March 1st, 2003 03:00 hours CST currently listening to: "Melancholia" by Blue Boy

I just got back from Ladytron. I'm on such a cloud right now. They played a fantastic set. Ben and I got to meet Danny, John and Helen. Danny was super nice. John, even more so. Helen was an angel. Pure and simple. Softest hands I think I've ever had the pleasure of touching. I'll write more later. I have a splitting headache from the smoke and it's making me cough a lot. Need to get to bed and dream about Helen and Mira.

February 27th, 2003 09:40 hours CST currently listening to: "Blue Jeans" by Ladytron

Well, I'm gradually starting to feel better. I just have tons of stuff in my chest still as well as my head. I can clear my ears without much effort, so that's a major plus. Hopefully I won't be a hacking mess at the Ladytron show tomorrow night.

Ended up going into work on Wednesday. Dave was taking care of his 94 year old friend, Violet that day. I took a ton of laundry over to Spin Cycle and bumped into my old friend Kate there. We chatted the whole time about Bloomington and people that I hadn't seen in years. It was fun. Hopefully she'll come over sometime and we'll continue that. She's living with this girl I know named Abbey. Abbey's sister Libby I also new back in high school and got married to my friend Josh. Libby is on her second child right now. Man oh man.

Work yesterday was kinda weird. Heather and I started chatting about our Ex's and I ended up writing this huge vent email. I was all worked up when I wrote it and felt a lot better after I finished it. I guess I just have to let some of that crap out still. It got really busy at work before Dave showed up. Once he got here I took off. I needed a nap in a big way. Crawled out of bed a few hours later and attempted to do my taxes on-line. No way. I was too groggy for that. I chatted with some folks and talked to my sister and her fiancé for a while. The wedding is September 20th. Having to spend a weekend in Columbus Ohio may prove interesting. It was good to talk to them. I forgot how much I like Jeremy, Jenny's fiancé. He's a really sweet guy and he's so easy to get along with. They got me some plastic plants for X-Mas and this was me finally getting around to calling them to say "thank you".

Let's see, other random shit. I'm really excited about this next EP. I was sick, so it's sort of a daze, but I think it's gonna turn out to be pretty ace. Two old songs and two new songs, just like the last one. In fact, 500 Deep was the first song I ever recorded on the Alesis SR-16. Maybe that's why the midi synching was so fucked up? Who knows. During my sickness induced, couch surfing marathons recently, I've watched all four "Alien" movies. Even though I have positive things to say about all of them, and all four of them stick out so dramatically compared to each other, I can now finally admit to myself that Alien Resurrection is a flaming piece of shit. Yes, it had Winona Ryder, who I love. Yes, it had Ron Pearlman, who I also love. Yes, it was directed by the same director who did Delicatessen, City of Lost Children and Ameliee. But still, there's no excuse for having acting this bad and dialog that was so stale it could choke a donkey. Yes, the underwater sequence was very cool and I was also happy to see so much of Giger's creations up close and personal, but god damn, nobody in this entire move could act for shit. Yes, Ms. Weaver, that includes you. But then, I don't blame the actors per se. The Phantom Menace was a shining example of fine actors being forced to regurgitate some of the worst dialog ever written. Sometimes you just can't act past the bad dialog. No matter who you are.

I could go on and on about this movie, but the only thing I'll focus on (because I'm in a weird/good/geeky mood) is the weapons they had in Resurrection. Ok, you pretty much see three types: hand guns, the medium assault rifle and the heavy assault riffle. Ok, the handguns were kind normal, except that they shot what looked like slow moving snot rockets. Whatever. The medium assault riffles..... um, ok. First off, we see a guy in the beginning of the movie shoot lightning out of his into Ripley's head to subdue her. Ok, so they're electric. Then later on we see them shooting shotgun-like blasts. Heh? Where did that come from? And they have these cute little attachable flashlights on the bottom. Now, if these things are just big tazer guns, would you really want to take them into the water? I dunno. The Heavy assault riffle was the weirdest. Throughout the film you see this thing used as a machine gun, grenade launcher AND a flamethrower. All coming out of the same nozzle. Damn, that's some versatile super gun you got going there. Ok, you know what. This rant is going nowhere and it's sounding more stupid as I read it. Fuck it.

