This makes too much sense. Cub fans and Parrotheads have a lot in common: they love to drink, they love to wear stupid outfits, and they follow an aging star well past his prime.

Was treated to yet another amazing Brett Favre perfomance on Monday Night Football last night. In spite of his Vike-and-champagne-cocktail past, I still have so much respect for that guy. He's gritty, and that's a real rarity in football these days where Randy Moss says that he only runs his full routes 50% of the time and Eddie George misses games because of a sore toe. Favre's gone out there for 200 freakin games in a row and played balls to the wall with pins in his thumb, with tears in his eyes over his dead father, with his wife suffering from cancer, and he always just gets it done.

I'll boo the Packers lustily until my dying day, but I will never ever boo Brett Favre.

Florida was nice, got back Friday night,but for some reason I have this bizare aversion to blogging on weekends not sure what it is.

Anyhow, got down there in one piece Tuesday afternoon. Flight down was pretty uneventful, although we did see Ben Roethlisberger in the Pittsburgh airport, walking to a plane with a cop on either side of him. TPA airport was a mess, and we had to wait like 25 minutes for our luggage and it took another 75 minutes to get to Dad's, a trip that usually takes about half that time. We were all starving, so we just grabbed a pizza on the way home, and scarfed it down on the back deck while knocking back the usual allotment of beers.

Spent all day Wednesday putting up Christmas decorations outside. I'm not a big Christmas guy at all, and wrestling with cheap ass Made-In-China reindeer, sleighs and polar bears makes me like it even less. But it ends up being serious male bonding time, which is always good, especially since my Dad is just as careless as me when it comes to following instructions. They go absolutely all-out with their decorations and have won their neighborhood's decorating contest 3 years in a row, so I guess they always feel like they have to one-up themselves each year. Also got all the lights up around the house, which seems to get easier and easier every year at least.

Gorged ourselves on turkey Thursday and watched the Bears game out on the deck after dinner. My stepmom is Lithuanian and her mother comes over, so there's always some very nontraditional plates on the table in addition to the usual thanksgiving fare--kugela (which is a dense and thick potato casserola), kapusta and kielbasa (kraut and sausage) and this really scarey cold beet soup with shrimp in it, which is the only thing I won't touch due to my aversion to beets. They're unnaturally red and creep me out.

Got up early Friday and finished some last minute decorating before heading to the airport for our 2:10 flight. At least we thought it was a 2:10 flight. As we were heading out the door, I peeked at the itinerary and it turned out the flight left at 1:20 (it was 12:25 as we were leaving). I called USAir and gave them my best "Oh-My-God-I've-Been-Stuck_on-I-75-For An-Hour" sob story, but they made it pretty clear that since I had bought a super-cheap ticket on Hotwire that there was nothing they could do for me and I'd have to sort it out at the airport. We raced up to the counter at 1:08 with our best harried faces on, and they rebooked us on a 2:15 flight through Philly without any problems. One-way overpriced ticket purchase averted. Whew.

But the story gets better. After we got out to the terminal (and having the TSA do a full body search on me since we were flagged due to the itinerary change...which pisses me off to no end, but that's another rant for another time), we saw a huge line of really pissed off people standing at the gate next to ours. I looked up on the board--and sure enough, that was the gate for the 1:20 flight we were supposed to take to Charlotte. Turns out the plane had some kind of mechancial problem and wasn't going to leave until 8 PM. Bullet dodged!

As retribution for my good fortune though, the air travel gods stuck me in the last row of the flight up to Philly on the aisle (I have to have a window seat or I get antsy) with K across from me, and treated us to 2 hours and 15 minutes of the worst turbulence I've ever flown through. I ended up spilling Diet Coke all over myself twice.

