The Adventures of Team Parker

After an uninspiring episode of American Idol (Ironically, this week’s theme was “inspirational songs”. The contestants were all terrible.) and half of the 80s teen flick Lucas, I watched You Tube videos about how Gareth Gates sought treatment for his terrible stutter, and now I’m watching – you guessed it – CSI. It never fails with the ew factor.

Anyway, since the weekend we’ve had a busy day followed by a not so busy day. On Monday we went to Chicago Premium Outlets, an outlet mall in the town of Aurora (where we later found out Johnny Depp and Christian Bale are filming a movie). An outlet mall is a a mall that is situated out in the boondocks – it took us over an hour by train to get to the town and then it was another half hour by bus to the mall. They have stores where big name brands sell good direct to the public at discounted rates. Just to tantalise you, some of the stores there were Armani, Calvin Klein, Banana Republic, Ferragamo, Gap, Guess, Calvin Klein, Lacoste, Polo, Puma and so forth and so forth. Everything was cheaper than what you would find in a regular store and loads of things were 20 – 50% off that. Unfortunately, some things are just so expensive we couldn’t even afford it at 50% off. *cough* $500 Armani pants *cough* But we did come away with some nice shoes. I think the buy of the day for us was from Puma which had a buy one, get one half off sale. Sameer also got a nice pair of pants, a shirt, and a golf shirt from Banana Republic. Also, a really spiffy Guess jacket that was reduced, reduced again, and then reduced a further 25%. Unfortunately, after all the Wolfson food and the Garrett’s popcorn, I couldn’t find anything to flatter my spare tire. *sigh* You can’t have it all. I wouldn’t say we shopped til we dropped but we did work our way through a lot of what I earned during my stint at Elecheck. Here’s Sameer feeling giddy at the end of the day after buying his first pair of uber spiffy All Stars, which I am totally jealous of.

Anyway, that took up pretty much our entire day yesterday and we spent the evening laying out all our stuff on the floor, grinning and removing pricetags, then tallying all the bills, having an attack of conscience and then trying to shake the feeling by lacing up our new shoes.

Today we got up early and caught the bus to campus. Sameer had a meeting and I just wanted to wander around the area. Alas there’s not an awful lot going on in Hyde Park (thank goodness we opted not to stay in that area!) and I quickly grew bored. There was this one secondhand bookshop which was quite nifty simply because it was just books, books, and more books.

I was browsing the really large sci-fi/fantasy section when I looked up, and there before my eyes, was a copy of The White Dragon. *cue Holy Grail music* Now I like Anne McCaffrey as much as the next telepathic-spatial-travelling-warrior-dragon loving fantasy buff and I have read loads of the Pern books but for some reason, I could never get my hands on the White Dragon. And it was such a tease when Ruth was born and impressed Jaxom and I thought “I have to know what happens to these two!” and for years on end it never happened! I could never get it in bookshops or at the library. And now, all of a sudden, I look up and there it is! What luck! Of course, I had to buy it, and so I did.

I also picked up a book called The Vanishing Point by someone called Mary Sharratt. I was just browsing – and by that I mean wandering aimlessly with my eyes running along the level of the third shelf – when I spotted this one. I read the blurb and a few random pages and thought “Hmmm. Sounds interesting.” Well, so far its alright. I’m already about a hundred pages through so it’s definitely a page turner, which is more than I can say for Wizard’s First Rule, which I am labouring through.

Sorry, but between Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind I think there is a clear winner and that is definitely Robert Jordan. I mean I burned through The Eye of the World in pretty much one sitting (one very long sitting) and had heart palpatations during the chase scenes for that one, so Wizard’s First Rule is definitely paling in comparison. Richard Cypher is a bit too doe eyed and Kahlan (Do you say Kaa-lun or Kay-lin or Ca’lan?) is just dull. And the dialog is soooo stilted. Oi! Litmus test – When I read a fantasy book, I want at least one character to be so cool that I want to be them. To date, there’s no-one in Wizard’s First Rule that I want to be.

Anyway, moving on swiftly. Well, this Vanishing Point novel is alright so far. A bit on the porno side (the main character’s sister is a bit of a ho’) but it looks like there’s adventure in store for the young heroine. My only complaint is that it tells soooo little about the time in which it is set. I mean, I have a vague idea of what 17th century America was like but I sometimes find myself struggling to fill in details about clothing, buildings, accents and home decor! A bit more detail would be appreciated. But still, it’s a page turner, which is always good.

After Sameer’s meetings we had lunch in the common room. We bought tea from the most awesome cafeteria I have ever been in. Oh my god. There was a cooked foods section, a cold foods section, a soup section (with croutons and a dozen types of bread and rolls, some even drenched in garlic butter!), a pizza section, a sandwich section, and a salads section (greens and fruits), soda fountains, tea dispensers and coffee dispensers. The list goes ever on and on! I almost died from the food smells. But they were all so expensive and in a preemptive strike against frivolous money spending I’d already packed sandwiches for lunch, so we had those. *sigh* I would have killed for those fried sweet potatoes chips with dip though. Ah well.

Then we decided to rush off to catch the next train home. We missed it my seconds, literally, and that really infuriated us because the next train was only an hour later. So we went back and wandered around the building and stopped at the labs to check mail and bus routes. Then we tried to catch the next train, which again, we missed by seconds. It wasn’t a good day for us as far as public transport was concerned. Fortunately, this time there was another one due in a few minutes so we waited at the station. I read my book so it didn’t seem like such a wait. But once we got back into town, we had to walk all the way home. I am soooo tired of walking everywhere. My kingdom for a bike!

Anyway, here I am in bed with the laptop blogging. And outside there is one big thunderstorm on. It’s not raining as far as I can see and the thunder seems to be a long way off (apparently out in the Skokie area) but I can see flashes of lightning every few minutes and it’s really cool they way it lights up the Chicago Skyline. Lovely.

Finally, here’s a picture I haven’t managed to fit in anywhere. Before we left for Aurora, on the walk to the train station, we saw this – authorities raising the Monroe Street bridge (not sure why – we didn’t stick around to see if there was a boat coming or anything). The bridge is four lanes wide so it was really impressive to see. I didn’t even know those things could be lifted.