eureka!

some time ago, i obtained my very first HDTV. silly me, i didn't really equip it with the right firepower, so it's been a very shiny, sleek paperweight as far as TV is concerned. games look orgasmic, but i've still had to hook up the old rabbit ears if i want to watch anything live.. and it comes in as well as on my sister's old hand-me-down rustbucket.

then i went to a droolery party on sunday at kristin's. her tech-savvy boy was on hand, scattering when we really got down to business. before he did, though, we got to talking about the fantastic reception they got on their own HDTV. (the cubs sucked with that much greater clarity!) rudy informed me that before they caved and got comcast digital, they'd had an HD antenna to pick up local channels. of all that i'd read about HDTVs, i didn't know it was possible to do such a thing, and without sacrificing a big chunk of my money and patience dealing with middleman satellite companies. i can't get directv through normal channels due to a partnership my landlords have.. and naturally the consumer connectivity with that middleman sucks donk.

fascinated by the idea that i don't have to settle for beautifully-rendered static, i went to radioshack to get an HD antenna. when i asked the guy if they had any, he said that *any* antenna would work to get HD channels. i resisted the urge to call bullshit, but resolved to try it at home.

with the help of antennaweb.org, i figured out what local HD channels correspond to what numbers. fox's normal chicago channel, for example, is 32; their HD channel is 31. and i swear, i'll be damned if i didn't connect my ancient rabbit ears, flip on 31...and see a crystal clear picture. granted, i forgot that they've moved the simpsons to 10:35, but i digress. it fuckin' worked! not only does that mean i can watch programs and not feel like a gimp.. it means i could have watched the entirety of March Madness while taking full advantage of my equipment. talk about mixed feelings.

someone left a cake out in the snow

been a while. i'm still doing stuff, but i hardly ever feel like blogging about it. this, however, was too good to pass up.

it's my three-year anniversary at my job on thursday. at least, unofficially. i've been coming to this office day after day for three years, but my company didn't hire me permanently until jan '06. so technically, i've only worked there for a year and a quarter. *snicker* tell that to my graying hair and frequent headaches.

anyway, what i've done for the past two years (i think) was buy a cinnamon bundt cake from corner bakery. nothing wrong with that in the least. but whilst looking for dessert recipes for easter, i had a hankering for something lemony. (i went with peanut butter & chocolate, the latter to placate kim.) so i decided to suck it up (hrhr), buy some actual lemons, and make a lemon layer cake, complete with frosting.

tuesday's my workout day, so that took me to 6. i stopped at the store on the way home, so that took me to 7. then when i got home, i could barely stand up, so i rested till 7:30. ok! time to roll up my sleeves and bake a cake before 10. no sweat. ...except i didn't even start on the filling till 9:30. said filling required boiling, and in order to get the two cake layers to stay without slipping off one another, it had to be competely cool. i ended up sticking it in the fridge and, because it was still so gloppy, i frosted the outside of the cake with it, rendering the actual frosting obsolete. whee.

went to bed at 11:15. got up at 5 to wash my hair. after surveying the heap of pale yellow crap on my kitchen table, i decided to break out the frosting after all and coated it right there. so i had a freshly frosted cake...but no cake carrier. the best i could do was a disposable pizza pan with no bag big enough to hold the whole ensemble. with time slipping away, i decided to carry it until i could catch a cab. so what if it was exposed to the elements for five minutes? it'd be better than the stares i'd get on the train.

that's when i saw the blizzard outside...

it took me several minutes and an ATM stop to catch a freaking southbound cab. i almost wound up taking the train anyway. thankfully my cake didn't capsize, but it did end up a little soggy. i don't think that will make much difference in the final taste. i'm almost glad i'm on a diet, so if anything's wrong with it, only my coworkers will suffer. hooray!

this could be big

i was poking around the internet, looking for the source of the movie quote "note to self: feed the fish mayonnaise"* (like you do), when i stumbled upon an old entry on a blog called Erudite Redneck that i felt i should share with you. for you see, some ideas are bigger than all of us.

the gist? a "searchable database for the best strip clubs in the country." the name? Lapquest. shit, how i wish i'd thought of that one.

