smart car

this is clever... it gave me a smile today. thank you, justin timberlake, for providing the moves.

grrr!

Local man loses in rock, scissors, paper tourney

The Associated Press
Tribune staff reporter
Published November 13, 2006, 7:11 AM CST


Gym teacher Jason Kieronski is returning to Chicago empty handed after losing out in an international rock, scissors, paper tournament in Toronto.

Kieronski, 28, who teaches at a middle school in Glenview, says he was eliminated in the first round Saturday, losing to a woman from New York.

And to make it a bit more embarrassing, Kieronski's father, who originally only came along for the ride, decided to enter the contest himself and lasted into the second round.

About 500 people from around the world took part in the tournament at a Toronto brewery. The eventual champion was an Englishman from London.



Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

this is my 100th post. it's a tad lacklustre, but what are you gonna do about it?

and so, in celebration, i'd like to pose the question (as i'm slightly ignorant of these matters):

if the dems hold only a 1 or 2 seat majority in the house, how does this really affect their decision making process? thinking from my limited, uneducated point of view, i can see how gaining a few dem seats would increase the left influence. however, if the seats are essentially split almost evenly, wouldnt that only allow for a lot more stalemates? 50% vote this way, 50% vote that way. they'll have to work harder at convincing one another to go for something. (disclaimer: i dont know what percentage of votes are needed to pass anything in congress.)

i get the impression that all the left-minded people out there think that major changes will happen b/c of this shift of power. i am inclined to say that no changes will occur.

help, anyone? opinions, pining, complaints, cutting remarks are all welcome.

what happens next?

i love little surprises. i got a text a bit ago from bee saying that donald rumsfeld stepped down and that bush was giving a speech on cnn. intrigued, i ventured into the main lounge area where cnn plays non-stop. i was the only one in the plush green chairs interested in what our prez had to say. that is, until the mail lady strolled by, rolling her cart.

we watched in silence together for a bit, but eventually started chatting about how late we each stayed up with the polls. i went to sleep, happy and oblivious, around 11pm. she stayed up until 3am, pouring over the different news casts. for one, this impressed me. none of my socially savvy friends have admitted to staying up past their normal bedtimes.

then our lovely, reliable mail lady starts in on her own theory: that hastert will also announce his resignation before the end of the year. she hypothesizes that hastert would be a dildo to give up his humongous pension as house speaker (arguably, he already is a dildo, but that's a different blog).so, since he was re-elected yesterday, but the speaker is now pelosi (very cool, on many levels - esp the one where she's 3rd in line for the presidency if anything should happen!), he is out of his elevated position starting 1/1. this means he slides down to normal congressperson pension. if he steps down, he can appoint another nice white repub to take his place in congress.

i thoroughly enjoyed this theory. in fact, i figure, after a bit of research, i'll most likely subscribe to this theory as well. it's the people that surprise you in little pleasant ways that keeps your day up and running. well... for me it is. :o)

are you parroting me?

ok, this freaked me out. this morning, in my usual stupor, i was eating cereal and watching ellen on the oh! channel (dont make fun - it's nice and easy to digest in the morning) when an eHarmony commercial came on. i didnt pay much attention until i heard two doctors touting a new eHarmony marriage advice section on the website. get this: Dr. Les Parrot and Dr. Leslie Parrott are going to help you have a happy marriage. now, i dont know about you, but my bet is that Dr. Les (the guy) - his first name has to be Leslie. doncha think that's a bit ironic? Leslie and Leslie PARROTT? no wonder they've been married for 22 years...

boo!

in celebration of halloween, a few of us ventured to a genuinely haunted bar on the north side of chicago. the red lion pub, as legend has it, is haunted upstairs. perodically guests can hear clomping and screaming coming from above. in addition, there were various photos taken in the building (1st level and 2nd level) where weird auras of light have shown up. these "orbs" are a bit... questionable. so of course, we were intrigued.

bee-roo volunteered her headshot for our first attempt.

i'm not sure if that's a mirror...

and elizabeth (who will prolly kill me for posting such a loverly picture of her) definitely has somethin' going on...

i swear, it was totally candid.

but, by far, the freakiest thing in the bar was the table. it appeared that many lost "munch-ish" souls were trapped in the veneer.


once we had our fill of creativity, we headed back to the el stop. our counterpart, nina, at once shouted that we were standing in the exact spot where john dillinger was shot! sure enough, we found the stencil to prove it. this, in itself, perfected my halloween night.

i hope you too had spooky occurances on this holiday. either that, or i hope you didnt get egged by 12 year olds in masks.