Well, Second City was pretty damned cool. I laughed my ass off mostly. I wish I had gone sooner though. Afterwards, about 1am, we walked down Wells a bit to see if we could find a late-night bar to stop and have a drink or two. We stopped at this place, Burton's Place or something like that. It was pretty cramped in there, but it was OK. Michelle said it reminded her of London, so she was happy. The running joke was to call me any name other than Andy that rhymed with Andy, because Billie inadvertently called me Randy. That created plenty of hilarity too...

Today should be fun. Heading downtown soon to meet Donna and hang out down there. Then, I'm off to the Sox game, and then off to Hopperfest, a friend's party. I expect it to be quite cool. But we shall see...I'll probably have to leave the Sox game early, unless it flies...we'll see... :)

Ah well, off I go.

God, I hope this is temporary.

I'm currently eating two peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. Wow. Now, I've got nothing against PB or PB&J. But I hope I don't have to eat this every day because of living in this apt. I mean, hopefully, I'll have, like I did Wednesday, some Hamburger Helper leftovers or something good and variety-enhancing most days. I really hope that's the case.

Because I just can't eat PB sandwiches or PB&J sandwiches all the time. It just ain't happening.

But I have to do this. Especially now that I'm going to Second City (which, believe it or not, I've never been to) tonight with Michelle and her friend Billie. That should be fun...after I drive home, change and shower after softball.

What a busy weekend! :) But good.

Hey, that post down there, that was in my queue...my CPU balked at it earlier today. So now you get two posts for the price of one. What a deal! What a country!

Just got back from Starbux with the Starbux Princesses (that's your new name now...you've moved up in the world :) ). They were "studying," but of course, I put a quick end to whatever little hope they had of actually doing anything. We sat around and chatted...I was practically force-fed a chocolate-covered espresso bean. And we compared two bags of gummy bears. Much fun. No, really, it was fun though. I felt funny in my dust-covered sweats and t-shirt, with my tussled (cool word... :) ) hair because I had been wearing a hat...this amongst the yuppies of the world, dressed to impress, kinda, with their laptops out and their books and stuff. Eh, whatever works for them. :)

Heard from Michelle...she had left a message on my machine. Good. Now I need to figure out when I can hang out with her and her friend...either tomorrow, late (post-softball) or Saturday if they want to attend a party I'm going to, at which they'll know no one...heck, I won't even know too many people. We shall see, I guess.

I found out that, indeed, we get our apt. keys on the 27th, when we sign the lease. That's cool, though I don't know if I'll be able to truly take advantage of the couple of extra days we have to move in. Again, with this, we'll see.

But now, I'm kinda tired, and really would like to get into work early tomorrow (ha, ha) since I'll have to leave somewhat early and won't have much time on Saturday to actually work and stuff. So I must go now...

Barb and Christine, since I know you'll be posting really, really late after this, go to sleep! :)

Well, I'll soon be leaving for softball...that's cool. Although, it makes my evenings tough, especially with my friend in town. I haven't heard from her yet...but I talked to her boyfriend (my other best friend from Missouri--I assume they're still an item) today on the phone, and she's here. So at least she's here somewhere.

I rescheduled my dentist appt., so I can breathe easier now about that. And I've got most of my Saturday plans in order, thankfully. Saturday was really shaping up to be a run-around mess all evening, and all because of the White Sox tickets I have. :) Not that I'm complaining, just sayin'...

So we'll see how things go the rest of this week. This is my first real "test" in "save money" mode. Because if I spend now, I'll have to eat bread and water all next week.

Got home today and made some spaghetti noodles, microwaved some broccoli, cheese and rice thing from Green Giant, mixed 'em together and ate. Scrumptious. But cheap.

"Figured out" my finances, and it doesn't look TOOOOOOOOOOO terrible for the next four weeks. Of course, I'm sure I've stupidly overlooked something, so that means I'm going to be as much of a homebody as possible, I think. Or at least a cheap ass. That sucks too, because there are a couple of birthdays coming up that I really need to shop for (and no, birthday person, this is not a hint or anything, so don't even email or call with some kind of sympathetic crap--you're getting something. :) ). I do need, though, to reschedule my next dentist appointment for mid-October instead of the end of this month, just to ease the burden.

I watched the Sox game until Jerry Manuel pissed me off, and then I shut it off and watched "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" Such a great flick. I love it. Just a great all-around movie. :) If you haven't seen it, what are you waiting for? Go, go and see it now. :)

I'm now getting a little bit tired...I felt better, by the way, after lunchtime. And I feel OK now...just a little sleepy. So I'll probably hit the hay, so to speak. I really need to start organizing stuff to get ready to pack. I mean, really, there's no rush...my big moving day will simply be to move the furniture-type stuff. The big stuff. I can always make multiple trips myself to get the other little stuff over the course of a week or more...but it would be nice to get everything going mostly at once. Speaking of which, I guess I need to talk to Butch to figure a bunch of stuff out about move-in, lease-signing and other things. And, I need to find out what's going on with Michelle, my friend from Missouri who's in town...I have to visit with her at least one evening before she goes back.

