I GOT TO THE RESTAURANT a little later than the appointed time, and found that aethucyn, who had counted on being early, was the only one there. ad hoc joined us soon thereafter and then toxicfur came with iGrrrl, 256, ni, and MissTrish, with ana following soon after. Everyone but aethucyn and I was asked "have you been here before?" and neophytes were given some speech about their beer selection which I didn't hear because no one asked if I wanted the speech.

The calamari was good, though, because it's never too early for cephalopods.

I ordered the "Dreaded Green Monster" because, as aeth pointed out, "you have to face your fears," though as it was a chicken pesto sandwich, it was really more tasty than it was scary. It came with marinara sauce on the side -- we could only assume it was for those for whom pesto was, indeed, too frightening, or perhaps it was to facilitate making B-movies with nothing but a handheld video camera and some simple brew pub fare.

aethucyn gave me a book that is very funny for incredibly obscure reasons. This is good, because I just finished the nonfiction book I had been reading (although I should probably read the ones that I have from him on loan, rather than outright gifts, first).

TOXICFUR BORROWED 256's HAT, and tried to solicit opinions from around the table. She claimed that she couldn't trust ana, on account of ana's loving her and all, and iGrrrl said that in that case, she had to recuse herself too. So ni noted, "Well, I've been poisoning you slowly by adding drops of mercury in your drink."

"And what do you think of the hat?" I asked.

"I think it's awesome."

I tried to make a hat for ni, but the napkin needed to be more starched.

AT ONE POINT during an otherwise serious conversation, iGrrrl said, "I don't think I could sanction death over dairy products."

I think I left CRwM a rather incoherent phone message, and I was totally not even drunk. The essence of the message was, in the end, "CRwM CHECK YOUR EMAIL. Tomorrow."

256 ASKED IF I WAS going to go home afterwards and fold origami, or something. I said, "No, I'll probably do something lamer, like go refresh the WFC poll." (Vote, damnit, vote!)

I did that, and then I wrote this diary.