I enjoy taking over the splash page over at collab every now and then. I hope no one minds that I'm not collaborating...or even really consulting...or asking...oh well, maura, bryan, winn: go for it :)
Enron workers press 401K lawsuit: I hope they win. I was reading about one woman who invested her life savings (because they encouraged it), accrued $700,000 for her retirement, then lost it all when Enron went under. Now, I'm not saying investing in just ONE thing for your 401K is very smart, but it's irresponsible and misleading for an employer to do that (not to mention, uh, spend your retirement dollars). More power to you, ex-enron employees. Sue the pants off of 'em. Not that there is really anything left TO sue I guess...
Back. V. tired. Sania and I woke up at 2:30am to drive through the snow to the Denver airport. Don't remember much because I think I was just a sleepy walking zombie in Kansas City, and then I sorta remember asking for a diet coke on the way to chicago. Back at work now. There is snow here. Will write when more coherent.
So it's reeeeeeally snowing here right now. I looked at the forecast for tomorrow, and it says something like "from denver to kansas city to the chicagoland area" for this snowstorm. And you know what? I take off from Denver, transfer in Kansas City, and then I'm off to Midway. Wouldn't it just be a shame if I got stuck here? Shucks.
Muhaah! Sania's car is reeeeeally cool. I just figured out how to drive it in manual mode (no clutch involved). Now I know there is a cool medium between manual and automatic, and it's called the 2001 Acura CL. I rarely get excited about driving, but yeah, that is one badass car.
Did you know it was about 65 degrees yesterday in Boulder? Right. Colorado. Sania and I went up into the mountains and the view is breathtaking. Of course I have pictures, and I'll try and post them later. Just wanted to let you guys know I haven't forgotten about my site. Heh.
Boulder! I just woke up. I haven't seen this place in the daylight yet, but I could faintly see these huge, looming mountains crest around me on the dark drive from Denver (like that alliteration). We both have cameras, so expect pictures. Off to be a tourist now!
I normally don't do the Friday Five, but I wanted to answer this one question:
3. What one smell can you not stomach? frozen garbage (hellooooo chicago!)
Now for the rant: my neighborhood. There has been a rather loud cat in heat running around for days in the alley. There is a studio apartment upstairs from me with 4 people living in it (and 3 are under 10yrs old..I think bowling is a popular activity with them). People seem to think honking multiple times will let someone know they are coming around a corner (at night, don't headlights do the same thing..and uh, aren't headlights QUIET?). Loud R&B music is not how I want to wake up on a Saturday morning. Loud spanish music blasting out of a car in the alley is not my lullabye. ANY NOISE at all can be magnified if it's in an alley (i.e. alley football, alley courtship, alley drunkenness, etc). And that waft of pot stench on the same spot on my staircase...yeah, that's lovely as well.
I'm ready for a mini-vacation. I think my tolerance has been sufficiently depleted.
Sania writes me this: "ok, so i've arranged for you to go to a SPA on monday while i'm at work. my treat. i'm so happy you're coming to visit! we're going to have a blast!
facial + manicure + massage = good."
What did I do to deserve this?!?! I'm grinning from ear to ear :)
Last week @ Media Services at the Baha'i Temple.
Have I mentioned before what a great site Chicago Stories is? Well, it is. I just discovered Mildred's house of Signage from CS's log, and it's quite entertaining indeed. Be sure and check out the "bad spelling" section.
I had to send an email to the chicagobloggers first, but it's official: I'm going to Colorado this weekend to hang with the Sania-poo. WOOOO HOOO! I got an amazing deal on a plane ticket from Vanguard Airlines (never flown with them)...one of those one day only things. Well anyways, I'll be in Denver by Sat night, and in Boulder by...later...Saturday..night. On the agenda: snowboarding on Sunday (this is going to be really funny), much tourism and oh yeah, many many vista-tastic pictures.
So now I have commenting. I signed up for this 2 weeks ago and was just unmotivated to implement it. Consider this a test run to see if it's useful to me.
