My Days and Other Thoughts

I am actually working on a recommendations page these days, if you are interested. I should finish it up soon. This weekend I'm going to try to make an effort to refresh my site somewhat. The audience must be kept happy. If you hadn't noticed already, I figured out a way to left justify the blog, so that it finally looks like the rest of the site, not centered. That was driving me insane for a good little while.

Here's my typical day this week (I'm exhausted):

7:30 am - Wake up
8:15 am - Board el listening to Morrissey or my latest mix that starts off with Damien Rice's The Blowers Daughter.
8:45 am - Arrive at the office and pick up some Au Bon Pain for breakfast.
9:00 am - 5:30 pm - Work. I eat lunch in there too.
5:30 pm - 6:45 pm - Walk home talking on the phone and listening to some combination of Bright Eyes, David Bowie, and Death Cab for Cutie.
7:00 pm - Eat dinner and watch tv.
8:00 pm - Head out for a run.
9:00 pm - Play poker online and chat on aim.
11:00 pm - Talk to Sandy on the phone.
12:00 pm - Watch some tv and read about poker.
1:00 am - Start thinking that I really should get to sleep.
2:00 am - Finally get to sleep.

I have no idea why I can't get to sleep at night. It might be because I just don't try. I should start laying off the Diet Coke's again too. That's one New Year's resolution that I am definitely not keeping.

Switching gears, the Bulls are looking great. I love this team. It's been a different guy every night in the playoffs, just like the regular season. How we haven't signed Scott Skiles to a long-term deal, I have no idea. We need to lock the guy up for about the next three years.

Who thinks the Rockets could win this thing?

The Cubs bullpen is continuing to deteriorate. We will be in real trouble if DLee comes back to earth and we aren't scoring 8 runs/game. This is our number one issue. I'm still at a loss for how we didn't address this in the offseason.

I caught New Order on Jimmy Kimmel last night. They sounded great. There's just something humorous about middle age guys from Manchester making a comeback. I dig it though. I might have to pick up that album after all.

Listen to Apples In Stereo. Great band.

Weekend in Review

It was one of those up and down weekends. First of all, I tried to go to the Cubs game on Friday. It got rained out so we ended up not getting to go at all. I then had a few drinks and ended up seeing Fever Pitch. It exceeded my expecations, but the Sports Guy was right. The last 15 minutes were totally retarded. I had my belief suspended nicely until that point, and then they just shattered it for me. I won't get into it.

Saturday morning brought the NFL draft. Predictably, the Bears didn't do what I wanted them to do. They opted for Cedric Benson in the first round over Mike Williams. Somehow 5 more teams after the Bears passed on Williams also. Then the Lions, somehow an increasingly intelligent franchise, realized they couldn't pass on the guy. Their receiving core is now Roy and Mike Williams, along with Charles Rogers. The Bears might have a corner that cover one of these guys. We have no hope if they are all healthy. Of course, we allowed this to happen in our own division by passing on Williams. Top Notch. At least, we weren't able to take Braylon Edwards, who I absolutely didn't want.

I listened to Benson afterwards. He sounded very relieved to have the "process" over. He strikes me as a guy that's at the end of his road, and he's going to cash in for his millions and the game is secondary. This isn't exactly what I want on my team. I want a guy with something to prove. Let me tell you, Mike Williams would have been that. Hell, Maurice Clarett would have been that, not that I want that guy. Instead, we're stuck with Ricky Williams' biggest fan. By the way, Thomas Jones is pretty good and he's still on our team, not sure if anyone noticed.

Then of course, Frank Gore lasted until the 3rd round. He's the back that I really wanted. In the 2nd we picked up the almighty Mark Bradley, who wasn't the best receiver on his college team. He sounds like the second coming of Dez White to me. He's got speed, bad hands, and potential. Fantastic then. I did like the Kyle Orton pick in the 4th round. See you later Craig Krenzel. Enjoy med school.

So essentially, the draft was torture and then LaTroy blew a save and the Cubs lost. Wow, I couldn't see that coming. Maybe we should make a move for the bullpen Hendry, what do you think? I think that Hendry must be delusional about our bullpen. I'm wondering how long it takes his brain to wake up.

