apocalypse (s)now
It is snowing in Madison today. Â
For those of you who didn't do a double-take and then check the calendar on your computers, today is April 28th. Â Otherwise known as three-days-before-the-start-of-May. Â So not only is it spring, it's venturing into "late spring" territory.
And yet, there were snowflakes falling from the sky this afternoon.
I'm pretty sure that this is a sign that the world is ending...especially when combined with the fact that the Cubs are in first place right now and Ronny Cedeno is actually playing well. I mean, who needs locusts, plagues, or an invasion of Daleks when you can have ginormous snowflakes? Â
I'm also pretty sure that I'm glad that, three weeks from right now, I'll be sitting in the U-Haul on the way to Wichita, the stopping point in my journey between Madison and Austin. Â Even though I spent much of last night having a complete breakdown about the fact that I will probably never be able to procure legal employment after graduation because of my inability to perform on law school exams, at least I won't be some place where it snows in April. Â
Labels: cubs, wisconsin winters = death
dangerous mind's day off
To celebrate one of the first nice days of spring (and the fact that Family Law class was cancelled), I skipped town (and Contracts II) yesterday and drove down to Chicago. Â So I strolled through the Art Institute for a few hours, enjoyed a walk down the Magnificent Mile, and capped off my day with a night game at Wrigley:
The Cubs won in magnificent fashion (thanks to the wind blowing out to left...and no thanks to Alfonso Soriano hurting himself while performing his "trademark hop" while catching a fly ball....). Â So magnificent that the fact that I had to beg several people for a jump in the parking lot after the game because Flying Elvis's battery was dead doesn't put a damper on the evening.
I have to say, I think the thing I'll miss the most about living in Madison is being close enough to be able to take an afternoon and drive to Chicago for a Cubs game or an outing at a museum. Â You could say that this is a sign that I should be living in Chicago, not Austin...but I think we all know that I can't afford to live in Chicago without a job and while trying to pay back $170,000 in loans. Â
Labels: cubs
one step closer
At least I don't have to work on finding other plans for next Saturday night...
Go Cubs Go!
Labels: cubs
last resort
from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel...
Yes, that is a goat farmer from Wisconsin at Wrigley this past Saturday. With a goat. Because even with Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun, Milwaukee needs a curse on the team ahead of them just to make the playoffs.
Labels: cubs
what i'll be thinking about for the next week (or two)
NLDS Home Game #1, Aisle 219, Row 7, Seat 11.Now all I need is for the Cubs to keep winning (or for the Brewers to keep losing) this week so I actually get to use that playoff ticket.Classes? Huh? What are those?Labels: cubs
now that i think about it...
Next time I decide to go to a night game at Wrigley on a weeknight, I'm skipping class the next day.Note that I'd rather stop going to class than stop going to games...particularly if those games have similar outcomes to last night's game. Man, was it sweet to see the Cubs win that one and keep their hold on first place.(passes out from exhaustion in class)Labels: cubs
stretch run
I'll admit it - I haven't been paying attention at all today. I've been sitting in class with my stomach in knots as I twitch uncontrollably.Why?Because there are only ten games left in baseball's regular season, and my Cubs are thisclose to taking the NL Central title. I've spent most of the morning in class running through different scenarios in my mind, most of which involve figuring out if there's any possible way that the Brewers will manage to win the additional games necessary to take the division. (If you're doing the math at home, if the Cubs win 5 of their last 10, and the Brewers win 6 of their last 12, they end the season tied.)So I'm headed down to Chicago tonight to watch what will be my last regular season game this year, and I'm more nervous about tonight's game than I've been about most of my law school exams...ever. Right now, instead of thinking about Secured Transactions, I'm praying to the baseball gods that Ted Lilly performs much better on 3 days' rest than Carlos Zambrano did last night. I'm pretty sure that says something about how messed up my priorities are. Go Cubs.Labels: cubs
virtually impatient
The last Friday in February is notable for only one thing: being the day on which Chicago Cubs single-game tickets go on sale. Unfortunately, this also means the return of the Cubs Online Ticketing System, complete with Virtual Waiting Room.
