Finding Hockey Amongst Pierogis

OK, so I wrote that long diatribe how I'm going to update the blog and do other things and yet I've waited nearly a week to write anything of substance. *sigh* Well I did upload probably close to a 100 photos on Flickr since then so I'm not totally useless. Or something. Anyway...

No, no, no, don't run away screaming! Dead raccoon is just welcoming you to a story about my visit to the Annual Pierogi Fest in Whiting, Indiana over the weekend. As you will see shortly, Mr Raccoon is just a sample of the weird ass shit (and in this case frightening) you could see and/or purchase in between stuffing your face. For those not in the know, pierogis are Polish dumplings often stuffed with potatoes, cheese, sauerkraut and other tasty things. Sadly, I didn't start eating them regularly until fairly recently. Which is surprising considering I grew up in an area of Chicago with a large Polish population (Chicago has the largest Polish population outside of Warsaw), and went to school with many folks with Polish and Slavic heritage. Aside from eating so much you feel like you need a defibrillator, there were many booths with crafts, knick-knacks and well, shit. Of course I had to capture such things with a Blackhawks theme!



I was amazed by the amount of folks wearing Hawks shirts/hats/jerseys at the fest. Part of me snorted to myself, thinking how most of these people thought icing was something they put on a cake (mmm...cake) a couple of years ago. The other part of me was happy that hockey was again popular in the area after being dead for so many years in this city. In any case, what better way to capitalize on such popularity by making tacky crafts for people to buy! I present you with these three pieces of glorious copyright infringement (don't tell the NHL!):

I saw a lot of these melted bottles at several booths. Are they the new craft fad? I guess they are kinda cool, but honestly what the hell do you do with them? Can you really keep accurate time with this? And why would you want a Blackhawks one? Unless you'd use it as a reminder to pick up a 40 or two prior to game time.

I'm not a fan of the whole crafty woodworking thing. Sure, it takes some skill, but let's be honest - if not for things like this, Hobby Lobby would be out of business and there would be no Christmas Bazaar at your local church. If I could critique, I'm not feeling the whole "slap a sticker on a piece of wood" vibe here. At least try to integrate the sticker a little better and not make it look like you wrote with a Sharpie. Also, by putting "Go Hawks" on the birdhouses, are you not actively discriminating against other birds? Should sparrows and robins find another place to poop in?

And now, the coup de grâce...

The dress up ducks old ladies have on their front porch are only a step above those horrible lawn ornaments of fat people bending over in my book. But hey, maybe ducks are Hawks fans too (don't tell Anaheim). I will admit the little one on the table is cute in all its gangsta-ness. But look closely at the Indian Head logo. I'll give the crafter a lot of credit for drawing the logo by themselves. But last I checked the Indian Head was not that happy - he's more Mona Lisa like. He looks like the Cheshire Cat. Maybe he's happy that they won the Cup? Does this call for a logo redesign - I'd rather not have to buy a new Toews jersey in order to update it.

Please note I don't proport to do any better than the crafty people who made the wares above. It's all in good fun - I'm not going to go Regretsy on here (though I will admit that site is schadenfreude at its finest).

Enough tacky crafts for one day. You can see some additional images on Flickr. Instead I will leave you with images of food and drink:

Potato pancakes and pierogis

For $10 you got this bucket-mug of soda with free refills. It was very tasty but required visits to the P-Rogi station. I am not making that up:

Goddammit, I'm hungry now and I need to get ready for bed. Urgh.