The evening was a little better. I even got Sandy set up on Party Poker. I think that's a good thing. We'll see though. We both played a couple of no-limit single table sit-n-go's. I busted out of the 1st one and won the second while Sandy finished 3rd (in the money) in only her 2nd tournament of this style ever. Rock on.

I also read a reply the Josh Arieh (see previous post) sent to my buddy Mark. Josh is definitely a cool guy. The whole email was hilarious. If Annie writes me back, maybe I'll post them both. We'll see how it goes. By the way, Josh Arieh does not have an auto-reply. Good man.

Oh yeah, one other thing. ESPN interviewed Brady Clark on Saturday and I saw it. It was great. First of all, it seemed as though Brady had never really been interviewed before. They were talking about him having a 30/30 season and all this crazy stuff. He said he just wants to do his job and get on base for the meat of the order. The cool thing is, he's actually telling the truth, unlike a lot of other guys. One thing that I didn't like was they asked him what the Brewers goals for the year were. He basically said, "finish above .500". Come on Brady, you can do better than that. The Brewers could win that division. Get after it!

A Couple of Quick Thoughts

Are you going to rush out and see The Interpreter? That movie must be horrible. The marketing blitz behind the thing is unreal. I feel like I've already seen the movie. I just saw an internet ad for it too. It's everywhere. It just needs to stop.

So, I have a new favorite website. It's josharieh.com. If you aren't sure of who Josh is, he came in 3rd in the World Series of Poker Main Event last year. Most poker fans thought he was a total ass after seeing it on tv. It turns out, he's not that bad after all. His website just got up, so he's still blogging all the time. It's nearly daily, sometimes multiple times per day and it's always interesting stuff. He's not just a poker player, he's basically a compulsive gambler that always has to be "in the action". Some of the stories he tells, in broken grammer, are just exceptional. I can't say enough good things about it.

I want to get a recommendations page together with all kinds of stuff like this, things I like with movies, books, poker websites, etc. but I just haven't had the time lately. Playing online poker every night is putting the brakes on my publishing career. Poker pays a little better though, so you can't blame me.

I'm off to Wrigley tomorrow, for what will surely be an arctic game, if we get it in. Expect pictures.

The NFL draft is coming this Saturday. Ideal scenario for my Bears in my mind is Mike Williams in Round 1 and Frank Gore in Round 2. My expectation though is for Braylon Edwards in Round 1 and a non-impact player in Round 2. Braylon Edwards will then turn in his best David Terrell imitation before moving on to the Patriots and teaming with Terrell to win multiple Super Bowls. I hope I'm wrong about this. If we pick Edwards, I will cry. Are you listening Jerry Angelo? Tears.... and they'll be all your fault.

The Bulls need to win this first series against Washington. We are injury-plagued, but if we can get out of the first round of the playoffs, it will help with confidence for next year. It also shows potential free agents that the Bulls are back. Acquiring someone better than Eric Piatkowski with our cap room is a great idea for the offseason.

I emailed Annie Duke asking her a question about reading players. I actually got an auto-reply. Poker players all have websites and even scripted auto-replys now? Holy Cow. Anyway, I'll post my message and her response if she ever writes me back. Somehow, I feel like she actually will.

Have you ever had Asian Jasmine White Tea from The Republic of Tea? It's good stuff and good for you too. Now if I would just stop double fisting it with a Diet Coke, I'd be on to something.

Mark Prior

He's 2-0. I feel an elbow injury coming on.

One Tree Hill

Well, if you didn't know it, there are new episodes of One Tree Hill starting tonight. It's been a while since the last one, so this is welcome news for me. I basically have Gray's Anatomy now as my only show, along with my staple - Law and Order SVU. Since the bulk of my readership is older than 14 years of age, I'm sure the new episodes won't impact your life, but now you can talk to your niece about something.

