So for the past few weeks my parents have been repeatedly telling me, "Hey, we don't really know what to get for your birthday or Christmas so..." and as much as I enjoy the fact that I can say, "Well, dearest parents, I would very much like to receive..." I also hate that idea.
For one, I have to pick out myself a gift which promotes a number of problems for me, one being, which one do I pick? If there's multiple items I want I suppose in true human fashion, I WANT THEM ALL! But obviously that's not going to happen. So I have to figure out what I want the most and pick it. The problem with that lies in that fact that it seems incredibly greedy to me to pick out my own present. Especially if it's something so trivial as a video game or something like that. As much as I'd like to have Left 4 Dead 2 or Dragon Age or any number of digital diversions, I can't help but feel bad saying, "Hey buy me this. It's Christmas, come on! Come ooooooon!" The second issue with such a gift is that it's not very heartfelt, even less so if I pick it out myself. If my parents were to get me something that I picked, it's not a gift from them, it's a gift from me, to myself, with them as some bizarre middleman. It just feels wrong, especially with so much sentimental value attached the holidays, regardless of whether or not you celebrate wholeheartedly or not.
My father has always been of the opinion that for Christmas and for his birthday, yeah there are things he's like to receive. Sure it's cool to get the whole collection of From Earth To The Moon or a full series of Farscape or some such, but to him, spending time with his family is pretty much all he really wants, and I'm easily the same way (which is only indicative of a wondrous upbringing, thanks daddoo!). A couple weeks back I spent my actual birthday (Dec. 5) over at another friend's house celebrating a dual surprise party for two other friends. The day was 90% not about me and honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm not much for a show of, "HEY LOOKITME I'M AWESOME AND IT'S MY BIRTHDAY DO WHAT I WANT YAAAAAAAY!!!" Instead I was completely happy receiving my "gift" of spending a large portion of the day with a bunch of my friends having a good time. I'd hope to do the same with the quickly approaching Christmas but considering everyone's going to be with family I'm betting we aren't all going to get together for some awesome hang-out session. But that's cool, I enjoy spending time with my family. They're pretty cool actually.
So I'm sitting here with a notepad and pen making a list of "Shit I Would Like To Have" and listing what I'd like, how much it is, and doing a little prioritizing of the items on it. I'm looking over it and most of it seems to be pretty trivial, lame things. They're also all expensive, which makes me feel even worse. Not only am I picking out my own gift from my parents (which doesn't make it much of a gift in my eyes) but it's looking a lot like it's just an excuse to pick something normally out of a price range and say, "BUT IT'S CHRISTMAAAAAAAAAAS!" in a really high-pitched nasally voice.
Happy holidays huh?
Friday, December 18, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
Having An Awesome Family Is Awesome
For Thanksgiving I woke up this morning at 10 and after going through my usual morning routine of showering, eating Eggos, watching the Macy's parade, and playing Rock Band (in which I unwittingly committed the irony of playing Megaeth's Good Morning/Black Friday) I loaded in the car with my parents to go to Talequah for Thanksgiving with the family.
After taking the "slow stupid" route to get there we arrived to a house filled with relatives I couldn't identify my relationship to if there were a million dollars and a brand new llama as a reward. We showed up a little later than we intended and as a result we arrived just before we dug into The Feast.
As we sank into delicious turkey and ham and green beans and corn and mashed potatos and bread we all sat around a table, as one might expect. Seated was my (I think) aunt-in-law once removed (or something) Dorothy, her brother Bill, his daughter Olivia (20?), Dorothy's daughter Christin (Chris for short), her husband Scott, their son Westley (~25?) and daughter Amber (~23?), my somethingorother JR (~25?), Dorothy's son Michael, his new wife Michella, and everyones children, all about 1-3 years old.
After we ate and the Cowboys beat the Raiders (including a play where two Raiders players slammed into each other in an attempt to catch a ball in a hilarious baseball outfielder style), Olivia, JR, my parents, Michael, and myself all discussed college pranks to play and the fact that people straddle brooms and play "real" Quiddich and the idea that hijacking the crane building the new band hall by a soccer field at TU to make it more realistic.
After this highly entertaining discussion wound down, most people quickly vanished leaving only Dorothy, Bill, Olivia, Michael, Michella (who left shortly thereafter), Chris, Scott, my folks, and me at a feels-like-9-o'clock-but-it's-really-only-7-o'clock. At this point Scott got out a game "Hunting, Fishing, and Camping Trivia" which was little more than a Trivial Pursuit knock-off that had (horrible) questions in relation to those topics. The five categories were "Camping", "Big Game", "Fishing", "Small Game", and "Weaponry", all having questions ranging from the stupidly easy "What is a big mouth buffalo? A buffalo, an ugly person, or a big mouthed fish?" for fishing to ridiculous questions like, "How many teeth does a jack rabbit have?". Overall, regardless of the wacky questions (including a massive amount of boating and boat related questions in the "camping" category) it was an uproarious great time filled with horrible innuendos and sexual puns that had the whole family (what was left of us) in stitches until we all parted ways at a little past midnight.
Also of note: There was this really awesome "toy" "hourglass" "thingy" that Dorothy got from some drug company that was basically a small tube with two chambers like an hourglass (except in a cylinder that was smooth, not hourglass shaped at all) with a small hole in between them and one chamber was filled with a liquid with a viscosity of thick, cold-snot (as in the type of snot you have when you have a cold). It was fascinating to flip it over and watch as the liquid would slowly ooze into the lower chamber while an air bubble made its way from the lower chamber, through the goop falling in, and broke the surface in the upper chamber, quickly inciting a rush of glop to pour in before slowing to a crawl again while the next air bubble started up. It was an awesome "toy" "thingy" and I really want one to just watch for hours upon hours upon hours on end...
After taking the "slow stupid" route to get there we arrived to a house filled with relatives I couldn't identify my relationship to if there were a million dollars and a brand new llama as a reward. We showed up a little later than we intended and as a result we arrived just before we dug into The Feast.
As we sank into delicious turkey and ham and green beans and corn and mashed potatos and bread we all sat around a table, as one might expect. Seated was my (I think) aunt-in-law once removed (or something) Dorothy, her brother Bill, his daughter Olivia (20?), Dorothy's daughter Christin (Chris for short), her husband Scott, their son Westley (~25?) and daughter Amber (~23?), my somethingorother JR (~25?), Dorothy's son Michael, his new wife Michella, and everyones children, all about 1-3 years old.
