avoision: July 2003 Archives

Appetite

July 31, 2003

by Maxine Kumin I eat these wild red raspberries still warm from the sun and smelling faintly of jewelweed in memory of my father tucking the napkin under his chin and bending over an ironstone bowl of the bright drupelets awash in cream my father with the sigh of a... (read more)

I Should Probably Eat Something

Today at work, I didn't eat lunch. I was busy working on getting a Flash gallery up for one of our stations, and was finishing up all the last minute details. Next thing I know, the coffee's worn off and it's damn near 6 PM. Once I got home, I... (read more)

Samorost

This is a fun Flash game, which I got from twelvestone. Definitely give it a whirl, but be prepared to lose about 10 to 15 minutes of your day to this thing.... (read more)

Chatty McChat

Talked to a bunch of folks tonight. I've been off of IM lately, and ever since I started working fulltime, I've not been using IM all that often at work. Mainly, I load up Trillian when I get back to my apartment, on my home computer. Tonight, I talked with... (read more)

Enter The Husmann

At work, Ben and I were trying to put together a proof-of-concept. There was a request for an outside vendor's offering (transparent Flash ads that contained video). As much as I oppose this idea (and I mean to make a formal, well-informed presentation on exactly why I think this particular... (read more)

The Clubs Claim Another Victim

Seeing this made me think of the girl I tried to find who was trying to find that boy.... (read more)

Stumbling Home

July 30, 2003

On my way home from work, I ran into Liz and Steph on North Avenue. We talked a bit (chatted about the nonfiction book Liz had about Mormons). Next thing I know, they've convinced me to go grab a beer with them and we make our way to Holiday. Ahhhh... (read more)

Dang

July 29, 2003

Sorry. I had plans to do more for today, but all I managed was to do updates from the weekend.... (read more)

A Sort of Recap

July 28, 2003

Well, I said that I would be keeping my family out of this blog (since they never agreed to its terms and it feels a bit invasive to me). So... you all get the edited for TV version of the weekend. Basically, everyone (and I mean everyone) on my... (read more)

@ Home

July 27, 2003

Back soon.... (read more)

@ Home

July 26, 2003

Back soon.... (read more)

Distracted

July 25, 2003

Got swept up into a side thing for Matt. It's a basic programming experiment, and bugging me since I can't get it to work. I've been futzing with this for longer than I'd like to admit. Still - good practice. Unfortunately, I may not get done with it tonight. An... (read more)

Rapture

July 24, 2003

I've been looping "Rapture" by Pedro the Lion lately. The lyrics aren't all that earth shattering, but I'm definitely drawn to the music/notes. And because it's song, I give the words/rhymes/phrasing more leeway than I would a poem. Overall, I like it a great deal. When I was in grad... (read more)

UT: Love This Game

Hehehehe. For a while, everyone playing UT figured out this way to "walk" on the air. Next thing you know, we're all screwing around and people are trying to lie down on the sky. A silly thing, but this game is a comfortable habit. Everyone knows one another, and... (read more)

So...

I'm sitting here, sipping on Maker's Mark (it's in the coffee mug), a bit of RC Cola, and just typing away. I'm in that whole "Gee, I should be out more and trying to be more social" mindset. But by now, you must know this song and dance fairly... (read more)

After.Work.Drink++

July 23, 2003

The Shamrock: local pub, right near the office, and fast becoming a staple post-work hangout. Justin mentioned going for a drink or two, but it ended up turning into a bar-hop evening. Justin, people-watching. There's a lot of activity near this place, as it's right on the corner of... (read more)

The Truster

So Ben apparently sent away for a hand-held, lie-detector. It's a small, hand-held device, and measures vocal patterns for truth/accuracy as well as stress. He was playing around with it at work all day today.... (read more)

For Two Seconds

This morning, I turned into a fascist fucking cop for like two seconds. I got off the train at the Clark/Lake stop. This particular station is underground, and so everyone needs to take the stairs/escalator to get above ground. Fine. I get in line for the escalator and stay to... (read more)

