I Dunno About You All...

But when I hear the name "Samuel Alito" I think minor league shortstop, not Supreme Court Justice.

Lo And Behold!

It's week 8 of the NFL season, and it's the first week that I'll be able to devote all my attention to watching football without White Sox nervousness juices churning in my gut.

Could it also be the first week my picks come through?

Parlay (3 Teams)	10/30/05 08:42 ET
25.00/150.00	Result: Pending
Bears(Chicago) Lions(Detroit)	10/30/05 (13:00 ET) Under 32.5
Dolphins(Miami) Saints(NewOrleans)(N)	10/30/05 (16:05 ET) Saints(NewOrleans)(N) -2.5
Jaguars(Jacksonville) Rams(StLouis)	10/30/05 (13:00 ET) Rams(StLouis) +4.5

Rally Pictures

Here's my out of focus, crooked and poorly angled pictures from today's Sox parade and rally.

Regular scheduled blogging will resume next week now that baseball season is over.

Never Stopped Believin'

DSC00031
Originally uploaded by ilk.

Dugan's, October 26, 2005.

Pinch Me.

Game 3 Postscript

Blogging last night was pretty sporadic toward the end due to the dramatic nature of the contest, the rather large conusmption of Stella Artois and the fact that my laptop battery was down to almost zero.

But what a game, what a team, what a world. Loved watching Garner smashing his chair. Loved watching Geoff Blum grin like a Little Leaguer on the bench. Loved watching Marte not choke. It's gotta be destiny...no ghosts, no curses, just destiny.

Let's button this thing up tonight.

World Series Game 3

I've been waiting since the Boston series to actually be home to watch a game and blog along, so here goes.

7:30 PM. Good crowd at the Ilk house. Astros replace their "Back To Back Wild Card" banner with a National League Champs banner. Back To Back Wild Cards isn't much to crow about in my book, it's like "hi, we're perpetual bridesmaids to the Cardinals!"

7:40 PM. Oswalt's first offering to Pods. High and outside. Oswalt's second offering, down the pipe heat. The Better Half says he goes 0 fer 4 tonight. Strike 3 called on a vicious hook with 18" of drop.

7:41 PM. Iguchi to the right side, base hit. Dog's already starting to whine even though he just peed 10 minutes ago. Dye with the buzzkill GIDP. 6-3.

7:53 PM. Killer Bees get to Garland even though Willy "I bat second for a National League team" Taveras can't drop a bunt. Groundout Garland does his job to get out of the inning, but the 'stros are up 1-0.

7:59 PM. DJ Selig in the hizzouse! Nice headphones. Oh yeah, leadoff double by Paulie.

8:07 PM. Opportunity squandered. Then another one squandered. Roy Oswalt lives up to every Southern stereotype possible. Kenny Chesney and NASCAR. Yee haw.

8:21 PM. 1-2-3 go the White Sox. On my 3rd beer and the grumbling's growing a little among the ranks. Maybe the Giordano's will settle the masses.

8:26 PM. IT'S NOT DODGEBALL, JUAN!

8:36 PM. I threw my hat across the room. Need more be said? If Garland's going to nibble and hang, he's going to get chewed up and hung. Oh yeah, and Oswalt's getting every call.

8:39 PM. What's a fastball, Scooter? A ball that goes slow? Oh, and what's plate patience, Paulie?

8:55 PM. The reverse Crede jinx works like a charm. The Better Half says "he fucking sucks." Marko says "he blows." Home run. 4-1 Astros.

9:14 PM. Wow. Wowza. Dye's jersey puckered...but hey--who cares! 5-4 Go-Go White Sox. Crede gets hit, and Scrap Iron's going nots. I smell bad blood brewing and it's about time. Everett up on the rail screaming.

9:29 PM. Efficiency, for at least one inning, thy name is Jon Garland. Ozzie says Garner got a "leel esited"in the last frame and has to protect his players.

9:40 PM. Juan Uribe > Derek Jeter. At least armwise.

