blog.noetech.com

Quiz

Erika notes some quizzes that she has taken lately. One caught my eye, what kind of kiss are you. I am mysterious. Nice, I can live that that.

Mother & Son Days

Here is a picture of my Mom on my sister's site. In it you can see my mom's tattoo that she got with me. We went to get our first together. Her, a flower. Me, a big back piece. I don't really remember how I talked her into going with me to get it, but it was a lot of fun. She didn't even flinch. Just kept on reading her book like someone was drawing on her. The funniest thing was that I ended up not getting one that day. The shop wanted way to much money for my back piece and I ended up going to a place called Iron Age in St. Louis.

Class

I'm back from my motorcycle class. It was really fun, and I lucked out with the weather. By the time we arrived on the range the rain had stopped. It started again while were having lunch, but stopped by the time we were finished. Once again it started right as I got into my car to go home. Hopefully I will have the same luck tomorrow.

Probably because I've been riding, I did very well. Most of the people did. There was one person who they asked to leave. She just couldn't put her feet on the pegs without falling over. She's going to come back for some one on one lessons. One other person fell during the leaning turn exercise. She wasn't hurt at all and just kept laughing.

As a side note, the class is run by all women. I am much more comfortable with women, so I was happy. One was incredibly attractive, she had the nicest voice. Not something I notice very often. Very distracting. You have to wear a long sleeved shirt and the only one I have is the "Tom says you're ugly" shirt. The instructors thought it was the greatest shirt they have ever seen. I'm inclined to agree.

I'll Be Sick

Thunder storms, great. I'm about to leave for my motorcycle class and it's crappy as hell out. I really wish they didn't do it rain or shine. I'm borrowing a waterproof jacket, but my denim pants aren't going to be so good. Seven hours in the rain. Blah.

Linking To Apple Music

Thanks to Erik's tips I now have my recent music section link through to the iTunes Music Store. This of course will only work for Mac users. Soon enough it should work for PCs too. Right now a lot of the music I listen to is not represented. I have hopes that this will change once it gets rolling.

More Neighbors

More info on the neighbor/cop thing. Turns out they did come up and knock, but no one answered. Go figure, we were all asleep. Some how they couldn't tell that the music was getting softer as they came up the stairs and that nothing was coming out of the door. They also claimed to not know that anyone lived below them. That is why they thought it had to be us. Again, music getting softer & nothing coming out of our door. She also blamed it on her boyfriend. This I can actually believe. I've met him once, not the brightest.

What really pisses me off though, is that they tore down a flyer we had on our door. You can see it to the right. I loved that thing. I guess I can always print another. Still, what the fuck?

Neighbors

In the middle of last night the police came knocking on our door. Apparently our neighbors below us called the police because our music was too loud. The only problem was that we were all asleep. It turns out that it was the guy living below them.

Two things about this piss me off.

First, don't you think that it would be nice to at least come and ask us to turn down our music instead of calling the police? They left a note once before, but that wasn't us either.

Two, can you make sure who is making the noise before calling the cops? I don't like to be woken up by police. I don't think anyone does. If you honestly can't tell from your apartment, stick your head out the door. It should be real obvious.

Now the guy on the first floor does play his music fucking loud and you can't do that at 4am on a Monday night. If I'm up I can hear it two floors away in my room.

They are definitely not being invited to our party this weekend.

Apple Announcements

Apple had a few big announcements today. So far I really like the improvements in iTunes 4. It will take me a while to get all the cover art for my albums though.

Some of my albums are ripped at 128 bits from when I started out, so I'll probably dig them out of the closet and re-encode them using AAC. We will see if it really is better.

Purchasing music through Apple's iTunes Music Store is really simple, but they lack a lot of music from smaller labels. Hopefully that will improve over time.

Like Etan I don't like that my iPod doesn't have some of the new features. The playlist on the fly would be very nice to have. No matter, I'm looking to sell mine anyway.

That came out fast and not very coherant, sorry.

Cleaning Up

A little house cleaning was in order for my link collection. I prefer to link only to sites I read everyday or close to it. I can't read sites that haven't been updated, so everyone that hasn't updated recently was removed. To my friends who have lost their not so important space, put something up and you shall return.

Important Milestones

Three milestones on my motorcycle tonight.

1. First night ride. I found out that the only thing more fun than riding my bike on a beautiful 70 degree day is to ride it on a beautiful 70 degree night.

