A Bear's Scorigami (and more firsts)

What a Weekend!! (13 September 2026 - 3:35pm CT)

The Chicago Bears kicked off their season in Charlotte today looking sloppy, but dominant in a Scorigami 59-37 win.  Nottingham Forest got their first win of the season yesterday in a game where their new head coach felt like he out-coached Unai Emery (widely thought of as great Premier League manager).  The Brewers clinched a playoff spot on Friday with a 20-0 win over the Reds.

Most points ever in an opening week game in the NFL (and the Bears most points ever in their opener).  552 Total Yards (just 261 of those passing!).

Since the Bears game kicked off at noon today, I've had an odd (heightened) feeling in and amongst my head - almost a buzzing or a sort of background hum.  I know what you're thinking (or at least what Brooke would say), and I say in response... "It's NOT A TUMOR!"

I think it is an underlying panic of "all is okay..."* (when, of course, all is categorically not okay, but it kinda sorta feels like it maybe could be sometime soon).  And I don't mean just sports...
Nate Silver's FLIPR model gives democrats a 58.6% chance of taking the senate in November, and while AI CEOs and staffers are screaming to be heard by the same journalists eager to publish anything they say about their p(doom) takes.

 

What Happened?!? (23 September 2026 - 6:50pm CT)

soooo... The Bears scored 3 points, and Caleb Williams walked off hurt in the 4th Quarter (at least they're averaging 31 points per game.)  The Brewers are back within 1 game of losing out on Top Seed in The National League.  And Forest lost to bottom of the league Coventry at home!

I know what you're thinking (or at least what Brooke would say), and I say in response, "poppycock!"

At least Forest have come to a pause for 3 weeks, so that can't get any worse...

I guess it's a Wash?!!? (4 October 2026 - 5:59 pm CT) 

The Bears took their second in-a-row from the NFL's east coast green elite, beating the NY Jets comfortably today, and Eagles last week on Monday Night Football.  Neither victory looked seamless, but it's two wins in a row with a backup quarterback starting, so that's got to mean something, right?

Currently, the Brewers are a run down with one out left in the Top of the 9th against the Padres.  They held on to the best record in baseball fairly comfortably as it turns out, and won Game 1 yesterday.

Just got the 3rd out so let's see if we can get one back, eh!?

 guess it's a Wash?!!? (11 October 2026 - 7:15 pm ET) 

Well, now we’re in to it!

I had the wonderful chance to watch Nottingham Forest play their comeback Premier League match from the International Break versus Crystal Palace (whom they have NEVER before lost a Premier League match to), and later, a Chicago Bears matchup coming in to Lambeau Field where they were favored to win for the first time in 20 years (granted just by a couple of points since they’re still sporting a 2nd {or 3rd?} string quarter back). 

Oof, I watched at Smithfield Hall and The Waylon (a decidedly home bar and the decidedly away bar) for the two games. Both went very badly. 

Brewers first pitch is 40 minutes away. I expect all will be well by then. 

:(

0 - 4 (well there goes that...)

 It's halftime at Old Trafford (well, I'm at the Colonel, but Liverpool are at Old Trafford), and the visitors are up by 4 first half goals.  Nottingham Forest on the other hand have lost earlier this morning 0 - 4 home at The City Ground.  It's Forest's first loss under Steve Cooper who came on as the new gaffer after a historically horrendous start to their season, which found them dead last in the league, and in the relegation zone.

It's a proper football Sunday with the Packers playing at noon, and the Bears facing a tough match-up in Tampa Bay later on this afternoon.  (And, it the span of starting this post, Liverpool have scored again to give Mo Salah a well-deserved hat trick and disturb the synchronicity of the concept of the 0 - 4 post...

Regardless, I wanted to take the brief 0 - 4 moment to reflect on where things stand from my own sports fandom after a Bucks championship, and a disappointing end to a 4th consecutive playoff season for the Brewers.

Despite the loss today, this is the first run of play from Forest since I have been following them when I've felt unapologetically optimistic about the team.  Coming off the the high of 2 extra-time goals by Lyle Taylor to win at Bristol City midweek, we knew that we would eventually have to lose a game:

So too the Bears, who have inspired little but misery, despair and disappointment over the past 35 years, are generating some optimism this season having won the games the were supposed to have won while losing to 3 superior opponents.  They stand at .500 and might just have an upset within them today against an inflated Buccaneers team.  While this season is clearly not their year to win a championship, I've got an open bet for them to make the playoffs that I feel pretty okay about.

