March 31st, 2003 10:00 hours CST currently listening to: "Haunted Days" by Trembling Blue Stars

Well, the memorial went very well. Doctor's Pizo and Harris both spoke, along with my aunt Janet, who held up very well, considering. It all took place in the auditorium of the hospital in Bloomington. There was a table set up with a picture of granddad, and him standing with grandma on their wedding day. There was his old doctors bag on the table as well. It was leather and very old. It had somewhat of an alligator skin pattern to the leather where it was worn. Every time I looked at it I cried. There was something too symbolic about it and it all would rush to my throat and make a knot. The reception afterwards at our house was really nice. There was about 1 ton of food, it seems. Every table had food on it. I didn't eat that much. I had made the mistake of taking a couple of Excedrin that morning because I had a terrible headache. I hadn't slept well that night. So anyway, the Excedrin was making me feel way too jittery and a bit nauseated, so I nibbled things here and there. Later that night I met up with Jen and her boyfriend Arnie, who was super nice. We had a few drinks at Bear's. I bought, since it was Jen's birthday and had completely forgotten about it.

The next day I went to the mall with David, Rusty and mom to buy some shoes. I found a cheap pair of Sketcher's for only $30 and a classic pair of sunglasses for $25. Not too shabby. The glasses don't really fit, but my hair covers up my ears so much that you can't tell. Oh geez. I just noticed that they updated my picture on the company directory site. It's the super depressed looking shot of me through my webcam. I'm sorry, but the retarded photo they had of me in the server room was terrible. This is way better than that one. Anyway, I took Dave and Rusty to the airport on my way back to Chicago. I got in around 6 and picked up Ben to go to dinner. Flat Top Grill is amazing. I was very disappointed to discover that they don't wrap things up to go. We had gone back to get seconds and couldn't finish it, but it's a flat rate, so it makes sense that they don't wrap things up, as people would scam them all the time. I would have made a fantastic lunch.

I finally got to talk to Hilary last night. It was really nice. No awkward pauses, we just talked fluidly the whole time. I love when you "meet" a person for the first time and there's no "um,........ SO..... uh...... how was your weekend?" kind of stuff. She's a cool one. I have to find out what the deal is with Katie's birthday on Thursday. Helen Stellar is playing some tiny gig that night and I want to go. Plus, I have to drive to Bloomington right after work the next day and driving to Indiana on Thursday night to take Katie to a strip club is going to be ridiculously tiring. Maybe I'll call in sick on Friday. Who knows.

My Gameboy Advance SP arrived on Friday while I was at work. Glorious.

March 27th, 2003 09:27 hours CST currently listening to: "I Wanna Be Adored" by The Stone Roses

Oooooooooohhhhhhggghhhhhhh. Tired. Did some healthy drinking last night. Went to Danny's last night, which is this fantastic little bar on Dickens and Damen. It was Liz's 28th birthday. I bumped into Emily as well, and had a much better experience this time than last Tuesday at Shuba's. A stayed for just over 2 gin and tonics and then met up with Mark, Corey and Krissy over at the California Clipper. Man, I've missed that bar. We had a good time. I couldn't even finish another drink. The three of them came back to my car so they could hear the Dizzy EP. They all loved it Krissy really loved how her vocals turned out. I'm not used to getting such compliments. It was nice though. Not much else has been going on these past few days. Been working. Been emailing a lot more than usual, which is nicer than chatting, I think.

Hope is coming over tonight for F Toast and some girl talk. We've both had run ins with our Ex's and need to vent. That, and we're gonna bust out the new Zelda. I only played it for a few minutes last night. I'm not gonna really get into it until I get back from my grandfather's memorial this weekend in Bloomington. That's gonna be ok, I think. I know mom was planning on having the family over for dinner Saturday night. Rusty is coming up with David and I've been missing him a lot. I think Jeremy is coming with Jenny this time too.

We've decided that we're taking Katie to a strip club for her 18th birthday. I haven't been to a strip club since that LAME 18 and over place in Bloomington last Thanksgiving with Jenn. That, and I promised Rachel I would take her to one when she turned 21, and I never got around to taking her. This is gonna rock. I'm gonna have Katie covered in boobs. Bwahahahaahh.

