'the more I scream, the more it seems, that now I'm through, with the new you...'

Well the last week was fairly uneventful, as is this weekend so far. Most of my time is spent at work, or at home watching movies, and playing Oblivion or the Civilization: Revolution demo. I'm at work right now, bored as hell, and hope to get off in about an hour. Kaylea invited some people to hang out at her place tonight, so I'll probably stop by there and hang out for a couple hours.

It's Father's Day tomorrow, and Dennis' birthday, and somehow I'm going to have to find time to sleep, hang out with Dennis, hang out with Mike, and call my parents, all before going to work by 10pm again. Also need to pick up a copy of Metal Gear Solid 4, which came out Thursday. The reviews for it look pretty good, so hopefully it'll be something I can get in to.

50 more minutes... Yeah, I know you're not supposed to watch the clock... but there's literally nothing else to do right now... thank god I don't have to be here the full 8 hours...

Edit: Ugh... it seems they're not letting any of us go early :(

'I could never be the one that you want, don't ask. Well, here's to living in the moment, cause it passed...'

So vacation's been great so far. The day after Mike and I arrived, we took a tour of Whidbey Island where I grew up, along with my brother and Sabrina. To get there we took the ferry to Clinton, then drove north through Clinton, stopping off to get Pete some baking powder for heart burn, and getting some hot chocolate at a drive-in coffee house. We then drove to Greenbank Farms so my brother could pick up some wine. When we got there, we noticed they had some kind of swap meet or something going on in one of the buildings. We went in to check it out, and while looking around I spotted a tiny violin on one of the vendors tables. I went and grabbed Pete to show him, and he found out it was only $25. That was a steal, and he thought it looked pretty cool, and Sabrina used to play violin when she was younger, so he decided to buy it.

We left the farm, and headed north to check out Fort Casey. We walked through there a while, with my brother and I talking a little bit about the fort, and taking a few pictures here and there. After Fort Casey we drove toward Oak Harbor, taking the back road around by West Beach, and passing the most recent house that our parents and us had lived in before we left Oak Harbor. Driving downtown we passed our church and the first apartments we'd lived in when we first moved there, which at the time my dad only paid a mere $80 a month for a three bedroom, two bathroom, two story apartment. Then we drove down Pioneer Road downtown and decided to stop in at Mi Pueblo for lunch. It was dark and empty inside on the first floor, and I almost thought they might actually be closed or something, but we walked upstairs and someone who looked like he was about to fall asleep at the table he was sitting at, jumped up and helped us. The food wasn't bad. Your basic Mexican restaurant stuff.

After eating we went up the street to a house we'd lived in for a number of years which we refer to as 'The Big White House'. The house is well over a hundred years old. I think it was probably one of our favorite places to live just because it was kind of unique. We have a lot of good memories of living there. The compost bins my dad built were still in the back yard, though the apple tree looked like it had been recently trimmed back. We left Oak Harbor and went by Christian's Auto and Metal Recycling, where my brother and I had both worked at one point, though at different times. We drove by the Naval Base, then turned around and headed to Deception Pass.

When we got to the bridge, Sabrina stayed near the parking lot as she's afraid of heights, while Mike, Pete, and myself walked out on to the bridge and over to Canoe Island which is between the two bridges of Deception Pass. On our way across the bridge, Pete noticed a giant splash in the water below, and thought someone had just jumped off the bridge. Turns out there as actually a number of Sea Lions swimming directly below the bridge, and one had jumped out of the water and cause the splash. At first we thought they were seals, but they were much too large. After watching them for a bit, Pete decided to turn back and stay with Sabrina, while Mike and I walked down on to the Island. We took a few pictures and tried to get a better look at the Sea Lions, but we couldn't really see them from the angle we were at. We headed back to the car, and drove over the bridge to Fidalgo Island, and on to Mount Erie. When we got to the top, it was much too cloudy for a good view of Puget Sound. We took a few pictures anyways though. Finally the tour was over, and we headed back to Seattle via the I-5 freeway over the mainland.

The next day Mike, Peter, and myself headed to the Cascade Mountain range, while Sabrina stayed in Bellvue to pack and do some cleaning. We drove up to a campground that we used to camp at frequently called Colonial Creek Campground, which is next to Ross Lake. The campground had changed quite a bit since I'd last been there, but most of it was exactly the same as it had been for decades. We left and drove up to Washington Pass to check out the snow. None of us had brought any boots or anything so we couldn't really go in it. That was the end of the trip though, and we headed back to Seattle.

The next morning I got a phone call early in the morning from my parents. My dad said that they were out of power because it had started snowing the day before around noon, and hadn't stopped since. At the time of the phone call they were up to six inches, with no sign of stopping. This is pretty much exactly what my brother and I had hoped for, minus the lack of electricity of course. Still, I wasn't that worried, as we had at least a nine hour drive to their house in Hamilton, Montana, and we weren't even planning on leaving Seattle for another three hours or so. My dad recommended I get chains for the rental, so while everyone was still sleeping, I drove to Les Schwab and picked some up, making sure I'd be able to return them if they were never used. Filled the car up with gas, and went back to Pete's house. We packed up the car, hit up McDonalds for breakfast, and were on the road by 9:30am. The mountain passes were all clear, so the chains stayed in their bag. Only a couple miles from Hamilton there was a bad accident and we had to turn around and take a different, much slower route. We stopped in at Hamilton to pick up some things for my mom at the store, and made it to their house by 9:30pm MST, so all in all, an 11 hour trip.

