sunday! sunday! sunday!

So yeah, went to see The Matrix: Reloaded at a theatre up in Evanston. ‘Twas huge, it was! They do their concessions great up there, too — cafeteria style. The second time around, I tried harded to listen to a lot of the dialogue that flew past me during my first screening (i.e. the Merovingian’s speech and the Architect’s speech). Well, I still love it — not necessarily as a film standing on it’s own, because it does have it’s flaws, but as a very interesting continuation and expansion of the world of the Matrix. I won’t go into gory detail here in case you, gentle reader, have not seen this, but Nick, Hunter and Joey had some very interesting conversations about it. While there isn’t a clear “a-ha!” moment in this film like the first Matrix, the events and revelations in this film open up a LOT of new questions.

Anyway, The Matrix: Reloaded aside, after the movie we headed up to Wild Oats to get provisions. Hunter and I were going to cook Nick and Joey dinner as a bit of repayment for their hospitality. In your face, Project Improv! (they stayed with Joey and Nick a couple of weeks ago). Anyway, Hunter and I fashioned a tasty dinner of spaghetti and salad and tasty bread. Would you like to see it? Sure you would. Check the Chicago: Day Two Gallery (note well Joey’s perfect pancake). That Hunter sets a fine table. Wine was had. Corks were broken. Broken corks summarily extracted. Fine china was used. Hunter is “now a believer” of the tastiness of balsamic vinagrette. I consider it a culinary victory. In true man-fanshion, Hunter and I both fell asleep after dinner while Joey and Nick washed the dishes. I felt like my grandfather.

So today, Memorial Day, we headed out to the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field to see the Chicago Cubs take on the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was a drubbing unlike any other I have ever seen. The Cubs were whipped 10-0 with a Pittsburgh 9-run eigth inning. We did, however, see Kerry Wood pitch effectively, but with the couple of walks and wild pitches (one of which allowed them to score a run) he certainly could have had a better outing. The eigth inning was atrocious. Cubs fans are known as a fickle bunch, but I could have sworn they were about to riot as the 7th run passed the plate. Many of those runs scored on walks, so that always riles the fans. Ahh well. Alfonseca had a 3-0 count on some guy, and he finally pitched a strike — and the fans went wild! Hah. Oh well.

The whole Wrigleyville area is pretty cool. Drummers and odd street performers abound. However, as evidenced by this picture, not all of the Wrigleyville regulars are appreciative. Check out the rest of the Chicago: Day Three Gallery if’n you wanna.

There are some loose plans to go and see Lake Michigan which is only 2 blocks away (you can see it from the street). Oddly enough, Joey and Nick have not gone down to see it. Well, we can’t have that, now can we? Probably going to meet up with a friend of Hunter’s named “Patience”, and perchance to see a Second City show. Oh, and Hunter and I are on our own tomorrow, so we’ll probably be heading out to the Chicago Art Museum, which is free and great. And while free things are always great, free art is even greater. Yeah. More later!

update: added more photos of us down by Lake Michigan to the Day 3 Gallery. (a good pan of Hunter on the beach awaits you!)

the ride up to chicago (on friday) was fairly uneventful, with the exception of this sign: “Time Flies When You’re Having PORK”. Yeah. Well, that and MapQuest told us to go south on LakeShore Drive to get to Nick’s house. Yeah, that’s patently false. So, about an hour and fifteen minutes later, thanks in large part to a nice lady at the service station we stopped at, we arrived at Nick’s. We attempted to buy a map at that store, but since they only had one, the dude wouldn’t sell it to me! Uh, okay.

As if finding our way to Nick’s wasn’t hard enough — parking in Chicago (we are North of Chicago, between Loyola and Northwestern Universities) is incredibly insane. At 2 AM, there are NO spots. Hunter and I circled in a four-block pattern for 45 minutes until happening upon a couple of kid’s leaving. And that was 3 blocks away from Nick’s. Whew. All tired, we went to sleep.

Saturday (officially day one), we headed up to Michigan Avenue on the “L” (elevated train). I’d just like to point out that I love public transportation. It’s great. Completely unfeasible in Louisville, but I can dream. Michigan Avenue is huge and grandiose, and it essentially has all the shops we have in Louisville. Well, most of them, I guess. But it’s a lot of expensive shops and large buildings. We ducked into the courtyard of this old church, right across from the Sears Tower. It was cool to have this ivy-covered courtyard in the middle of this bustling downtown. Pictures were taken.

Shortly afterwards, we crossed the street and headed up the other way. We were soon following behind a tall man with a long pony tail, goatee, and camoflague shoes and hat. I sort of felt this… this “power” emanating from this man. I couldn’t really explain it at first. And then — then I realized we were in the presence of a great man. “Who?” you ask.

TED NUGENT.

