That was an interesting night.. Nice being back at home for a bit. I was somewhat surprised, I was expecting the dog to be excited that I was home, but that was wishful thinking.

I spent last night at Node Coffee until approximately 3:30 AM. I can’t get enough of their coffee, they make it just right.

I didn’t have an opportunity to meet up with Eoban or Brian. Eoban is busy redoing his Apple site with a new spiffy look. I think it is too stylish, but that is just one man’s opinion. He thinks I’m a dipshit. Bah!

I went to brunch today with family. Mostly extended family, with my mother being the only one from my immediate family in attendance. It was rather good food, much better than what I get here. It was refreshing to have something good for a change. I’m just tired of eating nowadays. I’m eating simply because I’m hungry, and sometimes I need to force it down. Bah. The worst part about all of this is that I am stuck to a schedule of my meals. I just don’t work like that. I eat when I decide I’m hungry, instead of having to wait awhile until I can go get food. Bah.

I really got one thing out of this trip: There is something special about Milwaukee that I just don’t get here in Chicago. I guess it is just the fact that I was “coming home” for the first time in awhile and it felt a bit more sentimental than normal. I’m glad I went.

I decided, on a whim, to take a little vacation back to Milwaukee. I almost missed the train after I dropped a few credit cards back at the Loyola L stop and thought that I had not picked one up. After going back and surveying the area, I am fairly positive that card is back in my dorm room and luckily I am not liable if there are any damages. The Cubs game was over and there were a ton of people on the L. I had a nice seat, and the ride wasn’t all that bad, but I was cutting it close as I ran into Union Station ten minutes before the scheduled departure. The thing about Union Station is that it is shared among Amtrak and the Metra, with the Metra holding most of the terminals on the north side (the side that the Milwaukee service comes out of). What is even more interesting is that there is a Metra line called “Milwaukee,” so when I franticly asked the security personell they were a bit mixed up. It was another passanger that finally pointed me towards the Amtrak gate, which I came to only to find that I couldn’t have afforded to purchase a ticket on the train. So I had to run back to the Ticket-Purchasing window (with 8 minutes left) and thank god there was no line and I got right in. The man who worked the desk was helpful, albeit a bit disinterested, and he gave me my ticket and I immediately ran towards the gate. With five minutes left, I was running towards the steps of the train, sweating from running with the awkward and heavy bags containing dirty laundry and my laptop. The train was packed with people who looked as if they were enjoying a leasurely Saturday in Chicago. The air was definately that of those from the city of Milwaukee, there wasn’t the harsh atmosphere that I was getting accostomed to in Chicago. It was nice. The train was delayed a few times but the engineer seemed to make up the time as we arrived on time. I spent the two hour ride listening to the new Harry Potter Audiobook on my iPod (great book, and very well put together audiobook). I was picked up by my father and uncle, in my uncle’s car (so they had to honk at me a few times before I noticed them).

I arrived into the city thinking, somewhat arrogantly, that there would be more to do here than there was in Chicago. Bah. There is some family up from Pontiac, Illinois. They are all over teaching my sister how to play Texas Hold’em Poker, but that seemed to be about all that was going on. Was supposeto go over and hang out with Eoban and Brian, but odds are that isn’t going to happen. I may just go off on my own tonight and get some coffee. Bah!

Alright. I am currently on this kiosk (owned by the wonderfull Ice Creme people Haagen-Dazs, damn germans) at Navy Pier that is letting me access the internet. Of course, the first thing I did was check my email. The second thing I did was try to figure out how to extend my time past the 30 minutes I bought (for $4 I might add, thats $12/hour for those of you less inclined with the Math)

This machine runs SiteKiosk, which is essentialy Windows with just about every feature you could think of blocked. It blocks out all the keys that would let me access a menu, and when I did manage to get access to a disk menu by loading a .pdf document and trying to save it to disk, it popped up with the “This Function has been Blocked” window. Bah!

So I tried crashing IE using one of those “Crash IE” sites you can find on Google. All it would do is reset the terminal right back to where it was and pop up Norton Antivirus with a warning that the Trojan “Crash IE” had tried to execute. God damnit! Then when I try to go into the Norton “Help” menu I am stuck again with that damn “This function has been blocked.” Ahhh!!!

I bought a ticket to this 75 minute long Chicago Architectural tour. Well, I didn’t buy it, Loyola Bought it with the bank’s money that I will be repaying for the next thirty years. Yet I am seriously considering coming back here with more money trying to get this thing to let me access something more than this rebranded IE. God damn germans, with their secure terminals.

According to MySA.com (via Fark):

WASHINGTON — A Navy inspection report describes the USS San Antonio as having “great potential for future useful service to the fleet.”

Operative word: potential.

After years of work, the vessel billed as a stealth ship is infested with corrosion, badly wired, poorly built, and deemed so unsafe that Navy inspectors warned its crew shouldn’t take it to sea.

…

Workers left a “snarled, over-packed, poorly assembled and virtually uncorrectable electrical/electronic cable plant.” Watertight integrity was compromised throughout the ship by multiple cable lines.

That hasn’t prevented the navy from using it as a recruiting tool. I found the following advertisement on Box Office Mojo (click for larger screenshot of the top two):

Well… they did put the word ’stealth’ in quotes…

I went and watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the movie theater downtown last weekend. First off, the price to go to a movie here is $9.50. What the hell? Then you pay another $4.50 for a large soda that doesn’t come with free refills. AND the theater is in one of those gray areas that is just far enough from every method of public transit available. Not fun.

The movie was extremely well done. It has that flair that is really only seen in Tim Burton films. I was most impressed with Deep Roy’s performance as the Oompa Loompas. I would definitely recommend you check it out!

I am going to sit down and watch Ed Wood tonight before I go to bed. But first, I am going to go to the Chicago Outdoor Film Festival’s presentation of My Darling Clementine.