I really should update about this weekend, cause it kicked ass!

Relay for Life
Showed up to the Rec at 7pm to meet the rest of my team before the opening ceremonies. Slammed an Adrenaline Rush and I was ready to go! After the ceremonies, Jametria and I walked the track for almost an hour before someonen else from our team took over. I swear, I've never walked so much in my life! (probably not true since I did hike quite a bit in boy scouts) We had an Xbox set up with DDR, which we charged $1 for 3 songs or $1 for 10 minutes of Halo2...we ended up making about $20 more for the cause! They had all sorts of entertainment there, contests, bands, etc. The funniest part of the night was when Erin signed up for the licorice eating contest along with the hula hoop contest. She "deep throated" 3 feet of licorice, without using her hands, in about 6 minutes and should have won, but the girl next to her was totally cheating! Right after it finished, probably about 3 minutes, the hula hoop contest starts! HA! I can't believe she didn't puke all over! Kinda looked like she was going to after the first minute or so, but then she tired out and quit...rightfully so! I knew I should have done the licorice eating...I would have schooled everyone! candycandycandycandy :)

After that the night kinda slowed down a bit. Adam brought his poker set, so we played a few games of hold'em, of which I'd never played before..and really have never been that good at poker...but it wasn't real money, so it was all good that I lost :)

Walked around for about another hour or so trying to stay awake..did about 15-20 more laps with Christina, Erin and Adam before going back to a bit more poker and some halo 2.

At 3am the drumline started playing! LOUD! Jamal, Jametria's son, was passed out and he didn't wake up! HA! After that things definatly slowed down, people started leaving at around 4am, we ended up taking off at 530a with everyone ready to pass-the-fuck-out. Which I did at 6am just as the sun was coming up! Haven't done that in a while :D

Pictures from the relay

Mike and Joe at Starbusters
Woke up pretty early since I got back at 6am from Relay. Tooled around the house a bit with Lindsay before we headed off to Randall Rd. to get me some new shoes and pants and whatever else took my fancy. Found a pair of sketchers at DSW (yeah, they're leather, but I couldn't find anything that wasn't and I wasn't going to buy shoes online since I can't try them on first) and a kick ass pair of Merrells too (aparantly they're a good brand cause Moosejaw sells them (according to my sister))..and they're laceless! Wooo! Shoes I don't have to lace up every time I put them on! Ate some grub at Noodles & Co. before picking up some new jeans at AE and browsing some other shops around the Geneva Commons area before heading back to DeK.

Got back, dropped off the new gear at home, and headed down to Fatty's to see the Illinois/Louisville game. Fatty's was freakin mobbed so we went up to Starbusters (cause they have food and tv's too) which we were going to anyway to see Mike&Joe later in the night. I really wasn't sure who to root for since I live in Illinois but grew up in L'ville...if only Pitino (the cocksucker (long story from 10 years ago)) wasn't the coach :) Anyway, by the time the game ended the bar was getting kinda full. Lindsay wanted to go home and change for the show, but we didn't want to loose our killer table, so I waited there while she ran home to change. Eventually, Karen, Shannon, Andrew, Rob and Melissa showed up for the festivities. Bar got more crowded as the night went on and by the time M&J started it was like being crammed in a submarine!

The show was really good! Actually, better than I thought it was going to be...to the point where I would go see them again, although probably not at Busters (if it's going to be that crowded anyway). Wish they'd play at Otto's again, it's nice in there :)

So at 2am, after 9 hours and 7 beers later, we made it back home. Hands down the longest amount of time I've ever spent in a bar, and I don't care to do it again anytime soon :)

Pictures from Mike & Joe

Sunday
Yesterday, slept in until almost noon....sweeeeet. I was supposed to hang out with Jen, but she got a call from Maddie and went to Polo to hang out with her instead. But my sister IMs me and asks if she can come out and utilize our vast computing resources. So we search, scan, print, chat and the like for a few hours. Took a nice walk with Lindsay before she went out for the night, played some Outlaw Golf 2 and made some headway on my goal to beat the game...we'll see if that ever comes to fruition. Didn't end up going to sleep until almost 3am...that's what happens when you sleep in I suppose :)

Yep, so that's the weekend. Went back to BB today and exchanged my new CD for one that actually contained a CD...from what I've heard of it so far, its all good :D

Phew.
(mirrored like a mo-fo)

Break's over and I did post quite a bit over at my LJ if you want to go check it out.

