Chicago: Totally hands-free!!!

"The word tranche is French for slice; in the financial sense of the word, each bond is a slice of the deal's risk."

Sounds like a promotions dude somewhere got a thesaurus for his birthday.

i give that reviewer a B for BOO.

ATTN RIVER WOLF: I think that Medical Journal editor job has been posted again. I can find out if you like.

omg yes plz. i have been dragging ass on the other ones; i just got a heap of secondary apps after my AMCAS app was validated.

Yup, definitely back up. Posted this very day!

just saw it! BAM!

will apply tonight!

thanks again, Dan!

I am quail and quasar.

I pick you up on radar.

chicago, a woman just came over and give me liquor, drugs, and money. what a fucking country we live in!

[image of yakov smirnoff here]

my cuticles are a mess. and i've been biting my nails. yech. and i burned my left ring finger on a pan of paella so it looks gross.

Bummer, Jesse, that's going to look like hell in the wedding photos.

Kevin: liquor bitch pay-back??

Mornin', Laurel.

Congrats, Kevin.

Jesse, Was that paella at work or at home?

Guys, I suck at cooking with tofu. I think I cut it the wrong direction AND too thin, because I ended up breaking up the pieces so bad trying to flip them in the pan that it ended up looking like scrambled eggs. :-(

was there enough oil in the pan? it sounds like you cut them the wrong way too -- did you cut it horizontally or vertically? (horizontally is the way to go imo)

no biggie-- try again. i've screwed up many times. surely everyone has.

The paella was at the HORRIBLE Cafe Iberico.

BTW - I talked to the people at Catch about that place, most hated it, but a couple defended it as "authentic," but in the same way that Golden Nugget is authentic American diner food. There was one girl who lived in Spain who lived in Spain who said that's what tapas are like there--loud, wide open space where you get slop slopped at you by sloppy slobs.

But that's not why I go out.

Wow. I lost steam in putting ideas down somewhere there. Whatever. It's hard to concentrate cuz I've been up since ass AM, I had a bad CTA experience and one of the partners is walking around the office carrying wind chimes that are fucking LOUD.

The wind chimes are our new security system around here, since we've had a shady character trying doors on the suites and hanging out in reception areas.

OH MY GOD THE BEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLS

I cut them in long, thin slices, like big rectangles. I'm thinking I should have cut them the shorter direction, if that makes any sense. I probably had enough oil in the pan, but could have used a larger one so that all the pieces could lay flat. (I was using our larger one to cook the rest of the meal) At the very least, I could have cooked the tofu in stages instead of trying to fit it all in there at once. Again, they were too thin anyway.

Despite that goofup, the meal was very flavorful.

Those bells would turn me into a crazy train.

How long does it take to drive to Skokie?

Oy. This morning gets better every second.

The assoc. atty. tried to make coffee. He almost electrocuted himself and now we have no coffee maker.

I cut tofu vertically but only in three slices. That's to drain it. Then from there I cut it into cubes.

Does anyone want a) that tall white bookshelf in my dining room, or b) an 11" TV?

Kevin: liquor bitch pay-back??

no, my friend that you don't like came over last night bearing gifts as a way of saying thanks for watching her special needs cat while she went back to mayberry to see her folks. so i had a fine tennessee sipping whiskey and resisted the urge to light up the other stuff because the job i interviewed for requires a pre-employment drug test.

i'd told her that i wouldn't take $$$ for watching the cat but she came with a money order so that i wouldn't take no for an answer. i'm going to blow it all at the grocery store, i can't wait to make a real meal. i think i'm gonna splurge on a roast and either make pulled pork or perhaps a brisket.

"special needs cat" = "shits all over the place"?

health issues unrelated to scat.

poor thing.:(

How long does it take to drive to Skokie?

From Evanston or from Wicker Park? And where in Skokie?

from evanston, I'd say 10-15 minutes.

