March 31st, 2004 09:00 hours CST currently listening to: "Popkiss" by Blue Boy.

Yesterday was rather exciting. My beeeeeautiful new burgundy glow Rickenbacker 360 arrived. It's fantastic. I'm very happy. Happy birthday to me! Speaking of which, y'all have exactly one week. Get on it.

The other exciting thing is that I came home to find Stella completely free of scar tissue! She got the ENTIRE thing off of her back. I was amazed. She's not bleeding at all but it still looks pretty raw. I'm so amazed. I found the thing in the living room, which was of course pretty gross. Cat jerky. I would have been more grossed out if never found it, just assuming that she ate the thing. YUCK! But anyway, I can tell she's feeling better about it and I sure as hell am. It looks like the area that's going to be without hair is going to be pretty small. Probably the size of my outstretched thumb. If we do have to do that skin stretching technique, it won't be nearly as major as I had originally thought. Rock on.

Oh, an airiel fan emailed me yesterday to tell me that the guestbook isn't working on either this site or the airiel site. That's because I completely forgot to copy the CGI-LOCAL directory from the old host, so it's gonna be a while before I get a new guestbook up. Sorry.

March 30th, 2004 08:30 hours CST currently listening to: "Shoulder" by Enon.

I think I have an Enon fetish going on right now. And by fetish I mean, they're totally fucking cool.

Looks like my hosting ISP got their shit ruined via a router hack. I'm glad it's back up. I can finally read email at work and avoid responsibility like a champ. I got my iPod up and running. I fucking love this thing. HOWEVER, I'm in for a long ride. See, I usually hate id3 tags. Most of the time people screw up the album field with the artist field, or there's just massive inconsistencies or something. SO, I usually create my own mp3's and avoid the id3 tag altogether. But now that I'm a slave to iTunes, I'm going to have to convert 10 days worth of files by putting in id3 tags. Let's hear it for free time at work! I wish I had some.

My new Rickenbacker should be arriving shortly. Glorious. In honor of the fact that it's not snowing any more, I have put up a delightfully sunshinny song by Pia Fraus for the MP3 of the week.

March 29th, 2004 09:30 hours CST currently listening to: "Situation" by The Assassins

Your average office computer user is an idiot. Try total fucking moron. Imagine if you will, a woman wearing a housedress that has just seen a mouse and is now up on a stool with a broom, screaming at the top of her lungs because she's so terrified of something so small and she's now rendered incapable of human communication because she simply can't deal. Is changing a password really all that difficult? Take some initiative. Calm down and READ THE FUCKING SCREEN AND JUST FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS. It's eeeeeasy. Moving on.

The weekend was really fun. Despite the cold weather, Mischa and I rode our scooters down to Vision. Tobias and Trancid were spinning. Venue played. Heather got PUKE DRUNK. My Jedi reflexes kicked in as soon as I saw her cover her mouth with her hand. I grabbed the nearest trash can and got it to her just in time. Disaster averted. She got kicked out after 30 minutes of horking in a trash can right next to the bar. Hahahah. Awesome.

Saturday I was a busy bee. Mischa gave my car a jump and I took it to Pep Boys to get a new battery. While I waited on that, I walked around the Elston and Logan area. Stopped into Pet Smart and got a new lint brush. Stopped into Microcenter and got myself a 20 Gig iPod. It's sitting in front of me charging right now. I have to run up to Michigan and Huron to get the dumbass USB cable though. Stupid me. Didn't realize that was a separate purchase. How am I supposed to blow off my entire morning now? Anyway, I did laundry and kind of cleaned up my place. I got to hang out with Andrea and she took me to Sushi Wabbi, which was rather insane. It's the sushi place that's trying to be a club. I'm so glad she got us a reservations. The place was jammed with people. The food was awesome. I am slave to the dragon roll.