10:16 PM. Two things you don't see very often--Steve Perry at a baseball game and Willie Harris on base. Gahhh. Iguchi's postseason struggles continue...well, for the most part.

10:33 PM. Ozzie has a signal for Dustin Hermanson that's the opposite of Bobby Jenks. Hermanson on, and my chewing-at-the-skin-around-the-nails habit I got rid of years ago is back in full force. Marko keeps dropping F bombs.

10:37 PM. Fuck a duck. I see cobwebs on Hermanson's right arm.

10:58 PM. Talk up here has turned to Lisa Dergan. Google image searches were executed. El Duque on the bump.

11:14 PM. Tension reliever (HEY, STRIKE THREE!)...we're inventing stories about the bratty little kid jumping up and down behind the screen. Theory is that he's a distressed product of divorce acting out his hatred toward Mommy.

11:32 PM. My, we're slappy. Now making up stories about Jason Lane and how he looks like one of those sad hobo clowns you see in paintings on little kids' walls. Meanwhile, Vizcaino looks moderately effective.

12:05 AM. Still here. Talk has turned to if Ozzie denies Bobby Jenks food when he blows saves. "Strike him out and you get a pizza!"

12:56 AM. Brian Boland will be getting fitted for a Geoff Blum jersey this offseason. Thank you, Kenny Williams. Stupid aging Trixie bitchnew neighbor (who I actually liked until just now) comes over to bitch about noise.

World Series Game 2 Pics...

...are here.

Apologies in advance: I haven't had the chance to rotate/edit them, there was water on the lens at some point and I was getting jostled a lot, so they're not the best by any stretch.

But they mean a ton to me, and that's what matters.

Baseball Fact Of The Day...

I've been to 4 World Series games in my life.

2 of them have been decided by a walk-off home run. How's that for knowing how to pick 'em?

Music!

I'm normally of the opinion that blog memes are somewhat lame, but this one I found over at The Frinklin And Fred Show got me to thinking. (Maybe next year Frinklin will spell Aaron Rowand's name correctly) Here goes:

Favorite Beatles song
"Revolution"

Favorite solo song by a former Beatle
"My Sweet Lord" (Harrison)

Favorite Rolling Stones song
"Tumbling Dice" or "Hang Fire"

Favorite Bob Dylan song
"Like A Rolling Stone"

Favorite Pixies song
"Bone Machine" I guess. Don't know them too well though.

Favorite Prince song
"I Would Die 4 U"

Favorite Michael Jackson song
"ABC"

Favorite Metallica song
"No Leaf Clover" or "The Unforgiven"

Favorite Public Enemy Song
"Hazy Shade Of Criminal"

Favorite Depeche Mode Song
"Policy Of Truth"

Favorite Cure song
"Fascination Street"

Favorite song that most of your friends haven’t heard
"Back On Me" by Urge Overkill

Favorite Beastie Boys song
"Sabotage"

Favorite Police song
"So Lonely"

Favorite Sex Pistols song
"God Save The Queen"

Favorite song from a movie
It's definitely NOT "Wind Beneath My Wings."

Favorite Blondie song
“The Tide is High”

Favorite Genesis song
"No Reply At All"

Favorite Led Zeppelin song
"The Ocean" or "Houses Of The Holy"

Favorite INXS song
"Disappear"

Favorite Weird Al song
"Eat It"

Favorite Pink Floyd song
"Money"

Favorite Cover song
My God, I cannot believe I'm saying this. "Southern Cross" by Jimmy Buffett.

Favorite U2 song
"The Unforgettable Fire"

Favorite Disco song
I have no idea what the title is or even what all the lyrics are, but I'll gladly sing it to someone who can identify it.

Favorite Who song
“Baba O’Reilly”

Favorite Elton John song
"Tiny Dancer" One of 4 songs I can play on the piano.

Favorite Clash song
"Train In Vain"

Favorite David Bowie song
"Changes"

Favorite Nirvana song
"In Bloom" I guess. Pearl Jam and Soundgarden >>>> Nirvana.

