20060326

Well Barrett was Smashed Like a Bowl of Eggs, and the Maintruck Carried Off Both me Legs

God. Damn. Them. All.

Well, well, where has the time gone? I find myself sitting in front of my computer at the end of the weekend trying to sum up everything that has happened. Well, nothing really happened during the week itself. So I'll start from Friday, where I went to class as per the normal and finished, as per the normal, at 10:30. But, as per the abnormal, I had something to do at 11. I was in a psych study. There is an opportunity to earn extra credit in my course by participating in studies, to the tune of 1% for each study (to a max of 5%). I scored my first percent just by filling out an exhaustive number of questionairres in order to make myself eligible for other studies. How cool is that? Unfortunately, most of my study offers came during the week of Footloose, which was pretty much a no-go for anything other than stress and things worth more than an optional 1%. However, 2 of the offers were simply for more questionairres online, which I was able to complete after Footloose was dealt with. Then, a couple of people went to the trouble of actually phoning me about labs happening this week. Score. I got myself booked for the aforementioned spot at 11 and for another at 3, which was the earliest they had. The lab was easy, and I got a chance to look around the psych building. Which was cool. The psych building is known for its totally random floorplan (which I can attest to, actually finding anything there is always a handful), but what's not so well known is an awsome little lounge in the middle of the first floor. Very cool architecture, scultpures hanging from the ceiling, racks of newspapers at hand. It was hexagonal and consisted of about 5 levels, all going down by steps into the floor below. But it was all broken up into little sections with recessed benches and things. A great little place. I took a load off there for a short while before going off to get some lunch.

I went back to my room and killed time before the next study. I was running out of hard drive space (again) and dropped some things onto DVD. Then I called my mother to relate some news to her about my latest money troubles. We ended up talking for a long while, during which I decided to fill some of my newly freed disc space with Star Wars Battlefront. I hadn't played it for a while, and having it in my posession began to stir fond memories. Then I also queued up a bunch of new dowloads. Like, a big bunch. It was stupid. Further, I began lecturing my mother on the benefits of VLC, and writing her an exhaustive email detailing how to download and install it so that she could watch my copy of Firefly (which I'd left at with her after Reading Week). I also began talking to Blake on Googletalk. So, while all these things were going on, I failed to realize/notice my newly freed gigbytes disappearing. After I'd said goodbye to my mother and finished the email, but while I was still talking to Blake, I noticed that only 98 glorious Mb were left on drive C. Now, this wouldn't have been a problem if the 5lb paperweight sitting inside my chassis (also known as a 300gig SATA drive) was in functional condition, but I won't rail about that any more. God knows it hasn't helped me any so far. So I sent a panicked "FUCKFUCKFUCKFUC" to Blake and a) started burning a new DVD and also uninstaled Battlefield 2 (Which I don't think I mentioned before has been working fine on my computer for about 2 weeks) and Cossacks 2 (which I haven't touched since early January) for short-term gains. I rewatched the first episode of Samurai Champloo a couple of times and skimmed through a couple of the other ones. Episode 7 was climing quickly, and had been busting into the 90s percentile-wise all day. I was getting antsy with expectation.

Around 6:30 I remembered that I had to call my landlady-to-be about rescheduling our meeting (which was the source of my monetary trouble not-quite-detailed above) for next week. I am very excited to be looking at my first real home. Residence was nice, but its grand comforts resemble life in a hotel rather than life in a house. I'm going to be moving in with 5 other guys from the basement of my building. It's going to be awsome. Friday night was basically an idea of what every night next September is going to be like: At around 8:30 we all LANed up some AOE2 action (I got smoked by the AI early on and didn't really have to energy to recover very much for the rest of the game. I just did cleanup where the other guys had gone before me). After that we made a caff-run and got suited up for the next round: N64 emulation with n00b sticks. Now, Urban Dictionary disagrees with me on the definition of this term, but for our purposes a n00b stick is a console game controller with a USB interface. I have no idea why such a product would exist except for use with emulators. But wow, did our n00b sticks suck balls. There were 2 good ones that one of our guys owned, but the other two wre borrowed from another guy down the hall, and boy were they shittier than anything. "Blame it on the stick" was my catch-phrase of the night. It was about 10:30 when I told the guys I needed to get to bed at a decent time because Blake was coming over sometime on Saturday. They presuaded me it would be prudent to play until midnight. Well, since there were 5 of us there, and only 4 slots in any N64 game, I sat out for the last game of the night: 20 rounds of Mario Party 2. I fell asleep about halfway through and went to bed. It was 2am. At some poine during the night I realized that I'd completely missed my 3 o'clock psych study.

