Evel Knievel, 1938-2007

America's greatest and highest flying stunt artist, Evel Knievel, has passed away. Part showman, part shill and all thrill; Knievel was the unholy marriage of man and machine who reminded an entire generation of what you could do, once, of course, you set aside all precedents and fear.

Goodbye you skyscrapping, asskicking, legend.

Jesus Christ.

I saw this at straightbangin' originally, and, if you were wondering: Do not ever listen to the Christian Right.

Brian Urlacher is a Pillar of Class and Integrity

Chicago Bears linebacker and all around awesome dude, Brian Urlacher has added another chapter to his book, "How to Win Friends and Influence People." Sure, it's only a "missed connection" on craigslist and yes, the person who posted it could be an attention mongering liar, but, hey! I'm all about hearsay and lack of facts. Urlacher is the paramount of class who skipped out on 22 scheduled visitations with his young son and, then of course, there was the time he threatened his baby momma with menacing text messages. And who could forget the time he left a flaming bag of dog poo on his Lovie Smith's front porch as a Halloween prank. Also, he dated Paris Hilton, which we all know means only one thing: Valtrex!

Tip o' the Hat and Mad Love to Dai!

Bullish and Bearish

It's time for another installment of Bullish and Bearish wherein Suddenlystruttin rambles and rants on what we feel is the hott and the decidedly not.

Bullish


Cloverfield

I've been bullish on this movie since the teaser hit youtube back in July and everyone was referring to it as "01-18-08" or simply, "JJ Abrams new project." Now they've released the full trailer and the movie is going to be called "Cloverfield." This trailer does not disappoint and I am extremely intrigued by what this flick can bring to the table. That being said, good monster movies are reaaallly hard to pull off, so, I need to temper my enthusiasm with a dose of: "Eh, it's not gonna be that great."
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New Silver Jews Album*

That cantankerous and oh, so poetic troubadour of "The People," David Berman, is at it again with a new album coming out sometime next spring, right around my birthday if anyone's wondering about what to get me... This time around the collection of songs will be called, "Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea." Sounds pretty stupid to me, but hey, so does "Cloverfield" and lame titles aren't going to stop me from checking either of them out.

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Bearish


Sabotage

I'm all for sabotage along as it never, ever under any circumstances puts a beautiful, young woman at risk of losing her beauty and youth. This automatically puts me ahead of whatever courtesan/harlot/hussy that dared to endanger the looks of the tender and recently crowned Miss Puerto Rico. Allegedly the jealous competitor sprayed the clothing of Miss PR with pepper spray. Which reminds me of a funny story in which I used pepper spray as an aphrodisiac...it didn't work and I digress! In any case, Fuck! are women ever ruthless when it comes to competition and beauty pageants and whatnot.

"I'm not noticing any irritation, would you mind removing your bikini, so that I may, ahh, analyze the affected areas more closely?"

* Thanks to alert reader and Columbus, Ohio resident, David for bringing this to my attention.

a word about lebron

It had been ages since I'd really wondered at all about where I stood on the "LeBron Problem," the same scientific quandary that had boggled greater minds than mine for eons. The debate cum debacle that is: What is "LeBron doing" versus "How is LeBron doing this." The nothing against The ALL. Yet not even a full month into this season of seasons, I'm scratching my head in bafflement, guffawing in wide-eyed amazement at how exactly LeBron is doing so much with no more than some spare body parts, jerseys and sweatbands that Danny Ferry found in a gymnasium trash can, surrounding him. Last spring LBJ carrying the Cavs past the East into "Broomsburg, TX, Populatioin: You." was something that exceeded all expectations and can be described as liquid transcendence. What LeBron is doing this season is beyond what I've seen in years, of course, it's been buried and ignored by media, but if LeBron continues this fantasical waltz of dominance...

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Gil Ads vs "The LeBrons"

Personally, I feel that The LeBrons win hands down, but don't take my word for it...

