A Slight Delay - Real Post Tomorrow, Maybe Sunday

I'm sorry. I'm just exhausted for some reason. I think I may be coming down with something...I have that feeling you get just when you start getting sick, a kind of heaviness in your limbs, like your bones are going hollow...that sort of feeling. I hope it passes. If it doesn't, I am prepared to consume massive amounts of DayQuil, so help me.

So, uh. Yeah. I'll update for real tomorrow, or maybe Sunday. Sorry.

Short Story: Writing A Blog Entry

The process goes mostly like this.

I am playing World of WarCraft or goofing off on the Internet or similar, and then it hits me: Today is either Monday, Wednesday, or Friday. That means blog day to me. So I open Internet Explorer (no, I don't use Firefox, and y'all elitists can go away) and surf over to http://ramblings-of-luke.blogspot.com where I am at currently. I check out my comments; a few more since last I checked. I read them approvingly (or disapprovingly in the case of Stephen's endless cantaloupe rants), and click "New Post." The empty white box fills the screen.

I must disclose something here. An empty text box, a blank white page, a Microsoft Word document open with only a single blinking cursor on the screen, these are both a writer's deadliest enemies and his worst nightmares. The blankness mocks him, taunting him about the quality of his work. How easy it would be, the emptiness seems to say to him, to just walk away and not even try. Your writing is garbage anyway. Blankness is an improvement from what you usually put here. To fill the blank space is a writer's joy; not just in having written something good, but in having conquered the emptiness and proved to the void that he is able and willing to create.

So I stare at the empty box. It intimidates me. To get my mind off it, I surf over to LUElinks, a forum-based website where I spend far too much time these days. I check out a few topics. See what people have to say about events of the day. Sometimes I get caught up in a political dialogue that generally goes like this:

Moron 1: "George W. Bush is the worst president ever! He should be convicted of war crimes and then shot. AMERICA SUCKS. Unless Hillary Clinton is elected in 2008, I'm moving to Canada."
Moron 2: "No, you jerk, George W. Bush is the Messiah, descended unto us in the form of a word-garbling Texan! Clearly there can be no fault whatsoever with the Mighty United States of America, the only country in the world where everything is perfect and everyone is happy."
Moron 3: "Yeah, if you like the oppressive social and economic construct that is capitalism. The fat-cat CEOs run the country behind the scenes and have secret ranches where they hunt their entry-level employees with high-powered rifles! If we were all socialist, there would be no violence or pain."
Moron 1: "As long as America exists, everything is violence and pain."
Moron 3: "That's because of the capitalist hegemony [note: people like to use words like "hegemony" without having the slightest clue what they actually mean.] that dominates the-"
Moron 4: "THE GOVERNMENT PLANNED 9/11! I HAVE HERE EVIDENCE [note: a picture taken by a blind and insane hobo six years before 9/11, badly retouched in Paint] THAT CLEARLY SHOWS THE MISSILE IMPACT MARKINGS ON THE SIDE OF THE WTC!"
Moron 5: "I voted for Nader. I hate everyone."

And so on. I really don't know why I spend so much time there. It's just a bunch of 15-19 year olds who think they're smarter than they are and believe they know enough about anything to engage in high-level debates. Hmm. Maybe I do know why I spend so much time there.

So I'll bumble around there for a while. Then I'll head back to the screen. It will continue to taunt me with its whiteness, its...formlessness. So I'll try to think of a topic. Random thoughts flash through my mind, and I rattle my memory for something, anything, interesting that happened since last I posted.

This rattling causes me to remember to call my girlfriend. So I do, and we spend a long time talking about penguins, seahorse DNA, and the finer points of why I should wear what is basically a dress to my wedding. (The last one is her favorite subject.) Yes, it's some Indian robe, but tuxedos were invented for a reason: They look slick.

So I'll burn up some more time speaking to her. With a "Love you, bye," I'll conclude our conversation. This only serves to bring my attention back to the still-unfilled text box. Frantically, I'll mentally dig through all the events of the last few days, hoping to find something noteworthy enough I can dress it with a few stupid metaphors and slap it on the Internet.

Then I remember that Catherine, a girl that lives down the hall from me, stopped by earlier and requested I stop by her room when I wasn't doing anything. Well, I think, I'm not doing much of anything at the moment, why not use this time before the memory is lost to the chaotic agglomeration of thoughts in my head forever. So I shamble over to her room, only to discover that the door is locked and no amount of knocking is budging anyone from inside. It's only then that I recall she also said she'd be gone until later tonight, as she had a test. Huh.

So I go back to my room. I've just sat down, when I think...Gosh, I'm thirsty. Luckily, there's a water fountain just outside my room and down the hall. So I get back up and walk down the hall a piece, drink my fill, walk back. I shut the door and sit down, and think. I think and I think, I think until I can't possibly think anymore.

All this thinking causes my thoughts to lead back to World of WarCraft, as they occasionally turn to, and that reminds me: I'm only four bars away from leveling. I got a few hours to spare, I reason. That's plenty of time. So I log on and start plugging away. At the moment, I'm leveling Devoutone, a shadow priest, and I'm currently stymied at level 33. So I run around, my little cartoony digital avatar in the little cartoony digital world, looking for monsters to slay and rights to wrong, occasionally getting killed over and over again by a grotesquely higher-level-than-me Horde player who apparently has nothing better to do than to follow around mid-level players and annoy them to the point of brain hemmorhage.

Eventually, WoW bores me. I log off. Again I am confronted with the blank screen. You know what? I think to myself. I'm kind of hungry. So I roll back my chair and mosey down the street to the Graham Oasis convenience store, where I pick up a snack. A stick of string cheese features prominently in these outings, but I'm not disinclined to pick up a bag of Goldfish crackers or a candy bar. Starburst is my favorite, and Skittles and Butterfinger follow closely.

Munching, I return home. I've barely sat down at the computer when it occurs to me...all this eating has made me thirsty. So back to the water fountain I go, for another sip. There's a small nagging in my brain that my time is beginning to tick down, but I ignore it. Plenty of time, I reason. I've got plenty of time. Besides, I'm just about to start. Hey ho. I pull out my chair and am seated once more.

