Let’s pick up with Saturday morning, then. After the bike ride, Paul and I headed back into the city and unloaded the bikes. Dan joined us and we drove up to Waukegan for the game. We found the field without a problem. After seeing how many people steviemaxwell had to play (enough and then some), I was content to play the spectator, relaxing on the sidelines and enjoying the beautiful day. Takaza acquitted himself well, I thought, and everyone had a pretty good time, even if the final score was, well, a massacre. After the game, Dan, linnaeus and I drove over to Cub Foods to pick up some items for the cookout, while posicat and tybis went to Sam’s Club for burgers and dogs and such. Once we got back to the park, there was a bit of a wait while everything got sorted out. datahawk, moryssa, and ashawley tried to spirit us away to a hockey game, but we declined and instead spent the next few hours chatting with friends. The drive back to the city was uneventful and we went to bed very shortly after getting home (after showering to remove all the sunscreen, though!).

On Sunday I loafed around the apartment like the lazy bum I am. Once Dan got up, though, we drove out to Schaumburg for the monthly Midwest FurFest staff meeting. It was a lightly-attended meeting (unsurprising, and typical for this time of year), though a lot of good stuff got discussed. Afterwards, we adjourned to Fuddruckers, where steviemaxwell and serenthia joined us for hyooj tasty burgers. A quick stop by Best Buy on the way home netted us the Scrubs Season 1 DVD (woohoo!). We finished out the evening watching the Scrubs pilot plus some fo the DVD extras. Man, I love that show.

Yesterday? Wake up, commute, work, commute, flop on the couch. Yay. Not much to say there. Instead, let’s talk about stuff that amuses me.

I love Cooking for Engineers. It’s a cooking blog that appeals to the Alton Brown/Harold McGee/Shirley Corriher food geeks out there. One brilliant innovation is the distillation of recipes down to a simple, easy-to-read table that gives you most of what you need to know at a glance, as with this recipe:

Sure, it won’t displace the usual way recipes are written, but for me this is a good tool for reference while I’m in the middle of cooking.

I added the syndicated feed to that to my Friends Page, to go along with the two Chicago-centric blogs that I follow: Chicagoist and Gaper’s Block. The latter is a new addition for me and I find that it has more wide-ranging and entertaining commentary.

Oh, and finally: if you’re going to make a fan-film about Star Wars on the cheap, making light sabers by filling fluorescent light bulb tubes with gasoline seems like a great idea! I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Friday was just beautiful, and because we were meeting friends for dinner in Gurnee, I was able to relax and enjoy some of it after work. I stopped by Target and GameStop (still looking for a cheap copy of Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal), plus spent a nice twenty minutes or so enjoying the breeze and chatting with my mom on the phone. Finally, I headed over to Outback Steakhouse where I met up with takaza, linnaeus, roho, and the gimpy genet, who had just had knee surgery a few days before. Dinner was tasty and the margarita really hit the spot (note to self: avoid the Wallaby Darned next time. Nasty bitter aftertaste to that). After dinner we went to a nice local ice cream place and savored the evening sitting out at a picnic table. Just lovely.

On Saturday, the weather was perfect in the morning – sixty-five degrees, blue skies. Paul and I motivated early and put our bicycles into The Box. We drove over to Busse Woods, where we met up with Muganga. We rode the 7.8-mile loop trail, and it was pretty good. I was afraid my slow riding was holding us up, but Tom and Paul assured me I wasn’t doing too badly (I think they were just being nice 🙂 It was a thoroughly enjoyable ride, and I’m amazed at how little I ached in the days afterwards. This is something I really would like to do with some regularity, even if it means getting up early on weekends in the summer to catch the cooler part of the days. There’s something about the feeling you get after a nice ride early in the morning – you’re awake, you’re motivated, and you have the whole day ahead of you.

More to come in a bit…

Here’s some great news for folks in the Chicago area! Gee, maybe we can go there after tomorrow.

‘Not Quite Perfect’ McDonald’s Opens in Illinois Outlet Mall

“It’s true that consistency is part of what makes McDonald’s the leader in the fast-food industry, but so is good value,” said Brian Landers, manager of the McDonald’s outlet. “When customers see the low, low prices, they’re more than willing to give our Six-Piece Quarter Pounders and Fish McGriddles a try. The food’s a little different at this McDonald’s, but it’s really very close.”

Continued Landers: “Now, who’s ready for factory seconds?!”

Another afternoon, another energy drink. I blame my cow-orkers, for inviting me down to the cafeteria as a mid-afternoon break so we don’t all fall asleep at our desks. At least it’ll help keep me awake on the drive home.

