yay! woot!

now i've got a playdate for friday night as well. :)

had a nice couple of pints last night with Sebastian. it's always pleasant to have a conversation with that guy.

went to sleep relatively early, as i'm bloody exhausted, and these issues with god-damned china are becoming most draining.

had one hell of an awesome zombie dream last night! they are so much fun, those kookie undead!

tummy hates me

this morning. dunno why. last night the bass came over, and it was the bizzarro universe. we ordered pizza, ate it at the dinner table, and then sat around in the living room watching a documentary on niagara falls for an hour. he left around 8:45. not at all like my old bass stories, eh?

incidentally, i highly recommend Gears of War (on xbox 360) for anybody looking to have an absolute half life 2 type rocking good time.

saturday is booked. i am psyched. gonna be a very fun day.

ooh, tummy is evil. very very evil.

day 2

Day one was spent a little hung-over. well, not so much hung over as "tentatively awake". i approached all functions with a deliberate hand yesterday.
must have forgotten to drink enough water the night before.
shooting those nasty bug things was just what the doctor ordered, Ffej. His vodka prescription was quite pleasant as well.

yesterday was my good friend's father's wake in the (very) west island. altogether a nice way to pay one's respects. a house full of people, and not one was "coffin crawling", an art absolutely perfected by old italian women whose purpose in life, apart from feeding their husband, is to wear black and bemoan the suffering that is the universe upon his passing.

Ali is now in europe. she comes back in 2 saturdays. check in periodically on my condition.
ooooh, i've a great idea for saturday if marcmarcmarc's up for it.

i just now recalled

what i wanted to post the other day.

on monday night, ali and i ATE AT TACO BELL! yes, folks, it has finally arrived in montreal. at last. now ontario has no remaining reasons to exist.

in other news, can it be that george w-w-w-w bush has actually recognized that the american dependance on oil and suv's is actually quite detrimental to both body and soul? i'm shocked. he's figured out the solution to the middle east. see, i make no friends with my opinions, but my historical studies have always shown that part of the world to be, ah, less than accomodating and peaceful. the only difference nowadays is that countries like america are shipping over crates and crates of money to those people as fast as they can in order to keep their chrysler 300 hemis going. if they stop creating billionares out of those nuts, they may just go away. or, at the very least, be less able to fund entire armies whose purpose is to create suffering among the non-participating citizens of the fucking world.

i can't bring a god-damned bottle of water on an airplane? i have to practically undress and be made to feel like a second-class inconvenience when i cross security at the airport? i should be allowed to punch some fuckwad in the face for causing that. actually, in the perfect eye for an eye world, i should be allowed to punch some random middle eastern person in the face. after all, i'm no more responsible than he is.

grumble grumble.

that was most interesting

the floaty dizzy wave that hit me while having coffee with da 'Foo yesterday...
isolated experience, with no other telling symptoms that i can think of.
meh.

in other news, it's freaking cold today. sort of invigorates one's self. sort of. then again, so does a seabreeze served glistening with condensation under a palm tree on a not too warm day in south florida.

it's a shame south fla. is crammed chock full of ancient blue-hairs. the only area that doesn't really feel like God's waiting room is the oddly international tourist spot called south beach. that, on the other hand, is locust-plague thick with taiwanese camera clickers and six foot tall black transvestites. oh, and japs, (the jewish kind, not far eastern). lots and lots of japs.

mind you, the part of florida where our apartment is has a quiet peacefulness that i wouldn't trade for touristaland ever.

just got word that the Big Legal Contract Thingie appears to be coming to a close! WOOT!

gesticulating

i never noticed, considering i'm italian. communicating with one's hands is par for the course where i come from...

i seem to recall that there was something highly important that i wanted to post on here, but alas, 'tis gone now, lost in the vacuous swirling void that is my memory...

oh, the PS3 has morphed into an xbox 360... seems, for the none of you that give a shit, that it'll be a couple of years at the outside before the ps3 catches up game-prettiness-wise to the 360, assuming the 360 doesn't continue to improve...

