Monday Night Tapas

So lately I've been trying to get out and eat at real restaurants. Nothing against bar food, but its nice to be able to sit down in a quiet place relax while having a great meal. Last night I went to Emilio's on Fullerton with a friend. The place was nearly empty when we walked in around 8:30pm. Apparently Monday is half price wine bottle night. We orders a bottle of white and started off with two tapas. A cold salmon dish and a hot mixed seafood dish. Both were excellent. We ended up getting two more hot tapas, and a dessert. Over all the bill ran two of us close to $70, but was well worth it. It was nice being able to relax and hold a conversation without having to yell over music or the table stacked right next to you. The atmosphere in the place was great, and we had a view looking over Clark St. I haven't come up with a rating system yet for Restaurants, but this place was good. Not amazing, maybe great, but definitely good.

Super Bowl Super Bears

It has been terribly remiss of me not to mention Da' Bears in any posts since that glorious Sunday when they whooped the 'Aints and sent Chicago back to the Super Bowl.

Congrats to Coach Smith, Urlacher, Grossman and the rest of the gang for making this season entirely worthwhile. All the arguments about Rex-man's worth, every thrilling time Scary Hester touched the ball, all the defensive injuries and questions... out the door. We're on our way to Miami!

Since I have been a Bears fan since the last time they went to the big game, I can't imagine any other outcome than a Bears victory. And since everyone knows defense and the running game win championships, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say picking the Colts is insane. This kinda reminds me of the Oakland/Tampa Bay matchup of a few year's back. Everyone was picking Oakland and their offense, and I cleaned up! Think about it...

Go Bears!

Ryan Adams - House of Blues, Chicago 1/18/07

I've been a Ryan Adams fan for a couple of years. I enjoy Gold and Rock and Roll, I liked Demolition and I went through a very difficult personal period where I was homeless (not on the street, but literally lacking a home) and the only CD that wasn't in the storage unit with all my shit was Cold Roses.

I saw Ryan Adams at Lollapalooza last summer, and I was kinda disappointed. For a guy who had put out so much music in the past 18 months to fill an hour-long set with a bunch of Grateful Dead covers seemed ridiculous to me. I like the Dead, but I wouldn't say I wanted to hear them play Wharf Rat, let alone Ryan Adams. Anyway... on account of the aforementioned 'difficult personal period' I had a special relationship with Cold Roses, arguably (although I don't know who would argue) Adams' most Dead-influenced tracks.

So.... The show I saw tonight at the HOB featured a ton of music from Cold Roses -- including Magnolia Mountain, Easy Plateau, Let It Ride, Beautiful Sorta and Cold Roses -- which was just plain awesome. I had respect for Ryan as a songwriter, but he played the shit out of these songs way better than they appear on the albums and seeing it in such a small, sold-out venue (Chicago HOB capacity: ~1300). I'll never listen to those songs the same way.

He also did a slowed down version of To Be Young that was pretty cool. Blue Hotel - which Willie Nelson has played - was fantastic. All in all, the show was far better than I expected... and I had high expectations.

Side Note: We had to sneak the person who bought our tickets into the show cuz security at the HOB doesn't allow someone who's 'driving on a ticket' (for those not from IL, sometimes cops take your drivers license when you get a speeding ticket and give you back a paper ticket to use as ID). It was a hassle for a while, but he eventually got past security.


Check out Ryan Adams Live at Town Hall, New York (2006-12-04), courtesy of archive.org.

Smoke if you got 'em

I know I shouldn't joke about cancer, but I always hoped that before cancer got to me, medicine would find a way. So yeah science!!! Or at least... there might be hope. Scientists at the University of Alberta have discovered something -- besides the deadliness -- that sets cancer cells apart from other cells. And they believe they have something that can destroy the abnormal cells - DCA. It's been used by humans in other therapies (relatively safe?), it's not patented (relatively cheap?) and seems like it should be pretty big news... if we're lucky!

Read more
Small molecule offers big hope against cancer
University of Alberta website

Cheap, safe drug kills most cancers
NewScientist.com

5th Annual Berteau Toss Up

A couple years ago, I was invited to the most ridiculous and fun drinking-game extravaganza on record. That was the 3rd annual, and the trophies have been growing every year! So here's the scoop on this year's event, send me a comment if you're interested in forming a team!

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It's here!!! The "original" Flip Cup tourney is back! *The 5th Annual Berteau Toss Up* will be held on Saturday, January 27th** *(weekend before the Super Bowl). This seems to work for everyone.

As always, we would like to invite all of you who have had the pleasure to attend in the past, and open it up to folks that you know. You can come to play or come to watch. You may enter the tournament as individuals or as an entire team (4-person teams). Team t-shirts are always a nice touch. It is looking very crowded this year so please please get back to us soon and let us know you want to play. DON'T MISS OUT!

Remember: Games played in tournament are Flip Cup AND Speed Quarters.

Event Details:
Date: Saturday, January 27
Time: 6:30pm - Registration; 7:00pm - Games begin
Fee: $10 per person (players only, spectators NO FEE)
Rules: Coming soon...

