Random Thoughts

Here are some more random thought off of the top of my head.

The Sum Times has gotten small – I buy the Sun Times every day and it is getting thinner then a slice of Budding Beef. I bought it the other day and it was 54 pages. That is a fucking joke. I know times are tight and readership is down. The answer however, is not cut staff and make a leaner paper. If you have to raise prices fine, I can live with that as long as the paper gets back to its meatier roots.

January is the worst month for movies – I did not come up with this one, my friend Chris pointed this out and the more I thought about it, he is right. Look at what is out at the theaters currently. Nothing but shit, unless you want to see the Bucket List. Movies don’t start getting good again until the spring at the earliest.

January is the longest month – At least it is in Chicago. Listen, I am not one of these anti-Winter pussies that moan and bitch about the weather. I understand it gets cold in Chicago and really I don’t mind that or the snow. It is just that it seems this month drags on. It is a pain in the ass dealing with the conditions and around now is when it starts to become a drag. It seems time comes to a standstill as we wait for the thaw. Also, I am really missing baseball right now and am already counting down to the day when pitchers and catchers report to spring training.

Metra is full of shit – There was an article in the paper a week or so ago touting Metra’s on-time statistics. In that piece it claimed the southwest service, the train line I ride every day and have ridden daily for over ten years in on time 96.9% of the time. Let me be the first to call bullshit on that. If that train is on time 70% of the time I would be surprised. Ask anyone who has ever ridden this train line consistently if they think that number is correct. This just proves statistics can be manipulated. When I saw that the stats were provided by Metra themselves I knew where the problem was. If you want a true representation of on time stats for the train you need to hire an outside third party to compile those statistics. Otherwise you will continue to get bullshit numbers.

I am the king of 500 Rummy – I have played thousands of hands of 500 rummy in my life. I learned from the masters in my Grandma and my Uncle Dan. Everyone has a game they are good at and for me it is 500 rummy. It frustrates my wife as we have been playing more and more recently and she can’t beat me. In truth it is not fair. I’ve played since I was a kid and she just picked up the game. It is like asking a little leaguer to strike out Alex Rodriguez. Joyce is getting good, but she can’t beat me. My brother for years has been flummoxed by me and my annoying mind tricks I use to get him off his game. I don’t usually toot my own horn, but I will take on anyone who wants to challenge me to a game head to head.