As expected, I didn't have much to offer my mom and little brother when they came to Appleton for MEA. There was one campus event (the choir concert) which we duly attended, and my little brother sat in on a class, but otherwise we spent most of our time off-campus, eating out and walking around the Fox Valley Mall.

On a related note, I have "gym shoes" now, which means that I'm officially open for racquetball. As long as you aren't that great.

On Thursday night, I got my little brother into a poker tournament that'd been planned earlier in the week. He was a little surprised to find out about the buy-in, but he can no longer complain after taking home first place and $35 in profit.

That was an easy night. Tonight was a bit harder. We got back from the choir concert only to find that everyone was gone; I was completely out of the loop because I hadn't been around when plans were being made.

The Politician called, in a similar jam, and I called my way down the "friends" list (my suspicions notwithstanding, Jubb assures me that one's order on the list is not to be considered a "ranking") until Katy finally filled me in on the night's various activities.

None of them really sounded like something I wanted to drag my sibling to. But the Politician and I went to reconnoiter a few parties, just to be sure.

We discovered a goodsized group of Lawrentians in Ben and Freshman Matt's room, but (predictably) failed to recruit any of them for a small and somewhat antisocial game of King's Cup back at Hiett.

So we didn't do anything. My little brother filled his iPod with campus network goodies, I watched the first six episodes of the Ninja Scroll television series, and the Politician and his betrothed played The Sims 2.

Or something: evil moths were gassing a tree witch, so I wasn't really paying attention to what anyone else was doing.

Cameos by our missing roommates rounded out the evening and reminded me how annoying it is to be around drunk people when I haven't been drinking. Jonas, Freshman Matt, and Ben resurfaced and helped me up onto my high horse.

All in all though, I was much more aggravated to find that my Lawrentian editorial was missing part of the last sentence (I didn't see a galley proof of that page, so it's not entirely my fault) than I was by anyone I saw tonight.

Later Jubb wandered in, nobly showing me a line I hope never to cross. He was bleeding, dirty, and still wet from the river adventure that had made him that way. Still clad only in his trademark whitey-tighties, he asked everyone in the room for duct tape (to patch his wound) before stumbling off to bed.

During that last episode we were playing Clue. I feel like an iconoclast, and I like that, but I'd feel a lot better if I could be a more exciting iconoclast.