In fact, in my first year of online sports betting*, I have a few remaining open bets that will take me well into the black for my overall history.  It's a strange sports moment for me, finding myself feeling fairly positive about the overall direction and prospects of all of my teams.

*Unfortunately, my ability to place bets is limited by the finickiness of United States geography and civics, whereby, I am permitted to make bets online when I find myself within the boundaries of the state of Illinois, but not Wisconsin, so the only time I make sports bets has been when I find myself taking one or other of my parents to various medical appointments either at Northpointe wellness facility in Rockton or dropping them in Beloit, and then quick like crossing state lines while waiting for them to finish.

first!

I've been a fan of the Chicago Bears football club since nearly as long as I can remember.  But not quite.  I remember very early in my life thinking that Franco Harris was the awesomest football player ever.  I also remember declaring at some point early on that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were my team (I think because of the sweet creamsicle color featured on the magnetic helmet that generally sat in last place on the standings board on my wall.  I was actually wooed some years later by the same phenomenon when I briefly decided that the Florida Marlins would be my baseball team as I hadn't been much of a Brewers fan since the early 80s Ben Oglivie days).

I've come by most of my fandoms earnestly: the Bears were selected when I was very young because we got to go and see their training camp in the summers in Plattville, WI where my mom was completing graduate coursework between school years.  Their winning a Super Bowl in my formative years helped, but that bandwagon jumping has been paid off dearly for suffering through decades of painful disappointment and false hope.

Being a fan of the Chicago Bears is (what I long thought was) a uniquely painful experience.  It's not the perpetual basement dweller syndrome of someone like 20+ years of Brewer's baseball (until the playoff drought ended in 2008 in our first season as 10-pack ticketholders and actually once more becoming a Brewer's fan).  Rather, the pain of the Bears is that they consistently show promise and hope - brief spurts of success, only to come crashing back down and making you feel dumb for even getting engaged in it all again.  As I said, i thought this fan experience was unique to the Bears, until I found it again taking up a fan interest in my now favorite sports franchise: Nottingham Forest Football Club.  

A few years ago, I made a very conscious decision to 'get into' club football.  I've watched a lot of international soccer over the years (World Cup, Euro tournaments, US National Team qualifiers and tournaments), but beyond vaguely "choosing" the Chicago Fire as the closest MLS team who I've gone to see a couple of times at Soldier Field and Borussia Dortmund as the "local team" I chose when studying in Germany, I had no loyalties.                  

*   *   *

26 July 2020 - 11:07am CDT

As loyal readers and frequent checkers of this site will know (I see you when you all drop by!), I frequently 'post-date' the most recent post.  Whereby, I start to write a post, and set the date and time of publishing the post at the moment I started writing it, even if (as often happens) I don't finish the post until days (or sometimes even weeks) later.  My thinking with that is that I want to preserve the moment of the original idea, and generally when I finish the draft the post is still the newest on the site (because I don't write here that often).  On many occasions, I don't ever finish the post, and may years later publish and add a dated post script like this one.

The reason I needed to add one to this post is because, like the posts where several years have passed before I get to publishing them I have fundamentally changed between their writings and I no longer inhabit the same world I did when I started writing this post.  I started this post planning to write about fandom, elective, absorbed and inherited.  For the last couple years, my favorite team in all of sports has been Nottingham Forest F.C. 

The post was going to be about how I had selected a team who managed to supplant the lowly Bears as purveyors of heartbreak.  Best described, I think, by Nottingham native, Phil Juggins, who I met a couple of times back when NFFC were last in the Premier League when I visited Nottingham on my spring break from Uni Muenster.  As I dug in to the history of Forest, I found them to be a team that tended to break fans down with flashes of promise and success followed by epic failure.

And then it was Wednesday, and omfg, I've never felt so broken from a sports result.  The Double Doink was nothing compared to Wednesday.  Wednesday will be a historical moment... but it will pass, and will become a part of the groundwater of being a Forest supporter.  I'm sure I am not the only fan of NFFC and the Chicago Bears, but we few are loyal union members of the factories of sadness that are City Ground & Halas Hall.

