The daily rundown, May 8

I slept in very late today, so I don't really know why the hell I was so tired. I had a couple of new replies back from musicians. The guy over in Mesquite sent me a message with his phone number so we could talk at more length about what's going on with his music. Of course, I'm down to virtually nothing on my phone, so I guess I'd best get to the store and get a new card soon. I also got a reply from one of the other bands, located over in McKinney, which is nearly as far but not through urban areas. They seem to be trying to become something like an 80s hair-rock band, but a lot of their tunes are familiar to me, so that makes things quite a bit easier. I had a bit of an e-mail conversation with the front man, I guess, this morning, and he sent me MP3s of a couple of the tunes they're going to be working on. Their practice is going to be this Saturday, but I won't be able to make that. So the next one is going to be on Wednesday, and hopefully I'll be there and have some tunes worked out on the bass. Guess I'd better plug the little beastie in and get hacking, eh? Also got a reply back from one of the other bands that I thought wasn't looking any longer. Turns out that I kind of misinterpreted his reply, and they haven't found a bassist yet. It's in kind of a weird area of town, though, around Arlington, and I don't really know that I want to commute to that area. From what I've heard, the driving isn't all that great there, and it's not exactly a rural kind of area where you can make easy U-turns if you miss your cutoff or whatever. Plus it sort of sounds like someone's got a little bit more "vision" than I do, perhaps.

Didn't do a whole lot else with the day aside from communicating with the other musicians. I looked on the web for tabs for some of the songs that the band over in McKinney is looking to play. Mixed success on those, definitely. Of course, the songs that they're really planning to rehearse next week I couldn't find any tabs, chords or anything else for, so I guess I'll have to try to figure them out by ear, which is never really all that easy for me.

When the girlfriend got home, we had a bit of dinner and then sat and watched TV for a while. Watched some of the hockey that was on and then a little bit of stuff on Discovery and the Science Channel. Nothing really all that memorable, but it did pretty well kill off the evening. Despite having little to watch on the tube, I still didn't get to bed until fairly late. She wanted to get to bed early because she was working a very early shift on Friday, so we could get started over to her dad and stepmom's place early. Best laid plans, and all that...

The daily rundown, May 7

I got up this morning when the girlfriend did, although I pretty much just sat on the bed as she got herself ready for work. She asked me if I could fix the toilet, since it appears that the chain came off of the little plunger thing. After she left, I got that little honey-do done, although it took me quite a bit longer than I expected it do. That wasn't really because it was a difficult task or anything, but just because of the fact that I don't know where most of her tools are, and I had to improvise quite a bit and then spend quite a bit of time looking around for things like pliers and such. At last, though, mission accomplished.

I made myself a pot of coffee and sat down to read through the now much smaller quantity of e-mail in the box. Unfortunately, there were still no responses from any of the musicians I sent off messages to from their Craigslist ads. I sent off another message, but his response indicated that he was a whole lot further away than I'd really want to be traveling. Bummer. He seemed like a pretty nice guy, though.

On the cross-stitch front, I finally started doing a little more work on the now well-belated 4th Day of Christmas. Got to get that done fairly quickly so I can maybe get day #5 done before the end of month #5. Fortunately, the fifth one seems to be pretty small, since it's just the number 5 with five small rings draped over it. I'm hoping I can whip that out in just a couple of days. I also wrote up a little review of the "Brilliant Plumage" pattern that I bought the first week I was here when the girlfriend and I went down to Hobby Lobby. Hopefully I can get at least a couple of more people saying something on my little cross stitch list on SU. We'll just have to wait and see, though.

Finally got ready to go and drove down to the recycle place and got rid of all the papers. Came back home afterward because my pants kept falling down. Got a belt, called the girlfriend to tell her I was going to the store and if she wanted anything. She only asked me to pick up chicken breasts, and I told her I was also going to get milk and eggs. She's going shopping after work, so I guess she won't pick those things up now.

I opened up all the windows to let the house cool down a bit before heading out, since it seemed very hot and muggy inside, but it had evidently cleared up outside. There's a tornado watch for the area, and it looks like it turned into a tornado warning for some areas northeast of here. And, of course, as I was driving out to the store, the clouds loomed over and started spitting rain. I could have had the place open for about half the day without any problem, but as soon as I open it up, then the rain comes. Oh well.

