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February 24th, 2006

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December 9th, 2005

09:19 am - The Lion, The Gay Cowboys, and the WHAT? You know, I might have to head over to the theater tonight just to watch the opening night crowds of "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" and "Brokeback Mountain" uncomfortably co-exist. Current Mood: mellow Current Music: Gorecki :: Lamb

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November 28th, 2005

10:16 am - it came from #diplomacy resplendentoops: According to CNN everybody must be too busy e-shopping from work to type. scottydont07: i barely escaped being e-trampled to death at the amazon.com sale. Current Mood: amused Current Music: Tanguillo de Maria :: Ojos De Brujo, Bari

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November 11th, 2005

10:16 am - Lyric Meme: Here's what you Missed 8. For I cannot be part of the cocktail generation: Partners waltz, devoid of all romance. The music plays and everyone must dance. "Castles in the Air" -- Don McLean 9. And you can shoot me hurricanes Don't spare me the details "Antistar" -- Massive Attack 10. Cuz you see my dear, I have, had enough Of keeping quiet about all this stuff You're neurotic like a yo-yo "Romeo" -- Basement Jaxx 11. I saw her out of the corner of my eye Studying some shoes very carefully She definitely had a particular purpose for these shoes in mind "Take Your Partner By the Hand" -- Robbie Robertson 12. Everything is clearer now Life is just a dream you know That's never ending "Blue" -- Yoko Kanno, The Seatbelts -- Cowboy Bebop OST 13. De Alto Cedro voy para Marcan Llego a Cueto, voy para Mayar "Chan Chan" -- Buena Vista Social Club 14. You're a good girl Though I stink of bad I need this I need him I need her I need everybody "Comfort of Strangers" -- Skin 15. And a supermarket Beauty in a bottle queen Who'll one day grace a check-out counter Magazine front cover "Broken" -- Tracy Chapman Congratulations to manda_x for ekeing out a win over the rest of you due to her knowledge of Handel verses and Madonna "rap." Current Mood: pleased Current Music: Pini Di Villa Borghee :: Ottorino Resphigi, Pines of Rome

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November 9th, 2005

01:40 pm - Lyric Meme! From the craze sweeping LiveJournal... text lovingly lifted from theguiterrorist NO GOOGLING! Step 1: Get your playlist together, put it on random, and play. Step 2: Pick your favorite lines from the first 15 songs. Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song the lines come from. Step 4: Cross out the songs when someone guesses correctly. I will cross one off when someone gets it right. The exception to this is #14, whose lyrics I cannot find anywhere. Subsequently, if you get that right, I will accept your word on it, as well as possibly make out with you. HINTS for those remaining: #1 and #11 are not sung, but spoken. In addition, #1 was a well known artist's widely panned attempt at "rap." #12, #13 and #14 are from soundtracks. Two were released in 1999, one in 2000. UPDATE: manda_x = 2 hilker = 1 shoeburyness = 1 misskaz = 1 ajax = 1 theguiterrorist = 1 ( Lyrics after the jump! ) Current Mood: productive Current Music: Anything at all :: Firewater

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October 27th, 2005

12:15 am - Chicago White Sox: World Series Champions Now damn if that isn't the prettiest sight I've seen in a long time. Current Mood: happy Current Music: Cheering from The Cell

