Trash or Treasure?

While cleaning my house for sale, I have come across some very old items. Instead of deciding whether to throw them out, I will leave it up to the Poopheads.

First item up for bids, a picture of The Concierge cut out of the Staten Island Advance in the mid 1990s.

Chase Picks Wrong Role Model

During the winter, prior to one bad snowstorm, my employer put me up in a hotel in Manhattan for the night to ensure I would be able to make it into the city early the next morning.
Chase was so distraught he couldn't come with me to the hotel, Grandma Poop decided to create a phony "Hotel Chase" for them to play.
There is a minibar to stock, bags to carry to rooms, mints to place on pillows, reservations to take and most importantly customer satisfaction surveys to take following a guest's stay.
For this there is a staff: reservations clerk (Julian), maintenance man (me), belldog (Diesel) and hotel manager (Mrs. Poop). Unfortunately Grandma Poop gave Chase a moniker that was already taken: The Concierge.
Now Chase tells everyone he is a concierge, including his teachers:

New Year, New T-Shirts

The other day I clicked on the ad on this blog (possibly a violation of my Terms of Service agreement) and was led to an hilarious t-shirt store. It got me thinking about shirts that would be appropriate for several Poopheads to wear in 2010:

TON:


Courtney Friel:


Me:


Freedo:


Nails:


VW:


Master Bates:


Amber:


Mrs. Poop:


The Concierge:


Anonymous hot girlfriend wife of anonymous Poophead (look down if you think I'm talking about you)


Me:


Juice:


And a shirt so fantastic, so digusting and so offensive I couldn't even put its picture on this blog: click here if you dare.

Note: if you didn't get a t-shirt dedicated to you make it your New Year's resolution to have more personality in 2010.

Dispatches from Vegas

I received a bizarre late-night phone call from the Focks bachelor party contingent last night.

It started with Freedo saying "hello, this is Etan Thomas." Then he started shouting obscenities about Eric Devendorf before the Concierge wrested the phone away from him.

The Conch then told me of his dismay that Warren Moon had just walked into the restaurant (Wolfgang Puck's) with 7 hot women and was seated immediately. The Conch voiced his displeasure at the preferential treatment given to an accused wife-beater. Evidently he voiced these concerns too loudly for Nails who urged him to shut up.

Then TallSkott took the phone so the brothers could argue. Scat continues to insist he will head over to the Rio at some point to check out the World Series of Poker though I believe this has a less than 1% chance of happening since he probably won't find anyone else in the group willing to join him.

But if the Conch can pick a fight with a former NFL quarterback I'm ready to believe anything.

What Do You Give Me For? Vlade Divac and The Concierge

What do you give me for Vlade Divac and the Concierge?






Story suggested by TallSkott

Note: I think this is not even close, other than they both have bushy beards, though Divac now sports a trimmer version. I'm only doing this because this is post #4444 in Poop history and FatScat was so happy about post #3333.

The Concierge Was Just Looking Out For His Own Safety and the Safety of Others

For several years, the Concierge has engaged in a subtle war with the man who held the aisle seat in the row in front of him at Shea Stadium.
Every Sunday the man would leave his tote bag adjacent to his seat, partially in the aisle.
As a form of silent protest the Concierge would step on his bag every time he descended the aisle.
While I thought the Conch was just being petty it is too bad he isn't an Ottawa Senators fan. If he were, this incident may have been avoided.

"A 21-year-old man was taken to hospital after he fell about 25 feet from the upper deck of Scotiabank Place during the second intermission of the Ottawa Senators’ victory over the Atlanta Thrashers on Wednesday night.

According to witnesses, the man sailed headfirst past and over a few stunned onlookers in the rows ahead of his seat before tumbling over the low railing at the bottom of the third level and falling onto a row of seats in the level below.

Senators president and CEO Roy Mlakar said the man was carrying two beers when he stumbled over a purse.

“He was not inebriated,” said Mlakar, who confirmed that the man had been treated on the scene for lacerations and that he was taken to a hospital as a precautionary measure.

