Uh oh.

As Tim posted, the wrecking crew is heading west to Iowa City for the Illinois vs. Iowa game. Large amounts of alcohol, bad judgement, and antics are sure to follow. Let's hope everyone makes it back alive and without any arrests.

Filed in: weekend

Cubs: Yes it is this bad.

I was posed this question yesterday which was supposedly on WGN radio.

Who is closer to seeing the Cubs last world series win?
A person born today or Thomas Jefferson.

Ugh.

Filed in: baseball cubs pathetic disappointing

Fiona tells an 'Extraordinary' tale

Fiona Apple tells the real story behind the delay of her highly anticipated next album
Extraordinary Machines.

I've heard the John Brion (who has previously worked with Aimee Mann and Kanye West) version and thought it was excellent and could not fathom how the people at Epic could shelve an album that good. She dispells that rumor and a few more as we get ready for the albums release next Tuesday. You can stream the "official" album which ended up being produced by Mike Elizondo here.

Filed in: music recommended fionaapple

7 Habits...

Funny McSweeney's list of the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People.

Filed in: funny mcsweeneys list snarky

Danger Doom

I've been telling a lot of you guys that the MF Doom/DJ Danger Mouse collaboration The Mouse and the Mask is the best hip-hop album of the year. Get it when it drops on October 11th.

Check out the loosie interview (part I) and the free mp3 downloads from Epitaph Records.

Filed in: music recommended mfdoom dangerdoom rap

Bears: Monday Morning Quarterback - Week 3

Geezus, some one forgot to tell Kyle Orton the Bears were in the dark jerseys.

This is late getting out again (damn epic weekends) so I'll keep it short.

The D looked good on the whole but WTF is up with Peanut? He is consistently getting beat deep and not making the type of strides you would expect out of someone with his talent. When you turn the ball over 6 times you are going to lose.

Thomas Jones continues get it done running the ball and played well enough on Sunday to keep Cedric Benson on the bench. His third straight 100 yard+ game to open the season and is clearly a driven individual this year.

I am not really suprised that Orton had a terrible game. The Bengals have a strong D that is playing as good as any in the NFL and they threw alot of different looks at him. The upside is that Orton never seemed to lose his cool and he still made a lot of big league throws that shows promise. I am glad the staff didn't bench him and let him try and work through the rough patch. I have seen enough crappy, no talent, ass clowns take snaps for the Bears over the last couple years and have seen enough of Jeff Blake to last me a life time.

Filed in: football bears nfl sports recap

Recommended: Not For Tourists Guide to Chicago

Not For Tourists produce incredibly useful city guides for people who, um, aren't tourists. They just launched a Chicago guide and if you want to know where stuff like banks, pharmacies, grocery stores, etc are and not just the landmarks and touristy stuff this is the guide for you.

The entire guide is available for download in pdf form from the website for free (registration required) but you can buy a nicely bound version of this online or in Borders for a nominal fee.

Here are some sample maps to check out:
Lincoln Park Essentials (follow link)
Lincoln Park Sundries/Entertainment (follow link)

Filed in: chicago guide useful maps info resource recommended

Open Up and Say Ahhh

But the big thing I had, I came up with Jägerettes. I thought a pretty girl can always help you selling, and I noticed that one girl I had in California would go to 80 tables in a room and say, Open your mouth. She asked, Would you like a Jägermeister? And 80% of 'em said yes.

Inc. has a Q&A with Sidney Frank who is the man responsible for importing Jägermeister to the US.

Filed in: heroes jagermeister brands booze business

Stat and Research Junkies Rejoice

With the success of Tradesports and the Iowa Electronic Markets and huge amount of money being generated by fantasy sports leagues, it is no suprise that something like ProTrade would come along and offer something that blends prediction markets with fantasy sports. Currently ProTrade only handles football players but is apparently working on offering equity shares of NBA and MLB players. So for those stat obsessed, Moneyball loving, freakonomics junkies this should be your thing.

via Marginal Revolution

Filed in: markets nfl football economics interesting fantasysports

Bears: Monday Morning Quarterback - Week 2

Belated recap so it'll be a quickie.