We went to Piper's Alley and saw Eternal Sunshine in the Spotless Mind. I can't say that I really liked the direction all that much, but the movie was really good, otherwise. I like Jim Carey in dramatic roles. We're so used to him playing idiots in Ace Ventura or The Mask and that seems to make him extra good when he's not acting like a jackass. We met up with David and his girlfriend, Mimi, at the theater. Dave runs the Heaven art gallery and they were both very nice. Afterwards, we decided that it wasn't going to rain any more so Andrea and I went up to my place to switch from my car to my scooter. She's a good scooter passenger. We met up with Dave and Mimi at Rodan. Dave bought us champagne.

Sunday was pretty relaxing. The weather was awesome in the morning so I got on the scooter and stopped by the bank, hitting the grocery on my way back. I don't have a rack on there yet, but I did have my should bag with me. The thing was bulging with cat food and had a box of Total cereal sticking out the top the whole way home. Practice last night was nice since Adam was able to come. He's really worried about being able to commit to airiel since he now has a job that's 11-8. I sympathize with the guy. Luckily our next show is on a Saturday. He's really worried that he's not going to be able to get the time off for the tour. Time will tell.

March 26th, 2004 08:45 hours CST currently listening to: "Mile High Club" by The Assassins

Well, Mischa moved in across the hall from me yesterday. Bobby, Marcos and Nikola helped him out. I got there around 6 and brought over some beer and then ordered us all a pizza. A pizza that I'm paying for right now. Combined with all the beer, I have a pretty icky gut right now. I stopped by Kindesign and hung out with David Golitko for a bit. I gave him a mastered copy of the Crackled EP and he gave me a mastered copy of the Assassins album. He didn't write down the titles, so I have no clue as to what half these songs are. It's a great sounding album. It's nice to finally have recordings of these songs that I've heard live so many times.

I don't know if I'm gonna go out tonight or not. I really want to get that battery replaced in my car. I have lots of errands to run tomorrow and I also want to do some laundry and scour the living hell out of my apartment. Every so often you just let yourself go and don't clean like you normally do. I've got so much recycling on my back porch right now. Bleh.

March 25th, 2004 09:10 hours CST currently listening to: "Starcastic" by Enon

Last night was kind of a dud. My car is now no longer starting, thanks to the battery finally dying. Mischa's gonna help me get another in the next day or so. I didn't get to go to band practice because of this. I would have gone down to Lava Lounge had it not been drizzling. The temp was still ok for a scooter ride. I want to get a rack for mine so I can do some grocery runs.

Airiel finally has a new show scheduled. Saturday, May 15th at the Double Door. Brian, the manager from Helen Stellar, finally called me back and got us on the bill. Our first show at the Double Door and it's on a Saturday. Far out. Speaking of far out, I've lost my mind and am purchasing THIS. I'm going to sell my black on black 330 to help pay for it. It's just too gorgeous to pass up and it's brand new, never been played and has an original hard shell case.

March 24th, 2004 13:20 hours CST currently listening to: "Pleasure and Privilege" by Enon

Here's a random list of songs that are painfully TOO SHORT:

• The Cure - "Hey You"
• Enon - "Disposable Parts"
• The Wannadies - "You and Me Song"
• Blur - "Far Out"
• The Boo Radleys - "Lazy Day"
• Butterfly Child - "Big Soft Mouth"
• RIDE - "King Bullshit"
• Tom Waits - "The Ocean Doesn't Want Me"

March 23rd, 2004 08:45 hours CST currently listening to: "Goin' Out West" by Tom Waits

Whoooaaa tired. I went to the gym last night. Did very well. I'm proud of myself. I came home and beat Halo. Still proud of myself. I was nearly sweating at the end of that thing. I'm still trying to get that bedside table working. Why do you hate me so, Ikea?

March 22nd, 2004 14:15 hours CST currently listening to: "Airtight Angels" by airiel

The tip of the middle finger on my left hand is killing me. I think I have a tiny metal splinter in there. Means it's time to change the strings on my Jag at the practice space. That's all. I just felt like sharing.

March 22nd, 2004 10:00 hours CST currently listening to: "Under the Milky Way" by The Church

The Dawn of the Dead remake topped the box office and pushed The Passion of the Christ back to #2. I have 2 words for this: HELL YEAH.

