September 28th, 2001

Saw Sigur Ros and the Album Leaf last night at the Vic Theater. This was the best show I'd been to in a long time. The Album Leaf was first, and honestly, I could have gone home right after their set and been completely happy. They were fucking amazing!! Sigur Ros did not disappoint at all either. They had a video component to their show that worked very well aesthetically. They did the single most adorable thing I'd ever seen. At the end of their set, instead of doing an encore, the 4 of them came on stage, put their arms behind each others backs, and took a long bow. It was so cute!!!! Then they came back out a second time ,and did another bow!! It was really a great show. After the Album Leaf set, I borrowed $20 from Vincent and bought both of their cd's. I'm going to listen to them while waiting in the airport this morning. I'm taking off for Atlanta for the weekend. Cheers.

September 26th, 2001

Marty and Mary were in town from Bloomington this week. They wanted to go dancing and get all gothy with me. So the suggested going to Nocterna, which usually happens at Smart Bar every Tuesday. I think that's the one night of the week that Neo is closed, so go figure. I managed to convince Linsey and Christian to come with me. Since this time it was at The Metro, that meant Linsey could get in. I went to their place and we had to walk over to Linsey's place so she could change. It's like a 2 minute walk away. We tried convincing her roommates to come with us. No luck there. We made it to The Metro a little after 10, and the place was dead. No pun intended. The smoke machines were going full blast, and the music was great, but there just wasn't an audience yet. After a couple vodka tonics, the rest of the gang showed up. This was about 11:45. Christian and Linsey decided to take off and go back home. I played catch up with Marty and Mary. We witnessed a performance by "the death girls" which was interesting, to say the least. The show was a performance art piece, done by two girls and one guy. It consisted of swords, choreographed fight scenes, fire breathing, implied rape, and electrical tape on their hoo-haas. Tits. Whatever. I looked over at Marty, and he just went wide eyed and shrugged "who knew?". It was funny. All this on a Tuesday night. I got in around 2:30 and had to be up at six to get into work by 8. Work was not fun. Nothing bad happened, but I was completely exhausted. It's like that feeling where you can't keep your eyes open during a class or a lecture or something. Just an awful feeling. I walked around like a freakin zombie all day. Jeff and I went to lunch and that helped. For about 45 minutes. Then I was back to shuffling around the office (looking for Clair Redfield and periodically vomiting on my feet while having my arms stretched out in front of me). Sorry. Playing too much Resident Evil, and Silent Hill 2 just came out today. I haven't purchased that yet though.

In other news. It's only 36 hours until I get to meet up with Kristen. I'm a little nervous about flying. But that's just an irrational fear. I called Airtran to see if they are requiring any other forms of ID for the e-tickets, but all it takes still is your confirmation number and a valid picture ID.

September 24th, 2001

Damn its getting cold out. This weather is awesome. I met up with Megin last night for dinner at Lula, which I haven't been to in about 2 months. We were nearly blown over by the wind on the way home. I need to get my A/C units out of my windows soon. This is my kind of weather. Jackets, jackets, and more jackets.

I'm leaving for Atlanta this Friday to meet up with Kristen. I'm so excited I can hardly stay in my chair.

September 18th, 2001

I was watching my new DVD of Akira this week. I'm a huge anime fan, as most of you know, and this one always sticks out as one of the best ones out there. It even had a theatrical debut in America after all. Akira was actually the only comic book I ever collected and I have all 38 issues in damn good condition. The DVD version that just came out is........ really amazing. And I haven't even watched the extra stuff yet.

First off, I'm a purist when it comes to foreign films, and I will not watch a movie that has an overdubbed English dialog track. I just won't. They never get the dialog, or the characters right. Ever. They just suck at it. The other thing that REALLY pisses me off with American DVD releases is that the Japanese dialog track never undergoes the same treatment that the English one does. I think every American anime disc I have has the English dialog in Dolby 5.1 and the Japanese only in stereo. WHY?!?!?! Akira however, has something special to it on this disc. For the DVD release they completely redid the English dialog track. New voice actors. New dialog. It's actually quite good. The only other anime flick that I own where I could say this is my DVD of Vampire Hunter D, which I only watch in English because the mix of the Japanese track is so terrible. But Akira is really impressive. They got children to play all of the kids; numbers 25, 26, and 27. The Colonel came off as a little insensitive compared to the last guy who did his voice, but at least he didn't "ggrrrrrrrr" all the damn time. Kaneda is noticeably better, as are Tetsuo, Kai and Yamagata. Kay came off as a little insensitive too, like the colonel. She had a rather deep and mature voice that I just couldn't get into. The dialog has even been changed to actually make a more understandable story. The movie of course didn't come that close to the real story of the comic books, which would have bee too huge anyway, but this new dialog is closer to the books than the original dialog was. You hear more characters names and they even pronounce most of the Japanese names with some accent. It's nice at times, but sometimes it sounds a little weird to hear everyone in the movie pronounce Akira the same way. With the accent on the first vowel and not the second.