Friday night--nothing doing. Saturday we hit the grocery to pick up supplies for our Sunday After Thanksgiving Feast, and then cooked it yesterday for 8 guests and still have plenty of leftovers. My buddy Kevin and his wife Peg brought this pumpkin creme pie over that just may have softened my dislike for pumpkin pie just a bit. Well, a lot. I ate 2 pieces of it for breakfast. I made White Castle Stuffing (mmmm) and some smoked-gouda mashed taters that didn;t have anywhere near enough smoked gouda in them because I used 6 lbs of potatoes instead of the 3 that the recipe called for. Detect a pattern of ignorance here?

My sister came by yesterday too and I finally got to pick her brain on this Mormon juice racket
that she's gotten into. After picking her brain for an hour, I guess it's not a cult, maybe the juice has some redeeming medicinal qualities, but the Amway-style of network marketing still sucks
in my opinion.

She's moving to Salt Lake City in 2 weeks. Egads! Not like we never see each other, but now I'm the only member of the clan left in Chicago.

This past weekend was one of those that just seemed to be over before it even started. I hate it when that happens. Now and then I just want a weekend where I do absolutely nothing, and then by 2 pm Saturday I'm climbing the exposed-brick walls because we have nothing to do. Other times, I feel like we just have too much going on....this particular one was kinda sortta in between.

Friday night we sat home and did nothing. K made BBQ beef sandwiches, and we played rummy, which seems to be my new card game of the week, and now that I've finally figured it out, I've discovered I ain't half bad at it. Watched Syracuse and Memphis in the Coaches vs Cancer Classic, 'cuse just outhustled and outmuscled the Tigers. It's funny to watch the difference in coaching styles between Boeheim and Calipari. Boeheim reminds me of the stereotypical dishevled rumpled absentminded type (alth0ugh he did finally get rid of those big owl-looking glasses a few years ago), while Calipari is like a younger and chunkier Pat Riley, always ready to snap and chew a guy a new orifice when he does something stupid.

Speaking of stupid, they broke into the game with news from Motown about the whole Artest-Wallace-O'Neal-fan fracas. No pun intended, but this damned thing has been beat to death to the point where I'm just numb about it and really have very little to say. Detroit fans are boorish as hell, but there's no reason to run into the stands and kick the crap out of them. I would have much preferred if Artest just took the ball on his next possession and jammed it through the hoop and dangled on the rim for a bit. That's the ultimate Booya!

I had every intention of getting up early Saturday morning and going to Lou Mitchell's for breakfast. Wrong. Ended up sleeping until almost 9, and just as I was waking up, K's mother called. ARRRGGHHH! There is a general unwritten rule in my family that you do not call someone between 10 pm and 10 am unless someone's dead, in the hospital, or holding a winning lottery ticket, and the fact that K's mom calls all the time in the morning has long been a real sore spot in our relationship. When we first started dating, I shit you not, she would call at like 7:15 on Saturday mornings. They talk 3 or 4 times a week for like 45 minutes at a time...and it's always about ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, and it cuts into our quality time. I've brought this up a ton of times with her, and she's always like "it's a girl thing." I have never ever dated another girl who talked to her mom this much. So I was in a pretty pissy mood, and instead of getting dressed and going out to breakfast, I went for a good long walk.

Went to the Wolves game Saturday night. It's just fun to see live hockey, and with the talent level of the Wolves, they could probably give the Blackhawks a run for their money in a game. The skyboxes at the Allstate Arena are something to behold--basically it's a really small mirrored room that looks like something straight off a porno set with a dorm fridge under the counter and a couple bags of ice. The food was outstanding though, but in a situation like this, the focus is on the game on the rink, which was well played with the Wolves winning 3-0. Quite a few good fights, too...yes, I admit it, hockey fights are cool.

