Champagne Supernova

I keep hearing more Oasis on the radio lately, which is awesome, as I'm going to see them in concert in a couple months. Yes, I know they're very 1996, but still awesome. Also awesome: they've been playing more hip hop and country on 99.9 lately. I heard "Yeah!" today (aka the song I will never, ever get sick of, though I still want to know what "foot patrol" is), and I've heard Keith Urban ("Days Go By") and Rascal Flatts ("God Bless the Broken Road") on there lately. On the topic of country music: I've been hearing more old Garth lately on 99.5 and 98.3, and I've heard a couple fairly depressing songs. The first, "If Something Should Happen" by Darryl Worley, deals with a man who thinks he's going to die and wants his friend to take care of his family "if something should happen." I am not a fan of this song, it's so sappy, but yet I feel compelled to listen just to see what happens. It's like the Days of Our Lives of country songs. Another song I've heard recently is Martina McBride's "God's Will," about a handicapped boy. This one is just way too over the top for me, it's like a Very Special Episode of Different Strokes. The worst part: when the singer describes the boy, she says, "Will don't walk too good, Will don't talk too good." Martina, I'm thinking YOU "don't talk too good." Let's work on our own grammar before we judge the grammar of others, shall we? In "Classic Country," I heard two of my favorite Alabama songs ("Angels Among Us" and "I'm in a Hurry"), and the John Michael Montgomery song about the Grundy County auction. I always wondered if there was another Grundy County besides the one near us (I imagine an auction in Morris would sell corn and wares from "Adult Book Store").
On to the weekend. Friday night Courtney and I met up with Mike and Brian for the much hyped "Ice Friday" at Sapphire. Basically, "Ice Fridays" consist of an hour of free vodka drinks, then techno/industrial music. I am not a vodka fan, but it was a cool promotion, and again I was shocked that there weren't a lot of people there. More than Thursday, but still not many. Come on everyone, they're GIVING LIQUOR AWAY, you'd think that would bring in some customers. The music was amusing because rather than exclusively playing hard core techno, I heard a dance remix of Ashlee Simpson's "La La." We hung out there for a while, then Court and I went over to Samy's briefly. Again, at the door we were greeted with free liquor; the bouncer handed us test tube shots. Samy's was unexciting except for the appearance of a few former bar favorites: the "pseudofamily." "Dad" had the night off, but "Mom," "Brother," and "Sister" were out on the dance floor, rotating partners as usual. I want to understand the mystery, and yet I don't.

Saturday night Shannon, Joe, and I went to McBrody's for another Dueling Piano Night. It was completely packed, leading us to almost get in an altercation with a woman sitting at the bar who said we were blocking her view. Sorry, but she could still hear the piano. Among the songs played were Outkast's "Roses" and Coldplay's "Yellow," they had a really good mix. Nothing too crazy happened, except that a guy I was talking to actually referenced a country music song and I knew which one he was talking about, which scared me a little. Oh, no definite comparison yet of what celebrity reminds me of McBrody's, I need to keep working on that and I invite suggestions.

In other news, I was reading Newsweek today, and the Tipsheet column, where readers can send in questions, had a good one today: "Is a 'liger' a real animal?" Tipsheet assures the reader that ligers (and tigons!) are indeed real, but I already knew that, thanks to Shannon's sleuthing. Click the link for pictures! No word on whether they're bred for their skills in magic, though.

So my TIVO sometimes tapes Dawson's Creek reruns, and I was bored last night and started watching one. It was during the storyline where Jack (the gay guy) becomes a football star, but has trouble getting through the players without getting tackled. So Jack's friend Henry tells him that he has to come up with a "mantra" to say to himself so that he won't focus on being tackled. The mantra that Jack comes up with is "fug." As "fugly" (and any other form of the word) is one of my favorite words, I was highly entertained by this, and even more so when Henry picks up the mantra and runs directly at Jen (whose hair is always kind of fugly) while screaming, "Fug! Fug!" I don't know if anyone else will find this amusing, but I had to share.

In Herald News news, I enjoyed the food columnist's column on cider today. We also had a couple good blotter entries:

Man attacked with pipe
JOLIET — A pipe-wielding duo attacked a man outside the North Center Street Wendy's Sunday.
A teenage girl flagged down police shortly after 11 p.m. and told them she witnessed the ambush outside Wendy's at 104 N. Center St.. Police then met with the beaten man who told them he was jumped by two men he could not describe. These men hit him in the side of the head with a metal pipe, police said.
The girl who witnessed the attack reportedly described the man's assailants.
Police called for fire department paramedics to assist the man, who had suffered a cut and swelling to his right eye.
The man would not cooperate with paramedics, police said. He refused treatment, refused to go to the hospital, refused to sign a waiver of treatment, refused to allow pictures of his injury to be taken, popped out of the ambulance and walked over to O'Charlie's bar, police said.

While obviously the crime itself is serious (and stuff keeps happening at that Wendy's), obviously the injuries were not that severe if the victim could pop out and go to O'Charley's.

Dog stolen from shop
JOLIET — A man stuffed a Yorkshire terrier under his shirt and absconded with it from a North Larkin Avenue pet shop Monday. The dog thief struck Petland at 1408 N. Larkin Ave. about 6 p.m. A 23-year-old employee of the store reportedly spotted the man sneaking out of the store with the Yorkshire terrier in his sweat shirt. The employee called out to the man and he responded by running. Two employees gave chase but the dognapper proved elusive. The crook reportedly is an 18-year-old stocky Hispanic man, about 5-foot-5 with short black hair. He was wearing a red and black baseball cap, blue jeans, white shoes and a black hooded sweat shirt with a Yorkshire terrier underneath it.
The dog reportedly is worth $1,399.

That's comic gold right there. I can't stop laughing. I think that's it for now, more news later!