Since We've Been Gone...

So, we've been the worst bloggers in history. We gave you Baltimore action and then flat left you. We didn't even cover the playoffs - a post season in which a New York team was represented. However, in our defense, we've been extremely busy. And also popular. Since we feel like we owe you a little bit of an explanation, we'll detail our timeline from the Baltimore game to today.

We'll start with just a few weekends after we traveled to Baltimore and went to a Yankees doubleheader. At the end of September, we ran in the Tunnel 2 the Tower 5K with Auntiedukes, Stephanie, Julia, and Julia's extremely tall sidekick.

The Saturday immediately following the Tunnel 2 the Tower Run, we ran a half marathon with Stephanie. After we crossed the finish line, this extremely handsome firefighter took a photo with us. Unfortunately, he tried to pose for a photo with us before giving Serena her medal and that was simply unacceptable, so she yelled at him. We were a little cranky from running for over 2 hours.

As if 13 miles weren't enough, Serena and Auntiedukes chose to walk in the Avon 39 NYC event shortly after. Lisa, Aunt Cathy, Mamadukes, Roberta, Stephanie, and Julia came out to cheer them on.

Feeling randy from our recent athletic endeavors, we chose to go pumpkin picking and participate in all of the farm's children's activities.

We laid low from that point on until Halloween. We spent our time busy like beavers to ensure the perfection execution of our Halloween costumes. In the end, our hard work and attention to detail paid off. We partied at a bar in Chelsea within view of the Empire State Building. Erin and The Favorite traveled down from Boston to join us. Behold the kick ass crossover super hero crew:

 

 

During this time, as you know, the Mets were chipping their way through the Division Series, Championship Series, and into the World Series. We tried to cross another item off the NYE resolution list by acquiring tickets to one of these playoff games, however Lisa felt slightly wronged. The Mets required her to enter a lottery in order to have the opportunity to purchase tickets. Lisa received an email that she didn't qualify to purchase for the Division Series, which was a bummer. Both of us agreed that we wouldn't pay the ass raping prices of StubHub for these tickets. We have pride. Sometimes too much pride, which bites us in the ass, but in this case, it served our bank accounts well.

All was not lost. The Mets advanced to the Championship. This time, Lisa qualified. By the time she got tickets, all that was left were tickets to "game 4." We discussed this while foam rolling at the gym.
"Oh! I got us tickets to game 4. That's all that was left."
Serena: "Are you sure it's for game 4 and not the fourth home game?"
Lisa: "No. It says game 4 on the tickets."
Serena: "Oh, that's new. They didn't used to do it that way."
Lisa: "Yeah. We definitely have tickets to game 4."
Serena: "Cool."

Fast forward:
Lisa: "Sooooooo, it turns out we have tickets to game 7."
Serena: "I knew it."
Lisa: "Yeah, so this game will either be extremely epic or a goddamn nightmare. We'll either be celebrating or I'm going home crying."

As you know, the Mets never made it to game 7 because they swept the Cubs. Side note: Lisa only just got her money back today. Way to be on top of that, Ticketmaster. So quick to take the money, but not so quick to give it back.

Onto the World Series. Lisa received yet another rejection email from the Mets.

Meanwhile, all around us are these fake bandwagon Mets fans going to the playoff games. It was infuriating. Here we are, supporting our teams and each other through good times and not so good times, through old stadiums and new. Faithful to the end. Then these buffoons come in here with their clean, shiny, brand new Mets memorabilia with the tags still on it and take our ticket opportunities away. That's really all we have to say on this subject. We don't want to talk about it anymore.

Back to our busy, fun-filled schedule. Today, we ran what may or may not be our final run for the year (there's talk of a turkey trot at the end of the month, but we're unable to confirm or deny that at this time): the Damon Runyon 5K. Today was our 4th go round of this particular race, Stephanie's second, and Dan's first. We're proud to say that we broke his run cherry. Once again, Lisa was displeased by the idea that walkers got a medal as well as the runners since they didn't do half the work that we did. Lisa was also extremely put out by the fact that there was no cheese table. In fact, she was so upset by this injustice that she inserted the word, "cheese" into random sentences throughout the rest of the day. After our run, we ate, drank coffee, and napped (not in a puppy pile).

