Back in Chi-Town, or more specifically, E-Town. Sarasota was a good time, with Kaze going 3-4 to hold seed, which is a little sad. Weather was sunny, hot, and windy. Condos were great, food was questionably, with the best meal being Papa John's on one night, I forget which one. A couple afternoons of Beer Beach Schtick. Beach time, Ocean Time, dancing, the Daiquiri Deck, flying knee of death. A very good time. Hard to believe the season's finally over. Crazy.

I had to get some random things from Tom Thumb, a craft store here in Evanston today. I had forgotten how cool craft and hobby stores are. They've got these little plastic things, like struts, like you can build your own building out of little plastic beams and such. And of course all the regular cool stuff like fake trees and shrubbery for model trains, and then all the paint, and pipe cleaners, and paper, face paint and latex makeup, it looks like so much fun. But I got my fruit preserving stuff (for the 13th chumpionship trophy) and had to leave. Finished up book IX of the WildCards, have a couple left to go, and then maybe Ludlum's new stuff, or his old stuff too. Maybe some throwback to some Dale Brown goodness, Day of the Cheetah, or Flight of the Old Dog, I'm not so sure. I don't know when I'll get around to seeing Matrix: Revolutions. I think I'm going to LA for Christmas though.

Went and saw Matrix:Revolutions last night. Bad seats, but what can you do one day post release. But I liked it, aside from the handful of really bad, really funny, laugh out loud parts that I've come to expect from any major motion picture. I did. I'll elaborate in the more (). Dinner with the BR's, Bryan and Remy at Big Bowl on Ohio. Good dinner, funny dinner. Them guys and gal are funny. Did I mention that it's cold out? Now that the season's over I've stopped hydrating. Odd, I think. First Friday at the MCA tonight, dinner with the 'rents tomorrow night, maybe some climbing tomorrow in the burbs as well. I feel like I have something planned for Sunday, but I'm forgetting all about it. So I like Matrix:Revolutions. Here's the story as I perceived it. You've got these people, who suddenly come to terms that they have no choice, they are just pawns, they think that what they do, who they are actually means something, but in reality they're just powering the energizer bunny. It doesn't matter what they do. Then they want to do something about it. They want to change the world, free the people, awaken the batteries, because the truth will set them free. But then Neo finds out that even that is scripted, is planned, the revolution itself was destined. How do you come to terms with that? And in the end, it didn't matter. After a couple fights, after some flash bangs, we're left with, what? Exactly what we started with, mostly. People outside the Matrix. People inside the matrix. The machines still in control mostly. A burned sky. And guess what, it was all scripted. Things start over. Again. There will be another war, another one, another revolution, it might be different, the means might change, but the end, well, it's just the same as the beginning. You get it? Feel the flow? It's all circular. It all doesn't matter. Except for those 6 hours, for those three movies, it did matter to us. The audience. We kept waiting for it to mean something. Hell, it's just 3 movies. It's just a story. And I walked away entertained. I've done it before, I'll do it again, way more than 6 times. So yeah, I liked it and saw it as a fitting end to the Matrix story. I hope they revisit it in 10 years, retell the same story, different details, but it's the same story. It'd be entertaining then too.

With no ultimate, I still managed a fairly full weekend. Friday night was a night out with Leah. We met up with Carlo and Remy at the MCA for First Friday, after we had dinner with Leah's roommate Elisa and her friend Anne. Afterwards we went to Club 720, to meet up with Mandy and gang. Club 720, rest in peace, was a great place to go dancing. It was 4 floors, alternating salsa and house. A lot of fun, except that it's gone now. Saturday we went to dinner with my parents at Arun's. Really good Thai, but not quite the "experience" meal that I was expecting. I wasted Saturday away by watching TV and finally moving my desk around in the data center. Sunday Leah and I watched 7 episodes of the first season of Alias. It looks really good on DVD. We also managed to do laundry. I also managed to remove all the old cat 5 cabling. I'm headed out to Schaumberg tonight to help my Uncle Lito with his new TV. Not a whole lot planned out beyond that.

I got to hook up my uncle's new AV setup. Pretty sweet, all Sony, so I love it of course, with one of those LCD projector TV units. Very nice, very slim. I'd love to see a quality HD feed going through it. I also managed to fix Leah's door last night as well. Dremel Tools kick ass.

So I've got Macs at home running 10.3 and I use a WinXP box at work. You know what's annoying? Keyboard shortcuts. Simple stuff is usually just a modifier key off, but still, the homogeneous computing experience isn't there for me. Watched some more Alias last night. There's all sorts of things I've missed, that make me wonder about the current season. I really hope they haven't just dropped the Rimbaldi stuff. That stuff was cool. But I'm 2 episodes behind in the current season. Going to start reading the Harry Potter books again.

Going to see Elf tonight, and dinner at the Golden Nugget. Dinner at Shiroi Hana last night was alright, but it's no Sai. Sony released a new laptop in Japan yesterday, the X505, for executives. It's pretty sweet. See Kemplar, Dynamism, iCube, Gizmodo, or direct from Sony.jp. It's cold in Chicago, finally. The weather, acting like it's November. Headed home to Woodstock tomorrow, work on Bjorn's apartment network on Saturday, and play some ultimate on Sunday.

Weekend was way too busy for what it should have been. Woodstock was good, as was the crazy Filipino choir feeding that my mom caters on Fridays. My parents new Direcway 2-way Satellite Broadband Internet is pretty sweet, but still slower than a nice cable or DSL, but way faster than dial-up. Upgraded the old Cube to 10.3. Tried putting linux on Bjorn's old server, but SCSI boggles my mind, so I've got it in house to work on at my leisure. Sunday got to play some ultimate against the UofC boys. Tiring. Slow. And now, sore. Go figure, 2 weeks post Nationals. Got to eat some ice cream, found some green tea ice cream at Jewel that I've yet to try out. Bryan made Italian soup and homemade pizza for some friends, watched a bit of Football. Managed to sneak in a visit with Leah and her 1/2 college roommate reunion. Also got to watch 12 Monkeys. I'd forgotten how good that movie is, and how intelligently they deal with time travelers. Hopefully, life quiets down a bit. Hopefully.

Tuesday night Leah made us dinner, Lentil Soup, quite good. Wednesday night I made us another 30 minute meal, poached halibut, snow peas, and rice. I also butter sauted some scallops. Quite good as well. We started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Store Monday night, and got in a couple more Alias episodes last night. Quentin's guest spot on the Box I and II was really good. I'd forgotten how good, and how funny, those episodes were. And it makes me look forward to whatever mid-season turn Alias will throw at us this January.

Friday Leah and I went to Monsoon for dinner, a hip and stylish Indian, Asian, French fusion type of place. Rather good, but the spices played havoc with my insides as the next day, spent watching Alias from the comfort of my couch, I fought a grand total of 8 hiccup sessions. But dinner at Sai was still good, as always, and a short night of dancing at BigWig capped off the evening. More Alias on Sunday, including the broadcast HD version, which doesn't have a pause or a fastforward like the DVD Season 1 does. Tuesday Leah leaves for New York, I head back to Woodstock for Thanksgiving most likely on Wednesday. I figure lots of movies in store for me in the next week or so.

Turkey Day tomorrow. Sweet. I finished up reading Spandau Diary by Greg Iles and I've moved on to Neuromancer again. Maybe I'll finally step up and get Snow Crash, it's been about 4 years since I've read that. Dinner with Karl last night at Thai Pastry, a pretty good place up on Broadway and Argyle. Headed out to Woodstock tonight, back tomorrow, then working on Friday. Got to try and miss the traffic somehow.