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May 30, 2008

Smart

That's the picture all over Yahoo of a Brazilian tribe which has previously been "uncontacted." I figure this means that these natives have never had an encounter with anyone outside of their area, including high-technology, Westernized societies.

How then, to explain this:

Amazon Indians from one of the world's last uncontacted tribes have been photographed from the air, with striking images released on Thursday showing them painted bright red and brandishing bows and arrows.

The photographs of the tribe near the border between Brazil and Peru are rare evidence that such groups exist. A Brazilian official involved in the expedition said many of them are in increasing danger from illegal logging.

"What is happening in this region is a monumental crime against the natural world, the tribes, the fauna and is further testimony to the complete irrationality with which we, the 'civilized' ones, treat the world," Jose Carlos Meirelles was quoted as saying in a statement by the Survival International group.

One of the pictures, which can be seen on Survival International's Web site (http://www.survival-international.org), shows two Indian men covered in bright red pigment poised to fire arrows at the aircraft while another Indian looks on

Hey, here's a bright idea! Let's find this tribe, which has probably never seen anything that was invented in the last five hundred years, and fly over their villages with an airplane! No wonder they're shooting arrows at the airplane, they probably think it's a gigantic metallic bird.

I understand the need to make the world at large aware of these people and the destruction of their way of life, but I have to question the method of doing so. Those guys are gonna wonder what that airplane was for the rest of their lives, or until some dumbass with a bulldozer comes rolling through.

You'd think they would have learned something from the Prime Directive. Apparently Brazilians don't watch Star Trek. Though I suppose if it was us Americans going to see the villagers, we just would've killed them, and given the survivors a bottle of whiskey and a casino license.

Posted at 08:35 AM | Comments (0)

May 29, 2008

Obama hates cops

That Barack Obama, I swear. First his wife says she's ashamed to be American, and now his campaign reveals what it truly thinks about our police officers:

Portland police officers have asked for an apology after they said organizers of a Barack Obama rally set up Porta-Potties on a memorial honoring fallen officers.

Earlier this month, 75,000 people gathered in Waterfront Park in downtown Portland to hear Obama speak at a pre-primary rally.

Officer Thomas Brennan, a seven-year veteran with the Portland Police Bureau, said he was happy to help at the rally after being called in on his day off.

"On short notice, a lot of people had to cancel trips. But they were glad to do it," Brennan said. "It was very memorable, in more ways than one."

Brennan, who controlled the crowd near the Portland Police Memorial, noticed several Porta Potties set up in the middle of the memorial. Brennan had been at the site five days earlier for an annual memorial service and a flag was still set at half mast on the day of the rally.

Posted at 10:45 AM | Comments (0)

May 28, 2008

Jittery

I'm taking a bar review class now, and it is a bucketload of work. Rather stupidly, perhaps, I'm also trying to work at my job. So, I'm going to work for a few hours in the morning, and then going to the class in the afternoon.

Yesterday was the first one, and about an hour into it, I started to lose consciousness. This happens when I'm really tired. It usually goes like this: my eyes get heavy, my head won't stay up, my writing turns from chickenscratch to vague letter-shaped lines, and I start to hallucinate. That's right, I hallucinate. I hear things that clearly aren't said, and I write things that make no sense. Last year I remember I was so tired I thought my professor was talking about baseball. Which makes no sense at all.

Luckily, we get a ten minute break every hour. I used my break to visit the convenience store, and after weighing my options, I purchased a can of sugar free Red Bull. I drank it lustily, and I was awake and alert for the next two hours. Of course, my hands shook and I could feel my heart beating in my chest. Maybe it was the caffeine that kept me awake, or maybe it was the fear that I was about to go into shock. Either way, that Red Bull kept me going. Maybe this is what it feels like to be Britney Spears.

I have resolved not to rely on Red Bull to get me through my bar exam, but it sure helps give you a jolt when you need it sometimes.

Speaking of jolts, remember Jolt Cola? I think that's what it was called, but I could be wrong. My dad used to have a can of it sitting in his work shop. He said kids shouldn't drink stuff like Jolt. I'm guessing kids also should not drink Red Bull.

Posted at 08:44 AM | Comments (0)

May 26, 2008

Goin to Hollywood

Some of you may recall my run-ins with Jennifer Aniston a few years ago. God willing, we can soon add Johnny Depp to that list. The above picture is of Lincoln Avenue, just north of Fullerton, where they have made the entire block into a replica of Lincoln, circa 1934. The occasion: the filming of Public Enemies, a movie where Johnny Depp plays fabled bank robber John Dillinger. As any Chicagoan ought to know, it was at the Biograph Theater, on Lincoln Avenue, that Dillinger met his death, betrayed by the Lady in Red.

