I'm amazed I don't just drink all day

This is why I drink at night....

Step One: Email is sent to Program Coordinator (that's me!) from Board member with some random question.
Step Two: Program Coordinator sends said email to a un-named Manager with intro question "Do you want to reply to this, or do you want me to?"
Step Three: Manager replies with "I will - please forward her email so I can respond"
Step Four: Program Coordinator calls Manager, confused, and asks, "what do you mean - forward the email? As in something different than the email I just sent you?"
Step Five: Manager says "Why don't you forward me the original email, so it doesn't have your question on it and I can reply to it that way"
Step Six: Program Coordinator replies (dumbfounded) "Okay"
Step Seven: Program Coordinator silently shakes head as she thinks about the forwarding/replying email process. Knowing that Manager is going to have to use the forward function on her email regardless of which version it is. Program Coordinator then comes to the conclusion that apparently it's just too difficult for the Manager to delete the intro.
Step Eight: Program Coordinator takes break outside while contemplating job options.

Final Book List

I've just started reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and since it's almost 1,000 pages long I don't think I am going to finish it by Wednesday. So here is the final book list of 2008. I kept count after I hit the goal of 52, listed back in this post from September, though I feel towards the end I may have gotten forgetful. With the additional 27 listed here my grand total is 79. Not too shabby.

September: (7)
Jitterbug Perfume. By Tom Robbins.
Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold! By Terry Brooks.
A Thousand Splendid Suns. By Khaled Hosseini.
Bone Vol. 1: Out from Boneville. By Jeff Smith.
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. By Judy Blume (my very own autographed copy!)
The Sirens of Titan. By Kurt Vonnegut.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower. By Stephen Chobsky.

October (6):
The Hummingbird's Daughter. By Luis Alberto Urrea.
Lamb; The Gospel according to Biff, Christ's childhood pal. By Christopher Moore (a re-read for me)
Ocean. By Warren Ellis.
Scars. By Warren Ellis.
Crooked Little Vein. By Warren Ellis.
Y the Last Man: Volume 1. By Brian Vaughn.

November (10):
Y the Last Man: Volume 2. By Brian Vaughn
Y the Last Man: Volume 3: By Brian Vaughn
Fahrenheit 451. By Ray Bradbury.
Y the Last Man: Volumes 4-10. By Brian Vaughn


December (4):
Dracula. By Bram Stoker
Zombies Calling. By faith erin hicks.
Higher Power of Lucky. By Susan Patron.
American Gods. By Neil Gaiman.

Everyonce in awhile, I am totally awesome.

Saturday night boyfriend shares that his parents got "us" (well really him, but I think they may have said "here, take JJ") a $100 gift card to AMC theaters. And while this seems ridiculously large, it really will only cover about 2 and half movies if we get snacks. And I have to get movie popcorn. It's like a drug. A wonderfully salty drug.

Anyway, we start discussing what movies we should go see and he says he really wants to see Frost/Nixon. I have absolutely no interest in this movie. Not to say that I don't think it will probably be interesting, I just am personally not interested. And we spend about 20 minutes with me trying to explain that. But since I can't really come up with anything other than "I'm sure it is interesting, I'm just not interested" we didn't get very far except to decide that he was more than welcome to go see it without me.

We did move on to decide though that we were going to try and see a different movie Sunday night. He works downtown (close enough to River East to walk) and had a possibility of getting done as early as 4. He gave me free reign to pick the movie and so I jotted down some movie times of what I thought we should see (Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, The Spirit, Benjamin Button, etc.) and headed down to surprise him around 3.

4 o'clock came and it looked like he wasn't going anywhere till closer to 8. I was all ready to pack up and head home when he flies around the corner and says they cut him early- let's go!

Excited we start the windy walk to the theater and I come up with the brilliant plan that I think he should let me pick the movie and let it be a surprise. He is very hesitant about this, I think it was the walking through the movie theater with his eyes closed that he was nervous about, but eventually he conceded. So I stood in line alone and bought the tickets, and when we got upstairs he stared at the carpet as I gently lead him to the theater. He was a great sport.

We got in to the theater and it was ridiculously small and almost all the way filled. We didn't get the exact seats we wanted but I think that's okay. I waited nervously for the movie to start, to see his reaction when he figured out what we were going to see (I kept teasing him that it was Twilight - a movie and book series we are both really against). The previews ended and the show began. Here was the moment to see if my plan of having this be a surprise would be worth it. Before we even got to the name of the director a smile came over his face and he leaned in to whisper thank you in my ear. Yup, in case you hadn't guessed already, we saw Frost/Nixon last night.

Building up the karma, brick by brick

So as you have read I recently lost a pretty nasty cat fight between myself, Northwest Airlines, and Mother Nature. Needless to say I have been a little disgruntled lately because of it. But it seems that its starting to look a bit better out there for me. In fact I even stepped up and took one for the team for a complete stranger last night. That sounds way more mysterious than I mean it to be.

Last night, standing outside the bar smoking with my friend W, our conversation was interrupted by the all to familiar Midwestern sound of car tires spinning uselessly in the snow. Turning, we saw a guy either trying to get into a parking spot or get out we couldn't tell. I looked at W - "We should help him shouldn't we?" "Yeah" he replied. And we stared a bit longer.

But we finished our smokes and trudged over to the car. Coming around to the drivers side I asked if he was trying to get in or out of the space. He motioned that he was trying to go backwards so I said we would help push.

Attempt One: We got absolutely nowhere. Walked around to back of car to see if there was a way to dig anything out with my boot. Tried again.

Attempt Two: Pushed so hard that I pretty much fell into the car and then into the snow. Not a face plant kind of fall, just a slow descent onto the knees. But at the end of attempt two we found success! The guy was able to get back on to the road and on his way.

W and I brush off our hands and head back into the bar pretty nonchalantly as though we do this kind of thing all the time. And if you live in the Midwest, you kind of do.

Because see, it's all about the karma. I don't own a car, but I did at one point and I might one day again, and if I stay in this area I guarantee I'll get stuck at some point. I'm not that big and I'm not that strong but if I'm around I will always at least try and help. It's what being in the Midwest is all about.

Why I am in Chicago Right Now

So, since I don't really want to keep telling this story over and over again, I figured I'd hit up my last few friends who are readers of this insanity I call a blog and just do a post about it. Some of you may have known I had a trip out to Oregon planned for last weekend. It was going to be a whirlwind adventure in which one of my best friends drove down to Chicago, we were to jump a plane Friday and hop, skip, jump around the country (Chicago to Minneapolis to Seattle to Redmond, OR) until we landed at the feet of a third very close friend in Bend Oregon. There we would hide indoors, meet her new baby (3 months oldish) and celebrate the Solstice together such as we haven't been able to do in over 3 years. Then it was back on a plane Monday night to do the reverse trip with a redeye flight (I've never done one before!) that landed us back in Chicagoland Tuesday morning, into the car we would pour ourselves with gallons of coffee to get us back to the homeland of Madison, WI for some family Christmas time. A bus back to Chicago on Friday would of wrapped up the adventure. Get all that? Now here is what actually happened.

Tim (friend and travel companion) gets into Chicago way earlier than I expected Thursday night as he left responsibly early to beat the incoming storm. I, however, being buried in last minute work (I told them this would happen!) got out late and he actually beat me to my door. This was okay as he had a nice warm car and good coffee to keep him occupied while I raced from the train to meet him. We hung out, I got to show him my favorite local bar and second home and we went to sleep at a relatively decent time (Oneish?) to prepare for the next day.

Friday: Up by 8 we were out the door by 9. We were flying out of Midway so we did the Brown line to downtown and the jumped on the Orange line. Got to Midway around 10:30 which was just what we wanted for our noon flight. As we walked into the hustle bustle of the weekend before Christmas Tim looks at the flight arrivals and departures screen and says "Wait, Cancelled?" To which I, in all my splendid wisdom reply, "Huh?" "Flight 1287 says cancelled, that's our flight to Minneapolis" How the hell he knows our flight number has bogged down my distractable mind more than the end result of the flight being cancelled. "Lets just get in line and we can figure it out."

What feels like an hour later we get to the front of the line and begin the descent into hell that comes with holiday travel and dealing with airlines. I could give you a long, drawn out play by play of our conversation with the man behind the curtain, but that seems exhausting so I will try and sum it up instead.

Our original flight to Minneapolis was cancelled due to weather (in Chicago apparently). The guy behind the counter could find no other flights that would get us to Seattle in time to catch our connecting flight to Redmond. In fact, he could find absolutely no flights into Redmond for the rest of the day Friday. None on Saturday. None on Sunday. Since we were to fly home on Monday this basically means we are fucked. The closest he can get us is Portland. What the hell we think, we can jump a bus or rent a car. Let's go for it.

