Blah blah blah, 2003. Good party at 935 last night. Got my groove on. Haven't felt the rhythm like that in a good long while. Nothing like dancing with a bottle of champagne. The blue hair, oh, yeah, I bleached and dyed my hair blue yesterday for the New Year, but it went over well. Might have found myself a crew for when I start breakdancing, or b-boying next week. Haven't done much of anything on this first day of the year, being a wednesday, and being slightly hungover. Had to do some dishes from dinner last night, which was Lemon Chicken and the fixings.

So the hair is now pinkish red with bluish purple tips. Rather interesting, and quite uneven. It's gonna last for another couple of days before I chop it all off. Expect a picture soon. Maybe I'll even get my gallery of photos up and running, wouldn't that be a hoot. In other news, I think I've come down with a head cold, not very pleasant, but much better than the one day flu I caught before Christmas. I figure lots of sleep and Orange Juice will do me good. I'm much happier that the Medici Bakery is open again, which means Cinnamon Rolls are in season again. Yummy.

Full blown sick now. Trouble sleeping, too congested, ugh. Not fun. But managed to watch Save the Last Dance last night, errr, I mean early this morning. Yeah, I think I've caught some sort of dancing bug. It's a little crazy. Going to end up drinking my orange and carrot juice, eat my leftover Pizza Hut Supreme Pizza, and watch movies all weekend, and hopefully get healthy, at least for next tuesday. I had lunch with Katie Kelly today at Noodles, which was good except that my congested state meant I couldn't taste any of the food. Oh, I also got a surprise gift from the UPA this morning, a holiday frisbee. And so ends the first friday of the new year.

Day 5, or so, and while I think the head cold is on the tail end, I still wish it'd be gone. But soon enough. I managed to step out of the Condo for a little bit today, grocery shopping and carry out dinner, but otherwise spent the entire weekend on my couch, at the dinner table, or in front of the computer. So what did I accomplish? Went through my backlog of mail, and finally get around to some bills and stuff that need paying. Watched some movies, of course. I also might have managed to get some sort of photo viewing system up and running for this site, but I need to get some pictures up before releasing it to the public. Also did a little cleanup to some things, like being able to read through an entire year's entries at a single time. Anyway, Macworld keynote on Tuesday, should be exciting. Otherwise, just me trying to get healthy.

Macworld's right around the corner, 11 or so hours away, and well, it's crazy in terms of rumors that are flying around. I love it. Apple did their job well this time, with practically nothing getting out. I plan on watching. Should be good. In other news, go view the new Gallery. It doesn't have much, but there will be more, don't worry, there will be more. I forgot to mention that I cut my hair again, this time down to 1/8". It's short. And fuzzy. Fun to touch. And I finally managed to replace the window wipers on my car. Finally. I've had replacements for like 2 years now.

Macworld Keynote comes and goes. I managed to watch the MPEG-4 stream, but only after I went around my router box. I think I might have to figure that out. Anyway, read more for my thoughts on the whole deal. The 12" Powerbook might be calling my name though. Got to hang out with Leah for the first time in three weeks last night. That was good. I'm still nursing my cold, not so good. I'm now running dual monitors, which is good. I think I need to rearrange the data center again. Oh, and I'm loving the handsfree set thing with my new cell phone, especially when I'm at my computer and got it bluetoothed with the phone. It's pretty sweet. Got my first Breakdancing class this evening. Oh, and like everyone else I know, I'm also using Safarai. It's sweet. Okay, so this is just going to be a copy paste from the emails I sent out to other Macheads. But here goes: Final Cut Express: same cost as Pro for Education. No biggie. iLife: great idea, good execution. $50 for iDVD in a retail box with the others is good. Looking forward to the iPhoto update. they didn't say anything about iDVD support for external burners though. the Microsoft office of digital life. Impressive. Keynote & Safari: Stepping on Microsoft's toes, big time. The one reason I see Keynote maybe doing better, is the XML file format. The auto updatability of presentations with current data could be a killer. Safari, I'm surprised they didn't use Gecko, unless KHTML is based on it, which it isn't, right? And why'd they hire the Chimera guy? To kill it? New Powerbooks: Love the 12". Love it. Glad my iBook died on me so recently, as I've found the replacement. Backlight keyboard, fucking cool. Slot load, also cool. the 17"? Desktop replacement, for sure. But damn, that's a big machine. It was as big as Verne in that ad, which was really really funny. Nice to see Yao picking good companies to get promotions with. Wonder what's gonna happen with the 15" now. The more I've had to think about it, and look at it, I wonder about the 12". It's pretty much a dressed up iBook. i'd really like it if it had the lightup keyboard and was 1" thick like the rest of the powerbooks. And maybe a 1GHz instead of the 867 it's packed with. But I still need to see and touch one in person. And the people there get Keynote for free. Damn. When i went I got nothing.