But maybe next season will be our year...

Looking for the Joel Chicago / Wisco Sweep!

It's a mini-Lake Michigan Circle Tour sports eclipse with the Green Bay Packers playing tonight at Soldier Field in Chicago against the Bears, and the baby bears of Wrigley Field playing in Milwaukee against the Brewers.

I am likely fairly unusual in my rooting interest for this event, hoping the Brewers sweep the Cubs this weekend (to move into a tie {at least with them} for the Wild Card race) and the Bears dominate the Packers in an embarrassing entree for their new head coach, Not Mark McMurtry.

* 6:56pm *

Brewers are holding a 2-1 lead so far in the 3rd and i'll comment later as we go.  I predict the Brewers go 3-1 and the Bears win 27 - 10.

* 7:21pm *

Virginia McCaskey intros the 100th season - the Cubs have tied it up (grrrr), but i still think the Brewers will win 3 out of 4 (to clarify) and will hold the Bears to their score (though i want to up the win margin because of Aaron Rodgers' douchebag moustache - is #douchebagMoustache trending yet?)

* 7:35pm *

Arcia is at second with 1 out!  Packers have gone nowhere in these first 5 plays...

* 7:47pm *

Jackson walks a lead off man after Eddy Pineiro hits his first ever field goal!

Now there's a second on base and Jackson makes a BIG PITCH to get Khris Bryant...  And a first pitch gift against Rizzo...

* 8:38pm *

both enemy teams are on the threat...

Bwah-ctober!

I'm not entirely sure what this post will entail, but as it's the first of the fright month, and I'm watching Alien: The Director's Cut, I might try to make a log of a month in the mostly horrific life of Joel.

That's not to say, necessarily, that my life is a horror, rather I would like to catalog what goes on in daily life, and also what muahCtober has in store this time around...


Monday, October 1

I rode a car and a train today to get to Wrigley Field - a previous site of horror if ever you had to go to the Men's Rooms (troughs still abound today, but they're more a novelty and not the required order of going these days).  The Brewers won first place in the NL Central, and have a break until Thursday.

I watched the last 2/3rds of Alien: The Director's Cut tonight on my return after selling a craigslist couch in the rain.  I've subsequently learned that the director's cut is the less-preferred version of the movie for Ridley Scott, but it was my first time seeing it, so sorta slightly interesting.


Tuesday, October 2

I returned to work a (sorta, not really) hero having played hooky yesterday to help the Brewer's win yesterday at Wrigley!  Now watching ESPN coverage of the next game at Wrigley - the NL Wild Card Game between the Rockies and the Cubs (which is starting to turn a bit horrific with a lot of breaks going the Cubs' way and tying up the game in the bottom of the 8th).
And another very strange break in the 11th where Javy Baez hugged a 3rd baseman possibly planning to make a play as he ran and stopped on his way to 3rd.

Still more baseball to come it seems... I hope they play 24 innings and finish around 4am before making their way North to Milwaukee for Thursday's game.  In the changeovers I am going to watch Ouija: Origin of Evil, which i expect will be really good...
and it's a prequel!, evidently.  Oy I may be in for a rough night.

As it turns out, Ouija  is a clumsy but effective movie...  I will have nightmares tonight, but if i were less susceptible, it would seem outrageous.


Wednesday, October 3

The "horror" of today was (what seems to me anyway) an obscure late-80s movie starring Paul Newman and John Cusack: Fat Man and Little Boy.  I also read "The Cottage of Lost Play" from The Book of Lost Tales Part One.

The night itself was haunting - it was 80 degrees outside in October, and the wind howled all through the night.  We opened the windows and our house was like a wind tunnel.  Later in the night, some of the windows we closed, and then the doors (none of which quite latch) opened and closed throughout the night, causing me nightmares and waking starts and shadowy visions (btw i'm afraid of the dark, so there's that).


Thursday, October 4

Watched most of the Brewers game at SC Nomad, and then Bob Uecker drove me home to watch the 9th (which is starting to turn into a bit of a nightmare...).


Friday, October 5

And so the Brewers go up 2-0 in the NLDS.  We watched the heart of the game at Jalapeno Loco (which is the best Mexican restaurant in Milwaukee, near as I can tell).

Watched some of the other playoff games, but also, mostly, watched Dracula (1979) - a Frank Langella vehicle, I guess?


Saturday, October 6

Played a steampunk adventure of the Oz Squad with the BRP System.  Scarecrow, Tin-Man, Lion, Dorothy & Toto (I played Dorothy, natch) traversed the Enchanted Forest to find the tomb of the Wicked Witch of the West, and bring her broom back to the Emerald City.


Sunday, October 7

Brewers sweep the NLDS over the Rockies after Liverpool manages a 0-0 draw with Manchester City.  Then, The Walking Dead, Season 9 premiers.


Monday, October 8

Doctor Day!  I've never watched a full season of Doctor Who, though I've seen plenty of episodes.  The first episode of Series 11 (2018) premiered last night with Jodie Whittaker playing the 13th Doctor.

On a parallel track, I've been watching Season 14 (1976-7) with the 4th Doctor (Tom Baker).  Since The Doctor travels through time and space, it seems to me fairly arbitrary what order to experience the seasons in...


Tuesday, October 9

Watching the 2017 reboot of Flatliners.  The main difference clear in the new version is that they waste a lot less time assigning immediate motivations to everyone and every aspect.  And everything scaring the shit out of everyone all the time... like non-stop once it gets going.  Just piling on of creepiness on top of sudden jolts on top of grief horror.


Sunday, October 21

Watched a bit of Luke Cage, and listened to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Show 60 - The Celtic Holocaust and on the plane, Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow.


Monday, October 22

I downloaded Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery on iPhone after vegging out to some SlasherFest on AMC and watching the 2009 Friday the 13th sequel/reboot and parts of Wes Craven's New Nightmare.


Tuesday, October 23

I finished Luke Cage, Season 1 while waiting for a plane at La Guardia en route home from White Plains, New York.


Wednesday, October 24

Eli Roth's History of Horror has made its way through three episodes and two monster types - zombies (ep. 1) and slashers (eps. 2 & 3).  I finished up episode 2 today and am digging into #3, with some interest.


Saturday, October 27

Continued watching The Haunting of Hill House and the Harry Potter game after watching Liverpool dominate and getting ESPN Gamecast updates that Nottingham Forest were totally robbed, but got a positive result at Leeds.


Sunday, October 28

Watched a dominant Bear's victory over a bad team.  Looks like they're moving back into first place as I also switched back and forth between some more Classic Doctor Who and 1/5th of the Super Sports Equinox, where the Packers lost.  The Vikes may still have something to say about that first place finish today, and i'm watching some of that whilst also watching the newest episode featuring The Thirteenth Doctor.

And it was a The Walking Dead evening...

Does this make me a 'commish'?

Tonight, as i was watching Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire in an effort to prepare my wife & me for seeing 'the new one', i was switching back and forth between the movie & the Brewers game (Mike Cameron is my hero... today)... After we got through with the movie, i looked about the baseball world & found that i could actually EXPERIENCE the baseball world...

Just now, i'm watching Delmon Young battle Dallas Braden (?) with Joe Crede at 2nd. I actually get to watch the Twins set up a come back against the A's (which they had something of the exact opposite of yesterday)...precisely the opposite, actually...

I'm not exactly sure what I want to suggest here, but today, i found, i am allowed to watch just about any Major League Baseball game i want to...

Other than the fact that Shane will likely be at my house from now on to the end of the summer, i'm confused as to how the DirectTV world works. I've certainly never subscribed to MLB's network, but by randomly switching networks in order to not have to pay extra for Brewer's games, i've somehow come into extensive coverage of all sorts of baseball (as well as complete - 6-matches-at-a-6-time Wimbledon coverage)...

I guess what i'm suggesting is that i have suddenly become a much bigger baseball fan than i would have been and i'm not sure i'm ok with that. My only fear is that i won't see how much worse the Brewers are than i've thought them to be... As far as i understand, the Brewers are the best team in the NL Central by far... but they're just 'underachieving'...

It's an odd place to be in... I'm wondering (idly, obviously, or i'd look into it) if this is a mid-summer situation so that i might get suckered into buying this package or if it's just mine... for nothing (in which case i will plan to become a crazy-ass baseball guy)...

