Panic at the Disco

Oh man... I almost had a meltdown today.

First of all, I was awakened by the sound of my phone ringing. I keep it on my desk, not the nightstand, so I had get up and crawl over to get it. Of course it was a missed call by the time I got there, but it was Rob, and after a couple minutes of phone tag, I found out that he was wanting to know what time we were having pizza.

I had no idea, Sin never called me.

So he said he'd call her and then call me back. It was almost 11:30 by this time, but just a few minutes later he said that they'd be at the restaurant at 12:15. Holy shiat--I live almost forty minutes away, if there is any kind of traffic, which here in Vegas is like living in Antarctica and saying "if there's any kind of snow on the ground"...

So I jumped in the shower, quickly got dressed, grabbed my iPod, and was on my way. As I was driving down my street, I realized that something was amiss with my iPod. It would start playing a song, and then about 30 seconds later, just shut itself off!

Oh man... I do not want or need this kind of headache. Now that I've become dependent on the thing, to have it malfunction would be the ultimate bummer. I kept going back to the Menu, then Playlists, then Mikey's Party Mix, and it would do the same thing every time. YMCA? Forget it. Dancing Queen? Nope, no more than 30 seconds. Shake Shake Shake? No no no. Not even one full verse. It was like my entire music library suddenly was populated by nothing but Amazon samples. Mind you this is all going on while I'm sitting in traffic, so I'm getting more upset and pissed off each time it happens. I finally got it to work, it seemed, just as I got to the restaurant, but as soon as it played one song in it's entirety, it crapped out on the next song.

Arrrgggghhhh!

I gave up, unhooked it from the charger and input cord, put it in my pocket and went inside.

NY Pizza & Pasta probably has the best pizza in all of Vegas, even better than Metro Pizza. (Sorry haters, but it's true!). Unfortunately, it was just after noon on a Friday, and everyone else in the area knows this too, so when I got there, it was standing room only. I finally found a table, telling the waitress that there would be three people for lunch, maybe four (I didn't know if Sin was bringing her friend Bliss). Rob showed up a few minutes later and we ordered a couple of Dr. Peppers.

Sin showed up about ten minutes later, but she had an entourage with her--Besides herself, she'd brought her husband Carl, who I'd never met before, Bliss's sister Trish (kind of a cutie!), and Bliss's daughter, whose name I can't remember now. So there were six of us, and we had to go find another table. We found one in the far dining room, after putting two tables together.

About that time I noticed that Sin was sporting the hockey-player busted-grill look, which made us all crack up. I'll leave it to her and her trip report over on T2V to fill in all the gaps (heh), but it's a pretty good story--the kind of stuff that usually happens to my friends when they get to Vegas.

We took full advantage of their 2-large for $21 special, and ordered four pies--2 pepperoni, 1 cheese, and 1 ham & onion. Lunchtime conversation was good, food was great, and luckily Sin didn't choke on anything like she normally does. (Guess we shoulda brought in Marty to finish her off!)

Since we had four large pies, there were enough leftovers for everyone to take a box home with a couple of slices, and I'm thinking that mine aren't going to make it past 6:30 tonight. I'll eat them before I go to work, thereby not subjecting myself to the usual garbage in the Employee Dining Room.

Everyone kicked in a few bucks, the bill was paid with a generous tip, and we said our goodbyes. I got back in my truck, ready to do battle with the iPod once again. This time, instead of the Party Mix, I went to the Brother Jimmy playlist.

The thing worked perfectly.

Clearly my iPod preferred to play Boats Beaches Bars & Ballads instead of Greatest Disco Hits of the 70's (like they needed to attach a decade on the title...)

With the nice weather and the trip planning this week, I've really been in the mood to get back on the ocean and go sailing. Apparently my electronic components are feeling the same way.

Mikey