money everytime = angel on horseback

even when it's grey and yucky outside, Louie's brightens the day.



nothing is more waukegan born and raised then Louie's. i have to convince jill to go there because she thinks it's too dark. Louie's is a wauk-town staple. a jump away from victory hospital and st annie's, as a kid Louie's was the best for a green river, a bag of vitner's (barbecue, or sour cream and onion every now and then to switch it up) AND a push pop for a buck. tucked away low key in a quiet, hard-working neighborhood on the corner of ridgeland and north ave, Louies continues to be the standard when it comes to lunch/dinner quality. perfect for any occasion: dinner with the lady, dinner with the fam, late lunch, new years eve (blanchard!), Louie's has got you covered.

i get one of two things everytime. 1.) the bomber. perfect french bread, italian sausage, marinara, and melted cheese. and the 2.) A.O.H. (angel on horseback) the Louie's go to O.G. bacon bits and tomato, melted provolone on roast beef and toasted french bread served open faced. money everytime.

jill's right about it being dim lit inside because you can't even make out the pic i took of the sandwich. you just have to take my word on it. it's excellent.

loungin.






Louie's Restaurant: 1009 North Ave Waukegan, Illinois 60085. treat yourself.

baby don't worry you know that you've got me.

within a week's time, the cd player in my car AND my ipod have managed to just bust on me. that's just bad luck.

also

if you try to delete your myspace and don't happen to remember the password to an old email that is linked to the same myspace account, it won't work. you become stuck forever. what a crock.

but i guess that's karma served for making fake profiles of people i know.

anyway here's a playlist i call "ode to broken music devices that make me listen to music from my myspace profile".

like a modern day gary.

haters!

treasure land in mpls (day 3 of 3)

so if you're gettin bored of mpls posts on my blog, don't fret... this is the last one. promise.

so we checked out of our awesome hotel and said goodbye to everything we loved about it. we hit up this breakfast spot that was in the same mag that we found the mexican joint in. we GPS'd it and we were there quicker than you can say kirby puckett.

the banana granola french toast was fucking amazing.


it being another beautiful day we parked a few blocks away, which was a blessing in disguise because we were able to walk off our heavy breakfast. on the way to the diner this resale/thrift shop caught my eye.


walking back to the car we almost passed it by, but at the last second i pulled jill towards it and decided to check it out. the place was packed wall to wall, floor to ceiling with random items. we must of looked around the place for a good 45 minutes. i found a old school digital watch. 4 bucks. a dwight howard rookie card. 5 bucks. a ron santo plastic cup! one dollar! at this point i was super excited in the goodies i found and was determined to find more.

check out the vinyl i found.


as i was sifting through the random awesomeness, jill found me and said "babe, you're gonna poop your pants when i show you what i found."



i didn't poo my pants but i may have peed a little. for a nerd boy, this is like finding gold. unfortunately we were running out of cash so i could only get one. it took me about 4 seconds to choose the darth vader/boba fett glass. (i've been drinking out of it everyday since)

after collecting 55 bucks worth of treasures we chatted with the old women who were as quirky as the things in their shop.

after hittin up the mall of america one last time and our GPS completely failing on us, our trip was over. we hit up wisconsin dells for some din din and we were home by midnight. overall trip: ten outta ten two thumbs up. go visit mpls. you'll be happy you did.

THE END.

minne no-snow ta. (mpls pt. 2)

so i had what seemed like the best sleep of my life in our hotel bed. it was nice. got ready and headed out to find somewhere to get some grub downtown. again, the sun was out and we were fortunate to have outdoor-eating-weather. we saw hard rock had a patio so we parked across the street and it seemed as if we never had coins on us for the meters. we parked right in front of


i had recognized the venue from an atmosphere dvd and from the group talking about they're hometown venue. the walls on both sides were covered with silver stars that named artists that have come through. we spent at least ten minutes readin the wall. everything from outkast to the white stripes, nine inch nails to gg allin, de la to prince.

speaking of prince, what would a mpls trip be without some prince?

this record sleeve cover was killin me.


after lunch we walked around and checked out the rest of the music memorabilia then headed back to the car. one thing i wanted to do while we were up there was to check out the 5th element record shop associated with rhymesayers and the atmosphere family. we put it in the GPS and we were there in no time. the setup was really cool. a mini stage towards the back, shirts and hoodies on one wall, and cd's and vinyl taking up most of the floor. in an office to the left i was suprised to see siddiq ali who is one of the main rhymesayers guys. i was also surprised to find a quasimoto vinyl toy and being the dork that i am, i had to get it. talked to the guys in the shop for a bit and told em it was cool to finally see the place after hearing so much about it then we headed back to hotel.

jill napped.

i took out of it's box.