When we got to my parents, the power was still out, and it stayed out all until the next morning when finally it came back on. The rest of the week went well. Most of the time we stayed inside, with temperatures constantly dropping, at one point even hitting 0 degrees Fahrenheit during the night. To keep entertained we watched movies, TV series on DVD, played video games, and even did some snowboarding on the hill next to the house. Thanksgiving came and my Uncle Jim and Aunt Gidget came to have dinner with us. That Saturday we took a tour of my dad's new workplace at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in Hamilton. Finally on Sunday it was time to head back to Seattle. The trip back didn't seem to take quite as long, I think only 9 or 10 hours. The passes were a little more icy than they were the first time through, but there was still no need for the chains, and I returned them the next day before taking the rental back. Speaking of the rental, we'd tried to get a discount on it by going through our friend Justin, who works as a concierge at a local hotel, but when I returned the rental, it apparently didn't get applied, and it ended up costing me nearly $500 for 10 days. Still, that's pretty much what I'd expected to pay going into it, so no big deal.

It's now been about 5 days since we got back. Much of the time has been spent at my brother's house playing Guitar Hero 3 and Assassin's Creed, though I did manage to go out to see Beowulf 3D at the local IMAX along with Clarence and his girlfriend Niessa, which was pretty interesting. Monday before Mike went back to Phoenix, we went downtown and walked around Pike Place Market, and later that night when Sabrina was driving me home, we got into a car accident when her car was rear-ended. Thankfully nobody was hurt, and the girl that hit us actually stopped, and had insurance. Also ended up playing pool at a dive bar up the street called Piper's a couple times. This weekend I'll be heading to Sabrina's parent's house while Pete is introduced to them. They're having enchiladas apparently, so I'm really looking forward to it :P Sabrina and I went Christmas shopping today. I didn't buy anything, just came along to get out of the house and keep her company.

Yesterday my dad called and said my mom was going in for open heart surgery today, which took us all by surprise. Apparently she hadn't been feeling well, and her temperature had risen to 105, and heart was beating very fast. The doctors discovered a hole in her heart, with an infection nearby, which had spread into her blood. The surgery was successful, and they replaced one of the valves in her heart. She'll have to be on IV antibiotics for the next six weeks.

That's all for now, other than Niickiey text messaged me a couple times. Once the night I first arrived in Seattle, wishing me a fun vacation and happy Thanksgiving, and another on Thanksgiving, saying Happy Thanksgiving. I didn't reply to either, as much as I was tempted to. At first I was angry, then the same old thoughts of wanting answers came up, but I ignored them as best I could. If she wants to talk, she can apologize first, then I'll think about it; but honestly, that's not likely to happen.

Pictures of the vacation so far can be viewed here.

'Hold me now I need to feel complete... Like I matter to the one I need...'

One more day... One more day until I finally leave for Washington. It's been one crazy long month to get through, let me tell you.

I've been on an insane spending spree lately. I racked up more than $5,000 in credit card debt in the last couple months, thanks to a number of things. Namely big purchases such as my new California King bed, and a weekend or two ago I bought two laptops for $350 each, and two HD-DVD players for $99 each at a 'Pre-Black Friday' sale at Wal-Mart. One of the HD-DVD players was for me, one laptop was for Stacy, and what was left over was to sell to whoever wanted it. I got rid of the HD-DVD player, but the laptop has yet to sell. I can't sell it on eBay because I don't have enough time before I have to leave on vacation, so it'll be going back to Wal-Mart for my money back. My car was a big part of the debt as well, racking up over $1400 between getting hit, and bad wheel bearings; not to mention the $160 for the car rental. There was also my new phone, a $170 phone bill, and the trip to Sedona, among many other things I charged to the card rather than my debit account.

I've bought a number of games recently as well, some of which I talked about in my last entry. Bought Ratchet & Clank and Guitar Hero 3; and will be buying Mario Galaxy and Assassin's Creed, hopefully both today. My financial problems aren't going to be fixed anytime soon with the trip to Washington which includes a $500 car rental, gas from WA to Montana and back, and then Christmas is right around the corner. I won't be buying gifts for my family this year, just as I didn't last year. It costs so much to visit them I figure that's their Christmas gift anyways, lol. I wouldn't know what to get even if I did have money.

So anyways, as always, I'm really looking forward to this trip; as is my best friend Mike who's coming along for a little over a week of it. I was looking up the weather for Montana for when we'll be there, and as luck would have it, the day after we arrive, the temperature drops more than 10 degrees from the previous day, for highs in the low 30's, and low's below 20 degrees Fahrenheit, for the entire week. Supposedly it will be snowing all week as well. With those temperature's that's certainly possible, but we'll have to wait and see if it's just a few flakes, or a blizzard. I'm kind of hoping for blizzard early on, then flakes after... I'd love to have a lot of snow, but I want to make it back to Seattle as well, lol.

Haven't really done much these last couple weekends. Just hung out with friends mostly, played lots and lots of Oblivion and Guitar Hero 3. No new pictures to post, though there should be a lot while I'm on vacation.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading

'There's truth in your lies, doubt in your faith, all I've got's what you didn't take...'

So this weekend I slept a lot, played a lot of video games; namely Oblivion for PS3, and FF: Tactics for the PSP; went to the Arizona State Fair with friends, watched a lot of American football, and unfortunately, did not work any overtime.

