America's Air Force, No One Comes Close....

...to this stupidity!

Congrats to my beloved service for stealing the front page of every New York paper this morning thanks to some nifty Lower Manhattan hijinx:

"Air Farce One" played out over lower Manhattan yesterday -- in a terrifyingly bizarre military photo op that sent office workers fleeing from their buildings fearing a new 9/11-type attack. (link)

And this raw video gets interesting around the 39 second mark:

The slams don't stop with the press. One of the blowhards on the train this morning recounted no less than three times the fact that the PA in his building announced:

Attention, this building is not under imminent threat of attack at this moment.

"I didn't even know they were evacuating the buildings at that point," he exclaimed in a volume highly inappropriate for a train running at 6:49 a.m.

One interesting point: I first learned of this via a friend's facebook update. I've got a tv on my desk and about 5 minutes later, FoxNews started reporting it and the story caught fire. Between the on-scene cell phone videos and status updates, this iReporting/citizen journalism deal really has something going.

In closing, I think today I'll play down my Air Force ties for once. Although I'd love to be the PA assigned to this bad boy.

This is upsetting

The Yanks really have me on an emotional roller coaster this year. They're up and down on the field and I've documented how I'm torn over our whole ticket situation. Thankfully, it looks like the Pinstripe brass is learning the harsh realities of picking the worst time ever to build a $1 billion-plus baseball palace (see photo below, we're voting with our feet/butts):


Plenty of seats to go around

And then I read this, and this is almost the last straw. Stuff like this also helps me fully understand why there were only like 350 people at the A's game Wednesday:

As anyone who’s tried to sit in the bleachers for batting practice at the new Yankee Stadium could tell you, the Yankees are serious about making sure you have the proper ticket for the proper area of their new digs. (On YES, Paul O’Neill had even commented that he was turned away from the Yankees clubhouse because he didn’t have his credentials on him.) But this is going too far: Over the weekend, unofficial fan mascot Freddy Schuman (better known as Freddy “Sez,” of colorful sign-and-frying-pan fame) was denied entry to Yankee Stadium.

In the past, Schuman, 83, had either received tickets from a sponsor (like Modell’s) or was simply allowed to enter through the press gate. Which makes sense: He’s a stadium mainstay, and doesn’t occupy a seat anyway. (When we were at Fordham, where he occasionally would bring his pan to basketball games, he’d get the red-carpet treatment: press pass, lunch in the press room, the works.) He was even allowed entrance on Opening Day, through the press gate as usual. But all this weekend, he was turned away by stadium security.

So Freddy was forced to beg for a ticket, holding a sign that read “I can’t go in. Must buy ticket!” which is the saddest Yankee Stadium image we can possibly imagine. Luckily, fans came through by giving him tickets — costing upwards of $100. The Yankees chalked it up to “miscommunication,” which it better be. Because otherwise, we’re ready to trademark “The Curse of Freddy ‘Sez,’ ” which would clearly bring the Yankees decades, if not centuries, of bad karma in their new stadium.

Me and Freddy in Happier Times

The Yanks swung and missed here (what a stupid pun). First, he doesn't sit down during the game, he's walking around the whole time (not that the Yanks aren't hurting for empty seats--against the A's yesterday, it looked like Tropicana Field circa 2002).

Second, the guy's a freaking part of the experience, and it was always fun to see Freddy come around our seats in the 7th inning. Of course, if we ended up in the seats that the Yanks offered, who knows when he'd get out to right field.

Finally, give us some credit for being savvy here in New York. If we feel that you don't respect us or that you think we're suckers, we're going to tell you where you can stick your new stadium. In this economy, the suits better be careful--their failure to recognize realities already generated a season's worth of bad press six games in. Time to start treading lightly and let Freddy in.


From NY Magazine via NY Post

Our New Seats at Yankee Stadium

We received word yesterday from the Yanks about our seat reassignment. Mind you, Morganobrien.com Jr. has had seats at the big ballpark in the Bronx since 1976, when I was not yet around. And after I arrived on the planet, sent to Earth from Krypton by my father Jor-El, I've only known the ballpark on the corner of River Ave and 161st St. as baseball's home office.


Our Seats in the Old Stadium: Section 220
Third base line, behind the plate

So here's the deal:

- In the old ballpark, we were on the 3rd base side of home, about 20 rows off the field
- In our reassigned seats, we're in right field, Section 103, Row 13, Seats 21-24:


We'd be four rows back, right next to the bullpen

- Our tickets in the old ballpark included access to the exclusive Pinstripe Pub and cost $85/per seat.
- The new ballpark does not have a Pinstripe Pub equivalent and the seats cost $100/pop.

