October 2006 Archives

Today's the day! Today, you'll know for sure whether or not you're going to get married! This from wikipedia:
In North America, unmarried women were frequently told that if they sat in a darkened room and gazed into a mirror on Halloween night, the face of their future husband would appear in the mirror. However, if they were destined to die before they married, a skull would appear. The custom was widespread enough to be commemorated on greeting cards from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Sounds like fun! Go for it, girls!

Anybody know a decent amount about basketball and is good with kids? I need an assistant coach. If anyone is interested, hit me up.

If you ask me, it's the Shining. What do you guys think? In case you are wondering what child star Danny Lloyd is up to these days, click here.

Well, gang, it's here again. Time for the 4th annual Halloween Spooktacular! All questions will have a Halloween theme, and Johnny will be giving away a lot of candy. Especially on Wednesday and Thursday, after the bottom has dropped out of the candy market. Ha ha, just kidding, Tuesday quizzo goers. Sort of. And Tuesday will be the first time that Halloween has actually fallen on a quizzo night, so anybody wears a Halloween outfit will earn a bonus point for their team (up to 5 points per team.) Each team can play only once this week.

What historical event is the Torrance family discussing in the car when Jack says, "See, it's ok. He saw it on the television."

-Wow, what a great weekend to be a football fan at Lincoln Financial Field, as Philly's favorite fooball team, the Temple Owls, pulled out a victory after 20 straight losses. The win over the same Bowling Green team that beat them 70-14 last year proved that they are no longer college football's doormat.

-There was also a pro game at the Linc yesterday, but the dangerously high dose of liquid Valium I took following the game has caused me to forget what happened.

-Camden is no longer America's most dangerous city! Hooray Camden! Why, I think I'm going to walk over to North Camden after the movie tonight to join in the celebration! Bonus Camden Fun Fact: There was a pro basketball team in Camden in the 1960s. They were called the Bullets. I'm not kidding.

-K-Fed's having to cancel his concerts. Apparently, nobody is buying tickets! I think people are just scared to "Play With Fire!" (notice the fire in his drink! So cool!)
RELATED: Johnny goes to Camden.

First of all, I want it stated on the record that Teen Witch was entirely Preston and Steve's idea (The guys from WMMR). I had nothing to do with the selection of this film, so you can stop calling me a pansy right now. However, after talking to numerous members of the opposite sex, apparently this is a fun and goofy movie, and women seem to really like it. Translation: Guys, I think there are going to be women there tonight, and if you pretend like you like this dumbass film, these chicks will dig you. Big time. So be there.

Chip Chantry and I return with the Wheel of Terrific, Halloween Edition, tonight at 7:30 p.m. There is a decent chance someone will be kidnapped. Hope to see you there.

Alright guys, I've posted the lines from famous horror films down below. Now you've got to tell me what films those lines are from. No cheating! One guess per person. Oh, and you've got about another hour to get in your horror haikus.

He neglected to mention that downtown they call this place Camp Blood.

The child is dead. He breathed for a moment. Then he breathed no more. The child is dead. Dead. The child is dead.

And He who walks behind the rows did say; I will send outlanders amongst you... a man and a woman, and these outlanders will be unbelievers and profaners of the holy and the man will sorely test you. for he has great power, even greater than that of the blue man!

I met him, fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes... the *devil's* eyes! I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... *evil*!

No, not really. Anyway, I hear the expression 'eats like a bird' - it-it's really a fals-fals-fals-falsity. Because birds really eat a tremendous lot. But -I-I don't really know anything about birds. My hobby is stuffing things. You know - taxidermy.

Darling. Light, of my life. I'm not gonna hurt ya. You didn't let me finish my sentence. I said, I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just gonna bash your brains in. I'm gonna bash 'em right the f*** in. Ha, ha.

History was made at JGT quizzo this week, as something remarkable happened on Thursday night. But the week started with a blowout on Tuesday. Palestra Jon and Skippy joined forces and the Three Amigos won in one of the biggest blowouts in quizzo history, 102-69, over the defending champs The Embarrasments. Scores were low at the Bards, as teams struggled with the "Mysteries of the Unknown" Round. The Sofa Kingdom changed their weekly double answer and got it right, winning 90-82 over Kenny Rogers Has Poo on His Hand. Scores would rise, drastically, on Wednesday, as one team flirted with a perfect game.

When I moved to Philly, I had no life, no money, and one friend. Fortunately, that one friend and I had something in common besides being broke: we both loved Scrabble. We played every night after work, memorized all the two letter words, and kept detailed records of every word played and what the weather was like when the game started. However, neither of us ever came anywhere near 890 points. In fact, I'm quite sure that if I played by myself, I couldn't score 890 points. In fact, the guy that won scored 365 points on a single word (Quixotry). That is completely ridiculous.