I also got my car back yesterday. The repair work looked fantastic. The back left side of my car looks brand new. They even fixed my driver's side door, which had been catching on the sill whenever you opened it, and had become incredibly annoying. Unfortunately, in repairing the side panel, they'd somehow caused the seatbelt not to retract all the way.. so I've basically traded one annoyance for another; but the door was more annoying I think... It also seems that the weatherstripping has ripped off slightly from around the drivers side window, and what used to be a slightly audible hiss, is now much louder. Need to try and find out if that's easily repairable.

My PS3 Hard Drive extender finally came in, I think 3 weeks after ordering, which is a little ridiculous. I dropped by Fry's Electronics and grabbed a 500GB SATA drive to use with it, and an SATA-to-eSATA cable. Using my Nextar external enclosure, I attached it to my PS3 after removing the 60GB 2.5" drive, and putting in the extender. 500GB PS3 FTW!

Also ended up buying the new slim PSP. It's crazy lighter than my old one, to the point where it feels like one of those cell phone displays that don't actually have anything inside them. Still, should be much easier to hold for long periods of time. Haven't tried TV-Out yet. I was going to trade the old PSP in for credit toward it, but it seems to be missing the serial # sticker, so I'm going to try and get rid of it on eBay or Craig's list. Seems like I can get around $100 or more for it if I can find all the accessories, etc, which is great, considering EB Games/Gamestop was going to give me $50-60.

Picked up Oblivion:GOTY. Traded in my 2 month old Oblivion that I paid full retail for ($60). They were going to give me a mere $9 for it! Thankfully the clerk said he'd give me $15 cash. Brand new the original game is now only $30, so 50% is a pretty decent deal, so I guess I can't complain. They're reselling them for $26.99 used.

Oh yes, and there are pictures from the fair. While there, there was an older lady who wanted to ride the ferris wheel, but they wouldn't let her because the rules are you must ride with another person. I was just sitting on a bench waiting for my friends to finish riding, so she asks me to ride with her. So we go up there and they tell her there are no tickets left on her card. Turns out she bought an 8 ticket card ($4), and already had ridden one ride. Well she thought each ride was a single ticket, but they're actually multiple tickets, usually 4 or 5. They told her she didn't have enough left on the card and she started getting upset, so Dennis let us use his card.

Pictures

'You breathed, then you stopped... I breathed, then dried you off... and tonight, I feel, feel like more...'

I love Labor Day. Had an awesome 3 day weekend thanks to deciding not to work any of it, though now that I look back, I probably should've at least signed up for Monday night... anyways...

Niickiey (the girl I'm seeing) and her friends, Krysten and Ashley, came over Friday morning around 7:30am. Niickiey and I had actually gone and bought all the food the night before so we wouldn't have to do it that morning. So while Niickiey made pancakes, her friends and I played games on the Wii. They were there for quite a while; Ashley left at like 10 to go to school, but Krysten and Niickiey were there until noon or so when they had to leave to go to a tattoo shop with another friend of theirs.

The next day Niickiey came over with her best friend Alicia. We played more Wii, though Alicia didn't want to play, she was just laughing at us the whole time cause she'd never seen anyone play a Wii before and as many of you know, things can get a little crazy. Their friend Daniel came over and while I was showing him how to play, Niickiey and Alicia went and got us some ColdStone ice cream, who oddly didn't have any flavors that anyone of us wanted, including vanilla. Then we ended up going Cosmic Bowling until like 2am which was pretty fun. We didn't know what to do after that, and nobody wanted to go home, so we went back to my apartment and watched Reservoir Dogs. Daniel left afterwards, and Niickiey and Alicia stayed the rest of the night. I couldn't get to sleep at all because Niickiey and I were sleeping on the couch and not in the most comfortable position, and she didn't want to sleep in the bedroom because she didn't want to leave Alicia alone, which was weird cause we'd be 20 feet away... Finally around like 6am we went in the bedroom, but I still couldn't sleep, I guess just because I'm still not used to sleeping with someone else. Hopefully I can get rid of that soon... Alicia left around noon, after which I attempted to have some fun with Niickiey, and after wrestling with her for like half an hour, I gave up. I asked her why she had to be so difficult and she said I had to work for it, and asked me "haven't you ever had to work for it?" to which I didn't answer, lol. At the time I honestly did think she was being difficult, since all the wrestling led to nothing, but later I figured out that she just didn't want to be considered 'easy', which is fine with me, cause even wrestling is better than nothing at all.

That night I went to dinner with Stacy at Chili's, and then we played pool at Santizi Brothers. Monday I went to Dennis' for a barbecue. Was supposed to go to the movies later that night with Mike but he ended up canceling, so I think I went home and played Metroid, which is pretty good so far, and I might end up buying it instead of Lair/Warhawk, or at least in addition to it.

Didn't do shit today except play more Metroid and sleep.

Looking forward to next weekend (15th/16th) because a co-worker's birthday party is that Saturday night. Last year we had a fucking blast, and all the same people look to be coming this year, to the same place, so hopefully it'll be good times as well. Then the next day is the Seahawks/Cardinals game. My friend Ian from Washington (now lives in Long Beach, CA) is flying over to check it out along with myself and Dennis. A bunch of other friends will be there to, but not sitting with us.

'I cannot believe we'd ever die, for these sins, we were merely freshmen...'

