Last Saturday I had gone to the matinee show of the 43rd Rochester International Film Festival at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) and upon returning home, I realised it would be possible to walk from my house to there. It was even going to be a cool night, so I wore my spring jacket. I walked through Highland park and noticed the lilacs were starting to bloom owing to the warm weather we were having, and something which would certainly displease anyone hoping to see blooming lilacs at the festival in two weeks.

I hadn't mentioned it before, but in that spring jacket was my digital camera; hence the picture you see here. I continued out of the park and through Swillburg, an area named because of the pig farms that once were there, and a fact completely irrelevant to our story.

Anyhow, the film festival resumed for the last screening of this year at 8. It was fast approaching 7 as I was slowly approaching Monty's Krown (875 Monroe Ave.) It is important to note here that the former head chef of the Krown, Brian, is just that: former. Of course, the impact of this simple fact wasn't important until I called Spuck at the Krown to order some food to be ready by the time I arrived. Although the Krown does have another chef, Chris, they generally don't like to work the living hell out of them, so when it's down to one, there's no food on Saturdays.

When I finally did arrive, there was of course no food, so I did the only thing I could and quickly consumed a classic liquid dinner and headed off again. We'll get back to the Krown later. I made it with plenty of time to spare to see a great batch of independent films. One of the more films more suited to my taste was It Did It by Peter Brinson. It's a first-person account of what it's like to take Prozac, done as a dry voice-over in a seemingly deserted suburban California. Remember when I mentioned Swillburg earlier? Well this is also a fact unimportant to our main story.

Meanwhile, over at Monty's Krown, Ball Cheeze Psychotics started their CD release party sometime around 10. Being a party, there was drinking, cake, a piñata, music, and more drinking. In fact, there was a whole lot of drinking. Strangely, no balloons. Anyway, this party continued to ascend in rowdiness throughout the evening.

We thankfully return to the narcissist in the story, me.

The shindig at Eastman House broke up around 11 so I headed to Acme Bar & Pizza (495 Monroe Ave.) to drink a beer, eat some slightly-better-than-average chicken wings, listen to Jo Mama and see Luann who'll be playing with her band Velocity Mirror later in the month. I don't wish to shun the other senses, but I don't think you'd like to know what I touched and smelled. None of this has anything to do with our story except to fill in some chronology.

A short walk down Monroe Avenue brings me back to Monty's Krown to join the party already in progress. Since I walked, I didn't drive. Since I didn't drive, I eleminated half the drinking and driving problem: driving. This allowed me to balance the equation by drinking about twice as much as usual. I think the members of Ball Cheese Psychotics had more than I did, but I wasn't paying attention. I was just there to receive entertainment.

Around 2 in the morning, the band finished up and the bar was closing. Among the remains of the piñata and the normal band equipment was a tank of helium. I said earlier they had no balloons. So what do you do with a dozen drunk people, a tank of helium, and a closed bar?

Why, you inhale helium on Monroe Avenue at 3 in the morning of course.

• A Knight's Tale - Imagine a universe where the kind of people who go to J. D. Oxford's (636 Monroe Ave.) are the ones who run the Sterling Renaissance Festival (15431 Farden Rd., Sterling, N.Y.)