Time to flesh this puppy out.

Another world, another time, in the age of wonder... I went to eat at this newly opened place for my birthday, a fairly early one, that was on the hill overlooking the Roy Rogers that I would one day call home. The Metuchen child who would over a decade later express anger at me sleeping with maidoftheshore and karamoon while both turned him down was present. I'd go there every so often as a child, and went there more often once I moved in with my father and stepmother.

When my first stepfather and mother looked for a group to game with, they found a group that played RPGs weekly at a comic store in downtown Woodbridge. I was nine at the time. Some fifteen year old kid named Scott was part of the group, and the two of us became friends. Six years later, I was a fifteen year old kid now living down the street while he was a twenty-one year old guy living with his mom. Through my high school career, he took me to the mongolian BBQ on the hill regularly. He was friends with the owner, Charlie, and the three of us would sit there night after night. We'd talk about love, life, and how silly the talking monkeys that populate this planet are. Good times. Charlie was a wise old Chinese man, who remembered customers and ran a good cheap place. My senior year, I determined I was going to drewuniversity after I turned down Columbia. One night, Scott and I were visiting the BBQ and talking with Charlie about his son who was in a car accident. He mentioned that he was relocating the place up to Millburn, and started describing where exactly this new location would be... right down the road (124) from drewuniversity! I found it perfect that one of our favorite hangouts was moving up north months before I would. So we continued to go there regularly.

One time, I think my sophomore year, a bunch of my Drew friends joined Scott and I there. When I showed up, Charlie gave me his usual warm loud greeting. hiphopatcong then whispered, ``They really are all named Charlie.'' My 20^th and 21^st birthdays were spent there, with chiquib and my ex (years before we hooked up), respectively. The latter was there with her boyfriend, my roomie Dave (not the current roomie Dave). Over the years, Scott has bought me probably over a hundred meals at the place. So that's the story behind me and J.P. Lee's Mongolian BBQ.

So I blew Scott off on his 30^th birthday. And I hadn't seen him or even called in months. And I didn't invite him to naked sushi. So he was, understandably, miffed. So I agreed to hang out with him and the Russian SPY! on Friday. Like SNaP! (smooth and nasty artistic productions), that phrase always gets a bang at the end.

We met up at Charlie's place, had our usuals, less than we ate as starving teenagers. We went back to Scott's new place, mere blocks from where he grew up and my dad's house. In fact, I once was hooking him up with a friend of mine during an off of his on-again off-again relationship with a girl named Erin. One night, she wanted me to ask him certain questions and pry information out of him. So I drove by his place, and she wanted me to park a couple of blocks away, as he had a nice view from his bedroom. I hung out with him, asked him the questions, and tried to get away without letting him know anything was going on. He kept on distracting me, a skill I now use on the likes of runstaverun, and she had to wait in my car for ages. She had a stomach bug at the time, and spent a long time puking on the curb next to my car. So I got to finally admit the deception I pulled on one friend for another friend, who ended up moving to where she was hidden.

So we hung out, and I got to check out his NWN server. Then we hooked up Hambone for some Gauntlet action, beating the first world and a couple stages of the second. So I'm up to three characters, as everyone insists I start over to be fair. Meanwhile, towelboy was supposed to meet up with me and spend the night at my place. I, like a moron, left my cell phone in my car, so towelboy called over and over again, getting no answer, and eventually getting talked into going to hiphopatcong's place and blowing me off. So I got home pretty late, couldn't sleep for a while, and finally passed out after preparing for the next morning.

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Like I posted, Saturday we were supposed to all go to Belmont. So I got up quite early, got ready, and started heading to the city. I was going to park my car in Hoboken, and take the PATH into Penn Station, meeting up with my friends at 9. My friends are lazy stoners. I got a phone call after already getting on to 280 that they weren't getting up. I called each and every one of them, threatening to kick their asses and screaming at them. noelr asked for a frozen mocha coffee drink from 7-11. So instead I drove up to hiphopatcong's Bronx apartment, got noelr his fucking drink, and kicked their asses. I shook hiphopatcong's whiskey-filled head screaming about horses, I kicked them in the shins, I threatened to have Pete show up and rape them if they didn't fucking get up and go see the fucking horses and history in the making with me. Eventually, I realized I was going to either give lasting injuries or give up, so I ended up meditating on hiphopatcong's bed while the lazy slackers slept/talked in the living room.

Dipping dots were discussed, and YET ANOTHER parable for our social grouping was constructed. We were a group of brothers. I'm the oldest brother, I've done everything, so I'm off doing my own thing and just responding to everything with how I already did it. Then comes aaronkliger, the older brother that they all look up to and try to kiss up to/emulate/spend time with. Then come noelr and hiphopatcong, towelboy and I think we got that order right. They kiss aaronkliger's ass, and compete/debate/etc. quite a bit, being around the same age. Youngest is towelboy, the child of the group acting out and doing his crazy child things. I'm probably leaving a few details out that noelr can correct me on, and I welcome him to. They also figured out that it went from least Italian (except by marriage) to most Italian with that system. At some point I opened the door, ranted about how mom and dad asked me to keep an eye on them, and how I didn't want any shit from them.

We spent most of the day watching the OTB channel, watching Belmont and reading Post articles about it. As I said, we ended up blowing off daylami, and I made towelboy leave her an apology voicemail that she at least got a kick out of. We got Chinese, we slept, they got cleaned up while I played games on hiphopatcong's laptop and made him new wallpaper.

