this weekend there was a big to-do at ben & sara’s for the screening of ‘the empire strikes back.’ jon and i were giving each other a hard time and jon kept poking me and i sort of played along, like, ‘no nothing happened…i…i fell down the stairs. yes..the stairs…’ anyway, i guess this is what i get for making light of spousal abuse, because yesterday i tripped on the way up eric’s back staircase and gave myself a nice lump on my shin and fell on the playstation i was carrying.
Archives for category: autobiographical
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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…
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.
the wedding was nice – short and sweet. the highlights?
- 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!’
- ozzie weeps like a little girl through the entire ceremony. awww! 🙂
- jesse wears white flip flops under her gown that say ‘just married’ on the vinyl strap.
- jamaican rum fruitcake.
- 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*)
i finished ‘snow crash’ and it was, as expected, amazingly awesome. HOWEVER. the ending, in true neal stephenson fashion, totally sucked. completely unsatisfying. felt like the printers forgot to add in the last 3 chapters of the book. why neal?!? WHYYYYYYYYYY???
anyway, i have moved on to ‘the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy’ which you may or may not be shocked to find out i haven’t read before. so far i’m disappointed to find out that the earth has been needlessly destroyed. way to go vogons.
saturday night i am having a birthday party and housewarming. everybody is encouraged to make some sort of arty wall-hanging for my place, to be delivered any time in the near or distant future. we’ll see what people come up with!
photos available!!! Relay for Life, Stefapalooza!
thursday night i caught the train home. mom made one of my favorite dinners (maple sausages with fried potatoes and peppers). friday i had lunch with g&g, met with an investment planner and sat outside and read all afternoon. that night mom and i went to the augustana track to walk in the relay for life with my g&g. my grandpa had cancer just before i came along. it was a cool experience – there were luminaries for each survivor and for others as remembrances.
afterwards, mom and dad and i watched the olympic opening cermonies. i almost had to hit mute once my (least) favorite singer started up, but i liked the big map of the world thing. i have to take issue though with the design of the olympic cauldron, which looks like it should’ve been designed for the amsterdam games. it looks like a 100 foot tall joint, i kid you not.
saturday mom and i ran some errands then she and dad drove me to stefapalooza in morris. stef’s birthday party was…awesome.
her parents have a big swath of land, all meticulously mown. there a nice area where the tent city sprung up, a swingset and, since no country home would be complete without it, a big gas tank. jon had never seen a gas tank in someone’s yard. i guess this is normal to me?
after months of should haves, could haves and maybes, eric and i finally hit up 6 flags on saturday! it was a great day to go, not very hot at all, and the park wasn’t too crowded. we got fast lane passes and they were TOTALLY worth it. we rode all of the major coasters – and the raging bull twice. while we were up there we ate breakfast at cracker barrel too.
afterwards eric went to see the bobby conn show (recording a live album) and i sort of collapsed on my couch and watched the extended edition of ‘robin hood: prince of thieves.’
sunday i made the last of my big purchases for the apartment (at least for a little while). i got a nice stand for my new tv and other electronics, some wall mounts for my speakers, an xbox, ddr ultramix, gta: vice city, and the component video adapter for the xbox since my new tv has component ins. yeah that’s right. i got an xbox. i just threw that in the middle there like it was nothin’ yeah that’s right! 🙂 anyway, the component video looks great. the tv looks awesome on that new stand. all wires and cables are finally sort of organized in a way that doesn’t make my head hurt when i look at it. i just have to mount my speakers and my a/v setup is complete! eric and i spent all last night eating pizza and playing vice city. i am not very good at it (because i am ultimately pretty crappy at video games) but i had a great time running people over and setting my car on fire. if you deliberately try to set your car on fire, say by ramming it full-tilt into a cement wall, it actually takes a good deal of effort.
bonus: vice city items & jumps map – oooh, no linking! bastards.
bonus bonus: k-chat radio transcript
…with component inputs! and a flat tube! yay!