Story of the Week - Feb 25-29

It's Leap Day! Buy Stuff!

Here are 29 great discounts, deals, traditions, and facts about the 29th Day of February:

Boston Market gave Leap Day Babies a free lunch today, up to a $10 value.

29 Approximately 4 million people in the World celebrate their birthday today, and then go back to celebrating on March 1 or February 28 for 3 years.

28 Papa John's is giving Leap Day Babies a free pan pizza today

27 Free lunch at Boston Market for Leap Day Babies. Exploit that ID that says you were born today and get that chicken!

26 The Saginaw Spirit of the Ontario Hockey League is hosting Leap Day Night, sponsored by the AARP.

25 Get a $49-a-night Leap Day special at Bay Inn in Petoskey, Michigan! $49! You know, cause 29 plus 20 is 49, so it makes total sense.

24 If you happen to be in Avondale, Arizona, you can head on over to Leap's Coffee Shop, which, appropriately, celebrated Leap Day all February long, giving away free ice cream and custard to Leap Day babies and their families.

23 Leap Day Babies get in free to see the Long Beach State baseball team battle Wichita State. That's a $12 value!

22 The Eureka Opera House in Eureka, NV is having a Leap Day Concert. How do you celebrate Leap Day through music? Well, you bring in Juni Fisher and Cowboy Entertainer Dave Stamey. yeehaw! Nothing says "Leap Day" like country western in an opera house.

21 You're probably wondering, how many Leap Day babies are there in the United States? Well, there are about 200,000.

20 My loyal reader in High Point, NC can go to the Leap Year Happiness Weekend at the JH Adams Inn on North Main Street.

19 Some guy in Rhode Island wants you to go to his Leap Day party:
Two of my friends, who are also Leap Day Babies, and I, are planning a
huge Birthday Party for our Birthday Leap Year Day 2008. It should be a really good time. You can email me
at lbell80229@aim.com.

18 Get free admission to The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago for Leap Day.

17 Morton's Steakhouse is giving a free steak and seafood dinner to all leapling's with proper ID.

16 McDonald's is offering a free McSkillet Burrito with the purchase of a medium or large beverage during breakfast hours. Not sure if that's a Leap Day promotion or they just can't think of any other way to get you to eat that crap.

15 The year 2100 will be the next time there will be a Presidential election, but not a leap year. Why? A leap year must be divisible by 400, and 2100 is not. 1900 also was not a Leap Year, but who could forget the riveting race to the White House between William McKinley and the electrifying William Jennings Bryan?

14 Some suggest celebrating Leap Day by "leaping back in time" and playing an old childhood game.

13 JaRule has a birthday today. So does Antonio Sabato, Jr and the late Dinah Shore-a.

12 Julius Caesar first created Leap Year in 46 BCE so that the calendar would match the solar year.

11 On Leap Day 1952, the first Walk/Don't Walk signs were installed in New York City.

10 Shedd aquarium in Chicago is using Leap Day to jumpstart its "Year of the Frog" campaign with two for one tickets.

9 Pope Paul III was born on February 29, 1468.

8 A deal that makes sense! Expedia is offering 29% off travel deals! Good job, use the date to fit the promotion!

7 It's customary that on the Leap Day, it is acceptable for women to propose marriage to men.

6 Can't have a birthday without a Cake! Whole Foods in Mt. Pleasant, SC is offering a free six inch birthday cake to anyone born on the 29th of February.

5 The odds of being born on February 29th are 1 in 1,461. A bit of a faulty statistic, since the odds of you being born are zero unless you are conceived 7-9 months before February of a Leap Year. But assuming you have an equal chance at being born on any day in a span of 4 years, those are the odds.

4 Here's a good thing - Martha Stewart packed the audience of her Leap Day show exclusively with people born on Leap Day.

3 The website www.leapyearday.com is run by the Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies. The Society is the leading advocate (or it must be) for getting "Leap Day" on to the calendar officially. It also pushes software companies to recognize February 29th as a valid date of birth. Many leaplings run into issues with online registrations, for example, that don't recognize their birthdays.

2 The 6th Quadrennial World Wide Leap Year Festival takes place in the town of Anthony, NM/TX (yep, that's right, it's a town in 2 states, and it says it is the "Leap Day Capital of the World", um, because they have more Leap Years than any other place on earth?) over 5 days of course centered on the 29th. This is from the event website:

"birthday folks can spend some time preparing signs boasting
their age in Leap Years, to use in the parade. Since Leap Year Day falls on Friday
this year the parade will be held after school, about 3:00 p.m.

