Prangster in Chicago

You call this high?

Yesterday I received this shoe (and its twin) in the mail from Zappos. They're the ones I'll be wearing as one of Jess's three bridesmaids for her wedding in NYC in October. The other bridesmaids are Janice and Julie, Jess's younger sister. What's with all the J names? I have no clue. As you can probably tell, these shoes are pretty tall. In fact, the heel is four freaking inches! That's the height of my Sony Ericsson mobile phone!!!!!!!!

But no worries. I'm a graceful faller.

Jess, I'm totally kidding! I promise :)

Travis show at The Vic

I've been listening to the new Travis album -- "The Boy with No Name" -- at my desk for the past couple weeks. A random coworker had it on their iTunes folder. Then last Thursday, I saw they were going to play a show here in Chicago! So my buddy Chris and I got tickets and went to see them last night. They were really good live! Played all the best songs from the new album. If it weren't for that tall dude standing in front of us with his unpredictable swaying, the show would've been even better.



After the show, I went to hang and chat at a friend's place. During the short walk home, I decided to stop by Walgreens and pick up some paper towels since I'd run out and I use five or more of them every day for soaking up cooking oil and what not. So I got a six-pack for the sake of convenience and cradled it home for the two more blocks to my building.

Who knew seeing a girl walk down the street on a Saturday night -- at just past midnight -- carrying a six-pack of paper towels would spark the curiosity of so many people? There are some bars down that particular street and no less than five (drunk) people commented something along the lines of, "Woah, that's a lot of paper towel!" or "I wonder what she spilled?" It made me feel kinda badass.

Peering at Navy Pier

I love how the weather is still this perfect after I finish work...

The vortex of bad service

It's another Saturday, which means it's another morning waiting for and hosting the Comcast cable guy...

Yesterday I got a call from Chase Bank, asking if I'd received my debit card and checkbooks. No, I haven't yet, I told her. Oh, you haven't? Let me check up on that, Chase Lady said.

"Wait, so you haven't received the debit card and checkbooks at your address in CHRISTIE ST, ST LEONARDS?" she asked.

"No, because that's in AUSTRALIA!"

"So which address would you like it to be posted to?"

"The one in Chicago."

"Certainly!"

Yesterday I also got a letter from Aveda because I'd signed up for their membership program. I opened the envelope to find the welcome letter and my membership card addressed to "Karthy Cheng".

My highschool teacher, Mr. Broadbridge, would've like that. He called me Karthy.

I'm telling you, if it wasn't so great to live in Chicago and I wasn't having a fantastic time otherwise, I would've already written a comic book based on the mishappenings of Karthy -- a young, hardworking non-resident alien who's perpetually stuck in a vortex of bad American service.

Update: Good news! Cable is working now! And I got an email from Jess who said she received her Aveda membership stuff in the mail too (we signed up together that weekend when she was visiting) and those idiots misspelled her name as well. It's meant to say Yoon, her Korean name, but they have it as YOOMN!

News: Guys fart

Last night a guy friend here, Chris, invited me to hang out at the driving range and then sit in on a poker game at his apartment afterwards. I said okay cause Chris is nice and I've known him since I was 19. The poker game turned out to be over three hours long, punctuated with sporadic farting and evil stare-downs and everyone playing non-stop with their chips -- except for me. I was the only girl. And vastly outnumbered. (Actually Chris's pet rabbit, Chandler, is a girl too. But she's a rabbit, so...)

The evening made me realize how little time I spend with guys outside of a professional, or I guess, less farty context. Most of my friends are girls and when we hang out, we don't fart. In fact, I doubt any one of us farts more than once or twice a year. And when there are guys with us, the sexes are balanced out, or there are more girls than guys. It was a bit unnerving, and I was tempted to get my book out. Yes, I'd forfeited my $10 about an hour into the game.

At around midnight, Chris's second roommate came home. He basically took his shoes off, then started a story about how just then, as he was walking down the street, there was another guy coming at him in the other direction. And just when they passed each other, he let out this loud fart and couldn't stop laughing to himself the rest of the way home. When he'd finished his story, Chris's roommate said this: "Oh hey, I haven't even introduced myself. I'm..." and went around shaking people's hands.

I was trying to imagine a girl doing that -- walking into a room that's half-full of strangers and broadcasting a fart story right after walking in the door. Maybe Janice would do that, but not any other girl I know. The best part was when Chris told his roommate I was from Australia, and the roommate asked if we had "cookie bars" there. I said I didn't know what they were, and he explained, "those birds that sound like they're laughing."