The LeBrons


Gil's New Campaign

LOLSJAX

Fish in a barrel, people. Fish. In. A. Barrel. PS: It's great that you're back Captain Jackson!

Thanksgiving Week In Review

Long week of lite posting, but to be fair there was a lot going on in the real (non-cyber) world that I may now relay to you, the fantastic readers of suddenlystruttin. From turkey dinners and Wild Turkey toasts to late-night trysts to an evening of Korean BBQ and attempted Karaoke, much to discuss, and so we shall.

Tuesday Night
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Foolishly I called an old flame of mine, we'll call her Sharon, on Tuesday night. We live in the same neighborhood and I hadn't talked to her in about four months, so, I thought: Why Not? Well, after a night of too many beers and shots at a Logan Square speakeasy I remembered why not.

Sharon and I meet up at approx. 9 and the drinking and conversation commences. Plenty of catching up type talk, "What's new?" "How's the job?" "Your roommate sucks? I have a monster who lives in the apartment behind me." Et cetera, et cetera. Glance at the clock and it's suddenly midnight and then suddenly it's bartime. Sharon had driven to the bar and she (she's a wily one) coerced me into drunkenly driving (stupid) her car home for her. Now, Sharon is quite a tiny lass, my best estimate is that's she's 5'4" and around 115 lbs. and once we got in her car she threw all 115 pounds onto me and, literally, attacked me with her mouth and all of her feminine cunning. My first tactical blunder was, of course, agreeing to even drive her car and now I've got this much larger tactical folly crawling all over me. The good part was listening to "Daniel" by Elton John while, ahem, "waiting for the car to heat up." Nevertheless I was honor-bound to drop Sharon off and park her car, both of which eventually happened. Of course, upon parking the car, Sharon demanded that I crash at her place as opposed to stumbling the five or six blocks to my own apartment. And who was I to argue with such a rational argument? "Your apartment is closer than mine? I'd be stupid NOT to sleep over, right? right?"

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SCENE MISSING
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The Following Morning
I awake in a strange bed with very little memory of how I got there; even worse, my trusty large intestine has admirably created a tremendous amount of gas-[Nice work, digestive microbes!-Ed.] "Crap!"[Literally! Zing!-Ed.]"Where am I? Oh, that's right, I slept over at Sharon's And hey! There's her naked body right next to me. Grrreat" Shroud my nude self in a bedsheet and stagger to the bathroom which is conveniently right next to Sharon's bedroom. "Double Damnit! How am I going to be as surreptitious about this next maneuver as possible?" [Colons don't come with silencers?-Ed.] Bathroom door closes and locks. Agonizing minutes pass as I deflate with as little noise as possible the bloated balloon of pressure from my nether regions. A deep-sea fish being wrenched into the shallows does not have it as bad as I do in these moments. The bathroom has adopted the odor of an abattoir, secretly, I'm oh, so proud of myself for that feat! As I'm washing my hands I notice that there are no matches and no window and fear for whomever walks into the room next. I go to open the door and the door won't open. Try to push the lock open, nope! -Hmmm, this is getting awkward.- Try again, this time with some real force and effort, the door won't budge. Uh, oh. Begin pounding and simultaneously twisting on the door knob to get the lock unjammed. Nothing. Calmly knock on bathroom door hoping that Sharon or her roommate will hear me. Both of them come to the door. "Is everything okay in there?" "Yes, everything's fine except for the door not opening." "Ha, oh yeah, it's broken." "Are you kidding?" At this point I'm envisioning the Chicago fucking Fire Department getting called in and rescuing my sheeted idiot self from the rank odor and two fire fighters winning medals from surviving the stench. Sharon tries to do the "trick" with the credit card and it doesn't work, I commence to doubling my effort at hammering and twisting the door knob as she puts all of her marginal size and strength into it and finally the door opens.

