Naboo pilot's outfit.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
I give in, it's time for a post. Now the rest of you should follow my example.
Howdy everyone. I have decided enough somewhat interesting things have happened to me since my last post to warrant making a new post. I'll skip the intro paragraph and get right into it. Also note that the things will be written about as they come to me so they may not be in chronological order. I'll try to mention when each thing happened though.
A week ago or so, Steven came over to watch the MSL finals. It was Jaedong vs Flash and we were both rooting for Jaedong. When he lost 3-0, it was rather disappointing, especially considering Flash did pretty much the same build in all 3 games. Since it was over in about an hour, we watched some kpop before he headed back home. If only we didn't have to stay up until 2am to watch it :/
On the Sunday of memorial day weekend, I went to my first folklife with Sai. We hung out for a bit, experiencing it and whatnot. A couple of his friends that like doing drugs came eventually and we hung out with them for a bit, but fortunately were able to get away when it was time to leave. The people that go to that festival are very interesting. For example, we saw some girl dressed up as the pot fairy or something and she would randomly go around making out with guys if they asked her to. It was kind of interesting to watch it happen. I probably should have gone up and done that for...you know...practice, but I decided I did not want to have the seconds or as Sai put it, much more than just seconds. After we came back from folklife, we finished up the Halo 1 campaign on legendary, then started Halo 2 on legendary. The problem with it is if one of you dies, you revert to the checkpoint. I don't know how Davis and I managed to do the whole thing, but Sai and I gave up after a bit and decided to play some Super C which we beat together for the first time. The last time we beat it, I had died and Sai finished the last level on his own.
I have been enjoying the SC2 beta. Today is the last day and I will be playing some more right after this post. My friend in French recently got his beta key back (someone had stolen it) and we decided to play some 1v1s. I kept randoming to Terran and beating him. After I finally got Zerg and beat him in a ZvZ (I think zerg is his main race) he gave up playing me because I kept winning. He's more used to things like Warcraft though where you have small groups of units that level up. Because of that, I would have big armies compared to him and I would win by sheer numbers. After playing with him one day, Steven and Peter and I played some 3v3s. In one, Peter and I tried to mass planetary fortress, but that failed. 3v3s on the current available map are pretty silly because you just tech a ton (or do what I did and make 200 marines) and then you have a huge battle and its over. UMS has become popular on bnet now also, so that is cool. Steven and I have been playing some Infection, which is a cool version of scarie movie. Also, there is blood pressure marathon, which basically consists of running in squares, so I'm awesome at it. Actually, I left this post open all day and was doing other things. The beta ended a little bit ago. Now I have to find other games to play for a month until the release.
The day after folklife, I went up north to Lake Stevens to hang out with Steven from the trumpet section. We did some playing of some tunes, then talked a lot about Warhammer 40k because I'm going to be playing it a lot with him this summer (when I'm not hanging out with you guys). I'm going to play as space marines and I'm going to even get some miniatures of my own, so that will be pretty cool. I'm only investing 20 bucks though since the small figures can get unreasonably expensive. Also, Steve has a ton of miniatures and far more than enough space marines to fill the requirement I will eventually have for them this summer.
Last week as you may have noticed, Ken Griffey Jr. retired. It was a big enough deal that Keir actually called me. I had just been considering whether I should call him when the phone rang and said it was him. It was sad to see him go, but I'll always have the memories.
This last weekend, my cousin had her wedding. For the weddings of her siblings (last june and january of 2009), they allowed me to wear shorts. With my cousin here, we have a joke that you always do what she says. She told me that I must wear a tuxedo for hers. Shorts would not fly. Of course, she would have been fine if I had worn shorts and a suit jacket, but she jokes around to keep up her persona. For the wedding, I decided to surprise her by actually renting a tuxedo. I also wore red tennis shoes which yes, there is a story behind. When I was 2, my uncle (mom's younger brother) was getting married (his first marriage). I was the ring bearer and at the time, I would only wear this one pair of red tennis shoes. I would pitch such a fit about them being replaced that mom would have to sneak in at night and swap out the new pair for the old pair. I would still notice of course, but that made it somewhat better somehow. Anyway, I had a little tuxedo for the ring bearer job, but I would only wear the red shoes with it. My uncle was nice and said it was really alright, so my parents let me. In support of my decision, my uncle (the younger of my mom's older brothers (the one that I don't get to see as much)) wore red tennis shoes with his tux as a surprise. He was a groomsman, so it was also pretty noticeable. Anyway, the wedding was outside and the weather the previous couple of weeks had been rather like it was over here, generally lousy. Fortunately, it was a beautiful day for the wedding and then went back to more standard weather the next day. She got really lucky. The wedding went well too, I got to be the chauffeur and I even got to anger the wedding planner. I always love annoying the high strung wedding planners. Unfortunately, I don't think any of us can ever top my uncle from my other uncle's (the original red shoe wedding) wedding planner. She was giving a huge speech on what needed to happen and how and was being really bossy. After that, she asked if anyone had any questions to which my uncle said "Is the cheetah really the world's fastest land mammal?" to which she got really pissed. I didn't get that good of a reaction, but I did make the wedding planner pretty mad, which was nice. There was another anal lady there that my other cousin and I enjoyed laughing at behind her back. The best line was "Don't dump any water on the grass!" We both looked at each other and when she left he said "What does she think rain is?" I had to dance with my cousin at one point, but it was the song where he tells you what to do like slide to the left or slide to the right and clap your hands and stuff, so it was easy enough. We left half an hour before midnight and unfortunately missed my cousin's uber drunken singing which was supposedly quite entertaining. On the way back, we stopped at the Darigold plant to check it out. It was super boring.
Oh and somewhat big news (especially if you're my mom). I got accepted to Seattle U! I'm still waiting to hear from the UW, but as I call them and learn more about how absolutely fucked up (sorry about the language, there was no better way to describe the level of badness) the admissions process is there, the more I want to go to Seattle U. It's a bit more expensive, but due to my GPA, I can get 10k a year taken off which will certainly help bring it to the cost of the UW (since SU is a private university). I'm also going to try to get a lot of scholarships as well as do a lot work improving the house/property for my parents for free so that they don't have to spend money on house/property maintenance things. I will also be working under the table this summer to just earn some funds on the side. Anyway, I'm getting off topic. At Seattle U, I can actually minor in something, which means I can get my music minor which is something I would like to do. I will also try out for the jazz band if they have one and I'm looking at trying to stay with the SCC jazz band because I really like the section there. I think I might be able to work my schedule around it, which would be really awesome. Anyway, I just wanted to mention that it looks like I'll be at Seattle U next year for those of you that were wondering.
This week, classes are ending and summer begins. I will be seeing the A-Team on Friday either at midnight or sometime that night. It looks really awesome and come on, it's the A-Team, I have to see it. DnD will probably start soon, so that will be cool too. I'm hoping to finally get around to making my what's on post this week. I guess that's all for now, so I'll hopefully see most of you IRL by the time I post one of these types of posts again. Peace out.
A week ago or so, Steven came over to watch the MSL finals. It was Jaedong vs Flash and we were both rooting for Jaedong. When he lost 3-0, it was rather disappointing, especially considering Flash did pretty much the same build in all 3 games. Since it was over in about an hour, we watched some kpop before he headed back home. If only we didn't have to stay up until 2am to watch it :/
On the Sunday of memorial day weekend, I went to my first folklife with Sai. We hung out for a bit, experiencing it and whatnot. A couple of his friends that like doing drugs came eventually and we hung out with them for a bit, but fortunately were able to get away when it was time to leave. The people that go to that festival are very interesting. For example, we saw some girl dressed up as the pot fairy or something and she would randomly go around making out with guys if they asked her to. It was kind of interesting to watch it happen. I probably should have gone up and done that for...you know...practice, but I decided I did not want to have the seconds or as Sai put it, much more than just seconds. After we came back from folklife, we finished up the Halo 1 campaign on legendary, then started Halo 2 on legendary. The problem with it is if one of you dies, you revert to the checkpoint. I don't know how Davis and I managed to do the whole thing, but Sai and I gave up after a bit and decided to play some Super C which we beat together for the first time. The last time we beat it, I had died and Sai finished the last level on his own.
