this weekend was a veritable orgy of audio-visual stimulation. friday night eric and i hit city north and saw ‘ray’ – the ray charles biopic starring jamie “oscar shoo-in” foxx. the movie was incredibly good and touching and i could not believe that the actor playing ray was the same guy who played steamin’ willie beamen in ‘any given sunday’ but let’s face it, jamie foxx was pretty awesome in that movie too. everyone in that movie did a great job. afterwards we got some carry out from the pasta bowl.

saturday i got my glasses adjusted – another preparation for the trip to london and had some greek fries which are the biggest thing i miss about evanston. saturday night andrew had a party at his coachhouse. sarah dressed as a valkyrie, complete with spear and winged helmut. a bunch of us pitched in to tape coins to her to make an armored bodice. it was exactly the sort of detail-oriented (some would say ‘tedious’) task that i relish. afterwards she was thanking me for helping out and all i could think was ‘oh no no no – thank YOU. THANK YOU.’ jill and i hung in there for the long haul, but everybody else lost interest after her boobs were covered with coins and there were no more opportunities to cop a cheap collective feel. mwahahaha!

after andrew’s eric and i were to the empty bottle to see the bobby conn et al halloween cover show, the juke box of the dead. it was…(wait for it…bet you can’t guess what word i’m going to use!) awesome! first up was baby teeth, the band fronted by pearly sweets, the glass gypsies’ keyboardist. they played covers of some hard rock songs of yore in a really cool sort of ’70-ish style (i am not good at explaning genres). the second opener was the detholz, fronted by the glass gypsies’ (new) bassist jim cooper (who also played in baby teeth). the detholz put on a really good show, playing adult contemporary classics reworked into rock songs (celebration, dancing on the ceiling, like a virgin, do you believe, etc.). the arrangements were really impressive and imaginative and set the bar pretty high for me. this, combined with searing pain in my feet and shoulder and all volume turned up about twice as high than the openers, left me sort of underwhelmed by bobby conn and the glass gypsies. i’m sure i would’ve enjoyed it more if not for these extenuating circumstances and the fact that every high note was like a drill boring into my brain. bobby conn’s mike was up particularly high and pretty much made it impossible for me to not be in pain every time he sang. i DID enjoy the show a lot, it was overall really awesome. i am willing to give bobby conn another shot. just – why did it have to be THAT loud? my ears are still ringing two days later.

high point of the night – the guy dressed as BEAKER from the muppet show! beaker is my favorite! all you could see were the guys eyes through beaker’s mouth-slit. i couldn’t take my eyes off of him. luckly he moved to the bar area before the bands started playing so i wasn’t distracted by the ingenuity of his costume during the whole show. also distracting – the see through white costumes the glass gypsies wore…i didn’t see much underwear going on and that…disturbed me, the guy dressed in a pink body suit (head included) with a sparkly tail who was brought on stage and also obviously wasn’t wearing underwear, water balloons throw up at the ceiling that burst and showered everyone with ceiling run-off.

yesterday i spent the whole day doing laundry and cross stitching. today i completely forgot that we’re going to fogo de chao for lunch, or i would’ve worn something less ass. oh well. i have bigger things on my mind, like how to pack for a place that rains all the time and what to bring on the plane to stave off boredom. i doubt the plane will be as nice as the jal flight we took to japan.