Ah well...all to be figured out tomorrow, I guess (and hope).

I kid you not...this was in The Onion this week.

screw it...I deleted the picture link...go to The Onion and look at the Statshot on the left down toward the bottom of the page...

Wow...too funny.

Ugh. I overslept a bit this morning...zonked out. I feel semi-nauseous, my head feels like it's going to explode and my throat kind of hurts. Oh yeah, and I have the chills now...I might just have to go home today.

I just got a call from a Bills coach, so I'm happy, especially since another team's coach I wanted politely declined. For whatever reason, I can't seem to get any of these guys on this team, though I've tried in the past...I don't know if they're anti-my work or anti-media period or what. I'm going to try a different coach next week and if he politely declines, then I'm going to inquire why with the media relations department.

Ugh.

We got smoked in softball. I don't even remember the final score. What a damn good team we played. I felt like shit the whole time because of my allergies. But then I felt sick to my stomach on the way home, so maybe this is more than allergies? I'm going to take some generic Nyquil Liqui-cap thingies and zonk myself out now, in the hopes that whatever this is goes away by tomorrow.

Plus, I'm tired. And I actually thought of watching "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" just for kicks when I got home. Ah well...I'm no fun.

Two things:
1. Good to see the old Haloscan is back and not working as well as ever.
2. I'm about to do my weekly radio show in Des Moines, which is no big deal. But the big deal is, I'm being ravaged by a terrible hay-fever attack that has chased me since about 11am. I'm sneezing, sniffing, coughing and whatnot. I'm going to mention it to the producer before I go on, but if they say it's OK, this could be quite interesting radio. I don't think you can listen live, but you can take a look on the site and see, if you want.

Happened to catch this on the way out of my Hotmail email account. The article itself is pretty poor...but otherwise, thoughts, ladies? :)

All this talk of butterflies reminds me of a cool song from the 90s, "Butterfly Wings" by Machines of Loving Grace...I always liked this song. Here are the lyrics, posted only because the link I found has 60 million popups...so I'm saving you, dear reader, this time:
Butterfly Wings, Machines of Loving Grace

You can't place faith in material things
material things will fail you
a hurricane triggered by a butterfly's wings
your conspirators betray you

Don't place faith in human beings
human beings are unreliable things
don't place faith in human beings
human beings or butterfly's wings

You can't place faith in a new regime
that fascist faith will kill you
a hurricane triggered by a butterfly's wings
your conspirators betray you

don't place faith in human beings
human beings are unreliable things
don't place faith in human beings
human beings or butterfly wings

there's something burning
deep inside I know
there's something
inside this hole

(tonight when i chase the dragon -
By their fruits you shall know them)

Don't place faith
Don't place faith
When I decide to live in the mind
the heart dies
mother superior in the sky
the heart dies
the heart dies

Don't place faith in human beings
human beings are unreliable things
don't place faith in human beings
human beings or butterfly wings

Of course, Laz's version would not place faith in Matt Bryant, Matt Bryant is an unreliable thing. :)

I realized on the way to work today that I have a lot on the agenda this week. Hmmm. Now I just have to find the time for all of it and make sure I don't forget any of it. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Aw yeah..."Groundhog Day" is on. I love this movie! :) Screw the NFC East wimpy matchup on MNF! Yeah...

I thought I'd post a little on the excitement of the coming week, because, honestly, until about five minutes ago, I forgot about it.

One of my friends from Missouri, Michelle, is visiting Chicago this weekend, which is cool. We'll probably hang out a night or two...she's staying with some other friends of hers.

This had me thinking about my work goals. I suppose I have no real "dream job" per se, other than striking it rich and not working or being able to do whatever I wanted, whenever. I suppose the only vague "dream job" I have is the following...though it's so loose and vague, that it could really not be classified as a dream job.

Me, Michelle and Randy were real tight in Missouri. It was cool...in fact, shortly after I left, they started dating (or maybe it was while I was there for a bit, I can't remember for sure). They were, without a doubt, my best friends down there. They also worked on the night news copydesk for the paper, and it was a blast. For working nights and doing what most people would consider crap work, we definitely enjoyed what we did and had a good time doing it. Even when deadline pressure was upon us, there was an air of confidence and relaxation at the same time. Not always, but most of the time, yes. I always said when I left there that if I could have moved the paper with me to Chicago, I would, and Randy and Michelle were the main reasons for it. There were others, but these two were tops.

