Well, I missed a sports-themed Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, etc. so why bother with this? Just to actually post twice in the span of one week again. And I don't THINK I used this photo last year, though I did use of close-up of these hearts. Didn't feel like going out and finding/buying anything new, either.
The less I say about actual Valentine's, the better. (Or I'll be saying in an ill-advised personal piece on my other blog.) Hope any readers I still have had a good day. At any rate, half-price candy TOMORROW!
Happy...uh...February 2011
So I missed the whole blog-every-day-in-November thing, I missed noting any of the winter holidays including the New Year. And um, I've missed reading all your blogs, aside from links through Twitter. I'm still not "back" though, as I've gotten my Mac overhauled/fixed just to discover I had external drive issues and it's still a mess and I still have thousands of photos I haven't been able to upload yet and...I'm tired of discussing that. More importantly, there's been a lot of personal stuff outside the scope of what I'd try to discuss on a relatively lighthearted sports blog. But maybe on the other blog (City of Destiny) I've neglected!
Chicago sports have been a little less than inspiring recently, what with what happened to the Bears (2010-11 was the first time I ever followed the NFL somewhat regularly. Hey, I should have blogged that! I even went to a game), and the Blackhawks' struggles, and even junior hockey's Chicago Steel, who yesterday dropped their 22nd straight game (no wins since Nov. 20). Same day as the Cleveland Cavaliers lost their 25th straight (no wins since Dec. 18), setting a new NBA record. As lousy as some things have been for me recently, at least I haven't done THAT.
It's clear I'm not cut out, at least this hockey season, to do a daily or otherwise frequent sports blog covering the season of any specific team or league. I've relied on Twitter in its original concept as a microblogging site, especially since I finally got a smartphone as a Christmas gift and can at last post during my adventures. But I hope to be back here with random collectibles, photoessays of my sports trips (which have continued this year), goofy screenshots, and the occasional rant.
Oh, this photo--did you hear Chicago got a lot of snow last week? At least my bike is in a safer place than this one...
Chicago sports have been a little less than inspiring recently, what with what happened to the Bears (2010-11 was the first time I ever followed the NFL somewhat regularly. Hey, I should have blogged that! I even went to a game), and the Blackhawks' struggles, and even junior hockey's Chicago Steel, who yesterday dropped their 22nd straight game (no wins since Nov. 20). Same day as the Cleveland Cavaliers lost their 25th straight (no wins since Dec. 18), setting a new NBA record. As lousy as some things have been for me recently, at least I haven't done THAT.
It's clear I'm not cut out, at least this hockey season, to do a daily or otherwise frequent sports blog covering the season of any specific team or league. I've relied on Twitter in its original concept as a microblogging site, especially since I finally got a smartphone as a Christmas gift and can at last post during my adventures. But I hope to be back here with random collectibles, photoessays of my sports trips (which have continued this year), goofy screenshots, and the occasional rant.
Oh, this photo--did you hear Chicago got a lot of snow last week? At least my bike is in a safer place than this one...
Rough sports attract boys
page 92, boys play football: Talking With Your Child (Woman Alive, 1974)
Originally uploaded by mod as hell
From the awesome "Woman Alive" series of 1970s books--click through to the whole set if you really want to waste some time.
Whoo-hoo! I'm back! Again! Sort of!
All right, so if you don't know, there's this thing called NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. I don't write fiction (no, not even creepy hockey fanfiction) but I signed up for it anyway, to see if I can make stuff up, or just novelize real events, or flat-out write memoir and be counted as a NaNoWriMo "rebel." I haven't started yet...I won't feel guilty if I don't make it.
I WILL feel guilty if I don't succeed in National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo), here and on my other blog, City of Destiny. Today, day 1, I'm starting slow with the blogging-random-crap-from-Flickr (hey, this one is sports-related, right?) but when I get my long-suffering computer going right again, it's back to the stuff a few people used to read. You know, about hockey...Blackhawks, Bruins, Wolves, etc. And other sports (hey, how about San Francisco winning their first World Series!). I've spent the start of the NHL/other hockey season wondering what to write as my first post (is it too late for season predictions?, my goals for the year, etc.?). Lots of cool things planned, plus a site redesign and drastic changes to the blogroll/links.
Oh yeah, it's also my BLOG ANNIVERSARY! Er, last Friday. And yes, it's one year, minus four months of inactivity. Many thanks to everyone who's supported me over these months (even if I feel like I've fallen off the face of the earth now...). My first year as a real sports fan, and sports blogger, was a rather eventful one. Which I will tell you about someday...
