V-day perparations and the Hold Steady; Missing flowers and Broken Flowers; Apple Store; Aristocrats and Bar Hopping

2/13

I took off from work and started running errands. First by Central Market to pick up the foodstuffs that comprised dinner, then by Kroger to pick up a few more mundane things for general purposes and to make dessert. I got home and started assembling dessert, and had in mind to go ahead and start picking up my place and iron a shirt for the big day.

What I had forgotten was that the Hold Steady was playing. Cindy called me up and asked if I wanted to meet her there, and we got there in time to catch their show, though I was sad when I realized that I missed the Plastic Constellations, whose 2004 album Mazatlan I had spun a few times on the ol' iPod and enjoyed.

The band was good. Cindy called it a cock rock genre piece. Dan and I came up with something funny and quotable to call them, but it eludes me now. Bryan would have hated them as they were somewhat spoken (or yelled) word.

I skipped out on Cecil's afterwards to do a little more Valentine's preparation.

2/14

I took off early from school to get things ready. I finished picking up a bit (though I hadn't had time to give my apartment the cleaning it so desperately deserved), set the table, etc. I waited until 6:30 or so to give traffic a chance to clear out and then went to Central Market to pick up Cindy's flowers.

Which, it turned out, some other lucky girl was probably walking around with, because they accidentally sold them. Whoever decided to buy them must have recognized my impeccable tastes, going with a mix of red and white tulips over the somewhat cliché roses. They offered me a more expensive arrangment at the price I had originally requested, but the arrangements were mostly pastel and not nearly bold and dramatic enough. The girl quickly did an arrangement which wasn't quite what I wanted, but close enough, and then did exactly the right thing, which was to give it to me for free.

I got back later than intended because of the flower-associated delay, but ended up having just enough time to get most of dinner ready before Cindy showed up. I talked about dinner elsewhere; suffice it to say, both of our dishes were tasty and we had a good meal. Afterwards, we stopped by Blockbuster with the intention of picking up Thumbsucker, which was again checked out, and instead ended up with Broken Flowers and The Aristocrats (which we saved for later).

Broken Flowers was an odd little film. It had the slow, moody, deliberate pacing of Lost In Translation (and similar use of Bill Murray), though without the sense of wonder of being in a foreign land, and cribbed the "revisiting old loves" theme of High Fidelity. There was some good, quirky humor in there, but ultimately, the movie failed to go anywhere or reach any satisfying conclusions, and left me feeling unfulfilled.

Cindy seemed really happy with everything I did. She got me a nice card saying that she had enjoyed the time we spent together, listed off some of my qualities that she appreciated, and said she looked forward to what the future brought. It was just the right amount of emotional stuff without being overly ambitious or scary, and I was impressed with the tastefulness and restraint it showed. Plus, it eliminated any weird drama that mismatched levels of committment would have brought to the evening, which was, admittedely, a concern.

2/15

The used Mac I bought from Rebecca's friend Kelly had been giving me problems since day one, so I finally got around to taking it to the Apple Store right after work. They finally narrowed down the problem to some bad (and, not concidentally, cheap) RAM, and, well, it's better, but still somewhat iffy. I got home and blew off a couple of invitations to go out, as after a couple of days when all of my time had been spent either preparing to spend time with Cindy or spending time with Cindy, I needed some alone time. It was good.

2/16

I came home, put a quick dinner together, and then took care of some errands. Cindy called to say hi, and eventually to invite herself to watch The Aristocrats. We watched the movie, and it was pretty entertaining. Not brilliant or anything, but the breadth of comedians they got involved was impressive, and the film was well-paced and consistently entertaining. Worth watching if you're not easily offended.

Char called during the movie to invite me out for beer. When it was over, Cindy asked if I was going to meet Char and I told her I was thinking about it, and she said she thought it was time for her to leave anyway (these events are important later).

