New and Improved!!!

Category: Blogging

I recentl added categories to my blog. I was getting kinda annoyed by the fact that I couldn't have them. It was actually keeping me up nights. I know what you're thinking. "If that was keeping you up nights then you may be a little touched." You're probably right, but none the less it was an annoyance that need to be fixed. I spent several nights thinking it through and finally figured it out.

Basically I created new posts and linked them to my other posts. I havn't dont this with all of my posts. I don't know that I will. I have quite a few now and it is a tedious process. Since I only really get to blog later in the evening it kinda cuts into my sleep. Which I am in short supply of. I do invite you all to peruse the links that I do have and read some of my posts that you haven't had a chance to read yet.

I promise I'll write something with a little more substance soon.

My 27th Birthday

Category: Friends
I was trying to decide what I should post for the evening and I realized that I hadn't mentioned anything about my 27th birthday celebration. I feel kinda silly talking about this now considering that it was a month ago. I'd been meaning to do it earlier, but then life intruded and you know how that can be.

So I decided that I wanted to celebrate entering my mid-late twenties at the Kit Kat Lounge. For those of you unfamiliar with it this place its a martini bar with a twist. The twist as you can see from the picture below is that they have drag queens entertain you while your enjoying dinner and drinks.















This is me and one of my "sisters" Megan having a photo op with the lovely entertainer.















Meri and Steph(roomie) enjoying a few Long Islands

The drinks and entertainment were a lot of fun. Apparently I had decided to celebrate the day of my birth on the same day that a bunch of women were having their bridal parties. Let me just say tiara and asymetrical tops and leave it at that. Something I really don't understand though is why would you want to go to a drag bar to celebrate one of your last nights as a single woman? When I get engaged I'm having strippers. After all it will be the last time that I get to touch a man that isn't my husband.

After we finished dinner we decided to leave the Kit Kat and go to a place that didn't have squeeling blondes in asymetrical tops. For us that would be the lovely establishment known as The Twisted Spoke. What birthday would be complete without $2 Whiskey drinks afterall?













Me and my "sisters" at The Spoke, I'm the one in the middle.

Megan and Meri are two of my closest friends. We met in college and we've been through some very interesting times together. I trust their opinons above pretty much anyone's. They're the type of friends that will kill a man for you. And they'll make sure that it doesn't get traced back to them. I love them to death.
















Me and DB

During the evening I did find myself getting a little sappy. (Blame the aclcohol)I just felt so honored that there were so many people there that wanted to celebrate with me. I don't know that I could express in words how great it is to know that I have such great people in my life.

I know what your wondering where's the silly drunken picture? Well I don't want to disappoint. Below you will see a picture I like to call The Last Supper. I think that if there was ever a need for a poster to display what alcoholism looks like this would be it.










The Last Supper

All in all the birthday was great fun and I had a lot of fun. A great way to celebrate entering my mid-late twenties. And the hang over wasn't even all that bad.

My other addiction(part 2)

Category: Misc
The Beginning of the End:
So the release date for The Sims 2 rolls around and I of course make my way to Best Buy and purchase it. I got the special DVD edition that has Sims bloopers and videos of the people they based some of the characters off of. Very entertaining.

When you start the game it asks you to create your family. Now this stuff is amazing. You can choose skin tone, body type, eye color, hair color. You can even alter the shape and the size of facial features. In other words if you so choose you can create a character that looks very simialar to yourself. Which of course I have done.

Once you have created a family, wheter that's one person or several you choose the neighborhood and house that you want to live in. That's where the real fun begins. Your Sims need to have jobs so they can buy cool stuff and food. They have parties and grow old and even die.

I think the thing that draws me to the game is trying to accomplish the life aspirations that the characters have. You have to meet these goals and still make sure that they carry out their day to day needs, like eating and sleeping. When I play the game I try to set an alarm so that I only play for a couple hours. That doesn't always work though. Sometimes I set the alarm with every intention of stopping and then I tell myself one more hour. The next thing I know I hear the garbage trucks in the alley and I look outside and the sun is starting to peek it's head over the buildings.

Damn another night with only two hours of sleep. As I pass out I vow to myself that this will not happen again tomorrow. And yet time after time I find myself drawn to the game. I keep telling myself that I can stop at anytime. I'll quit when I'm ready. But I've been coming to the realization that I can't quit.

