Rantings of a peeved Phila-delphian...

Four months in this city and I must say I am beginning to like it a lot, warts and all [I mean that literally, cos Philly’s potholes have a huge role to play – harbingers of flashes of excitement and squealing rats, they are ;)]
But since it’s not like me to not have any grievances, here goes....

Please rewind, we seem to have missed our Fall!

Somewhere between enjoying the summer and preparing for the winter we seem to have lost out on playing peek-a-boo with the sun. After two falls with, well, NO fall (the sun is not particularly adept at hiding when you’re 5000 feet above sea level and hence that much closer to it), I was lookin forward to my first northeastern, serene, romantic, autumn in three years. What with falling yellow leaves and wind that carries you for miles on end, sun-soaked pockets on the leeward side of trees alternating with the breeze-ridden windward side...not to mention, being blissfully glove-&-fleece-&-sunscreen-free.... I need it and I am not moving on to cold and formidable winter without having it!!!! Put me to sleep when September ends (with due respect to Greenday, and then some)

[I do feel like a monster cribbing about a lost fall when 20,000 people are lost in the quakes in Pakistan, but I can only echo my oft-repeated plea to Nature --- Go ahead and blow up the entire world. And then somewhere in Tatooine, new life forms will emerge. Just make sure I come back as R2-D2 :)]

Why is Andy Reed killing McNabb?

Last Sunday, he had to came hobbling onto field, when they were down something like 30-10 with no hope of winning against the cowboys. If he has to hand off the ball to Westbrook, surely Detmer can do that much? Hell, I think I can do a running play – locating a 200 pound-plus guy even on a field of 200 pound-plus guys shouldn’t be that big a deal!

I must give it to American footballers though: it’s the game and the team that matter at any given time during the game. Now, off field, it could be an ugly falling out or a sports hernia, it doesn’t affect the game. For instance, they had Ackers literally carried out to kick the winning field goal a couple weeks back, with two minutes to go in the final quarter. And that was by no means a one-off occasion: all of their games this season the Eagles have come roaring back in the second half, with minutes to go...GO Eagles...

I am really digging the American sport and I'm almost beginning to excuse their use of the podiatric prefix needlessly; after all, jus calling it “ball” might have some lewd insinuations :D That’s what half time and JJ are for...

The Phillies suck

I don’t even know why they are a team. Why can’t the phillies EVER get to the playoffs? It’s a wonder they were even hanging on to their wildcard hope for that long, considering how they started off. And if not for Utley and that rookie Howard’s homies, they wouldn’t even have figured anywhere. Their hitters suck (Rollins excepted), their bullpen is beyond repair and their fielding is miserable. The only reason I was lookin out for them was cos my old boss wanted me to swear allegiance to his favorite team when I landed in the land of brotherly love...Turns out, I was wasting my time...

Is it curfew time already?

My biological clock is being discriminated against. It’s hard enough to get used to the idea that the sun will no longer come out everyday and kill your melatonin. It’s worse when the only other known sleep-repressor isn’t readily available. There are about 7 Starbucks within a two-mile radius of my apartment; all of them open at 7, and all of them close at 7. I’m mentally unavailable at the first 7, physically unavailable at the second. [I personally do think any human being that wakes at 7 needs to go to another planet (where you can’t tell time), and if they can manage that, there must be some supernatural force involved that doesn’t need the help of coffee?] A person that has trouble getting out of bed at half past eight does – as far late as midnight. And coming from a town a tenth the size of Philly with ten times the number of coffee shops doesn’t help...The numbers don’t add up. Or maybe I’m just bad at math. Or maybe I am just short of caffeine....

We want more ways than one...

Yeah, whatever happened to the pro-choice mantra of the liberal elite? I don’t care too much for gay or straight, but I need to be able to go both ways on the street! More often than not, I am heading in the diametrically opposite direction from where I am supposed to head; but with the concept of one-ways, I am not only in the wrong direction, I’m also on the wrong street. To make up for one ways, the PA Transportation Dept has come up with the ingenious concept of the massive multi-way, namely, a series of concentric circles around the Art Museum, which ensures that wherever you start, you end up at the exact same point every five minutes. Much as I like the unique architecture of the museum, I’d really rather do the touring inside...with all the circling, I’m not sure I’ll ever get around to doing it...