last week, on our way into Dallas for the Dirtbombs show, we stopped at Tom Thumb so I could get some cash. In line ahead of me was a relatively large woman purchasing the following:

cheetos
fritos
doritos
slim fast


people fascinate me.


speaking of the dirtbombs, they put on a great show. mick collins is a perfect frontman...he has tons of energy and passion...not to mention he's a great musician. I've been mildly obsessed with Ultraglide in Black lately...what a rad album.

i had a nasty cold a couple weeks ago, so i've finally gotten around to seeing a bunch of movies I've been meaning to rent.

love actually. i don't know if it was the cold medicine, the sleeplessness, or the sappy plot, but this movie made me its bitch. i cried 4 or 5 different times...and we're not talking wipe-a-tear-from-my-eye kind of crying. i mean that of the sobbing-and-gasping-for-breath sort. But I thought it was a really well done movie...and of course, martin freeman (tim from the office) plays a body double/porn star and is sans clothing in all but one of his scenes. no complaints here.

21 grams. it's been said before. but damn, sean penn is a tremendous actor.

capturing the friedmans. interesting movie. it's amazing that neither of these two very suspicious cases went to court. no matter what happened, no matter how many judges, cops, lawyers, or family members think they know the truth, there are only two people in the world who actually know the truth, and only one of them is alive today. that fascinates me. and the bonus material on the DVD was almost better than the movie itself...tons of good stuff.

shrek 2. started off slow, but got funnier as it went on. not nearly as good as the first one, but still bags on disney enough for me to have enjoyed it.

object of my affection. hey, sue me..it was on tv and i was sick. these things happen. but seriously, this movie sucks. pros: jennifer aniston is hot. cons: just about everything else. Not to mention its tired old plot. Girl meets boy. Boy tells girl he is gay. Girl and boy become best friends. Girl moves in with boy. Girls gets pregnant out of wedlock. Girl asks boy to raise her child with her. Boy has random sex with other gay box and girl gets jealous. boy and girl make up, everyone falls in love, and they all live happily ever after. Sound familiar?

Saved starts tonight and is at the top of my must-see list.

memorial day weekend BBQ is underway starting tonight. everyone is invited.

there are so many things that can be said about this Flyers season. But another loss..another heartbreak..another tainted spring have left me drained and unable and unwilling to rehash it all. so i'll just say this, and then move on.

Thank you. Thank you for one of the most entertaining hockey seasons I can remember. Thank you for overcoming injury, time and time again, and refusing to lay down. Thank you for extending an amazing season this far into spring..for giving an entire city something to believe in. Thank you for becoming the kind of captain this city has been waiting for. Thank you for leaving it all out there on the ice. Thank you for fighting through more dibilitating injuries than one team should have to deal with in one season. Thank you for finally bringing in a coach who has rightfully earned the reputation of a genius. Thank you for reminding us what a beautiful, perfect sport hockey is. Thank you for finally sending the hated Devils home, finally realizing that you are good enough. Thank you for becoming the goalie we all knew you could be, and the kind we've been waiting a long time for. Thank you for your willingness to play positions that are not your own, for the good of the team. Thank you for being the most selfless Flyers team I've seen in 25 years.

Thank you.

I woke up jittery and still have butterflies in my stomach, so i'll let the pictures do the talking today...

(deleted photo)
(deleted photo)


yep, that's my parents...the two faces at the top corners of the Conn Smyth Keith sign...

it's 11:34pm, I have to be up for work at 5:30am, and I am wide awake, scouring the internet for recaps of tonight's Flyers game and getting into sports debates on message boards.


god help me. im a total sports nerd.

two fun Ken Hitchcock stories today...neither are relevant and one isn't about Hitch as much as it is the red sox.

(background for my non hockey watching friends...Hitch is the coach of the Flyers. And why aren't you watching hockey? are you insane? seriously. get it together.)

Anyway, Hitch loves nothing more than a good verbal war between coaches during a playoff series. He and John Tortorella, tampa's coach, have gone back and forth quite a bit, and it's all in good fun and pretty enjoyable for the fans. So the other day Hitch (a Yankee fan, sadly) is quoted as saying:

"He's Italian, he's from Boston, he's probably a Rex Sox fan, so he's got three strikes against him right there."

