We had a fairly standard Friday night, and we managed to leave the Late Night Bar of Evil before they actually kicked us out, so that was good. On Saturday, Elvis had his guitar lesson, followed by 3.5 hours of beerr drinking, pretty much like last week. No fool me (or at least not a huge fool), I made plans to meet up with Brenda. I was about ten minutes from leaving when Elvis finally called with plans for dinner. It was 8:30. I was not amused. We ended up going anyway, to a little hole-in-the-wall place that a lot of people are quite fond of, but that we had only been to once before. I'm not sure why-- the food is pretty good, and cheap to boot. Then we went to the Enoteca, where we met up with Bren and Pooka Boy. Bren and I had decided to go there for a change of pace. Then Joe showed up, a new guy in tow. Pooka, Bren and I shared a fantastic bottle of red wine that I had seen recommended in a magazine article about mid-priced Portuguese reds: Evel Grande Escolha (Douro, 2001). It was fantastic. I'll have to look for it in the grocery stores.

After that, it was off to the Irish Pub and then on to the LNBOE when they finally kicked us out. New Guy (who will be getting a better name soon, as soon as I've thought of a good one for him), kept leeering at me drunkenly and saying things like "you're lovely, you are" and "you're a bit of all right, you know that?" Elvis was standing right next to me whilst this was going on, and I get the feeling he was unimpressed. I certainly was. I kept telling him those were very kind sentiments, but that I was both married and not at all interested, to which he'd respond "I know, but you're lovely, you are."

I am told that later on he got into a fight with another guy, complete with flying beer, but we had left by that time, so I missed it. Drat. It did make me wonder whether or not the other guy has a girlfriend and, if so, how lovely she is.

That's right, we left the LNBOE without being kicked out, or even receiving the customary shot of snapps that comes immediately before being asked to leave. I am beginning to suspect that we're getting old.

Last night was the pub quiz, and our team of me, Elvis and Joe did laughably bad. Literally. We didn't start off doing too badly. Mind you, we only got a pitiful number of answers correct, but no one else did, either. This month's quiz was incredibly difficult. By the time we hit the last couple of rounds, I was laughing out loud each time the quiz master read out the answers. Terrible, terrible. Even so, we did not come in last place. Third to last, I think, or possibly second to last. But not last.

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If you over-microwave a hot dog, it gets to looking very, very rude. Trust me.

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Today, I am not feeling one hundred percent. 50%, maybe, or possibly 60. I'm coming down with the flu, I think, or a really bad cold. It's probably what Elvis had last week, and I'm hoping I can manage to fight it off. As it is, I'm feeling blah and rather achy, and I think that when I wasn't looking, somebody managed to drill a hole in my head and filled it up with mercury, just like spiking a watermelon with vodka. It might not have been mercury, though: possibly it was platinum (which is heavier than mercury, as we found out last night to our great chagrin. I mean, we started out answering platinum, but we talked ourselves out of it because we are imbeciles.)

In any case, I have been no less imbecilic today. For example, this afternoon I made brownies, at the request of the co-workers of Elvis, one of whom informed him that even his favorite chocolate chip cookies were bland and tasteless after the chocolate-laden glory that is my brownies. Complete and utter bullshit, of course, but I am susceptible to flattery. So I mixed up a batch, and as I was about to pour the batter into the pan, I noticed that it looked. . . wrong, somehow. So I got out the cookbook and checked the recipe, but as far as I could tell, I had done everything right. Still. The batter didn't look right to me. Too runny. Too light in color. Not chocolatey enough. Almost as if I hadn't put any chocolate in it whatsoever.

Then I noticed the full bag of chocolate sitting on the counter. Unopened. Right next to the mixing bowl, as it happens. So I dumped that in, which fixed it right up. Nothing worse than brownies that are completely devoid of chocolate, is what I say.

They came out fine. That is, they look fine. I haven't tasted them yet, so I can't be sure.