Late Night Zombie Chronicles

i’m packing it in on the Late Night Zombie Chronicles.  no hard feelings, I’ve just outgrown it.  I can now be found on livejournal…if you want to keep up on my ramblings, i can be found here:

Cold Eel Society

Here’s the new ink, for all of you who were interested.  Check out my profile photos for a closer look.

i’m getting some new ink tomorrow at 11am at Vision World in Urbana.  anyone who wants to come watch is welcome.  i’m so fricking excited i can’t express myself.  i’ll post a photo when it’s done.

This past weekend was a lot of fun, some expected and some unexpected. In fact, it was pretty awesome.

I was spending most of my time preparing for the Cuban party, but Friday night we went out for Carol’s going away dinner at Radio Maria. There were about 20 of us. Picked out some good wine and ate some really good food.

Natalie and Amy almost immediately set upon the idea of going to the Bullet that night, so that’s where we ended up after a while. Cindy, Tim and Jimmy came along. I dropped quite a bit of money that night, which was fun since I hadn’t been there in a while and it was exciting to see Natalie and Amy experience their first titty bar. Natalie got a couple of dances at the stage, but no lap dances. Amy on the other hand took to the lap dances like a pro, she must have had at least 3 girls that night! Very hot.

Tim owes me for a lap dance, he was being very cute about this one stripper. I love going there with friends; it always makes me laugh. It’s so much fun seeing your friends relating to naked people.

I had to get up early the next morning, despite a very slight hangover and finish cooking food for the Cuban party. Here was the menu I prepared:

Black Beans and Rice
Creole Chicken
Vaca Frita
Ajiaco Cubano stew with Sofrito Sauce
Cuban Style Slow Roasted Pork with Papaya-Mango Salsa
Mojito Shrimp
Cuban Bread for Medianoche sandwiches

Also I made lots of Sangria and had the fixings for Mojitos.

The party got going around 8:45, although things started slow, quite a few people ended up coming, about 30 or so, and quite a good mix of people too. The party was quite a lot of fun. My only disappointment was that the dance party part of the evening sort of fell flat a little too quickly, but Amy and Arun and I made up for it by getting wasted on tequila shots and staying up until dawn.

Now, it’s time for me to get back to life as normal after a weekend of debauchery. My goals for this week: get new glasses and get my new tattoo.

The most exciting part of my day at work today: explaining to someone who has never used one, how to run a standing floor buffer. Otherwise, it’s been slow today, but i’ve been keeping myself busy…well, until now that is.
Jimmy has yet to return my phone call. I’ll probably call him again when i go home from work today.
Preparations for Cuban food will begin tonight in earnest.
I really want to get my tattoo, but I have yet to decide on a local artist to do the work. It might have to wait until next week.
Oh, also in relatively exciting news, I might be going back to Iowa late in August with my friend Barry from Vietnam Veterans Against the War and my boss Jen to run a security workshop for an Anti-war groups out there. How the hell I ended up being a security instructor I don’t know. Barry will probably actually run the workshop, but apparently he can’t do anything physical, so Jen and I will have to do all the demos.
all for now.

Stats from today’s apheresis blood donation:

pulse = 80
temperature = 98.2
blood pressure = 110/72
iron level = high

date of last apheresis donation 9/1/2000 (the nurses were glad to see me back…they remembered me because I used to go there every two weeks, they all commented on the tattoo since i got it after then, all the same nurses, just a little older looking and a little bigger, but so am i)

yield = i did a double harvest
time = 2 hours and 15 minutes
cosumed = 10 Tums tablets to counteract tingling in my lips and tongue (anti-coagulant they use fixes calcium in the blood, i always have a problem with my calcium levels during this procedure) with a couple sips of orange juice.

notes on donation:

it went very well, i was very relaxed, and despite not donating in nearly 5 years, i got back into it very easily.

the nurse told me i have good veins…when she stuck me, i squirted a little bit of blood. it was very exciting. the nurse joked that my veins were ready to give.

now i have bandages on both arms. i feel very satisfied.

they let me watch a movie while i was being harvested…lost in translation. but another nurse laughed at me, when she noticed me staring at my blood being pumped through the machine. hey, what can i say, i’m weird.

in other news…went to garden this morning, chopped down many weeds, harvested eggplants, the first of the tomatos, okra and some basil.

tonight, going to go see Unbunny at Parasol and then Tim, Bridget, Pete, Cindy, Patrick and I are going to go see The Devil’s Rejects at Savoy.

Ah, blood and senseless violence all in one day, what could be better

It was a fun night.  I just got back from seeing Dressy Bessy at the Canopy Club; a fun show.  Despite some monitor problems, they actually sounded tighter this time then when I saw them last at the Abbey.  But, I’m kind of glad that Tim, Jenny, Jason and I didn’t get our band going early enough to play the show, because I don’t think I would have wanted to debut at this show.

Cindy and I were betting on whether Tim would want to date the cello player in the opening band Darling Disarm.  Of course, he did…kind of.  He complained that she was too much of a hipster…whatever.

