philly

I love the way they redesigned The Washington Post homepage. The horizontal navigation bar makes everything cleaner and less cluttered. I still don't like the default font size of their articles, but I can change that with a CTRL+scroll wheel adjustment so it's not the end of the world.

Former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, Robert Reich, wrote an Op-Ed piece in today's NY Times on Wal-Mart's attempts to advance into New York City and elsewhere. Wal-Mart was stopped from being included in a new mall in Queens, but their worldwide network is still present everywhere. But who is to blame he asks.

But isn't Wal-Mart really being punished for our sins? After all, it's not as if Wal-Mart's founder, Sam Walton, and his successors created the world's largest retailer by putting a gun to our heads and forcing us to shop there.
…
We can blame big corporations, but we're mostly making this bargain with ourselves. The easier it is for us to get great deals, the stronger the downward pressure on wages and benefits. Last year, the real wages of hourly workers, who make up about 80 percent of the work force, actually dropped for the first time in more than a decade; hourly workers' health and pension benefits are in free fall. The easier it is for us to find better professional services, the harder professionals have to hustle to attract and keep clients. The more efficiently we can summon products from anywhere on the globe, the more stress we put on our own communities.

I know I try my hardest to buy local and from the corner store, but I do shop at big stores like Target about once a month. The low prices are just too much to pass up. Money is tight for me. Tighter than I'd like to be, but that's the bed I've made and I have to sleep in it. I'm trying to spend less now and save more for a rainy day, but it's just so hard.

It's frustrating to be a part of the mechanism that is slowly destroying the communities I want to keep alive.

Bill Simmons has been my favorite sports columnist for at least two years and he just chimed in on the recent NBA trade deadline. I totally agree with his assessment of the Bricks, but I don't think Webber will pan out as well as he feels

KNICKS GET TWO MORE UNDERSIZED POWER FORWARDS
I have a couple of thoughts here …

1. When Isiah called the Spurs and said, "We'll give you Nazr Mohammed, you give us Malik Rose and a crap No. 1, and we don't care about the $20 million difference in salaries," do you think Gregg Popovich said, "Lemme call you right back," then pretended he was deliberating about it for 30 secondsw before speed-dialing Isiah back? Was there laughter in the Spurs offices? High-fiving? Was Popovich the guy who called Isiah under the "Maybe Isiah will be dumb enough to give us a center" premise? How did this go down?
2. Am I crazy or do the Knicks have a 10-man rotation made up of 3 shooting guards, 5 power forwards and 2 small forwards?

3. Could Isiah make a trade that surprised you anymore at this point? For instance, if you read that he traded Stephon Marbury to the Lakers for Brian Grant, Tierre Brown, a lottery-protected first-rounder and the rights to Magic Johnson's next comeback, would you even bat an eyelash? Me neither.

WEBBER TO THE SIXERS
When my buddy Gus called from ESPN to tell me that Webber was headed to Philly, I said, "Lemme guess, Kenny Thomas, Dalembert and Big Dog?"

Nope. Way off. And that's the thing that amazes me about the deal — how could the Kings not get some cap flexibility with this trade? Sixty million worth of Thomas, Skinner and Corliss … that's the best you could do? You're telling me Isiah wouldn't have traded Kurt Thomas and Penny Hardaway (done in 2006) for him? Just an awful trade for them. I know that the Ewing Theory potential with the Kings is off the chart — remember, they still have Miller, Bibby and Peja, all of whom always looked better whenever C-Webb was hurt — and I know they needed to make a 3-for-1 since they had no bench. But this trade was horrendous. If it happened in my roto league, I would have protested it.

Watching Webber in person against the Clippers last month, I couldn't believe how he was dragging that bum leg around — it was actually sad to watch. No lift, no explosiveness, nothing. I thought it looked like he had a giant fork in his back. And then he kept getting to the line and grabbing rebounds, and he made a couple of threes, and then he took over the game down the stretch. He ended up with a 23-14-6. On one leg. Basically, because of his knee problems, he's turned into That Annoying Guy from pickup hoops — the guy with the ugly game and the giant knee brace, the one who doesn't seem even remotely threatening, the one who looks laughably bad at least five or six times over the course of an hour, and somehow, he ends up killing you in the end. That's Chris Webber. And yeah, he was never quite good enough to carry a team to the title as the best guy, and the C-Webb Crunch-Time Face goes down in the Pantheon of Faces. But as the Tubbs to Iverson's Crockett? I think he's going to be fantastic.