(Mary Lou Retton image is from my wildly popular set of 1980s Barbie Magazine scans on Flickr.)
I WILL feel guilty if I don't succeed in National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo), here and on my other blog, City of Destiny. Today, day 1, I'm starting slow with the blogging-random-crap-from-Flickr (hey, this one is sports-related, right?) but when I get my long-suffering computer going right again, it's back to the stuff a few people used to read. You know, about hockey...Blackhawks, Bruins, Wolves, etc. And other sports (hey, how about San Francisco winning their first World Series!). I've spent the start of the NHL/other hockey season wondering what to write as my first post (is it too late for season predictions?, my goals for the year, etc.?). Lots of cool things planned, plus a site redesign and drastic changes to the blogroll/links.
Oh yeah, it's also my BLOG ANNIVERSARY! Er, last Friday. And yes, it's one year, minus four months of inactivity. Many thanks to everyone who's supported me over these months (even if I feel like I've fallen off the face of the earth now...). My first year as a real sports fan, and sports blogger, was a rather eventful one. Which I will tell you about someday...
(Mary Lou Retton image is from my wildly popular set of 1980s Barbie Magazine scans on Flickr.)
OOPS.
I didn't mean to vanish for the entire summer (I'm writing this where it's still technically summer for a little bit more, the Central time zone). Especially not in the middle of a game! Every Monday (and yes now it's Wednesday) I've thought about the last Monday I wrote here, and wondered what brief "Sorry I've been away" message I could post and what silly blogged-from-Flickr image I'd use because I'm still having lots of unfixed computer problems (which I'd better fix before I try to watch multiple hockey games online).
Anyway, I've been away and now have not just much of last year's hockey season and postseason but a summer's worth of hockey news AND multiple other sports to discuss--in fact, I was in person at an amazing sporting event just last night!
How soon I'll get all that up, we'll see, but expect some sort of regular posting here again...and a new look/new tagline/new blogroll. In the meantime, encouragement to get this going again wouldn't hurt, hint hint...ahh, never mind, that didn't work the last time I tried it in the spring. (But my gmail is kofchicago, as is my Twitter. Which is where I've been all this time...)
Anyway, I've been away and now have not just much of last year's hockey season and postseason but a summer's worth of hockey news AND multiple other sports to discuss--in fact, I was in person at an amazing sporting event just last night!
How soon I'll get all that up, we'll see, but expect some sort of regular posting here again...and a new look/new tagline/new blogroll. In the meantime, encouragement to get this going again wouldn't hurt, hint hint...ahh, never mind, that didn't work the last time I tried it in the spring. (But my gmail is kofchicago, as is my Twitter. Which is where I've been all this time...)
IT'S ALMOST OVER
Barring a miraculous comeback, the 2009-10 hockey season will end in 20 minutes (or 20 minutes that's actually 40-some minutes), with the Calder Cup game on right now. Hershey Bears up 3-0 in the game and 3-2 in the series. After this...I have no excuse (except, you know, personal and computer problems I've alluded to scores of times) not to catch up on my hockey coverage, go through the 1000s and 1000s of screenshots and photos and post the highlights this summer. Wow. It's really ending. The first season I've truly paid attention to any sport. Thanks for reading this, your support, etc. etc.
"Blawkhawks," part 2
Go to Puck Daddy today! Go there NOW! Okay, at least to this story. Man, I was already excited that this morning @wyshynski started following me back on Twitter (and a couple days after Richard Roeper tweeted at me...there was a misunderstanding. More on this later!), and I thought that photo might get linked in a Puck Headlines roundup, but it got its own piece. (To bring out the "slow news day?" comments...uh, well, it IS Sunday.)
I had to reset my password to sign in (because I comment there so infrequently), so I could say a little about the photo. Not gonna lie, all hockey season I felt like getting linked on Puck Daddy would make me feel like I was a "real" blogger. I don't think it ever happened (someone would have told me, right? even though no one's said anything about this to me yet)...till now! Why I need attention from famous (or at least Internet-famous) men to feel "validated" here is a fair question of its own but never mind that now...
Been feeling overwhelmed/depressed lately ("why haven't I seen the Cup at a bar yet?" "why didn't I get ANY happy/congratulatory text messages or emails after the win?" etc.) but this perks me up a bit, I'll admit. I'm finally in the mood to get my content of the past few days up, but today I've got to nerd it up at the Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago, the one annual festival here I never, ever miss...
