7 posts tagged “brad”

29 is the atomic number of copper. 29 is also the age I have been since Saturday.

Eva got spayed on Thursday last week, so I took Friday off to stay home and care for her. We spent all day playing Street Fighter IV (yes, she played... maybe), cuddling and napping. It was great. Other than the scar on her stomach, which they sealed with surgical glue rather than stitches, she was in great shape from day one. Her behaviour hadn't changed a bit - she wasn't feeling sorry for herself or moping, she was just as happy and excitable as ever. This cheered me up, because I had read a ton of spaying horror stories before we took her in.

I had a great, but quiet, birthday. On top of all the cards and messages from friends and family, I was spoiled and received...

- Lots of money to spend on nice things
- Saints Row 2: Collector's Edition for Xbox 360 (it's the game, a USB stick shaped like a bullet, a money clip, a poster and an art book in an embossed tin)
- New jeans
- An awesome t-shirt: www.isteamphone.com

I felt very spoiled and very loved. Today, I came into work to find chocolate from my friends Jason and Brad, too.

Jess was very good to me. On top of my presents, I got a tasty breakfast in bed (biscuits and gravy) and she suffered Indian food with me that night. The place we went to was shockingly good, I would say the best Indian I have had in the US so far.

This week, I'm back to work. Rather than sending her to daycare, where she might over-exert herself and mess with her scar, Eva is staying with her aunty Lindsay every day. This kills two birds with one stone - Eva gets one on one care, Lindsay gets all the puppy kisses she wants. WIN!

Well, it's over. I meant to post a recap of who I saw on Saturday yesterday morning, but I got sidetracked; and I've been in bed feeling like rubbish all day today. Not sure whether Lollapalooza's to blame or some other source of lurgee, but I can at least see straight now.

So, Saturday. We got to Grant Park in time to see a snippet of Foals. I had no opinion on them either way, which is odd considering they're one of the many "saviours of rock n' roll" that get trotted out by the NME every year. I also caught a little snippet of The Gutter Twins, featuring the inimitable Mark Lanegan. I wasn't paying too much attention, but they sounded alright.

The first band proper for me was MGMT, whose weird Bowie meets dance sound was perfectly suited to the festival vibe. I really enjoyed them, and their guitarist's shredding all over 'Kids' was fantastic.

Josie went off to see DeVotchKa, who are like a Hispanic gypsy folk take on The Smiths, while Jess and I hung out waiting for Brand New to come on. We saw them live already, but in a terrible venue full of teenyboppers, so we were hoping they'd be better at a festival. Not so much. The highlight of their set was the dudes brawling a few metres away from me. It's a shame, because on CD, they're great.

At least frontman Jesse Lacey was as disappointed as us, at one point telling the crowd "You should all be watching Explosions In The Sky."

Somehow, there was a big gap for us, until we ended up watching Okkervil River while waiting for Broken Social Scene to come on. They weren't what I expected (the name conjured up rootsy blues, but they were more folky and upbeat). I liked them.

Then Broken Social Scene... Broken Social Scene were my second favourite band after Radiohead. For a band with such an inconsistent line-up, they manage to be consistently awesome, and played some of my favourites including '7/4 (Shoreline)' and 'Farewell To The Pressure Kids'... and they had Amy from Stars with them, awesome.

We caught the tail end of Toadies' set (apparently they were big in America, never heard of them... and gladly so), then sat patiently waiting for Rage Against The Machine. I had chosen them over Wilco as I don't know that I would get to see them again.

I was... kinda non-plussed. While musically, they were tight, it sounded exactly the same as the CDs. To me, part of the appeal of seeing a band live is seeing how they mess with their arrangements. Add to that the fact they *kept* stopping so Zach could lecture the moshpit, and it wasn't all that entertaining. A massive shame. I wish I had seen Wilco now.

Sunday was the least action packed of the three days, reflected by the fact we were able to head down so late (not helped by The Weakerthans pulling out).

As we arrived, we could hear Iron & Wine and decided against them as they would be a bit of a Debbie Downer. So, our first act of the day was the brilliant Saul Williams. The girls weren't fans, but he did put on an energetic performance.

We caught snippets of Blues Traveller and Love & Rockets, but the next band proper was The National. Having seen them in the colossal United Center supporting REM, I wanted to see if their sound fared better in a relatively smaller environment... and I am pleased to say it did. I love them.

After they left the stage, the girls went over to catch the start of Kanye West's set while I watched Nine Inch Nails. I'd seen them before and really enjoyed them, but for some reason, the magic just wasn't there this time around... I think mostly because they decided to kill the mood a short way into their set by playing some of the instrumental pieces from Ghosts I-IV... which, while great to listen to when you're chilling out, is not really much fun when you're stood in a field.

They did play an awful lot of material from The Downward Spiral, though, which sort of made up for it. Especially 'Closer'.

