so yes, i’m back and i had a fabulous time. thursday morning i was picked up my tycho and monkey, and we drove into the city for lunch. we ate at this place - i can’t remember the name - that serves these dome pizzas, where the toppings are all in a bowl and the dough is cooked on top, then the whole thing is flipped over. mighty tasty. after lunch we stopped at the lair of the filthy monkey, then walked up to tycho’s house to spend rather a lot of time with the monstrous xbox and the delicious halo. i am not a fan of the xbox controller at all - it’s entirely too large for my hands, which i guess are pretty small - but halo couldn’t have been much better.

eventually we dropped off brenna at neko’s, and tycho and the monkey and i went to this mexican place before walking over to the key area to see weezer. now, i wouldn’t say i’m a big weezer fan; in fact, before thursday i could count the number of times i’d listened to weezer on no hands. but i actually really enjoyed the show. jimmy somethingorother was okay, not spectacular but not horrid; tenacious d was really amusing. after the d, we decided to escape the hordes of small humans on the floor and claimed ourselves some seats for weezer. i really liked it, although by the end i was so tired (i didn’t go to sleep on wednesday) and the seats were so comfy that i was starting to doze off.

after the show we were all more or less zombified; the monkey dropped me off at gabe’s house, and after a little tekken (mmm arcade cabinet) we more or less went straight to bed.

friday morning monkey dropped tycho off at gabe’s on his way to work, and we all went out looking at several stores for a cable for tycho’s xbox, which we didn’t find, but i did get a bit of the tony hawk 3 action at one place, so i was pretty pleased. afterwards we had chinese and headed back to gabe’s, where we pretty much played metal gear solid 2 until we all grew old and died. that’s not to say it wasn’t fun: quite the contrary. it’s a great game, and it just goes on and on. i’m going to need to score myself a copy, i think, because even though we played even more of it on wednesday we didn’t quite finish it. we also played a little more halo when some of gabe’s friends showed up, then went out in search of sustenance. in the parking lot of a red robin, tycho and monkey and i were recognized by a friendly couple, and we all got to make fun of gabe because he couldn’t get the back window of an suv open to say hi.

after we gave up on actual restaurants and just got some takeout and brought it back to gabe’s house, we played a little harry potter trivia (i owned them all) and then headed out to see the movie itself. the line was long, and filled with people wearing pointy hats, but we already had tickets so it was all good. as for the movie itself: i liked it. less than fabulous aspects included the effects (there were two moments in particular where things were obviously rendered, but i won’t go into them) and a sense that the movie itself was either cut down quite a bit from the book - which it really wasn’t, and the film was in fact two and a half hours long - or that it was somehow rushed. nevertheless, the casting was absolutely flawless and the acting was great. i was worried, as one bad child actor can spoil an entire movie (see phantom menace), but the kids were all fantastic, especially ron. snape, hagrid, oliver wood, and madam hooch also struck me as perfect, as well as most of the rest of the cast. monkey hadn’t read the book before seeing the movie, and i think he was a little confused; if in doubt, i’d say reading the book first is a good idea. but either way, it’s a really enjoyable flick.

sunday was my last full day with the croo, but it was a good one. gabe and kara and i headed over to tycho’s relatively early and we had brunch at the stoneway, where i had a really amazing omelette even if the coffee was (as brenna put it) more coffee flavored water than the actual beverage itself. afterwards we walked over to gasworks park, where i really wished i’d brought my camera and we played a lot of frisbee. as tycho notes in his newspost, i’m really fucking awful at frisbee, but it was fun anyway. after we’d had our fill of wholesome outdoors fun, we headed over to pike market, which i really enjoyed. i picked up some ground ginger and market spice tea, as well as some harry potter and powerpuff girls paraphrenalia and some enticing hot sauce. tycho bought some raw honeycomb, which we all tasted. yum. eventually, we all headed back to gabe’s house, where we were joined by the monkey (he’d had to go to work after the park) and where we once more got our mgs2 on, pausing only for pizza and iron chef. eventually, we all started yawning and decided to call it a night, and i left the next morning.

yesterday i had dinner with gundam at ruby’s on 42nd st, and we stopped at the sanrio store where i picked up some cute chococat stickers for fourty cents. we also visited the hmv next door and i got to see james for the first time in eons, which was nice. it was getting fairly late at that point and we were both really tired (i think i may have caught brenna’s sore throat), so we walked to penn and headed home.

all in all, fun and games etc etc. i’d really like to go back and visit the seattleans again; it’s possible gundam and i will go at some point. but right now i’m tired, and my throat is being still more obnoxious, so i’m going to go make some tea.