eateggs

So another day of break has come and gone. Ken and I were pretty lazy today– we slept late, and then just bummed around the house till we left around 3:00. Well, actually, we made muffins, then Ken watched T.V. and I downloaded like 3gb of music. (BROADBAND!!! WHOO!!)

Right-o. But anyhow, we drove north and, after driving past the house where my grandfather (on my mother’s side) used to live, we drove down to Canal Park and had dinner at Grandma’s. Dinner was enjoyable (pics of the looming moose later) and afterwards we drove up to the UMD campus, looking for one of Ken’s friends who wasn’t around. Since I didn’t have the confidence (or really the desire, for that matter) to start approaching random girls and asking if they knew where there was a party, we ended up heading back out of town for the Black Bear Casino.

I’ve never really been inside of a casino before. Sure, I’ve walked through casinos in Vegas, but its not the same as being inside and playing the games. Ken and I both tried our hands at the slot machines, which (of course) quickly relieved us of all our nickles. Tiring of that, I headed for the Blackjack tables, where apparently I had some beginner’s luck. Seeing that I was up $100, Ken joined in, but didn’t share my good fortune. All in all, I walked away $80 richer, and (since there was free Coke inside the casino) Ken ended up paying $25 for a Coke. Well, I guess you win some and you loose some. Overall, though, it was quite an enjoyable experience.

Ha. Sean’s away message states that he is “making love to a couple of hot pockets.” Well. Go Sean! For myself, I’m planning on going and making love to my pillow here in a bit, except without the “making love” bit. Right. That made sense. Ta ta.

Yeah, I know I have a problem. I’m addicted. Hello. My name is Mark, and I’m a net-o-holic.

No, not quite. Hello, my name is Mark, and I’m a firewall-free bandwidth-o-holic.

This isn’t the first time that I’ve kept myself up late into the night downloading music, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. I’m thoroughly enjoying Ken’s Comcast cable connection. I’ve been downloading at a solid 300kbps+ for the last hour from the amazing DC++. At present, I’m downloading at 374kbps and have 24 silmultaneous downloads going. Whoo!

But that’s not the point. The point is that today was great. Ken and I slept in (well, until 10:00 or so, which is sleeping in for me, as of late) and then drove back to the cities. Ken cleared away a space, and I connected up my laptop. I killed an hour or so downloading, and then we headed off to meet Ken’s mom for dinner at P.F. Chang’s. Yes, you’re jealous. Yes, I have leftovers in the refrigerator downstairs. No, you may not have any. =P

After an amazing dinner, we drove to a small-ish venue called The Cedar where we met up with Ken’s dad and had the distinct priviledge of getting to see Lunasa perform. They’re a five-man celtic group and I thoroughly enjoyed the show. I would upload some of their music, but alas: they weren’t selling CDs after the show. It’s all good, though. You’ll just have to take my word that they were good (quite possibly the highlight of break, thus far).

And all of that brings me, via a warm brownie smothered in mint ice-cream courtesy of Ken’s dad, to my perch in Ken’s loft at about 12:25AM. Eventually I’ll go to bed. In the mean time, I’m going crazy with all this bandwidth.

Well, happy st. patty’s day, everyone. Or something.

Kekklewatts

Monday, March 14th 2005: 9:39PM

Oh my goodness. I just ate so much White Castle (pics to come!!). It wouldn’t be so bad, except I just kekkled (genmayism. See: laughed) off half the calories watching Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. I really don’t think I’ve laughed so much at a movie… for quite some time. It was an awesome conclusion to a great day.

And… that’s about it. It really seemed like I had so much more to say. I just had to get it out, I guess. Ke ke ke!

Edit: Oh! Before I forget: we watched Cool Hand Luke this afternoon, which I found to be well deserving of its “classic” status. Paul Newman is great!

Edit 2: AAH! Darn you Ken! My life sucks now! I can already see it: I’m going to wake up in two weeks time and be craving White Castle, and I’m going to be forced FOURTEEN hours for the drive to Minneapolis to satiate my craving. That’s such a long time!

