APOCALYPSE RIGHT MEOW: Liveblogging Hurricane Sandy from Philadelphia

[As Hurricane Sandy barrels down on the East Coast, Sherman Ave Philadelphia correspondent Courtney Thomas will provide live updates from the City of Brotherly Snuggles. Unless Sandy takes out the Internetz, in which case FUCK IT WE’LL DO IT LIVE. More updates to come!]

Sandyyyy, babbyyyyyy, why-y-y-y-y-y.

UPDATE: 9:17pm ET, Oct. 30

Well, Sandy is over. Classes begin tomorrow and SEPTA is running public transit. I think we all can agree that Sandy has taught us some valuable lessons. For all the FOTAs that didn’t get to experience these lessons firsthand, I’ve compiled them below:

• There’s no hangover like a hurricane hangover. Whether it’s from actual Hurricanes or just drinking while the storm rages outside, just know that the next morning, the sound of every raindrop will be like a jackhammer into your addled little brain.
• Having two surprise vacation days sounds awesome, but then you just put off a lot of work, making Tuesday night feel a lot like Sunday night. And that blows (but not harder than Sandy did).
• New Jersey is a super tenacious state.
• Never underestimate how much junk food a single human being can consume. My next apology will be to Michelle Obama. I feel like I’ve disgraced her by eating frosting right out of the jar.
• You find your real friends during a hurricane. The people who sit in your living room with you and play Never Have I Ever or decide to go on the porch to see how bad it is are actually your friends. The other people just hang out with you cause you have great hair.

From Philadelphia, over and out.

– Courtney

UPDATE: 7:40pm ET, Oct. 29

[Editor’s note: It is now clear that the residents of Philadelphia are losing their minds as the apocalypse bears down upon them.]

UPDATE: 5:38pm ET, Oct. 29

Sandy is getting worse out there, folks! Look at this image of a tree that used to stand straight up being blown over at a 90-degree angle by the wind (note: this tree is less than 100 feet from my kitchen window).

The Haus of Baus (my living quarters here in lovely, safe, bucolic North Philadelphia, where people get shot every other Wednesday) has prepared a quick and easy guide to staying prepared for the storm. Don’t let those assholes who say “get water, get batteries!” fool you. This is the stuff you really need:

• Lots and lots of junk food: See all that food on our shelves?
  

  Michelle Obama saw this and shat herself. True story.

  None of that shit is good for you. There are two huge jars of Nutella in that one image. There’s also pasta, Oreos and a lot of other stuff that will make your butt even more bootylicious than that one stripper you liked last year. My theory as to why we eat junk food during inclement weather is that we need to increase our body mass so that we don’t get blown away. Eat up, stay in place. Science.

• A fridge full of beverages, alcoholic and non-alcoholic alike: Duh, you need alcohol. The new president of Temple didn’t cancel classes so we can all stay sober. However, you should temper that with some non-alcoholic beverages. We don’t know how long Sandy is going to keep raging away, and you don’t want to end your rager before she does. Alternate, and your liquor supply will survive through the storm. Note the mix of alcohol and Diet Coke in our fridge.
• Tomato sauce: Hurricane or no hurricane, I’m fucking Italian, and tomato sauce cures everything. We’re like the Greeks in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, except instead of Windex, we make sauce. It cures a multitude of ills. Also, don’t even begin to play me with some jar of Ragu or Prego or crap like that. If it’s not homemade, don’t eat it. If it’s not homemade and you do eat it, I hope Sandy eats your family.

Hurricane Survival 101, taught by Professor C. Thomas, meets every time a big ass storm threatens the entire East Coast.

I ATE IT WITH MY MOUTH.

Ratio: 3/4 vodka, 1/4 some vegetable thing

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UPDATE: 3:27pm ET, Oct. 29

Welcome back to Hurricane Sandy, live from Philadelphia.

So in the last couple hours, not a lot has changed. It’s still windy and raining, but nothing bad. People keep posting pictures of parts of New Jersey underwater, and everyone’s like, whatever, it’s Jersey. God hates them anyway.

So, in the interest of having a great liveblog for all you reading this, I decided to actually leave the apartment and go to 7-11 in the storm. Well, it wasn’t totally because I want to make this blog great, even though that’s a perk. I really just didn’t have enough Diet Coke to brave the storm. If my blood isn’t 37% Diet Coke at all times, I will actually die.

Fuckin’ Bear Grylls in this bitch.

I set off into the rain (see image of me looking super sexy in a hoodie. Try and hold yourselves back. It’s highly NSFW), expecting to be blown away to Oz and maybe to get some great shoes. Instead, my roommate Bridget and I just walked pretty normally. Our hoods got blown off our heads a few times. That was about it.

7-11 was DESERTED. It looked like after the zombie apocalypse hit, except without anyone trying to eat us or people with katanas. They were out of Diet Coke in 2 liter form though, so I guess the hurricane really has come.

Anyway, we got cans of Diet Coke and hightailed it home, in case the wind started to pick up. It hasn’t, even though philly.com says it’s supposed to. Those liars. Someone yelled at us from a car to get off the street.

Sandy’s mating dance apparently hasn’t started yet. Philly is still safe. RIP Jersey, maybe?

I took some pictures of the street outside 7-11. As you can see, it looks like a regular rainstorm. Sandy, so far, Irene is out-hurricaning you so hard.

-Courtney

Humanity’s destruction is upon us. We must sit now and await our doom.

THE RED LIGHT MEANS STOP AND WAIT FOR THE DEATH.

