Boston vs. Philadelphia 2008 Round 4: We got WING BOWL, Boston's got .... beans.

Warning, nudity, debauchery, and vomiting below:



FRIDAY. WIP's Wing Bowl 16 goes down with door's opening at 5 a.m. It may look like bedlam in the vid, but there are rules, for spectators and participants. Most of you reading probably slept through all this. Fortunately for those of us who missed out, Philly.com covered the qualifying stunts and will be keeping some feeds from the frenzy.

Really, what's Boston got on this? A hockey tourney called the Beanpot, that finks out on incorporating actual baked beans into the event? The Scooperbowl? Please. It's childsplay, a noncompetitive event. No way peace love and ice cream is going to beat out strippers, early a.m. beer chuggin, and extreme competition eating. Sorry. Boston gets hosed here. In Philly, we can do all this and still make it to work by 9 or catch our Friday a.m. classes. Wait, uhhh, yeah, we'll be in, just a couple of minutes late. Really.

John Edwards speech

John Edwards' bowing out speech in New Orleans from yesterday. It's worth watching.

Real Estate Denial in Boston

With some moderation in the decline of the Case-Shiller housing index, a discussion was started on the real estate blog on Boston.com.

One commenter in particular is quite amusingly unaware of how the housing market works:

#9: I've been trying to sell my home for some time - and have also drastically dropped the asking multiple times, I can tell you that I'm done reducing the price. I literally can't afford to drop it anymore. Therefore, I'll just sit on my property and ride this out. Why should I continue to drop my asking price, only to have potential buyers come in, lowball me even further (who's being greedy then?), only to find out later that they can't even qualify for the loan! Anecdotally, I'm starting to hear many fellow sellers out there say the same thing. I don't think I'm being "greedy" for trying to sell my home for the assessed value (in my case, CONSIDERABLY less than the assessed value) - I'm just trying to get by, same as everyone else. Once the rest of the sellers out there get fed up with this situation - and see that houses aren't selling even when they make large price reductions - they're also going to stop dropping their prices. Then this market will finally bottom out. Posted by jack January 30, 08 10:27 AM

Well Jack, that's not the way it works. Home prices remain ~30% above the historical norm, and lenders, having stopped smoking the crack pipe of cheap credit, are returning in a big way to historical lending standards. Actually, they're being really tight with mortgage approvals - a mortgage broker told me recently that if your score is under 650 good luck finding a decent rate if you can get a mortgage at all. Traditional loans means that buyers won't be able to pay for houses that cost them 50%+ of their gross income...which means that sellers will inevitable come down to earth, screaming and kicking about their lost bubble equity. Boo-hoo. My heart bleeds for them.

On the bowing out bandwagon...

Joe had a point, Rudy G's message was just a bit too limited. Former Hizzoner should have rolled with this:



Well Rudy backers, you all knew when you look at the man through clear lenses, you knew backing him was completely insane. You still can maintain the madness though. Bostodelphia advice: stick with the GOP's race's one true wild man.

Edwards Bows Out

NYTimes is reporting Edwards will formally withdraw from the Democratic primary race today at a 1 p.m. EST speech in New Orleans. The setting is (still) a fitting location to remind voters and the remaining candidates what and who he's been fighting for.

Bostodelphia needs to discuss whether we maintain our common endorsement of Edwards through Super Tuesday, or shift to a different candidate. We'll let you know our decisions shortly.

For what it's worth, for those of you on the other side of the aisle, despite a 3.2% showing in the Florida primary, this guy apparently ain't going anywhere. So, for the repubs out there, keep with Paul. He makes this election coverage fun, and on our side of the race things have got a little bit less fun.

For what it's worth, Edwards pulled in 4X as many Dem votes as Paul did Republican votes.

Bostodelphia Super Tuesday Republican Primaries Endorsement: Ron Paul

How can we not love this guy? He characterizes those who oppose his movement as "Tolkien's Orcs." Where's all the money going? Who knows? But he's just now able to add his political friends to paid staff positions. People are not just giving up mad props, they're putting blimps up there for him!

Full disclosure, since our tangle with the Ron Paul movement over matters of basic media literacy, we've actually had more to say about Ron Paul's campaign than either Coddy or I have had time to really broach. That Orc thing, for instance. Please, those of you not putting a word into the good fight of the Democratic primary, we beg you. Drop your ballot for Ron Paul. The longer he stays in this thing, the longer we'll have a ready topic to blog about for you, dear readers. This is about more than Ron Paul. This is about you. And us. Specifically us having something for you to read.