I joined up with the guys at Woodrow's. BCM Lauren texted me that she and Kitten were up at the Mink, and of course it was Lauren, so how could I refuse? There's always a good time to be found there. Char, Leroy, and Zach (who's hosted a couple of parties I've been to) joined me. Shots were taken, a good time was had. Char and Leroy seemed to think the Mink was a little seedy—maybe because it was dark (specifically, they commented that it seemed like a place you would take your mistress).

Anyway, Lauren and Kitten took off (I didn't realize is that they were walking home). I drove on home and got a drunk dial from Lauren, and we had a good chat. She's a very smart, astute girl, and I always her commentary on the things going on in my life interesting.

It caused me some trouble, in retrospect, but it was a good evening out—just a little short. Damn 2:00 closing time...

Batting cleanup; Groceries; Firefly; Computer problems again; Recruiting

2/6

Joined up with Char, Leroy, Jesse, and sometimes Will to do some work on the remains of the keg. Chatted about girls, probably. Or other guy sorts of things. Enjoyable evening.

2/7

I needed to do some due diligence for Valnetine's day (romantic, I know) and so stopped by Central Market to place an order for flowers. Picked up a few gourmet-ish items such as some fresh apple juice, the sausage and tortillas mentioned in my cooking post (way back), and some cheese for snackage. Then went on and did real grocery shopping.

Cindy dropped by on the way home from football.

2/8

After a quick store run for veggies, did the aforementioned cooking. Went to Will's where he and Bill and I finished off the remainder of Firefly. I was sad to see it finished. It felt like there should have been more. Fourteen hour-long episodes and a feature-length movie sound like a lot, but it felt like it just scratched the surface. My opinion of Joss Whedon was, for a while, fairly neutral, balanced between Buffy, which I never got into, his quality first arc on Astonishing X-Men, and his slightly lower quality second arc. Firefly/Serenity tips the scale in his favor. Touché, Mr. Whedon.

2/9

I made a b-double-e-double-r-u-n to pick up beer and wine for recruiting. Picked up 12 shiners, 6 St. Arnold's Spring Bock, 6 St. Arnold's Lawnmower, 6 Honey Brown, 6 Sierra Nevada Wheat, 6 Groslch, and 6 Bohemia. When I got home, I set myself to tasks which were less productive, but not for lack of trying.

The PowerMac had been giving me lots of trouble. BitTorrent and Solarseek would only run for minutes before crashing. Solarseek in particular got bad and demanded constant babysitting for me to snag an album from Dan. And the computer itself would crash if left running indefinitely. This does not make for a good server. My Bittorrent ratios suffered.

Suspecting that my problems were caused by my decision to just clone my laptop straight over to the desktop, causing some sort of mismatch of computer DNA, I decided to wipe the PowerMac and start afresh.

Only the OS installation failed. Like 10 times. Before finally finishing. And once it finally worked out, the computer would crash during my attempt to copy over the contents of my laptop. My next idea was to pull some RAM out in an attempt to isolate the problem. If that didn't work, it would be off to the Apple Store. I always had the option to sell it for parts like I did with the poor ol' iMac, but I'd really like to, you know, have a functioning computer.

2/10

Had a physical therapy appointment in which Frank pretty much admitted that he had no idea what the problem was. He wanted to see me when I actually was in horrible pain. That's going a bit hard to do. Ultimately, I gave it up. It ended up costing me over $100 in copays, despite the fact that the idiot never actually did anything to help. Fuckers.

Came home, took a brief nap, loaded up the car, drove into school, spent half an hour looking for parking in the garage that's close to Wanda's office. Carried forty pounds of ice and an empty cooler for a lengthy distance, resulting in lots of pain. But hey, it saved me a trip. Had a nice catered lunch from Central Market (oh why can't you put the havarti cheese on something other than a bland turkey sandwich?) and chatted with the recruits, a couple of whom got points for recognizing my Postal Service t-shirt. Went into lab briefly. Went to seminar and struggled to remain awake. Came back to school, ate generic BBQ, drank good beer, and had the somewhat unpleasant experience of interacting with the boss while I had my buzz on.