I had a pretty fun weekend. Dave, John and I went to go see the Dawn of the Dead remake. I keep referring to it as "remake" since I'm against all this Hollywood recycling going on. It was fun. As Dave says, "it didn't pump my nads, nor did it crush them". They borrowed heavily from films like 28 Days Later, since the zombies now run at a full clip instead of the lumbering jackasses that they were in the original. I gotta say that the hot chick getting killed with the chainsaw was my favorite death sequence.

Saturday was just plain awesome. I got my paycheck with my raise, my yearly bonus AND my tax refund all on the same day, Friday. So, like I always do when I suddenly have a bunch of money, I have to make some impromptu purchase. This time it was in the form of an XBOX. I couldn't help it. My desire to play Halo was too strong. I also bought the suffering but haven't even played it yet as Halo is rocking out hard. Before the purchase, Mischa came over on his T5, so we went scooter riding to Wicker Park for hot dogs. We bumped into lots of people. Erika and Chris while they were apartment hunting, then Meredith at Filter and finally Maria as she was getting home from Japan. She kind of looked like a zombie and told us that it was 4 AM the next day on her current time clock. Poor little thing. After the ride I went to EB with about 10 games to trade in and they couldn't buy or sell any used games right now. Apparently they didn't have an up to date pawn license and all of the Chicago EB stores were in the same position. Poo.

Mischa took me and Meredith to Crobar for Hannah's birthday party. That place sucks in ways I can't comprehend. No offense to Hannah whatsoever, but I'm glad we got in for free. Having to pay a door charge for that place on top of the $8 Jim and Cokes would have driven me insane. We left around 11:30, I think and went to a house party in Bucktown. The usual gang showed up and I had a really good time talking to everyone. I must have had a lot to drink because I woke up around 3 am and all of the lights to my apartment were still on. Good grief.

Naturally I was too hung over to make it to the gym (bad me!), so I dug into the couch and played Halo for a long time. It's just too good. I left early for practice and stopped at the Woodfield mall, as they said their EB would be able to buy my used games. I sold them 10 fucking games and only got $30 back. WTF? They're making a mint on that stuff, I guess. That mall proved more useful than I'd thought. I hit Radio Shack and got a coaxial digital audio cable for my DVD player. Now I can use that optical channel for the XBOX. I have to rearrange my E Center yet again. I also stopped by the Apple Store and drooled over the iPod's. I then went to H&M and got some cool shirts, one of them rugby. I find it annoying that over 10 years later I can now find horizontally striped shirts in stores.

March 19th, 2004 08:55 hours CST currently listening to: "Halo" by airiel

The Venue/Assassins show last night was great. Saw lots of people, a few of which I hadn't seen in a while, some I'd seen 24 hours earlier. Hopefully we'll being doing shows with both of those bands soon. Katja and I kept trying to do the friendly peck on the cheek greeting thing and kept screwing it up, so she just grabbed me and planted one square on the lips. Hi-ya. I needed that.

I uploaded some tracks of The Assassins that you can get here. The album isn't coming out for a while and these are non-album versions anyway. Dave told me to just go ahead and expose the world and that's what I plan on doing. Also, check out two tracks from Eau Claire, it's Rachel Goldstar from Experimental Aircraft with Jessica Baliff. Get them here.

Tonight, John, Dave and I are gonna go see the Dawn of the Dead remake. Naturally, I'm disgusted with all of these remakes going on, but I raised an eyebrow when I saw that creepy shot of the little girl attacking her not-so-awake-father in his bedroom. Hannahkusan is gonna be there and she said she'll be dressed as a zombie. I have not the words.

Mischa is recruiting people to help him pack on Saturday. He told me last night that he's moving in this Thursday, during the day. Thank you, Cheebas!! I won't have to help! Woooooo!!! Beyond that, I'll be hitting Crobar for Hannah's birthday tomorrow night. My only other plans are to finally get to the gym, despite the fact that I have no portable music device. I want an iPod for my birthday. 20 gig model, please.

