DirtSwimming

What to do with all the extra snow

2007-02-20T21:59:00.000-06:00

A number of years ago, there was so much snowfall in the Chicago area, that crews were told to dump the excess snow from streets and parking lots into Lake Michigan and the Chicago River. While snowfall from streets can't be the cleanest of elements, it can still be cleaned. Salt, dirt, rubbish, and various contaminants were just dumped wantonly into fresh water, drinkable water, inhabited water. Dumping into the Chicago River was stopped after the Bilandic Snow Fall of 1979 due to a car being tossed in as well. How this is any different than the Lake is for another story.

But couldn't this snow/water serve a better purpose elsewhere? Places where droughts and limited, if any drinking water exist? Places where a layer of snow is good for crops rather than be exposed to the harsh winter elements of the Midwest? In addition, this excess snow, which eventually melts, uses up valuable sewer and sanitation resources.
Not wasting time and energy on math, figure that there are almost 3000 miles of streets in Chicago alone, not counting alleys. Streets are anywhere from 10 feet to 100 feet across. Any snowfall of 3 inches or more becomes an issue not just for commuters, but also for space to put the excess snow that has been removed from the street. Take in all the streets in every incorporated township in the six county radius. That is a lot of snow, and a lot of water.
Removing this snow (and ice) and filtering the waste could greatly improve not only the quality of air, water, and land, but it could also benefit those that need it most. Pipelines of freshwater, sold to states and counties in need could greatly improve revenues in cash strapped areas. In addition, government grants could assist the communities in need of the water and aid. People willing to contribute to snow removal in their area can be compensated by tax breaks, as well as contract work, depending on availability.

Food Review: Sushi Nest, Elmhurst

2007-02-20T21:58:00.000-06:00

First off, kudos to Elmhurst and their downtown overhaul. Not that this place was ever a dump, but this shows that the town cares about it's citizens and commerce. With that said, dinner was at an establishment called Sushi Nest (142 N. York Rd.), in a very popular section of the downtown. The theater is a few doors down, and other restaurants in stone's throw distance for a little competition. We went early, so the place was empty, but an hour later, business was flowing, even for a Sunday. The usual order of white tuna, scallops, spicy tuna roll, sea bass (Suzuki), spicy crab roll, roe, salmon, Philly roll was excellent. Fish was fresh and tasty, and we didn't have to wait a long time either. Presentation, which is always key for sushi, was great. What stood out the most was on the special list, called a Grenade, or Hand Grenade. It was $8 for two pieces. A little high on the price, but after the first bite, it was worth it. I've had the Sunny Side Shitake appetizer from Coast in Bucktown, so the taste was familiar. It was prawn and shrimp with other things that reminded me of the egg-lemon taste of the Sunny Side Shitake. All I can say is that they emphasize the Volcano Roll, but the Grenade gets the thumbs up. Overall, it is a little expensive, but if you want good sushi, which I know a lot of people have not had, this is a good place to go. Most of the good restaurants are in Chicago, but if you are in the Western Suburbs, go here.

How You Played the Game

2006-12-28T20:23:00.000-06:00

I wrote this back on November 6th when the lower court verdict first came in. Anyone with a half a brain knows that any US controlled court, especially under these circumstances, would not overturn the ruling. I am pretty sure as much stands at the time I am writing this sentence as it did back in November.
What I find most intriguing about Saddam getting sentenced to hang by his own people is the anger that so many people have about the decision itself. From an American, middle-class, Catholic, tax-paying standpoint, there are Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds in Iraq. Of course there are several derivatives of each of these, but that's what I see. It would be like an Iraqi identifying a Baptist from a Methodist, or a banker from a lawyer on Wall Street. Saddam was a Sunni, and for the next 30 days at minimum, he still will be, whatever Allah chooses to do with him after that, only Allah knows. For a man who is unapologetic for everything he does and has done, he has never used religion as the excuse or the driving force. Allah was not his guide, nor his mentor.
If Islam, true Islam, is anything like Christianity, he can be forgiven for his sins, if he wishes to do so. He respects Islam, and does not use the name of his religion in vain, so he may have that going for him when the great scorer picks up the chalk.
No doubt his own people, the Sunnis, are upset at the decision to hang him like a side of beef in the town square. Like him, they feel what he did was right. To Iraqis, Kurds appear to be subspecies, while Shiites and Sunnis can drink from the same fountain.
Saddam doesn't deny he poisoned Kurds in hopes of exterminating them, he just feels he did nothing wrong. After all, it was his country. He makes the laws. What does it have to do with anyone else? His bad luck was that he was sitting on one of the larger oil reserves in the world. His mistake was calling attention to himself by invading Kuwait. One of the few Middle Eastern countries an American can walk with the guarantee that his head and body won't be miles apart within a 30 day period.
The biggest irony of the whole ordeal was that two men with the same last name brought him to his predicament. Two men that had no business in Iraq. But they are Texans. And Texans love oil. They love oil so much that they thought with their big head for once and befriended (adopted) the Saudi royal family, who coincidentally have the largest oil reserve in the solar system. Attaching them would mean that Americans would be folklore to the next generation.
So in short, Saddam did this to himself. It would have been in his best interest to have WMDs. At least you don't hang for that.
On of the judges, who was firm in his stance from the beginning, may have been Saddam's wake up call that his outcome was bleak. While Saddam continuously disrupted the court, the judge ordered him to "Shut Up." Anyone who has been in a court knows what that means. Convicts are silenced and lawyers with Ivy League underwear have teared up. But when you have caused 25 million people to live in fear for 25 years, and a bit less for years before that, being silenced can really and truly get you to shut up. It may not have seemed to humble him, but then again, this man had skin as thick as his heart was stone. I'm willing to be he didn't sleep that night.
Not long after that, he decided that the court and trial was tainted, which it may or may not have been, but that doesn't matter. He felt that he should speak when he wanted, but was reminded that he now had the rights of the very people he unjustly executed. None.
Saddam's fate is met with mixed emotions worldwide, and it seems like a majority don't want him executed. Which is tough to stomach from a nation built on the gun. This man murdered thousands of innocent people because of little more than their ethnic background. And while people in Iraq are happy (the Shiites) and angry (the Sunnis), no one should be surprised. Not even the man himself. Saddam was never going to see freedom again. Not in Iraq, not in the Middle East, and certainly not in Europe. Europe had the biggest opponents to the war, the last thing they want is a trigger happy US president declaring war on one of them for granting asylum. In addition, imagine the cost now and future costs of keeping this man alive. It was only right and fair that Iraq be allowed to try him, even if the people involved were pretty much hand picked by the US. But there would be no way that Iraq could afford to imprison ths man. And every one on the planet could bet their weight in gold that the biggest and most intense jail break in the history of man would occur as soon as the last wheel of the last C-130 left the ground.
What the execution of Saddam Hussein should mark, is not only closure for so many Iraqis, but also the beginning of the end for the US occupancy. It has become clear to every democrat and almost every republican that there were no WMDs, and we F'd up. Big time. It is also becoming clear that Saddam and his regime were the only people that could control this country. It is clear that while many feared him, many loved him too. 100% of the vote at each election doesn't lie. Our second reason for entering that country, and a distant second at that, was to free oppressed people from a violent dictator. One can wonder what the Iraqi people have to be thankfule for more: that Uday didn't survive to take over, or that George Bush had daughters. Uday was the true menace, not even controlled by his father. The Bush daughters have everything their father doesn't, the most important being a woman's nature. Women don't send their sons to war, and especially to one that doesn't involve them.
So barring any unforeseen events, Bush won. He got his man. Iraq lost because it is taking an entire extermination to kill one man. I always thought the saying went "sacrifice one to save many." While the western world may view the eastern thought as backwards, the opposite of this saying couldn't be closer to that view.

Lost in Translation

2006-12-07T22:29:00.000-06:00

Restless Oaf, enjoy your use
Like my hummus, it’s the chew
Can't escape from, the carving room
If you hate suntan, don't you do it two
Smell my table, sits just two
It's so cloudy, I cant make rue
Oh, where did they cook from?
Stole my rube!
And you dancing, it belongs to you
This is not for you
All thats secret comes from you
Dedications, not even true
With no powder, nothing to do
I still remember, why don two?
This is not for you

Democrats take House and Senate

2006-11-08T21:36:00.000-06:00

Americans want their freedom back. Americans want their choice back. Americans want their country back. Now, they have it.

Food Review: Restaurant 360 at the CN Tower in Toronto

2006-10-12T15:50:00.000-05:00

One of Chicago's very own traveled to the land of our friendly (and border cooperating) neighbors to the north and visited among other things, Toronto. While Toronto has more than its share of sushi restaurants, we didn't have any Asian food the entire trip. The height (pun) of our dinner experience was supposed to be Restaurant 360 and it's 1,150 foot altitude above the world, it was anything but that. As was read on a website, the trip to the observation deck is complimentary with the order of any main entree. Fair enough. The cost of going up was not seen but has to be comparable to the price of the Sears Tower or the observation deck of the Hancock building, if you choose not to go to the Signature Room. The average main entree is about $30, give or take a few cents. We opted for the Prix Fixe, which included an Amuse Bouche, Appetizer, Main Entree, and Dessert for $68. The decision was to go with the baked oysters. Since the seating in the restaurant rotates, and the central part does not, one gets to see the kitchen, bathroom doors, front desk, and wine closet without ever leaving their seat. My first indication of dinner should have been the countless awards for Ambience. Usually that means smoke and mirrors. When my amuse bouche came, it was a single dryed-out oyster still attached by it's membrane to the shell. There was a lot of lettuce. Ambience. The appetizer arrived promptly and was a French Onion Soup with truffles and foie gras. Hands down, the best Onion soup I have ever had in my life, and can possibly rank in the top 10 of best soups I've eaten. If I had known the rest of the meal was headed where it was headed, I would've ordered 5 more soups at $9 a bowl. My entree arrived, double-smoked bacon wrapped tiger shrimp with organic atlantic cod. The plate had two medium sized shrimp on it, far smaller than any other tiger shrimp I've eaten, and almost two filets worth of cod. There were generous slices of artichoke and the other vegetables were fantastic, even in the absence of more shrimp. A deceiving listing to say the least. Finally my dessert came, the Chocolate Tower. A 5 inch high cylinder of white and dark chocolate filled with chocolate mousse, drizzled in raspberry syrup and other syrups I cannot immediately recall. At that moment, I realized I really did pay for my trip to the top, and be served mediocre food at best. The dessert was delicious, but not worth the bother. If I went again, I would steer far and wide of the Prix Fixe, and focus on the drink and appetizers instead.

Drink Review: Extra Strength Dieters' II True-Slim Tea

2006-10-12T00:05:00.000-05:00

Upon a trip to a Japanese market, I scanned the aisles for the most herbal, ethnic tea I could find to cleanse my soul, my blood, and my body. White and Green tea do the trick, as does Chamomile on nights when the wind blows a little too hard. In aisle 6, situated between the Oolong leaves and the ramble of Kanji, I found my salvation: a drink that would help lose the freshman 15, and continue to eat the crap I challenge myself to everyday.

My first indication of the seriousness of the situation, were the testimonies inside the green box. The individuals who swore by the product had shed weight faster than a bomber plane low on fuel. The specimens each weighed in excess of 250 lbs, compared to my varying 177 lb structure. My goal was to reach my 18th birthday weight of 160 lbs, and had been within striking distance a year earlier with an altered Atkins diet, starving myself of my sacred Thai lunches and Italian dinners. Blueberry oatmeal breakfasts were replaced by sugar free jello and fat free cottage cheese, portioned. Swimming the mile each day may have helped, though there are studies that show swimming increases your appetite. Nonetheless, I achieved a 17 lb drop in 6 weeks, a marvel even for someone twice my size. 10% of your body weight is big. Though I gained only half of it back, I was not happy with the change. I yearned for something easier, healthier, and Asian. The box contains 12 tea bags, put together by child workers with boat oars. If the word mishandling is mentioned in the presence of the bag in water, flossing will be your chore. The box mentioned, not cautioning or warning, of first time users encountering "loose stool" the first few times the tea is drunk. "Loose" is a word that should have more footnotes than meanings. What I encountered was far greater than anything considered loose. I encountered "extra-strength".

As if fearing a lawsuit, or an objection to legality, the box prints the FDA number on the front, third line down. No. L10028390. A number I will never play in the lottery. Or perhaps I should. I can win the lottery, buy the company, and relabel the box with newer, realistic precautions. The first dozen that come to mind are:
1. True-Slim waits until you are at least one mile from your house or any sanitary toilet before it activates.
2. True-Slim assumes role when you are carrying 2 40 lb bags of topsoil and your keys have fallen in tall grass.
3. The tea will give you the worst stomach cramps you have ever felt, if you aren't a woman.
4. Since you won't have time to check when the panic button is pushed, be sure to have toilet paper on hand, and within reach.
5. If you have made it this far, it will be as far as you go.
6. True-Slim knows no boundaries. It does not descriminate. Especially when on a ladder.
7. Do not assume you have gas. You will be disappointed.
8. Do NOT consume before alcohol.
9. Do NOT consume on an anniversary.
10. If you have had issues for 5 days, True-Slim cannot help you. Proceed to aisle 8 of your local pharmacy.
11. Bring something to read. Perhaps that biography of John Adams you've been meaning to finish.
12. Takes 4-5 hours to begin. Carry a watch. With new batteries. And a second hand.

I have been through 11 bags, and am staring at the last one. $3.68 has been spent on agony, and limitations no human or living thing should encounter. You can set records for how many bathrooms you can use in 5 minutes. I have used all three toilets in my own house just going from the bedroom to the wash machine. I can cut my losses and enjoy my day tomorrow. I can continue to curse the Canadians for doing this to me. I didn't learn in Sault Sainte Marie. I didn't learn in Montreal. I could've learned in Vancouver if I had stayed that long, but Toronto, Niagara Falls, and Mississauga did it, and did it good. The bag is going in the garbage. Fool me 11 times, shame on you. Fool me 12 times, shame on me.