“He seems fine, he’s totally cognizant. He recognizes that there’s nothing serious.”

He added that two other people the man landed on in the section below also were treated at the scene, and that a third person, a 33-year-old woman, sustained a non-critical neck injury and also was taken to a hospital for precautionary reasons.

Mlakar said it was the first such accident in the 13-year-old arena’s history."

Another Benefit of Facebook

Facebook has lots of pros and cons.

Pro: Slutty pics of slutty chicks
Con: They're very cautious about friending you, denying access to those slutty pics

Pro: You can see what everyone else is doing
Con: Everyone else can see what you're doing

Pro: Bubbletown
Con: It's addicting

Pro: All the groups you can join and games you can play
Con: The people who constantly send you suggestions of games to play, groups to join and people to friend. I don't want to be friends with that red-headed douchebag.

But the worst part might be that people you haven't seen for years can track you down and get in contact with you. But sometimes those people have something really cool to share.

For instance, this picture from JCC Camp from 1984 is a hidden gem posted by someone who had a whole bunch of JCC pictures.

See if you can identify not only The Poop, but The Concierge is in this picture as well. Take a guess, and I'll put the answer in the comments section.

The Whole Crew

Two excellent pictures of the Staten Island crew taken at JLeary's wedding.

From left: Nails, The Poop, The Concierge, JLeary, TON, Focks, TallSkott, Reissberg




Photos courtesy of Special K

Product Review: Heineken DraughtKeg

I recently purchased a Heineken DraughtKeg (basically a minikeg) to bring to Hershey for Leary's wedding, so I could drink in my room without the obtrusiveness of a bunch of bottles or cans.
The keg holds 5 liters, roughly equal to 10.5 pints or 14 12-ounce beers.
At a cost of $18.99, that's a pretty good value, especially in contrast to the hotel bar.
It wasn't that big, or that heavy, and fit perfectly in the hotel fridge, which was quite convenient.
I asked The Concierge to tap it for me and here's his review of the product with my thoughts mixed in:

"The Heineken Keg is a fun product, easy enough to use but has room for improvement. The two step tapping of the keg is easy enough but tapping results in a premature discharge of beer."

The Conch prematurely discharged beer all over my sandals.

"Perhaps there is a written warning about this...who reads the directions on how to open a beer though. The pouring feature is a bit counterintuitive because you pull up on the lever instead of pressing down - this is actually the simpliest way to design the keg flow but people enjoy pressing down on a tap. Finally, the pours of beer have a lot of bubbles (foam), almost look like it was pressurized with nitrous oxide rather than CO(2)."

There was a tremendous amount of foam, and not just after the initial tap, each subsequent pour, even days later, was about 25% foam.

"Perhaps the pressure loss from seepage over the time the keg is tapped requires extra gas so that you don't run out. However this feature does make it fun pouring beer directly into your mouth. All said, this is a good product but I prefer ice cold bottles because of the lack of excess foam."

I prefer bottles as well but was happy with the keg because it did stay fresh for days afterwards (I still have some left), it promises to stay fresh for up to 30 days.

I also like the fact that this is more eco-friendly because it has much less packaging than bottles or cans. But I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to discard the keg when I'm done. Does it go out with the regular trash?

With the foam being a secondary issue for me, my biggest complaint was that the keg leaks. The small hose through which the beer is dispensed always held a few drops after each pour and despite my best efforts to shake, tap and wipe those drops away I still found a small puddle of beer on my refrigerator shelf.

The biggest thing the keg has going for it is novelty, so I'd recommend buying it once, and deciding for yourself.

The Curse of the Concierge

The Concierge likes to accuse everyone (me, Reissberg) of being bad luck, but I can see no one who has done more damage than The Concierge himself.
His record at Met and Knicks games is spotty at best, but his record when choosing a favorite player is downright disastrous.
During his heyday in the early the 90s The Conch frequently bragged about his ability to spot diamonds in the rough and he became the biggest fan of Latrell Sprewell and Vin Baker, even buying their jerseys.
But he has ruined both of their lives.
Whose life did The Concierge ruin more, Latrell Sprewell or Vin Baker?

