Even though they're in separate cages, both Indy and Chip are very aware of each other. Tonight, while Indy was out and Chip was in his cage, Indy walked (hopped) over to Chip's cage. Chip had been eating kale, something Indy didn't seem to like. Well, there was a stalk of kale laying up against the bars of the cage and Indy just stuck her nose inside the cage and pulled the stalk of kale out and started eating it. We're not sure what it means - whether it was just a little show of power, to show Chip who's the boss, or maybe after 7 years she's developed a taste for kale. In any case, it took us by surprise and we laughed our asses off at them.

In the meantime, my sister Diane and Melinda took off this afternoon for Europe. They're flying to Barcelona and hanging out there for a while, and then driving to Nice and finally Milan before coming back a week from now. Diane always goes away for her birthday, never staying home. And I'm jealous because she's the world traveler, going to great places... while Carol and I have had to cut way back because of my prolonged unemployment... we don't leave the midwest... perhaps we'll get back to this again someday...

I didn't watch the ballgame this afternoon. The Sox were playing Philadelphia in a makeup game. I'm just having trouble getting behind the team right now, as everything and everybody has been sliding downhill. One of these guys is Joe Borchard. We've been hearing about this guy for years and years that he's the future for the outfield - in 2001 he was named by Baseball America as the No. 1 Prospect in the White Sox organization, No. 2 Outfielder in the minor leagues. He played 16 games in 2002 and 16 in 2003, and 34 this year. His batting average was .222 in 2002, .184 in 2003 and is .163 for this year (.139 over the last 10 games). In 30 games in the outfield this year, he's made 2 errors and has a fielding percentage of .957 (worse than Jose Valentin, another one of our defensive geniuses). It's easy to see why I'm questioning why the hell we have somebody like this in the lineup.

In the 2nd in today's game, with a man on base and one out, he does something that has been pissing me off just like so many others on this team - he swings on the first pitch.

This time, though, he hits a HUGE 504 foot homerun to right-center that easily cleared the bleachers and landed halfway up the concourse. It's the longest ever at U.S. Cellular Field. Ever. (Before that was 495' from Frank Thomas July 23, 2003 against Minnesota off of Johan Santana. Barry Bonds had one at 475' on June 10, 2003 off of Jon Garland)

Oh, what did he do the other 3 at-bats? Struck out each time.

The latest version of the Olympics are officially over, the games are closed, the flame is out.

NBC's coverage of the closing ceremonies was mas muy sucko. Between too many commercial breaks and Champion flashbacks, there was no way in hell to understand what was being presented on the field. I'm sure there was a story to tell but hell if I could figure it out.

Anyway, 4 years to Beijing. I'm sure they'll be ready.

Oh, and BTW, what the hell was that idiot doing on the Marathon route?

It was 20 years ago today that Carol and I signed the closing papers on our house.

20 Years.

It's the longest either of us have lived in one place in our whole lives. It's kind of a weird feeling when I think about it. 20 years in one place. The thing is, we love our house and have never considered moving. It was a brand new house in a new development. Not exactly new anymore! There's only one thing we would have done differently - payed the extra $10,000 (at that time) for a basement! There's just no place in this small house to store stuff. A basement would have been great!

Oh, well. It's HOME.

So far, Indy & Chip have not been back together. Each of the bunnies take their own turns alone being outside their cages. They go nose to nose and check each other out, with Indy trying to like or rub Chip and Chip sometimes allows it or sometimes freaks and lunges.

It's hit or miss.

Other than that, Indy's attitude and character is back to normal. She's not traumatized at all. She runs around the house and acts normal, which we're happy about.

Chip is wonderful. He's been a very good bunny. He's not chewing on a single thing and he just doesn't get into trouble. He seems to be very affectionate to both of us, constantly licking us and coming up to us for attention. I just wish that we could do something about his nails. The quick is all the way up to the tip of the nail so we can't cut them, and they're razor sharp and hurt like hell. We can tell that he's already grown quite a bit, and he still has a ways to go until we can get him neutered and try to reintroduce him to Indy.

