Well..Damn Again!

Well, Blogger ate my weekend post which kinda sucks so if you missed my weekend you can look for the revised weekend post (with over 20% less Video Game junk included) tomorrow.

Anyways, the only thing worth reposting is the Dating explination thing from Infoceptor's forums that I think needs some female criticisms, definately. Harbinger's Rant/Discussion on Dating. Warning, lots and lots of text in this one.

Well...Damn!

I have nearly reached the end of Suikoden I, actually at the siege of...well, I know it starts with an "S", but that's not the issue. Anyways, of the 108 characters I currently have 108 minus Flik and Humphrey who I have but are off securing the perimeter (and depriviving me of my 3rd and 4th best fighters as well as my only healing rune), minus the dead character who technically doesn't count against me because it's a storyline death, much like Aeris only this one isn't cute, female, a decent mage, or un-annoyingly subservient, minus the healer who's tending to the wounded (though I have no major characters wounded and your soldiers never get "wounded" so it's a random way to take him out of use), minus Sonya who I have to beat before she'll join me and I get to beat her here, and minus Leon who I had a small window of opportunity to get and I missed it by one conversation, namely the one that brought me here. So, when the whole group does regroup, I'll be at 106 out of the 107 possible (remember, the 108th is already dead). Which is a moment of "well damn." I guess I'll have to redo the 32 hours I've put into it (which includes a lot of plain run time where I was out doing other things instead of playing, but left the game on anyways).

Alright for those rare few who haven't heard the true reason behind the post from the 17th talking about wreaking havoc I think I'll fill the collective whole in before I get people asking really stupid questions and dispel a few myths.
Myth 1: Colin and/or Katie have decided not to go to prom.
Truth: Hello?! We've got tickets, this is like a big dream of hers. If I don't go to any high school dances ever that'd be kinda sad. Seriously folks, get your heads on straight and be rational about these things.
Myth 2: Colin and/or Katie are/is trying to wreak havoc for the fun of it and to mess with people's heads at the last big thing in high school.
Truth: Well, maybe that's not how most of you would have phrased the myth, but I'm allowed some poetic liberties. Anways, I was trying to solve the Dunn/Compton issue by creating the extra vacancy needed. Next time I'll run my dark schemes across the other dark schemer to make sure that we aren't underminding each other.
Myth 3: This evil havoc causing decision has been made and is all Colin's fault cause he's a cheap bastard.
Truth: As if anything I've ever done has been set in stone. Like all things there is still room for a change. I need to do some soul-searching to decide which path will be most enjoyable, which requires knowing exactly who is involved in the other path (since my knowledge is far from complete and might include the band people who got rejected from the main band group (which tells you something, being rejects of freaks)). As for the originator of the plan the blame lies on another of those underclassmen that none of ya'll know. Though she is a friend of Katie's and Adam Schmidt's date (I'd claim that names have been changed to protect the innocent, but I haven't run that by a jury and I don't think that changing the name would do anything to discourage discovering her true identity by asking around, plus... I won't actually be saying her name so there's no need to change it.) As for the stingy bastard bit, well I'm a legitmate child, but I guess I won't argue that I'd rather not spend money than spend money.

On a related note, I think I'm going to start calling my date Milway/My date in these posts for fear that someone will get her confused with Katie Zhang. I'd fall back on her real name, but I already know enough Sarah's.

As you may recall in my last major post rating Online Comics (10/16/2002) I covered: Little Gamers, 8-Bit Theater, Dragon Warrior, Angst Technology, RPG World, Adventurers, Exploitation Now, SGVY, Bob and George, Not Gonna Take It, Mac Hall, Critical Fumble, Oldskooled, Wendy, Life of Riley, and Megatokyo.

In this session, I'll cover all the new additions to the list:

Errant Story: When Poe "finished" Exploitation Now, he moved onto this. It is certainly a decent comic, occasionally colored, and exceptionally well drawn, but what else have we come to expect from Poe. This one is somewhat less mature in vernacular and content than its predecessor, but it's also a comic in its infancy still (less than 100 strips for certain). ****+(*/2)

Penny Arcade: This is basically The Comic so long as you're not looking for a necessarily continuous storyline all the time. Not much else to be said. It's that good. *****

Warcraft Comics by Studio Rain: A collection of semi-random drawings and comics. Those of Studio Rain combined with the few other misc comics that are linked up make for a decent variety. Some are rather unimaginative, but others are of very good caliber. ***+(*/2)

Konsekai Swordwaltzer: A very very young comic, but also one that is very well drawn and full color. On the downside, it gets only a weekly update and is still under 20 strips, but it looks like it will be something very nice once it gets going. (Judgement still Pending)

River City High: Another sprite comic, this one based on a game of the same name (a very fun game at that). It is well sprited, if a tad bit random at moments, and was a dead link for quite awhile but has recently gotten back on track with its animated mayhem. It is creative and humorous. ****+(*/2)

Ponju: Well, that's not how the creator capitalizes it, but I'll do what I want in my blog. Anyways, the story revolves around a female cop and her flying pig with mystic powers. Go figure. It's not been to active of late unfortunately, but it has had a few good moments so far, and some that just don't make sense yet. ***+(*/2)

Men in Hats: Yes, all the characters are indeed men...in hats. The comic is rather depressing in a comic fashion. It isn't all that difficult of a draw, but the ideas are original, is slightly morbid and unanticipated. ***

Fellowship of the Alamo: A Final Fantasy 3/6 based sprite comic that has ground to an unsettling halt recently. It's about 76 strips I think, but most of them are good, if just for the sprites involved. ***

Patchwork Heroes: Another Final Fantasy 3/6 sprite comic. This one is better in the sprite department and actually has a running and moving storyline. It's rarely off topic, though that's not to say that it's always on topic. The characters are varied and amusing, even if they all seem to have secret agendas atop secret agendas.

Sara and David: The only 3d rendered comic that I have. It's highest point is an early reference to Mac Hall and Cthulu, but beyond that it's good to look at, but this one's plot is getting worse and worse. It reminds me of Wendy in terms of its decay. Such a pity, though it doesn't have much more than pretty graphics going for it. **

Aegis-The Mechanical Legacy: Firstly, this one gets props for combining Valkerie Profile (a playstation game) graphics with Mega Man X graphics in a very convincing manner. It has been dead of late, but is certainly off to a good start. Creative, colorful, and definately full of a plot of treachery, suprise, and decet. ****+(*/2)

Diesel Sweeties: The main characters of this comic are a retired porn star and her mechanical husband. It has alot of crude humor and a lot of the characters are homosexual and this leads to even more sad humor. It is developed (600+ strips), but there really isn't a plot so much as revolving relationships. Always 4 panels small panels, so each strip isn't much either, but it's got some good puns and some alright jokes. ***

6D4: A D&D comic using Final Fantasy sprites (how sad can it get). Like Real World it is based off of real events and people (well, sometimes), or at least when it actually relates to D&D and not weird twists of the sprites instead. It has some issues with comic width combined with site sidebar, but that's a minor issue. It also gets credit for being the only comic based at least somewhat in reality that has removed characters who fell out of friendship with the comic's creator (well, they went beyond just falling out of friendship, but in ways that I'd rather not mention). ****

Ashfield Online: The world's most monotonous comic. It is one image repeated constantly, with slight variations. The whole thing exceeds 1000 strips and every single on is 1 panel, with an occasional flash sequence. A collection of bad puns and general stupidity created in only flash and MS paint. It made me laugh maybe 5 times across all of it (so roughly 1 out of every 200 strips). *+(*/2)

No Need for Busido: A samauri comic (it's about time) that has a health amount of humor. My major complaint is that the creator's rants seem to focus on whining about people not voting for the comic. A solid comic, also not very long...yet. ***

Omega Syndrome: A fabulous comic. Not often colored, but certainly good. Long panels (which sadly equals long load times at times) but very cool. The plot needs some fleshing out, but it'll get that with some time. Otherwise a really funny comic and supportive of compulsive shopping men. ****

There is no feeling which quite parallels the knowledge that you're going to cause intense havoc in an attempt to reconcile two sets conflicting views. I'm not going to reveal where chaos is to be wreaked nor how I feel that said predicted effects will actual rectify the problems (whereas I do also concede that they will likely be only changing the issues, but that is another matter altogether)..

But anyways, I'm thinking I might need at least another subdirectory of comics, it's getting pretty insane. Well, there'll be another massive comic report coming up, but not right now. I'm waiting for FotA and Aegis to update so I won't have to say mean things about good comics dying in their prime thanks to college.

Alright. Since it's been a few days, this'll will be a day of spring cleaning on issues I need to address.

First and foremost, does anyone care to lend me a means of death (yes, I am kidding, but there is a reason to this). My two brothers and myself just had a debate that never should have happened. We argued over, and I am very very sad to admit this, what destroys Misty's bike in the Pokemon TV series thus causing her to follow Ash incessantly. Ian says it was Pikachu attacking spearows, David says it was a Gyrados, and I am set in my belief that it was destroyed by the swarm of Pikachus in the Pokecenter while Ash peddled the bike to generate enough concurrent electrical force to blow Team Rocket away. Anyone care to clarify the issue or do I have to hunt down the solution in old Nintendo Powers?
On a similar, and perhaps more shameful related note, the dubbing in the new release of Pokemon is absolutely horrible. Just as a note to any TV executives, present or future, if your two villians have an repeated intro that involves them talking together then for the love of all things holy please make sure that the voices go well together!

