MLB is accomplishing two things here: making people hate the Yankees that much more, and dooming the Yankees to another epic choke.

Oh, those clever conservatives: they're showing their disapproval for Olympia Snowe by mailing her bags of rock salt (it melts Snowe, ha-ha!).

Wait, rock salt does melt snow.

And they're mailing those bags to her office.

Her office in Maine, with a nor'easter having just slapped the East Coast, with winter right around the corner.

This should go well.

Hey, you know what would be fun? Another column about how newspapers should die! And it should basically rehash what everyone's already said, take some ha-ha shots at some of the big guys (call the Boston Globe a college paper? Perfect!) and point to a bunch of internet-based news sites that don't pay their staffers as being successes! Yeah! For unintentional irony, let's put this up on the website of some other print publication, preferably one owned by a newspaper company. Can we get that done? Fantastic.

Don't get me wrong, I more or less agree with the general point - that newspapers shouldn't get bailed out, and bad papers should go under - but burying it under a ton of douchebaggery doesn't help.

A couple of kids got all stabby at a bus stop yesterday afternoon, and as usually happens when police throw up a bunch of crime scene tape, people started gathering to see what the heck was going on. I snapped a couple of photos of one of those groups, trying to see if anyone would react to the scene.

Then one of the people standing there noticed me photographing them, and two or three of them started mugging and posing, while EMTs and paramedics were working on a 16- or 17-year-old kid eighty feet away.

Stay classy, Bridgeton.

You know why I read newspapers and listen to NPR?

Because if I watched cable news, I'd have to deal with morons like Maria Bartiromo.



Even if I could get past the questioning a 44-year-old why he isn't on Medicare, the tone of the question belongs on a playground, where the other five-year-olds can discuss the merits of a public option.

Proof the NFL has a twisted sense of humor: you can get an NFL-licensed Michael Vick dog jersey.

This is your friendly semi-regular reminder to have a decent photo of yourself available for obituaries and in memoriam posts, otherwise some family member will grab the shot of you looming over the camera with a weird half-smile, half-grimace on your face, and if that's not available, your work ID/drivers license.

C'mon, Russian botnets, why'd you have to go and DDoS LJ, Twitter and Facebook today? Can't you guys go after Wikipedia or CNN or some other website with no useful content?

Seriously, though, why attack Twitter? Sure, occasionally stuff like the Iran election happens, but 60% of the posts are people texting while drunk and/or pooping. I'm not saying it's shallow, because that'd imply Twitter had any depth at all.

If you ever needed a reason not to eat fast food any more, here you go. From what we're hearing, this story's only going to worse - especially considering corporate was running this one for at least two years with the same problems.

Full-service gas is nice in the winter, but I wish I had the option in NJ.

Why? Well, I ended up with a flat tire because some pump jockey overfilled my tank, spilled gas everywhere and didn't clean it up as well as I thought. Apparently it's advanced calculus to realize it doesn't matter what the total is when paying with a credit card, and that the pump stops for a freakin' reason.

Now I get to wait and see if my tire will under warranty, or if I have to go over to Wawa and yell at someone. Yay!

From the "People still take Fox News seriously?" files: Brian Kilmeade endorses eugenics, screws up basic biology on live TV.

Alternately, you can look at this as being accidentally funnier than SNL is on purpose.

I don't know if I should blame the full moon, or if I've just hit a patch of bad luck, but the past couple of days have been highlighted by mild disasters.

Sunday night, Jen and I made naan pizzas, and when we went to pull 'em out of the oven, the baking sheet overbalanced and tipped straight over. We went from naan pizzas to naan stuck to the inside of the oven door - the good news is that, thanks to a couple of spatulas and fairly quick timing, the pizzas were salvageable. Sure, they were ugly as hell, and I had to clean the oven door off later, but they tasted just as good as if they had come out perfectly.

Last night was a bit worse; I was covering the opening-night demolition derby at the county fair, and one of the video guys I know invited me up into the bucket of a fire truck to get a high-angle view of the action for a heat or two. The fire truck is old - probably from the 1960s - and though I've been up in the bucket in years past without issue, this was the year age finally caught up with it.

When Charlie, the video guy, hit the lever to take us up, the bucket shivered, started to move up, then settled right back down - because the hydraulic line right behind the bucket ruptured, sending fluid flying on us, our gear, everything.

The bad news is that it wrecked a bunch of stuff - our clothes, my water bottle, maybe my camera bag - but we were OK (for being bathed in a few seconds' worth of flying hydraulic fluid, anyway), as were our cameras.