So we take the Portland option - which by the way will route us first through Detroit, and then to Minneapolis and then into Portland at 11:30 at night - and head towards our gate. But as we wait we overhear the guy with the laptop next to us talk about how Detroit is getting worse and worse. We strike up a conversation and learn that Milwaukee is closed (which has nothing to do with this story but gives you an idea of how crappy the weather was in case you know, you live in Australia and it is summer) and Detroit's wait time is getting longer and longer. As we examine our boarding passes we see that we have exactly half an hour in Minneapolis to catch our connecting flight to Portland or we are stuck in the twin cities. I did not pay $600 to hand out in the land of 10,000 lakes all weekend. Plus we talk to our friend in Oregon and learn that the pass through the mountains that we would have to take to get from Portland to Bend is pretty much shut down.

So here we are in Chicago with no way to fly to Redmond and no way to drive to Bend. What the hell are we supposed to do.

What we did was spend forever on hold with Travelocity to see if we could get our money back if we cancelled. After forever the woman said yes - minus a minuscule service fee. And after heart wrenching deliberation and some honesty that trying to get from Portland to Bend just wasn't safe we said yes.

So I spent the past weekend in Chicago where it has been negative 4 degrees as a high (before wind chill of course). I spent Solstice curled up on my couch wearing about 5 layers. And I am back at work on this chilly wintry morning explaining to my coworkers why I am not on vacation.

So that's the story. I wish all of you better luck with your holiday travel plans. And I am going to head back to work now. Cheers.

And so quickly it is gone

I closed the window by accident, tried to go back and it is already gone. I wish I could of gotten screen shots of all of it. It was pretty damn funny.

Silly, silly G Rod

Just in case it gets taken down I have to share this screen shot with everyone. Check out the actual link here so you can see all the Q&A. It's borderline amazing. Thanks to Will for the share.

No time

No time to blog. Instead I'll just share this from a random link a friend sent.
Cheers.

My emo band's name is Physical Immaculate Romance.
Take The Emo Band Name Generator today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

Random Wrap Ups

I'm swamped at work so of course I would like to take this moment to blog about the random things filtering to the top of my brain. I warn you now, I feel this is going to be a random configuration of one line statements that make no sense.

First: Changing ones relationship status on a social networking site is by far the most humorous thing one can do to get the word out. I got more comments on that update than any status change, blog, or twitter feed. But to be fair, it is the easiest way to share this stuff without having to call 90 of my close and not so close friends. And when I show up with a redhead in tow at an upcoming wedding I won't have to explain who the hell he is.

If I ruled the world (oh how scary that would be!) I would make it one of my first executive decisions to outlaw the words "Lake Effect" and "Wintry Mix". I would also make it illegal to be colder than my age. You would have to pass a test to have babies, and smoking would be good for you.

I don't like to give up on books but I just had to put down "What's the matter with Kansas?" It's interesting but seems to be getting repetitive (and reading it on my morning commute was putting me to sleep). I think I've got the general gist of what's wrong. I've moved on to Dracula.

The failing economy has sent another harpoon into someone I know. My second close friend has recently found out that they will be unemployed in 4 months. At least they had warning I guess. The first one was an immediate layoff. This shit is starting to get scary. And from all conversations I'm overhearing, it's nothing to what is going to happen next year. Anyone want to help me build a bomb shelter? My construction skills suck but I come with a pretty nifty book collection.

People leaving sucks. I know it has to happen. I know it is not forever. I am still not ready. And no, world who wants to know, I am not quitting smoking just because my twin is gone, did you people really pay no attention to me before she was here?

Blogging on two sites is getting slightly exhausting. Though my count for who is reading in the myspace world has gone up so I either have a new friend out there paying attention or the same person is reading my posts over and over. Either way it's weird.

Work. Ah, glorious work. Blind leading the blind down an alley filled with sharp, sharp rocks. That pretty much sums it up.

Some how my winter has gotten as filled socially as summer usually is. Every weekend between now and mid January has something going on. How does this happen? I really am not that sociable, or at least I didn't think I was. Since I'm still spending most weeknights holed up in my apartment I feel I can still consider myself not that busy.

I am going to go now and drink lots and lots of coffee because it's Friday and Friday allows me to indulge in these things that I love. Have a great weekend.

Boyfriend?

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v1.1) defines "boyfriend" as...
1) a frequent or favorite male companion; beau.
2) a male friend.
3) a male lover.

while supposedly American Heritage Dictionary (though the info was on the same site) defines it as...
1) A favored male companion or sweetheart.
2) A male friend.

Whatever the definition is, I think I may have somehow gotten one. I know, I know, I write this as though I randomly found a $2 lottery ticket, or picked up ringworm, sorry it's just still a little weird.

I am terrible at labeling my interactions with people and usually avoid it at all costs. I don't need to know that you are my "boyfriend" to have sex with you. I just need to know that you are not having sex with lots of other random people. Or if you are, that we both know it and are cool with it. And, on a side note, though I'm not sure it's your business or you even care, since there is no actual sex in this story yet I don't see why all this freaking matters. However, it has been pointed out to me that apparently this living a non-labeled existence makes other people slightly insecure. Whatever. So in order to be a better, more caring person, I have been trying out the term. Ironically though, if you behave like a teenager I then apparently follow suit, because I am lightly using the term with everyone but the actual boy. (insert exasperated sigh here).

Seriously. Is this stuff always this complicated/ridiculous?

But to be fair to the internet world I figured I should at least share a bit of what is going on. Met boy. Like boy. Spending quite a bit of time with boy. Boy seems to like me. In fact, boy tells me this almost all the time. This is good. That is where we are at.

However, as with all things dramalicious, it doesn't even come close to ending there. As this is 2008 the internet has of course infected my social interactions. It started with MySpace. I had a MySpace page a long time ago and abandoned it quickly after discovering the interface sucked. Since then I have become a dedicated Facebook addict. The boy though is still a MySpace user, so I booted back up the old page, updated it, and actually started blogging on it. But since he is the only one I think reading it the posts are pretty much centered around him or things we do. Mostly I do this to amuse him and to share with him things I want to say but can't figure out in actual conversation.

Then his roommate built a fan page for him on FB. So of course, I had to go and become a fan of his. It seemed only fair. On his fan page is a link to his Twitter account. And here is where the downward spiral begins. I am also on Twitter but use it only rarely (though I'm trying to update it more now). So I decided not to follow him publicly and instead type the feed directly in my toolbar so that I can keep up with his not so innermost thoughts without him knowing. Sound dangerous yet? Just wait.

Introduce into the situation a friend of his, we'll call Jane. There is a long, convoluted story about why I think that I don't like Jane and why I think she may be trying to date my new boyfriend (wow it even feels weird to type) but I will keep that for in person story telling time. Lets just say I have a pretty strong gut instinct that this girl is no good.

So the other day I decide to see who is a follower of his Twitter feed and lo and behold there is her mug shot smirking out at me. Obviously the next step is to then go see what she has to say, right? Well even if you think that is not the logical next step, that is where this story takes us. And to make it even more ridiculous, I decide to page back through the history to the night when all these untrusting feelings about her started and begin to try and dissect her updates. Way over analyzing. I know. I still freaking did it. And know I'm stuck with the knowledge in my head. Though to be fair it isn't even actual knowledge. It's fucking Twitter updates.

But in the end all that really matters is I met a boy. We went to the zoo. We are spending Thanksgiving together with friends. I like this boy. This boy likes me. Life is good.

Facebook: From Ghost Ask to De-Friending

I’ve been having this conversation for a while amongst my real life friends and after reading Schmidlap’s post today I figured there wasn’t a better time to finally get it out of my head and into the world.

I joined Facebook sometime in the Spring semester of my senior year of college as a way to keep in touch with the small handful of folks that I had met and had an actual, genuine interest in keeping in touch with. My friend list for the first 6 months probably never got higher than 15 and that was fine by me.

Fast forward to today. It hasn’t grown that much but I am up to 90 “close and personal” Facebook friends. That first group that I joined for? Yeah, barely even talk to them anymore, just a random comment here and there, but as each season passes even that gets less and less. And with this growing group and growing usage amongst a population not originally intended (a year or so back FB changed their rules that you could use any old email to start up an account, previously you had to have a high school or college email) has come the ghost ask.

The ghost ask is when you receive (or send) that friend request out to an old classmate, coworker, guy who rode the same bus as you 20 years ago. It comes with no personalized message, no reminder of who the hell they are. To make a ghost ask complete however is once accepted all conversation ceases. Not a word is said, not a comment made, not a hey how ya doin? Nothing.

