I'm beginning to wonder why I even bother. I have a bunch of losers on my buddy list who go a whole weekend without updating. If this keeps up I'm going to have to let a few of you go. The weather can't possibly be that nice.

Rats, all of you.

Nothing completes a sunday morning quite like some morning lovin'. Unless of course, you add pancakes. And so, I did.

I went down the street to the neighborhood diner, Le Sabre. It's a good little greasy spoon, which has been staffed for years and years and years by the same group of world weary old ladies. They smoke way too much for people who are handling your food, and constantly complain about one thing or another.

So, I must have been emanating some leftover love vibes, because, as I sit there enjoying my orange juice, I look up to see a table of four men sitting across from me. One of them is a spitting image for Jerry Garcia, and when he notices me looking, he gives me a quick grin and raises his eyebrows very quickly twice in succession. I glanced askance, and he seemed to get the idea, although he did look over a few more times as I was sitting there.

Pancakes-to-go in hand, I walk outside, and two guys chatting outside the restaurant give me the once-over. I begin to wonder if my hair looks funny or whether I have some kind of stain on my t-shirt. I do not.

Walking down the street back to my apartment, a man on his bike nearly kills himself as he takes his eyes off the road to cruise me. He slowed down, looked over, and just stared as I walked by him. Bizarro.

It's flattering to know that if I ever have the desire to switch teams I'll have a chance to play ball.

Anyway, last night: Sally and I were having our usual trouble deciding where to eat.

Bill: We could always go to the Original Gangsta.

Sally: By that I assume you mean the Olive Garden.

Bill: Yes.

Well, the Olive Garden was not where we ended up. Normally, I hate chain restaurants, but of late I have rediscovered the tastiness of unlimited breadsticks and salad. Along with that rediscovery, however, comes the realization that it is incredibly lame to be two young Chicagoans who live in the heart of the city and want to drive half an hour to Skokie for dinner. When the staff begins to recognize you and vice-versa, it's a fairly clear sign that you visit much too much, and "Olive Garden Regular Customer" is a badge no one should wear with pride.

So, working on the premise that two young people with disposable incomes should be able to find somewhere moderately cool to have dinner in America's third largest city, we set our sights on a restaurant we've never eaten at before. The place was called 'Raw Bar,' and it's on Clark near the Metro. It had a few things working in it's favor: We wanted seafood, it was nearby, we had never been there, and we had a coupon for buy one meal get one free.

That last item is particularly classy, eh?

We go, and we are seated in the 'Cream Room,' as we desire air conditioning, and we are told that the Cream Room (which, strangely, wasn't at all cream colored) has it. What we were not told was that the Cream Room was occupied by the most annoying lounge singer in the canon of annoying lounge singers. We sat there, looking over our menus, when this Big Mama came over to our table and began to serenade us with a very scary version of 'Jack and Jill Went Up The Hill.' Politely, I would glance from my menu to Big Mama and then back to my menu again, waiting for her to leave, finish her set, or perhaps hopefully die right there on the spot. She didn't do any of those things, unfortunately, but did accomplish to keep our waitress from finally approaching us when she was ready to take our order. Thanks bunches, Big Mama.

Here is an anecdote Big Mama shared with the audience as a lead in to God knows what:

"Once, i was doing a show, and David Hasselhoff was there. I said "Hi, David," and he said back very calmly "Hello." Then, David's daughter said to me "Are you from Kansas?" And I said "Yes, I am. How on earth did you know that?" And the little darling said to me "I just watched the Wizard of Oz and you sound like you're from Kansas." That's when I finally realized I had an accent. I never knew before."

What. The. Fuck?

So, we got our food, and the weirdness didn't end there. During the course of the evening, our waitress asked us no less than eight times if we were doing OK and whether we needed anything. She couldn't have babied us more had we asked her to explain the concept of 'forks' to us.

At the end of the meal, that's when the bachelorette party arrived. We were done. We left.

We then tried to catch 'Planet of the Apes.' We failed. Back at Sally's place, her roommate was extremely inebriated and watching 'Fight Club.' Off to my place it was. Soon, we were sleeping, and for some unknowable reason I had a dream about Playstation controllers.

Then waking, then love, then pancakes, then this.

How was your weekend?

Non-updating bastards.