diners.

i know that justin and i have had this conversation before, but i'm watching diners, drive-ins, and dives right now and wondering how guy fieri is not a disgusting, fat behemoth. when you think of best jobs in the world (i.e. bill simmons) guy fieri always comes to mind. the food network pays for him to go around the country and eat whatever the hell he wants as he visits some of the most delectable looking greasy spoons i have ever seen. and damn does he eat everything. it's fucking awesome. i don't eat meat, but some of the greasy, cheesy, and utterly delicious shit that he shoves down his gullet looks like it's been baptized by the gods.

what makes this show so great and seemingly brilliant in comparison to other food network shows is that it showcases what america really craves. not those rachel ray low calorie, spinach-ridden abominations, but meat that's been marinated in other meat juices, then sauteed in 12 pounds of garlic and topped with five different mounds of cheese. served with fries on the side of course.

and he eats it all. they just got done with a chicago diner, and he literally ate a cheddar burger, a polish sausage, a massive hot dog, and a whole heap of italian beef. it's awe inspiring. now, fieri is by no means in shape, and i don't think he'd ever really want to be (it'd like ruin his street cred or something), but he should weigh about 50 more pounds. maybe it's all those "healthy" california diners that level him out. i don't know.

no one in these restaurants looks healthy. those who are quick to say, "i've been coming here for over 20 years" typically aren't the type of people who choose the stairs over the escalator. however, for the split moment when they're eating, and the food network is there to capture it, they're happy. and that makes me happy.

(my god, they just showed guy how they make their cheese sauce. then the chef made a pancake that is literally the size of a pizza and topped it with a burger, sausage, bacon, hash browns, eggs, and said cheese sauce. to top it all off...the dish was served to one, single, solitary man to eat. i don't know how that's even legal).

anyway, guy fieri looks like a turd. justin tells me that it's the "northern california look" because that section of california is typically 5 years behind the rest of the "hip" parts of the state. fieri wears bowling shirts, spikes his ridiculously bleached blond hair, and puts his sunglasses on the back of his head. oh, and don't forget the nautical tattoos. all of this used to distract me, but i don't even remotely fucking care anymore. he's one of the coolest people on tv because he's a happy dude and has the privilege to have one of the best jobs in the world. he knows it too. i mean...i really want to hang out with him. i think it'd be an entertaining time to roll around in his convertible and pound budweisers. no joke.

okay...this post has been distracting me from watching the show. time to end it.

talking to computers.

i am not a fan of the "revolutionary" technology in which you call to pay your cell phone, car insurance, or cable bill and a computer talks to you and allows voice recognition answers. this is bullshit. it takes double the time to pay your bills and the computer tries to be your friend, although it rarely understands you. i start yelling at it and gritting my teeth, but it just doesn't get the hint that it is completely fucking awful.

is the world full of a bunch of derelicts who found it much too difficult to just punch numbers in on a keypad? i personally don't think so. so what's the point? i mean, the computer never understands me and constantly apologizes. it makes me so angry...angry enough to immediately make this post.

end this madness.

hard to believe.

so i got a job. this fact has prevented me from posting a blog for a while. no more luxurious lifestyle of doing whatever the hell i want and really only completing tasks that are of interest to me. when i moved to chicago i thought to myself, "it'd be fucking great if i got a job at the chicago reader." well guess what...i lucked my way into just that. i'm the new music listings editor, and i have an office. imagine that. the job is intensely vicious, and i work tons (45 hours in 4 days...no joke), but i like it. i'll like it even more once i can do it without thinking. i have 5,000 tasks to accomplish daily, and considering my last job consisted of refreshing espn.com every five minutes and looking at colors with glazed-over eyes all day, i'd say it's a bit of a change. however, everyone i work with is cool as hell, i get to work downtown, which makes me feel oh so professional, and i get free shit. not too bad. i'm pretty proud of myself, and it only took three weeks.

working with deadlines is a whole different kind of beast. when i wrote for citybeat, i had deadlines and shit, but i wasn't nearly as involved with the operation of the paper like i am at the reader. i actually feel like if i fell apart, the paper would be fucked, which frightens me because i tend to crack under pressure...a sad fact of my life that i have to grips with. i'll be good though. well, at least i keep mumbling that to myself as i get a barrage of emails at work that make my head want to explode.

check the paper out here

it's the citybeat of chicago, only bigger and way way better.

