Wow, that works on a bunch of different levels. So my attempt at getting to the 10 year high school reunion was, admittedly, pretty weak, but I did show up. Drove out last night, showed up at the game around 8:15pm, stayed till about 8:40 or so, didn't seen anyone I knew or remembered, so we left and got some food from the Jailhouse Restaurant on The Square before jetting back into the city. Oh well, maybe the official reunion, if it happens, I could be on time for, or actually have a phone number on me of someone who might be there. Saturday, woke up with Tracy who's working the weekend, and stayed up to watch TV and try and fix Oxygen. All the repeated resets and hard power downs didn't do good stuff, so the disk had some serious volume errors. I still don't know what might be wrong with the machine itself. Kernel was loading, but choking at some point, but I haven't tried a boot CD yet, but there's some other things I'd be willing to try. I'm just hoping I can get pictures and music off it. And I'll start serious backup methods. At least I've got an off site email backup with gmail.

So I think Oxygen is down for the count. Or at least down enough that I don't want to bother with trying to figure out a way around it. I think there's definitely something wrong with the USB ports on the motherboard, which makes me think the motherboard might be on it's last legs. So instead of continuing to use it, expecting a failure, I'm just gonna retire it. Which means, no more EyeTV recording, well, editing, which means no recording. And I already missed the first episode of Veronica Mars this season, so that might be a lost cause as well. Which got me thinking that I might not try to even bother watching Lost and Alias and Veronica Mars because of the serialized nature of those shows and the failures of technology to record them for future viewing. Which is sad, since they are some of the best looking shows in HD. I think I successfully recovered the hard drive, which is good, and got my iPhoto library copied over. I'd like to get my iTunes library too, but not as important. Also, not sure if I'm going to stick with just Aluminum or look into getting a Mac mini. So on top of that, RCN's programming guide wasn't being downloaded yesterday, so I couldn't see what was on, and returned to just flipping through channels. Which is how I came across Shall We Dance, because it was filmed in Chicago and there was a scene on the El and I just had to watch after that. Good news is that the guide data seemed to be populating this morning, at least channel names and time lengths of shows. We'll see. Almost makes me want to go back to watching DVDs.

At least the programming guide is back from RCN. That's something to be happy about. Apple Remote Desktop arrived yesterday as well. Which means troubleshooting for my family will be a whole lot easier. Otherwise, watching a lot of TV. Hard not to. So easy. And it's right there. Making vacation plans for November. Looks like Panama City. Should be fun. Finally going to Darwin's tonight, catching up with Katie Kelly. Possible Serenity viewing either tonight or Thursday, some baking on Friday, a visit to a pumpkin farm on Saturday, some house lounging on Sunday due to the Chicago Marathon. Also I haven't really been filling out the Memex lately. Getting lazy.

I really like Darwin's. I also seem to like Turbodog. Yum. Was there last night for 3 1/2 hours. Good time. Seriously. I really like that place. Too bad it's across town. Too bad there isn't something like it in my hood. I've sort of started working on a table-less layout of this site, and making sure it validates. Would be nice to roll that out at some point, along with upgrading the Gallery. Put that on my plate. Headed out to maybe have the last grill session of the season out at Tracy's. It's been really hot lately. Kind of annoying. I guess nothing exciting happening. Running out of things to write about. Quick shout out to Whitney who's headed to UPA Club Championships with Mischief, Congrats. Funny, played against Mischief once upon a time back with Kaze. Oh, those were the days. I also started reading RSD again, for whatever reason. Some of it's still the same old same old. Some things just don't change.

Had a nice family dinner last night, with Tracy's parents, not mine. Steak, sweet potatoes, some acorn squash (which wasn't made all that well, need to figure out something there), some mango, cucumber salad, a refreshing smoothie by her mom, and some caramel apples. Pretty good. Nice and quiet. Got to sit outside for a bit, curled up in a blanket, on a park bench. Nice and quiet. Relaxing. CLR is pretty cool, finally cleaned out the shower head that was spraying all over the place. Headed over to Darwin's, again, tonight before a viewing of Serenity. Reading bits and pieces about Lost makes me want to watch, but I'd be so lost, ha, but I would be.