Made a very brief stop off at home before picking up the recruits at the hotel and then heading to Ernie's on Banks, which is one of Oliver's favorite spots. The place evoked... something I can't quite put my finger on. Something from my childhood. Maybe it was something about the interior, the furniture—did I imagine wood paneling?—that seemed 80s. I'm not quite sure.

The place itself was quiet, which worked out well for the recruits to chill out after a long day. I put down the card for the tab, and the bartender asked me how I got stuck with buying drinks for everybody, and seemed significantly less puzzled after I explained that I was being reimbursed by school. We managed a $170 tab (plus tip). At some point, I had decided to start buying top-shelf liquor. In addition to the requisite beers and a gimlet (she assumed vodka and I had to correct her about gin), I had a whiskey sour with Maker's Mark, and a tequila and tonic with Comemorativo which turned out quite smooth and tasty. I remarked to the bartender that I was surprised at her lack of surprise at my order, and she mentioned that some character on Lost had ordered the drink in a flashback.

I want it noted that I was doing it back before it was cool.

Graham was out, which was nice. Char was there, as was Samara. Cindy came by and we played some pool (with quarters from the bar tab—all expenses paid!).

We made our exit around 1:00 and the bartender thanked us for saving her night (financially, I assume, though she could have been talking about just not being bored). There was talk of taking off for Woodrow's (which turned out to not quite materialize), but Cindy wasn't particularly interested, so we ended up calling it a night.

2/11

Ran a little late picking up the recruits (honestly, nobody should seriously expect me to be anywhere before noon on a weekend), and went to Pappasito's. Ordered a Cazarita, only to be informed that we would get a better deal by ordering pitchers, but only upon delivery of said pitchers did I realize that we were no longer getting top shelf. Fucker. I wouldn't have asked for a Cazarita if I had wanted the house margarita.

That disappointment aside, I had learned my lesson from the previous trip and got a group together to go in for the big grilled plate thingy and enjoyed quail, sausage, and beef and chicken fajitas, in addition to the side of tamales (which were quite good) that I had ordered. The food, at least, was quite satisfying—once it arrived. Char and I established that we should insist on Ninfa's in the future.

Took the recruits on my standard tour of the city (here's Montrose; here's downtown; here's transitional midtown; here's gentrified midtown; here's condo-land; don't live in condo-land), came home, read comics, napped, picked up recruits, and headed to Graham's for the party. I suggested we cut our pizza order by one and pick up some wings from the conveniently located BW3's down the road, which turned out to be a hit. The pizza was good, too, and I introduced several people to the wonder of the salsa verde with chicken.

Had a decent if low key time at Graham's (a little too much talking about science). It got late, fast. I was kind of pushing to check out the virology party, which Chris had called to invite me to, but the recruits were interested in checking out Dan's gig at the Proletariat, which was good enough for me.

Sadly, though, the Tom Waits wannabes that played wouldn't yield the stage to Dan, and so he didn't get to do his second set.

Also. Let me take this opportunity to state that I hate the dicks who are currently employed as bartenders at the Prole. Time slows down while I wait on them to get my drinks. I don't know how they manage it. It's magical (but not in a good way). I wanted to stiff them on tips, but I was afraid that would make the service even worse.

Seriously. I hate these people. Something must be done about this situation.

Speaking of other people I hate: I respect that it is convenient for residents of my apartments to use one of the many stray shopping carts on the property to ferry groceries up to their third story apartments. This is fine. But really, folks. Don't leave them in the halways. It's just plain tacky, not to mention inconvenient. In a display of passive aggressivenes, I positioned them as inconveniently as possible for the other tenants. Days later, they were still in the hall, albeit rearranged a bit. Also still not moved: the bag of broken, spilt, and otherwise leaky beer bottles sitting on top of an empty pizza box in the stairwell. Bunch of fucking savages in this town...

