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Monday, September 17, 2001
Candlelit Memorial
Found 9.12.01, at the east end of Pratt Avenue, Chicago. Mouse over for more light.
::more::
said Jason, at 11:35 PM CST [remember] [2 comments]
Quoted
So apparently I'm going to have to be really careful what I say now when I hang out with friends who write for the local rag. I honestly don't remember saying what I'm quoted as saying, and if I did, there was probably a lot of lead-up to it that put it in some sort of context. Or I was just really ornery that night.
This is just me covering up my embarrassment, obviously. But I still don't remember saying that. I think. Maybe. Oops. Ah, well. Happy birthday, Sukie, you goon. Mwah!
said Jason, at 03:29 PM CST [remember] [say something]
Walking Home up Clark
We left Queen's Kitchen a little after eleven and headed up Clark, totally deserted on a Sunday night except for those, like us, walking through. A couple blocks up we approached a Blockbuster, marquee partially obscured by a tree. I misread the sign through the leaves, but Stef, walking ahead of me, cleared up my private mistake. "Now playing. The Tailor of Panama. Blow," she read aloud.
Dirk's expression scrunched up a bit. "The Tailor of Panama?"
"And Blow," added Stef, drawing out the vowel. Blooooooow.
"I thought it said something about Bananarama at first," I said.
"Nope, it's The Tailor of Panama," said Dirk.
"Blooooooooow," intoned Stef.
I grinned. "Blow the Tailor of Panama." Dirk was giggling uncontrollably by this point.
"Aw, man," said Stef, "I wonder if the people working there set it up in that order first, and then the manager came out to take a look and said, 'Uh, guys, this isn't going to work.' If I was working there, I would've put it in the other order. That's too good to pass up."
We laughed and continued on. Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but at the end of the block, for no discernable reason, Stef said, "Fucknut."
"Fat Nut," I countered.
Stef beamed. "Fat Nut!"
Dirk had no idea what we were on about. "Fat Nut?"
"Tell him the story," Stef prodded me. And I did:
...When I worked at Tower Records, one of my coworkers was this very big, very punk, very green-haired girl named Nina. She was great. Anyway, occasionally we'd get these little promotional goodies to pass out to customers, right? One week it was temporary tattoos. There were two kinds, one for the band Mariana Trench, and another for this band called Fat Nut. All it was was 'Fat Nut' in big, red letters. One day I'm working the register and I show Nina the tattoos. She sees it and says, "Fat Nut? What the hell's Fat Nut?" I tell her it's a band but she's still all, "Fat Nut? Fat Nut! Fat! Nut! Fat Nut!"
So for the rest of the week we keep walking around the floor crying out "Fat Nut!" and goading each other to do it louder. And I'd say, "Hey Nina," and she'd say, "What?" and I'd go, "Fat Nut," and she'd start yelling "Fat Nut. FAT. NUT. FAT NUT!"
So about a week of this goes by, and finally Nina comes up to where I'm working the main register and asks me if there's any of the Fat Nut tattoos left. I give her one and she's all excited, saying, "I'm going to go put this on." She goes in the back, and a few minutes later comes out sporting a Fat Nut tattoo on her arm. We do another round of "FAT NUT!" and she goes back to work. Later in the day we're talking and suddenly she's all, "Alright, I'm sick of Fat Nut, I'm going to go take this off." And I say, "Uh, Nina? Did you read the instructions on the back of that thing?" And she says, "No, it's a temporary tattoo, what's there to know?" I say, "So you didn't read the part about how they last for a week." She's all, "A week?! I don't want Fat Nut on my arm for a week!! Dammit! Argh!! FAT NUT!"
From then on, Fat Nut became more of a curse than anything. Nina would use it whenever she got angry, and whenever I'd say it to her, her response was, "FAT NUT! Shut up!"
Dirk had a hard time breathing once I finished. "I miss Nina," I said. "Sometimes when we closed the store together, around the time Trainspotting came out, we'd put on 'Lust for Life' and dance around the floor. One time we got up in the store window on the display platforms and started dancing. Then this car drove by and, embarrassed, we both dropped down behind the display."
"That's great," laughed Dirk.