The above picture is what Lincoln looks like today, as film crews are scurrying about. It really is quite uncanny, the way the street has been transformed into its past self. I sort of wish they'd leave it like that once the filming was over, but I somehow doubt it. It's been a pleasure to see it undergo the changes, and I'll miss them. I would highly recommend going to see it, as this is a great chance to see what a city street might have looked like in the 1930's.

Posted at 10:23 PM | Comments (1)

May 21, 2008

This gives new meaning to "eat me"

Apparently there's a candy convention in Chicago this week. A candy convention???? And I just found out about this? I could be there, drowning in chocolate, peanut butter and caramel. Instead, I am stuck at home, drowning in nothing but shame for not knowing about this sooner.

Anyhow, it sounds to me like the people at this candy convention are "inventing" candy. Sometimes it makes a good combo. I dare you to find a better marriage than peanut butter and chocolate. Go ahead, try. I dare you.

Can't think of anything, can you? However, some ideas are bad. Know when you get a box of chocolates, and there's that one with chocolate and some kind of fruit filling? What the hell is that?

There's a new candy that I think could be either a hit or miss. I'll let the Sun-Times explain:

Mars is taking its already popular special-order M&Ms beyond messages or custom colors. How about your own picture on M&M's chocolate candies? You can do that starting next month, when Mars Snackfood U.S. allows customers to have the candies imprinted with their images.

Upload a photo portrait at MyMms.com, create a message and choose from about 17 colors.

Yes... Nothing says I love you quite like giving someone a bag of candy with your picture on it, so that when your sweetie scoops up some M&M's, there's you staring back at her. Maybe you can give her a mix CD with "Every Breath You Take" on it 20 times in a row, too!

Posted at 09:29 PM | Comments (0)

May 19, 2008

Stuff I'm glad didn't happen to me

So now that I'm almost recovered from my unfortunate injury of last Wednesday, and now that I am an official law school graduate, I think it's time I should be thankful. With that in mind, I'm going to start listing things that I'm grateful for. Number on the list is that I'm thankful I'm not this guy:

A 48-year-old Lackawanna man walking on railroad tracks while engrossed in a scratch-off lottery ticket was struck and killed by a train Thursday evening, Lackawanna police said.

"The train was blaring its horn for 45 seconds or a minute straight," Lackawanna Police Capt. Ronald Miller said. "For some reason, he never heard the horn."

Wow, the train was blaring its horn for 45 seconds, and he didn't hear it? Either this fellow was deaf, has his iPod on very loudly, or was simply really confused as to how those lottery tickets work. Have you seen some of these things? Those instructions are confusing.

Posted at 01:04 PM | Comments (0)

May 15, 2008

The ecstasy and the agony

Yesterday was pretty much one of the strangest days of my entire life, and probably not one I will soon forget.

It started off simple enough: I had been working on a take-home final for my estates class, and it was pure, unshakable horror. It was 20 pages, single-spaced. 8,000 words. I hated every minute of it. But I was finished with it. I emailed it to the professor, and breathed a sigh of relief: the remainder of my law school career boiled down to finishing one last assignment, which I planned to do today.

I celebrated with a leisurely lunch, and then made my way over to the doctor's office, where I had made an appointment for an annual checkup. It'd been awhile since I was at the doctor, so I figured I would go.

Most of the physical went fine, until the doctor did a test which was extremely painful. How painful was it? It was so painful I doubled over from the pain, and then I fainted. I should also mention this test required me to have my pants around my ankles.

The next thing I knew, I was being slapped by the doctor, laying on the floor with blood gushing out of my head. When I fainted, I banged my head on the exam table, and also scraped my arms and nose. Other people rushed into the room. It took me awhile to regain my senses, but I soon realized that I was surrounded by doctors, bleeding from a laceration on my head, all while wearing no pants.

After awhile, they propped me up and told me the paramedics were coming. I said, why do I need paramedics, I'm at the doctor's office. Nevertheless, the paramedics came and soon decided to take me to the hospital. I said my neck was hurting, so they put me in a neck brace to immobilize me. I was strapped into a chair, and they began to wheel me out to the ambulance. They took me through the waiting room, so every patient there could see the guy coming out of a routine physical exam in nothing but his underwear with a head wound.

