Blast from the past

I've played soccer the last two weekends with a group of people, none of whom I knew, that I hooked up with through a colleague. I think they're all older than me, though in much better shape. One of them, a very nice woman, asked me on Sunday what my last name was, because I look like someone she knows, also a Brooklyn boy, named Sam Ackerman. I suggested he was older than me, but she said he was also 24. then, bam, I put it together--Sam Shiffman-Ackerman. So, I told her he used to suck his thumb (but I refrained from saying that he ate his boogers). She couldn't tell me anything about him, just that she works with his dad on a film festival (Brooklyn Jewish, I believe) and that Sam's come in to help out several times. Oh, and that he doesn't suck his thumb anymore and is very unlikely to play soccer. Some things never change. But should I be insulted, conclude that I look like Bob Dylan (and be insulted), or wonder what the hell Sam looks like/has done over the last 10 years (fuck! that's a long time)?

I've lost the foreign languages I learned. I'd like to think they're floating around in the back of my mind. Ah, dreams. But, really, if I'd chosen to, I could've solidified that knowledge. What language, if any, would you like to have taken? Right now, for me, it's Chinese. (A trivial example of why: I went to dim sum this weekend in Flushing and would have liked knowing what I was getting.)

Yeah, I played one email game of Diplomacy at school. It was only with other Yalies, though, so I wasn't going into a random game (though I didn't know any of the other players). This is my new goal (planning around law stuff and a trip to Budapest): By November 15 I will have investigated online play and begun figuring out where to play, and by December 15, I'll be in a game.