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I'm working on a pretty significant update to this website, which will go live in December. The site is starting to get pretty bloated with pictures, links, and superfuous HTML. If you look under the hood of this baby, it's a mess. The downside is I will actually have to learn how to use HTML, instead of just pointing, clicking and dragging everything around in Dreamweaver and crossing my fingers. I've also been using a new free service from Google called "Google Analytics." It is based off of a piece of software called Urchin Web Analytics. Google bought Urchin, and now it's free. So now I can use this program to track and analyze the tiny audience that comes here. I was surprised to see some visitors from Texas...
A note about the Beta/Peace lilly plant, because there seems to be some confusion about it. My mom just called and said it was very "artistic" and assured me that "the plant will die if you leave it like that, but it looked nice for the picture." I can assure you, I went to at least 2 websites before bringing this idea to life. I don't blame her for being skeptical, she watched me go through hobbies faster than you can dump a plant and fish in water and walk away from it. Just ask my old airbrush kit and cello. It has been about a month since I've shared pictures of my saltwater tank, which is progressing along nicely -- not nearly as many deaths as the last tank that I had. If you click on the picture, you can see a few more at a higher resolution:
OK all for now, time for some Chi Town Pizza, maybe an Amstel Light and some Sunday night TV. ***
I tried to convince Laura to watch Christmas Vacation with me last night, which we always watch around this time of year. Instead, she watched the first 16 minutes and went to bed. So I finished it today. And with the help of a nifty program called Windows Media Player Classic, I'm able to take screenshots of the DVD, so I can post them here. Sitting alone, watching one of the greatest holiday movies of all time (second only to A Christmas Story), I found myself feeling a bit like Clark W. Griswald after his family abondons him in the attic to go Christmas shopping. Yet he merrily keeps himself occupied with a few old family movie reels, and puts on a ridiculous outfit of old clothes from an antique chest to stay warm.
Talking about Clark Griswald is really an invitation for me to start talking about one of my favorite subjects: "Pre-terror America," but that would bore you to tears. Suffice to say, I think his character represents a more care-free time in this country -- Clark is a sensitive character and I like that. And then there are these two:
These two archetypes of American culture couldn't be destroyed by any measure of terrorist attack, be it nuclear, bioterrorism, or bird flu. They are much less fragile than the whimsical Mr. Griswald, and they typically outlive, outwit and outlast us all. There will always be a Todd and Margo Chester in your life. I sincerely hope that Laura and I don't become them. Todd Chester is played by Nicholas Guest, brother of Christopher Guest. Christopher Guest co-wrote Best in Show, which stars another ill-fated couple that Laura and I are probably more likely to become: Meg and Hamilton Swan. The Swans are dog-loving urbanites from Illinois.
I mean, it wouldn't be the worst way to go. Although I think at some point people would stop calling us. Before I go overboard with screenshots from copyrighted movies, I should share a picture I took myself this afternoon. I bought a betta fish for $4.99, and a fishbowl. Since I already have a saltwater tank, I wanted to try my hand at freshwater. To spice things up I took my Peace Lilly out of it's pot and washed all of the dirt away from it's roots. Then I threw the lilly in with the betta and got this:
*** The Dreamcast arrived and the fishing game works. I had a beer after work and started messing with it, and I almost broke my hand trying to "fish" with my new electronic toy. I think my left forearm might need to be significantly stronger in order to make any progress in Sega Marine Fishing.
I'm sure I will get the hang of it. I am very proud to own a piece of Sega hardware, since now all they do is produce games. Talking about retro games reminds me of my good buddy Ben -- no one in the world has a more worthy collection of games archived from the last decade. Ben is a bit of a gaming maven, he has an uncanny knack for finding deals on eBay and Bestbuy. Ben was also robbed outside of a Bestbuy. He is the worst imaginable person to steal from, he only buys games that are used and/or cost less than 10 dollars. I know he still goes back to Bestbuy, stay vigilant Ben.
