Jericho: A couple of $50 steaks and I'll be fine!

Okay, travel for work stinks. But, now that this trip is almost over, it feels pretty good. Okay, probably standing in a pile of manure after leaving prison feels good, too, but you get the idea. I put in 74 very frustrating hours last week. I was lonely and broke - but the food was fantastic!

Okay, I haven't eaten very much since I've gotten here. How did that happen? Is the fat guy sticking to a diet. Sure I am! If you call stress, lack of time and a I-don't-give-a-rat's-ass attitude a diet, then that's what I did. Basically, I didn't have time to eat, and trying to eat on one of these deals is a real pain in the ass. It's not like I can go back to my room and whip up a meal, either I eat out or I don't eat. If I eat out it's expensive and I better get a receipt so I can expense the meal. I'm not made of money, ya know.

So, sure, I've eaten at Micky D's, Wendy's, Arby's, BK and Dunkin' Donuts since I got here, not in that order. But, I've also gotten a lot of room service! I started off the week with ribs from room service. Okay, I had chicken fingers, ribs, a strawberry shake and a coke, but it was my first and only meal of the day! Yeah, the ribs were pretty darned good. They hit the spot.

There are Dunkin' Donuts on every corner in this city. How people don't die from donut induced heart attacks before age twenty, I'll never know. There were several boxes scattered around for us to munch on as we worked, thank god there were, other wise I would have died of starvation by Thursday!

Speaking of Thursday, I think that was the night of my first $50 steak. Okay, it wasn't quite $50, after the shake, the delivery charge, the %15 gratuity and the tip, I was still under $50, but the New York strip was the bulk of it! Damned good steak. The garlic mashed potatoes were pretty good, too. But the steak was the star.

That is, until last night ...

We brought a vendor into town to help out with the voicemail issues. He used to live in Chicago, so he had a spot he wanted to take me. We drove around and saw some of the nicest houses I've ever seen in the mid-west. All the while, we're quoting lines from our favorite movies filmed in Chicago. At one point, we were discussing "Risky Business" and "Ferris Bueller" when "Don't you forget about me" by Simple Minds came on the radio - it was like I had found Shermer! It's somewhere between Glencoe and Winnetka. It was so cool!

So, we go to this place called Pete Miller's. Nice steak house in a nice little neighborhood. This is the type of place where they bring out a tray of raw steaks, so you can see what you are buying before you buy. On the tray was a Porterhouse the size of a math text book! It wasn't on the menu because of availability, but they had them that night! I was sold! After all, I wasn't paying for it, the vendor was. I'm not sure I'm supposed to accept gifts from my vendors, but, considering that I can't approve anything, they were wasting their money buying me a steak. We talked shop and talked some personal stuff and then the tuna medallions arrived. I don't know how you all feel about sashimi or sushi, but I'm becoming a fan. These were thin slices of very fresh tuna that had been lightly seared and served with wasbi cream. Oh, man! You take a bit with your fork, touch the wasbi and lightly chew - it's like eating candy, no fish taste at all. Yum!

The Porterhouse showed up in a limo! The first bite off that steak was damn near orgasmic! Even the broccoli was good! I told the waiter if the cook came out I'd give him a kiss - the cook never showed. The steak was incredible. I thought I'd pop by the time I finished, but it was well worth the effort. A quick look at the check revealed the steak to be $42 and change. I'm very glad my vendors like me!

The vendor drove me back home via Lake Shore Drive, yes, I went back to the hotel on LSD. I got up late this morning, found left over pastries in one of the pantries from yesterday, had BK for lunch and am looking forward to dinner out with a friend. The voicemail system is up and working pretty darn well. I'm sure bugs will show, they always do, but we're good at this point. All the forwarding work I did on Sunday was for naught, SBC did their job and took over the lines, my five hours of work went to waste. Oh well.

I'm on an 8:25 train tomorrow morning headed for STL. I get to see my mother and then later my wife, the two most important people in any young man's life, I've missed them both very much. I hope to post again later next week to tell you all about the trouble Max and I caused while together. Should be a big thrill for you!

Jericho: The Seattle of the Midwest

This week in Chicago has not felt much different than being in Seattle - the weather has been a little more muggy, but it's been cloudy, misty and cool - I haven't missed the weather of home at all!

As to everything else, well, that's another deal. Traveling for work always sounded like fun to me, until I started doing it. This trip to Chicago has been another example of why traveling for work is no fun. Sure, I'm staying in a five-star hotel in one of the most exciting cities in the world. But, with the twelve or more hour days, the pressure to make systems work in very short order, the lack of my wife or my friends or even my damn cats, this place isn't much fun. Heading off to the third building of the day to do more work at 8 PM on a Friday night while everyone else around you is partying - and then having the frustrations of systems and processes not work and feeling like you are wasting a lot of your time, all results in a very displeased Jericho.

We're close to done here, the systems are coming together, by the time I leave we should be in pretty good shape. But, today, Sunday, almost 9 AM my time, I've already been onsite for nearly an hour and a half and my day is just starting. Today will be another twelve or so hour marathon. I leave town on Wednesday.

Max: Shrub's Witticism Draws Critticism

Personally, I think it is pretty damn funny.

Max: Lying Liars

Imminent threat? Who said anything about an imminent threat?

Max: WTF?!?

Please explain to me what this has to do with I, Robot? Why didn't they use Harlan Ellison's screenplay? Oh, yeah, they are morons.

