Pat is probably taking his big exam right now, so good luck to Pat.

Friday has arrived with a quiet office; the lull before the storm, in a sense. Its one of those days where lots of people are off, and lots of people are leaving early, making it feel like I'm here after hours when its not even noon yet. I like days like this, everything feels more relaxed. Today is also the day I finally get my haircut, and also the day that I finally return to Qdoba, so there's some real potential in this Friday.

Did you all hear Brett Favre is offically playing another year? Yep, I think we all expected it, but hey. They also signed Charles Woodson, almost immediately after Brett signed on, and Brett had been calling for the team to sign another marquee player, so I'm guessing there was a connection there. It can't hurt to have another good corner back, but really our defense wasn't too bad last year. It was incredibly stupid to let our defense coach go after the amazing job he did, but it's too late to bitch about that now. It's being predicted that the team will draft another DB as well, so the secondary should be decent. Of course, the offense hasn't really made any improvements, and the offensive line will probably still be terrible, so unless they start patching up the other side of the ball, I'm afraid our newly renovated defense will have to do most of the scoring.

In my search for pictures of people building with coffee creamers yesterday I also came across this picture of what appears to be some youth ministry girls (it's in a site that would indicate as much) building an absolutely immense tower of icecream sandwiches. I'm not really sure what would make you build such a thing, but it's pretty impressive. Especially impressive is the girl at the bottom sacrificing her own body to stickiness to keep the thing up. The tower is clearly on the way down, which means that it's never even leaving this room. This further baffles me, as I coudl see maybe building this to be used at a function or something, but this tower is obviously about to topple, and then become nothing but a giant, melting mess. In a way, it just makes it all the more impressive.

From what I can tell, there are three sandwiches per level, and I count about 42 'stories' of ice cream sandwiches, counting three that appear to be solo on the top as one combined floor. It looks like there are even more below the picture. This equates to at least 126 ice cream sancwiches, which is probably costs over $100, I'd think.

Also of note is the building style; flavors seem to be mixed at random, and most laywers alternate in direction, but some don't. Actually, upon closer inspection, some of the sandwiches appear to be napoleon, containing all three flavors. So perhaps each layer does alternate, and some of then just appear not to due to the coloring of the napoleon.

So damn, this thing is tall, messy and expensive. Was this funded by the church, perhaps? Or are these leftovers for some terribly planned event? Or was there just an amazing deal at the local grocery store? We'll probably never know. But whatever the answer, I tip my hat to you ladies.

JJ Mix Tape

I am in the progress of creating a sugary uber-pop mix cd of summer songs to blast in the Neon during summer drives and tap my toe to on the train.

Thus far, I have scraped together:
Motion City Soundtrack - Feel Like Rain
Lucky Boys Confusion - Hey Driver
Copeland - Pin Your Wings
Waltham - Nicole
Houston Calls - Sunrise Goodbyes
Fall Out Boy - Dance, Dance
P.O.D. - Boom

I expect I'll probably take a lot of heat over this playlist, as so many of you are music snobs, and (with the exception of Boom) several of these songs are probably below your standards. But, that real danger aside, suggest something to add. The only requirements are that it is accessable almost to a fault, and that I don't currently have it on any albums I own. Go crazy.

I realized I haven't used a picture in quite some time, so I thought I'd put one in here. This kid clearly has a bright future. I mean, yeah, a classic six-stack isn't all that impressive, but when you take into consideration the presentation he's drawn around it, the buzz cut, and the fact that he's about six, you can tell this kid is going places. I'll be by the time he's ten he'll have the 1-2-1 combo stack down, and be well on his way to learning the power of the rim-lock (not to be confused with Grimlock).

We have an Oven!

Last night I cooked fish sticks and tater tots. Mmmmm, MMM! That was tasty - I think my stomach was actualy shocked a bit to have so much grease back in there all of a sudden. I was feeling a little bit off for a couple of minutes after eating. I certianly haven't been eating more healthy foods during our no-oven time, but I don't think I've consumed a big plate of breaded meat and greasy potatoes in a while (which I usually eat about three nights a week). I think I better make it a point to eat fruit again - my fruit streak died out a couple of weeks ago... otherwise I might die.

