Jack Attack

I finally found a very special treat for the Whiskey Tango viewing audience: the
Jackhammer Jingle. I know I've mentioned this before, but now I've found it online. It's a must-listen! The song is written by Tim Placher, who wrote the Herald News columns about fine dining in Joliet earlier this summer, and the website has a few of his other columns. Anyway, the song is hilarious (my favorite line: "Secure your hard hats, put on protective gear!" and I don't know why they don't play it at the Jackhammer games. Speaking of the Jackhammers, their official website had me doubled over laughing today. Listed under July 17 on their calendar is Post Game Player Appearance: "Come to Heroes and Legends post game to meet some of our JackHammers players! This event is brought to you by Budweiser." I never knew that seeing the Jackhammers at the bar was a sponsored "event," I just figured it was a given.

In other random news (not much really happening this week, but I have to write something), I was again watching fun new cable at lunch today, this time the Nick Games and Sports Channel, which shows those old Nickelodeon game shows from when we were kids, like Double Dare, Finders Keepers, etc. The show was Get the Picture, a combination trivia/guess the picture game with the dumbest contestants known to man. Example, one question was, "What countries have the following monuments:Statue of Liberty, the Louvre, and the Eiffel Tower?" The first team said New York for the Statue of Liberty. The host said, "I'm sorry, we're looking for the country." The other team's answer? "Manhattan." However, I was very amused by another question: "Van Halen has had two lead singers. Name them." One team did not attempt, and the other got David Lee Roth, but guessed Eddie Van Halen for the second. Somehow, noone knew about Sammy! The host gave the correct answer and quoted "I Can't Drive 55" in the process. Good stuff. Nothing else new going on here, the Heroes update will come tomorrow. Adios!

You Say Tomato

Lots to talk about!! First, I already put this in the tagboard, but I'll put the link here so it's easier to reach: my friend Mike from NU is modeling for Polo Jeans. He was chosen because of his work for a nonprofit organization, Teach for America. Yay Mike!
In other news, I have to give a big shout out to Rob. When he and Courtney were over before we all went out Saturday night, he introduced me to the fact that I have a lot of cable channels I didn't know about. My new favorite channel is VH-1 Classic, they have old school videos. Today I saw the video for I'll Be Loving You Forever by New Kids, which took me back to my 5th grade days. I have to say that I must have only seen the New Kids from the front when I liked them, because they have some crazy ass hairstyles in the back (mullets, tails, and what not). Last night I saw one of my favorite videos on MTV2, "No Sex in the Champagne Room" by Chris Rock. My favorite line: "If a homeless person has a funny sign, he hasn't been homeless that long. A real homeless person is too hungry to be funny." Also: "Cornbread. Ain't nothing wrong with that!" Apparently they have a metal show on VH1 Classic, that's gotta be awesome. Speaking of '80's metal (and I promise this is my last music video comment), I was checking around when I was home for lunch and saw a "First Look" at some Mariah Carey video that was a cover of the Def Leppard song "Bringin' on the Heartbreak." Now for some reason I can't remember the original, but Mariah Carey should not cover Def Leppard. Actually, she shouldn't sing in general, but she should especially not cover Def Leppard. It was really bad, and I swear Joe Millionaire is in the video. This just should not be.

Ok, back to birthday fun. I definitely had one of the best birthdays ever this year. Even the giant storms on Thursday did not stop our fun. Thursday we went to Heroes. Most of the details of this night, as you can imagine, are hazy, but I'll give a couple highlights. Shannon and I spotted one of the funniest T-shirts ever; it read, "You say tomato, I say f**k you." Such wit. Another quality shirt had an arrow pointing up toward the wearer's head, reading "The Man," and an arrow pointing to his crotch, reading, "The Legend." Basically there was a lot of drinking, some dancing, and a lot of entertainment all around, as I ran around wearing my "Birthday Girl" ribbon(thanks Nance!) and telling everyone it was my birthday. Thanks again to everyone who came out to celebrate, it was a great night.

Friday was the Journey/Sammy Hagar/38 Special concert. Unfortunately I couldn't bring my camera in so I could document my fellow concertgoers on film, but you can only imagine the amount of entertainment we encountered. We bought lawn seats, and while we were entertained by a burly man sitting by us telling stories about beating someone with a broomstick(?) (I have to ask Court and Rob for confirmation on that one), we opted for the $10 upgrade to pavilion. The concert was pretty good: 38 Special actually have TWO songs I know, Sammy Hagar played "Dreams," probably my favorite Van Halen song (though Rob said he did a lot more Van Halen last year), and "I Can't Drive 55," and Journey was. . .Journey. I'm still amazed that I actually saw them live. Even without Steve Perry (and fake blond permed Steve Perry sounds exactly like them), they were great. They had strange video footage to accompany the songs, some of which went with the songs (ie wheels for "Wheel in the Sky") and others were just strange (ie video that looked like the movie in "The Ring"). Our fellow concert goers included a man with a silver flask, a woman who played air drums up and down the aisle like the Little Drummer Boy (no high hat with the souped up tempo), and many, many, many mullets of all colors, shapes, sizes, and (probably genders). They did all my favorite songs, and I was a very happy camper, though I wisely took the night off from drinking and did not enjoy any giant beers in guitar shaped cups.
Other adventures of the weekend included going to the Pub in Lisle (we randomly got free macaroni salad), St. Joes Park, and seeing T3 (good movie, though I could not handle Claire Danes in an action movie. However, watch for the surprise appearance of Chris "Singled Out" Hardwick). The Herald News has been pretty lacking in entertaining blotter and Open Line entries lately, except for an Open Line item for a 65 year old man who was angry that the ice cream truck in his area hasn't been playing music, saying "Who ever heard of an ice cream truck that didn't play music?" That's all she wrote!