Where does this come from? Is it our need to expand our superficial ranking in an imaginary world? Do we think that maybe we might actually want to talk with this person but when confronted with the option realize we have nothing to say? Do we want to show where we are, what we’ve done, accomplishments, hot new tattoos all without having to actually interact or attend some dreadful reunion where these things used to take place? I’ll admit, I’ve done it. I’ve sent out requests because I saw that we had 3…4…7 friends in common and that’s it. I hadn’t thought of this person in 15 years until my handy “People You May Know” sidebar suggested them. Some days I wonder how many of the 90 people listed are actually my friends.

On another Facebook related rant, and the actual reason I began writing this, another phenomenon has recently caught my attention. People are “de-friending” each other over status updates. Yup, that’s right, status updates. It’s the one line statement we update constantly to tell our imaginary online world what we are doing or thinking or throwing things at. Some are more witty than others, but it is a nice easy way to keep your fingers on the pulse of your network. I personally like to post music lyrics every once in awhile and see which of my friends make a comment or finish the line.

It’s also a quick and easy way to find out that many of your ghost ask friends have very, very different views from you. And in these heated and trying times, when lines are being drawn and fences built around political beliefs, we as a nation are standing up and silently de-friending those we don’t agree with. It’s almost comical. I’ve almost done it. It is only the grossly unattractive addiction of seeing what ridiculous thing they could possibly come up with that has kept me from hitting the “x” on our cyber friendship.

The only saving grace is that for the majority of these folks I will never actually interact with them (save for one unfortunate family member).

Apple Marketing team should get an award

I'm cheating with today's post. I started blogging again in MySpace figuring it would give me another space to express a different tone and today I'm just cutting and pasting the same damn thing over to JJ's World. I know it's lame and I'm sorry. I promise to be more original in the future. But for now, here it is...

So I have a confession to make. I am a sucker for an Apple commercial. Specifically the ones with music. These are usually the ones for one of the many i-pod like gadgets they keep trying to convince me I need. And while I haven't yet succumbed to their advertising and purchased a new player (though I really wanted the Touch for awhile) I have downloaded 5 of the damn songs. I've even created a playlist on my iPod so I can find them whenever I want.

So far it consists of One, Two, Three Four by Feist; Music is my Hot Hot Sex by CSS; New Soul by Yael Naim; and Shut up and Let Me Go by The Ting Tings. And last night the list became five when I downloaded Bruises by Chairlift.

Really the folks in their marketing department should get a medal.

What are you doing this weekend?

A few awesome looking things happening in Chicago that I wanted to share in case anyone is looking for something to do. First up on Saturday, dust off your inner geek and come check out the first annual Windy City Comicon, come on, you know you want to! Okay, maybe you don't want to, but I do and it would help if I had some company :)

If that's not your style then on Sunday how about clearing off some of those overburdened book shelves and dropping them off at the Great American Book Drive! (and on the 29th there seems to be a book swap...hmmm.....). It's a good cause, and you might get to run into one of my favorite bloggers who is the one that first shared the event with me.

Personally, I'm going to try and do both (since this week is a bye week for the Bears and all...oh dear god did I just say that!). Though I also have 2 a.m. plans possibly on Saturday night so we'll see how it all goes.

Whatever you do I hope you do it well.

Just a quick green thought

I'm so busy at work I think my head might explode (though that might have something to do with the hangover I'm fighting through today) but I read an article by Thomas L. Friedman out of the Times that I wanted to share a section of. I thought this paragraph was great and would love to see it happen come next January. Read the whole article here.

Lastly, we need the next president to be an energy efficiency trendsetter,
starting by reinventing the inaugural parade. Get rid of the black stretch limos
and double-plated armored Chevy Tahoes inching down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Instead, let the next president announce that he will use no vehicles on
inauguration day that get less than 30 miles per gallon. He could invite all car
companies to participate in the historic drive with their best available
American-made, fuel-efficient, innovative vehicle.

Customer Service

Two posts in one day! This is what happens when you have a busy weekend I guess. This post revolves around the sometimes elusive concept of customer service. Is there such a thing as too much, and at what point do you say this place sucks? A friend and I have had similar experiences recently which prompted this writing and which I will share with you now.

Great customer service is usually pretty easy to recognize. It's the person that calls you back after an order to make sure it was installed/delivered/set up correctly. It's the person that goes the extra step to find your product (and maybe have it sent over) instead of saying that since it's not physically in their store there is nothing they can do. The cashiers that remember your name, the barista's that know my coffee order so at 7 a.m. I just have to nod. These are the folks that make the term customer service a reality.

Crappy customer service is equally easy to spot. The nameless, faceless voice on the other end of the phone who puts you on hold for 10 minutes only to say, sorry the office you need closed 5 minutes ago, please call them tomorrow. The cashier's who congregate together gossiping while lines form and then never makes eye contact and screws up your order because they are too busy texting/talking/finding lost braincells. The bar tender who ignores you all night long, before you have even had a chance to tip the first round or make any kind of contact.

We have all experienced the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to the customer service world. Where it all begins to get sticky however is in the middle zone. This is the place that you frequent because it's off the beaten path, or it's the non-corporate coffee shop in a sea of Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks. Maybe you like to support small businesses, or maybe they make the best philly cheese steak this side of the Schuylkill River. It's the place where you save your pennies each week so you can tip big when you're there. Whatever it is, whatever they sell, it's a place that you have marked as your own - so what do you do when the service starts to go downhill?

It starts small - you order a coffee and a bagel, chatting aimlessly with the guy behind the counter about the weekend and then step to the side to wait....and wait....and wait. Seems during the chatting the bagel order has slipped through some crack either physical or mental, lost either way. They see you still standing, realize their mistake and are really sorry. They quickly make it, offering many apologies and how about a cup of coffee to go with it? Well, the coffee was the one thing they already got you, so no that doesn't really do you any good. You wave off the apologies, insist it's no big deal, and move on with your day. Because it really is not a big deal in the scheme of life. It's a delayed bagel, not a lost job, not a missile aimed at your home, a bagel. And deep inside you want to give them the benefit of the doubt, you want to be one of the insiders that thinks "Hey I know these guys, they know me, it's all good", but is it?

What happens when your order starts to get forgotten on a semi regular basis? When you get it to go only to realize 45 minutes later (and already at your desk at work) that your cinnamon raisin bagel smells suspiciously like blueberries? Or when your bartender takes your presence for granted, because hell you're always there so you must not mind, and lets you sit for 15-20 minutes fiddling with an empty beer bottle while they chat away the evening with the cook, or another customer, or texting on their cell phone (Really? My cash is not better than a text message?).

The last thing you want to do is be "That Customer". The one they bitch about when they see you through the glass. You want to empathize and sympathize and all the other izes you can think of. You want to be a part of the working machine, part of the inner circle. Maybe you've worked this kind of job, or something similar, you know how much of a prick most folks can be, and hell you have even vowed to never be like that.

But at some point it happens. At some point the voice inside your head says "Yup, this job probably pays crap. And the hours undoubtedly are no fun. But in the end it is your job to give me coffee/beer/product of any kind and right now you suck at it". What do you do when you reach that point? When the "cool" factor of the institution is drowned out by the annoyingness of having your order messed up, your presence forgotten? Do you abandon your territory? Do you stand up and say something risking being moved into a new category of customer? Do you swallow it and wait and blog about it in the meantime?

When else do you get to be Judas?

Hopefully everyone out there got to have a good, relaxing weekend. As Fall draws its cloak tighter around the neck of the Midwest we have fewer and fewer opportunities to get out and enjoy even the hint of sunshine before snow covers us all. Myself, I got in a little Target and some amazing football watching (please tell me someone else out there saw that Bears game?!). I also got to go to a dinner party for a friend. Now this was more than just an average, hey let's eat good food with good company kind of party. This was a Last Supper kind of thing for a friend who is leaving the country in the next month. The best part? Since it was a Last Supper, I got to be Judas.

Yes you read that correctly. Judas. I even went so far as to wear a "Hello my name is" name tag with the betrayer's name scrawled in the nice white box. It was awesome. The whole thing started when the evite went out. Themed as a Last Supper, I said I would only go if I got to be Judas (my knowledge of religion is not so hot but I had just finished Lamb so the name was at the top of my brain). Not thinking I would go through with it my friend said sure....little did she know I have a desk drawer full of blank name labels just waiting for these types of things.

So I showed up, dressed pretty fancy if I do say so myself, with my name tag slapped across the front of my shirt. Half the group got it and thought it was hysterical (for they had read the evite and my reply). A few people might have been offended, though they didn't say anything. Probably the best part however was the other half of the group that had no idea why I was wearing it and they didn't say a thing! They were all very nice, but they still were walking around like I was the weird crazy person in the corner. It was pretty freaking hilarious. And I got to spend the whole evening letting the hostess know that now was not quite the right time for betrayal, but she should expect it at any moment! The evening devolved into alcohol induced laughing fits (and learning to speak Mexican) until the very end when I tried to leave.