At an unidentifiable time in the morning I was roused from my fitful slumber by the clamouring of my telephone. It was Blake. He was calling to tell me he was leaving Stratford soon. Awsome...click, snore. Seriously, how much more useless could that information have been to me?

Unidentifiable time #2: Blake is here. I hang up the phone and stumble into the hallway to wait for him to get to my building so I can let him on the floor. After doing so he informs me that its 10:30am.

A short time later: In a rush of energy my sinusses all clear at once and I am deposited, kicking and screaming, into full consciousness. I decide that clothes are probably a good idea. Blake and I head out to scope Laurier. And all its hot broadskis. Due to the absence of any sort of formal planning in this endeavour the trip ends up being a mix of adventure and boredom. After the journey to the Laurier campus we made our first big discovery of the day: the Directory. It's like a mall directory. Only for Laurier. And they have them all over the campus. It was to prove invaluable in our upcoming adventure. As well as the geographical informtion it imparted, other valuable secrets were unveiled:

They heart it, okay? Like, jesus. How did I end up at the place down the street?

We started with the music building (which was also, conveniently, the building directly ahead of us from where we were reading the directory). We walked in and encountered a somewhat bemusing sight: There were people. A lot of people. Certainly a lot for before noon on Saturday. They were lined up. And as we got to the line Blake commented that it reeked of wine. But it didn't. It reeked of wine corks. That particular mystery was never explained, nor that of what these people were lined up for, but god were there a lot of them. We walked along this lineup through the music building, down a corridor out of the music building and into the caffeteria behind it. It was surreal. But then it was gone. Blake noted that the cafeteria was too open, nice-looking, clean, and stocked with beautiful Laurier girls for his liking. We moved on. Upon exiting the place we bumped into a guided tour of the campus. "Just the thing," I thought to myself. "This is retarded," Blake thought out loud. We moved on. Since we weren't part of the guided tour we didn't get to look into any residences, but we did note that the exteriors were very house-like. We found another directory (the one which bore the message above) and consulted it as to the location of the English building. We traversed numerous back-alleys, small gardens, and concrete staircases before coming upon the back door of the bookstore. It was barred, as all too many good back doors are, to our entry. After entering the building from elsewhere we looped around, found a side door that was also locked, and finally came to the front door. And were immediately assaulted by enough Laurier swag to clothe the entire population of the third world (including jumpers for all their babies), and let them and their decendants take shots, drink coffee, stay dry in the rain, pack up their belongings, and temporary tattoo every available inch of exposed (or not) skin with impunity. Assuming they could afford it. Seriously, I was expecting purple and gold teeth to be on display somewhere in there. God help you if you were looking for a book. Blake noted that they sold Ian Rankin and turned towards the used CDs in disgust. I looked at the new Ian Rankin releases and noted, slightly unhappily, that none of them were new Rebus novels. We moved on.

Back outside we renewed our search for the English building. After stumbling around for a number of minutes we found a building that said English on it. We walked in, got 50 feet down the hallway, and saw the bookstore in foont of us. Well. That was kind of embarassing. But then, we found something even cooler: Recessed into this seemingly harmless building was an escalator. Fuck yeah. At my insistance we took the escalator up. Five stories. It was awsome, even though Blake refused to emulate my sexy poses while riding. While there I read an awsome article about feminists ruining feminism which was taped onto someone's door. Well, I thought it was awsome. I'm sure someone somewhere cumbusted a bra in fury. Hopefully while it was still on them.

We walked back down to the ground floor (seriously, who has a up escalator but no down?) and across a path to the library, where we took an elevator to the top floor. From there the only notable thing that happened was me being unable to see my own campus sitting directly in front of me. We left Laurier the way we came, and went into the reaches of downtown Waterloo. We headed off down King St. in search of a TD for Blake. I also suggested a nice Chinese place the was right across the street from the bank. On the way there Blake noticed the Long & McQuade and decided we needed to stop there as well. As we were about to walk into the bank we were assaulted by a man our age engaged in looking for loose change. Here's how the exchange went:
Dude, to Blake, "Do you have any loose change?"
Blake, truthfuly, "No, dude."
"Oh. Are you guys looking for a girlfriend?"
ummmm..... what? I kept my mouth shut but the quizzical look still leapt boldly onto my face. A pimp... panning for loose change. I wonder what Brendan would say about this guy's business plan.
Blake made some sort of mumled denial and we went into the bank, where Blake withdrew hoards of cash which was never destined to meet this man's hands. Although we did leave the bank by a different door than the one we entered from.