Did quite a bit of disc golfing with my brother (Than) over the past week. Up until last sunday I had been once (to the course in Freeport) and since last sunday I've been 5 more times! There's a sweet course 25 minutes from here (and yes, that's the closest one) in Aurora which we went to, and another one (looooong as hell) in Lombard we hit up last wednesday. It got to the point that after the 4th time going, I picked up my own discs! Put up some random pics here. And I got some good ones yesterday as well...may post them at some point in time. (my bro is the one in the hoodlum hat, todd has the long hair)

On another note, I ripped some old records for my dad which are no longer in print (vinyl, cd, tape, etc). Jesse Colin Young's "Soul of a City Boy" and Jeffrey Cain's "Whispering Thunder". If anyone wants a copy of these rarities I'll gladly post them (as long as you're gentle on my server). Their both old late 60's singer/songwriters who are smashed between folk and rock.

Let's see, I watched Jen's cat Butterscotch the entire week...spent a lot of time over at their apartment too (hey, they have cable tv). Rented a copy of Brothers In Arms...what a sweet f'n game! I'm actually considering picking up a copy in the near future.

St. Patty's day I went down to Fatty's and drank myself silly: Guinness, Harp, Bass, Smithwicks, Bushmills whiskey, Bushmills creme, Jameson, and a Carbomb. I was wasted. pics here. Along with that, went out on friday night with Chris and Rob and had a guys night out...basically bashing women all night...not really, but that was the plan :) Got wasted then too. It's really not spring break unless you get trashed :)

I did manage to wipe my computer and recover the 100gb drive (discussed here) and found almost 5000 pictures that I thought were lost! The whole Ireland trip from a few years back, the chihuly exhibit, hundreds of pictures of Patches when she was still small. Now I have to sort through all of them...bleh.

That's about it...discing and drinking were my break.

Yep.

It certainly doesn't feel like spring break is next week:
1) Paper due on tuesday
2) Project due the following monday
3) Another project due the following wednesday
4) I'm not going anywhere
5) IT'S FREAKIN SNOWING OUTSIDE!

Bleh, back to the paper....
(I hope this doesn't post twice...stupid /.)

(yeah, so my LJ is more up to date..that's what happens when you have a nifty posting client!)

A few things to update on before I delve into studying for the rest of my shift:

Comcast - Fuckers! I hooked the modem up to Lindsay's laptop this morning only to find out that we have internet! Called them up and found out that we'd have internet since Saturday! Argh! Every other time we've had a problem there has been an automated response the same day saying that it should be resolved...not this time! Grrr...so it works now. AND the server is back up, so everyone can go look at the pictures of Jen and Nate from last weekend :)

Than crashed out here last night and is going to again tonight. Gonna get some more NFS2 in and maybe go over to J&N's for some MK:DD (since Than got his ass stomped last night!)

Drank waaaay too much on Friday night. Actually, I didn't drink so much, it's that I didn't eat hardly anything all day...until after my 4th beer...guess where that ended up! For some reason I also ended up eating quite a bit of Mexican food this weekend...Rosita's on Friday with Diana, and Eduardo's on Saturday with Lindsay...oooooh was Ed's good! I am definately going back there for some TVP tacos! Finally made it down to Portillo's yesterday with Jen...their grilled veggie sammich is great! A bit pricey, but still very very very good. I want another! NOW!

Two mid terms this week in my two classes which are all but identical. Should be confusing to say the least. Same room, same time, same instructor, almost the same material! Fun!

So, off to study!

