eventful weekend

here's a brief recap of the fun events of the past 4 days: thursday i basked in the glory of correctly picking pickler's demise; beanes grew immune to benadryl and scratched half his face off, terry solidified his grasp of the group on survivor. friday - i went to the er at 6:30am because i thought i was having a heart attack, got to work at 9:30 and everyone laughed at me; finished season 2 of the sopranos. saturday - woke up at 6 to clean the house for our first pre-game bbq of the year; downed the first sam's summer of the season; cooked up drunken salami, egg and cheese sandwiches; sat in less than pleasant weather for 2 hours watching the cubs suck more than i've ever seen them suck (granted i only moved to chicago in 2001); had a few beers and wings at ginger's; night cap at diner grill. can you tell i'm not concerned about my ekg results?

speaking of wrigley, i have to say i like the bleacher renovations. it seems like a more modern park now with the vendor carts and what not, but still feels like the old bleachers. the biggest improvement, at least for me, is the fact that they raised the level of concrete behind the actual bleachers. in the old bleachers, if you wanted to lean on the bleacher behind you, your butt would sag down and after about 4 minutes it was uncomfortable. with the added height, it's completely comfortable. i suppose it helps that everyone left early because the cubs sucked so bad. i can't say i remember them losing 2 games by a combined 25-2 margin - pretty pathetic. i think the great steve stone diagnosed their problem correctly 3 years ago - the cubs cannot hit soft tossing lefties. good thing we still have the great sarge matthews and gene clines and dusty baker working to fix those problems from 2002...

MO

the real deal?

despite my earlier doomsday post about the cubs, i'm starting to think they might be ok. z is going to get his act together, maddux is not going to win every start, but it seems his new off-season training regimen has reduced his 3 good starts-1 bad start routine to at least 4 good starts-1 mediocre start. that said, marshall could be the key. who is this guy? all we've heard about for the past 3 years is guzman and brownlie. this guy has 15 career MINOR league starts, makes the team in spring training, and now seems to have found his groove. yes, his first 3 starts weren't anything to write home about, but he's looking solid tonight and his curve reminds me of zito circa 2002. we'll see...

on a side note, nate vasher should never be allowed to hold a microphone again. tone. deaf. stick to returning punts and making picks.

on another side note, the weather is looking great for our first game of the season saturday. last week the forecast was cloudy 64, then showers 62, then showers 60 and now we stand at showers 56. this weekend last year we sat in the bleachers and it was a balmly 33 with snow showers. a boy can dream can't he? at least we'll have maddux on the mound...

idol - why does everyone keep getting worse? everyone was horrible tonight, including katharine. elliot was the best, paris wasn't too annoying, chris sounded ok, but again he just makes everything sound like a creed song. kelly, who has sucked for 2 straight weeks, or taylor are my best guesses for the boot. speaking of taylor, i've decided he's a muppet. he's like a combination of burt and cookie monster - big bushy eyebrows who can only say one thing - soul patrol. shut up and eat your cookies. at home.


MO

cubs blow

i haven't even been to my first game yet, and the season may as well be over. no d.lee, another setback for woody, and no prior until at least june. throw in a slumping aramis and you've got a recipe for another sad season. they were only half a game out of first when lee went down, and by my calculations they should be 10 games back by the end of may. after winning the d.lee game v. LA, they've now dropped 2 in a row to the cards, haven't hit, and have been hit hard. stupid cubs - you fooled me into having hope for the last time...

in other news, jen's interview on the milt rosenberg show is officially in their archives. just click on the link and i think it'll play. or at least you'll be able to download it or something.

MO

hi-larious part II

first of all, i believe i had the idol down this week. ace has been crappy for weeks now, so buh-bye ace, buh-bye. chris got his shot across the bow warning, so we'll see if he can pick himself up. i have an idea, maybe he could sing another crappy wuss rock song, some creed perhaps??? i'm so in touch with the peeps...

a few posts ago i noted how in love i was with the chronic-WHAT-cles of narnia rap - chris parnell is hilarious. shortly after that i was made aware of west coast and midwest responses. while i still love the original, i have to say lazy monday is pretty funny, and lazy muncie might be the funniest thing i've ever seen. maybe it's because i'm down with the midwesterners. or because i love garfield. in any event, hi-larious.

tuesday resolution

effective immediately, blogging will resume at regularly scheduled intervals, namely tuesdays and thursdays. it's been so long i'm not sure i remember what it means to blog.

to end the suspense from the last entry, i have decided to name my fantasy team...the chelmsfuhd smags. the smags are currently in 5th place. after a disappointing first week, the smags bounced back last week to move above the mendoza line with an 11-10-1 record. rest assured, you'll be kept abreast of all 4 (yes, i said four) of my fantasy teams throughout the course of the season. the poopeaters are off to a slow start, but have the confidence of all defending champs, so we're not worried. running is dumb, my final team, is far and away my best team. if they don't win the championship, something will have gone awry (that's a-rye, not awe-ree - you know who you are : ) ). finally, the fierce pandas have cruised to a 2-0 mark behind the best staff in the league and the bat of pujols. as an aside, i want to thank all cubs fans who bring "pooholes stinks" signs to cubs/cards games. clearly i'm 9 years old because i giggle all the time. if my word wasn't good enough, here's more evidence that pooholes is sweeping the nation.

in other news, jen and i ran our first race - the 2006 Shamrock Shuffle. as luck would have it, my timing chip fell off my shoe somewhere between mile markers 1 and 2. thus not only do i not have an official time on the website, but i'm also $30 lighter. sweet. but jen and i ran together, so you can look her up to see that we ran it in 54:50. considering we never ran over 3 miles in training, i thought we did very well. i actually ran slightly faster than that as i finished with a michael johnson like kick, but we'll call it 54:50.

american idol - still addicted, though not as addicted. i have to say - so far tonight i'm not impressed. as i write that, katharine comes on and blows everyone out of the water. she should win, but who knows - america is dumb, i think we can all agree on that. i thought chris was terrible, despite all the praise he got from the three stooges. elliot was quality, per usual, paris irritated me, per usual, taylor looked constipated, per usual (i wish that guy would just take a laxative), and ace is going to be in the bottom three, per usual. it's going to be a tough week, but i say ace should go, and probably will go, but chris could go and i wouldn't be surprised or upset. now that annoying ass house is on and i have to change the channel before my bulb blows because this show is so horrible.

MO