Archives for the month of: September, 2004
star wars: a new hope

last night there was a sort of impromptu star wars drinking game/viewing at ben’s. it turned out to mostly involve eating and drinking beer and not much game, but this is only because the rules for the game were far too numerous to hold our attention for very long. we did, however, rewind at least 5 times to see that storm trooper conk his head on a blast door. lucas seems to have added in a nice loud sound effect to go with it. also..greedo shoots…concurrently?? whatever. i got some goldschlager, i was happy.

high points of evening:

  • eric reveals that he hasn’t watched star wars since he was 9
  • sara asks if that guy on screen (obi-wan) is yoda
  • jon obliges me and holds my head at arm’s length while i try to hit him (i couldn’t reach, but i kicked him instead)
  • pumpkin pie
  • movie is rewound to check if princess leia is wearing a bra or not

despite the title of this entry, i don’t feel too strongly about any of the changes lucas made with the re-releases except the ewok song (or lack thereof) and the noticable lack of original-release version dvds. is he ashamed or something? i don’t get it.

le weekend (not to be confused with the french film of the same name)

saturday night was jim’s thesis screening, so after buying some supplies and an easel and the big art store sale, eric and i revisited the old campus. after the screening (which was quite lovely) stef, sara(h), jill, kolter, eric and i hit cuneen’s for pitchers. stef and sara(h) left after a few hours but the rest of us managed to close the bar. it was pretty awesome. everyone all yelling at the top of their lungs, kolter all getting another pitcher after we were all done because he wasn’t going to just sit there with no drink. it was pretty awesome.

the rest of the weekend i sort of sat around and tried not to think of having to go back to work once the weekend was over. oh, also i bought jon stewart’s new book, america (the book). it’s laid out like a text book with study questions and class activities at the end of every chapter. if you don’t know about my love affair with jon stewart then clearly you don’t know me. oh sure, it’s one-sided, but…

from craigslist, by eric:

Looking for an athletic, young person to give my dong some exercise on weekday afternoons. Basic responsibilities will include letting him out, maybe tossing some balls around the backyard and potentially some light grooming work to remove any burrs or mud that might get matted into the fur. You should be a good runner and strong enough to wrestle my dong to the ground, because there are some days when he won’t come right away. I can’t afford to pay much, but if you’re anything like me the enjoyment you get from my dong will be more than enough compensation for your efforts. Please respond ASAP and we can set up a time for you to become acquainted with my dong and discuss the specifics.

he purportedly wrote this after misreading another post on craigslist earlier in the day.

update: eric’s ad got flagged and removed from craigslist but not before someone replied to it.

miracle fish

yesterday i was puttering away, actually doing some real work at work (what a novel concept!). i was working on a brochure layout and periodically banging on my desk in woe because one of the graphic elements – a giant sundial – just refused to fit in anywhere that satisfied me. anyway, so i was puttering away, excited about naming layers and swatches and arranging them into nested color-coded folders and whatnot when my cell rang. it was…MEGHAN!

her show is in town to shoot a segment in romeoville (i hope i’m not giving away some sort of network secret by saying that). after much searching of the internet, we decided to meet up at la sorella di francesca, the naperville location of the mia francesca family of restaurants. inexplicably, meghan and i both showed up in black tshirts (both of us settling on it after briefly considering a shirt that looked like what the other ended up wearing) and josh and eric both wore blue and white striped button-downs (and both remarked that they also owned a shirt very much like the one the other was wearing).

we had this funky waiter who was a little…on crack…got a bottle of wine and some calamari and great pasta. francesca knows what she is doing. meghan and josh related some insane stories from the road (diamonds, a dog and gelato? you’ll have to check out meghan’s site and see if she puts that story up) and meghan gave me a birthday present – a handmade notebook with a sea turtle painted on it!! why are sea turtles so lovable? meghan and josh actually got to swim with sea turtles when they were in maui last month!

anyway, i don’t know what’s going on with me lately, but even though i eat the same amount of food, i feel really awful and bloated and sort of sick afterwards. this has been happening since last week. after a few hours i feel fine though so it must be…? maybe it’s a blessing in disguise; i probably eat too much anyway.

