December 28th, 2001 14:24 hours CST currently listening to: "You Suck" by Consolidated

"Now you SUCK. Suck it hard. Go DOOOOOWN baby. YOU SUCK. Lick it hard. And move your tongue around."

This is like, the coolest song I've ever heard.

December 26th, 2001 10:24 hours CST currently listening to: "Cities In Dust" by Souixsie and The Banshees

"I'm a little disturbed that the cookies came from T.J. Max" -David Wrenn

I'm freezing my tuckus of right now. For once, the heat isn't blasting in our office. My walk to and from the train this morning was unbearable. I need to wear a hat. I'm such an idiot. I keep taking 10 minute breaks to sit on the heater under our window. I need some butt warmth, damnit!!

Christmas has come and gone. It was a good holiday. Both of the boys came up from Atlanta, and Jenny brought Jeremy, her new boyfriend with her. I met him over Thanksgiving and got a much better impression of him this time around. He's a really good guy. I hope things go well.

I made off with mad loot this year. I've been playing with my new iPaq H3765 PDA all morning. It's what I've been fiddling with while attempting to defrost my ass. It was really fun this year. The boys brought both of their dogs with them. Spencer, Rusty's Springer-spaniel is now staying with my Uncle John and Aunt Lara. They have a Springer as well that is Spencer's liter-mate. Which means that they're brothers. Jack, John and Lara's Springer, has been really melancholy for a few years since Bo died. Bo was another Springer that was Jacks best friend. They got along really well, so David and Rusty didn't feel so bad leaving him there. They still have Nelson, David's chocolate Lab, who is the biggest sweetie-pie you've ever seen. And that's saying a lot coming from me. I am not a dog person at all.

I got into Bloomington around 10:30 or so Friday night. I actually beat the boys there. Saturday was a shopping frenzy, as they usually are when you have no time to deal with the city people during your work week. I brought my PS2 down, as I usually do. David and Rusty came back with Gran Turismo 3 and The Simpson's: Road Rage. It's easy to tell which one of them picked which game. They said that they were just going to give me these, if they didn't like them enough to go get a PS2 for themselves. Well, they're mine now! Woo-hoo!! Road Rage is almost point for point Cray Taxi ported over for the Simpson's. Which means it's actually fun to play for a wile due to the Simpson's license being really damn funny. It would make a wonderful game to play while drunk off your ass. Which we were a couple of times this weekend.

Jenny and Jeremy got in around 8 on Saturday night. Mom made some kick ass Lasagna. We pretty much sat around playing Road Rage all night long. Sunday was more relaxed. More Road Rage. David finally got around to playing Gran Turismo 3 and his eyes lit up. David is a race instructor for BMW and he actually knows a few of these tracks. What's more, he even knew some of the drivers and cool facts about the teams that they have in the game. Sunday night we went to Meadow Wood which is where my our grandparents live now. It's a retirement community (old folks home) that is pretty amazing. Amazing except for this dinner we had to endure. It was buffet style, with omelets, chicken tortellini, crepes, and a Greek cold plate. Huh??? The food was terrible. Everything was cooked to the point where it was edible, but still cold. It was just bad all around. We rushed home to fill up on Christmas cookies and beer. Much more nutritious in our view. We did the traditional "open one gift the night before" routine and I opened up Metal Gear Solid 2, of which I'm freaking out over. I can't wait to get home tonight to rip into that. Oh yeah, because Jeremy, Jenny and I had to be at work today, we opened up our presents on Christmas Eve morning, so that we could all relax for a day before having to drive home.

I must have made 10 pounds of french toast Monday morning. Everybody pigged out. Today is the day that I go back on my diet and start getting back to the gym. Keep your fingers crossed. And no, I'm not going to the gym tonight. Are you insane? It's like 2 degrees outside. To hell with that. We watched my X-Men DVD on Mom's new DVD player and everybody lounged around in their pj's with a fire going in the fireplace. Man I miss those.

I'm not going to update the mp3 this week. I've got two fantastic CD's full of slowdive outtakes from the last two albums and I nee to convert them to mp3. So be patient.

December 21st, 2001 15:45 hours CST currently listening to: Grrl.com radio

I know I'm not supposed to be doing any streaming at work, but I've fallen in love with Bonnie's radio show on Grrl.com. Go Bonnie, go. Oh yeah, my webcam is up on Makeout Club.

December 19th, 2001 09:50 hours CST currently listening to: some new Prone mp3's

It's finally snowing!!!!! The ground is still too warm for it to stick, and it's kind of half snowing, half raining, but it looks wonderful. It's about time.