Not too much going on this week. Traffic on the drive home yesterday was considerably unpleasant, and coupled with some irritation as I was leaving work, by the time I got home my mood was downright foul. It’s a good thing that takaza and linnaeus arrive home about an hour after I do; some time to relax and unwind helped a lot. I anticipate today’s commute won’t be much better, since WBBM says that they’re still pulling the semi out of the ditch on the Edens at Cicero that was there this morning.

Something else that is amusing me today: chicagocrime.org is a handy little site that tells you what crimes people are getting arrested for all over Chicago, broken down on a block-by-block basis (RSS feeds available, too!). It looks like there have been six arrests on our block since February – a couple of assaults (domestic-related), telephone harassment, and a property theft. Compared to other neighborhoods, we’re getting off pretty good, I think. Eh, city life.

I’m going to talk to Dan and see about maybe having dinner out in the burbs tomorrow night, maybe in the Deerfield area. It’d be nice not to have to fight the super-retarded Friday traffic all the way home, and to relax a bit at the end of the week. Hmm, I’ll have to make some plans.

P.S. – Glad you liked the flowers, Genet! Rest up and enjoy the drugs while you can 🙂

Courtesy of Gaper’s Block come word of a fabulous new T-shirt design from Svengoolie: It Came From Berwyn!

{snicker}

Whew, it’s been far too long since I updated. Well, looking back on my last update post, it looks like my attempts at prognostication were mixed at best. We had to bow out from Synicism’s birthday party on Wednesday, but we did clean up the MFF storage locker. Plus a lot more!

Not much to say about last week. I did finally visit the gym and found it to be quite an impressive facility. It amused me that their programs are almost exactly like the gym we used to go to in Raleigh, probably because they’re both members of the same national fitness association whose name escapes me. After a brief tour I was given a couple of passes to try out the place, so I’ll be going there a couple of times this week. The good news is that they take a very progressive approach to what constitutes a “couple” in their membership pricing – a couple is two adults. That’s it. They may be spouses, siblings, neighbors, whatever. Way cool! This means that I can join under linnaeus‘ existing membership and we both benefit from a reduced monthly rate.

On Friday The Party House (aka Synicism and daveqat‘s place) held a potluck dinner to celebrate Jim’s party again. Always a good reason! I reached a bit and tried a recipe I hadn’t made before, which generally isn’t a good idea. I tried making pot au feu. At its heart, it’s basically boiled meat and vegetables, but the array of meats and vegetables involved was impressive. Beef brisket, beef short ribs, and veal breast, plus leeks, cabbage, onions, carrots, and potatoes. It was tasty, but very subtle. It was probably not worth the expense and time it took to make it, but it was a fun recipe and it’s always great to try new things. The party was great, with many more entrees than we needed, but on the bright side no one went away hungry. It sounds like I left far too early, but hey, I’m boring and old that way (and monogamous, too 😉

On Saturday Takaza and I joined neowolf2 to the Midwest FurFest storage locker to make order from chaos. To be fair, I don’t fault aeto and his crew one bit – their job was to get the equipment from the hotel into the storage locker on Sunday night. I know what Sunday night of con feels like, and I doubt I would have done a thing differently. Nevertheless, the equipment was in there but in complete disarray. We pulled a good bit of it out, sorted through it, compacted a lot of boxes of Registration bags into boxes, and got items grouped by department. hightensile and mindslide joined us after a bit and sorted through some of the Art Show bins and helped get some of their equipment in order as well. All told, the task took less than two hours, which wasn’t bad at all. We’ll need to go back at some point for the Con Suite folks to take stock of what they have and what they’ll need to buy, but that’s not a problem – you can even walk into the unit and maneuver around now!

Afterwards we rambled around the northwestern burbs a bit. We wandered up to Hoffman Estates, where Dan played a bit of Dance Dance Revolution and we played a little air hockey. Then it was over to the Millrose Restaurant to check out some of their beers – not too bad, and worth trying some of their others on tap. Then we stopped by Mitsuwa Marketplace, which is always entertaining. It wasn’t until we got over to the snack aisle that I remembered that Anime Central was going on, and sure enough the aisles were swarmed with anime otaku and gothlings – it was so cute! From there it was back into the city, where we grabbed a tasty dinner at Charcoal Delights (and were amused at the theological conversation going on next to us – the effect of living next to a Christian university).

