Drinking lots of liquid, and none of the alcoholic kind, well, that helps. Wasn't feeling too hot last night, but drank water, orange juice, and a couple mugs of chicken broth (I wanted something hot but not caffeinated). Just sat around, watched some TV, tried to go to bed early. So no real updates. Just trying to get better. Random note, I like to use Google as my spell checker. Weather's gonna get freaky, supposed to shoot up to 70 or so on Thursday. Love Chicago weather. I've got to find my lost Tiger install DVD, should be around here somewhere, since I've got some machines to update. And it's November. Didn't make any progress on the Lost DVDs, but I'll get to that the next couple of nights.

Head cold schmead cold. Ugh. Wish my sinuses would just drain out, or I could stick a giant needle and suck all the mucus out, or take a magic drug that would make it all disappear and prevent it from reappearing, you know, like a magic get healthy drug. Oh well. I'll keep complaining. Watched more Lost last night. I'm now at episode 15 I think. Good stuff. Makes me wonder if J. J. Abrams should make another show called Found. I've got possible jury duty tomorrow, have to call tonight to figure that out. Otherwise, just drinking liquids and sitting a lot. Oh, and having TNT HD rocks. It means I get more NBA in HD. Always a good thing.

Jury duty. That's right. All day. So won't talk about that until I'm done here. Last night watched a couple more episodes of Lost. Completely forgot to watch One Tree Hill or My Name Is Earl and The Office from the previous night. Which means I'm seriously running out of space on the DVR. Finished up Mobile Suit Gundam. Headed out to the burbs today to see Tracy, the only time this week. There are pictures available from our Halloween costumes, which I'll eventually get up here, sometime. I also did find my Tiger Install DVD, which is good, and finally got around to updating Neon. I should definitely start looking into actually using all these computers throughout my place. Feeling better, definitely on the tail end of the head cold.

Did my jury duty. Won't have to do that for a year. Not a bad day, got some reading done, did a little laptop work. Traffic was really bad heading out to the burbs, and I even left at 4pm. Took me 1:15 to get out there, from downtown. Crazy. Stupid gapers delay. But it was interesting to be going down the Stevenson Expressway with absolutely no cars going the other way. I'm guessing that's what it would be like during evacuations. Had a nice dinner with the Argaos, and watched some Arrested Development while Tracy found more songs to put on her iPod. Not sure what the weekend holds for me yet. Might head out to Woodstock, might stick around and try and make some headway on my projects (I was going to say unfinished projects, but since that pretty much applies to all of them, kind of unnecessary).

Yes. I have one. I watch too much TV. I pretty much sat on the couch all weekend watching TV. I started plowing through Alias:Season 4. I watched Blade: Trinity and Mean Girls on Sunday just because it was on. I'm not sure exactly how many episodes I got through of Alias, but it was a lot. A couple things about watching TV on DVD, I wish the Play All would skip over opening credits after the first one on a disc. Wouldn't be that hard, would it? I actually wouldn't know at all, haven't authored a DVD ever in my life. But I'm trying to get through Season 4 so I can watch and delete Season 5 off the DVR. It's just taking up space. And I'm running out of space. I did manage to get up off the couch and go to a Pie Party, which was interesting and fun. But otherwise, a whole lot of couch time. I also tried getting more cover art into iTunes. Makes things look prettier on iPod nanos. Watching MNF tonight with friends. Got an interview Wednesday for a part time seasonal gig at the Apple Store at Old Orchard (weekends only). And headed to Panama City, FL for a really long weekend on Thursday with Tracy and the gang. A couple things I forgot to mention. First, if you have a Java capable phone with a good data plan, get Google Local Mobile (http://www.google.com/glm) for cell phones. I use it with my cell phone, and it's amazing. Absolutely amazing. Oh, and I got Krispy Kreme for breakfast this morning, and the store down at 175 W. Jackson was absolutely empty at 8am. The Dunkin Donuts across the street? Packed. Not a good sign at all.

Haven't had that many people in my house in a long time. Good time though, kind of a disappointing game though. Not too exciting. I did force myself to clean up a little before people came over. Worked out well. Also managed to order up some pizza before anyone showed up, which I think was the better move. Gotta do some laundry tonight, especially since I'm going on vacation. And watched another episode of Alias after the game last night, which puts me halfway through the season, and then I got caught watching An Evening with Kevin Smith. Damn he's a funny guy. Seriously. Really funny. Had me laughing out loud funny. Especially when the audience doesn't get one of his comments. It's amusing. I had to turn the TV off before it finished, cause I just couldn't stay up till 2:45 finishing it. But Eric, you have a DVR, you might be saying. And to that I have no answer. I'm sitting at 70% full of Alias and Lost current seasons, and November sweeps arriving, and I'm leaving for vacation for a week. Which basically means I'll be skipping a bunch of stuff for the next two weeks. Not good at all.