The Concierge Knows Everything

The Concierge won the Baby Poop Pool in dominating fashion. Because he picked the earliest date he won that category. His guess on weight was only off 8 ounces (but kudos to Izzie and Kevin who were off by only one ounce).

Amazingly, The Concierge's brother finished second, and his sister-in-law finished fourth.

Other than TallSkott's ridiculous guess the two last place finishers were Cousin Conor (evidently AA is not working for him) and neighbor Katie. Evidently redheads know nothing about babies.

Thank you all for playing this really was a fun game for us to follow over the past few weeks, seeing everybody's guess. We were planning to guess ourselves then shut the game down, but we never got that chance.

The Concierge and I Agree, And We're Both Wrong

At TON's wedding we were talking about the song "Layla" which is really about a woman named PattIE. The Concierge and I both though she left Eric Clapton for George Harrison, which is why Clapton wrote the song. But in the truth she was Harrison's wife first. Then she became friendly with Clapton and married him after her divorce from Harrison. Funny that a week after we talked about it, there's an article in the NY Post about it.

Apparently, Clapton also wrote "Wonderful Tonight" about Pattie Boyd. But he divorced her in 1988.

TON and Special K's Wedding

TON and Special K are now Mr. and Mrs. TON.
It was a nice, quick ceremony full of the requisite retarded/uncomfortable faces by TON.
A kind old judge led them through the paces they hit all the high notes "sickness and health, for richer for poorer," "with this ring I thee wed," and "you may kiss the pride," so TON did and then they were pronounced Mr. and Mrs. TON.





Then we went inside for some drinks and hors d'oeuvres. The best one was a shrimp wrapped in bacon, but it was a little messy. JLeary had a piece of bacon hanging out of his mouth, I had to go in the corner to eat one, but they were delicious. And the first time they came around four of us got them from the waitress and I was the only one to offer it to my wife. Not sure I would have if she weren't pregnant, but she declined. She knows how much I love food wrapped in bacon.

A little while later it was time for the best man's speech. Now, because I know TON from high school, but we also went to college together, I knew pretty much everyone.

It was nice to see good old BC again, RoachSU made it in for the wedding and Briles (formerly known as the Commish) was the 5th person from our floor freshman year at the wedding. I also got to see VinJuiceTang again. And the best part of that was that in a conversation with Vin earlier in the week I said he was going to be mistaken by everyone as a relative of the bride. Then when I was talking to him, someone came up to him and asked "are you related to the bride?"

And another SU alum, who made the trip in from Denmark was the best man P-O'T. He seemed kind of nervous but he was really funny and encapsulated TON and Kelly pretty well. Basically they like do crazy shit like skydiving, ice climbing and getting eaten by animals in Africa together.




One of the cooler parts of the wedding was when the band took a brief intermission and when they came back it was TON's dad on the keyboard along with his band he's been playing with for 40 years. Between the four band members they have ten kids, 6 of them have gotten married, and they've played a few songs and each wedding. They started off with "Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison, then went to "Gimme Some Lovin" by the Spencer Davis Group and finished with the all-time crowd pleaser, "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond.



TON even tried dancing, something he does reluctantly, and not very well.



But TON's cousins got the dancing genes in the family. When they band played "Play That Funky Music" two of them started getting down on the dance floor, ending with one of them taking off his shirt. Apparently this is a wedding tradition for him.



The second coolest thing at this wedding was one of those little photobooths where you cram in there and the flash goes off and you get a nice strip of 6 pictures of you and your wife/girlfriend making funny faces at each other.

In this case you took 6 photos cut the strip down the middle put three in album for TON & Special K and kept the other three for yourself. Mrs. Poop and I did this twice, we got some nice photos including one with the Concierge's hand behind me.

Focks, TallSkott and I tried to cram into the booth with varying degrees of success. When you have a head as bag as TallSkott's it takes up a lot of room.

But that paled in comparison to the fact that instead of wedding cake, the served cupcakes. They were so delicious I must have had about four...teen of them man.

