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| News of the Day Archive- September 14-22 |
| September 14- My day started at around 2:00 when I woke up after a rather late night. I didn't go to sleep until 7:00 in the morning because I had a few cups of coffee at Denny's. Once I was awake I spent the next few hours working on the new design of the site, which had been sorely neglected for too long. I was able to get something that I was satisfied with, before I decided to eat a turkey pot pie while watching some tv. When I finished with the pot pie which had a small, disgusting cold spot, I had to get dressed for work at 6:00. I showed up at work a few minutes early with the intention of walking the gameroom for the night. Instead I was given a drawer, and was told by David to do a little of everything, and take care of whatever needed to be done. He also gave me the authority to take care of some things using his password (I hope nobody that can get him in trouble will read this) that would normally be reserved for cash control. That had me excited the whole night, and it was evident when Paul walked through for his break because I hurried over to tell him. When Robert came in for his break I made sure to tell him too. For the most part of the night I walked the gameroom, occasionally telling people to stop playing with the basketball game when they hadn't slid their card in because the latch to hold the balls wasn't working. Other than that, there really wasn't too much action in the gameroom. I took my break at around 10:45 which was pretty good since I like to take late breaks. The routine pretty much continued the same after my break until about 12:30 when I started the closing procedures, which are mainly just taking care of cleaning things. Closing time came around and we were finished with everything by about 1:20, even though there were a lot of customers at redemption after the announcement was made. I clocked out and headed out to my truck where I found Paul, Robert, and Doug Ford standing around. We stood there for a little while before heading over to Ricardo's house where Paul and I met up with the usual gang. We all sort of just sat around talking about a variety of things including Nutwood's latest show and various SpeedZone talk. At around 3:30 Ricardo kicked us out of his backyard, so Tom, Paul, Big and Little Chris, and I stood in front of his house shooting the breeze for a while. We didn't leave until after 4:00, even seeing the Sunday newspaper delivery which prompted the delivery guy to say "today's are heavy," a comment that naturally made us laugh. I came home, after dropping off Tom and made myself a cheese sandwich while watching I Love Lucy, just before I got to sleep at about 5:00. September 15- I woke up at around 11:00, which gave me enough time to shave, and take a shower before being at work by 12:00. I got to work and was given a drawer, so that's what I did for the first part of my shift. Things started pretty slowly for the first part of my shift, so I was taking it easy for a while, but there was a point that I walked away from my register with no line, and after not being gone for more than a minute or so I had a crowd of about fifteen people. In general it didnt't seem to be that crowded, but it was pretty consistent since I needed three cash drops, ranging from $1,000 to $1,250. Nothing too noteworthy happened during my shift, though I did have a group of thirteen Indians (from India) come to me wondering if I could give them a discount, but after pretending to ask, I told them we didn't. About midway through my shift I added another notch to my knowledge belt when Jenine asked me to change the syrup for the Pepsi. I really didn't have too much of a clue, however I had seen it done once or twice a long time prior, but I was able to figure it out. Needless to say I was pretty proud of myself. Throughout the day, just as Sundays usually are, I had to deal with a lot of Spanish speakers which doesn't make me a happy camper to say the least. In general things weren't too bad, and I really didn't have any problems with any customers, and things were pretty relaxed for my whole shift. I did end up working at the redemption counter for a significant portion of my last hour, but it wasn't too bad. After work I came home and sat in front of the computer and read Paul's journal. So now it's Gabe, Paul, and myself writing on the internet, though mine isn't really a journal. Speaking of Gabe, he called me up a couple times for directions from the Inland Empire. I hope I was able to help out. I watched a little bit of Lost World on channel 11 before heading over to Starbucks where I was going to meet up with the fellas for yet another night of great conversation. I stopped by Burger King before heading over to the tables since I hadn't really eaten all day. At first it was Shay, Dennis, Tom, Little