Well, it's been long enough - but I'll let you know how that 'birthday' friday went - really well!! A good "cross-section" of friends showed up - and they all had fun.. Shmooze was really busy when we arrived, around 8pm (early!), but we adapted with more and more drinks..:) Around midnight we, not surprisingly, headed over to velvet underground (better writeup here) to close out the night..for some "less-cultured" dancing..! haha And it's not as goth as you may think - as in the "ohmygod i'm going to be eaten alive"...more of the "everybody here is only interested in having a great time"..! Highlights of the night were definitely watching my two younger brothers try to pick up a couple of really drunk fake irish girls (as in fake irish, not fake girls!)....they even cabbed up with us to velvet, but couldn't get in cuz they were tooooo drunk!! i think jeff (youngest brother) had a real blast - he hasn't really seen places like shmooze or velvet much.. Another highlight was probably watching Jake (a friend) go absolutely crazy dancing on the dance floor.. i got him started with a late birthday drink - a double belvedere straight on the rocks (don't ask about $$!).. It was good to see him let loose so much - i think he needed it... all in all, i forgot for a night that i'm it's less than a year til i'm 30.. I'm thinking of turning 20 instead again - what do you think?!