Pumanchutag:skull.piratehaven.org,2008-05-25:/~epu/12009-05-18T05:54:27Za little pu for youMovable Type 4.23-enSETtag:skull.piratehaven.org,2009:/~epu//1.1512009-05-18T05:49:02Z2009-05-18T05:54:27ZWith the dawning of the new year, I did my best to wrangle once-a-week board game lunches at work. I missed all of April, but May has been SET...Epuhttp://www.purins.com
SET]]>
The play is simple, the competition is fun, and you can get through the deck several times in an hour. Also, any number of people watching can compete.
This would make a pretty good video game for one of them bar-top units; we got a bunch of pickup players as people went past and asked what we were playing, and the pickup players played with us the following weeks. ]]>
Do it: start using SHA256 gnupg signaturestag:skull.piratehaven.org,2009:/~epu//1.1502009-05-18T05:36:15Z2009-05-18T05:47:49ZFollowing some crypto conference news and common sense (even the US government is halting use of SHA1 signatures), this debian admin put together a good howto on upgrading and configuring your keys....Epuhttp://www.purins.com
upgrading and configuring your keys. ]]>
My windows experience was a little different though. The gpg.conf lives in win32's "Application Data\gnupg" folder, so my prefs didn't stick initially. And I had some trouble getting enigmail to prefer the new key and digest format, so I forced the extra options "-u KEYID --digest-algo SHA256". ]]>
BANG!tag:skull.piratehaven.org,2009:/~epu//1.1492009-03-14T01:55:15Z2009-03-14T02:00:12ZWith the dawning of the new year, I did my best to wrangle once-a-week board game lunches at work. March has been BANG!...Epuhttp://www.purins.com
BANG! ]]>
There's a nice balance of being all sneaky and table talking, and the bilingual cards lend a nice frontier old-west atmosphere.
The unfortunate side of things is that some times, a new player struggles to learn all the rules, and gets blown up by dynamite or put in prison, and never gets a turn. ]]>
DOMINIONtag:skull.piratehaven.org,2009:/~epu//1.1482009-03-02T05:28:53Z2009-03-02T05:41:03ZWith the dawning of the new year, I did my best to wrangle once-a-week board game lunches at work. The first month was Cthulu Munchkin once a week, and February it was DOMINION....Epuhttp://www.purins.com
Cthulu Munchkin once a week, and February it was DOMINION. ]]>
Of
note: Cthulu was nullified each time he came up, even when we switched
to Star Munchkin. And jokes, card reading, tended to stretch out the
time.
DOMINION worked out much better: only the first game had
to go over 1 hour, and the following games had a newbie each week, and
were as long or as short as we wanted to play. Dominion turns out to be
incredibly fun and rewarding, and very easy to pick up. Not
particularly easy to master combos of cards, but fun getting there.
I
wouldn't hesitate to recommend either of these games, with DOMINION
winning by an edge: it has a very
Cosmic-Encounter-meets-Magic-the-Gathering vibe, where each game
differs by which cards are in use, and how they are played, without the
complications of either (most rules available on the cards themselves).]]>
Feedburner trimmed back?tag:skull.piratehaven.org,2009:/~epu//1.1472009-01-28T03:20:41Z2009-01-28T03:36:05ZFeedburner, which I use to manage and follow my non-existant readership, has recently prompted me to convert to feedburner.google.com. Apparently though, I don't get to keep my per-page stats. And other users have been reporting their own issues.So where I...Epuhttp://www.purins.com
reporting their own issues.
So where I used to be able to use Feedburner to figure out what pages were getting hits, I am unable to see that kind of stat on the new feedburner.google.com.
Do I really need to run multiple stat engines, google peeps? What gives? For the moment, I'll have to look into my own aggregating and so-on. It could be that something django/rails-y could get whipped together to aggregate my own feeds and stat count. And there's always StatCounter. ]]>
Peace, man.tag:skull.piratehaven.org,2009:/~epu//1.1452009-01-09T02:48:37Z2009-01-13T06:00:35ZWhat, you ask, is the best Christmas / anniversary gift combo gift ever? Babysitting our girls for a week-long vacation in Mexico (pics)!Since it is snowing outside and I am trying to finish working from home and avoid shoveling, let...Epuhttp://www.purins.com
vacation in Mexico (pics)!