By this point I had been joined by Jesus (the hostess) and Moses (she said he was an apostle, I said sure). Moses's boyfriend decided that we needed to take a picture of the Last Supper - problem being was we only had 9 people left. So he went down the hall and dragged back a previous party guest (some poor guy trying to do homework at 12:30) and we googled up an image and went to work. The fact that we dragged this poor kid back and we still didn't have 12 didn't seem to bother the budding photographer and after about 15 minutes we finally got some semblance of an image staged. Our last supper however included 10 apostles, pouring a bottle of water into a wine glass half filled with red wine (over and over and over), an eggplant (apparently to represent the bread) and me behind Jesus with a red plastic butter knife. All that plus I'm pretty sure we are all in various stages of laughing hysterically in every shot. I have no idea how they turned out, but if I get a copy I'll make sure to post it.

To wash or not to wash

So imagine you find yourself in a community space, say like a work kitchen, that everyone is supposed to take responsibility for. But like many, many volumes of sociological texts that have been written on the subject, you find yourself in a Tragedy of the Commons situation. Particularly when it comes to the dishes.

Let's say you have a system that contains community dishes but every person is responsible for washing the dishes that they use. The office space contains a nice drying rack to aid you in this task. The problem arises when it comes to the responsibility of emptying said drying rack. No one is specifically assigned to it, so no one really does it.

As an individual who has dishes to wash, finding a full drying rack is often annoying. But being the good, community minded individual you are, you take it upon yourself to empty it so you can a) wash your own dishes and b) make room for others.

Enter dilemma. As you are emptying the rack you come across a dish that is not what you would deem clean. This isn't one of those subjective kinds of clean either, it's still got food stuck to it. Granted it's kind of clear, but it is food none the less. And, since you have eaten out for lunch everyday this week, you know that it wasn't yours to begin with.

Do you
A) Rewash said dish
B) Leave in drying rack for someone else to deal with
C) Put away in cupboard, pretending you never saw it

When you look at it from more than one angle....

Reading some more Kristoph and I came across this article/blog post. Well of course I wanted to know how rich I was so I went on over to this site. I entered a US salary of $32,000 (which is really just a guess but I'm sure before taxes that's about where I'm at) and I was shocked. Which is why I added the widget to the top of the page and why I think you should go ahead and try it.

One word at a time

I recently was having a conversation with a friend, about what I no longer remember, when I said the term "pro-life" and he absently inserted "anti-choice". I paused, looking at him oddly, and the conversation deterred into the titles society uses to describe these often warring factions.

I have labeled myself pro-choice for as long as I can remember. Whenever the conversation comes up amongst friends, or enemies, my standard statement has been "I don't know what decision I would make for myself as I have never been in the position to think of abortion in a personal sense, but I would never want anyone else to make the decision for me or anyone else (especially a roomful of old, white men!)".

I have also found that for some reason some* of those who find themselves on the "pro-life" side of the fence seem to think that since I am not with them I must be against them, and that means I am anti-life. Where does that assumption come from? It fills the literature and scare tactics of the more violent sects of pro-life fighters. There is a mentality that since the language used to mark sides includes "Pro" the opposite camp must be "Anti" (and the other side must be composed of all that is evil and corrupt but that is another rant all together).

I am not anti-life. And I do not like the assumption that because I believe in a woman's right to choose that I am somehow the secret heir of Hitler. So I'm taking the friend's advice and changing the world one word at a time. I am now going to try and use Anti-Choice instead of Pro-Life, and if you agree with me, maybe you can too. And if you don't, well then we can always sit down over coffee and discuss that too some day.

On a side note - though it is the reason this post was prompted out of my brain and into my computer - I recently was told that I might enjoy the writings of Nicholas Kristof from the NYTimes. So I went to check him out and this was the first article I read. I'll have to read more, but I do like it so far.




*I could link here to some crazy anti-choice website that shows disturbing gut wrenching images but you've all seen them (and if you haven't just drive through any small Midwestern farming area like mid north Wisconsin or anywhere outside of Indianapolis, IN) and I refuse to drive up web statistics for them.

Is it considered failure?

I was telling a story to a friend today and had it pointed out that my dating habits are much like her shopping habits which I found highly entertaining and quite close to the mark. Let me explain. Two weeks ago a different friend sent me an email with one of those "friends and family" discounts to an upcoming cultural event. Basically I could get $50 tickets for half price. I often think that I should make some attempt at least every two weeks to push my boundaries so I went ahead and bought two tickets, thinking that maybe in between then and now (the show is tonight) I could use it as the incentive to find a date.

And in fact I actually met someone in that time span that I thought might be nice to go on a date with. However, when the opportunity presented itself, for a depressingly shorter time span than I was hoping, on Tuesday I froze. I mean I didn't freeze all the way, there was some lame attempt at conversation, but in the end I was left with no invitation extended (or even mentioned!) and two empty seats in my pocket.

Which all brings me to today's conversation - my friend's shopping habits. She equated my life to when you buy that pair of pants just a hair too small, convinced you'll lose the weight and they will fit and be fantastic! and then they sit in the corner for months, or years at a time, till finally you toss them in the give away pile. Which makes me wonder, when do personally bought incentives work? Is it just me (and the people I associate with) who fail to utilize these promises to ourselves to push ahead? If someone else had bought the tickets and said I could take anyone I wanted would I have been more forceful or thoughtful in my hunt for a date? Is it the price of the incentive? Is $50 too low? And in the end, is the experience considered a failure?

For today those questions will remain unanswered. I am lucky in my life that I have a friend at work that said she would go with on my last minute invite this morning so the ticket is not going to waste. And I know I will probably try again. In fact, there is a roller derby show coming up (I've never been, and really kind of want to go!) that I might buy a group of seats for if they are cheap enough and just figure out the invites later. Hopefully next time I will follow my own ideas through.

My new home

I want to go here. Even more than that, I want to work there, live there, spend all my time there. For more pictures you can go the architects site here.

Looking for music cataloguing ideas

Okay fine readers, I need your help. I am a cataloguing machine. I love it. I know this is dorky, and I'm okay with that. You can find my books online here. You can find my movie collection online here, but apparently for not more than a week - when I went to get the link I got a message that they are shutting down...Damn. Anyway, what I now need is a good online place to catalogue music. A friend has a ton of cds, tapes, LPs, all of it. And he wants it listed somehow so he can see what he owns. I offered to look into it, do some research and possible help out with this project. Like I already said, I'm a dork. I'm having a cuecat shipped sometime this week and am looking into how that works with scanning barcodes, all I know is that if I can avoid using excel it will make me happy. Unless of course it's just loading it into excel and than uploading it too a much cooler system. So here's where you come in. Got any ideas? I got DVDspot from this guy so hopefully someone out there reading this knows something equally cool for music collections. I'm looking into Libra, and if anyone has any feedback, I'd love to hear it.
Thanks!

Everyone loves a flowchart

I'm too irate after last night to come up with my own witty statements so I'm leaving it to this handy flowchart I'm stealing from Daily Kos. Enjoy.

I still don't get it

Thanks to the BBC for this wonderful map.

Anger, Fear, and tiny bit of Hope

The biggest banking failure in history. Well to be truthful, I don't know if that's true, but it is the biggest failure in my history, of that I'm pretty sure. And I'm a part of it. This morning when I went to the Washington Mutual homepage I was greeted with this picture.

And it was with this picture that the reality of what is going on in the world around me finally started to sink in. I mean, I've been paying attention, in fact I've been having conversations for months with friends and family that we are in the middle of some serious shit right now in America. But this morning a company that I am a part of, a company that houses my money collapsed and was sucked up into the vortex of another company. Soon my statements will start to say JPMorgan Chase instead of the familiar WaMu, I will get a new card in the mail, I will have access to thousands of more ATM's (at least that is one of the selling points they are advertising to me).

I went in today at lunch to the branch next to my work. Got some cash for a baseball game tonight. So far the re-branding hadn't hit that location yet. Everything still looked familiar. I didn't ask about their jobs, or what was going to happen to them, I figured they had probably already had enough from customers and with a net asset of about $142 I didn't think I rated too high on the effected scale. But 30 minutes later when I was done with my meal I saw the CBS van outside the bank. I saw the newsguy standing in front of the window and could just imagine it being replayed on the 6 o'clock news tonight about the future of WaMu/Chase, the future of banking in general, the future of life.

I have avoided ranting in this arena about the fuckupedness of our current political and economic situation. There are many folks out there just like me who are doing it better, faster, and I personally am just fed up with it all anyway. But I wanted to log in today and give voice to my anger and my fear.