I have been enjoying the SC2 beta. Today is the last day and I will be playing some more right after this post. My friend in French recently got his beta key back (someone had stolen it) and we decided to play some 1v1s. I kept randoming to Terran and beating him. After I finally got Zerg and beat him in a ZvZ (I think zerg is his main race) he gave up playing me because I kept winning. He's more used to things like Warcraft though where you have small groups of units that level up. Because of that, I would have big armies compared to him and I would win by sheer numbers. After playing with him one day, Steven and Peter and I played some 3v3s. In one, Peter and I tried to mass planetary fortress, but that failed. 3v3s on the current available map are pretty silly because you just tech a ton (or do what I did and make 200 marines) and then you have a huge battle and its over. UMS has become popular on bnet now also, so that is cool. Steven and I have been playing some Infection, which is a cool version of scarie movie. Also, there is blood pressure marathon, which basically consists of running in squares, so I'm awesome at it. Actually, I left this post open all day and was doing other things. The beta ended a little bit ago. Now I have to find other games to play for a month until the release.
The day after folklife, I went up north to Lake Stevens to hang out with Steven from the trumpet section. We did some playing of some tunes, then talked a lot about Warhammer 40k because I'm going to be playing it a lot with him this summer (when I'm not hanging out with you guys). I'm going to play as space marines and I'm going to even get some miniatures of my own, so that will be pretty cool. I'm only investing 20 bucks though since the small figures can get unreasonably expensive. Also, Steve has a ton of miniatures and far more than enough space marines to fill the requirement I will eventually have for them this summer.
Last week as you may have noticed, Ken Griffey Jr. retired. It was a big enough deal that Keir actually called me. I had just been considering whether I should call him when the phone rang and said it was him. It was sad to see him go, but I'll always have the memories.
This last weekend, my cousin had her wedding. For the weddings of her siblings (last june and january of 2009), they allowed me to wear shorts. With my cousin here, we have a joke that you always do what she says. She told me that I must wear a tuxedo for hers. Shorts would not fly. Of course, she would have been fine if I had worn shorts and a suit jacket, but she jokes around to keep up her persona. For the wedding, I decided to surprise her by actually renting a tuxedo. I also wore red tennis shoes which yes, there is a story behind. When I was 2, my uncle (mom's younger brother) was getting married (his first marriage). I was the ring bearer and at the time, I would only wear this one pair of red tennis shoes. I would pitch such a fit about them being replaced that mom would have to sneak in at night and swap out the new pair for the old pair. I would still notice of course, but that made it somewhat better somehow. Anyway, I had a little tuxedo for the ring bearer job, but I would only wear the red shoes with it. My uncle was nice and said it was really alright, so my parents let me. In support of my decision, my uncle (the younger of my mom's older brothers (the one that I don't get to see as much)) wore red tennis shoes with his tux as a surprise. He was a groomsman, so it was also pretty noticeable. Anyway, the wedding was outside and the weather the previous couple of weeks had been rather like it was over here, generally lousy. Fortunately, it was a beautiful day for the wedding and then went back to more standard weather the next day. She got really lucky. The wedding went well too, I got to be the chauffeur and I even got to anger the wedding planner. I always love annoying the high strung wedding planners. Unfortunately, I don't think any of us can ever top my uncle from my other uncle's (the original red shoe wedding) wedding planner. She was giving a huge speech on what needed to happen and how and was being really bossy. After that, she asked if anyone had any questions to which my uncle said "Is the cheetah really the world's fastest land mammal?" to which she got really pissed. I didn't get that good of a reaction, but I did make the wedding planner pretty mad, which was nice. There was another anal lady there that my other cousin and I enjoyed laughing at behind her back. The best line was "Don't dump any water on the grass!" We both looked at each other and when she left he said "What does she think rain is?" I had to dance with my cousin at one point, but it was the song where he tells you what to do like slide to the left or slide to the right and clap your hands and stuff, so it was easy enough. We left half an hour before midnight and unfortunately missed my cousin's uber drunken singing which was supposedly quite entertaining. On the way back, we stopped at the Darigold plant to check it out. It was super boring.
Oh and somewhat big news (especially if you're my mom). I got accepted to Seattle U! I'm still waiting to hear from the UW, but as I call them and learn more about how absolutely fucked up (sorry about the language, there was no better way to describe the level of badness) the admissions process is there, the more I want to go to Seattle U. It's a bit more expensive, but due to my GPA, I can get 10k a year taken off which will certainly help bring it to the cost of the UW (since SU is a private university). I'm also going to try to get a lot of scholarships as well as do a lot work improving the house/property for my parents for free so that they don't have to spend money on house/property maintenance things. I will also be working under the table this summer to just earn some funds on the side. Anyway, I'm getting off topic. At Seattle U, I can actually minor in something, which means I can get my music minor which is something I would like to do. I will also try out for the jazz band if they have one and I'm looking at trying to stay with the SCC jazz band because I really like the section there. I think I might be able to work my schedule around it, which would be really awesome. Anyway, I just wanted to mention that it looks like I'll be at Seattle U next year for those of you that were wondering.
This week, classes are ending and summer begins. I will be seeing the A-Team on Friday either at midnight or sometime that night. It looks really awesome and come on, it's the A-Team, I have to see it. DnD will probably start soon, so that will be cool too. I'm hoping to finally get around to making my what's on post this week. I guess that's all for now, so I'll hopefully see most of you IRL by the time I post one of these types of posts again. Peace out.
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Farewell Junior
Ken Griffey Jr. retired today. It is important enough to me to warrant having its own post. He has been my favorite professional athlete since I was 4 years old when I learned he was also left handed (at the time, I did not know any other lefties) and I've followed his career through my life. I was sad to see his injuries catch up with him in recent seasons, but I will cherish the memories he left the city of Seattle (and myself) with. At least we still have "My Oh My" on VHS which was a great video about the 95 season. I think I might go watch that in honor of him.
Farewell Junior, thanks for the memories.
I'll resume posting again next week. I didn't do it this week because I didn't feel like it (maybe someone else would like to make a post to keep everyone entertained???). Also I will be making a What's on post tomorrow.
Farewell Junior, thanks for the memories.
I'll resume posting again next week. I didn't do it this week because I didn't feel like it (maybe someone else would like to make a post to keep everyone entertained???). Also I will be making a What's on post tomorrow.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Hopefully the last time I am the first to make a post of Victoria
Well I am finally (hopefully) done with Victoria. If I ever go back there, may it be for some purpose other than playing music. I also do not intend to return soon as within the past 6 years, I have been there 6 times. That being said, it was considerably more fun this time due to minor things such as the fact we could go in bars (spoiler alert: I did not get "hella crunk"). Before I get there though, I'm going to go through the week, which was good because Orion was back in town.
Monday:
I completed my last band rehearsal at SCC. I'm going to have my last band rehearsal tonight and then tomorrow is the last concert. Soon, I shall move on to bigger and better bands (provided SU or UW accepts me...). I might come back next year for the Jazz Band as a shared student, but I don't think I will come back to the concert band. I just didn't like the once a week and at night thing.
Tuesday:
Nobody noticed that I had set my hair on fire the day before, so I must be good at concealing it. We had a good day in improv that mostly involved retooling how our set was going to be arranged. After school, I finished up my French project and all other homework except one test in biology that had not been posted.
Wednesday:
I had my presentation in French. I was supposed to go third of four people, but the lady ahead of me had a presentation that lasted 30 minutes (was supposed to be no more than 10). I had to squeeze mine in in just under 10 minutes, which was doable. It went well, I was impressed that 8 months ago, I could hardly speak French and now here I was giving a 10 minute presentation in all French. After classes, I went to Costco for lunch with Grandpa. I did some errands with him and was going to toss a disc with Orion and Steven, but it got really rainy, then really windy, then really rainy again. I took the test from biology, then I did some Ace Combat 6 since the beta was supposedly going to get reset soon.
Thursday:
Orion had gone up to the UW to talk and eat, so I played some more Ace Combat, but eventually wound up playing some beta with Steven I think.
Friday:
I met up with Orion and Steven after school and we went to the UW and only spent a couple hours there. I always forget how boring it is there. Orion left to go hang out with Lisa and Steven and I decided to ditch so we could go home and play the now-patched beta. After 3 hours of playing, I noticed Orion had texted me wanting to do something with Steven and I, so we tried to find a three player co-op game, but to no avail. We watched Revenge of the Nerds while playing Mario Party 4, but got bored when the movie ended. We stopped playing and watched (rewatched for me) District 9. By the time the movie ended, it was 2am and I had not begun to pack for Victoria and I had to get up in about 3.5 hours, so I went home and packed.