(Ed. note- I'm not even going to go into the economy argument here, but the price increase--while mitigated by 5 less games--still stings).

- The old plan provided 46 dates, none on the weekend.
- The new plan provides 41 dates, alternating games. So we get Opening Day* and a bunch of weekends. Our best sellers on StubHub last season were Boston and the NY Mets. Under the new plan, we only get 4 Red Sox games, but 2 of the Mets games.

As a life-long Yankee diehard, it goes without saying that I'm conflicted about what we should do.

Last year was terrific. I was back home after 10 years and was able to give the old ballpark a last go 'round. I went to an All-Star game and saw Josh Hamilton DESTROY the Home Run Derby. While they failed to reach the postseason, by all accounts, 2008 was a fitting sendoff for the old place. And for obvious reasons, I don't feel the same affinity towards the new place.

And as for the new seats, call me a Paul O'Neill fan but I like looking my right fielder in the eye. Staring at the back of the player manning that hallowed ground just wouldn't feel right.

One final factor is that I figure to move to DC this summer, putting a cramp in the flexibility of my StubHub prowess and the Acela won't get me to the Bronx by gametime on weeknights.


Our location in the New Yankee Stadium, Right Field


I can only imagine the joy my old man would derive from conversating with Manny Delcarmen as he manned the seat right next to the visitor's bullpen

So tell me, friends and family what should we do? Should we renew? Your comments are appreciated (serious comments only, please).

*It should be noted that the Chicago Cubs will play the Yanks in an exhibition before Opening Day

God Bless the New York Post

Sometimes, I can't believe what I read in the papers. Not that what's there isn't true--simply, I can't believe that some details actually make it to print. Like Rome under Nero...

Yesterday, two articles covering high-profile cases jumped out at me from the pages of the New York Post.

First was the piece on the now-notorious Long Island doctor that donated a kidney to his allegedly adulterous wife, and now he wants either the kidney back or $1.5 million. Great story, makes for great copy, but the Post loves to take things to the next level:

KIDNEY WOMAN DENIES AFFAIR
By SELIM ALGAR

Adultery, paranoia and ladies undergarments were all hot topics inside a Long Island courtroom today where a surgeon who gave his wife a kidney is asking her to give him $1.5 million in compensation since they're getting divorced.

The lawyer for Dawnell Batista, 44, asked Judge Jeffrey Grob to place a gag order on the case after her estranged husband, Richard Batista, held a news conference last week accusing her of adultery.

Though Grob denied the motion, lawyer Douglas Rothkopf also argued that his client was the victim of a "hyper-suspicious" husband and that no adultery had ever taken place.

"He would rummage through her underwear drawer sniffing her underwear (emphasis mine)[to see if she had cheated]," Rothkopf said inside a Mineola courtroom.(link)

I mean, you're a doctor. For starters, isn't there a more clinical (less barbaric) way to tell if your wife's been unfaithful? Couldn't you hire a PI?

The second story regards Knicks center Eddie Curry, who's found himself on the business end of a gay sexual harassment suit. Now I don't know if Eddie's guilty, and the details of his personal life really aren't anybodies business, especially if this is true:

KNICK SLAPPED WITH SEX-HARASS SUIT

By MELISSA JANE KRONFELD and BRUCE GOLDING

Knicks center Eddy Curry was slapped with a shocking sex-harassment suit Monday by his former driver, who claims the 6-foot-11 hoopster tried to solicit gay sex from him.

The stunning court papers claim Curry, a married father of three, repeatedly approached chauffeur David Kuchinsky "in the nude," allegedly telling him, "Look at me, Dave, look" and "Come and touch it, Dave."

Curry also made Kuchinsky perform "humiliating tasks outside the scope of his employment, such as cleaning up and removing dirty towels [Curry had ejaculated into] (again, emphasis mine) so that his wife would not see them," the Manhattan federal court suit says.

(Link)

Towels? Come on, Eddie. I get the whole "greening" trend (towels leave a lesser carbon footprint than, say tissues), but there's gotta be a more discrete way of handling one's business. And why does that factoid have to end up in the story?

Needless to say, you didn't get these types of stories in the Albuquerque Journal...Only in New York, only in New York.