The Fastest Two Minutes

Some say the fastest two minutes in sports is the Kentucky Derby. We'd posit that if you were in this building at the wrong time in Derby, CT yesterday, you had the fastest two minutes of your life. Luckily for all, no fatalities were reported as of Thursday night. A Tebowing of thanks to Sad City friend John Biscuit for these awesome photos after the jump. These pics are so good you don't even need any commentary from us. And if there's one thing we like to do, it's comment.

More Of Hartford By Phil Lohman

Without question the coolest thing about doing Sad City is the people we've met through the blog. When we featured a simply awesome cartoon map of Hartford by Phil Lohman the Courant put out in 1989, we got an email from our good friend Steve Goode from the Courant, who told us that Mr. Lohman had done some other Hartford maps over the years. Well we then got to digging up Mr. Lohman's email address. The next day we had a response with an invitation to call. After a few minutes on the phone we were on our way over to Mr. Lohman's house.

Sad City Travels: Philly; Helen Ubinas Edition

Yes please!

A few weeks ago we visited Philadelphia. Just a few days later Sad City friend and former Hartford Courant  columnist Helen Ubinas announced that she had relocated and was working in Philadelphia. Over the weekend Helen announced that she was making her first visit to our favorite part of Philly, the Reading Street Terminal Market. In our experience this is hands down, the best food market we have ever visited.

Remember When It Snowed?

When talking about the great weather yesterday we realized "remember it snowed a foot four weeks ago?" The weather in this part of the world is really pretty amazing. That reminded us of the Sad Snowman that reader Eric C. sent to us from Bushnell Park a few weeks back. Eric C. sent us apologies for the blurriness from his Blackberry (C'mon people, just get an Android or iPhone) but it is still worth noting that this picture was taken on November 3. Wasn't it was something like 70 degrees out yesterday? And winter hasn't even started yet. One of the great and maddening things about living in New England.

Face The State Looks at the XL Center Plan

Image courtesy of courant.com

Last week, to much fanfare, Howard Baldwin unveiled his plan to upgrade the XL Center in downtown with the long term of attracting an NHL team. While we all love the idea of an NHL team coming back to Hartford, many question the viability of the plan. Even without an assurance of the NHL returning, Sad City supports the plan.

The XL Center is there, it is also old. As we see it there are three options: upgrade it, build a new stadium, or let it rot and die. Option three would leave Hartford without a downtown venue for events and a whole block in downtown empty and rotting. For us option three isn't an option. Here Sad City friend Dennis House interviews an economist that worked on the plan to upgrade the XL Center about the viability of the plan. Video analysis after the jump.

The Lohman Map

We've had our eye on this cartoon style map of Hartford by Phil Lohman for quite some time. We first saw it in the basement of one of our friends and was very happy to have the opportunity to acquire one a couple weeks ago. (Incidentally, this same map hangs in the Pan De Oro chip factory) It seems that the map was distributed by The Hartford Courant to celebrate 225 years in print. Since the map states that The Courant started "on a hard-operated press" in 1764, we did some hardcore number crunching and DNA analysis to date this map at 1989. It's a very cool and unique map and a glimpse at how Hartford was a generation ago. Huge thanks to Sad City friend Chion Wolf for taking the photo of this map for us. If you would like the full size jpeg, email us here.

Face The State Flashback: The Hartford Rams

Pic courtesy of The Hartfordite

Face The State is an excellent local news program on Sundays at 11 AM on Channel 3. It is hosted by Sad City friend Dennis House. Heck, Hakaan even appeared on the show this summer. While Face The State is usually dedicated to current events, occasionally Dennis will use a segment to revisit a news topic of days past. A couple weeks ago he aired this great flashback (video after the jump) a news event that somehow, we at Sad City totally forgot about.

Even Hitler is Unhappy with CL&P

While these Hitler parody videos aren't exactly original, they remain, for the most part, pretty funny. Sad City friend and fellow guest on Colin McEnroe's nom de plume show, Gideon's Trumpet from A Public Defender blog put together this parody of Hitler showing his frustration with CL&P and their estimates on power restoration.