The world as I know it, as you know it, is gone. When you go back and look through the history books (as one sided as they may be) and wonder how could people not stand up and do something, how things could get so out of control - well folks this is how. The way we live, communicate, fend for ourselves and others is drastically spinning into a new time zone. We are hiding our heads in the sand if we think for one moment that any one out there is going to come in and save us - not after the past 8 years of leadership. And to be truthful, it goes beyond just the past 8 years. We have been screwing this planet, these cultures not our own, these civilizations beyond our borders for longer than that. We have held on to the top of the mound of tires, the king of the hill position through standing on the hands of others and those hands are ready to rip our throats out.

Holding off debates so one man can "fix" an economic crisis he didn't believe in a week ago, shielding a candidate for VP from the press to try and hemorrhage the geyser of ignorance and stupidity that seems to flow unceasingly from her whenever she speaks, 700 billion dollar buyouts, socialized debt but no socialized health care, this and so much more Freaks. Me. Out.

I don't know what the world holds. I know it will be radically different than I imagined as a child, but that's not so startling. I know it will be radically different than I imagined in my early 20's. That's a little more unnerving. But there are moments, there always are, of sunshine through the clouds, there are always some things I come across that give me hope. Today I logged into FB to see a friends status update that read ..."So-and-So* is amused by the looks from the businessmen at the hotel breakfast buffet when 1.0 says, “Mom, the bad President should go to jail. He lied to us.". " Now that's the kid I want running for president.

Pull out those old science fiction books folks, dust em off, re-read them for tips, and hang on for the ride.

* Name left out since it's not my status I'm sharing with the world - but she knows who she is.

Goodbye Wisconsin

2 years, 3 months, and 11 days. This is how long it took me to relinquish my Wisco drivers license. Even after it expired on the 22nd of last month, I held on. But today armed with all the precious forms of identification that you are not supposed to lose or take out of your house, I wandered into the downtown DMV at 8:15 a.m. to officially declare that I Live In Illinois!

The whole process took just over an hour. The test (written only thank the gods) wasn't too bad and I only got 3 wrong after browsing the book for 20 min. while in line. The guy took my picture twice, the second time asking me to remove my glasses, and I still look like the walking dead, but I am officially now a resident of this great state. I don't know the bird, or the flower, or even when it became a state, but hell I don't know if I knew any of that about Wisco either.

It feels a little weird to officially claim myself as an Illinoisian. And I haven't really looked at the ID, just shoved it back in the wallet. I'm guessing I will pull it out later and examine it fully. For now though I can sit back and silently smirk that I have finally become a FIB*

Oh! And I registered to vote too. Good Times.




*For all my non-Wisconsin readers out there a FIB was what Wisco drivers referred to Illinois folks whenever we found them on our roads - genius that it is, it stands for Fucking Illinois Bastard.

52 Already? Or 2008 books part two

9 months ago I made a New Years resolution to read 52 books this year. I cast the net pretty wide, including graphic novels and young adult books because I didn't want to shoot myself in the foot (it's been awhile since I made and kept a resolution of any kind) and especially since I had told so many damn fools about this one I was determined to keep it.

Awhile ago I posted my first 6 month summary where I had knocked 36 books out of the park. Today I went in and updated my recent reading, did a quick count and realized I was exactly at 52 books read, and I'm almost done with 53. Damn, ahead of schedule by a few months (and some cold/wintery locked in my apartment months at that!). I thought I'd have a big "woo-hoo" moment, but it was pretty anti-climactic actually. But since I'm done I wanted to put up the final list. I will probably keep listing them just to see at the end of the year how many I've read.

Quick Numbers:
Books Read: 52
Time: 8 months and 14 days, or 36 weeks (rounded down), or 258 days, or 6,192 hours, or...you get the idea.
Average per week: 1.4
Average per month: 6.1
Graphic Novels: 18, or 35%

July - 5

Wanted. By Mark Millar. Okay so technically I finished this one in June (June 29th to be exact) but I've already posted my first six month summary so this one is getting lumped in with July. It's a graphic novel, one of the set that my dad got my for April/Christmas and we can discuss the fuckedupedness of the fact that my father bought this for me in some other blog. Regardless of that, it's good. It's dark, violent, disturbing, and very very well done. So much darker than the movie it spawned that it makes that version look like something from Disney. The language is at times hard to take when one lives in a world where most of those terms are deemed unusable, but if you can get past it it is worth every page. I want to cut the last page out and frame it but then I'd have to probably stop inviting people over. Oh, and if you are into graphic novels and read this after this post, don't skip to the last page, trust me the wait is so worth it.


Heart of Darkness. By Joseph Conrad. I went on a date with a boy once who indicated this was one of his most favorite books. I no longer wonder why we didn't go out again. It's good, though I feel I missed a lot and will have to read it again as the years go by. I do want to now go watch Apocalypse Now again, I feel I will have a better appreciation of it.

Paula. By Isabel Allende. Heartbreaking. Wonderful. Amazing. I love her works of fiction and this story, a memoir of her daughter who died, was a beautiful look at her own life and the pain of losing a loved one.

The Walking Dead. By Robert Kirkman. Another graphic novel from the post Christmas pack from the dad. Great stuff, I think there are more out there that I might have to go buy now.

On the Job: Behind the stars of the Chicago Police Department. By Daniel P. Smith. Good, felt the history sections dragged a bit and were slightly unfocused at times. The pictures, while interesting, mostly distracted me but I think that is more about my reading habits. Liked the behind the scenes look at the individual officers, does help you remember these are men and women with lives, emotions, and memories each and every day. Still not sure that I trust the Chicago Police scene, but my eyes are a bit more open.

August - 9

Catch 22. By Joseph Heller. I was really skeptical to begin this book, everyone I knew who liked it said it took them a couple of times to get into it. I don't understand why, I was hooked from sentence number one. I loved it. I think everyone should read it.

Interworld. By Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves. One of Gaiman's YA books, actually quite good. Some of the stuff I wondered whether I would of understood it if I was, you know, an actual Young Adult in the literary sense, but none the less as a "adult" I still really liked it.

The Beekeeper's Apprentice. By Laurie King. Quite an interesting mystery actually, and mystery is not my usual thing. Got it from mom awhile back, finally picked it up. First in what looks to be a series around these characters - it's a Sherlock Homes thing, but with a lead female apprentice character, quite good. Never read any Conan Doyle Holmes, so nothing to compare it to.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home. Season 8, Vol. 1. Joss Whedon. Oh Buffy. How addicted I am to you. Tore through the show on DVD and got this first volume of the comic that takes up where show ends for my birthday. Love it. Will have to go out and get vol. 2 though that's it till November I think. Hate reading things that are still being produced, but I think I'll try with this one.

Skinny Dip. By Carl Hiaasen. Received on a Friday for my birthday, started on Sunday, finished by Tuesday. Quite an entertaining read. Quick, slightly snarky, modern mystery feel to it. Except it's not a mystery, because you really know what's going on the whole time, so I guess mystery is the wrong word. Good stuff, will probably check out his other stuff.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: No Future for You. Season 8, Vol. 2. By Joss Whedon. Starting to lose a bit of the appeal but still am enjoying it. Sucks that I have to wait till November for the next installment but then I guess I will just re-read these first two so it won't be too bad.

Three cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time. By Greg Mortenson. Go out and read this book. Stop what you're doing, stop what you're reading. It's that good. I went out as soon as I was done and ordered a copy for my mom (and if you order through their site a percentage goes to them) and now she is loving it. It's a true story of one guys random mission to educate the girls of Pakistan and it's a beautiful story.

Walking Dead; Vol. 2-4. By Robert Kirkman. Still absolutely loving this series. It's a great look at what happens to people when faced with an entirely new way of life. The zombies, while entertaining, are just a back drop to the story which I think is one of the things I really like about it. From the Amazon description

..."An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe, causing the dead
to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months, society has crumbled:
There is no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV. Rick
Grimes finds himself one of the few survivors in this terrifying future. A
couple months ago he was a small town cop who had never fired a shot and only
ever saw one dead body. Separated from his family, he must now sort through all
the death and confusion to try and find his wife and son. In a world ruled by
the dead, we are forced to finally begin living. "

September: 2

Walking Dead; Vol 5-6. By Robert Kirkman. Tore through another 2 volumes of this series while trying to keep up with the leaking walls of my apartment this weekend during the 3 day rainstorm we just had. I am totally in love with it, but am worried I'm reading them too fast and that I'm catching up to single issue city which I don't like. I think there are two volumes left before I run out.