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October 18th, 2005

11:22 am - Why I am a White Sox fan I've been getting this question a lot from my friends lately, especially since I seem pretty comfortable living in the Mini-driving, latte-swilling North Side of Chicago. And so here is why I'm a White Sox fan: My paternal lineage hails from the logging forests of extreme northern Wisconsin, along the Flambeau and Fox rivers, where my grandpa and great-grandpa made their homes in the early 20th century. My grandpa moved to South Bend, IN after World War II, but was a big fan of the Milwaukee Braves, who had moved over from Boston in 1953, a year after my Dad was born. Since the Milwaukee Braves played in the National League, there was no chance of cheering for other National League teams in the area, but the family was able cheer for the American League Chicago White Sox during their World Series chase of 1959. (The Milwaukee Braves had lost the 1959 NL pennant in a one-game playoff to the LA Dodgers that year, and so the family was anxious to see the Dodgers get beat.) Some of my Dad's earliest memories of baseball was watching the White Sox in the 1959 World Series on television with my grandpa -- a World Series that the White Sox lost to the Dodgers in six games. The Milwaukee Braves moved to become the Atlanta Braves after the 1965 season, vacating professional baseball in Wisconsin for several years until the Brewers would arrive several years later. My grandfather passed away at around the same time. With the old franchise now placed in far-away Atlanta, Dad turned to the White Sox to be his team, which, back then, was an impressively easy team to cheer for: The White Sox enjoyed a winning record in consecutive seasons from 1951-1967 and almost made the World Series several times in that span. And my family has been a White Sox family ever since. My younger brother and I grew up going to the venerable, yet increasingly run-down Comiskey Park on the South Side to crane our necks around old-school view-blocking pillars to watch games. Those of you who have been in Comiskey, or perhaps old Tiger Stadium, know what I'm talking about. I was just a babe in arms when beloved Haray Caray was up in the broadcast booth perfecting his "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" stint before he moved to the North Side in 1981, but I've been taunting opposing pitchers with organist Nancy Faust and "Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey, Goodbye" for as long as I can remember. (This is Nancy's 35th year at the keyboard for the White Sox, and she has only missed FIVE games in that span -- she dearly deserves to see her Sox take home the World Series.) I don't remember much of the "Winning Ugly" Sox that took the AL Central in 1983, as I was pretty young then, but I clearly remember the sharp new Sox that bore snappy pinstriped white and black uniforms paired with the throwback interlocked SOX logo that we've grown to love over the last decade now. They rode that new image, and a "spaceage" new stadium (with no pillars!), to a playoff appearance in 1993 and were clearly the class of baseball in 1994 before the players went on a season-killing strike late that summer, robbing them of another chance at playoff glory. That strike crippled the fortunes of Sox baseball in a fashion that seems to reverberate even to this day, as fans on the South Side seemed more reluctant than others to rush back to their seats after the resumption of play in 1995. The fan base took another blow in 1997 when, only 3.5 games back of the Cleveland Indians in late August, White Sox management essentially traded away their veteran pitching staff for young minor league prospects, essentially ending any chance to make the playoffs that year. This infamous "White Flag" trade stuck in the fans' throats and is still frowned upon today. My feelings for the White Sox run deeper than just history, though, and I realized this deep affinity for the team after I moved to Chicago in 2001. The news media this week, while jubilant for the Sox, cannot help but repeatedly mention that the White Sox are still the Second City's "second team" to their cross-town rivals. This is a point I concede -- for the moment. The White Sox did not have a mass media outlet in the 80's and 90's -- formative years, when young boys would rush home from school to turn on WGN to watch "G.I. Joe"-- and sometimes find a Chicago baseball game instead. An entire national generation discovered cable, and were slowly indoctrinated to the idea that there is a baseball team on the North Side of Chicago, and it's not the White Sox. Years and years of marketing reinforcement like that is very effective, and we are seeing the results of that in North Side turnstile receipts (regardless of the team's quality). I love the White Sox because they represent all of Chicago. When you walk into Comiskey (or The Cell or whatever you'd like to call it), you sit and watch a game with Chicago flaunting her richest diversity. Only a relatively small part of Chicago is reserved for the BMW and moccachino set, but beyond that, the city pulses of hearts and rhythms of a hundred ethnicities that make this city run. I've sat in the upper decks of The Cell and rubbed elbows with cowboy-hat wearing Mexican vaqueros, Ukranian maids on holidays off, and watched a group of girls of wildly indeterminate race dance and wave signs with japanese characters, trying to get 2nd baseman Tadahito Iguchi's attention. (I don't even know if they knew what the signs said -- I sure as hell didn't.) The White Sox reflect the Chicago that exists west of Ashland and south of Harrison that, until very recently, were dotted with areas one couldn't drive down and feel completely safe (although that improves every day now.) It reflects all the way down to their roster, which this year sports a crazy Venezuelan manager, Puerto Rican and South Korean coaches, and players from five different countries, including a Cuban star pitcher who defected to the US under dangerous circumstances. The White Sox fan base, while it waxes and wanes, has never tolerated failure. The franchise has a proud history of playing winning baseball (8210 wins - 8020 losses) and its fans expect the team to do well, and loudly express their discontent when they do not. I am fiercely proud to cheer for a team that will not debase itself to the point of incorporating losing into its business model. I am proud that the manager and baseline coaches wore the White Sox uniform, passing on their heritage and knowledge to these young players and using their experience to bring the team, their team, closer to a chance at a World Series title than it has been in 46 years. And more than anything, I desperately want this victory for my brother and my dad, because I know the joy it will bring to their lives. Okay, I have to go try for World Series tickets now. God, I never thought I'd write something like that. EDIT: WE HAVE FOUR TICKETS TO GAME SEVEN! HOLY SHIT! Current Mood: ecstatic Current Music: Novorossiisk Chimes :: Dmitri Shostakovich

