A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Word Processor

I had intended to construct a blog entry detailing my experiences and feelings about writing a new sketch for a character I created about 20 years ago, radio detective Brick Steele. I still intend to talk about this, but before I get to that (because it's rather a complex set of feelings and I don't want to mercilessly bore people), I'd rather talk about what happened tonight. It was nice.

First off, Heather and I finally got around to celebrating our sixth wedding anniversary and our recent birthdays (mine was in July, hers in August) with some friends at the nearest sushi house, Fuji Sushi on Lee Road in north Orlando (best sushi in town -- we are experts, trust us). We had a similar dinner with the in-laws and other immediate family last weekend, but for some reason celebrating with friends is equally, if not more, important to me. I think this is because for me, my friends are my real family (my own actual flesh-and-blood family, though nice people who I love and all that, are not the people I'm closest to). This probably sounds very odd to some of you, but it's true.

After dinner, I headed on over to Orlando's Red Fox Lounge (yes, it is a cheesy hotel lounge complete with requisite horrid lounge-music duo -- I swear I thought I had walked onto the set of Saturday Night Live) to help our friend Aaron (of Delusionaires infamy) celebrate his harumphth birthday. After reveling in the horrificness of the cheesy lounge act and reassuring myself that we are so not turning into these people -- late-middle-aged "swingers," divorced alcoholics and generally the sort of people who actually like lounge acts -- the evening turned into a wonderful and far-too-long-in-coming gathering of pals and acquaintances in a non-rock-club atmosphere.

Rich "Suburban Limbo" Grula and Ultra-Deb (of ... well, Ultra-Deb! What more need be said?) traded notes in our spontaneous Bloggers of Orlando mini-meet, stories of comics and "Incredibly Strange Music" were swapped with ink-slinger Dave Mitchell, several local band members stopped by (the cool music community here is quite close-knit), less-seen-friends were updated and information swapped, and Aaron received what I believe is the first Civil Defense logo decorated cake I have ever seen. How cool is that?

In short, it was a really good day.