Chaiming In

-Nice offensive outburst by the Cubs yesterday. Hopefully this gets us back on track. Who would have guessed that with Soriano out it would be our pitching, not our hitting that suffered?

-I love the play from the bench guys. Clearly that is a huge strength of this team. Every day somebody new steps up. Mark DeRosa? Jake Fox? Even Jason Kendall is earning his Pittsburgh endorsed paycheck of late. All this has to make Dwight Smith proud. Awww shit, you know!

-Thunder Matt seems to be going to work with a hardhat on lately, turning in blue collar, workmanlike performances every day. Keep punching that time clock Thunder.

-Going to the game on Saturday vs. the Cards. A few weeks ago I thought this would be a laugher. I could sit back, casually sip a few lukewarm Old Styles and make fun of all the guys wearing red polos shirts and sporting ill advised mustaches (Shit, is that Jeff Fisher?). Nope. One helluva dry spell later and this series suddenly takes on new meaning. We could be playing for first place. So could the Cards. Bring it on. Game recap to follow.

-They have been filming the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, around town for the past month.* Word is they are going to blow up the old Brach's Candy building before leaving town. Sure, taste is subjective, but is there any doubt that this movie is going to kick ass?

-Speaking of movies (and I usually do)...if you want to cry this weekend, go to Rush Hour 3. If you want to laugh your ass off, go to Superbad. Even Roger Ebert loved it. Speaking of Roger, his belated review of Casino Royale is spot on. Here is something very cool. You can check out all of the old Siskel and Ebert reviews, plus all of the Ebert & Roeper ones if you're so inclined, here. Great site. I spent a good hour and a half plugging in my favorite movies.

-Seriously, what the hell happened to Cuba Gooding Jr?

-Ya know, I'm pretty indifferent to Van Halen.** But if I were a big fan I would be incensed that after all of the 'they're reuniting!/they're not reuniting!' bullshit, when they finally do get together, Eddie tabs his fat, 16 year old kid to play bass? C'mon. I've never heard the kid play. He may be great. But he's a kid who looks like Louie Anderson. That's just not aesthetically pleasing. I understand that not every 'reunion' is going to be a reunion of the truest sense, but at least hire a man! I don't need any father-son moments on stage. Is that mean of me? Probably. Oh well. A Van Halen reunion would have been cool the first time around, what, ten years ago? But does anyone even care anymore? At least Eddie doesn't look like a homeless women anymore. Well, a homeless women with a nice, butch haircut maybe, but a little better. I'm so superficial.

-Football is on the horizon my friends. Get excited. My allegiances remain with the Bears of course, but the Cardinals have me excited as well. My man love for Kurt Warner is well chronicled and for the first time, I have no ill will towards the guy that supplanted him. Kurt likes him too. Kurt's preseason line: 2-2, 73 YDS, 1TD.

Rants: humidity, Tony LaRussa's Sunglasses, incompetence.

Raves: Silverchair's new album Young Modern, Kissology Volume II, Rock of Love, What is the What.





*Though lately it has been overshadowed by the arrival of Brangelina, which has been front page news for the past week. Angie is filming some movie called Wanted, and the gossip writers are having a field day. The best was one column which was solely dedicated to where the pair might go to eat and places of interest which they might want to visit. It then proceeds to list obvious Chicago landmarks. That's some great investigative journalism right there.

**When anyone asks me 'Roth or Hagar', I reply with a steely glare, 'Cherone'.