August 31st, 2004 08:40 hours CST currently listening to: "The Dandy Warhols Love Almost Everyone" by The Dandy Warhols.

Went to the gym yesterday for the first time in 3 weeks. Only ran for 30 minutes, but it felt great. The train was really late and our car had no air conditioning, which sucked. The gym is being renovated and the locker rooms are closed so I had to change in he bathroom. It was nice having the cardio room mostly to myself, though.

Maria and I met at PickMeUp for our study session but "something was broken in the kitchen" and they couldn't serve food for an hour at least, so they gave us a $20 gift certificate, which was really nice of them. We went down to Clarke's instead. I had a huge egg white omelet that for some reason was absent of any cheese. Aric called me and invited me to Bingo night at the California Clipper. Bingo was fun. I didn't win anything and I got sleepy pretty fast. I left around 11:30.

Dave is out today. Cornelia came down with a wicked case of food poisoning yesterday and she spent the night in the hospital. He says he might have it too, which totally sucks.

Something I just remembered about Sunday night.... When I took Lisa home on my scooter we got behind this really nice black sedan. The backs of the front seats had TV screens in them and they were watching porn. It was hilarious. We tried to keep up with them but they turned right off of Division and headed into the ghetto. That's so damn funny.

August 30th, 2004 13:20 hours CST currently listening to: nothing.

I managed to eat pizza three god damned times this weekend. We took Ben out for his birthday on Friday night. Went to a sports bar and the pizza was excellent. However, the lactaid pills failed me, so I dropped everybody off at SmartBar and dashed home. Man, that sucks.

Got my hair cut on Saturday. It's really short. I needed it badly. This way, it should be a good length by the time I go to Japan. I ran some errands and did laundry. It was a rainy, gloomy day. Becky and I went to see AVP. There was a woman in there who was by herself and freaked out at every possible moment. It was really quite funny. We stopped by Jewel to get pizzas (ugh) and also Predator 2 at Blockbuster. I forgot what a heaping pile of crap that movie is. Any film where Danny Glover uses the phrase "pussy face" is demanding of an Oscar. Just kidding. I kept falling asleep while watching it. Made a quick phone call when I got home (Y) and then crashed.

Sunday was nice. Spent my morning with Yuka. Was gong to go to the gym, but opted to study Japanese instead. Band practice went well. Came back and studied some more and ate the pizza left over from Medici. Gaaahhh!!!! Got the Vespa out and went to BigWig. A bunch of people were selling stuff there. Ayca had her jewelry that she'd been making for weeks and it looked really cool. I think Yasemin and Tobias stole the show with their stuffed animals. oddbabies.com is the site. They don't have al of them varieties on the site yet, though.

I had a great morning already. ;) Thanks, honey.

Damnit. Weather.com is forecasting rain this weekend. So much for the scooter rally. :(

August 27th, 2004 12:20 hours CST currently listening to: "Swimming Through Us" by airiel.

Hmmmmmmm. Oh, first off: ^_^

Now, back to today. Heheheheh. Dave is out, so I'm being lazy at work. I brought two DVD's in with me. My borrowed copy of the imported version of Hero (which I'm going to go buy) and my new copy of Shaolin Soccer (which I feel dirty for watching.) Hero is absolutely incredible. Sure, the fight scenes are good, but it's the drama and the characters that I loved so much. Jet Lee is actually a rather minor character when you finally finish the film. Zhang Ziyi is wonderful as always. And just like in Blade II, Donnie Yen has a roll that is WAY too short. I have found some new actors to follow, so I'm rather excited about this.

Shaolin Soccer....... hmmmmmm. Yeah. Uhhhhh. I saw the trailer for this and immediately wanted to watch it, thinking that it would be a really cute and fun movie ......that also happens to have Vicki Zhao in it. This is very true. However, it's also UNBELIEVABLY CHEESY. Think Mighty Ducks but with adults and 8 billion rather bad CGI effects. And Vicki is hardly in the damn movie, which is a crime in itself. I'm letting my coworker borrow it under the concept that he has been fully warned about how cheesy this movie is. He was the one who lent me Hero. I'm not saying it's not fun. But whoooo boy, it's silly.

