Site Update

Hola everybody, the staff and I have been buried under an avalanche of very real and very fun obligations in the non-cyber world, on top of that we've had a crippling head cold, thus, the dearth of updates and or goodness on the blog for the past few days. In any case that should hopefully change after tomorrow. In the meantime, have a great New Year's Eve, I really don't understand the point of the holiday, but I do like the revelry associated with it. Be safe and if anyone gets caught in jail, you konw what to do, call someone else.

Bullish and Bearish: Only Bullish Edition

In this week's segment of B&B suddenlystruttin covers the good and the bad of the past week.

Bullish


Kindle

Underneath the tree, wrapped in a tidy little bow, with a card that read: To: Tony Ritz, was this season's most-bangin' and newest technological marvel: the Kindle from Amazon. Now, I'll be laying down an all out tech review on this gizmo next week, but for now here's the hottness:

Kindle's wifi network is free, fast and awesome. I can't wait for somebody to crack these things and make them more web capable.

The screen is extremely readable in any lighting and there is very little glare to deal with. It's not as image friendly as I'd want, for instance: with my Wall Street Journal subscription there are no images available whatsoever, but all the printed content is right there.

That's all I've got for now on Kindle, but, like I said, check in next week for the full review.

Midweek Updates

Hope everyone had a great Christmas with tons of cheer. I, for one, had a sweet and sour Christmas; on the sweet side I went to my uncle's house in south-central Ohio and shot some guns and bows and ate a ton of turkey and ham. On the sour side I hung out with my dad's girlfriend's family on Christmas Eve and that's always capital A-wkward. In any case the staff and I have compiled some fun links-holiday related and otherwise.


Air Force Ones Turn 25
The signature shoes of the NBA, street-culture and hip hop turn 25 this week, and, yes, they're still fresh as hell.

Evidence A in the State's defense of AF1s continuing "Freshosity": Charles Barkley's Throwback Edition


How Many?
I saw this over at the Big Lead originally and it is too much fun to pass up. Click on the link and find out how many five year olds you could take at once. I got to 28 and I'm sure that there are at least a few readers out there with even fewer moral qualms than me...

Tiger Attack!
I guarantee you however many five year olds this whole website and the readers could take down, one tiger could easily treble that effort. As I was reading the story I found myself hoping, well, expecting the two victims to have opened the tiger cage and tried tickling it with a feather, alas that was not the case.

New Year's Eve Plans?
What's everybody doing? I'll be nestled in my cozy bed with some netflixxed episodes of Gilmore Girls by around quarter 'til ten, but leave your New Year's Eve plans in the comments.

Merry Christmas

Yuletide Greetings from Suddenlystruttin'!

Site Update

Due to being incredibly busy [Drunk-Ed.] for the next few days, suddenlystruttin will be updating sporadically until, oh, let's say to next Thursday. Happy Holidays! If you're driving don't drink, and if you drink don't drive.

Suddenlystruttin's Bowl Predictions, Part 3

Cotton Bowl
Arkansas Razorbacks vs Missouri Tigers
Dallas, Texas


"So Much Cotton Candy," said Darren McFadden when visualizing Missouri's defense.


The Missouri Tigers have had a nice little, season long run as a very good offensive team with a defense that crumples against any opposing offense with half a brain in the backfield and a capable pair of legs to handle the rushing responsibilities. Arkansas' offense is more than capable at demolishing Mizzoo's suspect defense in any formation, but with the Wild Hog formation I expect to see sparks flying from the mouths of both Felix Jones and Darren McFadden as they morph into the ground gobbling forces of nature that they can be.

Arkansas 44, Missouri 24

Suddenlystruttin's Bowl Predictions, Part 2

Chick-Fil-A Bowl
Clemson vs Auburn
Atlanta, Georgia

Huh, a peach? That's weird.

If I can put my cantankerous, grouchy hat on for just a minute, this bowl game was once known as the "Peach Bowl" and I actually used to have an iota of respect for it. I know, I know, "sounds like somebody has a case of the 'used tas,' but c'mon!, this game is now sponsored by some insanely Christian company-albeit, deliciously insane-that doesn't even have their restaurants open on Sundays for fear of invoking "the one true God's almighty wrath" All the more fitting, I suppose that this bowl pits two teams from the Bible Belt in a battle of which team God loves more. Fuck it, I was using this whole bowl game as a platform to rail against the born-agains. In any case, I am totally calling for the Tigers who's team color is orange to win.* No, but seriously, I'm totally picking Auburn to romp through, over and around Clemson.

* That's a joke, now see, both squads are nicknamed the Tigers and sport orange as their predominant color.

