As I sit here with the Top Gun theme rolling around in my empty head, I read your comment and thought, “What Steve Stevens thing is Paper talking about? Did I miss something in todays briefing?”
So much so, I went back and skimmed the whole thing again looking for the Stevens reference.
Got a link to share? I’m playing some disc golf this weekend, and would love to send that story along to my friends. (One of whom would probably try to beat the gator to a lost disc…)
Back in my undergrad days at UConn, the campus had an unofficial "disc" golf course. This was well before it was a "thing", so there were none of those poles and baskets. The first "tee" was the patio steps behind the Student Union; the first "hole" was the sundial at the far end of the "Great Lawn". Second hole was a fire hydrant; third hole was a quoin on the corner of a building.... I have photos of the "course" at home (but not a copy of the rules and course layout, alas).
We had a similar situation during undergrad, although it was even less “official” than that. We’d just be a bunch of idiots going through the quad in the middle of the night, picking out random landmarks that changed from game to game.
We were also the idiots who saw a feature about Irish road bowling on the early days of ESPN, and developed a modified version using grapefruits called Fruit Pitching. (If anyone here saw a bunch of exploded grapefruits scattered around the mean streets of Cleveland Heights back in the mid-90s, your mystery has now been solved.)
Zero interest in a commercial for the military. And it bothers me even more that the enemy is just some faceless country. As if war is just some sort of video game. But I know a lot of people like that sort of thing.
The Mets only scored five runs in their shutout of the Gnats, four driven in by Tomas Nido, who had himself a day. And they didn't gain any ground on the Barves and Phillies. So this was almost a down day after the previous two games. Six game winning strike and undefeated homestand. Next up, the Dodgers at Chavez Ravine.
ESPN's clickbait today also includes an article about a made for TV golf event with four quarterbacks (which is something everyone should be watching instead of, like, baseball and the Stanley Cup); and a story with the headline "Quinn Snyder Might Leave Utah." The article says he might, or might not, and that he's still negotiating with the team. In other words, this was the same speculation as the Soto stories. How can a site that really has some great journalism also have so much dross?
Because journalism as a whole is trending downwards and I find it much harder to trust traditional journalists and their companies. I wonder if that’s part of why someone like JonBoy (who I never got into) or Five Reasons Sports in Florida are so popular. They’re not J school grads who parrot the same talking points given by PR people or focus solely on a quarterback battle or the news of the day. They’re fans who analyze games and try to share interesting things.
Look at how many of us keep coming back for Craig’s content. He’s a damn attorney turned journalist and it makes his work so much more fun to read.
I was the 1st to have "Jomboy (Jonboy?) is doing this entire video shtick so he can sell out." He posted some MLB water-carrying garbage during the lockout right about when it was announced his business sold out to YES network. Can't fault a dude for capitalism but you can unfollow and block.
The Pamphleteer, the story of a young 1930's pilot named Craig Baldcaterra who stumbles upon a box of Nazi propaganda pamphlets after a mob car crashes into his airplane hangar. His secret is soon discovered by famous Hollywood actor and Nazi spy, Neville Sinclair.
Sinclair then courts The Pamphleteer's girlfriend and aspiring actress Jenny, played by Jennifer Connelly, to get closer to Baldcaterra and those pamphlets, which Sinclair was planning to distribute via his planned network of local television stations across America for simultaneous on-air reads. Baldcaterra realizes the pamphlets must be destroyed, but Sinclair holds Jenny hostage. Baldcaterra gives Sinclair the pamphlets in exchange for Jenny, but unbeknownst to Sinclar, Baldcaterra stuck a piece of chewed bubble gum between the pamphlets.
Laughing triumphantly, Sinclair opens the box and begins taking out a pamphlet before it rips to shreds from the force of the bubble gum stickiness. He looks up in confusion for a split second before immediately combusting.
bubblegum is from a 1965 Topps package that Baldy has been chewing on and off since the 90s when, during the 1st baseball card resurgence, he bought several packs of 60s cards but only pulled commons.
although a Nazi spy, Sinner is associated with no specific country and has an unidentifiable (which in movies means a vaguely British) accent.
I realize that Sinclair's demise doesn't make sense but I couldn't think of a way to end it in a similar way as The Rocketeer and I had a meeting about to start, so I had to pull a D&D/Game of Thrones Rhaegal random death-out-of-nowhere to end it so I could get on to my meeting, haha.
On the other hand, ESPN still has things like this: Wright Thompson, for my money the best sportswriter of our time and one of the best journalists of any sort, going to Kyiv to watch the city watch yesterday's World Cup qualifier match.