Mardi d'Agneau

2006-09-27T14:35:00.000-05:00

-two lamb shoulder chops
-1tbs garlic salt
-4tbs chopped canned artichokes
-2tsp jarred capers
-two eggs
-olive oil
-butter or margarine

Set grill to high. Apply garlic salt to both sides of chops. Apply chops and lower to low on meat side and medium on open side for 7 minutes. Mix artichokes and capers in bowl and drain any excess liquid to make almost pasty. Flip chops and apply artichoke and caper relish to cooked side. Cook for another 7 minutes. When finished, allow meat to rest while preparing eggs. Add olive oil and butter to pan and fry or cook over-easy two eggs. Apply eggs to top of chops and serve.

Coffee Talk: Caffeine and the Human Body

2006-09-20T17:02:00.000-05:00

D: Updating a previous hypothesis of mine...if everyone in this country drank hot tea 3x a day we would save millions on health care.

P: What brings this up?

A health hypothesis of mine is similar, (in that of avoiding health care spending and low cost maintenance). I think everyone should spend one week of their year purging their bodies. One week is even too much, one weekend. I have read of many body cleanses that you can do in a 3 day weekend. I don’t like the term “alternative medicine”, but there are many things that are not risky in it that could work. One is colonics. Highly intrusive, but they say the average person has 10 lbs of compacted waste. There are colon flushes, but the cramps can be terrible, really interfere with your diet (throwing something else off), and can take a few days. But at the same time, the flushes clean out other parts other than the intestines, bowels, etc. I read of a liver flush that can get several ounces of stones out of the liver and gall bladder. The stones are almost completely fatty and cholesterol. There is several layers of plaque in people’s intestines that build up over time, and take up to one month to completely remove. Kidney flushes and lymph flushes are important because those are the sewer systems of your body. All of these flushes can be done with natural ingredients, and of course water.
Tea of any kind has been proven to remove anti-oxidants and raise energy and other values. You never read about the adverse effects of tea. Only alcohol, coffee, and soft drinks.
Water alone, two glasses per day, can boost metabolism by 30%.
The problem with holistic medicine is that doctors put fear into people that they don’t work. They are afraid to prove it because they’ll lose business. But I would much rather have a doctor (who never has to prescribe me anything) tell me once a year that I am in good shape, than one that tells me once a year that I am in bad shape. What is a family doctor to lose?

D: Just me being sick and drinking hot tea for the first time in months & months brings this up.

P: Since the baby was born, I was drinking more and more coffee. I found that I needed more an more each day. A strange addiction not because you JUST need coffee in the morning, but it almost makes you more tired in the morning, so that you do indeed need it. I was also feeling achy, which wasn’t right. About a month ago, I switched back to tea, both decaf and regular, and after day one I felt great. They say 3 cups of coffee a day is recommended, but at what expense? I’ll stick to the four cups of the highest anti-oxidant tea on the market.

D: Yeah, I hope to never succumb to the coffee addiction. I get hooked on caffeine from time to time -- mostly cans of coke in the afternoons that I can't live without, but I'm fine in the mornings. when I'm driving for long hours I swear by vanilla frappucino's, and that's as close as I get to the coffee bean.

P: If I need the extra kick, I make it a sugar free Red bull. Overpriced, but does the job. Still fighting the diet coke demon though. Down to 4 a day. That stuff is bad for you.

Bar Food Review: RAM's Wings

2006-09-20T10:05:00.000-05:00

We’ll save you a lot of frustration and money by telling you to never order the wings from RAM. Biggest ripoff ever. We ordered two dozen last Thursday night at the one in Rosemont. The chicken leg looking parts of the wings, my favorite, ranged in size from my pinky to my thumb. No meat whatsoever. The wing part of the wing just had skin and meat you really had to work for. Don’t know what else to recommend, but save yourself from their wings. Not even good sauce either. The kind that twitches your tear duct, but fails to have any other effect on the sinuses, taste buds, or Scoville scale.

Tales from the Backyard Farmer. 1st Installment: The Tomatillo Monster.

2006-09-19T12:04:00.000-05:00

Summer 2004:

Well, the flowers are starting to morph into buds which means fruit is in the mail. I haven't applied any fertilizer and this plant is growing quite well. I believe it has another 6 inches to grow under otherwise harsh conditions. Where I have it planted, it receives roughly 6 hours of sun a day, and is in the catch canal of an unguttered garage, so it has taken some harsh blows in the past couple weeks. Worse yet, the soil it is growing in below the 2 inches of fresh top soil is old and weeded, much less un-tilled.
A second plant is growing from the base. I need to get this one away from the large roots before it becomes too entangled. I can plant this one in a different area with more sun now that the days are long. The seeds I get from these plants I can have growing in the house over winter. Extract the seeds from that and I have only a 25% hybrid. Low enough to begin serious cropping.
Considering the large farming communities in the far NW suburbs, and their migrant workers, having an acre or two up there growing this stuff would be a pretty good idea. Keep it small enough that it can be greenhoused in the off season for continual growth. Roadside stands, farmers markets, and short shipping distances mean good for business.

Muslims enraged that Pope is peaceful

2006-09-18T15:00:00.000-05:00

The following is Pope Benedict's speech, courtesy of the Vatican. I have numbered the paragraphs for quicker viewing and discussion, if any. As this weekend has shown us, this speech has gone beyond discussion, and has already turned deadly. The paragraph of note, is #3.
1. It is a moving experience for me to be back again in the university and to be able once again to give a lecture at this podium. I think back to those years when, after a pleasant period at the Freisinger Hochschule, I began teaching at the University of Bonn. That was in 1959, in the days of the old university made up of ordinary professors. The various chairs had neither assistants nor secretaries, but in recompense there was much direct contact with students and in particular among the professors themselves. We would meet before and after lessons in the rooms of the teaching staff. There was a lively exchange with historians, philosophers, philologists and, naturally, between the two theological faculties. Once a semester there was a dies academicus, when professors from every faculty appeared before the students of the entire university, making possible a genuine experience of universitas - something that you too, Magnificent Rector, just mentioned - the experience, in other words, of the fact that despite our specializations which at times make it difficult to communicate with each other, we made up a whole, working in everything on the basis of a single rationality with its various aspects and sharing responsibility for the right use of reason - this reality became a lived experience. The university was also very proud of its two theological faculties. It was clear that, by inquiring about the reasonableness of faith, they too carried out a work which is necessarily part of the "whole" of the universitas scientiarum, even if not everyone could share the faith which theologians seek to correlate with reason as a whole. This profound sense of coherence within the universe of reason was not troubled, even when it was once reported that a colleague had said there was something odd about our university: it had two faculties devoted to something that did not exist: God. That even in the face of such radical scepticism it is still necessary and reasonable to raise the question of God through the use of reason, and to do so in the context of the tradition of the Christian faith: this, within the university as a whole, was accepted without question.

2. I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the dialogue carried on - perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara - by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. It was presumably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than those of his Persian interlocutor. The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur'an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship between - as they were called - three "Laws" or "rules of life": the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur'an. It is not my intention to discuss this question in the present lecture; here I would like to discuss only one point - itself rather marginal to the dialogue as a whole - which, in the context of the issue of "faith and reason", I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.

3. In the seventh conversation (διάλεξις - controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness which leaves us astounded, on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably (σὺν λόγω) is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...".

4. The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry.

5. At this point, as far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we are faced with an unavoidable dilemma. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God. Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, the first verse of the whole Bible, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: "In the beginning was the λόγος". This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, σὺν λόγω, with logos. Logos means both reason and word - a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist. The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance. The vision of Saint Paul, who saw the roads to Asia barred and in a dream saw a Macedonian man plead with him: "Come over to Macedonia and help us!" (cf. Acts 16:6-10) - this vision can be interpreted as a "distillation" of the intrinsic necessity of a rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek inquiry.

6. In point of fact, this rapprochement had been going on for some time. The mysterious name of God, revealed from the burning bush, a name which separates this God from all other divinities with their many names and simply declares "I am", already presents a challenge to the notion of myth, to which Socrates' attempt to vanquish and transcend myth stands in close analogy. Within the Old Testament, the process which started at the burning bush came to new maturity at the time of the Exile, when the God of Israel, an Israel now deprived of its land and worship, was proclaimed as the God of heaven and earth and described in a simple formula which echoes the words uttered at the burning bush: "I am". This new understanding of God is accompanied by a kind of enlightenment, which finds stark expression in the mockery of gods who are merely the work of human hands (cf. Ps 115). Thus, despite the bitter conflict with those Hellenistic rulers who sought to accommodate it forcibly to the customs and idolatrous cult of the Greeks, biblical faith, in the Hellenistic period, encountered the best of Greek thought at a deep level, resulting in a mutual enrichment evident especially in the later wisdom literature. Today we know that the Greek translation of the Old Testament produced at Alexandria - the Septuagint - is more than a simple (and in that sense really less than satisfactory) translation of the Hebrew text: it is an independent textual witness and a distinct and important step in the history of revelation, one which brought about this encounter in a way that was decisive for the birth and spread of Christianity. A profound encounter of faith and reason is taking place here, an encounter between genuine enlightenment and religion. From the very heart of Christian faith and, at the same time, the heart of Greek thought now joined to faith, Manuel II was able to say: Not to act "with logos" is contrary to God's nature.

7. In all honesty, one must observe that in the late Middle Ages we find trends in theology which would sunder this synthesis between the Greek spirit and the Christian spirit. In contrast with the so-called intellectualism of Augustine and Thomas, there arose with Duns Scotus a voluntarism which, in its later developments, led to the claim that we can only know God's voluntas ordinata. Beyond this is the realm of God's freedom, in virtue of which he could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done. This gives rise to positions which clearly approach those of Ibn Hazm and might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness. God's transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable and hidden behind his actual decisions. As opposed to this, the faith of the Church has always insisted that between God and us, between his eternal Creator Spirit and our created reason there exists a real analogy, in which - as the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 stated - unlikeness remains infinitely greater than likeness, yet not to the point of abolishing analogy and its language. God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. Certainly, love, as Saint Paul says, "transcends" knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (cf. Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is Logos. Consequently, Christian λατρεία", worship in harmony with theworship is, again to quote Paul - "λογικη eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).

8. This inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of the history of religions, but also from that of world history - it is an event which concerns us even today. Given this convergence, it is not surprising that Christianity, despite its origins and some significant developments in the East, finally took on its historically decisive character in Europe. We can also express this the other way around: this convergence, with the subsequent addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe and remains the foundation of what can rightly be called Europe.

9. The thesis that the critically purified Greek heritage forms an integral part of Christian faith has been countered by the call for a dehellenization of Christianity - a call which has more and more dominated theological discussions since the beginning of the modern age. Viewed more closely, three stages can be observed in the programme of dehellenization: although interconnected, they are clearly distinct from one another in their motivations and objectives.

10. Dehellenization first emerges in connection with the postulates of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Looking at the tradition of scholastic theology, the Reformers thought they were confronted with a faith system totally conditioned by philosophy, that is to say an articulation of the faith based on an alien system of thought. As a result, faith no longer appeared as a living historical Word but as one element of an overarching philosophical system. The principle of sola scriptura, on the other hand, sought faith in its pure, primordial form, as originally found in the biblical Word. Metaphysics appeared as a premise derived from another source, from which faith had to be liberated in order to become once more fully itself. When Kant stated that he needed to set thinking aside in order to make room for faith, he carried this programme forward with a radicalism that the Reformers could never have foreseen. He thus anchored faith exclusively in practical reason, denying it access to reality as a whole.

11. The liberal theology of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries ushered in a second stage in the process of dehellenization, with Adolf von Harnack as its outstanding representative. When I was a student, and in the early years of my teaching, this programme was highly influential in Catholic theology too. It took as its point of departure Pascal's distinction between the God of the philosophers and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In my inaugural lecture at Bonn in 1959, I tried to address the issue, and I do not intend to repeat here what I said on that occasion, but I would like to describe at least briefly what was new about this second stage of dehellenization. Harnack's central idea was to return simply to the man Jesus and to his simple message, underneath the accretions of theology and indeed of hellenization: this simple message was seen as the culmination of the religious development of humanity. Jesus was said to have put an end to worship in favour of morality. In the end he was presented as the father of a humanitarian moral message. Fundamentally, Harnack's goal was to bring Christianity back into harmony with modern reason, liberating it, that is to say, from seemingly philosophical and theological elements, such as faith in Christ's divinity and the triune God. In this sense, historical-critical exegesis of the New Testament, as he saw it, restored to theology its place within the university: theology, for Harnack, is something essentially historical and therefore strictly scientific. What it is able to say critically about Jesus is, so to speak, an expression of practical reason and consequently it can take its rightful place within the university. Behind this thinking lies the modern self-limitation of reason, classically expressed in Kant's "Critiques", but in the meantime further radicalized by the impact of the natural sciences. This modern concept of reason is based, to put it briefly, on a synthesis between Platonism (Cartesianism) and empiricism, a synthesis confirmed by the success of technology. On the one hand it presupposes the mathematical structure of matter, its intrinsic rationality, which makes it possible to understand how matter works and use it efficiently: this basic premise is, so to speak, the Platonic element in the modern understanding of nature. On the other hand, there is nature's capacity to be exploited for our purposes, and here only the possibility of verification or falsification through experimentation can yield ultimate certainty. The weight between the two poles can, depending on the circumstances, shift from one side to the other. As strongly positivistic a thinker as J. Monod has declared himself a convinced Platonist/Cartesian.

12. This gives rise to two principles which are crucial for the issue we have raised. First, only the kind of certainty resulting from the interplay of mathematical and empirical elements can be considered scientific. Anything that would claim to be science must be measured against this criterion. Hence the human sciences, such as history, psychology, sociology and philosophy, attempt to conform themselves to this canon of scientificity. A second point, which is important for our reflections, is that by its very nature this method excludes the question of God, making it appear an unscientific or pre-scientific question. Consequently, we are faced with a reduction of the radius of science and reason, one which needs to be questioned.

13. I will return to this problem later. In the meantime, it must be observed that from this standpoint any attempt to maintain theology's claim to be "scientific" would end up reducing Christianity to a mere fragment of its former self. But we must say more: if science as a whole is this and this alone, then it is man himself who ends up being reduced, for the specifically human questions about our origin and destiny, the questions raised by religion and ethics, then have no place within the purview of collective reason as defined by "science", so understood, and must thus be relegated to the realm of the subjective. The subject then decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective "conscience" becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical. In this way, though, ethics and religion lose their power to create a community and become a completely personal matter. This is a dangerous state of affairs for humanity, as we see from the disturbing pathologies of religion and reason which necessarily erupt when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it. Attempts to construct an ethic from the rules of evolution or from psychology and sociology, end up being simply inadequate.

