October 31st, 2005 11:10 hours CST
Currently listening to: "Finisterre" by Saint Etienne
Feeling: tired and cold

Once again, I'm wearing my coat while sitting at my desk. I think it's actually warmer outside right now. Sheeeeesh. Jeff and Kim's wedding this weekend was fantastic. I can easily say that it was the coolest wedding I've ever been to. Leave it to them to get MFIVE involved. ^_^

Friday at work was pretty crazy. People in my office went bonkers for Halloween this year. There was a complete Christmas village, equipped with Santa, Mrs. Claus, an elf, a rent-a-cop for mall security and they actually let you take pictures with Santa. Jeff Meister kept the whole Santa guise going throughout he entire day. I don't know how he did it. There was also a beach setting, a circus, a Three Little Pigs set and a bowling alley. Freaks, all of them.

Seals and I took off a bit after 5:00. First road trip with the new truck. Woooooo. We had a good time driving down there. We got into Bloomington around 10 PM. Met with Mary, Phil, Josh, Jeff and some others at the Video Saloon. We did a good, old fashioned pub crawl over Bloomington. I'm usually there during Thanksgiving, X-Mas or in the summer, so I haven't been to these bars when the students are also there in a long time. Craziness. I think we got in around 3 or 4. We stopped by Steak & Shake on the way home for burgers and fries. Man, that stuff is so nasty.

The next day was absolutely beautiful. 65 degrees and sunny. We walked over to the theater to see Saw 2. Honestly, I liked this one better than the first. There were some truly creepy moments and I'm glad there's a US horror film out there that's willing to go the distance to truly creep you out. Speaking of which, he and I are gonna go see Three Extremes on Friday. Any takers? Mom made some awesome soup for lunch. We got to the wedding right at 5:00. I thought Red Moon Theater had been hired for this thing because there were people on stilts directing the cars into the lot. Awesome! I knew Jeff and Kim would have a cool wedding and it was shaping up to be rad.

The ceremony was very nice and brief. Their master of ceremonies was a bit.....odd. Kind of like having a drunken, hillbilly uncle conduct the wedding. We all went outside after the ceremony to watch a live performance. This was actually M-5, who are a kickass performance group in Chicago. I had recognized the 2 people on stilts from Red Moon, so that's why I was confused. The fire handlers were great. We really had a good time.

The reception area was gorgeous. Kim had her entire decorating team from Marshal Fields decorate the whole place and they did one hell of a job. However, we were sitting in the corner where the tent wasn't quite making it down to the ground, so the breeze under the tables was incredibly cold. The food was excellent. We all had little prize packs at our tables. DJ quickly got out the plastic vampire teeth. Jeff and Kim looked fantastic and I'm so glad that they are finally married. I never had any doubt that this would happen. And they did it in style, too. ^_^

Here are the pictures and videos from the wedding.

In other news, I have FINALLY finished my diary for the Airiel/Hartfield US tour. I know it took me a long time, but I busted my ass the last few days of last week to get it finished. Resizing and renaming over 100 pictures was what took me so long. Anyway, I hope you like it.

October 25th, 2005 14:50 hours CST
Currently listening to: "Walk Slowly" by Supercar
Feeling: buzzed

Wooops. Erin just emailed me to chastise me on the fact that I neglected to write about her visit to Chicago last week. She and her friend Amanda were here for business and we met up on Thursday after I got out of work. I had planned to take them to Club Lucky because I was craving calamari, but they has eaten Italian the night before. Grrrrr. Japanese it is, then! I took them to Tsuki and we had a really good time. I was impressed with Amanda's judicious use of wasabi. She took all of the extra wasabi from everyone's plates. That's what happens when you grow up in the southwest. Erin and I caught up on a few things and talked about the summer camp we used to work for. I had a couple bottles of sake and we started getting louder as the night went on. We ordered a TON of food. I gave their chopstick use a D+ but their enthusiasm made up for it. :P I drove them around downtown a bit so they could see the pretty lights of Chicago and we blabbed about stuff. Weeee!

October 24th, 2005 11:20 hours CST
Currently listening to: "Transcendence" by Nujabes
Feeling: pretty good

After work on Friday, DJ and I took the Brown line up to Merchandise Mart. It was really crowded. So much so that I could feel somebody else's phone vibrate when it went off. We met up with Keith, Shawn and Arlen and had dinner at Heaven on Seven. We then saw Doom. Jesus. You know? It could have been worse. The guy who played Joe Chill in Batman Begins was in it and I wanted to smack him. The Rock is one of the worst parts about the movie. He delivered his lines with the acting ability of a brick wall. When things go into first person mode, I was honestly enjoying it, although I was rolling my eyes when I saw those scenes in the trailers. Karl Urban..... you need a better agent. I think you're a good actor, but you gotta get into some better movies.

