Waterskiing mishaps

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Sorry, it never got any less busy today so there’s not much substantive content to speak of.

Speaking of: Thanks kindly for all the survey responses. If you’ve noticed, I’m trying to embed links into link posts, since confusion over links was the most frequent complaint. Eventually I’ll also have the color of link text in posts changed to something more link-appropriate; I just have to figure out how to do that first.

As for the second most frequent quibble: I know the photos of the sandwiches suck and I apologize. I will try to be conscious of how they are lit at the very least, but I don’t think they’re going to get a heck of a lot better.

Thing is — and excuse me for taking you into the sausage factory here — I try to make sure I’m good and famished before I go get the sandwiches, because I feel like I write more passionately about sandwiches when the sandwich is really satisfying my hunger. Plus I don’t want anything I’ve eaten earlier to color my sandwich analysis.

So needless to say, by the time I take the sandwich out of the wrapper it requires all my will power to snap photos of it with my cell phone instead of just tearing into that sucker. I could buy something like this for more professional-looking photos maybe, but by the time I get that all set up the sandwich is going to get soggy and the sandwich-eating experience will be blemished.

Also, because I’m only using SurveyMonkey Lite and I’m not a SurveyMonkey subscriber, I only receive dthe first 100 responses to the poll. If you professed your undying love for me (whatup Beyonce) or lodged some very important complaint and I haven’t addressed it, it could mean I didn’t see it. You can always contact me via the form above, on Twitter, or via email at tberg@sny.tv.

Here are some people falling while waterskiing. If you don’t like Linkin Park, you’ll want to provide your own soundtrack.

World’s best homonyms?

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I had a random thought earlier that might be an interesting one for you to ponder, perhaps pose the question to your readers: Is there a pair of people who share the same name who are as collectively awesome as James Brown (the Godfather Of Soul) and James “Jim” Brown (the NFL Hall of Famer)? I was brainstorming and couldn’t think of a better example. Do George Washington and George Washington Carver count? I don’t think they do. Michael Douglas and Michael Keaton (born Michael Douglas) don’t measure up, nor do Kenny Rogers the musician and Kenny Rogers the pitcher. Albert Einstein and Albert Brooks (born Albert Einstein)?

– Josh, via email.

Here’s the thing: Even if The Hardest Working Man in Show Business, Mr. Please Please himself, the Star of the Show James Brown didn’t share his name with perhaps the best player in NFL history, it’s a common enough name that there are plenty of people he could be paired with. And in any possible case, even if the other James Brown were pretty damn lame, it’d still be the greatest pair of people ever in terms of collective awesomeness. It’s like how Hank and Tommie Aaron hold the Major League record for most home runs by a set of brothers even though Tommie only hit 13.

The Albert Einsteins are nice, I mean, people really like Al Brooks and Albert Einstein came up with a lot of smart stuff. But as far as I know neither ever recorded The Payback.

A suggestion via my man and near-homonym Ted Burke, perhaps for a distant second place: Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s and Dave Thomas, not-Rick-Moranis-guy in Strange Brew. Anyone else?

Sandwiches in space

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Most space food, it seems, is pretty bad, and of course the astronauts know this better than anybody, which is why in 1965 John Young smuggled a Wolfie’s corned beef sandwich onto Gemini III to surprise his crewmate Gus Grissom. It was only a 5 hour flight so it must have been done for laughs rather than to whet a jaded appetite, and after two hours Young duly produced his sandwich. That’s John Young, below. We even have the dialogue.

GRISSOM: Where did that come from?
YOUNG: I brought it with me. Let’s see how it tastes. Smells, doesn’t it?
GRISSOM: Yes, it’s breaking up. I’m going to stick it in my pocket.
YOUNG: It was a thought, anyway.
GRISSOM: Yep.
YOUNG: Not a very good one.

– Geoff Nicholson, Psycho-Gourmet.

If you didn’t have favorite astronaut before, I hope John Young just earned that distinction. He’s got a pretty healthy space resume, too: Dude walked on the moon, piloted the first space shuttle, and was aboard the fastest-moving manned vehicle ever. And he did all that despite a reputation as a renegade after callously sneaking a sandwich into space, perhaps outer space’s first sandwich*.

Later space sandwich experiments apparently went over better, as the post includes this photo:

*- Presumably if there are other advanced carbon-based life forms in the universe, they’ve figured out sandwiches too. If basically every culture on earth could develop some sort of protein wrapped in some sort of starch, I’m not sure why it wouldn’t happen in outer space too. It’s one of the hallmarks of civilization.

Link comes via Twitterer @kmflemming.

The Phillies’ offense is not very good

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It’s true. It’s not Mets Opening Day 2010 bad or as terrible as the Phillies’ starting rotation is awesome, but it’s just nothing like the type of offense we’ve come to expect from the Mets’ division rivals.

Jimmy Rollins, coming off back-to-back seasons with a sub-90 OPS+, is the Phillies’ current third hitter. None of the three guys hitting in front of Ryan Howard got on base at even a 34% clip last year. Ben Francisco is the youngest regular in the lineup, and he’s 29. Last year their offense was just about average, and they had Jayson Werth and Chase Utley playing most days, not to mention Carlos Ruiz enjoying a BABIP-fueled career year.

The ridiculous arms are good enough that the Phillies will still win a bunch of games. But as long as Utley is out — and it’s sounding like that will be a while — they’re going to have massive holes all over their lineup. They’re still a good team, but they appear way more vulnerable now than they did the day they signed Cliff Lee.

But you probably know this already if you watched last night’s game. Cole Hamels’ embarrassing moments, though there were plenty, went pathetically undocumented on the AP wire. Here’s Cold Hamels:

 

Taco in a taco?

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Despite their fans’ demand that they deep fry a taco on a stick, the Twins concession folks have taken the easy way out and brought in local vendor El Burrito Mercado and their Walk A Taco instead. In following the other Midwestern tradition of putting savory food in cones, Walk A Taco is essentially a taco salad in a crispy cone-shaped flour tortilla. It sounds delicious but also a bit dangerous. I’d wait for that thing to cool down lest you bite right into a hot molten volcano of cheese.

– Rob Iracane, Big League Stew.

Iracane runs down the top 10 new concession items in baseball. Walk-a-Taco is most intriguing in my opinion, but there are a lot of promising ideas there. Stadium concessions are often out on the forefront of awesome greasy food innovation. Nothing from Citi Field hits the list, but there’s news that Nationals Park will soon have plenty delicious options familiar to Mets fans.

ALERT: Mike Piazza doing stuff

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This one comes via Mets Police. It’s Mike Piazza golfing, in a foursome with Mario Lemieux, Michael Jordan and Toni Kukoc, who can’t even get mentioned in the title of the YouTube clip.

Also — and I’m really in no position to be saying anything — is it me or does Jordan have a pretty healthy gut going there? He’s probably still better at everything* than I’ll ever be at anything; I’m just sayin’s all.

*- People like to joke about how bad Jordan was at baseball. I guarantee those same people could not hit any home runs against Double-A pitching after a 13-year absence from the game.