14. Before I draw the conclusions to which all this has been leading, I must briefly refer to the third stage of dehellenization, which is now in progress. In the light of our experience with cultural pluralism, it is often said nowadays that the synthesis with Hellenism achieved in the early Church was a preliminary inculturation which ought not to be binding on other cultures. The latter are said to have the right to return to the simple message of the New Testament prior to that inculturation, in order to inculturate it anew in their own particular milieux. This thesis is not only false; it is coarse and lacking in precision. The New Testament was written in Greek and bears the imprint of the Greek spirit, which had already come to maturity as the Old Testament developed. True, there are elements in the evolution of the early Church which do not have to be integrated into all cultures. Nonetheless, the fundamental decisions made about the relationship between faith and the use of human reason are part of the faith itself; they are developments consonant with the nature of faith itself.

15. And so I come to my conclusion. This attempt, painted with broad strokes, at a critique of modern reason from within has nothing to do with putting the clock back to the time before the Enlightenment and rejecting the insights of the modern age. The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvellous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is - as you yourself mentioned, Magnificent Rector - the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which belongs to the essential decisions of the Christian spirit. The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them. We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith.

16. Only thus do we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today. In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world's profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures. At the same time, as I have attempted to show, modern scientific reason with its intrinsically Platonic element bears within itself a question which points beyond itself and beyond the possibilities of its methodology. Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based. Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought - to philosophy and theology. For philosophy and, albeit in a different way, for theology, listening to the great experiences and insights of the religious traditions of humanity, and those of the Christian faith in particular, is a source of knowledge, and to ignore it would be an unacceptable restriction of our listening and responding. Here I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In their earlier conversations, many false philosophical opinions had been raised, and so Socrates says: "It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about being - but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a great loss". The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur - this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time. "Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God", said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university.

This is a question to Muslims, Moslems, the Islamic World, and The Nation of Islam. It is not a statement, it is a question. I'll repeat it if necessary: Are you people that ignorant you can't interpret the difference between a belief and a quote? Is violence your answer to everything? Did Catholics, Christians, anyone in the world do anything to you when one of your own, a Turkish Muslim, Mehmet Ali Ağca, attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II? In fact John Paul II forgave him, not out of pity, but because it is the man he was. Catholics don't follow barbarians. They follow pious people who condemn violence. The Catholic Church is guilty of violence. But that was a long time ago, and has apologized and admitted they were wrong. When has a Muslim apologized for anything?

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 27

2006-09-15T09:37:00.000-05:00

No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

They have to vote on raising minumum wage, yet have to make an amendment regarding their own pay raises.

Well we've done it. The US Constitution. What our fair nation is built on. However, a new amendment may be on the way. One that is almost reminiscent of the 18th in that it takes our freedom away. Preserving the integrity of marriage in this country is doing just that, preserving marriage. It makes no difference who you marry, what you marry, or how you marry. Separating Church and State will keep the 28th amendment from ever happening. Vote Democrat!

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 26

2006-09-15T09:34:00.000-05:00

The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

Whatever.

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 25

2006-09-13T11:00:00.000-05:00

In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

No comment. Actually yes I do have a comment. Has there ever been a vice-president capable of assuming a role without making things worse?

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 24

2006-09-13T10:49:00.000-05:00

The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay poll tax or other tax.

Florida revisited.

The Bratwurst

2006-09-12T17:13:00.000-05:00

The only thing that can ruin a Brat is ketchup.

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 23

2006-09-12T16:32:00.000-05:00

The District constituting the seat of government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct:
A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a state, but in no event more than the least populous state; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the states, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a state; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.

Just in case...

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 22

2006-09-12T16:29:00.000-05:00

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

The mess that is caused in one term, usually takes two terms to clean up. If chosen to be done so.

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 21

2006-09-11T14:39:00.000-05:00

The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

What? Did they really think it was going to last?

"To Alcohol. The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems." - Homer J. Simpson

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendments 19 & 20

2006-09-11T14:08:00.000-05:00

The right of citizens in the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Now don't think we don't support this. We just can't believe that people had to sit down and think about who can and can't vote. This is just another example of what is wrong with the whole picture. We actually need an amendment to give women the right to vote? And how could it have possibly taken over 140 years for that to happen? How paranoid was the white male in the 19th century? What's worse, is that the House passed the amendment 304-89 and the Senate 56-25. How could that many people vote "Nay"?

The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3rd day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified. The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them. Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of this article. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission.

Look, first off, who was planning on pulling a fast one on the country that this one needed to be put in place? Second, in my voting lifetime, I've supported only half the candidates that have won. But even so, there is no way in hell I'd sit in a D.C. January to see them lie on the Good Book. To think that they haven't even figured out to put it indoors yet tells you a lot about the event planners.

German-American Fest 9/8 - 9/10

2006-09-08T16:29:00.000-05:00

Some of us will be out at the German-American Fest this weekend in Lincoln Square. We'll try to take pictures of interesting, weird, and hot blondes. For more information go to here.

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 18

2006-09-08T16:22:00.000-05:00

We decided to skip over the 17th amendment because no one is protected by it, nor are they affected by it. So we jump to the most devastating moment in US History. One that affected everyone. 12/18/1917, though it's effect took place two years later.

After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

Some people along the Bible Belt still abide by this amendment. Get with the times. He turned water into wine. "This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant." You know what He was talking about? Wine you idiots! And you ban it? Jesus Christ that is blasphemy.

Nice Try

2006-09-08T14:39:00.000-05:00

Anyone who still thinks Lysol covers up the smell of your body's disapproval of your lunch is living a fairy tale. When you have an office that is 10x10 and no ventilation other than your door, it is even harder to cover that up. Lysol just insults peoples intelligence. Here are a couple of solutions to your hopeless situation:
1. Go to the God damn bathroom.
2. Let it happen, and let people enter at their own risk. Act casual. Looking nervous leads people to think you are covering something up (i.e. A Fart).
3. Cut back on franchise food.
4. Permanently install air fresheners that can be bought at any local drug store. That way, you can blame your garbage.
5. Blame the garbage, but make sure you have a brown bag in there as a decoy.
6. Eat healthier. Studies have shown that water and vegetables flushes the system of toxins, aka red meat.
7. Leave your office or cubicle immediately. This will confuse people. But be sure to count to 10 before leaving. Otherwise you will trail that demon wherever you go.
8. Don't play dumb. You will look dumb.
9. The Olfactory System works from birth. It has lots of practice and can seldom be fooled.
10. Shutting the door behind you contains what firemen call a backdraft.
11. Fanning the air creates an invisible perimeter. However, it stays long after the deed is done. Thus, busting you.

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 16

2006-09-08T10:33:00.000-05:00

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Explain the census and enumeration part again.

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 15

2006-09-08T10:30:00.000-05:00

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Why does everything wrong happen in Florida? Why, of all states, did the fraud take place in the state where the candidate's brother is governor?

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 14

2006-09-07T11:52:00.000-05:00

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Reasons why you should go back where you came from:
Your child is NOT a US citizen because: Children born to aliens who are lawfully inside the United States (resident or visitor, not trespasser), with the intention of amicably interacting with its people and obeying its laws.
You lost your citizenship, or any chance of getting it because: Fraud in the naturalization process. You were working under a false social security number.

A special thanks to the government for making her a martyr. But as much as she has worn out her welcome in the US, she will wear out her welcome in the Adalberto United Methodist Church, who can also face charges for aiding and abetting an illegal immigrant.

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 13

2006-09-07T10:54:00.000-05:00

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

And before any one gets hostile, the picture above signifies not that we do not approve of the amendment. We believe that it is embarassing enough that a nation actually has to have an amendment prohibiting slavery, and that people at one time were not looked at as anything more than property. It is a shameful time in US history. But the picture above shows an exploitation of US history. At the time, slavery was not illegal. Today it is. No crime was committed at the time, though it was highly immoral. Many things are highly immoral: opium farming, swearing in front of children, abandoning your child, looking for handouts, and blaming you current situation for something that ended 141 years ago. It is an act of Reverse Slavery, in that people are bringing current billion dollar corporations to their mercy, dragging their names into the media, claiming they had their origins in slavery. Applause to all judges who punt these complaints out of their court rooms.

*Author's note: My family came to this country long after slavery ended without a dime in their pockets. They worked their asses off so their children would learn values and work ethic. Their children taught it to their children, and so on. I am not a product of slavery, nor am I a prosperer from it. I am the product of the American Dream.

How to get back at your Roommate

2006-09-06T16:27:00.000-05:00

Has your roommate eaten your leftovers? Has he publicly humiliated you at a party? Short on comebacks? Here are six fool proof pranks to pull on your room mate that will buy you enough time to get across state lines. Just be sure your room isn't near theirs.
1. Pour milk in his shoe. It'll be wet, but will be rancid as hell when it dries and spoils.

2. Put bologna under his mattress. That'll stink like hell.

3. Pee on his bed. But don't drink alot of water before doing it. Make it nice and potent with ammonia and uric acid.

4. Nail his shoes to the floor. This will have a long term effect in rainy weather. Or poke holes in his shoes in the grooves so they are less noticeable. Any puddle or wet surface will leave wet socks and a nasty funk over time.

5. Vomit on his bedroom floor on "accident".

6. Poo in his shoe. My friend's brother with Downs Syndrome did that to me when I was 9 and I didn't even do anything.

Fantasy Football Begins

2006-09-06T15:45:00.000-05:00

The Northside Busch League had their 2006 draft over Labor Day weekend. Our money is on Munters.

Memory Lane: Partying at Another College Vol. 2

2006-09-06T15:33:00.000-05:00

"I once got picked up by a police car at 3:45 in the morning at Purdue University. I had been drinking most of the night and I got separated from my friends so I was just wandering around. The cop asked me what I was doing, and I said I was lost from my friends, I was from chicago, and I needed to get to 415 Fowler St. He had me take a breathalyzer. It was .08, the legal limit for driving and I guess public intox. He said, 'Alright, hop inthe car, I'll give you a ride.' We get to my buddy's house, the cop knocks on the door, one of my friend's answers wearing his boxer's, obviously just having been woken up by the knocking on the door. I immediately say to the cop, 'That's Jason F-----.' the cop says to him, 'You know this guy?'. He replies, 'Yeah, that's D." The cop goes, 'Ok, you can have him.' The lesson? Always know the address you need to be at."

Memory Lane: Partying at Another College Vol. 1

2006-09-06T15:15:00.000-05:00

"Went down to Illinois State. We were at aparty that my friend knew about. We got there around 9pm. The exact words of my friend D were "Hey P, drink as much as you can at this partybecause I think everything else is dead tonight". We were 19 so we couldn'tbuy. I ended up getting pretty ripped playing quarters and 2,3,5 man. Someguy was hungry so we went to La Bamba. I ended up eating 2 Steak burrittos 'the size of your head', and was developing a bit of a bloated, gassy, stretched stomach. As we are staggering back to his place, we meet up withsome other people who say 'Hey there's this all Vodka party at So n Sos'. Everyone started following him. I heard the word 'Vodka' and nearly puked. I remember that he lived on Mulberry St. and was a 1/2 block from a dead end. I couldn't remember if his address was 315 or 513. So I figured I'd risk the 1.95 block difference. It turned out to be 315 and I passed out on the couch on his porch. That was better than the time I stopped to take a leak,the leak turned into a flood and by the time I stepped out from between two houses, they were gone. I tried to catch up but couldn't find them. I passed a party and knew that the one we were going to was on this street. I paid $5 at the door, got a cup, took another leak, drank about 4 beers, and realized I was at the wrong party. So I left and kept going and passed another house a few doors down. I whipped out my wallet again when I heard 'P, NOT THAT ONE EITHER!!!'. I turned around and they were on the porch of a house drinking. They were laughing their asses off at me and gave me my $5 back for having the guts to hang out at a party to whichI knew no one for a whole hour. College was the best."

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 12

2006-09-06T15:08:00.000-05:00

The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;
The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;
The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 11

2006-09-05T17:11:00.000-05:00

The Judicial powers of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.

Textile plants and refineries are getting away with murder. Literally. Shouldn't a state be responsible, really responsible, for regulating it's industry's output?

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendments 9 & 10

2006-09-05T14:48:00.000-05:00

Number 9: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Number 10: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

We're not be lazy here. Nor are we skipping ahead. These are the broadest statements an English-speaking person could ever read. But in any event, Texas seems to exploit these amendments as far as the law allows.

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 8

2006-09-05T14:34:00.000-05:00

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Just to give you enough opportunities to make sure your life (and someone else's) is completely destroyed.

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 7

2006-09-05T13:57:00.000-05:00

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Seriously. How hard is it to stay out of trouble? What did you like about jail the first time that you would set yourself up to go back?

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 6

2006-09-05T13:30:00.000-05:00

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

"[Fat, Drunk, and] Stupid is no way to go through life."

Enjoy Your Weekend!

2006-09-01T15:06:00.000-05:00

Catch some of Chicago's amateur House DJs here. And remember, when it has a "?", that means it can get pretty crazy!

Taste of Polonia 9/1 - 9/4

2006-09-01T13:40:00.000-05:00

It's that time of the year. Time to get wasted on Okocim, Zywiec, and vodka. Fill up with some of the most artery clogging food you've ever tasted. And be sure to leave the English at home. At the Copernicus Center in the 5200 block of Lawrence. You can't miss it. Trust me.

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 5

2006-09-01T10:30:00.000-05:00

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

"For when the One Great Scorer comes
To write against your name,
He marks - not that you won or lost -
But how you played the Game."

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 4

2006-09-01T10:26:00.000-05:00

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

That probable cause means you are the shadiest looking person they've seen, and you are driving like an idiot.

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 3

2006-08-31T10:53:00.000-05:00

No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

There can be no greater insult to the people of an occupied country, than for the uninvited guests to set up camp in the house of their former leader.

