Oh, I Think So

Last week, Johnny Knox had his back broken and underwent surgery on Monday, the 19th, to have two vertebrae fused together.  I am so very sorry for him and his family and his teammates.  He is a good solid player and this doesn't look very good for his future with the NFL.  Knox is good, solid receiver and breaking your back in the rough and tumble life of the NFL doesn't bode well.  The last thing I heard is "this is not career ending" and "he is getting out of the hospital in a few days."  Johnnie, I hope like heck you finished college and were playing attention in class.  (An aside:  I've heard interviews with this gentleman and both are doubtful.  Sad but true.) This week, well into the fourth quarter at Lambeau Field, the Packers are haberdashers, handing the Bears their hats over and over again. The Bears came back but that is their job.  The Chiefs bested the Packers last week making me all super hopeful the Bears might be able to do...

A while ago and for several years, I worked with a woman whose husband was a federal prosecutor.  He worked very hard, putting in long hours during the week and on weekends.  He and his coworkers never complained about the very long hours they put in because while they adored their wives and children, their passion was for the law and justice.  What I gleaned then and from other federal cases in the news is this:  If there is a knock at your door and you are being arrested by the feds for something like fraud, racketeering, or drug smuggling, the case against you is already very, very strong, you will lose at trial, and you will be going away for a very long time.  Ah, Sam Hurd.  Proclaiming his innocence for buying a mere kilo (2.2 pounds, y'all) of cocaine and twirling off to stash it in the trunk of his car.  He wanted 10 kilograms of cocaine and 100 pounds of marijuana because he wanted to go into a nice sideline business for himself.  B...

Yes, yes, y'all, the Bears played today in Denver against the Broncos and FOJ Tim Tebow, but something much more pressing is on the horizon.  They want to gut, ruin, and disembowel the United States Post Office, a notion that is far more important than Caleb Hanie leading our hometown team against the Armies of Tim, I mean the Broncos. The United States Postal Service plans to close 252 mail processing centers and lay off 28,000 employees by the end of 2012.  They will close and sell off buildings and properties, eliminate a letter arriving the next day in local markets, and allow an additional 461 more centers to close by the end of 2015.  Those 28,000 people who are targeted for layoff will likely not find any job nearly as good as their postal jobs ever again, because jobs with the USPS translate to nowhere else in the work force.  And ultimately, we will never again get our mail in a timely manner. I have a post office box in downtown Chicago.  I got ver...

We at the offices of Oh, I Think So congratulate Mr. Jay Cutler on his re-engagement to Miss Kristin Cavallari.  The happy couple is now living together during Jay's recovery from thumb surgery.  I have this to say to them:  Jay has only one chance to make a perfect recovery so both of you make it your job to ensure a perfect result.  Since being famous is not a real job, Jay is the primary breadwinner, always will be the primary breadwinner, and Jay getting better is focus enough.  Should she feels distracted, Kristin might take some nice polish to that 5.2 carat sparkler or feed the microscopic people who use it for an ice rink. But for the less good news, the Bears were beaten by the LAST PLACE Kansas City Chiefs at Soldier Field.  As I am a nervous fan, I have mostly lost confidence in Mr. Caleb Hanie.  Donovan McNabb was given his walking papers by the Minnesota Vikings but we didn't grab that.  Kyle Orton was snatched up by the KC Chiefs....

Jay Cutler had surgery to repair his busticated throwing-hand thumb somewhere in Colorado.  Aspen? Vail?  Somewhere in Colorado that isn't Denver.  Regular readers of this blog will know what I am going to say next, so it will be no surprise:  What?  There are no good hand surgeons in Chicago?  Ah, but there are. Almost 20 years ago, I had two hand surgeries within the span of nine months.  About five years ago, I had occasion to visit an orthopedic surgeon and I told him about my experience, especially with the second surgery which was pretty complicated.  He looked at my hand and said, "He did a very good job."  Dude was a stellar human being, too.  Perhaps America's premier thumb surgeon operates solely in that lovely part of the Rockies.  It's Jay's working hand so I will cut him some slack.  Mark this day on your calendars.  I guess Jay will convalesce in Colorado, former home of, well, Jay, making it easier for mul...