Mapquest says it's a 20 minute drive from our house to Skokie in general (I don't have an address yet). But like half of that is on 94 so it will probably take longer.

Basically this dude wants to buy my guitar but:
a) wants to try it with his amp, but he doesn't have a car and lives in Skokie, so he wants me to drive the guitar out there,
and
b) wants to pay me $30 less than my asking price, even though I listed it as firm.
I don't really want to drive out to Skokie and get less $$$ than I want, but it's the only serious offer I've had so far. I think I'm going to repost the ad a little later and see if i get any more bites.

I can't really drive from Evanston because I usually finish up work around 2:30ish but he doesn't get off work until 5 so I'd have to kill like three hours out in the burbs.

Plus I'm at home today.

i saw the ad, price was more than fair and the pictures were good. after some under the table work i didn't need to sell my jaguar but did sell my danelectro two weeks ago. rent is due this weekend so as soon as i get the usb cable for my camera back the jag's going up on cl.

then i will be guitarless for the first time in 20 years.

Give it more time, Nick. Repost the ad in a bit.

I was planning on selling my first guitar - a cheap pale blue lotus - to get some money to put towards my xmas airfare, but then I saw one last night musicgoround for $39.99. :-(

I think I'm going to sell my no-name green guitar that appears in the Do the Dance video as well. It is one of the coolest-looking guitars ever but sounds too bad to actuallly use for playing music. I like having it but we just have too many guitars around the house right now.

Argh, I can't say too much about this, but for the last week or so the band has been constantly teetering on the edge of either signing with a label or breaking up altogether. Frustrating.

Kev, how much do you want for the Jag? (just curious)

(email if you'd rather not say or whatever)

N - Did you decide to craigslist it, ebay, or take it to a store??

J - Can you say what you're hoping for?

music go round gave me 2/3rds of what i paid for my dano 10 years ago. it was a really cheap guitar but it was fun to play. i'm gonna miss it. my friend lisa found an airline at a thrift store on the south side last weekend for FIVE DOLLARS. she said it's in great condition.

xpost- john be enigmatic and do both!

That's a good way to get press! ha ha

Well, maybe I could get more for my lotus just because it's purrrty. You can see her here.

dan, i'll probably ask $500 knowing i'll never get that much on craigslist for a reissue but will take $400 i guess? they're going for twice that on ebay.

ok, this is insane. my isn't a 2k5 reissue, it's a '96 reissue of the '62 but wtf buy it now price.

Haha. The way things are going, that's probably what will happen.

Sarah, I guess I'm sort of hoping it falls apart, just because I've already decided that I don't want to be in the band if it gets successful and requires us to do extended touring. I mean, I'm committed to staying in the band as long as it takes to record a new album (actually I still want to do that, no matter what) and train whoever they would get to replace me, but this just kind of makes it easier and makes me feel less guilty/regretful.

I want to say I paid @$100 for it back in... 1997 or so? Maybe it was a tiny bit more, like $150. Anyway, it was funny because at the time it was SUCH a big deal. I had my mom drop me off at the bank so I could withdraw the money from my savings. Then I walked from there to the guitar store, bought it, and got a gig bag and supplies. Then my mom helped me celebrate by getting the bag embroidered with SOMA on it (the guitar's name obviously). The bag fell apart at some point though.

That's a yummy looking guitar, Kevin.

Sarah, I guess I'm sort of hoping it falls apart, just because I've already decided that I don't want to be in the band if it gets successful and requires us to do extended touring

I totally feel ya, but awhile ago wasn't that the reason that you were staying in the band? Funny how things work out. :>

Yep. That was also a couple years ago, when my life felt less settled and the idea of randomly picking up and travelling cross-country was more attractive. It was also when the band had existed for three or four years instead of almost six, which is a long time to put into something that you've never really been completely driven to do.

That's a yummy looking guitar, Kevin.

that's what mine looks like, 3 tone sunburst with the red tortoise pickguard. i need to find my goddamn allen wrenches...