October 27th, 2003 09:56 hours CST currently listening to: In Like The Rose by the BRMC

I had a fantastic weekend. Friday night's party was fucking insane. Lavy's new place is pretty nice and perfect for parties of this magnitude. That really is the best word to use. It was huge. I took some Polaroid pics, but I'm waiting for Mischa to scan them. Here are some other pics, though. Mischa was wearing this great disco outfit. The 70's theme was in full effect with a lot of the people, but the bulk seemed to be wearing normal hipster garb. My friends are just too fucking hot. Trancid spun some great tunes and I danced for nearly 2 straight hours. My knees and back are freakishly sore since I hadn't done anything like that in months. I drank a lot too. Katja, Mischa and I went to some 24 hour Mexican place around 5 AM and got some grub. We were ravenous. It was an outstanding night.

Saturday was hangover/SSX3 day. That game fucking rules. My ONLY reservation about it now is the whole "out of bounds" thing. There are times where you're barely off the main trail and the fuck you with that damn thing. They should have engineered that better. I unlocked Peak 3 and I did the full peak race which takes 30 minutes! It's an amazing game. Anyway. I met up with Jeff and Kim at this cute little Italian place in Ravenswood. We ate tons of food. It was BYOB and luckily they brought a bottle of Shiraz and unluckily a bottle of alcoholic cold syrup with an Oliver Winery label on it. That place is in my home town and they have the worst tasting wine in the world. It's wine for children. Blech. We drove to Boystown to see Gorey Stories, making a small time-killing round at a nearby bar. Gorey Stories was once again excellent, if not better than last year due to the guy playing Hamish this time. He had us in stitches.

Sunday I was too lazy for my own good. I'm starting to freak out about London and I feel like I have no time to get my house in order before I leave. I'm seeing Kill Bill again tonight with Becker and Seals and I should really use the time more constructively, but I really want to see this movie again. Anyway, we had a 4 hour band practice Sunday evening. It was great. We even ran through multiple Ride covers as well as Catherine Wheel, Chapterhouse and some others. Things are coming up roses as far as airiel goes. I ended up skipping the thing at Big Wig last night because the practice went so late and we also went to a bar to get some food. I had one of the best burgers ever. Grilled onions kick ass.

October 22nd, 2003 09:34 hours CST currently listening to: Sun Kissed by Guitar

Ok, that's it. I'm buying some freaking nail clippers for my cat. I've got two huge cuts on my hands from this morning. Good grief. Also, for some reason I feel like I've broken a toe. Weird.

Ok, so SSX 3. Bought it last night and got a few hours with it. Here's my initial impression: it's great. The graphics are amazingly good. SSX has truly never looked better. There's trippy lighting all over, the weather effects are great, the backgrounds are gorgeous and the cut scenes are long and detailed. The game play is very different from the previous games. I'm talking about the control scheme here. The basic controls are still there, but for some reason they've moved the shove command to all 4 of the shoulder buttons, where it used to be used by the right analog stick. You can do a few different punches and can actually block now, but that seems weird that they would focus on a combat aspect of this game when it really should be about racing and tons of cool tricks. The right analog stick now lets you bend your board to do tail or nose slides. It's rather cool that you can be completely impassive now in your run. It says now in the manual that you need to not be pushing any buttons when you land and this is true. Before, you could at least push the d-pad to turn you as soon as you hit the ground, but now you spin, as if you're still in the air. It makes you lose a lot of momentum, so I've got that to get used to.

The characters are really detailed but I'm seriously disappointed with the voice acting. It's not that it's bad, but they didn't get any of the same people back to reprise their roles. Well, Biff Naked still seems to be voicing Zoe, but even characters from the very first game like Moby and Kaori have different people voicing them and they're a lot less fun. Moby was one of my favorite voices in the series. The characters seem smaller this time around, probably to emphasize how huge these courses are. It makes things seem a bit... lonely. But then, that's also because I'm not yet used to all these changes. I think I felt that SSX Tricky was totally different from SSX, but in hindsight, they're nearly identical compared to how different SSX 3 is to those two.

The courses so far are impressive. You can go ALMOST anywhere. As soon as I hit my first "out of bounds" I was really disappointed. You have little to no indication that you're going of course, and that's pretty crappy considering that the courses are so open ended now. It's going to take me a while to get used to all the changes. There are these crystal things all over the courses, which you can do as competitions or as a free ride. These get you cash, which you also get by performing tricks and winning medals. Cash let's you customize your character attributes, appearance, tricks and soundtrack. Getting (buying) new boards does nothing to effect your characters attributes at all. They're only for appearance, which you can customize to the 10th power. You can buy hats, gloves, boots, necklaces, helmets, shirts, pants and all kinds of weird shit. I'm guessing that this will be more important with the online portion of the game. Suck it, XBOX users. It's only for PS2. Hah. Anyway, you have to go back to the lodge each time you get cash in order to put the money to use. Before, you were forced to use your points to beef up your riders ability. Now you have to remember to do it. It's almost like an RPG in some ways.

