Emperor or Rockhopper?

Many apologies for not posting anything last Friday. I forgot to email myself the Word document from work that contained the many insightful tidbits I was to post (as well as my A-Z list and comments). Fear not, though, because this post will be extra long to make up for it.

Out Please
You know what chaps my ass more than Jessie's bullwhip? When people on elevators or elevated railcars say "out please" when they want to exit. If you've ever heard someone say "out please," then you know the phrase can't be said without the person coming across as a complete asshole. The "please" does nothing towards making it polite in anyway. These uncouth people might as well drop the "please" and just say "out." It's never said quietly either. Rather, it's always a forceful "Out please!", as if to imply that the people in front of the person are trapping him or her on the elevator or elevated railcar in question. It's obnoxious. Some old dude did it Wednesday morning in the elevator at the courthouse, and I nearly grabbed his cane and tripped him with it. My favorite, though, is when people on the L say it, especially when the train is approaching a big stop. Usually it's a 40-something woman standing about five people deep, with shoulder pads, expensive jewelry, and no idea that half of the fucking train will be exiting, including all of those people in front of her who are facing the door. In the situations when you do need to move past someone to exit an elevator or an elevated railcar, a simple "excuse me" is more than effective, and you won't come across as a jackass.

The Greatest American Hero
So Thursday night I went to a work function for our summers. It ended at 9. A few of us decided to go out for "a beer" afterwards, which obviously meant that I rolled into bed at 1:37 a.m. You know, because Fridays are just too predictable without beer shits.

Gastrointestinal issues aside, I heard perhaps one of the best stories of all-time Thursday night. We were talking about crazy stories we've heard from teachers, and one of my co-workers said that she had the best story. I immediately said, "Let's hear it, but I bet I can beat it," thinking that nothing can top the teacher in Amy "Clalahan" Belanger's school who caught two third graders naked, having sex behind the teacher's desk while they were supposed to be at recess. Well, my friends, I was wrong. This one beats it.

Apparently, my co-worker's friend teaches kids with behavioral disorders (she was not sure how old the kids were, but estimated between 6 and 12). They went on a field trip to one of the zoos here in Chicago (it was unclear whether it was Brookfield or Lincoln Park). When the class reconvened on the bus after the field trip, one of the more rambunctious kids -- we'll call him Billy -- was missing. After a search, they found Billy. He was drenched from head to toe. His clothes were soaked. His shoes were soaked. His backpack was soaked. Why, you ask? Well, a simple unzipping of Billy's backpack revealed the answer. In his backpack was a penguin. Yes, a living, breathing penguin. Billy had somehow managed to sneak into the penguin exhibit without anyone noticing, and then track down a penguin, possibly by swimming. Imagine this scene: you're minding your own business, watching some penguins swim around through the glass, and then this kid with a backpack dives headfirst into the tank and vehemently swims after one of the penguins. About 12 feet down, he finally catches one, crams it in his backpack, puts his backpack back on, heads back up to the surface, looks around, then climbs out of the tank and goes on his way as if he is not completely soaked in water and carrying a penguin in his backpack. Billy is my hero.

Then the teacher had to go give the penguin back. How does that conversation go? "Uh, I think this belongs to you." I guess it's a good thing he didn't want a wolf or a bear.

Pi Kapp Blog
Have you ever thought to yourself, "You know, there just aren't enough blogs out there that deal with stories about IU Pi Kapps getting drunk and doing crazy stuff"? Well, you're in luck. Steating and Chealing, a blog recently started by the elder Davidson, deals with that exact topic. Enjoy, and hope that your name doesn't come up.

Whoppet
Ever wonder what a whippet on steroids would look like? Well, check out this article. Thanks to Holt for the link.

Friday
The weekend was fairly low key. Friday night, I broke out of my softball slump, going 2-3 and miraculously hitting the ball out of the infield TWICE. Unfortunately, Vandaley Industries suffered its second loss of the season, dropping us into a tie for first place.

After the game, Jester and I headed to the heart of Lincoln Park trixie country to Tilli's, where several compatriots were having a celebration for the impending birthday of Greg "Joey Baits" Bohmann, as well as their friend Jaime (who shares a birthday with Greg). In attendance were the likes of The Floppy Burrito, Dennis & Colleen, Monty Hall, and at least one member of All Things Lucid. Unsatisfied with our state of inebriation once Tilli's closed, we headed to The Store for some pop-a-shot and Silver Strike. Unsatisfied with her state of hunger, Jester insisted that she and I go to Bamba's. She got her standard bean and avocado burrito with a side of cheese sauce, and I went with the super steak nachos. You know, because sleep just isn't healthy enough without 1,000 extra calories.