Well, it's been sort of a roller coaster of a weekend for me. It started Friday night, when DJ got a call here at work around 3am from Dennis, that his (Dennis') dad had stopped breathing. He'd been in the hospital since before Christmas due to his foot being amputated because of diabetes, and his health had progressively deteriorated since then. Dennis was on his way to the hospital when he called DJ, but not long after, he called again to tell DJ that his dad didn't make it. Both of us were taken completely by surprise, as I'm sure Dennis and his family were as well. Although I knew his dad was in bad shape, I never thought it was anything the doctors didn't have a handle on. I took my break about half an hour later, and called Dennis, but all I could say was that I was sorry. It was really hard for either of us to talk, so we kind of sat in silence for a bit, and eventually he told me that they weren't letting them see his dad yet. After that he told me that he'd talk to me later.

Saturday was a lot better. I'd originally planned on going to dinner with a friend, but those plans pretty much fell through, so I decided to go to a birthday party for Stacy's sister, as she'd invited me a few weeks ago. I'd only met her sister once, like four or so years ago when I'd been living with Stacy and Stefanie, but I had nothing better to do, and at least I could hang out with Stacy for a while.

So I got to the place where the party was being held. It was called the "F.O.P. Lounge", and basically its a bar for police officers (F.O.P. standing for Federal Order of Police). When I got there, everyone was sort of standing around talking, waiting for Laura (Stacy's sister) to arrive. Once she got there, we all quickly moved into a back room until she came in, and everyone yelled 'surprise', but she'd already figured it out after seeing her dad's SUV in the parking lot.

For the next hour Stacy, her dad and myself just sat and talked and watch people sing karaoke. We also looked through the song book to see what they had available. Stacy was planning on singing a couple songs, but karaoke isn't for me. After a while, Stacy got a phone call. When she hung up, she told me that Brandee had just got off work, and was going to try and get a ride to the party. I wasn't too thrilled about this at first, as I hadn't shaved in a couple days, and I don't do very well around people. Stacy tried to reassure me that the 'rugged' look looked good on me, and that I probably didn't have anything to worry about anyways, as she probably wouldn't be able to get a ride...unless I went and picked her up.

Well, after a few minutes of thinking about it, I tried calling her, but no answer. So I text messaged that I heard she needed a ride, and would be willing to pick her up. She replied asking if I was serious, and that she'd feel really bad, but I told her I didn't mind at all, and was on my way.

So I left the party and headed to where she works, though she was actually at a bar next door. I picked her up, and she asked if we could go by her house so she could change, as she was still in her work uniform. So we drove to her house, and then back to the party, talking quite a bit on the way. So, to make this already long story a bit shorter, I didn't talk much to her while at the party, partially due to the noise; however, I did end up singing karaoke , without even getting pressured into it; though it was partially in an attempt to try to get Brandee to sing something, which failed . I know you're all interested as to which song I sang, so the song is 'The Verve Pipe - Freshmen'. I actually submitted another song to sing, this time 'Linkin Park - Papercut', at the time, not remembering how crazy fast it is, so I'm glad we ended up leaving before my turn came up, lol. Because my voice is so deep, Stacy and her sister wanted me to sing 'Crash Test Dummies - Mmmmm Mmmmm'. I haven't heard that song in years though, so another good reason we left

Brandee's sister had called her and told her to come over to her new house, so I drove her there, and on the way we talked a lot more, about all sorts of things like music, food, etc. Stuff I probably should've saved for Wednesday when we go to dinner (the previous date didn't end up happening), so better think of other things . Turns out we have really similar tastes in music, which didn't surprise me much until she said she was into electronic music as well, and had even been to some of the same shows I was at, such as when Paul Oakenfold played at the closing day of Club Freedom downtown. She's also a big fan of World of Warcraft and Diablo II, though not a hardcore gamer or anything. She also loves breakfast, so, providing there's a second date, I'm thinking of going to breakfast rather than dinner, since we're both more available in the morning anyways.

So I dropped her off at her sisters and drove home, and then browsed the net and played FFXII until five in the morning when I went to bed.

Sunday I went to lunch with Mike and Tiffany, and then we went and saw the film 'Smokin Aces', which I liked quite a bit. It's a really crazy film that you'd probably enjoy if you like films such as 'Snatch', etc; though it's not like Snatch aside from the violence and the number of characters in the movie. After the movie I went home to get a couple hours of sleep in before heading to work.

I filed my taxes last week, and should be getting about $1,000 back from Federal, and $1,500 back from State. $1700 or so will go to Dennis for the PS3/Wii/HDTV, and the rest will go to my escalating credit card debt (about $6,500), in an attempt to try and get rid of it by the end of this year.

Sorry for the length

'Today is the greatest, day of them all...'

I never thought this day would come so fast



Sorry Wii, you may be taking a back seat for a little bit... at least he's nice and warm.

'You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution...'

This Christmas just got a whole lot more fun...

'All is numb, I've been lost too long...'

Ok, I realize not all of you want to read a lot of minor details, so for those people, here's the summary of last night....

- Went to a club for a co-workers birthday
- Lots of alcohol involved
- I actually danced for the first time in my life
- Went to hang out at a friends mom's house afterward until 5 in the morning where someone gets naked in the pool, someone else throws up all night, and being the only one sober, I get to take in all the details, most of them written below.

Now either read the details, or skip to the bottom rule below that start out what happened today, which is quite a bit shorter.