We encourage all Leap Year babies and Leap Year anniversary couples to join
the parade. A variety of vehicles will be provided for those who do not have their
own or, if you prefer to walk the parade route is about a one and a half (1 1/2)
mile trek.

The day will be completed with a birthday dinner, cake and entertainment."

But the undisputed number 1 deal on this Leap Day comes from Domino's Pizza:

This Leap Day, to promote its new "BRKLYN Pizza", Domino's is giving $1,000 in Free Pizza Coupons to the first Leap Day Baby born today and named "Brooklyn."

That's right, new parents of the world, if you have a child today, and name him/her "Brooklyn" (any spelling accepted) you MIGHT win $1,000 worth of free pizza. Plus the chance to have a very strange conversation one day with said child.

Oh yeah, I said "might." Because if someone ELSE does it first, you only get one free BRKLYN pizza, and will have even more explaining to do.

Of course, says Domino's, you could just buy a BRKLYN pizza for $9.99 and find a better reason to give your child a strange name.

Happy Leap Day Everyone. Savor it, because there won't be another one for 4 whole years.

Except maybe in Anthony, NM/TX.

Playing with Vocabulary in the Middle of the Week

I'm sick of alliteration. So there will be no alliteration in this, an anti-alliteration Wednesday Wordplay.

Crap.

Starting NOW.

this week's list of words, from both Dictionary.com and the Big Word of the Day Calendar from Avalanche Publishing as a group make me think of Don Quixote, beginning with Quixotic, which of course takes its origin from the Cervantes character.

The Quixotic hero Quixote lived his life in a state of pure imbroglio, thinking of himself with aplomb, riding his donkey, charging at nettlesome windmills.

And all the time, the villagers saw Quixote in a completely different way, as he charged temerariously at inanimate objects, irrupting lissome, pastoral scenes, leaving confusion in his wake.

One day, Quixote thought he spotted an enemy combatant, which of course was an innocent church, with a simple bell tower. Quixote, sword drawn, gleaming in the refulgent midday sun, readied himself for the charge as the clock struck twelve, and the camponologist in the belfry rang a paean across the countryside. Quixote charged! Summoning all his puissance and aiming the sword at the church gate, meeting his enemy head on and falling splat! Alas...

A fate the quixotic Quixote could not avoid, what alliterative agony...

The Words!

quixotic - adj. caught up in the romance of noble deeds and the pursuit of unreachable goals; foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals. Capricious; unpredictable (One of English's greatest words)

imbroglio - n. a complicated and embarassing state of things. A confused or complicated disagreement or misunderstanding.

aplomb - n. Assurance of manner or of action; self-possession; confidence; coolness.

nettlesome - adj. Causing irritation, vexation, or distress.

temerarious - adj. Recklessly or presumptuously daring; rash.

lissome - adj. Light and quick in action; nimble; agile; active.

refulgent - adj. shining brightly; radiant; brilliant; resplendent

camponology - n. the art or skill of ringing bells to make music.

paean - n. a joyous song of praise, triumph, or thanksgiving. An expression of praise or joy.

puissance - n. power; might

Story of the Week - Feb 18-22

Schadenfreude, with Gary Coleman

This is the strangest story I have ever read. Join me, as I try to wrap my head around it.

Gary Coleman told "The Insider" that even though he got married in August... Gary Coleman got married? BUT, He hasn't yet consummated the relationship with his wife. He got married but he hasn't had sex in six months. Six months! Why bother getting married? He says "It will happen when it happens." Six months! Gary Coleman? I can't believe Gary Coleman got married but can you believe that? He hasn't had sex with his wife? Maybe it's a height thing...ok keep reading

He and his wife, Shannon Price, both say that they fight so much that she has feared for her safety. Stop. So they get married but don't have sex because he's too busy beating the crap out of her, I see, so she's too scared to do it with him, fair enough but then why did she marry him? I mean she married the guy and right away he starts beating her, maybe just maybe she should have seen it coming. Then again, this is Gary Coleman we're talking about. Ok maybe she didn't see it coming but it's Gary Coleman, WHAT DID YOU SEE IN GARY COLEMAN?

