Going on the Real World is probably a mistake

Unless you really really need to look like a complete jackass on national television, you have no family or friends who would be embarassed by your actions, and you enjoy letting everyone know how much of whore you'll be to be put on television. Then it's probably a good idea.

Last night I had the severe misfortune of watching The Real World on Satan's Channel. Of course, once I got stuck on that channel, I couldn't do anything to free myself from its grip. It had a stranglehold on me.

So this season on the show there's some loser chick who went to Tulane and supposedly represents everything about New Orleans. But she's originally from Jersey. Then there's the gay dude who is way too pretty to be straight, but at first people thought he was in fact straight. Then you've got the massive toolbag who is 21 and apparently the girls love. Then some kind of weird girl, and then a former Raiderette. And this season instead of one token black guy, there are two.

Already I am ashamed that I know so much of the show. But it's a real trainwreck, and I don't know if I'm offended or honored to have been able to witness last night's installment.

So I guess on the first episode, the Toolbag made out with the Jerseygirl, and she said something girly about feeling a connection or something. Then, on his way to go continue making out or something, he got sidetracked and started messing around with Raiderette. And Jerseygirl found out.

Last night, Jerseygirl was on a quest to find a random dude to fool around with to make Toolbag jealous. And did she ever find another complete jackass. It was at this point that you know that no one in the house is really friends at all, because if they were close friends, one of the girls would have stepped in and prevented her from making a huge mistake. On cable.

So anyways, Toolbag got jealous or something. And I think he and Jerseygirl ended up making out that night. And talking about some sort of connection or something stupid like that. I wasn't really listening to their drivel. I feel like had I actually been trying to, I would have pulled out all of my hair due to their drunken, retarded logic.

At some point they just said that they didn't want to make each other jealous. So Jerseygirl and Toolbag made a pact to not hook up with anyone for 24 hours. Now even when I have my most will power I am unable to not hoook up with anyone for anything over 2, maybe 3 minutes. So for these two to make such a sacrifice speaks volumes about their relationship with each other.

Cut to the next day. Toolbag comes downstairs and Jerseygirl is sitting at the computer or something. Well, he asks her if they talked about something serious last night. She said yeah, and he said, oh. He doesn't remember it.

Now, I've known drunk girls who have lied better about not remembering a conversation than this bastard. It was such a cop-out. And he obviously feels very uncomfortable with his ability to go without hooking up with someone for 24 hours. With probably 6 hours down. If not more. So then he complains of 'not feeling right' and heads back to bed.

So obviously these two have quite the rapport.

When I was in school (towards graduation) I thought it would be really cool to go on Real World. But, seeing the giant idiocy of the people on this cast, especially Toolbag and Jerseygirl, makes me so glad that I never even made any sort of attempt to try to be put on the show.

This show really does nothing but increase my hatred of MTV and people in general. Especially people who are delusional about how quickly they can form bonds, and about how making out is fun and no one ever gets hurt. I usually just hope that when making out does backfire, it happens in the most humiliating way possible. In addition to happening on MTV.

The ultimate graph

Unfortunately, this doesn't come out nearly as well as it looked on my computer. But trust me on this one, this is one kickass graph showing us the difficulties of having fun on New Year's Eve in Chicago while still keeping it in the price range that will make everyone happy.

And if you think that smiley faces are an inaccurate value to have on the X-axis, you are a prick.

I'd like that thank Bootz for this awesome graph.

This won't be pleasant

Last night was a horrible game for the Illini. I came into the night thinking, well, the Illini probably won't win, but I at least hope they don't get blown out. And maybe for once this season we can start a game strong.

But I was wrong. We got down big early, down 15. And then I wouldn't really say the defense improved that much, but we did force a lot of bad shots and a lot of turnovers from a young team. Then, down the stretch, we let some Venezuelan dude take the game completely over. On three consecutive trips down the floor, he made a three, then made a three point play, then he made a shot and got fouled, only to miss the free throw.

And that's where the game turned around. Well, the second turnaround. The first was when Illinois actually came back to take the lead. We all know how the game ended, so I won't make anyone else relive it like I have to.

First, the good news. Trent Meacham appeared to have a much better game, and he wasn't so overmatched this game. He may have trouble guarding quicker guards, but he matched up well last night. Also good was seeing Warren Carter with the first-half double-double, including the three he made (which was awesome to see), and his energy was great. He doesn't really defend so much as try to block shots, but he was a huge part of the comeback last night. Also good to see was Pruitt's domination down low early in the second half. Seeing Carlwell's contribution last night was big too. It seems like he's going to become an important player off the bench this season, and I'm all for it.

Now, the bad news. I have no idea what was with Weber's rotation of players in the second half. Jamar barely saw any minutes. Who did see minutes? And a lot of them? Rich McBride. More on that in a second.

Also, where was Calvin Brock? I used to hate him, but I really like him now. Why? Because he rebounds. And he moves. It's great to have 4 players crash the boards, or at least three (Brock and Chester Frazier are always rebounding, which is going to help as this team gets better).

So, now to the black hole of the game. Bruce Weber said Rich McBride would have to earn his starting spot back when coming off of his suspension. Well, Rich was in the starting lineup last night, and I would say he did not deserve it. When McBride is in the game, he doesn't move on offense. At all. He stands in the corner, waiting to get the ball even though some dude is draped all over hiim. Kind of makes it hard to thrive in the MOTION offense when he just stands there. The only times he moves well are when he's getting picks set to put up a shot.

Which is another thing. Shitty shot selection from McBride. He had 3 important shots last night. He drained 2 threes when coming off of picks, which were good to see, and he had one ugly runner that he made. I'm not going to look up his numbers, but he missed plenty of wide open threes. His first shot of the night didn't even touch the rim. If he can't shoot, what is the point of having him in the game?

His defense isn't that great (he allowed guys into the lane in crucial moments) and he doesn't rebound on offense, largely due to the fact that it would require him to stop standing behind the three point line, and he has no interest in that.

The defense wasn't very good in general last night. But there was one moment in particular where I saw Calvin Brock defending someone who set a pick on McBride's man. The guy setting the pick rolled, and McBride followed him. But so did Brock, leaving some dude open to drain a 3.

So defense needs a lot of work. Rich McBride, a fucking senior, looks terribly out of place. Hopefully Weber decided to rest Smith for most of the second half, because I would have much rather had him out there, you know, defending and capable of making an important shot inside 3 minutes. McBride needs to get his ass in gear because in my opinion he does not deserve to be anywhere near the starting lineup.

Anyways, we definitely should have won that damn game. And now we have a tough test with Arizona, which is basically our first road game, and Arizona is one of the top scoring teams in the nation. That win last night would have been huge for us, and it would have looked great when the NCAA selection committee is deciding what seed we deserve.

So we need to go in and beat Arizona. Although, again, I'm just hoping our players actually defend and rebound, and hopefully we won't get blown out. Fucking Rich McBride.

I guess we could do something entirely useless

Now for the Bears post. I'm getting really sick of reading all of this bullshit about Rex Grossman needing to be benched for Brian Griese.

Fact: Grossman blew the game against the Patriots. His throws were all over the place, he fumbled that snap (probably his fault, although I can't be sure) in the red zone.

Fact: Griese has only played in garbage time this year.

Fact: The Bears are 9-2 under Grossman.

Let's all just get off Grossman's back for a second. Grossman hurt his hand early in the game against the Pats. After that, his throws on the sideline were all over the place. Yet Smith put him back in the game. Was it because he thought Grossman was fine, or was it because he didn't think Griese could win the game?

Regardless of whatever was wrong with Grossman's hand, he went back in and did a pretty decent job when not throwing the ball towards Asante Samuel. His throws on the picks were horrible, but he did manage to have some nice throws too. I think the lack of consistency was probably due to the hand injury. Which I hope will be fine.

People talk ab out his terrible 4th quarter QB rating. Personally I feel like QB rating isn't entirely accurate for basing performance on, but whatever. Maybe the reason he has a terrible rating is because the Bears are always up big in the 4th. There have been 4 games that haven't been Bears blowouts. The first was against the Vikings, where Grossman made a great find in the endzone to win the game. The second was the game against the Cardinals, where he missed the first throw, and then I think playcalling sucked. Regardless, he sucked kind of badly in that one. The third was the Dolphins game that the Bears were never close in. He sucked in that game. And now the Pats game.

So the Bears are 9-2, still have arguably the best defense in the NFL, and they're still almost locks for home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. Why would we want to change something that has gotten us to 9-2?

Obviously the Bears are a running team. You know what helps set up the run? The deep pass. Griese can't throw it. Grossman can. Grossman's also been incredibly accurate (save for the bad games). The deep threat is something the Bears haven't had in years, and they won't have it with Griese. That means that teams can put 8 in the box against the Bears, shut down the run, and then on 3rd and 8 Griese will throw it 6 yards.

Also, I wouldn't say the Bears have been blocking incredibly well for Grossman. He's been under a lot of pressure, and it looks to me like the 3-4 defenses are giving the line a terrible time in pass protection. Maybe we could rectify that before we throw Rex under the bus. Or, we could just go with a less mobile QB.

I'm not saying I hate Griese. I'm saying there's no need to take Rex out for the final 5 games when he could use this time to prepare for the playoffs. And shit, he's already proven if you need him to manage a game and not lose, he can do that (see Jets game). But why just not lose. The Bears should win out (at least go 4-1), have home-field advantage, and then if you want to play ball control (read: pussy) football in the playoffs, then do it.

But taking out Rex makes no sense. His best games were the games early in the season. Maybe we could get back to that instead of just finding ways for him to not lose the game. The Cardinals game has been the worst thing to happen to this offense all season.

I think I've lost focus here. The point is, why take out Rex when he can give you exactly what Griese can if you're going to handcuff him anyways. Either handcuff him (which will suck and be boring) or let him play and put these stupid rumors about Griese needing to play to bed. Griese is a fine backup QB. But he should only play should Rex be physically unable.

