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| News of the Day Archive- November 1-10 |
| November 1/2- On Friday I woke up at around 11:30 at which time I got dressed and headed over to SpeedZone for work at noon. I got there and was given a drawer pretty quickly. The first couple hours of work went by relatively quickly so things were looking pretty good for the day. However, at about 2:00 things took a turn for the worst when time seemed to stand still. I passed the time by helping out customers that seemed to be pretty steady, though the park was not very crowded. I also talked to Jay the gametech when I could since it was better than just standing around by myself. Slowly but surely the time passed and 6:00 rolled around, so shortly afterwards Gina cashed out my drawer. When I was done with work I helped out a new hire make a nametag before clocking out and leaving. I was pretty hungry since I didn't have time to eat anything prior to work, so I made my way over to Del Taco since I had wanted it earlier. I got a Combo Burrito Combo with two tacos, and I took it home, where I ate it at the computer. It hit the spot, and I sat at the computer and watched some tv for the next few hours. My parents had come home from the movies at about 9:30, which was about the time I started watching a movie. At around 10:30, in the midst of my movie, I went over to SpeedZone to meet up with Big Chris and Shay. When I got there I looked for them, and even talked to Taylor for a couple minutes, still having not seen them, and after making a phone call, realized I had walked right past them. They were filling out applications to work there, so that is what they did for about ten minutes or so. When they were done with that, we weren't quite sure what to do, so we decided to pass the time by playing miniature golf. It had been a while since I had played, but I was still willing. After briefly talking to Paul, I went outside to meet up with Chris and Shay, at which time Shay extended a $1 bet on the game of seventeen holes. I agreed. After two holes I had a two stroke advantage, and kept it until the fourth hole, where I was even. The fifth hole was where I lost the lead, though it was the last hole that Shay saw it. After that he took a turn for the worst and was quickly down by five strokes. One hole later he was down by twelve by foolishly trying to hit a ball off of the grass. I never gave up the lead, and even got a hole in one on hole 15 I think it was. I ended up winning by about seven strokes. We turned in our clubs, and that was about the time that Shay and Chris decided they were going to leave, and it was only midnight. I had planned on staying until 1:00 to meet up with Gabe and Paul, so when they left, I stayed at "the zone". Rather than stand outside in the cold for an hour, I stuck around inside talking to Daylo and Taylor until about 12:30 when I went outside to talk to Gabe and Paul for the rest of the night. It was pretty dead for a Friday night, so for that entire half an hour they did nothing but talk with me, and even made a paper airplane from a SpeedZone poster. While they were closing up I went inside to wait for them because I was freezing, and they eventually finished. We went out to the cars where we were deciding what to do, though for a while everyone by me was on their phones. Paul's must have been important because he opted not to go to Denny's, so it was just Gabe and I that went to eat. We got there around 1:45. It wasn't too bad, though there were many pauses in the conversation, though I wouldn't classify them as "awkward pauses". The overall energy of the conversation was pretty low, but I think we were both just kind of tired. I got the Meat Lover's Skillet and it was alright, though I think I should have gotten the Club Sandwich, my favorite. We finished eating, and hung out in the parking lot for a few minutes before I came home. I fell asleep with the computer on at about 4:00. I woke up on Saturday at about 1:45 to the sound of my dad digging a trench in the front yard, with the help of my neighbors. I was supposed to help him with that, but I slept in. I ate a bowl of Golden Grahams, and sat online for a few minutes before my mom gave me the guilt routine. So I threw on some jeans, and brushed my teeth, before going outside to contribute to the trench. I started out moving grass chunks out of the way, before moving on to shoveling out the loose dirt from the hole. That's pretty much all I did, but there was a lot of dirt since the trench was pretty much the length of my front yard, while being about fourteen inches deep. My brother showed up at about 4:00 with his "S.O." (significant other) and they just sort of watched us do the work, along with my mother. I asked my brother to help, and he did for a short while, before getting distracted with conversation and he stopped. My dad and I continued to work away, and managed to get a lot of work done. Robert ended up helping out a little more, though not a whole lot, but I didn't really care. At about 5:30 I got dressed for work, and drove over to SpeedZone, a little tired from doing actual manual labor. When I got there I took over the gameroom, which I hoped would be easy. I wouldn't say it was particularly difficult, though I was kept relatively busy all throughout my shift. Although when I got to work my first order of business was to either get rid of my shift for tomorrow, or find someone willing to switch for a later one, so that I could help out my dad again with the trench. I was able to do so. In the gameroom time went by sort of quickly, though I think it's because I had a relatively constant flow of traffic. Though there were some down periods where I was able to talk to Gabe when he went on break, or Robert Taylor for a few minutes just as he was walking around, or the Chris' and Shay when they came to ask about jobs. At about 10:45 I took my break, and ordered some chicken fingers, which I ate in the breakroom. When I was done with my break things in the gameroom remained pretty tame, and I spent much of my efforts cleaning up the little that had to be done on operations side to help ensure an early dismissal. Around 12:15 was when I started hanging around redemption, which I had conveniently avoided all night because it was pretty crowded the entire time. Tickets were shredded and bagged, and we were getting ready to close. A little before closing time there was a little commotion that I