Back to the InterNet

I have the connection working and have two (2) machines running. Big thanks to Mikey and Tim for helping me out. Now...I'm pretty sure I had a good reason I wanted a second computer in my dining room...what was that again? Things are returning back to normal, and I figure I'd change things up a bit. I'll give all three loyal readers a few different colors to stare at for the time being. I'll probably take a different tone with my nonsense. I might even use more pictures. Speaking of which...allow me to share the lessons of the past two weeks.

I present to you: A Photoessay of late June. By Ed...aged 25.

The Move


Two years ago, I was told that a bedroom like this would 'pull in the tail.' Two years later, I leave this room remembering it as a nice and quiet place to sleep.


You could either look at the TV or stare out the window. In the summer, you could either look at the TV, or lose you eyesight. The sun is nice...so long as it's not three feet away.


I knew that this view wouldn't last.


This was my portal to Chicago. Although I have to fight for my security deposit...it gave me a nice start.

New Orleans

I'll have a fancy-pants gallery for this adventure. I'm learning that people actually keep up with this web log. Those particular people will be looking forward to my camera's version of this past weekend. Here are a few shots. All the good ones will show up when I get to it.


I didn't take enough shots of the scenery or architecture. I give you the pool. It looked much worse during the day.


Drinking in public allowed. Stock up and you'll have a grand old time. I tried a hurricane and it sucked. Too much sugar...yuck.


Bourbon Street smelled like puke. All the cover bands played the same tired classic rock. Every once in a while, you'll see a guy give you funny and menacing look. All of this was countered by the following: Breast Bearing, Brass Bands, Booze, and Beads. I'd most definitely go back in a few years. I had a good time.


I made it a point to not look at one map, or read about the city. It made things more fun. Safely estimating your way around a strange city is always a fun adventure. One such walk took us toward the ole' Miss. When I took this picture, some dude told us that he had "k for the mother" if we were interested. You'd think an undercover cop who tries too hard to make friendly conversation would be a little less cryptic. The hell is 'k for the mother'?

Weeding



Take a bunch of dudes who all grew up together in the same city. Put them in New Orleans and give them the same suit. Ask them to celebrate the marriage of one of their close friends. What do they need next?



A limo stocked with scotch, whiskey, LCD television monitors and annoying strobe lights. I never understood the all the fuss about limousines. You pay all this cash so you can say you have it for three hours, but only actually spend about fifteen minutes inside...but I digress. We're only there for one reason...arm candy for...



Maids and best friends of the Bride. They smile a lot. They're happy...and they can never be mean. You'll smile, flirt, lose the shy-act and joke about getting laid. It gets better when the wedding band tries to play Juve's "Back that Ass Up." So you put the camera down and celebrate a happy evening featuring...



Candles and Tobasco. Just kidding. The camera sits on the table while you dance, drink, talk, and continually shout "REMIX TO IGNITION!" between songs. A good time was had by all.

We're halfway through the year. Two Thousand Four has been fun so far but I can think of a few things that would make it better. Now I live in a new place next-door to friends, I have a lot more to do at work, and I'm used to sleeping six hours a night. The year would be perfect if I could just...

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Back With a Bland vengeance

That's right, suckas. I got sick of having a color sceme. So I'm minimizing the fluff and letting the text speak for itself. I looked around at other weblogs and noticed that we're all going simple with the design. That makes more sense to me for some reason. Code nerds can note that I still haven't taught myself CSS and this page is still a mess of tables...but that won't change anytime soon. I'll keep tweaking until I don't hate the look of the web log.

As for life...the busiest few weeks ever is coming to a close. I've changed locations, put more energy into the nine to five life, and took a few days to enjoy New Orleans, LA. I've learned that moving still sucks, my security deposit is being held hostage, and while I didn't get too sick in the Dirty South...I hate alcohol.

Stuff about the last few weeks will slowly pour in...stay tuned. Hating on the new look welcome.

HOLLAH!

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Signing off at The Tower

It's after midnight and I am to pack up the rest of my shit and wake up early in preperation for the big move later this morning. The week has been pretty damn busy. Just one more day...just one more day.

I'll miss it up here, sixteen stories up in the air. Up here you sort of take yourself out of reality. Most of the neighbors keep to themselves and you don't really meet too many people unless you have a dog. The view from the window makes the city look very peaceful and very quiet. It doesn't seem like anything bad happens in this city. Well...it's time to head back down to a true neighborhood. I'm happy to get back to reality.