The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket: Amendment 2

2006-08-31T10:37:00.000-05:00

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Gun Deaths in the most industrialized nations in 1998:
Japan: 19
Great Britain: 54
Australia: 57
Canada: 151
Germany: 373
USA: 11,789

In 2003:
USA: 30,136

The US Constitution. The 219th Annual Carnival Ticket

2006-08-30T16:43:00.000-05:00

In honor of the 219th anniversary of the completion of the US Constitution, a daily photo will be posted leading up the completion to honor not the people who have fought for our rights, but rather the garbage across this land that is protected by it. However, since I thought the date of the signing was the 24th of September instead of the 17th, I will have catching up to do. In any event, if it was the 24th, I'd have catching up to do anyway.
*Author's note: This is not anti-Government, anti-American, Prejudicial, or Racial. If you are abusing the Constitution, you should expect abuse yourself.
Day 1: First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy at the Computer?

2006-08-30T16:24:00.000-05:00

This is not an actual disease or public issue that most people know about. But I can’t help but wonder about some of the people I have worked with over the years. I have had my face in front of a computer for the last 7 years for various projects, daily tasks, and fantasy football. Aside from the occasional software upgrade, system maintenance, and mandatory desk side training, I have no use for our Help Desk, Tech Support, or Database Administrator. In fact, the only times I have ever needed them, were when my registry was wiped out due to a garbage cleaning program, and when the DBA called me to tell me to get my mp3s off of the server. If I would’ve known at the time 5GB of music taking up valuable client space was wrong, I wouldn’t have bothered. But I can’t help but wonder about the people that require constant attention from the computer people. There seems to be at least one in every office that has a Help Desk person at their desk once a day, to solve a major crisis that has only happened on their computer. They go through different PCs, laptops, sometimes monitors, and even cables, like most people change their water filters. What causes this? If you are a computer person by trade, perhaps you can provide input. The following are two examples of this nonsense that not only monopolizes valuable resources, but is flat out pathetic.

I Lost My Password and here is My Cleavage

The first one I worked with was a classic. All of my observations have been with women, by the way. She was THAT woman that you see in every movie that will hit on any testosterone in sight. Anyway, she had the standard issue desktop everyone at the firm had. Her job required no more computer heavy work than anyone else, but managed to find a way to damage her computer on a daily basis. At first, she had a PC they lay horizontal on her desk. If she wasn’t spilling coffee on it, she was getting items jammed in the CD drive. When it wasn’t a hardware issue, she would erase her icons. Or she would change file locations. Or she would lose links. Or she would inadvertently print out 3000 pages of nothing, mucking up her computer, and much of the intranet. Or she would changer her password constantly, and uses suggestive words as her new ones. She would somehow have unplugged cables and wires. Her mouse would get stuck. IT WAS ALWAYS SOMETHING. Each time a different guy showed up and corrected this issue as if he knew what it was before he got there. They thought it was funny for a while. Some even got to go on dates with her. But she was never ignored. In fact, if they were not at her desk in 10 minutes, the Help Desk phone combusted.

I’m too Important to Explain to you how Modest I Am

The other example is of someone who has not only monopolized the Help Desk, but also all of their hardware. Never in my life have I seen someone with three computers on their desk, who doesn’t have a computer related job. The reasons vary from using unique software, to large spreadsheets, to multi-tasking, to available memory. Name one program for me that is popular in any given professional field that cannot be supported on your average computer, and I’ll tell you that you are lying. Something cannot be popular if it can’t be used. It also cannot be popular if it takes more than the standard issue to operate. Most companies not only have limited licensing, but they have limited budgets to rent, operate, and manage these types of programs. Every day, a tech guy is at her desk, rerouting links, creating scripts, and defibrillating any one of the two PCs and laptop to keep the database alive. No one else in the office has this problem but her. Not only that, because it is a smaller office, help desk resources are much more limited. An email went out the other day stating that if we have issues with printing to contact them, as they will direct us to a network printer. My response to all, with heavy accusations, was “how are we to contact the IT Department if no one is ever there?”

Is it possible that these people are deprived of the attention they need to function on a daily basis? Do they feel that computer problems, and people solving them is a sign of importance? Is it possible that they are so incapable of using a computer, that anything they touch on it gets deleted? Why must they sabotage a harmless machine? Should they be held responsible? As far as I know, if I broke the coffee maker for the second time (accidents happen), I am paying for it.

The Bartender’s Fault

2006-08-28T17:38:00.000-05:00

A simple golf outing with a group of friends turns sour thanks to a Wisconsin bartender. Eight men would head out to the first tee, one would not return.

It all started on an unseasonably warm April day. Unseasonably by saying it was close to 100F. An oven for Wisconsin at the peak of summer. Eight friends, four of them college buddies, Pete, Saul, Jack, Teddy, (names changed to prevent WWIII) and four other unknowns who were siblings of friends of friends, headed up to Indian Head Golf Resort (actual name withheld for liability purposes). Jack’s family had been coming here for the past 30 years. They arrived on a Friday evening just before the fish fry to settle in, grab some dinner, and hit the resort bar for a few night caps. Pete, who is hearing impaired, but also impaired in the judgment of knowing when to say when, quickly ordered rounds of Jager-bombs. Across the bar, planted at one side and spilling into an adjacent private room, was a corporate outing of a local software distribution company, and representing it strong in their baby-blue polos with insignia on the left breast.
A couple of hours pass and not much good news on ESPN, but the drinks are going down like beer at a bar. At about the sixth Jager-bomb, Saul and Teddy hear Pete, and a whole lot more, but cannot seem to find him. As they gaze over the bar to corporate America, they see Pete jack hammering his finger into the chests of three men, many times his size. Since there really was only 1 ½ sides to this story, the boys in blue won by claiming he staggered over and insisted they had “faggot shirts on”. When they disagreed, he said it was an insult to the Houston Oilers.
When they got Pete to his room, he was long over served. Not only did the bartender not kick him out after his one sided argument, he topped off his glass two or three more time. It was 1am, and they had a 9am tee off. 36 holes were going to be played on Saturday, and 7 hours of sleep is enough for any powerhouse, 30-something professional.
10am the next day. Jack, Saul, teddy, and the four unknowns were starting the fourth hole, and Pete was just peeling himself off the pillow. He missed 30 minutes of knocking, courtesy calls, and alarm clocks before they finally gave up. Finally the cleaning people woke him up, at the request of Teddy.
While golfing progressed for the Able Seven, Pete proceeded to pull himself together and head down to the bar. The crew pulled in around 1.30p and was going to wolf down lunch before a 2pm tee off again. They found Pete murderously slurring at the bar and gave him a tongue lashing. By 2pm and the first tee, Pete was barely able to hold his club. Jack drove him back to the hotel room to sleep it off, and more or less ground him. When Jack left him, he was in his room, spitting tobacco all over the place and cursing at the bastard for burning him.

From this moment (2.30p), onward, all is speculation. Facts have been pieced together by various sources. All will get their credit in due time. If credit is what they want.

Pete decided he was not going to stay in the room and wanted to catch up with the rest of the group. He proceeded out to the parking lot, which was an elaborate maze of parking spots, spaced over several acres. Pete made his way to his car and drove around looking for them. He never made it out of the lot, but instead got himself lost. He passed out in the car for a couple hours, in 100F heat, leaving people to wonder if the car was stolen. When he woke up from the nap, he made his way to the clubhouse and climbed into a golf cart. What is always amazing, is how someone in this level of consciousness, is able to go so far unnoticed. He again attempted to track down his group, and followed what ever paved paths he could find. Somehow he made his way into a rather exclusive sub-division that was adjacent to the club, and more or less part of it.

Whether he passed out behind the wheel, or began to hallucinate from the heat, dehydration, and alcohol, he made his way up someone’s driveway, and wedged the golf cart between two Lexus sedans in the garage, via an open garage door. How he got out of the cart is anyone’s guess, but proceeded into the house, where he found a couch and passed out again. This would’ve gone unnoticed for longer than it had, if Pete did not somehow tracked mud all over the home’s cream-colored carpet.

Hours may have passed, and probably did, but when the guy who owned the house found him, the first reaction to assess the damage, and then wake the intruder. He called the golf course rather than 911 because he saw where the cart had come from. He was pretty sure they’d appreciate it back.

He roused Pete awake with the poke of a baseball bat, and some venom in his voice. Pete managed to get back to the golf course, where his friends and management were waiting for him. The police had been notified and charges were going to be filed, and many of them. Fortunate for Pete, Jack was a lawyer and pulled every string he could to talk them out of doing so. Even so far as offering to pay for damages. Unfortunate for Jack, neither him nor his family will ever be allowed at the resort again.

While this story may make you laugh the first time you read it, when you’ve told it a couple times, it becomes a sobering experience (pun intended). What does it take to realize you’ve hit bottom? How do you sleep at night knowing you’ve over-served the over-served?

CTA Blue Line

2006-08-25T15:38:00.000-05:00

P: I've been leaving the house at 7.45a every day, getting me to the train 15-20 minutes earlier than normal. I used to skate out the door between 8.05 and 8.10 to get to work by 9. I just got here. I can’t imagine what time I’d get here at my old schedule. Lousy Blue Line.

D: I'll complain about the CTA when I need to use it more often, otherwise I've got no problems with it at all.

P: The CTA sucks. They don’t renovate and upgrade, they do patch work. And like all patchwork it catches up and needs a major overhaul. They have no money to work with, and have p--- poor workers. The bus drivers are dangerous. The train engineers are reckless. And the station employees have grapenuts for brains. The pattern has to start somewhere. 1. Fix your tracks. 2. Hire able workers. 3. Then get new trains. The buses themselves are great, but their drivers are going to destroy them.

D: Which all starts with 1a) raise fares.
Then people flip out. We'll see if the Brown line improvements start to make any difference in the way the system works. Hopefully if the price of gasoline continues to stay high it might change the transportation patterns of city residents, but so far the prices have continued to rise and consumer patterns have yet to change. In europe gas is way more expensive, hence they have better public transportation. Until the masses actually make a shift in the way they move there, the CTA isn't going to have the money to make significant changes to the way their system operates.

P: I was not opposed to raising the fares. There are too many agitators keeping the wrong and not accepting the right. You have a**hole news reporters who live in Streeterville and River North who walk to work, but fill their columns with how the CTA shouldn’t raise fares. As far as gas is concerned, we cannot be expected to change our lifestyles because of the price of gasoline. We should, but we shouldn’t be expected. We can slam Exxon for posting 11 figure profits per quarter, but our govt won’t tap it’s own reserves?
Raise the fares. Raise the transfers. Shave 1 car off of each train and add one extra arrival. There is a simple way to do everything.

The Pain Index

2006-08-25T15:32:00.000-05:00

Rank these in your perceived order of discomfort:
1.Wagon of woe
2.Boudoir of distress
3.Antechamber of agony
4.Fatigue fatigues
5.Rucksack of adversity
6.Inflammation Casket
7.Booth of tribulation
8.Hurt box
9.Pain cave
10.Bag of discomfort
11.Closet of exhaustion
12.Wretched envelope
13.Misery Grotto
14.Foyer of Distress
15.Satchel of Malaise
16.Shack of Torment
17.Forest of despair

Wood Chef

2006-08-25T13:56:00.000-05:00

In a discussion over who has what it takes in the kitchen, we bounce back and forth various meals we have made with the ideas and the ingredients we had within arm's reach.

D: Made a huge batch of jambalaya, man it was good.
I've been getting these prepackaged rice meals -- Zatarain's is the brand name I think. Anyway, I mixed one box of Jambalaya mix w/ one box of Red Beans & Rice mix, cooked that separately (w/ 2 bay leaves). In the giant skillet I started with 1 onion & 2 green bell peppers, diced. Cooked those for a while, then added a can of diced tomatoes w/ green chiles. Then I started adding spices (cayenne, cajun mix, cumin, paprika, tabasco, lots of worchestshire sauce, etc). Then I added the smoked sausage, lastly added 1 lb of shrimp. Once everything was done I mixed the 2 pots into a giant serving dish. That was an excellent meal. I had leftovers for at least 3 days.

P: Made a shrimp pasta. Here's the run down:
Bought pre-cooked shrimp (something I'll never do again)
1 red pepper
1 yellow onion
1 clove of elephant garlic
Copious amounts of olive oil
And vermicelli
Diced up the garlic and let is liquefy ever so slightly in olive oil before I put in the diced pepper and onion in a pan. Kept the heat on very low to slow cook. Cooked the shrimp on a griddle on the grill with olive oil and greek seasoning (pretty much greek all-spice). Somehow timed everything perfectly over a bottle of wine and mixed together. The shrimp needed to be sautéed, but I'm going to buy uncooked the next time because they shrank and toughened to almost popcorn shrimp. The ratio of vegetables to noodles was even, which was a good thing because the excess oil made the pasta perfect. Servied with Buckley's Merlot.

D: I've found the same problem with pre-cooked shrimp. It shrinks & gets tougher when you try to sautee it.
Imade a quick fish dish. Got some cod for cheap from dominicks. Put lemon juice & olive oil in a small pan, add fish, coat both sides, then add sliced tomatoes on top of that. Sprinkle parmesan cheese on top, cover with foil & bake for 10-15 minutes.
Except I didn't use a fresh tomato, I had a can of diced tomatoes and put those chunks on there. ended up being too much tomato. fish was good though.

P: Not a meal, but a recipe. Steak Marinade:
1 ½ cups steak sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/3 cup Italian-style dressing
1/3 cup honey
1 tsp garlic powder
Mix in a blender, marinate the steaks for 2 hours.

D: For the Superbowl, I think the wings I made were some of the best I've made. Put a rub on them at first, mix of chili powder, salt, curry, cayenne, powdered mustard. Then put a light covering of hot bottled bbq sauce, let them sit in that in the fridge. (I don't remember the brand). Mixed together a mix of the hot sauce, KC masterpiece smokey bbq sauce, tabasco, habanero sauce & chili powder. Cooked them in the over for 30 min at 400 degrees, turning over 1/2 way. Basted with the bbq mix before going in and upon flipping. Served with the sauce for dipping. That was a big hit.

P: At Easter, we made Cauliflower au Gratin. Used 1 medium head cauliflower, some salt and pepper, 1 cup sour cream, 1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese. Preheated the oven to 350F. Chop cauliflower. Cooked in a small amount of boiling salted water 10 minutes. Placed half of cauliflower in a one-and-one-half-quart casserole. Season with salt and pepper. Spread half of sour cream, half of cheese, and half of sesame seeds over cauliflower. Layered same again. Baked for 15 minutes.