Since it is snowing outside and I am trying to finish working from home and avoid shoveling, let me instead tell you about the first evening Cpu and I spent in Mexico, La Paz, Baja California Sur! ]]>
Planning? What planning? Cpu: Think our parents would watch the girls so we can go on vacation before the baby comes? Epu: Call over there and see. You know what I've always wanted to do since we lived in San Francisco? Go to Baja and get sick on fish tacos. Cpu: Hey, we have frequent flier miles enough to get a last-minute trip direct to Cabo. Epu: Do it. But we probably want to find someplace further away. Cpu: There's this city, La Paz, a short drive away. Lots of marine life. Snorkeling. Kayaking. Epu: I'm not ever driving a car in Mexico again. Cpu: We can take a 3-hour bus from Cabo. Epu: Sold! Where should we stay? Cpu: I have some e-mails out. Hey, the German dude e-mailed me back already! Epu: Great! Cpu: Oh-oh, these reviews about him make him sound crazy. Epu: Skip that place. Cpu: Ok, here we go. Kayak trips arranged from a clean, nice hotel. 65$ bucks a night. Epu: We love kayaking! Where's the travel scrabble?
Show time. Cpu and I arranged a hand-off of the kids and packed our things. Everything but my Birkenstocks. I have wide feet, so this was to prove my undoing. It all fit into our carry-ons. I strongly felt the absense of a Lonely Planet guide book, which we probably had on all our other trips. I actually have a strategy for not carrying the damn things.
Irony strikes: our stupid iPod docking alarm clock is now incapable of setting its alarm time, just like the last iPod docking alarm clock. I set the cel phone to wake us in time for a cab. I still can't find my Birks.
Uneventful cab drive. We get dropped off at Internation terminal. After a quick scan of all the lines in international, we note that our airline is not represented. This actually happens a lot, Mexico flights out of domestic boarding area. Cpu tries to call the cab company to get the driver back to take us to our actual terminal. I note the tram on the floor below us, and manage to argue a cranky-morning Cpu into riding the inter-terminal tram just before its departure. Literally, its door closes on my arm. The tram flies to our terminal in under 2 minutes.
We are befuddled by our airline's handling of our flight. None of the self-checkin kiosks will allow us to check into an international flight. After 15 minutes, we find a line where we can enter our information in and check in, and the kiosk prompts us to wait for someone to look over our travel documents (passports). This mysterios someone never arrives, and eventually the kiosk goes blank and resets itself. WTF?!
Eventually, we get it out of the local airline rep that we should move over to the First Class line, which he asserts is also configured to handle international passengers. No kidding? They should put up a sign for that. Unfortunately, there is a long line. Cpu complains to a desk person, who has already had enough before we got there. We end up moving through the line anyways. We get a great clerk who gets us booked just fine. Move through the security line, which is much shorter over here by First Class. Thank god for the early arrival at the airport.
Cpu dumps me off at a bench at our gate with the luggage. I am no good within airports, where I specialize in preparation to ignore the entire trip. She comes back with sandwiches, coffee, a Lonely Planet: Mexico guide book, and noise-cancelling headphones complete with airplane adapters. Sweet. We mock the 'COBY' brand headphones, logotype all-caps and cast in the same font as SONY. Someone is bringing his dog to Cabo with him. Nice. We talk about going to La Paz, which he says we will love.
Once on the plane, the carry-on luggage fits without any problem. We'll find out later that apparently international flights will allow you to check 2 bags per person for free (whereas all the signs are telling us that we need to pay per-bag). Cpu fits the battery into her headphones. We joke about needing the noise cancelling, because we are right next to the engines in the tail of the plane. It turns out, there are no in-flight movie players built into this plane. And no head phone jacks either. We are seated together though, unlike the couple split behind and next to us. Nice.
