My new boss is sucha kid

It's the day before Thanksgiving and one of the more senior execs brings in her 8-year old daughter. What a cutie. She placed a crayon-scrawled "Do Not Disturb" sign on her mother's office door, and got down to business of being an executive. Yes, she even showed me her business card: she had crossed out another employee's name on a legit card, wrote her name above it, and gave herself the title of "Sr. Chief Operating Officer". I had no idea what that shit was when I was 8, but I guess that's why she's my boss.

So, naturally, I asked her for a raise and a pony. And, much like how my real boss would respond when in this situation, she ran away.

Child-bearing, Unfocus Style

I have a feeling a similar conversation would play out should Cleo ever get pregnant...

Dave: I still feel weird
Joel: are you pregnant?
Joel: you better start taking your folic acid then
Dave: why what does that do?
Joel: folic acid is highly recommended for healthy pregnancies
Joel: you'll need to cut back on the drinking though
Dave: fuck that
Dave: my baby's not too good for Downs Syndrome
Joel: nah, Downs Syndrome is a genetic disorder
Joel: you'd be in for developmental problems and mild retardation
Dave: well, if it's only mild
Dave: what's all the fuss about?

I think FeedSweep is watching us...

Or at least Casey:

Pop trash invades my dreams

I'm not dead, just catching up on sleep. I'll post photos and such from the last couple of weeks soon...

So, last night I had a truly horrid dream. It went like this: It was my birthday, the big 2-5. And I rented an Escalade stretch limo, complete with interior black lights, a DJ, a wet bar, and a maid. (WTF?) But, alas, I invited too many friends to join in on the SUV fun, so we had to get an even bigger limo. And I had a psycho freak out because of this, complete with tears. I don't remember much beyond that--just woke up in a cold sweat. Interpretations, anyone?

Northwestern Primetime

Did anybody else see Joey this week? No, I don't normally watch it, but when I saw four Northwestern sweatshirts and heard a group of guys sing the fight song, I had to find out what was going on. Turns out Joey's neighbor graduated from Northwestern and had an alumni gathering where she introduced Joey to a friend who was a producer. In order to get access to good auditions, Joey pretended he graduated from Northwestern and spent the rest of the episode wearing a purple NU T-shirt. It was strangely surreal.

Some questions: When did it become cool to go to NU and be a Wildcat? And do NU grads really represent a strong influence in Hollywood? And, finally, why weren't all the guys as hot as those at the alumni party? (Yes, I knwo it was a TV show, but I really had to ask.) Things to ponder.

Sweater Hell

There was an article about this website in yesterday's Chicago Tribune, which I'll post below (since you need a sign up to be able to read the Trib's website), and both the column and the article are priceless (and have NU Daily connections). DEFINITEY check out the site, if nothing else!