Bears game yesterday. Left the house all bundled up, got to Soldier Field and took my jacket off almost right away, and then was freezing again by the 3rd quarter. Bears looked just awful, with Krenzel throwing picks all over the place against what's supposed to be the worst defense int he NFL. He never had time to let anything develop and seemed like he was almost always throwing on the run. The Colts offense was just insane, as predicted. There's just no way to stop Edgerin James when he runs up the middle, and the only time the Bears seemed to stifle him was when they sent like 4 guys on him who would somehow get behind scrimmage and chase him out of bounds, but that didn't happen much. If the Colts do indeed end up winning the Super Bowl, Manning better buy his whole O-line cars or Rolexes or something, because their blocking gives that big slow white boy all the time in the world to unleash downfield.

Got home from the game and logged some serious couch time, watching the late game on FOX, the Simpsons, and Desperate Horny Housewives. (Yeah, it hasn't worn off yet). Made some pretty good jerk chicken that I may have added a bit too much cloves to, but passable nonetheless.

Trib and Sun-Times seldom agree on matters editorial, but they've both reached the conclusion that U2's new album sucks.

Tonight I pack, tomorrow Florida!

It's been cloudy and miserable here for the past 3 or 4 days. I'm starting to get to the point where I wonder when we'll actually see the sun again...and looking at the forecast for the next few days it doesn't look very likely that I'll see it at all before we get to Florida. At least I'll miss the snow on Wednesday, I guess...ahh, small victories.

Nothing too exciting on tap for the weekend. Going to the Wolves game tomorrow in a skybox with my fellow ListGeeks...props to Gary for yet another hookup thanks to his hookup over at Pepsi. I'll watch the Bears with baited breath on Sunday, but I really don't think that they're going to be able to knock off Indy. Stranger things have happened, but everyone runs out of miracles at some point.

Watched the 'Cuse stumble, bumble and miss shots all over the place in the early going last nightand still walk away with a winner over Mississippi State. It was a miserable rainy night, so K and I just sat around and played rummy..I pretty much kicked her ass, impressive considering that up until about 2 weeks ago I couldn't figure out how to play the damned game. (I ain't much for learnin') It's addictive.

In sad news, it looks like Jack and Kelly's 15 minutes are up, if they weren't already.

This month is National Novel Writer's Month. I've kicked around the idea of writing a book for years and even wrote a few chapters 4 years ago, but just kinda got burned out. Before bed last night, I was able to churn out about 8 pages of notes building on those chapters, but I'm way too late to try and shit out 175 pages by the end of the month for the contest. I guess I'll work on it through the winter and maybe try and do it next year. Late to the parade as usual!

Here's this weeks Fades Of The Week:

Denver -4 New Orleans
St. Louis -1 Buffalo

Thursday Morning Quarterbacking...

The whole Nicolette jumps on TO thing is kinda like Michael Moore and my gut...no matter what you try to do with it, it just won't go away. Big whoop. Woman drops towel, jumps on man in desperate plug for hysterically funny show about desperate women that's already kicking ass in the ratings. No worse than the Coors Twins (and they have that godawful music in the background), and no worse than chesty cheerleaders.

A black friend of mine asked if there would be as much of an outrage if it were Chad Lewis instead of Terrell Owens. To me, there would be...Chad Lewis sucks.

Knocked out the other 300+ pages of the Wolfe book last night. Ahhh...Tuesday is the best reading night in the world, there's absoultely nothing on the boob tube to distract me.

The denouement of the book takes place at a fraternity formal at a posh hotel in DC, and it reminded me of my first Sig Ep formal way back in 1994. It was held at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Buffalo, which is probably the poshest hotel in the Nickel City, and that sure as hell ain't saying much.

I was a pledge at the time, so my primary duty was to fetch drinks for brothers and let them bum smokes off me (all pledges were required to carry cigarettes at all times...to spite the brothers we used to buy Camels since they always wanted Marlboro Lights), but I was allowed to have my fun. The girl I was dating at the time, Kara, was a Phi Sig, a year older than me, and totally udnertsanding of the fact that I was a pledge and would probably ignore her all night. I pretty much did.