Secondly, to address this whole discrepencies about my date to Prom issue. Sarah Katie Milway is a 10th grader. If you care to disbelive this issue then you may consult last year's yearbook and on page 291 (I believe it is) you will find her picture. It is in the bottom right of the page, 1 picture left of the absolute bottom left. If you really care to know more then you'll have to ask.

Thirdly, I would like to challenge Jeff to tell me what I have been wrong about recently.

Fourthly, anyone who can suggest a good way to keep myself entertained in Pair's class without drawing attention to the fact that I'm *gasp* not working.

Fifthly, anyone who knows anything about playing bass by only chord charts, help would be greatly appreciated. I'm getting bored with arpeggios and scales. Perhaps I'll have to convince Chang to let me use Music Theory as practice time.

Well, that ought to be enough postage for now, but if you feel the need to complain about something I have a contact button and am open to suggestions.

In true standard fashion for the end of my Spring Break, I spent my last day doing lawn work at my Grandmother's. I did find out something interesting though. Apparently, when you score a strikeout in baseball, the K is reversed if it was a strikeout looking as opposed to a normal K for strikeout swinging. Just in case it ever puzzled anyone besides myself.

The Spring Break Closing brings with it no end to the standard tedium. In fact, I much dislike Spring Break because everyone is always out of town so nothing ever gets accomplished for those who don't go anywhere. Well, I spent my Break with nothing special. David bought Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and Zone of the Enders 2. ZoE is nothing more than eye candy. It's pretty easy save for a few bosses, but then again, so was ZoE and MGS and MGS 2 so I guess I really shouldn't expect difficulty. Just a halfway decent plot (or full-blown mega-plot for the MGS's) and a crapload of fun to look at things like 100 flying gunpods exploding simultaneously at the firepower from Jehuty (what a stupid name, but most the mechs have bad names).

As for MvC2, I think I scare myself with how many of the characters I'm very well aware of without actually having played their games. The Marvel Universe is very much in my awareness without ever reading the comics (save for X-Men) but I know the stories and foes of Spider Man, Venom, Dr. Doom, Iron Man, War Machine, and all the others. Actually, I'm more worried with my familiarity with the Darkstalker's characters, but oh well. Anyways, anyone who wants to give me some info on Jin, Buster Bros, Marrow, or Shumo-Gorath, I'm quite curious, mostly because the FAQs do crap for explaining the sources since the people over there that post are 90% cheating morons, oh well.

Well, I did some searching of my own and found several comics involving Kirby, but only one that was semi-long, and it was only passing Kirby sprites and a total overall piece of (add your own demeaning word here). What a great pity. Fortunately for the world, this has not inspired me to take up digital art as a means of rectifying the universe, it'll just have to be incomplete on it's own.

Anyways, another story from work. Today Cindy paid Bill and I a visit since she was already out driving anways and had nothing better to do. Anyways, when I was mailing my blue backpack to JanSport to get it repaired (Lifetime Warranty! Kick!) she was quite fascinated with the digital scale (I'll concede, it's fun to watch) and pondered aloud what would happen if she sat on it, which subsiquently led to a discussion of her weight and then to the necessity of Cindy gaining weight to fit into her size 4 (Dramatic Chord cause damnit I'm not paying those musicians to do nothing) Prom dress since dresses only come in even sizes and the size 2 didn't reach to the floor because "I like a dress that falls to the floor" to which Bill quickly added "that's only good if it's a miniskirt." I thought it was a very nice addition, though Cindy was already ticked about the next bit of man advice I recieved that'll be shared below, and didn't enjoy it as much. So that was, to quote the Daily Show, "your moment of zen."

Man Advice from Bill (don't expect an even demi-regular installment of this): Never start dating a girl on, before, or even remotely near Valentine's Day (big gift required), the end of school (big gift so she doesn't "forget" you over the break), and if you're going to break up, do so after Thanksgiving, but before Christmas. There, you are all now informed.

Third note of intrest, I've already been offered to go Greek at Tech. How's that for fast turnaround? The odd part is it's been offered by way of the mother of a girl whose sister and boyfriend are at Tech through my mother...sometimes I wonder about how many resources mother has at her command, it's got to be a startling number.

Public Service Announcement Day:

Alright, first and foremost, today is Mail Boxes Etc./The UPS Store/"that place where Kyle, Ting, Ian, Emily, and I work"'s last day with FexEx, how sad. Oh well, that's everyone's loss. Because of our conversion into The UPS Store FedEx has pulled out of our store. This is bad for FedEx because it's less business for them. It's bad for us because FedEx has a higher tech and service level which made my job so much easier. For those who don't know, the transformation is because UPS bought out Mail Boxes Etc. headquarters 2 years ago (and people think that Blizzard takes its sweet time making major decisions) and has, until now, been "studying the market." Well, anyways, our shipping rates are now beneath the carpet so if you plan to do shipping, today is a golden day for you. On the other hand our copy prices for less than 25 copies are now competitive with the library (that's a bad thing, we used to be cheaper), just a warning.

Secondly, apparently 99x is having something called Music Fest 2003 at Northview. From the looks of things it'll be only 1 real band and then a bunch of pulled together garage bands. Admission is $10/$15 for students and adults respectively. If you care or are curious there's a big link at the top of Northview's page. So, with this in mind, I'd like someone to do some black ops research for me and find out who is running the student council that's coming up with all these ideas over there at our sister school.

Thirdly, and this is more or less a person directed announcement. I've decided that my manager and co-worker today, is perhaps the most convincing anti-liberal ex-military IT-specialist public speaker I've dealt with in a long while. Jeff, you might enjoy talking with him about current events, etc., cause he's got very strong viewpoints and could likely give you some very powerful ammuntion to take to your college political arguments that you're going to have, cause we all see that coming.

Forth, and if this suprises anyone they ought to be ashamed. I'm officially going to Tech. Oxford just can't do it for me. While I prefer the wider assortment of languages and greatly reduced class sizes, Tech has the more desired and more varied fields of study. Although I might be more of a liberal arts person, a two-year college isn't going to satisfy that. Since I don't plan on Law or Medicine then there's no reason to take Oxford into Emory so I'm opting for Tech (and to think that I'm actually regretting not applying to GSU and UGA, who would have expected that?) yay. Now to see about rooming :).

Why is it that I can never get an Email Service that actually allows me to send emails? Anyone have any suggestions? Squirrelmail give me Syntax (of all things) errors when I try to send anything, Hotmail flat out refuses, and AttBi's email service will only send something if I tell it to send ten times.

And I must say, damn Jiaz has some fast turnaround with posts and counter posts.

Heh, you'd think with all the free time this break is giving me that I'd manage to post a bit more often eh? As if that would ever happen. Anyways, the current status update: My car got some work done so the breaks supposedly work (better) and it got a bath so it's no longer holding 2 week old dead cherry blossoms, just 1 week by the time I get back to school. I still haven't even practiced Stick Shift, which is kinda critical, cause I really want the CD player that's in the Mazda, well, there's always Sunday I guess. Marvel vs. Capcom does things alot like Starcraft, for lack of a better analogy. For example, the game occasionally sets the computers on insane difficulties for no reason. I'll be playing along on the easiest setting ('cause I'm tired and more bored than wanting to play and my thumb is in danger of bleeding from the damn X-Box joystick) with some random assortment of oddball characters with a common theme and all of a sudden I'll get majorly thrashed (like, they'll still have a character at full life), so I'll sit up, continue, annd choose a slightly more proficent army, and still get wasted. So, after like a dozen or so more retries I'll have made it a bit farther before giving up, which I invariably do because there's no way I'm taking out Abyss's three forms on that kinda of insane difficulty adjustment.

I hope it's a nice day tomorrow cause I have to work with Bill at 1556 tomorrow and if it's like last time we'll both go insane. Well, I guess I'll have time to...well, that's a little issue isn't it. I don't have any unread comics (speaking of which, I need to do a refresher on all my comics old and new sometime), I've read them all up to date, and some of them I've reread totally just because I could. Well, I guess I'll get some sleep so I manage to awaken in time for work.

2 Minor subnotes: A) I'm job hunting for a summer job that'll pay out better hours and pay than MBE so I can buy a car, any suggestions?
B) Anyone who can find me a sprite comic prominently featuring Kirby wins bonus points, anyone who doesn't know who Kirby is, that's understandable, he's not a very famous character. Anyone wishing to debate my usage of "he" is free to do so.

Highlights of my family's shopping trip today: (Media Play, Best Buy, Walmart, and Sam's Club)

Firstly, Media Play needs to rework its entire staff. They have far too many people working (IE: I ran into at least 2 people every couple steps asking me if I needed any help) and they are all too out of touch with current affairs (IE: They know nothing about the latest games, if they know any at all).

Best Buy has a much better setting, though I did encounter a very interesting staff member. After answer his "How are things?" with my conventional "Fine, you?" His response was: "Good here too, still breathing. A regular inhale, exhale." Sometimes it's just better not to ask.

