Time can be a terrible place, so to speak, to get lost in. (Originally posted on MySpace on Monday, July 25, 2005 )

OK so didn't post a blog over the weekend. I was busy on saturday picking up my car from the shop. I put about 800 bucks into it, mostly on stuff that had been needing fixing for the two years that I've owned it. It drives so much smoother...apparantly one of the axle boots was so badly damaged that part of the rear axel had totally siezed or something...and it made a horrible noise. I would be remiss if I did not mention that Aaron was nice enough to wake up EARLY and give me a ride to get my car. Although I did give him 20 bucks...so I'd call it even...but he made it clear to me that he did not call it even due to the amount of traffic he sat in on Friday...so an apology is in order.

I'm sorry . Also, I'm sorry that I advised Becca not to upgrade the lightning bolt power. It is just that that game is so stingy with orbs that you really just need to focus on the items and magic that you use the most...and use will power to ignore the upgrades that cost less but are rarely used. And 90% of the time you only use your blades so, even though they cost more to upgrade...it's just the prudent move. I know this is hard to accept but it is the wisest strategem.

Now that I have that cleared up I can focus on other things. I also didn' t update because I spent an inordinant amount of time reorganizing the living room due to the fact that Becca's folks gave us their HUGE old TV. so that meant that the 'good' TV my mom gave us for Christmas is moving to the living room and we are getting rid of Sara's old Entertainment Center. That thing...wow...It truly is a wonder of inadequate design flaws. The hole the TV is supposed to fit in is 21" HIGH and 42" wide...now that might work if you have a nice plasma TV...but given that a nice plasma TV dosen't need a HUGE entertainment center I can't figure out what the thing is supposed to hold. It would also work well with an aquarium...but then where does the tv go? on top of the thing? ugh....I'm glad to see it go. No offense, sara, it was nice of you to give it to us...but it really is useless and it's time to go to IKEA and move on.

Also on Saturday we went to this Party / BarBeQue over at Angela's house which was pretty good with two exceptions:

1. HORRIBLE music...music that makes the music at Brenda's parties sound good (for those of you uninitiated Brenda's parties usually feature an insipid brew of 80s cock rock and 70's power rock groups like Boston). But the music at Angela's party consisted of three discs: Dave Matthew's Matchbox 20, and Maroon Five. Hey, it wasn't my party, so I didn't complain as vocally as Aaron and Andrew...because I figure...when people come to a party at my house..they listen to what I want to listen to...and THEN they can eat my free food. So I figured...I'll eat my (extremely tasty) burgers and hot dogs and endure the mind numb of adult contemporary snooze rock.

and

2. I was the designated drive so I couldn't get ROYALLY SMASHED. I drank a little bit...but soon switched to diet cokes to keep my road worthy senses...after all what good is spending 800 bucks on your car if you only go get drunk and smash it up the next day.

So the new TV is great. Huge. Clear. Lots of video inputs and outputs...It's damn sweet. I remember when becca and I were first dating and I took the old PS1 over to her house and we played Medal of Honor Underground on her parents TV and plugged it into their surround sound...it felt more naughty than having sex in their bed...which for the record we honestly never did...I fear becca's parents far to much for that kind of tomfoolery...

When we got home from the barbeque I was eager to play some sweet games on the new rig...but I had Aaron, Andrew, and Becca to think of so I tried to think of something that we could all do that would be fun. I decided that a quick round of Halo death match was in order...but it didn't work out to good. Poor Andrew isn't comfortable with climbing onto the bed with Becca Aaron and I. I can understand taht...but the poor guy sat with his face INCHES away from this 37" TV and he still kicked our ass. Aaron, of course, complained the WHOLE time. Mainly because he doesn't like playing death matches where he and I were being unmercifully SLAUGHTERED by andrew, but also because he likes to feel a sense of progression...and interesting psychological study could be done which studied the benefit of a STORY mod player vs a DEATHMATCH player...they are two totally different things.

Another wrench in the works was that in order to play our online match we had to download the fucking PATCH that had come out that day as well as a new multiplayer map...it sucked...and it took a long time. And in that time I was coming off as BOSSY and PUSHY and Becca was getting peeved...the scene was turning ugly. So I frittered around with all the online shit (Becca also has no patience for non-working technology and has no understanding of the subtle black art of the tech-twiddle so important in maintaining computers...she just wants to turn it on and GO, which is understandable...but it was not the case on Saturday night.)

Anyway while the fucking patch downloaded we played GOD of WAR, which is in my top three greatest PS2 games ever...if not THE greatest...I'm torn on that one...but this game is a MUST play. But this didn't turn out well either as Becca was getting pissed of by the difficult passages that she had to replay a few times...and then Aaron took over for a little too long and she got mad that he was playing his game and felt like I had bossed him into it or something.

So the solution to this was to play Doom 3. I let Andrew take a crack at it since he had sat patiently through God of War...it was hilarious. He drunkenly stumbled his way through the levels wildly switching between weapons and punching most of the monsters to death. This eventually degenerated into us yelling at him which way to go until finally he tried to fist fight one of those enemies that look like a skelleton with a rocket launcher should pad thing...and he lost.

It was then that we got around to Halo and this cleared the room...a couple of games in which Aaron repeated..."oh shit. I have no idea what I'm doing...I hate this...I hate this...Why are we playing this." and Andrew chuckled that masterbating clown chuckle of his, before everyone took off for home.

Sunday was comparitively nice and low key...spent most of the day with becca. Saw Wedding crashers with Angela...which was funny. Got my latest issue of Retro Gamer...I love getting a new issue before I finish the last one...no pining away that way. And then we went home and played God of War for about eight hours. Aaron came over and hung out too...it was much more peaceful when becca took the sticks for the majority of the time...

Now, well back at work...gotta save what little money I have and hope I can slide through till I get paid on the 5th....and then it's off to DAD's for a little R and R.

Can't wait.

See ya on the flip.