Chad Michael Murray and Sophia Bush were recently married in real life so congrats on that. I was wondering why it was making sense for them to start inching towards getting back together in the context of the show. Sophia was probably pissed that Chad was making out with nearly every female character on the show all the time. That's my guess, and I'm sticking to it. It's also somewhat ironic that I watch a show about high school students, and one of the couples on the show is already married. They are married before their senior year in high school! There are no children or anything either. Where does this happen? Anyway, two of the actors that play high school students just married each other in real life. This combo has to be some sort of teen drama first. At least, if I'm going to watch a silly teen drama ten years after I should have moved on to something more substabtial, it's a groundbreaking one.

Cheers! I'm working on a yuppie awards post at the moment. It's taking a little while, so sit tight!

Yuppie Awards

Welcome to the 1st annual chrismilone.org Yuppie Awards. There's no red carpet for this one, but hopefully I can be an entertaining host. This post was inspired by an experience I had the other day standing in line at Chipotle waiting to get my Barbacoa burrito. I had three construction workers behind me cracking jokes about getting a "yuppie burrito" and then heading over to Starbucks for a "yuppie coffee". One guy said, "it's a $4 cup of coffee, but it's the best cup of coffee you'll ever have!" Needless to say, that last comment was dripping with sarcasm. As I stood there listening to my iPod, something dawned on me. I'm one of those yuppie bastards that these guys are talking about.

So that inspired me to give out the 2005 Yuppie Awards to various retail, food/beverage outlets, and the like. As a Young Urban Professional, I reluctantly admit to knowing something about the topic, so here goes. Clearly, if you are identifying with this take no offense, I'm right there with you.

Yuppie Burrito

This one clearly goes to Chipotle. Just see the aforementioned conversation. It's not even close. Qdoba is making some inroads across the country, but it's not even close. You can get yourself a gargantuan burrito with chicken, steak, beef, pork, or vegetarian for less than $6. It seemes that yuppies do know something about value, when it comes to burritos. For all you low-carbers out there, get the Burrtio Bol (ahhh, the first piece of yuppie language). What happened to the "w" there, Chipotle?

Yuppie Coffee

This one isn't very close either. It's obviously Starbucks. In my hometown of Chicago, we've got Caribou which is a close second. I personally, prefer Caribou. However, you'll find more yuppies per square inch in a Starbucks anywhere in America than you will anywhere else in the known universe. It's the evil empire of coffee, where $4 buys you a 15 cent cup of coffee with some milk that someone foamed for you and maybe a little caramel, if you are feeling dangerous. They do have strong benefits for their employees though, so give them that. They should though, with a 900% profit margin/cup.

Still, they are the masters of their own vernacular. Venti? Grande? What happened to small? How is tall = small? How does that work. It's Starbucks baby. Notice how they peddle music to you also, so you can get with the Starbucks culture? It's a corporation people! Still, I have the Duetto Visa, and I use it for most of my purchases, so look who's talking.

Yuppie Retail Clothing Store

For several years in a row, I think this award goes to Banana Republic. I know a lot of cats in my demographic that buy half of their stuff there. Many of us, buy much more than 50% of our workplace wardrobe there. When I worked at Accenture, it was like the catalog was on display in the office every day. If you want to know what's hip in yuppie culture, Accenture is a great place to be. It's like a yuppie magnet.

Yuppie Ice Cream

Want some Cold Stone Creamery? It's got all the signs. It's got it's own language with sizes called "Like it", "Love it", etc. It's $6 for some fancy pants ice cream flung together with stuff on a cold marble slab by teenage punks. My guess at profit margin: 64%.

Yuppie Baseball Team

This goes to the Chicago Cubs by a landslide. The Cubbies attract more young professionals in khakis, toting cell phones, and sporting kenneth cole watches than any other baseball team. They make Wrigley famous for conversations like this:

"Dude, guess where I am."
"I don't know."
"Dude, just guess."
"Shit, I don't know!"
"Dude, I'm at fucking Wrigley."
"No fucking way! That's awesome!"
"Yeah. It is dude. Awesome."
"Awesome."

All of this while the rest of us are trying to catch the game.

No other place really comes close. The flip side of this is probably St. Louis where mullets, mustaches, and jean shorts rule.

Yuppie mp3 player

This is hands down the iPod. I've read quite a bit about how those white headphones are a status symbol. In Chicago, you see an iPod on probably 20% of the riders on the CTA. I own a regular iPod and a Shuffle so there's not a whole lot I can say about this.