--------------------
These sweaters force many to knit their brows
--------------------
Eric Zorn
Chicago Tribune, November 18, 2004
The Kevin F. Sherry Sweater Project couldn't have come along at a better time.
We've just entered that most perilous season of the year in men's fashion--the months in late fall when the outdoor chill inspires us to go to our closet shelves and bring down our collection of boldly patterned wool, cotton and acrylic sweaters.
The dazzling geometry! The arresting combinations of colors!
They display the same whims of our inner peacock seen on our loudest neckties, but on the dangerously larger canvas of our torsos.
We wear them to social events, ballgames and even the office, thinking we're quite snappy even as our friends whisper behind our backs, "Hey, I thought `The Cosby Show' went off the air in 1992."
Kevin Sherry, 33, a former columnist for the Daily Northwestern, is fortunate enough not to have tactful friends. They've posted on the Internet a series of photographs of Sherry wearing sweaters found recently in his closet--"the horror, the horror"--along with commentary so acidic it's likely to cause men everywhere to pause the next time they reach for that comfy pullover with circles and diamonds and jaggedy stripes.
Hey, look, it's Frogger, the sweater! ... When do I go back to being an Aztec wall-hanging? ... Whoever sees this sweater will die in seven days. ... Where's your God now, Charlie Brown?
"I bought all or most of those sweaters while I was in high school in North Olmsted, Ohio, in the mid- to late-1980s," explained Sherry via e-mail. "I worked part time at a Marshalls and got a 15 percent discount. Some were undoubtedly gifts, but I can remember picking some of them out and wearing them proudly in high school and even at Northwestern."
The curse of bad sweaters is that they seldom wear out, the way other garments do; they never get too small, because they were too big to begin with; and they never go out of style because they aren't stylish when you buy them. So they lurk in your closet, a sartorial minefield to navigate every autumn.
Sherry lugged his assortment from place to place, and recently invited three female friends to his home in Southern California to help him audit his wardrobe.
"I had fun pulling each one out and watching them recoil," he said. "They urged me to toss them, but I thought the world deserved one last look."
He put each sweater on and struck catalog-style poses for the digital camera, then sent copies to two old Daily buddies, Eric Torbenson, now a writer at the Dallas Morning News, and Stephen Lynch, now an editor at the New York Post. They added vicious captions.
For the molecular biologist on the go, it's the paramecium collection. ... Kevin was actually banned from wearing this because it caused epileptic seizures. ... My eyes! The burning!
Badsweaterguy.com went online last week and has so far attracted nearly 50,000 visitors, indicating the resonance of this theme in many of our lives.
"I see a lot of horrendous sweaters out there," said Tom Jackson, general manager of Paul Stuart, a high-end Michigan Avenue clothing shop. "We believe in making a statement with color, but one color. Some of the sweaters you see look like a test pattern or a quilt."
Fit is another problem plaguing men with bad sweaters, said Gigi Solis, senior style editor of the men's fashion magazine Cargo. "Somewhere along the line men started buying these big, knit things, thinking they looked comfortable," she said. "The shoulder seam falls below the shoulder and the armholes are way too large."
They not only make a man look old--a more fitted look is in now, Solis said--but they also make him look fat.
Jackson has a solution: "At least every other year, take a realistic look at everything in your closet and pull the plug on things you shouldn't wear again," he said. "That is, unless you're thinking of starting a bad sweater museum."
It could happen. Sherry still has the featured sweaters and is now talking about producing a bad-sweater coffee-table book.
Anything, I say. Anything to remind men that, with a little less luck, it could be us, and not Kevin Sherry, looking like a rodeo clown at badsweaterguy.com. Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

Adventures in Flyover Country

So, I'm in the Grand Rapids International Airport yesterday evening. I was picking up my rental car and chatting with the sales rep.

Sales rep: "Whoa! It's really crowded here tonight!"
Me (stopping dead in my tracks, looking around carefully--there were literally four people standing about 100 yards away in the terminal area): "Huh? Um, WHERE?"

Real World moment

Mark's in town, and you know that when the two of us get together shit happens.

So, we're in Old Town, walking down Wells, when two teenage boys eating McDonalds stop us. "Do you watch the Real World?" Of course. "Brad from Real World San Diego is in the aquarium across the street."

How could we resist? We go to the fish store across the way. "We're looking for a fish tank for my office, GOT IT?" I whisper to Mark. Sure enough there's Brad with his blonde waif girlfriend, looking at high-end tanks. We didn't ask Brad anything about his sluttiness or his drunkeness while in San Diego.

Back outside, the two boys are still standing down the block. "What are you doing, just randomly asking people if they know about the Real World," we ask. Kind of, one of the boys reply--apparently they're family friends and they're trying the recruit the "celebrity" (cough cough) to play a prank on a friend of theirs.

Uh huh. Right.

Oh, Feedsweep

Currently in Casey's spot on the right:

New human interactions and affects on memory

Have you ever had an experience that, while fine and pleasant in and of itself, made you long for an experience in your past? Not just long, but really YEARN for that previous experience?

I went on a date tonight, and it wasn't half bad. But there was something fundamentally missing and though he seemed very into me, by the end I was wishing I was with a certain someone who drives Audis and Landrovers and who used to live in the Hancock. Because while the new thing is fine and good, it just doesn't compare to the old thing even though the old thing is riddled with imperfection and confusion. Because sometimes you just want that old thing that just gets you so well.

Attention Chicago-area Unfocus Bloggers:

I will be in Chi-town tonight through Sunday. Call me should you so desire. Hilarity will possibly ensue.

Still feeling down?

How about yet another map to cheer you up? This one is actually quite informative and consoling. Remember, as this one shows, we all live in states that are shades of purple.

Well, except for Utah.

NO!!!!!

"If the show is about anything, it's about the fact that everything comes to an end," says Alan Ball about the the fifth, and final, season of Six Feet Under.

FeedSucker

As you may or may not have noticed, we have posted feeds from several blogs of interest on the right using a service called FeedSweeper, which, to put it mildly, blows. That being said, it occasionally throws up random feeds like this one that is in Japanese.