Hanging out with friends Mina, Kelley, and Rachel, who are in town for the week. Dinner at Piece with Bryan, Akira, and Whitney, with a short stop over at Louie's down the street. Then some chilling at the Fortress of Solitude, where my carpet and video games make for a compelling argument for a slumber party. Got to watch some Sex in the City as well. Pretty good show. Like an adult Felicity or Dawson's, or something like that. Woke up with a sore throat. Won't this sickness ever go away? Breakdancing class went well. Should be a lot of fun. Sushi tonight, with either some caps or kareoke for entertainment.

Dinner at Sai last night. Sushi was fabulous as always. Then Karaoke at Piece. First time really going to karaoke post college anyway. Fun. Probably had to do with the people I went with, but still, fun. Got another fake Piece tattoo. Then growlers and fun at home, made some cookies, drank some beer, watched Can't Hardly Wait and Sex and the City, and stayed up 'til 7:30am. Slumber Party! Then later this afternoon went out and saw Chicago, good musical movie version, and dinner at Bandera. Also good. And now, for some much needed sleep.

Weekend went by, pretty much in a blur. Let's see if I remember most of it. Saturday, up too early, for some strange reason, and watched Diary of Aston Kutcher and Julia Stiles. Spent most of the day on my couch, alternatively sleeping or watching TV. Did get out for a little bit to have lunch with Leah and a couple of her friends, Christi and Charlotte. Nice and very funny girls. I also acted as a tour guide on their drive around the city. Dinner that night at Twisted Spoke, ate too much very quickly. Made it out to some bar to act as chauffeur for Leah and her friends. Very amusing. Sunday was dinner at Adam's, which was good, I brought over tarts. And that was the weekend. Leaving thursday for LA. And I think Monday Night dinner returns.

Monday Night Dinner returns with Orange Glazed Chicken and Asian Green Beans and Rice. I didn't get around to making dessert, as usual, but I plan on trying my hand at a Lemon and Raspberry Souffle tonight. I did make some chocolate chip cookies, the Chewy, but they didn't turn out that good this time. Currently listening to some Dr. Dre, 2001 and some Missy Elliott, ... So Addictive.

I'm thoroughly enjoying my new hip hop/rap albums. Even if they're old, out of date, it's still some good beats. I did not make my souffles last night, which sucks, but oh well. There's always next week. Breakdancing tonight, along with dinner at the Twisted Lizard. Leaving for LA tomorrow. Go figure. Oh, right, managed to do some laundry last night. Gotta love it when half the load comes out of the dryer halfway through because it's all performance fabrics, either Under Armour or Dri fit. I've started to use my digital camera more, hopefully, and not miss more events in my life. Not very exciting.

Back again in Los Angeles, and this time it's warm, hot even, at least for a couple days. I was greeted by 79 degree weather and sun when I got off the plane. Not a bad thursday. Anyway, travel was quick and easy, no problems. Because of the weather I decided to upgrade a little and get a 'stang convertible for my rental. Sweet. Dinner with Al and Nicole at Cafe Pinot downtown LA right next to the building that got first destroyed in Independence Day. Good food. And now I'm trying to fix some issues with their Belkin wireless router hub and some file sharing issues under Win XP, which is so unlike Mac OS X. I guess I'm just not used to it. Tomorrow, or today, I'm gonna have lunch with my brother up in Pasadena, and also take a look at the 12" Powerbook at the Apple Store out there. Oh, and then cook Al and Nicole dinner tomorrow night. Either Gnocchi or Beef in Puff Pastry.