Good stuff. Fast forward to yesterday morning, when Hitch is on WIP, the philly sportsradio station, talking to Al Morganti, a hockey guy, Boston native, and Red Sox fan. Morganti mentions that WIP has gotten a ton of complaint calls regarding Hitch's comments. You know...oversensitive America strikes again. So Morganti says that of the 100 complaint calls, 20 were from pissed off Italians, and 80 were from angry Red Sox fans.

Another reason I love the boston red sox.

_ _ _

two years ago I was at work, sitting at my desk cleaning out my desk drawers, and I hear someone say my name. I turn around and there's Hitch, standing next to my desk. he had been hired by the Flyers two months earlier, and was up at the station for one last interview before he moved to Philly. I believe my well thought-out reply sounded something like, "hi!" He then proceeded to tell me that he heard I was a huge Flyers fan, which was apparently my cue to start gushing about being a season ticket holder and pathetically over-emotional diehard fan. The conversation then ended with me telling Hitch how wonderful it will be when he brings a Cup to Philly. In reality, it was probably closer to begging, but that's besides the point.

I'm not one to get starstruck or overly-excited about meeting athletes, but I knew I was standing there, at my cubicle decorated in orange and black, talking to the man who would end the philly drought and bring the Stanley Cup where it belongs...to Broad Street.

I still feel the same way about Hitch, but I've got nothing on last night's game or on the way things have unfolded thus far. I'm emotionally drained.

get your heads out of your asses and play some hockey.

goflyers.



EDIT (Saturday, May 15th 5pm)

thank you.

i don't so much believe in the curse of the bambino or anything, but i DO believe in vanilla ice cream, chocolate covered peanuts, caramel, and hot fudge. so someone figure out a way to get this delivered to my house.

i've been far too lazy to update lately...so this is a few days late.

...and the birthday weekend comes to an end after 3 full days of baseball, cake, blackouts, hat tricks, rain delays, lost voices, peanuts, beer, and ....cake.

friday's sox/rangers game was rained out because the rangers organization has not learned how to read the doppler. we spent four hours at the ballpark hiding from hail the size of golf balls, drinking beer, and talking to sox fans from across the country. the game was rescheduled for saturday, which meant I got to enjoy my first ever double-header. (did I mention that our house lost power from friday at 9pm until saturday at 3pm? not fun.) Anyway, 6 straight hours at the ballpark...saturday was an amazing day, despite the fact that the sox somehow managed to lose both games. I had a blast watching the game with another sox fan...both of us screaming our asses off for all 6 hours. Sunday I enjoyed every second of the Flyers' 7-2 demolition of the Maple Leafs. It was a nice birthday present... However, the red sox didn't get the memo and they lost an extremely boring game to get swept by the rangers, of all teams. Not a huge deal...all teams suffer through losing streaks. especially when they're missing two of the best players. but you'd have thought the rangers just won a world series by the way their fans were reacting. when you play under .500 baseball for multiple seasons in a row, can you really act cocky? though i think they may need to work on their insults. this is a conversation that took place between one stupid rangers fan and a very drunk meredith and maureen:

rangers fan: "You suck Manny....your whole team sucks!"
us: "uh...at least we'll be playing in october..."
rangers fan: "sure, you'll be geting beat by the yankees!"
us: "but we'll be there...the rangers will have been golfing for a month..."
rangers fan: "because we can do that here..our weather doesn't suck!"

you're right. boston is a cold weather city. ranger fan 1, sox fans 0. commence heckling.

anyway, i didn't get to see a sox victory, but I did get my baseball signed by david ortiz, so that was kinda cool. i was hoping for varitek, but he was nowhere to be seen. I also got the rangers happy birthday message on the jumbotron, which made me feel like a kid again...pictures to come.

onto more important matters, the flyers disposed of the leafs last night in their first OT game of the playoffs. flyers vs lightening begins on saturday. commentary will be kept to a minimum because, like all philadelphians, i believe that if i let any form of positivity or optimism show, i'll be jinxing my team and forced to endure a lifetime of failure.

ben folds has a new song called Late that is apparently a tribute to elliott smith. download it...it's beautiful.

"Elliott, man, you played a fine guitar, and some dirty basketball
the songs you wrote got me through a lot, just want to tell you that.
but its too late."