Out of all of this I didn't actually buy anything myself, though David picked up the latest Linkin Park CD (which had a hell of a lot of display space allocated to it), a trance CD by a group called Orb (the first song on the cd is "Fluffy little clouds" and said phrase is repeated innumerable times throughout the song), Zone of the Ender 2 (Very nice eye candy, though the plot is still pretty pitiful), and Marvel vs Capcom 2 (Which is very fun, but no one needed to be told that, did they?).

I didn't buy it because it was XXXL men's size, but I did find the perfect shirt for myself. Before I get into that though, I would like to explain that XXXL means that the shirt nearly qualifies for the dress code at CHS on me, just to give you a conception of its size. Anyways, the shirt was a light blue and had, in a slightly darker blue, the word "Avaliable" written on it with an outline designed to make it look like it was stamped there. I think it's very appropriate.

One final note. On the way there my father and I decided to play the alphabet game to pass the time. For those who've never played, the idea is to find all the letters of the alphabet from A-Z on various license plates, car names, etc. Within 5 minutes of this decision, we came upon a Suzuki Jeep (it wasn't called a jeep, much more useful name) and a semi-truck with trailer with the company's promise on the back. A quick count revealed that between these two vehicles we had every letter except a Q and a Y. Just as we discusses that. A McQuay's (some random company, no idea what they do) truck drove past. So, to keep it going, we decided that we ought try for sequential letter combinations instead, begining with AA then AB etc. We made it until AO before giving up since O's look too much like 0's so they don't get put on liscense plates and you tell me a word that you'll see while driving that has "ao" in it. We sadly didn't find any Aorta treatment clinics.

Well, work today was roughly 135 minutes of tedious paper sorting, envelope stuffing, envelope labeling, and envelope sealing done by myself, Emily, Ron, and Bill. Needless to say, with that crowd, it was quite a memorable conversation filled with a variety of topics including Georgia's age of consent, Girl's Gone Wild's creator getting arrested, being a dork, Age of Empires/Shogun/Starcraft, and a lot of things that I wouldn't repeat in decent company.

I've decided that I really prefer driving at, say, 10:00 PM, as opposed to the morning and afternoon, it makes things so much easier. Too bad radio sucks at that time of night. Note to self: Learn stick shift so I can use the Mazda with it's CD player.

Wow, Spring Break is so the pinnacle of boredum. I've actually been playing my ancient Pokemon Red out of sheer lack of intrest. On the upside of the boredum, I am completely up to date on all my webcomics and I haven't added any more yet, though I probably will before the week is up.

Alright. The Kentucky family reunion. Well, firstly it ended up being at a camping site/hotel which means that there was a big building (with lots of people in it but that's not important right now (cite the joke for bonus points)) that was the hotel and then several very spread out cabins that was where we stayed (albiet we were greatly spread out across the spread). Our house was completely devoid of any clocks and my mother's watch stopped so we were reduced to using two cell phones to tell time, which was really irrelevant since we gained two hours thanks to daylight savings time and crossing back from central, so in essence I have no idea how much sleep I ever got since I was going to bed and waking up without any cognative sense of time.

Anyways, on the ride down plus part of one night of random playing I ruined my eyes beating Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland on the Game Boy Advance. The fact that I beat the game without seeing it half the time. Even ceiling mounted tracklighting above my bed only marginally helped the experience. But 1 day to beat the game was pretty funny.

Now for the quant oddness of Kentucky. Since we needed some way to distract the family from the fact that the family was altogether my mother suggested an animal zoo that contained a variety of animals includings a 35 lbs snake, but when we got there the place was closed...well maybe. The door said "closed, will not reopen", the side door said "closed", the other side door said "open." But besides that, the place was indeed closed and all we say was one chicken. So, to compensate for the lack of a morning event, we decided to go to the Kentucky Tater Festival. Now, while I would love to say that it whetted my palate for IC 2K3, I didn't ever see a Tater. Instead I saw a massive flea market with the following:

Pickle on a Stick for sale. I don't ask, I didn't check, and I still really don't want to know.

Fried Twinkies, or if that's not to your liking, they had generic Fried Candy Bars.

I did find a table with some very classic video games that I probablly ought to have bought, namely Darius Twin, Blast Corps, and Legend of Mana (a mere 13.99, which isn't too stunning, cause it's price is always falling).

The place also had more weapons (namely hunting knives and swords) than Cal, tons more. There were guns as well, but I stayed away from getting a closer look.

And that was just about everything worth mentioning. Beyond that, all I noticed was a general proliferation of Bait 'n Bullet stores, which I must say scared the living daylights out of me.

From Lakly's Color Symbology:
Your Existing Situation
Orderly, methodical, and self-contained. Needs the respect, recognition, and understanding of those close to him.

Your Stress Sources
Has an unsatisfied need to ally himself with others whose standards are as high as his own, and to stand out from the herd. This desire for preeminence isolates him and inhibits his readiness to give himself freely. While he wants to surrender and let himself go, he regards this as a weakness which must be resisted. This self-restraint, he feels, will lift him above the rank and file and ensure recognition as a unique and distinctive personality.

Your Restrained Characteristics
Willing to participate and to allow himself to become involved, but tries to fend off conflict and disturbance in order to reduce tension.
Circumstances are restrictive and hampering, forcing him to forgo all joys and pleasures for the time being.

Clings to his belief that his hopes and ideas are realistic, but needs encouragement and reassurance. Applies very exacting standards to his choice of a partner and wants guarantees against loss or disappointment.

Your Desired Objective
Needs to feel identified with someone or something and wishes to win support by his charm and amiability. Sentimental and yearns for a romantic tenderness.

Your Actual Problem
Greatly impressed by the unique, by originality, and by individuals of outstanding characteristics. Tries to emulate the characteristics he admires and to display originality in his own personality.

Wow. Family can really suck when you need info. Present example, I've been stuck trying to figure out what party combination/event I need to trigger plot advancement in Suikoden since Sunday now, and no matter what I've tried I can't seem to get it to work. I was going to check GameFAQS yesterday, but my mother was on the computer playing Mah-Jong Tiles through MSN from 8 until Midnight! And what I did learn from my short search (cause Midnight is late for me folks), didn't help. So I finially managed to check just now, after Ian finially got sent to bed an hour late (he just didn't go and no one really stopped him) after a good 2 hours of Stongbad and random Yahoo games which was preceeded by 2 more hours of my mother playing WordTwist. College is going to be such heaven!

Okay, I have no idea what the Fsck happened to my template, I probally don't want to know, but I do want to make sure that you all know that that was not some supressed alter ego that came springing forth, but rather, hopefully, some Blogger fluke.

Musical keeps getting better...well, better attendance at least. For some amusement, ask Dan about his Buick, or if you can't wait/remember until Monday, here's the line our Friday night listeners missed. During the "Bachelor Party" scene, after the officer advises eloping up to Buffalo:
Dan: Yeah, I'll let you borrow my get-away car, (Officer gives him a look) Err...my Buick.

Alright, my curiousness has arisen: for those who have gone to the musical, what was your favorite joke, scene, song, etc.?

Yay, the audience keeps getting better: Today was Jiaz, D'Oraz, Jeff, Lulu, Shelly, Ting, Sonica, Keith (Happy Birthday Keith!), David Tedj., Veronica, Kevin, Nick (with black hair), Johnathan, Victoria, and anyone else I may have missed.

In non-musical music news, Graduated Viola player Kathryn Spraws came to visit us today in orchestra! And ended up playing spades with Tim, Edmund, and I (just when you thought the orchestra was strange to begin with). Btw, for those keeping score, Kathryn and I were kicking butt.

And in non-musical non-music news. There was another, totally random, questioning of my sexual orientation. Anyways, the short side of the story is: I was shouting across the half the parking lot (short length of the parking lot) to Nathan about not having seen Melanie and after which a group of little girls (were talking like elementary school age it sounded like) shouted "Hey boys." *giggle giggle giggle* "Are you gay?" *giggle* *giggle*. John and I were glad to see the next generation was hard at work at being even less of a promising hope, and no, I don't shout back yes, or on, or anything at all.

I'm sure that there's more I ought to be mentioning, such as Speed Blackjack, but that's a topic left to Jiaz to discuss.

Well. The musical has been going very well. It sounds like tons of fun to watch, but I'm stuck beneath all the action. Anyone who's coming should not expect to see me, cause I'm pretty much obscured by the big black curtain we have hanging from the end of the stage extension. Attendance has been decent, though not the sold out every night decent that was South Pacific. But on higher notes, Shabnam came today! There hasn't been anything to rant about about the musical, so there won't be any :)

Apparently something or someone took a sizeable chunk out of my bass. I'll analyze the damage later, mostly because I don't have the bass with me at the moment.

Anyone up for joining my army of liberal admission agency opinion altering liberals? No conservatives allowed, because I want to maim, not kill, or at least not kill them all.

In other news we've had a non-wartime helicopter related casuality in Texas (well, casuality isn't the word...death is the word). Apparently a forest service helicopter crashed while searching for pieces of the space shuttle. The question arises: Why was the forest service searching from a helicopter for presumably tiny pieces of a space shuttle?