At first I planned to have two, then RoachSU and I spotted a couple lonely ones, than TallSkott offered me one that was just sitting on our table, and then the Conciergette yelled at me. But they were freakin delicious.





Here's the crew from left to right: Brother of the Bride, TallSkott, Reissberg, TON (how did the groom get sent to the back of this picture?), The Concierge, JLeary, The Poop, Focks and VinJuiceTang.



And the ladies in our lives: Zorf, The Conciergette aka TallJulie, Mrs. TallSkott, MayMay, Special K (the bride), Mrs. Reissberg, Mrs. Poop, Mrs. Nails and Bauer's Mom aka Short Julie.

The Concierge's Birthday

The Concierge celebrated his 29th birthday Saturday night at the Blue Owl in the East Village. It's down the street from a defunct gay bar, appropriately named "Dick's." The Owl is next to the local neighborhood rub-n-tug.



I was only involved in two conversations the whole night: people only wanted to talk to me about The Poop and Baby Poop.

Half the people wanted to make their own baby and half the people want to make The Poop.

Juice's new gal pal seemed willing to do anything to make the blog and I stupidly forgot to ask her to show her tits. TallSkott and I spent 15 minutes grilling Michelle (we want Juice to find someone special). The leggy 24 year old seems really cool and I think her and Juice will get along very well as long as they can keep their ADHD medications separate.



Funniest moment of the night of course goes to the Concierge on his own birthday. For some reason there was a locked door, behind where we were standing. We had no idea what was behind it, but The Conch said "I bet I can jimmy this lock in 10 seconds." Two seconds later he slams his credit card through crack in the door and 'click' the door opened. Turns out it was just a hallway.



Focks made it out despite his injuries. But here he looks like he's about to vomit on Julie's cleavage.





Juice and his new paramour wanted to dance (probably because neither of them can sit still) so they begged the DJ to play something other than 1920s jazz. Turns out he had an old Tribe record and played about 3 songs in a row. He also played "Respect" off "Ready to Die" and we argued about who the reggae singer was, I said Diana King and of course I was right.

The Blue Owl is the only Manhattan bar I've ever been in that's crowded at 10 and empty at 1. So we cleared out pretty early and while some went back to Focks's sister's to play Guitar Hero I went home secure in the notion that although the Concierge had gotten a year older, he definitely hasn't gotten a year more mature. And that's a good thing.

Four Schnooks and a Baseball Game

Master Bates, The Concierge, Nails and I made the trip to Philadelphia to see the Mets vs. the Phillies on Saturday afternoon. Because the game was a 4pm start we had plenty of time to get there and enjoy the stadium, lovely Citizens Bank Park. But of course, when I went to pick up The Concierge, he was still in the shower.

We did get to the stadium in plenty of time to walk around. The sports complex is huge, plenty of parking surrounding Citizens Bank Park, Lincoln Financial Field and the Wachovia Spectrum (the old Spectrum).

The concourse around the lower level of seats is what they call Ashburn Alley. Basically it's a wide, clean concourse, with the stadium on one side and restaurants and concession stands on the other. But they don't have typical concessions, they have cheesesteaks (Rick's and Tony Luke's) and bars (Harry the K's in the outfield) and each little beer stand has a different quality microbrew, and they are all actually cold.

Also along the alley is a Standing Room Only area, which actually surrounds the concourse on all decks. Some of the views are actually pretty good. I wouldn't want to stand the whole game, but I think the SRO tickets are only $12, so it might not be that bad. And the restuarants, you can sit there during the whole game and watch while eating and drinking and the views aren't bad. And restaurants tables are given out on a first come first served basis, they don't require a $100 deposit.

Once you get to the seats, all the seats are good, they are all pointed towards the field, and they all give you a nice view of the action.

I really hope the designers of CitiField take a trip to the Cit and copy or improve upon some of the fine amenities.

