Brad's Bully Pulpit: September 2007

Well, my sports world is in a tizzy. The Illini are 3-1 and actually won a Big 10 game on the road. Sure it was Indiana, but after the past few years even beating a basketball school is reason to celebrate. Now this Saturday we play Penn State down in Champaign. I'm heading down to witness all the fun. We'll see how that goes.

Second of all, the Cubs magic number is four. Yes...four. All of Chicago (well at least all of Chicago that roots for the Cubs) can taste the playoffs. They are so tantalizingly close. Trust me though, I won't celebrate until the Cubs pop champagne in the clubhouse.

Now my 30-odds years of sports fandom has taught me to be wary...to be cautious...not to put my emotions on the line. Instead I've decided to throw all caution to the wind and just enjoy it. I haven't had a fall like this where I can enjoy both college football and baseball this late in the year...well.. ever. I may be eventually emotionally devastated in some cruel and inhumane way by one or both of these teams, but until then, I'm just going to enjoy the ride. I'm going to lash myself to mast and dare the gods of sport to do their darndest. *Gulp*.

...and let's just not talk about he Bears. All that would do is kill my buzz.

Well, I just took vacation from last Wednesday until this Monday. Where? Nowhere. I stayed at home in Chicago, saved some cash and decided to try to enjoy my own city. Since I have an attention span only slightly longer than that of Oskee, I'll quickly hit the high points of my vacation.

1. Got free tickets to see the Chicago premiere of this movie Last Wednesday:

The high points were lots of boobs and a smidgen of full frontal. The bad parts...well...the movie is called "Feast of Love". You can pretty much figure it out. Movies like this make me hate love.

2. I'm pretty sure that Tuesday night after some delicious sushi and more than a few cans of Point, I got a hold of some bad late night Mexican food. Anyways, for most of Wednesday and Thursday I couldn't be more than 50 feet from the nearest toilet. Thursday was the worst. I slept until 5PM and could only stomach a bowl of split pea soup all day.

3. Luckily by Friday I felt better and spent the day in downtown Chicago. It started with a bang. Unfortunately, that bang was a woman being hit by a car on Wacker Drive and Michigan Avenue. I looked up in time to see her roll off the window. It was surreal. Good thing was an ambulance was there in less than two minutes.

From there I went to here for my first solid food in two days:

For those of you not in the know, Billy Goat is the restaurant this SNL skit was based on. I had a cheeseburger and chips. It was manna from heaven.

I then went to the Art Institute of Chicago where I saw paintings like this:

I think that if museums had a point, that point would be art is pretty and makes your thinker really work.

4. Then I met some friends at happy hour. I drank more Point which that bar calls their "Bad Beer". All I knew was that it was $2.00 a can and that sounds good to me.

Evidently at some point this girl walked in. I didn't know who she was, but all the ladies did. I guess she Jen from "The Bachelor". *shrug* All I know is she travels with her own vapid entourage of douche-bags and she looked arrogant as all get out. Needless to say nobody in her group was drinking Point....or heck even High Life.

I guess they forgot that they have their own bars on the Gold Coast of Chicago that cater almost exclusively vapid douche-bags.

5. The Illini won on Saturday...by alot...against a 1-A team...on the road!!! At least for this week, it's good to be an Illini.

6. A friend of mine had a voucher for a free brunch at a local bar. I'm not one to pass up free steak n'eggs and a free Ketel One Bloody Mary. So Sunday afternoon we go and who's there...Steve FREAKIN' Sanders, Mr.Ian Ziering. Now unlike Miss Reality Star, he actually looked pretty down to earth, just having lunch, hanging with a few friends and watching football on a Sunday morning. He looked like somebody you could approach and ask for an autograph and he's be like "No Prob". I didn't. Dude was watching football. He deserved his space. So I'll guess I'll just go to the grave never knowing what Brian Austin Green is really like. Oh well.

7. Monday morning I learned an important lesson. See I like to drink water, especially when I'm thirsty. I'll pour myself a big cold glass from the fridge...boy it sure is good. Well Monday morning, I woke up parched and I did just that. So I got a big old cup and sat down to do some work.

Oskee also likes water. He finds it fascinating. Running from the tap...sitting in his bowl...filling up my cup...it just never gets old for him and he just cant get enough. Unfortunately, God or evolution (you take your pick) has cursed my poor little buddy with the lack of opposable thumbs...so it's very hard for him to pick up my glass and drink from it. Through trial and error he has found the easiest way to drink from my cups is to knock the sucker over and revel in everything that comes flowing out. Quite clever really.

I had a work laptop. It was an inanimate object without feelings. I think that if it did have feelings, it would probably detest water. It's like kryptonite to computers.

Well long story a little less long, I got up to get a cup of coffee, make a call and take a shower. When I came back to my living room Oskee was no longer thirsty and Mr. Puter was slightly drenched. So, I will be 'puterless until the IT department can take care of that. I'm hoping they don't mind the iTunes I had installed or the several pictures of Kristin Chenoweth in a bikini that I have on my hard drive. I want to be mad at Oskee...but I know it's my own damn fault.

...and I thought that a vacation at home wouldn't be exciting.