not a good interleague weekend for the cubbies. dusty needs to give that bullpen a kick in rear. but other than the cubs almost getting swept by the brewers and then the sox things have been great. saw a fantastic peter gabriel concert at milwaukee's summerfest on thursday night. first time seeing the man live and in the flesh. he puts on a great show. i 've liked the new album, up since it came out but it was great seeing some of those songs performed live with the visual effects, gabe went into the crowd, played lots of old songs: shock the monkey, mercy street, solsbury hill, secret world. at the final encore he came out just on the piano and introduced a new song about his late father. he has such a distinct vocal range, the song was sounded something like "here comes the flood" but as he performed it in the background behind the concert hall fireworks began going off in the sky. it was one of the moments in time you never want to forget: fireworks in the sky behind us, gabriel alone in the spotlight on piano and vox. it just doesn't get any better than that.

so anyway rounded out the weekend going to six flags great america. first time at an amusement park since i was in college. gurnee, illinois used to be a great place to go mullet hunting. but i guess word is finally getting out even to gurnee that mullets are not cool. not that there were no mullets, just not every third person like say even five years ago. billy ray cyrus we need you to come back and inspire a new generation. but anyway, the mullets have been replaced in number by skanky teenage girls. i'm starting to feel the moral outrage of bill bennett, and if that makes me a cranky old man, at the ripe old age of thirty so be it. how do you let your 14-year old daughter leave the house wearing next to nothing?! the amount of jail bait walking around that park was not to be believed. pedophiles need look no further for victims than a hot day at six flags great america -- and with that cheery thought, i'm out. india arie concert for free at summerfest this tuesday night.

A great article by Michael Kinsley on the Supreme Court's recent affirmative action decision and the irony of some people opposing it: How Affirmative Action Helped George W. -- "Wait a minute. How did I get into Yale?

Cubbies still in first place and kicking ass!

oh hell no! its personal now. it's bad enough messing around with nyc, but if al qaeda takes on the borough of brooklyn they're opening a can of whoop ass they can't handle. Ohio trucker joined al Qaeda jihad

check out this link. there are no computer graphics or digital tricks in the film. everything you see really happened in real time exactly as you see it. the film took 606 takes. on the first 605 takes, something, usually very minor, didn't work. they would then have to set the whole thing up again. the crew spent weeks shooting night and day.


the film cost six million dollars and took three months to complete, including a full engineering the sequence. in addition, it's two minutes long so every time honda airs the film on british television, they're shelling out enough dough to keep any one of us in clover for a lifetime. however, it is fast becoming the most downloaded advertisement in internet history.


there are six and only six handmade Accords in the world. to the horror of honda engineers, the filmmakers disassembled two of them to make the film. everything you see in the film (aside from the walls, floor, ramp, and complete honda accord) are parts from those two cars.



when the ad was shown to honda executives, they liked it and commented on how amazing computer graphics have gotten. they fell off their chairs when they found out it was for real. and about those funky windshield wipers. on the new accords, the windshield wipers have water sensors and are designed to start doing their thing automatically as soon as they become wet.


Honda's New Accord Advertisement, "Cog"

An interesting article on the dearth of jobs awaiting this year's college grads. Dubbed by some as "the boomerang effect" many grads are heading back home to mom & dad w/ college degrees but no jobs. This may well be the first American generation since the Great Depression, to not improve on their parents economic class but actually regress.