Eh, Monday

Well, we had pretty good weekend - Ray came over from Oklahoma City for the weekend, so we dined out a lot, stayed up waaay too late talking every night (I'm definitely too old to stay up til 3 a.m. now ... so is Ray o'course :), much jawing about wargames and roleplaying, and carefully tiptoeing around political subjects*, and played a game of Flames of War, which Ray had seen played but hadn't tried before.

The game went about as they usually do: too much static armour sitting around engaging in shooting contests while the infantry cower in terrain or dig in around objectives. It was a draw in the end, as we both managed to make several rolls to keep our shattered platoons from breaking & sweeping away the whole army.

Dining out was interesting - almost everywhere we went, business appeared to be sharply down - the only place that wasn't true was Bossa Nova, a Brazilian place we like to frequent for Sunday brunches: it was only about 40% full, but that is how it has been for the last 12 months. Everywhere else (Red Lobster, Satellite Cafe, Mimi's Cafe, & Outback Steakhouse), where we would expect to have a 10-20 minute (or more) wait for seats, we were seated straight away, and none of them were more than half-full. For Outback (which we went to on Saturday evening at 6, prime dining time for Little Rock), I was just astonished: last time we went there on a Saturday, we had a 45 minute wait and it was packed the whole time - this time it was barely a third full.

I guess it's a sign of how badly the depression is biting, even here in the heartland where supposedly we are much less affected than California, NYNY, or Chicago/Ohio. I thought people might be 'dining down' & going to cheaper places, but apparently not - even Denny's Diner & IHOP continue to be nearly empty, and the fastfood places are all looking empty all the time too - the Wendys, BK & MacDonalds that we'd drive past, last year would usually have a long queue at the drive through, but now the carparks seem empty & you hardly ever see a queue.

Bad times all around: Thank god my job relies primarily on an electricity/gas company, who are fairly unlikely to go out of business.

Well, back to work



*Ray is a die-hard Republican who seems quite blinkered when I try to discuss anything of this nature with him: he either cites spurious evidence or simply replies that the democrats are even more corrupt, depending on the subject. About the democrats, he sometimes has a point, I must admit, but I wish I could persuade him to at least doubt some of the so-called evidence the Republicans drum up on other subjects (the economy, for one). Oh well, we just agree to disagree, and doubtless he feels the same way about me :) Fortunately, we share an enormous amount of overlap in terms of wargaming and roleplaying games, amongst other things.