Random Filming

Standing on the overpass (Blue Line stop), I looked down to see this:... (read more)

Nova

July 22, 2003

At home, I did a little cleaning. I wish Jim would have gotten into town earlier, as I would probably be rip-roaring drunk right now, and taking a ton of photographs to boot. Ah well. Ohio. There's always Ohio. Today, I've been looking forward to watching NOVA. Tonight is Nazi... (read more)

Crap

My friend Jim was (sorta) in town today. He had planned to arrive around 3:30 PM, but his train was delayed and his connecting train out of town is at 10:30 PM. Turns out, he's only going to have an hour between trains. We had talked a bit, and discussed... (read more)

OCD

Got Beth Orton's "This One's Gonna Bruise" looping in the background. Might have to send off another marriage proposal, if this keeps up.... (read more)

Mike's Bachelor Party

July 21, 2003

Ah, let's get to the festivities from the weekend, shall we? Mike, who works at Q101, is getting married soon, and had a bunch of guys celebrating his impending married status. Start of the day. This is around 4 PM, and everyone's gathered at Mike's to have a few beers... (read more)

Finally

Went out to lunch today with Justin and Ben. This afternoon's food marks the first solid food I've had since Saturday evening. Well, the first solid food I've been able to keep down.... (read more)

Aftermath

July 20, 2003

Woke up drunk this morning. I did a quick check to see if I had my camera (check) and my wallet (check). Ate some food. A little later, figured out I wasn't able to keep anything down and horked it back up. Most of the day has been spent on... (read more)

Bachelor Party

July 19, 2003

Going to head over to Mike's place, a friend from Q101. He's having a bachelor party this tonight, and we're hopping all over the place. A bus was rented, and it's some kind of insane hour and a half journey to whatever strip club it is we're going to. I... (read more)

Hulk Gloves

July 18, 2003

This took a bit of digging, but I isolated when the picture taking happened. On April 12, we had a set of Hulk gloves floating around the Marketing Department. Ben had them on (there are sound effects that trigger, if you punch anything) and I snapped a few shots with... (read more)

:nerd:

I spent some time mucking with a feature of Swiftmp3 today, and explored the whole "audio spectrum" ability that comes with it. When using it to convert mp3 files to swf files, it will also spit out variables (s0 up through s17) that track the levels (is that even the... (read more)

See?

Portnoy: Bought Beth Orton's "Daybreaker" today, after work. Portnoy: I think you were the one who gave me a mp3 of hers. :) Mr. Grumpy: yep, got it from ts, passed it on to you Portnoy: enjoying it immensely Portnoy: although I keep going back to the one song... (read more)

CD's

I stopped by Reckless today, on the way home. Picked up Beth Orton's Daybreaker, and Control by Pedro the Lion. So far though, I've been looping Beth Orton's "Carmella" over and over and over again.... (read more)

rypunked

Thinking about you, sending good thoughts your direction, hoping things are improving. Get well soon, ry.... (read more)

Alex

Found out today that Alex is planning on packing up and moving away from Chicago. This was a bit of a shock, and I'm not sure it's all sunk in just yet. From the way he talks, it sounds like he believes it's the right decision. He's also moving in... (read more)

Woozy

All day today, I've been feeling pretty fuzzy and a few steps behind. And it looks like this weekend's going to be more of the same - lots of activities, and a fair amount of booze on the menu. But - as badly as I felt this morning, my hurting... (read more)

Zing!