I tear into my on-flight book Remix, and Cpu starts to watch the climatic ending of her thriller movie Identity. Lessig's book turns out to be an extremely well-thought-out (but sometimes mis-argued) look at what's wrong with American Copyright, and what lawyers and politicians can do to fix it. Someone should send Obama administration a copy, or better yet, send Lessig to make his points in brief. I ignore the rest of the flight, with the exception of filling out our emigration cards. We land, our approach just above a highway, as we hit some kind of mesa and the flaps kick in and roar. We deplane, down the ramp, outside, in full 78 degrees daylight. No snow.
It turns out, if you want to pee in the line before you are officially in Mexico, you are forced to the end of the line. We witness such a pee event, and decide against it ourselves. Our agent used to live in Milwaukee. It must be a sign. Our bags X-rayed again, Cpu makes a break for the potty.
We make it to the shuttle vans, paying in dollars. Take us to the bus station please! And they do. I note the van driver's pictures of his kids. Our kids would love this. Where are our kids?! I sorely feel the absence of any kind of foreign language training that would equip me for reading, listing to, or speaking Spanish. I took the communist combo of German, Russian, and Chinese. At least I speak travel.
El Aguila Cpu buys the bus tickets to La Paz in dollars. We are getting between 10 and 12 pesos to the dollar. I park myself with the stuff again, while she seeks food and water for the trip. She returns with water and goes out again for food. The outbound bus arrives, but Cpu is nowhere to be found. Long minutes go by, but we haven't boarded yet anyways. She shows up, and we all board the coach bus.
We find some seats, move the window shades aside, and tear into giant bagel ham-and-cheese sandwiches. With freshly fried thick-cut potato chips. Apparently, our options were between these expensive for-foreigners-sandwiches or gut-wrenching buffet food packed into a go box. I think she chose well, but lament the lack of actual Mexican food.
I begin to relax, and take in the magnificent big-box-ification of a once-small resort town. At first it looks only like local Mexican chains, but it doens't take long before the string of American stores kick in. The last day of our trip in San Jose del Cabo, an old-timer expat tells us that 15 years ago, there were only 5 flights a week into the airport (one a business day). Today, he claims, there are more than 100 a day.
Once the bus makes it to the coast and I can see the ocean, I forget all about the chain stores. There are huge manicured golf courses just out of view, and cool grey skies above grey ocean. On the other side, the brown October hills of Sunnyvale have materialized here in Mexico. Only they are full of cacti and rocks.
In Cabo San Lucas, I learn through my listening and pointing skills, that our bus tickets have assigned seats. The lady demurs and takes another seat. A handicapped woman with crutches takes our assigned seats. We feel justified.
The bus gets moving, and the sun gets low. An amazing blare of a movie wakes me from my stupor. Fievel Goes West. By the end of the movie, I get it. Fievel lives in the desert, has friends who are cowboys, and he wants water. It's a story that's been appropriated by the residents. Now I'm thirsty. Luckily, by design the bus stops here and there to pick up passengers and let passengers get refreshments.
It's pitch black outside by the time we roll into the outskirts of La Paz. I get ancy anticipating the transfer from Bus to who-knows-what. We pass the giant big-box-store district and movie megaplex. We arrive at the bus terminal; it's painted a cad yellow heavy on the titanium white, no glaze. Taxi to the hotel, 50 pesos. It's probably walkable, but who wants to walk with their suitcases and bags in the dark through a strange town?
We pull into an alley, and I am like, what the hell? Cpu has read up, and knows that the hotel is tucked away the block, only accessible by a pair of alleys. Our night shift hotel guy -- Hugo -- checks us in, and we grab some water. The room is clean. We unpack, and hit the sack. ]]>
Py3k admits, fixes, unicode bad.tag:skull.piratehaven.org,2008:/~epu//1.1442008-12-05T04:21:19Z2008-12-05T04:44:52ZPy3k is here, and I didn't even find out about it until the day after release. So it's safe to say I'm not a total python dork. The first bullet point under Text Vs. Data Instead Of Unicode Vs. 8-bit...Epuhttp://www.purins.com
Py3k is here, and I didn't even find out about it until the day after release. So it's safe to say I'm not a total python dork. The first bullet point under Text Vs. Data Instead Of Unicode Vs. 8-bit made my day:
Python 3.0 uses the concepts of text and (binary) data instead
of Unicode strings and 8-bit strings. All text is Unicode; however
encoded Unicode is represented as binary data. The type used to
hold text is str, the type used to hold data is
bytes. The biggest difference with the 2.x situation is
that any attempt to mix text and data in Python 3.0 raises
TypeError, whereas if you were to mix Unicode and 8-bit
strings in Python 2.x, it would work if the 8-bit string happened to
contain only 7-bit (ASCII) bytes, but you would get
UnicodeDecodeError if it contained non-ASCII values. This
value-specific behavior has caused numerous sad faces over the
years. (bold text my emphasis)
Yes, I have had days of work wrecked by this very behavior. It was nice to hear them recognize it. ]]>
For the most part, I naively treated the xml files as ASCII text and things worked ok for awhile. I could use amara, parse everything, and move around and/or rewrite the xml.
