blueminder

I have a new LiveJournal name, esan. It may not be creative or anything of the sort, but it's certainly a name that I won't be changing any time soon.

Those of you that do read this thing when I do update, please add my new account to your friends list and I'll friend you back. This account is rife with broken contacts and inactive groups that I don't wish to seek out all on my own. I'll be adding the journals that I'll be sure to read all my own as well though.

I felt it appropriate to make a new journal, simply because I needed an excuse to do so. I figure I can use the fact that I'm moving away in one week to live on my own as a college student as a good excuse for starting fresh in my online journal.

For the past four years, I've been chronicling my life under the LiveJournal account blueminder to varying degrees. In the beginning I would write about my day, as it would happen, explaining everything from what I had for breakfast to the annoyances of friends and family that most people wouldn't give a shit about. I would start talking about my random computer projects that most people wouldn't even understand. I would attempt to describe an event in vague prose as the laws of teenage angst dictated which would just leave most people confused. Alas, the high school years.

I look back on my past entries and the like, and just laugh at myself for the way I used to be and hold shame to a certain degree about my own naivety, pretentiousness, and general immaturity that I've shown in my entries and the like. I can't say that I've made very many mistakes that are far different than anybody else, I know I'm not special in that regard, but I just find it funny that I have a way of looking back at my own thoughts at certain moments in time, and all the more humbling, one which anyone can look at for themselves if they really wish.

I could be looking too much into it though, it's very doubtful anyone would care to look at my entire history, but all the same, I'm not deleting this thing. If I posted it online, I have nothing to hide.

See ya on my new journal!

I haven't updated this thing forever, it happens. I won't really write anything substantial anyway, just trying to enjoy my time down here before I leave for Georgia Tech next Wednesday.


What I really want to do right now, is pose two questions. What the hell were the creators smoking when they made The Punisher Meets Archie? And where the hell can I find a copy of this? I absolutely need to read this now.

Carbon dioxide. They call it pollution. We call it life.
Click on "Energy", it has to be the funniest attempt at a PSA I have ever seen.

After finishing Season 1 of 24, Jack Bauer is now tied with Iron Man for the title of "Who I want to be when I grow up."

Prom was a blast.

I was way too busy tearing up the dance floor to complain about music selection. When you've got rhythm, you need nothing else :P. As Damian said in his own journal, we were the Lords of the Dance. Hell, I broke off the bottom sole of my rental shoe, which I plan on applying glue to soon. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact they put in some variety as far as the music was concerned though.

Pamela was a wonderful date for prom, and I'm glad I asked her to go with me. Everyone was dressed so nicely (obviously, considering the occasion), but I still have to note just how wonderful all the girls were, Pam and Jeffy in their respective green dresses, Nicolle in her absolutely stunning dress, Jessica who was lovely as usual, and Fatima who had two dresses for the night and looked wonderful in both.

Biggest thing about tonight, Chris proposed to Stephanie! Congratulations, I'm happy for you two, I wish you two the greatest luck in the world.

Having all my friends in formal clothing was just nice really. I'm not partial to always wearing nice clothing at all, but it just seemed so proper really, like there had to be at least one time we all had to make such an impression, despite the fact most of us care little for it in our everyday lives. Just a nice break from reality I suppose.

The after-party was great too. A few weeks ago, I was torn between going to the big after-party on the beach which most of the class was going to, or to Nicolle's party which would be just hanging out with a few friends for the night. After finding out that most of the people who mattered to me were going to Nicolle's I decided against the festival of alcohol on the beach, and I don't regret it whatsoever. It was a blast.

I think it was about 12 hours of video games and caffeine really. Chris, Mike, Nicolle, Pam, Tony, Jessica, Ajoi, Little Fatima and Brandon were there. Giovanni, Moo, Ryan and Fatima joined us after realizing the party on the beach sucked and we started playing a ton of DDR, a broken game of SSB:Melee, and later on, the original on Gio's N64. We actually made a run to Wal-Mart at 4am in an attempt to find a working copy of Super Smash Bros Melee, with half of us in our formal attire and the other half of us in sandals and shorts, it was very amusing. What started off as a Wal-Mart run, turned into a nearly 3-hour road trip across Broward County with Tony, Jessica, Fatima and Giovanni.

