5/31/2007

 

LL Cool Yadi

I often wonder who Girls Who are Cardinal Fans (G-WHORES, if you will) like more: Yadi or So Taguchi. I honestly can't explain it, but nearly every G-WHORE I have met has a tremendous crush on either So or Jaddee.

Why Joe Pettini gets no love is beyond me.

Anyway, I sent out an e-mail to some G-WHORES (if you can't tell, I really enjoy typing that) yesterday breaking the bad news that Yad is going to be riding the pine for the next six week, out with a broken left wrist. And I got an e-mail back form my friend Erin, who writes:

"With Yadi's broken wrist, he may need some help jerking off...should I send out an offer?"

Yowza.

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5/25/2007

 

Hearting Long Weekends Since 1904

Nothing for today, really. Tis the dawn of a holiday 'ender and Al's already spent? This cannot be a sign of good.

Anyways; Just wanted to wish a happy travels to my buddy Pat as he starts off on his long weird move to Montana. This town wont be the same without his tiny, tiny head around anymore.

I'm off to Memphis for the weekend. If any of you smart, sexy readers are wise in the ways of our neighbor to the South (Memphis), feel free to drop of a recommendation in thy comments.

Memphis! Yeah!

[have a great memorial, everybody. remember what this weekend is all 'bout: drinking canned beers and listening to the allman brothers.]

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5/24/2007

 

Your Thursday Time Waster

I am a huge nerd. This is pretty well established: I like things like history, cooking, computer networks, literature, and video games. I also like maps. Yes, that's right maps. And that is why I love google maps.

I wasted two hours of worky time yesterday looking at maps. Maps of what? Stuff. What stuff? (Jesus, man what's with all the fucking questions?) Stuff like:

Checking out all of the sporting arenas in Mexico City.

Wondering what year google thinks it is in St Louis (that's got to be from like '03, right? Step it up google.)

Checking in on the detainees in Gitmo (I'm pretty surprised this one isn't blacked out, actually.)

Seeing what those sneaky Russians are up to (the answer? No good.)

Wishing I was chilling with a mojito at this dudes house right now.

Looking for my wallet that I lost in Cartagena (there it is!)

So, anyway, yeah. That's a timewaster.

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5/23/2007

 

PUI?

West Peoria woman allegedly started fight

PEORIA - An intoxicated West Peoria woman was arrested Sunday after allegedly punching another woman in the face and yelling racial slurs.

Peoria County sheriff's deputies were called about 2:40 a.m. to the 600 block of Western Avenue about a fight involving four women.

When they arrived, they found Roxanne N. York, 20, 1322 N. Stever Ave., sitting on the ground, yelling racial epithets at three African-American women, according to police reports.

York reportedly walked out in front of traffic on Western, prompting her victim to stop to check on York's welfare. York allegedly grew angry at the driver, and after opening the passenger side door, started punching her female passenger in the face.

The driver and another passenger pulled York off their friend and called police.

When asked about the incident, York allegedly swore at the deputy, who placed her in his squad car. There, she urinated¹ and repeatedly banged her head and kicked the safety glass in the back of the car.

The deputy had to spray York with pepper spray to get her to settle down.

York was taken to the Peoria County Jail and booked on charges of vehicle invasion, aggravated battery, disorderly conduct, pedestrian under the influence of alcohol² and improper walking on highway.

¹ Awesome.
² Seriously? Pedestrian under the influence? Two thoughts: 1) How have I never got one of these before? 2) How are drunk people supposed to get home? They can't drive. They can't ride a bike. And now they can't walk. I see two solutions: 1 or 2.

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5/22/2007

 

FYI

New cartoon series starting over at the ol' Cards blog.

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A Gripe

Shame on you.

Shame on each and every one of you.

I've been blogging for over three and a half years, going back to my days on the ol' Sanchez Report. I've been running this piece of crap for nearly three full years now. Sure, maybe I've neglected you, the reader, sometimes. And maybe I smothered you at other times. But I care. If there's one thing I may be guilty of, it's loving you too much. And this is how you repay me?

