Turf Wars

Sorry for the delay. I have far too much going on for my own good. Anyway, here's an unfunny recap of the past several days.

Friday
After work Friday I had my first softball game with my non-firm team, Vandelay Industries. What's particularly awesome about this league is that we play at DePaul softball stadium -- yes, on the very same field where the 2007 Women's College World Series participating DePaul Blue Demon's women's softball team plays. It's Astroturf (or perhaps FieldTurf), which further supplements my mongoose-like agility and cunning.

After a solid 8-run victory, we headed to the 7-10 Lounge (out sponsor) for some obligatory 1/2 price apps and full price beers, after which Jester (who refuses to sign with Vandelay Industries) and I headed to Rocks for some planned celebration for Wood, little Shemmer, and big Shemmer's wife, who had all graduated from some sort of graduate program. It was, of course, a Pi Kapp reunion, featuring the likes of Goni (little), Shemmer (big), Shemmer (little), Wood, Reising (little), Gsell, Springer, Hess, Barfell (big), Dzieken, Peterson, Rich, Davidson (big), and probably some others I'm forgetting.

Jester and I stayed for a couple drinks, then headed home early because of our impending charitable event.

Saturday
Wanting to give something back for all that I've taken from the world, and specifically the City of Chicago, I signed up through work to do the Chicago Cares Serve-a-Thon, which is an all-day event where you get sent to a Chicago Public School and you paint classrooms, hallways, lockers, etc. So I got sent to the far South Side, where I got to paint classrooms a nice sea foam green. By the way, I am an unbelievably efficient CPS classroom painter.

Saturday night, a bunch of us went to Ribfest, on Lincoln Ave., just north of the Lincoln/Damen/Irving Park intersection. There were a lot of ribs, and I ate many of them. I like ribs.

After Ribfest, a couple of us headed to Tron's apartment for a beer, then Tron, his friend Mike, Jester, and I went to The Globe (the bar on Irving Park Road, not Shakespeare's theatre in early 17th Century London). The Globe is a pretty cool pub (I'd never been there before), featuring international soccer, rugby, and Australian Rules Football matches on the "tele," including a heated match of ARF between Adelaide and Geelong. Despite watching nearly the entire match, I have very little understanding of the rules, other than they are Australian.

As if international sporting events weren't enough, we also happened to be there for the tail end of a party for the The Chi-Town Sirens. Yes, THE Chi-Town Sirens of local roller derby semi-fame. Even better is that on several of the TVs, they were showing Sirens' highlights. Needless to say, we feared for our lives for much of our stay at The Globe.

On our way home, Jester and I decided to stop at Redmond's, where Christoff and Gregerson were creeping the shit out of women. In a twist of irony that would make O. Henry blush, Jessie stayed out with those two when they went to Grand Central to creep out more women, while I went to bed.

Sunday
Sunday morning, Jester and I headed out to the burbs to help my dad pack up some large furniture items. For those of you who don't know, Bruiser is retiring to Bloomington in a matter of days, thus meaning that I will always have a free place to stay for football games, and, better yet, access to a 1982 Volkswagen Vanagon Camper for tailgating purposes.

After that, Jester and I headed to the Sox/Astros game at Comiskey. This, of course, is especially important for me because these are my two equally favorite teams, and I have never seen them play each other in person. Our seats were second row behind the Sox bullpen in left field. The seats were all well and good, aside from the 50-year-old man with ADD sitting in front of us who didn't go more than 12 seconds the whole game without talking to someone across the aisle or a few rows up, or to his wife, who was in fact the inspiration for Cheri Oteri's porch lady character.

We also snuck down to sit with J-Diza, T-Money, McClure, and some other dude that McClure works with (Paul, maybe?) in the section behind home plate. During our 2-inning stay, McClure caught a foul ball, so that was nice of us.

Sunday night we watched The Sopranos series finale. I haven't seen The Sopranos in a few years, but I don't remember it sucking and fooling me into believing that my cable had gone out.

Monday
Monday was our 2-year anniversary. Yay for us. We spent it with me going to my Second City class and Jessie not going to a Cubs game.

Tuesday
After a two-week hiatus, I returned to trivia at Rocks. In my absence, the team finished 2nd and 1st, respectively. This week's team, Ben-Gay Kills, was comprised of me, Jester, Gregerson, Chenandler Bong, Nick, and Andy. After getting ourselves into an 8-point hole after the first 3 rounds, we roared back with 19 out of 20 on the music round (like I don't know "Two of Hearts" by Stacy Q), with our only miscue coming when we mistook "We Want Some Pussy" for "Me So Horny" by 2 Live Crew. We followed that up with 9 out of 11 on the movie round, and 20 of 22 on the final general round. Alas, it was not enough, as we finished 3 points out of first place. But we did get to choose a category for next week, and we went with Tommy Boy, despite my vocal support for an all Air Supply music round.