Wednesday Night
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Thanksgiving Eve in the Burbs

After the uhh, events, of the previous evening I am in complete agreement with my friend Paul's idea of leaving Chicago early on Wednesday night and going to his hometown for the night to party with his family. We get into town and meet up with his siblings at their mom's home where a scant 18 hours later we'd surely be dining on the finest of feasts. We head into town and hit up a number of very crowded bars where flocks of people come up to my surrogate family regaling them with tales of high school homecomings and Friday night football games. I'm in my natural element when I'm surrounded with people I don't know whom I'll never see again, so, I just start picking people for information and then making up lies about how I went to high school with these people. The best part of the night was when at one point some douchey character approached Paul's cousin and myself and begins profusely apologizing for all of his friend's coats laying on our table at the bar. The douche wants to know how he can make it up to us and Paul's cousin gamely suggests drinks. Douche replies, "I don't buy drinks, but I do buy shots." So we ended up doing Jaegger-Bombs with the winner and no one was the wiser.

More to Come, or maybe not...

LOLCATatastrophes!

Read This.

And, Voila!


What qualifies as polite, dinner conversation at the Tony Ritz Thanksgiving Table, Sorry.

Caution: Weird and potentially NSFW Video

A friend just pointed this out to me, and it is very weird and roll on floor hilarious. Indeed, some jokers are having fun at youtube's expense. Watch at your own risk and Mrs. Diehl try not to be too disappointed with me.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Won't be posting the rest of the week as I'll be making a drunken glutton out of myself in the Chicago suburbs. Enjoy the food, football and your weird uncle making awkward remarks to your parents!

To get everyone in the spirit here's a safety video on deep frying turkeys.

Deep Fryers? Not just for the Foxworthy crowd anymore!

Bullish and Bearish

Bullish


Labor Strikes in France

Count me in whenever my ancestor's homeland is brought up in labor-related strife. "What's that Pierre? You're pension isn't at the level you want it to be and your bosses are pressuring you to retire early?" Strike! Seriously the French are the most awesome citizenship on the face of the planet. They get about 8 weeks of vacation every summer and whenever they get upset about their wages/pensions/wine and cheese allotments they get to go on strike. That settles it, I'm moving to France! [You don't parlez vous Francais-Ed.] Not knowing a language has never stopped me before, just ask the Nazis how much ass I kicked when I invaded Berlin back in 1942. Or maybe that was in a game of Wolfenstein 3-D...

Bonus Bullish
So, I know this happened this past weekend and it's been all over the celeb-blogs for a few days now, but I really don't feel that I'd be doing my duty if I weren't to report on the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, and when I say "report," I mean, show a picture of a supermodel in lingerie.

Gratuitous? You bet! Oh, and please click image for a much larger image.

Bearish
The Presidential Pardon of the National Turkey
This sends the completely wrong message to terrorists. Where's the menace? Where's the fear-mongering? I say, if you let one turkey go, you're basically enabling, hell, funding at least 20 Al-Qaeda members. It's practically giving them the blue prints to the USA's largest turkey factory. [What?-Ed.] In any case the President is a big chicken for being soft on turkeys. I'm sure Bin Laden is gobbling this all down with glee somewhere in his mountain compound that he shares with Elvis, Nixon's ghost and the guy who played Mr. Belvedere.

Late Night Nerd Note

So that's what comes up when you do a Google Image for "safari"


Just upgraded the OS* on my iBook and I've gotta say, the new version of Safari, Safari 3.0, is bitching. Nothing too flashy but a ton of very cool minor upgrades, ie: with tabbed browsing you can click and drag various tabs in your window for smoother navigation. The coolest and very late-to-the-game upgrade was getting Safari on the same page as Gmail and Blogger. Gchat and all of Bloggers handy shortcuts are all available on a Mac born and bred browser and it's about fucking time. Ha, so, I just realized this whole thing sounds like an Apple commercial. Ummm, "Hey, PC?" I guess? Sorry, I'll try to come up with something mildly entertaining or humorous for next time.

* No, not that OS upgrade, simply, the latest version of Tiger-not Leopard. I probably won't be using Leopard until I get a new computer, which my accounting department projects will be sometime in late 2013.

Andris Biedrins has a Blog!