But then I was slaughtered by a font with an umlaut in it.
The stupid umlaut actually led me down the 'what is character encoding really?' road, which I probably still misunderstand. But I learned to encode/decode, use unicode raw strings, and avoid file() / open() calls and prefer codec.open() calls all over the place. I stuffed asserts in random locations where enforcing unicodeness was a requirement. I pushed it from the sore spots all the way through every corner of my stupid code, and once I did, code and I were stronger for it.
In short, there were numerous sad faces.
Hopefully, I can figure out the new deal. And hopefully, it's less borked.
]]>
Epic Fail Update Casseroletag:skull.piratehaven.org,2008:/~epu//1.1422008-11-25T04:26:25Z2008-11-25T04:36:03Z#python IRC users are bitch-asses to activepython users. Who knew. Stupid p4python fails to build under 2.6 and mingw is no help with the p4api libs. Fail.Curtains incomplete. And to think I thought all 5 would be done by thanksgiving....Epuhttp://www.purins.com
#python IRC users are bitch-asses to activepython users. Who knew. Stupid p4python fails to build under 2.6 and mingw is no help with the p4api libs. Fail.
Curtains incomplete. And to think I thought all 5 would be done by thanksgiving. Fail.
Left pins in the arm of the armchair. Fail.
Still have incomplete blog post re: Erick Wujick's death, all this time. The combo of China, game development, and the slavish devotion I have to ADRPG makes this epic and impossible to complete. Fail.
Door trim for Cpu incomplete until day of birthday party. Fail.
Kids addicted to TV. Fail.
No video game console purchase for the holidays. Fail.
Home answering machine still full of messages. F is for full, and also Fail.
]]>
Halloween already? Crap.tag:skull.piratehaven.org,2008:/~epu//1.1412008-10-18T19:53:11Z2008-10-18T20:04:04ZNo, I haven't started on my costume. How's yours?Worse, I haven't started on Bpu's or Cpu's. Ipu is covered - she's going as Toto, and Grandma has already put together and sent out the costume. Memo to self: post cute...Epuhttp://www.purins.com Worse, I haven't started on Bpu's or Cpu's. Ipu is covered - she's going as Toto, and Grandma has already put together and sent out the costume. Memo to self: post cute pictures.
This year we have at least two Halloween-themed events, and trick-or-treat falls on a Friday. I am going to be in so much trouble!
What have I been frittering away all my time doing? ]]>
ANTLR maxscript grammar continues. Then there's the curtains, which have all their panels cut out, and the north and south windows are already seamed together, but not pleated, nor cut to size.
There's also home maintenance, like taking down the air conditioners, and finishing the upstairs hand rail.
And best yet, today is Sheepshead night! Rock! ]]>
Busy busy.tag:skull.piratehaven.org,2008:/~epu//1.1402008-10-13T02:29:54Z2008-10-13T03:02:40ZToday was the day of getting things done, which was actually the theme of the entire week. For example, I finally used my Christmas gift certificate for curtain-making lessons....Epuhttp://www.purins.com
curtain-making lessons. ]]>
Textile Warehouse and iron/pin them in prep for stitching).
Also this week, I spent some good time hacking together a lexer for 3dsmax MaxScript, so I can eventually put together a doxygen filtering app that translates it into something like java or cpp. I made so little progress with Flex/Bison (yay, thanks ACM bookshelf!), that I found ANTLRWorks and made some actual progress. I did an all-nighter and flew through the EBNF that comes with the MaxScript reference, debugged and fixed some syntax, and then got to my first left-recursion errors.