Saturday:
I wound up getting to bed at 3am, so only 2.5 hours of sleep for me. I got to the clipper on time with Erik, but he forgot his passport so his dad had to hurry back and get it. In the meantime, Joel and I got seats on the clipper. Before I go any further, I will give you some names that will come up repeatedly:
Erik: You guys should know him from high school.
Joel: Lead alto for the jazz band. He graduated in '09, but he's old in his grade, so he's only really 4 months younger than Erik and I. He's really cool and we hung out most of the time.
Stephen: A cool drummer in concert band. He looks like a rapist (he showed us his driver's license and his school id, they were very funny), but he's actually the exact opposite of a rapist. His build is a little like mine, but maybe 25% larger than me.
Ok so back to the weekend. Joel and I got some seats and Erik came along eventually. Erik for some reason had a few YuGiOh decks, including one pretty bomb-ass deck that was really solid so he taught me how to play and we played a few games until I got a bit seasick on the, which was strange because I never get seasick and I rarely get carsick. It was not a problem for long as I was able to fall asleep very quickly.
Upon arriving in Victoria, we all checked into our rooms, then the four of us set off to go find a place to eat. We realized that since we were 19, we could go into bars! It was very nice and a great way to avoid the throngs of high schoolers that would clog up restaurants. We went to that big pub near Smitty's (which was out of business :O (I know, shocking!)) and went inside for my first time ever after walking by it so many times. The waitresses were very cute and it was a sports bar, so there was soccer being watched. We stayed there for about 90 minutes before leaving. Erik and Joel had drinks, but Stephen and I didn't. I wanted to, but I can't remember the exact wording of my bet with myself (whether its before I turn 21 or before it's legal) plus drinks were way expensive, so I avoided drinking altogether. I don't know why Stephen didn't, but it was always nice to have someone else not doing it.
After we left, Erik went to track down his girlfriend as well as his other two friends that were coming along. Joel, Stephen, and I went to Lyle's Place, my favorite music store, to check out the selection. After that, we all met back up at the hotel to get ready for the concert and we headed off to the docks to play. It went fairly well. It was a good warmup performance. I also found out that one of the ladies in the band has a hot daugther. Joel and I were baffled at how she could have been so attractive given her parents (not trying to be rude, she was just really good looking). After the performance, Erik's girlfriend managed to track down his other two friends and they joined our group of wandering around-ness. Stephen mysteriously left to go back to the room to get some sleep before that though. He decided to prank Joel by locking the deadbolt so that Joel would come back and it would be funny that he couldn't get in. That kind of worked too well when Joel took too long to come back and Stephen wound up falling asleep, leaving Joel locked out of his room for the next 6 hours. The three of us and Erik's three friends wandered around until they led us into a crappy comic book store after leading us towards a games workshop. Joel and I had no interest in continued hanging out, so we decided to go on an epic journey for the mega kit-kat bar we saw in a commercial (a regular kit kat bar, except it's about an inch wide at the base and about an inch tall). I suggested we try at the convenience store where my Dutch chips are at, so we went across town to go there. Sure enough, we found both the chips and the kit kats at the store. We tried the kit kats on the way back to the hotel. They were amazingly good, but they pretty much destroyed us after we ate them. We both had to go to the bathroom pretty bad after trying those out.
After winding up at the hotel, Erik texted Joel saying he and his friends were back at the bar. Joel wanted to go get his drink on, so I told him to go ahead and I was going to stay behind. I busted out my laptop and would have watched the OSL finals, but forgot they were on and wound up playing some custom SC games. Eventually, the rest of them came back with a fifth (not sure how much that is, but they referred to it as a fifth) of rum and a buttload of coke. Erik's friend (I think his name was Casey) was a total douche and had to repeatedly try to assert how much he was better at SC than I was. After repeated failed attempts, he seemed to give up and he left me alone (like he literally gave up pestering me about how I was playing after I repeatedly pwned and criticized his "genius" strategies by referencing proleague and using real build names (I'm sorry, but sunken rushing in a ZvZ is not pure genius and when you tech straight to goliaths and firebats, it is NOT a rush)). Eventually, Stephen woke up and joined us. He and Joel and I spent a lot of time talking about Starcraft and the new beta. I also showed the two of them the really cool Artosis vs Voidwars replay with the good use of forcefield. While that was going on, the other four (Erik and his girlfriend and Casey(?) and his girlfriend decided to play some card game that involved a loss of clothing. I thought and kind of hoped they would kick me out of the room when they were going to play and I wasn't (because the girls were not much to look at and, well, the other two were guys). Sadly, that did not happen, so I was just thankful that my laptop screen was very large and wide...
Eventually, the four of them left to go get drunk elsewhere after making somewhat of a mess of the room. I guess Stephen creeped out the girls. I owe him one for getting them to leave. He and Joel left to get some sleep and I was left alone. Erik did not come back that night, so I had the whole room to myself. It was very nice. I took 10 hours of sleep to make up for the night before.
Sunday:
Oh boy, sorry about all this writing. I hope it's at least interesting. Sunday is shorter, I promise.
Erik returned shortly after I got myself out of bed. I was going to head to Lyle's Place to grab some CDs, but they didn't open for a couple hours, so I came straight back and got ready for the concert. We played on the Parliament Steps. Charlie and Janice showed up, which was nice of them. They said they liked it even though I thought we could have done better. They did say it was nice to not hear marching band music for a change and I will give them that point, especially after what I saw last year (20 bands playing 5 different songs pretty much).
After the performance, Stephen disappeared (even though it turned out he was only 20 feet away from us when we left and none of us realized it). Erik and co. disappeared as well, leaving Joel and I alone, which was pretty cool. We walked around and hung out for a bit, getting the chance to meet and talk briefly with the Darth Vader violin player (I got a picture with him too!). We got some CDs and then spent a lot of time wandering around until we decided to just watch some sports at that pub to kill the last hour and a half.
The clipper ride back was late to start, but we got in early. It was nice to get home to my bed. I woke up in the morning remembering that I forgot to pick my horn up from the truck the night before and figured it would be fine since they said they were dropping everything off in the band room.
Today:
When I got in today, I couldn't find my horn. I was distracted all day until the afternoon when I got some emails back confirming it had not been stolen, the trombone player driving the truck just took it home for the night for me. That was really nice of him to do, I let him give me a hard time during the rehearsal tonight. I tossed the disc around with Steven today, that was pretty cool. Unfortunately, Orion couldn't join us, but I'm going to stop by to say goodbye tomorrow when I go to pick up my cd and borrow his flute so I can try to learn how to play this summer.
That's all for now. It is very late and I am going to try to get to bed early again. I am sure looking forward to this three day weekend coming up. I took pictures in Victoria and I'll probably post them tomorrow or Wednesday, depending on what I feel like doing, so until then, peace out.
Monday:
I completed my last band rehearsal at SCC. I'm going to have my last band rehearsal tonight and then tomorrow is the last concert. Soon, I shall move on to bigger and better bands (provided SU or UW accepts me...). I might come back next year for the Jazz Band as a shared student, but I don't think I will come back to the concert band. I just didn't like the once a week and at night thing.
Tuesday:
Nobody noticed that I had set my hair on fire the day before, so I must be good at concealing it. We had a good day in improv that mostly involved retooling how our set was going to be arranged. After school, I finished up my French project and all other homework except one test in biology that had not been posted.
Wednesday:
I had my presentation in French. I was supposed to go third of four people, but the lady ahead of me had a presentation that lasted 30 minutes (was supposed to be no more than 10). I had to squeeze mine in in just under 10 minutes, which was doable. It went well, I was impressed that 8 months ago, I could hardly speak French and now here I was giving a 10 minute presentation in all French. After classes, I went to Costco for lunch with Grandpa. I did some errands with him and was going to toss a disc with Orion and Steven, but it got really rainy, then really windy, then really rainy again. I took the test from biology, then I did some Ace Combat 6 since the beta was supposedly going to get reset soon.
Thursday:
Orion had gone up to the UW to talk and eat, so I played some more Ace Combat, but eventually wound up playing some beta with Steven I think.
