an unnatural phenomenon is occurring in my office space at this very moment; both phixed and i are spinning old school *marilyn manson* at the same time. it's freaky. seriously. "ya live with apes, man; it's hard to be clean."

goes w/o saying: Spider-Man 2 rocks. but i can do w/o the goddamned zoo atmosphere at the midnight screenings. funniest part of the pre-screening circus was the woman theater manager coming in our room and telling us that they were doing a midnight screening of "I.Robot" and someone yells really loud "WHO CARES?!" - ok, guess you had to be there. I'll tell you what happens in Spider-Man 3 if you're curious to know and don't want to wait 3 years... it's so obvious it's scary.

day 12: wt.184lb!

well it's been one helluva a decent-ass weekend. startin' Friday and ending tonight on the same high note w/dinner @red robin w/past0r & erica. yesterday was immensely cool hittin' the 3PM showing of F9/11 in Batavia w/Capt'n Satan and Raydeen w/dinner and movies to follow; Bad(der) Santa, Truck Turner, Greatest Teenage Challenge, & Double Vision. Up this morning to play w/the kids then head for lunch @IHOP. booked to the Rosemont L-stop as fast as traffic would allow to get Raydeen on the train then home only to bike ride to the library to get some borrows back in time. freshened up before headin' north to p&e's old digs to pick up a few books (a whole damn box full!) they were throwin' out that i forgot to grab Friday. some good stuff in there too! bought us some fine dinner, parted ways and off to the BB for the dvd exchange then home. damn. i'm wiped and my head is still killin'... i'm gonna have to go for the exederin despite the caffeine content; tylenol ain't cuttin' it. nevertheless it was a worthy weekend indeed.

day 9: wt.187lb

Fahrenheit 9/11 and movie night today! yay!

day 8: wt.186lb

it's actually around 1AM but it's still Friday as far as i'm concerned. and it's been one long mothereffing day. this morning i had a 2 hour meeting w/the principles, co-CEOs, re: the issues i brought up 1 week prior. turned out all for the good. besides getting my move to smoggy LA shelved for 6 months, i got nice raise and 50k of stock options. the stock options i knew about; the raise i did not expect... or at least not the increase i rec'd. it was healthy and favorable. at least now if any other company comes a callin' they'd have to offer a significant amt to get me to switch sides. and that's all i was wanting.

after work i split for Deerfield to help past0r and erica move to their new digs in Highland Park. it wasn't so bad but we worked late to get it all done in one swoop. late dinner and good conversation to follow... finally home. and all tuckered out. i'm headed for bed soon... i can barely keep my eyes open.

day 7: wt.186lb

funny thing is, i can actually picture Seven of Nine saying this in one of those elseworlds Voyager episodes that the series was so famous for... with her deadpan, monotone delivery:

"Respondent took me to two clubs in New York during the day. One club I refused to go in. It had mattresses in cubicles. The other club he insisted I go to. It was a bizarre club with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling. Respondent wanted me to have sex with him there, with another couple watching. I refused. Respondent asked me to perform a sexual activity upon him, and he specifically asked other people to watch. I was very upset."

From Ryan file a bombshell.

healthy week of CD acquisitions!
these two arrived monday from Amz.uk:

rolling stone purchase yesterday:

rolling stone purchase today ($3 coupon needed for death angel!):


no one can accuse me of not supporting the plastic disc industry. check the share folder.

so last night was the White Sox game w/Lisa, my other champaign-urbana friend. we see each other about once a year and usually it's a ballgame. back in '99 or '00 we had the sweetest seats for a Cubs game (thanks to her cousin who worked for the Cubs then). our seats were basically on the field, a few steps from 1st base. it was sick really.

anyways, i booked out of work early so we could hit the L and get down there at a reasonable time. wouldn't ya know it, on the ride down i got 2 calls from a couple principles at work... truly no rest for the wicked. it was pissing rain all day so i was thinkin' that the game was gonna get called but it turned out to be a great evening weather-wise. Sox lost.

i realized over the course of the night that Lisa and I, despite being from the same hometown and going to HS together, couldn't be farther apart in every other way. and it seems that w/each passing year we're more and more different from each other. we're sitting there talking away and the whole time i'm thinking, "hmm, we're talking but it's meaningless." and truth be told, she wasn't even really interested in talking to me, rather one of her teacher friends instead. it was like going thru the motions. weird b/c i always thought us to be good friends (i don't have many friends left from HS days)... then i discovered she wanted to be "more than friends". when i snuffed out that flame sometime a couple years ago i think that's when everything changed. bizarre shit.