Cubs first

I have a list of things that need to be talked about today, all on various subjects, so I'm going to try to be clear and concise in my ramblings and focus on one subject at a time. Not to say that there aren't things clouding my mind right now, causing me intense, nearly blinding rage, because if you saw the Illini last night, you would know that that isn't the case.

Also, the title of this post would make you think that the Cubs actually did something awesome. Or someone thinks they're about to do something awesome. Or something.

But that would be false. The news today is that they actually didn't do anything. In fact, they haven't done anything recently. Yesterday there were multiple reports that the Cubs had made an offer to Jason Schmidt, but the Cubs are vehemently denying it.

Just glancing at Schmidt's numbers, he's 33 (about to be 34), so if they did offer him a 4 year deal, which is what he's rumored to have a deal around, he'd be 38 when the contract expired. Also, he only had 80 walks last year, and 180 K's. In addition, he had 3 complete games and 1 shut out, which is more than the Cubs had as a team last year. He had some pretty high pitch counts too. Oh, and he threw over 200 innings. So that makes 3 of the last 4 years he's thrown over 200 innings. He seems reasonably durable, despite rumors that he's got arm problems or whatever. The Cubs could do worse.

Like the Yankees. $25 million just to talk to a Japanese pitcher who by all accounts is probably not even ready to pitch in the MLB. He's obviously an end of the rotation kind of guy, and I wouldn't be surprised if their bid beat everybody else by $10 million. If that's not desperation, I don't know what is.

Also, the Cubs love their mediocre pitchers. Why this team is still interested in the shitbomb that is Jason Marquis is beyond me. They probably just continue to forget that Larry Rothschild is the coach and has absolutely on ability to turn around a player's career. Unless he turns it around into the shitty direction. He's young, yes, and I suppose there's a chance he just had a terrible year (doubt it), but he would need to shave at least 1.5 runs off his ERA just to crack our rotation. I don't think he can do it, but I'm terrified and feeling almost certain he'll get his shot.

I think that's about all I've got for rumors so far today.

Vindication

I love this article. It is vindication in the player that Bruce Weber coached him to be, and at the product that comes out of Illinois.

Also, for all of those losers who choose to not go to Illinois because they won't be prepared for the NBA, and would rather go to Indiana, where they will fail miserably, and not be a 1 and done, or Memphis, where they will fail to a lesser extent than at Indiana, it goes to show that they made the right choice in choosing against Illinois. I mean, who would want to come out of high school as the lesser recruited from his high school, and then have 2 solid years topped off by one incredible year and a run to the NCAA championship game, and then go in the top 5 of the NBA draft, and then be in the top 3 in the NBA in his second year at his position?

I mean, if I was highly recruited out of high school, I'd go where they hadn't won anything in years, they have no foundation for a good team, and the coach has developed absolutely 0 awesome players in the NBA. But I'm just a sensible non-retard who isn't delusional.

Also, for anyone who looks at Deron Williams as Bill Self's recruit, just compare what Deron Williams has done to what Frank Williams has done. Frank had his worst year in college right before he graduated, under Self, and has been shitty in the NBA. And Frank came into college much more polished.

Just to get this off my chest as well, you can't say Bill Self is a great coach because he gets great recruits. These recruits are all one-and-done guys. However, Self is such a shitty coach, they're all sticking around for more than one year. Why? Because they're no better than when they got to college. They're actually probably worse.

So it's great to see Deron Williams getting recognized for leading the Jazz to winning. With him there, I'm actually able to not hate the Jazz. That hasn't happened since I've been alive. And I would hope seeing Deron excel makes all those idiots in high school realize that Bruce Weber is great at preparing dudes for the NBA.

Quick hits

When starting this post, I'm guessing it's going to be a relatively short Cubs post. Here are the updates I've gotten so far today.

First, rumor has it that the Cubs have submitted a 3 year/$44 million deal for Jason Schmidt. A solid deal, he's still pretty young, and 3 years isn't too long to be on the hook. When I say pretty young, I mean he's not 43 or anything like that. And he could be yet another anchor on the staff, someone with solid control on a staff who tends to walk a lot. Someone else with control, in addition to Rich Hill.

Second, now Manny Ramirez is on the trading block. And one rumor says that he could be dealt by Saturday. Reportedly the Cubs have offered Murton, Howry and two young pitchers (I think) for him. The situation is intriguing because Manny's contract is nowhere near as huge as it looked a couple years ago. Also, there are rumors that the Red Sox may just want him gone soon, so it wouldn't take a deal that would knock them out to pull the trigger.

I'd like having Manny Ramirez on the Cubs, but we would definitely need to get a solid CF. Assuming Soriano moves to right, we can't have Jones in center and Ramirez in left. Ramirez is a black hole over there. He'll hit enough to make up for it, especially in Wrigley. So you need a solid cf to hold the fort between the two. A Vernon Wells type of cf. Of course, if we unload 4 guys for Ramirez, you can almost guarantee that's the final big move of the offseason.

The Cubs still need to shore up the rotation. Apparently pitchers' agents don't want to do anything until the winter meetings next week where the Yankees can set the market for pitchers. So there may not be too much happening on that front, although if we could bring in Schmidt before, that would help set the market.

Also, I'm really hoping next week is the week that the Indians trade Cliff Lee our way in exchange for Jacque Jones straight up. Wait, we'll send Carlos Marmol over too. And maybe Ryan O'Malley. I like that deal. Pull the trigger Hendry.

Finally, it's absolutely crazy to see that the Cubs are actually players in the market this offseason. If MacPhail were still president, we wouldn't have Soriano, we would have DeRosa (probably), and we would probably have Mark Mulder and Jason Marquis on our staff already. We also might have Moises Alou and Cliff Floyd. Oh, we probably wouldn't have Aramis either. I am seriously on the verge of being optimistic about next season.

Illini sign 14 year-old

Yes. The Illini have gotten a verbal commitment from a freshman in high school. Yes. We're barely even into the high school basketball season.

While I don't really know a whole lot about this kid, here is what I do know:

--he's 6'5 at only 14 years old. He'll probably end up somewhere around 6'8" or 6'9"

--he's 14 years old. He was in junior high about 6 months ago. When I was in junior high, I was still entertaining the idea of getting a scholarship to play basketball at U of I. Some people get their wish, others don't apparently. Just because I don't have the 'raw talent' or the 'work ethic' whatever those things mean.

--in his first game at the varsity level he scored 34 points and pulled down 21 rebounds. He also had 6 blocks. I don't know how bad the team was that he was playing, but those are awesome numbers regardless.

Apparently he's in the top 5 players in the state regardless of age right now, and he's by far the best in his class in-state. Rumor has it he's in the top 10 in the nation in his class. Is it insane that they rank freshmen just as the season begins? Absolutely.

But this seems like a really interesting development. Should he continue to develop, which would be amazing, he could easily be one of the alleged recruiting home runs that Weber continually misses. Should he fail to develop any more, those are still some pretty damn good numbers.

The scouting report is that he has an advanced jumpshot, with an ability to attack the basket and rebound. Which is a nice coincidence, because for the 2010 Illini men's basketball season, we've been looking for someone with the ability to attack the basket and rebound, in addition to having an advanced jumpshot.

Even better is that the family of this kid was taking shots at the family of Eric Gordon. Nothing too harsh; mainly they were just saying that they're a family who sticks to their word, and there is no chance that they'll de-commit. You know, apparently they're not in the business of fucking over Illini basketball. At least yet.

So now Illini fans have something to look forward to in 4 years. Seems like kind of a long ways away, doesn't it. Whatever though, I'll probably still be obsessed.

You're the turkey (sports)

I would say this was probably a pretty average weekend for the teams that I am a fan of. I probably should be more upset with the Bears loss, but I just can't be. Here's why.

We just completed three games in a row in the Northeast. Coming into the season, we knew it would be our toughest road trip of the entire season. Even after the first week, I predicted the Bears would have the toughest time again the final team they played, whether it be the Jets or the Pats (I knew the Giants were first). Rarely do you see any team go into the Meadowlands and take 2 consecutive games. And then to still have one more game on the road up there is brutal.

The Bears should have won the game last night. The fumbled snap in the goal line was enraging. The blocked fg was a bunch of crap. I think the officials had it out for the Bears in the first half. First, the only reason there was any movement on the line on the FG play was because the Patriot player moved first. And it's illegal for a defender to draw someone to false start. Nice catch by the apparently blind officials. Second, the 'late-hit' call on Danieal Manning. Urlacher had shoved Dillon, but he HADN'T STEPPED OUT OF BOUNDS. It's tough for a late hit to come when the player is still IN PLAY. You could tell before the hit even came the official was going for his flag.

In addition to those screw-jobs, there was the 'unnecessary roughness' on Charles Tillman. Manning came away with the fumble recovery. But all he did after recovering the ball was lay there. Tillman got up and smoked a dude because he thought Manning was going to run, since, you know, HE HADN'T BEEN TOUCHED. Manning didn't run, not that he would have gotten much, but he wasn't touched until after Tillman had laid that dude out. So two unnecessary roughness calls go against the Bears while the ball was technically still live. Unbelievable.

That being said, something has to be wrong with Grossman. I don't understand how one game he can have pinpoint precision, and the next he turns the ball over 14 times. He missed a couple wide open receivers last night. And if he had placed the ball where Berrian was running just about any time last night, the game probably would have been a blow out. I'm not saying I want Griese to play, because I don't. You might as well have Brad Johnson out there. Hell, I'd rather have Orton, because at least he can throw the ball more than 14 yards downfield.

I forget the point I was trying to make. But last night the Bears sucked just enough to keep it close. And holy shit can we force a turnover. So in review, I'm ok with the loss. Let's just stop talking about it already.

Second, how about the Illini. For the first weekend since October the Illini football team doesn't lose (so what if their season is over) and the basketball team wins a big one.

