Right in the mean bean machine

(Right as I was about to post this entry, I happened to notice that Greg had noted the same thing in his blog. But Greg isn't a Cubs fan, so screw him.)

While I'm somewhat happy for the Cardinals' win in that it should get everyone off the National League's back for a while, I'm more than a trifle annoyed about it for two reasons:

1) The Cardinals just became, record-wise, the worst team in baseball history to win a World Series in a non-shortened season, passing the 1987 Twins and their 85-77 record (coincidentally, the Cardinals lost that Series). That's right, 83-78. 83 wins! That's 2.5 games over .500. Horrendous. As someone informed on the history of baseball, that really grates on me. Also, Jeff Weaver - with a career ERA of 4.58, cast off by the Angels in mid-season after going 3-10, 6.29 for them - became the winning pitcher in a World Series clincher. He won three games in this postseason, as many as he won with the Angels! Obviously it's idle speculation to say this, but there could well have been a reason Tony La Russa wasn't interested in pushing on the Kenny Rogers thing. I'm not saying there's no way a pitching staff built around one ace and a bunch of rookies and lousy journeymen can't win a World Series... but I am saying that that raises your eyebrow a bit, doesn't it? To be fair, the Tigers forgetting how to take pitches was as much to blame for their loss as anything.

2) This concludes three straight World Series that play like kicks in the pants for Cubs fans, with each one getting progressively kick-in-the-pantsier. First it was the Red Sox in 2004, our partners in famously "cursed" franchises. Then the White Sox in 2005, the obnoxious crosstown rivals who hadn't won in nearly as long. And now the Cardinals in 2006, only our biggest historical rival in league and division. And this is all on the heels of the 2003 NLCS, no less.

The one good thing is that it can't get any worse - even a Yankees "return to glory" in 2007, while annoying, wouldn't have the same meaning as these three did. Maybe the signs are pointing to the Cubs doing something good soon - after four years of misery in one form or another (piled on top of the 94 years before that), don't we think it's about time something happened?

Talks like a gentleman, like you imagined when you were young

There's more than a little of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in Sam's Town, the second and latest album from the Killers, and that's probably not unintentional. From the pomp-and-circumstance close to the title track that recalls Pepper's orchestral touches to the matching tracks that bookend the album's bulk (named, in somewhat effete fashion, "Enterlude" and "Exitlude") and recall Pepper's title tracks, Sam's Town seems to be trying hard to be important. Of course, it isn't really, and a Beatles comparison does a disservice to both bands, but that doesn't mean Sam's Town isn't a pretty strong album - it's just not great in any life-altering sense.

For what it's worth, Brandon Flowers and company do manage to shed most of the lackluster parts of Hot Fuss, an outstanding debut album with five great tracks and six decent ones. It had a bit too much of a rave-pop sentiment, though, spearheaded by "Somebody Told Me," a song that was fine but kind of silly on reflection. Sam's Town doesn't totally abandon the musical trappings of Hot Fuss, but they're less in evidence, thanks in large part to the first single. "When You Were Young" steps out of the club and into an arena rock concert, with blasting chords and a glistening main riff, and it's catchy as all hell. It's also in exactly the right place on the album - the titular opening track is fine, but fans can be excused for thinking they'd accidentally picked up the Killers' excuse for Sufjan Steven's The Avalanche. "Enterlude" hangs around just long enough to lull everyone into complacency, and "Young" swoops in like a thunderclap.

Regrettably, the promise exhibited by "Young" dissipates a little bit over the rest of the album. As with Hot Fuss, there isn't a bad track in the stable, but the remainder aren't as catchy for the most part. If "Young" is this album's "Mr. Brightside," it's hard to argue that there's anything measuring up to the stellar "All These Things That I've Done." The catchiness factor in the latter half of Sam's Town is generated mostly by "Why Do I Keep Counting?", which has a monster refrain but is hiding down at track eleven (though that's probably the best place for it; I think I might like it even better as an album closer), and the bridge of "Uncle Jonny," a stinging, moody song that bursts into major chords for a few lines before winding down again.

