Today I went to a friends' birthday party (we went to Blue Man Group), tried to fix our wireless network and partially succeeded (accidentally deleting some stuff on my iPaq in the process -- oops!), and... umm... "won" (not really) Monopoly in a game with my older brother, who was visiting from San Fran.

(At one point in the game, I dove across the board and tackled my brother Willy, vanquishing him eternally -- yippee! Hehehe...)

As for Friday's in-depth recap, here goes...

We started the day with a little down time / yearbook-signing time. During that time I learned that my aforementioned brother John was here from San Fran! YIPPEE!!! We lined all then lined up (in alphabetical order) out in the front circle, and at 8:30 we headed in to Bradley Hall for 8th Grade Promotion. Jessica and Max, our two elected student speakers, and our elected faculty speaker, Ms. Mathieu, spoke. We also saw an 8th grade reflective video, and CSP prizes were awarded.

After that, we had a little reception thingy with snacks -- yum! My brother tried tossing various foods into other people's mouths, with little or no success. We introduced John to a couple of my teachers and took plenty of pictures.

After that, we headed back to Bradley Hall for Final Assembly. There, awards were... well... awarded, and some last words were spoken. At 12:30 or so we were free, and I finished getting teacher signatures. (Many kids I would see again that night, and some more I would see Saturday.) We headed to Johnny's (that's a restaurant -- no connection with my brother) and had a celebratory lunch with my younger brother and a couple of friends.

Next we headed to Circle Cinema to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It was pretty good. They have a new director who changed some things, as well as the general feel of the movie, to an extent. He made some good decisions, I think, but also a lot of not-so-good ones. The movie went by REALLY fast, they skipped a whole lot of content, and the supporting characters had little-or-no roles -- we only ever got to see the main guys, the pace was so fast. They changed a few bits of the book around, too. Oh well. It's bound to happen whenever a book makes the leap to the movies. Ha! Get it? A pun! BOUND to happen, like you BIND a book! Hehehe....

Immediately after that, I got a ride to a graduation party. We arrived around 5:35 and stayed until about 7:45 -- we were the last ones to leave, due to a bit of carpool confusion. Just for reference, I believe the party was supposed to last from 5:00 - 7:00. That was fun -- I took eleven pictures using my friend's mom's camera, which is one of those super-satifying ones that makes a nice "click." Fun! :-)

Last night's party was fun, too. There wasn't too much overlap, in terms of who went, which made it interesting. Other differences: Friday's was 100% outside, this one was 100% inside. Friday's went from 5:00 - 7:00, this one from 5:00 - 10:00. We played with some balloons at the beginning, listened to a bit of Beatles music, and marveled at the REALLY old TV in the basement. Then my friend arrived with his Xbox and game collection, and we started up Halo for some deathmatch / team deathmatch fun. Then more people arrived, we watched Pirates of the Caribbean, and headed downstairs for... I forget. Balloon fun? Yeah, some of that.

Anyway, later on, as some kids started to leave, another friend and I snuck upstairs for some more Halo. Unfortunately, he didn't have much experience, and the game wasn't very balanced. Once we got everyone playing and rotating out after losing, it got more fun. The later games were CTF; the earlier ones were team deathmatches.

Then I had to go home. Sad. My friend (a different one here) and I had quite a chat in the car, delaying my return to home -- as you could see from last night's entry. Well, that's all for the recap stuff folks. More real content tomorrow! Hey, maybe I'll get that iPaq working... ooh, and some web site work, too....

Just so you know, Star Trek AND Reading Rainbow star Levar Burton just won something like $167,000 for some teaching charity on "Star Trek" celebrity Weakest Link, as seen just now on the Game Show Network. The winning answer was antebellum -- but what was the answer? Unfortunately, some dumb aliens just came and blew up our planet-sized supercomputer that was only minutes away from the question. Alas, we may never know. Or will we? Find the hidden code, and post the question as a comment on my blog in our first-ever audience contest! May the Force be with you!