What I Did On My Birthday

Well, from midnight through 1 am, I rolled around in bed cursing the souls of my neighbors, who have apparently adjusted their bathroom fans to be louder. You know, like bikers do with their Harleys, except without all the social graces.

You think I'm overreacting. But honestly, it was so loud that I couldn't tell whether it was coming from the apartment above or below mine. Because it was loud, you see.

From 1 am through 10 am or so, I got my ravelled sleave of care all knitted up. That's a strained Shakespearean euphemism for sleeping, but I don't think it came out as smooth as it was in my head. Still, I've always wanted to use it, and now's the time.

Then I woke up, and what's the very first thing you do when you wake up? Right. I checked my e-mail and poked around on the web. I lead a full and rich life. Anyway, I finally sated my Internet jones (which would be a great name for a new version of "Encyclopedia Brown") and showered and set off into the world for a full day of birthday-related hijinx.

Well, not precisely hijinx. Really, I went miniature golfing. That's something you should know about me: I really like miniature golfing. I love the whole culture of miniature golf. Well, I'd love it if there actually was a whole culture of miniature golf. You know how some people go bowling every Tuesday or something? I want to have a group of people with whom I go miniature golfing all the time. Yeah.

The miniature golfing in this area isn't great, but I went anyway, because it was my birthday. I was at par through the front nine, but I ended up six under par, because the course isn't very challenging at all. I only got one hole-in-one, which seems a little low for that score. I shall resist the urge to analyze the game any further.

After the round of golf, I went to the bookstore to get supplies for Wednesday's trip to Japan. It's important to have many, many books when you're about to be on a plane for twelve hours. I bought the new Dilbert book (which I've already finished, thus defeating the purpose of buying airplane books), the new issues of Rolling Stone and Spin (magazines are great for trips, because you don't have to bring theback with you), Iron Chef: The Official Book (which has many behind-the-scenes tidbits), and Atlas Shrugged.

About Atlas Shrugged. It's one of those monolithic books that I keep feeling like I really ought to have read. It's one of the Important American Novels, and I like to think of myself as someone who's read those. But the problem is, this is a book with fans. Really obsessive fans. Fans who say things like "Monty, this book will change your life." Dude. It will not. I've read many, many books. I've read books that have cults named after them. I've read books that have religions named after them. I've read books that have changed the lives of millions of people. And did they change my life? Um, no. I really like The Illuminatus Trilogy, but I don't tell people that it will change their lives, do I? Not any more, I don't.

The thing is, and I just know I'm going to take some heat over this, people seem to take Atlas Shrugged way too seriously. Here's two quotes from the same review on Amazon: "After reading Atlas Shrugged, I feel as if I have to strive to be someone like her characters." and "I AM AN INDIVIDUAL. I will never again rely on another man or woman instead of thinking for myself and following my own judgment." I don't understand the whole Objectivist thing (which is another reason I'm reading the book: I'd like my mockery to be slightly more knowledgeable), where the two basic tenets seem to be "I am an individual, answerable to no one", and "Ayn Rand can do no wrong". Those just seem sort of contradictory. But who knows; maybe the book will live up to the hype. Sometimes, books do.

After the bookstore, I stopped by work to make sure that everyone knew I was going to Japan for a week. You know how it is. Even though I'm going to Japan on official work business and will be working at least two of the days I'm there, not everybody I have contact with is necessarily aware of the impact that Monty-Not-In-Office will have on their day-to-day operations. So I have to make sure that everyone's clear.

And then I came home and started packing. That took a lot longer than it really should have, because I couldn't decide which suitcase to bring. It's a nonstop flight from Seattle to Tokyo, so it should be safe to check a bag, which would give me bonus legroom on the flight, but my big suitcase is hardshell, which means that if I put in enough stuff to fill it up on the trip out, I won't be able to buy things there for the trip back. Unless one of the things I buy is another suitcase, but I try to avoid that.

On the other hand, if I bring two carry-on bags (one of which will be holding two laptops and many books), I'm pretty limited in what I can bring. And even more limited in the goodies I can bring home. So when I got tired of staring at the two bags, I turned my attention to my new MP3 player, which I want to be absolutely full of MP3s when I leave. But that's not going to happen, because I've been ripping cds for days now, and I've only filled up 2.4 of the 6 Gigabytes. It's crazy.

So between backing, loading up my MP3 player, watching Buffy and Angel, and the inevitable screwing around on the Internet (and getting some very nice birthday wishes from various cool people), most of the evening got eaten up.

At 11:00pm, I had to go back into the office to do some last-minute cleaning up and load up my work laptop. The end!

Okay, so now I'm going to Japan. I think I might have mentioned that. I think I'll be able to update my web page from there, but I can't make any promises. And it might get updated at odd times because I'll be on a different continent. And there will almost certainly be at least one day of no update because of the flight.

On Saturday and Sunday (that's Japanese time; 9:00 am there is 4:00 pm the previous day on the west coast of the US), I'll be covering a Magic: the Gathering tournament, Grand Prix Yokohama. If you're desperate to read words written by me, I'll be writing about Magic games (the coverage will probably be here, although there's nothing there yet. Well, there is now, but that's because I'm writing this paragraph two months later than the previous one). I don't promise it'll be at all interesting to someone who doesn't play the game, but I'll certainly be outputting an impressive number of words over the weekend. And I'll probably show up in some of the pictures, if you're interested in that sort of thing.