I biked into Chicago today with the intention of going to the Art Institute. They are open until 9pm, and admission is free, every Tuesday this summer. I've wanted to go for weeks.

Only there was one problem. When I arrived at quarter to five, there was a man at the front door who informed me they were closed. Apparently, the free extended hours are on Thursdays, now.

Okay, great, so you played commercials on every major, ahem, public television station and had ads in several magazines. Only, some of us don't watch all that much TV and don't have any magazine subscriptions. So listen, if you tell me you're going to do something on a certain day all summer, is it too much to ask that you STICK TO YOUR &@$$%#$@**@@!!@!! PLAN?

Well, I learned this lesson, anyway. If I ever plan on going to the Art Institute again, I'll be checking their *^%^&$%#@@ website first. Idiots.

I decided to try to salvage the afternoon by visiting the new Millenium Park. While I was there, I find my camera has developed a little quirk. In order to actually take a picture, I have to press the shutter button down REALLY HARD. I mean I have to practically kill my finger in order for the shutter to open. Really, my finger almost developed blisters from the few pictures I took.

Then I found the new stage. There was a full orchestra there playing classical music. The lawn seating doubles as a park, well, a park with a net of speakers above it. So you had people lounging, reading, sleeping, eating, doing all sorts of park things, only to live classical music.



My bad mood was temporarily lifted. At least, it was, between convoluted attempts to try to take pictures of this utopic scene.

By the way, this is offically called "Cloud Gate," but everyone refers to it as "The Bean." One hundred years from now, it will still be known as "The Bean," and "Cloud Gate" will be a forgotten name.

Listening to: Star Trek TNG
In my sink: 1 plate and fork

I almost lost my phone last night. I was horrified to realize it wasn't on my hip on our way home. I rarely even use the damn thing but was horrified to imagine that I was unreachable. I mean, what if some emergency happened and a family member needed to reach me?

It could happen.

Turns out, the clip broke, and the phone just fell off in the car.




So now I took the cover off the phone and have no clip.

In other events, I read an article in the Chicago Reader about the Chicago Public Schools. I don't remember the exact wording, but in it was a quote from Mayor Daley himself. I won't actually put it in quotes, but it said something like the city is committed to helping those troubled schools in Chicago by providing the resources and programs the reswt of the article was mentioning. So, how exactly were my students, in the third worst performing school in Chicago, helped? I suppose by "help," Mayor Daley meant "shut down?"

I think I may speak for my second graders, who will now have to be bussed to schools outside of their 'hood' which are now receiving twice as many students at the same inadequate funding, when I say in all sarcasm, "Wow. Thanks. That really helped."

Listening to: John Lennon
In my sink: 1 plate, 2 bowls, 1 cup, 1 glass, 2 spoons, a fork, a spatula, and a baking sheet. Dammit, that spaghetti jar is still in there. Anyone know where I can actually recycle in this town?

In an attempt to lighten my mood, which has been ever dwindling the past two days in what I hope is not a trend toward depression, I give you:

Good things that happened yesterday, 7/19/04:

• I found my 2 lost compilation cds.


• I had a cup of lemon sherbet ice cream.


• I watched half of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.


• I realized i still have an entire chocolate cake that i forgot to use at my party.

Of course, today I found out that someone has eaten half of my cake. Then, my absolutely amazing lunch at Cafe Ballou (Citrus Blue salad with potato soup) was cut short. Finally, someone told me to shut up. All I said was "uh huh." I was trying to BE POLITE. This was answered with "No, shut up," and by the same person who interrupted my lunch.

Do I deserve this?

Anyway, uh, on my to-do list today (still not done at 5:03 pm):

• email xxxxxxxxx@hotmail


• finish bang! bang! pictures


• email bang! bang!


• email walter meego


• buy a kryptonite lock


• become a concert promoter

I think I put the one about the concert promoter in there because the list seems to involve emailing a lot of bands or artists. I also think I should add "write a best-selling novel" to the list, or at least "write a mediocre short story." Well, okay, how about "write a crappy poem." Yes. I'll do that.

Tomorrow.

Tonight I think I'll head down to the Art Institute (Tuesdays are free), if I can drag myself out of this mood.

Listening to: Elevator music? (I think I need to start bringing my earphones with me. I don't know why I haven't thought of that earlier.)
In my sink: 4 serving bowls, 4 spoons, 3 regular bowls, 3 cups, a plate, a knife, and a colander.