I went up to Ginger Man to meet up with Chris and Arturo. Arturo scored 6 tickets to The Warlocks, but Chris and I were the only takers. They were fucking amazing. I'm going to buy all of their albums. We were all pretty much captivated by the bass player. Sorry, honey. It was like watching a strip show with no nudity. Chris didn't say much. He just sort of nodded his head and drooled. "Hey, I live with my parent's n' shit. You want some a this?" Priceless.

Saturday was slightly lazy. Got my hair cut and I like it a lot. Picked up Shadow of the Colossus for the PS2. OMFG. This game is absolutely amazing. I was glued to the TV all day. Wonderful presentation and atmosphere. The Colossi are simply breathtaking. The physics of your player seem awkward at first, but then you come to realize that they're more realistic than any other game out there. Grabbing onto a colossus by the fur and hanging on (one handed) for dear life as they thrash around feels about as scary as it should. Especially if they do manage to toss you and you plummet. Agro, your horse, is a little awkward to control. Again, all for the sake of realism. My favorite battle may have been with the large flying dragon that came out of the desert. Chasing after it on Agro and then using your bow & arrows to get it closer to you was one thing. Then chasing after it to jump on it was something else. It's such a great game.

Sunday turned out to be pretty lazy. John (or Typhoid Mary as we're starting to call him), called to tell me that he was sick with the flu, so we cancelled practice. I called Chris to come over at 7 so we could still go over guitar parts and order some pizza. I finally put my air conditioners away and cleaned up a bit. I was struggling with the final colossus and needed time away from it. I showed him parts from 2 different episodes of How Do You Like Wednesday and we cracked up. After he left, I finally beat the 16th colossus and watched the lengthy ending credits. I need to play Ico now. I've been reading a lot of game forums this morning that suggest Shadow of the Colossus is in fact a prequel to Ico. I already knew that it wasn't a sequel.

I spent a bit of money at Tower during the week and picked up 3 DVD's. Batman Begins (2 disc), High Tension and Audition. I'm so glad I finally have a decent copy of High Tension. The bootleg version I bought from ebay really sucked. And it's nice having the entire movie in French now. Audition blew my mind. Takeshi Miike is such a wild director. This movie is amazing. The first half is such a fantastic romance. No, seriously. I already knew a lot about the movie, but nothing compares with having seen the second half. Two words: vomit consumption. Woooooo ha.

October 17th, 2005 11:30 hours CST
Currently listening to: "Cry The Sea" by Autumn Thieves
Feeling: my finger hurts

I got some serious back door sprints from Under 55's stir-fry, so my boss sent me home early. A nap later and I was ok. I picked up Arturo and we went to Tsuki for Japanese food. Brief Candles were supposed to play at 9 or so at Hog Head McDunnas, which was almost next door to Tsuki. Hope showed up and so did John. We hung out with the Brief Candle kids for a while, but unfortunately, they were now slated to play third, which meant that they wouldn't start until around 1 AM. We were all falling asleep, so we decided to be lame and went home. Sorry, guys.

Saturday was gorgeous. Ahhh we should have had BBQ's all weekend. All of my items on ebay sold, so I got shipping materials together. I took 5 loads of laundry with me to Spin Cycle in Wicker Park and ate lunch at Pacific while everything was in the dryer. Stopped by Target and got some holiday candles (pumpkin spice, mulled wine and apple cider). Now my house smells awesome. Played Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil until I finally beat it. Fun, but it's definitely an expansion pack. The grabber gun is cool and so is the artifact, but the production values aren't quite as high. Still a few good scary moments, though. I met up with the Airiel boys at the California Clipper for a few drinks. Came home and talked to Yuka for a bit, but I was totally passing out.

Oh, I'm ordering a customized Total Sonic Annihilation pedal from Death By Audio. This thing is going to be a freaking MONSTER. Details to follow.

Sunday was beautiful. I love sunny, fall weather. Had lunch at Penny's and I was going to ship my Fender VI but forgot that today was Sunday and the UPS store was closed. Duh. Bought a new shower head from Target that totally sucks. It cut my water pressure in half. Thanks for nothing, Target.