Saturday, I took the girls to the farmer's market, bought some grub, a donut for Bpu, and an apple for Ipu.
I got to go fabric and notions shopping with Bpu, and harvested some hardware and tools for the curtains. And the same day, the upstairs hand rail I started a few weeks ago got filled and sanded, ready for staining. My parents came down for dinner and watched the girls while Cpu and I had a night out with some parents from Bpu's pre-school. And I fixed the math operand left-recursion errors in my grammar.
This morning started out by getting my Fantasy Football together and forgetting to do my picks for the pool. Not auspicious. But it was followed up with staining of the aforementioned hand rail, the annual pre-winter oiling of the picnic table, and the installation of a light fixture I bought last week.
Then this evening, we went and hung out with my old college roomates, one from out of town. As luck would have it, one has written his share of grammars with ANTLR and offered to give me some tips. And the other almost got a Cosmic Encounter game started. Awesome! ]]>
Pulling the plugtag:skull.piratehaven.org,2008:/~epu//1.1392008-09-22T05:14:55Z2008-09-22T05:29:58ZIt saddened me a bit today to put in the apache and html redirects for the old homepage. It's finally dead, but also folded into this blog. My last .plan is from Christmas from 2 years ago, so I suppose...Epuhttp://www.purins.com
the old homepage. It's finally dead, but also folded into this blog. My last .plan is from Christmas from 2 years ago, so I suppose it's fitting - it's not like I'm keeping it up-to-date. ]]>
20061221 - Merry Christmas, ETA!
F.E.A.R. for 360 is in the can, and PS3 is hopefully on its way in January.
Cpu, Bpu, and I are doing well in our new Chicago home. Let us know if you are in the Lincoln Square area of Chi-town.
In nerdier news, I'm reading up on building an automated testing tool in the vilest of languages, C#. The ideas from the recipe book I'm following are the good take-away, really.
Best to you all,
-e On re-read, it's a little strange. C# isn't exactly vile in comparison with MFC, although my now solid preference for python is way apparent. iPu is not born yet, and I can't imagine a time without her now that she's here. The F.E.A.R. ports are the last thing on my mind. And yes, I no longer live in Lincoln Square.
Goodbye eta.org, KIT BFF and all that crap. Hello new world. ]]>
Dump Maxscript for Python Already.tag:skull.piratehaven.org,2008:/~epu/pumanchu//1.1382008-09-09T13:24:08Z2008-09-12T05:53:34ZA few weeks ago, Beej and I were IMing about YAWS and Erlang. I spent some time reading up, then practicing the list-processing part of functional programming in my python at work. I ended up writing somewhat limited versions of...Epuhttp://www.purins.com
YAWS and Erlang. I spent some time reading up, then practicing the list-processing part of functional programming in my python at work. I ended up writing somewhat limited versions of map(), filter(), and a pythonic toboolean() for Maxscript.
All of which begs the question, why bother? Please, Autodesk. You can do it. Hurry the fuck up and dump Maxscript for python already ]]>
It's not like only blender is using python, although they're possibly the original 3d package to have integrated it as the scripting language of choice.
It's not like python is untested. LucasFilm, by all accounts, have bet large parts of the farm on python.
And please, when you do it, add a debugger or a way to get to it from pydev + eclipse.
Amen. ]]>
Dork Olympicstag:skull.piratehaven.org,2008:/~epu/pumanchu//1.1372008-08-13T03:38:58Z2008-09-12T05:59:55ZI skipped womens' gymnastics tonight, instead engaging in one of my dork activities, compiling and fiddling with software. I think I took home a bronze. You can instead take home my windows installer for the gccxml compiler.gccxml-0.9.0-win32-x86.exe [sig] [my gpg...Epuhttp://www.purins.com You can instead take home my windows installer for the gccxml compiler. gccxml-0.9.0-win32-x86.exe [sig] [my gpg public key]
Work has been kicking me in the ass. Specifically, I want to use some libraries that work with the game and tools from python. Since I had an awesome (by which I mean fast as hell) time binding the Xbox 360 development libraries with ctypes via gccxml, I thought it would be just that easy this time around.