2. I crossed the 100 mile mark on my ride tonight. Not sure what this really says, but it made me feel good.

3. I went through a tank of gas. Thank god for the reserve or I would have been pushing this thing quite a few blocks. The whole tank, including the reserve, is 3.2 gallons. Enough to go about 120 miles. You have to love a motorcycle's gas milage.

Tomorrow I'll go through a fourth milestone, fill the tank for the first time. I never really thought that it would be hard until I started reading this motorcycle site's forums. They seem to have a lot of info about it, which makes me think that it is harder than originally expected.

Substantial Noninfringing Uses

kuro5hin.org || Judge demonstrates Sanity, Respect for Law

It seems like some of the courts are waking up from a long nap.

QoD

Another Question of the Day from Erik.

Question: If you could take back any gift you've given but now wish you hadn't, what would it be?

I once gave a girlfriend this giant stuffed Elmo. I wish I had kept it, not because I don't think she deserved it, I just really liked it. I love Elmo.

Now that I think of it, I wonder what ever happened to her. I wonder if she still has my big Elmo. I dated her maybe 7 or 8 years ago, and the last I heard she had a pretty bad heroin habit. He's hoping she's doing well and having a great time somewhere.

Rounders & Dave

So much for my day of reading. Instead I have watched Rounders, and will probably sit for Dave after I get something to eat.

Rounders is a perfect example of a movie that is not great, but is a lot of fun to watch. The story? I could take it of leave it, but high stakes gambling is exciting to watch. Plus John Turturro just rules, no matter what he's in.

Dave is just funny, and anyone who doesn't agree is not really human. Thank god for Tivo. Without it I would spend my day reading books that I've already read ten times.

A day of Cleaning & Rest

I woke up this morning in a lot of pain. I was a little surprised, although I should not be. Thirteen hours of building will do that to someone who is as out of shape as I am.

I spent the better part of the morning cleaning up the mess we made and moving furniture around. The rest of the day will be spent rereading The Hotel New Hampshire for the millionth time.

Manly Man

I spent the whole day building and I'm no where near finished. All the wood is cut and my bed is lofted. We still have to finish Josh and Serena's bed and we haven't even started the sound booth. It's going to be a long night.

My bed still needs a few finishing touches. I'm adding a couple shelves and a railing. The bed is 6 feet 8 inches high. As it turns out, this is much higher than I imagined. I had to build a ladder to get in it. I have about 3 feet above me now. I won't have many options during sex. Lucky for me that's not an issue right now :-)

I love Wood*

I spent the better part of my morning with Josh at the new Home Depot in Lincoln Park buying lumber for some projects at the house. I like the one near Logan Square much more. The new one isn't as big, and the selection is a lot smaller. We did manage to find the 56 2x4s and plywood we needed though. It barely fit in the station-wagon that we borrowed.

What's all this wood for you ask? We are building a sound booth and lofting my bed. Sound booth, not so exciting, but it's going to be so much fun to have my bed 8 feet in the air. I may even tent it. I'll be so cute hiding up there.

*Just for Jeffrey

DMV Madness

Two hours spent in the DMV waiting to get my motorcycle permit. What a waste of time. They have 14 desks but only 5 people working. Every single one of the people in that office today were paying for something. 5 dollars here, 10 there, and guess what? You have enough money to hire more people! Ruined my whole day. At least I fixed our internet connection.

Six Apart

Six Log: Six Apart Milestones

Ahhh...Movabletype grows up. It will be interesting to see what new stuff they can come up with.

New Look

Last night we rearranged our apartment. Now that Holly is gone we have a lot more room. The foosball and Boccerball tables now have their own room. This should lead to more playing time. The TV now has a real stand and isn't on the verge of falling over anymore. The only thing that I don't like about this new arrangement is the big round coffee table. It's very big....and round.

The move seems to have killed our internet connection though. It has been pretty flakey lately and this seems to have been the last straw. I have an extra cable modem around somewhere, and if I can find it, I'll swap it out this afternoon. Hopefully that is all it is. Waiting for AT&T to show sucks.

Airports

Erik Barzeski asks what airport you would want to be in if you were going to be stuck for a few hours.

I'll just stick to airports I've been in. I've always liked Charles de Gaulle in Paris. The floating escalator tubes where really fun when I was a kid. I still like it, and I can smoke there.

