Those people know how to party

Sure, I'm sad the Red Sox didn't win the World Series, but at least the win went to a city that really knows how to party, Philadelphia. Take a look at these pictures from after the Phillies clinched in Game 5.


I wonder what was going through the guy's head when left the house with a lamp that night. I also love that rioting fans decided to steal luggage of all things.

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of my favorite dispatch from Philly, courtesy the Philadelphia Enquirer:

Police didn't slow down one overjoyed celebrator who walked down freezing Pattison St. wearing only a g-string, white body paint striped with red, a red beanie and light-up shoes.

The nearly naked man identified himself as Michael Freeze, 28, of Havertown and said he left his clothes inside the ballpark, but not because he lost a bet.

"I just love the Phillies, and I'm happy," said "Freeze" as crowds swarmed to take pictures with him.

What might have been

I've always thought that everybody has one good invention in them, and if they can figure out how to market it then they can hit it big.

I had my good idea when I was about eight. For an elementary school class we had to create and build an invention. From Legos, I made a mock-up of a video camera that also took still pictures. This was 1986, so I was sort of ahead of the game.

All of this is a roundabout way of getting to this invention, which I have fallen in love with:

I complain, but I'll miss it when it's gone

As if Fox TV and Mother Nature weren't already doing enough to push the World Series past my bedtime, now another party is being heard from: Barack Obama.

Obama's bought a half-hour of TV time from 8 to 8:30 to address voters, with less than a week to go before the election. So Fox will push the start-time of the completion of World Series game five back about 15 minutes. I guess that's ok. I'd rather watch him than the pregame show anyway.

There was so much rain they needed a yacht rocker

Who knew the National Anthem could be so smooth?

John Oates, the (more?) handsome half of the late 70s/early 80s smooth rock duo Hall & Oates, sang the anthem at last night's Game 4.5 of the World Series in Philadelphia.

Oates asked the audience to help him out, but no assistance was needed for this legend of smoothness. With the singing, anyway. It looks like he could use a stylist.

The natural question when you see Oates, of course, is "Whither Hall?" Well, it turns out Oates got the call to sing the anthem yesterday morning around 8 a.m. because Daryl Hall couldn't make it.

Don't worry. Hall wasn't impaled by a harpoon in the back alley song writing duel of 1978. He just came down with the flu.

You are the Decider in just eight days

My ill-timed hiatus left dozens (literally, dozens) of people without their primary source of news about the 2008 presidential election: My occasional political series You are the Decider.

We have a lot of ground to cover, so I'll get right to the graphic of the bulls pooping.


I'm almost fearful to delve into this topic, but it's my duty to report to you that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin (Wasilla High's "Best Dressed" and "Most Like to Seceed," 1988) has begun to "go rogue" in speeches and media interviews, ignoring the talking points and making policy seemingly off the cuff.

In fact, she'd "like to go more rogue," according to an unnamed senior Republican who spoke with Politico.

I'm not exactly sure how this new and improved mavericky rogue-ness will manifest itself. It makes me wonder if the rogue-ity is the result of a potentially tragic misunderstanding over what "battleground state" actually means. Suffice it to say I would not like to be a moose in a swing state.

An open letter to the person(s) who stole my bike

Now that a few weeks have passed and my blinding rage has subsided, I am ready to address the person(s) who stole my silver-and-black Trek 7000 21-speed bike.

I will admit that it was foolish to leave the bike unattended on the porch. As the police officer at District-14 said, "It would be nice to think you could leave your belongings on your property unsecured, but that's not the world we live in."

As I have mulled this over again and again in my head, I keep coming back to the same question: Why did you steal the bike, but leave my helmet, which was hanging on the handlebars? Wouldn't it have been easier to take it as well? What made you take it off the bike and leave it so carefully on our outdoor furniture?

You went through all the trouble to sneak onto the porch in the middle of the day and make off with the bike -- don't you believe in basic bike safety? What if you were to get into an accident? You could have serious head trauma.

I can forgive you for stealing the bike, but not for being so cavalier with your health.

Please, person(s) who stole my bike, wear a helmet. It may be the best decision you ever make.

Signed,
NaturalBlog

Why are the pretty ones so dumb?

It's my esteemed pleasure to share with you the story of the now-dethroned Miss Teen Louisiana, Lindsey Evans, 18, of Blanchard.

Evans and three friends decided they'd skip out on their bill at the Posados Cafe in Bossier City, near Shreveport. While that's not necessarily the appropriate behavior of someone selected as the downright prettiest and most genteel of all the teens in Louisiana, it's not cause enough to lose your crown.

See the thing is, Lindsey Evans forgot her purse during the dine-and-dash. She was arrested when she came back for it, and got in even more trouble when police found she had marijuana in there.

Oops.

So now she faces four criminal charges and has had her Miss Teen Louisiana crown revoked -- with just 11 days in her beneficent tenure. At least she smiled nice for the police:

High water mark

I'm working on a pretty legendary month, sports-wise. This Saturday, I'm going to see my first legitimate football game, Illinois at Wisconsin. This past Monday I scored a free club-level seat to the Patriots-Broncos Monday Night Football game. And last week I saw one of the greatest baseball post-season comebacks ever, Boston's 8-7 win over Tampa Bay.

You might even spot me in this picture:

Sure, that series didn't turn out the way I'd hoped, but it was a blast nonetheless. I had anticipated rooting for the Rays in the World Series, but I just can't bring myself to do it. So tonight I say: Go Phillies.

I've changed, man

Those who've known my sedentary since my days at Big University (BU) will be shocked -- shocked! -- to learn that I joined a gym about a month ago. My attendance record is still a little spotty, but so far so good.

I'm writing about this because I wanted to describe the emasculating feeling of lowering the weight on the machines that work your pectoral and deltoid muscles. I shudder when I have to lower one of those contraptions from, oh I don't know, 230 lbs. down to a more reasonable 85. Ouch.

While I'm on the subject, I'll ask another question that's been confusing me: What's with those super muscular dudes who just wander around the gym without working out? How did they get so strong if all they do is talk to the pretty trainers?

And we're back

After nearly a month off, I was ready to write an obit for the NaturalBlog. Seriously. I always imagined it would end as suddenly and unceremoniously as it began. I thought I had run out of things to say.

But then this morning, I found the motivation to keep blogging -- the new biography by Maureen McCormick (TV's Marcia Brady) in which she cops to having two abortions, doing coke, and trading sex for drugs.

The awesomeness of these claims cannot be understated. But the shame of it all is that when Marcia Brady was giving it away ("In 1980 a boyfriend and I graduated to freebasing coke.... All I wanted to do afterward was have sex."), I was two, about a generation too young for her taste.

McCormick bottomed out, found God ("I saw two hands reaching down. It was Jesus. As crazy as it sounds, I new it was Him. I burst into tears."), and got married -- all before I was in the second grade.

Perhaps our love was never meant to be, so I will have to take solace in the other bombshell contained her book. That her TV sister Eve Plumb, who played Jan, "farted all the time."