After last year's debacle, which ended with me not getting the tickets I wanted, I was quite a bit more wary this year. Mostly because this year, I actually had games that I planned on going to with people...not just by myself. The great thing about the Cubs is that they tend to sell out every summer weekend for groups of more than 2 by the end of, well, the first weekend on which tickets go on sale, so the VWR is essentially unavoidable for a large group on, say, Labor Day Weekend.
So I dutifully get online around 9:30 this morning to mark my place in the non-existent line, hoping to get in soon enough to get my tickets. As I was browsing the internet to pass the time, I discovered that most people that were getting tickets had, like, 30 browser windows open - so me with the piddly 2 windows I'd had open for about an hour and a half at that point just wasn't going to work. So I decide that, if I couldn't beat the cheaters, I should join them.*
Lo and behold, the "Select Tickets" screen popped up...about 50 minutes later. The problem, unfortunately, was that having so many windows open caused my internet to freeze up. So I have to reboot and re-start the process all over again, this time with fewer windows.
"Select Tickets" screen pops up another 20 minutes later; internet freezes again.
This happens twice more before I decide that just having a wireless connection probably isn't going to help - that maybe having the ethernet cables would keep the wireless from timing out. I reboot once more, and within 10 minutes, I have two "Select Tickets" screens...and 10 minutes later, I have 2 sets of tickets - one for my law school friends in April, and one for my family in September.
Play ball!
*Yep, that's me with 20 browser windows open, all trying to get past the Virtual Bouncer at the door of the Virtual Waiting Room. I'd like to point out that, this year, the Cubs made it so that you couldn't open multiple VWRs in multiple browser windows. What they failed to account for was the fact that you can open multiple pages in different tabs in both Firefox and IE. So, thanks guys. I mean...oops?
Labels: cubs, sports
wait 'til next year
It's the best time of year for a Cubs fan - the time where we start telling ourselves that it can't get any worse than it was this past season.And, in a move that makes me want to cry, the Cubs go out and sign manager Lou Piniella to a three-year contract. (My guess is that Joe Girardi, my personal choice for the position, has too much of a brain and not enough flash for the Cubs.)Now, ESPN and ESPN.com are overloaded with spec about whether the Cubs will try to trade for Alex Rodriguez, who played under Piniella in Seattle for several seasons. What will happen next?(a) Cubs trade Kerry Wood and Mark Prior to the Yankees for Rodriguez - because Carl Pavano needs company while he spends the season on the DL.
(b) Cubs get A-Rod to play shortstop, and the Cubs miraculously end up winning the World Series within the next three years.
(c) Cubs don't get A-Rod, and continue to suck until the world ends in 2012.
(d) Cubs get A-Rod, make it to the World Series, and lose in Game 7 after an A-Rod error - proving once and for all that (a) A-Rod is a bigger choker in big-game situations than Peyton Manning and Scott Norwood combined, and (b) God enjoys messing with Cubs fans. A lot.
(e) Cubs don't get A-Rod, make it to the World Series, and lose after both Prior and Wood spontaneously combust before Game 1, forcing Ryan Dempster into the starting rotation.
Labels: cubs, sports
today's classifieds
For sale:1998 Starting Pitcher 34KW. 3.68 ERA, 71-56 record. Newly repaired shoulder. Needs work. Relief pitcher OBO. Contact Chicago Cubs front office. Serious offers only.[hangs head]Labels: cubs
what are these "exams" of which you speak?
