Catching Up

A whole bunch of random thoughts, since I haven't posted in 2 months.

First, after 16 weeks, I'm still alive in all three of my fantasy football leagues. Heading into the finals in the two important leagues - the UPL league where I'm gunning for the second "Roland Slam," where I win all three sports, and my first ever cash league (albeit only $30 to enter), where I'm already up $55, with a $30 swing riding on the game. My other league was a bit of an afterthought, but I'm looking alright heading into the semis. The funny part is, if I had to choose one to win, it's not the $30, but it's the UPL league that's always for bragging rights.

In fact, we have a new UPL Baseball trophy, courtesy of the C-Lauff Dollar that I won from my now-famous bet that I would finish ahead of C-Lauff in baseball this past year (note, when I made the bet, I was in 10th place, and C-Lauff was in 1st, so there was a decent chance that my mouth was writing a check my fantasy team couldn't cash). And we recently have won, but have not yet acquired, a Curran Dollar, which will becomes the new UPL Football trophy. What's awesome is that I made C-Lauff sign the dollar, and he was kind enough to write the inscription that you see below. This is much like Greg Camarillo's idea from this week's Dolphins win over the Ravens, only we've had this baby made for a week now.




I like the trophy. It's got a Stanley Cup feel to it. We'll have a lot of room to add the names of champions for the next decade or so before we have to expand it, maybe add an extra tier.

I still haven't written up my Illini Basketball preview, but will do so soon. Many of the regular readers already know my thoughts, after that awful 2nd half in the Illini-Arizona game up in Chicago.

I think that I'm going to pass on going to the Rose Bowl. Not only would it be sort of pricey, but spending those 5 days on the road would be bad for the dissertation (not that I'm getting much done here, but I could, in theory).

The weather got cold here, and we got some snow. I like the snow, but people become idiots who forget how to park when the snow hits the ground. Though, people on the roads to slow down, so oddly enough, it seems a bit safer. But what the heck happened to global warming?

Apparently we're having presidential debates and stuff. And apparently none of the Don King-Louis Farrakhan-Al Sharpton troika is running. I still think that a Don King/Suge Knight ticket would be hot. I mentioned something about candidates needing to have "it" to win a while ago in the comments of an IJAB posting. But we're seeing Obama, Hillary, and Edwards in a close race on the Democrat side. Those three all have "it" to varying degrees. But let's be serious. I'm not voting for any of those people. Obama bores me. Edwards bores me and seems shady. Hillary angers me and seems shadier.

On the GOP side, we're seeing a mess between Giulani, Romney, Fred Thompson, and Mike Huckabee, and maybe even Ron Paul.

Giulani's got a bunch of dirt on him, which would make for an ugly process. Romney's got that Mormon thing going, which along with being from New England makes for a tougher road in carrying the South. Fred Thompson's got the Law and Order thing going. Unfortunately, when someone told me that an actor from Law and Order was running for president, I just assumed that it would be Ice-T. But Fred Thompson's cool. These guys all have varying degrees of "it." Romney seems like a boring person. Giulani may be a little too interesting. And his name's hard to spell. Fred Thompson has the TV thing going for him, and his name even sounds like a presidential name. In fact, it's right up there with John Edwards as being the most presidential name in the race. This is crucial, trust me.

I'm not down with Ron Paul. Isolationism has never worked in the history of man. China and Japan were overrun by foreign technology when they tried this. The U.S. policy of isolationism helped fascism blossom in Eastern Europe in the early 20th century. This had to be discarded twice in 25 years. Plus, he seems stiff whenever I see him on TV. And most importantly, I don't trust people with two syllable names that aren't wrestlers (see Gore, Al).

I decided that I liked Mike Huckabee a while ago when he was on CNBC some random afternoon talking about his "fair tax" proposal. I like him even more now that Chuck Norris and Ric Flair (see? two syllable names have "it" in wrestling, much like Bret Hart or The Rock, of course I may have to reevaluate things in 2020 when Will Smith runs for president, though I may have to allow for a little bonus effect if DJ Jazzy Jeff runs for VP) have offered their endorsements. But even beyond that, he seems likable. Of course, people are wondering about his funding. Maybe he's actually running for VP? If you pair up one of the Northeastern guys with Huckabee to help with the Evangelical/South, you may have a winner. On the other hand, the Demcrats tried this with Kerry/Edwards last time around, which was a bit of a fiasco.