I've decided that seemless Blog topic blending is bad form, so I'll see what there is to rant about the Musical tomorrow, today went well. Oh, and Mrs. Grey is like the perfect match for Mr. Grey...it's scary and cool.

Guys and Dolls and a bunch of people that I would like to beat with a large metallic object right now.

Okay, before I let all my anger froth over onto the keyboard like an overfilled mocha latte I would like to say that Guy and Dolls is an incredible musical and any complaints I have about its actually quality ought to be fixed be Thursday at the latest (hold that: WILL be fixed by Thursday at the latest or I'll see to it that certain reasons from complaints recieve very large objects dropped on them courtesy of my stagecrew friends). As I was saying, it is a fantastic musical of great songs, wonderful dialogue and plot, and some really really funny jokes.

[Rant] I'll begin by addressing a statement made by one Ian Buchanan whereby I do quote: "the orchestra has a range of pp to mf, the band goes mp to fff." I would like to respond by saying that that wonderful high volume range of the band is not a wonderful thing if the band is accompanying, and I'll repeat that in case someone in the musical on brass reads that, accompanying someone who does not have a dynamic marked triple forte, then perhaps playing double forte yourself is a bad idea. So yeah, the Band is way too loud. Not saying that the orchestra is always quiet enough, but there is certainly a recurring issue with the brass volume.

Part two, in this musical pit there are several people who, after only the first night of dress rehearsal, I desire to do away with. Firstly, we'll name Kathleen Berry, my fellow bass player who is a complete Bitch (I saw that in all sincerety, it's her self-chosen title) because she gets bored about 3/4ths of the way through and then stops really paying attentions. Now, I don't really feel too bad about her presence, because she is a good player, but if she'd stop enouraging Adam Bailey I'd feel even less bad. Adam Bailey would be our drummer and I really don't hate him personally, just drummers in general. He's good, I'll give him that, but he won't stop playing when the songs stop (which is typical for drummers, but damn aggravating, especially when he's covering the cast and there isn't even music to be playing too loud) The third is Palmer. Palmer has a major issue with being wrong. I admit that I also had this difficulty, but I overcame it in early FIRST GRADE. Face it Palmer, the song is too slow because you don't listen to Fossum when she tells you to do it in 2. If you're going to conduct half the cut-time stuff in 4 then there is no reason why this song in 4 can't be done in 2. Secondly, don't let people yell at Dimitri when it was your bad conducting that made him rush. I'll give you that Adam was rushing "Sit Down" but Dimitri was right with you on that song. And speaking of bad conducting, there was a good reason why we did the last song 4 times and the closing music (my only complaint with the musical, the musical has none, we have to redo old songs) twice: Not because the orchestra was too loud (which I give you, we were) You. The first time I do concede was Fossum distracting you with details, but the second time was you failing to retard and the third was you not knowing your cue.

In case you all can't tell, the pressure is getting to me at last. And if anyone gets offended by the scenes of New York City nightlife (not that I foresee it happening, but there's always one) please make sure I don't find out because I will, and I swear this, Hunt them down and kill them for being stupid and a prude.

[/rant]Well, I'm guessing that this is getting tedious for you all to read so I'll leave you to your regularly scheduled programming, the usual near nothing :)

Wow, professionals do a different version of Guys and Dolls, and ours is much better in my opinion, makes more sense and sounds better.

Song in my head: Guys and Dolls - Marry the Man

Crap, I nearly forgot the janitor rant too. As it turns out, this night was the night that the janitors were going to wax the floor which meant that I got yelled at for walking through the main hall and the B-hall to put my bass away. Anyone who wants to suggest a better way to get from the auditorium to the orchestra room without touching the floor or going outside (since the end of B-hall is locked) is welcome to explain to me how I should have gone about it. That was one pissy janitor and I was seriously wondering how long it would have taken someone to notice his absence if he kept up his attitude: "I want all of you kids out of this school in 5 minutes" (which would have been great if there weren't 25 pit musicians and over 50 in cast and stage tech and rehearsal ended just 2 minutes ago (thank god we didn't go on till 10 as planned, we'd have been stuck and I'd have a criminal record) and the cast still had to change to regular clothes, get off stage makeup, and debrief.

Well, we are now officially at war. There, that's all the comment you are getting out of me on the topic cause I really really don't want to talk about it.

Damnit, I need someone to hate, I've not got anyone to hate so it's building up inside to no end.

Quick, Colin's losing confidence, convince him that there is a point to Senior Prom, or is he?

Alright, time for some real world, present day stuff. Alledgedly taking the Econ Test tomorrow so we'll see how that goes. 85 on BC calc...which fits well with the 80-somethings on the past two Calc tests as well. Okay, so my work ethic sucks this year, but besides HOPE what do I really have to care about? Speaking of not caring D'Oraz, lets find a good creative distraction like say joint writing a story. No more of this lets make another blog stuff, I want something that I can do without having to work my way through Netscape and Blogger's errors.

Hmmm, Jazz band's playing at the Silent Auction and I have a whopping 1/3 of the songs. Damn Palmer! Damn Palmer! He just had to go behind his back and cave and change the line-up for the Spring Symphony Concert. I don't like his new theme, the old one was so much better. Now, it's still a secret irregardless of whether I like it or not, not that it matters cause those who are going to come are going to come no matter the theme (though I figure some might actually get turned off depending on their views of the theme, but only a very small irregular few).

Attention: Anyone who would like to do anything with Colin, I'm not free until Sunday the 29th thanks to the musical. The only exception to this rule being Jiaz cause we've got Lit to work on. Everyone else, be forewarned, I'm liable to be on a very short fuse during this time. Especially since I've still got something like 40 hours of playing to do until the 29th and my fingers are already sore for trying to pizz all the damn notes.
Isn't red such a good announcement color?

Song of the Moment: Move - Future Breeze. Yeah Jiaz, that is your fault, but very fun.

I think my posting has gone far enough. There wasn't anything of a supremely special nature about Islands of Adventure. All that is left to do is complain that we watched My Best Friend's Wedding and champion the fact that Christine Simpson and I, despite being down 415 to 80 beat Kasey Kask and Mr. Palmer in a mere two hands of Spades.

Day three of the orchestra trip.
We all got on the bus and headed over to Harrison School of Arts. Basically an Arts Magnet High School set right next to (ie: the buildings overlap somewhat) a regular High School. There we, first Sinfonietta, then Sinfonia, and then their orchestra performed. Sinfonietta sounded really good, we sounded about par for the course, and the Harrison group sounded really really good with some problem spots in the really really hard places but they had likely had their music for more than a mere month and worked on a block scheduling with dual orchestra and several music related (theory, keyboarding, etc.) classes so they got a minimum of 90 minutes of orchestra a day plus the additional classes. They did start off kind of rough, since the woodwinds decided not to play in tempo with the violas, or vice-versa, but Palmer was incredibly right in warning us that we might seem strange by having so many asians. They had a whopping 2 asians. One sat assistant concert master and the other sat first chair second violin (likely either 2nd or 3rd overall violin depending on how Harrison handles auditions/seating). Yichen (I seriously have no idea how her name is really spelled, but it's pronounced as 'E Chen' so that's my best guess) asked me if I thought Harrison was better than Sinfonia and I said that I couldn't tell from one performance, but I guessed that their Chamber was likely on par with us for the most part, if slightly better. The first chair bass player stopped playing after a large, high tempo 16th note passage to mark something in his music. It was a bit odd seeing someone stop to mark something mid performance. I'm not certain whether to be impressed by his musical dedication or slighted that he was taking this perfomance for us as a triviality.
After they finished performing, we got sent on tours with their people, where we say all the various low doorway'd room that they did speech or keyboarding, or theory in, the whole campus took perhaps 5 minutes to walk around with all the descriptions included. We then went back in and all got on stage (that was 3 Sinfonietta Basses plus 4 Sinfonia Basses plus 6 Harrison basses for a total of 13, with plenty more in the other sections). We played Psalm and Fugue, which is a piece I personally have sightread twice under Palmer and not liked by me either time, nor this one. The noise was rather impressive, even though several of our number were left in the audience by sheer lack of space. Then we scaled down to merely Sinfonia and Harrison Chamber (which was far larger than what one would conventionally call a Chamber Orchestra) and played "The Texians" by Carold Nunez, which Harrison had been working on for some time now, and our advanced players had done last year, except they took a slower tempo (so Chattahoochee rushed alot) and our players who hadn't played it were totally lost in sightreading the massively fluxutuating time signature changes. Actually, our group was slightly smaller than what it should have been because Harrison had only two cello copies of the music and Palmer had only one so that brought it down to seven cellos (only 3 from Chattahoochee) playing on 3 stands. That was the third Nunez piece that day, with Sinfonietta playing "Chapter One" and Sinfonia playing "The Chattahooche" which Palmer had comissioned for us. I came to the conclusion that he uses the same rhythm patterns very often.
We went to a mall for lunch where my meal total came to an uncanny $7.77 and was really tasty. We, this we being Keith, Sarah, Edmund, Jason, and myself, then visited several stores including an EB (yay, ZoE II is out and so it DMC II), a Hot Topic, an ice cream store which was sadly out of bubble pearl tea though it was on the listing of avalible things :(, and a Dollar Store (where Edmund got some badminton rackets out of randomness)
Then we went back to the hotel to get changed. Most of us gathered at the pool where I walked Palmer into a stalemate in Chess (I had 5 pawns, a queen, a bishop, a rook, and a knight versus his king, but he walked into a corner while I advanced my pawns to make more queens). Jerry Fu was somewhat teaching others how to play Chinese Chess (he wasn't totally a master at the game) which seemed inordinately complex since not only were there all sorts of odd rules, but the characters from each side were written differently, just to make Colin go insane I assume. Then we went out to Medieval Times, which'll get it's own post. After that we returned to the hotel and played some Smash Brothers: Melee in Joseph's room, where I learned that Jason is really good and can play a mean ranged Link and then want back to our room at curfew for some Bomberman and then sleep.