HOLY CRAP! New Jolt! Now they're making an energy drink?!?!?! Why wasn't I notified sooner? I gotta try it! But the question remains, why did they decide to go in this direction? I have a theory...if you can't beat them, join them. I know of a single gas station in the "area" which sells it, in West Chicago (link to how long a distance that actually is...over an hour each way).Most people are already aware of the Jolt brand, but not many people sell it. More people areselling energy drinks nowadays in slick looking cans which are showcased promenantly, while Jolt istucked away in a corner somewhere...if it'sthere at all. Changing the cansjustpushes them over into the "fancy" container area with the energydrinks and teas and not lumpedin with the crazy amounts ofcoke/pepsi.Visibility! Bing! Just like Jolt Gum & Mints...mmm...

Fuck, I'm a business major.

Oh well, just more "tools" as they say.

It's been brought to my attention that I haven't updated this thing since October. Yeah, lots of stuff has happened since then...some of which you can find on Lindsay's journal, some of which you can't (especially if she hasn't friend-ed you)

Anyway, I've been admitted to grad school at NIU, in MIS. I have a graduate assistantship, which means that my tuition is paid for and I get a stipend for rent and the like...just for doing the same job I did before.

I'm taking 4 grad level courses, 2 in project management, 1 in geographic systems (read: mappoint and arcgis), and 1 in basic computer skillz (read: bullshit). The two mgmt classes are a freakin ton of work, the geo systems class is a pain (easy work yet lots of it) and the skillz class is just annoying, if not for anything else than the instructor is completely scatterbrained. Actually, if I were to teach, I'd probably be like him...which is good for some, but not for me...at least not for a class like this. Should be finished with my masters in december (and only taking a single class over the summer at Kish (local CC))

Lets see...I really want to go to Europe this summer, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussles, The Hague, anywhere else in that region. As of now I don't have anyone else who can go with me though...hopefully someone will, I'd rather not be going by myself (but will!)

Well, that's my short little update. Maybe I'll start posting more often with what's actually going on, drinking, listening to, watching, wandering across and whatnot, but as for today I have to do research. FUN!

(mirrored on LJ)

(LJ and BM mirrors)
So this weekend was very good, not as good as last weekend, but definately up there :)

Friday was nothing spectacular. Went down to Molly's for a beer...one of Lindsay's coworkers was considering going, but we didn't see her there...oh well.

Saturday I worked all morning and afternoon, being bored off my ass. Got home at 4:30 and powered up the GC to play some Mega Man...FUCK! My savegame somehow got corrupted, this means have to start over again...damnit! Started playing MM6 and left the game on pause as we were headed to the suburbs to see my sister. This is where it gets good :)

We met Caitlin in Schaumburg at The Prairie Rock Brewing Co. for dinner and beer. The dinner was great, no vegetarian selection to speak of (pasta w/ veggies) but the cheese ale soup was phenomenal! To top it off the soup came with a freshly baked pretzel...to die for! The beer wasn't bad either. I had their Oktoberfest brew, Lindsay had their Prairie Light and Caitlin had the Vanilla. Now, I've never had a vanilla beer that I've particularly cared for, but this one was something else. It literally tasted like a creme soda! After the brewery we went to Redmoon, a martini bar in Arlington Heights. Very small place, dark with modern decor (pics forthcoming...hopefully). Caitlin's new beau Jeremy is one of the bartenders and mixed up the most amazing martinis I have ever had. I started with their chocolate martini which had 2 Godiva liquors, Ketel One and Hershey's syrup...amazing. This was followed by the other bartenders specialty, a martini that tasted like grape koolaid! Bloody great! Lindsay had their Extacy martini, which was very very berry, their Chaz (chocolate raspberry) and a Sexy Lady (very apt :)) all of which were great! I finished the night with an Effen Black Cherry on the rocks. Such a smooth flavor with a bit more than a hit of black cherry. Yum. Eventually made it back to DeKalb at 3am.

