philly

PA Senate Debate: Lancaster 2

Montville Mayor and Chuck Pennacchio supporter Connie Guy took the stage and gave a wonderful speech about changing America, getting Sen. Man on Dog out and voting in Sen. Pennacchio.

Editor and Publisher of OpEdNews.com Rob Kall got up to speak to the crowd. The same man behind the PA Zogby poll which broke ground as the first poll commissioned by a progressive organization about a Senate race. Kall spoke of change as well and backed it up with the stats from the Zogby/OpEdNews poll; when voters know the stances on the issues, Pennacchio comes out on top.

Just about everyone there had on a button, but this guy's flat brim old-schoolie with "Outsource Santorum" bumper sticker stuck onto the front was a nice creative twist.

Chuck closed out the rally and got the crowd riled up with a call for us citizens to take back our country. He noted that he didn't want to get too hyped up just yet so that he could save his energy for the long debate which was to start only thirty minutes later. I haven't seen him run out of energy yet. It's quite amazing being this close to a candidate and to the heat of the campaign to see him day in and day out heading to event after event after event just about every day now. This marked his 297th event on the campaign trail since the 2004 election. Number 296 was yesterday morning as he accepted the endorsement of the grassroots organization Neighborhood Networks at a press conference in Rittenhouse Square.

Some more shots from the rally in a flickr set.

PA Senate Debate: Lancaster 1

Yesterday's pre-debate rally, the debate and the post-debate gathering with the college Democrats were all great. Aside from the über slow start to get out to Lancaster [traffic was crawling on the turnpike so we had to detour to 202 and then 30 to get out there], everything went pretty smoothly.

Once at Frankline & Marshall's campus [that's where the debate was], we unpacked ourselves from the car. I can't recall the last time I was in a 4-door sedan with five total people. The trip wasn't bad though, the company was great and I got to whine about how I hate baseball, don't think [professional/MLB] baseball players are real athletes, how I hate golf and my liking of peanut butter, but the extra chunky, not that smooth crap. Rivalvies were made with my fellow backseat carmates.

There was already a sizable crowd out at the rally at about 4.30p. The crowd grew to about seventy-five or 100 soon afterwards. We weren't there alone though. By the entrance, there was a group of what looked like the nastiest of the nasty, college-aged young Republicans. I don't understand them. And not only were they pro-Santorum, they brought out their stupid PA-Sen mascot "Bobby the Duck" - probably the lamest move I've seen from the Right since the idiots who dressed up as foam flip flops when Michael Moore came to Philly to speak at Temple in October of 2004. Sad. So sad. It almost makes me feel sorry for them, but then I remember who they're supporting and I don't feel so bad anymore.

On a side note, oh how I loved that horrible 1986 movie Howard the Duck. I don't know how many times I watched that on WPIX channel 11 in NY back in the day, maybe as many times as the Johnny 5 series. My favorite exchange during the movie: When Howard sleeps with the human woman the next morning the woman picks up a handful of feathers from the bed and asks: "What's this?" Howard looks to her and says: "Souveniers" — oh the hilarity. I swear, only Austin out in Chicago will get this. If not him, nobody.

The parking lot was filled with cars like the one above. Anti-W. Anti-Sen. Man on Dog. Pro-Chuck. It was quite awesome.

A band came on stage to entertain the crowd before several speakers and then Chuck Pennacchio came up there to speak for a few minutes to get the crowd going before we filed inside to get some good seats. The band was great and the guy on the mouth harp [can't see him, he's behind the lead singer/guitarist on the right] was sweet. I love me some harp.

Roosevelt Island Tram Craziness

The air-tram in NYC connecting Manhattan Island to Roosevelt Island stalled yesterday stranding seventy or so people 150' above the East river for a total of twelve hours. Gothamist has coverage here and here with this great photo via flickr.

I've never been on the tram, but I've always wanted to take a ride across on it. This doesn't stop me from wanting to make that trip on that thing. If they find some kind of fatal flaw, now that would change my mind, we'll see. And a random tidbit of NYC knowledge. Main St, New York, NY is on Roosevelt Island. One of my college friends was actually from there.

PA Senate Debate 7p

I'm headed out to Lancaster today to attend the second Democratic PA senate primary debate. It's on tonight at 7p on PCN [channel listing]. They livestreamed it on the PCN TV website last time and they may very well do so again this time around. I'll be there early for a Chuck Pennacchio rally and I'll be rooting for Chuck during the debate. Hopefully I'll get some nice shots along the way.