Suddenlystruttin's Bowl Predictions

Rummaging through the archives I realized it's been over a month since we last discussed college football and with Bowl Season about to kickoff, no pun intended, I thought we should breakdown some of the more, ahem, "important" (read, Big Ten or whatever games Tony Ritz wants to discuss) games.

In No Particular Order...

Alamo Bowl
Paterno State versus Texas A&M
San Antonio, Texas

The Alamo: The site of Joe Paterno's first loss as a coach, way back in 1836.

Texas A&M has been as up and down as Paterno State has been all season, along with having the added element of a defense that disappears for long stretches of games-see, @ Miami. Meanwhile, Paterno and Co. would love nothing more than to finally avenge Paterno's first ever loss as a college football coach when he led a ragtag bunch of scrappy ex-cons and junior college transfers against the Mexican National Team at the original Alamo Bowl. I've got it on good information that Paterno will be, "Buyin' out the bar and makin' it rain on all y'all ignant mofos!" upon a PSU victory.
Paterno State 31, Texas AM 17


Motor City Bowl
Purdue vs Central Michigan
Detroit, Michigan










Detroit: So shitty it doesn't even get a photo, just blank space.

Purdue? Central Michigan? I don't care who wins, cause the real losers are the people who paid good money to go to Detroit for a football game.

Plenty more of this to come as we approach the Bowl Season*.

*Yes, I'm aware that "Bowl Games" start tomorrow, and even though I'll be watching them, these are middling games that I do not care for.

Bar Life

In this, our, second installment of Bar Life we visited the Bucktown bar, Lemmings, where we joined suddenlystruttin fan/critic Noelle for her birthday party. Heading into the evening we were rather skeptical, what with the lines between Bucktown and Lincoln Park ever more blurring, thanks to the continual sprouting up of boutiques, coffee shops and terrible restaurants. In any case, the staff and I endured Lemmings and actually found ourselves having a fair amount of fun...

BAR: Lemmings

DRINK SPECIALS:
$2.75 16 oz. PBRs
I know it doesn't sound like much of a deal, but considering the prices of PBR at other bars (median range: $3.25) it's a deal.

WHAT ELSE WAS DRANK?
Lots of PBR, in addition the staff threw down some Irish Car Bombs with the bartender who was simply happy that somebody wanted to drink them as much as he did.

GENERAL ATMOSPHERE:
Startlingly jovial, maybe it was the holiday cheer or the fact that it was Friday, but people we're having fun in spades. Easily one of the best atmospheres -- The Burlington and The Cove, are up there as well -- of any new bar I've ventured to in the past four months, which probably is more telling of the bars I keep company with than anything else. No matter, Lemmings is vastly more upbeat than either Ronnys or The Underground. Minor points off for advertising "Free Wifi," though, to be fair, that's just good business practice, even if I interpret it as modestly uncouth.

CLIENTELE:
White like the South Pole, tons of 20-something professionals who had an air of satisfaction at their own ability to have locked down a middle-management job, a desk and an MBA they then hung on the wall. Boring, but not mean-spirited. The clientele lacked that je ne sai quois, that the staff and I find so endearing at bars. What? Not even a resident drunkard? For shame, Lemmings.

IN THE BATHROOM YOU'LL FIND...
Old, yet still functioning, plumbing and, at least, in the men's room one adventuresome fellow bringing his laptop into the bathroom while still yammering on a bluetooth headset. Nice!

I FORCED MYSELF TO...
Leave early. A number of staff members and I had a lot of heavy lifting to tend to at a rather early hour on Saturday. Sadly, my "better judgement" got the better of me and I left Lemmings before I could have, surely, I'll be back...

Jackass of the Week

In a triumphant return from a self-imposed hiatus that, admittedly, went on for far too long, "Jackass of the Week" is back with a vengeance this week.

This Week's Honor Goes To...


Cash Warren. Yes, Cash Warren is the son of a bitch who got Jessica Alba knocked up. Unfortunately, the staff of suddenlystruttin does not have Cash's home address so we cannot personally deliver the award* one wins for claiming Jackass of the Week, but one can hope that as the roles Alba is handed in Hollywood dry up, Cash will receive his karmic comeuppance.


Once more for posterity's sake, siggghhh.

*A thorough and savage beating.

Bullish and Bearish

Welcome, once again, to another edition of Bullish and Bearish-suddenlystruttin's quasi-weekly breakdown of the trends that define your world, or something...

