Superbowl XLI

These days so much is compressed into a year it's like 2006 was a different life.

I've never cared much for football with oblong shaped balls - I like soccer.

I've always known that Superbowl Ads are HUGE but I've only ever seen them on the internet. We've also had cable tv (Foxtel) for over a year but last year I there just wasn't as much hype here [in Australia] as there is this year.
I guess that's due to YouTube and .. well, YouTube.

So on Saturday I decided to set IQ (our TiVo) to record Superbowl XLI. You know, to watch the commercials that cost millions!

I figured I'd also watch it LIVE so I waited until Jackie was done watching Mysterious Ways and then I started fast forwarding through the already recorded first hour.

NO Superbowl Ads!--- Foxtel/Australian promos.

ARGH!

C'mon a billion people are watching and only the US are getting the ads. You know that's why half of them watch it.

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News Flash - Sam (from the greysection) just IM-ed me and said they weren't that great this year anyways.
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I suppose thats a little bit of a relief. But still Foxtel should be so tight like that. Play the ads or people, like myself, will just go to YouTube after the game and watch them.

Chicaaaago (sh-kääääg, -kô-)

We (mom, Jackie, and I) arrived in Chicago on Tuesday afternoon. We decided to catch the subway train from the airport seeing at it was only US$1.75/each (bargain!). On the way we saw a horific accident on the freeway (the train travels along the freeway) where an SUV had rolled on it's side and the front windscreen had been totally smashed, bent, and skewed. So many police & fire units there.
40 minutes later we arrived at the station which we felt would be in about the centre of downtown. It was. But we had to walk our heavy suitcases up a whole bunch of stairs up to street level.
We caught a cab and 5 minutes later we were at the Red Roof Inn (RRI). On the way we saw a T.G.I. Friday's so we dropped our luggage in our tiny hotel room and went on a 80 second walk to the resturant.

Later that evening we went to the Second City (which is like a "Comedy Store") and we watched the funniest performance there!
Later that night (12:00am) we were watching cable television in our room and I was about to go to sleep and mom went to the bathroom to get ready for bed and we heard a "ohh" and we thought mom just did one of her silly trips or something. But then she started to say "Guys... guys... I need some help." I didn't think too much of it. I just thought she needed a hand to get up.
As I started to get out of bed she was saying "Guys call someone." and "Get a doctor guys. I'm bleeding." It was dark besides the light coming from the lamp above mom's bed. She had her hand against her head. I turned the lights in the room on. She pulled her hand away from her head. It had blood all over it.
This is when I become concerned. Jackie was over near the telephone trying to figure out what to dial. "Is it zero for reception? Do you want me to call 911?.... Mom?" She kept saying. Jackie was pretty much freaking out. I was keeping my cool because someone has to. Mom told me to find the travel insurance. Jackie got a hold of reception and told them to get an ambulance. 30 seconds later we heard the sirens.
Jackie got mom dressed, got mom's glasses/wallet/etc, whilst I got all the insurance info and changed from my PJ's to my street clothes.
When the paramedics (firemen, the side of the ambulance read "Chicago Fire Department Paramedics) came up we tried to figure out what she hit her head on. Mom thought it was the luggage holder which was in a cove in the wall. I thought it was the corner of the wall because that's where her head was closest to and what could have done that kind of damage. No one really knows what she hit but we do know she did trip over her massive suitcase which was lying in the middle of the tiny entrance-way.
They male paramedics bandaged mom's head and checked her blood-pressure (which we funnily enough were doing a few days before hand at Grandpa's house because CJ had a blood-pressure reader) etc. Then we took a 50 second ride to the hospital which was 2 blocks away.
A nurse checked mom out at the waiting room, then she did all the paperwork. As she was doing that Jackie told me too look around and listen to what's happening at the front desk. A lady a bit older than mom had done exactly the same thing! She tripped over her suitcase and bleed from her head. After that we just had to wait. By now it was about 1:40am. At about 2:20am mom decided she didn't want to wait anymore because we found out there was a 2-hour wait. A security man highly suggested she wait but she didn't want to. He said to come back around 7am when it would be realllly quiet. So we caught a cab back to the RRI and mom requested a bigger room. We moved into the larger room which included a fridge and microwave and was two floors higher than the previous, smaller, room. We went to bed (time now being almost 3am).
The hospital called mom around 6:30am and told her it was empty and it would be easy to see a doctor now. She needed staples in her head (similar to stitches), three of them. She walked to the hospital and back because it was so close. She was back at around 8am. We slept until about 11am.
I can't remember what we did between 11am-3pm. My memory is shocking! OH! I think we got some Dunkin Donuts. Not quite sure.
After 3pm just Jackie and I headed to the internet cafe which was a 60-second walk. We used some free 15min coupons which we got the previous day when we used the internet there.
Then Jackie and I went for a walk to the Sears Tower (233 South Wacker, haha Wacker!, Drive). On the way there was a new McDonalds (Mickey D's) which took up a whole block of land and is two storeys high with elevators and escalators to assist you to the upper level. Pretty cool. Same food though.
After a munch we continued on our journey, blocks and blocks from the hotel. It was a very foggy day. I kept looking up to see where the tower was but we couldn't see it. We only had to ask one person to see if we were heading in the correct direction. We were. We finally came to it and looking up the top was covered by fog. At the entry they warned us that there was ZERO VISABILITY, but we didn't care. We wanted to experience the 103-floor height anyway. Once we got to the top all there was to see was white. Ta-da!

