I Got To Say it Was A Good Day

So let's see...

New roof on my house...
My 14 month old daughter melted my heart by merely saying "dad" and smiling when I walked in after an hour commute home...
Didn't have to clean firetrucks like I thought I had to...
The Dunkin Donuts lady got the extra-extra part right...

And, oh yeah....

THE FLYERS ARE THE EASTERN CONFERENCE CHAMPS!!

They needed a shootout on the last day of the regular season to make the playoffs. They were down 3-0 against the Bruins in games and in Game 7 and came back to win both. They are playing for the Stanley Cup starting saturday. Unreal.

Let's hope Richards' escorting the Prince of Wales trophy to the locker room doesn't jinx them at all. Maybe Cindy Crosby snapped that curse last year...

Why They Invented the Internet #6

For this:




I know, I know, this could have existed before the Internet, but the point is I probably wouldn't have seen it unless the Internet was invented and this was posted on it and I stumbled across it.

[Tip of the hat to Funtasticus (site is overall slightly NSFW) for the pic]

Why is Happy Our New Default Setting?

Kids today don't lose.

Kids today are never picked last for games.

Kids today aren't walloped upside the head with a dodgeball.

Kids today go to college and try to diagnose every literary character's mental conditions and prescribe them the same meds they've been on since they were toddlers. It's true. Just heard it on the radio. An NYU english professor was bemoaning the fact that her students can't deal with the fact that Bartleby the Scrivener was a weird dude. They want to figure out what's wrong with him and share their prozac and lithium with him so that he lives a happier life.

Why?

Probably because they've never had to deal with disappointment or unhappiness.

This isn't to say that there aren't kids out there who need to be treated for various illnesses, mental and physical, because there certainly are. BUT, from what I hear from parents of young children, their kids never have to deal with what adults my age dealt with as kids.

My colleague at work has three kids. The two oldest play little league. They are 9 and 7. They've never lost a game until this year, since no one keeps score until they are deemed old enough to handle it. And in every game this year, every kid has to hit and field. So no one feels bad.

I played t-ball when I was 6, 7 and 8. They didn't keep score then either. But the kicker was, the kids all did. We certainly did. We knew who won and lost. And we went about our 6, 7, and 8 year old lives happily win or lose. As long as we got Slurpees. And I was terrible. I was put into the deepest part of the outfield. Or, if you prefer, the shallowest outfield position on the adjacent field, in the middle of another game. Why? Did I mention I was terrible.

You know what that taught me? Baseball wasn't my game. Nor was basketball, where I couldn't hide in the deep outfield. Soccer was ok. Street hockey was my world and I was good at that. I didn't dwell on being bad at baseball. I learned to deal with the disappointment of playing poorly, of losing almost every game, of hitting the tee farther than the ball. I adjusted and learned that I wouldn't always be happy. And I hope to buck the trend of today with my daughter. She'll lose, she'll play poorly, she'll be sad and disappointed. She'll learn to deal with this and the fact that happiness is not guaranteed.

That's the way life was and should be. Happiness should not be our default. We should expect the occasional disappointment and failure and learn to deal with them. Happiness will return, disappointments will fade, success will visit once again.

Stupid Commercial Jogs Memory

I just saw the stupid commercial for Walmart's new house brand that supposedly will allow me to serve my spouse and 4 or 5 kids, all under 7, tacos for less than $2 a serving.

All I could think of was these, staples of my childhood:





Not necessarily potted meat and cola, but those plain black and white labels with the red stripes at the bottom. There they were mixed in with the normal cereals everyone else had. I know we had our share of normal stuff too, but we had plenty of No Frills stuff as well. And I'm sure they didn't have slick commercials with incredibly photogenic people smiling about how great the No Frills family of products was.

Back in the late 70's and very early 80's we lived in an apartment complex across a relatively busy street from a shopping center with first a Pantry Pride, which begat an A&P which then begat a Pathmark. Back in the day my parents thought nothing of sending their 5-year-old across Crittenden Street to the supermarket for whatever. I'm glad they did, but it just goes to show how different things are today when parents would go to jail for letting their 5 year old go to the store alone and a major chain can make their No Frills-ish house brand look desirable.