Other than the fact they are living separate lives, both of the bunnies are happy and so are we.

I just got an email from my White Sox ticket rep.

They're building a new seating area behind the plate with all kinds of new amenities.

If you want the front row, the cost of the seat is $200. Otherwise, it's $170.

After a season like this one where I felt the team just folded and collapsed, I guess all I can say is "Good luck to you selling those seats!"

What do you get for that price?

Premium reserved parking outside of Gate 3

Premium buffet in the 5,000+ square foot private restaurant/lounge with all beverages included
Private access to seat location

Wait service at the seats for food and beverages

Comfortable, wide seats

Self-service island featuring popcorn, ice cream, peanuts, soda, water, etc.

One of the best seats in the house, some of which are closer to home plate than the pitcher!

I've seen videotape of this event and and didn't know it was that time of year again.

Imagine a village in Spain that has - every year - a tomato throwing fight on the streets of the town. They go through 132 tons of tomatoes, just loaded into dump trucks. People climb inside, the trucks drive through the streets and the people on the ground and the people in the trucks just wail on each other with tomatoes.

Was flipping through the channels and saw something I've never seen.

It was cycling at the Velodrome at the Olympics. I don't know what event it was (I found out it was the second heat in the Men's Keirin, whatever the hell that is). There was a collision and two cyclists went down. There was a shot of one of them being tended to. He was in a lot of pain. When he fell onto the wood track and slid, going probably around 50-60 kph, the track burned away his uniform and burned him.

Lets face it - they're not wearing any real padding or protection and it's not like those suits are made of Nomex or other material that will protect the wearer from burns and abrasions.

Boy that's gotta hurt...

THEME
More excited fans have started checking out the TAR6 rumors. The Chicago Film Office has confirmed the permit was for August 13th, and covered O'Hare airport and Buckingham Fountain.. Speculation now is that Chicago is the Starting point. (Buckingham fountain would be a great start point!) The what was the team doing on Adams? Don't know - going to a Blue Line stop to take the El to O'Hare? Union Station to the O'Hare Metra stop? There are reports of 8 teams (?) in Boston around that time (Friday the 13th, Saturday the 14th), and then a sighting of teams in Iceland at 6:20am on the 14th. (Makes sense - there are flights from United that connect in Boston with Icelandair. There's even a newspaper report with pictures (and a second). Too bad I can't read it! The next stop - if you can interpret a few things - appears to be Oslo! There is also a report today from someone that might have bumped into a team in the ticket line at the Ostbahnhof train station in Berlin today. This is really cool hearing about TAR in real time!

Just watched the U.S. Women's Softball Team give up their first run in the Olympic Games. It was in the 6th against Australia. The runner got a double because the first baseman and right fielder didn't call who had a popup. The next batter had a double as the run scored.

It was the only run they gave up throughout the games. Damn straight they deserved the Gold Medal! I think their total scores for all of the games was 51-1.

Remarkable.

THEME
The Reality TV website Reality Blurred: The Reality TV Weblog is reporting that not only is Amazing Race 6 currently in production, but a team was actually seen here in Chicago last week!!!

OK, the Olympics have been on for less than a week, and I have even said a peep about them.

Opening Ceremonies: The Olympics meet Cirque du Soleil. I really enjoyed it. I thought the cauldron looked like a huge Bic lighter that tilted to be lit. Cool.

Greece itself: Beautiful. Gorgeous. Would like to go, but never will. When looking at the cities, towns, villages it's just beautiful. When you look at the venues - they're stark, without any landscaping (ran out of time?) and look hot and uninviting.

Swimming events: best use of electronic effect technology showing the flag of the swimmer at the bottom of each lane, and the use of the World Record line when it looks like the lead swimmer is close.

Fencing: I was lucky to go to a high school that had a fencing team and was fascinated with it back then and fascinated now. Glad to see that the electronics have advanced so the fencers don't have to be hard-wired to the scoring equipment. Love this event.

