with the weekend coming up and the chances of me posting during the weekend unlikely, i figured one more post was in the offing. (of course, i'll be spending this time with at least two of my most loyal readers, so there's probably not much benefit in this post at all. then again, there's never really a point, right?)

here's how to best recap the weekend that's been over for three days: it was about 430 or 5 in the morning on sunday, and i was making the return walk home to the gurs pad. and i turned to gurs and i said, "do you realize how lucky you are that you get to have this much fun all the time?" and he corrected me to say that that extreme amount of fun was probably no more than a monthly, or at least a bi-weekly activity.

but it was real, real fun.

there was no low point, although rolling around in my filth on saturday (a day that saw me hop into the shower at about 7 pm) could serve as one. watching football with leo and eric and gurs. rocking out for a total of about six hours, with a (still) sore throat to prove it. reveling in the joy of bob's "six high fives and two beers." getting so sweaty that my shirt actually frosted during the walk sunday night's walk from the abbey put to the car, which was two blocks away. even the drive to o'hare with rico...although i embarrassingly got slightly lost, it only gave us more time to talk, so that worked out great.

and now thanksgiving promises to be a whirlwind of sorts, as i'm expected to see time in annawan, illinois; ann arbor, michigan; lansing, michigan; chicago, illinois; and glenview, illinois. nemo and unstadt on the docket for tomorrow night, the second year of a tradition, apparently.

michigan has more coastline than california. who knew?

rockstock 2003 has left me with a weekend's worth of good times, an incredibly sore throat, and a need for more sleep.

after a sunday night rock show, i wound up sleeping in glenview. i departed for iowa monday morning at 5:15, and i pretty much sleepwalked (sleptwalked?) through the day.

fell asleep on the couch about 6:00 tonight, woke up to see one play during monday night football, and fell asleep until about 2:00.

i'll plan to head back to sleep now.

(before i fell asleep on sunday night, i happened to see a bit of mtv's you hear it first, an actual music-devoted show. much of this one featured the very eloquent sway reading off of the teleprompter, telling me all about indie rock. he also talked about my sister's friends band, which was pretty cool.

a return trip to chicago is imminent, and the plan is to have the car not broken into this weekend.

a detour is taken tonght, to dekalb, illinois, to watch guided by voices play some rock and roll, yeah.

i was walking back to work (i'm four blocks away) after lunch this afternoon, and i had the b-sides disk of the recent box set playing, and i had one of those moments where i felt pure and utter excitement.

it's lame, i guess, but it's so freakin' exciting to see them play again. some oddities have been popping into the setlist of late, most notably finks and hey aardvark. i've never seen anything off of earthquake glue, except for "i'll replace you with machines," live. it's been 10 months, in fact, the longest drought of my gbv-loving life.

gurs, mike, slater, i don't know who else will be meeting me there. and the rock will be wonderful. (the go is tonight's opener. they're like gbv, but less talented, and about six years younger. here's to beer-fueled rock and roll.)

where i've seen gbv, more for my edification than for yours:


chicago - metro - july, 1998
cleveland - phantasy nite club - october, 1998
detroit - magic stick - october, 1998

austin - waterloo park - march, 1999
chicago - metro - august, 1999
st. louis - mississippi nights - november, 1999
chicago - metro - december, 1999 (greatest show ever. goldheart returns!)

newport, kentucky (cincinnati) - southgate house - march, 2000
chicago - metro - september, 2000

[painfully missed show - chicago - empty bottle - february, 2001 - the chicago debut of the strokes, as gbv opener]

milwaukee - the rave - march, 2001
austin - waterloo records - april, 2001
austin - stubb's barbeque - april, 2001
indianapolis - birdy's - december, 2001 - (road trip with gurs! - super duper)

champaign - high dive - march, 2002
iowa city - gabe's oasis - may, 2002

chicago - metro - january, 2003
evanston - nevin's - january, 2003
dekalb - otto's - november, 2003 (tonight!)
chicago - abbey pub - november, 2003 (sunday)

freddy adu's on letterman tonight. i haven't seen him yet. he has the face of a 34-year-old, but is listed at 5-8, 140. i guess that's pretty big for 14. he's probably 28.

i hope he kicks ass, because i like it when young guys kick ass.

rico's in town. woof!

i have twice forgotten to post the funniest thing about this weekend. i have remembered.

andre ware, former heisman winner and current espn analyst, was apparently uncomfortable on saturday with the pronunciation of michigan super-frosh steve breaston's last name. instead of breaston (breast-in), he insisted upon breest-in. not unlike john ashcroft spending eight-thousand dollars to cover up the breest on one of them statues.

in other news, a conversation with the boy saved a long, bland night. (the conversation, strangely, was also long and bland.) i was treated to this nugget: notre dame's conservative, very conservative. they do the whole single-sex dorm thing, which i guess is understandable. they also follow the single-sex thing everywhere, which is to say that, even if you're in an off-campus apartment, they reserve the right to expel unmarried students who live with students of the opposite sex. nobody tries them.