Friday:
I met up with Orion and Steven after school and we went to the UW and only spent a couple hours there. I always forget how boring it is there. Orion left to go hang out with Lisa and Steven and I decided to ditch so we could go home and play the now-patched beta. After 3 hours of playing, I noticed Orion had texted me wanting to do something with Steven and I, so we tried to find a three player co-op game, but to no avail. We watched Revenge of the Nerds while playing Mario Party 4, but got bored when the movie ended. We stopped playing and watched (rewatched for me) District 9. By the time the movie ended, it was 2am and I had not begun to pack for Victoria and I had to get up in about 3.5 hours, so I went home and packed.
Saturday:
I wound up getting to bed at 3am, so only 2.5 hours of sleep for me. I got to the clipper on time with Erik, but he forgot his passport so his dad had to hurry back and get it. In the meantime, Joel and I got seats on the clipper. Before I go any further, I will give you some names that will come up repeatedly:
Erik: You guys should know him from high school.
Joel: Lead alto for the jazz band. He graduated in '09, but he's old in his grade, so he's only really 4 months younger than Erik and I. He's really cool and we hung out most of the time.
Stephen: A cool drummer in concert band. He looks like a rapist (he showed us his driver's license and his school id, they were very funny), but he's actually the exact opposite of a rapist. His build is a little like mine, but maybe 25% larger than me.
Ok so back to the weekend. Joel and I got some seats and Erik came along eventually. Erik for some reason had a few YuGiOh decks, including one pretty bomb-ass deck that was really solid so he taught me how to play and we played a few games until I got a bit seasick on the, which was strange because I never get seasick and I rarely get carsick. It was not a problem for long as I was able to fall asleep very quickly.
Upon arriving in Victoria, we all checked into our rooms, then the four of us set off to go find a place to eat. We realized that since we were 19, we could go into bars! It was very nice and a great way to avoid the throngs of high schoolers that would clog up restaurants. We went to that big pub near Smitty's (which was out of business :O (I know, shocking!)) and went inside for my first time ever after walking by it so many times. The waitresses were very cute and it was a sports bar, so there was soccer being watched. We stayed there for about 90 minutes before leaving. Erik and Joel had drinks, but Stephen and I didn't. I wanted to, but I can't remember the exact wording of my bet with myself (whether its before I turn 21 or before it's legal) plus drinks were way expensive, so I avoided drinking altogether. I don't know why Stephen didn't, but it was always nice to have someone else not doing it.
After we left, Erik went to track down his girlfriend as well as his other two friends that were coming along. Joel, Stephen, and I went to Lyle's Place, my favorite music store, to check out the selection. After that, we all met back up at the hotel to get ready for the concert and we headed off to the docks to play. It went fairly well. It was a good warmup performance. I also found out that one of the ladies in the band has a hot daugther. Joel and I were baffled at how she could have been so attractive given her parents (not trying to be rude, she was just really good looking). After the performance, Erik's girlfriend managed to track down his other two friends and they joined our group of wandering around-ness. Stephen mysteriously left to go back to the room to get some sleep before that though. He decided to prank Joel by locking the deadbolt so that Joel would come back and it would be funny that he couldn't get in. That kind of worked too well when Joel took too long to come back and Stephen wound up falling asleep, leaving Joel locked out of his room for the next 6 hours. The three of us and Erik's three friends wandered around until they led us into a crappy comic book store after leading us towards a games workshop. Joel and I had no interest in continued hanging out, so we decided to go on an epic journey for the mega kit-kat bar we saw in a commercial (a regular kit kat bar, except it's about an inch wide at the base and about an inch tall). I suggested we try at the convenience store where my Dutch chips are at, so we went across town to go there. Sure enough, we found both the chips and the kit kats at the store. We tried the kit kats on the way back to the hotel. They were amazingly good, but they pretty much destroyed us after we ate them. We both had to go to the bathroom pretty bad after trying those out.
After winding up at the hotel, Erik texted Joel saying he and his friends were back at the bar. Joel wanted to go get his drink on, so I told him to go ahead and I was going to stay behind. I busted out my laptop and would have watched the OSL finals, but forgot they were on and wound up playing some custom SC games. Eventually, the rest of them came back with a fifth (not sure how much that is, but they referred to it as a fifth) of rum and a buttload of coke. Erik's friend (I think his name was Casey) was a total douche and had to repeatedly try to assert how much he was better at SC than I was. After repeated failed attempts, he seemed to give up and he left me alone (like he literally gave up pestering me about how I was playing after I repeatedly pwned and criticized his "genius" strategies by referencing proleague and using real build names (I'm sorry, but sunken rushing in a ZvZ is not pure genius and when you tech straight to goliaths and firebats, it is NOT a rush)). Eventually, Stephen woke up and joined us. He and Joel and I spent a lot of time talking about Starcraft and the new beta. I also showed the two of them the really cool Artosis vs Voidwars replay with the good use of forcefield. While that was going on, the other four (Erik and his girlfriend and Casey(?) and his girlfriend decided to play some card game that involved a loss of clothing. I thought and kind of hoped they would kick me out of the room when they were going to play and I wasn't (because the girls were not much to look at and, well, the other two were guys). Sadly, that did not happen, so I was just thankful that my laptop screen was very large and wide...
Eventually, the four of them left to go get drunk elsewhere after making somewhat of a mess of the room. I guess Stephen creeped out the girls. I owe him one for getting them to leave. He and Joel left to get some sleep and I was left alone. Erik did not come back that night, so I had the whole room to myself. It was very nice. I took 10 hours of sleep to make up for the night before.
Sunday:
Oh boy, sorry about all this writing. I hope it's at least interesting. Sunday is shorter, I promise.
Erik returned shortly after I got myself out of bed. I was going to head to Lyle's Place to grab some CDs, but they didn't open for a couple hours, so I came straight back and got ready for the concert. We played on the Parliament Steps. Charlie and Janice showed up, which was nice of them. They said they liked it even though I thought we could have done better. They did say it was nice to not hear marching band music for a change and I will give them that point, especially after what I saw last year (20 bands playing 5 different songs pretty much).
After the performance, Stephen disappeared (even though it turned out he was only 20 feet away from us when we left and none of us realized it). Erik and co. disappeared as well, leaving Joel and I alone, which was pretty cool. We walked around and hung out for a bit, getting the chance to meet and talk briefly with the Darth Vader violin player (I got a picture with him too!). We got some CDs and then spent a lot of time wandering around until we decided to just watch some sports at that pub to kill the last hour and a half.
The clipper ride back was late to start, but we got in early. It was nice to get home to my bed. I woke up in the morning remembering that I forgot to pick my horn up from the truck the night before and figured it would be fine since they said they were dropping everything off in the band room.
Today:
When I got in today, I couldn't find my horn. I was distracted all day until the afternoon when I got some emails back confirming it had not been stolen, the trombone player driving the truck just took it home for the night for me. That was really nice of him to do, I let him give me a hard time during the rehearsal tonight. I tossed the disc around with Steven today, that was pretty cool. Unfortunately, Orion couldn't join us, but I'm going to stop by to say goodbye tomorrow when I go to pick up my cd and borrow his flute so I can try to learn how to play this summer.
That's all for now. It is very late and I am going to try to get to bed early again. I am sure looking forward to this three day weekend coming up. I took pictures in Victoria and I'll probably post them tomorrow or Wednesday, depending on what I feel like doing, so until then, peace out.
Monday, May 17, 2010
This week was far more interesting than the last one
At least it seemed that way to me. I have to get to work on my project again today, so I'll try to keep this somewhat concise so as to maximize time I can spend doing fun things later in the week by working on my project more today. Oh and before I forget, one of the links in my last post is now defunct as YouTube took down the Bo Peep Christmas Remix (search for that if you want to find it, it's the second or third one down (they're wearing Christmas outfits)) due to terms of use violation.
Monday:
We used all the time in band, having no breaks and playing up until 9:30 which we never do even though the class is listed as going to 9:30 each week. The second half was playing marches and other music and me raging about how I hate John Philip Sousa. The ultimate poetic justice would be John Philip Sousa getting beaten up by a French Horn to the "oom pa" rhythym he gives us in every song.
Tuesday:
I went back to listening to classic rock because I figured I had been listening to far too much k-pop that weekend. I got some good Starcraft in with Steven after I finished a couple things for homework. Also, Steven found out there was going to be a bnet reset, so I decided I wanted to get my 50 2v2 terran wins picture before that.
Wednesday:
I met Grandpa for lunch at Costco, then took him grocery shopping where we found a pretty good deal and got about $45 worth of stuff for about $22. After that, I got in some sc with Steven, but not a lot. After that, I tried to start working on my French project, but did not get very far.
