Interesting: What about the Houston Hemp?

Well, now it looks like the team owners of Houston 1836, the stupidest team name in American sports, have decided to change the name to something else.

What caused the change? I'd like to think logic or my persuasive skills had something to do with it, but alas, it was just politics. You see, 1836 was the year Houston was founded. It was also the year that the Republic of Texas declared independence from Mexico. Uh oh.

My suggestion: the Houston Humidity. It's unbearable!

Interesting: Lolla Peppers!

Lolla!
Originally uploaded by kuzmatt9.

Your Lollapalooza 2006 update courtesy of the Chicago Tribune Red Eye.

Interesting: Pi will blow your mind

Really.

Interesting: All Ira, All the Time

Here's a nice interview with Ira Glass of This American Life about the show leaving Chicago.

Helpful: Run, Forrest!

Here in Cook County, we've got a hot race for President of the County Board. The current president is John Stroger, an old-school patronage chief who has just about every one of his family members on the county payroll. He even built a new hospital a few years back to replace Cook County Hospital and named it after himself. That takes stones.

The best choice this year is to throw the bum out and put in Forrest Claypool, who cleaned up the Chicago Park District and has been a reliable good-government type on the County Board. If you live in Chicago or Cook County, there is early voting available from Feb. 27-March 16, so you don't even have to stand in line or run late for work in order to vote this year.

Way I look at it, voting in Forrest and Deb Shore is the second-best thing we could do politically this year.

Interesting: The Shining, Part 2?

Starring Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.

I+H: Podbop!

Brilliant. Type in your city, and
Podbop finds the bands that are coming to your town soon, and podcasts for you a list of any free mp3's that are available. Sweet!

Interesting: The last 4 episodes?

Episodes 10-13 of this season's Arrested Development are airing back-to-back on Fox, Friday night at 7:00 Central.
I love this show, and I hope Showtime picks it up for next year. Where else can you get such honest debates about fashion:

Tobias: "Well, excuse me for liking the way they shape my junk."

Helpful: Performancing!

I loaded Firefox on my iPod Shuffle so I can use it at school instead of Internet Explorer (aka the devil.) Little did I know there was an easy-peasy blog editor for Firefox! It's a little cleaner than Blogger's interface, so I'm excited to use it.

In fact, why not start things off with a fun link, courtesy of StillWorkingHitz.

Helpful: The tough questions

Today, somebody found this site by asking ask.com a very interesting question.

Somehow, I don't think he found the answer.

Interesting: Let's go Wiz!

So maybe they didn't play all that great, and maybe they got some help from the refs, but a win is a win. Go Steelers. You can find game wrap-ups everywhere, but this morning, I want to direct you to a sports issue that you may have missed which will change the city of Houston, TX forever.

As you may know, I can enjoy watching virtually any sport, including the major four, plus billiards, golf, mixed-doubles tennis, lacrosse, boxing, world's strongest man, obscure olympic sports (especially water polo and curling) and lumberjacking. This broad appreciation of sports has helped me notice a major trend in the world of competitive athletics:

Team names in all sports are getting more and more ridiculous.

In the major American leagues of baseball, football, basketball, and hockey, the majority of teams have names that refer to living creatures or otherwise tangible objects, such as:
Animals
Human Occupations or Classifications (Packers, Steelers, Pirates, Mariners, Yankees, Redskins)
Articles of Clothing (Sox, Reds)

Starting in the 90's, with the expansion of more minor league teams in even more sports, I guess they just ran out of scary animals. The main offender here was the WBNA, which is full of bogus mascots:

Natural Phenomena: Storm, Stars, Comets, Sun, Sky
Unwanted Mental or Physical Conditions: Shock, Fever, Sting
Singular animal that sounds like it's plural: Lynx

Now, in a show of collective incompetence unseen since the Enron debacle, the people of Houston have decided to name their new Major Soccer League team:

Houston 1836.

That's right--it came to a vote, and the people of Houston named their team a number. Now, I love soccer, and I know that a few German teams have similar names, but that doesn't make this any less stupid. This is America, and if we can't have a cheer that goes "Here we go ________, here we go (clap, clap)" how are we supposed to follow along?

Interesting: New Navy Pier?

Yes, now that I'm a planning student, I'm paying attention to these things! Navy Pier, the top tourist attraction in Illinois, is looking at doing $400 million of improvements. See the plans here.

I think the water park, huge Ferris Wheel, and floating parking structures are a little obnoxious, but I love the monorail is a great idea -- anything to help improve the transit getting to the Pier and getting around. Oh, and monorails are always cool.

Update: I forgot to mention that I heard about this on "Hello, Beautiful", a radio show about art, design, architecture and urban planning. Who knew?

Helpful: The Rules

I'm glad I found this book on clearance at B&N last weekend. According to Esquire:

#217: Melon should be more popular.

#140: The best vowel modifier is the umlat.

#162: You can't think of the Gutenberg Bible without thinking of Steve.

#247: Any word employed as a prefix for "pants" results in a word that is funny, e.g.,
finickypants
funkypants
happypants
googlypants
nancypants
and boogly-booglypants.

And so on...

Helpful: PBWiki

I've been using PBWiki for about a year now. I used it to help manage our church fundraiser, and now I'm using it to help do a group project at school. The great thing about wiki's is that anyone in the group can easily add notes, photos, data, and links, and everyone in the group can check them out immediately. The user interface is pretty easy, too.

Oh yeah, and the basic account is free, too. Click the sandwich to check it out.

Helpful: Translation

Alberto Gonzales, at his confirmation hearing last year:

"I can't answer hypothetical questions."

Translation:

"I can't answer hypothetical questions truthfully."

I+H: An inclusive church

Just came over the wire:


Holy Covenant United Methodist Church invites all people to our

Reconciling Sunday Worship Service
celebrating ministry with
people of all sexual orientations

Sunday, February 12
10:30 am
925 W. Diversey Parkway, Chicago


Guest preacher: Beth Stroud, recently removed from the clergy for being in a covenant relationship with another woman.

Beth will offer wisdom from her experience and hope for all of our journeys. Come to be inspired. Come to be sent out for justice.

All are really welcome!
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Holy Covenant United Methodist Church
making room for all God's people + seeking justice for all God's people + finding joy with all God's people

Interesting: A new obsession

Did you watch last night?