The course so far are really fun. The races are long and go all over the place. Rails are so easy to do now and I've become really good at hand plants. The half pipes are just ridiculous. The air you get on these things is just wild. It results to a bunch of button mashing, really. You can get your über tricks done really fast and as long as you land correctly each time, you just rack up points like lighting. In addition to the point multipliers, speed boosts, trick boosts and money crystals, there are other crystals on the courses and so far I have no clue as to what they're for. The manual mentions them briefly as they help you "get to know the course" but I don't know if they add to your score each run or what. We'll see. Shit, I wish I wasn't at work now. There's gaming to be done.

October 21st, 2003 10:02 hours CST currently listening to: Head Up High by BRMC

Dave got back from London last night. He has suprisingly very few stories to share with me. Most of them were about the movies he watched on the flights there and back. I briefed him on the week. The guy fucking up that Cubs game, the expired Afrin event, Kill Bill and Bubba Ho-tep.

I went out after work and checked out H&M. They don't carry a lot of clothes for men. About 2/3 of the place is for women. I managed to find two cool pairs of pants, though. I went to the Levi's store as well and got a bunch of stuff. It had been a while since I'd done any clothese shoppping. Now I feel like I have some decent threads for London next week. Booyah.

As soon as I got home, I jumped on my Rally 200 and took a ride over to EB. I put a reserve down on SSX3. I have such a hard on, waiting for that game. Dave might even come over tonight to check it out.

October 18th, 2003 13:23 hours CST currently listening to: Sharron Apple by airiel

Something I forgot to mention that occurred to me while I was eating lunch with DJ just now. Heh, funny that I thought of this over food. On Wednesday and Thursday I noticed a lot of blood when blowing my nose. I was blowing my nose a lot, as one does with a head cold. I had used some 12 hour Afrin the last two nights (Tuesday and Wednesday), just so I could actually sleep. Well, this Saturday as I was cleaning my apartment a bit, I took a look at the Afrin. It expired in November of 2002! Hahahahah. It still worked, but 11 month old nasal spray is like paint thinner for your sinuses. Hahahaha. Lesson Learned.

October 18th, 2003 10:30 hours CST currently listening to: This Is Why I Can't Sleep by airiel

Well, after nearly two weeks of being sick, I'm finally feeling like I'm on the mend. I actually have energy today. Partly because I got caught up on my rest this weekend by doing next to nothing besides sleeping and partly to the fact that Emma Anderson asked to be my 'friendster' this morning. That rules. However, my mood is quickly going downhill as I'm busy as hell this morning. Our secretary, who is rather nice but I still get impatient with, called me up the moment I sat down at my desk to say that her computer wouldn't boot. Sure enough, it's trying to load Windows and there's an error message saying that pci.sys is either missing or corrupt. This computer is totally dead. After asking her a few questions about it, she admitted that for the last TWO MONTHS she'd been getting errors that the system was becoming unstable to which I replied "so when your car's oil light comes on, you think it's just kidding?" She never mentioned any of these errors to me or Dave. Grrrrrrrr.

Friday night was pretty fun. I met up with Mischa around 7:00 outside the theater at Clark and Diversey. We got some food, then went to Untitled. This is precisely why I buy used or vintage clothing. This shit is so expensive! 90 fucking dollars for a green Adidas track top???? Shit, I've got an old blue one that cost me 7 bucks! After about 5 minutes, I stopped looking at the clothes altogether. This is insane. I had no idea that buying vintage looking shit that's brand new would cost so much. Anyway, we got in line for Bubb Ho-tep. This movie cracked me up. It got a bit repetitive and slow towards the end, but how can you not love a movie about Elvis and a now black JFK fighting a mummy that sucks souls from your ass? Bruce Campbell was there after the movie to do a Q&A. Everything I've read about how he treats his fans is true. He's wonderful. He was witty and quick to backhand a stupid question with a stupid response.

The rest of the weekend pretty much consisted of me sleeping and then playing SSX Tricky, gearing myself up for SSX 3 which comes out tomorrow. Sunday I actually made it out to the recycling center. I had three bins full of cereal boxes and stuff that were months old. It was a gorgeous day. If I hadn't been sick I would have pulled out the Vespa. I'm gonna hit H&M after work to do some pre-London clothes shopping. Ben told me that the Levi's store is finally carrying those stretch pants that I love so much. Kickass.

