Top 25 of the Last 25 - Part 2, #6-15

Part 1 of my Top 25 of the Last 25 can be found here.

Here's part 2, #6-15

15. Rubber Ducky Ride Record at Sesame Place

The legendary Rubber Ducky sat atop the Sky Splash attraction at Sesame Place like King Kong hanging from the lightning rod of the Empire State Building. The grandiose yellow squeaker could be seen while driving on Route 1 from as far south as Feasterville-Trevose, as far north as Yardley, and even from parts of the Trenton riverfront. The colossal canary-colored Cayuga cousin was a staple at Sesame Place for almost 30 years, taking over his throne in 1995 before a coup led to demise and deposition in March 2023.

So yes, the Rubber Ducky was implemented earlier than 25 years ago. But this listing is not just the Rubber Ducky, it's not even just the ride. It's the damned ride record.

During the summers of my youth, one of my 40+ cousins worked at Sesame Place and would get us discounts. My sister, five more of my cousins, and I would load up into soccer mom mini vans and head up the Boulevard to Langhorne. Sky Splash was the best ride there and really the only one that captivated the attention of any boy over the age of 6, especially a hardened jock.

In the summer of 2006 we decided to take on a mission. Break the Sky Splash Record for Goes in One Day. We asked the attendants at the top what the record was, they said 14 (think they just made it up). By noon we had 6 Goes already, impressive when you consider the volume of park lines in the morning. By 3PM we had only added 2 more Goes but the park was opening up. It was nap time for 90% of the attendees. When the antelope sleep, the lions hunt.

By 5PM we were up to 13 MF Goes and pushing the record but the park was set to close soon. Run up the stairs, hop in a raft, flume down 6 stories of water slide, splash into the pool at the bottom. Rinse, repeat. We broke that record. We BLEW THROUGH that record and ended the day with 17 Goes on Sky Splash. Probably still in the books.

14. Original Twitter Meme Accounts

When Twitter was just kicking off it was a pretty ridiculous space. There was a lot less OnlyFans spam in the comments and a lot more slinging of unhinged thoughts that didn't feel appropriate for face-to-face interaction. There's a reason why dork liberal newspaper writers go directly to old tweets when trying to "cancel" a person who's new to the spotlight.

The original Twitter meme accounts embodied all that Twitter culture was meant to be at that time. I'm talking Phil Werrell and Barry McKockiner circa 2012-2014 before they became more annoying than hitting eight consecutive yellow lights heading home on Broad Street during rush hour. It was probably just the start of click farming and tweet aggregating but man did I have a chuckle every time I saw their tweets.
 

13. Pylon Cam

Pylon Cam is just really cool, super useful, and honestly kinda cute. Those little cameras are so small but so powerful, it's adorable. I'll just always remember being super impressed the first few times CBS or FOX cut to a Pylon Cam replay angle. "Whoooaaa how'd they fit a camera in one of those?!" Turns out it's not too difficult to figure out but that doesn't take away from their efficacy. Many a spread has hinged on the outcome of a Pylon Cam review but at the end of the day, the fan must accept fair fact of the matter and Pylon Cam provides that more often than not.

12. 2004-2008 High School Basketball Warm Up Playlists

I put onnnnnnnn, I put onnnnnnnnnn, I put ON for my city ON ON for my city
NA-NA-NA DIVA IS A FEMALE VERSION OF A HUSTLLAAAA
If you arrre what you sayy you areeee, a suuupah starrr

High school basketball warm up playlists were my personal introduction to rap and hip-hop music. They didn't play a whole lot of Jeezy on WIP or Radio Disney when I was riding in the car with my parents, so the gym provided me with melodic enlightenment.

Nobody's ever going to get pumped to play a basketball game by tossing on their Beats headphones and blaring Aly & AJ's Potential Breakup Song. Ever. But thanks to the example set by high schoolers, I would hop in the car before a 6th grade CYO game, plug my wired $15 Sony headset from CVS into my knockoff Zune MP3, scroll to my secret playlist, and blast Gucci Mane and T-Pain's clean iTunes edited ballads.

For the better part of the 2000's decade, you could walk into a Scholastic Play-by-Play Showcase run by Jeremy Treatman at any part of the day and hear an absolute banger flood a Philly-area Division 3 basketball gym, pouring out of speakers bought off the back of a truck in South Philly, only half audible with bass levels that you could feel in your pancreas. Different times. Simpler times.

11. Wilson Evolution Basketball

The Wilson Evolution Advanced Microfiber Composite 29.5" basketball is in a league of its own like Tom Hanks banning bawling in the batters box. There are several good basketballs, a few even fringe on great. The Rock C2C (Core2Cover) with Deep Pebble Channels, fringe great. Baden Perfection Elite Game Ball, very very good. But the Wilson Evolution has a higher elite-level status than Joe Flacco in the docks of Dundalk.

If you walked into a gym and saw they had a rack of Wilson Evolutions, it meant three things. Tonight is automatically a Big Game. We're playing at a rich school. And I'm about to absolutely savor every second of layup lines to caress this golden goose egg for as long as possible.

10. Surviving the End of the World, Twice

Y2K and the end of the Mayan calendar. Wow. Dodged a few bullets there guys. Some argue the Mayans just ran out of pages in their calendar notebook, I say we're all proud survivors of a narrowly avoided cosmic catastrophe.