Day two of the orchestra trip.
Alright, the day was one of simple format, and it followed as such. After getting up and having a quick breakfast in the lobby, we got on the bus and headed over to Valdosta State University. Upon getting near the school, our entire bus was immediately bombarded by memories vocalized loudly by Nikhil, one of those on the bus who had done GHP. Edmund and Jackie reaffirmed his statements (which were nearly constant) though Edmund did little more than nod to do so. At VSU we performed for the orchestra directors who were Kirk Moss (former director at Walton, the guy that Holbrook replaced) and some other gentleman who was significantly older and was intent on making us sing while tuning, which didn't go so hot (the singing, tuning was fine). After playing for them and recieving perhaps a half hour of instruction on the kinds of nuances that Palmer would have gotten to had we been playing the music for longer than a month, and the kind of things that Dr. Holbrook focused on from the very start (strict terraced dynamics and musical phrasing).
After that we had Master Classes/Sectionals. The bass one consisted of walking to the Cello one, then being redirected to a room with 3 sofas, 2 chairs, and a very large thin business meeting table flanked by old rolling chairs (ie: rolling chairs that didn't look like they would roll very well). We (the basses) sat down while our instructor, a young graduate student played a Cello Bach suite for us on bass and then said that that was standard bass audition fare for graduate schools and orchestras (so much for Colin doing a major in bass performance, it looked like it was rough stuff play). He then gave us various lessons, most of which I had already had in one form or another, and ended by giving us all business cards, an odd young fellow, but decently competent and a good player.
Then we had lunch which was at "one of the 4 eating areas on campus" the other 3 being another cafeteria, and the two campus Unions which both apparently housed Chick-Fil-A. The food was decent, regular college cafeteria fare and conversation was amusing but not memorable (ie: I've forgotten). After eating Elizabeth, Sofia, and Emory went into some bushes to stand by a tree to get Edmund to take some pictures, and Elizabeth got ants on her sandals :(. She only got bitten once. Then we got a tour of the campus, or a small part of it. We started by going to one of the 20% of dorms that were not co-ed, this one being female (nope, no hot college girls) where we were taken in groups of a dozen to see a room. Edmund, Jason, Jerry (Jason's brother), and I all sat down, lied about already having gone when Palmer asked us, and got in two hands of Hearts. Our guide led us around some more, though there was nothing really of major note. While we were being led about, Sarah and Jackie got some valued practicing time in the music building.
After this excitement we went back to the buses where we again loaded our instruments and were greeted by Mrs. Green. Yes, that would be the assistant principal (Buck Green)'s mother, who had brought us candy, which was nice, though vaguely unsettling. We all got on the bus and headed off for the next hotel. That ride was accompanied by the movie Armaggedon. I don't know why someone brough it or why we watched it, but I do know that if you sing any Aerosmith around me besides Sweet Emotion or Walk this Way you may be abused. We got to the hotel and found that our room had a fold out bed/sofa as well as two regular twins, so we we're happy. The room lacked a Gideon's bible and the round table was very small in diameter and very low in height and there weren't enough chairs to set it between beds with two chairs on the other sides for a good card game, all of which was noted on the complaints card. Edmund went out to call Lisa and Jason and Keith went down to the pool because Sonica requested their presence, I lay upon a bed and promptly fell sound asleep. When my companions returned, they found that they had all left their keys inside and I didn't respond to their knocking so they got new cards. They tell me that they played Bomberman and Super Jump and Bumb (which I never did see, but I did hear on the first bus ride) very loudly, but I slept through. This process of falling asleep did cause me to take up the entire twin bed closest to the door and thus set the sleeping heirachy precendent for the rest of our nights at the hotel: I in the first twin, Edmund and Keith in the next, and Fu in the couch bed (which I think was really larger than a twin, but didn't really ever check).

Day one of the orchestra trip.
So, we loaded the two buses, one heavy with the baggage of cellos and basses, the other weighted down by the changes of clothing and other various items of a more personal nature than the blocks of chiseled wood and fiber wires and horsehair that we make noise with. We also said good bye to those among us that were not going yet turned out to say good-bye: Jinha Yang, Tim Shaw, and Christine Lee being the most painful to not have come though I feel it would have been fun to also have Louise's fashions and the other Elizabeth Wang for her violin talent and the fun of her shared name.
This ride down wasn't all the way to Orlando, thankfully, and we watched Monster's Inc. along the way. I still say that the movie short at the beginning is better than the movie, but that's not to say that the movie doesn't have it's moments. We got to the hotel rather late and went to our rooms after unpacking our suitcases. I was originally to room with Edmund, Jason, and Tim, but with Tim's absence we instead recruited Keith, whose last name I haven't the slightest idea of, who is one of the first chair first violins (Sinfonietta has dual concert masters, he's one (The other is the other Elizabeth Wang)). Although only a freshman, he was pretty cool, and made for a good forth person for playing cards, and a fairly decent bomberman opponent, but that's an entirely different story. Jason had borrowed a Chinese friend's laptop, which we laid on a plastic bag full of ice every night to keep from overheating. And ran ZNES (a Super Nintendo emmulator) to play Tetris Attack. Jason is better than Edmund who is better than me, and Keith didn't even try. It was fun to watch, and somehow Jason and Edmund managed a 6 minute game (note, 2 minutes is a long time, roughtly 1 minute is an average game and also the shortest).
Nothing special happened that day, just the ride and then cards and Tetris at the hotel and then sleep.

Well, tomorrow the orchestra trip departs so I'll be gone for a solid 4 days. When I return I'll hopefully have answers to some of the questions that still lay unanswered. Until that time, I make no promise of a long orchestra post since I can't vouch that anything will happen.

Alright, unlike Jiaz, I won't be getting my vaccination at school since Kaiser Permanente, aka Aon's , aka my father's employer, health care service, is offering the same thing, with alot less of a line, for only $15. I'd claim the savings of $70 that that equals, but I just lost a bet with my mother. Well, it wasn't really a bet, and it wasn't really something that I had a chance of winning. Basically the idea was that if I didn't play to par at my piano lesson, I'd be paying the $65 for this month. Now, of course, bringing my mother to my piano lesson was like the ultimate mistake, since it led my 30 minute lesson to be an hour and thirty minutes and included the same lecture about how I could do so much if I bothered practicing and how I ultimately needed to decide where I was going to college and so on and so forth and all that other crap I've been told so many many times.

There was no overall plot to this blog, I just wanted a non-rant form of venting. If you really want the rant, then, well, ask really nicely and perhaps you'll get the hot-blooded rant of the stupidity of orchestra competition, the downfalls of Colin, and why I only seem to learn the pieces of information I already know.

Pre-Weekend-Blog Update: It's presently Sunday @ just before 6:00 PM and I've still only done 8.1 for Calc. On the plus side I've gotten at least 6 hours worth of naps.

Otherwise: I want Audioblogger. There'd be a link but it, for whatever reason, keeps trying to make the link a subdirectory of my site.

Well. The orchestra concert went well, though it's really hard to say since you really can't hear yourself too well when you're in the damn middle of the gym, but that's ok. The concert wasn't the hard part though, it was moving the 300+ chairs from the gym back to the cafeteria. For those who like numbers better, we'll assume 300 precisely. So that's 300 chairs, stacked in sets of, well, ranging from 6 to 10 with 6 being the majority far more ofter, so 8 sounds like a good overestimate. Now, the elevator, the means of getting them up that level without stairs typically held between 2 and 4 stacks, mostly 3, so we'll use that. So now we have 300 chairs, being in stacks of 8, going up the elevator in sets of 3. I won't do the actual math, but let's just say that for a supposedly 1 hour concert (I'll give that it was fairly close, within 15 minutes of being only a hour) that started at 7, I didn't get home until 9:30 and I live close.

I did avoid having to work the damn debate tournament thanks to work, I probally could have shown up late, but I had and still have absolutely no information. Hell, I'm lucky I even knew that there was a tournament that I was supposed to work. But when I see varsity debators leaving after school and yet it seems that everyone of the speech team is required to do full tasking, I get a bit suspicious.

I have opted to go on the Orchestra trip, assuming that Palmer doesn't mind the field trip form being a day late (seeing as how I was given it the day it was due and really didn't feel like forging a parent's signature), so despite what reservations I might have about burning a precious sleeping weekend on a bus I'm in it for the long haul.

I got accepted to the Global version of NYLC (National Young Leaders Conference), and yes it is called the GYLC. I haven't checked with my other NYLC alumni to see exactly how common this acceptance is, cause I don't recall doing anything too momentous except defeating the low income housing bill, mostly out of spite, but that's a totally different story.

