Dammit, I missed yesterday’s update. I find it harder to update at my new apart­ment, since I’m right next to the liv­ing room and there­fore more eas­ily distracted.

OK, so Sat­ur­day… woke up and went to a ser­vice project I hadn’t even signed up for. It was because Peggy remem­bered sign­ing up for it, but hadn’t been con­tacted by the chair. There wasn’t much I could do about it, though, since the web­site was down, so I had no idea who the chair was, and couldn’t give them the sign-​up list even if I did know. So I just assumed no one but Peggy was going, and went with her to replace some­one. I swear, the down web­site will be the death of me.

Any­ways, the project was slow and easy. We were show­ing a designer show­case model home at $20 a per­son, and all ben­e­fits go to the Sacra­mento Children’s Home — specif­i­cally their Sacra­mento Cri­sis Nurs­eries, which are for babies who need to be taken out of trou­bled homes. Peggy got the game room and I got the garage. We just kinda stood around and told the vis­i­tors a bit about the room and where they are sup­posed to go next. Frank Fats’ fam­ily went through while we were there.

After that, we went home, and I played Utopia for a while. It’s an inter­est­ing con­cept for a web-​based game, but so freak­ing slow-​paced. From the time you sign up, you have to wait three days before you can inter­act with other play­ers. It’s def­i­nitely not like that old game I used to play fresh­man year… I think it was called “King­doms” or some­thing like that. That one was a com­bi­na­tion of real-​time and turn-​based, sim­i­lar to Fall­out Tac­tics, and the game-​play was a lot sim­plier and faster. Still, Utopia looks to be pretty fun once I really get rolling. Damn you, Thu H and Jimmy P for giv­ing me yet another online addiction!

Got caught up on my web­comics, and then it was time for Joe M’s birth­day bar­beque. Except no one was here yet. Not even Joe M. Julie C and Eddie L came over with most of the sup­plies, fol­lowed by BB and Bran­don with a few remain­ing items. Sat around a waited for a bit. Then Joe M came home.

Except it wasn’t Joe M. ops: It was just some­one who had a sim­i­lar voice and pos­ture. He looked us funny, and we all strug­gled not to look even cra­zier by laugh­ing our heads off.

Then Joe M really came home. We could tell by the revving as he came through the Avalon entrance. Peo­ple showed up, and the party began. I grilled, and there­fore was well-​fed once again. The cake was good. The drinks were good. Bran­don brought a propane torch, and we had a lot of fun with it. Then inside for a lit­tle bit of Smash Bros, and Bran­don busted out the pro­jec­tor and we watched Final Fan­tasy — Advent Chil­dren on the wall of the lounge. It was amazing.

Then there was a bit more chill­ing at our place, but I was get­ting tired, so I passed out pretty early.