Favorite Snoop Dogg song
"What's My Name?"

Favorite Ice Cube song
“Today was a Good Day”

Favorite Johnny Cash song
“I Walk the Line”

Favorite REM song
"Exhuming McCarthy"

Favorite Elvis song
"Suspicious Minds” or "Burning Love"

Favorite Cheezy-Ass Country song
Chattahoochie (Alan Jackson)

Kale To The Chef!

There's an old Greek guy who wanders the halls here at my (now bankrupt) place of business. No one really knows what it is he does or why exactly he's here, but the guy owns a wholesale produce market on the South Side.

One day last week, he caught wind of a conversation a co-worker and I were having about vegetables. He looked us square in the eye and said "Kale. Best vegetable there is. I bring you kale next week."

Sure enough, Tuesday morning there was a massive bag of kale in our office. It looked like Carrot Top's head in a bag if it were dyed green. The co-worker was skeptical. I looked at the kale, looked at the headline of the Financial Times talking about being bankrupt and realized I better start taking handouts.

So me and my 7 pounds of kale went home. The Better Half was livid that the fridge now looked like the outfield walls at Wrigley Field, but I was determined to try the stuff out. I had no idea what to do with it, so Google made like Joe Crede and came through in the clutch.

Behold, Emeril Lagasse's recipe for kale and chorizo soup.

Pretty easy to make, and it's fun to make scatological jokes with the chorizo while chopping it up. Don't slice the kale with a knife, just peel the leaves off the stalks.

Served with an excellent St Francis viognier and a whole bunch of French bread, it was perfect cold weather food.

***Media Alert***

I guess this could barely qualify as 15 minutes of fame (we'll call it 7 1/2 I guess), but I'll be doing an interview with an internet radio station out of Vegas tonight about the Sox at 10:30 PM Chicago time.

Listen live here.

iPod RSS for Podcast is here.

Non-iPod Podcast will be here.

My Anaconda Don't Want None...

Everyone's got a hidden talent in life. Some folks can wiggle their ears, some folks can juggle.

I actually have two. One is that I can do mediocre impressions of everyone from George W. Bush to Ozzie Guillen to Keith Jackson. The other, which comes in very handy at weddings, is that I can rap every word to Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back."

It looks now I have to learn to sing it, too.

Caught Napping!

So last night I decided it was about time I got my ass in bed sometime before midnight, and not under the influence of intoxicants.

Hopped into bed at 9:30, read Harry Potter for about 15 minutes and then was out like a light with the ballgame on. Missed the Pujols homer. Also apparently missed one hell of a Monday Night Football game. Grrrrrrr.

One Big White Sox Winner!

The time was 10:44 CDT.

I was in Brian Boland's living room with about 15 other people.

Everything else is just a blur.

Sox And Stoxx

First of all, the good stuff. As has been the case with every postseason game this far played at US Cellular Field, I was in attendance last night for one of the most bizarre finishes to a baseball game I've ever seen. AJ Pierzynski made a great decision (and a decision that couldn't come back and haunt him like trying to stretch a triple into an unofficial inside-the-park-homer with no outs I hope you're reading this Aaron Rowand) and oh boy did it pay off.

The ballpark was electric last night, but it was the most draining game I've been to so far emotionally. I kept telling myself if we kept them off the board we'd find a way to pull it out--even if we did strand 7 men on base. Vlad Guerrero saw 6 pitches last night--the ultimate bad-ball hitter couldn't do shit against one of the best junk pitchers in the game. Once again, Juan Uribe comes through with awesome defense way in the hole at short. The high point of the game next to Crede's hit was watching Buehrle field Garrett Anderson's popup to end the 9th, calling off the entire infield and then practically skipping into the dugout.

Hugged a lot of strangers last night. Um, it felt kinda good.

Now for the bad stuff. The (now former) CEO of my employer got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Well, it's more like he reached into someone else's cookie jar, took a bite out of one of the cookies and then gave the cookies to someone else hoping that sometime next week he'd get some more yummy cookies (maybe with macadamia nuts) in return.