Here are some photos I took of the Soul v. Desperados game on February 27^th. They were taken with my D70 and an 18-70mm lens from the fourth to last row in the top deck of the Wachovia Center, so they're not as clear as one could hope for, but eh.

A nice wide shot of the Center

The NBC cameras all up in Tommy's grill after he gets knocked to the ground

The Soulmates

The seats in the endzone are basically on the field

We were so high up they offer binocular rentals; they're already attached to your seat

The drumline

Six points

A nasty hi-lo hit

VIP

Some serious 1" clumps of snowflakes are falling in Center City right now. It's supposed to snow through Tuesday night. How much will we get?

Go get yourself some hot chocolate before going home tonight. I like mine with marshmallows and milk.

After not seeing a single live sporting event in ages, I've been to a Temple mens basketball game and now, a Philadelphia Soul arena football game.

I went to the Soul game with Lady and our friends Jodi and Pat [it was their idea]. I expected a minor league baseball like feel and that's what I got. What I didn't expect was the place to be completely packed, which it was. Out of the 17,000+ seats at the Wachovia Center, I'd say it was about 80% full. We were four rows from the back on the top tier; $13 tickets are a pretty good deal. The seats weren't too far from the field and the sight line was very good. While I'm talking about the venue itself, I should note how rediculously clean it was. Granted, it's only seven years old, a place like that gets a ton of foot traffic and it is sparkling. Lady was amazed at how clean the womens bathroom was. I can't comment on the mens room though.

The game itself was entertaining. If you look away for more than 30 seconds, you're likely to miss a score. The 50 yard field is quite condusive to high scores. If you thought the St. Louis Rams had a quick scoring offense, watch these guys for five minutes. The final score of the game was 72-43. The Soul lost.

They had tons of games during every stoppage, people singing Bon Jovi songs, kids running around the field and even the "Kiss Cam" where the various video cameras zoom in on unsuspecting couples and plaster their faces on the JumboTron egging on a kiss. The halftime show was courtesy of a great local drumline. I can't remember the high school they hailed from, but they were good. And after the game, the players changed and came back onto the field to sign autographs. Some members of the Philly Real World cast were supposed to be there too, signing, but we didn't stick around to find out; the lines looked an hour long.

It was a fun experience and I'd go back and see another game sometime, but I don't think I'd watch them on TV. One of those better live than on television experiences.

Pictures to come later on in the day.

The Inquirer says: "In debut, Webber is almost a hero," but I'd call it more of the same. He's come up short time over time and I don't think he's going to change. But who knows, he may make me eat my words, look at Vince Carter's turnaround in Jersey. I always thought that Vincanity had it in him to bounce back and he has.

Either way, just about anything can happen in the dilapidated Eastern Conference. Who knows what will happen with Shaq and his knee. Just about anyone with a .500+ record will get into the playoffs on this side.

Later on today, Lady and I will be heading to a Philadelphia Soul arena football game with Jodi and Pat. We're gonna grab some cheap seats and probably head down to the lower levels as the game moves on. The tickets are not too expensive, being the third-tier sport that arena football is.

I don't think I've ever watched more than five minutes of any one arena football game on TV before. I wonder if going to a game is like a minor league baseball game which is tons of fun. Fun little games during stoppages and such. And let's not forget about the cheerleaders, the Soulmates.

The Soul are 2-2 going into the game against the 3-1Dallas Desperados. I'm gonna cheer them onto 3-2.

Here are two more images from the 24^th and 25^th of Joe's Pizza. Looks like they've installed some new Ikea-like lighting inside and some new windows.

Oh man, my gal KT is in town and I'm headed out drinking to Old City tonight… for the first time. Now let's see if the whole fratboy thing will ring true. Maybe I'll feel like I'm out with the B&T crowd from NYC. Oh the days of my youth. Heh.