Jericho: A whole bunch of reasons to just give up!

IWDC is two years old. Woo. Like you care. Hell, I barely care and I just forked out $25 to keep this joke going. At one point I hoped to make some money off this site - to bring some real content to the Internet, maybe a webzine - something people cared about. However, IWDC has been and will continue to be a place where I come out, whenever I damn well feel like it, and generally bitch and belly ache about whatever the hell I what to bitch and belly ache about. I refuse to allow our quality to be compromised.

And why should I care? If things in this country keep going the way they are, when the FCC is done with Radio, TV and Cable - you just know they will come after the Internet! Howard Stern puts out a show and it's gone from the air-waves. Sure, there might be some tape, but it's ephemeral. Our insulting musings are out here for as long as I keep them out here. I can't wait to find that I've gotten a $500k fine for doing what comes naturally to me - pissing people off. And who's going to protect my rights? The President? Ha! I'm waiting for a Constitutional Amendment to ban "The Seven Dirty Words"!

The Spammers just won't stop. You can't get to your email, too much Spam. I've had to set up rules on my home email - I've never had to do that before. So sad. I probably won't have to worry about the FCC, the Spammers will crush the Internet with too much email traffic long before a government agency has time to act. Do they really think that if they annoy us to death that we will buy their crap? Do they really think I would turn to an email from an unidentified stranger instead of talking to my doctor in matters concerning my penis? I only have one of those - I'd like to keep it around for a few years. Why the hell would I buy some unknown product and use that on my second favorite body part? At least a doctor carries malpractice insurance - if my willie falls off because he told me to do something, I hit the medical jackpot. I may not be able to have sex again, but I'd be rich! What type of insurance does www.spamalot.com have? None. They should all die horribly!

My hair is falling out worse and worse by the day. I wish that one morning I would just wake up bald, instead of this slow migration and lingering hope. Just fall the fuck out already! I look enough like a babydoll after a tornado, thank-you-very-much!

I read an article today that just got me laughing, I'd link to it but I can't find a working link. (Whatever happened to the good old days of HTML?) There was a major study done on kids who promise to be virgins vs. those that hadn't. Have you heard about this practice? It's big in the southern part of the country and in other heavily protestant areas. These kids take an oath to abstain from sex until marriage. Big ritual to it, lots of peer pressure, daddies buying their little girl promise rings - yeck! But, that's just my personal opinion - the study was more balanced. They showed that STD rates for "pledgers" vs. non-pledgers was about equal. About 99% of non-pledgers and, get this, 80% of pledgers had sex before marriage over a ten year study. However, the non-pledgers were much more likely to wear a condom. So, the pledgers caught up on the STD percentage because they were having secret, unprotected sex. Oy! Folks, teach your kids, don't force them to bury their heads in the sand. It's very likely that your kids are smarter than you - it's a factor of the education system and the modern environment. Explain to them the joys of waiting until they are married, but also show them how to use a condom and explain to them the difference between safe-sex and contraception. They will use the information wisely. Don't know the difference? Call your family doctor and have him explain it to you. There is no good reason why your kids should pick up some minor STD or worse! No promise ring will stop that! There is no better tool for safe sex than a little education. This study only dealt with STD's - I would love to have seen the pregnancy rates as well!

The Sniper got a death sentence. Too bad we can't kill him as many times as he killed others. I think he should be executed with a firing squad - seems only fair.

How can we protect the institution of marriage by denying it to a select minority? Since when did marriage become a country club? Are going to start putting up signs in front of city halls that say "You must be this hetro to get a marriage license" with an arrow pointing to a picture of Dan Quayle? Protecting children, they say. Everytime I see a gay couple with kids, the kids are happy, healthy, well educated and clean. I look up and down my block at dirty, dumb, underfed kids playing in the street - look what "protected" marriages have done for them! I see gay couples emptying orphanages and I see breeders producing more and more brain dead brats. They keep saying they are protecting this institution, yet, it would seem to me that a 50% divorce rate does more to undermine the institution of marriage in this country than any group of gays in love. Do you see any politicians running a Constitutional Amendment banning divorce up the flag pole? Yeah, me neither.

I'm getting hair plugs and lypo - then I'm moving to Canada where I can hunt moose in peace for the rest of my life.

Max: CNN.com - High-tech snooping for bin Laden

CNN.com - High-tech snooping for bin Laden

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. forces searching for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden along the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan will soon implement high-tech surveillance tactics in the region, enabling them to monitor the area 24 hours a day, seven days a week, CNN has learned. "

We are starting this just now? Oh, yeah. We we way too busy going after people who hadn't attacked us.

Max: Salon.com | McDonald's to dump supersize portions

Salon.com | McDonald's to dump supersize portions

"March 3, 2004 | CHICAGO (AP) -- Hold the fries -- at least the super-sized version. In a sign of the times, McDonald's is getting rid of the extra-large portions that had become one of its signatures. The burger giant said it has begun phasing out Supersize fries and drinks in its more than 13,000 U.S. restaurants and will stop selling them altogether by year's end, except in promotions."

Max: Salon.com | Rover finds Mars was wet enough for life

Salon.com | Rover finds Mars was wet enough for life

March 3, 2004 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- Mars may once have been a wet place where life could flourish, according to NASA scientists who say a robot rover has found evidence that rocks on the Red Planet "were once soaked with liquid water."