---

So last night got a little crazy. I'd been invited to go to a club in downtown Tempe, called Grahams Central Station, for a co-workers (Shawn) birthday party. He'd rented a limo, and was going to go around and pick everyone up in it on the way to the club, but I decided to take my own car, that way I could come and go on my own schedule. Also picked up a few friends (who also work with me) on the way (DJ, Daniel, and Alicia). When we got there, we couldn't find anyone, so we walked around forever trying to find them. The club is pretty big, as it's four different sections, one for hip-hop, one for country, one for misc (rock, oldies, hip-hop, etc), and a kareokee room. Finally the people that came in the Limo all showed up (Shawn, Lisa, Nicola, Marquis, and Yvette) and we found them in the hip-hop room, where we pretty much stayed at the rest of the night.

So everyone's drinking and talking etc, and Lisa starts trying to get me to go and dance, and this is after I'd told her the previous day that I wasn't going to, etc. So I keep telling her no but she wouldn't give up and she grabs my arm and tries to drag me out onto the dance floor. So anyways, I figured it'd be less embarrassing to just go and dance than to try and fight with her about it, so she starts teaching me how to dance, since I've never tried before, only we're not dancing how everyone else is cause she starts out with basic stuff like steps like it was country line dancing or something, but then on to more... intimate (?) moves, pressing her body against me, so I can feel what she's doing, etc, and try to follow it. Having an attractive woman's moving her body against yours certainly helps take your mind of the fact that you feel like a complete idiot. Sometimes she'd cover my eyes with her hands, I guess in an effort to get me to concentrate on how she was moving, etc. Not sure if it helped me dance, but it was kind of hot, lol. Anyways, after my first "lesson" she got me to go back out two other times, with less resistance on my part, and I definitely had fun doing it, however, I still felt like an idiot, especially when she would move away and try to get me to dance on my own.

The club closed around two in the morning, and Alicia called her mom, and said we could all go over to her mom's house to hang out. Most everyone piled into the limo, but Daniel (Alicia's husband) said Alicia had to ride with me to make sure I got there ok, although I already knew how to get there. Alicia and I arrived well ahead of the limo (I have kind of a heavy foot) and so we waited out front for them. The limo finally arrives about 15 minutes later, and we open the door to find Shawn sprawled out on the floor in the back of the limo, passed out. We wake him up and help him out of the car, and he can barely stand, so Daniel and I stood behind him, trying to hold him up. Everyone's kind of randomly talking and laughing for like 20 minutes, and the limos still there, and eventually we decide that Shawn needs to go home, so we tell the driver to take him home, and Yvette and Marquis say they're going home to, so they hop in the limo as well. They argue with the driver a bit on how much time they have left, but eventually they take off.

Then I find out Nicola's getting worried about getting a ride home, and she's on the phone with her (ex?) boyfriend trying to get him to come and pick her up but she doesn't have a clue where she's at, so I give her the address and directions, and offer her a ride home, but I think she wanted to go home immediately, so she kept talking on the phone. We go inside the house, and out into the backyard where there's chairs and a pool etc. Daniel tries to dump a bottle of water on Lisa. Nicola's still on the phone. Someone suggests we all get in the pool, but nobody wants to be the first one in, everyone wants to make sure everyone else is going to get in to, and nobody has swim suits except Alicia who borrowed some shorts from her sister. I don't want to go in at all, and Lisa says she's not going in if I don't go cause she didn't want to either, so everyone starts trying to convince me to go in but without a pair of shorts, it just wasn't going to happen; though, for a minute, I considered just saying fuck it, and jumping in, but my boxers arn't exactly tight around my waist, and I don't think they'd stay on too long in a pool, lol.

So Alicia and DJ get in, and Daniel almost does, but then comes back and grabs Lisa to try and drag her in, but Lisa grabs me by my front pants pockets (I'm sitting in a chair) and this would've created a pretty interesting picture had someone thought of taking one, anyways, I tried prying her hands from my pockets, which wasn't easy, but finally got her to let go of me, but both her and Daniel flew back onto the ground and into a plastic bucket filled with empty beer cans. So that ended that (for the moment anyways). After a few minutes Daniel went onto the side of the house and started throwing up pretty bad. While he was back there, DJ and Alicia are still trying to convince me and Lisa to get in the pool, and start giving us shit about not going along with the idea. Lisa mentions that it's not like anyones naked or anything, and says if they get naked she'll get in. So then a couple minutes later, after more arguing, DJ slaps his wet boxers on the side of the pool and says now that he's naked, she has to get in. So now everyones laughing and Lisa says she's not getting in, and goes around the side of the house to see if Daniels ok, cause he's been throwing up for the last 30 minutes or more, and DJ puts his boxers back on and him and Alicia get out of the pool. Nicola comes out from inside the house, grabs her purse, and leaves. We think she was mad, but we're not sure why...

Then Lisa and Daniel come back around from the side of the house. He looks ok, and is smiling and everything, and his eyes are barely open cause he's so wasted. Then all of a sudden he grabs Lisa and starts pulling her toward the pool, and then Lisa grabs me, and I grab a wooden post that's holding up the porch awning and Lisa locks her arms around my waist, and everyone else is pulling Lisa trying to get her in the pool, but its no use, and they finally give up. Eventually Daniel goes back on the side of the house and starts throwing up some more, and Alicia and DJ go over to see if he's ok. Lisa and I just sit on the porch talking about dancing and other things. Finally, around five in the morning, we leave Alicia's mom's house. Alicia and Daniel stay there, and I take Lisa and DJ home, stopping to get something to eat on the way. DJ's girlfriend calls right before we get to her house, wondering why he's not home yet. I drop him off, go home, and go to bed for 4 hours, since i'd woken up right before going to the club anyways, I wasn't real tired.

