August 29th, 2003 09:45 hours CST currently listening to: "Sharron Apple" by airiel

Not in a very good mood today. Maybe it's the weather. I didn't end up going out last night. I came home from the mastering studio and did a load of laundry. Fell asleep on the couch around 8 for about 30 minutes and after that, I was a zombie. I just couldn't wake up. It was gonna rain last night anyway, and I didn't want to be on my scooter in the rain. Somebody messaged my phone last night. "This sucks" was all it said. I'm guessing that was Mischa.

August 25th, 2003 10:00 hours CST currently listening to: "Ri" by airiel

I'm wickedly tired today. Had a really busy weekend and I hauled all the stuff I sold on eBay this weekend to the office. My arms are dead.

Friday was the summer party for my office. Had a REALLY good time. DJ drove me back to my place so he could change and so I could pick up my scooter. DJ of course notices the stack of porno tapes I had on my living room floor that I had forgotten put away. He laughed his ass off (as did I) at the whole thing and then read each title out loud in the manner of an announcer at a motocross or truck show. Funny guy, that DJ. The party was at this small sports bar called Augy's or something like that. Off of Clyborne on Wolcott. They had an outdoor volleyball court and we had tons of free booze. Quality this time, too. The scooter was a total hit. I gave about 8 different girls rides on it. Which is funny, because this was my first time I had ever had anyone ride on the thing and I was a tad drunk. I even gave Phil a ride. He was barefoot and way drunk. He even commented on how he got "Vespa Dick" during the ride (re: vibrations in the seat giving you a boner). He's the first guy that I know of to have a reaction to that. Girls, sure. But guys? Well, it hasn't happened to me, yet. After the party finished at 10 (we'd been drinking since 7), we went up to the Elbow Room off of Ashland on Irving Park. I gave Heather a lift and she loved it. This was her 2nd ride of the night, so she was a bit more relaxed. She kept yelling stuff like "can't we get around this asshole?" and generally encouraging me to haul ass. It was such a good time. Jeff Moore and Matt Bennett showed up and we all just hung around and talked and drank.

Saturday was pretty low key. I did laundry and cleaned up the apartment a little bit (put away all the porn). I went over to Dave and Cornelia's for their housewarming party. I was a bit early and felt a bit awkward. Dave wasn't even ready, so he was running around being irritable. Cornelia cracks me up. She had black, sequined pants on. Go, girl. They have two of the most comfortably lazy cats ever. Big crowd of people and they just plop down on the floor. I left after about an hour and picked up Ben. We drove the scooter down to Wicker Park and parked it on Honore, which is that corner intersection where Championship Vinyl was in High Fidelity. We met up with the Whimsical kids outside The Note. We hadn't seen Shannon in so long. It was great to see her again. I got to meet Meredith and also Christine from Flutter. After the Whimsical set, I went out to check on the scooter and it was fine. After the Flutter set, Ben and I decided to leave and found that my glove box was wide open and someone had tampered with my key ignition. I was freaked out until I realized that nothing was missing from the glove box. My house keys, gloves, goggles, tool kit, even my registration were all in there. The ignition seemed to be missing, so I was guessing that I was going to have to push this thing all the way back to Logan Square. I decided to try to kick start the thing, and by some stroke of luck, it turned over! I had no working lights or even a horn though, so Ben had to take a cab home as we would have drawn too much attention riding around without even a headlight. I took some back streets and made my way through Humboldt Park without incident. I was so relieved that I could at least drive it.

Sunday was moving day. I was over at Maria's a bit before 9 AM so we could go pick up the U-Haul van. Mischa was waiting for us when we got back to Maria's. I can't even count how many trips I made up and down those four flights of stairs with all her boxes. My knee was killing me. We actually made really good time and Maria packs a van better than anyone I've ever seen. We unloaded the stuff at Celeste's place and then made one last trip. Afterwards, I took off on my scooter to drop it off at Scooterworks and was going to have Mischa meet me there to take my keys and give me a ride home. On my ride there, I saw Rob on his scooter and told him to pull over so I could show him what happened. We realized that the ignition wasn't missing, but had slipped down into the headset while it was being tampered with. I gave him my tool kit and he it fixed right there on the side of the road! I was so relieved. I learned a valuable lesson: always park your scooter within eyeshot of the doorman of the bar you're going to. I called Mischa to cancel our rendezvous and turned around to get a much needed shower back at my apartment. I finished all my eBay sales and ordered a pizza. Sausage, garlic, onions, green peppers and tomatoes. It was an edible work of art.

