I was out at SunBurst on Sunday, snowboarding with my brother. Now that I look back on it, I got pretty banged up. I tried riding a few rails, and every time I did, the rail ending up riding me. I tried the small rail (3 inch diameter steel tube) and either lost it before I got to the rail itself, or fell just as I got on. The wide rail was another story.

The wide rail was something I should have been able go down head on. It was a few inches wider than my board, so if I could have just gotten up on it, I would have ridden to the end and then done a small jump, landed it, and then rode off. This did not happen

I didn't lean down when I should have and ended up on my back, skidding down the rail. Then the rail ended. The end of the rail was about 3 feet above the snow. I fell this distance and lay there. My brother lent all of his moral support by promptly laughing at me.

He also did this when I took a digger off the jump further down this hill earlier in the day.

Even after all of this physical abuse, I was still okay. We kept hitting the slopes, just riding down the hill and going back up to the top.

Around 5, we noticed some people in bright yellow vests, like a crossing guard would wear. Upon closer inspection, we noticed about half of the people had the word "Guide" written on the back of their vests. Then we noticed the other half had the word "Blind" written on their vests. We both agreed this was pretty cool, blind people skiing.

The guide would follow the blind person down the hill, yelling "Left" or "Right" as needed to let them know where to go. Then we noticed that some of the people had "Visually Impaired" in their vests. These guys would follow the guides down the hill.

We didn't think too much of this after our initial appraisal of the cooleness of the situation.

Around 6, we realized we would have to take off soon, since it was a Sunday, and we both had things to get up early for on Monday. We made a pact that we wouldn't leave until we both made it down the hill without wiping out.

On the run after our pact, I was heading down the hill. I was taking it easy, just weaving across the hill, practicing my carving in broad strokes. I was heading right, facing uphill. I was just about to turn to the left and head towards the other end of the hill, when I realized someone was right behind me. There wasn't time to cut back and this person sideswiped me. I, of course, fell on my back.

As I was gasping for breath, one of the persons with a yellow vest skied up to me. "Are you okay?", he asked. I had had the wind knocked out of me, and I didn't answer right away. "Are you okay?", he asked again. "I'm fine," I gasped out. He was one of the guides and I was wondering if he was the guy that hit me. It was about now that I realized that it was one of the visually impaired guys that hit me. That guy skied up to me and asked if I was okay. I answered that I was and tried to get up.

It was then that the guide said something that I'm still laughing about. With a completely straight face, the guide said, "I guess he got you on the blind side."

It was all I could do to not start laughing. I finally got up, got to the bottom of the hill, and met my brother. I filled him in on what happened, and after laughing at me (again) for wiping out, we went up to the top of the hill and had a good run.

We called it a night and went home.

And that's how I got blindsided by a blind guy.

The Grammy's were on last night, but I didn't really watch them. All of these entertainment award shows, the Oscars, the Golden Globes, the Grammy's and what have you, strike me as a bit of show business wankery.

I've always wanted to use the word wankery.

I did watch some of the beginning song-a-palooza. And then, as commercials came on during the more important shows, I would flip back and see if there was any actual singing going on. Oftentimes, there wasn't. And once, I got Recording Academy president Neil Portnow talking about downloading music. He seemed quite proud that Whats The Download? "educated" over 500,000 users in the past year. The site is pure propaganda of course, pushing the agenda of the RIAA.

It got me thinking about the furor over downloading. I don't like the RIAA. You can find out part of the reason by reading The Problem with Music by Steve Albini. If there's a guy who knows the music biz, it's probably him. And he lets you know that there is a good chance that any band that isn't very big will generally end up owing the record labels money, or barely making enough to cover expenses.

Another reason? Suing dead grandmothers who don't even own computers.

And of course, they're one of the reasons we now have copyright that extends to life of author plus 70. But don't get me started on copyright issues, because I would be here all day.

So, what can be done? You can choose to support bands who work with record labels that are not part of the RIAA. Wanna know if they do? Check out the RIAA radar. Or you can support bands who have embraced the Internet and downloading. Jeff Tweedy, you know, that guy from Wilco, had an interesting discussion with Lawrence Lessig in a recent edition of Wired. They discuss "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" and the role downloading played in getting it released and how new sampling laws are bad and new strategies that Wilco is using to get their music out. Check it. Bands that think like this are the future. And eventually we won't have an RIAA. I hope.

And you should know Mr. Lessig. He's the guy who argued Eldred v. Ashcroft in front of the Supreme Court. He lost this try in trying to bring some sanity to our copyright laws. Hopefully he won't lose the next one.

Okay, way too much weighty stuff for a holiday as important as Valentine's Day. So here is a monkey.

There are only 2 more weeks of my ComedySportz 102 workshop left before our show. Time seems to be flying by for this one.

We lost 3 of the women from 101, but picked up another on along the way, so there will be some representation from the female gender too. And of course, the 14 year old boy segment is well represented with young Karl. For a moment at class last night I believed he was going to strangle me. I kept telling him to be louder and then told him I could hear Pam over him. To a 14 year old, them's probably fighting words.

If you're in the area of 420 S. First St. on Monday, February 28th at around 7:30, stop in and see the show. They'll probably charge you 2 bucks to get in, but there's always the chance I could trip on something and fall down. And people falling down is always funny.

This is just wrong. MOTO, a restaurant in Chicago, is serving sushi printed out on an inkjet. There's all kinds of soy and and other stuff involved, and that's not all that bad.

But the wraps just don't look appetizing.

There's an interesting review in the Chicago Reader, where you find out that, and I quote, "aromatherapeutic flatware threaded with sprigs of fresh herbs" are one of your courses.

Now, I do things occasionally to show people how weird I am, but this is ridiculous.

Where was this last night when I needed it? The State of the Union Drinking Game!

And if case you missed it, you can read the whole thing. And you can pronouce mirror, terror and nuclear any way you want.