Goddammit.  I just received evidence of something good coming out of Ohio.  And not just Ohio, but Cincinnati.

I hate you, The Seedy Seeds.  How dare you make good music?

music: The Push - The Seedy Seeds

Since TxtLJ ate my post:

To conclude the zombie day, I totally got bitten by a mostly dismembered corpse in a Bishop Allen tee, but then it turned out he just wanted to be friends because the taste of his ex's brain was still lingering in his mouth.  She might come back, after all, and he didn't want to be feasting on new flesh of the living when she rose from the dead.

tags: zombies

Goddammit.  You'd think people would be easier to make plans with in the face of near-certain death, but nooo...

I am still in my house, alone.

Lights are flickering.

Internet access is spotty.

And I think I hear something outside.

I'll brb.

Confused? Click here.

tags: zombies

I just opened up Trillian and nobody is online.

A few away messages are up with stuff like "brb, zombies" and "lol, my roommate bit me. hospital time!"

Steve's just says "graaaggagrarraahhagh."

Is this some kind of cosmic joke?

This isn't really the zombie apocalypse.

I'm gonna call some people.  I wish I'd come up with an escape plan.  I don't think I want to still be in the city after dark tonight.

Confused? Click here.

tags: zombies

Laura, Elle, and I were supposed to go to Ribfest tonight and hook up with Wes.  Since he still isn't answering his phone (I guess this is how we say goodbye?) and they're saying on the news that Ribfest is canceled (as are all other events in Chicago, on account of the chemical spill), we were going to stay in and cook dinner tonight.

Laura left to get Elle from work at 4:30 and said they'd be back by 5:15 or so.  Both their phones go straight to voicemail and Elle's not answering texts.  Elle fucking lives on her phone.

The dog's acting weird, too.

I'm starting to hear a lot more sirens, and the Tribune is saying there's a curfew tonight and all non-essential businesses are encouraged to close at 6.  Glad we already went out.  I bet things are getting nuts.

Confused? Click here.

tags: zombies

Got sick of waiting for a phone call and went out to get groceries.  The streets are oddly quiet.  I guess people are taking shit seriously?  There seemed to be more douchebag parking jobs than usual, too, like the assholes were all in a hurry to get home and sit around.  One car was seriously more on the sidewalk than on the street. 

Also, is it just me or are the hipsters a bit more shambling than usual today?

Confused? Click here.

tags: zombies

I checked the news to see if the Discordians had claimed credit for whatever acid in the water shit is going down on silent_dreamer_ 's livejournal.

I didn't get that far because there's big shit going down here, too.

Apparently, a tanker truck carrying some sort of noxious chemicals wiped out in the circle interchange downtown.  They've got all major highways into and out of Chicago blocked off.  They're urging people to avoid the Loop and stay in their homes.  No travel is advised while they're cleaning up.  They're saying not to call 911 unless you're reporting deaths or serious injuries.  There's a special 311 line set up to call to report "strange behavior due to possible chemical exposure."  No photos, though.  Kind of weird.

Internet's getting patchy, too.  For annoying.

And I still haven't heard from Wes.  I'm not sure if Ribfest is even still on.

Confused? Click here.

tags: zombies

I'm still waiting for Wes to call so we can go to Ribfest.

It's been a pretty quiet day around here, otherwise.

I keep hearing stuff about zombies all over LJ, though. Apparently, in addition to naked bike rides, it's also national LSD in the water day.

Confused? Click here.

tags: zombies

Hey, yeah, yeah.

Just remember, she's somebody's daughter.


A music video from the motion picture.

Visit http://www.somebodysdaughter.org/ to order, and http://www.afa.net/somebody/default.asp to watch the full thing.

I guess this is maybe a book review, but it's also a traditional journal entry, since I seem to post here about anything that makes me feel a little bit strange inside or that I just can't seem to get out of my head.

Another reviewer already made the obvious joke about having Joey Comeau inside them, so I should consciously omit it out of courtesy.  But Overqualified by Joey Comeau is one of those books that gets inside you and that feels like it's brought the author along with (and I not only ended that sentence in a preposition, but also in a distinctly midwestern fashion, so suck it).

I bought Overqualified after Joey Comeau did a reading a Quimby's here two weeks ago.  I read the first two-thirds of the book in two brief sittings.  I had trouble putting the book down.  Then I forced myself to step away and do other things; you know how you sometimes want to savor the last little bit of something particularly tasty, so you force yourself to stop eating in the hopes that when you come back, you'll be able to actually slow down and taste it?  I've been staring at this book, wanting to read the last section for days.  Tonight, I finally gave in.  I was worried it would've gotten stale or spoiled or that the last bit might otherwise not be as good as the first parts.  I shouldn't have worried.  However, I still gulped it down too quickly, but at least if I want, I can read it again.  It's the kind of book that goes down too easy, then sits heavy on your brain.  It's like Joey's comic, A Softer World, which I've fallen totally in love with since picking it back up a few months ago.