Got to the store and found a parking place. Looked like the place was going to be a little more crowded than usual, and it sure enough was. Fortunately, I shopped like a guy and was in and out in about ten minutes. Soda, milk, eggs, chicken breasts, newspapers, done... Unfortunately, I forgot about getting a new card for my phone until I was already in line, and I didn't really feel like going back into the fray, so I guess I'll have to get a new card somewhere tomorrow. I really need to get to the bank and the post office tomorrow, too.

Over the afternoon and evening, I've sent off nine messages to musicians on Craigslist. Heard back from four, only one affirmative. One was the guy I mentioned this morning. Another is a female fronted band that practices in Corinth, which would be really convenient because it's just a few miles down the freeway. But they already have a bassist, and are now just looking for a drummer. Damn. And the third no-go is a band that is in Dallas, so that's not a huge issue. Unfortunately, the one that did say they were still looking for a bassist and would like to hear my stuff is based out of east Dallas, on the border of Mesquite. That's quite a little drive for the possibility of playing some music. Hopefully I'll get some kind of good reply back from one of the others, or from one of the two guitarists who have already expressed interest. There are a couple who I've checked out on Myspace, but one of them, which sounded pretty good, is located over in Rockwall, which is even further than Mesquite. One of the others, which sounded not so good, is located here in Denton. It's a brother and sister who pretty much decided that they'd heard people doing music, so they figured they could. The sister actually has a pretty nice voice, but the pitch is problematic. Overall, not something that I'd want to deal with, and I doubt they'd want to deal with me anyway, since they look like they're in their late teens.

No news on the job front, but I haven't really been sending out as many resumes as I should be. Lazy, and it's not really helping matters for me any, damn it...

The daily rundown, May 6

I had a pretty damned useless day today. I got up fairly early, but then I began working my way through some more of the e-mail and such. I was sort of caught up in that most of the morning, which is not unusual at all for me.

I called David, the guitarist, but I haven't heard back from him yet. Considering how long I've waited between e-mails and such, I don't find that terribly surprising.

I made myself a pot of coffee in the late hours of the morning and, surprisingly, didn't have any booze in it. I didn't have any booze all day, as a matter of fact. Unfortunately, I didn't do very much of anything else, either. I watched a little bit of Food Network in the afternoon. Made ramen for lunch and had some leftovers for dinner. I did get myself ready to head out into the world by the later part of the afternoon, but I never actually managed to get myself motivated to leave the place. I also got myself ready to start working on the cross stitch, but didn't do that either. I did get rid of all the old e-mail, though, so now everything in the inbox is stuff that needs to be followed up on. And I'll start doing that tomorrow. But I desperately need to do a bunch of other stuff, too.

As I type this, I'm watching the Mariners get absolutely pummeled by the Rangers. It's 10-1, and the Mariners have only scored the one run since the fourth inning of yesterday's game. Pretty damned pathetic, really, and it looks like the M's are going to drop down into last place in the AL West. It's been a pretty damned quick fall, since they were a contender just a year or two ago. Well, at least they're not the absolutely worst team in the whole league. But pretty damned close. The announcers kept talking about their lack of offense, but when you're giving up 10 runs in a game, that doesn't say a whole hell of a lot for your defense, either. Sigh...

The daily rundown, May 5

I woke up quite early in the morning, despite the late night watching hockey. I spent most of the morning doing the usual time-wasting kinds of stuff, reading e-mail, watching the world go by out the window. The girlfriend went to work at about nine, her usual time. I should have left earlier than I did, but I was feeling pretty tired by the middle of the morning, since I was going on about three hours of sleep for the night. I finally did get myself at least somewhat motivated and headed out the door somewhere in the halfway early hours of the morning.

