do i like this new blogger? not sure yet. my body looks like it's been in a war and i have a giant bruise on my cheek and it's like wtf? did i punch myself in the face in my sleep? i must have because that's the only explanation.

did you hear? did you hear about the world peace that broke out? hussein is dead and now iraq is like a big disco party and everyone has ponies and holding hands and oh everyone converted to christianity in the whole world and then the angels came down from the heavens...

and shot us all to hell. do you ever sit on a plane in front of loud mouth assholes who pat each other on the back about how reagan was the greatest and bush junior is even greater and we're all too stupid to see it now. yeah. i guess that must be true. i guess when i get that lobotomy i'll be able to see it too.

the cost of string? who knows? what is it worth in the end anyway as long as it made some people happy. all i keep rewinding in my head is the whole i am ashamed of you...i am ashamed of you...i am ashamed of you. it's like a sick xmas song for the dysfunctional family...i am ashamed of you...medical care isn't for people like you who can't afford it...i'm cutting you off...i'm cutting you out of the will...oh you are sick? yeah grandmother fakes that hand shaky thing too...i am ashamed of you...quicken will save us all...get out of the car then...just go...just stop shaming me.

damn. if this were an old samurai movie...thank god i only have that stupid plastic sword they gave out at last year's gdc.

this year's gotta be better than the last?

me on npr in a story on game accessibility for the blind on xmas eve...meanwhile in non-radio life i tried to ignore, well, everything around me.

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o'hare

homeland security has *recently* upgraded our alert to orange according to the speaker system...but hasn't it been orange for many, many months now? and is orange the middle or second to the top? it did cause quite the commotion at o'hare security as we moved all our damn gels into new plastic bags and meanwhile i got to the conveyor belt to see, shit, i didn't take out the laptops yet. so i had to yell down for someone to pass me some spare plastic tubs (one laptop per). yeah. two laptops. that's how i roll.

anyway, i've been trying to get home since 5am but now it's 5:30pm and i have *at least* another hour to wait because our incoming flight is circling above chicago due to the traffic. you know...fucking holidays. airport hell is how i roll.

and i had to take a bus to o'hare because nothing's leaving champaign for the next 40 days due to, i don't know...sun? all i know is that i'm manic now so i best avoid my family by working non-stop on my dissertation. it's the only way to survive.

lonely nights, never end,
they come here again and again,
whenever i'm alone, without you.
this love, it seems, to keep taking me higher.
but i'm flying alone, without you.
i know i tried and tried before,
(i know, you know.)
you know i need you more and more.
were you tellin' me lies?
did you really mean goodbye?
can't you see, I'm yours,
i'm in love for the first time.
and now I'm lost,
without you, without you, without you, without you.

i'm flying with broken wings,
i'm flying alone.
(yeah, i'm flying, yeah i'm flying alone)
i'm flying with broken wings,
i'm flying alone.

(can't you hear me, can't you hear me?)
i'm flying with broken wings,
i'm flying alone.hendrix, as performed by the ohare holiday band...

so soon i'll be on npr but i won't know when or what show yet but it could be all things considered. which would be amazing. so, yeah, i had to go to the npr station here and do some weird phone patch in thing with the reporter from san francisco and it's being edited now so that all the "uh..." pauses are removed. it took a couple minutes to get myself from the "uh" habit but once i became aware of it, things were better. it's been a long time since the days of the woove and i couldn't just say shit like "oh...so i fell asleep so that's why you heard the whole half of that album..." and then have friends call in so we could mock people.

did i just say album? oy...

anyway, i was in my other office yesterday -- the one on the complete, complete opposite side of campus from my dorm one -- and i remembered that i'd been meaning to take in the mac laptop to figure out what the fuck was wrong with the wireless. so there's a mac store that's in the same building as all the illinois campus media and the radio station has the dj in the store window...which is creepy. maybe it's a chicago thing because they do that on michigan avenue. i don't know. i do know that they are commercial, which drives me insane -- no campus radio station should be slave to the man. that's right. i said it. the man. and i do know that they don't look anywhere near as sleep deprived and/or high as we did. and i don't know the answer to this for sure but i'm thinking that they probably don't take requests to play the emergency broadcast system...back when it was that two-tone fucker of sound.

which brings me back to npr...that was our parent station and would receive all of our random ebs shit and turn us in. what? ok, it wasn't like 9/11 was anywhere close to happening and the cold war had closed up shop so we were bored, we were slackers, we were grunge. and kurt cobain was still alive and nirvana was still underground and, fucking hell, no he did not die from overeating. wtf. no really. someone actually said that to me the other day: "didn't he die from overeating?" wow. no.

but beside all that i'm not dying from overeating because i can't keep anything down and i'm wondering if it's because i owe 8 million dollars in medical bills?