12 Glasses

Or more specifically 12 glasses, a bowl, and a plastic bag taped to the wall. This is what I have set up to catch the rain that is steadily leaking into my apartment. The past two days it has rained steady. Rock steady for that matter. Not a break in sight. This morning I woke up at 8 a.m. to find that my front window (and thank the gods it was the only one) was leaking. Not a pretty little leak of fresh spring water. No, a dirty, brown, looks like it seeped from under the El tracks kind of drip. I'm closing my eyes and pretending it's just that color because it leached itself from the brick of my building. If you have any other ideas, please do not share them. I like my make believe world.

So for the past 10 hours I have gone through multiple macgyver'd setups including using painter tape to secure napkins to the wall, to simply letting it drip and changing the napkin/padding every five minutes till finally the glass setup is what I settled on. I was pretty proud of the one where I used a paper towel as a wick to lead the water into a taped up plastic sandwich bag...that inspiration came pretty early in the day (mostly because I was having to change that section ever 3 minutes). The fact that it took almost 7 hours to come up with the coffee mug/juice glass plan is a little more embarassing.

So now the rain has stopped yet my walls continue to cry their rusty tears. I'm hoping it will end soon, how much water can my roof hold? Wait, don't answer that either.

How short will we go? or HSWWG?

FYI. ETA. BRB. LOL. Abbreviations and acronyms are an intricate part of our lifestyles and our interactions with each other and the world. What I wonder is where is the tipping point? Where does something go from annoyingly shortened (LOL...really?) to perfectly acceptable, FYI.

Where do the decisions for what needs to or can be shortened come from. Was "for your information" really too long to say? Did it take up too much valuable verbal real estate? DNA is much more pleasing to the ear than Deoxyribonucleic acid but who even knows anymore that that is what it stands for? (I myself had to look it up just to get the correct spelling, and since it's on the internet I don't even know if I'm right).

I find myself surrounded by shorthand, I find it creeping into my own verbal habits. Sar instead of sorry, rhet instead of ready, but most of mine are still limited to the verbal variety. I still cling to spelling out each and every version of "to" in my text messages - there is no excuse for a 2 to mean anything other than a quantity and whenever I see that insidious little number sneak in to make life easier all I can think of is the sender wearing large, oddly patterned pants and making hand gestures at me to tell me that they are 2 Legit 2 Quit....but maybe that is just me.

I use to hold out that anyone who emailed me and didn't find themselves important enough to capitalize I wasn't worth my time but as I scroll through my own g-chat history I see it has infected me as well.

Is it texting that has reduced the overly cumbersome and complicated English language to mere grunts and nods? Was our decline in communication pushed down the hill with email? In a world where everyone and anyone has a blog (reading one here is proof of that) to say whatever the hell they want shouldn't the eloquence of the written word be heightening?

I'm victim. I'm also at fault. I know this. But it does not stop me some days from wondering how far down the rabbit hole we are planning on going. Are we really just slowly breaking down our words till the day when we can simply communicate at a top level in 1's and 0's?

Get by with a little help from my friends

Many of my inner circle these days are finding themselves fighting the good (though not always profitable) fight to make the world a better/safer/cleaner and generally less fucked up place to be in. As part of this world I am often sending and receiving fundraising emails and I do my best to support when I can (because I know how much it can suck). So when a friend who specializes in community organizing (and I will avoid the Palin references for today) sent this out I was pretty impressed and went right through the link to make my donation. It's, in my opinion, a damn fine ask. It probably helps if you actually know Tim, or have lived in probably any number of college towns that get over run by mini-skirts and furry boots sometime in September, but either way I wanted to share it here in case any of you are so inclined to help out.

With no further ado I bring you......



Hi everyone,

It's fall, which means a few things:

1. The leaves change color, as do the colors of Tim's sweater vests.

2. The temperature starts to drop, and we start to see more furry boots out and about (especially on campus).

3. I'm busy busy busy getting ready for the GSA for Safe Schools Walk/Run/Eat.

This year, I've set a personal goal of trying to raise $500 for the event. Fundraising is the thing I like LEAST about being a community organizer, but I recognize that we wouldn't be able to do the work that we do without bringing in the Benjamins. That's just one of our MANY responsibilities.

In my head, $500 feels like a lot, but if I send this email to 50 people (which I have) and they all donate $10, I will have reached my goal. And $10 can go a really long way at my organization.

With $10, GSA for Safe Schools can:

1. Buy tasty and nutritious snacks to feed our Student Planning Council (the group of super peers who come to our office once a week and help us plan our conferences and programming)

2. Buy enough gas for my car to visit the GSAs at ALL FOUR Madison high schools (and possibly a couple of middle schools, too!)

3. Send a 'Welcome Back to School' packet with posters, stickers, and handy resources to 5 GSAs outside of Dane County (we'll send out a total of 100 this fall - one to each GSA in Wisconsin)

So, while the GSAFE Board of Directors is bragging about their big $100-dollar donations, I'd like to offer them some competition by bringing in the most $10 donations.


Can you help me out?

You can visit my personal fundraising page at http://www.firstgiving.com/thexteam and donate online, or send a check or cash to GSA for Safe Schools, 301 S. Bedford St. Ste. 1, Madison, WI 53703. Make sure you send it with an ATTN: TIM MICHAEL on the envelope so Brian and Cindy don't try and claim it. :)

Thanks, as always, for all your support. If anyone feels like coming to the event, you can also sign up online by going to http://www.firstgiving.com/gsaforsafeschools. I won't be able to walk/run with you, but I'll make sure to stop running around for at least eleven and a half seconds to say 'HELLO' and 'THANKS FOR COMING' and give you a hug.

Lots of love,

Tim

Things I wasn't prepared for this weekend

The following is an off the top of my head list of all the random ass things that went on or were said this weekend that I never really imagined happening in my life....

• Salty nut tequila, and in depth discussions on whether members of the group would drink tequila that had been stashed next to certain party members salty nuts


• In depth discussions on the fate of Tom Brady - was it a rumor, had it actually happened, whose phone was getting the most reliable updates


• Changing t-shirts in the middle of a professional football stadium (went from Bears to Colts - sorry fellow Chicagoans! I was bullied by the man with the money!)


• No Bueno! (over, and over, and over)


• Crafty Beaver - and an in depth discussion on what exactly we thought that store might be selling


• Raigel (sp?) - it's what happens when I try and say cinnamon raisin and bagel at the same time apparently


• Putting a grown man (over 6 ft. tall) in a trunk to see if he fits (he does) and if the emergency, glow in the dark pull cord works (it did)


• "I-Phone: Does everything except make calls"


• "Where are we going" (halfway to Indianapolis), "To the football game; Chicago Bears v. Indianapolis Colts"....(pause).... "But what about the Cubs?"
• "I must apologize for the conduct of my countrymen during the war"...said by an Irish guy...with a fake German accent

I'm sure there is more, but this is good for now.

96 hours

Well the whirlwind weekend is finally done and I have to admit I'm pretty amazed I survived. My brother, who is moving to a tropical island in 2 weeks, and two of his friends just passed through Chicago for the weekend on one last American road trip before he heads off into the land of sunshine and rum.

They rolled in Thursday afternoon to a wonderful Midwest welcome of rain and general grayness. Not the best way to start a trip, but it worked out okay. I took them out for good, cheap Mexican food and cervezas down the street and then over to the neighborhood bar for the infamous $1.50 PBR night.

Friday consisted of a clearer day and lots and lots of walking. Tried to do the Shedd Aquarium free day but realized once we got there that we weren't the only ones with this great idea. Line was a little too long (and unmoving) so we skipped it and trekked back north for pizza and beer. Friday night was fancy steak dinner at Wildfire (yummm....red meat....) and then eventually to a blues bar in that area and then capped off with some good old 4 am action at the Oakwood.

Saturday we headed down to North Ave Beach for some redbull flugtag action. Got there a bit late due to a train that decided to stop running at Belmont and a pub stop on the walk there. Way too crowded once we arrived, but most of the group got close enough to see a half dozen or so crazy contraptions. Then it was back up north for German fest in Lincoln square, napping and then more German fest (had to refill those $12 steins)...

Seeing a theme here yet anyone?

Sunday we piled into the car with a cooler full of beer and tequila and hit the road for Indianapolis. After4 hours in a parking lot I headed into my first professional football game and watched the Bears kick the crap out of the Colts. Good times. More beer in the parking lot while we waited for the traffic to clear and then finally headed home. Got in about 3:30 a.m. Monday morning.

Now it's 11 and the boys are safely back on the road up to Wisconsin for some end of the summer Dells action and a stop off to see mom. They got some crazy deal that is basically a suite with all you can eat AND drink for $400. They are going to get the most out of that deal. I almost wish I could join them. But I think my liver will thank me if I just stay here.

Now I'm back to bed so I can catch up on the sleep I've missed since Thursday night. Hope everyone else had as exciting a weekend as me.

