM | Comments (1)
Archives: Bigfoot, Blackouts, Friday Afternoons, Headlines, Leads, Sasquatch, Slow News Days

Romanians Have Sleeper Basketball Cell

What I like about walking around Center City is noticing different things on streets you walk on every day.

For example, today, I noticed the Romanian consulate has a basketball hoop over its garage.

Posted by D-Mac at 11:27 AM | Comments (2)
Archives: Funny Photos, Romania, Romanian Consulate

Immigrants Finally Talking About Georgia

Hey, members of Philadelphia's Russian community -- previously afraid to speak out, apparently -- is finally getting it together. They held a protest yesterday at Independence Mall, and KYW 1060 recaps a bunch of protest quotes:

• "Hospitals are swamped, they're flooded with people. That's what we need right now. We need to reconstruct, rebuild and get Russia out."
• "In Ossetia in Tskinvali they're still burning the houses down completely!"
• "They do not care about any standards of normal society!"
• "There are people calling in radio stations saying they're hiding in the basements!"
• "There's killing killing and killing! Killing and blood is their weapon! That's the only thing!"
• "We just want to live in a normal, democratic world! That's what we want! We do not want to live in the jungle."

See, that's a better description of this war than you'll get from a TV news report, and it's done by people at Independence Mall. Let's hope Vladmir Putin -- clearly, listening to KYW 1060 on his drive home -- didn't recognize any of those voices.

Pro-Georgia Rally on Independence Mall [KYW 1060]

Posted by D-Mac at 10:36 AM | Comments (0)
Archives: Georgia, Independence Mall, Northeast Philly, Russia