---

So then today I went and exchanged my DS Phat for a Onyx Black DS Lite. This thing is so much better looking than the original DS. EB Games has a deal going on where you trade in the old DS for the new one, and get it for only $70, which is nearly half price, and a hell of a lot better deal than I thought I was going to get. Also picked up Starfox Command for it, and pre-ordered the collectors edition of FFXII for the PS2. On the way home I picked up some Chipotle for lunch, and went to Safeway. Tried calling Mike to see if he and Tiffany wanted to hang out, but they were up in Payson visiting his mom. I have softball at 6pm tonight. Hopefully I do just as well (or not any worse) than last time. My brother called today to recommend the movie "It's all gone Pete Tong". (IMDB) Anyone ever heard of it?

'und keine eier...'

Well, I think my streak is wearing off... This weekend had the potential to be great, and it ended up only about average, though I did have a lot to do, so I suppose that's better than just sitting around all weekend.

Saturday I went to softball practice in the morning. Yeah... decided to play softball, which is like the first sport I've played in at least 15 years or more. I need the exercise, and it's something to help get out of the house, etc. Practice was ok I guess. When I first got up to bat I was actually hitting pretty good for the first 5 or 6 pitches, then I just kept missing them one after another. I'm not sure if I got too cocky or was just trying to swing harder or what.

Later that evening I went to see Tool play at Cricket Pavilion. Tool has been one of my favorite bands for years, so I was really looking forward to this concert, but unfortunately, was disappointed in the end. We got into the venue just in time for Tool to take the stage. It was just me and DJ this time. Dennis was off in Flagstaff for his and Nicole's Anniversary. Anyways, when Tool came out on stage, I was pretty hyped up, along with everyone else, and then partway into the 2nd song some idiot threw a plastic water bottle and it hit Maynard right in the head, and he walked off stage. The band kept playing though. I don't even know if they were aware what had happened actually, except they must've known something was up cause he wasn't on stage anymore. After they finished that song (which I believe was "Forty-Six and Two") they started the next, even though Maynard was still off stage. Didn't matter much to the crowd, cause they started singing it themselves! Anyways, on the last verse of the song, Maynard came back out and started singing again, which was a big relief cause I thought for sure they were going to stop the concert for a second there. Even though he came back though, I never really got hyped up the rest of the concert because they kept playing songs with long instrumentals in them, and/or songs that weren't really big hits. In fact, I don't think they played any songs off their first two albums at all, even though they played for two hours.

The next day I hung out with Mike & Tiffany. Went to the mall for a little bit, then Chipotle for lunch, then back to Tiffany's parents house for a little while. Wasn't there for very long before I had to go pick up DJ for softball. Didn't do terribly bad for my first two games. Hit the ball 3 out of the 5 times I was at bat, though two of them were caught, but that's still better than striking out, which is what I was pretty much expecting to do.

Yesterday (Monday) I pretty much just sat around watching movies and playing Oblivion. Got a registered letter from the IRS telling me I owe them money, and they're going to repossess my car if I don't pay them $1.5k in the next 30 days. Thankfully I just happen to have some extra money. I was kind of hoping to be able to hold out until February, and just have them take it out of the taxes they're going to owe me, but I guess I won't get that lucky.

Stacy called in the afternoon to say hello, cause we haven't talked in a while, and as per usual, she didn't talk much. Even when I was telling her what I'd been doing lately, she didn't really sound interested in continuing any conversation I tried to make, which is why I wonder why she bothers calling to begin with. Talked to Stefanie again as well, albeit through text message still. I wonder how long she's going to keep this up... maybe she's wondering the same thing about me, heh...

John's car get's an unwanted paint job...

So, this isn't exactly what I wanted to blog about, but as it just happened, and I'm still a bit annoyed by it, I will. Got off work early tonight to come home to cracking sounds right outside my car as I'm driving up to my apartment complex. At first I thought some idiot threw fireworks in the road and/or at my car, but once I was parked, and went to look if any damage had been done, I was unfortunately, or fortunately, wrong. Turns out some idiots thought it'd be funny to shoot paintballs at passing cars in the alley behind the complex. They're idiots because it would've been quite a bit smarter to do it where you don't live, or even better, do it at random spots where your continually moving, and thus, harder to find. After getting a bucket of water, a couple wash clothes, and a towel, I went down to quickly wash off the yellow paint that was splattered all over the passenger side of my car. I'd only been directly hit twice, and I'm pretty sure at least one hit the street in front of my car, as there was paint splattered all over my front bumper as well. The paint came off surprisingly easy, which leads me to think that the companies that manufacture paint balls thought ahead and made it more of a thick colored water rather than actual paint. Either that, or after a number of incidences similar to mine, they changed it from standard paint. Anyways, I probably looked like an absolute idiot, washing my car at 2:30 in the morning. Took about 30 minutes to get all (hopefully) of the paint off. Right before I'd finished, the complex security officer rode by on his bike, and I waved him down and let him know about what happened. He went and checked it out, but didn't see anyone, but let me know the cops had been called.

Bad luck didn't stop there, however. I went back to my apartment to find the door locked. It's been broken for months, and I was just in my apartment 30 minutes earlier, but now all of a sudden the lock is working, and of course, I don't have my house key. So I call up the office, which is just voice mail at this time of night, and left a message that I'd been locked out, and then I waited for someone to get a spare key to unlock it for me. As the guy shows up about 10 minutes later, the security officer comes by and tells me another car just got hit right in front of the police, but of course, they didn't see it happen, or who did it. Even so, as I waited to get my key, I saw two cop cars driving around the parking lot, and all of a sudden about 5 or 6 shots could be heard. The cops stopped and got out, and it looked like they were looking around, but I didn't bother to go and see if they'd caught the people or not, for fear of retaliation if the idiots found out I'd reported them, and who I was; particularly since I'm pretty sure they live here.

