After work, I drove to find Drizzt at the expected location. He had completed his testing, and was ready to kick back and party.

After a brief stop at the Castle Lair, Drizzt was hungry for mexican food, so I recommended we eat at On the Border, a mere block or two away from ground zero. We ate the delicious food, and drank margaritas (drizzt generously paid for my drink).

With full stomachs, we made a quick stop at the grocery store for fortifications of the caffeinated variety.

Back at the Castle Lair, we watched Ninja Scroll, an anime DVD he had brought with him. Partway through, I realized that some of it seemed vaguely familiar. I inquired as to whether he had ever owned a VHS copy, which he answered in the affirmative. We had indeed watched it once before at his house, but he had forgotten I had been there on that occassion, and I had forgotten most of the movie.

The animation quality was very good (a notch below Princess Mononoke), but the plot was utterly confusing to a newbie. Drizzt said he had had to watch it 3 times before he understood what was going on. I think it made approximately the same amount of sense to me as my first viewing years ago.

After the movie, we put on my Moby DVD in the background, and commenced with an activity my brain had nearly forgotten it knew. The time honored art of Magic: The Gathering. I dug out my ancient decks, which have been sitting in the closet for years, and scratched my head as Drizzt explained the finer points regarding the new rules. (I had forgotten all but the most primitive of the old rules.)

The first game was a session total fuzzy bumbling on my part. Reading each of the cards in my hand carefully, trying to remember and figure out what it was all talking about, and doing my best to keep up. (Forget about strategizing.)

Surprisingly, after a very short amount of time, the old instincts began to resurface. The second game went better. By the third, I was back in the mode. Almost without thinking. Untap. Upkeep. Draw. Play. The rhythm was back. Even if I didn't know all the cards, I could quickly reassimilate the information.

We had multiple good games, which caused the time to disappear into an unexplainable void. A temporal black hole.

On the game after the game that was supposed to be the last, I got Drizzt down to 1 point with my power punch green/white deck, but was unable to penetrate the amassing army of goblins he had mounted as a defense. An epic scale race for power ensued, with Drizzt eventually edging my out by sheer numbers (with tacked on Goblin abilities), draining of me of my last 3 hit points in the final "attack with everything" play. It was close though.

After that, it was most centainly a good breaking point for sleep. Now, drizzt sleeps on the couch bed in the Castle Lair's living room, and I am preparing to do the same here.

It looks to be the beginning of a long weekend (but I'm sure it will seem altogether too short) packed with entertainment, frivolous fun, movies, games, and all manner of debauchery. (Well, maybe not quite all manner. He is married, after all. ;)

And now I need to sleep. That's all. Um, what to say as the final word? Oh yeah.

Peace.