Tom Brady took a break from his usual hobbies of bedding models atop piles of money and being frustratingly awesome at football to take in an Aerosmith concert in Boston on Monday afternoon with Patriots owner Robert Kraft, among others. Brady braved Boston’s November chill in a belted black peacoat with a half-popped collar and, alarmingly, no evidence of a shirt underneath:
It’s strange, but I’m not sure it even cracks the Top 10 most embarrassing photos of Tom Brady. Hell, for all we know, Brady was just paying tribute to Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry, who, as a point of fact, does not even own a shirt.
Also, because I found it while Google Imaging “Joe Perry shirtless” (I really hope my web activity here at the office is being screened by someone), here’s a photo of Joe Perry and Roger Clemens. Via Matador Records:
I’m trying to imagine how a conversation between Joe Perry and Roger Clemens might go, but I can’t get past two exchanges in my mind before they just start yelling, “No, I’m the worst!” and going back and forth like that ad infinitum.
A lot. Man, I hate running. I don’t hate cardio-vascular exercise so much, though I hardly do enough of it. I can get on the elliptical for an hour or ride 20 miles on my bike and actually enjoy it. And I love walking. But the idea of running even a mile is so distasteful to me that I can’t imagine enduring 26.2 of them without some life-changing reward.
I suspect the issue is two-fold. For one thing, I played football for 10 years and I am and always have been a massive wiseass. And when you’re a massive wiseass to football coaches, you are punished by being forced to run laps. Since my formative years, running has always felt like a punishment or at the very least like a chore.
Second, I’m awful at it. I’m so slow, and when you run as poorly as I do, it feels awkward and terrible. In high school I ran enough to make myself passable for football purposes, but now that I never have much reason to run, I get progressively worse at it every year. I still maintain other physical strengths and skills, so I’m cool with it. But in a fight-or-flight scenario, I’m definitely fighting.
So, offhand, I’d say it’d probably take the promise of about $25,000 to convince me to train for and complete a marathon. But if for some stupid reason anybody’s willing to offer up that much, I might very well up my rate or guilt you into giving it to charity.
I discuss this a lot. Everyone says the Chrysler Building and some people even suggest the Chrysler Building is underrated, but I think the Chrysler Building is adequately rated. If New York City were a chessboard, the Chrysler Building would be the queen. It’s easily the prettiest of the very tall buildings, and it is without a doubt very shiny and awesome. Plus, it’s a useful landmark for anyone looking for Grand Central Station and it doesn’t get enough credit for its use of automobile-inspired gargoyles.
But for me, it’s the king, baby, the king. Empire State Building or GTFO. And you might think that’s cliched, except no one ever says the Empire State Building even though it’s clearly the best building. Look at that thing! That’s what massive buildings should look like. None of this asymmetrical, post-modern b.s. for the most identifiable building in the center of the biggest city in the country, just towering, tapering art-deco glory. It’s monumental.
Even the name is perfect: Empire State Building. That’s f-ing right. What’s the name of the tallest building in Chicago? The Willis Tower? What the hell is that?
The only disappointing thing about the Empire State Building is that its mast was initially (supposedly) intended to be a dirigible docking station, which never happened. If it did, this blog wouldn’t exist, as I’d long since have been fired for spending all of my time at my desk watching the airships come and go.
Also, if you live here and you haven’t been up to the Empire State Building’s observation deck, you should probably get on that. It’s expensive and touristy, obviously, but it’s exciting as anything.
Other buildings in New York City that I like include the Woolworth Building and the irrepressibly creepy American Radiator Building. And I don’t typically have much patience for Frank Gehry but I do really like the IAC Building in Chelsea.
Let’s see: No, maybe, definitely, and no. And thanks. But our living room’s tight to begin with and it could be crowded right now due to some displaced family, so you’d probably have to sit on our Shea Stadium seats. That doesn’t sound terrible, but they’re not anchored down, so if you lean forward they topple over and dump you out on the floor. Happens all the time. Still funny when it does.
https://twitter.com/TommBauer/status/264370108917510144
A long time. There might still be some in the crevices of my ear. And I’ve got Tobias Funke stuff happening in my apartment: I keep finding yellow handprints in random places.
I actually didn’t realize it was Halloween until about 10 minutes ago. I celebrated at a party on Friday and continued my longstanding tradition of dressing up as notable mustache men. I have been Burt Reynolds, Magnum P.I., Colonel Sanders and Wilford Brimley in the past.
This year, without having done much to prepare as of Thursday, I took Adam Rotter’s suggestion and went as Ned Flanders. I had a green sweater, pink collared shirt, glasses and fake mustache already, so the whole costume cost me $2.50 for the yellow makeup.
The only thing I failed to consider is that Ned Flanders in real life would look absolutely terrifying. Okely-dokely AHHH!:
I got two votes for “scariest costume” at the party from people who didn’t know I was supposed to be Ned Flanders. They just wrote “yellow mustache pervert” or whatever.
Well, I’ve traveled to 41 of the 50 states and enjoyed barbecue in many of them, including Missouri, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas. Sample-size caveats obviously apply: I’ve only sampled barbecue from a couple of places in most of the heralded barbecue hotspots.
But at the same time, I’ve done plenty of barbecue experimentation myself in my home smoker and enough exploration of New York City’s ample barbecue circuit to assert with some confidence that Kansas City offers this nation’s preeminent barbecue style. That’s not to say delicious barbecue cannot be found elsewhere, of course, but Kansas City’s focus on pork and its sauce’s blend of sweet, spicy and tangy flavor make that city’s version the best. It’s also the standard when we think of typical barbecue, but some things become standard for good reasons.
