Anyone want to go to Mardi Gras with us this weekend?

The weather postponed our trip to Nawlens until next week, when the party should be really, truly insane. All for the better. I got to hang with Sub, play in the Great Snow of 2004, have riveting dinner and discourse with Leslie, et al., go dancing on Valentine's day, play basketball, and go out for beers on my friend Paul's birthday. I know several of you will be in N.O. (or La., at least) next weekend. Would anyone else care to join? We'd love to have you, and the more people who come, the cheaper our rooms get.

During Friday night's little blizzard, I managed to snap a few pictures before a full-out snowball fight started.

This one of my roommate Robert works particularly well as a desktop:



Danny, Benavides, Grady, Robert, Grady's friend Bobby D., and I all ran outside as soon as the big flakes started to collect on the ground. The snow fell in giant, fluffy flakes, undoubtedly the best snowball material I've seen in my limited experience. As the storm intensified, more people wandered out of their houses and apartments. It was strange to see small groups of people who had been fighting with each other suddenly band together as soon as a rival group came into proximity. So what started as me and my friends pegging each other from point blank soon turned into a frozen mortar battle with the people who live in the apartment complex across the street. From there, our street united against another group of people who came wandering around the corner. After we all tired of this, we combine forces, 20 strong, and filled my upturned umbrella with an arsenal of snowballs to storm Trudy's. After pelting people on the deck and in the parking lot, all of us, blissfully united, stood around in the field next to Trudy's for well over an hour making snow men and sending a barrage of snowballs at every passing car. (This random guy was out there taking pictures and video.)

There is no greater satisfaction than watching the track of your snowball among its 20 or so compatriots as it curves and bends and unexpectedly vanishes into the open window of the moving Xterra that has been driving by, taunting you all night.

Out there on that pristine frozen field there was probably some great insight into the unifying power of human nature and humankind's ability to break the bonds of social platitudes in extraordinary circumstances, but instead we all left when the cops showed up.

Last weekend, I also managed to find relatively cheap lodgings in Manhattan for my interview, finish Mrs. Dalloway, watch Lost in Translation, and blow out a tire on the Golden Boy.

I don't know if it's because I finished them both so close together, but I thought Mrs. Dalloway and Lost in Translation had an eerie amount in common. Even though the methods with which they approached their themes differed greatly, I believe they were examining the same questions, reaching the same conclusions, and this led to strikingly similar endings. But maybe that's just me; anyone who's familiar with the works, please chime in.

Hopefully I'll find some free time at work tomorrow to post some more stuff. I've got a lot I wanted to talk about tonight (and a really gross picture to post), but it grows late.

Does anyone know where I can get my tire patched and an oil change at the same time?