Class Personified

Looks like I picked a damn good week to renounce my love for Lindsay. What a classy, classy lady.

The photos are courtesy of What Would Tyler Durden Do (Areas NSFW). Enjoy!

Why does this scare me so much?

I almost want to close my eyes and wake up in November.

How can something that makes me so incredibly excited and happy also simultaneously make me so nervous?

I could use a Box O' Funn

I've been in quite a funk lately, but this put a big old smile on my face...

Please oh, please let me be found karmatically deserving!!

When I first heard this news, I think I nearly wet myself in excitement. I at the very least started to giggle like a teenage fangirl.

Here's the website for those of you that are unfamilar with the venue. It's just a TAD more cozy than the United Center where I saw them last. The show should be freakin' mindblowing.

I'll be saying my prayers tonight and calling in each and every one of my favors tomorrow so that that somehow, just somehow I get through for tickets when they go on sale tomorrow afternoon.

Wish me luck.

MAJOR UPDATE: It's funny how quickly things can go from an awesome opprotunity to a cruel, cruel joke. I never had a chance.

What a shit day.

Damn you, EA Sports, damn you to heck!!!

Well, last week I purchased EA Sports NCAA Football 08. The thing is I already own the 2003 version and the 2006 version.

So has college football changed that much in the past 5 years? No, not really.

Yet every year I am drawn to purchase this game that isn't probably all that different from versions I already own. Maybe the game play is a bit different. Maybe the uniforms are more up to date. The team rosters are more realistic to what is currently playing out there...but no matter what I want it. I have to play it.

See, I'm not a huge gamer. Most of the time my PlayStation2 is just gathering dust. Even if some kick butt game comes out that really tickles my fancy (see God of War, Ghost Recon, Star Wars Battlefront) most of the time I end up waiting until the game hits the $20 rack before I purchase it.

Yet once NCAA football comes out, it's a whole different story. I just have to have it. The draw is so strong that before I owned a PlayStation2, I once rented a whole game system from a Blockbuster just so I could play this game.

If I do purchase the game like I did this year, for the first few weeks I think about it constantly. I can't wait to get home and play. Why? I have no idea. All I know is I get some kind of odd high from it. For example, yesterday I played Illinois versus the Ragin' Cajuns of the University of Louisiana-Lafayette. One ten point victory later and I'm walking tall all day. Why does beating some pushover school make me feel so tough? Not a clue, but it sure is fun.

This is where it starts to get hazardous for Brad. I've seen screenshots of NCAA08 on the PlayStation3 and the Xbox 360, and it looks glorious, simply glorious. If the game is this good on the old box, how awesome must it be on one of the new consoles? *drool*

I tell you, it's a sickness.

I know I've already done a Flight of the Conchords post...

....and at the risk of becoming a fansite....this is just too damn funny not to include on my blog.

Rubbin's racin', Cole!

So, I think that I have finally recovered enough to post about the events of my past weekend.

The boys of NASCAR came to the stately Chicagoland Speedway in lovely Joilet, Illinois over this past weekend. The racetrack is a hop, skip and jump from my parents home out in there in heartland. Well, bright and early on Sunday morning (This was after a night out at the Joilet Jackhammers game. While I was there I was fortunate enough to get a quality picture with their mascot Jammer. The pictures are hopefully to follow.) I was roused from sleep in my parents house, herded sleepily into a van and before you knew it I was sipping the High Life before 9:30AM. Good times......damn good times.

My father, all three of my brothers and my brother-in-law all were able to make it in for the race. It was full fledged family male bonding. My brother Bruce was master of the grill, stirring up a yummy brunch and tasty dinner for us. Meanwhile my little brother Brian and I went head to head at bags/cornhole/whatever you want to call it. I was trounced soundly over and over and over, but I think I out drank him pretty handily, so really in the end I think we can call it a wash.

The weather was awesome, the race was loud and in the end Tony Stewart won fairly handily which made a majority of my family (including yours truly) pretty damn happy.



Yesterday I had absolutely no voice, was more than a tad hangy-overy but all and all pretty damn happy. I definitely have to go again next year.....and this time I'll have to bring a damn camera. A picture of the stand at the local gas station that was selling a wide variety of different confederate flags would have been a priceless addition to this post. I personally was a huge fan of the one with "Git-R-Done!" in huge letters the middle. Hey, I never claimed NASCAR was the Sport of Kings!

