The Burnside Writers Collective brand new website relaunched this week with a new URL, so go over to BurnsideWriters.com and check it out.

It’s been a while since I’ve written for them, but if you’ve got nothing better to do, you can check out some of my older sports articles there like my 2008 Summer of Sports preview and my Survey Says! piece from 2007.

Jordan Green and the rest of the gang there do a great job. Congrats on the relaunch guys!

The Major League Baseball trading deadline is this Friday, which reminded me of a piece I wrote for Burnside 2 years ago. The premise of the piece was that the trade deadline shouldn’t be confined to baseball, it should be applied to pop culture and other facets of life. The entire piece, which you can read here, had 21 trades in it. Here’s the 9 that hold up the best 24 months later…

1. ABC’s hit show ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ trades away Dr. McDreamy to the New York Yankees for Alex Rodriguez. This trade was a no-brainer when you consider that A-Rod has referred to himself as ‘McDreamy’ in the mirror hundreds of times over the past few years [editor's note: I wrote this 2 years before the A-Rod kissing himself in the mirror pictures came out. Weird.]. Grey’s Anatomy executive producer Allan Heinberg has already started writing an episode for Season 4 entitled “Indigo Kiss” which revolves solely around A-Rod’s purple lips. Over in the Bronx, Patrick Dempsey goes 6 for 91 in the month of September, proving to be a much better hitter than A-Rod has ever been when the games really matter.

2. In a huge 3-way deal, Michigan gives away the Upper Peninsula to Wisconsin in exchange for 5 tons of cheddar cheese. The Wolverine State then trades away the cheese to Canada in exchange for Toronto and a few bags of those pink Canada mints. Remember Canada mints? I loved those things. Not too hard, not too soft, just the right amount of mint. Are they the official mint of Canada? Do they sell them at Edmonton Oilers home games? Does Canada get paid royalty fees for the use of their name? They should.

3. Wrigley Field trades away the ivy on its outfield walls to T.G.I. Friday’s in exchange for a year’s supply of spinach artichoke dip. The restaurant chain subsequently divides up the ivy into 500 pieces and plants a piece of it outside of each U.S. locations. The move backfires for the Cubs, however, when Carlos Zambrano becomes the first major league pitcher to weigh in at over 600 pounds.

4. Britney Spears’ trades away her hair, fame, credibility, and Justin Timberlake for an ex-husband named K-Fed, a rehab stint, and a terrible album to be named later. Oh wait, this already happened.

5. The month of March trades away one of its 31 days to February in exchange for President’s Day. Here’s a copy of the press release: “In a move to become a bigger player in the Holiday game, March acquires President’s Day in exchange for becoming a 30-day month. March’s spokesman, Caesar Ides said of the trade, “We feel that we have quite a stable of holidays with St. Patrick’s Day, the first day of spring, one out of every five Easters, and now President’s Day. Clearly, this move makes us a major player in the Holiday Game.” November and December could not be reached for comment.

6. Katie Holmes trades away all of the future monies she will earn from the syndication rights to Dawson’s Creek in exchange for “having her freaking life back.” When Holmes’ husband Tom Cruise was asked about the trade, the actor and scientologist smiled and said, “Just like Xenu, who 75 million years ago brought billions of people to earth in a spacecraft, I will continue to bring happiness and joy to Katie’s life as she strives to become an Operating Level Thetan.”

7. In a class-action trade, all NASCAR fans trade away 1 year of their lives for a case of Budweiser. “It was a tough call,” said group spokesman Chuck Mulletstache. “But what’s an extra year of your life worth if you’re living it without the King of Beers?”

8. In a unprecedented 5-person Hollywood Blockbuster Deal, Jessica Simpson trades Nick Lachey to Vanessa Minnillo who trades Derek Jeter to Jessica Biel who trades Justin Timberlake to Scarlett Johansson who trades Josh Hartnett to Penelope Cruz who trades John Mayer back to Jessica Simpson. I wish I had made this up.

9. Fans of the former HBO Show “The Sopranos” trade in the last 10 seconds of the series finale for a bag of chips. Industry insiders all agree that it was a great trade for the fans because, as one analyst put it, “a bag of chips is worth a whole lot more than staring at a blank screen on your television for ten seconds.”

