For the record, this is meant to be an annex, and was for months until i screwed it up today and hit post instead of save and preview (i am, as they say, a complete idiot). ANYHOO, you can see the annex link on the left there, and credit for this little thingey goes to both undertow and mishima. there's others out there with annexes (rob st amant, greg thomas, a few others, methinks) and it's a heckuva good thing to have. everyone should have one. and with that ... it's on with the show.

this is where i put stuff i don't know what to do with. 

6/29/09: don't sneak up behind a pregnant wife and go BOO! just don't. (life's teaching me valuable lessons lately.) 

6/25/09: jason's latest nonsensical, non-sequitir phrase that cracks me up: "Enlarged to show texture."

6/19/09: holy crap! i haven't updated this thing in two months. thanks to gabby for reminding me. ANYHOO, in the spirit of relaunching this here time-waster, this morning's breakfast has been a banana, a little thing of soy milk, a latte and two cookies. one m and m, the other oatmeal scotchie.

so there. the annex is back, baby. back!

4/6/09:

the lady who cut my hair remembered me from a year and a half ago, from the fall of 07. haven't seen her in that long, but she knew me right off the bat cause of the cowlicks around the back of my head. 

3/23/09:

a nickname i wanted to include in the gossip/scoop is/was 'very harry dingleberry.' couldn't figure out a way to include him as he doesn't have much of a story per se, but he does have a nickname i'm half in love with.

that's all. 

3/22/09:

just wanna say two things: one, on the corner of balmoral and ravenswood, there's a place called pauline's. ate breakfast there this morning. i love pauline's and you should as well.

 two, there's a place in london, in or very near marylebone, that does fantastic sausages. for the life of me, i have forgotten the name. i've been searching all afternoon online. i can find it nowhere. i'm starting to get worried.

that's all.

3/16/09:

The Most Disgusting Burger Ever Ordered And Subsequently Eaten: three burger patties (a pound and a half total), blue cheese, two slices of cheddar, bacon, avocado, black olives, green olives, grilled onions, tomato, mushrooms. 

3/5/09:

the cookie dessert of the week has been peanut butter. only when i typed out the dessert menu, i typed out peanut butter COCKIES. luckily, someone who is not me caught it in time.

there's a big difference between cookies and cockies. 

2/25/09:

have i told you of my afternoon ritual? every day at three, i have a cup of tea and two cookies. today's cookies are oatmeal walnut. 

2/24/09:

and SPEAKING of drunks, forgot to tell you bout this, BUT:

sunday night, this guy and gal came in round eight o'clock, having had more than a few. the guy was slurring. he ordered a twelve ounce new york shrimp steak. laura laughed. he got mad. i laughed when he complained to me bout laura laughing. 

2/20/09:

mysterious things found in my car: four mcdonald's burger wrappers. (can't member the last time i had mcdonald's.) a pencil. (i don't use pencils. only use pens.) three ice scrapers when i coulda swore we only had the one. one left shoe.

oh, and updating this, i just realized my haircut is ten days old today. happy tenth, haircut. 

2/10/09:

did you know that i get my hair cut at the exact same hair cuttery as a VERY PROMINENT local t.v. weatherman?

well, i do. 

2/9/09:

i can tell you one beer to stay away from is the lagunitas brown shugga. dunno why but it just does not work. no way no how. 

2/4/09:

and of course, if you are ever in a north side neighborhood bar that has no kitchen/food, and a short-ish mexican fellow strolls through selling tamales from an igloo cooler, do yourself a favor and get some. five bucks gets you six, and if you're lucky, you've found him early and he still has pork or chicken or cheese. (pork's my favorite.) 

i got some last night. reminded myself to share the love/spread the knowledge. consider it shared and spread, this love, this knowledge.

2/8/09:

farting around with recipes from a victorian cookbook i found, and right now, we're testing the lemon jumbles. not too shabby, if we do say so ourselves. 

2/1/09:

an e-mail from glen, in its entirety:

EWE OW SOFA KING WEE TODD ED. 

1/30/09:

very busy night last night, which is always good, but what was NOT so good was at the end, around ten o'clock, i got stuck talking to a very strange fellow, who i swear i'd never met before or had been in before, but insisted on telling me what it's like to have sex with an amputee. he's had sex with a woman who was missing a leg, and one woman missing an arm. it was an odd conversation.

