For some reason Wonderland was closed Sunday so instead of eating at their self-serve waffle bar, Gerry and I went for breakfast at The Original Pancake House in Tyson’s Corner. Afterward, we spent most of the day driving around aimlessly; he showed me around Falls Church, Vienna and Springfield. Most notably was the first part of the tour when he showed me buildings of interest like the hospital where he was born, the city’s first “sky scraper” — all of 13 floors and incidentally where his mother worked when he was a wee Gerry — and this building, not-so-affectionately nicknamed the Toilet Bowl Building:

I thought it looked more like the StarGate.

We walked around the mall, people-mocking watching. We went to two malls actually but the one in Springfield reminded me of a pre-Katrina Oakwood — complete with randomly placed fast food joints, thugs, recent abductions and a Spencer Gifts.

Really, where else can you eat Subway in an abandoned section of a shopping center, buy a dildo and then get kidnapped and killed? Springfield Mall has it all!

Avoiding abduction, we each got different yet similarly insane variations of peanut putter and ice cream sundaes at Baskin Robbins, dug through a used record store (CD Cellar) where I purchased a pretty kick ass album by The Ting Tings and two DVDs: Butch Walker in Budokan and Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show. The day wound down while looking at Volkswagens with Gerry’s friend Justin and all of us grabbing some Thai. It was a really nice end to an enjoyable Christmas week.

Then this morning came and shat all over me.

It felt like I woke up with a mouthful of ectoplasm. I’m not sure what’s going on, but lately when I first wake up, especially after sleeping with the fan on, my mouth is coated with slime, my throat is irritated and my sinuses feel like they’re going to collapse in on themselves at any moment like a dying star; not star that’s a mass of incandescent gas but rather a colossal wad of snot. As an added bonus for most of today I’ve also had a headache this big that just wont quit pounding. I’m hoping to take advantage of the slow holiday season and get out of here a little early and go home and nap a bit — far away from a ceiling fan, if I can.

Between projects at work I’ve been catching up on a few new blogs I’m following — Regulus (a friend of Gerry who reminds me a little of my friend Lloyd back home) and my friend urbanbohemian. I’m also doing some more research on Linux Mint (for work) and Android Phones (for myself.)

Also, my bicycle has been standing around the livingroom, mocking me:

In completely unrelated news, Bill Cosby is no longer the only person who is on the “List of People Who Eat For Free” at Ben’s Chili Bowl: