Trip Five

The past two days were spent doing money-conserving activities and I had myself a lort of funners.
Joe was a really good pal and offered the lot of us a free showing of Pirates of the Caribbean at the Metreon. So since the movie was free, the money was instead spent parking and playing really expensive DDR. It was worth it, though – the company was pleasing and the movie was astounding. The action sequences in the movie conveyed a sort of fun, exhilarating feel, unlike the forces scenes in movies like the Matrix, where the choreography and cinematography was simply enjoyable. And because it was Disney, it wasn’t any more violent or brutal than it had to be.
After the movie I decided to stick around for dinner, which meant picking up some KFC. We stopped off at Grace’s house, where she packed her things to go… uh, wherever with her friend George for the next few days. But her first stop was Chris’s house, as was mine.
What started off as a low-key, small “get drunk” gathering pretty much stayed its course, yet I found myself drinking nothing, and it didn’t look like anyone else was too depressed, or too smashed. Although we pretty much just slept at Chris’s, woke up, and left, it seemed like there was value to it. We had a good time watching some late-night Comedy Central, and fell asleep surprisingly early. Above anything else, a relatively big amount of sleep was worth mentioning at Chris’s grandpa’s apartment.
The rest of that day was spent fulfilling responsibilities, like going to the gym without really having to – that is, without a scheduled trainer appointment, working a whole lot on my website jobs (which are becoming really difficult because I have to move this one guy’s site off Homestead, which is impossible), and driving Lily places.
And now I forgot that I was supposed to make some extra dough through helping Brad pack. D’oh to no dough.
So the next morning I arose bright and early to accompany my dad to Milpitas, where he attended the first Sun Microsystems employee party in a few years (things are finally looking up). He dropped me off at Golfland. It’s been 12 years since I was last at Golfland. What I remember of it mostly is the SegaSonic Arcade game, with Ray the Squirrel and Iforgothisname the Armadillo… but it wasn’t there anymore.
In its place: DDR 4th+, DDRMAX2, DDR Extreme, DDR Disney, GuitarFreaks, GF9, DrumMania8, KeyboardMania5, Hiphopmania CM2, and ParaPara Paradise 2. I was only there for about two hours, but in a cheap, well-kept, well-ventilated, friendly place like this, I had one hell of a good time. But that’s not all!
During my one and only game of ParaPara Paradise 2nd Mix, who could walk in, but… Grace and George! Of all the places in all of California that they could have been (including, like, San Diego), they had stopped off at MGL. ‘Course, I’m sure it’s a big area in the South Bay for fellow Bemani players, but of all the people, and especially in the only time I’ve been there in such a long time. Freaky.
Grace said I’m sheltered, which, relatively, is quite true. Yet the most important thing I came to is that both of us are happy with who and what we are. Huh, I don’t think I can really get philosophical in the middle of a recap blog. I’ll save that for later. 😛
After MGL, I met back up with my dad, who had invited me to see Terminator 3 with the rest of his department. Unfortunately, some dumbo mixed up the theater reservations and it turned out that we had the wrong tickets for the wrong theater. So everyone basically got a free movie ticket. On the way home, my dad and I stopped off in Emeryville, where the closest AMC is, and to our dismay there was no Terminator 3 showing there… instead we watched Finding Nemo, which would have been much better if we had brought someone a bit younger, like Lily, since I had already seen it and it’s not something you’d bring your dad to. We should have seen the Italian Job.
Friday night was a bit different since my sister came along (instead of my dog Java, like last week :P). But she fared well on her own, going to and from the Oasis to Starbase. Looks like she’s making friends with a lot of my friends, which is cool.
At the Oasis, a few kids were using that black pencil stuff to draw depressed signals on their face, like tear drops, or shadows under eyes, or stitches over their mouths. I wanted in on it, but since I wasn’t depressed, I requested this. Fortunately, they weren’t thrown off by my high spirits and they gladly drew a butterfly on my face. I was happy.
Then I went to Starbase, where, of course, I played Butterfly. Then I tried Kidou 2 again, and failed on Kakumei, again. But just for a change, I tried Trip Five, which, like Paranoia Brothers, I was sure I would fail – but heyey, I ended up doing it. Very fun.
So those were two days. Tomorrow I expect to get my computer (or at least a loner with a hard drive that I’ll keep until the case/mobo/cpu arrive for my own one), and drive my sister places, again. Good times.