Well That Was Fun

Let's at least get one post up in April, shall we?

This past November, I made a solemn vow to Get Into Hockey. I had a wise businessman friend of mine once tell me 'Shame you never played hockey growing up I think you would have liked it' for reasons I can't particularly remember, if there were any. I have watched the NHL playoffs with varying levels of sincerity for the past eight years or so, including watching a ridiculous 7-OT playoff game back in college. But I've never really invested myself in it, paid attention during the regular season, and tried to get the flow and strategy of the game.

Come December 1, the Spectacular Brigitte took my vow to heart and got me tickets to a Blackhawks/Phoenix Coyotes game as part of my birthday gift. Some might ask, "They play hockey in Phoenix?" To which I would answer, "Not particularly well." Chicago whupped em 7-1.

One of the most interesting things about the game was how different the hockey crowd was from your average 'mainstream' sports crowd. The Glorious Brigitte and I showed up five minutes before the start of the game; everyone else was already in their seat. I went to get us beers partway through the first period; I was nearly assaulted on my way out and then had no line to get to the counter because everyone stays in their seats during the action. (Easy to do when intermissions last 17 minutes each... which of course we had no idea about until that game.) I felt terribly out of place in my Iowa State sweatshirt (red at least); I'd estimate that 68% of hockey fans come to games in an actual hockey sweater. And, most befuddling to me at the time, everyone very 'impolitely' clapped during the singing of the national anthem. I'm not a zany patriot or anything but people who make too much noise or especially talk through the anthem drive me up a wall. It's as though two minutes of respectful behavior is just too much for them. This particular case was clearly orchestrated and, to be honest, a bit chilling in the 'impressive/give you goosebumps' way.

After the game I remembered that once upon a time I read something somewhere about the Chicago Stadium (and later United Center) tradition of clapping and cheering throughout the anthem (on wikipedia, this paragraph might get a 'This statement cites no references' tag). So we were probably the only first-time newbies at that game who didn't make a ruckus during the anthem.

We attended two more regular season games, this time not making the same mistakes. However, they lost both of these games, looking rather stinky in both. The first was the worst professional athletic performance I've ever seen, wherein they were thoroughly worked over by a not very good Minnesota Wild team; the second was largely disappointing except for a massive on-ice brawl that included fights between three separate pairs of players at the same time, one of which resulted in blood on the ice. As a result six Blackhawks ended up in the penalty box. If you're going to get killed by the Vancouver Canucks in a game with playoff seeding implications, it was the way to go.

Having been seriously invested in the regular season, it seemed fitting to the Stupendous Brigitte and I that we should try to attend a playoff game, and secured tickets for this past Saturday. The game was game 5 of the series, and because of the Adorable Brigitte's hex on the Hawks (she openly declared that she wanted them to lose game 3 in Calgary so we would be guaranteed that our tickets would be to an actual event), the series was tied 2-2. As a best of seven, game 5 in a 2-2 series is very critical; the winning team goes on to win something like 80% of such series. It was also be a big deal for me personally as it was the first professional playoff game I'd ever attended.

The atmosphere at the UC was awesome, everyone was very excited and a little bit on edge. I'd heard good things about the crowd at the first couple of games, and was not disappointed. The lead-up to the game was as usual, with a little extra spirit to everything.

Then this happened:



That was the national anthem. I figure I have to write that because I sure as heck couldn't hear anyone singing in that video. Again, I'm no zany patriot but found myself doing some strange sob/hyperventilating thing throughout the thing every time I tried to holler myself. A very cool moment.

Then the game happened. Hawks scored 3 goals in the first ten minutes and went on to a merry and decisive 5-1 victory. For those who don't follow, they had another nice game last night in Calgary to win the series 4-2. Up next: them Canucks they beat the heck out of (but who beat the hell out of us on the ice).

And next up for me: sounds like game 6 of the Bulls/Celts series on Thursday. Standing room only. I love the city.

Chiditarod

It's probably about time that I post some photos and talk about much fun it was...

One not terribly fun thing was all the work that went into preparing for the event. Last year I was just a spare dude running around with improvised viking constumes consisting of random fur pieces and a cart where the only decoration was a papier-mache dragon head. By opting to be in charge and choosing to go with a bit more decorum this year, the required work input ended up being much greater. But we still had a decent, if back-breaking, time.

Here we have the design schematic for our cart. It's an interesting prospect to measure a shopping cart while its stowed in the back of a CRV. BUT the measurements were spot-on.
An artistic shot including the schmatic, Dan and the Splendorous Brigitte, and some paper towels. Also, we drank beer that night.The finished uniforms. Our team was 2016 Or Bust, and each person had a different means of corruption by which Chicago might (or will) attempt to secure the upcoming Olympic bid. All the slogans but the yellow one pertain to some extent to recent Chicago news items. Slogans and commentary follow the picture...
Yellow- "Ensure fairness by giving steroids to all athletes." No specific tie-in.
Blue- "Drain Tokyo Bay to get water for marathoners." Two years ago during an unseasonably warm run in October, the Chicago marathon had to be shut down because of major health concerns, in part due to the water stations running out.
Black- "Increase security by hiring 14 year old cops." True story: In February of this year a 14 year old boy worked a 5 hour shift at a south side precinct. He wrote tickets and even drove the squad car. His partner had no idea. Good times.
Green- "Cash considerations to friends of Blago IOC Pres." Think that one is pretty self-evident, no? On the shirt Blago was crossed out.
Red- "Frank 'The Breeze' Calabrese visits Rio mayor." One of many local mobsters who have recently been put on trial, Frank had some rather unpleasant tendencies. Also, he owns race horses.

And now, the finished product of the cart. I made a huge find of a GIANT cardboard box by my trash, that was turned into two large briefcase sides (thank you black spray paint and chrome duct tape), on which we put various travel stickers, i.e. painted and printed Olympic pictures. This side also shows the To: IOC President From: Chicago 2016 Committee. There were bills sticking out of the top of the case. Here's a nice picture of the inside of our cart. It was FULL of food which we pushed around for the whole race (most teams have someone drop it off at the end, but I decided we should be heroes and just push it the whole way. Ugh, that was like 200# of food to schlep around.). A great collection of food, big thanks to all who donated. Also visible: a tarp which would come in handy later when it quasi-poured on us, and the ropes we used to pull the cart.And a nice picture of the team (minus the left half of the Tremendous Brigitte's face, sadly), well into the race when we were all pretty damn well soaked. We did a pretty nice job of covering up the waterproofish inner layers we had on, but wet pants and shoes still made for a rather cold experience. The beer helped fight against that.And now we reach the 'other teams' section. Seeing how the other teams get made up is one of the most entertaining parts of Chiditarod. This team was dressed as pigs, more important was that they chopped the heck out of their cart and mounted a working charcoal grill into it. They then cooked and dispensed bacon throughout the race. They really made the most of it, as they were the ones who showed up in "Dead Fucking Last" halfway through the concluding awards ceremony.
This team was the best. They did monster work chopping their cart up into the phone booth from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Their costumes were also top-notch. These guys call themselves Action Squad, and their Top Gun cart last year was really really good also. Not visible here: they did have an antenna apparatus for the top of the booth.
Below was one group that I really enjoyed: they were the Tamale Man, a middle aged latino guy who roams around Chicago bars selling fresh and warm tamales. Their cart was a big cooler. Not visible here was the actual Man, but two of the Tamales are watching the cart. Kind of a general shot here, but in particular wanted to capture the Bluth Company Staircar from Arrested Development, which did have fully functional stairs in it. They also had a blue Tobias.
These undead housemaids decided that Chiditarod was a good reason to smoke pot outside of the bar. Alrighty then!A personal favorite here: the Mad Max Revolution crew. They even had a guy with the funny goggles with the little antennas. I suppose that details is lost on most people out there.Another group did a pretty sweet Pee Wee Herman theme, including one of the most bizarre characters ever to grace TV, Chairy! And hye, take note of that cart with the flag on it, you'll see that again soon.One of the most fun parts of the race itself is the rampant sabotage that goes down, which can get pretty creative. I'm not sure what the prize-winning act of sabotage was, but here's the fun I had outside of one of the bars, and the not-as-much fun the victims had undoing it... I put a good 60 feet of rope around three carts that were left alone.Hey! This cart looks familiar! And it looks oddly out of place, unless you think the proper place of a shopping cart is serving the community of roof-dwellers.And here is the cart being taken down, sadly NOT by the ladies whose cart it was, but by one of the Chiditarod organizers. Apparently the local community isn't big fans of carts on rooves messing up the eaves of the building. For future reference, the local community is also not big on fifty people clogging up an alley so people can't get to their garages.And here, the improvised trophies. Sadly, 2016 Or Bust did NOT garner any awards, despite pushing around all that food all day. We did have the most food when we unloaded our cart, however a group five carts behind us unloaded a car full of food, probable 300# worth, and after that a group came in with 2300 pounds of food. Good heavens. I'm okay with losing out to a group that does such a great job as that.All in all, it was one wet, but very good, time.

