|
Sleep Dep Will Drag You Under
J: I won my first
money-game of poker last Thursday, against six other players. I must
admit I was fairly lucky the entire game; no amazingly great hands,
just good hands at the right times. ("And that, my
friends, is why they call it Texas Holdem." That's a
line that appeared in the background dialog of at least two movies— The
Manchurian Candidate and Hidalgo.
I have no idea what it means, but it's fun to say. Try it sometime,
you'll see.)
On Friday night Gina, Kory, and I met Petra at the Pho
79 in DC for a tasty dinner. After dinner we walked across the
street to meet Janet, then we all walked into the Uptown Theater to see
The Aviator on a big, curved screen. I'm not usually a big fan of "true
story" movies, but this one held my attention well, and didn't seem to
stray from the general truth as much as, oh, A
Beautiful Mind or Schindler's List.
We returned home to sad news— Dave Chalker's father, Jack, had died
earlier in the day. Our sympathies go out to the Chalkers. Dave's dad
is one of the best kind of people, the kind who will lead many people
to strange new worlds long after he's left this one. Thanks for your
stories, Mr. Chalker.
Dave came over the next day and we did our best to keep him both
occupied and consoled. Kory, Dave, Gina, and I played some games, then
we all went to Bennigan's for drinks, dinner, and more drinks with Dave
and his friends Dan & Becky, Rich & Denise, and Justin. After
dinner, Denise, Justin, Dave and Kory came to our house for more games;
we stayed up till after 4:00. Dave ended up spending the night, and the
next morning he and I had brunch nearby at the New Deal. He told me some great
anecdotes about his dad and his dad's friends.
After brunch Dave and I returned home, and watched a few episodes of
Mr. Show, the funniest skit show I know. By then Gina and Kory had
woken up; Kory came over and we played some more games, and I worked on
my loft project a little (nope, not done yet). Then the four of us
hopped in a car and drove to Philadelphia.
In Philly we stopped at a little restaurant called Indian Sitar for a
buffet dinner. I really liked the little samosas. After dinner we got
lost (hey, it happens) but managed to find The
Rotunda in time to see an extravaganza with three longform improv
groups— The Rare Bird Show,
LunchLady
Doris, and our friend Chris Welsh's group The Cabal. Each of
the groups started with one word given spontaneously from an audience
member, and presented an improvised show based on that word. The shows
were all very funny, fresh, and bizarre. After the main shows, all of
the groups plus many audience members got together for an improv jam,
which was also quite entertaining. We couldn't stay long after the show
since I had to work the next day. By the time we drove Dave back to his
house and returned to ours, it was about 2:00 AM. Another weekend with
very little sleep: I was a bit tired the next day.
On Monday night Gina and I celebrated the Feast of Saint Valentine. We
went to a sleazy upscale deli joint called Savory, pigged out on vegan
melty-cheesy sammitches and watched a
crazy guy pig out on his melty-cheesy sammitches, then we returned home
and fell into bed exhausted. I fell asleep; I guess Gina stayed up and
read or something, I'm not sure. That was about the most I could do for
Mr. Valentine.
Tuesday afternoon my brother Thom called with computer problems, so
Kory, Gina, and I went to Thom's neighborhood for dinner. First we went
to a CompUSA store so I could buy an external hard drive (for my
computer, not Thom's). Then instead of eating at the Vegetable Garden
(an old favorite), we tried Houston's
veggie
burgers, which the Veggie Times had touted as the best veggie burgers
around. They were.
After dinner we continued to Thom's place and Kory and I fixed his
computer, sort of. I mean, we fixed the specific problem—he couldn't
retrieve email—but the main problem remains: his computer and operating
system are old, and the hard drive has stratified over the years,
holding ossified file fragments
and fossils of ancient spyware that waits to thaw out whenever some
unsuspecting house guest journeys deep into the bowels of the OS to
find a scarred Internet Explorer lying on a stone table with poison
dripping from Firefox's bowl into IE's open mouth, and the unsuspecting
house guest says, "Aw, poor IE." And IE looks up at the unsuspecting
house guest with big, sad eyes, and the house guest frees IE from its
chains and IE happily reanimates as many spyware relics and trojan
viruses as possible and all Hell Breaks Loose and once again the
computer is at war and the house guest lopes home none the wiser and
all the gods become wrathful.
Ahem. Excuse me. I will go to bed now.
|
THE HEAP
where we wade the web
the straight
dope archive
jon
carrol on the rapture
scariest
spider is a crab
give me
liberty...
unskilled
and unaware...
wiki:
jack l. chalker
wiki:
howard hughes
leonard
cohen unplugged
gliding
wingless ants
1st
contact: the selling...
yo, god! god detectors
300
proofs of god
gonzales...bush...dui?
...tribe
finds second wind
bravery,
death... hoax
snopes
on tsunami fish
centipede
|