April 2006 Archives
I had never heard of such bunnies, and I'm trying to figure out how they see. If they see.
The Gulfstream G200, one of the preferred private jets for condescending Hollywood brats like Julia Roberts, burns more fuel in one trip from New York to Los Angeles than driving a Hummer for an entire year, so Julia Roberts wanting credit for bringing her own fancy cup to Starbucks is like a rapist wanting credit because he put in a mix tape.
And people are prostesting that.
Um, am I missing something here?
(Editor's Note: This is the written word, so unfortunately you can't see J pointing at himself with both thumbs. So let it suffice to say that he's talking about himself.)
This day was absolutely charmed from the git-go. For starters, me, my special lady friend, and the Cub went to mass at the majestic St. Francis de Sales, the so-called "Cathedral of South City". Mass was in Latin.
I learned a few things: 1) I know hardly any Latin. 2) The pre-1969 mass doesn't have much audience participation, so that doesn't really matter too much. Et cum spiritu tuo. That's about all you really need.
Then we all went home, changed into our civies, picked up a friend of the Cub's, and it was off to a more secular sort of Cathedral, the new Busch Stadium. The aforementioned lady friend, who it would seem has connections all over the place, managed to wrangle four of her company owner's tickets. In the Cardinals Club seats. Those are the green seats at the very bottom. The eighth row. If they were Lakers tickets, they'd be the seats that Jack Nicholson's sitting in. Un-be-freakin'-lievable.
But before we actually got to these seats, we pulled into the VIP parking, which was about 30 feet from the entrance. Then we made our way to the lounge area and helped ourselves to the complementary brunch buffet. Delicious! And, as gametime started rolling around, we sauntered off to the seats (padded, of course), where our waitress, Lorie, dropped by, handed us a menu, and asked if we wanted anything.
Between the four of us, I think we had about 30 soft drinks, 15 hot dogs, a few bratwursts, and some assorted nachos, popcorn, peanuts, and cheeseburgers.
And, of course, the three home runs. Fantastic.
To paraphrase Ice Cube, I gotta say, Sunday was a good day.
If there's a moral to the story, it's to work hard, save your money, and one day you too can live the good life. Or, in the case of the owner of the lady friend's company, figure out a way to be born the son of someone who worked hard and saved his money, then squander your inheritence on things like swanky baseball tickets. Or in our specific case, hope you get lucky when the guy with the tickets is wandering through the office.
This refers to residents of the town of Hartlepool. Read why. It's a good story.
Genius. A few gems:
The last time [the Socialists] gave reform a shot, voters relocated their prime minister, Lionel Jospin, so far outside the political mainstream that he was beaten by Jean-Marie Le Pen, the Yosemite Sam of French politics.Or this one:
When will this end?This was written last week (during my blackout), and it would seem that, yes, they have surrendered.We’re talking “French government” here, so surrender, however artfully disguised, can’t be far off. The French government has lost face so many times it no longer has a functioning head.
Oh, well. Better luck next time.
Now, compare those guys with this guy here. Notice anything in common?
That's right! They both have the same mustache and pointy beard combo!
Coincidence? I dunno. It just occurred to me.
Update: link fixed. Er, sorry about that.
After years of near-misses I finally got to see one of my all-time favorite bands, the band that puts the "sex" in "sextet", the Venezuelan funk extravaganza known as Los Amigos Invisibles. They were playing this Friday in Chicago, and me and my special friend (whom I haven't explicitly mentioned here, but who is the primary reason for the very light posting lately).
I snuck out of work a couple hours early and we piled in the overpriced Land Yacht and made our way to the promised land.
Chicago is a lot like St. Louis, only so big as to be completely unmanageable. And try to stay off the Ryan. We were on it at 8:00 on a Friday night and it was packed bumper to bumper.
The hotel was really the highlight of the weekend. We got to the Marriot Renaissance right on the river. As we're checking in, Iulia, the surly Eastern European who was checking us in says, "For $40, we can upgrade you to the Rivera Suite". Never was $40 better spent. The place was freakin' huge. Six-seat conference table, a lounge area, gigantic bed, luxurious bathroom with separate bath and shower. I think the whole place had more square footage than my entire freakin' house.
And the views! Right outside the window was the river, the marina, and the Marina Towers, immortalized on the cover of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and assorted other architectural gems.
From there, we went next door to a delightful seafood place (this being a Friday during Lent) and had some delicious grub. I had the best tomatoes I'd ever had. It was like all previous tomatoes were a pitiful mockery of what tomatoes are all about. And the stir fried shrimp was unbelievable.
Caught a cab to the show at a place called Green Dolphin Street. Being that my friend is from St. Louis and environs, this was easily more Hispanic folk than she'd ever been around. Myself, I didn't mind too much. And she pointed out how relatively Hispanic I look myself.
So, I ought to get to learning Spanish, so when la revolución comes, I can blend right in. Either that, or get mistaken for one of the other guys and get lynched by a mob of angry white folk.
Anyway, the band was fantastic. Those guys seemed to be enjoying what they were doing more than I've enjoyed anything. Everyone had a big goofy grin plastered on his face. And the guitarist had this habit of singing along with his solo, which I thought was pretty cool.
If I had one complaint, it was that they played very long. Like over two hours. On the other hand, they managed to play dern near every song they'd ever written. So it's not like I could walk out saying, "Man, I wish they'd played X", because they played it all. But how can you blame them? They were just enjoying themselves so much.
I don't know how they did it. They opened with -- no kidding -- a fifty minute medley of songs. Nonstop for fifty minutes. Incredible.
Next day, we ate at Giordano's Pizza, which I take it is to Chicago-style pizza what Imo's is to St. Louis style pizza: possibly not as good as it gets but the most definative. It was very good, but I think the use of provel cheese would have done it some good.
Then, a quick trip through the Ikea store in one of the more generic suburbs of Chicago, where I finally bought cereal bowls. And thank God for that, too. I got those soup bowls, the very wide and very shallow ones that the Cub manages to spill more milk out of than otherwise.
Overall it was a sublime trip. If you happen to be living in St. Louis, have lots of money to burn, a friend with Marriot points, and a bit of good luck, I'd suggest your having seen Los Amigos Invisibles last weekend.
Despite being immovable plastic, these guys manage to be more expressive than the typical supermodel.
After whacking it a few times with the back of my hand, I managed to fix it and everything seems to be working just fine now.
Let it suffice to say, I'm working on building a better web server. Or at least, a different web server.
In the meantime, I suppose we'll all just have to deal with the occasional outage.