So at the new place I put a stereo together for some background noise. Jst before I turned it on, I cursed myself for forgetting my discman. I was in the mood to listen to Foreigner and my discman and CD was left behind. "Feels Like the First Time" echoed through my head. I hit power and the fuse clicked right into...you guessed it..."Feels Like the First Time." I take that as a good sign.

Well...Leftover Chinese : The Move is slowly coming to a close. Love it.

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The Open Letter

To the person who tossed/placed/left a lit, half-smoked cigarette on the hood of my car:

What the hell were you thinking? Somehow I defied the odds and showed up minutes after you tossed the cancer stick. Something didn't seem right as I approached my car and noticed a nice stream of smoke rising from my car. I doubt my car would have started on fire, but c'mon dude...watch where you toss that shit before walking back into your building.

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Scattered Thoughts About The Recent

- Packing to move is no fun...especially when you have a lot of shit. I hauled one car load to the next location and packed most of my entertainment medium away today. If you see my apartment right now, you'd think I haven't even started yet.

- Hauling stuff sixteen stories is only a challenge when you board and exit the elevator. During one load, I had a keyboard in one hand and a loaded hand-truck in the other. As I carefully maneuvered out of the elevator, this trixie declared in a pretty condescending way (it sounded like baby talk): 'Aww...you need help!" I liked it better when this building was empty.

- By golly, these suckers are giving me a promotion.

- Oh yeah...after almost exactly two years as an 'entry level' minion. I get to take a step up the corporate ladder this week. Based on my observation of the migration patterns of corporate folk, I'm starting to think that post-college life for the businessman is a race to the suburbs. The higher you climb, the further away you will live from work. That step up means I'm closer to living in the suburbs, eh? The go-getters seem to run like hell to the suburbs. I don't need to go back to the suburbs just yet (if ever). I bet you can tell how fast I want to go.

- I saw a damn good show last night: New Black, VHS or Beta, Skeleton Key, and The Secret Machines.
1. New Black : Played tight set. They're more fun to watch when they're loaded, but they sounded their best last night.
2. VHS or BETA : These guys looked like a bunch of assholes when they stepped on stage. I liked the music though. In the end, I felt pretty neutral.
3. Skeleton Key : They sound like Primus, love the splash cymbal sound, use homemade items for percussion, and the singer sounds like the guy from Tool. Draw your own conclusion.
4. The Secret Machines : Once again good. They didn't use as many lights this time around. I disappointed about that. Oh well, it was nice to hear stuff from the first album. Word is getting around about this band.

- I was dubbed 'Godfather' to one of my nieces this weekend. I was told that although I'm not a textbook church guy, I'd be good for guiding young Vivian towards a life of independent thoughts and ideas. Heh-heh.

- Starting at three in the afternoon and ending at eleven at night, I was on the roof among friends. Nothing beats a Saturday of grilling and sipping in the sun. Pictures.

That's about all I've got. This blog might be put on ice for a few days. We'll call it Leftover Chinese : The Move. Maybe I'll hit this up one more time this week. We'll see.

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Last one In The Books.

I'd like to think the readers look forward to posts on Monday morning. Today, I've got the final shot in the sunset progression. Every two weeks or so for the past six months, I've taken a picture of my window view at around 7pm CDT. It's good fun. A rambling look at the past few days may or may not show up tomorrow.


30 January


12 February


26 February


11 March


25 March (clouds all week)


08 April


23 April


11 May


24 May (Oops...wrong digital setting)


12 June

You think I'll miss this view when I move? Yes.

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60 Minutes Gone

Thank you, CTA. In the morning, you decide that getting a bus down the route every ten minutes wasn't enough. You wanted to stretch this out to half an hour. It made getting into work at 9:30 that much more fun.

In the afternoon, you decided to pull the same stunt. Instead of running the bus north every ten minutes, you decided on thirty. I left the office at five and got home yet another half hour later than usual. I've missed every 6:00 episode of The Simpsons this week.

Thanks for taking sixty minutes out of my day so I could stand, wait, and stare at traffic. I really enjoyed my time.

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Socializing. Baseball. Kickball. Pathetic.

- During 'Leftover Chinese : The College Years,' I studied among many who wound up populating the neighborhood we call Lincoln Park. I was never enthusiastic about their social patterns so I rarely ever mingled with the crowd. These days, I run into many familiar faces when I make my way around the Loop. Thanks to my social habits back then, I have a hard time relating to my fellow alumni these days. Today I discovered that if I talk just enough shop...I can get through it and have a good time. I better get used to this. From here on out, I might be required to "network." That is a concept I shouldn't mock anymore.

