If dreams are like movies then memories are films about ghosts...

Lying awake one night in Virginia Beach, drowning a snore which I can only describe as industrial in its nature, I heard that lyric and decided it simply had to be the title of the post I'd eventually write about my trip. But there's not really a whole lot that needs to be said about my trip to warrant my usual wordiness, it was just a simple, relaxing, great time with the very sorts of old friends I discussed needing to reconnect with in this blog's initial entry. And so, in addition to the picture I posted during the drive home, I give you the definitive list of movies which define our little posse, as debated ad nauseum one Thursday night at the beach.

Office Space
Rounders
Swingers
Wedding Crashers
The Big Lebowski
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Old School
Anchorman (though I maintain we should replace it with Ferris Bueller's Day off)
Fight Club
Super Troopers Click me for the rest!

I went down Virginia seekin shelter from the storm

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I mope around like there's nothing to do, another day and I'm looking for something new...

Not a whole lot to discuss over the last few days, but I'll do my best anyway...

• I thoroughly enjoyed the Weeds premiere, most notably the introduction of Albert Brooks' character. While there certainly could have been a modicum of effort to explain how Nancy came to decide he was her best option (or, for that matter, how Andy didn't manage to come to the idea of his own father first) but for the most part I think he's going to make for a highly amusing frienemy to the Botwin clan in their new digs. I'm glad to see they haven't completely abandoned the rest of the population of Agrestic, though I fear the line about Conrad and Heylia being long gone may well be indicative of the fact that while the rest of the support cast was downgraded from series regular to recurring, the fighting Jamseses may well just be gone.
• Even more fraktacular than Weeds, in my humble opinion, was the midseason finale of Battlestar Galactica. I'm of the belief that the statute of limitations on posting spoilers is 72 hours, so I will not hesitate to discuss the goings-on of said episode of BSG. I can't say I'm terribly surprised at the discovery of a post-apocalyptic nuclEarth, as it was the resolution to the search least likely to spark riots among fans...it's hard for anyone to be too upset about the discovery of absolutely nothing. I'm curious if the Manhattan skyline whose remnants were revealed to us at episode's end were particularly meaningful or, more likely, a joint attempt to establish this as having once been an Earth which would be recognizable to the actual citizens of earth and a reference, of course, to Planet of the Apes. Regardless, I could not be any more supportive of the decision to give us Earth with an ample amount of time left in the series' run, as especially given our newly formed tentative alliance, the discovery of Earth is only as meaningful and as entertaining as what it means for the characters who form the foundation of BSG.
• The Phils are 3-6 since leaving Atlanta last week, and while I would be kidding myself if I said I wasn't the slightest bit concerned, I don't yet see any reason panic. They lost 2/3 games each in Florida and St. Louis, at least 2 of which they had within their grasp and gave away in extraordinary fashion, in addition to 2/3 at home to the best team on earth, the defending World Series champion Red Sox. Despite their less than stellar results during this, their hardest stretch of schedule this season by a longshot, they hold a 2-game over Florida in the division, with another 3.5 games of cushion between Florida and the Mets and Braves, teams which still possess losing records and more injuries than the 2006 Eagles could shake a stick at. What this week will amount to, in the long term remains to be seen, but if it teaches the Phillies a lesson in plate discipline, it would've been worth getting swept by the Sox. If it ever decided to uniformly work counts, this offense could become a hell of a lot scarier than it already is.
• My boredom should subside, to say the least, over the next 10 days or so, with a midnight Get Smart tonight and, much more excitingly, Virginia Beach with the original NYU crowd for a week beginning Saturday. It's unfathomable for me to think that we'll top the time I had as a member of the Air Jamaica Six, but I'll be damned if we're not gonna try. Until next time, someone PLEASE derelick my balls...I'm fuckin bored.

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I am the greatest fan that ever lived...

Okay, so obviously I'm not, though I do belong to the greatest fanbase that ever lived in this country -- not sure I wanna fuck with Man U fans, they seem legit -- but really this is just another post about sports and that song is totally up in my head. It all began with a game of AudioSurf, during which I played most of the Red Album. If you're unclear on either of those things...pop my blog's comment cherry, dammit. I started this mostly because I used to enjoy all of your lively comments. In accordance with that, I will ignore any queries submitted to me in any form other than blog comment. If you don't have an account, that's cool...just sign it with a first name or something which you think will make you identifiable to me. Anyway...Audiosurf got a little overstimulating, as it always does...which got me where I am now....