After we ate and the Cowboys beat the Raiders (including a play where two Raiders players slammed into each other in an attempt to catch a ball in a hilarious baseball outfielder style), Olivia, JR, my parents, Michael, and myself all discussed college pranks to play and the fact that people straddle brooms and play "real" Quiddich and the idea that hijacking the crane building the new band hall by a soccer field at TU to make it more realistic.
After this highly entertaining discussion wound down, most people quickly vanished leaving only Dorothy, Bill, Olivia, Michael, Michella (who left shortly thereafter), Chris, Scott, my folks, and me at a feels-like-9-o'clock-but-it's-really-only-7-o'clock. At this point Scott got out a game "Hunting, Fishing, and Camping Trivia" which was little more than a Trivial Pursuit knock-off that had (horrible) questions in relation to those topics. The five categories were "Camping", "Big Game", "Fishing", "Small Game", and "Weaponry", all having questions ranging from the stupidly easy "What is a big mouth buffalo? A buffalo, an ugly person, or a big mouthed fish?" for fishing to ridiculous questions like, "How many teeth does a jack rabbit have?". Overall, regardless of the wacky questions (including a massive amount of boating and boat related questions in the "camping" category) it was an uproarious great time filled with horrible innuendos and sexual puns that had the whole family (what was left of us) in stitches until we all parted ways at a little past midnight.
Also of note: There was this really awesome "toy" "hourglass" "thingy" that Dorothy got from some drug company that was basically a small tube with two chambers like an hourglass (except in a cylinder that was smooth, not hourglass shaped at all) with a small hole in between them and one chamber was filled with a liquid with a viscosity of thick, cold-snot (as in the type of snot you have when you have a cold). It was fascinating to flip it over and watch as the liquid would slowly ooze into the lower chamber while an air bubble made its way from the lower chamber, through the goop falling in, and broke the surface in the upper chamber, quickly inciting a rush of glop to pour in before slowing to a crawl again while the next air bubble started up. It was an awesome "toy" "thingy" and I really want one to just watch for hours upon hours upon hours on end...
Friday, October 30, 2009
Life Needs a Better Reward System
Yesterday I had the experience of giving away money for nothing. I was on my way to the PAC to perform in the show I'm currently in (the pit of) and due to our small little production having a performance the same night as the ballet's monster production of Dracula, parking was $5.00. Not having five bucks, this is not where I parted with my cash. Instead, I kept driving down 2nd Street and found a spot on the side of the road just past Main Street (about a block away from the theater) and, seeing as paid parking is free after 6, this is also not where my money left me.
I grabbed my sax from my trunk and started down the sidewalk. I was on the wrong side of the building so when I saw a small "Hey look, trees!" park thing right next to the theater, I thought I'd just cut through and be on my way. As it turns out, the opposite side of that grotto is totally not street level. It's actually about 20 feet above it. Being rather awesome, I could have easily survived the fall quite handily, but the sax wouldn't have. I didn't see a way down, only a bridge connecting to City Hall, and some double doors into the PAC. I went up to check them and naturally they were locked. They even had a convenient sign on the other side that, when read through the convenient glass, said that it was a convenient sign, conveniently located to inform you that those doors were, in all convenience, "Emergency Exit Only."
Now, this whole time I had had it in the back of my mind that this little nature preserve was picturesque in its setting for a horror movie. Now that I had reached a dead end, these thoughts came running to the front of my brain screaming bloody murder and telling me that a 20 foot drop wasn't such a bad deal. Fortunately I gave those thoughts a sedagive and turned around to head back the way I came.
Because of my navigational expertise, I had gotten myself into a corner with no exit were I to be accosted by a bum. I was accosted by a bum. He was now in the national park I had just passed through and intended to pass through again along my merry way. He pleaded for my attention with, "Sir? Sir!" and I, with no way out, gave it to him. He proceeded to tell me that all he wanted was a couple bucks to rent a cheap room so he didn't have to sleep in the rain. He promised he was willing to work for it (by washing my car or anything else I could come up with) and also that if I declined, he wouldn't hold it against me and that he had also never been to jail. That's what I caught, which is only about half considering how much he said I couldn't decipher. While Pearl Jam's Even Flow buzzed through my mind and I contemplated shifting my sax from the hand closest to him to my other one for comfort and whether or not he'd take offense to this "protective" gesture, I decided I'd give him some change and wish him luck. I dug into my pocket and grabbed only part of my change (still a lot more than I meant to), gave it to him, and walked off.
At that point, nothing happened. He didn't give me any special items or a tip to a hidden treasure or, in a massive logistical failure, a monetary reward. He said thanks, didn't give a "God bless." (thank God) and went on his way. I didn't get any experience aside from not to grab as much change. I didn't even get a deep rooted feeling of bettering the world or having done something good and right. The only thought I really left the encounter with was whether or not I had enough change left to get a 75 cent soda from the machine backstage. Maybe somewhere down the line he'll track me down after making billions of dollars and offer me a few million, but in all honesty, I seriously doubt he got the $7 he needed in time to sleep with a roof over his head.
I grabbed my sax from my trunk and started down the sidewalk. I was on the wrong side of the building so when I saw a small "Hey look, trees!" park thing right next to the theater, I thought I'd just cut through and be on my way. As it turns out, the opposite side of that grotto is totally not street level. It's actually about 20 feet above it. Being rather awesome, I could have easily survived the fall quite handily, but the sax wouldn't have. I didn't see a way down, only a bridge connecting to City Hall, and some double doors into the PAC. I went up to check them and naturally they were locked. They even had a convenient sign on the other side that, when read through the convenient glass, said that it was a convenient sign, conveniently located to inform you that those doors were, in all convenience, "Emergency Exit Only."
Now, this whole time I had had it in the back of my mind that this little nature preserve was picturesque in its setting for a horror movie. Now that I had reached a dead end, these thoughts came running to the front of my brain screaming bloody murder and telling me that a 20 foot drop wasn't such a bad deal. Fortunately I gave those thoughts a sedagive and turned around to head back the way I came.
Because of my navigational expertise, I had gotten myself into a corner with no exit were I to be accosted by a bum. I was accosted by a bum. He was now in the national park I had just passed through and intended to pass through again along my merry way. He pleaded for my attention with, "Sir? Sir!" and I, with no way out, gave it to him. He proceeded to tell me that all he wanted was a couple bucks to rent a cheap room so he didn't have to sleep in the rain. He promised he was willing to work for it (by washing my car or anything else I could come up with) and also that if I declined, he wouldn't hold it against me and that he had also never been to jail. That's what I caught, which is only about half considering how much he said I couldn't decipher. While Pearl Jam's Even Flow buzzed through my mind and I contemplated shifting my sax from the hand closest to him to my other one for comfort and whether or not he'd take offense to this "protective" gesture, I decided I'd give him some change and wish him luck. I dug into my pocket and grabbed only part of my change (still a lot more than I meant to), gave it to him, and walked off.