The blank screen fills my eyes. I am hit with a sudden wave of demoralization. Just as I reel from this, an entirely different sensation grips me. Oh... I think. I guess I can't go to the water fountain so many times and not have to use the bathroom at some point. Nature calls, and none may not heed the call when it comes, so away I go, for a brief and mercifully undescribed period of time. That taken care of, I return to my seat. The jaunt has invigorated me. Truly now I will produce something worth reading, something that will last the ages...something new, fresh, and entertaining that'll take my audience (all six or seven of them) by storm.

I realize that I have to find a YouTube link. I leap onto YouTube and immediately get sidetracked by all the various "new links" that appear on the front page. Much later, as I'm watching episodes of obscure anime that I just happened to be linked to, I realize even more time had been wasted. Not entirely wasted, though, as today's Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qCEyJ98QIU It's a modification of the Mario game series known as "Perpetual Mario," in which the level starts and finishes without the slightest input of the player. Not really a game, more like a movie, it makes great YouTube fodder. Especially when they sync it to music like they did here. They cheated a little, messing around with sprites and adding arrow blocks that fling Mario in their direction, but it makes for a good show nonetheless.

But first, I decide to go get a bite to eat. The snack didn't really fill me up, I muse. And it's getting on dinner time anyway. I wander over to one of the many restaurants on campus, depending on my mood. Today it's Subway, where I get a foot-long turkey and mozzarella on Italian Herbs and Cheese. Just like every time.

That's an interesting thing to note about me. I don't think of restaurants I've been to several times as restaurants, I think of them as individual dishes. I don't think of going to Wendy's, I think Hmm, maybe I want ten chicken nuggets, medium fries, and a Mountain Dew. Going to Checkers registers in my mind as Perhaps two Champ-burgers and a large Hi-C Fruit Punch would hit the spot right now. Even for non fast-food restaurants, this sort of thing occurs. Olive Garden? More like Cheese ravioli and about half a dozen of those garlic breadsticks. Mmm-mmm, breadsticks. I'd have some now, but I just ate and I'm not all that hungry. Shouldn't eat just because I'm bored.

At long last I am back at my computer. I crack my knuckles, blink several times, and generally make ready. Here we go. And it's okay, I still have plenty of time to...It's 11:37?!? I have to update by midnight!

So I panic and throw a bunch of random sentences onto the screen, make my replies to comments, and fling it onto the Internet.

My creative process. Enjoy it.

REPLIES.

Stephen: Well, I - wait a minute, you just switched from cantaloupe to kiwi! That's it. You've forced me to use force.

Steve: Well, my paper is quite difficult. I guess I should start it, y'know? Oh, not like that...I've done lots of the research and suchlike, but I haven't actually started writing. That's what this weekend is for. And yes, the better team won.

Vic: Far as I know, the game is about rescuing people from a burning building and finding your own way out through a series of mazes. And there's a difference between being boisterous and deliberately, if metaphorically, spitting in peoples' eyes like those chumps did.

Mom: I don't take it personally, but it kind of stings on the inside. Yes, I'm glad I joined the band, but not all the time. I generally wait until I'm posting the new post before I bemoan the number of comments. You don't have to comment same day, just before I post the next installment. That's neat, about the bats. Enjoy North Carolina, I guess.

Michelle: Good to see you. And I'm glad you prevail. I'll email you very shortly, and if I forget, my email address is gthunder@ufl.edu I'll comment on your blog soon. See you soon, I guess.

The end.

Sorry, No McMillan Yet, But Other Stuff

I'm sorry. I probably won't get to Doc McMillan for a while. I have finals to study for, a test on Wednesday, and a 10-20 page research paper to complete by next Tuesday. So perhaps I can be forgiven for drawing things out like this? No? Well, fine. It's my story and I'll finish it when I have the time. Not when I'm overloaded with work. I will make a third chapter, but it'll most likely come up next Wednesday or Friday, since my major work will be done by then.

We had an amusing episode on the day of the FSU/UF game. I signed up to go to the pre-pre-game pep band, because doing so would erase an absence from my record and I desperately need some absences erased. My attendance is nearly perfect, but two "partial absences" = one absence, and something as simple as forgetting your gloves counts as a partial absence. Think about me for a second...think how often I remember my gloves. Yeah.

So we were at the MUB at 2:15, supposedly leaving at 2:30. Near the trailer which contained our instruments was a large group of tailgaters, who had a massive spread set up. They offered to share their food with us, as they had much more than they could possibly consume. Others declined politely, I accepted graciously. (What? I was hungry.) So I had some shrimp, some potatoes, an ear of corn...and all of it very spicy. So spicy, in fact, that it left a burning sensation in my mouth for some hours afterward. Which was problematic. Keep that in mind.

The trailer door was locked. We were assured that someone would turn up with the keys with plenty of time left before we had to leave. 2:15...2:20...2:25...2:30. The man with the keys was nowhere to be found. I left briefly to go rinse out my mouth, and returned to an amusing sight. Chad had the side door open, but this door was barely the size of a regular door, and the sousaphones were all piled inside. Another of our number, Aaron, was inside the trailer, digging around and picking out the horns that were appropriate to the players. Someone walked by and commented on our novel solution. Chad replied earnestly "We used our ingenuity." Something about the way he said it struck me as extremely hilarious. With difficulty, finally we were able to extricate all of our cases and set up the tubas, mounting up and getting ready to leave. We walked around the building...

...To find that everyone else had already left. Dang, we said. Oh well. We got into two lines of three and marched to the stadium. Not knowing exactly where we were going, Chad had us go into the spot in which we usually entered the stadium. We walked in to find...nobody there. Well, not strictly nobody, more like just a random assortment of football players and fans. There was a notable lack of band members, however. We began to fear one of two horrifying scenarios:

1. The band had been stricken from the face of existence, wiped clean out of reality by some terrible cosmic backlash, and we, the tuba section members, were the only ones remaining, or
2. The jerks had up and left us.