You never once... not once... let me know how delicious whiskey sours are?

I find it hard to believe that everybody out there has never had one before. Someone had to have one, right? And I would like to think that while having one, you probably thought to yourself "this is great. You know who would like this? That guy who's blog I occasionally read... Steve... something."

But did you tell me about it? No.

I had to find out on my own. While in a bit of a haze Sunday evening, I made up a whiskey sour after mistaking the recipe for that of a mint julep (which I had never had either; I ended up making one later on and I can honestly say I'm not a fan). And it rocked not just my world, but my worlds apart. (by the way, that video has to be a joke, right? The drummer couldn't keep a straight face while playing air guitar. The HAD to know how ridiculous that was. Right?)

(Seriously. I can't get over that video. I want to remake it. Like right now, scene for scene. get me some dudes, I'm doing it. There is a freaking keyboard taped to a wall. It is so nonsensical yet such genius. My head is about to explode.)

Anyway, internets... now that I know about these whiskey sours, what else are you holding out on me?

I don't know if I can trust you again.

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5/18/2007

 

Quickish Thoughts

An IT guy got fired from The Lady Friend's company for sleeping on the job (which is odd, since that's actually about all we do here in my IT dept -- different strokes, et al) so I now have a permanent spot on their company softball team. I went two for three last night with three rbi's and played one hot corner. I know none of you care (bunch of jerks, all of you), but I gots nuthing to writes about this morn....

... Oh, I know: The Office! Tremendous ending to the season last night. I actually haven't really cared for the last few weeks episodes; I have no room for plot developments in my sitcoms -- I want them funny and thats it. In fact, my favorite years of tv were in the mid 90's when both Seinfeld and The Simpsons decided to stop using any assemblance of logical, strung together plots (Armen Tanzarian's reign of terror, the Merv Griffin set in Kramer's apartment). However, the plot twist in The Office's final scene last night made up for any foibles I may have had with this season. (Did I just write "foibles?" is that even a word? Well, spell check is getting it, so I guess it is.) However, if it means that BJ Novak will be leaving the show, I heartily disapprove. He has written and produced some of the better episodes of the series, not exactly a lightweight. Lets hope he is still around.

Other than that... not much going on... oh, if I am ever driving to assassinate some commie bastard and then bed some ethnic beauty, I decided I will be listening to this song while on my way:


... and... that's about it, really... oh, I bought a smoker this week (yes, that's it right over there), so if you find yourself in Dogtown tomorrow and wonder what that delectable aroma is, it is I, cooking ribs. You may not have any, but feel free to help yourself to some slaw. It's poisoned.

...That's it. That's a week. Oh... Thanks for all the help with Project: Al's Wedding Music. If ya'll think of any more, drop 'em off, pleasy-o.

...There. That's it. Seriously. That's your week.

Go home now, tell your boss Al said it's okay.

Do it, pussy.

[have a great weekend, kids. remember that time i ate shit? that was awesome. except for the part where i ate the shit.]

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5/17/2007

 

Project: Al's Wedding Music

Six months from right now, at one in the morning, I will be on the beautiful beaches of exotic Tulum, Mexico, probably really drunk and perhaps trying to sex a dolphin. Later that day, I will be getting married (unless she finds out about all the dolphin sex).

Post ceremony, we will be having dinner, drinks, and dancing right near the beach (boy!)
The dinner we already have figured out (steak and sushi), as well as the drinks [pretty much everything under the sun, and lots of it; by the end of the evening I'll probably be drinking some sort of concoction consisting of tequila, pool water, and grenadine with a pineapple garnish (I will call it a "Razor Ramon")], it's the dancing aspect of this wonderful evening to be, which I, for the next six months, will be turning my focus to.

The set list as of right now looks something like: "Feelin' Alright" > 4 hours TBD > "Showdown." Which means we're pretty much halfway home, already.