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October 17th, 2005

11:10 am - SOXtober Continues! Now here's a pennant 46 years in the making: Enjoy this, Chicago -- our baseball teams make it to the World Series once a generation. Current Mood: ecstatic Current Music: Blue Savannah :: Erasure

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October 11th, 2005

11:23 am - News from the Periphery: Academics and Blogging We have readers that circulate through academic circles here, and so I thought I might pass along this developing, if limited drama causing waves in the so-called "blogoverse": "On Friday, (Univ. of Chicago tenure-track candidate) Daniel Drezner's first blog entry came back to haunt him: He was informed by his department that he was denied tenure and would have to look elsewhere for a job." Daniel informs his readers of the bad news The New York Sun Reports on the Story Inside Higher Ed chimes in The Chronicle of Higher Education admonishes those who blog from within academia Any comments out there? (Edit: Readers note this is the second blogging junior faculty candidate at the University of Chicago to be denied tenure in the last year.) Current Mood: productive Current Music: Everywhen :: Massive Attack

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October 6th, 2005

01:08 pm - Random Google Image Search #7 Search String: "Grandiose" How many grandiose things can YOU find in this picture? Current Mood: complacent Current Music: The Song :: Toshihiko Sahashi

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September 15th, 2005

10:13 am - overheard in #diplomacy Miah: "Investigators appointed by the Vatican have been instructed to review each of the 229 Roman Catholic seminaries in the United States for "evidence of homosexuality" and for faculty members who dissent from church teaching, according to a document prepared to guide the process." Miah: as seen in today's New York Times. electroboy_esq eb: curtains! that's all the evidence you need. eb: especially fancy curtains. errforce1 erik: "that cassock is a little too well-tailored, father." Miah: "Brother Jim has been seen with a duvet throw in his possession" notyou: I think the scond part of the investigation is the key, considering the new Pope. erik: are duvet throws a sign of gayitude? ajax Ajax: My brother doesn't have any. erik: maybe i have his. Ajax: Actually my brother and his boyfriend are the most boring gay people I've ever met. eb: teh ghey! notyou: The homo stuff is just for headlines, and to head off complaints from the seminaries. Miah: ajax, I was fascinated by your post about them hybridizing their surnames eb: i'm part of the Vatican's Special Gay Investigation Unit Ajax: They need to find that Robert Stack record from In And Out. Ajax: Miah: yeah, it's funny how everyone gravitated to that and ignored all the stuff about me. :) Miah: eb: heeeey, that might not be a bad gig. Ajax: Coming next fall to CBS! Miah: "I'm here to determine whether or not you have homosexual inclinations. To begin, please take off that itchy robe." erik: yeah, i was wondering how you smoked out those lurking gaydors eb: hm. these window treatments are fabulous. i want this place locked down and dusted for prints. eb: i believe the politically correct term is gaylords, erik Ajax: Votive candles! That's a clue, right? Ajax: Oh no, wait. erik: oops erik: my bad erik: i grew up in a repressed environment. erik: so i have a duvet throw, a bunch of tight t-shirts, and a wife. Ajax: And 1.* children. Miah: "Brother Andrew, your CD collection appears to contain a preponderance of Cher, Madonna and Judy Garland. And is this a poster of the Golden Girls I see hanging in your room?" eb: a wife? that's pretty gay, dude. Ajax: And 1.* children. Ajax: "Pointer Sisters sheet music, left open on the organ. You'd better come with me." erik: the pointer sisters are part of the plot? eb: and put that organ away Current Mood: tired Current Music: Great Release :: LCD Soundsystem