So we sat down near where we usually sit, puzzled and badly in need of leadership. Luckily, our proverbial bacon was saved when one of the staff members came striding towards us urgently. "Where have you been?!?" he demanded. "We're doing GatorWalk! Get up there, it's about to start!" GatorWalk, as I have previously described, is when some of the band lines up along the walkway that the football team takes to get into the stadium and play tunes for them as they enter. So we moseyed up the steps and to the rest of the band, where after only a short twenty-minute wait, GatorWalk began.

I must pause here to describe a subject I feel very strongly about. It is clear to any who might think on the subject, however briefly, that the members of the band are not really enthusiastic about showing up two hours before the game begins to sit in the stands and watch people trickle in. But we do it anyway, partly because we are steadfast in our commitment to the band, partly because we genuinely care about the team and the fans, partly because we want to uphold our status as good students, and partly because we'll get yelled at if we don't. Determining which of these parts is the most significant I leave as an exercise to the reader.

The point is, that for whatever reason, we show up there, and we play tunes to pep up the crowd and the football players as they perform their glorious march into the stadium, to prepare for three and a half hours of opponent-whomping. The football players don't have to necessarily be overjoyed by our performance, but hopefully they can at least appreciate it for the gesture that it is. This means, basically, that why won't those everlovin' jerks remove the headphones from their ears? Can they not part with their beloved music for thirty seconds, even just as a show of good faith? Must we in the band play until our lungs give out, only to see some of these clods headbanging to their own private little musical numbers? WOULD IT BE TOO MUCH TO ASK TO UNPLUG THEMSELVES FOR TWO MINUTES JUST TO BE POLITE?!?

Er. Ahem. But Urban Meyer proceeded the, er, procession, and gave us all a wave and Mr. Watkins, our director, a hearty handshake. At least he has manners. And Tim Tebow, our star quarterback, was headphoneless, smiling and waving at the band members as he proceeded. I'm not entirely sure that his good cheer is not merely an act by him mandated by Urban Meyer to look more presentable, but he seems like a genuinely nice and polite guy. After home games, recently, he has come back to the sidelines to shake hands and exchange high-fives with the fans nearest the field, so that's nice. He even shook hands with our drum major, J.R., who had previously bemoaned GatorWalk as a waste of time, but as Tebow walked away, was grinning hugely.

The actual pre-pre-game playing was fairly pleasant. We sat around and talked for a while, then we got to play some of the tunes we always start in the stands, but never seem to finish, due to the football team's annoying habit of starting a play when we're in the middle of a song. These included "Welcome to the Jungle," "You Can Call Me Al," and "Party Like a Rock Star." I know the last one's just mindless hip-hop, but it's fun to play and the crowd likes it, so sue me. When it was over, we all ran back to the rest of the band, just in time to catch the pre-game tuba sermon.

A special thing of note, about that particular pre-game practice session. It was the last home game of many seniors and others in the band, so as a special treat for them, Mr. Watkins issued everyone copies of Mahler, so that we might play it. You may recall that, I linked to it previously. Even played by a band such as ours, the song is so beautifully created that it is a joy to hear. Especially since it has such a sacred status among the older band members that nobody dares play to any less than the best of their abilities. So good points to Mr. Watkins there. Although there were people who grumbled that he just did it to try and get people on his side, though why he would wish to attract people who are, pretty much to a man, leaving, I cannot fathom. Some people hate him so rampantly as to turn anything he does against him somehow. I do not like these people in the slightest little bit. Hatred should be reserved for those people and acts that deserve it. When one of our drum majors had dental surgery and got an infection, Mr. Watkins put him up in his own house until he managed to recuperate. And yet people claim he just did it to get Kappa Kappa Psi, the band fraternity, on his side.

When, before one practice, I observed Mr. Watkins playing football with some of the band members, people whined that he was just trying to show how "down to earth" he was and commented that, as quarterback, he was not exposing himself to tackles like a "real man" would. More was said, but at this point I believe I ruptured a blood vessel in my brain from apoplexy, and only my sheer desire not to let this madness continue closed the break and forced me back into reality. (Note: Even the freshmen fall into this trap of hatred, but one of them, Renee, states that she believes the same as I do and that the bandwagon hatred of Mr. Watkins is nonsensical. She has made noises about leaving the band next year. I cannot allow this to happen. The last traces of rationality would go with her.)

So, the game. As anyone can tell you, it was an absolute blowout, ending 45-12 us. One team hasn't beaten another by such a margin in over twenty years. After the game ended, as he always does, Urban Meyer came over to thank Mr. Watkins and Mr. Birkner (the associate director) for showing up and to give a salute to the band, as he always does. Such a small gesture, yet it means so much, especially coming from a living legend like him. A single word from Urban Meyer can mean so much on this campus...I wonder if he truly appreciates the depth of his power.

So, uh, nothing else has happened appreciably of late. Oh, well, I have started studying like a maniac for that 10-20 page paper, digging out old tomes from storage that were printed way back in the '30s. Looking at two in particular, I notice they haven't been checked out since 1987. That's right, they've been sitting idle longer than I've been alive. I found that amusing.

As for today's Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day? I figured http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eVnVny8g8c would be amusing. It's a commercial for a PSP game called Exit, which to the best of my knowledge, contains no cats, no fish, and no old people. Despite this commercial. Well, you have to see it to believe it...I really can't explain it at all.

REPLIES.

Sweet Christmas, I got 2 replies. It wasn't a very substantive post, but...sigh. Thanks, Stephen and Vic. Just to show the depths of my gratitude...

Stephen (look at that! I added the n!): I wonder how long this cantaloupe-based reprieve will last. My bet? Not long. The StarCraft board game seems quite true to its original concept, to the point of being horrifyingly detailed. It's not like "StarCraft Monopoly," where you pass Aiur to collect 200 minerals or something. (I don't think that actually exists.) It actually seems to incorporate the in-game mechanics well, from different attacks against different armor to splash damage. Alex and I got along fine, we talked on a surprising number of subjects. Courage is indeed a fine show. And you'll have to wait on McMillan...sorry, but I'm swamped. No creativity.

Vic: Yes, yes, I know, I was merely peeved that you were picking up the thread you set down so long ago. <3

Good evening.

An Extremely Short And Undescriptive Update

Sadly, it's true. I mean, what have I done that's noteworthy in the last 24 hours?

