My Acerscan 610 Plus came in the mail today. It's smaller, faster, leaner and meaner than the flaky clunker from the Circuit City scratch & dent department that I had been using. And it even works with my SCSI card (though that came only after lots of restarts, frustrations and time spent wallowing in "SAFE MODE").

But then things started getting crazy downstairs. The Peggy - Zach and Baboose arrived, along with Ray's doe-eyed girlfriend, followed by Ray, and then, get this, Persad (Theresa's old redneck-goth boyfriend, the guy who has done such things as stab the Huffanator and - in a jealous rage - the tires of Jesse's bike). For the latter offense, Persad is permanently banned (in our typical half-assed manner) from the house. But he was out on the street with a scruffy old Japanese pickup truck, calmly chatting with Kiki. I found that odd, since I know Persad hates Kiki with a passion for his having had sex with Theresa. He hates Jesse for the same reason. He ought to hate Matthew Hart, Zachary, Raphæl and perhaps Ray as well.

Ray jumped in to break it up, but Kiki would not let go of Persad's long hair. Ray begged and demanded that he "fucking let go" but he held on like a bulldog. More like a bulldog, Kiki clenched down his teeth on the nape of Ray's neck. Ray punched him and somehow wriggled free, but he lost a hunk of his neck in the process, Tyson-Holyfield stylee.

Once the two combatants had been separated, they kept trying to get together again for even more violence. Persad had a huge knife out, and people were avoiding him as much as possible, but not Kiki. The presence of the knife didn't seem to affect his insane gravity at all. It was amazing and disturbing.

Eventually Persad raced off in his truck at high speed, and Kiki left with whoever had brought him. We looked around in the house for some disinfectant for the hole in Ray's neck, but all we had was 80 proof alcohol. He headed off to the hospital for sterilization, stitches, rabies shots and hepatitis vaccines (or whatever you need when someone bites you like a mad dog).

Somewhere in the midst of this, Morgan and most of the others set off for the train station, and things calmed down considerably.

In other things, the musings are completely caught up to this date. They were uncensored for a time, but I've gone back and nuked some things that could get me in trouble. Those of you who keep up, of course, get it all.

• January 2nd: after a road trip to Philadelphia, we break up into two factions: the drinkers and the junkies, and we don't hang out together until the road trip back home.

• January 3rd: Shira's memorial service turns out to be a false rumour, but we're all there. Still the drug vacation continues.

• January 4th: I take my own drug of choice: tussin.