Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 11:32 am posted by carolyn huckabay
maps.google.com
Where’s Waldo?
Sunday night at 8-ish, I drove around my East Passyunk neighborhood looking and looking and looking for a parking space and finally found one on the 900 block of teeny-tiny Fernon, between Tasker and Morris. This is not an unusual way to spend an evening.
The next morning, my car was gone — as were the rest of the vehicles on that block — replaced by monster street-destroying trucks, sitting there munching on the asphalt on which I’d treaded just 12 hours before.
Shit, the impound lot. I’ve seen Parking Wars. I don’t want to go there.
So I called 311, our non-emergency info line. The busy, sorta annoyed 311 folks told me that sometimes the city “relocates” cars for paving purposes, and that if I called the Streets Department they could tell me where exactly my car was. They transferred me.
The Streets Department lady, while griping that the 311 people shouldn’t have transferred me to her, was very helpful and looked up my plate number on various slow-moving computer screens till she eventually came to the conclusion that, since the relocation had just occurred, my plate probably wasn’t in the system yet. I should poke around the neighborhood, and if I still can’t find my car, call my local Police Department (holler, Fourth District).
So I poked. Up 10th street, down Ninth, in and out of the little streets I couldn’t imagine a tow truck could even squeeze through. I even walked up and down the aisles of the Acme parking lot like a crazy person, but nada.
This morning I called the Fourth District, and the busy, sorta annoyed lady on the phone told me that the tow companies who relocate cars for paving don’t record plate numbers, or where they put the cars. “It’s probably in a five-block radius of where you parked it,” she said. “Just look around for it, and if you don’t find it, call 911.”
Now, I don’t really consider this an emergency emergency — I don’t rely on my car, I just kinda want to, y’know, know where it is — so I’ll be spending the evening combing the streets of South Philly, again, on what’s starting to seem like a never-ending scavenger hunt for my silver Honda. (Which is, apparently, the same car everyone else in South Philly drives, too.)
Is this happening to other people? Is it taking you forever to actually find your relocated car? If the five-block-radius rule is true, then my car could be anywhere from Broad to Fourth, Federal to McKean. Wish me luck, and share your own relocation woes in the comments if you like.
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 2:07 pm posted by Patrick Rapa
pic from bleacherreport.com
Seriously: Young guy, been in town awhile, won it all with the Phantoms, winning record with the Flyers. I thought we were like, cool, he’s good. But then I saw this line in John Buccigross’ column in espn.com:
“I’d be shocked if John Stevens is the coach by the end of the season.”
Now, I like Bucci. He knows a lot of things about things. But I was like, no way, dude you been listening to too many Guster songs (which is to say: any Guster songs). Then I saw the comments his column inspired and holy crap. A lot of people think Stevens sucks. Like Flyersfan 1981, who says:
“I really hope Bucci is right about Stevens…I’ve been praying for his firing for about 2 seasons now…time for a coach in Philly, not a babysitter!!”
Praying? I was and am shocked, so I wrote to Buccigross and asked him to elaborate. He replied with two simple words, as I told my brother …
In the bizarre incident, two Flyers fans who took a bus trip to see their team play in New Jersey were critically stabbed by other Flyers fans who were awaiting the bus’ return at a bowling alley in Northeast Philadelphia, police said.
…
During the course of the argument, the cop’s 28-year-old brother was stabbed once in the chest and once in the back by a man in a Flyers’ jersey, Northeast Detectives said.
Another occupant of the bus, a 26-year-old man, was stabbed once in the back by a different assailant who also wore a Flyers jersey, this one with ripped sleeves, police said.
On the upside, the Flyers has look pretty amazing in their first two games. Ray Emery blanked the Canes on Friday, and a crazy, cannonballing offense destroyed Marty Brodeur and the Devils on Saturday. Thi Pronger guy’s pretty good, eh?
Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 1:36 pm posted by Isaiah Thompson
This week, CP got a call from a Northern Liberties resident with an unusual story. He, and about 50 other NoLibs residents, had attended a police town hall meeting on September 8. On his way out, he happened to pick up some literature that had been placed on a table by the door – in particular, three pamphlets entitled, “The Truth about Marijuana,” “The Truth About Pain Killers,” and “The Truth About Drugs.”
The pamphlets, he says, seemed ordinary enough at first. It wasn’t until he reached the end that he noticed the following tidbit:
“The first step is to understand why a person becomes trapped by drugs. In May 1969, when the international drug crisis was reaching its peak, author and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard wrote: ‘When a person is depressed or in pain and where he finds no physical relief from treatment, he will eventually discover for himself that drugs remove his symptoms. . .”
And this:
And for the person with a drug problem, there are also real solutions to addiction. Narconon, a drug rehabilitation program that utilizes the methods of L. Ron Hubbard, has a sucess rate of more than 75% . . .
The pamphlet, produced by a group called the Foundation for Drug-Free World (based in L.A.), it seems, was a piece of Scientologist literature.
Narconon, the group mentioned – and which has a name strikingly similar to Nar-anon, the mainstream Narcotics Anonymous organization – is, in fact, a Scientology-based drug rehab program that has caused plenty of controversey over the years.
So how did this pamphlet wind up at a police-sponsored meeting?
To find out, I called the 26th District Police headquarters and got Crime Prevention Officer Megan Fabrizio, who had attended the meeting and had herself helped arrange the materials on the table.
Officer Fabrizio said she didn’t know what I was talking about, but offered to dig up the box into which they had dumped everything on the table after the meeting.
To her surprise, she found the Scientology pamphlets buried in the pile.
“I don’t where they came from,” said Fabrizio. “They’re not mine. This is something I’ve never ever seen.”
Anybody, Officer Fabrizio pointed out, could have left them on that table.
Thursday, September 24th, 2009 at 1:32 pm posted by Patrick Rapa
Is that the lede of the decade or what?
The rest of the Daily News article — about the guy COP who tried to get blow jobs from baby cows — is disturbing. It’s hard to believe the guy got off. Sorry. But yeah, the animal-cruelty charges were dropped.
During a bizarre hearing there yesterday, a Superior Court judge dismissed animal-cruelty charges against a Moorestown police officer accused of sticking his penis into the mouths of five calves in rural Southampton in 2006, claiming a grand jury couldn’t infer whether the cows had been “tormented” or “puzzled” by the situation or even irritated that they’d been duped out of a meal.
“If the cow had the cognitive ability to form thought and speak, would it say, ‘Where’s the milk? I’m not getting any milk,’ ” Judge James J. Morley asked.
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 at 1:46 pm posted by Joshua Fernandez
source: ms.audubon.org
Residents living in the neighborhood surrounding Manayunk’s Dobson James School are welcoming some temporary neighbors. Early this week, flocks of chimney swift birds started roosting in the chimney of the elementary school, as well as other chimneys in the area.
Rich McIlhenny, a local realtor, took his children to Manayunk to see the chimney swifts at the school Thursday evening. McIlhenny, who filmed the birds, said that they appeared around 7 in the evening in great numbers, all swarming around the top of Dobson James School until they dove head-first into the chimney.
“It was like something out of a science fiction movie,” he said. “My kids were screaming because they looked look bats, so I explained to them that they were birds getting ready to roost.”
Monday, September 21st, 2009 at 1:00 pm posted by Brian Howard
Photo | Brian Howard’s Android
The code remains unbroken.
Spent the weekend out and about, catching the penultimate performance of Chunky Move’s Mortal Engine and the finale of A.W.A.R.D. Show. In the process, new clues were collected in this bizarre game of street code. To Pole, Spin, Was and Local we add Tame, Guess, Cancel, Monetize and Drum.
So far sightings have occurred on Second Street, Broad Street, Walnut Street and 20th Street. Does anyone out there in the Clogosphere have access to some kind of text analysis software or service? Typing all these words into Google produces no usable results.
