The Bell Curve

City Paper's Quality-o-Life-o-Meter

0 The Eagles put out a call for paid volunteers to help clear snow for the 49ers game. But the team got to keep any fingers still stuck to the shovels when it was over.

- 1 The Philadelphia Orchestra heads into another year without a musical director. And it is a mess. Nobody's facing the same way, or playing the same songs. Everybody's got their shirts untucked and shoes untied. The trumpet dudes are blowing into the wrong end. The flute ladies are using their noses. The one violinist is bowing a cat. A cat!

+ 1 Mobster Louis "Bent Finger Lou" Monacello pleads guilty for arranging to have Martin Angelina assaulted. "I 'fessed up because I just felt so bad about it," says Monacello. "He's not the guy I was pointing at, but I've got this dang squiggly digit. Had it all my life and I still make fuck-ups like this. I deserve to go to jail."

- 4 No criminal charges are filed against Common Pleas Court Judge Willis W. Berry Jr. for running a real estate business out of his chambers. "I'm above the law," says judge. "Go ahead. Somebody else fuck with me."

- 3 Nine L&I workers are charged with stealing from Northeast residents while serving on an anti-blight cleanup crew. Little on the nose, L&I, wouldn't you say?

+ 1 The Dad Vail regatta returns to the Schuylkill after organizers found that problems outweighed benefits at the new Rumson, N.J., site. "They gave me the 'It's not you, it's me' speech," sighs Jersey Devil. "But I know it's me. It's 'cause I eat all the little peoples in the canoes."

+ 7 Rob McElhenney and Kaitlin Olson, aka Mac and Sweet Dee from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, invest in an Old City bar. Little on the nose, Always Sunny, wouldn't you say?

- 5 Philadelphia Gas Works requests a ratings hike from state regulators. "We're a monopoly," says PGW. "You don't like it, go curl up on a heat rock like a fuckin' pet store chameleon."

This week's total: -3

Last week's total: 1