cryptique

Believe me, I'm at least as cynical about politicians as you are. Dean has never set off the usual slimeball alarms for me that nearly every other politician has. That doesn't mean I think he necessarily should have won the Democratic nomination and been elected president, but I do think he's a good man.

No disagreement, again. But I've met Dean, I've talked with Dean, and if anything, his electability problems in 2004 stemmed from the lack of marketeers and PR gurus. That, and a single moment that played really badly on TV and that lots of people have been making way too much out of ever since. If you want to talk about being "mature," how about levelling that cannon toward the people who can't separate Dean from "the scream"?

Cutting a whole pizza in half and calling it "two slices" may fool people online, but the scale is a lot harder to deceive.

No, actually, I agree with your statement. I merely question why you quoted my post when making it. What I said didn't really have much to do with what you said.

What are you saying? That I couldn't possibly know that he's a damn good man? That I'm somehow immature? I have met him, by the way.

I'm not sure anyone has enough time to list all the "good" bands. Besides, it's much more fun to list the ones that suck.

The part about Howard Dean being full of shit? Yes, that's bullshit. He's a bit of a hothead and sometimes his mouth gets a little ahead of his brain, but he's a damn good man. The part about being a good liberal "without buying every bit of partisan bullshit they try to sell you"? That's one of the few things ikol's been right about. It works on the other side of the aisle too.

Tomorrow morning my entire company (700 to 800 people) will be in one of the Detroit 'burbs for an early-morning meeting. The meeting will only last for 90 minutes or so, but with construction on several of the freeways and ramps in the area, most people will probably spend at least another 90 minutes on the road, getting to the 'burbs, and then from the 'burbs to the office afterwards. Talk about a colossal waste of everyone's time. Meanwhile, there's a perfectly good room just down the road that we could be using for this meeting (indeed, we have most of our monthly staff meetings there),

And here I thought it was just Jeter.

Huh. I learn something new every day. Here's the tracklist. Not all of these are Steely Dan covers. 1 Breakout - Foo Fighters 3:21 2 Do It Again - Smash Mouth 3:57 3 Deep Inside of You - Third Eye Blind 4:10 4 Totalimmortal - Offspring 2:50 5 The World Ain't Slowin' Down - Ellis Paul 4:48 6 Any Major Dude Will Tell You - Wilco 3:06 7 Only a Fool Would Say That - Ivy 3:03 8 Can't Find the Time to Tell You - Hootie & The Blowfish 2:47 9 Bodhisattva - Brian Setzer Orchestra 5:41 10 Bad Sneakers - Push Stars 3:15 11 Reelin' in the Years - Marvelous Three 3:26 12 Strange Condi

They both nailed Betsy Ross?

If you get shanked, isn't the weapon, by definition, a shank? If the weapon is a shiv, you got shivved.

They're both dead.

Lebanon bologna. Where I grew up, there was a fantastic mom-and-pop butcher shop that made all of its own cold cuts and stuff. It was run by a Polish family who went a few generations back in the business, and the stuff they made was unbelievable. The owner died sometime in the '80s, and his wife didn't want to keep the place open ... and transferring ownership would have meant that all kinds of regulations they'd been grandfathered on would have suddenly kicked in ... so it closed. I have not had a truly good sammich since then. bacon > sodomy > Saddam > light beer > Hi

Melissa won't be happy to hear that. She loved that place.

The Boar's Head stuff I've had is mediocre at best. ...which sucks, because a couple of the groceries in this area have switched nearly all of their deli products over to that brand.

Five bucks to the first person who can photoshop that image to make it look like a bullet just hit him between the eyes.

New Tim O'Reagan ... again. I like this A LOT.

Never been, myself. Not sure, but that sounds like Ed Debevic's.

Vegetarian restaurants... You can eat well at any number of not-exclusively-vegetarian places in Chicago, including many Indian places up on Devon (Louie's area) or another favorite of mine, Moti Mahal on Belmont a couple blocks west of the el station. There are also plenty of Middle Eastern restaurants that are veg-friendly. I always liked Old Jerusalem on Wells, but there are probably better ones. You might want to try Mama Desta's Red Sea Restaurant on Clark just north of Belmont. Ethiopian food ... they do serve meat, but even as a carnivore, I like their vegetarian offerings better.

Dead Letter Office doesn't count as an album either. It's a compilation of oddities and B-sides.

I never know what to say in threads like this one. This sucks, it's never easy, and it will take time to make peace with it. I hope VC (and Wilco) can help in some small way.

Pics?

People who never come to a complete stop when driving, even when there's a stop sign involved. One of the Big Important Rules I was taught in drivers' ed was that any time you enter the public roadway from a private drive, there's an imaginary stop sign. Apparently the American public doesn't have much of an imagination, because it's exceedingly rare that I see someone come to a stop before exiting a commercial parking lot or driveway.