Okay, so today didn't start out great. Aside from the fact that I have YET to feel alive, I feel like all I have done is get aggrivated with css trickery (did you know you have to define text alignment in the TABLE?! that makes no sense to me) and write emails. Course of events: open photoshop, stare at a mockup, feel the need for inspiration, go to the web, end up reading a bunch of weblogs (props to rion btw on the p-hat new layout), feel stomach growl, look back at the mockup, go to mtv.com for last-ditch inspiration effort (and to check up on Real World Chicago of course), then go back to writing emails. Viscious, viscious cycle. What else is there to do but listen to Jade Tree mp3s and stumble through more css?
I'm already in mac mode. I keep looking for the command key. I'm lost in pc world at work....
My new (used) iBook is here! Whee! So cute...
Listening: Machina, Smashing Pumpkins. Feeling nostalgic about UGA. A year ago I was preparing for the LSAT, working for the school of visarts, getting things together for the May exit show, and wondering whether or not I should email that guy in Chicago about that job. Guess I should be glad I did :)
Highlights of the weekend (out of order): party @ Misha's, Real World Chicago with the lay-dees, cut hand while cleaning food processor blade, improved on pool game, began reading Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason, sleeping until noon 3 days in a row!, movies w/ Adalia, hung out with Rob, recieved 9-minute call from Jasmine, took many many tripped out photos using the rock star flash mode, and finding a new used record store on Morse Ave (bought first record since I was 7...now I just need a record player...).
happy engagement, shokufeh :)
Addendum to these photos: for some reason, looking back at these, my photo choice seems strange. I took about 175 pictures this weekend and these were the ones I chose. Interesting.
I love Emergency Exit Network...beautiful, clean design and always so gosh darn informative.
Oh yeah, and if you haven't seen the new Onion go see. They have a great perspective on the new iMac.
Oh yes, I think I found it. Organization, here I come. Ya Baha.
I painted this last week. Forgot how good it felt to paint.
And as kind of a side note now, I'll be showing some of my paintings at the Chase cafe (Chase & Sheridan in Roger's Park), hopefully starting this weekend. Wow....fine art. :)
Imagine: you're at home with nothing to do. You have a fabulous computer, a fabulous website, fabulous skills, and a little extra time on your hands. You want to do something to help the world, you want to do something to CHANGE the world...but who wants to leave the house, y'know?
Well BOY DO I HAVE THE JOB FOR YOU! I am looking for a *volunteer* with a computer and a few photoshop skills (nothing major) to help me out. I am working on a comic book project for junior youth...all of the drawings are done, I just need help filling in colors in Photoshop. I cannot pay you anything (because we're a nonprofit organization); you would be doing this out of the goodness of your heart (and perhaps some bribery from me). I don't want to ask more than you're willing or able to do, and I will be willing to accept any hours you could give me, no matter how few.
If you are interested, please please please email me and let me know if you can help me out. I would be extremely grateful for any help!
I find it incredibly ironic that when I tried to watch this Jimmy Eat World video at launch.com, it was all choppy and frustrating due to "buffering" and all other kinds of streaming annoyance, but at the end of the video, the commercial played perfectly. Hm.
Okay, so I'm thinking about getting a PDA (palm pilot or derivation thereof), but I have NO IDEA what to get. They all seem to be the same, with the exception of cosmetics and price. What I want is someone to email me and tell me what they recommend. I would like to use this thing between a mac and pc without issues, and work 100% with Outlook (as in, I don't have to manually update things, it just knows when something has been added or subtracted). Color is a bonus, but only if I'm planning on putting photos on there (what's the point?). At first I liked the Clie, then the Handspring...but I really have no idea. So if anyone has any advice AT ALL please email me with your recommendations. Thanks!
Hm, AppleSkinz. How ghettofab! I should let the UGA graphic design department know about those.... Link via ezra.
On the spin: Esthero. Every time winter comes around I listen to that. Thank you to the new badass cafe for reminding me about her.
