finders keepers

my cat is of the curious variety. i certainly haven't found all the hiding places she frequents. i'm not even sure where she sleeps when i'm at work. (she certainly never sleeps when *i'm* trying to sleep.) but apparently she's been dipping into an alternate universe:



i've never seen either of these necklaces before. they look like something i could (or would) only acquire after showing my tits to passing floats. yet, i came home one day, and the green one was on my floor and the purple one was in my kitchen sink. after freaking out a little - omg, what if people are breaking into my apartment and leaving me cheap plastic jewelry??? - i reached the conclusion that these were somehow left over from the previous occupants.

i thought that was the end of it...until i was making mac & cheese tonight and discovered this on my kitchen floor:



yup.. it's an empty, cat hair-encrusted packet of lube. strawberry kiwi lube, no less. i can't make this shit up. and i'm learning more about my neighbors than i ever really wanted to know.

the englishman who went up a hill and came down a mountain and blew another fucking tiebreaker

there are few constants in life. it puts my mind at ease to know that amid all the chaos of the world, e always equals mc², the Cubs will always suck, and Tim Henman will never win Wimbledon. i was fairly surprised to see him playing this year. don't get me wrong, i always had a soft spot for the dark-haired chap with the Wallace-like teeth, but the homeboy's just never had the cojones to dig in and win the whole thing. he's a relic - a serve-and-volley player in a world of baseliners - and the increasingly outmoded grass is supposedly 'his' surface.. yet he can't bring it all together and make it happen. i've watched him drag out match after match with amateurs to five sets, only to lose before the round of 16 to anyone who can put up a challenge. poor sod.

he's not even seeded this year.. and i saw his next match is against reigning champ Roger Federer. sorry, Tim, hope to see you crash and burn again next year. cheers!

the sound of sushi

i get breakfast for my coworkers in the morning. (insert sound of whip cracking *here*) luckily, there's an american-style eatery right downstairs in our building that i go to nearly every day, not only for breakfast, but lunch too. today i noticed a bigass sign denoting four kinds of sushi. buoyed, i asked the girl behind the counter about said sign. she told me not only were they starting with the sushi serving today, but to celebrate, they'd give some away free. free rhymes with squee, which is an approximation of the noise i made.

when lunchtime rolled around, i went down to pick up my tasty fishy morsels. complications ensued. turns out they were sent the wrong stuff, ergo, no free lunch. crushed, i opened my wallet nonetheless to spare myself the disappointment of sushilessness. i moped back upstairs and commenced with my pencilpushing.

then, out of the corner of my eye, i spied someone coming into the office. someone put a small plate down next to me with two tiny rolls and a packet of soy sauce. he joggled my elbow and said my name. i whizzed around and saw it was jorge, one of the cashiers/servers in the restaurant. he'd come up even though he completely didn't have to and spanked me some free sushi. how cool is that? it was pretty good, too.. i think he gave me some spicy salmon and tuna. mm.

i know there's no way on earth you read my blog, jorge, but thank you anyway!

ps. a&w diet root beer does not go with sushi. not one bit.

that wheelchair guy

you gotta love stephen hawking. the man appears on the simpsons, futurama and then takes a swipe at the frogs.

Hawking -- who must communicate with an electronic speech synthesizer -- said he once considered using a machine that gave him a French accent but he couldn't use it because his wife would divorce him.

the rest of the article's pretty interesting too.. but man, does that kick ass.

graaaaAAAAAAAARRRRR

i finally gave up the ghost and admitted i lost my cell phone, that it is gone. i haven't the slightest clue where i lost it. i know i lost it on the 5/26, that i had it that morning before i went to work, but when i came home, it was nowhere to be found. i called every establishment i could think of that i visited that day (i went shopping after work, which only makes things worse). the kicker is, i'm not even sure i put it in my purse, since i hardly ever use it. i've turned my place upside down searching for the stupid thing. and it's also off, and t-mobile, in their infinite wisdom, won't turn it on, which i know you can do.

i called t-mobile just now to report the phone and file a claim. their automated system is one of those cutesy things where the soothing fake voice pretends it can interact with you. 'all right, now tell me your problem.' no choices, no menu, you have to tell a machine anything that could possibly be wrong and hope it picks up on a key word you say. who does this benefit, exactly? people who are too stupid to know they're talking to a robot? do some people try to hold a conversation with the answering machine? i would not doubt that for a second, lamentably. i should have said 'purple monkey dishwasher' just to see what would happen.

i finally got to the claim department, where they told me i need to fill out a police report.. on a phone that, for all i know, could still be in my apartment somewhere. all this makes the eventual irony when i find my old phone (after getting a new one) that much more bitter. there's no activity on my records since 5/24; if someone has my phone and hasn't called or messaged anyone by now, they have even less friends than i do, and they can keep the damn phone for the games for all i care. this sucks buckskin.

waiting

i saw these flowers yesterday, going upstairs to my apartment.

sitting.

sitting for too long already.

sitting... for how long?

chicagoista

damn, it's hard to yell at my cat after yelling in a crowded bar for two hours...

just got back from chicagoist's 2nd anniversary party at the pontiac café. pretty fun. they had delicious frosty cupcakes with a 'snakes on the hancock' theme going. i got to eat one gussied up like a snake that looked kind of like a muppet. plus i got some swag. woo swag!

it was cool, but hard to tell who was who. there were the blog contributors, some of whom wore t-shirts emblazoned with 'chicagoist'. then there were commentors, such as myself. then there were friends of both commentors and contributors. then there were people who just wanted the $3 beers and free drink tickets, i'm assuming.. i gave up after a short while. the music was surprisingly agreeable. kudos to tankboy for moving me to shake my booty. parklife represent!