Getting to watch the bottom of the 7th of the A's - Twins matchup is really something... to me, at least... What it means is that i can really try to understand more of how baseball really works... I can watch another team i would like to support try to battle their way back into a pennant run and it's really, quite, exciting... don't you think so, shane?

Evidently not everyone has brewer fever...

Last night as I was listening to the end of CC Sabathia’s dominant 3-hit shutout in my backyard, a strange voice kept cutting into the broadcast. Bob Uecker was announcing just the 3rd (& final) hit given up by CC when this nameless trucker (I would come to know it was one side of a CB conversation) says “you gotta be really screwed up to have your dad take off […] then yer’ mom to take off you gotta be screwed up.”

This was actually the second or third thing I’d heard the guy say & I’m not sure if he was breaking into just my broadcast or that of the entire AM620 listening audience, but I ran into the house to grab a pad of paper & a pencil. It’s times like those that I wish I’d taken a secretarial shorthand course back in the 60s (or had a Truman Capote-type memory), because I couldn’t keep up with the conversation & missed a lot of it, but what I did catch, I present here, for your…amusement(?).

***Note: Breaks between lines vary from a matter of seconds to as much as a minute. Any lines that are incomplete contain […] to indicate missed dialogue, again ranging from a few words to several sentences.

Trucker: “One day […] we’ll see a shrink”

T: “How many times we can see a shrink, Tom, eh?”

T: “[…] Sorry if I messed up your Christmas […]Heh-heh-heh heh”.
Something unintelligible about “whitewash”

T: “…almost 40 years old and you’re paying for his doctor and all that […] probably hold the door open for her and touch her […] but we’re all paying for it.”

T: “Well, you guys shouldn’t come up here then, you should stay in the south. Nobody gives a crap.”
An MGD commercial runs in what has now become the background.

Bob Uecker: “…Hard fought series here in St. Louis…”
Ryan Braun hits a solo homerun (25) in the top of the 9th.

BU: “Ryan Braun adds a Badger Mutual Insurance Run […] Prince Fielder with a walk, Hit By a Pitch and 2 Strikeouts […] 0-2 pitch…”

T: “Can’t know what any of these _______ are sayin’ right now.”

T: “What he got—let me guess. […] You got who’s hitting your […]”

T: “This guy is taking your money and you’re pissing and moaning about who’s taking your money […] you should be busting his door down if not, put in for new work.”

T: “More ambition than Tommy had in his entire life.”

T: “Yeah, he’s a fudge packer.”
Corey Hart hits into a fielder’s choice and Billy Hall comes up.

BU: “There’s a runner out there for Billy Hall […] 41,415 at St. Louis tonight […] 2-2, had a good cut […] Corey Hart almost got picked off. Corey’s got a couple of hits tonight and a run scored.”
Bill Hall strikes out.

T: “That SOB, it does not work. […] Hey, I’ll give you a perfect example. My son was 16, he’s ________ to work on the farm, worked the extra summer […] Tommy Sehry out there _________ a donkey or a goat. […] kid worked like a bugger today […] work ethic, ________ and health insurance that we are not paying for today.”
Pujols bats.

T: “Tommy got up there, Caballo’s up there. […] Yeah, I’m sorry for ______ you. You are in cahoots with Tommy. Well not cahoots, but whatever you two are in.”

So, that’s the whole of what I jotted down. It provided an interesting counterpart to Uecker & Jim Powell. All in all, it was a good game and a surreal broadcast.

See, see!

So, with CC Sabathia added to the Brewer's roster and starting tomorrow night (i'll be there, likely getting booted out of the slightly more expensive seats...again), i think it's time to take a look at the sporting world of sportJoel.

** Updated 14 November 2009 **

I'm not sure what I was going to write about, but there is a vast text base from which to work... Email me for a copy* of "Sport Joel" & "Probe-Film", both of which offer up fantastic insight into the early sport-i-ness days of joel.

*Please specify format you'd like the footage delivered in. Pricing will start at the basic "VHS tape - $15.00, DVD - $30.00". These prices are subject to change (after I've figured out how to make the first copy, future copies may get much cheaper...

the era of the mini-pundit

So, i know i don't often wax (wane?) politico on this blog, but with a bit of inspiration from my new e-stalkee & a quick 4-minute segment on CNN this morning i have something to get off my chest...