We gave up on the game hunt and got an N64 from Gio's house with Super Smash Bros which we played from 7am to Noon. I don't think I had any more than a half an hour to an hour of sleep. It was fun chilling around with everyone for the time we had. At around 2pm, I got home, and promptly fell to sleep.

I'm trying out this LiveJournal Scrapbook system, I might just use it for my road trip pictures in the weeks to come so it might prove useful enough to pay for the service. I put up pictures from prom here, enjoy!

High School has ended. There are no more classes, the people you have been around for the past four years in the final chapter of compulsory schooling are now leaving to wherever their futures lead them.

While tons of people are all emotional, crying, and are simply afraid of losing contact with their friends, I really don't feel that.

To me, high school, like most anywhere else that you are forced to be in, is filled with two different types of people. True friends and mere acquaintances. True friends are the people you would hang out with outside of school if given the chance to do so, and mere acquaintances are people that are merely around you, those you probably wouldn't hang out with if you met them outside of an environment that forced you to be with them.

In my opinion, the true friends will keep in touch outside of the walls of school, and I will do the same. Many of my friends that I met in middle school that I still possess today are founded on that theory. I made most of my friends either at the end of middle school or after the entire thing was over. I remember playing Star Wars d20 the summer before freshman year over at Kraig's house, a guy who I really barely talked to in middle school but became better friends when we didn't have to be forced in the same institution together. Whether that has anything to do with the environment or myself is beyond me, but some of my best friends are those I have met after the fact, and I'm truly happy for it.

The most pivotal realizations are made in the course of great change, or really when it's made obvious to all of those around. That might just explain why I was able to gain such friends when middle school came to an end for me.

The past few weeks have been interesting. I realized just how oblivious I was to states of drama people keep themselves in and have managed to become better friends with some people I would be missing out on if it weren't for a few choices. Just as in middle school, I'm becoming good (or better) friends with people that I may have known before, but thought of as a little less than the 'truest' of my friends considering how often I talk and hang out with them.

If there weren't a definite end to the time we would all be able to see each other in such a 'convenient' way that high school is, there would be no true incentive to get to know people in the time you have. Sure, you would make friends in the beginning, and for the most part, stick with them to the end. But sometimes, when you intend to tie up loose ends with the people around you, you realize that there is also a possibility of a greater friendship in the future. That is the opportunity that presents itself at such an end.

I'm happy for all this, I really am. Maybe it's still a bit unreal for me since the people who are more emotional about this are staying relatively close for the most part (Staying in FIU, BCC, & UCF) while I'm going off to Atlanta for my future. Others know exactly where they're going to be in just a few years time, they'll still be close in geography to others, but fear the possibility of being forgotten, potentially by those they care about the most despite being so close physically. I, on the other hand, have little clue about what my future holds, absolute certainty that I will be far in geography and only possess faith in my friends calling me on the condition of how often I will make an effort to communicate with them myself.

It hit me when I was driving earlier though. As I was driving down Flamingo Road, I was passing by all the intersections I would turn to get into each of my friends' neighborhoods and realized a startling fact. There will be no more Wal-Mart raids and Nerf Wars in the parking lots with Xaviar, no more car-sledding with Felipe and Towers, no more random bouts of Magic: The Gathering in times of boredom with Stefen, no more D&D with Gio DMing, no more running through Plantation Acres & jumping trees with Chris, No more beating each other up with sticks in front of Tony's garage, none of that.

It's the events we've had that are going to be reminisced about. Soon, that luxury of having a free Friday night and calling anyone up saying "Hey, wanna do something?" is going to be going away as far as those in my geographic area go. Now it's going to be different people, different events. Now it's all going to change. That's what hit me.

I'm not saddened at all by it. I'm fortunate to have such memories, I'm happy that I have had the opportunity to, and will still continue to do so when I happen to be down here to visit. Sure, it'll be different circumstances, and different people depending on where everyone is, but I have no fear, it's new, it's exciting, it's a greater experience.

I have no fear of losing contact with those I hold dear. I may not be uber-responsive like I would if I lived closer, but I'll certainly wish to keep in touch to those I say I will. That goes both ways though, give me a call and you'll be guaranteed one too, heh. Even if I haven't talked to you a great deal, give me a call if you happen to be in Atlanta anyway. I highly doubt I'll complain about the company of friends.

