…because R* is complaining that I haven’t really posted anything on ME in a couple weeks. And I must please my public.

R*’s birthday was in late March, but the formal observation thereof wasn’t until April 2 (thanks to some scheduling conflicts). His friends J&J (who hosted a small corned beef and cabbage event in mid-March) held a dinner for him and invited two of his other friends and me; we had a delicious shrimp orzo followed by Death by Chocolate (that’s the name of the cake, I swear) and some exquisite coffee (done in a Moka pot). Followed that up with a game of semi-multi-lingual Taboo, in which my team lost (thanks J*) but in which I managed to pick “Citizen Kane” out of thin air after hearing just the word “movie”.

On April 5, I WENT TO THE CARDINALS HOME OPENER. More on that in a separate post, so that the non-baseballers can skip it.

Later that week I went to another ballgame, this time with my co-workers. The game sucked, it was chilly, and the wind was in our faces the whole time, but I still had a good time.

I had Good Friday off. Slept in, mostly.

Easter was OK; Ed and I were compelled to attend a non-sunrise service with our parents, so we sat in the front row and tried to make the choir laugh. It worked, most effectively on our mother and youngest brother. Easter dinner was a delicious smoked chicken (or, rather, two delicious smoked chickens).

That’s all that springs to mind at the moment; if I think of more stuff I’ll post it here.

Yes, I’ve been blogslacking. Shut up.

So - starting with the day I left off:

• Wednesday, 10 March - I had to take Nigel in for his 25K-mile service (yes I named my car; if you’ve read this thing for any length of time you’d know that). They’d have to keep him there for a while so the dealer arranged for me to have a rental car. It was a Chevy Aveo. I haaaaated it. It had a high center of gravity, an A-column running diagonally across the middle of my field of vision, shook violently at about 60MPH (once it finally got going that fast), took major biceps to steer, had an automatic transmission (ick!), and absorbed all the road-feel except for the nasty bumps.
  
• Thursday, 11 March - Still had the Crapmobile Aveo and was glued to my chair eagerly awaiting the dealer’s phone call. Alas, it did not come that day.

  As I was coming home from work Ed called and asked me to pick up our youngest brother from our parents’ place, which meant I had to take That Thing on the highway. Eww. Nasty. Don’t ask me about that part; those are not pleasant memories.
  

• Friday, 12 March - Hooray! Hooray! I got Nigel back! I dropped off the Ickymobile at the rental place and picked up my beloved from the dealer. It was a beautiful day so we took the scenic route through Forest Park, zipping around corners and roundabouts and up and down hills. DAMN, I missed doing that.

  I got so involved in my exultations that I almost forgot to start that night’s dinner - tandoori chicken. This time, at the grocery store, I was able to find boneless skinless thighs, which seems odd in some way, but which is much more flavorful than breast meat and less prone to flare-ups than non-skinless thighs (skinful thighs?).

  After I got home from work - and I got VERY little work done that afternoon - I ran by the g-store again and got beer and some asparagus. We made a “raft” with the asparagus on bamboo skewers (then basted the raft with olive oil and dusted it with salt) and grilled it alongside the chicken; it gave the asparagus a nice smoky-sweet flavor. I did have problems with the raft, though; the thinner spears split and fell into the coals. Next time, I’ll have to get thicker spears.
  

• Saturday, 13 March - I didn’t do too much. Burned a new mix CD (since I owe some of you a disc from last year, this will be the apologetic extra), went to R*’s for dinner (a so-so Mexican place near him), made yummy lemon-blueberry muffins out of Weetabix, and basically just chilled. I’m really not sure how the regular Saturday-night-hangout-with-R* thing developed, but it did, and we’re sticking to it until something else develops. (Aside from R*’s sparkling wit and the delish food, the SNHWR* thing is nice because I can always beg off meeting some random troll. “Oh, sorry, I already had plans to hang out with my friend R* that night.”)
  
• Sunday, 14 March - I went to church. With my mother. It was a Baptist church. Oh my. At least this time I didn’t have to explain immersive baptism to anybody.

  Afterwards I did my taxes and ate corned beef and cabbage. Yay.
  

