n a v i g a t i o n
Home
What's New
Me
Friends
Rants
Gallery
f e a t u r e s
Computers
- Dual Celeron
Nissan Maxima
Saturn
l i n k s
Links
Emperor's
Hammer
New Year's Eve 2004
The transition from the traditional New Year's Eve parties in NorCal to partying in SoCal continues. We haven't hit any club parties or anything yet, which is probably for the better... partying with friends is a lot cheaper and probably more fun than partying with 500+ mostly random people for $40-to-$150 a ticket.
Or maybe I'm getting old and boring like that. Who knows.
Things started off with a rare visit from my sister. She had her own stuff to do, so after dinner at Barney's Beanery with my sis, Barry, and Kim, we went our own ways. I headed off into a 30 minute long endless-circle-for-parking over at Mike, Chris, and Henri's place (Sophia's friends, basically) over in Culver City.
After I finally found parking a mile away (ask Carley- I'm not exaggerating by much!), picked up another straggler to the party (Daniel), and found my way inside the massive maze they called an apartment complex, things were actually pretty nice. Saw Sophia & Justin, Carley, Camille, Bej (er, John), Grace & Kevin, Heather, Mike, Chris, Henri, and a few others, most of whom I recognized.
That's when I made my biggest mistake of the night. I figured "I know a lot more people here" than I expected, and they were opening a round of Texas Hold'em. So I joined. (yes, it was a lot of fun!) I just regret joining because it turns out 15~20 additional people walked in as we were playing, and I didn't know any of them! (well, ok, Tara arrived late too. So she was the exception) So much time I could have spent socializing was lost by the vast-pool-of-fun known as Texas Hold'em. Oh well, I did have plenty of fun playing. =)
New Year's toast was a bit chaotic. Lots of streamers everywhere. Good times. =) The video I got wasn't very good, view at your own risk. right click, SAVE AS
Finished off the unexpectedly-very-long-due-to-lousy-hands Hold'em game** around 12:30, then discovered the rest of the apartment. Mike was playing bartender for everyone, the foosball table was busy all night, DDR occupied the TV, laptops were in widespread evidence, the porcelean gods were well worshipped... The photo wall of all of their visitors was creative and very quaint, thanks to the ancient technology involved. ;-)
** = yes, that was THE best flop/turn/river of whole night. 99% of ALL of the other hands sucked. I think we had less than a dozen hands better than three of a kind the whole night.
My attempts to socialize with the rest of the group were now unhindered for the rest of the night. I'd love to describe everyone I met, but I can barely remember any of their names! =( Amy (picture-shy), Holden, Kim, Mike's cousin Robyn, Francis, Jeannie, etc. etc. There was a big group of people who disappeared into one of the bedrooms for most of the night to chat-- and unfortunately I've forgotten all of their names. Argh. *ahem* If you want to help me with adding names-to-the-pictures, let me know!.
The description of the party just seems inadequate. Suffice it to say, thanks to Mike, Chris, Henri for throwing a great party!