This was a fun piece to write. Maybe I need to work on some updated trades…

The Burnside Writers Collective, a site I’ve written for in the past, is in the process of relaunching their site. One of the things they will be debuting when the new site launches is new avatars for all of their writers created by the talented Aaron Brassea.

I sent Jordan Green the picture I use on my home page and here’s what Aaron came up with:

My first thought: Awesome!

My second thought: Those dark sunglasses make me look like a blind person.

My third thought: I should have paid Aaron to give me a nose job.

My fourth thought: I love it!

I’ll let you know when the new BWC launches so you can check it out. In the meantime, go check out some of Aaron’s other work.

Great job aaron!

I just posted a quickie over at the Burnside Writers Blog on driving in Amish Country.

I’ll post it here as well, hope you enjoy…

For those who don’t know, I live in Intercourse, PA in the heart of Amish Country. It’s a great place to live and raise kids, except for Saturdays in the summer when the traffic in Intercourse is so bad it makes you want to run yourself over with an Amish lawnmower.

A few days ago I had my wonderful wife Erica take a picture of me in front of the “Welcome to Intercourse” sign at the park near our house. I told her I needed it for the blog. Though it was a bit embarrassing for her, she snapped away anyway while I made goofy faces in front of the sign. Yes, love does conquer all.

The topic for today’s discussion is driving in Amish country. Driving around in Amish country has some challenges that are fairly unique to the region. Amish buggies travel at a very slow pace, as you probably surmised, so a driver has to always be prepared to encounter one around every corner and over the crest of every hill. Passing buggies by crossing over double yellow lines is a necessity, but many tourists and out-of-staters do not know this, and as such will travel 5 MPH behind buggies for long periods of time until cars start passing them and they realize they can pass the buggy too. (Usually while they are passing the buggy the front seat passenger will stick a camera out the window for a picture, which probably makes the Amish angry in an old-school, anti-technology kind of way.)

But driving around here isn’t all bad. You do see some interesting things from time to time. In fact, I’ve had my camera phone ready over the last couple of weeks for any kodak moments that might arise while I was on the road. Here’s a few of the things I caught on film, err, phone.

Most buggies are covered, but as you can see here, some are not. Rumor has it that whenever a guy and a girl who are not married travel together, they are not allowed to ride in a covered buggy. Even the amish understand the power of teenage hormones. Since there are four people riding in this buggy, I’m guessing the reason they went with the convertible was just to enjoy a nice day.

Once in a while you’ll see a buggy hauling something behind it, but I have to tell you, this was the first time I had ever seen a buggy hauling a crate of live chickens. The crate appears to be too big for the wagon, so the thing looks like it could fall off at any second. Thankfully, you don’t take turns very fast when you’ve only got 1 horsepower under the hood. I’m not sure what happened to the chickens, but I’m guessing it didn’t end well for them.

On rare occasions you’ll see someone cutting out the middle man and leaving the buggy at home. This guy was riding a horse on the side of the road. Frankly, I wouldn’t recommend this. It’s just not that safe. Especially when there’s people in cars driving by trying to take pictures of you.

Another popular mode of transportation among the Amish is the scooter. Think of it as a 1-man buggy without the horse. As opposed to the razor scooters that have been huge with kids for the past 10 years, these amish scooters have huge wheels on them. Like, bicycle wheels. Not sure what the advantage is over the razor scooter, but I don’t see the Amish adopting the Razors into their way of life for another 50 years or so. I’m not sure why, but seeing an old Amish dude riding a scooter still makes me laugh. Probably because I’m a jerk.

Of course, you can’t really talk about driving in Amish country without discussing the emissions that their engines give off. Avoiding road apples is a way of life around here, and before long you don’t even notice it … UNLESS, the road apples in question are piled up at pump #3 of the local gas station. I got out to put gas in my car the other day and almost walked right into this heap of equine excrement. Seriously, someone want to explain to me what that pile of horse crap is doing at a gas pump? Feel free to share your thoughts on that, and anything else Amish-related in the comments section.

Well, that’s all for now. Y’all are welcome to come join us in Intercourse any time!