Women's Weightlifting: These women are small and not what I expected to see. One woman was introduced at being 5' 5" - "one of the tallest in the games"

Cheerleaders/dancers and Beach Volleyball? Why? This is the Olympics - how do they add to the athlete's performance? Then again, I'm just writing-off Beach Volleyball as the Snowboarding of the Summer Games - just another viewer-grab and the Gen X-er/extreme games people.

Doubles Table Tennis: First, these tables look a hell of a lot smaller than what I'm used to seeing in people's basements and rec rooms. Then seeing 2 huge guys on each side of one of these little tables just looks... odd.

Badminton: The Curling of the Summer Games - a game that looks like anyone can participate in.

Field Hockey: Somehow, I don't remember the sticks resembling a hook than a hockey stick. But, it's just so... cool... seeing all the pretty girls in their skirts...

Womens Softball: Wow wow o woweewow... I never would have imaged that the US Women have gotten this far without giving up a single run! These women are remarkable. Saw a piece on a doctor here in Chicago that worked with the team to increase the speed of their eye movement. He did this by shooting tennis balls at them that have colored numbers on them at 120 mph while they stood in the batters box. The object was to call out the color and number of each ball and try to put the bat on the ball. The result is that that the batters can see a softball rotation and movement quicker and easier. I know some Major League Baseball teams that could use this guy's help...

Canoeing: When did Kayaking change names to Canoeing?

Gymnastics: Are we really that good?

Basketball: We suck. What an embarassment. I blame the whole "punk" influance of the current NBA "stars".

Synchronized Diving: Way cooler than it sounds. Oh, and that "drop camera" that they use to shoot diving is one of the best views of any of the sports I've seen.

Water Polo: looks like hell to play

Did a lot of research on socializing rabbits and introducing a new rabbit to an existing single rabbit. One thing is for sure: We're going to have to wait for Chip to get older so we can get him neutered. Everything that I've read said that this must be done for any success. Makes sense - poor little Chip is hard-wired for certain behaviors, so we'll just have to keep them apart for what may be a couple of months. They're in their own cages, side by side. The can see each other. In fact, they can stick their noses into the other's cage so they can smell, lick, rub and even bite each other. They each have their own "out" time by themselves, so they won't meat each other and fight like they did last Sunday.

We still hopeful.

In the meantime, I'm still getting scratched-up by our little boy Chip. I may have to do something to take those sharp points off his toenails.

THEME
The cast for the 9th edition of Survivor, called Survivor: Vanuatu - Islands of Fire. There are 18 people (which is interesting since All-Stars was the first series with 18 people). It's also back to "Battle of the Sexes" again - the tribes' colors are yellow for Yasur (the women) and red for Lopevi (the men).

Carol and I are both exhausted. In fact, Carol called-in to take the day off. We're sleeping at every possible moment. I think the wedding last night just wiped us out.

Back to Bunny Duty, keeping an eye on each of them and only letting one of them out at a time. Chip's toenails are still razor sharp and I have to watch how I handle him. We can tell that he's growing already.

It's exactly 1:03 am. Carol and I were in bed 3 minutes when we heard this muffled "boom" that actually shook the house, like an explosion a couple of suburbs over. We had the police radio on and there were calls all over the northwest suburbs about an explosion and a flash of light, but no one was ever able to find anything. I think I know what it was, but it still shook us up since the house actually shook.
Update: Yep, it's what I thought it was. We're in the middle of the Perseid meteor shower and it was a meteor that landed somewhere near Waukegan. The flash was the entry into the atmosphere and the boom was a sonic boom as it decelerated. Pretty damn cool to experience.

We had a a wonderful, unique experience tonight.

Our buddy Victor (whom some of you know as The Diz evenings on WGCI, and may have seen him in a few pictures around this blog) who sits right next to us at our White Sox games got married tonight.

The ceremony was something to see. First off all, the wedding was at 5pm. On a Sunday Night.