This movie has always had a unique soundtrack and now you can actually hear more of it, thanks to the fantastic sound mixing they did for this disk. The 5.1 surround track is REALLY good, and it's so clear and crisp. It's honestly almost like watching it for the first time, it's so noticeable. I can't wait to get to all of the special edition stuff that's on the other disc.

September 11th, 2001

Actually went to a Cubs game last night. I got a free pair of tickets from my boss at work. It was actually fun. Even more fun after the first beer kicked in. Jones went with me. We met up at the Army Navy store at the Belmont El stop. That place is ridiculously expensive. They had vintage looking gasoline jackets for $150. Not for me, thank you. We made our way up to Chicago Comics, but I was so hungry and stressed out about a real bad, yet semi-correctable work blunder involving the tape back ups on our servers, that I had to get something in my stomach. We stopped at Jimmy Johns and I got a pretty good sandwich. We went back to have a another look at Chicago Comics. I was looking for that Japanese photo book called "Fruits" but they were sold out and informed me that it was between printings. Luckily Kristen told me they had it in good supply at Amazon.com, so I ordered it from those guys. I also bought a walking die cast Bender!!!!! He's awesome! He has a beer bottle that he can hold and a cigar that sticks out of his mouth. All he needs is some sparks shooting out of his head and he'd be too retro for my pathetic words. Watch for him on the web cam. He's coming with me to the office, so he'll get a lot of camera time.

I stopped by Megin's place last night. She rocks my socks, to say the least. I was bringing a a bunch of cold medication, because, well, she's getting a cold. We were having a small camera battle Saturday night and I managed to grab this pic. Her digital camera could easily beat mine in a street fight. No contest. It's funny that we both tell each other that we take the worst pictures. My dad is an OB/GYN and has literally had a camera on me since I was a fetus. As a result, I've lost all sense of photogenic-ness. Actually, I don't think I ever had it to lose it in the first place, but whatever. She told me early yesterday that the one person she knows in Chicago besides me is my old friend Julie who I knew back at IU. Small planet. Julie is a riot. I can see why the two of them would get along. They both have this amazing tendency to smile and show high amounts of energy. Makes me feel old. Or just tired. I can't tell. It will be cool to see Julie again.

I received an email that threatened to ruin my evening but I shrugged it off and just ignored it. It's not worth my time right now. Kristen called and cheered me up anyway. She's the parallel universe version of me. What does that actually entail? Our lines are open. Tell me what you think. I never write like this. That's weird. Anyway. Time to take Bender to work. Cheers.

September 9th, 2001

My life is so weird now. It's about fucking time!!!!! Jones came over to my place on Friday night to play video games. It was great. Nobody is ever over at my apartment, and I don't know why. Probably because Logan Square is kind of bare of bars and venues, and other places within walking distance that are fun to hang around. It was nice to have a competitive partner in Extreme G 3 and Tekken Tag Tournament. He and I are actually going to a Cubs game tomorrow night. Dave, my boss at Getty, got free tickets and he passed them on to me. I think it'll be fun. Interesting at the least. I really want to check out Chicago Comics again because there is this fantastic photography book there of young Japanese kids wearing the craziest damn clothes I have ever seen. That, and I need some of the futurama and Nightmare Before Christmas toys they have.

Now for the really interesting part. You'll remember the girl I met at Neo last week, right? Well, her name is Megin. I spoke to her a couple of times during the few days following our brief encounter at Chicago's finest Goth resort. We met up around 11 pm Saturday night. She lives so close to my apartment. I picked her up and we went over to the California Clipper. Actually, we drove past my building first because she wanted to see how close I was to her. The Clipper was packed and there was a country band playing. I think this was the same band the my friend Vanessa had to endure at Shuba's several months ago. Luckily the back room was rather empty, so we found a table and started talking the night away. She was wearing a choker with a key on it. So cute. Ahem. Anyway. Kristen made an impromptu cameo as well via my cell phone which made me laugh up a storm. At around 3 am we got in my car and drove around. I was trying my best to be Mr. Interesting Tour Guide Guy. We drove through the Lakeview area and then downtown via Lakeshore Drive. I pointed out where my office was and where the Art Institute was as well. Then we snaked back up Lakeshore and around through Lakeview and back to her place. I remember getting home around 5 am or so. A very very pleasant evening. A kiss on the cheek and a quick hop across the street to my car through the rain. She watched from her kitchen window. I briefly thought about reenacting a scene from High Fidelity, but realized that it was 5 in the morning, that it wasn't a good idea. I laughed to myself as I drove home.

