Holy mackerel

A good friend from work was nice enough to coordinate a a side trip to Wrigley, including a beautiful box seat which he graciously funded. Good news: Cubs pummelled the Reds. Bad news: I was unable to attend.

The Cubs are off to a good start this year, and there is hope for October as the recent quake opened a hole in the earth and swallowed the curse goat.

Spring game

I always mean to drive up to Evanston to catch the Spring Game, but I have never once made it. This year, I can spare myself the recriminations as this glorified scrimmage-which-serves-no-purpose will be streamed live off BigTenNetwork.com. Yes, that same Big Ten Network which has been battling with Comcast for many months. Yes, that same Big Ten Network which I cannot see on my TV. Yes, that one, the one we love to hate.

old boring dead soldier

I bought this one a couple days ago but it didn't last long. Work has been pretty crappy lately, so I have been closing out my workdays with a couple stiff ones, and since I normally have a couple stiff ones during the workday, I am whizzing thru the bottles faster than normal.

This particular brand, Glen Garioch, had sort of a light, sweet taste, and I did not particularly care for it. I guess that is what Japanese (Suntory) ownership does for a scotch...come to think of it, it had a vaguely sake-like taste to it.

Go Hawks!

My friend Paul organized a little outing to see the Chicago Blackhawks. I used to be a big hockey fan, and myself and brothers and friends used to play ice hockey at the local pond every weekend during the winter. But somewhere along the line, the Hawks became famous for being fan-unfriendly and I lost the taste for the game.

But I was impressed by the energy at the United Center, and the fans were rabid and excited as the Hawks routed the Capitals 5-0. Tony Esposito, world-famous goalie, was the guest of honor and was greeted by his brother Phil, world-famous center. Tony was (and obviously still is) a huge fan favorite.

In addition to a great game, we also had beers and a cheezborger at Billy Goat's which is only a few blocks from the UC. Post-game we hit the Third Rail which was full of young urbanites who seemed primarily focused on sexual relations with members of whatever sex interested them, which baffled me as I concentrated on the giant glass of scotch which I was served.

I ate it

Yes, I ate the Sheep Dip. Despite the name, I found it to be very good, easily better than the usual mass-market Glenlivet or Glenfiddich. Next up is Caol Ila, which i have never had but which is purported to have a light and interesting taste to it.

Spring is sprung, and the long darkenss is over

Each year, an exciting event occurs which heralds the end of the dark cold winter, and signals a renewal of hope and life for all.

Go Cats!

Eponymous

From Wiktionary:

"Of, relating to, or being the person after which something is named"

One might ask what marketing genius came up with this....but let's not go there.

Weather

The weather in Chicago today: Partly sunny, -1 Farenheit, 35 mile-per-hour winds, windchill of -24 Farenheit.

The weather in Mesa today: Partly sunny, +48 Farenheit, windchill of +44 Farenheit.

A bad omen

In his previous position, neophyte head coach Pat Fitzgerald was also the recruiting coordinator for the Wildcats. Maybe he needs to go back to that, as the recruiting rankings issued today show the Cats tied for 72nd (with Troy!). Big Ten teams that did worse? Indiana. Yea, that's it, our recruiting class was second-to-last in the conference. And no, that does not make me feel good about burning a bunch of dough on season tickets. Click a link or two and venture over to Hail to Purple to see if they are more optimistic...but look at it this way. Would you prefer to have a good record or a good recruiting class? We know which Charlie Weis has!

Busted

Detective Pescado Cabeza reports that the Clarendon Hills police have apprehended the notorious two-bit gambling criminal known as The Commish. The booking picture is particularly embarrassing but there it is.

What people do on the Internet

Ever wonder what people spend so many hours doing on the Internet? Of course I can only answer that from my limited perspective. For me, I read the Scotch blog, order cigars, surf for porn, and of course read the sports. My kids do AIM, My Space, and surf for porn. What do other people do? Well....all I can tell you is what I see in my hit counter. Here is what people have recently google'd which caused them to land at Fish Head.

As you can see, my reference to the literary giant Dick, yielded many hits. Now what does this mean? Is Mr. Dick's work (and his freaky android head) really that popular? Or is it more likely that dickbot is code word for some porno stuff? Let's keep going. What might you guess was being searched for by the lonely soul who google'd on "purdue coeds"? Dude, I've been to Purdue games and they are not really very cute. And what freak searched for "toxoplasmosis libido"?

