Drumline. You Got Served. I'm sure there's a couple others, any number of other movies that could get mixed in there, but throw those in a blender, or cut out all the plots, see how they all overlap, and turn it into a movie, and you get Stomp the Yard. And even though I've seen it lots of times, the same story, or parts of the story, it's still good. Still well done. Still actually made me want to dance. It was great seeing at City North. People were clapping and cheering at the end. Definitely added to the experience. After getting home, finished off Eureka. Looking forward to the next season. And, finally did laundry. 4 loads this time. Happy to get that out of the way. Of course, I traded that for exercising, since that got me an extra hour of sleep.

Just keep piling up the laundry. It'll get done eventually. Hopefully. Felt pretty out of it last night so just more couch time, watched some more Eureka, ate some leftovers, some chicken soup and PB&J. I did finally start working on the wedding website, based off the invitations. So at least that was something a little productive. Approaching that magic 100 days left mark. Which I guess isn't that magical, since we don't like decimal systems. Going to see Stomp the Yard tonight with Russell, 7:10pm, $5 movie night, City North, where I said I wouldn't see movies anymore, but why not. Tomorrow night there's a meeting in my building about the new internet provider. Hopefully I can get a static IP at home so I'll always have access to my email, and not necessarily through Gmail. However, sometimes it is just easier to look things up via Gmail, and the easy access to tracking numbers is awesome.

Ok, so I didn't do laundry Friday night. Oh well. Threw together spaghetti for dinner. Watched another episode of Eureka. Finally getting into the episodes that I haven't seen yet. Saturday Tracy and I went up to St. Monica for PreCana. It's pretty much a one day couples counseling session for 50 couples. Not as bad as I thought it could be, and a little helpful. We made it back to my place for a nice nap before heading out to Kuma's Corner for dinner. I went with the mac & cheese, which was good, and Tracy went for their burger. I'm a little disappointed that they switched to an almost all burger menu, but I haven't had one yet, so I'll go back. Sunday, we did some registering at Crate & Barrel, some light shopping, trying to find me something to wear with my wool charcoal gray pants. Ended up buying 3 sweaters, all varying shades of gray, which of course were all on sale. A couple from J.Crew and one from Macy's, where I also picked up a flannel PJ set, for $7. Then we headed over, via bus and El, to Hot Chocolate for dinner. They do have a good dinner, and the desserts and hot cocoa was delish as usual. Then I helped pin Tracy's pants to get hemmed. Exciting weekend. I might have figured out what to do after we get married in terms of the Daily Dose: discontinue it but keep the Memex, and use that to power the main page, much like Wikipedia, with story of the day, what happened on this date, stuff like that. Of course, in the meantime, I'll keep posting, and then I'd have to figure out how to get my old Daily Dose posts into the Memex Daily Entry formats.

Pre dance class dinner at Allen's - The New American Cafe was good, but we ate too much. Place was too nice for just appetizers, so we ended up eating a full meal, which wasn't a good idea since we were learning East Coast Swing at class last night. Food was good, pretty fancy, used game meats mostly, I had the rabbit and Tracy had the duck. Next week we'll kick it old school with drinks and apps at Green Door Tavern instead. Much more low key. Class itself was pretty hard, especially since when we learned it in the Dancing for Every Occasion I, it was the night of the huge turnout, so we didn't really learn that much. And, I just don't really like East Coast Swing all that much. Go figure. I need to do some laundry tonight, before they get around to replacing the machines in my building, and I've got to remember to go to a meeting next Wednesday when they discuss the new internet provider, which will be onShore. They're supposedly sticking with DBS for cable service, not sure which provider, DirecTV or Dish Networks, and frankly, just don't care anymore. I did, however, sneak in another purchase before I get married for another gizmo, a new HDTV tuner set top box, which has the 5th generation tuner chip from LG I think, which should help me receive OTA HDTV signals. We'll see about that. Only got 106 days or so to keep buying my toys until the clamp comes down on my spending. And just looked up more info on onShore, and it looks like they provide DirecTV service as well. Awesome. Tomorrow going to PreCana at St. Monica. Dinner at Kuma's Corner. More registering on Sunday, and somewhere I need to squeeze in some Wedding web work.

