Super-Mega-Epsilon Update! SUPREME Edition!

What's the difference, you may ask, between a regular update and a SUPREME update? Well, a SUPREME update comes with fries and a shake. At least, I wish it did. I could do with some fries and a shake right now. I'm starving. I haven't had a meal since 1:30 this afternoon, and it's 10:30 now. Good thing I've got my quiche cooking. It should be done in about half an hour, maybe a little less. I like quiche. For those who don't know, it's sort of an eggy pie you can put things in. At least, you can put things in if you're of the particular sort of bent that isn't mine, and that actually enjoys eating things with multiple ingredients. Barbarians, the lot of you, I say.

Anyway. I promised an update, and so I deliver one. Friday was pretty ridiculous. We went on a parade, the homecoming parade welcoming our football team home, as they had not played at home for 34 days at that point. Which even I can see is a little excessive. We were scheduled to play against Vanderbilt. I barely know anything about Vanderbilt, even what state it's in (I later found out that it was Tennessee), but two points immediately presented themselves:

1. We apparently have a great big rivalry with Vanderbilt and narrowly win against them pretty much every year. There's always sort of a constant fear that the narrow nature of our victories will turn on us, if Tebow drops the ball or someone intercepts at a crucial point, and we end up narrowly losing instead. Also,
2. Any university with a name like "Vanderbilt" instantly conjures to mind a group of snotty rich kids with names like "Lester P. Wilfrington XVIII", the sort of people who bring their manservants from home to keep their dorm rooms tidy. Vanderbilt, to the best of my knowledge, is not actually like this, but I've never been one to go beyond the first irrational impression of a school which, due to my own academic affiliations, I'm already supposed to hate.

So the mood was tense, yet festive. The parade was lots and lots of fun. The drumline has a cadence, a drum solo, that is called "8-Ball," which they played over and over again. It has a good sound to it, but the important thing about it is that when it is played, the rest of the band stops marching and starts dancing. At a certain point, anyway. The tubas used to have a certain dance to go with it, but recently we learned a new one. This dance comes from the hip-hop song "Souljah Boy," which I've never been a fan of (even disregarding that I don't like hip-hop, it's too darn repetitive), but which looks pretty cool when you have a bunch of tubas dancing it in unison.

Of course, those last two words - "in unison" - are what might be called the sticking point. Since we have a lot of what we call "rotags" in the section (to identify what that means, spell "gator" backwards), these being first-year band students, no matter their actual class affiliation, absorbing new information such as dances did not come easily or quickly to them. So about half the section didn't even know the dance we were supposed to do. There is a much easier and less impressive-looking dance we do instead, when we don't feel like going to all the effort, called "Section 8-Ball," which is just us leaping back and forth in unison. Then, there's the old 8-Ball dance, that only people who were here at least two years ago really know, and fewer still have the guts to do. This is because it ends in a leap that falls to a split on the ground. With a fifty-pound brass weight, few indeed have the courage to attempt a split. One of our number did it to much lauding, and I tried to do it, but I chickened out halfway down and managed to rearrange my limbs into a sort of kneeling posture (more difficult than you might think). Landing on my knee was the only downside of it. Ow.

The end result of all this was that the people in the tuba section were dancing any one of these three during any given rendition of 8-Ball, more or less at random, and every so often someone would get bored or creative and come up with another version of the dance, that they just came up with on the spot. Anarchy reigned. But it looked pretty impressive from the outside, for all the lack of actual coordination that went into it, and that's what's important in the end. So the parade went well. All the tuba players went to a Chinese buffet known as the "Century Buffet" afterwards. We had planned to go to a different restaurant, the Szechuan Panda, that the tubas traditionally went to; but it was closed for homecoming. We gnashed our teeth in despair. Since the Century Buffet was right next to the mall, which was right next to the card shop, I bought a couple of packs of Magic cards. For my rares, I opened Hostility and Hamletback Goliath (available for trade).

Then, as has been previously mentioned, I went to sleep. So my recollection of the events during that time is somewhat dampened. After I awoke, however, I immediately got suited up for Gator Growl, the world's largest student-run pep rally.

