It was so great to see Josh last week. He hasn't changed much, except perhaps to be mellowed by fatherhood. We got sandwiches at Manuel's and caught up over non-alcoholic drinks (he stopped drinking! And smoking! Astonishing). I'm not going to say what he does for a living now except that it's online advertising-related and pays really well and involves going to, ahem, conventions.

The hockey game was fun except for the whole "losing" thing. I'm really getting into the sport, to the point where I watch highlights on the NHL Network at night and just ordered "Hockey for Dummies" off Amazon. That's how I learned the real minutiae of baseball, with a book, although Kyle says I should keep asking him questions because it makes him feel smart. Anyway, the Thrashers host the Maple Leafs on my birthday next month, so the plan is to trade in a load of vouchers on two seats right on the glass.

Friday night I hung out with Eliott at Bookhouse Pub, where we were adopted by a small Indian man named Vijay. Eliott spent a good two or three hours provoking him by calling him Pakistani (“What, are you mad? Think of Islamabad in the spring!”), and Vijay handled it pretty well. Also El got stuck in the men's room and left a humorous/desperate voicemail on my phone (I was busy coaching Vijay on how to land the hot bartender). Eliott, who is first-generation English and second-generation Irish, told many great stories. And we got drunk.

Saturday I drove about half an hour up I-85 to Discover Mills mall, in the scary scary land of suburbia, to purchase a Christmas present or two. Then met up with Kyle for a screening of the new John Woo historical epic, "Red Cliff." It was two two-hour movies in China but cut down to two and a half hours for American audiences, and you could kind of see it in a few moments of confusion. But overall it was really well-done, visually captivating, with some fantastic fight scenes. Then we went to the Independent. And we got drunk.

Sunday was lunch with Amy and Mike at a pizza place we'd never tried before, Cameli's, in the parking lot of what is colloquially known as Murder Kroger. But it was daylight, so we were perfectly safe. And the pizza was pretty tasty. Ran errands and then got together at Manuel's with Kyle, Nick and Annie for trivia night, hosted by our co-worker Todd.

We kicked large amounts of butt and were in second place until the very last question, which was "Place these historical military quotes in chronological order: ‘I shall return.’ ‘Damn the torpedoes; four bells, Captain Drayton.’ ‘We have met the enemy, and they are ours.’ ‘I have not yet begun to fight.’ ”

We did not get drunk. Because I have to be at work at 7 a.m. every day this week so I can fill in for one of the main page guys. More responsibility, crappier hours! Hooray! But it's interesting to do something different for a while, and it will make me so much happier to go back to regular old editing next week.

But first ... All of us at work have had to have professional portraits done, for reasons we’re not entirely sure of. This involves going up to the makeup room off the main newsroom and getting four or five layers of slap applied to one’s face, and then going to the seventh floor for 10 minutes of kind of awkward photography. They should have given us modeling classes. Anyway, it took me 30 minutes to wash it all off last night. But first I had to capture the glory:

I’m an Oompa-Loompa!

Self-portrait with Amy, who didn’t want to be photographed

I actually kind of like this picture, even though I look nothing like myself.