I drove up to the laundromat, whose parking lot again looked pretty full. I knew that I just had to get some laundry done, though, so I trudged inside carrying the girlfriend's laundry first. She has to work right now, and I'm still unemployed, so I figured it would be better to get her clothes done now, and then I could just get mine done whenever I could. Surprisingly, there were actually a number of washers open, and I was able to get all four loads in the washers right away. Both of our dark loads were pretty big, and I was a little concerned that they'd overload the machines. It was actually good that I was concerned, because when I checked the girlfriend's darks, they were merrily churning away with all of the detergent sitting above the water. I pushed everything under and got the detergent to dissolve before closing the lid again and letting them finish. I should have checked mine, too. When her loads stopped, I threw them in the dryer. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember what temperature she'd asked me to dry them at, so I chose the medium heat setting and put them in for two quarters' worth, or 14 minutes. She said that usually dried them all right for her. Then it was over to my loads of laundry. I waited for the spin to finish and then popped open the dark load. The detergent had pretty much just dampened and then crusted onto the top of the clothes. The light load was all right, so I stuck that in to dry while I put the dark load back through the washer, making sure to push everything down after the tub had filled. By the time I had everything settled, the girlfriend's clothes had finished their drying cycle. They were definitely not dry at all. I put them each back in for another 7 minutes. They were better after that, but still kind of damp, but she said that a little damp was all right. I put all of mine in for 21 minutes on high right from the start, and the jeans were still pretty damp when I pulled them out. I still stuffed them into the bag and went home.

While I stood around waiting for clothes to wash and dry, I spent a fair amount of time people watching. It seems that most of the folks there were Hispanic, which isn't really too surprising based on my former experiences with laundromats in Oregon. There was one kind of cute redheaded girl there, but she never really talked to me or anything. Just sat there very quiet and listened to her music on her headphones until her clothes were done. About halfway through my washing, a nice-looking Mexican lady with a small boy came in. I'm glad that it was that late in the event, because the little boy was loud and obnoxious and she didn't seem to really have much concern over him running around beating on things and shrieking at the top of his lungs. At one point, he walked over to where I was sitting, pointed at the magazine I was reading, and said something in childish Spanish. I don't even understand adult Spanish, let alone the little kid version, so I just smiled and said hi to him. He shrieked again and ran off toward his mom. I don't even know whether he wanted the magazine or was just babbling or what, but I hoped he didn't go over and tell her I'd done something or make some other kind of trouble. Fortunately, it seemed that she was busy gossiping with with one of the other ladies there, so she pretty much completely ignored whatever he was saying to her. He was still running around shrieking and pounding on things when I left, so I was glad to get away with my hearing apparently intact. The one other interesting person was a middle aged man, probably about my age give or take a couple of years. I was getting my clothes out of the washer when he leaned over from a couple of machines away and asked me if they were 50 cents. I told him that they were, and he thanked me and continued to put his clothes in. The only reason I thought that was sort of funny is because he reminded me a lot of me. I usually wind up asking silly questions of people or otherwise just standing there watching to try to figure things out. Talking to the girlfriend in the evening, she said he was probably either newly divorced or newly widowed, which I hadn't really thought of. Probably never done his own laundry before...

When I got home, I laid out the girlfriend's clothes flat on her bed so they wouldn't wrinkle too badly. She said she's been known to leave them in the back of her car for a few days, but I just thought it would be better if they weren't all just stuffed in her laundry bag like that. She thanked me when she got home and told me I was sweet. I also hung and folded all of my own stuff before I headed out into the world again.

I drove down to my storage unit and grabbed a couple of things out of there. There were a few magazines that I'm going to put in the recycling bin whenever I get down there and it's not totally full. I also grabbed one or two little things that would either be handy around here, like a USB extension cord that I might be able to use with my keyboard, and my new atlas, which I just think would be cool to have around here. That tiny little bit of cleaning and organizing done, I headed back down University toward the Kroger shopping center.

I didn't really have much to get at the grocery store itself. I needed soda, so I got that and a bag of chips. I checked their price on motor oil, but they only had one or two kinds and they were more expensive than I wanted to pay. I really do need to stop somewhere and get some, but I'm not sure where would be the best place. The girlfriend suggested an auto parts store down the road from her house, so I'll probably stop there one of these evenings. I forgot about the fact that I need to get some more minutes for my phone. I keep getting all these damned telemarketing calls, probably because of the person who had the number before me, and I sometimes answer them if they're a local area number, just in case it's a prospective employer or something. But no, so far it's always been some damned automated calling system. Fuckers.