Sunday we met my parents at Old Chicago for my b-day party-ish-thing. Had a few beers (thankfully I had no hangover) along with a ton of food. We had the sampler platter, two pizzas and I got a "little big cookie" b/c it was my b-day. Two more beers and I'll finish the Oktoberfest tour and get my hat! I had a Becks Oktoberfest and a Lowenbrau...both were good. The highlight was my sister drinking a Ommegang Three Philosophers which was a 25oz lambic/ale mixture which took 3 people to finish! I did get some presents, all of which kick ass. Copies of Rallisport Challenge 2 and Sonic Mega Collection (xbox and gc respectively)...hell yeah! new games! I loved the first Rallisport and played the second a few months ago, it totally blows away the first...everyone who likes racing games should play it! I also got a 256M flash drive and a sweet Prana pullover from my sister. My mom also brought two pies from Bakers Square to eat after the presents. Ugh...so full...gonna die.

Last night we had Jen and Nate over for leftover pie before some much needed sleep!
So that was my weekend...how was yours?

A few weeks ago lindsaycb told me not to make any plans for October 1-2. That was this weekend, and I'm so glad I didn't make any plans!!!

At 6pm on Friday we jump in Lindsay's car and start heading north. Lindsay tells me that we're going past Rockford. (Yay, we're not spending the weekend in Rockford ;) ) Janesville? Beloit? Nope. We're headed to Madison (home of dubnobasswithme who was unfortunately out of town). The drive up there was extremely frightening. Semis going 75, in the pouring rain, at 8pm. Not fun. There were more than a few harrowing moments along I-90 with one semi in particular.

We arrive in Madison at around 8:30-9pm and locate our hotel. The Best Western Inn on the Park. Gorgeous. Right across from the capitol! Couldn't have asked for a better location in Madison. Right down from State Street, two-ish blocks from the lake.

When we get our room (sadly with no view of said capitol) Lindsay hands me an envelope with two tickets to see Whad'Ya Know the following morning! Hell yeah! I listen to this show every week and have for probably 8 years now (give or take). For those not in the know, it's on NPR on saturday/sunday and the host basically has random interesting interviews, audience questions and two quizzes for "fabulous prizes" In lieu of going out, we stay in to admire the cable tv in the room and end up watching Iron Chef...it was the tofu episode...too bad all the entrees had meat..oh well. We had a big day ahead of us!

Saturday morning we get up, get ready, have breakfast at the little restaurant downstairs (kinda sucked...too busy...but cheap!) and started our walk to the Monona Terrace where the show is taped. Such a beautiful building! Frank Lloyd Wright did some amazing things! Showed up at 9:15 after kinda getting lost on the way (followed the signs for parking and didn't actually look as to where we were supposed to be going...oh well) We were handed our notecards to put name/occupation/hometown and a question for Michael (Feldman...the host) Lindsay asked "Do you eBay?" and put "This is so dope!" at the bottom. I asked "Why do buttermilk pancakes sop up so much syrup?" Went into the lecture hall at 9:45ish. Aparantly there were coffee and doughnuts downstairs...had we known that we would have saved money on breakfast :)

At 10am the show starts. The stage is kinda cluttered with old knick-knacks and inflatable cows, and a stuffed ostrich. There were two diner booths in the center (at right angles to eachother) where Michael sat, a piano and stool where John and Jeff play, and off to the right there was a single chair where Jim sits. (there are bio's here incase you were wondering)

The first hour goes by, laughing, groaning, etc ensues. The second hour starts, he's talking to a lady about advertising herself as a "back of the pack" marathoner and how she gets endorsements. Pretty funny stuff. Then came the part where he starts answering the questions from the audience. The second question he answers is about tattoo parlors in Madison. Then he says "Lindsay, from DeKalb Illinois...will you say this for me?" LINDSAY IS GOING TO BE ON AIR!!!!! He walks back to us, Lindsay stands up and he notices the triquetra on her back, so he starts asking her about tattooing! After a short conversation about that, he asks her to say "this is so dope" because aparantly he has never been called "dope' before (maybe "a dope" but never "dope" :) ) LINDSAY WAS ON THE RADIO!! AND YOU CAN HEAR IT HERE (~25 minutes in...real audio format) That totally made my day! My parents taped the show as well, so everyone can hear it (I may try to get a rip of it from my dad in the near future and post a non RA copy)

The show ended and we walked around the terrace for a while. We then walked back to the hotel and got the car. Off to Old Chicago! Wow, they have a ton of different brews at the one in Madison than the one in Rockford! We'll have to go there more often ;)

After our suaree to OC we dropped the car back off at the hotel, went upstairs and listened to the feed of lindsay online :) Somehow, we ended up taking a nap too :)

Woke up refreshed and hungry. Decided to walk down State Street and one of the first places we pass is Peacemeal Vegetarian Restaurant can this day get any better? A place where we don't have to worry about what we're eating!!!! We ate some falaffels and headed out to go bar hopping.