This could go on and on. Darts anyone? Who associates darts with porn? Apparently the British do, as after casually mentioning darts in a post, Fish Head was repeatedly hit from various UK locations with various and sundry hits searching on darts.

Lastly, we have the browser challenged individual who apparently doesn't understand what a bookmark is, and is thus forced to repetitively find my blog by searching on "fishheadonastick". Maybe he could buy a copy of Internet for Dummies and learn how to use a browser.

This was absolutely not mine!

Because of course I would get the one with the long lasting batteries :-)

Yellow submarine ?

I finished the very excellent bottle of Highland Park which I bought a few weeks ago (at least I hope it was at least a few weeks ago!). I was very impressed by its smooth but somewhat biting taste.

My next choice is the somewhat oddly marketed Bruichladdich. No, I can't pronounce that, and no, I am pretty sure I don't completely follow the connection between this Scotch and WMD, nor its connection to submarines. But its supposed to be excellent, and you can read about the weird connections here.

The ultimate IT worker insult

"Your mother was a DBA"

Flame on!

The Fish Head ventured downtown into the big city to see the UIC Flames beat the Detroit Mercy Titans, 75-65. Despite 35 points from "ugly" point guard Jon Goode, the Titans couldn't keep up with the bigger Flames.

The Fish Head's brother, a UIC alum, contributed the tickets and a pass to the Dragon's Den, the VIP room where the Fish Head quaffed Blue Moons and ate roast beef with horse radish. And the Fish Head's daughter, a UIC student, was a first-time attendee. And lastly, the Fish Head ran into a rarely seen co-worker from the past, who happens to have season tickets to the UIC games.

We closed the nite with beers and octupus in Greek Town, which is a short drive from the UIC campus.

Dickbot

No, Dickbot does not refer to either of my brothers. Dickbot refers to the crazy robotic android head of Philip K. Dick. When I was younger, I was a voracious reader of sci fi, and occassionally read a story by the prolific Dick, whose works were later turned into famous sci-fi films such as Blade Runner. Recently, I stumbled across a copy of perhaps his finest work, The Man in the High Castle, and reading it renewed my interest in his work.

While researching other works by Mr. Dick, I stumbled upon internet articles about the Dickbot, an android head of Mr. Dick, which was recently stolen (!) and has not been recovered. Link here for more info, if you don't believe me.

Glasses

I got a set of scotch glasses for Xmas. Now you might ask, what is a scotch glass, exactly? My preference is to drink my scotch from a small, solid glass tumbler. Of which I own two of unknown provenance. The Santa-provided version are a little odd, rounded and a bit large, and apparently the elves figured if they spray-painted "Scotch" on the sides, it was a winner.

Oh, the resulting dilemma. What to put into these new glasses? Certainly not the chintzy Black provided by that two-bit grifter, the Commish. So I splurged today and bought a bottle of Highland Park, which the whiskipedia crowd is high on. I'll post a word or two later (might be later tonite) after I finish the bottle.

633 is the Sign of the Devil

No wait, that's 666. What is 633? Oh yea, that's the record number of yards of offense that USC piled up while routing the Illini in the Rose Bowl. While USC and its fans claimed the game showed USC is playing the best ball in the land, what the game really showed was the Illini are not very good, as they turned the ball over 4 times. Maybe Zook needs to play Cubbie and wait till next year.

Luddites should not use 0000

I have a special friend who I kiddingly refer to as a luddite. She is about as technology-averse as they come, but she recently made a venture into hi-tech land by purchasing a bluetooth headset. Little did she know that freaky Linux weirdos will now be hijacking her calls, injecting porn sounds into her private messages, and perpetrating other similar crazy acts upon her communications. Can you imagine being in the middle of ordering your triple vente carmellacio, and suddenly your Blackberry speakerphone begins propositioning the barista?

This just in...

According to the Clarendon Hills Gazette, local police have issued an arrest warrant for a local small-time con man, who uses the moniker "the Commish". The Commish is accused of operating rigged, illegal betting pools designed to rip off honest sports fans. Detective Pescado Cabeza of the Clarendon Hills Police Department released the attached artist sketch and vowed that the force would track down this sleazy two-bit criminal.