Kevin Bacon Web Find of the Day - 1/11/07

Every once in a while, I find something strange or funny or interesting online, and someone asks me, "How did you ever find that?" It's usually some strange series of links and connections and web searches not unlike the connections in the Kevin Bacon game... so without further ado, here's a look into how we came to today's "Kevin Bacon Web Find of the Day"

Step 1: The Office
I've been watching episodes of The Office online, and this morning I was talking with SunshinE about how sexy Karen Filippelli was when she spoke Italian while setting up her voicemail (See "The Merger", Season 3, Episode 8).

Step 2: Abbondanza!
So all morning I was saying "Abbondanza!", the Italian word she finished her message with, and I didn't even know what it meant. Upon googling, I couldn't find an official definition (I've come to the assumption that it means something along the lines of "Best Wishes", some derivative of "abundance to you!"), but I did find a link to Abbondanza!: for when you don't know what else to say, a blog by Kristin in Pennsylvania.

Step 3: John McClane
Kristin's blog had this video on it, and I found it in only 3 steps! It's a punky take on the entire Die Hard series, name-dropping everyone from Hans Gruber to Samuel L. Mutha Fuckin Jackson... Thanks Kristin and iFilm and whoever else!

I admit it... it looks awesome

When I recently purchased an iPod before a roadtrip w/ Afroman to Florida, I was finally giving in to peer-pressure and condescending advertising to dive into the mainstream and succumb to Apple's "think different - use white headphones" philosophy.

I actually bought my 30GB video iPod the same day that Microsoft released the Zune. I probably would have gotten the Zune for it's large screen and 'new toy nobody has' appeal, but they didn't have any accessories available yet (specifically, the car adapter), so I passed and went with the iPod.

First, I'm glad that I held out long enough that my first iPod had a full-color, super-crisp screen. I always hated the old monochrome iPods... I thought that if my phone could have a cool display, then why not this. And the wheel interface, although efficient... well, I still think somebody can come up with something better. Now if you've ever tried other mp3 players, you'd know they haven't... credit where credit is due, Apple has great designers.

OK.. now to my point. Apple decided that they needed to put a bigger screen on their iPods, and figured, hell, while we're at it, let's make it a phone and totally redesign how people interact with their handheld devices.

Check out this article on Steve Job's keynote speech at Macworld 2007, where the iPhone was unveiled. You need to scroll down a bit to get to the iPhone part of the presentation (9:41 am on the timeline) and to see the pictures.

TBone chokes out the field

The first Big Poker Game of 2007 took place on Saturday, with TBone getting the big win over the 10-person field. No re-buys and a couple of big 4s on the flop helped make this quite a big day for the Bone.

Afroman came in second, and NoPhone finished third, so the younger brothers followed the choker across the finish line.

Might not be a game this coming Sunday due to the Bears... we'll have to see.

Here's the CardPlayer.com Tip of the Day, dedicated to TBone, who repeatedly threw his chips in the pot to take down the 'final table':

"Always keep in mind that the bigger the blinds, the more risk you and your opponents must take to stay alive. One of the main points in Tournament Poker is that you have to survive long enough to give yourself a chance to get lucky. And sometimes you just have to take a few more risks to survive."
The New Player Series - No-Limit Texas Hold'em by Brad Daugherty & Tom McEvoy

New album from The Shins arrives Jan 27

The Shins are getting ready to release their third album, "Wincing the Night Away," on January 27. This will be their first release since October 2003, so needless to say, people (myself included) are looking forward to it.

I've had the pleasure of seeing The Shins twice in Chicago, once at the Congress Theater and last summer at Lollapalooza. They played some of the new songs at Lolla, including Australia, which you can check out here:

The Shins - Australia



Also, you can see the Shins on Saturday Night Live on the 13th.

Hype Machine

I'm always on the lookout for new music. I've been a Real Rhapsody subscriber for almost two years, and I continue to be an advocate... I have more to say about Rhapsody in a later post.

When I can't find something on Rhapsody - which I'll say is less than 10% of the time, no matter how obscure - I turn to the Hype Machine. You'll want to bookmark the link cuz the URL isn't intuitive, but a few minutes of browsing around will convince you that this is a cool site. Hype Machine is an audio-blog aggregator - it collects links to audio tracks in blogworld and plays them through a simple popup player (in FF 2.0, at least). There are plugins to stream the songs through at least one of your media players, so I wouldn't worry about that... I'd just search for your favorite bands and track down unreleased tracks and live performances. Enjoy.

Chen's on Clark - Chicago

Yo... just got back from Chen's Chicago, and it was fantastic.

They're on Clark Street south of Addison, and they are a damn fine restaurant. I'd ordered delivery one time before, and it was good, but it didn't compare to eating in the restaurant. There's something to be said for when the Crabmeat Wontons come hot out of the kitchen, instead of having time to solidify and congeal on the way to your house. Fantastic. We went Chinese, having the Sesame Beef and the Sweet n Sour Chicken... the SnS actually came in a "half a fuckin pineapple!!!" (that's a direct quote).

