December 27th, 2005 14:06 hours CST
Currently listening to: "Rainbow Rain" by SUPERCAR
Feeling: missing

Often times, there's nothing better than lying on the couch with you watching a great movie. ^_^ Miss you, sweetheart.

December 19th, 2005 09:44 hours CST
Currently listening to: "Star Fall" by SUPERCAR
Feeling: like a fucking popsicle.

It's a steady 73 degrees in the server room. At my desk, I'd guess it's about 60. What the fuck, people. I think they turned off the heat in the building all weekend.

Not much happened last week. Looks like I have to get a new cable modem. I was experiencing about 85% packet loss. Shit. Then, it was working for a few hours and my router was acting weird, so I decided to update the firmware. Weeeelllll, I loaded the wrong one and now my router is fucked. Tonight I shall be buying a new modem AND router before I got to SpinCycle because Alan Gold still hasn't had the dryer repaired in the basement of my building.

I did a lot of cleaning this weekend. Besides playing Burnout Revenge, I didn't do much else. It was too cold to go out. I managed to get my old mattress out of my room and onto the back porch. Wasn't going to try to get it outside by myself, however. I got some more wrapping done. Just have a few items left to buy and then I'm done. Word.

Yuka gets in on Wednesday around 2:30. We're gonna hit Mitsuwa in preparation for the big family dinner we're going to cook this weekend. We still haven't decided on the menu yet. Gotta work on that.

December 12th, 2005 16:20 hours CST
Currently listening to: "Richest Man In Babylon" by Thievery Corporation
Feeling: nostalgic

I'm 28 years old right now and as far as I can remember, I have peeked at my x-mas presents every year. I knew where all of the hiding places were and I wasn't beyond peeling back some scotch tape or looking at presents with a very bright flash light if the paper was really thin. I'm not ashamed about this. I know the consequences of my actions. It's exciting. I think it's more exciting than unwrapping the presents you haven't already exposed on x-mas morning. Moving on to modern times, there's something bitter-sweet about the amazon.com wish list. When we are young, it's all just toys. Then later it was toys and games. But you could come up with a list and people would stick to it. Later on, it got a little hazy because your tastes were changing and evolving and people could risk getting things you might like that weren't on your list. Amazon certainly makes things easier. The issue is that you can check out your list from the "purchased" viewpoint. Yeah, you kinda get that rush like when you're being a ninja under the x-mas tree, but it has a more modern sting. It almost seems more fitting if they couldn't show you that. You had to guess which items disappeared from your list. Not much surprise when you have only 1 page of items, but mine is now 10 pages strong.

So this is the challenge I'm presenting to all of you: buy me something from my amazon wish list and I promise I won't look a the "purchased" page and I will be totally surprised when it shows up. Go on. I dare you.

December 8th, 2005 10:50 hours CST
Currently listening to: "Disappointed" by Electronic
Feeling: starving

Well, it's officially cold enough outside that Hell has probably frozen over, and if I look in the distance… yeah, I can see pigs flying.

It's not a clean sweep like San Francisco or New York, but it's a start. As of January 16th, all public places (with a few exceptions) will be non smoking and you can only smoke outside the entrance of one of these places from at least 15 feet away.

The 2 major exceptions are bars and restaurants that also have bars. Those two exceptions have 2.5 years to become compliant. Why 2.5 years? Well, there's a loop hole in the big paragraph at the end of the law that states that a bar or tavern can be exempt if they prove that their air quality is within the limits of tolerance.

What are those limits? Well, they haven't been determined yet. Some say that the air inside has to match that of the air outdoors. Others say that it's going to be a set standard monitored by the American Lung Association.

Sadly, "concert venues" were not among the list of public places that go in effect in January, although stadiums were. That's probably because most concert venues in Chicago are bars. I read somewhere that a performance venue with a bar has to prove that 65% of their income is from sales at the bar in order to get the exemption. So that means that Double Door, Empty Bottle, Metro, etc will probably still be smoking places until 2008.

This is the email that I just sent to my friend Rich, who works in security at the Vic Theatre and is an avid anti-smoker:

"After reading today's Tribune article, it looks like we're screwed until 2008. I think that most concert venue's that you and I frequent will be labeled as "bars" and therefore won't be enforced until 2008.