Taking the 6 in to NYC to meet up with kikibird, runstaverun, and track44, I got a phone call from ogun. I had a conversation with him, a good chunk of it being entirely in pseudo-MOO code. They chuckled when I said, ``Oh, $apartment:enterfunc this none this if ((who=args[1]) == this.renter[1].also_is) post to *crime!'' After I got off the phone with him, they said that I should write notes to track44 in code. I explained that she was studying Java, and that I would much rather write in C++ or Perl to her.

During a transfer, we realized it was the weekend of the Puerto Rican parade. A recent year was marred with incidents of groping, splashed t-shirts, and violence. One guy was wearing a Puerto Rico flag earring with little LEDs. I suddenly got Taco Flavored Kisses stuck in my head, and had to share the pain with hiphopatcong and aaronkliger. The humanity!

We got to Penn Station, and waited for the bridge and tunnel people to show up. kikibird and runstaverun drove in, and said there was killer traffic that delayed them. So we waited for track44, since she the last communication with her she said that she'd be able to make it to dinner and the party. So we stood around, seeing random people that sort of looked like her leaving and arriving, my friends taking turns holding up a sign that said PING. We found out about Funny Cide's loss, and I told my friends they were lucky that they hadn't forced me to miss history in the making. Eventually I had her paged over the loudspeaker, resisting the urge to ask for ``LJ user equals track forty-four to meet her party under the NJ transit schedule.'' I had some people look for her online, and eventually found out that she wasn't coming for dinner. Whoops. So we went to the Blarney Stone, and got some drinks and generic Irish pub grub.

After that, we headed off to the Quiet Party. Check out track44's pictures from the night here. We got there as it opened, mistaking one of the guests for a bouncer. They overcharged us for the two-drink minimum, then gave us money back, and somehow I ended up with an extra ticket. It was, as track44 observed, a ``very red place'' that ``[made her] angry.'' So there was the bar, a camera crew videotaping us, and a whole region of tables covered with paper pads and pencils. runstaverun got clumsy a couple of times, covering our table with drinks. towelboy sat with a woman who was sitting by herself, and convinced her to join us. track44 and desix showed up, and I immediately recognized them from captiv8. They joined us, and we passed notes like a bunch of school children.

track44 joked that I'd never hear how crazy her voice is, meeting her for the first time at a Quiet Party. desix immediately became my hero, with his ``JERSEY REPREZAHNT!'' comment. track44 got called a tall glass of champagne by one of the woman who joined us's companions. A bunch of guys were convinced to come in towards the end of the night, who chatted with track44 in German before moving to another table to chase ladies. noelr produced some hilarious works, runstaverun did some entertaining performance art. One guy did a poetry night, which towelboy called lame. When towelboy calls something involving poetry lame, you take notice. Notes not meant for certain parties ended up getting read by certain parties, but it still wasn't hiphopatcong's ``total honesty'' world at the end of the evening, as some people destroyed or hid cards, which I expected. I, for one, turned over all cards I hid to runstaverun at the end of the night.

hiphopatcong got a number and email address from a woman who ran a homeless shelter in the Bronx, which is what she had to ``say'' to finally get his attention. When I noticed her email address (ending in nyc.rr.com), I immediately said, ``Go Doug! She's got BROADBAND!'' noelr later called me ``post-human'' for this observation, a title I'll wear proudly. track44 was cool, interesting, funny, beautiful, and cute. desix was handsome, hilarious, and a great guy. It was wonderful meeting them. A couple of my friends commented later that ``they're good people.''

At the end of the evening, we got the award for the messiest table, a bottle of bubbles. We rushed outside to make cancer balls, so people took turns making them. towelboy had a great rant at the end of the night, screaming at people that the party was over, that we could go back to being humans now. He then laid down on the sidewalk, almost ending up fucked if desix hadn't noticed that his car key had fallen out next to him on the sidewalk.

Everyone else went home, while desix, track44, and I went off to Moonstruck for a late night meal. On the way, I told them all about hiphopatcong, noelr, towelboy, aaronkliger, runstaverun, and kikibird. They told me all about some of their friends, and some hilarious misadventures they've had. desix rattled off a whole detailed breakfast order for them to split, amusing me to no end.

After the meal, they drove me back up to hiphopatcong's place in the Bronx and my car. Along the way, track44 remembered that I liked Star Trek, and played a hilarious Star Trek techno CD. They dropped me off, we said our goodbyes, and I followed them back to the GWB.

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Sunday I had to wake up way to early, to work a shift alone with Jiminy B. I made some great sales (not that the job's anything but free Microsoft and spending good times talking about games with good people), and he had to listen to me talk about the night before at length all day long. My day was made when some kid sat in front of the Halo 2 gameplay DVD Jiminy B. made, his mouth on the floor, eyebrows shooting up from time to time. He kept on drooling, while his brother kept on slamming on the keypads hooked up to the demo units, not realizing they were disconnected. ``I'M PRESSING START!! I'M PRESSING START!! I'M PRESSING START!!!'' He whined and whined, while his brother drooled and drooled. That, personally, made my day.

After that, I talked with a good chunk of my friends, and was entertained that the Taco Flavored Kisses episode was on. Trigun and Bebop were good, and it was an episode of Undergrads I hadn't seen that often. I posted, and went to sleep.

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UPDATE: Yes, I spent some time today listening to Japanese techno from Bloodyang's last return to the states while using hard drive platters from the drive mrfantasy took apart as castanets.

Feeling: relaxed
Listening to: Fumiya Tanaka, live @ Yokohama Arena