Galagaholism. Once again, I awoke at 11 in the morning and got up to take a shower. Keith's parents' house was full of manatee and butterfly collectibles and knickknacks. I hadn't had the chance to meet Keith's father, but his mother was very gracious, especially after having only learned of our presence upon waking up.

I am not a violent person by nature. I have to keep telling myself and others this when I play Grand Theft Auto 3. The Playstation 2 and the giant widescreen high-definition television in the living room compelled me to settle into a round or two of perhaps the most violent game I've ever had the pleasure to know. In real life, I would hardly even shoplift a granola bar. But here in the alternate world that is this game, I take a baseball bat and clobber pedestrians to death indiscriminately; carjack people and then run over them with their own vehicles; perch on overpasses and obliterate passing busses with my rocket launcher; and play a little game wherein I cruise the red light district, pick up prostitutes, drive them to the park, get it on, and then murder them and take my money back. And I laugh and giggle all the while.

We took a few pictures with Keith, Dickie, and their friend (her name escapes me!) for posterity, and went to Denny's for breakfast. I ate more food in one sitting than I had eaten in the past three years of my life. We then cruised by a couple of auto repair shops, looking for someone who could repair our speedometer on short notice. Luckily for me, we couldn't find anyone who could reasonably repair the thing, sparing me the embarrassing duty of having to explain how I took the whole dashboard apart and sprayed WD-40 into every crack and crevice of the speedometer before twisting the indicator a couple of times around. It had stopped the godawful screeching sound, but now it had stopped telling us exactly how fast we were going. It's a give-and-take thing, apparently.

The Common Grounds Coffeehouse in Gainesville was fully stocked with classic arcade games. By fully-stocked, I mean that it had Ms. Pac-Man, Frogger, and Galaga. After meeting John, the sound guy and show promoter, Josh gravitated towards the Galaga machine like cat hair to a pair of slacks. He is a Galaga-holic, familiar with the intricacies of every separate level and the flight patterns of every type of adversary. He quickly demolished the high-score of 20,000 points, besting it by over 160,000. Only when I saw him later trying to coax a stubborn quarter into the slot with a folded twenty-dollar bill did I understand the depths of his addiction.

Judah and Lauren returned from the gyro restaurant up the street bearing thumbs-ups of praise for the fare. Josh and I decided to hit the place and found ourselves sitting with Alan and Ashley, the only two members of the band Missouri Loves Company, with whom we were going to play that night. The gyros and the company were quite good. After Alan and Ashley left, Josh and I somehow started debating over the color of the van. I said it was brown, and he said it was purple. We ended up both being right, as it's pretty much a brownish-purple maroon color.

The show started with Poulain, a solo acoustic performer. He was certainly no stranger to the coffeehouse circuit. He regaled the audience with tales of love lost and love lost again. Lyrics included a chorus of "Red rover, red rover/Send Chandra back over." He was genuinely emoting.

Rocking Horse Winner. They rocked, horsed, and won. They had a full, actual vibraphone on stage. The drummer was able to play drums and vibraphone simultaneously. Now, how many drummers do that? One. That guy.

Missouri Loves Company was an eccentric duo with a great pun-type band name. Alan, on the guitar, did most of the singing, while Ashley rocked the flute and keyboards. They also had a glockenspiel on stage. The role of drummer was filled by a small drum machine with many flashing lights. Alan was a bit self-deprecating at times, shrieking very loudly about how his guitar was going out of tune and that he was very lame and sorry for sucking so badly. Usually, that sort of thing turns me off to a band. But in this case it was kind of endearing. I enjoyed their set a lot until I got really nauseous and had to go for a walk outside. It wasn't the music, I assure you. I had just downed the largest mocha in existence, and while it was very good, the rush of caffeine and sugar was a bit of a shock to the system.

We played well, and people seemed to enjoy the show. The caffeine had gotten into my system pretty well by that point and I was able to control my spasmodic shakitude.

I didn't go back inside for Pawn Rook Four, a move which I regret, but my reason is this: I was accosted by all manner of crazy people. The first guy just leapt right into conversation, trying to convince me to visit the Italian restaurant where he worked. Then he began talking about the time he spent in jail. He was infuriated that when the newspaper article about his incarceration was published, the journalist had neglected to mention that he was cursing the Lord when he slammed his hand in the jail cell door. Then, another fellow approached. He was very short and wearing a Hawaiian shirt. He looked me right in the eye and said, "Didn't I see you earlier?" I said, "Uh, well, maybe--I played a show earlier in the--" He cut me off to say, "I'm trying to get a dollar-sixty. Do you have change?" I had no change. He kept following me until a friend of Alan's scared him away by asking him for change to support his violent heroin addiction. The third crazy guy was named Richard, and he was an old, stinky, inebriated black fellow who found it necessary to tell me to get down and kiss Ashley's ankles before bursting into a round of "Duke of Earl." He threw his arm around me and my friends and stank. He kept trying to kiss Ashley's hands, tossing her flatteries like, "They must be having a field day in heaven 'cause all the angels came down and you're an angel standing right here among us mortals." Did I mention he stank?

At about 3 in the morning, we went to John's house (he was the soundman/promoter, a really swell guy) and I went right to sleep. Judah and Lauren followed suit about half an hour later. Josh, on the other hand, decided to stay up and party with John and friends, which kept him out and about until 6:30 in the morning, when he promptly fell on the couch and became a pile of beer-soaked concrete.

Logan