Chris, Ricardo, Gabe, and myself, before we were joined by Big Chris and then AJ. As usual the conversation varied from Nutwood's CD plans, to some high school melodrama, to who we trusted in the group (though nobody really wanted to say much in regards to that). One of the lighter notes was when Big Chris fell back in his chair while trying to stare at the shapely posterior of some lady at Starbucks. We all were looking, but he was the only one to fall out of his chair. Tom and Dennis left at around 11:00, and the rest of the group shortly followed suit. Once I got home I sat in front of the computer yet again, checking up on a few things including Paul's journal. I also decided to play Dumb and Dumber in the background while I write the News. It's about 1:20, and I think I am going to call it a night within the hour. It's about time I get a good night's rest. September 16- I woke up at around 8:10 this morning instead of at 7:30 when my tv was supposed to turn on. I checked to see what the problem was and it turns out that I had set my clock for 7:30 PM. A mistake that could have made me late for school. I ended up laying in bed for as long as possible, and it wasn't until about 8:40 that I started getting dressed. I went to school in the shirt I had slept in because I was too lazy to actually get dressed. I left the house just before 9:00 and made it to the parking lot by the baseball field at around 9:20ish. I had to get scantrons for my Philosophy test so I walked to the Express Stop to buy some only to find it grotesquely crowded. I knew there would be people, but that was ridiculous. Luckily the workers there are quite efficient and I made it to my class only a couple minutes late, though so was the teacher so I made it on time. I only had a couple minutes to study before I had to take the test, which was multiple choice and vocabulary, and I think I did okay, but not great. Oh well. I finished at around 10:10 so I decided to get a Pepsi and bag of chips from the vending machines. I walked back to my car and sat there listening to the radio while enjoying my chips and soda. At about 10:40 I saw Kris and Nick walking by so they stopped and chatted for a little bit before they had to go to class. That was about the time I had to go to the Sports Management class I'm taking with Robert and AJ. The teacher was running a little late, and when he got there he showed us a small clip from the movie Blue Chips. Just as he put it in and started playing, two basketball players noticed what movie it was, and while one said "ooh" they both moved from their side seats and sat directly in front of the tv. Pretty funny in my book. He lectured for a little while, then class ended at around 11:45. I made it home by about 12:15 and decided to spend my free time at the computer (big surprise). At about 1:30 I actually got dressed, as opposed to what I did earlier, and went to work in my street clothes. I waited up at the bar after clocking in with Paul, Noy, Taylor, and Cody to wait for our meeting to start. After a few minutes those of us there for the meeting went into Daytona Room and were greeted by Ryan. He basically went over the fact that SpeedZone needs people to work groups, and to be quite honest I do not want to do that, and I went with the intention of saying "no". Unfortunetely I sort of waivered once I got there, but my general feeling of "no" was conveyed. I really didn't even care about the meeting, I only cared about continuing my streak of eight consecutive working days alive so that I could get paid time and a half for my next two days of work. The meeting was over, and I clocked out after only forty-five minutes, but I don't care since it still counts as a day of work. I went outside and talked to Paul for a little while, and were later joined by Taylor, and Cody. One of the back office workers came out, Melissa, with camera and needed some people to ride Top E. for her so me, Cody, and two customers rode the dragsters. Paul kept telling me when to go, and that combined with a fast car kept me in first place two out of the three races. After that we continued talking about various things including how I didn't like the idea of having three crew chiefs promoted while zero cash control are being promoted. I finally left the premesis at around 3:30 and went to the bank where I had trouble remembering the PIN to my check card, so I just used my old ATM card instead. I took out some cash for the next couple weeks, including later in the day since I had planned on going to the Dodger game with Ricardo. I went looking for him and found him. We decided that we would leave for the game at 5:00. So I went home and sat at the computer for a short while before heading over to his house to pick him up, then picking up Alfred. We hit a little bit of traffic on the 60, but after that we didn't have much until the 5 