Snarky Tom's Rants, Raves and Ruminations

As I mentioned in yesterday's post , that I have been called upon to serve jury duty for the fifth time in 10 years.  I enlightened you a little and commented about how the Philly court system works and your average Philadelphia jurist's lack of a dress code.  Today I would like to tell you the story of my fifth visit to 1301 Filbert Street . I took the 56 bus from the Torresdale Loop to the Erie-Torresdale station on the MFL (Market-Frankford Line).  I rode the El to the 13th Street station and arrived top side.  Picked up a Subway breakfast and arrived early just before 8 a.m to the courthouse.  The notice said 8:15 so I felt good for being on time.  (I may have danced a little with a homeless man outside the courthouse to celebrate my punctuality.)  It was obvious to me when some jurors stumbled in 15, 20, 30 minutes late that they not only didn't care about their appearance, but punctuality was not an issue either.  Refer to...

A sign that Summer is finally here is that th e sun is up far too soon for many of us.  Another sign of Summer is another jury duty notice from the Philadelphia Courts-First Judicial District of Pennsylvania.  It's  the second year in a row.   It seems strange that in the 10 years that I've lived in Philadelphia I have been called for jury duty five times.  Yes, five times. The first time was about eight years ago.  A murder case where a cabby was murdered in a robbery by several young men in West Philadelphia.  One of the young men was on trial.  B ecause I had my own court hearing scheduled the following week in north Jersey,  I requested to be excused because the trial was gaged to run longer than I was available .   The second time about a year or so later I was called upon but wasn't needed and was sent home after lunch.  However, it was around Christmas and I caught the light show in the Macy's ga...

...you change the mascot from this  to this... Where the naming of teams started is unclear.  Athletic teams have long used colors and nicknames as a form of team identity. This echoes the use of colors and nicknames in other activities such as heraldry, the military, and the flags of nations.  The first openly all-professional team was the Cincinnati Red Stockings, an amateur team that turned professional and began a successful barnstorming tour in 1869.  (Wikipedia)   From Wikipedia, I found a list of baseball teams throughout the years.  Many were named after uniform colors (Red Sox, White Sox, Grays, Blues, Red Stockings, etc.).  The NL went so far to pass a rule where each team had to have a different color stockings to tell them apart.  This evolved to the color naming of teams.  Other team names evolved from the media.  Sportswriters would invent names that resembled the characteristics of the city to make the...

I was speaking to a co-worker today about our weekends.  It was her birthday Sunday as well as Father's day.  I did not broach the subject of Father's day as I lost mine 14 years ago and she lost hers about 3 years ago.  I told her  I had the opportunity this past weekend to do something that I don't do often enough.  I purchased flowers - roses - for no reason but to surprise my girlfriend.  My girlfriend dislikes  the title girlfriend/boyfriend for people our age.  She thinks of teenagers when you speak of   girlfriend/boyfriend .  I have no problem with those titles.  But I digress.  My gal pal  mentioned with a protruding turned down lower lip that her fiance did not get her flowers for her birthday.  I was surprised because this guy is a prince from everything I have ever heard about him.  She asked me why I got the flowers.  I told her it was Flag Day .  They wer...

It's maybe the first of many  wonderful S aturdays in the unofficial/official Summer 0f 2014 and I'm trapped indoors nursing a damn head and chest cold without a nurse.  Today was a planned day to spend partly indoors to ready my house for sale.  Instead I'm occupying my La-Z-Boy recliner watching television.  I would have spent the time reading but that requires full concentration which I hardly have any at this time.  Between constant hacking coughs and trips to the bathroom (I'm filling up on plenty of fluids), I have little interest on concentrating on story lines.  However, television is aptly nicknamed, "Idiot Box."  I can watch hours of television. The first program I watched is dear to me as I once was told that I resembled this individual, who I've respected and enjoyed for years, Mike Ditka .  Yes, it may be hard to believe, but years ago when I was a few pounds heavier and wore a mustache, I had an uncanny resemblance to the man...

Is there a proper way to address a customer?  In the many years I have been served in restaurants and retail stores I have heard it all.  But how should the customer be greeted?  The other evening we were dining at one of our favorite Tex-Mex restaurant chains.  The young lady welcomed us at our table with a gleeful, "Hello, guys."  If I was dining with another male person, it would have been accurate.  As I was not, it sounded awkward and incorrect.  I have dined in places in and around Philadelphia and have been greeted with "Youz guys", also.  Again, very Philadelphia, but not correct.  I have heard "Folks", "Ladies and Gentlemen", "Guys and Gals", "Kids (?)" to name a few.   According to Andrew Jensen , a business growth, efficiency and marketing consultant suggests to address them with a general greeting like "Hello, welcome to Wal-Mart."  Of course, you would use the establishment you represent.  It seems si...