12 posts tagged “home”

Littering, long showers, not recycling... What's your biggest pet peeve about the way some people (mis)treat our planet?
Sponsored by One Million Acts of Green brought to you by Cisco.

Littering has always been up there, especially douchebags who drop shit on the ground mere feet from a bin.

My biggest beef, really, is the automobile. Specifically...

- People who buy cars that are larger and more fuel guzzly than they need for their day to day usage.
- People who drive short, walkable distances.
- People who drive to places that are easily reachable on public transport.

Heck, I used public transport for most of my journey to and from work when my house and office were two hours apart by car (and significantly more by public transport).

Walking is free, a bike is cheap, public transit in a big city like Chicago is cheap, reliable and likely to go pretty much anywhere you need to get most days. The impact on your pocket and health is pretty substantial if you replace car journeys with walking and biking.

I wish I *could* feel better, Tylenol Sinus, believe me.

I have a cold. I'm not one of those men who somehow turn into the walking wounded when they get a minor sniffle. More than anything, being ill just pisses me off. I can barely breathe properly at the best of times with my stupid allergies, but this just exacerbates the problem and makes me snippy. And tired.

Then to make matters worse, I had to wear a scarf to combat the cold weather this morning. While in the summer, buses are air conditioned to freezing point here in Chicago, in the winter, the heat is full blast and you're too packed in to successfully remove and replace clothing. Scarf plus cold plus heat... ugh. Hate, hate, hate.

Other than my immune system coming under fire, this weekend was quiet. We spent most of it packing things up ready for our move (if it ever happens, we're still waiting for our mortgage nonsense to be signed off); I finally completed Tales Of Vesperia - an effort that took over 50 hours of play time, all in; and Josie came to see as us it's been a billion years.

After my last move (across an ocean, no less) I have definitely gotten more ruthless about throwing things I don't need away. Not that my brother Ricci can agree with this, seeing as his attic is half full of guitars and CDs and books.

Anyway, this week, we are crossing things that our mortgage and all that come through so we can just worry about being ready to move on 22 November. Yes please.

UPDATE: We are clear to close, we are definitely moving!

How many houses have you lived in? How is where you live now different from where you grew up?

Let's see... 12, if you count stays as short as a month. The main reason where I live now is different from where I grew up is that it's in another country that's 4,000 miles away.

So begins 'Heirloom' by Bjork, and so begins this post. I've had it a lot over the past year. Elements change, but the overall theme is the same.

I am in what I recognise to be one of my old places in London. Sometimes, it actually is one of those places, other times it is a place my brain has made up. The overall thrust of the dream is that I am supposed to be moving out of the place, but I am not ready - not everything is packed, and there is some looming deadline such as the landlord coming to inspect the place or new people moving in.

Last night, it was the latter. In the dream, my brother, his girlfriend, Jess and I were asleep in my old place. I got up and looked out of the window to see the new tenant and her friends carrying luggage and furniture towards the house. I quickly ran to wake people up, shouting "We have to get up, I'm not ready!"

Then it cut to me explaining to the new tenant that she could keep my television, stereo and VCR as I wouldn't need them where I was going. It was around this time that I woke up.

Jess thinks the dream is actually an analogy for work - how I am very busy on one project but the next one is looming up ahead. It would make sense I guess - work is crazy this week (culminating in me staying late at the office last night), but I don't know... even ignoring work, I've felt very strange this week. My brain has been ticking more than usual with directionless, restless thoughts and I think my sub-conscious is having just as hard a time making sense of it as my conscious is.

This year's Lollapalooza line-up was announced this week. Jess and I already had tickets on the strength of the rumour of Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, meaning we paid $175/£88 instead of $205/£103. Boy, am I glad we decided to go... the line-up is pretty intense. Bolded acts are acts I love, asterisked acts are acts I would be interested in seeing.