December 17th, 2001 21:30 hours CST currently listening to: some new Slowdive b-sides

I had a lovely time in Atlanta this weekend. Friday got off to a shaky start because I was really busy the whole day and I was also declared Kitchen Monitor for our office that week. I swear, it was like living with those boys in college. The refrigerators were so disgusting, I was on my hands and knees with the Softscrub. Ick. I got into Atlanta around 9:30 or so, and Kristen was all bouncy when she found me. It was great. We stopped at IHOP for some chocolate chip nutrients and then high-tailed it back home.

Saturday we went down to little 5 Points, which is kind of like the Atlanta equivalent of Wicker Park. It's a once punk-laden area that's being overrun by yuppie people. It still has some really great shops though. We ate lunch at a South American restaurant and I had some butt kickin Enchiladas. I ended up buying some Nightmare Before Christmas stuff at the Junkman's Daughter. I shouldn't be buying things for myself right now. The Holidays play tricks on you that way.

On our way back we stopped at Dave and Rusty's brand new house. It's really beautiful. A three story house that has a lot of red brick all around. It's quite impressive. They're not used to having any storage space, after living in their old place for so many years now. I took a whole bunch of pictures. I'll have some up later. I mostly did it as a recon mission for my parents. The boys haven't given any requests for Christmas present ideas, so we needed a good look at the house interior so we could come up with some ideas. They both looked great, although a bit tired. We stopped at a mall so I could do some actual Christmas shopping for my sister.

Later that night Kristen and I went to a cocktail party that Parks was putting on. Pearson showed up for a bit, and it was great to see him too. He and I need to get together to make music. His stuff sounds like what Bowery Electric should sound like. It's wonderful stuff. Miss Jen gave everybody this amazing double CDR of ultra rare Slowdive outtakes from Souvlaki and Pygmalion. I've only listened to the former, but so far I love it. So Jenn, if you're reading this, YES, the CD plays just fine. After the party Kristen and I buggered out and went to a club called Masquerade. It's like Neo cubed. Great place. Lovely industrial goth kids everywhere. She told me that during the summer they put on these shows where the lower dance floor is filled with soap suds and they hose you down when you leave. That sounds like way too much fun. I must attend one of those.

Sunday we repeated our ritual. Krispie Kreme donuts and video games after getting up really late. Then a nap, followed by a long hot bath. Then we went to Kobe for another fantastic meal. There was this older couple there with their grandson who insisted that everyone be a part of Benjamin's birthday party. I thought that was rather cute, but they were kind of loud and snobbish. The grandmother kept looking at the two of us and giving us weird looks. Maybe it was my black nail polish and raver bracelets that she was confused with. Oh well. We cuddled on a couch at the airport for a couple of hours before I had to fly home. My flight home was fine, but I missed the last train due to the baggage claim being jammed. After cussing out the sidewalk at a low volume I paid $40 for a cab ride home. That's a learning experience. The Orange Line stops running at 11:45 on Sunday nights. Grrrrrrrr.

On a side note, I have to say that I'm rather fascinated and impressed with Nair. I never thought that stuff would actually work, but it really does. A very interesting sensation, to say the least. I thought I would end up looking a little strange, but I don't really. And wow, it makes a lot of things feel soooo much better.

December 14th, 2001 08:45 hours CST currently listening to: a bunch of Slowdive b-sides

People, please. I know a lot of people like to use short cuts when chatting, but this is getting ridiculous.

"Your" does not equal "you're". These are two different words. "You're" is short for "you are".
Don't type something like "your so dumb". You end up looking like a fucking idiot when you do that.

"Than" does not equal "then". Saying "Than I ran down the block to hang out with some skater kids" doesn't make a bit of sense.
And stop typing "Rite" instead of "Right". Again, these are two different words. They are mutually exclusive, you're not saving much time on this one anyway. "Right" has only one extra letter. Deal with it.

I don't mean to sound like a snob, because let's face it, I have to rely on a spellchecker whenever I type any emails, because I can't spell for shit, and I have to proof read my documents about 100 times, because I look at the keyboard when I type. Even then, I miss things. However, I'm smart enough to realize when someone doesn't have a grasp on the English language.

