Where Dustbunnies Go To Die

I mentioned in my last post that I was skipping a NYE party I'd been invited to because I wanted to spend the evening online with Eric. However, just as we were starting our conversation this evening, he got a phone call inviting him to go to a friend's place, so I decided that I would go to the party after all.

It was a small gathering - only about eight or nine people were there - but I still enjoyed myself. And Eric called me around 11:55 (good thing I'd taken my cellphone out of my coat pocket :) ), and we counted down the last ten seconds of 2008 together, and then he and his friends performed "Auld Lang Syne". (I've never learned the lyrics, so I didn't join in. If I had, it would have gone something like "Should old acquaintance be forgot, and da da da da da... Da da da da da da da da da da da auld lang syne." ;) )

Though technically I suppose it should have been the last eleven seconds, as there was a "leap second" inserted after 12/31/08 23:59:59 to match the atomic clock kept outside Paris to the Earth's actual rotation. ( Here's a news story about it.)

I got in a little under an hour ago. The TTC was running extended service tonight - unfortunately, it seemed from the posted schedule that there's no 24-hour bus service on Royal York Road, so I took the streetcar along Lakeshore and Queen until I got to Yonge Street. The subway was still running, though (usually it stops just before 2), so I got home in short order from Yonge and Queen.

There was an unfortunate incident, though - a couple of drunken 20-something-year-olds got into a fistfight just in front of me. I was sitting in the back row of seats, trying to read (I'm still working my way through The Heart Of Valor by andpuff), so I didn't see how it started, but it looked like this was what happened:

1. Boy A spat on boy B. Whether deliberately or not, I don't know.


2. Boy B assumed that girl C was with boy A, and decided to confiscate a can of beer out of her purse as compensation for being spat upon.


3. Girl C complained that she had nothing to do with boy A and started screaming at boy B and tried, unsuccessfully at first, to grab the beer back.


4. Boy D, who was with girl C, made occasional comments at boy B, but otherwise didn't do much of anything.


5. Boy B then decided to jump on boy A and spit in his face in retaliation.


6. Boy E, who was with boy A, then jumped on boy B and started pounding away at his face.


7. (At this point, girl F, who was with boy B, sat down next to me, looked at me, stuck out her hand to shake hands and said, "Happy New Year. I'm sorry about this.")


8. Boy D grabbed girl C and they both got off the streetcar.


9. They were pursued by boy A and his friends.


10. Boy B stayed on the streetcar all the way to Yonge (at least).

Throughout all this, the driver didn't stop the streetcar or anything. I don't know if he just didn't want to get involved, or if he actually couldn't tell that something was going on (it was a double-length articulated streetcar, and it was quite crowded - people were standing from the front all the way to the back and he kept making announcements asking people to move back).

Oy gevalt.

Work was kind of strange today, at least in my experience. People who have worked for ISPs or hosting companies may have experienced this before, but it was all new to me...

The company I work for, in addition to doing web development, hosts websites. One of our clients is B'nai B'rith, the world's oldest Jewish service organization. Well, what with everything that's going on at the moment with Israel, their website was overloaded today. My boss' partner thinks that it was a denial of service attack by anti-Semites, though I suppose it's also possible that they were just getting a lot of hits due to the latest events between Israel and Hamas.

Unfortunately, my development webspace is on the same server as B'Nai B'rith's website, which means that from 1pm onwards, I couldn't do any work. I couldn't save any files to the server, and I couldn't even use the website I'm working on (I'm still trying to finish the user manual for the content management system, but I found a bug in it while writing the documentation for the image gallery plugin and was trying to fix it).

Around 6:30, my boss' partner (since my boss is away all week visiting his in-laws) told me to go home and not bother coming in tomorrow. Hopefully the problem is fixed by Friday.I was awfully bored until he told me to go home.

So I got home around 8:15, made dinner, made my and Eric's hotel reservation for Chattacon (I get to see him live and in person in less than a month! *bounce* *bounce* *bounce* *grin*), and called him for our nightly chat.

With this unexpected day off, I'll be able to go to the post office (I have to mail a letter relating to Anticipation and my pre-reg form for Chattacon - they don't have online pre-registration (!!!)), watch the BSG S4 webisodes, and maybe even do some long-overdue cleaning in the bathroom.