I had to reset my password to sign in (because I comment there so infrequently), so I could say a little about the photo. Not gonna lie, all hockey season I felt like getting linked on Puck Daddy would make me feel like I was a "real" blogger. I don't think it ever happened (someone would have told me, right? even though no one's said anything about this to me yet)...till now! Why I need attention from famous (or at least Internet-famous) men to feel "validated" here is a fair question of its own but never mind that now...
Been feeling overwhelmed/depressed lately ("why haven't I seen the Cup at a bar yet?" "why didn't I get ANY happy/congratulatory text messages or emails after the win?" etc.) but this perks me up a bit, I'll admit. I'm finally in the mood to get my content of the past few days up, but today I've got to nerd it up at the Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago, the one annual festival here I never, ever miss...
congratulations!
Well, this about says it all. Wait, no it doesn't, unless you're trying to make FUN of Chicago and say we don't deserve a Cup because our most famous institutions (the Macy's, i.e. Marshall Field's, flagship store in the Loop) can't, uh, get the name of the winning team right. Look, we're not used to it, okay?
Note: this mistake was on two or three doors on this side facing Wabash Ave. I didn't check the rest of the store as I had a little victory parade to go to...rest of the photos later. Yeah, I've been home for hours but I still feel exhausted and overheated and emotional about all this...seeing the Stanley Cup in person for the first time ever. Then being too tired/antisocial to go chase it around Chicago bars it might be at...
Note: this mistake was on two or three doors on this side facing Wabash Ave. I didn't check the rest of the store as I had a little victory parade to go to...rest of the photos later. Yeah, I've been home for hours but I still feel exhausted and overheated and emotional about all this...seeing the Stanley Cup in person for the first time ever. Then being too tired/antisocial to go chase it around Chicago bars it might be at...
it's Blackhawks Day in Chicago! (pt. 1)
Still no time to blog. VICTORY PARADE TO GO TO
...Okay, not the first sports victory parade/rally I've seen in Chicago. But the first I've ever been to for MY team!
(pt. 1 implies I'll do pt. 2 with the rally photos soon, though maybe I should do the Wednesday night photos first. and the Thursday photos. arrghhhhh. anyway, see what I can do tonight if I'm at home watching the Calder Cup and the World Cup and listening to the WGN radio rebroadcast of Game 6 at 9 pm)
...Okay, not the first sports victory parade/rally I've seen in Chicago. But the first I've ever been to for MY team!
(pt. 1 implies I'll do pt. 2 with the rally photos soon, though maybe I should do the Wednesday night photos first. and the Thursday photos. arrghhhhh. anyway, see what I can do tonight if I'm at home watching the Calder Cup and the World Cup and listening to the WGN radio rebroadcast of Game 6 at 9 pm)
LET'S GO HAWKS
How am I supposed to blog at a time like this?!!! Well, I won't, because my thinking was if I knock myself out putting up a big pre-game, what-this-blog-and-team-and-season-and-hockey-mean-to-me post, the Blackhawks won't win Game 6. So, superstition or laziness means I'll just post this sign I photographed in the Wicker Park neighborhood a few hours before the game...
uh, not necessary, Tribune
You can probably tell from recent posts I'm operating on a short fuse, and I was already feeling lousy today before the Chicago Tribune's attempt at humor/trash-talk of the Philadelphia Flyers turned up. I'll just post the shot showing it and what it's kind of ripping off (not that it was original then either, I imagine):
I don't mind seeing Pronger looking silly, or trying to taunt him, that's for sure. It's that I thought this was unfunny sexist bullshit in the Post example, and I don't need to see Chicago papers resorting to it. (Also, looking like you're ripping off the Post is somewhere far below scraping the bottom of the barrel).
I'd say "surprisingly" if it was but it's not, it's depressingly predictable--I saw lots of female sports fans passing this around with amusement on Twitter today (lots of male ones too, of course). (And a few men and women critiquing it, but none from Chicago. Oh good, not only do I dislike this, I get to have a "no one here understands me!" moment, too.) Why so few women seem to mind the women/women athletes = inferior implication of so much trash talk in sports (and why so many men, many/most of whom presumably like the company of women, participate in it) is an eternal mystery to me, and the subject of multiple unwritten posts. I'll get to it eventually. Just wanted to post this while it's "news."