In general, ESPN sucks. Stephen A and Woj Bombs and paywalls for anything even a little interesting and clickbait everywhere and endless, endless argument over football all suck. And then they run a story like that, and you can forgive them almost everything. Except maybe Stephen A.
I feel nothing but a massive sense of contempt for Stephen A Smith and Skip Bayless, who perfected the art of "saying things that you would disagree with had they been said by someone else."
Those guys are the best at what they do, and what they do is shout at each other while taking turns making bad-faith claims that they don't believe in the name of "generating buzz." And it works!
To me, that's preposterous. Crab Rangoon, things of that nature...
It's ruined sports journalism in a lot of ways. Came out of the talk radio trick where you would say something controversial to get callers because it was slow. Now it's everywhere. The postgame shows are not someone soberly looking at what happened in the game. It's cartoon characters venting and ranting. And it sucks.
very much agree with your lede. there are specific reasons the 1st film looks so corny in the rearview mirror (where objects may look even more jingoistic than they originally appeared)
Frankly too many people put waaaay too much importance in the impact of a 2 hour movie. It’s nothing more than a lark, a way to waste time, nothing of importance. Like it, don’t like it, it doesn’t matter either way.
I would bet there is or at least was at least one person who became a fighter pilot because they loved Top Gun. That kind of stuff does get in someones brain. The Scully Effect is pretty well documented of women going into STEM fields because they watched The X-Files.
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘vice’, but my point is that these movies don’t really matter very much in the greater scheme of things. I’m not being snotty, I hope people really like them, they just don’t ‘influence’ anything. Zero relevance to the real world.
We have to agree to disagree. IMO movies are art and art DOES affect how we form opinions, view history, frame how we perceive and shape our lives and choose to interact with others. Art also invokes emotion. I dunno I feel like what I am stating is pretty obvious so ...
Fair enough, we don’t have to agree and I’ll grant you that serious art can be an influence. I find it hard to believe that Top Gun which to me is the equivalent of a Harlequin romance in terms of depth and ‘weightiness’ has influenced anybody outside of a few select people’s bank accounts. There isn’t always deeper meaning in everything, but maybe I’m wrong.
For the folks who haven't seen the documentary, Val -- about Kilmer, not Harper -- you may be interested to learn that the same technology to create his line in "Maverick"
If Mike Trout wanted to say something interesting, he could have said he was resigning as fantasy football commissioner because he isn't getting paid enough to babysit for toddlers. The whining is amazing. 🙄
I'm happily married with a comfortable family and life, but the biggest days of my life weren't a wedding or whatever, it was the day I quit FF and the day I decided to quit my elected my county supervisor position.
I played Fantasy Baseball from 1986 until this past year. I was in many leagues and we never had the kind of rankling and arguments about the rules that I always hear ppl whine about.
That being said, I'm so glad not to have to spend the time it takes to be good at FB and I can (usually) resist the temptation to see who's playing 2B for the Phollie's AAA team the minute I hear that Segura broke his finger.
As a kid I loved HoJo's fried clams so much my parents took me there for a birthday dinner once. It ended with a small cake with coconut icing topped with a sparkler instead of a candle. Now I want me sone fried clams.
If you are ever in the New Haven, CT area (Guilford) there is a place (called The Place) that makes an amazing grilled clam special ... so simple that I've been able to recreate it at home (we use homemade BBQ sauce instead of cocktail sauce but you do you). 10/10 would recommend - both The Place and the recipe.
Back on April 29, I fretted about the Nats’ upcoming 31 games against good teams and said I could see them going 6-25 and limping into Cincinnati with a 12-40 record. Fellow Nats fan rwlmo was “optimistic” and said they’d go 11-20. They showed us both - going 12-19 (aided by winning 3 of 4 against a fading Colorado club) to end up 18-34.
They’re still limping into Cincy, though, with more losses than anyone in MLB and half a game BACK of the Reds. Four games to decide who’s the bottom of the heap - feel the Natitude, baby!
Also, I broke my own rule and watched yesterday’s game almost to the end (even after they fell behind) and I have a joke for you all -
Q: What do Michael Jackson and the Nats have in common?
A: They both wear a glove on one hand for no apparent reason.
Wow! Did the Natinals look like they didn't want to be there yesterday or what?
Methinks they took in a little too much New York City in the past few nights.
