I've been spending too much time on eBay, again.

Hi, my name is Bruce, and I'm a shopaholic. A damned good one, too - give me a few hours, and an item (normally electronic, but not necessarily), and I'll find you the best deal for it. Mostly online, but not always. I have a good feel for what's cheaper locally.

Which reminds me, I need to drop by a few stores...

Oh. Right. Posting.

So timenchanter's eeePC's power supply died yesterday. Part of the night was spent finding a replacement ($10.55, including shipping. It's $49.95 at Central Computers). Then I started looking at discs, and have three more on their way.

At extremely discounted prices, of course.

Then I made the mistake of looking for a spare mixer board (what with all the little flakinesses mine's exhibiting), and found I can get a new Mackie 1402 VLZ3 for $349 (actually, right then, I could have gotten one for $325...). They're normally $499...

That was when I dragged myself off the laptop, and into bed. It was about 8:00am, and I was nearly groggy enough to click on "Buy."

Apart from the usual short midday emergence, I didn't wake up again until 4:20pm, which just seemed like the wrong time to become alert.

The plan was to bind the two sets of books I'd printed out the previous night. Instead, I sprayed contact cleaner into my mixer board (apparently successfully. The knob is stiffer (I think the plastic melted a bit), but the signal output isn't scratchy anymore), and wrestled with updating the TV software I don't really plan to use very much.

But everything needs to be up to date, yes?

Actually, it looks like I'll need to delete some of the stuff that came with the TV card. A lot of it is only available for a "trial period," and I have free equivalents that work better.

Anyway. I had everything planned to get to the bar by 7:30pm, and only at the last minute realized that I was supposed to be there at 7:00pm. So maybe I didn't actually become alert at 4:20pm.

So, yeah, to the bar late, without the new books. The rather daunting stack of paper is sitting next to me right now.

I didn't get ready until about 8:30pm, and didn't get started until around 9:00pm. Saved by the lack of customers.

Well, qzar_mystik and his date were there, but Anthony was busy eating.

The evening started out pretty dead. The first two rotations were just myself, Timmie, and Anthony. For the following two we were joined by Veronica.

And then people started to trickle in - there were 5 more rotations after that, but again, the last one was another "few enough people to fit in the last 20 minutes" thing.

We had a few new groups, some of which just sat and watched. There was Anita and her entourage - she being the only one that sang. Voice of an angel. A very loud angel. I think I've finally found the female equivalent to lucydogstringer. She did a couple of beautiful renditions, then took off.

Ernie, Tina, and Lynda appeared to be together. Ernie's an older guy, obviously a karaoke addict, and mostly sang from his own discs - quite well. Honey apparently knows him.

Tina and Lynda were also very good singers. I think it's telling that Tina's last song was Pour Me, because that was "an easy song she could do while tipsy."

We had most of the Stripes, because celticnoor was in town (I'd kinda slept through a BBQ for her yesterday afternoon), not to mention a number of others that came in to see her, like Paul A.

That's definitely why markobellydance and Joe were there. I think it's also why jorgitoelcubano was there, as well. Most of those with her didn't sing, like Wade and Angie.

Hex and Sunny came in for a few hours, and brought a friend (we were introduced, but I forget her name) who had just turned 21 a few weeks ago.

And there was cybrenn, and Honey (and Hanan. Hmmm...), and trivialt with tazja714.

And then, at the end of the night, lilminxdynasty and Billy walked in, which is always a pleasant surprise. So did J, but J, unfortunately, left just before he was up to sing.

A very, very fun evening, and also very tiring - more so for Timmie, who was running around all night. The bar did extremely well - we beat target for the weekend by a little bit, so anything tonight is gravy.

We'd of course like as much gravy as possible, but we're not gonna be stressing.

Timmie and I unwound chez April, and then came home. Where I got myself to sleep earlier than Saturday night, but not before I discovered I could get a flat panel monitor stand for $69.95. They're normally $98. The temptation, it is large.

And then I'd be forced to shop for a flat panel monitor to go on the stand, which would be just awful...