- As I type this, the Brewers are leading the Angels by 10 runs. The Angels are good these days. If the score holds, what was once a horrible pitching staff will have limited the Angels to only two runs over twenty six innings. If you're a stat-man like my buddy Shugart...you get what I'm saying here. Wow.

- Sports lesson of the night: If you ran the bases during kickball with a cigarette hanging from your mouth, I bet you would appear way faster than your actual speed. Smokers are Jokers.

- I have roughly nine days left in this building. Maybe I should just say 'fuck it!' and start small talk with the attractive female residents. At this point, I've got nothing to lose. Wait...did I ever have anything to lose?

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Fill in the Blank



[ ] This picture makes the world look _______ .
[ ] Hey! Wait...That cloud looks like _______ .
[ ] Oh shit...it's the end of the _____ .
[ ] Ed sure likes bragging about his _____ .
[ ] Paris, TX and Bang! Bang! played one ______ of a show tonight.

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The Nerdiest Post not Worth Reading

*SPOILER ALERT* This post is about Rush. If you hate the band, skip this post.

It's 1 am on Tuesday morning. I'll back-post this shit since it's pertinent to my Monday and I'll probably never get back to this topic if I don't cover it now. Okay...here we go:

After an interesting day at the office, I got together with Nick, Will and Eric to see Rush. I've known Will and Nick since kindergarten and we grew up together as nerdy Rush fans. Good times...but I digress. For the avid Rush Fans, I list my favorite songs played tonight (other than the standard classics):

"Xanadu" - I thought I would never hear this one live. I actually hate the song, but it was played nicely. Seeing a double-necked guitar is always fun, too. This song epitomizes everything geeky about the band.

"Working Man" - I love hearing stuff from the first album. The song is over 30 years old. Even though they dropped into a reggae style fashion in the third verse, It still rocked. On the old live albums, Peart used to drop crazy drum fills whenever and wherever he could. He doesn't do that on this song anymore...but a man can dream, can't he?

"The Seeker" - Rush plays cover songs now. It's interesting to hear. Their version of this Who song was very calm.

"La Villa Strangiato" - This is my favorite instrumental track by Rush. The 8 minutes just blow by when I listen to this. During the jazzy break towards the end of the song, the band went into a breakdown and Alex Lifeson started to scat. That was kind of wierd.

Songs I didn't need to hear:

"Summertime Blues" - They wasted a good amount of time on this song while they could have rocked out on something better. I mean, c'mon...we everybody hates the song in its original form. Why would Rush make that better?

"Between the Wheels" - I like the fact that they wanted to play an obscure song but this song is pretty depressing. It killed the flow of the set. If they wanted to play a fun obscure song, they should have dropped something happier like "Kid Gloves."

"The Trees" - This one is constantly on the set. The song is not necessary anymore. We all know what happens to the damn trees. Enough already.

"Resist" - No one wants to hear a ballad written in 2002. How can you enjoy yourself if you can't air-drum along?

In reality, there were lots of mullets. You rarely saw an attractive woman. If you unfocused your eyes and gazed into the crowd, all you could see were air-drummers. They looked ridiculous...but I had a good time.

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The Weekend Literally and Figuratively Analogous to Baseball


Well...not figuratively. I haven't played that game in quite a while. I did play the actual game of baseball, though...and watched it, too. I'm not sure how or why I became a baseball geek...but it's good fun for now.


Today was the perfect day for a baseball game. Blue skies make everybody happy.


Another sell-out.

- I'm sitting at work on Friday afternoon and my computer screen goes blank. My co-worker (whom originally had authority over me...I think) suggested that I just call it a week and go home. Another Friday...another 3:30 exit.

- During a game of catch with Kara and Mylar, I helped Kara with her throwing mechanics. By the end of our apple toss, I declared: "Ha! Ha! You throw like a boy now!" Educational deed for the weekend = complete.

- My original plan was to watch syndicated Saturday afternoon TV on Saturday. Instead, Quinn called me up and invited me to a pickup game of baseball. Baseball on two consecutive days? It was good fun. I met some of the dudes in this band and swung a bat at pitches. I didn't know what to expect, I hadn't played an actual game of baseball in ten years. As it turns out, I crushed few fly-balls over everybody's head. It felt good.

