Category Archives: the usual drivel

I don’t know where else to put this stuff

Happy Holidays, CTA Style

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The Chicago Transit Authority gets into the holiday spirit by running a special train decked out with fancy decorations, lights, and Santa Claus. I’ve never ridden it, but I did see it when it was pulling into the station at Garfield the other day. There was a family with two young kids that were very excited about it, and Santa called them over to say hi. Apparently the conversation went on too long, because when the family left Santa and tried to get on the train, it pulled away without letting them on. I guess the holiday spirit only goes so far.

Steve King thinks Christmas is pretty darn neato!

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Steve King represents the 5th District of Iowa in Congress. He was kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule dealing with America’s problems to put together House Resolution 847: Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith. Among other things, H. Res. 847 “expresses continued support for Christians in the United States and worldwide” and “acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith.” As a Christian myself, I feel so glad to be supported by Rep. King and the United States House of Representatives.

Let me add that the fine people of Iowa who voted Steve King into office deserve more political power. Maybe we let them pick the presidential nominees too.

(In the final vote, there were nine representatives that voted against H. Res. 847, including Barbara Lee (D-CA), and 21 representatives did not vote, including Steve King himself and republican presidential candidates Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, and Tom Tancredo.)
Yea Christmas and yea Iowa!

Lose the smug smile, John Williams

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A few times a week I play the Sudoku in the Red Eye, the horrible free version of the Tribune. They list the time it took for this radio host John Williams. I hate looking at his smug face, so I really enjoy beating his time. For some reason, I usually have no chance against him on the easier puzzles early in the week, but I’m competitive on the tougher ones. Sometimes I win, sometimes not. But last Friday, I blew this clown out of the water:


Byahhh! 27 minutes, sucka!

Five Good Things About MTv

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Rule number one in my life is “Don’t watch MTv.” However, this has not always been the case. There were a few good things about MTv in the 90’s. Consider the following:

5) Inspired Stache to choose a name starting with T as his confirmation name. Years later, this would provide amusement to many.
4) Was first to air Mike Judge, in the form of Beavis and Butt-Head. Judge went on to network TV with King of the Hill and the classic movie Office Space.
3) Aired Daria, a show that lambasted the very pop culture that MTv was simultaneously responsible for promoting.
2) Jimmy the Cab driver commercials. I recall the one about Aerosmith’s video for Crazy being the funniest, but I can’t find it on YouTube, so you’ll have to settle for Ironic.
1) Aired the State’s sketch comedy show, which ranks in my top 5 shows of all time.

26.2 in 5:12

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[Marathon Medal]
Mel Dandy endured record high temperatures for the Chicago Marathon this past Sunday, completing the course in 5:12. The two times I was able to see her, she was running too fast for me to take a picture. At the third spot we planned to see her, she went by without a trace. Apparently she was running even faster at mile 21 than mile 10. Due to the weather, 10,000 people opted to skip the race entirely, and another 10,000 started but did not finish.

Yeah Wheels!

iPod Count Down

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According to the iPod Mechanic, my iPod only has 37 days of life left. It has been acting a little funny lately, but after 3 1/2 years, I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. This is especially true since I seem to be dropping it at a multiple times per week rate. Anyway, I’ve added the iPod death date to my countdown on the right, and we’ll see how accurate the iPod Mechanic is.

Pitchers and catchers report in 141 days

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Approximately. That’s about the amount of time it’s going to take for me to recover from this season. I will be paying only cursory attention to the playoffs, except to curse whenever the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, Cubs, Phillies, or Indians win.

I’m going to anticipate some questions here.

“What happened [to the Mets]?”

Most of the Mets pitchers rely on good defense behind them. In the last couple weeks, that defense was not as crisp, which led to extra outs for the opposition. Furthermore, the pitching staff was patched together from the beginning of the season. The bullpen was heavily used throughout the season, and ultimately the overwork cost them runs at the worst time. On the offensive side, Jose Reyes stopped hitting, Paul Lo Duca couldn’t match last year’s performance, and the mix of players in right field was average at best. No matter how good David Wright and Carlos Beltran were, they couldn’t make up for all of the other outs in the lineup.

“So are you going to root for the Cubs now?!”

No. The Cubs are a trendy thing to do, and if there’s anything I revolt against, it’s the trendy. Let me add that they won 85 games in one of the worst divisions I can remember. Applying the St. Louis theory of prediction, they will win the World Series.

“Are you going to root for the Red Sox against the Yankees?”

I will root for Curt Schilling to break his arm throwing a pitch, which will miraculously send the ball into Derek Jeter’s face. The Red Sox are just as evil as the Yankees, and their fans deserve another 80+ years of disappointment.

“Is there anyone you don’t hate in the playoffs?”

San Diego is pretty innocuous. I would find it hilarious if Michael Barrett, formerly of the Cubs, does something good against his former team. Unfortunately, Milton Bradley got hurt, and he was probably my favorite player on a playoff bound team.

[UPDATE]
Since the Rockies beat the Padres in their one-game playoff on Monday, the Padres are out, and the Rockies are in. As such, they take the crown of “Least Offensive Team in the Playoffs.” Most of their players are home grown, and they exist far enough away from me that their fans can’t annoy me.
[/UPDATE]

“But won’t you watch the games just because you’re a baseball fan?”

These games will be broadcast on Fox, who finds it their mission to make baseball unwatchable. The only way they could make it worse would be to hire Joe Morgan as a special correspondent.

“Who should be the NL MVP this year?”

Thanks to the team’s late season collapse, he won’t get the award, but here’s David Wright’s line for the year:
.325 AVG / .417 OBP / .548 SLG / 153 OPS+ / 34 SB at 87% success
Remember that the Mets play half their games in Shea, which has a run environment 96% of the league average (compare to Citizens Bank Park at 109%). So that’s my biased pick. But I won’t feel much better if Wright wins it, and I doubt he’ll feel much better about the season either.

One win per decade

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I recently won myself a $25 gift card for iTunes by winning an MLB weekly challenge on ProTrade.com. Here’s the proof:

[I won an iTunes gift card!]

My last win in a contest was the 1993 Electronic Gaming Monthly Super Tour Wing Commander: Secret Missions competition. I had played Wing Commander on PC and SNES quite a bit, so when I took my turn at the new Wing Commander: Secret Missions game, I was a natural. I think I shot down 16 enemies, and the most they had seen anyone shoot was like 10 at another stop on their mall tour. For my efforts, I won a copy of the new Wing Commander and this other game for SNES, Outlander. Outlander was a terrible game, but since it was a new release, I was able to sell it at Funcoland for enough money to buy a used GameBoy.

I am predicting that my next win will come in 2015 when I answer a trivia question about Kirby Puckett’s 1989 batting average title, which will earn me two tickets to a high school performance of Cats.