Now Johnny Damon has really grown his hair out.

At a train stop in Chicago's loop was an ad for the peanut: "Energy to help you stay in the Loop."

I applaude the custom headline geared for Chicagoans. Very cute. However, when you get on the train in the loop, you do so to exit the loop, not stay in it. Good try peanut.

Four years ago from yesterday was the first spudart blog post. Happy four years old! :-D *streamers*

The first blog post was Long live long tables.

Ah yes the long table
Host to family renunions
Setting for the Last Supper
Forum for panel discussions
Horizon of Bruce Wayne meals
Territory of high school lunches
Location for the wedding party
Structure for model railroad towns
Spread for all-you-can-eat buffets
Stage set for big corporate meetings
Battleground for Scrabble tournaments

Users of cell phones should be able to program their phone to go into silent mode depending on the location of the phone. When I enter work, my phone should go silent. When I enter church, it should go silent.

One thing I don't like about cell phones is that I have to manually always turn the thing off and on off and on and then recharge, recharge, recharge some more. Cell phones can tell where they are why not have them programmed to turn off within a four block radius of church or at your work building. That would be so nice.

What if you disliked the White Sox so much, that you didn't own and socks that were white?
Oh oh!
What if you disliked the White Sox so much, that if they won the World Series, you vowed to dye all your white socks black?

             9 games remaining
            WON  LOST  PCT    GB  
c-White Sox   92   61  .601  --  WILL GO TO PLAYOFFS  (AL Central Division leader)
c-Indians     91  63  .591  1.5 WILL GO TO PLAYOFFS  (AL Wild Card leader)
e-Yankees     90   64  .586  2.5 WILL GO TO PLAYOFFS  (AL Eastern Division leader)
e-Red Sox     89   64  .579  3.0 WON'T GO TO PLAYOFFS (AL Eastern Division 2nd place)

c = Central Division
e = Eastern Division

USHRA Monster Jam
Showtimes
Friday, February 17, 2005: 8:00 PM
Saturday, February 18, 2005: 2:00 PM
Saturday, February 18, 2005: 8:00 PM
Sunday, February 19, 2005: 2:00 PM
Sunday, February 19, 2005: 8:00 PM

Anticipated on sale: Sept. 24 at 10am.
Gold Seats $25 Adults and Kids
Adults: $20
Kids: $10

For tickets, visit the Allstate Arena Box office, call Ticketmaster at 312/559-1212 or visit USHRA

I originally found about this from Ocorpuz's blog (which was found from a search for "monster trucks" chicago on google's new blog search engine.

Some of the most exciting races in baseball right now are the wild card races. However, almost every single major sports site puts the wild card standings on another page separate from the regular division standings. Ugh. I don't want to click click click. Give 'em to me all on one page! Here are the culprits that chuck the wild card races onto another page: CBS Sportsline, MLB.com, Yahoo, ESPN, MSNBC (has no wild card standings at all), Sports Illustrated CNN. USA Today and Chicagosports.com separates AL and NL onto two different pages, and wild card standings onto a third page!

The only major sports site that has their act together in this regard is Fox Sports. Good job, Fox Sports!

Here's the updated standings of the "No White Sox in the Playoffs" Of the four teams the White Sox were the only ones to lose last night. The plan is falling into place.

            10 games remaining
            WON  LOST  PCT    GB  
c-White Sox   91   61  .599  --  WILL GO TO PLAYOFFS  (AL Central Division leader)
c-Indians     90   63  .588  1.5 WILL GO TO PLAYOFFS  (AL Wild Card leader)
e-Yankees     89   63  .586  2.0 WILL GO TO PLAYOFFS  (AL Eastern Division leader)
e-Red Sox     88   64  .579  3.0 WON'T GO TO PLAYOFFS (AL Eastern Division 2nd place)

c = Central Division
e = Eastern Division

In order for the White Sox to not make the playoffs, not only do they have to lose their division to the Indians, but the Yankess AND Red Sox need a better record than the Sox.

So basically, the Sox need to fall to the bottom of this list. Out of these four teams, only the top three will make it to the playoffs.

