Mike O'Connell

I said it six years ago and I’ll say it again: Somebody Feed Phil is the best show on “TV.”

Everything I said in that previous post is still true today, somehow even more so. And this time around I’ve got a son who dreams of the Phil Rosenthal lifestyle the way boys of the ’60s and ’70s looked at Hugh Hefner.

One troubling feature of the new season (that’s Season Seven which dropped this past Friday)… one of the episodes is from Washington, D.C.

My home!

Every one of those restaurants is now going to be crammed with tourists eschewing the monuments and going for the tempura and goat cheese instead.

I guess maybe it’ll be easier to get in the museums now.

Thanks, Phil.

Many times on this blog and elsewhere I have noted the great and universal truism of life: we all turn into our parents.

There’s no sense in fighting it. It’s going to happen. For the past decade I’ve resigned myself to the fact and tried to embrace the fact that, well, I’ve become my dad.

Today’s hot take?

Your parents become your grandparents.

This should be obvious, right? I mean, they literally are grandparents. But more than that there’s going to become your grandparents. The folks you remember from when you were a kid… you’ll see them again like 30 years later, proof that they’re doing the thing you’ll eventually do as well.

Nice to know you’ll see your grandparents again.

And your parents.

Every time you look in the mirror.

February 13, 2024… it was a totally cheap-ass snow day, but that’s par for the course in the L.C.

Franklin and I discuss this and other matters on today’s episode of Math and Musings.

I’ve never been so deliriously happy to see my favored teams lose two games in a row as I was this weekend while visiting the City of Brotherly Love.

I was in Philadelphia with my son, among other things seeing the Penn Quakers in action on the basketball court and lacrosse field. We watched Penn fall to Georgetown in lacrosse (two highly-rated teams there) and then lose to Brown in basketball (two not highly-rated teams, but still fun to watch).

The draw wasn’t the teams; it was the venues.

Certainly a discussion on an upcoming episode of Math and Musings, two legendary buildings on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania are synonymous with college athletics themselves: Franklin Field, serving Saturday as the home of Penn’s lacrosse team, and the Palestra, home to Quaker basketball.

The latter is, well, pretty much what Naismith had in mind.

Seeing a game at the Palestra was a pilgrimage, as close to a religious experience as a non-theist can get.

Double bonus was getting to see a game at Franklin Field. That one’s actually older than the Palestra and almost older than basketball itself. The stadium was built in 1895 and is famously the host of the Penn Relays, the oldest and largest track and field competition in the U.S. (That one goes back to 1895 as well.) It was a little chilly sitting in the stands for Saturday’s game and I’m not the world’s biggest lacrosse fan, but somehow I turned into one and thought nothing of the cold in that magical arena.

Must’ve been the Brotherly Love.

Oh, I ran up the Rocky steps too. But that one’s actually on the other side of town.

I think Valentine’s Day is a pretty overrated holiday, especially for those on the north side of 27 or so.

But this particular Valentine’s Day closes out a string of days not likely to be repeated any time soon.

Saturday, February 10… Lunar New Year.

Sunday, February 11… Super Bowl.

Monday, February 12… Lincoln’s Birthday.

Tuesday, February 13… Mardi Gras.

Wednesday, February 14… Valentine’s Day.

I should note that today is also Ash Wednesday, but come on, if I’m giving Valentine’s Day about a C-Tier rating Ash Wednesday is down there with brussel sprouts.

Another snow day tomorrow, anyone?