Well, I hope everyone had fun on that last day for a hundred years where you could write the date out as (03)^3.

The major phrase of the day, and perhaps one of the best ways to start any day: Coffee Pocky. If that didn't make sense to you, you are really missing out. And this was no ordinary pocky, it was pocky on steriods (err, performance enhancers if you prefer political correctness) so it was far more coffee flavored than a regular pocky stick would have been.

Mystery of Work today. What is a goniometer, how would you use one in relation to Cold War morse code, and how do you pronounce the word?

Weekend Blog, it's just so much more fun to do it this way. Plus, I wasn't home 'till well after Midnight either of the two previous nights anyways.

Saturday I went to work bright and early where Bill and I netted a gross $1600 or so. It was really an $800 day until two South Korean gentlemen shipped 3 boxes of documents back to Seoul with a good deal of need for haste for a grand total of $800. After that I joined Ian, David (yes, my brother), and John at Kyle's for some Street Fighter EX3 (yeah, it does seem a lot like Tekken with the flavor of Marvel vs. Capcom) and Shanghai Noon. I also played several games of Defense of the Ancients v2.3 for Warcraft III and found that some aspect of either that map or Warcraft III in general causes a driver compadability issue with Kyle's cpu that cause a memory dump. Finished gaming at about 2:30 AM and went home.

Sunday I slept a solid 8 hours then got up and wasted alot of time. I watched 5 episodes of Outlaw Star, stretching from "Final Countdown" to "The Strongest Woman in the Universe" which is a spree of episode 14 to 18. Then I went over to Kyle's and played Street Fighter and DDR Konamix. Ian and David didn't come so it was a bit more active for all since there was less rotating. After John left I did too much DDR; we're talking Colin doing roughly 15-20 in a row of the higher end songs, which is quite a burnout.

Monday was to be a day of D&D, but Destination Imagination practice ran long, Josh had other obligations come up, and I had to cover for Ting at work (a $2200 day). We got a good deal of stuff accomplished though.

Other notable events of this weekend. Well, my cat basically ensured that I won't have any futher siblings. No, not like that you sick person. Here, let me explain: my poor cat, Cinnamon, who is now 16 years old (which is 90 for those who count in cat years, though I have no idea how one would have originally determined how much a cat or dog year equates to) had cancer. Technically it was feline some-or-other, so we sent her away this weekend to get radiation treatment. So, for this week I now have a radioactive cat. I'm supposed to wash my hands if I pet her and she gets special litter that gets flushed down the toilet (yeah, way too much info eh?). Well, nonetheless, she likes to sit on my father's lap, so I figure that the odds of me getting a sister are below calcuations. Also, I got direct access inheritance. Basically since my Uncle passed on, my parents cleaned out his house and I got some of his old CD's and comic books.

As for next weekend, it looks as though I'll have a Sunday and that'll be about it. I do have a working bike and I owe D'Oraz a visit, so I think I'll have to capitalize on those facts. I also need to go game shopping since I could use some fresh electronics to keep me busy. Next Saturday I'm presently slated to Work (well, technically I'm not, but Kyle's got the other store and Ian's busy, so I am) and to 'help out' at the debate tournament. Oddly enough I think I had to work last time and Stein was pissed...well, I guess he'll have to get pissed again. I also started like 4 more comics, and finished then all except Penny Arcade, which I've only mostly finished at the moment.

On a related note, I've decided to dedicate songs to people so if you think you've got a song for yourself or someone else, send it to me. Oh, and anyone trying to submit Evil Queen for Cindy will be shot, comprende?

A correction to my statement about Lakly's birthday. Apparently National Eating Disorder week doesn't technically end until Sunday, which is when her birthday really falls, but celebrating Friday still seems like the most logical of ideas.

Wow, today was a day of the stupidest drivers I have ever seen. The sheer vehicular incompetence of the people on the roads rivialed even that of the people who were in all those terrible driver's education movies. I don't have any specific details to cite, mostly because I'm trying to banish most of the images from my mind, though I think my lack of detail is more of a thing to be thankful for than something to regret.

Welcome to Georgia, home of the convergant time theorem. I didn't try out for All-State Orchestra so that I could have an opportunity to go to Prom since the weekend of All-State Orchestra fell on the day of Prom. Well, as it turns out, All-State for Speech falls upon that same day, and Cindy seems determined that we are going to go. So, if I do end up not catching a break and do get whisked away, perhaps for an encore of round 2's fun, would someone mind finding out when and where Centennial's Prom is? I have a cousin who's a junior there and if worst case comes to worst case I can double date with her and her boyfriend along with myself and someone else from Centennial. Unfortunately for my immortal soul, the only 3 Centennial people I know (excluding my cousin and her boyfriend) are Mari (who I'm not asking anywhere), Denise Boder (probably the most likely choice, though I'll be damned beyond eternity), and Joey Fuhr (who is a guy, so you can figure why Denise is ranked above him).

Well, according to Lakly, her birthday falls at the end of National Eating Disorder Awareness Week (this week), so conventional logic would hold that that is this Friday.

Hurrah. Nothing quite like online comics to keep a mind distracted. Especially sprite comics, with good plot, and using FF3 sprites with affirmative action, very fun. Today's lesson: if you're going to use FF sprites, please keep it in an FF setting. Dungeon's and Dragons with Final Fantasy doesn't mix (yes, this holds for 8-bit as well).

Well well well. Last week was too much confined in a tiny span of time. This week shouldn't be too much better, let's see how things go. I've my fingers crossed a slew of cross-referenced online comics to fall back on. Until then, I leave you with today's music of inspiration (what it inspires is half the fun)
Niko - Nights of Fire

Songs to sleep with for a depression:
Savatage : Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Cacophany : Cheshire Cat

In keeping with the Card game metaphor, let me just say that I was not the holding the high hand. It's the cost payed for trying to play the game too quickly. Well, live and learn.

The Debate Weekend, certified for public viewing by the CMS (Cindy Monitoring Service):

Alright, these go in no particular order, it just happens to be what I wrote down as I though of it, so if something seems out of order, you'll just have to suffer.

We'll start with the absolute down point of the trip. After the awards ceremony on the final day of debate (Saturday), myself and Jennifer Belding (aka: David's sister, you have to love inside debate jokes) decided that the bus's current location, which, while not far from the from entrance, was not the best of locations for loading the bus with hefty debate evidence. It was bordered by a decrepit wooden fence and a large amount of mud on the right side and the left side would have been blocking other traffic had we taken it to load the bus. So we, I do concede that Jen did the actual asking, but it really becomes a moot point, told the bus driver to pull the bus around. Stein was pissed, he didn't speak harshly, cause that would have made him look bad, he just reprimanded me (so much for not shooting the messenger). Even after Jen and I single-handedly loaded all the debate evidence and carts into the bus, we got no thanks whatsoever. And I'll tell you that crouching inside the bus and hefting twenty-pound Tupperwares full of paper is no fun.

For those of you who are not aware of the Bunny, it is Cindy's rather large pink stuffed animal that we take on speech trips. So is Spitch/Spiotch, but that's an entirely different matter. Nonetheless, this trip, because of the necessity of rotating the rooms between Debate and Speech rounds, gave us poor members of the speech team (having only 3 rounds and one of finals as opposed to 5 debate rounds and then breaking to Octofinals), had tons and tons of downtime. During this downtime, I would take the Bunny, and walk around Vestavia. During the first of these trips I ran into a rather bored and pissed member of the Vestavia debate team (who, like the rest of her team, was stuck working the tournament). This particular person was a, I this will surprise you, a short Asian named Gene who was getting ready to strangle a Policy judge who was not letting go of his ballot. I, having nothing else to do, stood in the hallway with her and a rotating pack of other Vestavia members. Needless to say that the Bunny lying on my chest being stroked by me (note, I was leaning back so that the Bunny was atop me without me actively holding it) go a lot of comments. The best being from the leader of the Vestavia debate team, a blonde male senior with a dearth of common sense as he said, "That's illegal in this state." To which my reply was "No it's not, this is Alabama."

During the second day, during our second six-hour debate down time, we on the speech team elected to recall the bus and go to the Birmingham mall. Our first stop upon arrival was prom dress shopping. No, no one actually planned to go there, but yes, it was at least a good 45 minutes we spent in there choosing and trying on dresses. Umm...let me rephrase that, they (Cindy and Becca) spent a good 45 minutes trying on dresses. I was just the human shelf. At one point in time I was holding 10 dresses while we waited for dressing rooms to open. I won't go into detail as to how nice these lovely ladies looked in the various dresses, but I will say that by the end, Cindy was rather sparkly and there had been much planning over how exactly one would go about tie-dying a prom dress. After this we went to a store called Dalia, which was essentially an overpriced girl's apparel store, and spent a bit of time there. I'm not certain if it's only me, but I think a shirt with "No shirt, no shoes, no service," would be just a little weird to see someone wearing. After this we went to the food court to have dinner, cause we were hungry by this point, and then we did some splitting up. I went with Emily Pitts to a bookstore, where I stood outside eating a cup of frozen yogurt and pondered how weird I must have looked standing in a mall, eating frozen yogurt with only my tongue, and wearing my trench coat as well as a dress shirt and tie. I finished the dessert and went into the bookstore where I choose a random magazine, Ramp for those who are keeping score, and leafed through it. It was a little section on gruesome sports injuries including color pictures. Emily chose a book and then we left, thinking that we were running low on time, which we were. Then I introduced Emily to the work of DDR by showing it to her in the nearby arcade. So to complete the lesson we took a stroll over to the Electronics' Boutique where I showed her what she would need to play, and then we headed off to the bus and got back to Vestavia just in time for awards.