• Monday, 15 March - Um, I worked. It was payday. I did a draft for a fantasy baseball league consisting of various persons I know through Café Utne. I paid some bills. Nothing particularly exciting, although that assessment may change as the fantasy-league season progresses.
  
• Tuesday, 16 March - Finished the draft, got some work done, etc.
  
• Wednesday, 17 March - St. Patrick’s Day! I got to preach the whole “parallel to Pride” sermon once or twice; most of you have heard it so I won’t repeat it here, but it’s in the March 2003 volume if you want to read there.

  One of my co-workers brought in corned beef and cabbage for the whole office, and I have to admit her beef was exquisite. Apparently the trick is to keep the brisket in the water until mere seconds before you eat it; otherwise it dries out too fast.
  

• Thursday, 18 March - I was on FIRE at work. I re-wrote the software that runs a large internal mailing list and the software that runs a capital improvements workflow database, and finally discovered the elusive method for automating address-book synchronization.

  That night I became a registered, card-carrying Democrat. So there.
  

• Friday, 19 March - More work; more debugging; more repetition.

  Friday night I had to work; a remote location was having carpet replaced in an office that housed the bulk of its network infrastructure, and because they’d have to unplug everything to move it out we got called to make sure everything was taken down and put back up as nicely as possible. (You’d be surprised at how many branches DON’T call us until they’ve fucked everything up.) The netadmin and I struck a deal - I went out Friday night, and he went out early Saturday morning - so I found myself crawling around labeling jacks, bundling cables, and shoving things around while perfectly sober at 11 o’clock on a Friday night. Ah, well, I get OT for it.

  Got home late, watched some old Cowboy Bebop episodes, and went to bed.
  

• Saturday, 20 March - Slept in, because of the previous night’s escapades. Went to R*’s for dinner - or, rather, to his other friends’ place. They had corned beef and cabbage. R* claimed that was his first CB&C experience but I don’t believe him; J&J’s son had a more legitimate claim to “first CB&C”, seeing as how he’s quite young. We followed up the main course with a heavenly chocolate dessert (dark chocolate, hazelnuts, and raspberry puree, coated in a dark-chocolate ganache; R* and I had 6 apiece) and a movie (”The Recruit” - predictable but with eye candy [and I am NOT talking about Colin Farrell]). I still have some of those chocolate thingys.
  
• Sunday, 21 March - Slept in, because of the previous night’s escapades. Went to my mother’s for dinner, and cleaned up their computer while there (it needed some help, and may yet require a rebuild). Afterwards I went shopping, ha-ha-how-gay-am-i. (Seriously, though, I’ve added enough muscle that several pairs of pants no longer fit, and I was at the critical buy-pants-or-go-to-work-naked stage.)
  
• Monday, 22 March - Finished up my projects from last week, and started gearing up for a hardware migration on the big DB server this coming weekend (oy).
  
• Tuesday, 23 March - Spent a major chunk of morning writing this executive summary. There will be more, pending this evening’s developments.

+++

Hey - go update your anti-virus definitions already! And while you’re at it, please disable that stupid automatic “You’re infected!” responder - considering that every major virus of the past 2 or 3 years spoofs its return address (lies about its origins; tells untruths about where it comes from; YOU DIDN’T FUCKING SEND THAT, OK?!?!), those are more spam than anything else.

+++

So I scored tickets to Cardinals Opening Day. Guess who’s throwing out the first pitch? Yup, it’s President Fuckchop (note lack of strikethrough). Woo-frickin’-hoo, life in a swing state is sooooo wonderful.

+++

Um, there’s a new Crush Boy, whom I may be seeing tonight. More on that later; it’s time to lift weights now.

I’m just a blogslacker extraordinaire, aren’t I?

So since the upgrade… well, let’s see.

• Flag Boy and I are no longer officially an item.
  
• Work’s been related mostly to this upgrade - figuring out how and when to upgrade users to the new mail client and template, tweaking custom apps for the newer/more robust server platform, etc.
  
• R* came over while his car was in the shop and I made him Trini curry; then Ed brought his new GF over and we all sat around and ate. For dessert, we had kataifi and Choco Leibniz (the dark chocolate variety). Wish I could have gone for bubble tea, though.
  

Still writing up what happened to me over the weekend. Patience.

Yeah. 2 weeks is a long time to let it remain idle. Shut up already.