Hey everyone,


I realized I should say something here about my party Saturday night, for anyone reading this who lives in the general area. I've tried not to write about it in my journal for fear of sounding like a broken record. You see, I don't want to sound like a broken record. Repeating things and all. Like a broken record would do. Because then I'd get repetitive. And repeat things. Though wouldn't it be a shame if I had this party and my faithful readers didn't even know about it? All four of you? (I think I may have five readers now. I'm not sure. Like I've said before, I've lost the ability to track who is following me via my rss feed.)


So here's the info:

Tomorrow, Saturday, July 17, 8pm.

Bar Vertigo, 853 N. Western Ave., Chicago, IL

$5 cover.

Who's playing? Glad you asked:

The Detholz!

Adam Evil & the Outside Royalty

and Mallory. Or is it the Mallorys? I don't know. Someone else booked them for me.

Also: $3 Guinness (yeah!)

$2 PBRs

And free food while it lasts.

That's right, I said FREE FOOD.


Okay, so, also, I'll be grilling out all day beforehand, and what the heck, I may as well invite my five readers. So if anyone reading this is from Chicago and want to come by, say from noon on, email me and I'll send you the info. As personal as my website may get, I'm still not very inclined to post my address or phone number on it! If you just want to show up at Bar Vertigo in the evening, well that's fine too, and the information's up above. But feel free to drop me a line beforehand anyway if you're so inclined. Anyway, uh, yeah.


Oh, and bring your climbing shoes, because you're gonna ROCK.


I know, that was just about the stupidest joke ever, right?


Listening to: DETHOLZ! and Quantazelle, this cool local electronica(? I never know) dj whom i've never seen but found some mp3s of.

In my sink: a bowl, a spoon, a cup, a spatula, and a baking sheet.

Listen.

I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 today.

Now I don't think it actually revealed anything Earth-shattering. It didn't tell me anything I didn't already know or suspect, and I pretty much already had the same views before I went in. Naturally, though, it started me thinking.

The evidence against G. Dubya and the current administration isn't what impacts me, it was the images and emotions of those directly affected by 9/11 and by the Iraq Wars. These are images that you and I have seen time and again, but they will never fail to affect me and more than likely you in the same way each and every time. How can I go on living and enjoying my lifestyle knowing these things are happening to others in this world?

Now I know what you're thinking. You're skeptical and saying, "Come on, you'll have forgotten all this within a week." And you're right. How many times have we been faced with these horrors on our television sets or even across the street, and how many of us have continued on our very same lives, with no change in lifestyle, even that evening? I saw people walking out of that theater near bawling, and I was ready to bawl myself, and yet I am almost certain every one of us will go about our caffeine-enhanced routines tomorrow morning without a care in the world beyond our usual Monday morning concerns.

And that bothers me. Rather, it doesn't bother me, and that's what bothers me.

You see, that's what I want, to go about my normal caffeine-enhanced routine and relatively happy life tomorrow. The last thing I want to do is become some Michael Moore inspired raging globally-aware politically-aware anti-war activist. God, no.

I'm serious, dammit. Let me give you some back story.

As most of you know, I was once a missionary in Haiti and Brazil, teaching American missionary children, Haitian adults, and at times even helping care for sick Haitians. I was a Christian; no, I was a friggin' fundamentalist Christian, one whose heart bled all over the place staining and infecting every ground I trampled. I went out of my way, "out of my comfort zone" (how I hate that cliche) and beyond my means to vainly try to Do the Right Thing and Make This World a Better Place. Of course, far as I can tell, that hasn't happened. In fact, on more than one occasion, and maybe once or twice with my help, things have ended up either worse, or in the case that broke the camel's back, fallen apart altogether. All this caring and empathy was killing me. Somewhere along the way, I gave up. I said screw it, and high-tailed it back to the good ol' US with the conscious decision to say to heck with Everyone Else and pursue the albeit selfish American dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of money. No, I didn't type that in error. I was taking the Declaration of Independence one step further, or should I say one step backward, and using Thomas Jefferson's original draft. Whoever decided to edit that was a fool! (I say in jest of course.) In the years since then I believe I have progressively closed in on this dream. I have asserted and continue to assert that I am only in this for myself and no longer care about anyone else, except for those few like my dog and my family. In short, screw you guys, I'm going home.

Now I admit (or plea?) I still consider myself a Christian, albeit a very bad one. I'll also admit I haven't been to church in about seven months.

So do I want to forget this movie? Heck yeah. Bowling for Columbine? Never want to see it again. Much like any serial killer movie I see (and I friggin' hate that genre), I want to get it out of my head just as soon as possible. Even before the movie was over I was consciously thinking to myself how easily I can push all this out of my head and oh, please, please do.