I know of a few songs which will make the cut as well ("Baba O'Reilly", "Torn And Frayed", "Sweet Virginia", "Loving Cup" (Phish version), "Me and My Uncle", "Tangled Up in Blue", "Dead Flowers", "Girl From The North Country", "Rosalita", "Hurdy Gurdy Man", "Time Has Come Today", "Monkey Man", "Bananas and Blow", "In The Meantime", "Superstition", "Hurricane", "Soul to Squeeze", and "Peggy-O" have all been promised slots, and I'm 99% sure there will be a "Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" towards the end of the evening, just so my friends and I all have a chance to scream at each other in a Levon Helm / Muppet voice as our wives and girlfriends stare disapprovingly at us.), but I've got a lot of empty space; I'd say upwards of three hours. And most of the guys in there already are from the popular genre "Classic Rock", which while a fantastic genre in its own right, can't be the lone wolf, so to speak.

I need some funk, and I need some soul.

So, yet again, I'm turning to you for help, Interwebs. I'm all ears on this blog (well, all ears and sweat. Mostly sweat, really.), any recommendations will be highly appreciated and very well received. If you've got a favorite jam, something to set the dance floor ablaze, drop it off in the comments or shoot me an electronic mail, if you would be so kind. The always sharing Ace Cowboy got the party started for me yesterday, hooking me up with a massive funk set, that I'll be combing through over the next few days, so this ball is already a rollin'.

Help a brutha (not really a brutha) out, won't ya?

--------------

Also, while I'm on the topic of music, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out the fact that Wilco's newest work, "Sky Blue Sky", is the balls. Probably my favorite Wilco album since "Being There" and considering how much I enjoyed their last two, that's saying something. I know its early, but "Hate it Here" is high in the running for Al's Song o' Summer, '07.

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5/15/2007

 

blah

The Lady Friend and I went up to Peoria last weekend, partly because it was Mothers Day, but mainly because the batch of brews we cooked up last month at Rhodell's were finally done fermenting and needed a good, old fashioned bottling/drinking.

The beers -- a nice belgian blonde -- were all magically delicious, and we were joined at Rhodells with long time friends of the show Tito and Julia. Later in the evening, we ended up meeting up (I just bookended a word with the word "up"; that looks weird) with a group of friends for drinks on the riverfront. Nice little Saturday, really.

Six hours later, after a 3 am run to Steak n' Shake and about a million beers, Tito and I were in his basement, with our respective ladies sleeping sleepily (?) upstairs, slowly drinking ourselves to sleep and watching Starship Troopers on TBS.

It kind of hit us both that there was something way too familiar about the whole scene.

I said to Tito, "If we were drinking Icehouse and getting ready to play Goldeneye, I'd be pretty freaked out that we had hit some sort of weird time warp."

"Yeah," Tito replied. He paused for a few seconds. "I wish I still had Goldeneye."

"Me too."

Since 1999, Tito and I have both come a long way. I've traveled around the world, held a top secret security clearance, did a war, did some schoolin, began a burgeoning career, got engaged to a lovely little strumpet, killed a Moroccan for "looking at me funny." In the same time, Tito has graduated from U of I, finished law school, gotten married, passed the bar, bought a house, has some sort of real job and a dog. We are -- or, at least, should be -- grown ups.

Yet, if you had a time machine, I can pretty much guarantee you that on the second weekend of May, in the year 1999, Tito and I were sitting in his living room at 5 in the morning, retardedly drunk, and probably watching Starship Troopers on TBS.

The only real difference between 1999 Tito and Al and 2007 Tito and Al is that we now both get laid on a regular basis, legally and without paying for it.

Not that I'm complaining; it's a pretty nice life. I've got a wonderful bride, The Simpsons on DVD, a fridge full of ales; and I'm free to misuse semi-colons till my heart's content. Which, when I was 19, is pretty much all I could have asked for out of life (except a rocket car and a gold plated house). But in eight years, we've come so far, only to really go pretty much nowhere.

