Pressure caved to

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The Marathon has been an integral part of New York City’s life for 40 years and is an event tens of thousands of New Yorkers participate in and millions more watch. While holding the race would not require diverting resources from the recovery effort, it is clear that it has become the source of controversy and division. The marathon has always brought our city together and inspired us with stories of courage and determination. We would not want a cloud to hang over the race or its participants, and so we have decided to cancel it. We cannot allow a controversy over an athletic event – even one as meaningful as this – to distract attention away from all the critically important work that is being done to recover from the storm and get our city back on track. The New York Road Runners will have additional information in the days ahead for participants.

– Michael Bloomberg and NY Road Runners, press release.

So there’s that. Since it’s likely being canceled after many runners have already come to the city for the race, I imagine the hotel-room crunch won’t be entirely averted.

My plans to not run a marathon continue unimpeded.

Friday Q&A, pt. 3: Sandwich stuff

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https://twitter.com/parentsbasement/status/264370200894373888

Yes. You’d inevitably end up there anyway, but if by some strange chance you would have skipped it, go to Cafe Du Monde and get beignets. They’re fried dough that for some reason you’re allowed to eat for breakfast. They might very well be my choice for my last meal on Earth.

It’s really not hard to find great food in New Orleans. I’d say to avoid the most touristy parts, but I had a delicious chicken-fried steak at some bar a block off Bourbon St. in the middle of the damn night once. If you’re staying someplace nearby — and a lot of the hotels downtown are pretty close — it’s worth checking out Mother’s for a Ferdi Special sandwich. There’ll be a hell of a line, but the few times I’ve been there it’s been a pretty good scene.

https://twitter.com/sparbz/status/264372350768803840

A good one to check out is the Turducken sandwich at Luscious Foods in Park Slope. It’s a seasonal thing and I can’t say for certain they’re selling it this year, but it’s sort of a souped-up version of the traditional Thanksgiving sandwich. I meant to write it up last year around this time, but I ate it at my friends’ bar across the street and the dim lighting prevented me from taking a passable photo. If I remember correctly, they incorporate cornbread stuffing and cranberry mayo.

Also, I might as well put in a plug for people who frequently give me free drinks: If you’re at Luscious Foods, you should probably cross the street and eat it with a drink at Uncle Barry’s.

https://twitter.com/seanadekunle/status/264375850118565891

But that’s a lot of pressure! I think the Buffalo chicken sandwich might be slightly better in concept than it usually is in execution. Alternately, maybe when I’m in the mood for Buffalo-stuff I just order wings and don’t sample enough good Buffalo chicken sandwiches.

The first one that jumps out at me is actually a wrap, also in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn, at Wing Wagon on Flatbush Ave. near 7th. Man, do I love Wing Wagon. After the deli where I worked, it’s got to be the non-chain place where I’ve had the most total food in my life.

I don’t know why I sometimes ordered the wrap there, considering how much I enjoyed their wings, but I suspect it had something to do with the wrap’s inexpensiveness and its ability to convince me it was a healthier alternative to wings (even though I always still got it with fried chicken inside). It’s good though. Very spicy.

Beyond that, I don’t know. I’m very open to suggestions here. Anybody? What’s the best Buffalo chicken sandwich in New York City?

Well obviously it depends on the sandwich. If all the ingredients are fresh, though, and it’s not a sandwich that by design needs to be served hot, I generally prefer it cold. If it’s a variety of cold cuts and cheese on a Kaiser roll, for example, heating any part of it up seems unnecessary. They’re not called hot cuts, or something.

Friday Q&A, pt. 2: Randos

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https://twitter.com/CatsmeatP_P/status/264374406149713920

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.

https://twitter.com/dpecs/status/264387739905044480

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.

https://twitter.com/Ceetar/status/264371157984215041

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.

Friday Q&A, pt. 1: Mets stuff

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https://twitter.com/BlueChill1123/status/264371022017466369
Well that’s the reported-to-be-around $125 million question, no? I’ll say that if I had to bet on it now, I’d guess the Mets do re-sign Wright, and that it’s more likely they overpay him then send him packing. But obviously they’ve got to have a limit, and for all we know Wright and his agents will absolutely demand some sum the Mets absolutely cannot afford, forcing their hand.

The best-case scenario for a Wright trade would be something like the Rockies’ end of the Matt Holliday deal a few years ago. For Holliday — with one year remaining on his contract — Colorado received Huston Street, Greg Smith and Carlos Gonzalez. Smith never amounted to much for the Rockies, but Street — already established and well-compensated at the time of the deal — pitched well there and Gonzalez emerged as a franchise cornerstone.

It’s hard to count on any prospect panning out as well as Gonzalez has, which is why it seems silly to argue for trading Wright. Still, if it comes to that, the Mets need to get back a young player of that ilk: Someone who has already performed well in the high Minors and doesn’t appear far from becoming a Major League regular, with the potential to become a very good to great Major League regular.

Due the inexpensive terms of Dickey’s 2013 option, he might net even more than Wright in a trade. If the Mets were to deal him, I’d hope they could bring back an immediate Major League contributor with some upside and at least one more potential Major League contributor.

https://twitter.com/whywhywhy50/status/264374729325047808

Very slim. We love Endy here, but for as desperately as the Mets need outfielders, they don’t really need outfielders that do the things Endy does at this point in his career. Guys who field pretty well and bat left-handed they’ve got.

https://twitter.com/TomHoeg/status/264371865206784000

Wait, an elephant learned to speak? Like, with words? How did I miss this?