No, I want to go ahead with my relatively easy life. I want to continue celebrating my birthdays by eating an excessively huge slab of prime rib and drinking Guinness profusely with my dad. I want to go on living it up and holding parties at the local bars with three bands. I just don't have time for social activism and awareness. I want to go to parties every weekend and laugh and joke and drink and flirt with really cute girls wearing alien antennae and sitting practically on top of me.

In case you're too scared to click that link, here it is:



I put that here just for you, uh, oh crap I forgot your name already. Remind me next week at my party. After you slap me for posting this picture, of course.

Of course, I didn't immediately push it out of my head and forget it, did I? No, I mulled over it all the way home, and when I got home I rushed to my computer and began composing this now lengthy journal entry. In fact, I think the only reason I am writing this is so I have something to remind me later. Yet, even this journal entry will end with the routine "Listening to" and "In my sink," designed to use pop culture references and not-so-funny meme satire to instantly distract your mind on the off chance any important or socially relevant ideas happened to find their way into my journal. Ready? Here they are.

Listening to: the White Stripes, the Creatures
In my sink: 2 bowls, 2 spoons, 2 cups, a glass, a fork, a knife, a plate, a pot, a cover, a colander, the spaghetti sauce bottle.

My Sims CDs are PC only (read: Windows only). As we all know, my new Powerbook is... not a PC.

On a happier note, this has to be the GREATEST POST EVER. Well, okay, maybe not the greatest, but it's pretty dern awesome.

Listening to: Skinny Puppy, Felix Da Housecat
In my sink: 1 bowl, 1 spoon, 1 cup, the spaghetti sauce bottle.

I just found out the Manhandlers show starts at 8 pm tonight. It was 8:25 when I found out. After considering all the ways to instantly transport myself across town to the Bottom Lounge, I decided I didn't need to see them all that bad. Their set would probably be over by the time I got there anyway.

In the meantime, over the past two days I've been getting used to my new Powerbook. There have been such amusing experiences such as Itunes taking it upon itself to re-arrange my entire mp3 library (I quickly found the "hey! don't do that!" button in Itunes preferences), trying to find a decent html editor to do this stuff on, and discovering the wonders of Ichat Rendezvous.

What wonders, you ask? I wonder. There's this Rendevous window that appears along with the buddy list when you start up Ichat (or AIM to non-Apple instant messengers). Normally, it's empty. Yesterday, however, a screenname appeared in it while I was sitting in Cafe Ballou. We started up a conversation, and I met the person behind the screenname instantly in real life. You see, she was sitting over on the couch. It turns out this is what Rendezvous does; it broadcasts you, your screenname, and your email address to anyone else using Ichat in the same network. (Again, I found the "don't do that" button for that. It's all about finding the "don't do that" buttons.) Still, as she pointed out, it's a little disconcerting that this would be the default setting. Well, okay, I think it MAY have asked me something about it when I turned on the firewall. I just... didn't know what it was. (Meet people? Sure. I'll do that.)

On another note, I'm trying to do port forwarding with my wireless router. This is not rocket science; I've done it before. Lately though, it just... stopped working a while ago. Now, since then, in order to get my wireless router to play well with others (i.e. my Powerbook), I had upgraded the firmware to the latest version. THREE DAYS AGO. (This is important.) After upgrading, I tried the port forwarding thing again. No dice. So I opened a support case on netgear's website. Here was their response:

---

Thank you for contacting Netgear Support. My name is Manab & I will be handling your enquiry.

Please upgrade the firmware on the router and check if that resolves the issue. You can download the firmware from the following website:

http://kbserver.netgear.com/support_details.asp?dnldID=738

Download this file and save it in the hard disk of the computer. Please follow the steps given below to upgrade the firmware on the router.

1. Log on to the router typing the address http://192.168.0.1 in the browser and user name as admin and password as password.
2. Click on the option "Router Upgrade" or "Software Upgrade" under "Maintenance".
3. Click on Browse and locate the downloaded file. Click on Upload to complete the process.

Regards

Manab Kr. Mallick
Netgear Support

---

And with that, they closed the case. Didn't wait for a response from me. Didn't wait to hear that I had ALREADY DONE THAT. AND IT STILL DOESN'T WORK. Does that sound like a closed case? It doesn't to me.

I tried emailing this Manab DWEEB to tell him this, but was sent back curt instructions from someone else on how to open another case. So, I opened another case, and was careful to explain this time that to the best of my knowledge, I am operating with the latest firmware version. And yes, I POWERED DOWN the router. Several times.