They looked worse than the Phollies in the field, Soto ran around a ball, the SS had balls clank off his mitt and what the hell was the LF doing on Nido's last double? He dove for a ball that landed easily 10 ft. in front of him, then when it went by, he let the CF run all the way over to the wall to get it.
You do have to feel sorry for the Nats Evan Lee. He didn't deserve to get saddled with the loss. An desperation call-up, he did better than the Nats other starters in the series.
Yep. His scoreless first inning was the first for the Nats this series. He was unpolished and clearly nervous - and still managed to hold the Mets at bay for almost 4 innings.
The clanking was all 2B Cesar Hernandez; SS Luis Garcia (who was kept in AAA despite a red-hot bat until there was no chance he'd get Super Two status because of, um, "his defense" and only got called up because the reanimated corpse of Alcides Escobar pulled a hamstring) was perfect in the field. [He was also 1-4 with 3Ks because 2022 Nats.]
In defense of the Nats defense, when they have everyone healthy they aren't bad up the middle with Escobar, Hernandez, and particularly Victor Robles. Robles seems to track down anything hit in the air to center with ease.
Speaking of Juan Soto, he's only hitting .227. I don't recall him ever being in a serious slump before. I don't think he hurt the Mets once in the entire just completed series, and he normally hurts them about twice a game. The poor guy only has a 135 OPS+ this year, so he's only 35% better than the average major leaguer. (Last year he was 77% better. In 2020 he was 117% better.)
Yeah, but Soto's been a career .301 hitter prior to this season. (Last year MLB hit .244 and Soto hit .313, so the poor league BA didn't cause problems for Soto last year.)
Soto did have a span last season from 4/13/21-6/19/21 where he hit .250, but that's the only 50-game span he's had at .250 or below in his career.
His back is sore from trying to carry the whole team. Also, he really misses hitting coach Kevin Long - who the team (inexplicably) let walk to Philly in the offseason. The great thing about Soto is that he is a fanatical worker, but I think he's too much in his head right now and struggling. It took 4 seasons but we might finally be seeing his sophomore slump.
But I loved HoJo as a kid, almost exclusively experienced via trips on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to visit my grandparents. (The chain had an exclusive contract at every gas stop on the road.) I lived for their hot dogs--almost crunchy, subtly spiced things with those buttered, toasted buns. Slather with mustard, and heaven awaits. I'd like one right now.
And finish it off with a cone of chocolate ice cream, served up with that weird triangular scoop.
I don’t remember the HoJos on the PA Turnpike, but I do recall there being a lot of Roy Rogers restaurants along it (with a similar contract to what it sounds like the HoJos had). I feel like I’ve even seen a Roy Rogers still operating at one of the turnpike stops in the last few years, but I could be wrong.
Those hot dog buns were the best...sort of Texas Toast before Texas Toast was a thing. My grandmother lived near one just of I-95 in Connecticut. It was my summer treat!
Clay Travis is an asshat, and I don’t say that lightly. But whereas some could make the argument that Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingraham are playing WWE characters and don’t fully believe the shit they say, I think Clay Travis genuinely thinks everything is woke and sissy and awful. The man keeps tweeting about how great the Top Gun movie is because it makes people proud to be Americans?? Huh?
Clay Travis is an aggregator’s wet dream. He and Jason Whitlock say so much inane and questionable shit that if you work at a site that aggregates random sports stories, they feel like they’d be easy clicks.
Anyway, I’m currently pissy because of Florida drivers. They ride my ass constantly for no reason. I had a landscaping truck keep pulling up behind me and inching ever closer at a red light this morning. You think that’s gonna get you to your job quicker????
Baseball-related: Mets are the real deal, which means we’re just all waiting for the lose 17 out of 22 stretch. Sorry, Simon. I’m here for you when it happens.
Clay Travis is a ghoul who makes every registered republican, even those who lean liberal on a great many things, look terrible. There are very few positives I can say about Travis other than based on his Twitter, he appears to be very active in his kids’ lives.
Eh, if it happens, it happens. Long time since I got that upset about a sportsball team in a world full of much worse things, and also of other good things I can think about when the Mets do their Mets thing.
I often ponder which is worse. Playing a horrible person when you know better, ie Carlson, Ingraham, Cruz, Hawley, etc; or actually being a horrible person who doesn't know any better, ie MTG, Gaetz, Gym Jordan, Travis, etc.
I was not a kid when the first Top Gun was released, and was not amused. One of the worst, most pointlessly loud (god, what a shit soundtrack--just evil incarnate) and stupidest (not all stupid movies are terrible, mind you) movies I've ever seen. And culturally corrosive--the warmongering, the fratboy machismo, all the toxic whiteness you could ever hope for. I see echoes down the years in the terrifying social moment that is the Heard-Depp kerfuffle. Men are just the worst.
