Devil May Cry shows Dante drinking "Budweiner" beer. That actually required pausing and rewinding, although it resulted in howls of laughter approximately equivalent to the Witch Hunter Robin moment.

We have started identifying blatant fan service moments by calling them out.

He apologizes for swearing around me. It's really quite cute, as if I did not use the phrase ( *@#*$^-$#&*$*! $#@& *$ ! $%&@*$*! !$&#-@#$*& ) myself every now and then.

Turns out he's Neutral Good, rather than Lawful Good. His internal moral compass just happens to align with Lawful a whole lot.

The phrase "You sat me down and watched me it" makes sense perhaps only in my head, but that is how I describe what it is that Darkside does to me with movies and so forth. I used this phrase in my outside voice, and he poked holes in it, but I still think that it is a perfectly useful phrase.

There is no galaxy hanging from Orion's belt that we could see in the night sky, although Orion was out bright and clear.

We spent just shy of four hours talking writing. I am feeling inspired and challenged and energized and the plot is beginning to click into place so beautifully. I have sent him two massive messages with the primary contents of the Cracked Phoenix universe, and I'm already reading through Book 1 and seeing how it is weak and needs a reimagining and shoring up. If I can see this after that conversation, while still half-asleep, I can only imagine how it'll seem after another conversation or three and a full tank of sleep and no heartache.

I will miss him so intensely. We have email, and phone, and of course I will come back to Phoenix to visit, but oh, the unimagined luxury of stretching out the words and ideas in front of someone who already knows how you think and can hammer on your ideas until they become new again, who reads the same books you like, who knows your tastes, who (treasure of treasures) trusts you with his own words and worlds. I had not known that my best friend could be this to me, too, until tonight. (All the worlds we've made; all we've been through.)

Called Darkside. Talked for an hour. He was apologetic for not having picked up the phone when I'd called yesterday; seems the phone he was nearest to at the time had no charge, and he wasn't sure where the other one had gone to. (It turned out to have been in his room, on the charging stand, where he usually keeps it.) Asked him what he was up to this weekend. He said nothing much, and added that if I were to wish to come over, he would not object. I indicated sly acceptance of the backhanded invitation, and prepared to depart, though not before cracking some jokes with him about not-safe-for-work modes of entertainment, and making sure all of same were put away before my arrival. I like that I get to make these jokes with him on occasion.

Upon my arrival, we went out into the back yard. Darkside is wise, and takes off all breakable items on his person while sparring with me. This includes his glasses. I followed suit, and we had a rousing few rounds of half-blind swordbattery. I won quite a few, and wound up swapping out weapons with him. He started winning more after that. We experimented with some maneuvers both cunning and dumb. He is unwise to engage my blade, because I will lock it for him, and then twist around and tag him.

That got put to an early end when I twisted my ankle. It was not severe enough to require ice, just enough to make me note that I had better not do anything stupid to it within the next several days. I picked the gravel out of my hands and we went inside for some Witch Hunter Robin.

You can tell how intense the plot has gotten by whether or not my hand is wrapped around his arm, and whether or not there are claws leaving dents in his arm. This time, I declined the Mythbusters in favor of more anime. Scary!

hcolleen sent a text message requesting caffeine and gummy worms. The resulting exchange of text messages had Darkside grumbling. Evidently he does not like our quiet time being interrupted. Good to know. He was less annoyed when Dawn called, however. I tossed the phone over to him, and they chatted for a while. There are things going on in ralmathon's life that need discussion around the rest of the old social group, and they came up. Darkside pulled his game out for a while when I wrapped up with Dawn. I had a low battery by that point, so I switched the phone off (in case I had to use the last dregs of charge on the way home) and we were bothered no more. (He pointed out that I should charge the thing more often. I pointed out that I'd been on the phone for an hour directly prior to my coming there. He conceded the point.)

Darkside claims not to be a good pillow: not enough padding. I would beg to differ on the quality of pillow offered by his arm, but then, I'm not his arm, I'm just the one trying to find a cozy place to watch anime. (He has muscle, not just bone.) It is also his bed, so he may wear his sneakers in it if he so wishes. The contrast is better for reading the subtitles with the main light off, a point upon which I agree with him. I am prohibited from screaming out assorted brand names, especially when the window is open and his parents are in the living room.

A good time was had by all, and the only placed product this time was a 2-liter bottle of Bepsi.

I'm hoping this can become a regular feature of our weekends. I do so like having a best friend.

I remember the guys playing King of Fighters way back when. After his ancient DVD player refused to play the Death Note burned DVD (don't worry, hcolleen, it was because his is ancient and not because you did something wrong) he broke out "King of Fighters" and handed me the other controller. (He did ask permission first, which was wise.) We spent a gigglesome amount of time with him mostly beating the pants off me.

His father announced lunch. Yay, lunch.

Darkside came up with the cunning plan of watching the recorded Dr. Who episode. So while he was backing up through the half-watched episode, I slipped off to the restroom.

I noticed, as one casually notices these things, that Darkside had not been doing his "swish and swipe" (the Flylady-approved daily swirl of the brush around the toilet bowl and a quick wipe-down of any exposed surfaces that might gather dust/hair/random dirt) -- there was a little water-ring in the bowl somewhat above the current water line(  ... and those of you who have observed this phenomenon in plumbing will know what *that* particular warning sign means. Chaos shortly ensued. )

Ability to take teasing as well as dish it out is required for even guest membership in the family.

