Center Field

Currently on the radio-the above by John Fogerty. Wasn't this in a Pizza Hut commercial years and years ago? I love this song, and it gets me excited about the upcoming Jackhammers season. Apparently the first game is two weeks from today! I can hardly wait for all the fun of Blue Jammer Juice, locals trying to get their Bull Durham on, frosted nuts, and, of course, Jammer himself. If it's fun, it's in downtown Joliet!

I've been proud of 99.9 lately, they've significantly cut down on the Steely Dan. Up the Journey and we're all good. I did get to hear a Nelson song on the station yesterday, "Love and Affection." Well, I think they only had two songs, that one and "After the Rain," so we had a 50/50 chance. Whatever happened to Matthew and Gunnar? Speaking of early 90's favorites, Shannon had the opportunity to meet AND greet Jordan Knight last night. I was unable to attend the event due to school, but I'm going to try to get Shannon to write a guest entry about this one.

Ok, time to step into my Wayback Machine and discuss the events of the past couple weekends. I'm done with school until the end of June, so updates should be more frequent for a while. Let's see. . .two weeks ago today, Shannon, Joe and I headed out to Palatine to see Gaelic Storm perform at Durty Nellie's. I love the way they spell "durty," but i think it would be amusing if they would switch it to "dirrty." The concert was a lot of fun. As usual, there were some Irish dancers, but one of the groups was a bunch of older girls who did not have the usual giant mop tops of curls and were dressed in plaid skirts. Instead of dancing to music, they simply stomped and clapped, leading Shannon, Joe, and I into a rendition of "Hollaback Girl" that amused a nearby baby boomer. Fellow Gaelic Storm fans included a man that may or may not have been the mock turtleneck wearing "Can you feel it in your legs" guy from the last Gaelic Storm concert, and a man that looked disturbingly like Danny Bonaduce. Danny B. seemed to take a liking to me and kept dancing, singing, and making an ass of himself close to our group, leading us to comments like, "The partridge has landed," and, of course, "Come on get happy." Danny also said something about Leif Erickson to me at one point for unknown reasons.

That Saturday we went up to the Aurora/Naperville area for Nancy's birthday party, and had a brief adventure at Features. Among the Features patrons for the night were a man who looked exactly like Popeye, if Popeye had laid off the spinach, turned to whiskey and aged about 30 years. Then again, I never knew how old Popeye was supposed to be. He was just so bizarre looking that he seemed ageless. We also saw a guy that looked exactly like a fuller faced version of my good friend Mike (also known by some as "Steve"). We tried to do the old "taking a picture of friends, but actually zooming in on a stranger that we want to take a picture of" trick on FauxMike, but we couldn't get things lined up well (though a really funny picture of Melanie and I where we look like we're up to no good was the result). I convinced Melanie that we should go over and explain the situation to FauxMike and see if we would be game for a picture. We did, he was, and we got a lovely picture. Amusingly enough, FauxMike's name was also Mike, and he agreed on the resemblance when I showed him pictures of the real Mike. We also had an adventure with a guy who we thought had Elton John embroidered on his fleece, but it was actually a fisherman. I would be really amused to see someone with an Elton John fleece though, so if anyone knows if these exist, let me know.

In TV news, a recent episode of The Bachelor (this season is BY FAR the best ever, it's hilarious), Charlie went to Edmonton, Alberta with bachelorette Kimberly (aka "Kim Wild," as we learned later in the episode). After she failed to seduce him in the back of her parents' pierogi restaurant, Kim took Charlie to a place called the Sapphire Club. Amusingly enough, Edmonton's Sapphire Club looked EXACTLY like Joliet's Sapphire Club. Unfortunately, they don't have a website, but it was amazing. Also in TV news, I need to catch up on a lot of shows. Apparently there were 2 hours of the OC on last night and I am quite excited about this.

We celebrated my mom's birthday last Saturday at Belle Amici's (I actually am not positive of the name, it's the Italian restaurant on Cass downtown). Though my Bananas Flambe dessert was awesome (I love tableside fire), their red sauce tasted a little too much like Ragu for my tastes. However, if I hear good things about their chicken marsala, I could be convinced to come back. Downtown Joliet note: I need to check out Fivetone, the store that looks kind of like Pac Sun. I haven't bought a good sassy tee in a while. Later in the evening, Courtney, Rob and I went on an interesting adventure to Mr. Shesha's Coffee House in Naperville. This hot spot for local teens is apparently a coffeehouse slash hookah pipe bar. Courtney and Rob had heard about it from Court's little brother and went a couple times, and this was my first trip. We got an orange flavored hookah, and it was quite entertaining. I was especially amused by the girl that carded us when we got there. I immediately asked, "How old do we have to be?" I quickly found out that 18 and up is the rule for Mr. Shesha's. Anyway, this place was quite a mix of preppy kids and skater boys, all gathered around the giant hookah pipes. I also recommend the hummus, the bread they give you to dip it in is fabulous, kind of a sweeter, flakier version of pita bread. We had a Bon Jovi fest on the way home, I had forgotten about the dramatic lyrics of "Always." Who knew Jon Bon could wax poetic with classics like, "This Romeo is bleeding, but you can't see his blood?" Then again, this is the man who came up with "I'm a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride," and "I wanna be just as close as the Holy Ghost is." I used to mock Jon Bon in the past, but now I own a "Mrs. Bon Jovi" tank top.

Other recent adventures. . . .went to Buffalo Wild Wings, aka B-Dub's, with Shannon and Joe on Wednesday night. We had a disturbingly bad waiter who blamed his shortcomings on the poor runner girl, but my wings were awesome. I like spicy things, but I tried the Thai wings before and they were way too hot for me. They were good, though, and I debated getting them again, but I decided to get teriyaki instead, and they were amazing. Not amazing, but amusing, were the number of JCA alumni lookalikes at the joint. I only saw one real alum, but 2-3 "fauxlumni."

Last night we went out for Cinco de Mayo. I had a long night, I started at Cemeno's for a final class party, had a brief rest period during which I watched half of The Apprentice (Go Tana!), then headed to Heroes, as they were advertising $2 margaritas. Heroes was pretty crowded, but not at the apex of its summer packed capacity yet. It was a little chilly, so we were only outside for a brief time, during which another patron may or may not have broken a table. We heard cracking sounds, but the bouncer didn't look too disturbed, so maybe not. Several of the usual Joliet bargoers were out. I reminisced with one of the only other people to have seen White Trashistan that fateful night in January, and had a brief conversation about hair color with a local officer of the law. I highly recommend the raspberry margaritas. Also amusing: it may have been Cinco de Mayo, but it appeared to be "Cinco de Meaty," as there were many large men in the place. Apparently everyone had taken their Flintstones vitamins the night before. I also saw several "suburban cowboys" in giant cowboy hats throughout the night.

After Heroes, we headed to Jameson's for a bit. It was quite packed, a bit surprising for an Irish bar on a Mexican holiday. Perhaps Senor Tequila's gets a huge crowd on St. Patrick's day, I don't know. Anyway, Jameson's was equally entertaining, due to a lot of crazy drunks dancing badly and a guy and girl who seemed to be having a "I hate you! I love you!" fight straight out of Days of Our Lives. Perhaps Jameson's is the new hot spot, I know they're having bands now, which is awesome and makes me miss Tuckaway. I wish Jameson's had an outdoor area though.

I believe that's all I have for now. More news soon!