It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.

I just finished watching Crash, a completely appropriate movie for all that is happening. Life is giving us reason to feel something, reason to gain motivation of touching those around us before we leave. It's times like this we re-evaluate or simple re-affirm our position in life, and prepare to press on forward with what we wish for.

I'm ready to walk for graduation. Bring it.

I haven't been updating this thing with anything meaningful recently. I've been wanting to talk about everything from Magic:  The Gathering, albums I've been listening to, E3, and the whole Moussaoui decision (which, by the way, was summed up best in this entry by perich) but haven't had the time to do so up to now. Ah well.

Tomorrow I present my Senior Exhibition, then I will be done with everything. All that will be left is a half-week of lounging around on campus before graduation, so I imagine I'll get back to my usual diatribes soon enough.

This Saturday I'm having people over for a belated birthday party for myself. Usual fare, bring your computer and your video game systems, LAN & Console Party. Call me up on my cell (954-665-4469) so I know you're coming, it's an open invitation for the most part.

On the 27th, it's going to be a more traditional celebration, combination birthday/graduation party which my family will be at. Do not doubt that there will be video games as well though, it may just be relegated to the back room with the big screen while my family and some more friends come over. Two parties, I can't complain. Just call me up if you plan on going to any or both of the parties.

High school is coming to an end soon, it'll probably hit me harder after it's done.

Nintendo just won E3
That's it, it's over.

I just can't wait to use the cardboard box.

Hey, I'm legal.

A few answers to questions nobody else really cared to ask, these all deal with different situations, but take from them what you wish:

A friendship whose only basis is their utility to you is not a friend, it's somebody you're using. Please don't mistake the two.

Apologies mean nothing when passed through the grapevine. All it shows is your continued cowardice and apathy.

Melodrama at this point is fucking dumb to take part in as friends. We have three weeks of high school, enjoy it. We'll probably never see each other again after this.

If you have ever known me, you have heard me say this. In case you haven't, I'll say it again, I don't believe in coincidence.

Glad that's settled. Tonight I had a much needed break and continued tweaking my Magic deck after playing a few games at the Tates' Gaming Satellite tonight. I surprise myself with how well I have been playing the game. I'm still a bit rusty on everything, but I'm faring well against veterans to a degree.

I also went over to OffWorld mostly to play DDR and In The Groove. Despite all the purists who insist otherwise, I'm beginning to favor ITG over DDR more each time I play it. It just has a smooth feel to the game that regular arcade DDR seems to lack (but not as ridiculously smooth the XBOX version is of the game, which I never could get used to). The modifiers and mine requirements, even from a low difficulty, make the game a nice challenge as well.

I have quite a bit to do this weekend, around 6 chapters worth of Physics homework to be turned in on Monday and some networking code for my exhibition. Considering I think I left my pen drive at school, I might just be focused on the Physics for the weekend. That's when I find time aside from the plans my family has already placed for parties and the like.

Later.

I'm typing this up at Ryan's house.

Last week was TSA States competition, I was the only one in the chapter to place, and did so in two events. Third Place in Prepared Presentation and 2nd Place in Program Design which I single-handedly accomplished. The latter event was supposed to have been done in a team of three, so I decided to have Kovacs on my team, who absolutely swore by his programming skills, along with Darren who took an introductory course in C++ and I really didn't expect much from in the first place. During the competition, it was officially proven to me that Kovacs cannot code. He showed me some Perl code he did beforehand for a proxy he helped develop, so I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he knew what he was talking about, but when he couldn't go through an array and find an average of numbers in C, that just proved that he is incompetent. Not coding in C "for a long time" is just not an excuse at all, Sorry. I finished 4 of the 5 programming challenges in Java. The judge was pretty impressed and actually asked me to help him out with next year's event by making some challenges and the like. I'm all up for it, makes me proud really.

Comcast still fucking sucks. I've had no Internet since I came back from Orlando on Sunday. Today my mom cancelled our service outright switching over to DirecTV and BellSouth finally. Sadly, I must wait until next week for to possess internet access at home again. Grr.

