Happy Birthday, Mike!

Happy Birthday to my lovely (and newly engaged) friend Mike 'Collars Up' Crittenden!

Everyone out there should buy Cordarounds Summerounds in Blue in his honor.

Skip Loves the Squares

I have this thing for Ohio. Everyone I meet from Ohio is so nice and so friendly and so normal it's creepy. What's more, if they don't already live there, they all want to move back. Is there something in the water? What am I missing?

I'm going to get this t-shirt to pronounce my support for the Squares and secret desire to be a part of their club.

At Cotton Factory.

Skip's On the List

It's no secret that I love the British and all their futile attempts at food preparation, road repair, dental health and morning talk shows. But, all sarcasm aside, there is one thing that my people get right and that is aristocratic condescension in all its iterations. (Is it any wonder I'm such a snob?)

The latest demonstration of this exclusivity seems to be the Paper Club bar-lounge-restaurant-bedroom in W1, where supposedly any Londoner can lounge lazily on a bed while sipping G&T's, smoking cigars and reading 'The Financial Times.' Thanks to a friend who is working their PR, I've been informed that the member wait-list for 'civilians' is 1-year long. Open to the public? I'm so sure...not at a place where the News Headlines track celeb sightings.

The tucked-away truth is that 'only those who appear to fit in to the overall look and feel of the new exclusive club will be invited to join with complimentary memberships.' Oh! Those ever-hopeful low-class masses! A place with an 'Untouchable People Lounge' and secret passage under Regent Street is probably not likely to let you in regardless of the lies...er, hype.

I've no doubt I'll make an appearance when I'm next in London.

The Best Way to Spend a Sunday Evening

For various lengthy and peculiar reasons my parents have a webcam and I have a webcam. This evening was the inaugural world wide webcast complete with scratchy sound and staccato, wandering images.

Never in my life have I been so amused...and confused as to how two people as intelligent as my parents can't center a camera.

Tune in next week for more scenes from Skip's Singular Streaming Parental Tete-a-Tetes.

Skip's a Beta Tester

I'm positive that my steadfast support of all things Yahoo! resulted in my being a beta-tester for their new mail portal. I mean, not really, but I did download the new beta version of Yahoo! Mail and I am obsessed with it!

Check out all the nifty icons (I especially like the Spam folder with a flame shooting out of it), search function, direct access to RSS feeds and easy layering of open email with convienent tabs.

It's awesome! All you gmail losers should be very jealous.

Easter Excellence

Just last weekend I got to fly home to spend time with my lovably bizarre family and friends (and have some respite from the deluge on San Francisco...it was warm and sunny in Chicago). Included on the trip; a Cubs game, review of my 11 year old coin collection, lunch at 'The Restaurant,' lighthearted chats about the financial viability of the United States in 50 years, dinner with friends at Sola downtown and one very embarassing coughing attack during church.




I very much so want to go back.

More Distractions Needed

Being at home sick and bored, infested by the evil Mono virus, has got me craving mindless things to do. I've almost completed all my Sudoko books (which is not only sad, but very sad), and daytime television is simply not what it used to be. As I am too exhausted most of the time to stay focused on any one activity, I think I need several options.

The only all-in-one conclusion I can come to is to get a Sony PSP. I mean, it would serve so many purposes! I could surf the web, play numerous distracting video games (Madden Football), snooze listening to some tunes uploaded onto the device, watch movies (in the UMD format, thank you Sony for another annoying, proprietary technology) and dork-out at the local coffee shop (in my pyjamas). It would also come in handy for my flight to Chicago on Wednesday and my future trips to New York.

Santa?

Skip Sends a Message

Wow. Boredom has driven me to a new low, creating my own church signs, and finding myself very witty. I love the double-entendre.

Someone save me (pun intended)!

Skip is a Sap

I have fallen in love with this poem. Perhaps my illness is extending to my head...

i carry your heart with me by ee cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

It Never Ends?

In an effort to determine whether or not it would ever stop raining in San Francisco, I turned to my local newspaper for guidance.

I am not very hopeful especially when there are question marks in a weather forecast!

Skip Dresses Up

My 'Dresses for Dress Up' campaign begins as soon as it stops raining...which could be never.

At Twelfth Street.

The Disappearance of Skip

I have recently dropped off the face of the earth. This is because I am about 98.9% sure that I am the first documented North American case of Avian Influenza (this blog entry will serve as the documentation), otherwise known as Bird Flu.

This disease has a recorded fatality rate of about 70% and while I'm confident that I've survived the past three weeks without succumbing to the white light, I am losing hope that I will ever recover from my relentless cough and sandpaper throat.

Either that or I'll die of friend isolation and boredom.