I'm glad you had a good time! It's very hard for me to judge as the party's in progress how it's going.

Now I kind of want to do more dinner parties, where I can interact with people a little bit more intimately...

Regarding your ear, Matt had a similar problem after we went tubing on a lake near his parents' house one time. He ended up having to go to a doctor to get it drained. I think you might want to do this before it gets worse.