Oh, my friend Cathy called me last night to tell me that she's coming up to Chicago tomorrow! Perfect timing. I'm gonna get her a Ladytron ticket when I go to lunch. I haven't seen her in a looooong time. Actually, that reminds me that I need to make plans for the group of us going to that show. Maybe we should meet up at Fuel? Hmmmmmmmmm.

February 25th, 2003 09:10 hours CST currently listening to: "Joined-Up Writing" by Blueboy

Man, I feel like shit. Hammered shit, in fact. Friday I was fine, and then Saturday I woke up with something obviously growing in my chest. Usually when I get sick it starts in my throat. Not this time. I loaded all the gear and went over to Kindesign to record the "Dizzy" EP. We had tons of problems with 500 Deep. For some reason, Neundo just wouldn't sync the midi data. We ended up moving that song over to Pro Tools. Beyond that, everything that day went pretty smooth. I was gradually coughing more and more and stuff was coming up. Really nasty too. Dave kept commenting that I was getting worse as the day went on. I couldn't argue with that. I was definitely feeling worse. I decided that I wanted to do and E-bow part for Ri, and we went over to Joe Cassidy's place to borrow his. Mine has been broken for a long time. He's quite the Star Wars collector. He had cases and cases of figures still in their packaging. He even had all the original Burger King glasses. You go, Joe. He looked at me, then looked at Dave and said "So he's the shoegazer, eh?" I'm finding it weird that for some reason I'm being dubbed "resident shoegazer" or something. As if I hold and office or something. Not that I mind. Joe explained that the reason he thought it was funny was because all his drinking buddies were in bands like Lush and Ride. He gave me some quick and dirty stories on Miki and Emma. Made me jealous. I got back home around 10:00 and went straight to bed. I felt like crap.

The next morning I felt much worse. I just knew there was no way that I was going to be able to do vocals today. We discovered while recording the 2nd half of 500 Deep that the midi data was screwed up again. We had to re-record the 2nd half once we got it fixed. The tracking for that went really well. I even did and Acoustic part for Ri. That song is so unusual. I mean, it's a great song, but it's a bit outside of the typical airiel style. I dunno. I think it's gonna sound great once it's mixed and mastered. Taking my gear up to my third floor apartment was horrible. I had to take 10 minute breaks between trips because I couldn't breathe. My chest was so constricted and every time I inhaled I coughed. It was like watching someone with Emphysema try to move furniture. It took me over and hour to move all my stuff up. Again, I went right to bed.

I took Monday (yesterday) off. I was still running a fever and aching all over. Those horrible cold chills that just make your skin hurt. That's why I hadn't slept. I spent the day on the couch mostly. Watched Good Morning Vietnam, Fight Club, Zero Effect, Alien and Aliens. I woke up this morning feeling a bit better. I think I actually slept through the night. I had to come in to work because Dave is taking his 94 year old friend Violet to the hospital. I'm just hanging around my desk, drinking tea and hoping beyond hope that NOBODY calls me or comes by asking for help.

February 21st, 2003 09:10 hours CST currently listening to: "Firefly" by airiel

Well, this is the first Friday after a night out at Neo where I'm just tired and not tired + hung over. We laid off the hooch towards the end simply due to a lack of funds. I got paid yesterday and already allocated money to the appropriate places and now I'm gonna be broke for the next two weeks. What a great feeling.

Here's a recap of the last few days. Rachel came over the other night to watch that Campus Invasion porno that was filmed at my old college. God damn, that's so funny. As porn goes, it's pretty lame. But there's a novelty in the fact that they're seducing drunk college guys with dicks the size of your middle finger. The night after that, I went over to Dave's for some Vice City action. DJ had to cancel because he's sick as a dog right now. In fact, everybody seems to be sick or getting sick. I need to last three more days! Just let me get through the vocals this weekend and I'll gladly let a cold take me over if I'm due for one. Dave and I didn't do any gambling, as I would have robbed him out of house and home. But we came up with some good ideas for when we finally kick this thing into gear. Cornelia came over and immediately unleashed her gutter mouth on the two of us. She loves to be one of the guys. The BBQ chicken pizza from Chicago's was glorious.