So Overqualified is about love and loss and language.  It's written as a series of cover letters, composed by a down and out Joey Comeau after his brother has been in an accident.  At the reading, Joey assured us that Adrian is alive and well, and that this is just his way of getting back at him for always bitching that Joey never dedicated a book to him.  But reading this book, I still wonder.  Did Adrian really buy you that jacket you're wearing in the photo you posted in your blog a few days ago?  Are you putting us on?  Pretending life is full of happy endings, and everyone's okay?  I could google and find out, I'm sure, but the fact that I even have that impulse is a testament to the quality of the book.  I mean, good fiction tells truths that can only be told through the construction of elaborate lies.  And what Joey does with Overqualified is tell all sorts of uncomfortable truths that can only be revealed in fiction, on the internet, or after at least three too many beers.  That the man did it in essay form, and possibly sober, and in honest-to-god, fancy-paper print is frightening.  And the book is, at times, frightening.  Or at least it was for me.  It appeals to the part of my brain that still scans the horizons for mushroom clouds during a drive in the country on a clear day.

This is the kind of book I wish I could have written before I'd read it, because now it's inside me and I'll never be the same.

After I started reading Overqualified, I went out and kissed a boy and ate a plate of poutine and listened to nothing but the poppiest twee bands for weeks.  I likely would have done all that anyway, but now it seems so much more important.

So some people apparently friended me on LJ at some point and I didn't notice.  Sorry about that, guys.

If I missed adding you back, please reply and let me know!

Lisa and I just had a "discussion" that was basically, "I can't believe you like this shit." "Come on, Telekinesis is AWESOME. Every song is about love!" "EEW! IT'S GENERIC!" "Well, you like Joanna Newsom."  "But it's so GENERIC!" "JOANNA NEWSOM!" "GENERIC INDIE POP!" "JOANNA NEWSOM!" "LAME GENERIC INDIE POP!" "JOANNA MOTHERFUCKING NEWSOM!" "SHE'S FUNNY! INDIE POP ISN'T!"

We're no longer speaking.

Bought my plane ticket to LAX. I fly out of Milwaukee on the evening of June 24 and return in the afternoon on June 28. $201.70 round trip. Going to visit Jen in Riverside and go to the beach and see some of LA and do things I have never done before.

Best: I get to see my friends I haven't seen in nearly a year now!

Man. I've acquired nearly over 1.5 GB of music in the last couple weeks.

Yet I just keep listening to the song "Now We Can See" by The Thermals again and again.  Oh, and the Page France album I found in my car from, like, 2 years ago that I have suddenly really gotten into.

Other bands are slowly creeping into the rotation now. Getting excited for the Her Space Holiday show Tuesday.

And now I have a song I can't seem to google or properly remember the lyrics to stuck in my head. I thought I'd heard it on the radio today, but I think I actually heard it on the radio, like, a month ago. Ugh. So much worse.

After a conversation last night, I now have "Atlas" by Battles stuck in my head.  And not even "Forever Dudes" by Still Flyin' could get it out.  I've been sending in the most obnoxious music I can find after it and still nothing.  Any more suggestions there? 

I'm presently hoping that listening to it a dozen times or so will do the trick if nothing else. 

Journey to the End of the Night was fun, though I did not even make it anywhere near the end of the night.  We cleared the first three stations and formed a risky plan to get to the fourth, but got nabbed trying to get off the Halsted bus at the Orange Line. We should have snuck through bushes rather than taking our chances on the bus again.  We were mere inches from sanctuary when people got in our way and a chaser leapt from the bus behind us and tagged us, ending our otherwise respectable run.  On the way, we chatted with some fun people and we got asked again and again what we were doing with our armbands, maps, and paranoid strategizing.  People on the street and the bus really got into it, too!  I think they liked to see people having fun. 

We should've stayed to chase people down and complete the course and attend the after party, but I hadn't eaten dinner and it was already 9:00 so we bailed back to the loop, ate at a diner, and contemplated catching a movie before just heading home.  Next year, though, I will be better prepared and will totally run the full course.

The best part:  with no internet and only a grainy map of the playing field, my friend and I were able to navigate through parts of Chicago we'd seldom/never been in, then find our way back to and around the loop and then home.  I felt like a real Chicagoan today, like I was really getting to know my city.  It was a good feeling.

For those of you who haven't heard me go on about this yet, here's a link: http://www.chicag0.org/journey2009.html

Last night I saw Neko Case at the Chicago Theater.  It is really cool that an artist I like is finally getting that sort of recognition and reception, and I'm glad she and her band were as weirded out about a venue with assigned seating as I was.  They definitely put on a show that justified the enormous, sold-out venue.  I love the chemistry Neko and her band have on stage, especially Kelly.  You can really tell that they like each other and like what they do, and they're just such great performers and they seem like good people, as well.

Everything off the new album sounded really good live.  I am especially digging the title track, especially since she brought out Crooked Fingers to perform it at the show.  Awesome seeing that many amazingly talented people work together to create a beautiful sound.

So, completely awesome show, mostly untarnished by the size of the venue or the fact that large elements of the crowd did skew pretty middle-aged and suburban.

However, I nearly had to cut about 500 bitches when they started clapping halfway through Deep Red Bells.  Seriously, people, if you are going to drop $30+ for a concert ticket, could you at least listen to more than one album first and not inadvertently ruin my favorite song before we get to the best part?

Goddammit, internet!  Quit telling me about things that cause me to have a social life!