December 12th, 2001 11:45 hours CST currently listening to Enigma's first album

This Saturday I finally setup my gear and recorded a few tracks. I'm very much in a rut right now and I'm blaming myself for not having my shit together at this point. I feel guilty playing in the evenings because I don't want to upset the other people in my building, so I usually only do guitar tracks during the weekends. I just got a reissued Fender VI from my old pal Ben. The songs that I do have down on disc (I record to a zip disc now) sound much better with a real bass on them, as opposed to the lowered E string fake octave method I was applying before. So, that gives me hope. The other big thing is that my drum machine is full. The BOSS DR-660 I pretty much don't use anymore, but I want to keep it in case I do actually play out with airiel again. The Alesis SR-16 is the main one that I use, and although it has song data available, I'm out of pattern slots. I bought this old weird Alesis rackmount device called a Data Disk SQ, off a guy on E-bay for me to back up my drum files to a floppy disk. I've done that, but I have yet to stomach deleting actual files on the drum machine and reloading them. I need to look up a few things about that drum machine. For instance, when I record a song file, does it still need the pattern files afterwards? Or are they stored as one separate file then? If that's the case, then I could delete all these things and start some new stuff. Writing new music to just one looped pattern is alright, but if the song is going to progress I need the ability to write more viable drum parts. Otherwise I'm just recording demos here, and if I'm doing that, then I'm just spinning my wheels until I either get a new drum machine, or find a real drummer and get some studio time. I'm also not in the same mode of thinking where I can just plug in, turn on an amp, and let the stuff just come out of me. Nowadays I have to sit with a piece of paper while I'm fidgeting and write things down. I want to live in a place where I can have all of my stuff setup all the time. I suppose I COULD do that, but I'd need to find a new closet. Or just organize the closets I have a bit better. I was thinking of rearranging my living room anyway, so this might be the excuse I need. The 2 songs I wrote this weekend I like a lot. One is a just a little thing that Ben and I wrote years and years ago together. Well, actually, I wrote the main parts, and he came up with a drum loop and a guitar line. It's a very Cocteau Twins sounding song, but I know I'd been listening to Diz Juz when I wrote it.

I've just been chatting with Ben for the last several minutes. We've come up with a few different ideas to solve my drum problem. I think I'm just gonna buy a used SR-16 off of ebay. They're going for under $100 anyway. We spoke of playing all of the drum songs I have onto my windows machine at home and burning them to CD. Or recording them to DAT. I think that latter would be more reliable, since DAT's don't skip, but that could get expensive after a while. Screw it. I'm just gonna buy another drum machine off ebay. After that I can experiment with all the storage possibilities I want.

December 10th, 2001 12:30 hours CST

So, this morning Dave (my boss) walks into our office and starts telling me about his girlfriend, Cornelia. I think this girl is rad. She's got this laid back style of sarcasm that I can only dream of having. She does it in a way that doesn't really even offend you. It's well calculated. Anyway, he was telling me about how she didn't get him anything for Christmas last year, but that it was excusable due to the fact that she was a graduate student and therefore barely had enough money to buy underwear, let alone a classy gift for her boyfriend. Now she has a real job, so they've been having these conversations all lying around gift giving this lovely consumer holiday season that I do enjoy so much. And this got me thinking back to my most memorable gift given to me by a girlfriend......

BISQUICK!!!!!! I fucking got fucking BISQUICK for christmas!!!!! Who the fuck gives their boyfriend god damned bisquick?!?!? For Christmas!!!! Jenny. That's who. She and I dated a few years ago, and I swear to god, she has never given a decent, quality, or well thought out present to anyone she knows. You know that old expression, that when you give a gift to somebody, it reflects on what they themselves want given to them??? What does this tell you. "Make me some pancakes, bitch" That's what it tells me. Did she really think that I was so enthralled with making pancakes that I regarded bisquick as some sacred item that I couldn't purchase on my own, in fear that the world might run out, or that the pancakes would be somehow tainted?!?!

Now I know what some of you are thinking. "Jeremy, it's not the gift, but the thought behind the gift, the sentiment, that counts" Yeah? BULLSHIT! Give me something I actually fucking want, and that I can't just write down on a list of items that I was going to buy that day anyway. I'll admit it. I'm a materialistic person. I love my stereo. I love my computers. I love my video and dvd collection. Hell, I love my couch that someone even menstruated on. (And speaking of that, the couch is very clean, so don't feel afraid to come over thinking that I live in filth or have low standards in cleanliness. Unlike the pretentious soul who caused that stain.) So, if anyone still loves me or want to be my friend, tell me what you want this holiday season and I'll see what I can do. And for those interested in some of the material goodies I'm wishing for? Check them out right here.

