Honey I'm Home

Ok so I'm home from Champaign and the bar crawl. It was a great weekend, and I'll fill you all in on it later. As of right now I'm in a mood to nap.

I will however post a video I shot of Marty crowdsurfing at Kams to "Baba O'Riley" to kill time while I sleep.

Friday Random 10

Got this idea from Panger's blog, Petulant Times.

The gist is take your iPod or whathave you and shuffle them for 10 songs. List the songs, then your favorite of the 10, least fave of the 10, and your favorite album of the ten.

Well I got a lil time to kill, so why the fuck not?

1. Embrace-Korn
2. Baby Got Back-Sir Mixalot
3. Could You Be Loved-Bob Marley and the Wailers
4. Poor Places-Wilco
5. Golddigger-Kanye West
6. Tired of Sleep-(hed)pe
7. Nearly Lost You-Screaming Trees
8. Take a Picture-Filter
9. Spiders(Kidsmoke)-Wilco
10. Lover I Don't Have To Love-Bright Eyes

Favorite Song-Spiders (Kidsmoke). Its like Kraftwerk by Wilco. I just like it dammit.

Least Favorite-Tired of Sleep. It's from (hed)pe's first album, which while not horrible, is not their best by far.

Favorite Album-A Ghost is Born-Wilco

Gone Drinkin

Well I haven't posted in about a week, and I've decided to post now to tell you it's gonna be a few more days.

I'm heading down to Champaign this weekend with Kevin, Joe, Marty, Pollard, Maratto, and a whole bunch of others for a bar crawl. It'll be my first time back in Champaign since I think March of 2005.

Anyway, it should be fun, and I'll bring my camera. If I'm sober enough to take pictures I'll post them on here when I get back.

To tide you all over through the weekend I'm gonna post a Song of the Day that is very fitting for the weekend, and one of my all time favorite TV scenes EVER.

Weezer - The Good Life

White Sox Dominate

Thanks to their pitcher mostly. Just a quick little stat I've noticed for this week.

So far in 5 games this week the White Sox have outscored their opponents 30-6. Take away Sunday's rain shortened game against the Toronto Blue Jays, and they've outscored em 24-2.

In the words of Charles Barkley, "Thass crazy."

Oh and tonight the Bulls start the playoffs in Miami, GO BULLS!!

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Wilco - Outtasite (Outta Mind)

Keepin It Real Since 1980,

Tom

Song of the Day

System Of A Down - Spiders

Looks Like We're Goin To War

With Iran now.

How do I know? Watch this video from the Daily Show. Jon Stewart figures it out at the end.

Return of Towelie

Well a week after South Park was censored by Comedy Central I didn't know what to expect on this weeks episode.

What I got was the triumphant return of my favorite character, Towelie.

For those unfamiliar, Towelie is a government engineered super towel, with a tendency to smoke some of the reefer.

He also sparked quite a catch phrase amongst me and my friends. Whenever one of us insulted each other by saying "You're an idiot." or something of that ilk, we would respond with "You're a towel!!"

Original Towelie Episode

Well in what has to be one of the weirdest episodes of South Park ever, Towelie killed that line. They used it over and over, and to be honest I'm kinda pissed off they brought him back. At the end of "Towelie" in the 4th season, Cartman said, "You're the worst character ever Towelie."

And he was right. Towelie is a one time character. You really can't bring him back and have plots surround him routinely.

Last Night's Episode



It only kills what was so funny about him. Unfortunately Trey and Matt didn't care. I'm guessing it may have something to do with Comedy Central not showing Mohammed in last weeks episode, and the two of em are probably kind of pissed about it. None of the four boys makes an appearance in last nights episode, and with the incredibly stupid storyline, you kinda get the sense that Trey and Matt don't care anymore.

I think South Park may be nearing it's end, and it sucks. It's not like The Simpsons, South Park is still a good show. It shouldn't end now, but I think it's going to.

I don't think the relationship between South Park and Comedy Central can be reconciled after last week, and it pisses me off.

Zach Morris Ain't Got Shit On This Kid

If I ever have a son, part of me hopes he's a lil something like this kid.

Triumphant Return!

I played some poker today for the first time in about 2 weeks.

I still pwn all bitches.

$27!! I was also informed I am the suckout king by Muskrat22 when my Ace ten sooooted took out his 33.

Keepin It Real Since 1980,

The Suckout King

I Finally Made A Decision

Some of you may remember a while ago when I asked for your help. (I Need Your Help) I was going to get myself a White Sox jersey for Christmas.