March 17th, 2004 15:05 hours CST currently listening to: "Beautiful Ones" by Suede

Here's my horoscope, thanks to Lloyd Schumner Sr., Retired Machinist and A.A.P.B.-Certified Astrologer:

Aries: (March 21—April 19)
Many consider you a big teddy bear, but due to unwise forays past the boundaries of sanity, you're now more teddy bear than man.

March 17th, 2004 12:20 hours CST currently listening to: "Stutter" by Elastica

I'm thinking of selling my all black Rickenbacker 330 and getting a new 360 in either Midnight Blue or even better, Burgundy. yeah, I know that's a 370 and not a 360, but whatever.

March 15th, 2004 14:20 hours CST currently listening to: "Divine Hammer" by The Breeders

John just emailed me back about a possible airiel show. In my email I mentioned RIDE and spelled in all caps like that. He responded:

"I'm telling you, you're like those Christians who capitalize Him when talking about the lord. I mean, The Lord!
Be careful, zealot. Soon you'll be crucifying non-shoegazers. Actually... I'm liking the sound of that."

Get me some nails!!!

March 15th, 2004 09:30 hours CST currently listening to: "Miss Gradenko" by The Police

Ugghhh. Dave is under his desk trying to fix his speakers. Please, leather belt. Please hold together. I don't need to be blinded via Dave's ass crack.

Didn't do much this weekend. I met up with Aric, Mischa, Erika and some of her friends at Bucca Di Beppo for dinner. We got a 3 liter bottle of wine. There was far too much onion in all the food we ordered. I had the nastiest breath after that. Especially the next morning. Anyway, after that I stopped at Hope's place to feed her cat. She's an eating machine. Her food bowl was already empty. She kept running back and forth between her food bowl to eat, and then to gain affection from me. It was funny. I then met up with everybody in the known universe of Chicago at Lava Lounge. I didn't stay very long. I was so full from dinner that it took me nearly an hour to finish one pint of beer.

Saturday I helped DJ on a secret mission. The result was a portable projector to use at his house that night. He recently bought and Xbox and was hosting a party. Sininski brought his over and we had 8 person matches going on between the two machines. I've gotten a lot better at that game. I even came in first on one of the king of the hill matches and also second on a deathmatch. Go me. Consumed a ridiculous amount of beer and honey mustard pretzels. If I don't get to the gym soon I'm going to explode.

I started compiling the east cost venue data on Sunday. I was really on a roll and then had to stop to go to practice. We had a good time. I think we have Wasteland Cupid pretty much refinished. We also started a new song. It's one of Cory's, so naturally it's dark, but it reminds me of My Bloody Valentine in a way, so it's cool. It's also rather energetic. For some reason I woke up at 5 AM this morning. I kept hearing doors slamming. I think Lisette might have been moving stuff out of her place or something. Oh, and Mischa signed the lease, so he's moving in across the hall for sure. It's going to be Seinfeld for geeks.

March 11th, 2004 08:20 hours CST currently listening to: nothing but my desk fan.

Neat. I went to the soda machine in the kitchen to get half of my diet coke and advil morning cocktail. The company recently lowered the price of soda's in this machine to 25 cents. I put in a dollar and got a dollar and 5 cents in change. I made a profit. How cool.

I feel kind of crappy today and that stupid, reoccurring ear ache of mine came back last night at practice. It hurt like hell to have ear plugs in last night. When I got home, I just went straight to bed. Didn't even turn on my computer. We gave "Wasteland Cupid" a massive overhaul. We've really only just begun. Cory fashioned a gravity bong out of a 2 liter coke bottle and a portable cooler filled with water. I had only heard of this but had never seen it. He and John both took massive hits of this and coughed for nearly 20 minutes while I stood there laughing. Can't imagine what that would have done to me with my lungs being a pink as they are.

there was something else I was going to write about but I'm spacing it right now. I have at least 5 new computers to setup today, so I won't be around AIM very much.

