here goes

[garfield22]

for those who i have not talked to in a while, i have had the past two weeks off from work. today is my first day back at work and it sucks as much as i remember it. because i am bored, i decided to write a journal update. how ingenious of you, jon. here's my best documentation of winter break 2003:

friday, december 19th:

the brother and his wife arrive

dinner w/ zach and jill, consisting of chili

zach and jill are introduced to dance dance revolution

they leave, and phil and rachel arrive later

phil and rachel are introduced to ddr, as well

saturday, december 20th:

trip with church group to nyc to see the radio city music hall christmas spectacular

jon gets pissed off walking around with the group all day. big groups + new york city at christmas time = annoyed jon.

sunday and monday, the 21st and 22nd:

mostly boring family stuff, mostly consisting of tasty food and more cookies than i thought were humanly possible. my mom made enough cookies to feed half of europe and three-quarters of non-communist china.

tuesday, december 23rd:

dinner at phil and rachel's new apartment with zach, jill, my brother and his wife consisting of more tasty food. a good time was had by all

wednesday, christmas eve:

christmas eve service at my church

family time at the 'rents consisting of gift mixup (read a few entries back).

thursday, christmas day:

the obvious, spent with family

friday, december 26th:

breakfast (at lunchtime) with the family, consisting of buckwheat pancakes and sundried tomato sausages. awesome.

finished max payne 2 and hung out more w/ the brother and wife. his wife, to be specific.

saturday, december 27th:

even more hanging out

ate dinner w/ aaron who was in town, he came back to my place after dinner and we watched spinal tap and played some crimson skies with allan (that's my brother).

sunday, december 28th:

allan and joh leave

i do absolutely nothing all day, and by nothing i mean play videogames

monday, december 29th:

once again, absolute nothing. i watched cube 2: hypercube and thirteen at some point

tuesday, december 30th:

birthday dinner for my dad

i get dragged into seeing stuck on you with my sister, which wasn't as awful as i thought it would be

ryan and nate arrive at some point after i get home from the movie and my friend tim comes over to hang out

wednesday, new year's eve:

zach arrives with projector and xbox in tow

plans gear up for the evening ahead: we hit a local liquor store and marvel at the ability of people to pack themselves into tight spaces

pizza is ordered, my friend jon arrives, phil arrives, and the six of us game it up till about 5:30 in the morning. games of highlight include halo, timesplitters 2, mario kart: double dash, and ddr.

thursday, new year's day:

nate leaves for houghton, and the rest of us (phil, rachel, and ryan) travel over to zach and jill's for dinner and hanging out(see xenomouse's latest entry for details on that)

friday, january 2nd:

i depart for dinner with an aunt and uncle i haven't seen in a while, and zach comes over to keep ryan company while i'm at dinner.

i return to find the two of them engaged in a sweaty battle of ddr. i make the observation that my living room smells like a gym.

after calling eli to see when/if he was coming over to visit that weekend, we find out that he was too busy with his girlfriend that weekend to come all the way over to new jersey. to remedy this, zach, ryan, and i drive all the way out to eli's girlfriend's house in lancaster--after dropping zach's car off at his place. we have breakfast w/ eli at some greasy breakfast joint. ryan and i collapse into bed somewhere around 5 am, after leaving to see eli 5 hours before. the things i do for my friends.

saturday, january 3rd:

after a day filled with videogames, ryan and i meet up with zach and jill in king of prussia to watch big fish, which ended up being pretty decent albeit a bit emotional at the end.

sunday, january 4th:

after church, ryan and i clean up the apartment.

he leaves, and i head over to the parents to do laundry and to get a free meal.