Today, I decided to sleep until 10. I've spent about 3.5 hours watching the NFL Draft. (Yes, I'm a chick, and I watch the Draft every year religiously.)I spent 1.5 hours grocery shopping. I've spent the last 30 minutes reading People magazine and watching the Cubs game. (Side note: Glendon Rusch needs to be taken out of the rotation. Yesterday. Again, I'll offer my services to fill in that spot in the rotation.) I don't even know where my Crim book/notes are right now - even if I wanted to start studying, I couldn't. I do, however, know were both my couch and the remote are. I believe that it would be an ethical violation to not continue to watch television at this point. AND I'm pretty sure that there's some sort of city ordinance against studying on Saturdays. Labels: cubs, finals, football
my uppance hath come
Apparently, God felt the need to punish me for skipping the Crim Pro review session this morning so that I could go to the Cubs game."How so?" I hear you ask. Well...I'll tell you.I got to the game to discover that my seat was next to the fattest guy I have ever seen. (Slight exaggeration...but he was still the heftiest guy in the stadium, easy.) So there I sat for two hours and forty-one minutes, scrunched up like a ball in my chair so that I wasn't sitting on the lap of the guy on my other side. And it's really hard to scrunch up in a ball when you have nearly three feet worth of legs to deal with. Needless to say, I was looking forward to sprawling out on my three-plus hour bus ride home. But oh no NO! God was not yet finished with me.I got stuck next to the girl reading Us magazine who glared at me whenever I tried to rearrange my aforementioned three feet of legs in the two feet of leg space...and in front of loudest, most irritating sorority girl ever, who felt the need to spend the entire ride on the phone...not to mention the guy with the radio blasting...or the guys who decided that "playing drum beats on notebooks in confined spaces is fun!"...and then there was the guy across the aisle from me whose fly was down for about half of the ride.I wonder what'll happen if I blow off studying tomorrow too...Labels: buses, cubs
more proof that i've lost it
You know you're awesome when you lose the VP race for a student organization to someone who didn't even show up to the meeting, but sent a "statement of interest".Whatever, I still got a position on the exec board. I'm now officially a "joiner". Next thing you know, I'll be putting up a Facebook page and touring with the Dave Matthews Band (the epitome of selling out, in my opinion).(But seriously, I'm trying to decide if I want to be "cool" and join Facebook, mostly because I need something else to distract me from studying.)Speaking of distractions from studying, I studied a whole five hours today. Which means that I am totally justified in rewarding myself with a day trip to Chicago tomorrow to watch the Cubs game. Hey, Ruthie said that I should "take some time to relax" while studying. I'm only doing what the Supreme Commander ordered.Labels: cubs, finals
if everybody else is doing it, why can't i?
I've decided what I'm going to do when this whole "law school" thing fails to pan out for me.I'm going to be the fifth starter for the Cubs. I figure I can't do any worse than the rotating band of minor league talent that they have now.Side note: why am I in class today? It's nice out, and it's the last day of class. I should've listened to KP when she told me to skip class. I'm not learning anything here - my professor is so drunk that he's actually slurring today. Even if I was paying attention, I wouldn't be able to understand a thing he's saying.Labels: cubs, property class
one of life's most important questions
After reading this morning that our esteemed President refuses to rule out the option of nuking Iran to get at their atomic weapons arsenal, I began to wonder exactly what the ramifications of such a (poor) policy choice would be.Assuming we bomb them in the next few months, what would be more likely to happen by Labor Day?(a) The Cubs in first place in the NL Central(b) Complete and total nuclear holocaust(c) Both (a) and (b) - because it's all a part of the CurseLabels: cubs, politics, questions
mondays blow
Today, I missed not one, not two, but three (yes, three) buses: the bus to the gym, the bus home from the gym, and the bus to class. So my hour-long workout this morning became an hour-long workout plus another hour and fifteen minutes of walking up and down the streets of Madison (25 minutes of that in cute shoes that bloodied my feet on the way to class).I am sitting in my fourth-to-last Crim class of the semester with a massive headache. And nausea. I'm trying to decide if I'm getting sick again, or if I just need food wicked bad. I hope it's not me getting sick, but the fact that I spent the entire weekend (Thursday night - Sunday night) on the couch and the fact that I was only awake for 9 hours yesterday would say otherwise. But seriously - why do I go to Crim? It's completely useless - I can't remember the last time I actually learned anything in class...and my "not learning" has nothing to do with the fact that I watch baseball on mlb.tv during class. I think we've finally caught up with the point I reached in the reading a week and a half ago, which means that I *may* need to start reading again. If I feel like it. Which I don't.And to all of the gunners who picked the day for our Crim review session - look, I understand that you want to have your weekends free. But some of us have Cubs tickets for that Friday, and unfortunately can only attend the review session if it's on a Saturday. So thanks for basically forcing me into the back end of the curve. I really appreciate it. Labels: buses, crim pro, cubs, my neverending medical issues