Now Michelle, Victor's lovely wife, had won a special "thing" at a Bridal Fair - she was selected to become a "Buff Bride". She (and Victor) got personal trainers, dietitians, etc to get them in shape for the wedding. Oh, and this whole process was shot by a crew for NBC's Dateline (and it's supposed to air sometime in September). So, let's add in a Dateline crew, plus a crew to videotape the wedding for Victor & Michelle, the official wedding photographer(s) and the place gets a bit crowded.

Now, another aspect of the wedding is that it's actually a Black and White Ball - everyone was to wear black and/or white and Black Tie was invited (which I did - yes, I got a tux for the wedding). This whole thing just upscales the wedding dramatically. And speaking of dramatics, it just begins.

DISASTER. UTTER DISASTER.

We decided to do it this morning - put the two bunnies together for their first meeting.

It looked OK for 15 - 30 seconds as they slowly checked it each other out, then it escalated and escalated and escalated until we had two rabbits in a kicking and biting death brawl on the floor right in front of us. Each of them had grabbed on to each other with their teeth and they were using their large back feet to try to disembowel each other. (Ever see Warner Brothers' Tasmanian Devil? Know that whirling mass on screen that's moving so fast, it's just a blur? THAT was the bunnies.) Carol and I reached in and pulled away a bunny.

It was scary and ugly and much quieter than I thought it would be.

We were devastated. I don't think either of us expected a fight like that. Neither rabbit was bleeding, but both had fur in their mouths and Indy lost a clump of fur from her side (but the fur is so dense it isn't noticeable).

I tried an experiment later on by my self and the two rabbits.

It's Chip, not Indy. Indy looked more inquisitive and Chip was definitely the attacker (neither of them touched each other in my experiment - I stayed with Indy and kept her calm and secure while Chip pranced around with his tail high in the air).

This is going to take time - if at all. I've got a bad feeling that perhaps Chip was a mistake after all. I'm not giving up, We're not giving up. We may have to wait for him to get a bit older so we can get him fixed before this gets attempted full-scale.

I feel terrible.

Went to Barry & Buffy's tonight to have a quick barbecue and yack with friends. Debbie was able to squeeze in some time and come and join us. We sat out in their backyard while Barry grilled some chicken and ribs. The sun was actually hot and there wasn't much of a breeze either. The neighborhood was quiet, which was odd since they're just blocks from Wrigley and the game had only been over for an hour or so.

After the great dinner, we watched whatever was on the Olympics, making snide comments about the male divers' outfits, as well as the build of a lot of the swimmers. I'm telling you, watching the Olympics with friends gives you another perspective of the games!

Again, I know I say this a lot about them, but we enjoy the company of the three of them and miss them terribly.

Four years ago this morning my wife Carol underwent double mastectomy surgery.

Four years ago and she's still with me.

I wrote about it last year and the year before (go here for details, if you want) and I'll always write about her on this day, just like one of my "things" is to give her a pink azalea today.

She's alive and kicking and still with me and I can't tell you how happy that makes me feel.

Nothing new to report, except the new guy is pretty damn cute.

Carving out 4 hours to sit in front of the the TV to watch the Opening Ceremonies from Athens tonight.

Also trying to ignore that it's Friday the 13th...

The new bunny got a new name today. I really wanted something that would tie-in to the Wisconsin State Fair in Milwaukee, but absolutely nothing comes to mind that I feel good about. Carol came up with Roscoe and that stuck, but then I accidentally called him Oscar yesterday and all of a sudden the names weren't fitting. We tried Harley for a while (since Harley Davidson is up in Wisconsin), but that just sounded too tough for the little guy. So now, the new name is Chip - as in "chip off the ol' block" since he's a black and white dutch just like Indy.

Well, Indy looks like she's in the next stage - denial. She's not trying to attach Chip at all. She's kind of ignoring him. If she gets close she tries to sniff him and maybe lick him, but that's about it. They're still separated - only one of them are allowed to be out at a time.

I've spent the day making sure that Indy and Roscoe have had their turns out exercising, but not together.

Indy is still pissed and wants to really get at the little guy, but she's slowly mellowing. I think as time passes she's realizing that we not treating her any differently. I'm feeling more positive that in a few days we'll be able for our first play date.