fun is fun, after all, and i'll be two weeks without She Who Must Be Adored. gonna need some way to pass the time without getting into too much trouble.

i anticipate a friend or two moving in to play while she's gone.

i will find you!

nowhere you can hide, Za! whyfore dost thou hateth the Bears?

oh, and "by seven points" means the spread is 7 points. if you put twenty bucks on the Indianapolis Hicks to win, they have to win by more than a touchdown or you don't get paid.

i just figured out why you like em. Indianapolis sounds like a Greek city name, doesn't it...

on another note, i passed another Evil Hurdle yesterday. now there are only 2 left. well, one and a half. the one is dealing with the cocksuckers at GE. the other is waiting for the lawyers to finish lawyerin' and get back to us...

i need more Heroes episodes STAT! oh, and i'm hoping hbo comes to their senses and reinstates Deadwood. sopranos was a big gimmick fest (and incidentally, a nice ratial slur that no italians seem to be fucking noticing. i won't go into a tirade here...), while Deadwood really taps my fun button.

playstation 3 in my immediate future? ayup. probably. it's just too damned pretty (the graphics, not the box. i ain't a sony fanboi).

nice. very nice.

watched football all day yesterday, and it was awesome. the Bears defence remembered to show up, and basically won the match for 'em, considering their QB. Grossman always looks as though he's going to throw up or faint from the pressure whenever the camera zooms up on him.

Brady, on the other hand, was cool as a cucumber. Unfortunately, after the Trials of San Diego, the Pats defence appeared to still be recovering. they were tremendously out of gas, and allowed the farm boys of indiana to walk all over them for half the match. ugh. oh, and a key receiver on a key play (TWICE! SAME GUY! HE STILL LIVES!) bounced brady's passes off his stupid stupid body.

oh well.

now i get to watch the Bears defence beat the stuffing out of manning's boys.

almost forgot

about the 'opt out' feature of my glorious offer. if'n you haven't done any of those events yourself yet, you can instead of the 1k, choose to negate your obligation by negating mine. one fell swoop, one clean sweep, one tidy swap?

a song on the radio just brought me back to a wonderful recent memory, posted here for my own benefit, as i like to peruse my state of mind from time to time.

a nice chubby checker 'on the bayou' (not the orbison melody for blue bayou. think more rompin' country/rock from Happy Days) tune flashed me back Hiro-style to the road trip from Tallahassee to Ft. Lauderdale last month. convertible beetle, interstate 75, 80mph, rest stop/diner/hardware store/gas station/goat farm for lunch...

if you have the means, i highly recommend getting your very own Ali (who is the bestest road trip companion EVAR, short of Ffej, of course), hooking up with a convertible, and driving at least as far as we did. for reference, we did a normally 6 hour drive in 8.5 hours. I will carry the pleasure of that day for a long long time to come.

In fact, I believe that the next time we head down to florida (in winter, mind. a ragtop will fry your brain in the summer time. FAR FAR too hot for that) we'll arrange a flight to jacksonville and drive the rest of the way, stopping at disney this time!

to do

1- make offer to the ste-jerome guy. cross fingers!
2-make appointment with the ge folk. again, cross fingers!
3-follow up with downtown lawyers re:tomorrow's deadline. cross fingers thrice!
4-arrange, arrange, arrange.

wonder what my plans will be for the coming weekend... well, the Bears are playing N'awlins at 2 on sunday (all are more than welcome to come by for that, incidentally.), but apart from that, I haven't a clue. I must put some thought into that as well....oh yeah. fuck. i've a baptism to attend on saturday.

Here, for posterity, is my plan. I will send out a letter to all who know me, thusly:

Greetings, oh family, friends, and well wishers! As you must certainly know, we are neither married nor children-ed yet. If you act now, you can take advantage of this one time offer. Take care of all your future obligations, be they engagement party, bachelor party, bachelorette party (wtf? but that one's neither here nor there...), bridal shower, wedding ceremony, baby shower, and baptism. For one low low payment of 1000$ you can prepay for all these events. Included in that price will be token photographs of the events, pre-generated comments on the food by random other relatives for you to discuss with in the future, and a meaningless piece of crystal crap with "Carlo + Alise (Date Goes Here) engraved somewhere on it. But wait! That's not all! Included in your one time low low payment of 1000$ you are excused from attending each of these events! And there's more! In a fit of generosity, we're even throwing in all birthdays for both of us, for as long as we live! And speaking of living, we'll even throw in the funerals. You can sleep as soundly as the dead (all puns intended) knowing that your condolences have been expressed in advance, and your attendance at the funeral hall taken care of.

