W. C. Fields was wrong!

Look at that low plane

2008-05-26T16:25:00.000-07:00

We were somewhat upset when we saw two military fighter jets escorting a passenger airliner tonight. We thought there was something very havy going down. It turns out that instead of some sort of major "Oh crap!" moment, our tax dollars, which are already being wasted on an unneeded military adventure in Iraq, were being used for the aircraft (turns out the "civilian airliner" was a military airliner) to fly over the stadium of the worst team in the history of any organized professional sport on the planet - the pathetic losers known as the Philadelphia Phillies. Nothing like scaring the crap out of people and wasting tax money for some minor league baseball team theatrics!

At least inform people of your plans so as not to get people wondering if there is another 9-11 going down. Not that we would consume any of the offerings of any of the horrible mainstream media outlets here in hell. I'd read the Post before I'd read any of the daily papers here in hell.

And don't get me started about TV or radio.
Who the hell hires the host of Access Hollywood as a news anchor?
The CBS owned station here in hell.

Who the hell uses music that is from the 1970s as their theme? The ABC owned station here in hell. It does sort of fit with the newscast, which seems like a low budget version of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy fronted with an obviously closeted guy with 'stashe and bad wig.

Who the hell hires some guy arrested for pretending to be an ATF agent and putting him on air? The NBC owned station here in Hell.

Sadly the Fox owned station seems to be the best of the bunch. That should tell you something!
Plus there is nothing like NY1. Pathetic! Well there probably isn't enough actual news here in hell to fill 24 hours seven days a week.

Apparently there are no parallels to Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons (the gold standard in local news anchoring) even if Sue does use the F-word every now and then on air. We have met Sue a couple of times. She is a big sweetheart and a fan of a proper baseball team - the Mets!

The one (yes one!) all news radio station seems to have (an obviously fake) news ticker machine in the background. These things haven't been used for decades. It is just stupid.

WTF! Legal Fireworks?!

2008-05-21T15:56:00.000-07:00

We tend to get shocked by the insane stupidity that is found in the the hell known as Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. Apparently fireworks are legal and easily obtained. Legal fireworks are definitely a sign you are in some sort of backwards hick redneck state.

From an early age, we had it drilled into us that it was unsafe to handle fireworks unless you were a train professional, usuallythe form of some FDNY lieutenant or by the New Jersey State Police making a mannequin go boom. So seeing these dangerous items on sale on the sales floor of a K-Mart was a big shock. How could such a retailer sell such dangerous goods and have them just sitting out on the sales floor? It seems a bit insane, especially when they are a fire hazard.

Tap Water or Swimming Pool Water?

2008-05-06T17:54:00.000-07:00

After drinking the as good as bottled water that comes to the beacon of civilization through and elaborate network of r eservoirs and tunnels the stuff that comes out of the tap in here in hell is barely potable. Let us just say that it tastes like something that comes out of a swimming pool. OK, lets say somethign nice about hell. The tap water is better than what comes out of the tap in DC.

The City of Bad Food

2008-05-05T20:33:00.000-07:00

One of the most annoying things about the hell that is Philadelphia is that the food is quite awful. You cannot get a decent slice of pizza. The bagels are a joke. A knish? Forget about it!

These are pretty basic food items. It is not like we are complaining about something that takes a great deal of skill or anything to make. Yet we wonder why they get these things wrong here in hell.

Take pizza. It is pretty basic, yet the troglodytes get it wrong, very wrong. We are talking worse than average Manhattan tourist trap with some variant of Famous Original Ray in the name. We are talking worse than something you would find in Kansas. We are talking something worse than you would find in some small village in the Lake District of England. When you encounter something that has appeared to have been deep fried, you know something is wrong. We have had deep fried pizza (God bless the Scots!), however it is a totally different proposition involving battering and frying as they do with Mars bars (which makes us wonder where the hell we can pick up a proper Mars bar).