Kekklewatts

Monday, March 14th 2005: 9:39PM

Oh my goodness. I just ate so much White Castle (pics to come!!). It wouldn’t be so bad, except I just kekkled (genmayism. See: laughed) off half the calories watching Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. I really don’t think I’ve laughed so much at a movie… for quite some time. It was an awesome conclusion to a great day.

And… that’s about it. It really seemed like I had so much more to say. I just had to get it out, I guess. Ke ke ke!

Edit: Oh! Before I forget: we watched Cool Hand Luke this afternoon, which I found to be well deserving of its “classic” status. Paul Newman is great!

Edit 2: AAH! Darn you Ken! My life sucks now! I can already see it: I’m going to wake up in two weeks time and be craving White Castle, and I’m going to be forced FOURTEEN hours for the drive to Minneapolis to satiate my craving. That’s such a long time!

Day…? March 16th, 2005: 9:54AM

So here I am, sitting in the lobby of our Econo Lodge. Why? Well, refer to the previous post about internet addiction. Quite simply, the signal is better out here than in our room. Ug.

So I was a wee bit concerned this morning when I pulled plug-thing to route the water to the showerhead and it sounded like a jet-engine winding up (you know: the weeEEEEE whine) followed by a small boom (AAAAAAAH! my wi-fi just dropped. So much for a better signal!) when the water came shooting out at, oh, say, 100mph, from the showerhead. Fortunately, the shower was much more comfortable than I expected, despite inauspicious beginnings. Yeah.

So we’re in Madison right now. Bonus points for those who know, off the top of their head, can fill in the blank: Madison is the capitol of this state: _______________.

I hate how Windows XP w/ SP2 handles wireless networks. It’s even more retarded than the Windows XP w/ SP1 handling of wireless networks. The bane of my existence. Sheesh.

I watched the better portion of Bush’s presidential address this morning while eating breakfast. I’m concerned. ALL his answers were so thoroughly ambiguous and evasive… I have a sneaking suspicion that when I come back to the States next spring, some things are going to be very different, although probably not for the better. When asked about the rising prices of gasoline, all Bush could respond was that congress has not yet produced a bill that would significantly increase the use of alternative sources of energy. Right-o.

And that’s about it. Ken and I are having a jolly good time, as it were, and I’m contemplating about dragging us to the Spam Museum today on our way back to the cities. Tonight we’re headed to dinner at P.F. Chang’s (yes, I know you’re jealous) and then to some sort of Celtic concert. Sweet!

Well, Chicago was nice. There you go. Off to bed now! Whoo-hoo!

I’m addicted. I’m helpless without it. I can’t function in society if I don’t get my fix or at leave have access. This isn’t healthy.

I managed to post yesterday… but only after stopping in some random city because I saw a “free wireless internet” sign on a hotel, and managing to get on to their network. Now I’m driving around Ken’s neighborhood, hunting for Wi-Fi. Obviously I’ve found some– lord knows that I’ll probably be out here later on tonight, with my coat on and such, sitting in some random person’s front lawn, because that’s the only place I can seem to pick up the ‘net. Tsk.

Anyhow. Things are good thus far– we just putzed around the city today (saw the sculpture garden, Ken’s high school, etc). An example of my desperate need for internet came around this afternoon. There was a shop I found in the Yellow Pages that I wanted to find. I didn’t have maps.google.com available, but I had purchased a city street map. No problem, right? Yeah. Whatever. Needless to say, we never found the shop. =)

Tonight we’re going to go get White Castle… and watch Herold and Kumar go to White Castle. Unfortunately, as it were, we’re not going to be stoned, but since neither of us happen to be pot users, we’re just going to need to settle with driving to White Castle and enjoying White Castle while sober. At least I’ll be driving a Corolla. =)

Tomorrow we take off for Chicago. Speaking of which, I should probably find a hotel and such while I have wi-fi. Ah, the hell with it. I’ll come back out later. =)