Just drank beer at Darwin's, and didn't end up at a movie. Good though, needed to sleep. My glasses broke last night, the other temple. I had to look up what that part of the frame was called. That means both temples have broken now, and are held together by Super Glue. Feels like October, wondering if there's going to be an October Surprise. I like the much cooler weather. I'm looking forward to hot chocolate with whip cream and marshmallows. I'm looking forward to knit caps, cuddling on couches under blankets with the howling wind and a good movie on. I'm looking forward to say, probably the next 3 weeks or so before it becomes unbearably cold. Headed out to a pumpkin farm tomorrow with Tracy, should be fun. Staying in on Sunday because of the Chicago Marathon.

Pretty lazy weekend. No idea what I did Friday night. Probably just watched TV. Saturday headed out to Bengtson's Pumpkin Farm to try and find a pumpkin to carve for Tracy. Found a nice 23 lb'er. Also did the fun pumpkin farm stuff, watched the pig races, had some BBQ and chili, a taffy apple. Good, wholesome fun. Did some shopping at Orland Square as well. Watched the asparagus battle of Iron Chef America, which gave me cravings for asparagus and Kobe beef tartare. Also made me realize that I really need to go to Masaharu Morimoto's restaurant, which is in Philly. Drank a little too much Sunday morning after opening a bottle of Champagne, and proceeded to pretty much sleep the day away. We did eventually get out for dinner at Yoshi's Cafe, which did have really good Wagyu beef, still not satisfied my craving. My brother and sister-in-law is coming to town in a couple of weeks, so that's pretty cool. Apple announcement on Wednesday. Should be interesting. Also, Central Regionals was this weekend, and I've suddenly restarted taking an interest in Ultimate again, and it was odd to see that there will be no Chicago teams at the Club Championships this year. Weird. Odd. Scary even.

So I recorded and watched How I Met Your Mother again last night. Even after I recorded and watched it last week. Even after I thought it wasn't that good, and decided to watch it again. I even have it as a series recording. Why? I'm not sure. It's not that funny. Makes me miss Scrubs. When's that coming back? I randomly flipped on a movie yesterday that had that guy from 100 Girls and Rachel Leigh Cook, now a star on Las Vegas. Why is it that certain actors will always be a certain character? Like Rachel is Josie. That guy from 100 Girls is always that guy. I think Chevy Chase is always Fletch for me. But actors like Mel Gibson? A little harder to pin down to just one role. Anyway, if I see an actor I've liked in a previous role, I'll watch the movie, if at least for a little bit. I guess I'm hoping that I'll continue to like them as a different character. Anyway, updates on Oxygen, well, the hard drive anyway: I think I'm going to have to a reinstall to get it work again as a system disc, but I think I got all my music and pictures off it, so that's good. Just need to make sure I can get all my Documents off as well.

Tracy got an iPod nano (White 4GB) yesterday. Sweet little bugger. It's tiny. And great. I started ripping some of her music to put on it, which means I'm getting even more music. Also managed to sync up some pictures too, and the photo capability of the nano is incredible. Very nice. And so tiny. So tempting. I'm happy that there weren't any problems, and it works and the screen didn't crack and it didn't have to be reset and it came charged. Just a great little product. Of course, Apple has some sort of announcement today, 12pm CST, so who knows what I'm gonna buy next from them. The only problem for me is how I'm going to find out what the event is about. I used IRC for a couple MacWorlds, but it hasn't been available recently. Most of the usual websites are gonna get slammed, as usual, so it'd be nice to have something that not a lot of people know about. And I'm going out to lunch with co-workers, so I won't even be able to see it real-time. Anyway, headed to Darwin's tonight, Sally's birthday. And my take on One More Thing (October 12, 2005).