"i'm used to it" says Price. Used to what? Fighting? fearing for your own safety? this thing is seriously messed up. Oh look at this, Coleman got a citation for a domestic dispute after the police were called in... this is a marriage made in heaven.

Actually it's a marriage made in Nevada, on a mountaintop and Shannon Price is 22. 22!!??? But they've been keeping the vows secret, probably because she's embarrassed, did she marry him for his money? How the f*ck does Gary Coleman land a 22 year old? and then he'd rather beat her than nail her?

The couple met on the set of the 2006 comedy "Church Ball" I don't remember that movie, gotta IMDB it, back in a flash (you don't care how soon I come back, anyway...) Right, "Church Ball" is about a team of misfit, unathletic basketball players playing for a priest who's pressured to win the church ball championship before the league falls, and Gary Coleman is one of the basketball players. Right. And Shannon Price isn't listed in the credits or anywhere on IMDB. On with the story...

Price says it was she who proposed to Coleman.

...

.........

..................

WHA??????????????????????

I have no words for this. That's nuts! SHE proposed to HIM? You're Gary Coleman! A 22 year old is throwing herself at you, asking to be your wife, and you're fighting with her! I shudder to think people like this even exist, what the hell is wrong with these two? Gary surprised Shannon on her birthday and whisked her away to Valley of Fire State Park to exchange wedding vows. That was six months ago, and no sex yet, just fighting, can't forget that.

And he convinced her to keep it a secret (or maybe she convinced him) because she wanted to keep being seen as her own person. Ahh, think you blew that one when you proposed to Gary Coleman.

Of the age difference, Coleman said "I don't have issues with age, I have issues with intelligence...she's more intelligent than I am" um, that would make you pretty effin' stupid because she's 22, she proposed to you and is staying with you even though she fears for her own safety this whole thing is so screwed up OF COURSE it's happening to Gary Coleman. Oh yeah I'm glad I've made it this far without a--nope, not gonna do it. Someone'll leave it in the comments, inevitably.

The 5'7" Price commented on the height difference. Gary Coleman is 4'8". "That doesn't really matter to me," she said. "He was 10 feet tall to me because he was sweet (but now you fear for your safety) and I really liked his personality." Until you fought so much that you refused to have sex with him and somehow he doesn't mind but oh yeah something's wrong with this relationship because you fear for your safety, but you're used to that? This story makes my head spin,

yet still manages to be hilarious.

It's...
Schadenfreude!
Makin' the world a better place....
to beeeeeeeeee
S-C-H-A-D-E-N-F-R-E-U-D-E!


source: AP

Wednesday Wordplay - President's Week Edition

Washingtonian - adj. living in or coming from Washington, D.C., or the state of Washington.

ADAMS - stands for Agencywide Documents Access and Management System. It's a system commonly used by organizations, schools and universities.

patronym - a name derived from a father or ancestor; a surname or family name
for example - Jefferson, Jackson, Harrison, Johnson, Wilson. 7 presidents have patronymic last names. 2 presidents fathered presidents.

madison - n.a dance in which the participants stand side by side in a line while one person, acting as leader, calls out various steps, each letter of the word “Madison” signaling a specific step. Madison is not a patronymic last name. It is, however, a metronymic last name (derived from a female ancestor)

monroe can be rearranged to form the word "mooner"

John Quincy Adams' middle name comes from the latin for five, but he was the sixth President.

nerub nav nitram is Martin Van Buren backwards.

Some presidents have occupational last names - like Tyler (tiler) or Taylor (tailor)

Taylor was not a tailor before he was President, though.

Filmore comes from the german for "very famous", but he was not very famous. And he's even less famous today.

rearrange the letters in "Pierce" and you get "recipe"

Don't know what Buchanan was thinkin'
So bad, he must have been drinkin'
He offered no lead
The south did secede
What a mess for next president, Lincoln.

grant - v. to bestow or to confer.

rutherford - n. A unit expressing the rate of decay of radioactive material, equal to one million disintegrations per second. After Ernest Rutherford, not Rutherford B Hayes.

James Garfield - elf jam is red, G.

CAA - Chester Allan Arthur
also Colonial Athletic Association, Creative Artists Agency, Canadian Automobile Association, Civil Aeronautics Administration, Chiropractics Association of Australia, Chicken Anemia Agent, Corsican American Association, and the Centre d’Acheminement des Abonnés.

all of those are real.