where we hit some congestion, but nothing too hampering. We took the patented Anaya route which I have been using since I was "knee-high to a grasshopper". We made it to the park at around 5:45 which is perfect by my standards. After parking we went to buy some tickets and while we were deciding what to buy a white guy with a sort of hispanic or asian looking kid (not white) asked us if we wanted some reserve level seats for $10, which is pretty much the going rate. We agreed and he walked us up to the reserve level since he didn't want to get busted for scalping. On the way up the stairs he was telling us how he had nine tickets, which he got for free after making a phone call, and he sells them to raise money for Boy Scouts. Amber Alert? You be the judge. Nevertheless we got into the park and found our seats which were on the third base side, about ten rows from the front. Pretty decent seats in my opinion. We got to watch some batting practice which is rare for us to see, and a welcomed sight in my opinion. At about 6:30 we went to get some food so Ricardo and Alfred went to King Taco, and I ventured over for the traditional Dodger Dog. Nay, a GRILLED Dodger Dog. I got three dogs and a soda which cost me $14.50, but when you go to the ballpark you have to expect to pay a lot. Once back at our seats I ate my hot dogs, and midway through my third Alfred made a joke about an LA Sheriff helicopter that flew over that made me almost choke from laughter. As the game started at 7:10 we were in the midst of talking about Ninja Turtles the Movie, and in particular Raphael and Casey Jones. The game started a little dismal as the Giants took an early lead. Immediately I figured it would be "one of those games" and that the Dodgers would not produce any runs and thus lose in a blowout. To my surprise the game turned into one of the best I have been to after a rather slow start. We were sitting behind a couple Giants fans that cheered on their team moderately at first. This sort of provoked the Dodger fans around to harass them which slowly began to escalate. Every once in a while Ricardo would get hit by a peanut that was intended for the Giants fans. At first I didn't really have a beef with the guys until they started knocking the attendance at Dodger games by citing the fact that the Giants have sold out a bunch of games in a row, while Dodger stadium gets only 15,000 fans a night. I had problems with that for multiple reasons: Pac Bell park is brand new and you could open a new park in the pits of Hell and still sell it out for the first few seasons, Pac Bell park holds at best 45,000 fans while Dodger Stadium holds over 56,000 fans, the attendance at Dodger games is always around 30,000 fans which is pretty good for a major league team, and there were 35,000 fans there on a Monday night. It almost seemed as if it was going to get ugly since multiple people were yelling at the two guys. Towards the end of the game the guys got up to go to the bathroom or something and while walking up the stairs they were contronted by some guys but nothing really happened. All in all the game was pretty good, though it was one of the longest I had been to, and it didn't end until about 10:30 or so. It had some great moments like Jordan's grand slam (the first I have ever seen in person) which gave the team the lead for good, Karros hit a solo shot for the first pitch of the seventh inning, Gagne pitched great in his save appearance, and Grissom saved what might have been a home run to tie the game (which prompted Paul to call me and remind me that he was a Brave). As the game ended we left in a hurry in order to avoid any sort of confrontation that would occur with the Giants fans. We made it out to the parking lot in the midst of the crowd which meant that getting out alive was going to be tough. I tried crossing over a stream of traffic which was pretty tough, but Ricardo's relentless attitude was the driving force behind my decision making. I'm too passive for parking lots and/or traffic so when he saw the most minimal opening he had me exploit it. It took about fifteen minutes or so to get out of the parking lot. We managed to get out though I accidently flashed my high beams at someone which I think might have scared them. Nothing really happened on the way home other than Gabe calling to see if anything was going to happen. We got home at around 11:45 at which time I dropped off Ricardo, then Alfred before coming home. Once at home I sat online for a little bit while catching up on all the journals set up by Gabe, Paul, and Tiny (aka Serbo aka Tom). It's cool to be able to read other people's journals now! I heated a can of chili though I only ate about half of it since I spent a little over an hour writing this highly detailed update. It's now 2:00 AM and I'm probably going to fall asleep in a little while. September 17- I woke up at