Amazed and Freaked Out

So I'm sitting here watching the Cubs and suddenly I'm amazed and freaked out by my TV all at the same time. Probably not surprising for anyone that knows me. First, I'm literally sitting here wondering how I ever watched baseball without HD. Keep in mind that I've had HD for over a year now. So it's not like I'm back in the first month with HD where I was amazed at everything. But for the first time in months I'm once again amazed. Defects in the stitching in the jerseys are clear. All the small nuances of the infield dirt. Is that a cleat mark? Nope, just a clearly visible clump. Not the most useful things to notice, but that's what always gets me. That pile of things that I never noticed and never thought about.
The freaking out comes via the orientation of the speakers in our living room. I don't know if it's intentional on Philips' part or not, but I will often get odd reflections from the area of our front door/front window in the female-voice range. So it's like there's a woman in our vestibule talking loudly at times. And even though I know this happens quite frequently it typically gets me on high-alert. Especially at times like this when it's normally random background crowd noise from the stadium where suddenly only a specific voice starts reflecting. And it's only the higher frequency human voices that reflect. Just a fun acoustic quirk of the living room.

BLACKHAWKS WIN!! BLACKHAWKS WIN!! For the first time in a loooonnnggg time the Blackhawks have won a playoff series; beating Calgary 4-1 in game 6 last night. It was pretty great to see our young stars step up and really play well. Usually you just hope they can hold their own and lean on the veterans to get it done. For us it was the exact opposite. The vets were mainly there to be "on-ice coaches" while the kids took control of most games. And by kids, I mean kids. Our captain Toews and his line-mate and 2007-08 Rookie of the Year Patrick Kane are both only 20 years old. And the pile of young stars continues from there.

I'll close by raving about 1 of the beers we received as a part of our final beer-of-the-month pack. Abita's Jockamo IPA. It's not overly bitter but comes with a fantastic array of hop florals. I'm not sure what availablity they have around the nation, but I highly recommend that you pick up some if you see it. Even people that avoid IPAs because of the bitterness should find this quite agreeable.
And with that...PEACE!!

They Can't Drive...55!!

I've found the silver lining to my little tire incident. So today and at least tomorrow I'll be driving around on my spare tire. And since I'm fairly conscientious as to the manufacturer's instructions, I cap my speed at 55mph (tire says 50mph) when I'm on the Pike. The first little chunk is a 55mph zone so it's not a big deal. But then I get to the wide-open stretches where it's a 65mph and people love to do closer to 80mph. I be nice and stick to the right lane and just set the cruise control right at 55mph. What happens? People just start piling up right on my ass, ride me for a few miles, then decide to whip past me and give me a dirty look. For what? Obeying the proper convention by staying exclusively in the right lane and driving a very legal speed? And it's not like I'm erratically going from 80-55-80. I'm doing exactly the same speed the entire time. They just somehow think that if they ride me long enough I'll just move out of their way instead of letting them pass me. It's good times. I'd rather have my real tire, but at least this gives me some entertainment on the drive.
Speaking of entertaining, I watched a girl come flying up behind me in her Subaru Outback, decide at the last second to swerve to the middle lane, realize someone was in it after starting her move and swerve back onto the right shoulder a little bit and almost rear-end me. It's was a great scene to watch in my rear-view. Although I think I would have preferred it if she'd hit me. I highly doubt I would have lost control and would have gotten some free parts for my car and a great rental car for probably a week.

The Wheels on my Car go Flat Flat Flat

So I just had yet another problem with my right front tire. On my way to hockey, coming down an unlighted street, in a pretty steady rain, at night, I found my way into a pretty wicked pothole and blew out the tire. Didn't even see it coming. Just thought it was your average puddle and paid it no mind. Nothing beats changing a tire in the rain on a dark side-street. Fortunately I've become old hat at this kinda thing and took less than 10 minutes from the time I pulled over til the time I was pulling away.
Yes, this is the very same wheel that had the flat tire not 3 weeks ago. I'm hoping they rotated the tires so I didn't just kill the brand new tire, but who knows. And yes, this is the wheel and tire that were bent and slashed, respectively, in the infamous bumper incident in CT.
So after I take a little morning detour to DirectTire to get yet another tire fixed, I'll be calling up the town of Watertown and giving them a piece of my mind. Our roads are straight up shitty. And several have been shitty for over a year now, so it's not like this is a new phenomenon in these tough times. I'm not expecting them to pay me back (mostly because I wisely buy the road hazard package on my tires knowing I have nothing but trouble). I really just want to give them shit for not fixing the roads. Maybe hear some weak-ass excuses as to why they just can't repave the roads or even patch the giant f'n holes in a timely fashion.

In better news, it's finally Cubs opening day!! I'm sitting here watching the DVRed ESPN broadcast from earlier, so no one call me and tell me how it ends. It's just so great to have baseball back. And RCN added WGN-HD in the offseason so I'll now be able to get about 1/2 of the games in HD this year. Glorious.
And on that note, I will now get back to my chips, salsa, beers, and Cubs in HD. Cause right now that's just about all that's going well for me tonight and about all I can hope to go well for me.