Overall, it really was a good weekend, marred only - really - by feeling horribly ill today.

This was a good weekend. I am going to mention a bunch of people's names - they're mostly co-workers, don't worry.

We had wanted to see WALL-E on Friday, and even arranged to do so with our friends Jason and Brad, but two things transpired to prevent us. First, the showing we wanted to go to sold out right before I could order tickets online. Then Jason had to stay late at work because of a production issue. In the end, we just ate at Chili's (mmm, bacon and beef in a bun) then watched an entire disc of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia.

Saturday was chores day, so we tidied the crap out of the house, got lunch then Jess went home while I got a haircut. My mane was growing increasingly impossible to deal with and horrible to look at, so it had to be removed. We didn't get long to bum around before we met Doug, got in a cab and headed to Lindsay and Laura's surprise birthday party... at WHIRLYBALL!!!

Whirlyball is awesome. You're in a dodgem car that has a foot pedal and a crank for steering. While steering with one hand, you hold a plastic lacrosse-style net and attempt to throw a small ball at a circle of mesh on a baseball backboard with the other. As well as Jess, Doug, Lindsay, Laura and myself, there was Jeff, Lindsay's husband Doug and a ton of their friends and family. I felt slightly odd crashing into a cousin or brother in an attempt to get the ball, but it was wicked fun. I think I have found my "sport".

Also, for the record, Lindsay's dad owned.

From there, we headed to a bar called Schoolyard for the drinking. More and more people came along as the night progressed - Kristian, Jason, Brad, Brandon, other Jason, Mike and Betsy, and more of the birthday girls' family and friends. Everyone seemed to get along, and we were out till after midnight, at which point we turned into (very drunk) pumpkins and made our way home.

I woke up feeling as fit as a fiddle, possibly aided by drinking piss weak Miller Light all night, but Jess seemed mucho hungovero. Despite that, we managed to get our shit together and walk on up to the corner near Jason and Brad's place to watch the Chicago Gay Pride Parade. The parade had only just started when we got there, and it turned out to be a long old haul. People joined us - Kristian and his brother Kristopher, Jason and Brad's friend Karen, Doug and his friend Jess, another girl called Shelly... I have no idea who she was.

Several hours and two rain-induced interuptions later, we headed to get food, eating at a pizza place called Purgatory Pizza. We were ravenous, and after waving other people's food by our faces for what seemed like forever, they finally brought our pizza out... except they got it wrong. In the end, they gave us the wrong pizza, a smaller version of what we actually ordered and all our drinks for $6. We felt bad, though, and left a huge tip. The pizza itself was tasty... with a really crispy base.

And that was our weekend.

As I've mentioned before, when I moved to the US, I had to leave all my CDs behind so I ripped all 11,000+ songs to my portable hard drive and back them up to a second hard drive I bought here. Any new CDs bought since the move have also been ripped to the hard drive - whether Jess bought them or I did - and the number of songs is creeping up.

Today, we both bought a handful of CDs. I got...

- Juno (Official Soundtrack)
- Origin Of Symmetry, Absolution and Black Holes & Revelations by Muse

Jess got...

- Chase This Light by Jimmy Eat World
- The Con and So Jealous by Tegan & Sara

The best part of having such similar tastes is that we can split the cost of buying CDs. So I ripped them and the b-sides to the recent Radiohead single, Jigsaw Falling Into Place, before deciding today was the day to start tackling something I had put off for so long: ripping all the CDs Jess owns that I don't.

There's albums I don't have by bands I like, albums by bands I've never heard of, and albums by bands I personally would never by albums by (I won't mention names in case Jess is embarassed by some of them). I'm guesstimating that there's around 100 CDs to rip in here, at least. By the time I'm done, I'm sure the number of songs wll be over the 14,000 mark.

This is how I'm spending my Sunday.

I spent my Friday at work. I didn't leave the office until 2am as we had to get the two sites we're working on into the staging environment and working ahead of a client demo on Monday. That was fun. I have a few issues to fix tomorrow morning, but nothing scary.

My body wouldn't let me lay in yesterday, so I got up and played some Burnout Paradise. After cleaning the house and watching Waitress (a great film made more poignant by the fact writer/director/co-star Adrienne Shelley was murdered before she got to see the finished product), we went out for dinner and drinks with our friends Jason and Brad.

All in all, it's been a fairly relaxing weekend. Now we're just waiting for Rock Of Love to come on before getting an early night.

I don't think I made a tit of myself. Hooray!

I left work early with Jason - we decided to meet up with Jess and Brad somewhere for food before the party. We ended up going to English, which was very busy. All four of us got a selection of their slider burgers (I had two beef and one pulled pork, but there were various others on offer for $2-$3.50 each), washed down with beer.

We then headed to Martini Park where the party was being held. It was a short walk up the road from English, so we got there dead on 7pm: the time the party started. As we checked our coats, other co-workers arrived.