We also played cards during our down time moments; Spades and some rather vicious games of spoons. We had between the five of us, 4 decks of cards. One deck, 101 Dalmations, was short exactly one card, the blue deck was complete, and we had two identical red decks, both of which were missing a two of diamonds.

Time for the Final duo round. Cindy and I got 4th place out of five teams, here were the others' pieces. 5th place was "Sure Thing" which our school had done several times as had other schools, so it was nothing special. 3rd place, "Little Footsteps" was a group who played a couple with a verbally abusive (though not profane husband) and a pregnant wife. The highlights were that the piece included a dead baby joke and a dialogue about how their drug usage might affect their kid. "With all the drugs we did I wouldn't be surprised if our son looks like flipper." "Don't say such things!" and the husband's imagination of what it would be like "Umm, sir, I'm afraid your son doesn't have a body." "Doesn't have a body?! Well, I guess I could get used to that. I mean, football's right out, but at least I can still teach him chess." "Umm, he doesn't have a head either." "What?!" "He's just an eyeball, I have him right here." "My son is an eyeball?!" "He's a rather large eyeball for his age. Oh, don't hold him like that, he blinks." "My son is a eyeball, what could be worse!?" "He's blind."

The 2nd place piece was called "Greater Tuna" and was about two local radio personalities in an imaginary town called Tuna and Cindy and I cannot figure out how they ranked this high. One of their physical actions was flicking off the judges for the first minute, well, perhaps that wasn't what they intended but he was holding his middle finger on his left hand out with all his other fingers in so it really couldn't not be interpreted that way. The victors were two girls doing "Las Hermanas" which started with two wonderfully well played old ladies and then changed into a feminist modern art song that was, while weird, very good and deserving of victory.

Mrs. Jolle also brought two pieces for us to look at for next year. One was called "Darn It" and was about two co-workers (a divorced man and his secretary) who were interested in a relationship but both brought their lawyers to negotiate the first date boundaries. After the lawyers get too involved the couple goes off without them on a date and the lawyers decide to go for a drink. Yes, the man has a male lawyer and the woman a female lawyer. Best lines: "So you're saying that all your client brings to the table is free access to all her orifices?" "Just one orifice." "Two or we walk."
The other piece was a man who is in a restaurant with when God walks in and starts stealing his pretzels. Highlights: "Wait, you mean to say that man has no purpose?" "Sometimes it just works out like that. Just like hermit crabs, I don't have a reason for them, they just are." "So, you're saying that in the grand scheme of things, a man is no more important a hermit crab?" "I bet that that's a load off your mind." "So we've been giving you prayers and worship and burnt offerings and-" "Actually, you've been really slack on the burnt offerings lately." "That's not the point." "I like pretzels more than I like burnt offerings."

Emily's most memorable moment of cindy'
We're in our room watching tv and someone knocks on the door
Cindy: Who is it?
Stein: It's stein!
Cindy: Ok (proceeds to watch tv like nothing happened)
5 seconds later Stein knocks again
Emily: Cindy! Aren't you gonna open the door for Mr. Stein??
(before Cindy could answer) Katie opens the door

Round 2, which was the reason I had Cindy's clothes in my backpack defies description, though hopefully this quote from Cindy will help you understand it: "round 2 was one hot and sweaty round, but it was great none the less."

Alright, this is yesterday's post that was going to be until the power decided that I didn't need it to watch the episode of Futurama that I wanted to see (though I do want to see them all). Well, when power goes out at 11 and there's barely a moon, it leaves complete darkness and thus nothing to do but sleep.

Back to today:
Wow, work today was high stress. I had the Orchestra concert to look forward to and Speech coming up tomorrow and Ron on high alert since we had a major color copy job (major meaning large) and the copier decided that eating every 6th and 7th copy would be a great idea and then the whole other issue which'll be covered in brief just below this:

Here is goes. Those of you who have been acting in accordance with the plans of Cindy, back off. The table is set for two and the cards are dealt. It's my game and my pace now, it has caused enough problems and damage with my acting when there was not time to finish the play. I've started a bridge and already begun burning it. Please, spare me the pressure, I need to reevaluate what and how I play my hand else it'll be something I'm going to regret for a long time.

On a lighter note, some humor from Theodore S. Abbott:
Q: Why are fire engines red?
A: 1 + 2 = 3. The third letter in the alphabet is C. The sea is full of fish. The sturgeon is a fish. Caviar comes from sturgeons. Russians are fond of caviar. Fire engines are always rushin'. What other color could they be?

An addition to the saga of getting lost in Devonhall.

Not only did I get lost, but upon conferring this knowledge to Jia Jia, I was informed of the crux of my mistake (ie: which wrong turn I made) and told the proper way. Misinterpreting Jiaz's usage of the word entrance, I left his house and tried seeking a second way out of the neighborhood that would lead me closer to Sargent Road. For those of you who haven't caught on yet, there isn't one. Nonetheless I spent a very good deal of time lost in Jiaz's neighborhood before giving up.

I'd also like to point out that Roger's Bridge Road, which happens to be the little road between Bell Road and Devonhall, would make for the ultimate filming of Sleepy Hollow except for the slight danger that the Headless Horseman's mount might trip and break a leg. Other than that, it's quite perfect. Well, by night anyways, since by day the only creepy bit is the Sear's Air Conditioner that's sitting on the side of the road, like a big white fan thingy.

In the spirit of those who might not enjoy the medieval musings ofswords and sorcery I have decided to soon create a similar series of short legends on a more high tech level, but I've decided to hunt for a co-writer before beginning to care (*Cough* D"Oraz *Cough*).

Alright, total weekend blog. We start at the beginning:
Saturday Morning I woke up and went to work, bright and early. It was a greatly uneventful day, and very slow too, though there were some very wonderful conversations between Bill and the customers including the failings of the CIA and the FBI, the workings of US Cold War espionage, anti-Southern prejudice, and a variety of other random conversations. He kept one gentleman in the store for a good 2 hours, the man's wife called his cell cause she got worried, which is the only thing that ended the chat. Anyways, we closed and then I was immediately put in charge (by my mother) of hanging around an extra 20 minutes to let the pizza's finish so I could bring them home (since we were celebrating my mother's birthday). I picked them up without event and made it home, where I was inundated in family and my parents' college friends. It wasn't wonderful, but it wasn't terrible, and I survived. Saturday over, mostly, the rest of what happened was using careful manipulation to glean 3 K.K. Songs for my pad in Animal Crossing.

Sunday: I got up just in time to find out that we were going to go to the "wake" (it's iffy calling it that, since it wasn't at a church, but that's what it was) about 2 hours before it started so we could help set-up. So we did. The party consisted of all the family I'd seen yesterday, minus the parents' college friends, plus a large contingent of very elderly persons who were friends with my grandmother (Ie: the dead guys mom) and some of his fellow co-workers. Oh, and before I forget, the deceased's ex-wife and two children (my cousins) were there as well. Rachel, who's 17 and goes to Centennial brought her boyfriend and Adam, who's 14 (or somewhere around there) brought one of his friends. Am I the only one who thinks that that is just a tad bit irregular? Anyways, the night was mostly uneventful save for a few of the elderly falling into the recessed living room(its about a good 5" drop that's hard to notice). After that, I departed to join Jiaz to work on Lit and everything went totally downhill. I immediately turned the wrong way and decided to go with it since I knew that going down Jones Bridge did lead to Devonhall eventually, though I immediately followed up the first faux pas with another false step (or turn in this case) and proceeded to wander/drive aimlessly for a solid 30 minutes before giving up and going the way I knew, which involves going around Saint Ives to get to Boles Road, whereup I took the wrong juncture of Bell Road. I did eventually get where I intended, but only after about 40 minutes of wasted time and gas and some of the worst radio programming I have ever had to deal with. I have never heard worse song choices. Sum knowledge is that darkness, rain, and bad music really Fsck with Colin. I got some work done with Jiaz and got home so I could sleep, though I did borrow Yuri's revenge from Jiaz before getting home so that has been a good lessener of boredum. End Sunday.

I got woken up early Monday, yay for 3 day weekends (when does it start? I haven't seen anything resembling a weekend yet), so I could go to the Orthodontist where I could sit there for an hour before Dr. Mach got over to add a spacer and send me on my way. Then I got home in time to go to the Dentist's and enjoy the pleasure of my weak and receeding gums. Dentist appointments draw more blood than any other activity I do except donating blood, and that wins only slightly. I got back from that and then departed to join Jiaz to finish our Lit stuff, which we managed really well after alot of work and debate about the #1 White Hatian sewed Monkey/Bear/Thing.