The good news is that things could've been a lot worse. The line that ruptured was old, and the fluid was probably ancient, so it was more of a hydraulic sprinkler than a jet of fluid, which can send you to the hospital in a hurry. The fact that it ruptured as soon as we tried to move, rather than when we'd gotten into the air, or when we were trying to get down from 50 feet up, makes me feel better about the situation.

Plus, when I got home, Jen greeted me in a mock biohazard suit, which was hilarious.

We got a press release today on an outdoor family movie night that advertised the first feature as "in the tradition of Deliverance."

No, no, no, no, no. And no.

After filing for unemployment at the start of my furlough the other week, the state sent me a bunch of paperwork in the mail, most of which I just glanced at and never really read thoroughly. It didn't look major or have any contradictory information from when I filed online, so I figured it was no big deal.

But tomorrow's my day to claim my benefits, so I thought I should go through everything and make sure I didn't miss something huge. Turns out they sent me a stack of paperwork that's thoroughly worthless. Now, I know what you're thinking: "Bryan, the state of New Jersey sent you something that wasn't totally awesome and worth the taxpayer money it took to send out?"

Turns out, yeah, the state government really is that stupid.

When filing online, you have the option of taking the payment as a direct deposit, rather than a check. I filled out that section. They sent me: a direct deposit form that says, right at the top, is unnecessary if you filed out the online direct deposit info.

When filing online, you can note if you have dependents. I do not. They sent me: a dependency benefits form.

They sent me: a claim for benefits form that includes instructions on how to claim your benefits. They also sent me: a completely different form that is just a sheet reproducing those directions.

Oh, and all of this stuff: it's all on the website. Where I filed.

That's it, they can pack up all the movie sets, nothing's ever gonna top Sharks In Venice. Bad movie night, anyone?

The GOP apparently has cornered the market on hyperbole: first House Republicans are like Iranians fighting for fair elections, and now Mark Sanford is comparing himself to the biblical King David. These guys would be over the top even if they were hanging out in the exosphere.

You know, I don't know what's more depressing: that Creed is back together and touring, or that they're getting all five-star ratings at Live Nation. I mean, seriously, what the fuck?

"Neither rain, nor sleet, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

But six or seven ants, man... that shit's just too much to handle.



Apparently our postal carrier is a 7-year-old girl, and wouldn't take a couple pieces of mail because of a couple of ants that found their way into our mailbox. It doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the US mail system.

Dear the Internets:

My new band name is Obituary Guestbook Flame War.

Some geniuses tried to send us some photos on a floppy disk - after we finished laughing at them, they did the sensible thing and just emailed those same photos. Still, it brings up the question:

Poll #1407331 3.5"
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 9

When was the last time you used a floppy disk?

Do any of the computers you own currently have a floppy disk drive?

Do you regularly use words such as, "thrice"?

OK, Jen and I might be a little crazy about Disney World, and we might be going back there again (c'mon, the deal was insane), but I can be reasonably sure we won't ever fake our kidnapping, then turn up at the Grand Floridian. That's a special kind of crazy.

For those of you who bet the under in the 2009 Edition of the Brett Favre Unretirement Tango, you may already be a winner.

I got this from a source at the NIH today: a helpful resource when trying to determine if you have swine flu.

I'm grabbing Jen and heading for Madagascar. Fuckers only have one seaport and no airport, and it's damn near impossible to infect that stupid island and wipe out humanity.

Oh, wait, you were serious?

For his next trick, Joe Biden will tell us that duct tape and plastic sheeting will protect against swine flu.

Note to self: referencing a day as being one of the quietest of the year is a recipe for a stabbin'.

Wait, people think "The Bachelor" is staged? Are they saying reality TV... isn't real? Wouldn't that be violating every ethical principle television holds so dear?

Wait, TV doesn't have any ethical principles, and treats people who believe in reality TV as gullible schmucks?

Sounds about right.

Things I don't understand: Route 55, between Route 322 and Route 40, was completely bare, although wet. Route 55 everywhere north of 322 and below 40? Completely covered in snow and ice.

Needless to say, I'm not going near any county roads in Salem when I leave work today.