The venue was a huge, open space, and our company had a corner of it roped off with our own dedicated bar. As the name might suggest, their speciality was a selection of Martinis, but they also served normal booze. I started on beer then ended up on Bacardi and Diet Coke as beer makes me full.

We had a really good night, all in. Jess got to meet more of my co-workers and their partners, there was no aggro, and everyone enjoyed themselves. I spent a lot of time chatting in Spanish with Mayella, Eduardo's wife, the poor girl. The only downside to any of it was the live entertainment - two blonde girls on acoustic guitars with a backing band, singing everything from the Jackson 5 to Christina Aguilera to ABBA to The Temptations. Jess was very vociferous about her hatred, poor girl.

At around 11pm, we left with Eduardo and Mayella, sharing a cab home. We weren't too wasted, and as the venue was non-smoking, we didn't stink of crap either.

Today, a lot of my co-workers were very clearly suffering. A girl I work with called Lindsay, who started off bubbly, was sitting on the floor near my cube by this afternoon; and there were lots of very sore, tired-looking faces. There was a tasty tidbit of gossip, which it's pointless to share, so instead I will share a story one of my team members told me.

So this guy, Chris, went into the men's room at one point. There were a couple of chaps laughing about something, then one of them said to Chris: "Your mum!" A little bewildered, Chris replied: "What? No, YOUR mum." Suddenly angry, the guy said: "My mum's dead. Seriously." and then tried to beat Chris up, causing the toilet attendant to step in.

Americans!

It's snowing today. It settled all around our apartment, obscuring the parking lot below our window so it almost looks pretty. I'm writing this with the smell of pumpkin pie filling the place. It's officially winter.

Last night, after necking a few beers at our company's monthly party, I met Jess at home before we braved the cold to meet Jason and Brad for dinner. This was the first time Jess got to meet them, and I think it went well. We went to a restaurant called Ping Pong which had a tasty array of food, animal heads on the walls and a strange mix of contemporary RnB, dance and pop blaring out of all nooks and crannies. It took a while to be seated but the food was totally worth it.

From there, bellies full, we finished the night with beer at a newly-opened bar called Wilde (named after Oscar, and suitably Irish pub themed). There was a guy who looked at least at foot taller than me, and several guys the same height as Jess. I figured it must have been a visiting circus or something.

Today, Jess slept in while I played more Mass Effect. After mentioning it on here many times, I can safely say it's worth the anticipation. It's pushing the Xbox 360 to its limits, but it looks nothing less than stunning - coming across as Star Wars without the flimsy plot and rubberised aliens.

We braved the snow to grab lunch, cat food and other supplies (as well as dribbling over mobile phones briefly) and now Jess is cooking those pies ahead of us going to a potluck dinner with my co-workers and their partners. It should be fun, even if Leslie (my manager) lives a trillion miles north east of us.

Tomorrow I'l finish off my Christmas shopping so all I have to do is wrap and mail items as they arrive, as well as sleeping off two days of alcohol.

The title is pretty apt right now. It's taken from the song 'Unravel' by Bjork (which featured on Homogenic, one of my all-time favourite albums) that Radiohead recently covered on a webcast.

Original...

Radiohead cover...

Jess returns home in two days, we've been apart for four, and it's a very strange sensation. After all that cross-Atlantic bullshit, I hoped we would never spend ridiculous amounts of time apart ever again. Not that a week is very long, but I miss that stinky cheesehead.

After my last update, I napped ahead of going out for the midnight screening of Donnie Darko. I met Jason, his boyfriend Brad and their friend Valerie at the cinema. We weren't sure who else was coming, so after fifteen minutes, we headed to a nearby bar where we bumped into Laura and Mike. After a few drinks, Laura and Mike stayed on while the rest of us went to see the film.

It was a different version to the version I own - there was extra footage and better explanation of the bizarre plot. Having not seen the film for a long while, I really enjoyed it and it was worth staying out till 2.30am for. Especially as it reminded me of how much I love 'Head Over Heels' by Tears For Fears. I had also forgotten who was in the movie - Donnie's girlfriend Gretchen is played by Jena Malone (if you haven't seen the film Saved!, do it); one of the two bullies - although not the one named Seth - is played by Seth Rogen (The 40 Year Old Virgin, Superbad, Knocked Up); and crazy Christian teacher Kitty Farmer is played by Beth Grant, who was the pageant official in Little Miss Sunshine and Ralph's mum in My Name Is Earl.

Yesterday, I spent much of the day in bed - playing Command & Conquer 3, napping, watching Comedy Central. Doing as little as possible pretty much. I went to sleep quite early, waking (randomly) just in time to watch Metalocalypse before dozing off again to my iPod. My only contact with the outside world all day was when I ordered in some Thai food.

Tonight it'll be more of the same, but tomorrow I'm going out for dinner with Josie and Gaz and Wednesday I get Jess back.