Anyways, we share the same sense of humor. And I'm reminded of a video that made a us both laugh harder than a couple of opium smoking siamese twins. Without hesititation, I give you "Nukie." The link goes to a video that is, well, indescribable. Here is the movie review on IMDB. For the record, I've never _ever_ seen a movie on IMDB with a lower score. The video is from X-Entertainment.com, here is an exerpt of their review of Nukie: "Nukie and his brother, Miko, are space aliens composed of pure energy who travel the stars in search of fun and adventure. By turning themselves into speedy bullets of light and flying through the universe, Nukie and Miko have been almost everywhere and seen most everything. Not Earth, though. Earth is new hat." This weekend will be a good time to practice up on my game, because Laura is flying to Florida Saturday morning. She's going to Tampa to start the Thanksgiving celebration 3 days ahead of me. What can I say, she does a great job and gets a lot more vacation days than I do. Expect at least a few good pictures from Turkey Day in Tampa... the Artemenko's are going to Perrydise. ***
Here are some cool pictures taken by my dad while flying over Southport, Connecticut this past weekend. Looks like the flying lessons are paying off! If you ask me, I think they should hire him to work for Google Maps. You can click on the picture for a couple higher resolutions versions. I rarely do this... usually I force pictures to a 30 kilobyte file weight, but these pictures are much better than the ones I take -- and with a nicer camera!
Iceman: You two really are
cowboys. ***
Greetings, all. Well, it's been another wonderful weekend for the Artemenkos. Saturday started with a nice long walk and some coffee, before I headed to a sample sale in the west loop. I came back with two wonderful pairs of pants and a sweater and a genuine smile on my face. After shopping, my good friend and co-worker Sheila took Oreo, Andrew and myself to the vet, where we were told that Oreo is a perfect dog. We ended the day with dinner at Carmines down the street. The food was average, but the martinis were excellent. They tasted like a cupful of grenadine.
Sunday was typical. We cleaned, or should I say, Andrew cleaned and almost knocked us out with cleaning solution fumes. We left the house for fresh air, only to encounter a horrific windstorm. We managed to walk to Banana Republic without getting blown over where we found out Andrew wears a size 32 jeans. Someone is fit! Below is an image that Andrew made for me on my mini Etch-A-Sketch.
***
63 degrees in Chicago in mid November is a welcome treat. We got out the door and hit the street at 7am. Lot's of people were out on LSD walking their dogs and enjoying the beautiful Saturday morning. We went back to the same park as last week.
That bowling pin is me. Here is one more picture from our walk: All in all it was a nice way to spend the early hours of the morning. Since the last post, I found a way to spend the Amazon gift certificate from Bill: a Sega Dreamcast. They don't sell them anymore so I have to go through Amazon's merchant direct program. It's like eBay, but I understand it less.
Dreamcast is an old video game console from the height of American culture: 1999! Back then, my friend Tim and I thought the world was going to end, so I went to Sports Authority and bought a BB gun that looked like a Glock 9 mm pistol. This idea was dumb on so many levels... what is the point of having a weapon that looks threatening enough to get shot at, but lacks the return firepower to defend yourself? Answer: a BB gun that looks like a police firearm. My dad ended up finding it after I left a trail of BBs in the garage. I can picture him getting out of his car after commuting form work, thinking "I have a moron for a son." He ended my quasi gun ownership less than 24 hours after it started. I wonder if he still has it? Anyways, the world did not end -- we did however sink into a recession that provided me with the worst economy in 50 years with which to seek employment after college. This is probably the reason I look back at 1999 with such excitement. It was before we knew the Internet was too young for investing our time or money. I thought the Internet could do anything. My Sportster 14.4 "baud" modem was my magic chariot to the information super highway. Little did I know, it was more of a rickshaw on the dirt road to nowhere but chatrooms and "under construction" pages. If you want to see how the first pages of the Internet looked, go here. Back to Dreamcast. The games are ridiculously cheap now, and before I even purchased the system, I bought (and this may make you embarassed to know me), the Dreamcast fishing rod, and a fishing game on eBay. They are sitting in my closet right now, and it was an outright battle to protect them from Laura's clutches when we moved apartments.
