Plowed through another 7 movies this weekend, 3 from the DVR, 2 from the Apple TV HD rental, 1 just caught on cable, and 1 in the movie theater. Friday night tried making some peel and eat shrimp, but made it too saucy. Maybe I need to just steam the shrimp and cover it in Old Bay. Watched Carpoolers while doing exercises, and then Eli Stone and Bones with dinner. Saturday thought about doing laundry, wanted to make the blueberry loaf again for breakfast, but didn't have eggs, so went grocery shopping, and forgot to get laundry detergent. Had donuts for breakfast and frozen pizza for lunch. Watched Lucky Number Slevin which was pretty good, Gladiator which was pretty boring except for the fight scenes, and Next, clairvoyant Nicholas Cage movie, that sounds like it should have been directed by John Woo. I liked that one too. Made OpenTable reservations at Nacional 27, to help get over the sting of not getting 907 W. Roscoe (seller's lower limit and our upper limit didn't meet). Ended up buying tickets for Jumper via the iPhone while at dinner. Jumper was pretty good, but just seems like a setup to a series or a franchise or at least a sequel. Anyway, small theater at River East was full, so maybe they will get a sequel. Sunday all set to do laundry but no detergent, so went grocery shopping after mass, but by then the laundry room was pretty busy. Watched 300 (still good), Shoot 'Em Up (I really liked this one, fun), and Snakes on a Plane (which I just stumbled upon on cable, and I thought it was entertaining). Went for a walk with Tracy when she got back from work, writing down more addresses of properties, came back and made coconut chicken curry and sesame green beans for dinner. I worked on getting some more books onto the Sony Reader, like Ender's Game, Rainbow Six, Dragonlance Chronicles, and the Harry Potter series. Got a day off tomorrow, going to see the accountant, might try and see some more properties as well.

So, took the day off yesterday to head out and meet our accountant, Steve Piatek, for the first time. So that was good. Monday night Tracy made pork ginataang for dinner, I put together some tax forms and client information for the meeting on Tuesday, and watched Welcome to the Captain, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and No Reservations: Jamaica. Tracy also managed to break our ceramic honing rod. Tuesday drove out to Oakbrook, had our meeting, went to get breakfast at Moondance Diner in Westmont, then did some shopping at Oakbrook Center. Hit the strip of home stores, Z Gallerie, Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, and Crate & Barrel. Tracy needed a belt, and picked one up from American Eagle, I got to check out the MacBook Air which is amazing, and got some baking supplies at Williams-Sonoma. Got some hot chocolate from Moonstruck Chocolate Cafe before heading back into the city for a couple some more home showings, 842 W. Aldine and 3504 N. Fremont, which is the new leader of the pack. Did some grocery shopping, Tracy made turkey sloppy joes for dinner, we watched Carpoolers and The New Adventures of Old Christine, and I ordered up a replacement ceramic honing rod. Also had to order up a replacement power supply for my firewire enclosure, which died at some point in the last couple of days. So the Apple TV transcoding is on hold. Days off during the week are great, not a lot of people out shopping during the day, or in restaurants. It's just nice and quiet. Wish I could do it more often.

Seems quiet around the city, at least during my commutes. Not so much traffic, either way. Seems odd. Last night Tracy made turkey paninis for dinner, while I made some pumpkin muffins and a loaf with the leftover batter, with our new muffin and loaf pans from Williams-Sonoma. Watched the season finale of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, or the supposed season finale, since it's the 9th of 9 filmed episodes for a 13 episode season that was completed before the the writers' strike. I like it, it's grown on me, and I want to know what happens. I am interested to see how the new trilogy of movies that are supposedly lined up factor this TV series into the equation. Dinner with the Russells, extended, at Chicago Brauhaus tonight. Headed out on Friday to Toronto with my family, extended, to visit my Auntie Mindy before she goes home to the Philippines next week. Driving, so that should be long. And just me, cause Tracy's working this weekend. So short week, but lots going on.