Well I never did. Now however thanks to my tax return I finally decided to buy one.

Who did I get?

It was so obvious from the beginning that I never even considered it.

When Aaron Rowand was traded to the Phillies for Jim Thome I was without a favorite White Sox. Now the obvious choice would have been Paul Konerko, but I tend to stay away from the studs when it comes to my favorites.

Joe Crede was an obvious choice. Long called Joey Clutch by friends and I, Crede has always been one of our favorites.

Even before last season. A couple of years ago if you asked me or Kevin who we wanted at the plate with 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth, with runners on 2nd and 3rd, and the White Sox down 1 we would have said, "Joe Crede."

Keep in mind Joe is like a career .260 hitter. Not exactly impressive. The key is that Joe gets a hit every time it really matters. That didn't become evident to the rest of the nation til the playoffs last year, but Joey Clutch has been doing that for years.

All that along with the fact I spent the majority of my Little League career playing third base and it's a natural selection. From Robin Ventura to Joe Crede, I've seen some of the greatest defense ever played by a third baseman.

I never got to see Brooks Robinson play, but I doubt what he did could have been that much better than what I see Joe Crede do on a near daily basis.

It's gonna be an honor to wear that 24 jersey.

Keepin It Real Since 1980,

Tom

So I've Been Kinda Busy

And not much has been happening around me lately. So you've all probably noticed the abundancy of pictures on this blog.

Well I do that cuz it's a cheap easy way to make a post. I don't really have to do any thinking that way, save for a humorous caption.

As for why I don't write so much here there are a couple of reasons.

• The Chicago White Sox and baseball in general-It's consuming most of my free time.
• My sports column-I write a lot over there, and unlike this blog it involves research and time. So by the time I'm done writing it I don't want to write anything else.
• I'm working on a book-Yes that's right. I've started to write what may one day be a novel. I have no idea when I'll be done or how hard it will be. At the moment though I'm enjoying it. No I won't tell you what it's about.

So if you are hoping for a real entry from me today, I'm sorry. That's all your gonna get.

Ok, you can have this hilarious picture with my great caption attached to it too.

Remember, in soccer you can't use your hands

Don't ditch this blog just yet, cuz there will be posts, real ones too, in the near future. I promise.

Keepin It Real Since 1980,

Tom

How To Enjoy A Rain Delay

PICTURE OF THE DAY

Mark Buehrle knows how to have a good time.

EDIT:Unfortunately, baseball doesn't know how to have fun anymore.

Careful What You Wish For

A man is taking a walk on the beach one evening when he comes upon a woman crying. As he gets closer he notices the woman has no arms or legs.

"Why are you crying?" he asks her.

"It's my birthday today, and nobody has wished me a Happy Birthday."

"Well then, let me be the first. Happy Birthday!"

"Thank you."

So the man starts to walk away when again the woman begins to cry.

"Well now what's wrong kiddo?"

"Well, it's just......I've never been kissed in my entire life, and I was wondering.....it bein my birthday and all....."

The man looks around and sees nobody on the beach or in the water.

"Why I'd be honored."

The man then bends over and give the woman a kiss. Afterwards he starts to walk away.

Again the woman begins to cry, and the man becomes some what irritated.

"Now whats wrong with you?"

"Well...I've never been screwed in my life, and I'm afraid I never will be. It's not easy to meet men when you have no arms or legs."

The man thinks for a minute. Looks around and sees no witnesses.

"Fine," he says reluctantly.

The man walks over to the woman, and picks her up. He then throws here into the ocean.

"There. Now you're screwed."

Jim Thome is a Monster

Good lord, Jim Thome did it again today. He's homered in 4 straight games (All White Sox wins BTW) and has 6 already on the season.

The leading cause of death for baseballs

If you take into account the last week of spring training and the man now has 14 home runs in his last 16 games.

I miss Aaron Rowand, but every Thome bomb helps ease the pain. As of now he's on pace for 107 homers and 162 RBI.

I'm guessin he'll round out about 85 long balls, unless the ball stays as juiced as it is at the moment. Then pry around 100 easy.

Keepin It Real Since 1980,

Tom

An Argument for Batting Gloves

On Monday night I went and played baseball with Bill, Tony, Dave and Tim. One of us would pitch, one would hit, and the other three played the outfield.

