A little more fac13 gushing ... i quite like the new digs, although i haven't yet made up my mind whether light text on a dark background is harder or easier on the eyes than the inverse. I'm quite proud of the static transitions on the menu icons. Also, should anyone other than myself actually be in the habit of visiting the music page, be sure to try clicking on the album art in each of the different sections. And on the bug front, you can try subscribing to the fac13 RSS feed here, but be forewarned that it's not working as robustly as its previous incarnation.

After dropping the dogs off at the kennel in Fremont last Friday (and feeling pretty guilty as i'm sure the two of them thought they were being shuttled off to yet another new home after their 3 years in shelters), V and i met up with N and G for the drive down to LA. We stopped in Gilroy for dinner and a quick jaunt to Lane Bryant and Barnes & Noble, taking in the pre-Harry Potter hysteria. Geoff then drove us almost to the grapevine, where we grabbed some coffee at Starbuck's and V took over driving duties. That gave Geoff and i a chance to test our latest PSP acquisition Coded Arms head-to-head. N and G bought me a copy of the newly-released first-person shooter for my birthday, but i hadn't gotten a chance to give it a test drive. It's gotten mediocre reviews, but G and i are taken with it. The theme, raiding secure networks as a virtual-reality soldier in search of hidden cyber-goodies, is executed perfectly and the controls work fine once you spend a little time adjusting. I played the single played mode for a few hours on Saturday afternoon and am really getting into it.

N and G dropped us off around 1am at Matthew and Dionne's, and we quickly headed to bed. Saturday was allotted for preparing for Dionne's 30th birthday party, so Matt and i went off to Costco and Ralph's for party food and drink (and a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for V). Matthew spent his afternoon baking a very tasty red velvet birthday cake, while V dragged me to the mall to check out another Lane Bryant. The party got underway at 8pm, with everyone heading off in the rented "party Escalade" at 10pm. By that time most of the attendees were good and sauced, making the ride in the limo an event in itself. We managed to hit four bars before 2am, with my favorite being the 50's/60's themed Star Shoes. Unfortunately i was in the minority on its merits, with everyone else preferring to head to more dance-friendly climes. The question of the evening was exactly how many drinks Matthew managed to consume. By 11pm he was totally plastered, and at 2am on the ride home was molesting Dionne's friend Mark. He spent the next day looking like death warmed over, precluding any Winning Eleven 8 duels.

N and G picked us up at 6:30pm on Sunday afternoon, after V and i watched Thirteen with Dionne. Good flick, very disconcerting about today's ever-more-mature adolescents. I was interested to learn afterward that Nikki Reed, who played the corrupting influence in the movie, actually wrote the screenplay based on her own experiences (she apparently was the "good girl" in real life). The ride home was handled all by Geoff, with the rest of us drifting in and out of sleep. We again arrived around 1am, heading to bed in our lonely, dogless house. I rectified that the next morning, picking up two overjoyed doggies in Fremont. I decided to spend the day at home with them, working on a grant for submission to the American Cancer Society in October.

Chelsea finally made their first high-profile acquisition of the summer, luring Shaun Wright-Phillips away from Manchester City in a £21 million deal. It's a deal that will provide some extra depth for our dual-winged attack (which suffered greatly last year when Arjen Robben and Damien Duff picked up injuries). It's also a deal that has already incurred the wrath of long-suffering City fan Gary. "You can't buy heart and dignity", he writes, and he's got a point. But you definitely can buy a shitload of white-hot players. With or without the signing of long-term target Michael Essien from Lyon, i'm really liking our squad. And i'm willing to give loan-returnee Hernan Crespo and unsettled forward Didier Drogba their chances to spearhead our attack at the striker positions. God knows they'll have brilliant service from the midfield.