The Orioles’ playoff run this year should stand as evidence forever that trying to predict baseball is futile. So… I don’t know, 2014. Why not?

T-shirt cannon technology finally used to launch tacos

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Huge news out of Texas, courtesy real-life friend Ron:

The Torchy’s Tacos taco cannon stands proudly on all-terrain wheels. It is coated in jet black paint, with its long barrel pointing high towards the sky. The cannon’s controller shoots off three tacos in rapid succession. The explosion excites cheers and claps from people hoping to catch one of the tacos. One by one each taco is grabbed, unwrapped and eaten. The smell of drizzled cheese, sizzled chilies and grilled chicken invade the nostrils of its catcher….

“I seriously envisioned a warlike cannon shooting tacos at people,” biology senior Waytao Shing said.

Shing, who attended the FFF Aqua Olympics, an event catered to getting FFF patrons excited for the festival, was surprised to see what the cannon really was: a 12-chambered T-shirt cannon, redesigned to project delectable tacos.

About time, if you ask me. You may have seen similar cannons at basketball games. I know the Georgetown cheerleaders have one. They are awesome, but until now they have been pathetically devoid of taco ammunition. Check this sucker out:

Since the revelation at a Minor League game somewhere that hot dogs wrapped in foil with packets of mustard and ketchup were apparently the same gauge as rolled-up t-shirts, I’ve been quietly campaigning for Mr. Met to put his own gun to better use.

Now that tacos are in play — especially considering how good the Citi Field tacos are — it’s about time Mr. Met up his game. I already have more t-shirts than I need and there’s almost no chance anything fired at me from a hundred yards away will prove worthy of my t-shirt rotation. But I could pretty much always use a taco.

Great infomercial failures

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I’ve spent enough time on the Internet today to say with some certainty that you’re not going to find anything more entertaining than this mesmerizing gallery of animated GIFs showing people in infomercials demonstrating whatever problem will be addressed by the product the infomercial is hawking. And who among us hasn’t spilled his giant bowl of cheese puffs while reaching for the remote control?

Via Boing Boing.

Other teams that need to revert to old looks

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In case you missed it, the Astros recently (inadvertently) leaked new uniforms that look a hell of a lot like their old uniforms. This follows a recent trend of permanent throwbacking employed by the Orioles and Blue Jays. But ideally it won’t stop there. Old is the new new, and several other teams could benefit from incorporating aspects of old uniforms — if not in merchandise sales, then in the all-important department of my personal opinion.

Milwaukee Brewers: There’s nothing particularly off-putting about the Brewers regular uniforms. But the Brewers have in their recent history the single most clever logo in the history of baseball. It’s a GLOVE MADE FROM THEIR INITIALS! How do you ever, ever abandon that? I know they still wear this sometimes, but it’s a travesty that it’s not an everyday thing:

Los Angeles Angels: This one’s probably too big a pain in New Era’s ass for it to actually happen, but in the 1960s the Angels actually wore a hat with a silver halo on it. It’s a divisive design, I realize, and it actually kind of looks like the hat itself is wearing a yarmulke. But it seems way past time teams start incorporating hat elements beyond the front panels, and this one’s too clever to eschew:

Pittsburgh Pirates: OK, this one’s definitely not happening. And I like the Pirates’ current look. Plus there’s nothing about the stovepipe hat that has anything to do with actual pirates, and if the Pirates were actually committed to wearing a non-traditionally shaped hat I might suggest they go full bore with it. But it does seem like a good idea to distinguish the Pirates from the rest of the Majors somehow, and what better way than by having them wear an incredibly silly hat? I actually own one of these and used to wear it with the fake mustache at shows with my band until my then-girlfriend-now-wife told me it creeped her out:

San Diego Padres: This is the most important one, by far. And it was the sight of the Padres playing in a Mets Classic from 1986 on SNY here in the office that prompted this post. Who the hell let the Padres go blue? If I worked at Major League Baseball’s Office for Standards and Decency — which definitely exists — and some team called me up to say they were thinking of changing their uniforms, I’d say, “That’s cool, but no blue.” Every team is blue! I just counted: 20 of the 30 teams have blue in their uniforms. More than half of baseball teams feature some shade of blue as their dominant color. The Padres have some butt-ugly looks in their past, no doubt, but there was nothing wrong with the handsome autumnal color scheme that they ditched in the early 90s. Look at what a boring hat this is. Now compare its bland navy blue to the robust tones of the one modeled by Garry Templeton below:

Jeff Kent is not here to make friends

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I’ve somehow missed this until today: Aaron Gleeman at Hardball Talk is recapping every episode of the current season of Survivor, which features Jeff Kent behaving Jeff Kentily. It’s hilarious, especially if you’ve been looking for evidence to confirm your long-held suspicions that Jeff Kent is a massive jerk. It turns out he’s misleading his team about his motorcycling hobby yet again, plus throwing teammates under the bus, and backstabbing, and also still not being very good at defense.

Also, apparently the other people on Survivor do not know that Jeff Kent played professional baseball, which Kent’s apparently trying to use to his advantage but which you have to figure must be eating him up inside. And for the first time in my life, I wish I were on Survivor so I could blow up Jeff Kent’s spot. Also, I think it might be funny to go on there and be all, “I’m here to make friends.”

Just not with Jeff Kent, obviously. Barry Bonds forever.