Does it really count as social if you have an account with no friends? Relatively randomly logged into my Facebook account. I had no idea of the people that I know that are on there. Which is interesting, because some of the people I found weren't in school when Facebook started up. I just snuck on because I used an alumni email account, back when it was limited to school only users. Anyway, just interesting to see. Just too bad it doesn't go back to high school. Not too much going on. Watched an episode of Eureka again last night. Decided to buy Shopgirl when I noticed that it dropped to the magic $9.99 price point. Found out that when Apple says shipping in February, they barely mean shipping in February, as my Apple Store account lists my Apple TV as shipping on February 28. Which sucks. Made a reservation at Allen's - The New American Cafe for tonight before dance class, where we learn more about whatever swing dance we learned in the previous class. Also realized I should probably start working on that Wedding website thing. 107 days or so.

I forget how good films can be sometimes. And then I go and see The Queen. It's about Queen Elizabeth II and Tony Blair and the dealing with Princess Diana's death. Of course it's a movie, but just not sure how much of it was fictionalized. But either way. It's a good movie. Not oh my god that was so good I need to get all my friends to drop what they're doing to go see it, but a good movie. And there were a couple good previews before that I'm kind of looking forward to: Reign Over Me and The Namesake. The first is Adam Sandler getting serious again, but with Don Cheadle, but it looks good. Engrossing. And heart wrenching. The second looks fabulous, with Kumar, or, Kal Penn. It's by the same gal who directed Monsoon Wedding which I need to show to Tracy. And, another reason why I'm marrying the best girl, after a preview for Spider-Man 3 finished, she said we had to see it before our wedding. That's awesome. Maybe like a nice afternoon matinee, say, after the ceremony and before the reception? Or a couple days before more likely. Also a side note: who decided that a Spider-Man 3 trailer belongs in front of The Queen?

Made dinner last night for Tracy, a Hash of the Chicken Variety, which was pretty good. Followed that up with store bought ready to back turtle cookies. I've been on a caramel craving, so besides the cookies, I bought some caramel brownie Haagen-Daz, even though it's the half fat version. I never buy the half fat anything. Tracy wasn't too enthusiastic about the living wall idea, which is too bad. Hopefully I can slowly bend her to my will. I just really like the idea of a living wall. It's cool. Tonight we're supposed to go to a movie, I think we're going to see The Queen, prefaced with dinner at Fox & Obel. I also think I'm going to start weaning myself off caffeine. That's gonna be hard cause I like coffee so much. Maybe just off the every morning cup of coffee to get going.

So I'm not sure if my residual headaches from Thursday and Friday were from the sedation or the overly dry air in the condo. The headaches went away by Saturday, and I was away from my place until Sunday night, when, upon sitting back on the couch, I almost immediately got a headache again. I figured it might be something in the air, or, in this case, something not in the air, so I dug out the old big humidifiers and started one up in the living room. Almost immediate relief. Amazing. So I looked today for this thing to add humidity, but through plants, and came across the Living Wall System by ELT. That sounds pretty cool. And it might even be possible to automate the system, with alerts for low water levels, watering tank, and irrigation system. We'll have to see what the future wife has to say about it though. Saturday out in Woodstock was nice and relaxing. Quiet. Dropped off Aluminum for my mom to bring to the Philippines for my cousins. Hopefully they'll have a fast enough internet connection to some video iChatting. Mass, and dinner from Chop Suey Hut. Organized some more for the guest list for the wedding, got all the addresses from my mom. Sunday, chilled before heading back in to watch the Bears at the Russells. That was fun. Especially watching with the brothers. Love the fact that all the iPass lanes are done on my commute, which makes getting out to Woodstock and back super easy and fast.

Nothing too interesting from Wednesday night. Just frozen pizza for dinner, and couch time. But then Thursday morning I had my dentist appointment for a deep scale cleaning. 8am. That's no problem. IV Sedation. Ok. I get stuck, the next thing I know, it's 11:30, and I'm in bed. I have absolutely no recollection of getting out of the chair after the procedure, nothing about making a followup appointment a month later, which I actually have in my phone, or the walk back to my place. I only know this stuff because Tracy was there to get me back. Seriously, a completely blackout. I have no memories at all for those 3 hours or so. It's so crazy. I've never had that happen before. It's really really scary. Anyway, I've been battling headaches since the procedure, which I think it due to the anesthesia. Or my glasses, I can't tell. So I was in and out of bed all day yesterday, but we did go to dance class and learn more Foxtrot. And we grabbed dessert at Scoozi's. Still battled headaches today, so didn't go in to work, and did some computer stuff at home. Invites got ordered. And had spam and eggs for breakfast. Headed out to dinner at Adesso tonight and going out to Woodstock this weekend. Should be back in time for Bears watching at the Russells on Sunday.