Oh, well, there's one thing. Last night my father and I had the following conversation.

Him: So when are you leaving tomorrow?
Me: I figured around 5:00.
Him: That's when the bus picks you up, then?
Me: ...What bus?
Him: ...What do you mean, what bus?

It transpired that he thought I was riding a bus home, and I thought he was driving me home. This caused no small amount of consternation in our household, no doubt. We were of the opinion that we were going to have to leave at noon tomorrow in order to make it to Gainesville with a reasonable amount of time left to drive back home. A bleak prospect, especially since I had already invited all of my friends over for games and lunch, but we had to work with what we were given.

Early the next morning, I set about calling the bus company every half an hour or so, hoping to get connected so I might beg and plead for a ticket on the 5:30 bus home from Miami. My parents agreed that they would take me to the bus stop at 5:15 and we would wait there and see if the bus would take me. If not, we would proceed, and they would find a hotel in Gainesville. Not an ideal solution, probably would have led to hurt feelings all around, but it was the best we could do.

Still, I was determined to make the most of my last few hours with my friends, so I invited everyone over anyway for lunch and lots of games of Magic. They trickled in, and as they did, I asked each person with a car if they would give me a ride instead. Each turned me down, understandably so, as who wants to drive all that way and then come back just because I was an idiot and didn't fix the departure times beforehand?

Then Stephen walked in, and our lament was related to him. He said "Oh, you're leaving today? My brother is driving up to UF this afternoon. He can probably give you a ride." A quick phone call confirmed that this was indeed the case and not merely a vain hope, and yet again, a hastily thrown-together deus-ex-machina saved my bacon. So, er, that worked out fairly well.

After Magic, a few of us went over to my friend Nolan's house, where we attempted to play StarCraft: The Board Game. I say attempted, because the instruction manual was about sixty pages long, and I couldn't make heads or tails of the rules even though I was the only one with the determination to try. So we abandoned the efforts (but we promised to try again later, because this is friggin' StarCraft, we can't just give that up!) and played Apples to Apples instead.

Apples to Apples is an entertaining game wherein each person has a hand of seven cards, each containing a thing, which can range from "My Mind" to "Cigarette Burns" to "Keanu Reeves" to "Waco, Texas" to, well, anything that's vaguely a noun. The judge (the role rotates each round) reveals an adjective card, like "Odd" or "Organic" or "Creepy" or even "European." Then each player secretly submits the card in his hand that most fits the adjective. It is then entirely up to the judge to determine which of the cards he was given fits the adjective most effectively. This can result in some odd choices, with "Alfred Hitchcock" chosen for "Creepy," "Glaciers" chosen for "Timeless," and of course, for "Awesome," the only card that could be chosen was "Batman." Obviously.

I also got to see my sister, Michelle, which is as rare an occurrence as it is an awesome one. She's off in her own little world...but in a way, it's much, much bigger than mine ever could be. You'd really have to know her.

Today's Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day is this little ditty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB4jxdLTy-A An episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog, which is the best comedy/horror show I've ever seen. Emphasis on "horror" a little too often sometimes, but I like it a lot. This particular one is "King Ramses' Curse," wherein Eustace (the aged farmer, owner of the titular Courage) acquires an ancient Egyptian slab, to the wrath of its previous owner, the corpse of King Ramses. Hilarious results.

REPLIES.

Stephe: Well, yeah, I already said I was sorry, man. I can't be perfect and invite absolutely everyone. I'll be sure to invite you next time, I promise. Tell your brother thanks for giving me a ride. And you know what, the Gators are going to trash the Seminoles. Even you admit it. McMillan will make an appearance on Monday. And see? I ate your stinkin' cantaloupe. In front of you, even. Happy now?

Jake: Yes, WWH was awesome, if the ending was a bit contrived. The site I use for comics is http://comics.colpaca.net which contains most of the important Marvel comics from the last six months. And, as I say, McMillan will appear on Monday. Tonal shift, as I said. Wee-hee.

Vic: You say that...what does that mean? Is that because you enjoy the fact that I handily encapsulated everything you didn't care about to skip? I suppose you're right...but I was kind of tired, as I am now after driving for a long time, so it wasn't my best work. You'll see more of my best work on Monday, I promise. Tonal shift, woo-hoo. And don't you start on the cantaloupe bender.

Many goodbyes.

Thanksgiving Post - To Give Thanks, That's Why We Do It

You might be thinking, aha, where was Wednesday's post? I say to you, aha, you couldn't expect me to keep to my regular schedule and not post on a holiday? That's ridiculous. So here's today's post...

Hmm. I don't know exactly how substantive this is going to be. My entire audience who reads this blog, mostly, has seen me and did whatever I did in the last few days. I can talk about the awesome Magic draft that we had, but everyone was there. I can talk about our delicious Thanksgiving dinner, but everyone had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner, so nothing really special and worth mentioning there.

I suppose it's worth mentioning that I'm going to post another installment of Dr. McMillan soon. It might be slightly shorter than the others...or not. But rest assured that I have a very definite idea of where I'm going with it this time, that (as it has been pointed out by more adept readers than I) I somewhat was lacking in last time. I panicked, realized I had to update, and came up with something good. Not great, but good. As I say, my girlfriend, whom I love very much and is quite skilled in these matters, will edit and proofread the next installment, as well as retroactively go back and look at the last two and edit them. I'll post the complete and edited version when it's finished.

A note: I am changing directions with the next installment. I've got it planned right out. This time there'll be a scene with dialogue and character interaction and everything. Not just detached narration, you heard me. However, not now. Probably Monday. Possibly Friday, but I doubt it, seriously. I won't have much time for writing.

They ended World War Hulk, finally. The next bit is a spoiler, so I'll italicize it. If you don't want to be spoiled, or don't care about comic books, skip over the italics.
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I guess they handled it just about as well as they should have, having sort of written themselves into a corner when they brought out the Sentry at the end of #4. Hulk is clearly no match for the Sentry physically, and yet they had the fight anyway...and Hulk was somehow equal, despite feeling no personal animosity towards Sentry like he did towards Black Bolt, Strange, Richards, and Stark. In fact, the only feelings he has for Sentry is years of friendship. And come to think of it, didn't Sentry exude a radiation that calmed the Hulk down? Did they just up and forget about that?