Today's page two artice in the Metro is Scary Versus Slutty: Women Divded Over What's Appropriate Dress for Halloween. Vote in the poll to the right.

Alright, in the most convoluted contest ever, yet another twist. I am going to allow haikus to not only be about murder, but about anything Halloween related. So post your Halloween haikus below. Winner of best haiku gets two tix to see Philadelphia Theatre Company's production of Murderers. 2nd place gets two tix to the Adventure Aquarium in Camden. All entries must be received by Monday, October 30th, at 12 noon.

Thought you guys might get a kick out of the wild card round on Thursday. The night's topic: Rush Limbaugh.

1. Rush is a man who places family values first and is a firm believer in the sanctity of marriage. How many times has he been divorced?
A) 0 b) 1 c) 2 d) 3

2. Rush claims to work for the non existant EIB network. What does EIB stand for?

3. What 12 year old did Rush call the family dog, and then apologized, saying that she couldn't help the way she looked?

4. Who wrote the book Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot?

5. In 2001, Rush began to go deaf. Deafness can be caused by abusing what drug that Rush has a glorious history with?

6. What popular musician did Rush call a worthless shred of human debris the day after he died?

7. The opening sequence of the Rush Limbaugh show is a song called "My City Was Gone" by this band.

8. Rush dated Daryn Kagan for two years. She's best known for regularly appearing on what TV station?

***9. When Rush was busted for having 29 Viagra pills, he was returning with several buddies from this Caribbean nation renowned for its sex tourism industry.

10. Like essentially all prominent right wingers, Rush did not serve in Vietnam. He was excused because he had a cyst on what part of his body?

Me and some friends have been talking about this a lot lately and I thought I'd throw it out there and see what you guys think. I kind of think that The Metro is the best paper in Philly. It's not where you go for hard hitting news coverage, but it does a much better job of supporting local talent than either the Inky or the Daily News, who are complety convinced that to be worthy of ink you have to be an anchor or reporter on a local news show or have appeared in a reality TV show. Like everybody is just dying to know whether or not Gervase is a good tipper. The Metro, meanwhile, is constantly interviewing local musicians, comedians, and artists, people who are doing exciting things that don't include appearing on a local network. The City Paper and the Weekly do a good job of this too, but The Metro just seems a little bit more earnest about it. And it's not as wallowed down in ads as much as those papers are. Anyways, lemme know what you think. I posted a poll to the right.
RELATED: Philebrity interview with Metro A & E editor Dorothy Robinson.

I hate the Giants as much as anybody else. But I do love Tiki Barber, for a number of reasons. First, he's from Virginia and I'm proud to have such a classy guy from my native state. No tirades on the sidelines, no drug abuse, no trashing his teammates. Second, he's on my fantasy team and scores me tons of points every single week. Third, after Michael Irvin said this week that he was "quitting, not retiring," the usually mild mannered Barber fired back. He snapped at Gary Myers and Tom Jackson first, then went after Irvin. "That includes the ultimate character guy, facetiously speaking of course, Michael Irvin. Please get a clue on how to be a journalist." Booyaka shot! Isn't it great when Crackpipe Irvin tries to attack a guy for lack of character, and the guy, who has more character in his pinky than Crackpipe has in his whole body, fires back? And I would suggest Irvin let the issue slide. Tiki has, honestly, probably a good 50 or 60 IQ points on you (he was valedictorian of his senior class and received an academic scholarship to UVA), so any argument your feeble mind comes up with is gonna be a loss.

Here's some follow up on Rush Limbaugh. You can see Limbaugh not only blasting Michael J. Fox, but acting out his Parkinson's symptoms. It is really amazing that any of you are even attempting to defend this piece of human waste. This attack comes a couple of weeks after he blamed 15 year old pages for the Mark Foley scandal. Come on, people! There's a point where this goes past politically incorrect and just goes to out and out evil. Oh, and the anti-stem cell ad will feature none other than Kurt Warner. Now, it is OK to make fun of him.

-Rush Limbaugh thinks that Michael J. Fox was "acting" when he displayed the effects of Parkinson's in a political ad. Hey Rush, were you "acting" when you had that ear problem? Or was that a common side effect of drug addiction?

-Rick Santorum says that a vote for Casey will let the North Koreans think that we are weak on nuclear defense, and will immediately attack us with a nuclear weapon. Then the North Koreans will make our children gay and try to hurt the baby Jesus!