Now, we wait for the Giants to blow it either in the last final games of the season or in the first round of the playoffs, we wait for spring training, we wait for the Bronx Zoo run, and we wait for Opening Day. In the midst of this, perhaps we will actually get our shit together and plan a stadium tour.We do only have seven stadiums left and as per usual with us, as we get down to the wire, we start dragging our feet.

PS - our ADD caused this blog post to take over 2 hours to write. Wait until the baseball season and all of our game photos, people. ALL DAY blog posts. ALL DAY.

Offseason Planning

You're probably expecting an entire blog about how great we are...don't worry, you'll get that. Just not yet. We've got other stuff to cover first. For starters, our 2014 stadium tour. With Mamadukes' conversion from New Yorker to boring Floridian, we've decided to choose the Rays as one of our next stadiums. Serena has already been to the Trop with an ex-boyfriend several years ago and she's warned Lisa to imagine watching a game in her garage...only worse. Cos' there are no couches or bowls of chips and salsa. The question now is where else will we go? Here are the options:

• We revisit the original plan for last season to hit Texas and Arizona
• We modify our "Big Bang Tour" to hit Detroit, Cinci, Cleveland, AND Pittsburgh and do Pittsburgh solo next season

Here are the pros and cons:

• If we do Texas & Arizona on top of Tampa Bay, that's FOUR stadiums off the list.
• Four stadiums = a shit-ton of travel arranging. A shit-ton of travel arranging = a shit-ton of money we don't really have right now (and also time off from work). Which means we won't be able to buy the cowboy hats and boots that we really want.
• If we do Pittsburgh, our travel expenses drop drastically.
• Removing Pittsburgh from our "Big Bang Tour" makes the trip a little less epic.

While we debated the arguments on both sides, we made baked mac and cheese for football Sunday.  Funny backstory to the recipe we made today. One of Serena's fonder memories of one of her ex-boyfriends was his baked mac and cheese dish...and that's pretty much it. That's basically all he has to offer to our planet. They supposedly had an "amicable" breakup, but when she asked him for the recipe, he gave it to everyone in the office but us. Even people who didn't ask for it. We're not kidding. He also stole Mema's cheese grater when he moved out to ensure that we wouldn't make this recipe (because we're lazy and therefore, wouldn't replace the cheese grater). However, our persistence paid off. We found a co-worker willing and able to make a photocopy of his recipe for us. Which brings us to today...8 years later. We told you we were lazy. We were hoping to avoid spending $20/each at Taco Bell. We ended up eating half of the dish and passing out during Jets' halftime instead of using that time wisely and blogging. Or making a decision regarding our stadium tour. We were apparently found passed out with our empty plates and the internet machine turned on. We woke up to a picture of us sleeping in Serena's text messages. At the very least, if the internet machine was on, we had the best intentions to blog.



We're willing to listen to your opinions. Provided they're not stupid. Post your thoughts regarding our potential plans for our stadium tour for the upcoming 2014 season in the comments section for this blog post.

Now for the moment we know you've been waiting for. Our epic Halloween greatness.

Apologies for the enormous nature of this photo. Once again, Blogger is the very definition of an a-hole. We apparently can't control the formatting of our own blog posts because this forum sucks donkey dick.

 

Unfortunately, there were a good deal of individuals that didn't have a clue as to who we were, which makes us question the moral compass of this nation. We were called Fozzy Bear, Sexy Bear, Cop, Bounty Hunter, Pirate, and one a-hole in particular asked if we were hunters from Tennessee. Supposedly this man has a college degree and passed the bar exam, but now we're questioning whether or not he found his law degree in a Happy Meal because that was one of the dumbest statements we've ever heard. What the f*ck does a hunter from Tennessee look like and why is he familiar with this look? A bar posted a photo of us from their Halloween party on their Facebook page and he continued to stick to this idiot assessment in the comment section of the photo. Needless to say, for these heinous crimes against humanity (and us...the greatest people you will ever know), Old Man Ed is the a-hole of the week. We want to make this clear. When we say old, we mean a T-Rex once chased him out of his man cave. He was present for the second day when God said, "let there be light." He replied, "Oh, thank god." He is personally responsible for the dinosaurs not making it onto Noah's Ark because he's a life ruiner.

