Campy

Yeah, Evan Dando really speaks to me... Thanks to Eric & Bethany for another blast of a Memorial Day Weekend party...

I love the idea of being outdoors-y, I want to be a guy who likes to camp, who can build a fire, who can pitch a tent. And to some extent this is true. I can put up a tent, provided i actually remembered the poles & stakes, I can build a fire if i have a lighter and a lot of time.

But i think maybe i don't really like all these things. I am afraid of bugs, i despise being too cold or too hot, and i don't know what plants i oughtn't touch. After scoring a tent from Eric's parents since mine had no poles and blowing up an air mattress we had a pretty sweet set-up, but still, sleeping outdoors... i dunno, kinda sucks.

I think my kind of camping is the kind on wheels.

It's Hard Out There for a Primp

Tonight is MAPH Prom... The end-of-the-year Boat Cruise, with a 3-hour Open bar, that my program puts on for us... And it only cost me $30,000. Still, Open bar, though...Good stuff. So, i am getting all fancied up for the event, which i enjoy & despise.

Yesterday was the first day of the year that i climbed into a car that was toaster-oven hot, it was fantastic, finally, if i leave my car in the sun for a couple hours, it's warm enough out to make it unpleasant to get back in... Normally, this is a great time of year, but suddenly i'll be trying to do the same thing while suited up, making me an instant sweat-ball & all-round unpleasant person. I also shaved for a second day in a row, which my face really complains about... & i forgot to bring my battery-acid aftershave (which tells my weeping face: "i'll give you something to cry about") so there was additional facial unpleasant-ness... Add to this the fact that i evidently have no acceptable shirts to wear under my suit (although i thought i had about 20) and it makes for a trying dress-up experience.

But i love being whole-assed snazzed up. It's one of my favorite feelings. I don't do it often, and i don't do it well (because i always end up with 1 key element missing, socks, belt, pants), but i love the feeling of belonging to the world by trying to dress superior to it that accompanies the experience for me...

Plus, there's nothing better than being drunk in a nice suit.

What the hell is down there?

So, yesterday i hosted my own private Lost party. And man, i just cannot believe it. What a cliffhanger, so many unanswered questions, who will live, who will die? What's with Walt? And what the hell is down that hatch?

That's right, i am still catching up and just finished season 1 of Lost. My current theory is that there will be a House of Leaves tie-in episode where Locke will climb down and run into Stephen King wandering the halls of the house.

Lost is an amazingly remarkable show, though, i think they do miss artistic opportunities by tying everything up together to neatly in a tv-shaped package. The flashbacks in any given episode invariably tie-in to whatever will happen later in the episode (those of you who often experience flashbacks know this is not the way they function in real life) & there are just too many damn cliffhangers, which i understand is a part of the medium itself, because of its serialization, but still, sometimes it seems like Dan Brown is a guest creative director on this show.

But, all in all, it's just too good to be true. Well written, good looking television that's popular. After finishing Season 1, i so desperately needed to know what was down there, i bought the first episode on iTunes... but then episode 1 had such a cliffhanger... well, it's gonna get worse before it gets better.

Anyway, happy Thursday everyone & know that you have my love & support in coping with your summer Lost withdrawl.

A review of Food

Quite the Tuesday. After getting home late from barring around last night, i slept a bit late this morning, then headed to campus, leaving Nathan & Lissa to find their way downtown to hook up with Tritle, which they did fairly successfully. I had a blueberry muffin & coffee at the Classics Café. The coffee was desperately needed & the muffin was ok, but a bit crumbly. I really shoudn't get muffins. I don't eat them very attractively, i'm afraid.

I headed downtown to meet up with everyone & got to the basement restaurant they had lunch in just as they were finishing. After stops at Millennium Park (which i now appreciate as a pretty sweet thing - previous visits have all been in foul weather & therefore tainted) and the Art Institute of Chicago, we hit the 'Park Grill' near Millennium Park for a Heinekin and some chips & salsa (my favorite food, hands down). The salsa tasted a bit barbecue-y to me & had a very thick consitency. Strange stuff.

