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