In response to MSN's all-in-one, look-at-me, read-my-blog,do-what-I-do personal website action, Yahoo now has 360(insert degree sign here).
Check out my pathetic page which I will never go back to again:
http://360.yahoo.com/facistarchfiendsexpot
Feel free to steal the login name too. I created it by using Yahoo's patented 'put in three words and we'll create a login for you' system. I entered 'facist, tiger, sexpot' and got FACISTARCHFIENDSEXPOT. Most excellent.
You like the Dark Elf trilogy? Let's hear it for Drizz't Do'Urden, the baddest drow on the suface world.
ReplyDeleteI am a geek.
YEs
ReplyDeleteFrom the Tribune:
ReplyDeleteJoliet Jackhammers
Jammer is more than 7 feet tall, with shag blue fur and a gigantic snout. He looks like the love child of the Philly Fanatic and Blueberry Violet from "Willy Wonka."
Kids adore him. He is the pied piper of southwest suburbia, skipping carefree across the concourse of Silver Cross Field.
Nestled in downtown Joliet, Silver Cross Field is as picturesque a ballpark as you'll find in any small town. Church steeples jut out beyond the outfield, and the passing train's blare adds to the ambience. Just over the left-field wall, members of the Joliet Fire Department sit atop a fire engine, watching the game as the warm spring evening slips lazily by.
For the couple thousand fans in attendance this evening, Family Night Tuesdays, Jammer is the star attraction.
From the first pitch to beyond the final out, Jammer is hugging fans and dancing on the dugout. He's racing kids around the base paths (Jammer always seems to fall behind at the last moment), or signing autographs. How he has such excellent penmanship with his oversized, orange four-digit hands is a wonder.
While other mascots might show up once or twice during a game, usually with some promotional stunt, Jammer is almost always present--hence the team's marketing campaign: "Jackhammers Entertainment . . . and the Baseball Ain't Bad Either!"
Most families here can't tell you the name of the starting pitcher. They're more likely to tell you who won the in-between inning sprint between the chicken and the egg, in the "What came first race." There's the jousting competition between two fans--one dressed as a cockroach, the other as an ant--trying to knock each other's detachable heads off. Behind home plate, four fans are chosen to sit in large, cushy leather armchairs with an outdoor air conditioning system. Then there's the fan hanging in a Velcro Suit above right field who wins a truck if he or she catches a homerun ball.
And of course there's Jammer showing his love for Jackhammers baseball--part of the independent Northern League--by shaking his big, blue rump in the face of a gleeful fan.
"It's definitely an unconventional profession," says the man inside, Scott Adams, 26, of Joliet. "$65,000 for school and here I am dancing around in a suit."
Adams is a substitute teacher, filmmaker and the man who has played Jammer since the team's inaugural season in 2002. During the game, he is a walking, dancing, kinetic blur. Last season, he lost 30 pounds during the four-month baseball season.
By the second inning, Jammer and his human assistant, Shawn Domanic, 16--"Joliet Catholic football rules!"--are traversing the crowd. Because of Family Night, the game started at 6:05, an hour earlier than usual, and kids are invited to run around the bases after the game.
Jammer and Shawn work out a system of hand signals, since Jammer is a non-speaking character. A shake of the wrist means Jammer needs a marker to sign an autograph. A tap on the watch means it's time to go. Shawn is also on the lookout for unruly teenagers, who should think better than to tug at Jammer's head or kick him in the nether regions.
Four hours later, after Jammer signs his last autograph, Adams is recovering in the locker room, his white T-shirt translucent from the in-costume steam bath. He chugs down a huge bottle of blue Gatorade, the color of the drink matching Jammer's fur.
"It's so nice to be able to appeal to 2-year-olds and 80-year-olds," Adams says. "It beats the nine-to-five office job."