Some people are probably going to say big deal, Illinois was the best team in that little tournament, they should have won. Well, you know what? We did win. And good teams win games they're supposed to. Have you heard of that Kansas?

Sidenote rant: Fuck Kansas. Did anyone see how ugly that game was with Florida? Taurean Green literally handed the game over to Kansas, and Kansas did their best to try to hand it back. Neither team looked worthy of a top-10 ranking in that one. I'm pretty sure Bradley-Illinois was much prettier.

Ok, back to Illinois. Who would have thought that Jamar Smith coming back would have been such a necessity? Trent Meacham, in the first game I've seen all year, looked overmatched. I'm hoping it was just a bad game, but it was tough. Jamar Smith though, what a catalyst. His shooting touch is incredible.

We still had trouble getting into the offense, Rich McBride still looks like he may be way too passive of a player, and B-kid (Carlwell) did miss that dunk. But Warren Carter appears to be emerging as quite the scorer, we all know (and were reminded) of what Smith can do from the outside, and I have a feeling having Calvin Brock be active on the boards is going to be huge.

I don't know if this team is going to be as deadly as I hope they will, but I definitely think this team is underrated, and hopefully we can be a deadly tournament team. Also, I would like to point out that Illinois has been playing the kinds of teams that surprise people in the NCAA tournament, so to say that they're playing cupcakes isn't necessarily true.

Also, we got a commitment from a freshman in h.s. over the weekend. More on this later.

Thanksgviving memories

Since it's that time of year again, I thought that I would make a Thanksgiving post. A lot of people are telling stories about their funniest Thanksgiving mishaps, so I thought I'd just share a couple of mine.

First, this one happened a couple of years ago. My mom ended up having to work the day of Thanksgiving, so we didn't end up having turkey until dinner. And my sister and my dad were in charge of taking care of the food. So my sister followed all of the instructions my mom left about the turkey, and we all sat down to dinner. As my dad got ready to cut the turkey, we all commented on how delicious it looked and how my sister did such a good job with it. Then, as soon as my dad took a knife to it, the turkey deflated! I couldn't believe it!

Another year my dad was in charge of making the turkey because my mom was sick. He was running around like crazy all morning trying to cook everything well, and then we smelled something burning. It was the turkey! Ohhh. He took it out of the oven and it was pitch black. That's ok we all thought, nobody really eats the skin anyways. It could still be good on the inside! But it wasn't! It was frozen! Burnt on the outside, frozen on the inside! Who would have guessed that was possible!

My first year back from college was a memorable Thanksgiving. My parents spent all morning cooking, as is usual, and I spent all morning in front of the TV, as is usual. That was the year my parents both brought their lawyers to dinner. That was a great Thanksgiving. I mean, emotionally it was terrible. But the turkey was so moist!

Then there was last year. We had Thanksgiving at my sister's house, and my mom and my sister were doing most of the cooking. Everything really did look pretty good, and it was a relief to see that my sister's cooking appliances worked. Well, when I bit into my stuffing, I bit into a rock! My sister had ran out of bread crumbs or whatever and had gotten gravel from outside to finish the stuffing! I lost 2 teeth!

Oh! There was also one year that we were all eating, and I think my dad had told a really funny joke. Well, we all started laughing really hard. I laughed so hard I started choking! I passed out because everyone was laughing too hard to give me the Heimlich. I think I was probably out for about 3 hours. Good times.

There is actually a good chance that none of these things actually happened.

It's good these people can still get jobs

I was browsing through cnn.com yesterday and I saw some very interesting headlines. First, one was that a subsituted teacher allowed needle sharing in some school.

I was like, uh, needle sharing? Did the sub just let people tie off and shoot up heroin? Because that would be an awesome sub. But even the sub should know you can't let people share needles. But then i watched the video (really, cnn.com, can't you have someone transcribe that?) and I saw that the experiment was for students to prick their fingers so they could look at blood under the microscope. However, I guess some of the students were sharing the needles they used to prick their fingers.

First, I don't see how this is a good experiment. Can't you just bring in some pig and slaughter it in front of all the kids, and then look at its blood? Is that wrong in school's today?

Second, what kind of teacher allows students to share needles? And does the regular teacher allow students to share needles? And wouldn't you think that might be a reason to include a large warning in the notes for a sub: WARNING: TRY NOT TO LET STUDENTS SHARE TOO MANY NEEDLES.

I don't know if this is entirely the sub's fault, and really it's probably just being blown out of proportion and hopefully there aren't any crazy infections or anything that happens to the kids. It's just pretty ridiculous that something like that is even capable of happening. I've got some bad news for that sub though: it could be kind of hard to find a steady job after this.

Second, and making me feel much better about people in general is the story that a coach raped a 14 year-old girl. The headline of the video said coach, but the text underneath said minister. So it looks like this was a two-fer.

The 'coach' and/or 'minister' was actually the Spring Hill Director of Music and Youth. He was driving his two daughters and two other girls, one 14, one 19, somewhere. And on the way home it was reported that he sexually abused the 14 year-old one. Well, I know what you're thinking. He must really love kids.

Well, according to most people in the area, he's been a church member and leader for years. He used to sing this song 'Thank God for Kids'. And according to the bishop(?) at the church, and this is the actual quote he gave, "I think he really loves kids...I mean that in a positive way."

Now, you also might be thinking, why rape the younger girl when he had a girl of age with him? Well, he's got that covered. Allegedly. You see, the rape of the 14 year-old actually happened on the way home from whereever they went. But, on the way there, he allegedly sexually abused the 19 year-old. The 14 year-old thing was reported first though.

Now, this dude posted $50,000 bail on Sunday (I don't know too many people who can post that kind of bail) and he resigned from his position at the church. Allegedly is was so he could keep the investigation from hurting the church or something. Or, maybe it's because he's guilty and going to jail.

My question is this: How does a dude abuse girls when his daughters are in the vehicle? That takes balls. So not only should this man not be put in jail, he should be allowed to keep working with kids. Because he loves kids. In a good way. In a way that you could call, I don't know, biblical.

Heading into the weekend

I love 3 day weeks. It's awesome that just as you hit hump day, it basically becomes a Friday. And, since this is the equivalent of the longest vacation I've had since I graduated 1.5 years ago, I particularly enjoy Thanksgiving.

But since this has been kind of a slow week for rumors I thought I'd just post a few more rumors and then list what I think the Cubs should do. Kind of. So this is pretty much like every other post.

First, there is now a rumor floating around that the Cubs are considering bringing in Julio Lugo as soon as this weekend. This would be awesome for two reasons. First, Lugo is probably willing to move around to any position as long as he plays, which could help us until we either get players developed or long-term answers. Two, he's a very solid SS who would allow us to move that loser Cesar Izturis. Instant upgrade offensively, and I doubt we lose much defensively. Lugo probably doesn't win a gold glove, but Izturis is probably going to be too hurt to win one anyways.

Second, it sounds like the Cubs may really like Murton in left, and may move Jacque Jones. This could be good, since he is looking like a cheap alternative to many free agents this offseason, and he's coming off the second best year in his career. So it would seem like he has a pretty high value. If we could trade him, we could get some pitching or something that would be incredibly useful.

But we still have a hole in the outfield. And we still have players on our bench who I am positive can play (Theriot). So here are a few of my suggestions.

Try Theriot out in center. I would almost put him in the category of utility player since he's played all over the infield. It's not like center is THAT hard. Plus, whatever he lacks in an arm he makes up for at the plate. If that doesn't work, I still say bring in Lugo, let him play center, and either let DeRosa play short or Theriot. You'll lose some range up the middle, but you're still solid defensively and you're much better off offensively. And who knows what we'll need offensively since we still only have 2 starters. This would give Pie more time to develop (he's tearing up shit in the Dominican right now).

Try Pie out in center. Maybe he doesn't need time. We already know he's an outstanding defensive CF. The only thing that's in question is his offense. If he can hit then there's no reason we shouldn't just give him the ball. Plus, we've already shown that we're not rushing him through the system. At least give him a shot.

Also, we do have Eric Patterson in AAA, who may be able to come up and play some 2nd base. If he can play 2nd, we move DeRosa over to short, and maybe we can move Theriot. Of course, I doubt Patterson gets the call, since we've already got Theriot and DeRosa and Cedeno. There's really no need to rush him through, but, again, if he hits, we may be able to add him to the mix and get rid of some other young guys in return for some pitching.

I also saw a rumor that the Cubs made an offer to Jason Schmidt. He would be a solid addition to the staff, and the contract length probably wouldn't be too long, so I'd probably be ok with it. Plus, he's an older guy who throws strikes, which is important for a team with a lot of question marks. If we could get Z going 7 innings, then have Schmidt turn around and pitch 7 every 2 or 3 times out, that gives our bullpen some off days. Whether or not Schmidt stays healthy all season is a question, but a healthy Schmidt for a portion of the year is better than a AAA pitcher all year (in theory) .

It really feels weird to not be bogged down with shitloads of pessimism for the upcoming season.

I hate ESPN.com

I didn't get cable until I was a sophomore in high school. I remember it was either February or March, because it was kind of a birthday present. I guess. I lobbied for years and finally it paid off. And it didn't go unappreciated. But one of the best things about getting cable was all the access to sports that ESPN gave me.

I'm older now. And you know what else is older? ESPN. Some things get better/smarter with age (i.e. me), some things start blowing. "But you love sports. How can you hate ESPN?" is probably what you're saying.

Well, the main reason is that I hate espn.com. I'm not even linking to it because I hate it so much. It used to be a great place to go to sports news quickly and easily. Hell, I even subscribed to the magazine because I loved ESPN so much. Then, a couple years ago (I think it was during a baseball offseason or near the trade deadline) I started noticing this stupid little thing show up next to some of the articles. It said you had to be an ESPN insider to read the article. I was like, oh, ok, I subscribe to the magazine, so I probably get it, right? Wrong. I needed to pay an addition $30 or something to read the stupid article.