Well it was the first time I faced any kind of pitching since last summer, and I wasn't wearing batting gloves. That's a bad combination. Hopefully next time I'll remember what Moises Alou taught me and pee on my hands before I hit.

Anyway, the fact that I didn't use batting gloves leads to our Picture of the Day

PICTURE OF THE DAY

Yes, it hurts.

God-The Original Gangsta

I wrote this following entry a while ago, but never posted it. The reason for this was that I have a few friends who are quite religious, and they read this blog, so I wanted to respect their beliefs. Then I realized that if I could be so respectful of their beliefs, they HAVE to respect mine. It's only fair. So now I'm gonna post it.

Friedrich Nietzsche said a long time ago "God is dead."Well he was wrong. God is alive and well, and still killing people daily.You see that's what God does. He kills. Maybe not directly, but through his "message."

I was raised as a Catholic. Just your typical good Italian/Scottish kid goin to church like mommy and daddy wanted him to. Well, at the risk of sounding completely full of myself, I really wasn't your typical kid. I was pretty smart, and I had test scores to prove it. In fact I think in like 5th grade on the CAT (California Aptitude Test) test that all grade school kids in the country we're required to take I scored in the 99th percentile. So there were like 5 kids in the entire country who scored higher than me, and I'll bet you they were all Asian. So I took solace in the fact I was the smartest non-Asian kid in the country.

Who needs girls when you have the comforts of a good book?

But I digress.

See, I went to public school cuz my parents couldn't afford Catholic school. My twin sister and I still needed some God in us though, so on Saturdays in my childhood I was forced to go to CCD. (Catholic version of Sunday school....just on Saturday mornings.....early Saturday mornings) So while millions of other American children celebrated freedom from the concrete and brick walls of education, I was stuck learning about the J-Man and his daddy. Then on top of it I still had to go to church on Sunday.

What the fuck!?

Dude, I'm seriously sorry about nailing your girlfriend man. We're still cool right?

So you're telling me that not only do I have to get up early on Saturday and sacrifice vital playing time for God, but now I have to miss the first half of the Bears game too!?

God is a sadistic evil bastard.

It wasn't just missed playing time, and Bears games though. It was the whole institution of the thing. See like I mentioned earlier, I was always a smart kid, but that didn't mean I liked being told what to think. I'm still very much the same, and well, the church pissed me off. I don't like being told what to think, let alone believe in.

There were other aspects that pissed me off as I got older too.

Not just the typical if God loves us why do bad things happen thoughts either, though those were also prominent questions I'd ask myself. Also, if God loves us, why do we need to pay him for it? I thought it was unconditional? I used to get so pissed when my mom would make me give a dollar to the donation plate. I mean I was like 8, $1 was most of my income.

So when I was 12 I had a heart to heart with my mom. I had just finished the 7th grade of CCD and had been confirmed by the church. I did everything I needed to do to be an actual Catholic. So I told my mom I was through with church.

War raged in our household that Sunday morning. My mom was 100% that the only reason I didn't want to go was football. This was partly true, but it was mostly I didn't believe in any of it, and was just overall loathsome of the entire institution.

Plus my dad never had to fucking go to church so why the hell should I have to!?

So as it's probably clear now, I'm not a fan of the church. Not just the Catholic church, hell not even the church.

Religion.

I fucking hate it. Like Karl Marx said it's the "opiate of the masses."It's for the weak willed, and the weak minded. I'm a firm believer in the fact the only thing a human being has ever needed, and will ever need in life is themselves.

In our brain.

This God we all seek is in our brain, and I don't just mean as a figment of our imagination. Humans can only use a limited capacity of their mind. We really don't even know what we are fully capable of.

Like in my life I've seen ghosts.

I saw them in my childhood home, and I see them now on my way home from work. Some say I'm crazy when I tell them, and some believe me. I think I'm perfectly sane, and that I, for some reason or another, have access to a part of my brain that not everybody else does. That it allows me to see things others can't. Kind of like how psychics work. (Not the Miss Cleo kind mahn!)

Most of society is skeptical and calls us out of touch. Keep in mind that these are the same people who have no problem accepting stories of a man walking on water, dying and then RISING FROM THE DEAD and walking to heaven as fact.

Me seeing a ghost however...............

I mean think about it. What would be the first thing you thought if some guy with bad hygiene and long hair came up to you today and told you he was the son of God? I don't deny Jesus was a real person. I don't deny Moses was real, Mohammed, L. Ron Hubbard, any of em. They weren't Gods though. Hell Jesus was probably nothing more than a schizophrenic, it's just nobody knew what the hell schizophrenia was then.