D: Prepared rice
Cooked up 5 chicken breasts (in skillet w/ oil, no marinade or spices). As they were finished, I removed them from the skillet, shredded them w/ a knife & fork, and placed in another pan. Added a can of diced tomatoes & a smaller can of green chiles, cooked those together for 8-10 minutes. Took a can of green salsa, poured just enough to cover a full plate. Took wheat tortillas, made sure each side was dipped in the salsa. Put rice and chicken-veggie mixture into tortilla, rolled it up and placed into a dish for the oven. Used all 10 tortilla shells. Grated monterrey jack cheese on top of the tortillas, then poured rest of green salsa over the dish.
Covered, placed in oven for 15-20 minutes. Served w/ sour cream Delicious. Corrections for next time: line pan with something before putting rolled tortillas in it. Use WAY more cheese, maybe even some inside the tortillas?

The Art of Cooking

2006-08-25T11:14:00.000-05:00

Square-table discussion on the art of cooking from people who have not a drop of professional guidance.

D: One of the 2 "date cook books" I have, either Win Her With Dinner or Will Cook For Sex has the real description of what the food is, and then after that what you should call it when you're serving it. Some of them are pretty funny, but I know none of them off the top of my head.

P: I have close to 50 cook books. 48 of which are pieces of crap. I feel a good cook book should have pictures not just of the final product, but maybe a “at this point it should look like this” bit. A few of the books are foreign and go by the metric system and that is horrible on the mind in a hurry. The best books I have are actually the ones older than me. The Dave from top chef, you are the man. Knife skills, stirring skills, and adding skills are the confidence boosters. Fumbling any of these, you might as well tell her its not going to work out. I feel much more confident off of wine than beer when cooking also. Some people prefer --- on the rocks or martinis, but I am not that good yet.

D: Control in the kitchen is key. People always ask me how I know how to cook. I tell them I don't, I'm just pretending to know what i'm doing, which is pretty much the truth.

P: Sometimes your mind just uses a common sense factor, and you pick up a lot over the years. They say that every cook book is good for two recipes. People don’t realize that whatever they cook with fish, ends up smelling like fish. Everything is cooked separate and then added at the end. Same goes for bbq sauce. Why do you want to cook the sauce? Cook the meat, then add the sauce. Pouring beer on a burger on the grill is about as useless as watering a parking lot. If you don’t poke holes in a brat before you soak it, you are just wasting beer/water. Water does not substitute milk. Ever.

The Bratwurst

2006-08-24T14:40:00.000-05:00

A Wisconsinite taught me a fool proof way to cooking a tasty brat. This is about the only thing I would ever listen to from someone in Wisconsin, because they know their brats. Fill a pot with 1 beer and 6 oz of water for every 5 brats. Poke holes in brats. Chop up an onion and place in the pot. Cook on low heat, almost as low as it can go because the beer will rise and cause mess problems. Cook for 45 – 1 hour. During this time, the grease has been released into the beer water and mixed to go right back in. At the same time, the brats have cooked about 75% and are very moist. Then toss them on the grill for 4 minutes each side. The onions are already cooked and ready to serve. But drizzle them with olive oil after you've strained them of the beer water. Now, contrary to what my college buddies think, use a non-alcoholic beer. You are not wasting valuable beer, as the alcohol would burn away anyway and be useless. Also, pouring beer on the brat while it's cooking doesn't work either. Thicker beer is great but for safety, use nothing heavier than Moosehead, which is pretty much the 8 pound bowling ball. He also said there is no greater way to waste a brat, besides using ketchup, than putting French’s yellow mustard on it. The brown mustard, Dijon, and even honey mustard work.

I’m tempted to try this with Italian sausage, but can’t seem to run the risk of ruining an already good link.

My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Noodles?

2006-08-24T13:56:00.000-05:00

Pluto is no more. As a main planet, that is. The International Astronomical Union voted recently in Prague to demote Pluto and countless other objects to "dwarf planets." In order to be a planet an object must be round, orbit the sun, and be the most supreme object in it's "neighborhood." The last part eliminates Pluto because of its neighbor dwarf of Charon. Moleman has been waiting for this to come for a few years. The 4 inner planets are all small and rocky and the 4 outer planets are all large and made of gas, except pluto, which is smaller than Earth's moon. All 8 planets revolve around the Sun on a similar plane, Pluto's orbit is quite tilted. Every 200 years or so it even moves inside Neptune's orbit making it closer to the Sun. If we kept Pluto as a planet then we have to make its "moon/sister planet" Charon a planet. The asteroid Ceres, located between Jupiter and Mars, would become a planet as well. So would hundreds of undiscovered large objects outside of Pluto's orbit in a region known to astronomers as the Kuiper Belt. So teachers will no longer be able to use the sentence "My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas" to remember the order of the planets. So for all you Pluto-lovers out there, try to get your money back for the real estate you purchased on the dwarf planet.

Old News but Still a Touchy Subject: FEMA and their Debit Cards

2006-08-24T11:35:00.000-05:00

Brief discussion on Hurricane Katrina, a year after it was just a tropical storm. Having read the article, the following is the response.

D: Ridiculous -- I understand how the problems happened, but its obvious that the system is so F-ed that no one has time to doublecheck any of the work. Better to do it right the first time...

P: A guy I work with blames congress for handing out money. I blame the people for their responsibility. 9/11 brought out the best in people. This storm definitely brought out the worst. It is obvious that we are much more helpless of a species than we think.
I also like how many of the religious felt that this was a sign from God that the city was evil and people need to change their ways. Start new lives. Meanwhile crime is skyrocketing in the cities that Katrina victims got displaced to. They didn’t change their ways. They changed their venues. This was F’d up from the top-down.

D: I don't think it's the inherent nature of the people to be criminally minded but rather the fact that they've never had much opportunity couple that with the fact that the organization in place to handle these things was structurally F-ed from the top-down, and further magnified their beliefs that no one cares about them, and their situation in their minds has been lose-lose from birth. I'm not saying their attitude is the correct one, because anyone with enough willpower can succeed from even the humblest beginnings, but there's not a lot of optimism going around those parts.

P: Prayer replaces optimism, and vice versa. And I think even as a person who has religion in a his life will agree that people put too much stock in prayer. Prayer is comfort, not safety. At the same time, I think people that rely on prayer also are relying on someone else to get them out of their situation, rather than doing it themselves. Enter evangelists.
These people that just blew their money on everything but food, shelter, and survival, are the ones that are going to be crying “Oh please God help me. I’m broke. I’m hungry. I’m tired. My baby needs to eat.” They had responsibility of some kind before disaster struck, why can’t they have it now? I consider those cash cards extended paychecks for some, welfare checks and social security checks for others. I have to believe if they weathered the storm, no pun intended, they have eaten in the past. What are they doing now? There is a lot more optimism in the rural areas, where they people have banded together to rebuild their communities because they were forgotten. They know they’ll survive, but they have to do it together, alone.
All in all, this hurricane hit at a very, very vulnerable point in time for this country. We are an oil embargo away from a real crisis, and Iran and Venezuela are banking on that.

D: I have a feeling that 90% of the people that blew their money on non-survival items were also people who fraudulently obtained the disaster cards.

P: That is a distinct possibility. And I understand money makes the world turn, but shame on those places for accepting those cards. They looked like debit cards, but I’m sure there was something on them that said what they were. I guess that’s the same as selling a bum a pint of bourbon when he should be eating a sandwich, or a person with a stoma buying smokes.

All in all, people in times of crisis, in regions of crisis, do not act like barbarians. Some may be to proud to ask for help, but try to survive as long as they can. When aid arrives, starving nations do not have food fights. When peace-keepers restore calm, most of the time, they are not attacked. Freezing people do not find what fits. In short, "beggars can't be choosers" - Paul J. Quinn.
NOLA showed us that not only did many people defy help, but simply relied on it without seeking safety on their own. I'm not speaking for all, and I'm not speaking for the poor. There were many people who had opportunities that did not use them. There were some that could have helped others, and chose to just help themselves. This storm saw no boundaries. Whether those boundaries were neighborhoods, cities, states, or races.

A short time later, tapes were released on Michael Brown's warning the White House. Discussion followed.

D: Doesn't take him off the hook at all. His leadership, and the administration's, during the disaster was a complete joke whether they knew the deal or not. If you think the problem is bigger than what we're ready for, do something and mobilize people to handle it.

P: What I think he is happy about is that there is definitive proof that the very people that threw him under the bus, knew about this in time. The mayor, gov, senators, house reps, and the W admin should all be held liable. The mayor did the most, but could’ve done a hell of a lot more, especially with mass transit vehicles. It really breaks my heart hearing people in the towns down there that look like the hurricane hit 2 hours ago say that have prayer to keep them going. F that. If there is anyone in the world that should be mad right now (besides Iraqis), it should be them. These folks, by the time they get electricity and the debris cleared so the mail can come through, will be getting IRS audits because they are late on their bills and taxes. If it were up to me, everyone who was not able to receive some sort of aid within 2 weeks of the storm, should be exempt from taxes for 2005. And at the rate it is going, 2006. The volunteers who can help them should be exempt as well.
Asking another 70 Billion for a civil war in another country, give me a break. You know where that money is going? It is being used for the right reasons. Only, that $5 million school they keep building just keeps getting blown up again. That bridge that was constructed for $10 million, gets blown up every month. Those trucks that carry goods all day, need their windshields replaced 20 times a month from stones being thrown at them. That’s where the money is going.
By the way, if you crunch the numbers, this war is doing exactly 5/8 the damage of Vietnam. Casualties/deaths, etc.

New Season of Survivor: Best Idea Ever?

2006-08-24T09:19:00.000-05:00

As a wise man once said: They aren't reality shows, they are just long running game shows.
Very, very true. There are always prizes at the end. There are consolation and bonus prizes throughout. And the winner always returns for the next show.
While we are not fans of reality shows, we dabble in the Top Chef and Hell's Kitchen programs only for the fact that we can walk away from each show learning a new technique or recipe aside from giving a cab driver directions in Turkish, or knowing how to climb a rope slathered in baby oil over a polluted harbor. MTV is disgusting. Meshing unstable losers with alcohol and sitting them in a house for 4 months and expecting them to get along wore out 12 years ago. Congrats Real World San Francisco, you were the last good one. And that is just one of their reality shows.
Now there are such shows as The Amazing Race, which brings families and marriages and relationships to the brink of destruction, whizzing them through the most beautiful spots in the world without so much as a hint of appreciation. It's hard to say you've seen Paris, when you have an hour to conquer it. There is also Project Runway, an okay show if you are into fashion. There are countless others, and then the ones with no prizes. But no show has captured the attention of views quite like Survivor. A true feat of ordinary people left to their wits to throw each other to the lions for $666,667 after taxes. Anyone who has watched all of the season (no me) knows that there are several factors involved in survival. There is sharing, connecting, comprimising, teamwork, and of course, backstabbing. But other issues get involved that don't necessarily have to, much like in everyday life. Race. Well, before local police will have to be called to the scene, the producers have decided to stick everyone with their own kind, to be blunt. They may say the show isn't diverse enough. It can't be. If there are "too much" of one race, people will argue it only caters to that group. Not diverse enough is why we have Telemundo, BET, and CNN.
This time, Blacks (African Americans), Whites (Whites), Asians (Orientals to some), and Latinos (Hispanics to others) will be separated. That's right. In order to work together, you have to be together. No cries of racism, prejudice, stereotyping, or work preference. Well done.

Book Discussion: Touching the Void

2006-08-23T15:08:00.000-05:00

Discussion on the book Touching the Void by Joe Simpson. A story of impossible survival.

P: Finished Touching the Void last night. All I can say is better him than me.
I can't believe he lost 49 pounds during that ordeal (1 stone is 14 pounds).
Its amazing that he even still has a leg, with how long it was broken, and
the crap it went through, not to mention a Peruvian hospital. Has your
brother ever had to take that Ricotol or whatever its called to improve circulation?

D: In the movie, the way they film the last part of him crossing the morraine
field and getting back to camp is pretty surreal. It's almost exactly as
you picture it in the book. He's completely delirious and losing his mind,
well past the brink of exhaustion.
I don't think Adam's ever needed that ricotol stuff. His altitude highpoint
is 20,700 though, I think Joe and Simon were much higher than that.

S: The part of that book that got to me the most actually, was when they were
talking about the Japanese climbers that fell right behind them. I think
growing up in a big city, and living an urban life, its hard for me to
imagine being isolated to the point that a broken leg could mean death. Part
of the isolation has a lot to do with communication. When your deep sea
diving and something happens, at least you have a radio. When you are in
space, at least you have a radio. I'm sure if he didn't have those voices
in his head, he would've stayed in that crevasse. What I don't understand
is, why didn't they have radios? If not between each other, at least with
Richard back at base camp?

D: I don't know what kind of technology existed in '85 that would have been
lightweight enough and reliable enough for them to have bothered taking it
with them up the mountain. With the terrain how it was, along with the
remoteness, I don't know if they could've had something that would've
reached back to richard. Heck, even those motorola walkie-talkie things now
that people have, those don't always work on ski mountains.
I think one of the most telling things was when he started lowering himself
further into the crevasse that he didn't bother to put a knot at the end of
the rope. He decides, "well, this is it. I'm not going to sit here & die.
I'm going to lower myself down. If I get to the end of the rope, I'm not
going to hang there & die, and I'm not going to climb back up this rope, so
we'll see what happens then."

P: Do climbers ever use smoke cannisters or flares?

D: I'm sure in some situations. That's probably a crapshoot though, you
can't even see some of those mountains sometimes due to the weather. Who
knows if there will be people who actually see something. When you're in a
mountain range it's not like you're on a big open plain with visibility for
miles. On a clear day, you should shoot up a flare gun and there could be
no one who ever sees it. Those people that do see it could be a 2-3 day
hike from where you are anyway. Nowadays, with GPS stuff, it's much easier
to find lost people as long as they're well prepared and people know what
their plans were.

At this time the fire alarm was triggered and the discussion came to an abrupt end. While descending the staircase, a brief mention of the Animatrix was discussed. Unfortunately, the conversation was one-sided as the clankering of heeled shoes hitting metal stairs drowned out and response.
P: Half way through the Animatrix. They are split up by visions
(episodes) and I've finished, I believe 5 of them. Great graphics.