"No, what was great was when I was telling this story to Sam and he just kind of blinked at me before asking, 'That was you?'"
It's this kind of mindless banter that's brought me back to myself from everything that's happened in the last week. (It was something I ate that night that got me sick and prevented me from getting to work until this afternoon, but that's another thing entirely.)
said Jason, at 03:19 PM CST [remember] [2 comments]
Friday, September 14, 2001
Breaking Bread with Brad
So the night before everything went down, and after getting home from MeFiChi1, I finally got pictures up from July's Chicago edition of Break Bread with Brad. Now showing at a photo album near you.
said Jason, at 11:59 AM CST [remember] [say something]
Over There
J.Go's entry about the email he received from a friend in Jordan and how most people over there are as saddened by recent events as we are is beautiful. Not that the suffering is beautiful, but anything that breaks down the us/them illusion that governments have worked to build up, I find very reassuring.
If I haven't said it before, I'm glad to hear everyone in weblogland NYC/DC/PA is okay. Thanks for keeping the stories coming. It's made this more real from hundreds of miles away than the news ever could, and to hear that you're all alright is wonderful.
said Jason, at 11:37 AM CST [remember] [say something]
Flagwaverville
To my fellow Americans: While it's your choice whether or not you want to be sporting an American flag on your person or your vehicle today, please keep in mind that while bearing the flag, you become a representative of sorts of your country. As such, please don't veer past me on the right as I come to a full stop at a light just turning red, almost hitting a couple firefighters working on closing a hydrant as you do so, to run the red light and nearly hit the car waiting to turn left from the other side of the intersection. You could do a lot of damage to yourself, ourselves, and to the image of the flag you value so greatly. The fact that you were driving a van means you were that more dangerous to those outside of it. The fact that it was a Sherwin-Williams van with that "Cover the Earth" logo with red paint coating the planet just makes it that more eerie. C'mon, kids, learn to play well with others, especially if you're going to try and represent me and mine.
said Jason, at 11:03 AM CST [remember] [say something]
Thursday, September 13, 2001
Flying
What I didn't tell Louise on the way out of the airport when she called me on being too cranky was that, on the flight, I was scared that the plane was going to crash. There was a lot of turbulence during the flight, and I got visions of the plane nose-diving into the ground out of control. I couldn't get off the plane fast enough, I couldn't get out of the airport fast enough, I couldn't get in my car fast enough. And my car, when we got there, nearly had a flat tire in the back. It turned out just to be low, and had been sitting long enough for that part of the tire wall to partially collapse, but it still got me riled. I had had costly car problems a couple weeks before, the big huge problems back in May, and now this. I wanted my car to work so it could just get me home and I could take Louise home and I'd be happy to deal with the shitty parking in my neighborhood for an hour if I had to just so long as I'm on the ground that's not too much to ask is it?
Sunday, I didn't tell Louise that I was scared of the flight because it had only happened once before and I wanted to get over this newly-developing phobia without calling too much attention to it. I blamed it on being tired from the trip. I blamed it on the car troubles. 5psi seemed a good reason to be touchy.
Tuesday, I couldn't hear a plane without my eyes darting up towards the sky, trying to see where it was, how fast it was going, what direction, how close to the ground. I still can't. I don't want to be scared of planes. I was never scared of them before.
My friend Matt works for a financial brokerage something or other firm downtown, and was evacuated on Tuesday. Part of his job is to sit on an IRC channel and talk to investors. Before the evacuation, no one on the channel could work that day. One guy my friend was talking to said that, after hearing something was going on over there, he had called over to check on someone he did business with, who worked in the WTC on a floor somewhere in the 80s. Someone actually picked up the phone and, over the sounds of panic behind him, screamed into it, "We're burning. Everything's melting. We're dying. We're burning," before hanging up.
When I worked for the ISP that grew out of a cable company, I was invited to see the control room up on the 102nd floor of the Sears Tower. From the window, it's a long, long way down. I keep thinking of the woman who worked up there, if she still works up there, how we talked about the local music scene, how she was dating one of the guys from the New Duncan Imperials. If she's still there, could she get out if something happened?
