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I've been living on stress, French downbeat techno, and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. Two of these things are good; one is suboptimal. If you aren't able to distinguish, please stop reading.

Last Friday, my attempts to see Pirates after getting blasted on rum drinks at a Tiki-themed happy hour failed miserably. I left work early after spending fifty hours in the previous two and a half days getting my impossible project under control (as a side note, said project without tuning was performing at roughly three-hundred times the required levels, and I deemed that job well done). Then, I succeeded in getting blasted on rum drinks at Trader Vic's happy hour in Bellevue; I didn't spring for a wood-fired steak, but I did stare at the massive oven all night in some sort of mentally deficient rapture. My plans seemed within grasp.

Then I came upon the wall of "Sold Out" signs at the theater. How the fuck does a Friday afternoon matinee sell out? Don't these people have jobs?

Saturday, I read Freakonomics. As always happens when I read something that seems to describe an interesting job, I start making plans to chuck my life as an overpaid super-nerd and do said job. I'd haunt the corridors of Harvard's Economics department and smoke a bubble pipe and scam on Freshman girls and have tie-on elbow patches to go with my t-shirts.

Fortunately, this infatuation usually runs its course in a few days, but that also means that I'll probably never really become an assassin.

I also read The Areas of My Expertise. I can't recommend both enough.

Sunday, I went to the gym and was rolling in the Evo listening to Thievery Corporation when I got the call. "We're barbecuing," he says. "When, where, and need me to bring anything?" I reply. He tells me that he can use some chicken and gives me the directions.

I find the out-of-the-way park and suspect that I'm about to die every second as I navigate down some loose scree in my flip flops. Emerging from a verdant canopy the likes of which I didn't know existed this side of Saigon, I looked out onto a beach full of naked dudes.

Oddly, I didn't figure that there was a prank being played. No one's that suicidal. Turned out that this was the proper beach, and I just had to look for the girls with piercings. There I found my boy. He explained what was what, and I cooked some wings while I watched punk rock girls and suspected lesbians frolic in the sun and waters of Lake Washington.

After the grilling died down, we decided to kill some time and see the last showing of Pirates. On my way to get tickets, I saw a lime-green H2 SUT with what had to be twenty-fours on it. I laughed so hard that I about choked.

Then the hydraulics kicked in.

My only response was to scream, "Bounce them shits, yo." Which he did. Speaking fluent dumbass white boy has its advantages.

In the parking garage, I accidentally waved my junk at a carload full of Canadian tourists when I failed to look for people in cars and not just cars and people moving before I took my pants off. I finished dressing with as much dignity as possible and blew them a kiss as I walked away.

We killed some time at the Nite Lite after that and then went to a packed showing of the movie. At 10:45. On a Sunday. Fun flick, though. Wish it'd been a whole movie and not a half, though.

Monday, back to work accomplishing the impossible. We've got to be ready by the time fall TV shows go into production. After a nineteen-hour day yesterday, I fell asleep in the elevator this morning. I'm not twenty anymore, apparently.