Of course, I'm still probably not voting, so I guess that it doesn't matter who I like. But if push came to shove, I'd vote for Mike Huckabee, based on the advice of Ric Flair. Of course, if Hulk Hogan endorses a different candidate, I may change my mind.

I'm sure that there's a bunch of random stuff going on that I'll write about over break. Maybe my renewed poker career or whatever random things pop into my head.

-Chairman

The Diagnosis

Well, one thing that I finally figured out today at basketball was that I'm old. I need to get the knees loose before I can actually play. And once they're warmed up, they're okay. So, it was funny - I needed a few minutes on the exercise bike before we got going. I felt like TO out there. All I needed was a bicycle helmet and a Team Discovery jersey.

So, today's game was a lot like last week. Good play, overall. Very solid defense (against a pretty good player who played both inside and outside). Was able to move around. And I even hit a couple spot-up jumpers from the baseline, a couple long jumpers, and even one litle bank shot off the dribble. The downside - I've lost the pull-up. I need to get that back. The funny thing is that I was able to get open in the lane, from about 10 feet. And as I pulled up to shoot, I would get spooked by guys flying at me. Granted, they would fly into me some of the time, but that never used to really bother me. I think that I'm afraid that they're going to crash into my legs. I think that I can get over this in a couple weeks, though.

I was browsing through the Sports Guy's latest post. And I was reminded that Nick Curran was the name of the Michael Douglas character in Basic Instinct. That's hot. Also, Michael O'Donnell was the name of the alleged altar boy that was raped by a Catholic priest in Primal Fear. That's also hot. All I know is that if I ever write a movie, I'm writing all of your names in there as various seedy characters.

Actually, I've sort of done that already. In one of my journal submissions, we have a qualitative piece where we use interview transcripts from our research to tell a story (here, it's the retail shopping experience for low literate consumers). Now, we can't use the real names of our respondents. So, part of my job as the co-author is to clean up the interview transcripts, and to make up names. And that's where you fine folks come in. So people like George, Christian, and Michael have made it into my articles. And future articles will get more of you into the archives of academia. As functional illiterates. How awesome is that?

Now, I'm thinking that it's about time to jump ship on the ol' Reds. Now, a couple times earlier this season, they've swooned, but have bounced back. We'll see if they can do it one more time. They're on probation right now. Maybe things get better if Guardado comes back to close. If not, the Yanks are looking pretty darned good right now. If Mussina comes back healthy, and Unit keeps throwing like he has of late, this team should bring things home. They owned the Tigers, White Sox, and Twins in the second half. And they'll be too good for Oakland (though the A's are probably the 2nd best team in baseball right now).

To close - our Illini are 1-0, after owning... well, Eastern Illinois. I mean, they were ranked 16 in Division I-AA. But a W's a W. Only 5 more wins until bowl eligibility. Instinctively, I figured that we'd have 3 wins. But, if all the breaks fall our way, maybe we can sneak out a bowl bid. Hear me out. We got Eastern. Figure that we get Ohio, as well. We have Rutgers and Syracuse. If we can pull out both of these, we'll have 4 wins. I think that we can get Indiana for Homecoming. And if we don't get both of the Big East teams, maybe we can get a W when Purdue comes to town. Or maybe even at Michigan St. But the game that I figure that we can get Northwestern. Afterall, they've got a rookie coach, after Randy Walker died. I'd like to think that we have a shot against Northwestern, after their coach dies. Ideally, we beat them even with out their head coach dying (after all, it's friggin' Northwestern). But at this point, we take what we can get, right? So, if all the breaks go our way, we may be able to get that bowl game, after all.

Of ocurse, I'm calling the over-under at 3.5. I don't really like our schedule. We need to take a page out of Jim Boeheim's non-conference schedule. We need to get more of those directional MAC schools to come here. No more of these Big East teams that want home and homes. We need to bring in bad teams, pay them $500K, and send them home with a loss. If we set up our non-conference schedule right, we can get 4 W's before the Big Ten season starts, and then need to beat Indiana and Northwestern to get a bowl.

We'll see.

-Chairman

Nostalgia

So the other night, I was out with some friends, when the bars closed up. Everyone went their separate ways, and I decided to just walk around a bit, since it was a phenomenal night. It was one of those perfect nights, about 60 degrees, light breeze, clear sky, no humidity. And it hit me. I really wanted a gyro or a hot dog. Not just any gyro or hot dog. One of Taki's. It was a strange feeling that I had come over me. It doesn't hit me often, but every once in a while, I'll just have an old memory just come up out of nowhere. And this time, it was Taki.