I’m going to go to bed relatively early tonight so that I can get up tomorrow before work and go out to the garden, which hasn’t happened in a while.  I’m a little worried about the weeds out there.  Plus, I have to make a blood donation tomorrow, go to work and see about setting things up for getting my tattoo, hopefully this week sometime.

Cuban party is Saturday.  I’m excited about it now.  There are many preparations still to make.  I hope a lot of people come to it.  But, hopefully no drug dealers this time.

I’m a little worried about my friend Jim.  He just took off for Chicago to try to track down this girl, Nella, that he has been obsessed with now for years (5 or 6).  I keep telling him to forget about her, because she doesn’t really seem to want to talk to him anymore.  But I can’t get him to listen to me.

He called me after I got home from work and tried to get me to go with him to Chicago, but I said I couldn’t go and more importantly wouldn’t go if he’s gonna persist with this crap.  He won’t let it go, because she basically just stopped talking to him or returning his phone calls, and he feels like he needs to talk to her about all that happened with them, or at least everything he feels happened with them.

He won’t really listen to me anymore about this, and I figure there’s not really anything I can do anymore to convince him to let this stuff go.  I told him to call me if he gets into trouble. 

I really hope he doesn’t act like an idiot and get his ass beat-up over this.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to make it sound like Jim’s threatening in any way, shape or form.  He’s not, he’s harmless.  I don’t think he poses any threat to her or anyone else.  But I could seem him going up there, making an ass of himself and getting his ass beat for it, by any number of faceless, unnamed friends/relatives of this girl.

I love Jim, but sometimes he can be a handful, especially when he becomes obsessed with something/someone.  At least he didn’t seem out of sorts or incoherent.  He seemed like he was pretty together.

My other worry is that if he does find her and things don’t go well, it might send him on big-time depression, which wouldn’t be good.  Again, though, there’s not much I can do at this point.  I’ll wait and see what happens, check in on him over the weekend, and help him out as best I can if he get’s himself in a scrape.

I was sick most of the week, but I’m feeling much better now…thank you for asking.

Yesterday, I split my knuckle open on the edge of the door while carrying some boxes. I didn’t realize i’d cut myself, so I bled all over the floor before i noticed the warm sticky droplets striking my foot. Nothing serious. It’s sore as hell, but the bleeding stopped pretty quickly. I still need to mop some of the dried blood up off the floor. I won’t be able to play guitar or practice for a while unfortunately, but I have started to write some songs for the new band (or at least strung some chords together and tried mumbling out some lyrics to go with them…i’ll have to work on them a while).

I realized that i really like to bleed. I find the sight of my blood running out and dropping on the floor kind of satisfying, which is strange because it runs counter to most of my ocd type habits. I don’t think i’d ever cut myself intentionally, but i think i will donate blood again soon, which i haven’t done in a long time, because i did always enjoy that aspect of the process. I’ll need to do it soon, because i won’t be able to after i get my next tattoo.

oh, yes…for those of you who remember from about a month ago, my neighbor’s house caught on fire. her name is sandy. this letter appeared in the News-Gazette letters to the editor section yesterday:

“GRATEFUL FOR HELP DURING HOUSE FIRE
My house was the target of an arsonist on June 19, resulting in a great deal of property damage and personal injury that required my hospitalization.
I am deeply grateful to all the firefighters and support staff who came to my assistance that evening. One may say that he or she appreciates our fireman, and I’ve yet to meet the person who would not subscribe to that heartfelt sentiment; however, that sense of appreciation takes on an even greater significance when it is based on a personal awareness of how much the assistance of those fine men and women means.
It’s very true to say that we could not get along without them.
SANDY BUCK, CHAMPAIGN”

It would be nice if she had thanked me for calling 911, but whatever…haha.

Also, just as a personal aside, she wouldn’t have had to have been hospitalized or needed assistance if she had gotten the hell out of her house when she realized it was on fire.

OK…so apparently, Natalie and I are going to the SilverBullet tonight. if anyone is interested in joining us let me know. We’ll probably get some drinks at Blind Pig for a while first and then head over to the bullet at midnight or so. It’s all up in the air though, so call me.

Well, despite the heat and some problems caused by poor organization, I had a pretty good time at intonation fest in Chicago.  It was a lot of fun and the bands, most of which i had never heard, were fun to listen to.  I got to hear pretty much ever band, but i got up close and personal for AC Newman, Broken Social Scene, Prefuse 73, Death from Above 1979 for the first day, and Dungen, Deerhoof, Les Savy Fav and the Decemberists on sunday.  My fest favorite had to be Les Savy Fav…they were awesome, they definitely made the fest for me.

Ran into all kinds of people I haven’t seen in a while and got very dusty, standing outside the mosh pit for Death from Above 1979.  I could tell you more, but I don’t feel much like writing it down, so call me or we can discuss over a drink sometime.  I missed all of you who couldn’t make it!