I've got a number of notes piling up here on my Treo; so in usual fashion I thought I'd just post them all at once today. Enjoy.

--So, day 7 of my friend Alamar's Chicago vacation, and things are still going well; today, in fact, he's off to see the Magnificent Mile for the first time, and to check out the Berghoff Oktoberfest down in the Loop. (I told him that he should run around at it, loudly complaining in his German accent about purity laws and crappy American beer - well, at least I'd get a kick out of something like that.) Unfortunately I'm running tight on money right now (yeah, I know, what a surprise), and we've got a bunch of stuff coming up this weekend that I'm going to need money for - so I'm having to send Alamar off on his own this week to do a lot of these city sightseeing things, while I stay in my neighborhood and try to spend as little money as possible. So, you know, thank God that Alamar's one of those tourists who's not afraid to go exploring on his own, is already used to how public transit systems work, and is able to start conversations with complete strangers, because we'd both be pretty much fucked if he wasn't.

Oh, and speaking of upcoming plans, here's what's on the horizon for us:

Tomorrow is finally our day to go visit the Fermi National Accelerator Lab out in Batavia, which we've been putting off and putting off because it's going to be such an unbelievable pain in the ass to get to via suburban public transportation. Anyway, we're finally biting the bullet tomorrow, so I'm sure there will be lots of real-time updates at the Jason Pettus Instant Locator™ and my audio page come tomorrow.

Then Friday night a group of us are getting dressed up in our old goth clothes and visiting NEO, pretty much the oldest full-time goth club left in Chicago (at least, as far as I know). And there's actually a whole bunch of us who are going out to that, because there's a whole bunch of us in Chicago who used to be goth/industrial kids ourselves. (Skinny Puppy, muthafuckas!) Anyway, if you live in Chicago yourself and want to join us for what will undoubtedly be a fun night out, then please feel free to drop me a line. Or, you know, just show up - NEO is at Fullerton and Clark, and we're all getting there around 10:30 or so Friday night.

Then Saturday Alamar and I head out to the suburbs yet again - this time to Villa Park, to attend some big gothic fest that Alamar scored press passes to for both of us. And that should be interesting, I think, although it sucks that we have to go all the way out to the suburbs again for it.

And then Sunday we head back out to the suburbs yet again! Jesus, man, three trips to the suburbs in one week - I think that now doubles the total number of times I've been in the suburbs altogether since moving here eleven years ago. In this case we're actually heading up to Gurnee, because believe it or not my friend Kate won some free tickets at her place of work to Six Flags Great America (a big amusement park here in the Chicago area), and Sunday is the last day the tickets are good for. And she was nice enough to invite us along, which I thought was really great, because how often do German goth-kid tourists get to go to a giant American amusement park? So that should be fun as well, hopefully, and at least will give me a chance for the first time in something like ten years to ride a rollercoaster again.

And like I said, all of these things are going to be fun, of course, but just start really quickly adding up - $10 for the train ride to Batavia, another $7 for the train ride to Villa Park, another $10 for the train ride to Gurnee, $10 for lunch at Six Flags, $5 cover at NEO Friday night, etc et-fuckin-c. And that part just sucks, because pretty much the only way I get to pull off the next-to-nothing budget I have in my life these days is to in fact do next to nothing - to spend most of my time simply kicking around my neighborhood and hanging out at cafes and watching a lot of television in my apartment. And so all these little adventures we have planned are just making me bleed money right now, which is always a stressful thing. Ah, but I want to make sure that Alamar is having a good time, so what are you going to do, I suppose.

Oh, and speaking of Germany, Alamar brought me a newspaper from Frankfurt as a little welcoming gift, which was a lot of fun to look through again. The news in Germany these days, of course, is all about the upcoming elections, and the edition Alamar brought me in particular has this huge rundown on a bunch of local elections going on in Germany this week as well. And Jesus, wouldn't you know it - I've fallen in love with a German politician! Yeah, I know, what a surprise! Her name is Anna Luehrmann, she's unsurprisingly a member of the Green Party, she's one of the youngest members of German parliament in that organization's history, and one quick look at her website will show immediately why I'm in love with her. So anyway, hallo tu du, Anna, if you happen to find this journal entry, and I wish you much luck in the upcoming election. And if you'd ever like to have a drink the next time I'm in Germany, by all means drop me a line!

--Just a strange thought I had this week, that I felt like sharing:

In the future, obviously the Bush Years are going to be known by historians as the moment America finally lost its position as the world's dominant superpower. And these historians will of course point to all the things that you and I are actually living through right now, and they'll show how they're all causally related and feed off each other: the dimwitted, arrogant President who embodies all the traits of the late-Empire Roman rulers; the rise for the first time of the EU as a legitimate unified superpower; this unity being encouraged by rising anti-Americanism around the planet, which in turn is being encouraged by the arrogant President mentioned before; the complete inability of our government to even deal with such basic issues as natural disasters and power outages; the isolationist attitude that is starting to set in here, the "siege mentality" that it is the US against the rest of the world; our policy of being the world's police force being stretched to its breaking point; the decreased amount of sway the US has in such organizations as the UN and NATO, and the way that the other members of these groups are increasingly passing things the US doesn't like. And it just goes on and on and on.