Grover is a furry blue monster. Cleveland is a city. Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president. Grover Cleveland Alexander was a pitcher from Nebraska. The capital of Nebraska is Lincoln, after the 16th President.

William McKinley was assassinated. The word assassin comes from a fanatical Ismaili Muslim sect of the time of the Crusades, under leadership of the "Old Man of the Mountains". Mt McKinley is the tallest mountain in North America.

An "arctophile" is a person who collects teddy bears. Not a person who loves Teddy Roosevelt.

Taft was FATT.

4 Presidents have alliterative names, each with different letters, all of them consonants. Can you name these alliterated Amercians? *

Words you can make with the consonants "FDR" in that order and any combination of vowels:
feeder
fader
fedora

Harry Truman....
Doris Day
Red China
Johnny Ray
South Pacific
Walter Winchell
Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy
Richard Nixon

JFK Blown away what else do I have to say?

Words that rhyme with Carter: barter, charter, darter, farter, garter, larter (as in Heroes' Ali), martyr, parter, quarter (nope, never mind), starter, tarter.

Rearrange the letters in darter and get "RETARD" rearrange "farter" and get "RAFTER" rearrange "starter" and get "RESTART"

I heard this on NPR: George Herbert Walker Bush's nickname in the navy was "George Herbert Walker Bush."

His son is a darter.

...and Bill Clinton plays the Sax.

daa dum da daa dum da dum da dum da daa dum.

*Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Ronald Reagan, Woodrow Wilson

Wednesday Wordplay

This week's Wednesday wordplay is written in boustrophedon.
ni gnitirw fo dohtem tneicna na si nodehportsuoB .kcul dooG
which lines are written alternately from left to right and from
morf radnelac sdrow gib eht knaht nac uoY .tfel ot thgir
Avalanche publishing for this. Instead of a day-appropriate
maharbA fo yadhtrib ht991 eht ot detaler spahrep drow
Lincoln, the word of the day on February 12th was
ecno tub,siht gnidear elbuort evah yam uoY .nodehportsuob
you get used to it your eyes and neck are actually doing 50%
.cinicip on si nodehportsuob ni gnitirw yaw eht yB .krow ssel
I'll be keeping this short.

Here are four fun words from the past week. I learned that
dna paehc a ni desserd eb d'I ,flesym nezideb ot erew I fi
showy manner. It's unlikely I'll bedizen myself. I'm not that
.ecnaraeppa ym htiw ("luftsaob" snaem taht) lacinosarht
Animals that live in trees tend to find fruit copacetic. And
suorovigurf a hctac t'now uoY .suorovigurf meht sekam taht
frugivorous animal bedizening itself. That would make him a
htiw yllaicepsE .yas ot drah oot si taht dna ,erovigurf lagurf
a mouthful of berries.

Copacetic - adj. very satisfactory. And that (mercifully) ends
.yalpdroW yadsendeW fo noitide nodehportsuob siht

Story of the Week - Feb 4-8

The Candy Factory

In the 1920s, two brothers returned from business college in Vienna to their hometown of Cieszyn on the border of Poland and Czecheslovakia and started a cookie making company in a basement. Soon after, the cookie making company blossomed into a thriving little chocolate factory that employed 500 people and made candy around the clock.

The family and the factory survive to this day. The family wound up in Cleveland, by way of the ghetto and concentration camp. The factory, , was confiscated by the Third Reich like all Jewish-owned businesses in Poland, then nationalized by the communist government of Poland, and later sold to its current owner, Kraft Foods.

The family would like its factory back.

Cieszyn is a large town about 100 miles southwest of Krakow, 200 miles north of Vienna and 300 miles west of Prague, on the Polish border with the Czech Republic and near the Polish and Czech border with Slovakia. It is and has for centuries been a crossroads town with a diverse population. Historically, Cieszyn was a tolerant and independent community made up of merchants and craftsmen.

In the Middle Ages, Cieszyn was a geographically ideal location for Jewish settlers. Jews were allowed to practice business freely and the proximity of Cieszyn to a variety of trade opportunities made that business lucrative. And so a Jewish community grew.

By the late 19th century, Jews made up 10 percent of the town's population. The rest of the population of Ciezsyn was a vibrant mix of Catholics, Protestants, Hungarians, Austrians, Czechs, and Germans. From about 1890 up to the outbreak of the First World War, Jews enjoyed political stability and security and economic prosperity in Cieszyn.