As far as state side, I like Kennedy Airport in New York. If for nothing else, they have a Philip Morris smoking lounge.

As you can tell, smoking is important to me when flying. Nothing sucks more after an 8 hour flight than having to wait for a cigarette until after you get your bags and get out.

Summer Time, Summer Chairs

My trip with Josh to the Sports Authority worked out great. North Pointe Folding Chairs for 7 bucks. Can't beat it. Now that we have three, they don't fit on our small porch very well. We may have to take over part of the neighbors. Theirs is huge.

18 and life to go

I often say that I want to be 18 again. To have the amount of fun I used to have. Well today I felt 18 again, and it wasn't good at all. It was one of those moments that make you want to escape your own skin, or take to bed. I may in fact go do that.

Brain type

Dave Hyatt mentions a test for what type of brain you have. Fun. My Empathizing score was 18 and my Systematizing score was 46. This makes me an extreme type S. Apparently this maybe a manifestation of autism, yeah for me.

Quotes about my type:

Empathizing - 18

You have a lower than average ability for understanding how other people feel and responding appropriately. Most people with Asperger Syndrome or high-functioning autism score about 20. On average, most women score about 47 and most men about 42.

Systematizing - 46

You have an above average ability for analyzing and exploring a system. On average women score about 24 and men score about 30. Most people with Asperger Syndrome or high-functioning autism score between 40-50.

Then there was four

I helped my roommate Holly move out and into her new place tonight. She got a little furnished studio in Logan Square. It's creepy but neat place. It has a cool milk drop and an old intercom system. Of course they don't work or anything, but still neat. The place reminds me of a hotel that drug addict writers would live. Holly does write, but she doesn't mingle with drugs. One out of two ain't bad, right? The whole thing was actually kinda depressing. I feel bad for her, she is going to be so far away and she doesn't even have a phone. Hopefully it will be temporary and she can move someplace a little nicer and closer to her friends.

RSS

I just changed my RSS 1.0 feed to include the full body of my posts (excluding extended entry). The 2.0 RSS will still be just the excerpt for those that prefer it. This probably has caused my entries to show up as new in your readers, sorry about that. If I find some time, I'll make a 1.0 and a 2.0 for each type. I'm not sure that it matters though.

Be like us, be like us, be like us damnit

CNN.com - Lugar: U.S. 'ill-prepared' for postwar Iraq - Apr. 20, 2003

I have but a few comments.

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana says:

really radiate our ideas and our influence.

and

My guess is we're going to see a lot of changes backed by the fact that there always is a military option.

How scary is that? My biggest fear of this war was that our government would use the success as a reason to invade other countries. War is now always an option apparently.

I know I'm probably over-reacting, but it sounds to me like he wants to erase all their culture and replace it with ours. Isn't that one of the reasons why there is such hatred for americans in the area already? Policies like these will only breed more of the same.

Brown to Black

I will be without my motorcycle till Thursday now. The brown seat just didn't grow on me at all. A cobbler to the rescue. The leather is being re-dyed black. It will look great with the new shape and in black this time. When it is all said and done, I will have spent 25 bucks. Not bad for a new seat.

Crashing Computers

While ordering dinner at the McDonalds drive through tonight the computer they use to display your order want black. Than up came the tell tale signs of Windows 95. It didn't quite make it and went back to the DOS prompt and it seemed like it was going to stay there for a while. I'm not sure why, but I still find it funny when I witness a crash on a system like that. Years ago I was at a public library when their terminals started going nuts. I didn't stop laughing for some time.

Loitering

CNN.com - Pa. borough mulls law that might mean jail for loiterers or parents - Apr. 19, 2003

When I was 18 and still living in my hometown, I was arrested for loitering. At the time I was doing layouts for a small printing company and was heading back there after lunch. On my way I happened to pass the high-school (which I never attended) and saw a friend walking across the street. While stopped to talk to him, the school principal came over with the liaison officer and asked us our names. I didn't really feel that I should have to give it to a principal of a school I never attended....long story short...arrested for loitering, 203 dollar fine and all.

I guess my point is simply that loitering laws violate your rights. If I had been much older and stopped to talk to a friend, I never would have been arrested. Balance people, balance. You have to way the rights of people to the benefits to society. I don't think these laws balance out.

Applescript fun

Can I just say how much I love Applescript?