I'm going have to disagree with your take on the soundtrack -- it's awesome. Yeah, the movie is freaking dumb and very white male centric, but the music featuring Kenny Loggins, Berlin and the main theme is iconic.
Early in our marriage, I took my wife to live in Birkenhead (the New Jersey of Liverpool, according to Julian Cope) for 22 years. So we have now had the same conversation for 30+ years:
Her: "There was something on the national news about crime/drug addiction/poverty/social security fraud. Guess where they went?"
I thought it is always Florida residents doing stupid things? (Like the frisbee/gator story you also commented on) Though Florida does have a much larger population. Maybe Oklahoma is as bad or worse on a per capita basis.
C'mon, folks. The state motto in S Carolina is "Thank God for Mississippi."
We were in the Bahamas in a swimming pool talking with some people from New Zealand. They asked how our governor could have thought he could get away with his Appalachian Trail cover story when he went away with his mistress.
I said there is no end to the stupid things SC politicians do to embarass us.
That night was when Joe Wilson interrupted Obama's speech in Congress by shouting, "You lie!"
Our new Kiwi friends had a field day ribbing us the next day.
The Bahamas seems like a strange vacation choice for Kiwis when they have an ample supply of tropical islands scattered in their backyard throughout the Pacific. Not that I care or anything, just seemed odd to me.
I think it was an extension of a trip to the US. This was in a timeshare. I have also met people from Australia and NZ who were in Bahamas after cruising trans-Atlantic from GB.
All of these people have much bigger travel budgets than us!
Ahh that makes sense. That reminds me of when I was actually in New Zealand and I would get super envious of all the Europeans I ran into who would just casually mention that they'd already been there for a couple months and sometimes didn't even have a real timeline to go back home. And here I had to battle to squeeze in everything I possibly could into the 2 measly weeks I had to visit that wonderful place.
They must also have sufficient coverage at work when they're gone that they can leave for more than a few days without worrying that everything will be an omnishambles when they return. (Which I worry about not because I'm an obsessive workaholic, but based on years of prior experience! A few days with everything written out ahead of time, okay - anything more than that or unplanned, and I return to UTTER FUBAR DISASTER.)
As I sit here with the Top Gun theme rolling around in my empty head, I read your comment and thought, “What Steve Stevens thing is Paper talking about? Did I miss something in todays briefing?”
So much so, I went back and skimmed the whole thing again looking for the Stevens reference.
My only defense is: no coffee.
I'm guessing this particular Florida Man was also naked. They're always naked...
Got a link to share? I’m playing some disc golf this weekend, and would love to send that story along to my friends. (One of whom would probably try to beat the gator to a lost disc…)
Fantastic! Although I’d be totally pissed to see a lake right in the middle of a disc golf course. I already lose enough discs in swamps and trees…
Gotta be a brave soul to play that course with the beginner’s pack of 3 discs
Back in my undergrad days at UConn, the campus had an unofficial "disc" golf course. This was well before it was a "thing", so there were none of those poles and baskets. The first "tee" was the patio steps behind the Student Union; the first "hole" was the sundial at the far end of the "Great Lawn". Second hole was a fire hydrant; third hole was a quoin on the corner of a building.... I have photos of the "course" at home (but not a copy of the rules and course layout, alas).
We had a similar situation during undergrad, although it was even less “official” than that. We’d just be a bunch of idiots going through the quad in the middle of the night, picking out random landmarks that changed from game to game.
We were also the idiots who saw a feature about Irish road bowling on the early days of ESPN, and developed a modified version using grapefruits called Fruit Pitching. (If anyone here saw a bunch of exploded grapefruits scattered around the mean streets of Cleveland Heights back in the mid-90s, your mystery has now been solved.)
Brett Favre approves.
As does Dwyane Wade.
Is Jaff Decker your cousin?
All I know about him, or at least I think I know, is that he was Billy Idol's guitarist, no?
Pretty sure I first became aware of him via this track. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZqNUo6y52Q
Zero interest in a commercial for the military. And it bothers me even more that the enemy is just some faceless country. As if war is just some sort of video game. But I know a lot of people like that sort of thing.
The Mets only scored five runs in their shutout of the Gnats, four driven in by Tomas Nido, who had himself a day. And they didn't gain any ground on the Barves and Phillies. So this was almost a down day after the previous two games. Six game winning strike and undefeated homestand. Next up, the Dodgers at Chavez Ravine.