I will give it to you straight and fast.  Just when the Bears are turning into a solid team, winning five games in a row, just when I decide that Jay Cutler has hit his stride and is a good, solid QB, he takes a spill during a play, breaks the thumb on his throwing hand, and is out for 6-8 weeks.  There, I said it. The San Diego Chargers and the Bears were trading points back and forth until Charles Tillman took the ball from them and the Chargers never got it back long enough to make a difference.  Bears win, 31-20 at Soldier Field, but lost Mr. Jay Cutler. Our starting QB will be Caleb Hanie who has never started a pro football game in his entire career.  I am hoping we will all be pleasantly surprised and young Caleb will be up to the task.  I am also hoping Congress will get it together and listen to the billionaires.  Finally, I am hoping to see that sage thrasher.  Maybe the Bears can get Brett Favre, except, oh no, one of the Bears finally e...

I feel like these taste, thanks. For me, Brussels sprouts are never sought out for consumption because they just taste bitter, hard, and nasty.  I've known some stellar cooks in my life and I've never met a single one who was able to make this vegetable taste anything other than nasty, bitter, and hard.  Nasty with bacon, sure, but still not good. I feel nasty today (neither bitter nor hard because sometimes you just get sick), so I can't write about the Bears or the birds.  More tomorrow or next week, whenever this thing passes.  Thanks for checking.

The Bears have returned to a nice normal schedule and thank heavens.  We went to the Lions earlier this season; this time the Lions came to us.  Grrrr infinity. The score was so lopsided in favor of the Bears that at about 11 minutes into the third quarter, what came into my head was, "Wow, I wonder if any of those Lions would like to just forfeit, go back to their hotel, and have a nice soak in the tub?"  Of course, they don't pay those men to surrender and, as they like to say in sports outings, "the opera ain't over 'til the fat lady sings."  (Obviously, they've not been to the opera recently.)  The Bears have turned things around big time with Jay Cutler finding Earl Bennett (new fave bitch, errr, wide receiver), with guys running with the balls, with the offensive line being unoffensive much like fresh daisies in a field in springtime.  The commentators said this was just not Detroit's night and not the night of Stafford, their QB, especia...

It is well documented in this blog that I don't like Sunday night games and like Monday night games even less.  Night games compete with precious sleep, getting my blog up before Sunday night TV prime time, and do no one but the networks any good. I asked the man who runs the office rate-'em-how-you-feel-'em pool how he feels about Monday night games and he said, "I hate 'em.  They just drag out the whole process."  In other words, how can you have a winner if the networks dictate the schedule?  Yes, yes, Monday Night Football is one of the longest running shows on TV (now moved to ESPN so not really TV any more, is it?), but is it necessary?  No, no, a thousand times no, I say. What to write about when the Bears aren't doing their thing?  Birds, it would seem, except no, not birds.  The birders went to Michigan for a visit.  I don't like to schlep so I have been keeping my binoculars in the trunk of the car that carries the birders and me to bi...

American purple gallinule, courtesy of VIREO Yesterday morning I set off with the birders to look at birds at the Magic Hedge near Montrose Harbor in Chicago.  As we were arriving, I found out a gallinule had been spotted very recently.   Two men were walking away from the harbor as we were leaving our car.  "Did you see the gallinule?" my sister asked. These were two very sweet and funny guys.  "No," said one, "but I saw a really big fish," and held his hands about 20 inches apart.  "I don't look at fish," said the second, "but I saw a grebe.  The gallinule is supposed to be down by Slip A." Fall at the Magic Hedge near Montrose Harbor, Chicago There was a difference for me this week.  I had my own [not great but they work and hey, they were free] binoculars.  I forgot my plastic bag so I couldn't concentrate on picking up trash (which was too bad as there was a lot of it).   I actually looked at something and was late...

For reasons unbeknownst to me but abundantly clear to Roger Goodell, Commissioner of All Things Football, the Chicago Bears took on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers today at Wembly Stadium in London.  It was a sold-out game.   Roger Goodell didn't ask me what I thought about NFL teams playing American-style football in a country that has no professional American-style (or even Canadian-style) football teams of its own.  Roger Goodell asks me nothing.  It's like he doesn't even know me, like we've never met.  This is mostly because he doesn't know me and we've never met.  I am sure if we met, Roger and me, that he would instantly take a disliking to me and flee, refusing to listen to my very good ideas and solid opinions.  My ideas are these:  Why waste football franchise money on travel to the UK, possibly including getting new passports for those who don't have them (approximately $120 each without the rush fee or the fees for hiring a passport and ...