So left early on Friday morning, like 5am. Took the first shift driving out of Chicago, ended up somewhere in Michigan at a Denny's for breakfast and switching drivers. Finished up Neuromancer and started Ender's Game. Stopped for lunch at a Wendy's somewhere in Canada. Decided I needed to try Tim Horton's at some point before heading back to the States. Took over again just in time for rush hour in Toronto, which was slow going. Lots of snow falling, which really wouldn't let up until a couple hours before we left on Sunday morning. Greeted Auntie Mindy, and started eating. My mom brought a cooler and lots of food. Saturday we only ventured outside to go to FV Foods, a Filipino grocery store, and stocked up some more, and to go to mass. Otherwise, watched HGTV, finished up Ender's Game, and more eating. Then said goodbye, left my dad to hang out with his sister, and headed back home on Sunday morning. My mom took the first shift and drove us through one open lane on snow covered 4 lane expressways. We traded off a couple more times before I took us into Chicago. Tracy and I went out to dinner at Angelina Ristorante after she came home, then a fairly early bedtime. And now I've got a full week of work ahead of me. Not much going on this week.

Traffic seemed light yesterday, at least from my seat on the bus. Started reading Dragons of Autumn Twilight again. Hard to read that without thinking of D&D character creation, class and race modifiers, alignments and all that jazz. Tracy made steak for dinner, which we shared, and some broccoli, and some leftover baked beans in the fridge. I did some exercises, watched Eli Stone. Also started looking into trying out iPhone development, not sure why, but seems to be the hip thing to do. Trying to come up with a good idea. Figured it's a good time, since Tracy needs to be study for her Indiana license, I think, just the law part anyway, so that means less TV and more computer time at the kitchen table with her. Should be getting my replacement power supply for the firewire enclosure, so I should be back to transcoding soon. And I'll be able to sync my iPhone again, which I can't because all my media exists on server shares. Oh, tried to watch Unhitched pilot, but DVR decided to record Family Guy instead. So, I've got to get that in some format.

Met up with Tracy at Caribou Coffee on the way home from work where she was studying. Don't really spend any time in coffee shops, preferring home and a familiar couch or chair instead, but I can understand going to one to remove distractions. We ended up walking around a couple blocks, between Cornelia and Addison on Fremont and Reta, looking at buildings. Doesn't seem to be any more properties coming on the market that meet our criteria, so not sure what our next steps will be. We have a couple we want to check out, and we'll see what happens. Got my replacement power supply for the firewire enclosure, got it put back together and running, and the Mac mini back up and transcoding. Sweet. Didn't really watch anything on TV for once, Tracy made lime chicken over onions and red peppers for dinner, and that's pretty much it. I started uploading more email to my Gmail account. I started slacking on that.

Tracy's old coworkers are in town, so I'm on my own for dinner tonight. Not sure what I'm in the mood for, but we'll see. Something unhealthy, I'm sure. Last night did some exercises as did Tracy, started watching Children of Men, which I'll finish up tonight, and then she made dinner, a chicken and sweet potato gnocchi in a butternut squash sauce. We ended up watching New Amsterdam. And then a pretty early bedtime. I did flip through some show on hot dogs, which of course meant I had to get some for lunch today, which I did. Yum. Also, some movement on the real estate front, as we might start up negotiations for 907 W. Roscoe again. Something Tracy and I need to talk about. What else, weather's taken a turn for the better, and I'm sure that it'll end up snowing once more before spring sprints by and leaves us in summer. It's right around the corner. And that means I should start biking again. And actually the thought crossed my mind to go out for a run. Outside. Oh, and seeing the trailers for Speed Racer? I want to see that movie. Looks like a visual feast.

Finished up Children of Men last night, as expected. Also, transcoding of Alias finished up, and I started on The Unit. I might do some for Tracy next, maybe some Arrested Development, or some Sex and the City. Or I'll just whip through Firefly and Serenity. Either way, lots to do, and definitely might run out of disk space. All 5 seasons of Alias take up roughly 75 GB of space. That's 4 seasons of 22 episodes, and 1 season of 17, for a grand total of 105 episodes, roughly 42 minutes each, roughly 73.5 hours worth of video. Wow. Had some leftovers and some frozen pizza for dinner last night. Headed out to the Argao's tonight on the Metra, Gabe and Sania have their baby shower tomorrow. Oh, and looks like we might be putting in another offer on 907 W. Roscoe, with the seller coming down a bit, and paying some closing costs to help shorten the distance between our max buying price and the sellers min selling price. We'll see what happens there.