around 7:15 and decided that I wouldn't be able to make it to my first class, Major World Religions, and instead opted to just sleep in for about an hour longer. So at around 8:45 I got ready and was out the door by about 9:00. Since I was getting to school at one of the more crowded times, I didn't even try looking for a decent parking spot and just went by the baseball field. Once I parked I didn't have a lot of time to walk to my Biology class so I had to walk at a fairly brisk pace. I made it to class on time and Craig Petersen continued his lecture on the threat of a nuclear war and its effects on the environment. Interesting stuff. Grim, but interesting. The lecture included the teacher pretending to be a terrorist, and that he was a NORAD early detection specialist that would know when a nuclear bomb was sent. We also watched a film about "ostrich people" and got back some quizzes we took a few days prior. I got a 12 out of 15, beating out Robert by two points. Class ended at around 11:00 as scheduled so after walking back to my car I decided to stop by Wendy's and pick up some food. I got onto the 57 freeway only to find it severely backed up so I took the streets home which took a little longer than normal, but I didn't mind. I came home and sat in front of the computer while eating my Wendy's. When I finished at around 1:00 I took a nap and didn't wake up until about 3:45. I postponed getting dressed for work until the last possible moment by watching the first episode of Saved By The Bell. At 4:30 I got in the shower and was at work at my scheduled time, 5:00. Today was Tuesday which meant that the second week of "Ten Buck Tuesdays" was in effect at work. I didn't like it at all because it meant having to put wristbands on every person that wanted to take advantage of it. The first couple of hours of work went by relatively quickly, but after about 7:15 things just dragged on. Some noteworthy events included having to deny the "Coupon King" the use of his coupon, and having to deal with a rather long line at times. Things weren't that busy overall, but my register was busy for a few various moments making the line go past the kiosks, but after a few minutes it was brought back down to nothing. I pretty much spent the entire night complaining about how much I dislike the new promotion. At 11:00 Gina cashed out my drawer and I was merely two cents short, and thanks to Daylo I didn't really have to do any work to close. So I went to the parking lot and sat on my truck with Daylo to wait for Gabe who showed up after a few minutes. Jason joined the conversation as well on his skateboard. From SpeedZone we went to Carl's Jr. to pick up some food before going to my backyard. Little Chris was already there waiting for us, with my permission, and we had our usual rap session. The conversation varied from various topics including car racing, to a little SpeedZone gossip, to our trip to Cooper House, among others. Gabe had left the backyard by around 1:00, and it wasn't until just after 2:00 that Jason and Little Chris called it a night. I came inside and wrote the news while watching Cheers and catching up on reading everyone's journals. It's now almost 3:00 and I am going to sleep. September 18- Today I woke up at around 9:00, which meant that I was running late again, so I got in the shower for a quick rinse and was finished getting dressed by about 9:10. When I got into my car I sat there for about a minute thinking. At the end of that minute I took my key out of the ignition and walked back into my house to go back to sleep. I set my tv alarm for 12:45 and didn't wake up until then, missing both my Philosophy and the Sports Management class. Once awake I signed online for a short period before getting shaving and showering again, but this time more thoroughly. I clocked into work at 2:02 SZT (SpeedZone Time). When I got there Phillip was working a drawer so that meant that I didn't have much to do for the first few minutes of my shift, until he needed to call Ryan for a damaged card at which point I was given a drawer of my own. I was by myself, since Wendy had already gone for the day, so I pretty much had to keep myself occupied which is always somewhat difficult. I spent a good deal of time cleaning the keyboard I was working at which was sort of disgusting. I didn't have too many customers throughout the day, so that wasn't too bad since I would rather be board than busy, especially when I'm by myself. During the shift I bought a Nutwood sticker from Noy, which gives you an idea of how busy it was for me. The time dragged a little, but things could have been a lot slower. At 5:00 Christine came in for her shift, so I was no longer there by myself, so I at least had someone to talk to, although she was sick so she didn't talk a whole lot. At around 6:00 Little Chris showed up to try and get his job back, which