Ok, no big deal, I guess I'll have to get my rumors and stuff elsewhere. But as time has progressed, more and more shit requires you to be an Insider. They don't even bother showing the little symbol for Insider next to a lot of the articles anymore. You click on it, you see part of the first paragraph of an article, and then it says either login or subscribe.

Now there's basically nothing that I can read on the site anymore, except for scores or news. Absolutely no insight. Which, I guess is kind of a blessing because most of the 'insight' on the site is pretty shitty.

So now I don't even bother trying to read articles on espn.com anymore. You know why? It's the fucking internet! I can get all the information elsewhere, just as fast, and I don't have to pay shit for it. Shit, I can find 8 other sites that have the exact same information for free. And, on half of those sites they present it in a hilarious way.

So espn.com, I hate you. You're on notice.

Guess the topic

Another day has passed and Jim Hendry has still not done anything to make me hate him more since signing Alfonso Soriano. In fact, I'm actually hearing good rumors. About the Cubs. That string of sentences doesn't even make sense to me.

I may have been a little unclear in my statements yesterday about Soriano. I read that they Cubs would probably keep him in a corner outfield spot, which I thought would make Jacque Jones or Matt Murton available. Well, apparently they've been considering Soriano for right, and then you just move Jones over to center.

The Daily Herald is reporting today that the Cubs would rather trade Jones than move him to center, and they'd rather keep Murton in left. This is amazing news because it means that the Cubs are willing to not give up on a young player with a lot of upside. I wonder if Andy MacPhail really was part of the problem holding back the Cubs. We all know he didn't do anything to actually help them.

Another rumor I've heard is that the Cubs are in negotiations to bring Cliff Floyd to Chicago. Floyd has been rumored to be coming to Chicago since his days with the Marlins, and then back when Sosa was traded, there were rumors Floyd would be coming to the Cubs from the Mets. Basically whenever there is an offseason, there are rumors about bringing Cliff Floyd to Chicago.

I don't really like this. A couple years ago, yes, I probably would have been ok with it. But Floyd is coming off a season where he was injured for a long time, and when he came back he had terrible stats. He may have been playing through pain, but terrible stats nonetheless. Why would we bring him in?

If it's anything other than just a bench role player/4th outfielder, I think it's a mistake. I heard they may be bringing him in to platoon with Murton in left. Ok. Murton hit .308 in his first call-up at the end of the 2005 season. Last season, his first full season, he hit .299. And that was basically with a month off when Dusty McCantPlayYoungGuys made him sit for almost the entire month of June. Murton has earned his spot. Let him earn it again, fine, but don't just make him part of a platoon when he's obviously the superior offensive player, and his glove is no worse than Floyd's.

So, anyways, back to getting rid of Jones. I don't know where he'd go, who we'd give up, or really anything, but I like the prospect of getting rid of him over Murton. Also, rumor is the Cubs still have Gary Matthews Jr. in their sights.

This is another awesome rumor because it would aid in the removal of Jones from the team's plans. If we bring in Matthews, we can (probably) overpay him, which will suck. However, if we erase the $6 or $7 million that is owed Jones the next two years, it will almost cancel out.

I doubt much more happens until after Thanksgiving, but there's at least a nice foundation that the Cubs can continue to build on. Of course, if we had a pitching coach, then we could probably afford to go with some cheaper pitching talent and not get burnt. But we don't have one. So, we'll have to overpay for roughly average pitchers, and hope their arms don't break off.

Horrorfest: A review

This weekend was the celebrated weekend of Horrorfest: 8 movies that will change your life. I was ecstatic for it, as I thought at least 4 of these movies looked pretty scary from the website and the trailers. Also, I got into a discussion whether or not all 8 movies were going to be scary. My argument was that the title wasn't '7 films that will change your life then one other shitty movie.' But my argument was flawed. So here are some simple reviews of the movies, hopefully without giving anything (or at least too much) away.

Day 1

Movie 1: Dark Ride - From the previews I thought this one was kind of scary looking. Except from the 'ride' portion in the title, I thought it might be a movie like whatever that movie Paul Walker was in. You know, road trip, someone following you trying to kill you for no reason. In general, I would say this movie was pretty bad, but some of the effects were ok. And the kill scenes were pretty funny. And by funny I mean probably disturbing to most people, but I laughed a lot. Also, if you want to make a scary movie, I would say casting the catcher from The Sandlot is a bad move. Yet another bad scary movie with "dark" in the title.

Movie 2: Rinne: Reincarnation - The movie from Taka Shimizu. I was looking forward to this one, since it wasn't a shitty sequel to a good first movie, and it was one of the "Horror 6-pack" (as I've termed it) from the director. This movie wasn't really scary in the same way as The Grudge and there wasn't stuff jumping out scaring you, but there was a freaky looking doll, little creepy Asian kids, and a pretty cool ending that was also pretty weird.

Movie 3: Unrest - I'm not sure how I felt about this movie. On one hand, the main character really annoyed me. On the other hand, she was really hot, so I couldn't make up my mind. In this one we never saw the scary thing, so I guess a lot of the tension was pointless. But it was pretty creepy in general, if you think morgues and cadavers and dead things are creepy. And I do, so I thought it was pretty good.

Day 2

Movie 4: Penny Dreadful - They got the dreadful part right. This movie was terrible. This was in the same realm of Dark Water. Again, from the trailer I thought this might be like that shitty Paul Walker movie, but it was possibly worse. It was terribly boring. There was barely anything happening in it. It kind of reminded me of Phone Booth in that regard. Also, I hated the main character in this movie. She was such a whiny bitch. I really wanted her to get what was coming to her. You sucked Penny Dreadful.

Movie 5: The Gravedancers - I don't really know what to say about this one. Before it started, I was informed that it was hilarious. The premise for it was dumb to say the least. But it was pretty funny. I'm not sure if it was intentionally funny, but it was. It was kind of a cross between what I'm guessing Feast is like (I really want to see that by the way) in that there was a lot of funny dialogue, and it was kind of like Ghostbusters in that some of the effects were really cheesy and 80's-like. There was like one scary part towards the beginning, but pretty much after that I couldn't stop laughing at how ridiculous everything was. I can't decide if it was done to be intentionally funny, but my guess is if it was, they wouldn't have added it to Horrorfest. So I was disappointed more in Horrorfest than the movie for this one.

Movie 6: Abandoned - The best movie of Horrorfest. This movie had pretty much everything on my list of rules for a scary movie. There was a lot of creepy stuff, and it was in a creepy environment. I don't want to give anything away because I liked it so much and it (and Reincarnation) are the two that I recommend of all of these. And probably Unrest. The ending was really freaky though. I'll say that.

Day 3

Movie 7: Wicked Little Things - This movie was ok, fairly scary. I guess for me it wasn't that scary because I didn't really think a lot of the stuff was scary once it was all explained. And then once it was all explained, there really wasn't a lot of tension left in the movie (in my opinion at least). Besides, we saw the scary little things really early in the movie. But seeing them eat people was hilarious. And awesome.

Movie 8: The Hamiltons - This movie disappointed me. I only watched part of the trailer online, but I saw what appeared to be incest and thought it looked like a winner. Er, uh. Seriously, I thought this could be good. And then it started out pretty well, and I liked the premise. But then it slowed down, and then I got annoyed. The ending was ok, but I was disappointed with how the movie was done. But it was by far not the worst movie I saw, and I would say it probably tied for 4th with WLT.

So there were 3 bad/disappointing ones, 2 good ones, and 2 that were still pretty good but not as good and 1 awesome one.

A couple things I learned from the weekend:

Better keep a flashlight on you. You never know when you're going to be lost in the dark in some sort of forest or basement or when your lights will go out due to ghosts. (Seriously, spirits turning out lights was totally overplayed) Might want to keep some extra batteries on you too, just in case.

If your heritage takes you to another country, you might want to take a buddy with you. Just saying.

'Doppelganger' is probably a word I don't want to hear in a scary movie, even if said doppelganger is creepy.

There was not enough killing in these movies. The death toll was miserably low. There were probaly only like 4 or 5 people killed per movie. Very disappointing.

Slow plots must have been a theme. We figured out the story about half an hour in, then the next half hour was miserably slow (for most), and sometimes even longer than that, and then the final half hour was hopefully when things picked up, but that didn't happen all the time.

I guess I'd say it was a successful weekend. I'm terribly desensitized to horror though, as basically through any killing scene I was laughing. There is probably something wrong with me.

Wowzers

I really can't believe this is happening. It's starting to look like Jim Hendry may be actually trying to turn the Cubs into a winning baseball team as opposed to this giant underachieving joke.

The Cubs agreed to terms with Alfonso Soriano yesterday. 8 years, $136 million. I'm very surprised by this number, since the Cubs have never gone anything over something like 6 years (with options I think) and never even near $100 million. So this contract makes me nervous. But, regardless, we have a hitter who is deadly at the top of the lineup now.

Basically it seems like Hendry kind of approached this without any regard for the market. Soriano is 31 now I believe, so he'll be 39 when the contract expires. Most contracts that start out that long usually involve out clauses. But, also, I'm not sure if a player who signs for over $100 for any length of time actually finishes out the contract with the team they sign with. Mainly Kevin Brown and A-Rod are the two in mind. Hell, even Tejada is getting shopped around. So, we may not be on the hook forever. Plus, when the contract expires, it could be a market average to see top tier players get $17 a year (or more), so I doubt it's all that outlandish. Plus, look at the deal Sosa got (around '96). First everyone said we overpaid terribly, then he started taking whatever he took and hit HR's like crazy, and then everyone said that Hendry (was Hendry the GM?) was a genius. Anyways, it seemed like $17 a year was what Soriano wanted, for 7 years, and then teams could bid higher. Well, the Cubs, wanting to fulfill a young man's dream of swimming in money, just threw an extra year and all that money in his face and dared him not to take it. And he obviously did.