Today, the other two random feeds caught my eye. The first one was a link to a news story entitled "Conference to Tackle Alcohol-Fuelled Crime." The second I thought was incredibly appropriate for this audience: the Alcoholism and Addictions Help Forum.

1.7 Ounces of Freedom

As Samantha Bee reported in her Pulitzer Prize winning piece, South Carolina went to the polls on November 2 on whether to repeal the minibottle alcohol law. Defying the liquor industry, the voters overwhelmingly voted in favor of free pours. But, the battle isn't over yet. The legislature has to vote to allow free pours (now that it's no longer in the constitution), so the liquor industry still has a chance.

And those poor bartenders who don't know how to pour drinks? No fear, volunteers are being organized.

A little fake news, anyone?

The one and only Jon Stewart is coming to Chicago's Rosemont Theater on April 1st--tickets go on sale this Monday, 11/8. Anyone interested in going with me? Email me ASAP.

Sorry

SorryEverybody.com is your new compendium for apologizing to the world for the re-election of George W. Bush.

My personal favorite, and one I thought Mark would enjoy since he always refers to Florida as such:

A Good Question From England

The Mirror, one of London's finest purveyors of tabloid trashiness, asks an excellent question:

I guess I'm an expatriot...

EDIT: Victor turned me onto this more accurate map:

Day after thoughts from Atlanta

I'm writing this from the Atlanta aiport United lounge. Surreal.

I was in a meeting this morning in downtown Atlanta, and I made an offhand reference to the election, and most everyone in the room--vice presidents and C-suite execs--were dreading the Kerry loss. (Obviously, this is before he conceded this afternoon.)

This from a state that passed the gay marriage amendment and helped put Bush in the White House for another four years. How the hell did this happen??

The morning after thought from San Francisco

"So then, to much of Europe, Russia, Asia, Canada, Mexico, the Middle East -- to all those dozens of major world nations who want Bush out almost as much as the educated people of America, to you we can only say: We are so very, very sorry. We don't know how it happened, either. For tens of millions of us, Bush is not our president and never will be. That's how divisive. That's how dangerous. That's how very sad it has become.

"This much is clear: We are not, with a grim Bush victory, headed for buoyancy and friendship and sincere hope for something new and refreshing. We are not, with another four years of what we just endured, headed toward any sort of easing of bitter tension, a sense of levity, or sexual openness, or true education, or gender respect, or a lightness of spirit and of step.

"Maybe the best we can hope for, at this ominous and slightly sickening moment, is one hell of a lot more patience."

--Mark Morford, San Francisco Gate

Four more years of... hilarity!

Me: Jesus. It’s not the end of the world, people! That comes sometime next year, or maybe early 2006.
Coworker: But it’s a sign of the impending doom. It’s like one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Except that in this case the horseman has fallen off his horse. Because he’s an idiot.

The morning after thought from DC

I just took a walk past the White House. All I can say is:

Bad news comes, don't you worry when it lands.
Good news will work its way to all them plans.
Alright already, we'll all float on. Alright, don't worry even if things end up a bit too heavy.
We'll all float on OK. And we'll all float on OK. And we'll all float on OK.

Election Day Poetry

A poem from the early 1800s by John Greenleaf Whittier entitled, "The Poor Voter On Election Day" (as heard this morning on NPR):

To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.
To-day, alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known;
My palace is the people's hall,
The ballot-box my throne!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day;
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock of gray.
To-day let pomp and vain pretence
My stubborn right abide;
I set a plain man's common sense
Against the pedant's pride.
The wide world has not wealth to buy
The power in my right hand!

...we hope it's true - even in Ohio!

Unrelated Halloween things

@ a dog grooming costume party yesterday on Southport in Wrigleyville.


@ Coobah, after my offending comment over brunch

Let's all just breathe

Everything comes back to center in the end.

Perfect Timing

Here's the context:

At Coobah at Sunday brunch with Lindsay, Eliina, Cleo, the Jons, and Ray, we had ordered and were chatting while we waited for our food to arrive. During a lull in the conversation Cleo takes a sip of her coffee and decides to entertain us with a witty remark.

Cleo (in a loud rough voice): I WANT MY HASH!
Our waitress (who happened to be walking right by our table): Ma'am, I'm sorry. Your food is coming.
Cleo (apologetically): Uh, oh no. That wasn't meant toward you.

The rest of us crack up laughing. If only we had had a mp3 recorder.

Quotable Cleo

"I want my hash!" - Cleo, 10/31/04, 11:45AM-ish
(someone had to to it!)