EA draws me deeper into it's world:
I visited the Sims 2 website recently and saw that there is an expansion pack that I really want to have. I was able to resist the first expansion pack called University. Where your teen Sims could go to college and join frats. This new one is different though, now your Sim can go out clubbing and even have it's one car. No more car pooling to get to work. I know I must have it. I'll probably find myself wandering into Best Buy sometime this weekend. I'll tell myself I'm only going in to browse, maybe buy a new ink cartridge for my printer. But deep down I know I'm lying to myself. I need to up the dosage. Having the plain Sims game isn't cutting it any more. Somehow I will find myself wandering into the games section and there it will be. And it will probably be on sale too. It's as if this program was meant to be mine. Oh, well I guess I have to give in to fate. My roommate will forget what I look like. My friends will forget my name. The bags under my eyes will increase and be bloodshot from lack of sleep. But once I get over the first wave of enjoyment I'll be able to mellow out. I've been there before. I'll make it through.

My other addiction(part 1)

Category: Misc
I'm sure most of you are unaware of the fact that I am a smoker. I don't proclaim my right to smoke or complain about the lack of public places in which I am allowed to smoke so how would you know?
This post isn't going to be about that either .
I have this terrible addiction which is depriving me of sleep and causing me to ignore my friends and loved ones. This addiction is called...The Sims 2.
It is a role playing/simulation game invented by EA. You know of Sim City fame?
How did I become imbroiled in this terrible Sim Culture you may ask?

The Introduction:
I blame my father for my addiction to this game. For one Christmas when I was about 16 or 17 I received a PC game in my stocking. My brothers had all received games for their PlayStation and I guess my Dad didn't want me to feel left out. Since I hadn't shown any interest in the PlayStation, but was always on the PC I gues he figured this would be an appropiate game. The game that he gave to me was called Sim Tower. The basic premise was to build a building in which you could add various establishments such as Offices, Condos and Restaurants. As you met various requirements your building would get a star rating and you'd get to add more goodies to your building. This was the beginning of the end for me. I would spend hours at a time just trying to reach the next star rating. Since it's not a timed game the hours would speed by as I sat in front of the computer. Luckily I was still in school and had a bedtime and was forced to vacate the computer. So the game was not allowed to infiltrate my life completely.

The beginning of the end:
Because I had registered my initial game with EA they would periodically send out newsletters talking about the games that they were working on and the release dates. One of these newsletters mentioned a new and intriguing game called The Sims. The game talked about getting involved in the lives of the little people that populated their previous games. Being able to move them through their lives. Make them go to work and dance and even pee!!! I was enthralled. By this time I was in college and didn't really have a lot of disposible income. But I made sure that I had the money for this game when it was released. It lived up to all that it said it would. Being a Virgo I enjoy being in control. What better way to fulfill my yearn for control than a game that puts the happiness of little computer generated people in my hands? I loved it. I would start out intending to spend just a few hours playing before I went to bed at night. The next thing I knew the Sun would be coming up and birds would be singing. No problem I was young and didn't need much sleep anyway. I'd catch a nap between classes and be good to go. Little did I know that EA had more in store for my poor sleep deprived body.

My first Expansion Pack:
EA in it's endevour to improve their game and make it more lifelike developed Expansion Packs. Now m ySims could get more exciting jobs. Cooler clothes and go out on dates. Even Woo-Hoo(that would be sex for those of use in the real world)! Yet again I spend hard earned money and the hours in front of the computer increase and my sleep lessens.

I Break for Reality:
There is such a thing as too much of a good thing and I was able to lessen the hold that EA and The Sims had taken on my life. Friends, school, work, all helped to bring my out of the world of The Sims and back to reality. The game would now sit idly for several months at a time. Every once in a while I would break it out when I had a weekend to lose and be perfectly happy.

EA tightens it's grip:
Then I got another email from EA. Why oh why do I continue to register my games? You would think I would have learned. This newsletter is complete with screenshots and links to the website, so you can watch tantilizing videos. Is that my beloved Sim in 3D? Yes it is. Not only is the content richer and more enthralling but it has even more aspirations. More interactions. You can even make videos and invent stories. On top of that the the realease date is dangerously close to my birthday. It was like a sign. This game would be mine.

Subscribe to me

Category: Blogging
I recently set up an account with Feedblitz . It's a feed subscription service. So now you guys don't have to figure out my feed or bookmark me. You can get all m up to date ramblings delivered directl to your mailbox whenever I update m blog. Right now I am the only subscriber. I know a lot of you guys are connecting to my blog through BlogAdvance, which is awesome. I hope that you are all enjoying the rambling thoughts that I have to offer. I would love it if you subscribed to me though. There's a form at the bottom of my blog where you can subscribe. All you have to do is enter your email address. In this day of Spam I completely understand if your weary of putting your email out there. But it would definitly give me a boost to know that there are people out there that are interested in reading what I have to say on a regular basis.

I know that my blogs are fairly long so your going to have to scroll for quite a while to get to the bottom of the page. I've been thinking about changing some things though. I want to create my own design and just use Blogger as a host. Or maybe even pony up the cash for one of the fancy hosting servers and leave Blogger. If any of you has any suggestions I'd love to hear them. I really appreciate the advice that the veteran bloggers have since I am still very new at this. Of course all of these prespective improvements are contingent on whether anyone out there is even interested in what I have to say. So scroll down to the bottom of the page and enter your email. I'll do my best to keep you entertained.