* it was "night shift" with michael keaton, not to be confused with the classic stephen king short story collection of the same name.

ashes to ashes, crust to crust

by some miracle, i actually made my own dinner tonight, a yummy taco salad. while slicing green peppers i pondered my gingerbread house, which was still sitting on my kitchen table, in the exact spot it's been for about four months. (i never could figure out what to do with it.) i thought i noticed the chimney starting to come away from the roof a bit, and wondered when the whole thing would just pack it in.

i didn't have to wait long for my question to be answered. whilst devouring my salad and watching futurama, i heard a loud crash come from the kitchen. figuring my cat to be involved somehow, i checked out the situation and found this:

i guess that's it then.

after singing an impromptu rendition of "the end," i immortalized the moment (see above) and went back to my salad. i heard another crash a few minutes later. more of the roof had collapsed, so that i had to take the entire top apart. the royal icing had become so brittle nothing would stay together. i knew this day would come, if not by my hands than by nature. although a couple people suggested i light the thing on fire (both named scott, oddly), i couldn't bear to do such, since that's what doomed its inspiration. oh well. it was a good ride. i hope to continue my new tradition by making something equally batshit crazy this holiday season. my only hinderance is my imagination! (and my patience, and my social calendar, and my dependency on food for life, etc.)

credit where credit is (over)due

so i'm sitting at work, minding my own business, when my boss comes up to me and hands me some stuff. we have this thing at my work called the 'superstar' program, where people can nominate you for doing a fantastic job above and beyond for whatever. lo and behold, i was nominated to be a superstar for helping one of our gals in dallas! i ended up with a notepad, a yellow star-shaped stress squeezie, and a fitty dolla bill. not too shabby, considering my company. after all, the only other superstar in our office went to the silly bitch of whom i've spoken before. the girl who used to fall asleep at her desk. for some reason, that caused me not to have much faith in the whole superstar thing.

however, i am letting bygones be bygones. hell, 50 bucks is 50 bucks, correct? correct. woohoo!

YDKJ

remember "you don't know jack"? i sure do. i'm sure a few key family members do as well. well, i just read that there are now full-on YDKJ episodes available online, one a day, in addition to several DisorDats (pick and choose minigames). one more thing to make me reconsider killing myself! woohoo!

meh 'n' stuff

saw "300" last night, on imax. holy flircking snit, was it awesome. i was a little apprehensive, since i'm not familiar with the comic at all, i didn't get in on the hype, and i heard mixed reviews all over. but it was so utterly worth it. the only way to see it is on imax, too. warriors thirty feet high...leperous councilmen displaying every misshapen wart...blood splattering every conceivable surface. just thinking about it releases my endorphins all over again.

other than that, i've been really tired lately. various muscles always seem to be sore for whatever reason, and i'm not even working out as hard as usual. last week it felt as if my quads were rotting from the inside out. i started to pretend my bottom half was nonfunctional in order to rest it. so i haven't felt up to much. i predict that will change now that the relatively sultry 60° weather is becoming more frequent. springward ho!

more of the same

coworker 1: did you see 'talladega nights'? did you know Borat's the Perrier racer?

coworker 2: you're really not that smart, are you?

adults say the darndest things

overheard at work today...

Coworker: Mike, why don't you go ahead and yell out that name we call each other? Starts with a "W", ends with an "L", got a couple of "O"s in there?

Boss: ..."Wookiee"?

a new addition to the family

with my old CRT TV really hitting the skids (the sound got fuzzier and fuzzier until it was fuzzy all the time), i finally, finally broke down and got an HDTV. samsung, 32", LCD, from amazon. $1000 with free shipping. and oh my is it ever sweet.

i did not receive it without some tribulations, however. the delivery guy kept asking me out, even going so far as to hug me (!) and kiss me on the neck (!!!) after he set up the box. very, very surreal. unfortunately 1. i wasn't interested and 2. i wanted to dive into 720p goodness. he seemed to be okay with it.. it felt like a 'hey, i'll give it a shot' kind of situation. still, ultra weird on my end.

