On gasoline, the Lady of the Stage, bad luck, Shanghi Knights, Nintendo, and Georgia Traffic fun...

Alright, this'll be the post of my weekend, or at least the highlights (a serious misnomer as one will quickly see) of it. Anyways. We'll begin back at the start of Feburary, since that's where the story really begins. During the whole Speech at Centennial ordeal I was pretty much out of fuel. It had been 1.299 the day before and was 1.349 on Saturday. Before we go further I would like to rant that the new Debate Muskateers (yes, the all for one, one for all thing) majorly sucks. Basically the idea is that if any (hmm...needs more emphasis) ANY (sorry for the lack of underline or font size, but at the moment Blogger is refusing to recoignize the /u command and font size apparently changes the font set family, which is more than I care to deal with at the moment), which means that David was stuck after I left for a good 2 hours before he was permitted to leave, for no reason, which nearly parallels the wonderful 3 and a half hours of lockdown time those of us who did individual events had while waiting for the quarterfinals of debate to end. So back on topic. After my snoozing at Kyle's, I went and got gas, but I only got $10 worth of gas since I figured that the price would fall, but it hasn't, so now I'm nearly on empty again and its even worse of a price, damn Bush.

Anyways, moving actually into my weekend, I got up bright and early on a Saturday and didn't go to work for once, instead I was kidnapped to the CCC for a Chinese New Years Celebration (I say kidnapped only because it was never phrased as a question, not because I didn't enjoy it). So I arrived, and actually still have the hand stamp on my hand, although I never used it since our return trip into the building was accompanied by too many others to make it possible to verify everyone (yay for Dragons). At the event we (Cal, Jia Jia, Michael (who Elizabeth introduced to everyone as D'Oraz), and myself) encountered Calvin, Victoria, Charlene, Diana, Shelly, Elizabeth, Emory, Lynn, Jessica, Daniel, and Elizabeth's older brothers plus her mother and grandmother. We all had Bubble Tea, which has inspired D'Oraz to, well, ask him yourself about his plans, and had Pocky (chocolate variety) on the way back. There were many impressive performances, and anyone who wants to tell me why I have the feeling that I ought to know the girl in the drum corps, please do so. In addition, both myself and D'Oraz made continuous comments about Stage (the best nickname we could come up with since we voted down the suggestion of Forklift). Stage was an Asian girl (I'm sure that suprised you, eh?) who I'd have to guess was about 10th to 11th grade in about 1.5 inch heels, whose entire job seemed to be to stand stoic on stage, nod at the announcer's questions, and occasionally move microphones for the performers. Again, anyone wanting to enlighten the heathen caucasian swine, the email's at the top. Elizabeth and Emory performed very nicely, I think I enjoy it more with the malestrom of sleeves rather than the duet.

Moving on to that night. I got back from the CCC at around 4 I think. Well, that's a good enough guess as any. I squandered most of the night until Kyle called and invited me to a movie. Having spent the meager amount I brought to the CCC on entry and tasty foods, I borrowed $20 from my parents. Since my wallet was empty, and apparently my brain, I left my wallet on the counter and simply put the $20 in my pocket where it did not stay (though I would realize this later). So, I departed for the theater (or theatre if you wish). I arrived, drove for a good 3 minutes searching for parking, eventually found some around the back, walked to the line for tickets, and found my pockets empty. Figuring that it had fallen out when I had grabbed my cell phone out of my pocket to answer Kyle (who was already there and getting popcorn), I went back to my car and searched thoroughly. I failed to find it and return to inform Kyle, who bought my a ticket and then we got there just in time for previews. Phone Booth looks like it will be very, unique.

Shanghai (either this one or the title is wrong, but that's the way it's going to be) Knights was pretty good. I can attest that I think with the same makeup as the female lead, some of the CCC's occupants during the afternoon could easily have been just as striking. It was a standard Jackie Chan fick, though I didn't watch the movie that it was the sequel too it still made clear sense. Despite the unique name dropping and questionable enemy deaths, it was still a very good movie in my opinion. Kyle and I then tried to freeze each other to death with a conversation in the cold afterwards. Following that I returned home, found my money, "pardoned my French" a few times more (yeah, so its not an appropriate cliche use, big deal) and then went to bed.

The following morning I arose and proceeded (after a healthy breakfast of four doughnuts) to play about four hours of Animal Crossing before the incident. This incident was Jacob, Ian's obese playmate (I say that in all seriousness, well the obese part anyway. The playmate part is less true since he usually just watches whatever David or I am doing). So, anyways, prompted finally by Ian to move, he gets up from being atop my controller cord and in doing so pulls the controller out. "No problem" I thought to myself, everyone else in the famity has done it thousands of times, hell my mother's father trips over it when I have it firmly resting on the ground and he's walking over it. My mistake. In replacing the cord, Jacob depressed, just slightly, the rest button which Nintendo, in their infinate wisdom, placed directly above the first player controller port, and this hair-trigger sensitive switch proceeded to eliminate my four hours of work as if nothing had happened. I would like to note here that Animal Crossing is a live real-time game, meaning that not only does every second real live equal a second in the game, but also that every waking hour between 9 A.M. and 10 P.M. which is the only time that the only store in the game is open is of critical importance. So nonetheless, thanks to Nintendo's brillant planning, I lost my time. I lost paying off my loan, or creating the tree to grow my gold shovel (why does that look like it's spelled wrong), or organizing my house, or doing all the tasks and fishing and town cleaning that the game needed. My letters never existed and none of my efforts mattered. To accentuate my rage, the game then proceeds to have the never present Mr. Resetti (a mole whose only prior appearance insofar had been to act as the Groundhog for the town's Groundhog's day) appear. This was certainly interesting, since I hadn't seen him before, until he began to talk. Mr. Resetti, in 2 screens of text (note, small text box) introduced himself, and in 3 more screens explaned why I shouldn't reset the game, but rather, save and then turn it off (Thankyou Nintendo, as if I hadn't already figured that out), but then proceeded, over the course of 10 minutes of skipping text, to explain that he was restraining his language (which I was also ironically doing, since Jacob hadn't quite stopped saying "Sorry" and actually gone outside to get picked up by his parents yet). Thankyou Nintendo, I'm glad you had the mole to rub it in. Fsck you all over there in Seattle.

Now for the grand finale. I go to Jiaz's today to work on the Thesis for Lit. Driving across the rather unpaved parts of the road near his house both ways. So, I'm heading home and I get stuck in traffic at State Bridge Crossing Elementary. Well, eventually I notice that traffic is moving very slowly. Well, as it turns out, someone had decided that 6:00 P.M. on a Sunday would be a great time to try and pull the car that had driven off the road Saturday night out of the ditch. So I was treated with watching the flashing lights of a police car blocking traffic as a tow truck did a 1*10^1000438309760849327603218497750982676089233760893270893760893278 point turn (think an aggravatingly slow and drawn out 5 point turn) and eventually pulled the car out. Whereupon, one of the two tow truck drivers stepped out and spent forever getting the car set to be towed. So, after this wonderful ballet of stupidity, poor planning, and half an hour waiting in my car, I finially got home. A great little trip of 15 minutes that took three-fourths of an hour.

Well, that's it, my weekend in a nutshell. Minus the headaches and shoulder pains and some fun with the #1 Bear, the ungained balloons, and the Lion. Don't fret though, I'm over most of it, though I won't promise that I won't hurt you if you mention Nintendo around me.