Friday, 2 April 2004: I've gotta share with you the April Fool's Day prank pulled by one of Chicago's radio stations...

WXRT-FM 93.1 in Chicago yesterday announced that they were caving to FCC pressure and editing their music library. They were changing their slogan from "Chicago's Finest Rock" to "Chicago's Decent Rock" and that they were "taking the 'X' out of 'XRT'." This station plays it all from jazz and soul to alternative rock and R&B. They run the gamut and they are one of the few stations that does play this vast a library of music. So, yesterday, if they weren't introducing stuff like Jars of Clay, they were bleeping out questionable material within songs. And this wasn't just a couple hours that they were doing this. It was the whole 24 hours that constituted yesterday. They even changed their website to include a banner announcing that they were now "Chicago's Decent Rock" and that portions of the website that existed may no longer be accessible while they do a thorough revamping.

The station has a normal feature called "Going to the Show a Regular Guy" who is a movie reviewer who speaks with a Southside Chicago accent while doing movie reviews (think the Superfans from Saturday Night Live). He does his reviews on Tuesday and Thursday. Instead of doing a review yesterday, he announced his new ratings system which harkens back to his Catholic school days of using the A,B,Cs to rate films. A-rated films are okay movies with subcategories depending on content (A-A, A-B, A-C, etc.). B movies require you going to confession. C movies mean you're condemned to hell, no questions asked. Then he went in and started listing recent movies that he would rate C and why. Like Starsky & Hutch for scantily clad women, swearing, and drug use. Just about every film was a C-rated flick regardless. Ridiculous stuff like this. I loved it.

The amazing this was just that they kept it going for so long without any error. It was beautiful. And, as would be expected, some jackasses with no common sense, would call up and complain and they played a montage of complaint calls this morning.

I was dying. This was the most exhaustively planned and executed April Fool's prank I've ever seen (or, more to the point, heard) in my life.

Wednesday, 31 March 2004: Oh yay. Today is the day we give my soul to the government as I submit all my paperwork to our accountant to see how much life the IRS will suck from our bank account this year. Okay, I guess it could be worse. Two years ago, we got refunds from both the state and the Fed. Last year, we owed a little to state but made up for it in our Fed refund.

God only knows what's gonna happen this year.

Keep your fingers crossed for us and I'll return the favor for you if it's not already too late.

Tuesday, 30 March 2004: Baseball season is upon us and it opened yesterday with a game in Japan between the New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays that saw the winged stingers win in grand fashion, 8-3. This would mean that the Yanks are already in last place. Odd as it may sound coming from a former diehard Yankees fan, I hope they stay there. I want the Red Sox to win the American League this year and the Cubs to win the National League with the Cubbies triumphing in the Series.

Yep, those are my picks. You can hold me to 'em.

Monday, 29 March 2004: Yes folks, it's that time again. Time to give out another Darwinism Missed Me Award. This time, the honors are split three ways between Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch and his two daughters Anne and Elizabeth.

Here's the scoop... Anne and Elizabeth were in Chicago this past weekend to celebrate Anne's 21st birthday at Crobar of all places (this is the bar that was once frequented by Dennis "the Worm" Rodman, so that should tell you something). They got blitzed and out of hand and the bartender cut them off. They start going on about who their father is and what right does the bartender have cutting them off. Yah, yah, yah. We've heard it all before. He has them escorted out and they start to give the bouncer a hard time who hails a passing cop car. The cop tries to calm them down to no avail as Elizabeth slaps him and Anne supposedly jumps on his back. The cop handcuffs them and throws them in the back of his squad car where Anne proceeds to kick out the window. They cooled their heals overnight in a holding cell before being released on their own recognizance.

Now, to top it all off, Mike Hatch goes on TV to say his daughters were mistreated by Chicago Police. The cops supposedly used undue force and are claiming that his daughters assaulted them when they've never been guilty of assault or any sort of misbehavior ever before. So, NBC 5 in Chicago obtained a police report from last year in which Anne kicked and destroyed a neon sign in a liquor store up in Minneapolis/St. Paul area because she was refused service. Hmmm... do the math. If she was celebrating her 21st birthday this past weekend and she was trying to buy liquor last year? To clarify, she was using her sister's ID and the clerk called her on it. Witnesses to this past weekend's "festivities" claim the cop was in his right and did absolutely nothing wrong.

So, Mike, you gonna dispute nearly a dozen witnesses on national TV? I know it's every parent's responsibility to support their kids. But how about when they're clearly wrong?

Time to face the music, girls. You are wrong. The CPD is right. And your daddy is looking like a chump on TV on your behalf. And, unless your names are Barbara and Jenna Bush, ain't no reason why a bartender and a cop in Chicago are gonna give a rat's patootie who you are.