i think he's going to get an a in math for poets.

big day today. received my first-ever "free stuff" as a pro, which is a gigantic step forward.

today's "free stuff" came courtesy of the Victory Sports Network, which is the network that will be televising twins baseball in 2004...it's their own network, not unlike the 'bullsnet' or 'cubsnet' tag that sometimes gets used on wgn or wciu.

anyway, with apparently more time to fill, they're looking to do some minor league reports. the guy said he'd like to meet me during my yearly visit to spring training - - little does he know, i don't get to go there, ever.

but anyway, the free shirt is nice. i was so excited, i put it on after work. it's got this space-age metallic sheen to it, which is cool or not-cool, i'm not sure.

didja see the trade last friday? the one that involved all-star catcher a.j. pierzynski leaving the twins and going to the national league? that opens the door for joe mauer to start the 2004 season as minnesota's catcher. wild.

after nearly five days' worth of 'feeling dumb,' i can conclude that the iq test link posted on wednesday night is simply an unreliable source. how can i convince you that this is fact, and not just sour grapes?

an email received this afternoon, subject line 'IQ,' from sister annie:

"Suck this, Andrew!!

Congratulations, Annie!
Your IQ score is 136"

and yes, the source is unreliable.

now that that mess is taken care of...

saturday was a busy day, in a manner of speaking. went to the iowa-minnesota game (contested for floyd of rosedale, as flax can tell you). the game was particularly disinteresting (although it was funny to watch minnesota roll up 550 yards of offense and double the hawkeyes in first downs in a 40-22 loss), but the company (soon-to-be-departed co-worker josh, co-worker keith and co-worker-girlfriend christina) was very good. i was resplendent in wildcat purple, but received no catcalls for my choice of garb.

the cats were, of course, quite ugly. the score was 7-3 michigan when i arrived in the car, and 31-3 within the next 15 minutes.

i hope ohio state plays well enough to keep it close this weekend. there's no way they'll beat michigan, who's probably the second-best team in the country right now. i'm just hoping that the bucks play well enough to avoid a 12-place drop in the rankings and a departure from the BCS top 12. i'm hoping that, before osu-michigan, the cats get to .500 on the season.

friday was a blast, as i painted at the house of co-worker geoff, and also got to play with samantha, who celebrated her one-month birthday today. geoff cooked dinner, which was super.

that's all i've got to report.

rather than much-needed sleep, i just took an iq test. it's here, and i scored a 126 on it. i was also called a "precision processor." it's about 10 minutes long, and i've now got a headache.

in other news, my pal nemo officially has a d-1 broadcasting gig involving a major sport. the only problem is, he has to watch women's basketball. nonetheless, bitchin'.

big big phone conversation night. steve sacks at 915, followed by matt pearl at 1115 (which leaves me writing at 1245). sacksy's quite excited about the worst 5-5 team in the history of college football (my words, not his), while pearl is enjoying being the most popular sports reporter in sioux city (again, my words, not his).

unfortunately, pearl has proven to be a "visit-tease." you see, while on my lunch break, i received the phone message in which he invited me to visit him during iowa state football semifinals weekend (this friday), as he'd be covering it and i'd not be far from it. my hopes were high. i returned his call this evening, and he responded in kind, with the news that he'd not be around on friday.

but the conversation was still wonderful, regarding playmakers and steve weissman and iowans.

so, from the highest of the high to the lowest of the low. sigh.

michael stipe's an awful late night talk show interview. but, then again, carson daly's an awful interviewer.

the guided by voices hardcore ufo's box set, their third box set in the last decade, arrived at my door today.

it's impressive. a greatest hits disc, a disc of out-of-print b-sides and rarities, a 75-minute live disc, a disc of fair-to-middlin' unreleased songs, and a re-release of the gbv documentary watch me jumpstart, featuring a few new videos and some more extended live footage. the superstar of the collection is forever since breakfast, the band's 1986 debut ep which ran in an initial pressing of 500, and never again. it's not great, but good to have.

and in other news, check out the website gbvdb.com, an absolutely incredible database of the band. it's got all the standard stuff - live setlists, show listings, discography and the like - but it's also got this incredible lyric search feature. type in some sort of ridiculous lyrical smidgen - "naked fat baby," perhaps - and you'll be taken immediately to the song in which the snippet appears. gbv fans are dorks.

prior to saturday night, i had had one karaoke experience, and it was a bad one. following 'the macarena girls' while in san antonio in late-2000 to cover the wildcats, i belted out a solo, awful version of 'you're so vain.' hoping for audience interaction, i simply got blank stares. and hoping for adulation and applause, i got more blank stares.

last night, a slightly inebriated rud-man was a karaoke star, turning an underappreciated classic into a bit of 'music history.' indeed, it was 'wouldn't it be nice?' and, indeed, my 'falsetto' was in full effect. it was a thing of beauty.