[Thanks to Thanks A Lot Pal for the No Frills pics. If I wasn't lazy I could probably dig up a family picture of a birthday party with a 2 liter bottle of "Cola" on the table in the background]

Why They Invented the Internet #5

So that we can celebrate that wonderful time of year when we fill out our brackets and follow the tournament as the field whittles from 64 to that hallowed ground of the final four and then finally to the big winner.

March Madness?

Nope. It's once again time for The Name of The Year Tournament.

Who will arise to assume the mantle from last year's winner, Barkevious Mingo?

Spartacus Bernstein?
Lolita Respectnothing?
Spontaneous Gordon?
Or my lock to win it all, God's Power Offor?

This is one bracket worth filling out and one tournament worth following. At least there won't be 10 timeouts called in the last 30 seconds of these games...

UPDATE: The brackets are out!!

The Definitive 1000

We are going to be counting down the Definitive 1000 things. Why are they Definitive? Because The Friendly Friends have deemed them as such.

961 - Bop Bop 'n Rebop

Ever have an out-of-the-blue remembrance of something from your childhood that seems so outrageous that you begin to doubt the very existence of the thing you're remembering?

I had that happen today.

I remembered a game I had as a kid that I was pretty sure was called Bop Bop 'n Rebop. But could there actually have been such a game? With a name that sounds like a Cyndi Lauper remix?

Indeed there was:






As I remember it, the platform in the middle of the game spun around like crazy sending the "puck" flying all over the board. You had to slide your little guy (or girl...I forgot how hot I thought that girl was) back and forth your opening to keep the puck in the game. It came with two fences so you could block off two of the openings if you didn't have all four players.

I know I loved this game, but I have zero recollection of what happened to it. I wish I knew.

Thanks to Board Game Geek for verifying that this game actually exists!

Why They Invented the Internet #4

So that some day I could get home at 9:30 pm from a meeting and have my wife say, "you probably already saw this, but..." And then proceed to show me these slices of awesome:



and



I have no idea where they came from or what they are, but they are fantastic. Also fitting that my wife was referred to them by a lady at work whose daughter likes them. Her middle school aged daughter.

Ghost Signs in Your Own Backyard

Ghost signs aren't just for big cities. This one commands the skyline very close to my suburban home:







I'm not sure if Jeff's Mom was worth Josh's time or not.


And, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I apologize for the long hiatus. I've been working feverishly on another site for the last few months, when I actually had a working computer. Hopefully, more to come!

Why They Invented the Internet #3

Sorry for the long layoff folks.

It's been a hectic summer/early fall here at Friendly Friends HQ.

Oh yeah, and in case you didn't know, THE FIGHTIN PHILLIES ARE IN THE WORLD SERIES. AGAIN. FOR THE SECOND YEAR IN A ROW.

After 127 (126?) seasons and 7 total trips to the WS the Phils finally put together their first back-to-back trips to the Fall Classic.

So to celebrate, here is another installment of Why They Invented The Internet. Because without the internet, I would never get to see Henry Hill react to Franzke's call of Jimmy Rollins' walk-off double in game 4 of this year's NLCS.

Enjoy, and tip of the William Penn-sized Phillies hat (that they thankfully have not dragged out of storage) to the always fantastic Fightin's.

Holy Crap! John Hughes Died?!

He wrote and/or directed some of the most quotable, most memorable movies of our childhood:

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Uncle Buck
The Great Outdoors
Planes, Trains & Automobiles
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Pretty in Pink
Weird Science
National Lampoon's European Vacation
The Breakfast Club
Sixteen Candles
National Lampoon's Vacation
Mr. Mom

I honestly don't think that a gathering of Friendly Friends goes by without one of these movies being quoted repeatedly. These movies helped define our senses of humor (some more than others, Mr. Mom, Uncle Buck and Planes, Trains & Automobiles I'm looking at you) and have provided hours of enjoyment.

I hope the guest book at the funeral home has entries from Abe Frohman, Bug and Long Duk Dong.

RIP awesome movie guy.