I'm actually gonna try and fly standby tomorrow, and see if I can't get home to Chicago sometime before midnight. Might be nice. So how'd Chicago do at Lei-Out? Not well, going 0'fer on the weekend. A couple close games, but still. First time playing and running about for most of us since the close of last season, and it showed. I'm sore as well. Quite sore. I hopefully managed to get my fill of protein to replinish, with Sushi last night with the team and steak with Al and Nicole tonight. So much good food. Oh and the beach was great, and the weather was fabulous. I'd forgotten what the sun is like. And it's really really nice. It also felt pretty good to play again. Even if it hurts to move. At all.

So I splurged, got a HDTV Tuner and am now able to watch High Definition On the Air programming. It's sweet, but granted, I've only really watched soap operas and some news with it so far. The real test happens this weekend with the Superbowl and the following episode of Alias. So I did manage to make it home on Monday on an earlier flight, the first time flying standby. It's scary how they call all the groups up for boarding and then call standby names. Breakdancing class went well, I actually learned some things to do for the 6 step. That's all.

Bringing Bryan this afternoon to pick up some pork for the Superbowl. Lots of meat. Last night had a first meeting on a Web Committee for UltimateChicago. Big plans and great ideas. Should be good. Cleaning up, picking up, trying to get things a little organized for this weekend. Oh, did some grocery shopping and picked up candy for the candy bowl, valentine's day stuff. It's pink, but still sweet and cavity inducing.

So a sports filled monster sunday. Brunch at Whit and Russell's, Bulls game in a box, Yao's a big man, and then Superbowl drubbing via a High Def signal. Oh, and a non sports related finish, Alias watched for the first time in High Def. It's gonna be hard going back to anything else. But good time. Piece last night for a smallish going away dinner for Whitney. Wing Nut's are strong beers. 2 and I'm gone. Not much planned for the rest of the week, I don't think anyway. Monday Night Dinner with Leah returns tomorrow, or today, depending on how you look at it. Oh, and a welcome to Courtney, a new reader, friend of Leah's.

Monday Night Dinner last night was simple, Beef and Broccoli, and some Tofu, since Leah had too much meat over the weekend. But my first time cooking tofu, and I managed to do a pretty decent job. And I used my mom's recipe for the Beef and Broccoli. It was good, just like mom used to make. Got a couple more job prospects, and we'll see where those lead. Snowfall in Chicago, nice because it looks pretty, sad because it'll be gone by the weekend. Or even before. Love Chicago winters. Oh, one other thing, I've got a certain craving for Dunkin' Donuts. #1. Cream and Sugar.

So tonight was my fourth breakdancing class, of about 8 or so. And now it finally feels like we're learning some cool stuff. First week was the basic Battle Rock. The next week was the basic Up Rock, with the fake, and the basic Down Rock, the six step. Third class was the straight leg Down Rock and the turn over in the six step. And this week we learned the bike pose, from 3 in the six step with a slide variation, or as a turn over from the 6 position, and the slide pose, also from the 3 position, but with a cross slide variation. All pretty cool. Now I've got enough to practice with I think. Sweet. And I managed to eat some sushi, and start Return of the King, since I finally finished up Phantom Tollbooth.

Chilling and dinner with Leah and Christy last night at Heaven on Seven on Clark. Always good food. Followed up with Must See TV. Funny stuff as always. Working on setting up my Cube as a music server, but I need some quality speakers now for my tower. I should probably change computer names now. About time maybe? I need to make a quick run up to Evanston to drop off a resume for a Northwestern Job. Oh, and my mom's in town this weekend. Dinner I think tonight. Tomorrow brings a gathering at Bryan's and Sunday is a Signs showing at my place.