July 17, 2003

Steph's birthday is today. A bunch of us gathered at Holiday to celebrate, and to throw down some booze on her behalf. Steph and Matt, talking away. Matt also happens to be a bouncer at Holiday (where we were drinking). Mike and Steph take a breather from their fashion... (read more)

Corpse Car

I am convinced, seeing how I've seen this car each time I've walked by for the past four weeks... I'm convinced there's a corpse in the back seat or the trunk. It's been parked in the exact same spot, and it doesn't look like it's been moved. One of these... (read more)

Shopping For Steph

July 16, 2003

Tomorrow is Steph's birthday, and my gift is going to be this multi-part thing. One component is a book, which I found at Quimby's. As I was browsing, I stumbled across a newer collection of "The Books of Magic." I've been following this comic for a while, and it's been... (read more)

Yet Another Reason Why I Love My Workplace

I walk back into the office and, in the hallway, I see Joe. With a gun tucked into his pants. With his shirt buttoned vato-style. With THUG LIFE written across his body in pen. Hahahahahah! Yeeeeeeah, boyyyeeeee!!... (read more)

Mega Mango Margarita Madness

I meant to brag about this last week, but forgot to mention it on the blog. Today, there was a covert operation at work to go to Caesar's for lunch. I've been to Caesar's once before, for Phil and Charity's wedding reception. And from that time, I learned about the... (read more)

Leaving Home, Heading Home

Wake up, 4:30 AM. Shave, shower, pack. On the road by 5:00 AM, sipping on cheap ass gas station coffee and trying to wake up. For the first hour or so, I was pretty laid back... but as the sun rose and the coffee bubbled in my bloodstream, I opened... (read more)

Shut Up

July 15, 2003

He would have worn the pilot's hat with his suit. He totally would have.... (read more)

This Just In!

Ok. It's Wednesday, July 16th. My sister just called to let me know that John Travolta did in fact show up, and gave a speech towards the end of the evening. Dammit! To top things off, my dad got his picture taken with Neil Armstrong - which is awesome because... (read more)

Doh!

In the hustle and bustle of things, I forgot to bring my camera with me to Ohio. Sucks, but oh well. I don't feel comfortable including my family into this blog, so it's just as well. What you missed - the National Aviation Hall of Fame. My uncle was being... (read more)

Home: Regression

July 14, 2003

At home in Indianapolis, I stayed in my old bedroom and crashed around midnight. While I'm back at my old house, I tend to regress as far as my reading materials. I often sift through all the old books still lying around (my parents throw away NOTHING), which are often... (read more)

Found Art Lost

At work this morning, I was still dealing with residue from hanging out with the family. I had a rather negative outlook that took most of the day to shake off. On my walk to work, however, I noticed that the artwork near the parking lot had been removed. Despite... (read more)

Offline Message

Juliet: who played video games all day? who pretended he didn't want to admit it, and then did admit it? who didn't even give us a screenshot? who didn't invite us over to play the video game? felix. that's right, felix jung. grand theft this. [Offline Message (Mon Jul... (read more)

Reunion

July 13, 2003

My parents were in town, along with several family members. I met up with them in Chinatown and spent most of the day hanging out with them. I also met some additional aunts I hadn't known all that well, and our group did a lot of walking/touring. I got to... (read more)

Uhm. Yeah.

July 12, 2003

I installed Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for the PC today. Uhm. Let's just move on, and forget about today. In fact, let's never speak of this day again.... (read more)

On The Way Out

July 11, 2003

If you're ever in downtown Chicago, and you catch an incredibly strong whiff of chocolate... that'd be Blommers. The Blommer Chocolate Company is near the Mud Lot, and whenever I drive to work, I walk by it. Everyone's been talking about trying to go there for a tour, and today... (read more)

On The Way In

I happened to see a callbox opened up, and a barge gliding by on the river.... (read more)

Breaking The Law! Breaking The Law!

