March 21st thru the 27th, 2004

At home, movies. Watched Whale Rider which was touching and nice. Tried to watch M is for Mozart, but it was just too weird for a dude who's been brain fried for the past 36 hours. So it was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets instead. Isn't that cute? Dinner was lasagna, and it was amazing, and raspberry lemon squares. And sleep, my friends, much much needed sleep.

Bowling happened, and we managed 3 points off of the top bowler in the league-- his teammates were absent, and he had a few off frames. Congrats go out to Hooters Reject, who bowled like a 150 something, by far her all-time high. We woulda won that fourth point too, but in the last game, I did not do so well. I can't pick up spares, damnit! I think its because I always throw the ball the same way, no matter where I stand, straight down the middle, off just a tad to hit the pocket. Great for strikes, lousy for spares. I shall practice more. When I get a chance. Now I am going to go bake a chicken.

Friend of mine looked up an old ex of hers, and seems he has a website, but she couldn't remember the url, exce-pt for part of it, and when I searched, I found that he had made several purchases on E-Banned. No link to it because its for adults only and if you wanna find it I'm sure you can. They auction stuff that can't be auctioned on E-Bay. Its, well, gosh. It's just amazing that humans exist, is all.

Went to SBC coffee with the usual suspect from the MeetInSeattle Yahoo! Group. It was fun. My favorite Barista was not there (am I even spelling barista right?) but my other favorite one was. Ah, life. It's full of smiles, and the right ones will make your day, eh?

I went to the gym this morning, first time in a loooong while. See, I knew I wanted to do some hard-core DDR, and I wanted a warm-up, since my calves suffer so when I don't. So off I went, to run on the treadmill, and I only planned on doing 30 minutes, but the songs on the ol' MP3 player were so good, I went an extra 20.

And then, it was like, why not clean the house, top-to-bottom? Why not indeed. Scrubbed both bathrooms, scrubbed the kitchen floor, vacuumed, dusted, you know, I did it all. I'm still half-naked (never clean your house with clothes on) but I got a conference call in 45 minutes so who knows if I'll have time to bathe before that.

I am eating an interesting salad. I took some lettuce. I added turkey. Cottage cheese. Tomatoes, Onions. Honey mustard dressing. Mmmmmm...

Walked to The U Village to buy a copy of Games magazine. Got home, ate a pizza. Romio's, of course, the Romio's special. Watched some Buffy. That be all of it.

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Got on a plane for DC. I had the faux-direct flight—that's the one where you stay on one plane for the entire trip, but there's a stop in Chicago to drop people off and pick more people up. The flight was uneventful—I did, of course, end-up sitting next to a guy who has no concept of personal space i.e. his elbows came into my seat. This is why it is essential to travel with a buddy, someone you don't mind rubbing up against. So, next time I am forced to fly anywhere, I'm going to need some volunteers.

Through the flights I did several crossword puzzles— two in the Intelligencer, one in the Times, one in USA Today, one in the in-flight magazine, and a few in Games magazine. Everyone knows that crosswords get tougher as the week progresses, and usually I can only barely finish the New York Times on on a Monday or Tuesday. But ever since the puzzle hunt, cruciverbalizing is just no big thing.

Anyhoo. Landed in Baltimore, took a shuttle to DC, met up with my peeps.

Next found Gelbitti where she works at the dentist's office; we went and had a margherita at an Italian restaurant, then back home to order Indian food from Mt. Everest via Ala Carte, one of those restaurant delivery services. Hoshi and her's stopped by the video store on their way to us at the house, and as they got out of the cab, somebody tried to pass them on the left. Narrow street = busted side mirror. They passers tried to blame the cab driver for letting people out on the left side of the car, even though they shouldn't have tried passing on the left.

So I went out there, since I can't keep my nose out of other people's business, and told them my dad was a cop, my brother was a cop, my uncle was a cop, and since they were physically behind the other car, it doesn't matter who was at fault—they were going to get the blame. Long story short, they left without getting the police involved, and I doubt anything will come of it. PS: I have no cop relatives.

And then it turns out the video people gave the wrong movies to Hosh & Co. So I roder her bike over there to get Lost in Translation (excellent) and Tadpole (we didn't actually watch it).

And then the food delivery was not quite right (but that was okay).

Lots of wine. And what was truly excellent about the experience is the ladies in my presence were extraordinarily beautiful before I started drinking, and the wine flowed, my friends, it flowed. We ate with our fingers, except when the couscous came out, for which there were spoons, and bellies too full to appreciate it.

Back to the house for a nod at sobriety and another tale of traffic woes—one of the groups that came back got pulled over for running a stop sign. If nothing else, children, let these be lessons for you: cars are bad karma in DC.