Senioritis leaves no victim behind. With 4 AP Tests in the next two weeks and a considerable lack of motivation, anything goes. The only thing I really feel like accomplishing is my Senior Exhibition which is coming along very nicely. I just finished the networking code of my tank game and should soon have multiple players able to see each other on a map. After that, it's just object collision and I'm set for my presentation on the 12th. I plan on developing the game even after I'm done with the exhibition, going beyond a simple shooting tank game to one like Bolo, except with updated graphics and rotation by mouse (a feature already implemented in my exhibition). It will be a nice project for me to keep working on.

I'm going to be 18 in a week and a day, and I'm leaving high school in barely three weeks. It's all so surreal. I'm just anticipating the road trip and going off to Tech.

Congress has just been busy with filling the sessions with shitty legislation, do contact your local representatives and speak out against these abimbinations, seriously:
PERFORM ACT
Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006

The OffWorld lock-in last night was a blast.

I entered myself & Stefen in a Halo 2 tourney last night despite the fact it's the game I'm the worst at. Surprisingly, it turned out really fun, the first round ended with a nice rampage in the end on my part, and we were evenly matched the second time around with Stefen actually gaining more of the kills that time.

The rest of the night consisted of several failed attempts at regaining my old DDR skills, Street Fighter III, Naruto, and Counter-Strike. So long as I had a game in front of me, I had absolutely no intention of sleeping.

Today's been pretty relaxed for the most part: I ate customary Easter Brunch with my family in the house, slept, got some progress on my Senior Exhibition as far as sprite movement and rendering go, and closed it with a bit of CS lust as I did in the wee hours of the morning before. I'm satisfied.

I watched Mr. Smith Goes to Washington not so long ago. The movie makes me feel all warm inside and believe that there's still hope for humanity yet. Capra movies are something else, they're about as mushy and romantic as they come, but lack the lingering aftertaste of excessive saccharine. I think the movie is worthy of its classical status.

I hope everyone else has had a good zombie jesus day themselves.

Last Friday, I went over to the Tate's Gaming Satellite with Chris to go play some Magic: The Gathering. It was mostly out of impulse since I was driving around planning on going to the movies or even loitering at the mall or something, but the night still proved fruitful.

We met up with some guys there and ended up playing a few multiplayer games. The people there were really cool. and despite the fact I haven't played regularly for a long time, I still held my ground in a few games. We were all planning on buying a booster box and playing a Draft game, but that plan never came to be since the store was supposed to close shortly afterward. Ah well. I'll definitely be showing up for Friday Night Magic when they start it at the shop.

After that, Chris & I traveled just one mile away to go to OffWorld, my sporadic hang-out whenever I'm in the area. Most of the time just consisted of playing Naruto: Narutimett Hero 3, Tekken 5, and Street Fighter III: Third Strike on the PS2 there. The Naruto game has only made me want to mod my PS2 so much more, and my reputation as a grappler extended over to Tekken.

That night led me to the conclusion that I absolutely needed to buy Street Fighter III: Third Strike, so I could show those people at OffWorld a thing or two about 2D fighters. My skills have waned since the days I was addicted to X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom 2. The next day I bought the Street Fighter: Anniversary Edition for my PS2 and invited whoever I could to just come over and play video games. A good time was had by all. Those who made it included Tony, Jessica, Chris, Stefen, Felipe, Ryan, and Khris. Tony spoke of it in his last post.

This week mostly consisted of practicing Street Fighter and starting off on Metal Gear Solid 2 again after hearing so much about everyone's love for Snake Eater & Subsistence; much the same way I began playing Morrowind as everyone became excited over Oblivion. I just enjoy playing catch-up with all my video games, makes my hobby far cheaper when I go over to the bargain bin.

Yesterday, I picked up a used Street Fighter Anniversary Gamepad at GameStop for around 7 bucks. I miss my old Genesis controllers with 6 face buttons and realized just how much superior they are to the incredibly uncomfortable PS2 controller for fighting games. I plugged it in and tried it out, the gamepad is an absolute dream. I don't get blisters from the unorthodox, yet comfortable way I do hold my controller (placing my middle finger under the buttons for support), and the buttons are incredibly responsive. It's also great for my MAME & Sega Genesis emulation on my computer since I possess a PSX controller converter. Well worth it.

