Birthday, etc.

(Written Sunday night; unable to post until now)

So Saturday was my birthday. 17. Wow. [Long philosophical passage written and deleted. Author did not want to burden anybody kind enough to this with his insane ramblings.]

At any rate, the weekend was fun. I shelved books at the library for a couple hours Saturday morning; then went home and soon went out again, this time with immediate family for birthday celebration. On the way to a restuarant we stopped at a book sale at a Methodist church. I picked up some excellent fantasy books. (There were some not-so- excellent ones too; one, published in the early eighties, was called The Sword of Shemra or something like that; basically a shorter clone of Terry Brooks' The Sword of Shannara, which is in turn a clone of the LotR trilogy.) After the book sale, we went to Ella's Deli, a really fun resuarant on the East Side of Madison. All over the walls and ceiling are animatronic puppets and things; there's a Big Band orchestra, a superman who flies across the ceiling, a big Noah's Ark with dancing animals, etc.

After Ella's I went and Got a laptop!!!! It was the only thing I asked for as a present, thus my parents and all the relatives contributed money towards it. Lots of fun, the keyboard is more responsive than a PC, and (best feature) I have to wait for no one to get off before using it! The only downside is there's no net connection in my room, so most of the time I have to use the old PC online. *pats old PC on the back*

Then we rented The Interpreter and watched it. Excellent, riveting political thriller.

Sunday church of course, and Sunday evening went to see a great Celtic group called Rising Gael downtown Madison. They did a lot of traditional songs that I'd heard before, but most of them were the best versions I'd heard of them. (They did some I hadn't heard, and those were good too.) The guitar player-incredibly talented-was fifteen years old. The other four (two fiddlers, singer, and a bodhran-player) were in college.

Well that's all for now, Goodnight!

(Exit, pursued by a bear)