Recent escapades of terror and DOOM!

Events transpired Friday night which can be seen exclusively at Ash's blog, in an entry entitled Georgetown Is Far Sketchier than Chinatown. Go read it... now. In it you will find such gems as "Heeey! What's under your skirt?!" and "Come home with me so I can rape you!!"

Needless to say, Kat and Ash did not go home with anyone. But on to other news...

When I went home a few weekends ago, I noticed that my laptop charger was having some minor problems - namely, it occasionally stopped charging. On further inspection, I found that the cable had been partially stripped, and I corrected the problem by twisting the cord. However, a few nights ago, while innocently watching DVD's on my laptop, I saw that the charger had COMPLETELY STOPPED WORKING. I took this about as well as can be expected... namely, banging around my room yelling "ASH, WHY ISN'T IT WORKING??" and messing with the wires. Finally I surrendered, used my remaining battery power to finish the DVD, and went to bed.

The next morning, I took both laptop and charger to Best Buy to buy a new one. I figured it couldn't be more than $20... right? Wrong. It would have cost $44 for a model that wasn't even guaranteed to fit my computer. Fortunately, it was covered by my warranty, and the guy told me to call an 800 number for the main office, which would send a replacement within three business days.

And I actually bought that.

After a grueling twenty minutes on the phone trying to pick the right option from the stupid touch-tone menu, I was informed that they would ship it within eight business days, which, for those of you who are slow at math, is close to two weeks.

I am typing this update from Ash's computer... and later tonight, I will be typing a paper on Ash's computer, and on Wednesday I will be typing another paper on Ash's computer... Ash's computer and I are going to become very intimate, in completely G-rated ways.

However, fear not: There is good news in this entry. In fact, it is the best news ever. Today I got to hang out with an old friend. Some of you may recognize his name... it is: Mr. Val.

SQUEE!

Val was one of my close friends "back in The Day," and therefore also one of the close friends whom I (in a particularly extended lapse of judgment) completely ignored during an old relationship. Don't ever do that, folks. Some of my friendships recovered, and I doubt some ever will. In fact, Val and I rarely talk -- maybe a total of five times in the last two years.

He lives in Manchester, MD, about an hour from Baltimore; I live in DC and am thus about the same time away. I made plans to come see him today. This morning I hopped the metro to Union Station, took a train to Baltimore, met up with Val at Penn Station, and had a lovely dinner with him at an Italian restaurant. This day more than made up for the valleys of the last week, which included the woes detailed in my previous entry, the laptop problem, a cancellation on a babysitting job, and not hearing back from a potential client I really, really wanted to hear from. I haven't seen Val since my junior year of high school and would be willing to suffer much more horrible things to see him again.

Next weekend, Ash, Adam and I are planning to attend a carnival in Baltimore, and Val will hopefully make it there for at least one of the two days. Huzzah! Nothing says fun like getting seedy hotels with your college friends! And trust me... it will be seedy. We're all poor. Um, well, I'm poor. That's kind of like all of us, right?

On that happy note, I leave you, to bang out a two-page paper for Theories of Democracy (aka an opportunity, or rather a necessity, for selling my soul).