I remember being force fed Manhattans by one of the alumni brothers. I remember doing shots of Goldschlager with the other guys in my pledge class, and then we all got chewed out for singing the "drink, motherfucker, drink" song at one of our fellow pledge brethren. My big brother was a Jewish guy from Long Island, but he loved Wild Turkey, so I drank a truckload of that too. Eventually, I remember our whole pledge class dancing in one of the fountains, getting the one suit that I had brought to college with me soaking wet, and ruining my only pair of good shoes.

After the formal, we all piled into cabs and went to a bar called the Bradford. I have no clue how I remember that. I can still see Darren (who was like my best college friend long before the whole frat thing started) puking into a plastic cup sitting in a chair in the corner, and being carried out by a couple guys in pretty much the same manner that football players who blow out knees (but don't ride on the cart) and back to the hotel. He ended up getting the nickname "Scarecrow" for that.

David Terrell: busted for reckless driving. Wonder if he dropped his license as he handed it to the cop.

Book Club!

Cracked open Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons last night while watching Monday Night Football and started reading. As TO was prancing and slamdunking and the Big Tuna was fuming, my nose was buried in this massive tome. Next thing I know, I looked up and it was 12:35 am and I'd knocked back 240 pages.

So far, the book has gotten dreadful reviews...the chief complaint is that the characters don't develop much at all. That's pretty much the norm with Wolfe though when you think about it. He's more verbose than I am, and describes situations in agonizing detail, but really doesn't devekop his characters outward, just sideways. Make any sense?

I read Wolfe because his use of language is always amusing. In _IACS_ he's already introduced me to "Fuck Patois" (pretty much the language I speak) and the rap stylings of a fella named Doctor Diss.

Back for the rest of today's mundane entry. We went hiking out at Starved Rock on Saturday afternoon...perfect day for it, save for the fact that it's a lot nicer to go hiking when it doesn't get dark at 4:15 pm. We stopped at some totally random pizza place in Shorewood on the way back for a piping hot delicious pie...the crust was nice and doughy, and didn't have that cracker thinness that so many Chicagoans like for some reason.

Supposedly, the true definition of "New York Style Pizza" is also thin crust, but that's not Upstate New York style. The pizzas I ate growing up were pretty thick and doughy...similar in crust size to what you get from the mass market places like the Hut and Domino's, only much better-tasting...and cut in TRIANGLES, of course--not squares.

K's sister and her boyfriend stopped over for brunch yesterday on their way back from Madison. They were down here for some sort of science fiction convention (yes, I know) and came by for a quick bite. Her boyfriend is supposedly big time into poker, but they really didn't stick around very long....

...and that's probably a good thing, since a card game would have interfered with all my energy that I was channeling toward the Bears. Ahh yes, those sweet, glorious, mighty-defensed Bears.
What a game..only the second time in history that an OT game ends on a safety.

The Sox ended up taking a pass on Omar Vizquel, who signed with the Giants. I'm pleased. I still think the best bet is sign a Placido Polanco or Tony Womack and stick them at 2nd, move Uribe to SS full time, and suffer through one more year of Joe Crede at 3rd.

But What Would Mellencamp Think?

Here's some breaking news about a bold legislative initiative for all my Indiana readers (well, all 2 of you).

Back with more later.

So it's Friday, and for the second weekend in a row, we have absolutely nothing planned this weekend. KInda nice ahead of the impending holiday madness. I may hit the Prarie Path with Russell Sunday morning, but only if the winds are low and it's above 50 degrees. Doesn't look likely.

So K and I were ultra bored last night, and decided to go bowling. Yes, that's right, bowling. Kinda like the horse track, I get the urge to go about once a year. There's this swanky new "bowling lounge" that just opened up in Marina City (for those of you not from Chicago, those are the corncob towers you see in every movie filmed here and on the cover of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot), but damn it, this is Chicago. If I go bowling I want bottles of High Life and a wide selection of AMF loaner balls straight out of the 1970s. So I wrote down the addresses of 3 places on the South Side, and off we went.