Enter boost. ]]>
I should point out here that my core programming skills revolve around build systems, scripting languages, trouble shooting, pre flighting. None of which involves c++, nor meaty template code much. Which I was about to hit full speed.
It turns out, older versions of gccxml were not very boost-happy. The links escape me at home, but at work, there were plenty of hits regarding boost template instantiation and other errors. There was a patch, of sorts. Unfortunately, we're on an older version of boost. And apparently, the ctypes authors are still on an October 2006 version of gccxml. Boo. I got plenty of warnings as errors. Memo to self: disable warnings as errors and try again.
I integrated the latest boost partially, but wasn't up to much more than fixing some header references. Typically, when looking through boost or STL calls in the callstack, I just read above and below the layer where it hits it. So when I hit shit city, I p4tar'd up my change and reverted.
But there isn't any gccxml win32 installer dist for download that I could see besides the ctypes one. So I made one at home to try out at work tomorrow. Maybe it just works.
The gccxml directions are a little obtuse. But as luck would have it, I am fluent in obtuse. And I have a bevy of build tools hooked up to the Eclipse IDE. I ended up having to:
import the gccxml module from cvs as a new eclipse project.
also make the package target. Eclipse got confused and thought targets were up to date, so I restarted the IDE and it allowed me to select from the Makefile targets available.
]]>
Lollapalooser Day3tag:skull.piratehaven.org,2008:/~epu/pumanchu//1.1362008-08-07T04:08:12Z2008-08-07T04:23:50ZFeed kids breakfast. Make coffee. Get paper. Hustle kids and Cpu into the car in time to make our 9:30 am Evanston play date. Meet up with friends and talk about the Radiohead set. Al is disappointed that I didn't...Epuhttp://www.purins.com
]]>
Did I mention that we are on the
beach, only a block from their condo? Or that Al's wife is hugely
pregnant and very late 3rd trimester? The kids are slathered in
sunblock. The water is apparently poisonous. Something about e-coli
levels. Bpu has dug a pit in the sand and buried my leg in the pit sand.
Crispy,
we head back to Al's for pizza and more water. Cpu drives me back down
Lakeshore drive, and drops me off on Jackson. I walk over to the show
and camp the Citi stage, waiting for Saul Williams at 6:00pm.
I catch each of the acts, but only remember Black Kids (awesome!) and Saul.
Saul's set started out poorly; although each dude powered onto stage in their campy outfits (Drum Major, Dracula, Astronaut, and Indian), the Lolla sound crew had fucked up the levels. The mix was so bad, that you couldn't hear anything but the sampler. No voice, very little guitar, and no keyboard. Which was awful, because they owned the stage with strutting and rocking.
After the first song, the sound issues seemed worked out. Saul's 12 year old daughter was up on stage in a fitted striped t-shirt and big skirt, bopping around and dropping MF-bombs. The tunes and the 'tude and the showmanship and the message were awesome. Saul and the sampler dude each crowd surfed.
And then he closed it out with Sunday, Bloody Sunday. Holy shit. I thought my head would explode. But it was the perfect capper for his message of individuality and racial unity. Why the hell not have a black techno-rapping Indian chief sing an Irish pop anthem from the 80s with his daughter?
What the hell was going to live up to that? Kanye? NIN? I think not. I decide to split so as not to ruin the buzz.
On the walk back, I try to pop off my wristband to hand to anyone else. I mean, just because I am too old to rock doesn't mean that someone else can't enjoy my shows. Great, my blood flow stopped and my thumb is going to break. I work it back to the wrist. A few blocks later, I meet some fans trying to catch the show. They seem a little too old, maybe they are in the business of reselling.