Sunday was somewhat less impressive in terms of accomplishments. We had a tasty brunch at Tre Kroner (mmm, crab cakes benedict), then spent the majority of the afternoon taking care of e-mails and finances. We watched the Survivor finale (Eh. Not a particularly exciting season for me, but I don’t object to they guy who won it), then it was off to bed.

Hopefully more entries this week than last. Not a lot planned, but somehow that always seems to get fixed along the way. Next weekend: , and the MFF Staff Meeting.

Standing in the shower, shampoo in your hair, wondering if the alarm really went off before you got out of bed or if you’re actually showering at 3 AM.

It was 5 AM, which is the proper time. Man, I need a clock for the bathroom.

When last we left yr. humble narrator, he was dragging badly from not enough sleep but still very happy to have made it to the sneak preview of Serenity the night before. Friday evening was enjoyable, though. datahawk came over, and pizza was ordered. We hung out, watched some TV, and generally relaxed. I went to bed around 10, but takaza and Data stayed up until ridiculous hours of the night chatting, which is cool. I admit that when I woke up at 1:30 and saw Dan wasn’t in bed yet, I had the same pang of jealousy I get when I’m at conventions, that Dan is out having fun without me. Then I realize that I’m too damn tired to move from the bed, and it’s hard to have much fun when you’re face down on the table snoring 🙂

I was up early on Saturday and enjoyed a mellow morning of surfing around on my laptop, playing some Ratchet and Clank, and enjoying the quiet. Once Dan got up at about 11, it was time to start moving. The original plan was for us to visit rolliebear up in Milwaukee, then head down to McHenry to have a nice Mother’s Day dinner with Dan’s mom. We got to Milwaukee a wee bit later than expected (Sorry Rollie!), and proceeded to get a nice tour of the city. As we were driving around Dan’s mom called, saying there had been a death in his extended family, and that she would be in Rockford for the rest of the weekend. Rollie offered to make some tasty homemade pizza for dinner. Yum!

Our travails took us to The Spice House, where I gleefully (finally) spent the gift certificate that Rollie was so kind to give me last Christmas. From there it was over to a nifty little Italian grocery, then to Alterra Coffee, which is every bit as great as I’ve heard it is. Then it was back to Rollie’s place for some nice company (and plenty of time to snuggle and play with his dog Kira, who is simply adorable!). The pizzas were outstanding, and it was with regret that we took our leave at around 10 for the long trip back to Chicago.

On Sunday I finally pulled my bike out of the garage and put it to good use. I did a short, six-mile out-and-back along the North Shore Channel Trail (up to Touhy and back). The fact that I was pretty winded after that tells you how badly out of shape I am, but I’m working to fix that. I hope to do more bike riding now that the weather’s better, but maybe in a day or two – 1. It’s raining outside right now, and 2. Man, but butt is sore! I need to get a better seat for that thing. Dinner was a quick run up to Charcoal Delight, thereby negating any good that might have come from my ride. I have discovered that I do enjoy the canonical Chicago Hot Dog, though.

So tonight I’m hoping to stop by the gym near us (finally!) and check out their facilities and rates. Looking ahead, we’re going to help Synicism (aka jimcyl) celebrate his birthday with dinner on Wednesday, and on Saturday I’ll have the fun of helping to re-organize the Midwest FurFest storage locker. I’m not looking forward to that much, but it needs to be done.

Time to wrap up a few things before heading home!

You thought you missed out last time, huh? You thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if they did it again? If they had another advance screening of Serenity, only this time instead of ten cities they did it in twenty cities?” Holy crap, they’re telepathic, I tells ya! takaza has all the dirt on another round of advance screenings on Thursday, May 26. Watch Can’t Stop The Signal for more information on tickets – it should be updated sometime today, I’m guessing.

Oh man, I can’t believe I’ve made it this far into the afternoon without crashing. As you probably noticed from the timestamp on my last post, last night was very late. But back to yesterday afternoon…

Serenity good. Serenity very, very good.

As in, when it comes out in September, we’ll be paying to see it again.

And now, bed is good. Good night!

Woohoo! Two of three big projects down here at work, and the third one is complete except from some input from outside of my department. I can finally consolidate some of the paperwork that has been spread all over my desk for the last few weeks and start planning my next projects.

I was puttering around a bit last week and sent away for a couple of catalogs, just for fun. The first was for Burley, a bicycle manufacturer. Seeing how regular bikes play hell with my knees, I’m thinking about a recumbent (which seems to work well for xydexx). By comparison, the recumbent cycles at the gym are usually not too bad for me. The only drawback is that new models start at $750 and head north to about $2,000 from there. I need to figure out where I can find a rental place or something where I can at least try out a ‘bent to see how well it works for me. I’m sure as hell not going to drop that kind of money on one of those things without testing it out first!

