There is no italicized subtitle for this one.

Another birthday come and gone. This year I really did have a good time - and oddly enough, I managed to incorporate my family into my stupidity... normally those two things are kept very, VERY separate. However I suppose as I get older, it becomes silly to hide how much of an idiot I really am.

I had originally anticipated this year to be similar to last year, wherein I take myself out to dinner, sing "happy birthday to me" go home, get drunk, and try to take advantage of myself after slipping myself a mickey.

This time people actually called me!! My mom and her boyfriend took me out to a really nice sushi place where I started hitting the crown and cokes like Rocky on the speed bag. We must have spent a good 3 hours there, our waitress was awesome - and she even came and sat with us a bit when her shift was over. (What can I say? I'm just a lot of fun) :P

Anyways, after we got back to my place, my aunt came by and my friends were starting to give me the obligatory calls, and then EVERYONE ended up invited to my place. Thus were the beginnings of a totally spur of the moment party - which was also a great suprise. My friends know better than to get me anything, but they always bring me a bottle of Jack or Crown for my b-day. It's some weird tradition that got started somehow like 5 years ago. I don't know who's idea it was originally, but it makes for a really full liquor cabinet! :D

So after a few rounds of boozing, we all decide it's time to break out the 'Scene It' - which for those of you who haven't played this game with a bunch of friends on your 360, I highly recommend you do so. It's a blast, and it really helps loosen up the ones who might not be having a lot of fun. (Note: For the ones who are already having fun, there is a good chance they'll increase their personal volumes to reflect the increase in fun. Mute them with a straw in a glass of straight vodka or whiskey. i.e. alchy-bottle)

Saturday started out kind of rough, but considering how much I actually drank, it wasn't bad! The day began again, and although my birthday was over, I still had to go see the rest of my family. This time I went to my grandmothers house, where eventually everyone else gathered. Including a very slow moving mom and Chris (her boyfriend) which was hilarious to me for some reason. We ordered from this Italian place not to far from here, and had a great meal. After we disbursed, I ended up back here at home, where I was eventually kidnapped by a friend and taken downtown to a place called 'Pub Fiction' - for those of you who want to know what kind of bar it is, pubfiction.com should sum it up for you. (Just click on photos.. that should pretty much do it) I don't remember a lot of that night.... but Sunday absolutely SUCKED.


Lucky me though - I took Monday through Wednesday off from work. Yesterday was more along the lines of 'pain in the a$$' than vacation though. As some of you may know, my computer committed suicide a few weeks ago by setting fire to itself. I was holding out for a new laptop... but I'm only so strong. I broke down and headed WAY out to Fry's Electronics, where I picked up a new case, mobo, and cpu. I pulled the case out of the box, and immediately noted that the thing was about 1 and a half times bigger than my previous incarnation. A definite step backwards for me, as I had built the last one with the express intention of NOT having a gargantuan computer taking up a whole room ala HAL or H-VAC. Whatever it was called. None the less, I moved foward, desperate to rejoin the internet world. I had the case in pieces, the motherboard was out of it's box and set firmly in place within the case... the cpu went in, and the cables were meticulously attached to the proper places on the motherboard.

Ram.

I forgot the ******* RAM. Naturally my old mobo doesn't use this new-fangled gadgetry, so it was useless, as is my AGP nvidia card, and BOTH of my hard drives. New board has ONE, that is 1 as in not two but ONE ide slot. Which is automatically relegated to the dvd drive. The hard drives have to be connected via SATA. Which, of course, mine are (once again) too old to have such fancy-schmancy-ness.

So away to Best Buy I go. Once inside I start looking at hard drives. 1TB sata drive is about 200 bucks... not bad I guess... so I grabbed it. Gritting my teeth as my mind works to justify this nonsense. I then go for ram. Theres a sale for a 2mb stick for about 50 bucks. So I grab one of those. Oh right the video card... a decent one is going to run me another 200 bucks, so I grab that. My arms are loaded. I get the idea that I should grab a USB jump drive... Theres a 16gb one for about 35 bucks. I'm thinking this will assist me in transferring anything on my other two drives worth saving to the new sata drive. As I began to make my slow painful walk to the check out counter, I stop in the laptop section. I looked at them. Then looked at all the crap in my arms. 450 bucks on a case, mobo and cpu... another 500+ in my arms. Good LORD. Why don't I just get a damn laptop!? My mind spun the angles... it's what I've been wanting, it's not *much* more expensive than building a new one with similar specs, and although it wouldn't be the ultimate beast I wanted - it would still blow my old system out of the water no matter what I got. So I put all that crap back on the shelves and took off. I boxed up everything and drove BACK to Fry's to return this junk. The case they took back no problem. The motherboard? Missing a cable, and apparently a 'pin' was slightly bent. No go. So I drove ALL THE WAY back home, found the stupid cable and threw it in the box, I found the pin they were oh so picky about, and manuevered it back into a shape similar to the ones around it...

This morning I, once again, drove all the way the hell out to Fry's, racking up probably a good 100 miles in roundtrips to this place, and about 9 bucks on the tollway fares. Returned the mobo and cpu with no problems. (imagine that!) and made my escape from desktop land.

I now write this to you in the comfort of my living room from a brand new laptop. Which must now be restarted as it is finished updating itself. For you spec monkeys, it's a Gateway P-7811FX should you care to know.

I know I love it. :D

_________
Update (2) :


I have delved once again into the land of XBL Gold Membership so I can partake in the reindeer games of old. Add me if you haven't already. (Valek1394 for those of you who don't see the gamertag glaring at you from the shadows)