Whew.

Sorry for the lack of updates. It's been quite a busy week.

The big news this week is that I've interviewed for and been offered a line cook position at the new Trump Hotel, which is opening here in Chicago in early December. I'd be working at the 120 seat fine-dining restaurant there. I probably will take the job, mostly because it'll definitely be a challenge. The chef (with whom I interviewed on Thursday) is Frank Brunacci, and he seems like a crazy, crazy guy. But crazy is good if it's in the right context. And, for once, the food actually seems like it'll be interesting. They'll be changing the menu daily and doing an a la carte, tasting, and blind tasting menu. So that should be fun.

In the news this week: the Chicago Sun Times reported Tuesday:
"...Now comes word President Bush takes it personally when he spots a fly buzzing around the Oval Office...Former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow claims when the president spots one, he chases it around the Oval Office. 'It drives him crazy when flies get in,' said Snow."

I'd like all of you just to take a minute to think about that one. Do we need any more proof that the leader of the free world isn't as...well...mentally stable as he'd like us to think? If a man gets all bent out of shape about a FLY in his office, is he really of sound mind to lead a country?

Can I discuss Rudy Giuliani for a minute? I'm really struggling with the mere idea that this man could be the leading choice of Republican voters. Now, I know the Republicans don't have much to work with anyways (Giuliani? Fred Thompson? Mitt Romney? The RNC just WANTS to lose this one, don't they?), but this guy is a certified idiot. Ask him any question, any question at all, and he'll make you remember who was in charge on September 11. If you asked the guy how he thought the Yankees would do in the playoffs this year. he'd probably start with, "If there's one thing I've learned since that fateful day when our towers fell, it's that..."

Don't believe me? In a July visit to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he was "asked about increasing support for HIV medications."
Obviously, the response was:

"My general experience has been that the federal government works best when it helps and assists and encourages and sets guidelines… on a state-by-state, locality-by-locality basis. It's no different from the way I look at homeland security. Maybe having been mayor of the city, I know that your first defense against terrorist attack is that local police station, or that local firehouse."

WHAT.

In a speech last week to the National Rifle Association, that bastion of the Republican Party, Giuliani cut himself short to answer his cell phone. This is rather odd behavior for someone that wants to run the country. I don't know why his advisers didn't, well, advise him that this is going to make one's potential supporters feel ignored and unimportant, like they're on a date in which the guy keeps interrupting to make plans with his bros for later in the night. You're interviewing for a job here, Rudy, do you really think this is appropriate?
Oh, but it was. In an interview posted this morning with Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, Giuliani explained his lack of familiarity with the "silent" feature with...what else? (If you said 9/11, you win...but the country loses. Funny how that works.)

Giuliani explained that, since 9/11, he and the missus always chat before flying.

"Quite honestly, since Sept. 11, most of the time when we get on a plane, we talk to each other and just reaffirm the fact that we love each other," the Republican presidential hopeful told the Christian Broadcasting Network.

I find it quite ironic that Giuliani wants to remind voters who was in office on September 11. "I'll keep you safe from terrorism...this time." If he wants to knight himself and the Republican party as the great protectors of the United States, I'd like to know what they did to try to prevent the attacks from ever happening, because, from what I hear, Giuliani's first response was "Thank God George Bush is President," while the aforementioned Mr. Bush continued to read "My Pet Goat." Why SHOULD I feel safe in your hands? Because you did NOTHING the first time? Or because you call the capture of the man who initiated these attacks "irrelevant," instead choosing to focus your time and resources on an escalating series of lies leading to the capture and execution of a dictator, who, while not quite innocent, had nothing to do with the collapse of the Twin Towers, and now, condemning Columbia University for hosting the president of Iran, all the while comparing him to Hitler as a slaughterer of American soldiers, while not even digging yourself out of your ethnocentric hole enough to realize that Ahmadinejad doesn't even control the Iranian military and is not much more powerful than the Queen of England.

Whew. Sorry about that. I went back to read what I just wrote and it could be a little more clear, but...eh.