First place? Vacant lot.

Second place? Shuttered.

Third place? Shuttered. (Notre: This was Marzano's Miami Bowl, which apparently was Chicago's bowling mecca for 40 years, until it, um, uhh...closed last month).

Moral of the story: call ahead. We ended up going over to Bobak's Sazzige Emporium for their smorgasbord. I can't remember the last time I ate dinner somewhere where the bill was $24.96.

Here's this week's Sucks Of The Weak:

Green Bay -4 Minnesota
Jacksonville -3 Detroit

Best. Tribute. Site. Ever.

In yet another sign that I'm getting old, I caught an article online today about how it's been 15 years since the Berlin Wall fell. I remember being 14, rolling out of bed and turning on the TV, and seeing overjoyed Germans jumping up and down on the Wall and spraying champagne everywhere. This was pretty much the beginning of the end for communism.

Yay capitalism.

With Election Day and baseball season both over with, there's absolutely nothing interesting that ever happens on a Tuesday. So, to the relief of some, I ain't got much to say today, aside from the fact that I did a kick ass job of grouting my bathtub last night, as evidenced by the photo below. Tonight, I caulk!

[Rant] I think that Blogger really needs to find an easier way to post photos. This BloggerBot shit is for the birds, or at least for people significantly smarter than me. [/rant]

Meanwhile, K claims that she could still smell mold. I still can't. So we threw the shower curtain liner in the washer...we'll see if that helps.

Incidentally, we're having a bit of a tiff right now. K got roped into this stupid Southern Living At Home racket through some girls she used to work with, and she's hosting a party tomorrow night, which leaves me to my own devices for a few hours. Not that that bothers me, since I have countless ways of amusing myself in the big city.

What bugs me is that 1) she goes on and on about how she's broke, and then tomorrow night she'll drop $200 on faux-Southern stuff that's actually made in China that we really have no room for (on top of all the money she'll drop on finger foods, most of which will end up being eaten by yours truly) and 2) I always associate these home parties with suburban people, which we decidedly are not, thank goodness.

So to offset this, I'm going to have a Porn and Chicken party later in the season.

(Yes, the colours don't match, but it's getting caulked over) 

Little Bit of Luck, Lots Of Mold....

Went to the Chicago Cares Big Shindig on Friday up at Cafe Brauer. Always a good time, and I enjoy it immensely because it's not a bunch of snotballs like most of the other benefits in Chicago (not that I'm a socialite by any stretch, but I typically go to 3 or 4 a year), but real normal people, quite a few of whom I've volunteered with. By the way, word of advice to any single people who may read this--the absolute best way to meet a member of the opposite sex is through volunteering. Trust me...oh yeah, and it's kinda nice to help people while you're chasing tail.

Anyway, they had a gift bag raffle--20 bucks got you a mystery bag with some sort of prize in it. I've never had much luck with it in the past...one year I won tickets to a play up in Skokie that I had no interest in, and another time I won a trial membership to a health club that I already belonged to.

So this year, K did the dirty work and bought the bag. And wouldn't you know it--we won 2 round trip tickets on Northwest. Sure, it's the worst excuse for an airline in the country, but still...free travel is free travel. I think we're going to hook up with Rob and Renee out in Reno/Tahoe sometime over the winter for skiing. I've never been, so I'm kinda psyched.

Saturday dawned gorgeous and suny, and when I finally rolled my fat ass out of bed at 10:30, I knew I had to do something outdoors. Ended up playing tennis with Aaron up at the courts at Waveland and the lakefront. These courts are tough for me to play on for the following reasons:

1. They're right off Lake Shore Drive, so you have the neverending noise of trafic in the background.
2. They're right next to the lakefront path, which means that there's an inordinately large amount of hotties running, blading or biking past. It's really bad when Aaron stops his serve so he can say a lecherous "hellllloooo" hoping that only I can hear it.
3. They're on the lake, so it's windy as shit.