Why They Invented the Internet #2

We here at Friendly Friends Mining and Manufacturing are unabashed Phillies fans. We spent many an hour of our youths roaming the ramps at the Vet begging our parents for a helmet sundae. And we all shed a tear or two last October.

So it should come as no surprise that this video featuring J-Roll and Ryan Howard makes the cut. The "speak through the pans, sir" line alone is enough.

Baseball Fantasy Camp with Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins - watch more funny videos

[Thanks to With Leather, and the other sites posting this video]

Time to Take Out Some Trash

Ramblings and rants that have been bouncing around my brain lately:

1. As an employee of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our state reps and senators for doing an amazing job in Harrisburg. Truly.

By sticking to your convictions that it's better to be a good republican or a good democrat over all else, you've guaranteed that I won't be getting a paycheck for the foreseeable future. God forbid you actually work for the citizens of this fine Commonwealth instead of working to protect the little letter after your name.

You are all a bunch of complete assholes.

2. Wawa, I sing your virtues on a near-daily basis. I enjoy your coffee and the ease with which you allow me to purchase items quickly. I take baths in your buffalo blue cheese sauce.

So why you playing me like a fool? Extending Hoagiefest until August 9th?? Making sure both versions of the hoagiefest songs stick in my brain for another week?? How could you????

3. I think we need a better definition of racial profiling. Police officers responding to a call of an attempted break-in are not racially profiling anybody if they pull up and find a black guy inside a house which he entered through a window after not being able to open the door, EVEN IF THE BLACK GUY LIVES THERE! Police officers stopping a young black man who stands about 6 feet tall, weighs about 200 pounds, wearing blue running pants with a yellow stripe and a grey t-shirt an is doing nothing other than jogging at 11 pm are not racially profiling anyone IF THEY RECEIVED A DESCRIPTION OF A RAPE SUSPECT WHO WAS A YOUNG BLACK MAN WEARING RUNNING PANTS AND A GREY T-SHIRT AND IS 6 FEET TALL AND WEIGHS 200 LBS!

(The second one actually happened to a friend of mine in college. He never claimed racial profiling, but many of our friends did. He's a cop now.)

I worked in law enforcement for many years going back to my college days and I work in law enforcement now. Racial profiling DOES happen. There are bad cops and DA's and judges out there who jam people up for being black or Hispanic. BUT, what everyone calls racial profiling is usually not. The examples above are not profiling and the media needs to stop calling them profiling.

The police are given the task to respond to problems that we cannot deal with as regular citizens for, mostly, safety reasons. The Cambridge police receive a call of a possible break-in and the person in the house happens to be black and live there? How is that racial profiling? And taking it a step further, if you mouth off to a cop you are getting arrested. Black, white, Hispanic, Asian, whatever. That's a fact.

Had the Cambridge police been driving by and saw a black guy sitting on the porch and they stopped and bothered him, we could all cry racial profiling.

This very same thing happened in my own family. A relative was having a house built and decided to go poke around the construction site on a weekend. A neighbor saw a car parked in front of a house site and a guy poking around in all the stuff there and called the police to report a possible theft of construction supplies and equipment. The police rolled up and demanded to see my relative's ID and demanded to know what he was doing there.

Did I mention that we are white?

The police were doing their job. It doesn't matter what color any one is in that situation, the police have a job to do. Just because the perpetrator or the guy breaking into his own house is a minority does not make a situation one of racial profiling.

The XPoNential Music Festival: A Brief Review

One of the highlights of the last few summers had been spending three or four days at the XPoNential fest at Wiggin's Park on the Camden Waterfront. This weekend concert event is the annual festival put on by 88.5 WXPN here in Philly.

This year, thanks to the arrival of our first little one in March, I had planned to miss the whole thing entirely.

When I saw Saturday's schedule however, I quickly changed my mind and made plans to attend at least that day.

I was rewarded by seeing three of my favorite bands back-to-back-to-back along with several others who were highly entertaining as well.