Bostodelphia Super Tuesday Democratic Primaries Endorsement: John Edwards

As Super Tuesday approaches, Bostodelphia is sticking with our New Hampshire decision to back John Edwards.
Perhaps prior to the big primary shakedown, Cod Peace may step out to give a fuller explanation of our Edwards support. For now, in a nutshell we find Edwards the most progressive candidate.

Edwards is the most consistent among his competition in recognizing the need for economic justice/fairness as the most pressing issue facing a broad majority of Americans. While Senator Clinton touts her experience as most suited to running the ship as currently engineered, and Senator Obama strives to motivate Americans past the divisions that have plagued the country as far back as the 60s, we commend Edwards for recognizing that the present tax and economic regulatory system designed to maintain and further the wealth of America's richest exists at the expense of the country's middle and working class.

Bostodelphia 21 Gun Salute to the Firearms of 2007 Roundup

21 guns, in, um, more than 21 days as was promised back in December. Question: why did Cheesesteak start this series? Answer: guns are an integral part of American society, and their portrayal in the media is at time hysterical, worshipful, confused, and occasionally spot-on. Guns are of course one of the few legal consumer products whose proper use results in violence, with occasional mayhem, death, and destruction for good measure. By focusing on this selection of 21 guns in the media eye over 2007 Bostodelphia attempted to illuminate the media coverage and the consequences of a high rate of gun ownership by a populace that's very enthusiastic about their uses, whether those uses are as exercises of a Constitutional right or as tools of law enforcement and foreign policy.

Ok, yeah, there were a few cop-outs along the way (I take the blame for the M3, I was out of ideas that day). There's also the fact that a real 21 gun salute is 7 guns, fired 3 times, as I should have known right off the bat having played Taps at many Memorial Day services in my teens. Will this be repeated next year? Well, I suspect a 21 Cheese Salute of 2008 will be in the works. Check back in 11 months and find out.

In chronological order, here's the complete list:

1. Hi-Point 995 Carbine
2. FN SCAR
3. SIG P226 9mm
4. Heritage Rough Rider SA .22 Revolver
5. Glock 19
6. Bersa Thunder 380 Concealed Carry
7. Remmington M24 Sniper Weapon System
   
8. Walther P22
9. AC-130 arsenal
10. Barrett M82A1 0.50 caliber rifle
11. Sawed-off shotgun with birdshot
12. North American Arms .22 magnum revolver
    
13. Menacing "Black Rifles"
14. SIG P226 0.40 S&W
    
15. AMT Hardballer Longslide
16. M3 Grease Gun
17. Glock 17 9mm
18. M4 Carbine
19. Ruger 9mm
20. M-16 assault rifle
21. AK-47 assault rifle

There, tis done. And now to sleep, perchance to dream.

Building that Steampunk Pressure

We're still building up to our aforementioned "Steampunk Mania." We had planned on rolling it out this week; but really, when has Bostodelphia delivered anything to you on time?

Seriously, it turns out the old fashioned series of pneumatic message tubes we're using for our interview with Steampunkmeister Jake von Slatt has required some serious pipe laying between Philly and metro Boston. Besides that, this is our first interview with a real live adopted persona, so the seat of our pants nature of Bostodelphia has left us with a bit of a learning curve to hump over regarding conducting interviews from our respective remote locations. Hang on, it'll be a blast, in a anachronistically mechanical quaint-chic way.

For the time being, here's a link to my favorite manga-tinged Steampunk genre webcomic, Girl Genius.

Sci Fi Gives A Quantum more of Quantum of Solace Coverage

So a few days back I bemoaned SciFi.com's reveal of the title for the new Bond film under production, Quantum of Solace. While the Fleming-erudite knew that the title is indeed taken from the print fiction Bond catalog, to the casual fan it sounded a bit off. Sure SciFi warrants some kudos for breaking the story to the fan community, but I can't help a lot of us would have appreciated a bit more elucidation on the title's origins (something you'd expect SciFi to be able to cover better than the initial AP source).

In a correspondence the next morning with SciFi.com, a good editor there pointed out to me that, while they haven't offered much explanation of the title's significance in Fleming's Bond output, they had shortly after my post posted video highlights of the title reveal's press conference. While not exactly the content I sought, I think it's a pretty classy act to point out follow up content that may have escaped my notice. Thanks, SciFi.com.

