we're too young in the morning

sam zell is an asshole.

you've probably never heard of sam zell. not a big deal, really. zell is CEO of the tribune company, which owns the chicago cubs.

why is he an asshole?

because once this money-grubbing d-bag sells the team to whichever investment groups bids highest, he's going to sell wrigley field to a separate group. the big issue is that he's o.k. with selling wrigley's naming rights.

no, that's cool, zell. just buck 80 years of tradition to make a few dollars. i'm sure the millions of cubs fans around the world will be fine with watching their team play at tampax field.

remember when twenty-five was old?

i watched the dust settle. the car was well down the windy gravel road by now, yet my feet stayed firmly planted. glancing down, i realized the plane ticket i clutched was trembling - not from the wind, but from my shaking hand. i casually stuffed the ticket into my jacket pocket.

i should've burned it. one less memory. one less rope tying me up.

i mean, who wants to go to des moines anyway?

holocaust awareness week

i signed up to receive all of the required email feeds (adage, adrants, adweek, etc.) during my first year at brandtown, and rarely opened - or read - any of them.

for some reason i randomly opened the adrants daily from this morning. in it was this ad, by tda advertising and design in boulder, colo.

see you at the crossroad

nine-foot-tall headless bass player

butane variations - goldie hawn

presidential trivia #35

two weeks in hawaii

the first girl i ever madeout with just recently got engaged - their announcement was in the paper yesterday.

two things: 1) i can't believe she's marrying the biggest nerd from our 8th grade class, and 2) why didn't their announcement mention that she was a 2-day champion on jeopardy!?

presidential trivia #11

we're all so alone.

this is the saddest website i've visited in a long time: http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/archive

remember when the boys were all electric?

death race 200(8)

sitting on my couch, watching his drug-inspired "interview" with conan o'brien, sean and i came to the conclusion that artie lange will be dead very very soon.

this reminded me of my friend, whose office competes in a death list competition each year. how it works is like this:

• each person competing throws in an amount of money, like 10 or 20 bills.
• then, each person makes a list of the 10 people they feel don't stand a chance of surviving the next 12 months.
• points are awarded on a sliding scale - for instance, how many people select a certain person affects the number of points awarded if said person eats it (the more people that select a certain person, the less points awarded for death).
  
• a smaller number of points are awarded if selected people go to rehab (repeat offenders are worth less points. *note: britney spears is worth 0 points this year), or get in horrible car accidents, or have their penises cut off, etc.
• selected people can't already be on their death beds, or suffering from disease (like cancer, diabetes, rickets, etc.).
  
• at the end of twelve months, whoever has the most points wins all the money.

it's like a fucked up fantasy football league. so if anyone's interested in putting together a death list pool (even though it's already two months into '08), let's hang our hats on it.

here's my bracket:

1. artie lange
   
2. chris berman
   
3. katie holmes
   
4. dick cheney
   
5. pete sampras
6. amy winehouse
7. jimmy carter
   
8. dan rather
9. charo
10. jeff conaway
    

presidential trivia #14

worst things ever

(in no particular order)

• guys that wear all-white sneakers with jean shorts.
• shakira. and her voice.
  
• rings on guys. earrings too.
• guys that wear all-white sneakers with anything.
• today's sitcoms (especially two and a half men, and my name is earl).
• florida.
  

take this sinking boat and point it home

stupid.

i love stupid people. remember my dear friend from ohio who changed his name to "the" dan miller experience. perfect example.

there's actually an arizona woman that might have mr. experience beat out for biggest name-change asshole in the world.

according to peta, 21-year-old rachel feather is changing her name to rachel fishinghurts. seriously.

oh, and the best part? she originally applied to have her name changed to rachel fishinghurts.com (peta's anti-fishing web site), but a judge said, "i don't fucking think so, hippy."

bruce springsteen, please go away

presidential trivia #8

the creativity 50

sometimes, just sometimes, your chips fall into place.

today i received an email inviting me to participate in creativity magazine's 5o bash, as part of brandcenter's student forum on advertising. quite an honor considering the people from school who were not chosen. the bash is an annual event that puts the spotlight on 50 innovators of advertising, entertainment, marketing, technology, design and other fields.

i'm well excited to participate. fact.

the image below represents 25 of the 50 creative honorees that will be attending this year's bash.
in there you can spot dan wieden (standing. sixth from left).

to dan's left, wearing the orangey toga outfit is legendary director ridley scott.

kneeling on the right side of the stairs are the coen brothers.

and (this is where i kind of peed myself a little) on the right, flanking bungie software's jaime griesemer and fallon's juan cabral, are daft punk. daft fucking punk.

*not pictured in the above image, but worth mentioning as part of the 50: radiohead, david droga, alex bogusky, bob greenberg, jon kamen, sergey brin, and larry page.

it gets worse before it gets better

i'm the same as i was when i was six years old,
and oh my god, i feel so damn old.
i don't really feel anything.

on a plane, i can see the tiny lights below,
and oh my god, they look so alone.
do they really feel anything?

oh my god, i've got to move on.
where do you move when what you're moving from is yourself?
– i. brook

civil war general secretsssssss

presidential trivia #10

slang you should be using vol. 2

"let's hang our hats on it." - affirmative response meaning let's do it.
example:
guy 1: hey jerry, want to head over to velvet for that $1.99 lunch buffet with the ladies?
guy 2: hells yea. let's hang our hats on it, monty.

synonyms: "do it up"; or "d-it-u".

"super smash brothers!" - positive exclamation.
example:
guy 1: hey jerry, i just got a clean test result from the free clinic!
guy 2: super smash brothers, that's fantastic, monty. let's go to velvet for the $1.99 lunch buffet to celebrate.

synonyms: "holy fuckface!"; or "fuck fuckin' yea!"