After Kroger, I went to Tuesday Morning, just down the way a little. We didn't have one of those in Medford, so I figured I'd stop and see what kind of stuff they do have there. Also, the girlfriend said that if I wanted to find Egyptian-themed stuff for Mom, for Mother's Day or whatever, that would be a good place to look. They didn't have any Egyptian stuff that I saw, but damn that place could be dangerous to my bank account. This time around, all I wound up buying were a couple of books, one for me and one for the girlfriend, and a nice silicone spatula for the girlfriend, because she noticed that her old one was starting to get all frayed and ratty looking a few days ago. The book I got for myself was a desserts and cookies baking book, and the one I got for her was a little book of crème brulée recipes, since she likes that particular dessert. There was a cute little redhead working there who I chatted with a little as I paid my tab. Nice little perk. It turns out that she came from California fairly recently, down in the central valley, so she's dealing with some of the same things that I am as far as weather and terrain, although I doubt she has the same traffic issues that I do.

Since I was parked right in the vicinity anyway, I also walked across the parking lot to the 99 cent store, which was plastered all over the place with posters and billboards advertising that nothing is over 99 cents. One of the first things I noticed upon walking into the store was the fact that there were a ton of things that had price stickers on them which read things like $1.29 and $1.49. Which, of course, makes me wonder just a little about the big posters stuck up in the front window. In any case, I still wandered through the whole store looking at what they had. I wound up buying a three-pack of those little two- to three-prong electric plugs, because this room has almost no three-prong outlets for me to plug anything into, and I need at least one or two of them. The girlfriend has a few of those adapters, but I don't want to take all of hers. Those did turn out to be only 99 cents, although I'm still getting used to the fact that 99 cents actually means $1.08 here because of the sales tax. After the 99 cent store, it was back home with me.

By the time I got back home, it was getting relatively late in the afternoon, and I plunked myself down and turned on a baseball game. I didn't really do much else with the remainder of the day. The girlfriend came home a bit later than usual and we watched the rest of the hockey game that was on. We didn't really have much in the way of dinner, just leftover pizza. Cory came out of his room during the hockey game, since the Stars were playing, and we watched a few Doctor Who episodes on his XBox after the hockey was over. I wound up staying up quite a bit later than the girlfriend, because I got kind of wrapped up in a couple of the episodes, and I think it was probably nearly two in the morning before I finally headed upstairs. She was already sound asleep, and it didn't take me long before I, too, was unconscious...

The daily rundown, May 4

The girlfriend and I slept in a little later than usual, since it's her day off. We finally got ourselves in gear in the early afternoon and decided to go do the laundry. We stopped at Walgreen's and so I could get the Sunday newspapers and I also picked up a science sort of magazine that looked interesting. When we got there, the parking lot at laundromat was packed, so we guessed we weren't going to find any open washers and just headed back home. Cory was going to rinse out his ice chest and the bottle recycling container, so I also dragged out my ice chest and got it rinsed at the same time. It had been sitting back there for nearly three weeks since I got here, so it was just about time to get it done. While I was outside, I also took pictures of the car ramps I want to sell on Craigslist, but haven't put up the ads or anything.

Later in the afternoon, the girlfriend wanted to go to Target, so I offered to drive. We took a little bit different route than my usual way of getting there, which is nice. It's handy for me to learn my way around the town a little better. We spent a little while at Target shopping for some Mother's Day presents and such mostly for her mom, stepmother, and sister-in-law, although I did pick up a card and a pair of earrings for Mom. We chatted a little with the girl at the checkstand as though we were a bunch of old friends, and then it was out the door and back toward home. On the way, I was getting a bit hungry, so I asked the girlfriend if she wanted to stop and get something to eat, and she said that would be nice.

We had a couple of possible alternatives, including one place called Garibaldi's that's right down the road from her house. We took a different route back home than they way we went. I actually have taken the way before when I visited here last year, but it's nice to reacquaint myself with that part of town, too. When we were nearly back to her house, before stopping to eat, she remembered that there was a hockey game on, so we turned back to her place to watch that and she said she'd just make something quick to eat. Instead, we wound up ordering pizza from Papa John's. She got a smokehouse bacon chicken thing, and I got the Sicilian classic, which was Italian sausage, pepperoni, and some other Italian meat on a thin crust. It wasn't bad. Certainly not the best pizza ever, but what chain pizza really ever is?