Whatever. A little sunblock at the choke point, and it slides off. And I am free. ]]>
Lollapalooser Day2tag:skull.piratehaven.org,2008:/~epu/pumanchu//1.1352008-08-07T04:06:24Z2008-08-07T04:07:48ZIced coffee. Girls and I wake up and shake it over to the Oak Park farmer's market. Catch some folk music at the circle. Donuts were had. Cpu and Bpu hit the OPRF book sale. Ipu and I walk back...Epuhttp://www.purins.com
]]>
Bag inspection, as dreaded as it is, takes no time at
all. All items pass. Worship the Buckingham fountain, drink some water,
ask info where the kids' area is. Get Bpu tagged in case she should get
lost. Text Ian that we have arrived. Get Bpu squirted by the squirtgun
crew, and check out the hip hop booth.
Bpu loves hip hop. The
rhyming, the fronting. But she won't step up to the mic. If she had,
they would have presented us with a CD, and send us on to make an album
cover. Kickass. I apply sun screen.
We head over to the hair
people. There are 4 folding chairs, a herd of adults and children
waiting for styles and color. We park it in front of the crying Chinese
kid and await our turn. Bpu gets a bobby-pinned flip with pink hair
color spray.
Ian finds us! We head over towards the stage where
Jill is, make plans for Cpu's later arrival. Black Joe is loading up at
7:00 to play another venue, so we agree to meet at the fountain at
6:00. And then I turn to find Bpu in line for double-dutch jump roping.
Which becomes her jumping in place, us jumping together, and eventually
jump roping ends without us. Which is ok because I spin us both dizzy
anyways.
End up back at the Small Paul booth, where we get a
kid's canvas tote silk screened. Bpu asks how they get the Chicken on
there, and the friendly staffer clarifies how screen printing transfers
the ink onto the bag. No, she says. How did they get the image of the
chicken onto the screen? To which he patiently replys all about
applying emulsion and burning the image in. We move the bag to the
drying clothes line, and proceed to watch more hip hop. Someone hands
us some bubbles, which will come in handy later.
Ah! It's only
4:15, but the kids area is totally shutting down. There is soon nothing
to do, and about 2 more hours to go. I take Bpu for a strawberry ice
cream cone, and we sit at a shady picnic table.
"Daddy," she begins, "Lollapalooza is a little bit boring."
"What do you mean, honey?"
"I expected that at the end of the show, the band would throw candy to all the children."
Of
course. No candy. She goes on to explain that she spent all day
yesterday pretending to be at the show, throwing candy to herself.
Awesome! How could they compete? I let her know that I will certainly
bring that up to someone at the kids' area.
Repeat squirting at
squirtgun station. We are somewhat refreshed. Go get in line at the
drinking fountains. Bpu helps fill one bottle. Bpu drinks and pours
water on herself while I laugh. Bystanders are amused. I calmly chew
her out and send her to fill another bottle. She flirts with others.
Equipped
with water, I redo the sun screen. We find a DJ doing a set at BMI
stage, and Bpu starts to dance. I move us into the shade of a tent. Bpu
grabs crotch, a sure sign of needing to use the potty. Awesome. I head
us to the huge lines of concert goers (pun intended) waiting for a free
National portapotty. Awesome I think, National is playing later.
Oh, the wait. And when we get in, there's no paper and
the last lady was a squatter, so the seat's totally soaked. I find
paper on the floor, wipe the seat, and end up holding Bpu over the rim
so she can pee and poop without touching anything. That's love. Bpu
asks about wiping because her business (lady business) is still wet.
Sorry, baby.
We exit, sanitize, and go back to the DJ. Blow
bubbles, apply stickers to the Small Paul poster, spin, dance, and more
bubbles, all the way to 6:00. Whew! Burned out, we hit the fountain.
Jill and Ian are already there, and soon Cpu is late. Can't call, the
lines are busy.
It turns out, she's not late: the Lolla
employees were arguing with her about whether or not she could meet us
at the fountain. Apparently, the employees did not realize that if you
went through the giant Lolla gate, 1/4 of the fountain was open to the
public. Which was where we were. Eventually she found us, and I
wrangled Ipu and Bpu while she chatted.
After 6:45, we left the
grounds together. Kids split a Dunkin Donuts mini pizza, and we ride
the El again, exhausted. Ipu refuses to sit in my lap, since I don't
have a window seat. She also refuses to sit with Cpu. I hate my life
for another 20 minutes. And realize there's no way I'm going back for
Wilco or RATM. Too tard to rock. ]]>