You'll shoot your brain out

So my mom back in Chicago (south suburbs actually) has all these bird feeders and birdhouses. She's absolutely obsessed with this really. I can't tell you how many times she was like "BILLY... BILLY... look there is the most wonderful finch in the backyard!" To which I would respond "A finch... yeah... wonderful." Sometimes it is kind of cool. She now has a little pond back there with frogs and koi, and she's had to place a netting over it cause she was getting cranes in the back yard eating the fish, and hawks spying the frogs. But what bugs her the most is the tree rats... or as they're known in these parts squirrels.

So she got a BB gun to protect eggs inside the bird houses from the squirrels. The BB gun isn't powerful enough to do much damage but the squirrels do get the point. A few years back I was home for a little bit and there was a squirrel climbing one of the trees. Now I haven't fired a gun often... I fired a .22 rifle back when I was a cub scout, and I had a BB hand gun I used to fire at my text books in college (god I hated spanish) so I thought there would be no way I could hit the thing with my lack of skill. Well I cocked the gun a bunch of times and took aim... fired. The squirrel jerked, hung for a second, then fell from the tree already stiffening. I was experienced some revulsion. Then I went out into the yard to see what had happened. I hit the squirrel in the eye and the BB clearly exited out the back of the skull cause some of the brain was dripping out the back. Needless to say I was overcome with even more revulsion.

I wanted to remove the evidence... I was embarrassed that I'd killed the little rodent and quite shocked that I had even hit it. So I figured I would throw the bugger over the fence into the ditch on the east side of the house. I picked the sucker up by the tail and gave it a swing meaning to give it a good toss. Well that's when I found out that a Squirrels tail is not held on by much. The squirrel's tail came off in my hand (yuck) the squirrel went flying with no arc what soever and smashed into the fence and head first into some rocks my mom was using to make a path in the back yard. The head split into a gory mess of skull, blood and brains. I ended up getting a shovel and tossing the bugger and his tail as far into the ditch as I could (and I sware I heard another crack when the squirrel's body hit a tree). So remember kids on this holiday when the idea of getting a BB gun is in the air... Don't use it unless you are prepared to do deal with the messy consequences.

bands I'd like to see reunite. 9

9. Guided By voices... With Stipulations. It has to be the mid 90's line up. With Tobin Sprout on lead guitar (and playing each and every song he wrote for the band), Mitch Mitchel playing rythem guitar, Kevin Fennel or Jim Greer on Drums and Dan Toohey or Greg Demos (and his striped pants) on bass. I remember seeing these old guys when I was like 18 and they were 34... Now I'm almost 34 it would be interesting to see if they could hold up @ 50. Not to mention drunken antics get funnier the older you get... and if Pollard falls doing one of those leg kicks today he'll break a hip. Who wouldn't want to see that?




And ya gotta love the jon stewart show.

bands I'd like to see reunite. 10

only rule no dead folks... so nirvana, mother love bone, buddy holley and the crickets etc. are out.

10. The Vaselines. What you say they did reunite and play in the new york area twice... well I missed that memo.

vaselines son of a gun
Uploaded by warion

Kerry Wood's therapist

Interesting vid interviewing Kerry Wood about his move to Cleveland. What struck me as interesting was the fact that Kerry credits his "then therapist" with helping him stay in baseball when his times were tough. It's god to see that even a Texas ballplayer can casually drop in a therapist line. Hopefully this kind of casual conversation will help folks think of therapy as a more middle America thing to do.


Go here to see the vid

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/

IT's HERE!!!!!

The always awesome worst album covers of the year page from pitchfork. This is when the know-it-all bastards at pitchfork are matched with where their skills are most useful... making snarky comments about stupid shit. God I love pitchfork.

Seriously just think of all the sarcastic statements you can make about this work of art:


http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/147930-the-20-worst-album-covers-of-2008

2008 Improbable Research Award Winners.

Full list here... http://improbable.com/ig/winners/

Some highlights

NUTRITION PRIZE. Massimiliano Zampini of the University of Trento, Italy and Charles Spence of Oxford University, UK, for electronically modifying the sound of a potato chip to make the person chewing the chip believe it to be crisper and fresher than it really is.


http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118784133/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

OF particular importance to Rachel and her sister:

ARCHAEOLOGY PRIZE. Astolfo G. Mello Araujo and José Carlos Marcelino of Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil, for measuring how the course of history, or at least the contents of an archaeological dig site, can be scrambled by the actions of a live armadillo.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/104081908/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0


MEDICINE PRIZE. Dan Ariely of Duke University (USA), Rebecca L. Waber of MIT (USA), Baba Shiv of Stanford University (USA), and Ziv Carmon of INSEAD (Singapore) for demonstrating that high-priced fake medicine is more effective than low-priced fake medicine..
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/299/9/1016

PHYSICS PRIZE. Dorian Raymer of the Ocean Observatories Initiative at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA, and Douglas Smith of the University of California, San Diego, USA, for proving mathematically that heaps of string or hair or almost anything else will inevitably tangle themselves up in knots.

http://www.pnas.org/content/104/42/16432.abstract

And the most awesome one cause I love menstrual cycle work.