Shortly thereafter I remembered that I can't use chopsticks. Over half my food went into a doggie bag when we decided I'd wasted enough time. Blake messed his pants upon walking into Long & McQuade. They had a soundproof room full of guitars and amps. Blake went in and wordlessly challenged the skinny Indie kid across the room from us to a shredding battle. Or rather he misconstrued the fact that the kid was also playing a guitar as some sort of challenge to him. Whichever. Blake won. 20 minutes later we found the basement where they kept the drums. There were no soundproof rooms. I walked down the stairs and saw a gong sitting on the floor. I did the natural thing and tapped it with the toe of my boot, just as the guy working the floor came into view. It ended up not making any sound. Well, not one to be outdone by authority, and got down on one knee and flicked it. The response from such a small contact was very immense. It was an awsome sound. I stood, turned to face the guy who had been staring at me since he turned the corner. "Hey". "Hey. There used to be a mallot around here for that". "Yeah?" I turned away and looked at other things. he continued to some guy standing beside him, "Yeah there used to be", "haha, wonder why there isn't anymore?" his friend contributed. Yuck it up fuck-face. I considered suggesting that some retarded sales associate had moved it because he couldn't understand why anyone would want to try something out before they bought it, but Blake had just sat down at the electric drums and I didn't want have us thrown out just yet. So I wandered aimlessly through their pathetically small selection (featuring three different electric kits.... gah). I chilled in a really awsome drum throne with an adjustable lumbar support, and then jumped off of it when I glanced down and noticed that it was $250. We hadn't got 10 feet out into the street when someone ran out of the store after us. It was a guy we'd seen in the drum room. He solicited Blake to find out if he wanted drum-lessons. I mean, seriously, I've always thought Blake was a bit of a sucker, but I didn't realize everyone in Kitchener could see it too, and only after seeing him for 30 seconds.

So, we got back to my place (having only survived the lengthy journey back by the sheer volume of Blake's complaints about the distance) and, as was prophecied in my last post, I queued up some Samurai Champloo for his and my consumption. That was my plan for the rest of the day: watch Samurai Champloo until he had to go home (to work at 9am). He was pleased with the offering. Now that episode 7 was in my hands I set about watching the series with a vengeance. We'd cleared 10 episodes (or rather I'd cleared 10 episodes, Blake had fallen asleep about 3 or 4 in) when the phone rang. It was Ben and Justyn, they were in Cambridge (poor souls) and they decided to come by for a visit. The only trouble was that they didn't know how to get to my school. I opened up trusty GoogleEarth, and (10 minutes later) was unable to help them. I had to resort to the much less chic MapQuest at Justyn's behest (by this time they had pulled off the road and I was still trying to find where they were on the map). I set them on route to get here (and talked them through the whole trip util they were in the turning lane in front of my school), and told them to phone me when they got to my building so that I could let them in.
Half an hour later: "Dude, I didn't know I was supposed to call you."
"Oh, well, whatever, so you're at my building?"
"No... I don't know where it is. I'm in the parking lot. We've been waiting here for, like, half an hour."
So, never letting Ben be the telephone go-between for me and Justyn anymore.

We all got back to my room and took a load off. That's when we all remembered that my house is boring and there's nothing to do. That's when Justyn had his Great Idea for the day: McKenna were playing at some dirty pub in Milton that night. Oh... Who's Milton?

Twenty-three minuts later (Justyn put $2 in the meter, why leave right away and waste half of it?) we were on the road. However, my normal habit of calling Shotgun actually landed me with responsibilty. I navigated all the way to Milton, which was boring, so I won't get into it. Suffice to say I am a navigator of mediocre capabilities. But we did get to Milton. And we were there for at least 10 minutes before Justyn decided we were going to get Laura. I came with him to navigate some more while Ben and Blake stayed behind. And I can't blame them. The music was absoutely killer, and the waitress serving us was wearing a skirt shorter than her apron. She had a face like the sole of my boot, but as Benner reminded us, "Who cares about the mantle when you're poking the fire?"