Ted Frickin’ Nugent. The Nuge. The Great White Hunter. Everyone on that side of the sidewalk was, for whatever reason, keeping the same beat, so it turned out that we were following His Nugeness for a couple of blocks. The Nuge, always vigilent, noted this by turning around and asking “You guys got my back, dontcha?” To which we replied with “…” (Having known that Herr Nuge had just spoken to us smaller, lesser men). Well, The Nuge eventually split away from us, and we headed to the Virgin Megastore, which was also huge and great.

I would like to point out that at this point, neither Hunter nor Nick were as convinced as I was that that was The Nuge. It was fairly safe to say that they were “doubters”. Even having had to shelve “Kill It and Grill It: Ted and Shemane Nugent’s Cookbook” nearly ever day at Barnes & Noble, they doubted this was The Nuge. Well, much debating later, this was all settled, as according to TedNugent.com, The Nuge was performing that night at Tweeter Center. Ah, sweet retribution.

Anywho, The Virgin Megastore is huge and great, and surprisingly cheap. Nick had a gift certificate from the Virgin Megastore, so browse browse, buy leave. Afterwards, we decided to head uptown to the “Boystown” area. I don’t remember the real name of that area, so “Boystown” will suffice. A pretty cool Highlands-like area with cool little shops and diners and such. We ate at Nookies Tree (the third iteration of the original Nookies), and it was a cool little diner-y joint. We checked out a couple of used record and thrift stores, and headed back home (passing Wrigley Field on the L was neat. Can’t wait until Monday!)

Later that night we headed down to the DePaul University area to catch up with Hunter’s cousin Jeremy, a political mercenary. Well, not really, but that is certainly better than “political consultant”. Anyway, he was cool. We started off at an Italian-style wine bar where none of us drank wine! So, then we headed across the street to “Kelly’s”, an Irish bar. Oh yeah. 4 pints of Guinness later and well, I don’t remember so well. Suffice it to say, I love public transportation. Ahh.

Right now, I’m eating pancakes and listening to Joey rehearsing (he’s a vocalist). It’s nice here. I think I’ll stay.

tha’ h-dog and the b-child are heading up to Chicago to visit nick for 5 days (friday may 23 – wednesday may 28). photos shall be captured and placed in the chicago gallery. more later.

There has been a story about cell-phone related deaths floating around. This estimation that 2,600 people died last year in cell-phone related car accidents comes from a mathematical model from the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. Their summary of the report can be found here.

It seems to me that we, as a people are more terrible than the most terrible terrorist. Our culture is own terrorism. We live sedentary lives, we eat until we die, we smoke too much, we war against drugs while we advise that everyone “have a designated driver” (btw, alcohol caused 12,000+ deaths last year in car accidents). Our government speaks of peace in the same breath that they threaten war. Jail journalists that leak information, but would you mind printing this threat to Sadaam? Thanks.

Sheesh. I can’t help but think that the same moral ambiguity that started the anti-slavery abolotionist movement in the 1800′s is being manifested now. A nation, birthed in the ideas of freedom allowed for the continuance of slaver. How do we, a nation that prides itself on freedom, cope with being so contradictory — not only to other countries, but to ourselves?

update: this just in! eat up, fatties! Meanwhile, when will White Castle make soy-burgers?

Kelly and I have quite a few driveway moments. NPR is great.

Finally, I’d like to give a shout out to Jessica for chipping in some of her no-doubt precious time to the Distributed Proofreading project. She did five pages yesterday! “It’s fun!” she said, I think.

If you’ve never been to Leisure Town, then you’ve never lived. Okay, maybe you’ve lived, but you sure as hell haven’t experienced some truly accessible and yet genious comedy. The author of Leisure Town is a one Tristan Farnon — who is currently attempting to do Leisure Town full time, and not have to resort to bussing tables.

Anyway, the site has a brand new design, and is starting to get daily/weekly content going, and it has already sent me into a humour-fueled stifled-laugh fit here at work.

The writing is excellent, with a style reminiscent of The Onion for it’s gut-punching style, and yet there is MORE than just that. The art itself, a mixture of real-world photography and little bendy animals is breathtakingly complex and funny in it’s own right. Well, I can’t say enough about it — you should check it out, and while you are at it, give the guy $3.

Rowan Atkinson is a pimp.

Najati and I (Ben) had a little impromptu spontaneous conversation regarding the “Use of Bad Words”. Seeing as how we are both not English scholars, or even remotely personable (hehe), then you should take these to heart.

