Amy and I got a cat last week from the Tree House. He's a light orange tabby and his name is Sid. He's not very shy but he frightens easily, a possible result of being a stray for most if not all of his life. Now that he's warmed up to his new home for a while, he's very playful. He loves his "feathers on a stick" toy.
We also bought a couple of bicycles last Saturday at the bike shop I mentioned previously. It was raining when we bought them so we had to wait until Sunday to go for a ride. But when we finally got the chance, the weather was beautiful which made for a fantastic ride of about 14 miles round trip. There's an entrance to the North Branch Trail not far from our house so we headed north until we arbitrarily decided to turn around to return home.
Part of Amy's family will be arriving for a visit in the next couple of weeks followed immediately by a visit from Kristin, one of Amy's friends from undergraduate school. I guess we'll have to start picking up the pace again in terms of getting the house cleaned up. Ever since my parents left, it has returned to state of mild disaster.
Currently listening to: Mission Giant, Skunk Funk (Costellation Skunk) remix by New Zero
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Sunday, August 22, 2004
Ketchup!
My family's visit went well and we all had a good time. Amy and I took them to some unique restaurants which are plentiful around this area including Kabul House and Farang Meet Thai (formerly Blue Sapphire). We also paid a visit to the Chicago Botanic Gardens. The day at the gardens was gorgeous. The temperature was in the mid 70s with low humidity and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The Japanese garden, my personal favorite, was excellent as always.
As I said before, my parents were going to bring some of my various collections and computers that they didn't want to store any longer to our new house when they came to visit. I got to sift through my modest collection of Garbage Pail Kids, which are still funny, a few boxes of various sports cards and comic books, and a large collection of Mad Magazines dating back to the early 1980s. Of course, the Atari 2600 came with them as well as the Commodore 64C. Unfortunately, the Commodore's sound was not working and I have since found a replacement on Ebay. I was quite disappointed as my beloved SID 6581 was the main reason I was looking forward to arrival of the Commodore. Everything else is in working order, though, even the 1541 5.25" floppy drives which are notorious for failing with age. I did have to clean some of the third party Atari cartridges, but they are all fine now that I have given them the appropriate alcohol swab.
Amy and I finally bought a couch for the basement entertainment area. Our choices were very limited because of the space available to manuever the furniture around a tight U-turn and down some basement stairs. But, we finally found something that we liked and it should fit downstairs without too much trouble. The couch is a sectional set that travels around a corner with a sleeper in one section so that we can now officially sleep seven people here comfortably. Bathroom privileges would be a different story!
We also took a look at some bicycles. Both Amy and I enjoy riding and I'd also like to commute to work by pedal power. We haven't made a purchase yet, but I think we might by the end of the week. We found a great bike shop called Amlings Cycle Shop that offers superb service. It was the best service that I've experienced at any local bike shop and I highly recommend them if you happen to live in the area.
Our acquisitions don't end with furniture and bicycles, either. We made a visit to the Tree House, a no-kill, cageless adoption house for stray and injured cats. We saw two cats that we liked very much and we'll probably have one of them by the end of the week. The first was a black cat with a tiny tip of white at the end of her tail and the second was a light orange tabby that was very friendly. We're not quite sure which one we'll pick, but either one will be a welcome addition to the house, not to mention that Amy will finally stop bugging me to get a cat.
I also went with Dennis to catch some film fun at the Chicago Underground Film Festival this weekend. We saw a collection of short films that were definitely entetraining to say the least. My favorite was a very short feature called Cats and Pants that was just this woman saying, "Cats" and "Pants" in quick, random patterns. The video complementing the audio was a montage of still images of, you guessed it, cats and pants. Both Dennis and I found this wildly hilarious. I was practically crying with laughter. However, the "artier-than-thou" crowd apparently thought that it made some deep comment on modern society because hardly a peep was uttered by any of the other theater-goers. It's just further proof that B-Fest is the best film festival in this area by far! My second favorite short was called Cheap Ludes. It was the strange story of a man-sized turkey on human legs running around Mexico City looking for toothpicks. We also caught a full length feature called God Told Me To, a thriller about a detective investigating crimes apparently inspired by the Almighty. The director, Larry Cohen, was present to give us some insight into the film and to relate some anecdotes about Andy Kaufman whose very first film appearance occurs in a short parade scene.
Currently listening to: Matt Uelmen, Monastery - Diablo 2 OST
As I said before, my parents were going to bring some of my various collections and computers that they didn't want to store any longer to our new house when they came to visit. I got to sift through my modest collection of Garbage Pail Kids, which are still funny, a few boxes of various sports cards and comic books, and a large collection of Mad Magazines dating back to the early 1980s. Of course, the Atari 2600 came with them as well as the Commodore 64C. Unfortunately, the Commodore's sound was not working and I have since found a replacement on Ebay. I was quite disappointed as my beloved SID 6581 was the main reason I was looking forward to arrival of the Commodore. Everything else is in working order, though, even the 1541 5.25" floppy drives which are notorious for failing with age. I did have to clean some of the third party Atari cartridges, but they are all fine now that I have given them the appropriate alcohol swab.