[old school] kanna photo of the day!->

day 4: wt.186lb

the clean and neat weekend wrap up:

forced myself to crash early friday to get up early saturday and on the road home to visit my folks. got there around 1PM saturday, the earliest i've ever arrived on a saturday. got the free car wash per usual, went to the house and fired up the 1st of 8 loads of laundry (where does it come from?!). split for 2 hours to hit the usual spots. picked up a couple more cheapie ($12/both) anime DVDs at a Gamestop and a Crystal Pokemon cart. i haven't seen Crystal at any store around my area of the NW burbs. however, this one Gamestop in davenport, iowa had 5 on hand. it was $18. also had a horrible experience at DICK's sporting goods store... basically a customer service issue but i'll never ever shop there again. see how that works, fuckers? yeah, they burned me for good.

dinner and a movie w/the folks. watched Miracle, the Disney/Kurt Russell feel-good about the US Hockey team beating the Ruskie's @the Olympics in '80. same formula we've seen in countless flicks... however at least this really happened. recommended if you are needing to get your "U-S-A! U-S-A!" jones on. also recommended for hockey and soccer fans. fathers day b-fast and a few heavy lifting chores for my stepmom and i was out of there by 1AM yesterday. amazing. i figured i'd be there until early evening for sure but my dad insisted on working on fathers day. ah well.

got back to dp, unpacked the laundry then left to buy meat. lots of meat. that's right, i started the 14-day induction phase on saturday. no carbs for 2 weeks. the withdrawal headache i carried all weekend was not pleasant. we'll see how this goes...

day 3: wt.186lb

day 2: wt.187lb

day 1: wt.193lb

the temps around chicago are dropping for the weekend... i like this weather. had a 2 hour "discussion" w/one of my supes this afternoon over drinks @the Beacon. it went better than i expected however i'm still not satisfied w/his "solution" for adequate compensation and incentive retention. let's try marketplace adjustment for starters... i work in the hottest online industry at the moment - Search. however, one look at my paystub you wouldn't know it. and what about the 2 guys under me? christ. as much as i like them and want them here working w/me i secretly desire one of them to give the big F-U and walk. then we'll see how interesting things get when they try to find a replacement...

i'm headed to my hometown this weekend to visit the folks and do laundry. hope they are getting the same kind of weather!

 

 

<-Kanna photo of the day!

one word to best describe the sold out skinny puppy show last night: pretentious. the best part of the evening? leaving early and hitting Penny's Noodles before heading home. 2nd best part of the evening? walking out of Penny's and seeing phixed leaning on his car waiting for someone to unblock his car from paid parking. i parked on the street 2 blocks over... i'm sure i was home before he was.

my first Bleach import CD arrived yesterday finally ("Three Girls From Okinawa"). i've been savoring some Bleach tunes ever since the night of the SAMURAI show @BottomLounge back in March. to me, they had the biggest impact of all 4 groups that night. and the album i just got indicates how fucking good they are. the crowd reaction at the show was appropriate... Bleach was last on and it was very late on a sunday night; the 3 girls from Okinawa took the stage amid bleary eyes and yawns. as soon as Shukusuke fired up her best Flea bass lick there was a squeal of shock from the audience followed by the thump of a few dozen jaws hitting the floor. it was on.

Bleach seized the show and made you forget everything that happened before them.

and i have major heart for Kanna, lead vox and guitar (pictured). she is un-fucking-believably sexy cool. sadly they were off the stage and out the door before i got a chance to meet them. and they were the only group to not have CDs on sale at the show (huge loss). looks like i'm getting the rest of their CDs via amz.jp. ...mmmmmmmm...

