Here are some of the pictures that have accumulated in my camera phone over the past few days.

Some strangers at Rich O's

More strangers.

The way I wish it would look, sort of.

My old friend Bob from my Omaha days.

This bartender at Rich O's is camera-shy.

So is this one.

This glass has a cartoon of a pig flossing its ass with a towel.

Please come see me. I need to talk to you.

That's what the text message said. No contact from MixedSignalGirl for a week and now this. A little ominous if you ask me.

So I left the tournament site (I was a little bored anyway) and drove back to Indiana where, of course, she was nowhere to be found. Two attempted phone calls only got me a recording saying that her voicemail was full. So I sent a text message and went to Rich O's.

I walked in and immediately turned around and walked back to my truck. The crowd was unbearable, and since the tournament site has been so crowded I really felt the need for some space around me.

Once I got back to my truck, though, I realized what a baby I was being so I went back in and ordered a Delirium Tremens. The strangers sitting at the island left and I grabbed a perch.

I spent a good part of the night sitting there checking out the various cute brunettes in glasses - there must be a convention in town somewhere, and after a while CoffeeDude showed up and joined me and some dude I don't know.

I had an Upland Winter Warmer and asked the bartender to put an Alaskan Smoked Porter on ice for me.

Yawn. After a while we grabbed seats in the living room area and I got to talking with some guy about computer storage. Very exciting stuff.

Once I had finished my porter (yummy) I tried MixedSignalGirl one more time (still full voicemail) and came home.

Thursday was sort of the last night of my vacation. Tonight it reverts to just a regular weekend. Man it will suck to have to put a suit on again.

(response to message)

Yes, that's the guy. E-mail me with your contact information if you'd like me to pass it along.

(response to message)

I never got that impression (the second term) from you at all.

(Update: The definition given by the quiz people is not the definition I learned in school. I retract my statement above.)

(Second update: All may not be as it seems. I'm thoroughly confused now. This is in opposition to all the other times when I'm only partially confused. This would be a pretty big coincidence, I have to admit.)

(Third update: A coincidence it is then. As penance for my invalid assumption I will hum It's a small world after all for one hour.)

What if, as the movie title suggests, this really is as good as it gets?

What if I've met the love of my life and I've let her slip through my fingers? What if I never have another friend that I trust implicitly? What if the best years of my life are truly behind me?

Can I survive for another forty years looking backwards?

My 100th beer rating at ratebeer.com:

De Dolle Oerbier

(bottle) Highly recommended by several people, but I'm not really sure why. I've never had cherry wine, but I'm convinced that I now know what it would taste like. Very sweet, very winey. No bitterness to balance the sweetness at all. Not very good.

Before this I had an Upland Winter Warmer, one of my favorites from last Spring. Yummy.

Was going to go out to the tournament site, but decided to stop by at Rich O's first. Had an NABC Tunnel Vision and decided to skip the (boring to me) one-pocket night at the tournament.

RealTrainGirl and MisunderstoodGirl joined me and we talked for a while about nothing much.

I'm pretty close to my 100th rating at ratebeer.com so I did something I normally wouldn't do - I had an Arrogant Bastard.

Stone Arrogant Bastard

(draft) Roasty, malty, hoppy, weirdness. I'd like this more without the bitter finish.

Next I had a Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale.

Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale

(draft) One of the better IPAs, but that's not saying too much for someone like me that doesn't like the style. Just decent, nothing more. Not bitter but a little sour.

To end the session I had one of those Hitachino ricey things that I had before. It's weirdness is a little endearing.

Came home at 8:00 and practiced some more 9-Ball.

(response to message)

...you are officially strange.

If you want a private response you need to tell me what password I should use. Perhaps your middle name.

Or just call - it won't kill you. Or just e-mail me.

Your apparent obsession with my food intake is both impressive and disturbing.

Italian sausage and roasted garlic is the answer you seek. If Arni's is the source then pepperoni and sausage. For Papa John's I like chicken and mushrooms.

MisunderstoodGirl wants to know how you're doing.

So do TallLady and RealTrainGirl.

We all miss you, and we all hope that your absence is justified in the end by your happiness.

(If you are not the person you are pretending to be, then never mind, and go fuck yourself.)

I'm sitting here at my computer, waiting for the dryer to dewrinkle my shirt so I can go over to the tournament, and I really want to write something.

I'm not sure exactly what I want to write. I just know that I want it to be good. I've had too many bland entries lately and those entries reflect the blandness of my life. If, I theorize, I can think of something interesting and exciting to write about, then maybe I won't be such a loser.

Wait, that's not right. I'm not a loser.

You have to play to lose.

I am a bench-warmer in the game of life.

So I've met several people (at the tournament) these past few days that only know me from my 'blog. People from the local area, from Russia, a group of Canadians. I even signed my name on one guy's poster. These are people, pool players, that went to this site for the pool movies and articles and then strayed over to this 'blog. Now they keep coming back, and they think that they know me from what they've read. They come up to me and ask me how I'm doing, if I'm really over her leaving, if the flu has made a reappearence. Hell, one girl asked me how much weight I'd lost. She could tell from my videos that I used to be heavier than I am now.

Of course I know that people read this thing. And I know that they're not all relatives and friends. The majority of the readers here are complete strangers to me. Even though I know this it's still pretty surreal to actually meet these people in person. I mean, I don't even know their names and they know all this shit about me.

I find it kind of odd that I don't really care how my 'blog reads to my friends, or to my relatives, but I find myself caring deeply how these strangers are perceiving me. These are people that read this thing because they want to read it, not because they know me and feel an obligation to read, and not simply because they want to know what's going on with my hair, my love life, my liver, etc. They're reading because they're getting to know me and want to know more. Weird, huh?

This 'blog is all that these strangers know of me, and I feel that I owe it to my readers (and to myself) to, at least every now and then, post something brilliant, or insightful, or scandalous.

I want to keep paying this tab, this debt I owe my readers. I want to be funny and compassionate and thoughtful, and I want to be perceived as all of those things.

I want people to like me I suppose. That's pretty normal, right?

Calm and relaxing. Nice and pleasant. These are the words that describe me and my life now. Excited and apprehensive were replaced with tortured and grieving, and they in turn were replaced with mundane and boring.

Well, the dryer just beeped at me, signalling the time to head back to the hotel.

This isn't the entry I wanted to write, that entry is still inside me. I can feel it in my head, rattling around, trying to work its way out.

Not just yet.