Our waitress was cute, we had good service, the drinks were stiff... all in all a fantastic experience. I've heard they do sushi well... and I have no trouble believing that. I'll have to try that out some other time and let you know.

ATKBL website update

I mentioned that I was playing around with the script.aculo.us scripts on the website for the ATKBL. I want to implement a drag-and-drop style roster control for selecting which players appear in your starting lineup. Here's where I've gotten so far:

• Created rudimentary roster page
• Created database tables for teams, owners and players
  
• Entered sample data (two teams) into the database
• Implemented script.aculo.us sortable lists with data from the database

So I can drag the players around the positions, and that's cool. What I need to be able to do next is limit the number of players at each position, and update the database to save who is selected to start each week. If anyone sees this and has any advice or input, it's greatly appreciated. As I make more progress, I will post more info. Hopefully, I'll be able to create some solid files that other folks can learn from.

script.aculo.us

I've been doing some studying lately, trying to get my head around various Web 2.0 technologies. I know barely enough to be dangerous, but I've seen the power of applications like the ones from 37signals, and I want some of it.

So I tracked down script.aculo.us, which proclaims itself as "easy-to-use, cross-browser user interface JavaScript libraries to make your web sites and web applications fly."

I've been in the same fantasy baseball league for the past 7 seasons, and have been threatening to improve upon our simplistic and manual-update heavy league website for years, and I finally have to make good. So I'm also going to use this as an opportunity to test out some Ajax-y stuff and see what happens.

digg

I hate laundry

So... yeah... I've built up an insurmountable mountain of laundry, way more than I'd ever be able to manage at my apartment building with our downstairs dungeon laundry room (thanks ICM!). So SunshinE was helping me get my shit straightened out today and found a link to a place in Chicago that will pick up, clean and deliver your clothes to your door. They say they'll be here at 8:30 tomorrow morning and will have things back to me by 6:00 pm Thursday night. I will let you know what happens...

Is this the coolest website ever?

I've spent some time exploring different online media options. I've downloaded torrents and even purchased legit movies for download. I've rented digital movies online (cinemanow.com) and watched a bunch of TV shows online (nbc.com is good, cbs.com sucks).

But I'd never dreamed of being able to watch tv shows online like this!

Check it out, you can watch episodes of practically anything!! Full seasons of The Simpsons, The Office, Entourage... hell, see if there's anything missing!!

The Raconteurs at the Riv

I had the pleasure of seeing The Raconteurs perform live on new year's eve at The Riviera theater in Chicago.

First off, I want to complement the Riv, a venue I hadn't been to before, for the excellent sound. The place was LOUD, but it sounded great. I could hear the vocals and the drums sounded amazing all night long.

As for the show, they played for a couple hours and busted out the songs I expected... which was most of Broken Boy Soldiers along with a couple covers, "Bang Bang" and what I believe was "Headin' For the Texas Border" by The Flaming Groovies. I had seen the band play at Lollapalooza in August '06, and I could tell that they'd been working on the live versions of the songs... figuring out where to expand them and where to cut them off. I really loved 'Broken Boy Soldiers' (the drums are awesome) and am a big fan of 'Blue Veins', which they closed with. It's the one song that makes me think of the reckless blues lightning Jack unleashes (unleashed??) with the White Stripes.


The Raconteurs - Blue Veins (Lollapalooza 2006, Chicago)



On a side note, opening band The Features put on a strong performance, or at least benefited from the Beam and Cokes TBone and I had been slamming prior to our arrival. Gonna check them out again, and I'll let you know if they hold up. They have a 5 song cd coming out, and they were pretty solid. (http://www.thefeatures.com/)

Next Big Game - January 7th, 2007

The next big poker game is going to be on Sunday, January 7. There's playoff football on all day, so feel free to stop by any time after noon. We'll be up and running no later than 3:00... should be the same as last time, so bring your 'B' game and I'll take your money.

ok... here it is

Well it's a new year, but here I sit all the same. Meg's asleep on the futon, my brother's on his computer, and I am staying up too late fucking around on the internet instead of going to bed and getting my life together. Oh well... fuck it, right.

So I'm going to start spilling my guts online in the hopes that I might start figuring out what the hell I'm doing these days. Hopefully I'll get to talk about things I love: music, poker, hot sexy women and drunken debauchery... but most likely I'll just whine about my lack of personal motivation and the unfulfilled desires that are the general result of said laziness.

I'll keep you (and I guess by you, I mean me) informed... I'll tell you all about my new years and more soon.

Bring it on 2007

Hello all... it's a new year, and it's time I started speaking my mind... so here it is.

If you don't want to hear about it, then don't read it suckers. In case you are wondering about the name, FR87 refers to Francium (atomic number 87), generally recognized as the least stable element on the periodic table. I chose it cuz, well... I can be pretty unstable. Not much to read into there...