I want to see so many movies out right now. Ju-on: The Grudge, Suspect Zero and Warriors of Heaven and Earth (go Vicki Zhao!). I have a lot going on this weekend, so I doubt I will get to all of them. Ben's birthday is today and we're supposed to be going to dinner tonight. Tomorrow I get my haircut and have to do laundry. Then I think some people are going to get together to watch AVP. This will be my 2nd time and I got a free ticket since I bought the special edition DVD of Predator this week. I want to get to the gym, but we have practice early on Sunday so I don't know if that's gonna happen. We're going to practice with John playing along to a click track.

Class was pretty draining last night. I really need to sit down and study everything in the book from the beginning to where we are now. That's what my afternoon should consist of. ;p I was feeling stressed when I got home last night so I made a pretty good dent in a bottle of wine and cooked some dinner. I can't do and dishes because I'm out of dish soap. How's that for lame? Apparently I'm also going to the grocery this weekend.

August 26th, 2004 10:45 hours CST currently listening to: "The Trainer Shuffle" by Blue States.

I just tried to organize my Japanese worksheets going by the numbers at the bottom of each page. BAD IDEA. Sensei has been giving us these things randomly and now I have stuff in the wrong "chapters". Great. I should have organized them by each class we had, but it's too late now. I'll ask someone when I get to class if they have them in that order. All I know is that if there's a blank spot, I'll fill it in. My flash cards are taking over. I have so many.

I got a letter from the city of Chicago yesterday. It was in regards to the parking ticket I received because my city parking sticker was out of date. It was out of date because I had ordered a new one online and it never arrived in the mail. After getting a replacement and a signed affidavit from City Hall, I mailed that in the ticket envelop saying that I was contesting the ticket for this very reason. My jaw dropped when I read the letter yesterday stating that I was not responsible for the fine. The system actually works, people. Pretty cool.

In 4 weeks from this moment I will be experiencing my first night in Japan. ^_^

The tour bus driver for the Dave Matthews Band decided that it would be a swell idea to empty the bus's chemical toilet right into the Chicago river. Problem with that is, they emptied it as a boat tour full of people was passing underneath. Yeah, they got covered in a substance so foul that I hope I never get to experience. I'm suddenly reminded of "Christmas Vacation" where Randy Quaid's character is emptying the chemical toilet of their RV into the storm sewer. "Merry Christmas! Shitter was full!" I mean, I can find so many things wrong with this event. One, that's ridiculous to empty that into the river when you're parked downtown. Two, I LIVE in this city and therefore find the entire thing offensive. Three, it's Dave Matthews for fuck sake. If it were Ozzy Osbourne or some other band that actually rocks, then it would actually be funny. Dave Matthews doesn't need any more reasons to be made fun of. Four, if I were one of the people in the boat that got covered in this shit, I would sue the pants off of Dave Matthews, or the label, or whatever. Ok, I probably wouldn't sue. But I would get a mob of torch wielding people together to go and inflict some retribution. After I cleaned myself op that is. That stuff is flammable.

August 25th, 2004 09:30 hours CST currently listening to: "Ri" by airiel.

Lisa and I got to hang out last night, which was a lot of fun. I hadn't seen her in quite a while. We went to a new sushi place called Sushi Samba. This is a wicked case of style over substance. The restaurant is absolutely gorgeous, but the food was mediocre at best. The have an incredible menu and a wine and sake list as far as the eye can see, but that doesn't make up for the over priced food that leaves you thinking "I've had better for less money". So yeah, avoid Sushi Samba but go in just to see how cool it looks in there. We went to see "Garden State" which was very good. Zach Braff does a good job writing and directing while starring in his own film. Natalie Portman is WONDERFUL and it reminds you that she really is an incredible actress when her dialog is written by somebody other than George Lucas. Good soundtrack, too. We went to the Cold Stone Creamery afterwards. She got ice cream and I got sorbet. Oh, to be lactose tolerant again. Everything they have there looks amazing.