Oh, kookaburras! That was really excellent.

I got dropped home when the game was over, and I was so drained. Maybe I had OD'ed on all the testosterone and random gases in that room. Even though I was really tired, I still jumped on Skype and called Janice -- it was her Sunday morning. I guess I just really needed to speak to a girl.

And before I forget, the cable TV guy came yesterday, but it's STILL NOT WORKING. What a fart.

How I am doing

Today I had my first work review, even though I'm still a week shy of the two month mark at my new company. The whole thing lasted about ten minutes. Since day one I've felt pretty much at home here -- with my workmates, in this city, buying my groceries at "Treasure Island: America's Most European Supermarket" -- so to hear it confirmed by my boss was reassuring and nice.

Another thing: my New South Wales driver's license is going to expire soon, on August 24. This means I'll have to either get an Illinois driver's license or an Illinois ID card. That'll be weird -- I won't have an Australian ID with me anymore and I'll really, truly be an "Illinois resident". What kind of word is Illinois anyway? Jesus.

Tomorrow morning I have another date with the Comcast cable guy. I don't even care if he doesn't come between 8-12pm. He can come at 2pm for all I care. I just want to watch the Food Channel already.

Comcast: I hate you forever!

The Comcast cable guy didn't come today and now I'll miss the Wimbledon men's final between Federer and Nadal.

WHYYYYYY??

I HATE YOU CABLE GUY!!!!!!!!!!

What! She's 26?????

Happy Birthday, Lien! Wow, can you believe that second photo was taken wayyyy back at the end of 2004? Look at us in our scarves and our khaki book bags, sitting in some marble-lined cubby hole outside the Chinese Culture University. Come to think of it, why was that even there?

So I think we should take another trip some time. I know we always say that, but next time you're Stateside, we'll definitely make it happen. Who knows, you could be moving to Chicago in a few years for work anyway. Then we'll have no excuses. We'll go some place where they have massages. Massages and fries.

Happy 26th!

Tamales in my freezer

Last week Carlos, the janitor-esque guy at the office, sent out a mass email that it was "tamale* time of year again!" The ladies at his church were making tamales -- pork ones, red chicken ones, green chicken ones and another flavour I can't remember -- for $8 a dozen and all the proceeds were going towards something well, good.

Everyone went crazy about the tamales. "Oh my god, they're soooo good!" a coworker said. "Yummy yummy, I luuuurve tamales!" cooed another. "What the hell are tamales?" I asked. "Oh my god, they're soooo good!" and "Yummy yummy, I luuuuve tamales!" were the answers. Then they all raced to the signup sheet and ordered dozen after dozen of tamales.

So I ordered a dozen too. My coworker -- who knows what tamales are and has had them before -- also ordered a dozen. We were smart and got different flavours to split later. Pork and green chicken. She was all excited about it, so I got excited too. That's right. Without ever having tasted or seen a tamale before in my life, suddenly I was about to own a dozen of them, and the thought of that made me excited. See how powerful peer recommendations can be?

Then yesterday, the tamales arrived.

People cheered. One coworker brought in a cooler (or esky, you Aussies) cause she ordered four -- yes, four! -- dozen. How greedy and hungry of her. My tamale-order-splitting coworker and I split our tamales orders. Yes! I now had my tamales! I carried them home and put them in the freezer. I made a note to remember how to heat them up. Carlos said he defrosted them in the microwave first before heating them up in the oven. That's how I'll do it too, I thought to myself.

Tonight, I made a tamale. I absolutely hated it. Gross! Pugh! What the hell was that?!   

Now there are 11 more in my freezer. Exciting...

* For the Aussies, tamale is pronounced "ta-ma-lee". I think half the reason why people love them so much is they like saying "tamale".

I will soon have excellent TV

This Saturday I'm waiting for the cable TV guy to come and unleash 80 channels of American trash to my television set. That's about it. The summer food festival called "Taste of Chicago" started yesterday in Grant Park. I dropped by last night after work -- one of 310,000 people who went -- and got some yummy barbecue ribs to take home. I was going to stay a bit longer and walk around, except I kept bumping into the guts of fat people. I wish I was kidding.

The water in the lake today is so blue:

Yes! The Comcast guy just came and left! I have a blue screen now that promises "This channel should be available shortly."

Update: It's been two hours. The freaking channel is still not available. And now the screen has static. Groan.