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.