October 18th, 2003 11:08 hours CST currently listening to: nothing (I'm copying a CD)

I went home from work early yesterday because I felt like complete crap. Slept for 2 hours, which helped a lot. Hope picked me and we went to Potbellies where Mischa met up with us, then we went to see Kill Bill. I was rather impressed with this movie. I think that despite Tarantino's nuances and nods to all the sword fight movies of his youth, his directing ability has gone to the next level. Matured, if you will. From the very start of the movie, it's painted on the walls how dramatic this film is capable of being. I was hooked from the start. You don't get a good impression AT ALL of the great performance Uma Thurman executes if you've just seen the trailers. The trailers make it seem a bit more like a sassy, classic Tarantino movie, when in fact, it's much more dramatic and serious. I really want to see this movie again and soon.

October 16th, 2003 10:10 hours CST currently listening to: "Your Silent Movie" by Dorian Gray

I hate being sick. God damn stupid head cold. At least my throat is back to normal. We had a short practice last night because we were taking pictures later. We ran through Sharron Apple for the first time and John more or less nailed it. I was impressed. He's really skinny, but these songs are gonna give him some huge arm muscles. I picked up Ben around 9:45 and we went to The California Clipper. John and Cory showed up and so did Hope and some of her friends. The pictures from my camera came out darker than I'd hoped. I'm gonna sic Photoshop on them and see what I can do. They remind me of the pics on the Interpol web site. I have the roll of black and white film from Ben's camera. Gonna take that in at noon to get developed. We're looking at playing a few shows in Milwaukee with Dorian Gray and Brief Candles soon. Also need to get in touch with Helen Stellar. Whimsical already gave us a resounding "yes" to play with us whenever.

I'm going with Hope and Mischa to finally see Kill Bill vol 1 tonight. I'm looking forward to this. AND Friday night, Mischa, Aric, Steve and I are going to go see Bubba Ho-tep. Bruce Campbell is supposed to be there for the shows that night. It would be fun to get a picture with him.

October 15th, 2003 08:47 hours CST currently listening to: "Oceanic" by Tom Spacey

Well, yesterday pretty much sucked all over. I was busy all day and my throat thing has of course turned into a head cold. I was in a shit mood all day long thanks to that fucking cab driver. Things turned around once I got to band practice though. It rocked. Things are sounding really fucking good. We're messing around with "In Your Room" quite a bit. We're practicing with about 9 songs already, with several to crack open still. Those boys make me laugh.

October 14th, 2003 08:25 hours CST currently listening to: nothing

I was almost run over by a fucking cab on my way to work. I had the walk sign, and stepped out into the street and this asshole never even looked, turned right and I ended up sitting on the hood of his cab. I couldn't fucking believe it. I should have made a huge seen and called the useless traffic cop over and had his license suspended. He even had a customer in the back seat who was freaking out. Fucking asshole.

October 13th, 2003 13:25 hours CST currently listening to: "Lessons In Love" by Level 42

I feel like crud. I got smacked with a cold on Friday. I hate that feeling where you just KNOW you're finally succumbing to the cold you've been shaking off for a week. I stayed in Friday night. Went to bed early.

Didn't do much on Saturday. I cleaned my kitchen big time. It needed it. I keep thinking that I went out and did something that day, but maybe I'm just delirious from cold medication. Sunday I managed to go out to the practice space and play with Cory's other project. It was fun. We ended up running through some impromptu covers of "Leave Them All Behind", "Vapor Trail" and "Nothing Natural". We even did "Liquid Paper" as well. I ended up falling asleep around 9:30 and woke up around 2:30. That sucked. I read for a while and managed to get back to sleep.

Dave is in London until next Monday, so I'm gonna be on AIM all day for a week. Rock on. I'm gonna be doing we updates for the Clairecords site as well.

October 9th, 2003 09:55 hours CST currently listening to: "Bottle Rocket" by Astrobrite

Airiel is now a three piece band! John Runger played drums with me and Cory last night and he got the job. It's so fucking cool how these songs sound now. They're so different from the recordings, but that's something that I want. With the exception of two shows, airiel has always been a two piece with drum machines. I used drum machines because it was the easiest way to craft exactly what I wanted since airiel started out as a solo project of mine. Most of my time here in Chicago has been with me writing lots of songs and getting very used to the fact that the songs are always the same length, once they're programmed into the drum machines and the parts are arranged. Now things are open ended and honestly, I was a bit weirded out for the first few songs last night and then I realized that I just need to loosen up and have fun with it. The problem we could run into is the fact that the three of us could EASILY play these songs for too long and just sit there shoegazing, not noticing whatsoever if the audience has completely disappeared or not. Hahahah. We played Halo and rocked that ending out for an extra 5 minutes. Kiss Me Slowly got the same treatment. I love the fact that I can stand there playing the same two chords over and over and let Cory find all the sweet spots and have the song take a new twist. This is gonna be huge.