I spent too much money at Tower yesterday. I went there at lunch to get CDR's and I walked out with DVD's of Shaolin Soccer, Predator and the 4th Futurama collection. Good lord. Spending money like that is NOT what I should be doing right now. I also got to borrow the import version of Ying Xiong (Hero). I watched 10 minutes of it at my desk and I'm already loving it.

I had an absolutely horrible dream last night. The kind of dream where you wake up at 3:30 in the morning and thank your lucky stars that it was just a dream. You even go over it in your head and have to make sure that yes, it was all just a dream and it didn't really happen. I don't know if it was anxiety driven or what, but I'm glad it wasn't real. When I checked my email a few hours later before heading to work, I was reassured that everything is alright. ^_^.

In other news..... for the past two days, the right side of my jaw has been killing me. I don't know if I have TMJ or what, but this is seriously annoying.

August 24th, 2004 08:55 hours CST currently listening to: "Uppers" by The Assassins.

Ok, yesterday kind of sucked. I was ridiculously busy with work. Seemed like I couldn't sit down for more than 5 minutes without someone calling me needing help with their computer. Every so often I have to lament my own job. This was the busiest day I've had in months.

I met with Maria at Medici for our Monday study session. I had garlic sweats last night the likes of which I've never before experienced. Good thing I live alone. Stella can't complain. Anyone who's poop I have to scoop has no say in my gastro intestinal output. I was feeling kind of down last night so I watched Jackass: The Movie. That cheers me up in no time. That bit where they're disguised as old men and Johnny is mouthing the words to that rap song is priceless.

Ah, I went over to the studio and picked up the new Assassins EP. It's nice to finally have a copy of Uppers. I love this song. It's the first Assassins song I'd ever heard when I saw them at the Metro a few years ago and I was floored by it. As I said, yesterday was not a good computer day. Joe's MAC decided to take a dump just before I got there. I'm looking forward to getting back there to record. 2 weeks!

My family and I are trying to work out our holiday schedules. Looks like we'll be doing Thanksgiving in North Carolina with my sister and her husband the week BEFORE Thanksgiving weekend, so I'll actually have that long weekend free. What to do? What to do?

August 23rd, 2004 09:45 hours CST currently listening to: "Idol Talk" by Sharon Apple.

There's something about listening to this song that makes me want to work on computers.

Weekend was cool. The show on Friday went pretty well. You can read about at the bottom of this page. I think this may be our last Bottom Lounge show for a while. I'm a little irked that we keep having to find all the bands each time we play there. Plus, playing in second show of the night sucks because we had our set times cut despite the fact that the doors opened on time and the first band started precisely on time. Beyond that, it was a good show.

I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned on Saturday. Still didn't get my desk or my bathtub done, though. People came over for MarioKart right about the time that I was craving a nap. It was fun. I got to play a lot more this time. We had some good slogans throughout the evening like "God damn you, stupid big ass banana man!" and "There's 3rd place, then 2nd place and then Jeremy." hahahahh. That's awesome. Everyone else went out to a party afterwards but I stayed in and watched a movie with Stella.

I don't know why I didn't make it to the gym on Sunday. Well, actually I do know. ;) I haven't been to the gym in 2 weeks and I feel like a big fatass right now. Eating too much at dinner and then drinking beer at BigWig last night didn't help either. Had a good scooter ride. Becky and I talked about movies. People were in good spirits at BigWig. Props to Marnie for remembering that "nuke" was the name of the drug they used in Robocop 2.

I can already tell that this is going to be a busy week. Study session, movie, getting John to play along to a click track, Japanese class, haircut (finally). I think Nakamura sensei is going to give us our Japanese names this week.

August 20th, 2004 13:30 hours CST currently listening to: "Lucky Man" by The Verve.

I now possess 30,000 Yen. Kickass.

August 20th, 2004 08:30 hours CST currently listening to: "Ugli" by The Flir.