March 10th, 2004 09:15 hours CST currently listening to: "Season Song" by Blue States

I really need to pay more attention to my car. Or at least, take it more seriously. The oil light has been going off and on like crazy for the past, oh, month now. It's acting like it's just a loose fuse, though. Usually when an oil light comes on, it just stays on. But not on my weird Swedish grocery-getter. Well, I finally got nervous about it on Monday night and bought three quarts of oil from Pep Boys. Put them in yesterday right after work. That damn engine was bone dry. I have to get it serviced this weekend. Stupid, stupid me.

Yesterday was x-mas in March. Not only did my DVD set of the third Futurama series arrive, but my parents sent me a super late x-mas gift that was off my amazon.com wish list. The whole series of The Critic on DVD as well as the DVD for National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Rock on. I'm running out of room on my shelves in the living room. Ben is gonna give me his Ikea CD cabinet thingy when he moves in March. Maybe then I can use that set of drawers I have and use them for my aging VHS collection or something once the CD's are out. My life is hard!!!!

I just busted out laughing cuz Dave was brushing his hair at his desk using some clear, red plastic brush. Something about him being in the beam of sunlight coming through his window made him look royally gay.

I took one of my leftover vicodin last night cuz my neck was still killing me. Narcotics are stupid. Yeah, they make you feel good but once you get up to move somewhere you want to puke your guts out. This is one of the many reasons why I don't do drugs. And on the lovely subject of puking, I'm re-reading Richard Preston's "The Hot Zone". This may be the 4th time I've read this book. It's rare that I re-read anything, let alone more than once. It's such an outstanding book and what's best about it is that it's non-fiction. It's mainly a story of the Reston, Virginia monkey house where an outbreak of Ebola occurred back in the 80's. His descriptions are horrifying and it's a great testimonial to why the "aids highway" is exposing us to countless infections that we don't have a clue how to deal with yet.

March 9th, 2004 08:40 hours CST currently listening to: "(I'm Gonna) Kick You Out" by The Caesars

My neck is soooooooo messed up today. Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch. Risking my nuts turning into ice cubes and motivated by lack of parking, I got on my scooter last night and went over to Rachel's. I helped her put that orange mod vinyl couch of hers back together. You know the one. The one that Bella will undoubtedly dig her claws into and destroy. That thing is a whore to put together. I was amazed that Rachel had gotten as far as she did before I showed up. Beauty comes at a price.

I started working on the "thank you" section of the airiel box set last night while staying late at work. There were a few entry's in there that nearly made me cry. Now that I'm thinking about them I'm getting kind of teary. I have to remember to bring my camera to practice tomorrow, even though Adam may not be there. I need pictures of John's drum kit and also my drum machines.

Looks like Mischa sold his apartment in Evanston, meaning that he's gonna move in across the hall from me. It's gonna be insane. There will be cables in the hallway between our two apartments. Lan parties for the Gamecubes. Parties in general. I'll have to pay more attention to how thin the walls are in my building. Time to turn the volume down on the porn. Hahahahah. No, seriously.

March 8th, 2004 13:20 hours CST currently listening to: "In This City" by Enon

"She's effortlessly cool, but circumstances can be cruel, and sometimes you must accept that you can't get what you want."

Thursday night was super fun. Maria came over and we made waffles and pancakes. What possessed me to make two batches of pancakes in addition to the hello kitty waffles is beyond my understanding. We had so much food left over. We caught up on gossip and then watched Alien, which she had never seen. It's so refreshing to see someone get scared during a movie.

I got to leave work early on Friday. I was almost to my apartment around 3:30 when I finally came to the conclusion that my Rio Volt CD player is a unyielding piece of shit. I snapped the remote control off the wire like it was a dandelion head, then took my CD out and chucked the thing down the street. It felt good. Now I have no music, but at least I don't have to deal with that thing skipping all the time and eating batteries like there's no tomorrow.

I went straight to bed. Luckily I got a call around 7:30; I might have slept all night. I threw on some clothes and went down to the Double Door. The Bon Vons were playing and weren't too bad. Woolworthy was 2nd and they did nothing for me. I talked to Phil about getting airiel to open for Helen Stellar in May. It's actually being run by the guys at Metro, so I gotta go bug them now. Sour Deluxe played and..... well, yeah. I left.