I had a wonderful phone convo with lil' Ms. Hammer for about an hour while I was at work yesterday. There's a ray of sunshine, to be sure. She had me super psyched for the upcoming Ladytron show here next Friday. 7 days and counting, baby. She sent me this link to the video site for Electric 6. The Danger! High Voltage! video had me in stitches. I even showed it to Dave. Go download that bitch and be prepared to laugh your electric codpiece right off.

Heather came up last night and we went to dinner at Pick Me Up. I hadn't been there in ages, it seems. Ben met up with us and we walked down to Spin. Their 80's video collection is one to be envious of. It was outstanding. We walked into the back room first and as luck would have it, they were playing Danger! High Voltage! by Electric 6. We were there until about 11:30 when we made our way down to Neo. Neo was the usual fair. New Wave music that always seems to lie on the darker, gothy, moodier side rather than the pure pop fluff that we were basking in at Spin. It's too bad reall,y because I think Neo sort of pigeon-holes themselves that way. Yes, I know it's a goth/industrial club, but there could be some serious good times if they just ripped into The Fixx or A-Ha or even Kajagoogoo once in a while. Granted, there were some good songs played. Heather and I went ape shit for Lovecats by the Cure, The Perfect Kiss by New Order and Fascination by The Human League. Good time. Poor Ben was feeling the onset of a cold and just wasn't in the mood to dance. Mark and Shannon showed up well after 1 AM, and I think we left around a quarter til 2. I'm surprisingly alert right now, but I have that tired feeling that sort of leaves you tingling all over. I hate that. I'm electing to stay in tonight. I have lots I need to do. Change guitar strings and get my gear ready. I also realized that I don't fully know the bass part for the last half of 500 Deep. Man, I can't believe I've slacked on this.

Danger! Danger! High Voltage!

February 19th, 2003 13:35 hours CST currently listening to: "Panda Eyes" by Sing-sing

It's a lovely day outside. Still cold, but the sun is really pretty with the ice still being on the lake. Dave is late as hell. We're playing GTA Vice City for money tonight at his house. I'm gonna walk away a rich man. It's just me, Dave and DJ. We can't get anybody else to commit. The rule is, if you don't pay, you don't play. It's gonna rock. We're gonna do things in a poker sort of way. Like "Jeremy, I bet you $5 you can't jump as far as me on a PCJ6" and then I'll say "I'll see you that, and raise you a dollar". That kind of thing. It's gonna get crazy.

I'm really excited about recording this weekend. Heather and Ben and I are gonna hit Neo on Thursday night, which means I'll be a total fucking zombie at work on Friday. I was planning on going to see Sour Deluxe play at the Double Door but I may stay home and recover, since I'm recording the next morning all day and the next. I still don't have the acoustic part ironed out for Ri, but it's close. It will probably hit me before I do any takes.

9 days and counting until Ladytron

February 17th, 2003 15:20 hours CST currently listening to: "Halo" by airiel

Morning, all. Dave got snowed in yesterday while visiting his parents in Ohio, so I'm all by myself today. Rock. I'm gonna put my feet up, finish this Stone Roses book, and attempt to avoid all responsibility.

Friday night was hectic. I scrambled home with enough time to get to the grocery, do dishes, clean the bathroom and living room, and take a shower before Heather showed up. She drives faster than I do! We went to the Twisted Spoke and then came back and listened to records all night. It was a cool way to spend valentine's day.

