My sister had a baby boy (Logan) the day after Thanksgiving. Woo!

In other less exciting news, Crapple is happening again this week but I might not be around for it. I'll keep ya'll informed if anyone is interested.

Becky

So here I am trying to get back in the blogging scene and I can't think of anything clever to say or a joke to tell. woe is me. Plus I am at work which doesn't make it much better. But I get to go home and head to yoga tonight so that is cool.

Thanksgiving for us is in Sun Prairie this year. My mom wants to go to the zoo in Madison on Friday. Hopefully she listens to us when we tell her that its too cold!!!! Other than that most of the holiday will involve passing my baby niece around from family member to family member (right now she is the most popular), and I will be in line with the best of them waiting to hold the baby. she's just so cute! but enough about me...

Alright its quittin time now. Hopefully I will be back tomorrow for more fun!

Jen

Don't think I don't know what suits you well

I too was sick on Thursday night, and decided that I should stay home instead of get drunk which I happened to do the rest of the weekend (get drunk that is). And somehow, I am getting over this cold that seems to be going around. So, I'm sorry that I didn't call. I figure we can hang out after I get back.

I leave for Vegas this Wednesday for Thanksgiving. I usually don't go out there on this holiday, but I kind of felt like going home. This is a big thing for me considering that I like to make my trips home as short as possible. This is not because I don't like my parents, it's really more about being at their mercy. Everytime I'm out in vegas, I usually don't have a car or cannot afford to rent one. This leaves me with three options, either a) stay home, b)walk where I need to go or c)go with my parents where ever they go. I usually get guilted into going where they want to go because we are supposed to be spending "quality time" together, which somehow involves us going to a casino. The reason why I decided to go home over Thanksgiving is due to the fact that Michelle and Pawel (my sister and bro-in-law) will be traveling to Vegas as well. It makes the visit there a little bit easier and definitly more tolerable.

Tonight I need to update the i-pod and get my stuff ready to go. Unfortunately for me, I am a huge procrastinator and will probably end up packing Wednesday morning before I go to work.

Since Mike ended with a joke, here's one from the Truely Tasteless joke book:

How do you make a dead baby float?

One scoop of ice cream and one scoop of dead baby.

I'm still sick - woo!

I think there will be a huge bowling blowout at Diversey on Wednesday night. I'll provide more details later for any interested parties.

Mike

Ain't too proud to beg
I urge all readers and writers of this blog to watch Arrested Development on FOX every Sunday. It's a very funny, well-written show with no laugh track (AMEN!). Because it's a very funny, well-written show, the ratings are terrible. Apparently most TV watchers in the US can only handle lowest common denominator tripe like Becker, so quality programs like Undeclared that occasionally (gasp!) challenge the viewer and make them think a little die a quick death. Andy Richter and his show have already been screwed, and I don't want the same to happen to 80s icon Jason Bateman. It honestly amazes me that a good program with a fairly large marketing campaign behind it, airing on a major network during their most popular night of the week, is doing poorly. Do people actually enjoy shows like Good Morning, Miami and Hope & Faith? I don't get worked up very often, but this makes me angry.

So, did the weekly Fizz outing fail to happen again this week? I didn't hear anything, but didn't bother to call anyone because I was sick and not about to go out for a few drinks. I'm still sick, but staying home from work today made me feel a little better.

Mike's terrible joke of the week:
Why don't hipsters ever become karate masters? Because they can never get past the white belt!!!

Thank you! I'll be here all week, coughing up phlegm and drinking gallon after gallon of orange juice.

Jen

Life is what happens while your making plans

It's amazing what can happen in two weeks. so cool, yet so unexpected.

Anyway, I've been busy with the usual work stuff, and on top of that, i just landed a free-lance photo job and a sewing job; the 2nd job was probably the least expected of the two. I'm taking head shots for a solo R&B artist (that I'll name at a later date) which is kind of strange for me. When I showed him my portfolio, a lot of the music related portion of it consists of photos of punk rock shows. He seemed to like them all, which also was a little surprising, but for whatever reason, we are now working together. He is such a sweet guy and super photogenic - just a real peach to work with.

My sewing gig is actually for my work. I'll be making black velvet curtains to block off one of our galleries. I'm not sure why they asked me, but I don't care!
I'm just happy to be making some extra cash!

Tonight is Becky and Greg's joint birthday party, so send them an e-mail and tell them how you think they should start blogging again. oh, and don't forget to say Happy Birthday too, you know, be nice and all.

Mike, get in touch with me to get the information to the party.

Ok, just to add to Mike's crapple story, I just want to say that we also wasted our money on original Pac-Man, which was one of the cooler aspects of the bar. It seems that whenever I get around old video games, I have to play them. I'm thinking this is because there is no way for me to ever master new video games. I'll sound about 50 when I say this, but there are two many buttons on new controllers. I have no idea what the function is of more than oh, five buttons is. There oviously needs to be one to control direction, one to jump, one to punch/kick, one to start the game and one for good measure. Even when I play newer games, I think I only use those buttons anyway and ignore the rest. Besides this tangent of mine, I also want to say that it was a good time hanging out, even If we didn't even play crapple.

I am at work/working in the digi lab right now. meaning that by everyone elses knowledge, I am do work related stuff, but really I'm not. Time to head downstairs and check up on everyone.

Mike

How's everybody doing out there in blog land? I woke up 2 hours late for work today after both of my alarms failed to go off, so I just decided to call in sick rather than fight traffic and work late. I've still got plenty of vacation and sick days to use before the year is over, and work has been extra stressful recently. On top of endless projects, I've been training the new guy in my department. If there's one thing I've learned about myself recently, it's that I'm not a very good teacher.

