the WU reborn

Rush Tour!

One of my favorite bands of all time is touring! I can hardly wait! I realize how old I am when I've been following a band for 20 years. *sigh*

They will be in Chicago June 5, and in Milwaukee at the Marcus Ampitheater June 7th. If you even mildly like this band and have never seen them live, the time is nigh. Thirty years of writing, playing and touring has made this band super tight, even in concert. I will be at the Milwaukee show for sure, and possibly the Chicago one. Also I plan to be in California this summer, so if I can hit a show there, I just might. Let me know if you want to join us for any of the shows.

You can find out more about the tour on their web site.

And the men who hold high places
Must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality
Closer to the heart

Rush: A Farewell to Kings

Overheard on Campus Yesterday...

i. Spring Break

Girl 1: I can't wait!
Girl 2: I'm poor though.
G1: All you need is money to get down there.
G2: What about going out?
G1: Going out is cheap!
G2: How do you figure?
G1: Well, once you pay the cover to get in, (and all the places have a cover), then you just find some guy to buy drinks for you all night.
G1: Nice.
G2: Yeah, it's easy... blah blah blah oh my God we got SOOOOOOO drunk that night.

ii. No You're Beautiful

Boy: I'm hungry.
Girl: I know what you're hungry for. *smirks*
B: I can't help it. *rubs her lower back*
G: You're beautiful.
B: No, You're beautiful! *kisses her*

iii. Chinese

Boy: Where do you wanna get lunch?
Girl: Might as well go to the food court.
B: Yeah but I have a taste for Chinese.
G: Well then why didn't you say so?! There is Chinese food in the food court anyway. They have sushi wraps.
B: Those are Japanese. *sighs* Besides there is that Chinese place but it's not good in the food court. I want some real Chinese food, like at Wong's Wok. Where is there a Wong's Wok around. Man, their egg foo yang is amazing.
G: Yuk! That stuff is gross.

Armin Van Buuren

Saturday night, Snoop Dark and I drove down to Chicago to check out Holland superstar DJ Armin Van Buuren at Vision. Beforehand, we met up with Karl and Shannon for sushi at Kamahachi of Tokyo. It was great; nice choice Karl.

Armin came on around 1:15 and was still going strong when we left at 3:45. His first hour was a bit slow, but after that he picked it up and kept me with a grin until I left. He seemed like a really nice guy, and let us take photos, and smiled a lot. Well, it seems my three out of four of my favorite DJ's are Dutch.

Shannon opted to rise early to go to church, and was long gone when Snoop and I rolled out of our respective beds at the crack of 11. To Chinatown we went, but skipped the hour long wait at Phoenix for the more integrated Three Happiness. It was not bad. I'll post photos of the weekend soon.

As I write this, I am still waiting for ebooks.australian.random.chick to call me back (see previous posting).

oh! there's the phone!

***Update posted on the ebooks posting***

ebooks

Jesus!

As I write this, I am skipping my poetry class, not because I don't like it, but because I am snowed with work, the most urgent of which is a paper I need to turn in tomorrow on Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors. To aid me in this, I've ordered the Adobe Reader version of it off of www.ebooks.com. Well, the problem is that it's a 20 step process to get your reader "e-book" activated, and their home office is in Australia.

After several e-mails to them last night and early into the morning, I finally passed out in my chair, waking up with classic drool on my face and an empty inbox. I patiently waited all day, and tonight I finally decided to call these idiots. Thank God for calling cards and world phones. The tech girl seemed knowledgable and after walking me through the process, decided that things were indeed f'ed up on their end. So, here I wait for a call from some random Australian girl.

Word to the wise: if you're going to use the service, make sure that it's not last minute.

***UPDATE: random.g'daymate.techsupport.girl called back and put all of my fears to rest, the greatest of which that I had a PEBCAK error. Having worked in tech support for several years, I pride myself at keeping my PC PEBCAK free. Anyway, the problem was on their end; one of their servers was shut off mysteriously. The download commenced shortly thereafter, and a brilliant paper was born.

Comment Contest!

In an effort to increase the number of comments posted on this site by you beautiful folks, I'm having a contest for February. The author of the entry that is deemed (by me) as the most cleverly or well written will receive his/her choice of:

* a bottle of Yellow Tail wine

* a 6 pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon

* a bowl of B1 at Phan's

* a most hearty handshake

That said, on to a report of last night. We all met up at Chris' house and then headed over to the Palms. Overall, it was ok, but for what we paid, which was around $40 each, it would seem to me that we could have done better elsewhere. Afterward, we went to Eve for a bit and got a bit saucy. At 11 it turned to hip-hop which was kind of amusing. Later, Snoop and I dropped everyone else back off at Chris' house, and then headed to Real Chili for some late night eats.

