Cubby-Blue

Colin Kaepnernick? Yeah, but he ain't no Bobby Douglass.

Wow.
Those were a couple of truly amazing playoff games on Saturday.
Double overtime loss for the Broncos, but that's what wildcard teams do to ya there, Payton Manning.
I so wanted Manning to get deeper into the playoffs, but now there's a whole new quarterback story unfolding in Colin Kaepernick.
Us Bear Fans got that first look earlier against the Niners, in the Battle of the Backups game.
Jason Campbell looked just like another crap Bears' 2nd stringer (14 of 22 for 107 yards and a couple interceptions) while Kaepernick took the reigns and won the game and a starting role on the team with probably the best O-Line in the game. 
But his performance last night was on a whole other level.
Kind of a throwback to the future or something.
I kept thinking god, if only Abe Gibron coulda drafted Kaepernick instead of Bobby Douglass, and he coulda been the qb on a team and in a city that was used to running qbs (only of course they ran because they couldn't throw, the lines couldn't block, and receivers couldn't catch, and um, that kinda stuff).
Douglass ran for 968 yards in 1972.
Kaepernick ran for 181 yards last night against the Packers.
(In TWO games against the Packers, Matt Forte ran for 108.)

Old Bobby also threw 12 INTs, 9 TDs and 1,246 yards in 14 games in '72.
Kaepernick threw for 1,814 yards with 10 TDs and 3 INT in about 7 and a half games this year.
Remember he came in for injured Alex Smith vs the Rams and then Harbaugh kept Kaepernick in as starter vs the Bears the next week.
That was only about 3 months ago. 

So um, yeah, Kaepernick ain't no Bobby Douglass.
I'm just trying to have some kinda Bear connection here is all.
You could probably combine the skills of Douglas, Jack Concannon and Bob Avellini and not have a Colin Kaepernick.

Just a freaky performance, man.

Couple games to go for the kid this year, then maybe another year and we'll see what kinda lasting impression he might make on the NFL.

See this Nerf dart?

It's up on the ceiling in one of my kid's rooms.
He shot it up there on a Christmas maybe 8 years ago.
That, my friend, is what I'm talking about when I say "lasting impression".




 

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Portrait of Mike McCarthy on the sidelines by a Bears Fan.

Every time I see a shot of Mike McCarthy on the sidelines looking at his play sheet, I can't help but imagine it's a Denny's menu.
Now you will, too.
Tonight at 7 Chi Time it'll be the Packers vs. the Forty Niners at Candlestick.
Couldn't figure out a heroic thing to do for Jim Harbaugh, but as a 12 year old I can always figure out something stupid to do for the Pack.
That'll be some game, but I read there are over 2,000 seats available on Stub Hub?
There must be a mad scramble right there at the end, and if I lived in SF I think I'd totally dip into the piggy bank and pony up the $135 to go.


Next, Milton Bradley in the NY Times!
Nice, Milton.

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Next, took the fam to see Gangster Squad last night at my fav cheap date night place - Village Crossing theater in Skokie and a quickie din. Pulled into the Outback (which has Cooper's Lager - a SPECTACULAR Aussie brew) and the lot was deserted! 

Got to the front door and there's the manager explaining to the small and disappointed crowd that something went wrong with their sprinkler system so they couldn't open.
He gave us a coupon for a free Bloomin' Onion.
Then we hauled over to Buffalo Wild Wings where I my eyes were blinded by a hundred hi-def big screen shots of a tweet from Jimmy Johnson that said the Bears got Marc Trestman as a new coach.
So far it turned out to be a Twit rather than a Tweet, though.
Then, the movie SUCKED!

Director Ruben Fleischer should be run out of Hollywood, because the cast was sort of impossible to imagine all together in one movie: Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone and Nick Nolte and Giovanni Ribisi and Anthony Mackie and Michael Pena, aaaaand former molten metal Terminator dude Robert Patrick.
I think Fleischer was trying to do a comic book, but he got stuck halfway between there and a sucky reality.

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Then there's the Hall Of Fame and Sammy Sosa.
I heard one man-on-the-street interview of someone in Wrigleyville say, "So his numbers were all fake and he was a jerk when he left town."
Kinda sums it up, even if he was a God back in the day.
Then somebody sent me the link to what is supposedly his official Pinterest page.
Sad.
And finally, the thing about Injex 21 - some kind of tool that allows you to give injections without needles.
His whole life is like...say you actually got a date with the incredibly pretty Emma Stone but cut the worst cheese ever and she said, "Get OUT and don't ever come back."
Then you invent Beano.

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Anyway, anybody want a coupon for a free Bloomin' Onion?

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PS: If you aren't tired of reading stuff, here's a link to the Hardball Times and a Cubbery Story about allowing the Rockies to score at least one run in EVERY INNING.

 
 

Make awesome, easy thank you notes with watercolors.

Have you done your thank you notes yet?
I kinda did.
Thought I'd shoot some of the process to show you how easy this is.
The idea is to do a minimal message or design on the middle of the page, and the write over the top with a black marker.

