I love the Amazing Race. I’ve seen every single episode since it started.  It’s the only reality show that I totally dig–except for the Teen Mom on MTv.

But I have to say that the past four cycles–I have been VERY disappointed by the winners–probably most with the ones for this time–Ernie and Cindy.

They annoyed the HELL out of me. Every week–blah blah blah–we just went to tawian—blah blah blah–we speak ancient coastal Honduran–blah blah blah–I’m Chinese and I have to be perfect at every single thing that I ever do to bring pride to my family.And yes, I DID just say that last line in my head like a bad Chinese movie dub over where the mouths and words don’t line up.

Get it together, CBS. I don’t know how much more of this torture that I can take.

Better yet–offer the Brain and I a chance to run the Amazing Race. I won’t deny it’s been a dream of mine since season 1 to be on this show. The only caveat would be–you could never show our faces–there would have to be a continuous blur during the whole race so that we could retain our anonymity.

Because we could win, damn it–and I don’t want some money grubbing people looking for handouts on our stoop.

The Ridgely’s Rag came the other day, as per usual, and among all the other useless information, was a paragraph pushing the sale of calendars featuring the ‘dogs of Ridgely’s Delight’.

For the super low affordable price of $20, you can be the proud owner of this sure to be classic calendar.

Are they serious?

Being a person who loves a good deal–on the way to work Friday morning, I did make a stop to buy one item that was considered a ‘black Friday’ deal–but it was such a good price I couldn’t say no!  While getting it from the display, another customer walked by, asked what it was, and then proceeded to buy four of them to use as ‘wedding gifts’ in the future.  So if anyone out there gets a Wolfgang Puck set of stainless stell electric pepper/salt mills for a wedding gift–you’re welcome! And they only paid $9.98 for them.

I also risked a second stop at Target–and there were NO crowds.  Of course, the one item I wanted at Target was no longer there–but that’s okay–because it wasn’t something I would die without. And I did get a pack of socks for me–feeding my sock addiction.

The countdown to Christmas starts…..NOW!  

Dear NFL,

Turkey day in Baltimore now means football. And the NFL schedulers were VERY clever in putting a brother (John) against brother (Jim) family coaching conundrum to play out over the Thanksgiving holiday. One is the coach of our hometown Ravens.  The other is the coach of the 49′ers. And both want to go to a Superbowl.

It used to be that only Detroit hosted a Turkey day matchup.  Then Dallas got into the picture.  And now Baltimore. And not only d0 we get a game on Thanksgiving day–we get a game on Christmas Eve.  Seriously? I love the Ravens as much as any other non-native Baltimoron–but two major holidays?  Why can’t we share the love?

So anyways–thanks NFL for giving me a reason to not leave my house tomorrow.  It doesn’t matter that this pre-Saturday holiday day means I probably wouldn’t have left it anyways–but now even if I WANTED to go shopping at Target at 10pm–I couldn’t–not without giving up my parking spot.

So wait–I guess, I really DO mean thanks–because I’m going to be saving some mad money this year (that is–if I actually had any money to spend–I would be saving it because of you)! NFL…you rock!

Much (Ravens) love…

Pinky

In the Baltimore Guide police blotter

S. Fagley Street, 800 block, November 8, 9:19 p.m. A woman was arrested for stealing items from her roommate, including jewelry, an air freshener, a hat and Old Bay.

Is stealing Old Bay an arrestable offense?

I don’t care about Penn State and JoPa and everything else going on in PA. Is it sad–yes, especially for the kids who were impacted–but the people involved need to take their punishment. 

I don’t care that Rick Perry is a moron and forgot his own political platform in a debate. He’s stupid for wanting to cut Education, Commerce…and whatever his third one was.  I still don’t know–and I don’t think he does, either.

I don’t care that 15 years ago that Cain guy might or might not have harassed some women. You know what, ladies–GET OVER IT.  There has to be some statute of limitations for busty blonde bimbos to cry FOUL! and try to profit from their pasts.

I don’t care about Black Friday sales and stores that plan on raping the public of their money beginning at midnight on Thanksgiving.  If people are stupid enough to spend money and go into debt over a holiday, then that’s their business. Just don’t expect me to pay for your mistakes when you can’t afford to pay your credit cards, car notes, and mortgages.  People need to learn to live within their means.

I don’t care that the bottle tax is going up again–we buy our bottled drinks outside of the city, so that doesn’t really bother me.  But I’m sick of listening to the people who do complain about it–yuppies and rich people from Fells Point, Hampden, Otterbien, etc.  If you can afford to go to a bar and drop $6.00 on a beer, I’m sure that additional $0.04 tax per bottle isn’t really going to impact your drinking TOO much.

