April 29, 2005

Infestation

A co-worker this morning treated me to the all-time worst ear bug imaginable (and I just have to share it)…

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip,
That started from this tropic port,
Aboard this tiny ship.

The mate was a mighty sailing man,
The skipper brave and sure.
Five passengers set sail that day,
For a three hour tour, a three hour tour.

Go ahead and finish it – I did the hard part for you.

Posted by Clancy at 9:04 AM | Comments (5)

April 26, 2005

Chicago Impressions

(I wrote most of this in the airport on the way home. It took a nagging email from Jim to get me to post it. So, without further ado...)

The traffic sucks. And the drivers, as Jim observed, are just a bit crazy. I suspect that has everything to do with my first sentence – the traffic sucks, ergo the drivers get crazy.

It took 45 minutes to go from my hotel to the rental car return, and that was a 3 mile trip. (and as a quick aside – I normally spent too much time gripping about horrible customer service, but Enterprise provided uncommonly outstanding customer service so if you have to go to Chicago anytime in the near future, check them out.)

Downtown Chicago (well, the millennium park/miracle mile part) is very cool. The architecture is beautiful and the history quite colorful. I wish I’d had more time to explore it all.

Unfortunately, I was in a training class that totally baked my poor little brain and I didn’t do much else during my stay. Each night when I got back to the hotel the only thing I wanted was copious amounts of alcohol to kill the brain cells still twitching from over stimulation. The good news is I learned a lot. The bad news is, aside from the night I got out with Jim & Elizabeth, I saw very little of the windy city.

Meeting Jim and Elizabeth was my first blogger meet. And before Monday, I’d never even been to Elizabeth’s blog. You’ll find it over in my extra short blogroll now – check her out – she writes much better than I. And check out this post too – this is a short compendium of her “best of” just for moi.

Oh yeah – pictures… Here are some pictures from my trip downtown. They were taken at dusk and later and even then just with my 1 MP palm w/o a flash. All things considered, they’re not too bad…

First off - here is the "Bean"

OK, maybe it's not the bean. They're doing something to it so to be a wise ass I took a picture of the tent covering the "bean." Why does Chicago have a giant statute of a coffee bean anyway? Shouldn't that be in Seattle instead? (btw - Elizabeth has a better picture here.


This is the Aon Center (formally Amoco, formally Standard Oil) located just off Millenium Park. At one time it was the fourth tallest building in the world (I think).


This is the Smurfit-Stone Building. I have no idea what smurfs had to do with the name. (You can actually see a pretty good shot of it behind Elizabeth's bean picture linked above.) It was featured in the film Adventures In Babysitting.


Ok, now these pictures are of the "Spitting People." There are actually two of these large glass block buildings facing each other onto which images of regular Chicago residents are projected upon from the inside.


So why are they spitting? Well, there is a fountain located right where their mouths are and they shoot at each other. It's probably fun on a hot summer day...


And this is a little art treasure located on Daley Plaza. Look close, it should be pretty obvious that it's a Picasso.


And of course I also snapped a discrete picture of Jim and Elizabeth to prove that I really did see them. But I won't post that as to maintain Elizabeth’s anonymity... :-)

Posted by Clancy at 10:39 PM | Comments (3)

April 25, 2005

Hospital Rapes Woman

"I have got a child now that I wasn't planning to have and I believe the hospital should take some responsibility for that…”

WTF? She’s right of course - Why should anyone be forced to accept responsibility for ones own actions anyway?

If anyone in this case has a lawsuit, it’s the child against her mother for killing her sister.

(This is a topic I normal avoid like the plague, but in this case I have to comment.)

Posted by Clancy at 10:38 AM | Comments (1)

April 20, 2005

Another Broken Heart

Our dream home just happens to be very close to where I lived prior to (and after) meeting Mrs. Clancy. When I lived there prior, I was a smoker and as such I made frequent trips to the local 7-Eleven to cure my cravings for ciggi-butts. But shortly after falling for the Mrs., I finally persuaded myself to give up that habit and subsequently I rarely have any need to go to said 7-Eleven. But just last weekend, I stopped in and was reminded of another reason I seem to have been avoiding the place.