was an unsuccessful attempt. I didn't get to cash out my drawer until about 6:30, but I didn't care since of my working eight days in a row which should entitle me to time and a half, which I actually confronted Jim on after cashing out. He said he would look into it and see what Stolfus wanted to do about it, so I'll check up on it on Friday. Once I was out of work I waited for Gabe to go by SpeedZone so we could do employee night, and he ended up showing up at around 7:00. We went out to Slick Track for a race which we were joined by Paul. He and Alfred showed up at "the Zone" while we were getting into the cars. After the race we went inside for a little S.F. Rush, which I came in second on. We then headed out to the parking lot to wait for Shay, and after waiting for about fifteen or twenty minutes, we decided to leave without him for Starbucks in Brea. On the way there, Paul and I listened to Fozzy which is actually pretty enjoyable music. I stopped off at Burger King since I hadn't eaten all day and took it over to Starbucks where we were joined by Little Chris, then Gabe and Alfred who went to Guitar Center, then Shay, then Sean and Steve, and finally Big Chris later in the evening. When Shay showed up he made a comment, then I made one back so he threw a napkin or something at me which prompted me to throw my Burger King cup at him since I thought it was empty, but it wasn't. It was pretty funny. We sat around a table for a few hours just shooting the breeze about a number of things including the Nutwood cover art for their CD due in a couple months, the infamous "Pirate Party" and maybe changing it to simply a costume party, and watching an insanely tiny g-string (literally a string). By about 11:00 everybody decided to go their own ways, and while driving home I pulled up next to Little Chris who was fixing his seat belt, but for some reason it just seemed hilarious to me the way he looked. When I got home I made a copy of the Nutwood demo for Alfred, who came by my house with Paul to pick it up. I don't know what they found so funny about the pictures of my brother's mustache? I spent the rest of my night not doing Bio homework, writing the News, reading some journals, and watching an old Conan O'brien. It's a little after 1:00 and I'll probably end up in bed within the hour. September 19- At about 6:45 I got out of bed after laying in bed for a little while, and took a shower before getting dressed. I left the house at around 7:15 and got to school at around 7:35, where I sat in the parking lot listening to music for about twenty minutes. I went to my 8:00 Religion class where we finished discussing Buddhism which is a pretty interesting religion, much more than Hinduism that we studied earlier. Class let out at around 9:15 so I went over to my Biology class where I waited for a few minutes before finally being allowed into the class. Robert and I took our seats in the "F" row like we usually do and listened to the teacher lecture for an hour and a half. He's a pretty funny person so the lectures are very enjoyable, although I'm always afraid I'll be called on for something when I haven't done the reading. We learned some more principles, learned what a "Peter-Meter" is, and sort of took a quiz during the class time. It ended just before 11:00 so I walked to my car and drove home. On my way home I stopped at Jack In The Box with the intention of getting breakfast, but at the last second I got a Jumbo Jack, two tacos, and small fries. I took it home where I ate it while sitting in front of the computer. My mom left to go to the fair with Nick's parents, so I had the house to myself, which I didn't really take advantage of since I just sat around, then tried to take a nap. My brother did show up at around 2:00, but I was trying to sleep since I was kind of tired from the night before and not getting much sleep. I didn't wake up until about 5:00 or so, at which time I went back to the computer for a while. Things were pretty normal until about 7:30 when my mom called my dad and I outside to see what looked like a missile testing from Vandenberg I assumed. It was really interesting to see it in the sky. The Seinfeld that was on during the time was a pretty good one, where George asks if a woman's cheeks have "a pinkish hue" and Jerry says "there's a hue". Funny stuff. At 8:30 I went with Gabe to SpeedZone so he could sell some tickets for Sunday's show at Chain Reaction. Not only did I buy one, but I also bought another sticker from Noy for Tom since he had asked me to (I just remembered it's in Gabe's glove compartment). We hung around there for about half while talking to various workers that might want to buy tickets before heading over to Ricardo's. We met up with Ricardo, Shay, and Robert, then picked up Alfred so we could go to Matt Jeckman's house for a party. I didn't really want to go but I tagged along