Radiohead
Rage Against the Machine
Nine Inch Nails
Kanye West
Wilco
The Raconteurs*
Louis XIV*
Love and Rockets
Gnarls Barkley*
Bloc Party*
The Black Keys* (they played last year and I enjoyed them)
Broken Social Scene
Lupe Fiasco
Flogging Molly
Mark Ronson
Cat Power*
The National
G. Love & Special Sauce
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
Explosions in the Sky*
Brand New
Gogol Bordello*
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks*
Dierks Bentley
Okkervil River
Amadou & Mariam
Blues Traveler
John Butler Trio
Girl Talk
Your Vegas
CSS
Eli "Paperboy" Reed & the True Loves
Battles*
Steel Train
Jamie Lidell
Bang Camaro
Butch Walker
The Blakes
Mates of State
Tally Hall
Spank Rock
White Lies
Brazilian Girls
Magic Wands
Chromeo
Electric Touch
Duffy
Innerpartysystem
The Kills
The Postelles
Rogue Wave
The Parlor Mob
The Go! Team
Bald Eagle
Mason Jennings
Krista
The Gutter Twins*
Ha Ha Tonka
Yeasayer
Witchcraft
Grizzly Bear
We Go To 11
MGMT*
Sofia Talvik
The Weakerthans*
Booka Shade
Santogold
Black Kids*
Black Lips
Dr. Dog
Nicole Atkins & the Sea
The Ting Tings
Kid Sister
Office
The Cool Kids
What Made Milwaukee Famous*
Does It Offend You, Yeah?*
The Whigs
Manchester Orchestra
Foals*
Uffie
The Octopus Project
Cadence Weapon
Ferras
De Novo Dahl
Noah and the Whale
Margot & the Nuclear So and So's
K'NAAN
Serena Ryder
Newton Faulkner

I only went to V and Glastonbury in the UK, but for the past three years, Lollapalooza has far outclassed both of those... and being hosted by Chicago's gorgeous park land, it's a short bus ride from home, with decent places to eat, drink and stay nearby.

It's been a good week.

With the launch out of the way, work has been less hectic. There were still bits and pieces to do on the sites we launched - some post-launch bug fixes, new features and responses to feedback. Other than that, I got to move onto my other project which - while also bearing an ever-looming deadline - I am comfortable about.

Tuesday was Jess' birthday so we went to our favourite Mexican place. As it was a special occasion, we had cocktails and dessert... and I'm very glad we did. Despite it being a girly drink, I love pina colada; and the weird ice cream things we had for dessert were very tasty. Jess really wanted to go to a Thai place, but given the distance, this was a perfect substitute.

Yesterday, I left work just after 5.30pm and got home around 6.15pm, despite having to take a detour to drop off our rent cheque. Considering last week I didn't leave work/get home until around the same time the following morning, it was nice. Jess was staying late at work, though, so I didn't know what to do with myself.

I did very little. I made myself a very simple and meat-free dinner, watched a whole disc of Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law then got into bed and played Solitaire on my swanky new phone. Somehow, I held off the sleepiness washing over me until Jess was home and in bed.

She had to get up early again this morning, leaving me to bum around. I spent my morning devouring another disc of Harvey Birdman, dicking around on the computer (it's amazing how much time you can waste looking at online galleries, Wikipedia entries and Amazon) and playing more Solitaire and Bubble Breaker.

My lunch was a bit more interesting - Jess had brought me home some steak, mashed potatoes and broccoli last night so I reheated that and downed it with copious amounts of Diet Coke. My dessert was Dairy Milk from our stash of imported chocolate.

I'm about to get a shower then head to meet Jess after work so we can pick up the last of her birthday presents. Despite two consecutive weeks of one of us working the weekend, things are calming down as the weather slowly (oh so slowly) picks up.

This week's calmer Dale is soundtracked by...

- One Cell In The Sea by A Fine Frenzy
- Deserter's Songs by Mercury Rev
- Armchair Apocrypha by Andrew Bird
- Logic Will Break Your Heart by The Stills

If you read Jess' Vox, you will know that we've put our dreams of buying a place on hold for now. In hindsight, we were going about it a little backwards - we hadn't saved a down-payment so we would have needed 100% financing, which we couldn't easily get with me being a credit blank slate in this country.

This year, we are going to eliminate our outstanding debts; save a whole buttload of money; and start again next year when we're far more prepared. This has a side benefit of allowing us to travel back to the UK as soon as my green card shows up.

Other than reaching this decision, our weekend was very quiet but productive. On Saturday, we headed down to the bank to do stuff, then I traded in a bunch of computer games towards Burnout Paradise, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Sonic Mega Collection Plus to play on my Xbox 360. My poor Wii continues to get very little love. While we were out, we also ate brunch and got me two new pairs of shoes as my others were falling apart.