Hung out with some Mr. Briefcaseers last night at Darwin's. I also got to try out their WiFi access, which works well. Pretty sweet, drinking beer, web surfing. Not a bad way to spend an evening, well, the early evening. Finally made the BR brothers watch The Tao of Pong. Finally. And then I took it back. And now it's the day after the Apple video iPod announcement, and well, I'm still intrigued by it. But more so I'm gonna try and get stuff onto my cell phone instead. And wait for the widescreen version that's going to come out eventually. Actually, I'm more excited about the future home theater mac using Front Row to buy and download TV shows and movies with decent resolution. Would I then get rid of cable? Probably not. Well, maybe. Is there anything that I watch that is worth seeing live? Life on demand. It's coming.

So, like Bryan and Jessica Jenkins have told me, go see Serenity. Now. Well, soon anyway. It's really really good. Really good. It's weird how much I enjoyed it. Not sure if it's completely objective though, since friends liked it so much, and how much I'm supposed to like it, and the idea behind it. I mean, a serious underdog. A cancelled tv show gets greenlit into a big budget movie? I'm rooting for it on that fact alone. But still, I liked it. You're pretty much just dropped into a story line, picking things up here and there, and I had no problems with it. I want to see more of that world, which is why I just ordered Firefly. I just bought the whole story, the worlds, the environment. It's great. Anyway, enough raving. Silver Cloud was good last night. Their marinated pork chops? Wow. And then Russell and I stopped in at Darwin's since we had the time, and got a round on the house. Probably because Russell goes more than I and was probably recognized, but still, it's been open for what, all of a month? I think I've been at least once a week since it opened. Seriously. I love that place.

Not sure if it's just that it's Monday or what, but I'm not feeling that good. Flu like soreness. Not a good sign. Hopefully it will pass. Watched a bunch of movies over the weekend, notable ones include Crime Spree and Win a Date with Tad Hamilton. Made some Swedish Meatballs, I did, not my mom. Went up to Northbrook, took a look around their Apple Store, got a crepe from Magic Pan. Really nice shopping mall. They had a Nokia little kiosk. Got to see some of their fashion oriented phones, none of which I was impressed with. Went to KK's pseudo going away party, did some Halloween costume shopping, dinner at the Tapas place around the corner. Also finally made the Cappuccino Tarts for Tracy. And every time I do some baking, I make a huge mess.

So that flu like soreness? Isolated to my right shoulder. Not sure what the deal is, but it is pretty annoying. Actually woke me up this morning. Probably not a good sign, but then again, doesn't seem like anything to get worried about. I wanted to do laundry last night, but Mondays are busy days in the laundry room. Instead I watched the usual Monday night TV, and also tuned in for Out of Practice, which I watched based on Orson Scott Card's suggestion (http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2005-09-25.shtml). Pretty good. Definitely good cast. Definitely wish I could get Cupid on DVD. I think I neglected to mention that I got a 1 GB Memory Stick Pro Duo for my phone. Got a good deal or something, but I've put some music on it, and I'll see how it works in the car on the way out to the burbs tonight. I've still got 3 library books out, well, maybe 2 weeks overdue at this point. Whoops.

Working. Crazy I know. Anyway, had a craving for prime rib so went to Fox's Restaurant & Pub out in Orland Park, where I had it before, but they were all out. That's so disappointing. Anyway, gave Tracy my old iRock FM Transmitter for use with her iPod nano. I had completely forgotten about that thing. It's gotta be 3 years old at least. Another Apple announcement today, dual core Powermacs, which look impressive, some other random stuff, and Aperture. The Powermacs seem great, with PCI-Express across the board. Stuff I was waiting for. And my old desktop just died. Interesting. And I've been waiting for something a little future proof from Apple before upgrading. And with that big Memory Stick for my cell phone, I could actually catch up on some TV if I could transcode it for the phone. Hmmmm. But now I'm thinking I want home theater computers for desktops instead. Shuttle XPC M1000 looks pretty sweet. Has composite outputs so I could use it with my tv. Now only if it was a Mac. But hooking a computer up to a HDTV, well, that's a good enough resolution for me. And then I could do something else with the Data Center. Anywho, I'm headed to Darwin's, no surprise there, for dinner with Tracy and meet up with Whitney (in town for a bit) and others for drinks. And I'm really doing laundry tomorrow. Oh, and that whole sore shoulder thing? 2 things about that.