So now to the rumors. I guess Soriano was signed to play a corner outfield spot. Which means that either Murton or Jones (or perhaps both?) are now on the trading block. Other rumors I've heard for position players include Izturis drawing some interest from teams who are angry that they don't have a defensive SS with the inability to hit at all, the Cubs may be interested in bringing in Julio Lugo (who will hit more than Izturis), Gary Matthews Jr. may still be on the radar, as is possible with J.D. Drew.

Now, I think it would be awesome if we could trade for Vernon Wells. We've got some payroll to play with, and I definitely think he would be worth whatever we give up. Failing that, I think we bring in Gary Matthews Jr. He had a career year last year, but hit also OBP'd around .370, which is 40 points higher than Juan Pierre. So even if he can't repeat the year offensively, I would still think we could expect a higher OBP than from Juan Pierre. Also, it would still be an upgrade if he had the same OBP because he won't be hitting lead-off.

Another factor in deciding our CF is payroll. We would have to unload some for Wells probably, who is in the last year of his contract (I think?). However, it seems that J.D. Drew is going to want a deal in the $12-14 million annually range, but I think I commented about one rumor hearing $15 million annually for 2 years. I haven't heard anything since then. But obviously, Drew is the most expensive (as far as payroll goes), Wells would probably want an extension, so I'd say Matthews is the best choice. Also I love Matthews back in center.

And now we come back to pitching. The Cubs need plenty of it. We have 2, maybe 2.5 starters for our rotation (the .5 being Wade Miller/Mark Prior). And we're probably out of the running for any top-level talent, since we only have between $15-20 million to play with and at least 2 spots to fill. Again, the rumors are pretty underwhelming: Gil Meche, Kei Igawa (who some don't think is going to translate to MLB well), Ted Lilly, Vicente Padilla, and for some ungodly reason Jason Marquis.

It is my belief that Marquis would be a mistake to sign to pitch in the rotation. If you want to sign him and see if you can turn him around (at AAA maybe?) then maybe do it. But he posted an ERA of 6. Not good. Not even bad. That's horrific. And if he pitches that well in a contract year, what happens when he has a contract? I probably wouldn't mind seeing Meche and Lilly, or perhaps even Padilla (who I'm not a fan of). But if we can keep the ball in the park, which may or may not happen, our offense should score enough. Also rumored is that the Cubs really like Jake Westbrook. I am fine with this. I think we should trade for starters. Unload Eyre and/or Dempster, clear some salary space, bring in a solid proven starter. If our rotation could be Zambrano, Westbrook, Lilly/Meche, Hill, Meche/Igawa/Miller/Prior/Cotts/Marshall/anyone else, I think we're probably going to do well. I'd rather have way too many pitchers who can start than nowhere near enough.

So Hendry made a good move, and he doesn't really end up overpaying anything except one year that will probably be an option year anyways. I guess there may be a reason for optimism when spring training rolls around after all.

Final Cubs post

Of the week. Perhaps. I guess there's still this afternoon that something could happen to either induce my rage or my shock, surprise and glee. Glee?

Anyways, during the GM meetings there's always a lot of talk about teams making offers for certain players, certain players appear likely to be going to this team, etc., but you don't really hear a lot about which teams are talking to which players, as most if it really isn't newsworth and is nothing but pure speculation. Which is kind of shocking because a lot of articles at this time of year are pure speculation anyways.

But, as I've now discovered, MLB Trade Rumors is doing a great job with a lot of the rumors, and is usually one of the first to break news. Of course, they get their breaking news from Ken Rosenthal who is with Foxsports or something, but that's not the point. The point is it's a great place to get rumors that may or may not be anywhere near true.

And today they've noted that it appears J.D. Drew looks set to sign with the Red Sox for a two-year deal. But wait. Apparently the Cubs matched the Red Sox offer. Surprisingly, the Cubs may be trying to sign Drew.

I think signing Drew would be an awesome move. While he's kind of fragile, he's also pretty solid. And his OBP was near .400 this year, which is pretty insane. And he can play center or right, so should we fail to get Soriano, we still have a solid cf.

But I think I also like where this leaves us in regard to possible moves we're considering making. If we sign Drew (a 2 year deal is nothing) and still go after Soriano, perhaps that means we'll kiss Jacque Jones goodbye. Which is fine. He had a solid year offensively, and I'm sure there are people willing to take on what is only a two-year deal for a lefty who managed to hit nearly .290 while possibly having a sore elbow.

If we sign Drew and still go after Carlos Lee (who I'm not sure we're going after) then it also probably means that Jacque Jones would be gone. It would also mean that Murton was moving to right most likely.

What I don't like is the possibility that we sign 2 outfielders (Drew being one) and then we keep Jacque Jones and move Murton to the bench. Piniella worries me in that regard. Also, Murton deserves to be playing everyday, not in a platoon. We might as well just trade him if we're going to put him on the bench; he's too good for that.

What could we get for Jones? Well, we also have a plethora of pitching in our bullpen, and we have a lot of young guys with a little major league experience in there who could be viewed as possible gold mines with live arms. So we could add a pitcher or two to the deal and possibly get back a starter, say a Cliff Lee or Jake Westbrook from the Indians. Or we could trade for an outfield prospect if a team is salivating for a lefthanded bat. This would probably happen closer to spring training after all of the free agents are signed. Jones is by no means way overpriced, so he's cheaper than free agents, and, again, he only has 2 years left on his deal.

Or maybe we could throw in a Cesar Izturis and get a Khalil Greene. Of course we would need something else in return. But I like the idea of having Khalil Greene slightly more than I like the idea of having Izturis, because I assume Greene would OBP over .300. And a smaller park can't hurt him. Ok, I checked, Greene's OBP was .320 last year. So, not great, but not far from Juan Pierre's level.

Currently I'm in my somewhat satisfied state for the day. I like the prospect of Drew and another outfielder, and then maybe signing a tier-2 starter, and getting rid of Jacque Jones in a trade for another starter. I also just like the prospect of Drew in general, hoping he doesn't get hurt. In addition, I'm intrigued by the idea of using Neal Cotts in the rotation. Apparently he tore up the A's system in the rotation. He could translate well. He could also have an ERA of 5.17. We'll just have to see on that one.

So I guess we'll see later this afternoon, or after this weekend, how I'm feeling towards Jim Hendry.

Those poor kids

Now, I'm not one to argue about religion, because I consider myself somewhat religious, minus the fact that I don't really go to church unless I'm with my parents. Also, I don't want to get into anything questioning the Toys for Tots campaign, because I think it's great that underpriveleged kids get toys while all those rich fucking Super Sweet 16 assholes get cars and shit for Christmas. You know, rich fucking Super Sweet 16 assholes deserve cars for being such selfish bastards. They've earned them. But I digress.

A company in California has decided that they wanted to donate 4,000 talking Jesus dolls to Toys for Tots. Initially, Toys for Tots declined, because they didn't want to take the risk of offending a Jewish or Muslim family. But now, apparently they've been able to find a place for the talking Jesus dolls, and they are now accepting these dolls.

I don't think I would want a talking Jesus doll. Personally, I think the portrayal of Jesus as a white man is kind of ridiculous. But I guess I'll stay out of that.

But as a kid, I would probably be terrified of this doll. It spouts Bible verses that most likely I, as a child, don't understand. Also, the entire idea of Jesus to a child could be kind of spooky. So, thanks for haunting my dreams Toys for Tots. I fall asleep, and then suddenly talking Jesus starts talking without being touched. Then I see him go to get the knife.

Originally when I first heard this story I thought it was some group of Republican, upper-middle class, self-righteous pricks who were donating the dolls and were outraged that Toys for Tots would deny them the right to force their values upon some unsuspecting kids whose parents don't even take them to church (or who may not even have parents).

I suppose that it's better coming from the actual toy manufacturer, but they're probably only donating them 1. for the press and 2. because they made so many of them and there's absolutely no market for 4,000 talking Jesus dolls.

I would recommend to anyone donating to Toys for Tots that you get something that people would like. It doesn't have to be anything expensive; hell, it doesn't have to be a brand new, awesome toy like this:

Why is this TMX Elmo? What makes it extreme? Regardless, I don't want to know. You know what kids like? Almost anything. So get a football. Or a barbie. Hell, get matchbox cars, those are like 49 cents.

You've most likely got your own kids who you can force your values upon; do you really need to force your values onto other people's kids?

He's doing this on purpose

It was just released that the Cubs and the White Sox have swapped relief pitchers. To this I say fantastic.

The Cubs give up a solid young reliever in David Aardsma who perhaps could have been groomed to be the next closer and/or outstanding setup guy out of our bullpen. He has electric stuff. And when I use that cliche, I mean he has a plus fastball and really not much else. But if he can develop something else and reign in some control (something which probably never would happen with the Cubs), he can be a really solid pitcher.

The Cubs also gave up some prospect dude named Carlos Vazquez. I know nothing of him, so I'm not too worried about it.

Oh, but who did we get? Neal Cotts. Can you tell me why we need another lefty out of the bullpen? We have Scott Eyre. Eyre is much better. Why would we give up a young guy like Aardsma, AND a prospect for Cotts?

In case you weren't aware, Cotts sucked last year. He had an ERA of 5.17. I didn't follow the White Sox last year because why would I? but wasn't he kind of in the doghouse after sucking ass? So, we give up two young guys for a lefty coming off of a shitty year.

Now, Larry Rothschild is a terrible pitching coach. Why the Cubs think he can help revive anyone's career is beyond me. I know, let's trade away some of our young guys with live arms for guys coming off shitty years. Then our terrible pitching coach can't be blamed with the shitty guys suck!

Oh, also, the last trade between the two teams was Matt Karchner for Jon Garland. Yeah, that worked out pretty well for the Cubs.

If this deal doesn't set up some other trade, I'm going to be super pissed.