Just before i left the house this morning CNN's "American Morning" was interviewing the youngest superDelegate for the 2008 Democratic Primary & a slightly hot, exceedingly severe College Republican... They were talking, purportedly (which i think is the snider way to say supposedly), about the "youth" vote & the "issues important for young people today"...

What they really showed, though, were a couple of prematurely 50-year-old Talking Heads using strict partyline talking points to "debate" Obama's help kids pay for school plan. First of all, the idea that the driving issue for 'young people' (which i'm starting to realize no longer really includes me) is how to pay for college is belittling & an oversimplification. This, of course, is not surprising for cable news (it's remarkable how little insight or information you can pack into 1 hour of cable news coverage), but it speaks to a larger issue i've been thinking about lately, namely old people.

The impetus for my discussion of this rampant problem is the crotchety senior citizens hired at Miller Park to walk through sections harrassing young people during poorly attended midweek games. Brooke & i had $6 nosebleeds (sponsored by Miller High Life - which, miller high life, if you'd like to sponsor this blog i'd be more than happy to sing your praises as often as necessary) and being a dead Wednesday nite (this is a subltle Miller plug) game, we found some better seats available on the Loge level. We sat down alongside a large contingent of other seat jumpers and made the classic seat jumper blunder of sitting a few rows back from the filled in seats (for those wishing to get better seats, the secret is 1) enter a section that is not currently being watched by old people & 2) choose seats that are in the row directly behind (or even better in front of) established sitters... They likely won't check tickets for large numbers of folks, but this system can still fail if - you're young-ish looking.

That's right, agial profiling is going on at Brewer's Games. I personally observed crotchety old people check tickets of several groups of youngFolks, but bypass an older couple of men in windbreakers who obviously didn't have tickets for that section (they were seated several rows behind the end of the sold tickets, but weren't checked because they were old).

Most disturbingly was the way we were addressed when the old man confronted us. He said "Sir, do you have tickets for this section?"

"No," i said, which momentarily confused him. I suspect he was waiting for a 'i can't find my ticket ploy', but he recovered and said "Do you have tickets on the Terrace Level, sir." His insinuation was that we clearly did not belong here, among the over-priced seats, but we clearly belonged 'up there'. Add this to our experience of a few nights prior when our Beer Pen seats were otherwise occupied and when we told the usher this she said, "aw, go find some other seats." (Admittedly this was later in a blowout, but the section, while having some empty seats, was significantly fuller than the Loge level seats we were occupying). I really wonder, though, if we'd been doddering old folks would we have gotten our seats...

This all points to, i think, a larger issue we're really facing, that of a true cultural divide between young & old. Walter Benjamin talks about this a lot in his early writing, the idea that the youth must revolt & drive social agenda, but the problem we have with American culture is that the youth pretty much has to rally behind an old person... No matter where you draw the line of 'old guy' & youth the average age of national leaders is telling... I'm not necessarily calling for a Logan's Run style abolition of old folks (i'd be finished in both the film & book versions), but there's something here and i'm not sure what it is.

Obviously, youth grow up & become older. For a while they're an 'in-between' stage, where i think i find myself now. Not sure i want to buy in totally to the Programme of american commerce/democracy (commocracy?), but also pretty sure that if i don't soon i will "be in trouble later"... Get your pension in order, workworkwork while you still can, maintain your health benefits (by never quitting your job or making sure you always have another one waiting) so you can stay healthy...
But what i wonder is, is there a way to maintain youth when you grow older. To continue to believe in the things you believed in before. Old white guys on the radio (i'm looking at you AM 620 - WTMJ in Milwaukee) will tell you that when you get older & "wiser" you realized you were confused when you were younger, that you just didn't realize how things worked, but what it really is is that you get scared by the Programme and then have to start telling everyone else to 'get with it' so you feel ok for joining up... (it's a lot like the housing market & how i tell everyone that it's really starting to come back & look good now that i own a house).

