Another contender for "best sandwich in the world:" knockwurst or capicola, slaw, and French fries. Color me intrigued.

About a year and a half ago, I bragged about having crafted the best sandwich in the world. I made the sandwich for my dad yesterday and he allowed that it was, in fact, a righteous sandwich, but he didn't think it was better than his more than forty-year-old memory of a sandwich he ate during his stint as a folk singer in the Catskills. Dad described a Chinese/Italian/American restaurant that served a sandwich of Chinese roast pork on Italian garlic bread. I have to admit, that does sound damn good.

And what do you know? It exists!

By all accounts, the sandwich was created sometime in the mid-1950s at Herbie's in Loch Sheldrake, New York. It was the most popular Jewish-style deli-restaurant in the area. According to Freddie Roman, the Borscht Belt comic who years later starred in the nostalgia show Catskills on Broadway, Herbie's was where all the entertainers would gather after their last shows at the hotel nightclubs. "Specifically for that sandwich," says Freddie. "And everyone else had to eat what the celebrities ate."

Herbie's sandwich of Chinese Roast Pork on Italian Garlic Bread was so popular among the summer crowd in "The Mountains," that it was imitated back in "The City." I remember when it was introduced at Martin's and Senior's, two fabulously successful, middle-class family restaurants on Nostrand Avenue in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.

In just a few years, it seemed Chinese roast pork on garlic bread became so popular in the southern tier of Brooklyn communities -- from Canarsie through Mill Basin to Bay Ridge -- that every diner and coffee shop made it. The sandwich even made it to Manhattan in the 1960s, at a place called The Flick, an ice cream parlor and casual restaurant near the then-new movie houses on Third Avenue.

Count my dad as one of the "celebrities," I guess. There's even (sort of) a recipe at the link!

Anyone else ever tried this? Any other greatest sandwich nominees?

Murray Chass is all in a dither because MLB is not going to providing printed version of its league reference guides. Instead, the books will be published online as PDFs. If you're not afraid of computers, and if you own a printer, this is not a big deal.

He summons some of the old curmudgeon to close out his piece, but it's kind of stupid:

Younger writers, more attuned to the use of the Internet than their older colleagues, may not have a problem with the disappearance of the books. But in past years they didn’t have the Internet as an alternative reference site. They apparently just didn’t feel the need for any information the books provided.

That says more about them than it does about baseball’s decision.

Yes. It says that they, unlike Murray Chass, realized that the information in the books was available elsewhere. On the Internet.

You often hear people talking about a speech as being nothing more than a "laundry list" of proposals or some such thing, and it occurs to me to wonder: who the hell needs to make a list to do their laundry? Anyone have any idea where the expression comes from?

Clay Risen makes a point about health care in Tennessee that goes just as well for Rhode Island:

But focusing on Bredesen solely as a slash-and-burn free-marketeer misses the real nature of Tennessee politics and, I think, a strong argument for a national health care system. Tennessee had a great, if bloated, system in need of reform, not gutting. But the sharp rightward turn in state political sentiment in the 1990s--a turn that, amazingly, continues to gain speed today--means that any effort to raise revenue is a non-starter, and that the only acceptable reform is to eviscerate the system. It's a case in point for the downside to state-level experimentation, and evidence that, at least in conservative states, voters are willing to move backwards, not forwards. That's no way to build a better health-care system.

Cringley points out that Wall Street types appear not to understand math.

Our streets are notoriously bad, and this winter was apparently murder on the pavement, so it was heartening to read this in the latest Providence city newsletter:

Mayor David N. Cicilline yesterday announced an aggressive program to systematically repair potholes in the capital city. The City has intensified its efforts by adding Parks Department vehicles to the fleet of Department of Public Works (DPW) trucks so that there will be, effective today, eight fulltime crews filling potholes throughout the city. The trucks are equipped with a new high performance patch material that has proven effective in repairing potholes, even in wet conditions.

“Of course, the most effective, long-term solution to improve road conditions is through our citywide repaving program,” said Mayor Cicilline. “However, given the impact of severe weather on our roads, we will act quickly to improve safety and reduce the wear and tear on people’s cars.”

Citywide repaving sounds like a good—and stimulative!—idea to me. In the meantime, it was good to learn this:

Anyone with concerns about specific potholes on city streets should contact the Office of Neighborhood Services at 421-2489 and the City will dispatch a crew to repair the pothole within two business days.

I guess I signed up for some kind of Red Sox Nation thingy on MLB.com last year, and I just got an email indicating that it was being automatically renewed. I don't really feel like paying $15 for it this year, so I wrote back asking how to cancel the subscription. This is the email I got in return:

Subject
---------------------------------------------------------------
cancillation request

Discussion Thread
---------------------------------------------------------------
Response (Don Don XXXXXX) - 02/12/2009 06:50 PM
Dear Fan:

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately, you have not provided enough information to assist with your request. Please provide us with the email address you have registered under so we can assist your further.

Thank you for taking the time to write!

Regards,
MLB.com Support

Customer (M— X—) - 02/11/2009 01:26 PM
Hi,

I did not intend to renew this subscription. Can I cancel it?

On Feb 11, 2009, at 12:28 PM, subscriptions@website.mlb.com wrote:

Thank you for your order.

Order Date: 02/11/09 Order ID Number: 2302176
[...]

Apart from the hilarious mistakes, it's worth pointing out that (a) the email address I registered with is the email address I sent my cancillation [sic] request from, and (b) there's an order number in the email, which ought to mean something.

One of the most fun things I've read in a while.

Yeah, that's about right:



(h/t Ken Zawsum)