We stayed up way too late watching the hockey. It went to four overtimes before the Stars managed to knock the Sharks out of the playoffs. So I guess now, since my Canadiens and Sharks have both fallen, I'll pull for the home team and be a Stars fan for the rest of the playoffs. I don't know how they'll do against Detroit, though. The Wings look pretty damned good this year. It was nearly three by the time we got to bed. Not good for her, since she had to go to work the next day.

The daily rundown, May 3

Despite the fairly late night at the movies and such, the girlfriend and I got up pretty early in the morning. She had warned me that I would probably be awakened by the annual Cinco de Mayo parade, which goes right down the street past their house. She said it's not really all that uncommon for the low riders and such to make a whole lot of noise. Last year, in fact, they were making so much noise that they actually vibrated one or two of her pictures off the wall, breaking the glass in at least one of the frames.

Apparently, however, the parade keeps getting smaller each year, and, as the girlfriend commented, it seems to get crappier and crappier. This year, they had three or four ladies in the traditional dress, which is one of the few things that the girlfriend actually likes about the parade. There were a few of the low riders, but they weren't even bothering to really play Mexican music. They had a couple of rows of horse riders, maybe a dozen and a half total, but even they weren't really decked out in the traditional garb. Most of the parade was really just cars, usually advertising some candidate or business, towing trailers full of people, many of whom did not even remotely look Hispanic. I grabbed my camera when I saw the horseback riders getting ready to pass in front of the house, but they were already past by the time I got the camera turned on and got to the window where I could take a picture of them. And that was just about the last entry in the parade. Overall, I think it was pretty damned pathetic, but oh well.

The girlfriend wanted to spend some time with Ashley, maybe go out to lunch or something, but Ashley and Cory headed out to an early lunch before the girlfriend and I were ready to go, so that kind of put the nix on that plan. Instead, we headed out to a little place called Yummy's that is just a few blocks away, near the corner of Elm and University. I actually wouldn't have even realized the place was there if she didn't already know about it. It's just a little shop in a strip mall, looks like nothing in particular, and when you walk in, it doesn't really add all that much to those initial impressions. There are various posters, pictures, and Near Eastern memorabilia and such hung on the wall, and it definitely looks like the kind of place that is not run on a tremendously high budget. The guys working there seemed nice enough, though. I think we caught them during their own lunch break, and they were sitting at one of the tables eating. The younger man immediately greeted us and had us sit at whatever table we wanted, then got us drinks. He didn't have to provide us with menus, as those were under the glass tabletops. The restaurant, though it primarily advertises as Greek food, is actually a mix of various Near Eastern cuisines, including Greek and Lebanese pretty predominantly. We asked the gentleman for some idea of what some of the less familiar dishes were, and he told us the differences between several of the items whose names I cannot now remember. The girlfriend ordered a gyro, and I ordered a falafel supreme sandwich. Both sandwiches were very good and very filling, and we left with our wallets only a little lighter but feeling very full and satisfied with the choice.

We hung around the house for a little while before she had to go off to work. Unfortunately, we found out that there might be something of an issue with her and Greek food. A while after she went to work, she called and asked me to bring the bottle of antacids to her when I drove down to Dallas to meet with the possible band prospect. Judging from the symptoms she was having, we think there might have been a little bit of spinach in the dish, and she's somewhat allergic to it. Overall, it didn't seem to do a whole lot of damage, but it did make her day at work a little miserable and she was nauseous for a fair amount of the night. We'll have to ask the next time we go up there. She said the same thing's happened with Greek food with her before. It doesn't seem like there was anything bad about the food, no off odors or anything, so either it just didn't set right with her, or it was the allergy.

At around 3:30 or so, I packed my bass and the needed accessories into the car. The band said they already had a bass amp, so that was at least one little thing that I didn't really need to worry about. I headed off down the road, feeling a bit nervous about actually finding the place. I printed out some instructions and such, but that's an area that I've never even been to before. Even the girlfriend said she's not really familiar with that part of Dallas, so I was really driving around blind as far as what to expect. I did print out a map and directions for a couple of alternate routes before I left, and I had my maps in the car, so I figured I couldn't really get all that lost. I just expected to find myself in the middle of some gang-ridden area of town having no freaking clue where I was heading. It didn't turn out that bad, although I did have to make a few loops around blocks and missed more than one turn that I shouldn't have.