This game was also PSPCA day at the ballpark. Dogs available for adoption were entertaining fans in a special section of the concourse, but I didn't even go over to look because I know I would fall in love and Mrs. Poop would never let me adopt another dog. But they kept showing the dogs on the screen between innings, they all had baseball names (Schmitty, Pug McGraw, Slider) and I almost adopted Homer. Although maybe Homer was named after the Greek poet.

Once the game started the Mets gave us a good time, but you can read about that on the Recap.

When Carlos Beltran made a spectacular catch on a deep drive to center, right before crashing into the wall, I denoted it with a star in my scorecard. This is a practice I know Jems encourages, but evidently, the three idiots I went to this game with don't like this, as they asked for an asterisk on every play for the rest of the game.



The Concierge elected to take the Walt Whitman Bridge because he wanted to honor a famous gay American.

Philadelphia has some of the same between innings gimmicks that the Mets have. They do the Kiss Cam, and they played "Can't Get Enough of Your Love Babe," which is nice, but all the Phillies fans they showed were worried that their parole officer might see them on the big screen.

They don't have anything as fun as Learn Spanish with Professor Reyes.

At one point a dirty sweaty Mets fan proposed to his girlfriend on the big screen, she cried, said yes and then he rolled up his sleeve to show off his Mets logo tattoo on his biceps.

Speaking of biceps, the Philles employ a "Flex Cam" where sweaty guys in wifebeaters act like tough guys. Typical Philly.

Also typical Philly, we went to Geno's for dinner after the game. For the Concierge and Nails this was their third cheesesteak in 6 hours. We all ate steaks on arrival, but only Nails and The Conch opted for the Schmitter right at game time. The Schmitter is just a fancy cheesesteak, they use 3 pieces of cheese separating some fried salami, steak, tomatoes, and a special sauce. Master Bates was very proud of himself for rhyming Schmitter and shitter in a sentence.



Also typical Philly, cars park in the median, right in the middle of the road on some busy streets. I have never seen this before. Also a typical Philly greaseball (like the kind they show on FlexCam) was sitting in his apartment in his wifebeater leaning out the window. I only bring this up because as the Conch was driving, and complaining about Philly he said "look at that guy in the window." I have no idea how he saw him.

The Concierge and I didn't have too many arguments, perhaps because everytime we tried to talk Nails and the Master shouted out "they're arguing again." But we did disagree on Delgado's 2006 batting average, he said .265 and was exactly right. He also said Delgado would be within .015 of his career average at the end of this year. Assuming a like number of at bats from now until the rest of the season, he'd have to bat nearly .300 for the rest of the season.

The Concierge insisted that "Raging Bull" won Best Picture in 1980, which of course it didn't ("Ordinary People" did), and I think I could have bet him on it, but my initial offer was $1000 which Nails pointed out was a sure sign that I definitely knew I was correct. The Concierge also claimed that "I see dead people" isn't one of the most famous movie lines of the past 10 years, but Nails shut him down before he could spend an hour naming more well known quotes.

So it was a nice day trip to see a good ballgame and a nice stadium, and a good time was had by all.

Where's Latifah?

Cool picture of the crowd at the NBA All-Star game. You can spot a lot of celebrities, including Queen Latifah, James Denton, Julius Erving, Bill Walton and T.O.
This site has some other guesses, some serious, some funny.
The Concierge will be combing this photo for the strippers who are sitting funny because they had anal sex with three NBA All-Stars the night before.

The Universe Loves Parking Meters

After parking my car in the snow I realized that meters on Third Avenue run until 10pm. And Mrs. Poop didn't bring her wallet so we had no quarters. Just as I was about to go into the Chinese restaurant for change of a dollar and get told "you must buy eggroll" the universe delivered to me the Concierge.
At that moment he emerged from a Thai-Spanish (his description) restaurant. And I said "excuse me sir, do you have change for a dollar? Of course he did.

Nailsfest

As expected, the third Nailsfest Super Bowl party was awesome.

I was greeted by most everyone with a "waddup Poop," and I think a few even called Mrs. Poop Mrs. Poop. Still not sure if she likes that.