If that wasn't embarrassing enough for me, the ambulance was parked on Fullerton, directly across the street from DePaul University. There I was, in a stretcher, with dozens of young women walking past me. I tried my best to play it cool, but really, how cool can you be in that situation?

Finally, I got to the ER, and the doctor asked me what happened. He looked like how George Clooney might look, if George Clooney was from India. After he asked me some questions, I was left sitting there for 45 minutes, staring at the ceiling and unable to move. I didn't even get a room or a curtain, I was on a gurney in a corridor.

When an orderly came by take my info, I made him give me my phone so I could at least talk to somebody while there. A "special friend" of mine came by to keep me company, and because she doesn't want to be mentioned on this here website, I will just say she was very helpful and thoughtful and otherwise kept me from going insane.

Anyway, here's what I looked like at about this time:

After about an hour of this, another doctor came by and felt my neck, and determined my vertebrae were just fine, and let me get rid of the neck brace. I had been hooked up to an IV, and naturally had to pee like a mofo. I asked Bollywood Clooney if I could use the restroom, and he told me where it was. Of course, it was way on the other side of the ER. I had to walk through the ER, still in a t-shirt and boxers, holding an IV bag with me as I walked.

About this time, a guy from radiology came by and said he was taking me for a CT scan. I'd had enough of this pantsless thing, so I said please let me put my jeans back on before I got anywhere. He obliged, and I felt much better now that I had my pants back.

The CT scan came back negative, so it was finally time for the nurse to clean my cut. She did this with gushing streams of water, which felt kind of nice but also got watery blood everywhere. Then the doctor came and stitched my head - I have five brand new stitches in my head and a swollen nose, just in time for graduation on Saturday! I also have an achy neck, which makes sleeping very difficult. I'm pretty loopy right now, and also hopped up on Vicodin. So if you ever want to send me one of those Nigerian bank account scams, this might be the best time.

This whole episode kind of gave me some perspective. Here I am, a fancy-pants almost law school graduate, getting rolled around on stretchers and left to sit in an emergency room without so much as a pair of jeans. It was pretty undignified, and reminded me I'm a person just like everyone else. Human bodies are fragile - all I did was hit my head on a table, and I'm a mess.

Posted at 08:52 AM | Comments (3)

May 13, 2008

Nice dig

That's John Hagee, an evangelical minister who endorsed John McCain for President. Apparently, he has some controversial opinions:

On National Public Radio in 2006, he said Hurricane Katrina was God's judgment because "New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God." He has written that the feminist movement represents "a rebellion against God's pattern for the family."

But, woe is the man who picks on the Catholic Church. Indeed, he had something to say about that, too:

Hagee has cited the Inquisition and the Crusades as evidence of anti-Semitism within the Catholic church and has suggested that Catholic anti-Semitism shaped Adolf Hitler's views of Jews.

...

Hagee has often made references to "the apostate church" and the "great whore," terms that Catholics say are slurs aimed at the Roman Catholic Church.

The Catholic League was all over that, and its combative president, William Donahue, got an apology out of Hagee. Donahue, if you read his Wikipedia article, is quick to condemn anything perceived as anti-Catholic. So, I thought it was kind of surprising that he seems to have taken a swipe at evangelicals in accepting the apology:

"I got what I wanted," Donohue said in an interview. "He's seen the light, as they like to say. So for me it's over."

Seen the light? Good one, Bill!

Posted at 05:35 PM | Comments (1)

You won my vote!

I found a pretty neat website that has all kinds of campaign stickers dating back to the 1960 presidential election.

My favorite is definitely Edmund Muskie's sticker. I'm sure the designer was trying to make Muskie sound like an exciting and dynamic character, but all it reminds me of is some kind of strange bathroom smell. "Hey what's that!? Eww... It smells... Muskie!"

That may explain why we never heard of President Muskie. Way to go, graphic designer.

Posted at 03:57 PM | Comments (1)

Amazing

I'm constantly amazed when I read about the death of a person who performed heroic deeds many years ago. Take, for instance, Irena Sendler, who died a couple days ago at the age of 98:

Irena Sendler, a Roman Catholic who created a network of rescuers in Poland who smuggled about 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw ghetto in World War II, some of them in coffins, died Monday in Warsaw. She was 98.

There were several ruses by which the children were saved. Mrs. Sendler was a social worker for the city, with a pass that allowed her to enter the ghetto. “The Jews were all disease carriers, as far as the Nazis were concerned,” Professor Dwork said. “They put up quarantine signs throughout the ghetto.” Forgeries of the government pass allowed other members of Zegota to enter the ghetto as well. They went in day after day to persuade Jewish parents to let them rescue children.

