Last night I went to Avec in Chicago with my brother and our childhood friend Jason, who is my age. We actually had brunch with him and his wife and young son last Saturday, but more on that later. Avec is a “tapas” like place – well small plate Mediterranean food, to be exact, which is rather popular so we had a good long wait to be seated. It is primarily long communal tables, so as a party of three we had to wait for an end spot to free up to be seated. And the chair (besides the benches along the walls) have fake backs like 3-4 inches high. Just what I didn’t want after wandering around Chicago all day and standing for 90 minutes waiting for the seat.
Anyway the weird seating aside, dinner was good, and we had a fun time talking. One thing that came up is that Jason and his wife basically alternate who is sleeping and who is awake during the night, in shifts. He stays up Late and his wife gets up when he goes to sleep. Basically, he plays World of Warcraft all night, except when the baby needs attention. Even more strange, he plays on the server I started out on. He tried to get me back in to the game, and to get my brother playing. Keith was in to it, save for the fact that he doesn’t have internet at home currently. Hah.
I will post some pics from earlier in the day later.
Batman The Dark Knight – A well executed superhero movie. It was not perfect, of course, but it was way better than average. You probably all know this already. I won’t bore you, I will just rate it. 11 out of 12 rabbit turds.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army – Hrm, this movie was visually interesting, but one should expect no less of a movie directed by del Toro. The thing is, I think the first movie of the series was better for a couple of reasons. First, and foremost, the villains in the first movie were just better villains. Second, the heroes were more interesting in the first movie. And third, the plot of the first movie, although silly, of course, was more solid than this sequel. 5 out of 8 rabbit turds for this one.
Last night we took my dad to Topolobampo for his 60th birthday. This in and of itself would have been awesome, but we had an extra surprise. For, the table across from us was reserved for none other than Barack and Michelle Obama. This was just a great icing on the cake of my dad’s birthday dinner.
In case you’re wondering, pretty much everyone in the restaurant just let them be, and let them eat a “normal” dinner, well as normal as dinner can be at what has to be the finest Mexican Restaurant in the US if not the world.
Also, here is a little article about the Obamas’ and McCains’ favorite restaurants which mentions Topolo.
When I was younger, well, until I was 15 or so, my parents live in a town house in unincorporated Maine Township, in Illinois. The mailing address was Des Plaines, but it wasn’t and isn’t part of any city. Anyway, at the time I didn’t know or really understand, but the townhouses in the area do not have any sort of HOA associated with them. Everyone maintains their external structure and landscaping as they see fit.
Now, back when we lived there, I guess this was not really an issue. At least in the few “buildings” that I had much connection too. (It was pretty densely populated, with groups of 4 houses packed rather tightly. Maybe a satellite picture would be useful:
The longer buildings are the 4 long town houses. Surrounding are a lot of duplexes. My parents house was near the marker in that map. Anyway, my point that I am slowly approaching, was that back at the time when my parents first moved in and when I was younger, despite there being no HOA, the people in the contiguous units worked together so that at least the external apperance of the units were consistent. Now, not so much – you’ll see one quarter of a building with aluminum siding, as opposed to the original wood, and sometimes even units painted different colors than their neighbors. Quite chaotic. And the landscaping is just insane. Most of the trees are gone from the area near my parents old house, so there is just bare lawn – except for one house which is almost completely overgrown by trees that were not there when we left around 18 years ago. It’s really amazing.
The crux of this is that while this was a great place to grow up, for me, now it seems rather sad and run down. I am not 100% sure why, and what happened, but it made me sort of sad.