March 24th, 2003 09:55 hours CST currently listening to: "Flutterby" by Helen Stellar

Ok, so yeah, you can tell from my last entry that my grandfather died. Last week was a major roller coaster. I'm going to keep the summary brief, if I'm able. So here goes: got back to Chicago on Monday and started playing Metroid Prime. Holy mother of fucking god shit a brick praise spiderman, this game is incredible. All my free time is going into this game. Once I'm done, I'm playing it again. Even if that means holding off on Zelda when it arrives. Tuesday, I had a run in with my ex for the first time since November. I think that despite how drunk I was, I kept my composure very well. Rachel and Hans were there and it was nice to have friends that are so protective of me. Got the new 8" singles for airiel's "In Your Room". I have mixed feelings about this. The artwork looks great, with exception to the mismatched logo's and fonts. The label on the record itself looks like crap. The records don't sound very good. This is the last time I ever agree to do a lathe cut. Since they're all cut individually, there's no quality control for sound. It's very irritating. They sort of have a My Bloody Valentine kind of charm to them. I got paid on Thursday AND also got a bonus that same day. I put a ton into my savings account, which felt great. Then I splurged. I ordered a platinum Gameboy Advance SP and three games. I'm so excited. Oh, Wednesday night was the 5.0 site launch party for my company over at Trader Vic's. I had 4 Mai Tai's during the coarse of the evening and I even managed to drop the third one during MJ's speech. That kind of kept me in check. Lesse, Friday, Ben and I went to see Helen Stellar at the Metro. We met up with Mark and Shannon at Fuel before the show. Mark keeps getting hotter and they as a couple keep getting cuter. I'm beginning to want them dead. We had to wait through three total crap bands before Helen Stellar. The first group, who's name I can't remember, had this lead singer that annoyed the piss out of me. He was blatantly ripping off Mick Jager's dance moves. Why you'd even want to do that is beyond me anyway. He looked retarded. Anyway, Helen Stellar kicked some serious fucking ass. There actually exists an active shoegazer band in Chicago!!!!! Ben and I stood there with our jaws dropped. Tons of loud, reverb heavy guitar, gloriously repetitive chord and bass progressions, swirling lights in tons of fog. I was glorious! There was this girl standing next to us who had a pass hanging from her neck. She asked if we liked the show and we both voiced or praise of Helen Stellar while not mentioning the rest of the crap bands that night. Ben went over and talked to her, but I didn't hear what he said. He came back over to my right and rolled his eyes. Now, Ben had been drinking, but I still think this is hilarious, he said "She doesn't even know what shoegaze is, the dumb bitch!". Hostel, little boy you can be, Ben.

Sorry for having that be one huge paragraph, but to hell with you people. *Kiss*

The missing sessions for the Dizzy EP went really well. Got Stratosphere and 500 Deep done on Saturday, with Ri and This Is Why I Can't Sleep on Sunday. I'm not sure if there are any more tweaks I need to perform in the mixes, but I have until the 1st of April to listen and decide.

I know this week's MP3 isn't a rarity or a b-side, which is the usual moniker of my weekly picks, but I couldn't help it. I bought Pills 'N' Thrills and Bellyaches last week and hadn't listened to it since I had it on cassette back in middle school. Today is such a gorgeous day that I though Kinky Afro would pick up everyone's spirits. So, get your baggy trousers on and enjoy the day.

March 18th, 2003 08:15 hours CST currently listening to: "Wrapped In Grey" by XTC

Goodbye, Granddad.

March 13th, 2003 09:20 hours CST currently listening to: "Your Street Is Dark" by Brittle Stars

How ironic a song to be listening to this morning. I've been up since 4:30. Oddly enough, because the power went out on my whole street. Now, I know you're wondering how that would wake me up. No, I'm not in tune with the transformer on the utility pole outside my room, having some weird telepathic ability to sense when it is off-line. I have a battery backup on one of my computers that has an alarm that goes off whenever the external power is cut. I got up, turned the damn thing off and went back to bed for about 10 minutes until I realized "ok, chances are, everyone else is still asleep and nobody has reported this outage", so I got up and found a flashlight and my cell phone. Made the call and then realized that I have no other alarms in the house that use batteries. So, I lit some candles and stayed awake. The power came back on around 6:30 as I was eating a bowl of froot loops by candle light and contemplating whether I should risk getting in the shower despite the fact that the heater wasn't working. So I got to work on time (joy) and even got some installations done before people got to their computers. Why I'm so productive when my morning is this crap-filled is beyond me. I'm on my second diet coke and am now listening to a live Stone Roses CD I brought in yesterday. It's not helping.