Mom and her husband are supposed to leave for a ten day vacation in Mexico tomorrow. I don't want them to go. I don't know if they can go. I don't want them to fly out there.
said Jason, at 11:36 AM CST [remember] [1 comment]
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
Leave Me Alone
Please please FUCKING PRETTY FUCKING PLEASE don't AIM or email me anything about two brothers burning or whatever Nostradamus didn't say, and for the love of your chosen god, DO NOT email me about the email tax. I'm not in the mood.
addendum: And don't send me the America: the Good Neighbor article. Attributed to Canadian reporter Gordon Sinclair, I looked up info on Sinclair, who died in 1984. Turns out he did write a radio editorial in 1973, later titled "The Americans" by his secretary, in response to the flak the US was taking for Vietnam. You can listen to the original broadcast and read the original transcript of this editorial, but note that it has nothing to do with recent events. The guy's been dead for 17 years.
said Jason, at 02:37 PM CST [remember] [4 comments]
Foreshadowing?
I totally forgot about this until just now, reading something Bill posted and his story about the girl on the radio.
This morning, when I woke up, the first song I remember hearing on the college radio station I usually tune into was the Flaming Lips song about knowing evil will prevail. When it ended, the DJ said something about how usually they'd start their news magazine portion of the broadcast day, but considering what was going on in New York-- at which point I jumped up and went to the living room to see what was up. I don't know if Mr. DJ guy played it specifically given what was happening, or if he had planned that selection beforehand.
The question is, who's the evil in the song? The people who brought this destruction on NYC and DC? Or America, for pushing them to the point where they'd think such steps were necessary? Or both? Is there a difference?
And here I thought I was politically apathetic. Apparently not.
said Jason, at 12:02 AM CST [remember] [say something]
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Healing Circle for Those Affected
Chicago area pagans and pagan-friendly peeps, pass it on: There'll be a healing and protection circle for those in New York and DC, and for anyone touched by recent events, at 9:30pm on Wednesday the 12th, at Big Cricket Hill, located near Montrose Avenue Beach. Take Montrose past LSD (or exit Montrose off of LSD and head towards the lake), and it'll be the big hill on your left almost immediately. I'm told you can't miss it. Bring a candle of any kind, and be prepared to do some work to raise energy to send off to those who need it.
There's also something going down on the south side, here's the info I received: "Practical Magick, 663 N. LaGrange Rd., Frankfort (815)464-4817. Our circle will be from 5-7pm. You may drop in at any time. There will be sacred space for you to meditate in quiet, leave messages of healing, and call for protection. Bring a white candle in a container if you wish."
said Jason, at 11:24 PM CST [remember] [say something]
...
I'm glued to MetaFilter and NYC & DC area webloggers' sites right now. I can't work. My dad and his girlfriend live in the DC area. They're probably alright, but I can't get through on the phone. I've stopped trying to call. I'm awaiting word.
[update 12.47pm] I got through to Dad's answering machine. Left a message. It's that little bit of uncertainty that's getting me.
[update 7.13pm] IM conversation:
JillMatrix: any word from your dad?
jas0nschupp: No, not yet. :/
JillMatrix: :\
jas0nschupp: It's just... I've spent the whole day reading news and metafilter and whatelse.
JillMatrix: yeah.
JillMatrix: i'm at the newspaper reading this stuff and watching five news broadcasts
JillMatrix: it gets to you
jas0nschupp: The streets here are quieter. I left the office around 4 to go to the store for lunch, and everything was just... hushed. Like walking through a sort of sensory wasteland, even though everything's still standing.
JillMatrix: yeah. my friend martha lives up there and she said the same: ghosttown
jas0nschupp: I'm afraid of what I'll find when I get back to my apartment. Rogers Park is already a politically charged neighborhood, with a lot of socialists and old-school hippies.
JillMatrix: mm yeah. be careful.
jas0nschupp: Plus the gangs.
JillMatrix: when the gulf war broke out i was in berkeley
JillMatrix: and i wanted to go to the protests but ...
JillMatrix: i decided no
jas0nschupp: And it's one of the most racially-mixed neighborhoods in Chicago, so hopefully no one's hounding the local Arabs.
JillMatrix: man. i hope not
jas0nschupp: I remember being in a hotel when the gulf war broke out... some vacation with the family. What happened with the protests?