At least, that was the plan. I discovered that, in riding in the bed of Stephanie's (one of the tuba players) pickup truck, I had left my uniform jacket. This concerned me, and I called her frantically as to its whereabouts. She had it, she confirmed, and said she would bring it in the morning. Puzzled, I asked that didn't I need it tonight? No, she stated, we were wearing our polo shirts and jeans, don't you remember? Oh, that's right, I said. Of course. How could that have slipped my mind. (I had no previous knowledge of this.) But an immediate problem presented itself as soon as I hung up the phone with Stephanie: I own no pairs of jeans. I don't like the way denim feels against my skin.

So I called my roommate, Walter. "Walter, m'boy," I said cheerfully. "Can I borrow a pair of jeans?" He turned me down flat. He seemed slightly repulsed by the concept. Confused at this reaction, I tried my suitemate, Rob. He rejected me openly, saying that borrowing another guy's pants "was the gayest thing [he] ever heard of." (emphasis mine) I briefly considered that he must not have heard much in that regard, but the jeans issue still confronted me. I slipped on a pair of black pants instead, hoping they would do. As it happened, nobody cared, and I got off scot-free.

But still. Why is borrowing jeans such a taboo? I mean, I've lent Travis my clothes before. Heck, even my roommate from last year, Victor, he borrowed a pair of my pants. Did I say a word? Well, other than "Wash them when you return them," because he was going motorcycle riding with them? No! I mean, come on, people, they're just pants! It's not like I'm asking to borrow a pair of boxer shorts, or a toothbrush, or to take a bite out of the block of mozzarella Walter has in his fridge and then put it back. (Why does he have a block of cheese in his fridge? I see him replacing it occasionally, but I never see him eating any. He never even cooks, to the best of my knowledge. How odd.)

Nevertheless. I arrived at the stadium with plenty of time to spare. I had even remembered to bring everything I needed, quite possibly a first in my history with any kind of band, high-school or college. I unpacked my tuba, dodged a few slings on the part of my less kind fellow tuba players as to the state of my pants, and got ready to warm up. I played a humorous strain on my tuba before warmups began, in order to lighten myself up for the evening ahead.

The first and second valves (the things I push in to get different notes, sort of like keys on a piano or strings on a guitar, there are three on my horn) stuck shut and would not open.

Oh dear.

I managed to pry them open with a considerable amount of effort, but discovered that pushing them shut again would cause them to stick with a great deal of stubbornness. Surmising that this was a result of improper oiling, I checked my case for valve oil. There was none. I asked my fellow tuba players. They had none. I asked the baritones. They had none. I worked my way down to the trumpet players before I finally managed to find someone with a bottle of valve oil. I borrowed it successfully, thanked the trumpet player in question profusely, and set about oiling my valves. I oiled them, in fact, just about as much as it is possible to oil a set of valves and not have them slide right out of the horn in a fit of over-lubrication. I then tested them.

They stuck, just as hard and fast as before.

Dang.

My section leader, Stanley, arrived at this point. Upon trying the valves himself, he proclaimed that the valves in question were bent and that the tuba was unusable. I panicked.

Me: What should I do? I can't play like this!
Stanley: No, you cannot.
Me: So...what should I do?
Stanley: *shrugs* Get out there and look pretty.
Me: So just go out and not play?
Stanley: Yeah. I guess.
Me: Isn't there another tuba I can use?
Stanley: Not that I know of.
Me: ...What about your tuba? You're not using it tonight.
Stanley: Oh...right.
Me: >_>

So I repacked my tuba, unpacked Stanley's tuba (which is a lot better than mine), and arrived just in time for the warm-up to end. The director commanded us to get in the byzantine order we had learned at Thursday's practice, so we might proceed into the stadium. I hadn't understood the order then and completely failed to understand it at that point. I began to panic.

Let me interrupt this narrative for a twinkling of a second to add: I completely forgot that I was supposed to update yesterday as opposed to today. Not updating on Friday threw off my entire internal clock. I'm used to, on the weekend posts, waiting two days to post again. While last time I had a valid excuse, this was just sheer laziness and stupidity. I'm sorry. Posts will begin again on Wednesday with perfect regularity.

Back to Gator Growl. So I panicked, and I panicked. And then, just for a change of pace, I freaked out. We were herded into lines, but what lines, and what order was I supposed to be in? It was all Greek to me, and I'm not even in a fraternity. Somehow, some vestigial part of my brain managed to catch on a few memory fragments from the previous day, and I managed to insinuate myself onto the field without screwing up in front of everyone. As we took our places on the field, I thought, yes, this would be perfect. The tubas had a solo. Everyone would look at us, even as the rest of the band laid down their instruments and danced.

