Tweedy for Veep

From Rolling Stone this month:

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The 2008 presidential election is a long ways away, but the Smoking Section offers an early endorsement for the Barack Obama/Jeff Tweedy ticket. The Illinois senator and the Wilco leader bonded at Farm Aid.

"If asked, I will run with him," says Tweedy. "It was great to meet a politician that can inspire some hope. We gave him some signed posters that read, 'See you at the inaugural ball!'"

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Can you even imagine?

Wikipedia: The Simpsons

An essential read for any Simpsons fan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_neologisms_on_The_Simpsons

My early favorites: assal horizontology, car hole, craptacular, and of course, boo-urns

Not goin' to Miami

It's funny how things go. I'm supposed to be, at this very moment, on a plane to Miami for a conference. I remain here is STL though, because of the effects of Wilma. Apparently, the airport there is shut down, and the hotel I was supposed to stay at is operating on a generator. I think it's probably better that it didn't happen.

In other news, the family reunion was excellent. I arrived Friday, met everyone downstairs in the hotel in a little function room we rented, had some drinks and a box supper. They really know how to do box suppers here in the midwest. I caught up with a bunch of my relatives. Then after that, some of us went out into the Plaza, which is a shmansy shopping/eating/drinking area of Kansas City, the first shopping center in the country as I was told. We ended up at a bar owned by George Brett, former Kansas City Royals star. After a few drinks, back to the hotel.

The next day, everyone gathered down in the lobby for FREE BREAKFAST. This concept is apparently a really big deal, as the entire world showed up for the complimentary bagels and mini boxes of cereal. Except me. I had no idea. There I was, up in my room, watching free HBO, while people were living it up downstairs. Well that's just great. But I did get lunch, which was the big event of the weekend. First there were pictures outside with various groups of relatives, made rather unpleasant by the cold. Then the champagne toasts and mini speeches and the lunch. After a nap, I came back down to the lobby, where a number of my relatives had gathered and were drinking wine. With the weather outside becoming more unpleasant, the decision was made to order California Pizza Kitchen, take over the lobby, and watch the World Series. This was certainly amenable to me. I think people going by were wondering what was going on, with all of our food and wine bottles and people spread out everywhere.

The next day I did obtain free breakfast. And it was all I had imagined. There were many goodbyes and then I drove my family to the airport. It was short and sweet, but always great to see my family.

A family affair

Kia's sisters have been in town since Tuesday, which has been great, but I'm leaving tomorrow for a family reunion of my own in Kansas City. It's a reunion of my mom's family, as well as my grandparent's 60th anniversary. Out of here till Sunday!

Move the bagel

-The IM flag football season continues on, with the requisite forfeits here and there by other teams who don't bother showing up. My team (Chan's Olives; see this post for a partial explanation) I guess is now 4-0, considering only two guys from the other team showed up today. Instead of playing them, we scrimmaged against a different team who all, strangely, just happened to be there. Of course, since it wasn't an official IM game, the refs took all their equipment and went home. Or somewhere else. They didn't stick around is the point. Anyway, usually the refs will use a bright orange plastic hockey puck to indicate where the play begins, and they'll move it up the field as the team on offense moves the ball and gets first downs. Today during our scrimmage, we were without the use of the puck. Instead, someone found a half-eaten bagel on the ground, and we used that. So on offense, we frequently encouraged each other to "Move the bagel".

-Kia has become my new hair stylist. She cuts my hair under the name Scissors McGee. Catchy, no? The other day when she was partially done cutting it, she looked at me and just began laughing. I don't know much about hair styling, but I know that it's not good when your hair dresser starts laughing at the current state of your head. Anyway, Scissors McGee is very good, and all my visits so far have been free.

-Off to the ballet tonight. The Houston Ballet, that is. Getting tickets from our friend, Kelly, who works for Dance St. Louis. We'll probably try to see "Wicked" when it comes in November.

Hate to burst your bubble...

I find this site pretty amusing. This guy (or girl, I don't know) puts up thought bubbles on signs and billboards, waits for passersby to fill them in, then photographs them.

Enjoy.

http://www.thebubbleproject.com/

It's been quite a ride.

It's funny, now that I think about it, I haven't felt like this for two years. Game 7, Aaron Boone.

Since then, it's been magical, a roller coaster ride, and one that you knew would always turn out ok. It's been an incredible three-year stretch, if you think about it. 5 outs from the World Series in 2003. THE YEAR in 2004. Then a nailbiter to get into the playoffs this year. But it ended a little sooner than we thought it would.

I didn't feel the magic this time. Lightning doesn't strike twice. Too many mistakes, not enough firepower. They were outplayed. I'll hand it to Chicago, the better team won.

Shortly after it ended, Kia started singing "Obla Di, Obla Da, Life Goes On". Whether that was on purpose or simply coincidental, I'll never know.

Thanks, boys. Hell of a season.

Last chance, boys

"Must-win" is such an over-used term. Let's just say it like this, Sox (of the red variety, not the white; that almost sounds like a Billy Joel song): if you don't win I'm becoming a Devil Rays fan.

You laugh. But mark my words, pretty soon they're going to do to all of baseball what they did to the AL East this year, which is wreak havoc and make a lot of noise. And if the Beantown Bombers lose today, that's where I'm headed. Because there are no expectations with the Rays. Anything they can manage is good enough. I mean, they're named after what, some marine animal that looks like an underwater flying squirrel. They're entire payroll is about the size of Jeter's wallet. They're the ultimate underdogs in a division that is designed to destroy teams like them. They could be really fun to watch.

But seriously, folks, let's not get swept. We've done it before, let's do it again.

Doctor Doctor

And for you med school types, or types who are considering med school, there's this helpful blog:

http://ahyesmedschool.blogspot.com/

Sox versus Sox

I like this. We've got them right where we want them. Down 0-1 in the series? No problem. Losing 14-2? Pssshhht. Big whoop. If there's one thing I've learned from following baseball all these years, it's that a team who scores a bajillion runs in one game inevitably gets about 1 the next game. It's the laws of physics. Or regression to the mean. Or some such scientifically plausible explanation that will soothe my Sox psyche (nice alliteration).

Game 2 tonight. Wells on the hill. Let's even this series up.

File not Found!

On these blogspot.com blogs, you can look up in the upper right-hand corner and push the "Next Blog" button. It takes you to another, completely random unrelated blog. But it's interesting, because sometimes you stumble on really interesting things. Well, I'm not sure if this counts, but I just really got a kick out of it. It was an image on a random blog I stumbled across from Taiwan.




I just really love that the "File not Found" message can be portrayed as a girl with orange hair chasing another girl/boy with green hair who is riding some sort of dog/wolf/Neverendingstory creature.