August 22nd, 2003 10:28 hours CST currently listening to: "Boys Don't Matter" by Blue Boy

OK, Neo officially got weird. The place was packed last night. More packed than it gets on Saturday nights. There seemed to be a large population of college kids, who annoyingly got there early and took all the cool seats on the sides and rarely ever got on the dance floor. The people that did get on the dance floor weren't the typical happy goth kids that I normally see there. We had the token stripper, with her Daisy Duke shorts, high heels, tight ponytail, with her gaggle of girl friends, who she tried to teach how to ballroom dance right there on the floor. Then there's the elderly couples, which seemed to be everywhere (was it parents week or something?), and the sports bar jocks who are looking for new hunting grounds for available chicks. It was the weirdest damn crowd I'd ever seen there.

I got out on the floor a few times (twice before any of my friends showed up, because I was bored), and my knee held up pretty well, but there were some moves that I could not pull off at all. I want a titanium kneecap or something. There were enough lulls in the music that I could still break for drinks now and then. That's another thing, the DJ that does the Thursday nights, ok, he really needs to wake up. His transitions suck, he's playing everything off of CD's, and he never matches tempos at all. He seems to be breaking way too many rules when it comes to simple flow through. When a song already has a fade out, you don' let it fade all the way out before playing another track. Cue that shit up, damnit! Ok, that's enough complaining for this morning.

BUY MY STUFF ON EBAY!!!!!!

August 21st, 2003 14:05 hours CST currently listening to: "This Is The One" by the Stone Roses

Not much going on today. It's really hot outside. That kind of overwhelming heat wave that you get when you walk out of the protected bubble of Freon powered love known as air conditioning. My ear ache seems to be coming back today. What the hell is up with this thing?

My knee is still acting up a bit, but I'm going to Neo tonight. Hopefully Mischa and Erica will be joining me. Them, and whoever else decides to come out. My vibrator-buying errand went well last night. Hahahah. It took me forever to park. That area by the east side Reckless Records is such a drag when you have a car. Hell, it would have been hard if I'd been on my scooter. After about 45 minutes of circling I was upgraded to rock star status and got a spot right across the street WITH 34 minutes left in the parking meter. Kickass. I took my car because I had to get groceries on the way home. I just shipped the thing off in the mail about 10 minutes ago and I know it's recipient is waiting eagerly. Sometimes you have to do crazy shit to celebrate some one's birthday, you know?

Weekend plans: Tomorrow night is the summer party for my office. It's at a crappy sports bar yet again, but there's the added fun of having indoor beach volleyball. With my knee as messed up as it is, I'm not going anywhere near that. Don't need a sprained ankle as well. Free booze, of course, so I'm going. Saturday I've got a house warming party for my boss and his girlfriend. Then I'm heading down to the Note to see Whimsical and Flutter. Show starts at 10pm. I'm helping Maria move into Celeste's apartment on Sunday. Hopefully the heat will be a bit more tame then.

I'm thinking that maybe it's about time to come out of my shell and start dating again. Who knows.

August 19th, 2003 15:00 hours CST currently listening to: "Not Fazed" by RIDE

Caffeine induced journal entry!!!! woo!!!!!!

I've memorized the string set for running a compressed ghost image. They are as follows: -f64 -fro -ntil -bfc=500 -afile=x:\ghost.err -spilt=630 -autoname -z9. I'm a human computer!!!!

The Japanese phrase Kazoku sorrote no seppuku ga yokatta, means "I loved the part where the whole family disemboweled themselves". Sweet.

According to this live journal user, "Kiss Me Slowly" by my band airiel, gives her an "aural orgasm" and "puts her on a cloud for the rest of the day". Also sweet.

I'm going DILDO SHOPPING tomorrow night. God, I've always wanted to type that out. It's not for me. It's for a friend's birthday. No, seriously. She's too shy to get one on her own so I of course jumped at the chance.

Curtissa, who runs our phones here in my office, made tollhouse cookies for me and Dave. Her son is away at summer camp and she got all maternal on us. Suuuuuuuggggggaaaarrrrrrr.

People are buying my shit on eBay.

When all this shit wears off, I better be done with my workout tonight, otherwise I'm fucked.

August 18th, 2003 08:45 hours CST currently listening to: "Halo" by airiel

Had a phone conversation last night that left such a bad taste in my mouth. I'm still so pissed off that I'm almost shaking.

The weekend was alright, I guess. My knee is STILL messed up and as such, I've not gone to the gym in almost a month. I'm making an appointment to see a doctor about it. I don't know what I did to it, all I know is that if I put pressure on it at certain angles, it feels like my kneecap is going to shatter. Fun shit. I'm selling a bunch of stuff on eBay right now to fund my trip to London. I never realized just how much stuff I have in my apartment that I don't use anymore. I even have an entertainment center and a dinning room set that some friends of mine might buy off me.

August 15th, 2003 09:30 hours CST currently listening to: "500 Deep" by airiel

I cannot wake up this morning. I grabbed a diet coke as soon as I walked into the office. I'm not a fan of these days, as caffeine hits me HARD and makes me all weird (see the Bio page). At least I'm not in New York with this damn power outage.

