Prairie Landing
Monday, June 14, 2004
Saturday was my last marketing research class. And boy was it long and boring. Everyone had to present their project and then there was a class critique, which is all well and good until you get up to about #8. By then, thinking of anything intelligent to say is well nigh impossible. I think my class had 16 people.
One of the last ones came from my Japanese classmate. Her project dealt with an okonomi-yaki restaurant in the Loop. None of us knew what the hell an okonomi-yaki was, but luckily in Slide 2 there was a picture. It looked kinda like this:
Except with less green and more purple. The accompanying text said, "Make with seafood, vegetable, any thing you like." So the entire rest of her presentation was about how to market this thing that looks like a pan-fried garbage cake while everyone else looked on in horror and I kept trying not to laugh. Finally, we got to the Q&A and someone asked, "Um, is it good?" She was so insistent that it was, that most of the class was saying they wanted to taste it by the end.
And actually, if you Google okonomi-yaki or "Japanese pizza," most of the other pictures look far more appetizing.
Overall, this weekend was pretty uneventful after our adventures during the week. Saturday we paid a visit to the awesome beergarden not far from our house. Sunday we went walking in Wicker Park and Bucktown as part of our ongoing search for a neighborhood in which to buy a condo. Both are supposed to be "up-and-coming," but I saw no evidence of this in W.P. which is full of housing projects, boarded-up stores, and nail salons, which are to neighborhoods what water stains are to ceilings: a definite bad sign. There were beggars, too, but nowhere near as many as in our neighborhood.
On Wednesday I have a job interview for the first time in months. The company is one of the biggest and best in the world, wins zillions of awards, is reportedly full of brilliant people, in short an unbeatable resume-booster -- and works people to death and pays them shit. On the plus side, it's downtown. I stopped applying for anything that wasn't downtown. On the minus side, I know I'd miss working at home.
One of the last ones came from my Japanese classmate. Her project dealt with an okonomi-yaki restaurant in the Loop. None of us knew what the hell an okonomi-yaki was, but luckily in Slide 2 there was a picture. It looked kinda like this:
Except with less green and more purple. The accompanying text said, "Make with seafood, vegetable, any thing you like." So the entire rest of her presentation was about how to market this thing that looks like a pan-fried garbage cake while everyone else looked on in horror and I kept trying not to laugh. Finally, we got to the Q&A and someone asked, "Um, is it good?" She was so insistent that it was, that most of the class was saying they wanted to taste it by the end.
And actually, if you Google okonomi-yaki or "Japanese pizza," most of the other pictures look far more appetizing.
Overall, this weekend was pretty uneventful after our adventures during the week. Saturday we paid a visit to the awesome beergarden not far from our house. Sunday we went walking in Wicker Park and Bucktown as part of our ongoing search for a neighborhood in which to buy a condo. Both are supposed to be "up-and-coming," but I saw no evidence of this in W.P. which is full of housing projects, boarded-up stores, and nail salons, which are to neighborhoods what water stains are to ceilings: a definite bad sign. There were beggars, too, but nowhere near as many as in our neighborhood.
On Wednesday I have a job interview for the first time in months. The company is one of the biggest and best in the world, wins zillions of awards, is reportedly full of brilliant people, in short an unbeatable resume-booster -- and works people to death and pays them shit. On the plus side, it's downtown. I stopped applying for anything that wasn't downtown. On the minus side, I know I'd miss working at home.