Also, just for fun, I sent away for a catalog from Lindsay Publications (as mentioned in Cool Tools). It includes such books as the Impoverished Radio Experimenter series, “Rockey’s Regenerative Receivers,” “Build a Full Size Coal Forge,” “Build a Mower-Style Line Trimmer,” and “Preserving the Dead.” I don’t see me ever actually ordering any of these books, but the catalog is entertaining in an American Science and Surplus kind of way.

So it sounds like we suddenly have dinner plans for tomorrow night. Cool! I’ll have to get the specifics from Dan tonight, but I’m happy about it. I’m a social kind of guy and I sometimes feel we don’t get out enough, but that’s just me. And now, back to work!

Ah, the joys of three-day weekends!

I took Friday off to accompany takaza for his Unpleasant Medical Procedure (UMP). Going into such things, you’re always of two minds: you’re doing it for a reason, to find out why something is going on; you want News, you just don’t want Bad News. Well, in this case, it seems like everything pretty much normal, so we’ll see that the doctor’s follow-up will be. The UMP included light sedation, so Dan was understandably sleepy for the rest of the day. I was going to be all productive, but I was pretty tired too so I elected to nap with my sweetie instead 🙂 We ordered pizza and had a quiet evening at home.

On Saturday, the original plan was to get together with roho for some brewing of beer. However, apathy was running rampant and instead we just stayed around the house and worked on clearing stuff off the Tivo. Eventually, we got motivated to brave the crappy traffic (it’s a Saturday, people!) and head out to Bolingbrook, where we had dinner with Roho, genet, and feren. Dinner was a hoot! As we were leaving, I was shocked yet amused and somewhat flattered when a couple of passing teenage girls gave me a pinch on the ass on their way by. I should have been indignant, I suppose, but I was laughing too hard. Back at Feren’s, we gathered ’round and watched four episodes of Firefly. Yep, all the folks there, in addition to linnaeus, posicat, and datahawk will be going with us on Thursday night to see the sneak preview of Serenity and we thought it would be good to catch them up on the show. As always, the scene at the end of “The Train Job” cracked me the hell up (“Here’s the money back. Tell your boss -” “No problem, buddy. I totally understand!”). We left Feren’s at about 12:45 AM (probably unwisely given how tired we were) and headed home. What can I say? There’s something about sleeping in you own bed, y’know? We got home at a little before 2 AM.

Sunday I slept in. Shocker! We spent the afternoon hanging out, and Dan got to watch his programs (Enterprise and ER, neither of which interest me in the least). After a run to the grocery store, I started work on a nice batch of chicken and dumplings. Just as I was getting started, siriuswolfstar called to see if we wanted to join him for dinner. We invited him over and spent a pleasant evening chatting and devouring a large amount of chicken and dumplings. Lots of fun.

So now it’s Monday. Work is reasonably busy, which is cool. I’ve got a few things I need to take care of for Anthrocon this week, and some MFF e-mails to send as well. The sneak preview means it’ll be a late night on Thursday, and Friday is going to really, really suck. Ah well – it’ll be worth it!

Hey you! Yeah, you!

Want to see Serenity months before it comes out? Like, next week?

Do you live in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas, Portland (OR), Sacramento, San Francisco, or Seattle?

Go to http://www.cantstopthesignal.com NOW to purchase tickets for an advance screening at 10 PM, Thursday, May 5.

Yes, this movie comes out in September. You really want this chance to see it now.

Edit at 9:08 AM: And it looks like the Chicago showing is sold out. Damn, that was fast.

Oh yeah, LiveJournal. Right.

So, when last we left our intrepid heroes, they were gearing up for an exciting weekend. Well, not really. Actually, on Friday we stayed in and had a nice evening of domestic bliss, going to bed early, no less. On Saturday, I had to actually make myself useful in the morning and walked down to our State Farm agent and (finally!) get our car insurance moved over to Illinois. Surprisingly, it’s only slightly more expensive, and would have been about the same if I didn’t have a 60-mile round-trip commute. On the short walk there, though, I darn near froze, and I was amused at the snow flurries that were falling. We had decided that as much fun as would be, between Dan’s lingering cough and my crappy knee we would wait a month.