completely missed, but apparently there was a confrontation between customers, and it got pretty tense. Why do I always miss these things? Well closing time came, and I had said earlier that I wanted to be done by 1:15, so we got rid of the customers at redemption, bagged the few remaining tickets, and closed up shop. When all was said and done, I clocked out at 1:16. A minute off, but not too shabby in my book. Gabe, and I hung out in the parking lot with Steve, who had shown up as well. After a few minutes in the parking lot we headed over to Little Chris' house where we started watching the movie Colors. That's about all we did, as I sat on some pad thing he had with my shoes off, I felt very comfortable. The movie ended at about 3:00 at which time we went outside and listened to the Burning Tree Projekt CD. It wasn't that great, but the chorus to Supernova remained pretty catchy. Shortly after that we all went our separate ways, and I came home where I sat online, and updated the neglected site. It's now almost 6:00 and I need to get some sleep. November 3/4- On Sunday I woke up early to help out my dad dig the trench that we were working on the day before. At around 11:00 I woke up and ate the huevos rancheros that my mother had brought for me from Taco Pub, then threw on some clothes and started working. He had made some progress in the time he started, and I began to help, so I just continued to help dig further into what he had done. Shortly after I began, my brother Robert showed up with what in essence is his son-in-law, John. They started off alright, but it didn't take long for them to start goofing around and not get any work done, which sort of made my dad angry. My dad and I dug around the water meter, and made necessary adjustments to the depth we dug to the day before. My brother and his friend started to dig around the water pipe near the house, since we had left that for last because we thought it would be easiest. Needless to say they didn't accomplish much, so eventually I went over and started to dig there. While we were digging, my neighbor came out, and sort of mumbled something. He's an old guy that I had never really talked to directly for aslong as I have lived there. He mentioned that he had an electric shovel, which sort of had us wondering what it looked like. Eventually he brought it out, but since he's an old guy it took him a long time, but we saw it. It basically looked like a jackhammer with a shovel on the end, but it helped out a little. That is, until my dad was using it and it all of the sudden stopped working. Luckily my neighbor didn't seem too upset because he figured it was just a blown fuse inside. A little later was around the time Robert's S.O. came with pizza, so he and John spent a while eating. Meanwhile I went in to change to clothes I was more willing to get dirty, because I would need to get on my knees to dig around the pipes near the house. Our old pipes were only about six inches below the ground, so we had to be pretty carefuly, and even when we exposed them we had to be careful not to hit them with the shovel or pick too hard. Well the dirt around the pipe was pretty muddy since there was a leak, so when I would use the shovel it would just stick to it, and had to be cleaned off. So that's why I got on the ground and broke up the mud with a small pick, so it would be easier to pick up with the shovel. Daylight was wasting, and so was my time helping because I switched my 1-8 shift to one at 6:00, so my dad wanted to try getting under the sidewalk before I left. So we hooked up the hose to a pipe with a nozzle on the end, and started to force the pipe under the sidewalk. That's how everybody said to get the hole underneath, so that is what we did. My dad was the one using the hose, while I tried to bail out the water from the hole, which was filling up quickly. The hole started off slowly, but as the ground became more and more saturated, my father made more progress. He started at about 4:40 doing that, and slowly but surely he got further under the sidewalk. Finally, at around 5:40 or so, he broke through, a little lower than anticipated, but it was pretty exciting to see the trench almost complete. There was still some digging to do, and it was dark by this point, but I had to hurry and get to work. I took a shower because I was pretty muddy after all of that, and somehow I managed to get to work on time. I was pretty tired when I got there, and luckily since it was a Sunday night things were pretty calm. I pretty much just stayed around redemption, while also helping out in the gameroom. I did not feel like being there, but I the thought of a nice paycheck motivated me. At redemption some white kids turned in a phone and started asking me if they got a reward for it. They kept asking, but since I was too tired to really care, I didn't let them bug me and just sort of had fun denying them. Overall the night wasn't too bad, but for a short while there I thought I would be closing by myself because the girl that was supposed to close with me called in sick, so they called in Candace to come in at 8:00, but by around 8:30 she wasn't there, so David said he would have to give me a drawer. He did, and not more than ten minutes after I used it, she showed up. Well at least I wouldn't be closing by myself. As far as the gameroom was concerned there was this guy sitting at Soccer Shot for my entire shift and at first he seemed cool, but then he just started bugging me. He just sat there and won about ten thousand tickets, which meant I had to constantly fix problems with the game, and fill the tickets. But other than that, things were alright. I'm glad that I ended up with the drawer because it meant Candace got to do redemption, and had to deal with that guy with ten thousand tickets. Things were pretty standard, and closing time came around, which was a welcomed sight. At closing time Candace and I got finished pretty quickly, because there really weren't too many customers at the end, and we were done with everything by about 11:10. When I was done I came home where I sat at the computer and joined a buddy chat that Tom had set up for the "usual gang of idiots" (a Mad Magazine reference). I was online for a while, but I was pretty tired, so going to bed was a welcomed sight. I woke up on Monday with the intention of going to class early and studying, but I put off getting dressed a little too long, and ended up leaving at about 8:45. I