Saturday I pretty much did nothing but play Zelda all day. I cooked some food and got dressed around 9 that night to pick up Ben, Juan and Alice to go to the opening of a new club downtown called Super Lounge. First off, let me ay this, avoid Super Lounge like the fucking plague. It was VIP only and Juan was the one getting us in. I'm glad there wasn't a charge at the door because judging by the cost of the drinks, the door charge is likely to be around $20. Despite the very cool interior, the layout of the place really sucks. It's very narrow. You pass the first bar on your right and then make your way through the giant crowd of people that are simply too cramped to dance with any freedom. You pass underneath the DJ stage and then there's another bar on your left. Past that is the coat check and some freaky VIP fuck suite or something. We made it back up to the first bar and it took us close to 25 minutes to get a drink. This chick who was bartending was totally out of her element. Didn't know how to work the register, wasn't on the ball, etc. $8 for a fucking vodka and cranberry juice is simply wrong. No 2 ways about it. None of us wanted to dance because the place was simply too crowded. We sort of people watched, complained a lot and got bumped into by everyone trying to just get through the damn place. So, we concluded that we were over Super Lounge and decided to leave. I think it was about 3 AM at this point. We made it back towards the coat check and noticed that the floor was really slippery. And then the smell came. Somebody had puked all over the place. Despite the huge puke-phobia I have, I was actually laughing at this. There were people dancing in it and covering their mouths and noses at the same time! I couldn't believe it. It took us forever to get our coats back, but we finally got them and got out. It seemed to feel like some bad college party experience. Just with lots of yuppies mixed in and chicks wearing halter tops who REALLY SHOULDN'T BE. Sorry. I'm vain this morning. Got back to Juan and Alice's and watched the New Years Eve episode of Absolutely Fabulous and then I went home.

Sunday was a super lazy day. Despite the copious amounts of Zelda that I got in, I did manage to talk to my parents on the phone for a while and also tweak the drum parts and rearrange the sequences for This Is Why I Can't Sleep. I'm recording that this weekend along with Ri, Stratosphere and 500 Deep. I can't wait to get back into the studio. Did everybody else have a good valentine's day?

February 14th, 2003 15:20 hours CST currently listening to: "Glittery Dust" by the Kitchens of Distinction

Well, whadda ya know? Looks like it's gonna be a happy valentine's day after all.

February 14th, 2003 10:25 hours CST currently listening to: "Age" by Chapterhouse

Holy Toledo, I'm sleepy. I slept well last night, but I think it was the first time this week that I've gone to bed after 11. I had tons of laundry to do and I talked to Heather for a bit. Around 4:00 yesterday afternoon, Fiona shows up at my desk with some huge package from UPS. It was from my sister and her fiancé, Jeremy. I had actually asked for some plastic plants for X-mas this year and that's what was in the box. Hahahaah. That has to be up there with some of my more unusual x-mas gift requests. I like the aesthetic of plants, but as hard as I try, I can never keep them healthy to where they don't look green enough to be alive, yet dropping leaves as if they're not supposed to have them. *sigh* It's just as well. The box wasn't heavy, but it was huge and I looked like a jackass on the train because I managed to whack several people and getting through the turnstiles was a bitch.

Well, it's Valentines day and I have no valentine. That's old news. I'm going to celebrate by getting a bottle of wine when I go to the grocery, cook dinner and plop my ass down on the couch. Actually, what I may do is rearrange the drum sequences for This Is Why I Can't Sleep. I'm recording that next weekend and I need to polish it a bit. Ah, the single life. It's ok. I have a date on Saturday. Now, I need to search for some caffeine. There's a diet coke somewhere calling my name.

Random joke...... What's black and white and has trouble getting through revolving doors?

A nun with a spear through her head!!!!

Thank you, and have a good weekend.

February 13th, 2003 13:55 hours CST currently listening to: "Carolyn's Fingers" by The Cocteau Twins

Happy Thursday, everybody. Finally got to hang out with Amanda last night. I brought a pizza from New York Pizza with me. Those god damn things are so huge. 22" of pure love. You can barely fit the box through a doorway. I'm not kidding. We watched an MST3K episode that I hadn't completely seen; "I Accuse My Parents". It had me in stitches. We started watching Total Recall after that but Amanda got sleepy. I left with her extra VHS copy of Ed Wood. My god, I love that film to death. I watched the first half when I got home and the second half this morning.

In other news, I have a sort of date this weekend. I'm really excited.