Really quick

I don't have too much to say on this topic, but I definitely wanted to point it out. Kansas, ranked #3 in the nation right now, perhaps getting in some practice for the first game of the NCAA tournament, lost last night to Oral Roberts. At home. Oral Roberts. Yeah.

Now, I don't want to say I told you so, Self can't coach, Kansas is overrated (AGAIN). Shit, of course I want to say that. Self can recruit, but he couldn't coach his way out of a wet paper bag. That needed coaching to get out of. On some level that metaphor has to work.

The point is this. Illinois is much better off without Self. Yes we would be getting better recruits, but he has not shown an ability to win any big games. Hell, he can't even win mildly important games. Two years in a row he's lost the first game of the NCAA tournament, first to Bucknell, then to Bradley. He's getting recruits who most people say will be in the NBA in two years (or less) and they're not winning anything. And it can't be because they're so young any more because most of his players are at least sophomores who are 'NBA-bound'.

So we can all complain about how Weber doesn't hit the recruiting homerun every year (even though he could have this year if not for the fuckjob). But if we had Self we would be terribly underachieving. Weber can coach. Well. So let's just all get off his back and revel in the failures that are Kansas basketball, Bill Self's coaching ability, and Indiana losing to Butler!

GM's never learn

I honestly cannot believe what I'm reading about Jim Hendry. So far he has not made a good move this offseason. He did what was necessary in re-signing Aramis, and he overpaid for Mark DeRosa, who will probably be a decent signing, but well overpaid.

But today there is a lot of talk about pitchers on the Cubs wishlist. Let's just go over the list: Miguel Batista, Ted Lilly, Jason Marquis, Gil Meche, and Kei Igawa. See anything interesting missing from this list? I sure do. No Jason Schmidt or Barry Zito.

So it appears that Hendry has already decided this team has enough good pitching, now we just need enough guys who can throw a lot of picthes in the general vicinity of the catcher.

Also, why would you want Jason Marquis? He had an ERA of 6.02 last year. We don't need to sign a free agent who had a 6.02 ERA. We have plenty of young guys who could probably do just that good for $375,000. Also, you can't judge his value based on his recent success before last year, because who's to say he'll improve? Yeah he's young, but maybe people haven't noticed LARRY ROTHSCHILD is our pitching coach. It's less of a stretch to think that Rothschild will ruin every pitcher we have than it is to think he can actually turn around a pitcher's career.

Instead of going out and signing an ace and having two top tier starters (remember when the Cubs were supposed to have 3?), Hendry is content at just settling for average guys. But it's not like anybody ever wins with pitching. It's not like the Diamondbacks won a World Series with Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson. Oh, shit, they did? Um...

I'm not saying I wouldn't mind having a Ted Lilly or a Gil Meche, or a Kei Igawa (perhaps), but relying on guys with a history of arm problems to pitch all season is retarded. Just plain retarded.

Also, it's good to see the Cubs are not keeping their backup plans quiet at all. Should the Cubs fail to sign Soriano to play center (which they probably will), they may go after Julio Lugo to play it. Lugo could also play short and second. This wouldn't be terrible, but by that point, I'm pretty positive that all of the good pitchers would be off the market. So Hendry would effectively have wasted the increased payroll.

Also, I'm no longer hearing anything about Gary Matthews Jr. coming to Chicago. Or, at least I haven't heard anything for a while. He's a defensive genius (probably not an accurate description of someone defensively, since there's not much strategy and it's more just reaction) and he finally learned how to take pitches and work counts last year. That's more than, oh, I don't know, all of our team did.

Oh, I also heard the Cubs may be listening to offers for Michael Barrett. This would be a brilliant move, getting rid of Barrett. I can see exactly how it plays out. We get rid of Barrett, probably for someone shitty. Then we have Henry Blanco playing everyday (isn't he like 36?) and hitting roughly around .200. But Piniella won't play young guys because they can't handle the pitching staff like Blanco, and they're not proven. So, we would go from a guy who hit .307 to a guy who hit .266 (and mind you, Blanco had a very solid second half offensively).

After every good move the Cubs make (or necessary ones) I start to get all optimistic about a good offseason, but then a couple days go by and I remember that Jim Hendry is a terrible GM who shouldn't have a job. So, unless he does something useful, my guess is the team is going to be about the same next season. At least with a different manager we shouldn't finish last in the NL.

Recognizing an error

In today's world, things are ever changing. That's why it's necessary to become adaptable to those changes. The more you are able to adapt, the better prepared you are to become a leader of some sort, whether it be a boss, a manager, head writer for some stupid sitcom on CBS (How I Met Your Mother is not funny), or minority leader in the Senate.

But, you also need to be able to realize you've made a mistake. Which is exactly what happened in the Senate today.

You see, Trent Lott used to be the majority leader in the Republican controlled Senate, until four years ago he made some racially insensitve comments. CNN is only describing him being 'ousted' from the position, so I'm not really sure if he was voted out, or stepped down or what.

But, he's back. With a vengeance. You see, today the Republicans realized that, you know what? fuck racially insensitive comments. Trent Lott won the position of second in command to minority leader for the Senate.

Republicans give a big fuck you to all of those people are too racially sensitive. Basically, this is like saying, 'yeah, he made racially insensitive remarks in the past, and he lost his job for it. Since we can't vote for that prick Rick Santorum for this position now, let's get the next biggest prick. Wait, what?? We've got one that used to be majority leader? Shit yeah! Jackpot!'

I for one couldn't be happier. I mean, Republicans get a bad rap. Just because they're always making racially insensitive comments, and giving tax cuts to the rich, and in general just being massive dicks doesn't mean that they're bad leaders. I mean, you have to give them the opportunity to prove that they're terrible leaders. And don't worry, they will.

So kudos to the Republican senators. They'll show all those bastards who can be racially insensitive. But my question is what is going to happen when Lott makes more racially insensitive remarks? Sidenote: He's a Senator. It's not his job to 'represent the people who voted for him'. And if he is doing it, then obviously only white rich people are voting for him. But I digress. Anyways, if Lott makes more remarks, does he lose his job this time or get promoted? And, obviously, the Republicans don't care about the public outcry, causing them to LOSE THE SENATE.

Wise choice Republicans. This is exactly how you want to show the world you're changing your ways. Elect a dude who is probably racist. And then let's see that racist go on to run for President in 2008.

Shit, even for Republicans this is a stupid move.

(Note: I've never really selected a political party, and I'm definitely not going to now. It's just so much easier to play devil's advocate to both sides.)

(Second note: This has absolutely nothing to do with anything about this post, but I really think this video is crazy and wanted to post it)

Back to hating Hendry

Just when I thought that Jim Hendry was turning a corner, possibly making really smart moves, it appears as if the Cubs are being sucked back into his plan of making them suck as much as possible while still managing to make it look like he's trying to do his job.

Yesterday the Cubs signed Mark DeRosa to be their everyday 2nd baseman. Now, I'm not saying that signing DeRosa was a bad move per se. DeRosa had a good year last year hitting .296 and he had an OBP of .357 last year. So that's good.

But he also had a career year. He's never hit right-handers well, but he has crushed lefties in his career. So, we'll give our everyday job to a guy who doesn't really hit righties at all? We had a guy who could hit righties, and that was Todd Walker, and we gave him up for nothing.

Another problem with this is that it moves Ryan Theriot, who smoked the N.L. hitting .328 in 53 games last year, back to the bench. Yeah, why not. Theriot hasn't ever started before last year, and he obviously played very shittily, so we better go out and overpay for a utility man just to keep that young guy on the bench.

You see, the Cubs have this theory that rookies are unable to play. Therefore, we'd rather go out and sign guys who are either unproven from other teams (somehow being on other rosters, regardless of playing time, makes them proven), or signing utility guys to play every day.

I'm not saying the DeRosa signing is a bad one necessarily. But he's a utility player. Expecting the same numbers from him this year is like expecting Gary Matthews Jr. to hit in the .330's. He had a career year, and he's not getting any younger. We'd rather have a guy hit .275 than a dude who hit .328? Seriously, what does Ryan Theriot have to do to get playing time??

I like DeRosa playing in a platoon with Jacque Jones in right. Everybody in the world knows Jones can't hit lefties. And everyone knows DeRosa kills lefties. And then he haunts their nightmares.

So, in my opinion, we overpaid (anybody remember the Mike Remlinger contract? 3 years, $13 mil) for a glorified utilityman. I'd rather sign him 3 years for $10 mil and give $3 million in incentives. At least he'd earn that. I love DeRosa coming off the bench. One more person before we get to John Mabry's washed up bat. This signing just worries me.

Oh, also, Hendry said he loves the Cubs infield now. Aramis and D-Lee on the corners, and Neifi 2 and DeRosa up the middle. And just a sidenote, at Goat Riders, they have a stat that shows DeRosa as worse against righthanders than Neifi. So that fills me with confidence. Apparently we're not worried that at least 1/4 of our infield is unable to hit at a AAA level, let alone a major league level.

On the other side of the ball, there are still rumors flying about that the Cubs are pursuing free agents. The top one is Soriano. I would love to get Soriano, and the Cubs can afford him.

But what makes me nervous is the quality of pitching the Cubs are looking at. The Tribune makes no mention of Barry Zito or Jason Schmidt. Instead it's a steady diet of Ted Lilly, Vicente Padilla, Kei Igawa, and Miguel Batista. Nothing against most of these guys, but they're not exactly #2 starters, even in our rotation right now. And you're probably going to end up overpaying for any of them, and Igawa is the one I like best of the bunch.

Finally, to end on a good note, there's a rumor the Cubs are offering relief pitching for one of the Indians' lefties, Cliff Lee or Jake Westbrook. I love this deal. We could get rid of a relief pitcher or two (we have too many high priced relievers) and we get a lefty who is an innings eater. We could also possibly have a rotation involving up to 4 lefties. That would be awesome.

