Of course, by the time I get used to it, we'll be right back in crunch mode for the NGage and from there it'll be The Big E3 push.

Good thing I'm taking advantage of it then - and by that, I mean Doing Absolutely Nothing.

Friday night Hunter arranged for Larn and Obi to come up from San Jose, and we had a lovely evening. Larn has just made the switch to vegetarian eating, so our beloved Indian restaraunt was a natural choice. They were equally enamored with the quality of the place - apparently, Caf� India makes really good okra.

Afterwards, we did indeed adjourn to the apartment for some drinking and LOTR Trivial Pursuit. We cracked open a bottle of champagne leftover from New Year's and settled in. Originally, we were going to go three-on-one versus Hunter's formidable knowledge, but in the end it was every player for themselves.

When we weren't answering questions, it was Digital Picture time. Both Obi and Hunter got new digital cameras for Christmas, and they're worse than my mom at a 6th grade choral concert with those things. Hate to inform you Hunter, but me grimacing is NOT a Kodak moment. Sigh.

But here's the real shocking news of the evening: I won. Yes, ladies and germs, The Girlfriend beat Hunter at his own game. I am the reigning LOTR trivia queen! All shall love me and despair! ;)

Right. Well. I freely admit that he knows more than I do, but I managed to hold my own and romance the dice until I won. :)

Yesterday, we slept way late [3PM] and then got sucked into the saturday afternoon vortex of Reality Television.

Now I never got into reality TV when it first hit - Real World was on cable, and we didn't have that at home... and Survivor just seemed stupid. So I can't really explain why I've spent the week watching the Real World, Average Joe, True Life, The Apprentice... of course, there's also a healthy dose of Cartoon Network but that doesn't change the fact that I Am Hooked... God save me.

Hunter watched along with me, and he too found himself romanced by it. How can you NOT love self-absorbed New Joysey residents stumbling their way through a summer at the Joysey Shore? Spoken without a trace of irony: "Will I find my true love at the Jersey Shore? [shakes head] I don't know. I just don't know."

Later on, while we were walking to an ATM before dinner, he turned to me and said, "You know, I think there's something to that whole reality TV thing."

Call us cultural whores, I guess.

Last night we did manage to break away from the TV and grab dinner at the Cantina with Ray [Laura is back from Egypt, but I think she had a singing gig in the city.] We split a pitcher of the "Ultimate" margheritas, and let me tell you - that extra $5 totally pays for itself. I don't know what they do to those things... but they will fuck you up, man.

Afterwards Ray came back to our place and we cracked the shrinkwrap on Hunter's new copy of Soulcalibur II. Gamecube, natch - Link kicks SERIOUS ass in that game, once you figure out the flaming arrows. Link vs Link battles are even better. :)

The evening ended as most do lately: with Hunter and I in bed watching TV. We turned on Saturday Night Live, where the most notable moment was an obviously off-the-script sketch portraying Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden on the cell phone. The sketch disintegrated as it went on, and both actors' accents turned into some sort of Cuban-Mexican street hawker accents. "Osama, mannn, you know what I'm sayin'?"

Right.

Today was, as you recall, supposed to be Shopping Day - but apparently Esther forgot that she told me Sunday, since I found a voicemail from her yesterday while I was sleeping asking if I still wanted to go out. Sigh. Oh well. Hopefully they won't ship her back to the Netherlands this week...although they might, because there are some major shakeups going down on that side of the office right now. I'd say more, but even the team over there doesn't know what's going on yet. ;)

So it's another Sunday relaxing at home, watching television. I think this week might be the week that I activate my SimCompany-subsidized gym membership. I'm definitely going to try to pick up the dance classes again, now that my cold is over and I can breathe and all. Still not any closer to voice lessons or auditions, but maybe in time.