encoded notions

My birthday is the 14th of August. Imagine my surprise when Entropy decides to give me a great birthday gift: a frelling blackout. Not just any blackout, but one that essentially took the entire Northeast sector of North America offline. Talk about 404 errors. As a bonus feature of the blackout surprise gift, my air conditioning unit in the dorm room terminated its cooling ability that afternoon and did not resume functionality by Saturday.

So, any plans to have some sort of birthday dinner at a nearby restaurant were promptly destroyed. Normally, that would be alright, except I had yet to consume a dinner of sorts, and the only food products I had in my room—aside from the peanut butter & jelly sandwich materials—required heat of some sort to eat. Jamil and I hopped in my car and travelled 4.5 miles down the road to his friend Kyle’s house under the impression that we could use their charcoal grill. (Driving with zero functional traffic lights is an experience unto itself, especially on the return trip later that night.) Apparently they still had power!

[insert trivial events here]

Since I really had nothing else to do, I decided to stick around and listen to Jamil’s band rehearse. Not exactly what I would have imagined doing on a birthday, but it was enjoyable (the band is quite good).

Afterwards, with the power restored, Jamil and I watched Death to Smoochy. Definitely an August 14th that I will not forget.