ECONOMICS PRIZE. Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tybur and Brent Jordan of the University of New Mexico, USA, for discovering that professional lap dancers earn higher tips when they are ovulating.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T6H-4PS640T-4&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8ab256182d3cbfef93ca7b34b5116303

Vampire Weekend... or as Rachel puts it "The Worst Crowd Ever"

I've written before about how much Terminal 5 sucks as a venue. The sound echos, the sight lines are poor, and the staff are grumpy and unfriendly (everything a fuckin' hipster wants in a venue). The evening started with the wristband lady putting about 89% of the sticky part of the wristband onto the hairiest part of my arm, then getting one serious pat down from security. The moment I walked in I noticed the fact that I had to be one of the oldest people there... and even more so than the average show.

The band came out shortly after we got there (we timed it well). A few moments after they started playing I realized why Vampire Weekend hasn't gone from a band I like to that next level. The band seems to be made of a bunch of spoiled little rich kids, whom have never felt and could use a nice punch in the face. (to read more about the good a punch to the face can do http://midwestlivinginnyc.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html)

But what really stole the show was the large contingent of douche bags right next to us. Rachel stood to the right of me... and to the right of her there was a guy (maybe 21) with dark hair, a vacant look, and a loud voice, clearly attempting to get into the pants of two obnoxious girls. Both bleach blond, both desperately attempting to get attention from anything with a penis... one tall and skinny, one short. So they start by introducing themselves to one another... loudly.

"SO WHERE YA TWO FROM?" Meat head says.

"WE'RE FROM JERSEY!" bleach blond skinny says.

"WE'RE YOU FROM?" bleach blond short says.

"I'M FROM NEW HAVEN" Meat head says.

"WHAT'S NEW HAVEN LIKE" bleach blond skinny says.

"IT'S AWESOME... THE BARS WE'RE EASY TO GET INTO EVEN BEFORE..."

I think you get the point. They sucked hardcore. It never ceases to amaze me that people will lay down hard earned cash to go see a band and then talk through the whole thing. I sort of realize that these assholes were just spending the allowance their parents gave them but still.

During the third or fourth song the meat head started yelling to the Jersey girls that "I LOVE THIS FUCKIN' SONG. THIS SONG IS FUCKING AWESOME. THIS SONG IS THE BEST." (and so on) At this point Rachel had had enough and went to go get another beer. The second she left they oozed into the space she left. After about a song Rachel came back and went to the other side of me intent on not standing next to the assholes. In response I had to scoot over to where Rachel was standing and now 'bleach blond skinny' was. She wasn't hard to move.

Then as I do at concerts I sort of tap my foot and dance in a very white manner. This upset 'bleach blond skinny' who went on to complain loudly that I was, put politely, invading her personal space... she complained for two songs and eventually I leaned over and said. "If you didn't want to be touched you probably shouldn't have moved over the second my girlfriend went to get a beer." She grumbled about this for like 30 seconds and went back to talking loudly through the set.

After another 2 songs I had had enough and went into full asshole mode. I leaned into the middle of their stupid conversation.

"EXCUSE ME..." I yelled... "HOW YOU LIKING THE SHOW SO FAR?" Imagine now 3 idiots staring dumbfounded at me (portly clearly 30 something with a beard and long hair). "CAUSE I"M BORED... I"D KIND OF LIKE TO HAVE A CONVERSATION. I'VE ONLY PAID $25 BUCKS FOR THESE TICKETS AND MY PARENTS GIVE ME A HUGE... I MEAN HUGE ALOWANCE. SO WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT... CAUSE I LIKE TO TALK THROUGH CONCERTS TO."

Bleach blond short is the only one who actually gets that I am fucking with them. She decides she's gonna play along.
"SO WHAT's YOUR NAME?" She asks.

"I'M BILL." I respond "HAVE YOU BEEN A FAN LONG?"

"YEAH... THEY"RE AWESOME... WHERE ARE YOU FROM?"

"NEW HAVEN!!!!" I yell at the top of my lungs. At this point 'Meat head' moves over and stands with his back to me... which is sweet, cause he was pretty much like a sound barrier.

20 minutes later Rachel's sitting on a couch upstairs and a guy on all sorts of drugs (Meth?) flops onto the couch she was sitting on... he apparently thought the couch was empty... but let me tell you, the look of shock on both of their faces when there was about 2 inches of free air between their noses all of a sudden was precious.

I wasn't the only one. A coworker who was at the show told me about a woman who had a 2 foot deep ass that tried to fit into the 1 foot deep space between her and the guy in front of her. She's from Trinidad... so you can say that wasn't happening.

So the moral of the story. Don't go see Vampire Weekend... "here there be douche bags".