Co-worker: I'm not really getting this concept. Can you explain it one more time?
Me: Why don't we save that for tomorrow instead?

In other news, my weekend started off great but quickly went down the crapper. On Thursday I went to the Hidden Cove for some hot karaoke action. It was the birthday of a different Jen from my bowling league, and she seemed to have a good time...until an ex-boyfriend decided to make a surprise visit. That wasn't so pleasant for her, but at least the Loverboy and Prince songs helped to mask the pain. I took Friday off (I'm liking these 4 day work weeks) due to the recent extra work stress that I mentioned earlier. I guess it pays to save up those vacation days by never leaving the Chicagoland area, ever. I think the biggest "vacation" I took this year was a trip to west Naperville for a cookout. On Friday night, Jen and I (yay for finally hanging out!) headed over to J&R for some Crapple action. It was by far the most crowded scene I've ever encountered at that bar, which was a little disappointing. I was hoping to be able to snag a table. We didn't buy any raffle tickets, instead choosing to shovel our dollars into the jukebox. Now I've been on a huge Cars kick for the last few days. I had to work on Saturday, and was surprised to find a ticket on my car when I walked outside in the morning. Apparently there was street cleaning on my street on Friday, even though I couldn't find any signs stating that. I did see plenty of signs on the north-south streets, but not the east-west street (mine, Leland) that I was parked on. After about 20 minutes of searching I did find one sign about a block down, on the other side of the street, hidden under some tree branches. I'm going to challenge the ticket. I don't even know what that entails, but hopefully arm wrestling is involved. Saturday night was the Seam show that I was all pumped up for. There were 4 (!!!) opening bands, so I did my best to get there late. I like to "support my scene," but not when I have laundry or other chores to take care of. I strolled in just as the second band, Mirror America, was wrapping up their set. They were somewhat rockin' in a Seam kind of way (the Seam guitarist is a member), but the vocals were an ultra-annoying whine. Up next were EE (or was it ee?), one of the most boring bands I have ever seen. Songs would end and there would literally be zero response from the crowd. Several members of the audience actually turned away from the stage and took a few steps back. The songs just droned on and on, and the lyrics (when they weren't gibberish) were nothing to write home about. A sample for your enjoyment:

Guitarist: "aeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"
Drummer, singing at the same time: Ba! Ba! Bababuhbaba!

Aden, the fourth band of the night, was an improvement if only because their set was mercifully short. Once again the vocals were annoying, but the music itself was poppy rock worthy of the occasional toe tap or head bob. It think it was about 12:30 by the time Seam hit the stage. I can't tell you how great it feels to have these guys back and playing in Chicago. They managed to play a handful to tunes from every release, but the set was unbelievably short - I think only about 7 songs were played, including one decent new track. The encore was a mediocre track from "The Pace is Glacial." I was tired by this point, so I didn't stick around for a possible second encore.

It's 4 in the morning. I'm downloading Lionel Richie's "Hello" while playing The Cars' "Let's Go." Send help, please.

Mike

You said it...
Yep, Friday was definitely a good time. After a disappointing trek to a few bars on Southport (Where were the costumes, people?), the party was a nice change of pace. I hadn't realized that Becky went to U of I, too. Supposedly my friend Art, who was at the party, had a few classes with her. I would have stuck around longer if not for the intense, undying hunger that could only be stopped by nachos supreme from that burrito place on Lincoln.

I'm still sporting the "executive mohawk" look that I had for my Mr. T costume. It doesn't look too bad when you consider the fact that I just grabbed a big clump of hair on my head and started trimming around it.

Other than Fizz on Thursday, I'll be making an appearance at J & R Tap (1300 W. Wellington) on Friday for Crapple night. For those who don't know, Crapple is Chicagoland's finest raffle of toilet brushes, lawn darts, K-Mart t-shirts, inflatable pool toys, and miscellaneous board games. Contact me if you're interested - it's a lot of fun. On Saturday, I get to see the reunion of one of my favorite Chicago bands, Seam, at The Abbey Pub. I think it's their first show in about 4 years, so I'm mega-pumped. I was supposed to see them at U of I shortly before they broke up, but I ended up going home the weekend they played. This is the sort of stuff I need to get me excited about live music again.

Jen

I approach each woman like I approach a snowflake; each one is different.

I saw Average Joe (another “reality show” on NBC, where a beautiful woman is courted by average looking fellas) last night, and one guy said the lovely line about the women and snowflakes. It made me laugh for hours. Also another memorable moment was when he was alone with the girl, the first thing he asked her was “Do you like Broccoli?” Add an accent to this and you have hours of amusement!

The party was great on Friday. It was nice to see you, Mike (even though I’ve said this over e-mail as well) and hopefully, our yearly visits will turn into more frequent ones.

There were a lot of great costumes. My personal favorite was my friend, Ron, who dressed up as Elliot Smith right after his untimely death. Christie’s was great too. Ahem, you could write and talk about it.. . .

Full clean up only took two days, really, and besides some broken glass I found in the basement, nothing else was damaged. Our carpeting, however, looks terrible, and I wish I could pull it up, roll it up and toss it.

Oh yeah, another oddity left behind at the party: dried up minnows. I’m not sure whose costume needed to have dried, dead fish with them, but they were found in our office area and on the ledge of our front door!

So that is the just of it. Lot’s of fun! Huzzah!