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(13:33:16) veggiebuddha: rule #1: bad words are funny
(13:33:21) BenCorvus: yes
(13:33:34) BenCorvus: rule #2: a bad word will ALWAYS make you cool
(13:34:41) veggiebuddha: rule #3: you girlfriend’s parents will be impressed with you if you use bad words
(13:35:19) BenCorvus: rule #4: resumes are always given that little extra “spice” when bad words are used generously!
(13:36:24) veggiebuddha: rule #5: and when interviewing be sure to accent your intelligence with strategically placed bad words
(13:37:03) BenCorvus: rule #6: a bad word will always bring a smile to a baby (or small child)’s face
(13:37:31) BenCorvus: wowee wow wow
(13:38:33) veggiebuddha: rule #7: pet owners (especially parrots) love it when you praise their pets with bad words, over and over again
(13:39:14) BenCorvus: rule #8: bad words, when cleverly misspelled within popular sayings ALWAYS make for appealing and commercially viable outerwear.
(13:39:31) BenCorvus: eg (GUCKIN FONUTS!)
(13:40:53) veggiebuddha: rule #9: when meeting new people embellish your name and job with bad words
(13:41:06) veggiebuddha: eg Najfuckinati
(13:41:35) BenCorvus: funny stuff
(13:42:31) veggiebuddha: alright, we need one more for ten even, then we can publish them
(13:42:57) BenCorvus: rule #9b – interjecting dirty words within phrases, or in between compound words will always win you praise eg(“she fucking kicked me into the dog-fuckin-house”)
(13:43:58) veggiebuddha: =
(13:44:18) veggiebuddha: thats was a dirty dirty trick
(13:44:29) BenCorvus: huh?
(13:44:35) veggiebuddha: 9b <-
(13:44:39) BenCorvus: soirry
(13:44:43) BenCorvus: it is an extension
(13:46:02) BenCorvus: rule 10: women, or perhaps even someone of an attractible sex enjoy bad words especially mixed with lavish adornments of romantic wooing. eg(“i want to fuck you slowly, i want fuck you softly”).
(13:46:15) veggiebuddha: lol!!
(13:46:20) veggiebuddha: okay, we can publich no
(13:46:23) veggiebuddha: w*
(13:47:28) veggiebuddha: brb
(13:47:58) BenCorvus: send me the HTML log of that in an email.
(13:48:02) BenCorvus: if you would

The pics from Gary’s Seventh of July party are current up!

Bocce Ball, drunken koi-pond maintenance, Six Degrees of Girard DepardiOOO, it’s all there. Enjoy.

Chuck realizes that work is boring, hits the road to San Francisco, realizes that the Golden Gate bridge is the world’s longest tourist trap, and much more…

Peep it… Day 5 (Sunday, June 24, 2001)

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–BEGIN TRANSMISSION–

Day 4

So I yet enter another day in the great state of California. I getting pretty fucking bored of the stuff at SLAC, I’ve learned about all that im allowed to learn, and we have to wait for Dr. Brown to finish his work and go to the meetings(the colloboration meeting started today) There is SP work for us to do, but with the three of us being proficient in doing it, all the work is done in les than an hour.

SP: Simulation Production, the use of Monte Carlo (MC, a better random-number generator) techiniques to create a simulated high energy event(s), then use intelligent processing to recreate it ‘inside’ a virtual detector. This data then can be run through a third process of data analysis to try to reconstruct the original creation. This reconstruction process is the same one as actually used on the real detector data, and it helps the colloboration to fine tune the different processes.

Ok, that is what I do in a nutshell, I don’t do the fine tuning, or anything other than oversee that the computers are working on the assigned tasks correctly, and then update the database for the completed simulations, of course, there are millions of events simulated….

So, anyway, after several hours of boredom, we headed off to the mall, then a few more hours of boredom, but finially we got everyone together and headed north on highway ONE to SAN FRANSISCO! (song in my head…. ‘san-fran–sisko’)

So, we drove into SF, really nice, really big, really hilly. WE drove on Lombard street, the guiness records most curviest street in the world, saw some other shit, and ended up on pier 39, which is a popular tourist attraction, basically a floating mall, really big too.

It seems that everything in Sunny California is bigger: roads, buildings, trees(redwoods), you name it.

We ate at a lovely Italian restaraunt on the pier, I had the prawns, and then checked out the mall. IT was a Sunday nite, and much had already closed.

But then we had a lovely drive across the bay bridge to treasure island, then across the other half of the bay bridge to Oakland(about 4 miles long I estimated a definite Long Ass Bridge, or a LAB). Then north thru Oakland, a not so pretty city, to the other side of the Golden Gate bridge, we drove south across the bay again into SSan F on the golden gate bridge, its really big!

Cost $3 goddamn dollars too, and they dont charge you till AFTER the ride, what a racket!

Long drive home, then passed out at 1.30 in the am.

Chuck

That’s right, ladies and germs, the Onion, America’s Finest News Source, has done an interview with my favorite English transvestite comedian, Eddie Izzard.

Apparently, Eddie has just wrapped up a role in The Cat’s Meow, a film about Charlie Chaplin with Kirsten Dunst. He speaks about that, his start in acting, and a good portion about Lenny Bruce, and his playing Bruce on stage.