January 15th, 2006

2006-08-23T11:17:00.000-05:00

So here is a summary of the most interesting day of my life, but before I get started, I will give you a little background.
Background:My friend Eric and I have been progressively working on drywalling our hallway since Thanksgiving. Our schedules and business travel have conflicted REPEATEDLY. When there haven't been scheduling conflicts, we have run out of materials and further delayed the completion. Now, we agreed we would do the drywall sheets, and Eric's friend from Poland would do the "mudding" and sanding, because he is cheap and good. His name in English is Greg, but is known as Pajak (pronounced Pie-onk) which means Spider in Polish. So anywho, he did the first layer of mud last week and needed to come again this week to sand and apply the second coat of compound. He came over on Saturday and sanded for about an hour, and applied the second coat for another 3-4 hours. Once this is dried, all he needs to do is sand again, and he's done. He said he needed an hour. He wanted to come at 1pm, I preferred 12pm Sunday. So it was set at that.

January 15th:Katie and I wake up feeling horrible. She had a touch of food poisoning from dinner the night before and I felt like I drank a bar dry, and only had 3 beers. The food obviously was the culprit. Noon rolls around and there is no sign of this guy. 12.15 rolls around and I hear a hear a police car chirp and a series of car doors closing and banging. I look out the window and see this guy getting pulled over by the cops right in front of my house. 10 minutes go by and one cop is obviously running a check in the car while the other is keeping an eye on him. Suddenly, the cop emerges from his car, walks right over the Greg's car and opens the door and pulls him out, promptly cuffing him. At this time I am on the phone with Eric screaming about this two bit convict getting rolled in front of my house, and what his story is. Eric is freaking out because he is no where near my house to provide an explanation. They take this guy's shoes off and tear his car apart obviously looking for something. Next thing I know, he is getting heaved in the back of the squad car and hauled off. Now I'm laughing, because I can't believe this just happened. Eric doesn't know what to do. Katie thinks its funny. I call my Mom, she thinks its funny. And we all agree that the day must progress.

AND THEN IT GETS INTERESTING
2.5 hours later, Greg pops up at my door. "F'n peegs man. Hey you want me to finish, or go someplace, because I need hour to finish" I tell him I want this finished and he waves off his ride. I don't know how he initially got pulled over, but he gave his brother's name before they took his license. He failed to mention anything else other than he said he blew a .06 at the station, at 12.30pm! He gets started and all is fine and well. I'm keeping a closer eye on him now and his stack of police papers. All is going well for 45 minutes. Because we have to have the front door open due to the sanding dust, I am seldom in there watching the Indy game. I hear this racket out front and see a flatbed tow truck pull up with a piece of crap car on top. I start to come out on the porch because it looks like this guy is going to dump the car in front of the house. It is not ours so there is NO WAY it is going to be put there. The driver hops out and pulls out the infamous T shaped bar. He hops back in the truck and proceeds to back it under Greg's car. I run up the stairs and hit the ladder and tell him they are towing his car. Since I was on the other side of the drop cloth, I didn't see, but I think he fell off the ladder. He comes running out and took my front steps in two leaps. During this time, he is leaving a vapor trail like a comet of drywall dust behind him. If you remember that scene in Goodfellas where Deniro wraps the phone cord around Morrie's head and Henry Hill spills out a laugh, that’s what I did at this point. Him and this tow truck driver (who was actually a repo man) were arguing in the street and this guy has half his face covered in dust. Every time there was a breeze or he swung his arm to point, he created a cloud like Pigpen from Peanuts. He comes running up the steps and says the "F'n peegs man, try to take my car. I show him papers but…is that your f'n car behind mine?" "Uhhhhhhhhhh yeah?" "Can you move it cuz this guy is towing the car goordiva." I grab my keys and start to back up the car, thinking the tow truck needs to pivot to get his car. All of a sudden he opens his door and yells "I come another time to finish. They try to tow my car" and backs up down the street and peels away, leaving me with the tow truck guy. I promptly call Eric back and start chewing him out about who the hell he left me with. By now I am so torn between confusion, laughter, and confusion and disgust I don't know what to do. I'm supposed to meet Eric and another guy at this dump bar in 20 minutes so we would talk about it then. Meanwhile I am left with 5 minutes left of sanding to go and an incredible mess. Katie is feeling awful, Bettis just fumbles the ball on the goal line, and I'm really needing a beer right now.

So I'm finally cleaned up and on my way to this bar, to watch the game. It is filled with regulars. These regulars are between the ages of 40 and 60, all smokers and all half in the bag, whose past times include darts, pool, bowling, horseshoes, and for the youngens, softball. Everyone there had a Boom Town Lounge sweatshirt on which immediately put my eddie bauer pullover WAY out of place. I didn't dress to pick up chicks, but I wanted to look like I held a job. Many of these people I'm sure planned ahead to wear their Boom Town sweatshirts and made sure they were clean for Sunday. Beers are $10 for a busket of 5, not bad by any means, and worth the trip. I spent the entire game watching the regulars as opposed to the game because people like this I don't come across every day. Imagine a typical Packer bar in upstate Wisconsin, only they are Bear fans and are in the 773 area code. That's how weird it was. Perfect strangers talking to you in the bathroom about how bad Grossman is, referring to him as "That Jew". When I asked who they were talking about exactly, it wasn't as if they felt they were offending anyone, just that I couldn't figure out that the German translation of Big Guy was in fact Grossman, and that he may or may not be semitic. The food they served was pure Chicago Heart Attack: half cooked burgers, polish sassage, and pasta with mayo and garlic salt. The average person went up about 3 times. People were wearing sports gear that you get when you buy a case of diet coke during Jewel specials. By games end, we were the soberest people in there by a mile. The day wound down with a shouting match between two people in Lowe's. In any event, I couldn't make any of this up if I tried.

Chicago Radio

2006-08-22T17:01:00.000-05:00

This discussion stems from the departure of Mancow Muller from WKQX, also known as Q101.

P: In ranking order of my least favorite radio personalities: 1. Rush 2. Don Imus 3. Mancow.
I’d say 4. would be David Lee Roth, but his career didn’t last as long as this sentence.

D: Unfortunately, Q101 will probably throw some terrible morning dj on there in absence of mancow.

P: In my opinion, that channel has been in a steady decline since Mancow arrived, not necessarily contributing to him. But when I flip to that station and hear NEW ROCK ALTERNATIVE, and Black from Pearl Jam comes on, it tells me these people have some gears to switch. It used to be a pool deck favorite during summers in HS and college, but stations like that and 105.9, which was a GREAT channel for classic rock (now it is round the clock mic howlers), I have turned to 780 AM and 91.5. If I want music, I turn to the CD player or my iTrip. Most of the music I listen to is not on the radio anyway.
They’ll get a spillover from WGCI or B96. Or pick up some idiot who will try to outdo Mancow and Stern combined. Getting himself arrested as a badge of honor. With a fatter, sloppier sidekick who will have a studder and dentures.
“hey I know, we can get ourselves a midget smaller than theirs.”

D: Q101 has actually jumped leaps & bounds in my book in the last year. they stopped playing only new stuff and went back through all of their playlists and now they'll play anything they've ever played, like even talking heads stuff, it's been much better. that's the reason you heard black on there. they still play too much new crap that i don't like, but more often than not i'll find something listenable on there. they've had to compete with the Jack FM's of the world and their 5,000 song playlists.

P: Which is probably why they’ve improved. They finally have competition. The Loop is starting to go downhill in my book, aside from Think Pink and Getting the Led Out. Their idea of deep cuts barely scratches the surface. [Anonymous] listens to 101.9 loyally, and I will say, if nothing else, they haven’t changed their format in years. They play popular songs along the same genre. They aren’t trying to slip in an Eminem song. XRT has also been great. One of the last true Chicago radio stations. They are located on the NW Side. A one story building with a 500 foot antenna on top of it. As Steve Dahl put it, “that place was built back when Chicago worked. Try getting that kind of building approval these days.”

D: Actually, I think XRT has gone downhill. They used to throw some curveballs in there but lately it's seemed as predictible as 101.9. The music quality is better than the mix's, but they never rock the boat -- they're definitely scared of losing listeners to other stations. That's the whole radio dilemma -- no one wants to try anything new because they're afraid they'll lose their market share.

P: And they are really afraid because not only do that have XM to deal with, but they have Sirius as well. Give it another year or so and you’ll have a third. They also have webcasts to deal with. They can preach free radio all they want, but if you are going to offer me a poached perch for free, and a top sirloin for $13 a month, I’ll take the latter. This discussion is exactly why I listen to talk radio, mainly news. NPR knows it has a limited market, fan base, and pocket to reach in to.

D: Unfortunately not everyone is as picky about their listening experience as we are. I usually opt for my cds.

P: But the fact of the matter is, for a city this size, we should have great radio. Instead we have almost a mockery. By the way, what the hell is this DreX channel?

D: 103.5 -- it's not bad hip hop/dance stuff for most of the day, they play the usual new stuff that gets played in clubs/whatever. The morning show is this guy named Drex, it's very focused on the high school to mid-20 yr old crowd.

The topic of radio in Chicago has hardly been discussed. People either do not mind the crap they are hearing, or have never heard radio anywhere else. Next radio discussion will handle sports talk and AM Radio.

Summer Festival "Suggested Donation" Suggestion: Go F*** Yourself!

2006-08-22T16:41:00.000-05:00

The following is a mid-summer discussion regarding the various local street fest prices of admission that go share the religious side-step of donations rather than charges for admission. Every festival and block party had them this year.
P: This entry donation business to get in is BS. Charge me or don’t. I pay, but my friends choose not to, and they get an earful as they are walking through the gate. Is that worth it?

D: I agree, that "suggested donation" stuff is kinda crap. they need to charge to make the money, but legally they can't stop you from walking down the street so it's a donation.

P: They make a lot of money off of beer though. Four of us in a two hour span down 20 beers at $4 a pop. Using tickets really can become deceiving. They would’ve done better if they had better food. I was willing to try the Grouper Quesadilla, but wasn’t hungry. I guess the overall problem with the [blank] Fest is that there is no theme. It’s just a reason to put a stage up and tents. Another thing about the suggested donation. If it is a donation, I want a wristband. There has to be a tally of people who paid. If you are rubber stamping my hand, there is no way of knowing that money just made it into the box. If you give away 1000 writstbands, there better be $5000 in that box.

D: Yeah, the wristband would make sense. it gets pretty easy to scam those things with tickets. at [blank] fest the huge plastic steins are supposed to be $8 each and by the end of the day we'd pay for 3 with around $12. Each book has 5 tickets on it with a cardboard backer, so you take the first 2 off and pass off 3 as 5, and then as the day goes on you just convince the people you only have $12 left and politely ask for 3 refills, they'll give 'em to ya.

P: The other problem is that so few restaurants contribute, rather than many setting up tents. There were tents, but the folks were just volunteers. They had Maxwell street polish, 4 tickets for a 6 inch and 7 tickets for a horsec*ck. Kinda pricy, but people will pay for food when they are drunk. The Asian food tent had good looking stuff, but again, bud light took precedent.

It is agreed that the city cannot charge you for walking down the sidewalk, where many of these fests are located. We may come and go as we please, but we should not be badgered and chastized for not contributing. There are laws in Chicago to prevent homeless people from harassing for money. This law should be in effect for gate keepers as well. If they put more than just a stamp on our hand, we would trust the system. If the destination of the donations was a little more clear than just a historical society or for "cancer", people may be more willing to give. A party at a southern Illinois college was straight forward with the slogan they had: "My girlfriend got a ticket and we are trying to pay it off."

Golf in Chicago

2006-08-18T16:42:00.000-05:00

What can be better than watching your favorite pros golf on the most beautiful course on a cloudless day? Certainly not the new beer laws at Soldier Field for Bears games.

30 Days and Counting...

2006-08-08T16:48:00.000-05:00

Wives and girlfriends have just 30 days left before they lose the men for the season. And if fantasy football is involved, they lose them in 25. Those of us in Pro Pickem Leagues (especially $0 pot ones) only require about one hour for the whole season. But to the folks at the Northside Busch League, who are entering their first draft with keepers, the homework requirement will be hour-on hour-off every day. Good luck to all NFL, College, and Fantasy Football teams this year!

Comfortably Dumb

2006-08-07T15:52:00.000-05:00

Happy Anniversary. Happy Birthday.
While MTV changed the world forever, they have been forever changed by the world. What once started off as a glimpse of your favorite group, or the visuals that went along with their hit song, has turned into a sad stew of college kids who can't handle their alcohol and sex in clothing. A channel that once created the music experience has been the same one that will destroy it, if they had even a fraction of the viewers they used to receive. First they were too white. Then they were too black. They played too much music. Now they don't play any. Their last attempt at a musical performance resulted in poor direction that resulted in the cutting short of the first live performance in 25 years by Pink Floyd at Live 8. It should also be noted that it was their first time together in over 20 years.
What happened to Headbanger's Ball? What happened to Remote Control? Where did Liquid Television end up? What about the short lived URB, show that combined Japanese video art with French dance music? Well the answer usually starts with "7 strangers...". What do you get when you put 14 of them together with an open bar and giving their class a walk? It usually has Challenge or Inferno in the title. Compiled of the most unstable losers who are deathly afraid of a resume, and 9 times out of 10, heights.
A lot has changed in 25 years. No more music, but you still have Kurt Loder.

Not a good IDea?

2006-08-01T16:21:00.000-05:00

Fake IDs. Every youth's final act of rebellion before they become an adult. Or is it just for youths? Not so in the case of a 23 year old, busted by the very person whose ID she was carrying. Now us here at DirtSwimming have never had a need for using a fake ID, or someone elses ID for the benefit of drinking. We just had someone get it for us. With the exception of needing an Iowa State student ID to get in for half price against the Nebraska, Prospector has usually sat in the getaway car for his hooch. While drifting back to the days of college, one can't help but forget a more memorable story. Almost IDentical in stupidity.
An old friend’s stupid girlfriendwas driving from a west suburban small private college down to a state university in Charleston, Illinois, straight down I57 for 2.5 – 3 hours. She got pulled over for speeding three times (3 times!). The first time she got pulled over, she gave her license, which they confiscated and gave the ticket paperwork, a routine procedure back in the day. Second time she got pulled over, she showed the paperwork from the first ticket, received a second citation, a scolding from a Tuscola County Sheriff, and sent off with even more eye makeup running. 3rd time, she showed the fake ID she was going to use at the bars at [Blank]IU. A $10,000 fine was the least of her problems. Aside from not getting in the bars that night. The price people will pay for a good time. So remember kids, when you get to college, the two best friends you'll ever make will have a car and an age of 21. If you are 23 and running around with a fake ID, you should consider not reproducing.