In other OH MY GOD IS IT A SLOW NEWS DAY IN HOCKEY "news," this screengrab from NHL.com in the past hour:
(screenshot of picture on Twitter, to give proper credit)
I don't mind seeing Pronger looking silly, or trying to taunt him, that's for sure. It's that I thought this was unfunny sexist bullshit in the Post example, and I don't need to see Chicago papers resorting to it. (Also, looking like you're ripping off the Post is somewhere far below scraping the bottom of the barrel).
I'd say "surprisingly" if it was but it's not, it's depressingly predictable--I saw lots of female sports fans passing this around with amusement on Twitter today (lots of male ones too, of course). (And a few men and women critiquing it, but none from Chicago. Oh good, not only do I dislike this, I get to have a "no one here understands me!" moment, too.) Why so few women seem to mind the women/women athletes = inferior implication of so much trash talk in sports (and why so many men, many/most of whom presumably like the company of women, participate in it) is an eternal mystery to me, and the subject of multiple unwritten posts. I'll get to it eventually. Just wanted to post this while it's "news."
In other OH MY GOD IS IT A SLOW NEWS DAY IN HOCKEY "news," this screengrab from NHL.com in the past hour:
ONE! finally
Meaning more, finally posting about "one game needed for the Blackhawks to win the Cup," not that it's finally down to one game. I had about five minutes in the past week or so when the malaise keeping me from wanting to blog lifted, and it was soon after Sunday night's game...but Blogger was down (at least for the Midwest, it turned out) then...and for the next 18 or so hours (!!!!). So by the time it came back...not feeling it. (Sorry, I should keep my transparent attempts at getting encouragement to keep this blog going off on the blog and on Twitter where they belong. And are completely unsuccessful. But, you know, people, by all means keep tweeting on and on about how many views YOUR blog gets...) Anyway, Sunday was extremely exciting, and I've finally gotten past my resentment at not being able to go to Finals games into joy at the Blackhawks' success. (Yes, what a hero!)
Hmmm...I don't have any good "One"-related pun headlines handy. Still working on a feature about some of the whoppers the Chicago papers have come up with...but I've been remiss in not featuring According Twomey's "Blackhawks Numerology" series: here's the entry for One.
The other big sports news Sunday, at least to me, was @eyebleaf (as I know him on Twitter, where I wish I'd given him Chicago and Greyhound and Megabus tips) getting to the 30th major league ballpark in his #TBRTOAL project (The Baseball Road Trip of a Lifetime)--visiting all 30 in 60 days. Seattle's was last, as noted on his blog. So much for me following it along on here...but he hasn't written up all the entries for his Stealing Home series at the Globe and Mail, so I've got time to relate it to my own ballpark adventures (14 MLB parks in two years, mostly by myself).
Hmmm...I don't have any good "One"-related pun headlines handy. Still working on a feature about some of the whoppers the Chicago papers have come up with...but I've been remiss in not featuring According Twomey's "Blackhawks Numerology" series: here's the entry for One.
The other big sports news Sunday, at least to me, was @eyebleaf (as I know him on Twitter, where I wish I'd given him Chicago and Greyhound and Megabus tips) getting to the 30th major league ballpark in his #TBRTOAL project (The Baseball Road Trip of a Lifetime)--visiting all 30 in 60 days. Seattle's was last, as noted on his blog. So much for me following it along on here...but he hasn't written up all the entries for his Stealing Home series at the Globe and Mail, so I've got time to relate it to my own ballpark adventures (14 MLB parks in two years, mostly by myself).
quick note I'll delete later
If you wind up doing nothing tonight, as I might despite multiple sports and non-sports things to go to in Chicago, I've learned you can find AHL Calder Cup games online (in the usual places I find to get major league sports feeds online). Just saying. Game is a 6 pm Central, so I'd miss a bunch since I'm actually going out for a little bit. Game 1 was a surprise and this could be an exciting series to watch.
Still feeling incredibly depressed about doing this blog, and this has nothing to do with the Blackhawks losing their past two SCF games (sure, that doesn't help, but I wasn't feeling up to it during the Sharks series either). Ugh, I hate asking for encouragement/help (i.e., email. I'd say phone calls but the friends I talk to on the phone don't read this blog).
Still feeling incredibly depressed about doing this blog, and this has nothing to do with the Blackhawks losing their past two SCF games (sure, that doesn't help, but I wasn't feeling up to it during the Sharks series either). Ugh, I hate asking for encouragement/help (i.e., email. I'd say phone calls but the friends I talk to on the phone don't read this blog).
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