After World War I, political stability wavered as Ciezsyn was divided by the new border of Poland and Czechoslovakia. At the same time, the Schramek brothers returned from college in Vienna and started a cookie-making venture in a basement on the Polish side. They built up a factory and expanded into chocolate making. Even after one of the brothers died in 1932 and the future of Ciezsyn and Poland itself became uncertain, the factory continued to grow, and the 12 year old Hans Schramek envisioned one day inheriting the factory.

By 1939, the Schramek's candy factory had 500 employees. The town of Cieszyn had been reunited and had a Jewish population of about 3,000, still about 10 percent of the town. Hans Schramek was 19 years old when Germany invaded, and chose to remain behind in Cieszyn even as some family members fled the Nazi occupied country. The Third Reich issued its restrictions on Jews swiftly, and soon all Jewish businesses in Cieszyn, including the chocolate factory, were confiscated by the Nazis. The factory was sold to a German official at a steep discount.

Hans was forced to live in a ghetto and then shipped to various concentration camps, but managed to survive. After the war he attempted to reclaim his family's chocolate factory. But a lack of documentation and the rise of a new communist government in Poland made the reclamation impossible. In 1948, the candy factory was nationalized by the Polish government and the Schramek's appeal to a Polish high court was denied. In 1950, Hans Schramek and his mother left Europe and immigrated to Cleveland, OH.

Under Polish governmental control, the factory introduced the Prince Polo Bar, which was widely popular in the Eastern Bloc and even became the first widely available chocolate bar in Iceland. After the communist regime fell, Poland began to privatize its nationalized businesses, and in 1993 it sold the Schramek's factory to Kraft Foods, then a division of Phillip Morris.

The Schramek's have been fighting for their candy factory for over 50 years. They believe it was stolen from their family and should be returned. Kraft says it bought the factory in good faith and that the Polish Government has upheld the legitimacy of the sale, which is true.

But the situation brings up a moral responsibility debate that has been ongoing since the end of World War II: what can and or should be done to restore Jewish property stolen by the Third Reich?

According to the German government, a lot can and should and has been done. Germany has spent hundreds of billions of dollars satisfying Jewish claims of lost property from the Nazi regime. Since 1951, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (based in New York) has negotiated restitution for Holocaust victims on everything from real estate to artwork and family heirlooms. Forced labor compensation has also been addressed, though records in that area are sketchier and reparations are harder to calculate.

While Germany has provided retribution to surviving Jews worldwide for the atrocities of its recent past, the Polish government has done nothing. No legislation exists and therefore no legal precedent exists within the country to provide restitution to Jews, even in the case of the Schramek's chocolate factory, in which the claim to the property is relatively strong. Polish courts have ruled consistently against the claims of the Schramek family. As Hans Schramek told his daughter-in-law after Kraft bought the factory: "That factory belongs to us! No one ever compensated us for it! I am the legal heir to that business. I should have received millions of dollars for it!"

What is the United States doing to help the Schramek's and others like them? In short, a lot. The U.S. Government and various agencies, including the State Department's Office of Holocaust Issues, has put pressure on eastern European governments like Poland's to restore stolen property to its rightful Jewish owners. Thursday, the House Financial Services Committee heard testimony for the Holocaust Insurance Accountability Act of 2007. The act would provide accountability for thousands of bank accounts, insurance policies, and real estate claims that have gone uncompensated.

In 2008, the issue is increasingly more urgent and necessary. Holocaust survivors are aging and decreasing in number. Testimony to congress in October 2007 showed that as many of 1/4 of the remaining survivors are living in poverty. So if there is money or property in Eastern Europe that could benefit them, they should get it. Even if it's 50 years too late. Even if there really isn't enough money in the world to bring justice for the atrocities they experienced.

The Schramek's claim to the chocolate factory in Cieszyn can be rectified without government intervention. Kraft Foods is a large multinational corporation. The factory in Cieszyn, with its 250 employees represents only a small piece of that corporation. So it would not cost Kraft that much. in the grand scheme of things, to return the factory to its rightful owner. Kraft could see it this way, too - in time, legislation could obligate them to hand over millions of dollars in revenue to the Schramek family from years of selling the Eastern bloc's most popular candy bar.

