Today is D-Day!

Biggest party of the year today in PA.  Time to show up in strong numbers and let them know why we are called New Yorkers.

In either case my brother better have the welcoming committee present because I am going to drink and drink and drink……….and drink……………and drink………………and drink and drink.  OK enough!  You get the idea.  Even thought I felt like crap all week I think I pulled it together just enough to qualify for cutting loose.  Plenty of food to keep me tame though.  More to report on that later.

How about those Bronx Bombers?  Sloppy!  But it’s almost like I told some coworkers when the Sox last came to the Bronx.  The boys needed to punch them in the mouth to the tune of 12 runs.  They guys went and did it to the tune of 13.  I said the same thing about a punch in the mouth before last night’s game.  I had no idea the Bombers would kick the Sox in the head because that’s exactly what that was.  A revved up kick in the head.  11 runs should not have made the board by the Sox, but it was a lot of sloppy defense last night and hopefully it will be put behind them.

I will be tuning in from my car radio today.  Good luck guys!  Time to get the party started!

The boys of summer are back!

They have won 5 games in a row.  During last nights in clubhouse post game interview someone was playing “I’ve got 5 on it” by Luniz which is seriously old.  Very symbolic of the current streak and I know exactly who’s responsible and his name is Nick Swisher who is the absolute pulse of that clubhouse.

The Red Sox now sit 7.5 games back in the division with a serious match up looming on the coming Friday in Fenway after their loss last night which has them at 0.5 games up in the Wild Card race over the team they lost to the Texas Rangers.  However these Red Sox pitchers are getting way out of hand.  For some reason they felt the need to through up and in to Ian Kinsler.  It just missed his head in that at bat.  His next at bat in the game they finally nail him on the head.  You can’t tell me that wasn’t intentional at least trying to hit him.

At least David Wright’s hit to the head wasn’t intentional but it doesn’t make it much better since he took it extremely bad and was out for at least a minute.

Other than that life will go on.  My brother’s big get together is next weekend.  I seriously can’t wait.  Lots of beer to be bought very soon.  The trek to PA will be a good one and hopefully the weather holds out.  The beer list includes Sierra Nevada Torpedo, Dogfish Head 60 minute, Arrogant Bastard, and Green Flash West Coast IPA!  Can’t go wrong there at all.  Cheers to a good summer.

The Winner Is….

Green Flash!

No question about it.  Sad to say when you put the two next to one another it blows the Unearthly out of the water.

So how about them Bronx Bombers.  Good to see Phil Hughes regain his form back in the place where he last had it before he went on the DL sending him into the year long rut he had last season.

Wondering where does this leave Wang.

I am certifiably drunk right now!  Here’s to the AFL!!

Beer taste test to begin shortly…

So in the war of the IPAs I can say I’ve gone from Stone India IPA, DogFish Head 60 Minute IPA, Smuttynose IPA and now for the first time I will taste Green Flash IPA which is currently at the top of the “Three Headed Monster” best IPA list, but it sits there untested.  Untested against the long standing top of that list has been Southern Tier Unearthly IPA and for the first time TONIGHT, I will put the two of them in a head to head battle to see who walks away with the crown.  The kids are currently finishing up watching Wall-E and as soon as it’s over, the beers take over in a pound for pound bought.

Details to follow.

On a side note I had an idea of trying to look into opening up a bar downstairs in one of the retail spaces in my new building.  Looks like I was beaten to the punch.  As I stood outside last night knocking in a cig I looked at the buildings department permit on one of the retail spaces and it said work being done for a “drinking establishment”.   I knew right then and there the idea was ran into the ground.  However, I am interested in seeing what type of place this is going to be and if there is any chance at throwing some influence in there….trust me I’m going to throw every last bit of it as humanly possible.

The sight of all of these potential new retail spaces, as much as 4 in my building alone and as much as 7 on this block total, brings on a new fear.  PARKING METERS.  I swear I will fight the thought until my last breath.  This is a residential block for the most part.  Leave it as such!  Now it’s time!  Let the taste testing war begin!

(Unnamed Team) continues to burn in the Bronx

Seems like the Tin man has found his heart.  I couldn’t be any more pleased than I am right now.  I will continue to be brief when talking about the (blank).

As for some recent action.  Just came back from seeing Terminator Salvation.