This isn't to say that the other tracks aren't very good - "Read My Mind" and "My List" are both quite strong, and none of the others have anything really wrong with them aside from the title of the stupidly-named "Bling (Confession of a King)," which is a much better song than its title would indicate. They're not particularly sticky, though, and where Fuss had five great songs, Town can probably only claim two, though its second-tier tracks are closer to the top than any on Fuss were.

Really, though, the Killers were in an untenable position from the start, as summed up by Bill Simmons in a recent mailbag column - "If they release another album that sounds like the last one, everyone kills them for not being original. If they go in another direction, everyone fumes that they didn't release another album like the last one. So successful bands have one of two choices -- keep shifting gears and taking chances, or convince the lead singer to shoot himself or accidentally drown so they will live on forever and everyone can talk about how great they were. I'm glad they chose the first option."

And I am too. The worst thing you can say about Sam's Town - aside from taking a shot at its slightly inflated sense of self-importance - is that it's just not as great overall as Hot Fuss was, and since most bands would kill to have one album as enjoyable as Hot Fuss, I think that's pretty good. Frankly, the Killers could put out ten more albums that were two awesome tracks and ten listenable ones and I'd be there every two years.

So if you liked Hot Fuss at all, I suggest giving Sam's Town a shot. If you don't let a ton of hype get your expectations too high, I think you'll like what you hear just fine.

Grade: B+

What goes around

Horrible sports weekend. The Cardinals won Game One of the Series - handily! - and that was at most the third-worst thing that happened. #2: Man City getting buried at Wigan (number of goals scored by Man City the last two games: zero; number of own goals scored by Man City the last two games: one). #1: Northwestern blowing the biggest lead in DI-A history, leading Michigan State by no fewer than five touchdowns with about 24 minutes left in the game and allowing a touchdown every four minutes for the next 20, before finally losing 41-38 on a field goal in the last seconds. The biggest choke in major college history, and yet, if you ask me, it barely slips ahead of last year's Sun Bowl as the worst loss in program history (and you could certainly argue that, on a scale of relative importance, there have been worse - the loss to Iowa in 2000 was pretty tough to take). I'm not sure what that says about NU's overall crappiness, but probably nothing good.

One thing that Tyler pointed out: could NU's loss be karmic payback for the Bears pulling off one of the craziest comebacks in NFL history on Monday night? It's certainly true that you don't usually see the same group of fans get rewarded twice in succession by different teams. If the reward is a Bears Super Bowl victory, I suppose I would take pretty much any negative this year (except for anything related to the Cubs), and especially if the Bears put together an undefeated season. I had been avoiding mentioning the Bears in this space, but since they, by all rights, should have lost on Monday, I don't really feel like it matters (obviously it's impossible to really argue that it ever did, but you know how that works).

All the talk leapt to 16-0 after the Seahawks game, despite the fact that it was the first time the Bears had shown anything against a good team, the game was at home, and said good team did not have their leading rusher. As potent as the offense looked, and as good as the defense had been, I think the media trend for years now has been a desperate search to anoint whoever is currently going as the best there was. The constant comparisons to the '85 Bears got so thick that even some of the local drive-time hosts, who tend to thrive on that stuff, had to point out that it's pretty ridiculous to compare a 6-0 team to a team that went 18-1. Sure, the Bears' schedule looks pretty thin besides that East Coast road trip, but there are a couple things about that: first, that the Bears have not looked good on the road so far, squeaking out two of their three victories (and those games were hardly against the Giants and Patriots), and second, that facing a mediocre schedule in the regular season may not bode all that well for the playoffs. It doesn't do the Bears any good if they go 16-0 and then lose to Carolina, Atlanta, New Orleans, or Philadelphia, or whoever else might line up for a crack in January.

So: guarded optimism for right now. But I'll say this: if Grossman has another game even approaching Monday's at any point this season, the Bears will lose that game. And maybe if it happens again, Smith will consider bringing in Griese. I can understand the desire to show confidence in your first-stringer, but when you don't have it, you don't have it, and on Monday Grossman definitely did not have it. This was definitely the best possible time for a bye week.