This afternoon, I hung out with Felipe after school and wanted to challenge him to a game of Street Fighter. Being impressed with my previous purchase, I stopped over at the nearest GameStop and looked around for a similar controller. Little did I know that my friend Matt literally cleared the store of their entire inventory in his effort to collect all the characters. I found this fact out later on.

So I perused the shop, only to find something else catch my eye. It was a slick, wireless arcade controller for the PS2 named the Ultimate Fighting Stick. The controller was 30 bucks. I was very wary about it and asked the store clerk if he could recommend it. Regardless of whether or not I could trust the GameStop employee, I figured that I had a receipt if anything went wrong.

So I went over to Felipe's house and we struggled with trying to get it to work on my PSX-to-USB converter on his computer. No luck. The connection light kept blinking never really registering it was there. I was about to discredit it for shit, but I decided to try it out on his PS2. I am so glad I didn't return it right then and there. This arcade stick is godly. I started playing some games on his PS2 and never expected it to be so responsive and comfortable to play on. Trying it out in SFIII when I got home only proved its great worth to me. Best purchase I've made in a while.

I'm a little bummed I don't have it working on my computer through the converter. It seems that the USB converter I have doesn't transfer enough power to the wireless receiver. The power light blinks repeatedly when connected to my computer, but stays still when connected to my PS2. I'm probably going to try another converter, and if that doesn't work, I'll go buy a PSX extension cable and splice it open to feed in external power to the controller. I have great incentive to do this, nearly perfect emulation of my MAME ROMs, hell yeah.

This weekend I'm going over to Atlanta for the "Connect with Tech" program where I stay with a student over at Georgia Tech and generally see how it's like up there. I'm pretty excited, Atlanta's a cool city. I'll be back around Wednesday, so I'll still be down here in Florida for a good half of my Spring Break, call me up if you have any plans then or just want to talk. I'm really considering going to the OffWorld Lock-in next Saturday, those are always fun.

I haven't shaven for the past week and I haven't had my hair cut for nearly two months. Before I felt that I should get a haircut, but today I'm really enjoying my Afro-Wolverine look. It's a real shame I'm being forced to get it cut now.

I'll be off to practice more Street Fighter.

How to fight loneliness?
Smile all the time

Shine your teeth 'til meaningless
And sharpen them with lies

And whatever's going down
Will follow you around
That's how you fight loneliness

You laugh at every joke

Drag your blanket blindly
And fill your heart with smoke

And the first thing that you want
Will be the last thing you ever need
That's how you fight it

Just smile all the time
Just smile all the time
Just smile all the time
Just smile all the time

This has just not been my week, I would have ranted about it earlier, but I currently lack internet access at home to do so, I've been without it since Wednesday. Thank god for school computers and proxy servers so I don't go into extreme withdrawals.

Apparently Comcast put a block on my web access because we "didn't pay the bill" which was bullshit. I called them up, and they swore they had the problem resolved. Despite this, I've been without internet for days, and all their tech support ever recommended is to power cycle the modem. After calling them five times for it, even requesting the next level of support, I simply yelled at the person on the line who knew nothing of what they talked about. I demanded a technician.

It's sick and twisted that the only thing that works at home is AIM, a form of communication simply abhor. For more reasons than usual as far as this week goes.

Technician never showed up on Saturday, I even waited the extra 2 hours since the dispatcher claimed the contractor was running late. I was pissed off, I just left the house at 7:30 because I wasted my entire fucking day waiting for something that never came, a theme that seems to weave like a string as far as life goes.

I'm probably going to just call and cancel my Comcast service today, I've had nothing but shitty service from them since day one and their contractors never come when they say. Going to just switch to the BellSouth for my Internet access and DirecTV for television just to spite the company, I've had enough of their shit.

My car broke down in Hialeah yesterday, I pushed it over to my grandmother's house and left it there last night getting a ride back home with my parents. Being without a car annoys the shit out of me.

I'm going to catch up on all I've missed out on as far as regular sites and email go.

Well, I just about received all the decisions from the colleges I applied to, let's review the list:

Accepted

• Florida International University
• Florida State University
• University of Central Florida
• Arizona State University
• Texas Tech
• University of Texas in Austin
• Georgia Tech

Rejected

• University of Florida

To recap, that means UF is the only University I applied to that didn't accept me. Now I know I'm truly in the position to say this:

Gainesville can suck it.