Huge turn around from week one. This week the Bears hit on all the three keys to success: ran the ball (37 carries for 187 yards), stifled the run (18 carries for 29 yards), and played great special teams (242 return yards, punt return for TD). Any time your team scores on offense, defense, and special teams chances are you are going to win the game. A lot of the credit for this win has to go to the defense though. 5 picks, 2 sacks and a lot of hurries showed the Bears can really amp up the pressure and take over games.

Side note: I had a celebration dinner with the Bears at Gibson's afterwards. Well, they were celebrating the win and I was celebrating my sister's birthday but details, details. Players on hand were Lance Briggs, Nate Vasher, Tommie Harris (ankle didn't seem to bother him), Ian Scott, Peanut Tillman, Alex Brown, and we had a special appearance by Nomar who sat down at Vasher's table.

Game balls go to:
Thomas Jones (20 car - 139 yds)
Nate Vasher (2 INT, 4 PD, 1 Tackle, sweet-ass Biggie shirt at Gibson's afterward)
Muhsin Muhammad (6 catches - 81 yds, 1 TD)
Defense (6 pts, 29 yds rushing, 5 turnovers)

Filed in: football bears nfl sports recap

Yikes.

It probably really isn't that awesome when you are still recovering from a weekend on a Tuesday.

Packed a lot of crap into the last weekend. Highlights: Sufjan show, golf, Iowa football win, huge Bears win, birthday dinner for my sister Sunday. Lowlights: had to be the How to Win Friends & Influence People seminar I held sponsored by Jagermeister and Red Bull on Saturday night.

Filed in: weekend recap

Now it all makes sense...

I was just saying the other day that a lot of the logos that were being used for sports teams and events all basically looked the same stylistically. If I was smart I would have made the connection and realized they came from the same dude.

via kottke

Filed in: brands sports culture design logos

Vonnegut Sets Those Damn Liberals Straight

Kurt Vonnegut's appearence on the Daily Show was excellent. Here is the list of liberal crap he never wants to hear again. I agree Kurt. NO MERCY!

LIBERAL CRAP I NEVER WANT TO HEAR AGAIN

Give us this day our daily bread. Oh sure.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those wh trespass against us.
Nobody better trespass against me. I'll tell you that.

Blessed are the meek.

Blessed are the merciful. You mean we can't use torture?

Blessed are the peacemakers. Jane Fonda?

Love your enemies - Arabs?

Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. The hell I can't! Look at the Reverand Pat Robertson. And He is as happy as a pig in s**t.

I still can't fathom why half of this country gets the joke and irony in that list and the other half doesn't.

Filed in: politics irony vonnegut dailyshow sad

God Bless Bloc Party

Saw Bloc Party yesterday night with Tim (his review here) at the woefully awful sounding Congress Theater. Kele, dressed in a home Jordan jersey pictured above, had apparently lost his voice and mentioned that he was struggling a few times between songs but honestly if he didn't mention it I would have thought it was just the crappy acoustics. This is the second time that I've seen them this year (saw them at the Metro right when Silent Alarm dropped) and while the vocals were better the first time (read: audible) the band sounded much better last night musically.

Bloc Party isn't going to wow you with complicated arrangements, soul touching lyrics, or big artistic statements. That isn't what they are about. They are a power pop rock band that brings big guitar hooks, tons of energy and makes you want to sing along with every song on the album. I think the reason that most people who like music scoff at power pop is that most of the time the bands aren't very tight, there isn't any cohesion in their sound, and they give off the impression that most of the time they are mailing it in. This isn't the case with Bloc Party and it showed last night.

Highlights of the Show:
This Modern Love->Like Eating Glass->Little Thoughts sequence
Plans

Image via maju6406's flickr stream.

