Category: Uncategorized

For the first time in a few weeks, I’m going to a concert. This time, it’s the Philly tandem of Todd Rundgren and Hall & Oates at the PNC Arts Center in Holmdel, NJ. Now, I bought these tickets months ago because Tears for Fears were the original co-headliners with H & O. However, TFF dropped out and Todd replaced Roland & Curt on the bill, which was fine with me.

Todd (OK…he’s actually from Upper Darby, PA…it’s close enough to Philly) is one of my earliest musical heros and I consider songs like “Hello It’s Me” and “I Saw the Light” from the classic 1972 “Something/Anything” LP as links between my childhood — when I would hear the songs constantly on the radio — and emotions I would feel later in life.

Hall & Oates? Well, I liked them back in the day, but not so much now. If they play “the hits,” as my friend Katie likes to say, it will be fun. I don’t want to hear an hour or so of stuff from their latest CD. Play “Rich Girl,” “You Make My Dreams,” and “Private Eyes” and I’ll be happy.

Speaking of being happy, I would be if Todd could break out “Secret Society” tonight. I just love that song.

Well, it looks like Hurricane Katrina is going to devastate New Orleans. I know there are some people who don’t have the means to evacuate because of age, health, lack of transportation, etc. However, if they want to guarantee their survival, they really need to find some way to get out of New Orleans because it is not going to be pretty once Katrina hits.

What also isn’t pretty are these weekend anchors on CNN, FOX News, etc. I swear the guy at the anchor desk on CNN started screaming like Loud Larry from Dilbert a few minutes ago. And somebody on FOX News just blamed the Democrats for Hurricane Katrina…OK…that didn’t happen…yet.

Meanwhile, I think I saw people in the background on The Weather Channel celebrating that people are actually watching them (yeah, that also didn’t happen).

Really, though, I better not see one reporter in New Orleans tomorrow holding on for dear life as the water rushes into the city. I know this is news and I understand that this event will need to be documented, but I don’t need a reporter on the scene to tell me that New Orleans is getting hammered. Just set up a few cameras, have them send live feeds back to the network and use that footage for as long as it lasts.

Here is the 5-day projected path of Katrina from the NOAA’s National Hurricane Center:

OK…I know my iPod is in its twilight years (i.e., 2 years old) and it has done some strange things in the past. However, I’m not sure what it is trying to tell me with its latest quirk.

I could be listening to any song in any playlist, or — as I just found out — not playing anything, and my iPod will suddenly switch to a random selection from my playlist of songs from the musical “Rent.”

I am trying to tell myself that some “Rentheads,” in an attempt to promote the film adaptation of the musical coming out later this year, somehow hacked the latest iPod update and attached some code so that iPods will jump to songs from “Rent,” if they exist on any given iPod.

Yes, I know this isn’t the case…but I am just trying provide myself with some kind of rational explanation…even if it doesn’t make sense…you know…kind of like religion.

Ooh, I just know I’m going to regret writing that.

This is priceless. I don’t even need to say anything about this picture…it pretty much says for itself all you need to know about “Red Staters”…and fans of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Of course, the guy could be referring to the family of former Phillies minor leaguer Javon Moran.

The London Zoo has opened a new exhibit…which, as you can see in the image to your right, features humans.

According to this AFP story, “The ‘Human Zoo’ is intended to show the basic nature of human beings as they frolic throughout the August bank holiday weekend.”

OK…maybe my dream of someday moving to London isn’t the greatest idea.

I wonder if Larry Kittkill from The Simpsons is behind all of this.

Thanks to Mike Doughty’s blog, I have been reading about what appears to be police –- including a SWAT team –- acting way out of line in busting up an Aug. 20 outdoor rave party in Utah’s Spanish Fork Canyon.

It’s hard to say from here if the police acted properly or not. But considering the police knew this was a rave party, I have a hard time believing that there was a need for a fully-armed SWAT team to carry out a raid that looked more organized than the ATF’s assault on David Koresh’s Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, in 1993.

Yes, I am sure there were illegal activities going on at the rave, but the officers in this video of the raid seem to have more weaponry and body armor than the typical soldier fighting in Iraq.

Although he is clearly on the side of the partygoers and the promoters, this guy has posted his observations of the incident along with links to the police report and local news coverage to provide a little bit of balance.

I found out Friday that I’m nearing corneal transplant stage regarding my long-time eye condition, keratoconus. If you were too lazy to click on the link, keratoconus is a thinning of the cornea that results in a cone-shaped bulge…and, of course, vision problems.

My doctor thinks I can go as long as my left contact lens stays in my eye (oh, keratoconus sufferers need to wear hard contact lenses…the most evil things in the universe). But if the steepening of my left cornea gets to the point where it won’t let the contact lens stay in at all or the lens causes constant pain, I’m going to have to get the surgery.