I came out of the music festival reeking of cannabis and tobacco.
The shows were AMAZING!

I showed up there seeing a little bit of G. Love & Special Sauce until Clap Your Hands & Say Yeah came on. I really wish I watched more G. Love though, any band with an upright bass and a rapping guitarist with a harmonica is clearly awesome.

Clap Your Hands & Say Yeah put on an awesome show, I was nearly spirited enough to sprain the same ankle again during the show, but I decided against jumping to the beat by merely moving the rest of my body. I absolutely must find a recording of that show.

After that show, Towers & I waited in front of the Wilco stage for about 45 minutes while we were listening to Robert Randolph & the Family Band play in the stage next to us. They sounded really sweet, I really have to find some of their material online to listen to.

Soon enough, Wilco came on. They put on a fucking awesome show, it was just outstanding. Highlights were when they played Forget the Flowers, Heavy Metal Drummer, Hummingbird, I'm The Man Who Loves You, Jesus Etc., War On War, and their closing with The Late Greats. Fuck highlights, the whole show was amazing. I also listened to a new song of theirs called Walken for the first time. That show totally made my weekend.

I got a Wilco T-shirt from the merchandise stand which I'll be wearing to school tomorrow.

Now I gotta go memorize a soliloquy for school tomorrow. so I'll be off.

I post at irregular intervals, long or short as they come, the posts will continue. This is probably going to be another long post nobody will read, ah well.

( Stereo )
( *POP* )
( Impulsive Friday Night )

I'm not too sure what I'm going to do for the rest of the day, the fact I can walk now is a relief to me, but still leaves me pretty bummed I can't run around and the like. If there's a quota of how hyper you can be around people, I must have fulfilled it on Wednesday and this is karma kicking in.

If I have nothing else to do tomorrow I'm going over to the Langerado Festival at Markham Park and am going to see Wilco. If I do have the opportunity to do so, I'l take it so quickly.

I've been listening to lots of Jack Johnson after listening to his most recent album yesterday during Programming, amazing musician.

Well, I'll be off. Ja ne.

Despite my cold I've had throughout the week, it ended up being a pretty enjoyable and relaxing time when my parents were out. No, that is not being said in spite of them, it just happened to be that way at the time.

First off, last Saturday, when I was driving back home from dropping people off from Sarah's party (long story, ask me if you want later), my car was sporadically jumping up and down and rumbling as if it were coming up for a large fall on a wooden rollercoaster. The thought of it drove me insane, and had me fearing for my own well-being, as I thought it to be my engine considering the fact the entire car was affected. I was on the phone with Kristin at the time, when I interrupted the conversation by yelling "HOLY SHIT!" as soon as the entire car began making a new sound when it seemed like the vehicle was struggling for its dear life. Immediately after that, I was told to hang up and drive home safely, and proceeded to do so by traveling down the road at 15 miles per hour until I reached the house. I was incredibly paranoid at that point, and planned on checking the car's status in the morning.

I woke up and planned on doing a whole investigation and the like. Despite my intentions to open the hood and call over my grandfather to help me out, the very moment I looked at the car, there was no longer any need for explanation; a chunk of my front left tire looked as if it was torn off by some ravaging creature. All you can see on a portion of it were small metal filings that, if run over, would end up popping the tire as a whole. It was a good thing I drove ridiculously slow the night before. It was really strange that it was my tire too, but I suppose the fact that the tires were incredibly uneven the night before led me to believe it to be a problem with the whole car. I ended up driving my sister's car this week. Filthy mess, cleaned it up on Monday after school in the free time I had before going to BCC.

Tuesday was my date with Kristin. I had a great time. It was relaxed and we talked quite a bit. I hope to go out again very soon. Yes, that summary was short, but sometimes the best things are the least described. ^_^

Wednesday, it seemed like the fates wished to screw me over with the horrible symptoms of a cold. My nose was stuffy, sinuses were clogged, and I couldn't help but cough endlessly every few minutes. There were faint signs of it beforehand, but it was just magnified to a grand scale at this point. I ended up just drinking one and a half gallons of water on that day with an insane amount of Sudafed. With the effects of my sickness and the meds, I was a zombie.