This morning I woke up early but dehydrated. Consequently, I've been drinking water all day and catching up on my reading for class.

Oh one last thing, if you like Jay-Z or The Beatles or both, I highly recommend this amazing remix album. You can download it here. DJ Danger Mouse combines Jay-Z's Black Album with The Beatles White Album to make his Grey Album. (Thanks Karl)

So, I survived Valentine's Day after all. See? Booze and pals fixes anything!

Happy Valentine's Day

Alone for Valentine's Day? Well, it could always be worse, as these seven guys found out in 1929. Rule of thumb: don't mess with Al Capone.

Call me a sentimental softie if you want, but for me, being alone for Valentine's Day does carry with it a small pang of melancholy. Nonetheless, I suppose it is preferable to being with the wrong person, no? Anyway, I've just been hanging out with friends so that I don't end up locking myself away in my room selling digital products all weekend.

Yesterday I met Mark for lunch at Hama and Eric and Jayme for dinner at Coerper's. Eric showed me his nearly fully painted Dark Elf army, which I sold him pieces of. It was quite impressive. I'm glad someone got it who will use it.

I popped over to Victor's to try to meet up with AP, who supposed to be there with Bill, Chris, and some random girls. I walked into the place and several pairs of forty-something female eyes hit me as they power-puffed their Marlboro Reds. Shaken, I hastened my way through the place in search of the guys, to no avail. In my rush I had apparently missed them, as they were tucked away in some side table, perhaps a shelter in the storm of hungry divorcees.

Late night I headed to Shipman's house as Sean was in town. I brought with me a hot box of Krispy Kreme Donuts, which were a big hit. We played a bit of multiplayer 5-Color Magic (Ship won) riding to victory on the insanely powerful Book of Rass. Then we watched part of Kung Pow, which I found funny in parts and tragically horrible in others. None of us could stay awake for the whole thing, so I headed home.

I have to go finish the rest of my haircut this afternoon, since my new hair lady left it a bit too long. She said to try it out for a few days and stop back if it doesn't work. Well, it doesn't work.

Snoop has organized a group of singletons to have a "Valentineless" dinner, so we're all going to the Palms tonight. That should be good times.

Until then, I think I'm gonna paw through some Poe and Hawthorne, and take a scalding hot bath. It's hard to feel anything but happy after a nice hot bath, right?

New Format / Features

Hey Kids!

You may have noticed the changes in format. Also I have added a movie section complete with ratings and (just like the books) convenient links in case you want to look into getting a copy into your greedy little paws. Anyway, I'd love to know what you think about the changes.

2 Fast 2 Furious / Snowball Game

Well, $269.78 USD later, I finally have some closure to the mystery of my car door lock. It seems that an 1995 Acura Integra GSR with nearly 110,000 miles on it is still more desirable to steal than a 2001 BMW 325 which is parked just down the street from me. Undoubtedly driven by the unending desire to pimp out their Honda Civics, car theives continue to target my poor Integrasled, this time with a filed down key intended to just accidentally drop tumblers into place and unlock the ride of a lifetime.

Jack Horner once said: "Alright, there, pal; make it look good, make it sexy -- don't just ram your way up and in there..."

Well, that's how I feel about the sled. And if he would have just been gentle, maybe she would have given it up. Instead, the key broke off and cost me a trip to the dealership. If you're going to steal her again, for Christ's sake stay in "two-bit car thief school." I hear that MATC is offering night classes which will cover such topics as "choosing your Maglite," "a review of good sprinting shoes," and "files and jimmys: an objective study."

The only satisfaction I got out of spending that money is knowing that whoever tried to steal my car had to go home and live with the fact that non only is he a sad and pathetic human being, he's also incompetent at his job. Oh well, there's always coke.

Speaking of snow, Sean sent me a link to the best thing since Penguin Baseball! Who here loves snowball fights!? You need Shockwave for this one.

The Crossing of the Sea

A few months ago, my driver-side front door would not accept my key. I blew it off for a while figuring I would wait until something else happened.

Well, the other day, while relaxing in a car wash, I was pleasantly surprised by the sound of rushing water through my passenger-side rear window. The seal is coming out of the door, and aggravated by the shoddy installation of my roof rack, it made for three separate torrents of water not unlike those witnessed by Moses when he parted the Red Sea and crossed what is now the Sinai Peninsula.

Needless to say, this distressed me greatly, and today I finally got around to bringing the Integrasled into Acura of Brookfield to have them take a look at it. They set me up with a newish Acura RSX "loaner" for a mere $19.95 per day. Next time I lend somebody anything, I'm gonna collect $19.95 a day...

On my drive home, I was contemplating cars, a better life in another country, and huge bodies of water. Then, when all else seemed to fade into another miserable, gloomy evening, I received and e-mail from Dave. When I opened it, I saw this!!!

Coincidence?