The Realizations of a Beer Vendor

2006-08-01T11:20:00.000-05:00

Random thoughts of a rookie beer vendor:
-Women are poor tippers.
-Carrying 24 bottles of any liquid is heavy.
-Ice melts way too fast.
-Unless you are under 18, you should always tip your vendor.
-Beer is beer, buy a friggin' Warsteiner, especially when it's cheaper than everything else.
-It is possible for it to be too hot to drink beer.
-It may be possible to make it through a season of vending, with tripping down a flight of stairs (I hope).
-You can get a great peak at a lot of cleavage walking down steps.
-Why are guys wearing pink these days?
-A foul ball can come at you very fast.
-It's hard to walk up grass lugging 30 lbs of anything around your neck.
-It is not easy opening a plastic beer bottle when your hands are constantly sweaty because the temperature won't dip below 90.
-Beer looks extra tasty when you're not allowed to drink it.
-I could probably get a hit off one of these pitchers.
-Miller is definitely more popular than Bud, but when it's 100 water rules all.
-When everyone pays with a $20, I run out of change very fast.
-Teens are obnoxious, kids are oblivious, dont' stand in the middle of the aisle for 1/2 an inning.

We Owned Sunday Night

2006-07-31T21:50:00.000-05:00

It was a brief accident, the kind of misstep that typically happens after an appetite for life feasts on the flavors of the day for four hours without relent. We had raged, raged against the dying of the light, and we were not prepared to derail. The wheels did not come off spectacularly, they came off in a single instant; brief as a driver notices the fluttering of butterfly wings before the windshield adds another notch to its bedpost. In a rare lapse of muscular coordination the flagon of forgiveness slipped from my hand and crashed to the floor, where its contents rapidly searched for cracks and creases in the tile to drown. This fleeting moment revealed everyone's hand prematurely -- there was no flop, no 4th street, no river. The girls abandoned our company and the excitement had come to an end. We had indeed owned Sunday evening, and it was time to go home.

Disappointed?

2006-07-19T17:20:00.000-05:00

Dirtswimming is recovering from a long vacation of work, play, and sleep. That hasn’t kept us from reading the papers, listening to the news, and smelling the roses.
One particular incident that is still fresh in everyone’s minds is the CTA Blue Line glitch that happened last week. As everyone has complained on every blog and comment section that the CTA employees are virtually useless in performing an almost natural duty of their job: Communication. Prospector approached the Clark/Lake stop only to have to ask other riders for information. The employee on duty had no answers, no direction, and no announcements as to why no one was allowed to descend 50 feet below street level. It took a fireman and a few passengers not on their iPods or cell phones to get the real gist that it was closed. There were shuttle buses on Clark (possibly on LaSalle) ferrying riders to wherever they felt they should go. Again, no direction. Either way, Metra stepped up to the plate and made the best of a poor situation. It took until later on that evening to find out the train derailed and 150 people were sent to the hospital with everything from runs in their nylons to smoke inhalation.
However, as this is a free speech, free thinking environment, and is all perception, Prospector can’t help but wonder if people, passengers, and the media weren’t a little let down that the tragedy under Clinton was only the rear wheels of the last car coming off the tracks. Earlier in the day and week, a NY guy in the throws of a bitter divorce, tried to blow himself up and the building that was to be given to his wife (or the money generated from its sale). Larry King was first on the scene. BS that he was staying at a nearby hotel. He had that police scanner to his eardrum and waited for the boom. Turns out that of the 15 people injured, 10 were fireman trying to control the situation, and the lucky SOB that tried to kill himself anyway, succumbed to his injuries a few days later. No one else died. No one claimed responsibility. In short, another day in the Big Apple. Earlier, 150 – 200 people died in India in a series of explosions on trains and in stations. Photos taken by news sources ranged from shredded train cars, to bloodied up passengers searching for victims, to people getting off those trains and simply waiting for new ones.
Now that we live in a world of terror, is everything that happens out of the ordinary going to have people cry terror? Indians went on with their day and lives after their attack. Lawsuits were filed by noon the next day with the Blue Line. According to one news source they “suffered more emotional injuries than physical injuries, and all three thought they were going to die.” What? Because your life and mind is that fragile that a transportation system has to compensate you for that? If the CTA has to do nothing else, it should at least reimburse people for their fare. As of this writing, we are up to eight (8) lawsuits, all women, all citing bruises and soiled underwear for what happened. My question is, what would you people being suing for if it was a terrorist attack? Are New Yorkers going to file emotionally stressed complaints because of “another 9/11” in their minds? Unless you were thrown from that train car, or hit by flying debris, you should sit down and learn a lesson from people who saw real tragedy those days, and moved on.

Weekend Review: 4th, Ribfest, Weather

2006-07-06T15:30:00.000-05:00

What a weekend. Dirtswimming has a lot of little to report from the second longest weekend of the year.

The Naperville Ribfest was given mixed reviews. Prospector and Moleman arrived after parking nearly 1/2 mile away. First line was for beer. 25 minutes later we received our pleasantly cool cups which were downed in 30 seconds. Next up was the main attraction: ribs. There were a lot more rib vendors in attendance this year, and a lot more people to serve. The first stop for Prospector and Moleman was Texas Outlaws BBQ. After waiting in a sea of people (above left), Prospector was ripped off by a condescending teenager who insisted 7 ribs was a full slab. Upon complaining, 4 more ribs were added and we were told that we now got a free half slab. Texas Outlaws BBQ is now at the bottom of the list. Next stop was Desperado's for another half slab. This time, a half slab was 7 ribs as listed. Much better quality, much better service. Beer tasted better after washing it down as well. Final stop before avoiding the REO Speedwagon crowd was Aussom Aussie Barbeque Co. for a to-go 1/2 slab. They did not disappoint.

The rest of the weekend was hot and full of family fun and golf. If it was hot in Chicago, it was steaming in Rockton, IL at the Macktown Golf Course for some skeeter swatting, wild turkey viewing, and golf ball hunting.

The 4th itself was headache as many people vented on Eric Zorn's blog. But there was some good news to be had, and that was the addition of Ben Wallace. So some fireworks were worth celebrating this holiday.

The New Bulls

2006-07-06T15:00:00.000-05:00

The Chicago Bulls have had a tremendous off season so far. They started by having what seems to be a very good draft in a very athletic Tyrus Thomas and what we are told is a solid defensive playing in Thabo Sefolosha. Then the Bulls GM John Paxon goes and steals Ben Wallace from the Pistons. Many experts were saying this move puts them 2nd only behind Miami in the Eastern Conference. Only one more thing need to be done: Get rid of Tyson "I can't learn how to play offense" Chandler. We got rid of his $50+ million contract for PJ Brown and JR Smith (could this be the all initial team?). In all likelyhood, PJ,37, will retire at the end of the season leaving the Bulls with even more money to get more free agents who will want to come to a winning team. Don't forget the #1 overall pick, because we all know the Knicks aren'y going anywhere. Who would have thought Eddy Curry would have turned into Tyrus Thomas and a #1(Greg Oden?). Things are finally looking up for the RenewaBulls.

Naperville Ribfest 2006

2006-06-30T12:34:00.000-05:00

Come out to the Ribfest in Naperville for a taste of the best ribs around. Prospector's favorite for the last several years have been the Aussom Aussie and Texas Outlaws BBQ. A fitting festival hosted by people who don't get their hands dirty.

The Prime Time Of Your Life. Now. Live it.

2006-06-28T14:09:00.000-05:00

If Daft Punk defined Coachella in 2006, what will they do at Eurockéennes in Belfort?

Shady Chicago Politics. Again.

2006-06-28T10:36:00.000-05:00

So Stroger finally is giving up. He wants his son to take his place as president. He wants his best friend Beavers to take the commissioner's spot. That vacates two alderman seats in the city. Who will get them? Beavers wants his daughter to take his spot in the 7th ward. She can do it. She is his chief of staff. Who will get the 8th ward? A friend? A family member? 3 to 2 odds it will be one of those.

Why does Chicago politics have to be Chicago politics? Aren't the feds cracking down on politcal clout? Or are just the building inspectors getting the axe? Just more unqualified people getting jobs they don't deserve and soaking up more tax payer money.

Would this all have happened if Forrest Claypool won? Why? Claypool is by the book. If anyone could've stopped the spin cycle of political corruption it would've been him. Stroger's [in]convenient stroke won him A LOT of sympathy votes. It was also [in]convenient that several of the south side polling stations had "issues".

Maybe in DirtSwimming's next life, they'll be born into a more connected bloodline. Good luck Todd. Just don't raise our taxes.

SUV v. Compact Car

2006-06-27T15:43:00.000-05:00

Is a standard SUV really worse for the environment than a fuel efficient compact car? Depends on who you ask. Depends on what you do. If you don’t like to get your hands dirty, or are a minimalist, or a bum who mooches rides from your friends, and you still own an SUV, then you are exactly what are causing this planet to become Venus. If you are constantly on the go, moving for friends, moving yourself, or making your place an IKEA showroom, chances are you make more than one trip anywhere. This really does not cut down on fuel emissions, save at the tank, or cut down on traffic anywhere.

If you look at the pattern of growth in real estate and auto purchases, SUVs have gone up in sales consistently with the housing market. Home Depot, Lowe’s, Crafty Beaver, and others have seen their lots fill up with both hatchbacks and SUVs since their inceptions, and have probably noticed the same cars returning to fill up with bricks for retaining walls, closet rods, and bathroom tiles, that would normally take just one trip in even a Jeep Liberty. What’s more, these compact cars have less horsepower and power than the SUVs do, and use up even more fuel and energy because of the excess weight. Carrying 300lbs. in a Rodeo does not have the same impact as it would in an Accord or Camry. Distance traveled has similar factors, not counting the weight. An SUV with an average city rate of 17 MPG that has to go that same distance to and from Point B has used up one gallon. A compact car with an average city rate of 30 MPG that may have to go at least twice to and from Point B has used up more fuel than the SUV. If it has to go a third time, that is almost one gallon more.

Rather than pushing for people to drive smaller, more fragile cars in an effort to conserve gas, automakers, government officials, and the cast of Grey’s Anatomy should push for more energy efficient SUVs. We have the Mariner hybrid, as well as the Escape hybrid, but what about the Hummers? The Jeeps? The Land Rovers?

NBA Draft: Why the Bulls DON'T Need Adam Morrison

2006-06-26T12:46:00.000-05:00

That's it. We've got Adam Morrison already, his name is Andres Nocioni. Bulls need a man in the middle who can score, bottom line.

NBA Draft: Why the Bulls need Adam Morrison

2006-06-26T11:30:00.000-05:00

Prospector has been accused of favoring the Great White Stiffs of basketball. Having Dirk, Nash, Hinrich, Gasol, and Ben Wallace (not white, but best defensive threat since Rodman) on the floor on the same team would be a dream come true. Prospector should also admit that in 10 attempts at a layup on an 8 foot rim, 2 were successful. It is not a racial issue, or a demographical opinion. Prospector grew up in Chicago (inside the city limits) and has watched and read of some of the best talent to come out of area schools the NBA has to display. Schools such as Simeon, Westinghouse, Proviso East, King, St. Patrick, Providence-St. Mel., Farragut, and Thornton just to name a few have produced the best players and coaches anywhere in the country. But Prospector enjoys Hoosier and Euro ball. Players who play with every last drop of energy in their bodies because that is what their little league coaches (fathers) wanted them to do. White stiffs have disadvantages in the NBA these days. They are not as big, not as agile, and frankly not as athletic as others. They must rely on outside shots, oversized elbows, and wild hair to survive. Which is why the Bulls need Adam Morrison.

Prospector would love nothing more than Chicago to take Andrea Bargnani, but that is unlikely. Morrison is big, and tough. He is a player that is not afraid to get knocked down, and can get his team going. He would also be the perfect compliment to Kirk Hinrich, who has been searching for a Nick Collison since he left Kansas. Morrison and Hinrich would be the Stockton & Malone of the early 21st century. This is a long shot as they may just end up as the Steve Kerr & Craig Ehlo of our time. Prospector has also given up on Tyson Chandler. You've fooled Chicago long enough. While Shawn Marion would be an invaluable asset to the team, the Bulls would have to sacrifice too much to get him. Giving up a #2 pick in the NBA draft is like Gibson's giving up red meat. But the Bulls have the #16 pick as well. Also a very valuable position. This could put us in line with JJ Redick. When it comes to basketball in Chicago, we are very forgetting of personal setbacks.

Jeff Fest Leaves Some out in the Cold

2006-06-26T00:11:00.000-05:00

Prospector went against his word from previous experiences at the Jeff Fest and went not once, but twice in one weekend. In years past, the crowd has been plagued by a crowd you'd expect to see at a downstate county fair. People were rude, fights broke out, dental work was left at home, and sponsorship was at a minimum. On Friday, Prospector ventured out because he believes in second chances. Upon paying the $5 donation, the crew stumbled upon Mike & Joe, and was as pleased with their music as with the crowd that joined them. The mood definitely catered to the 35 and under crowd, and sponsorship extended nearly one city block. Pretty impressive considering the fest covered only a 1.5 block area. The food looked good, but the beer tasted better, so the liquid diet got two thumbs up.
Pressure from friends drew Prospector to the Fest for a second night on Saturday. The blues in the air only meant one thing: this was not going to be a 35 and under crowd. While the $5 donation hopefully didn't go into a back pocket, our guess was that most in attendance chose to keep their donations to themselves. The crowd definitely were not virgins to a good time. While the liquid diet of Bud Light filled the stomach, the urge to photograph the less-than-attractive still was kept to a minimum. The theme for Saturday was Even The Women Can Kick Your Ass. The two steps forward Jeff Fest took on Friday, were taken back on Saturday. Mike & Joe better start practicing, because unless they play for 72 hours straight next year, DirtSwimming will pass on the Jeff Fest.