now that i got that out of my system, lets discuss the most fucked up news of the year thus far. michael christopher coates is getting married on saturday. yikes! i was in town for the bachelor party last weekend, which russ and i organized, and i'd have to say that we did a pretty good job. it exceeded expectations of drunken rowdiness, culminating with coates being obliterated (cigarette in mouth), shirtless, in a wheelchair. i can't even begin to express the amount of joy that night gave me. almost all of my best friends (minus justin) gathering in one place and watching coates get straight hammered. fucking glorious. i'll spare you all of the details because i'm going to post some pictures on here that read like a beautiful, seamless narrative.

so, i'm the best man and have to make a toast/speech. those of you who know me well know that i could be all loud and talk forever, but i think i'm going to keep it simple. no one wants to hear me blabber on and tell inside jokes for a half an hour. i'll spare the world. the whole thing is so strange though because i've known coates for over a decade and he's the first of the original "click" that is getting married. fucked up. i don't think i could've ever imagined that a man who stripped down naked and pissed on the capital building in charleston, west virginia would be getting married. again...fucked up. somewhere along the line, coates got sophisticated and grown up. we're all very proud of him, and we're quietly anticipating his inevitable purchase of a house so that he can have another firesale and all of us can get nice, expensive shit for practically nothing. that's what it's really all about right? absolutely.

anyway...i won't stall any longer. here are some of the choice pictures from the drunken escapade that was coates' bachelor party.



so content.



they gave us free shots. gross.



penick was on fire that night. too funny.



coates said i felt super light. that made me happy because i'm concerned with my looks.



yep. that's his underwear.



i asked him to smoke and drink at the same time. it really didn't take much convincing either.



you guessed it. ending the night in a wheelchair. this one's my favorite...hands down.

cross it off.

i make lists. if you know me well, then this shouldn't really be much of a surprise. it's one of my neurotic tendencies. i sincerely enjoy constructing a long list of tasks to complete over a week or two. it makes me feel accomplished when i can cross off something from one of my many lists. i may draw a line through "trader joe's" or "new shoes" or "mother's day." it's how i get shit done. my mind is always moving a thousand miles a second because i've got so much shit to do, and the lists will destroy me if i can't come through. well, not really...

i only mention this because as many of you know, i recently shifted more midwest. so, i've began constructing lists of places that i need to frequent (bars, bookstores, thrift stores, movie theaters, etc.) and most importantly, food that i need to eat. now, i had visited chicago many, many times before i moved up here. my best friend growing up used to live here, so i'd spend months up here in the summer. it's different, though, because you're kind of at the mercy of that person to take you where he or she feels is most appropriate, which is all fine and dandy. however, now that i am able to dictate everything i do all the time (kind of), it's been fantastic to taste different parts of chicago.

everyone knows my strong affinity for all things cincinnati, but let's be honest, the vegetarian selection is severely lacking. try to argue with me. i dare you. the best thing about chicago is the plethora of vegetarian options, and i'm not just talking about going to a burrito place and having the option to get a vegetarian burrito. i'm referring to restaurants that are either completely vegetarian or have a huge vegetarian selection to their menu. also, brunch in this city rules. and again, vegetarian chorizo, bacon, and sausage are not hidden treasures. i don't know, i know i'm kind of ranting, but it is so damn nice to have multiple options to dine at any given time. i have yet to be really disappointed with any vegetarian dish i've purchased, but it is possible i'm just kind of mesmerized by the bright lights. who knows...

so my lists are growing, and for once, it's not making me nervous. it's a good time discovering a new city. i gotta admit it.

flat ground.

i rode my bike like 10 miles yesterday, all the way to the lake and back. that may not seem like so much to some of you bicycle enthusiasts (i see you zach) and cocky sons of bitches, but to me, not too shabby. jeans, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes. nice and simple. annnyyway, my main point is that it's just strange to now live in such a flat city. i was born in the delhi hills of cincinnati. i'm used to going up in order to inevitably come down. from the top of a cincinnati hill, you can see skylines and even pieces of kentucky if you really feel like it. hills are one of the most endearing parts about cincinnati's landscape.

i was excited, however, to move here and go running because i thought to myself, "man, no more trekking up Riddle, MLK, or Clifton Ave. this is gonna be fantastic." god, i hated running up those bohemiths. i should've known better though. it does blow balls to climb up those hills, but then you get to partake in a nice leisurely jog back down them. in good old chicago, though, it's just a constant heave. no dynamic to it. i haven't decided on which one i like better. exercise wise, i actually think it's better here and not as tough on my legs and knees. oh, by the way, i'm sure this running diatribe probably seems like common sense to some of you, but aren't you always supposed to have grandiose expectations of a new place? otherwise, why would you go there? plus, i go running like almost every day. in my mind, i envisioned an entire city comprised of moving walkways in which i could run something like 5 miles in 20 minutes.