"the portico" - noun, meaning a place where the kids go to do it.
example:
guy 1: hey jerry, did you hear about my trip down to the portico?
guy 2: did i ever! i had no idea the upstairs at velvet was so sexful, monty.

synonyms: "makeout point"; or "alligator fuckhouse."

shattered fingers: day 2

twenty-five years old and i wiped my ass with my left hand for the first time. degree of difficulty: 6.5.

my friday evening in the e.r.

instead of enjoying friday happy hour drinks, i was enjoying a gurney in the mcv emergency room. here's what else i enjoyed (in no particular order):

• two fractured fingers on my right hand, which undoubtedly puts my bowling career in jeopardy.
• no less than six doctors telling me the x-rays of my hand were "impressive" (i don't know what they meant either).
• four different people vomiting blood (i may or may not have contracted the ebola virus tonight...)
• one sixty-year-old woman, who sounded like rocko's snail friend from "rocko's modern life," describing how she has to scoop golf ball shaped pieces of poop out of her own rectum because she is that constipated.
• one real-life gunshot wound being wheeled by me.
• one orange jumpsuit-clad inmate shackled to a bench, surrounded by u.s. marshalls, having his temperature taken by a nurse. and no, it wasn't wesley snipes.
• two female doctors prescribing me to "take up swimming," where the risk of injury is much less than with rugby.

oh, and of course, now i'll be enjoying four weeks of not being able to play rugby. doctor's orders.

hip hop, you're the love of my life

random thoughts for valentine's day, 2008:

• if i were a girl, i would definitely have a crush on dave treston... if for nothing more than his valentine making skills. dave gave me the best valentine in the history of valentines: on the front there was a picture of richie valens, and on the inside it read "won't you be my richie valens-tine?" seriously ladies, snap this kid up before he gets taken.
• the older i get the more i feel like love is just a made up emotion, only visible between characters on movies. love is tolerance veiled in romance. how else can you explain two people living together for sixty years without killing each other? tolerance, not love - that's how.
• i'm not saying that love doesn't exist. far from it, actually. i love mike and ikes. and pabst blue ribbon. and driving at night with the windows down, even when it's cold. and tuxedos. and lens flares. and hard snowfall. and hammocks. and chicago... and i especially love my music. so here's my post-valentine's day playlist:
1. blondie - hanging on the telephone
2. casiotone for the painfully alone - half ghost
3. joshua radin - star mile
4. the roots - act too (the love of my life)
5. cftpa - destroy the evidence
6. seabear - seashell
   
7. citizen cope - sideways
8. playradioplay - at this particular moment in time
9. whiskeytown - inn town
10. ryan adams - dear chicago

ol' abe: 199 years young

bend over, beethoven

three months to go, kids

the story ends with friends and early nights.
a kitten grown to cat, and no more fight.
this is how we stay together, love.
holding back, holding back the year.

true hollywood story: macguyver

all my heroes are weirdos

in a previous life i was a badass. a real gunslinging hard motherfucker. unfortunately, i haven't made the transition into this life all that successful.

listen: i've got badass tendencies... i just happen to fuck up when it counts (you know, like getting punched in the face while intervening in a fight between a girl and a guy, or whatever).

case in point:

it's a fall evening, not too long ago.

i'm casually strolling down an avenue near my apartment along with a near and dear friend of mine... let's call this friend "hiller migh life."

through our casual conversation (pronounced 'drink-ing'), hiller convinces me of a few things: 1) the salvage yard near our apartment has way too many trucks, 2) showing up at our apartment driving a big rig would be really "fucking sweet" [direct quote], and 3) i've never actually tried to operate a tow truck.

you can't argue with this guy. he's very poignant, and almost always right. plus, the salvage yard gate was unlocked.

step one: moving to one of the many tow trucks, i find the number of levers on its side very confusing. pulling and pushing the levers willy nilly doesn't ease the confusion, surprisingly.

"maybe you have to start the truck," whispers hiller.

i nod in agreement.

climbing into the cab, i try the old flip-down-the-sun-visor-to-expose-the-set-of-keys trick, to no avail.

"that always works in the movies," hiller assures me, sending me a sly wink.

ok, so this story is getting pretty boring so i'll skip to the end.

instead of pulling up to my apartment in an 18-wheeler, blaring the horn, then driving my roommates around town, i ended up accidentally spraying myself in the mouth with a fire extinguisher, and throwing up all over the side of a truck.

gangster. real fucking gangster.

ten years gone

*that's harry caray, not charles nelson reilly.

jay gatz

seaquest r.i.p.

tell jonathan brandis i said hey, old friend.

artie, the strongest man in the world

fahrenheit 451

"stuff your eyes with wonder. live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. see the world. it's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories."

asshole concert guy: a profile

sorry for hunting your family

jiminy cricket, paralegal

robot rock

bob dylan is the worst

presidential trivia

honest abe

uranus

clever girl

more like pervelocity

seriously, bro. seriously.

kickin' it old school

maybe the sun will shine today

super tuesday random playlist

february 5, 2008

1. pharcyde - runnin'
2. muse - hysteria
3. t. rex - cosmic dancer
4. zero7 - futures
5. elliott smith - between the bars
6. blonde redhead - silently
7. the frames - song for someone
8. nick drake - place to be
9. office - wound up
10. seabear - lost watch
    

face your fears

zombie attack training

groundhog day

who do i believe? al gore says global warming; phil says six more weeks of winter.

i think it's strange you never knew

maybe i'll quit and become a lumberjack instead.