Instead, we headed down to Goose Island Brewpub, where we had lunch with roho, genet, and Roho’s, um, step-aunt-in-law, Lori. The beer was quite tasty – I never realized they brew dozens of different beers, most of which never see a bottle – but the food was rather overpriced fro what we got. I’d go back for beer and appetizers, though! After lunch we walked around Sam’s Wine and Liquors, which is always entertaining. Afterwards we retired back to the apartment to relax a bit. I attempted to nap, though a series of phone calls made that a bit problematic. I finally gave up and got up in time to greet datahawk coming in from the (frozen) softball game. We hung out and chatted and eventually were joined by sylverfox and Linnaeus. Takaza was only feeling so-so and elected to stay home when we headed out for the Carbon Leaf concert. We took our time getting to Martyr’s and when we got there we found out that the show had sold out not long before we arrived. Bummer. Data was working the merchandise table and Jason had bought his ticket in advance, so that left me and Linnaeus out int he cold. Ah well.

I’ll mention here that I actually wasn’t too broken up about missing the show. I love to see bands play live, but there’s so many other things that go along with live shows that are far less attractive – standing for two hours waiting for the band to go on, expensive drinks, loud, stupid drunks, cigarette smoke, and invasions of my jealously-guarded personal space – that unless I really want to see a band, I’ll probably take a pass.

So anyway, Paul and I started walking up Lincoln Avenue, but eventually my knee started giving me problems. Dan was nice enough to come pick us up, and on the advice of a slightly-inebriated fellow outside of the Golden Angel, we picked up burritos at Burrito King (at Lincoln and Addison) for a nice snack. Delicious! I liked their guacamole, too. I really need to go back there and try out some of the other goodies on their menu. We headed back to the apartment and watched some Tivo and relaxed and went to bed. Jason and Data got in sometime around 3 AM, which reminded me of another reason why I’m glad we didn’t get in – I don’t do really late nights well.

Sunday was fun. We never even left the apartment, but we just hung out, watched some TV, played Ratchet and Clank, and eventually cooked up some bratwursts that Paul had picked up from Delicatessen Meyer: Wisconsin brats, Hungarian with lots of paprika, and delicious curry brats! Data headed home around 9-ish and we fell into bed not long after.

This week is going to be interesting. I’ve got a physical exam this afternoon, which means I won’t get home until late. Partran will be joining us for dinner. On Thursday, Dan gets to prep for his Unpleasant Medical Procedure, and Friday I’m taking the day off to be with Dan during his UMP. On the horizon for this weekend, it sounds like I’ll be brewing up a batch of beer with Roho in preparation for Memorial Day.

So that’s the state of the husky. This will be on the test!

The Morning After
Originally uploaded by Duncan da Husky.

datahawk had a good time at the Carbon Leaf concert last night. Apparently, anyway. Why is Marble asleep too? Marble is just lazy.

OK, it’s not the healthiest, but I sure did enjoy my double patty melt at Wolfy’s!

Yay for cameraphones!

Do you have a Comcast cable modem? Did your service go straight to hell between April 7 and April 14? You might be due a refund, or at least a service credit. But of course, you have to call them first to get it!

Think you’re an ace at Dance Dance Revolution? (I’m sure you’d kick my ass at it, but that’s not hard) Fine, but can you do this?

Edit @ 9:24 AM: Link got BoingBoing’ed. Try one of these instead: 10.8 Mb MPG 6.2 Mb WMV

Link via BoingBoing

See, Dave invited people to request interview questions. I did, and here are the results:
1. What do you view as your place in the furry fandom?
2. If you could change any one thing about your life, what would it be?
3. You win a gift certificate good for one meal, prepared at your home, by the chef of your choice. Who do you pick?
4. What’s the best meal you’ve ever had?
5. What do you consider to be your greatest achievement?

Here are my answers…

Normally, this would be where I give you a long, detailed (and possibly boring) rundown of how we spent our weekend. Considering how little we did, though, I think I can skip that step, except to boils down to this:
Saturday – Slept late, relaxed, played some Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando, took a walk, went to bed.
Sunday – Woke up early, relaxed, played some Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando, attended an online staff meeting, made dinner, went to bed.

Ta daa! Seriously, though, it was an enjoyable weekend, and with Dan’s recent bout of the flu it was much-needed (he’s definitely on the mend, it appears, by the way). As for the rest of the week, I’m toying with a Northwestern Suburbs Dinner on Thursday night, perhaps. Or would Wednesday night be better? Then on Saturday things get busy. First there’s LAFF Softball, with a picnic afterwards. Then it’s back to the city for a Carbon Leaf concert at Martyr’s. So, who’s going to see Carbon Leaf? Hmm, I see that the tickets are $12 in advance or $14 at the door. Of course, after the $3.50 Ticketbastard fee, suddenly you’re paying $1.50 more for advance tickets. Ummm, I don’t think so.