The meeting was at a nice little house on a residential street. I was greeted and introduced to the two other band members who were present. The guy who I was e-mailing had told me that it was a female-fronted band, but there was no woman present, and I inquired about that. It turns out that there really isn't a front person committed to the band yet, and the girl who might be taking on that role isn't totally sure that she wants the job yet. Seems that she has other irons in the fire at the moment. So between the combination of that and the type of music they were planning to play, which is a lot more "dance" than it is "rock," I decided to take a pass on the gig and move on toward other things. Half an hour or so later, and I was heading back up the freeway toward Denton.

I got back home in the relatively late part of the evening. I was pretty surprised to see that no one else was around the house, but I guess the girlfriend went out shopping after work. I thought about watching the hockey game that was on, but I figured it would already be mostly over, and I got involved in reading through some of my e-mail and such anyway. I was still doing that when the girlfriend finally did get home. We had a pretty light dinner of sandwiches and chatted a little about our respective days before retiring for the evening...

The daily rundown, May 2

We slept in a little late this morning because the girlfriend was working the late shift and didn't have to leave until almost eleven. When I finally did get up, I fed the little bratling before checking the mail and such. I got replies back from the dance rock band guy and from the other guitarist I'd written to. The band is going to get together Saturday at 6, which should be an interesting drive if nothing else, as they're in the east part of Dallas, an area that even the girlfriend isn't all that familiar with. I need to call the guitarist and see where he's at and when would be a good time to get together. Haven't heard back from Bryan, the other guitarist, for a week or so, so I'm not sure what's up with him. He did say he was on call for a week, but I think that should be over by now. I'll have to send him off a message and find out what's up.

I tried calling the IRS office in Dallas to find out about my bonus payment thing, which they'll probably try to direct deposit but won't be able to because I closed that account. Unfortunately, the local office doesn't have anything over the phone but a recording, and I didn't want to waste all of my minutes waiting on hold with the 800 number, which I think is national. I guess I'll either get it when they mail it or else I won't get it at all. Damn it. I should run down to the Farmer's Branch IRS office, but I've been having a hard enough time getting myself motivated to do anything at all, let alone drive there just to ask a stupid question that they probably won't be able to answer for me anyway.

I spent most of the remainder of the morning and early afternoon alternately reading e-mails and doing a few other very minor little things around the place. But I definitely should have gone out and at least got the laundry done. The girlfriend says she has almost nothing to wear, and I'm getting pretty close to that same situation myself. Unfortunately, I was too lazy to do so, damn it.

The girlfriend called from work and asked if I could go to the theater and pick up four tickets for the last showing of Iron Man. I told her I would, but by the time I was getting ready to leave, Cory came home. I told him that I needed to go do that, but that I wasn't sure where the theater was exactly, so he offered to drive and get the tickets for himself and Danielle, leaving me to just pay for mine and the girlfriend's, which was nice. We drove up to the theater, which isn't very far away, and bought our four tickets for the 10 PM show. Tickets were only $5.00 a pop, which is pretty nice.

After we'd purchased the tickets, Cory said that he was pretty hungry, so we headed down to Sweetwater for some lunch, or dinner, or whatever you'd call it. I guess Friday is corned beef and cabbage night there, so he had that and I had the blackened cheeseburger and fries. We talked about fishing and the fact that there are no tall buildings in Medford and a few other oddball things while we ate. The service today was much better than it was when the girlfriend and I went there, and apparently it was worlds better than the last time she and some other friends went. She described the waitress that time as generating Doppler effect as she flew by. We had the same waitress a different time and she seemed to do all right, but I'm happy that we had a different waiter and he was quite prompt and efficient this time around.

During our meal, Cory got a call which was evidently from his sister, Ashley, and she was going to be able to join us for the movie, so we had to go back up to the theater and get another ticket for her. That done, we headed back to home. Cory went back into his room to do whatever he does there, and I plunked my butt down in front of the tube and started watching a baseball game. When the girlfriend got home from work, that was pretty much what I was still doing. She did the late shift, so we had to pretty much head on out the door pretty shortly after she got home. Danielle got here a little while before we left, and we all bundled into Danielle's car for the ride to the theater. Ashley was going to meet us there, since she had to drive in from out of town. I'm not sure where she lives exactly, but it can't be all that terribly far away for her to come up here to take in a movie, but evidently it's at least a couple hours' drive.