February 12th, 2003 09:45 hours CST currently listening to: "Soon" by My Bloody Valentine

Well, yesterday was a peach of a day. Poor Dave. The guy was here for 36 hours without sleep. That's the glamorous side of IT, folks. I'm just glad it wasn't me. Everything is completely back to normal now. And of course, I only got one non-work related email. *pout*. Ben, I can always count on you. I ended up staying a bit late to make sure everything was up and running and that the email database was fully intact. We had some trouble sending attachments for a few minutes, but then it got worked out.

Walking home last night TOTALLY sucked. It had been snowing off and on all day and there was powder everywhere. The wind got so strong when I got back to Logan Square that I couldn't see. I had to hide behind a dumpster at one point for a couple minutes. My face damn near froze off. When I got into my building, I looked down and the entire front half of my body was solid white. My jeans got soaked. I stripped everything off (yay!) and got into my PJ's. After fixing my own email problems (that seemed to be the theme of the day), I plopped down on the couch and started playing Zelda. I got the Gamecube version of Orcarina of Time, since I preordered The Wind Waker. I only played Orcarina on a Nintendo 64 emulator that I had back in '99. I managed to beat the damn thing only using a keyboard. That's not easy, let me tell you. Well, it was easier than beating Mario 64 using only a keyboard. You know that part at the end where you have to grab Bowser by the tail and then spin him around and throw him. Yeah, that wasn't easy. No wonder I'm so good with my fingers. Ahem. Anyway, I got all the way to the end of Zelda, and I guess the ROM I had was bad. There's this bit at the end where you follow Zelda down this tower and she does this little "open sesame" thing to open these gates. Well, problem was, she would do her little thing, and then go right through the still closed gate, leaving me there to do nothing but wait for the timer to hit zero. That was a let down. So anyway, now I'm playing again with the full belief that this will work.

I other news, I've made some minor updates to the airiel site and I also have the web cam back up and running in my office. So now you can see me randomly looking asleep or bewildered at my desk. Fun, huh?

February 11th, 2003 09:05 hours CST currently listening to: "Sunshine Smile" by Adorable

I've recently begun to take stock in all of the Kitchens of Distinction recordings I have. I think I'm only missing a few singles and that's it.

• Drive that fast: (CD and 12")
  • drive that fast 7" edit
  • these drinkers
  • elephantiny
  • three to beam up
• When I Heaven (CD and 12")
  • When In Heaven
  • Glittery Dust
  • Don't Come Back
  • Spacedolhphins
• Breathing Fear (CD and 12")
  • Breathing Fear
  • Goodbye Voyager
  • Skin
  • Air Shifting
• Quick as Rainbows (CD and 12")
  • Quick As Rainbows
  • Mainly Mornings - live
  • In A Cave - live
  • Shiver - live
• The 3rd Time We Opened The Capsule (12")
  • The 3rd Time We Opened The Capsule
  • 4 Men - the demo version
  • Into The Sea
  • Prize - the demo version
• Prize (12")
  • Prize
  • Concede
  • Innocent
• Now It's Time To Say Goodbye (12")
  • Now It's Time To Say Goodbye
  • Jesus Nevada
  • White Horses
  • What We Really Wanted To Do
• Love Is Hell
  • In A Cave
  • Time To Groan
  • Shiver
  • Prize
  • The 3rd Time We Opened The Capsule
  • Her Last Day In Bed
  • Courage, Mother
  • Mainly Mornings
  • Hammer
  • Elephantine
  • Margaret's Last Injection
  • The 1001st Fault
  • Anvil Dub
• Strange Free World
  • Railwayed
  • Quick As Rainbows
  • Hypnogogic
  • He Holds Her, He Needs Her
  • Polaroid's
  • Gorgeous Love
  • Aspray
  • Drive That Fast
  • Within The Daze Of Passion
  • Under The Sky, Inside The Sea
• The Death Of Cool
  • What Happens Now?
  • 4 Men
  • On Tooting Broadway Station
  • Breathing Fear
  • Gone World Gone
  • When In Heaven
  • Mad As Snow
  • Smiling
  • Blue Pedal
  • Can't Trust The Waves
• Cowboys And Aliens
  • Sand On Fire
  • Get Over Yourself
  • Thought He Had Everything
  • Cowboys and Aliens
  • Come On Now
  • Remember Me
  • One Of Those Sometimes Is Now
  • Here Come The Swans
  • Now It's Time To Say Goodbye
  • Pierced
  • Prince of Mars