Problem: My hosting provider, although great, has a problem with their stats. They never seem to be run with any consistency. Sometimes it can be days in between updates. Plus their copy of Webalizer isn't setup to my liking. It doesn't filter out my site, so of course, my pages are always the top referrers. They do offer raw log files though...

Solution: A very simple applescript that uses Transmit to download the log file into the appropriate folder. It than runs a shell script that runs Webalizer with my settings. The script than opens up the stats page in Safari for me.

Now this is simple and people do much more impressive things with it, but it turns a multiple step process into one quick one for me.

Dreaming of Fame

I had a dream tonight, while taking a quick nap, withFrankie Muniz in it. Apparently we were friends and he was trying to get me to date some women. I never got to actually see her though. There was some weird old man with a oddly shaped motorcycle as well. It had these gigantic air shocks and the whole thing bounced.

Searches

While looking through the list of search terms people used to reach my site, I came across this one: partial birth abortion; pics. When you look at the other searches including pics you (or maybe it's just me) get a very sick image in your head.

Some other fun ones:
Bike Porn
pumpkin christina ricci nipples
noe pics nipples - who wants pics of my nipples :)

Breakfast for Recovery

Like any day after a night out, breakfast was required. As everyone was either at work or sleeping, Josh and I headed out to Nookies Tree by ourselves. I had a waffle that was a little burnt, and the dollar for real maple syrup is a little steep. It was nice to hangout without everybody around.

Boy's Town, where Nookies is located, is my favorite part of Chicago. It has these great street markers, large sidewalks, and tons of great places to eat and drink. I used to live there years ago and I always wish that there was parking there so I could move back. Even though it is only a few blocks from my present neighborhood, I seldom make it there.

Another Thursday Night

As usual, we went to Simon's tonight. Managed to stay coherent enough not to make to much of a scene. It was a good time all around. Are game of truth or dare ended abruptly when Alana turned down a fairly easy dare though.

After Monday's night of drinking with some other friends (I think it is safe to call them that) I have decided that I do need more time with outside people. I will have to work on that.

More Motorcycle Mods

Second customization of the my motorcycle has taken place. Remember how I wanted a custom seat but no one makes one for my bike? Well it turns out that my aunt and uncle own an upholstering shop.

I dropped the seat off on saturday hoping that I would have it back in a few hours. Well there were a few snags and I picked it up today instead. They reshaped the foam and it has a much nicer look to it now. No more tufts, just smooth leather. With a much lower profile.

Yeah, it's actually real leather now. The only thing was that they didn't have any scrap leather that was black. So instead they used brown. I haven't decided how I feel about that. If the bike was black it would be great. With blue...I'll have to give it a few days. It doesn't look bad really, it just sticks out. The seat is now the first thing that you notice about it.

Next step? New handmade handlebars. I have to make a friend with a metal shop.

Car Protocol

Matt Gemmell just bought a new car and talks abut his car protocol. My car protocol differs slightly.

Basically who ever is the better friend of the driver gets shotgun with significant others trumping all others.

Why? Well if you often drive with the same group, after the first time, everyone knows where they stand. It maybe awkward when the driver has to say which one is his better friend, but this slight pain is worth it (this is of course only if it is not obvious).

Why do significant others automatically get the good seat even if you have only been seeing them for a short while? Simple. A good friend will be around for years, if not for most of your life. Plenty of shotgun riding time. A girlfriend or boyfriend on the other hand probably won't be around for nearly as long, so you need to get all the sitting time you can before you can't stand them anymore.

There is one person who holds an even bigger trump. Your mom. She always get the front seat.

One more rule. The person who normally gets shotgun can always give it up. This would be appropriate if say an old friend is visiting the driver and they haven't seen each other in a few years. This is not up to the driver, but rather the person who would normally have the rights to shotgun.

I believe that was way to much time spent thinking about this.

Iraq's Culture

Antipixel | Blog | And Now the Library

It is sad to hear of all the destruction going on in Iraq. Now that the majority of the battle has been won, it is time to start defending the country. I guess I should not be surprised that our government doesn't care about Iraq's Museums and their Library, it fits. One more thing that this administration should be ashamed of.

Cyborg

Wired 8.02: Cyborg 1.0

Kevin Warwick has some balls. I love hearing about this kind of research. My brain is going crazy imagining what is in front of us. I just hope I don't die before I see some of it.

Great days

Yesterday was one long day. On my way home from a client's, I saw Steve on his way to lunch. Off I went with him to a small little pizza place on the corner of Belmont & Clark. I have never been there before and was surprised at how good it was and by how empty it was.