March 12th, 2003 17:12 hours CST currently listening to: "Vista-Dome" by Mahogany

This day is taking too long. Dave is supposed to leave in a minute, and oddly enough, that's when I'll finally start working or something. I just got a package in the mail from Tonevendor. There is something so warming about ordering music from a site that is run by then nicest couple I've ever met and that they hand wrap everything and write you little thank you notes. That's priceless. Everything was wrapped up in sky-blue yarn. I now finally own an actual Brittle Stars CD, as well as Mahogany's "Dream of a Modern Day" on CD. I have that on vinyl, but had been itching to here it digitally. I loooove both of these discs so much.

So, my attention lately has been completely captivated by Friendster.com. Out of all the profile sites I'm on, this one is so far the coolest. All the interests and bands that you list are clickable, making it easy to search, and your friends all have pictures. It's a lot like collected trading cards! One of the things I like about it is that so far 90% of the people are using their real names. I find that refreshing. I'm so bored of these contrived usernames that everyone comes up with. I also love the fact that is hasn't yet been swarmed by 8 billion stupid teenagers yet. No offense, Deb and Katie. I've been meeting tons of shoegazers and they're all turning out to be super nice. I'm collecting them all! I've even run across two people that listed Kitchens of Distinction in their music section. Rock the fuck on.

March 10th, 2003 09:34 hours CST currently listening to: "Porcelain" by The Clientele

I did a rather healthy amount of drinking this weekend. It was grand. I caught up for all the downtime I had being sick and miserable the last couple weeks.

Friday night. Finally heard from Rianon. I was a little pissed when I got off the phone. Hope came over around 9:30 and we went over to Club Foot. they were playing Ladytron's "Playgirl" when we walked in. How perfect. We sat with Mark and Shannon in the back by the pool table. Had to dodge the pool cue several times. Mark and Shannon didn't stay long since Mark had to work the next day and he was playing the next night. I got drunk reeeeeal quick. I had three gin & tonics inside an hour. Thankfully Hope was driving. We went over to the Twisted Spoke for burgers and beers. It ruled.

Didn't do much of anything Saturday during the day. I just sat around and chatted online. Some girl messaged me who had seen me on Mad Rad Hair and just started spilling her guts about how she'd just been dumped, and her friend form San Francisco was 3 hours late to visit her and that she just wanted to stay in her room and listen to the Pixies all day. She dropped buzzwords left and right. "Vegan", "straight edge", "indie", "mod", etc etc. It was fucking annoying. She typed so damn fast that I only had time to put in things like "ouch" or "yeah, that's too bad". I think she was husband shopping or something, I swear. Just too damn weird.

Hope came over around 10 and we got in my car to go pick up Shannon. We blasted the Soulwax mix of "Seventeen" by Ladytron that had us both wired while at work the day before. The three of us went to the Black Beetle for a drink and a burger. I was on a burger kick this weekend. Oh, and they definitely have new people in the kitchen there or something. They don't make their burgers by hand anymore. This was some nasty, freeze-dried turkey burger patty thing. I was very disappointed. It took us forever to find a parking spot for the Elbow Room, which was where Whimsical and Arch Visceral Parlor were playing that night. I like the Elbow Room a lot. I hate the clientele, and their band lineups are usually way too diverse to be fun, but I know they do that to get a bigger total amount for the door charge. We walked in as the first band was (thankfully) playing their last song. It was some limp bizkit, piss poor, college rock, garage band crap. The crowd was pretty damn big, but we quickly realized that they were the re for Whimsical. Rock on. Amanda and Chris were there and I talked to Amanda for a bit. I never seem to get to talk to Chris. Whimsical played a fantastic set. Flutter Echo is probably my favorite song of theirs now. It's so fucking catchy, and the beginning guitar part that Neil plays reminds me of Metroid. Hope and I quickly cracked a joke about the Minibosses and that cover they do of Metroid songs. Krissy was in good spirits and was joking well with the crowd. Most of the jokes were caused by Chris. Mark looks better and better each time I see him. God damn, he's a sexy motherfucker. This time Hope got more dunk than me. She had two LOADED screwdrivers. I'd been drinking beer all night, so I wasn't even buzzed anymore. Just full. And needing to pee every 10 minutes. The bathrooms were so cold that you had serious piss vapor going on. Glorious.