That was two days ago. To date I have not received a reply.

This is what they call "customer support." Too bad they don't have a "Hey! Don't do that!" button.

Listening to: The Fiery Furnaces
In my sink: 2 plates, 2 bowls, 2 spoons, 2 cups, and 2 knives. I'm all about 2's. Oh, and that damn spaghetti sauce bottle.

Let's just start by saying I failed at leaving my car parked and biking everywhere. The car went a total of one day before being dusted off and driven again.

First of all, my parents invited me to Michigan for the fourth of July weekend. I kind of need a car for that. Biking there would take a little too long. So that happened.

I took the Skyway (tollway)on the way home, which allowed me to find out once and for all if my Ipass works in Indiana. I figured, it's an "Ipass," right? The "I" can stand for Illinois OR Indiana, right? Yeah, well, despite my amazing logic, it turns out it doesn't. I guess Indiana and Illinois aren't that cooperative with each other. I just thought MAYBE it would be nice to have an automatic toll thingy that worked in your neighboring state as well, since Chicago pretty much sprawls into Indiana anyway. But no. No dice.

This brought me to a small problem, since I never have to carry change for the tolls in my car anymore. The toll booth appeared ahead just as I was exiting I-90 (the Skyway), and I realized I had no change. No problem, right? I'll just go to one of the manned booths and pay with dollar bills. So I did that, but the manned booth wasn't manned. So here I am, at the booth, which is a good car's length in front of the unmanned coin bucket (what do you call those things?), with a line of cars behind me, and no money. After scouring the car, I scraped up two quarters, and got out of the car to walk to the bucket and throw them in. The car behind me was amazingly patient. So everything turned out okay, and I was able to leave the tollbooth without crashing through a gate. But this is what I ask: is it so much trouble to clearly mark which booths are automatic and which ones are manned? Last I saw in Illinois, if there was a booth, there WAS A PERSON IN IT, or it would be closed. Is that too much to ask?

Then comes my second attempt to leave the car alone. As I decided Monday at 5pm to buy a Powerbook (which I'm writing this on now, thankyouverymuch), I had to go downtown to the Apple Store. Naturally, I already dreaded the downtown traffic and parking hassles, especially at 5pm, and besides, I'm trying not to use the car, right? The obvious answer was to take the bus, which should be convenient because the Chicago Ave. line would drop me off about two or three blocks away from the Apple store. So I set off. In no time at all I arrive at the bustop on Chicago and Leavitt, and proceed to wait.

And wait.

And wait. After a half hour of waiting, I gave up, found my car, and drove to the Apple store.

When I'm driving down Chicago Ave., Western Ave., Ashland, or many other Chicago streets, I'm constantly stuck behind those damn buses! They move extra slow and take up both lanes so you can't get past them. They are a nuisance, and they are EVERYWHERE. I can't get away from them when I'm in my car. WHEN I'M IN MY CAR.

When I want the bus, not one can be seen for a half an hour. Probably more. Again, I didn't wait around.

It was probably just as well that I drove, because I ended up getting a free printer out of the deal, and the whole package would have been a pain to drag back with me on a bus. (Yes, don't order online if you're buying an ibook or powerbook, go to one of the stores and they'll give you a free HP printer with it. Of course, I don't know if it's any good yet. Haven't hooked it up.)

So I'm resetting the clock. This is take two. No more driving, I mean it this time.

Listening to: Life at Sea (again. too lazy to get it out of my dvd player.)
In my sink: Well, let's see. There's five cups, four spoons, a fork, a knife, a microwave bowl, four bowls, two plates, and a used spaghetti sauce jar. I guess I should fill the dishwasher today. Now. Er... or something.

I bought a powerbook. 12" screen, 60 GB hard drive, 1.33 Mhz and the whole deal. Even found out I get a $200 discount with Apple for being a teacher. I still need a decent html editor though, one that can browse and upload to an ftp site as well as edit the pages.

So despite all my free time, I've fallen way behind with my own personal site. I'm two weeks behind in all the pictures I've taken and hadn't posted a journal here in about a week. Part of that is due to trips to Michigan, window replacements in my apartment, cleaning, setting up a new computer, and various other crud, I suppose. I have a lot to say about Indiana tollways and the Chicago Transit Authority, but I have a headache right now, so I'm going to stop here.

Listening to: Life at Sea
In my sink: I can't even remember. Suffice to say I meant to load and start the dishwasher before I left for Michigan this past weekend, but those dishes are still in the sink.