I've decided to make it that much easier for you guys to subscribe to me by putting the Feedblitz form in this post. Look at how nice and accomadating I am.

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Conversation on the porch

Category: Friends
I've just said good night to my roommate for the evening. We were spending an evening on the porch finishing up our drinks and smoking some cigs. I've decided that every living space that I have from now on is going to have to have some sort of outdoor sitting area. There is something about a porch that is your own that is condusive to in depth meaningful conversations. Maybe it has to do with the fact that you can't really see each other's faces. Or the amount of alcohol that we've drunk. But people really connect when they're out on a porch in the evening.

I met S on our porch. Look how that turned out. Granted he moved to L.A, but it was good while it lasted...

A Brief Break for a Weather Complaint

Category: Misc

I'm actually sitting at work right now so this will be brief.

I have lived in Chicago for seven years now and I have to say that I'm still not used to the sudden temperature changes that happen in this city. Yesterday it was 80 degrees out. Wore a cute little peasant skirt, a tank top and sandals. I was sweating profusely by the time I had walked 2 blocks. Today the temperature was 50 degrees and rainy. All Day!! I am not happy at all. I understand that summer can't last forever. There is a need for seasons. How else would the Bears know when to hibernate?( The animal, not the footbal team. Even though they play as if their asleep) All I ask for is a gradual transition like most other places. I already gave up my trees and hills, must I surender my weather as well?  

My good deed for the day

Category: Society
As I was walking home from work tonight a saw a group of Japanese men standing on the corner of Fullerton and Halstead starting at a CTA map. They were obviously trying to figure out where they wanted to go. I was going to walk right past them. You know how it is in a city. You figure someone else will help them. In fact I did walk a few steps past them. But the Lincoln Park neighborhood is full of students heading toward the bars. They really aren't thinking about helping a gaggle of tourists. So I turned around and asked them where they were headed.
It so happened that they were going toward the train that I was going to take so I offered to show them the way. They were only a block away. But as I was walking with them I realized that they weren't even sure which train to get onto. Now Chicago public transit is easier than say New York transit, but you can still get pretty turned around if you're not sure where to go. So I showed them how to work the card machine and which train to get on. Even though it was on the opposite platform that I was supposed to get on.
I felt kind of bad about my attitude though. Like I said I had just gotten of of work and the temperature had dropped significantly from what it had been this afternoon. I only had a thin wind breaker that wasn't cutting it as far as I was concerned. So I was pretty quiet on the walk to the train and a little shore with them. Plus I felt like I was talking down to them. Their English was stilted and I don't know any Japanese at all. Our conversation consisted of a lot of pointing and broken English. I would have liked to learn more about them. Like what brought them to Chicago. What the did for a living and I think if I hadn't had such a long day I would have been more interested. I was thinking though that I wanted to get these guys headed toward where they wanted to go and get home. Change into my sweats and make myself a hot cup of tea. They probably think that even the good Samaritan are rude from m conduct. I feel a little bad about my demeanor. But I think I would have been more upset with myself if I had walked past them and jus gone home. As we were walking to the train station though the train that I should have gotten onto lef the station. And of course the next one didn't come for quite a while. So I got to stand in the cold waiting for m train home, while the recipients of m help got to get on a heated train almost immediately and head on their merry way. Once I told them which train to get onto and let them know how long it would take the all bowed to me. Which was kinda weird, you see stuff like that on t.v. but you don't expect it to happen to you. All in all I guess I feel pretty good about myself. I would have liked to maybe get to know them better. If I had been dressed warmer I may have even gone downtown with them. I feel maybe I missed an experience. Oh well. I hope that they will remember my help even if I was a little short with them.
Well that's my good deed for the day. Not the most spectacular act, but kind just the same. I hope those gentlemen have an enjoyable evening and I wish them well.

Aug 29 2005

Category: Misc
Aug. 29, 2005
I got to dress up as Elmo™, of Sesame Street fame. That was a blast.
I’ve decided that parents can be some of the biggest jerks. The reason I was Elmo™ was because WTTW, the public broadcasting station in Chicago, had a fun walk. I’ve worked for the events company that was running it so the production manager asked me to be one of the characters. It’s $200.00 cash, nothing to sneeze at. And the kids are a lot of fun. It’s like being a rock star, your fans just happen to be less than four feet tall. I didn’t even mind the heat or the stuffy costume. How can anyone resist being hugged and kissed by hundreds of kids? Not me.


It's me and Cookie Monster!

Incase you were wondering there are three types of reactions when a child meets a five foot tall Muppet.

