Congrats to the Red Sox "Nation"

As a tortured Cubs fan I rooted for them back in 2004. Yeah I found the whole "We haven't won it all in 86 years...we're cursed!" thing to be kind of sad considering A) at the time there were not one but TWO teams that had gone longer than the Red Sox without winning it all and B) all I had to do to shut Red Sox fans up when they started whining about it was ask "Oh by the way, who exactly did the Red Sox beat in 1918 to win their last World Series?" Yeah, you guessed it. They were so very cursed.

Now after a two year drought, they've gone and done it again. Congrats. The Red Sox are now the new Yankees, including players that are oh so easy to hate (see above).

Unfortunately, the main difference I see is that Yankees fans know they are hated and they actually embrace it. Red Sox fans for some reason still think they are America's sweethearts which results in them so much more irritating. By the way, to the delusional lady in the video, you are so not the GOOD empire and if I hear you all referred to as the Red Sox Nation one more time,I'm going to plotz. Oh and to Shaggy, there are many, many people who are not Yankees fans who hate you all, and with every trophy and Sports Guy column it gets just a little bit easier.

Things That Never Fail To Make Brad Smile: Special Halloween Edition

You're looking at a happy man.

So Friday night I was at a saloon in Wrigleyville watching the Cubs win and the Brewers lose. After many high fives (and a dude who accidentally punched me in the gut), I went out to the intersection of Addison and Clark to join in the celebration and got this beautiful picture.

Then I got out of bed after not many hours of sleep and drove down to Champaign-Urbana to go to the Illini game. The Illini ended up beating #21 Penn State for their first win over a ranked team since 2001. The football team saw that the students were being blocked from rushing the field....so the team rushed the stands.

It was like watching a university breathe a sigh of relief after five years of frustration. It was quite awesome.


This was easily one of my best sports weekends ever.

Things That Never Fail to Make Brad Smile: Volume #4

I love all things Simpsons. Of all 18 seasons, this is probably one minute and ninteen seconds of some of my favorite stuff...and I really have no idea why. It just know it makes me happy.

I gotta believe!!

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.

Happy First Birthday, Oskee!

No longer a kitten, now a full fledged cat.

Normally I'd post a really good picture of him, but since all his pictures are on the hard drive of the computer he just drowned, I only have this from my camera phone. I guess it will have to do.

This has me sooo pumped for a new seaon of 30 Rock

I'd say Tracy Morgan is a funny actor, but after seeing this interview, I'm not so sure any acting is involved on his part.

Hi-larious.

What I did on my "Vacation"

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.

I Like To Tailgate With My Internet Friends!

..even if it is in the rain!

Tailgated at the Illini game this weekend...

It was a bit rainy.



...but the Illini ended up beating Western Illinois 21-0, so it was all worth it.

Well another Illinois football season has started...

I'm trying to stay positive, but this could be another long, long autumn.

Embracing my inner cat owner.

This is the best picture of Oskee yet! Unfortunately we had to go to the vet in order to get it. It seems he had a sore in his mouth that was getting him down and making his breath smell even worse than normal. It was downright brutal....

A vet visit and two weeks of antibiotics later, he's good as new! I was relieved. Now I won't have to trade him in for this years' model like I was planning on doing if he turned out to be a lemon.

I'm going to go out on a limb here....

...and declare that this is the best rock song ever about Australia's involvement in World War One.

Freakin' Sweet!

Lightning kick ass!

Lightning hitting a REALLY tall building kicks even more ass!

From our recent storm:

Oh, so THAT'S what God's wrath looks like.

As you may or may not know, Chicago was hit with a wicked bad storm last night right around rush hour. They say winds in my neighborhood topped 70mph. It ended up taking me over three hours to drive the 18 miles home (that's an average of 6 mph to me and you Russ!).

When I did get home, this is the scene on my block that welcomed me...

This is about four houses down..

These are the roots of that same tree.

Different tree, another car....

View from the end of my block...

Needless to say, I parked a block over.

I ask you...

How in the world could I not own this movie?

Pearls Before Swine is on a roll!

The last two days have been quality...

Properly Shorn

Recently, I won an all purpose gift certificate from a drawing at work. I can use it at any number of a myriad of stores. What I finally decided to do to help me make up my mind on what to buy was just browse Amazon.com for awhile. I figured that eventually I'd stumble upon something worth purchasing or what the heck, maybe I'd finally purchase that copy of Young Lady Chatterly that I've had in my "Save for Later" queue since December of 2004.

Well after about 45 minutes of browsing I came upon this bad boy:


Ain't she a beaut? What you have there is the Philips/Norelco Bodygroom. It's expressly made for "manscaping". As any listener of Radiotiki knows, I have a smidge of the body hair. Well my body thinks it needs to protect me from this cold, harsh world by continuing to sprout it in areas I just don't need or want hair to sprout. Until now the options to solve this problem have seemed fairly limited. With this wonderful product, all my prayers may finally be answered! Okay not all of them, but a couple of them....and I'm really due!

I felt the need to do some research on any product that will eventually be spinning sharp blades at a high rate of speed mear millimeters from very delicate body areas. Doing this I stumbled upon the Bodygroom's website. It has to be one of the funniest product related websites I've seen. I even showed it to a couple people who replied, "Is this real?" Remember, Philips is a Dutch company and you know how wacky those klompen-wearing buggers are.

Well as soon as I can hit the local Coinstar to exchange some loose pocket change for more Amazon play money, I'll have to place the order. Hell, I may even have enough that I can throw the latest Harry Potter (unintentional pun)book in my cart as well. Then I can spend a night curled up with good book, a warm cup of tea and a freshly shorn {insert body part here}.

Oh, I'm really hoping someone at work asks, "So what did you spend your gift certificate on?"

"Hey, let me show you."

UPDATE: It was purchased this weekend and is due to be delivered by tomorrow! Woo Hoo!

I'll keep you in the finely trimmed loop on how it ends up working.

*zipper noise*

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?