Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

So ... completed another lap. Still not in the lead, but I haven't fallen any farther behind, so I guess I'm keeping pace.[*]

I had a good time last night. As noted earlier, the guitar recital was awesome. As a listener, exquisitely pleasant; as another guitarist, humbling. Went out to a restaurant for something resembling an after-party, and discovered a new beer to add to the small list of beers-Glenn-likes: Pepper Stout. I didn't notice the trace amount of habernero pepper mentioned in the blurb on the menu, but I did notice the effect os using peppercorns in place of hops. (And just last weekend I was talking to a homebrewer about wanting to try more ales that use something other than hops!)

As expected, the price of a fun evening is an ouchy, tired next day. I'm moving in slow motion and bothered by hyperacusis, so it's probably just as well that I hadn't made elaborate plans for my birthday (and if I had made such plans, this paragraph would be more of a complaint instead of the casual observation that it is).

Sheepie had wanted to know what I was doing for my birthday, and I suggested casual, last-minute decision-making based on how each of us felt when we woke up. I just spoke to her, and we've decided to go out for low-key birthday pizza this evening (probably 18:30-ish, in or near Baltimore). I figure that even though I'm sufficiently worn out from last night that I maybe should stay in and rest, I think I can handle a second outing in a row, and would like to do something a little social today. It's probably more work than I'm up to, to try to recruit more dinner companions, but if you're in the area and want to try to meet up, hit my phone (SMS preferred, but I'll try to be better than usual about answering calls today) to find out where we wind up and what the timing winds up being. Not expecting anyone, but better to mention it than to have someone tell me next week, "Hey, I would have liked to come along".

[Perrine, would you be so kind as to remove your claw from my left nipple? Thanks. Yes, you've got my attention, but I'm trying to type right now. Ah, that's better.]

Thank you, to all the folks who've posted birthday greetings, left birthday comments, written on my Facebook 'wall', etc.. I'll try to get around to personal replies later, but don't want to get caught up in doing so now and wind up not being ready when Sheepie arrives as a result. And happy birthday to badgerthorazine, whose birthday it is today as well!

The downside to yesterday was getting stuck in stop-and-go traffic on I-95 on the way to the recital, and getting there nearly an hour later than intended (and a few minutes after the start). I was terribly stressed about this, because I'd been asked to bring an amplifier and microphone. As it turned out, maugorn had had appropriate gear in his car, and was able to supply what was needed. *whew* While I was stuck in traffic, I saw five tow trucks and one police car go by on the shoulder; when I finally got to the scene of the blockage, there was a fire engine. Dunno what happened, but apparently it was major. When I tweeted about being stuck and worrying about being late, I accidentally freaked out a bandmate a little -- he phoned to ask whether there was a gig he'd forgotten about. Then, since my radio isn't working, I asked for traffic info (which included the extremely helpful clue that the B/W Parkway was jammed up even worse, so trying to get over to that wouldn't help).

The other bit of bad news yesterday was that one of my cameras turned out to be broken when I loaded film it it. Fortunately, I had brought spare cameras. (I also shot some digital photos, which I need to edit and email later.)

The DTV converters I ordered weeks ago finally arrived yesterday, and I plugged one in before I got on the road. So I seem to have gotten last night's episode of Dollhouse (I haven't watched the first episide yet -- I taped that too), but got lots of dropouts and compression glitches on a show on another channel. (First experience: I got better reception with analog. Next experiment: see whether I can afford one o' them newfangled DTV antennae.) Oddly, the converter wanted to turn itself off due to "inactivity" in the middle of a show that I had told it I wanted it to turn itself on for. Fortunately, that happened after I'd already gotten home, so it didn't actually stop the recording in the middle. So far the big difference I see with DTV is that there are more channels available (same stations as before, but multiple digital channels per), but changing channels is a PITA. More notes on that as I get used to this (and plug in the other box (and, uh, open the user-manual (hey, they at least made it intuitive enough (to an experienced gadget-user) that I could just pop it out of the box, plug it in, stick batteries in the remote, and start using it, without looking at the quick-start guide -- if they'd messed up the interface enough that I had to read something (for an appliance that ought to be that obvious to set up), I would be griping about lousy design.))

I still have a backlog of Stuff I Meant To Post, but this will do for the moment.

So: today pizza and then trying to catch up on thank-yous. Tomorrow, probably collapsing in a heap, unless I can convince folks they want to have a jam session to take advantage of Lucas Imbiriba's brief presence in Baltimore. Monday, I try again to make it to 3LF rehearsal.

[*] I think that someday, just to be able to say I'd done it, I need to pick a spot that will be the furthest-forward in the path of Earth's orbit at some point during a day of the year when I can get to that spot, and spend a day there. Just so I can say that "I was in the lead for a moment, once". To make this easy to calculate, I guess I could pick a day when the answer is "any spot on the equator".