February 11th, 2003 08:20 hours CST currently listening to: "High (single mix)" by The Cure

Oh my fucking god. Dave accidentally shut off the external array for the primary exchange server, thinking he was shutting off the external array for the secondary exchange server. We've had no email in the Chicago office since 7:30 last night. He didn't even call me, the selfless fool. He's been here all night. There's microwave popcorn bags and thin mint cookies all over his desk. We're patiently waiting for the offsite security storage place that has our backup tapes to arrive with the one from Friday. All the data is there but we have to sync the logs with the database These people are out in the suburbs, so it's gonna take a while for them to get here. Good lord.

February 10th, 2003 10:15 hours CST currently listening to: "Ri" by airiel

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh I shouldn't have eaten that much food while being this hung over. Bleh. Oh man, I feel like hell. I had several gin & tonics last night and had to get up way too early. I'm in my comfy clothes though. Got a fleece sweater thing on, jeans and some weird black sneakers that I never seem to wear. I didn't even bother shaving today. At least I showered.

So anyway. Friday night I went with Jeff and DJ to Long Room, which is this really neat bar on Irving Park and Ashland. Well, it's neat because of it's interior. It's very dark and has a really good color scheme and light fixtures. We snacked on bar food and had a few beers then went over to the Viaduct to see Defiant Theatre's new play, Titus Andronicus. It's Shakespeare, of course, and not Defiant's normal tongue in cheek comedy that they usually do. For those of you who don't know Titus, it's one of Shakespeare's most bloody and violent works, if not THE most. They modernized this and instead of swords they used guns. Real guns shooting blanks. It got loud at the end. Wow. I'd never been to the Viaduct before and I really liked the place.

Saturday I kicked around and played Vice City a lot. Kim called me and we went up to Evanston to see Shanghai Knights. I liked Shanghai Noon quite a bit better, but I can never get enough of Owen Wilson. Fann Wong....... oh my dear lord, I know what I want for X-mas. After the movie, Kim and I went and got lunch then walked through some stores. Even though Urban Outfitters is embarrassingly overpriced, I do like what they're doing for boy fashion. The girl fashion is alright, but boys never really had good clothes to buy until places like this got popular.

Heath called me on the way to the movie to tell me that he was coming up to Chicago that night. Secretly Canadian, a label from my hometown of Bloomington, IN was having another showcase at the Empty Bottle. I'm not a big fan of the bands on that label, but it was a perfect chance to see a lot of my old Bloomington friends. Sure enough, I ran into over a dozen folks that I hadn't seen in ages. Some of them I hadn't seen since the last SC showcase 2 years ago at that same bar. I wanted to stay for Songs Ohia, but I simply couldn't keep my eyes open. I got to see Impossible Shapes, Scout Niblet and Swearing at Motorists. SAM was what killed the evening for me, really. David Baker was there and got all freaked out during the Scout Niblet set, as the girl from that group was playing drums by herself and singing. One of David's housemates, Seth, has a little girl named Sage, who does the same thing; plays drums by herself and sings. It was funny.

Sunday I played more Vice City. I'm so glad that I'm back into that game. It had a serious dark cloud hanging over it for months. Not anymore, baby. I took a break to do dishes and then I sat down with my drum machines and made a new arrangement for "Ri", which is going on the Dizzy EP later this month. It felt good to sit down and do some real musical work. I've been in a dry spell lately. I met up with Ben, Juan and Juan's roommate Alice at their house around 9:00. I drove us to Ivan's, which is a great bar on Ashland and Roscoe. The interior reminded me a lot of Long Room, actually. For the bulk of the night, it was just us and the bar tender, who was amazingly nice and I feel silly for not remembering his name, as he kept calling me Jeremy the whole evening. His friend Spider showed up and we all just sat at a table drinking and talking. It was a nice evening. Although in hindsight, I shouldn't drink 4 gin and tonics on a school night. I'm paying for it now. I'm rather awake since I just ate this huge breakfast, via Corner Bakery, but I'll be passed out by 10:30, I bet you money.