Everyone's favorite Latvian NBA star, that's right, Andris Biedrins has a blog. It's pretty funny and it gets even funnier if you read it with a fake Eastern European accent and insert Yakov Smirnov jokes at your own discretion. Dude's seriously one of the most enjoyable NBAers to watch and I assume his blog is going to be at least as entertaining to read.

Andris Biedrins' Blog

Big Ten Finale

Mercifully the grizzled ol' dog that is the Big Ten Conference was put out of it's misery yesterday. Fortunately none of the "teams" shall be heard from until the glut of bowl games assaults us with contests bearing names such as Champs Sports Bowl and the CarQuest Bowl, unfortunately, my proposal for a Hooters Bowl was denied. One day... Moving on to the actual games, I correctly predicted the outcome of every Big Ten game this week, if not the scores.

Illinois 41, Team Slumpbuster 22
The Fightin' Native Americans dominated this game. Team Slumpbuster never had a chance.

Indiana 27, Purdue 24
Hoosier kicker Austin Starr iced the game with a 49 yd FG with 30 ticks left as Indiana beat their in-state rival and James Hardy finished the season with at least one touchdown in every game-except for the Wisco game.

Michigan State 35, Paterno State 31
MSU showed up in all of it's manic glory, allowing Penn State to race out to 17 point lead before clawing back into the game and finally taking the lead for good with four minutes left. After that it was merely waiting for Penn State's Morelli's ineptitude to take over. In any case, it was a rare reversal of fortunes for Michigan Stae to be on the other side of a second half comeback attempt. Regardless of what bowl Penn State ends up in, this season has to be categorized as a minor disappointment at best.

Wisconsin 41, Minnesota 34
Holy Christ was I nervous about UW's chances thru the first three quarters of this game. To have to have suffered the ignominy of knowing that the Badgers provided the Golden Gophers with their only conference win would've been too much. Lucky for me I was able to sheath the ceremonial hari-kari sword for another year...

Ohio State 14, Michigan 3
Lllllater Lllllloyd. Ugly game to watch and, surely, a painful game for the Great Lakes State to have watched. I feel minor twinges of saddness for Mike Hart at the thought of him never beating Ohio State, but those notions are quickly dashed when I envision the first phat NFL check he signs as a rookie next spring.

*Look for some Bowl Destination Predictions in the coming days.

Go See 'No Country For Old Men'

Admittedly, I'm a huge Coen Brothers fan, that being said go see No Country For Old Men. The Coen's adapted the screenplay from Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same title and have made a brutally violent and hilarious take on life on the US/Mexico border in 1980-picture a noirish, contemporary western and you'll start to get an idea. Furthermore the flick features one of the most deliberately murdersome antagonists since Hannibal Lecter.

Thursday Sports: Rivalry Week

For anyone looking for the exciting conclusion to the Starbury legacy, I've got some sad and mundane news. Yep, 180,000 dollar fine and he shows up ready to play. In any case the "exciting conclusion" involved Starbury trying to find the ghost of Meadowlark Lemon and him ripping on Zeke for listening to "The Big Chill" Soundtrack. Onward with the predictions, it's the final week of the Big Ten and there are lots of stupid trophies to play for.


Retarded Trophies

Purdue vs Indiana, 3:30 pm EST, Big Ten Network
Boilermakers and Hoosiers play for a bucket. We're talking Corky level retarded, but that's what you have to get excited about when either one of these teams is only bowl eligible every 4 or 5 years.
Purdue 28 Indiana 35

Paterno State vs Michigan State, 3:30 pm EST, ABC
Theoretically this game could rank higher, but c'mon! neither of these teams are rivals and they play for a fuckin' bell dubbed the "Land Grant Trophy" for Christ's sake. This game routinely has the drama and pageantry of a high school homecoming game. I can't even really blame Penn State, they came into the Big Ten in the early 90s and were looking for some games that could be scheduled every season, so, the Big Ten schedule makers say, "Hey, your university is a land grant established school, how about we team you up with Ohio State and Michigan State every year?" Paterno says sure, end of story. The real reason this game doesn't rank as high is because of the continual crappiness of MSU and how by mid October every season they've folded like a card table. That being said, I'm picking MSU to upset Penn State.
MSU 28 PSU 17