got to class about ten minutes earlier than normal, so I didn't get much studying done. Needless to say I went into my Philosophy test grossly unprepared. I showed up to class just as the teacher was handing out the test. The first forty percent was matching vocabulary terms with their definitions and I think I missed one or two at most. It was the short essay questions that were my demise. Of the six questions we had to answer, I only vaguely knew about two of them, and the rest I did my best to shovel it, and even left one blank because I couldn't think of anything remotely intelligent to put on the page. I was "finished" at around 10:30, so I walked to my car to wait for my next class, but not without getting another Pop Tart and cup of coffee. While waiting, I saw Nick, and started talking with him for a couple minutes before he went off to class. When I got to Sports Management AJ was walking from the door and said it was canceled. Considering he says that every class, Robert and I didn't believe him, and we checked for ourselves. Sure enough there was a sign in sheet where AJ misspelled my name. It's not "Anya" it's "Anaya". So it was 11:00, I didn't work until 2:00, Robert had a group meeting at noon, and AJ's skating buddy was most likely not even awake yet. So what to do? Well at Robert's suggestion we piled into his truck and drove over to Wendy's for some food. On the way there we were passing the fields next to Temple across from the school and we saw a cow laying down with two hooves sticking out of it's rear end. I guess that was the miracle of life at work. We went to eat where I got a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger, fries, chicken nuggets, and Coke. It was good, but by having the Pop Tart just moments before it was almost too much to handle. The three of us ate until about 11:35, at which time we went back to school where I picked up my truck and drove home. I took a slightly different route home just for the sake of doing so, and got there just a little after noon. That was about the time the plumber finished with the pipe, so I started helping my dad fill in the trench with dirt. I filled in the area around the water meter, and then helped out with some of the rest. At around 1:35 I decided to get ready for work, but after having some trouble putting back the shower head, I was barely starting to do my routine by about 1:40. I needed to shave so I did, and I must say that it felt good to go back to my regular razor instead of the highly overrated Mach 3. I finished that and took my shower, before getting dressed and heading over the SpeedZone. I got there and clocked in at 2:07, a mere seven minutes late. As I walked up Wendy said that she had just finished calling my house! I was only seven minutes late for crying out loud! So that made me a little angry, then she said that when she called my house my mom sounded "chipper" but she made it sound like it's a bad thing! What's wrong with being nice? I must say that I don't really like Wendy much, but since I work with her a lot I figure I shouldn't make the situation bad, so I tolerate it. But when she was telling me that she spent the entire morning stocking redemption because the day before the workers wiped it out, I felt little remorse. She left, and my routine of work began. However there were people there and I was kept relatively busy for the first part of my shift actually helping out customers. I did some cleaning, and talked with Jay the gametech to pass the time, as well as pretending to organize things. David showed up at about 4:00 so I was able to talk to him for a little bit, so that was alright. The last hour or so of my shift went by sort of slow, but I managed to get by. So at 6:00 I was expecting my reinforcements to show up, but there was nothing. I went along doing what needed to be done, and at around 6:15 Taylor showed up. David gave her a drawer and I cashed out mine, which was perfect. It would not have been had I not gotten wise and rounded the prices to even quarters via debit to debit whenever anyone wanted to add odd amounts of money to a card. So when I was done I talked to Taylor for a couple minutes before deciding to leave, but as I was walking away a lady asked if I could fix a game. Not more than five seconds after being approached by her, another guy asked for help. I finished helping them and went back to leave the keys, where Taylor was laughing at my misfortune. A couple people walked up to redemption so I helped them out since she was at her drawer helping people. When I was done helping them out, David had walked by and said he didn't care how long I stayed. I figured a four hour shift was barely worth my time so I would stay for a little longer, especially since the other person that was supposed to work wasn't there. So I helped her out for a little while until I figured I had milked the clock long enough and finally clocked out at 7:17 for a grand total of five hours and ten minutes. Not bad I suppose. I went outside where I was talking to Paul and Gabe at Slick Track. I was only out there for about ten minutes or so because it was pretty cold and I had worn shorts because it was sunny when I went to work. So I went back inside and said "bye" to Taylor when I got a call from Little Chris. I answered it then told him that someone wanted to say "hi" to him and handed the phone to Taylor. It was kind of funny because I think I caught him off guard. So I said "bye" and went home by a little after 7:30 where I ate some dinner that my mother had prepared. I ate, and sat at the computer for a little bit before leaving to 7-11. I bought a pack of gum which I sorely needed and some "dunkin' sticks" for later. From there I went over to Starbucks where I met up with Shay, Little Chris, Steve, and AJ. I didn't have a chair so I stood for the first part of the conversation, before going inside to get something. Rather than being fancy, I went for just a regular cup of coffee which I took outside and drank, and ate my "dunkin' sticks". Eventually a seat opened up for me and I took it from a neighboring table. Little Chris and AJ left, so the three of us remaining stuck around talking about various topics, though one that stands out was past Presidents from the twentieth century. It was interesting but I think the guys in the next table were mocking us, but I don't really care. We were eventually joined by Gabe and Paul at around 9:30 because they were sent home