She did get there before the show actually started, and we actually managed to get seats that were all adjacent, which was kind of nice. Some of the people standing outside expected that we'd have a hard time finding four seats in a row, but we got there and got seated early enough that it wasn't even an issue. There were a lot of different places we could have planted ourselves, but we took a spot about two-thirds of the way back in the theater and on the right hand side. Cory had mentioned before that he didn't really like the sound system at that theater, but it sounded just fine to me. Of course, I also am pretty easygoing when it comes to details like that, so who's to say... The seats at the theater have a nice little bar shelf in front of them, and they have waitstaff wander through before the movie starts, taking orders for a nice variety of dishes and drinks. Of course, because they can't serve hard liquor, the drinks are a little different than they would be at a bar. I ordered something called the Blue Thing, which was their combination of tequila and blue curacao, maybe with something else added, I don't recall. Sort of a blue margarita type thing, served in a margarita glass with salt on the rim and all of that good stuff. Fortunately also served with a straw, because I really don't like putting my mouth around a rimful of salt. The girlfriend warned me that the blue thing was usually pretty sour, but I didn't find it to be too bad. Definitely a bit of a citrus bite to it, but at this point, having had nothing else at the Movie Tavern, that will be my drink of choice. Later, I'll try some other stuff, but so far it's the front-runner.

The movie itself was pretty entertaining. I'm not usually a big one for movies based on comic books and such, and I'm not incredibly familiar with that particular story, but it kept me amused for the couple of hours that I was there. The company was also pretty fun, which helped a lot. It's going to be nice being able to go to movies with other people now, instead of going by myself like I did in Oregon, which meant that I rarely went at all. I have the feeling that I'll probably be attending at least one, probably two or three, movies per month now that I'm down here. I'm not going to go into a big review of the movie, because it's already been done all over the web. Suffice to say it was worth the cost of the ticket, and I can't really ask for too much more than that.

After the movie was over, we returned to the house and sat around and had a few more drinks and talked about various things. Just general party chit-chat for the most part, plus talking about the movie and the fact that there will probably be a sequel, judging from the little ending part that we waited around to see. Danielle went home after a while, probably at about one in the morning, but Ashley stayed the night on the couch downstairs. The girlfriend and I crashed out fairly late, but that was all right because we didn't have too much that we needed to do in the morning, and she didn't have to go to work until the late shift...

The daily rundown, May 1

I got up fairly early again. I fed the little bratling and then browsed through some of the e-mail backlog. I wrote back to the guy from the dance band, telling him I might be out of the area tomorrow, but would be back for the weekend. I also wrote to another guy who I'd contacted before leaving Oregon. He is a drummer who was seeking musicians. Unfortunately, he replied and said that he was really mostly looking for a band which needed a drummer, not to start a new band, so I told him that I'd keep his address and if I got into a band situation and we needed a drummer, I'd drop him a line. I also sent off a note to another one of the earlier musicians I'd talked to, a guitarist seeking others to jam with, but I haven't heard back from him yet. He probably has a job or something.

I checked through some of the papers for jobs, but, once again, I haven't applied to any of them yet. Most of the morning was e-mailing the musicians and looking through the papers. I went downstairs and watched a baseball game around noon or so. The girlfriend came home for lunch, but she wasn't in a really great mood and went upstairs to have some alone time while I sat and watched more of the game. Unfortunately, the rest of the afternoon and the evening were very uneventful and I didn't really get very much of anything done. Watched some hockey, got a little more caught up on my e-mail, but that's just about the extent of things. I was going to go do the laundry, again, but wound up just being pretty much lazy for most of the day and didn't really accomplish anything useful that I was supposed to do. The girlfriend, Cory (the roommate), and I decided to go watch Iron Man at the theater they have here in town on Friday evening. It's called the Move Tavern, and they evidently serve beer and such there. No hard liquor, but they apparently do have some flavored alcohols that taste something like real booze. Hopefully it will be a decent movie and we'll all have a fun time. Danielle (the friend who came to the Jazz Festival with us) is probably going to be there, too, and I might even get the chance to meet Ashley, who is Cory's sister and a friend of the girlfriend.

After the hockey and a few drinks on my part, the girlfriend and I wandered off to bed, trying to make it at least something of an early night...