In the mean time, it's been interesting learning a new bunny. He's pre-wired better than Max or Travis was and he's acting a lot like Indy. He's been slowly exploring the area that he's allowed to roam with me chasing after him and telling him firmly "No" and moving him out of the problem areas.

I've forgotten about one other baby bunny problem - toenails. They're sharp as hell. The nice side to Roscoe is that he allow us to pick him up, hold him, and even flip him over - all things that Indy doesn't allow.

Roscoe has been running around the family room at high speed today, doing that bunny thing where they run so fast that their butts kind of fishtail out.

I'm finding out that he's a little vocal, too, if it's quiet and you listen carefully. It's a few quiet whimpers and a kind of quiet squeak. It's really cool and I hope he doesn't lose it. He's been laying on my shoulder for the past half hour as I've been sitting on the couch typing this.

I REALLY want Roscoe and Indy to get along.

Carol took the day off and we drove up to Milwaukee to go to the Wisconsin State Fair.

We love going to this thing. I would rather go to the Illinois State Fair, but Milwaukee is much closer than Springfield. Our family has been going up there for years. The draw for us has been the animals, the absolutely crappy merchandise being sold in the pavilions and the food food FOOD!!!

The weather isn't the best - cloudy, breezy and temps in the high 60's.

We try to go on a day when the rabbits are being judged so we can see all the breeds. It's always a highlight for us.

We started walking around to get an idea of food choices. Every year there's more and more and more food stands, which of course make the choice even harder. I thought I read somewhere that there are 172 stands here. We got a few ideas and then it was post time for the pig races. Carol hadn't seem them before, and this year they added a swimming pool. Yes, the last race was also a water race as the pigs swam the length of the pool. No, seriously!

So, after the races, we picked-up some Reuben Rolls (like eggrolls, but filled with corned beef, sauerkraut... everything to make a reuben sandwich), potato pancakes, brats, and pierogi's.

Well, we needed to walk that off, so we walked all the way down to the exhibit halls to look at the real bad merchandise for sale. Now, yes, there are a few good products, but how many juicers, mops and pieces of fudge do you really need?

The Milwaukee Admirals had the AHL Calder Cup at their booth. Boy, is it in bad shape!

Well, we got what we were looking for - a pet carrier - and started heading back across the park, stopping for a World Famous creme puff along the way.

Creme puff.... augggllllll.....

Anyway, it was getting darker out and it was getting later into the afternoon, so it was time to go pick-up our purchase and take him home.

... the motivation, that is.

I know I've got stuff to say and write, I'm just not interested in doing so. Must be just another manifestation of this funk I've been going through over the past few days/weeks/months/years.

I've got a confession to make.

THEME

Well, on request of Carol, I got out of the house tonight so she could just have a night to herself (you know, without me "breathing in the house"). So, I went over to the AMC South Barrington 30 and caught the 5:30 Thunderbirds. I knew Carol didn't want to see it and I just had to see it since it was one of my favorite shows when I was a kid. I was upset that they twisted the story line into a kids movie, but they were pretty damn true to the spirit of the original series. It was a fun ride, but if you're not a fan, don't bother.

The movie was over by 7:20, so I decided to stay and caught the 7:40 Catwoman. I don't know what I was hoping for, but I wanted more. There was something missing. I mean, Halle Berry was great to watch but the movie just didn't hold me...

THEME
Found this tidbit out on the web... it might be from Zap2It.

David letterman just showed a picture of his son Harry that he took yesterday after giving him a bath. Harry is already 9 months old!

The big deal in town (now that Millennium Park is open) is that Batman Begins is filming here. There are new tax incentives in place to try to persuade production companies to film here. I guess director Christopher Nolan liked Lower Wacker Drive, so they've built the entrance to the Batcave down there. Also, I've been seeing tape of some of the news reports and they've shown the new Batmobile - still another different look, more military meets mad Max (you can see it at the official website).

Here's the story from tonight's NBC5 Chicago News... (5Mb AVI)

"Rabbit, Rabbit!"