We were able to sit in the front of some large windows and watch all the people on the street. This corner used to be a huge punk hangout, but not so much in recent years. It seems to be coming back this year, though much younger crowd. After we consumed are food we stopped and listened to some music on the street before heading off the L & L for some beer. This is were the day started to get long. After an hour there, we headed home and continued drinking on the back-porch. I talked to one of my neighbors that I have not had the pleasure of meeting before. After a couple more hours spent here, Steve and I had the great idea to go down to my old job and do some scanning. Off to the train we went. A couple of hours spent talking with some friends and then a few more hours spent at a bar near the school with the same friends. I was finally able to get myself home a little before one. By this time my head hurt to much to even watch the final episode of Married by America that my Tivo kindly recorded for me. Surprised, I woke up feeling great this morning.

Drug ads

The new anti-drug commercials that have been making the rounds recently are so incredibly stupid. Who believes that these will work? Lying to people won't work.

Marijuana does not cause you to shoot your friend in the head, your dad leaving a loaded gun in his unlocked desk does. Marijuana doesn't make you want to have sex. It doesn't get you pregnant. Marijuana does not cause you to get raped. Yes a joint is as bad for your lungs as a pack of cigs, but are you smoking 5 joints a day? Very few are, and the majority of "users" don't smoke everyday. "One third of reckless drivers tested for drug use test positive for marijuana" doesn't mean anything. They are only testing people who they think are on drugs. If anything it shows how bad police are at guessing if someone is on drugs. They are not as offensive as the ads accusing marijuana users of supporting terrorism, but they are still sad. I wish this country would move to a responsible drug policy. Legalize marijuana, which does less harm than alcohol, and decriminalize the rest. Just as prohibition caused huge increases in violent crime, so does today's drug policies.

*DISCLAIMER*
Yes I smoke marijuana, maybe a couple of times a year.

No news for nerds for me

I have been banned from Slashdot! This is a little troubling. Apparently you can't grab their RSS feed more than twice an hour. I have NetNewsWire setup to grab feeds every half an hour so I'm not sure what the problem is. Hopefully it will work it self out in a day or two. In the mean time, I'll just have to resort to checking the actual site for updates a couple of times a day. How archaic.

Day Trading

My blog trading skills seem to be slipping. I've dropped off the Top 100 players list at BlogShares. I was doing so good too, staying in the 90s for several days.

Divorce

My divorce (still on going) was the most painful thing that I have gone through, second only to my parent's. When I read something like this, I'm just thankful that we got it over with quick, before the kids and the house and...well, you get the idea.

Summer Shirts

Tomorrow and most of the week it is supposed to be in the 70s. It might be time to make the summer switch from black t-shirts to white. I'll have to stop by T-Shirts.com to pick up my summer supply as all my old ones are useable. See the problem with white t-shirts is that they don't last very long. To thin to wear more than a couple of times before you can start to see through them. I'm too hairy to let that happen.

New Clock

Yesterday I went with Josh and Serena to a resale shop to find them a dresser. During this fun outing I was lucky enough to find a neat little wall clock. It looks like the one pictured here except that the numbers are sans-serif, which I prefer. I was going to put it up in our kitchen, but my selfish instincts kicked in and it is now hanging in my room. Where, in just in case you were wondering, it looks fab.

Internet Outage

Our internet went down around 9 tonight and just came back up. You don't realize how much you rely on it until you don't have it. At least three times I went to look something up only to remember that it was down. All is well now and a peaceful world shall commence.

Moving around

I moved the Foosball table out of my room today and moved in my computer. It will be nice to have privacy and to be able to listen to music without head phones. I also have a lot more desk space now. All of it is in front of my window, so I don't know how I will go about opening it. Something to think about. Now if I just had space for a dresser I would be a happy man.

Moving

The whole moving thing has really turned into a huge mess. The reason that we were going to move was that our building's management sucked and the rent was a little high. Now the building has switched hands and the new owner fired the management company. After a little negotiation he has also lowered our rent by a couple hundred and we have now decided to stay here. So much energy spent just to end up staying. We will have one less person living here starting in May, so that extra space will be great.

Motorcycle Dream

It was horrible. I was driving down a highway in the rain. There were a lot of motorcycles, mostly super sports. The keep crashing all around me. One hit the side rail and flew over and down to the ground. It was a raised highway. One guy high sided and was then ran over by a truck. Ominous, is that the right word?