Starting at around 8:00 p.m., They Might Be Giants took the main stage. I was sitting near the top of the hill on the right side (facing it) of the stage, near the brick path in the middle of the park and from that vantage point looking down on the hill it looked like a prairie dog city when They took the stage. From just about every group little heads popped up when John and John came out and launched into Alphabet of Nations and all of those little heads kept dancing through Seven and then the adult stuff as well. One little guy near me didn't stop until the encore of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" and did one of the best dances I've seen to "Dr. Worm." Even though I've seen TMBG 6 or 7 times live it never gets boring, though this was the first time they were called "The Toby Keith Experience," in homage to Mr. Keith's appearance across the marina.



After They, Hoots and Hellmouth blew away the crowd at the marina stage with a rousing set of stuff from their first CD and their newest, The Holy Open Secret. I had seen Hoots last year (?) at the Festival as they opened the main stage one of the days and they sounded great but seemed a little ragged. This time? Absolutely nailed it. The band was tighter and sounded fantastic.



After Hoots, it was time to get back over to the main stage for The Hold Steady. Having never seen them live, I wasn't entirely prepared for Craig Finn's on stage mannerisms. For a guy that sounds a little like Springsteen and has the vocal chops to command every single song, it was a little bizarre to see a guy that makes Devo look like James Brown clones on stage. But The Hold Steady rocked my face clear off of my skull...until the skies opened and they were chased from the stage. I did finally get to hear live versions of some of my favorites (Chips Ahoy, Stuck Between Stations, Massive Nights, Lord I'm Discouraged, Southtown Girls and One For The Cutters) but I feel like I got gypped out of so much more. I was really hoping for Two Crosses, Citrus, Slapped Actress and, of course, Constructive Summer. I really wanted to make that a sing-along song and belt out "GET HAMMERED" with the band. If only the weather had held out...

Why They Invented the Internet #1

Welcome to the first in what I hope will become a regular feature here at Friendly Friends Mortuary and Catering.

Every so often, while cruising the information superhighway, I come across something that makes me say, "This, this right here, is why they invented the Internet. So that someday in the future a guy like me can be cruising around and run across THIS."

Today's entry is the video for The Avalanches' Frontier Psychiatrist.

This entry also presents some interesting synchronicity. As some of you are aware, I wake up most mornings with a song or a portion of a song playing on repeat in my brain. A couple of mornings ago it was the stupid WaWa hoagiefest song and it wasn't until I got to work and had my coffee that it finally faded.

The annoying thing about this soundtrack in my brain is that it is very, very insistent until I can finally shut it out. To the point where I sometimes have to sing whatever is stuck on a loop while in the shower.

This past Tuesday morning I woke up with one tiny fragment of Frontier Psychiatrist playing over and over in my head. It happened to be the part that I've always heard as "Framakazoot, let's have a toot" but could be something else entirely. Then on Wednesday I happened to cruise on past one of my favorite websites for pure random awesomeness, the Percy Tout hour and lo and behold there is the video for this song in all its living glory.

I hadn't heard this song since probably around 2001 but I woke up with it playing in my head and a day later I find the video with very little effort on my part. Honestly, I never even thought about a possible video for this song, which as it sounds like a collection of samples doesn't lend itself to a video.

But, man, it's awesome:



So there you have it. Why they invented the Internet.

Barth Goes to The Greasy Spoon In The Sky

I know what you're thinking. No update for nearly a month and then when we return it's another post about death.

We here at Friendly Friends Amalgamated Manufacturing and Refining Company, Inc. are usually pretty happy fellows. None of us really dwell too much on death and dying.

But when it's a small piece of your childhood that has died you feel compelled to comment on it. And that's what happened when Les Lye passed away on Tuesday.

Mr. Lye played all of the adult male characters on my favorite show as a kid, You Can't Do That on Television. I raced home most days from Erdenheim Elementary to catch this show on Nickelodeon.

The opening, very Monty Python-esque, features Mr. Lye prominently:



Here's my favorite Mr. Lye character, and the inspiration for the title of this post, beating up on his poor employee, Zilch:



Barth takes care of the health inspector, leading to two of the greatest catchphrases from the show:



And finally, Mr. Lye as Ross Ewitch the stage manager being subjected to green slime. As a kid I wanted to get slimed so badly:



It must say something about me that while watching these clips I still laughed like I did when I was 7 or 8, but I did.

