Giving Thanks

For the 2 lovely housemates of mine, together with whom a great party was planned and a great feast was created.





For the multitudes of friends for whom the feast was for in the first place, and who helped out with contributions of chicken wings, cheese (with parsley), pecan pies, absolutely amazing cakes, much chocolatety heaven, and of course copious amounts of good quality social lubricant.



And for the beautiful house which i'm living in now, which despite all its teething problems, is an utterly amazing place to live.

HP and the GOF

Well so yesterday a whole bunch of HP fans and semi-fans headed off to watch HP-GOF on the opening day (what other day is there to watch?) and being the Singaporeans we were, we were of course the first in the line into the cinema.

Movie itself was quite spectacular, opening effects were awing, and they managed to carry the main plot of the book across in 157 minutes with some cuts (the book is fat!!) and still insert a little bit of fanservice fodder for all the shippers. Loved the mood of the movie, loved the sets and the effects, and I seriously can't wait for the last book to come out now.

Lost

So last night we decided to watch the first 8 episodes of lost over at the Windermere household, with their awesome TV and sound system. Jeremy cooked up a mean pasta, and we settled in for 4 hours of intriguing characterization and suspense. To those concerned: yes i'm finally watching lost.

Love the language they use, and the philosophies and themes behind the show. The whole premise is kinda survivor meets Lord of the Flies, and you just wonder when the power dynamics will break down and everyone will start killing each other with the various sharp pointy things they have.

End result: can't wait for the next DVD on friday courtesy of Netflix.

Lucca's in Lincoln Park

Dinner today:

Lucca's
2834 N. Southport Ave., Chicago, (773) 477-2565.
(closed monday)

Decided to be a bit more adventurous and we wandered over to Lincoln Park with Christian, and after a 30+ minute drive (slight jam on I-90, it's saturday evening after all) managed to find our way to Lucca's, a Mediterranean/Italianish place nestled in a residential neighbourhood (we thought we took a wrong turn, mapquest led us down a street or two of quiet houses). This humble establishment has absolutely wonderful service, the waiter zipped by 2 seconds after i closed my menu to take our orders, and another 2 seconds after we took the last piece of bread from the basket, it was taken away and brought back, filled, with alarming rapidity. Cool stuff.

The bread itself was nice and warm, and served with olive oil with a bit of grated parmesan and pepper in it, which is the first time i've ever tried that combination, but it tastes REALLY good.

Lucca's serves a combination of seafood, pastas and regular meat/steak dishes. The 4 of us shared half a dozen escargots ($8), which were richly flavored with oil and herbs (no cheese though) and quite delectable. I had a halibut for an entree ($20):



Unfortunately once again i was too eager to dig into the dish, so the fish is half-demolished and the bed of spinach looks like the bed of someone who woke up at 9:35 for a 9:30 Social Psych class.

The fish itself wasn't spectacularly fresh (although it was pretty good by inland Chicago standards) but it was served in a garlicky sauce on a bed of spinach which I think was the highlight of the dish. Sort of like the sauce they serve at chinese wedding dinners for the steamed grouper, only more complex with various undertones i couldn't identify (random herbs?) which just made me wanna drink up all the sauce right there and then.

Loved it very much, but that's possibly partly due to the whole fish-deprivation since i've gotten to Chicago, I do believe that's the first fresh-ish fish/seafood i've had in 7 weeks. My two housemates probably thought similarly: they got a tilapia (a bit too salty) and a mahi mahi (which i thought was really nice and firm).

Funky fish species aside, this restaurant provides a nice relaxed atmosphere with very efficient service and good food, albeit slightly on the pricier side. An interesting place to visit if you want a change.

Patch's hierarchy of home needs

with apologies to maslow.

So you have a house. Start with the basic needs:
1. Exclusion (usually in the form of keys and a lockable door)
2. Electricity
3. Water
4. An Internet Connection (of course!)

Then you move on to slightly less essential items:
1. Furniture
2. Heating (well you -could- just go around the house all day in a jacket)
3. Cooking ability (gas!!) and a stocked fridge

And even higher up now:
1. Appliances
2. Cutlery for abovementioned cooking ability

Finally:
1. Decor (in the budget-sensitive case: posters!)

Today i put up posters in my room.

it's fall alright...

The sign reads:
No Parking
Fire Lane
Violators
towed at
owner's risk.

toilet wall graffiti

U of C toilet walls are full of random graffiti which come in various poetic and philosophical flavors. Today's choice pick:

"Immortality would suck."

and a bit further down:

"so would a colonoscopy."

deep.

The continuing saga of the infrastructure of the house

It's been a good couple of days, we've finally moved in to the most gorgeous place in hyde park. The SBC guy came too, and he was all patient and friendly and we chatted about lousy contractoring and switchboards and wiring and he was all nice and didn't charge me a single cent for hooking up the phoneline. I paid him a couple of compliments and gifted polite niceness upon him.

So now i have internet.

But for some reason the gas company doesn't see to want to hook up my home with gas. This probably involves something like 2 minutes of work turning a valve in the basement, but over the course of 6 weeks, they have absolutely refused to do so. First the internet system refuses to believe that my address exists, then the callcentre (mired behind a regular minefield of electronic answering systems) finally lets us make an appointment after being on hold for longer than the gestation period of a small mammal (thank you wanyun).

I wait on the fated day for their call, they come, they go. no news at all.

I call and raise hell, but the machine bears it all with the patience of a disembodied voice who'll be there for all eternity. I make another appointment, and i tell them to call me 30 minutes before they get here so i can prepare for them.

I wait for their call. they come, they go. I pop down to run an errand, and on the way back see this note on my door saying "sorry, but we missed you." and goes on to inform me of how they need access to the place to turn the gas on. Like, what the heck. I bet they're running low on funds so they're hiring small kids to go around on their bikes and stealthily stick these green sorry notes on all the doors they're supposed to go to.

And so we still have no gas supply in our apartment, and the next scheduled date is next monday. So one more week of not cooking our own food. So we went out and bought lots of microwave dinners. Brian would be proud of us!