Went out to Dark Room last night. It wasn't really all that fun. I just went to hand out flyers. Hope and Kerry were there. I think they really bonded over that whole mud wrestling experience. You can't separate those two now. I gave John a ride home on my Vespa. I forgot how heavy people are and how much you have to concentrate when driving while you have a passenger.

Let's seeeeeeee. Class went well last night. We're moving on to money instead of focusing on telling time. It's a pretty simple deal, really. It's just like money in English. I ran into Tomoko before class. She still wants to meet up so I can get a few pointers on Japanese. Rock on.

I'm in a good mood.

August 18th, 2004 09:50 hours CST currently listening to: "Cool Like That" by Digable Planets.

So far, I have over 200 flashcards for Japanese. Good grief. I'm sort of dreading going to class on Thursday. Only because we didn't have class last week and I'm afraid it's going to be another 2 hours of trying to tell time.

I have given up trying to finish Fatal Frame on Nightmare mode. I'm at the very last save point and I can't land a single hit on Kirie. 2 touches from her and I'm dead. It's completely ridiculous. Somebody just email me and tell me how the ending for Nightmare is different than Normal. I started playing Metroid Prime again. that game rules. And unlike Fatal Frame, Metroid Prime doesn't fuck me in the ass. Enough said.

I know you're all going to see airiel play at the Bottom Lounge this Friday. And the next night, you can see even more of me when you come over for.......

Mariocartathalon 4: BRAINS!

The last installment in our performance piece dealing w/ the interactions of social groups competing via networked hardware in an artificial environment consisting of time trials and cartoon violence.

6pm this Saturday. same location.

please bring booze and pizza money.

I seriously need to clean my apartment. My kitchen is starting look like the kitchen in the old guy's apartment that lives on the first floor. Yeah, it's that bad. I have so much recycling to take out, it's not even funny. I also need to get groceries. The last time I was at my parents, I went to a local grocery and bought 3 6-packs of cokes in the little glass bottles. That's all kinds of awesome. Coke tastes so much better out of glass than plastic or aluminum.

August 16th, 2004 14:45 hours CST currently listening to: "Ask Me" by The Smiths.

As soon as I think I'm out, they pull me back in. I had to sit through another 90 minutes of phone training, but this was for the actual phones and not the switch. The woman giving the training has all the personality of a 3rd grade substitute teacher. I was waiting for her to break out carrot sticks and apple slices. It was ridiculous.

Ok, crazy weekend. Went to see Alien Vs. Predator right after work. John said it best: "best buddy-cop movie EVER". Go see it to figure out what I'm talking about. I actually liked the movie a lot. Yeah, I wanted to see more of it, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I was anticipating. It was pretty cool to see Aliens and Predators going toe to toe. And the queen looked really damn cool. The bullet time effect with the face huggers was utterly ridiculous, but I think it was meant to be more tongue-in-cheek than anything else.

Went to the office summer party at Iggy's right after the movie. I like that place, but it's VERY Wicker Park now. It had a bit more charm when it was down on Milwaukee. Not a lot of food, either. I had a bunch of whiskey drinks and Hugh bought us 2 rounds of shots. Good man. I then took Hugh to this party west of The Loop where there was female mud wrestling. It was this huge empty loft filled with mostly punk kids. Armpit central. There was a punk band that played music during the matches. Hope squared off against Kerry and Kerry won all three rounds. I was surprised by that one. They had a good time and so did every guy watching, as all the girls wrestling were eventually topless by the end of the 2nd or 3rd round. Hahahaha. Craziness. I still have mud on my shoes. Gross.

Griff, Linsey and I went with Hugh to the bar in his hotel but it was closed, so we found another place down the street. Kerry called Linsey in a panic because Kerry's clothes were in Linsey's trunk. So we raced back tot he party and found 5 cop cars outside. They busted this one pretty good, I guess. Kerry and Hope had been hosed off in the parking lot. Hahaha. That was the end of the night, really. I drove home and passed out.