Amy and I finally bought a couch for the basement entertainment area. Our choices were very limited because of the space available to manuever the furniture around a tight U-turn and down some basement stairs. But, we finally found something that we liked and it should fit downstairs without too much trouble. The couch is a sectional set that travels around a corner with a sleeper in one section so that we can now officially sleep seven people here comfortably. Bathroom privileges would be a different story!
We also took a look at some bicycles. Both Amy and I enjoy riding and I'd also like to commute to work by pedal power. We haven't made a purchase yet, but I think we might by the end of the week. We found a great bike shop called Amlings Cycle Shop that offers superb service. It was the best service that I've experienced at any local bike shop and I highly recommend them if you happen to live in the area.
Our acquisitions don't end with furniture and bicycles, either. We made a visit to the Tree House, a no-kill, cageless adoption house for stray and injured cats. We saw two cats that we liked very much and we'll probably have one of them by the end of the week. The first was a black cat with a tiny tip of white at the end of her tail and the second was a light orange tabby that was very friendly. We're not quite sure which one we'll pick, but either one will be a welcome addition to the house, not to mention that Amy will finally stop bugging me to get a cat.
I also went with Dennis to catch some film fun at the Chicago Underground Film Festival this weekend. We saw a collection of short films that were definitely entetraining to say the least. My favorite was a very short feature called Cats and Pants that was just this woman saying, "Cats" and "Pants" in quick, random patterns. The video complementing the audio was a montage of still images of, you guessed it, cats and pants. Both Dennis and I found this wildly hilarious. I was practically crying with laughter. However, the "artier-than-thou" crowd apparently thought that it made some deep comment on modern society because hardly a peep was uttered by any of the other theater-goers. It's just further proof that B-Fest is the best film festival in this area by far! My second favorite short was called Cheap Ludes. It was the strange story of a man-sized turkey on human legs running around Mexico City looking for toothpicks. We also caught a full length feature called God Told Me To, a thriller about a detective investigating crimes apparently inspired by the Almighty. The director, Larry Cohen, was present to give us some insight into the film and to relate some anecdotes about Andy Kaufman whose very first film appearance occurs in a short parade scene.
Currently listening to: Matt Uelmen, Monastery - Diablo 2 OST
Friday, August 13, 2004
Painkiller on $0 a Day
Painkiller is now operating rather smoothly on my (mostly) current rig. Jordan, the director of my audio department, lent me a Ti4600 128MB card which did the trick. I had a Ti4200 64MB in there before and it just didn't have the RAM to handle all of the data. It's a beautiful game that would be fantastic in a cooperative mode if the developers had bothered to implement one. I would call it a horror-themed Serious Sam. The main character doesn't have the goofy charisma of Sam (who in turn couldn't quite match Duke Nukem), which makes for a lot of bloody gun fights but no ridiculous one-liner dialogue. Personally, I hope someone comes along and injects another huge dosage of humor into the first person shooter genre again. I'm so bored of ultra-serious WWII and other military based games. I don't even play them anymore and I'm still sick of them.
We are almost fully moved into the new house. There are a couple of boxes yet to be unpacked and some that need to be stored in the basement, but we have successfully eliminated the huge pile of boxes in the living room and picked up all of the stray packing material from the floor. It's really starting to feel like we live there. What we truly need is some furniture. The living room is practically a desolate wasteland. It contains a couch and a bookshelf that act as a small oasis in a barren desert. Once we generate some ideas for how we want the rooms to look, we can actually start some remodeling and repair projects. But generating ideas is the fun part. Actually working on a project isn't terrible either. However, ponying up the dough for the idea is a whole different story. We'll see we can actually afford. I keep telling myself, "One room at a time."
My parents are in town for a few days to see the new house and to run around the city a little bit. It's going to be a fleeting weekend.
Currently listening to: Charles Dodge, The Waves
We are almost fully moved into the new house. There are a couple of boxes yet to be unpacked and some that need to be stored in the basement, but we have successfully eliminated the huge pile of boxes in the living room and picked up all of the stray packing material from the floor. It's really starting to feel like we live there. What we truly need is some furniture. The living room is practically a desolate wasteland. It contains a couch and a bookshelf that act as a small oasis in a barren desert. Once we generate some ideas for how we want the rooms to look, we can actually start some remodeling and repair projects. But generating ideas is the fun part. Actually working on a project isn't terrible either. However, ponying up the dough for the idea is a whole different story. We'll see we can actually afford. I keep telling myself, "One room at a time."
My parents are in town for a few days to see the new house and to run around the city a little bit. It's going to be a fleeting weekend.