 

Despite these hiccups, we managed to score third place at the bar's costume contest last night. Two of the bartenders assured us that we deserved to win the entire contest, but we're not going to bellyache TOO much.

Jinkies & Zoinks!

We're going to be brief today because New York and New Jersey is in the midst of preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Sandy (or as Serena's been calling it for some unknown reason, "Hurricane Steven." Lisa thinks it's because Serena misses Steve and that this has just been a pyschological freudian slip). The good news, folks, is that despite the supposed impending apocalypse, the stores are well-stocked with Twinkies. No water or batteries or anything like that, but there's a ton of Twinkies. Plus, if you hit up a Stop-N-Shop, Twinkies are on sale. A little bit of coverage on the World Series and a little bit of coverage on the Halloween festivities to date, which we know you're all looking forward to. Before we get into the important stuff, we must first discuss our poll. You people suck balls. NO ONE voted? This is a first. Not even since our very first blog post have we ever experienced such a blatant f*ck you from our readers. We asked if the NFL should get a new SNF introduction. Did you not know what "SNF" meant? Aren't you sports fans? You're dead to us. Pack of a-holes. You really are. We shouldn't even GIVE you any Halloween pictures, but we're going to anyway because we're amazing.

First, the World Series. If you've been following, you know that the Tigers are in the hole by 3 games. While we're not saying we want the Tigers to necessarily WIN the series, we will be pretty disappointed if the Tigers get swept. What a lame, ho-hum way to close out the baseball season. It's only funny if the Phillies and Red Sox are swept. The good news is that since the season is now so ridiculously long, we'll only have to wait 3 months for spring training. Just two worthy notes: Barry Zito. Talk about a complete 180. The man's been on fire. His curve ball is back to its sexy status, the comb-over is gone, the moustache has been shaved, balance has been restored. Serena's gonna need the 5:00 shadow to come back though. Clean shaven does not suit him. Also, Timmy's been rocking the SH*T out of the bullpen. You can thank us, SF fans, for this transformation because we're the ones who gave him the regiment of success. Obviously he's been following it faithfully.

Now for Halloween shenanigans. As you may be aware, we dressed as Daphne and Velma from Scooby Doo. Let's start with Friday night, shall we? We were a massive hit at the gala we attended. The Mystery Machine was coveted by all. Scooby was loved and more importantly, we were worshipped like celebrities. Just look at this sh*t:

Our friend, Kathleen looked like the bomb diggity as well. The best part is that she never smiled in her photographs like the legit Edward Scissorhands.

Unfortunately, we were all senselessly robbed in the Halloween contest. For starters, Kathleen wasn't even in the final five!!! Seriously? She was "outdone" by a crappy ninja. We call BULLSH*T! We were in the final two and we lost to some kid in an oompa loompa costume! He didn't even paint himself orange! Plus, he was entirely too tall. He was taller than us...which, we should add, does NOT make us midgets. How did you expect people to pick adults over a kid? We were set up to lose. It was a fixed contest. The only thing that kept us together was that everyone kept approaching us afterwards and telling us that they voted for us.

We did win a silent auction prize for a Disney excursion which is pretty awesome. What's more awesome is the fact that Mama Leone has been telling people that we won this prize for best costume. Yup. We'll totally support that rumor and spread that story like a Herpes on a whore.

No problem. We had another night of festivities planned for Saturday night. A bar we were going to was holding a cash prize costume contest. We had this in the bag seeing as how children are not allowed in bars...or so we thought. Since the bar was so crowded, we left the Mystery Machine behind, but Scooby joined us.

Do you know how many people didn't know who we were??? If you questioned us, you're only a slight moron, but the fact that Scooby Doo was rolling with us should've clarified all of your doubt! These people were clearly deprived. A select few individuals recognized us immediately and we instantly became these people's favorite costumes. Batman said we were the best female costumes in the place and that we "totally made sense." A sluttly Bud Light, Cat, and Bunny insisted they take pictures with us. Slutty Pocahontas insisted on an impromptu dance party with us. Neytiri from Avatar high-fived us. Maverick tried to unsuccessfully hit on Velma ("everyone knows that Velma was the inner dirty girl, right?") and a guy not in costume stole Velma's classes and tried to mack it to Daphne because he "had a crush on Daphne as a kid." Jinkies! He realized that Daphne was a cartoon, right? A taco wearing a sombrero gropped both Daphne AND Velma separate occasions.