Meh. Regardless of that, they slashed the Sentry's power grossly if him "cutting loose" was jut a lousy pillar of flame that didn't even destroy the city. He has the power of a million exploding suns, doesn't he? Him sneezing should translate the solar system into the galaxy's newest expanding dust cloud. "Going all out" would turn the Milky Way into a flashbulb, and probably seriously distort the surrounding galaxies as well. Maybe Robert Reynolds was still imposing psychic restrictions on Sentry's power, in much the same way Bruce Banner did to Hulk during the Onslaught arc. I can't think of any other reason for this depowering. I mean, this is a guy who they literally stated "fought Galactus to a standstill," and him unleashing the fury was a wimpy fireball. Great shot with Reynolds and Banner pummeling each other, though.

I fail to see how the satellite weaponry could have downed Hulk, especially after his rage was rekindled anew. Maybe he wanted to be taken down? I don't know. All I do know is, buried three miles underneath the surface of the earth and being in suspended animation or not, if Hulk decides to transform and unleash, nothing's stopping him. All they've done is held him back for a little while. Long enough for his son, Skaar, to emerge. And what the heck is that, might I ask. We're supposed to believe that a bundle of cells too small to even make a sizable impression in Caeira's belly survived the blast, the subsequent aftershocks, and managed to gestate to fully-grown under the surface of a dead planet? Come on, people. Even explaining that he's the son of the Hulk, that stretches plausibility to the breaking point.
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Okay, I'm done. And it felt good to write all that down.

Sorry this wasn't more substantive. As I say, practically everyone that reads this was with me last two days, so I can hardly see a reason for a longer post. I'll update more fully on Friday.

And the Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65uNCLBTje0 A relic known as the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, this was their famous end credits song, "Do the Mario!" Set to the Mario theme, of course. That's a bit of nostalgia for anyone who ever played it, or watched the show.

REPLIES.

Mom: Yeah, I didn't even realize until after I had written the first sentence that I was using the hated passive tense. So I figured I'd make a joke, what I always try to do when I uncover one of my fresh idiocies. And I have decided: skiing. There have been SOME good book/movie translations, but not freaking many. I don't even want to go into video-game/movie translations.

Stephe: Obviously not. But I'll see you tomorrow, we'll have turkey then, yes we shall. One reply? Oddsbodikins. Such a thing has never been...my chair? NO! Lies, calumny and deceit, I say. I will return to see it fully intact. Unless my roommate pawned it for booze money, which he doesn't strike me as the type to do. It's not just that the movie is about gay people, it's that it isn't about Cthulhu. (Not hard to spell! You saw me write it many times!)

Dad: All right, but what spawned this comment, may I ask? And I guess I should have just said "Hollywood," instead of targeting a specific group. I notice you say "the first two X-Men movies," because you're right, the third one resembles anything else X-Men related as much as it resembles My Little Pony. I need to find more movies like these, that I haven't already seen. Harlan Ellison actually wrote something that won't send me into the blackest pits of depression? My word.

Nolan: Good to see you posting. I checked out the video, it was pretty interesting. And no, I don't follow RvB. They lost me after they changed to Halo 2.

Vic: As it happened, you caught the festivities. How happy you were about that is debatable. And maybe I'll break down and see Beowulf, if only for Angelina Jolie. <3

Karen: That is an intriguing string of alliteration. Maybe you should start writing, or at least email me suggestions...I couldn't come up with something like that in the deepest darkest days of my detention of the most dolorous doldrums that ever darned a dirt-poor writer like myself. See what I mean?

McMillan's world is just an unnamed world similar to ours, but in a different universe. Or maybe just far away physically. It doesn't matter, his only interaction with ours began and ended with the List. And the movies, I guess. I'm glad to see you watch the band, and it's upsetting that all that football keeps getting in the way. Frankly, I'd prefer my team to win, because not only will the campus be jubilant, I'll get to snarkily call my parents and rub it in. It'll be perfect.

And I'm glad SOMEONE understands about the cantaloupe.

Peace.

A New Chair! Huzzah!

I have obtained...a new chair. Remember how I went on and on at length, at ponderous, groaning length, about the multifaceted faults of my old chair? Well, those problems are solved. A new chair was recently bought, by me. (Great. All those years of my English teachers telling me "Avoid the passive tense" and I still construct sentences like that. I am made ashamed by it.)

Now, what's a good comparison, hmm...If chairs were cars, my current chair would be a sleek custom job, not even identified by such an illustrious name as Lamborghini or Ferrari - it was made by a master car designer who created it and then retired in tears of joy and sorrow because he knew he would never make anything this beautiful again. It goes from 0 to 60 faster than a person can say "0 to 60." It handles like it's held to the ground with powerful magnets, yet it whispers along like a shadow. It purrs as it drives, the low rumbling of thunder on a warm midsummer night. The leather on the seats was provided by cows bred through five generations specifically for this purpose. It does not use gasoline, but rather is powered by the joy of the driver, as merely being in the presence of such an automobile inspires rampant ecstasy in all but the most jaded of souls.

My old chair, well, it's a Yugo full of anvils.

This chair, this new chair, is wonderful. The seat is plush, the leather is smooth, and the price was quite reasonable. It was originally $299.99, but clearance had knocked it down to $119.04, and my parents very generously agreed to contribute $100 towards that cause, so such a marvel of sitting-down technology only set me back twenty bucks. That, and half an hour or so of assembly. It was quite the stroke of luck that, as I was wheeling the box containing the chair into my dorm building, I ran into a friend of mine who, oddly for him, had absolutely nothing to do. So he cheerfully volunteered to help. That turned out quite nicely, I believe.

My only lamentation is that I am not currently seated in this amazing furniture. The Internet in my dorm decided to go on the blink spontaneously, so now I am in the upper floors of the student union, where the wireless internet must suffice. After all, I do have to update this here blog...I cannot deny my urge to write, or my readers' urge to read.