anyway. When we got there we didn't see any party, so we decided to head over to Birch Street to see a movie, which I wasn't too enthusiastic about either. We looked at our options and everybody decided to see Barbershop. Naturally I just wasn't having it so complained about the situation. A guy that happened to be listening to my whining handed me a free ticket, so I took it and thanked the guy repeatedly. This was about 10:00, which was the time of the movie so we went in and watched the movie. Barbershop had its moments, though I'm not sure it would have been worth the price of admission, but I didn't care since I got in for free. The movie ended at around midnight, so we headed back over to our neck of the woods, and went to 7-11. I got an apple pie, ginger ale, Pringles, and a pack of gum. We dropped off Ricardo at his house, and Robert, who's car was at Ricardo's at the time, then went over to my house. It was just Gabe, Shay, and myself in the backyard. The three of us sat there for a while talking about various topics, including SpeedZone as always, and other things. At around 2:30 the two of them left, so I came inside and decided to write the News before calling it a night. It's now about 3:30 and I'll probably go to sleep within the hour. September 20- I woke up at around 2:00 and just sort of lounged around the house for the next hour or so before deciding to shower and get dressed at around 3:30. I decided to eat a little leftover chicken and mashed potatoes that my parents had bought from Albertson's a few days prior. At around 4:15 I decided to head over to SpeedZone to see if my working eight days in a row would yield time and a half for me. Mike Khieu let me into the back office but the new human resources person wasn't there at the time so I couldn't find out. I decided to head outside where I found Gabe and Paul at Turbo Track running some races so I decided to chat with them for a few minutes, along with Robert Taylor. I went out to Gabe's car to get his tickets to try and sell to Christine and Taylor Hooks, and only being successful in selling to the latter. When Paul left at 5:00 I talked to him for a little while before heading over to Top E to find Gabe up in the tower. I decided to stick around for the one set of customers who were racing, however they took a long time because the cars didn't seem to be working too well. When the races were done it was about 6:00 so Gabe went on break, and since I wasn't doing anything I joined him for a little while. I didn't end up leaving SpeedZone until about 6:30 or so, at which point I drove over to the Unocal 76 on Harbor and Whittier to get gas since it is usually cheaper there. It ended up being the same price as on Colima and Fullerton, $1.57, but at least it gave me something to do for about fifteen minutes. I went home and sat at the computer for a little while before heading over to Robert's house at 8:00 where we proceeded to sit around a table. It was me, Little Chris, Robert, Paul, Alfred, and AJ just sitting around as opposed to going to the fair, or The Block. At around 9:15 Paul, Alfred, and myself drove to my house to pick up Trivial Pursuit, then stopped off at Jack In The Box before going back to Robert's house to eat, then play the game. The game started probably just before 10:00 and it started with six players: Robert, Little Chris, Paul, AJ, Alfred, and myself. Little Chris was actually the first to get a pie piece, and I got off to a slow start. I had fun with the game, as usual, since it is probably my favorite game to play. Slowly but surely the players started to drop out. Gabe showed up at some point, and started to watch the movie Snatch with Little Chris and Alfred. For the final couple hours it was just Paul, Robert, and myself playing, and their interest seemed to be waning. Big Chris showed up and started watching the game as well. Paul was in the lead for a while, and Robert, who started off very slowly, eventually caught up to us. Paul had a chance to win the game with an easy question, but Big Chris mentioned getting another card for fear that I had sort of contaminated the situation, so I did. Consequently it was a difficult question. I was the only one interested in the game towards the end, as it was just the three of us playing, and the two Chris' watching. Everybody wanted the game to end, even me, but only because I was tired of risking a loss. Finally at about 2:45 I won the game, to the relief of everybody else. After that I came home and watched some tv before writing the News. It's now about 4:30 and I really should be going to sleep. September 21/22- On Saturday I woke up at around 2:00 and sort of just sat around the house, mainly online, until about 4:00 when I decided to head over to T-Shirt Wearhouse. Prior to that my parents had brought me some Jack In The Box, which will be a little more significant later