Failure of the night: A bank robber tried this line on Velma:
Bank robber: So...can I borrow a book from you?
Velma: Huh?
Bank robber: Can I borrow a book from you?
*Did Velma carry a book around and I just don't remember it?* Velma: What?
Bank robber: Can you loan me a book?
Velma: A book?
Bank robber: Aren't you a sexy librarian?
*Look of anger and outrage* Velma: NO! I'm Velma!!!
Bank robber: Uh...
Velma: Didn't you watch Scooby Doo when you were younger????
Bank robber: Uh...yes? Uh, oh, right. I got it.
Velma: Ugh. Idiot.
*Stomps off in a rage to find Daphne*

What kind of sexy librarian rocks a bowl haircut and orange knee socks??? Moron. We knew immediately that we weren't going to win the contest. The judge was a slutty cowgirl and she wrote down the following costumes as competitors: 1 of 10 slutty Minnie Mouses, slutty zombie Japanese dolls, 1 of 5 Julius Caesars, and a ton of lingerie girls wearing a variety of animals ears. Disgusting.

On a brighter note, Scooby Doo knows how to throw down and party. He drank beer with us:

Boogied down on the dance floor:

He was just an all-around good time. He was the best date. He even offered to be the designated driver.

We've got one last chance to win a contest and that's on Wednesday. We don't care if it's just a lifetime supply of pizza or something. We just want to win the prize that we deserve.

Happy Halloween, folks! To all of our Northeastern residents, be safe, stay dry, and stay drunk.

Greetings from Serena’s Bed

As you may have realized based on our title that we are blogging from the comforts of Serena’s bed brought to us by the glory that is Egyptian cotton comforter. We’re confident that we will finish this blog post by kickoff. At least…that is the mission we’ve chosen to accept at this time. Last week, as we closed in on the final games of the World Series and the official end of the baseball season, we asked if you’d continuing reading our blog after it was all over. The results were…astonishing. 3 of you would keep reading if one of us showed you our boobs. On what planet did you think we’d actually show you nipple? Be serious. You didn’t think that one through, did you? You saw the word “boob” and got so excited that you went, “YES” and picked that option. We are clearly dealing with a pack of perverts here. 3 said that you would continue reading because you are “following us so that you can roofie us.” We don’t even know what to say. 2 of you were kind enough to choose, “Yes, because while I think this blog has absolutely no relevance on anyone’s day to day life, it’s quite well-written and it makes me giggle.” Why thank you. We make ourselves giggle on a daily basis. If only we had a cameraman following us around and documenting our every move, you’d be in for a real treat. This week, you’re getting 2 polls as one pertains to Lisa and the other pertains to Serena. Please vote on both. The last time we gave you two polls (one for the American League and one for the National League), you sucked hard. Please try not to be such a failure this time around. The polls are related to last week’s reference to How I Met Your Mother.

Now that the World Series has come to an end, we officially have no games to report on. Or rather, make fun of cos’ that’s really what we do. We’ll admit that the excitement in this year’s series is the fact that the Cardinals came from behind in game 6 to push a game 7. We love suspenseful 7-game series. Who the hell enjoys a sweep? It’s boring and one-sided. Sort of like when Crash Davis told LaLoosh in Bull Durham, “Don’t try to strike everybody out! Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they’re fascist! Throw some ground balls – it’s more democratic.” Here’s our problem with the series. Heading into it, both teams had some serious issues with pitching. The Rangers in particular had a combined ERA of over 6. That’s insane. This is supposed to be the best of baseball competing for the trophy. The Rangers had to beat 13 other teams in order to represent the American League and the Cardinals had to beat out 15 others to represent the National League. Having said that, tell us why game 7 involved the Cardinals scoring 6 runs, game 6 had a score of 10-9, and game 3 had a score of 16-7? In one friggin’ game, 23 f*cking runs were scored. WHAT??? Under what circumstances is it okay for a championship team’s pitching staff to give up that much action? That home plate saw more tail than a hooker working the Port Authority. Games 1 and 2 were more on par for what a World Series game should be with the final scores being 3-2 and 2-1 respectively. This series should have been the Tigers and the Brewers and that’s that. It would have been much more entertaining and less of a slugfest.