Now bagels are even simpler than pizza, yet they get them glaringly wrong. We have asked for a pumpernickel bagel, one of the most common types known to mankind, and were told there wasn't such a thing. Now if they actually had such a common bagel it would probably be something that you could play hockey with. That reminds us, the two places other than the great city of five boroughs that have good bagels are somewhere where they do know what a hockey puck is - Toronto and Montreal.

As for what passes for a knish, we were so traumatized we don't want to even talk about it. Although we'll say if you want a knish, it is best to schlep to the Yonah Schimmel Knish Bakery down on Houston Street in the civilized part of the world known as the Lower East Side.

Now for the two specialties of Philadelphia food we are not impressed. The "soft pretzel" is neither pretzel shaped nor soft. It is more the shape of the number eight and can be best described as chewy like rubber.

The other contribution to the world of gastronomy that is offered up by the murderriffic city probably has many dead bodies on its hands. Yes, it is the unKosher, heart attack waiting to happen sandwich known as a cheese steak. We have not sampled one, since it is meat and we don't eat it, but it appears to be a concoction of low grade meat, day glow orange off brand Cheez Wiz, and onions all fried in grease on a grill not cleaned since Prohibition and all served on a sub roll. Stupid. Then they do say you are what you eat.

Where are the socks and the Mozzarepas?

2008-05-04T16:10:00.000-07:00

We went to a street fair today and unlike street fairs in the civilized part of the world, things that make a street fair a street fair were missing. If you have ever experienced a proper street fair (read: one in the city that is five counties) there are things that are absolutely essential to the experience.

At a proper street fair, there are always several vendors selling socks. If you ever need socks and don't want to pay a lot, just go to a street fair. In hell, no sock stalls were to be found.

There are several food items that ensure a street fair experience - grill roasted corn, fried Oreos, and of course Mozzarepas. None of these guilty pleasures were to be found, although they did have beer.

We of course were not shocked that the residents of hell could not organize a proper street fair, however we did need some new socks and we were quite annoyed at the lack of hosiery.

Another annoying linguistic oddity

2008-05-02T10:12:00.000-07:00

When we use the phrase "on line" (as in "We went to the bank and had to wait on line for twenty minutes!") we often get funny looks. Apparently the inhabitants of hell don't use this bit of normal English in their vocabulary. Instead they wait "in line" - like the skate. This is yet another irritation that we have to deal with.

A loaded question: Where are you from?

2008-05-01T10:12:00.000-07:00

Where we come from (a state that is a garden with many exits) and other places we have lived (such as the one that currently has a mayor who has a TV network named after him and the place where they love Joe Carter) the simple question "Where are you from?" was answered with either a town, neighbourhood, Roman Catholic parish, or state.

So you would think when asked "Where are you from?" in Philadelphia the normal answer to the question would be the one that the questioner wanted. Of course, this is not the case. When we gave the standard reply (in this case "Jersey") we were asked the question again, but with more emphasis. Again we gave the same reply which had our interrogator only ask the question with even more vigor. At this point we said that we have told them twice, which lead them to ask the real question - "What is your ethnic/racial background?"

Given that Philadelphia is one of the most ethnically and racially segregated places we have ever been in the United States, this is not a shock. Apparently, as this has happened to us on repeated occasions, it appears to be some sort of defence mechanism by the locals in order to size up someone they encounter for the first time so they can place them in the proper category.

We of course obfuscated when we finally replied to their actual query, as we are not quite white, by stating we are "assorted Western European". This of course did not fully satisfy the interrogator which was our intended result. There is nothing like playing mind games with small minded people.

W. C. Fields was wrong!

2008-05-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

The comic great W. C. Fields allegedly wanted "I'd rather be in Philadelphia" on his gravestone referencing the joke among vaudeville comedians that "I would rather be dead than play Philadelphia". To be frank, Philadelphia is an uncouth, uncultured, unsafe, and unfathomable place. Perhaps it is due to the fact that we are an outsider that we do not understand the mores and folkways of this strange place filled with people who talk with funny accents and eat disgusting foods.

We can take solace in the fact that we're not going to hell, since we are there now.