Played fairly well, but I messed up my shoulder somehow trying to get cutesy with a one handed backhand. It's pretty sore...and just when I think it's going to go away, it acts up.

Meanwhile, K developed a strange new fixation over the weekend. She says that our master bathroom smells like mold. Now I have no idea what mold smells like, and I can't smell it. The only smells which I recognize right away are grilled polish sausage, fresh cut grass, and bleach.

But she saw it fit to whip out the painter's tool and gut the caulk off the one side of the bathtub, thinking that a recaulking would get rid of the smell. But apprently, it needs to be regrouted too...so last night at 10 pm we ran to the friendly neighborhood Home Depot and picked up some caulk and grout. I was initially very fearful of grout, since I remember from having our house built in NY that it comes in 50 lb bags that kick up dust everywhere and need to be mixed with water, but mercifully it now comes in ready mixed little tubs, which can even be applied with an ordinary kitchen spatula. So that's this evening's project.

How about them Bears? And them Bills?

More stupidity from Alan Keyes, courtesy of the Trib. You know things are bad when your campaign manager has to apologize for your actions, repeatedly:
Robert Gibbs, a spokesman for Obama, declined to address Keyes' comments.

"Everyone has to make their own decisions. The people of Illinois rendered a very clear decision on Tuesday by handing Alan Keyes the greatest electoral defeat in Illinois Senate history," Gibbs said. "Barack Obama's attention is focused on the very important work for all of the people of Illinois."

Earlier, Gibbs had told the Tribune that he talked five times on election night with a top Keyes staffer who was trying to get his candidate to concede. The Keyes aide, Dan Proft, apologized repeatedly for his candidate's behavior, Gibbs said.

Usually a campaign manager is the ultimate lapdog...I remember volunteering for a guy named Bill MIller back in college who ran for Congress against John LaFalce and dealing with his manager...the guy was completely delusional. Creative, but delusional.

I'm also curious as to what the future holds for Dan Proft. He runs the struggling Illinois Leader website, which was once a shining beacon for conservatives in the Prairie State but has since turned into an underfunded mess crippled by the loss of its heart and soul, Fran Eaton. Now the Leader is pretty much ramblings from tinfoil hat wearing media freaks and Operation Rescue types.

You know what cracks me up? The British rags and their reaction to Bush's re-election. These are people who still have a Queen, for Christ's sake!

Now on to the Coin Flips Of The Week. 0-2 last week. Craptacular!

Dallas -1 Cincinatti

Kansas City -3 Tampa Bay

I can't believe it! For 2 straight days, the Sox have actually merited a front page article in the Sports section of the Trib. Today's piece is just chock full of speculation and salacious rumours about them going after Carlos Beltran and Omar Vizquel. I don't like either of these ideas at all.

Beltran was pretty much unknown at the beginning of the season, toiling in miserable obscurity in a small market until the Astros went after him. He brought some spark to the team, but as they continued to founder going into August, there was already talk about him being traded again to a contender. But then we all know what happened--Houston stopped losing at home, rarely lost on the road, and Beltran turned into a hitting machine. He got really really hot at the right time, and apparently now Scotty Borass says he's entitled to a 10 year A-Rod style deal.

He's a hell of a player, but there's no reason for the cheapass Sox to tie up a little over 1/3 of their payroll on one guy. On top of that, trading Konerko to free up payroll is just ludicrous. This team needs an anchor. Frank Thomas has never been that anchor mentally, and he sure as hell hasn't been that anchor physically with season-ending injuries 2 of the last 4 campaigns.

As for Vizquel--remember what happened last time we signed a veteran Cleveland player? Kenny Lofton came to town, stunk up the place and was gone by July.

Deja vu all over again...

