Could Be

Can't believe Drudge posted this, but I hope it leads to more people discussing the issue. There is an article in the Washington Times quoting Morgan Reynolds, the former chief economist for the Department of Labor during Bush's first term, voicing his belief that the "collapse of the WTC is "bogus" and that it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the Twin Towers.." This leads to allll sorts of questions about what in the f is going on. It makes me think back to those first person accounts of folks who were at ground zero on 9/11, claiming that just prior to the buildings coming down they saw a series of very bright white flashes on the 4th or 5th floors. It makes me think of the testimony from expert pilots who claim that the skill level required to fly a jet airliner into a building at 400+ mph unassisted is practically impossible to attain, and the claims that the rubble from the towers was removed as soon as possible without any forensic examination, and the claims that Bush was planning to invade Iraq weellll before 9/11 ever happened. Could be conspiracy theory. Could be reality.

Freedom Costs a Buck O Five

After a lengthy hiatus I find myself positively brimming with important topics that must be discussed. Like the weather.

Summer in Chicago is upon us with a fury. It started last Friday, IMO, on a weird thickly- clouded day, when the mugginess invaded the city, pulled up a lawnchair and an Old Style and decided to hang around for a while. The mornings are great tho. I like leaving the house without a jacket! It feels liberating. I have the air conditioning on at the house (being on the 3rd floor gets pretty hot), the air is on at work (of course) and I even used the air in the Durango yesterday (mpg = 9ish with the air on :D ). Also I wear my pith helmet with the little built in fan. Hey - just kidding. Kate and I are going down to Houston in a couple of weeks, to see the pops, the step-mom, the bro, sis and bro I.L. And hopefully some great fireworks. Houston in July? Now that's going to be hot!

Softball season continues. I haven't played a game since our first match up with team Pimienta back in mid-May however, since the shooting pains in my left foot have for the most part not gone away. Today I'm going to the podiatrist and I suspect they might tell me I broke a toe. The team is still struggling a bit. In fact we have yet to make it past the fifth inning in any of our matchups - the slaughter rule has been invoked every time. Keep in mind that we are in this ultra-competitive league with teams that have been playing together for years. Every team we play is comprised of grizzly old fat dudes who throw the ball at about 150 mph or semi-pro young guns who smack the shit out of the ball every at bat. And they all have uniforms too. How about this for sad and disturbing: one of our players, Matt Duseck, died. We have practice scrimmages at Burr park on Ashland north of North. We were playing our first scrimmage back at the beginning of May, getting beat, and this guy ran over from Choppers and asked if he could play with us. That was Matt Duseck. I remember he jumped right into the line-up and smacked out a double. He was kind of vocal I remember, harrassing guys when they missed a play, so I didn't get too friendly with him. Matt made it to the first couple of games but after that he disappeared. I figured he wasn't down with getting whipped every week so just decided not to show up. Finally the other day his mom called our captain to let us know Matt died. Apparently he had hepatitis, and passed away due to complications stemming from a small cut he got on his head . I don't know exactly how that works, but man, it sure is sad. I feel bad for Matt, and for ever thinking badly about Matt, and feel terrible for his mom. RIP Matt 'Duce' Duseck.

One, two, three, four, let's have a gang war! Sunday night about 8pm some kid popped off five or six shots at a car directly in front of my house. The only victims appear to by my downstairs neighbor Matt's car, which suffered a blasted windshield and rear-view mirror, and a white van which caught a round in the rear panel. Apparently the target took off westbound once the kid started shooting but had to hit the breaks cuz a lady was crossing the street with her baby carriage - so the shooter was able to fire off several rounds at him. The next morning the building kitty-corner from us at Ohio and Bishop was tagged with tons of gang markings and threats and stuff, as were a bunch of buildings one block north of us. The graffiti has since been washed off, and what with all the young urban semi-professionals walking their dogs thru the park and people playing catch and stuff you'd never know we were smack dab in the middle of a war zone! That's just what we need is something else to be worried about. I'm thinking of pulling a Bronson and nipping this shit in the bud.

I am building up a massive psychic ball of righteous indignation and incredulous fury, which I shall hurl at the US administration ala Ryu from Street Fighter II's HYRUKEN!!! move, via a soon-to-come vitriolic and poison-tongued post certain to leave those hucklebucks devastated and remorseful. World affairs right now are so depressing and get me so worked up that I want to save it for another day, and conclude on a happier note with my

Early Summer Top Ten

1) 'Decent Days and Nights' - the Futureheads (number one with a bullet!)
2) 'Light' by M. John Harrison (not your grandfather's sci-fi)
3) Pacific Poker (where I bluff - cyber style)
4) Charades (it's back and not wack!)
5) South Park (ok ok it's funny. now i have to catch up on 10 yrs of shows)
6) 'Blue' - Joni Mitchell (babe)
7) Corona Lights with lime
8) Kate's sleepmask and earplugs (so cute)
9) Team America (and then visiting my mom the next day and she's wearing a 'Freedom Isn't Free' t-shirt)
10) Softball of course! (gettin' whupped 16" Chicago style!)