We managed to get some laundry done but I passed out early on Saturday night so we didn't watch any of the three DVDs we rented. Very rock and roll.

Yesterday, I went out to pay the rent, get a haircut and pick up some stuff from the supermarket. After I got home, we spent the day cleaning. Josie came into the city to go for dinner, then once she left we continued tidying the place up. As we're staying put, we had to clear out the mini-office space ahead of a potential trip to IKEA to re-furnish it. After finding out Rock Of Love wasn't on because of the Stupid Bowl, we didn't have time to watch any of the DVDs once more. Bo.

And now I'm back at work, trekking through tons of snow to get to the final week of QA hell on my current project. W00T!

For the first time ever, I feel my age.

It started when I was joking around in the kitchen with a guy I work with. We were both in line to grab coffee and I made a joke like "Age before beauty." He said "I don't think I win in either category." so I asked how old he was. Yeah, he's 25, two years younger than me.

I figured he was older than me. Not just because he has one of the deepest voices I've ever heard (well, not James Earl Jones deep) but also because, well, I've always been one of the youngest at every place I've worked. I started my first job at 16, moved to my second at 19, and my work style has always been "eager newbie". Plus Jess and most of the people I hang out with are younger than me.

Then I read this article about so-called "child men". Apparently the typical guy my age is a commitmentphobic douchebag. I'm married, have a career, and am more likely to be found drooling over new places to live with a Diet Coke in my hand than drooling over some random slut in a bar with a Bud Lite in my hand. I do spend a lot of money on gadgets and video games, but I have never lived with a group of guys and spent most of my nights getting wasted.

Roll on my 28th birthday. Groan.

So Friday night, Jess came to meet me at work. We had planned to go out assuming the project I was working on would be done and in QA by 5.30pm, but when we left at 7.30pm (something I felt bad about as other people were staying) it was a couple of hours out.

We went to Ed Debevic's in the end - if you've never heard of them, it's a burger joint where the schtick is that the staff will insult you and act all put out. The food is good enough to make up for it. We were too tired to go to the cinema or do anything else so we just headed home.

Rather than resting for the first weekend since December, we decided to go out looking at more flats/condos/apartments/whatever you want to call them. As much as we loved the place we looked at before, we didn't want to just buy the first thing we saw.

On day one, we saw two apartments in the same complex. The first was owned by a couple who are moving to Arizona. It was gorgeous, and the bills were far cheaper than we anticipated. It had neat features like built-in surround sound with a hidden iPod dock; exposed brick walls; a kick arse washing machine and tumble dryer in the unit (I don't understand why this is a rare thing); and tons of storage space - all wrapped up in a really top notch finish. We fell in love.

The second place, while nice, paled in comparison, not helped by a weird layout and tiny bedrooms.

Today, we met a real estate agent who showed us around five more apartments.

- The first I didn't like. It was an older building and thus would have needed modernisation; had a horrible fireplace and generally felt kinda cramped.
- The second, in the same street, was newly refurbished to a high quality, but the shape of the lounge really wasn't conducive to having a TV and video game systems.
- The third was absolutely huge... but needed some work, especially the flooring. As oddly affordable as it was, it just seemed too big.
- The fourth was actually a show home for a development that was almost complete. We would get to choose wall colours, the wood used for the kitchen cabinets and the stone used for countertops. It was let down by having a huge kitchen but one tiny bathroom.
- The fifth made me fall in love again. It was a property we had looked at online before and Jess had ruled it out as it was a garden apartment. However, seeing it and finding out more about it put Jess at ease: the woman moving out was living there alone, it had a good security system and wasn't as exposed as feared. It had a huge walk-in closet, making Jess happy; it had two large bathrooms, making us both happy; and while large, it wasn't so vast that it felt soulless.

So there are three places I love. Now we just have to give the mortgage guy a kick up the arse and work out which one to go for.

We're just finishing up packing before checking out, heading to the airport and starting our long journey home. As much as I don't want to leave the weather, I could definitely do with being in my own bed without bugs biting at me constantly.

I'm going to write a bit more about what we did when we get back - I meant to give updates every day but I got sidetracked. Bo. See you on the other side!

Soundtrack to the packing: Foo Fighters. \m/ :D \m/