At that point, nothing happened. He didn't give me any special items or a tip to a hidden treasure or, in a massive logistical failure, a monetary reward. He said thanks, didn't give a "God bless." (thank God) and went on his way. I didn't get any experience aside from not to grab as much change. I didn't even get a deep rooted feeling of bettering the world or having done something good and right. The only thought I really left the encounter with was whether or not I had enough change left to get a 75 cent soda from the machine backstage. Maybe somewhere down the line he'll track me down after making billions of dollars and offer me a few million, but in all honesty, I seriously doubt he got the $7 he needed in time to sleep with a roof over his head.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
To Develop the Truest and Bes- WHAT THE HELL GREG!?
Really good weekend so far. It's a nice turnaround from the usual weekends that either end up being uneventful and boring, or just downright lame and lame. It all started Friday morning...
When I got up Friday morning, I actually got up for the first weekday in a while, instead of opting in for the "5 More Minutes" special. With that, I actually made it to piano on time, which was still lame. Got out of there and sat around in a freezing hallway for twenty minutes or so until Amber showed up as well. At this point I was thinking this day would be pretty crappy but when it came time for theory class it drastically turned around. Theory was good, we talked about wacky things, I got odd looks from Heidi, our instructor. And when it was all said and done we headed off to TU to go to band, which was made especially good because it had been declared an inside day due to the cold.
So we get there and proceed to play through Since I Fell For You a few times, and then we moved on to Stars and Stripes Forever. What would normally be a rather uneventful tune ended up being hysterical, with many a joke made at each others' expense (Sarge being the chief culprit) and an impromptu tuba gliss that had the whole band rofling their lmaos off. Band wraps up and we finish and I quiz Eric Noble on his lunch plans, to which he mentions Chick-Fil-A. So I walk with him and Jason Seabolt through a mucky field, past some vents in the ground billowing smoke (to which point Eric firmly believes TU is infested with pot smoking gophers) and over to grab lunch. Lunch was made all the more sweeter when Seabolt kindly offered to pay for mine, to which point I'm greatly appreciative. Over lunch with them and several other band people, we read an article in TU's paper about how the newly approved iPhone porn application will most likely cause the downfall of civilization as we know it (gotta love Oklahoma...). I also ran into a few people I hadn't seen since my time at Edison, which was a highly refreshing occurrence.
As the other people left Eric and I went around the corner to talk with a couple people from band, at which the conversation went on a 5 minute tangent about bears, their poop, and how everyone should know the facts about such. Amber and her boyfriend Jayson walked by and she kindly let me know I had a ticket from parking in the parking lot we're supposed to park in. I wasn't frustrated this time because Sarge had said to everyone that if anyone gets a ticket for parking in a lot that we're supposed to, bring it to him and he'll take care of it. Considering he did so for me earlier this week I believed him. We all checked our watches and noticed that we had places to be and things to do and decided to each head our own ways. I got back to my car and was very pleasantly surprised to see that Amber had actually mistaken another car for mine (turns out the only real difference is that they had a blue pine tree air freshener) and that I had no ticket on my windshield. Yay!
At that point I decided to be a super awesome son and see mumsy at work, since she worked nearby. So I drive over to AAA and head on up the steps to the main door. I go in and head past the front desk and slow to a stop when I look in the back corner and see nothing but an empty chair where she should be sitting. The receptionist finishes talking to whoever was at the desk, turns to me and gives me a warm welcome. She then says, "Ooooh! Today's her day off! You didn't know that?" to which I reply, "Oh yeah, it is!" She had only told me five or six times in the past twelve hours... So I head back out the door, and head on home, driving down the newly finished Utica to get there. I relay the story to my mother when I get in the door, we laugh, and then I just bide my time until later that night when Phi Mu Alpha is to do whatever they have planned instead of the camping trip, as it was canceled because our proposed camping grounds had become a swamp.
videogame babble starts now
When the time came to go hang out, it was a damned good one. I headed out 'round 8 to Blake's apartment and when I got there, there was only about 6 other people at the time, and we all just sat around for a few minutes waiting for others. Quickly it was decided to try and play four person Firefight on ODST (vidja games for those of you who don't know) and we found out that on that mode, one 360 only supports two players at a time. The movement to grab a second console was quickly passed before even being suggested, and so a few people left to go get one while the rest of us switched off on rounds on the console that we had there.
By the time the guys who had left to get the other 360 had returned, we had grown in number from 8-ish to about 15-ish. So we get the new 360 set up, connect the two with the ethernet cable, and start some 4-on-4 action with Halo 3 multiplayer. This opened up with some 4v4 Slayer (team deathmatch) in which my team beat the opposing team approximately 100v30 before we decided maybe we should switch things up a little bit. We did and the teams mostly evened out to where games weren't one sided and were generally unpredictable, sometimes swinging one way and then the other way for the win. We played a bit of slayer before going to a few rounds of rockets-only, then shotguns only, and then grav hammers only. When we grew tired of slayer, it was then suggested we do Oddball (steal the bacon).
At first it started out as just single round matches of oddball. We used standard weapons for the first set of matches and they were pretty close. Then we had the idea of playing rocketball. This is still Oddball, but the only weapons in the game are rocketlaunchers, which made things highly enjoyable. Adding to that was the competition we incited when we set it to 5 rounds. Two or three times my team swept the first two rounds, only to have their team come back for two, making the fifth round highly competitive (especially when both teams were near the 150 point limit and everyone was going for the ball at once). We switched to a few rounds of Ninjaball (Oddball but the carrier is very fast and weak) that we modified to make the carrier go 300% faster, have around 3 hits to his name, only be affected by gravity 50%, and be invisible. It was essentially like chasing an invisible rabbit through a forest, and while that may sound frustrating, it was actually incredibly fun. We finally closed the night out with a round of SWAT (Halo's version of Counter-Strike) and when it dragged on due to a wrong setting, we decided to call it a night. By that time it was 2 in the morning and my throat was in pure pain from yelling for 5 hours straight. Honestly I have no idea how Campo didn't knock on our door with a noise complaint.
videogame babble ends now
That was the end of Friday. I came home, slept, and woke up. Saturday was fairly uneventful until about 7 in the evening when I got a text from Eric Noble saying there was a cookie party over at his place. I head out and sure enough there was. It was a rather small affair with only 7 of us there, but in all honestly that was actually a good thing after the din of the night before, as much fun as it may have been. We started out bouncing back and forth between two or three college football games (all of which providing entertainment through some wacky plays) and when that was done, we were channel surfing. While looking at the guide, Natalie saw something that struck her as odd and simply asked, "What's Tool Academy?" Kurt then burst out laughing.