It's about doing the right thing. And if it gets the factory back, the Schrameks should do the right thing, too. And it should allow the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland to use the factory as a reminder of the once vibrant community of Jews in the town of Cieszyn and perhaps a sign of a possible return. After all, the benefits and reparations provided by the German government to Jews has caused the Jewish community in Germany to grow and prosper again. Under the right circumstances, the same thing can happen in Poland. Especially in a town like Cieszyn, with its proud history of diversity and multiculturalism.

Hans Schramek died in 2006, at the age of 86. Now it is up to his family to champion the cause of his father and uncle's chocolate factory. Before he died, he got to taste a Prince Polo Bar, as made by Kraft. He quipped "They probably still use our recipes."

Further reading:
Holocaust Retribution Sought for Kraft Plant - by Greg Burns, Chicago Tribune 2/7/08
The Holocaust Insurance Accountability Act of 2007
Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany
Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland
Cieszyn web site - includes detailed history of the Jews in Cieszyn
http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/book_excerpt.asp?bookid=10881

Ya, L.P. Drow, Ya. Send E.W.

Beware, Bostonians, the Giants fanfaronade rolls on!

And it's Babe Ruth's birthday today. Too bad you people have won 2 World Series now and can't skulk about Babe Ruth anymore. I think Tom Brady just got sacked again, though.

The name of the football team that won the league championship game this year, combined with the name of the league championship game itself made it too easy for the headline writers this year. Here's some they could have used without employing the words "giant" or "super":

18-1. Simple as that. And 14-6 just wouldn't look right.

Patriot Putsch

A Brobdingnagian Achievement. (too magniloquent?)

This is an entirely tautological exercise. I think I'll stop. More words:

Galumphing - v. to be moving in a boisterous or clumsy way

Solferino - adj. of a red color tinged with purple

Diurnation - n. The habit of sleeping or being dormant during the day.

And the words I used before:
fanfaronade - n. bragging or blustering manner or behavior

putsch - n. A sudden attempt by a group to overthrow a government.

brobdingnagian - adj. of huge size; gigantic; enormous

magniloquent - adj. Lofty or grandiose in speech or expression; using a high-flown style of discourse; bombastic.

tautological - adj. needlessly repeating the same idea by using different words

Three words I can't spell correctly to save my life:

terrific - 2 Rs, 1 F, why is it so hard?

exercise - just sounds like there should be a C after the X. Like in "except"

receive - yeah I know, I before E except after C, but up yours the C sounds like an S and that rule is stupid.

and that's .W.E dneS .aY ,worD .P.L ,aY

**as always, thanks to wordsmith.org, dictionary.com, and The Big Word a Day Calendar from Avalanche Publishing

Story of the Week - Jan 28-Feb 1

So sue me, I waited until Monday morning to write this.

Super Weekend

It's going to be hard for me to forget my 25th Birthday and the weekend that followed. Almost all of it is sports related, but so what?

On Friday, the Mets bought me a $150 million birthday present, securing the services of "the best pitcher on the planet" (there are aparently better players on other planets, but the Mets are yet to set up an intergalactic scouting unit, so we're not sure.), Johan Santana. Instantly, the sports world says the Mets are the best team in the National League. I hope so.

Saturday, the Syracuse Orangemen (that's what they were called on my ticket, so I'm going with it) played an inspired game in Philadelphia against the Villanova Wildcats. After falling behind early, the Orangemen put together an 18-2 run and never relinquished. They kept 'Nova's offense off balance most of the game and were dominant on the defensive glass. And they did it all with just 7 players, as they'll have to do the rest of the season. The best part of the experience for me was a late basket that put Syracuse up by 16 and sent the majority of the crowd to the exits. It was such a good experience, I'll even spare the "philadelphia sucks" rant.

And then, there was Sunday. I'll keep it short, enough has been and will be written about Super Bowl XLII. But I'll just say this: The day the Mets finished their "historic collapse" (as it's come to be known) the Giants sacked the Eagle's Donovan McNabb a few hundred times en route to their second win. They were 2-2, and I was convinced they were at best an 8-8 team. I, like many other fans of the Giants, wanted Tom Coughlin out. Even after 6 straight wins, I was sure I was looking at an early exit from the playoffs and a long winter wait until Spring Training.
Then, they turned into a team I think I always thought they could be, but never thought they would be. And 6 weeks or so later, they do this: