Thursday, February 21, 2013
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Happy 30th, Uncle Mike!
Molly was very excited to celebrate Uncle Mike's 30th! She was bummed she wasn't invited to the Whirly Ball festivities last night, though. Luckily mommy and daddy got a sitter and were able to hit up the court. Rumor has it that daddy is a Whirly Ball bully. Yikes!
Three big cheers for Uncle Mike. Thanks for spending your big 30 in Chi-town!
Who is holding me again? Oh yeah, it's the birthday boy!
Guess who got me this bib!!
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Happy New Year!
We never thought we'd make it back to Chicago before 2011! But, we did. And we even made it to our New Years Eve party!
Here are my two favorite people at a bar at the Pittsburgh airport. Clearly, this is AFTER our plane deboarded, Jeff found a TV to watch the ND game and Molly was boiling in her fleece outfit. Daddy knew just what to do to cool her down while we waited for a new plane.
All I can say is...
We thank our lucky stars that my cousin Rachel just happened to be on our flight to Chicago (she was SUCH A BIG HELP- thanks Rachel)!!
Miss Molly wins Most Improved for air travel. She did SO WELL on our adventure yesterday, and it was night in day from her Midway trip. I didn't have to hide in a handicap bathroom stall with a crying baby this time. Success!
With my Molly girl on her 2nd fight! Excuse the extreme closeup of my face!
We were so excited to ring in the New Year with my friend Julia, her husband Paul and a few of their friends. The three couples (including us) all brought their babies, and there were even 2 labs! Molly was quite the party girl until she had to go to bed. Sorry you missed the ball drop, Molly girl! But, she had a "sleepover" with her baby friend Ella in the back room. I wish I had a picture of Molly sleeping on our friend's bed (in a pillow fort I created) and Ella in a Pack'n Play. Too cute!
Ringing in the New Year with Julia and Tanya!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
I'm obsessed with Julia's dog Henry!!!
2010 has been amazing, but I have a feeling that 2011 will be even better as we watch our sweet Molly girl grow! Happy New Year!!
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
awesome/sucks: karma
No post today, but as a follow-up to yesterday's post, in which I may now refer to myself as Nostradamus.
Thank you Cal, for answering my prayers. Now on to the inevitable coaching search that will produce a candidate unfit to coach an intramural team...
Can't wait!
Thank you Cal, for answering my prayers. Now on to the inevitable coaching search that will produce a candidate unfit to coach an intramural team...
Can't wait!
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
awesome/sucks: march madness
It’s that time of year again. The time when we all pretend to care about college basketball for a month as its presented in such a concentrated, gambling-fueled orgy that its impossible not to get sucked in. Well, except for my UCLA brethren, who actually have things called “tradition” and “expectations” year in and year out. They actually always give a crap. But March Madness is really one of those sporting events that manages to galvanize people from all walks of life and never fails to produce a flooding torrent of emotions. Case in point: Silvestre Aguilar and JDB (not their real names) called me after Chris Webber called his fateful timeout against North Carolina to make fun of me for backing the Wolverines and I shed legitimate tears. I still hate those guys.
Well, that particularly embarrassing revelation aside… let’s kick this pig!
awesome: upsets, gambling, brackets
No bones about it – there are a SLEW of awesome things about March Madness. Who doesn’t love a good upset? Watching Duke’s current batch of WASPs get their asses handed to them by a plucky Devry school? A highlight of a grossly undersized white point guard making an improbable three at the buzzer that will undoubtedly be the highlight of his inevitably mundane life? The triumph of the human spirit? OK, two out of three ain’t bad. Regardless, upsets are the games we always remember from year to year, not the miserable 7-10 seed matchup in the Midwest region that makes you want to end your own life. And hey, its not like Bryce Drew will ever have to pay for a meal in Gary again.
You know what’s great about upsets? They go great with the second awesome thing about March Madness… gambling! As a card-carrying degenerate, there is literally nothing better than waddling over to a sportsbook at 9am on a Thursday, withdrawing a grand of hard-earned (wink) cash, constructing a series of ludicrous parlays that have worse odds than the Spears-Federline children, and spending a solid eleven hours reaffirming the fact that you have a serious, serious gambling problem. Everyone has their own favorite gambling memories of March Madness. I remember hitting a parlay of three underdogs that was particularly amazing at the time, but nothing matches the Duke-UConn Final Four game several years ago. With the game out of reach and Duke down by four, Chris Duhon hit a half-court shot to narrow the gap in an inconsequential manner. I still remember immediately thinking to myself – there are some pissed-off mofos in Vegas right now. Yes, that was my first thought. What can I say.