As promised, we continued our research regarding the MLB post season at MNF. Unfortunately, we only asked two people and we’re not sure this counts because they work at the bar and are technically forced to speak to us. Lisa chronicled their answers in her handy “Memo” feature on her asstastic phone. We’re going to directly quote what she wrote about Adam because this would only be better if she had written it on a cocktail napkin: “Adam is a bartender and he is a huge baseball fan he stull watches.” Yes. We left that typo in on purpose because that’s half the magic of this wonderful entry. That and the total lack of punctuation. Yes, folks. Alcohol WAS involved. Apparently, she did much better with Chris…probably because she had been less drunk when we spoke to him. Chris, if given the choice, would stop watching the playoffs once the Yankees were eliminated. However, since he works at a bar, he was forced to watch all of the games. His father is a Mets fan, so if the Mets had advanced, he would’ve continued watching and cheering for the Mets. Both boys are Yankees fans.

While we failed to further develop our research on this subject, we did manage to research another MLB avenue because as you know, we have ADD and we flit between topics like a bee flits between flowers. Random and with wild abandon. The topic of the evening? What is your ideal lineup? The rules? Active players only, include a 4-man rotation and a closer, add 2 utility players, draw a pretty diamond shape on a paper placemat.

Who was our first target? Why, none other than Adam (who is a bartender)! In all honesty, this only spread as enthusiastically as it did because of him. We did nothing but drink beer and wait for the results to be reported back to us. Adam’s lineup was as follows:

1B A. Gonzalez

2B Cano

3B Longoria

SS Tulowitzki

C Y. Molina

OF Gardner

OF Hamilton

OF J. Upton

P Halladay

P Sabathia

P Verlander

P Lincecum

Closer Rivera

Util Pujols

Util Votto

Interesting story behind how Pujols ended up as a utility player. The man tried putting Pujols in right field because he had “played a few games out there.” Okay. Serena didn’t buy it. Are we going to start calling Jorge Posada a first baseman now? After bickering over this, Adam (who is a bartender) relented and put Upton in the outfield spot and Pujols in utility.

Adam then turned it around on us and Serena had do her own lineup:

1B Morneau (if healthy), otherwise Teixeira

2B Cano

3B C. Jones

SS Tulowitzki

C Mauer

OF Granderson

OF Ellsbury

OF Crawford

P Verlander

P Lincecum

P Halladay

P Hamels

Closer Wilson

Util Thome

Util E. Chavez

Choosing Chipper Jones as her third baseman prompted another argument. Adam also crossed off Crawford (literally. He took his pen and literally crossed Crawford’s name off). Here is why Serena will continue to stand by her choices. For starters, this is our ideal lineup. You can hate on Carl Crawford for his poor performance in Boston this year, but guess what? Prior to this season, Crawford performed in terms of fielding, stolen bases, and at the plate. He’s the complete package. One lousy season with a new team does not change that. Joe Mauer and Brian Wilson may have spent a sh*t ton of time on the DL this season, but that doesn’t change their ability to perform when on the field. Now for the defense of Chipper Jones. Yes, he’s in the twilight of his career, however, that does not change the fact that he’s a clutch performer and still one of the best switch hitters in the game. Look at photos of him batting from the right and left side of the plate. There is hardly a difference between the two swings. Do you know how hard it is to do that? Your dominant side will naturally be the better swing. Jones’ stance and swing are almost a mirror images from both sides. Amazing. Finally, when he DOES retire, Serena can replace him with a young buck worthy of the position like Evan Longoria. BOOM, baby!

Moving on to Mike and Lou who had been sitting at the other end of the bar and got suckered into this game by Adam (who is a bartender). Here’s Lou’s lineup:

1B Fielder

2B Kinsler

3B Beltre

SS H. Ramirez

C McCann

OF Gardner

OF Ellsbury

OF J. Piere

P Verlander

P Halladay

P Sabathia

P Lee

P Carpenter

Closer Rivera

Util

Util

Lou failed to choose utility players and by the time Serena got his lineup, Lou had already left and she was unable to question him on the subject. However, by default he gets us as his utility players. Sorry, Lou. Looks like you’re f*cked cos’ here’s our baseball resume: Serena played college softball and once applied for a job with the Pittsburgh Pirates and never heard back. Lisa’s athletic history is that she was a high school cheerleader, which has nothing to do with baseball. Lisa also enjoys watching baseball from a sofa where she doesn’t have to do anything.