-Speaking of gay, there is a judge in New Jersey who is deciding whether or not gay marriage should be legal. Most of those opposing gay marriage are, of course, Republicans. It's amazing to me that these guys who wrap themselves so much in the flag think that all Americans are deserving of equal rights under the stars and stripes...except the GAYS! But there is a good reason to not give gays equal rights. I have it on good word that gays love North Korea and they hate freedom! They also hate the baby Jesus!

-Republicans hate Ken Jennings! Ok, so that's not true, but I figured I'd close out with something more trivia related. Ken Jennings just released a book about trivia, and talks about it at length here. Thanks, Dan, for sending this in.

Yes gang, I waited and waited for those mysterious two weeks to return to the site, but it apparently isn't going to happen. Therefore, we must move forward and submit those haikus again, or new haikus for the first time. This is only going until Sunday. I will then judge them and announce a winner on Monday. All haikus must be about murder. The winner gets two free tix to see Murderers, the ongoing production by the Philadelphia Theatre Company. 2nd place gets two tix to the Adventure Aquarium in Camden. Just post your haikus in the comments section below. You can post a maximum of three haikus total. After that I will no longer judge your haikus Also, please leave an email address so I can contact you if you win. If I can't contact you, you won't win. Now get to it!

Alright, there is really nothing going on in the news that's interesting or stupid, so I'm going to do something ridiculously self indulgent, even for me: I'm going to, for the first time ever, fill out one of those Myspace surveys. This one is about booze (I stole it from Smackdown). Here goes:
1. When was the last time you drank?
last night had a beer after work

2. Where did u drink at?
the Bards

3. Have you ever been kicked out of a bar?
yes, I was unjustifiably kicked out of McGillan's, and I'm still pissed about it

4. Have you ever had an interaction with police while under the influence?
got an underage ticket when I was 20

5. How many drinks does it take you to get drunk?
I dunno, maybe 5 or 6.

Yeah, so the ratings for this years World Series are the worst ever, and baseball has been in a slump since the '94 strike. What are some ideas to get people interested again? Ern offered that they pla the Series in Las Vegas, which isn't a bad idea. Always warm, cheap to get to for fans, makes it more of an "event". I also have an idea I have proposed several times before, and that I am convinced would make regualr season basbeall more exciting: if the teams are tied after 10 innings, you go to home run derby to determine a winner. Hey, hockey realized it had to do something to sexy up the game, so it wento penalty shots. Everybody leaves after the 10th inning of games. If you did home run derby, not a single fan would leave. What idea do you have to improve the game of baseball. No idea is too crazy.

When the Phillies blew it in the final week of the regular season, I wasn't sure who I was gonna root for in the post season. I mean, it's always fun to root against the Yankees and against the Mets. But the problem is that you almost kind of want them to advance so that you can keep rooting against them. But I got caught up in Detroit's post season chase when I saw the much maligned Kenny Rogers shut down one of the most potent lineups in baseball history. I cheered for him again as he steamrolled the A's. And I prepared to cheer again last night. But then baseball fans such as me took another one on the chin. Much like the 1998 home run chase, this too good to be true story of redemption for a 41 year old pitcher was, well, too good to be true. Kenny Rogers is no different than Barry Bonds, and so I'm switching sides. From here on out, I'll be rooting for St. Louis. I never liked Detroit anyway. It's hookers are too mean.

I was getting ready to post a few lines about the Kenny Rogers pine tar incident, so I decided to do a little research on Tigers pitcher Kenny Rogers. Of course, he's not the first Kenny Rogers to come up when you search that name. But the 2nd thing to come up is the most interesting. It's the Men Who Look Like Kenny Rogers page, where people take photos of men that they think look like Kenny Rogers (the singer) and post them on this website.
Bonus Fun Fact: Kenny Rogers Greatest Hits was the first album I ever owned. Yes, I'm old enough to have owned records in a non-ironic way.

What country was Gil Perez allegedly teleported to from the Phillipines on October 24, 1593?

-A 14 year old learned a valuable lesson this past week when she thought she could threaten Bush on Myspace.

-Am I the only one who kind of hopes that this story about dude jumping off the Whitman was like a Fugitive thing where he dove off the bridge and then remained underwater for a few minutes and then came up on the Philly shore and tried to find the real killer? That would be awesome.

-Life's not easy for us beautiful people. It's hard to get things done when people are constantly trying to pick us up. Well, one of my fellow prisoners of beauty decided to do something about it-make herself ugly thru plastic surgery.

-Oh, and one thing we learned last week that I forgot to mention: Wawa's orange flavored milk is kind of gross.