Not sure how realistic it is of me to think I can recreate this, the arcade version of the original game:
Nice vest! Anyways, thanks to Bill, I will soon be fishing on my retro gaming system. My grandfather also gave me a nice cash gift for my birthday (thanks Papa) -- this could be my chance to stock up on more cheap games. This Dreamcast might be like a time machine for me, similar to Uncle Rico's time machine in Napoleon Dynamite.
OK time to watch a movie that Laura wil never watch. It's called "Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine." I think it's about the famous chess player playing the IBM supercomputer in a game of chess. I don't even know how to play chess, but I love this kind of stuff. ***
Somebody dial "Wine 11," it's Chianti time! Last week it was the fabled White Russian, tonight I am imbibing some red wine to celebrate the fact that it's Thursday again, and it's my 25th birthday. On this joyous occassion I found another excuse to go digging through my college pictures, and I uncovered a gem. Few people are dumb enough to actually burn their fake IDs on their 21st birthday, but trust me, this thing needed to be sent back to hell. The ID itself was a fraternity hand-me-down, from a guy that looked like a vampire named "Martin Bengston." His name is seared into my brain from bouncer interrogations. Through this magical piece of plastic I became 26 years old, older than I am today! The one thing I can say is, I'm glad my chin was just as enormous back when I was 21 -- I was worried it was getting bigger in my old age.
That bathroom was disgusting. I'm looking up ways to spend an Amazon gift certificate that my brother Bill got for me. I need a new video game to tinker with. To date, the only game that I have ever played and successfully beaten was "Ducktales" for the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
Look at that box art. When the Chinese eventually dominate our country, they are going to point and laugh at this as one of the reasons for our downfall. Which is all the more reason for you to stop reading this and start learning Mandarin. Video games have come a long, long way. Here is Ducktales in action:
Half Life 2:
We have come a long way baby, and gotten about 1000 times more violent. Let me use my communications degree to try and transition, summarize and conclude the topic of birthdays, red wine, and video games in a single run-on sentence: It's nice to know that at 25 I can sit back with a glass of wine, retreat into the geekhood that ruled my younger life, and order a video game without the threat of losing contact with the female population -- one of whom is legally obligated to stay with me for the rest of my natural life. And she's making enchiladas to boot! P.S. I fixed the Office video. ***
Science Article of the Month Ship Blasted
Pirates With Sonic Weapon
I'd love to see Johnny Depp get blasted off the deck of the Black Pearl with the LRAD. Of course, Laura would cry a thousand tears for her deaf, bohemian pirate. ***
This weekend has been full of BIG events, including a new haircut for me, another plant for Andrew and a new coat for Oreo. Below, is a picture of me just prior to getting my new do. It was possibly the best hair day in months....needless to say, I'm now not happy with my new cut.
Andrew picked out a peace lilly for himself on Saturday. It's the fifth plant in our one bedroom apartment and the newest addition to "Andrew's Kingdom." He also repotted the fern we "rescued" from the garbage, which I think was quite a treat for him. Today, Andrew and I went out for our weekly errands and learned that not having a car is not always to our best advantage. We started out getting Oreo a new coat (video link here) and harness. That was at least a three mile walk right there, so when we got back to the apartment and realized that we still needed to get dog food, go to the aquarium store and the grocery, it was a bit of a buzzkill. Andrew braved the Petco journey alone and came back with around 80 pounds of dog food. Oreo is set through 2006. I met him at the fish store where he picked up some new mushrooms... *** Two posts in a day! Thursday was a special day for Adam -- he became an uncle. Taking a proud stab at Darwin, the Balgach clan grows by one more XY chromosome carrier. Here's a picture. Mark your calendar for 14 years from now, when Adam hands young Michael his first six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon… if he can wait that long. Congrats to Steven and Joanna!
