Enjoy!

I haven't blogged in quite a while. This past week I was on vacation and did tons of turkey and pumpkin pie stuff, as well as the friends and family in town stuff so I have plenty of material to write a quality post. In a few days time.......


The self-made capp and smokes in this picture are for two special people - one who just had a bday recently and the other who made me laugh my bum off with the jokes e-mail on a friday at 4:30(aka the longest half hour if you're a 9-5 type). A - please stop by for the real thing, and V - this is the best I can do right now about that coffee I owe you.

Oh, I forgot the mineral water. Shoot!

Cigarettes, and carrot juice....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbN_jhkWlU4

Big Dipper

Cigarettes, and carrot juice
And get yourself a new tattoo
For those sleeveless days of June

I'm sitting on the Cafè Xeno's steps
With a book I haven't started yet,
Watching all the girls walk by...
Could I take you out?
I'll be yours without a doubt
On that Big Dipper

And if the sound of this it frightens you,
We could play it real cool
And act somewhat indifferent

And hey June, why'd you have to come,
Why'd you have to come around, so soon?
I wasn't ready for all this nature
The terrible green green grass
And violent blooms of flowered dresses
And afternoons that make me sleepy

But we could wait awhile
Before we push that dull turnstile
Into the passage

The thousands they have tread
And others sometimes fled
Before the turn came

And we could wait our lives
Before a chance arrives
Before the passage

From the top you can see Monterey
Or think about San Jose
Though I know it`s not that pleasant

hey Jim, Kerouac(The brother of the famous Jack),
Or so he likes to say.
Lucky bastard

He's sitting on the cafe Xeno's steps
With a girl I'm not over yet
Watching all the world go by

"Boy you're looking bad
Did I make you feel that sad?
I'm honestly flattered."

But if she asks me out,
I'll be hers without a doubt
On that Big Dipper

Cigarettes, and carrot juice
And get yourself a new tattoo
For those sleeveless days of June...

I'm sitting on the Cafè Xeno's steps...
I haven't got the courage yet
I haven't got the courage yet
I haven't got the courage yet.

Really looking forward to the Cracker show this Saturday!
Back in the late 90's, when I was still in high school, I saw them play at the Metro. Have been a fan ever since. That same night, our apartment building on Argyle street burned down. I got back home from the show with my sister at about 1:30 am. An hour later we were awakened by the sound of alarms. We all lived to see another day.

I am fixing my tire!!!!!!!

I've been driving with a slow leaking (left) rear tire for almost 6 months now.
I bought a brand new car when I graduated from college in 2004, and even though I told myself and my dad I would baby it, I really dont pay all that much attention to it. I managed to travel 24000 miles in these 3 years which is well below the average I'd say. Having a new car under warranty helps if you hate going to the mechanic and dealing with the BS quotes and hustling that goes along with it. So far I only needed to change oil and do regular 20000 mile service. But then this tire thing keeps bothering me. Every weekend I abandon my plan to fix it and rather go for a bike ride, and by the time I am back home, you can forget about getting in and out within an hour. So I postpone........over and over again.
I had to borrow a compressor from my boss, use my bicycle pump, drive for blocks with little air until the next gas station only to find out that the air machine is not working or that I don't have enough quarters to get it going. All in all, it's inconvenience but I manage. Until today!
I had to visit a vendor in Elk Grove Village who does teflon coating for the project I am working on. Since I was low on air, I stopped by a gas station looking to air up. Ahead of me in the line for air was this older man with long gray hair and a long gray beard, who seemed very clumsy. His tires were, in my opinion, sufficiently inflated but he decided to check the pressure in all of his tires with the little 2.99 gage and inflate them to the "suggested" kbar-age. I am rather a patient man and despite wanting to get out of there in 2 mins, I found his dropping of the hat every time he bent over, his inability to figure out how to read the gage, running out of air time and having a hard time putting a quarter into the machine very comical. After the 4th quarter a line had formed behind me and I kept laughing, now out loud. When he sat down on the pavement to get a better reach, I knew it was time to move along and look for a different station. I made it to Elk Grove in time but I promised myself that I will fix the damn tire.....this weekend for sure.

Lance Armstrong dating one of the Olsen Twins? WTF???

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=7&entry_id=21563

Just when you think cycling doesn't need more bad publicity.....he pulls this off.
Damn, I wish it was finally proven that he doped all those years, rather than this.

Read the comments!!!!!!!!



What is he thinking???

A new cable network??? Yes...no

In my last 2 posts I kinda made fun of the grad students, but to prove that I love making fun of my own kind - the cycling nation, here is a post from a cult blog Bike Snob NYC. If you don't get all the puns or "lampoons" as some like to call them, you just need to have more fixie riding hipster friends.

http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2007/10/bsnyc-tv-putting-bikes-on-air.html

Latin Music = Great Party

So I went to a Halloween party in Pilsen on Saturday.

I was supposed to be Barrett- the graduate student, however Barrett instead decided to stay at home grading papers, after having a busy afternoon going to an anti-war demonstration dowtown and stuffing his stomach full of veggie samosas and biryani on Devon Ave - where he may or may not have picked up a bit of food poisoning. His tummy hurt like hell and despite his wish to eat in one of those authentic IndoPak joints (where all the cabbies go to eat), he realized that he just wasn't cut out for that much curry and spice.

