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.