Saturday
Saturday was also low key. Jester and I took Harley over by the lake to chase some squirrels and homeless people. On the way back we stopped at Tim Weeser*'s place, where he was BBQing before the Jimmy Buffett concert, along with Dan and Noreen, Lutzow and Katie, Myers, and Christoff, who decided to finish off the juice left behind in the tub of rum-soaked watermelon chunk. After he finished it off, he yelled, "Old school Padres hats and alcoholic watermelon juice! That's what fuckin' Buffett's all about. Wooo!" (unfortunately I accidentally deleted the picture of this)

Jester and I spent much of the rest of Saturday afternoon and early evening watching The Drug Years multiple-part documentary on VH1. I found it somewhat hilarious that there were various major publications and scientific articles in the early to mid '70s that said that cocaine was not addictive.

After knocking back a couple grams of blow, Jester and I went to Pat's (the Italian restaurant at Lincoln and Seminary, not Sajak's house) for dinner. It was a nice evening, so we figured we'd sit outside (they have a decent amount of tables set up on the sidewalk along Seminary). Big mistake. Sitting at the table next to us was a group of about 12, including four children under 5. If I would have behaved like these kids were behaving, my dad would have (1) shot me a look that suggested dismemberment, (2) if that didn't work, given me a quiet but very effective Vulcan neck pinch, or (3) in the very rare circumstance that that didn't work, inform me that he had several belts of different shapes, sizes, and colors in his closet at home, one of which would soon be very familiar with my ass. I was a pretty well-behaved kid in public.

Parents, listen the fuck up. If you are the type of people who like to bring your kids out in public, then do everyone else a favor and keep them quiet and well-behaved. Here are some great tips I've recently discovered to help you achieve this rather meager and attainable goal:

• Generally, don't let your children bring toys to a restaurant.
• Specifically, don't bring a plastic hammer for your two-year-old boy to play with at a restaurant, and for clarification, by "play with," I mean "bang on the table several times a second for ten minutes in a row without you so much as batting an eye."
• Stop giving your kid everything it asks for, including a plastic truck to bang against the table.
• Along those same lines, a plastic truck banging against a table is no less loud or annoying than a plastic hammer.
• When you are in a public place and your kids are screaming, maybe you could attend to them, or maybe even hit or shake them until they stop annoying the shit out of the nice couple sitting at the table next to you who keep looking at you.
• When your kids start to sing "If I Had a Hammer" (or any other song, for that matter) at a restaurant, you should maybe tell them to shut their mouths before they get slapped, rather than joining along and encouraging the other adults at your table to join along.
• This may seem fairly obvious, but a restaurant is not a baseball field. In fact, it's not a field or park of any kind. Thus, simply because a restaurant offers outdoor seating on a sidewalk does not mean that your kids should be attempting to play catch on said sidewalk.
• Maybe instead of giving the ball back to your kids after the third time you hop over the railing to retrieve it from the street, you could say, "You know what guys, you can play with the ball once we get home."
• Perhaps instead of encouraging your kids to play catch on a crowded restaurant sidewalk by playing catch with them and saying things like "good throw Conner," you could just not do that.
• Hire a person to come to your house and watch over your children while you go to dinner, in exchange for monetary compensation.

Mentally exhausted, Jester took a nap when she got home and informed me that I "better be sterile." Around 9:30 we met Gregerson at Paddy Long's for a couple beers, but retired early.

Sunday
Sunday, Jester, Tracey, Tracey's sister and niece, and I took an architectural boat tour on the Chicago River, by the Chicago Architectural Foundation. It was very informative, even if our docent did pause at weird. Places in his sentences.

Did anyone else see Flight of the Conchords last night? It was (as usual) hilarious. The David Bowie sightings and song were hysterical. Jemaine does a hell of a Bowie impression, and the song was dead on. Check out some video clips here. Meanwhile, here are clips of the first David Bowie dream Bret has and then the song "Bowie's in Space":






Monday
This morning on the L I finished reading Take a Walk on the Dark Side: Rock and Roll Myths, Legends, and Curses by R. Gary Patterson. It was a pretty good read, detailing many of rock and roll's most famous (or infamous) deaths, curses, and such, noting various coincidences and explaining the various alternate theories behind certain occurrences and deaths. The only part I didn't buy was a section about numerology. But other than that, it was very interesting, and it's amazing how many things tie together, whether randomly or not. I'm not sure what to read next. Perhaps Hammer of the Gods.