Team Slumpbuster vs Illinois, 12:00 EST, ESPN
Playing for a peace pipe, really? Wait, let me guess, the redskinned savage "culturally insensitive" mascot for Illinois brought it, right? For shame Northwestern, I would've hoped your haugty ways, high academic standards and complete lack of competitive athletic drive would've prevented you from dallying with such demeaning bric-a-brac and with a public institution no less!
Illinois 38 Northwestern 24

"Me? 'Smoke'em peace pipe, I think rather not, Chief Runs-With-Coeds. Nay, this fine Cuban and a glass of port shall suffice."


Modestly non-Retarded Trophies

Wisconsin vs Michigan, 3:30 pm, EST, Big Ten Network
Easily the most awesome trophy in the Big Ten, a five foot tall axe once owned by Paul Bunyan himself. The mythos and cultural connotations alone are all that this trophy needs to make it the most relevant. The Badgers and Gophers have faced off 117 times and very rarely has the game meant anything more than state bragging rights, still, the trophy is badass.
Wisconsin 24 Minnesota 10



"I will slaughter you with my huge axe.


Big Ten Title bout

Ohio State vs Michigan, 12:00 EST, ABC
Lloyd Carr's final season, Michael Hart, Chad Henne and Jake Long's final home game, I really don't see how UM loses this. Wait, yes I do! Henne's arm is attached with some vermicelli pasta and duct tape and Hart's -- as usual, dinged up. As much as I've discussed Michigan winning the Big Ten and how disgracefully fitting that would be for this vastly underwhelming conference with the injuries I can't see Michigan winning. If Hart and Henne are on the field it will be a different story.
OSU 20 Michigan 17

Starbury

New York City, First Precinct Police Department: A haggard and grim chief of police stares at his office phone, mulling over what he knows he must do. Reflexively, out of the corner of his eye he glances at the paper work still left unfilled from his own sexual harassment suit that took place earlier in the summer. He sighs and pages for his assistant, "James, please send in Detective Starbury."

Starbury: "You wanted to see me?"
Commissioner Zeke: "That's right, Starbury, please, take a seat."
Starbury: I can tell by your demeanor this is no social call, what's up Chief?"
Zeke: "This isn't easy for me to tell you, but, I had to tell you man-to-man; I'm taking you off the case and puttting Collins in charge of the investigation. I'm sorry."
Starbury: "Chief, that's bullshit! You know it's bullshit, why are you doin' this? What's this bullshit really about?"
Zeke: "Please calm down, it comes down to what I need our force to do. You're a loose cannon. You completely botched the deal in the Don Gonzalez case, you forced the issue and now the DA's office is breathing down my neck asking why we don't have more results."
Starbury: But Chief, our men, excuse me, your men won't even listen to a new jack like Mardy Collins, they'll fucking eat him alive!"
Zeke: -Voice Rising- "Now you listen to me you son of a bitch, I don't give a fuck where you work and if you don't watch it, I'll have you filing parking tickets in fuckin' Astoria in a heartbeat. You work for me and for our force and never fucking forget that. Now get the fuck out of my office."

Starbury rises from chair and exits the office.

Starbury -to himelf- "This isn't over. No way. I've got so much shit on Zeke. He thinks he can get me, but I'll get him first. You have no idea what I know."

Surely, TO BE CONTINUED

Midweek Updates

Boy George Will Kidnap You
Are you a foreign escort visiting Jolly Old England? Well, look out! Cuz, Boy George is going to kidnap you, chain you to a wall, drag out the sex toys and "give you what you deserve." WOW! I couldn't make that sound more creepy if I wanted to. Wait! I've got it! What if I publish a photo of a washed up pop-singer in his late 40s...


Eureka! Instant Nightmare Fuel.

