after arriving at sfo at 10:30 p.m. pacific sunday night and flying out two hours later, arriving in saint louis at approximately 6:30 a.m. monday and departing for MOL at 9, i find myself home this afternoon. sleepy-eyed, i'll be taking the day off.

thanks to sumo, unstadt, mr. mulert, amoeba records, sea lions, the inventor of the muni, tim hudson, andres galaragga, and bob dylan/sideshow bob and his high school admirers for making it great.

i'll perhaps have more later, although certainly not a blow-by-blow.

i've got an apartment to clean, a bears game to get ready for, a cubs playoff series to get ready for (saw all of six at-bats this week...tough) and a few hours of sleep to catch up on.

peace.

well, fair readers, i'd like to apologize for my negligence in blog maintenance this week. it's been strangely, strangely busy. fairly long post-work resume tape editing on thursday followed by an involuntary falling asleep on the couch. friday brought a post-work trip back to glenview. saturday brought football and good times with gurs, neilesh and the wysock boys, among others. sunday brought football, a win by the now-tied-for-first-place cubs, and a later-than-planned trip back to the 'port.

and now i'm planning to pack for san francisco (it's been a slower-than-planned night for progress. It's 12:45, and I just put another pot of coffee on. Oh well.)

SF should be the blast of a lifetime. I mean it.

Sumo, Unstadt, and one Zachary Mullet are on the 'people-to-see' list. The Oakland Coliseum, Pac Bell Park (twice! perhaps for homer number 660), Amoeba Records, and the Fillmore are on the 'places-to-see' list. Oakland broadcaster Robert Buan is on the 'make-contact-with' list, and San Francisco's Jon Miller is on the 'outside-shot-to-make-contact-with' list.

As of this moment, all that's left is to confirm that my booked-two-months-ago flights still exist, to take care of old bills, to pack, and to update my resume. Work's at 9 tomorrow. We'll see.

Go Cats. Beat Bucks. I may or may not return before then.

i caught lightning in a bottle tonight. yes, indeed, a new way to cook a potato, and the ideas were just spewing out. by combining a few cooking theories with a few popular potato-related items, my dinner became a true culinary concoction.

what was combined:

1) the twice-baked potato (inspiration)
2) the classic 'stuffed baked potato'
3) today's obsession with putting ranch dressing on everything
4) buffalo wings (accent)

to create:

place two potatoes in the oven, at 400 degrees. while they're cooking, dice up celery, red pepper and onion. after about 75 minutes, remove the potatoes from the oven. using a spoon, scoop out the potato-y part from the skin. throw in a bowl with diced vegetables, a three-second squeeze worth of fat free ranch dressing, and two solid whacks on the bottom of a bottle of frank's red hot sauce. using a spoon, a spatula, or perhaps your hands, mix all that crap together. scoop back into potato skins. return potato skins to oven for about 15 more minutes. enjoy.

in other news, i didn't see much of the sox tonight (in what has become a horrible, horrible tradition, i was watching espn's playmakers - this time recorded due to prior commitments - with a co-worker), but when i did turn it on (sox trailing 4-2 in the 7th), one of those cosmic moments resulted.

the hawkeroo said "in case you're just joining us..." - I gasped! - "kenny rogers and jon garland got very different strike zones to work with tonight."

i've grown to appreciate the nuance of a hawk-and-dj broadcast, but that probably crossed the line.

it sure is sad when week two is moral victory time, but that's the case. way to go bears. way to go kordell.

because i'm involved a bit in the profession, and because i understand criticism is sent the way of the broadcasters so much more than 'props,' i try to be easy on those folks. but joe theisman, in my opinion, so says almost enough stupid stupid things so as to offset the salient, informative and educational points he often makes. (i'm splashing in 'props' here, you'll note.)

tonight he suggested that, down 24-13 with 2:20 and one timeout remaining, and facing third and short at their own 25, the bears would have been better off punting than going for it should fourth down arrive. never mind that the bears have had two punts blocked in two weeks, but he figured that it's better off being down two scores without the ball than having the ball. oh well.

i've spent the day watching two of the most awful college football games i've ever seen.

i didn't really think the cats were going to win, but to see them so utterly and completely hopeless was real real painful. j-wright found no room, and alexander webb looked utterly clueless. on the bright side, kunle patrick's streak lives.