I've been developing a strangely academic interest in using the internet for communcation and community building. I love the idea of having public spaces that anyone can change, and see what they become. There are places like Wikipedia and various open source programs that sort of do this now, but I feel like they're a bit inaccessable. I'd like to see something that's very intuitive and easy to use, so that anyone can stop in and leave their mark. Wouldn't it be great if such a thing existed, and people developed uses for it organically, and then one day somebody came along and just erased the whole thing? The key would be creating a space that is extremely flexible, that could be whatever you wanted, and of course you'd need to get people to use it.

I've been considering ways to create such a space. My favorite right now is just something where you show up and it's a blank screen that you can draw or type in. Then what you create stays up until someone else chooses to edit it, or add to it, or erase it entirely. Users could create links to other sites that you then create, and if the links are removed the site is lost forever. That'd be cool - sort of like a wiki, but complete freedom to do what you want with the page. How would requiring user to register affect their actions? Perhaps even the marginal identification provided by a username would be enough to encourage reasponsibile behavior. What if you required them to put in some time, earn the right to edit the front page - make them invest in the community before they could greatly change it. Maybe a ranking system, in which you slowly build the right to edit more and more prominant pages, based on other member's feedback of your work - would this create a caste system? You would need to only allow so much feedback from any individual, otherwise teams of users could vote themselves to the highest rankings. Cool stuff to think about.

I also want to create a blogulution home page. www.blogolution.com is taken, but thanks to Pat's creative spelling, we could get www.blogulution.com. I think it would be cool to have a community flickr account, Joe's RSS feed page, message boards, a comprehensive list of blogs, etc in a central spot. Maybe next time I'm bored I'll look into it.

Finally, what exactly is on for Lost tonight? It sounds like it's a recap episode, but maybe with some new stuff? I don't quite understand. Does anybod have the low down on this?

Cram it, Teach!

I just had a mild moment of panic, thinking that right about a year ago I was a couple of weeks into my end-of-the-year freak out, trying my damnedest to graduate so I could stop only getting to see Maria four days a month. Then I had a severe moment of relief when I remembered that I don't go to school anymore. Fucking hell I am SO GLAD NOT TO BE IN SCHOOL ANYMORE. I cannot put into words how elated I get when I have moments like this. No exams to worry about, no projects that need completing, nothing. I get to go home and lay around tonight, with no responsibilities until tomorrow morning (except for feeding myself).

I don't think I would mind school as much if I ever decide to go get a masters in something. I think that deciding to go double major halfway through my sophomore year, and having one of those majors be computer science, is what really put the preassure on in the last year. I don't know if I ever did, so I would like to publically thank Dan Metz for making sure I passed several of those CS classes. Without Mootzglog I don't know if I would have my oh-so-impressive diploma tucked away on a bookshelf.

I dedicate this day to everyone who just graduated school. Pretend like you have a big project due next week that you're going to have to work on all weekend. Now remember you don't, and go get yourself a snack. It's good to be alive.

Boo-Yah! (board) (bored) (zing!)

I couldn't get Blogger to let me post anything yesterday, so a quick recap of what I tried to say:

1) Joe - Come to Chcago on Saturday! I know you're busy and somewhat without car, but if you can find a way down, Pat and I will be drunk and playing Guitar Hero, so you know it'll be a good time.

2) Why will Pat and I be playing Guitar Hero? Because it is Pat and Dave fun day. Why is it Pat and Dave fun day? Because that nerd is finally taking is damn test, and we can spend an entire day playing Guitar Hero and watching movies. Huzzah! Milkshake doubleheader here we come!

Moving on, I went to a Cubs game last night with some of our usual Chicago contingent and it was a great time. I was impressed by the attendance and the energy level present even in this early season game against an out-of-conference opponent. The Cubs won in an exciting eigth inning ralley, and afterwards our Wrigleyville representitive deftly led us away from the crowds to a deserted train station to head home. For $14 it's a pretty good evening option.

I got word from Laura "K-Neppo" Knepper that she's moving in pretty close to Wrigley field this summer. As far as I know, she and Melissa "Bacon" Macon will be living together; they should be a fun addition to the Chicago crowd. I very much look forward to my first pirate themed, jell-o shot saturated, eardrum shattering party at their apartment. For those of you not in the know, Laura was one of our roomates in Madison, and Bacon is like her best friend. You'll meet them this summer and fall in love instantly. Unless Laura's still doing that thing where she touches your face...