Factesque and PoliticsPhilly will be livebloging the debate. eRobin's liveblog of the first debate. The first debate in full — that's a 214MB file of good quality QT format video clocking in at 1.5 hrs so don't save that file unless you're on broadband.

McClellan Resigns, Bush Looks Forward to Reminiscing

White House Press Secretary Scott "Flounder" McClellan has resigned. Dubya had these idiotic words:

Bush said McClellan had "a challenging assignment."

"I thought he handled his assignment with class, integrity," the president said. "It's going to be hard to replace Scott, but nevertheless he made the decision and I accepted it. One of these days, he and I are going to be rocking in chairs in Texas and talking about the good old days."

The fucking "good old days" — holy shit. Doesn't that sound just bat-fucking-shit insane?

Yeah, remember those good old days where we raped the world for billions? How we lead the world to war on false pretenses? How we caught that guy, what's his name, oh wait... we never did catch that what's his name guy did we? How we killed the middle class of America? How we liberated all those Arabs? How we saved all those people during Hurricane Katrina? How we... what were we talking about? Oh yes, the "good old days" that's right...

Fireman's Hall Museum

I've never been inside the Fireman's Hall Museum, but I walked by it over the weekend and it's a gorgeous building from the outside. I'd like to head back to Old City to have a looksy as to what's inside this building and the rest of the museum

It's a 100+ year old building which underwent renovations in the late seventies [a thorough cleaning, installation of a stained glass window, climate control and an additional wing] via some special Philadelphia Bicentennial funding. More on the history of the building here.

South St Bridge Graffiti

I took a stroll across South St bridge for the first time over the weekend. I had crossed it several times by car, but never on foot. I had been told by Miss Plum [one half of The Unharshed Mellow] that there was a good amount of graffiti all over the bridge and indeed there was.

The grouping above was my favorite out of them all. The double pasteup of W with his codpiece flightsuit with the infamous "Mission Accomplished!" as a header and footer juxtaposed by a graphic "No War" illustration. The "No War" illustration brings to mind Edvard Munch's The Scream, but this time, the eyes are covered, not the ears.

There still exists a blood-curdling inaudible scream coming out of the mouth of the person in the illustration, but now, s/he cannot bear to look at the atrocities behind them either. A soldier with a boot on top of a seemingly dead civilian and more soldiers standing on top of a tank. The tank draws me to the image of Tank Man from nearly two decades ago.

Politics aside, it's a nice walk and has a busy view back towards Center City. Twenty-three shots up in a flickr set.

Symphony House Condos

These floors are coming along quickly. I can barely see the Drake from the southeast.

And look how high that crane goes. It's going to be thirty-one stories.

Wondering what Philly looks like from high above? Brad from Philly Skyline likes to get high so we're in luck. Some wonderful shots from way up above Center City.

Phil Mickelson - Exxon-Mobil Man

He's more than just a golfer [which, by the way is not a fucking sport]. He's a spokesperson for golf-centric companies like Calloway/Titleist and then there are the non-golf money streams. Rolex. Charles Schwab. Ford. And last night I saw a commercial, starring him, for Exxon-Mobil. Blech. Now that's just nasty.

If you didn't know it already, the former CEO of Exxon-Mobil just received a $400M retirement package "including pension, stock options and other perks, such as a $1 million consulting deal, two years of home security, personal security, a car and driver, and use of a corporate jet for professional purposes." Now ain't that some shit.

Today, prices for crude oil hit $70 for the first time since Hurricane Katrina.

Phil Mickelson's silky swing, oiled by Exxon-Mobil. :)

Kisso

Messy and Picky went over to Olde City with the intention of eating out for the night and capping it off with a trip to Franklin Fountain. We didn't really care where we ate, Lady preferred Japanese or some place with some salad. After a good amount of walking around, we decided to try Kisso up on 4th and Race Sts. A place I've passes several times and a place one of Lady's friends wanted to eat when she was in town a few months ago [but we didn't].

Good eats! Inexpensive by Japanese restaurant standards, but not cheap either. Their menu listed some lunch specials, but we were there for dinner. We both very much recommend the place. Our review is up on the food blog here.

After the delicious meal, we headed down to Market St for some dessert, but we were greeted by a 'Closed for Easter' sign. Damn that bunny.