Oh, that reminds me. Though I don't know why. There's a Cthulhu movie in the works, which I was very excited about originally. Then I had a gander at the wikipedia article on the film. From the article, verbatim:

The film moves the story from New England to the Pacific Northwest. Unlike the Lovecraft story, the film has a gay protagonist. Screenwriter Grant Cogswell explained that he and Gildark chose to exploit the metaphor for the horror faced by a gay person returning for a relative's funeral and having to face the horrors of small-town life.

Upon reading those lines, a wildfire ignited in the pit of my soul and rushed to consume my entire metaphysical being. My eyes bulged, my veins throbbed, a shriek of rage was hovering just behind my lips. My whole body seemed tightly wound up, ready to burst. Then I realized that I had been holding my breath, as I sometimes do what I'm bored, and had forgotten to exhale.

But, what the heck is that?!? Where in that putrid excuse for a plotline is there room for the true cosmic horror of Lovecraftian fiction, the sigils of madness, the Elder Gods, upon whom to look is to damn oneself to insanity or death? The buzz is that it's loosely based off of Lovecraft's famous short story The Shadow over Innsmouth, but it's about as loosely based off of anything Lovecraft ever wrote as it is off of Green Eggs and Ham. So now I want to burn down Hollywood. That, plus the horrific amount of liberties they took with Beowulf (sweet mercy, is there no story too sacrosanct for Hollywood writers to ruin??), has convinced me that there is nothing left of redeemable value in that town. Except Angelina Jolie.

I suppose it's just as well, really. Any real attempt at a film that carried on the story of Lovecraft's work would no doubt fail mightily. First, his true tone of horror and suspense would never translate well into movie format. Second, no CGI animation, no drawn art, could possibly display one of the Great Old Ones with any kind of justice. If it is so impossible and horrifying as to drive a man mad on sight alone, how are they really supposed to animate it? Perhaps one route would be to have the beings permanently off-screen, with only the effects of viewing them on the characters being shown, but no modern Hollywood producer would greenlight a film in which the monster is never seen. I can just imagine it now.

Producer: So, whaddaya whaddaya, you're sayin' that we never see Coothool in the whole flick?
Writer: (trying not to cringe) It's "Cthulhu," actually, and we feel that it would add the appropriate air of -
Producer: No way. Uh-uh. Get one of the boys in special effects to knock you up something with tentacles and, like, five hundred eyes. That'll do it, huh? Ol' Cuthoo can't be that scary, anyway, we got the parents-with-kids audience to consider. Don't wanna get sued for causing nightmares.
Writer: That doesn't really seem fitting to the whole concept behind -
Producer: Don't give me that "whole concept" shtick. We can't leave out a whole audience because you feel like makin' the kiddies wet their pants. And another thing, what's with this? At the end, Coolthoo devours the world? Where's the setup for the sequel? Where's the comic-book tie-in? You gotta think about these things!
Writer: *brain implodes*

It just wouldn't work, is what I'm saying.

Turkey Day is a-coming. I'll update on Wednesday, but it'll probably be a small update, seeing as everyone I know who reads this will be there to speak to me anyway, and nothing that remarkable will probably happen between now and then. Of course, I'll live to eat those words, as the universe is remarkably well-attuned to such things. No doubt a meteor will hit my building as I walk home tonight. I hope that if it does, it spares my new chair. Oh, and my roommate. Although, there are thousands of guys on campus I could room with, whereas this was the very last chair that the Office Depot had on clearance. I mean, it's not so easy to replace. The model's been discontinued. These things don't grow on trees.

I was very amused by reading the website which consumes so much of my life, http://tvtropes.org/ I read the section on "Defrosting Ice Queens," which mentioned that perhaps the pinnacle Ice Queen in the Marvel Universe is Emma Frost, the telepath. She has several students, the Cuckoos, who patterned their powers and appearances after her, as the article puts it, "effectively making them Ice Queen Clones." Oh, those wacky writers and their puns. At least it takes my mind off of that horrible excuse for a Cthulhu movie. It gets me enraged even to think about it.

Recently, at Game Night, a group of people near us were playing Arkham Horror, which is basically Call of Cthulhu in a board game. I would randomly shout over and taunt them, with such gems as "My character's last words are 'Hastur, Hastur, Hastur!'" (Hastur being a Great Old One in the Cthulhu universe whose name must not be spoken, as doing so alerts him to your presence, and that usually ends up in you and everyone within fifty miles of you dead or insane.)
That's about all the creativity I can squeeze out of myself in such an unfamiliar environment. I hope my Internet is back on when I go back to the dorm.

And as for the Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day, it's one of my old favorites. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJyOFXBPh2Q It's from a game I rather like called Team Fortress 2, a cartoony team-based shooting game, where you can be one of many characters - including this "Heavy Weapons Guy." It is a brief interview with said Guy, and it details his experience and joy on the battlefield.

REPLIES.

Stephe: I do, in fact, I rather enjoy it when...hey! And yes, that sentence sent my BS meter through the proverbial roof, into the proverbial outer atmosphere, where it collided with a proverbial television satellite and caused millions of proverbial television sets the proverbial world over to play nothing but proverbial Who's the Boss reruns constantly, which caused lots of cases of proverbial suicide. Yeah, I officially took that joke too far. Procrastination kills, although maybe not, because if it did, I'd be dead so many times. Like that twenty-page paper I've got due in two weeks that I haven't started on. At least it's two weeks and not two days...

I get it. You don't need to double-comment just to correct your freaking double negative. I understood what you meant, that's good enough.

Jake: I like to think I have a talent for riding on top of the turbulent waves of life. Things do generally work out. Though, the perverse nature of the universe being what it is, a meteor will have struck my dorm building just now, but in a precision strike destroying only my chair.

Vic: I "make sad"? What does that mean? And I did ask for constructive criticism, but there is a fine line between constructive criticism and "At last, now I can say terrible things without fear of retribution!" Not that I'm accusing you of that (I have only a hazy idea of what you're referring to at all, in fact), but, well, take it into consideration. <3

Stephe: I forgot. I never have really needed to before. Every time I set my phone on vibrate, I never remember to set it on ring again, and I look at it three days later and see 67 missed calls because I never notice it vibrating. And that's good to know about your brother.

Anonymous: Yeah. It's odd. By the way, who is this?

