Chicago: Become Familiar with its Distinctive Neighborhoods

Drink alot of coffee!

Smile alot so no one notices your mistakes.

Nothing to see here! Just smiling!

I had that yesterday, though not as severe. Woke up at 5-6-ish, came into the office at 7:30 because I couldn't think of anything better to do, and by lunchtime I felt like I'd been here for 14 hours.

Builds character!

Hi Kenan. Where have you been all my lifelately?

i think i will have a coke to keep me going. it's actually my last day before the christmas break, so it's especially painful to sit here!

also, we got my grandma a frame at ikea months ago to put wedding photos in (she wanted this as an xmas gift). i was wrapping all the presents last night, and popped the back off, and the glass shattered everywhere. so now i get to go shopping for a frame after work. luckily there's a cost plus near here and grandma is not choosy about home decor.

Ugh. Sorry.

The presents Nick wrapped are unwrapping themselves. ha ha

I told him not to wrap my Christmas kitten.

our family joke is always that every present is a puppy. but it never is. a kitten would be even better!

Colette, if you have time/energy, just go to Home Depot and get them to cut a piece of glass to fit.

i thought about doing something like that, but i suspect that cost plus will be easier-- we're leaving tomorrow morning and exchanging gifts on saturday, so i don't have a lot of time to sort it out. it's just annoying that it was so crap. but i guess that shouldn't be surprising.

I had an OH CRAP moment last night at dinner. I realized: our work Xmas lunch is today and I'm going to give my co-workers/bosses gifts. What am I giving the boss who has been dealing with the recent plant-watering drama?

A PLANT.

And not just a plant, but paper-white bulbs that grow only in water.

it'll be funny

Those are all the rage. But I also heard they stink. Have you seen one in bloom?

Yes, I used to be a FLORIST. They smell great. Though pretty strong. Very perfumey.

Maybe it's a love-it-or-hate-it smell.

I don't understand the concept behind giving gifts to your boss. But then I only shop for four people each year: mom, dad, brother, girlfriend. Kr was talking about an uncle who always gets her fancy gadgets like a digital camera. I haven't gotten a present from a relative outside my immediate family since I was a kid, and it always just like a sweater or something.

jesse, that gift is hilarious.

i just found out my bosses are taking me for a festive lunch. i'm not supposed to have bought them a gift, am i?

In my case I only have 3 co-workers, so it would be kind of weird not to get them a little something. I got the partners (bosses) a bottle of wine (Cuvee Le Bec) for him, and a paper-white kit for her, and a bottle of wine for the associate. Now I wish I had gone with one of those candles with the wooden wick that crackles when it burns.

Instead of the plant, I mean. Considering how much these folks smoke, they need scent-masking candles.

I got presents for:
mom
dad
middle sis
youngest sis
nick's dad
nick's mom
nick's sister
Nick!
my friend Sarah
Ben
Sister's bf
step-mom
Nick's grandma
candy supplies for friends I saw that weekend
and then my dad and nick's mom have bdays right around then too

there's only three of us in our office as well, me and my two bosses. i guess i've only worked here a little while, so hopefully it's not expected (the lunch invitation was unexpected to me)

sarah, that's a lot of shopping!

I don't bother giving the bosses presents, because their presents section looks quite a bit like the boss's in Christmas vacation. Sometimes I wonder if they even get around to opening all of them.

Some of my coworkers exchange gifts aside from the secret santa, but I'm fine with not being a part of it. They don't expect anything from me and vice versa. There is one higher up that I do alot of work for though who always gets me something special.

It is alot of shopping, Colette! And this is the first year I kept track of how much I spent and didn't put anything on cards.

Thankfully, alot of those are joint presents from Nick and I.

i got presents for my dad, stepmom, and mom. i was going to get something for a girl, but figured she's not getting me anything so i don't want to make her feel like she has to. actually i did get her a cheap spatula, because she does not have one, but that doesn't really count.

well done for not having to charge anything, that's a big deal!

Thanks!!

Jordan, did you go to SPATULA CITY??

jordan, well done for knowing that while the spatula was a thoughtful gesture and reflects well on you, it is not an acceptable holiday gift. my dad is still working on that kind of understanding...

Jesse, I misread your post as saying that you are giving a bottle of wine to one of your bosses and a paper hat to the other.

Have you guys seen TechnoViking?

I just sent off my ballots to Idolator and Pazz & Jop. Gah. I'm going to stop beating myself up over whether "Umbrella" was better than "No Cars Go" or whether the Shins were better than Air and just fucking forget about it all.

that technoviking is silly

i tried to make a best of 2007 mix cd for friends and family but i couldn't edit it down shorter than 2 hours so now it's a two-cd best-of. kind of silly but i listened to a lot of new music this year.

I'd like to see a tracklisting on that, Nick. My 2007 best-of mix is somewhere around 105 songs, and I'm trying to figure out whether I should whittle that down to 100 for the sake of roundness or not. I mean, I've got segues that could vanish.

Although already there is no Dan Deacon among those 105 tracks. CONTROVERSIAL.

I might cut Interpol, too. Fuck those guys.

Haha, I couldn't even come up with a top 10 this year, it was a top 9. Although now I'm being convinced to check out a bunch of albums that I couldn't get excited about when they came out, like LCD Soundsystem, M.I.A., etc..

Hi Kenan. Where have you been lately?

I'm right here. Always on AIM and GChat, if you wanna say something witty and insightful. Been spending a lot of time doing computer geek things -- last week it was dumping windows altogether and getting on linux in a real, dedicated fashion. Right now it's setting up (and playing with) the web server space I just bought myself as kind of a christmas gift. Some of you got my silly little podcast link, and next i'll have a wordpress installation and a wiki installation and... whatever else I can think of. It's probably not going to be a premium destination on the internet. Just a place to play with things and break things and see if I can fix them. I don't remember how much php I've already forgotten.

Anyway.

I don't know if I heard much new music this year that I'd list as favorites. The Innocence Mission's We Walked In Song. Regina Spektor's "On The Radio". Stevie Wonder doing "Superstition" on Sesame Street. Lavender Diamond LP was a big disappointment after their EP, which I still love. This Guy Clark song, "In The Parking Lot". Heard John Cooper Clarke's "Evidently Chickentown" for the first time and loved that.

Haha awesome... on my other workstation, I've got iTunes open and am occasionally sliding the chair over to edit my "Best of 2007" playlist. It's been reworked so so many times, but damnit, it's time to SETTLE.

And there is Dan Deacon. Oh yes, there is.

Btw I stayed up until almost 1:00 last night finishing the Wire (well, I didn't get off work until after 7:00). I'm sure season 5 will be great, but I really enjoyed the non-status quo of s4, what with major crimes being scattered and almost zero McNulty etc..

I watched a couple minutes of the extras and hearing McNulty talk with his real accent fucking freaks me out.

M.I.A.'s appearance on all these year-end lists doesn't surprise me, but I still think that album is really weak. An intriguing persona doesn't trump half-assed tunes.

Actually, the thing about Dan Deacon is if "Wham City" were like half as long, I'd probably find room for it. That's the only song on the album I'll go to bat for.

My Idolator poll is short reissues this time. Every time I clicked on either 'Hold Ballot' or 'Lock Ballot', those forms disappeared.

From what I've heard the production and ideas are great, but her voice and hooks are starting to get on my nerves.

What's Dan Deacon like?

Controversial.