I met up with Mischa and Hannah at The Music Box and we watched Tron. Scary that Hannah hadn't seen it, being the geek she is. What was scarier was the fact that it came out when she was born. I felt the need to make jokes about it being past her bed time, but I abstained.

Saturday was laundry day. Big whoooop. Mischa picked me up and we went to this Nerd Battle thing at Dead Tech, which is an art gallery in Logan Square. It was 8 billion degrees in there and luckily the corner I was in was populated by people had deodorant on. You can't always tell with greasy haired art kids. I took a few pictures but they weren't that great. Some of the inventions were pretty neat, like the remote controlled lawn mower from hell and the manually operated fish thing. Afterwards, we stopped and picked up Heather and then went to Kim's house for a party. Meredith and her boyfriend Skip (who also lives at this house) were the ones throwing the party. It was really fun. Nikola, Tobias, Yasmin, Harper, Trancid and several others showed up. I raided the fridge of all the Stella they had.

Didn't do much on Sunday. Went to breakfast with Ben. He's moving to Portland in August. I'm going to miss him. We talked about the airiel box set and my freaky love life. "You realize that she's the farthest away she could physically be, right? Jeremy, someday you'll be right. It's bound to happen."

We had a really good practice last night. We gave Cinnamon a thorough overhaul. I'm really happy with the way it's turning out and I'm looking forward to getting lyrics down for it. I also stopped at Ikea before practice. I think we should get rid of children. I'm over it. Screaming little banshees with snot covered hands. We should at least bar parents from bringing them into stores. I bought two mod looking end tables for my bedroom and I also bought a cute little flask. Think that's a bad sign? Yeah, me too. But you all know what a good kid I am, anyway.

March 5th, 2004 10:05 hours CST currently listening to: "Ladybird" by Beaumont

She said "You always want the one you can't have, don't you....". Is she wrong? No, she's not wrong. I'm trying to put it out of my mind. Right now I just want to work on the tour and not think about the one I can't have. I should know better anyway.

March 3rd, 2004 12:00 hours CST currently listening to: "Reason" by Hartfield

I was here at work until 10 last night diagnosing firewalls with Seattle. At least I had company.

It's all so bittersweet.

March 2nd, 2004 11:30 hours CST currently listening to: "Friends In Flares" by Beaumont

I had a chat conversation last night that really took me by surprise. I'm a bit dizzy from it, really. I got into work late and there were maybe 3 or 4 people on the train with me. I stared out the window just thinking. The internet does some really weird things to you. The "what if's" and the "if only's" make things a little harder on you emotionally. Not to wave my geek flag here, but I'm impatient for the day where we can simply transport from one side of the planet to the other in a flash. Gah. There are so many thoughts in my head right now. I wish it were warmer and I could go outside to the little park next to the art museum that's right across the street and just lie on my back, stare at the clouds and think about the "what if's".

March 1st, 2004 10:10 hours CST currently listening to: "Inside-Looking Out" by The Charlatans UK

Hope and her boyfriend Josh came over to my place on Friday night to watch Stacy and Battle Royale 2. Now, there are two movies that I have in my library that I have trouble recommending to people. Stacy is one of them and the other is the Star Wars Holiday Special. Unlike the latter, Stacy is actually watchable to a degree. It's better with lots of alcohol of course. No amount of alcohol can save the Star Wars Holiday Special, however. Once we got through that, we whipped out Hope's homemade guacamole and chowed down while watching the awesomeness that is Battle Royale 2. I want to watch this movie over and over, just like the first one. I'm seeing it tonight over at Seals' place with Dave and possibly DJ. They're gonna love it.