JillMatrix: not much. some stuff burned in the street
JillMatrix: but you just never know
JillMatrix: i supported their point of view but i knew it might get out of hand
jas0nschupp: Right.
JillMatrix: talked to my ex. she lives about 1/4 mi from the wtc
JillMatrix: she saw the towers fall
JillMatrix: she's a little green around the gills
JillMatrix: poor thing
jas0nschupp: I can't imagine what it was like.
JillMatrix: she said she was watching it and thought she must have lost her mind
JillMatrix: she said it's still very smoky
JillMatrix: can't really go out
jas0nschupp: pk showed me a radar weather map of the area. I lost the link, but the cloud of ash and smoke spread out over New Jersey, Connecticut... it's horrible.
JillMatrix: yikes. i'm reading some story about business people walking over the bridge to brooklyn in suits and high heels
jas0nschupp: I saw the pictures of people covered in ash, and of a horde of people walking over one of the bridges.
JillMatrix: yeah. did you see the interview with the cameraman? i love photographers
JillMatrix: they're just gonzo nutty
jas0nschupp: No, I haven't been able to listen to the radio that closely.
JillMatrix: ah. well, he was working somewhere and they told them not to go out there, too dangerous. he saw someone loading tape into a camera and he grabbed it and ran
JillMatrix: dived under a car to avoid debris and caught the second plane hitting the towers
JillMatrix: from under the car.
JillMatrix: ran from the collapse, dived under a fire rescue truck
JillMatrix: waited until he could breathe, ran back to work and duped the tape
JillMatrix: those guys are just ... another breed
jas0nschupp: Yikes.
JillMatrix: woohoo, adventure! they're really unusual people.
[update 8.44pm] Dad's okay, his girlfriend's okay. Dad might be more than okay, since he bought an engagement ring for her and is apparently going to pop the question soon. Let's hope that goes well.
[update 11.10pm] Today was spent mostly listening to the radio, keeping up with people on MetaFilter, checking up with local news sources. Browsing the pictures of what happened. I still can't comprehend it. It's too depressing.
I think when it comes to the impression I've been left with all of this, Choire put it best in his comment on how we now know what the rest of the world has lived with for years. Terrorism isn't an abstract anymore. It can happen to us and it has, and we were never safe, and we were never separate. Untouchable. Removed. We never were. We thought we were. We never were.
The most heartening thing for me is hearing all the reports from places all over the world where people are praying or holding vigils for those who were on the scenes. I hear a lot of anti-American sentiment from my non-American contacts, friends, acquaintances... some sarcastic, some very sincere. I've always thought they've had a good point. But I've always had trouble being able to remove that from my impression of how people in other countries must view us as an entity. Knowing that they can care for the people, even when our government acts crassly... sure it makes sense that they would care, but I could never see it. I could never believe it... more out of my own dissatisfaction with America than anything. Who could like us, right? We're the guest at the party that erroneously thinks they're funny and just won't shut up. But it's not all like that, and because of hearing that people are hoping for the safety of those touched by this, I feel closer to the rest of the world, more a part of it, than I ever have before.
said Jason, at 11:42 AM CST [remember] [2 comments]
Las Vegas : No Matter Where You Go...
...there it is.
I didn't think to check and see if it's just as expensive as all the other restaurants on the Strip. I hope not.
said Jason, at 12:16 AM CST [remember] [say something]
Monday, September 10, 2001
Here
So I'm back.
Las Vegas produced a lot of stories, but none that I have time to relate here (nor over there, with 160 pictures taken on this trip) just yet. I'm at work trying to catch up (and it seems I did too good a job wrapping projects up before I left, as it seems I've got little left to work on now), and later tonight I'm hooking up with the MeFiChi gang. Of course, I left my camera at home, so I'll have to run home after work to get it and therefore be showing up late.
Here's a short list of impressions I got from Vegas:
I've never seen mountains before (that I remember... I don't count Denver when I was five or six because I hardly remember any of it). Wow. Incredibly breathtaking for the city boy from flatland (a.k.a. Illinois). I also get what they mean by "dry heat" now. Walking around in 95°F Vegas weather was more comfortable than walking around in 85°F Chicago weather. And less sweaty.