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August 21st, 2005

11:33 am - Random Google Image Search #6 Search string: "flatulent" From the website: Suitable for: --The Perpetually Flatulent --Cat People --The P-Whipped --Men who wish they could lick themselves Current Mood: calm Current Music: whirring fan

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June 14th, 2005

03:38 pm - Random Google Image Search #5 Search String: "Entropy" Well then! Sometimes there simply isn't anything more to say. Current Mood: amused Current Music: Passion feat. Steve Murano :: Ministry of Sound

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June 7th, 2005

10:51 am - Revolution // Evolution Website Cubed3 has scanned and translated a listing of the 221 NES, SNES and N64 games that will be available to download for play on the new Nintendo Revolution Console when it becomes available (in Japan first.) Man, do some of these titles bring back memories. Which ones would you be excited to play again? (Emulation notwithstanding.) (EDIT: Hilker helpfully notes that the list is "speculative," not set in stone. See, this is why we like having Hilker around.) Current Mood: thoughtful Current Music: Santa Maria :: Gotan Project

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10:31 am - Random Google Image Search #4 Search String: "Delirium" "Help, my hair is in a state of violent mental agitation!" Current Mood: mellow Current Music: West End Girls :: Pet Shot Boys

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June 2nd, 2005

09:26 am - Random Google Image Search #3 Search String: "Catastrophe" You know, the University of Alaska-Fairbanks Student Drama Association production of "Little Orphan Annie" is probably a theater event one can skip. Current Mood: indifferent Current Music: Cruisin' : Can 7

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May 27th, 2005

10:03 am - Random Google Image Search #2 Search String: "Bumpkin" "We could live offa the fatta the lan'." Current Mood: peaceful Current Music: My Little Pony :: Caro

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09:23 am - Leavin' on a Jet Plane What better way to celebrate the sacrifice of our brave men and women in combat than to.... flee the country entirely? Apparently so, as BF and I hop on a plane for fabulously bi-lingual Montréal: We were trying for Europe but, as you may have heard, the exchange rate rather blows these days, so we will be settling for Europe Lite instead. Why are we fleeing Chicago, you ask? Because International Mr. Leather 2005 is about to descend on Chicago for the 27th consecutive year: Sponsored by: Yeah, we're getting out of town. Current Mood: pleased Current Music: Cat-Sliver :: David Last

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May 26th, 2005

01:04 pm - I Vahnt to Buhleech Your Hair.... Consider, if you will, Donatella Versace: High Fashionista, or Queen of the Damned extra? Also, ladies: How comfortable are you with the knowledge that Ms. Versace helps to set your seasonal fashion trends? Current Mood: good Current Music: Ne Me Jugez Pas (Volodia Remix) :: Sawt el Atlas

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09:31 am - Random Google Image Search #1 Search String: "Andante" "Oh Georgette, my heart beats for you at a moderate tempo, just this side of slow." Current Mood: sleepy Current Music: Alone in Kyoto :: Air

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