Happy Birthday Jelly

Cubs Talk

Say what you want about cubs fans, and believe me I say plenty, but I was mighty impressed last night. Lovable Bob Uecker comes over from the Brewers' announcing booth the Cubs' booth to be the celebrity song leader for Take Me Out to the Ball Game and as soon as he is announced he starts getting booed. It is not surprising that Cub fans boo someone, but what is surprising is that this is the first time that Uecker has been booed here since since Major League (or ever for that matter, I mean why would Cub fans boo Uecker before this?). Not only did they boo Uecker though but after he was done and they cut away to commercial the Cubs fans sang it again. Whoever got this started is genius. Gene Wojciechowski said it best in his article about the NL Central today "They sang it again, as if Uecker's version was infected. Even Uecker had to be impressed by the passion."

Usually that passion shows itself in morons throwing cups on the field or other general idiocy but in last night's game, the fans booed an extremely likable guy because he represented the rival team. That doesn't sound like lovable losers to me. That sounds like fans who want their team to win and don't like you if you are connected to a team in the Cubs way. Usually I think Cub fans specifically and fans in general are obnoxious and annoying (and if you like in Wrigleyville you know what I'm talking about) but this particular act of obnoxiousness was really cool. I wish I was there. As far as I'm concerned the fans should sing it again after every idiot who they have up there (I'm looking at you Ozzy Ozbourne, Kelly Pickler and Jeff Gordon) who isn't Ditka, Santo (any former cub greats included) or Len and Bob (I may be missing someone, but you get the point). Maybe this will become a new tradition. I hope so because the whole thing sucks the way it is.

Anyway I am getting a little off topic, but the point is, that I like what I saw from the stands for once. They stood up and told the Brewers and Uecker to suck it and that makes me happy.

I don't know what is going on on the field though. I have never seen a team who has looked so crappy for the first 3/4 of the game like this Cubs team does and then keeps coming back to win in the late innings. I think that loss to AZ where they scored 3 in the first was the first time the Cubs started the game with a lead in the last two weeks. I love comeback wins and they are a great sign of a good team but they are giving me an ulcer and if this keeps up for another month how am I going to enjoy the victory celebration with a giant lesion in my stomach. I will medicate it with cold cold beers that's how but I would appreciate if they could just start pounding out 8-0 wins where they score 4 in the first and keep adding from there. I think I could really enjoy that.

For the sake of redundancy...Am I worried yet: Even with the win last night I am more worried now that I was before. Not any specific worry, just that nagging thought about how much fun it was celebrating in '03 and how it has been 3 seasons since then and how I really want to high five a cop with a beer in my hand at the corner of Clark and Addison in a month and now that I have my hopes up I really want to do that again. No, I am not worried yet, but there is still a lot of season left.

Spellcheck update: Uecker --> Pecker

Pictures from Normandy

Marissa and I went to Europe a couple of weeks ago and had a blast. We went to London and Paris and for a day we went out to Normandy to see the D-Day landing beaches and the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach. I thought I would put up a couple of pictures that we took there.

This is one of the guns that was launching shells onto the beaches. It could hit two of the assault beaches because it could throw shells over 8 miles. One of these guns was totally destroyed by a direct hit in the opening in the front by a shell from a naval destroyer. The other three were not too badly damaged by the navy even though they were hit many times. The concrete is 8 feet thick and reinforced with rebar so the bombing couldn't do much.

This is a crater left by those same shells that couldn't damage the gun emplacements. As big as that crater looks, the picture doesn't really do it justice. These were in an area called Pont du Hoc which was left pretty much as it was in 1944. The grass brew back but the craters were never filled in.

The cemetery is the one that is shown in Saving Private Ryan in the beginning and end with the rows and rows of white crosses. It is an incredible place and I highly recommend going there if you get a chance. Is really humbling to be there and see acres and acres of crosses (over 9,000 and 149 Stars of David). Almost all of them died within a few days of June 6, 1944 and the were almost all a lot younger than we are now.

The water you can see is the English Channel. Just after that row of trees the ground slopes down to the beach.

It is a lot steeper than it looks, but you can see the actual beach in the picture. This is the beach where the first scene of Saving Private Ryan is set.

There is also this little round chapel in the cemetery that is no more than 20 feet in diameter. The ceiling of the chapel is a tile mosaic. This is two pictures that I took that I put together so it looks like one picture (which is why it looks a little distorted).

Like I said, it is an incredible place to be and if you get the chance to go, you should.

I bet everytime he eats popcorn now, all he tastes is shame.

Last week a Houston Astros fan thought it would be a good idea to propose to his girlfriend on the jumbotron at Minute Maid Park. The results were not as he had hoped I'm guessing.

Here is the two sentence recap: Guy proposes to his girlfriend on the jumbotron at an Astros game. She says no, dumps a bucket of popcorn on his head and storms out.