Oh, did I mention that the Cubs swept the Astros this weekend as well? With a sports weekend that great, I'm definitely due for some sort of wicked karmatic sports backlash in the very near future.

Blog Leavings

I got thoughts bouncing around in my head like one of those machines they draw the lottery number ping-pong balls from, yet none of them are quite big enough to warrant their own individual post. In order to expunge my thinker of some of these random thoughts, I present you this entry of a few odds and ends.

Topic #1: With David Beckham coming to the LA Galaxy, the Spice Girls reuniting, and with her getting her own TV special, America is getting a full frontal Victoria Beckham assault. I'm sorry. She's just not for me. Maybe after she eats several sandwiches....

On the other hand, I think Baby Spice (Emma Bunton) has developed quite nicely, thank you.

MERCY!

Topic #2: It's the All-Star break and my Cubs are right back in it. After a downright lousy spring, the Cubs were tied for the second best record in the majors in the month of June. They are now a game over .500 and only 4.5 games out of first in the National League Central and 4.0 games out of the wild card.

Did you hear that? That is hope you hear in my typing. Unfortunately, my spirits have risen. I'm dreadfully getting excited and hopeful. This happens even though I know with certainty that I will eventually be let down in some terribly painful, soul-crushing manner. Such is the curse of the Cubs fan. You know it's coming like it has so often in the past (1969, 1984, 2003)....yet you are utterly powerless to stop being excited about it. It's like knowing a girl is going to eventually break up with you in some humiliating way in front of all your friends, but yet still being excited about the relationship.

My real fear is that I will one day pass on this sickness to my children....well that and my receding hairline.

Topic #3: The fateful day has come that I must let a loved one go. We had a lot of good times together but there comes a time when you realize that a relationship just isn't healthy anymore. Admittedly I had seen this coming for awhile now, but when the feelings are strong and you've invested so much time in a relationship, you stick around through the bad times hoping things will get better. Finally the time has come to just admit that the woman has gone batshit insane and I have to get the hell outta there.

Lindsay Lohan, the crush is over.

I stuck with you through the skinny phase, the really bad pop career, the showing your naughty bits to the world, even the "glug, glug...vroom, vroom...snore, snore...crash, crash"...but all together its just been to much. You had so much potential (By the way, this is where I'd probably put in the musical montage of pictures from the good old days probably to the strains of Skid Row's "I Remember You") and once upon a time I had such high hopes. Now I have to move on and retire you to the Britney Spears Wing of my pantheon of crushes.

...but hey, we'll always have "Mean Girls". *tear*

I have a feeling Oskee is a Whig.

I don't know why, and I sure haven't read it, but just the cover of this book amuses me immensely.



Well, it must be pretty darn good if they sell it in an auto and truck repair shop.

Things That Never Fail to Make Brad Smile: Volume #3

I have loved the Flight of the Choncords since I saw their HBO comedy special about two years ago. It was on the Comcast "On Demand" at the time and my roommate and I kept watching it over and over again....and the more beers we had, the funnier it got. It was good, good stuff.

Well now they have their own HBO series. Unfortunately now I no longer have HBO, so I've had to use various methods just to catch glimpses of it here and there. What I have seen has been good and I still heartily approve!



I guess I'll just have to wait for the Season 1 DVD.

With all apologies to my friend Tom....

Last Friday night I got to see the Police at Wrigley Field and it was pretty freaking awesome. I'd seen Sting in concert a few times in the past, but nothing quite compared to this. It was one of my favorite bands of all time playing in my favorite place in the world. Thanks to my pal Cheeks for offering me his spare ticket. I'd definitely have kicked myself if I had missed this concert.

The woman in front of me gave me mad, fly props for knowing the words to most of the songs. I wanted to tell her if someone spent $98 bucks on tickets and didn't know the words to "Message in a Bottle", they pretty much wasted a good $98.

Oh and by the way, if this is my beloved friend Tom reading this, I'm lying. You didn't miss a thing. They sucked ass.