Ultimate Sandbag: The power snatch

I've been working on the power snatch with my 80 lb. Ultimate Sandbag. A squat snatch is ill-advised, since with a barbell and a very wide grip the squat snatch requires a high degree of shoulder, back, and hip flexibility. The much narrower grip on the sandbag demands way more flexibility in a squat snatch than I (and I imagine most) can muster.

Here's what I do: grasp the seams at the ends of the bags (so your grip is parallel to your feet, 90 degrees to the barbell snatch grasp). Then, power snatch. Catching the bag is most of the trouble, and I try to "flip" the bag on top of my hands, sort of similar to the flip in a kettlebell snatch. I've had 3 outcomes:

1. The bag ends up hanging from your grasp since I didn't flip it hard enough. This is ok, it's an extra load on the grip which is good if you're working that.
2. I time the flip just right and catch the weight on top of my hands, easily supporting the weight. This is usually what I go for.
3. I overshoot the flip, the bag ends up in a controlled fall onto the back of my shoulders. Another option would be to bail, drop the bag, and step aside. However, nearby co-workers in their office would not appreciate my dropping an 80 lb. bag from, oh, 7 feet in the air onto the metal ramp on the loading dock where I workout. So I catch it, and make myself feel better by doing a squat.

It's a fun exercise. It's a little too technical to drive to very high reps like the kettlebell snatch, but it can certainly be worked longer than the barbell snatch can. The squishy sandbag is pretty forgiving of my crappy technique. In the future I'll try a split snatch.

New Bond Title: Quantum of Solace (wha?)

Scifi.com picks up an AP wire revealing the next Bond film title will be Quantum of Solace.

Quantum

of

Solace

Wha! That can't be right. Quantum of Solace sounds like the working title either Solaris or The Fountain was shot under until someone with a sense of audience sent it back for a rewrite. Quantum of Solace sounds like it doesn't really stand alone, but rather should following somethin glike Harry Potter and the, or The Chronicles of Narnia:, or The Golden Compass II:.

It does not say James Bond.

Yes, I understand the film is supposed to be a direct followup to Casino Royale and, like that movie's slightly deeper or more honest portrayal of Bond (where even Bond realizes at some point killing people with your bare hands is a bit messed up) will obviously have to deal with some matter of remorse and drive for revenge following the death of Vesper Lynd; but it just doesn't strike me as the title of a Bond film.

Ah, crap. Turns out "Quantum of Solace" is indeed a title in the Fleming fiction oeuvre, actually appearing in the short story collection For Your Eyes Only. So much for illiterate knee-jerk reactions. "Quantum of Solace" has indeed said James Bond, from the creator's pen no less.

OK, given that the story "Quantum of Solace" is apparently the most un-Bond of Fleming's Bond work (according to the wikipedia article Bond learns the lesson that "Bond's adventures pale in comparison with real life drama"), and the reinvention of Bond marked with Casino Royale, I have a little bit more faith in the studio to crank out another solid flick.

Now I'll deflecting my embarrassment to anger at SciFi. After all, it has been a while since SciFi.com's been our whipping boy. I dunno. It just seems to me that SciFi's "SciFi Wire" should supplement whatever they pull from the AP with a little fanboy explication. Yes, the most erudite Bond fan will know where the title comes from, but give us slightly more casual Bond fans a bit of a clue too! What's the point having such a "specialized" news channel if it doesn't give us any deeper insight than what's provided by the mainstream press? SciFi.com makes me sad, again.

Pierre Bernard's Recliner of Rage Mode: Off.

Cod Peace in Birthday Pursuit

Turns out Coddy was just behind me in the birthday race. We'll be articulating "Jesus year" plans shortly.

Bostodelphia 21 Gun Salute to the Firearms of 2007 #1: The AK-47

In 2007, the AK-47 "lineage" (consisting of the original 1947 rifle and too many iterations to number of the original design, manufactured both in the USSR/Russia and former allies and client states) turned 60 years old. According to a New York Times article covering the celebration of the guns' birthday, it seems the originators of what was once the gun of people (or in our post Cold War economic terms, perhaps the first open source machine tooled military weapon) are now kicking themselves over squandered intellectual property rights. The rifle's got quite the brand affinity community, the Soviets just should have thought more like their capitalist enemies in terms of licensing it seems.

Ok. I'm out of ammo, my wad is shot.