ESPN's clickbait today also includes an article about a made for TV golf event with four quarterbacks (which is something everyone should be watching instead of, like, baseball and the Stanley Cup); and a story with the headline "Quinn Snyder Might Leave Utah." The article says he might, or might not, and that he's still negotiating with the team. In other words, this was the same speculation as the Soto stories. How can a site that really has some great journalism also have so much dross?
Because journalism as a whole is trending downwards and I find it much harder to trust traditional journalists and their companies. I wonder if that’s part of why someone like JonBoy (who I never got into) or Five Reasons Sports in Florida are so popular. They’re not J school grads who parrot the same talking points given by PR people or focus solely on a quarterback battle or the news of the day. They’re fans who analyze games and try to share interesting things.
Look at how many of us keep coming back for Craig’s content. He’s a damn attorney turned journalist and it makes his work so much more fun to read.
Craig being a confirmed grump brings a lot of us back, too. Always good to look in the mirror.
I know what you mean but I wouldn't label Craig as a "journalist". I'd call him an aggregrator and/or commentator. But a damn good one!
That was my point! Lol
I prefer "pamphleteer."
I was the 1st to have "Jomboy (Jonboy?) is doing this entire video shtick so he can sell out." He posted some MLB water-carrying garbage during the lockout right about when it was announced his business sold out to YES network. Can't fault a dude for capitalism but you can unfollow and block.
The Pamphleteer, the story of a young 1930's pilot named Craig Baldcaterra who stumbles upon a box of Nazi propaganda pamphlets after a mob car crashes into his airplane hangar. His secret is soon discovered by famous Hollywood actor and Nazi spy, Neville Sinclair.
Sinclair then courts The Pamphleteer's girlfriend and aspiring actress Jenny, played by Jennifer Connelly, to get closer to Baldcaterra and those pamphlets, which Sinclair was planning to distribute via his planned network of local television stations across America for simultaneous on-air reads. Baldcaterra realizes the pamphlets must be destroyed, but Sinclair holds Jenny hostage. Baldcaterra gives Sinclair the pamphlets in exchange for Jenny, but unbeknownst to Sinclar, Baldcaterra stuck a piece of chewed bubble gum between the pamphlets.
Laughing triumphantly, Sinclair opens the box and begins taking out a pamphlet before it rips to shreds from the force of the bubble gum stickiness. He looks up in confusion for a split second before immediately combusting.
Baldcaterra nickname = "Baldy"
Neville Sinclair nickname = "Sinner"
bubblegum is from a 1965 Topps package that Baldy has been chewing on and off since the 90s when, during the 1st baseball card resurgence, he bought several packs of 60s cards but only pulled commons.
although a Nazi spy, Sinner is associated with no specific country and has an unidentifiable (which in movies means a vaguely British) accent.
I'm not sure I'd see this in the theater but I'd for sure watch it on streaming
I realize that Sinclair's demise doesn't make sense but I couldn't think of a way to end it in a similar way as The Rocketeer and I had a meeting about to start, so I had to pull a D&D/Game of Thrones Rhaegal random death-out-of-nowhere to end it so I could get on to my meeting, haha.
On the other hand, ESPN still has things like this: Wright Thompson, for my money the best sportswriter of our time and one of the best journalists of any sort, going to Kyiv to watch the city watch yesterday's World Cup qualifier match.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/ukraine-ukr/story/4678979/inside-kyiv-on-the-night-of-ukraines-improbable-world-cup-qualifier-win
In general, ESPN sucks. Stephen A and Woj Bombs and paywalls for anything even a little interesting and clickbait everywhere and endless, endless argument over football all suck. And then they run a story like that, and you can forgive them almost everything. Except maybe Stephen A.
Does Jeff Passan ending fools on Twitter count as ESPN content?
I feel nothing but a massive sense of contempt for Stephen A Smith and Skip Bayless, who perfected the art of "saying things that you would disagree with had they been said by someone else."
Those guys are the best at what they do, and what they do is shout at each other while taking turns making bad-faith claims that they don't believe in the name of "generating buzz." And it works!
To me, that's preposterous. Crab Rangoon, things of that nature...
It's ruined sports journalism in a lot of ways. Came out of the talk radio trick where you would say something controversial to get callers because it was slow. Now it's everywhere. The postgame shows are not someone soberly looking at what happened in the game. It's cartoon characters venting and ranting. And it sucks.
very much agree with your lede. there are specific reasons the 1st film looks so corny in the rearview mirror (where objects may look even more jingoistic than they originally appeared)
Frankly too many people put waaaay too much importance in the impact of a 2 hour movie. It’s nothing more than a lark, a way to waste time, nothing of importance. Like it, don’t like it, it doesn’t matter either way.