but! the set's looking great so far. checked out a couple movies on it (even made washed-out london look decent), played some wii with new component cables (not really made for HD, but i'll take it), and i discovered an extra-long S-video cable that works from my computer's vid card. verdict? i can watch downloaded stuff on my new HDTV:

so. honking. jazzed.

bone china, let the summer come again

i keep a personal start page on my PC with lots of links i visit frequently. it beats google's plain jane website; plus i get to use self-made graphic tiles that i wouldn't ordinarily get to see in practice. anyway, i haven't updated it in months upon months, so i was rolling through various websites and blogs looking for links. i came across olivia's personal (well, business, too) website, which i didn't know existed. somewhere within that quiet mass of beauty and technical prowess, i saw this photo. click on it, i'll wait.

now tell me you can't see the huge, puffy clouds hanging overhead, stark against a velvet blue sky.. feel the strong late summer sun beating down upon your body, as sure as the wind slices through your bones today. this photo, despite its seemingly grim subject matter, is so evocative of the coming seasons that i just.. can't.. i simply can't wait till it's summer. and yet, without this hideous winter.. i wouldn't want summer nearly this much. bright, shiny days, you will be mine again...someday.

farewell, carson's

i didn't work out today, so i figured i'd make up for it by walking to avenue and buying some pants. (infallible logic, i know.) however, on the way there, i got sucked into the tragedy that was carson pirie scott's final day. i didn't know it would come so quickly; reports i'd read said the 28th was last call, but i guess today was the final day you could buy retail merchandise. not that there was much left:

in fact, the only merchandise left was some fur coats, seriously slashed at 80% off. if i didn't hate fur i would have been all over that shit.

as sad as the ground floor was, the basement was.. well, crazy. they had an amazing amount of stuff for sale down there, just not the typical retail things. a table of angels went for $225 each. a fetching pair of bamboo-style screens could be mine for $300. there were nails, a half-used steno pad (which i seriously considered buying), old printer ribbons, mattresses and box springs, torsos on hooks, cabinets, etc. it was like a garage sale, but eerier. i felt as if i were in an abandoned building with a bunch of other people, just looking for wreckage to scavenge.

i made out with two signs, a red christmas banner and a square blue sign that just says "F", cuz i'm mature like that. i toyed with the idea of just walking out with them, since they didn't have prices. according to one of the associates, they were worth a buck together. okay, fine, good deal, sez i.. until i had to dig out another dime. they charged me tax on two flippin' wasteass signs they weren't even planning on selling. in addition, they attached two ugly orange stickers that i probably won't be able to get off completely. thanks. whatever.. i'm just pissed i didn't see that this clock was for sale earlier. it only costs as much as the HDTV i just bought...if i were richard nickel, i would have canceled my order and bought the damn clock. who needs a ceiling fan anyway?

i'll miss carson's. i'll miss the jewelry section to the utmost. i'll miss being able to look out of curved glass onto downtown state street at night. i'll miss the retail experience without the extreme snootiness. but most of all i'll miss, at least for a little while, being able to walk into a functioning, breathtaking piece of art.

kitty wellness

i took my troubled kitty to the vet yesterday. it's been almost a month since her last transfusion (god that sounds so unreal), and i wanted to see how she was doing. intially, the vet gave me a diagnosis of myelodysplasia, a rare blood disease where bone marrow makes only immature red blood cells. a semi-effective cure in humans is a bone marrow transplant, but i was told those aren't done on cats. not knowing what to do, i kept feeding her the meds they gave me and hoped she wouldn't bottom out again.

when i asked for advice, the vet said i should get in touch with U of I down in champaign-urbana, since they have a great vet program. they talked back and forth with my vet, and thankfully, they talked right before my appointment yesterday. turns out the problem's not with her bone marrow, but with her autoimmune system: it's attacking her red blood cells before they have a chance to mature. big difference between that and not ever making any mature RBCs. as a trial, the meds bailey's been taking function to stop the faulty immune system from destroying those RBCs. the vet did a blood count, which ended up right smack dab in the 'normal' range! so far, my kitty's okay! finally, a vet session that didn't end with some crushing, horrible news. i just wanted to share. yay!

