RUSH'S New Album Coming Soon

I realize that the news of a new RUSH album will elicit a response from you -- and most people -- somewhere between "Who?", and "Who cares!?". For me, this is exciting news. The album, entitled Snakes and Arrows, should be out in early May. The first single should be released within a week or so.

I've been a RUSH fan for about 20 years. I've seen them in concert four times, most recently in 2002. Schramm went with me to that show. That was the night they played the Spotlight On Sports closing theme song. We both screamed in amazement once the first few notes kicked in. That could have been the beer talking. Still, we were stoked.

Down the road, maybe after the album comes out, I'll devote a longer post to RUSH, one of my top five bands, so consider this a distant early warning.

In the meantime, enjoy a classic drum solo from the master himself, RUSH'S Neil Peart.

Went To A Fight And A Hockey Game Broke Out

I took Megan to her first hockey game last Sunday. We went as part of her brownie scout troop for a Chicago Wolves game. It was an eye opening day for Megan -- and it was a bit of an eye closing day for me after Megan accidentally poked me in the eye with her foam Wolves claw -- as she got to witness her first fight.

It was a doozy, too. Video evidence can be found below.

It happened right after the initial puck drop. I had spent several minutes prior to the game trying to explain how the game works. I kept it simple.

"The guys in the white jerseys are the Wolves, the good guys, they're going to try to put the puck in that net, and the guys in the red are the bad guys, and they're going to try to put the puck in this net," I said.

After the deafening pregame player introductions, Wayne Messmer came out to sing the anthem. That never gets old. I wasn't sure if Wolves fans continued the tradition that began at the old Chicago Stadium of cheering the anthem from start to finish.

They don't. And, it felt weird. Although, there was one guy a few rows from us who stood up and clapped throughout the entire song. He didn't care that nobody else was joining him. It probably would have been more embarrassing to stop mid-song, so he kept right on going until the end. Dope.

We were just settling back into our seats when the opening faceoff was immediately followed by a great battle between Wolves player Nathan Oystrick, and Knights' player Brett Palin. Oystrick certainly got the better of Palin. He landed several solid punches, took him down, and may have broken his nose. The crowd went nuts, and Megan had a "what did I just see?" face.

That was before they came out to scrape the blood off the ice. She looked at me, I smiled at her, put my hand on her leg and said, "Megan, welcome to hockey."

The legendary Pat Foley is on the call of the fight, which you can see below. Pat's one of my idols. I actually got to interview him about 15 years ago while I was in college. I owe that to my Mom who wrote him a letter, as only a loving Mom could do, and he actually called me to help set it up. I got to interview him prior to a Hawks game at the Stadium back in '91.

It's good to still be able to hear him call games.

If I remember, I'll share some old Blackhawk game stories with you in another post.

The Wolves game kind of had a feel of a Blackhawks game. Foley on the play-by-play, Messmer on the anthem, and a lackluster 4-2 loss.

But the final score is one of the last things Megan will remember from that day. She got a puck -- given away free before the game to all scouts -- signed by the mascot, "Skates". I bought her the Wolves' foam claw, and she survived, and seemed to enjoy, the most intense and loudest indoor pyrotechnic pregame displays she's ever experienced, and probably ever will. But even those things weren't at the top of her list.

I asked her when we got home what her favorite part of the day was.

"The fight," she said, without much hesitation at all.

Megan, welcome to hockey.

It Looks Like Spit...

I tried to explain the old "it looks like spit but it's (s)not" joke to Megan -- our six year old -- the other day, but it didn't take. It probably came about because I had just wiped our seven-month old, Sarah's nose for the twelfth time in the last 30 seconds.

It's been traded back and forth among the four of us, that I can't remember how it started. This is a fun time of year isn't it?

Sarah has it the worst right now. She started with some sniffles a couple of weeks ago. That turned into an ear infection. She never tugged at the ear, or showed any signs of discomfort, so it was virtually impossible to detect it. The doctor caught it fairly quickly and got her on some medication.

A few days passed, she was getting better, and got a fairly clean bill of health from the doc when we went for a follow-up. Then a day or so later, she started again with the sniffles, sneezes, and all that other fun gooey stuff. Another trip to the doc a day or so after that, and at least her ears were fine. More meds.

Then the cough started. Back to the doc. You can never be too careful with a seven-month old. Doctor said Sarah's chest was fine. I thought that was an inappropriate comment to make about a baby, then I realized she was talking about her congestion. We were told to only come back if the cough got worse.

Which, of course, it did.

The next day Sarah was diagnosed with R.S.V. which translates to really bad congestion. Now we give her breathing treatments every 4-6 hours. Those are fun. Actually Sarah likes it. It must be working, too, because she just sits on one of our laps, lets the mask sit against her face while she breathes in the medicine.

It helps break up the gunk in her chest, then afterwards she's able to get a few productive coughs, and she's fine.

She's been a trooper through this whole bout with the cold. Imagine having a cold where you aren't able to blow your nose, or cough out any phlegm. Unimaginable, isn't it?

Sarah was getting some relief though, as we use the aspirator to suction out the goo from her nose whenever it's needed. I've never seen so much gunk before.

Hopefully this won't end up being a chronic thing. The less often snot is a topic for conversation, or play-on-word jokes, the better.

In the meantime, I need to find a more understandable joke for Megan.

How about this one: Where do children learn their ABC's ? At LMN-tary school !

Hmmm, on second thought --

You see, Megan, snot and spit kind of look the same.

And, "it's snot" and "it's not" sound the same...

My Blog Is (Line) Spacing Out

I recently switched to the new format for Blogger, and had to reload my fonts, colors, etc. For some reason, some of the spacing in several of my older posts is all screwy. Hate when that happens.

The change does make it easier to upload photos, and arrange different page elements. But the messed up line spacing thing is an eyesore.

Since I can't figure out how to fix it, the next best option is to make more posts, thus, pushing the affected entries onto the next page.

So, here's a rather engaging collection of pool trick shots. Some really good ones after the 2:00 mark.

Britney auditioning for role of Vic Mackey?

Okay, so who had February 21st in the "Britney Spears flips out at a photographer and dents their truck with an umbrella" pool?

Step forward, you're a winner.

It was a few seconds after this latest bizarre behavior that Spears checked herself into rehab -- for the third time this week.

More pictures of Britney's impressive two-handed backhand, can be found here.

Zeroes

Fans of Heroes should enjoy this parody. I could be a part of this group. Have you ever heard my armpit farts?

You Don't Know Jack

Remember the CD-Rom trivia game You Don't Know Jack that was pretty popular a few years back? Well, you can play an online version of it here.

I was going to embed it into the blog, but the game's pre-set dimensions would have blown the dimensions of this blog to shreds, and I can't resize it so that it will fit properly.

The game is still pretty addicting, features snarky dialogue and cool sound effects, and it updates with a fresh "test" daily. There's also the option to play games from previous days.