Taking the Metra out to Orland Park is much nicer after Daylight Savings Time; I could actually see things out the window. Like a parking lot so forgotten that trees have grown, breaking through the cement. Did some wandering around Orland Square after I got picked up by Tracy, then headed to her parents house to wait for Gabe and Sania and Mike to come with dinner, which finally ended up happening around 10:30ish. Saturday went and got my eyes checked out, they're A-OK, drove there and back via 355, which rocks. Got to take photos of the Gabe and Sania's baby shower with Gabe's digital SLR (a Canon Rebel), which rocked. Of course when I got home later that night I started looking for DSLR, especially the Sony alpha series. So put that on my Wants list. Watched my first movie in 1080p via a Sony Playstation 3 and a Bravia LCD TV, which was impressive. Had some corned beef for dinner, watched The Bourne Ultimatum. Sunday headed down to Phoenix Restaurant for dim sum with the Argaos and the Tongs, checked out a condo building under construction in Chinatown, a little shopping, then headed up and walked around Roscoe Village. Went to 2 open houses of single family homes, both out of our price range. One we couldn't get to the master bedroom because we were defeated by a child-proof gate, and the other was a $2.4 million dollar home, which was awesome. But who has an open house for a home like that? Anyway, we're gonna try and spend a little more time in that neighborhood, maybe hitting up some restaurants, maybe some Finer Things Club action. Leftovers for dinner, and we ended up watching TMNT and Anthony Bourdain: Into the Fire, which was pretty sweet. I still don't know why Kitchen Confidential got canceled. Finished up transcoding The Unit, and will start Firefly probably tonight. Of course, have to redo all the movies as well, but I'll just stick with TV for now.

So, with the WGA strike passing out of memory, there's lots of TV Shows on the DVR now. Although I can't seem to record Unhitched, only 1 of 3 successfully saved, the other 2 didn't, one recorded Family Guy instead and the other had a recording error. Ugh. Looking forward to Miss Guided, as I've read it's similar in humor to Arrested Development. Started transcoding Firefly, and just tacked on Serenity as episode 14. Tracy made corned beef hash for dinner last night, I put eggs on mine, and toast. We watched The New Adventures of Old Christine and Eli Stone. I also did some exercises. I haven't been filing up the humidifier, since it was raining last night, but I did wake up congested, so I'm thinking I should keep using the humidifier until I know the building's turned off their heat. Also, I think it's Spring Break, because it doesn't seem as busy commuting or in the Loop. I've also started using hellotxt to update both my Facebook and twitter statuses at the same time. Just for fun.

Pretty quiet and standard evening last night. Watched Jamie at Home and New Amsterdam. Tracy made a pork stir fry for dinner. She studied some more, I working on more transcoding, now doing season 3 of NewsRadio for Tracy. Finished up Firefly, and started adding them to iTunes. I did end up using more gift certificates at the iTunes Store for Mad Men and It Happened One Night/It Never Happened At All by John Wesley Harding. Did some dishes. That's about it. Might have some movement on the real estate front, just need some more discussion. I do get to make dinner tonight though, since Tracy needs to study more for the Indiana Boards which she's taking tomorrow. I'm going for an old standby, mushroom stuffed chicken breasts, roasted tomatoes, maybe some green beans for a veggie. So that's exciting. Also since Tracy's studying, that means no TV tonight. Also realized that we need more light in our dining room/living room.

Dinner was good last night, and I still can cook. Mushroom stuffed chicken breasts are one of my few, if not only dish, I can cook without a recipe. Only got to watch How I Met Your Mother with dinner. Otherwise, spent some time adding information to the Alias, Firefly, and The Unit episodes I have in iTunes. Doing that made me realize that I'm missing the first episode of Firefly and one episode of Alias Season 3. I think in my script I'm not correctly checking minimum run time of DVD chapters when checking which ones to transcode. Ideally, you only want the episodes to transcode, not any featurettes which are usually much shorter than episodes. But I probably don't handle episodes over an hour well. Hmm, I'll have to look into that. I'm also having issues with NewsRadio, as some episodes are ballooning in size, and Handbrake seems to crash more than usual. So I may end up just doing those manually. I did get to ride in to work this morning with Tracy, and we got to have lunch together at One North Kitchen and Bar.