That night was the coldest weather we had in quite some time. I left my windows open while I slept. Here's what the thermostat looked like when I woke up:


It made me happy. Even the next afternoon, the temperature was still firmly in the lower sixties. It continued to make me happy.

2/12

Pictures taken with the then-new camera phone:


Finally got around to watching the season (series?) finale of Arrested Development. Which was fairly satisfying if a little rushed. I hope the show sticks around. But the last episode was a great bookend for the show, wonderfully running antiparallel to the first. It would be a fitting end.

Went to Susan and Jerry's, did laundry, ate Chinese food, came home, watched wonderful Sunday night television. Grey's Anatomy was just as absurd this week as it was the previous week week. Absolutely, alarmingly absurd. This better have been a one-time Super Bowl stunt, rather than a change in direction.

Distinctly Texas

Lance Walker has an ode to West Alabama Icehouse. I'm in agreement. Not one of my regular places, but it's certinaly got its charms. I miss when a big group of people from the program would gather there on Friday afternoon for cold beer and free hot dogs. Parking was sure a pain in the ass, but it was a nice way to get the weekend started. Graham was the driving force behind it, though, so when he found better things to do (like getting married), the tradition fell by the wayside. Maybe we can get it going once a month...

Inevitable

Is it even possible for Waco to avoid bad press anymore? Admittedely, Sploid's job is to turn every news item into tabloid (or Fox News) style sensationalism, but even the linked-to Tribune-Herald article doesn't paing a flattering picture.

How long before Wacoans stop staring at the University Parks sinkhole and start hunting down the heretics that believe that the flat earth revolves around the sun, and the witches who cause those devilish solar eclipses?

Proletariat; DVDs; Two Rows; Sabrina time; Whataburger and Woodrow's; Wanda's party and Spoon; Super Bowl

1/30

Went up to the Proletariat for cheap Shiner pitchers Monday night. Cindy came by.

1/31

Watched a few episodes of Firefly with Will. Ten down, four to go...

2/1

Went to Two Rows for Anup's birthday with Cindy. Their current wheat beer is likable. Slightly reminiscent of the nuts 'n' gum taste of Live Oak Hefeweisen. Samara and Brandy were there, and I couldn't figure out if they just happened to be there and joined up with the BCM crowd, or if they were actually there for Anup's birthday. The former seems more likely. BCM Rebecca, surprisingly, consulted me on her romantic entanglement. Had some good times just hanging out with the BCMers.

2/2

Will and I went out to lunch after his committee meeting, which I was pleased to hear went extraordinarily well.

I left work early to pick up my new cell phone from the leasing office. Cingular informed me that I had to call from a land line to activate my phone (you'd think they'd be encouraging people to ditch their land lines, wouldn't you?), so I had to use the phone in the office for that purpose.

The new phone, a Motorola SLVR is a mixed bag, as I expected. Crappy Motorola software; iTunes seemed like it was an afterthought. Nobody even noticed that when the phone is on its minimum volume setting, music is overly loud. And it felt bigger than I expected.

But it does fit nicely in my pocket. And the buttons work, which is an improvement over my SE T637 phone. It's growing on me as I get used to it. Not ideal, but nothing will be until Apple finally puts out their cell phone. Which better not be until after my new contract is up.

That night Sabrina and I had a long overdue date. We had some beer at Woodrow's (I thought Will would be there, but he had skipped out on work that night) and caught up. It was nice. I later learned that Cindy had seen us in the village and thought that Sabrina was BCM Sara (which Sabrina was insulted to hear) and that we had been on a date. Interesting that she came to that conclusion.

2/3

Arriving home from Keck, I had an awful tension headache that just got worse. I ended up sleeping from 8 to 11 before rousing myself to try to salvage something of my Friday night. I resolved to pick up some Whataburger (for myself, Will, and Shannon's Matt) and then went by Woodrow's to consume said Whataburger.

