Julie and I hung out with my brother-in-law Joe and his wife Vicky tonight, doing the karaoke thing. As cheesy as karaoke is, it's also a blast; I was pleasantly surprised to find "Birdhouse In Your Soul" by They Might Be Giants in their playlist, so I had to do it. Most of the other customers were country fans, so they looked at me like a bunch of apes staring at a biologist as I belted out lines like "my story's infinite/Like a Londginne's symphonette" and singing about "killing Jason off, and countless screaming Argonauts," which is always fun.

I also sang Bohemian Rhapsody, badly. Apparantly, Scaramouche cannot do the Fandango.

We're going to San Diego on Monday, and I am totally psyched. The first night we're there Sense Field is playing a show up in the Clairmont Mesa Blvd. area, so I'm definitely going to that. I missed them last May in Palm Beach because I had a gig, and was depressed for a few days. Other highlights of the trip will no doubt include mocking Klingons at the San Diego Comic-Con, hitting some of the tourist attractions, and chilling with the Chula Vista Mafia. Good stuff.

For the past two evenings I've actually had dinner with friends. If I don't watch out, I may be in danger of developing a social life.

Sunday night, I had dinner with Alex and Masatoshi, musician friends from the University of Miami. Julie showed up eventually, as she was busy taking a friend to the airport. I grilled steak (a nice medium-medium rare), and I must admit that I'm getting fairly competent on that machine. As much as I respect vegetarians, and wish that I could cut meat out of my diet, there's no realistic way it's gonna happen because home-prepared steak tastes so frigging good. Besides, vegetarians by definition are expected to eat vegetables once in a while, and that is a taste I've never really acquired. Growing up, there were three veggie side dishes regularly prepared at the Rieder castle on 787 Monserate- corn (from a can), peas (from a can), and green beans (also, you guessed it, from a can). As a result, my taste for the healthy stuff never progressed far beyond those foods- hell I never even ate salad until I was 23. I wonder if one can barbeque tofu...

Tonight I was taken out to dinner by the executive board of the SoBeGMG, an ensemble I've conducted for the past two years. The purpose of the dinner was to thank Mark (our artistic director) and I for our work on the past spring's show. The food was great- but Julie laughed her ass off when I told her that, given carte blanche on the menu at this great restaurant, I ordered... a turkey club sandwich (which is usually what I get whenever I go out to eat).

Now that I think about it, that sandwich had a couple of tomato slices and some lettuce on it. Maybe there's some hope for my future vegetarian diet after all.

Went to bed at 2:30 am last night. I was ridiculously tired, but was in that mode where I would just have tossed and turned anyway, making any attempt at slumber an exercise in futility. "You could always try to sleep," says my wife, but the whole idea of trying to sleep has always seemed weird to me. You either sleep or you don't, it's just that natural. Sleep, or sleep not. Try not; do, or do not. There is no try. Kinda like feeling the Force, according to Yoda.

Yep, I'm a big geek.

I've wanted to do a weblog for a while now, so I set one up. Obviously. This will be your standard public journal, and it will probably feature: ruminations on my past day; rants and socio-political screeds; links of interest (to me, at least); book and movie reviews; classroom war stories; and the like.

I'll do some sort of bio later. Virtually anyone who reads this is already going to know me anyway. Peace out.

Damnit. I just spent half an hour writing my first entry, and received an error message when I tried to post it. Screw it, I'm going to bed. I'll try again tomorrow.

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