So we put another offer down on 907 W. Roscoe last night, and while we were signing it at Caribou Coffee, Adam heard from Rick (Seller's Agent) that someone else was putting a bid in. We went ahead and put ours in anyway. And we did not get it. So, moving on. I did get to leave work early yesterday to take care of that, so that was a bonus. Tracy eventually made dinner, after her chiro appointment (with massage). She had a craving for pesto. Watched Kickin It Old Skool while she was away, then Miss/Guided and The Big Bang Theory with and after dinner. Made Jell-O for Tracy. She thinks it's an Easter food, and I disagree. I don't automatically think of Jell-O during any particular holiday season. Also, it's Easter this weekend. Tracy's working, so I don't have a car to drive out to Woodstock, and the weather's not so good, even though it's Spring, so my parents aren't coming in to the city, so that means a nice quiet Easter sunday. And, since Tracy's working, I'll be able to watch a bunch of movies this weekend. Although I don't really have a whole lot on the DVR, just Hot Fuzz.

Friday night, last Lenten Friday, ordered some sushi and stuff from Chen's, watched Eli Stone. Pretty low key. Saturday started 5 loads of laundry when Tracy went off to work. Watched Hot Fuzz], which I liked, and Shooter, which was OK. Made myself SPAMsilog for lunch, and Tracy made turkey chili for lunch. Watched New Amsterdam with dinner. Sunday cleaned up a bit before taking the bus to the train out to Woodstock for my mom's Easter Lunch, and then got a ride from my Ate Joy back to the train station, then the bus until I got home. Ended up spent more time traveling than actually at home in Woodstock. But good nonetheless. Made it home about 5 minutes before Tracy walked in the door. Had some leftovers for dinner, watched Keeping the Faith, Unhitched, The New Adventures of Old Christine, and Miss/Guided. Also have been keeping track of Scandal at Paganello this year, and congrats to them, as long as the results reporting on the website is official, but Akira finally managed to bring home the umbrella, on his 9th try. That's awesome. Not completely sure of the roster, but Akira's the only original member at 9 times, Bjorn I think comes in 2nd at 8 times going. I was there when it started, and it's awesome to see something I was a part of in the beginning, finally reach the top, even if I'm 5 years removed. Congrats to them.

Nothing exciting going on. Did my exercises last night. Leftovers for dinner. Watched New Amsterdam and How I Met Your Mother. Working on ripping Las Vegas (tv show) for transcoding to Apple TV. Trying to figure out which episode I'm missing for Alias Season 3 and which episodes are dupes in Season 2. Also, the issue I had with transcoding NewsRadio was because the first title plays all episodes on the disc, so I was transcoding a 3 hours of all episodes plus each individual episode. Oh, I have decided to start using Flickr again, instead of Gallery. Upgraded to a pro account, got FlickrExport, uploaded some older Paganello photos. Still have to figure out how to integrate it well with Daily Dose. Being back on flickr means I can email photos directly to my gallery, which means I am more likely to post photos again. Even better would be when an iPhone Flickr client comes out, whenever that happens. Also think I've finally figured out my problems uploading local archived email to my Google Apps IMAP account: take the account offline in Mail.app, copy the messages over, then bring the account back online. Seems to work, but I started it when I left this morning, so I'll know more when I get back. But my %used keeps going up on Gmail, now at 2630 MB (40%) of my 6551 MB. When it's all said and done, I'll have online email archives available back to June 1997. Awesome.