Finally, March Madness rules for its prodigious usage of brackets. No other sports event is better set-up for office pools, unless you count the Tour de France. Who do you have in your peloton? Nothing beats picking your bracket like a standard dude, meaning tons of upsets, while the chick in accounting with the huge knockers picks straight chalk and pulls out a convincing win. I inevitably always choose one monumentally stupid Final Four team, and it warrants mentioning that once again, I am easily inhabiting the cellar of my pool all by myself. None of these issues affects the awesomeness of these brackets, though. Even if you do pick yours by which teams have the best mascots.
[shaking head]
sucks: whining about bubble teams, the fact that there’s 65 teams in the first place
If there’s anything that sucks about March Madness, it’s the fuss over who gets in and who gets shown the door. Seriously, we’re arguing about which team is going to get a 12 seed, maybe hit a couple of lucky breaks in the first round before being ass-rammed by a legit team some way along the road? Just ridiculous. There are several terrible facets of these fruitless arguments, which never change:
awesome/sucks: watching your team win the NIT
This one hits especially close to home. As you may well know, basketball was officially killed the University of California, Berkeley by former coach Todd Bozeman, who basically handed the keys to the program and undoubtedly several nice vehicles to former player Jason Kidd. Keep in mind, I’m not referring to Mr. Kidd as an alumnus because as far as I can tell, he never graduated from the university. I will say that at the very least, he is the author of one of my favorite quotes ever by an athlete, saying he wanted to come in and change the culture of a losing locker room and transform things “360 degrees.” Went to UC Berkeley, ladies and gentlemen. One of the finest institutions on the planet.
[audible sigh]
But I digress. Cal’s basketball program has thus been woefully inept since the inevitable sanctions assigned to us, as well as our penchant for recruiting players who might as well book their flights to Europe ahead of time to save on the airfare. I would say that Cal’s current coach, Ben Braun, couldn’t coach his way out of a paper bag, but given that he is familiar with recruiting paper bags, he’s probably attuned to their tendencies (the one caveat would be Leon Powe, who is one of my all-time favorite Cal athletes ever and is actually a genuinely good human being).
Anyways, the Golden Bears won the NIT in 1999, shortly after I signed my letter of intent to go to Cal (amid very little fanfare). Now, it’s great to win things in general. The NIT, however, is not one of those things. Sure it was great to string together a few wins over a bunch of middling Jesuit schools, but it’s not something to write home about. Ask the Onion. And as great as it was to demonstrate our school’s ability to pass effectively to teammates, score consistently, and play fundamental basketball (minus the three-man weave), nothing can erase the humiliation of looking up the rafters at Haas Pavilion and seeing this banner.
As a frequenter of Pauley Pavilion down at UCLA, that's just pathetic. Now excuse me while I prepare for football season.
awesome/sucks: vid of the day
In honor of the start of baseball season, I give you... the Dodgers.
And though not a vid, I couldn't find anywhere else to link to this. May be my favorite news article of this young year.
Well, that particularly embarrassing revelation aside… let’s kick this pig!
awesome: upsets, gambling, brackets
No bones about it – there are a SLEW of awesome things about March Madness. Who doesn’t love a good upset? Watching Duke’s current batch of WASPs get their asses handed to them by a plucky Devry school? A highlight of a grossly undersized white point guard making an improbable three at the buzzer that will undoubtedly be the highlight of his inevitably mundane life? The triumph of the human spirit? OK, two out of three ain’t bad. Regardless, upsets are the games we always remember from year to year, not the miserable 7-10 seed matchup in the Midwest region that makes you want to end your own life. And hey, its not like Bryce Drew will ever have to pay for a meal in Gary again.
You know what’s great about upsets? They go great with the second awesome thing about March Madness… gambling! As a card-carrying degenerate, there is literally nothing better than waddling over to a sportsbook at 9am on a Thursday, withdrawing a grand of hard-earned (wink) cash, constructing a series of ludicrous parlays that have worse odds than the Spears-Federline children, and spending a solid eleven hours reaffirming the fact that you have a serious, serious gambling problem. Everyone has their own favorite gambling memories of March Madness. I remember hitting a parlay of three underdogs that was particularly amazing at the time, but nothing matches the Duke-UConn Final Four game several years ago. With the game out of reach and Duke down by four, Chris Duhon hit a half-court shot to narrow the gap in an inconsequential manner. I still remember immediately thinking to myself – there are some pissed-off mofos in Vegas right now. Yes, that was my first thought. What can I say.
Finally, March Madness rules for its prodigious usage of brackets. No other sports event is better set-up for office pools, unless you count the Tour de France. Who do you have in your peloton? Nothing beats picking your bracket like a standard dude, meaning tons of upsets, while the chick in accounting with the huge knockers picks straight chalk and pulls out a convincing win. I inevitably always choose one monumentally stupid Final Four team, and it warrants mentioning that once again, I am easily inhabiting the cellar of my pool all by myself. None of these issues affects the awesomeness of these brackets, though. Even if you do pick yours by which teams have the best mascots.
[shaking head]
sucks: whining about bubble teams, the fact that there’s 65 teams in the first place
If there’s anything that sucks about March Madness, it’s the fuss over who gets in and who gets shown the door. Seriously, we’re arguing about which team is going to get a 12 seed, maybe hit a couple of lucky breaks in the first round before being ass-rammed by a legit team some way along the road? Just ridiculous. There are several terrible facets of these fruitless arguments, which never change:
- Acronyms like SOS and RPI are rammed down the gullets of the American sports viewing public like a Peter North video (c’mon, you get the reference. We’re all friends here.)
- People with job titles like “Bracketologist” get major airtime on ESPN and other sports shows, despite no clear expression of tangible skills and limited job prospects should this position cease to exist
- Syracuse is inevitably on the bubble
awesome/sucks: watching your team win the NIT
This one hits especially close to home. As you may well know, basketball was officially killed the University of California, Berkeley by former coach Todd Bozeman, who basically handed the keys to the program and undoubtedly several nice vehicles to former player Jason Kidd. Keep in mind, I’m not referring to Mr. Kidd as an alumnus because as far as I can tell, he never graduated from the university. I will say that at the very least, he is the author of one of my favorite quotes ever by an athlete, saying he wanted to come in and change the culture of a losing locker room and transform things “360 degrees.” Went to UC Berkeley, ladies and gentlemen. One of the finest institutions on the planet.
[audible sigh]
But I digress. Cal’s basketball program has thus been woefully inept since the inevitable sanctions assigned to us, as well as our penchant for recruiting players who might as well book their flights to Europe ahead of time to save on the airfare. I would say that Cal’s current coach, Ben Braun, couldn’t coach his way out of a paper bag, but given that he is familiar with recruiting paper bags, he’s probably attuned to their tendencies (the one caveat would be Leon Powe, who is one of my all-time favorite Cal athletes ever and is actually a genuinely good human being).
Anyways, the Golden Bears won the NIT in 1999, shortly after I signed my letter of intent to go to Cal (amid very little fanfare). Now, it’s great to win things in general. The NIT, however, is not one of those things. Sure it was great to string together a few wins over a bunch of middling Jesuit schools, but it’s not something to write home about. Ask the Onion. And as great as it was to demonstrate our school’s ability to pass effectively to teammates, score consistently, and play fundamental basketball (minus the three-man weave), nothing can erase the humiliation of looking up the rafters at Haas Pavilion and seeing this banner.
As a frequenter of Pauley Pavilion down at UCLA, that's just pathetic. Now excuse me while I prepare for football season.
awesome/sucks: vid of the day
In honor of the start of baseball season, I give you... the Dodgers.
And though not a vid, I couldn't find anywhere else to link to this. May be my favorite news article of this young year.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
awesome/sucks: the leading man who is neither a leader nor a man.