Rock My World

Global Heresy, also known as Rock My World in the US, is great if for nothing else than seeing Peter O'Toole on drugs.

You have the bad corporate guy, the bad band mate, and the nice old couple. Band helps old couple, old couple helps band. A classic.

Lucky Strike

While touring the web tonight I found a site of old cigarette ads. They have some great ads from the 40s and 50s, including ones from Pall Mall and Lucky Strike. I love old Lucky Strike ads and paraphernalia. Some of their ads were just nuts. I have an ad from the 50's that actually claims that 50,000 doctors recommend Lucky Strike.

Of my three prize possessions, two are Lucky related. One is a full pack of Lucky Strikes from 1941, when the packs were still green. Another is a promotional Lucky cigarette tin circa 1940. At one point I used to have a Lucky Strike Zippo. I can never keep lighters for very long though.

It seems that at one point Lucky Strikes were one of the most popular smokes in the country. Now I have to go blocks out of my way to find my shorts of choice. Well at least it makes my go for a walk each day.

Layout

The three columns have grown on me a little so for the now they will stay. I was hoping that I would be able to help Etan by figuring out how to make the columns percentages, but alas, I failed. Web development has never been my strong suit. If anyone has a suggestion, please suggest away.

Required Reading

My grandmother is nice enough to buy me a subscription to The New Yorker for christmas every year. She does the same for everybody in the family. The problem is that it is a weekly magazine and I just can't keep up. I usually take all month to get through a magazine. So with The New Yorker I end up only reading one out of four. I need to buckle down and start reading.

WebCam

I was digging around in my closet today and found an old USB webcam that I had forgotten about. A little excited about my discovery I was off to look for Mac OS X drivers. The pain in disappointment. As it turns out my camera is of some weird and uncommon variety that no one has managed to make drivers for. It makes sense. If I remember correctly I received this camera from Earthlink for signing up in 1998. It's not that I feel bad for me, I'll live. It is the other poor soles left with a useless Alaris WeeCam. They must be very sad. To add insult to injury, their website doesn't seem to work for me.

Sleeping Quaters

Can I sleep in a pantry?

About Me

An about me page is long over do so here it is. Don't expect much, I have a boring life.

Name:
My name is Thomas Noe. I used to be called Thomas Wolf. Before that I was known as Thomas Mikkelsen.

Locations:
I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin called Fond du lac. I now reside in Chicago, Il.

Education:
I attended Wayland Academy for most of my high-school years and Columbia College for some good ol' college. I was a film major. It didn't work out, don't ask.

Occupation:
Macintosh Consultant.

Music:
I used to say that I listened to industrial music, but by the songs that I skip in iTunes it would be fair to say that I'm mostly an 80s fiend. I make some as well.

Hobbies:
I spend too much time on computers, whether mine or someone else's.
When I'm not doing that I'm either playing foosball, riding my motorcycle, making music or if all else fails, getting drunk. I have more hobbies, but I won't bore you with details of my Domino fixation. I almost forgot, I'm also a master at the Yo-Yo. It's very impressive :-)

Family:
I have two sisters (here & here) who live in fancy lands far away, a dad in Wisconsin and a mother who also lives in fancy land. I also have a hundred aunts and uncles in Chicago, to many to list.

Friends:
I live with Josh, my best friend since high-school as well as Steve and Serena.

Sex:
I like girls but Jeffrey is pretty cute.

Great site, no RSS

Every since I was lucky enough to discover NetNewsWire, finding a blog I like without an RSS feed sucks. Ed Rooney's Office looks like a great time wasting read that will now be regulated to my bookmarks and visited when I can remember. Not very often I assure you. I wish Blogger would make RSS part of the standard and not the plus version. All I can do is send an email and hope.

Democrats

I received a "Democratic Presidential Strategy Poll" in the mail yesterday and spent the morning filling it out and adding my comments. My main point of concern was the lack of any Democrat standing up to the current administration and congress. Well it looks like Sen. John Kerry is a little. I say keep it up and maybe a couple more of your colleagues will gain some courage from your example.

Custom Bike

I made my first modification to my bike today. I removed the rear seat to give it a more classic look. It looks great except that the main seat doesn't mold into the fender very well. I would love to get an after-market one, but I can't find on for my model bike. Still it looks better this way. Next I need to replace the pegs with some chrome ones.