Dr. Who was good. We did watch the whole episode, finally. This is the first episode of Dr. Who that I've seen. Like, ever. It was "The Girl in the Fireplace", and I'm glad to note that the BBC rates it as "Very Scary"; I certainly jumped and shrieked a few times. And, OMG, I want to do my hair like that. I think I'll see if I can come back and watch more with him.

We returned to his room for more gaming; we quit after my thumb started getting very sore. He dug through the safe parts of his anime collection and came up with Fatal Fury, and there was giggling and wry commentary and much fun. hcolleen's little random bits of language lesson are starting to settle in: Lily used the word "kimi" when inviting whoever caught the rose on a night on the town with her; I raised an eyebrow and thought about how much of a refined lady she therefore wasn't. Ahh, word choice defining the character! There was also coziness, as Darkside and I were watching together on his bed. ( Cut for nothing that exciting. )

We finished up the movie (it was the thing with two shorter parts, not the longer one) and I was getting ready to go. As I collected the DVD and began waving it around, he expressed pity about the not being able to watch it. "Well, did you try on the computer?" his mom asked.

We hadn't. We went for the computer room. Darkside realized that the portable player had been an option too, and ran off to collect it. His mom also mentioned the living room DVD player. And lo and behold, the disc worked on the portable player. Darkside hadn't thought of either of those. He had a more modern DVD player in his room, but it was nonfunctional due to a bad settings lockup. (When you set your DVD player to something that won't display, how do you reset it when you can't see what you're doing?) "Baka!" I said, and teased him some.

Then I went home, after collecting my hug. Mmm, hugs. He didn't appreciate the Chad Vader as much as I thought he might. Ah well. I'll find more people who appreciate that kind of crackfilm.

Tay-Tay was finally there when I called. Yay, Tay-Tay! We had a good long old gossip about stuff and things. I advised her that really, she should invite Aunt-Fayoumis to crash with her, should Aunt-Fayoumis be coming through the area; Tay-Tay and Aunt-Fayoumis have very similar dispositions and should get along just fine.

Now that I'm home, I'm realizing that I'm going to pay for the gaming. My wrists hurt in that way that they do when I've overdone something with my hands. I'll not be doing that again any time soon. Also, if one could make the appliance with a load selector, like they do for laundry, that would so totally save water.

Happiness with the whole equinox thing! Yay!

I woke up around eleven-something-ish and did things online. Then I went and gave the plasma. Doing that always invigorates me, because it's doing something good and I get Random Expendable Budget that goes toward writing nights out with the girls, laundry, groceries, fuel, and generally some left over to be completely random with. Like the pastry-oid breakfast for work on Sunday. Dad got paid enough to do impulsive gestures like that on a grander scale (see: "Seismic Salad"), and while I can't do that, I can definitely show the love with bagels, doughnuts, muffins, and Danish.

(I've said it before and I'll likely say it again, but one thing Dad is really good at is figuring out what people really want, and making it happen. Not necessarily their deepest dreams, and he doesn't cheat at cross-ball, but when he can arrange something simple that would bring joy to someone's life, he does.)

I've been reading The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test while giving plasma for the last couple weeks, because that's the best chance I have to read un-interrupted. It's a fascinating book. I'm sure it was a profoundly weird era to have lived through.

Construction on the Phoenix Metro light rail is intense, especially in the three-mile zig-zag from Bethany Home and 19th Ave down to Camelback, over to Central, and down to Indian School. I love the concept, especially given that I use public transit so much, but I have mixed feelings about driving through all the construction. But it's so exciting to see it in progress!

I wound up in Target. I found a GE telephone headset for a reasonable price. I took a look at the rubber wrist strap jump drives, but I was a good girl. I eyed one of the inexpensive guitars longingly (again), but I was still -- a good girl. I was profoundly shocked and amused to see a $20 cellphone that takes prepaid cards. I guess I've been out of touch with the cellphone market, because the last time I saw disposable cellphones they were in something cyberpunk and then hot girls were walking out of convenience store fabricators. Granted, the $20 cellphone was dinky and played like a really cheap calculator on the display model.

But.
This is science fiction. It was science fiction in 2000. This is 2006. Granted, that was a near-future type story, but it was a 20-years-from-now near-future type story. That's a quarter of the time.

The new headset feels like a work headset, except the microphone seems to be nicer, and the plug doesn't quite fit into the jack just right. And the work headsets have a conventional telephone receiver plug, RJ-11, rather than the teenytiny ones that are measured by inches or centimeters or whatever.

Came home to find that I'd somehow managed to whack the espresso machine on, and it doesn't have a safety cutoff switch. Nothing was on fire, but the box of chocolate covered espresso beans that had been parked on top of it had grown slumped and internally sticky. I switched it off and hoped for the best. I fear it's ruined forever. It has a profound smell of overheated equipment about it. I'm just glad nothing caught on fire.

Then I wound up going over to visit trystan_laryssa and her new computer. Her computer is an Acer, just like Allegra. Well, a couple generations removed from Allegra. It was nice to have brand recognition. Her computer has a 10-key pad. So. Jealous.

Fruits Basket, yay.

Taking trystan_laryssa to school after we wake up -- the matriarch of the household usually does the rides, but as she's got another engagement this morning, she's out of the running, and I'm in.

So, I sleep.