from work early. Paul was only there for about ten minutes though. Big Chris and even Sean managed to make it to Starbucks, and that was probably as large as the group got for the evening. We discussed various topics, though one heated was the exclusive membership in the dubbed "Midnight Society" which Shay seemed to disagree with (but it's probably because he's not in it!). Shortly after he left (thus proving why he is not) and those of us remaining were: Steve, Sean, BIg Chris, Gabe, and myself. It was really cold outside so Steve offered to sit in his house so without hesitation we all drove over. Once there we just sat around the tv and watched a Canadien music station. We pretty much just watched music videos for about an hour, while everyone was eating some cracker things, until around midnight everybody decided it was time to leave. Once I got home I sat at the computer and watched some tv. I talked to some people online, and though I didn't really do anything, still neglected to write the News which I did the next day. I finally went to bed at about 3:15. November 5- Today I woke up, and decided that I wasn't going to go to my Religion class so I went back to sleep. At around 8:45 I started getting up to get ready for my Biology class when I just decided not to. No particular reason other than being tired, so I went back to sleep and didn't wake up until about 1:45. When I did wake up I sort of just lounged around for a couple of hours before finally deciding to get dressed at around 4:00. I sat online for a while, then went on my parent's computer to utilize the DSL. While I was at the computer I started to write the News for Sunday and Monday, but just after I started I got a WAOL and it booted me off. Luckily I didn't get much done. So I hastily went back to my computer, and signed online, where I started writing the News of the day. I worked on it sporadically, with occasional distractions, until about 7:00. That was when, after my mother had kept reminding me, I punched out the various holes in my absentee ballot, and walked up to Blandford Elementary, where I excercised my civic duty as an American. I voted. However I sort of defeated the purpose of an absentee ballot by taking it to a polling place, but it kept me from waiting in line to vote. I was in the cafeteria for no more than thirty seconds. When I got home I finished writing the News which took me about another hour or so, as I watched some Fear Factor. That's pretty much all I did for the next few hours, was sit at the computer, and watch tv. I made a few minor adjustments to the site, but nothing worth noting. I talked to some people online, and even joined a chat made by Tom, which was joined by the likes of Gabe, Dennis, Shay, and Alfred, though most left pretty early. I spent some time working on the movie quote while talking to the group online. It's now about 1:15, and I'll probably be awake for about an hour longer before calling it a night. November 6- Today I woke up at about my normal time of 8:45 or so, but realized that my gas tank was dangerously low, so I would have to stop on the way to school. Because of that, combined with my laziness, I simply decided not to go to school for the second day in a row. So I went back to sleep for a few more hours until Robert called me at a little after 11:00 to tell me that Sports Management was canceled. I laid in bed a little longer, and finally got up, only to sit at the computer for an hour or so. At about 1:00 I decided it was about time to get dressed so I made a half-hearted attempt in doing so. I pretty much just lounged around the house until about 3:00 when I realized that my gas tank was not going to fill itself, so I drove over the hill to the Unocal 76 station on Whittier and Harbor, where I filled up my gas tank for $1.59 per gallon. It was basically at empty so it cost me just over $30. I drove back, and when I got home I had a sudden desire to play a little basketball in my driveway so I moved my mother's car, and made an attempt. It was pretty obvious that it had been a while since I last played, because I was outside for about twenty minutes, and only made about ten shots. Some I missed badly, very badly. Oh well. It wasn't long before I tired and came back inside to sit at the computer for a couple hours. At about 6:00 I ate dinner before heading over to SpeedZone for employee night with Gabe. I got there at 6:30 where I ran into Robert Taylor in the parking lot and he told me that The Strokes were there. It's always interesting to see a celebrity there, and I suppose I can add them to the list, only I could never have recognized them without being told. So after that I went to talk to Taylor Hooks, who I had worked with on Monday. On Monday I had gotten an employee card, though I never used it because I continued working until about 7:15, but I had even mentioned to Taylor that "what were the odds I would want to use it later in the week?". Of all weeks Gabe wanted to use it, so I was there, waiting for him, and at Taylor's suggestoin, crossing out my name from Monday, and rewriting it on Wednesday. So after about ten minutes Gabe showed up and we decided to play San Francisco Rush. We exchanged the lead a couple times until the end when I had a pretty good lead on him, but his car was just plain faster and he caught up. I should probably stop using the "beginner" car, it's just not fast enough. Then I started playing Star Wars, but Gabe kept saying how bad I was, and like a parent working on a science project, told me to move and he would finish up the game. He didn't do much better, but I made my way to the golf game. I played that for one hole, which I triple bogued, before heading outside for someone to get a smoke. While outside We watched a few people race on Slick Track (or should I call it Trax?) and when they were done we decided to get on. It was just Gabe and I, with Robert working so naturally we were on there for a while since there weren't very many people there to begin with. The track was probably the most slick I had ever been on, so I had some troubles, though Robert never had to come get me out. After about ten minutes Robert stopped the race and kicked out Gabe and I, which was sort of funny to pretend like we really did, but then it meant that he had to take the cars back in. We pretty much just hung outside talking to workers when Paul and Angela showed up, as well as Alfred a short while later. We were later joined