Forgive me if I lose you

I'm totally messing with feeds and feedburner and all that in an attempt to track who is tracking me so if I lose you or mess up your subscription to me in anyway I just wanted to say sorry! If it doesn't get back on track let me know!
Thanks
Cheers
JJ

Really?

The yellow brick road has been repaved in pink

Just over two years ago I moved to Chicago, with among other things the one and only pink shirt I owned. It's a hot pink wife beater style tank top with rhinestones around the collar. I would wear it with my "going out" jeans when I went dancing. That was it.

Today I am going out for coffee in pink capri pants.

With my nails (professionally done!) hot pink.

Oh, how far I've come.

Thanks L.

3 percent taken care of

He's gone. Not a surprise I guess, but still somewhat of a shock. A few days ago I filled the world (and by world I mean my half a dozen or so readers out there) in on this unfolding story. And today when I logged into the Good Reads account he was gone. My tiny little friend list had dwindled down to one less. The message I sent deleted from my outbox. Like it never even happened. If I hadn't blogged it, I might even believe that it didn't exist. And now I sit here and I can feel that damned 3 percent from before swell within me. It expands to fill me from top to bottom, it's leaking out my fingertips as I type. Why? Why do I care, what did I do, why can I know not stop thinking about it? Where does this feeling like I am 13 years old and just got laughed at as I stand in the corner of the spring dance come from god damn it?

Well at least now my friends that I know were worried that the 3 percent from before would overrule any good sense I had can be assured that I will make no mistakes down that road anymore. I think I'm going to go smoke now.

Two stops does not equal express

Once again I found myself on an "express" train this morning which got me thinking about the definition of express. Now usually the Chicago El only runs express because somewhere, earlier along the line it got delayed. This morning's express lasted from Armitage to Merch Mart, which means it skipped all of two stops. This is not my idea of express. One of these days I want to be on the train home and hear the conductor say at Clark and Lake that the train will be running express to Montrose. Now that would be a true express experience. (For those of you not familiar with either Chicago or the Brown line specifically here is a link to the trian schedules.)

Belated Happy Birthday to Me

I love my friends. Not such a huge fan of UPS that took a 4 day delivery hiatus with my birthday flowers (they were set to arrive at my house on the actual day, last Friday, and I finally got them to work on Tuesday). Major props to 1-800-flowers for packaging them well enough that I wasn't greeted with a box of dead roses when they finally arrived. But mostly, love my friends. Thanks D.

Lousy 3 percent

A few months ago, I think April to be exact, I met a guy. I had heard about this guy from a mutual friend who thought we would hit it off and she really wanted to hook us up. Catch was, he was just getting out of a long term relationship and it was an ugly break up. I briefly interacted with him at a party that our mutual friend was hosting and quickly made clear to all my friends that I was not interested. While he did show up with gin, and was not horribly unattractive, the guy was just in too dark a place for me to even begin to get involved in. Plus, there were a few extra complications that just made the whole situation icky.

Fast forward to about a month later. Early May and we run into each other again at earlier mentioned mutual friends A Capella concert. Apparently by that time all my misgivings had dissipated because I began to eyeball the guy as a possibility. Play the night on high speed and by the end I had made my move. A brief make out session on a street corner, a quick invite with the rules laid out (I wouldn't sleep with him), and we were soon in a cab on the way to my apartment.

What followed was what I could only presume to be a good time had by all. We left with no exchange of info and had an awkward/slightly cute exchange between mutual friend to set up plans again. Within the week we hung out again, again at my place, and again he spent the night (same rules as night #1 - I do have some standards).

The rest is pretty simple and slightly painful so I am making the executive decision not to go into gory details. Basically after date #2 - nothing. A few feeble attempts at email exchange and then bam! off the grid he went. It took me awhile to get him off my mind, wondering what I did wrong, what move I should or should not have made, but eventually he dissipated from my thoughts.

And then out of nowhere he pops up again. But not in any kind of actual form of communication, oh no that would be way, way to simple. No, I randomly got a friend request a few weeks ago through a book site I am a part of called Good Reads. No message, no warning, just a "Hey, So-and-so wants to be your friend!" standard message. Being the fool I am I thought, what the hell, I'll accept it, maybe I can get some good book recommendations off the kid. Turns out, he doesn't even have any freaking books listed. WTF?

So we have sat in this stasis for a few weeks, where I have no idea what the hell he wants or if he even realizes who I am that he has invited to be friends with. Turning 28 this weekend kicked my ass into gear apparently because I decided this was 7th grade BS and I sent him a quick and basic message asking if he had a particular reason for friending me, or was it one of those add all your friends from your email address book kind of things.

And now I wait. I wait to see if he replies. I wait to see if he has anything to say for himself. And as I wait, I find myself in the most unsettling of situations. 97% of me is pretty ticked off. I finally got this guy off my internal radar, and wham he jumps back on with no explanation at all. 97% of me is filled with a fuck you attitude that says unless you've been trapped in a damn coal mine for 3 months I've got nothing to say to you. 97% of me knows I am better than this, knows I kick ass and take names, and has no time for folks with no decency to have a conversation with someone if they aren't interested, but instead just leaves them hanging. But 3% of me, the 3% that lives somewhere down in my big toe, the part that is crushed into my high heeled, muscle cramp causing shoes for work, 3 fucking percent of me knows that if he emailed and said sorry, want to get coffee? I would say "okay". 3 bloody percent.

Garage sale success

I wish I had something more awe inspiring or craftily worded for you all out there today, but it's just not in the cards. Instead I will share with you my fantastic new furniture additions (a sneak preview for any party goers this weekend).

First up, the bar. I love this thing. It's exactly what I needed to add some much desired shelving to my kitchen, and to be honest, it's just freaking cool.

And the coolest feature? It opens.

I then added a nice little coffee table to the living room. While not as spiffy, it does allow me to stop using TV trays as my main form of counter space.

The place is finally coming together, of course right in line with my waivering belief that I want to stay in Chicago, but oh well. Now I just have to get the rest of the house clean for the upcoming festivities this weekend.

What I should and should not be...

I should not be wearing long sleeves and pants, in Chicago, in August, and be cold.

I should not be judgmental of other women downtown about the way they smoke their cigarettes.

I should not be surprised by the men doing the up and down look that settles around the ass area of the size two women in skirts in the loop.

I should not continue to stare at the men that never even notice me, let alone look twice.

I should not spend time at work blogging.

And since lists should not contain all "should not" statements....

I should be surprised that after 28 years my father called me last night to tell me that he was worried about the distance between us, did not want our relationship to be this way, and would it be okay if he called me more often. Wow. Welcome to the conversation pops.

Keeping my imagination alive, one commute at a time

Every once in a while when I am waiting for the southbound train in the morning the northbound brown line will come through. I stare at the doors as they open, invitingly, and listen to the pre-recorded announcements that it is a "Brown Line to Kimball, Brown Line to Kimball". And every once in awhile I wonder what it would be like to slip through the doors and head in the opposite direction of my life. In reality Kimball is only 3, maybe 4, stops north of my own, but something about those doors sliding open at 7:15 a.m. makes me believe that it is actually a portal into a whole new world. A tempting world of unknown destinations and new surprises. I'm not sure if the desire to head in opposite directions is more strong on Friday's when I'm outfitted in my jeans and sneakers, ready to explore or Monday-Thursday when I am adorned in my pseudo corporate casual clothing feeling like an alien attempting to impersonate a productive member of society.

This morning, Friday, in my jeans and slip on sneakers, the northbound train rolled in as I waited with my coffee. The doors slid open and for a moment that felt like a millennium long second I thought about stepping through. I imagined what it would be like to step through and head the other way, I fantasized about the doors closing and magically being transported on to an Amtrak train out of this city, this state, this time zone. I dreamed of new worlds and landscapes, mountains and salty, ocean air. And just as the imagery was starting to crystallize around the edges, just as it was starting to become a tangible idea that I could grasp and make real, the ding of the doors closing shot through and dissolved the whole thing. As I slowly turned away I could hear the train starting back up again, could hear it heading towards its familiar home of Kimball, just to turn around and head back again in a continuous loop to become someone elses southbound adventure. With it went my dreams of sandy beaches and snow capped mountain vistas. But only for today. For I know that once again, next week, or the one after, I will be standing on my platform waiting for my life to start that day and a northbound train will come with its inviting doors and promises of new things. And maybe if I wait long enough, it really will turn into a train out of this town.