On Win's recommendation, I tried the honey barbecue chicken sandwich, which was phenomenally enjoyable. Whataburger, I love you as much as a man can love a fast food chain.

2/4

I was a little surprised, but program admin Wanda invited some of the cooler students to her birthday party. I hung out there and was confronted by Char about my blog with a request that he not be mentioned by name. Whoops. Actually, I'll just make sure I don't publish anything incriminating about him (or Leroy). Which is fine, I suppose, because as much as I'd like to be able to speak completely freely, the reality is that there will always be the risk that people who I didn't intend to read this will. It's not ideal, but there's no way around it.

Cindy came by to pick me up and we went on to the Spoon show at Number's, which was horribly crowded, but still enjoyable. Spoon have discovered some magical formula for rocking where every part fits together like a puzzle to form these wonderfully perfect songs. The show was quite enjoyable, though the crowd surprisingly mainstream.

My "Music + Science = Sexy" t-shirt made its debut. I'm not sure everyone appreciated it on the same level I did.

2/5

The Death Cab DVD that Cindy had gotten me for Christmas finally went back to Cactus to be exchanged for store credit. I looked around for a while, and after passing up some Beatles albums that I still haven't purchased, and the new 5.1 mix of the Flaming Lips' The Soft Bullettin, choosing to buy Songs: Ohia's Didn't It Rain and Neutral Milk Hotel's debut On Avery Island, marking the first CDs I had purchased sense... well, I bought a Spoon album the night before. But before that, it was the Bloc Party album I got for Christmas, and before that some stuff from eBay, stuff at shows, and... well, the last CD I actually bought in a store was Death Cab's album back in August. Strange times we live in.

I was also privy to a conversation about the woes that had befallen the poor, put upon Cactus Music & Video. Downloading (both authorized and unauthorized), big box stores, video games, internet sales, and voodoo dolls were all cited. I guess they didn't consider that people don't want to pay $18 for an old Beatles album, or $60 for a season of Futurama, and certainly can't buy anything they can't find in the poorly-stocked store. Sorry, kids, you deserve your fate. The only worthwhile thing you had to offer me was instore performances—which will be missed.

Char hosted a GSC Super Bowl party complete with a borrowed lab projector and a keg of Lonestar. There was a decent-sized crowd, but nothing terribly exciting. Cindy and I stuck around long enough to catch the horribly overwrought post-Super Bowl episode of Grey's Anatomy (note to self: don't watch Grey's Anatomy with med students).

Leaving, Cindy wanted the michelada which I had previously been unable to provide her due to the paucity of V8 at my house (that's probably not authentic, but it's the way I learned to make them). We stopped at a fairly transitional gas station for that ingredient, which she went in for (her being less white than me, you see). I made some kick ass micheladas and watched the Boondocks (sadly a repeat) and Moral Orel.

Killing the generation gap

Apparently, you don't have to grow up anymore. The article isn't the best, but I think it does point out a real phenomenon.

The question that remains is, will people still remain hip and edgy pas their prime if it stops being hip and edgy to do so?

RAM Upgrades

I just ordered a RAM upgrade for my backup computer from Memory Suppliers. This is the third time I've ordered from them, and they've consistently been fast and cheap, and they have a lifetime warranty on the memory they sell.

Thanks to Bryan for pointing me towards them in the first place.

A good cause

Do me a favor and click this link. Nothing dirty or uncouth, I promise. Just being altruistic.

Buy Other Sound Equipment

No highs? No lows? Must be...

Randa asks the following:

Queston: is it all Bose speakers that are the devil or just the cube-y ones?

First off, these links (1, 2, 3) answer the question better than I could.

To answer your question before I start ranting, mostly it's the cubes. The speaker drivers in the cubes cost under a dollar; the drivers in even a modest bookshelf speaker will be at least $10. The sound is pleasant if you don't have any basis of comparison. Considering their price, though? Not good at all. They sell for two reasons. The first is fashion. The size sells because it makes them unobtrusive, or because it makes them seem high tech. The second is marketing. "Better sound through research." I have heard people argue the quality of Bose on that basis alone, despite the fact that here's nothing really to back it up.