1. Ecstatic Glee – This is when a child runs into your arms, gives you a great big hug and shows and is so mesmerized by meeting you that the parent can’t get a good picture.( The picure above is an example of Ecstatic Glee)


2. Terror – This is when a child gets within two feet of you and breaks out into tears and clings to Mommy or Daddy.


3. Ecstatic Glee followed by Terror- This is when the child is so very excited to meet you they can hardly stand the wait, then when it’s their turn they cling desperately to Mommy or Daddy. This usually includes tears.

Warning the following image may be disturbing to children or adults who are childlike.

Elmo with my head!!!
That's right ladies and gentlemen I am dressed as Elmo!


I find all of the reactions terribly entertaining. Of course the best is the Glee. I think my biological clock sped up ever time that some kid told me that he loved me. Of course it wasn’t me it was Elmo™, but still it does a heart good.
The real downer can be the parents. I think some parents are so intent on giving their kid a good experience that they forgot about a little think called manners. As I mentioned before that costume can get real stuffy. Luckily it wasn’t super hot on Sunday because I may not have made it. Basically the costume is a body suit covered in red fur like material and a helmet with the head of a Muppet. In order to see you have the look through the mouth, which is covered in a black mesh like material. That’s also what you breathe through. So after a while it can get a little stuffy to say the least. In fact after my 45 minutes in the suit I had sweat dripping into m eyes, and I was breathing like I had just run a marathon. Also you start to get a little claustrophobic in there all by yourself. Oh one more thing you can’t say a word. That’s because I am not the licensed voice of the character.
When I started out it was all good. Give hugs, blow kisses, take pictures, and try to remember not to smile, after all they can’t see my face. But towards the end of my shift I was getting worn down. The sweat was stinging my eyes, and I couldn’t get a nice clean breath. I have to admit I was getting a little worried that I was going to freak out. Now that’s where the “handlers” come in. They’re the ones that direct traffic, calm the masses and make sure that I don’t get punched in the stomach or kicked. The way you have to signal is by tapping our nose. I’m sorry I mean the characters nose. Which in case your wondering is on top of my head. Let me just tell you how odd it is to have to connect tapping your nose with reaching up. For a while after it was over when I was talking about it I would reach up and tap my forehead. All in all it was a great experience and if I'm aksed to do it again I will jump at the chance.

WARNING Serenity MOVIE SPOILER

Category: Just for fun
***WARNING MOVIE SPOILER***
I saw Serenity the other night. I left the theater pretty upset by the whole thing. Not because it was a bad movie, but because it affected me. I don’t know that I’ve really felt the emotions that I had when I left that movie theater in a long time. At least not when going to see a movie. Live theater definitely, but not a movie. I just realized because with live theater it seems so real. There are real people in front of you going through these things. You’re like a voyeur looking into a specific time period in these people’s lives. With a movie you have some distance, some perspective. You know what your seeing isn’t real. After all it’s just like a giant TV screen. You can’t touch the people on the movie screen. But Serenity was special because I had formed a relationship, be it imaginary with the people on that screen. And when one of those people was killed so senselessly and violently it really hurt me. I think a lot of people that have seen the movie felt the same way. I just don’t think that they have realized that they didn’t like the movie. They need to realize that the didn’t like the message. And I applaud Joss Whedon for giving us that message even though we weren’t expecting to hear it. The message is that life is fragile, and something to be treasured. And when I person’s life is cut off just in the prime you mourn it. People don’t go to the movies to hear a message like that. They go to the movies to be entertained. And I’m not saying I wasn’t entertained. I’m just saying that there were other things factored in as well. I have to admit that I was in shock for a while, because I like a lot of people, have formed a “connection” with the particular character that was killed. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that the emotion I was feeling were very similar to when a school friend of mine was killed. It was devastating and I thought that the pain would never go away. I cried for a whole day when I knew that she was gone and I would never see her smiling face or hear her laugh again. But as time went on I remembered the good things that I had when I was with her. And the memories still hurt, but they made me smile at the same time. That’s what happened to me Saturday night. Maybe not to such a degree as with a real person, but it was a similar effect. And maybe I’m being silly. Maybe others who see the movie won’t agree with me. I think many people are angered by what happened. And that is a symptom of mourning as well. Because all of us that have seen the movie and had a stack in it are in mourning for a person that we really did care about. I applaud Joss and thank him for bringing real life into my fantasy world. It was very brave of him to do it. I don’t appreciate it too much, but it once again makes me appreciate life. And I look forward to each new Dawn and what the day have to hold for me. I think that’s what the movie is supposed to do and Joss does a fine job. So for those of you who have not seen the movie yet I encourage you to see it. I apologize for giving away a plot development as I did. But I think that after some distance you will all agree with me. Just give it a day or two to get over the shock