in the update. After heading over to buy three t-shirts, I went over to the bank to get a little money out, since I had squandered away my last withdrawal. Once I was at home at around 5:15 I had nothing to do but sit online and watch USC while they were losing their game, while sitting at the computer. At 7:00 I met up with Little Chris, and Alfred at Ricardo's to go eat at Olive Garden. We got over there at around 7:15 or so and naturally it was sort of crowded, but that wasn't too much of a problem for me. We stood around outside, holding a sort of pager thing that they gave us, but we didn't quite know what it would do when they called us. So every time someone's phone would ring Ricardo would hold the thing to his ear to make sure we weren't being called. At about 8:00 we were manually called in, so we never found out what the stupid thing did, and I was tempted to ask one of the workers. A short while after being sat down we were joined by Big Chris and Jenine. Pretty much all of us ordered the "never-ending pasta bowl" and I opted for the Minestrone soup instead of the salad. I like the soup at Olive Garden. When it came time for pasta everybody was pretty much done after one bowl, probably because they fell for the "fillers", namely the bread, but I wisely avoid excessive use of those. I finished my initial bowl and was almost done, but I figured I'd go for a refill, and when I finished that one, I wasn't sure if I should/could go for a third. I figured I could try, so I got Ricardo's friend Melissa, who was our waitress, to bring a third bowl. My first two were plain spaghetti with meat sauce, and this one she convinced me to try angel hair with some other sauce that I can't remember the name of. It was really good, but the angel hair seemed more dense, hence more filling. I finished it, and was encouraged to try a fourth bowl. I was feeling pretty stuffed at this point but I forged ahead anyway, simply for the sake of eating the most bowls in the group. Unfortunetely, even with the lemon water that Melissa had brought, I couldn't eat more than about a quarter of the fourth bowl, which was with bow-tie pasta and the same sauce as prior. We left our table at about 9:45 or so only to stand outside in the parking lot for about another half hour it seemed, while trying to think of what to do. We ended up going to Ricardo's house to sit around in the backyard as usual. It was the two Chris', Jenine, Ricardo, and myself sitting the backyard, talking about the normal things, and looking at some old pictures. Little Chris couldn't stop looking at the pictures which I found sort of amusing. At about midnight Chris and Jenine left, which was shortly before AJ showed up to take their place. AJ talked a little about his apartment, Chris let me hit him in the ribs a couple times, and things were pretty normal. At about 12:50 I left to go home and make Sean a Page of Nothing shirt to wear the next night at Chain Reaction. However when I got home I was really lazy and just sort of sat online for a couple hours, and didn't even write the News of the Day. I started watching Ninja Turtles 2 to prove to Little Chris that it's Donatello that says "Not quite ripe yet" while knocking on Michaelangelo's head. I went to sleep, then didn't wake up until 11:50. Normally not a problem except I worked at 12:00! Not to mention that I was supposed to drop off the Page of Nothing shirt at Sean's at 11:30. I took a really quick shower to wash the gel out of my hair and got dressed lightning quick, and was only late to work by about nine minutes. Once at work things were a little slow, and the fact that I was a little late wasn't even an issue. Gina had me get some golf balls, and when I went it was actually a full bucket, which has been a rare sight recently. When I got back I had to help out a few people, and when my line was nothing I went to take the keys back to cash control. I stood at redemption for no more than thirty seconds, and I had a line of like five or six people already, none of which even thinking to go to the redemption side register. So I went over and helped them out, and was pretty much kept busy for most of my shift. However there were some points where I didn't have any customers. At times my line got pretty long, and Gina helped out once or twice, and eventually Natissha (sp?) (I think that's her name) was sent over with a drawer. With two people the line never got too overwhelming, and at times it was even nonexistent. When David went on his shift as Cash Control he told me to take care of my own damaged cards and refunds which was cool. And I now know that he has his real password, and the password he lets us use to help him out. A good idea in my book. I got to do things like that for the last couple hours of my shift, and only a couple minutes after 6:00 he came to cash me out which was a relief since I wanted out of