My good friend and former roommate Jon came to Seattle as part of his world travels; his journey also took him to Costa Rica, Vietnam, China, and Japan. Jon and I share a lot of interests, and we can always find topics on which to converse endlessly. This time he introduced us to a board game called The Settlers of Catan; we played almost every night. Jon also left me with some excellent books; Snow Crash kept me company as I recovered from having all of my wisdom teeth out.

This winter, for one precious day, it snowed. Some went home early, and others stayed. Aye, we stayed, and were treated to Jane’s scratch-built blackberry pie. Aye, it were the best pie I ever did try.

Our good friend Rayme got gotten by Infinity Ward, the guys who make Call of Duty, one of the most successful games of the war-simulation genre. Before he left, Ann and I went over to the place he shared with Shishka to enjoy some grilled cheese sandwiches and video games. Their place is kind of famous for being something of a mess, so when it came time to bring out the sandwiches, there was nowhere to put them except inside Rayme’s dismantled Xbox. Seeing that Shishka works for Bungie, and Rayme works for Infinity Ward, they had the Xbox360 immediately upon launch. I regret to admit that I actually had fun playing it. **But!** The digital down-button didn’t work very well, and we never actually put in any Xbox games! I just set up my own Live account and played the downloadable games Geometry Wars and Mutant Storm the whole time.

This suitcase strikes me as charmingly ugly.