I haven't even gotten started on all the people that religion has killed yet. It's a pretty well known fact that religion has been behind just about every major war (World War's aside.) in our world's history. One need not look past what's going on in the Middle East right now. We have George W. Bush (The W stands for Warrior of God) on his own personal crusade against Islam.

Obviously Islam is not innocent in this. They want to kill people for drawing cartoons and converting to Christianity. Hell they'll probably declare a Jihad on me for writing this entry.

I dare you to ask me to show my tits.

You want world peace?

Get rid of religion.

Then the people of the world can start to realize everything that they have in common instead of focusing on the one thing they have different.

Religion was a necessity thousands of years ago because we didn't know anything about ourselves yet, and had no means to find out. So it was created to soothe our fear and concern.It's 2006 now. If there was a heaven we would have found it.

God isn't dead. He was never alive.

A Confession

I have a confession to make. A secret I've kept for a while that not even my closest of friends are aware of.

I'm a closet St. Louis Cardinals fan.

There I said it. I've liked the Cardinals since 1987 when I watched them in the NLCS against the San Francisco Giants. Players like Willie McGee, Vince Coleman, and the Wizard of Oz, Ozzie Smith. I've continued to like them since.

Now I don't follow them religiously, but my friends never really seemed to notice or ask me why I had a Cardinal hat for so long. Now you know. Another factor was that while living down in Champaign Billy and I didn't have cable for the first year down there. That meant I couldn't watch any White Sox games, and could only listen on radio or go to the bar.

I could watch the Cardinals though as they were shown on the WB affiliate in Champaign at least twice a week. Being a whore for baseball I watched every chance I got. It wasn't exactly torture either. Anybody who complains about watching Albert Pujols is an idiot.

Why is this such a secret?

Well here in Chicago there is a prevalence to hate all things St. Louis. It's right on the Illinois/Missouri border, and they even consider the shitty part of the city (East St. Louis) Illinois.

As far as sports go Chicagoans hate St. Louis. Cub fans absolutely despise the Cardinals as the two teams share one of the more storied rivalries in all of sports. We hate the Rams, and the Blues too. I'm not a Cub fan though, so I've never really been taught to hate the Cardinals.

The thing is my Sox fan friends hate them just because of the St. Louis connection. So I've kept it a secret from them too.

Why am I bringing all of this up?

Cuz it's my picture of the day. The Cardinals will be throwing out the first pitch in their brand new ballpark in about 10 minutes. I'm going to watch the game as I am excited to see the stadium and I watch every Cardinal game I can. In fact it's one of the main reasons I ordered the MLB Extra Innings package.

Now don't get me wrong, if the Cardinals were to ever play the White Sox in the World Series there would be no controversy. I'd be White Sox all the way. I'm a White Sox fan, and a Cardinal admirer. There's a large difference. I'd want Bobby Jenks putting one in Albert Pujols' ear. No question.

Well that felt really good to get off my chest. So let's get to it then.

PICTURE OF THE DAY

The new Busch Stadium. Ain't it purty?

Picture of the Day 4-7-06

This one is courtesy of Silvio. It can be found on my seldom used MySpace page.

Hello, My Name Is Tomas

Well there's a first time for everything apparently, and today was a milestone day in the life that has been Tom Fornelli.

You see for the first time in my life I was confused for a Mexican. While at work today a man came up to me and asked me a question in Spanish. I understood one sentence, but I responded with the same thing I always say when I hear people speakin espanol.

"Que?"

He then asked me again before I got Angel to answer his question for him.

As for the lack of entries on this blog, I do apologize. For what I'm not sure. But you see between work and all the Tivo'd baseball I have waiting for me when I get home from work, there's little time left for blogging.

See, I'm a HUGE baseball fan, and a football fan. Unlike football though, baseball is played everyday for 6 months, and I have the MLB Extra Innings package which allows me to watch any baseball game from around the country. Then of course there are always my White Sox. I must recommend to any of you readers, if you love baseball get the Extra Innings. You won't be sorry.

In other very interesting news I found out that Barack Obama will be at my job on Wednesday next week. So if any of you have any questions you want me to ask him while we talk feel free to let me know. If I can get a good interview with him I will post it here.

Well, it's time to go drink beer and watch my White Sox.

Keepin It Real Since 1980,
Tom