After that we headed to U.S. Cellular Field for the White Sox Game. They won handily, in a quick game. We got in on some successfully scalped tickets & i had a brat w/ sauerkraut. It was pretty decent, but nothing too special. I had been told by several Chicagoans that U.S. Cellular Field has some of the best stadium food in the country, but i would say it doesn't hold a candle to Miller Park... Not even close. I had a Sam Adams & then discovered with my Pretzel purchase (again, no Miller Park pretzel) that they had a vendor with PBR on tap. Which makes this stadium ok in my book.

The game was fun. Lot's of homeruns & a 'loud guy' (guess which one of those people is 'loud guy') pretty close to us who yelled at Frank Thomas a lot. Once again, no actual images of the game, because Nate's camera has a crazy big memory card that fits nowhere, but here is some evidence we were at the game, and here's some more... of my watch, Lissa's soda, and me looking at the card the photographer handed me that says how to find my picture. (You can buy a Joel & Lissa at the White Sox game t-shirt - Nate was getting cash & food). Oh, speaking of photographic evidence... there was a couple in front of us, who, when the photographer came around asking if people wanted their pictures taken, to put on the website, they were like "No, we can't be shown to be here..." then laughed & were hiding from the photographer as he took other people's pictures. I think they were illicitly coupling. Cool.

Sweet mama

It's in. Unbelievably, but true, i've finished & handed in my thesis (photographic evidence should be forthcoming. Nathan took a picture to document my handing in the paper at Malynne's office, but he has some bizarro-size memory disk for his camera that doesn't fit in my computer.

But rest assured, our great zombie nightmare is over. At least no more will be bothering me tonight. Nathan & Melissa are in town - we crashed my precepts post-thesis party, then moved on to bigger & brighter things. It's so great to have some folks in town. I only got about 4 hours sleep last night & am so glad they were around to pull me up & out... Sorry i missed the good times in Hyde Park, my MAPH-feathered friends, but, well, you know. the HP is lame & there's nothing Nathan loves more than 'cool stuff'.

Ok... must catch up on some sleep (before delving into The Man Without Qualities)

It's a bird, it's a plane..."that's an omen."

Today, i was biking to my soccer game - sadly my last soccer game of the season, Sparkle Motion's over-achieving reign of mediocrity came to a crashing end today with a 2-0 playoff loss. As i approached the fields, through a parking lot, i was going over a speed bump when a bird dropped from the sky, dead not 10 feet in front of me. I looked around for a confused hunter, stalking the alleys of Chicago for pigeons, but saw no one. Then there arose what seemed to be a bird scuffle, in mid-air. A pigeon (looked related to the recently fallen dirty dove) was chasing a larger black bird around, squawking at him. So, i assume the black bird was the guilty party (unless the pigeons are equivalent to the Hyde Park police in bird world & every time a crime is committed they go around harrassing any nearby black birds).

Anyway, i took the fallen bird at my tires as a bad sign, but i'm hoping it was an omen pointing to our playoff loss, rather than my final 36 hours until the thesis is due. I think if it was supposed to be an omen for my thesis, the bird would have gotten back up after a couple moments & begun awkwardly, but persistently trying to eat up all the other birds in the world. Though, now that i think of it, i haven't seen a bird for a couple hours.

Hang up & Walk

Today i was cut off by no less than two people who were talking on their cell phones. And i was walking. And they were walking. One was merging from another sidewalk, and got there a little ahead of me, but she still really ought to have been aware of me. She was completely oblivous, though & walked me right onto a soggy patch of lawn with her giant bag. When i then proceeded to walk around her, she still didn't seem to register that she wasn't the only one on the sidewalk.

Earlier, another girl walked past me - i walk kind of slow some times, especially when, like today, i'm carrying my shoulder bag (Kenneth Cole $69.99) - got a call on her phone and slowed down and veered right, which would have rammed me right into the brick wall by the sidewalk had i not decelerated and gotten around her. I'm just lucky to be alive. Be careful out there.