We stumbled into Stillwater's and ordered some martini's (mine chocolate, lindsay's was melon) then ordered seconds :) The bar was nice, smokey as hell, but not overwhelming at all. By this time we both have nice vodka buzzes and decided that drinking more would probably not be the best idea. We wander down state street, then back up again. The bar hopping didn't really happen, oh well...I'm sure next time we're up dubnobasswithme will take us to bigger and better places. Ended up going back to the room at 12ish and passing out (well, I passed out...didn't even take my glasses off passed out)

The next morning we got up, checked out, took some pictures of the Capitol, the terrace and other miscellany before heading back to Illinois (I still had to work at 2pm...no one could cover my 20 minute shift).

So that was the weekend....loads of fun! If I forgot anything...I guess I'll update it :)

My new mobo/cpu/ram came in late last thursday. Hell yeah is what I say to that! Took a few hours on Friday to set it up, install XP, some drivers...all sitting in the middle of the living room (where else?) Tried to run the netgear wireless card and their setup continually crashed. I had a little extra money in the old banking account so we trotted off to Best Buy on saturday and picked up a d-link card...which actually works! Hell yeah there too!

Now I can actually play, and have played, Neverwinter Nights. Now all I have to do is get good so I can play with all my L'ville friends online!

On another note. I have this shitty corporate finance class (required for my major) with a completely incompenent instructor. More than half the class hadn't attended since the first day and last monday was the kicker. It took him an hour and a half to cover 12 basic, single formula, single step questions. Not only that but he frequently told students their answers were correct when they obviously weren't, and when pointed out, he would correct himself. All of this was topped by the fact that he stood there like a deer in headlights for at least 2 seconds before saying a sentence...most of the time it was more like 5-8 seconds...which just makes the class drag on. Example:

Prof: "Let's move on to the next question" (4 seconds)
Prof: "does anyone know the answer?" (7 seconds...4 of which people have had hands up)
"yes.......you"
Student1: "bla bla answer"
(8 seconds...fumbles with papers)
Prof: "correct" (3 seconds)
Student2: "no it's not"
Student2: "its bla bla right answer"
(6 seconds)
Prof: "yes.......that is correct"
Student2: "so which is it?"
(3 seconds)
Prof: "its...." (fumbles with papers...5 seconds)
Prof: "bla bla right answer"
(10 seconds)
"next question"

For an hour and a half! By my estimate, standing at the front door smoking a ciggy, half the class left through the front and at least a quarter left through the back. Wednesday morning everyone gets an email with the subject "IMPORTANT CHANGES" stating that "Mr. Xxx has resigned as the instructor for this course." Great! Now we won't have someone utterly incompetent running this class. From the emails, it looks like we now have Stalin Jr. as our new instructor. Mandatory attendance, no electronic devices (unless used for "bona fide medical reasons") except a TI BA II Plus calculator, and no talking (letter grade deductions for each instance!). We'll see how it goes tonight, but it doesn't sound like it's going to be a whole lot of fun...like finance would be anyway.

Back to work! Tolly ho!

Anyone need a gmail invite?

Message me if you do.

My checkbook is finally in the black, what better time to order a new brain for my computer than now! NONE!

ASUS A7V880 - I love Asus boards, I love VIA chipsets, can't go wrong (unless it totally sucks). Everyone was trying to talk me into geting a 64-bit CPU, but fuck that, I just want to play NWN and burn DVDs with no buffer underruns (like my current POS system does)...besides, I am on a budget.
AMD Athlon XP 3200 CPU - I despise Intel since my second computer (back in the day) had major issues with overheating and ultimately a-sploding. AMD ever since!
Gotta have the RAM, it's a step down in size but a major boost in speed...all of my systems now have at least 1 gig of ram, but this one will only have 512...again, on a budget.