Since leaving, I've always thought, boy, wouldn't it be great to get the three of us back together, working and kicking ass and having fun doing it? I tease them that we are the Holy Triumvirate of Copy Editing. That we work very well together and are all very good at what we do. We know each others' strengths and weaknesses, and that's cool. For a while, Randy was looking at a paper up here, and I said, boy, if you got Michelle in and then me, we'd take that paper right to the top, in terms of, you'd NEVER find a mistake in it.

So, I guess my "dream job" would be to start up a magazine or take over as the top dog at a paper and be able to bring them in and work with them again. It would be so cool, and we'd be a great trio of supervisors to work for, I'd bet. If we had a fun-filled magazine, it would be even better. Alas, that is nowhere near realization, anyway...but there you have it.

So Michelle's coming up, and that will be cool. Too bad Randy can't make it this time too. Maybe next time...I should probably visit them sometime too...but we'll see. That isn't happening all that soon. :)

All right...radio show time. :)

Well, I got up a little early and met Donna for lunch in Berwyn before she had to go to work...I saw the accident report and whatnot...it's always interesting to see things like that, for some reason...like, official documentation that indeed, these things happened. Thankfully, I was able to go because the "Service Engine..." light didn't come on today. Otherwise, I'd have called my dad and told him I'm driving down to his work to get the thing looked at.

I told Donna, I know money doesn't buy happiness, but it is funny how money can change the way you think about things sometimes. For example, if I had money, I'd still take the car to my dad's work and get it looked at and fixed if something was wrong, even though the light went out. But since I have no money, I'll just "ignore" it until it crops up again and assume it was just a glitch. ;)

Nah, I won't ignore it...I'll check the manual and probably mention it to Dad and see what he says...probably nothing.

Now I get to be held hostage yet again by this radio show, because I haven't heard if they're calling today or not, or when for that matter. I'd like to have gone to my insurance place to see how much my car insurance will spike when I move into the city, but that's on hold. It's such a nice day, I wanted to maybe take Kazak for a walk, but that will have to wait until after the show, if they call. I think I'll just take a nap...I could use the sleep, really. I got home about 4:45 this morning.

Nap time, now! :) Back later...

Well, I'm here at work, and my job, for the most part, is done. But there might be a couple of things here and there to do. Today was OK, because the day always flies when I have plenty to do, which I did today.

I was not happy to see the "Service Engine Soon" light come on in my car when i went out to grab a late lunch. In fact, I'm pretty ticked about it, because it could not come at a worse time. I'm still trying to save money for the apartment and new tires, which I'm needing very badly. Now this. Maybe the light will not go on when I go out there to go home. I'm hoping that's the case.

Otherwise, I'm pretty tired, so I won't post much. There isn't too much to talk about anyway. So, I'll just leave it at that and talk to y'all tomorrow or Tuesday. Or something like that.

It's freakin' 3:45 central time. I'm up. I just got home from a party with Luis at some coworker's place on the North Side...basically Belmont and Lake Shore Drive. It was definitely an interesting gig. I had one beer then a "flavored beer," as the French gal who lived there called it (known amongst Americans as "wine cooler") and then a bunch of different wines, because I wasn't switching into hard liquor by any means.

I met a handful of people, none of them particularly all that interesting, though I did meet a fellow journalist. Some older-than-me woman who works for NBC Nightly News as a producer. She was cool and we talked shop a bit, but I didn't get to talk to her enough to get her card or anything of that sort. She did invite us to some party in the next couple of weeks though, so that's cool. Of course, I didn't bring MY business cards, because I never expect to run into any journalists at parties like this. Oh well...maybe I'll catch her again sometime and I'll have my cards. We'll see.

Luis' friend, whose birthday it was, did try to teach me how to salsa dance, which I've always wanted to do. I have NO IDEA if I did the steps right, but I did keep with the beat well, in my opinion. She was nice and said I did fine...whether it was right or not. :)

It was pretty surreal though, as some of my outings with Luis can be. Just about everyone in attendance was speaking French, which is different because usually when I go out with Luis, people are speaking Spanish, not French. But I did make plenty of small talk with straight and gay people alike. I was just there to enjoy hanging out.

Christine, we thought about stopping at your Starbux, since I wanted to show Luis my new digs, come October, but Luis didn't really feel like stopping, because he sensed that I was getting tired. Maybe next time. :) Though I don't even know if you were working...probably not.

Tomorrow, I have to get up and write stuff and then head to work...what fun. Hopefully I get a good night's sleep. So yeah, goodnight... :)