Anyway, that's all I have for now. I'm finishing this post 2 months after I started so most people might miss it. What can you do?

My Favorite Baseball Player

Good Evening! I'm sorry to any non-sports fans out there one more time. I think I'm spending a little too much time on the blog here talking about sports-related things. I'm almost at a loss for words in every other arena. It might have something to do with the fact that I'm spending so much time on party poker, that I haven't really been doing anything else of interest. I'm not about to start talking about bad beats and what not, so here we are.

Anyway, I was having a conversation at work yesterday about what a stud a certain baseball player is and I wanted to take some time to talk about my current favorite MLB player. Some of you may know where this is going, but for most of you it's probably going to come as a bit of a surprise. That's my man right there to the right. Recognize him? I didn't think so. Most fans of his team wouldn't recognize him. There aren't too many of those though to begin with. His name is Brady Clark. He's an outfielder and lead-off man (new this year) for the Milwaukee Brewers.

Now, I used to live in Milwaukee. If you know me at all though, you know that I am a die hard Cubs fan and have been since about the age of two. My grandmother really got me started when she used to babysit me. Anyway, so how can my favorite player not be a Cub? Well, any other time it probably would be. Ryne Sandberg is still my favorite player of all time. Do you know anyone that has named there child Ryne, by the way? Why hasn't this happened yet? Shouldn't I know someone with three kids named Ryne, Grace, and Jody. If you are a Cubs fan, you hear me. I know you do.

So how do I end up with Brady Clark as my favorite? Well, I did live in Milwaukee and I would find myself catching more than a couple Brewers games, with me being just a general baseball fan and everything. The guy just caught my eye as someone that takes the game seriously and plays the right way. He's not going to win the MVP any time soon. He doesn't have tremendouns power. He steals bases, but he isn't Vince Coleman. He makes a little over $1 million/year. He's a steal by Major League prices. It's hard to find an every day player that makes that little. He's just what a small market Brewers team needs.

Here's an early season example of what I mean by Brady doing things the right way. He was batting leadoff in the second game of the series with the Cubs this past weekend. Now, for all of you that don't know (Corey Patterson), the number one goal of the leadoff man is to get on base. You want to let the power hitters behind you have a chance to drive in runs. So Brady batted six times in that game. He didn't get a hit in the 6 at bats. He found a way to get on base 4 times out of the 6 though. He walked twice and was hit by a pitch twice. This is how you help your team win. Brady Clark could play for my Cubs any day.

He's just a guy that focuses on every pitch while he's in the field. He does everything how it should be done. He takes the extra base, hustles on every play, hits the cut off man, and is never caught napping. He just shows up every day and does the best he can. He does it the right way. In this era of steroid abuse, kids need a player like this to look up to and admire. If you have a chance to see the Brewers this year, remember the name.

The Speed of Justice and Other Thoughts

Ouch. I just realized that I haven't posted for a week. What gives with that? That's probably what many of your are asking yourselves. As usual then, it's time for an update post that is probably too long. I've been at work doing my civic duty for the past two days at jury duty. Love that picture. Anyway, we found in favor of the 65 year old lady that was after this 40+ year old jerk in the case due to a traffic accident. It was sort of brutal and it took entirely too long.

The best thing about the case was that it stemmed from a traffic accident in 2001. That Cook County justice system - it really hauls ass. At some point, I'd probably just give up on just about anything if it took 4 years to get to trial. Wouldn't you?

So since my last post, I ran the Shamrock Shuffle. It's an 8k. I finished up in about 46:01. Sandy pulled in at 46:11 after I ditched her at the end to sprint to the finish line. It was a great experience. I felt great and decided on the spot to run the 2005 Chicago Marathon.

Of course, since the race I've had some wicked soreness in my left arm. Some have suggested that I have a blood clot but I don't think so. Just in case though, I'm popping aspirin every 4 hours to thin out my blood and fight the pain. My co-worker, Betty Rocker, hooked me up today with some Miracle Rub product that not only eases pain but also leaves you smelling spectacularly minty for a good couple of hours to follow. I'm not sure if this needs to become a part of my healing regimen or not. Anyway, this blood clot suggestion has me scared to exercise which sucks, given my massive marathon training motivation. I'm just saying screw it and running starting right now (well, not literally right now but you get my meaning). Anyway, so if I drop dead or something, I wish all of you the best.

