Class Assignment: Democratic Debate in Pictures

This is actually from Scott even though it says Ryan at that bottom.

Welcome to Beyond.com

Beyond.Com
1060 First Avenue, Suite 100
King of Prussia, PA 19406


Offer Letter: Business Development Associate

Congratulations and welcome to Beyond.com! As a newly hired Business Development Associate, you'll be responsible for leading some exciting new initiatives that we'll make up as we go along. As one of Philadelphia Magazine's top places to work in the greater Philadelphia area, you'll have an exciting opportunity to work in one the most relaxed and progressive business environments in the country!

By all means, take a tour of our office and acclimate yourself with your surroundings. You notice how we don't use cubicles in our office? This is because we encourage the lines of communications to be open between our employees. We believe that creativity should be fostered, and not stifled by oppressive cubicles! By the way, when you walked past these desks, did you notice anyone surfing the internet? Is Greg from accounting on Idolator again? If so, please report this to HR or your supervisor. Surfing the internet on company time is unacceptable, and we encourage our employees to report inappropriate behavior. Wait a minute; is Katya from marketing using a google search? I can't see how this "google" relates to anything we do. Changes must be made.

While touring our office, you'll also notice our 'game' room complete with air hockey and a Nintendo Wii. We at Beyond.com actually like to call this game room the 'scorcher', because anyone caught in this room during business hours will be fired. The game room is only acceptable to use when emissaries from the press are visiting.

Finally, your last stop on our tour will be the kitchen. Did you notice that we keep the kitchen fully stocked? We here at Beyond.com like to take care of our employees in case they forget to bring their lunch. With that said, why did you forget your lunch?! Attention to detail in your position is critical, and forgetting your lunch sends the wrong message to the rest of the company about your capabilities.

Whew! I'm sure you had a lot to take in there. Here is your desk. Please sit and look busy while we figure out what your position is, who hired you, and what work they wanted you to start with. As you can see, we're expanding so fast that we are getting ahead of ourselves!

You aren't looking busy enough. Remember, as your supervisor, you are supposed to look busy so I can tell the CEO that our team is busy, so he'll be satisfied, because there are no performance measures here! Hurrah for our laid back atmosphere!

Sincerely,
Beyond.com

P.S. Look busy all the time, but don't look busy when the press is here. Instead, play a game of frisbee with the webmaster from accross the office.

P.P.S. You're fired.

A band that can inspire a thousand bad puns: Audible

I saw the Philly band Audible Saturday night at Johnny Brendas. Apparently, their lead singer has really "paid his dues" around here, and is really "connected" to the Philly music scene.

The Tweener convicts Audible of the following indie rock crimes:

1.)Token attractive female "playing" un-plugged keyboard. From Spiritualized, the Dandy Warhols, to the Warlocks, there is a time-honored tradition of the indie rock female keyboardist whose musical contribution is questionable. At least you could *hear* the keyboardists I mentioned, however, as I'm not even sure Audible's keyboardist had an actual keyboard on stage. It looked like the band bought a 747 flight recorder from a pawn shop and painted "Casio" on it.

2.) Additional token female playing the bass. "Hey current girlfriend, I need a bassist for my band. Can you pick this up?". Usually, this practice results in some fine musicians (see Kim Deal, Kim Gordon). The undercurrent of this practice, however, is that the bass isn't as important. And why not? It's only the rythmic foundation of your music.

Rest assured, however, if these guys don't care about bass, than they must be some great guitarists?

3.) NO. This is indie rock, fool. Three electric guitars, all playing the exact same shit. You know this is costing you money, right? Why don't you jettison one of your guitarists? Ok, one guy played lead; typical "in-the-pocket", repititive indie-lead. I'm not asking you to play a five-minute solo or anything, but how about showing me that you have a pulse. Give me some crazy effects, makes some noise, trip over one of your cords and fall into the drum kit, DO ANYTHING.

4.) Bad vocals. I'm sure all of us saw this coming anyway.

Whatever. Audible wasn't worth the two hour lunch I had to take to finally decide on writing this.

Ten Middling Philadelphia Bars (ok, five)

The Pennyslvania Avenue Best Western Hotel Bar
You can have a Fantasy Football draft here. Eat before you show; you don't want the two course meal of chicken fingers and where are my fries? They'll say they don't have pitchers but you just have to ask twice and press a bit, then they'll say they have pitchers but you and your friends have to get six of them if you want any. Don't ask where the pitchers were a minute ago or you'll have to buy ten. Then your only option is to say, "Tell you what we'll get a Baker's dozen," because they don't know what the hell that is.

Twelve Steps Down
Proximity is the great equalizer, but not that great.

