VP Debate To Draw Up To 5 People Away From Watching Phillies Game

Well, well! It looks like Sarah Palin is a fake Phillies fan indeed! Instead of watching Game 2 like everybody else, Palin will apparently be debating Joe Biden tonight on the teevee.

KYW 1060 details the brand new dilemma: Two things on television at the same time that people want to watch! Who ever knew there could be two interesting things on TV at once? I had no idea the medium had gotten that good.

Of course, the radio station calls in an expert to let us know what will actually be happening:

Miller also points out that baseball is a game with a lot of pauses and down time, and he suspects a lot of remotes will get a workout if there’s a conflict.

Ahh, yes, the so-called “remote control.” A fine new invention, but I doubt it will catch on.

VP Debate, Phillies Game Compete for TV Viewers [KYW 1060]

America’s Next Great Skin Care Product

There’s something to be said here about American television in 2008, but I was really just too interested in having better skin to watch any of those other programs last night.

Food Network Big On Cheese Sauce

Yes, that was PW contributing editor Kirsten Henri on the Food Network Sunday night. She not only appeared on Throwdown with Bobby Flay, but she appeared on the show judging Philadelphia pretzels: Bobby Flay vs. the Best of Philly™ winner!

She wrote about her experiences for Foobooz. Apparently, the folks at the Food Network are really, really big on cheese sauce on pretzels. (This would confuse the hell out of the New York Times.)

The producer wanted us to say what we thought made a great Philly soft pretzel. They asked us to mention something about ‘cheese sauce.’ I protested. A true Philadelphian would NEVER EVER sully a pretzel with cheese sauce. We clothe our pretzels in mustard and mustard only. You want to argue about what type of mustard, fine, but not cheese. Never cheese. I’m a purist.

He insisted, I frowned. My reputation was on the line here! We compromised on ‘dipping sauce,’ which also offended me, but I didn’t want to be a pretzel prima donna. At least not at this early stage in my career.

It’s nice to see Henri didn’t back down under the TV pressure. Flay managed to win the contest, actually, proving he does something right (besides his taste in Law & Order ADAs, of course).

Me and Bobby Mc… Flay? [Foobooz]

Miss Pennsylvania Pride!

Have you been watching TLC’s Miss America reality show? No? Why not? It’s 52 young babes living in a house in preparation for a beauty contest! What more enticement do you need?

Anyway, I hadn’t been watching it either, until a friend notified me of Miss Pennsylvania’s mishap on a recent episode. As part of a challenge, contestants had to jump over equestrian hurdles and put together a map of the United States. So far, so good; and Miss Pennsylvania’s team is in the lead! Unfortunately for Miss PA (one Rachel Brooks), she had a little trouble finding the state flag. Judging from the video, she may still be there looking for it.

Hot Parking Action To Debut Tonight

Tonight is the premiere of the A&E documentary on the Philadelphia Parking Authority, Parking Wars. In addition to apparently featuring Cafe Loftus as nice background scenery, the show also follows around meter maids (are we allowed to call them that anymore?), tow truck drivers, the people who put the boot on cars and people who work at the impound lot.

Sadly, a tow truck driver — who liked “all the ladies” he met on the job — profiled on the show passed away after filming. There’s also ticket writer Jeff, who produces hip hop tracks and plays in a punk band. Neat!

Anyway, the show premieres tonight at 10 on A&E, which apparently (a) still exists and (b) has shows other than Biography and that awesome word-for-word adaptation the BBC did of Pride & Prejudice. (That was on A&E, right?)

The Inquirer’s Michael D. Schaffer has more. Also, be sure to check out the glossary. I’m going to use “eating beef jerky” as much as I can in conversation now.

Parking Authority Fills Writers Strike Void

The writers strike needs to end. This week, there’s three straight nights of Deal or No Deal.

Similarly, the Parking Authority is going to be spotlighted in a reality show on A&E.

Parking Authority spokeswoman Linda Miller said yesterday that A&E crews spent months following some of the authority’s 265 ticket-writers, 23 wheel-booters and 60 towers.

Supervisor Sean Pomroy said the crews would show up at morning roll calls on and off from May until November and more or less randomly pick employees to follow. He said he hadn’t seen much stage fright among his parking-enforcement officers.

“I think it came pretty naturally to the ones they picked,” said Pomroy, who also wrote and produced a hip-hop song about “the people you love to hate” that he said will be used in the series.