Still waiting on some sort of news/writeup on the Scandal Paganello win. I will have to try out Blockstack.tv coverage tonight though, as they actually cover it. However, people are probably just getting back into town today, so maybe they'll be some writeups in the next couple of days. Finished up Dragons of Winter Night on the bus home last night, started up Dragons of Spring Dawning. No idea if I'll keep up with the Dragonlance reading with Legends, or just give up and start riding my bike to work again. That'll happen eventually. Leftovers for dinner last night. Watched New Amsterdam, The Big Bang Theory (which doesn't seem quite as funny anymore, but nice to have Rent play a part), and some Real Estate shows. Almost done ripping Las Vegas (tv show), which means I can start transcoding them soon, all 4 seasons. The trick to upload large quantities of email to Google Apps seems to work OK, but it chokes on some random emails. Probably did 16K yesterday, another 12K today. And I still have lots more to do. Also got a snail mail flyer for Toast of the Town, a wine tasting at the Field Museum on May 1, 7-10pm. Already bought our tickets, should be fun. A little expensive, but always cool to drink wine while walking around a museum. Oh, and we'll be participating in Earth Hour on Saturday, March 29, at 8pm. See Earth Hour Chicago for more details.

Did a quick grocery shopping on the way home from work yesterday and only picked up one impulse buy: popsicles. Just had a craving. Gotta satisfy it. Otherwise, did some exercises, watched Top Chef, I think for the first time, mainly because it was set in Chicago this season. I like it better than Hell's Kitchen, at least after 1 episode. Tracy made chicken adobo for dinner, which I had leftovers for lunch. Otherwise, watched some more real estate shows. Speaking of which, we're checking out a couple other places tonight with Adam, one around the corner from Sai Cafe at 2041 N. Bissel and another way up there in Ravenswood/Lincoln Square at 4842 N. Damen. Gonna keep looking. Read a pretty good article on real estate in the neighborhoods we're looking in. Oh, and it snowed, is snowing, will continue to snow. Awesome. Watched the blockstack.tv coverage of Paganello, and there wasn't enough Scandal to satisfy me. Weather did look pretty bad though.

Ok, so passing on the places we looked at yesterday. Eh. We do have an open house at 3519 N. Fremont to go to on Sunday, from 11am-1pm. So hopefully that one we'll like. The only issue with the Fremont ones is the proximity to Wrigley Field, or whatever they're gonna call it. Ended up having dinner in Roscoe Village, at Restaurant El Tinajon, a cute little Guatemalan place. Not bad. Gotta play the lottery tonight, Mega Millions is up to 113 million. That would broaden the real estate search a bit. Lisa and Ryan are in town this weekend, and Tracy and I get to play chauffeur and pick up Lisa from O'Hare tonight. Tracy had to find someplace for a bunch of us to go tomorrow night, and eventually came down to Mystic Celt, over on Southport. Should be good. Hopefully not too busy. Other than that, got a haircut tomorrow morning. Might go out and get preapproval for a loan, someplace local this time.

Out and about for a good part of the weekend. Friday night did some exercises, Tracy made some roast chicken for dinner, we watched Eli Stone before picking up Lisa from the airport and bringing her down to the Hilton Chicago to meet up with Ryan and have a couple drinks at the Lakeside Green Lounge. Saturday got a haircut, then we wandered down to Macy's to spend the giftcard that was expiring. It was actually a little hard being forced to spend money like that, looking for things to buy. After a short nap at home, we met up with Jespy, Lisa, and Missy at Coobah for dinner, before heading over to Smart Bar where Ryan and eventually Tony and Carlo joined us as well for drinks and dancing. Ended up at Pick Me Up Cafe for a late night snack, before walking home. I tried to keep up with hellotxt and Flickr. Sunday, wandered about checking out open houses: 3519 N. Fremont (same old same old, but bad kitchen peninsula), 3518 N. Reta (older duplex up, out of price range), 550 W. Wellington 7W (super fancy well decorated out of price range), and 717 W. Briar Pl. (loftish needs some work). Had lunch at The Bagel, Tracy got some cheese from Pastoral, and I got another nap in. Worked some more with Mint.com. Tracy made a roasted lamb shank for dinner with some beans. Oh, and like Saturday night, completely spaced on Earth Hour. We didn't have our lights on, but at the same time, had no idea that the lights went off. Oh well.