Let's see, what else is up. Oh, my car is absolutely pissing me off. I got in it on Wednesday and discovered that my CD player doesn't work, the overhead light doesn't work, the clock no longer works and the most annoying thing of all, even when all the doors are closed, if you have the key in the ignition, you get that "bing, bing, bing, bing" noise as if you your door is open. It's driving me up the fucking wall. I hope you all like the mp3 of the week. It's from an anime film that I recently purchased called Jin-Rho: The Wolf Brigade. The first half of the song reminds me of the first track on the 2nd Sigur Ros album, and as such, makes me want to cry my fucking eyes out.

February 6th, 2003 10:15 hours CST currently listening to: "Not Fazed" by RIDE

I've developed this affection for Keebler Grahams Cinnamon Crisps. They've pretty much become my 10-10:30-I-can't-belive-I-only-ate-one-small-ass-bowl-of-cereal-this-morning snack. Dave comes in, and since he notices every single thing about me, comments on my graham crackers. (Maybe it's just that he saw crumbs all over me and that he's not actually fixated on yours truly.) He then tells me this story about how around the time that Kellogg was making his corn flakes and all that jazz, there was a belief that spicy food made people (teenagers) more prone to masturbate. So this guy Graham, made a special cracker that was a mild alternative that was supposed to suppress any crazy urges one might get after eating a bowl of curry. My response to this was "Dave, what if you're like me and you masturbate WHILE eating graham crackers?" See, that's my goal for 2003. To be the exception that disproves the rule.

February 5th, 2003 16:25 hours CST currently listening to: "River" by Blueboy

Alright, this is weird. I got contacts a few months ago and since I wear them so rarely (well, I wear them a lot more now that I have bangs) I don't have to dispose of them very often. Well, this morning I threw my first pair away a and opened a box of new ones. I was looking for some sort of indicator as to which was for my left or right eye, because I knew that my eyes were not the same prescription. Well, they were all labeled -1.75. So, after several minutes of looking, I decided just to try them out. Well, as it turns out, both my eyes are now the same prescription. How freaky. I just got off the phone with my optometrist, who confirmed it.

February 5th, 2003 10:05 hours CST currently listening to: "Sweat" by Voodoo Warriors of Love

Happy payday, everybody. It's the calm before the storm right now. I'm running back and forth between two conference rooms here in the office. There are two meetings at 10:30 and they both have on-line components that NOBODY seems to know how to log into besides myself. I shouldn't complain. Yesterday was boring as whale shit. Thank you, George.

Anjie posted her pictures from her visit to Chicago this past weekend. I look rather goofy in, well, all of them. But that's what happens when anyone takes a picture of me. Alyssa and I were having a conversation yesterday bout how none of us really look in person they way we do in all of our photos. It's weird, you know? Ri has sent me tons of pics of her (most at my request, HAHAH) and when I finally got to meet her in person, it was so different. It's really neat. Even though you have this image engrained in your mind, it's still a mystery until you're face to face.

Anyhell. Not much else has been going on these last few days. I need to spend an evening with my drum machines. I still have to reset most of the drum kits. David and I changed them to get a cleaner, more realistic sound when we tracked them last month, and I wrote down all the changes I made, so that I could get them back to normal. Still haven't done that. I also really need to get the drums finished for "Ri" and "This Is Why I Can't Sleep" since those are both going on the next EP and I'm supposed to record this month. The day we start mixing it is the day after Ladytron plays here in Chicago. Don't be surprised if airiel suddenly has a wicked elctro-clash sound on this next EP. HAHAHA. I kid, I kid.

I'm noticing more and more that people are calling me "jer". I don't mind. It's less macho than calling me "wrenn" or something like that.

February 3rd, 2003 09:21 hours CST currently listening to: "Santi-U" by Sharon Apple

Pretty cool weekend. Dave and I were cracking tons of low-brow jokes before I left work. Can't remember about what, but I was visibly red from laughing so hard. Got home and took a much needed nap. Met up with Jaime from Sour Deluxe at Holiday in Wicker Park. I forgot how much that place fills up with meatheads on the weekends. Still, we had fun. Lots of semi-awkward silences in the conversation since we were meeting for the first time. But at least we joked about it.