Anyways, here are the pics of the damage, which was a lot worse than you can see here, as there was paint all over the side, and front of my car. You can only see where the balls actually hit in these pics though, as they were taken with my phone's camera, which lacks flash, and obviously isn't going to be the greatest at taking pics in low light. It completely skipped my mind to grab my DSLR... oh well, next time, LOL.



So, on with the rest of what's happened since my last blog entry...

My vacation's been approved, and after spending somewhere around $1,100 on repairs for my car, it should be ready for the trip. My bumper "still" has not been repaired, and I'm extremely annoyed that it's taken this long to get fixed. I'm going to call the body shop this week and try and find out what the hell is going on, but at this point, I'll probably have to wait until after I get back from vacation to get it fixed. My brother will arrive on Thursday, and we'll leave Friday, though I'm not sure what time yet. At first I thought it'd be best to leave at night, so we wouldn't have to deal with the Los Angeles traffic, but my dad said that since we won't really be driving "through" LA, I shouldn't have a problem at any time of the day. Night might still be a good choice, as we'd be going through the hottest part of the country without the sun beating down on us. Anyways, I imagine we'll figure it out by the time my brother gets here.

Lots of birthdays this month. Stacy's was the 8th, Dennis' was the 15th, Angi's was the 10th (I think?), Tami's was today, and Mike's is on the 26th. With all the birthdays, car repairs, and a very long road trip ahead of me, not to mention I haven't worked overtime for months until tonight, my bank account's looking a little thin, and my credit cards are maxed. Not a good position to be in. Sure, the trip is unnecessary, but I got the car all fixed up because of this trip, and I'm really looking forward to it, so I don't have any plans on backing out unless something serious happens in the next 6 days.

I've been sort of avoiding the girl from work a bit since deciding not to date her. We still talk when we see each other at work, and we've gone to a couple Arizona Diamondbacks games together, but haven't gone to dinner or anything like that. Stacy says I'm being a bit of a dick by not telling her that I don't want to date her, but in my opinion, as the idea of dating was never discussed in the first place, I don't really feel like I'm obligated to say anything. That'd be like having to tell every girl I started hanging out with that I didn't plan on dating them, which is ridiculous.

Been playing a bit of Battlefield 2 lately, and doing quite well at it. Playing on an unranked server, I was able to get the 2nd to top spot, and the game after hit the top almost immediately, and stayed there for the rest of the game. Because of it, I've decided to play on ranked servers in order to improve even further, as I'm sure those are more challenging.

On another note, I was recently able to get a hold of Stefanie. I'd text messaged her one day when it was raining a few weeks back, about how I loved rain, and she replied with "me too". We texted each other a few more times, and I found out that she was actually moving that day into a new place, so the rain wasn't really helping. She said she'd have to invite me over once she was moved in, but I took that part with a grain of salt. Still, I was thrilled to finally hear from her after 8 months or so. Hopefully I can salvage this friendship after all.

15 hours to wait!

It seems like a lifetime =(. I'll be picking up my PSP tonight at midnight. This means I'm going to get about 4 hours of sleep tonight, and it's going to cost me $25 to get a taxi back to my house, but it'll be totally worth getting it a day early; even if I have no games for it =/. I went yesterday and paid it off, but EB Games didn't have any of the 3 games I wanted (Ridge Racers, Wipeout Pure, and Untold Legends). They had RR and Wipeout, but only for pre-orders. God damn me...i figured it would be the systems that sold out, not the games, and so I didn't pre-order. I'll just have to wait for the weekend I suppose.

Apparently everyone's sold out of 1GB Memory Stick Pro Duo's as well, unless I want to spend $150+ on it, which is horrible considering most places sell it for ~$110-120. It sucks ass that Sony's forcing a 32MB stick on us, but I suppose I can use that strictly for save games. I'm really hoping that the Demo UMD that comes with it has at least one playable demo on it. I don't even care what game it is, as long as it's playable. I'd thought about getting Need For Speed Underground Rivals, but I read a review that said the car control was horrible, and that the slightest touch of the D-pad or analog stick sent your car slamming into the side of the wall. Mike Hill bought it though, so he's going to let me know how it is. I'm not too fond of the mere 20 cars it comes with either. I suppose I'm too used to the hundreds of cars in GranTurismo.

Speaking of which, apparently GT4 Mobile's been delayed until sometime in mid 2005. I've heard May from some forums, but when I asked the guy at EB Games, he said they didn't even have a date for it. GameSpot.com still says March 30th, and IGN just says "2005". Even GTA doesn't come out until April I think. I'll probably end up getting the 3 games I mentioned above though. Ridge Racers looks amazing, and I really want an RPG, and Untold Legends is the only one out at the moment, but it looks a lot like Diablo-esqe gameplay, so it should be fun. There's even random dungeons, and apparently thousands of items. By thousands of items, it's probably the same thing they did with Diablo, where different attributes "ie Sword of the Wolf" would give the item different properties, thus creating thousands of possible items.

I'm getting Wipeout because I liked the original one a lot, and apparently this one will have monthly downloadable content, adding a ton of gameplay. I'll need to buy a USB cord as well, because the PSP conveniently doesn't come with one. There's one that lets you charge it while it's plugged into USB though, for a mere $10, but currently it's only available in Japan. Hopefully shipping isn't too much. Why everyone else that made a USB cable didn't think of this is beyond me.