October 6th, 2003 10:27 hours CST currently listening to: "Oceanic" by Tom Spacey

Friday: Went to see Underworld with DJ, John and Arlo. Ok, ok, that movie is not so great. Whatever. Oh, avoid the garlic fries from the sports bar right across the street from Webster Place. God, those made me feel awful. Got home to feed my cat and then picked up Cara and Nikki to go to the Hungry Brain. Had a few drinks and got some dirt on some people. Went to some shit-hole bar in Wicker Park at 2 AM that got packed really fast. Some yuppies asked if I would shave my head for $250. I told them I'd only do it for $1,000, minimum. These guys were rather odd.

Saturday: went to breakfast at M Henry with Jeff, Kim and DJ. Had this blackberry pancake, brown sugar thing from heaven. Ran some errands. Managed to park right in front of every single place I went to. Met with DJ, Catherine and her husband and sister at the Grill Room, across from the Shubert theatre. Our friend Eric was waiting our table that night. I had my first steak in over a year and it was fucking glorious. We split a bottle of wine and had a good time. Went across the street to see Eddie Izzard, who rocked. That bit at the end about the horse ride had my stomach cramping because I was laughing so hard.

Ben came over on Sunday and we got our Manchester plans ironed out, with the help of Jen in London. I'm wondering what we're gonna do for Halloween. I did laundry and restrung two of my guitars. Watched some movies and chilled out. It was a good weekend.

October 1st, 2003 16:40 hours CST currently listening to: "Here and Now" by RIDE

Despite the "knock my ass down on the concrete" wind going on, this weather is tops. Ok, so the drizzling rain sucks too, but the temp and creepiness is awesome. There's this huge spider making webs all over my windowsill here in my office. I'm filled with a desire to go burn candles and make my apartment into a crypt. I've got the Halloween spirit. So does Matt over at X-Entertainment.com. The latest entry about the Dracula Ring is hilarious. I've been on AIM all freaking day because Dave has been gone. I've had some great conversations today. Stella is getting married as well. Wish her a happy union. I'm gonna go get drinks with DJ and John in an hour. Then we're gonna go see Underworld, which I've already seen (as has John), but DJ needs to see Kate all trinity/vampired out. Plus, it fits the weather purrrrrfectly. Then I'm gonna hit a bar with Cara and Nikki, I think. Jack Daniels will keep me warm on this chilly night.

Oh! You all need to go see Gorey Stories!!!!!

October 1st, 2003 08:55 hours CST currently listening to: "Kiss Me Slowly" by airiel

Howdy folks. The new practice space is working out well. The drive out there really isn't that bad. It only takes me about 45 minutes or so. It's weird going from a room that had carpeted walls, a hollow wooden floor and a no room to move, to a room that's mostly all concrete and bright as hell. I'm noticing differences in my guitar tone like crazy. Acoustics are fun. John sat in on the practice Wednesday night. Cory and I sort of talked through some song changes and overall expectations we have of our future. Things are gonna be cool. It all sort of boils down to how well things go on Wednesday with John finally playing drums. That's going to be a major factor in how soon we play out.

The heat is finally on in my building and I'm thrilled. Until Wednesday morning, I'd been getting into the shower as soon as I could simply to have the hot water on me to warm me up. It sucks being that cold. I think my cat is happier now too. I've got a lot to clean up tomorrow. Ben is coming over on Sunday so we can iron out all our London details. I can't wait!

October 1st, 2003 09:20 hours CST currently listening to: "Age" by Chapterhouse

I'm kinda sleepy this morning. It's so damn cold in my apartment. I wish they'd turn on the damn boiler. In fact, I'm gonna call right now and see what's up. Cory and I moved our gear into his space out in Schaumberg. I'm guessing that it's gonna take me 90 minutes or so to get out there during rush hour. I'll time it today. I'll have to basically haul ass in my car as soon as I get to my apartment after work. I have to remember to bring my Boss DR-660 drum machine today so we can go over Where It Belongs and Swimming Through Us. We went over Sonic briefly last night when we got the gear setup. That song needs to be spruced up a bit. We may ad vocals. Cory and I harmonize REALLY well together. I got home around 10:30 and made a Dunkin Donuts run. It couldn't be helped. I've been eating kind of badly ever since the wedding. I'm gonna start my normal Cosi salad routine today.