Stephe: Quality >> quantity, Stephen. I keep asking you to confine yourself to one comment...stick to that, hmm? Do as I do, and save your comments on others' comments for my next entry.

Mom: I do like my new hair, and it does make my life more simple. I know how difficult life can be, which is why I can laugh at simple problems such as these. And yes, I have decided. I have decided...to go along with whatever you and Dad decide. I'd like to go skiing, but I'd also like to go to Paris. So, whichever you choose is okay with me.

Dad: I have noticed that. Rarely does one huge error destabilize me, rather, it is more usually a collection of small problems that overwhelms me. It just struck me that morning, all of the things happening in sequence and me never getting an even break, that I decided to write it all down. As for not procrastinating, well, er, yeah. I'll get around to it. Eventually. And it's understandable about work...I know how it can be.

Later.

Just Another Update, Ho Hum, Nothing To See Here

Or not. I decided that leafing through ancient tomes of dead languages to get all the letters I needed was far too time-consuming, and so I would fake you out with a rather boring title instead. This will undoubtedly be one of those jokes that I alone on the planet find amusing, but whatever. This is as much a work of self-indulgence as it is a message to the masses. So, on with my stories, many and varied that they are. This is, quite literally, the longest one yet.

When I read in a discarded newspaper that Bill Nye the Science Guy was coming to speak, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Bill Nye the Science Guy? The Bill Nye? (The the himself!) The man who made science fun and understandable? The man who won 28 Emmy Awards? I had to see it. But it seemed completely impossible. I was on the bus heading off campus, to Publix to get some groceries. The time was 7:00, and the event began at 8:00. Barring a lightning strike turning me into the Flash, I wasn’t going to make it over and back in time, given the rate at which the buses ran. (Let me put it this way: If a rival bus service decided to create a new line of vehicles that took five minutes per stop, broke down three times a day, and were in fact powered by pairs of seriously obese men on treadmills, they would still surpass the current bus service. I could get from place to place faster by gluing thousands of butterflies to my shirt and hoping they all flew in the right direction.)

So I abandoned the thought and consigned myself to a night of World of WarCraft. Not such a terrible fate, but it seemed drab in comparison to what I could have had. I emerged from Publix with groceries in hand at around 7:30. As luck would have it, the correct bus emerged just as I was exiting. On the way back, a germ of a plan began to emerge. Perhaps I could make it after all. I leapt from the bus to my room and bolted towards the Reitz Union, where the event was to take place. I arrived at 7:58, panting, but confident that I could make it. I threw open the doors to the Grand Ballroom.

It was empty.

As I later found out, the advertisement stating that Bill Nye was to be at the Reitz was a misprint. He was, in fact, to be speaking at the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts on the opposite side of campus. Glum, I slunk home, calling my father to tell him what might have happened. But he gave me the idea that I could try and go anyway! Why not, I thought? Sure, I’d miss the first part of his speech, but I’d catch the rest! Filled with a renewed vigor, I ran the rest of the way home, thinking all the way how I’d do it. It would take me half an hour to walk to the Center, and that was simply unacceptable. Fortunately, my decision was rendered easier.

There is a bus stop just across the street from my dormitory. A bus had pulled up. I ran inside, asking the driver where he was going. Since the Center was near the end of the long road my dorm lies on, and once a bus started on that road, they’d simply have to go to the end; it seemed likely that it would at least take me near my goal.

Me: Where are you going?
Driver: Phillips Center.
Me: O_O
Driver: Are you coming?
Me: ^_^

Alas, the ride over gave me no cause for jubilation. The bus’s air-conditioning had broken down, and it was packed with people to the point where I could barely squeeze past the yellow line one must not stand past when the bus is in operation. But it was even worse in the back of the bus. The windows were covered, for some arcane reason I still do not understand. I suppose it just isn’t public transportation unless all involved are thoroughly miserable. The worst part, however, was that the lights had failed in the back. This meant it was cramped, hot, and dark back there. Never before have I seen such a perfect example of the simile “packed like sardines in a can.” I half expected to exit by means of a giant key peeling back the roof.

But the bus took me to my destination, arriving around 8:20. (The fact that it would have taken only ten minutes more to walk than ride the bus may give you some indication of the speed of the bus service, if such was needed.) It was there that I realized I was not the only one who had seen the advertisement. The place was packed to the point of spontaneous nuclear fusion. There was apparently no room inside, so there was a massive projection screen displaying an image of what was going on inside. I craned my head to get a good view; even outdoors as we were, easily two hundred people were watching. There he was, Bill Nye, the Science Guy in the flesh. Or rather, in the photons that represented his flesh. This irked me.

What irked me even more was that the volume controls for the speakers were set somewhere between “Gnat’s Heartbeat” and “Cotton Ball Landing On Silk Cloth.” That combined with the background noise meant that I could hardly hear a word that Nye said. What I did catch, though, was very interesting. He spoke about the MarsDial project that he pioneered. Apparently, he worked on the Mars rovers that we’ve been sending out for years and years, and came up with the idea to put sundials on them, so as to calibrate their cameras each day. At least, that was the reason he claimed. I think he wanted to do it just because it was really cool and came up with a reason later, but whatever. His boyish enthusiasm for the project seemed to indicate as such.

I went indoors. There was still no room inside the actual theater itself, but there were television sets that were displaying the speech inside, with slightly smaller groups of people sitting around and watching. More importantly, the volume was actually set inside the human threshold of hearing, so that was a definite plus. This was where I heard the meat of his speech.

He spoke about sustainability and the importance of conserving our natural resources. After he finished talking about Mars (he talked about Carl Sagan, a once-great astronomer, and his habit of putting messages on everything we sent into space, including his Mars rovers), he went on to describe what he saw in the subject of "global climate change," as he called it. I noticed that he was careful to avoid taking one side or the other, merely stating that as he understood it, global climate change was a reality, and that the earth was warming up faster recently than it had in millennia.

