Starry Wisdom

On the minus side:

I woke up too early today

On the plus side:

I went to Old Orchard at 9am and got me an iphone with no waiting. And the woman who assisted me in my purchase was cute.

On the minus side:

Grandma wasn’t feeling well today, so didn’t want to get lunch

On the plus side:

Mom took me to Lou Malnati’s for lunch.

On the minus side:

My friend didn’t call me back tonight, so I stayed ‘home’ at my parents.

On the plus side:

We watched I’m Not There which was pretty good, and it stormed like crazy, so staying in was probably wiser than driving in to the city.

Here are some ratings from the past few weeks:

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.

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.

Well, I got a new domain, on a whim, last night. And I moved the blog there. The old location still works, mind you, so if you were following my rss feed, it will just WORK. Otherwise, please find me at www.squidopus.net.

I made the name up because i figured squid and octopus domains were all taken, and octopuid sounds lame. Plus it is reminiscent of Vampyroteuthis infernalis (the vampire squid from hell) which is a squid that looks like an octopus:

Also a bonus pic, of quite possibly the cutest cephalopod around, the dumbo octopus (Grimpoteuthis):

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:

View Larger Map

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.

Strangely, I am the first one awake my parent’s house this morning. I am not sure why I woke up at 8:30 (although I woke up first at 6, 7 and 8 before this), but I could tell I was done sleeping. Oh well, at least my mom bought some good tea that I am drinking.

I made another longer post on my travel blog. I have to decide if I want to coalesce them together or not at some point.

I am in Chicagoland for my Dad’s 60th birthday (we’re celebrating tonight – dinner at Topolabampo, YUM!).

Yesterday I tried to get a gift for my dad in Evanston, and failed. But while I was there, I decided to walk around the concrete lagoon which we’ve called Lake Oregano for 15 years or so:

I actually walked around it about 5 times, while chatting with my childhood friend Jason, who I am going to lunch with today, so I can meet his first kid (who is 6 months old or so). That should be interesting.

While we’re at it, I will share a photo of a real lake:

Afterwards, I went and hung out with my wonderful Grandma for a couple of hours. I took a couple of pictures of her and me, because there are a bunch of them with my brother and sister-in-law and her from the past year or two. And none of me. Well, I fixed that:

Afterwards, I hung out at home a bit, before going in to the City proper to hang out with my childhood friend Mike and his wife Randy, and their dog Toby. I had dinner at their place, and chatted and what not. The important thing to discuss now, however, is Toby:

He has the most adorable hair, and looks like a living stuffed animal. I got to hear some great stories, which I had heard in part, relating to Toby’s early life. You see, Mike and Randy met around a month after she got Toby.

That, in and of itself is not too surprising, but the next detail is pretty interesting. The key factor is that the poor puppy had a broken leg, because his doggie gate fell on him :(.
Evidently Mike was coming home after watching a Cub’s game and saw Randy on his street (she lived basically across the street at the time) and, having had a few beers, asked her what she did to her poor puppy. She told him that she did nothing, and he accepted that, and went home.

A few days later, he was coming home, again a bit tipsy, and ran in to Randy and Toby a second time. He had this brilliant idea that since she had a new puppy at home she probably didn’t have much time to do anything other than puppy maintenance, so he would offer to cook for her. In his hot sober state this offer extended from just cooking to cooking and vacuuming. For some reason the vacuuming idea impressed her (although scared her too) and she asked him to 1) take off his hat and 2) his age, before giving him her phone number. I asked if 1) above was to see if he was bald, but she said “mostly to make sure he was as old as he said he was, I thought he was in college!”. Anyway, despite this awkward beginning they got married last November. All because of Toby – well and the Cubs and beer.