Dream Bike

Time to start saving for next year.

Flight of the Navigator

Flight of the Navigator is definitely worth watching as an adult. Not because it's good or anything, but simply for nostalgic's sake. I was lucky enough to catch it on the Hallmark channel tonight. Paul Reubens is ridiculous as Max the flying ship. Top it off with the liquid metal and you have one bad ass UFO. If it isn't obvious, the effects are really funny. You have to keep reminding yourself that it was made in '86. Now all I need to see is The Wizard and I'm set for a while.

The Apartment

It looks like we won't be moving into the greatest apartment ever. We have been waiting for days to hear if we get it. They are very weird about the whole thing. We can't wait any longer. If we do and they turn us down we will miss all the good ones. So we are telling them no thanks. More looking.

Hopefully we will be able to find a place with parking this time. I went with Josh and Serena to look at a place tonight. Right in the heart of Andersonville, laundry in apartment, dishwasher, deck, huge living-room, huge dining-room and two parking spots. Sounds great, but one of the bedrooms is a total bitch. It has a door to another bedroom and the only door to the deck. Neither Steve nor I would want it as ours.

We have a couple appointments tomorrow in Wicker Park. I'm not a big fan of the neighborhood, but if they are nice I'll sacrifice. We are also looking at a place in Andersonville on Monday. That one sounds the best. Again, I hate looking for apartments.

New Layout

Well I was right, I couldn't resist adding another column. I don't think I like it though. Actually I'm almost postive I don't. I will let it stay for a few days to see if it grows on me.

Credit

After applying for that apartment, I got curious about my credit report. 12 dollars later, I'm no longer curious. As it turns out, my credit is fairly good, as it should be. One negative thing, it turns out that I owe People's Gas 37 bucks from 2000. I guess they couldn't find me because I changed my name that year. Time to give them a call. Can't have bad credit, now can I?

Layout

TooMuchSexy.blog: Three Columns

The Holy Grail of layouts. I tried unsuccessfully to move to a three column layout a few months ago, so congrats to Etan. This may shame me into trying it again.

Roommates

*Warning* Drunk post ahead.

Nothing is worse than hating your roommate. Once the you notice the things you don't like, you can't stop noticing it. It is a constant annoyance. It is no good at all. Bitch, bitch, bitch. I hate when people bitch over and over again about the same crap. Especially about things that to me don't really matter. I wanted to mention some things that bother me, but there is too many. I can't pick one. I can't wait till we move and I can put my computer in my room so I can avoid situations like the one taking place behind me right now.

P.S. I need someone to go with me to visit my mom in France. In other words, I need a girl friend.

FBI is coming

inessential.com: Weblog: FBI referer

If I saw homeland.fbi.gov/Watchlists/suspect/ in my referers log, I would be nervous. All the best with that Brent.

Parking

We will find out tomorrow morning if we get the apartment. Now I have to start searching for a parking space nearby. Serena is very worried, but probably won't look for one. It would also be nice if I could find a spot deep enough to fit my bike into along with the their car. Searching for a parking space online is not going very well. I found one site, parkingsearch.com, and they only have one spot a couple of blocks away. I would like to find something closer. If anyone has a suggestion as to where to look for a listing that would very kind.

Treason

Diary of a Madman: Treason by any other name

This guy needs to settle down. Yeah, just settle.

Weather

Weather.com sucks. Yesterday it said it was going to be 61, instead it was almost 80. Today was supposed to be 69, instead...43. In fact, they still say that it is supposed to be in the 60s right now. I need to find a new weather site. Any suggestions?

Affirmative Action

CNN.com - Supreme Court hears affirmative action arguments - Apr. 2, 2003

Apartment

Steve and I went and looked at a couple more apartments today. We found what has to be the greatest apartment ever seen. It is huge. The bedrooms are at least twice the size of the ones we have now. It has two bathrooms, right next to each other (weird). Central Air/Heat will keep us comfortable. The best thing about the place is the rooftop deck. There is not a building next to it so you have a great view of the city. The apartment also has this fire escape thing (not an actual one) the runs the whole length of the apartment. Awesome. Just as a topper it's four blocks from my favorite bar. I'm in love. We are dropping off the applications tomorrow morning. Wish us luck!

April 1st

I really don't like April fools day. The web will be filled with a load of not so funny bs all day. I'm I just not fun?