I love taking the train to and from Tracy's. It's so easy. Granted, there aren't a whole lot of trains that run to Lemont, only 3 inbound in the morning, and 3 outbound at night, but there's more that run to Orland Park. It's so much nicer than driving, because I'm sitting there reading a book instead of getting frustrated by traffic and why slow drivers keep driving in the left lane when no one is in the middle lane. You know, things like that. Anyway, we had a craving for crab legs, so the Argaos picked me up from the train station and we headed out to Bolingbrook to Joe's Crab Shack, except, when we got there, the restaurant was dark. But there was a Red Lobster across the street, so we got our fix. Back at their place, Tracy and I provided some final comments on the invitation proofs. Hopefully we'll get that order in and finalized soon. Only 114 days or so. Got my deep scale cleaning tomorrow morning. Hoping that goes well. Oh, and started using my inversion boots for upside down sit-ups again. Totally works the upper abs and stuff.

Hey, go figure, it's winter. Thought the snow would have made it difficult or impossible to get out to Tracy's last night, but that wasn't the case at all. Probably because it was Martin Luther King Day, so less cars, and I didn't leave until 6:15 or so. But about 45 minutes, as usual, to get out there. I was smart enough to bring clothes though, so instead of driving back in then out last night and tonight, I just hopped on a train this morning, and will hop on one back out tonight. Super easy. There even was a nice little stand selling coffee and muffins and stuff at the Orland Park 153rd stop. Watched How I Met Your Mother and The Office last night off the DVR. Tracy had bought some pierogi, which were awesome. Much better than the last ones I had. Actual flavor. Tonight we're supposed to get some crab at Joe's Crab Shack. Looking forward to that. Got some rooms blocked out for the wedding, and a room found for the rehearsal dinner. Still looking for a florist.

Friday night on the couch. Lisa and Ryan didn't end up coming in, and Tracy and I were pretty tired, so just sleeping. Saturday visited with my parents for a little bit before heading out to Minooka for Ryan's birthday party/get together with some south siders. Played some Celebrities, fun as always. Stayed out at Tracy's cause on Sunday, after church, went to Cebu with both sets of parents, to discuss rehearsal dinner plans. That went well, and we've found someone to cater. Watched the Bears squeak out a win, did some quick shopping after realizing the ring place wasn't open on Sundays, and then ended up heading over to Espy and Jesse's to hang out with Lisa and Ryan some more. Ended up watching Snatch which was pretty good, over pizza. Biggest news was finding out about Jesse's biggest loser bet amongst his coworkers, and the Master Cleanse detox/diet program. I know it doesn't sound healthy, but at the same time, it sounds intriguing. I'm planning on trying it next week. So that should be, well, interesting. Except that I'm actually feeling a little sick right now, like real sick, not the fake sick I keep mentioning over and over again. This one might feel like a head cold. But again, we'll see.

Appetizers at Zocalo were guacamole and a Mexican carpaccio and a margarita. Good stuff. It's nice having small meals like that instead of a huge one later. Dance class was fun, again. It really is a pretty good class. Definitely enjoying it. Learned more of the Rumba. I like that one. Lots of good spin action going on. Lots of good latin spin action, some whipping around of the ladies. Good times. Foxtrot next week. Fun stuff. Really fun. My ghetto HD setup is more annoying than working. I did realize if I got a decent antenna, and after I get my Apple TV, I can set up a machine with my Eye TV 500 to record and auto transcode TV shows for use on the Apple TV. Which means I won't have to get cable ever again. Unless I want to watch Entourage. Interesting. Very interesting. Lisa and Ryan are in town this weekend, actually right this minute. Supposed to go dancing tonight at Club 720, lunch out in Minooka at Lisa's mom's place. Probably staying out at Tracy's, then lunch at Cebu with the parents, both sets, for some rehearsal dinner scouting. Also, got proofs for invites from Tag & Company, provided some feedback and comments. So, as always, making progress. Something like 120 days left.

