[the official music of this blog entry is the free dj mix from the dmx crew's website.]

no music in the shower today, which always seems to throw me off. my bathroom cd player is one of the first mp3 cd players, so it's about 5 or 6 years old, and i've used it a lot. it's nearly dead, and sometimes likes to pretend you've not put a real cd in it.

work was ok. the application we use to pull data from the data warehouse, named Business Objects (or BO), was being incredibly finicky, and crashing a lot. we don't have the latest version, so that could be part of the problem....

i got home extremely tired, so after calling diane, with whom i had plans to hang out, i took a nap. i slept for about an hour, though i'd only intended half that. we'd originally planned on staying in at my apartment and watching brass eye, but she said that since she was on a break from school she wanted to take the opportunity to go out. where did we go? sitwell's. it was just as well; despite my nap, i was in need of caffeine.

i arrived at the agreed time, but of course diane was not yet there. the smoking section was full, which would not have been a problem but that diane smokes. like a chimney. while i was looking around for her to make sure she was not there, a girl behind me asked whether i needed a carryout order. i turned around to see no other than the girl with the striking blue eyes. a bit taken aback, i recovered quickly. no, i said, i'm meeting a friend. she smiled a smile that cut me in two, and promised to find me once my friend arrived.

i sat at a table in the smoking section which had only the one chair. i figured that when diane found me we'd figure out what to do about seating. it turned out not to be an issue, for within a minute of being seated a couple at the next table got up to pay and leave. i quickly took their seats. when the girl half of the couple came back to the table, i felt a bit sheepish for stealing her place, but she smiled; she was just leaving a tip.

the girl with the striking blue eyes found me after another minute or so. by this time i'd been waiting about ten minutes. as she collected her tip and bussed the table, she asked whether i'd liked the drink she recommended. i said i had (though i didnt mention the fact that i'd been unsure whether it was worth the extra seventy-five cents above my usual drink), and said i'd like another one this evening. she smiled, and i asked her what its name was. aparently it's a "pourpacino", like the word "pour" mixed with the word "capuccino". eager for another few seconds of her time, i asked her again for the ingredients. it's got espresso, vanilla, half-and-half, and some other things. half-and-half? no wonder it had been so thick.

she went off to put the order in and i continued to wait for diane. the drink arrived and i was mixing it up (the chocolate sauce settles to the bottom) when she arrived. we chatted for a couple hours; noting major, just chatting. it was quite pleasant, actually. she had a vodka tonic and a vodka cranberry, which was weird, because when we were dating she'd been a teetotaler. she was nervous because she had plans to go out to meet up with a boy after hanging out with me. the alcohol took care of her nerves, though, and things were soon fine. i quickly ascertained that she thankfully was not trying to hook up with me again, of which i'd had a nagging suspicion.

we left and i gave her a ride up to the comet, where she was meeting the boy. i then went directly over to gabe's house. gabe had already been playing halo 2 for hours at this point, so i waited for him to be finished with a level so that i could join in. gabe's friend kelly, who was in town for the weekend, sat next to him on the couch, and ross, gabe's roommate and actual owner of the house, was in the easy chair.

a pretty blonde came down the stairs. ross introduced her to me as elizabeth, ross' sister. i suddenly remembered meeting her at shirley's over a year and a half ago. she was as pretty as i'd remembered. she and ross left to go to crush to see a few bands play.

i created a character ("spivak", after my friend and fellow QEG member Donald Spivak) and began to play. i like it; the game play is similar, with a few updates. the graphics are better, and everything is of a much larger scale.

hours later, ross and elizabeth returned. kelly had already crashed downstairs, but gabe and i were still playing. at about 3am, john, gabe's other roommate, came downstairs. apparently he'd taken a nap at 8:30pm and inadvertently slept for hours. whoops.

ross & elizabeth crashed, and gabe and i finished the level we were on, and stopped playing. john put in grand theft auto san andreas, which he'd picked up ther other day with halo 2. i only made it another minute or so before i fell asleep on the couch.