We switched the channel to catch the beginning of the episode and it was one of the most entertaining things I believe I have ever seen on television. The basic premise, for those who don't know, is that a girlfriend who believes her boyfriend is a douchebag tool will prompt this show to get ahold of them. Then they take them to a large house they treat like a boarding school and try to get them to be better boyfriends through a series of exercises. This episode was about "appreciation" and started off with them going to a mock funeral for their girlfriend, which induced all the guys but one into tears pleaded for them to not be dead, despite the fact that they indeed weren't. The one guy that didn't burst into tears was commenting in his interview, "And all I was thinkin' is that we totally have time to go have a quicky instead of this stupid funeral thing." After that the girls were arranged to go on dates with upstanding gentlemen while the boyfriends got to watch. The way they announced this was that they dragged the guys out to the front steps, drove the limo up, the gents got out in tuxes, and then they told the boyfriends what was going to happen.
Then, inducing many lulz on our part, the super buff tool just punches the lamp on the stairs. He's just standing there, and then it was like his fist had a mind of its own and just shot out to punch the lamp, quickly returning to its former position. Then, immediately after, he and two of the other tools decided to go beat the gentlemen up. So the big guy, his hand now leaking blood, and two of the others go down and head towards the gentlement while to producers and security immediately run on set and tackle them, causing many more lulz. The tools were taken back inside and were forced to watch the dates on a television, which most of them handled fine, excepting one or two. One of which was the guy that during the funeral exercise made the "quicky" comment. He stands up, freaks out, runs down the hallway (literally running full sprint), goes out onto the lawn, runs through the sprinklers, and when he's calmed down a little bit, he's walking away from the camera and just randomly rips his shirt off (rips it off, into two pieces). The episode came to a close and he was expelled (as we expected) and his girlfriend very grudgingly accepted his apologies and they rode off in the limo to a fate unknown. At that point everyone decided it was time to go and it was unfortunate, but they headed out. I meant to but I got wrapped up watching the last 15 minutes of Austin Powers in Goldmember with Eric and Kurt. After it was done I headed out, came home, and that was the end of the night.
Now it's now and I'm doing this. Yay.
When I got up Friday morning, I actually got up for the first weekday in a while, instead of opting in for the "5 More Minutes" special. With that, I actually made it to piano on time, which was still lame. Got out of there and sat around in a freezing hallway for twenty minutes or so until Amber showed up as well. At this point I was thinking this day would be pretty crappy but when it came time for theory class it drastically turned around. Theory was good, we talked about wacky things, I got odd looks from Heidi, our instructor. And when it was all said and done we headed off to TU to go to band, which was made especially good because it had been declared an inside day due to the cold.
So we get there and proceed to play through Since I Fell For You a few times, and then we moved on to Stars and Stripes Forever. What would normally be a rather uneventful tune ended up being hysterical, with many a joke made at each others' expense (Sarge being the chief culprit) and an impromptu tuba gliss that had the whole band rofling their lmaos off. Band wraps up and we finish and I quiz Eric Noble on his lunch plans, to which he mentions Chick-Fil-A. So I walk with him and Jason Seabolt through a mucky field, past some vents in the ground billowing smoke (to which point Eric firmly believes TU is infested with pot smoking gophers) and over to grab lunch. Lunch was made all the more sweeter when Seabolt kindly offered to pay for mine, to which point I'm greatly appreciative. Over lunch with them and several other band people, we read an article in TU's paper about how the newly approved iPhone porn application will most likely cause the downfall of civilization as we know it (gotta love Oklahoma...). I also ran into a few people I hadn't seen since my time at Edison, which was a highly refreshing occurrence.
As the other people left Eric and I went around the corner to talk with a couple people from band, at which the conversation went on a 5 minute tangent about bears, their poop, and how everyone should know the facts about such. Amber and her boyfriend Jayson walked by and she kindly let me know I had a ticket from parking in the parking lot we're supposed to park in. I wasn't frustrated this time because Sarge had said to everyone that if anyone gets a ticket for parking in a lot that we're supposed to, bring it to him and he'll take care of it. Considering he did so for me earlier this week I believed him. We all checked our watches and noticed that we had places to be and things to do and decided to each head our own ways. I got back to my car and was very pleasantly surprised to see that Amber had actually mistaken another car for mine (turns out the only real difference is that they had a blue pine tree air freshener) and that I had no ticket on my windshield. Yay!
At that point I decided to be a super awesome son and see mumsy at work, since she worked nearby. So I drive over to AAA and head on up the steps to the main door. I go in and head past the front desk and slow to a stop when I look in the back corner and see nothing but an empty chair where she should be sitting. The receptionist finishes talking to whoever was at the desk, turns to me and gives me a warm welcome. She then says, "Ooooh! Today's her day off! You didn't know that?" to which I reply, "Oh yeah, it is!" She had only told me five or six times in the past twelve hours... So I head back out the door, and head on home, driving down the newly finished Utica to get there. I relay the story to my mother when I get in the door, we laugh, and then I just bide my time until later that night when Phi Mu Alpha is to do whatever they have planned instead of the camping trip, as it was canceled because our proposed camping grounds had become a swamp.
videogame babble starts now
When the time came to go hang out, it was a damned good one. I headed out 'round 8 to Blake's apartment and when I got there, there was only about 6 other people at the time, and we all just sat around for a few minutes waiting for others. Quickly it was decided to try and play four person Firefight on ODST (vidja games for those of you who don't know) and we found out that on that mode, one 360 only supports two players at a time. The movement to grab a second console was quickly passed before even being suggested, and so a few people left to go get one while the rest of us switched off on rounds on the console that we had there.
By the time the guys who had left to get the other 360 had returned, we had grown in number from 8-ish to about 15-ish. So we get the new 360 set up, connect the two with the ethernet cable, and start some 4-on-4 action with Halo 3 multiplayer. This opened up with some 4v4 Slayer (team deathmatch) in which my team beat the opposing team approximately 100v30 before we decided maybe we should switch things up a little bit. We did and the teams mostly evened out to where games weren't one sided and were generally unpredictable, sometimes swinging one way and then the other way for the win. We played a bit of slayer before going to a few rounds of rockets-only, then shotguns only, and then grav hammers only. When we grew tired of slayer, it was then suggested we do Oddball (steal the bacon).