In the future this will all make logical sense - it will be like how we now view World World II, as this complex but solvable jigsaw puzzle, with one piece leading to another piece, and actions leading to obvious consequences and so forth. So how strange that, as we're actually living through it, it just seems so damn chaotic and random - like that every morning, we're all just waiting to see what terrible fucking thing is going to happen to America today, because it seems like there's another terrible fucking thing happening to America every day now.

No point here; I just thought it was an interesting thing to contemplate, that's all.

--Hey, so I rode my bike yesterday for the first time in almost a week...and man, it was glorious. In fact, it really surprised me to learn just how much I had missed riding my bike, just in those five days or whatever that Alamar had at that point been in town, and with me busy entertaining him by foot and public transit. The more I bicycle, the more I'm realizing just what a natural activity it is for me in particular, and how my body has been embracing it like a duck takes to water. Which is funny, because I've tried a number of sports and other physical activities over the years, and have never had any of them speak to me in such a natural, intuitive way as bicycling has this year.

There was this long-running joke we used to have back in high school, about how certain personality types just get naturally attracted to certain types of musical instruments; how all the arrogant assholes in school bands are always the trumpet players, how the goofy laid-back people are always trombonists, etc. So maybe this applies to sports as well? Maybe there's something about individual personalities and individual physical activities that just make natural matches? I'm not sure, to tell you the truth, because sports is just something I've never really spent that much time contemplating. It's worth spending some more time thinking about, though, in my opinion.

And what about your experiences? Have you found that bicyclers share a common personality that can be defined? Swimmers? Runners? Yoga practioners? If you've been active in sports for awhile and have an opinion on all this, I'd love to hear it.

--Dude, the season premiere of House was on last night, and it kicked so much ass I don't even know where to begin; I mean, it was easily (EASILY) twice as good as any episode that ran the entire first season. Man, the cliche is true - there's nothing like a bunch of Emmy nominations to suddenly make your writing staff a whole lot more motivated. In particular I'm loving the addition of Sela Ward as House's ex-girlfriend, and especially the way the writers have defined her as a sorta female House - another asshole, in other words, although in this case not quite as much as an asshole as House himself (and of course without the addiction to painkillers as well). It's this really interesting dynamic, I think, adding this female character who knows exactly how House's mind works, who can immediately call him on his bullshit without him being able to come up with any smartass response, simply because he's so astonished that someone was able to call him on his bullshit to begin with. This is exactly how I kept wanting the first season of House to be, so I'm very glad to see the show blossoming into a mature one. Keep up the good work, writing staff!

--And speaking of new television shows, Tyra Banks has one too, one of those crappy afternoon talk shows designed for suburban housewives with self-esteem issues. They even have a runway on the show's set - ah, but not for actual models, you see, but so that these audience members can walk down it, and "ennoble their empowerment as strong, capable women," or some marketing-committee bullshit like that. Gee, and I thought it was just another excuse for badly-dressed middle-aged women to dance around in public like complete jackasses. (Yeah, like we don't get enough of that already at wedding receptions.) And is it just me, or is there something just so incredibly disturbing about listening to a bunch of middle-aged women scream and cheer like a roomful of eight-year-old girls at an ice-skating competition? Okay, maybe it's just me.

--Something I wrote down on my Treo the other night when I was really drunk, which made me giggle when I read it the next morning:

"I'm not desperately trying to get laid these days for my sake; I'm just simply thinking of all those women out there who are missing out on all that pleasure. After all, I always seem to have a good time when I masturbate, and I just can't help thinking of all those people who could be sharing that good time with me while it was going on. It's a public service, I'm tellin' ya!"

--The Chicago Tribune has a reader poll going on right now, asking people to vote for what they consider the "Seven Great Chicago Wonders." And in usual mainstream-media fashion, the choices are fucking lame; I mean, seriously, at what point is it correct to consider a goddamn hotdog as a Great Urban Wonder? So anyway, in protest I thought I'd put together my own list of what I consider the Seven Great Chicago Wonders, listed below in no particular order:

1) The view of the Loop from the Michigan Avenue bridge;

2) Wrigley Field;

3) The sidewalk outside Metro the nights that popular bands play;

4) The lakefront park;

5) The Loop's Coal and Carbide Building (now the Hard Rock Hotel);

6) The intersection of North, Damen and Milwaukee;

and 7) Broadway between Addison and Fullerton.

And that's that, I suppose. Don't forget to keep an eye out tomorrow for Fermi updates!