Need sleep badly. It's bad when you can feel your body breaking down because of the lack of sleep. Really bad. I can just feel it. And it's not good. So I'm hoping I get lots of sleep on this vacation. Should be fun. But before that I've got to finish up another day of work, a part time job interview at Apple Store Old Orchard, and staying out at Tracy's. We're getting dropped off and picked up by her parents at the airport, which comes in handy when we have to be there really early in the morning. Makes sense in terms of cars, too, since there's no worry about my car getting a ticket in their driveway and I don't have to pay for parking. Otherwise, wish I could be watching even more TV. Alias Season 4 is definitely picking up, and I really want to figure out what happens, and I've getting tempted to read episode guides to find out. But I'll hold off. Otherwise, doubtful for any updates before next Tuesday, but I'll try and post pictures to my Flickr account.

Back from Panama City Beach, which is where we actually were. Good time. It was a couples vacation, 3 couples, Lisa and Ryan, April and Scott, Tracy and Eric. Good times. The only problem, I don't exactly remember what we did when, but I'll try anyway. No problems getting in on Thursday, flights were on time, tiny airport at Panama City, easy getting to the condo. Nice place. Oh, and I rented us a minivan, which was white, but was a little SUVish, a Chevy Uplander. It had a DVD player for the kids in the backseat, which never got used. Got to drive around and do some recon before anyway else pulled in, got some blue crabs for dinner, which was great. Finally tried out Steel Reserve, good stuff, somehow ended up in a pool later that night. Friday, not sure, but picked up April and Scott from the airport. I think there was beach time, and ended up at Hooters for dinner. Ended up being a pretty quiet night. Saturday was some indoor time, got some breakfast I think, or maybe that was Sunday, but tried to head out to Seaside, where they supposedly filmed The Truman Show, but ended up in Destin and had dinner and some drinks out there before heading back and trying to go clubbing at Spinnaker after playing some Mallet's Mallet. The club ended up being a bit of a bust. Sunday, a nice lazy day, watching Meet the Fockers, Napoleon Dynamite later that night after watching the sunset with wine, dinner at a Brazilian churrascaria and ice cream for dessert. Monday brought April and Scott out to the airport, finally made it to Seaside, walked around a bit, lunched at Cafe Spiaggia, then did some shopping at the factory outlets in Destin. Ryan made a quick little meal out of crab for us, and we settled in for a night of Hoopla, a Cranium variant. Good times. Tuesday spent a little time at the beach, finally made it into the water, tiring, played catch with a plastic bowl top, and started the long trip home. Got delayed overall about an hour. Got to sleep in pretty much every day, which was good, since I needed that. Got a little sun. Definitely got to relax. My first couples vacation turned out pretty good. Only thing, a spring break town in November pretty much shuts down. Bunch of places were closed for the season (like Papa John's) and there was a ton of new construction for condos and such. Not much in the way of radio stations. Also was a designated driver for pretty much the entire trip. But good. Probably going to be going on couples vacations in the future. But, back to the grind. Dogsitting Marla this weekend. And that's about it for the plans.

Well, specifically, not picked up. Arrested Development and Kitchen Confidential. Two really good shows. I wonder why I never watched AD before this year. It's really good. As for Kitchen, I hope it moves to the Food Network. It would be like Tilt being on ESPN. But besides that, not much. Picked up some Toaster Strudel for breakfast while looking for canned crab meat at Treasure Island. Finally got my Funyuns along with PBJ and chicken soup for dinner. Good, wholesome, wintery night meal. I got the craving since I walked home through a flurry. Oh, I forgot to mention that it's really cold out. Feels like winter. And the sucky part? It's not really winter. It's not below 0 yet. It's just the start. Also, just realized that Wicked must have extended it's run, since I thought it was ending around Thanksgiving but now runs through April 30. So I got Tracy tickets for her birthday, of course, they aren't until February 2, but still. Buying tickets 3 months in advance is a whole lot cheaper than the alternative. Even through Ticketmaster. Headed out with the boys tonight, maybe Duke of Perth, maybe a movie, we'll see.

Duke of Perth was good. As always. Such a great place. Good to see Russell and Whitney. Dogsitting for Marla this weekend, so I'll be in Bucktown. Making dinner with Tracy tonight, probably tomorrow night too. Hopefully getting lots of sleep. And also hopefully catching up completely on Lost and Alias, at least up to this year's season. Too bad I'm not completely in the dark on both of them, as some of the stuff that you just can't notice from commercials or headlines or websites, well, some of that stuff would have been surprising. Oh well.

Dogsitting Marla was good. She definitely missed her owners though. I just couldn't satisfy. Made dinner Friday night with Tracy, she had a craving for an Insalata Caprese and Potatoes Deluxe so we made that with bacon wrapped pork chops. Bacon is a bit of an insulator. We watched and finished off season 1 of Lost which means we can start plowing through the season 2 episodes on my DVR. I also finished off season 4 of Alias, so I started to do the same with season 5 on the DVR. I think I watch too much TV. I had to take some series off the scheduled recordings to make sure I had space for Lost and Alias, and well, I think I'll keep them off. So off my TV island is Everwood, One Tree Hill, The O.C.. I'll keep the sitcoms, since they're short. Hopefully this will open up some space for movies, since National Treasure was on Starz last night. Besides that, I got a seasonal part time job as a mac specialist at the Apple Store Old Orchard. I'll have to find out how that will affect any writing here. But just weekends through the holidays. I'm doing it for a little extra cash and to finally just work for Apple. Hopefully this is okay to say, but their job offer folder and paperwork is typical of Apple: high quality, understandable, just great. I'd have to say the most readable, understandable legalese I've read. So I had an intro and training Sunday night. First day is this Saturday. Should be fun and interesting. Oh, and it's Tracy's birthday today, so a happy birthday to her.