other than that, i did some cleaning this weekend. great, great cleaning. scrubbing of floors cleaning. and it's worked out great.

it's quite strange to state that, after this weekend's victory over penn state, the wildcats are 5-5 and could reasonably be expected to finish the season 6-6. there exists the distinct possibility that two big ten teams (ohio state and michigan) will wind up in BCS games, which would leave an opening for an eight big ten teams to get bowl bids. (inexplicably, the big ten has tie-ins with seven bowl games.) the cats would be the big ten's eighth bowl-eligible team.

this would seemingly set up a chance for r-dub to lead his boys to the motor city bowl, to take on a far superior opponent from the mid-american conference. december 26th in detroit, anyone?

even more interesting would be the sun bowl, for a pac ten matchup. this one remains interesting only because the cats hoopsters are participating in the sun bowl tournament, december 27 and 28. the football game is the 31st. and the purple will take over el paso...party at anson's house.

question: if a coach takes a traditionally awful program to a bowl game, but loses that bowl game to finish with a sub-.500 record, is there grounds to fire that coach? i hope not.

one more negative development from this past weekend. after doing my laundry on saturday, i left the final load in the dryer overnight. as could be expected, on sunday morning, this load remained in the dryer while i drove iowa-ward. my mother the saint has apparently boxed up the final load and mailed it my way, although it hasn't yet arrived. until it does, i'll be sleeping on a sheet-less bed. it happens.

anyway, contrary to what you may have thought, i've done more than simply wallow in my misery over the past four days, although i'm not quite sure what.

i do know that i did actual mopping, vacuuming, and furniture-rearranging tonight, which was an absolute blast. i've gone all angular in the main living space...i'm not sure if it works, but it's something different.

also, uncle bob's coffee table - discolored due to 'ironing without a board' - continues to chug along. there's been difficulty in the tabletop-falling-off-of-table department over the past year, but i spent a solid 20 minutes really tightening the screws so as to hopefully avoid it.

re: the job search. one potential opening has apparently closed, while two more have potentially sprung open. as of this afternoon, a co-worker has escaped. we celebrate this weekend.

what started out as a wonderful weekend turned strangely disastrous on saturday afternoon, approximately 1:30.

it was at this time when gurs' neighbor knocked on the gurs door, mentioning that her roommate had had his car broken into friday overnight, and there that "there are some clothes all over the alley." this, of course, meant to me "that's my laundry." which it was.

so, yes, the car was broken into.

it's tough to describe the disarray of the car itself, which had been locked. papers everwhere, all the seats had been pushed forward, the backseat pulled out for improved trunk access.

the take included my company-issued cellphone, my toll change (about six bucks worth), my laundry bag (they took the bag, left the dirty laundry on the pavement), and, most importantly, my cd wallet.

the cd wallet contained 23 discs at the time. among those taken: beulah's yoko, grandaddy's sumday, guided by voices' earthquake glue, modest mouse's the moon and antarctica, r.e.m.'s eponymous collection and automatic for the people, the reissued version of uncle tupelo's no depression, the white stripes' elephant, wilco's yankee hotel foxtrot, and yo la tengo's i can hear the heart beating as one. most importantly, however, also lost were the gurs collection summer of the west nile virus, or whatever, as well as the unstadt's death in the country and this is not a pipe. pisses a guy off.

and here's the thing: also sitting on the passenger seat of the automobile on friday night were four cd's - nirvana's bleach, travis' good feeling, the shins' chutes too narrow and the beachwood sparks' once we were trees - but apparently the thieves decided those cd's sucked. apparently, they figured, i only would bring cases for the ones i didn't like. idiots. (i mean, really, what pleasure could any thief possibly get out of grandaddy?)

so finally, i tried to call in a report on saturday, and, after about eight calls, wasn't able to get to anyone who knew the proper number. so i called tonight, using yahoo to get the proper district phone number and everything, and the officer said "just call 311." which nobody yesterday knew apparently. he didn't, however, know what number an out-of-city person could call. but i've been on hold for the last 15 minutes now, apparently at the correct number.

and here's the final thing: the guy's already begun using my phone number. i've got four new voice messages, one sort of featuring a phone number in the message. hopefully we'll find the dickface(s).

prior to the theft, friday was a fine night. dropsy was in fine form, and i was invited to perform a blazing version of 'motor away' with them. my joe borowski costume (featuring real baseball pants and a real rosin bag) could be considered at least a minor hit, and the company was good.

saturday brought an upbeat watching of the first half of the cats with gurs and his roommates leo and dave. the bad news came just before halftime. i watched the second half glumly, then returned to glenview (forgoing an undoubtedly tremendous performance by the decemberists).

i got back to the 'port around noon, in time to see a bears win. bears wins are always good.

postscript: after holding for 20 minutes, i finally got to speak with an officer. at that point, my phone ran out of batteries.

and what can be learned from this weekend? people are assholes.