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The 2008 Phillies were a surprising and welcome departure from the Philly sports norm. Let's face it: We've gotten used to coming up short—whether short or barely short. Not long after the Phillies paraded down Broad Street last Halloween, the Eagles returned the cosmos to their rightful balance. (Villanova's Final Four appearance was an unexpected bonus that threatened to upset the recently-restored natural order of things. Fortunately for the universe, North Carolina did not allow the end of days to come about.)

Despite all signs—and threats by Governor Rendell to really put the screws to both SEPTA and TWU Local 234—pointing to a SEPTA contract resolution without a work stoppage, the drivers' and mechanics' union has called a strike.

Sure, we have a bad rap for throwing snowballs at Santa, but do we deserve this title bestowed on us by The Daily Show with Jon Stewart? Phillyist wants to hear what you think!

Saturday played host to many things: Halloween, Phillies game, last show at the Spectrum, and even a Making Time/R5 Productions Halloween party sponsored, in part, by Philebrity.

We've been waiting for this tour since the "Very Last" Reggie and the Full Effect show at the TLA in September of 2008. Back then The Get Up Kids reunion and Someting to Write Home About 10th Anniversary Live DVD was just a rumbling on the internet. Fortunately, a rumor fueled by James Dewees is a reliable one indeed. The Get Up Kids' keyboard player and Reggie founder dropped hints all along his tour that a reunion would be upcoming, and all but confirmed it during the encore at the TLA.

Here's one for the standup comedy junkies: Comedy.com has posted their list of 10 funniest comedians in Philadelphia. (Even better, they didn't go with "Phunniest," for which we must give them mad props.)

*Why yes—it is, in fact, Wednesday. And Monday Manners has been on hiatus for several months. But this seemed like an appropriate occasion to revive the post anyway.

As promised, we hate TWU Local 234 now. The folks of TWU 234 have thoroughly established themselves as villains, and we'd like to recognize them for being bastardly sleazes out of a Medieval morality play. And now, the tour of vice!

You might know comedian Jim Florentine (MySpace) best as Special Ed from the Comedy Central show Crank Yankers. (You know, where you laughed, but then thought you might just be going to hell for laughing?) Phillyist got a chance to talk to Florentine before he yanks your cranks this week with a four-night run at Helium Comedy Club.

You may have caught this on our Twitter feed over the weekend, but after homering twice last night, we thought this love letter to Chase Utley was especially deserved.

Somewhere in the midst of the Phillies giving us one coronary after another, we lost track of the fact that we went to the Factory a couple Saturdays ago to check out a couple of our favorite live acts, Paramore (MySpace) and Paper Route (MySpace). It's not that the show was forgettable; we just get a little crazy around Phillies playoff time.

If the martinis article earlier didn't give you enough of a taste of fall, allow us to tempt you with some desserts.

With weekends getting rainy and cold and just...horrible, the good city of Philadelphia has given anyone with children dozens of good reason to stay inside.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if my dad was a militant slam poet who used eardrum shattering electronic beats and industrial hip-hop to communicate his message of individualism, anti-conformity and transcending the shackles of racism that have affected him so deeply.

Remember way back when the Phillies were playing the Dodgers and we pointed out in the morning news roundup that MLB.com blew it and published a link to a story which had the Dodgers beating the Phillies 4-3 to tie the series at two games apiece? Well, the Inquirer ran a three-quarters page Macy's ad on the back page of the A section which says "CONGRATULATIONS PHILLIES! Back-to-Back Champs."

Tomorrow night, the husband and wife jazz team Herb Alpert and Lani Hall will perform songs from their new album, Anything Goes, at the Annenberg Center. Herb Alpert is a trumpet-playing legend: an eight-time Grammy® winner, bandleader of the Tijuana Brass and co-founder of A&M records. Among the friends of Phillyist with longer memories, Herb is famous for his 1965 album Whipped Cream, the cover of which displayed a rather attractive woman wearing nothing but. This time around, however, Herb is performing with his wife, Lani Hall, a Grammy® winning vocalist since the 1960s—we expect both musicians to be fully clothed. They are playing in Philadelphia for one night only.

Ah, Delancey Street... Always so pretty, particularly right now when the leaves are falling upon the cobblestone. That brings us to this week's park: Three Bears Park, or Delancey Park. It's a quaint little park located at 319 Delancey Street in Society Hill. The park offers a nice place of refuge if you're trying to get away from the hubbub of South Street (read: screaming and skateboarding teens) a few blocks away.

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Maybe it's because I love war movies. Maybe it's because I love George Clooney. But The Men Who Stare at Goats, based on a book by Jon Ronson and directed by Grant Heslov (a distant relative-of-a-relative by marriage, but that's not really pertinent), was definitely on my list of most-anticipated movies of 2009. The film, which is based on more truth than you'd like to believe (a paraphrase of the opening title card), follows a reporter's quest to learn more about an elite group of psychic soldiers, nicknamed "Jedi warriors," also features (as Allison so eloquently put it in today's CinePhillyist) "Obi-Won, Kaiser Soze, and The Dude"—a cast list that at once made me giddy with anticipation and totally nervous that the movie wouldn't do its cast justice.

Listen, MSNBC. We know you were in a bit of shock about the whole Democrats-losing-elections thing (we're equal opportunity pundit haters around here), but don't you think you still could have maybe proofread your screen titles?

This week, Miss Bee is back at it with her picks. She made them based on the median inner-city bus driver wage for each metropolitan area. For New England she used Boston. These numbers are taken from Department of Labor surveys.

Gothamist learned that Vespa owners are resorting to illegal measures (okay, scraping off their vehicle ID numbers) to keep their scooters on the street, not that it'll help.