A Brooklyn Jabroni Christmas

This is well-done, and not much of a theatrical distortion either - for those of us familiar with Brooklyn (and South Philly).

Click the hyperlink above, Morons.

Coney Island - An Experience

Yesterday we took the kids to the Aquarium on Coney Island. That area, I leaned, is not actually an island. It's just the beach on south central Brooklyn.

The aquarium was fine because it was free and because my kids liked it. We joined the Bronx Zoo a couple months ago and that pass gets us into the aquarium with free parking (an otherwise $57 value).

After that we walked a couple hundred yards down the famous Coney Island boardwalk - something I'd never done before. There were plenty of rides, games, weirdos, beer, and fried food there. I felt compelled to buy a hot dog at the *world-famous* Nathan's but wouldn't recommend that to anyone, EVER. The service there might have been the worst I have ever seen in an eatery in my entire life. It took me 20 minutes to get through a 5 person line FOR HOT DOGS.

Yeah, and the hot dog sucked too. Anything off your grill (or out of your microwave!) will taste much, much better.

Now check this out:

That was an alley of sorts on the boardwalk. In it was a *freak* whom you could fire paintballs at for a small fee. I imagine the guy who dreamed up the idea and who collects the money ($5 for 15 shots) reaps a tremendous profit.

Boardwalks (Venice Beach, Wildwood, Atlantic City, Nantasket Beach, etc.)  are always rich *people watching* environments. There was some nutjob with a distended stomach in a speedo cussing everyone out who walked by. There were the typical clueless foreigners - one wearing a zipped-up jacket and scarf in 80 degree sun; another in front of me in line at Nathan's ordering cheese dogs when they wanted *cheeseburgers* and trying to pay with euros or traveler's checks or something. There were plenty of topless, tattooed old men; and Italians wearing wife-beaters that sat perfectly suspended on lush back hair. I saw one guy at Cha-Cha's dump a full beer over his head and chest in an effort to cool off. And there was also a queer threesome there pounding adult beverages, having a very animated discussion, and trying to groove in their seats at 3pm on an October Saturday afternoon. One was a suburban looking Italian guy; another was an ultra-grungy bike chick; and the third was a black bodybuilder chick WITH a mohawk!

I wasn't on the boardwalk for more than 30 minutes either.

Color TV Rec - Scrappers

This might be my new favorite show - Scrappers.

Spike TV follows around a bunch of cavemen in Brooklyn as they scour the borough for scrap metal that they can sell at the junkyard. They are positively overflowing with *personality* - reminiscent of my South Philly golf buddy jabronis.



One boob, Darren, is so freakin' funny that he's become an instant cult hero:



Watch the show on Spike, Tuesdays at 10pm or...

You can watch full episodes on their website.

A Cashless Economy

I've never used a debit card. So I scarcely get the clowns in front of me in supermarket checkout aisles who use them. Yeah, I guess if they have impaired *credit* they have to use them. But I've seen people I know have credit cards use *debit* to pay for things like groceries and whatnot. If you are going to pay your credit card bill every month, what difference does it make if it's a little bigger. You're going to just pay the bill from your checking account anyway, no?

I guess I am a little gun-shy on debit cards because my wife had her wallet stolen once and they withdrew $500 off one of her ATM cards that we didn't even know had a debit function. She got the money back, but it was disconcerting how fast the thief did this. The wallet was stolen during her yoga class and my wife cancelled everything the minute she got out (1 hour?).

The other thing that I only a little bit get is when retail cashiers ask debit card users if they want "cash back". According to my googling there are no direct fees involved on the consumer. Does the merchant get a small percentage of the transaction? Why would the store want to deplete its cash? Does this make the manager feel safer or lighten his deposit load? Someone can enlighten me as I am too uninterested to research it.

Sometimes I feel like I (and my Luddite jabronis from South Philly) are the only ones who have any cash on them. I can't stand - if on principle alone - these buffoons who I see swiping $3 off their debit card at Starbucks.

So I got to wondering if muggings have gone down as our economy has gone CASHLESS???

Again, no research, just a query. But I'll bet humans today are less likely to have a knife and a wallet-demand pulled on them on the street than they were in ages past. So if it weren't for a few BILLION DOLLARS in annual credit card fraud one could argue that cashless-ness has reduced crime!

When I moved to Philadelphia in 1992 one bit of head-scratching advice I got from a local was this:

If someone pulls a gun on you, DON'T give them your wallet.

BUT, if they pull a knife on you, hand it over.

Because they won't use the gun but they sure as hell will stab you.



Years later I still don't understand the advice.

Now, in my nine year stint in the City of Brotherly Love I only had one knucklehead pull a knife on me. It was a very big piece of metal; and he waved it at me in broad daylight (noon?) on Pattison Avenue. I saw him coming all the way and jumped out into the middle of the street. There was no way he was going to catch this nimble cracker!

If it happened today I could safely hold my ground and probably convince the gentleman that I only used *debit and PayPal*.

Now watch this poor old guy in the clip below get mugged for a whopping $2 at McDonalds. The Moronic perp knocked him unconscious and thus couldn't even get the guy's PIN:



This clip reminds me of an incident in Brooklyn. Every time I parked our car on the street, it was an automatic to put anything of value in the trunk. One time I left a collapsing chair - like a lawn chair - on the back seat. It was worthless. In fact my wife was given it at some corporate event. The next day when I went to get the car somewhere down in Cobble Hill I found the window smashed and the chair gone.

The lesson was, it's not whether what I left on the seat actually was *valuable* - it's whether or not some Moron might deem it so!

After watching that guy above get walloped I'll be hard-pressed to turn my back on any knucklehead for quite some time.

NOTE - There seems to be some web debate over the true meaning of jabroni.