I suppose the big question is this: Is there a route you could take that would make these words make sense?
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 at 4:05 pm posted by Brian Howard
Is anyone else seeing these reflector-tape words on city streets? I’ve seen a few already, but have been in transit and thus unable to snap them. This “was” is outside our office at Second and Chestnut.
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 9:00 am posted by Patrick Rapa
This would be funny if it weren’t the saddest, most frustrating, most infuriating thing I’ve ever seen. A reporter wanders the grounds of the 9/12 Tea Party protests in Washington D.C. and mostly lets these outraged citizens hang on their own words.
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at 10:29 am posted by Brian Howard
Claiming that the 525-mile distance between Philadelphia and the minimum security prison he’s been assigned to in Ashland, Kentucky, would be tough on his fiancee and children, Vincent Fumo is now challenging his prison assignment.
In today’s Inquirer, Peter Goldberger, one of Fumo’s defense attorneys, is quoted saying the choice of prisons “is on the outer edge of reasonableness,” which, come to think of it, should be this whole affair’s motto.
To wit:
From Fumo’s perspective, Ashland Federal Correctional Institution might have another drawback: It does not operate a residential drug- and alcohol-treatment program, according to the Bureau of Prisons’ Web site.
In recent court filings, Fumo has said that he was addicted to Xanax, an antianxiety medicine, and alcohol, and needed treatment.
By enrolling in a treatment program, he conceivably could cut up to a year off his sentence.
On Friday, Agenda editor Holly Otterbein posted about GERM Books’ UFO convention at the Caterpillar. Well, I went, and it was freaking great – and freaking strange. I didn’t exactly know what to expect besides conspiracy theorists sharing their experiences. It turned out to be exactly that, PowerPoint presentations and all.
Highlights included members of the Mutual UFO Network showing guests how to file UFO reports, a 65-year-old Philadelphian woman who’s encountered more than 20 sightings throughout her life, and a video from Temple University’s own David Jacobs, professor of one of the world’s only accredited UFO courses.
Oh, and the video above was pretty cool, too. Chris Augustin is another Philly resident who believes to have been living with an alien implant in his leg for more than 10 years, and was the MC of yesterday’s event. After showing the video, Augustin had plenty of interesting follow-up stories on his mysterious implant.
The takeaway? By God, guys, file a report if you think you saw anything, no matter how long ago it happened. You surely won’t be alone.
Strong rumors emerged that the fest would be held at the Coachella fair grounds at Indio, California. Many people started booking flights and rooms.
Then yesterday California was lifted off the map by four animated hot air balloons, causing all sorts of confusion.
Well as it turns out, Phish is still up to their sneaky ways. Zooming out from the map (in Firefox hit control-minus, or on Mac hit command-minus) and you’ll see California floating above the United States waiting, seemingly, to be placed back on the map.
Since no other state has remained behind it seems this is the first full clue as to the festival location.
UPDATE
Sooo…. um. They updated the map again tonight. Seems it was just a flash file version situation. Being a web person…. I’m gonna just back out of the room slowly now.
But I still say they are brilliant MF’s. All the frenzy over the location for weeks now is a prime example, I just bricked this call. D’oh.
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 9:54 am posted by Patrick Rapa
A South Philly resident called 311 to tell the proper authorities that there was a huge stinky pile of garbage at the corner of Wharton and Clarion streets. Some 68 hours later, it was still there. So they decided to make a video of the trash. Note to filmmaker: Shooting in the choppy, ominous style of Dateline — complete with spooky re-enactment-of-the-murder music — was a brilliant decision. However, further reporting would’ve been nice, since it’s pretty obvious one of your neighbors either moved out or started a renovation project and dumped all that crap on a non-trash day. Also, the video’s a bit too long. This is the Internet, by the time we get to minute two, we’re expecting to see a human hand or a giant rat in there. Otherwise, I dig the video.
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