I do think the first film inspired kids to become fighter pilots -- similar to how Star Trek inspired nerdy kids to join NASA.
I dont see what's wrong with that. Someone has to defend the skies.
Drones do a lot of bombing nowadays -- it's not the Vietnam war anymore.
It’s fine. I doubt a single American fighter pilot is there because of Top Gun, but it’s fine if there are.
I would bet there is or at least was at least one person who became a fighter pilot because they loved Top Gun. That kind of stuff does get in someones brain. The Scully Effect is pretty well documented of women going into STEM fields because they watched The X-Files.
You are probably right, I’m wrong a lot.
So you *didn't* like "Vice" or it didn't matter either way?
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘vice’, but my point is that these movies don’t really matter very much in the greater scheme of things. I’m not being snotty, I hope people really like them, they just don’t ‘influence’ anything. Zero relevance to the real world.
I got your point.
"Vice" is a movie.
We have to agree to disagree. IMO movies are art and art DOES affect how we form opinions, view history, frame how we perceive and shape our lives and choose to interact with others. Art also invokes emotion. I dunno I feel like what I am stating is pretty obvious so ...
Fair enough, we don’t have to agree and I’ll grant you that serious art can be an influence. I find it hard to believe that Top Gun which to me is the equivalent of a Harlequin romance in terms of depth and ‘weightiness’ has influenced anybody outside of a few select people’s bank accounts. There isn’t always deeper meaning in everything, but maybe I’m wrong.
OK. but what about "art" as propaganda? that influences society as well.
For the folks who haven't seen the documentary, Val -- about Kilmer, not Harper -- you may be interested to learn that the same technology to create his line in "Maverick"
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/val-kilmers-voice-recreated-using-172000619.html
I had no idea he's dealing with throat cancer. What a rough blow for a man whose voice is so important to him.
Came here to plug the documentary. It was both fantastic and incredibly sad. Highly recommend.
If Mike Trout wanted to say something interesting, he could have said he was resigning as fantasy football commissioner because he isn't getting paid enough to babysit for toddlers. The whining is amazing. 🙄
I'm happily married with a comfortable family and life, but the biggest days of my life weren't a wedding or whatever, it was the day I quit FF and the day I decided to quit my elected my county supervisor position.
I played Fantasy Baseball from 1986 until this past year. I was in many leagues and we never had the kind of rankling and arguments about the rules that I always hear ppl whine about.
That being said, I'm so glad not to have to spend the time it takes to be good at FB and I can (usually) resist the temptation to see who's playing 2B for the Phollie's AAA team the minute I hear that Segura broke his finger.
As a kid I loved HoJo's fried clams so much my parents took me there for a birthday dinner once. It ended with a small cake with coconut icing topped with a sparkler instead of a candle. Now I want me sone fried clams.
I'm in. Where are we going for clams?
If you are ever in the New Haven, CT area (Guilford) there is a place (called The Place) that makes an amazing grilled clam special ... so simple that I've been able to recreate it at home (we use homemade BBQ sauce instead of cocktail sauce but you do you). 10/10 would recommend - both The Place and the recipe.
https://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/roast-clam-special-2120649
Ooh, that's close enough for an expedition, a short one at that. Thanks for the rec.
Full disclosure: it's an outdoor place that really only cooks the entree - sides and any alcohol is BYO. Still, on a nice summer evening it's HEAVEN.
http://theplaceguilford.com/
The best way to eat seafood in the summer!
Howard Johnson's Fish Fry Night of course.....oh, wait....
Back on April 29, I fretted about the Nats’ upcoming 31 games against good teams and said I could see them going 6-25 and limping into Cincinnati with a 12-40 record. Fellow Nats fan rwlmo was “optimistic” and said they’d go 11-20. They showed us both - going 12-19 (aided by winning 3 of 4 against a fading Colorado club) to end up 18-34.
They’re still limping into Cincy, though, with more losses than anyone in MLB and half a game BACK of the Reds. Four games to decide who’s the bottom of the heap - feel the Natitude, baby!
Also, I broke my own rule and watched yesterday’s game almost to the end (even after they fell behind) and I have a joke for you all -
Q: What do Michael Jackson and the Nats have in common?
A: They both wear a glove on one hand for no apparent reason.
