Had a very nice if not so relaxing weekend. It began Friday night when V picked me up at work and we headed down to San Jose to talk to potential wedding photographer Dave Lepori. He shot my old friends Clement and Julie's wedding last summer, and we were impressed by his ability to get great shots without calling tons of attention to his presence. We had an enthusiastic hour-long conversation, and hired him on the spot. As Veronica put it, usually when you look at a photographer's work you notice a few shots that stand out, but with Dave each photo is masterfully composed. We then had a late Spaghetti Factory dinner in downtown SJ before coming home and hibernating.

Not for long though, as we arose at 9am Saturday to get ready to head over to Fremont for Veronica's bridal shower at my parents' house. My dad and i stuck around for lunch before leaving the ladies to their affairs. We then hopped over to Orchard Supply Hardware to have a look at birthday presents for me, namely a shiny new barbecue. I've been bemoaning our lack of a bbq ever since we moved into our house, and was determined not to go through this summer grill-less. My parents ended up buying me a Weber Genesis Silver A gas grill ... very noice. I set it up yesterday and am going to get the propane tank filled on my way home tonight, then let the grilling begin!

The next morning i again got up early (i.e., before 11am) so that i could do a bit of cleaning before Jeremy and Gary came over to watch the much-anticipated England-France Euro 2004 match, which i purchased on pay-per-view. The match began well, with both sides trading attacks but with England having a slightly more defensive mindset. However, in the 38th minute a well-placed David Beckham free kick picked out Frank Lampard (go Chelsea!), who headed past a helpless Fabien Barthez to put England up 1-nil. The second half proceeded along with England very much focusing on defense, and for the most part containing the French attack. A counterattack gave Wayne Rooney and Darius Vassell a 2-on-1, and instead of slotting the ball to the wide-open Vassell, Rooney chose to attempt a shot himself. He was fouled in the box by Mikael Silvestre, but Beckham sent the penalty into the hands of a diving Barthez to keep the score 1-nil. At this point Jeremy commented that England were on course for a late heartbreaker, and he couldn't have been more right. In the 88th minute Emile Heskey gave away a silly foul on the edge of the England box, and Zinedine Zidane curled a fantastic shot past a helpless David James to equalize the scores. The situation went from disappointing to horrific when Steven Gerrard played an ill-advised back pass directly to Thierry Henry, who was fouled by keeper James resulting in a penalty. Zidane gave James no chance and France the win.

Almost unbelievable ... 1-nil up at 89 minutes and 2-1 losers four minutes later. As Jeremy put it, now we know how Bayern Munich felt after losing the Champions League final to Manchester United in 1999. Such a shame because England did play fairly well, with the exceptions of Michael Owen (heard his name maybe twice all match), Steven Gerrard (not very influential in midfield, and culpable for the awful winning goal), and Emile Heskey (pointless sub ... not his fault ... gave away the foul that led to Zidane's equalizer when he had two defenders there to help ... all his fault). I also don't understand why, if England were resolved to play defense with the occasional counter in the second half, Sven-Goran Eriksson put in two new strikers rather than more defense-minded subs. At least i can take solace in the fact that my boy Lampard was arguably the best England performer on the day.

After that debacle, Jeremy, V, and i grabbed lunch at the Crepevine in Burlingame before checking out the deals at Costco thanks to Jez's membership. I was amazed to find the complete Monty Python's Flying Circus dvd collection for $90, about $70 cheaper than i'd seen it on Amazon or at Best Buy. So i bought myself a little birthday gift, and got V Mario Vs. Donkey Kong for her GameBoy.

Speaking of video games, i am completely flabbergasted by Ninja Gaiden. Once i got over my pronunciation curiosities, i found the game to be absolutely stunning. The visuals are silky smooth, but the gameplay is where NG really makes a name for itself. No doubt about it, the game is hard. As one review said, even the most common enemies can take you apart if you're not on your game. Block-counter, attack-block-counter, you'd better come in with a strategy otherwise you're going to get whittled down to size. It's not impossible, it just takes practice to perfect your technique, which is what differentiates frustrating from rewarding. I'm only on the fourth level, which from what i hear is where the game really takes off.

This weekend is the big bachelor party in sin city, Las Vegas. Dunno what surprises Danny has up his sleeve but i do know my presentation at radiobiology faculty meeting the following Monday may suffer for it.