Sunday. Uh..... I don't think I did anything on Sunday during the day. Oh wait, I fucking went into work. We discovered that the flash upgrades we did on everyone's computers had a stupid security hole, so I had to redo everything. I ended up driving there because it was 5 god damn degrees out. Went to Crow's Nest to pick up that Ravonette's EP, but they were sold out. I had a neat conversation with the girl at the counter though, as she worked for their label. Chipotle was closed, so I stopped in at Hi Rikki on the way home for some Kung Pow lovin'. Picked Ben up around 6:30 and we went to a recital of modern dance. Juan and Adriana's separate company's, plus one more were all doing pieces that they had been working on throughout the course of the year. I was really impressed. Some things I liked more than others, but it was really enjoyable and a very cool way to spend a Sunday evening. Ben, Alice and I went to Ivan's for the after party. I didn't talk to many of the dancers. I mostly talked to Alice, Ben and this super nice guy named Neil. We talked about horror movies and other crap. It was fun. Raspberry Stoly's and lemonade kicks ass. Go Alice. So, that was three nights in a row of booze consumption. I needed that.

March 7th, 2003 08:40 hours CST currently listening to: "Playgirl (Felix Da Housecat Glitz Clubhead mix" by Ladytron

*yawn* Gee, you'd think I was into Ladytron or something. Good morning all. Had an interesting night last night. Took the train all the way down to Midway to see Rianon during her layover to Philly, and she never showed. I have no idea what happened. I waited there for over 2 hours and there was no sign of her. I would have appreciated a simple phone call, you know? Anyway. Got back to my place around 9. Ben came over and we spent the night chatting, downing a bottle of wine and ripping audio from a ton of 7 and 12 inches. I did the same thing the night before. I got all my Kitchens of Distinction b-sides as wav's and mp3's now, and also did the Mahogany and Auburn Lull stuff that is only available on vinyl as well. He brought over some really cool stuff. The Clientele are now on my list to shop for, thank you Ben. Also, remember that cover of Puttin' On The Ritz that Taco did back in the 80's? Awwwwww yeah. Also have some cool Pet Shop Boys remixes to entertain me today. Ben lent me his copy of Suede's Sci-fi Lullaby's. Wipsnade is the best fucking song they ever did. I swear. I could listen to that on repeat all day. In fact, I just might do that!

I feel really good today. I wanna go out tonight and be extremely naughty. Today I am a bottle with a message. And that message is BEWARE.

I bought The Ring on DVD on Tuesday. I fucking love this movie. If plans fall through tonight, I'll be on my couch again getting my wits shaken. Oh, the things I would love to do to Naomi Watts.

March 5th, 2003 12:50 hours CST currently listening to: "Company Calls" by Death Cab for Cutie

I don't know what my deal is lately. Ever since I got over the fucking cold/flu thing I was dealing with all last week, I've been in total hibernation mode. I want to do nothing but eat and sleep. Seriously. I can't seem to stay awake past 10:30 and I'm hungry all day long. The worst part is, is that I've been eating crap too. The fucking girl scout cookies arrived at our office and I've been up to my eyeballs in "all abouts". Chocolate covered shortbread cookies are my nemesis. My sweet, delicious, nemesis.

X-Entertainment is doing this great article on the first Nintendo Power Magazine, with props to the Nintendo Fun Club as well. Ok, I was a slobbering NES freak when that system came out. I had the very first issue of the Nintendo Fun Club and a towering stack of Nintendo Power's when those came out. I loved this magazine to death. And the first issue of the Fun Club has this terrific overworld map for The Legend of Zelda. I remember mine having big dots in black pen ink where there were burnable bushes and bombable rocks that revealed dungeons or secrets. Now, if I had those things today, I would either be reading them right now in all their nostalgic glory, or I'd be selling them for a pretty penny on ebay. HOWEVER, I lent them all to one of my roommates, TONY ETIENNE, back in '97 and the cocksucker moved to Maine with every single one of them. We lived in the same god damned house and he couldn't give them back to me? Tony, if you're reading this, I hate you and I want you dead. You also ran off with my answering machine that I told you I'd sell you, yet you forgot to give me money for. You rainbow-haired, no musical taste-having, cheapskate, asshole.

March 3rd, 2003 14:05 hours CST currently listening to: "Driven to Tears" by The Police

Ladytron, Ladytron, LADYTRON. Wow. Folks, I'm STILL coming down from this show. It was amazing. Even though they didn't do the in-store signing that we thought they were going to do, I still took Friday off.

