All summer long here at the office the sound of the air conditioning system has buzzed away completely unbeknownst to me. I certainly felt cool, and was able to unconsciously adjust the sound of my voice to be appropriate for the office environment, but I never once acknowledged the sound of the cooling system. Until this morning, that is, when the cold that's been creeping into Boston forced one of the employees to kill the AC unit and the buzzing stopped. It's kinda like when a cut finally heals and you continue to look down at your hand for days afterward expecting to see it still there. In addition, the eerie quiet in here is making me quite uncomfortable... and being able to hear the irish-born receptionist screaming "Company X how can I help you!?" every fifteen seconds certainly isn't helping. *

For the past month or so I've spent every friday night working at a shitty bar on Lansdowne St. The radio station I work for broadcasts from there and my job is to represent them, give shit away, and force people to drink Coors Light, etc. Oftentimes when performing this task at other bars I'll be offered free or discounted drinks in return for my services, which is certainly appreciated. This place, however, feels differently and charges me for every drink that I order. I can certainly live with this. I don't expect anything from anyone and certainly don't mind paying the price of a beer for a beer. My demand meets their supply and all is well with the world. What I can't live with, however, is the fact that when you open a bar tab at this place they charge $120 onto your credit card and then three days later adjust it to what you paid without ever telling you. I know $120 one way or the other missing from a bank account isn't that huge a deal, but when you're a college student paying his own way through everything; $120 could be the difference between an angry landlord knocking down your door and just barely skating by for yet another first of the month. *

I've decided to start using asterisks to separate topics here on the blog, I hope you find it useful. *

This past Sat we threw a surprise party for Marissa. She was certainly feeling that a few of us were acting a bit too strange and demanding of her saturday night whereabouts, but I'd say the whole thing went down quite well, if the tears of happiness were any indication. After the party a few us somehow found ourselves in a penthouse apartment that vaguely resembled something you'd see on MTV's Cribs. When the booze ran out Marissa began fiendishly wolfing down the pieces of fruit that had been left at the bottom of the sangria jug, which I certainly endorse as proper 21st birthday behavior. Needless to say, we both woke up with hangovers worth noting. Her's was certainly worse, but getting whacked in the face with a soccer ball during yesterday's brutal loss to the dreaded green team probably lined us up pretty close in the "feeling shitty" department. *

* By the way, the soccer team's been getting our asses handed to us pretty good lately, which is why I haven't been discussing. However, yesterday's ejection by red card for a blind sided punch to the face from a member of team green brought back warm fuzzy memories of playing club soccer in North Jersey against 12 year old guys with beards and names like Pablo and Vinnie. Good stuff. * --