I need a vacation.

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5/11/2007

 

That's That

Mystery solved, thanks to this e-mail:



In the end, I wasn't losing my mind or anything cool like that. It was just some weird dude taking street photos and guerrilla marketing them. Much like everything else from this month, in the end, it just ended up kind of lame.

[have a great weekend, kids. or don't. see if i care.]

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5/09/2007

 

Ballgame Pics

Steve Finley, inexplicably still playing baseball:

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Now batting, from Accounts Receivable, Adam Kennedy:

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

This picture made me laugh for some strange reason:

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Tiny scrappy Eckstein, Big drunk Al:

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

I don't particularly care for the new stadium -- you can't tear down the building where most of my early baseball memories rest, replace it with a generic version of every other "new" stadium in Major League Baseball, and expect me to like it -- but what I do like? The lights. I love the old style lights.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

(And Pujols.)

Great little evening last night -- Drinking, dogs, and a ballgame into drinking, irish music, and amigos down at McGurks. If I would have hit on some 19 year old girls, I would have sworn I had taken a ride back to The Summer of Al.

Oh and a happy 25 zu unserem guten freind Mozzy. Yay Mozzy.

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5/08/2007

 

Mystery, Al (Fritz)

If I could properly sum up my recent string of craptitude in life into one example, it would be this: One of The Lady Friends best friends growing up now plays professional baseball. He's in the Rockies organization and got called up to the bigs a few weeks back. We checked out the schedule and saw that the Rockies were coming to St Louis this week. Hoping against hope that we'd get to see him play at Busch, I hopped online and ordered up some tickets for tonight's game; not the cheap ones, either. Later that day, he was optioned back to AAA.
Great.

So, tonight I get to see two very bad baseball teams play a random Tuesday night game in May. "Taylor Buchholz! Brad Thompson! Baseball Fever! Catch it!"

Luckily, to help pull me out of these here spring doldrums has been the ever plucky Ace Cowboy of Slack LaLane. He's been firing Phish youtube clips into my box ("Thats what she said") at a staggering rate, and I have been enjoying the ever living hell out of them.

Phish... Bad Cardinals baseball... Somebody give me a baby blue '93 LeBaron, a New Yorker pizza and an 18 pack of Icehouse 'cause I'm pretty sure 1999 is calling collect (from a payphone) for me.

And speaking of 1999, I now have my first mystery to solve since that gorgeous year full of Lewinsky jokes, Y2K fears, casual handjobs, and the fighting spirit of a moronic 19 year old.

To begin, back in the late 90's, when this Internet thing-a-ma-jig was first starting up, my buddy Joe had a frighteningly large e-mail group known as "The Joe Report."

It followed his exploits as he bounced around between schools, playing guitar and helping retards. He'd fire out a summary of his gallivanting antics every two or three weeks, and eventually this e-mail grew to include separate mini-columns from others in the group. I wrote a column title "I Am Not Making This Up" in which I (mostly) lied about fights with both the law and children, excessive drinking and eating of Wendy's, and wondered in print why my buddy Gibby had such an odd, down right dangerous obsession with the character "Dauber" on Coach.

Anyhoo -- during one prolonged "cold streak" of mine (which was actually broke by the young minx from this tale) I started writing about how I had lost my groove, yet was determined to find it (I can't remember exactly what happened -- I'll have to dig through the Fritz archives later -- but I'm pretty sure that in the end, it was found to have been stolen by Ozzie Smith) (don't ask); and that became the great mystery of 1999. A nice lil' sub-plot, if you will: Where is Al's groove and can he get it back?

Alright, now fast forward yourself from those glorious, hazy late 90's days of frisbee golf, ¢79 gallons of gas, $2 packs of smokes, and $10 dime bags to the present day. Well, last Sunday actually. TLF an I are at the friendly neighborhood Schnucks, grabbing some supplies for a wonderful Sunday night feast. While standing in the checkout line and wondering to myself whether or not it was a good idea to drink that gigantic vodka-lemon-lime-ade (say it real fast) last night (it was) and deciding just how hilarious Floyd Mayweather looked wearing a sombrero (very. Very hilarious. "Get it? Its an oversized hat. It's funny.") I noticed a picture sticking out of the magazine rack.