Made my way to pep boys for fuses and to Target for CD cases. Got my car washed. It was filthy. Made it over to Ben's and he gave me this CD chock full of remixes of Ladytron's "Playgirl" and "Seventeen". Glorious. There was some major debate as to where the rumored after party was going to be held. I had a team of people on the case. We'd narrowed it down to either Neo or Bottle Top. Neo would have made a lot of sense, but my lead on that one said that there wasn't anything going on that night except a possible CD giveaway. Hmmmm. It looked like I was just going to have to wait by the bus, stick my hand in the air and ask.

Ben and I met up with Cathy and John at Club Lucky for dinner. I hadn't seen Cathy in a long time. It had been years since I'd seen John. Dinner was lovely and we all chatted quite a bit. Split a carafe of wine. I think that was the first time I'd eaten a giant bowl of pasta like that in maybe over a year. Damn, it was good. Afterwards, Ben and I went to Fuel to drink a bit and wait for Hope to show up. We had to pay $5 to get in, but that meant 50 cent whiskey and cokes. Outstanding. We got in line around 9:00 and immediately bought t-shirts. I would have bought buttons, but I was a dollar short. We got right up front and there was Linsey, dead center. The Metro didn't have the security fence up, which was a nice change of pace. We were going to have Helen and Mira breathing on us the entire show. Fantastic.

Simian played a great set. I really wish I knew more of their stuff as I would have danced more. They made judicious use of their wah pedals on the keyboards. Nicely done. The 'trons came out on stage and I was giddy as a schoolboy. I couldn't keep my eyes off of Mira's tummy, which was poking out from under her uniform top just a tad. I can't recall every song they played, but I remember "Evil", "Seventeen", "True Mathematics", "He Took Her To A Movie", "Playgirl", "Another Breakfast With You", "The Way That I Found You", "Fire", "Turn It On", "Black Plastic", and "Blue Jeans". Rachel came out of nowhere during the last 2 songs and almost tackled me. We danced for a bit, then she ran back over to her group.

Getting out of the Metro proved to be an enormous biatch, as the coat check and merchandise lines were unorganized and very slow. Once we got our coats, I bumped into Danny, introduced myself and he told us to head downstairs to Smart Bar. We said goodbye to Hope and ran out to the car to get the airiel CD's I'd promised Danny and to drop off our t-shirts. Had I had a brain with me, I would have remembered my fucking camera. I'm still kicking myself for that. Smart Bar wanted an asinine $15 to get in, and we were teetering on not paying it. LUCKILY, my coworker, Woody, was out front taking a breather. He got us in for FREE!!! I hugged him and we ran downstairs. Spoke to Danny for a while and gave him the Cd's. He introduced us to John, their touring bass player who was amazingly nice. He kept getting bumped into from behind and his drink was spilling on him. I grabbed him by the arms and swapped places with him. He asked me about airiel and playing live music and so on. We talked about the tour and the nearly snowed out DC show. The smoke was really starting to get to me and Ben. We were both recovering from the same cold and our lungs were still really sensitive. We had to find Helen or Mira before we left. Mira was nowhere to be found, but Helen was right in front of us. She has the softest hands I've ever touched. She's a pure angel. We talked about the tour and what show was their favorite so far. She said that Chicago had tied with Boston as her favorite. Ben and I left just after 2, I think. We simply couldn't take the smoke anymore.

Saturday was a complete blur. I got up late and didn't do much but chat online and play Vice City. DJ's birthday party was staring at 7, and I was in need of food at this point. I got showered and then went down for some noodles at Hi Rikki. It was nice and relaxing. Had a beer and read a book while I was there. Went to DJ's around 8:30 and stayed until midnight or so. Got to see Kim, Jeff, Mary, Phil and Eric. Dave even showed up for a while. Didn't know what I was still so tired considering that I slept for about 10 hours.

Sunday was kinda fun. Went to Shangri-la and got a cool wine red shirt and an old sweater. Met with Jeff, Kim, Jenn, Matt and DJ at Kitch-n for breakfast. Totally gorged on banana, chocolate chip pancakes and bacon. It was fantastic. I hadn't done that in a long time. Was gonna hang out with Jeff and Kim, but they were spending quality time together. I went home to get in touch with Vice City some more. I am a simple creature.

Oh! and at loooong last, the airiel "In Your Room" 8" is FINALLY OUT!