February 15th thru the 21st, 2004

So we left Vancouver, eventually, and on the way back stopped in Bellingham at Boomer's for a cheeseburger. That was good. The girl behind the counter had a Gwar T-shirt on! (Someone had to point it out to me, but still.) We got back to my house where everyone was parked, and they went home, and I started playing DDR.

Some people came over for max chilling. We had pizza. We had DDR. We had Cocal-Cola. They left and I went to bowling. Oh man. We are STILL in first place, and I bowled a 153, a 203, and a 168. Sweet! Had some fried prawns in the café after and then home, my friends, home home home.

Coffee is done. It was good. No new faces, but all the old ones are nice to see, so I was pleased. After we did the Rositas thing, which was swell. One person in our group suggested that we do some sort of project together. I think that is an excellent idea. A themed costume party, a scavenger hunt, a business selling LCD displays for car bumpers, jello wrestling, and other ideas as well. Hands arounds Greenlake, or a notebook that gets sold and resold on E-Bay as it goes around the country. I'll keep y'all posted. Yes, ma'am, I DDR'd when I got home. But only until about 2:30 AM. I am such a little wimp. I have completed most of the songs on Standard mode (C's and B's mostly) and finally completed a continuous mode track, 20 songs in a row. I got an A! Of course, they were all songs I picked and they were "light" mode songs, but still.

Taking a DDR break. I am a wee bit sore, but I think that's from lack of sleep. But soreness never stops me-- its that I want to be good at DDR, and I know that a necessary component to learning is to utilize down times to let the brain re-wire itself. I mean that quite seriously. Its amazing how a day off, or even a week, can contribute to one' skills. I predict that tomorrow I'll be able to get A's on songs that I can only get C's on now. And I might even survive a song or two on "heavy" mode! Also, I want to force myself to take a break so I don't saturate myself with satiation and no longer crave that DDR goodness.

Lunch was the pasta and the sauce. And some of Terry Pratchett's The Fifth Elephant. And a glass of red wine. And it was only the one glass but it sort of went to my head. So I walked in the cool spring air to grab a tan and a nap. So good. And a nice walk back. And a bowl of split pea with ham soup.

Walked around Greenlake with Galaga, grabbed a Subway sandwhich, finished reading The Fifth Elephant, and for no reason I can fathom, decided to sleep on the floor of my office, with a body pillow and a regular pillow and my coat as a blanket.

Went to lunch with Alhambra a Zao. Pan seared noodles. Yum!

Home again, and then evening came, and Grelleria picked me up for some ribs at Tony Romas, over to Larry's for dessert and 3 new rubber ducks, then back to case del moi where I showed G DDR. Since she's an accomplished dancer in her own right, it was vindicating how she was impressed with the variety of dance steps that go into the game.

Sleepy Time tea, and I crashed like a jetliner with bad karma. Odd dreams. I HAVE been sleeping better lately, but some of these dreams are making me uneasy about looking forward to future sleeps.

Bought the Britney Spears dancing game: BS Dance Beat. Yes, I did! You wanna make something of it? No? Oh, Okay. (darn). Anyway, the game sucks. Its the same concept as DDR, stepping to the beat, but instead of scrolling up, the arrows appear on a circle as a dial sweeps around, making it much more simplistic. There's only 5 songs to choose from, as opposed to DDR's 75+ songs. So why would anyone buy it at all? It is strictly for Britney fans, and they would be delighted with the back-stage scenese and the concert videos that you "earn" the right to see. And since I am not a Britney fan as such, but just a voyeour of the pop culture phenomena, for me it was only of clinical interest. No, really. I swear it.

Dropped by the Bon Marché to buy some jeans cause my two best pairs got holes in the knees. I was going to get some Nautica, but the Union Bay were only half as expensive, so there you go. And I figured, what the hell, why not get a vacuum cleaner too? So I got a Shark Pursuit, which came with a free mini-vac.

Met up with my homies and we went to Illusionz in Issaquah for some REAL DDR action. Also excellent was Jumallia's favorite game, Para Para Paradise, where instead of stepping you wave your hands in time to the music, motion detector's counting your moves. I also REALLY liked the game where you play the drums, except the high-hat wasn't working, and so it sucked. MAN I wanted to play that game. But it's actually a Japanese import, so the chances of finding one that works elsewhere in town: nil.

Okay, so, after that, a few of us drove to Ballard and had some chow at the Old Town Ale House. I had a Beer Float, which is a sort of sweet beer poured over ice-cream, and my friends, it was good. Then I dropped my homes off at their respective domiciles and I went home m'self.

Then I went home, And then I and some folks flocked to a Sushi place called Chinoise in Madison. Man that was some good sushi. and then over to the Rendezvous to just chill out, man. Home by midnight.