Thursday:
In improv, we've been trying to nail down who's doing what for our upcoming gig on June 1. During the rehearsal of one of the songs, the other trumpet guy from Jazz Band (not the new guy that's just in improv) and the instructor got into an argument and he stormed out of the class. After that, the instructor, who was pretty mad at that point, called me up because I was in the next song. I wanted to go after my friend who had left, but I knew better than to further piss off the teacher, especially since my friend is auditing the class and I actually need to be there for a grade. I didn't want to be the only horn playing the song that he was supposed to play with me, so I suggested our singer come up and see if she could sing it. She didn't want to sing the first time, but I think she sensed how desperate I was to relieve some of the awkwardness in the room so she came up and stood next to me while I played which was really nice of her to do. I can understand why my friend left and all, but it was pretty late in the game and now all of use players have to shift around and fill in the gaps in our performance. I know we'll get it done, it's just going to be more work than I had anticipated. It was also the first time I saw anyone really lose their cool at SCC. Now I'm the featured horn in improv, so that's sure going to be interesting for me in the upcoming weeks. After I was done playing, it was time for the lab and I didn't have to stay for that. My lip was kind of tired from trying out first trumpet parts, then playing a pretty chop busting improv tune and also, it was just plain awkward there, so I got the hell out of there as fast as I could.
Friday:
In French, we were signing up for our project presentation dates. I wanted to go a week from that day, on the second possible date. As we were picking, nobody was really going for the first day and there were some worried looks, so I decided to bite the bullet and go on the first day, which is Wednesday. I figure that this is a good week to do it because of the looming reset, I didn't want to add to my record if I'm going to lose it soon. Also, the sooner I finish this, the sooner I have virtually no homework the rest of the quarter. After school, Steven and I got some SC in, but he got frustrated from a lack of food and from my lack of macro. I don't know why, but I play worse when I'm on a team with him. I'm trying to figure out why that is. I was three wins away from my 50 2v2 terran wins, so I did a game with a random person, then signed off for a bit. My family decided they really wanted to watch Avatar that night, so I joined them. It was terrible, I don't know how they actually had so many fans. It was 2.5 hours of a movie that should have been an hour and a half, no more. After that, I signed back onto the beta and got a couple wins with Ashley for my new picture.
Saturday:
We took Grandpa to lunch and then we went to my aunt's house to try to find some stuff that was in the shed, but we gave up because I packed it so full of junk again that it's impossible to get in. I really am just like Grandpa after all, I suppose. After that, I went home and started up Ace Combat 6 for the second time while I waited for Steven to be ready. Last summer when I played it, I was super sick and I don't remember liking it. I figured it was probably because I was sick and I was right. I like it more this time, even if the checkpoints are really inconveniently timed. I also skyped Davis for a bit before walking up to Steven's house to play some frisbee. After that, we came back and played Guitar Hero for half an hour before watching proleague. We mostly stuck to the CJ vs KT match because it was the most interesting. There were some cool matches including Flash losing to Effort, Skyhigh and ForGG's super long TvT snore-a-thon, and Flash losing AGAIN to Snow! That was pretty funny to see. After it ended, it was 12:30am, so Steven gave me a ride home.
Sunday:
Orion was back, but he had something in the afternoon, so I spent the early afternoon doing a lot of homework. After he got back, Steven and I met him at Shoreline A&B for some frisbee tossing. After that, we went back to Orion's house for a family barbeque. During that, Orion called Davis David. I made sure to make a big deal out of it though, so don't worry Davis. I think I also impressed/creeped out Orion with my facebook stalking skill. After dinner, we played Sega Soccer Slam for a bit until we actually beat the computers. Then, I had to get back home, so we all split up.
Today:
I found out in French from the girl in running start that Shorewood prom had a chocolate fountain this year. Nora and I were pretty surprised at that since our grade did not get one. Aside from the funny prom stories, it was a rather uneventful day. That was, until I got home. I had a little boo-boo with the barbeque and totally singed one side of my hair. Well, not totally, I mean I burnt out a lot of it, but fortunatley, that side had been growing really fast so now my hair is just evened out. Sometimes you get super lucky. Also, I'm really glad I didn't burn off my facial hair or eyebrows. That would have been devastating.
Ok well I'd better get back to work on my project. I'm hoping to get all my work done by Wednesday afternoon so I can pwn it up some more. I take Grandpa to Costco on Wednesdays, but after that, I'm free. Also, this weekend I will be in Victoria. I'll try to take pictures since I have really nothing better to do. At least we're only there overnight. It's unfortunate Orion was back this weekend though as I lose the whole weekend to Victoria. This is the last time though, I am determined not to go back for many many years. Peace out.
Monday:
We used all the time in band, having no breaks and playing up until 9:30 which we never do even though the class is listed as going to 9:30 each week. The second half was playing marches and other music and me raging about how I hate John Philip Sousa. The ultimate poetic justice would be John Philip Sousa getting beaten up by a French Horn to the "oom pa" rhythym he gives us in every song.
Tuesday:
I went back to listening to classic rock because I figured I had been listening to far too much k-pop that weekend. I got some good Starcraft in with Steven after I finished a couple things for homework. Also, Steven found out there was going to be a bnet reset, so I decided I wanted to get my 50 2v2 terran wins picture before that.
Wednesday:
I met Grandpa for lunch at Costco, then took him grocery shopping where we found a pretty good deal and got about $45 worth of stuff for about $22. After that, I got in some sc with Steven, but not a lot. After that, I tried to start working on my French project, but did not get very far.
Thursday:
In improv, we've been trying to nail down who's doing what for our upcoming gig on June 1. During the rehearsal of one of the songs, the other trumpet guy from Jazz Band (not the new guy that's just in improv) and the instructor got into an argument and he stormed out of the class. After that, the instructor, who was pretty mad at that point, called me up because I was in the next song. I wanted to go after my friend who had left, but I knew better than to further piss off the teacher, especially since my friend is auditing the class and I actually need to be there for a grade. I didn't want to be the only horn playing the song that he was supposed to play with me, so I suggested our singer come up and see if she could sing it. She didn't want to sing the first time, but I think she sensed how desperate I was to relieve some of the awkwardness in the room so she came up and stood next to me while I played which was really nice of her to do. I can understand why my friend left and all, but it was pretty late in the game and now all of use players have to shift around and fill in the gaps in our performance. I know we'll get it done, it's just going to be more work than I had anticipated. It was also the first time I saw anyone really lose their cool at SCC. Now I'm the featured horn in improv, so that's sure going to be interesting for me in the upcoming weeks. After I was done playing, it was time for the lab and I didn't have to stay for that. My lip was kind of tired from trying out first trumpet parts, then playing a pretty chop busting improv tune and also, it was just plain awkward there, so I got the hell out of there as fast as I could.
Friday:
In French, we were signing up for our project presentation dates. I wanted to go a week from that day, on the second possible date. As we were picking, nobody was really going for the first day and there were some worried looks, so I decided to bite the bullet and go on the first day, which is Wednesday. I figure that this is a good week to do it because of the looming reset, I didn't want to add to my record if I'm going to lose it soon. Also, the sooner I finish this, the sooner I have virtually no homework the rest of the quarter. After school, Steven and I got some SC in, but he got frustrated from a lack of food and from my lack of macro. I don't know why, but I play worse when I'm on a team with him. I'm trying to figure out why that is. I was three wins away from my 50 2v2 terran wins, so I did a game with a random person, then signed off for a bit. My family decided they really wanted to watch Avatar that night, so I joined them. It was terrible, I don't know how they actually had so many fans. It was 2.5 hours of a movie that should have been an hour and a half, no more. After that, I signed back onto the beta and got a couple wins with Ashley for my new picture.
Saturday:
We took Grandpa to lunch and then we went to my aunt's house to try to find some stuff that was in the shed, but we gave up because I packed it so full of junk again that it's impossible to get in. I really am just like Grandpa after all, I suppose. After that, I went home and started up Ace Combat 6 for the second time while I waited for Steven to be ready. Last summer when I played it, I was super sick and I don't remember liking it. I figured it was probably because I was sick and I was right. I like it more this time, even if the checkpoints are really inconveniently timed. I also skyped Davis for a bit before walking up to Steven's house to play some frisbee. After that, we came back and played Guitar Hero for half an hour before watching proleague. We mostly stuck to the CJ vs KT match because it was the most interesting. There were some cool matches including Flash losing to Effort, Skyhigh and ForGG's super long TvT snore-a-thon, and Flash losing AGAIN to Snow! That was pretty funny to see. After it ended, it was 12:30am, so Steven gave me a ride home.