It was this picture:



Odd, me thought. I picked it up and flipped it around. This was to be found:



Well, I don't know. I don't know anything about what in the hell is going on here. I looked around, hoping perhaps there were more pictures to be found, but there were none. Confused, I slipped it into my pocket. I got home and sent an e-mail to the address from the back:











Forty some odd hours later... Nothing. No response at all. What the devil is going on? Is this some sort of treasure hunt? Am I in some weird Christopher Nolan-esque movie and not know it? Am I going to find two old dudes chilling on a picnic table on my front yard one of these days (which would realllly freak me out)? I don't know.

I just don't know.

I don't know what the hell is going on, so I'm just throwing it out there, internets. Hoping for some leads.

I also don't know how to finish this rambling, idiotic post. Oh wait. Yes I do:

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5/04/2007

 

End You Fucking Week... End!

To help you waste your Friday: Four things which cause me to laugh, whether from thinking about them, or actually viewing them, at least once a day:

The Dugout

The Onion's "In the Know" series

Gus Chiggins: Old Prospector

And, of course, the "Showdown" scene from Kingpin:



Between the gloomy weather, the coverage of Hancock's death, and the return of my insomnia, this week just needs to fucking end. The only way it gets worse is if I find out my dad has cancer.

Which I just happen to have found out last night. Awesome.

[have a great cinco de mayo/kentucky derby/de la hoya-mayweather fight weekend. as the mexican riding a horse at the boxing match would say "las cervezas son tu mejor amigo. el al va a conseguir drinky."]

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5/03/2007

 

Indians, Asians < Suggestive Innuendo

My company’s campus has three different cafeterias. Like most cafeterias, they have suggestion boxen. Once a month the management of the company which runs the cafeterias sends out an e-mail which features all of the suggestions, along with a note from the cafeteria management saying (in kinder words) "Go fuck yourself. You’ll eat what we put out there and you’ll pay what we charge. Don’t like it? Go waste half an hour of your lunch hour just walking to your car in the parking lot and eat elsewheres."

These "suggestion e-mails" generally please me, as I like it when companies don't care about their customers and have no bones in saying so. Then yesterday’s came in. About the third suggestion on the page:

"Can we have Indian or Asian food in the menu sometimes or once a week?"

While I would have gone with a “May we…” instead of “Can…”, sure, not a bad idea. A few ideas later:

"Serve more Asian food for folks of Indian descent."

A popular idea! Later on:

"Loved Asian Salad!! Would like to see again. How about Indian?"

Hmmm... And again:

"May I suggest adding more options of Asian food, specially (sic) Indian food, which I am sure, will add spice to our current menu? And we can get so many ideas and options from Indian food."

What the hell? Still more:

"As I see here, a lot of Indians work and you guys serve Asian food also in a while, but it would be really great if you can manage to add some Indian food here. In that case I'm sure Indian guys won't bring food from home they will take from you only."

Alright... here’s what I think happened. Someone decided to see how many times they could get the words "Asian" and "Indian" published into this e-mail. Of the 7,000 or so folks who received this e-mail, I am going out on a limb and saying I’m the only one who noticed it. But it cracked me the hell up.

And I’ve decided to ramp it up a notch. I’m switching it from casual racism to soft core. I’m going to try to get as many sexually suggestive words into the e-mail as possible. So far, I’m going to go with: Plump, steamy, hot, moist, juicy, and (maybe) labia. If you have any other suggestions, as always, drop them off below, and I’ll get back to you next month with the results. Either hilariousness will ensue (with sexy results!) or I’ll be fired.

(I don’t feel like working this summer, anyway.)