Done, and done...

Just finished my last night at JC Penney. I'm actually going to miss working there. Last week I was trying to think of a way to work part time at JCP while still working for Bowne full time, but it just wouldn't work out too well, especially not until I had a car. I'm extremely nervous about my new job. I had loads of job security at Penney's, and since I'd only worked at my first job (the one before JCP) for 3 months, JCP has essentially been my only job, so I'm not really sure what to expect at my new one. Hopefully everything will turn out as good as I hope it will though.

Attended the graduation of the girlfriend of a friend of mine. She graduated from DeVry University with a Bachelors degree in Electronics Engineering Technology. Some of you might remember that I originally came to Phoenix to go to DeVry. Anyways, the degree has a lot to do with computers, but my friend (Richard) said that she barely knows the basics about computers (she couldn't even help him install a fresh copy of WinXP Pro, which practically installs itself). He came up with a good analogy for it, saying that it was as if he learned how to tear apart an engine, and put it back together again, but didn't have a clue on how to change the oil =D.

Played GT4 at Dennis' house yesterday in 1080i mode. Makes quite a bit of difference in the quality of the visuals, and it comes really close to looking like the screens I posted in a previous blog entry. I wanted to try it in 480p mode as well, but didn't have enough time before we went to work.

GT4 Photo Mode

Messed around with the photo mode in GT4 today, and to my surprise, found out that it can save images to any USB device. So I popped in my external hard drive to see if it would work, and sure enough, it does! Here's a couple pics of my first car in GT4. It's a Mitsubishi 3000GT from the used car lot. Unfortunately they don't sell any brand new 3000GT's, so the VR-4 Twin Turbo is unavailable in this game =(.

Grand Canyon 01
Grand Canyon 02
Brooklyn 01
Japan 01

Polyphony Digital kept the feature that lets you transfer your A and B liscences from GT3 to GT4, and they even threw in the option of transfering up to $100,000 from your GT3 account as well, so you can get started with a fairly decent car. So far I haven't noticed a huge improvement in graphics quality, although if I put it side-by-side with GT3 I might be able to notice. I didn't even notice much of an improvement from GT2 to GT3 until I went back and played GT2, and it looked horrible =P. Also, there's options to play GT4 in 480p and 1080i format if you have HDTV and the neccesary component cables. My friend Dennis has both, so I'm definately going to have to check the game out over at his place. As for the new physics engine, I can definately tell a difference from GT3, though I've yet to decide whether or not the new engine is better or worse. One thing I've really noticed is how much your car will tilt forward and thing back again when breaking. Also, when you hit something (ie a wall or another car) your vision is blurred for a bit, though IMO not enough to significantly distract you from driving well. One thing I'm really looking forward to is driving on the snow courses.

Edit: I just won an odd looking concept car from Toyota by winning the 4WD circuit, called a Triathalon Racing Car or something. Looks pretty cool, and is much better than the car I won from winning the Sunday Cup, but it doesn't turn very well, and my 3000GT matched it's time in a time trial.

TTRC 01
TTRC 02

Meh...

I've been meaning to upload pics of my vacation, but I'm too lazy. Maybe tomorrow....


....although, probably not, because GT4 comes out today, and it will take up most of my spare time. Horray! It does suck that there won't be an online mode until later in the year, but thanks to software such as XLink, I'll hopefully be able to play it online anyways =D. It's ironic that a few dedicated programmers can whip up a program that will let you play any LAN enabled video game, from any console, over the internet, absolutely free, and yet a multi-million dollar company such as Sony or Polyphony Digital can't seem to get it to work for one game, on one console, even with hundreds of programmers, and at least three years of development.

Christmas in November!

Listening to Audioslave (the whole album)

Got one of my Christmas presents already. My friend Dennis gave me a 3.1 megapixel HP Photosmart 435 digital camera. He gave it to me early because I'm going on vacation next week, and I would've asked to borrow his. This camera is actually better than his =P. Now I'll be able to include pictures with my occasional blog entries.

Been having fun with Half-Life 2. The graphics are amazing, and it runs surprisingly well on my comp for how good it looks. I think I like it better than Doom3 since it's not so god damn dark.

Yay, another weekend to be wasted...

Listening to Staind - Mudshovel
I'm Feeling - Tired

Weekends are far too short. They come and go as if they never even existed, and then the week seems to drag on forever. Ah well.

Some good news, got approved for yet another vacation. This time I'll be going to WA December 3rd through the 12th. My brothers 21st birthday is on the 5th, so I'm going up there as sort of a surprise. I just have to get a hold of his roomate without my brother knowing...which may be difficult. I can't believe how much vacation time I'm getting now. This will be my 3rd week of paid vacation this year O_O. My plane ticket was extremely cheap to, only $165 for round-trip.

Can't wait for next weekend. Me and my friend Dennis are thinking of waiting outside of a Circuit City so he can get his NintendoDS when it opens up on Sunday. Circuit City doesn't do pre-orders, and he's using a giftcard. Then we'll pick mine up at EB Games, and I'll kick his ass at Metroid.

I've about given up on Stefanie. She never comes through when we make plans to hang out, and she doesn't call to let me know she's not going to make it. She hasn't talked to Stacy since June or July, and they used to be really good friends. I don't know what the hell is wrong with her. One day she wants to get a house with me, the next she won't talk to me.