tonight i think i’ll take it easy and maybe play some prince of persia and consider whether i really need a gross of miracle fish. i had never heard of them till i read about them in molly’s blog. but who needs a gross of anything? isn’t that like, a dozen dozen? what would i do with 144 cellophane fish?!

update: i thought that meghan & josh’s show was ‘amazing vacation homes’, because that has a show in maui. but i went back to meghan’s site and i guess the show is called ‘vacation home search‘. sorry.

this weekend i’m going back to the qca for my birthday with the family. mom has a bunch of good food she’s planning on making (special 7-bean baked beans, chicken enchiladas) plus we’re going to a japanese steakhouse for the big dinner. i think that same day i am going to have lunch at my favorite chinese place so i’ll probably be all asian-ed out (ha!). unfortunately i forgot a bunch of the stuff that i was meaning to take home for my mom and my ipod.

because of the big drive this evening eric drove this morning – we got stuck behind this street sweeping truck…have you ever been stuck behind a street sweeping truck? it sucks. not only is the bugger moving at about 10 mph, but since it was going backwards in ‘street’ mode rather than ‘street cleaning’ mode or whatever, its brushes were brushing everything all over the place in the wrong direction. dust and leaves everywhere. gross. also i saw some guy at a bus stop take off his shirt. he was sort of fat and hairy and gross. i’m not talking about cute endearing fat, like awww! cuddly chubby dude! like teddy bear! cause i know some guys like that. i’m talking the polar opposite of that. [shudder] also, to complete the grossness of the morning, some sort of bizarre smell was coming through the windows of eric & jon’s apartment – as eric put it, it smelled like a catfood factory exploded…all over their building. catfood is a bad enough smell for the 30 seconds between opening the can (wet catfood, the most dreaded of the two) and plopping it in a bowl on the floor. imagine it sort of permeating EVERYTHING. maybe jon is keeping a cat in his room, like a secret pet? which reminds me, it never fails that when i plan a trip home all of the coolest things are happening in chicago. ‘resident evil: apocalypse’ opens, there is a big german festival and parade in lincoln square, bobby conn show, guy from vice magazine speaking at quimby’s, etc.

for your consideration: movies eric has not seen.

how are you a 25 year old dude that hasn’t seen any of the terminator movies?! godfather movies?? ‘honey, i shrunk the kids’ for pete’s sake??! i don’t know either. ask eric.

also, i have upgraded to movable type 3.11, so if there are any problems/hiccups you guys notice, please let me know!

the wedding was nice – short and sweet. the highlights?

  1. the pastor or whatever (don’t know what denom he was representin’) gives the vows and tells ozzie that his answer should be ‘i will.’ and ozzie says ‘i will’ – but in a tone of voice that could have been interchanged with ‘psht! man, i ain’t even frontin’, of COURSE i’m gonna take care of this fiiiiiiine lady! damn dude!’
  2. ozzie weeps like a little girl through the entire ceremony. awww! 🙂
  3. jesse wears white flip flops under her gown that say ‘just married’ on the vinyl strap.
  4. jamaican rum fruitcake.
  5. open bar.

after the wedding we sort of relaxed, then andrew, stef, jon, eric and i went down town for big wig’s second-to-last hurrah. i mostly was reminded of the reasons why i don’t go to clubs unless i’m really pumped to go (and not sort of sleepy), but i was glad to not be just sitting around watching my 2 cable stations and eating cheetos. all said, it was a pretty weird birthday. i guess this coming weekend (home with the family) will feel more birthday-like. ugh, how can i be 23? i am almost to mid-twenties. ick.