Tori Spelling looks weird.

We're Downstairs!

.

The Ultimate Psych-Out

Pat increased his David-Stock a bit by reintroducing me to the wonders of Little Caesar's $5 hot-n-ready pizza deal last week. Last night was the perfect evening for my first trip to pick up one myself, as Maria was out on the town being cultured, so I hopped in my car, drove over, and was instantly transported through time and space to the Little Caesar's that used to be next to Ruby Isle in Brookfield. It seems that every Little Caesar's looks and smells exactly the same. It was wonderful. And honestly, $5 for one of those pizzas is a pretty amazing deal (next time I think I'll get some Crazy Bread too). If you have access to some pizza pizza, I'd suggest you remind yourself what the big deal was.

The inspiration to go get food sprung from the fact that we still have no oven. I'm basically out of food, but going shopping is pointless until we have an oven in which I can cook my processed meats. I drove past a Wendy's last night on my way to Little Caesar's, so perhaps tonight is a spicey chicken kind of night. Or leftovers, as we have amassed a pretty healthy stock of things like ham, pizza, pie, cake, and dinner rolls, all of which can be prepared in the microwave of toaster oven.

The train station I get off at every morning has had a broken escalator for well over a week now. They have it closed off so you can't even use it as stairs - creating a massive jam of people trying to go up the one narrow staircase while a few brave souls try to fight their way down. I just noticed today that a sign is up warning that the escalator isn't even supposed to be fixed until May 16th. I think I'll have to start using a different train station. So the question is, do I get off one stop early, which puts me about two blocks farther way from work, or the next stop, which puts me only about one stop farther from work, but will require a couple of extra minutes on the train? There is also the consideration that the earlier stop will make me walk right past McDonalds every day - creating danger (or potential deliciousness) of breakfast purchases. The latter of the two is also the stop where Maria gets off for school, so on days we commute together I usually get off there anyways. I'll let you know how it works out. (Psych! I probably won't.)

What's in Yahoo News?

Panasonic Unveils 103-Inch TV Screen
This is just silly. No, seriously; I can hear you all gasping after reading that coming from me, but the fact is that an HD signal will only look good streched out to certain sizes. This screen uses the same 1080i (or 1080p eventually) signal that my tv does, and I gaurntee it's starting to look fuzzy at 224% the size. It's like the way standard definition channels look like crap on my tv (DVDs even look pretty rough). You strech a signal out too far and it stops looking good. I've yet to see an HD channel streched out too far, but I'd guess eight and a half FEET just about does it.

Woman Has Rare Case of Bubonic Plauge
Damn, that totally sucks. Speaking of outdated diseases, I swear a lady infront of me was battling consumption on the train today. Or black lung. Whatever, the point is that she was spitting the junk she was coughing up on the floor and I seriously almost threw up.

Austria most sexually satisfied nation - Study
I'm pretty suprised about this.

Review: 'Legend' is Enjoyable to Play
HAHAHAHA, this is hillarious to me. The article is about Tomb Raider: Legend, and that title is the lamest thing I've ever seen. Next time they need a title for a review, Yahoo should contact me for four million titles better than what they're currently considering.

Ugly

I was just running around my pages, making some little tweaks, and I looked at my blog in IE for the first time in months. Man, it is ugly there. I think it looks pretty decent in FireFox, but IE makes everything look like hell.

Maybe I'll try to fix that someday.

The better solution is for you to stop using IE, though. You shouldn't really be using it anyways.

Pandora Splurge

I added a little side bar below the links on the left there that shows my current favorite songs from Pandora. Pretty neat little site, that Pandora.

Wow

I just heard "Hey Driver" by Lucky Boys Confusion on my Pandora.com radio station. That song just got me totally excited about nothing in particular. I love songs like that. Makes me want to go buy it (and "Boom" by P.O.D.) and listen to them on a continuous loop for the rest of the day.

(Seriously considering it.)