Finally, if you don’t follow the community but you’ve attended MFF in the past, please do me a favor and drop by to take this short poll about the Restaurant Guide. Thanks!

After a nice lazy day around the house, I finally got off my butt and went for a nice walk. I realized that I had my cameraphone with me and my Flickr account, so it was time for a little photo fun. I present you with a short tour of the north side of Chicago, specifically the Albany Park and Lincoln Square neighborhoods…

More pictures behind the cut

Oog. Hillery’s BBQ for lunch makes for a sleepy afternoon.

Things are pretty mellow at work today – a lot of joking around, and a definite feeling that it is Friday. The only drawback is the knowledge that I have to face Friday traffic on the way home. I swear, Monday starts out decently enough, but by Friday people brains have liquefied and the concept of “driving” must not be high on their list of priorities. On Fridays my commute home can easily bounce from the normal 50 minutes up to an hour and a half or more.

So, my tax forms are winging their respective ways to Raleigh, Springfield, and, um, Kansas City (the latter for federal). North Carolina gets $300, Illinois is giving me back $37, and Uncle Sam gets a whopping $2,400. It’s not a big surprise – that’s what happens when you live off your 401(k) for part of the year. The good news is that we have the money to cover it, though it leaves us a bit thin for the next few weeks.

Unfortunately, it sounds like Dan isn’t doing too much better (and I hope he doesn’t mind me speaking for him). Still running a fever, still feeling crappy, and very few real signs of improvement. He’s got a doctor’s appointment in an hour or so, and hopefully we’ll get a better idea of what’s up, or at the very least some better ways to treat the symptoms that have been beating the crap out of him for the last five days. Obviously, we’re not really going to be too social this weekend, but that’s not bad – a quiet weekend at home (like we’ve been trying to have for the last two weeks and somehow failing 🙂 will be good for both of us. I’d like to do some good cooking as well. Between work and commuting, by the time I get home each night I’m usually pretty tired and cooking anything more than a limited menu is often just too difficult to do. I hate that, because I do love to cook; I love to explore new recipes, new cooking methods, and new flavor combinations. Maybe as the year goes on I’ll be able to do more Cooking-With-A-Capital-C, fun dinners for friends, that sort of thing.

I hope everyone has a great weekend planned! I leave you with some important words of advice: Look Up More!

Well, mariner42 said I have to 🙂
(Plus, these can be fun…)

Total volumes of music files on my computer:
Well, our MP3 server is currently in storage, but I think it has about 40 Gb of MP3’s on it. At any given time, I probably have another 10 Gb or so of MP3’s on my laptop that are new/I’m reviewing/haven’t gotten around to transferring to my Archos.

The last CD I bought was:
Wow. This is surprisingly tough, since I really don’t buy CD’s anymore. I think it was the eponymous album by eastmountainsouth, a tasty bit of folk/pop with some nice bluegrass elements as well. Hmm – I see the guy of that duo has a new EP coming. I’ll have to check that out.

Song playing right now:
Well, nothing playing at the moment since I’m at work, but I do have the Garden State soundtrack on the flash drive connected to my computer and I was listening to that earlier.

Five songs I listen to a lot or that mean a lot to me:
“Love Will Find A Way,” (movie version), Return to Pride Rock (Lion King II Soundtrack) – This was the song that Takaza and I danced to at our commitment ceremony. It makes me think of him and how lucky I am, and usually makes me cry 🙂

“King of Spain,” Moxy Fruvous – One of their best (and best-known) songs, and a fun song to sing along with. (“Moxy’s “I Will Hold On” is one of Dan’s favorites and is a lovely song, too)

“Consequence Free,” Great Big Sea – Fun, bouncy, energetic. This is a song to get you to roll the windows down, turn it up, and drive really fast!

“One Step Closer,” Linkin Park – Just an amazing, snarling explosion of emotion. I used to play this a lot at my old job, when I was unhappy and angry at the world.

“Maybe Today,” Carbon Leaf – The ultimate rainy-day song to me, contemplative and evocative. One of my favorites by CL.

Bonus songs: “Possession (Live)” by Sarah McLachlan, Iain Matthews’ cover of Peter Gabriel’s “Mercy Street,” “Profiteers” by Spirit of the West, “Accept Me For What I Am” by Consolidated, “He Lives In You” by Lebo M (from Rhythm of the Pridelands).

Which 5 people am I passing the baton to and why:
I don’t like putting the onus on anyone to do this so I’ll leave it at this: if this looks fun, give it a shot!