Mike’s lineup:

1B Votto

2B Cano

3B Beltre

SS Castro

C Napoli

OF Kemp

OF Ellsbury

OF J. Upton

P Verlander

P Halladay

P Sabathia

P Kershaw

P F. Hernandez

Closer Krimbel

Util Fielder

Util Pujols

As you can see, both Lou and Mike opted for a 5-man rotation, which we accepted because any manager who has a hard core 5-man rotation is probably the luckiest man in baseball. Besides, we’d rather they stack up their pitching staff and not list 100 first basemen or something stupid like that. The only item on Mike’s list that we question slightly is Krimbel. He’s a rookie and if this is your “ideal” lineup, wouldn’t you want a proven closer? Someone who has been around the block a bit? What if this rookie season was a fluke?

Now…for the real gems. Both of these lineups were done by the same man with a very good sense of humor. Please remember that when you start reading them.

1B McGwire. “Maybe Mattingly”(he didn’t take steroids so that’s an issue)

2B Smith

3B Boggs

SS Ripkin

C Gary Carter

OF B. Williams (you know Serena high-fived that f*cker for this)

OF Barry Bonds (again, very pro-steroids)

OF Canseco (yay for steroids!)

P Clemens (seeing a pattern here?)

P Eckerly

Closer Andy Pettitte

Util Jo

Util Ma

Util Ma

(Read it together now: Jo Mama)

Clearly, he’s operating on a 2-man rotation with this team. Quite bold.  

Lineup Take 2:

1B Fielder

2B Mo Vaughn

3B Ray Lewis

SS Tiki Barber

C Peyton Manning

P Tom Brady

P Matt Ryan

P Mark Sanchez

P Ben Roethlisberger

Closer Albert Pujols

Util Sam Davis

Util Ryan Longwell

He obviously doesn’t need outfielders with this legendary pitching staff. It’s also quite clear that between first base, right field, and the bull pen, Albert Pujols is the most talented man currently playing baseball. Honestly, he might be onto something having Ray Lewis play third. Who in their right mind would want to advance past second with a scary mother f*cker like Ray Lewis standing on third. Dude, take third. You can have it. I don’t need to score any runs.

Speaking of scary mother f*ckers, Happy Halloween, fellow traveling baseball ghouls! Would you like to know what we dressed up as? Tough sh*t, we’re telling you anyway. Say hello to Captain Hook and Mr. Smee!

Don’t we look exactly like them? Like a mirror image, no? Kind of like Chipper Jones batting from both sides of the plate. Just sayin.’

Among our many Halloween activities this weekend, we played Rock Band for the first time. Captain took drums.

Smee got himself a guitar.

We failed miserably. We ended our “Here I Go Again” performance with only 40 fans. In our defense, we had absolutely no idea as to what the hell we were doing and at one point, we were definitely following each other’s chords because Serena distinctly remembers trying to drum to Lisa’s guitar notes like an a$$ clown. Plus, Lisa didn’t realize that she was supposed to “strum” her guitar until Chris #1’s friends sat down to “show us how it was done.” They played some really complicated death metal song at “expert level.” Whatever. Show offs. They weren’t even in costume.

By the way, it’s 1:08 and we’ve had to relocate to the living room in order to watch the Giants/Dolphins game. So...we were a little over confident in our ability to write a blog in 2 hours and 15 minutes. Seeing the time written out like that is kind of depressing.

Before we leave you, we wanted to point out a new edition to our blog. Thanks to repetitious questions, topics, and incidents, we’ve decided to create a “Rules of Engagement” section that addresses the most common of these. Check it out. Leave feedback. Maybe a few suggestions as to what we may have missed. Next week and in the weeks following, we’ll be re-writing and posting our original stadium tours in an effort to deliver a consistent format and story regarding all of our travel-related posts. Next week, we’ll bring back RFK Stadium!

By the way, it’s 1:44 pm.