A'ight, I'm posting pictures of winners. Finally. So I'm gonna post a Shakespeare line, and you post in the comments section which play it's from. One guess per person. No cheating!

"Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows."

"The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose."

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!"

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in it."

Hey gang, I know I haven't posted the winners from last week yet. Well, I'm on a phone line here in the boondocks, so I'm gonna post winners when I get back to the big city this afternoon.

Ah, kickin' it at home. And you know what that means. No showering or changing clothes all weekend. This is the life! All of my friends now have babies. I honestly hung out with like 7 children 2 or younger this weekend. It was weird.

My brother in law has direct ticket, so I saw the latest disaster on the gridiron yesterday. I can't wait to hear the idiots on sports talk this week who think that Jeff Garcia should be our starting QB and that we need to fire Andy. Anyways, there's no Movie Monday tonight, but we'll be back in action manana.

I'm not sure if the week can start on Saturday, but if so, then the week started with my confrontation with my ex at the Rock Paper Scissors Championship. But the Midnight Rider took care of her for me. We then move to Monday, when controversy reigned supreme at O'Neals. The team that always changes its name seemed to have the match under control, but faltered on the question, "What derisive nickname did Alaska acquire when the Secretary of State pushed for its purchase in 1867?" The correct answer was Seward's Folly. They wrote Suder's Folly. It was close to phonetically correct, but...For the first time ever, I put it to a vote. The vast majority of the crowd thoought that I shouldn't accept it. It cost the name changers the game, as they fell to the Embarrasments, 94-93. It was at that time that the Break up the Champs portion of the week began, with interesting results.

Sorry, just had to get that out of my system. This World Series final is rather intriguing for the Phils, because they don't have a third baseman, and this series will feature two former Phils who can ably handle the hot corner and who bat about .100 points high than Nunez. Yeah, the Cards may have Rolen the Tigers may have Polanco, but we've got the rights to Bud Smith and a relief pitcher rotting in a Venezuelan jail (above). We'll also achieve total consciousness shortly before we die, so we've got that going for us.

Of course, this series also features managing genius Jim Leyland, who the Phils could've had, but decided against because he smokes and first thing he wanted to do as manager was get rid of Pat Burrell. What? Get rid of Pat Burrell? Is he crazy? Pat Burrell is better than anyone in baseball at watching a third strike pass by. How can you let that go? (Wonder who Joe Girardi is going to lead to the playoffs next year while we miss it by a game as our manager blows ten games single handedly.) But I'm not bitter.

...it would probably be something like this. Of course, if you are going to test a protective cup, it's important that you recruit a hot blond from the local high school to load up the pitching machine. Thanks to Phil for sending this in. If you see some something crazy online, holla atcha boy.

Now, I know that polls are totally worthless and stupid, but I still want to take a minute to be pissed off at this one. The number one problem people had with baseball was the player's salaries. What? I still have no idea why people hate to see athletes make what the market can bear. I really can't. It would be different if anybody could hit a 98 mph fastball and these guys got picked out of a hat. It's not. These are some of the most amazing human specimens on earth and thousands of people are happy to pay to watch them every night. Hey, if 35,000 people played quizzo every night, I'd expect to make $3 million a year too. Why doesn't anyone think the owners make too much? Apparently it's OK for old white guys to make a fortune off of baseball, but not OK for young people from a variety of backgrounds to make money off of it? I think that people are just jealous of young people with money, and they're easy to lash out against. It's just good old fashioned playa-hating, pure and simple.

-Apparently you, the premier nerds of Philadelphia, can have a say in what goes on in Allentown. That's right, you can vote for Allentown's new baseball team to be the named "The Vulcans".

So I came across some info yesterday about the Ryugyong Hotel, which is located in North Korea and is one of the tallest buidngs in the world. Pretty impressive for North Korea, having one of the tallest buildings in the world, right? But here's the catch: no-one has ever spent a night there and no-one ever will. Construction began on the building in 1987 and ended in 1992 when funds dried up and a famine began. No windows were ever installed. So now there is just a giant shell of a building looming over Pyongyang's skyline, which has to be depressing, like when you have a dead plant in your room that you just never get around to throwing away b/c you don't want to admit to yourself that you killed a piece of nature.
MORE INFO ON THE HOTEL HERE.

I saw the Departed the other night, and though I don't usually review movies, I thought this was one where I'd throw my thoughts out there and see what you think. The first two hours are startlingly brilliant. Nicholson is amazing, but Damon and DiCaprio are really too. After two hours, I was thinking, "Man, I want this thing to go another two." No I didn't. The last half hour was a gratuitous bloodfest that gave me no satisfaction, and almost wasted the first two hours of brilliance. It's like if, at the end of Goodfellas, Scorcese had said, "Let's start blowing s*** up, just for fun." The girl in the film is completely pointless. Her characted had potential, but in the end it was obvious that she was in the film because there had to be a love interest. I would highly recommend this film to appreciate the acting and the twists and turns of the first two hours, but I would warn you to be ready to cover your eyes repeatedly in the last half hour, as there's more brains flying and than in a bad "B" horror flick. Anybody else see it?

