The days of NES

My good friend Cara has come (from New Mexico) and gone (to Dayton). It was great to see her. I'll get to see her again in a couple of weeks when she comes back through Cincinnati on her way back to New Mexico. While she was here, we got drunk and played a whole load of old Nintendo games--including Bubble Bobble, Tetris, many incarnations of Mario, and something called Caveman Games, which I had never played. I went into hysterics during the part of the game where you rub two sticks together to start a fire. Nothing has struck my funny bone that solid a jab in a long time, and it was great to actually fall over onto the floor laughing and snorting and giggling nearly to the point of losing bladder control. I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard.

We also went out to The Dock and Cara got blatantly felt up by a drag queen, but that's probably a story for another post.

Christmas shopping continues. I bought M one of these, which was not an entirely unselfishly motivated gift, heh heh. In general I feel pretty satisfied with the gifts I've gotten everyone on my list, although I wish I could afford to give them more, as always. M's parents kinda crack me up; his mother makes it very clear when she disapproves of things that we do (she was *not* a happy camper when we moved in together, especially since it was just three months after we'd met), but she is very generous too, and we have thus far gotten extraordinarily generous gifts from them, so I always feel bad that I can never live up to returning their generosity, at least not financially. I mean, they know we're not financially at a point in our lives where we can afford to give them the kinds of gifts they give us, so it's okay--but you know how it is when someone out-gives you. Feels kinda...mleh.

Your comments on the music post were all so good--definitely gave me food for thought, in particular the comments of Saphenous and Adeline. But all of you had such interesting perspectives on why we listen to music, what about it appeals to us, and how it plays on emotion. Thanks all for weighing in!

Here's a picture I took while I was riding the bus (for three and a half hours) during the snowstorm. It appeals to me a great deal--and it was utterly uncomposed, I literally put the camera against the bus window and pressed the shutter button, so I can't claim a whole lot of skill was involved. It's not edited at all either--not very impressive small but if you click the photo you can see the larger version. I like the tone of it. The mood. The feel. The music in it. :)