Tomorrow... New York.

Slacking off

The last few days have been a bit hectic. So now that I can rest in quiet Greensboro, NC, I'll inform you of them.

More from Pekin!

My uncles came in to town on Friday and we went out to dinner with them and my grandparents. As I was driving to the resturant we were behind the other car because we didn't know how to get there. We were stopped at a traffic light and my Grandpa Sarge was in the rear seats of the car infront and he looked back at me driving so I waved. He gave me the middle finger. lol.. he's such a funny guy!

On Saturday it was Sarge's 80th birthday party (his actual birthday is in June). Many family and friends were invited. The cake had images from when Grandpa was very young and in the military imbeded in the icing. The taste of the cake was fair.
After the party Michael, my uncle, had a bonfire at his giant shed not to far away from the party venue (the party room in a bar). Today we washed our clothes at Anne's house (we we're staying) because they were smelly from the fire smoke.

I also just finished mowing Anne & Ray's colossal lawn with their tractor mower! Lots of fun! I got some of it on video too. Those ride-on mowers have some power babby!

Off to Chicago in a few days.

USA (Pekin, IL)

Well Well.. We hired a compact car in LA and it was a Mazda 3. Boy it was nice; triptronic (sportsmode or whatever you want to call it) transmission, very powerful, cruise control, lots of room, etc etc. I got to drive it most of the time (Ie, from LA to Santa Barbara and back). Yeay to that!

Now LA was wicked. So nice and clean. Although no one uses there indicators and along highways there practically isn't a speed limit because no one obeys the 65mile/hr limit which isn't posted very often anyways.

So we flew to Chicago. It was warmer than LA and not as nice a welcome; bit more smog, etc. The car we hired was also a compact but it was a Chevy Cavalier, old but looks really cool on the outside, and boy did it bring us back to reality. So dodgy inside. It once had been smoked in. It has no guts (power/torque, whatever), cruise control but a really crap type, doesn't have the cool triptronic gizmo, and the brakes.. well start breaking ahead of time. OH, and the power steering is hardly powerful at all! Hmpf Hertz let me down this time!

Moving on.. DEREK! Boy I miss Sarah, Pierre and all you Australian folk. Mom drove half way from Chicago to Pekin, Illinos (Near Peoria) and I drove the other half (Ie. right to my Grandpa Sarge's driveway IN Pekin).

Boy Grandpa Sarge just as cool and funny as I remember! He's got all these new seedlings sprouting in his breezeway area, most vegetables. We (Grandpa, Phyllis [Step Grandma], Mom, and Jackie) went out to lunch at a pizza place called Monicles (I think) which we always go to when we're here and Grandpa was telling us dirty jokes. haha! I've been doing a lot of videoing. Today I videoed a squirrel. Grandpa Sarge also has a TiVo. He's got the original playstation too. He's such a cool guy!

Today I woke up at 1:30pm (last time we were here in Sept. 2000 I slept until 5pm) and Grandpa said "Wow, I think you slept the whole clock around! Infact you did! I like that kinda guy." hehe

Right now its in the 50°F's outside (Ie, it's cold; 10°C+) and it's way warmer in the house we're in which is located about 20mins from Grandpa's house in Pekin. The area we're in is called.... wait for it.... Kickapoo. And we're on the border of Kickapoo State Park, so it's pretty spooky driving along the lonesome roads. I swear it's where "13 Ghosts" and/or "Gothika" was filmed. Lock the doors kids. :S

And as midnight just ticked over it's time for beddie-byes! The house we're in may as well be two houses stacked on top of each other. Downstairs, the quest's quarters (of half is more like it), has two bedrooms with king size beds, a massive lounge room with cable tv, a kitchen, and of course a bathroom. Upstairs is the same but bigger.