Though the Strip is all about illusion and visual delight, if something looks like it's way the fuck over there, it really is way the fuck over there. I found this out after spotting Rio behind Caesar's Palace and thinking I should go check it out. After trying to go through Caesar's, getting lost, then getting back outside at a point further away than I had started, I trudged over the highway and who knows what else to get to Rio... only to miss the last ceiling-suspended parade thinger they've got going over there. Dammit. I also discovered that my boots were perhaps not made for walking, even with additional padded insoles and heelpads.
When building something on the Strip, it doesn't have to make sense. It just has to be big. Really, really big. Big and expensive. When building a casino, one is obligated to post signs everywhere on how to get to everything... except for the exit. When building a bathroom, it's okay to have the lighting continuously change colors. Everything must be an experience.
Oh, and Brad? I put a chip on 25 for you... six of them, actually. They all lost. Sorry. Though if it's any consolation, you're my weblogger twin. (Firda was second on my list. Yay!)
said Jason, at 02:15 PM CST [remember] [1 comment]
Saturday, September 8, 2001
An Open Letter to the Hotel/Casino Franchises of Las Vegas
Dearest Moguls,
I am not writing you today in regards to your sense of grandiosity and the lavish extents to which you have gone to entertain us, both in terms of decor and scale. You have gone to great lengths to astound and titillate, and I am both enticed and awed by your efforts. You have provided a bounty of treasures to be uncovered, one by one, for the visitors of the city for and in which you help to generate revenue.
No, my extravagant giants, I am writing you today about a very serious issue to which you would all do well to pay heed. In doing so, I would also hope that you could shed some light on this perplexing discovery. To whit, I am unable to see why such fine establishments that otherwise shell out large amounts of cash to present the highest levels of showmanship and visual delight can’t find it in their budgets to spend a little more and get the good toilet paper. The scratchy-ass stuff I’ve found in many of your establishments today is less than comforting, and after several such experiences I’m not sure how you expect us to then go out to sit down at a slot machine for an hour or two. Not fucking likely, kids. It seems very anomalous that you’ll spend millions upon millions of dollars to recreate world-renowned structures, but you expect us, in our most private moments, to use wood pulp. For shame!
My advice to you all is to follow the example of the hotel where I have been staying. They know that quilted is an absolute joy, providing a softness that is appreciated time and time again by their visitors. It would behoove you to rectify your mistakes, and I would appreciate your prompt action on this matter. If you are unable to immediately comply, the least you could do to make it up to me is give me the phone number of that scrumptious goatee’d ensign at the Star Trek Experience that I caught checking me out when I turned to check him out. I'm sure he could beam me somewhere more comfortable.
Best Wishes,
J.S.
said Jason, at 03:25 AM CST [remember] [say something]
Wednesday, September 5, 2001
Tales from the Work Front : Peace
The salesguy leans into the doorway of my office, saying, "Peace, dude." I look up to see him holding up two fingers at me.
"Er, Brian? That's not the sign for peace," I offer.
"It's not?" he asks. "I thought 'peace' was two fingers."
"It is, but... with your hand turned that way, it's the British way of giving someone the finger."
said Jason, at 06:27 PM CST [remember] [say something]
Tuesday, September 4, 2001
Definitus Interruptus
Quick, I need a vote on this one, because I'm a dumb male. I've got a word for the pseudodictionary, but I'm not sure if it's derogatory to women. You tell me.
::more::
said Jason, at 11:28 AM CST [remember] [7 comments]
Monday, September 3, 2001
Vegas Crunch
So Bill was kind enough to hook me up with some information. Anybody else have any advice or suggestions? The one place that keeps coming up is Mandalay Bay for the swimming, so that's a go.
said Jason, at 06:04 PM CST [remember] [5 comments]
Sunday, September 2, 2001
Legalities
I know what I just said, but I take it back. Something notable did happen. Tonight (last night? when the hell did it get to be 3:20 in the morning?) I was at an old friend's wedding. I haven't seen her in a year or two, and not for a year or two before that, and it was great to see her again.