So, obviously, Hendry can't please everyone. But you might as well go out and sign some average players and hope they reproduce career seasons. Hey, remember Gary Gaetti? That plan worked when we had him. Actually, it worked with the entire 1998 team. Old guys have career years? Well, let's just sign them back and expect them to do it again. Ugh, I still hate Hendry.

Illini sports update

In case you don't follow the Illini closely, you wouldn't know some of the big news about recent developments in Illini sports. And boy have there been some developments.

First, the Illini played Purdue on Saturday. This was a miserable game, and I'm glad I was at work for most of it. The Illini played well, and were up 23-14 shortly after the beginning of the second half. Then the defense pretty much decided to stop playing, and the offense thought they'd see who could do worse by choosing to give Purdue the ball in Illini territory. Four consectutive times the Illini turned the ball over in their own territory leading to 4 Purdue touchdowns. Apparently the Illini offense really didn't want to work, but they did want the defense to work. This was a huge disappointment, as this should have been a game we could have easily won. As I didn't watch it, aside from Gamecast, I can't really offer any insight into why we sucked so bad, except for the turnovers. Yeah, we should stop those.

That's not the only football news though. In what can only be described as a huge recruiting coup for Ron Zook (which, by the way, is the most used description of this news), Arrelius Benn, arguable the best WR prospect in the nation committed to Illinois on Thursday night. He's big, he's fast. He wants to be an impact player immediately, which is probably a huge reason he chose Illinois. He went to school with Vontae Davis and another safety who Illinois recruited for next year. In addition, he goes to school in the D.C. area where the top recruit in the nation, a DT, also has Illinois on his short list of schools.



He will be an impact player immediately, and finally, we have a receive who no doubt can catch the balls Juice throws.

On to (at least last) basketball! The Illini came out and beat the pants off of Austin Peay, which is excellent. Especially considering the sucky Hoosiers came out and were losing to Lafayette for a while in the second half. So, the Illini smoked Austin Peay, that's not really big news by any means. Except it means that the season has started. And we scored 80 points, which is surprising, since we weren't sure where our offense would come from this season. Well, great news is that Jamar Smith came out on fire, and Brian Randle came out and hit a three right away. The bad news is they're both hurt. Smith for at least a week, Randle possibly till Christmas. I'd rather have them out now than when we need them, but we need them to be healthy. Regardless, it was a good win, and any experience the young guys can get is great.

Also, I'm very angry that I couldn't watch the game last night. It appears I have finally found one bad thing about no longer living in Decatur, and that is that I don't get to watch every single Illini game.

New jobs for a dear old friend

As was pointed out last week, Donald Rumsfeld stepped down/resigned/got fired from being Secretary of Taking Over the World for the U.S. Well, it can be tough to be that old and looking for a new job. Hell, looking for a new job in general is pretty tough, let alone being canned from one of the top positions in the U.S. government because you suck so badly at it. I mean, this was publicized for weeks. How can you put that on a resume and make it look half-decent? But I thought I would list a couple of positions that I think Rummy would be highly classified to take over.

1.) Mob guy - I think he would be well-qualified to answer questions about mob activities and whatnot. He does a great job of denying the obvious. Also, he tends to have a really short fuse when he doesn't like a question or something. That kind of strong-arm intimidation could go really far in the mob. I don't really think the mob has a p.r. guy, but Rumsfeld could do that sort of thing if he needed to. Or just be a mob representative. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Answer questions from the police and/or press. Also, he's good at giving people directions on whom to kill people, but he would need really people who could improvise well. Actually, he would probably suck at that too. But, for all I know, he's already in the mob, or he's working on his ties as we speak.

2.) Gitmo Interrogator - I think this one goes pretty much without much explanation. Again, he's solid with the strong-arm intimidation. I used to get the impression that he would love to kick the asses of the people in the press. This way, he gets an answer he doesn't like, he beats someone. And we all know that despite all kinds of laws, there's all sorts of torture going on during interrogation. And, really, when has Rumsfeld ever been one to follow the laws put in place by America's government?

3.) Movie star - Hear me out on this one. Rumsfeld stars as the straight main in a buddy picture about a comically mismatched former Secretary of Defense and an heiress to a hotel magnate's fortune. I guess I hadn't really thought that through enough to make up a plot line, but I'd imagine anything like that would suck terribly. And yet, I think people would still go see it. Other mismatches could be Rumsfeld starring as a body guard for a little white kid who is supposed to be the next great rapper, or Rumsfeld starring with a former U.S. president who everybody thinks is more than a little dumb. Projected release date fall 2009. Copyright pending.

Should the buddy picture fall through, you could also make one starring Rumsfeld as the Hulk, except when he gets mad he just yells a lot and then pouts after ending interviews. Probably not as much material in that one.

Oh, I just thought of this one: Rumsfeld stars with a recently divorced white rapper who now has no money because his wife was the one with all the money to begin with. He now has 4 kids and is married to the neither mother. I think the plot line should involve Rumsfeld being accused of crimes against man, and being forced to be cuffed to K-Fed, and be on stage for all of his performances. Most of them end in Rumsfeld angrily beating K-Fed, but in a heart-felt moment at the end, Rumsfeld finally realizes what K-Fed has been rapping about the whole time and the two become best friends. Then Rumsfeld is finally freed, and becomes a backup dancer. Now that's movie gold.

4.) Pitch man for Cialis - Yeah, it's gross. But he's got name recognition, and he's an old dude. And, I mean, Bob Dole did it for Viagra, so I doubt Rumsfeld would be above it. Although, something tells me that Rumsfeld doesn't have nearly as much of a sense of humor about himself that Bob Dole did.

5.) Analyst for Fox News/Bill O'Reilly's new best friend - Somehow I kind of see this being the obvious choice. Rummy seems extremely critical, and we all know how he's so conservative, so going to a Republican channel and complaining about everything being a Democrat conspiracy seems incredibly likely.

6.) Writer - Like most former Secretary's of anything, there's probably a book deal waiting for him. Of course, I doubt he admits any mistakes in it, and it will probably be something like a biography that no one will care about. Also, maybe he'll lay blame with the president, even though this is one thing I can almost fully not blame on the president. Almost.

7.) Hand shaker of evil dudes - We all know that Rummy was in Nixon's cabinet, and there's a photo of him shaking hands with Hussein back in 1983 or something, right around the time we trained Hussein to take control in Iraq. That worked out well. So we should just have Rummy take pictures with a bunch of evil dudes, and hope that someday the evil dudes will get their come-uppance much like Hussein and Nixon got (although it may be very delayed). Still, I'm all for putting him in harm's way if necessary.

See? Even for a dude who failed so miserably at his job, he still has a ton of job opportunities. And Mr. Former Secretary of Giving Stupid Names to Wars the U.S. Should Probably Not Be In At All, if you need any help I offer my assistance in your job search. For a nominal fee obviously.

Chicago sports weekend

I took yesterday off so I could actually get a day to sleep in. I failed at sleeping in, probably in large part due to the amount of alcohol I took in on Sunday night while watching the Bears. I managed to take a glorious nap though that almost made up for working almost 3 days of overtime (equalling almost 4 days of pay) last week. So I chose not to post anything yesterday, so I could save it for when I had time at work. I also spent an alarming amount of time playing Madden yesterday. But I digress.

So this was a pretty good weekend for the Chicago sports teams that actually matter. First, as I noted on Sunday, the Cubs managed to re-sign Aramis Ramirez. This was amazing news, and I am still excited about it. I'm also expecting an announcement any day now that the Cubs have signed Barry Zito, Alfonso Soriano, and traded Jacque Jones and Cesar Izturis to the D-Rays for Scott Kazmir and Carl Crawford. That would be awesome. Of course I'm delusional, but that's now news to anyone. Mainly I am once again optimistic that there could be some positive changes in this offseason, as I'm sure I will comment extensively on in the coming days.

Also, on Saturday night, in what seems like their first game in in forever, the Bulls beat the Pacers. Ben Wallace pulled down an obscene 18 rebounds. And he shut down Jermaine O'Neal to just 12 points. I didn't watch the game, probably partly because of the half-coma I spent the weekend in. But this was a big win for the Bulls, if for no other reason than they managed to come back in the 4th quarter. Now there are rumors floating about Ben Gordon possibly being used as trade bait, headed back to the bench, etc. I would probably be ok with trading Gordon. We have a lot of guards, and while he can light up a team for 38 one night, and score double digits in the 4th quarter, he has still been terribly inconsistent. That being said, I don't think we need to get rid of him, he just needs to accept his role and play accordingly. He's done a pretty good job of not complaining too much about it, but when the time comes for him to get an extension, I'm pretty sure he won't get what he thinks he's worth. That being said, any deal requiring a trade of Tyrus Thomas is not worth it. We drafted him knowing he had huge upside and would take some time. There is no point in trading him for someone right now who we may or may not need. I trust Paxson's moves on this, but I just wanted to voice my opinion.

Finally, how about the Bears. As I said, I was watching the game Sunday night with my good friend Captain Morgan, and I decided about halfway through the first quarter I would do some live-blogging, which I saved on Microsoft Word. I got very drunk by the end of the game, and by halfway through the third quarter or so, I stopped writing things down. I'm still considering posting it, mainly because I haven't edited it and it's probably a lot of nonsensical blather.

But damn are the Bears good. I was incredibly nervous at first. Rex throws early pick, and while not his fault, he still looked tentative. Tiki runs right through the defense, and then Brandon Jacobs chugs his way into the endzone untouched. However, when we did get pressure on Manning, he rarely made a play. Then, as Thomas Jones ran for 26 on the 3rd and 22, the game turned and the Bears started strutting. Like a bunch of strutting Betty's. I have no idea what that means, but I just made it up. Point is, the Bears gained confidence. And it was awesome to watch.

Also awesome was Hester's return. We all know that the return was awesome, but what I missed during the game (probably due to shock and drunkenness) was that after he got to the endzone he did the jumpshot with the ball. I thought that was the ultimate mocking of the Giants team, since all the defensive guys do that stupid jumpshot celebration after sacks. And I loved it.

