i can’t read that.

Neither can I. I was hoping the headline and graphic would get my point across.

you’d be amazed at the perfectly benign circumstances under which I can get totally and completely lost.

We need to get you a seeing eye dog. Or a seeing north dog. Erm.

If you’re this bad in Chicago, I’d hate to see you in London.

But if Oprah lives there, I’m cool.

Well, her studios are around there, on Washington.

There are tons of food warehouses around there. If you see a place selling meat or produce, buy some. It’s good and fresh and wholesale.

ok, i logged on to my account (my username was an old email address) and it appears that no one has been using the card anyway so i’m hopeful it’s somewhere in my apartment and not on the floor of the bar or on the sidewalk on western avenue.

jenny: stay away from boston if you can’t navigate chicago.

I have a compass on my keychain, which has help immensely.

I’ve been to Boston a few times but I’ve never been left to my own navigatory devices. I am self-aware enough to never put myself in a situation where I have to get myself from point A to point B without assistance.

stay away from boston if you can’t navigate chicago

Seconded. My trouble is that I’m so used to the grid system that anything even slightly old-world messes me up bad. “What do you mean this street goes north-northwest-ish??!”

You should see my in Washington, DC. I have actually pulled over and cried, I’ve been so lost in that infernal city.

jenny: stay away from boston if you can’t navigate chicago.

ha, i was just thinking that, reading jenny’s post.

the grid system kind of freaked me out when i moved here. it was too easy, and seemed alien. i used to walk my dog for hours just trying to get lost, and never did.

kenan, i lived in massachusetts for a quarter century and i never, ever heard a native give directions based on points on a compass. it was either left or right and then describe the road (“it’s gonna take dip” or “you’ll go up a hill” or “it’ll hook around on you”) or a landmark (“there’s a giant boulder on your left, take the next right” or “last turn before the river”).

i never understood how people could know what direction they were going until i realized that not all streets were once puritan-era cow paths.

Let’s get lost, lost in each other’s arms

Let’s get lost, let them send out alarms

And though they’ll think us rather rude

Let’s tell the world we’re in that crazy mood

Let’s defrost, in a romantic mist

Let’s get crossed, off everybody’s list

To celebrate this night we found each other

Darling, let’s get lost

Jenny is right: Skokie is like the 10th or 11th largest suburb in Chicago, depending on whether you consider Aurora and Joliet suburbs.

I’d suggest that people take the el to Skokie for the Old Orchard mall, except the Yellow Line doesn’t actually extend that far. Therefore, I’m sticking with my Jewish conspiracy angle.

kenan, i lived in massachusetts for a quarter century and i never, ever heard a native give directions based on points on a compass.

I’d imagine not. It would make no sense. But even looking at a map of Boston or London or some such gives me heart palpitations.

Kevin, so you mean it’s really like this?

why is jean luc shooting chunk?

kenan, i lived in massachusetts for a quarter century and i never, ever heard a native give directions based on points on a compass. it was either left or right and then describe the road (“it’s gonna take dip” or “you’ll go up a hill” or “it’ll hook around on you”) or a landmark (“there’s a giant boulder on your left, take the next right” or “last turn before the river”).

That’s the kind of directions I can understand!!! Probably because I grew up in an area built on Puritan cow paths. It wasn’t until I moved here to Chicago that I even made an effort to figure out cardinal directions (hence compass).

That’s what it was like in Ohio too. “Turn left at the Sunoco next to the drive-thru.”

It makes sense in areas with no big geographical feature to use as an anchor point. Rehoboth Beach had the Atlantic Ocean but I still never put two and two together. People just didn’t give directions that way.

They would, however, call streets by unofficial names. So instead of like, Route 9 they would tell you to take King Cole Farm Road or something.

I feel weird, sleepy, and kind of sick. NOOOO!!!!

Navigating in DC made me cry and cry once too, and Nick was the one driving. There are all these fucking turn-arounds like at the Arc de Triumph. They screw with your head I tell you!

hey chicago! does anyone know if i can somehow redeem my chicago card plus for the cash? i obviously don’t use it anymore . . . i should dig up the paperwork they gave me & ask the CTA I suppose.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KELSEY

I’m still bad with cardinal directions. In Madison and Milwaukee I’m cool with E&W because there are major freeways running those directions and pointing at lakes, but I always get N&S mixed up. I feel stupid when I ask someone for directions (say in Chicago) and they say “get off at this exit and go north” and I’m all “so would that be left or right??”

thanks, john! did you get my email reply?

Yes! I only mentioned it here because I wanted other folks to know!

jordan: i am the SAME way. especially here in mpls b/c at least in chicago if i know where to lake is, i know where east is. here . . . well, let’s just say i get totally confused a lot.

john, it is EXACTLY like that.

i just thought my reply was funny. i was tooting my own horn there.

HBK!

Re “What’s the Best Way?”: Does anyone remember who was actually in that skit? I know one of ’em was Sandler.

thanks, dan! i’m 29 today . . . my brother made a point of telling me that it’s the last year i can say i’m “in my twenties.”