Didn't do much of anything on Saturday besides play Fatal Frame. I finished it and I have to say that I wasn't moved by the story all that much. The story was good, but it's much more powerful when the voice acting is better. The voice acting of the main character is OK, but the rest of the cast pretty much sucks. I'm now playing it on the "nightmare" setting and it's a LOT harder when you get hit by ghosts. If you don't have a stone mirror, you're more or less screwed. If you can get to the menu screen, you can sometimes heal yourself in time. I'm at the end right now and 2 hits from Kirie kills you. It sucks.

Sunday was nice. I drove my scooter on a couple errands. The weather was perfect. I went to Mitsuwa and picked up my Rail Pass Exchange form. Then I walked around and had dinner. I'm reading "The Reluctant Metrosexual" by Peter Hyman and it's hilarious. Practice was really good last night. We have a great set list for Friday's show and we're playing TWO new songs. Mischa and I drove our scooters down to BigWig. I handed out lots of flyers. I managed to knock Linsey's drink out of her hand by accident. I wasn't drunk, I was just telling an animated story, as I tend to do. I think that pretty much wraps everything up. I'm really busy today and I still have to put the finishing touches on Yuka's birthday present.

My handwriting sucks and my note to Yuka doesn't look anything like I wanted it to. :(

August 13th, 2004 16:40 hours CST currently listening to: "When The World Is Running Down, You Make The Best Of What's Still Around" by The Police.

I'm free!!!! No more phone switch training! I'm so happy, I could die.

Tonight is going to be busy. John and I are going to see AVP at 5:30. Then I have to get to the office's summer party to get some free food and drinks. Then I'm either going to Lava Lounge or to this party in the west loop to see my dear friend Hope MUD WRESTLE for the very first time. I have not the words.

I am not going to do anything on Saturday. I'm going to sleep in. Be hung over. Play Fatal Frame and pet my cat. The weather is going to be great, so I'll probably get on my scooter at some point. Not sure what's going on Sunday. I get to pick up my rail pass exchange form from Mitsuwa on my way to practice. That's about it.

I had an amazing night last night. Instead of having class, Sensei took us all out to dinner at Itto Sushi, over on Halsted. There were two other classes there. One of them to learn Japanese and one to learn English. It was great! I spoke at length with the Tomoko, the English teacher, who arrived with 5 Japanese women, all of whom were so fun to talk to. I had THREE large bottle of Sapporo and the more I had, the more Japanese I tried to speak. It was so much fun. I want to be in JAPAN right this very second. Tomoko and I exchanged emails so that she can give me some pointers before my trip. I invited her and her husband out for drinks.

I started playing Fatal Frame when I got back and I already love it. The 2nd game has some already obvious improvements in the game play and fighting tactics. I played it for at least an hour. I didn't sleep well at all. Not because of the game, but for reasons I can't think of. I woke up on my back and Stella was asleep on my stomach. I think she was cold, because I had the windows open for this wonderful Fall weather we're having right now. I finally got out of bed around 3 AM and played Fatal Frame for another 45 minutes. This ghost came out of the ceiling and scared me to death. It was great. I went back to bed for another hour and then hit the snooze button about 6 times. Grrrr. I can't wait to sleep in tomorrow. Ok, off to Alien Vs. Predator!

August 12th, 2004 12:42 hours CST currently listening to: nothing.

I'm soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo sleepy today. I was out late last night at SmartBar and that was the first time I'd been out in a while. Kerry introduced me to the ASCAP rep for Chicago, which was very cool. We talked about band stuff for quite a while. Took some fun pics in the photo booth. Danced a little. Drank too much, as usual. Why does this night have to be on a Wednesday? Grrrrrrr.

I just had lunch with DJ. That guy always makes me laugh. It's not even 60 degrees outside and it's August. This is too cool for words. Pun intended. :P

August 11th, 2004 07:55 hours CST currently listening to: "The Break" by Absinthe Blind.

Ohayo Gozaimasu! I slept like a rock last night. The temperature was really low, so I opened all the windows in my apartment. Stella loved it. She darted back and forth from the window sills. I should have several packages arriving at work in the next few days. Some of them are for me. Some of them are for someone else. ;) I love getting things in the mail.