My theoretical conversation with a piece of technology tonight:

Me: Hey, Sprint Card. I know I was using you before to transmit pictures, and I just put the laptop to sleep to save myself time later, but I'm home now. There's ZOMGfast! Intertubes© here, so I'm just gonna disconnect you and let you sit there.
Sprint Card: You got it, buddy! I'll just take a nap over here.
Me: All right, Mr. AirPort Card, let's rock!
AirPort Card: We're flyin', baby!
Sprint Card: Uh, guys? Hey? Guys? Can I join the party? Guys?
Me: AirPort Card, did you hear something?
AirPort Card: Sorry, dude, I have iTunes cranked.
Me: Huh.
Sprint Card: Screw this, I'm gonna reconnect.
(ten minutes later)
Me: Why the hell are my photos uploading so slow? AirPort? Everything cool?
AirPort Card: We cool, we cool.
Me: Hmm... let's see here. Wait, wtf? Sprint Card, the hell?
Sprint Card: Why don't you love me?
Me: [restart]

You know, it's not so much that I'm disappointed in A-Rod for using steroids, because I wanted a clean player to come along and wipe out the tainted records of McGwire and Sosa and Bonds, it's that I'm horrified that there were 103 other players who tested positive for steroids at the same time. I love baseball, but... I mean, damn. That number is hideous. It'll be fun to see what bizarre leap of logic Bud Selig makes for this one, that's for sure.

Weird coincidences: I have two photo contests with deadlines this weekend, and I wrote myself an email with the list of which photos were going in which contest. I finished the edits and uploaded the stuff for the first contest, then started editing the photos for the second one... only I was editing the photos in the same order I laid them out in the email, without having looked at the email since this morning. Bizarre how my brain works sometimes.

Further signs I work in a classy town: when I went out to photograph a fire, which turned out to have been accidentally set by a three-year-old playing with a lighter, I looked down in the street, and there, at the edge of the curb, was a g-string.

Hey, everybody, look - it's Myspace on LJ!

Don't actually look. Well, unless you're 14 and creating... uh, art, right? But if that's you, you're probably responsible for about 10,000 of the posts there already.

The various reasons yesterday was Crazy Friday:

-In the morning, we covered a fire at an old Victorian that had been chopped into a series of apartments. The leases say 10 people live there, and the legal max for occupancy is 18. At the scene, our staffers heard numbers between 20-25, and by the time I got in to the office at about 1:30, that number had been revised up to 28. The final tally? 31. Thirty-one people living in one house. Insane.

-In an effort to become the news, our receptionist/do-everything-awesome-lady Anne smelled something sort of like scorching wires back by the vending machines in our quasi-break room. Editor Matt got on the phone with our operations folks in Woodbury, and asked City Reporter Sean if there was any way to get firefighters down in a less-than-obvious way. Sean made the call, and three minutes later, a ladder truck rolled up, and we got a half-dozen firefighters with axes and infrared cams and everything. So much for less-than-obvious. Eventually, after a search for a dolly and the dragging out of the vending machines, they figured the wiring's shot back there, unplugged everything and told us to call an electrician. This will never happen, and we'll either go without crappy snacks or the building will burn down next week some time.

-It was also basketball opening night, and less than two minutes into game I covered, a kid faceplanted - either into another player or the floor, we're still not sure - and ends up with what's probably a mild concussion and cut above the bridge of his nose. Not realizing how serious it looked, I shot a photo of his coach and a teammate hovering over him, and did't see the blood until I looked at the back of my camera, when I had a "holyshit!" reaction.

-Later, the first box score of season was called in: a girls basketball game that ended 107-18. The scorekeeper didn't have names for the team who scored 18, who aren't local. "It's OK, they're probably not searching our paper for the agate," Sports Writer Eric said, as he made plans to call another paper to get the names later.

OK, apparently Burger King is selling a cologne that makes you smell like meat. I don't know if they were aware that particular fragrance was already created by the 400-pound greasy dude with the food stains on his shirt, sitting by the back window, inhaling a milkshake.

The place: 50th and 5th.
The time: 4:15-ish.
Who: Some dumbass tourists.
What: With the red light against them, a cop eight feet away and traffic barreling down 50th, three people wandered across the street - they didn't run, they just moseyed.

Naturally, one of them got clipped by a low-slung black luxury sedan, probably by a driver's-side mirror. She went spinning to the ground, got back up a few seconds later... and then the rest of us were swept up in the tide of humanity as the lights changed, and besides, everything looked like it was going to be OK.

Just another Saturday in midtown, I guess.

Things I didn't know until about an hour ago: that piece-of-crap, glurge-tastic song/Lifetime movie/book The Christmas Shoes... yeah, it's based on a forwarded email.