Well, that's the weekend in a nutshell: Now for the other stuff. Supporters of the Webster Van be afraid. In celebration of the first two weeks of Feburary (Ie: both my parents' birthdays and Valentine's day) my father got a new Honda Accord, which means that the old 1990 Mazda 626 Manual Transmission with CD player is free for me to drive!

As a revision to Jiaz's blog, I never accepted his bet, I merely asked "Where?" Cause I sure as hell wasn't going to do much more than the back of her hand for a mere $100.

I have, via Bill (my manager), obtained my new tweak idea for my vehicle. Add to my Convertable Volkswagon with a tripped out sound system, multi-disc CD player, and bass; tube the idea of changing out the Volkswagon engine for a Porshe engine. I think that deserves the title of "Zoom Zoom."

...a spillover from the darker blog I bring you a more personal, rougher truth:

Today's Riddle, Why is it that you cannot do something through a note yet you can do it via the phone?
Answer: Having done neither, I'd have no idea.

Anyone know where I can find the unabridged rules of relationships? On a related note, would it be shipped along with Sun Tzu for reference?

For anyone who cares, no I don't like leaving Her hanging, but I also don't want to make her decision a public issue. I'd rather catch her without the horde of others.

I feel stretched, twisted. I've been emotionally and mentally torn beyond my limits, and while I may grow from this exercise, it at current is naught but a recession and pain. Those maladies inflicted upon me have left me a wreck. Stress is not a fun thing, it ruins health and hunger, undoes sanity, and generally wreaks havoc.

"What is a man but the merest speck. An leaf caught in a wind, blow and tossed by the whim of powers above himself."

And now, the much anticipated rant:
My Uncle Mark passed on at roughly 11:00 PM on Wednesday night (the 12th of Feburary). The man didn't make much of a mark in his passing (on me at least, he did adversely affect his parents and children and ex-wife). He was about 45 (I don't know precisely), a chronic smoker, alcoholic, who was not raising unemployment (Econ 101: You don't count if you aren't looking). In a perhaps misguided extension of sympathy, my family went to visit my grandparents (father's side, Mark's parents) to console them. It was pretty effective for, say, the whole first 15 minutes. We brought them food (for those who've never dealt with death, you tend to forget to eat). Anyways, my grandfather is mostly deaf, meaning that every conversation that we had, was repeated at least three times (once normally, once in an attempt to let my grandfather hear, and once at near shouting levels that my grandfather would have stopped caring at that time). Needless to say, I had to walk out due to the dysfunction. We weren't having a real conversation anymore. My mother was inquisitioning my grandfather as to why his taxes got sent back to him (possibly unopened, though no one knows since no one knows where the envelope is at). There's the beginning, the rest'll come in due time, but I feel awful at the moment f'ing stress.

Sorry about the lack of ranting, I decided to have some fun with movies and my digital cable box. It'll come in due time. Jiaz, as for the X Revloution, I can't say I know for sure, but remind me that I owe you an irony about it.

Wow, Varsity Cheerleaders have an asian. Shocking. I guess Bohee (that doesn't seem to be spelled right) isn't quite as rare a breed as I'd originally though, but only slightly less rare. Still plenty hard to find more than a handful.

In rebuttal to Jiaz's little distrust post, I'd like to step forward as worse, since I do it on an unannounced blog of mine that is, within the confines of the hidden blog, encrypted in the language of my mind rather than the voice of my tongue.

As for the Rant, we'll get to that when I get home from work.

Pre Rant staging: Dysfunction, Discord, and Recalcitrence.

As for Sketch, his avatar used to be less chauvanistic, I swear.

Yay for Pep Rallys eh everyone? Well, kudos to Jeff for joining in on the fun. For those who are curious, no I didn't blow out my voice, but yes it is weakened. Oh, and this time it was Soviet instead of Mafia tone in the remainder of my voice. As congradulations Jeff I've went and hunted down Sketch's profile on Infoceptor (I'm a bit weirded that he apparently wiped his posts and resigned as art moderator, but its the same stats otherwise so I assume it's still the artist I was meaning, though the Art forum still has some very very nice artists, check it out). Anyways Hope that this works.

Video Game Music is so much fun:

Music of the Moment:
Chrono Cross OST: Magical Dreamer
Chrono Trigger OST: Frog's Theme
Chrono Trigger OST: Schala's Theme
Final Fantasy Tactics OST: Bloody Excrement
Xenogears OST: A Million Shades of Light

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.

According to Jiaz according to the radio there was a study in England which determined that men who shave more often get more pleasure out of sex. No, this has no importance to any of us whatsoever, however, D'Oraz and I would like to know what the SI unit of pleasure is (an "Oh Yeah" perhaps?).

More Yesterday stuff (this yesterday being Wednesday again). Through a wonderful round plus about thirty or fourty extra questions of Worst Case Scenario, we have discovered the following.
First, Cindy won't last very long should Armageddon arrive tomorrow.
Second, Kyle can randomly diagnose just about any disease, rash, or poisoning you can imagine.
Third. D'Oraz has major talent when it comes to deciding what bugs to eat and at avoiding the law in third-world countries.
Fourth, I simply know far too much about Worst Case Scenarioes in general (though I can't determine which bug to eat nor do I know my diseases very well).

And now for today, now that yesterday's out of the way. Here's a personal shout out to Ting, Bill works 4342 every other Thurday :þ.

New Email Address, which'll hopefully allow me to send Email as opposed to Hotmail.com: CoinWester@Swiftpublications.com, name ought to change one D'Oraz and I can agree on something better, which might take awhile.

I really need to decide if I want to go to Oxford @ Emory or Tech, decisions decisions.

Today's Video Game Reminicence (I really am starting to doubt if that's spelled right) is Nights: Perhaps the only Sega Saturn game that I ever played more than an hour of, it was just that good. It was utterly fantastic though the premise sounds really stupid. You're a flying guy who grabs rings while doing loops and spins (and yes, that's just about it) while avoiding enemies and enjoying the music and artwork.

Alright, first I need to recoup for yesterday. I did have a stuff intended but my Cable went out for a good 3 minutes (during West Wing even) so I abandoned the idea.

Anyways. Yesterday's phrase of the day was "Let's go make babies," which I doubt will ever become a sucessful pickup line, but is fun to say anyways.

Anyone who has any suggestions on what to do during the vast boredom that is Music Theory, please tell me.

Today's (well, yesterday, but whatever) Video Game Reminicence is Claymates: quite possibly one of the worst platformer game ever (yes, worse than Crash Bandicoot, well, actually...) this SNES game had one redeeming feature, the theme to Cape Claynaveral. It was a cute little tune, some 16 notes long, infinately repeated. It was easy to get stuck in one's head and impossible to get out. I'm actually both suprised and thankful that no one has ripped it and put it on Kazaa.

I finally got the Diablo II mod working. Lesson learned: Don't run WinZIP and then try to extract the files yourself, it just doesn't work.

I started a little home in Animal Crossing. I've paid off the basic rent on my house and that's just about it. I got myself some rare furnture too. It's one of those dolls within dolls from Russia, but its a life size one to start with, really creepy.

Oxford at Emory sent me a T-Shirt! Check that out! Now I've still got to decide whether I want to go to Oxford or GA Tech. Liberal Arts or Tech, dilemmas...dilemmas...

I offically suck at Mario Party 3, and for this I'm very thankful, since the game is very time consuming for no good purpose. Unlike most games, when playing it I actually feel like I'm wasting time rather than playing a game.

A slight bit eerie, D'Oraz decided to pay me a visit, at work, to steal my copy of Waiting. Just a tad bit strange of him.

Well, the BC Test today did a major number on me. I really hate polar and parametric forms. Well, I concede their uses, but I can do what they do equally well in Rectangular. Music Theory is so fun. Any class where I can blatently listen to my CD player instead of paying attention is great. My next stage is to attempt that in Econ.

Well, Sir_General's Rune Mod hasn't decided to start working for me yet. I've got a forum post up to him so hopefully I'll get a response soon so I can enjoy the runic goodness.

Cindy's 2 cents (approximate value, $5.65 trillion) on the whole victory thing:

*background music* We'll be singin', when we're winnin' *fade to silence*
You guys could at least do the courtesy of hearing my side of the story before you get all judgemental. Here's what REALLY happened: "Pulled off 2nd place"? pffft. More like, WE KICKED ALL THEIR ASSES except for 2 guys. 2 African american guys. Damn I wish I were black.
Most memorable quote? "So I DID let out the gerbils, and the hampsters, and the bunnies and the raccoons"

Well, Cindy and I pulled off 2nd place in Duo (choke on that Mr. Fuhr!). Check out our mad acting skills.

I saw the Pirates of Penzance today. I won't bother with a summary since if you don't know it my words won't do it justice. Lets just say that it had the required fight scene (10 people with a total of no more than 100 total swings).

I crashed at Kyle's last night and Cervantes lived to tell the tale. My mother did that and Tarantalla got fed to the roper, must've been pure luck. Too bad I didn't take the initative and get my Warcraft III fix.

Happy Groundhogs Day.

Stupid Gamespy doesn't want to let me create an ID. All I want is my precious SGRM (yeah, there's an analogy that no one's going to decipher).

Stupid Adventurers doesn't want to load either. Its just not being my day.