BLEACH official home page!

i placed an order for 3 books @amazon today... for $7.65. however shipping was $10.47 -- thus the downside of buying from resellers/partners @AMZ. ION, amz.uk declined my amz credit card. can i get a "WTF?" -- unbelievable.

i hate mondays. will that phrase ever get old?

today was the matinee of The Chronicles of Riddick, the sequel to Pitch Black. i had heard the reviews going in... "pretentious", "takes itself too seriously", "muddled plot", "disappearing characters" etc. blah blah blah. whatever. the movie rocked! i'm glad that it was a "serious" take as opposed to some campfest like the pitiful Van Helsing. tCoR is like Dune on steriods... w/21st century special FX. granted, it ain't the best flick to come down the pike and Diesel's no theatre-trained thespian but compared to catalog of past "action heroes" like Arnold, Bruce, Sly, etc. VinD is right there. and i can accept that. and the story made perfect sense to me but it would've been nice to have it more fleshed out in a longer feature. where's the goddamn prequel they were supposed to make?!

the eberoeper take on tCoR is pretty funny to hear b/c both of them wanted the flick to be less "serious". wtf? that would've made it really stupid considering the grand scale of what happens in the movie. ugh. and ebert has lost his mind. he mentions Dame Judi Dench's character "disappearing" from the flick. wtf again? i think he must've stepped out after the opening credits and returned during the closing credits... b/c she's there ALL THE TIME when they cut to her scenes. christ, roger. another nice aspect of the flick is Alexa Davalos and if only she could've had more to do! damn. she was a hottie in Angel as the "electric girl" and she's the hottie "tough girl" in tCoR. i think they missed the boat on the character development there considering she was key to a Riddick subplot and then they kinda pushed that whole thing to the side to wrap up the movie under 2 hours. drag. ah well, i enjoyed the movie immensely. and the "firecats" in the flick are sweet!

finally caught the extended trailer for AVP and altho it's probably some really stupid plot, the movie looks awesome. being a big, big Predator fan, i'm looking forward to this one... much more than that suckfest Jason vs. Freddie. i can only hope that AVP is 10x the flick that shitburner was. at least AVP features Lance Henriksen, the stalwart of horror b-flicks!

picked up some more media goodies today incl. DVDs of Lucio Fulci's Zombie, The Simple Life, and The Incredible Adventures of Wallace & Gromit. all $5 each. also nabbed a few games: Harvest Moon (GB), Smashing Drive (GBC), and Pokemon Gold (GB). Gamestop had the buy 2 used get one free sale ending today so i took advantage of that. took home Paycheck, Runaway Jury, and School of Rock from BB. all in all it was a pretty good day... except for the shitass, cockwad sunday drivers littered about the streets and that 4hr nap i fell into when i got home. dammit.

I just caught a showing of Twilight Samurai over at the Renaissance in Highland Park and I'm so glad I was able to see this in the theater! I highly recommend this flick to anyone. I will definitely seek out the DVD for repeat viewings. It's such a well-done movie and very moving in every aspect. I was actually surprised by the the almost capacity crowd on hand to see this flick, esp. since the audience was mostly comprised of seniors. I suppose that's how it is in Highland Park having a Landmark theater assessible w/its typical showcase of art house/indie flicks. the old folks take advantage of that and good for them.

to use some outdated lingo, tonight was fun... not.

i just home from driving 2 hours thru a torrential downpour; tornado weather extending all around the west suburbs. left St Charles around 1AM headed for the SW burbs to drop off my college buddy Glenn after visiting w/another friend... and I-88 was like a battlezone w/cars up-ended and turned the wrong way; SUVs upside down on the median. and the most intense lightning i have ever seen. imagine driving no faster than 40mph thru a storm on the interstate simply b/c you cannot see a fucking thing... unless the lightning lights up the sky. fun... not.

great way to wrap up the fuckass day i had down in the city giving a Paid Search presentation to CADM. i won't spell it out b/c i don't care. let's just say it was not what i expected. and i got dehydrated to point of throbbing headache. split out of there on the road out of the city and shitboil tourist traffic only to get on a conference call w/General Motors. ugh. i didn't even bother going back to the office. i needed to chill bigtime and get in a nap before picking up Glenn at O'hare.

the only upsides from the day were the bag of goodies i fetched from Virgin Megastore (man, that place is a shell of its former life) and the good times hangin' w/old friends out in St Charles for a few hours. i need a nap.

This is one Apple device outside of an iPod that i would love to get: AirPort Express.

email rec'd today:

"are you like selling the shirts? I was wondering....umm let me know I guess. thanks."

-ZAO.

how cool is this? Takashi Miike's Zebraman Premium BOX DVD!

"This time, it's the year 2010 in Yokohama, and something funny is going on. Animals are behaving oddly, and there are sightings of gigantic crab-like creatures throughout the city, but primary school teacher Ichikawa has too much on his mind to notice."