Seating was at a premium but we got a spot very close and got there early enough to find two good seats in the balcony behind the leather recliners staked out by the Concierge and Juice aka Green-spiggity.

I signed up for 3 boxes, at $3 a pop in the name of Diesel. Then I took my seat.

In typical Nails fashion the food was plentiful; the overflowing candy bowl, the three trays of wings and the delicious food (ribs, brisket, pulled pork, mac and cheese) from Blue Smoke.

For a large crowd, they were pretty well behaved but it was a little hard to hear all the commercials. If you missed any, you can check out this sampling.

Once the game was decided, that's when the action picked up. I had Colts 9, Bears 7 in the boxes. But I was rooting for the Bears. But then it seemed as if the Colts would score again. But they went for it on 4th down deep in Bears' territory. Initially Leary was furious (he had 2,7 and he's always furious) but on further reflection it was the right move. So then we held on through a threatening but meaningless Chicago drive and won the 4th quarter.

The reward: $150 and 5 envelopes of Fun Dip. I quickly gave one each to Mrs. Reissberg and The Conciergette in exchange for their eternal love and devotion.

Then on my way out Mrs. Nails saddled me with a bunch of candy. Then Nails begged me to take a 12 pack of beer because otherwise their fridge was too full. I never felt like taking beer was doing someone a favor before, but I think Nails really wanted me to. And not 10 seconds after I said that I felt like a schnura, Juice saw my haul and said "you're a schnura."

As always a good time was had by all. And next year, if we're not in Jerusalem, I hope we're back at Nails' house.

Celebrating Martin Luther King Day

I went to the Knicks game with The Concierge to celebrate Martin Luther King Day. Unlike last year when the Knicks lost and I got blamed for mushing the whole season, this time they pulled one out, to beat the Kings.
Jamal Crawford aka JC was a Christ figure in scoring 8 points in the last minute or so including two huge buckets.
The Concierge and I have adopted David Lee as our favorite player and we serenaded him with a version of our old "Eddie Leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" [Wilkins] chant.
We hate Jared Jeffries and don't understand why he gets so much time.
We liked Balkman's hustle on defense but he pussied out on two shots he should have dunked and tried to lay them up instead...and missed.
Kevin Martin killed us. Deadeye shooter.
Shareef Abdur-Rahim also had a good game and the Concierge thinks he should be on the government watch list.

Ask the Concierge

Dear The Concierge,
On the MTV reality show Two-A-Days there was a football player named Dwarn Smith Jr. His father, also Dwarn, goes by the name Pete. Dwarn Jr. is called Repete. Pat Riley has a legal trademark on the term “threepeat” and can demand financial remuneration for any infringement. If Dwarn Jr. were to have a son who became an NFL player and was called threepete, would he be infringing on Riley’s trademark if he marketed himself as Threepete? Would this be different if Threepete were his given name, as opposed to a nickname?

Thanks
Stupid Name
Hoover Alabama


Mr. Name,

Riles & Company, Inc. owns several marks for Three-peat - a couple are still alive.
But I don't see a registered trademark mark for "Threepete" that is live.

If Riley is using it to market goods or services, another's use of the word threepete is not an infringement unless it is used to market similar goods or services and would likely confuse the consumer as to the source of the goods.

The issue of whether one can use his own name in connection with the sale of goods is more of a gray area. The fact that it is a nickname may or may not make it less likely to be able to use it if you are provding a good or service similar to those provided by the trademark owner (I would argue that the person would be less likely to use it). I would say that as long it is not used in a confusing manner it is ok. A reasonable settlement of the case should say the same thing and proscribe how it can be used. One interesting trademark case that I think settled out of court involves the use of the name 'Seymore Butts' - This name was created by Adam Glaser but technically it was the property of a film company that owned the rights to the nickname. Glaser opened his own distribution company and sought to use the name on his own - although this case had contractual issues-Glaser argued that he needed this name to adequately descibe the product and to indicate the source of his product.

The test is whether it is likely to confuse the consumer. I would not advise a client that threepete for tshirts was ok if someone else was using threepeat for tshirts.