Last week's Monday night game in Detroit was best categorized as a fiasco for every single member of the team except for one standout guy. The Bears defense, known for being hard-hitting, tough, and determined was quite opposite. The offense was, as my friend at work said, offensive. After the game, everyone except the standout guy was almost apologizing; they're professional athletes and mammoth salaries mean you don't have to come out and say, "I bit and I am sorry." Brian Urlacher sounded dismayed at his and the performances of his fellow defensive linemen.   Lovie Smith sounded miserable. But everyone named the one guy who did a good job. No one is more surprised than me. The guy doing the stellar job was Jay Cutler. When the offense, the defense, and the coaches all say Jay did a great job then Jay must've done a great job. Jay looked sheepish and frustrated but he wasn't arrogant or annoyed. Jay did his job with great gusto while his teamm...

The Bears are off to Detroit, birthplace of me, to have at the Detroit Lions for Monday Night Football. The 4-0 Detroit Lions. Therefore, there will be no talk about what Jay Cutler means to me (nothing); how angry I was when he was in the audience of "Dancing with the Stars" to give support to his ex-fiancee when I thought he should be at practice (very angry but then a co-worker investigated and found out the Bears had Monday and Tuesday off; I calmed down only slightly because he needs extra practice getting rid of the ball); how much I cared that his ex-fiancee was voted off the show (not at all). Instead we will talk about the 1985 Chicago Bears and their Super Bowl trip to the White House, 26 years in the making. The explosion of space shuttle Challenger made the White House cancel the scheduled Bears-Reagan Super-Bowl-winner-presidential meet and greet. Walter Payton, who died of a rare liver disease, and Dave Duerson, who committed suicide brought on by CTE-ind...

Last week was the annual observance of employee appreciation at my place of business.  There were prizes ranging from crap to decent.  There were stupid games and there were interesting games.  We were treated to lunch or breakfast on four of the five days and something that happens every year at least once during the week happened again which is not enough food was ordered, which sends the managers out to apologize.  The managers in my area are nice people and it's a shame they have to apologize for something that isn't their fault but they know someone has to do it. They never talk smack about the committee that orders the food, just apologizing and being loyal corporate citizens. The biggest thrill for almost everyone is that they get to wear jeans all week long.  Jeans from decades past are excavated and worn proudly with declarations of comfort (and to again let Sergio Valente have his day).  Friday of the week, everyone is also allowed to we...

 So we march into the classic battle against division rival and Super Bowl champs, the Green Bay Packers, led by Aaron Rodgers.  Surprise to me, it wasn't a blood bath.  Sure, yes, there were a couple of stupid things -- and I mean STOOOOPID , like Devin Hester getting in a fight with one of the Packers in front of a referee and really smacking said Packer hard in the head -- that made for lost yardage yet I am willing to admit that they played like a pro football team and really mostly had it together. Still, Jay Cutler got sacked.  The player to whom he might throw -- yes, I suck; I didn't take game notes -- waved at Jay that he was in position.  Jay, instead, got sacked.  I wondered if maybe Jay needs to have his vision checked.  Admittedly, Jay was better at getting rid of the ball this time but he was playing against Aaron Rodgers and his pinpoint accuracy.  Maybe Aaron can give Jay some pointers. The Packers pack some Bear meat, 27-17. ...

What has the count of 52 last year and 11 this year and we are just two games into the year?  Why, it's Jay Cutler sacks, of course! Jay Cutler loves football.  He loves football so much he cannot get rid of the damn thing in time to save himself from getting nailed by large defense players whose job it is to nail him.  Jay knows this.  Jay certainly understands this but Jay just cannot productively let loose of that ball.  Can Jay just not see the person or persons to whom he might throw the ball?  Does he have QB's remorse and feel insecure about his decision to throw it to said person or persons?  Does he just suck hard?  All three?  Today's commentators, including Dallas Cowboys ex-QB Troy Aikman, were as baffled as me and ended the broadcast showing a defeated Jay Cutler looking pretty freaking grim and it seemed, to me anyway, as if he were going to cry man tears. Cry all you want, Jay, because we all have to agree that Jay really d...

Everyone waited all year and, like the TV ads say, football is back!  The yakkety-yaksters and professional guessers and Those Men Who Can't/Won't/Don't Shut-the-freak-up About Football were all saying the Bears were going to lose their home opener.  It might not be a big margin, they said, but the Falcons would be victorious with Julio Jones, the Falcons rookie wide receiver (a/k/a bitch), doing especially well.  Julio did do well (on one play it took two Bears to take him down) but not well enough as the Falcons were summarily defeated by the Chicago Bears in Soldier Field.  The Bears took 'em to the woodshed and showed them their saws and logs or whatever the hell "taking them to the woodshed" might mean. A favorite highlight:  The Bears WON!  30-12 so everyone can suck it. __________ In addition to football being back, so is opera.  The Stars of the Lyric Opera concert was last night in Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park.  The weather w...