Currently listening to: Charles Dodge, The Waves
Friday, August 06, 2004
Furniture or a Killer Gaming Rig?
Like a bird that meticulously assembles a nest twig by twig, we are slowly reassembling our possessions in some kind of meaningful order. The coming weekend should prove to be quite a boon to our unpacking process. However, I may, perhaps, be too busy riding a new bicycle around town to notice much. I'm looking forward to the purchase of a new bike so that I can commute to work without the guilt of adding to the planet's environmental problems or the lethargic resignation of my will towards the pudgy waistline I have developed. Also, as we once again have a lawn to maintain, we will also be purchasing a lawn trimming device not to mention that we are also in need of some sort of torture contraption...er...weight machine (at Amy's request). The potential purchases do not come without some keen sting of regret, though. I haven't even started thinking about furniture.
Why the regret, you may ask? All of this, in one way or another, leads me back around to my insatiable lust for technology. You see, Ian gave me Painkiller as a gift for participating in the wedding. But for the last few months, I have been purposely avoiding eye contact with any game product which could possibly tape open my eyelids to the fact that my computer is now hopelessly behind the times in terms of eye candy. So, I spent some time this week tweaking my system in the hopes that I would actually be able to play Painkiller with some minor alterations and sacrifice of the visual quality of which the game is capable. This was, however, to no avail. So, Painkiller is now forced to the end of the list of unplayed games I have lying around, which is not such a bad thing in and of itself. What is frustrating is that I am now keenly aware of my need to build a new gaming machine that will put the spank on the likes of Painkiller, Far Cry, and, yes, Doom 3. The problem is that I do not have the funds to build such a machine, especially considering all of the other purchases that we have planned for the next few months. Not to mention that I am acutely aware of the laughable futility of ranking a gaming rig ahead of such things as a lawn mower and furniture, but geeks simply do not deal well with obsolescence.
Currently listening to: Mesa Kasumai, Good Enough (For Fodder)
Why the regret, you may ask? All of this, in one way or another, leads me back around to my insatiable lust for technology. You see, Ian gave me Painkiller as a gift for participating in the wedding. But for the last few months, I have been purposely avoiding eye contact with any game product which could possibly tape open my eyelids to the fact that my computer is now hopelessly behind the times in terms of eye candy. So, I spent some time this week tweaking my system in the hopes that I would actually be able to play Painkiller with some minor alterations and sacrifice of the visual quality of which the game is capable. This was, however, to no avail. So, Painkiller is now forced to the end of the list of unplayed games I have lying around, which is not such a bad thing in and of itself. What is frustrating is that I am now keenly aware of my need to build a new gaming machine that will put the spank on the likes of Painkiller, Far Cry, and, yes, Doom 3. The problem is that I do not have the funds to build such a machine, especially considering all of the other purchases that we have planned for the next few months. Not to mention that I am acutely aware of the laughable futility of ranking a gaming rig ahead of such things as a lawn mower and furniture, but geeks simply do not deal well with obsolescence.
Currently listening to: Mesa Kasumai, Good Enough (For Fodder)
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
Water Conducts Electricity
We traveled home to PA again this weekend for Ian and Rachel's wedding, or as one sign aptly stated, "Voltz-Krest Wetting". The events were all held outside and, unfortunately, it did nothing but rain for almost two straight days beginning with Friday, the day of the rehearsal and ending Saturday night after the festivities. Also unfortunately, the tent under which the ceremony was conducted was at the bottom of a small gulley. Small hand trenches were dug in preparation for the big day, but they were simply no match for the amount of water that came down in those two short days. Nevertheless, Amy and I were happy to be able to share the moment in support of two of our best friends. Congratulations, Ian and Rachel!
It was good to see everyone after the wedding ceremony! And thanks to Adam's folks for opening their home to us.
While we were staying with my family, lightning struck their driveway a mere 25 feet from the house. In fact, it struck between two cars that were parked in the driveway under 10 feet apart. I'm glad our car is on rubber tires. Thank you, Charles Goodyear. The strike took out a few of the electronic devices in the house as well as some of the lights in the shed that was mere inches away from strike point. The charge left a small crater in the cement and the debris was scattered into the yard a few feet away.
Back to work today. I need a vacation from my vacation!
Currently listenening to: Radiohead, How to Disappear Completely
It was good to see everyone after the wedding ceremony! And thanks to Adam's folks for opening their home to us.
While we were staying with my family, lightning struck their driveway a mere 25 feet from the house. In fact, it struck between two cars that were parked in the driveway under 10 feet apart. I'm glad our car is on rubber tires. Thank you, Charles Goodyear. The strike took out a few of the electronic devices in the house as well as some of the lights in the shed that was mere inches away from strike point. The charge left a small crater in the cement and the debris was scattered into the yard a few feet away.
Back to work today. I need a vacation from my vacation!
Currently listenening to: Radiohead, How to Disappear Completely
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