Seeing a SportsCenter re-run about to start, and having been jonesing to finish a round of my recently acquired PC edition of Tiger Woods 07 (which critics seemed to agree was much better than 08, and better than the 360 or Wii versions) which I abandoned when the Phils started cutting into that 5-1 lead, and had never gotten back to on account of the long-awaited return of my better half, real-life Tiger, the addictive qualities of the 5 most recent episodes of Weeds on Showtime/Apple TV, and the semi-entertaining qualities of the 4th quarter of an NBA game, because lord knows not even in the finals are the first 3 quarters remotely interesting. Anyway...SportsCenter and its Soccer and Golf highlights got me to thinking about a fairly simple but paradoxically also rather complicated question...what is it
that I love so much about sports? This question, to some extent, was a byproduct of a conversation I had recently had with ML, in which I expressed to her my disdain for the idea of working the travel-oriented, faux-glamorous, publicly scrutinized grind associated with working in the traditional sports media, a desire which is associated as closely with my character as my Philadelphianism, to coin a phrase but certainly not a concept. While both certainly have their place in my heart, I don't think either really gets to the heart of the matter. Golf and Tennis aren't Philadelphian and don't make for good television, yet I watch nearly as religiously as I do the Phils when the time comes. Ditto curling and soccer -- which won't qualify as Philadelphian to me even when the MLS team comes to Chester, and even if they win a championship. And for anyone who wonders why it wouldn't count if they win a championship, or if the Soul win the Arena Bowl for that matter, that can also be a blog comment discussion. I have a fully fleshed out rationale. Anyway...I think I owe my love of sports more to video games, and even more specifically to growing up competing with my older and much more coordinated sisters in video games, than to anything else. While it's true that I grew up playing sports, anyone in my family can tell you with some degree of certainty that I was never much of a natural athlete...which is to say, I am the worst athlete alive. But the one athletic trait which I did possess in spades was the spirit of competition derived from being in a constant struggle for everything from attention to the right to be player 2, because back in those days, you were mario, you were luigi...or you weren't at all. If you ain't first, you're last. So, I say it was sibling rivalry, and primarily manifested through video games, which fostered the competitive spirit in me, and which thus also created my insatiable appetite for competition. Well, that was rather long-winded.

In other news, I've decided to drop the whole Zoolander catchphrase already...it's pretty dumb. But every time I hear the persistence quote, I think of Derelique. And now I have no idea what note to end on. Screw it, I guess it's staying for the time being. If you don't like it, you can derelick my balls.
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Too bored to think of a title

I found this post, over on a rather misguided but still well-written Mets-centric blog, and the discussion it spawned, incredibly amusing and apropos of my most recent post. And more concise than mine, no less. And I'm bored enough to go through the trouble of posting a link here on a blog no one's reading. Enjoy. Click me for the rest!

Step Right Up and Beat the Mets...

There is perhaps nothing in the world I enjoy more than watching the Mets suffer. Live with the world's most annoying fanbase with the biggest Yankee-inferiority complex imaginable for a little while as anything other than a member of it and you'll understand why. But I think it's especially sweet for me, as a Phillies fan after living through 8 years of Phillie Phailures, and having predominantly Mets fans as friends to boot. So watching this team continue to stumble and fumble and bumble and invent ways to lose like they're still caught in that 4-game sweep at CBP last August/September over the first 60+ games of the season has been, truly, as entertaining for me as watching the Phils play some of the best baseball in the Majors. But what's transpired over the last week of Mets baseball...not even I would wish this on anyone.

This is truly beneath the dignity of a Major League Baseball team. The New York Mets have now blown a lead of 3 runs or greater in the 8th inning or later of FIVE consecutive games. They've lost six of their last seven games. They have genuinely perfected the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. And the truly amusing part of it is, this has been easily their best stretch of starting pitching of the season. As Gary Cohen is explaining on SNY's postgame as I type this, for the first two months of the season, the Mets' bullpen was the team's unquestioned strength and the only reliable facet of an otherwise underachieving team filled with declining offensive stars and a suicidal mixture of inexperienced and unreliable younger starting pitchers and injury prone, aging veterans. While it was lauded at the time as the move which made the Mets favorites in the East again, the deal didn't come without its own monumental risks, namely in that it left the team even more bereft of Major League-ready depth in the minors than it already was. While I won't pretend that Santana's astronomical contract will make any player unaffordable to the deep-pocketed Mets, the opportunity to significantly improve a ballclub midseason by primarily financial means is almost non-existent, and there is simply nothing for the Mets to even offer another team, were they even willing to further compromise the future in hopes of salvaging a season which shows very few signs of turning around. I won't tempt karma, or the becarefulwhatyouwishfor Gods, as I like to call them, by saying I hope the Mets turn it around, but it will be slightly bittersweet if the Phillies continue to play the upper echelon ball they've made it their business to play this season, and the Mets can't hold up their end of what was supposed to be the breakout season in baseball's next great rivalry.