Cara and I went up to Arlington Heights right after I left work and went to that Asian mall, who's name is escaping me right now. I ordered the exchange form for my Japanese rail pass. I can pick it up there before I go to practice on Sunday. That's convenient. We got some food. I had a big bowl of miso with noodles and pork. I want so badly to be able to just speak the language fluently. It will take time, I know. I looked for some Japanese whiskey, but their liquor store didn't have any. Alas.

There's another MarioKart event happening at my and Mischa's place on Saturday. Mischa hasn't come up with a clever title yet. I wasn't the destructive force that I usually am, simply because I was too busy being a host. Not this time! This time I will kick everyone's asses. ;) Too bad I can't use my super secret weapon. My "hot asian assassin" gun has been disabled. Hahahahaha.

August 10th, 2004 08:15 hours CST currently listening to: "Going Blank Again" by RIDE.

Coolest lightning ever. There were these incredibly tall clouds (I forget the term for this type) that were just past the city skyline. The lightning inside these clouds was nearly constant. I had only seen lightning like this on the Discovery Channel or in movies. Never in real life had I seen anything this cool in regards to electrical activity. It lasted over an hour and gradually went out across the lake.

Fun conversations last night. I didn't get enough studying done. My Rickenbacker 330 sold on eBay for just over $700, which is a lot more than I had anticipated. I only wanted $450, so this was a nice surprise. I drove around after work shopping for birthday items, but I forgot to go by a Mailboxes Etc store to get a box to ship this damn thing. Not sure what I'm going to do. I have a few hours between work and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" tonight in Grant Park, so hopefully I can get it taken care of then. I'm in training ALL DAY LONG this entire week for the new phone switch we're installing at work. It's hellishly boring, so send me emails to my work account. I can still check that with my laptop in that room. I want to have free time at work again so I can chat and practice my hiragana.

August 9th, 2004 16:35 hours CST currently listening to: "These Times" by Swervedriver.

Class on Thursday was rather hellish. I wish we weren't doing numbers yet. Now that we're doing things like days of the week and days of the month, we've doubled our vocabulary. I was a little late to class because I had to rush over to the car shop and pick up my car. It's so nice to have a working rear view mirror on the drivers side again. They did a good job and were really quick. I highly recommend Pilsen Auto Glass to anyone who has a glass problem with their car. Anyway. I was so brain dead after class that I decided not to go out.

I went to Bloomington this weekend. I met up with my old friend Jen and we had a couple drinks. The Video Saloon is too damn smokey. Bleh. I was actually pretty busy on Saturday. I had anticipated being bored and I thought I would get a lot of studying done, but I actually ran errands all over town. Mom and I went to Borders together and I bought a few books on Tokyo and Japan and also a few books to read on the plane.

Mom cooked a fantastic dinner. I took my parents to see The Village. The loved the movie. Dad had a much different opinion of the ending that I hadn't thought about before. The entire row behind us was filled by over a dozen girls that would NOT shut up. They whispered, they laughed and they just wouldn't stop. Multiple people were telling them to be quiet, including me. It was ridiculous.

Not much else to report, really. I got home and took a nap. I don't sleep very well when I'm at my parents house. I don't know what it is, but it usually takes me a few days to get used to the bed. It's still always odd to see my room transformed into a spare room for guests, such as myself. I used to have x-mas lights hanging everywhere and posters all over the place. Now it's a simple beige paint job and a desk and a bed. Not that I mind, really.

I'm in training all day today and the rest of the week for this new phone switch we just installed at work. It's terribly hard to stay awake. And I just had a big lunch, so I've got food coma kicking in any minute now. :/

August 4th, 2004 09:30 hours CST currently listening to: "Mad As Snow" by Kitchens of Distinction.

Ahhhhhhhh it's so nice to have something to daydream about. Something that always puts a smile on your face. Something that gives you hope and makes you forget about the bad stuff. I told a story this morning describing what it's like to scuba dive and it made me really miss it. I haven't gone to Bonaire with my family in years. I feel like I need to go next time. Since Dad's heart is now not the most reliable thing now, I'm feeling a bit fatalistic and I think I need to go.