The Age Old Challenge

2006-06-23T14:09:00.000-05:00

Drinking a gallon of milk in one hour...
Can't be done.
"Cows have only been domesticated in the last eight thousand years, before that they were running around mad as lorries. The human digestive system hasn't got used to any dairy products yet, it takes a lot longer than that." - Tommy, Snatch (2000)

Jeff Fest 6/23 - 6/25

2006-06-23T13:55:00.000-05:00

Enjoy a few beers and music at the Far From Being Famous Jeff Fest. Festivities start today at 4pm and continue thru Sunday. Get served by the legendary Alderman Levar and enjoy the only English speaking festival the Jefferson Park neighborhood has to offer.

Famous for being Famous: Get a Life

2006-06-22T12:57:00.000-05:00

*Author’s Note – This will be the only time these individuals will be mentioned or written about on this site. This is a cleansing process, and establishing the position of this team.

DirtSwimming does not like celebrity gossip. Nor does it like people seeking to be in the news, rather than becoming the news by some act that will change our 401k. There are celebrities that can’t seem to get away from the news, be it their drug habits, firearm skills, mistaken home invasion, or deaths in their families. But there are other celebrities, that pay their publicists entirely too much money, to publish to the world that they have a new keychain, or are dating another celebrity, or forgot to pay a parking meter. Many news sources should be ashamed of themselves, releasing these stories sometimes one link below a tragic events in war and on the homefront. Many times, Dirtswimming will read a story about these folks in hopes that they are announcing retirement and a life of seclusion in the Black Hills of South Dakota. We haven’t had that luck. We do not wish death or harm on these people, we just want them to go away.

We here have put together of people who are famous for being famous, as well as starving for attention that they will do anything to make the headlines, and compared them to people of similar status who have taken what life has given them, and used and made something worthwhile to read about.

Paris Hilton
Without getting sued for slander, we will keep it as clean and professional as possible. Her ventures are failures. Her voice is as bad as a drunken Polish neighbor singing Stola. Her acting is something the UPN wouldn’t air at 2am. We feel that a person like her would become the spokesperson for the hotel empire that produced her. While far from royalty, she would contribute a helping hand to our folks in deprived countries. She would become an authority on one thing, even if it was wigwam socks. Instead, she is the true queen of flip-flopping. She has an interest of the week. She stamps her name on a product and leaves it in the dust. And makes the news for absolutely no GD reason at all. We have to read about her new video, her watches, her clubs, her appearances, her arguments with other losers who will be listed below, her car accidents, her secret video released without her consent (yeah right). While our only information is what we are splattered with in the papers, we feel it is time to take on a life of fading away. Your time will come, but not soon enough.

Vs.

Ivanka Trump
We feel this is Paris Hilton’s opposite in the Daddy’s Rich section. Ivanka has been given a very nice spot in her old man’s company. If it was nepotism, there are no complaints here. At least she is doing something positive with her connections. She may love to shop, she may love to party, or she may not. We don’t care. But the important thing is, we don’t know, and she doesn’t want us to know. Your parents raised you well young lady.

Lindsay Lohan
Her problems have been in the news as long as we can remember. Some of it was not her fault. Her family life was something of an after school special, and far from a Hallmark Sunday night classic. But we are tired or reading about the partying, the feuding, the car accidents, the broken nails, and anything else you have sat on. You want to act? Do it.

Vs.

Hillary Duff
We feel this is Lohan’s opposite in the Grows’d Up actress/singer category. Not sure what we read, but it is never negative. Life seems good, and we haven’t read about any rehab stints yet. Keep it that way. Same goes for her sister.

Britney Spears
Has so much in her life been taken care of, that all she knows how to do is breathe? We understand that the diseased dogs called the paparazzi tracks her every wrong move, but there seems to be plenty of them. But the real issue is what she feeds them, and that is negative vibes. The worst thing a celebrity can do to a paparazzo is to give them nothing to write about at all. When you carry your baby like a sack of onions, that gets noticed. When you chew gum in an interview, it shows lack of class. But she’s from the south so it is understood. She marries every father’s worst nightmare, and then stays with him. What happened to the squeaky clean gent from your hometown? Her birth religion was Southern Baptist and it didn’t let her down. You can’t deny a higher power exists when she left that behind for the religion of the month in Hollywood, and her world started turning.

Vs.

Christina Aguilera
We feel this is Spears’ opposite in the Pop Singer category. She played it smart and married a record executive, and left the controversy behind. Besides, she is a charitable person, for good or ill intentions, but someone is prospering. Hang on to this life and you’ll go places.

Nicole Ritchie
Her last name is the only reason she is anything. Her celebrity status is almost that of ours. The only thing important on her bio on imdb.com is that she is lawfully related to Lionel. When she thinks she is out of the news, she drops another 20 lbs. Write a book. Paint a mural. Do something constructive.

Vs.

Natalie Cole
We feel this is Ritchie’s opposite to Father Was a Great Singer category. Too tired and bored to do any research on whereabouts and what to dos, but we know it was more and better than Lionel’s daughter.

Madonna
47 year old women should be setting the trends for 47 year old women. She is as fake as it gets when morals come into play. We could go on forever about her, but simply let her fake English accent, faux devotion to an almost dead belief, and Aretha Franklinesque behavior speak for itself.

Vs.

Sheryl Crow
We feel this is Louise Ciccone’s opposite to 40+ Artist. She is home grown, beautiful, and less headlining. We like it that way.

Finally, Anna Nicole Smith
You can thank your two friends for making you famous. The more she does the dumber we get.

Vs.

Dolly Parton
We feel this is Smith's opposite when it comes to what DirtSwimming Notices First category.
She let everything else with her body bring her to her status. Keep on Truckin.

Memory Lane: The short life of Clemens

2006-06-21T11:59:00.000-05:00

When Prospector was in 5th grade in the Chicago Public School system, a transfer student came through our door in mid October. Odd time of the year considering he only spent one month at another school before transfering here. At that age, we hated the parents who put their kids through the misery of 60 eyes working them up and down as they nervously wish they were never born. Homer Clemens was his name and since The Simpsons were still nestled into the Tracey Ulman show, he was spared several of todays mannerisms. Homer walked in with the principal with a get up that Prospector doesn't recall, but Prospector does know that he had an explosion of mud on the left side of his body. He broke the ice by flat out telling the class when his older sister pulled the car around the block, she whipped into a spot that had rainwater in it. He said it with such sincerity, not like a kid who tried to deny he messed his pants when it is otherwise unmistakable. The quarter progressed with Homer getting into plenty of trouble, usually for telling it like it was and not moving fast enough when bad things happened.
One day in Januaryish, Homer went missing for about a week. We thought he was either thrown out or transferred out. Turns out, one kid from class brought in a news clipping from the paper with Homer's name in it. Homer, who lived in Portage Park, was walking along the lakefront when his homework flew out of his bag, and of all places, on to the frozen tundra of Lake Michigan. Suddenly, and as Homer luck would have it, the ice broke just as he reached his homework and fell in to his waist. A passerby just so happened to be walking by and managed to rescue Homer before frostbite could arrive. He did probably have hypothermia and that was probably why he missed a few days of school.
Well, when he returned to school, he was Homer for about a week, before his name changed. The 5th grader formerly known as Homer, was now Leo, named after the great no one in particular. No one asked other than Homer was now put in the backseat. Homer was still Leo, and Leo was still Homer, and everyone loved having this kid around.
Then one day in March, Leo (Homer) disappeared again for about a week. With the amount of non-aggressive trouble he always got in, people figured he was either thrown out or transferred out. And since the ice had melted, we thought maybe he went back to get his homework. Turns out, he was using his sister's hairdryer (???) and, seriously, he left it on and left (think about it or don't, doesn't matter to me). Cause and effect: Hairdryer next to a bottle of hairspray on top of a Teen Beat magazine causes things to, I don't know, ignite. He burnt down the Goddamn house! When he finally got back to school, our teacher couldn't hold back and asked him if he had his homework, and would give him double credit if he did. He had a black eye, but we found out it was from his sister who was infatuated with Kirk Cameron at the time, and he ruined that issue.
Back to normal for a few days, he came back in and said his name was now Joe. So now, he would be addressed as Joe Leo Homer Clemens. None of us bought it or had the Chicago Public School capability of grasping that, so he became known as Homer...Leo..Joe...Clemens. 30 against 1, he was back to Homer in our eyes. Well, as noted earlier, our teacher had to take time off due to his illness, and we had the most psychotic substitute teacher you have ever known in your life. She gave a girl a detention for having to go to the bathroom after 5 hours, and sent Prospector to the principal for laughing. She turned off all of the lights to our science experiments on grass growing, and sent Prospector back to the principal for laughing at that. She marched us into an assembly for 7th and 8th graders only, a half hour late, and yet again sent Prospector to the principal for laughing.
Well Joe (Leo)(Homer) for once was in check because Prospector thinks he met his match. One day, one of the bussed in kids had enough of her and told her to kiss his b---- ass. At first, the mood in the room was as if nothing was ever said. Too many people were in shock that he said that, and that he said that out loud, and that he said that to a teacher, and that he said that to her. She stormed at this kid like Forrest Gump did when that guy hit Jenny. She started screaming at the kid and flailing her arms. She was moving them so fast that no one realized she had a pencil in her hand until she stuck poor Joe (Leo)(Homer) in the arm with it. He let out a yelp of a puppy and when his body reacted from the pain, he must've either kicked her or slapped her with his clutch hand. At that moment, the teacher redirected her screaming at Joe and sent him to the Vice Principal. The vice principal was more of a hard ass than the principal.
We never saw Homer Leo Joe Clemens again. He was expelled for too many infractions.

Rebuttal

2006-06-20T17:43:00.000-05:00

Don't diss on the Gnarls Barkley until you've told me that you don't like any of these tracks either: Go Go Gadget Gospel, Smiley Faces, Just A Thought, or The Last Time.
Danger Mouse & Cee-Lo have thrown enough junk on the wall to make some of it stick and work. It aint their fault it's blown up so fast.

Intonation Fest is this weekend. Maybe I'll write more than a 20 word review.

Don't be THAT Guy

2006-06-20T16:28:00.000-05:00

Every news source we here at DirtSwimming read is about how we as people are destroying the environment with our SUVs, charcoal BBQs, weed killer, and complete disregard for electricity. We take offense to that. SUVs are put to better use than any 12mpg 2-seater on the road. As the owner of a house reaching the century mark, it needs more work than your average suburban townhouse (which was built on natural air-filtering, prairie grass). As men of honor, we take after our ancestors and enjoy meat over flame. It was how they did it back in the day, it is how we will do it now.
But the true violators are not Americans themselves, or the Chinese, or New Yorkers. They are nocturnal predators. Single men who favor the nightlife in search of their stress release on all-too-suspecting women who are guilty of the same offenses. We could give a rundown off all the vices women impose on the world, but we love women, even if we are married. And furthermore, we want women to love us, even if we are married.
So the scumbags are to blame. And we here have a long list of ways they can curb their destruction to the only planet we have to piss on. The likelihood that their ways will change, but you can only lead a horse to water. So without further adieu, we add to the soon to be worn out trend of bettering the environment.
Energy Savings:
-Ditch the hair-dryer. Not only are they unsafe (sink full of shaving water), but they are loud and electrical sponges.
-It is unnecessary to fulfill your masculine needs by converting your apartment/condo/house into Caesar’s Palace Sports Book. ESPN is fine to have on in the living room, but in stereo is a waste of juice. Besides it can only be heard in passing, because of course you have Gnarls Barkley blaring thru your PC speakers, and Deep Dish blaring on the CD player in the bathroom. If you weren’t charging your iPod, and cell phone in the kitchen, you might have an outlet for a radio in there. Your electric bill must be a part of your rent or else you’d care.
-While the fridge cools the testicles and dries up the swamp ass on a July evening, decide what you want to eat/drink before you get to the door. You have ketchup, Kraft singles, a pickle, soy sauce packets, three beers, one liter of a 2 liter of Coke, and Easter bunny chocolate. Your have a finite amount of choices. You are thirsty and it is a Wednesday, Coke or Beer. You are hungry, Kraft or Chocolate. You have to have thought of this on the way to the kitchen. Open, grab, close. You just saved 500lbs of coal being burned.
-Stop hitting snooze on the alarm clock and get your ass up. Why not earn more money than you spend?
-PS2, a DVD player, 60 disc CD changer, 32 inch TV: needed and exempt.
-Save a few more dollars and stop charging the battery for the camera you are putting in the closet when you get your freak on. It is almost illegal, and if found, you can kiss the night club good bye.
-Buy energy efficient bulbs. They cost a few dollars more, but they save lots of extra energy and effort.
Water Conservation:
-Shaving at the sink is encouraged. Shaving in the shower is helpful, but you have to have that soul patch and those side burns just right.
-Give up on the courtesy flush. If it didn’t go down and wash the walls on the way out, you need to change your diet.
-The worst shower in Chicago will warm up in 5 minutes. In that time, take care of all other tasks that would use up unneeded water and power. Don’t occupy that time by masturbating on the toilet.
-Pee in the shower. But only when showering. Studies have shown the uric acid not only kills harmful bacteria on your feet, but kills whatever is trying to climb up that drain pipe.
Fuel Consumption:
-Cruising for women was dying in the 80s and was dead in the 90s. Stop it. Gas is $3.25 a gallon. What the hell do you do for a living?
- Peeling off of a light is about as cool as racing to the front of the line in a cafeteria when you were 16. People shook their heads then, and still do now.
-Valet Parking. While DirtSwimming doesn’t pay for parking ever, it certainly saves on driving around for a ½ hour looking for the perfect spot. Taxis help too.
-A guy has never been turned down for driving an economy car, as long as it wasn’t his mother’s.

Now that we have paved the way to a more environmental chap, he will have plenty more money in the trousers to spend all over town.

Welcome to DirtSwimming

2006-06-19T17:12:00.000-05:00

Welcome to DirtSwimming
Politics, Sports, Food, Wine, Real Estate, Current events, summer city events, and Career gripe is more than welcome. Pardon the blog construction (if there is such thing). We'll have this up and running in no time.