(note: i was forced to a local pub to watch the game, being that it wasn't televised locally. the pga tour is in town. what's this mean? exchanging 'hook 'em horns' and receiving a beer from one justin leonard. that was neat.)

the second game was even more awful...notre dame's just-completed 38-0 throttling at the handling of michigan. never has the offense of a supposed top 20 team been so ridiculously pathetic. note to ty willingham: you can't be hell-bent on abandoning an option attack and running some version of the west coast offense when your quarterback can't throw.

also, michigan's way good.

T-minus 14 hours until cubs playoff tickets go on sale. long live out of state phone numbers. wish me luck.



r.i.p. johnny cash...there will never again exist a voice so powerful.

it's job search time here in the 'port (it's always job search time here in the 'port) and, with nobody to check me, it's also over-inflated ego time.

i'm sitting here listening to 138-plus games worth of highlights and interviews and clean half-innings of work and it excites me. it's probably a problem, but every new snippet i hear, i think "damn. i'm good" or "i've gotta be the best ever. the best. ever." or "rud rules, chip drools."

it's probably not healthy, but it's nice to feel good about myself, y'know?

it's also nothing that a couple of rejection letters and unreturned phone calls won't solve.

another over-confidence-ilization came a few weeks ago, when i was talking to my mom. they had just returned from dropping my sister off at school, and had happened to come across a double-a radio broadcast on the way back. according to my mom, "[i'm] way better than the guy [they] heard." if that doesn't make a cover letter, i don't know what does.

woof.

atonal jesus lives! (one of you might understand what that means.)

i had to watch espn's playmakers tonight. i felt bad when i said "he's going to hit her" and then he hit her. it was so predictable, and so ridiculous. and i had to watch it...no choice in the matter at all.

that's all for tonight.

i used to be all high-falutin' and snobby and things like that but, when it comes right down to it, i really enjoy telecasts involving john madden. he says silly non-sensical things like (when joe jurevicius is throwing water on his face) "they say when it's cold you need to keep your head covered because that's where the heat gets out. well when you're hot the best thing to do is throw water on your head to get the cold in." it's silly and funny and it comes from our nation's premier authority on football and video games.

i also need to say that the debut of michael irvin on espn was outstanding. he's really quite informative, and arguably better-dressed than deion. he maintains a flashy appearance and delivery, but gave a lot of good information and a lot of well-conceived opinions. talking-head dumbasses like trev alberts or steve young could learn a lot from him.

raghib ismail (ex-irish great who officially goes by "rocket," not unlike the year that tim raines' baseball card said "rock raines"), meanwhile, left a lot to be desired. he was only on camera three times or so on the college football preview. a correspondent, not a host. all sizzle, no steak, baby. maybe he just needs more reps.

the bears were awful today. just awful. unwatchable awful. back-to-2000 awful. it should be a fun, fun season to watch. i know today wasn't his fault, but i just don't understand how john shoop still has a job. it's a fact that he's an idiot.

(also an idiot: tom thayer. owing to the fact that vikes-packers was still on fox locally, i listened to the first four minutes (and no more, gracias a dios) of the game on radio, and noticed that thayer insisted upon pronouncing any mildly difficult name completely incorrectly. prime examples: he pronounced terrell owens' name (correct: TAIR-ill) "terr-ELL" every time he referred to him, and insisted upon using the incorrect emphasis on the illustrious ahmad merritt's (correct: a-MAHD) name, referring to him as "AH-mid." even hub got those names right. and joniak was unlistenable and idiotic, per the normal.)

perhaps more importantly (only because nothing's really expected of the bank one bears this season anyway), willie's destroyers are bad, bad, bad. (willie's destroyers are my fantasy team.) it appears that the receivers (toomer and stallworth), defense (tennessee), and kicker (janikowski) should be good. so should my top running back (ah-MAN green). my tight end (sleeper choice billy miller) is alright. but my quarterbacks (holcomb and kordell) and number two running back (ladell betts) should prove horriffic. i was spanked today.

