PGGTG3: February 16-17, 2001

February 15, 2001:

4:00 p.m. Caught a United Airlines flight out of DFW Airport that left 50 minutes late. No biggie - I had time to kill. Got into O'Hare a bit after 6:00 p.m. picked up my luggage, then went to get my rent car. Got on the shuttle to the Budget lot and met the most impatient driver I've ever seen. I didn't have my rental paperwork out, which he said he needed right after he shut the doors and took off. I got up to get it out of my bag, during which he said twice "Sir, I *need* to see your paperwork! SIR!". I felt like telling him to stop the g*ddamn bus if he was worried I was getting to ride to a remote lot for free for the hell of it. Anyway, dropped off my luggage in the trunk, pocketed the keys and hopped the shuttle back to the airport to wait for MisterQ, who was coming in from Columbus, OH.

Oh, and I had the same damn shuttle driver on the way back, but to his credit, he didn't say much.

8:15 p.m. I had told MisterQ in #spinnwebe that he would recognize me by the sign I had made up. He correctly guessed at that time that I was going to use "cecilweed", so he screwed that up and I had to make up another sign. Of course, I went to the other end and used "Jeffy, me lad!" He came in and we hit it off right away. Hopped another shuttle and for some reason we got into a three-way conversation with the shuttle driver about chili recipes. I think it had to do with the fact that I heard a radio commercial about The Lone Star Steakhouse and their steaks cooked over MESS-keet. I had commented to MisterQ that mesquite wasn't that great and that hickory was a much better smoking wood. And of course, the conversation turned to chili.

Got into the car and took a long winding path to Buffalo Grove and the hotel. Mapquest couldn't find its own ass unless the directions included "Turn right for 0.8 miles on unnamed road." Turns out we could have taken 294 directly north from O'Hare and then cut right over to the hotel. We should have just looked at the map that came with Mapquest's directions, but I've been burned by their maps before. If they don't know where something is, they'll pick where they *think* it is and put a star in the middle of the page. Nope, not gonna get lost at night in a strange city.

9:00 p.m. We checked into the Wyndham Grove hotel which was about 1.5 miles from where the PGGTG was being held. It was late and neither of us were hungry, so we hit the sack and watched the last 45 minutes of The Matrix and riffed on that before turning in.

February 16, 2001

8:30 a.m. Damn, it's cold here in Chicago! Of course, it was just as cold in Dallas, but the wind wasn't blowing. We got up, showered (not together, ya perv!), made some coffee and decided to head to the PGGTG location around 10:00 p.m. We found the apartment complex no problem, and also the building that had been listed as the location for the PGGTG for the last two months. But nobody knew which apartment Raven (Heather Garvey) lived in, nor would the manager tell us. We found out later that she didn't live there, she just rented the place. We waited for approximately two hours, driving around the complex every once in a while hoping to see somebody that MisterQ recognized.

12:00 p.m. We went to lunch, then to the grocery store to get snacks. We went back to the hotel to see if we could find an Internet connection to check the PGGTG page. The desk clerks were nice enough to pull up the info for us, but wouldn't print it out, so we had to write down any info we wanted by looking upside down over the counter at the screen. Thanks, ya jerks! We found a phone number for Raven, which appeared to be her work number. Great! It's a saturday! I'm sure she's there! We went ahead and left a message anyway, then took another trip by the apartment complex to see if we could identify them coming en masse back from lunch. We did see a bunch of cars that we later found out happened to be them, but since they didn't stop at the building we were at, we figured it wasn't them.

Went back to the hotel again and this time there was a different staff behind the counter who let MisterQ surf the info himself and found the information we needed in a section called "maps". Turns out the address on the main page that had been there for two months or more was just to identify the complex. MisterQ called the number given and within 5 minutes we were knockin' at the door.

We come in to find "Family Circus Valentine" playing on the TV. After some cursory introductions, we settle in to watch this sickly-sweet festival of goody-goody nausea. How hard is it to make a valentine out of a non-poop-held tent? Not at all, as long as there's no dog around to jump through it. Musta been a pretty flimsy tent to begin with. Or maybe it was one of Thel's old muumuus before she finally came to grips with her bulimia. As the Keane clan gathered around the fireplace at the end, I inquired "Are they conspiring?".

We then switched to the Lycos version of Internet 101, starring indie favorite John Turturro. In our little passion play about the wonders of the Internet, Mr. Turturro's car breaks down in Tick Neck, Pennsylvania. He leaves the car with the stupid twin of George "Goober" Lindsey who can't find the engine in a VW Beetle. Hyuk Hyuk!

Our intrepid hero wanders into a diner you've probably seen before in a Twilight Zone episode. Remember the one where William Shatner kept asking the fortune telling demon vague questions and kept getting vague answers? That's what this diner reminded me of. Mr. Turturro brings in his laptop and proceeds to set it up on the counter, using what's probably their only phone line to dial out to what must be an 800 number to his ISP, because it's for damn sure he didn't just happen to have their local number for the Tick Neck branch. Either that or he's decided to sucker them into paying for the long distance charges by not telling them its a toll call.

"Is that one of them there kumpyooturs?" would not sound out of place in this video. Of course, we then get little Billy (or whatever his name was) who's decided to talk to the nice stranger, even though he hasn't been offered any candy yet.