Oh wait, it sez here.

xpost I’ve got that one coming up in just over 2 months... sigh. I’m sure my sis will say the same.

Happy Birthday, Kelsey!!

thanks, sarah!

oh! i’ve been thinking about you lately b/c there’s a woman in minneapolis who does the craft fair circuit & she makes sock monkeys! i’m partial to yours, of course, but some of hers have two heads! AND she sells them for a shitton of money...

hey waitaminute...

“Tony Vallencourt: Boston to Nashua? You goin’ up there to buy liquor pally?

Stanley Sperrow: Aya, no sales tax.

Tony Vallencourt: Alright, you just gotta shoot up 95, but watch your ass crossin’ over the border. Those state troopers are outa control.

Stanley Sperrow: That’s correct Tony! ”

if you’re going from boston to nashua you wouldn’t take fucking 95, that follows the coast going northeast, you’d need to take 128 to ROUTE 3, take the lowell connector then cross the bridge at 110. fuckin’ morons.

sorry for perpetuating a sterotype but i’m getting cranky about stuff like this in my old age. i was sitting in a bar this weekend yelling at someone who was doing a piss-poor job of parallel parking outside. it actually made me angry that they couldn’t do it.

your favorite cranky old man,

ktr

were they wrong about the dunkin’ donuts as well?

yelling at someone who was doing a piss-poor job of parallel parking outside.

Hahahahaha I do this from my kitchen window at people parking on my street all the time.

Of course I do it more because they leave ridiculous amounts of room around their cars and cost other people (who actually live on the street — most of the bad parkers are commuters going to the train) precious, precious parking spaces.

for a long time i used to say that if i could have a super power it would be to squish cars together as to create additional parking spaces. although i need that power less often here, i still think it would make for a great party trick!

HBKelsey!

HAPPY BIRFDAY KELSEY!

29 is a decent year, albeit an overtly yucky prime number, but remember: when you complete your 29th year you are actually beginning your 30th. So you’re on day one of your 30th year, starting...NOW.

All things considered, I’d rather be 24 again. That was a good fucking year.

Disagree.

i’m with you, jordan.

(ymmv)

And just for the record, 28 has been not-so-great (getting to know you fine folks better aside).

jesus you guys are old

IT“LL HAPPEN TO YOU

how do you all feel about 26? I’m expecting good things.

25 was pretty good, 24 was meh, really, 23 was A+++

i had my quarter century crisis at 26.

I was not crazy about 24. In retrospect, 30-anything has been much better than 20-anything.

26 was decent. Did a lot of snowshoeing and rode some good trails with my bros that year. Had a few dalliances with teh ladiez. Work sucked, but then I quit and moved to Chicago!

also: i wish amanda had warned me earlier that i’d be 30 at 29. i would’ve treated last year with the reckless abandon of someone in their late 20s.

Sorry! You’ve not yet completed your 30th year, so you don’t have your 30-badge yet, but you are experiencing the tender buds of your 30s right now.

I am vastly happier at 31 than I was at 21. I was a reckless, shiftless, aimless person at 21. Now I feel a little bit calmer and a lot happier. Less like jumping around all the time, but more content. I like the 30s.

Sometimes I can’t believe that on 09/06/07, I will be 30 and married. IT’S CRAZY! And yet... not so crazy. It will be a lot like now with just a few minor adjustments.

I’m feeling a lot more sick now, so Nick is going to pick me up early. Sadly though, he’s coming all the way from Evanston. Owww!

if i could wake up tomorrow and be 27 but have to die at 33 i’d take that in a heart beat.

That Owwww! was in response to belly pains.

Huh. I wouldn’t. What happened when you were 27? Whenever I fantasize about going back to an earlier point in my life, I only imagine it happening with me knowing what I know now. Otherwise, I really don’t feel a need to relive it.

For someone who’s as obsessive about dates as I am, I have difficulty distinguishing one year from the next in terms of quality. Each year has its ups and downs.

Also, are you guys able to remember what it was like “at age 24” without calculating what year it was? I have no idea what I did when I was 24, but if you remind me that it was 2003, everything comes into focus.

same deal with me, it’s all kind of a blur between 20 and 25 then 25 to 27 then 27 to 31 then 31 to today. i’m not very good at remembering exact dates but if you give me a year i think i’m a little sharper.

What happened when you were 27?

happy, moderately successful, plenty of discretionary cash, madly in love, moved to chicago, body was still able to take a pounding and bounce back.

No, I associate feelings a lot more with ages than I do with years. It would take some serious cross-referencing to figure out exactly what I was doing in 2002.

That’s so weird.

I mean, I never think about the fact that I’m 27, but I think about how it’s 2006 all the time. What happened when I was 24? Dunno. But 2002? Oh yeah, that’s when the band started, we played that Belle & Sebastian cover-song show at Schubas in June, TAG also started, Mark was in Vienna and Kelsey was in Portland, Maine, for the first few months of the year, I stayed in his room and learned how to fingerpick and read John Cheever and listened to Kings of Convenience, I read Updike’s Rabbit trilogy that summer and drank a 6-pack of Schlitz by myself while reading a Gail Gr1ff1n book I ordered from Amazon and went to NYC with my family for Christmas/New Year’s and saw The 25th Hour, which was my favorite of the year, and back in the winter I saw Bosco & Jorge at the California Clipper for a few Sundays in a row with Nicolas and Hstencil and met this Canadian girl named BJ M00re who asked me if I wanted to see Neal Pollack at the Hideout with her, and I was too dumb to realize she was asking me out.

when I was _____

it was a very good year

Wow, that makes me feel like I have no memory/recall. It would take a lot of association to come up with so many specific scenes like that.