Bullish:


Holiday-Themed Horror Movies

I netflixed the 1974 version of "Black Christmas" this week and I gotta tell you, I was impressed. It's a pretty bleak and very well-constructed horror film wherein-Spoiler Alert!- the bad guy wins in the end. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to have the bad guy win in movies, it's one of those incredibly awesome plot devices, right up there with gratuitous nudity.

This week we're also rather bullish on Allen Iverson, who's Allen Iverson? you ask. Iverson, is arguably the shortest (no, seriously, like, waaaaay shorter than Tony Ritz, okay, three inches) awesome NBAer this side of Spud Webb and recently he hung out with Nelly, "Tch," I know, for a show on IFC. Here's what he had to say about OJ Simpson:




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Bearish


Unwanted Pregnancies

Seriously, I'm trying to make this not happen. The staff and I are thinking hard about restructuring suddenlystruttin as a not-for-profit [It's not already? Zing! -Ed.] solely designed to prevent extremely gorgeous Hollywood actresses from getting knocked up by anyone but ourselves by anyone.


In Memorial.

Midweek Updates

Here's a slew of news, notes and tidbits you can impress your coworkers with at the office holiday party.

NOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo!!!!!
Worst. News. Ever. Jessica Alba is pregnant, I can't emphasize enough how depressing this news is. First off, the staff of suddenlystruttin are staunchly against over-population. Secondly-and well, way more importantly-do you know how gross Jessica Alba is going to look, now that she's preggers? ICK! What with the bulging stomach and all those filthy veins popping through, Christ, why can't she just adopt?


Sigh, in memorial: Jessica Alba's smokin' hottt body.

Nerds Gaining Too Much Sway With Lexicographers
Merriam-Webster announced today that the word "w00t" as the word of the year. Yes, that's right a "w" and a "t" with two 0's in between is the word of the year. What does "w00t" mean? you might be wondering, well, you "newb" the term "w00t" is used to describe joy or glee. For example: A freedom-hating nerd might use the term "w00t" when informed of Jessica Alba's pregnancy.

Tribune Co. to Sell Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field
Billionaire owner Sam Zell is planning on selling the Cubs and Wrigley Field from the family of Tribune-owned properties. Which is funny, cause, you konw, the Cubs are vastly more profitable than a moribund newspaper franchise with a weak-ass web presence, but I'm just a blogger, so what do I know. In any case, the imminent sale is exciting for me, as I'm really hoping Mark Cuban buys the Cubs.

Problems With My Apartment

An ongoing feature at suddenlystruttin: Problems With My Apartment, wherein, I bitch and moan about why my apartment sucks. Today is part two and the topic is my neighbor's rescue pit bull.

My downstairs neighbor, we'll call her "Linda," moved into my apartment building at the beginning of September and for the first month everything was Fonzie between us. I'd see her in passing in the stairwell, say, "Hi," she'd say, "Hi," and we'd both continue on our merry ways. Fast forward a month and I see Linda heading off somewhere and I ask, "Where are you going?" "Oh, I'm going to pick up the dog I'm adopting from a rescue shelter." "That's nice," and we both continue on our merry ways. Later that day when I get home, Linda is outside with what appeared to be a roided-up pot-bellied pig that had fur scotch taped to its skin and ferociously over-sized incisors soldered to its mouth. "I see you went with a pit bull," says I, upon witnessing this behemoth. "Yeah, nobody wanted poor Bob, here, so, I took him home," says Linda. "Hey, that's great," says I, even though my brain is wondering where I placed my .45 Magnum, just in case the beast goes on a rampage inside the building.
__________________________________
SOME TIME LATER...
__________________________________

The Bob Experiment is a complete disaster and Linda seems to be completely unwilling or unable to do anything about it. In no uncertain terms here are my problems with Bob:

1) He barks incessantly whenever Linda leaves her apartment. If she's gone for a mere five minutes than it's a relatively brief nuisance. If she's gone for upwards of five or six hours at a time, as she often is, than it's a much more difficult thing to cope with.
1. a) Due to Linda's prolonged absence from her apartment, Bob occasionally shits in her apartment. Thus stinking up the entire stairwell. Now, I'm only in the stairwell for an incredibly brief period of time, a max of two minutes a day, but FUCK! YOUR DOG IS MAKING THE WHOLE FUCKING FLAT WREAK OF SHIT!


After these two troubling facts were brought up, I've really begun to empathize with Michael Vick, not on the dog-fighting, per se, but with the dog-killing? Yes. Absolutely. This measure may seem Draconian by most of your standards; but the frequency with which Bob begins barking at 6:30 every morning has forced me to completely reevaluate my ethics system. Originally I would stop by Linda's apartment and say something along the lines of, "Hey, your dog is barking, can you get a muzzle for him?" Now, upon being awoke by the dog after more than likely already being awoken by the "monster in the back" once that night, I think about how much fun it'd be to smash Bob's dumb dog face in with a cast-iron skillet.