            11 games remaining
            WON  LOST  PCT    GB  
c-White Sox   91   60  .603  --  WILL GO TO PLAYOFFS  (AL Central Division leader)
c-Indians     89   63  .586  2.5 WILL GO TO PLAYOFFS  (AL Wild Card leader)
e-Yankees     88   63  .583  3.0 WILL GO TO PLAYOFFS  (AL Eastern Division leader)
e-Red Sox     88   64  .579  3.5 WON'T GO TO PLAYOFFS (AL Eastern Division 2nd place)

c = Central Division
e = Eastern Division

While waiting for the brown line train to arrive at midnight, I counted the number of spiders waiting in their spider webs with me. 97. And that wasn't the entire platform, there was about 25% of the area that I didn't cover. Good thing all those spiders just sit in their webs. If they decided to gang up on someone, they could do some major damage.

I was born in 1975, such a nice number--75. Three quarters exactly. However, it's funny U.S. didn't make any quarter coins in 1975. The year of three quarters has no quarters.

Egg Muffins are so much better than they are not wrapped in foil and sit. Tribune Tower's cafeteria lets their egg muffins sit out, so they can breath. Next door, the Equitable Building's cafeteria puts their egg muffins in foil and they choke and suffer. They get all MOIST and nasty and all mushed up. Whereas Tribune's stay nice and fluffy and happy.

NO FOIL FOR EGG MUFFINS!

slammer: noun
person at the gym who slams the weight equipment after each repetition.

Going to a smokey bar can be quite stinky. It would be nice if we didn't have to breath in all that smoke. How about smoke filters you stick up your nose?

My book club recently read Devil and the White City. Here's my review of the book by Erik Larson:

4/10 (take your chances)

Many people are fascinated by this book, as they should be. It's about an absoutely interesting era from 1890-1894 when Chicago grew to be one the nation's largest metropolises a mere 20 years after being burned to the ground entirely. And now Chicago is going to host the world's fair? It takes incredible people to have such vision and motiviation.

This book chronicles the lives of these amazing people. However, the book goes totally overboard with mentioning name after name after name. Every time a new person is introduced, you mentally put it in your brain just in case this character might develop into someone important in the storyline. However many characters are never mentioned again.

The book's strength lies in being able to recreate this time period in an accurate manner. However, the presentation of so many people in the book is just overwhelming. And the story could have been told in a less dry manner.

There are moments of excitement and drama. But the story just gets pulled and pulled throughout the book to the point of it just taking too long to get through the entire book. The story just could have been told better.

Plus:
Accurate rendition of an exciting time period.

Minus:
Long and boring, despite the intriguing subject matter.

You can buy this book from Amazon.com.

Magic of the White City DVD comes out today. Experience the world of 1893 through a cinematic visit to Chicago's Columbian Exposition. Many of the world's greatest achievements in science, technology and culture are unveiled there. Fairgoers also enjoy camel riding on the popular Midway and guilty pleasures like belly dancing, street fighting and beer drinking. Nearly 28 million visit the Fair. Dubbed the "White City," it inspires future innovators like Henry Ford and Frank Lloyd Wright, debuts the Ferris Wheel and Cracker Jack®, and, in many ways, marks the beginning of the 20th century.

The Cubs are 5.5 games out of the wild card with 19 games left. The White Sox lost their 4th in a row leaving a 5.5 game lead ahead of the Indians. Wouldn't it be funny if the Cubs made the playoffs and the Sox didn't?

There is certainly a lot of them:
OD hypothetical force of natural power
OE Faroean wind
OF coming from
OH to exclaim "oh"
OM mantra used in meditation
ON side of wicket where cricket batsman stands
OP style of abstract art
OR heraldic color gold
OS orifice/bone/ridge of sand (esker)
OW intj. expressing sudden pain
OX hoofed mammal/clumsy person
OY intj. expressing dismay
from the Scrabble two-letter list.

It's odd that OK is not on this list. It's not an acronym. How about a poem using only these words? Golly, it's pretty hard. Maybe if every other word was a two-letter word staring with o. So like, Oh, the ox said ow riding on a oe. I got lazy and didn't bother finishing it with all the words.

awesome is something great, but awful is something bad. Yet they both have "awe" root at the beginning. weird.