Finally started playing Far Cry: Instincts. This game kicks ass left and right. OMG. It took a little getting used to having played DOOM 3: ROE the last 2 days, but I adjusted pretty quickly. The graphics, music, voice acting and gameplay are all awesome. The vehicle physics take some getting used to. Once you get your feral abilities, everything becomes even better. Hearing Jack say "no fuckin way" after you make your first giant leap across a destroyed bridge makes you chuckle. I also find it very cool that your hearing gets muffled and you have a high pitch tone in your ears when a grenade explodes too close to you. I ended up playing until past 1 AM last night. The sign of a truly great game.

October 13th, 2005 10:00 hours CST
Currently listening to: "Whippin' Piccadilly" by Gomez
Feeling: kickass

There's something very cool about being handed a wad of 22 $100 bills.

Griff, Arturo, Chris and I went to some crazy ass Polish restaurant that has a grocery attached to it. We ate ridiculous amounts of meat. There was a buffet. It only cost about $14 per person. We started getting quiet around the end of plate #2. I dunno. The idea was dynamite on paper, but I felt pretty fucking gross after eating this stuff. Maybe because I chased it down with cake and some sort of jelly filled doughnut thing. Well, this was a bit of a wake up call. I got up early and did crunches and I'm determined to get to the gym after work today. Bleh.

There was a grocery attached to this restaurant that deserved to be photographed. However, I had the meat-shakes so I couldn't hold my camera phone still at all. After walking past the endless hanging sausages behind the enormous meat department, there's an area in the back that deserves mentioning. 4 gigantic barrels, each filled with a different thing. One had sauerkraut, another had pickles, one I couldn't identify and the 4th was filled with fish. But not just fish. It looked like fish swimming in cream of wheat. Seriously. "WTF" doesn't even begin to scratch the surface.

October 12th, 2005 15:55 hours CST
Currently listening to: "Crystal Wrists" by Peter Murphy
Feeling: pretty good, but I'm freezing my dick off

Let's see. The show on Sunday went very well. I didn't realize how much I had missed hanging out with the airiel lads until I arrived at Dark Room. We had a really good time and got completely hammered. I was so hung over on Monday. My finger held up very well. Fuck, with the amount of whiskey I had in me, you could have chopped the rest of the finger off and I wouldn't have felt it. Chris stepped on the power strip that lead to my pedal board and totally shut me off. My Space Station pedal ended up producing no effect signal, despite the little signal light doing its thing. Just needs to be recalibrated. We were so damn loud, I don't think anybody could tell that something was wrong with my pedal setup. I swear that we've been possessed by A Place To Bury Strangers.

Speaking of which, I'm putting in an order for a Total Sonic Annihilation Pedal with ALL of the bells and whistles installed. It's going to be a god damned monster.

I put some items up for sale on eBay. Not much time left, but please check them out.

I also sold my Volvo wagon! Well, I'm selling it in a few hours. It's going to the first guy who looked at it. I put an ad up on Craigslist and within a couple of hours I had 6 responses via phone and email. That's pretty cool. I'll be a bit sad to see her go. I've had her for 8 years now. Time to move on, though.

Hey, remember when it was like totally freezing in my office and my fingers were turning blue and I had trouble typing? That was awesome. Somebody turn on the fucking heat in here!!!

October 4th, 2005 10:07 hours CST
Currently listening to: "My Way" by Supercar
Feeling: not bad, despite having less of a hand

I know I know, I'm still neglecting this damn thing. I was cutting carrots on Saturday afternoon and I managed to chop a piece of my left index finger clean off. How big a piece? Well, big enough that I was able to pick it up and throw it in the trash. Luckily, I didn't cut off the tip or the pad. This is NOT the best hand to injure if you're a right handed guitar player AND we've got a show on Sunday. I'm cautiously optimistic that I'll be able to play it, however. If it was tonight or tomorrow, I would say "no can do", but a lot can happen before Sunday. This thing bled like no other injury I've had before. I managed to wrap it up with gauze and then wrap a band-aide around it and that stopped the bleeding. The problem I have now is that some of the gauze is fused to the wound and hurts like hell if I try to pull it off, even bit by bit.

Oh, if you get queasy easily, you might not want to read that last paragraph. :P

I updated the show logs on the airiel site. I'll use some of that stuff for my tour journal for this site, which I have yet to start. I'm taking my time because 1) I don't have all of the pictures yet and 2) things are going a lot slower without having the use of my left index finger to type.