And for the most part, this rant was inspired by X-Entertainment.com, which I just adore. So go check them out, and tell Matt "hello" from me. He doesn't know me, but fuck him. Tell him anyway. Oh, and I was also watching George Carlin stuff all weekend.

Actually, now that I think of it, Jenny did give me some really great glasses to me when I moved to Chicago. But that doesn't cover up for the fucking bisquick.

December 9th, 2001 17:40 hours CST

I have FINALLY gotten windows XP on both of my machines. It's embarrassing as hell when you're an IT guy and you can't get your rig at home to work. I simply could not get this damn XP disc to run from a cold boot. Even though Microsoft said that they were getting rid of the DOS dependency setups with 2000, they still had set up discs specifically for poor saps like me who don't own bootable CD-ROMs, as it turns out. Good thing though. Now if I could just get my network here back to normal, I'd be an extra happy boy.

December 5th, 2001 11:35 hours CST

I had a hilarious time with Jeff and Kim last night. I went over there to put together Kim's aging computer. It's an old Gateway hunk of crap, that seems to work for her. They bought me pizza and we watched Jeff's Sleepy Hollow DVD. It's nice to know that he turns up his stereo as loudly as I do when I watch movies. They also let me do some free laundry over there as well. Payment for services rendered.

I super pissed because I can't afford to go seem Kristen next weekend. The tickets are already too expensive and I just can't afford it in the middle of December. Perhaps if I'd gotten my shopping done earlier, who knows.

Ok. let's see. I need to write something funny. Um.....uh...... I haven't done dishes since Sunday morning. Things are getting a little weird in my house. I think it's time to invest in some incense.

December 4th, 2001 0648 hours CST

Had a wonderful weekend this weekend with Kristen. My apartment feels weird and kind of empty without her here now. She came in to Chicago Friday afternoon around 4:15. I managed to get her onto the L over the phone and get her to the Adams and Wabash stop, which is right next to my office downtown. I brought her upstairs to meet Dave and some of the other folks in my office. Then we split to get back home. We walked down to Lula Cafe for dinner and she got the turkey sandwich that I go so nuts over. We also split a cup of this fantastic sweet potato ginger soup. It was really really good.

Saturday we went to breakfast at Wishbone and stuffed ourselves on banana pancakes. We drove around to some different shops, mostly in the Lakeview area. I got this kickass belt that's white, red, and black striped, and has silver stars on it. Kristen didn't seem to keen on it for some reason, but it grew on her. She got this really cool light purple wig from Medusa's. We met up with Jeff, Kim, Matt and Jennifer around 6:00 for dinner at Club Lucky. I hadn't been there since my parents and the boys visited several months ago. Afterwards, we joined Jeff and Kim to see Ameliee, which was FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!! It's such a great movie. Junet is such an amazing director. If he could only get Alien Resurrection off of it, he'd have a perfect track listing. After that, the four of us went to the Rainbow Room for a couple of drinks. We had intended on going to the California Clipper, but there was actually a line outside. They were filled to capacity. Who knew that place would get so popular?

Kristen and I went to Neo that night. She looked awesome in her new wig, and I finally got to wear these new pinstriped pants that I bough in Atlanta with her. Megin and Julie were there, and I danced with Julie for a song or two. Megin stepped in as well. I managed to get Kristen out there for a great Siouxie and the Banshees song, that I can never remember the name of. We had such a good time.

Sunday morning I made a ton of french toast and then we went to IKEA. Kristen shops from the catalog all the time, but has never been to the store. And for those of you who are IKEA fans and have been to the store, you can imagine Kristen's reaction to seeing the place. It was so cute! She was like a giddy little schoolgirl. Her eyes were the size of saucers the entire time. She now feels compelled to mover here more than ever. I managed to only spend $30, which surprised the hell out of me. I got the coolest placemats I've ever seen. I also got a really cool mobile, that I'm taking to work with me today. We stopped by the Cheesecake Factory for cocktails and an appetizer. She knew a couple of the people there, and we got to take a tour of the kitchens and stuff. That place is fucking expensive! And you know why? All the furniture and shit you see in there is REAL. The marble table tops, copper sconces, everything. There's one woman hired by the company who HAND PAINTS the interior of the entire store. Yikes.

We came home and I prepared dinner while Kristen patched up the giant hole I had in the sleeve of my jacket. I made the brownies from hell, and we plopped down to watch Drop Dead Gorgeous. It was a great weekend. We had to get up around 4:45 to get her to the airport. That sucked in lots of ways. My stomach stopped hurting around 1:30 or so, I think.