In fact, I really don’t care about alot of things right now. Maybe I should change the name to Ridgely’s Afternoon…Ehhh.

According to recent television news reports, and the Baltimore Sun today, the Baltimore Grand Prix was not as “awesome” as it was predicted to be. It also appears that Baltimore Racing Development is also having issues paying their vendors, according to WJZ.

Although the race for 2012 is already on the schedule for Labor Day, is it too much to hope that they declare bankruptcy and go away? Fingers X’d.

So, if you don’t buy candy because you don’t get trick-or-treaters, and you don’t wear a costume because your employer frowns on that, and you didn’t buy a pumpkin to carve because you figured it would be stolen and/or eaten, and today is pretty much like any other day in the ‘hood….is it really Halloween?

I’m not quite sure….either way, have a good one. 

Oh, and the voting for the MOBBIES start today.  I’m under two categories–best Baltimore City blog and Best personal blog.  If you want to vote for me, you can. If you don’t want to–well, that’s your choice.  I won’t be begging for your votes.

Dear Jay Pendell Jones,

Thank you so much on your comments lately regarding my “poetic license” post of September 27, 2011.

In answer to your primary questions posed, please see below:

1. Why call out the editor/author of the RDA newsletter (MVitolo) as a drag? Well, because I CAN. Do I need another reason? The things that are written are not WELL written, are often rife with typo’s, and aren’t formatted well. She’s lucky that I only called her a drag–when what I wanted to say was that her work on the newsletter sucks donkey balls–but I digress.

2. Why rag on the community meetings? I rag on the community meetings because the people who are voted in to represent the citizen of Ridgelys Delight do not actively represent the entire neighborhood and the issues that plague all of us. Rather, it seems, that they pick and choose issues that benefit the few rather than the many. I think that the election process is antiquated, that it is stupid to require residents to attend two meetings before being allowed to vote on an issue, and that this restriction KEEPS the same people in office, allowing them to shuffle the ranks of command between them. While this process remains in place, Ridgely’s will never be able to grow and change. And stop buying stupid signs for the neighborhood.

3. What power does the RDA authority have in this city? Your answer was ‘f*cking zero’. See my answer to #2 above. BTW, do you use that kind of language around your precious little daughter? Really? Dropping an F-bomb–not once, but TWICE in your comments?

4. Why do I live in the city and bitch about it so much? Again, because it’s my RIGHT to bitch about anything I want to. I can bitch about you, your wife Allison, your entitled off-street parking south of Washington Blvd, the fact that people abuse parking priveliges by selling their visitor permits, or selling residential permits by using the “notarized” letter giving use of a vehicle to someone to get that lovely decale for their window. I can bitch about the dog owners who don’t clean up after themselves, the meth addicts who stand on the corner of Penn/Pratt and harass residents on their way to work, the UMB and UMMC employees who treat our neighborhood and stoops like their own personal property, and the RDA if I damn well please.

5. Although not in the form of a question, you also told me, “The Grand Prix was f*cking awesome, so eat that too.” No thank you, I don’t think I want to eat that bit of SRB propoganda. The Grand Prix is a joke. It disrupts lives, shuts down the city, will cause Pratt Street to be under constant construction for the next nine months, and generally was a horrible thing to do to the city. Although I would never wish for anyone to die or be hurt, when Wheldon crashed his car at the Indy race, I kind of wished it would have happened here–then maybe we could get our lives back instead of planning to take labor day vacations for the next four years. So eat this, Jay Pendell Jones–Your an ass.

Much love,

Pinky

It was so awesome to watch the news last night and see that our fellow residential parking area #2 (near Morgan State) is as fed up with the parking situation as we (meaning the Brain, me, and various people in our neighborhood that we speak to) are!

However, we have not gotten to the point where we have organized a march on city hall (yet), although now, I think it should be something to be considered. We have alot in common with Area 2–

day parking students (them: Morgan State, us: UMB)

employees (them: Morgan State, us: UMB and UMMC)

visitors (them: restaurants, Morgan State, us: UMB, UMMC, restaurants/bars, oh yeah–and STADIUM EVENTS)

They want to go to zero hour parking so that they can come home to find parking in their neighborhood, not have daily altercations with rude people, alleviate the amount of trash and debris, and generally, keep their neighborhood safe.  Does this sound familiar? Does this sound like something that would be of use in Ridgelys Delight? HELL to the YES!

C’mon people–and I mean everyone–we need to band together, march on city hall, and get OUR voices about parking issues heard.  Maybe if we could just get zero hour in the northern part of the neighborhood–it would make a difference.  Anyone have the number of the people from Area 2? Maybe we could work together.

Who’s with me? Who wants to fight the ‘man’, and make a difference?