- If baseball wasn't enough, the weekend of group fitness continued with a few games of Bocce Ball. Whether you call it lawn bowling, sand curling, crocket (?), or 'that one game we used to play'...it's always a good time.

- Street festivals that function on the ticket system are dead to me. I understand that it works well when you have to serve food to everybody at a fast rate. Making change and counting pennies would slow down the entire process. However, I find that it's difficult to purchase as much many dollar tickets as you need. Confidential to mayfest: (1) your beer mug logo sucks and (2) Enjoy my 4 extra bucks.

- We spent a lot of passing through the Lincoln Square neighborhood. So much time that Quinn began referring to the attractive passerby as "Lincoln Square Trixies." I'm not sure if that one will stick, but it was worth a few chuckles.

- The end of our visit the roof last night featured us running down the stairs while giggling like kids. I don't know why our exit was like this...but it all started when we saw a couple getting frisky on a balcony across the street. After about a minute of watching and whispering lewd comments to each other, the woman whom seemed to be enjoying herself saw us and pointed at us. Our first instinct was to run away like 10-year-old boys. Why?

- As soon as I walked into this country western bar, I thought that I was going to get my ass kicked. I guess I'm not used to seeing the stars and bars proudly displayed on t-shirts and wall hangings. As it turned out, everybody was nice and I had a pretty good time. I wish I had seen more mullets, though.

- Yet more baseball was enjoyed today at Wrigley field. Enjoy the pictures. Oh yeah, the baseball gallery is now a reality.

This coming week is sponsored by Miller Beer. Apparently it's not an American beer...thanks, Bud.

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Coincidence

So you act on a whim, do a certain thing, and set things in motion. I'll call this 'Choice 1'. One freak decision ('Choice 1') can send you down a path where ensuing choices and the ultimate outcome is a direct result of 'Choice 1'. Eventually 'Choice 1' gets resolved and you move on to other path-altering decisions. Somewhere along that path and a few years later, you re-live some conditions that surrounded 'Choice 1'. You'll ask yourself: was this form deja vu just a coincidence or was this an omen for things to come and history to repeat in some small part? You have no idea what I'm talking about. I don't think I do, either. Or do I? Let's just say that today's coincidence was way strange.

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...and That Was the Most Interesting Thing Today

It was a sunny morning for a change and I found myself standing in front of my building feeling unusually awake for that time of day. The sun was out, it was cool and breezy. Traffic was light on the expressway. This was looking like a pretty nice day. Then I noticed that there was a raving derelict standing across the street. He was screaming at the top of his lungs at the people standing on my side of the street. I surveyed the commuters. You could tell that each of them tried as hard as they could to ignore the man. I didn't want a part of it, so I backtracked on my bus route for one stop. I got on and when we got to my usual stop, the raving derelict was waiting for the bus. He got on and I started to laugh. I thought to myself: "this is going to be an interesting ride." As the guy boarded the bus, I checked out the people standing at the stop. Half of the people who normally ride my bus dropped back and waited for the next bus (a sacrifice of up to 15 minutes of waiting). They must have been freaked out. As it turns out the dude was quiet for the entire ride downtown. He spent the ride looking out the window and nodding his head. Then as he got out, some passenger got in his way. The derelict started talking again...and when he stepped off the bus, he slammed his duffel bag down and resumed the scream-fest.

I'm not sure if the guy had control of his impulses. He was smart enough to keep his mouth shut on the bus. Then he picked up where he left off once he got off. I wonder how sane some of these crazies are in reality...don't you?

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Another Stupid Post about things I Did Today

- Walked north to the Chicago River by the Merchandise Mart so I could turn around and walk back to work.
- Started a new orkut community (for fans of random communities).
- Entertained myself with the rant and rave forum on Craigslist.
- Read every article on CNN.com and the Washington Post.
- Discovered this hilarious Q & A forum at the Whitehouse homepage. Every question they answer seems to avoid the question and talk about what an amazing job the administration is doing.
- Surfed the same five sites over and over again.
- At the end, I think I convinced everybody that I had a productive day.

Good times, folks...good times.

NetFlix needs to stop sending me defective DVD's. I was enjoying a damn good documentary up until the DVD froze up. So far, I've learned that Filipino-Americans (the ethnic origin I was born into) rule the Turntablist scene. I'll refrain from saying that I want in on that scene...it's tempting, though.

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