I am officially in blogger archive hell. Someone help me.
BLOGSTICKERS™, a la cliche--uh...bumperstickers? I forsee these things everywhere. Oy..
My bookmarks are getting outta control. But I love them all! Maybe I should put my favorites folder up here for download. We'll see. I don't even know if I can do that. Damn caffeine has made my brain useless (but really really fast!).
Oh my. It's Sunday at 5:35 and I'm at work. Not doing work. It's dark ouside. I've been here since 1:30. How this computer is a black hole of time.
Escapades from yesterday...
Boys are gross.
There's a new cafe in the 'hood that beats the hell outta ennui.
Geeky it was. Fun it was too!
How come the Internal Revenue Service's website is designed so badly? You think thousands or millions of people are coming to file their taxes online you could at least pay someone to design a decent website. Sheesh.
Hey, are yall sick of me posting pictures of myself yet? heh..
Oh yeah, yesterday I downloaded and tried out Groove, a new shared workspace chat-type tool. It seems to be veeery cool, and right now it's free for download. So, hurry up and go try it before they start charging mad money for it. The best part: it goes through firewalls. No more aim woes for me with file transfer! Now I can just drag and drop it on in. You can also opt to literally share a workspace, which means you can control other parties' computers (a la demonstration style). Aw yeah.
It seems Damian Loeb replies to his email. Go tell him how much you enjoy his photo-narrative of the tragically hip.
Saw Baran (rain) last night in Chiiiicago (seen below):
Laaaaast niiight...sheeee said....wah wah wah wahhhh...
oh yeah, my coworker and I are insane today.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaahhhhkk!
Just thought I'd digress.
Pictures as promised...
Steve...
Jason + goatee...
Yesterday was a lovely day...
I got a new haircut. The end.
I would just like to state the obvious once again: Apple is brilliant. I mean, look at that! $1799! Amazing. I think Mac made the right choice to give people more options for less money...perhaps they will actually start to cut into that 94% of the market that uses PCs.
I took a day off yesterday because my brain was going to explode if I didn't. I slept, cleaned, got a haircut, looked at comics, and bought groceries. Then I ate icecream and went to bed. Yes, it was a good day. But now I have sooooooooooooooo much catching up to do.
All of a sudden, all that seems to matter is world peace and the new iMac.
I'm going to watch Steve Jobs' Macworld San Francisco streaming keynote address at 11am Central. How about you? Oh yeah, did I mention I won [an auction on] an iBook on Ebay yesterday? Yahoo!
It's about time for a new layout here, eh? Yeah I'm workin on it. No, it's not going quickly. Someone fish me out of my own delusions, please.
Adventures in Chicago. Godfather movie night. And then of course, work. Work work work. But here's the fun stuff:
Nothing like a great view of the lake, eh?
Oh hey, fertilefield.org is open for business. Muah.
Very accurate commentary--er--news story at nocommercialpotential.net. Couldn't have put it better myself.
Word of the day for Friday, January 4 2001:
agitprop \AJ-it-prop\, noun:
Propaganda, especially pro-communist political propaganda disseminated through literature, drama, music, or art.
Isn't that fascinating?
I'll give you a cookie if you can tell me which one my brother is. Or even in this one. Gooooood-NESS.
Oh yes, and while I was bereft of weblogging yesterday, I did 2 new splashes: one for Collab and one for lacey.collab (bet you thought I forgot aaaall about them, eh?).
Yeah sorry for that whole website being down all day yesterday thing. It was extremely frustrating from my end. But I took some pictures to make me feel better.
Beth and Jason freezing to death at the Davis L stop...
...despite the fact we were standing under some of these.
We're sorry about this! The problem that we've swapped your server machine due to maintenance and your home directory did not get set up properly on the new machine. The has been fixed and your site is up online now.
Happy 2002! Allan and Diane came up to Chicago to visit me. I ended up having a quasi-party (with non-alcoholic wine, mind you). The next day it was more tourism. It was an excellent way to start the year :)