The 2 factors to consider before then are:
1) the air quality level has to be clearly described and tested. are they comparing the indoor 2nd hand smoke to out door 2nd hand smoke? are they comparing it to Gary Indiana? :P there is no set standard for this yet and hopefully it won't be fucked up by bribes or corruption.
2) the price of the scrubbers to meet these guidelines might be well out of reach for most places. It will take some serious construction to accomplish, especially for a place like SmartBar that are completely underground. I know that the guys who own SmartBar are going to redesign it and this might induce them to installing scrubbers, but with an air quality standard not yet set....how will they know what to install? This is the reason why we have this stupid 2 1/2 year waiting period.

People kept mentioning Funky Buddha Lounge because the guy already spends tons of money on air scrubbers. I have only been in there once and it was not very crowded. I honestly can't remember if I noticed a difference, but honestly, if the scrubbers work...... eh, I dunno. I would still rather have a zero tolerance policy towards it.

It will be nice to have a late night pancake binge at Golden Nugget and not have to deal with any smoke.

Somebody commented on Chicagoist.com that having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a pool.

I believe those words.

When I was in New York in September, we all went to a Japanese restaurant in St. Marks Place. They had an enclosed smoking section in the middle of the restaurant. I think the roof was exposed to the outside air. I'm not 100% sure of that because I didn't go in this room. but I loved the fact that it WORKED and it also made the smokers look like they were in an aquarium of shame.

heheheheh but maybe that's because I'm feeling self-righteous.

December 6th, 2005 11:38 hours CST
Currently listening to: "Resolution" by Thievery Corporation
Feeling: starving

Well, last night really sucked. I got home from the gym. Had a very good workout. Ate the leftover chicken parmesan from Club Lucky. Got my laundry together and brought it downstairs. Hey! The dryer is plugged in again and the sign was removed! They must have finally fixed it! WRONG. Fucking thing still has no gas going to it. So, I was left with 2 soaking wet loads of laundry. One in the dryer and one in the washer. I was all cozy upstairs. Just put Unbreakable into the DVD player and had Stella on my lap. I put all of my clothes in a bag and got my coat on and went to Spin Cycle. I called the guy who runs the rental agency for my apartment. Called him on his cell phone. I wasn't going to wait until the next morning to just leave a message at his office. Well, I was rather polite, but he knows that I'm furious and that this repair is LONG overdue. Next time this shit happens, I'm doing my laundry at his house and I'm taking over his living room while I do it. Yuka sent me this to cheer me up:

The weekend was fun, however. The office party on Friday night was pretty great. I had never been to the W before. It's a gorgeous hotel. We were on the 33rd floor with a view of Navy Pier and also the city. The food was excellent. The baked salmon was my favorite, although a lot of people were freaked out by the fact that the head was still on it. Wimps. The middle area of the room actually rotated. Problem was, it rotated so slowly that it made you feel sick if you looked out the windows. It was just slow enough to make you dizzy and they didn't start the rotation until we were all pretty drunk anyway. Good time, though.

I met up with mom around noon the next day. We had planned on meeting earlier but she made a wrong turn and then I had to help her navigate over the phone. We got some shopping done. We bumped into my cousin Amy while at lunch. That was random. After the sound check at Double Door, mom and dad picked me up and we went to Northside. It was snowing like mad at this point. That probably explained that 3 out 3 cars were honking for no good reason. We had a great show. My parents met Chris' parents and they watched the show from the upper deck. We played our 2 new songs (they still need names) and they went over very well. Nice, big crowd. Thanks, everybody.

I got to sleep in a bit on Sunday but needed to clean my place since the 'rents were coming over. They got there around 3 and we went shopping for a new mattress for me. It will arrive Saturday and hopefully my back will be in much better shape from then on. I took them to Club Lucky and then we went to see Good Night and Good Luck. They dropped me off and I went straight to bed.

Met up with the folks for lunch. Monday was the first day I'd ever worn long underwear. I gotta say, I don't think it did much good. But then, when it's only 10 degrees out with a -5 wind chill....who knows. I'm wearing a different pair today. Still, not much improvement. Anybody have any recommendations?

Watched the new trailer for X-Men 3. It looks AWESOME.

December 2nd, 2005 15:38 hours CST
Currently listening to: "Nothing's Adding Up" by The Vera Violets
Feeling: (see below)

OH MY FUCKING GOD. With this, I will destroy everything.