When you hear that...

... aaaand hello. It's been another 2.5 months since i've written anything, even though the last time I wrote I think I said I was going to start regularly updating again. Sorry. A lot has been going on though since I last wrote and I guess pretty much everything has changed again. Work is completely different and is settling into a normally stressful and demanding routine, my social life is finally starting to blossom a little bit around here now that I actually know enough people outside the office to fill a weekend of going out without having to see anyone from work, and I managed to have one well-tangled, self-caused, complicated mess during the month of February. But that's passed. And it's almost spring. Well, I think it is. Chicago's weather can't seem to decide what it wants to be. It's been warm, balmly, rainy, snowy, cold, windy, sunny, cloudy, foggy, or some combination of the above at some point during each recent week.

This past week I've been listening to hiphop on a fairly endless loop. Mainly ratatat remixes of a few old tracks plus a variety of songs produced by kanye, neptunes, etc. Basically anything with a driving, futuristic beat behind it and a sticky, chunky flow on top. It's silly, but the driving determination of the beats and ridiculous bragging in the raps help me work harder and stay focused. The downside is I think it also makes me subconsciously bop in my chair in the office. Whoops.

The weekends around here always seem to come right when I need them - when I'm barely clinging to the splayed ends of my mental ropes. This past couple weeks has been exhausting at work and I feel my productivity levels dipping as my focus has increasingly scattered and cracked. This coming week promises to be another exhausting one - I have to/get to go to new york on business for a few days. There is preparation to be done for that and already this weekend is sleeping away faster than I can grasp it. Ugh.

This weekend has been typical; last night I watched Penn get as close as possibly could be imagined to dispatching Texas (which would have been about as satisfying a conclusion possible, all things in college sports this year considered) with Cas and other OLDer (old = in their late 20s and 30s) Penn Alumni at some bar in Lincoln Park called Game Keepers. My buddy Matt called me up to go to some club called Buzz, so after the game I walked back downtown (a surprisingly quick walk - I had no idea) to meet up. That was fun, but I was pretty exhausted from being awake since the early morning so I left a little early to go home and pass out. I woke up super late today in a stupor.

After cleaning my apartment a little and having some food, I watched some tourny games. The tournament is such a hilarious phenomenon. Cas and I talk a lot about how the tourny makes everyone act like they are an expert when it comes to teams nobody has ever heard of like Bradley or Oral Roberts. And how in general, every guy's "knowledge" of sports in this country has now essentially come down to everyone confidently regurgitating the contents of articles on espn.com's homepage and page 2 that everyone else in the room has already read too. It's a little silly sometimes.

Tonight I took Jen out to eat at Nacional 27. She had to work until 6 (on a Saturday! but that's the way her job is) and our reservations were at 6:15, so she told me she'd be late, but she hurried down and actually beat me there. How embarrassing. Dinner was good but a little heavy. I think it was the syrup-thick mojitos we had. After dinner Jen suggested we go see a movie and we decided to go see V for Vendetta, which was selling out fast at the movie theater. We bought tickets for the late show and went to watch the end of the West Coast games at Lucky Strike over some drinks. The movie itself was a little bit less impressive and affecting than I expected it to be, and a little more over-the-top and excessive than I would have liked. But it was still powerful, inspiring, entertaining, and slickly produced. Considering the period of history we are currently in, some of the ideals the characters spew in the movie (most of it presumably lifted from fairly legendary writer Alan Moore's graphic novel) resonate pretty directly and feel either impressively brave and bold or insensitively calculating. I tend to lean toward the former if you couldn't already guess.

On the way home I found out Japan finally shellacked Korea over at the WBC knocking Korea out and putting Japan in the finals. After two embarrassing losses, it was about time. Of course it took Team USA's general ineptitude to push us into the semis to begin with, but we'll take it, especially after that loss to the US seemed suspiciously orchestrated. And at least the win over Korea came when it mattered most - hell yes. Anyung - thanks for playing and enjoy your flight home. ガンバレ日本！勝て！