Charlotte 2

Clicking on pictures may produce larger versions. Not the pictures right below these words, though. Try clicking on the pictures I took -- these tend to have big versions waiting for you in cyberspace. Unless I didn't feel like making bigger ones. Then yer outta luck.

Look: Summer can't just be about videogames, sometimes you have to jump in the car and drive far, far away to play videogames with a friend in another state.

Yes, it's time once again for one of jik's rambling narratives about some trip he took and the non-events he experienced -- but I this time visited Charlotte!

I know, I know not much reason to keep reading, but I promise cute pictures of dogs.

Jon Spence, pictured above, made the dumbass move of hiring a young Jik to work at Glenn Poor's Audio/Video and now regularly endures visits from the aforementioned Jik. This time I gave him a whole 3 days notice before showing up at his door.

Jon was born Jonathan, so that's why I keep spelling his name wrong. Despite this setback, he was able to get married, become a lawyer, and defend terrorists. Now he defends the people who make low-budget knock-off videos that have titles which are very similar to popular movies. Like "Kimba: The Lion Prince"

While not quite as moral as defending guys who sell cigarettes illegally to fund Hamas, the Kimba job pays much better.

Anyway, I left Chicago at 5am to avoid el traffic Diablo and headed south, and er, East. To sum up the trip, let's just say that I hate the South. There's far too much rain, construction, religious billboards, pick-up tucks, and not enough Mini Coopers.

On the way to NC I listened to the new Harry Potter book, which probably invalidates my above critique of the south, but I have to say that "The Order of the Phoenix" is pretty good. No, it won't set the world on fire with its ideas, but the whole series has been pretty entertaining and everybody needs a break from books that matter sometimes. Unless you never read books that matter, then you should put down that Grisham or Steele or whatever and read 1984. It's much better than you think. Really.

I arrived in Charlotte and promptly got lost in Jon's twisting little suburban labyrinth. Much later I arrived at his doorstep. Jon has got a nice house, here's some pictures:

The deck

The dinning room

The kitchen

The backyard is huge -- click on it if you dare.

Maybe some of the anger I feel towards the South is due to the fact that Jon bought this 8 room, 2 story, enclosed garage, 1.5 bathroom house for roughly 2/3 the price of a 2 bedroom condo in Chicago. Hate, hate, hate!

Well, not that much hate.

So what did I do while in Charlotte? Uh...

When not playing videogames, I played with Jon and Molly's dogs.

Here they are in Jail, 'cause they wreck the joint if allowed to roam free. I, of course, let them out a lot.

Yep, they love their savior. Winston is the pug is on the left and the boxer goes by the moniker of Gatsby. Did you notice Gatsby doing his nasty dirty business in the panorama? Go back and look then.

Look at Winston hiding behind the slide, isn't he cuuute?

That's enough of that. Jon and Molly (pictured above) were hindered by their jobs, but they found time to show me the sites of Charlotte. Which were, uh...

Plenty of parking in the downtown area...

Some statues...

Guess which statue had this carved under it.

Did you guess neither? Good for you. Apparently Charlotte has the largest fireworks display in the South East. The morning zoo radio guys hosting the 4th 'o July mentioned this, like, a thousand times. Meanwhile I was slowly crushed to death as the entire population of North Carolina tried to converge on the one intersection where the fireworks are visible. While I was waiting I saw a fair amount of mixed race couples -- many more then I usually see in Chicago. I suppose King was right about Chicago being the most segregated city in the country. But that isn't gonna stop me from runnin' down the South, I tell you what.

Also we fought with ABC liquor stores. Once again I found a state that treats hard alcohol like it was a drug! When will these people learn that it's my constitutional right to buy really expensive vodka at 2 in the morning? Jerks didn't even have the Vodka I liked. And it's impossible to buy fresh squeezed orange juice in quantity anywhere in Charlotte. Oh sure, we tried using Jon's dust-collecting Juicer to make our own. But it wasn't the same. Why must these fools keep me from my $50 mandarin infused vodka and fresh squeezed goodness? Probably has something to do with the Patriot Act, I betcha.

I'm a friend of Jon, Jon has a brother, this brother has a wife, the wife has parents, these parents had a 4th of July Bar-B-Q where I ate a lot of food and nobody could quite understand why I was there. The American flag strawberry shortcake was excellent.

At some point I had to go home. So I did. Harry Potter managed to last another 13 hours and terminated just as I passed the city limits. I took a short nap and Bryn and Tina came over to play Eternal Darkness until 5 in the morning. And I saw Laura. And Laura's family who were staying at my apartment because they all were going to cram into Laura's studio apt. (which has no air conditioning) if I didn't let them. But they cleaned up good, so Laura got a sticker.