BJ M00re

But this I would have remembered.

Like, if somebody mentioned a specific gig, I could probably remember the songs we played and the jokes people made etc. etc. But with a range of time like, uh, “last year” I have a hard time grouping things together and remember, y’know?

i’ve been giving myself a little self-test and have come to the conclusion that i can’t remember when anything ever happened. the best i can do is verify that something did or did not happen. usually i can further narrow that down to “that was in my 20s” or “that was in my 30s” but it’s kind of hinky for 29–30.

my_life.xls

most of my memories are pretty vague w/r/t the actual, REAL date in question. like, i remember chasing a coyote with my car through downtown aspen at two in the morning, stoned and sorta drunk, in the middle of a snowstorm, plowing through snowbanks and whatever, but my reference frame is “the winter after I graduated college,” not Feb(?). 04, you know?

also, i’m still trapped in a student/ski bum mentality, where my “years” are actually from fall to fall, not jan 1 to dec. 31.

I’m with you, John. Today at lunch my coworkers were all talking about the parties they had for their Sweet 16, but I had to think about it in terms of what year it was, where I was in school...

also, i’m still trapped in a student/ski bum mentality, where my “years” are actually from fall to fall, not jan 1 to dec. 31.

Still slowly working my way out of that, myself.

Haha, I’m trying to write a general intro to software testing for work, and I tried to find ideas online and came up with this:

In other words, you can consider an example as: suppose you are a good cook and are expecting some guests at dinner. You start making dinner; you make few very very very delicious dishes (off-course, those which you already know how to make). And finally, when you are about to finish making the dishes, you ask someone (or you yourself) to check if everything is fine and there is no extra salt/chili/anything, which if is not in balance, can ruin your evening (This is what called ‘TESTING’).

This procedure you follow in order to make it sure that you do not serve your guests something that is not tasty! Otherwise your collar will go down and you will regret over your failure!

2. Why we go for testing?

Well, while making food, its ok to have something extra, people might understand and eat the things you made and may well appreciate your work. But this isn’t the case with Software Project Development. If you fail to deliver a reliable, good and problem free software solution, you fail in your project and probably you may loose your client. This can get even worse!

You don’t want your collar to go down WTF

That sounds vaguely Japanese.

Indian.

Ahhh. It was the “you will regret over your failure” part that made me think that.

wow. 2002 i was in portland. crazy.

then i guess i remember that year in shifts. everything was shifting. i quit my job to go to school in portland. i was feeling resentful toward the person i was dating & knew it would end but i just didn’t want to realize it quite yet. knowing what i know now, i think i would’ve broken things off before i ever left for portland but whatever. my friendship with john grew back into a comfortable place, my friendship with emily was at its strongest (& has since fallen back). when i came back from portland everything happened very quickly. relationship ended, i started to crave living alone, my internship with TAL started. then the ‘slut phase’ of my life took off for a while.

PORTLAND!! MARK’S SHOWPLACE!!!

I keep trying to have a “slut phase” but it never seems to work.

2x

I know, right?

Try dudes.

No dudes hit on me at the gay bars this weekend, it wz kinda depressing.

i wouldn’t want anything to do with a slut anymore, nor would i care to be one.

i’m beyond old and veering towards decrepit now.

i could handle a slut-phase.

Honestly, the slut phase is one of the main reasons I remember my 20’s so unfondly.

“there’s strings attached to every single lover”

-The Hold Steady

For reals.

(see also: i am not discussing my slut phase on the internet)

haha

Ya srsly.

as soon as i mentioned it i had second thoughts. there will be no further details.

yeah, it’s best to leave the details to the mind’s of the chilx denizens. that’s a much safer route.

Yeah sorry, I didn’t mean to make anyone uncomfortable... honestly I don’t really need such a phase and find it pretty seamy and pointless, which is probably why I have failed so many times at acting that way.

Sweetheart, stop while you’re behind: you’ve just suggested that everyone else’s slut phases were “seamy and pointless”. :D

honestly, though, laurel — what was the point?

I am going to change the topic now. I went to a clothing swap last night and scored this sweet pair of boots — they’re sort of like Mondrian boots, but instead of having white and red and black, they’re just red and black. So cute. I also got some other stuff. It’s like Christmas came early and I have whole new wardrobe!

It’s good, because I was starting to feel really goddamn frumpy. My (1) grey hair made another unwelcome appearance.

i’m okay with the fact that i had the phase, but i also would be perfectly content & happy without it too.

slut phases, seamy or steamy?

both, of course

What was the point of the phase, or of needling Dan? Specific examples are best, Kenan!