Haven’t felt like blogging.  Just haven’t had much to say, but then I went to a Philadelphia Wings game and all that has changed.  For those of you that aren’t familiar with the Wings, they’re our indoor professional lacrosse team.  They play at the Wachovia Center which is where both the Sixers and the Flyers play so it’s a very nice facility and the tickets aren’t cheap.  Ours were $31/seat.  I’m telling you all this to establish that our expectations were that this would be, more or less, a normal professional sporting event.

Anyway, we go to the arena and the first thing we see upon entry is a gigantic display of 2007 Angels Calendars.  The Angels are the team’s all-white cheerleading squad.  At first glance, I thought they were all-blond, but, in fact, there are a few brunettes.  My bad.  The calendar is $10.  We walk right on by and head for our seats.  Highlights of previous games are playing on the JumboTron.  Cool.  I’m enjoying them.  I don’t know anything about lacrosse, but it seems neat.  Then there’s a fistfight.  Then another.  Hmm.  That seems odd to show in your highlight reel, but I don’t really have time to dwell on it because it’s now time to introduce the players.  Ours are met with the appropriate cheers.  One, I find out, is nicknamed “Mr. Saturday Night” and I wonder if he has ever seen that really bad Billy Crystal movie of the same name.  And, then, it’s time to introduce the other team’s players.  Now, I am accustomed to booing the opposition when they are announced, but that is apparently not what one does at an indoor lacrosse game.  Here’s how it went down.

Announcer:  Playing forward, Joe Smith.

Crowd:  SUCKS!

Announcer:  Playing defense, Dan Doe.

Crowd:  SUCKS!

They even said “SUCKS!” after the referees names were announced.  And, it wasn’t one or two people doing this or a rowdy section that you could blame, it was the entire stadium and they were loud.   Even the Angels, who were down on the field with the players, waved their tiny, tinselly pom-poms in unison with the chant.  Again, hmmm.

I can’t tell you much about the actual game other than to say that it was fun, that they play with hard-rock 1980’s music on in the background (for example, “Welcome to the Jungle”), and that our team won.  What I can tell you though is that during some sort of break in the action, Hooters girls pranced out onto the field and started throwing t-shirts into the crowd.  And towards the end of the game, for the grand finale, I guess, a ton of Wings’ employees came out and tossed cheesesteaks to us.  Real cheesesteaks.  My mom asked if they were wrapped and, yes, they were.  I can’t tell you if they were any good or not though because we weren’t lucky enough to catch one.  None reached row 22.  Even the ones heaved well and good only reached about row 10.  I guess they’re heavy cheesesteaks. 

 AI made his debut as a Nugget tonight.  The Nugget fans are lucky.

The movie I cried the hardest during was My Dog Skip.  It was a watershed moment for me; suddently, I went from being a perfectly sane person in a movie theater to a person who’s Ok with sobbing and taking shaky breaths in public.  Hmm.  Anyway, I did a lot of crying today too.  Not of the chest-heaving sort, thank God, but of the sniffling and eye-wiping kind.  Why the tears?  Well, I watched the Ironman World Championship.   Yes, that’s right, the sporting event where people swim for 2.5 miles, then bike over a 100, and then run a marathon.  Oh, I didn’t cry for the professional racers, they were fine, but I can’t relate.  They get me with the heart-warming stories–the Army Major who lost his leg in Iraq and is running with a prosthetic, the Dad who pulls his MS-afflicted son behind him in a boat during the swim, the 76-year old nun who finished, etc. etc.  I’m absolutely exhausted now.  Please excuse me while I go take a nap (just the reaction they were looking for, I’m sure).   

The Sixers are going to trade Allen Iverson.  I find this very very sad.  He’s so much fun to watch and such a great competitor; he’s irreplacable.  Sob!

Granted, the Sixers have lost 12 of 14, which isn’t good, but that can hardly be blamed on AI–C. Webb, I blame you, M. Cheeks, you too, show some spirit on the bench, Slumpy McSlumperson.  Anyway, AI’s apparently not happy (who would be?) and the attendance has been horrible, so he’s outta here.  I’m sure our mercenary front office would keep him if people were still flocking to the arena, but outrageous ticket prices coupled with a putrid team will keep even the die-hards away (my hand is raised). 

So, AI, thanks for the memories and, Sixers, if you’re going to continue to stink (which you undoubtedly will), at least lower your ticket prices. 