Drinkers
Drinkers has good specials; it's cool if you come with a team. If you come alone or with a buddy with any ideas other than getting pissed for the next bar, well shit man step it up. I know the girls can be hot but after all the buildup you inevitably find out they live in Manayunk or freaking Conshohocken. I mean, my mom has a friend who wants me to impregnate her daughter but I'm not driving to goddamn Yardley. Still, the specials really are fantastic and the music is ok, considering the crowd. One small note of warning, if you're like me and don't really care what you're drinking because you had eight lagers before you left the house, don't say, "I'll have the same," after your friend orders one of those Heineken keg can specials. The two of you will look pretty stupid standing there with matching keg cans. Believe. (Everything I've said doesn't go for that grimy basement at the Old City Drinkers when it's almost pitch-black and they play "Lean Back" on eternal repeat. Someday, somethings really going to happen in there.)

Woody's
Baha JK

Twelve Steps Down, redux
If there's hardly any people at your bar, ever, even on a Saturday night, your beer should be cheap. I mean there's hardly even any doods. $3.50 for a Yuengling, even from 5-7? What is that fifty cents about? I understand that you spent all that money on the huge projector screen and no one told you that if the room isn't dark you can't see anything on a projector screen, but hey I got my own life, my own problems, I don't want to hear about your fuckups.

Eagles-Vikings Preview

It's been a slow blog week. About only 10% of my readers give a toss about sports. I need to be productive, however.

I'm a philly transplant. I spent the first ten years of my life in New York. I'm a Giants fan. Nevertheless, I know a little bit about the Eagles. Here is a preview of sunday's game against the Vikings.

-McNabb needs enough time to pass. If he gets enough time, the Eagles will win.

-McNabb also needs to be accurate when he gets time to pass. If he does that, the Eagles will win.

-What's going on with Reggie Brown this year? He's the x-factor. If the Eagles balance the equation, they'll win.

-You gotta love Bryan Westbrook. If he has 3 or more 50 yard touchdowns, the Eagles will win.

-Andy Reid needs to call better plays; namely, the plays to win. If he does that, the Eagles will win.

-What's not to like about 3rd round pick Victor Abiamiri? When I looked up his stats at Notre Dame, I noticed that the Fighting Irish had a winning record when he played there. If the Eagles play him, they'll win.

-Adrian Peterson...Whoa. He's the A-factor. I'm pretty sure an anagram of his name is "rad perestroika". Or maybe not. If the Eagles put eight men in the box and stop him, or if they simply play a base 4-3 defense and stop him, they'll win.

-Vikings QB Tavarias Jackson really knows how to manage the game. We've heard, however, that his Controller has some shoddy book keeping practices. That's on Tavarias and his lack of oversight. Shoot an e-mail to his regional supervisor and try and get him reprimanded. If the Eagles do that, they'll win.

If the Eagles do all of the above, they'll win...Unless they lose.

Either way, you heard it here first.

The Swift Gavel of Justice: Anna C. Verna

I went to a city council meeting today. If there's one lesson I learned, other than the fact that our 16 city council members are a rather unattractive bunch that were no doubt the deciding factor in our horrible nationwide rating, it's that you don't trifle with City Council Prez Anna C. Verna. Indeed, she is one Italian matriarch that just screams, "Italian fucking matriarch".

It's appropriate that President Verna's middle initial is a "c", because she embodies a certain c-word that you all are definitely familiar with:

Combative

I learned the following about how to behave in her council today:

1.) You don't not talk when someone else has the floor. When the organizers of the million women march were honored in a resolution today, they were provided the floor to give an acceptance speech. When their leader was about to give her speech, one of the other members took the moment to try and shout out some sort of "political statement" off the mic. Anna C. Verna struck the gavel and was like, "step-off, you don't have the floor" and then told her stenographer to write "stfu", scan the page and upload it into a PDF, and then send it the member's blackberry.

2.) If the audience noise forces President Verna to strike the gavel twice for order, she'll start asking people to take it outside. After the Million Women's March gave their speech, there was a photo shoot with the rest of city council (At-large member Frank Rizzo, Jr. declined to take part. In fact, Rizzo looked like he'd rather be anywhere other than a City Council meeting. He's probably just eager to get his next FOP kickback.). When the audience kept talking well after the shoot was over, the wizened stump that is prez Verna told em' where the hall was.

3.) She moves the proceedings along quickly, because she is just as bored as everyone else. Verna makes the statement "all those in favor, say aye" like she wishes we could just skip the democratic process. No one would disagree with her. I mean, come on...A resolution calling to re-pave the road on Kelly Drive? Do we really need to vote on that? Can't the City Council member introducing the resolution just hand out the no-bid construction contract and get things over with?

Other observations about City Council: The council clerk talks faster than the guy from the micro-machines commercial. seriously; I don't think the I can remember the details of a single resolution that went through the council today. I'm glad I'm not a real reporter.

Did you hear?! Philadelphia voted least attractive city in the US!

Unfortunately, no post today. I needed to get a haircut. I didn't.