kirinqueen and I just went on a quick trip back east, which included spending the night in several places:

• Scituate, MA
• Northampton, MA
• Saint-Pierre-de-Véronne-à-Pike-River, QC, Canada
• Lebanon, NH

The reason for the trip.

Pictures will be posted to flickr (his, hers) soon.

I immediately thought of other when reading the latest XKCD. Whatever happend to the graph?

kirinqueen and I will be having our 7th annual St. Patrick's Day party [eventful entry] at Casa O'Connor on Saturday, March 15th, at 7 PM. You should come! Some photos from previous years:

Participation in the Irish pentathlon, while optional, isn't discouraged. Speaking of the pentathlon, maddox3 negotiated a modification to the rules for this year: for those of you who can't stand stout, cider will be an acceptable substitute.

Also, as the party falls on the Ides of March, I'll relax my usual policy of refusing entry to toga-wearing folk. (I didn't realize I had such a usual policy until just now.)

I've been pretty spotty about posting invites here. Past parties include 2002 (recap), 2004, 2005, and 2007.

On the 9^th, I bought kirinqueen a white Apple MacBook as a surprise. It shipped on the 11^th and arrived on the 13^th. I gave it to her on the 14^th. She named it falkor.

On the 26^th, Apple updated the MacBook line.

kirinqueen and I had a fantastic time in Seattle last week! Many, many thanks to mattbosworth and Lindsay for putting us up, and up with us, while we were there.

Besides all the obvious touristy stuff, we hit up lots of Matt and Lindsay's favorite places to eat and drink. The four of us met up with candid one night, which was lots of fun.

Our most debauched day was when we did the tours and tastings at Chateau Ste. Michelle winery and Red Hook brewery within a few minutes of each other. We followed that up with a lovely night of board games, DDR, and awesomeness at tekman and angel_grrl's place, where we saw loganb and many other rhit grads.

Oh, and I bought one of these, which brings my kilt total to the unbelievably non-zero 3.

Unfortunately, the week was all too short, and we didn't manage to meet up with kenshi or silnith. Hopefully we'll be back soon!

As I mentioned in December, kirinqueen and I will be in Seattle, from tomorrow through next Tuesday. We should hang out.

• My number: 619-846-8434
• Erin's number: 714-585-5122

Dear Lazyweb,

In newspapers and magazines, there's often a small symbol that appears at the end of articles. For instance, The Economist ends articles with a little red square. A List Apart ends articles with a leafy branch thingy: see for yourself.

My question for you is, what are these things called? Is there some word of journalist jargon for them?

I love how LA this photo is.

My handful of photos from electricia & boffo's wedding are here, and kirinqueen's are here.

In addition, I've created a flickr group for the wedding. If you have photos from the wedding, please add them to the group!

I turned 28 on Wednesday. A bunch of us met up at Shakespeare Pub for dinner, drinks, and pleasant conversation. Oh, and to help repel the Dalek cupcake invasion by dismembering and eating them. It being a British pub, the waitresses actually knew what Daleks are, and thought the cupcakes were brilliant. Which they are.

Good times were had by all.

On Wikipedia, of course, you can learn all about the tons of things that have happened on my birthday, including:

• the first sighting of the Loch Ness Monster;
• the end of one English civil conflict and the start of another;
• Michael Collins died, stretched lifeless in lone Béal na mBláth;
• The Scream was stolen, again.
• &c, &c, &c.

I share a birthday with Langley, Dorothy Parker, Ray Bradbury, and Yaz.

It turns out the number 28 itself is pretty interesting. infopractical pointed out that this is my second and last perfect year, so I better make the most of it!