A Response to the Hon. Geneball (that's me!)

You may remember this, which I will summarize briefly here:

First, Ringo Starr had this to say.

So I sent him a Sharpie letter:
(for more Sharpie letters, see here, here, and here)

In an envelope with a microcentrifuge tube opener, a tool of the scientific trade:
Which included a blown up, badly pixelated "RINGO!" poster image which I created myself and a self-addressed, stamped envelope. This was sent out October 16, 2008.

Yesterday I got home, and in the mailbox found this:
It took me a bit to remember when the hell I'd SASEd, as I don't often apply for promotional materials. I opened it up, and this was inside:
My first ever Sharpie response!!! Please note the fine signature on my horribly pixelated, creased-to-the-point-of-removing-ink RINGO! picture. If it looks OK here, click on the image to get it full-sized(ish) and you'll see how bad the image is. Too much fun.

Head Lights

This entry contains two somewhat disjointed points followed by a technological plea. The first part is about how some people are crazies. The second is about modern technology. I will finally summarize with a brief plaintive note on the connection of the first two points.
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On Saturday I needed to do some work and because Brigitte stole my car to go to Wisconsin, I had to take the train. The train ride was mostly uneventful, save one enterprising man who wanted to sell me cigarettes. I did not want to buy any, so the interaction was brief. However, upon deboarding the train things got a bit more interesting. I will enumerate:

1) When I got up the stairs to the station I had the pleasant experience of seeing the bus pulling away from the stop across the street. This made me pretty unhappy because, as discussed in a previous missive CTA buses operate on what could best be called 'no schedule at all,' and, as enumerated in that post, I probably wouldn't see another bus for half an hour. And, as my parents would be able to tell you, standing on the Dan Ryan overpass is not a great place to be standing as it is a massive wide open area with cars flying by beneath you, thereby leading to not smelling great and being ~15 degrees cooler than the rest of the city because the expressway makes its own horrid windchill. They can also verify how long you may have to wait for the bus. (Keep this in mind for a future blog where I discuss the places where cabs should clearly be hanging out but never seem to be.) I attempted to run to catch the bus, but it was to no avail.