Their headphone line is overpriced but not bad (see headphones from Shure/Etymotics/Ultimate Ears for better noise reduction and sound at similar prices). Ditto for their boomboxes/table top radios/iPod systems (a comparably priced pair of computer speakers will sound better, or bookshelf speakers and an inexpensive stereo receiver, or Apple's iPod Hi-Fi). And ditto for their bookshelf/tower speakers.

The problem is that you can't cheat phsyics in audio. You need a big speaker to reproduce long wavelenth sounds (bass). Their bass module uses probably aroud a 5" or 6" woofer which doesn't get you very deep in frequencies (probably couldn't play the lowest note on a bass guitar). Then you need a decently-sized midrange driver (approximately half the width of the woofer); theirs is too small at 2" or so across to integrate well with the woofer. Then you need a small tweeter; they count again on their midrange in the cube to reproduce the high frequency sounds, and it's just too big for the job.

I could go on. What it comes down to is that there is usually a similar product for less money or a better product for the same amount for any Bose product you could put in front of me. And instead of buying speakers to hide them, buy speakers that look nice (wood veneer is very common, as are attractive high-gloss finishes) and complement your decor if the look of the system is something that's important to you.

I gladly make recommendations for any budget!

Cecil's; Kinsey; Thai; Recruiting; Late Nite Pie

1/23

Apparently I went to Cecil's. Those nights are all running together.

1/25

I purchased alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks for the recruiting dinner on Friday night. It's fun to go into the liquor store and drop $100 guilt free.

Cindy and I wanted to see The Aristocrats or Thumbsucker, but both were out at the nearby Blockbuster. Instead we went with Kinsey. It was a little slight, there were plot threads that were left dangling, and it was somewhat inconsistent, but it was ultimately enjoyable.

1/26

Once again, there was a dinner get together for one of Cindy's friends' birthdays, so we met up at a Thai place in the village (not Nit Noi; perhaps Thai Village?). I got my panang on.

We went over to the girl's (impressively nice) town home for cake. It was a little boring, but hey, there was beer. I did cringe when I saw that a perfectly nice set of speakers was piled in the corner, having been replaced by Bose crap cubes mounted to the ceiling (both the cubes and the ceiling mounting being insults to the gods of hi-fi).

1/27

Recruiting season was upon us, with candidates coming into town for interviews, and with them, opportunities for free food and booze. As was previously mentioned, there was a dinner Friday night with catered barbecue from Demeris, which was, well, mediocre. But to go with it was my carefully chosen beer selection.

After dropping the recruits for a quick break at the hotel, stopping by home, and returning to pick them up, we headed to Woodrow's. The cute waitress (Jessie?) was there and offered to take care of us; I told her to keep the pitchers of Shiner coming. The kids seemed to enjoy themselves. Cindy came by for a while and partook. Jesse managed to get some girl's number after a push in the right direction by Char and Leroy. It was nice to be able to leave waitress Jessie a nice big tip on the school's dime. It's a whole lot easier to be not cheap on somebody else's dime.

1/28

I had to get up at the crack of 11:00 AM Saturday morning to go pick the kids up to take them to Pappasito's. I got their big combo plate. The tamale was great but the enchiladas were disappointing. Fortunately, Pappasito's had just started promoting the Cazarita, so a couple of those made up for any food issues. Plus, I scored the leftovers from the big grilled plate that some people had split.

Afterwards, I showed the recruits my place, and those who were from cities with a higher cost of living were sufficiently overly with its size. I then took the ones in my car on a tour of the highlights of this part of Houston.

A few hours later, I picked them up for the shindig at Graham's, where there was beer and Star Pizza. Leroy and Char took off with some recruits that were ready to leave early. I later learned that I should have gone with them, as they ended up not dropping the recruits off at the hotel, but instead expensed some cigars at the Volcano.