The second can of Monster is sitting on my desk, mocking me. “Drink me, drink me!” it says…

Heh. “Consume responsibly – limit 3 cans per day. Not recommended for children, pregnant women, or pople sensitive to caffeine.”

Are you planning to attend Anthrocon?
Do you worry about being bored, or having that awful, unfulfilled feeling that you could be helping out more?
So you want to help keep me from going insane? 🙂

Well, have I got an offer for you! In addition to running Registration for MFF, I’m also running the Artists Alley and Con Store for Anthrocon this year. And I need help!

This year, there’s three areas where I need some help.

1. General assistance. This is going to include helping with sign-ups, dealing with the lottery at the open of Artists Alley, helping set up and break down, and working as a cashier in Artists Alley and/or Con Store. These are the most time-intensive positions. However, this also has the best rewards: A free membership to this year’s Anthrocon, a free T-shirt, registration in Operations (bypass Registration completely!), and a free, delicious staff dinner on Sunday night.

2. Cashiers. This requires less time, and only requires that you work a couple of hours at a time. It’s pretty simple work, and allows you to see a lot of the people at the con since everyone passes through the Alley or the Dealers Room. This requires 10-14 hours of your time over the course of the weekend, and you will get a free T-shirt and a free membership to next year’s Anthrocon.

3. Payout. Over the past few years we have worked up a great system to pay artists quickly in Artists Alley at the end of the day, but the drawback to the system is that it is very labor-intensive. This will only require 3-6 hours over the weekend, and only right when Artists Alley closes each day. I’m afraid there’s no recompense for this except my undying gratitude, but we do have a fun time during payout.

A note about scheduling: Scheduling is pretty rigid due to time needed to count out cash drawers and the necessity of having the correct number of folks on hand at all times. The good news is that you’ll have that schedule in hand at least a week before the con (arranged, as always, to fit around the stuff you want to see and do at the con).

Does this sound good to you? Or do you just want me to owe you my soul in return for volunteering? (the line forms to the left, boys). If you’re interested, let me know in a comment here or an email to alley -at- anthrocon dot org. Please tell me what position you might be interested in and a general idea of when you’ll be arriving and departing (“Friday morning” is as specific as I need right now).

Thanks!
-Tom Brady/Duncan da Husky
Artists Alley/Con Store Manager
Anthrocon 2005

Wow, I’ve been slack about updating. Oh well.

So anyway. It’s Friday, yay! I had a doctor’s appointment this morning (no big deal, just some tests that turned out negative – it’s all good), so I didn’t get in until a little after 9. This was offset by the times this week that I left the apartment at 5:30 and got in a little after 6 AM. Ugh. I’m glad I don’t have to do that with any regularity anymore. Anyway, I had allotted enough extra time that if I didn’t get in until 10:30 I’d be covered, but now it looks like I have some extra time. Guess that gives me time to write up this entry and maybe leave a little early. Yay!

LAFF Coffee on Wednesday was OK; little_wolf, perro, and night_watch showed up, along with me and linnaeus, and we chatted for a while. I’m thinking that a weekly thing is starting to wear on me a bit, so I’ll be changing the things around a bit. I think this week will be our last regular coffee gathering, at least on a weekly basis. Instead, I think I’m going to a bi-weekly schedule, alternating between a coffee shop in the city, somewhere on the North Side, and dinner and drinks out in the North/Northwest Suburbs. I need to do some research into what venues will work best, so there will probably be a break where there’s nothing going on. I’m sure everyone will cope.

Last night we had takaza‘s tasty homemade mac and cheese and watched a nice show on the Iditarod finish, followed by our weekly sacrifice of brain cells watching Survivor. We also discovered that sleeping with the bedroom door open is not a happy idea since Marble (Linnaeus’ cat) likes to sneak in, perch on our headboard and, right as we nod off to sleep, meow loudly for attention. The second time he did this, he was tossed unceremoniously from the room and the door was closed. Have I mentioned lately that I am not a cat person?

Tonight we have a party to go to, then tomorrow will be kind of a nice slow wakeup. We’ll be heading up north in the afternoon to tend to Briana (roho and genet‘s fl00fy samoyed) and spend the night up there while they’re off partying in Madtown. And Sunday? No clue. We’ll work on that…

(And they were giving out free cans of Monster energy drink with lunch today. No food coma for me! I’m rarin’ to go!)

Courtesy of our friends at Urban Dictionary, I learned a new word on Friday: Butterface.

I have no idea why this makes me giggle…

Well, if that was supposed to be a quiet weekend at home, I’m afraid we failed. Oh well. We had a hell of a fun time failing, anyway…

Friday: Stay in? Are you nuts?