Ever since my old roommates' wedding, I've made it a point to go for the garter belt when the groom tosses it. You know the deal; whoever catches it is the next in line to get married, supposedly. I figure it's my political duty to try and catch the thing. I don't care if the marriage lasts a week, it'll mean gay marriage came around, right?
I didn't get the roommate's garter, I didn't get my sister-in-law's garter (and how could I, given that Dad nearly tackled my cousin to the ground to grab the thing. Way to go, Dad), and I didn't get Elaine's garter, either. Tonight at Laurie's wedding? Well.
Of course, I just realized that this occurs days before I leave for Vegas, home of the Eloper's Special.
said Jason, at 03:27 AM CST [remember] [3 comments]
Nothing to See Here but Bad Poetry, Move Along
It's been a hell of a week. I'm not going to complain, because it hasn't been as bad as it has for some folks over here, and not as bad as some folks over there. But it sucked and I crashed and I'm working on feeling better.
One thing that's helped is the little gem that arrived in the mail, courtesy of Nervous Industries. I discovered this site around the same time I had an idea that wasn't fully thought out, would've been too narrow in scope, and I don't even want to think about logistics now. But I don't have to, because Nervous Industries did all the dirty work, and all I had to do was set up an exchange to accomplish the deed. I've already had one bite (and if you're reading this, I've got your postcard and I'm cooking up something), and one of the objects I signed up for arrived in yesterday's mail. After a lackluster day and a mediocre Wigstock Chicago, and a rather pathetic grumpiness that came from a case of "everyone's-too-stuck-on-their-own-problems-to-listen-to-my-problems", I was stuck in a loathing little funk that, twenty-six hours later, seems absolutely jejune.
All that cleared up when I received the book of bad poetry with a cheerful little message from the book's originator, dystatic. As the project has just started, it has one single bad poem in it, but it had me giggling and rolling around all the same. I immediately started writing my own purposefully bad poetry (an especially excellent exercise considering I'd given myself the summer off from writing, except for here... hence the radio silence and no new poems on the mailing list), and I'm holding onto the idea as a game to get past writers' block.
The inclement
sky is like my velvet
underwear
after three
days of continual
wear: still
kind of
soft and textured,
but not
very much
a comforting thing.
....What. Look,
you would
be this obnoxiously
drunk too
if this
were your underfinanced
funeral.
I'm really going to enjoy this project, is what I'm saying.
So nothing really write-worthy has happened lately, and I'm going to be busy over the next couple of weeks as it is. I've got a bunch of things from the past couple of months that I want to write about, but right now I'm finishing up a web project for a friend that's long overdue, and next weekend I'm getting that trip to Vegas that I won. Anyone in the area, or anyone who can roadtrip to the area, and is interested in hanging out, drop me a note! I show up on the 6th, and head home on the 9th.
After that, I rest. It's been a long summer. In the meantime, I submitted something over here, it looks like I'm scheduled to participate over yonder, and y'all know how to reach me if you need anything.
said Jason, at 03:15 AM CST [remember] [1 comment]
Tuesday, August 21, 2001
Delivery
I swear to your chosen god or goddess that this is my week to run into as many strange people as possible. I got another winner last night. At about quarter past 8 or so, someone buzzes my apartment. I'm not expecting anyone, so I'm guessing someone hit the wrong buzzer. It happens every now and then. There's two sets of buzzers out at the front gate, one on either side, and they're both labeled 1 through 20. Some folks don't bother to read the names listed to the side, and hit the number they need on the first set of buzzers they see.
I go to my intercom and say hello. The response I get is heavily accented and I thought he said, "Pockets delivery." As in, a local chain of restaurants. But I wasn't certain that was what he said, so I asked him to repeat that. The response was something like, "I got this for you."
"I didn't order anything, though," I said.
"So you don't want it?"
"No, sorry, I think you got the wrong place."
"Are you Jason?" he asks, his accent pronouncing my name Yasson.
"Yeah, but... Hold on a sec, I'll be right down."
I head outside and walk up the courtyard to the gate. There's this older guy standing there, his irritated expression heightened by his (and there's no other way to describe them) googly eyes and the skin of his face being taut, like it was being pulled tight from the back.
As I walk towards the gate and say hey, he leans on the gate and glares at me. "What are you, scared?"
