Let's talk, briefly, about the greatest prank I've ever perpetrated. I don't perpetrate a lot of pranks, and I de-perped this one after about 16 hours, but it was still a fantastic prank. Or, joke. Or, something. Not a prank, I guess.
So, it takes place last week at work.
A few months ago, a friend of mine was down in the CHI for the Pitchfork Music Fest. He noticed everyone's favorite Canadian rock star, Carl "A.C." Newman. Bandleader. Rock star. Dude with tremendous resemblance to yours truly.
See? (It was down for a few days. See, now?)
See? Scary, right?
So, last week, after The New Pornographers came up in conversation (well, they didn't so much "come up," as I brought them up), I pointed out the resemblance to another friend. He was stunned.
And it was decided - let's be creepy, and add a picture of myself (well, A.C. Newman, but, to many, me, though with worse teeth) to my computer desktop background.
I did it at about noon. Two people were in on the joke. By 12:25, I got my first double-take from someone not in the know. By 4, the prank was being perpetrated.
Actual email exchange, after Coworker X - one of my favorites, and one of those that I know pretty well - had seen my computer while sitting at someone else's desk:
From: Coworker X
To: Me
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 4:02 P.M.
Subject: Your Background
Is that you on your computer's background?
- - - -
From: Me
To: Coworker X
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 4:05 P.M.
Subject: re: Your Background
Yup. Pretty sweet, eh?
- - - -
From: Coworker X
To: Me
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 4:11 P.M.
Subject: re: Your Background
Other than the fact that I think it's the first time I've ever seen anyone use a picture of them self as a background (that's a little vain), yeah it's pretty sweet.
Do you sing in some band that I'm not aware - a Goober tribute maybe? (ed: Detroit early 90's cowpunk Goober & the Peas, who in latest incarnations featured Jack "White" Gillis on drums)
- - - -
From: Me
To: Coworker X
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 4:30 P.M.
Subject: re: Your Background
Indie rock covers, dude. GbV. Pavement. White Stripes. We're King Shit & the Golden Boys, after a GbV record.
- - - -
From: Coworker X
To: Me
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 5:11 P.M.
Subject: re: Your Background
Are you really in a band?
Around here?
Are you cooler than I had pegged you for?
- - - -
From: Me
To: Coworker X
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 5:18 P.M.
Subject: re: Your Background
I thought you pegged me as cool. Guess not.
College friends - we play a few weekends a month in Chicago and Evanston and the suburbs.
Never played up here - [local bar] sucks, and there's not really the audience.
- - - -
From: Coworker X
To: Me
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 5:20 P.M.
Subject: re: Your Background
Well, I just had you at a 10, no I find out you could be an 11? I don't know.
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It was awesome. I admitted my deception Wednesday morning but, for 16 glorious hours, I was a indie rock covers band rock star. I can't sing.
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Briefly, now, The New Pornographers record, Challengers, is boring. I guess the opener, "My Rights Versus Yours" is nice enough, as is the second song, "All The Old Showstoppers." But even those, relative "standouts" on the record, are pretty boring. Slow. Boring.
Neko is absolutely wasted on her two leads, painfully slow songs "Challengers," which is the third track, and "Go Places," which both plod and drag and, well, suck. The new fulltime member, Katherine Calder ("Neko-lite," kind of), is boring on "Failsafe," and Newman lead "Unguided" is a six-minute song that hits some sort of stride at about two minutes, but really isn't worth six minutes.
So, yeah, the point is that the best song on the record, by a lot, is "Mutiny, I Promise You," which is the tenth track. "All The Things That Go To Make Heaven and Earth" is pretty solid, too, though the second-best song is probably Dan Bejar's "Myriad Harbour," only because of the lyric:
Bejar: I said to John, "Do you think the girls here..."
Everyone: "e-ver won-der how they got so pret-ty?"
Bejar: Well, I do.
But, you know, Dan Bejar songs shouldn't be the second-best songs on New Pornos records, because it's really Carl Newman's thing, and Carl Newman is fantastically talented. Awesome. He's super. But he's boring this time, and it's just too bad.
I don't even know why he got so boring on this record. Because he got boring.
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Nemo made fun of me for calling CJ Bacher an All Big Ten candidate.
Here's the logic:
1) He moved the ball, a fair amount, as the starter.
2) Nobody else is back. Henne is. Juice Williams and his 36% pass success rate. Curtis Painter is back. Anthony Morelli is back. So, you see, the quarterback play isn't that good. CJ Bacher, however, is good.
This is not my Northwestern football preview. Aiming for Wednesday or Thursday on that. This is, however, why I like CJ Bacher.
I also forgot to mention Brendan Smith, who's pretty much fantastic, as an all-conference candidate.
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Let's talk briefly about the Big Ten Network. I want the Big Ten Network. Currently, the Big Ten website seems to be proudly touting that Comcast is "Unlikely" to Carry the BTN at Launch, though it's having 'productive' discussions with the other four major cable carriers in the Midwest, of which I'm a customer of one.
There's a reasonable argument for putting BTN on the expanded basic package, being that it's of more general interest than, say, (I think) G4 or Versus network (now that Lance is gone), and that it's "kind of" local programming.
The other argument is that, well, I don't know if 11 days of live football and 30something days of live men's basketball justify the rest of the programming that'll likely suck. I don't know. I just want the ability to pay my seven bucks and watch the Cats on TV from home, rather than paying the 20 bucks to sit at Hooters while trying to cut out my own little corner of the bar, attempting to properly watch in peace. (My Bears bar of choice from last season is now, sadly, closed.)
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I was highly productive in my final bonus three-day weekend of the summer. Out for a beer or two Thursday night. A dentist appointment (I need my first career filling, which is just embarrassing) and a cheap, Par 3 course round of golf with a coworker Friday morning. Some cleaning. A grocery store trip Saturday morning, then drinking myself into bolivian with a friend Saturday night. Some cleaning. A crappy round of golf with the same friend Sunday afternoon, perhaps crappy due to having drank myself into bolivian Saturday night.
I'll miss 'bonus' three-day weekends, though I won't miss departing for work at 6:50.
Plus, I've got back-to-back three-day weekends coming anyway. A week from Friday - Tigs-Mariners will be great.
(Also, Cubs-Brewers, starting tomorrow night, will be pretty great, too.)
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Michael Vick did a good job of apologizing. His actions are pretty evil, but at least he seemed contrite and didn't blame anybody and didn't say "mistakes were made" or "I apologize to those who were offended." He said "I'm sorry. I made mistakes. I'll learn from this." (Though he brought Jesus into it, which is annoying.)
It seems like he's getting more punishment than Ray Lewis, who, you know, murdered a person, and I don't think that's fair, really.
I've got ESPN Monday Night Football on in the background right now, and I think Tony and Mike and Jaws will be eminently awesome this year. It's nice when you have people that like each other in the booth.
And Tony ripped the NFL for not letting the players talk about Mike Vick today, a nice stand to take, I think. It's gutsy, maybe stupid, for him to rip the NFL, after all.
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