The other thing I'm pondering is how one would get a ping pong table setup in our house. Because they rule, and are featured prominantly in the video for "Boom". Maria had the bang-up idea of simply buying an appropriately sized piece of plywood and putting it over our kitchen table. How big is a ping pong table? I have no idea - let me check...
9' by 5', and 2.5' tall. Hmmm, that's actually pretty close to the dimensions of the sheet I bought for the stadium seating in Madison. You can also buy tables on the cheap from Craigslist, but neither a table nor a sheet of plywood would fit in the Neon, so the whole thing is moot.

Perhaps... just perhaps... you could play on our table simply by adding a net. I seem to recall games being played on far smaller tables in Madison.

Mackenzie sucks.

You're Ruining the Game!!

That damn Pat Hayden scores X2 Super Strikes in my nightmares.

(Good weekend, everybody - keep it up.)

Rumors of Zombie Blogs

Maria and I had a great warm-evening evening last evening. We drove up to Northwestern, played some tennis, took a walk around a very nice neighborhood, and ate almost outside at Charlie's. It was lovely. We still don't have an oven, but really we can get away without one until Sunday pretty easily, so I'm still not too concerned about it. I figure I'll get a hold of our landlord at some point and ask him to just have it in by Sunday afternoon, whenever he gets a chance. When he's cutting us such a good deal on rent this summer it's hard to get too pissed off (plus, I scored the garage for free over the summer).

I'm kicking around the idea of replacing my laptop, as its getting to the point where the screen completely goes out a lot of the time. I don't use it for anything demanding; just web surfing and watching videos most of the time (my current laptop can't even open iTunes without getting bogged down). I'd really like a powerbook, as someday I want to get back into video editing, but I don't want to spend anywhere near that much. If I replaced the old laptop, I figure I'd keep it under $800 or so - which means I could get a very highly rated HP or a mid-range Dell. The other thing that caught my eye is that Dell is selling its old 600M laptop for $424 right now (which is actually down from yesterday, even). Does anyone have any other suggestions or opinions on these? I'm woefully out of touch with the laptop market, so help me out (Pfeiffer, Mootzger I'm looking at you guys here).

Also in the computer realm, I'm switching us to RCN cable this month, which should offer about the same TV service, but I'm also slowing our internet connection way down from 5mbps to 712kps. I'm hoping that will still suffice for XBox Live and web surfing. If not I can just have them crank it up, but I think we'll give it a shot at first. Has anyone tried that speed before? Is it decent?

Furthermore, ATTENTION EVERYONE WHO WILL BE IN BROOKFIELD THIS WEEKEND! I don't know how many people will be around, but it's supposed to be warm, and probably pretty nice on Saturday at least. I would love to get a game of soccer together, or if we don't have those numbers, what about some volleyball? I'm thinking early afternoon on Saturday. If you are going to be in town and would be interested, leave a comment. From what I know, Pat, Arun, Chris, Jess(?), Maria and I will all be around. There are also the folks that live in the area perminantly, Harry, Hilgeman, Mike, Paal, etc. I'm probably missing some people too. It seems like we could quite possibly scrape up a dozen people for a game of soccer. Let me know what's up. If such detailed plans don't work out, we should meet up at my place for some milling around and basketball on tiny hoops at Tonowanda.

I'm amazed yet again that it is already Thursday. I'll be seeing many of you lovely people tomorrow, so get some rest, brush up on your manners, and I'll try not to judge you too hard.

Girl Scout Cookies to Go

The city streets are littered with bands of Girl Scouts this morning. They are peddling their cookies and generally being adorable. The band I bought cookies from was clearly doing some bang-up business (they must have somebody with a pickup truck full of cookies restocking stations throughout the loop). The scene came complete with a Dad supervising and clearly feeling a bit overwhelmed. Good stuff! I'm enjoying my Thin Mints and Mountain Dew RIGHT NOW.

I was feeling like doing something Madison-based today in the nice spring weather, so I took a walk down to Pot Belly's and got myself a delicious sandwich and wandered around a bit (Pot Belly's is only Madison-based to me because we used to eat there sometimes in college). I also hit Jimmy John's yesterday for a sub, and found that there are some things there are decent. All in all Big Mikes is a world better in my opinion (cue somebody claiming their menus are the same). Tonight I think Maria and I will be on the hunt for outdoor seating somewhere on Clark St. for a warm evening dinner.