During a particularly unfruitful weekend of TV watching, I happened upon Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. Despite every other inclination to do otherwise, I managed to stick it out and watch the entire movie. Whether this was a testament to inertia or an expression of serious deep-seated psychological defects, it happened and there’s no getting around it. At the end of that painfully self-aware experience that ended up ruining an otherwise enjoyable Sunday, I thought to myself, “if I have to suffer through this embarrassment, then at least my readership of three will have to go through these indignities as well.” With that, I give you: Rob Schneider.
awesome: Rob Schneider, in a supplementary role
Whether it’s acting as one of the Gap girls, the role of the “you can do it” guy from The Waterboy, the “three seashells” cop from Demolition Man, or the foreign delivery guy from Big Daddy, Mssr. Schneider has always fared well in a supporting role. Why may you ask? Simply put, it gives him less of a chance to fuck things up. He also receives bonus points for the afore-mentioned performance in Demolition Man, mainly because as any of my high-school friends will tell you, I once showed up an hour late to my freshman Homecoming Dance because I was watching that movie at home. As you might guess, I wasn’t exactly a hit with the ladies at the time.
Regardless, I always felt that Rob Schneider always was great in efforts that did not require much substance from him, given that his acting “talents” tended to preclude him from the sentence I just wrote.
sucks: Rob Schneider, in a leading role
Feel free to peruse the man’s imdb.com page sometime. Literally, it’s a murderer’s row of the mediocre, and that may be being kind. These are the types of movies that if you stumbled upon them on TBS or were subjected to them on a long flight, you would at least consider ending your own life. Not that you'd do it, but it would at least be on the table. Case in point:
- The Hot Chick
- The Animal
- Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo
- Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
- The Benchwarmers
Holy shit. What an out and out travesty. This man has spewed more crap than Linda Blair in the Exorcist. The sheer volume of excrement this man has emitted into the atmosphere over the last decade or so has reportedly got his house listed as a Superfund site, where his movements are monitored constantly by the EPA.
In summation, I feel the creators of South Park really hit the nail on the head.
awesome/sucks: being an attractive young starlet and landing the romantic lead in a film, only to find out your co-star is Rob Schneider
Look at those beautiful young things!
(exasperated)
(sighing)
(momentarily questioning the meaning of life)
With Rob Schneider???? How does a Hollywood agent not avoid him like the plague??
Seriously, I honestly feel bad for these girls. You study all your life to be an actress. Drama classes and off-Broadway productions to really hone those acting chops. Toning your body at the gym, linguistics classes to sharpen accents and delivery, complete dedication. Finally landing that part. That's the awesome part. All that work, finally paying off. Then you show up to the set the first day and you’ve got Rob Schneider waiting for you. Talk about a kick in the proverbial junk.
Utterly unbelievable. No word yet on whether any of these women has ever been heard from again. Come to think of it, these girls all probably have their own island together somewhere, where they conduct Rob Schneider self-help groups to erase the painful scars of a misspent youth. They certainly can't show themselves around Hollywood anymore, as having made out with Rob Schneider - even if merely for a movie - is more acute career suicide than having acted in a German schiesse film. I think if these gals were given the option to have acted across from Schneider or getting herpes, they would probably side with the latter.
awesome/sucks vid of the day:
Quick hitters today. My continued mockery of David Lee Roth and a good take on the Pick-Up Artist.
awesome: Rob Schneider, in a supplementary role
Whether it’s acting as one of the Gap girls, the role of the “you can do it” guy from The Waterboy, the “three seashells” cop from Demolition Man, or the foreign delivery guy from Big Daddy, Mssr. Schneider has always fared well in a supporting role. Why may you ask? Simply put, it gives him less of a chance to fuck things up. He also receives bonus points for the afore-mentioned performance in Demolition Man, mainly because as any of my high-school friends will tell you, I once showed up an hour late to my freshman Homecoming Dance because I was watching that movie at home. As you might guess, I wasn’t exactly a hit with the ladies at the time.
Regardless, I always felt that Rob Schneider always was great in efforts that did not require much substance from him, given that his acting “talents” tended to preclude him from the sentence I just wrote.
sucks: Rob Schneider, in a leading role
Feel free to peruse the man’s imdb.com page sometime. Literally, it’s a murderer’s row of the mediocre, and that may be being kind. These are the types of movies that if you stumbled upon them on TBS or were subjected to them on a long flight, you would at least consider ending your own life. Not that you'd do it, but it would at least be on the table. Case in point:
- The Hot Chick
- The Animal
- Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo
- Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
- The Benchwarmers
Holy shit. What an out and out travesty. This man has spewed more crap than Linda Blair in the Exorcist. The sheer volume of excrement this man has emitted into the atmosphere over the last decade or so has reportedly got his house listed as a Superfund site, where his movements are monitored constantly by the EPA.