9. Chris D'elia's Vines (pre-bad stuff)

Ahhh man we probably could've seen the Chris D'Elia stuff coming. Everyone points to the Workaholics episode when he played his seemingly real life persona. Tough look.

But the Vines! Ohhhh the Vines. "Excuse me sir, where the hell are you going?" *cuts to a man on a ladder wriggling half of his torso into the space a ceiling tile used to occupy* His Vines had me dying laughing in high school study hall while my GPA continued to hover around the mid-2's without any promise of improvement. Legendary stuff (the vines, NOT the grooming).

8. Custom Ringtones

Custom ringtones were mad GOATed but they were also like kiiinda annoying which keeps them out of the Top 5. You could buy them directly on your phone for like a buck 50 a pop and the sound quality would be a 5.6/10. Or you could fire up the iTunes preview of a song and hold your phone's mic directly up to your computer speakers and record the ringtone for free. And the quality was a 5.5/10 (really about a 1.2). 

If "Homecoming" by Kanye and Chris Martin played from my pocket, I knew I had a text incoming. If "a-ring-a-da-ding-ding-dee-dooo" played from my pocket, I knew I had a call incoming. And if "Always Be My Baby" by Mariah played from my pocket, I knew my mom was at the park to pick me up after school.

7. John Wall's High School Mixtape

There are arguments for Tavon Austin's highlights making this list in this spot. But I prefer basketball to football and I prefer crossovers & dunks to jukes & breakaway speed.

John Wall had it all. The handles were hypnotizing. The bunnies were bewildering. The court vision of a hawk hunting pigeon. Flashiness at the rims that could only be replicated by Xhibit. He blocked shots with more PSI than a hydraulic press. Every second of this mixtape is action-packed and makes you yell "OHHHHHHHHHHH"

6. NFL 2008 Week 17

Going into Week 17 of the 2008 NFL season, there was a lesser chance of the Eagles making the playoffs than Johnny Depp waking up before noon in an Ecuadorian rainforest bungalow. The Birds sat just outside of the playoff picture with an 8-6-1 record (thanks to Donovan McNabb not know about the NFL's tie rules) following a Week 16 loss to Washington.

They needed three things to happen. At 1:00 Matt Schaub and the 7-8 Texans had to beat the Brian Urlacher and the 9-6 Bears. Also at 1:00, JaMarcus Russell and the 5-10 Raiders had to beat the Jeff Garcia-led 9-6 Buccaneers. I remember hopelessly watching the Raiders on Dick's Sporting Goods' 100 inch projector screen near the golf section. They were down 24-14 with 11 minutes left following a Cadillac Williams touchdown.

Then, they took off. JaMarcus passing touchdown. Michael Bush 67 yard rushing touchdown. Sebastian Janikowski field goal. Raiders win 31-24. Wow. What about the Texans? Two first half touchdowns from Andre Johnson. Open up the 3rd quarter with a rushing TD from former Eagle Ryan Moats. Put the game away with Philly native Steve Slaton's rushing TD in the 4th quarter. Won by an identical score as the Raiders, 31-24.

Two legs down, the most important to go. 4:25 at the Linc. Birds vs. Cowgirls. Winner gets the NFC's 6 seed in the playoffs. Loser tees off in Cancun on Monday.

The Eagles take the opening kickoff and start out on offense. They cross the 50 into Dallas and look poised to at least kick a field goal. But then BWest36 surrendered his first lost fumble in over a year, giving the Cowgirls possession at their own 25.

A Dallas three-and-out gave possession back to the Birds who would cap off their second drive of the game with 3 points from franchise scoring leader David Akers. Toni Romo would follow up with a 3 point drive of his own and we'd go into the second quarter all knotted at treys.

Then. HAHAHA THEN. THEN THE EAGLES SCORED 44 UNANSWERED POINTS!!!!

59 yard dumpoff to Correll Buckhalter leads to a McNabb QB sneak TD. A 34 yard streak to DeSean leads to a Buckhalter TD catch. Sheldon Brown interception leads to a Brent Celek TD catch. Pacman Jones fumble on the ensuing kickoff leads to a halftime buzzer beating field goal. In the blink of an eye its 27-3 at the halfway point and the Birds are 30 minutes from marching on to the postseason.

Brian Dawkins strip sack, Chris Clemons 73 yard scoop and score. Brian Dawkins AGAIN, stripping Marion Barber, Joselio Hanson 96 yard scoop and score. A THIRD STRAIGHT FUMBLE led to the Eagles kicking another field goal and capping off their scoring for the day. 

With 29 seconds left in the first quarter, the score was 3-3. With 6:10 remaining on the clock in the third quarter (24 minutes, 19 seconds of gameplay later), the score was 44-3. Kyle Eckel even got 8 carries in this game.

I watched this game with my family at the old Willow Grove Mall T.G.I. Friday's. With every Cowgirls turnover, another full plate of Loaded Potato Skins would fly across the room coating the walls with bacon bits and sour cream droplets in a calamitous chaos reminiscent of a confetti-filled Super Bowl celebration.

Tune in tomorrow for the Top 5