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Jocli
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Name: John
Country: United States
State: New Jersey
Metro: Camden
Birthday: 8/14/1984
Gender: Male
Interests: All teams Philly. Also auto racing, the tracks i frequent are Bport (summer) and Williams Grove (while at college). I'm also a big fan of rock music of most generations. I like anything from The Beatles to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. i've never gotten rap or country.
Expertise: I'm an expert in the field of not knowing anything. Actually, i know more than the average person about Phillies history, for some reason. I also know how to take people off the zipline at Sandy Cove w/ relative ease and harnessing people. 0 have died on my watch.
Occupation: Student
Industry: Entertainment
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  jocli
MSN: jocli156
Member Since:
4/16/2004
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| America has gotten very calloused. The shooting yesterday at NIU has not gotten a ton of air time...I'm not saying it didn't get it's share, I'm just saying if this happened oh....this time last year it would be a much bigger story (I think Anna Nicole Smith is still getting more coverage). This is seen as just another college shooting...hardly astounding, only 5 innocent people were killed compared to what, 30 something at VT?
I wrote this after the VT shooting and I'm going to write it again....America has to either make guns much harder to obtain (which is what I want b/c I know there are a lot of good people who just have guns for hunting) or ban them all together. How many more innocent people have to be killed by a lunatic who has access to a killing machine? When this happens again (probably in less than 12 months) I'm just not going to write anything again, America is blind to the problem. As what happened after VT nothing is going to be done to control who gets their hands on guns.
Just to show how screwed up some places are in this country let's look at Philadelphia. After a police officer was killed responding to a robbery call at a Dunkin' Donuts a reporter said something that was quite surprising, "if a car is stolen in the city you must report it, if a gun is stolen there is no such law." I don't know if there are similar laws throughout the country but geez, not good.
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| Boy the Eagles suck. In lieu of this game against Dallas, which isn't over yet, but the Eagles are looking as bad as they have in years, it seems it would be good to just cut their losses and tank the rest of the season to get a good draft pick. It's just disgusting to get beaten by your hated enemy. An enemy who has fair weather fans who are losers and are massively annoying living amongst you. And in all of it T.O. is showing why it may have been a good idea to give him some more money....over 150 yrs w/ a TD....not bad. This while the Eagles receivers are struggling just to get open. Not to mention how awful the D has played tonight.
At least the Flyers are showing a glimmer of hope.
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| Finally....The Phillies have made the playoffs!!! The team has proven me and most other people wrong because of all the heart they have...the heart which is propelled by the MLB MVP Jimmy Rollins. The team started off the year so bad and I had had it with them. Over the summer, I grew to like the team but I thought the season was over when Utley then Hamels went down. But they persisted. The Phillies earned this. They were aided by the Mets complete collapse but the Phillies had a lot to do with that by sweeping them in 2 straight series.
Pat Burrell, who I've trashed, seems to have gotten new life towards the end of the year. He may not be the best fielder or even hitter, but he showed tons of emotion. He looked as excited as a little kid down the stretch when he would jump for joy when Rowand made a great catch and he beat the catcher out to the mound after Myers closed the game yesterday.
You have to feel good for Harry Kalas. He probably doesn't have that long left in his broadcasting career and over the past few years you could tell the way the team blew their playoff chances got to him (those last 3 runs were unearned but who cares). His call yesterday as Myers closed the game was fantastic...he was genuinely excited about the victory. Then he capped off the on-field celebration with the singing of High-Hopes, which I believe he's done with the Phillies teams that have made the playoffs before.
I had to turn off last night's Eagles game. I wasn't about to let that joke of a team tarnish the feelings that I got today because of the Phillies. (Weird...it's usually the other way around). They're lucky next week is a bye, hopefully they'll learn how to play again.
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| Here we are, the last two weeks of the baseball season. The first time in 4 years that I've actually been able to watch the Phillies during the stretch run toward the playoffs.