That joke might be incredibly dated even for this crowd
It was either that or this -
Q: What do the Nats and Billy Graham have in common?
A: They can both make a stadium full of people yell "Jesus Christ!" all at once.
Divorce judge: Johnny do you want to live with your mother?
Johnny: no, she hits me.
DJ: so Johnny do you want to live with your father?
J: no, he hits me too.
DJ: well then Johnny who do you want to live with?
J: I want to live with the Nats; they don’t hit anyone.
Wow! Did the Natinals look like they didn't want to be there yesterday or what?
Methinks they took in a little too much New York City in the past few nights.
They looked worse than the Phollies in the field, Soto ran around a ball, the SS had balls clank off his mitt and what the hell was the LF doing on Nido's last double? He dove for a ball that landed easily 10 ft. in front of him, then when it went by, he let the CF run all the way over to the wall to get it.
Wow, that was bad.....
You do have to feel sorry for the Nats Evan Lee. He didn't deserve to get saddled with the loss. An desperation call-up, he did better than the Nats other starters in the series.
Yep. His scoreless first inning was the first for the Nats this series. He was unpolished and clearly nervous - and still managed to hold the Mets at bay for almost 4 innings.
The clanking was all 2B Cesar Hernandez; SS Luis Garcia (who was kept in AAA despite a red-hot bat until there was no chance he'd get Super Two status because of, um, "his defense" and only got called up because the reanimated corpse of Alcides Escobar pulled a hamstring) was perfect in the field. [He was also 1-4 with 3Ks because 2022 Nats.]
In defense of the Nats defense, when they have everyone healthy they aren't bad up the middle with Escobar, Hernandez, and particularly Victor Robles. Robles seems to track down anything hit in the air to center with ease.
And then miss the cutoff man ;)
I’m looking forward to seeing The Bob’s Burgers Movie tomorrow.
I hope it's still around in my area when I remember that I need to see it.
In honor of Howard Johnson's, here's NRBQ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvnljkua33U
Speaking of Juan Soto, he's only hitting .227. I don't recall him ever being in a serious slump before. I don't think he hurt the Mets once in the entire just completed series, and he normally hurts them about twice a game. The poor guy only has a 135 OPS+ this year, so he's only 35% better than the average major leaguer. (Last year he was 77% better. In 2020 he was 117% better.)
All of MLB is only hitting .240, so it's not that bad.
Yeah, but Soto's been a career .301 hitter prior to this season. (Last year MLB hit .244 and Soto hit .313, so the poor league BA didn't cause problems for Soto last year.)
Soto did have a span last season from 4/13/21-6/19/21 where he hit .250, but that's the only 50-game span he's had at .250 or below in his career.
His back is sore from trying to carry the whole team. Also, he really misses hitting coach Kevin Long - who the team (inexplicably) let walk to Philly in the offseason. The great thing about Soto is that he is a fanatical worker, but I think he's too much in his head right now and struggling. It took 4 seasons but we might finally be seeing his sophomore slump.
This is weird:
Juan Soto, pre-'22 career OBP: .432
Juan Soto, 2022 *slugging*: .432
I suspect the Phillies would gladly give Long back to the Nats at this point, based on how the hitting is going there.
#FutureYankee Juan Soto
(ducks)
Fried clams? Gag me with a chainsaw.
But I loved HoJo as a kid, almost exclusively experienced via trips on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to visit my grandparents. (The chain had an exclusive contract at every gas stop on the road.) I lived for their hot dogs--almost crunchy, subtly spiced things with those buttered, toasted buns. Slather with mustard, and heaven awaits. I'd like one right now.
And finish it off with a cone of chocolate ice cream, served up with that weird triangular scoop.
I don’t remember the HoJos on the PA Turnpike, but I do recall there being a lot of Roy Rogers restaurants along it (with a similar contract to what it sounds like the HoJos had). I feel like I’ve even seen a Roy Rogers still operating at one of the turnpike stops in the last few years, but I could be wrong.
HoJo was on the PA pike back when dinosaurs ruled the earth (when I was young).
The Daily Double! 2 HJ dogs with fries. My go-to whenever we ate there!
Those hot dog buns were the best...sort of Texas Toast before Texas Toast was a thing. My grandmother lived near one just of I-95 in Connecticut. It was my summer treat!
Clay Travis is an asshat, and I don’t say that lightly. But whereas some could make the argument that Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingraham are playing WWE characters and don’t fully believe the shit they say, I think Clay Travis genuinely thinks everything is woke and sissy and awful. The man keeps tweeting about how great the Top Gun movie is because it makes people proud to be Americans?? Huh?