Matt showed me the "secret parking spot" near work a few weeks ago. Most places downtown, there's a hefty fee for the parking lots. One of the cheaper ones is fondly referred to as the "Mud Lot," as it's a blast to wade through whenever it rains. The Mud Lot... (read more)

This Week

July 10, 2003

Has been almost all about work. I haven't been doing much fucking around, little IM conversations during the day... just cranking things out for the employer. Which is not to say I'm complaining. Actually, I feel like I've gotten a fair amount done this week, and I'm looking back over... (read more)

Bloggers

A few days ago, I got some email from Jerkstore and digidod. I had given Jerkstore my jumbled nav .fla, and received a really nice "Hey, I read your blog regularly" note from digidod. It's always cool to see how others approach a like project, so take a peek: Jerkstore's... (read more)

A Problem That Was Not The Problem I Thought It Was Is Resolved

After almost a day plus trying to diagnose what was wrong... I discoverd I had encoded my audio improperly. I was scouring through my code, sure that I had misnamed something, or wired something up wrong. Note to self: trust your code more. Everything was fine. Just the audio files... (read more)

Portillo's

July 9, 2003

Here's a view of the inside, from the balcony seating area. I'm not sure why, but almost every time we sit upstairs. I tried a few variations, but just couldn't get the lighting right.... (read more)

(7-11) * 25,000

Portillo's is where everyone at Q101 heads off to, when we go out as a group for lunch. Like a herd of cats, it takes forever for all of us to coordinate anything resembling forward motion. Anytime we go, it's a mess trying to get people out of the office.... (read more)

Ben's Birthday!

My coworker and friend Ben celebrated his birthday today. Actually, we're all supposed to keep that fact quiet. He and Laura are saying that the birthday day is actually tomorrow, since Ben's will be taking the day off. That way, his son can celebrate the whole day with them. :)... (read more)

Extreme I-Sketch

Twelvestone. WOT. This should be fun. :) Hopefully, we'll get a good turnout. I got introduced to this game a long while back, and it's always fun when a big group plays. There's a scheduled game tonight, 7:30 pm PST / 10:30 pm EST. Ehh, I know. There's little chance... (read more)

Let's Try This Again

July 8, 2003

Holy crap, I'm not sure where that ( ^ ) came from. I was trying to update the blog, but then kept nodding off and almost falling asleep on top of my keyboard. It's now some 5 hours later (10:14 PM), and I just woke back up. When I looked... (read more)

The Whiteboard Behind Me: Some Days Good, Some Days Bad

I was hashing out some structure for a potential application that we would be implementing, system-wide, to all of our webmasters. I did a fair amount of number crunching on my end, next thing I knew, my forces wqere flooading the area and keeping the peace.... (read more)

Late Night: Continued

Wow. It's about 4:53 PM right now, and I'm still awake. I've been up since yesterday morning (an unexpected all-nighter popped up), and everything feels a little hazy and a little farther away than usual. Work was pretty good. Not as exhaustive as some all-nighters have been. But it also... (read more)

Sleep Deprivation, Jim Beam, Rain And A $1,000 Chair

We got out of the office around 2:30 PM. Ben and I decided to have our victory beer at a bar across the street. I had always heard of the Shamrock, and this was my first time in the place. Outside, actually. Ben and I grabbed a drink and settled... (read more)

Late

July 7, 2003

Out of nowhere, an all-nighter jumped into view. It's closing in on midnight, and I'm here at the office with Ben, working on getting a small Flash site up and running for tomorrow. Nothing to offer you just yet - it's just been work so far. But if we're up... (read more)

Quiet Night

July 6, 2003

Didn't do all that much today, so it's a brief entry sort of day. I was up pretty late last night, getting photos and movie clips posted from the wedding. I worked hard yesterday. Think of today as me taking a half-day off.... (read more)

Jump!

Thanks to TS7 for this link. Man oh man, I just about lost my shit when the Track and Field part kicked in. I spent a fair amount of time in arcades as a kid, and pumped in a ton (a TON) of quarters. I remember back in the... (read more)

Sunny Rainstorm

It might be hard to tell, but it started pouring outside... and the whole while, it seemed bright as noon. We've had a lot of storm activity come through the area lately, and today's been a big mix of blindingly bright light and tornado warnings. Mother Nature is rather... (read more)