Filed in: music blocparty review

Ear Candy

Some of you might already know this but 2005 has not been a hot time for my personal electronics. Over the last 4 or 5 months I've lost/broken/had fail : 30Gb iPod, iBook, numerous HDD's in my desktop, cellphone, digital camera, and car radio.

The loss that affected me most has been my iPod. There has been a ton of good music that has been released and that I've acquired but haven't had a chance to listen to more than a few times. This usually results in me simply forgetting about it and then stumbling across it later when my playlist on my Shuffle is stale.

The reason I mention this is because, even though I bought the album when it was released, I've finally gotten around to giving The White Stripes Get Behind Me Satan a thorough listening and I was left with one question. Why haven't I flipped out about this album and blabber on about this band to everyone I know? Get Behind me Satan has a strange duality about it. The expansion of their sound and song writing shows growth but the refinement of their bluesy-punk guitar and drum dynamic keeps them from having to ditch what makes the band unique.

Favorite tracks:
The Denial Twist
My Doorbell

Filed in: music recommended whitestripes

Bears: Monday Morning Quarterback - Week 1

Suprise, suprise. Third consective opening week loss and fifth out of the last six.

I knew we were going to struggle on offense but geezus. It is easy to point to the three consecutive penalties by some of our most veteran O-linemen and a couple key turnovers killed us but I think the problem for both sides of the ball lied in the running game.

Ex-Bear and local sports talk show host Doug Buffone always hammers home his three keys to winning in the NFL: Run the ball, stop the run, and play great special teams. This match up was a text book example illustrating this formula. Unfortunately it was the Redskins using it rather than the Bears.


Running the Ball
18 carries? Total? The Bears are the first team starting a rookie quarterback opening day since the 1960's. The game is on the road. The game is against a potential top five defense in the entire league. Any one of the previous statements should have been enough to merit a game plan that looked like the forward pass hadn't been invented yet. The fact that all three of these conditions were present for yesterdays game and the Bears only managed to muster 18 total carries for 41 yards is unfathomable.

Admittedly the O-line didn't look too stellar on the running plays that were called. The Redskins D-line got a lot of penetration on the run plays and I noticed Olin Kruetz getting blown back into the back field on more than a few occasions. This should not be the case with one of our supposed strengths on offense.

The top-ten rushers in the NFL on Sunday played on teams that won. That isn't a coincidence. If we are going to win games this year we need to see Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson amongst those leaders.


Stopping the Run
Clinton Portis owns the Bears. The fact that averages 152 yards/game against the Bears makes this a pretty obvious point. It should have been obvious that the Redskins were going to rely on him very heavily to make up for the complete lack of a passing attack. So 21 carriers and 121 yards later we are left wondering how we let them do this to us. It is only one game and I am not willing to count out the Bears D yet (3 sacks, 1 FF, 1 INT, 6 PD), but the fact that we were facing a one-dimensional Redskin team that we had an entire training camp to prepare for and we still weren't able to force them to beat us with the pass does not bode well for a team that is going to rely heavily on its' defense to keep competitive.

Seven out of the top ten rushing defenses last week were winners.


Special Teams
Three punts within the 20 and not much else. Nothing too exciting. Didn't lose the game for us but didn't particularly standout and definitely wasn't a difference maker.

Overall Orton played about as expected (mediocre), The Moose is definitely a stud receiver and we are going to have to find a way to limit our mistakes. I was throughly disappointed by our O-line play and rush defense. The Lions are coming off of an impressive win against the Pack. We'll need more than 166 total yards total offense and a better effort by our D to limit the opportunities the Lions have to distribute the ball to a pretty good set of skill players.

Filed in: football bears nfl sports

It was a CELEBRATION bitches!

Ah, we were due for an epic weekend around these parts for a while. The fact that it came when the local wrecking crew was shorthanded from end of the season travel serves to highlight just how good it was. I would just like to take a moment to thank a few people for help making this weekend a success:

Tim - for being ready to scramble the fighters and head off any potential conflicts of interest. Thankfully we didn't need to.