It gets an A- for sure.  It recaptured that old magic from the original for reasons I can’t disclose to avoid being a spoiler.  It tied up a host of loose ends from the original and some others spread out over 25 years.  Can’t argue with it at all.  Now the question is will the following productions live up to snuff?  I have my doubts.

Congratulations to a good friend who graduated from Columbia U on Wednesday.  Definitely a crowning achievement!

Still can’t believe the Cavs lost game one at home.  There will be hell to pay for the Magic in game 2 I’m sure because Bron has got to be pissed.

My weekend will be spent at home as I mentioned a couple of posts ago.  That’s fine.  But Friday night is mine.  HAPPY HOUR BABY!  G is coming home!

Good night/good morning!

The Yankees are horrible!

And before anyone comes at me with a comment telling me not to panic……

This is not a panic, this is pure utter disgust!  You don’t ever in your life time lose FIVE STRAIGHT GAMES TO YOUR DIVISION RIVAL!

The only thing that saves this from being any worse than what it already is, may be the fact that they didn’t lose 5 games straight in a five game series like the Red Sox did in 2005 when the Yankees did it to them.  It’s bad enough though because as proven by that Yankee team when they forced the Red Sox out of the post season.  You don’t get anywhere in the division when you lose five straight to your division rival.  This is not a key part of the season, but it’s still bad enough and it’s embarrassing to say the least.  The Yankees need to find a back bone and get their acts together.  I still am not proud of this team!

Oh and yes I had a drink, but it has nothing to do with this.  I’m still purely disgusted!

A little softball and the three headed monster strikes again.

So finally we hit the fields for some softball on Saturday and it made for some interesting fun.  Decent showing with Abe, Brian, Chris, Issac, James, John and Ramona cheering everyone on from the sides.  We got a little per batter game going and I’m being told I knocked in 21 runs on my turn.  First off, I don’t believe it and secondly, if that remotely happened I think it’s time we get more people out on the field for the next go around.

Slightly sore today, but wasn’t yesterday, which is a little strange even for me.  All of this went down as the Yankees gagged on their own genitalia against the Angels, which blasted on John’s radio to the tune of a 8-4 loss and if not for a valiant effort in the 9th it would have ended 8-1.  Pride and pinstripes, eh?  Well I still don’t feel like talking about this team now matter how many they won straight up until that loss.

So as we broke game or what portions of it seemed like a game, James and I made our way over to Whole Foods where he filled his growlers to the brim with some new stuff on tap and after which we rode up to Sprint where he went to pick up his hopefully debricked phone only to find it has been replaced free of charge by the store with a new one.  Now that is FTW.

Next stop 33rd Street as we drop in to Rattle N Hum to see one of the smarter bartenders around the city, Patrick put some work in.  James and I tried the new Dogfish Head Paulo Santo and at 12% we were nice!  Got the chance to watch the end of the Mets vs Phils game and of course we got into a little friendly banter with a Met fan, but the Sean Green walk silenced him.  After that we fly uptown on Madison Avenue until we reach my street where we stop in at my place to drop off his growlers to chill in the fridge.  Off to Fairway since I didn’t do my shopping on Friday.  We pick up a six pack of Southern Tier Old Man Winter Ale.  Add that to his two growlers along with my growler full of Double Bastard along with the next six pack and a Dogfish 60 Min remaining in the fridge and Punisher: War Zone on the tube.  Jacob came by to conclude the missing piece of the three headed monster as we took in the beer.  It all made for a pretty good night.

Honorable mention: Kate Winslet is one of these best actresses by far for a multitude of reasons I will refrain from mentioning now.

Either next Friday or the one after I am planning a return to Drop Off Service.  It’s been a while for me and I have a crowd of regulars to hang out with, who may or may not be looking for me.  However Rattle N Hum is my new spot on 33rd Street.  Best Craft brew bar in the city.  No Stella on tap!  No crap on tap!  No Bud, no Miller, no Coors, no watered down beers on tap.  Only the craft micro brews and that my friends is FTW!

I still don’t feel like talking about the Yanks

Especially after the 6 run inning they just gave up.

Well haven’t blogged since…..well I’m too lazy to check and really I don’t care.  It’s the weekend and it’s time for some action.  On tap for tomorrow?  Softball!  It’s been too long since I swung a bat so I’m anxious to get it done.  I gotta at least live a little part of the dream that never came true.  I still love the fact that I somehow can hit to opposite field at will with either a good hard drive or a drop in bloop like hit.  Like last year when John told me to hit one to right field in towards Charles when I couldn’t hit all game long.  Beautiful way to get me to focus.  I’ll never forget that one.