Saugatuck: Reloaded

July 5, 2003

Early afternoon. We all slept in fairly late. Oooh! I almost forgot! Around 6 AM, we were hit by this massive storm. It woke everyone up, and we were all moving from window to window, trying to see what in the hell was happening outside. Again, a few places... (read more)

Kent and Christine Get Married

July 4, 2003

I've been up early today, running errands and going to be meeting up with Dave and Alex at 11:00 AM. Today is Kent and Christine's wedding, and we're all going to be travelling to Michigan for the festivites, and staying the night. Woohoo! Dave, leading the way. Before we left... (read more)

Just Because I Can't Get It Out Of My Head

July 3, 2003

When my baaaaby... When my baby's not with me, I go to Riiiiiooooo... de janeiro... my amigo... I go wild and then I have to do the samba... and la bamba...... (read more)

E-mail From Templeton

From: templeton Date: Thursday, July 03, 2003 11:25 PM To: Portnoy Subject: ...meet me in Rio I shared this with Grumpy earlier..I think he has stopped laughing by now...though not sure. I just got hired to do some Photoshop work for a very big time set designer here in NY.... (read more)

The Boy From Oz

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On My Way Home

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Now Playing

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Time Frame

This was sponsored by the CTA, I believe. I'm not sure if this is the entire display, or if there's more. I happened to see it as I was walking towards a train stop I don't normally frequent. Wow! These were some great images. I've got to find out more... (read more)

Portnoy and Mr. Grumpy: Like Siskel And Ebert, But Different

Portnoy: How was T3, incidentally? Mr. Grumpy: t3 was ok, not as good as t2 Mr. Grumpy: worth the money though.....kept me entertained throughout and even could've been longer Portnoy: Wow - that's something you don't hear very often. Mr. Grumpy: 28 Days Later is highly recommended, as well... (read more)

Confetti: Part IV

From: Sherman To: Q101 (All) Subject: Re: Confetti Anyone that is intrested in chiping in money for flowers and cards for Felix because of his emotional rollercoaster about the confetti, contact me as soon as possible. Thank you Sherman >>> Felix 07/01/03 02:53PM >>> One minute I'm ecstatic, the next... (read more)

Daniella

Saw this walking to my car, yesterday.... (read more)

The Best Ten Days

July 2, 2003

Man, this was tough. It's closing in on midnight, and I haven't annotated anything yet. I was waffling between what I have now, and trying to come up with a top twenty list instead. I've got a lot of days I want to mention, but... I think I'm going to... (read more)

Confetti: Part III

July 1, 2003

From: Felix Jung To: Q101 (All) Subject: Re: Confetti One minute I'm ecstatic, the next minute I'm devastated. Please stop toying with my emotions. -Felix >>> Rey 07/01/03 14:44 PM >>> Disregard this email. The confetti is to be returned. -Rey >>> Cathie 07/01/03 02:23PM >>> We have a couple... (read more)

Confetti: Part II

From: Rey To: Q101 (All) Subject: Re: Confetti Disregard this email. The confetti is to be returned. - Rey >>> Cathie 07/01/03 02:23PM >>> We have a couple of boxes of confetti in the marketing department. We are going to throw them out but I thought I'd offer them up... (read more)

Confetti: Part I

From: Cathie To: Q101 (All) Subject: Confetti We have a couple of boxes of confetti in the marketing department. We are going to throw them out but I thought I'd offer them up for grabs. If you'd like some please head over. Thanks! Cathie... (read more)

The Best Ten Days Of My Life

Dig around, and let me know what you think have been the best 10 days from this past year, (July 1, 2002 to July 1, 2003). If I don't get a lot of responses, I'll just post my own little list. :) Thanks to Alex, who suggested this idea to... (read more)

Happy Birthday, Blog!

So today marks a year since I started this thing. That's kinda scary and kinda amazing, all rolled into one. :) I took this photo, while waiting for the train this morning: About a year ago, I took one from roughly the same spot. Hmmm. I'm not sure what I'm... (read more)

Chicago Museum of Art - October 7th, 2002

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