The most common escape route, Professor Dwork said, was through the Warsaw Municipal Law Courts, which abutted the ghetto.

“There were underground corridors that had entrances on the ghetto side,” she said. “The Polish police were bribed to allow the traffic. Parents were told to dress the children as well as possible, certainly without wearing a star.”

For a time, the ghetto’s boundaries extended to the Jewish cemetery. “Some children were placed in coffins, their mouths taped, or they were sedated so they wouldn’t cry,” said Ms. Stahl, of the Jewish foundation. “Other children were smuggled out in potato sacks.”

Sometimes an ambulance wagon, with a driver accompanied by a dog, took children through the gates. “Children were under the floorboard,” Ms. Stahl said. “The barking dog would drown out a child’s cries.”

Another story relates that the Gestapo captured her, and was only spared death when some colleagues bribed the officers. Nevertheless, they broke her arms and legs, then dumped her in the forest.

The strangest part is trying to reconcile the feeble person who exists 60 or 70 years after the fact with the young adult who risked his life doing extremely dangerous things many of us never have, and hopefully never will, have to do. They did it, though. So many senior citizens, who I think society sometimes treat as a nuisance, did incredible things: flew bombing runs over Germany, stormed beaches, killed others.

People like Irena Sendler are disappearing from this Earth, but we would be wise not to forget what they did.

Posted at 11:30 AM | Comments (1)

May 12, 2008

Sweatin' away

What do I have in common with LeBron James, other than incredible basketball skills, the adoration of the northern half of Ohio, unlimited moneymaking potential and the ability to make a national chain sell pizzas for 23 cents?

That's right: headbands. It's getting to be summery outside, which means I get to bust out the Asics and go for some long runs outside. Now, in the past year or so, I've made a conscious effort to run longer and faster. Unfortunately, that also means I sweat rather profusely. Lately, I've had the misfortune to be running along and suddenly feel a great burning sensation in my eyes.

At first, I thought it was the bright sun temporarily overwhelming my peepers.. However, I soon came to realize that I was sweating, and the sweat would drip down into my eyes. And guess what? Sweat f'ing stings!

Every Sunday, I would go for long runs, and towards the end I'd get sweat in my eye and spend the next five minutes dabbing out my eye. Then, as soon as I got better, it would happen all over again. I said to myself, boy, you got to get yourself a headband.

I wasn't really keen on the idea, because white guys in headbands kind of look stupid. Or like Paris Hilton. Either way, I was reluctant to do it.

It happened again last Wednesday, and I had finally had enough. I made a trip to Sports Authority, bought some headbands, and tried them out today. Guess what? They work like a charm. I ran 7 whole miles without a peep of sweat getting into my eyes. I looked like a damn fool, but I didn't care. You can count me as a headband fan, and I'm not even making a big deal out of it like Ben Wallace.

Posted at 12:43 AM | Comments (0)

May 09, 2008

Appetizing!

This story reminds me of something my dad used to do:

An Omaha man struggling to breathe used a steak knife to perform an at-home tracheotomy. Steve Wilder said he thought he was going to die when he awoke one night last week and couldn't breath.

Wilder said he didn't call 911 because he didn't think help would arrive in time. So, the 55-year-old says, he got a steak knife from the kitchen and made a small hole in his throat, allowing air to gush in.

My dad's the worrying sort. He used to keep knifes around the house for the express purpose of performing emergency tracheotomies on us kids. Thankfully, he never had to do it.

I had it lucky though. My grandfather, my dad's dad, used to administer shots to his eight kids at home. They always knew when it was vaccination time, because he'd be in the kitchen boiling needles.

Posted at 12:39 AM | Comments (1)

May 08, 2008

I wonder if it's slightly used

This is available for free on Craigslist, iffin' you are in desperate need of a toilet seat cushion:

Elevated Toilet Seat cushion with Undergrips and an old wood cane.
White Elevated Toilet Seat with under grips approximately 13 1/2" x 17 1/2"D x 3 1/2"H, fits all standard toilet seats.
An old wooden cane that needs a new rubber tip. Pick up near Milwaukee and Central Park.

Posted at 11:24 AM | Comments (0)

May 07, 2008

Keep battling, Hillary

A couple weeks ago, I noted Hillary Clinton was apparently giving all her speeches in the form of sports cliches. Well, it looks like Crash Davis continues to write her speeches:

Sen. Hillary Clinton is still giving her Indiana victory speech, and her campaign is out with its spin.