Thursday was better, but not by much cold-wise. Again, insane amounts  of water and DayQuil this time. I found out about being able to leave school during second hour and lunch with Mr. Ranzy: given parental approval, I can do so. Considering I just talked with my parents about it about an hour ago, they're for it. I just have to relay it to the office and I'm free. I'll probably go and visit the gym at BCC when I'm not just reading or doing homework for classes. Also, it means off-campus lunch for me! w00t!

D&D Quote of that session:
"What is your name?"
"My name is Nay."
"Your name is Nay?"
"Aye! My name is Nay!"

Friday, infamous senior skip day. I didn't technically skip though, I got called in sick (any teacher can testify how I've been this week anyway :P). The day consisted of going to IHOP with Ryan, Darren & Gio. Gio was totally owned by our waitress. The dialog went sort of like this:

"Those Pigs in a Blanket filled me up, I couldn't finish them."
"Next time, you should order from the kids' menu, it comes with only two of them and brings hash browns."

After saying this, she proceeded to walk away naturally. Now, if you don't know Gio, this is how he looks like, he's 6'6" and is even noticeably tall when sitting down in the restaurant booth. Intentional or not, Gio was flat out owned by our waitress. I made sure to increase her tip for that.

After IHOP, we all played on Ryan's XBOX 360. DOA4 Tag Team is just plain awesome. It's the first time I actually played on a 360 aside from store demos and Hexic, so I was pretty impressed. Just the fact the controllers were wireless and actually responsive was reason enough for me to enjoy playing the game a hell of alot more.

After that, it was Starbucks where we were joined by Tim. We later went over to his house where we watched random videos online until I went off to work.

I don't know what caused it. Could have been that I had a pretty relaxing day, or the fact took some DayQuil and 2000mg of Vitamin C a little beforehand, but as soon as I walked into work, I barely felt the effects of my cold. Aside from having to blow my nose about once each 2 hours, I was functioning as a normal person, amazing. I'm taking more Vitamin C from now on.

Anyway, yeah. That entry was really long. I never really intended to make "Week in Review" type LJ-entries, and hope to update a bit more sporadically with much shorter occurrences, but hey, it's what I have time to do I suppose. :P

This week has treated me very well. Sure, I'm anxious for a few things that didn't happen, but I'm a patient creature, so that will pass.

School has been pretty relaxed, between doing nothing but watching Hamlet in AP Lit, a welcome surprise, and having a free second period which immediately kills all prospects of doing my homework when I sit in front of the computer I'm assigned to in Programming, it's been sort of a lazy week. I'm planning on asking if I can leave the campus from second period until the end of lunch time, because I really barely get anything done in that 2 hour period and I need to breathe away from computers, which every room in the school possesses. Also, various students have been doing the same themselves during their free class periods.

D&D on Tuesday was a really good session, and also was a surprise birthday party for our DM Gio. Only Tim and I made it there on time, which is strange considering the fact I missed my exit and ended up going around on I-75 just going home before the game. As soon as Gio walked in, we surprised him nonetheless, just as he surprised me when he whacked me with a plastic stick he pulled out of someone's lawn not so long before. Ow.

Work has been alright. Last night wasn't as busy as the past nights I worked there. It was nice since I got to leave a half an hour early due to the fact the mopping and sweeping was done promptly as everyone was leaving, more on that in a bit. What was not nice was I was the only busboy working the majority of the time despite the fact the other busboy actually showed up. Apparently he spends more time washing dishes and helping out in the kitchen than actually bussing tables. This wasn't so bad since I always had trays handy to put the garbage and plates away, and unlike other nights they weren't in perpetual shortage. I was just mad because it felt like I was the only one actually using the trays that night.

Despite my irritability due to this fact, he came in and sweeped like a madman when I told him to at the end of the night, just about the only command of mine he followed, and proceeded to take the mop from me half way through and do some speed-mopping until the restaurant was empty and ready to go. Impressed, I thanked him and went my merry way, it was a good night in the end.

Probably the main reason I've been content this week, it feels good to talk to an interesting girl before I go to sleep each night about random stuff. I haven't had that luxury for a while, so I'm happy about it. It gives something to look forward to at the end of the day.

Well, I'll be off.