Last night I met up with Christian at his place and we scootered over to Pick Me Up. We talked about scooters and music gear and my current situation with airiel. Every time I go to Pick Me Up with Christian and we sit in a window seat, there's always something freaky going on across the street. The first time, there was a coffee shop that had just opened, and a poor guy in his late 20's wearing a sort of cow costume out front and was handing out flyers and coupons for the coffee shop. The second time, there was a girl who got bounced out of the bar across the street. I don't know what this place is called, but there's a big ceramic sombrero sticking out of the wall above the entrance. They always have the windows open with cover bands playing really horrible music. Like Indigo Girls and shit. Anyway, this chick was drunk as hell and trying to fight the bouncer that had ejected her from the place. Losing battle, to say the least. This time though, there was the most intoxicated man I've ever seen collapsed on the sidewalk just to the right of the entrance. Three different people were trying to help him out. They kept pouring water on him (and the sidewalk) because he was puking his guts out. I don't know if it was heat exhaustion or what, but he acted as if he didn't have a skeleton. He was just completely limp whenever people tried to pick him up. All they could do was roll him over on his side. Eventually a cop car pulled up, then an ambulance, and then a fire truck. A FIRE TRUCK? What the hell were THEY gonna do? Hose down the sidewalk? They carted the guy off in a stretcher and that was the end of it. Ahhh humanity.

We drove back to his place and then down to Club Foot to meet up with Ben and Hope. At this point, the salad I'd eaten was disagreeing with me in a major way. I had half of a beer and then took off. It was raining too, which really sucked. Not pouring, but still. My glasses kept fogging up and I was worried about skidding on the slick pavement. As I was making my way up Milwaukee, my city parking medallion fell off. I had to circle back and find the damn thing. You know that bridge that sort of divides Bucktown from Wicker Park? If you ever want a supply of drowned rats, that's where you should go. 4 dead rats, 3 dead pigeons and something that I think was at one point a rabbit. Weee!

Came home and got out of my wet clothes. Angrily, and not in any sort of slow, erotic way (not sure why I threw that in. Damnit, Yuka.) Anyway, talked to Celeste for a looong time. It's very touching to have only known someone such a short time an they ask for your advice. Makes me feel good.

I realized that my pet peeves list is amazingly long and makes me look like a total, neurotic, psycho.

August 13th, 2003 09:45 hours CST currently listening to: "Operation H. Monster" by The Charlatans UK

Howdy do, folks. I got my DVD of House of 1,000 Corpses yesterday. I said it before and I'll say it again: Rob Zombie is a misunderstood GENIUS. This films fucking rocks. I wish I could see the original cut. As far as I can tell, there are no extra scenes on the DVD (which was put together brilliantly, by the way), but I did find a couple easter eggs.

I'm mooching off DJ's idea and I now have a page devoted to my pet peeves. I've had a blast typing these out. It will get bigger over time. Not sure if I'm going to list any updates on it, but I may. Just check back every now and then.

August 11th, 2003 09:45 hours CST currently listening to: "Peachfuzz" by Astrobrite

Kind of an odd weekend. Got on the Rally as soon as I got home on Friday. Ran some errands, had a turkey burger at Ear Wax and just drove around. The weather was so weird. I was wearing a sweater for cryin out loud.

Saturday I got my hair trimmed. Got more tips from Sheba about my upcoming trip to London. Drove the Rally downtown for the first time ever. Took Lincoln down to Wells, then that down Grand and to Navy Pier. Met up with , DJ, Jeff, Dave, Bill and a few others to watch The Matrix: Reloaded at the iMax theater. It's the same damn movie, only huge. It was ok, but the sound wasn't that great. The dialog seemed muddy. This theater isn't the big dome either, so it's like watching it on a giant wall. The weather was so great. I brought a jacket anyway because the wind coming in off the lake was strong and really chilly. Went to Maria and Bryan's birthday party at Maria's place. I got myself loaded on only a few vodka tonics. I need to learn when making my own drinks that just because I can't taste the alcohol at first, that doesn't mean it's not in there! Lot's of fun people were there. I got Maria a hello kitty waffle maker. We're gonna give it a test run this weekend. Here are the pictures from the party. I'm in none of them, as usual. Props to whoever brought the penis straws.

Hung out with Celeste for a while. Stopped by Maria's to see the carnage of the night before. Bought a new shower curtain and some nuts and bolts for my scooter. We went down to the Twisted Spoke and I had a fantastic burger. Despite that reprieve, I'm doing very well at eating better and eating less. I'm going to the gym tonight for the first time since my knee stopped hurting. Wish me luck.