1. Drugs are amazing. Seriously. I took some Aleve after it got really bad, and I felt fine. Seriously. From being close to worthless to being great. Drugs are amazing.
2. I'm perfectly fine today. I did wake up with a completely numb left arm (like it was still sleeping). But I'm fine now. I did have a Vitamin Water yesterday and I took my Centrum this morning. I'm guessing I was deficient.

Getting crazy busy at work. Q4. Busy time for ads. Anyway, Darwin's as usual was alright. Maybe should start shooting for Tuesdays or Thursdays instead of Wednesdays. Anyway, they've got a couple new things coming out tonight for the menu, and surprise surprise, I probably won't be there until next week at the earliest. Go figure. But it's my neighborhood bar, even though it's not my neighborhood. Got to see Bjorn and Whitney last night. Otherwise a pretty quiet night. I finally returned some overdue library books. I think I'm gonna take a little reading break, we'll see how long that lasts. Maybe more staring out the window. Laundry tonight, even if it means sitting there and waiting for machines to open up. Besides that, Al and Nicole are coming in tomorrow for a handful of days. It'll be good to see them. And they get to meet Tracy and Tracy gets to meet them. Should be good. Fun, too. Really starting to warm up to the idea of a home theater computer system. Really warming up to it. I'm just saying.

Brother's coming to town. Should be fun. Pretty much spending the weekend with the family. Hopefully will be fun for Tracy too, since I'm dragging her along. Tonight Tracy and I are hitting up Wildfire, since I tried to get the family reservations for tomorrow night, but no deal, but was able to sneak in a party of two for this evening. So consider it a scouting mission. Instead, the family's having dinner at Maggiano's Little Italy in Schaumburg. Should be good. Otherwise, gonna be a full house in Woodstock. Also should give me a chance to try out ARD, since I've been having issues with it across the internet, I'll be able to actually see if it works across the room. Besides that, I finally got laundry done. It's pretty annoying that I think someone managed to take up 6 dryers all by themselves. Seriously. You need that many? I can't wait until I have a washer/dryer in-home. Even if I can only do one load at a time, I could do a load every week. I'm just saying. I also could really use some sleep. I'm averaging around 6.5 or so for the last week. Not so good. Just seems so hard when I've got stuff on the DVR and all the Lost and Alias still on there since I haven't watched last seasons which are sitting on hard drives. One of these days, I'll have to have a Lost/Alias-fest and plow through what I have. Like that's ever going to happen.

Dinner Friday at Wildfire was pretty good. I liked the place. Nice vibe. Then visited with my brother and sister-in-law when they finally got in. Drove Nicole up to an interview at Evanston Hospital, hung out with my brother in the meantime, got caught up. Lunch with the family, then out to my Auntie Luz's place for church and dinner at Todai. Got to play with the new iPod. Screen's awesome, didn't get too much time to play with it, but it does look odd, out of proportion with such a big screen and little scroll wheel. Oh, and took a quick peek at Photo Booth, which is pretty fun. Didn't get a change to look at Front Row though. Maybe next time. Finally got ARD working, late that night, you have to allow VNC through the firewall in addition to ARD, which isn't completely intuitive. But then again, ARD is an admin product. But totally cool. I can now provide support to my parents from the comfort of my own home. Sunday went for brunch at Port Edwards then some shopping at Spring Hill Mall. And then headed back into the city the long way, stopping off to get Papa John's in Evanston and Harp to make our own Black and Tans. And then we watched the White Sox (http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com) beat the Astros (http://houston.astros.mlb.com). But Tracy has now met the rest of my family and it went great. Good times.

So I might have a slight problem when it comes to HDTV. I did find a new show on HDNet, Nothing But Trailers. HD Trailers for 30 minutes. Gotta admit that's pretty cool. Almost make any more look good enough to watch. I'm also continuing to stockpile Lost and Alias, but good news, I got last seasons for both on DVD, which means I should finally be able to watch through them, and then plow through this seasons one of these days. But yes, I watch a lot of TV. Also figured out how to set up Virtual Host Names for web development. That's a good thing to know. Also picked Desktastic for a screen writing program for use with ARD. It will allow me to draw on the screen like John Madden. This would come in handy when providing tutorials to my parents. All good things.