I’m getting all nostalgic and we still don’t know if the weather will hold up or if the field will even bee in playable condition.

Normal week at work for a good change so no complaints there.

Just bought the Verizon Wireless Voyager for the wife so she’s as excited as can be.  Good for her, now I don’t have to listen to that hand me down banter no more.  She’s still a biter for getting the same phone as me but oh well.  I’m thinking over the iphone if Verizon and Apple come to terms, but I doubt I’ll do it.  I love having a qwerty board on the inside of a touch screen phone.  It makes LIFE, and yes I said life so much simpler.

Running low on bottled beer, but I still have a full growler in the fridge.  Oh yes baby it’s go time!

Oh and one more thing.  Atomic Wings and there are a number of them around the NYC.  Go in there and get the chicken wings or the chicken fingers and order the Insane suicidal, which is the hottest they offer.  TERRIFIC!  Keep some water nearby for those of you who can barely handle a little heat on the tongue.  Don’t take that out of context neither!

Terrific weekend until….

Well I guess it still ended OK.

So Saturday I took off to my brother’s place in East Stroudsburg, PA to pick up a couple of air conditioners he was passing off to me since he didn’t need them anymore.  He moved there from NJ in September and his new house has central air conditioning.  He’s tucked away deep in the woods.  There are plenty of houses around his but to give a sufficient description of the type of area of PA I am talking about.  For every house out there, the deer population probably has a number to match.  And I saw two of those by the way.  The first one was dead on the side of the road on my way out to his place.  The other I saw deep in the woods behind his house while standing on his back deck.

The trip itself was about an hour drive from my parents’ place in NJ.  Took me from GSP to I-280 to I-80.

Going out there I find myself becoming a regular BYOB person since there are only two other people I know who drink the type of intense beer I drink on a regular basis.  Two Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPAs and one Smuttynose IPA.  I left the one stone beer I had in the fridge and along the way by request I picked up a Smirnoff party pack (booooooooooooooo) and a six pack of Sam Adams Cherry Wheat for my brother since I have successfully converted him that far.

Listened to the Yanks-Sox game on the way out when the Yankees were leading.  Didn’t really get to listen when the Red Sox passed them and damn glad for it.

After arriving at his place we drank and talked.  I had my wife and kids with me.  Kids seemed to enjoy it.  I know the Mrs did since she was definitely intoxicated even though she would deny such.  My brother’s friends showed up as this turned into the first barbecue of the year for him.  His step daughter had a whole host of her teenage friends over and they ate like teenagers.  SERIOUSLY!!!!

Here comes that until part….

Now mind you this is gun country so I know you can buy one at a local candy store with no big deal type reasoning.  Point in being so direct with this is because while talking to my bro in the backyard we both heard a host of shots.  About nine back to back and they all sounded a bit muffled.  I didn’t think anything of it.  The woods are around and maybe someone is testing their gun right?  That’s until I heard the last three shots in what is now a total of 12 and these shots came with clear unobstructed sound.

So now the teenagers go running to the back of the house.  Still I am not thinking to much of this and I tell my brother that they are probably running for nothing.  So we walk around the side of the house to the front to see for sure ourselves.  As we reach his driveway and stand behind one of the many cars parked in it, we see a guy about 19 years of age running towards the house across the street with a gun in hand.  He drops the mag clip on the walkway leading up to the stairs at the front of that house.  He stops to pick it up and runs the gun inside the house.  My brother sees a guy about 23 standing further away next to a car in the street.  Bloody nose, bloody mouth, blood covered chest and blood covered shorts.  My brother says the guy is calling the cops and begins walking over there.  I tell him to take it easy because the kid is in the house with the gun.  He keeps walking.  I say it again.  He keeps walking and then the kid comes jumping out of the house without the gun, but I still jump until I’m sure.

So the guy who was on the phone with the cops tells my brother as he is on the phone calling the cops that he shot his best friend inside the house.  12 TIMES!  He claimed it was self defense.  Fine whatever.  So after listening to this over and over the guy passes out in front of us.  I guess he really got his ass kicked in this fight because that’s how it started, as a fight in the street that got carried into the house.  So after his little brother helped him regain conciseness the cops began arriving after receiving directions on how to get there from my brother’s girlfriend.

