Had a barbecue yesterday, partly to talk about convention-related things with the Shinsengumi-types, partly to celebrate my upcoming birthday. It was pretty sweet. We'll have pictures of the Shinsengumi-Mobile up and everything soon, I bet.

We also played with the bullwhip, played some Mario Party, and played with Snoopy (who also came over). All in all, it was good times.

Well . . .

I mean, save for the part where my PS3 locked up when we tried to play Rock Band. I'm very afraid for my gaming system right now. It feels like it more or less only started happening after the recent firmware update from a few days ago, so I'm really hoping that's the case and can be fixed with a patch. Otherwise . . . some very sad things are going to happen in the next little while. 'Cause if my machine is DEAD dead . . . well, I don't even want to imagine that!

Please, Sony, get on top of this . . .

On the brighter side of things, however, the aniki says his present to me is to take me up to the firing range on Tuesday (my actual birthday). And remember, this is the cop brother who carries a rifle carbine as his standard weapon . . . so holy crap. Tuesday is gonna be fun . . .