So we went to Hamilton, I met Justyn's cat (Rocky), and we got Laura. Then we drove back. I indulged in more adult beverages and sang loudly with Ben while banging my empty glass on the table. The show was totally awsome, exactly as good as when I saw these guys back in Stratford. And I ogled the waitresses some more. And some more. And then we were done, and I was sleepy. I fell asleep on the drive back to Hamilton. But then we went to Laura's work for another drink (and a another rendition of Barrett's Privateers). I fell asleep with a vengeance on the drive back to Waterloo (at this point it was approximately 2:30 - 3:00am). I actually feel very bad about that, because I was in Shotgun again and Justyn had told Ben and Blake they could go to sleep in the back because they both had things to do in the morning. I didn't and I was supposed to be navigating with him. But I did wake up about 15 minutes before we made Kitchener. I managed to wake up and start firing directions to Justyn (he'd had the foresight to print off mapquest instructions for getting us there and bck). Trouble is, I missed one. And suddenly we were off the highway. In Kitchener. Where I don't know any of the streets. After we had driven about 3 minutes down this road I sheepishly admitted that there was a good chance that I had given him a wrong turn. He took it very well. However, in an attempt to salvage the situation we continued down the road a little further to see if I could recognise any of the streets. No luck. Once we got back on the highway everything was fine, though. When we got to the University and Justyn was driving up the road towards my building he took out an Alan key and unscrewed his gear-shift. "Watch this". Justyn throws on the binders, screams as loud as he can and waves the detached gear-shift in his hand. I thought it was hilarious. Blake and Ben... didn't.

And then I was home. I invited Justyn up to print off more Mapquests to get them back to the S-dot, but Blake told him he'd navigate. I don't know what happend then; I went to bed. But everyone please remember that Blake had to work at 9, and it was 4 when I got home. I don't know how Blake would describe his shift that Sunday, but I'm going to guess that "super-awsome-tastic" would not be his first choice. Of course, that's assuming that they made it home OK. Neither Blake nor Ben have posted anything since then, so god only knows.

I woke up in a searing torrent of sunlight at 8 o'clock. I considered suicde but then just did my usual "try really hard to pretend its still dark until noon" routine. I spent the day killing off Champloo. It was so awsome. I absolutely love that show. I got dressed for an hour in order to get my only meal of the day at around 7. I was going to get undressed and go back to bed around 9:30, when Danger knocked on my door and reminded me that I'd just missed the house meeting ever for our building. It's all about the timing, Danger. Tell me before I miss the meeting. Then I went and chilled with him for about 5 minutes. But I couldn't keep my eyes open, so I said adieu and walked back to my room. 5 seconds after I shut my door, the phone rings. I pick up, "Hello?" "AOE2, right now." "Guys I'm going to bed... No, wait. I'm opening AOE right now."
Then, just as the game is about to start, another phonecall. It's from a guy named Karl. He wants me to be in a psych study on monday morning. I agree, and one awsome game of AOE later my head hits the pillow.

Which brings us to today. Karl's study was the only thing that made me get out of bed for class. I'd cunningly scheduled it for 11, just after my last class today ends. It was probably the coolest study I've ever been in: He put a helmet on my head with little cameras that focussed on my eyes. His entire study is just filming people's eyes as they read little academic reports from Nature magazine from a sweet-looking LCD screen. The cameras were self-calibrating too. I'd have to focus on a dot on the screen and somehow the camera knew when it was in perfect focus on my eye. Maybe it could see the reflection or seomthing. It was wicked fuckin cool, though. Also, Karl told me that back in the day when people did these sorts of studies, they got perfectly fitted contact lenses with tiny arms reaching out from them to show where the eyes were pointing. He said it was like having long needles coming out of your eyes. And what was the best part of the study? I controlled the page-turning of the reading material with a n00b stick! In fact, it was the exact same model of n00b stock I'd used on Friday night. Too cool.

Well, that's all for now. If you're reading this, POST SOMETHING!

6 comments:

Ben said...

well, fucking pardon me for not posting, your highness. You forget that some of us don't have the luxury of internet in their homesteads.

I just now got to see your post, so shut up!

man, I told justyn to call when we got to the college. He said that just to cover his own forgetful ass. Either way, we got there, and had a cigarette. That's the main thing.

Thing two, I don't remember anything about the car ride home from laura's place. Shit, even laura's place is hazy as hell. I was gone as soon as I sat back into the car. I don't remember frank throwing on the brakes and screaming. Is that a bad thing?

Oh, and I spent that night sleeping in franks car, in his driveway.


It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Ben

Maranatha said...

Ya see, I'm not. That's the point. Of the bitching. I could fill it up with games/music/anime/movies given enough time (or a faster Resnet connection to DC++)

HurleyGirly said...

holy jesus, is it really necessary to write such long posts!?
however I liked it!
you'll be happy to know thatI have only used 12% of my 18315 MB of computer space, i think. but then again i have no idea what that means nor do I really know how to accurately check that out.
I particularly enjoyed the drawing.

**Ellen

Maranatha said...

I am always happy to help. Although I now expect to find a post about your shitty day when I finish typing this comment and check your blog.
PS, fuck everyone else.

Maranatha said...

Excellent

Blake said...

post something cockbutt.