Bar Life

Hope everybody had a great weekend. The suddenlystruttin' staff and I went out pretty hard on Saturday night and ended up falling down a ton on the walk home. Of course, we'll all blame the extremely icy and treacherously cracked sidewalks of Humboldt Park/Logan Square and not our inebriated states for the pratfall-filled walk home. On our Saturday night journey to Drunk Town, we had the great opportunity to compare what we normally do, uhh, get hammered at a local dive bar; with what the "other half" does on a Saturday night, uhh, get hammered at an incredibly tony club in the Loop. After our extremely in-depth researching we've come to a number of conclusions and here's our report:

BARS IN COMPARISON: An exhaustively comprehensive report on how different groups of people get drunk.

NEIGHBORHOOD DIVE: Ronny's
POSH LOOP BAR: Underground

DRINK SPECIALS:
Ronny's: $2 Cans of PBR, $3 Shots of Jim Beam and-real head-scratcher- $3 Shots of Baily's.
Underground $400 for table service, $6 Bottles of Amstel Light.

GENERAL ATMOSPHERE:
Ronny's: Not unpleasant, but certainly not welcoming. More along the lines of "Hurry up and get drunk and then leave," actually, a lot like a hooker/John relationship.

Undergound: Haughtiness mixed with a "What kind of car do you drive" air of entitlement. Vapidness lords over this environ and he dares you to try and have an enlightening or, hell, chuckle-worthy conversation over the thundering beats his deejay provides.

CLIENTELE:
Ronny's: Logan Square hipsters and Logan Square Latinos. Be ready for foppish and undersized dudes rockin' scarves, denim jackets and a somber air of melancholy. The women for the most part resemble the men in dress and fashion, usually, just trust your instincts and look for facial hair. If there's an attempt at irony in the mustache it's most likely a dude...I guess.

Underground:Anorexic model-wannabes sporting a jealous rage in their eyes over the cleavage and/or ass and legs of the women servers who work the tables. On the male side of things, expect a forecast of Metrosexual with a 65% chance of douche bag. Button-downs and expensive jeans are the norm. Sidenote: JaeggerBombs were conspicuously and thankfully absent from Underground. I was left to assume they were too "middle-class."

IN THE BATHROOM YOU'LL FIND...
Ronny's A piss-stained floor, a dangling and singular light bulb providing all the illumination you could ever hope for and maybe, if you're lucky, a hobo willing to stab you with a broken bottle.

Underground: Serviceable and multiple urinals. A bathroom attendant named Sylvester. Free cigarettes, tons of bathroom toiletries, a tip jar and, if you're lucky, a CBOT trader offering bumps of yay.

I FORCED MYSELF TO...
Ronny's: Say hello to people I didn't really want to talk to.
Underground: Say hello to people I didn't really want to talk to.

CONCLUSIONS:
Yuppies, in spite, of their opulent lifestyle manage to squeeze the fun out of getting hammered. Seriously, the only person I could talk to was Sylvester the bathroom attendant. Ronny's, though far from ideal, offers so much more bang for the proverbial buck. Also, who doesn't love making fun of hipsters?

Sound the Sirens! WHOOOOOOOO! WHOOOOOOO!

NEW DESTROYER ALBUM
The staff (yes, including the interns) of suddenlystruttin are thrilled to learn that our favorite band Destroyer will be dropping a new album come March 18. Trouble in Dreams will harbor 11 songs in all and surely will rock our humble office's pants off for the foreseeable future. Granted, we've not quite gotten over the 2006 release: Destroyer's Rubies and "what of his earlier works," the interns lament!

In any case, for those Destroyer fans out there, here's the studio version of "Foam Hands"

Travelers and Nerds, Rejoice!

Wifi on Airplanes is coming soon. This a great idea and the time has definitely come for wifi on airplanes. My only concern is longer lines at security with the increase in people traveling with laptops, that, and, of course, the guy who has too many Mai-Thai Cocktails in first class and starts downloading porn in front of a family...

Infinite Solutions

Mad props are in order for my friend NDG who discovered this hilarious set of "techucational" videos. Their informative, funny and concise; hopefully, you guys will learn as much as I did.




* Suddenlystruttin cannot guarantee you will learn anything, keep trying!