It was time for plan B.

I put on my cycling kit, sprinkled some mud on myself and in just a minute I looked like a 2002 Paris-Roubaix Winner Johan Museeuw (pictured below).

I went with two girls, and since they showed up a bit late and already dressed up (as Frida and a pirate), it was too late to ask them to change into the podium girl outfits to compliment my look.
I am sure that the idea would not have gone down smoothly anyway :(.

The party was great. What made it so good was the DJ, who played mostly Latin music with few hip-hop and 80s tunes mixed in. I danced pretty much the whole time, and even though I didn't know the steps for some of the dances, I did well. All the people there were also very cool and laid back, which made me very glad I went. I ended up talking and dancing with a super cute girl scout for about 3o-40 minutes. I was craving some cookies but she didn't bring any with her that night. She also forgot to bring her boyfriend which I realized at the end of our 40 minute "nice talking and dancing with you" moment. Apparently, her other 2 friends were SINGLE and looking but I never caught on to that. All I could think of were the coooookies.

The other memorable costumes : two graduate students (yeah - the couple) dressed as the red tape whatever that means, not one but two priests, the Brawny man, and the Flavor Flav.

Heading home, we decided to take Damen and check out the scene in Wicker Park, and it was happening big time. These people go all out. One of my cycling teammates played the show at the Double Door, where a bunch of local bands dress up as some other band and do covers. His band was Culture Club. Read his blog! Good times.......good times.

My Halloween Costume - Meet Barrett!

I am writing this after texting back and forth with my friend, who invited me to a huge party in Pilsen on the ocassion of birthdays and Halloween. As she asked me if I had any ideas for a costume, I finally remebered what I wanted to be myself. I played around with the idea of showing up in one of my cycling or soccer outfits-taking the easy way out. And as I was in the middle of pressing number 9 key for the third time, the lightbulbs lit up in my head like crazy: "I AM GOING TO BE A GRAD STUDENT FOR HALLOWEEN!!!!!"

How could I have overlooked this hardworking yet underappreciated (not to mention underpaid) segment of our population, when selecting my Halloween persona? I say persona because it is more about showcasing one's acting skills rather than just wearing a costume. After all, most of my friends are grad students and I should be able to pull it off easily. This is my tribute to them, with all their genius and tiny imperfections.

In order to look most recognizable I will wear a pair of Camel infused Levi's jeans (5XX), a gray 50/50 blend stretched out turtleneck (Old Navy), brown cord double breasted jacket with elbow patches (vintage), my black plastic frame glasses, big maroon acrylic scarf (my mom's back to knitting project gone wrong) tied into a loose knot, an optional wool hat or a fedora, all bottomed out with some black Converse All Star shoes. But enough about the clothes.

I will arrive to the party 90 minutes late blaming the CTA, and bring an opened 12 pack Old Style carton (containing 5 Old Styles, 3 PBRs, and two random Goose Island brews - let's say Honker's and 312). I can totally see the chain of events to follow.
I will politely blow off the first 2 people I see on the account of their wearing the high school cheerleader and football player costumes respectively. I didn't hang out with this type of crowd back in the 11th grade, why the fuck would I want to shmooze with them now? They probably didn't even make the squad or the varsity team if they dressed up as such for Halloween. Plus, they will probably ask me what my costume was, and if they can't read through my elbow patches, they're still reading at the high school level. I will proceed to the kitchen where I will store away my beers and survey the scene. I will then be impolitely blown off by 2 ladies dressed as nurses on the account of my scarf and looking nothing like the Dr. McDreamy they're after. The nurses don't like my sense of humor anyway, just read my At the Doctor's post. After an akward 5 minute period of standing by myself enjoying someone else's Belgian beer (perhaps another grad student's who'd spent his study abroad days in Brussells or has now gotten a first teaching job at the junior college and can afford to share with all his awesome taste in beer - acquired at the many post academic conference drinking outings at the Hopleaf), I will spot a cute hipster chick in skinny jeans and a classic blue Sonic Youth t-shirt. We will get into a conversation and I will try to impress her with my knowledge of random indie bands, all of whom I had seen listed on my neighborhood record shop's display board and listened to on myspace. My sporadic and uninvited glances at her overflowing washing machine will piss her off and I will get nowhere. After swiping another smooth Belgian, I will go onto the porch and encounter a couple smoking. "They have to be grad students!" I'll say to myself. And they will be. We will immediately bond over the fact that we've all been turned down for Fulbright's 3 times, that we can live on lentil soup and falafel sandwiches for a whole semester, and that it's so fucking hard to get any grants for the type of enlightening studies we are doing. Our conversation will last some good 45 minutes, in which time I will explain to him (a poli sci major) origins of the conflict in the Balkans, that Milosevic is not spelled Milosowicz, and listen to her ramblings about the time spent in Morocco's Atlas mountains studying Berber tribal culture. The exchange will end when I get invited to a Socialist conference, as I draw the line at the Kucinich type of leftism.

The rest of the night, I will get into a several boring conversations with already drunk people, all of which I will end with the favorite excuse that always works like a charm: " Oh yeah, I have to go home and grade some midterms, I am so behind with everything."

And there you have it. An uneventful fictional Halloween in a pretty uneventful life of a fictional grad student. I guess I'll have to give him a name. Let's call him Ga...Barrett.