Whether or not this was truly representative of how the game would have gone had the Giants not been terribly injured remains to be seen. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. I tend to think it was, mainly because the Giants did very little on offense (save for one drive) for the rest of the night. But if we see the Giants again in the postseason (by the way, how awesome is it to be playing for homefield advantage this early in the season and winning?) who knows if they'll be healthier or not.

And just a few more points. It was awesome to see Mark Bradley in the game, and not only that, but making plays. It's huge to have him back. Also, it's great to see Chris Harris back and making plays. I think Thomas Jones should not get as many carries as he gets. He does nothing Cedric Benson couldn't do, aside from maybe dance around and run worse. But so many times he'll get 2 yards and then just go down. Or he'll be behind the line of scrimmage and just jump into a pile of guys. I saw it like 2 or 3 times early in the game. Benson needs more carries. It makes no sense to give Jones the bulk of the carries, and Benson runs better in my opinion. And of course Jones will run better in games if he gets 15 more carries. Plus, almost everytime Benson is in, the Bears run, and the defense knows and can stack the line. So Benson needs more opportunities. You have two solid backs. Mix it up a little Lovie.

Anyways, the Bears are again the class of the NFC, and it's awesome.

I'll try to post an Illini sports update later today.

Um...

Wowie zowie. That's right, I said it. After campaigning to re-sign Aramis Ramirez for almost as long as my campaign to cut Ol' Double Switch loose, Jim Hendry has finally taken my advice (and only mine) and has actually re-signed Ramirez.

This is great news on so many levels, and I think that my reaction is perfectly suited. Tell me it's not. I dare you. See, you can't.

Really, this amazes me. The terms of the deal are thought to be somewhere around 5 years, $70 million, with a mutual option for 2012. So, damn. It looked like the Angels were going to try to get a deal done with Ramirez today. Suckers.

I can't express how shocked I am. This is actually a smart move. And after all this time I made sure to get my early seat on the "We lost Ramirez" bus, it proves to be all for naught. Awesome.

My dad and I were having a small conversation about bringing back Ramirez last night, and he thought it would be a mistake. However, I thought I presented a pretty good argument. You see, we all know (as I've beaten it into the ground here) that Ramirez's numbers were excellent for 3rd basemen last year. We also know that Ramirez tends to not run out some grounders, and occasionally may get stuck at 1st on a single when he should clearly be at 2nd.

But what seems to get lost in the shuffle is how Ramirez just goes out and does his job. And by that I'm assuming running out all grounders isn't in his job description. This team completely blew ass this past season, and you barely heard anything from Ramirez. And all you heard was disappointment with results, not directed at management or other players or anything. He easily could have volunteered to be traded, but he chose not to, and it appears that he was willing to take some kind of paycut to stay a Cub. Surprisingly, he's a team player.
Also, Ramirez is working pretty hard at 3rd. A couple years ago I remember rumors of Ramirez being a Gold Glove candidate, and while I don't know if he should have won it, I thought he deserved more consideration than he got. He only made 11 errors this past year, and really the glove was one knock on his abilities. That and tender hamstrings and ankles. And the ankles have held up so far.

Ramirez won't carry a team, especially for the length of the entire season, but with D-Lee, he provides a nice complement. Add in a Soriano, Carlos Lee, or Gary Matthews Jr., or perhaps even a J.D. Drew, or, dare I say, Vernon Wells or Carl Crawford, this lineup will not be taken lightly 3-6 or 2-6.

Of course, that's still really wishful thinking. If you believe all the rumors, the Cubs are going after Zito, Igawa (who I'd take as a #4 starter), possibly Jason Schmidt, Soriano, Matthews Jr. However, don't forget who our GM is.

I refuse to give Hendry more credit than he's due for this. This was a good move, but it was not strategic at all. This was a necessary move. So it's good we didn't overpay too much (allegedly) for Ramirez, but, truthfully, Ramirez should get whatever he wants from us. So, now the real question is can Hendry actually go out and get someone?

Also, I guess we re-signed Kerry Wood. This is good, because he can't go elsewhere, and he could prove to be very dangerous should he ever regain his health. Of course, with Rothschild as our pitching coach, Wood's arm will probably fall off after the season anyways.

Things to do in Peoria

This has been a shitty week for me. I've been working so much that it can only be quantified with adjectives, like evil, or ignominant (I just made that word up) or retarded. In fact, in the past 6 days (you've got it, I've worked all 7 days this past week), I've been in to work at 4 (for anywhere between 75 minutes to 105 minutes until I go home and try futilely to sleep) 4 of them.

But today was the first day that I've been in this early on a weekend (or any weekend, as I've only had to come in on a weekend once before for like 10 minutes). Sidenote, there was one time that I had to come in to work and worked from 3a.m.-4:30p.m., that was a rough Friday. But coming into work early when people are out drinking gets me very angry. Mainly because I can't be drinking. Well, I guess I could, but despite popular opinion, I'm not an alcoholic. And if I'm going to be waking up that early, alcohol will not aid the situation. But I digress.

So here is a list of things you can do Peoria at 3:45 in the morning on a Sunday, which is when I wake up to go in that early (4, not 3).

1.) Close down 4play. Yes, the World Famous Big Al's is open until 4 a.m. on weekends. I'm assuming the other bars are also, I don't think even I've been there that late. So, if you've got a feening to see some naked ladies until 4, go there. And I was awake and on my wake to work while people were probably getting last call or getting thrown out for lewd behavior.

2.) Get pizza from Hoops. Hoops has awesome pizza, and I think they serve pizza till 5. I'm not sure when they stop serving alcohol, so I can't say for sure if you can drink there. But, come on, that is some fucking awesome pizza. I think you could hate all kinds of pizza, and if you're drunk (even if you're not, but especially if you are), you could not hate that pizza. Great, now I'm getting hungry.

3.) Get pulled over by the cops. I heard a lot of screaming, probably from unruly drunks, while I was up this morning. I was jealous of the unruly drunk part. So I looked out my window to see if I could see what was going on, and on the street below a car had been pulled over, and there were 3 cop cars behind it. And it looked like one of the cars was the K9 unit, as it was not a car, but a Jeep.

Note, that reminds me of one time I was driving back to work from another building. I always drive right past my building, and this day as I drove past it, I saw like two cop cars who had basically driven up onto the curb of the courtyard outside my building. I tried to look and see what was going on, and I saw a couple dudes in cuffs and a giant dufflebag. I'm assuming it was a drug bust (this was at like 9:30 in the morning) but I never saw anything about it on the news, nor read about it. So I'm expecting the same result from this most recent experience.

4. Have some sort of crazy drunken Chinese fire drill that lasts about 20 minutes. I mentioned before that there was crazy screaming going on. Well, since I only saw the cop car, I thought maybe it was some lady screaming her brains out at the cops that had pulled her over. But, as I pulled out of my parking garage, I saw these three ladies standing outside of a car with its door open. I could immediately tell that these were the ladies screaming that I heard when I was upstairs in my apartment. I didn't look to see what was going on, I'm just going to assume that they were drunk and decided to stop and have everybody get out of the car to scream out some of that drunkenness. And also to have a Chinese fire drill.

(Sidenote: is that an offensive phrase? It's not intended to be, and if it is, I blame it on my small-town upbringing. And society in general.)

So, there you have it. Even in Peoria, there are at least two valid things you can still be doing from Saturday night, while I am waking up and going to work on a miserably early Sunday morning.

I can't get out of here soon enough.

Does democracy really work?

I was just perusing CNN's page and I noticed the headline about a key Republican is speaking out against John Bolton's nomination to Ambassador to the U.N. by the President. I looked to see who the key Republican was, and I was surprised.

First, I'm glad that anyone is against Bolton's nomination. I remember from the Daily Show, while Bolton was about to be nominated the first time, that Bolton is a prick. I'm pretty sure he's a racist too, and he uses tough guy tactics to intimidate people. And he has that mustache. Also, it's pretty impressive on the President's part to appoint him while Congress was at recess in August 2005, since he couldn't get a vote on Bolton from the Senate.

So perhaps the President will be forced to bring in someone who has good foreign relations. That sound you just heard was the collective gasp of everyone who thinks President Bush is incompetent, or, 60% of America.

But, I'm not really surprised that someone is coming out against Bolton or the President pushing another unqualified jackass into a position of importance. (Note, that's not to say that Mike Brown was a jackass; he was terribly underqualified to lead FEMA, and he was the one who took the fall for the President's failures. Personally I would support Brown for anything involving horse judging or for selling out the President more.) But it's the reasons behind this 'key Republican' coming out against Bolton.

I wouldn't trust this guy around my kids, let alone foreign leaders

The Republican in question is Lincoln Chaffee. He is a moderate Republican from Rhode Island, and he was recently lost his seat to the Democrat challenger on Tuesday. Well, Chaffee says he doesn't think the nomination of Bolton will get anywhere without his support, and he's not going to support Bolton.

But listen to this: Even though he's on his way out, he's voting for what the people want!! Can you believe it? A senator, with America's interests in mind! Now, I could see this in the House, because there are so many representatives there that you're bound to have one or two young people who think they can actually make a difference. But this is the senate. They know that can't get anything done without playing along, and they're usually so far removed from constituents that they have no idea about anything people want. Not even the President has America's interests in mind. Or, maybe he does, but they're well behind his own personal interests. So I'm just amazed.

When this guy says he's not going to support Bolton, it almost made me wish he had won his election. This is by far the most awesome thing I've heard this week. Well, at least since I heard Macaca Allen was conceding and Rumsfeld was stepping down.

So I guess this has been a good week for democracy. Votes were actually counted for the most part, and elections were close, people were sick of the way things are going down and they voted accordingly. Maybe I don't need to move to a communist country after all. But, then again, I wouldn't really have to work for my money. And that sounds awesome.