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Michael Jordan’s Son Close to Being an Illini

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If for nothing but the press opportunities and having MJ attend some games, I sure hope that Coach Bruce Weber and the Fighting Illini can close the deal to bring Michael Jordan's boy onto the squad . Of the places he's looking at, the Illini program is clearly the best. Wilmette Loyola senior guard Jeff Jordan is seriously considering walking on the Illinois basketball team. Jordan made the trip to Champaign with his mother Tuesday and played with the Illini during a pickup game at the Ubben Basketball Complex. Jordan already has been accepted to the university, and the Illinois coaching staff talked with him about joining the team as a preferred walk-on. The 6-foot-2 Jordan is rated as a three-star recruit by Scout.com. If Jordan would choose Illinois, he likely would arrive for the start of the summer semester, when the five-man recruiting class will reach campus. Thus, a decision is needed soon. But imagine MJ sitting on the sidelines next to the Orange Krush to see his s

Gawker Properties Becoming Keyword Honeypots?

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Anyone else notice lately that the Gawker sites are going a little crazy with the keyword linking? I read both Deadspin and Valleywag everyday and they have all these unnecessary links in their posts deep linking to category pages on their own sites. Take for instance this post on Deadspin. What's with linking ESPN to this page ? Same with Kobe Bryant and Paul Shirley. It's a wonder they didn't link the word "douche" to a tagged page. Same with Valleywag. Why link to an environment page on this post ? All this linking makes me not even click the links to the outside sources. I know that SEO is a very dark art that I don't come close to understanding, but is this an attempt to bring more search traffic in? Create these big lengthy verticle pages with post after post about a particular topic and hope/know your search rankings will rise on that word? Sounds like a SEO Honeypot to me, no? Who knows, it probably works. I need to talk about smelt a lot m

I’m Somewhat Ashamed: I Voted for Sanjaya

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Can't say that I've watched even one minute of American Idol in my life, but like a little schoolgirl I voted last night for Sanjaya. Not just once, either. I voted like 15 times. I know...Weird, right? I couldn't help myself. Howard Stern made me do it . What's that you say? How did Howard make me do it? He made it soooo easy. When I was in my car, I had Howard 100 tuned in and guess what kept flashing across the screen? The words "Vote for Sanjaya" and the number to call. I called. And called. And called. I kept looking around at the stop lights wondering if the folks next to me knew what I was doing. Stern's crew have really figured out how to leverage the device to their benefit. There's a few million of those things around the country and more than a handful were probably tuned in to Howard. They knew that, and figured it was a great way to incent folks to act. I'm sure that this is just the first way in which they'll use

4 More Years

Today at polling places all across the Village of Frankfort, residents went to the polls and voted. I'm lucky enough that they placed their confidence in me by re-electing me to another 4 year term on the Village Board! Granted, I was running uncontested, I still was nervous all morning. Turnout was low, and I expected that, with not many contested races in Frankfort. When I voted at 8 am this morning, I was only the 7th voter in my precinct! I'm incredibly grateful for the support that both you guys (my friends) and the voters in Frankfort. I'm humbled by the confidence that you all have placed in me. I'm pleased with all that we've accomplished so far, but there's much more to be accomplished: downtown wi-fi, widening of Route 30, banning of all new banks, and dragging the Village of Frankfort into the 21st Century technology-wise. While I was unopposed this election, that's largely due to you. I've been successful in fundraising and for that

Smelt Fishing 2007

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Continuing our annual tradition, Matt Pawlak rounded up our crew and others and we headed out to Montrose Harbor last Friday night for Smelt Fishing. We were right in the sweet spot of the smelting season, but, much like last year, our efforts didn't produce a heckuva lot of smelt. In fact, this year, we caught exactly ZERO smelt. Didn't matter that much as we were thinking ahead and brought a bunch of the suckers from Jewel! Libations were plentiful and the burn bucket kept us warm all night. Thanks to Tom Cactus Vlach for bringing the gear, Matt for much of the logistics, and Dan Fetterer for logging the most miles (NYC to Chicago!) to make it out to Montrose Harbor. Even though we came up largely empty on the fish front this year, make no mistake: we'll be back at it in April of 2008. Here's a few pictures: Matt Pawlak and Tom Cactus. The question of the night? Where's Rob? The Dauphinais Brothers and Mark Kwilosz stay warm by the burn bucket. Neil McAl

A Vegas Virgin, I am…

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I'm heading to Las Vegas for the first time this Thursday for my good buddy Mark Dauphinais' bachelor party. We're set to be there through early Sunday morning and I'm sure that things will be debaucherous. As luck would have it, one of my favorite blogs, Dethroner , announced that his "theme" this week is Bachelor Parties . Some great posts already and I'm looking forward to even more this week. I've alerted my crew that's going to be trouncing around with me about the Theme, and I bet we'll get some pointers/tips that we can utilize this weekend. The party itself is actually an event that is being put on for 2 bachelors. Mark and one of his college buddies. Because of that, there appears to be in excess of 20 dudes heading out there. From the tone of some of the emails, most of the guys that I don't know (Mark's college buddies) are going to really turn one out. As a first timer in Las Vegas, I'll have to strike a nice b

Clearing the Slate: Dumping Links on You Guys

I'm either too cramped for time, or too lazy or both to write a full post, so instead, I have a bunch of stuff rattling around my brain and I'm dumping it here so I can move on to more important things like whether I'm going to get a meatball sandwich or the Italian Beef at Venice Cafe for lunch today. I hate it when people on the train wear a ton of purfume/cologne. I also hate it when people smell. Sure, we all have our off days, but my goal in life scent-wise is to leave no footprint - have no smell. Shouldn't that be everyone's? The best sports blog out there is Deadspin. Hands down. One of the best parts of the blog are the comments. My co-worker Matt and I were just chatting about them this morning. The best description I've ever read about the community there was written on CopyRanter : "If you have time, read the comments; his readers are both batshit insane and very entertaining. " I wonder if there's a Beer-O-the-Month-Club