And now, the latest furry commercial making the rounds. We’re everywhere, man!

Flowers!
Originally uploaded by Duncan da Husky.

Nothing makes you feel more loved than getting flowers from your husband for no reason at all!

It’s nutritious and educational! It’s Google Gulp!

Yes, it’s Google Gulp (BETA)™ with Auto-Drink™ (LIMITED RELEASE), a line of “smart drinks” designed to maximize your surfing efficiency by making you more intelligent, and less thirsty! Be sure to check out the Frequently Asked Questions.

For something even cooler (and a little more probable), check out this morning’s interview on Morning Edition with Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez about today’s release of Sin City…conducted by Kevin Smith. Keen!

We also just found out last night that Kevin Smith is going to be speaking in Crystal Lake on Sunday. It would be fun but at $35 a pop, I don’t think so.

Edit @ 8:23 AM: I found this useful and amusing list of April Fool’s sites.

Gee, for some reason it was a pretty low-key weekend. On Friday, takaza, linnaeus and I kinda bummed around in the living room, watching Tivo (and Linnaeus running around town in his underwear, carjacking people, shooting gang members, and gaining an impressive gut by eating $150 worth of pizza…in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, of course). As time went on our motivation to do anything slowly waned and eventually dinner became a quick trip to MickeyD’s by Paul and Dan to bring dinner back.

Saturday, I was rather stupid. I had been wanting to make this lovely apple clafouti for a party that night, and so I went on ahead and made it (after Paul graciously went to the store to pick up ingredients). So I peeled the apples, cooked the apples, made the batter, assembled it all – in general, spent about two hours on my feet making it. That was pretty stupid since I’m definitely still fighting the effects of cellulitis. I wound up wearing myself out and having to go back and take a nap for an hour. I felt a lot better after the nap and we headed up to the party. Good food, good friends, and a general good time was had by all. Dan and I got home by 10:30 and we crashed not too long after.

Sunday, there’s not a lot to say. We made some rounds of the grocery stores, buying groceries for the week, and were surprised at who was open and who wasn’t, given the holiday. Jewel and Lincolnwood Produce (the latter was a surprise) – open. Bed Bath and Beyond and Best Buy – closed. Huh, go fig. We came home and made a nice pot of chicken and dumplings and watched a couple of episodes of Ramsey’s Boiling Point, which was quite entertaining. And that was my weekend, yay. Hey, at least I didn’t have to spend it in a hospital, though!

The leg feels OK this morning, though if I don’t keep it elevated like I’m supposed to it starts to ache a bit. Heh. Nice reminder. I’ve got a follow-up visit with the doctor on Friday, so we’ll see how things stand then. Incidentally, for anyone who ever has to take Zithromax: acidophilus pills are a VERY good thing to have!

As for plans for this week, I’ll definitely be at LAFF Coffee. We don’t have much planned otherwise, and nothing for the weekend either. Shocking! I’m certain stuff will come up, though. Hope everyone’s Mondays have started off OK, or at least bearably!

I knew I forgot to do something yesterday – post to LJ. And I had such a nice M-W-F pattern going, too…

Well, as I commented last week, we had company in town. On Friday datahawk joined us after work and we had a lot of fun all weekend, but you’ll have to click to find out what we did.

Not much going on around here this week, so not much to say. I do want to pass along a neat anecdote that I heard on the radio this morning, though:
This was so sweet…

Both takaza and I were dragging a bit last night (I didn’t sleep well the night before). I played a bit of Ratchet and Clank, which provides a nice catharsis (getting close to the end, I think, but I’ll probably take a few days’ break from it while we have company). I sauteed up some chicken breasts and we had a quick dinner while linnaeus picked up rasslor at the airport without incident. We spent the rest of the evening hanging out, chatting, and watching the latest episode of The Amazing Race. Then it was off to bed and a much better night’s sleep.

Things are chugging along here at work today. It sounds like Dan is feeling a bit under the weather today – I hope he feels better after a nap at lunch. He may or may not be joining us for LAFF Coffee tonight, but Rasslor, Linnaeus (his employer willing, as usual), and I hope to be there. I hope that we’ll be able to show Rasslor a couple of fun “locals-only” places while he’s up in Chicago. Hey Brophey, any uniquely Midwestern souvenir we should send back with your bear? 🙂

Weekends seem so short sometimes, but we packed a whole lot into a few days. What did we do?
Well, I’m glad you asked…

Today’s Dork Tower cracked me up.

More to come later. Busy now.