Thing have been coming right along. I have become more domestic (yes, Beth) since I am still unemployed so I have dinner ready when Jake comes home and we watch TV afterwards. It's become abundantly clear to me that landing Jake as a room mate was an exceptional bit of luck. We get along really well and have about the same clean to dirty threshold. So my life of late has been putting in applications and trying for all I'm worth to hold onto optimism. That said once again I cannot pay my rent in full and will have to borrow money to get by. It sucks but somehow it'll all come out in the wash.

I have also desperately been trying to get my Grad School application to England which has proven harder than I could have thought. It's come back twice already and hopefully will be in the UK on time. If not I don't know what I'll do. I wanted it out in January. What happened? I guess when it comes down to it this way I'll know not to plan for England until next year and it won't be because I'm not a good candidate.

All the being said. I'm sure if you read this sham of a blog with any regularity you'll notice that the box Quinn put in about Twitter being crap has been replaced with my twitter feed. If you aren't hip to the "Micro Blog" (I wasn't) it's basically a way for me to put in tiny entries to keep you updated (since lord knows you wouldn't be able to get by without knowing what I'm up to at all times) even if I don't have time to put in a full blog entry. So far I've found it to be helpful. Hopefully it'll give you a little more incentive to check my page regularly. I know I haven't been rewarding you often enough for going to the trouble. If I could make it so that candy fell out of your monitor as a reward for visiting my site believe me you'd be swimming in smarties already. If you're really insistent about keeping up with me (or my friends on Twitter) you can check out my twitter page. There's a link in the bottom of the box. My page is chock full of my "tweets" as well as the insightful tweets of Adam "The Beard", Quinn, Julia and Eamon. A-E and Jill update less frequently but I look forward to every tweet.

I was going to say something clever but instead I'm going to go watch "Weeds" which is a hilarious show from Showtime. Huzzah for Netflicks.

Gem of the internet- I... I have nothing to say that could make this any better.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_nQX-WZTKs

If there can be one argument against humans as communal beings that argument is public transit. we do not speak to each other or look at each other for more than a fleeting moment. We attempt to completely minimize any actual human contact while we are surrounded with the wealth of humanity. A train can be full with society, a bus brimming with connections but we hide from it.
She's pretty, he's distracted, they're up to something. We get these momentary glances into the lives of others before we return to our own thoughts or the front we hold. I'm pretty, busy or up to something. Leave me alone.

Today had me on the full range of public transport devices. Seriously if I'd thrown a cable car in I can't think what kind of mass transit I might be missing. Buses and trains are amazing things. I've also come to the conclusion that I need to stop worrying so much about my routes because Chicago's transit system is actually pretty intuitive. I'm convinced that if anyone (the mentally handicapped excluded) can't make do in a city like Chicago and find everything they need they should be neutered for failure to function as an evolved life form. That said anyone who cannot function here likely can't metabolize sugars either and, as a result, will likely be dead soon anyway.

I let Peter do the google search for a library so I could print off my resume. As a result I ended up spending like an hour trying to get to this place which was, ostensibly, "really close". I ended up getting there too late to print anything or even apply for a card. I ended up going to a Kinkos which was overpriced but necessary. I then went into Starbucks and filled out a new application because I left my old one in Kinkos and there's no way I'm going back there. I bought some kind of mint chocolate chip frappuchino thing to pass the time and make me look legit. All in all that was a ten dollar application. Here's hoping it pans out. It would be a great job since Starbucks is such a nice company to work for, I could transfer to one anywhere I go and it is literally one block away from where I am currently sitting. It might force me to figure out what kind of drink to buy there. something which has always eluded me. I would also be able to figure out why Starbucks coffee is always burned. The mysteries of the universe.

Today's Gem of the Internet- A gem from the comic I've most recently become addicted to, PhD, "Piled Higher and Deeper".

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=162

Yesterday I woke up unnaturally early. There's a good reason I don't wake up that early normally and I'm convinced that reason has nothing to do with me being fundamentally lazy and everything to do with the fact that with the amount of doing I do in a day I would run out of stuff to do, even in Chicago, before the month were out. I putzed around the apartment until the world opened (which is when I wrote the last blog)around 9:00. The first order of business one was to go to the bank to deposit money and then to find a grocery store where they charged prices I was willing to pay. Thus began the public transit odyssey. It turns out that Google lists a bunch of Associated Banks which do not, in fact, exist now, if they ever did. This led to me looking up the wrong address on the CTA trip adviser. I got to the appointed place with no trouble but there does not happen to be a bank there or any evidence that one could ever have been there. I called the Beloit branch and they gave me the number for a branch on a street which sounded familiar to me from the bus ride over. I called them and they gave me directions to the new location but the man on the phone did not know which buses to take so I had to wing it based on my spotty understanding of Chicago geography. I did eventually get there. The journey lat me know that there was a farmer's market going on and where the Old Town is. A place to which I am likely to return. The bank was nice. Afterward I had a brunch at Dunkin Doughnuts which was okay I guess. Their iced coffee is sub par, to be avoided since they just sort of make it and it lacks any flavour other than watered down, burned coffee.