jill woke up then we got showered and ready for the evening. we headed out and did what jill and i do more than anything... go out to eat. we hit up this mexican ma and pa spot, Salsa a la Salsa. local mexican art lined the walls and there was this oil painting series of ancient aztec or mayan like characters that was really nice. i'm an idiot and forgot to take pictures.

i got

carne asada and a modelo especial. it was pretty good but i think el norte's is better.

jill got

taco salad.

paid the tab and rode out. the wait was over! buying the tickets 2 months prior, planning the road trip, and savin up spending cash, needless to say we were pumped. we got to the venue (roy wilkins auditorium, which was pretty average) and immediately got some shirts. waited some time in line for some drinks and soon enough the lights went down and cold war came on. the lights stayed low in an attempt to make it an intimate setting. that it was, but the crowd being there for the headliner made for a dull reception. but they played great. oh yeah and so did death cab.

cold war


death cab

all in all a pretty good show. we hit up a sushi spot where i had some saki before we headed back to hit the hay.

but it's not over! dvd bonus features next! come back! i've got some popsicles.

GO BULLS!

mpls

about a month and a half ago jill tried to get some tickets for the death cab for cutie and cold war kids show @ the metro. or was it the vic? either way, it sold out immediately. she kept lookin for tickets and found some for minneapolis. so we decided to go on a road trip.

5:50 a.m. jill wakes me up. in straight zombie mode i carry my bags to the car, we hit the road, and i'm back asleep in no time. yeah jill drove. not to mention drove back too. my girlfriend is awesome.

12:25ish p.m.


we get to aloft hotel. sweet place. stylish and modern. bar right when you walk in. pool table. lounge. pool. shuffle board. everything you want. later in the evening we were havin some drinks and playin bags! yeah it's like that. ten outta ten. two thumbs up.

1:30ish: dropped off our stuff in the room. right in front of the king size... a 40 inch hd plasma. awesome! the view was equally awesome. that's the metrodome on the left peeking behind that building. the blue jays were in town playin the twinkies.



that's a sushi spot we went to after the show on wednesday. the bartender was a d-bag and there were loud annoying twins fans who were there after the game right next to us. big up to my man justin morneau for killin for Night Outfit!

back to day one... we were off to explore the city. minneapolis is cleaner than most cities i've been to, which was a nice surprise. not to mention it was absolutley GORGEOUS out. jill met lucy.



we hit up some restaurant downtown. headed back to the telly. relaxed and drank some wine. we moved downstairs to the bar where we played bags. jill whooped my ass. we swam. had some drinks in the hot tub. went outside and found this awesome park right next to aloft. it's named Gold Medal Park. why? i'm not sure, but i guessed maybe in honor of winter olympic medalists from minnesota? who knows. this pic doesn't do it justice but blue lights accented benches around the park and lights were in the actual walkway that led to the top of a hill that gave a perfect 360 view of the city.



we headed back and passed out by midnight or so.

stay tuned for when all the cool shit happens! like the cold war kids, carne asada, prince (really), first avenue and... quasimoto?

come sail away.

san fran's jeremy fish.



LA's david choe.



your boy chris b.



shoot me a line if you know what's good in MPLS.

you're great.

so is this: http://uwp.edu/~norwi001/secondpage.html

yes!

i'm not quite sure the exact day this movie is coming out, but i'm pretty excited about this one. i loved "where the wild things are" as a kid. i was fascinated by the creatures and the dark style the illustrations have. with spike jonze in the director's chair we should be in for a visual treat. i read that it was too dark originally so they had to revise it. it's supposed to be dark! either way the preview looks great.









happy egg hunting!

our point guard is better than yours.

thank you derrick rose.

if you told me a year ago that we'd get derrick rose with the first pick in the draft, i wouldn't believe you. if you told me that this 20 year old prodigy point guard would lead the bulls in a strong playoff push, i'd probably punch you in the face. but not really.

what can i say about this guy? he's simply amazing. this guy can cut on a dime with blinding speed. he can shoot. he can drop dimes. not to mention he bangs SO HARD it's ridiculous.

the best part about it is when he's on the floor, he makes every teammate so much better. without d rose, ben gordon is a shoot-first greedy son of a bitch. but when d rose is out there, gordon is a 3 pt option threat when rose is breakin dudes down off the dribble. personally i like rose and hinrich in the backcourt simply because kirk makes better decisions then gordon. my ideal lineup for the playoffs is rose, hinrich/gordon, salmons, ty thomas, noah. i know the east is strong, but one thing is for sure: teams do not want to play the bulls.

so again, thank you derrick rose for entering my life. i couldn't be more pleased. well a championship would be nice, but i won't get greedy. i can honestly say i haven't been this excited to watch the bulls since...

blog! c'mon... everyone's doing it.

welcome to my first post. no one's really gonna read this initially. this is just to see how shit's gonna look when it goes up.

but until someone actually reads this, i thought i'd put up some shit to make my blog look cool.

like this...