Sunday:
Orion was back, but he had something in the afternoon, so I spent the early afternoon doing a lot of homework. After he got back, Steven and I met him at Shoreline A&B for some frisbee tossing. After that, we went back to Orion's house for a family barbeque. During that, Orion called Davis David. I made sure to make a big deal out of it though, so don't worry Davis. I think I also impressed/creeped out Orion with my facebook stalking skill. After dinner, we played Sega Soccer Slam for a bit until we actually beat the computers. Then, I had to get back home, so we all split up.
Today:
I found out in French from the girl in running start that Shorewood prom had a chocolate fountain this year. Nora and I were pretty surprised at that since our grade did not get one. Aside from the funny prom stories, it was a rather uneventful day. That was, until I got home. I had a little boo-boo with the barbeque and totally singed one side of my hair. Well, not totally, I mean I burnt out a lot of it, but fortunatley, that side had been growing really fast so now my hair is just evened out. Sometimes you get super lucky. Also, I'm really glad I didn't burn off my facial hair or eyebrows. That would have been devastating.
Ok well I'd better get back to work on my project. I'm hoping to get all my work done by Wednesday afternoon so I can pwn it up some more. I take Grandpa to Costco on Wednesdays, but after that, I'm free. Also, this weekend I will be in Victoria. I'll try to take pictures since I have really nothing better to do. At least we're only there overnight. It's unfortunate Orion was back this weekend though as I lose the whole weekend to Victoria. This is the last time though, I am determined not to go back for many many years. Peace out.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Not all at once now...
Another week, another group of not posting. Well, Davis did update his old post a bit, but it was something else that I was there for so I'm not going to count it. Ah well, I'm too busy today to bother you all individually about posting (not that I do that all that often anyway). Now Steven wants to play SC, so I'm going to finish up the post and get online because I'm still having a lot of fun playing it.
Monday:
We have a guest soloist come from the marine band (the president's own band!) every year and we got the song he will play with us. It's actually a pretty cool song, which we totally deserved after the crap we've been doing. Only 3 more rehearsals though including tonight, so I can manage. We also have Victoria coming up soon.
Tuesday:
In French, I got to take the test I missed. It did not go as well as I had hoped because I had not studied and I missed most of the unit. I still think I did pretty good on it though, but I was hoping for a perfect score or one mistake, which is what I usually pull off. In improv, we started sorting out the setlist for our gig coming up on June 2. It's a weekday, but if anyone wants to come see me and a bunch of other people try to be hip, I'll let you know the details. The new guys only have four songs, so the majority of it is us old pros playing and that will be cool. I have 6 songs though, including a few where I'm the only horn playing, so that will take some practice time.
Wednesday:
After school, I met grandpa for lunch, then helped him get groceries and whatnot. After that, I played some good Starcraft with Steven and we got even higher on the 2v2 ladders. After a while, he had to stop, so I started my 1v1 ranking matches again. I won the first three, then decided to stop for the night because I didn't want to go win all 5.
Thursday:
I did my other two placement matches and thankfully lost them both (well I didn't try as hard in the last one because I had already lost and I didn't think I was a gold player). I'm in silver now for 1v1s. Steven had some problems with his computer I think, so I played some 2v2s with Ashley and we got into bronze division. It was what I wanted actually because it puts us against noobier opponents, so I can play random or any race I feel like.
Friday:
It was a nice day, so Steven and I threw a disc for a bit, then went back to his place and played some Guitar Hero. After that, we played a little bit of Starcraft, then I had to go. I went and saw Iron Man 2 with the family. I really liked it. I don't want to spoil anything from the movie though, but I do want to say that there was something really exciting in the movie. When you see it, you will know what it is, then you can tell me and I can get excited about it at you. I caught a little bit of proleague after I got back, then Steven showed me a ton of kpop, including my new favorite kpop song. That's actually the christmas version, I think it makes more sense than the regular version of it. Either way, I listened to that song a lot during the weekend as well as a bunch of other ones.
Saturday:
I spent most of the day working on the last few achievements that I could actually earn on Fable 2. They broke the rule that you have to have at least 1000 gamerpoints available without buying DLC. The Godfather 1 broke that rule too, but I really enjoyed that game, so I didn't care as much. I was pretty annoyed with Fable 2 though because Peter Molyneaux is an evil man. I might still get Fable 3 though :/.
Sunday:
It was mothers day, so we did a lot of the mom related things around the house all day. I cooked the special super spicy roast for dinner and Kathryn made a dessert. Around all that, I got the last achievements for Fable 2 and I'm in the process of Goozexing it away from myself now.
Today:
I had one of those days in French where I just got everything and felt like I was becoming fluent (those days are nice). In Jazz Band, we had another sectional. Now I'm about to go play some SC with Steven, so until next week, peace out.
Monday:
We have a guest soloist come from the marine band (the president's own band!) every year and we got the song he will play with us. It's actually a pretty cool song, which we totally deserved after the crap we've been doing. Only 3 more rehearsals though including tonight, so I can manage. We also have Victoria coming up soon.
Tuesday:
In French, I got to take the test I missed. It did not go as well as I had hoped because I had not studied and I missed most of the unit. I still think I did pretty good on it though, but I was hoping for a perfect score or one mistake, which is what I usually pull off. In improv, we started sorting out the setlist for our gig coming up on June 2. It's a weekday, but if anyone wants to come see me and a bunch of other people try to be hip, I'll let you know the details. The new guys only have four songs, so the majority of it is us old pros playing and that will be cool. I have 6 songs though, including a few where I'm the only horn playing, so that will take some practice time.
Wednesday:
After school, I met grandpa for lunch, then helped him get groceries and whatnot. After that, I played some good Starcraft with Steven and we got even higher on the 2v2 ladders. After a while, he had to stop, so I started my 1v1 ranking matches again. I won the first three, then decided to stop for the night because I didn't want to go win all 5.
Thursday:
I did my other two placement matches and thankfully lost them both (well I didn't try as hard in the last one because I had already lost and I didn't think I was a gold player). I'm in silver now for 1v1s. Steven had some problems with his computer I think, so I played some 2v2s with Ashley and we got into bronze division. It was what I wanted actually because it puts us against noobier opponents, so I can play random or any race I feel like.
Friday:
It was a nice day, so Steven and I threw a disc for a bit, then went back to his place and played some Guitar Hero. After that, we played a little bit of Starcraft, then I had to go. I went and saw Iron Man 2 with the family. I really liked it. I don't want to spoil anything from the movie though, but I do want to say that there was something really exciting in the movie. When you see it, you will know what it is, then you can tell me and I can get excited about it at you. I caught a little bit of proleague after I got back, then Steven showed me a ton of kpop, including my new favorite kpop song. That's actually the christmas version, I think it makes more sense than the regular version of it. Either way, I listened to that song a lot during the weekend as well as a bunch of other ones.
Saturday:
I spent most of the day working on the last few achievements that I could actually earn on Fable 2. They broke the rule that you have to have at least 1000 gamerpoints available without buying DLC. The Godfather 1 broke that rule too, but I really enjoyed that game, so I didn't care as much. I was pretty annoyed with Fable 2 though because Peter Molyneaux is an evil man. I might still get Fable 3 though :/.
Sunday:
It was mothers day, so we did a lot of the mom related things around the house all day. I cooked the special super spicy roast for dinner and Kathryn made a dessert. Around all that, I got the last achievements for Fable 2 and I'm in the process of Goozexing it away from myself now.
Today:
I had one of those days in French where I just got everything and felt like I was becoming fluent (those days are nice). In Jazz Band, we had another sectional. Now I'm about to go play some SC with Steven, so until next week, peace out.
Monday, May 03, 2010
Here's some more reading material for you
Well damn, I was kind of hoping that someone would have updated during my absence so I would finally have something to read, but it appears I may go another month without a substantial update from anyone. Props to Davis for actually updating, but not only was it a very short post, I was there while the content was being said. I've said my piece now, I'll just explain how this post is going to work, then I'll get on with it since it will probably be longer than usual (hopefully not actually twice as long). I'm going to go through the week leading up to the trip as quickly as I can. After that, I'm going to do a section on the trip, then I'll do my week since then. At the end of it all, I'll lay down my opinion on the SC2 Beta thus far.
