Okay, so; the weekend was good. I have to type quickly because I spent far too much time playing Magic with Matt this evening and I'd still like to get some writing done before tomorrow when it will become nearly impossible to do.

I forget if it was Thursday or Friday, but my boss came over, called everyone together, and told us that he was going to take us all to a Mariners baseball game (I throw in the 'baseball' part, because I know some of my readers won't know what the Mariners are) on Tuesday evening. I'm about excited as if he'd said he was going to take us to a stock car race. No, I'm a little more excited than that. Anyway, I'm not a big sports fan, but I know it'll be a lot of fun to get out for an evening with all the people from work. We have a good time together and hopefully this will get us excited about working on some of our upcoming games. It's a nice break and I think most of the people are glad to have the night of fun lined up.

I also found out Thursday that I won't be receiving a big bonus check this quarter. We met our sales goals, but didn't exceed them by enough to net much for that fund. Bummer. Many people at work are ticked about it, they rely on the bonus money. And, really, we make less pay because the bonuses are supposed to be good. I guess that doesn't always seem like the way to go. Like I said, people are ticked about it and I'm sure if this and the perception that management is "screwing us over" continues for a while, that people will begin leaving. I tried to explain to many of them that the first quater is always bad in this market, but all they see are their empty wallets and cry. I was disappointed, not surprised, to hear that some of the senior staff didn't think the bonus situation was a big deal. I guess already being a millionaire kind of takes the pressure off that whole bonus thing.

Friday after work I went with a group to the Taphouse in the mall nearby. It's a neat little place that seems to be the trendy place for people in Bellevue to hang out. They have decent food and lots of beers (blech), but it's designed well and looks very cool. We had a good time there, but I took off after a bit to go to the gym. When I was done I got a call from some of the guys from work and we went back to the Taphouse for drinks. Apparently none of us were much in the mood to socialize because we pretty much sat around and talked about how lame it was that there were tons of frat guys in the bar. They were very annoying to even be around. I even saw one guy do the pointing-finger-gun-wink thing. I wanted to hurt him. We all did.

Saturday, I have no clue. Oh, I went to check out a new comic store (new, as in, I hadn't been there before) in Lynnwood. The Comic Stop, I think. Pretty sure, actually. Great store. Very well organized and they had a lot of good stuff. Clean, too, which is always a good thing for a comic store. While I was there, some of the customers started playing the super hero game that I work on. It was fun to see them play and talk about things that relate to what I do everyday.

When I returned from the store I went to the gym. Then I got ready to go downtown to meet some people at a bar in the Pike Place Market. I'd been there before on a date. It's a nice restaurant called Il Bistro, you may remember it. There were about eight of us there and I met someone new, a friend of one of the women at work. He was a nice guy. We talked for quite a while, had some very good appetizers and then left to go to The Alibi Room, which was right around the corner. It's a very cool bar and I know I've mentioned it here before. There I happened to sit next to a friend of a friend. A very cute, very nice, and very smart woman whose in her residency as a psychiatrist. I've met her before, but I never really had the chance to talk to her. It was nice to finally get that chance. She was a lot of fun to talk with. I remember noticing how clear her eyes were. Isn't that weird? You know when you look at someone and you can tell there's something going on inside their head? That's how she was. I'm sure she's more aware of what's going on around her than anyone else. I like that.

Um, what else? At one point, one of the women spoke up and said that she thought one of the guys at a nearby table was cute, so another person in our group got up and had he and his friend join us. She was a little mortified (can you be a little mortified?), but she loves attention, so it all worked out. He seemed like a nice guy, very young, but nice.

We were joined very late in the evening by the new boyfriend-type guy of one of the other women. I probably shouldn't say the b-word, since they've only been on a few dates, but there you go. Anyway, he showed up with a very drunk friend. I didn't interact with them much, but they seemed nice enough.

Today I went to the gym and had a very good workout. So much so that my legs were shaking afterwards. I ran into a trainer that I'd met with last year. He's bulked up in order to compete in bodybuilding competitions. What is it with short guys?

All right. I'm done. I'm going to do a little more writing, then head the the grocery store, then bed. Bye.