Well, that was different. Last night, takaza and I availed ourselves of the fine Chicago public transportation system and rode down to the United Center for a hockey game, the Chicago Blackhawks vs. the St. Louis Blues. Now, mind you, I don’t care one whit about NHL or hockey in general, but these tickets were provided by his employer. We entered through a special, uncrowded entrance and quickly found our way to one of the lovely suites. A full dinner layout was provided, as well as an open bar. The game was pretty dull, with the ‘Hawks playing being downright mediocre, but the food was surprisingly good. One of the highlights was when the Blackhawks mascot, Tommy Hawk, came into the suite and acted like he recognized Dan – which, it turns out, is actually a possibility.

Because we wanted to get home at a decent time, we left the game after the second period with the Blues leading 2-0 (they eventually won, 2-1). We waited a good twenty minutes at the corner of Madison and Damen for a bus, and just when I was thinking about grabbing a taxi the Damen bus showed up. We got home gratifyingly quickly, but didn’t get to bed until 11 PM. That has made today long and very sleepy (it’s hell when you gotta get up at 5 AM).

Not much else to talk about, except for the absoutely horrid cover song I heard this morning. Apparently a few weeks back Bono and Alicia Keys released a cover of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush’s “Don’t Give Up” to iTunes. Now, first granting that it’s a benefit for charity, I will say that everything about this version is wrong. The original was a masterful example of low-key arrangements and subtle interplay between the singers. In this version, Bono destroys Gabriel’s phrasing, transforming it into some kind of bizarre scat singing or something, and Keys injects strange R&B-inflected vocals into the song which are completely out of place. Just horrible.

Sorry, I needed to get that off my chest 🙂