At first it started out as just single round matches of oddball. We used standard weapons for the first set of matches and they were pretty close. Then we had the idea of playing rocketball. This is still Oddball, but the only weapons in the game are rocketlaunchers, which made things highly enjoyable. Adding to that was the competition we incited when we set it to 5 rounds. Two or three times my team swept the first two rounds, only to have their team come back for two, making the fifth round highly competitive (especially when both teams were near the 150 point limit and everyone was going for the ball at once). We switched to a few rounds of Ninjaball (Oddball but the carrier is very fast and weak) that we modified to make the carrier go 300% faster, have around 3 hits to his name, only be affected by gravity 50%, and be invisible. It was essentially like chasing an invisible rabbit through a forest, and while that may sound frustrating, it was actually incredibly fun. We finally closed the night out with a round of SWAT (Halo's version of Counter-Strike) and when it dragged on due to a wrong setting, we decided to call it a night. By that time it was 2 in the morning and my throat was in pure pain from yelling for 5 hours straight. Honestly I have no idea how Campo didn't knock on our door with a noise complaint.
videogame babble ends now
That was the end of Friday. I came home, slept, and woke up. Saturday was fairly uneventful until about 7 in the evening when I got a text from Eric Noble saying there was a cookie party over at his place. I head out and sure enough there was. It was a rather small affair with only 7 of us there, but in all honestly that was actually a good thing after the din of the night before, as much fun as it may have been. We started out bouncing back and forth between two or three college football games (all of which providing entertainment through some wacky plays) and when that was done, we were channel surfing. While looking at the guide, Natalie saw something that struck her as odd and simply asked, "What's Tool Academy?" Kurt then burst out laughing.
We switched the channel to catch the beginning of the episode and it was one of the most entertaining things I believe I have ever seen on television. The basic premise, for those who don't know, is that a girlfriend who believes her boyfriend is a douchebag tool will prompt this show to get ahold of them. Then they take them to a large house they treat like a boarding school and try to get them to be better boyfriends through a series of exercises. This episode was about "appreciation" and started off with them going to a mock funeral for their girlfriend, which induced all the guys but one into tears pleaded for them to not be dead, despite the fact that they indeed weren't. The one guy that didn't burst into tears was commenting in his interview, "And all I was thinkin' is that we totally have time to go have a quicky instead of this stupid funeral thing." After that the girls were arranged to go on dates with upstanding gentlemen while the boyfriends got to watch. The way they announced this was that they dragged the guys out to the front steps, drove the limo up, the gents got out in tuxes, and then they told the boyfriends what was going to happen.
Then, inducing many lulz on our part, the super buff tool just punches the lamp on the stairs. He's just standing there, and then it was like his fist had a mind of its own and just shot out to punch the lamp, quickly returning to its former position. Then, immediately after, he and two of the other tools decided to go beat the gentlemen up. So the big guy, his hand now leaking blood, and two of the others go down and head towards the gentlement while to producers and security immediately run on set and tackle them, causing many more lulz. The tools were taken back inside and were forced to watch the dates on a television, which most of them handled fine, excepting one or two. One of which was the guy that during the funeral exercise made the "quicky" comment. He stands up, freaks out, runs down the hallway (literally running full sprint), goes out onto the lawn, runs through the sprinklers, and when he's calmed down a little bit, he's walking away from the camera and just randomly rips his shirt off (rips it off, into two pieces). The episode came to a close and he was expelled (as we expected) and his girlfriend very grudgingly accepted his apologies and they rode off in the limo to a fate unknown. At that point everyone decided it was time to go and it was unfortunate, but they headed out. I meant to but I got wrapped up watching the last 15 minutes of Austin Powers in Goldmember with Eric and Kurt. After it was done I headed out, came home, and that was the end of the night.
Now it's now and I'm doing this. Yay.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Where the Hell is Sam Houston State Anyway?
Today was a fine today I suppose. Started out strong, went on well, ended poorly. In the end, two for three is over 50 percent so I suppose I can chalk today up for a win.
Started out nice and early with me getting up at 8:30, in the shower at 8:45, out, eating Cheerios, leaving at 9:20, and getting to TU and on the field WELL before the 10:00 call time. So while I waited around for things to start, I joined the small huddle that was surrounding Sarge for story time. After some good ones we all broke off to start warming up on our own, fell into our block on command, ran the pregame and the show, and then we were done. At that point I figured since I was already at TU and I had to attend at least one actual Phi Mu Alpha meeting to fulfill my probationary requirement that I'd just go to the one at 11. Sure enough I went over to Tyreal, got another interview done (this time with Alex Jones), and attended the meeting. I lucked out because they actually moved to skip a few parts and no one had much to discuss, so the meeting was over in about 10 minutes.
At this point I decided I'd just go ahead and go home for a quick shower, after which I'd grab my uniform and other things and head right back to TU. I thought it'd only take 30 minutes but it ended up taking twice as long because I forgot so many things that I ended up making about 10 trips to and from my car. I blame those memory issues on the fact that this week has been like a series of Mondays. So many small mental errors you'd make on a Monday, but made on Thursday and Friday and today. Either way, I managed to get everything I needed (and then some) and head back to TU.
By the time I had gotten back to TU they'd already decided to start closing the parking lots nearest the stadium so I ended up parking in the lot near Tyreal and hauling my backpack, tenor, and uniform over to the band room. For those who have no concept of the TU campus, it's not very far away at all (between two or three football fields) but carrying all that crap didn't make it seem any shorter than it really was. I got back to the bandroom, set my crap down, and hoped to get started on our Music Theory III group project. This was made a slight challenge by the fact that I was the only one in the room from our group. That was nullified quickly by the arrival of Amy, Amber, and Jennifer (with Ricky following his usual pattern of showing up 30+ minutes late). We began to work on our theory work and for once, I honestly had no idea what I was doing. There have been a lot of times where I only halfway know the concept and manage to bullshit my way through it, but this was not one of them.
After getting relatively little of the theory work done over the course of an hour and a half I was called by one of the Phi Mu Alpha guys to come assist with the cookout. They usually hold a cookout before each game and today was no exception. Jason grilled the burgers (after damn near grilling himself/using half a bottle of lighter fluid), and my task was to cart them in a small pan to the table inside so that the band members could partake in their delicious deliciousness. It actually instilled a pretty sizable feeling of doing something good to help out with such a thing and to provide food for hungry friends. Unfortunately, because they had to go walk around campus with the drum line and weren't present, the drum majors didn't get burgers before we started putting things up, so if they happen upon this, my most sincere apologies.