Taki Iatropoulos was a friend of mine. This guy had lived, before he died. He moved to the U.S. from Greece to make his fortune. And along the way, he had all sorts of ups and downs in places ranging from New York City to Palm Beach to Carbondale to Champaign-Urbana. He wasn't the sort that people made heroes out of. And that was what I liked about him. He was just another guy. He cursed a little too much. He knew that he wasn't the best husband or father. He had been cheated by some people. And in the end, he did what he knew best - made tasty food, and added to his collection of memories.

What I saw was a guy who worked hard. He used to have this hot dog cart that he would set up on Green St. He'd be out there starting at 11am for the lunch crowd, and he'd be there until 3 am to sell to the kids coming out of the bars. And over the summer, he'd be out there 6 nights a week. In the winter, despite the freezing cold, it was the same story. It was during the summer of my junior year of undergrad when I became friends with Taki. That was a strange summer for me. I was down taking classes for the summer, but I didn't really know many people down here. So a lot of evenings, I would head down to Campustown, and just get a beer to do a little people watching, and then maybe grab a cigar and walk around, and do more people watching.

So, it was then that I discovered that there was a little hot dog cart where I could get a decent gyro or hot dog (complete with the grilled, red sauced onions like you get in NY) at 1 am after bars closed (this was back in the day, before the bars stayed open until 2). It was a slow night at the hot dog cart, so I just parked it out there and chatted with the guy who was running the cart. We discovered that we both had some roots back in NY. Myself up in Schenectady, Taki in the city. And we became friends by chatting about things out east.

I would drop by periodically during some of the slow times (like at 2 in the afternoon, between classes). At this point, he had rented the little kiosk on 4th and Green, so he could close up shop for a little bit and take a nap. But it also allowed him to bring some of his memories with him. Whenever I dropped in to chat with him, he'd always offer a soda, a shot of ouzo, or a cigarette. I'd generally accept the Diet Coke, but decline the ouzo and cigarette. And a couple times, he'd show me his album. All sorts of photos with famous people in his NY restaurant. Rockerfellers. Kennedys. I recall John Glenn. There were also menus and flyers of his restaurants in NY, and afterwards when things weren't so hot for Taki. And he told me some stories. His biggest regret was leaving NY. From what I recall, that Taki, at the urging of a friend, sold his place in NY to open up a place in Palm Beach, which pretty much tanked and ate up his life savings. After this, things were a struggle. But Taki persevered. Places opened up, made a little money, and then closed down. And he worked 15 hour days all throughout, trying to make do for his two daughters, Nicole and Eleni. I still remember having a conversation with him about faith, religion, and life. His thoughts were interesting. He hated the Church, was sort of weary of God, but was intent on taking his daughters back to Greece to be baptized. That was Taki. Somehow fate, for better or worse, brought him to Champaign-Urbana.

Eventually, he saved up a little money and was able to get out of the weather, and open up a restaurant, called Mykonos. The menu expanded a little bit. And now there were refills on the sodas. But if Taki was working the grill when I was there, there'd still be an offer of ouzo or a cigarette. And I think that I eventually took him up on the offer of ouzo, but only once. That was enough. Quite a few late nights were spent at Mykonos. I'd always bring friends out there after we had gone out. And every once in a while, I'd stop in during the day to chat. Taki coughed a little more than he used to, seemed more tired than I remembered, and would often be napping in a little closet during the day. I didn't know it at the time, but I should have. I wasn't really seeing life clearly then. I had ran into some tough times in my own life late in 2001. I didn't get out to Mykonos at all that fall. Taki passed away in early 2002. He had cancer, which eventually led to liver failure. I was sad that I never had a chance to say goodbye to my friend.

After a while, a new place popped up in Taki's old space. Cafe Luna, which I've written about. I'm normally one to try new places pretty quickly. But I held off. It took me almost 3 years to get over it and set foot in there.

It's still hard to get a good hot dog around here, particularly with those grilled onions with the red, sauce. And it's hard to see the old Mykonos, with the success that Cafe Luna has experienced. But every once in a while, it becomes easy to remember Taki. And it would be a shame if I didn't write some of the thoughts down, in case the memories become harder to see in the future.

-Chairman