in other news, yesterday brought long-awaited conversation with the madison-bound (and redhothalos mega-fan...who knew?) steve weissfuck. congrats to steve. today brought the illustrious deedz, six hours ahead of schedule. it also brought embarrassment when i called the old phone number of old roomie ben: a male voice said "hello," i responded with "hellllooooo hahhhhhh-perrr," the male voice followed with "pardon me?" and i responded by hanging up.

and now i've downloaded cool edit pro, so i'm half-way to my bedroom pop masterpiece. all that's left is learning to play an instrument, and mastering my evocative speak-sing.

what does one do when one is experiencing one's first true weekend in more than five months? if that one is me, one spends the entire weekend - and i mean, halfway through, the entire weekend - on the couch, or somewhere else in my 400 square foot (approx.) apartment.

highlights include the disappointment that was flipping various channels only to find that the cubs weren't on tv and, therefore, spending about 45 minutes watching vh-1's i love the 70's. (note: while it doesn't hit home in any way close to the i love the 80's series, i love the 70's is nonetheless an outstanding production.) i also instructed my mother to do the same.

i then retired to my bedroom to listen to the radio broadcast of another cubs win. lovely, lovely thing.

today features waking up at 9:30 to catch the entirety of espn's college football show, followed by flipping channels from 11-11:30. at 11:30, i re-retire to my bedroom to bring up the 'cats webcast, and i spend the next three hours alternately hesitant, then thrilled, then hesitant, then sad, then miserable as the 'cats build their 21-7 lead only to lose 22-21.

i followed this by watching the irish (who, incidentally, were on a mini-tv while i listened to the 'cats) pull a beautiful, beautiful comeback, en route to their 29-26 ot victory. ugly, but victory. (i did fall asleep shortly after what i thought was the clinching touchdown, although i did awaken quickly enough to see state's overtime-forcing touchdown.)

i just watched roddick close down the semifinal win. (he almost lost it completely while down two-sets-to-none, cursing out the umpire and all - - he actually said "step up!" to him - - but picked up the five-set win.) i'll probably be rooting for him tomorrow.

however, i'll be rooting for him while not watching. go bears. i'll be cheering for the bears after watching the cubs tonight and after waking up promptly at 10 tomorrow to catch all of the espn preview show.

"live it up before you pass away"

pennant fever has caught me. as scott rolen was fielding a groundball in this evening's contest, i actually said, aloud, and loudly, "throw it away, shithead." i hope the cubs win, but they'd probably be one-round-and-done, anyway, right?

i had written about the impending hours and hours of moving and, indeed, today featured hours and hours of (unfinished) moving.

based on these experiences, i present two questions:
1.) is it okay to complain that none of the underlings (read: "...of the 'non-top two' ") had the time for a lunch break (which was experienced by the higher-ups)?

2.) furthermore, is it okay to complain that none of the top two, upon seeing strapping young lads moving desks and boxes and filing cabinets and things, ever said something like "i've ordered some pizzas...take a break" ?

(note: i wasn't going to complain until i sat down with a co-worker, a co-worker generally considered a loyal soldier, and he started griping about the lack of respect, or at least compensation, that we get from the higher-ups. opened my eyes. perhaps to potentially disastrous results.)

finally, when was the last time you had a kiwi? they're charging 25-cents per at the local grocery store, and i've binged over the last few days. i wonder if 25-cents per is a good price for kiwis.

today was one of the greatest overcast, too-cold monday afternoons i've ever been a part of. final game at our beautiful 73-year-old ballpark before a 14-million-dollar renovation project. an announced crowd of better than 5,000 packed the place, giving it a fitting and outstanding final sendoff. standing ovation for the victorious boys and all.

and now it is the offseason and, after hours and hours of moving boxes upon boxes from the stadium to our winter offices, it means some real weekends and some real time to catch my breath. i'll be cursing that off time by early november.

got to speak with gurs tonight. it's been far too long, and it was, i think, far too short.

and it capped a fine weekend, featuring mhb, sumo and stiffler. the plan is that tomorrow brings unstadt.