Anyway, after the cookout everyone got their uniform on and their instrument out and we all lined up to march out to the stadium from the parking lot. We started out and barely out of the parking lot my foot starts cramping like none other for no particular reason. Marching for an hour straight, that's fine. Marching a quarter mile at OU's campus, that's jim dandy. Going 30 feet from the TU parking lot, that's impossible. So we marched to the stadium, and past it. We went out into the large field in the [new] U and played several stand tunes for the tailgating-on-the-grass crowd that was there. Then we marched to the stadium and stood in the road outside of it playing to a wall of the athletic building. Finally we marched into the stadium and lined up behind the end zone and waited for 30 minutes or so before we started into pregame. While we waited, the football team was warming up, which means that the kicker was kicking field goals. Through the goal posts. That we were right behind. It was actually kind of fun having to watch out for incoming footballs and possibly deflect or dodge them.
We got through pregame fine and headed into our two lines to make a tunnel for the players to run through. Then came the children. Hundreds upon hundreds of children were at the game for some reason and they were allowed to line up with us and make the tunnel stretch from one corner of the field to the other. That worked out without much problem, but the rest of the stuff was horrible. First ran out some group of people who were a mob of school spirit and body paint, then was a super golf cart with our new and "improved" Captain Cane mascot (to his credit, how the hell would you make a good hurricane mascot?), and then the athletic director rode his motorcycle out. We played the fight song, and started into our "super well rehearsed" move backwards move. It wasn't pretty, but no one died.
We went into the stands and sat there, playing Short (the ending few measures of the fight song we can just rattle off) several times because this week was like last week in reverse. We started smashing the other team, despite making stupid mistakes. It didn't end up being a shutout because they, unlike us, weren't too proud to just take a damn field goal. Either way the first half went by fairly quickly, and then came halftime. We went down to the field and Sam Houston State's band started into their Journey show. Honestly I don't have much of an opinion on it. It wasn't good, but it wasn't horrible. It just wasn't worth caring about to me. We went through out show and when we got back around to our side there were QT sandwiches and Pepsi and cookies provided for us. I grabbed a club sandwich and a Pepsi and a chocolate chip cookie and headed back to my spot in the stands.
Giving us sandwiches and cookies and then expecting us to eat them, while being ready to pick up our horns and play in a split second's notice provided much entertainment at the expense of Kurt's temper. Regardless of how much of a challenge that was, it didn't matter to me because I had about three bites of the sandwich and remembered I don't like them (Sam I Am) and moved on to the cookie. I took a single bite of the cookie and it was utterly horrible. It was hard, but not the crunchy type of hard. More like hardened steel. Then, to add insult to injury, it tasted abysmal as well. I felt kind of bad taking the food and not eating it when someone else could have grabbed either/or and have been happy with it.
Third quarter started with the traveling band getting up and, well, traveling. I kind of wish I was a part of it but on the other hand, it's nice to have a lax quarter to recover and recuperate. The rest of the game went by fairly quickly (in the blink of an eye compared to last week's game against OU) and we went down to the field to march back to the band room. We did so, and when we got back everyone managed to be gone surprisingly quickly. I checked to see if anyone was doing anything and the majority of my TCC friends were going to the Owasso marching invitational, of which I had no steak or interest so I decided to call them gay and not go. Other than that, no one was doing anything or at least nothing I was up for, so I headed back to my car with all my stuff.
Having gotten there I find a lovely little ticket resting on my windshield. The way things are set up are so that if you have season tickets (or just tickets, I don't know) you have a colored sticker for your car, and that allows you to park in certain lots. Nevermind the fact that my car was parked there WELL before they closed the lot off, I still didn't have one of those parking stickers. So I come back to find a ticket on my windshield that wasn't for the $25 that we had originally thought, but instead for twice that much. Fuck. That. Shit. Sarge told those of us at TCC that if we get a ticket for parking on campus that he'll take care of them, so come Monday I'm going to let him.
After that I got home, salted a slug (I expected more of a show but instead it just shriveled up), remembered I was hungry, and went to get tacos. As I pulled up to the drive through I had my window down and heard the tail end of a conversation between the squawk box and the person in front of me telling them that they'd have to deliver their complaint to the manager the following morning. I didn't think that boded well for my order but as it turned out things went fine. Brought the tacos home, ate them, and then wrote this.
The End.
Started out nice and early with me getting up at 8:30, in the shower at 8:45, out, eating Cheerios, leaving at 9:20, and getting to TU and on the field WELL before the 10:00 call time. So while I waited around for things to start, I joined the small huddle that was surrounding Sarge for story time. After some good ones we all broke off to start warming up on our own, fell into our block on command, ran the pregame and the show, and then we were done. At that point I figured since I was already at TU and I had to attend at least one actual Phi Mu Alpha meeting to fulfill my probationary requirement that I'd just go to the one at 11. Sure enough I went over to Tyreal, got another interview done (this time with Alex Jones), and attended the meeting. I lucked out because they actually moved to skip a few parts and no one had much to discuss, so the meeting was over in about 10 minutes.
At this point I decided I'd just go ahead and go home for a quick shower, after which I'd grab my uniform and other things and head right back to TU. I thought it'd only take 30 minutes but it ended up taking twice as long because I forgot so many things that I ended up making about 10 trips to and from my car. I blame those memory issues on the fact that this week has been like a series of Mondays. So many small mental errors you'd make on a Monday, but made on Thursday and Friday and today. Either way, I managed to get everything I needed (and then some) and head back to TU.
By the time I had gotten back to TU they'd already decided to start closing the parking lots nearest the stadium so I ended up parking in the lot near Tyreal and hauling my backpack, tenor, and uniform over to the band room. For those who have no concept of the TU campus, it's not very far away at all (between two or three football fields) but carrying all that crap didn't make it seem any shorter than it really was. I got back to the bandroom, set my crap down, and hoped to get started on our Music Theory III group project. This was made a slight challenge by the fact that I was the only one in the room from our group. That was nullified quickly by the arrival of Amy, Amber, and Jennifer (with Ricky following his usual pattern of showing up 30+ minutes late). We began to work on our theory work and for once, I honestly had no idea what I was doing. There have been a lot of times where I only halfway know the concept and manage to bullshit my way through it, but this was not one of them.
After getting relatively little of the theory work done over the course of an hour and a half I was called by one of the Phi Mu Alpha guys to come assist with the cookout. They usually hold a cookout before each game and today was no exception. Jason grilled the burgers (after damn near grilling himself/using half a bottle of lighter fluid), and my task was to cart them in a small pan to the table inside so that the band members could partake in their delicious deliciousness. It actually instilled a pretty sizable feeling of doing something good to help out with such a thing and to provide food for hungry friends. Unfortunately, because they had to go walk around campus with the drum line and weren't present, the drum majors didn't get burgers before we started putting things up, so if they happen upon this, my most sincere apologies.