All of this should prove to make one heck of a system when I add my Audigy, GeForce FX 5200, 300 gigs worth of HDDs and the DVD burner...not to mention all the USB shite and wirless crap.

WOOO....I's special now! Moooovin on up! Take that space coyote!

My girlfriend, she's the best! Last night she gave me an early birthday present...Mega Man Anniversary Collection for GC.

Hell yeah!! I'm never doing homework again!

The original Megaman's (1-6) kept me from class my first and third years of college...although, the constant smoking didn't help much either.

(/. really needs a beer topic)
Weekends start on Friday at 3pm. I do believe I started drinking at 5 and didn't really stop until Saturday at 9pm. All of it beer, half of it decent. This isn't counting the beers I had on sunday either. Basically my weekend is kinda blurry until mid-afternoon yesterday.

Friday, Lindsay and I ate dinner together and it all started with a Redhook Blonde. If you're not familiar with the Redhook brewery, they do consistantly good work, especially their ESB. I'm partial to their IPA and Sunrye, but everything is great...has to be my favorite brewery to date. Moved on to a Flying Dog Doggy Style Pale Ale. Again, another of my favorite brewerys, but some of their selections are a bit shady (namely their Scottish Porter...eew). Finished off the pre-bar festivities with a Killians, standard red that Lindsay loves (and recently re-discovered).

Off to see my friends from Oregon where we proceeded to a magazine launch at Fatty's (local bar with a decent selection and Blue Moon on special, can't go wrong with that). The magazine is a new local publication based around the Northern Illinois music scene...but not Chicago. Chicago has enough magazines to cover the whole state, everywhere else has shite. Lindsay designed the ads for the party and her publisher is producing the magazine, thus we had to attend. All my O-town friends came along and treated us all to multiple Blue Moons.

After a few rounds of pool, socialization and brews, Lindsay and I headed back home with her friend Chris for a few rounds of Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (best game ever!) and more Killians. Not quite sure how I drank that much...but I did!

Saturday. Tailgating. Bud Light from the time I woke until I passed out at a whopping 10:30p. The football game was cool, NIU vs SIU, we barely won...1 point, could have gone to OT but SIU tried for a 2-point conversion and failed...whew. We sat on the student side amid chants of "Fuck you Southern, You sleep with your cousins" and the ever popular "buuuull shiiiit" at every call that didn't go our way. Interesting to say the least.

Yesterday, Lindsay and I went to Old Chicago in Rockford. For those not in the know, OC has a beer tour. Drink 110 beers (no time limit) and you get your name on the "Wall of Foam" plus other prizes along the way. I had 3 beers and Lin had 4 (Mikes hard lemondade, Redhook Sunrye, and a Goose Island Honker's Ale for me). I reached my 74th beer, for which I was awarded a kick ass glass much (32oz!) and Lindsay reached her 55th, for which she got a t-shirt. Go us!

We went over to Best Buy and were seriously considering buying a TiVo. Very frequently I want to watch Jeoparday and Lindsay wants to watch Dr. Phil (yeah, crackpot Phil)...thus we NEED a TiVo, at least that's what we're telling ourselves :)

Now I'm still kinda hazy, even after a good nights sleep, two cups of coffee and a doughnut (KK at that).

Beer. Yum.

So my elbow, it is broken but I don't have a cast. Thus I can still play games, type, etc...I just can't lift anything. This proves quite the problem when trying to get an 18lb bag of cat food up three flights of stairs.

I love my .Net class. It's bloody easy, and I already know more than half the material thus far. There's nothing better than a GPA booster...lord knows that I've had my fair share of bad semesters in the past (gross understatment). It more than makes up for the other three classes which are terribly uninteresting.

After weeks of fighting with my systems I finally got a configuration that I'm somewhat happy with. Wireless on the baby board, generic board as the server, and no good video or sound card on either of them.

I really should update more...there is more to my life than just school and computers...like my beer fetish :)

i broke my mother f'n elbow

now i cant play games
now i cant type
now i cant move my goddamn arm

shit