The Baptists are a caring and understanding bunch
See this is why I'm a Catholic, because Catholics have so much "tolerance" for homosexuals and, of course, by "tolerance" I mean unwillingness to allow them in the church. Unlike, those slimy Baptists who say "Come on over" and then kick the homosexuals out, along with the offending church who allowed those filthy heathens in, in the first place...

Blogger Rights vs. "Journalists Rights"
Yep, bloggers are the problem. Because newspapers and "real" media outlets never, ever, ever publish hearsay.

Bullish and Bearish

Bullish


Tights and Shorts

This fashion trend has been emerging for the past few falls in Chicago and it's rather rampant this go around; to whichever heroin-chic, slutted up, New York hipsterette who came up with this idea: "Thank You!" Jesus Christ, on the behalf of men everywhere, THANK YOU! I cannot emphasize how awesome this look is, it combines the practicality of ladies keeping their hot, delicious legs warm with the tights and melds that with the fun of an afternoon spent ogling waitresses in short shorts at the Hooters out by the airport.


Excuse me, my left hand girlfriend is beckoning me towards the bedroom.


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Bearish



Swedish Officials

If this activist group gets the legislation to pass, I am soooo moving to Sweden.

Weekend Wrap Up: What Happened Edition

Ohio State lost, Michigan lost and Team Slumpbuster beat Indiana. Signs of the Appocalypse? Hardly, no, these results are merely more indicators of the absolute shittiness of the Big Ten this year. Onwards. To the Reviews!

Illinois 28 Ohio State 21
Much like the bullet-proof flak jackets, SWAT members wear to keep those bullets on the outside, can be penetrated with the blade of a knife Ohio State's "bullet-proof" defense weaved out of spare limbs, steroids and Kevlar finally met their match. The knife in this case was Illinois' mobile, "athletic" Juice Williams who tortured the Buckeyes' linebackers and secondary all day. A combo of keepers and juuuust enough passes with juuust enough accuracy to slice thru the layers of scarlet and gray Kevlar of OSU and suddenly the Buckeyes were on the ground bleeding and radioing back to HQ, "Demanding back-up, Officer down! Officer down!" Meanwhile, Todd Boeckman showed his worst side at the worst possible moment throwing 3 picks to no TDs and, indeed, eating a huge dick/laying a gigantic egg/choking when he should've been ice cold. Beanie Wells did what he could against a stout and resilient Illini defense, however, Beanie was only one man in a frontier land fraught with upset and situations tOSU had been unfamiliar with all year.

Wisconsin 37 Michigan 21
Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle! I did not foresee this at all, and when I checked in on the score midway thru the second quarter at an Irish pub in New York City, I was shocked. I didn't get to see most of this game but judging from the box score UW's patented-if not erratic- "Strangulator" defense showed up as opposed to the cartoon pirate-badger defense that they've favored for most of the season. Wisconsin was also the beneficiary of having Michigan's backup QB and backup running back in for the majority of the game, once again proving the axiom, "Tis better to be fortunate than wise." In any case, UW has now won two out of the past three games against the Wolverines, which may be a sign that the worm is slowly, oh, so slowly turning in UW's favor in this most lopsided of series'.

Paterno State 31 Temple 0
What do you know, I totally called the points total for PSU, sadly, PSU's defense performed far too admirably and pitched the shut-out. Unbelievably, PSU held Temple to only 4!!! yards of rushing offense which is downright amazing. Yes, I am considering how shitty Temple is: 4 yards is still 4!! yards.

Team Slumpbuster 31 Indiana 28
Indiana displayed in all of it's glory their typical and controversial French military-themed defensive scheme of "letting the other team's players run into the end zone." Based off the Maginot Line and the hope that Kellen Lewis and James Hardy will score enough points, the Hoosiers defense could not slow down Team Slumpbuster and ended up losing. C'est la vie!


The Maginot Line: Not just for the French!

Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan State and Purdue all competed as well, but, frankly, I could give two shits about any of those games...