Oh, goodie. A hip hop song about the Parking Authority.

Also: Tonight there’s a reality show about Penn State’s campus newspaper. (Thanks, boss!)

Philly Loses Meaningless Distinction

Despite the best efforts of, ah, Joey Sweeney and uwishunu, Philadelphia has finally slipped enough in population and has fallen behind Phoenix according to the census bureau. Philadelphia has been rumored to have fallen to sixth about 4500 times since 2000, but the Arizona city has finally “officially” passed us.

The complaint, of course, is that Phoenix can annex its suburbs and soon will be as large as the entire state of Arizona. This was the same complaint Philadelphians lodged over a century ago when Chicago passed Philly to become the second largest city in the country. If you’re scoring at home, that means Philly’s been getting screwed for over 100 years and nothing has changed. (The Phillies sucked then, too.)

The Philly metro area (Philly-Camden-Wilmington) has also been passed for fourth place by the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. It’s probably best to blame Camden here, so that’s what we’re going to do: Hey, Camden! Thanks for knocking us into fifth, you bums!

All hope is not lost, though. While there may be fewer of us, Philadelphia still is fourth in one important category: Time spent in front of the idiot box.

One population category in which the Philadelphia area still can claim fourth place, at least for now, is as a media market. According to Nielsen Media Research, we trail only New York, Los Angeles and Chicago in total potential viewers within range of our local television stations. By the way, Dallas ranks sixth on that score, Phoenix 13th.

Woohoo! Now get us our MLS team so we can stop watching stupid reality shows or whatever. Nah, just kidding, that’s what we’ll do anyway.

Census hits city where it counts [Inquirer]

Tom Knox Hates Metaphors, Free Speech

If you watched the the anti-Tom Knox had he had his lawyers ban from television by threatening to sue, you might be wondering just what, exactly, was wrong with the ad. Nothing in there was a lie.

Well, The Next Mayor Blog got a copy of the letter Knox’s attorneys sent. And this paragraph is pretty much the jist of a majority of the letter:

Therefore, you are herby respectfully on notice that any dissemination of these false, misleading and illegal advertisements, particularly those that state that Candidate Knox is a fraud, or state that Candidate Knox is associated with heroin, could unlawfully jeopardize Mr. Knox’s right to a fair election, and subject your station to legal exposure.

Wait, the ad said Tom Knox does heroin?

Damn, no wonder… er, wait. It said “credit heroin.” As in “[A] predatory loan scheme consumer groups called ‘credit heroin.’” Yes, that really makes me think Knox is doing heroin! Almost as much as that awful Photoshop! And some homeless guy on the street telling me Knox is a heroin addict!

This kind of makes sense, though. Since he doesn’t watch TV or read books, Knox is probably unaware there are ways to refer to things other than their actual names. For example, Tom Knox can be also be called Candidate Thinks He’s Going To Lose The Election And Desperately Trying To Save Hide By Sending Lawyers After TV Stations.

God dammit. I can’t believe Tom Knox made me defend this stupid ad.

Yee-ouch [The Next Mayor Blog]
Earlier today: Tom Knox Got This Ad Banned From TV
[Original image from Kenn Kweder's website. (Of course.) Do you know how hard it is to find an easy-to-crappily Photoshop image of a guy shooting heroin? Harder than you'd think.]

Tom Knox Got This Ad Banned From TV

Economic Justice Coalition for Truth, a 527 group, attempted to put this ad on TV. Ha ha, get it! Mastercard! Only about eight years after that joke became old! And sharks, too! Tommy the Loan Shark!

I’m not quite sure what’s wrong with this ad — the statements it makes are, as far as I know, true — but Knox’s lawyers managed to get the TV stations to pass on the ad.

Knox’s latest ad, of course, cites a headline from the Daily News, insinuating the DN said Knox’s opponents’ attacks were “fishy.” Which they did, but as a pun because there was a giant anthropomorphic shark there.

2 stations pass on Knox ads [Daily News]

75-Year-Old Reporter Attacked By Optician

In Toronto, a reporter went to an eyeglass store to ask about consumers who said they were screwed by the place. Pretty standard stuff. Until the optician attacked the reporter, the reporter got in his best boxing stance and the optician starting throwing snowballs at the reporter and cameraman.

Oh, and later he’s arrested by the SWAT team.

Consumer advocacy reporting has its dangers. Who knew?

Optician Attacks 75-Year-Old Reporter (Toronto, Canada) [CNN/YouTube]