Day 18

9 p.m.: Docksider's; nice little watering hole on the far end of Front Street, mostly expatriate, non-skeezy crowd, a little more diversity than the other places (an Asian couple and at least 1 Hispanic-looking person) darts, blackjack machines and (relatively) cheap drinks. Tried the Dark n Stormy which was quite yummy even though I'm not usually a ginger beer kind of a person. Commented on general obiangness of people's outfits. Noted that bar gets ESPN (Clay, Mamie and I swear that if we miss the Duke-UNC game, we will die, instantly. Poof. Dead.)

9:45: Flanagan's. No sign of Andrew and his friend (whose name I have no clue how to spell. Broar? Bruer?) No food, either, apparently, which sucks for a restaurant on a Friday night. Anyway, round of drinks (ROD), and Phil and Tom (both doctors visiting from the UK...not "Ross Perot story" Tom) arrive to keep us company. The girls tried to dance but kept getting approached by weird fat 50-year old drunkards who looked like they wanted to grope them, so that didn't work for the time being. ROD. The shouted, semi-lucid conversations about everything and nothing that are replicated across every bar in the world.

10:15: Jeff and Steve, Miranda's friends from last week (made at some point when I was not there) appear. This is good news for the moochers, since they're (a) people we know with (b) deep pockets. Round of drinks paid for by someone else (RODPFBSE).

10:25: Bathroom.

10:38: Bathroom

11:10: Lori* and I step outside for a breath of fresh air. "I think it's the coolest thing," she had told me earlier, "that you know how to sing are willing to admit it. Not many guys are willing to do that." Hmm. It's freezing by the water, and with it not being International Race Weekend, there's absolutely no one on the street. Hamilton really is a bit of a ghost town in the winter. I'm shivering within 2 minutes of being outside.

* Only found out that her name is not spelled "Laurie" yesterday. Oops.

11:15: RODPFBSE. The Houston Rockets win by 4; I pretend to care, and have a whole conversation with Phil about the NBA even though I know next to nothing about the league.

11:23: Mmm...Blackhaus.

11:45: Bathroom.

12:20: Kelly and I start propagating the story that we are twins separated at birth - our mother was a Vietnamese prostitute and our dad an American GI fighting in the war. I was raised in Singapore; she in the States, and by complete chance we found each other in the BBSR and were reunited after 21 years. At least 1 random person is drunk enough to believe us and buy us a round of drinks to celebrate.

12:45: "Please finish my drink," says Lori. People have been buying her stuff all night. I'm more than happy to oblige.

1:10 a.m.: Flanagan's closes, and we get dragged to Blue Juice. It's crowded and smoky and has a strange psychedelic display above the dance area which puts me off. Besides, I hate dancing, and the place is almost exclusively a dance club. It's fortunate that I'm too tipsy to really care.

1:50: "Please finish my Smirnoff," says Miranda, and I hate Smirnoff, but well, why waste good alcohol?

1:55: Cab.

2:25: Fumbling for money in the dark, and discovering that counting is quite a formidable task when under the influence.