Well, I'm back to HD. Sort of. A while back I picked up my old OTA HDTV Reciever from Akira, and finally yesterday picked up the old Square Shooter Antenna from Bjorn. Which means I'm back to watching HD, but having to move the antenna when I change the channel, unless I figure out the magical antenna placement to get it to work for all channels. No DVR still. But at least it's HD. That's something, right? Wanted to do some modding on Tracy's RIZR last night, but didn't have one of those USB to mini USB A/B, not sure what kind of plug, cables. Apparently there's a huge community for modding of Motorola phones. Basically, the only thing she needs is the calendar to start on Sunday instead of Monday. A setting I have on my cell phone, but not on hers. I would have wanted to do this Looptopia thing, but bad timing, it happens the night before my wedding. So that's probably a bad idea. More dance class tonight, learning some more of the rumba tonight. Should be fun as usual. We're meeting at Zocalo before hand.

So, do I get one? Do I wait? Of course I wait. And of course I'm talking about the iPhone. As of now, I'll be getting one, but not until November, when Tracy's contract is up with Cingular, and we can reup as a married couple, you know with all the good things that provides. But June seems like it's gonna be a big month for Apple. Good things for Apple stock as well, as it keeps going up, instead of the traditional drop off after Macworld keynotes. Surprising, and pleasantly so. The 100 or so I bought in December 2003 for $10.50 a pop is approaching 800% increase in value. That's awesome. Almost makes up for the Palm, Sony, and Krispy Kreme debacles. The Apple TV order went in yesterday. That should be a good birthday present to myself.

So, got home from work, walked over to the bullitin board by the elevators, and there's a cable update notice posted. Awesome. Some guys are there talking about it. Guess what? That's right, the condo association has decided that our new provider, Inncom Cable, is in breach of contract, failing to live up to their part of the bargain, not providing quality service. So now what? We're getting a new provider, which they haven't figured out yet. Awesome. It would be really really funny if it ended up being RCN. But I'm hoping that it'll be Comcast, because I read today how Comcast is rolling out Tivo on their DVR boxes. That, would be awesome. But then again, maybe it's just another provider using DISH Network. Who knows. But it's been since September since I've had HD, DVR, or digital cable. And I would have gone for the full package, every single HD channel available. But no. Maybe the next provider. Sweet. Anyway, the TV's off, so I'm watching the iPhone introduction. Wish I could have been there. Must have been surreal to be in that audience. And yes, I want one.

First off, condolences to Sarah, who has to deal with Russell after that shellacking Florida laid down on the Buckeyes. Seriously, even when not watching in HD, that was just inspiring. Someone came to play, and someone else didn't. I know no one wants to blame the 51 days between games for OSU, but I do. Seriously? 51 days? Almost 2 months? How much did Florida get? 30 days? Does 3 weeks really make that much of a difference? I'd say yes. Seriously, 7 weeks without playing a game. I don't understand how anyone could be game ready, never mind championship game ready after that long off. They should have played their own playoff series in the meantime. And yes, this is me talking sports. So besides watching bits and pieces of that last night over a Coke and Tombstone, I did 6 loads of laundry, since the laundry room was surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, empty. And, of course, the big news for today is the Macworld San Francisco 2007 Keynote. That starts at 11am CST. Should be interesting.

Friday night headed up on the Metra to RWIP for some BBQ at Smoque. Because of the recent review, it was packed, so we got carry-out, or take-away, instead. Awesome stuff, but they got slammed, being only open for 3 weeks, favorable online review, and they run out of fries at 8pm. Worth it though. Really good. Also Bryan popped in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, so I finally got to see that. Good stuff. Saturday headed out to Bolingbrook Golf Club for an event planning meeting, which went well. We also checked out a couple hotels afterwards. We made it back in time for dinner with the gang at Kuma's Corner, which is the new Darwin's. Really good stuff there, too. Too bad it's not walking distance to anybody's place. Good to see Mina and Carl too. Sunday, finally started registering at Macy's. That was fun. But surprisingly a lot of work. Next up, Crate & Barrel and Williams-Sonoma. Tracy had a craving for Indian food, so I found a delivery place on GrubHub, forgot the name, but it was alright.