That all having been said, there is one aspect of this implosion which has been completely guilt and sympathy free for me: chatty cathy himself, Billy the Child Wagner, he of the "I didn't blow a save tonight, go ask my teammates why we can't win" rant just a few weeks back, has blown saves in his last three appearances. To put that in perspective, Little William was perceived as somewhat unreliable during his times with the Phillies during 2004 and 2005, blowing 7 saves in 66 opportunities. The last time he blew three consecutive saves? 2000, as a member of the Houston Astros. He's now blown 5 saves in each of his three years as a Met, and of course, he has to keep closing until October...well, let's be honest with ourselves, for this team...probably September. I think the horse himself just put it best to the assembled New York media on SNY..."I can't say a thing about our team. I suck." Billy, you said it man. Now if only you knew it was time to shut up. If I feel like it, there'll be a post coming a little later with pictures, a setlist, and some impressions from the Spill Canvas show I attended last night.

Until next time, you can derelick my balls, Mugatu.

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He said, "son I made my life out of readin people's faces, and knowin what the cards were by the way they held their eyes..."

Denizens of the Internet, I was remiss last night in forgetting to call for a huge round of applause and offering my heartiest congratulations, to my friend and one-time poker teacher, Andrew Brown, who earlier this week took down one of the world's most respected card players, the venerable Ted Forrest, en route to winning Event #16 at this year's World Series of Poker. I give you Andrew Brown, bracelet winner.

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If you don't like it, you can shove it, but you don't like it, you love it, so I'll be up here in a rage till they pull the curtain down on this stage

So...let's see if I remember how to do this. It's been quite a while since I've had a public conversation with myself, and truth be told it doesn't quite feel like second nature as it once did. But alas, I press on, as my pseudonym's inspiration would demand. I suppose the most logical place to kick this off would be with some sort of an introduction. So welcome, I guess, to my brand new little corner of the Internet.

I'm not really convinced anyone will read this at all, but I'm quite certain no one is going to arrive here who didn't come knowing exactly who I am and what I'm all about, so I'll spare you the personal history. What I would guess is more interesting to any of you who have landed here anyway is where I've been, because, save for a few exceptions, I really haven't spoken to or seen the people who would be interested enough in my ranting and raving to be here in quite a while. Truth is, there isn't a whole lot to tell. I've returned to and theoretically graduated from NYU, though not without a couple loose ends to tie up over the course of the next few months. And my beloved girlfriend, who we'll just call ML here for privacy's sake, and I have moved in together, still in the same old DisAstor you all knew and loved (and, it bears noting, would be more than welcome to drop by any time). And that's basically it. For the most part, I'm still the same old ultra-opinionated, never-serious procrastinating addictive personality you remember, falling in and out of love and hate with whatever mediated sludge the world throws my way.

So what brought me back to the world of spewing forth my verbal diarrhea at an indeterminate number of people who simply don't care at all? I'm glad you asked. As none of the people who were once a part of my life and who are no longer need reminding, there have been an inordinate number of relationships which were once integral to my life, and to my happiness, which through no malicious intent or falling out on anybody's part, have fallen by the wayside. Personally, I blame the very communicative tools which let me have this blog. It's hard for me to accept, and surely I'm overstating the matter to some extent, but the truth is, the way we communicate now, if you aren't involved in a never-ending conversation with a person spread across a dozen different platforms, you're out of touch with them. And I'm tired of feeling out of touch with my past, and with all my friends. It's one thing to keep moving forward, but to do so without ever taking time to make sure you're bringing the worthwhile parts of the past with you is empty, and it isn't how I like to live. So this is going to be my place to dwell on shit again, with the hopes that even one of the people I've lost to laziness and the sheer speed with which everything moves now a days will stumble here and dwell in shit with me again, like the good ole days.


All that, and I need a place to post all of my random thoughts so as to maybe shut up long enough not to drive ML totally fuckin crazy.

Until next time, you can derelick my balls, Mugatu. Click me for the rest!