h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So our power came back on at home last Wednesday night, and I've got nothing else to moan about. I've got all of the grocery receipts for the previous weeks together so I can file a claim with the electric company for reimbursement for the wasted food items. The melty messes are cleaned up and no permanent damage done.

Saturday, went to a nice gig at the new location of The Bottom Lounge, which used to be in our neighborhood but was demolished to make room for CTA el platform expansion. It's now located in the West Loop, about a 1/2- 3/4 from my office. I can't remember the name of the opening act (some kids from Nashville), but we got to see Mexican Cheerleaders (old friends), The Arrivals, and the always great Pegboy. I've always liked Pegboy. They did an awesome cover of "That's When I Reach For My Revolver".

Not much else going on. K's sister, BIL and the kids are back from Peru and settled into their new place in New York, where BIL has found a professor's position. Sis and the kids will be here for this weekend. We haven't seen them since spring. (And I hope we'll get to visit them in Peru next year...)

That's about it for now...

Internet say Blacklist Royals.

Pegboy sound interesting - another one Steve Albini has been involved with. Wiki editorialise thus:

"Peg Boy is a term that refers to an individual whose occupation was to dialate the anus of a cabin boy, with a peg, in preparation for sodomy. AAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH."

Glad you had fun.

It's 4am here and a nice clear night - I've caught a couple of shooting stars.

Albini played bass with Pegboy for a short time, yes. Before Pierre Kedzy (of Naked Raygun- his brother John is with the Effigies, another of my favorites).

So... after you've found that job description, I'll bet yours doesn't sound so bad, eh?

Haven't seen any shooting stars myself, but I'm going to try over the weekend. If we can't see them from the park, we'll try to see if we can get a peek from K's parents place on Saturday. They've got a fairly huge back yard.

Don't know what the light pollution's like where you are, pretty awful I'd imagine but last night was a rare treat here. Plus the moon set about midnight which helped.

Think I'll stick to the dayjob though I've got the day off and am about to sit and watch Dark Star, of all things. Plus I got a book! A reference book mind, but all about rocks and minerals, which I'm planning to get into. I'm going to buy a big stack of polished stones from The Cusp next payday (whence the amber necklace).

Oh, you know I love Dark Star.

Enjoy the rock & mineral book. I had several when I was a kid. My dad used to go fossil digging and used to bring me all sorts of pretty minerals, quartzes, geodes, etc. I loved it. I even had a bit lump of sulphur.

I imagine the light pollution's a bit rough here, but down in the boondocks by K's folks, they don't have street lights. It's got to be worth a peek. As long as it doesn't rain. I'm apparently considered a delicacy by most mosquitos.

You need to eat a banana. Or smother yourself in banana. Or both, I can't remember. I know it involves bananas.

Eating bananas or rubbing the insides of the peels is supposed to help. I still wind up nibbled a bit. Man, do they itch!!

You know, one of the things that annoys me most about this obnoxious co-worker of mine is that he brings his personal laptop with him and sits and messes with it all day when he's not working on work-related stuff. I spend as much time as the next person farting around on teh interwebs at the office when there's nothing to do, but it's in rather poor taste to be so blatant about wasting company time as to sit at your personal laptop. Not that it's connected to the network or antyhing- he sits there and watches programs and movies he's ripped. Tacky?

Not entirely legal or appropriate employee behaviour either, I'd have thought...

I'm sure legality isn't an issue, but I lean toward inappropriate, totally. You know the sort of person- miserably unhappy and unsatisfied in his personal life, so behaves in an antisocial, arrogant, and passive-aggressive way toward most of his co-workers. But, he gets his work done so it's not like there are any disciplinary issues now that he's been told he cannot play music without headphones any more.

On a happier note, I recently had to buy some furniture for one of the offices, and the existing furniture was discontinued by the manufacturer a couple of years ago. I had to have my sales rep come in with some "swatches" and blueprints, and we custom-designed what I needed (an overhead hutch for a desk credenza).

It arrived about an hour ago and was just installed, and I'm impressed- I somehow managed to match the wood finish nearly perfectly. Even the grain matches up. I missed my calling as an interior designer, I think.

Ooh, looks like I know what I'm doing this weekend. "What We Do Is Secret", the Germs/Darby Crash bio-pic, opens this weekend at the Music Box.

http://www.filmthreat.com/index.php?section=reviews&Id=10130

Sweeeet!