What's it called when you're on a bandwagon but begrudgingly? I stayed up until the end of the White Sox game last night, not because it was necessarily a good game, there was some tension involved, but I felt like I just had to watch it play itself out. I just wanted it to end, either side winning, just wanted it to end. And I'm not even a baseball fan! But I am from Chicago, so I feel obligated to pay attention. Anyway, I'll keep watching, because I'm a Chicagoan. Otherwise, Darwin's was good as usual, but I wasn't too big a fan of the Wasabi Pumpkin/Corn Dogs. Rather odd for me even. Waiting was pretty funny, not like a couple other movies from this past year. Kind of felt like one of those TBS Saturday afternoon movies.

So there's that scene in Anchorman, when someone puts the question mark on the teleprompter, and Ron, that funny guy Ron, he ends the newscast, "I'm Ron Burgandy?". That's what I feel like. White Sox? World Series Champs? Really? And yes, I did watch last night. Finally, a pitcher's duel. Like it was supposed to be. Anyway, I got a new hard drive for Aluminum, since it's now going to be my main and pretty much only machine, I need to be able to carry around everything, including music. So that's always fun, taking apart a Powerbook when I shouldn't be, but thanks to PBFixit, it's super easy. I also set up my printer off the Airport Express in the living room. Definitely turning the couch/coffee table into my new data center. I also did a bad thing and downloaded and took a peek at the hacked version of Front Row floating around. In my first run at it, looks pretty cool, but didn't mess with it too much. Also, Salling Clicker is completely awesome with the new version released that supports the K750. It's great. Other cell phone news, T-Mobile switched over voice mail systems, the most important thing being I no longer get SMS for voice mail, rather I get an indicator. It's nice.

Not a bad week. Can't remember much though. Haven't been getting a whole lot of sleep. Monday watched TV, Tuesday at Darwin's, Wednesday and Thursday out in the burbs, and Friday back to Bucktown. I guess I'm not spending that much time at home, which might mean why I'm staying up so late trying to spend time at home while I'm awake. I've started buying some DVDs again, but only TV Shows. I've started reading Mobile Suit Gundam, which I remembered from my youth, and my youth now describes when I was 14. Which was 14 years ago. Which was 1990. Wow. Anyway, White Sox rally in the Loop today. I haven't decided whether or not I'm gonna head out. Headed out to Blue Fin to catch up with AJ tonight. Maybe some drinking/hanging with the boys as well. Tomorrow headed out to some financial dinner something or other with Lisa and Ryan and Tracy at Weber Grill in Lombard before going over to their place for a Halloween party. For which I need to complete my costume, which involves some painting. Try and get to that tonight. Got nothing for Sunday planned, and hopefully that will involve a lot of sleeping.

Yup, got a cold coming on, or currently have one on. Head cold, sinuses full of mucus, that sort of thing. Waiting for it all to drain. Not so pleasant. Anyway, weekend was pretty good. Got my drink on Friday night, getting a bottle of sake at Blue Fin, fully expecting a tiny bottle like Sai Cafe, but instead get this huge wine bottle sized portion. So I almost polish the whole thing off by myself. And then I fall asleep on Bryan-Tony-Carlo's couch before heading home. Anyway, good to catch up with AJ. Saturday, painted the bottle for Tracy and my Halloween costume before heading out for some grub. No powerpoint presentations, just some conversation and some food. Then I went looking for a cheap polyester blue tie to complete my costume, but come up empty, ended up going with some kids prep navy satin shiny one. We watched Shaun of the Dead before heading over to Lisa and Ryan's dressed as: Major Nelson and Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie. Tony had a nice Fox special costume, when animals attack, Sally was a pretty authentic Wednesday, and Carlo, well, he came as an architectural movement. Lisa and Ryan did up their basement really well, did a really good job with decorations and stuff. Impressive. Tracy and I picked up some gyros on the way home for some grub, and we had a nice lazy Sunday, which was good since I was definitely not feeling so hot. Actually, we finally started watching the first season of Lost, getting about halfway through. Hopefully I can shake this head cold thingie, and soon. At least it's not the flu or something.