The Farmer's market was cute but a little sub par. It was clearly more of an opportunity for vegans and earth moms to buy their free range, organic, flavourless grass clippings. It was nice and cute and all but everything was overpriced and pretentious. I left empty handed after reconsidering a thought to buy a houseplant there. I decided to go somewhere a little more reasonable.

After the market I was on my way home when I saw a comic shop. I got off the bus at the next stop and went for it. Unfortunately it was just that, a comic shop. Nothing more than that. Don't get me wrong, comic shops are lovely but unless they carry every D&D supplement I could ever want I just can't find much to hold me there. If you want to hold me, oh nerd store, I require cheap used gaming books and the potential for a gaming group. These guys told me of another store in a mall which might be more my type. Now, let me telly you something about gaming stores in malls. They are nice and useful but they will never be a storefront gaming store. Something to do with the dynamic of being among the normal people I think stunts the gaming mind's ability to be free. Exceptions seem to be those under the age of seventeen.

The store in the mall turned out to be just as I suspected. Run by a long haired beardless nerd whom I judged to be roughly my own age. They only carried new stuff and he told me, could not hook me up with other gamers over the age of seventeen with any speed or reliability. What's more he told me that it's one of the major lackings of the city that I can expect to find very few nerd stores and without any such meccas no way of finding a group. For shame Chicago, for shame. I'm still going to try but that sucks.

Luckily I was not too sad about it for too long due to the proximity of two bookstores (Borders and Barnes & Noble) and a record store in close proximity. I used the record store to pick up a couple copies of free music newspapers published around the city which informed me of gigs coming up. I need to pick up a new one since the useful one is published on Thursdays.

I, then, returned to trying to get home so I could try going to the right of my apartment as promised (since that's where I thought Aldi was). Turns out Aldi is, in fact, behind my apartment and a bit to the right. Another odyssey ensued though less lengthy or amusing. I got there eventually and did some shopping so I should be provisioned for a while. I don't eat much and what I do eat starts off as pretty basic stuff which keeps pretty well; especially in the freezer.

For the evening I resisted the temptation to go out and instead did some reading on the couch and went to bed early.

Today's goal was to pay my rent and buy a new toothbrush and hairbrush. I will make a long story short by saying simply - I succeeded. I went to the bank to take out the money, went across town (successfully winging it on the bus) and gave it to the office. I then tried to get home and found a Walgreens where I bought an expensive and kinda frightening toothbrush. I tried out the Metro and found it to be nice though it let out not near my house (on Logan Blvd.) but in "Logan Square" which is in fact centred on Milwaukee Ave. Riddle me that. It meant I got to visit a small grocery store which I quite liked and a general store where I bought a hairbrush. Success on objectives. I ran home and grabbed a sandwich and apple for dinner so I could make it back to Milwaukee in time for the 6:25 showing of "21".

The movie was cute although it was predictable and didn't develop most of the secondary characters very much. It also grossly misrepresented the benefit of counting cards. I get the idea that we were to understand that the film was showing us their winnings over time it just didn't come off as clearly as it might have. All in all it was fun to watch and well made. the storytelling was on par and the elements were cohesive. Though I did remember one other thing I didn't like about Forbidden Kingdom and which I wanted to mention about Absent Sound. Transitions. If you want to have a smooth transition then do that, if you want to have a stark transition do that but if you're making a film you need to not have most of your transitions consist of an audible camera blip. If you have a band and you're playing a gig you need to actually stop playing so that we can clap between songs or something. Forbidden Kingdom didn't so much transition from one idea to another so much as forget what it was doing and Absent sound's gig might, for all I know, have been all one song with quieter bits periodically. Just a thought, for what it's worth.

Today's Gem: For everyone who's been rejected.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS1NOXWVWgo

Well, I graduated. Four years of my life have come and gone and I have a little piece of paper with my name on to show for it. Or rather, they're going to mail me a little piece of paper with my name on because of a paperwork mistake which is fitting given the way my time here has played out.

I suppose more important than that piece of paper, though it was the goal, was the time. The important thing was not the destination but the journey. I've met innumerable fantastic people had such wonderful experiences and, on top of it all, I've exchanged caring with the people around me. I'd like to find a more poetic way to put that but it's the best I've got at the moment. through all of my activities and actions I've met people and between myself and them has formed a loving bond, an exchange of caring.

I'll do some sort of lengthy retrospective later. Do not feel obliged to read it.

In other news I now live in Chicago. I have a lovely apartment on Logan Blvd which puts me just to the left of the centre of the city. So far my fores into the city have revealed that I live in a somewhat Hispanic dominated area. We even have a fast food restaurant called "Pollo Loco". Needless to say I love this and will be abusing it for good food all summer long. The other thing my location has to offer me is easy access to all of the public transit lines. So if you're in Chicago for God's sake come visit me!

Yesterday was a pretty good day all told though I didn't get as much real important work done as I might have liked. however, the closing of all of the businesses I needed to deal with meant that I could devote the day to all of my waking time to exploring.