If we look at the art historical tradition of (??? early 1800/victorian/1600s? Art Historians help me out here) painting children as if they were miniature adults alongside this morning's CNN "youth minute" and even our entire educational system, which trains children, adolescents, and young adults to fill out forms - to complete strictly defined tasks, essentially to be middle-management we see that this Programme (yeah, i've taken a liking to that term) isn't what we want, isn't useful, and is infectious (spreading both in strength & geography). Perhaps the only solution is to turn the world's keys over to it's new drivers as soon as possible. It's better than being stuck behind a Cadillac that's had its left turn signal on for 15 miles and going 42 in a 55.

Weekenders Return

Having heard from jp now regarding his magic shoes that he left behind at our place, i can at least safely assume that one car made it back to minneapolis & will trust that all made it back home after the Colonel's Grand Opening.

Thanks everyone for making the trip down, up, or over. We'll try to do it again soon, often, and repeatedly. What with the Thursday, Saturday, & Sunday flood drives to & from minneapolis (as well as some somewhat associated trips to & from Omaha) the need for a fantastic weekend was high.

Tailgating went almost as perfectly as i could have imagined. Except for the lack of ladder-ball & the slightly embarrassing nature of Toss Across. But good times were had and PBR & vodka slushies were drunk... the newly acquired mini-grill assembled easily & the asian cole slaw was outstanding, seriously. Inside, the game was ugly, but the Beer Pen* was an interesting experience, with free t-shirts, anarchic seating situations, and not a little Twins fan harrassment (i was quite impressed by the number of homer-hanky-havers that made the trip down).

Saturday was looking to be a beautiful day... we put the guests to work (thanks guys) & got ready for the house-warming. The mpls kids wandered around milwaukee for the day, got to the Safe House & the marina then got back for a rain shower which moved everything into the house & the garage, though we got back outside later. Overall a fine party. I know grantykins had a good time. Sunday we went for brunch (with excellent crabcake Benedict in spite of incredibly bad waitering) at Barnacle Buds & most of the crew was off & back home. Seriously, thanks all for coming. We had a great time...

*geographic animosity never ceases to befuddle me. I mean, true fan animosity (like the way i hate most Cubs fans) is one thing... It's rational (or at least rationalizable) - the average Cubs fan doesn't understand nor want to understand the finer points of a baseball game. they just want to see homers & see the scoreboard click up for them... But a minnesotan's despise for a wisconsinite? the way Omahans talk about Iowans? Even, to some extent, the way coasters see the entire middle of the country as 'quaint' is difficult for me to process... Anyway - this Derrick guy had quite a different view of the Beer Pen than I had... anybody recognize him?

beis-buru

Last night, i went to a really spectacular baseball game. The trip started, boringly enough, in Clinton, and felt a little like a middle school flash-back with our carload being just myself, Shane & my parents (shane even spiked his hair up & wore his Rude Dog t-shirt), but instead of shane & me in the back seat, being all punk-kid-y, we tossed my parents back there and cruised up (a good 3-hours before game time) to Milwaukee. I am slowly acclimating myself to the fact that things happen a whole lot slower, but with a great deal more production, nowadays when they involve my parents than they used to. So, our early arrival was fortuitous, not only since we got to see a little BP, but also because a food/beer run became quite the ordeal, changing levels, fretting over bobble-heads & convincing my parents that indeed there are condiment stations on the next level up... But, i think i've come to the point where i can relax & enjoy what a big show seemingly small events become when involving my parents...

The game itself was fantastic. Though the Brewers lost, it came down to the last batter & about 3" (the distance by which Corey Koskie missed a game-tying double). The 8th inning, when the Brewers were down by 4 runs, featured back to back home runs by Koskie & (i wanna say) Damian Miller, tying the game & leading to a lot of strangers slapping hi-fives, me jumping up & down and screaming. And the Brewers aren't even my team... We were way up in the upper deck, with the plebs, and the crowd was riled up something fierce. In the 9th, though, Turnbow (the Brewer's superb closer), who was also the guy who's bobble-head was being given away, gave up a home run to the first batter & the Brewers lost by 1. Heartbreaking, but a damn good game. Even though i love baseball, so often, you go to a game and you know who's going to win by like the 3rd inning, and you stick around, sort of getting your money's worth & hoping it gets interesting, but the game stays as you expect & you walk away unsatisfied... Here, though the game did end on a called strike three, it was all up in the air until the very last pitch. Good stuff.