Dance class was fun last night. Learned more Waltz. Good stuff. Small class, better instruction. Actually got some frame instruction. Only in the 9th week of class. Finally. Got some grub before hand at the Green Door Tavern just down the street. Then after we got home, Tracy and I worked on invitation wording. I'm sending out the order today, should get proofs next week. Headed out to RWIP tonight for some chilling and dinner at Smoque, some BBQ place up there. Tomorrow meeting with the event planner at the Bolingbrook Golf Club, then probably getting wedding bands, and dinner with Mina and Carl and the gang that night. Sunday starting to register, probably at Macy's. So yeah, lots planned. Hopefully it all gets done, and we make more progress toward the big day. Something like 128 days left.

More of the same last night. Kind of getting repetitive. I'm sure things will pick up eventually. Watched a couple more episodes of Eureka. Had some more food cooked by Tracy before she left for work yesterday. That's always nice. Did some dishes, finished off VI and moved on to VII. Tonight starting up Dancing for Every Occasion II. It's an odd time, 8pm. I think it's too early to try and get a full dinner before hand, and by the time we get out at 9pm it's too late to eat a full dinner afterwards, so I'm not sure what we'll be doing. Maybe some tapas, some hors d'oeuvres, somewhere. Not too filling cause we want to be light on our feet. Invitation ordering needs to happen today or tomorrow. Tomorrow night should be headed up to check out Smoque, a new BBQ place up by RWIP.

Married life can't be all bad, can it? Came home from work yesterday to a nice home cooked meal made by my fianc´e; Korean BBQ beef, rice, kim chee, seaweed salad, peas in a sour cream/white wine sauce. Good stuff. More couch time, and while the TV was on, most of the time was spent going through wedding stuff. I tried to get more info into Address Book and iCal, setting reminders for payment dates and meeting setups. Still, 129 days or so and counting. Little over 4 months. Yes, it's starting to stress me out a little bit. Anyway, I'm still surprised a little at the lack of traffic in the mornings. I figured we'd be back up to rush hour going down Lake Shore, but that hasn't been the case yet. Probably be back to usual next week. Oh, and on book VI of the Wild Cards series, soon to be moving on, and I wonder what my limit's gonna be this time, or if I'll make it all the way to XI or XII, whatever the last one was. Might watch some more Eureka tonight.

As planned, just couch time on Friday night. Actually, don't remember too much from Friday night. I think Tracy made dinner, or we had leftovers more likely. Then TV until early bedtime cause she had to work the weekend. Saturday went running again, exercising, until a noon shower with a step out for a gyro special while watching Veronica Mars. Good stuff. I definitely liked how they wrapped up the first mystery in the first 9 episodes. Although how are they going to break down 2 more mysteries in the remaining 11 episodes? Sunday watched some Eureka finally, and that's some good stuff. Oh, I plugged the MacBook into my old Cinema Display, and it wasn't that good. Could definitely see some blocks going on. I'm hoping the iTV will be much better. Oh, Tracy also got her mitts on a couple Bears tickets for Sunday night, so instead of me making her a fancy New Years Eve dinner, she took me to a Bears game. I'm getting married to the best girl ever. That was fun, even though the game was pretty horrible. Even though it didn't matter to the Bears at all, I assume ending the regular season like that doesn't feel good. Not sure if the 2 week layoff is gonna help them. Not that I really know. Also great was watching the game. Fun to see plays develop, and actually seeing the entire field, rather than the front 7. Very cool. Rang in the new year on the couch, since Tracy had been up since 5am. Monday headed out to Auntie Luz's for lunch, doing some last minute holiday shopping before hand. Did some asian grocery shopping at Mitsuwa, which is always fun. No idea some of the stuff we picked up. We dropped by RWIP to pick up Tracy's scarf from the PJ Party, and heard a bit about the casual ultimate party we missed. Ended up getting dinner at Cozy's Noodles & Rice in Wrigleyville. Good cheap stuff. But we sat next to some, I think Northwestern Students, Tracy thought high school. But some of the usual young'un banter. But then they started talking about the iPod, and why can't other companies do the same thing. I wanted to chime in, but I just continued eavesdropping. On the way home I told Tracy about it, and she also had no idea someone's trying to do the iPod. At which point I laughed, because Microsoft is obviously flopping with the Zune. Seriously. College kids had no idea. Mid twenty something professional with spendable income, no idea. And that makes me laugh. Microsoft is definitely doing something wrong.