I stop walking. "Excuse me?"
"You got a package," he says, and throws the package through the bars of the gate, onto the ground. (I would clue in after the fact that he was saying "package," not "Pockets," but between accent and intercom distortion, it got misconstrued.)
Not expecting an altercation, I say, "Hey! I'm sorry, but I thought you were delivering food--"
Not letting me finish, he sneers at me and walks off to his van. Seriously, he fucking sneered. I didn't think people actually did that unless they were badly-written motion picture villains. I pick up the package -- marked First Class delivery, thanks for throwing it, buddy -- and he drives off.
My only regret is that I didn't check the van for one of those "how's our service?" phone numbers on the back. My consolation was that the package was the final info for the trip to Vegas, which I won and sneering-guy didn't. Neener neener neener.
What's funny about this was that, earlier in the day, we were discussing Chicagoans on Tinychat and whether or not they were friendly. I was arguing that they weren't.
So, let's recap: I've run into a big growling dog left unleashed in the back walkway, a drunk woman who thought I was a Satanist and her incoherent comrade, laughing Stormtroopers, and now sneering asshole delivery guy. Who's next? Bring it on!
said Jason, at 11:45 AM CST [remember] [5 comments]
Monday, August 20, 2001
Stormtroopers
So yesterday I'm standing in a ridiculously long line for an ATM at the comics convention, having made the mistake of arriving on the scene with six bucks in my pocket. It's going slowly, and the line is stretching out longer behind me as I wait.
Three guys in Stormtrooper outfits come up the nearby escalator and peer around the corner at the line. "Oh my god," one says, "is this the line for the ATM? Geez." They laugh at our predicament and wander away.
I turn to the guy behind me in line, saying, "I've been laughed at by Stormtroopers. Now my day is complete."
The guy smiles and waves a hand in dismissal. "Don't worry about it," he says. "They die off easily."
said Jason, at 10:59 AM CST [remember] [3 comments]
Friday, August 17, 2001
WTF AER U ROMEO
I'm posting this here because MetaFilter is currently on hiatus: Tales for the l33t.
Long-ass Flash movie, but so, so worth it. If you're offended by some of the remarks, remember that it's poking fun at chatk1dd13s.
If you want to see it more than once, may I suggest saving Chris some bandwidth and downloading a zipped copy of the movie? And there's more movies where that came from.
said Jason, at 11:54 AM CST [remember] [say something]
Uh, Hail Satan, I Think
So last night I'm at Grosse Fräuleinen, wearing the same shirt as in the picture down below in the left column and waiting for two of my buds to show up. I'm walking past the bar and this woman at the bar stops me. She looks at my shirt, takes my face in her hands, strokes my hair and beard and says, "Oh my God! Lookitchu! You're a Satanist!"
What? I say what I'm thinking. "What?" I mean, sure, I'm all for diverse spiritualities, but I couldn't be a Satanist. Not if any of the rumors are true... Live sacrifice? I'm a vegetarian. If anything, it's Hail, Seitan.
Not to mention the star on the shirt has more military connotations than religious. The Army surplus doesn't usually sell faith-based paraphernalia.
"Here, say hello to my friend Larry," she says, turning to the guy sitting to the right of her. "What's your name?" The guy, who had been watching over his shoulder, turns to shake my hand. I shake his and introduce myself. "I'm waiting for my friends to show up," I add.
"I didn't ask you that," she says, and introduces herself as Michelle. "Like you care, though. Lemme buy you a drink. What're you having?" I tell her a Sprite. By then, I had gotten the impression that she was drunk enough for the both of us. She orders drinks from the bartender, leaves a twenty on the bar, and goes to talk to another of her friends. "Here, you talk with Gary," she says before leaving the bar. Now I'm standing with this guy whose name is suspiciously interchangable.
"Your friend is very energetic," I tell Larry. Gary. Whomever.
"Yeah," he says. "She gets up in the morning."
I tried making conversation with him, honestly I did, but the rest of it was equally demonstrative of his inability to follow a logical train of discourse. Or maybe he was just nervous... I mean, what with me being a Satanist and all.
said Jason, at 11:11 AM CST [remember] [4 comments]