Clay Travis is an aggregator’s wet dream. He and Jason Whitlock say so much inane and questionable shit that if you work at a site that aggregates random sports stories, they feel like they’d be easy clicks.
Anyway, I’m currently pissy because of Florida drivers. They ride my ass constantly for no reason. I had a landscaping truck keep pulling up behind me and inching ever closer at a red light this morning. You think that’s gonna get you to your job quicker????
Baseball-related: Mets are the real deal, which means we’re just all waiting for the lose 17 out of 22 stretch. Sorry, Simon. I’m here for you when it happens.
Clay Travis is a ghoul who makes every registered republican, even those who lean liberal on a great many things, look terrible. There are very few positives I can say about Travis other than based on his Twitter, he appears to be very active in his kids’ lives.
Just spoil Top Gun while you’re at it, jeez.
You lucky dog
Eh, if it happens, it happens. Long time since I got that upset about a sportsball team in a world full of much worse things, and also of other good things I can think about when the Mets do their Mets thing.
I basically don't block anyone on Twitter.
I have Clay Travis blocked. I don't want to see his bullshit.
I often ponder which is worse. Playing a horrible person when you know better, ie Carlson, Ingraham, Cruz, Hawley, etc; or actually being a horrible person who doesn't know any better, ie MTG, Gaetz, Gym Jordan, Travis, etc.
I was not a kid when the first Top Gun was released, and was not amused. One of the worst, most pointlessly loud (god, what a shit soundtrack--just evil incarnate) and stupidest (not all stupid movies are terrible, mind you) movies I've ever seen. And culturally corrosive--the warmongering, the fratboy machismo, all the toxic whiteness you could ever hope for. I see echoes down the years in the terrifying social moment that is the Heard-Depp kerfuffle. Men are just the worst.
I'm going have to disagree with your take on the soundtrack -- it's awesome. Yeah, the movie is freaking dumb and very white male centric, but the music featuring Kenny Loggins, Berlin and the main theme is iconic.
That "don't be from Ohio" thing...
Early in our marriage, I took my wife to live in Birkenhead (the New Jersey of Liverpool, according to Julian Cope) for 22 years. So we have now had the same conversation for 30+ years:
Her: "There was something on the national news about crime/drug addiction/poverty/social security fraud. Guess where they went?"
Me: Liverpool?
Her: Close.
Me: Birkenhead?
Her: Yes.
I thought it is always Florida residents doing stupid things? (Like the frisbee/gator story you also commented on) Though Florida does have a much larger population. Maybe Oklahoma is as bad or worse on a per capita basis.
A larger population and pretty strong open records laws.
Local Bangor, Maine morning station plays "Texas, Florida or Other" once a week where they read headlines and you have to guess.
C'mon, folks. The state motto in S Carolina is "Thank God for Mississippi."
We were in the Bahamas in a swimming pool talking with some people from New Zealand. They asked how our governor could have thought he could get away with his Appalachian Trail cover story when he went away with his mistress.
I said there is no end to the stupid things SC politicians do to embarass us.
That night was when Joe Wilson interrupted Obama's speech in Congress by shouting, "You lie!"
Our new Kiwi friends had a field day ribbing us the next day.
It shouldn’t, but it still amazes me that the Appalachian Trail thing didn’t end his career, being insufficiently deferential to Donald Trump did.
The Bahamas seems like a strange vacation choice for Kiwis when they have an ample supply of tropical islands scattered in their backyard throughout the Pacific. Not that I care or anything, just seemed odd to me.
I think it was an extension of a trip to the US. This was in a timeshare. I have also met people from Australia and NZ who were in Bahamas after cruising trans-Atlantic from GB.
All of these people have much bigger travel budgets than us!
Ahh that makes sense. That reminds me of when I was actually in New Zealand and I would get super envious of all the Europeans I ran into who would just casually mention that they'd already been there for a couple months and sometimes didn't even have a real timeline to go back home. And here I had to battle to squeeze in everything I possibly could into the 2 measly weeks I had to visit that wonderful place.
They must also have sufficient coverage at work when they're gone that they can leave for more than a few days without worrying that everything will be an omnishambles when they return. (Which I worry about not because I'm an obsessive workaholic, but based on years of prior experience! A few days with everything written out ahead of time, okay - anything more than that or unplanned, and I return to UTTER FUBAR DISASTER.)
Hold on a sec….How the hell did Jersey get roped into this?