Gambling is fun!
I watched a man lose $300 on one hand of blackjack.
I watched Laz win $100 on a single bet.
I saw a man sing karaoke in an empty casino bar.
Viva NW Indiana!

Also, The Green Mill is cool. I don't know why I don't go there more often. And it acheives a hypercool when Kurt Elling is there.

So, I'm thoroughly looking forward to the Presidential Debate tonight. Although, maybe it would be a better debate if the two candidates who have ideas, principles and real knowledge of the world at large. Oh, well. Elections are just for fun, right?

Speaking of people who have shows and don't desrve them: I am hearby launching my campaign to take over NBC's Late NIght in 2009.

Why does Tony Danza have a talk show?

The War on Terrorism is in full effect: Cat Stevens, we don't want your brand of plaintive 70's pop music, here anymore. Go back to Araby with your terrorist friends. W'04, baby! Woo!

I only know Cat Stevens from two songs on the Rushmore soundtrack, so don't listen to this song, or the terrorists win.

I'm going to steal this and make it my new corporate logo:

"Simply stated, Mission Of Burma were, and remain, one of the most important American rock bands of the last 20 years."

That's from their website so you know it's true.

...

I've got nothing.

Indonesia held its first ever direct presidential elections Sunday, but I'm not getting my hopes up. I've been let down too many times by Indonesian presidents.

Just look at this group:

Megawati Soekarnoputri

Abdurrahman Wahid

Baharuddin Jusuf Habibie

Incompetent failures all!

"Optimism is a mania for saying all is well when one is in hell"
-Voltaire

"I'm an optimist."
-George W. Bush

I've never been to New Orleans. A year ago I heard an NPR piece on New Orleans and the feat of mechanical engineering required to keep the city, which is below sea level, from being flooded on a daily basis. It was said to be likely that one day a large storm would hit the coast of Louisiana and leave the city unlivable. I remember thinking, "I'd better visit New Orleans before it's under water."

I seem to be so accustomed to the power of human intervention, that I'm practically incredulous that the weather could be so dsruptive to our most advanced civilization.

You know, boys and girls, the world of alpha charlie bravo is not always a utopian paradise, but one of the things that currently makes the world a bit brighter for me, is the unfolding debacle that is the Chicago Cubs.

Assault Weapons Ban to Expire

"I think the will of the American people is consistent with letting it expire, and so it will expire," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, told reporters.

Thanks, America!
Now I know what I want for Christmas!

"The assault weapons are coming, they're coming next week," warned Sarah Brady.

Yipee!

Cheney Warns of Terror Risk if Kerry Wins:

"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice,' Mr. Cheney told a crowd of 350 people in Des Moines, 'because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States."
Um... is that a threat, Mr. Vice President?

In other news, I'm an entrepreneur bitch!
If you clicky on the link on the right, being held down by Steve Earle, and you buy something from iTunes, I'm supposed to get a 5% comission. And you don't have to buy The Revolution Starts Now, you can get whatever you want. Buy a song and I get, like, 5 cents.

But, if you do buy The Revolution Starts Now, I won't seem quite so insane if you spot me dancing and singing: "Oh Condi, Condi; Oh Condi, Condi."

In honor of Jerry Lewis and his Labor Day Telethon, I give you his greatest cinematic achievement: The Day the Clown Cried.

Harry Shearer, one of the few people in the world to have ever seen the film, had this to say,

"With most of these kinds of things, you find that the anticipation, or the concept, is better than the thing itself. But seeing this film was really awe-inspiring, in that you are rarely in the presense of a perfect object. This was a perfect object.

This movie is so drastically wrong, its pathos and its comedy are so wildly misplaced, that you could not, in your fantasy of what it might be like, improve on what it really is. Oh My God! - that's all you can say."

I have three questions for you. The categories are: Sports, Miscellany and Philosophy.

1. Where the hell is the kicking game?

2. Barbara or Jenna?


3. Are you Free?
Keep in mind that's a philosophical question, not a political one. I don't want to hear about how you're oppressed by the State. I want to know if you have free will.

Finally, it has come to the South Side!


14. Chipotle - Beverly
2310 W. 95th Street
Chicago, IL 60643

It also happens to be between a Bank One branch that is under construction and the Borders Books where I acquire nearly all of the coffee I consume in life.
I fit squarely into the category of excited.

I can't believe that Mark Burnett or someone of his ilk doesn't have Tv cameras documenting every move of Alan Keyes and his special crusade to rescue the people of Illinois. At every turn, from his temporary 2-flat in Cal City, to the RNC in New York, the man is obviously a reality Tv star in waiting. There is never a dull moment or dead air when a camera or microphone is near him. All that is missing are those candid cofessionals, those introspective moments when the subject faces the camera one on one and reveals his inner self. Although, I suspect that with Mr. Keyes there is little more to be revealed. There does not seem to be a border between his interior world and the world at large.

I was driving home the other day when I spotted something that caused me to thrust my arms upward into the air and exclaim joyously. Finally, the day has arrived. I'm very excited.