Illinoir

After all this time, fonts are still way too complicated. And expensive. And stupid. I hate you, fonts.

Let me say that I’ve not had the happiest experiences with RCN (cable & modem provider for my house) so far. Outages, bad picture, etc….. However, the other day when I called to report an outage, they said, “Say, would you like to try MachTurboSuperFastCableModem free for a year?”

“Uhh. No. Please don’t make my internet experience faster.”
Of course, dammit.

So they flipped the switch and now I’m downloading something at 700k/sec. That’s fazt.

In other news, i’ve finally learned (2 years after everyone else) just how cool style sheets can be. Because now you can do insane insane things like make a tabbed interface out of a -ul- tag and a comple styles. That’s just neatokeen.

Got on the train at Morse to come home and there was a pigeon in the car….. Just a pigeon. Walking around, not freaked out much, riding the rails. It got off at Loyola.

…or does the following seem particularly vulnerable?

“A security issue has been identified in the Color Management Module that could allow an attacker to compromise your Microsoft Windows-based system and gain control over it. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.”

The color management module has a security issue? It’s managing color! It should have nothing open to the outside world, right…? Ay, papi!

Dream last night:

• Was hanging out with, and simultaneously Instant Messaging members of Beastie Boys & their crew
• Was living in a group house — somewhere between college rental house and televised reality show a la Real World
• One of the residents of the house was either one of the guys from the British “Whose Line is it Anyway?” or one of CJ’s classmates
• ….who had dumped a lot of shit (literally) on the floor, along with hundreds of Tootsie Roll wrappers
• ….and had cleaned it up except for the Tootsie Roll wrappers
• ….and got mad when I started sweeping up the Tootsie Roll wrappers. I saw his diatribe against me on a television.
• Jake, cook at Morseland, was getting hit on by a strange-looking (but very cute) blonde girl
• ….who had a picture of Jake “two weeks ago” when he had hair
• ….and said that Jake was “ball-worthy”

An interesting article in Crain’s Chicago Business about the importance of firing employees who aren’t working out.

http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/article.pl?portal_id=47&mpid=47&article_id=23843

It just happens to be all about me!

(pictures of all these events are here)

Stretching this birthday out into infinity:

Birthday celebrations started last week with small presents from Chia-Jung, fun toys, etc. Friday night we went to dinner at Buca di Beppo and seeing some improv at ComedySportz.

Saturday was el nutso: in the morning, blindfolded and taken to the airport (I figured out where we were going on the way so I got to take the blindfold off in O’Hare, thank goodness) where we met Dan & Karen (my friends from New Jersey!) who flew in for the weekend. Kick ass. What a great and wonderful surprise to see them. And it was cool, too, to be able to take them around Chicago and watch them see things for the first time. Went to Andersonville Midsommarfest, and then went downtown and up to the 96th floor of the Hancock and had overpriced drinky-poos. Watched the Cubs record the final 2 outs in the second game of their series vs. the Red Sox (good stuff) and then headed back home for showers and changes, etc.

Off to Giordano’s for some deep dish pizza — the out of towners just love that stuff — and I realized it was the first one I’d had since moving back. How on Earth? Dunno.

Then to Morseland, where apparently, Chia-Jung had gathered all the friends of mine she could find to surprise the crap out of me. People I hadn’t seen in years were there. It was overwhelming and touching and wonderful. I think more of Chia-Jung’s friends showed up, and thank goodness they did, or else it would have been a much smaller event. It was cool to see people from all parts of my life gathered together….

And they got me an iPod. Read More »

Brought to my attention by Dave, this lyric from the new Doughty album is brilliant:

“You snooze, you lose.
I have snost and lost.”

It is nice having new Doughty to peel through.

Once a month isn’t too much to ask.

I’m turning 30 in a couple weeks. Yesterday, I found a gray chest hair. Yippie!

Derek Lee, first baseman for the Cubs, is leading the National League in batting average, RBIs, home runs, hits, and many other categories besides. Somehow he is in second place in balloting for the All-Star Game. He’s behind Albert Pujols. Pujols is indeed a great player and a great first baseman, but good gravy, people. Lee is tearing it up. Lee is en fuego. Lee is unstoppable.

On the other hand: Nomar Garciaparra, who has not played since April and will not play again until God knows when, is in first place in short stop voting which again, makes no sense and made Bob Brenly very angry yesterday during the Cubs game.

It really doesn’t make sense to let fans pick the players if the managers now have pressure to win the game at all costs.

There, journal, are you happy now?