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UPDATE: 1:37pm ET, Oct. 29

Basically, Sandy’s mission is to make Irene, the hurricane we had last year, look like a little tropical storm bitch. So far, she’s doing a really crappy job. It’s raining, but not really hard, and I can still see daylight. Also, there’s some wind.

The biggest inconvenience for now is that our local beer distributor is sold out of Hurricanes, because it’s funny to drink Hurricanes during a hurricane.

I’ll keep you updated as Sandy grows in strength and tears the Jersey Shore off the country and eats the statue of William Penn off the top of City Hall. (Yeah, William Penn, you smug asshole. You won’t like it when Sandy effs you up!)

-Courtney

An Open Letter to my Unborn Grandson Explaining the Sport of Football

Dear Unborn Grandson,

Still waiting for the Houston Texans’ upcoming “Divisional Round Dubstep.”

If you are reading this now, two things must have happened. Apparently, a) I have lived like I died, drunkenly paddling a canoe in the buff down the Chicago River, and b) President Malia Ann Obama has outlawed the sport of football in our once-proud United States of America. Luckily for you, I predicted that such travesties would happen — mostly because canuding through the poisonous sludge that is the Chicago River while belligerently intoxicated can have adverse effects on your health — but also because the sport of football was pretty damn dangerous. What follows is all the important knowledge you will ever need to know in order to preserve the memory and history of the sport of football and ensure that you never ever fall prey to the allure of its metrosexual European cousin.

You see, Unborn Grandson, football was the greatest sport ever invented. The perfect combination of brawn and strategy and cheerleaders. Good God, don’t ever let us forget the cheerleaders.

Speaking of God, Yahweh fucking loved football. Just fucking loved it. Loved the sport so much that members of both teams would pray to God, asking for strength, fortitude, a sturdy offensive line, and a guaranteed contract plus incentives. God rewarded good Christians who couldn’t throw a spiral with an impregnable defense, while punishing other franchises with the likes of Cade McNown and Rex Grossman.

God loved football because football fucking ruled. In America, pro football was more popular than if Justin Bieber and cholesterol teamed up with all other major sports combined. No other game combined savage violence with cunning tactics and celebration dances quite like it. The game induced grown men in Philadelphia to throw D-batteries at Santa Claus, wear slices of cheese on their heads as they froze their asses off in Wisconsin, and even every once in awhile travel willingly to Detroit (this, after all, was before the city was overtaken by the mole people).

The athletes who played the game were revered as gods among men. If, you know, the gods were really great at running hitch and go routes and sending pictures of their junk to women they weren’t married to. Even the kickers, whose sole purpose in life was to — you guessed it Unborn Grandson — kick a ball still got laid, an impressive feat for somebody like Sebastian Janikowski.

Back before Google installed screens in all of our heads, we used to watch this magical sport from early Fall until February on things called “televisions,” which showed us the game and expert analysis of the game and hot women drinking shitty beer during breaks in the game. Sidenote: One day, Unborn Grandson, you might think that drinking Busch Light is “hip,” and “retro,” and “ironically hilarious,” but let me tell you, it’s not. All of your little hipster friends in the year 2063 might think it’s really cool to ironically drink your old man’s beer while you listen to Skrillex mp3’s and wear skinny jeans or some shit like that, but those kids have no idea how painful these things were at the time. Just be advised that my will specifically strips you of all rights to my Pokemon card collection if you are ever found Tebowing.

But yeah, TV was pretty great for football, and at the very end of the season, America held a special sacred holiday called Super Bowl Sunday. For one day the entire nation turned its eyes on the two best football teams of the year, who tried very hard to win the championship game and the ensuing confetti and the pretty metal trophy and the rights to wear rings the size of diamond-crusted nuva rings and to cry into Chris Berman‘s microphone. Halftime entertainment featured the very best aging classic rock stars had to offer, and even the occasional rogue booby or floating Usher.

The only thing better than professional football was college football. The college game was as passionate as Sicilians, and its governing body was as corrupt as, well, Sicilians. The rivalries were intense, and the pregames before a noon kickoff were unseemly in the best possible way.

Now, I’m sure grandpop’s alma mater has made quite a name for itself in the future, thanks to alumni like Ross Packingham (Beer Pong Olympic goldmedalist, 2024, 2028) and Chet Haze (Bratz 3D, Forrest Gump 2: Gump n Grind), but we were once a pretty respectable football institution too. We’re talking, like, the 7th most feared Big Ten team.

College football had things called “bowl games” instead of the Super Bowl to commemorate the end of its season. It worked kind of like youth soccer, where almost everybody got a trophy. I can still remember the thrill of victory when Northwestern won its first bowl game since the Rose Bowl, defeating the South Dakota State Jackrabbits in one of the most thrilling Overstock.com Money Grab Bowl in years. Those were the days. Half of the school erupted into celebration while patiently explaining to the other half what a first down was.

But I can only assume that the goddamn liberals and the socialists and the gays and the concussed NFL retirees will collude together to pressure President Malia Obama to ban the sport from America altogether in the near future. I cannot express how tragic of a mistake this will be, on par with our future decision to defrost Walt Disney or replace football with children fighting to the death for our entertainment.

Alright, Unborn Grandson, I hope this letter has reached you well. Please understand how important the sport of football was to all Americans, and don’t judge us too harshly for our cultural transgressions during the YOLO era. Things like twitter and Four Loko seemed like pretty great ideas at the time.

Well, that’s about it. I hope things are well in the future for you and your Roomba overlords. Are they still making teenage fiction about vampires? Has Christopher Nolan won an Oscar yet? How does your generation feel about the Black Keys?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a river to canude down.

Sincerely,
Evander