So, what's new with Adman?

Big news is that we got a new car (well, new to us). Diana's sister moved to Sweded for the forseeable future, and sold us her Prius. So we're officially tree-hugging, clean-air-loving, gas conservationists, or something. I've only driven the car around the neighborhood, but it seems pretty nice. I believe Diana's in the midst of selling her car to Sara, so there's been a good bit of time spent on the DMV website, figuring out how to transfer ownerships.

Me and Diana and Eryn banzai'd out to Vegas, where Iwan and Sara we're celebrating his 30th birthday. Diana's dad called earlier in the week and said he had credit with Southwest that was going to expire, and did we want it? Yay for free plane tickets! We stayed at the Stratosphere, which isn't the fanciest place, but isn't terrible either. Gambling-wise, the trip was pretty successful for almost everyone. I got a full house playing "Let It Ride", which won me $130 and basically covered my gambling expenses for the rest of the trip. Eryn, as far as I can tell, cleaned up at blackjack multiple times. The five of us played in a $30 poker tournament, and Iwan ended up taking second place! We were all very proud of him. As it happens, ZJ's bachelor party was in Vegas that weekend as well, so we met up with Gabe and all three Reynolds boys for a Benihana dinner and night out. Good times.

The only dissapointing part of the trip is that there doesn't seem to be a casino that is both 1) elegant and sophisticated and 2) offers cheap gambling. We spent both nights at "Slots-A-Fun", which, while cheap, is pretty slummy. When we were in the cab line, and admitted our destination publically, people actually LAUGHED OUT LOUD at us. I'm hardly an aristocrat, but Slots falls on the wrong side of some internal line. But, I guess I'd rather go there than spend $15 per hand on Blackjack. As I said, I just wish there was room for both.

In the cab ride back to the airport, I talked with the cabbie a little. He said he'd been in Vegas for something like 25 years. I commented that it must have changed a lot, and he said "Yeah, massive changes", and indicated somehow that the old days were better. I asked why. "It was classy back then," he said with a lingering New York accent. "When you went out, guys wore jackets and sportcoats, women wore evening dresses. You could go to a lounge and catch a show. There were no rugrats running around...." He sounded truly sad. I think I would have liked to have seen Old Vegas, if only for a night.

In other news, we recently watched the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know?". I'm a little lost on how to describe it. It's a movie that is a series of interviews with various scholars and "mystics" who talk about quantam physics, the power of positive thinking, and various new-agey kind of stuff. Intercut with this is a dramatization of a woman who goes from anxiety-pill popping grumpy-pants to clean, happy, and free-thinking. While I agreed with some of the themes of the movie, for the most part it was completely laughable. Still, it was thought-provoking and interesting to watch. The most interesting part to me was the hypnotic themes that were employed. There were lots of shots from a first person point of view of descending through a tunnel at fast speed, and lots of suggestive language about opening our minds and accepting these ideas. I could only picture my work-boy, who is both highly suggestable and also (probably not coincidentally) recommended the movie to me.

That's the big news. Diana is still working hard with school. I let myself get sucked back into World of Warcraft, but I'm unsure how long that will last. My game-programming has stagnated somewhat, but I hope to get back on track with that soon. This weekend we're going to a memorial service for the mother of a friend of Diana's who died recently after an incredibly long fight with various cancers, so that will be kind of a downer. I've never been to a funeral service, if you can believe it.

That's all I got.