Anyway, after the cookout everyone got their uniform on and their instrument out and we all lined up to march out to the stadium from the parking lot. We started out and barely out of the parking lot my foot starts cramping like none other for no particular reason. Marching for an hour straight, that's fine. Marching a quarter mile at OU's campus, that's jim dandy. Going 30 feet from the TU parking lot, that's impossible. So we marched to the stadium, and past it. We went out into the large field in the [new] U and played several stand tunes for the tailgating-on-the-grass crowd that was there. Then we marched to the stadium and stood in the road outside of it playing to a wall of the athletic building. Finally we marched into the stadium and lined up behind the end zone and waited for 30 minutes or so before we started into pregame. While we waited, the football team was warming up, which means that the kicker was kicking field goals. Through the goal posts. That we were right behind. It was actually kind of fun having to watch out for incoming footballs and possibly deflect or dodge them.
We got through pregame fine and headed into our two lines to make a tunnel for the players to run through. Then came the children. Hundreds upon hundreds of children were at the game for some reason and they were allowed to line up with us and make the tunnel stretch from one corner of the field to the other. That worked out without much problem, but the rest of the stuff was horrible. First ran out some group of people who were a mob of school spirit and body paint, then was a super golf cart with our new and "improved" Captain Cane mascot (to his credit, how the hell would you make a good hurricane mascot?), and then the athletic director rode his motorcycle out. We played the fight song, and started into our "super well rehearsed" move backwards move. It wasn't pretty, but no one died.
We went into the stands and sat there, playing Short (the ending few measures of the fight song we can just rattle off) several times because this week was like last week in reverse. We started smashing the other team, despite making stupid mistakes. It didn't end up being a shutout because they, unlike us, weren't too proud to just take a damn field goal. Either way the first half went by fairly quickly, and then came halftime. We went down to the field and Sam Houston State's band started into their Journey show. Honestly I don't have much of an opinion on it. It wasn't good, but it wasn't horrible. It just wasn't worth caring about to me. We went through out show and when we got back around to our side there were QT sandwiches and Pepsi and cookies provided for us. I grabbed a club sandwich and a Pepsi and a chocolate chip cookie and headed back to my spot in the stands.
Giving us sandwiches and cookies and then expecting us to eat them, while being ready to pick up our horns and play in a split second's notice provided much entertainment at the expense of Kurt's temper. Regardless of how much of a challenge that was, it didn't matter to me because I had about three bites of the sandwich and remembered I don't like them (Sam I Am) and moved on to the cookie. I took a single bite of the cookie and it was utterly horrible. It was hard, but not the crunchy type of hard. More like hardened steel. Then, to add insult to injury, it tasted abysmal as well. I felt kind of bad taking the food and not eating it when someone else could have grabbed either/or and have been happy with it.
Third quarter started with the traveling band getting up and, well, traveling. I kind of wish I was a part of it but on the other hand, it's nice to have a lax quarter to recover and recuperate. The rest of the game went by fairly quickly (in the blink of an eye compared to last week's game against OU) and we went down to the field to march back to the band room. We did so, and when we got back everyone managed to be gone surprisingly quickly. I checked to see if anyone was doing anything and the majority of my TCC friends were going to the Owasso marching invitational, of which I had no steak or interest so I decided to call them gay and not go. Other than that, no one was doing anything or at least nothing I was up for, so I headed back to my car with all my stuff.
Having gotten there I find a lovely little ticket resting on my windshield. The way things are set up are so that if you have season tickets (or just tickets, I don't know) you have a colored sticker for your car, and that allows you to park in certain lots. Nevermind the fact that my car was parked there WELL before they closed the lot off, I still didn't have one of those parking stickers. So I come back to find a ticket on my windshield that wasn't for the $25 that we had originally thought, but instead for twice that much. Fuck. That. Shit. Sarge told those of us at TCC that if we get a ticket for parking on campus that he'll take care of them, so come Monday I'm going to let him.
After that I got home, salted a slug (I expected more of a show but instead it just shriveled up), remembered I was hungry, and went to get tacos. As I pulled up to the drive through I had my window down and heard the tail end of a conversation between the squawk box and the person in front of me telling them that they'd have to deliver their complaint to the manager the following morning. I didn't think that boded well for my order but as it turned out things went fine. Brought the tacos home, ate them, and then wrote this.
The End.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Good Thing I Brought My Trunks
For the first post I thought it'd maybe be a good idea to explain why I decided to write a blog but then I thought, "Why does anyone blog?" and it's simply to post stories about what they did, or how they feel. I'll certainly be doing the former quite often (provided things stay interesting) and none of the latter, because I've always felt that reading a blog composed of whiny inner monologues about how much Jane makes you cry are a painful experience and it'd be akin to being walked in on masturbating if you were caught reading one. Perhaps later I'll dig down deep to my AP English teachings and find a thesis for why I'm really writing this, but for now you'll have to accept the answer "Because."
Anyway, today was pretty uneventful. And then it wasn't. The morning was a standard morning in which I arrived late to my piano class, then sat around for an hour pretending to think about practicing while waiting for theory to start, and then finally going to theory when 11 rolled around. Theory went as it always does, with us "reviewing" things we've never heard of because the prior teacher we had was too lazy to do any actual teaching, and then we left at around 11:30 like normal to go to TU for marching rehearsal. Remaining uneventful we marched pregame a few times, and then went over the music we were supposed to have memorized (and curse our drum major for walking over to check our section on the one measure we didn't know!) and that was that. We left that rehearsal and came back to TCC for our concert band rehearsal. That's when the day became eventful.
Halfway through the rehearsal the guy next to me gets a funny look on his face and says to me, "Huh. My mom just texted me that there's nickle to softball sized hail in our area." This is what threw me off because for our marching rehearsal it was bright, it was sunshiny, it was hot, and it would have qualified for a pretty nice summer day. With that thought in mind, I just dismissed what his mother had sent him and figured she was insane. Then we wrapped up and everyone was overjoyed and started leaving. Yaaaay! I open the bandroom door to step out into the hall so I can put my bassoon up and look out the double doors leading outside.
It looked like it was about 9 at night. It was obviously raining so I paid no heed and continued to put my bassoon up (I still don't know if I managed to swab the wing joint or not, I was just so distracted). I finished that, jammed it in my locker, and went back to where the bandroom doors are and sat on a bench with my buddy Tyler. We discussed getting food and thought that it was a good idea and proceeded to head towards the exit.