This, of course, is simply my perspective on things.

hmmmmm...

even colderererer today. but it's actually kinda nice. sunny, frozen steppe type environment.

trying to get through the day with a minimum of issues. thus far, i'm succeeding in slowly encroaching on his territory, though he gets quite aggressive the closer i get. he'll have to see that my way is the right way...

500 posts?

wow. how very persistent of me!
yeah, spark, that Bears match was the one that hooked me onto the game.
Looking very much forward to the superbowl this year, considering all the corporate "market city" pseudo-teams with logos that change every year, and ZERO tradition, are all finally OUT.
We're left with four gritty teams from towns that worship them.
Of course, my previous mantra "Please let Grossman play better than me" are now replaced by "Please let the Bears remember that their defence is capable of making baby Jesus cry." before the Saints pull a Cinderella on them.

It's a cold Murmansk kind of day here, by the by.

i love it when things go as desired

yesterday was a fantastic day. highly relaxing. made a tasty sauce, watched the Bears win (of course, they had to make it a stressful experience...), ate TASTY meatball subs, went for a walk, watched the Patriots win (Ha! Ha! Ha!), and then played some Scarface (THANKS Ffej!)

good weekend overall. would have been nice to hang with my friend saturday night, but i understand the obstacle that is inertia quite well...

Big Important Meeting(tm) Ho!

i'll let all of you that give a shit know how it went afterwards. have warm good karma thoughts for me at 11:00 this morning, kthx.

*peaks into the room furtively*

erm, where's Shed Cafe?

*ducks and scurries out*

in response to Za's email, which for some reason

bounces when I try to send it. Well, here it is for all to read:

C'mon...San Diego?
I'm not the biggest Pat fan, but please. They may have an excellent defense at the moment, but they're just riding a high and playing outside themselves. I am pretty sure that after a quarter of dealing with Bellichik's (sp?) schemes, they'll start to come apart at the seams.

Of course, it's football and anything can happen. Like the Bears choking again. Incidentally, if Grossman collapses again and prevents the GREATEST TEAM EVAR from winning their first in 21 freaking years, I'm going to fly down there and QB the team myself! When he's good, he's good enough for that talent-laden team to do what needs doing, but when he's bad...hell, I can do better.

Wub,
Carlo

more tech musings in the early am

pvr thingies are incredibly convenient for us non-techies. they are a study in simplicity.

busy little bee

am i. bogged down with various legal stuff.
weekend was excellent. saw my cousin and his wee little daughter. awwwwww.
ali's Patriots advance to the next round. the Bears play this sunday at 1. they better not let me down!

watched Rocky Balboa, and it was, obviously, amazing. a very nice swan song for the character, and altogether quite well acted and executed. i approve.

bought the mega tv. it is spectacular. all are welcome to come by and pray to the Sony altar.

oh expensive day!

going to buy a tv tonight. it ain't what it used to be, tv shopping...
questions have escaped my lips that i still shudder to recall...
"Is 1080P worth the extra?"
"What refresh rate can this one manage?"
"What is the contrast ratio?"
"Is HDMI the best method to cable everything together?"

Ugh. I'm techno-consumer guy. Turn away! Don't look at me!

sleep-tastic!

i wonder why i'm so groggy this morning. planning to have a good day at work, incidentally.

i'm getting tired of random morning musings.

we're back

from the amazing race. had a lot of fun, spent a lot of money, and so on. absolutely LOVED it, though.

i'm at work again, and so far so good. i'm determined not to get sucked into the muck again, and i've got new ideas on how to avoid that.

wish us luck.