One of the cashiers is a red-headed (auburn actually) middle-eastern man who, although not exactly obvious, is definitely gay. And he always finds a way to treat me just a little extra nice. (I do that often – I must have a pretty good gaydar jammer because guys hit on me quite often.) This time, when the clerk saw me, his face lit up. As I reached for my wallet his eyes fell to my left hand where a big ole golden band now occupies my ring finger. You could literally see his expression fall as he slowly withdrew all the while fixing his gaze at the ring.

Fortunately he recovered quickly and as I was leaving asked, “You no have a cute brother?” I just smiled. There was no sense in breaking his heart twice in one day…

Posted by Clancy at 9:26 AM

Yoda Update

Yesterday Mrs. Clancy emailed me to tell me that baby Yoda had the hiccups. Wow – who knew babies could have hiccups (at 22 weeks)?

Then, after we went to bed last night, Yoda decided it was time to hit the gym and went for either a jog or a quick worked-out with the punching bag. Whichever the case, Daddy (yours truly) got to feel the little monster for the first time. Wow.

Posted by Clancy at 9:17 AM | Comments (1)

April 19, 2005

Stay Tuned...

I have two posts written, I just need to get them to the blog! I wrote both in the airport coming home last week and I haven't had a free minute to post them. (I was just deleting the daily trackback spam, saw another empty mainpage, and had to pop in).

So, anyway, keep checking back. In the meanwhile, peruse the blogroll to the left.

Posted by Clancy at 9:07 PM

April 6, 2005

They’re Just After Michael Money!!

No, not the gloved pedophile freakmare – the other Michael; Michael Vick (quarterback, Atlanta Falcons) who is being sued by a woman for giving her herpes.

Claiming that Michael Vick gave her herpes, a Georgia woman is suing the star NFL quarterback for negligence and battery. According to the below lawsuit, Sonya Elliot, a 26-year-old health care worker, was infected with the sexually transmitted disease in April 2003 after an unprotected encounter with Vick at the athlete's Duluth, Georgia home.

So, this woman who is described as a “health care worker” had consensual unprotected sex and as a result now as herpes. As a health care worker she should be even more aware than the average person what the risks are to unprotected sex. She very well could have contracted crabs, genital warts, hepatitis, gonorrhea, syphilis, or the HIV (just to name a few). And for the record – some of those diseases can kill you. Oh, and pregnancy too – It seems that pregnancy is also a risk associated with unprotected sex. Who knew?

So anyway, now she has the herpes, which like luggage, is something you keep forever. And yes, Michael should have told her that he had the herpes before they did the nasty. But he didn’t and thus LIED to her! OMG! A man lied to get sex. What’s this world coming too?

So, just to recap, a woman who by all rights should have known better, had unprotected sex with a guy who lied to her. And now she has the herpes. Do you suppose she was just stupid?

Last December, Vick, the top overall pick in the 2001 National Football League draft, signed a ten-year, $130 million contract with the Falcons, the richest deal in league history.

Probably, but she’ll be a rich, having the herpes forever, stupid person.


And just for the record – people who have unprotected sex in this day and age deserve what they get.

Posted by Clancy at 9:46 AM | Comments (2)

April 4, 2005

Is Nothing Sacred?

Yeah, I know, there are plenty of things to complain about. But, this is something I think we can all agree is just plain wrong. Sesame Street producers are putting the Cookie Monster on a diet.


No, Cookie Monster isn't being turned into a "Carrot-Stick Monster." But he will learn that, as one of the show's new nutrition-oriented songs puts it, "A cookie is a sometime food."

What’s next? Will they bring Oscar in off the street & put him in a homeless shelter? Perhaps Big Bird will be sent to an asylum over his imaginary friend (Mr. Snuffalufagus sp?– he is still imaginary, right?)

Posted by Clancy at 9:30 AM | Comments (1)