My phone is ringing. Again. And again. And again. At 4 a.m. my ex calls, just to shoot the breeze. I have to get up for work in three hours! The six missed calls earlier were not one, not two or three, but four different friends calling to find out what I was doing that evening and if I wanted to go out for drinks.

This is not a weekend.

This is a Wednesday night.

It seems the time has come to prune some extraneous leaves on the branches of my social tree. My phonebook now includes some names to which I cannot even match the slightest hint of a face.

I have now reached the stage where I can answer the question, “So what are you up to tonight?” with, “Oh nothing,” and invariably end up somewhere loud at three in the morning stumbling into a dirty bathroom and incessantly repeating the line that never fails to impress: “I have work in the morning! I can’t believe that I am out doing this!” Read More »

Ah, February 14th. The day Russia was liberated in 1943. The day Teller of Penn and Teller was born back in 1948. Two months after my birthday. Oh, right, and Valentine’s Day.

This whole concept of celebrating Valentine’s Day with my significant other is new to me, you see, so forgive me for not really remembering that it exists. In the past, I’ve always spent Valentine’s Day with the people I loved, not the people I was in love with. So I figure that this Valentine’s Day really won’t be all that different from all the rest, save I’ll spend a little more time with one person and a little less time with the whole gang.

Still, that whole sappy romance thing just doesn’t cut it for me. Don’t get me wrong; roses and chocolate are all well and good, but I need a little more variety than that. I need to have fun. Ridiculous, outrageous, hilarious, entertaining fun. So, for those who are spending their Valentine’s Day with their beau, their best buds, or both, I present a companion piece of sorts.

1. Drive-thru dining: Get some cardboard boxes. Big boxes. Try a furniture store, or you could even get a nice set of moving boxes. They need to be big enough for you to actually walk around in, though. You’ll see why. Get together one or several friends, sit down with some crayons and markers, and draw yourself a car. Read More »

I am loving Gmail chat, or Gchat as those of us in the know like to call it. And I am so over AOL Instant Messenger.

AIM, with its elaborate sound effects and cutesy but cluttered design, has lost its appeal for me. There was a time when I, like many of my friends, left AIM constantly signed on, just in case some crucial or exciting message might pop up unexpectedly. But over time, the many irritations of AIM began to wear on me. I signed on less and less frequently, and eventually not at all.

Those advertisements at the top of the buddy list window would make loud and abrupt noises out of nowhere, which freaked me out. I’m through spending hours meticulously crafting witty away messages or tweaking my profile, and I’m definitely through reading other people’s away messages and profiles. The internet has come a long way, and there are far better ways to kill time. Like Facebook. Also, in the many long years I’ve been using AIM, I have acquired a lot of “buddies”. A lot of random buddies, many of whom I no longer care to chat with. It’s so awkward when some long lost acquaintance I occasionally partied with during my senior year of high school wants to kill time by IMing me. I have nothing to say, but at the same time, how can I blow someone off when we haven’t spoken in three or four years? Read More »