It's handmade, you know?
SO MUCH better than some smarmy Hallmark card.
First thing though?
Gotta go to a Hallmark.
Get a box of blank notes with envelopes.
Just make sure the paper is neutral - like a cream or white or something.
I'm an art guy, so I have watercolors and brushes, but I promise if you just went to Walgreens and got the $1.00 watercolor set with the little pans of color and the plastic brush, you can do the same thing.

And even if your art skills are from 3rd grade, it doesn't really matter because you're not going for perfection.
You want to get the brush really wet and loaded with color.
Since this is a thank you card, try writing "Thank You".

See?

Keep charging the brush to keep it really saturated.

It'll almost be like puddles shaped like letters.
Leave it alone for 10 minutes and let it dry.
Cool, arty-lookin' stuff happens while it dries, so leave it alone.
You can also do shapes.
Hearts, stars, William Shatner's head...
Okay maybe not William Shatner's head, but you can do a star, right?

Another thing to try is, while the paint is still wet, dip the brush in another color, like deep red, and then just touch the brush to the wet yellow color.
The red will bleed into yellow, you're all technique-y and Leonardo-like, and once it's dry you write your note right on top of the star.

Even if your brushwork is HORRIBLE, you can make a Cubs logo.
It's a big red C with UBS inside, and a blue circle all around it.

Then you write your note right on top.


You totally get bonus points for being all creative and doing a hand-made note.
Nobody really cares if the message is terrible when the note contains all the evidence of good hard creative work.

Okay, go do it and send 'em out.
You'll feel fantastic, and you'll probably get a better present next year.

Anybody know anything new about the Cubs?
New Bears coach?
Derrick Rose's knee?
A hockey game?
Me neither.
So make your cards.

Notre Dame/Alabama game was a dog.

What an embarrassment.
Did you bother with the second half?
Man.
I'm not really a fan of either team, so I was just hoping for a good game.
Yeesh.
I wonder if Jerry Angelo was watching and thought, "Those big guys! Who are they? Those big guys all in a row, with that one guy in the middle who hikes the ball...they're making those other guys with the shiny gold helmets go uh oh and fall over. And then that fast man with the ball runs over them when they're laying down."

Whatever, college ball goes out with a bang for Alabama, and you wonder what a Notre Dame/Northern Illinois Sugar Bowl would have looked like.

So this painting is one I did last summer after I went and stayed with my buddy Sloppy John Messbarger's and his family.
It's their dog, Tyson.
And here's the story of how he got that name.
A friend of Sloppy John's is a hunter, and he's out in the sticks somewhere hunting.
And his dog is yapping like crazy cause he (or she) found an animal.
And Sloppy John's friend sees that it's no animal, it's a boxer puppy.
Out in the sticks.
Covered with bugs and ticks and stuff.
But he put him in the back of his truck and cleaned him up at home.
And when he was a little healthier, he brought him over to Sloppy John's house because he knew Sloppy John's dog had recently passed away.
So the dog is over at Sloppy John's house and he's a puppy and he's super cute and the family goes, "Ohhhh mom, can we keep him?" And Sloppy John's wife Laura says okay even though she'd just had the wood floors redone and she knew the dog would scratch it all up.
And Sloppy John's friend says okay. You all can keep him but you have to name him Tyson.
And Sloppy John's family goes, "Why?"
And Sloppy John's buddy says, "Because he's the lost boxer." 

Tyson the Lost Boxer.
That's the nicest Mike Tyson story I ever heard.

 

 

 

Hockey's back.

Sometimes, by accident, I leave my phone next to my bed with the sound on.
This is always a mistake, because it beeps and squawks when I get an email or an alert and those things can come at any time and wake me up.
Which is what happened early this morning, only the squawk wasn't an email.
It was...
DAH duh DAH! DAH duh DAH!
(That's supposed to be the print version of an ESPN alert.)
That meant something big happened in the world of sports at... I think it was about 6 AM.
Fumbled with the glasses and read the alert.
Those hockey morons finally figured out how to split up all that cash.
And now it looks like there'll be an actual shortened season.
If I wasn't so busy, it would be a good day to go hang around O'Hare because I bet Blackhawks start showing up in droves.

So that's awesome.
The other thing that was awesome: playoff football.
Texans vs Bengals and Packers vs Vikings.
Christian Ponder probably wreaked havoc in Las Vegas by pulling out of the game just a teeny bit of time before kickoff.
I don't gamble and I don't think this changed who was expected to win, but I would imagine that the line had to have changed some because Ponder's backup Joe Webb hadn't thrown but a couple actual passes all year.
What do they do in Vegas?
Say all bets are off?
The bizarre thing was that the announcers seemed to think this was a good thing for the Vikings.
When Webb got rushed and panicked and threw that pass straight up in the air like a beachball, you knew for sure it wasn't.
So it'll be the Packers playing San Fransisco next week.
And the Texans beat the Bengals as expected.

You wanna see Brady vs. Manning in the Bowl?
I do.
Maybe that'll work out.

In the meantime, I've got a hundo on the Colts today.