August 6th, 2003 11:25 hours CST currently listening to: "Obstacle 1" by Interpol

I'm really tired. Had another exciting (arousing?) morning that has left me drained. A bit late for work, even. Went out with Celeste, Maria and Lesley last night. Went to a bar in Pilsen that none of us ever got the name of. Pretty nice place though. It was a party for Thrill Jockey Records. Free Pabst. Brokeback played and I absolutely loved them. I want to find their stuff right now. The main guitarist has the same Fender Bass VI that I have and we using it to it's full potential.

The antics in the car were hilarious. The girls were all acting like they were my daughters and were screaming at me. "DAAAAAAADDDDDDD!!!!!!!", "Are we there yet?", "I gotta pee real bad", "Celeste hit me!!!" etc, etc. Good times. After dropping most of the little bastards off, Celeste and I were gonna go head down to the Empty Bottle to see the Album Leaf. We stopped at her place first and I got suckered (nay, commanded) to fix the drivers for the PCMCIA Ethernet card in her busted up laptop. I left around midnight and went straight to bed when I got back home.

Tonight, DJ and I are meeting over at Dave's to watch Dune. I swear I know this movie backwards and forwards. The David Lynch version, I mean. I had them push it back to 8:00. If I don't get a load of laundry done tonight, I'm gonna be going commando for the rest of the week.

August 5th, 2003 13:55 hours CST currently listening to: "The Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" by The Smiths

Wow. I was very pleasantly surprised by someone this morning. My head is in a cloud. I wonder what the weather is like on the other side of the globe and what she's doing right now. Sleeping, I'm sure. Dreaming about what, though? I wonder how well a 200 cc scooter would hold up against a motorcycle. I'm sure she would stop every so often to let me catch up with her. My list of things to do grows ever longer and I find I'm revitalized. Out of breath and a little sore, but refreshed nonetheless.

August 4th, 2003 08:50 hours CST currently listening to: "Bradford, Texas" by Blueboy

Pisses me off, I tell you

Anyway. The weekend was pretty cool. Stayed in on Friday, as planned. It was heavenly. Lemon pepper chicken, steamed green beans and wild rice was on the menu. That and and Alien marathon. Got my scooter back on Saturday. Mischa was kind enough to give me a lift on his. The oil leak looks to actually be fixed for good. They blamed it on a shipment of bad valves. I'll have to take it back when the festoon bulbs show up though. We drove down to Lakeview to pick up his friend. Once we arrived there, we drove through three blocks full of nats. It was disgusting. I don't know why there were so many, but I was wearing a white undershirt and it was coated with them. They were in my hair and everything. Bleh. We passed a fleet of mopeds at Clark and Belmont. We all let loose with our horns which was one of the most hilarious sounds I've ever heard. Sounded like a computerized clown parade. I came home and put my license plate on and did some other house maintenance and then took a nap. Gave Maria a ride to the auto shop later that evening. Planned on going to Ryan, Brian and Katjia's party, but I fell asleep on the couch.

Went to Maria's the next morning for breakfast. She made some ass kicking omelets. We watched Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. Bryan came over and we all just sort of lounged around. I took off to find that my car had been hit by a moving truck. The front left headlight cover is broken and the bumper is fucked up. The people that did it were still there and apologized left and right. I wasn't mad at all. I got their information and then went over to Ben's to help him move. Called my insurance company and it should be getting taken care of. It rained most of the time we were moving, which sucked at first and then we just got used to it. It felt like being back at camp. His cats handled the 4 block car trip rather well. Butch cried a lot, but was ok once we got him out of his carrier. Pauly hissed at everything in sight. Even empty rooms. There was some amazing lightning going on. Came home and showered, put on dry clothes and had a huge bowl of lucky charms.

August 1st, 2003 09:45 hours CST currently listening to: "Ri" by airiel

Well, let's see. Moved my gear into the practice space on Wednesday. Celeste helped me out and was a total trooper. We've been hanging out a lot and she's great. I commented to Maria just the other day that the two of them have become my "insta-pals". "Just add water and presto!".

Celeste and I went to Rainblow last night. Lesley showed up as well. I need to stop going out so much. I'm blowing too much money on booze. Tonight I'm staying in for sure. I'm stopping at Reckless Records on the way home only to give copies of the airiel EP's to Taylor. After that, I'm putting on my PJ's, cooking dinner, and spending some quality time on the couch.

Mischa is gonna pick me up tomorrow to go get my Vespa back. I can't wait. Sure, the replacement bulbs haven't arrived yet, but I don't care. I'll deal with that when they get here. I finally got my plate in the mail and I'm dying to put it on. Not sure why. I'm a dork, maybe?

Seeing Sc-flyer tomorrow night with Ben and possibly Hope. Then walking over to Ryan, Brian and Katjia's party. I have to do my best to save money for London. That, and drop 10 pounds as well. *sigh*. protein bars, here I come.