Thataway Galloway

I doubt this will hit the US papers - if you google 'George Galloway hearing' you'll pull up some interesting articles on the English MP's testimony at a Senate hearing yesterday, investigating his involvement in the Iraq Oil for Food program. He really let them have it!

These Modern Socks

So......springy. I played my first scrimmage game with the Beachwood Bombers on Tuesday night, and despite spraining my left pinky and some sharp pain shooting up my left foot from time to time, oh and getting creamed 25 to 5, I had a great time and feel pretty well prepared for our first game Sunday. There's another scrimmage tonight but it's so rainy today that I'm not sure anybody'll make it, plus I have band practice.

I have to say something about the state of animation today, after watching Fox's Animation Domination on Sunday. In particular I just have to say that Family Guy is, in my opinion, pretty lame. Sure there's a couple of funny bits thrown into each show, but it mainly relies on shock / gross out humor - ie 'man I can't believe he did that! Dood no way!', with absolutely no irony / subtlety whatsoever. I get the feeling Seth MacFarland brainstorms with a bunch of six year olds and chimps. How else does he come out with stuff like 'Wonder Twin powers - activate - form of, a tampon'. Good one, man - in fourth grade. The dog is the best part of the show. Everybody else is either too mean or inconsistent to identify with or enjoy. And if you thought those characters were mean, try watching American Dad - what the f? It's like a copy of a copy of a copy (since obviously Family Guy is a rip off of the Simpsons). Ah Simpsons - how about Fat Bart skateboarding thru the replay of the opening montage, landing on Homer's car as he pulls into the driveway and caving in the roof, blasting Homer onto the front lawn. Now THAT's comedy. There's more comedy and social commentary in a Scammer & Z-Dog vending machine than a whole episode of Family Guy.

You got your peanut butter in my chocolate!

After work yesterday as I was booking westbound across the Madison Ave. bridge chasing my bus I passed five homeless people in the span of about a block- no joke. The first two were your standard guys shaking styrofoam cups. The third was the guy who drums on the bottoms of 5 gallon buckets (he also has an old rivet cymbal bungee-corded to the top of one of the buckets. I noticed he hums while he plays like me). Then there was a young white girl sitting on the side of the ped path, right in the middle of the bridge, with a sign that said she was homeless and needed money, food, toiletries. There was one more styrofoam cup guy as I came to the end of the bridge by Osco, and RIGHT by him (not more than 10 feet away) there were two people with big red newspaper carrier bags giving out free M&M candy bars to everybody passing by.

Thanks for the bad dream, CHAPEL HILL

This weekend Kate and I went to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to attend her friend Tara's wedding. Saturday night I dreamt that we had played a show opening for some super bad-ass band (I knew who they were in the dream - some seminal punk band who were really big - but the closest I can think now is maybe Flipper or Scratch Acid or something). To appear cool I invite them to come crash at my folks' house. We all go over and are partying while my parents are trying to sleep. Somebody tosses an empty beer can on the living room floor as he's walking through, and it bounces behind the entertainment center. I go to pick it up and tell him to try not to destroy the place and he makes fun of me for cleaning up. Then I remember everyone was getting a kitty together to go buy beers. They give me the money and tell me to go buy 180 beers. I'm thinking 'holy christ 180 beers?! These guys are going to tear the shit out of this place!' Then Kate and I are at home in our own bed talking about feeling bad about ditching out on my folks while everyone was still there partying.

I'm not a Growbot! Wait yes I am

My sister Chris (who lives in Texas with my brother in law Phil - they are both super geniuses going for triple PHDs or some such) bought a diesel car that she runs on biodiesel! Cool! I checked out the biodiesel.org website to see what the hub-bub is about. Now I wanna get a diesel rig too! Apparently you can run any diesel engine on biodiesel fuel which is derived from veggie oil - the only byproduct is glycerin which you can then mold into decorative soaps. I prefer shells and/or fish. Only thing is then we have to worry about fueling our cars with oil derived only from organically grown veggies since regular crops are fertilized with oil. In fact just about everything is oil! Fingernail polish - molten oil. CDs, records, my pen, the buttons on my shirt, the keyboard I'm typing on, the diaper I'm wearing, etc. When we run out of oil we'll have to rely on hemp for our clothing and computing needs.