"Tonight we've broken the tie, we've come from behind, and thanks to you it's full speed on to the White House," she said in her speech...

Posted at 05:18 PM | Comments (1)

May 06, 2008

Oh Ozzie

Ozzie Guillen is one colorful character. A few weeks ago, the Cubs celebrated the 25th anniversary of then-manager Lee Elia's tirade against Cubs fans (listen to it here, probably NSFW.)

Ozzie is never one to be outdone, and the White Sox manager had another Elia moment recently:

"Right now everyone in Chicago is making lineups -- 'Call up this guy, call up that guy.' ... If we had 50 people allowed on the roster, we could do that. That's what ticks me off about Chicago fans and Chicago media: They forget pretty quickly. A couple of days ago we were the [bleeping] best [stuff] in town. Now we're [bleep]," Guillen said to the aforementioned Chicago media before the game.

Guillen observed that Chicago still loved the Cubs, even though they have not won a World Series since 1908, but the White Sox -- winners of the 2005 World Series -- did not receive the same affectionate support.

"We won it a couple years ago, and we're horse[bleep]," Guillen said, according to the Chicago Tribune. "The Cubs haven't won in [100] years, and they're the [bleeping] best. [Bleep] it, we're good. [Bleep] everybody. We're horse[bleep], and we're going to be horse[bleep] the rest of our lives, no matter how many World Series we win.

"We are the [bleep] of Chicago. We're the Chicago [bleep]. We have the worst owner [Jerry Reinsdorf]. The guy's got seven [bleeping] rings, and he's the [bleeping] horse[bleep] owner."

Guillen brought up Elia, the former Cubs manager who blew his gasket over what he considered to be ungrateful, unforgiving and unsupportive Cubs fans in an infamous tirade that recently marked its 25th anniversary.

"How about the Cubs celebrating that Lee Elia bull[bleep]? How many times do I curse people out? I will make a lot of money with my [stuff]. I have to keep going because in the future Ozzie will need money, and I can say, 'Here, give me money, here's the 10-year anniversary of my time I called [Jay] Mariotti stuff and the time I went on the radio and cursed out Mike North,'" Guillen said.

Well done, Ozzie. I still like his takedown of Magglio Ordonez the best.

Posted at 10:54 AM | Comments (0)

May 05, 2008

God I'm old

A couple days ago, I was at the Lincoln Park Market getting a key made. I wish I knew how to make keys - it's not a particularly useful skill, because how many times in your life do you need a key duplicated? And when will being able to copy a key save your life? I'd rather be skilled in wilderness survival, for example.

So, I noticed the above sign. Imagine that - have your ID if you are under 27. I'm 28 - does that mean I'm too old to get ID'ed while buying alcohol? I know, for a guy, it's not that big of a deal, and honestly I'm kind of annoyed when someone asks for my ID. Nevertheless, it's so profound - I'm now at the age where it is presumed I won't look like I need to be ID'ed to buy alcohol.

Older women - I guess I should say women of a certain age - always say they are flattered when someone asks for ID. I know this to not be true.

Way back in the day, as I discuss on this commentary every now and then, I used to work as a cashier at the Kroger in Lancaster. This older woman once came in and wanted to purchase a bottle of wine. I thought I'd give her a good story to tell, so I asked her for ID. She was pissed! She said, I don't need to show you ID! Look at me! (Okay, it wasn't that, but it was something like that.) So, she was not flattered to be asked to show ID.

My advice to any aspiring supermarket cashiers out there: tread carefully when asking older ladies for ID.

Posted at 09:55 PM | Comments (1)

Typical Buffalonian

Sunday night, I was flipping channels when I discovered Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? was on. I figured I'd watch it for a bit, but then I heard the contestant was a lady from Buffalo. I had to watch.

She breezed through the early questions, including some I didn't know. Guess I should've read Oliver Twist. She gets to the $32,000 question, which is always important in Millionaire because if you win $32,000, you get to keep that even if you miss any subsequent questions. Naturally, I always kinda felt those $32,000 ones were tougher.

Her question was this: In the movie "Elmo's Adventures In Grouchland," what is Elmo searching for? A, his blanket; B, a picture; C, something I don't remember; D, Big Bird.