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5/02/2007

 

RIP


That one guy from "Newhart" and "The Happy Hooker." (Yes, that's a real movie.)

Now everybody stop dying.

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5/01/2007

 

Of Life and Booze

The weekend started off absolutely fabulously. Nothing much happening at work Friday night, so I worked from home, slow rolled some Blue Moons and watched the Cards match. Sure, it would have been nice if they had beaten the Cubs, but this team stinks. We knew that already.

Early to rise on Saturday, I hung out on the terrace, made the weekly round of phone calls. I went across the street to my buddy Matt’s pad; he was hanging out with his groomsmen, getting ready to tie that not in a few hours. Come back home, The Lady Friend gets back from walking around Forrest Park, I cook up some egg-muffin sandis, mix up some mimosas, and we clean ourselves up and get ready to head to the wedding.

The wedding is fabulous, the homily could have used some stories about robots and a Superman III reference, but other than that no qualms. Off to a buddy’s house on The Hill, eat some wings, drink some White Ales (fucking magical), watch the Cards game, and make fun of Brady Quinn. Head downtown to the reception. There’s a line of about 100 prom kids all waiting for the elevator; we skip the line, take the residential lift. We rule!

All in all, that’s about a perfect 24 hours for me. Drink beer, watch two different Cardinals games, eat wings, hang with friends, and make fun of Brady Quinn. Awesome.

Then, the wheels fall off. I’ll go ahead and just blame the open bar -- it’s never good for anyone. Except me, of course (this weekend confirms the fact that I and my buddy Dave are the only two good drunks left in this god forsaken town) -- and by the end of the evening, people were crying and TLF was peeing in our front yard. So, yeah... class all around. Well, class and booze.

The next morn, I wake to my phone vibrating; the first text I got was around nine: "What’s wrong with the Cardinals pitchers during Cubs series?" I chalked it up to "they suck?" and hit the pillow to keep sleeping off a massive hangover. Twenty minutes later, another text from another friend: "Sorry to hear about Josh." What? I need sleepy. Ten minutes later, another text: "Sorry to hear about your guy. Best." Seriously, what the fuck?

Fuck. Flash back to 6/22/02 and my celly waking me up from a super hangover at noon in North Carolina. My buddy Nate is at Wrigley. Sounds like DK died last night. Fuck.

Ugh. You’ve got be kidding me. Send out a text to the group from the cab ride home last night: "So we can now say we saw the accident that killed Josh Hancock. Fuck."

Life is an odd thing. We love people like Albert Pujols because we can never be him; chances are you can’t even imagine what it’s like to have that kind of physical skill. It’s easy to idolize the greats, but in doing so, we undervalue the guys who make up the backbone of not just the game, but of life. Life isn’t hitting 500 foot home runs; it’s an 88 mph fastball and the ability to mop up some innings. We like to think that life would be great if it was filet mignon and $200 bottles of champagne, but it’s not. Life is a few cold beers, hot wings, and good friends. (and maybe some washers.) Life is Josh Hancock.

And that's fine by me.

I’m a pretty negative person; it’s my nature. I’m a jerk. I’d change, but that would require effort. (I’m also lazy.) But for the next week, I’m being nothing but positive on this here slice of webernets. It’ll be all sunshine and whiskey and barefoots. I’m going to fucking appreciate this life of mine, even if it kills me.

Also, since the shoe is already dropping, I’m just going to say this now and I won’t comment on it again (unless we find out he was fucking a goat at the time or something else Eddie Griffin level of ridiculous):

Mistakes happen. And sometimes they involve alcohol. I've known a lot of people who have died in a lot of different ways -- suicide, cancer, war, senseless violence, and, yes, even from drunk driving -- and I don't miss any of them more than others. If he was drunk at the time, it means he made a few bad decisions Saturday night. It doesn't mean that he will be missed any more, or any less, by his friends and family. And it makes this no less tragic.

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"I'll be dead in the cold, cold ground before I recognize the state of Missouri."