I recieved another call from The Apartment People today, bringing the total to something around 4 or 5. Everyone who calls me is unaware that I have already spoken to several other people, and are usually confused when I tell them what's going on. The service is great when it works right, but clearly they don't have a very smooth plan for what happens when an apartment doesn't work out. Today Jen called me, and sounded really dissapointed that it didn't work out. I told her to call us if she ever finds a perfect apartment from us, but my guess is I'll never hear from her again. She also called me 'hon' (or is it 'hun'?) which was weird - when did she become a grandma?

This weekend is approaching fast, and with it my first trip back to Brookfield in quite a while. It sounds like lots of people will be around, and there has been promise of Mario Strikers on Arun's Dad's 60" plasma TV. That would probably literally kill me. I swear, the sudden death over times in that game are the more heart-attack-inducing experience I have even been through. I should probably take the next couple of evenings and learn how to hit the x2 goals so that somebody can stop the onslaught that is Pat. I'm far too excited about seeing everybody - I can't wait to do some intense hanging out. I ordered a copy of the great little zombie game that Jess brought down; if I'm really lucky it may show up in time to accompany me into Brookfield basements.

Whiplash

In what is a big 180, even for what I write on this blog, our plans for living arrangements for next year have completely changed. We felt uncomfortable entering into any sort of lease with a landlord who would dick us around over five days rent, and our current landlord mentioned in passing that he was going to ask if we wanted to stay over the summer for a very reduced rent, so within twenty minutes of comming home last night we had told the new guy to suck it and later that evening we set up a month-to-month lease with our current landlord for $250 less than what we pay now. It was a very nice solution to what was quickly becomming something of a headache.

So things are good, starting to settle in for the summer at least, and again I'll be happy to have it settled (I will consider it settled once I see my refund in my bank account). Our oven is currently broken, but a new one is supposed to be delivered today. I'm not sure if 'new' means brand new, or if it means another old one that actually works. Either way, I just need something that will heat my fish sticks to edible temperatures.

I've also just learned that it may be possible to retro-fit the Neon with a factory air conditioning option. I'm looking into that...

Landlord update: the guy that we were going to rent from just called me at work, told me he wanted to, "get a few details", I told him we're not renting from, and he immediately said okay and hung up. Weird... I'm guessing The Apartment People just told him he lost a tennant and he was calling to confirm that. Man, I'm so dissapointed I didn't get to rent from a guy who hangs up on people!

Well anyways, I am eager to get the cash settled and put some distance between us and this whole affair. Suddenly I seem to agree with Pat; moving is a bitch.

Jen-erally Dissapointing

I've been on the phone a couple of times today with The Apartment People, through whom we we signed on that apartment yesterday. Our agent, Jen, who several of my friends have worked with to wonderful results, assured us that our potential landlord would almost certianly be okay with a lesser security deposit than he had advertised and starting the lease 20 days late. So we offered that, and I put down quite a bit of money to secure the apartment.

Now it appears that the landlord is not willing to accept what was presented as a done-deal offer on either of those points. He insisted on a month and a half rent security deposit, which I agreed to, as long as we could start the least on the 20th. I just got another call back that he will not start the least after May 15th.

If this falls through I'm only out about 100 bucks, but damn this sucks. I know they're trying to close a sale, but if something isn't going to happen, don't have me put a bunch of money down on the premise that its no problem. Furthermore, this guy is being a total douche by insisting that we move the date five days sooner. This is clearly just a jack-ass move; a play for the upperhand in the relationship. The fact is that we're talking about him losing 5 days rental income, in a lease that would end mid-month anyways, meaning that he won't be able to rent the apartment until June a year from now anyways!

I really do not want to enter into a landlord-tennant relationship with a guy like this; even if we do win the negotiation, it will start out on a sour foot and I'm sure he won't be too pleased with us right off the bat.

So I'd almost rather just scrap this place and find another at this point; only the ideal location and general nice-ness of the apartment makes me willing to put forth another effort. I'm pretty sure our only action at this point will be to call up The Apartment People one last time and tell them we won't negotiate on the date since we gave him an extra $575 security deposit, and he can find himself another tennant if he won't accept the offer. And really, I feel like I deserve to be refunded all expenses if this does fall through, since we were all but lied to about the feasability of this process (Jen worked with this building before, and knew it well; she knew who she was dealing with).