-Good news. They're keeping the turkey testicle festival!

-Be careful women. Try not to get your breasts caught in escalators. As a special bonus, click here to see how these deadly machines work.

-Happy birthday, Ann Putnam, Jr. She was one of the girls whose testimony had numerous people killed in the Salem Witch Trials. Even more incredibly, she's the only woman I've ever heard of named Junior.

-I do appreciate, long after the contest ended, the volume of haikus in the comments section. I think we've got something magical going on here.

Yeah, things have gotten a little too predictable as of late, so drastic times call for drastic measures. Therefore, I will be breaking up the top four teams this week to make way for some new winners. The Kingdom, the Jams, the Minions, and MAGMA will all have their teams divided in half this week, with no division allowed to have more than 3 players. (Come on, you guys can handle it for a week.) It's the first ever quizzo handicap, and will make it all the more impressive if those teams still win.

What is the temporary name for the newest element in the periodic table?

Yeah, so the haikus have disappeared. Unbelievable, but true. The hosts of this site are the Arizona Cardinals of hosting, so failure seems to be a weekly inevitability. Hopefully they will be finding everything that disappeared at some point. Maybe on an island somewhere or something.

Was that game absolutely incredible last night? I mean, I still think our choke against the Giants was bigger, but last night was still amazing. And the Edge had 36 carries for 55 yards. I've never seen a stat line like that before. Bet he wishes he stayed in Indy. And I've never heard of a single player have 6 turnovers and his team still win. Honestly, the Bears best offense was the Cardinals offense.

64 competitors and dozens of their fans filled Whiskey Dix to participate in the 2nd annual PBR Keystone Classic on Saturday night, and they weren't disappointed. Well, they were a little disappointed at first, when Johnny screwed up his opening rap. "I think this is a sign that I'm too old for the rap game," said a distraught Goodtimes afterwards. "I'm hanging it up." It would be the 2nd retirement of the year for Goodtimes, who retired from American RPS play after winning the city title in June.

There's some other jawn going on at the Troc today. We'll be back on the 30th, with Teen Witch, which I had never heard of before but which apparently girls think is funny.

Yeah, so maybe this website debacle was sabotage by a rival quizmaster hoping to stop me from three-peating as Philly's Best Quizmaster. I mean, hey, let's face it, my quizzo is no Fado quizzo, but it ain'thalf bad. Oh and ladies, and when you're voting for me, when it asks for your reason, just write, "Cause he is one fine lookin' cat." That would be great.
VOTE FOR JOHNNY!

Yo peeps, we're gonna give away a bunch of stuff this week. I've got tix to the current Philadelpia Theatre Company's production of Murderers to give away, as well as tickets to see the Romantics and other bands at the Rolling Rock and Roll Show at the Troc on Thursday.

So everything I've posted for the past week disappeared yesterday. Have I told you all lately how much fun I'm having with the group that hosts my website? Anyways, it's a lot of fun. So let's just pretend like last week never happened. Oh, and the RPS tourney was EPIC. I'll have lots of photos and a write up soon. Then it will probably disappear magically.

The rest of October - Before the machines ate it

"It's vile. It's more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction."
-about Bill Clinton in 1998.

Yep, we're gonna be showing the Packers-Eagles game tonight on the large movie screen at the Trocado. Gonna be $2 PBRs, Dollar dogs, concert quality sound, and lots of stuff to give away. Also, I'm gonna be hosting some football quizzo beforehand, kicking off at 7:30 p.m. We'll be filling out score squares (first come, first serve, with a chance to win kool stuff) and doing some Wheel of Terrific at halftime. Hope to see you there!

I'm gonna post the winners followed by a famous quote. You are going to write in the comments section who said it. No googling the quote! It's not like you win anything (other than glory), so cheating to find the answer would be really lame. One guess per person.

You might be surprised by this one. It's a famous philosopher:
"Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity."

The only team that answered both the Star Trek and ALf questions correctly won at the private gig at Houston Hall on Penn campus on Wednesday. Here is the quote:
"I went to a restaurant that serves "breakfast at any time". So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance."

"You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I'm not hungry enough to eat six."

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."

"I never forget a face, but in your case I'd be willing to make an exception."

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."