This cop jumps out of the vehicle with a fully loaded assault rifle.  The type I have never seen before.  Not in the hands of NYPD ESU officers or even by men and women in the armed forces.  (Homeland dollars are work here along with a dropping of the assault weapons ban)  He tells the shooter to come to the car where he checks him for weapons and have him placed in cuffs and in the back of one of the vehicles.  More cops show up in Chargers and SUVs all carrying the same weapons.  They storm the house two by four by two formation where they find the man still alive, but holding a gun.  I can hear them yelling for him to drop it as they clear the house.

Ambulance is finally called and they arrive five minutes later.  Cops originally got there 15 minutes after the initial call to them.  (Obviously this is not NYC)

This link can tell the rest of the news story….WEP Story

After the incident while talking to some of my brother’s friends who saw something. Apparently the shooter lives at the house. According to them he was having a get together at the house. As the fight began a number of people had already left because of the mention or showing of a possible gun. Two remain thought. The victim an another unidentified individual who helped the victim to beat up the shooter outside the house according to what I was told. But it didn’t end there. After the shooter was knocked out cold on the ground outside the house the two guys came back to pick him up where they kneed him in his own doorway and took him back inside to kick his ass some more. Now how he mustered the strength to go get the gun is beyond me but he looked as if he was put through a war. Hell he is a vet so his training showed through is shots he took. Self-defense or whatever you call it. It was nuts!

So hours after back on the way home. I stop at three gas stations and the first two were closed. Then the bridge traffic was devastating! Back in the city at 1:15 and everyone was still out on the streets and when I say everyone I mean EVERYONE!!!! The cops were out in force to keep them all in check and back home I was. Ready for bed. Crazy weekend and the first hot one. Summer’s beginning too soon from what it seems.

Yankees were in a groove

That one put a bitter taste in my mouth.  I had to Stone beer wash that nasty taste out after such a horrible game and a horrible display of bullpen management by panicking Girardi.  So he brings Phil Coke in to get Joba out of his game with one out in the 6th and Coke succeeds.  Terrific!!!!  Now Coke comes back out for the 7th and gives up a two out hit with no one on base.  Panicking Girardi comes out to get him for Abaladajo to take over.  I like to call him Abalawhatchamacallhim.  So Abalawhogivesadamn comes back out for the 8th and once again another bullpen pitcher gives up a two out hit with no one on base.  Here comes the man who loves to sweat and make you sweat with him.  God forbid you let a guy try to pitch with a runner on first and two outs and a 0-1 count to the very next batter.  Statistically speaking that always leads to a run. (intense sarcasm)  Mo comes in and gives up a bloop single to center.  Fine he’s capable of those and after all these years you would think the defense would be aligned more to cover that because when Mo breaks he gives up bomb shots.  Not warning track stuff, but SHOTS!  So why not play center a little more in especially since he’s pitching to Jacoby Ellsbury who is batting lefty.  The kid obviously is not going to turn on one so if he does get something it’s going to center or he will be late and it will go to left.  But no one learns anything from oh….let’s see….2001 and Luis Gonzalez or the 2004 Red Sox when they took Mo to task or even the 97 Indians who basically pissed MO off for the next three years straight after that.  Sorry for getting side tracked.

But now Mo has to pitch to ANOTHER BATTER who he gets out.  Fine!  Now we go to the bottom of the 9th and things are going OK.  He still has thrown a lot of pitches especially in the 9th and it’s THE FIRST GAME OF THE SERIES WITH THE FREAKIN RED SOX.  Can we at least wait until Sunday or maybe even Saturday before we start going overkill?    the Bay homer.  I saw that coming in the 8th.  Bastard said he wouldn’t sent Mo out there for more three outs and you break that promise in the first of what will be 17 more contests against the Sox.  The team that knows him best.  Where was the protection for Mo?  The Sox had plenty of time to see how well his pitches were breaking to the point that they got their read and got the job done.  Torre made this same mistake years ago.

Now we are in the second consecutive extra innings contest, but against the team where the Yankees can’t find a way to play a game in under 4 and a half hours.  I refuse to talk about the ending.  But it would have been nice to trust the pen to handle ONE OUT on two occasions earlier and save Mo for the 9th instead of letting Bay get the word in the dugout from his teammate Jacoby on how he got that blooper the previous inning.

Yes I’m back seat managing.  It comes with the terroritory in NY.