Your proverbial weekend wrap-up

Bears

You'll read everywhere that yesterday's win against the Rams was nothing special and that it does not cure all the Bears' troubles. That may be true, but all I know is that the Bears needed that win yesterday in the worst way. After all the awfulness that occurred last week in Green Bay, they needed to beat up on a bad Rams team, and that is precisely what happened. Was it a great win? No, but it was at least a convincing one they can build off of next week in Minnesota.

Before all that though, we can focus on Green Bay v. New Orleans tonight. Can the Pack join the Bears and Vikings at 6-5 atop the NFC North? The Bears also play the Saints in Week 14, so this game is double interesting.

Back to the Bears for a second, though: how great it Matt Forte? He's the best offensive player the Bears have had since....Marcus Robinson? Especially after having to sit through Benson and Peterson last year, Forte has really been a breathe of fresh air. He also looks like he could become the first Bears player ever to become a perennial first round pick in fantasy football. For some reason, I find that very satisfying.

White Sox

Whoo, Dayan Viciedo! I have no idea if he'll be good or not - I sort of having a sneaking feeling that he'll suck (you don't walk off the island...), but I thought the same about Alexei last year and Viciedo certainly has a much higher profile - but this was a great, great signing by the Sox. Wouldn't you rather spend $11 million on a guy with super high upside (tup, even?) than for two years of Juan Uribe? Last year after the Swisher trade, the Sox probably had the worst farm system in all of baseball. Now you can add Viciedo to Gordon Beckham and Aaron Poreda atop the Sox's prospect list. Good stuff.

It seems that Viciedo will likely be a 1B not a 3B, and because he's so young (nothing like a fresh 19-year old, right?), I don't think we can count on him to contribue next year (though you never know). I like Josh Fields more than most people, but after hearing that the Red Sox are all about Mark Teixeira, what about trading for Mike Lowell? He would seem to be the perfect stop gap until Viciedo is ready. I thought I was a genius when I thought of that, but Sox Machine pointed out Ken Rosenthal mentioned it yesterday.

Bulls

If the Bulls were going to win a second game on the Circus Trip, it probably would have happened last night in Denver. I didn't see the game, but BaB is doing some hardcore bitching about the crunchtime lineup, which apparently consisted of Hunter, Rose, Gordon, Nocioni, and Gooden, which sucks but at least it doesn't involve the names Larry Hughes or Aaron Gray.

Also: there is no reason Noah should ever play under 20 minutes (nine boards in 19 minutes!). And don't even get me started on Tyrus only getting four minutes.

Utah - everyone's favorite - tonight, which will almost certainly be a loss considering the Bulls have a tendency to get thrashed on the back end of back-to-backs.

Other things

- Mad props to my guys at Sportspros(e) on their first ever Deadspin link.

- I'm not sure how long this is lasting for, but The Killers have their whole new album streaming on their myspace. I gave it a listen once through yesterday, and can at least say that the rest of cd is better than the first single, Human, which I think is grade A garbage. The Killers aren't one of my favorite bands or anything, but they're one of the only popular contemporary rock bands that are at least decent (throw The Strokes in there too), so I guess I'm sort of rooting for them.

- This was a sweet concert weekend in Chicago. Alk Trio on Thursday, Margot and Smashing Pumpkins on Saturday. I couldn't make it out to Margot (or any of those shows actually), but my friends that went said it was awesome. Watch this vid of them on Conan recently. The backpack piano deserves your time.

And since I never posted it before, here's a video from The Get Up Kids first reunion show last Sunday.