You might notice the lack of bowling updates. It feels like I haven't been in forever. I'm hoping to go this weekend.

How about a poker update instead? So I've been playing online quite a bit lately. I was just playing $0.50/$1.00 cash games exclusively. I was continually winning at that level, though not very much. It isn't possible to win more than about $40 in a 6-8 hour session at any given table. It's just hard to win much there. I've basically decided to move up to $2/$4, where I've had some preliminary success. I'm sort of just skipping the $1/$2 which basically plays like $0.50/$1. A raise is completely meaningless there and everyone plays all kinds of garbage. It's not exactly the purest form of the game. So anyway, my online poker play is going nicely. I'll just leave it at that.

The Cubs had their home opener today. It's actually above freezing, which is a great thing for anyone out there. We lost 2 of 3 to the DBacks to open the season, not exactly our greatest start. Ryan Dempster was also acting as our 3rd starter. This is also not a good thing. Anyway, we'll see how it goes but I'm not exactly what they would call an optimist at this point.

Eddy Curry is seeing a heart specialist. I was just talking with Leheney last night about how he'll probably collapse on the court about the time we ink him to a max deal for about 7 years, subsequently tanking the franchise. That, or he'll get into a motorcycle accident while racing with Jay Williams. That's just how our luck is. Still, the Bulls could make some noise in these playoffs. We have had incredible play from Ben Gordon and a will to win. I love Skiles. I think that I always have. He's what we needed for the 5 years before he showed up. Discipline. It's plain and simple.

Have you seen Gray's Anatomy? Good show. I missed the second one but I don't want to miss another episode. Did you notice the song from The Postal Service that is the theme? Is it me or is everyone selling out much more quickly these days? It seems like it. Franz Ferdinand has about 3 songs on commercials already. Couldn't bands at least wait until album #2 to turn into corporate lackeys? Does this bother anyone else? I guess everyone sells out now and it's just "cool" to do it. Next thing you know I'll see Thurston Moore on TV talking about how he really believes in Cingular's products.

I finally saw Closer. I thought it was good. I think that they should have made it three hours long and got even deeper into the characters and their history and behavioral motivations. I thought it was a serious relationship movie that was actually quite realistic which is something that we rarely see or have seen. I give it a solid 3.25 stars. Ms. Portman was outstanding, as usual. It's been a pleasure watching her career so far. I just wish they would have done better with casting Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars films. It's just brutal watching that guy bring down their scenes together.

Anyway, that's enough babbling. I'll try to come back with something a little more focused later in the weekend. Keep it real.

Burn Out

It's been a busy time at work this past week. I'm totally wiped out. Yet, I'm running the Shamrock Shuffle this weekend. I'm not near the fitness level that I want to be at before running an 8k. Dinner in Chinatown tonight probably isn't going to get me any closer. What can you do though? I'm less than bright.

So this week in preparation for the race, rather than getting enough sleep, I've chosen to stay up a little too late playing internet poker. It's probably not the best use of my time. I actually ended up down about $2 yesterday for the day. I was a complete zombie while playing too, which was just ridiculous. I can barely type right now, I'm so tired.

Still, I can't help being a little amped for the Illini game tomorrow. I have to think we win this tournament. I just have to believe it. It needs to happen. We've come through a lot for this. We just can't leave it on the table.

On top of that, the Bulls are 1/2 games out of the 4th seed in the East. Has anyone noticed. The Bulls are going to have homecourt in the 1st round potentially and everyone still treats them like they're the Blackhawks. I can't get over it. Ben Gordon is our best draft pick since MJ, and it's not even close. I don't know how we are going to find the money for all of our young guys, but I hope they just keep this team together.

I haven't really seen any movies, tv, or completed any books lately. I'm reading about four of them though, so reviews will be forthcoming if I ever finish.

Sorry for the lack of interesting insight.....