The way the doors are set up is you have a hallway that connects to an antechamber through solid metal double doors surrounded by tiny panes of glass that you can't really see out of. The antechamber itself, however, is almost nothing but glass on the front. So we opened the metal doors and just kinda sat there in shock at just how much rain was coming from the sky.
I wouldn't have called it "storming" so much as I would have called it "apocalypting". Sheets of rain (pretty much solid sheets) were coming down, and the sky was regularly alight with lightning, the peels of thunder that followed shaking the building. So we just kinda stood there in awe, each of us thinking, "Huh... I wonder how we'll get to food now."
Long story short, we didn't. Long story long...
It started when a group of us were just standing there in the room, watching it rain. It was my buddies Tyler, Ricky, Jennifer, Amy, three people I don't know, and myself. The entryway has a double door leading outside across the pair leading inside, an elevator in the back corner, another set of doors next to that leading out to the side of the building, and a staircase on the side opposite that. The wind was gusting so hard that those doors leading to the side were blown and held open, and out of curiosity we decided to go check it out. Curiosity would be my downfall this day.
The way our buildings are laid out there's a second story walkway connecting the music building to the math and science building in a rough z shape. Under that walkway is a paved path that follows it. Well we noticed that the wind was blowing the rain straight into the lower walkway and that anyone walking under it wouldn't be saved any wetness at all. At this point I said, "I wonder how wet someone would get if they ran under it." Then came the playful shoves towards it and encouragement from just about everyone present to do it. Not being one to cave into peer pressure I removed my shoes first.
What followed was a comedic dash from the double doors of the music building along the concrete path (which was filled with water about ankle deep and was slipperier than something very slippery) to the double doors of the science and math building. I wasn't timed and I'm not sure how long it took, but I did make it and proceeded to enter the building absolutely soaked. Not a single inch of me was dry and thanks to the campus' super awesome air conditioning I also realized I was really freakin' cold. I walked through the hall of that building into the larger main hall, up the stairs, back down the same hall on the second story, and through the walkway to the music building, all while receiving the, "Dear God I'm glad that's not me..." looks from various people waiting the storm out in the math and science building. Walking down the stairs to the entryway we had been previously standing in I was greeted with cheers and applause and a brief comment wishing me luck finding my shoes. Finding my shirt to be colder than I could bare, I decided to take it off, and apparently my common sense was in the breast pocket. Shortly afterwards Amy and our band director both walked through the entryway to head outside and noticing me soaked, with a towel, without a shirt, looked at me as though I was insane. Probably fitting.
Next came a dare to go out the front doors, down the sidewalk to the closest car (about 30 feet) and run back to see how long it would take me. It didn't take just a whole lot longer from that idea being put forth for it to be realized in the span of about 15 seconds. Luckily people were willing to hold the door open for me, because to coming to a dead stop would have been impossible. And it was. I came through the double door, onto the floor mat, past it, onto the tile, grabbed the handicapped rail by the inside door and slid to a stop. Making mention that I had a towel and spare shirt in my car, another trip was suggested to go grab them, which I also did unwaveringly. As I reached the building again I tossed the backpack containing both items onto the bench, quickly unzipped it, and started toweling off before realizing I had my swim trunks with me as well.
Another dare was posed that I go out to the pond (about 100 feet from the side doors, and the trip consists of a flooding field, a flooded road, and some of the mushiest grass right next to the pond). I quickly pulled an about face, walked into the restroom, and came back out with my swimming trunks on, ready and willing to make the trip in as little time as possible. Voicing mild disdain for the notion, one of the gentlemen I don't know by name volunteered to go with me, and so we made it a race. We gathered on the concrete by the side door and readied ourselves to take off. Someone gave us a count and when they said "Go!" we went. Taking off almost as fast as possible we waded through a field (which we sank into above the ankle), across a flooded road (also ankle deep but with a potentially nasty half-foot step from the curb on either side ), and through the mushiest of grasses that lay right along the pond's edge. I got there first, just tapped the pond with my toe, and took off back towards the rest of the group. As it turns out, to run through a flooding field, across a flooded road, through the ooshie-mushiest of grass, touch a pond, and back through gooshy grass, a flooded road, and a muddy field takes all of about 35 seconds.
Afterwards we decided in our out-of-breath states that we'd wait a few whiles before attempting any more daring runs outside. In this time span I decided it was in my best interest to mess with Jennifer in any way possible, including (but not limited to) attempted soaking wet hugs, attempted kicks with muddy feet, attempted pushing-outs into the rain, throwing my wet towel at her, and various other ploys. I use the word "attempted" a lot there because in reality she's approximately the same strength as I am and was able to fend off most of my efforts. In discovering that last fact though, we did manage to get her to pick me up as though she were a proud groom and I her blushing bride.
The rest of the remaining half-hour or so we stayed there consisted of numerous Family Guy references, and my antics of running out to greet anyone on the sidewalk headed into the building in my trunks, shirtless, offering them a towel.
Pictures and videos will probably show up to embarrass me on Facebook soon.
After we all decided to head our separate ways I drove home listening to Kyuss and not seeing much interesting or exciting (other than more proof that people in Tulsa are idiots when it comes to driving) until I actually got home. When I got home my mother was already there and told me that I should probably come and take a look out at the back yard.
Our backyard goes from the house about 25 feet out, slanting down the whole way. After it hits our back fence there's a sudden 3 foot drop into a storm ditch that is used to channel flooding. I suppose it was doing its job properly considering the fact that water was almost up to the top of the drop off and for the houses behind us it was touching the foundations.
Looking down the yards towards Yale I noticed that the wooden privacy fence the last house had put up to kind of slightly keep them separated from Yale wasn't there anymore. In fact, a steady stream of cars had been coming down our street because the intersection where AMC's parking lot meets Yale had flooded and the flooding was bad enough that it knocked the fence down (uprooting the posts and actually breaking one of them) and was pouring like a waterfall into the storm ditch. I decided to go outside with my camera and look for awesome pictures of the storm and managed to find some as I went down the street into the neighborhood where the street was flooding. Two houses down from us it was ankle deep. A few more houses and it was up to the middle of my shins. A few more houses (the massive pond in the middle of the street) and it was knee deep with a stalled car that some kind person in a truck was attempting to winch out.
After heading down to one end and then the other I went back inside to finish writing this and as I look out the window behind me, I can see gray skies and a yellow tint to everything, my favorite kind of weather.
The massive rainbow is now covered by flashing clouds.
Pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/13647091@N03/sets/72157622304020715/
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