Entries this day: Birthday dinner snatch zzzz

Birthday

9:22am Friday 21 June 2002

Fred and I have just woken up; today is Fred's birthday. Earlier, Dad called to wish him happy birthday. I answered the phone and was all, "you're calling too early," or something and Fred talked to him and then was going to put the phone down but there was no room on the bed. So he unhooked its cord, checked for no dial tone, smiled, poured it onto the floor.

We're about to watch Zoolander on my computer.

11:24am

haha fun stuff. I had seen it before; I enjoyed it this time as well.

Lunch with Ma next and then we'll see what we do after that. Flaming Idiots show is tonight.

- - - -

I just called my apartment complex to let them know the light in my kitchen will sometimes flicker instead of illuminate brightly when I turn it on. This doesn't happen too often, but the real reason I asked them to look at it is so that Spot can get some attention.

I didn't get a copy of my key made before I left to give to a neighbor so they could say HI to Spot while I was gone. Wende has the copy, but she's in San Francisco now working for 3 weeks at a Container Store out there, helping them get set up.

I feel bad sometimes about how long Spot gets left alone all day, and sometimes for the weekend while I go to rallies and such. Usually Wende will go by and chill with him for a bit. This time, Roy will fix the light, Spot will say HI if he's lonely, Roy will at least say HI, if not pet him a bit.

I would have asked Roy directly, but he was gone the morning I left. The new employees in the office are automotons compared to the loving care provided to us residents by Suzanne when she worked there before the complex got purchased by new management. Pooh.

12:24pm

I just learned that Fred's clock is set 15 minutes fast. That's because it takes him 15 minutes to get to school. "I want to know what time it's going to be when I get there: I need to be there at 12 o'clock and my clock says 12 o'clock. Time to leave."

13:06pm

Fred and I are chillin' at some funky arty cafe called Bouldin I think. We believe this is the correct address (1501). We're pretty darn sure this is the correct street (1st), and since we requested a funky cafe, which just happens to be here, we're probably in the right spot, but (!) the right time has passed by a few minutes, and Ma and Jon are rarely late.

They also don't answer their cell phones, but only use them for outgoing calls. Considering that Fred is often really late, they won't call thinking, "oh god fred and rob are lying in a ditch somewhere" for another 20 minutes.

Ah; they have just arrived.

13:04pm Friday 21 June 2002

Fred has just received a letter that was sent to Fred via Ma in 1999. It's postmarked 22 Sept 1999, from our step sister Karina, a change of address notification:

Well I hear you're moving too,
so I guess ball's in your court.
I sent this to your mom to
forward 9/21 - I wonder how
long until you get it.

     See ya!
      Karina

Funny!

I really love my new computer.

dinner

Before going to Mark, Cindy and David's, Fred and I bounced bouncy balls in the 8 story stairwell on one wing of UT. We dropped them through the narrow gap that looks all the way down and got the balls to fall most of the way down before hitting the side or a step.

19:38 Friday 21 June 2002

Just ate dinner with Mark, Cindy, David: pizza and then chocolate cake and ice cream for dessert. They are fun and apparently well educated.

We enjoyed meeting Rob too. Sounds very familiar, same sense of humor as Fred, Mark is looking forward to his letters from Japan: "M", "A", etc..

Oh, yeah, I told Mark that if he can solve the Carpet Problem, I will write him 1 letter from Japan for every month he solves it before I leave.

now we're at the Flaming Idiots. I'm choosing to not take my computer in.

22:37

The show was excellent!! I was most impressed with them juggling 9 clubs between the three of them, and walking in and out of one another in a braiding pattern. So amazing! I talked to Gyro at the end and he said something like, "thanks! It just takes a lot of counting but then it's just second nature.."

Cool thing was using leaf blowers to float beach balls in the air. Very nice.

Amazing thing was them getting out of three mutually tied up straight jackets in twenty-five seconds.

Funny thing was Gyro climbing on and around Jim, a 240 pound guy who was 2 feet taller than Gyro.

Walter put an entire inflated balloon down his throat. One of the long noodle types. Wow. Fred said he's seen it before. (Not that particular balloon)

Before that part of the show, Gyro announced the next part was a bit gross, and "to be forewarned is to be fore armed, and to be four armed is to be a freak, just like one of us!"

At one point in the show, they presented a Flaming Idiots T-shirt, and announced they would give it away to the first person who could throw their shirt onto the floor of the stage. I won. Good thing I was wearing an easily removable rally shirt! (Plano rally) After the show I got them all to sign the shirt.

Gyro made a baloney sandwich with his feet (and a woman from the audience ate a bite).

Gyro also wrote TYLER with both hands and both feet all at the same time. (Mirror image on left side)

Fred decided the most difficult stunt was five ball juggling onto a tympani by Gyro.

Also awesome human-juggling: they leap frogged sideways over one another (quite quickly). Thanks to Cindy for remembering that trick.

Another cool thing was Pyro tossing six coins into the air and catching all six of them (not in a clump, but alternate hands picking them out of the air)

23:32

Fred, Bill and I are now going to watch Snatch which I have not yet seen.

snatch

2:43am CDT Saturday 22 June 2002

Snatch is near the end; we moved from Bill's room because he fell asleep.

It took us a while to start the movie because my computer didn't have the correct codec (compressor/decompressor) to read the pirated .avi file. Fred downloaded one from divx, but it didn't decompress the audio very well on this machine. On Bill's Windows 2000 box, the movie worked well.

Emacs rules.

3:32am

Movie is over. Wow. That was weird, and good. I'll see it again to try and get a better sense of it. I saw some scene/line similarities to Pulp Fiction. When I first heard about this movie, I think I heard that as well. Hmmm.

Bedtime now.

zzzz

4:19am CDT Saturday 22 June 2002

Well, we just used my computer to burn a nine inch nails CD for Fred. The first one we played was written in mp3 format. Very short. The second one was in CD format, but the songs are out of order. We're too tired now to fuck with it further to see how to control the order of songs. I'm surprised at how late it is.

Today has been a fantastic day.