GRide's woman - thanks for the kind words.

R - for having another deck party and living across the street from some hot trixie ass.

Sedgwick's - for providing an endless supply of gameday buckets of beer. We'll over look the fact that you stopped filling them with ice. Nobody really noticed you stopped trying anyway.

Last and certainly not least, God - the fact that you made hot, 22 year old, ex-soriority girls who aren't afraid of the Jager bomb really does show that you love mankind. Big ups.

Filed in: weekend awesome

This strikes me as odd

Does anyone else find the Jordan brand on appareal for other sports a little bit odd.

The Jumpman is unquestionably one of the most easily recognizable logos of all time but I think that on non-basketball shoes it looks out of place.

I would love to see the market research and how the various demographics respond to the logo being used for the non-basketball sports.

Filed in: brands nike jumpman sports marketing consume culture

Mix Disc Scavenger Hunt

I stumbled across these 20 Questions that circulated a long time ago related to music and thought it would be fun to fill it out.

1. Your favorite song with the name of a city in the title or text.
Chicago - Sufjan Stevens

2. A song you've listened to repeatedly when you were depressed at
some point in your life.
We Never Change by Coldplay

3. Ever bought an entire album just for one song and winded up
disliking everything but that song? Gimme that song.
Swingin' - Tom Petty off of Echo

4. A song whose lyrics you thought you knew in the past, but about
which you later learned you were incorrect.
Yellow Ledbetter by Pearl Jam

5. Your least favorite song on one of your favorite albums of all time.
Death Of An Interior Decorator by Death Cab For Cutie off Transatlanticism

6. A song you like by someone you find physically unattractive or
otherwise repellent.
Dopeshow by Marilyn Manson

7. Your favorite song that has expletives in it that's not by Liz
Phair or any rapper.
Uncle Fucker by Terrance and Philip

8. A song that sounds as if it's by someone British but isn't.
Jenny was a Friend of Mine by The Killers

9. A song you like (possibly from your past) that took you forever to
finally locate a copy of.
Good Thing by Fine Young Cannibals

10. A song that reminds you of spring but doesn't mention spring at all.
Saint Simon by The Shins

11. A song that sounds to you like being happy feels.
I've Got the World on a String by Frank Sinatra

12. Your favorite song from a non-soundtrack compilation album.
Blunt Picket Fence by Giant Drag

13. A song from your past that would be considered politically
incorrect now (and possibly was then).
Cop Killer by Body Count

14. A song sung by an overweight person.
Explosivo by Tenacious D

15. A song you actually like by an artist you otherwise hate.
Toxic by Britney Spears

16. A song by a band that features three or more female members.
One Beat by Sleater-Kinney

17. One of the earliest songs that you can remember listening to.
Jump by Van Halen

18. A song you've been mocked by friends for liking.
Cry Me A River by Justin Timberlake (Rightfully so. This is decidedly not hetero.)

19. A really good cover version you think no one else has heard.
More than a Feeling covered by Sleater-Kinney

20. A song that has helped cheer you up (or empowered you somehow)
after a breakup or otherwise difficult situation.
Helplessly Hoping by Crosby, Stills, and Nash

Extra tracks, if you have more room:
21. A song you've listened to while fucking/masturbating.
Crystal Ship by The Doors

AND/OR
22. A song not in English.
99 Luftballons by Nina

Pandora is the goods...

There is a new service out called Pandora by the Music Genome Project that provides a pretty innovative way of finding new music.

The Music Genome Project has spent the last 5 years analyzing the musical qualities of approximately 10,000 songs breaking the songs down to its musical attributes (they call them "genes") such as melody, harmony, intrumentation, arrangement, lyrics and orchestration and pieced together a "genome".

The Pandora service takes any number of artists or songs you provide as inputs and outputs a stream of music based of the genes of those inputs thanks to the genome. I've enter in a bunch of obscure songs and artists that I've been checking out lately and I haven't stumped the system yet. It is definitely worth checking out.

Filed in: music recommended service cool