After several beers and a chicken sandwich, I went down to Rainbow to meet up with Anjie and Sammie, who were in town from San Francisco. It took me a minute to recognize Anjie because her hair was bright orange and a lot longer from the short black with red highlights that I saw in May. I met some of the folks she was staying with and also talked to Sammie for a while. He's a good guy. I gave him an early copy of Frosted and we got on the topic of shoegazer music for the rest of the evening. Turns out we know some of the same people, including Stella from Exquisitely. Small world. Us shoegazers sort of have an underground network of contacts. But then again, when is shoegazer NOT underground at all? We eventually walked back up to Heaven Gallery, on Milwaukee. The music was so-so and there was lots to look at. People, I mean. Hahah. We mostly hung out on the back balcony, which is right next to the L tracks. I think I made it home around 2 AM.

Saturday I met up with Liz and Anjie at the Sears Tower, which I had never been to. The weather was so cloudy and dreary, that we couldn't see very far at all. I was able to point out things like the Shedd Aquarium, the Art Institute and the Chicago Tribune, and that one building that looks like a vagina. The Met Life Building. Anyway.

We then went down to Chinatown, which was perfect, seeing as how it was Chinese New Year. I'd never been to Chinatown in Chicago before. This was turning out to be a total tourist day. I was freezing at this point and I couldn't shake the nasty-ass weather we had. At least it wasn't raining. I'm way too lazy this morning to make thumbnails or even links to all the different pics, so I've dumped them all this directory. Here's what we witnessed: Every other store would have a giant string of the loudest firecrackers I'd ever encountered. These strings were about 8 to 10 feet in length and would hang from a door or awning. A two-man dragon team would dance around and eventually enter the store in question. They came back out, lit the firecrackers and then "ate" some lettuce that the store owners would hang outside, next to the firecrackers. This had to be the coolest new years ritual I've seen in my life. It was so much fun. They had a team of people, young and old, banging various drums and cymbals. We walked up the street to get some food and settled on a Vietnamese restaurant. I had this enormous bowl of soup that was really good. Just what I needed on a day like that. The dragon team made their way up our street and even into the restaurant, as you can see from the pics. It was such fun. We walked around for a bit longer and Anjie and Liz had this crazy tea that had tapioca bubbles in it. It looked terrible but they assured me it was really good. Took the train back north and I said my goodbyes at the Washington stop.

Met up with Ben at 9 or so that night to pick him up to go to the Abbey. The Twilight Babies were the opening act, and the band we came to see. Sort of like dreampop meets trip-hop. Not bad. I wasn't so into their singers vocals the whole time, but it certainly wasn't bad at all. The second band, Bicycle Tricycle just made us laugh. "Not the most attractive band I've seen" I said to Ben, who responded "yeah, not even the chick. She's a LESBIAN." Now, this coming out of Ben cracked me the hell up. I don't know why he said it, but this whole band gave off a weird vibe. They were amazingly 80's. Drummer and bassist that you could care less about. Guitarist that looked like he was ready to quit the band at any second. A chick playing a tiny keyboard who moved around so much when she sang that she looked like she was giving the mic a blow job. The lad singer actually had a should strapped keyboard. I couldn't believe it. I am not read y for shit like this to come back into fashion, people. I'm just not. We made fun of them more when their set stared to drag into the sappy-emotional range. We left right as they finished.

I met up with Ben and his friend Rachel at Cafe 28, in Ravenswood. Pretty damn good food. I loved the atmosphere, HOWEVER, the bartender chain smoked about 5 cigarettes in the men's room right before I walked in which really fucking pissed me off. I almost said something to the manager, but didn't feel like causing a fuss. I was a total couch potato the rest of the day. Started playing Devil May Cry because I'm psyching myself up to buy the sequel, despite the very mixed reviews it has received. I should probably just buy Metriod Prime instead, since I already know that game rocks. OK. Off to work.