I have an invitation to a New Year's Eve gathering, but if I were to go, I wouldn't get to spend NYE with my sweetie, so I decided to stay home tomorrow night. Though we might not make it to 12 o'clock because he has to be at work for 7AM on New Year's Day. (Ick.)

I'd just like to wish everyone on my friendslist a safe, happy and healthy 2006!

Now, on to how I spent my New Year's Eve...

Around 10:30, I decided that I didn't want to be alone tonight as I have been for pretty much every NYE since 1996 (unless you count 1998, when I was dating Kevin Stewart, but he cancelled our NYE date at the last minute and then broke up with me the next day, so I don't think that counts). So I went down to Woody's... and lined up.

It was nuts. The line stretched right to the corner of Church and Maitland, and possibly further north after I joined the line. I didn't get in until 11:40 (but at least it was before midnight!). I saw John, James, Harry and Ralph from bowling, but only got to wave hi to John (he was with someone, so I didn't actually speak to him - I'm not sure if it was the same guy he was with last time I saw him downtown) and didn't get to say hello to James until around 2 o'clock, when our paths crossed. Around 12:30, I was standing at the front bar and I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned, and there was a young woman I'd never seen before in my life, smiling and wishing me a Happy New Year. She then threw her arms around me and hugged me, and introduced me to her friend Jamie. While she made the rounds and hugged everyone (according to Jamie, she was quite drunk), Jamie and I chatted for a while. At one point, he asked me to come out onto the patio with him, so I dutifully trooped along, where he started up a conversation with two other guys whose names I didn't catch. I don't think he actually knew them - he was just being a social butterfly. One of them had blond dreadlocks and an eyebrow ring, which in theory don't do anything for me at all, but for some reason, in his case, it did something for me. While we were chatting, he happened to mention that his back was a bit sore. (dx4, gurudata, kanecool, aprilsnark and iangurudata all know where this is going, don't you?) Yes, I gave him a backrub. According to one of Jamie's other friends who were there, I apparently "look like I know what I'm doing." (Not that it did me any good. There's a reason why I'm updating my LJ at 4:50 in the morning instead of getting my brains fucked out.)

Anyway, they decided that they were going to step outside for some unknown reason, and Jamie and his friend Kylie wandered off as well, so I was left alone for the rest of the evening, until about 3:15 when I bumped into Jamie again. He was freaking out because all of his friends had deserted him, and one of them had his cellphone. He grabbed my hand and led me around the bar to try to help him look for them, but since I'd only met them a little while earlier and very briefly, I'm not sure what good he thought I'd do. After not being able to find them, he said to me, "I'm going back to my hotel. You can come along if you like." Um... was that meant to be a pickup line? If so, it was the worst one I'd ever heard. He was clearly freaking out still, so I declined. After having observed him for a while, I had come to the conclusion that he has ADHD. I mean, he made cuteteenboy look focused. (I don't mean that as a slur against cuteteenboy. I love him to bits - after all, he was my first "fairy godson" - but I've often said that conversing with him gives me whiplash.)

But I got a nice goodnight kiss out of it, anyway. (I'm such a slut.)

While standing in line for the coat check (I have never seen the coat check line stretch down to the lower level of the bar, until tonight), I saw the guys that Jamie had introduced me to on the patio (the one to whom I'd given a backrub, and his friend - not sure if they were boyfriends or not). We chatted for a few minutes, as much as we could considering there were a couple of people between us in line. They vanished when I got outside, though.

Then, as I walked north to the light at Maitland and waited to cross the street, I ran into Robert from bowling. He had been at a friend's place, and was just on his way home. We chatted for a few minutes, but then I continued on to Yonge to wait for the bus.

The first bus didn't stop because it was too full (or, at least, the driver thought it was, because there seemed to be room in the back). I decided to walk north to Bloor and get the bus there, as most people would be getting off there to transfer to the east-west route. Some guy decided to do the same, and when we got to Bloor, he said he was going to keep walking north and asked me to keep him company. So I walked with him up past Summerhill, whereupon he decided to hail a taxi (he'd walked from Richmond and John, which is a couple of kilometres southwest of Yonge and Wellesley, where I'd met him), but he offered to let me share the cab as he was going to Yonge and Lawrence.

So that was my New Year's adventure. Meh.