2) Another patron also tried to run to catch the bus, but it was to even less avail as he was wearing what could best be called anti-shorts. These are pants that start roughly where your average short leg would stop. They are resistant to no movement whatsoever and prone to falling off of the mid-thighs they are precariously worn on, so if one is to move in them he must grab them by the side or preferably the crotchal region. Also, because they are worn so low they do not allow normal movement of the legs, thereby inducing a very un-thug-like waddle, especially when rapid translocation is attempted. But rapidly waddle he did, my fellow patron. He emitted a couple curses and various unintelligible vagary when he could not catch the bus, then he came to reposition his pants near me. I noticed at this point that this fellow had two tear drop tattoos under his right eye. In addition to the anti-shorts he was wearing a scowl, a very large brown sweatshirt- despite not being a very large fellow- and basically an Elmer Fudd cap, except without the brown front panel. It was sitting way up on his head and I'm pretty sure it had ear flaps!

3) Some short time later a woman crossed the street. She was dressed smartly in lime green sweatshirt and pants with a large brown coat over them. Greenie had on makeup and had a book and some papers under her arm. As Greenie crossed the street, Elmer Waddle asked her if she could see a bus coming down the street. She kind of looked, didn't say anything, but approached Elmer. She then fiddled about in her papers, retrieved a small piece of notepaper, and attempted to hand it to him. He did not accept, I presume because he knew that his anti-shorts would fall off if he added the weight of even a small piece of paper to their already precarious non-hip-resting state. Greenie then proceeded to hand out small, blank note paper to everyone else at the stop. I took my piece:
and thanked her. She then attempted to give her gift to Elmer again, but since she knew he couldn't take his hand off his pants to accept it she placed it very delicately at his feet. He then stepped on the paper, dragged his foot along the pavement, and said, "I don't know what kind of voodoo shit you got there lady, but I don't want none." Greenie then scampered down the street, hung out at the corner for a while looking around- long enough for her walk signal to turn to don't walk- then crossed the street (yes, on a do not walk), and walked down a couple stops where she eventually caught the bus that came circa five mins after this episode. Two stops after she got on the bus, three young ladies got on. She interrupted their conversation: "Excuse me would you like a piece of paper?" To which they said, "OK" and then giggled about it a little bit, but they kind of made it seem like they were just giggling so it wasn't too awkward.

The point here: sadly, some people in this city are crazies.
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Today the Stupendous Brigitte and I went to lunch together. On the way to and from lunch we walked past a number of people talking on their cell phones. Good for them and their communciations. I think it is a great feat that people can stay connected anywhere in the world. Though of course there are some downsides to this- how can today's children have random and disjointed experiences of wonder?- I nonetheless believe it a magnificent application of technology for the general sake of convenience, production, and connectivity.

The point here: um, modern technology exists and people have it?
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To synthesize: some people are crazy, and some people talk on cell phones. More specifically, some people do their cell phone talkin' via newage Star Trekian bluetooth headphones and the like. My problem is that this causes me problems disentangling parts 1 and 2. On the walk to lunch today a small oriental girl was talking a million miles an hour while walking by herself. She may likely have been wearing a bluetooth under her hood and talking on her phone. Or she may have been very crazy.

And so my plea: can we make it national law that bluetooth phones come equiped with some sort of head-top light device so everyone can tell when someone is on the phone? Or at least something that lights up the chin? Or nostrils?

I know I'm not the first to bring this up. People have talked about how strange it is to have someone talking to you only to realize they're talking on the phone. For that matter there's a commercial about this. But I wish to express my desires for the purposes of my own mental well-being and safety. Of course, the bluetooth ones are probably more likely to actually be any kind of threat to me, but at least this light system would provide me a way of classifying which are which, so that in reports I can say, "A crazy person struck me with a salami" or "A bluetooth person ran me over with their car while typing on their PDA and listening to NPR while doing her nails and keeping an eye on the kids."

I need some way to know who the crazies are. They're not always handing out scraps of blank paper.

Being Blind Could Be So Much More Trendy...

This is clearly an exceptional idea: the seeing eye miniature pony!

Links to how I found this bit of wonder here (brief) and here (long, but a well done article should you have the time). LET THE ANIMALS STAY!