Oops, I did it again

I wonder somedays at what point in ones life do they begin to learn from their mistakes? I thought by now there would be certain things that I would of simply picked up on, figured out not to do again, and again, and again...Perfect example, tequila. Really never a good idea at 2 AM but have I figured this out yet? Nope. Maybe once I crest the golden age of 30 that lesson will stick past 1:30 AM. Another life lesson that I seem to be groundhog daying? Men. There are certain habits, which I will not go into on this page for personal embarrassment reasons, that I continue to repeat over and over with nothing ever learned. To be honest, it's starting to get a bit old. Now, if I manage to learn the tequila lesson, then maybe these other bad habits will fade away, but until then I am doomed to continue repeating the same dumb mating/dating moves apparently regardless of geographic location. Next time. Next time I will figure this out.

On to happier news, though still on the "I will never learn" front. I managed to find myself another book fair this past weekend. The Newberry library has an annual sale that I found myself immersed in Saturday morning. $18.50 and 19 books later I was on my way home. And by the way, 20 books (I had one in my bag to begin with) is no light affair. I have now run out of room in the existing set up of my library with this purchase so am trying to find a way to rearrange the over 350 books that live with me. Which means that the floor of my living room is covered in piles and stacks of books. I'm hoping by Friday to have them reshelved...we'll have to wait and see on that one.

Shall we play a game?

25 years ago a brilliant movie was released. I watched this movie countless times as a kid - on TV, on beta max, on VHS. Yesterday that brought that movie back for one night to the big screen all over the country. That movie was War Games. If you are not familiar with this film than I highly recommend you go out and rent it - trust me, it's the best 114 minutes you will spend this weekend.

The basic idea of the movie is that a high school kid hacks into the back end of a military computer and starts a worldwide nuclear war, though he thinks he's just playing a game. This was before personal computers were common place in the American household. There were no laptops in every coffee shop, no such thing as the internet. It was the forefront of what was soon to be possible. It was also released at a time when the threat of an all out nuclear war was something that still hung in the minds of most individuals as one of the scariest things imaginable (not to say that this is not something that is still pretty freaking scary today).

My family loved this movie. So yesterday my mom drove to Harvard, IL and took a Metra into the city. My brother jumped on the Metro in DC and headed out to Virginia (he originally wanted to go to NY but by the time he got in touch with his friend, they were sold out). And even though we were separated by time zones and many miles we all settled into watch this long time favorite on the big screen together.

It aired at 7:30 p.m. regardless of where you were so my brother actually got a jump start on the viewing pleasure. Here in Chicago we got to the theater probably about the time he was starting (so basically ridiculously early) and settled into wait. The show began with nice never before seen interviews and history of the film, a really crappy preview for the sequel they are making and eventually the originally story began. The audience was pretty decent, some loud laughter at moments, especially during the old technology scenes, but overall not too chatty. Then two thirds of the way through it happened.

The scene is at night and the two kids have decided not to give up hope and are trying to find a way back to the mainland (watch the movie and this will all make sense), when the screen goes dark. Yup. Dark. Movie stopped, no idea what has happened. The whole audience audibly groans. People start to get fidgety and complain. Then we all burst out laughing. Because there in the corner of the screen, faint and almost ghost like is the image of a "start" button from a computer screen. That's right. A start menu button. In the middle of the movie about a computer who learns and takes over military nuclear warheads. It was great. Almost as good was when I pulled out my phone to see what time it was and saw I had a text message from my brother. It read - "Hope ur movie went ok. Ours crashed towards the end. Computer problem. The irony is great."

Halfway across the country the movie crashed in the same damn place. He was right, and the irony was just getting better. Our film eventually started back up and we got to go to the glorious end. Turns out they never got the east coast up and running again - guess being an hour behind isn't such a bad thing some days.

3...2....1....

This week (and last) are really really busy so I don't have much time for a full fledged update or rant. So far this summer I've seen Feist at Ravinia, Public Enemy at Pitchfork, Hulk and Hancock. I'm going to War Games tomorrow and hopefully will get to see the newest Batman sometime soon. Also coming up is a trip to a horse race track (first time for me!), my birthday with possible festivities, and a visit from my brother as he swings his way around the country before jettisoning off to a tropical island to live and play.

But today I saw something I just had to share. The newest gadgetry found at Staples. DVD's that will self destruct in 48 hours. Okay, so maybe they don't actually blow up (my coworker wouldn't let me use the company credit card to find out) - but how else would this work? I could read the webpage, but that's no fun. Instead I like to believe that after two days of activation they have a James Bondian demise.

Oh Doogie, you've come so far

Everyone needs to go to this website and watch this amazing 3 act web show. The final act comes out tomorrow and I think is only free till the 20th. Trust me, your life will be better for it.

Yay Avenue Q!

This one is for you Lizz.....





more graph humor and song chart memes

All it takes is 30 seconds

Sorry for the delay in posting - I have been off the grid on vacation, which while wonderful was a bit exhausting and I'm glad to be back. This is another one of those "something's bugging me" posts, but I promise it will not be nearly as gross as the milk post.

Lately I have seen this ad on TV for some random Pizza Hut special. The premise is that they have some $5 deal all the time, no "blackout" dates, no restrictions. Fine. I have no problem with this. However on closer inspection of the actors hired to play out their 30 second drama I begin to get more and more annoyed each time it airs.

It is set in an office boardroom. The "geek" guy is at the whiteboard showing off his year long calendar that he has created with all the nearby pizza specials and their availability marked off. Those with blacked out boxes (and there are quite a few) indicate a day with no special. Then "hot/young" guy stands up, rips off the painstakingly created cover sheet with the blacked out boxes to reveal a clear calendar and says something about how they could just order the great and wonderful Pizza Hut special and never have to deal with restrictions. Moral of the story? Geek guy gets shut down and hot/young guy saves the day.

As someone who more often than not finds herself in the geek category, and to be honest is pretty damn okay with that, especially when I know how to format my own excel sheets, I'm getting pretty tired of television showing me that I am not in the "winner" category. It's not blatant (usually), and it's not all the time, but it's these little 30 second spots along with all the dishwashing and laundry ads that continually reinforce the male ineptitude for washing anything, that sometimes makes me look long and hard in the mirror at who I am. Nine times out of ten, I'm happy with what looks back, but I worry about the other girls out there who may be looking in their own mirrors late at night and aren't hitting as high a percent of satisfaction.

More Wordle

I assume I will get tired of this at some point...This one is from the whole blog so far. Thanks to Will for actually getting me the text document this morning, glad to see someone has even less to do at their job than me. It seemed that the words changed each time I went to mess with color or font so I stopped when I saw that it had pulled "fucking" and "gaiman" because that made me happy.

And again, here is the tiny linked version to the gallery pic.

Wanted

I've had a little pent up aggression lately so this morning I decided that while finding the studs in my ceiling and installing my own punching bag in the computer room was tempting, I'd better find another way to let go of some anger (apparently a full hand of PBR didn't do it). So, since I was up early anyway, I decided to take care of it the old fashioned way. I got my ass on a bus and went to see a nice, violent movie.

I love violent movies, sometimes too much, but when I'm cranky they are just what I need. So I figured Wanted was right up my alley. It was relatively crowded for an 11:50 am showing, but hey it did only open yesterday. I settled in with my breakfast of popcorn and Coke and got ready for two hours of mindless violence topped off with Angelina in full tattooed glory. It was exactly what I needed. Hell, it's a movie about assassins for christs sake. One of my favorite parts? Skip the rest of this paragraph if you don't want to hear about the details. When James McAvoy demolishes a computer keyboard against the face of his supposed best friend resulting in a slow motion shot of the keys flying apart and forming "Fuck You" in the air with the second "u" being the guys tooth. I love this stuff.

Throughout the movie I kept hearing this odd sound that I couldn't place. But just as I would get close to figuring it out the machine guns would start up or the mysteriously fast El train (it was shot in Chicago) would rumble by and I would get sucked back in. By the end of the movie though I was truly confounded on what was making that extra, not out of the fancy speaker system noise. It just didn't fit. Then the credits began to roll and the lights were brought up and it all became clear. The veil was lifted and I figured it out. There it was in the middle of the aisle between the stadium seats and those crappy flat floor front rows. In all its horrific glory. A stroller. There for the past two hours. There for all the fuck you's and the bullets to the head. There amongst the splattered blood and the flying teeth was a child. Someone thought it was a good idea to bring a child somewhere between birth and I'm guessing 4 years old to an R rated film about assassins. All the pent up aggression that had slowly seeped out of me for the past two hours came flying back and settled in with an icy chill.

I carried the rage with me out in to the sunshine of a pleasant Chicago afternoon. I brought it with me across the street to the bus stop. I sighed as I heaved it upon my shoulders and started heading north on foot. I figured it would be best to try and walk it off a bit before I jumped on the bus. So I walked. I walked and I walked and while the rage did slowly begin to subside it took me walking all the way home. From 2600 N. Western up to 4900 N. Western and then over 4 blocks to my apartment. 30 blocks. Anyone got a punching bag for sale?