Approximate timeline of the last 24-25 hours:

11/11:30 p.m. Thursday - go to bed.
3:23 a.m. Friday - wake up, grab breakfast, load gear into car, make lunch.
3:55 a.m. Friday - move cars around, head to work.
4:40 a.m. Friday - arrive at Best Buy for initial round of madness. Deal with annoying people for the first time.
5:05 a.m. Friday - head into Best Buy, stalk people over by the TVs, shoot a bunch of pictures.
5:20 a.m. Friday - damn, Starbucks is looking good.
5:21 a.m. Friday - I guess I should shoot a picture or two in the mall, though. Don't get harassed by mall rent-a-cops this year. Bonus!
5:40 a.m. Friday - OK, Starbucks for real now.
5:44 a.m. Friday - latte in hand, head to Target.
5:48 a.m. Friday - Round 2 of Idiots In Line.
6:14 a.m. Friday - right, enough of that, time to go to the Wal-Mart on the other side of the county.
6:33 a.m. Friday - OK, where the hell is the sunrise?
6:45 a.m. Friday - no sunrise, but there's a dude holding a TV asleep in a car. That will do.
7:05 a.m. Friday - the good light I was waiting for isn't coming. Ditch Wal-Mart.
7:08 a.m. Friday - stop in Wawa to get more caffeine for later.
7:15 a.m. Friday - hit Philly Pretzel Factory for random feature pictures.
8:15 a.m. Friday - leave Philly Pretzel Factory with pictures and a box of pretzels.
8:25 a.m. Friday - in the office, feel like collapsing.
8:35 a.m. Friday-11:55 a.m. Friday, inclusive - edit down take from Wednesday night football and Friday morning madness. Fight sleepiness with caffeine and food.
12:10 p.m. Friday - hey, someone robbed a bank. Awesome.
12:30 p.m. Friday - hey, they might have caught the bank robbers. Damn. Head out of the office.
12:50 p.m. Friday - man, this is a boring bank robbery scene.
1:20 p.m. Friday - back at the office, edit everything down to final versions, send breaking stuff to web.
2:10 p.m. Friday - done with work! Finally.
3 p.m. Friday - back home, moderately exhausted.
3:15 p.m. Friday - head upstairs to read in bed for a while.
3:45 p.m. Friday - zzzzzzz...
7:45 p.m. Friday - oh, Jen's leaving for yoga class. Guess I'll be functional now.
12:25 a.m. Saturday - bedtime. Again.

Even though the Eagles looked terrible yesterday, I wasn't completely going to write them off... until I found out McNabb and half the other players didn't know there are ties in the NFL, despite it being in the rule book and being announced over the PA at the game.

I'm thinking the Reid-McNabb Era is near its close after that debacle.

Uh, could someone please alert the Pirates and Padres that the MLB season ended about a month and a half ago?

Saw this over on cheekybaby's LJ: a Catholic priest in South Carolina is denying Communion to parishoners who voted for Obama, because he supports the pro-choice movement.

I'm OK with that, so long as this priest is also denying Communion to people who voted for any candidates who support the death penalty, physician-assisted suicide and any war, since the Vatican opposes all of those. Something tells me he'd be better off going with the official Catholic line, where church members are allowed to vote their conscience.

For anyone who hasn't seen it, be glad you're not this Phillies/Rays fan in the aftermath of Game 5:

Dear Fox and Major League Baseball:

Isn't it an awesome idea to have an ironclad schedule where you start every World Series game at about 3 a.m. Eastern, especially when there's rain coming? Especially when that rain's gonna wipe out a game for more than 24 hours, right? You guys are doing an awesome job! Really! I mean, this isn't going to completely destroy your schedule and have you Fox execs praying to every god out there that the Phillies finish this series ASAP. Nah.

You've got to be kidding,
-America

Pat Gillick is thanking Ed Wade in the postgame celebration? Ed Wade, World's Most Incompetent G.M.? Now I've seen everything.

Even more great news about the TSA: a TSA screener just got arrested after being caught trying to sell a $47,900 camera on eBay. How you steal a movie camera from HBO and expect to get away with it is beyond me, but it's even better: he was also trying to sell a camera from CNN on eBay at the same time, and had about $200,000 worth of stolen electronics in his house... plus the 300 or so items he'd already sold on eBay.

If you've flown through Newark and lost anything from your checked luggage, you might have just found your answer.

If you haven't looked at the "everyone reacts to Gawker posting Palin emails" post on Gawker, check it out. The voicemail's especially hilarious.