I just hope John Kerry is a littl emore gracious in defeat than Al Gore was 4 years ago. Let's face it, W's margin of victory in Ohio is pretty convincing anyway. This one's just a matter of time.

So a left-leaning friend of mine asked me over IM last night 1) if Republicans are happy about this and 2) after another 4 years, how are we supposed to show our faces on the street.

Of course Republicans are happy about this. Our candidate, allegedly reviled by about 80% of the country if you listen to Michael Moore and Alec Baldwin is the first guy since the other George Bush to pull over 50% of the popular vote. Bush's coattails were long enough to knock out the prissy prince of the Senate Tom Daschle, and hell, they even got the slightly loony Jim Bunning another 6 tear term.

About showing our face on the street--I have a feeling that there's gonna be a little bit of trouble these next 4 years. The Left are sore losers, and even with a semi-mandate against them, there's still gonna be plenty of "Asses Of Evil" signs and crap like that in the streets. Bush will be followed by ragtag unwashed 18-24 year olds (who didn't turn out at all...maybe P. Diddy should try free iPods next time) chanting slogans, convinced he's gonna draft them all and overturn Roe V. Wade all with one stroke of a pen. But we can still show our face on the street. We're not the ones who blew this election. We're not the ones who failed to tap into the rage of a very mobilized base and deliver the vote. We're not the ones who nominated a candidate who didn't really seem to stand for anything other than that his name wasn't George Bush. We're not the ones who tapped a handsome, slick talkin' runnin' mate for that candidate who made his zillions as a trial lawyer. Much like the GOP in Illinois, the Democrats on the national stage really need to rehash what they need to do, and then retool and rebuild. Stop worrying about the Hollywood types and start reaching out to Gomer!

Meanwhile, I've got this to say to President Bush:

This time, you got your mandate. Now don't fuck it up. No more divisiveness, no more radical cabinet members, no more pre-emptive wars. No more faulty intelligence, and for god's sake, do something about the deficit.

Kerry's hitting the nail on the head with his concession: we need unity.

Meanwhile, Alan Keyes shows what a dipshit he is (from the Trib):

With 92 percent of precincts in the state reporting, Obama had 70 percent of the vote to 27 percent for Keyes. Obama proclaimed victory around 9:15 p.m. even though Keyes refused to concede the race, according to Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs. Aides from the two camps spoke five separate times. Keyes declined to acknowledge defeat and addressed his supporters gathered at the Chicago Hilton and Towers only after Obama addressed his.

I keep hearing that he wants to stick around and help rebuild the GOP here in Illinois. I want no part of it if that's the case.

Get out and vote, you magnificent bastards.

More later.

It's raining, it's pouring....

First day of November and it's pouring buckets from the sky. Guns n Roses were right about that whole November Rain thing.

Weekend was fun...went to Halloween party at Stanley's Friday after a pretty mundane but humid Critical Mass ride that I had to duck out of early to get home in time to make the party. My costume was pretty lame ass in retrospect...I went as a hipster in brown polyester pants and a beigeish-brownish bowling shirt, but unless you really know me (which the vast majority of people at this party didn't) it really didn;t garner any accolade. I spent most of the evening knocking back Beam and Cokes and talking music with Aaron.

The best costume I saw: one guy dressed up as a Vietnam-era Kerry (jungle green coat, captain's hat, ascot, pipe, Atlantic Monthly in pocket) . Aside form a couple people who made clever pun costumes (eye candy, chick magnet), really nothing to write home about. Went to River Shannon for a couple pints after that and finally got home about 3:30.

Got a call from our friend Stephanie yesterday afternoon..turns out she and Jim had 2 extra tickets to the Bears game, so went to that last night. Their offense is pretty blah with Krenzel at the helm, but their defense was outstanding and they finally got their first win at "Soldier's Field" this year.

If I see one more poll about "X leads Y by one point" I'm going to be sick. If I hear the words "suppression and disenfranchisement" one more time, I'm going to be sick. Just get it over with.