Sorry for the delay between posts. Work has been pretty busy the past few days. And by that I mean, I haven’t had much to do so I’ve been boozing, sleeping, and celebrating my birthday (more on that later). I’ll try to catch you up on everything from the last week in one post.

Last Thursday was the birthday party for The Realests, a highlight of which was a random hot girl initiating conversation with me about the Mets vs Rockies game, me not recognizing what is going on and fumbling some stupid-ass response about watching Agassi vs Baghdatis instead, turning my back to her to do a shot with Varun, then turning back around to find her no longer there. I’m a real ladies man, folks. A friend of mine showed up later wanting to celebrate a great day at work, so I ended up sticking around till 3am, taking advantage of the booze he was buying. He’s a little hard of hearing though, because when I said “I’ll have a beer”, he heard “multiple kamikaze shots and big glass of straight vodka.”

I took advantage of our firm’s Flexible Friday program and slept in the next morning. Went to see Bodies: The Exhibition, a gross-yet-fascinating experience, with Rishi and Suraj in the afternoon. Suj came in from D.C. in the evening, we got dinner and drinks, and I found myself at a hookah bar until 3 in the morning. We woke up early on Saturday (11:30am is early) to head to Park Ave Country Club (not really a country club) for the Michigan Football Season Opener. I took a nap in the afternoon (nothin’ better than a good nap), then got ready for Birthday Bash: Part 1.

[Note: Rishi and Sachin were supposed to write a guest entry about the birthday party, since I don't remember all of it. They never got around to it, so I'm going to give it a shot. However, if you have a story to add, email me at [me at amishshah dot com] and I’ll update the entry with it.]

A few friends came over to pre-party. Niya brought Taco Bell (awesome!) and Anushka made brownies and some concotion involving vodka, lemonade, and fruit. We drank, played some Catchphrase, and made some jowlers:

The main event was at a bar called Musical Box. The weather sucked so the bar was pretty empty, but fortunately a lot of my friends, and one blogger, came out and filled the place up (They love me! They really really love me!). Many shots were had:

[Right about now is where I stop being a good source of stories from the party. This is a good time for you to chime in.]

At some point in the night, the party shifted from the bar to a local Karaoke joint. Although I do remember that karaoke took place that night, I have no recollection of the walk there (apparently there were puppies involved), singing any songs (apparently we sang a lot), or getting up on top of the table (’Rockstar’ was one word used to describe it).

[Update 3 (these are numbered in the order that they came in):According to Sachin and Rishi, one of the songs from the night was N'Sync's "Bye Bye Bye". In addition to singing, there were also quacking hands, back-and-forth feet slides, and rotating-jump-and-fist-pounds.

In hindsight, these are probably things I shouldn't blog about (see Alice's remarks later in the entry).]

Apparently we were out till 5 am. I have no clue. I don’t even remember how I got home. Needless to say, most of Sunday was spent in bed.

On Monday, my friend Scott treated me to the night session at the U.S. Open. In the interest of not making this entry any longer, I’ll just say this. If you happened to be at the Hewitt-Gasquet match that night or catch it on TV, you may have noticed that during the later sets, there was only one ballgirl in the group of ballpeople on the court. You may have also noticed that the crowd seemed to enjoy her presence, as indicated by the whistles and hollers any time she chased down a ball. You may have noticed that after one point, the ball ended up in no-man’s land and she zig-zagged across the court, unsure of whether or not she should be the one to chase it down. You may have heard someone break the silence between whistles by shouting “You can do it!!!!” That would be me. I was that guy.

By the way, ball girl, if by some chance you’re reading this, I would love it if you got in touch with me. As I write this, I’m actually watching you on TV right now. But that’s pure coincidence, I swear.

[Update 4: This update its own post.]

Wednesday (my actual birthday) was the day of Birthday Bash: Part Deux. Heather, a fellow blogger, agreed to host a shindig for me at her bar, and hooked up a sweet special for anyone who came out. $20 got one all-you-can-drink draft beer and well drinks, which led to games of beer pong and rounds of SoCo Lime shots. (Although shots doesn’t really describe what Heather was handing me. It was more like “bottle-of-SoCo-in-a-glass”).

[Update 1: Kate was upset that I did not mention her "awesome beer pong partnering skills." Kate, we lost. There is nothing awesome about that. Thanks for trying.]

[Update 2: Priya and Deepti brought me a birthday card. When I opened it, I found some coupons...

This is the best birthday gift ever!

Wait a second.....

These are fake, aren't they? Son of a...

They also included $20 cash, as the estimated value of the fake coupons. I felt bad taking their money for 2, maybe 3, minutes.]

A bunch of bloggers came to the party, also. (See what I just did there? That’s what we in the biz call ‘mutual masturbation’.) Hanging out with them is always an interesting experience.

Kate: Amish, you have some unusualy hot Indian friends.
Amish: Yeah, and then there’s me.
Kate: No…you’re…cute. And I told you, you look way better in real life than on your blog.
Amish: Gee, thanks.
Alice: I thought you were gay.
Amish: Um, what?!

Apparently this blog is sending all kinds of wrong signals.

Anyway, thats where I’ve been. I promise I’ll try to post more often.