On the Events of a Saturday Evening

Yesterday evening we had a delicious dinner of black beans and sweet mexican cornbread, all lovingly prepared by my wife.

We were invited to Lance’s for pipe smoking, card playing, and drinking throughout the night. We attended and it was grand. It was nice to see Nick again. It seems these days I only see him a few times a year, but he’s always in high spirits and makes me laugh.

The poker playing was a bit unsteady and hilarious. Every possible joke about seeing cards and knowing hands was made, especially by Nick. I could tell he knew what he was doing, even though Lance won the all-in.

After fourthmealing to the max, we purchased some ping pong balls, and we returned to Lance’s garage for my first experience with this classic game of the broseph variety. My first experience with beer pong was probably not one of the best. After Staci’s delicious dinner, of which I partook after not even really being hungry (for I had consumed the delicious $5 foot long only a few hours before), and then snackingly fourthmealed on a chicken burrito dipped in jalapeno sauce, I was painfully stuffed to bursting before downing many half-cups of beer. Mason and I managed to lose the first game, and we became painfully aware of how bad Coor’s Light tastes after being forced to consume the rockies over and over. I realized at one point that I had managed to fill any crevaces left behind in my stomach after all of that tasty food with beer, and one more drink would probably not stay down. So I sat for a few minutes, and thankfully Lance called a great forfeit based on the beer tasting so awful.

And drinking all of the beer that I had very fast, after already having a few while playing poker, I managed to get a fairly decent buzz going. It didn’t last very long, but it was a decent buzz.

All of this is sort of embarrassing, only because I find the phrase beer pong to be somewhat disgusting. Not to mention that I’m really one of the furthest cries away from being a broseph. But, dangerously, I’m down for almost anything to spend time with a few of my very good friends. I mean, I wouldn’t do hard drugs for anybody, but you understand, right?

I had some delicious tobacco last night as well.

After all of this raucus activity, at some point Lance, Staci and I ended up on his front lawn, sitting and eating some watermelon. This is something I haven’t really done since I was a small child. It was nice. Cats mingled with us, at one point Mason was being chased by Michael in a circle around us, and we talked.

Lance came on over to our place to cap off the evening. We sat out on the deck, and enjoyed Todd’s vast knowledge of tricks with a lighter, most of which Lance knew how to do - just not as well. Todd is just too gifted. Todd is a real street-smart people person, and is bound to know all of the most interesting things in life before anyone else. And endless beer-bottle torch, throwing fire from the palm of your hand, the blow-torch from his own mouth. And these are just tricks from a lighter. His wisdom is boundless on many matters.

So, as you can see, it was a real evening. The things that matter. People and tangible things. Memories that feel tangible.

Important things.

Harry Potter Week and Changes

Tonight was the first night of many in Staci's "Harry Potter Week" event. It went over pretty well. Everyone had one of those licorice wands she made. Those were cool. I think I liked them the best. I ate about 4 of them. For some reason the white chocolate just mixed well with the black licorice to me.

So yeah, that was fun. I hadn't seen the first movie in some time. I didn't remember that there were so many one-liners in there. "You're a wizard, Harry". Or actually, pretty much anything Hagrid says. As well as some of the cheesy lines they forced those budding actors to say as children.

But I guess that's half the fun of watching those movies. To see the kids grow up. I remember reading a review of the fourth movie by Roger Ebert, at which point he stated that the lighthearted tones are completely gone by then. I would have to agree there. That first movie is one of those kid movie classics, while by the fourth one, they seem to be trying to achieve a "Star Wars - esque" status of series. I think they pretty well achieved it and all. I just think it's an interesting switch from enchanting and fun kid tale to dark and lengthy slamfest.

Speaking of dark and lengthy, I'm ready for George R.R. Martin's 5th book already.

Staci and I spent a lot of time cleaning up today. Justin and Grace are moving out tomorrow I think, and hope. It's not that I don't want them here. I'm just tired of always having something to clean up. No really. That sounds crappy, but it painfully true. I miss the way most of everything looked when we moved in. I'm going to do my damndest to get it back that way and better. Staci at least deserves her dream home.

No more roommates ever. Never.

And dear lord, I can' wait for my own gameroom! I'll be able to play vidyagames whenever and however. A seperate room for all my messy man-boyish stuff. Magic cards, posters, vidyagames, wires, music... ect.

I love Deer Tick. "I I I, I am the dotted line"

and Boom Blox 2. Love it.

Thems the updates.

The Fourth and After

Well, the 4th was awesome. Even though it ended up almost raining us out (we spent much of our time getting very slowly soaked while shooting off bottle rockets), we managed to make the most of it, and still successfully have a show. Tony's food was great this year. The burgers and dogs were top notch. Much better than last year's. Even though last year's wasn't bad or anything :). Can't call free food bad anyway.

So we shot off many bottle rockets. I managed to take some great photos of them. I was pretty impressed with myself, actually.