As I see it, there are three scenarios that could possibly lead to this hilarious (and pitiful) event:

1. The guy is a moron who had no idea whether she would say yes or no. I mean who would do that? Especially in front of a bunch of people, and not knowing whether she would say yes? Plus he was probably hammered and he a bunch of other hammered people cheering him on. Good luck with that one buddy. This guy sounds like a rube to me.

2. This was a setup and a way to get on the news. This seems unlikely because nobody's name is connected with the story and there is no video evidence so who gains. No one. (Well I do because I find the story funny and have something to put up here but beyond that, no one.)

3. She would have said yes in almost any other possible situation except she couldn't believe that the guy she was willing to marry was such a moron that he thought it would be a good idea to propose to her at a baseball game in front of 30,000 people on the "kiss cam". The guy had seen way to many chick flicks and thought it would be a grand romantic gesture, however as a moron he could not recognize that she had been pretending to like baseball to be nice and wanted a romantic proposal, not a drunken one on TV. I am guessing this is the case because I believe in love and stupidity... stupidity above all in this case.

Here is a little piece of advice if you plan to get engaged some time... know that she will say yes and if you plan to do it in front of a bunch of people at a game, monster truck rally, enya concert or what have you (and more power to you if you have to balls to do it) make sure that she wouldn't think you are an idiot for doing it that way.

Halloweiners' Ball news: October 27th seems like the date. We are looking for a venue, any ideas? Preferably a place that would let us bring our own kegs and booze and destroy the place and then clean up after us.

Am I worried yet: I am referring to the Cubs, and no I am not worried but they sure can look like crap sometimes. I still think they can and will win the division but I am going to have to start watching games on TVs besides my plasma because if I am going to throw a remote through a TV, I'd rather it didn't cost me $1,200.

Spellcheck: By the by, when I spell checked this, it wanted to replace "jumbotron" with "Cambodian". I don't know why but that is funny to me.

Maria Sharapova

Now that I have your attention, here is a video which has nothing to do with Maria Sharapova. It may not be work appropriate, there is no nudity, but it does contain some bawdy language.

The video is very instructional however, so please feel free to make sure your wives, fiances, girlfriends etc. see this important work.

Click Here for a Good Time

Where did all that caisch go???

This is a thought provoking article about the ways we waste our hard earned paychecks. I wouldn't want you to have to actually click on a link (I assume that you do not know how since there hasn't been a comment on here in about 2 months) so here is the list to help us determine what we actually spend our sweet, sweet dollars on:

1. Coffee - The article assumes $1.80 per cup and only once a day on workdays for a total of $360. Sounds pretty weak to me. I'm thinking about $4.75, and all you coffee junkies buy the stuff on the weekends too so I'm saying that's about $1700, and that assumes only one cup a day.

2. Cigarettes - A pack a day at $8.00 is over $2900 a year. Look at all the money we are saving by only smoking Jelly and Mike's smokes. Genius.

3. Alcohol - This is the killer for this group I am guessing. I am just going to go ahead and multiply their number by 4 for over $15,000 each spent on booze. Nice work team.

4. Bottled Water - only ladies drink bottled water. I'll stick with their projection: $365.

5. Manicures - um... I will take their word on this one too. $1,000 a year. Any insight Jelly?

6. Car Washes - I guess $368 a year sounds reasonable. I don't really know; I don't even get car washes. What do you think rain is for?

7. Lunches Out at Work - Pretty accurate. We'll round up to $3,000. Damn the Bank One food court.

8. Vending Machine Snacks - Who buys a pack or cookies from a vending machine? This is stupid and I am dismissing it. If any of you spent more than $15 on vending machine snacks in the last year I will consider it, but most likely I will just consider you a fat lard.

9. Credit Card Interest - Could be $5,000 in interest. This one's a bitch. You should be paying off your credit cards before you buy your vending machine snacks.

10. Unused Memberships - And this is why I don't join a gym. $480 sounds good.

So that's almost $30,000 by my highly scientific calculations. Holy crap that's a lot of money on nothing. That credit card interest seems a little high so lets make it $25,000. Still tons of jack. It makes you feel good doesn't it?

Don't let this dissuade you though. Keep it up, if you are not spending the terrorists have already won. USA...USA...USA!!!!

Free Dog

Wow, the Fremonteer has really been hopping while I was away. Anyway, I just have a quick post...

My neighbor has a puppy he's giving away and I thought someone who reads this might be interested.

It's a Dachshund, it's house broken, and it's great with kids. He's giving it away because his wife says the dog 'stares' at her, and that the dog gives her the 'Heebie Jeebies'.

If you're interested, or know someone who is, let me know.

Here's a picture of the dog.

Happy Birthday Skittles!!!

Make sure if you see Sarah today (or even in the next couple weeks or so... you know how Birthdays can be celebrated over the course of days now) you wish her a big Happy Birthday!! She deserves it for making it another year.

By the way, who doesn't love having a birthday on a Wednesday. It is the most exciting day of the week and there is usually so much to do. It's great that you get to spend all day at work, then if you can get anyone to go out you get to be hung over on Thursday morning. Yea!! What a treat!