Today on DrugRoar.com

Yes, I’m still blogging daily about drugs over at Drug Roar. Today I even did a few whole posts! One was about New Jersey’s medical marijuana bill and another was a Redlasso (fight the man!) clip of a surprisingly long (and well done, to boot) report about low dose naltrexone and its possibility in treating a variety of diseases, including Chron’s and Parkinson’s.

This Week’s Drug Roar

As you can guess, it takes a lot of drugs to get through one episode of Gossip Girl. (Not really.) And, yes, I’m still doing the drug column: This week it’s about the side-effects of drug prohibition. The column wanders a bit too much — digesting the info I come across into streamlined columns is hard sometimes — but I think I make some okay points. I guess.

D-Mac Continues To Dominate Internet

Ha ha, look, I went and was one of the three winners of this Phillymag contest. Was I even eligible? I guess so. Anyway, score another win for me. If only rock paper scissors was played online, I might actually win a match again sometime.

Shameless-Self Promotion For 5.15

Check this out: NORML posted my column this week, which was about the media’s coverage of drugs. I’ll be High Times Stoner of the Year in no time.

And, in other news, I’m a finalist for an Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Alt-Weekly award for best blog at a paper with a circulation of over 55,000. I’m up against Nikke Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily and Washington City Paper’s City Desk blog. (And I even forgot to submit that post about the Barbaro messageboard!) I plan on breaking kneecaps ’til I’m the only one left standing.

Recently In Me

This week’s Drug Roar column is up. It’s about how the media covers drugs, using the example of marijuana. I guess. As usual, I’m blogging at drugroar.com.

Also, I wrote this little column about Buzz Bissinger and blogs and truth and baseball in last week’s paper. And, for some reason, reviewed The Price is Right.

My TV Appearance, Annotated

So, yes, the segment on Fox 29 about Philadelphia bloggers — and by that, I mean me and Johnny Goodtimes — aired last night, and I’ve done a little guide to my favorite shot on last night’s program. (You can click to enlarge.)

• 1. One of you called it No Country for Old Men hair and my hairdresser said it looked like a hockey player’s haircut. (Complete with playoff beard!) I prefer to think of it as the too-lazy-to-get-a-haircut look, but I finally got it cut short again on Tuesday. The beard will probably go soon, too, but, again: Laziness.
• 2. These are the Dr. Seuss glasses one of you remarked on. I’m going to go get them straightened today, actually; also, they’re hilariously Sean John brand classes.
• 3. This is not a shirt a picked up at a thrift store, it is an actual 1998 Viking Invitational cross country shirt, a race I competed in. (I was have been a junior in high school.) I never seemed to do well in that race, so I guess I never really wore the shirt regularly until a few months ago. I’m sure my high school coaches are proud of me.
• 4. One of the better things on my walls, this advertisement from around World War II is actually for Stetson hats, but the theme is “Keep it under your Stetson” — as in, “Don’t tell the enemy about the war plans. Wear Stetson hats!” Companies really need to start doing this style of advertisement again.
• 5. This is my MacBook, my pride and joy. If only Apple products weren’t shoddily constructed — I believe they’re made out of butter — I would be marrying this thing.
• 6. Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style. Goodtimes accused me of putting this on top of my pile of books to make myself look smarter, but I pretty much re-read this thing every couple of months. If you’re a writer and you don’t have this book, go get it now, go get it now, go get it now. It’s essentially the writers’ bible.
• 7. The rest of the books here are pretty awesome as well. The best title is, of course, Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts, but I’d also like to direct your attention to my proof of the new Lewis Black book, the copy of Jen Miller’s The Jersey Shore: Atlantic City to Cape May, Hershel Walker’s book about multiple personalities, Darren Daulton’s book about how the world will end in 2012 and, of course, Drug Warriors and Their Prey: From Police Power to Police State, which I can also not recommend enough. It’s probably the best-argued book I’ve ever read.
• 8. This orange pen is the one I used to write-in Brian Hickey for First District Senate and Chrissmari for State Treasurer. Although you can’t see the cup it’s in, it has a 1996-97 Sixers schedule on it, the team’s first season in what was then called the Corestates Center.
• 9. Uh, this is the temperature, showing it was 53 degrees when my segment aired last night.

YouTube clip of the segment after the jump. Thanks to Kerri-Lee Halkett for actually doing a piece on me! On the TV!

More »

Banished To 10 PM Friday Night!

Okay, the headline is a joke. But it’s true: I’ve just found out I’ll be on Fox 29’s 10 p.m. news tonight blathering on about the Internet, complete with since-cut hockey player haircut.

If you have a life (unlike me) and won’t be at home at 10 p.m. Friday night, I’ll post the video of Kerri-Lee Halkett talking with me, Johnny Goodtimes and (I assume) other various bloggers.

Today on DrugRoar.com

I wrote late last night about the scare over “skunk cannabis” in England, which is leading the government to increase the penalties for possession and sale of the drug. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that marijuana use can be lethal, too, which is a level of lie even our politicians won’t touch. (Not that the Inquirer won’t.)

Go Play RPS In Camden

You kids like Camden, right? Neighbor just across the river from Philadelphia, perennial competitor with Pittsburgh in the competition for city that Philadelphians make most jokes about, home of summer festival concerts. Of course you like Camden.

Well, this Saturday is Philadelphia Rock Paper Scissors League Day at the Camden Riversharks, the independent minor league baseball team. As the Riversharks website says, “This season, the team will try a lot of new ideas that have never been done in Camden or any of the other parks in the area.” Indeed!

There’s an RPS tournament, unlimited wings and beer from 4-6 and a game at 5 p.m. The tournament will begin “around 3,” which could mean anytime from 3 p.m. to June 26.

But better yet, who will be refereeing at this tournament? That’s right: Yours truly, the competitor formerly known as This Rock is a Pipe Bomb, Danny Awesome. (That’s my new name.) As you know, last time I tried to referee I ended up heckled by superior RPS players, was featured in a documentary about RPS and won a second place award in the state for the article I wrote about it. I can only assume this time I will not only ref, but I will win the entire tournament. (Yes, I’m playing also.)

As an update, Philadelphia Will Do’s sponsorship of the timeouts for the RPS city league is going swimmingly so far; and I’m in 12th so far this year. I’m also working on an Elo rating-style system for RPS, because I am the biggest freaking nerd in the universe.

This Week’s Drug Roar

It’s about marijuana decriminalization, the “duh” of drug policy reform. (I forgot to post this Tuesday, mainly because I was sick.) As usual, I’m blogging at drugroar.com nearly every day.