@OGTedBerg What candy should I buy to give out on Halloween?
Fun-sized Twix bars. Here at the office, we have free snacks in the kitchen area, including fun-sized candy bars. Whenever it’s restocked, the candy disappears in this order: Twix, then Butterfinger, then Snickers, then Milky Way, then Three Musketeers. (The Starbursts go: red then pink then orange, and then there’s always a big pile of yellow still leftover by the next time they’re restocked.)
So based on that research, I’d say Twix bars will most satisfy your trick-or-treaters. Also, based on empirical evidence, they are delicious. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are also cool.
Honestly, I don’t love Tabasco. I prefer a saucier hot sauce like Cholula, Sriracha or Frank’s. But because I generally employ hot sauce when it’s made available to me, I’ve sampled every variety of Tabasco except their Buffalo and Sweet and Spicy flavors. Off the top of my head, I’d rank them as follows: Chipotle, Habanero, Green Jalapeno, Garlic Pepper, Traditional.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t know that anyone has yet truly nailed the Garlic-Pepper sauce, a shame because it’d be crazy useful if someone could.
@OGTedBerg hey Ted, does ur wife appreciate ur weirdness and ur love for taco bell and sandwiches?
Oddly, my wife might be the only person I’ve ever known who does not seem to think I’m that weird. Maybe she’s just too used to me by now. But I mentioned a few weeks ago in conversation how people usually think I’m a pretty weird guy, and she seemed absolutely baffled by it. I think I look pretty normal, so perhaps that throws her. I don’t know; it’s not like I’m trying to be weird.
As for the Taco Bell and the sandwiches: She tolerates the former and appreciates the latter. She’ll go for a Cheesy Gordita Crunch now and then but she doesn’t love Taco Bell in the same giddy way I do. But she frequently benefits from my sandwich experimentation and exploration in the kitchen and around the city, so she’s fully on board with that. She even knew me in my deli-man days, and I’m fairly certain I finally won her over on the strength of my sandwiches. I made really good sandwiches.
Oddly, I no longer listen to most of the bands I listened to in the 90s, and many of the bands I do listen to now were active in the 90s but not particularly popular then. So for their popularity during the decade, their close association with the music of the decade, the way their music from that decade has held up over time, and their general awesomeness, I’m going with Soundgarden. And for a variety of reasons, I’m choosing to ignore that Soundgarden recently got back together and made an album. Lalalala, I can’t hear you, etc.
It’s funny to me, in retrospect, how I sort of lumped all grunge-rock together at the time when now I listen to it and all the bands sound so completely different. I guess it was a scene, and they all wore plaid shirts and ripped jeans and everything. Anyway, Soundgarden ruled. And look at how thoroughly 90s-ish this video was:
Michael Donato passes along links to work by the awesome photographer Alan Sailer, who photographs various familiar items exploding in various ways. Check out his stuff at 500px, Laughingsquid.com and on his Flickr stream.
Well this is awesome. Not to get all nerdy with it, but I’m pretty sure they’re referring to Tecmo Super Bowl here and not the original Tecmo Bowl or else they’d surely note the utter dominance of the Chicago Bears. Tecmo Super Bowl was the superior game, though, and the first Nintendo game I was aware of that managed to keep stats. I’m still not clear on how that worked. Contained inside: Video of Christian Okoye watching his own video-game dominance.
Phoebe Reilly at Vulture talks to some mental-health experts to investigate the psychological ramifications of fandom. Since it appears on a pop-culture blog, the story is tailored toward fans of pop culture, but obviously there’s a lot of implicit and explicit crossover with the sports world.
It’s an interesting read, but late in the post we learn that the psychiatrist most insistent that being a fan is psychologically unhealthy once actually became so hooked on Dexter that he had to give away his TV to avoid further temptation. So, without knowing the dude, I’d contend that there’s probably some underlying psychological unhealthiness to anyone with so little will power.
There’s a whole lot of chicken-and-eggery that’s ignored in the whole post, really. Does intense fandom make people psychologically unhealthy, or do unbalanced people take to fandom in unhealthy ways?
Plus, the basis of the argument that fandom is unhealthy, as presented in the article, seems to be that enjoying a television show or, say, baseball team is ultimately unsatisfying and “doesn’t return something specific to the individual.” And in my experience that’s just not true at all.
Hell, I’d even say the bulk of my learning since college has been borne of fandom, either of television or sports. Through baseball, I’ve learned a ton about statistics, about identifying randomness, about camaraderie, and about dealing with disappointment. The Wire taught me a hell of a lot about empathy. Lost encouraged me to read up on all sorts of odd references to modern and historical thinkers and their philosophies. Even if it’s rare a Mets season or a television series concludes in a wholly satisfying way, it’s rarer still that I come away from one feeling worse for having been through it.
It’ll be $40,000, unfortunately. Is this a reasonable thing to start a Kickstarter for?
My only issue is you clearly have to pause a few seconds once you get into the water to wait while the wheels go up. For my 40 grand I want that transition to be seamless for maximum movie-chase awesomeness.
Also, if this technology exists, can we just put it on cars already?
It’s an interesting read, but late in the post we learn that the psychiatrist most insistent that being a fan is psychologically unhealthy once actually became so hooked on Dexter that he had to give away his TV to avoid further temptation. So, without knowing the dude, I’d contend that there’s probably some underlying psychological unhealthiness to anyone with so little will power.
Tedquarters 