I had to work late last night on a laptop that I didn't even manage to finish. The reason why it took so bloody long was because my netgear hub died and I found another one but it's only 10 meg/sec and not 100 meg/sec. It makes a huge difference when you're running a 6 gig image over a ghost cast server. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I was pretty much killing time and watching weird crap on the net. I didn't get to go to the gym, so I did sit-ups and pushups at my desk.

We (airiel) pretty much have a green light to play South by South West next year. Wow, that's going to be cool. I've never been to Texas before and if George Bush is any sort of indicator, this is the only reason why I would ever want to go.

August 2nd, 2004 10:00 hours CST currently listening to: "Laura" by Lush.

Friday I went to see "The Village" with John and Bobby from work. This movie was absolutely wonderful. Go see it as quickly as you can and make sure you don't read anything about it or listen to anyone talk about it. You don't want to spoil the ending. It's really, really good. Afterwards, I met up with Maria to give her the homework from class. She missed the class due to being caught in a meeting at her work. We went to Penny's Noodles and I had the spicy basil noodles with chicken and my lips were on fire. I think I drank about 9 glasses of water while eating this.

Thanks to the spiciness of dinner the night before, I decided not to go to the gym as my stomach was pretty gross. I drove over to Pilsen Auto Glass to have them order the driver's side rear view mirror for my poor car. I got groceries and then came back and sat down with Fatal Frame 2 for a while. Since the visuals of that game are really dark, it's hard to play it during the late afternoon, as the sun comes through my living room windows. I was getting close to the end so I did some laundry and took a break. Once it was dark enough, I finally finished it. I was playing it in Hard Mode so that I could see the different ending. While it was exciting to have that final confrontation with Sae and then see the new ending, I have to say that I prefer the original ending over the new one. Yes, the original is incredibly sad, but that is what makes it so powerful. Plus, the original ending is longer, and the cut scenes in this game are really damn good.

I took my scooter down to Wicker Park and saw Zelienople play at Subterranean. I hadn't been there before and I really like the layout of that club. Ben and Derek showed up and they had a bunch of people with them. I think I was only introduced to about 2 of them. We're still looking for a band to fill the headliner spot for our show with Zelienople on the 20th. That is starting to become a headache.

I went over to Ben's place around 10:30 to help him move. It was a really hot day and we were soaked with sweat within 30 minutes of moving. Luckily it wasn't raining and we only had to carry thing DOWNstairs and not up any. We though we lost Butch for a while, but I found him hiding behind the radiator in Ben's bedroom. Pauly was being extremely social until we moved both cats to the new apartment. Pauly systematically walked from room to room hissing at absolutely everything. He's a big baby. ;).

I got back to my place around 5:30, which was much later than I had anticipated. Ben gave me a really cool sparking red scooter helmet. Naturally it doesn't fit me, but should I ever have another passenger on my scooter, they have several helmets to choose from. I stood in the shower for a long time. I got a lot of sun. I fell asleep on the couch as soon as I laid down. Stella was on my lap the whole time. I love that. I went over to the studio to talk with David about the upcoming airiel release. I hate money. It's the main cause for all problems in the world. Well, money and religion, but that's not an issue right now. It looks like we're going to do a 3 song demo in the beginning of September. Depending n how we do it, I may have to miss the big scooter rally. :( We simply won't have any other time to do any recording until November after that. The end of September isn't an option since David will be moving all of his gear to his new place downtown and I'll be in Japan for almost a week. October is bad as we'll be having to save all of our pennies (especially mine) so that we can do a small tour around the Northeast coast. That's going to be about a week as well. We still don't have t-shirts made. I don't know how we're going to do all of this. My family are all going to get home made x-mas gifts as I won't be able to afford anything else. I sound rather down about all of this but in fact I'm really excited. I always look forward to recording and I'm excited to hear the remixes that people are working on. I just hate feeling constrained because of something like money. I can't wait for the day where I can quit my job and just be a musician.