So let’s see… roll out of bed around 9:30, play CoH, pick up Erica from her writing workship (her three-and-a-half page story was, apparently, very well received), try to go to Chang’s for lunch, realize they’re not open yet, start heading back towards home, have brainstorm of going just a bit further south to the Family Fun Center in Wilsonville, go and eat there, play 18 holes of minigolf (I have the scorecard but haven’t tabulated everything yet, though just glancing at all those 2s in Erica’s column would seem like a clue, wouldn’t it?), watch Erica play in the bumperboats and Alex drive around in the go-kart track (dude, I don’t have the nerve to do that!), go to Fry’s (it was right there after all) for parts I needed, come home, eat dinner, play lots more CoH.

Yeah, this was definitely one of the better Saturdays so far this year. Heh.

A milestone was reached last night, after many months of playing City of Heroes: With Dawn’s help, my main character (a sword-slinging scrapper who goes by the improbable name of Woods Cutter) reached Level 26, which allowed him to get the Stamina power. (Yes, I know you can get it earlier than that. My build required that I get some other powers first.)

Why is this so special? Well, Stamina helps you recover Endurance faster… and (almost) everything you do costs Endurance. Once I slot up Endurance a bit, I’ll be able to fight more effectively and keep my defensive toggle powers running more reliably. This is a very good thing.

I celebrated this achievement by getting my butt handed to me by a very nasty boss. Ah well. Them’s the breaks.

Today, I rolled out of bed around ten o’clock, and for some reason decided that trying out my recently-purchased (go ahead and laugh) Civilization III would be a good idea. One install and two patches later, I was in.

Three hours after that, my phone rang. Oops, I’d totally lost track of time, and there was a get-together at Mari and Doug’s to go to. So a quick shower and bit of packing later, off we all went. And by “we all” I mean Lilith and Geoffrey and the demonspawn and the boyfriend of one of the demonspawn. (Yes, it was quite a carload trekking west today.)

We had a lot of fun, including watching of DVDs, dining out on Chinese food, and playing Carcassonne. Yes, I’ve suckered even more people into playing my new favorite non-electronic game. Today we tried out the “Traders and Builders” expansion that Mari gifted me with a few weeks ago, and once we got the hang of it we got quite a kick out of the game. Geoffrey made a very good showing out of his first couple of games, while Mari absolutely obliterated us in our first go-around.

Obliterated, I say. As in, there are 50 points on the score card, and the Meeple in your color indicates the score by position on that card. As you lap the score card, the general practice is to change the position of the Meeple to show how many laps he’s done. He starts out standing, then goes face down, then sort of sideways (“flying like Superman” is one phrase heard during that first game) and then… well, we decided that once Mari had done enough laps on the score card we just went ahead and stood her Meeple up again. Yes, that’s right: Mari racked up over 150 points in a single game. Nobody else even came close.

In the future, I’m definitely seeing about finding some better way to keep score. Yes indeedy.

Anyway, it was a fun afternoon and evening full of laughter, food, good-natured competition and all of that good stuff. Thanks to Mari and Doug for inviting everyone over!

“Hello, this is So-and-so, my number is blah blah blah, yadda yadda, extension such-and-such. It’s very important that you call me back. This is not a sales or solicitation call.”

Here’s a clue, people. If you don’t tell me either who you represent or what the call is about, preferably both, you are not getting a call back from me. Period. Have a nice day. (And by “nice” I mean something else entirely.)

Now, you expect things like:

• Being called into work around midnight
• Having hardware go mysteriously missing
• Only to have the whole thing end up being a misunderstanding
• Missing not one but two buses in a row
• Having trouble administering email… again
• Being stuck in a conference call with nothing to contribute
• Forgetting to take the allergy meds, and
• Having a network problem at work that directly affects your girlfriend

…to be the sort of accumulated stressors you’d deal with on a Monday. But no, that was today. Yesterday was a much more relaxing day, for the most part.

Let us make this clear, to whoever’s in charge of this sort of thing: Tuesday is not the new Monday. Thank you.

So what kind of idiot packs for a two-day trip and includes toothpaste, toothbrush, hairbrush, electric shaver, socks, shirts, handkerchiefs, phone charger, portable-stereo charger, gifts for his girlfriend, book to read, sweater, deodorant, umbrella and camera… and forgets to pack underwear?

Not that you need two guesses, but, yes indeed I am that kind of idiot.

Well, it was a good weekend with Dawn… and we were planning on doing some clothes shopping anyway, so it all worked out in the end. We ate well, we played games, we shopped ‘til we dropped (no kidding, we slept most of the last half of Saturday away), and generally enjoyed the heck out of our too-brief time together. Yay!

Is it wrong for me to sit here and gloat about the fact that not only are my taxes already filed, but that I’ve already received my refund?

Oh, it is? Well, I guess I shouldn’t do that, then.

Heh.

In other news, I’ll be in Seattle for the weekend. Behave yourselves while I’m gone. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, yadda yadda yadda.