Thanks Mr. Lye and RIP.

I thought these things only came in 3's?

First it was Ed McMahon. Pretty sad, but he was 86 and in failing health.

Then it was Farrah Fawcett. Again, sad, but she'd been fighting cancer for some time.

Then it was Michael Jackson. Sad, I guess, but hasn't he really been dead for about 20 years now?

But the kicker, the WTF moment of "celebrity" deaths was the one that occurred over the weekend.

Billy Mays?? Huh? How is that possible?

It's amazing what TV you can get into when you are sitting up late either with an infant or awaiting the infant's eventual late-night wake-up. I became a rather fond follower of the TLC show "Pitchmen" thanks to our 14-week old.

He worked hard to get from the Pittsburgh area to the Boardwalk in AC to the mansion seen on Pitchmen.

And now? Gone.

I have to say, of the "celebrity" deaths in the last week, the death of Billy Mays actually hit the hardest.

RIP Pitchman.

Negelcted Neon Number 1

Not only do Ghost Signs/Ads fascinate me, but so do old, forgotten neon signs.

I guess it's fair to say that neon sign making may be a dying art. Without doing any research or consulting with sign makers, I will base that statement purely on the fact that I just don't see as much neon as I used to.

These faded, neon-less neon signs are sad reminders of bygone days. When I see what's left of these signs, I am struck by how time ravages everything. To think that there was a proud, beaming shop owner watching with pride as his/her sign was hoisted up and lit for the first time, beckoning people from all over to their business and then to see these mostly forgotten relics of that time, far from their glory days leaves me with a bit of melancholy.

Here's the first two that I've collected...

Woodland Avenue in SW Philly, now a west African grocery...

This first picture shows the now neon-less sign for an auto parts store. While it is nice to see that the building itself is still in use for business purposes, and not one of many boarded up hulks on Woodland Avenue, there is still a feeling of loss for what once was. I can almost see the owner of the auto parts store standing across the street, chest puffed out a bit, as he saw the (probably) red neon flicker for the first time. This was his big moment. This was his time to draw the customers in. This was his chance to pay off the loan from his in-laws and finally prove that he wasn't the screw-up they believed stole their daughter away.

Southern end of Lancaster City, not sure if the building is in use at all right now. Barely managed to get the cell phone out in time...

Mr. Rebman must have been so proud. Here was his name on the store, the first in what he hoped would be a regional, then national, chain. What did he sell? It doesn't matter. He had a plum location on the outskirts. The city folk could get in and out as well as the rural folk. He'd catch them on the way into town for a day of shopping and marvelling at the newest and best technological doodads for the home. He could see them now, piling out of the big station wagons, boys in uncomfortable starched shirts and suits, Sunday-only shoes pinching all of their toes. Girls in dresses and gloves, clutching their little purses tight, protecting the small fortune in dimes and nickles they'd spend in the candy department. Moms excited to maybe one-up the Smiths across the way; Dads exhausted from working all week on the farm, looking forward to maybe sneaking one at that little taproom just up the block...

The PECO Building Crown Lights are Proceeding Nicely

More cell phone shots whilst driving down I-76...in the rain...









The whole thing is supposed to be done for July 4th. We'll see.

The Definitive 1000

We are going to be counting down the Definitive 1000 things. Why are they Definitive? Because The Friendly Friends have deemed them as such.

962 - Yak Loin

Good to keep the yang up.

That is all.

Hannibal Lechter Would Be Proud

Thanks for inviting me over for dinner. That's a fine looking roast you got there. I'm a big pot roast fan. Potatoes, carrots, onions all in the gravy with the beef. That's some good eats right there. Oh how I love to smoosh up the potatoes with the onion and drown it in au jus.

What? You've given up beef? Oh, ok. Well, whatever floats your boat. So then what are we having? I mean, that really looks like beef. Is it for someone else?

What is it? Mutton? That color, that marbling. You're not a vegetarian so don't try and tell me that's tofu.

Let me see that....



So that explains the fava beans in the pot and nice bottle of Chianti on the table...