***
Saturday, a day I've actually gotten used to getting up early on. Yes, I ended that sentence with a preposition. We went to the park north of where we live, Lincoln Park, and found a group of dogs and their owners. Usually the police break-up a large group of dogs if they are running around without their leashes, but we lived dangerously and let Oreo mix it up with the other untethered beasts. He loved it, and dove into the arms and crotches of other dog owners and dogs. Laura cut the fun short early, because she is all business when it comes to walking outdoors. We grabbed some coffee, and headed home. Laura slammed her coffee as per usual, did a dance and skipped around the apartment. Two hours later, I am still sipping mine and letting it stain my teeth. I almost prefer the coffee be cold. I added a link in the Programs/Tools section to a website called Frappr... it's a mapping program that uses (steals) Google mapping technology. It might be fun if you checked out the link, and put a little tick on the map so we can see where everybody is. I think Tivo just started recording Interview with a Vampire. "I haven't been human for 200 years" seems so appropriate coming from Brad Pitt. Ironically, the screenwriter, Anne Rice, just became a born again Christian. Not many prolific authors of the undead tend to go in that direction. I had the idea a few nights back to search Tivo for all movies available to me through my BASIC cable program. Lo and behold, a generous selection of classics and crap was listed before me. Everything from the French Connection to Starship troopers -- ALL of them were added to the queue, crushing more asanine episodes of Laguna Beach and Dr. Phil! Laura is doing her hair right now. It seems the logical thing to do before getting a hair cut. Although it's a completely different scenario compared to what happens to my hair when I pay someone to shorten it. The best part of my haircut is when I get my neck shaved and my shoes shined. I go to a place called "The Civic Opera Salon." A fellow at work recommended it to me, he said "this place is old school." Afterward, we laughed at how bad our haircuts were. I'm going to end today's post with an email/picture combo from my grandparents. They were re-located due to the hurricane, but still managed to keep their spirits up. They also managed to create what looks like a cardboard racecar as part of a halloween gag. A real lesson in optimism! Here is the email: Hi,
The driver is my grandmother, Phylis. I do not know the man on the right, I think he is part of the pit crew. ***
Ah! a perfectly mixed White Russian. It's a good thing it's Thursday, I don't have much left in me this week. It's also just my luck that there is a new episode of "Making the Band 3" on tonight. Yes it's true, I'm a diddyholic. In true MTV fashion, I have to watch the last 3 episodes that aired before the new ad-riddled, 16-minute episode comes on. So I'll wait patiently. My Tivo has been carefully trained to run over MTV mini-marathons, including Laura's lovingly scheduled episodes of "The Real OC." Example: I programmed the Tivo to record Scarface this weekend. Tivo: Do you want to cancel recording 6 episodes of "The Real OC?" Andrew: yes Tivo: *chime* Laura: What did that noise mean? Andrew: Scarface! If you want to talk TV, the best show on right now is "The Office". The British version is one of the funniest thing's I've ever seen, and NBC is offering a second helping to the western world through Steve Carrell. It's the kind of television that makes you feel lucky it's free. Or in my case, I borrowed the DVDs from Tim for 9 months and sent them back via media mail for less than a dollar -- only the best for you Tim. Tim has questionable taste in media (read: Japanese animation), but every once in a while he picks out a golden nugget from his pan and shares it with you. Tim is actually quite brilliant. Tim also crashed a rental car without insurance this summer at my brother's wedding.
Seriously if you've never seen it, the climax of the British series "The Office" is a dance by David Brent "the boss" of the office. Here is a link to it. I'm hosting it directly here, because frankly it's worth the 13 dollars a month I pay to host this site, just to know that this video is safely archived for as long as I have a working credit card. The genius behind The Office, both the American and British versions, is that it exploits the one thing all of us working stiffs have in common: the uncomfortable notion of being managed, and the thankless, requisite task of managing. I'm kindof down about not having a car any more. I keep remembering this quote from a Rage Against The Machine song "I've got no car, so I've got no soul." That might a be a little extreme, but it sure would be nice to get away from public transportation for a while -if even for a weekend without having to rent a car. OK time to eat dinner, the White Russian has been sipped to an icy death and it's time to eat. ***
It's my birthday month! If you are new to the site, please email me by clicking "Contact Us," it's the first link on the left-hand column. Please let me know how I can improve the site. If you are looking for previous entries, just click the link under "Past Issues" to get caught up on everything you missed in October. *** |