The group that remained went to the Midtown Woodrow's for beer. I had a round there before transferring to the village Woodrow's to catch up with Char et al and managed to miss Will's appearance in Midtown. I had trouble getting to be in the right places at the right times that night.

1/29

I went to Susan and Jerry's to do laundry. Jeff had called wanting to hang out, so upon my return to the more civilized parts of the city, I picked him up and we went to Late Nite Pie and caught up over pizza and a couple of pitchers of beer.

More drama; More DVDs; Marah; Walk the Line; Brief trip to Woodrow's; BCM night and Of Montreal

1/16

I enjoyed my day off at a wonderfully leisurely pace. Char called and wanted me to show him where the vintage shops were, so we made a short trip of looking around the ones on Westheimer. I thought it'd be nice to ask Cindy out to dinner, so we went to Chuy's, where I introduced her to the wonders of the Cazarita and tried the Mexicob salad, which was quite pleasant. Afterwards we went to the Proletariat to catch one of Dan's DJ sets.

The evening wasn't particularly fun, as it turns out Cindy was upset that we did not hang out the past weekend (even though I told her ahead of time that I was probably going to spend most of my time hanging out with Randa and Sabrina. And this brought up the past complaints... Things didn't really resolve themselves, and I would spend the next couple of days unsure of what exactly the end result of all of this would be.

1/17

Will and I logged mroe DVD watching time, and bitched about women. He's good for that.

1/18

I was still a bit upset with Cindy (and things were still a bit up in the air) and so was OK when she was too busy with work obligations to see Marah do their Springsteen-esque rock thing at the Continental Club.

Regardless, I was there, as were Dan and Kristin, and I enjoyed Marah's competent working-class rock. The show didn't feature the over-the-top rock antics of their previous Houston show but was still plenty enjoyable.

1/19

Cindy and I had agreed to do a movie (on the condition that she wasn't still mad at me) and ended up at Walk the Line. I found it enjoyable. A bit to episodic and disconnected as biopics tend to be, but enjoyable none the less.

1/20

My notes seem to indicate that I stopped by Woodrow's to see Will but didn't stay long. It seems likely that I came home to play X-Men Legends on the GameCube for a while before bed.

1/21

The GSC had been trying to bring all of the BCM students (including the non-grad school ones) together for a social in order to engender good will between the programs, and, perhaps for some of them, bring in a fresh supply of young ladies.

I showed up with Cindy and Char had, wisely, appropriated a certain number of drink ticekts to dole out as he saw fit. Sensing an opportunity, I noticed his pockets overflowing and ofered to share his burden. I ran into a few people I had previously met at the genetics retreat and made sure to reintroduce myself (as a matter of principle). The evening also featured such special guests as fellow fellow Kim.

Cindy and I stuck around until right before Of Montreal was supposed to go on over at Numbers. We arrived to find a packed house, and that the band had gone on a little early. We obtained drinks and noticed Rodrigo and followed him to Lauren and Chris.

When did Of Montreal become Elephant 6's answer to the Scissor Sisters? Honestly, the similarities were more common than was comfortable that night. Perhaps it was my attitude, but their new legions of loyal fans and their need for a larger venue resulted in a show that missed some of the magic of the last time I saw them, back in Spring of '04.

The concert over, we returned to Woodrow's with Chris, Lauren and Rodrigo in tow, obtained some drink tickets, and ran out the clock on drinking time. Rodrigo somehow ended up talking to Sara. It came time to leave, and she offered to give him a ride home and he accepted. I never did find out if anything came of it.

Leaving that situation behind, the four of us went to Beba's for some late night Greek and/or breakfast. I never got my coffee but wasn't charged for it. The food wasn't as good as I remembered (or perhaps I wasn't as drunk), but the company was good. On a trip to the bathroom, I ran into Kitten, mentioned that Lauren was there, and marveled at the Kitten-shaped cloud of smoke left in her wake as she ran to find Lauren.