It�s been a busy weekend. My sister�s b-day party, which was thrown for her last Friday, went pretty well. We Had a DJ and a keg. Since I helped setup the party, I had to do a bit of the legwork picking up the keg and helping to carry it up 3 flights. I also helped bring up a good portion of the DJ equipment. By the next day my body was already sore from all the lifting and stair climbing. I must be getting old.

My sister however is the party planning genius. She took a fully furnished living room and somehow converted it into a dance floor. She cleared the main hallway of all the DVD racks so drunk people wouldn�t knock them over and she had strategically placed fans to keep the air circulating and to help keep the dancers from overheating. I scored quite the decent buzz that night but refrained from getting totally sloshed.

The next day, on Saturday afternoon I woke up with a mild hangover and a nice slowly spinning room. With a few friends we helped my sister move the furniture back. Naturally I helped move the heavy stuff with my already starting to sore up guns. (damn I'm geting old) I emptied and returned the keg (it was almost half full, the damn lightweights). I should have beered it instead of liquored it that night. I could have easily put away 8 full cups, possibly more but then I wouldn�t have gotten as nice of a buzz.

I also refueled at IHOP the next afternoon and wound up buying 3 new games for my Sony PS2, Grand Theft Auto � Vice City Stories, Resident Evil 4 and God of War. The GTA-VCS game is a port from the PSP portable version and is a prequel story to Vice City since it�s just a translation, much like GTA Liberty City Stories the game does not quite �push the envelope� nor does it take full advantage of the PS2 graphics engine because it was originally designed for the portable. As such it�s being sold new for $19.99. Both Resident Evil 4 and God of War were also $19.99 as �Greatest Hits� titles, which is pretty fucking awesome I think.

Although I�ll probably play through all three games, at the moment RE4 intrigues me the most, there�s just something about blasting infected, mind-controlled cultists, freakish mutated creatures and of course good-old-fashioned zombies. I wound up playing that game well past 3 am last Saturday Night. These games will satisfy my gaming fix until I get the PS3 and an LCD HDTV for my bachelor pad. Besides, I heard GTA-IV, which from the trailers looks pretty damn hot, is going to be delayed until 2008. The Resident Evil 5 trailer looks hot as fuck too, not sure when the release date is on that on though.

On Sunday my mom and I drove to Indiana, near where she used to live, to shop at Costco and to buy cartons of cigarettes. Unbeknownst to us, however there was a fairly recent increase in tax for cigarettes in Indiana, so they went from like $3.50 a pack to $5.00 a pack. Although it is still cheaper than the prices in Chicago, which are up to $8.00 a pack in many places, there are some closer suburban locations that sell them for as low as $4.50, which means it�s now cheaper and closer to go there for smokes than Indiana, which also means we may not drive out to Indiana for buying smokes anymore.

I did some more heavy lifting of groceries and the like up 3 flights, 4 separate trips as if I weren�t already sore enough from the lifting from last Friday night. (I must definitely be getting old) The second I finished hauling all that stuff, my cousin comes by with her best friend, who wanted to go out and take advantage of the nice weather. There happened to be a street fair on north Halsted, a short bus ride from where I lived last Sunday, which happened to be in the heart of �boy�s town� so the GLBT population were out in full force.

I was tired as fuck, but I decided to go anyway since they came all the way from the burbs and they are such homebodies that I wanted to make an honest effort to comply every time they show initiative to go out because I never know when they are going to switch back to boring mode. I needed to shower up as I spent half the trip back from Indiana in traffic, because people all over the city of people had this �genius� idea to go to the beach on a Sunday afternoon so practically every exit in Lake Shore Drive was congested with people wanting to hit the beach. There was quite a bit of heat from the combination of the sun, the lack of breeze because we weren�t moving that much due to the traffic and my mom not wanting to turn on the AC because the gas prices were so high. I didn�t really care about the gas prices, but I reluctantly and perspiringly concurred because it would help reduce the CO2 emissions.

After the shower I sucked down a Red Bull and we headed out. On the bus ride there we passed by some on location filming which I later discovered was for the upcoming film �Wanted� starring Angelina Jolie. I don�t think Angelina herself was filming that day, but I thought it was pretty cool. There were three busses bunched back to back thanks to all the traffic in the area, so we were let off a significant distance from the curb. As I stepped off the bus, this speeding cyclist swerved to avoid the opening door but clipped my arm as I was coming off. She then sideswiped a parked car. I checked to see if she was hurt, but she said she was OK.

After confirming I was OK, she continued speeding off. I think she was more embarrassed by the mishap than anything else. So anyway the fair itself was uneventful, I guess it would be for most straight guys. One of the highlights of the evening was the discovery of Mojitos being sold in a can by Bacardi. Although it�s not quite as good as the real thing, it doesn�t taste too bad. The other highlight was capping off the night in one of the GLBT friendly bars. The DJ was spinning quite a few 80�s tracks which I found to be cool.

My cousin got drunk and was being felt up and being �motor-boated� by gay guys (she�s well endowed in the breast area). There were a handful of cute femmes to look at, but aside from the cool music there really wasn�t much else for me there. I was just getting tired as fuck and so was my cousin�s best friend, so we eventually wound up leaving. We walked to the bus stop, but it was taking forever to arrive, so we called a cab, and that pretty much was the weekend right there.

Hmm, I had more stuff to talk about, but I think I�ll save if for next time as they just switched off the damn AC on my floor of the office building, so I�m going to wrap things up here, so bye for now. Until next time...