The Most Hallowed Day of The Calendar

Today in 1933, that utterly wretched piece of legislation the 18th Amendment was repealed by the 21st Amendment. What's the 18th Amendment, you ask? Well, for you non-History majors out there (oh yeah, and I'm single, ladies!) The 18th Amendment was a little piece of swindlesome bullshit proposed by a bunch of teetotalling, yellow-bellied, scalawags who decided that America was "drinking too much." For thirteen! years you couldn't legally pinch the hooch from a speakeasy, awww raspberries! Fortunately, in 1933 cooler, more awesome heads prevailed and our nation's once proud heritage of drinking was revitalized. Of course, the Prohibition Era did have it's benefits, what with all the undergrounds and speakeasies and ingenius barkeeps who ran said speakeasies, like the 21 Club in NYC:

Although raided by police numerous times during Prohibition, the two were never caught. As soon as a raid began, a system of levers was used to tip the shelves of the bar, sweeping the liquor bottles through a chute and into the city's sewers.[2] The bar also included a secret wine cellar, which was accessed through a hidden door in a brick wall which opened into the basement of the building next door (number 19).

So by all means, go out tonight and order a Whiskey Fitz, a South Side, a Tom and Jerry or whatever wets your whistle!

Bullish and Bearish

Bullish and Bearish is suddenlystruttin's skewed and self-serving [Huh? -Ed.] take on the trends dictating the day. The hotts and not-so-hotts. You get the idea...

Bullish


Old Man Winter
With aplomb Jack Frost has made his presence felt and I, for one, am loving it. Granted, I'll be sick of this bullshit, "What? another five inches of snow!" by the middle of next month. But for now, I'm enjoying the snowscapes in Logan Square and the opportunity to witness some idiot slip and fall on ice everytime I leave my apartment. Additionally, after the snow dumping Chicago got last night, I was thinking about how hilarious the "Mr. Plow" Simpsons episode is.


----------------

Mr Plowed
An Irishman (is anybody surprised by this fact?) absconded with 450 kegs of Guinness, making him Mr Plowed, the ballsiest liquor baron ever! A hero to most and an idiot in the eyes of Tony Ritz. Why an idiot? Well, you see he stole all of that Guinness from the Dublin brewery and if there's one thing the Irish take seriously it's their lust for getting drunk. No it's true, they take getting drunk only slightly less-seriously than the Pope and not using birth control.

________________________________________________


Bearish


People Hocking Cologne on the Streets
Christ am I sick of these jackasses. It was bad enough when two or three of them marched into a crowded bar last Friday night spraying their disgusting colognes and perfumes into a crowd... Mmmm, is that a cheap knock-off of Passion by CK, oh, and it's mingling with the spilled beer and cigarette smoke so well!... But now, they've taken to pimping their cheap wares on the streets of Chicago. Give me the good ol' days when legitimate hoboes were selling you socks at a small mark up. I could use the socks and feel bad enough for the hoboes to buy them.

YouTubeage

I'm feeling pretty eh, today, so in lieu of any real content, please, amuse yourselves with these YouTube clips. For some reason: combatting SAD? I've been really into Neil Diamond lately... I'm working on some Bullish and Bearish for later today or tomorrow. Stay cool.

Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show


For No Good Reason, My Friend Jessica's (Stupid) Electric Fence Video



******Update******

Some minor, but obvious layout changes to the blog, switched up the font and the colors. Let me know what you think in the comments section.

Link Dump-O-rama

Hey everybody, hope y'all had a nice weekend. I got to spend my Saturday night as a guest-doorman at one of the cooler bars in Logan Square. The power went out as a result of an ice storm and, surprisingly, all Hell did not break out. I did get to kick out one trashed and wasted dude who snuck in once the power went out. He was so amenable to my suggestion of, "I think you've had too much," that I felt sorta bad for kicking out such a lonely wasteoid. All in all, it was a lot of fun getting paid to sit around and drink free beer. Here are some interesting news items.

"Honey, I'm Home. I know it's been 5 Years, but I'm back."
Wow. Five years. Without communicating with any of your immediate family? I think they call that abandonment, at least, that's what I got charged with after ditching my "wife" and our "two sons."

What do you mean, "We can't clone this one?"
One of only a handful of intact and mummified dinosaurs has recently been unearthed and brought to the attention of the public. Jon Hammond and his InGen cronies were unavailable for comment.

Word from Team Venture
After a long stretch of inactivity, secret-genius Jackson Publick has updated the Venture Bros. website and revealed that Season 3 of Hank and Dean's ridiconkulous life will be forthcoming some time after June 1 of 2008. I guess, that's cool?

College Footbal Bowl Schedule Announced
Seriously weak schedule of bowl games, however, in honor of the University of Souther California making it to a third-straight Rose Bowl, here are the USC Song Girls!