Linsey called me up around noon today saying the she and Christian wanted to go up to Evanston to see Ghost World. I've been wanting to see that movie since I first saw a trailer months ago. Dilts told me that it was fantastic. So, we went up to Evanston. Ghost World really was great. Problem was, with about 20 minutes to go, the film stopped and the house lights came back on. A guy walked out o see what was going on and came back to report that all of the movies had stopped as well. He then came back again to say that they were evacuating all of the patrons from the building for some reason. Linsey and Christian had already left to go to the toilet, so I was hearing this news on my own. I followed the crowd as two staff members from the theater came in saying that there was a fire and that we all had to leave immediately. The thing that freaked me out was that there were NO fire alarms going off in our end of the building. Not exactly what I'd call a useful warning system. I called Linseys' cell phone and she told me they were already at the customer service desk getting reimbursed. I found them and got a free ticket as well. We wondered around trying to see if they would let us back in for the remainder of the move. Nobody had a clue as to what was going on. The staff there were obviously not trained at all to handle a situation like this. It was so bad that it was actually embarrassing. We walked over to Papa Johns for some pizza and breadsticks. I called Megin while we waited and left a brief synopsis on her voice mail, and I asked her how the movie ended as well. Just looking for excuses to talk to her. Ahem. Anyway. We drove back down to Christians place and scarfed down the pizza. I talked them into going clothes shopping with me. We checked out Ragstock, which I had never been to before. I bought a rugby shirt that makes me look all Manchester. I also bought two sweaters. One is a cardigan. They're both pretty beat up. Oh well. Chicago Comics was closed, as was the Army Navy store, so we hit The Alley. I was searching for some killer boots to wear while clubbing. Now that I have the prospect of having someone to go to Neo with, I'm gonna need some more goth clothes. I haven't had a gothy wardrobe in far too long anyway.

I'm now trying to stay awake. I'm listening to Disintegration by The Cure. It's such a Halloween style night out right now that I needed to here this. I have some work to do on the Aegis site. Must finish that.

It's nice to be smitten again.

September 3rd, 2001

Ok. Update is long overdue. I've been recording all weekend long. I'm finally getting the hang of the Fostex digital 8-track that I'm going to buy off of Christian. It's nice to finally be recording again. I can't tell you how much I've missed it. I wish I had an extra room in my apartment just for gear. Everything is in my living room right now and it's a bitch to clean up when people come over. I've got one guitar amp in the hall closet with a mic hanging down from a coat hanger. Sweet.

Work has been going really well. I'm finally getting the hang of documenting the living hell out everything I do there. That's just the way Dave wants it. It's not a bother, but going through his old documentation to figure out his planning schemes was a little difficult. Like the old saying goes, it's easier to write your own music than learn someone else's. I got to have lunch with Christian the other day. It's cool to have friends around my office that I got up and go to lunch with. We swung by Zoom Kitchen and ate in the little park connected to the Art Institute.

So last week I was all depressed about the fact that I haven't dated a single person since I moved up here 11 months ago. I think I'm finally out from under that cloud. That's not to say I'm dating anyone. It's just that I'm not bummed out about it anymore. For a while at least. Ahem. But Saturday night I went to Neo. It was a full moon. I needed to shake a tail feather in a big way. Got into the leather pants and poofed up my hair Robert Smith style and took off. I stopped over at Marissa's place first. She was going to go with me, but decided to bail. Damn her. But her totally cute boy friend went with me, since it was near his home anyway. We waited forever for them to play something really danceable and then....... I saw HER. There was this girl wearing all black (duh), with thigh high stockings with garters and her top had zippers in it. She went out onto the floor and I said "that's it. We're getting out there. Now." She and I ended up dancing together and she kept grinning. It was totally cute. When she went back to the bar, I followed. Not being the verbal Adonis that I ever am, I introduced myself by saying "I love your zippers!" How slick am I? Not very. But she laughed and we hit it off. We talked forever. The male bar tender was being all cute because he kept giving thumbs up signs to both of us. It was funny. She just moved here about 2 weeks ago and is actually in my neighborhood. Now get this, most of you know that I've got digestive problems. Well, I have no idea where the hell this came from, but I got sick in my usual lactose intolerant way. And to top it off, the men's room was a wee bit flooded that night. I was so pissed off. I came back and we swapped phone numbers, which I felt awkward doing, but she seemed really happy about it. Her friend that was with her showed up and asked her to go dance, and she waved me goodbye. I took that opportunity to get to my apartment as fast as my volvo wagon was capable of getting me there. And it was right in the middle of The Cure's "Why Can't I Be You" !!!!!! I was so upset I nearly cried. Here, I meet this really cute girl, the cure is playing, and I can't go back out to dance. I got to my car and called her voice mail immediately. I apologized for vanishing and gave a VERY brief explanation. She called me yesterday and left a message. I must have been recording with the head phones on because I never heard the phone ring. She wants to hang out this week, so that's a relief.

So as of right now, I'm going to try to finish the blasted Aegis website tonight. I just want to wash my hands of it and be done with it. Not that I don't enjoy working on websites anymore, it's just that I don't have time. Luckily they don't seem to be pissed that it's not done yet. My parents and my sister are supposed to be up here this coming weekend. I have no idea when I'm going to get my apartment cleaned. I'll have to do it a piece at a time.