I caught you a delicious bass

Napoleon Dynamite Festival! And in Belleville, no less, home of Uncle Tupelo.

And I MISSED IT.

Man, I could have used one of those sweet cash prizes.

Jeter

I KNEW there was a reason to hate the Yankees.

I'm in this contest, whereby I hope to make myself $100,000 richer, and my streak is up to 3 games now. I know, huge. And so I figure, hey, Derek Jeter will probably get at least one hit today, I'll pick him. Dude doesn't do a thing. I think he walked about 3 times, which does me no good. Just when I'm rooting for him (and it felt so wrong, let me tell you), he comes up short. So now my streak is back to 0.

Man, this whole getting $100,000 thing is hard.

Table 9 - on Broadway

Another movie-turned-musical: The Wedding Singer.

As long as they keep Billy Idol in it, it's ok by me.

The Pope Final Four

It's your very own Pope brackets!

So you can (or could) keep track of all the fast-paced action...the upsets...the overtime thrillers!

Ok, it's little dated by now, plus I lifted it from infinitedriveway. But I got a kick out of it anyway.

I like that somehow, in some way, Duke made it to the Sweet 16. Damn you, Duke.

My plan to win $100,000

Since the grad school stipend just isn't cutting it anymore, I've devised a way to make myself wealthy with very little effort, courtesy of mlb.com. They're running a contest, whereby if you manage to pick a player (any player) who will get a hit that day for 57 straight games, you win $100,000. It seems deceptively simple, right. Just pick a guy who will get a hit. 57 games in a row. And it can be someone different every night. Well, my streak is currently at 1. I bet that Carlos Beltran would get a hit on Monday, and he came through for me. Last night, I thought Bill Mueller would get at least one. Unfortunately, he sat on the bench, so it doesn't count, but the streak does not end. Nope, it's alive and well, at a whopping 1 game. Tonight, I put my faith in Chipper Jones of the Atlanta Braves. So far, he's 0-3. But I have faith. I have to have faith. Look at the team I follow!

I invite anyone who's interested to try it. We can see who gets the longest steak, just for bragging rights. It's actually sort of addicting, once you realize that there's a chance, although slight, to actually win tons of cash. And it's all in your hands.

WORST. BASKETBALL. TEAMS. EVER.

I love lists like this. They tend to make you feel better about your hometown team. And if your current team really sucks, it shows there's hope. Look at some of the teams on there: the Mavericks, Heat, and Nuggets are all serious contenders now, unlike back then. I mean come on, Mavs: 20 wins in two years ('92-'94)?? Ouch.

The kids aren't alright

If there's one thing that will keep me from wanting to have kids for as long as possible, it's watching other peoples' totally misery in handling their own. Exhibit A: those Nanny reality shows. Family is in a crisis. House is out of control. Kids run the show. Mom is overworked. Dad is unhelpful. Everything is chaos. British (or British-sounding) Nanny comes in to save the day. Simply watching one hour of one of those shows is enough for me. Kia and I will just gawk, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, at the horror that these kids put their parents through. It's like watching a car wreck. To those of you who have these little bundles of joy: I salute you.

Weekend Update

On Saturday, Kia and I saw a production of "Into the Woods" at Wash U. Some pretty good stuff, particularly the sets. Definitely better than the version my 8th grade class did. For example, their cow actually looked like...a cow. Ours, unfortunately, did not. And in this version, Cinderella's mother was played by someone who could conceivably be believed to be Cinderella's mother, as opposed to our version, in which Cinderella's mother was played by a 14-year-old boy. I guess we were going for the whole Elizabethan theater approach, with young boys playing women's roles. Yeah. But it was nice to see the show again and hear the music.

Yesterday, being a gorgeous day, we decided to do what any logical person would do on such a day: play mini golf. Mini golf is the same as putt-putt, for those of you who are confused. Unfortunately, we did not keep score, so I'll never know if I avenged my crushing defeat from this summer in Maine, but I know I had one hole-in-one, and she had none, so there. And I got a hole-in-one on the last hole, too, which won me a free round of mini golf and a free mini concrete from Ted Drewes. Ted Drewes is a famous frozen custard place here, and a concrete is frozen custard with a bunch of stuff mixed in. It's pretty much people's favorite thing here, besides BBQ. So after my mini golf triumph, I decided to give the batting cages a shot. I went for the 60 MPH cage, not too slow but not blisteringly fast. The first go around was pretty lame. I swung and missed a lot, and pretty much just gave myself a blister. But after some adjustments, I was able to give a few good cracks. I almost hit the "Cubs Stink" sign too. I wonder if I would have won anything for that? I was feeling pretty good about myself, until a girl about 12 years old came into the cage after me. That robbed me of any dignity I may have had up until that point.

And tomorrow is Kia's birthday. 25. I figure after the ring, I'm pretty much set for a while, but I thought I might get a clown to come to the door and sing happy birthday or something. What, bad idea?

Oh, and it's Opening Day at Fenway. Sox are 2-4. But they get their World Series rings today, right under the Yankees' noses. It's a long season. Don't panic. In the interest of preventing this from being the first official Red Sox Rant of the year, I'll stop here.

More stuff I didn't say

Part two in the series on people (or internet robots) who use my name to post cheesy aphorisms (I'm not positive what an aphorism is) on various websites. The latest postings (that are credited to "Bonner-Jackson, Aaron" but that I had nothing to do with):

-"It is only the most intelligent and the most stupid who are not susceptible to change."

-"The world is a beautiful book for those who can read it."

-"The meaning of life is that it stops." (NO! IT'S NOT!!! Oh, wait.....maybe it is. I think I just had a moment).

-"I can't understand why a person will take a year to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars." (Well said, pseudo-me).

-"Have no friends not equal to yourself." (This one was on www.the-leaky-cauldron.org, a site for discussing upcoming Harry Potter books.....wha????)

-"A brute kills for pleasure. A fool kills from hate."

Someday, things that I really say will be on the interweb. Like what I'm saying right now. And now. And all this stuff too.

Georgia on my mind

Well, it looks like I'm getting out at just the wrong time. Or just the right time, depending on who you ask. Just as the Final Four is settling into our fair city, I'm off to Savannah, GA (home of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil), for the International Congress on Schizophrenia Research. I leave Saturday and will be there until Tuesday. Maybe I'll see some tall people in the airport on my way back.

And I've got North Carolina winning in all three of my pools. Unfortunately, there's no money riding on any of them.

And I have this feeling that the college slam dunk and 3 point contest was at Wash U last night. No confirmation on this, but just a feeling I have for some reason.