another 4th done with, this one was as good as most. first time i've ever actually stood between 2 firework shows simultaneously, so that was the cool part. still scratchin the damn mosquito bites, though.

friday night was kathryn's housewarming party, which in some ways was awesome, just that we stayed prolly longer than we should've. she has a ridiculously nice house for an almost-26 year old, and they had plenty of booze to pick from. a single guy certainly would've enjoyed the eye candy there. hell, i guess a single girl would have too. fuckin meat market in there. it was a lot different than we expected though (i took alayna) in that not that many people showed up from work (couldn't have been any more than a dozen) although a good 40+ were invited from work, so i was a little surprised by that. once it got past 11, midnight though things just totally changed, not completely for the worse or anything but it just completely changed into a rowdy college party. hell those are fun too, just that i didn't really see that coming. kat's friends from florida all came in town for it and they get pretty damn rowdy after enough booze, so we got to the point where we just sorta felt like we didn't really fit in anymore (after a while all we really knew was kat). but it was mostly cool, alayna and kat finally met after many failed attempts and luckily they liked each other. the highlight of the night was kat and laynie salsa dancing on the hardwood floor in the kitchen. i'd easily say that was sex-on-a-stick, heh. we'll hafta see if their desire to go salsa dancing sometime actually comes to fruition. it was a well executed party though, good drinks and food and pretty much everybody i talked to threw out good vibes. i'll be surprised if kat remembers most of it though, heh. and props to alayna for throwing back so many jello shots and not being a pussy with the brew.

at least the gamecube's gettin plenty of love lately. a few weekends now lauren, alayna, sometimes zach, and i break out the mario kart shine thief battle mode and consume the obligatory liquor simultaenously. if people weren't driving afterwards you could easily make a drinking game out of that one, heh. due to how long we can play it straight i'd say it wins as far as everybody's favorite party game, at least from my selection. luckily lauren picked it up today for her cube too, which can only encourage yet more 150cc mirror mode racing and shine thief madness. mario golf has proven pretty damn fun by myself, but thus far nobody really all too interested in playing tournaments with me that much, mostly just cuz mario kart is more engaging. alayna and i have played a lot of SSX3 lately, which is just as fun as tricky. it's pretty hard and a little frustrating (at least in my opinion) but pretty fun, and it's always good when she takes some interest in a game. at least for now i'm not really in the market for any more games, i've got enough to keep me busy for now and everybody seems to request cube playin when they're here.

i'm still at a crossroads on my portable music solution really. the Hi-MD units keep getting pushed further and further back, latest i've heard is late july for the top-end portables to street stateside. i'm still in the air on whether i even wanna go that route, i dunno yet. still semi depends on how much car support sony shows for their newest minidisc shit. sony also just announced their NW-HD1 which is a good idea and quite sexy, but executed all wrong. just doesn't have native mp3 support, only plays ATRAC encoded files and that's just wrong man. hell i've grown up on ATRAC with all my MD fetish, but asking someone to convert all their CDs/mp3s to ATRAC to use the unit is ridiculous. it's awesome how small it is for having 20gb, and it's got better battery life than the iPod (which is the biggest thing holding me back from getting one hands-down) but the mp3 incompatibility is insane for a digital music player.

for now me broadcasting my own shoutcast station to listen to at work (alayna does as well) has worked pretty well. it's a 5 minutes pain to queue it up in the mornings, but i'm working on trying to get it somewhat automated or remotely accessible (through the tricky proxies/firewalls at work). i feel like i still need a good portable unit tho, partly for travel and just general use here and there. might still go for the Hi-MD, but i don't know yet.

other than that, business as usual at home. roughly a week behind in big brother 4 australia, but it's still holding my interest pretty well. only problem is i'll prolly fall behind a bit since BB5US is starting tomorrow, along with amazing race 5. i've watched all those good girls don't episodes, which is hot and cold. have one episode left in coupling season 4, watched a few season 3 eps but then tivo'd dumped the rest when they expired and i forgot to keep 'em. so i need to get coupling season 3 and both seasons of the office on dvd soon anyway. just picked up reno 911! season 1 the other day, that was eagerly awaited.

but eh, should be a decent week with only 4 days of work. alayna will actually be back friday (3rd straight weekend, heh... free tickets, goddammit!) and we'll prolly go apartment hunting to see if we end up getting her her own place up here or not. she actually got her internship with richardson just today, so we haven't even fully digested the good news yet.

--the damaja