After all this maybe I'll just launch a fake ghost campaign to scare out our shitty neighbors and we can just stay put.

Oh look, I've caught a Girl...

Great weekend - fine weather, wonderful guests, and a new apartment. Jess, Kat and Marcus came by for Saturday night; it was really nice to see those guys - it's been a while. I'm planning on making a trip up to Madison some time soon, and I'd really like to do an extended trip this summer. Somebody mentioned Rocky's and my stomach was excited.

Sunday Maria and I found some new digs - 1353 W. Winona, which is about a half-mile east of our current place and a little bit south (it cuts our walk to the train in half!). It's only a little bit cheaper, but it's also forcing me to give up my garage parking, which forces me onto the street, but saves me a bundle. We're still waiting to hear back from The Apartment People to hear we got it for sure, but it sounds like our lease will start May 20th, giving us a full 11 days with both apartments to move. We're planning on borrowing Maria's parent's pickup truck to do the move in small chunks over that time. I might get my Dad's truck down here too for one last day of moving all the big stuff. It should be a pretty decent move, as we're not going far, and I was planning on changing our cable anyways, so the utility switch-over will be smoother than usual.

The apartment itself is a very nice two bedroom with all the little touches that are always nice. The ceiling even has some cool molding in it - it just feels very solid. It's on the second floor of a three-story building with two apartments on each floor, but due to the nice brick construction and solid floors I don't think neighbor noise should be too bad. I really like the fact that it has seperate rooms - instead of our current setup with three big rooms, we're getting five seperate rooms (not including the bathroom), so Maria has a seperate office, and I think it makes the place feel bigger. The entry way is kick-ass, and the bedrooms seem big enough for us. It should be good stuff. The one downside to the new place is that I'm moving on to street parking, which we all know makes me crazy, but parking is so easy in the area that I think even I can handle it.

So I'm in the midst of the cash storm that always surrounds a move - first months rent and security deposit going out before the previous security deposit comes back in, plus paying two rent checks in May will result in some weird accounting for the next month or so, but it all evens out in the end. Between that and the street parking, my desire to get a new car has suddenly been squashed. The Neon is the perfect street parking car; small, nimble, and already beat to hell. So it seems the old girl may get another year's use. I'll definately need to look into ways to cool it down during the summer though; perhaps some window tint will help. Any good ideas?

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAluigi

Our neighbors have thoughtfully left another round of dog shit right in the middle of our sidewalk right in front of the gate. (It's amazing - I KNOW they see it, and have to step over it, but they do not deal with it. I hate them.) I actually had a dream last night in which they came up to ask Maria and I to walk around more quietly and we just started yelling at them. It was pretty great. I would love to just go bang on their door and yell at them for like ten minutes, but then things would be awkward, I suppose... F'n hippies. Seriously, though, how on earth can you share a house with other people, share a narrow sidewalk, share a gate, let your dog out in the front yard every night and let him shit literally in the dead-center of that sidewalk about a foot infront of the gate, and not pick it up?? And I know if I did ask them about it they would act like they didn't even notice, and play the "It's not my fault, I'm a fucking idiot hippie" card. (They have taken this attitude every other time I've asked them about anything - and then they immediately do what I ask, and ten minutes later stop doing it. For example, I asked them to keep their cat inside when we had to take Ernie out in the backyard for 36 hours. They let the cat out within two hours of me asking. I also asked the lady to turn down her radio one day when I literally could not hear my television over it and my floor was shaking - she turned it back up later the morning, and still blasts it.)

This is a symptom of deep rooted, engrained type of rudeness, laziness and lack of respect for other people. This isn't something you do because you don't realize it bothers people, or because you forget. They see this every day, they know that people do not like stepping in dog shit, and still they do not pick it up. I even heard our land lord ask them to pick up after their dog multiple times last summer and they still don't do it. What a pair of fucking degenerates. Okay, okay... get it together, Dave. The best revenge is living well... But I swear, I'm *this* close to smearing it on their front window or something. "Oh, I'm sorry, you didn't like that? Your behavior has led me to believe that you enjoy having dog shit prominently displayed around your home. How inconsiderate of me." So, if you're comming over this weekend, watch out for the dog shit.