there. I clocked out just shy of six hours since I was late, and came home where I sat online for a few minutes, then utilized the facilities before getting into the shower and sitting online yet again. I tried to make another Nutwood shirt since my current project is peeling severely, but I forgot to dump out the water, and the steam ruined the transfer paper. Very frustrating. Paul picked me up at about 7:45 to head over to Chain Reaction to see the great Nutwood. Paul took the freeway instead of streets and it felt like it was a lot quicker. We got to the place at about 8:20 or so and met up with the band in the parking lot. After about ten minutes of talking to them I headed into the venue, and met up with everyone else inside, well actually they were all outside smoking. It was the usual "gang of idiots" (Mad Magazine reference, so don't get offended), along with many of the Speed Zone crew. We stood around outside talking about various topics, including how I am better than Shay, which was backed up by Robert Taylor. When Burning Tree Project was about to play we all went inside to watch, but after Supernova I was pretty much done with them. So I went back outside. Towards the end of the their set we went back inside, and it seems like the three times I have heard them I hear the same two songs! Weird. They ended, and the dead period was spent watching the band set up their equipment, and finally at about 10:00 the infamous Nutwood began. They sounded awesome, "as usual" while I listened in the corner in front of Sean and Gabe. I stayed away from the pit since I am not a pitter! I go to shows to listen to music. After about three or four songs I went and stood in the back with Tom, AJ, Little Chris, and Dennis. As usual I tried to shout out sometimes because it's fun. Only at Nutwood shows to I ever yell anything out, and when they started to play Accomodations of Desire I yelled out again. Midway through the song Paul dragged me over by the neck to the front, at which point I started singing as best I could. That is one great song. When it was over I went back next to Tom and listened to the rest of the set. Stellar performance. It's just too bad that I have to wait to hear songs like Razorwire, and Accomodations at the shows only, or do I? After the show I went outside since it was pretty hot, where one of Sean's cousins was hyperventalating (sp?) or something like that. I joined everyone else in the parking lot where there was sort of confusion due to the condition of Sean's cousin. I guess she was in pretty bad shape because an ambulence was called for her, and I guess it was because things got a little too rough inside. Once in the parking lot we just stood around for a while, putting things into the cars, and discussing what was going on including how Little Chris was going to fight Robert Taylor, and I missed it. We were all standing around and I made a comment that Paul was changing his shirt, and turned what would have gone unnoticed into a small spectacle. Sorry Paul, but I thought it would be kind of funny. That made Taylor Hooks remind me that I'm a jerk, and that I am her "male counterpart". We hung around the parking lot for an uncomfortably long period of time before heading home. On the way home Paul took the freeway, and when we were on Pathfinder we were sure that we would beat everybody to Sean's house and were even thinking of calling them up to see how far back everyone else was. To our surprise we showed up and we were the last car to show up, and they already had half the stuff unloaded. Sort of funny I thought. From Sean's house we went over to Denny's, barely getting there at about 11:45. It was only about ten minutes, if that, before we were seated. All in all it was the two Chris', Ricardo, Paul, Gabe, AJ, Montes, and myself, before being joined by Lindsay, and her friend. I sat near Gabe, and Little Chris, so that's who I mainly talked to. I ordered the Club sandwich with seasoned fries, and a Coke. It was delicious! The conversation was pretty standard, including how I really dislike the new mustard bottles, and Jason agreed with my completely, and for the same reasons. I am not alone in my thinking! Everybody was pretty tired, so when we finished eating we dispersed pretty quickly, which was around 1:15. Ricardo gave me a ride home, and was kind enough to wait for about ten or fifteen minutes while I burned a copy of Nutwood Live at the Dawg House. You want a true Nutwood fan? Don't look at who was at The Shack, see who was at the Dawg House! But I digress, now I can listen to some of my favorites in pretty decent quality to boot. I started to write the News, after reading Paul's and Tiny's (aka Serbo, aka Tom), which was around 2:20, and I've been listening to Nutwood the entire time. It is now about 3:30. I should get some sleep, though I know I won't until at least 4:00. Oh well. |