I don’t know why, but this story freaks me out.  It also seems like cheating, like a line has been crossed.  I guess my line of thought is. . .if it’s OK to clone the best barrel racing horse, then it’ll probably be OK to clone the best race horses too, and then we’ll just have little later-born identical twins of the best race horses of all-time running over and over.  Boring.  What makes sports so special is the fleeting nature of greatness, in horses, in teams, and. . .in people.  Please, no later-born Michael Jordan twins!

So this morning while I was getting dressed, I watched a little of our local morning show, Good Day Philadelphia.  It’s consistently horrifically bad–dumb stories, forced gaiety, people wearing hats.  Anyway, today, Jennaphr Fredrick (no, that’s not a typo and, as an aside, if you were Jennaphr, would you allow that picture to be placed on the Fox website?!) reported that chess’s world governing body, the World Chess Federation (FIDE), will introduce dope testing at the Asian Games.  Jennaphr then speculated that maybe they were testing for Red Bull.  I’m pretty sure she was serious. 

Anyway, although the consensus seems to be that there are no drugs that could actually help you play chess better, I bet some of the players use or have tried ADHD drugs (amphetamines, etc.) to help them focus.  

And, isn’t it amazing that Chess is now a sporting event?  They are trying to get it into the next Olympics (summer, I think).  If it makes the cut, poker should definitely be next.

Earlier on the blog, I talked about how funny it is that American celebrities are willing to do voice-overs for commercials, but not actually show themselves in US advertising campaigns.  Well, not Matthew McConaughey.  Here are two print ads from his Stetson cologne campaign.  When I first saw the one with him in profile, I thought, “that’s really kind of crappy of Stetson to find a Matthew McConaughey look-alike for this ad.”  Heh. 

I guess it’s really no different than Heather Locklear selling hair color or all the women stars who hawk make-up, but, for some reason, it seems a little weird.  Maybe Matthew just has a quirky sense of humor.  God knows, he’s probably laughing all the way to the bank!

As I was getting dressed this morning, I tried to watch some TV.  Good Morning America was doing some very important reporting-they were standing outside with a bunch of Nascar cars and drivers-so I changed the channel.  Unfortunately, The Today Show was also broadcasting from the great outdoors.  I don’t know what their story was as there was so much screaming in the background, you couldn’t actually hear what anyone was saying.  So, I ended up watching The Early Show (always a mistake) and witnessed a horrifying segment. 

Julie Chen interviewed a doctor about the new Sanofi-Aventis weight loss drug, Accomplia, which is currently available only in europe.  The problem is that Julie Chen appeared to know nothing whatsoever about the US drug industry or how a drug actually comes to market.  First, she asked, in rapid fire fashion, ”is the FDA right now testing it, looking at it, considering bringing it to the United States?”  Wha?  Julie, a pharmaceutical company submits a registration package of studies to the FDA, the FDA reviews the data and then decides whether to approve or not approve the drug.  The FDA is not in charge of “testing it” or “bringing it to the US;”  they only review the information given to them by the drug company.  Also, as an aside, Sanofi-Aventis has already submitted this drug to the FDA and the FDA asked for more information before they would issue a ruling.  What exactly the FDA wants to know is unknown.

Anyway, back to this horrendous interview. . .while trying to answer Julie’s ridiculous questions, the poor doctor mentions that the drug probably will not be called Accomplia in the US and Julie jumps all over this like Les Moonves’ millions.  Dear Julie, this is not news.  In fact, it is the norm for drugs to have different brand/trade names in different parts of the world, but Julie clearly does not know that because she ends the interview with, “we will stay tuned to find out if Accomplia makes it here and whats it’s called if it does.”  Good grief, she should’ve spent more time talking to Dr. Will; maybe he could’ve explained this to her. 

I love a Moleskine notebook.  I have bought several.  I have even written a few things down in them, but, similar to the blogging experience, I soon run out of things to say.  Today, though, I found out that Moleskine also makes planners.  Now that I use.  Daily.  Hourly, even.  Basically, if I don’t write it down in my planner, it doesn’t get done and, if I didn’t already have my 2007 planner half filled out (I know, NERD), I would totally be picking one of these beauties up.   Check out the red one.  

I’m going out of town on business today and this is what my husband tells me he’s eating for dinner while I’m going.  Now, if you haven’t seen the cleverly titled “Souper Meal” in person, these puppies are about twice the size of the regular cup of noodles.  Bon appetit!