yesterday bocci, eric and i hung out and had some grilled sausages and stuff. then we played another round of dvd pop culture trivial pursuit. i did not dominate like the last time we played, instead eric and mike spent the better part of an hour circling the middle trying to win. after many rolls of the die eric finally won. at least i’ve beaten him once. high five ian! (*smack*)

on a more uplifting note (depending on your perspective i guess), i saw this really cool episode of ‘nova’ this weekend – “Death Star“. it was about gamma ray bursts and black holes. super sweet! sadly, my original explanation: matter-antimatter annihilation wasn’t exactly the solution for the big question. i just like to say ‘matter-antimatter annihilation.’ does anyone want to know how a warp engine or a quantum torpedo works? cause i know…

i cannot even articulate how frustrated and depressed and hopeless i feel about the coming election, nay the united states as a whole. i am always forgetting that the group of people that i hang out with – the technorati, or digerati, or digital intelligentsia or what-have-you – are not the type of people that make up the majority of the united states. so while i’m in the middle of scratching my head (read: sobbing unconsolably) and reading that bush is 7 points up or something like that, i suddenly remember that most united statesians are more like the people back home that i avoided. Or, on the other more mind-blowing hand, they are good hard-working people like my dad who are seemingly intelligent folks, looking out for family values and whatnot, but somehow think it’s okay, or sets an acceptable example, to basically condone the type of lying – LYING – hypocritical bullshit that this “man” stands for.

and yes, i am TOTALLY putting that in quotes because i was always taught that a real man takes RESPONSIBLITY FOR HIS ACTIONS and IS HONEST and is a HARD WORKER and if that man is the president should probably be SETTING A GOOD EXAMPLE for everyone else and representing the country in an honorable way (sweeping solders’ deaths under the carpet? come on, are you kidding me?)…but then i remember – ha! silly me! i guess if anything, bush is representing the united states pretty accurately, isn’t he? i mean, you know, with that whole no-responsiblity/deception thing and all. if a person is doing a BAD JOB what makes anyone think that giving that person unrestricted reign for another 4 years is somehow better than getting someone else in there to give it a whack? haven’t we learned anything from sports, all of you red-blooded men out there? if the pitcher is throwing grapefruits do you keep him in or bring in the cleanup?*

but then again, maybe i’m being too hard on the guy. i mean, he totally looks like the type of feeble-minded worst-stereotype-spoiled-rich-fratboy that i would LOVE to have a beer with! and after all, isn’t that what we should be really swinging our votes towards? the guy with whom we would most like to share a big ol’ fashioned down-home drinking binge? woo hoo! pass the maker’s mark! and the coke while you’re at it! i know you’re good for it george, you sly little minx! ooh, and afterwards – just remember – as long as there is no nudity, (giggle!) after we get all sloppy we can go shoot some darkies! …in the face! …in front of children! we’ll totally get away with it – no one will care! and why should they? after all, those people were going to go to hell anyway. i mean, they’re not christians, right? so they’re not like, you know, real people.

and to finish, a quote from mnftiu: ‘is this truly the only earth i can live on?’ stay clear everyone! man, i am in a really bad mood. does anyone have a copy of “Man Getting Hit By Football (in the groin)” that i can watch to cheer myself up? ahh…yet another sad commentary on the state of the US today. talk about kicking the country when it’s down. ok, i think i’ve worked out some of my frustration. i feel better. all the same, feel free to send me hate mail…er, comments. am i off my rocker? un-american? a communist? totally dead-on? i’d like to test the waters out there.

*i am generally unfamiliar with sports terms, but hopefully you get the gist of this, no?

update: related link – bush vs. jesus

this was a really tempting ‘happy birthday to me’ but i have remained resolute – no new ipod until the screens are color or oleds. or mine totally dies, whichever comes first. fortunately, i bought my genOne 5GB ipod refurbished, so the battery is holding out well and everything. i’m not really a die hard user anyway – mostly i use it on long trips or to listen to stuff in the car via the cassette adapter.

gmail invites

i have 6

so far i might have 2 takers. but nothing solid yet. since apparently i was just about the last person ever to get a gmail account – everyone else seems to have one already.

birthday

it doesn’t feel like my birthday is just around the corner. remember when you were a kid and you would start the birthday countdown like 3 months prior and you would totally know exactly what toy you wanted or whatever? well in the time that has elapsed since the party on saturday, i completely forgot about my birthday. mom, you can find my wishlist in the A/V Club section, but here is the link again: my amazon wishlist.

etc

also i put together a big puzzle of wine corks. yay.