black wednesday

another valentine's day come and (almost) gone. i celebrated in true single fashion by blowing a nice chunk of money at lord & taylor and nibbling on a 72% dark chocolate ghirardelli bar. oh, and getting toasted.. nicely toasted.

speaking of toasts, this brainwashed holiday reminds me of a favorite toast of mine, of unknown origin:

here's to the men we love,
and here's to the men who love us.
but the men we love aren't the men who love us,
so screw them all,
and here's to us.

keep the faith, sistas.

winter wonderland

i am so not here today. how can anyone work with this beautiful weather? and i mean that with all sincerity. when i walked out this morning, the snow was all virgin in the vast expanse of my courtyard, pure confectioner's sugar, cold to the tongue. i threw on some old police stuff onto my ipod - cuz i'm a bandwagon jumper like that - and drifted off into some enchanted world. i was probably the only one smiling throughout my entire commute. this wonderful snow is what keeps a little light burning in my heart for chicago winters. i hope it never stops.

..provided i don't have to drive in it, anyway.

piddling pooches prohibited

a crappy companion cartoon to a story i did on chicagoist about dogs pissing on those huge headless statues in grant park.

unspeakable hearts

okay, i've been drinking, so bear with me. apparently kim enjoyed my hearts very much, of which i am very proud. we made plans to get together tomorrow (saturday). getting ready to go home from work today, i get one of those damnable ideas, much like building a freaking gingerbread house, that won't go away until realized. i pick up a package of godawful chalk hearts (made from bone meal & earwig honey) and aim to do a little candy graffiti...

my materials.

how i got the sloppy slogans off.

someone at necco has an unhealthy obsession with the '80s.

some scraped hearts.

words, words, words...

and finally, the fruits of my labor. (obviously, best viewed large.)

two more late entries.


i need help.

those most blackest of ♥s

now that the super bowl is history, the media is free to focus on my most hated holiday: valentine's day. case in point: even as i write this my coworker next to me has been talking to his sigoth for what seems like two hours. makes for a very fine ipecac. verily, the only way to get through this hellacious sugar-soaked mush fest is to riff on it mercilessly. so to prove to myself i still have the mind of a 10-year-old who just discovered swearing, i went over to the good ol' candy heart generator. you know those goddamned "conversation hearts" that are good for nothing but chalk substitution in inner city schools? (fuck, there's an idea...) borrowing heavily from bittersweets, mst3k and a lovely site highlighting the substance behind these tasteless atrocities, i put the machine to work:
  
  
  
  
  
  
classy, eh?

stephen colbert wants his elephant

so i did a chicagoist post today about wikipedia. the gist of the story is that wikipedia is being cited more and more in legal cases as a legitimate resource. i want to know who was smoking what when the first case went through citing anything from a website where anyone in the freaking world can write anything they want. hell, wikipedia itself lays out a disclaimer on their site saying they're responsible for absolutely no information posted in any articles. how on earth can that be cited as legal precedent? are judges and paralegals looking at a wiki article and saying to themselves, "hm, that looks about right"?

wikipedia's been made fun of a lot in the past. and sure, broad satire or blatant revisions can be funny (or lame - i remember seeing brian urlacher's entry a couple weeks ago where strippers were mentioned in every sentence), but easily fixed. it's the subtle twisting of facts that worries me.. facts that may or may not be true, but inserted quietly enough into an entry to where it seems believable. the whole thing boggles my mind. a completely democratic website with very little accountability just cannot stand up in the legal system as far as i'm concerned. it's ridiculous.

who am i, though.

off to finish my jaw-droppingly delicious homemade pizza and watch mst3k's "the day the earth froze." appropriate for this weather, no?

attention all philanthropists

k.. i know what i want for my birthday/christmas/whateverthefuckelse present:

bloc-weekend festival

clark? two lone swordsmen? bola? autechre (though it's really hard to be excited about that really)? kool keith? shittons of other idm/electronic/weirdass music? in england? in an indoor off-season ski park??

kill me now so i can go to heaven.