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Where the hell is blake?

From Tuesday morning until Friday evening, blake is in Austin at UT orientation. He cannot hang out with you, or get coffee, or play games, or go driving, as he will be busy getting his 'meet new people' fix. Feel free to email text messages to mobile at snagger dot org with the message in the subject line. Using a cell phone text to my phone number, I can respond. Have a wonderful week, amigos and readers.

(updated monday night 9.11pm) I don't know what to feel. I definitely feel some kind of excited. A nervous kind. The kind I had before my first LAN party. The kind I had before my trip to New York. The kind I had before prom this year. Those were the three best experiences of my life. Let's hope this one becomes #4 - followed by four straight years of it. The nervousness won't go away until things settle down in Austin, though. There's too many things that can go wrong. I have to stay on my toes from now until roughly noon tomorrow. Then I can relax and enjoy things. And new people. Mmmmm, new people. I really hope the cute people from the Honors Colloquium wound up coming. A cute P2er to spend four days wreaking havoc with would be just too lucky for me.

Oh well. The alarm goes off at 5:15 AM tomorrow. Time to try to rest.

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I think I'm going to write a song. And no, before any of us give Sophia a chance to start, I'm not going on American Idol.

But seriously. I'm going to flex my muscle, write some lyrics, and if it's meant to be, someone will come along and put some good music to it.

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I really think there should be a movie made from my life, if only so that my supporting-actor best friends get to be famous as the very curious and crazy characters they are.

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Oh my. Quite a killer night I had.

First came the massive party at Aroon's. Then a great concert. Then the massive party at Aroon's. Quite a night.

In the early afternoon, I headed off to Aroon's to start setting up for the console party, which was set to be the biggest party our group has ever had. It didn't disappoint. By the early evening, roughly 25 people had arrived, carrying a handful of TVs (ultimately there were roughly 6 or 7 TVs in the front living room, in addition to the main one in the den.

It was then time to leave for the Michelle Branch show. I gladly forfeited my spot in the tournament to see this wonderful musician and beautiful woman. Erin, sadly, was stuck at her choir banquet and couldn't make it to the show on time, so I employed Max to come with. (When offered the ticket, his reply was: "She is SO hot.") Max and I scurried to Deep Ellum, making cruel jokes and reporting drunk drivers to the police all along the way. We arrived, parked, and headed to Tree's, where we were given these really cool necklaces that light up when the loose ends are connected. We headed to the front of the crowd, with just one row of people between ourselves and the stage. And I stupidly left my camera at the party. After an hour and a half of waiting, Michelle finally took to the stage. My first impression was that she weighed just a tad more than the videos betrayed. This is good; she's healthy. Her face, as always, was cute and beautiful and every other good adjective used to describe a woman's appearance. She seemed a little dumbfounded trying to associate with the audience, numerous times finding herself at a fault for anything to talk to the audience about. Her singing ability truly surprised me. Several times she would sing pitches that were just plain wrong, probably because something would be wrong with the monitors and couldn't hear herself. When she could hear, though, she was really able to belt, even in her really rangey new songs. I finally turned into a giddy little boy when she introduced "You Get Me" as a song dedicated to the guys. All night, she sang to specific people in the audience, waving and smiling, So on the line "just because I'm your girl" she sang to me. And just like the little spineless pansy I am, I melted by the combination of her eyes and her words. Easily the highlight of my night.

So the concert ended and Max and I ran off back to Arlington to rejoin the party. When we arrived, the 25 people had exploded into 60 plus. Cops had just tried to bust up the party - but since it was dry, they didn't care, slapped everyone on the collective wrist for being noisy, and left - and pizza was abound, as well as tons of drinks and old friends. The tournament was very much under way, so I made my way to the couch after some initial meetings and watched the action. Great, great, great bunch of games to watch. Loved it. The rest of the night blurred into gaming and drowsiness and general fun with friends.

Unexpected event of the evening: Chris Lane was there. (The boyfriend of Katy (or Katie, I dunno how she spelled it)) Chris was a very good friend of mine in elementary school days as we went to Oakridge together. If any of you wonderful readers know if he has an AIM name, please please be the wonderful person you are and hook a brother up. I was happy to see that he's turned out well. Obviously still a smart fella, looks almost exactly the same, and headed to Tulane. Well done, Chris.

As the night came to a close, and the sun returned with a vengeance, I felt my usual need to find my bed and sleep. At 7:00, as the better half of Fight Club came to a close, I finally up and left and crashed in the comfort of my own bed. I returned to Aroon's in the afternoon and the whole thing had dissolved. Not a single TV or game (besides my own). Nobody was there, lounged on the floor (except Nick, who showed up at the same time as me). Quite a big contrast from the massive party that had happened 12 hours ago.

And here I am, always hating life after such cool nights. And every time I feel more and more jaded. I'm scared. But I'll get by, since Michelle Branch sang to me.

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So about a week ago I got the results from my Strong Interest Inventory exam. Apparently I'm a highly artistic person with a smidge of investigative qualities. Thinking about it more and more, they're right. So maybe I can't draw, but I've got a flair for public speaking (through this website - I'm speaking to the public), an appreciation of music, and I adore self-expression. I have an interest in foreign languages, so it suggested I be a translator. Also high on the list were computer programmer (which I dislike, ironically) and lawyer. It's making me hope that in Austin I'll get my hands on really performing, living part of the life of a musician who just hangs around and happens to sing. Maybe I'll end up as the hot young new singer. Maybe a songwriter. Or maybe I'll spend a semester abroad and head to Oxford or a northern law school.

Too damn many choices. Let's hope something cool falls into my lap, eh?

Tonight is an attempted all-nighter in preparation for the massive night that will be tomorrow. After helping start the biggest gaming party ever thrown at a fella's house, I'm off to Trees for the Michelle Branch concert, which will apparently own since it's a small venue and it doesn't appear that there's a big opening set for Michelle. Here's to hoping we'll get to Dallas way early, cause my cohort Erin has to get out of her silly banquet before we can get to Deep Ellum. After the show, and my passionate love-making with Michelle, we're headed back to Aroon's to spend the night playing games a plenty with absolutely everyone in town who's anyone.

Come to think of it, I could even care less about banging Michelle. I'd rather spend the hour in a coffee house just talking to her, figuring out what she's really like behind the prearranged clothes and makeup and songs. Oh well, at least Halo and Super Smash won't be that bad, much less all night in a room with 50 interesting people.