Coming sooon...steampunk mania!

Coming soon, this blog enters a steampunk phase, including an interview with legendary steampunker Jake von Slatt, Cod Peace's first steampunk invention, and steampunk commentary by Cheesesteak.

Stay tuned.

Happy Birthday to Cheesesteak the Impaler!

He just turned 33, and has now entered his Jesus Year. Happy birthday, Cheesesteak!

Ron Paul grows a pair

On the blimp, of course.  Originally thanks to Fatbraff over at Jalopnik.com.  His image got yanked by photobucket.com so I re-did it myself.

Bostodelphia 21 Gun Salute to the Firearms of 2007 #20: M16

A modern icon, the M16 has been used by US armed forces since 1964.  What's there to be said that hasn't been already?  It's #2 on the list due to its active use in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it has spawned countless copies, myths, and legends in the past 40+ years.   An early reputation for misfires and jams reminds one of the ill thought-out Top 21 gun count here on this blog, which while interesting enough to remind us of the bizarro-world place that guns hold in our society became painfully long running.  A similar criticism to the M4 holds: with a military budget approaching $1 trillion, shouldn't the US soldier carry the very best rifle, not one that's merely good and that is superceded in many areas by other guns?

Bostodelphia 21 Gun Salute to the Firearms of 2007 #19: Ruger 9mm

When trying to find information on the gun related incidents among the earlier mentioned 391 violent deaths that occurred in Philadelphia over 2007 (interactive Philadelphia homicide map for 2007), details on the make of specific firearms are left out. Generally when a suspect is apprehended, there is a mention of the caliber of the weapon allegedly used in the charged murder, but little else. From what we could cull here at Bostodelphia, 9mm semiautomatic pistols were the most common form of pistol used in Philadelphia homicides. Given that, we'll presume the dated information in this 1999 Crime Gun Trace Report put out by the ATF's Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative is still accurate in identifying Ruger 9mm's as the most common gun used in Philadelphia gun related crime.

Of course some Philadelphians don't care to hear anything at all about Philadelphia's gun crimes. (For the record, one of the reasons Bostodelphia opted to do this salute was to get people to think more about America's pervasive gun culture in general). Their justification stems from data indicating 2/3 of Philadelphia's 2006's shooting victims had mugshots on file with the police. This has led some folks, perhaps as a psychological defense mechanism in order to live and work in a city with an inordinate amount of gun violence, or more cynically psychologically protect their property value "investment" in areas affected by gun crime, to develop a "they had it coming stance" to news of shooting victims. These sentiments occasionally vent onto the internet and in some cases lead to people reflecting badly on their neighborhoods. For the record, the Daily News article is a bit unfair. In the discussion thread from which the "Scumbag" quote was pulled, you'll find that while the bulk of the word count in the thread, or the posts with the largest "volume" may be siding with the "victim had it coming" assertion, the bulk of the posters thought the uninformed assertion was as pigheaded as the reporter and the victim's family judged.

Bostodelphia 21 Gun Salute to the Firearms of 2007 #18: M4 carbine

A shorter and lighter version of the M16A2, the M4 carbine is in active use with US forces around the world, and in particular in Iraq, which is why it's mentioned here. Being shorter and lighter than the M16, it is especially useful in close quarter combat and cramped conditions. All is not rosy in the M4 world, since it is frequently criticized for not being as good a weapon as it could be. Senator Tom Colburn sent a letter to the Army in the spring of 2007 urging reconsideration of this gun, an excerpt follows:

I understand that the Army decided to procure M4 Carbines in the early 1990’s to fill the gap between the M16 and 9mm pistol. At that time the Army specifically framed the requirement as the “Required Operational Capability (ROC) for the M4 Carbine.” M4 is a trademark name owned by Colt. Is it standard practice in Army acquisition to tie a requirement to a trademarked product?

I am certain that we can all agree that America’s soldiers should have the best technology in their hands. There is nothing more important to a soldier than their rifle, and there is simply no excuse for not providing our soldiers the best weapon – not just a weapon that is “good enough.” Unfortunately, considering the long standing reliability and lethality problems with the M-16 design, of which the M4 is based, I am afraid that our troops in combat might not have the best weapon.

Is it worth noting that no expense seems to be spared for fancy aircraft (B-2, F-22) or ships (pick a supercarrier), but that the Army and Marine Corps get shafted on weapons quality and "minor things" like armored Humvees and body armor?