I checked back in on Urban Dead for the first time in months today, and found very few gameplay updates. There are a couple of new zombie attacks and it looks like its harder to revive zeds now. I also think they incorporated a clan system. I'm sort of dissapointed to see so few changes after all these months. Ah, well. My characters shall remain invisible corpses on the ground.

Being Friday, and the Cubs home opener, it's too bad that its sort of rainy and foggy outside. I think tonight will be a wonderful evening to get a couple of drinks and kick back with some Mario Soccer. I should go home right now and practice super strikes until my fingers bleed so I can put that damn Pat Hayden in his place. Damh him and his glowing-meter perfect X2 power kicks! My gentle crocidilian goalie did nothing to deserve such harsh treatment!

The Brewers are currently Winning their Division

Not much going on around Chicago lately. Maria made an awesome baked pasta dish last night that was delicious and cheesy; two of my favorite qualities in food. Last night was spent eating said pasta and cheese, and watching Lost. Tonight will probably be spent in very similar ways, but with different television and different food. There is something to be said for routine sometimes.

I'm hoping to see Pat this Friday, as I haven't seen him for about two weeks, what with his studying and his New Jersey trips and all. After that the weekend is pretty full of friends visiting and basketball. It should be good. I'm happy to say that I'm right back on track with the weeks flying by. Over the last month or so I've had a couple of weeks that seemed not to drag, really, but to elapse at normal speed (which is no good). I've also noticed lately that I keep having feelings like I just moved here, or just started my job. I can only attribute these feelings to the warm weather or my impending amnesia. Woah, where am I? I can't even remember the secret codes that only I know anymore...


I all but completed a sudoku this morning, but was left with four pairs of numbers that could go in one of two boxes. I know that's a little hard to understand, so let me clarify before moving on; eight boxes, eight numbers to go in them, each in pairs. Whatever. The point is that there were multiple solutions to this Sudoku. It blew my mind; is that even possible?!? Did I enter some sort of crazy altered state of time during my commute that left me in a world where numbers can be two things at once? It was crazy. I was going to keep it and transcribe it into blog-post here, but I wasn't sure what would happen if I entered such data into an ever-evolving, non-printable document like a blog. Perhaps it would grow and spread until the entire world had multiple solutions. I'm hungry; what should I do? Why don't you eat, OR PET A DOG? That would be terrible.

It's felt like it's going to rain all day, but has yet to do so. I see in my handy-dandy little weather plug-in for Firefox that it's supposed to rain tomorrow, but it sure does feel like it's going to start any time. I kind of want to walk in the rain, as it seems like it would be a nice spring rain, but I'm starting to get somewhat hungry, and may have to give in and just go eat. I need another new lunch place for sure; I'm in a lunch rut. Almost every day is either a sandwich, fast food chicken/burger, or the occasional pasta dish from Corner Bakery. If you have any good suggestions in the east loop area, let me know. I'm hoping to get to Qdoba sometime soon, but for today I think I'll return to recent addition White Hen. They have all kinds of sodas to choose from, in additional to some croissant sandwiches that I want to eat. Or pet.

Now Hear me Out

I just had a White Hen sandwich for lunch.

It was pretty good, actually.

Give me a Beer and a TV

It seems that every day a gap between some of my smart friends and I grows. The fact is that day-to-day I just plain do not care about things like politics and religion. I used to be marginally interested in politics until I trusted experts and leaders and ended up feeling like an idiot (see my trusting the Pentagon regarding the war). One friend holds the opinion that following politics is somewhat silly, as we'll never know the real story of what's going on until years after the fact. That seems pretty accurate to me these days.

I still have a lot of faith in people who are smarter and more informed than I (which is a hell of alot of people), so I tend to believe that those people are out there taking care of shit. I don't feel the need to constantly be up to date on what's going on, especially since I wouldn't be making any of the calls even if I was. I don't plan on investing the time to embed myself neck-deep in independent news sources or travel the globe to witness things first hand, so if I want to feel like I'm informed, I can essentially choose which institution spins things in the way that I like. Which, of course, would just result in me following some other expert that may very well be lying.

