invasion of the body snatchers

so yesterday chicagoist had an interesting article on the ever-looming expansion of o'hare...which would necessitate the removal of two cemeteries on its land, st. johannes and resthaven. these are rather tranquil graveyards, considering the surroundings. not their fault the busiest airport in existence built up around them.

anyway, a stink is being raised, and in the last paragraph of chicagoist's post on the subject, the notion is brought up that daley might do the same thing with st. johannes et. al. that he did with meigs field.

...and i think it would go a little something like this.

i just spent ~an hour cleaning up old mouse turds behind my refrigerator and ridding my cupboards of bug-infested flour. all because i wanted to make some cheese dip. wtf.

in case you're wondering, no, i don't have mice.. i used to. the house next door had a potent mouse problem, and when they lovingly tore it down to make future condos, the little buggers ran straight for my apartment complex. i'm in a basement pad, so i got it pretty nasty, but my building manager on the floor above said she saw some as well. cripes. the best was having a friend stay over and us both hearing the aluminum foil in under my stovetop crinkle ever so slightly in the middle of the night.

as for the flour, i dunno. i left an extra bag out atop my cupboard (2 for 1 deal), so it's no wonder how insects got in that lot. i picked the fucking thing up and saw them crawling all over the bottom. that's only after i opened my flour tin and saw the distinct movement of foreign bodies.

on the bright side, i discovered i'm not really that hungry.

a-camping i will go

listening to: mirwais - disco science. damn this song is hot. thanks kim!

tomorrow is girls' weekend, which takes place in a mobile home in wisconsin somewhere. this will be my third year. to be honest, i've been thinking about it all week. last time was awesome.. nice weather, open roads, the amish. (if you look closely, that's a buggy in the distance.) it truly is a way to get away from it all for a few days while not being too far away. and we can drink and belch and fart all we want! (and do!) it's not exactly 'roughing it', since the mobile home is fully decked and even expanded to accomodate more beds and a TV with digital cable. still.. beats spending another weekend in my studio. here's to my mini-vacation...

saw the boys from airiel tonight @ darkroom. despite putting in a brief appearance at the double door last time they played (see post), i haven't actually seen them play in a while. as i was standing there, beer in hand, swaying gently (and not-so-gently) to their ethereal music, i thought.. i'd give my left ovary to hear this shit. i've heard it over and over and over.. and it never gets old. sure, i'd love to hear new material, but their old stuff suits me just fine. lordy.

plus i wore earplugs for the first time and i could actually understand what the fuck jeremy was singing. i swear, airiel's one of the loudest bands i've ever heard. (hoping that makes it sound like i've seen a lot of bands, heh) well, i'm a beer over my limit, so i'm gonna spill into bed now... nite cory, you wonderful manwhore.. <3

flying over cities again with google. one interesting aspect of google earth is overlays. one kind of overlay you can have is notes tagged onto the viewscreen by other users. there's a guy who's been going thru major cities marking urban decay and housing projects. naturally i've been hooked.

in addition to letting us know where not to go when we get off the highway, he (she? seems like a he's work) gives a link to a website wherein there are photos of the various cities and whatnot. lacking in webpage style, but heartstopping in neighborhood snapshots. seeing pictures like that is like seeing someone with half his face missing. in an instant you know something is terribly wrong, yet you can't look away. the worst i've seen so far are detroit.. 45 pages worth of photos of urban decay. christ, even chicago only has 8. what's more, google earth shows many many detroit houses in the process of natural selection. to have them sit around that long, untouched by developers or the city, so that they crumble away to nothing...

the ultimate in apathy

it's official: i am addicted to google earth. apparently the same photos are used in both google earth and the 'satellite' feature of google maps, but damn if google earth isn't 20x cooler. you can zoom in/out with yer mousewheel, fly across the world (makes for some dizzying travel), change the angle of the terrain, and get overlays of parks, restaurants, schools, cemeteries, etc. one thing is, pics of anywhere outside the US are poor at best, and little overlay info exists. that will change with time, i am certain.

so i've spent all weekend looking at the Winchester Mystery House, Cabrini Green and the Robert Taylor Homes (sounds like an awful band), Cook County Hospital (still there!), cemeteries at O'Hare airport, and another cemetery i have visited.. for as hard as it is to find, it's nice they put a label right on it. thank you, google earth!

note: how interesting/sad is it that i spent all night looking at overhead views of chicago projects, while due to neglect, my own apartment looks like one of them...