There are many that I'm pretty proud of.

And today, well, we went to a new place for pizza, Pizza Warehouse, and it was pretty good. I wish I would have been in the mood for pizza, though. It sure seemed like an awesome place to go if you are in the mood. They had an extensive arcade there, but most of which I've seen before and it was mostly boring. Arcades seem to be getting more boring. Except in Japan. Man, I bet their arcades are slammin'. They sure look slammin' in "Lost in Translation".

Later on in the day, Cody and I took off to meet up with Lance and Morgan at Lance's dad's place to shoot off the rest of our fireworks. However, the punk situation saw otherwise, as we ran out of punks after shooting about 25% of what we had left. So we hung out on the grass laughing as their dog drank my Red Bull, and then went and stared at some of the biggest damn goat testicles you've ever seen. This goat was majestic, man.

Then we went to Jonesy's. The best shaved ice station in the four-state area. Best everything.

And that's pretty much it!

We've been playing way too much of that damn farming game on Facebook lately.

Happy Fourth!

Made it to another 4th of July. I'll have a post tonight or tomorrow about it. :) Hopefully some pictures as well.

A True Saturday Night

It's 2:43am, and I probably have to get up early.

Rock Band 2 is blazing in the living room. A pretty classic Saturday night around here tonight. The smell of Justin's tacos and talk around the table outside.

I got new Bowerbirds and some Deer Tick on my Zen now.

I went running tonight, only to find that if I run a lot (which for the first time in a long time I felt I could) I get a massive tightening of the muscles in the front shin of my left leg. To the point where I can't really move my foot and I must quit running. I was really disappointed because I was getting a real workout tonight before I had to submit to walking the rest of the time.

I wish Dennou Coil had more episodes. I already miss it.

Well, I've managed to waste another three days off, and I'll probably continue to call it "wasted" until I actually go down to the school to see about financial aid and classes. Don't know what is hindering me.

I will go on my next day off for sure.

We played a lot of Magic today. We've discovered that Two-Headed Giant format is actually pretty fun, and a much better multiplayer format than free for all or rotate. The interesting thing about Two-Headed Giant is that no matter how slow your strategy is for your deck, it seems that you can get it out eventually. At least once. There are bad decks for two-headed giant, however. Like how most of my artifact cards ignore the "target" word, so I can't really cast instants and sorceries on other guys. It doesn't really help that almost every card in that deck is a creature either.

I watched more Dennou Coil today before responding to Casey's call about Hawghead Comics. So I rode with Mason over to Hawghead and bought some commons that I wanted. I'm working on a Domain deck. Should be fun.

Wish I had tomorrow off. I'd go to the waterpark. I'm sure Mike would love to go with us. Maybe next week. I am off next Saturday.

I want Boom Blox: Bash Party. I swear, the boxart for that game is the worst. You can barely tell it's a sequel to Boom Blox, or that it's even a Boom Blox game.

Hey, that BASH PATY game looks pretty cool. Oh well, it is still awesome. Seriously. It is.

Dennou Coil and My Bike

Yesterday was a pretty fun day. I spent most of it alone, and cleaning, but that's not all it was. I got to spend some time watching my current anime, Dennou Coil, and hung with Casey for a small bit.

I really like Dennou Coil. I don't think I can power-watch anime at all like Steve and Mason do to One Piece. I think doing so, or at least trying to force my way through something, really makes me lose interest. If the only forcing I do is about one or two episodes per day, then I really enjoy an anime, it seems. And I don't seem to miss any details. And I can get through an anime fairly quickly - at least compared to powerwatching seven or eight episodes and losing interest altogether.

Anyway, I had meant to write about Dennou Coil.

I believe the full title reads "Dennou Coil: A Circle of Children", and it seems fitting enough. The entire anime revolvies around many very likeable and very different characters in a very interesting city. We aren't given any hints as to what the time period is, but the technology - at least the personal technology - is very advanced. Everyone, mostly the children, it seems, has a pair of glasses that gives them access to the cyber network or server, and they can just about make anything on the server using those glasses if they have "metabugs", which seem to appear around "obsolete" or broken space. This broken or obsolete space is the name for an area which may be out-of-sync with the server, or out of date, thus when you look at it through the cyber glasses, it appears pixelated and broken. The story works off of this in the most interesting of ways, and mostly has to do with the origins of the "Illegals", which reside in said space.

Anyway, that's what I've been watching and enjoying thorougly. I might pick up One Peice next, but I don't know. Maybe in conjunction with another anime.

I'm finally getting my bicycle fixed up. Steve brought over his pump yesterday, and it seems my tires are still good. After jogging last night, we went to Wal-Mart, and I picked up some new pedals. I hope they aren't extremely cheaply made. I really wanted metal ones. I only need to replace the left pedal. But I did ride on it yesterday, and even with no pedal on the left side, everything seemed to be in working order. Now I just need a nice basket and a new seat to put on it. You know, so I can run over to the stores and stuff.