I think we all had the same response: wtf? I had no clue, nor did the intrepid contestant. She used her first lifeline, wherein she asked the audience. The response came back as 32% said blanket, and 52% said Big Bird. The other two choices got about 8% each. That's not the overwhelming response you want, though I probably still would've gone with Big Bird at this point.

However, this contestant was an accountant. She liked to doublecheck things, and be absolutely sure. I don't blame her. She used her second lifeline, the 50/50, which gets rid of two wrong answers and leaves the right answer and one wrong answer. Naturally, the "random computer" kept blanket and Big Bird, the two most popular answers, as the two choices.

I could start to feel the weight of being a Buffalonian pile onto her. She used her third, and last, lifeline: phone a friend. She called her brother, who had a ton of kids. Surely he must've seen "Elmo's Adventures In Grouchland." He said he thought the answer was Big Bird, but he wasn't entirely sure... He said he was about 60% sure.

After much hemming and hawing, she went for it: "Regis, I choose Big Bird. Final answer."

Regis selected Big Bird on his screen, and her destiny was fulfilled. The correct answer was "blanket." She would go with a pitiful $1,000.

Now, I don't want to suggest the New York City audience conspired against the lady from Western New York, but it was pretty odd. Only 1/3 of the people in the audience knew what Elmo was looking for? And the rest picked Big Bird? All randomly??? My foot!

Even the choice of question leaves me puzzled. Who the hell has seen Elmo's Adventures In Grouchland? That was a question designed to be missed, a nifty piece of Disney/ABC corporate synergy. The victim off all this? A hard-working, erstwhile Buffalonian, all in the name of ratings. Typical.

Am I saying Buffalo once again got screwed by the authorities? Let's put it this way: history suggests they did.

Posted at 12:15 AM | Comments (0)

May 02, 2008

It all makes sense now

I get confused rather easily. I have this job, you know, and it's on the 26th floor. So I ride the elevator alot, and there's a little TV in the elevator that gives short news updates, usually of the humorous "40-pound cat" variety.

It also has financial information, and the stories almost always have a short quote from a guy at some outfit called Morningstar. And I always think to myself, why are they asking people who make fake-meat breakfast burritos for financial advice?

Of course they aren't asking breakfast burrito people about financial advice, just like I wouldn't ask a financial adviser about breakfast burritos. It turns out, there is a financial analysis company also called Morningstar.

I don't know why somebody would give his company such a name, especially when there is already one enterprise with what is basically the same name. But who am I to judge? The Morningstar guy is loaded - but he probably gets sick of people calling him about tofurkey around Thanksgiving time.

Posted at 03:33 PM | Comments (0)

Another wild creature on the loose

Another four-legged friend was at large in the City of Chicago recently. Luckily for the animal, everything turned out okay:

A horse that somehow escaped from a stable in the Old Town neighborhood early Monday was apprehended on the Near North Side, police said.

The horse, which got loose from a nearby stable, was found walking around in the Near North police district, according to police News Affairs Officer Marcel Bright.

The horse was returned to its stable, according to Bright, who said police were notified at 4:40 a.m.

I guess the horse can consider himself lucky he wasn't a cougar.

Posted at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)

May 01, 2008

I'm pretty awesome

I ran this 5k the other day, and not only did I finish third in the whole stupid race, I got to meet the Bearenstein Bears!

The Bearenstein Bears were my favorite books growing up. I read probably every single one of their books, and they taught me valuable life lessons... None of which I currently remember. My mom claims she has them all saved up in the attic, ready to bust them out as soon as one of us sires a grandchild for her. Good luck with that, Mom.

Anyway, at the race, I must have seen ten or fifteen people get their pictures with the Bears. All of them were my age, so it comforted me to know I'm not the only one who gets nostalgic for their kids books.

Posted at 11:02 PM | Comments (0)

Celebrate diversity

Take a look at the cover to today's Red Eye. The cover story is about multi-racial people living in Chicago. It's an interesting story, and bless Red Eye, they sure try to put things on the cover that will interest young professionals and other types.

Of course, I loved the caption to the cover image the most:

How awesome is this? According to the cover story, Mr. Mayfield is the son of biracial parents. His mom was half-black and half-white, as was his father. So, what kind of "diverse activities" does he enjoy? I could just imagine: he starts off with a shopping trip to The Gap and Banana Republic, and then goes to a rap battle? Or maybe he plays a pick-up game of basketball, and then caps it off with a polo match.

What other "diverse activities" might a biracial fellow enjoy? No stuff white people like jokes, please!

Posted at 02:26 PM | Comments (1)