Monday:
I guess when I left off, I was just doing the Dylarian Shipyards in Brood War. I've come a long way since then as I am now on the final mission (I even did the bonus one). That is going to be a pain, but I must beat it without cheats. Band was boring because our songs are still pretty sucky. We are in the process of cutting out tunes that we don't want to do for the concert since we always pick way too many. Fortunately, a Leroy Anderson tune got cut (I was very happy at that), but our best song got cut as well as two movements from our second best song. Only 4 rehearsals left plus Victoria though, so I can tough it out.
Tuesday:
I got ridiculously ahead on homework so that I wouldn't have to worry about it the following week. After that, I must have played a lot of SC2 since I didn't have the beta then and I have to account for doing so many missions somehow.
Wednesday:
I learned that I was able to get beta from gamestop, so I told Steven about it when he signed on. No sooner did I tell him that he wanted to go, so we did. The beta was in the process of being reset, so it was super glitchy. We did get in a couple games with Peter though, so that was cool.
Thursday:
The beta was still glitchy. It was very disappointing. I got in a couple games though. After a while, I gave up and did some BW.
Friday:
Steven and I got a couple 2v2s in, but he had to go for some reason, so I did my placement matches for 1v1. The first was TvR which became TvT in which I won by contstantly dropping the guy and forcing him into his nat where I pushed into it from both sides. The second match was TvZ and I won by punishing the guy for using a greedy build order and he never recovered. The third game was TvP and I thought I was going to lose, but I totally pwned the guy because he was teching to immortals and I had a buttload of marauders by then. The fourth game was a TvT in which the guy put a barracks in my base. Unable to kill his SCV (it's a lot harder!), I settled for just using my military units because they came out before his since he walked all the way to my base. After forcing him to retreat the barracks, I had no trouble rolling over him and felt it necessary to tell him off for trying that as I beat him down. The last match was a TvP in which it seemed like I would lose early. I had to pull half my mineral line to kill a cannon rush, but somehow I stayed ahead of him. Thank God for mules I guess. I pushed in with a huge group of marauders and took him down easily. He had a lot of stalkers that were covered by zealots. I had no problem with the zealots because I was able to micro my concussive shots to make it easier to get all the stalkers down. Going 5/5, I got seeded into platinum division where I proceeded to get my ass handed to me thoroughly and repeatedly. Fortunately, it has been reset since then so I won't be in platinum again.
Saturday:
Steven and I finished our 2v2 placement matches and got put into platinum. We actually were able to hold our own that day keeping over .500 the whole day. It was really fun and a good challenge.
The Trip:
On Sunday, I got up and headed down to my Grandma's house in Vancouver and met her for lunch at Sweet Tomatoes, which is a pretty awesome Zoopa-like restaurant. After that, I did some odd jobs around my Grandma's house that she couldn't do, then we went to dinner, then came back and we watched the Invention of Lying, which was kind of funny.
On Monday, I got up and took an online test for Biology, then packed up and left for Portland. I got there in plenty of time and got to explore the hotel. We stayed at the Jupiter hotel which is like a remade motel that's pretty cool actually. They even gave us a free condom in the room! I was rooming with Steve from the trumpet section, which was a good decision because our room was quiet enough to get sleep and we got to sleep and wake up at decent hours. Also, he had a lot of DVDs, so we got to watch some good movies in our downtime since our hotel was too far away from downtown Portland to do anything. The first night in the studio was spent unpacking, setting up, and doing sound checks. There was a very attractive lady there that was helping adjust the mics and putting down tape to mark where the trumpets stood. When she was taping by my feet, it was very distracting having her grab my feet and having her head down by my balls, I had to stop playing as she did it. Fortunately, I was not the only trumpet player that found her distracting when she did that. That night after the rehearsal, me and Steve ordered a surprisingly large pizza and ate most of it while watching "Pirates of Silicon Valley" about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates as they were starting out.
On Tuesday, we had our first long day. We actually got through one more than half of our songs, which was pretty surprising. We almost had a one take wonder, but we wanted to get it tighter, so we did a couple more takes. For lunch, the trumpet section minus the lead trumpet got thai food. It was okay. That night, Steve and I were using the GPS in the car to search for restaurants, but after 5 choices that turned out not to exist, we just drove along one street until we found a place. We came across this German restaurant where we had really good food. I had a sausage trio and for dessert a piece of flourless chocolate cake which was as thick as the sausages. The next morning, I still felt like I hadn't digested all that, I was amazed I didn't barf in my sleep. We watched Tron before going to bed. We also watched an episode of Babylon 5, which I might start watching once I finish a couple other shows.
On Wednesday, we got in our other big day of rehearsals. For lunch, Steve and I wanted barbeque, but upon searching, we discovered Portland was notoriously shitty at barbecue. The guy running the studio overheard us though and pointed us down the street for what turned out to be really good barbeque. The good barbeque food came into my system and told the German food "God damnit, this is America and we digest our food!" which was helpful in not making me feel like I was going to barf into the trumpet the rest of the day. That night, Steve and I and Erik went looking for a game store that turned out to be closed. After that, we spent about 40 minutes looking for food, but deciding to go back to that barbeque place, which was a good decision since it gave me a chance to try something else on the menu. After dinner, we did a bit more recording and on our last song, we got our only one take wonder of the week. We were all ready to go and it was good enough, so we left it at one take and were pretty proud of ourselves.
On Thursday, Steve and I were planning on going to the Monette factory to try mouthpieces, but they bumped our appointment for the third time, so we decided we didn't really want to go since we were kind of mad at them for repeatedly cancelling our appointments without telling us. After listening to the unmixed songs, we all decided it was good enough and everyone split off. I took Steven (Davis knows him from Central) back in my car and got back to Shoreline in good time. That night, I just hung around the house doing some French homework.
After I got back:
On Friday, I only had one class which was nice because we had a movie and then got out. I tried to play somt SC2 with Steven that night, but it didn't work because we were not playing so hot. To be fair, it had been a while. I spent most of the night doing some Starcraft Brood War.
Saturday:
I spent the morning doing Fable 2, then we went to the Mariners game because dad scored really cheap tickets. It was a decent game that nobody really should have won in the end because both teams had so many slipups. After that, I played more Brood War.
Sunday:
We met Grandpa for lunch at Costco, then took him home and got him settled there before leaving. That afternoon, dad and I finished making the game area in the garage. We played some darts to determine who bought slurpees and I lost in a really close game. I like having a dartboard because darts is fun and I'm somewhat good at it. Now I have a place to practice and get better.
Today:
This post has been being made for a while now and I have been up to random stuff like homework and conversations while making it. We continued the movie in French this morning, then had an improv day in jazz band, which was fun.
Guild Wars:
Before I forget, I wanted to put this out there. Steven recently decided he is not getting GW2 for reasons that I find very reasonable. Since he was the one I played with the most, I decided I will likely not get it. I have decided that I am waiting to hear more about Star Wars: The Old Republic now. If they have a pay system like Guild Wars, I am getting that game without a second thought. If they charge a monthly fee, I will not get it. If I get ToR, I will not get Guild Wars. If I do not, I might get Guild Wars, but only if people get it and will actually play it often(so I might wind up not getting it, haha).
SC2:
While I was making this post, it was announced that SC2 drops on July 27, so mark you calendars. I also just found out Davis is still considering whether to get it to which I forcefully told him he was just kidding. Another thing I found today was Keir retired from recreational Starcraft while I was gone. I hope he comes back like Brett Favre for SC2. The beta for SC2 shows really good promise for the game. It looks like the campaign and the multiplayer will have a lot of differences, especially in terms of units. It's going to be more like AoE3 for the campaign, which is pretty cool. I saw some campaign demos on TL that make it look really neat. As for multiplayer, it's pretty great. I'm loving every minute of playing it and I can't wait to start up again tomorrow. Today, I'm going to get really ahead on homework again so I have the rest of the week to enjoy it. Battle.net 2.0 is also really good in some ways and lacking in some others. The social aspect is much worse, but the ladder system and generally what you can do and track with it is really good. I hope that everyone decides to get SC2 so we can keep the clan playing together for years to come. If you guys don't get it, at least promise we'll play the original starcraft for all time. We gotta have some videogames we can all play when we have our 1/1/37 party in 27 years.