by Big Chris who was done with his orientation, so we all watched Shay as he continued with his first day. We went inside for a few minutes, talking to Robert Taylor, and John who was tending bar, before Alfred and I went outside to see which track Shay was at. We were shortly joined by the rest of the group, where we hung around Slick Track, continuing to talk to workers. Steve eventually showed up, but he was quickly distracted by Robert who wanted everyone to proofread his Biology letters, and History book critique. While standing there Big Chris jumped on Gabe's back prompting Alfred to try and get on top of them both. After climbing on a bench they managed to do it. Then Alfred jumped on my back, and Chris tried to get on top of him, but we weren't too successful in doing so. It was deemed "gay" what were were doing, but I ask, how many gay people do you actually see doing that? At about 8:30 or so everybody decided to go to Kinko's to make copies of flyers for Nutwood, but since I forgot my wallet, I decided to go home and get it. Chris wanted to pick up his car, so I drove him to Shay's while we listened to Sugarcult (he had been singing songs earlier). I went home, got my wallet, and talked to my parents for a little bit before heading over to Steve's house where I wasn't waiting for more than ten seconds before everyone showed up. We sat in the living room watching some more music videos like the time before. Before long Alfred was in the other room on the computer, and was occasionally joined by us. Sean eventually joined us, and shortly followed by Paul and Angela, whom I never really noticed when they parted ways from earlier. I started sitting with Alfred becaus he was online, and then went upstairs to the huge room Steve has on his second floor. I made my way from that room, down to the living room, and back to Alfred's room, and just sort of made the rounds. At one point Sean and I even raced around the island in Steve's kitchen while on the rolling chairs from his kitchen. Good times. While sitting up in the room, looking for something to do I picked up some little keyboard thing that Steve had and tried to play things, but I don't know anything. Then I started something that sounded like the haunted mansion, so I tried to actually get it right. Since I know nothing about musical instruments, I needed help from Sean and Steve, who pointed out the keys, and I was able to get it right. I walked around playing it which was entertaining for me. Shortly after, at about 11:30, I figured it was time for me to go home and do my homework, so I said my goodbyes to the gang who were now watching porn on the computer, and left, which was the same time Sean did. He kept saying that I was going to play on that keyboard for the opening of a Nutwood show, which was pretty funny. He sounded serious too. I came home and signed online, or at least took my away message off, and did some research for my Biology letter assignment. Research was all I did, and when I found what I was looking for I decided to call it a night, and write the letter in the morning. I went to sleep at about 1:30, very early for me. November 7/8/9/10- On Thursday I woke up at about 5:45 to write my Biology letter, which took me a little longer than I had anticipated. I continued to write until about 6:50, when I completed my short assignment, and started to get ready as opposed to going back to sleep. I was out the door by about 7:15, which is a little earlier than normal, and I must say that I liked it. On the freeway I hit a little bit of traffic that had me slightly concerned, but it didn't put me far behind. I got into the parking lot and had some time to kill so I practiced the Haunted Mansion theme before heading off to Religion class. When I got to class I had a quiz, which I failed, about Judaism. I failed because I missed the two previous classes. The rest of the class was an introduction to Christianity, and we even read a little bit of the teachings of Jesus. Class ended at it's normal time and I went to Biology class where I waited outside for a couple minutes before being let into the room. I handed in my letter, and waited for Robert, who showed up on the brink of tardiness. Class was interesting as always, and we even watched an old film called "Say Goodbye" which pertained to biodiversity. It was both fun to watch, and disturbing at the same time. I am really glad he made us watch it. I now have seen humanity at it's worst because the video showed things like baby seals being clubbed, and ranchers brutally shooting tiny prairie dogs. Class ended with the conclusion of the video, and I drove home. On the way there I stopped off at Del Taco, but not without making a major detour to avoid traffic on Fullerton. However in retrospect I think it would have taken less time to actually sit in the traffic. Oh well. I got home and ate my food before watching some tv, and ultimately falling asleep at about 12:30. I woke up at about 3:30, not too refreshed, but awake nonetheless, and I started watching a little tv before work. At about 5:00 I got a phone call from Jim telling me that I wouldn't need to go into work which sort of bummed me out because I didn't have many hours to begin with this week. So I sat online for the ensuing hours, while watching tv. I really didn't accomplish much online, nor in front of the tv, though I did get to watch some of the Stallone hit, Daylight, as well as a show about the KKK on Discovery Channel. At about 11:00 I left to join up with the group at Denny's, and as I was turning from Pathfinder to Nogales, my car began to fishtail which got the heart rate going. I got to Denny's and found Gabe, Alfred, Shay, Steve, and Ricardo sitting at a booth in the back. However I did realize we spend too much time there when I walked in looking for them and one of the workers said "they're in the back". I ordered a Lumberjack Slam despite not really being too hungry, and a cup of coffee. The conversation got a little loud while we were there, and somewhat graphic as well, which I think caught the attention of others in the restaraunt. Topics of conversation were primarily of sexual nature, and though I can't remember any specifics, we were in stitches during most of the meal. And even though I wasn't that hungry I was able to finish most of the Lumberjack. We finished eating a little after midnight, so we headed over to Steve's house where we hung out for the next few hours. Everyone was