i don't think i can get my next few thoughts in before this website goes under maintenance at 4:00pm, which i just noticed. my next post will almost definitely be food related because goddamn this city has good food. more to come...

more midwest.

i completed my move to chicago on monday and have been settling myself in ever since. moving in and of itself is a pain in the ass, much less to a different city. however, the apartment is looking pretty well put together, which i attribute to not having a job. oh, by the way, i absolutely love our landlords. they're eccentric old polish people (i basically live in the heart of polish chicago) who are EXTREMELY accomodating and really have nothing to do except for go to church and make sure their little community is running like a well-oiled machine. good people. i think i genuinely enjoy listening to people talk in abrupt, halting languages. that's probably why i took german in college. you can make a couple of simple words sound like a death threat. it's all in the attitude.

anyway, my first evening here i made plans to meet zach and allison for dinner. i don't remember where we were going to meet, and it doesn't really matter. i had zero concept of direction or destination because it takes me a second to process a new location and realize what's north, south, east, west. i bascially equate it to not being able to figure out percentages in your head at the drop of a hat, which i definitely cannot do. also, i didn't have the internet, which only perpetuated my problem. it's amazing how helpless one feels without the internet. i mean...how am i supposed to get around without google maps? guess? please. so i got viciously lost and wanted to kill the world because i was fucking starving and because i had no idea which direction to go. i willed myself back to my apartment somehow, ate plain couscous by itself, and went to bed completely unsatisfied, from a hunger standpoint. i love zach to death, but we both later agreed that we probably should have met somewhere a little closer to my residence.

i have since realized the glory of the grid system and feel more than semi-confident in my ability to navigate the city.

that was my monday adventure. tuesday i spent most of the day unpacking and setting shit up. later on, i met zach for dinner. we drank and held hands as we walked along the beach of lake michigan. it was sublime.

yesterday, i went to wrigley field to watch the cubs slaughter the reds. the stadium is amazing, and i was pretty much in awe of it. no jumbotron. no cushy seats. no plastic, superficial feel. pretty damn authentic, right down to the barrage of obnoxious cubs fans. man, this city absolutely fucking abhors dusty baker. for a team who hasn't won anything in like a millenium, you would think that they'd be somewhat appreciative of a manager who took them to the NLCS five years ago. i don't get it. it just seems irrational to me. but then again i'm the most level-headed, rational person i know, so i understand the intricacies of the situation and am willing to take a few steps back and view the situation objectively. no?

regardless, the whole experience was awesome. the energy coarsing through that stadium is knee-buckling. now, if only the reds could have stayed in it for one inning. man, that would've been dynamite. i love going to other stadiums, though. i'm one of those guys who wants to make a tour of every baseball stadium at some point in my life. it's all about the atmosphere. definitely.

so...i'm here now. still in the initial shock phase. you'll have that though.

minus a select few, i'm pretty sure most of the others that read this thing live in cincinnati, so just wanted to say that i miss you guys and expect to miss you more and more in the next couple of weeks. that's why i'm going to come back like three times in may. well, that and weddings, but we'll just pretend.

brett favre is a fraud.

news flash!

favre hadn't "retired" before this year because he wanted to capture all of the noteworthy nfl records from dan marino, which in my opinion is kind of selfish bullshit. he's got those now, though, so he's "retired." but has he? still hasn't filed those retirement papers. still says that it'd be tough to shrug off a return to the packers if aaron rodgers got injured. still throws his face and voice all over the media.

if he's so certain that this is the right choice and his poor, battered mental state (a mental state mind you that is repeatedly massaged and babied by the media and all other football kingpins) just can't go through the routine of the offseason then officially retire then please. i call bullshit.

he won the big game 12 years ago. that's a long long time. and he only won one. i don't particularly care for tom brady, but i have to give him credit for orchestrating three rings. that's an accomplishment. ever since the 1996 championship, favre has repeatedly choked in the playoffs, which we got to see yet again this year when he handed a basket full of lollipops to the giants by tossing up another chucked turkey to corey webster (i still attribute much of his early career prowess to having talented, athletic receivers who could simply go up and steal those lobs out of the air).

i'm going to stop this now because i could go on forever...

i'll leave it with this: please go away brett favre. i beg you. leave the packers and poor aaron rodgers alone. let him have the team he deserved two years ago. stop making people compare him to an exaggerated, "all-american" talent. file your retirement papers, and go back to mississippi.

p.s. remember when favre was addicted to painkillers? why doesn't anyone ever talk about that? matt leinart gets lambasted for a couple of absolutely harmless pictures of him at a party with **gasp** alcohol, but favre gets a free pass ... ALL OF THE TIME. i don't get it. is everyone oblivious except for me?