Until next week, peace out.
Monday:
I guess when I left off, I was just doing the Dylarian Shipyards in Brood War. I've come a long way since then as I am now on the final mission (I even did the bonus one). That is going to be a pain, but I must beat it without cheats. Band was boring because our songs are still pretty sucky. We are in the process of cutting out tunes that we don't want to do for the concert since we always pick way too many. Fortunately, a Leroy Anderson tune got cut (I was very happy at that), but our best song got cut as well as two movements from our second best song. Only 4 rehearsals left plus Victoria though, so I can tough it out.
Tuesday:
I got ridiculously ahead on homework so that I wouldn't have to worry about it the following week. After that, I must have played a lot of SC2 since I didn't have the beta then and I have to account for doing so many missions somehow.
Wednesday:
I learned that I was able to get beta from gamestop, so I told Steven about it when he signed on. No sooner did I tell him that he wanted to go, so we did. The beta was in the process of being reset, so it was super glitchy. We did get in a couple games with Peter though, so that was cool.
Thursday:
The beta was still glitchy. It was very disappointing. I got in a couple games though. After a while, I gave up and did some BW.
Friday:
Steven and I got a couple 2v2s in, but he had to go for some reason, so I did my placement matches for 1v1. The first was TvR which became TvT in which I won by contstantly dropping the guy and forcing him into his nat where I pushed into it from both sides. The second match was TvZ and I won by punishing the guy for using a greedy build order and he never recovered. The third game was TvP and I thought I was going to lose, but I totally pwned the guy because he was teching to immortals and I had a buttload of marauders by then. The fourth game was a TvT in which the guy put a barracks in my base. Unable to kill his SCV (it's a lot harder!), I settled for just using my military units because they came out before his since he walked all the way to my base. After forcing him to retreat the barracks, I had no trouble rolling over him and felt it necessary to tell him off for trying that as I beat him down. The last match was a TvP in which it seemed like I would lose early. I had to pull half my mineral line to kill a cannon rush, but somehow I stayed ahead of him. Thank God for mules I guess. I pushed in with a huge group of marauders and took him down easily. He had a lot of stalkers that were covered by zealots. I had no problem with the zealots because I was able to micro my concussive shots to make it easier to get all the stalkers down. Going 5/5, I got seeded into platinum division where I proceeded to get my ass handed to me thoroughly and repeatedly. Fortunately, it has been reset since then so I won't be in platinum again.
Saturday:
Steven and I finished our 2v2 placement matches and got put into platinum. We actually were able to hold our own that day keeping over .500 the whole day. It was really fun and a good challenge.
The Trip:
On Sunday, I got up and headed down to my Grandma's house in Vancouver and met her for lunch at Sweet Tomatoes, which is a pretty awesome Zoopa-like restaurant. After that, I did some odd jobs around my Grandma's house that she couldn't do, then we went to dinner, then came back and we watched the Invention of Lying, which was kind of funny.
On Monday, I got up and took an online test for Biology, then packed up and left for Portland. I got there in plenty of time and got to explore the hotel. We stayed at the Jupiter hotel which is like a remade motel that's pretty cool actually. They even gave us a free condom in the room! I was rooming with Steve from the trumpet section, which was a good decision because our room was quiet enough to get sleep and we got to sleep and wake up at decent hours. Also, he had a lot of DVDs, so we got to watch some good movies in our downtime since our hotel was too far away from downtown Portland to do anything. The first night in the studio was spent unpacking, setting up, and doing sound checks. There was a very attractive lady there that was helping adjust the mics and putting down tape to mark where the trumpets stood. When she was taping by my feet, it was very distracting having her grab my feet and having her head down by my balls, I had to stop playing as she did it. Fortunately, I was not the only trumpet player that found her distracting when she did that. That night after the rehearsal, me and Steve ordered a surprisingly large pizza and ate most of it while watching "Pirates of Silicon Valley" about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates as they were starting out.
On Tuesday, we had our first long day. We actually got through one more than half of our songs, which was pretty surprising. We almost had a one take wonder, but we wanted to get it tighter, so we did a couple more takes. For lunch, the trumpet section minus the lead trumpet got thai food. It was okay. That night, Steve and I were using the GPS in the car to search for restaurants, but after 5 choices that turned out not to exist, we just drove along one street until we found a place. We came across this German restaurant where we had really good food. I had a sausage trio and for dessert a piece of flourless chocolate cake which was as thick as the sausages. The next morning, I still felt like I hadn't digested all that, I was amazed I didn't barf in my sleep. We watched Tron before going to bed. We also watched an episode of Babylon 5, which I might start watching once I finish a couple other shows.
On Wednesday, we got in our other big day of rehearsals. For lunch, Steve and I wanted barbeque, but upon searching, we discovered Portland was notoriously shitty at barbecue. The guy running the studio overheard us though and pointed us down the street for what turned out to be really good barbeque. The good barbeque food came into my system and told the German food "God damnit, this is America and we digest our food!" which was helpful in not making me feel like I was going to barf into the trumpet the rest of the day. That night, Steve and I and Erik went looking for a game store that turned out to be closed. After that, we spent about 40 minutes looking for food, but deciding to go back to that barbeque place, which was a good decision since it gave me a chance to try something else on the menu. After dinner, we did a bit more recording and on our last song, we got our only one take wonder of the week. We were all ready to go and it was good enough, so we left it at one take and were pretty proud of ourselves.
On Thursday, Steve and I were planning on going to the Monette factory to try mouthpieces, but they bumped our appointment for the third time, so we decided we didn't really want to go since we were kind of mad at them for repeatedly cancelling our appointments without telling us. After listening to the unmixed songs, we all decided it was good enough and everyone split off. I took Steven (Davis knows him from Central) back in my car and got back to Shoreline in good time. That night, I just hung around the house doing some French homework.
After I got back:
On Friday, I only had one class which was nice because we had a movie and then got out. I tried to play somt SC2 with Steven that night, but it didn't work because we were not playing so hot. To be fair, it had been a while. I spent most of the night doing some Starcraft Brood War.
Saturday:
I spent the morning doing Fable 2, then we went to the Mariners game because dad scored really cheap tickets. It was a decent game that nobody really should have won in the end because both teams had so many slipups. After that, I played more Brood War.
Sunday:
We met Grandpa for lunch at Costco, then took him home and got him settled there before leaving. That afternoon, dad and I finished making the game area in the garage. We played some darts to determine who bought slurpees and I lost in a really close game. I like having a dartboard because darts is fun and I'm somewhat good at it. Now I have a place to practice and get better.
Today:
This post has been being made for a while now and I have been up to random stuff like homework and conversations while making it. We continued the movie in French this morning, then had an improv day in jazz band, which was fun.
Guild Wars:
Before I forget, I wanted to put this out there. Steven recently decided he is not getting GW2 for reasons that I find very reasonable. Since he was the one I played with the most, I decided I will likely not get it. I have decided that I am waiting to hear more about Star Wars: The Old Republic now. If they have a pay system like Guild Wars, I am getting that game without a second thought. If they charge a monthly fee, I will not get it. If I get ToR, I will not get Guild Wars. If I do not, I might get Guild Wars, but only if people get it and will actually play it often(so I might wind up not getting it, haha).
SC2:
While I was making this post, it was announced that SC2 drops on July 27, so mark you calendars. I also just found out Davis is still considering whether to get it to which I forcefully told him he was just kidding. Another thing I found today was Keir retired from recreational Starcraft while I was gone. I hope he comes back like Brett Favre for SC2. The beta for SC2 shows really good promise for the game. It looks like the campaign and the multiplayer will have a lot of differences, especially in terms of units. It's going to be more like AoE3 for the campaign, which is pretty cool. I saw some campaign demos on TL that make it look really neat. As for multiplayer, it's pretty great. I'm loving every minute of playing it and I can't wait to start up again tomorrow. Today, I'm going to get really ahead on homework again so I have the rest of the week to enjoy it. Battle.net 2.0 is also really good in some ways and lacking in some others. The social aspect is much worse, but the ladder system and generally what you can do and track with it is really good. I hope that everyone decides to get SC2 so we can keep the clan playing together for years to come. If you guys don't get it, at least promise we'll play the original starcraft for all time. We gotta have some videogames we can all play when we have our 1/1/37 party in 27 years.
Until next week, peace out.
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