Ahhh...Monday. Well, my weekend was FANTASTIC! I was quite wary of it by Friday afternoon, but all the social events went well, and I survived them all. Ernest's birthday dinner went well, but hanging out with Heather at IHOP afterwards was great. I suddenly became "The Man" when I got the waiter to get a table with 10 seats around it. And lord, what a hot waiter we had! Congrats to Will and Jackie for correctly guessing that he was in the medical field in this edition of "What's Our Waiter's Real Profession?". Actually, he's now a computer guy, but he used to be pre-med. He really should be a model...he had a gorgeous face and flowing brown hair. Dreamy....
Saturday was Mary's wine party, and again, I survived that as well. I actually had a great time after initial nervousness. Oddly enough, the dozen attendees quickly grouped in to 2-3 person cliques and never switched cliques through the night. I paired up with Mary's cousin Emmy and her schoolmate Gillian. They're both in the petroleum engineering program at Texas... I learned so much about oil drilling I'm changing my last name to Ewing. Honestly, I found it terribly fascinating. Sunday was Melissa's birthday, so we went up to her house where Justin, Matt and I grilled burgers, sausage links and a steak for Melissa. Yum Yum Yum! Then over to Chase's house to watch the season premiere of Queer as Folk. I *love* the new intro. The music is not as blaring and the black and white cinematography has a more classic look and feel. The episode was awesome...I'm glad it's back after such a long break!
Random happy from this weekend... I got a gorgeous circle mirror from World Market for $10 (normally $40).
Random sad note... I went to Northcross Mall, the first completely indoor shopping center in Austin. It's a few blocks from where I grew up, so we shopped there frequently. In my pre-pre-teen years, I would gaze at the figure skaters on the indoor ice rink. Mom would get me chocolates from Lammes Candies. I would make wishes on pennies thrown into the fountains.
But now...it's dead. Around 1/3 of the shops are empty. The food court is closed. A half dozen inflatable "moon walks" shaped as cartoon characters fill the space where the ice rink existed. And at 5:30 on a Saturday, half of the remaining businesses were done for the day! How can that be?!! But apparently, gaming is a profitable industry, as there were three gaming stores open. Those three constitute roughly 20% of the remaining stores. It's sad to see a once popular landmark being cast aside as an obsolete giant. Perhaps I'll make that a photojournal project... capturing the images of a once-proud mall, since it seems inevitable to me that it will be torn down or unrecognizably changed to meet a new retail paradigm.
Posted by Ben at April 19, 2004 05:27 PMWhen you make fabulous purchases (ala World Mart mirror) pictures are not requested but REQUIRED! =)
Posted by: chase at April 19, 2004 08:55 PM