In summation, I feel the creators of South Park really hit the nail on the head.
awesome/sucks: being an attractive young starlet and landing the romantic lead in a film, only to find out your co-star is Rob Schneider
Look at those beautiful young things!
(exasperated)
(sighing)
(momentarily questioning the meaning of life)
With Rob Schneider???? How does a Hollywood agent not avoid him like the plague??
Seriously, I honestly feel bad for these girls. You study all your life to be an actress. Drama classes and off-Broadway productions to really hone those acting chops. Toning your body at the gym, linguistics classes to sharpen accents and delivery, complete dedication. Finally landing that part. That's the awesome part. All that work, finally paying off. Then you show up to the set the first day and you’ve got Rob Schneider waiting for you. Talk about a kick in the proverbial junk.
Utterly unbelievable. No word yet on whether any of these women has ever been heard from again. Come to think of it, these girls all probably have their own island together somewhere, where they conduct Rob Schneider self-help groups to erase the painful scars of a misspent youth. They certainly can't show themselves around Hollywood anymore, as having made out with Rob Schneider - even if merely for a movie - is more acute career suicide than having acted in a German schiesse film. I think if these gals were given the option to have acted across from Schneider or getting herpes, they would probably side with the latter.
awesome/sucks vid of the day:
Quick hitters today. My continued mockery of David Lee Roth and a good take on the Pick-Up Artist.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
A post only Barnicle and Selvestre Aguilar will get...
Colina Middle School bus drivers:
*Note: because images of these giants of the bus driving industry exist only in our fond memories, I have provided celebrity look-a-likes for each so that the reader may picture a close likeness of them.
Awesome: Mel
Mel was just the type of school bus driver you love: so lazy that he didn't care if you threw candy corn on his bus, with a touch of surliness that made him endearing. He generally ignored any offers of proof that you actually belonged on that bus route. His growls were limited to extreme instances of tomfoolery, which were limited out of respect for the man. He looked the part as well, with an unkempt appearance, shirt untucked. He had a shady, scraggily beard flecked with white whiskers and bread crumbs. He was a man who made $11.35 an hour and didn't ask more of life. A true gentleman.
Celebrity look-a-like: A poor man's Dom Deluise.
Sucks: Olay (aka "Greg 'Bollee' Williams)
Olay was our driver for the better part of 7th grade. A good guy, but he took his job seriously and made a real effort to enforce the unwritten bus rules. These attempts opened him to a torrent of ridicule at the hands of many, including his nemesis in chief, Martin "Spagone" Ighani. He was frequently pelted with objects of varying sizes. He wore leather gloves to drive, so as to have a better grip on the wheel, and made liberal use of the mirror to monitor the bus. On one of the last days of school, Olay finally informed the
crowd that his name was not Olay, but Greg "Bollee" Williams. I remember I felt bad that we had called him "Olay" for nearly a year. Olay had constant problems with the bus' manual shifting, and thus was a poor driver. His crowning achievement was crapping out the transmission on a busy stretch of road, forcing two of this blog's contributors to walk several miles home through the drainage creek. I remember thinking, "I can't believe he's just letting dozens of kids walk home." These are the types of things that keep bus company's general counsels up at night.Celebrity look a like: a combination of Star Wars-era Billy Dee Williams and a younger Lester from The Wire.
Awesome/Sucks: Mel's daughter Kim
At some point, Mel's daughter Kim took over Mel's route. I don't remember how we found out she was Mel's daughter. She sucked because she yelled at us constantly. She was awesome, though, for the greatest line ever uttered by a driver. One day, we were in open rebellion against her ironfisted rule like the Sons of Liberty in Boston in 1775. One intrepid Sam Adams-like character dragged family into it, daring to start the chant: "WE WANT MEL! WE WANT MEL!" After several minutes of chanting, it reached a crescendo, and, in between our chants, perfectly timed, she screamed: "YEAH? SO DOES YOUR MOMMA!!!!!!" The house came down in a chorus of "OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" It was a Pyhrric victory, because it only caused more noise. Some would credit this day as inventing the Class of 99 cheer, which was a derisive and melodic "OHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
Celebrity look-a-like: Ricki Lake circa 1993.
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