Oh, one last thing. I haven't seen a Krispy Kreme store yet. BUT, I am going to the very first Krispy Kreme store when we visit Winston-Salem, North Carolina in about a week or so. :)

Good night all.

Ps. If I can find time I'll put some nifty pictures on here :)

USA (Santa Barbara 2)

Last night Jackie and I headed to bed at about 10:30pm but then there was the Cable TV right in front of us. After flicking through about 100 channels we watched "Wild Boyz" (A wildlife version of "Jackass" - We have it on Foxtel in Australia). Then after that was over at about midnight we decided it was time for sleep. But I was soo bored! I decided to message people in Australia as it was around dinner time there. Then Jackie and I started to attack each other (pulling hair etc etc) to get extra tired and collapse and sleep. It kinda worked.

We woke up at 12:30pm. I set a cell phone 'wake up' reminder set for 8am but I turned my cell off before bed and they don't activate if the phone is off. Thus, the extra long sleep-in. I don't normally sleep-in that late in Australia.

Anywho.. today we went to Montecito. It's a nice nice part of Santa Barbara. Lots of clothing stores for maturely aged women. Nice cars roaming about.

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HAHA! We're watching DirectTV (cable tv) and there was just and ad that went along the lines of: "Teenagers that eat with the family at dinner time are less likely to drink alcohol or take drugs." Jackie and I cracked up laughing.
Another thing we've noticed with ads over here is that alot of celebrities are in them. One funny one is that cartoons like Marge Simpson, the wife from the Jetsons, and the wife from The Flinstones.. they all are on ads for Dove shampoo. With their hair looking way better than it does on their respective tv shows.
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Moving back to what I was talking about. This evening we went to a resturant called "Cava", once again, in Montecito. Gail (mom's friend whom we're staying with in this niiice house) said that celebrities often come to this resturant. The food was great! Jackie and I drew with crayons on the brown paper table cover. Billy's Mercedes S-Class that we got there and back in is sooo nice!

I'm constantly being distracted my "The Fresh Prince" which is on Cable. So I may as well go watch it. That's about all that's happened today anyway. Until tomorrow... or the next day. Cheerio my darlings.

USA (Santa Barbara)

Hey y'all!

I'm in the nicest house in the hills Santa Barbara. Facing the ocean and with a magnificent interior! I

t took us about 1-2 hours to drive here from our friends Penthouse in L.A. It's currently 12:58pm here but my blog will say this was posted around 5:58am because it's set to Australian time. Almost time for Merrick & Rosso. :( I haven't been able to find the frequency for KISS FM here yet, but I saw a billboard for Disney Radio so we listened to that for a bit. That's pretty much just the music that 2dayFM plays in Sydney. There's also JackFM which is a bit like MMM or JJJ.

There's a dog that lives at the house we're in and it's name is Jellybean. hehe. Anywho, I have to depart to the shops for now. I brought the incorrect Nokia charger with me because its an old one. So I'm going to go get one here. I haven't spent much money yet; just on food. Cheerio and until later on..

Take care Sydney. Peace.

For those interested in what's keeping me busy..

I currently attend TAFE at the Northern Beaches Campus in Brookvale. I am educated there on Tuesday evenings, Wednesdays, Thursdays (from 9am - 9pm, 12HOURS!), and Friday mornings!

The course I am taking is Digital Media Certificate IV (the highest cert. before a diploma) which is mainly computer based but also employs painting, drawing, sketching, and theory relating to design groups.

Its a pretty hectic course but I have a slight advantage seeing as I did the Cert II over years 11 & 12 in high school, and thus I know much of the software used etc.

If there's any questions you have about my TAFE course feel free to ask me on MSN (djsteen@hotmail.com) and I'll update this post.




I also have my first job in retail. Just think how rich I'd be right now if I started when all my other friends did when they were 14 years of age.

Anywho, I work with the team at SugarFix at Warringah Mall in Sydney. It's a candy store which sells international candy which and receive from importers! Very hyper-active work environment!

I work there when I don't have TAFE at the moment.. the only day I really have for socialising now is Saturday. But that's fine for me. I can just jam an incredible amount of entertainment into that 24 hours :)

Same as before.. any qu's about my job.. MSN me...