Handbill Handout

Around 6 weeks ago I put in to get tickets to a Phillies game at the office. The Mrs. and I sort of "collect" ballparks and we hadn't been to the new Phillies park yet and we figured why not go down the last weekend of the regular season, they're playing a crummy team and the game probably won't matter anyway so it should be an easy ticket from work and it was. So that's how we wound up witnessing the Phillies clinch the NL East on Saturday from a skybox in which we were served free champagne right after the final out. The game also brought our Major League Baseball stadium total to 16 near as we can figure. We've probably been to almost that many minor league parks as well. I complain pretty often about my job, but once in a while it comes through with a cool perk like that. It was a big sports day in South Philly as the Flyers played their last game in the Spectrum. It was a preseason game vs. Carolina at 1pm and some folks were late arriving to...

I walked into the elevator lobby and a sound not entirely unlike thunder or maybe a hundred bowling balls falling out of a closet boomed over my head. I looked over at the office services guy who was waiting for the elevator and said “What the hell was that?” “Financial firm upstairs. They’re gone. Taking all their stuff out today. Wheeling it out in those big hampers.” So it continues. I walked across Times Square and looked up at the Lehman Brothers building and saw that the video of waterfalls and sunsets and other stuff that is kind of like the stuff that they put on airline television screens during boarding interspersed with the Lehman logo and whatever their slogan was gone. In its place was a static, bright blue plain screen with the Barclays logo. I looked at the reflection on the building across the street and wondered how the people who worked there felt about the constant, static blue light burning at them all day instead of the old video. At my corner there’s a card store...

Some of you may remember when I wrote about properly positioning yourself on subway platforms and other keys to executing a successful commute. Many who don’t go through the relentless daily grind of trying to transport yourself more than a couple miles within the tri-state area probably thought I was insane, or some kind of obsessive at the very least. Well, I’m not alone. The notion of properly positioning yourself on the subway went mainstream today in a NY Times article . I quote: “Which side of the car should you stand on?" “The nonplatform side, so you’re not hurled onto the platform at the next stop by angry-looking passengers” getting on or off, Mr. Russianoff said. “I grew up on the D line, the Brighton line, in Brooklyn. It opens on either side, depending. To know the 11 stations from Sheepshead Bay to DeKalb Avenue, that’s knowledge given only to native sons and daughters. You ping-pong back and forth.” What subway car should you ride in if you’re going to Yankee Stadi...

Ken Freedman supplies the soundtrack to the global economic collapse here .

So the early word out of Rangers camp is that the organization wants more productivity out of the fourth line. Blair Betts in particular. Um, OK, I may not pay as close attention to all of the nuances of the Rangers like I used to but it seems to me that dumping on a hard-working, reliable, shot-blocking forward who is an anchor on your penalty killing unit is a dumb way to open camp. So of course Sather follows it up by doing what he always does when in doubt: picking up another talented, soft forward with a questionable work ethic. Hello Petr Nedved , we never missed you while you were gone. Yes, the masterstroke to force Blair Betts into scoring more goals is to dig Petr Nedved out from the bottom of God-knows-what European league scrap heap he was quietly moldering in. Sounds like genius to you too, right? I mean seriously, Alexdander Daigle wasn't available? Alexei Yashin wanted too much money? If you're really going to put pressure on Betts , how about bringing in...

I am sitting in a midtown pub tucking into a chicken wrap and a pint when the thought strikes me. Is anyone in here a telemarketer? I had, quite by accident, a nice chat with a telemarketer the evening before at my office. The phone rang and the caller ID came up with a number I didn ’t recognize but for some reason thought might be a recruiter come to offer me the Dream Job of a Lifetime to Take Me Away From All Of This (I was working late and the prospect of employment anywhere else seemed like a good idea at the time). Instead it was a telemarketer. On my work phone. The area code was 515 which Google reveals is in Iowa. Des Moines particularly. I didn ’t realize she was a telemarketer at the outset because she said she was calling on behalf of a company that my company is partnered with on a particular venture. I stayed on the line thinking she was going to offer me That Job. Instead, she offered me something that I could get for free from work. I told her this and she laughed. Th...