I've made a conscience decision to stop talking about such issues whenever possible. I'm often a skeptic, sometimes a cynic, and I find that if anyone comes up with a strong opinion in any direction I tend to immediately think it's too strong and should be tempered towards the middle. This has often resulted in me arguing something I don't even believe to try to illustrate a point, and probably making people think I'm an a-hole.

Despite my limited understanding of what's going on around the globe, the fact is that I'm happy. I like my life a lot, and I'm much more interested in hanging out with friends than debating the merits of democracy or abortion or prayer in school or what-have-you. In some eyes I'm sure this makes me a stupid American who doesn't deserve a spot on the planet. I worry about this sometimes because I feel like I'm drifting away from friends who have moved on in different ways, and they may even look down on me now. I'm guessing that if you put us in a basement somewhere we'd still have a great time debating the Creed vs. Shakira issues, but online talk often turns to headdier issues, and online talk is often alll we have these days.

I suppose this was somewhat inevitable, as I always ran with a group of ridiculously smart people. Honestly, I think that my friends growing up severly skewed my impression of the population as a whole. Not a single one of my friends has proven to be a fuck-up or a fool. I think I'm a somewhat smart guy, and I can easily say I'm no smarter than anyone who ever set foot in Wipert's basement. (You'd think some of that would have rubbed off... wonk!)

Anyways, this is one of those blog posts that has no value, yet I enjoyed writing. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to work my 9-5, and return home to enjoy the sunshine, a drink, Gilmore Girls, and the love of a good woman. Here's to football!

The Smells and Tastes of Spring

I had a wonderful weekend, capped off by a great Sunday with Maria. We got breakfast, watched March of the Penguins, took an extended walk around the neighborhood during the nice weather, and got home in time to listen to the huge thunderstorm and let the wind blow through our apartment. Having that warm, wet spring air come blustering into the den and out the kitchen on the other side has left the apartment with a nice feel. Spring is my friend.

I just noticed on my latest pay stub that I have saved up enough vacation time to take a week off for my family reunion this summer, and by the time everyone else is on summer break, I'll have enough time to take a few three-day weekends here and there. I like the idea of taking a day or two off for no reason but to hang around and play with my friends.

I spoke to Harry today, who as far as I could tell, was just hanging out in Wirth Park. I really envy that - being in Wirth park on a Monday in spring with nothing to do. Sounds like he and Mike will be comming to town sometime soon, which will (of course) be blissful.

Freaky story: Sunday morning Maria turned to The Net, and said, "I wish this was Big." Then she changed the channel and Big was on. Dude.

I've been trying to get into baseball this season, and thus far it seems to be working. A couple of my friends who are big fans have the mlb.com subscription where you can watch live streaming games (and any games from this season or last season on demand), which is pretty awesome. I'm monitoring the Cubs game this afternoon via their free 'gameday' thing, which shows you who is batting, the result of each pitch, current stats and so forth. It's pretty cool. The Cubs just wrapped up a nice 6th inning rally to recapture a commanding lead over the Reds. My one big thing right now is that I need a team. The Cubs offer the obvious advantages of being heavily covered in this area, and I could attend some games, but the Brewers would be fun too. At the moment I must admit to being a tiny bit caught up in Cubs fever, especially since they're not really the cool team right now (that honor goes to the White Sox). I don't think I'd be interested in them if they were still the toast of the town. I'm still miles away from being able to participate in baseball conversations, but at least I'm starting to learn. (Does Scott Williamson totally suck, or is he just pitching badly right now?)

The other sport I'm trying to follow closely this year is MLB soccer. The Fire (currently 0-1) showed Pat and I some good times last year, and we're planning on heading down to the new stadium once it's completed in June for some games. The confusing bit about MLB soccer is that they seem to play for almost the entire year, but only a small chunk of the games during the summer actually counts for the leauge. They play several friendlies and exhibition matches, and it was hard to decern which games were what until I took some time and figured out the schedule. I suppose that's sort of like european soccer teams who play in several leauges at once; that's probably even harder to keep track of. The glory of The Fire is that even if you have no idea what's going on, there are always drums and fireworks to make things interesting.