The day's exploration took me out my front door and to the left. Milwaukee Ave is an interesting place and full of things to do. I have a sneaking suspicion I will find that to be true about most of the city and that idea excites me in a way that might be illegal. Since I woke around 3:00 (Don't judge me. it's only the second good night of sleep I've gotten in the last week and a half.) and didn't get out of the house until about five my options were limited. I started with dinner at a local restaurant, "Taqueria Lolita," I recommend this place highly for dates and gatherings. It has wonderful atmosphere and the staff are super friendly and could probably pass their EFL exams. The only thing I can say against them is that my food took forever to arrive. On the one hand this made me fairly certain that they made it right then and that's something I miss in a lot of restaurants in my price range. On the other hand it almost made me late for the movie I wanted to watch so I was torn on my opinions of it. So I'd say bring someone you like talking to/ need to chat up in a quiet friendly environment because you'll get the time to do it and even if the date goes badly the food will have been worth it.

The dinners run between 8 and 12 dollars for most things and you can spend more if you're looking to. I got a lovely plate full of food the name of which I couldn't pronounce and now cannot remember and some orchata (to which I am now addicted) for about 14 bucks. It's more than I usually spend but I figure I can manage it this one time thanks to graduation (and the family members who graciously donated to the "Ansel is Poor" fund).

I followed dinner with a trip two doors down to the movie theatre. It cost me the steep price of three dollars to see a movie which I understand to have come out not long ago, "The Forbidden Kingdom". I will say this right off the bat it was not at all what I had expected, not that I'm sure what that is. I suppose I thought it would be more of a "Journey to the west" sort of story since I know the monkey king would be in it. I also expected Jackie Chan to be the monkey king which didn't turn out to be the case either. It turned out to a throwback for me tot he movies of the eighties in which a young person from a marginalized subculture gets beaten up for being different and then, through a series of difficult to believe events, is transported to a magic kingdom where he is a chosen hero. Our chosen hero must then use the magic item (in this case a staff), which he happened upon by chance in a shop full of junk in the real world (read: hard to believe events), to save said magic kingdom. Then, upon saving the magic kingdom which none of the fully competent combatants could achieve by virtue of not being the "chosen" hero foretold in the omnipresent prophesy. Actually, I think I may have seen this film before. It might have been called "The Neverending Story". now the "Neverending Story" was a long film but it was, by no means, as long as the other film(s) to which this movie hearkens, "The Lord of the Rings". That's right, since LOTR used every special effect known to man and then made up some more that man hadn't thought of yet just to get a jump on us this film fell into the trap of looking just like LOTR about once or twice a minute on average. It even had a lava pit into which the item of power which the "chosen" hero had carried up to the ancient mountain top was thrown. I really would have thought that was something they would have had the sense to avoid. Luckily one of the martially competent sidekicks (?) leapt in and saved the item of power (and the movie to a degree) from that horrible fate. I hope I didn't ruin anything there by informing you that the item of power does not get destroyed.

It was a cute movie and fun to watch until you get to analyzing it at which point you realize you've seen this movie before only now there are Chinese people in it.

Now, before dinner I had run into a Bald gentleman and a dreadlocked fellow from Winnipeg, Ca. They invited me to a show their band was doing that evening and described their music as "Psychedelic Rock". As such after walking back home and making sure that I had not, in fact, misplaced a huge amount of money presumably to pixies I unloaded all of my "muggables" and walked back down Milwaukee to "Elastic Arts". I walked in to an inviting cadre of Canadians and one local. It turned out that there were only two of us there to hear the gig so I hadn't missed anything by showing up late. In fact we waited around until about eleven before they got the show on the road. In the meantime I got to meet the band and discuss conspiracy theories and fuzzy economics with the sound guy whose name I should but do not remember.
The show was unlike anything I've ever experienced. They showed spliced together projection film in the background while the band members wailed on electric guitars, drums, a bugle, an organ and various other small wind instruments. Much use was made of playback functions and other effects pedals. Basically it was a cornucopic cacophony. I could describe it as confusingly clear, bizarrely entertaining and loud. I think the most apt description though was proffered by the other listener. It was "cohesive". I know, cohesiveness is like the basic unit of acceptability in most art. Unity of performance is paramount in holding an audience. This was different though. I say it was cohesive because it didn't feel like it should be. What might have been confused for people who have never met wailing on instruments with which they are only passingly familiar became clearly a closely rehearsed piece of well orchestrated art. Every piece of seemingly extemporaneous sound melded with the whole sometimes immediately and sometimes only over time but it all came together and it worked with the film playing, also seemingly by chance, in the background. All in all it was an exceptional experience which I would recommend to all with an open mind and an ear for good music.

Well, I woke up early today so I guess it's time to hit the city and see what lies to the right hand side of my door (and go to the bank and call Beloit).

Today's Gem. I promised more poetry. So even though there's all kinds of topical stuff about graduation you've been saved from a video set to "Class of '99: wear sunscreen" by my attempt to keep that promise. Here is a poem which echoes the kind of love I'd like.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5WgmbMW7Ek