Good Things Do Happen to Good People

Well, among surprisingly good things to happen to people, what I’m about to say isn’t the highest, but it’s very cool nonetheless. My Dad, merely by buying Pepsi and Frito-Lay products from Jewel-Osco with his Preferred Card, won four tickets to a Cubs game! I got the mail earlier today and saw an envelope from “Pepsi Americas” addressed to my dad. I naturally assumed it was some advertisement for Pepsi and I opened it. Instead, it was a message sending congratulations for winning Cubs tickets in the Jewel-Osco Chicago Cubs Ticket Sweepstakes. The game we will be attending has the Cubs going up against the Cincinnati Reds on Saturday April 17th. All four of us, including my mom, will be going to the game. And since it’s an afternoon game, my Dad can definitely go (since he works nights).

I’ll admit that I am a fairweather Cubs fan. I like individual players on the Cubs like Sammy Sosa, Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, and so on, but the White Sox are the Chicago baseball team I like more. This is because I grew up in Markham, which in south of Chicago, and south of The Loop, most baseball fans are Sox fans. In fact, this will be only the second time in my life I’ve ever been to a Cubs game or to Wrigley Field. However, I do like supporting Chicago teams regardless of loyalties if they do well. And the Cubs are doing well at the moment (which is taking some getting used to). I think Dusty Baker is a very good manager, and the Tribune is finally not taking Wrigley’s neighborhood advantage for granted and drawing people to Cubs games based on the team actually winning. I can’t wait to go to the game, even if it’s 40 degrees. A professional sporting event of any kind is a rare treat for our family, so we are taking advantage of it. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll also get the opportunity to go to a Sox game at the newly remodeled “U.S. Cellular Field” (I put the quotations because it’ll always be Comiskey Park to me).

Speaking of good things, we rented some more movies (yes, we love our movies) and watched one of them, the remake of Cheaper By The Dozen. Yes, this is both the third remake I’ve seen in the past month and the third remake I’ve seen this past month that I haven’t seen the original first. But this one is probably the best of the bunch. This is funny, infectious family comedy. It’s predictable, cute, sentimental and fun to watch. Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt are funny as the parents. Martin always does great playing a dad...makes you wonder why he never had children of his own. Hunt brings her dry wit to her role as mother. It reminded me a lot of her role on Life With Bonnie. In fact, just like Life With Bonnie, the movie takes place in Illinois. In the movie, the family moves from downstate to Evanston which I know fairly well as I went to Northwestern. The kids were cute and more importantly...not annoying. And I love that Ashton Kutcher has a small role parodying himself. If you’ve ever wished that he would get bitten in the crotch by a dog, this is the movie for you. So, this movie is fluff...good old non-depressing, hilarious, fun for the whole family (even if the family is just you) entertainment. I’d take this 98 minutes over the 98 minutes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake any day.

I recommend that you check out this week’s Entertainment Weekly for their Great American Pop Quiz all about the 1990’s. It has a balance between “Aww, these are easy” and “Who the hell remembers that?” kind of questions. I guarantee that you will be stumped on at least 20 out of the 100 questions (not including bonus ones). Anybody who does extremely well on this quiz would have to have kept up with every single popular or unpopular TV show and movie of the 1990’s, watched and remembered tidbits of Entertainment Tonight and the emerging Access Hollywood, and have a photographic memory. In other words, they never had a social life at any time during the decade.


The Moments That Shouldn’t Be Funny But Are:
-The “Ass & Titties” scene from the scrapped “Gay America” sketch that was aired on the “Greatest Misses” episode of Chappelle’s Show.
-Steve Francis falling flat on his back when attempting to go up against Mike Bibby in the Sacramento/Houston game on Sunday. The thing that makes this funny: you actually hear the “Plop!” when Steve Francis falls.
-Lorenzo Alcazar getting hit on the head by a rocklike object by Carly Corinthos on today’s episode of General Hospital.