As it happened, no attention was paid to either us or the rest of the band. Someone had the bright idea to give the baton-twirling girls flaming batons, and then to deposit said batons in a garbage can at the end of the flame-twirling performance. It was probably the sheer perverse nature of the universe that caused the person carrying the can to drop it and spill flames onto the field. This was the aforementioned "field on fire" incident, and from what I heard later, our show was pretty near overshadowed by this unfortunate occurrence. I'm bitter about that. I liked our show, and while I like fire, I like people watching me and marveling even more.

We finished and packed up our instruments. I watched the rest of Gator Growl, it was vastly entertaining. One particular sequence showed a guy playing Xbox 360, and being reluctantly dragged away from it by his girlfriend. While she took him on a date of sorts, his thoughts kept wandering back to his game console. Eventually he dismissed her and ran back to his room, over her protestations, to resume his beloved game once more. The tagline? "Don't be a Hume kid." (Hume being, of course, the name of the dorm I live in.) Much merriment was had by all. Yes, even self-deprecating humor is still humorous.

The comedian Frank Caliendo amazed us with his skill of impersonations, most notably John Madden and George W. Bush. Urban Meyer brought out some of his best to give a pep talk to the crowd. Various celebrities were recorded giving us words of praise and "Let the Gator Growl!", this montage being shown to us between skits. Finally, Lynyrd Skynyrd (is that how it's spelled? I'm too lazy to look it up) made their appearance, to great fanfare. For a band that, I hear, contains only one or two of the original members, it was quite good.

So that's Friday. (Whew, and this is already the longest, if latest, post I've ever made.) Saturday was a whole new kettle of fish...

...Y'know what? I'll save Saturday for tomorrow. Also, tomorrow I will tell you about Bill Nye the Science Guy, and the fact that he came and gave a speech tonight at our university. You'll hear about it in only a day, so don't fret too hard.

Also, watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMmXZ_aWq78 It's merengue, one of my favorite kinds of Latin jazz.

REPLIES.

Wednesday first.

Vic: So am I. And you never have gotten said snippets to me. ;_;

Stephe: I'm glad you're done. And I'm also glad you're not quite as dumb as you look, for you have the good enough sense not to abuse what is basically watered-down speed. The game was basically a different version of Munchkin, it was done by exactly the same people, Steve Jackson Publishers. They make dozens of awesome games. And I swear, you and your cantaloupe. I'll start on the goblin deck soon. It will be broken. Oh, the broken-ness.

Stephe: Gngh.

Jake: In that, you are correct. Stephen, in the future, keep your comments to one comment! I get my hopes up for twelve comments and then I see that half are made by you. It hurts. But this is a reply to Jake...CiCi's is great. How can Kelli not like it?!? It's like Vic not liking it, which she doesn't. Odd, these females. And you're right, there IS no fun in the easy and rather more safe way.

Mom: It's a parody of action-cop movies. Though, as I say, it seems little like a parody in many places. Cantaloupe is a running joke of Stephen's. And I've managed to stop with the self-oriented putdowns, at least for a good while, so that's good.

Vic: <3

Dad: It's true. A good editor would really tighten up my work. And yes, I am a published author...who among you can dispute this? Nobody, that's who. I got a play that I co-wrote (with my old friend Jamie) published. It was in a collection of plays that had an ISBN number and everything, so it counts. Nyah. I haven't gotten anything back yet. And I'll figure a way out of this mess yet.

Dad: Seems about right.

Stephe: Not really.

And now Friday's (Saturday's?) replies:

Stephe: The girls left soon after I arrived. But my suitemates were up and loud, and we had to stop Walter from dying of alcohol poisoning, or something. Apparently, he had drunk way too much. I'll get to GatorWalk tomorrow. Gnngh, cantaloupe.

Mom: Yes, the field really caught fire. No, you can't make things up. "At least, that's the idea" seems to be developing into something like a catch-phrase for me.

Stephe: ...What? And I have my reasons: I'm dumb. Well, I guess that means I have my reason. Singular.

Sayonara.