Now, there are apparently a couple of things being tested as an alternative to corneal transplant surgery for those afflicted with keratoconus. However, even if these procedures are approved by the time the surgery becomes necessary for me, there is a risk with these that something could go wrong and result in blindness. But, as I see it, the same risk applies to a transplant…and these potential future surgical options leave out the additional risk of a rejection to a transplanted cornea.

So I’m hoping that one of these alternative methods is ready when/if I need the surgery.

Otherwise, I may just choose to put a patch over my left eye and become Johnny Depp…I mean, a pirate.

For two years, I attended Brick Township (NJ) High School at the same time as veteran National Hockey League center Jim Dowd. Even though Dowd played for the hated New Jersey Devils and helped them win the Stanley Cup in 1995, I have always rooted for him as a player since — by all accounts — he’s a good guy…and I went to high school with him.

Well, since the NHL lockout ended, I hadn’t heard if Dowd had signed with a new team (he played 20 games for the Hamburg Freezers in Germany during the lockout and played for the Montreal Canadiens during the most recent NHL season). So I Google “Jim Dowd” and see on his Wikipedia entry that he signed with the Atlanta Thrashers on August 5, 2005. I check the Thrashers’ site and don’t see him listed on the roster or in any recent news releases. I then did a Google News search and found an article from the Asbury Park Press saying Dowd signed with the Chicago Blackhawks.

I then took it upon myself to edit Jim Dowd’s Wikipedia entry and replace “Atlanta Thrashers” with “Chicago Blackhawks.” It was my first time editing a Wikipedia page…how fun!

I was at good ol’ Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia on Aug. 10, 1981, when Pete Rose led off the bottom of the eighth inning with a single through the hole between third base and shortstop off St. Louis Cardinals right-handed reliever Mark Littel.

The single gave Rose 3,631 hits for his career, passing Cardinals legend Stan Musial (congratulating Rose in the picture) to become the all-time National League hits leader. I will remember that night for as long I live.

In fact, I already remember it better than Pete himself. During a family trip to Florida in 1993, we were driving down to Miami for a Phillies-Marlins game that night (it was the Marlins’ inaugural season and the Phils were on their way to a NL title that year). On the way down, we decided to look for the restaurant Pete Rose had opened in Boca Raton. After going the wrong way for about an hour, we finally decided to backtrack and it turned out it was less than five minutes from the highway going the other direction.

Anyway, we get there and it turns out Pete’s place is running a bus trip down to the game that night. There were still some tickets left so we just took the bus from there.

There were still a few hours before the bus left, though, so we ate there. Now, in those days, Pete was doing a radio show from the restaurant and would hang around with the crowd before going on the air. He came out just as we were finishing eating and my dad was telling me to go up to him and at least shake his hand.

Now, Pete was my favorite baseball player when I was a kid and I still respect how he played the game (I’m not going to get into the gambling stuff because I just don’t have the time). But there people approaching him and I just didn’t feel right about joining in. So I went to play some video games instead (his place had a pretty decent arcade section).

About 10 minutes later, I was on some game that required you to sit on a fake motorcycle. Suddenly, my dad yanks me off the faux bike and tells me, “I’ve told Pete all about you and he wants to meet you.”

D’OH!

So now I am forced into meeting Pete Rose. My dad goes up to him and says, “Pete, this is my son, Brian, the one I was telling you about.” I shake Pete’s hand and I said something like, “Wow! You know, whenever I played baseball as a kid, I insisted on wearing No. 14.” My dad then mentioned he had to pull me away from the video games and Pete jokingly (well, that’s what I thought at the time) said, “Oh, get back over there. Those things make me a lot of money!”

However, I stayed and said, “We were at the game when you broke Stan Musial’s National League hit record.”

Pete replied, “Oh yeah, that was the last game before the strike,” referring to that year’s players’ strike, which started following the completion of all games played June 11, 1981. Baseball resumed Aug. 10, with the Cardinals-Phillies matchup the nationally broadcast Monday Night Baseball game on ABC (yes, there used to be such a thing for the younger set that reads this blog).

Now, here is where things got weird. Pete had always been known as a walking baseball encyclopedia, but I guess time and everything he had gone through were starting to take its toll. However, my memory was working perfectly fine.

So I said, “No…it was the first game back from the strike. You tied Musial with a first-inning single off Nolan Ryan in the last game before the strike (June 10, 1981)…and then he struck you out three times.”

Pete was stunned I remembered that and said something like, “Oh yeah, that’s right. I don’t know how I got that hit off Ryan. He was dealin’ that night.”

All that aside, it turned out to be a really cool moment in my life (thanks, dad, for pulling me off the motorcycle) and I have a picture of me and Pete that I will try to get around to scanning so I can add it to this post (and get rid of the one I “borrowed” from some memorabilia site).