Four years ago I went into college with the Phillies closing the Vet and fighting tooth and nail for the wild card spot in the playoffs. Well, the aggrivating thing I found was I wasn't able to watch the games at college. We didn't have CSN at college and most of the time the Phillies were on ESPN they got blacked out. My clearest memory was the Hurricane game. I forget the name of the hurricane, but it was supposed to make land fall around Virginia or Maryland but the storm was going to seriously effect the Philadelphia area. They moved the game up and luckily there was a radio station that I could kinda get. Before class I listened to the first few innings but missed the rest of the game while in class. On the long walk back to Witmer I was able to manage hearing the game recap. I had to stand in one spot to actually get the station and I remember letting out a cheer when I heard that Jim Thome won the game with a home run. I was very excited only to be let down a week or so later while watching the gamecast or whatever it is on mlb.com (I couldn't get the radio station in the dorm) when the Phillies blew a few games to the Marlins who went on to win the wild card.
My Sophomore year....well...I don't really recall what happened. They must have stunk or I was too enamored with the Eagles to take notice (after all, that was T.O.'s non meltdown year w/ the Eagles and they were kind of awesome). So...going to my junior year down the stretch the team was playing well. Again, they were fighting hard for the wildcard, this time with Houston. I must have been swamped with homework at the time because I remember not watching the gamecast or anything myself, but my room mate told me what was going on. I remember him telling me when David Bell and Billy Wagner managed to blow a very crucial game to the Astros. Later on I remember hearing how Harry Kalas ended the call of that game. "All three runs were unearned, but who cares." You have to feel a bit sorry for Harry Kalas. A great broadcaster calling games for a team like the Phillies for so long.
Then last year...I was actually in Philadelphia for this melt down. We did get CSN there...however, getting the TV lounge to watch it was not an easy task. I went to a few of the games, saw Ryan Howard power the Phillies to a few wins and Chase Utley win a game against the Astros with an extra innings homer. I remember watching he Phils for awhile against the Nats in Washington where they really blew their shot. I got mad and left the lounge to watch the rest on gamecast while doing homework. I found much comfort in homework that semester between the Phillies and Eagles...I just had so much to do that it took my mind off the teams.
I really need a job....if not for the money just to get my mind on more important things again...I don't know what I'll do if the Phils melt down and I have no work to distract me
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| I really can't think of a good way to start this entry. I'm just writing this mainly to express my thoughts and maybe make some sense of it all.
I was just informed about 20 mins ago (1:20 am) that a driver, Billy Kimmel, was killed tonight in a race at Williams Grove Speedway. This kind of hits close to home for me. I didn't know the driver personally or anything like that I just visited the track on a pretty much regular basis while in college and I still go about once every month or so. Infact I was there last Fri (Aug. 24th).
People go to races because they enjoy the speed and close competition. Drivers and fans both know that something real bad can happen at any time. It's just pushed to the back of your head. You don't think it can happen. Why? Perhaps because you can't enjoy something when you think of the possible consequences. Maybe you just sit there not thinking about it. I think I'm of the later. I go and enjoy. I know something could happen. I've never seen anything like it happen. Doesn't occur that anything horrible will happen.
I have however been at races and had a scare. I have seen some really nasty wrecks. Some (including the one that scared me the most) happened at the Grove. One wreck scared me more because the car was flying straight at me before hitting the catch fence, hit one of the light poles near me causing it to shake and luckily not fall cause it could have hit me.
In almost all sport something terrible and deadly could happen. Racing, football, hockey, and even baseball come to mind right away. Is that part of the appeal? Is there some kind of thrill in the subconscious about the danger of these sports that makes them popular? I suppose it is possible that humans do have a blood lust....it's just been disguised a bit. We're not watching lions eat Christians or Gladiator battles to the death. We just have sports now that it can happen...altough not part of regular occurance.
RIP Billy Kimmel. My thoughts and prayers are with your family and friends. I'm also keeping my thoughts with the Central PA racing community as this is going to be hard to deal with in such a tight nit community.
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