Went to visit Tracy last night at her place of employment, CVS in Calumet City. Didn't take too long to get there, and it's a pretty nice store. It was her birthday, and she was working, and it ended up being a pretty slow night for her, so I got to hang with her for a bit. I'll see her and her family Wednesday night for a little pre Thanksgiving meal before heading out to Woodstock for the big meal. Watched another episode of Alias and How I Met Your Mother. It's getting dry out. Should be drinking more water.

Finally all caught up on Season 5 of Alias. I'm just not buying into this season though. Probably just the idea of the changing of the guard, new faces, different conspiracy. I'm thinking they should have just done what Felicity did, ended after 4 years. They could have wrapped up a conspiracy, had a huge series ender, then started fresh, same concept, but new people, new direction. Oh well. Can't believe that it's in the 5th season though. Long time. Also watched an episode of My Name Is Earl. It's not laugh out loud funny, well, maybe it is, but it's definitely quirky humor. For me, it's surreal humor. Also caught the last half or so of National Treasure. Good clean fun there. I also moved some furniture around, just the bedroom for now. I'll have to clean out the Data Center before anything else moves, since there's so much crap in there. And I figured out that Calcium takes Airport Express and not just plain Airport. So that's more stuff I need to get. Headed out to Tracy's tonight for a pre Thanksgiving dinner and then out to Woodstock for the big day tomorrow, and back in to the city since I have to work on Friday. So after catching up on Alias, my DVR's down to under 50% utilization. Nothing but Lost on it now.

Odd how much hotter it gets indoors the colder it gets outdoors. Got to meet the last remaining brother in Tracy's family Wednesday night. Made the drive out to Woodstock while using Aluminum to listen to holiday music. That was pretty sweet. Makes me think of putting a mac mini with a small touch screen for in car music. Just infinitely more customizable compared to an iPod. Good food by my mom for Thanksgiving, except she tried a handful of new recipes, which were all pretty good, except for the dressing, not a fan of the dressing. But it was a little sad to not have certain traditions, like meatballs and chicken wings for appetizers, and pumpkin bars for dessert. But still, very good. Got a chance to iChat with my brother, got to sleep in which was needed, and got to play with my godson. Traffic was bad coming back in to the city last night though, because people don't seem to understand what iPass only lanes are. First day at the Apple Store tomorrow, should be good.

Working on the weekends. Actually, I like working retail. At least at Apple. Go figure. I think that's all I can say. Otherwise, did a bit of clean up around the house Friday night, which is good, just baby steps. Started watching the second season of Lost with Tracy on Saturday night. Good stuff. Sunday night did my first ever multi person video iChat with my family. That was pretty cool. I made my parents host because I think I had issues being behind a firewall. I'm not sure of course, but it worked when they did it. Pretty sweet, except the quality isn't great. There's probably a bunch of settings in there that I need to work with. Probably some more info I need to verify. But still, pretty sweet. Actually, more along the lines of awesome. Headed out to see Tracy tonight and go out, to a movie, which haven't happened in a while. Going to see Just Friends. That Ryan Reynolds, he's a funny guy.

Just Friends was pretty funny, in spots. It did, however, take place in my timeframe though, which was odd. Graduation from high school in 1995. And a then and now type of situation. And my then and now isn't quite so drastic. Got to play a little bit with Tracy's new RAZR. Interface is so completely different than my cell phone, but then again, I've only had a Qualcomm before switching over to Sony Ericsson. But managed to send over some ringtones over bluetooth, both from my phone and Aluminum. Pretty sweet. I didn't know RAZRs were supported by iSync. Got a decent amount of sleep. I know it's bad when 6 hours is considered a decent amount. I forgot to mention I'm totally on a holiday music kick. From the computer, on the iPod, on the radio via 93.9 The Lite, which switches to an all holiday music format for the season, I'm all about the Christmas music.

Amazing the things that happen on the internet. Seriously. Anyway, caught up on some recorded TV last night. I'm almost ready to write off Out of Practice, it just isn't that funny. How I Met Your Mother on the other hand, well, it's rising on the charts. Funny. Out loud funny. "But what about the pineapple?". Funny. Las Vegas continues to entertain as well as Grey's Anatomy. And I'm down to 44% space taken on the DVR. Sweet. Did a little bit of reorganizing of my backups of Aluminum using Backup. It's pretty sweet. Makes it super easy. Also decided to do a little inventory of hard drives. Need to reorganize, especially since I got rid of those Eye TV 500 recorded seasons from last year, tends to open up the amount of available space. So now I just need to figure out how best to set things up. And Nitrogen rocks. G5s rock. So much better then all the 1 GHz G4s I have hanging out. My computing experience at home has been so 2003.