pretty much just sitting around the living room looking at yearbooks, and watching tv, or at Steve's computer. Eventually everyone ended up in the large room upstairs where things took a turn for the unusual. All of us were up there just hanging out on the couch, or at the computer, when Little Chris and Shay started wrestling. The match was sort of at a stalemate when Gabe went over to Shay and wedged his foot inside his underwear from the back, so he was stuck. It was funny to see him like that, and it pretty much ended the match with a good laugh, but that's where it all ended. Shay's exhibitionist side took over and he began showing the group things, but none of us really saw due to the fact our eyes were covered at the point we realized what he was doing. When that was over he tried touching everybody with the hand he had used, then went off on a tirade about how I have issues. Ironic isn't it? That's about the time he left, and the rest of us stuck around for about half an hour longer. We all went home at about 3:00 or so, and the roads were very empty when doing so. I woke up the next day, Friday, at about noon, before getting dressed and going to work at 1:00. It was raining so I expected SpeedZone to be a ghost town, but due to the fact that there was a group of 140 there, it was quite the opposite. However, they weren't playing games for very long, and they had time play cards so they didn't really affect me a whole lot. For a while they had some sort of karaoke session in the room, but I couldn't really see it from my cage. I passed much of the time talking to Taylor Hooks, who was helping out with the groups, but had a lot of time where she was doing nothing. Such brief chats seemed to make the time pass by quicker than normal, because otherwise I would have been by myself like all my other weekday shifts, which pass painfully slow. At around 4:30, when that group had gone I helped stack the chairs to the side of the room which gave me about fifteen minutes of activity, before going back to my register. Things didn't really pick up too much, and at around 6:00 David showed up and told me that he would cash me out at around 7:00, so I stayed on drawer until then. When I was finished with work, I went home where I ate some dinner that my mother had prepared, which was pretty good as usual. I sat at the computer before heading over to Steve's at about 8:30 where he was with Robert Wang. So I chatted with them for a while before everyone else started to show up, and before long most of the group was there. Once everybody was there it wasn't long before we started watching some old Nutwood videos that Gabe had brought along. So we watched those for a pretty long time, though towards the end my interest began to wane so I would periodically go to Steve's computer and futily attempt to write the News for the day before. When the videos were all done, we lost some of the group to the night, but there were still a lot of us there, and some of us were a little hungry. So Little Chris and I decided to make a run to Carl's Jr. but not before dropping off Robert at his house (since he had ridden his scooter in the rain), while he and Chris talked about passing drug tests when having drugs in your system. From there we went to Carl's Jr. where we ordered our food and waited at the drive-thru window for it. As we sat there we noted a snail climbing the window just as we pulled up. After waiting for about ten minutes we actually looked over and seen that the snail had climbed about a foot or so within that time period, just like some movie with that slow indicator of time at our disposal. I must say, the Famous Star Combo is getting a little pricey these days. Well we eventually got our food and drove back to Steve's, at about 12:30 or so, where I enjoyed my Famous Star, Spicy Chicken Sandwich, medium fries, and medium Coke. We pretty much just sat in Steve's upper room while those of us that were left listened to some music. It was Alfred, Dennis, Little Chris, Gabe, Tom, Ricardo, Steve, and myself. Alfred was at the computer playing The Sims, while the rest of us sat around the couch discussing various topics as usual. I would occasionally go downstairs to play the piano since I was trying to figure out the theme to Jurassic Park. All of us sort of sat around like we were either drunk or stoned, yet all of us were completely sober, so that made the evening pretty fun. Around the time Ricardo left things got a little out of hand as we began doing rolls on the ground, which Little Chris had trouble with as he kept landing hard on his back, and Steve just could't do due to lack of coordination (but he got better). That's when the idea of doing wheelbarrow races came up, so Dennis and I paired up while Gabe and Chris were our opposition. Naturally Dennis and I won all the races though not without becoming tremendously tired after each one. We had way too much energy for that time of night. However we were pretty much spent after that, which was around the time that Gabe left, which meant that Dennis had to go since he was his ride. So that meant that it was about 2:30, and there was just Tom, Steve, Alfred, Chris, and myself. What to do? Well that was about the time that our ages dipped down to our shoe sizes as we dedicated the next few minutes to running around the house trying to shoot eachother with Nerf guns, and the guns for Nintendo used for Duck Hunt. It was childish, stupid, infantile, sophomoric, idiotic, and most of all fun! We were acting like idiots, children, yet we were laughing the entire time. When that subisided our efforts swung to how we could scare Alfred, who was engrossed into the world of The Sims. So we started hiding around the house with the lights off, waiting for him to get off the computer when he realized we were no longer in the room and all the lights were off. However after waiting for about ten minutes we figured he wasn't coming out, so Chris was going to do some reconissaince (sp?) work, and started crawling into the room to spy on Alfred and was going to give us a signal if he was walking out, so we could scare him. After a few minutes of waiting for him, I looked in the room and saw Chris sitting right next to Alfred at the computer watching him play the game. We gave up on scaring Alfred, and our attention shifted to trying to walk up Steve's stairs without setting off the motion sensor above his bathroom doorway in front of the stairs. So as