Hey there, garment bags. I’ll tell ya, yesterday woulda been a lot better as another snow day instead of Opening Day. It was about as exciting as watchin’ the yule log video on Christmas morning. About as warm, too. Pirates fans were definitely lovin’ it, though, and none that I saw showed any ill effects from eatin’ yellow snow the day before. I guess if you do it enough you build up a tolerance or somethin’.

Anyway, after a pretty good start, includin’ the first of Javi’s two moon shots, things went total Frankenstein-ugly in the third, and got worse from there. I don’t know about you, but in game situations like this, my mind tend to wander, always ending up in its predictable corners; 1) What’s for dinner and 2) Scarlett Johansson … er, uh … I mean the missus. I actually do mean that, too. The missus is hotter than a crate of barbequed Carolina Reaper peppers smothered in Blair’s Ultra Death Sauce. Besides, Johansson has answered exactly zero of the 4,617 letters I’ve written her.

Point is, I was lookin’ for somethin’ to do during the game, cuz the Cubs sure as hell weren’t doin’ much. So I played a little game I call Names-In-A-Blender to pass the time. I have what’s known as an elastic set of rules for this game so it can be adapted for actors, politicians, Olympic athletes, nightly news reporters … you name it. I’ve done it with ballplayers a lot, of course, but sometimes with different guidelines than yesterday. Anyway, it’s a good way to pass the time if you’re not doin’ much cheering and clapping, like at yesterday’s Cubs game.

Here are yesterdays Official Joe Schlombowski Names-In-A-Blender rules: You take the name of any major league ball player, say Trevor Hildenburger, and you combine it with another major league ball player, say Jake Lamb. You put those two together and you get TREVOR LAMB-BURGER. Turns out that’s what the red-hot missus cooked up for dinner last night, too. Great minds.

So let’s play a few rounds.

You put Jhoulys Chacin together with Matt Szczur and you get MATT JHOULYS SZCZUR. Probably as much chance of conquering the world as gettin’ into the Hall.

In honor of Harry Caray, mix Bud Norris with Tommy La Stella. That gives you BUD NO-STELLA. Definitely somethin’ Harry woulda said in some hipster bar.

Stayin’ with the hipster bar theme for a minute, combine Shin-Soo Choo and Yu Darvish. That gives you SHIN-SOO CHOO YU. Have a few Buds OR Stellas and try sayin’ that 3 times fast.

When you mix Sean Doolittle with Alex Wood you get ALEX LITTLE-WOOD. Not somethin’ you want on the back of your uni.

But mash up Evan Longoria and Blake Wood and you get EVAN LONGOR-WOOD. Much better, right ladies?

And for you guys from Boystown, there’s this one: Combine Albert Pujols and Doug Fister and you get DOUG PUJOLS-FISTER. Hey, to each his own, pallie.

Give it a shot sometime. Once you run out of ballplayers, start in on golfers, hockey player, football and soccer. Mix it up with the names of Donald Trump’s former cabinet members, and throw in the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders for good measure. If all else fails, go to your Facebook friends list.

Before you know it, you’ll be back on the El, lookin’ forward to tomorrow’s game.

Joe