Saturday started out pretty lazy. After getting up at 1:00, my second awakening that day, a manic Mischa called me up to tell me that he just pulled his Vespa out of his garage and would be at my place in 15 minutes. Groggily I put on some pants and other clothes. I figured I would smell like a lawnmower by the end of the day anyway so I didn't bother taking a shower. I wanted to put a new sticker on my Vespa, so I got out this big envelope that has bunch of stickers waiting to be used and also a bunch of concert ticket stubs. Much to my outstanding surprise, the Volvo card with the 6-digit security code for my car stereo was in there!!!! I couldn't believe my eyes. I KNEW that I hadn't thrown that thing away but could not imagine what would posses me to put it in this envelope with a bunch of stickers and ticket stubs. I don't like the way my brain works sometimes.

I took a few swiffer sheets down to the basement and dusted off my scooter. I was really getting excited to go riding since the weather was supposed to be sunny and close to 60 degrees. 20 minutes later, Mischa calls me up from the intersection of Irving Park, Damen and Lincoln. His clutch was screwing up again and he couldn't keep the thing in gear or running while stopped. Fucking hell. So, I went to go pick him up in my car and we got his T5 death machine to Scooterworks. Jeff called my cell phone to tell me he was right behind me in his car. We talked outside Scooterworks for a while. I took Mischa back to his place so he could get his car. We both then went to my place and got my scooter out of the basement. It turned over on the 4th kick. I was ecstatic. The lights still work and everything. We were starving at this point so we went to Lula and got some food. Once we got back onto my street, some little fat Mexican kid yelled "faggot!" as loud as he could from his porch the moment he saw us. While I was a little pissed at what a bigot this kid was, I had to admit that we did look pretty fucking gay with both of us on my scooter. Oh, I also picked up that action figure of Haru from FLCL. As action figures go, it's a piece of shit. But the Vespa Super Sprint she comes with and the left handed blue Rickenbacker 4001 are pretty sweet. She's sitting on my monitor right now.

I took the time I had and watched Versus, which is so fucking awesome, I have trouble comprehending it all. Sword fights, gun fights, zombies WITH GUNS. It's just too cool for words. Later that night, Mischa picked me up and we went to a combined birthday party in Humboldt Park. There wasn't a lot going on there, though I did get to sit in a room and watch people do coke, which was a first for me. I drank most of the bottle of shiraz I'd brought with me and then started working on someone else's bottle of cabernet. It wasn't very good and I started to feel pretty gross. We left around 2 or so. Just wasn't that much fun for a party. I dunno.

Sunday I was determined to ride my Vespa as much as I could. I called up Jeff to see if he wanted to meet up at the new Twisted Spoke that just opened on Clark. He was down, so I got my crap together and got on my bike. The weather was glorious. I went to Guitar Center and picked up a a chord book for Rachel. It's a bit advanced in some areas, but it has photos of a persons hand on the neck, right next to the chord diagram, and that's what I wanted most for her. I made it up to Wriggleyville and Jeff called to tell me that the plans had changed; Mary and Phil were warming up the grill on their deck. This, plus my scooter are two signs that summer has officially started. I went down to Wicker Park and grabbed a quick hotdog, since I was starving and I knew we wouldn't be eating for a bit. Mary and Phil cook like gods. There was lot of curry involved this time and luckily it didn't act like drain-o with me this time. Curry and I don't get along well.

I went up to the practice space and met up with Cory. We were working on the new song that we came up with on Wednesday. After hat I went down to the Double Door. Elefant was headlining, which I wasn't so excited about. That's the band that Emma and I made fun of in London. Life at Sea opened and they were pretty good. The Changes played second and they blew me out of the fucking water. They are a testimonial to the phrase "don't judge a book by its cover". They look like normal, track top wearing indie rock kids, but my god could they play! Really great chords, good vocals, their lead guitarist made me want to freaking quit playing guitar. I was very impressed. Julie found me and sadly did not have Mary Anne in tow. I was sort of there to see her. *sigh* Oh well. I also couldn't find Phil at all so I couldn't talk to him about having Airiel play there in April. I got to hang out with Mark and Adam while I was there though. I left before Elefant got on stage.

It's raining today and I brought that freaky blue umbrella that lights up. I look so freakin gay.