1/28/09:

hey there. check out undertow's blog for a how-to. you too can have yourself one of these hot little annex numbers. go on. it's easy. til you screw it up like i screwed mine up. but ... you know ... it's entirely possible you're smarter than me. entirely possible.

oh. and go see chicago guy's post on hot doug's for another recommendation. 

1/28/09:

there's a place kinda by my house called the tiny lounge. lincoln and montrose basically. highly recommended. good beer list, good cocktails, apparently good food, but i didn't eat. i only drank.

and drank.

and drank.

1/12/09:

another tip: the brunch at angel food bakery on montrose and whatever's one block west of ashland. VERY good. had egg in a hole with english muffin bread and roasted potatoes and a latte. i almost cried.

so ... if you're in the neighborhood ... (and they also make great bakery things and lunches. so ... you have no excuses, really ...) 

1/9/09:

today, i have band-aids on three fingers. one's a paper cut that won't close, one's from wanging my finger between two sliding doors and the third is cause i burned my right pinky with coffee. burned it kinda bad. clumsy me. 

1/7/09:

been meaning to mention this for a few weeks now, BUT, my latest addiction is the dips and spinach pies and breads from the middle eastern bakery on foster and clark. to the best of my knowledge, the middle eastern bakery is its name. if you're ever nearby ...

that's all. just wanted to let you know. 

1/5/09:

another good beer to check out is the new holland cabin fever. easier to find than the abita pecan, and also a brown ale. so ... if you see it, and you like beer ...

12/16/08:

if you can find it, get the abita pecan ale. hard-ish to find, round chicago at least, but GOOD ... 

12/15/08:

this week, the cookie for the cookie plate dessert is a ginger snap sandwich cookie with lemon creme filling. pretty dang good. i eat too many. 

12/12/08:

crappy thing that comes with the job, for today:

doing dishes tonight and tomorrow night, perhaps sunday afternoon as well, because we have no dishwasher, since ... uh ... the one we did have kinda didn't work out so well. 

12/8/08:

a joke i overheard yesterday, december 7th:

did you hear about the half-japanese, half-black army? they tried to invade pearl bailey.

no one ever said i had funny customers. 

12/5/08:

file this under ... i dunno ... file it under something, murphy's law or the last thing i need right now or something, but we have a hunka junk hp printer that's four years old now and it was low on ink so i went to target and spent twenty two bucks on a new cartridge and i pop it into the printer and the printer dies after the second page, dies deader than a doornail, and now i gotta rund around trying to find an hp printer that uses this kinda cartridge cause i don't wanna hafta have wasted twenty two bucks. like i don't have enough to do already today. now i gotta go to like staples and office max and office depot and best buy and circuit city ... 

12/3/08:

now that i'm fully recovered from this morning's ... unpleasantries ... i'd like to share the following, which i scribbled onto a napkin at the long room or ten cat - whichever, not sure which one - and, upon sober reflection, are baffling. i have no idea what i was thinking when i scribbled them or why or how they relate to my life. here you go:

3928170

13241

L R

D R

HP (or HD, can't read my own writing)

Bones.

OJ #2.

that's it. that's the napkin. looks like i'm calling the all night marty party. 

12/2/08:

when i was a kid, i somehow flipped over the handlebars of my bike and landed head first on the street curb. knocked me unconscious. no one saw, no one noticed til the guy who tried to back his car over my head came to check what the hell was in its way and saw me splayed out on my back. (oh to see the look on his face.) anyway, i came to in the hospital and the priest was bedside, praying, only i thought it was last rites, which it wasn't, but it scared the shit outta me. i had a horrible headache, the hospital dinner that night was a ham and swiss sandwich, and to this day, i can't eat swiss cheese without remembering that headache.

12/1/08:

so ... uh ... saturday night, things were a bit crazy, very crowded, i was flustered, running around, and sarah (bartender) asked me if she could make me something to drink. i tried to say two things at once: i'd love a big coke and i'd love a big pop. what i said, loudly, was: i'd love a big cock. 

and with that, this blog annex is now open for business.