So many people in the United States are so against wearing sandals with socks. Well, I like to think that I wear socks, but then i wear sandals with it. Better explanation:
* Sandals with socks: The decision is to wear sandals first. Then it's like, "oh i'll wear socks with that." Typical situation: Going out shopping or in general public.
* Socks with sandals: This decision here starts with merely wearing socks at home, and then you have to quick run outside to throw away the trash. Sandals are a perfect fit for this situation, but why take off your socks?

I'm all for socks with sandals. It's kinda nice that it's really dorky to have such a combination. Dorkiness is cool. I don't care what the Miller Lite commericial tells me.

The G.I.Joe cartoon series aired from 1985-1987, but what time period did it take place in? The present? The future?

I had always pictured it taking place in present time, but someone told me that he thought it was in the future. What do you think?

The 2005 Graphic Design USA annual has accepted two of my pieces for their 2005 American Graphic Design Awards! Here's the two works:


Brewster Rockit Sales Kit


KRT Campus brochure/mailer

Pretty good, considering these are the only two pieces that I submitted. 100% acceptance rate for me! (vs. the 12% overall last year)

Background on the competition:

Every year the Editors of Graphic Design:usa invite thousands of United States-based advertising agencies, graphic design firms, corporate inhouse creative departments and publishers to enter their best work in their national design competition.

This competition honors new, outstanding graphic design, advertising art and marketing communications created by American graphic designers and art directors and at the same time provides a vehicle for exposure to clients, colleagues and the business community.

Now in its 26th year, this competition is among the most prestigious, as well as open and democratic, of all such events. It is also among the most selective as last year only 12% of entries were honored this year.

Winners of the 2005 American Graphic Design Awards competition will be reproduced in Graphic Design usa's Awards Annual, published in December 2005. This edition will be seen by more than 100,000 ad agencies, corporate clients, publishers, graphic design firms and others during the course of the year.

There's this ultra cool LED watch at toykoflash.com called the B Version by Twelve 5-9. I'm trying to decide which color to get. Blue, Green, or Red? I want the funk!

There should be some utility that can look through all your bookmarks to see if any of those sites have a RSS feed. Or at the very least there should be some site where you can submit like 100 different URLS and have it batch search to find a RSS feed.

I don't get why they play loud music in bars. Um, hello. I'm there to talk with my friends. I don't want your music so loud that I cannot hear my friends.

Last night the music was at an acceptable level, but then they continually raised it until we couldn't hear each other anymore, so we left.

Why would a bar continually make their music louder? I see a couple reasons:
A) It would force their bar patrons to stand closer together to hear each other, hence more "intimacy"
B) As more people come into the bar, the talking noise gets louder, so they raise the music up, so people can still "hear" it.
C) The bartender doesn't give a crap, they just want to hear their music pumped up loud. Who cares if the patrons can hear each other talk. I can hear the music blast nice and loud. :-(

None of these reasons make much sense. Can anyone else think of why a bar would continually raise the volume of their music?

Due to the large amount of comment spam in the past couple days, I have disable comment on this site until I find a better way of handling comments. The ability to comment should be back soon.

Thank you for your patience.

Comments are back!

AOL Journals allows you to post to your blog via Instant Messenger. I've been playing around with it at: http://journals.aol.com/spudart/blog/. It's one of those boring what I'm doing lately blogs. Nothing exciting about new interesting thoughts. The blog here on spudart.org is my more complete interesting thoughts blog, while this aol one is more personal news.

But I don't like how I don't have a backup of the things I post on the AOL blog. It would be nice to have a post via IM with livejournal or xanga, because they have great communities of people. But then there's the backup issue too.

At work I've been playing with wordpress for a department blog, and it's got lots of neat plug-ins. But none that allows you to post via IM. But it's certainly nice that WordPress allows me to have my backup of all the posts and comments.

In an ideal world, I would like to use a livejournal or xanga, but also be able to back up my posts and be able to post via IM.