May 19 1998, Tuesday

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  returned from OlssenHall to find a mysterious partial keg on the front porch. It hadobviously been stolen by the usual suspects. Morgan Anarchy and the boy Jesse had been trying out myBudweiser tap, but it didn't fit. The keg was the classy type thatrequired a special screw-on tap. While they called places to track downthe right kind of tap, I prepared to go to Tate's junkyard on Avon StreetExtended to get a new wheel for the Dart and a heater blower fan. Ididn't really need to prepare, but Jessika was coming along and sheusually needs to do a long list of things before going anywhere (no I'mnot complaining).

Tate's, like all junk yards on a hot sunny day, was an inhospitablefurnace of heat. But I was pleased to find several fresh Dodge Darts andPlymouths added to the collection of junk cars, perfect for my needs. Iextracted a heater fan and selected a fairly good tire on a seeminglyappropriate rim (I carefully measured the central aperture with acone-shaped bottle I'd marked with the correct circumference). MeanwhileJessika went through the trunks of the junk cars, finding clothes andcontainers and other long abandoned personal effects.

Back home, when I finally got around to playing with my Dart, I found itsold heater fan actually does work, so my problem lay somewhereelse. Getting the heater controls out from behind the dash was a majorbitch, and I was covered with sweat by the time I was done. I'll lookinto it more later.

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t Olssen Hall a second timetoday, I was reading Wendy's Journalwhen she snuck up from behind me in meatspace and started workingon her latest entry on the Macintosh right beside me. She's wacky likethat. As we both worked on our journals, we discussed our differentmethods. She does hers all via telnet sessions, whereas I keep all myrecent entries as text files on a PC-formatted floppy disk, advancing thedays by duplicating the latest entry before filling it withcontent, effectively making a template for thefuture.

I also showed Wendy my raw referral log.Read this carefully, it's complicated: I like to find referencesfrom other people's online web statistics pages in my referrallog. I then go to their web statistics pages (almost alwaysavailable for the entire world to see) and check out where most of theirhits come from. Not unusually, I then gloat over the fact thatthey get the plurality of their traffic from my online journals page. You can shoot mefor my arrogance now, it's over I swear.

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ack at Kappa Mutha Fucka, Wacky Jen (whose 27th birthday it was today)was lounging in the backyard hammock while Jesse and Morgan continued tofuss with their stolen keg. They eventually tracked down an appropriatetap at the Harris Teeter, but could find no way to successfully chill thekeg; the ice they'd bought all melted and slipped around the keg anddisappeared into the bottom of the trashcan that was supposed to be itsice bath.

Since it was Wacky Jen's birthday, Johnny Boom Boom offered to go buy somepizza for those of us present. Beyond that, he absolutely refused toaccept contributions to the cause. It was a strangely spontaneoussentiment coming from Johnny, and of course it met with our approval. Deya and I went with Johnny to pick itup, and on the way I decided to do my part and bought a bottle ofmid-priced champagne and a six pack of expensive beer from the Seven DayJunior. Deya contributed a little to this purchase.

I tracked down a big paraffin candle and Johnny, Deya and I marched outinto Kappa Mutha's overgrown back yard (featuring waist-high grass androbust succulent pokeberry stalks) with the two pizzas and bottle ofmid-priced champagne. Unexpectedly, Johnny vanished at this point. Wecalled and called to him, wondering what to do, since the necessaryrituals required his presence. Deya had poured him a glass ofchampagne, expecting he'd drink with us. But when Johnny finallyappeared, he had his ever-ready bottle of Mad Dog and expressed nointerest in drinking champagne at all. He didn't want to eat any pizzaeither. In reference to the long grass, he asked if we had anything forhis allergies. Complain, complain, that's all he ever does, even whenhe's happy. His complaining, combined with his numerous hangups, forcesthose socializing with him to focus all their attention on him, and thisseems to be his ultimate goal. Still, to those who know him, he can do nowrong. It's irritating as hell sometimes and I find myself exploding indisgust on occasion (for example, see thisentry). But I haven't done that in a long time.

After Deya, Jen and I had eaten our pizza and been eaten in turn bymosquitoes, we retreated indoors and drank good beers.

Meanwhile, Morgan and Jesse had begun drinking the beer, even though itwas still essentially room temperature. It wasn't easy to drink; warmbeer seems to make people sleepy. Morgan rooted around for the rightmusic to pump some life into us and eventually found what he sought: thePogues (traditional Celtic drinking music with a strong punkseasoning).

Wacky Jen had been invited by her housemate Paul to see his band (somekind of ensemble devoted to 80scovers) perform at Millers. Shemanaged to get everyone but me to go with her in two different cars(though Morgan and Jesse took a gallon of keg beer along and ended upsitting in the car with it the whole time). I was feeling sleepy andthought I'd go to bed. But the moment the party had left, I was feelingwide awake. About this time Jessika came home from a shift of working atthe Jefferson Theatre.

We drank a little beer and discussed the unfortunate fact that our househas become a Big Funesque party centralof late. As if to prove the point, Cecelia the Brazilian Girl, Monster Boy, and "that girl he might bedoing stuff with," Beth, showed up. They drank a few beers and mostlytalked about warts (or at least Cecelia did; she had a big one on herthumb that she'd just nuked with every caustic compound she could find).Cecelia was all messed up on something, pills I suspect. As Jessika putit, "Cecelia is addicted to Ray Robot's house these days."

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essika was eager to godumpster diving. This time is a great one for the fanciers of free stuff; all the spoiled rich college kids just want to get the fuck out of townand don't care at all what they throw away (as Wendy the onlinejournal-keeper explained, "My mother will buy me all that stuff againwhen I need it next year"). Last night, for example, Jessika found aperfectly operational graphing calculator. The only problem is that thisyear we're doing the exact same thing, albeit with somewhat more care,trying to shed as much excess crap as possible (big things particularly)before the end of our lease.

Down behind some apartments on JPA, Jessikaand I found a set of couches, and rooting around in the cracks, I found awatch and a calculator, evidently lost and never recovered. Later, in adumpster only about 70 feet from our own house, we found all kinds ofstuff: a working remote-control monster truck (something I really wantedas a little kid), eatable food, a half-full box of laundry detergent, andall kinds of toiletries being thrown out by a heavily-perfumed girlevidently plagued by feminine itching. We returned home triumphant, andby this time all the others (except Wacky Jen) were there too, eating avery hot (but tasty) jalapeño and pineapple pizza and drinking,drinking, drinking, drinking, drinking.

The beer (which was still warm) succeeded only in making mebloated and sleepy. Kirstin the Ecoradical was similarly affected, andended up passing out on the couch.