My firm's always had a reputation of being the WalMart of the derivatives industry. Big, powerful and they get the job done by undercutting everyone else--but without much consideration for the rest of the world. Given my evil tire-burning seal-clubbing capitalist mentality, I generally don't have a problem with that. But it's different when it hits you in the wallet. The stock's now trading about 75% lower than it was at the close last Friday, and one of the major business units had to shut down completely. We're all over CNBC and Bloomberg. Clients are asking questions...and we as a whole aren't giving lots of answers.

TheStreet.com alluded to our "opaque language" in a few articles over the past couple of days. I can't understand where said opaque language is being said, because we have yet to make any noted public comment on the matter.

We're in the money business, for Christ's sake. When you're in the money business and people think you're hiding something, they're gonna yank their money away in a hurry unless you reassure them. So far, we have yet to do that--and given the vulturious (new word?) nature of the media today, they're just gonna harp on the bad bad bad.

Someone last night told me that we "pulled an Enron." We pretty much did, only in a post-Enron world it's even worse.

Man, there's so much I could blog about right now.

The Sox are in the ALCS and if all the games end up like last night's, it's going to be one hell of a series.

My employer is embroiled in a monster securities fraud scandal.

There's a new Supreme Court nominee. I've read a couple more books, listened to a few new albums.

But right now, I'm just watching it all zoom by and feeling my head spin. It's fun, in a masochistic kinda way.

Sunday Shout-Outs...

To my pals who knocked out 26.2 on a gorgeous Sunday in Chicago:

Ramblin' Rhoads and his bionic knee:

RUSSELL RHOADS | Bib #26084 | ELMHURST, IL - USA | Age 38 | M
START	5K	10K	15K	20K	HALF	25K	30K	35K	40K	FINISH
8:16:45 AM CST	00:35:00	01:10:14		02:19:12	02:26:47	02:54:05	03:31:19	04:10:45		05:09:16

Frank The Tank and his 4 toes:

FRANKLIN STEARNS | Bib #17200 | LIBERTYVILLE, IL - USA | Age 38 | M
START	5K	10K	15K	20K	HALF	25K	30K	35K	40K	FINISH
8:05:33 AM CST	00:27:05	00:52:39		01:44:26	01:50:11	02:10:41	02:39:18	03:10:11	03:45:54	04:02:32
TIME Chip Time: 04:02:32 Clock: 04:08:55 Pace: 9:15 Placement Overall: 11324 Gender: 8300 Division: 1656

and Dan The Man, who can outdrink me and outrun me:

DANIEL MENACHO | Bib #8561 | CHICAGO, IL - USA | Age 25 | M
START	5K	10K	15K	20K	HALF	25K	30K	35K	40K	FINISH
7:59:56 AM CST	00:22:25	00:44:41		01:29:51	01:34:47	01:52:47	02:16:53	02:42:26	03:10:57	03:22:38
TIME Chip Time: 03:22:38 Clock: 03:23:24 Pace: 7:43 Placement Overall: 2539 Gender: 2241 Division: 395

It's Just A Blur...

Some Polish guy hits a 3-run homer. Then some Japanese guys hits a 3-run homer.

Pitcher who came from out of nowhere has the game of his life. Staff ace struggles before coming through in the end.

Some fatass tub of goo blows a game. Some fatass tub of goo saves a game.

Thundersticks smacking, towels waving.

Blowout. One run game. Day game. Night game.

Lots of beer. No beer.

Polish sausage. Steak pitas.

It's October, baby.

Knock The Sox Off!

I'm absolutely positively salivating about the fact that the Pale Hose get to play the Bloody Sox in the ALDS.

They're tired from their stretch drive, their pitching isn't for shit. Granted, many of my nightmares involve David Ortiz or Manny Ramirez hitting a ball onto the Dan Ryan...but they're just nightmares. Right? Right?

I loathe the Red Sox more than any other franchise in sports, and nothing would please me more than taking them down.