Long story short, Jenn's brakes went out Friday on the way up to Baltimore. Thank God she was in a parking lot at the time, so nobody was hurt.

It did mean we were stuck in Baltimore for an extra day waiting for her car to be fixed, which was certainly not a bad thing. Visiting home is always very relaxing for me, possibly because my mom is usually too busy to make any big plans. We had dinner at my grandmother's and saw the new Christopher Guest movie, but other than that we just kind of chilled out. Jim kicked all of our asses at Power Stone 2 and fetched us drinks all weekend. He's a good boy.

You know, it's not just a metaphor (or an Eagles song) - it really is more stressful driving in the fast lane. Hugging the right side of the road behind Jenn on the way back to Pittsburgh was quite nice. Not once did I have to worry about cops, or the left lane ending, or getting around the guy in front of me.

While watching Jim play Xenosaga (not having planned an extra day of activities), we realized that 80% of all dialogue in Japanese-produced popular entertainment consists of one character saying another character's name. Seriously, we could predict with uncanny accuracy the next line of dialogue simply by saying the name of the character who had just spoken, followed by an ellipsis. This completes my total disenchantment with the entirety of Japanese pop culture.