Steve, Tom, and Chris kept trying to do that, I went back downstairs and started messing with the piano again, trying to get the next few parts to the Jurassic Park theme. When I walked back up the stairs I found that they had made a game of crawling from the bathroom down the stairs to pick up a piece of paper with tape on it, and walking back up the stairs to the motion sensor and covering it up, all without setting off the sensor. Apparently the best time was Tom's, and it was 1:19. So I decided to take a crack at it, and after one attempt I shattered the time by completing the task in a mere 59 seconds. Chris and Steve couldn't even do it without setting off the sensor, though if Chris could do it he would have had a great time. Determined to beat my old time, I made a second attempt and ended up completing it in about 35 seconds the second time, which was the time I retired myself, partly because I had hurt my knee as I slid down the stairs (since walking upright would most likely set off the sensor). Everyone else sort of gave up, and we ended up back in the upper room, though now we were more subdued and simply sat at the couch talking, while Alfred continued to play at the computer. He eventually got off the computer and joined the conversation, which was pretty interesting, and thought provoking. Finally, at about 5:45 we went outside for the smokers to enjoy one last cigarette before I went home. I walked in the door to find my dad getting ready for work, so I briefly talked with him before going into my room and going to sleep at about 6:00. On Saturday I woke up at about noon, and waited until about 12:30 to call in to work to see if I needed to go in. David said I could go in, so rather than lose hours, I did. I got dressed, and was running a little late before getting to SpeedZone at about 1:10. As I got there David looked busy since he had a lot of people at redemption, and a couple at his drawer, so I helped out with the redemption. I guess it was a girl's birthday party and they all had tickets, because as they were done there weren't too many people there. Not too long after I got there Jim told David that Stolfus felt we were overstaffed, with two people! So one of us had to go, and David being the good guy he is took the bullet for me and said that he would go. I felt kind of bad that I was getting hours, but at his expense. I really didn't have much to do, though the gameroom was relatively crowded considering the rainy conditions, so I spent a lot of time talking to John at the bar. I didn't have too much business at my register, but I think I had my share at redemption. Luckily Gabe went into pick up his check, and Dennis and Tom went in to fill out applications for winter jobs so I got to talk to them for a little while. Time seemed to pass at an incredibly slow rate as I was there. Eventually 5:30 came around, which was the time that Gina showed up so she told me what the plan was as far as workers was concerned. I was supposed to work until 8:00, but it was obvious I wouldn't be staying there the entire time since she said she would keep two of the people coming in at 6:00, so when the first came in I cashed out my drawer, which was perfect as usual, and I was on my way. I was really hungry so I stopped by Del Taco again and got my usual #1 combo, and three tacos. I went home and ate my food, while sitting at the computer. At about 7:45 I went with Tom to Tommy's where I decided to buy a shirt, since I wasn't hungry, for obvious reasons. When I asked the lady about buying one she said they didn't have any, but she said it kind of awkwardly so I wasn'y sure if she was joking or not, but I guess she wasn't because she just walked away. So I was just sort of standing there in shock when Tom asked another guy, whom I think is manager or some sort. He said there were shirts, so I went ahead and bought a Tommy's shirt, just as I had a Roscoe's House O' Chicken and Waffles a few months ago. I sat there with Tom as he finished up his food, and discussed various topics. From Tommy's we headed over to Alfred's house to pick him up, then swung by my house to pick up the small keyboard, before meeting with everyone at Ricardo's house. We were the last to show up so everyone piled into the cars as we got there to drive to Amy Kineski's birthday party. I went in Little Chris' car with Tom, and I must say it was a little scary driving with Chris on the rain slicked roads. We followed in a train all the way up Hacienda Blvd. into the hills where we traversed some foggy roads before ending up in the driveway of a really nice house. The entrie group went into the house, which was very large, and elegant looking home. I felt kind of bad when I walked in because I think I may have tracked some mud despite having wiped my feet off on the towel. All of us pretty much just sat in the room where Nutwood had their equipment, and talked, while occasionally going outside to continue our conversations. Topics were varied and interesting as usual, before the attention was changed to a Jenga game going on in the neighboring room. It was a good game, which was briefly interrupted by the singing of happy birthday to Amy, though the demise was soon afterwards. At about 10:30 the band began playing, though the Haunted Mansion intro on the keyboard didn't quite work due to some miscommunication, and the microphone not really working as well as planned. But the set then went on, and it was pretty good as usual, though it seemed like everybody that had gone to watch the band were the only ones that were watching, and we'd all seen them a lot before. They played until about 11:10 or so, and things returned to the status quo: all of us standing around talking about various topics. This time the topics seemed to take a more supernatural turn to them, and ghosts/ghosthunting became an issue. With that sense of adventure surging we figured it would be interesting to walk down the darkened road just for the fun of it, so a rather large group of about nine of us decided to walk down it. We didn't get too far as we talked about scary situations, stories, or whatever we could think of, and we soon turned back since we had to walk back uphill, and it wasn't that scary. When we got back the band started to pack up their things, so naturally we all just sat around and watched them do it, chatting about various things. However, one thing that did stand out was reciting movie quotes with Paul, and Angela, mostly from Dumb and Dumber, and Wayne's World. Good times. It was almost like I was talking with Ben the way quotes were being spouted out. When everything was packed up the conversation moved out to the cars. Finally at around 12:30 we all left, and I rode with Steve home because he didn't have anyone to go with him. The trip to Sean's house wasn't too long, and we were shortly followed by the rest of the group who began unloading the equipment. I spent some time looking at Sean's Bug, and even helped out a little with the unloading. When it was all finished everybody headed over to Denny's to get something to eat. I rode with Sean and Steve. In total there were thirteen of us, and we occupied four different booths. I was originally sitting with Gabe, Sean, and Steve, but after some shuffling, Dennis and I ended up at our own booth. We joined the overall conversation among booths, while also maintaining our own, which seemed almost private even though we were only feet away from everyone else. Weird. I got the Lumberjack which I finished wth ease, though the last few bites of pancake weren't as easy as the rest. The quotes with Paul and Angela continued as well. Finally at about 3:30 we all paid our bills and wandered outside to smoke. Since it was kind of late we all figured we would just go home, so BIg Chris, Tom, and myself piled into the back of Steve's car where we were dropped off at Ricardo's house. Tom gave me a ride home since he had driven me there to begin with. When I got home I signed online for a short while, but I was pretty tired so I went to sleep at about 4:00. On Sunday I woke up at about 2:00 since I really didn't have anything to do until later. I pretty much just watched tv, while sitting at the computer for my entire day, watching things like The Rock, and a movie on the Disney Channel. It wasn't until about 6:15 that I started to get dressed. When I was done getting dressed I put some oil in my truck because it was getting a little low and I would need my truck in top shape for later. At 7:00 I went to Ricardo's to meet up with him and Paul since we were going to see Andrew W.K and Flogging Molly in Hollywood. I was driving. So after waiting about ten minutes and watching the Porcelain video (not Broken Notes) we piled into the car and headed to The Palace. We hit a little bit of traffic on the 60, but for the most part it was simply a congested drive. Once in Hollywood we circled the Palace twice before finding a parking spot in a lot across from the Pantages Theater. When we pulled in the Mexican lady was kind of vague with her directions, and she had us park where there wasn't even a spot. I was concerned that I would get a ticket or something since she never gave us a ticket to put in the window. So we walked about a block and got to the theater at about 8:15, but Andrew W.K. didn't go on until 9:05. So rather than wait inside for that time, we opted to walk down Hollywood Blvd. looking for a place to eat. Paul, Ricardo, and myself settled on a pizza place, that was pretty dirty yet managed to gat an A rating. I got two slices of mediocre cheese pizza, and a Coke. Paul got the same, while Ricardo got a deluxe, which meant it had everything. It did, but it was just a cheese slice that had a bunch of things piled on it then put in the oven. We sat there eating, and all of s got pretty full. Finally at about 8:45 we walked back over to the Palace, and as we were walking in I got frisked. The security guard felt my gum, and actually took it from me! I didn't even know you couldn't take it in there. Well we went inside, used the restroom (complete with attendant), bought some merchandise, and then found our spot for Andrew W.K. and after standing around for about fifteen minutes, the show started. I must say that it is a very high energy show that I enjoyed every minute of. The songs are meaningless, yet they are completely fun, and the crowd really seemed to get into it. The constant hand gestures, head bangs, and everything in general made the show fun to watch. At one point Ricardo handed me the shirt he bought as a favor for Gabe, and went into the pit. For the last song a bunch of people went on stage to dance so that gives you an idea of how it was like. When the set ended at around 9:55 we just stood around waiting for Floggin Molly. Ricardo was thirsty so he bought a $5 bottle of Gatorade, something worth noting I thought. It wasn't even a large bottle. After waiting around for about half an hour, which included Paul and Ricardo taking posters of Andrew W.K. off the walls, Flogging Molly went on at about 10:35. The show started off pretty intensely with a song I actually heard before. Paul had said the set was supposed to end at 11:50 so I went into it a little defeated with the thought of standing around for an hour and a half. However as I stood there watching I would hear a song or two that I knew, followed by a couple that I didn't really know and I would sort of lose interest. But then I would hear another that I liked that would bring me back into it. At one point this girl that was dancing near us hit the step we were standing on and went face first into the ground. It was pretty funny. As the set wound down they played a song I recognized, and enjoyed as their last song, so I could have walked out happy. They ended and went off stage, but after a few minutes they came back out and played a slower song, and another that I didn't quite recognize which sort of took away from the show. Though I must say that overall I did enjoy myself, I just wish I could have walked away with the memory of the other song in my mind. The three of us walked back to the car a little after midnight, and drove home. There wasn't really any traffic on the freeway so we got home with ease. We went to 7-11 where things have been rearranged since the last time I was there. Gabe and Little Chris joined us there as well. I opted for a Lemon Propel and Apple fritter, which I ate at the hood of my truck. We stood in front of 7-11 for a few minutes before going to Ricardo's backyard where we shot the breeze. As usual we covered a guantlet of topics sitting in the cold. Finally at a little before 3:00 Ricardo called it a night, so that meant we all had to go home, which wasn't completely unwelcomed. I came home, pretty tired from the show, and decided it was about time I updated the News of the Day for the past few days. So that's what I did, and it is now almost 6:00 in the morning. |