Catching up is hard to do

The problem with getting behind on the blog is that I don't usually like making posts that are just big long lists of the last twenty things I did. But let's see.

Two weeks ago I went to Alma's sister's wedding, where Alma was the maid of honor. The ceremony was fine (it went by without being too draggy, which is mostly what I require), and the reception was pretty fun. I got to meet a lot of Alma's relatives, we did some dancing, and I did some drinking (first time I've been able to do that at a wedding since usually I have to drive somewhere afterwards). I guess I don't have that much to say about it, except that it sort of gave me "wedding envy," if that makes any sense. In related news, Alma and I are closing in on three years together.

I haven't been doing that much lately outside of work, which is unfortunate. I've accrued about three vacation days, though we're coming up on "a bad time to take vacation days," i.e. the holiday shopping season. Although I feel like I'm not allowed to accrue any more than 24 vacation hours at one time, so I should probably take some soon so that I don't waste them. The only problem is that I have to spend a day showing someone else how to do my job first.

The other problem is that I would probably just sleep through most of the vacation day anyway.

I've been hungry and tired a lot lately. I should probably go for a physical, since I don't think I've had one in over six years at this point.

I grew the beard back in. I don't know if this will last, though it's never a bad thing to have facial hair during a Chicago winter. Part of this will depend on how much Alma likes it. (Okay, all of it will, who am I kidding.)

We went for sushi again last night. I like sushi reasonably well but it never fails to leave me hungry later. I got a little adventurous and got the spider roll, plus two more exotic pieces from the nigiri menu. Masago was listed as "flying fish," but it turned out to be flying fish roe. It was fine though. The unagi (eel) was also surprisingly un-crazy; it really just tastes like any other piece of fish, and it was even cooked and doused in teriyaki sauce. I had tried to get the anago (sea eel, because it's always smart to order something by how fun you think the name sounds), but they were out.

After that we went to a party at Alma's gym, where they had karaoke. The selection was decent - the one at the redneck dive in Austin was better, but that crowd was significantly shadier. I did "Addicted to Love," during which a surely-drunk woman from the audience came up on stage to play inflatable guitar like one of the women in the video, and "Your Song," and Alma and I did a duet on "Hey Jude." I usually don't really like getting up in front of people, but at least with karaoke it's basically impossible to make an ass out of yourself (certainly not compared to the drunk older guy who stumbled his way through "Rock Around the Clock"), and at least I was never off key. Alma did two solo songs as well, with "Killing Me Softly" and "We've Only Just Begun," and was, as usual, congratulated heavily after each song, because she is awesome. Though I was told I had a good voice after "Your Song," which I can't say I was expecting, and the guy saying it wasn't even drunk. I was happy with how I sounded, but that was surprising.

Anything else? I think this will do for now.

Oh. Quick question: most of you, like me, were probably watching TV aimed at kids/teens in the late 80s and early 90s. Do you remember the Corn Pops and Apple Jacks ad campaigns? These were, even at the time, two of my least favorite things ever. The Corn Pops ones, clearly metaphors for drug addiction, feature kids going through sweaty withdrawal symptoms as Jaws-like music plays when they can't find any Corn Pops. Here's one example. The Apple Jacks ones were also horrible, for various reasons. Here's one, which is by far not the worst of the genre. Maybe the most annoying thing about those was that Kellogg's had spent the past 30 years suggesting that Apple Jacks did, in fact, taste like apples. And now they were throwing that under the bus just to make eating Apple Jacks seem non-conformist somehow. At any rate, the ads would have been much more honest if "they just do!" had been replaced with "they're full of sugar!"

So, if you remember both those ads, which did you hate more? I originally thought I hated the Apple Jacks ones more, but after reacquainting myself with the Corn Pops ads, I'm no longer sure.

Eat it, Yankees!

Think we can get rid of all that "best lineup since the Big Red Machine" talk? We're not playing fantasy baseball. Yankees suck.