Nye described this in a segment of his speech in which he traveled to Colorado to this ice core warehouse...study...place. I forget the details, but they take samples of ice from some of the deepest places in the world and study them. As it turns out, you can tell climate changes from layers of ice as easily as you can distinguish layers of rock. In an amusing anecdote, Nye related: "I noticed that the temperature was set to -34 degrees Fahrenheit. So I asked [the guy in charge], 'Why is it set to that particular temperature? Is it because of...[he described several technical aspects nobody in the audience had a hope of understanding]?' And he said 'No, Bill, that's just as low as our thermostat goes.'"

After this, he went on to speak about the environment and various ways in which we might aid it. Again, I was impressed at how he kept aloof from political concerns and just dealt with the straight science. Now that I think about it, though, he is Bill Nye the Science Guy, so perhaps it isn't all that shocking. It's like being amazed that Cobra Commander has set out to take over the world rather than help little old ladies across the street. Nye said that the environment was deteriorating, but not at the catastrophic rate some predicted. This didn't stop him from having a little fun, though. "I don't mean to alarm anyone, but we're all going to die!" he said. He stated that small contributions on our part could alter the entire planet, repeating several times during the course of his speech: "If we do this, we could - dare I say it?!" ("Yes!" the audience shouts.) "Change the world!"

It was about this time that I decided I had had enough of watching him on a tiny screen. I lurked outside one of the doors that led into the auditorium. When someone emerged, I asked if she still had her ticket stub. She said she did, and I asked her for it. She gave it to me. With it, I was able to enter, and see Mr. Nye in the flesh for the very first time. He's aged well. Didn't look as old as 51, although his 52nd birthday is coming up in just two weeks. (Send him a birthday card!) Taking my seat, I made ready to watch the rest of his speech.

Moving on, Nye began to talk about the fact that our generation was the first in the real and exploratory space age, what he termed the "age of discovery." Speaking about the differences between Mars, Venus, and Earth, he described the climate of Venus. "Did you ever, when you were a kid, play that game where...the floor was lava? Yeah? And this other part here, that was boiling acid? On Venus, it's really like that."

In the last part, Nye described how various inventions might change the world in many different ways. One in particular he focused on was the battery: "If you invent a better battery, you won't only - dare I say it?! Change the world!...you'll also make a lot of money! And I mean, a lot! You'll be richer than...well, anyone!" He criticized the modern alkaline batteries, demeaning the "huge alkali molecules" that we had to use for them. If someone could make a battery using protons or even electrons in place of alkaline molecules, he said, that would literally change everything. Nye even showed us a prototype hydrogen fuel-cell battery that fits neatly in the palm of the hand, that powers a laptop for over three days.

So that was great big barrels of fun. And that's the Bill Nye story. There was a question-and-answer period, but I didn't stay for it, because I ran into a friend who promised to give me a ride home, and he was leaving right away. Besides, I had no real interest in listening to Bill struggle through the incompetent questions he would no doubt be asked. And from what I heard later, some of them were real stinkers. It would be the equivalent of asking a chess-master "So, what's the point of that little horsey-dude? He moves funny. He must be a useless piece. How can anyone use him?"

Then we get to the matter of this weekend. (Nothing of exceptional note occurred during the week.) We left on Friday morning, early, though I had stupidly stayed up until 3:00 AM, when we were scheduled to leave at 8:00 AM. After the usual early-morning negotiation with myself to get out of bed:

My Brain: You'll be late!
My Body: But I'm tired.
My Brain: But you need to get there on time, or you'll miss the bus!
My Body: But I'm tired.
My Brain: If you miss the bus, you won't get to go to South Carolina, you'll blow your whole weekend, probably might get kicked out of band for missing such an important trip, and will definitely be pummeled by the rest of the section for screwing up the form by not being there!
My Body: ...
My Brain: Yes?
My Body: But...I'm tired.

It's depressing how often my body wins those sorts of arguments, but this time, rationality prevailed. I actually managed not to leave anything I needed behind. That's a record for me, not leaving anything behind on an away trip. True to form, though, I did end up bringing something I didn't need that just uselessly encumbered me. (My white uniform pants.)

The ride up was fairly uneventful. We watched several movies, among them the Nicholas Cage crud-fest Lord of War. It was a bland and uninspiring story made worse by Cage's unique ability to maintain a single facial expression at all times. Most people slept in the beginning, because obviously, we had all gotten on the bus at 8:00 in the freaking morning. We finally all began to wake up when we made our first stop at a rest stop in Georgia. Let me just say, that they know how to do rest stops in Georgia. There weren't any restaurants, but there was a solid wall of vending machines. There were spacious and clean bathrooms. Inside, there were helpful people ready to answer questions, and even leather couches. Outside, there were trees and grass, picnic tables, and generally nature abounded. A far cry from the dingy concrete islands that we have in our state. It was as Valhalla next to the stony fields of Nifelheim, minus the screaming rampaging warriors.

When we got there, we had to immediately submit to two hours of marching practice. Given that we had been on a bus for six hours previous, this was no laughing matter. The director was kind enough to give us an extra few minutes to stretch, but with some peoples' spines so warped by the uncomfortable seats that the Hunchback of Notre Dame would blanch and recommend a good chiropractor, this did little to assuage our pain. Complaining and grimacing, we nonetheless managed to band together (band! Ha! I made a funny) and complete the review of our halftime show. The director briefly contemplated making us go over next week's show music as well, but the understood opinion of the audience that they would rather undergo a catheter insertion by a caffeine fiend than continue the practice changed his mind.

We got back to the hotel, where we had some downtime. Some used it to sleep, others to wander around aimlessly. I accessed the hotel's wireless network and played some WoW. (What? You say I could have used that time to update? I would have mangled it, I was completely creatively drained by the trip.) Soon, 7:00 arrived, and we all took shuttle buses downtown to have dinner and sightsee. I joined a group consisting of Chad (one of my section leaders, a very charismatic and likable guy), several girls from the section, my hotel roommate James (a quiet, reserved person who only becomes animated on certain subjects, like video games - we get along well) and some of his friends.

We set about exploring, and we encountered a candy shop. I decided I simply had to have a gander at the inside. And, as it eventually happened, about three-quarters of a pound of candy to take with me. I rationalized it to myself as saving money on dessert, but apparently my comrades did not have as much of a sweet tooth as I. I exited the building to discover that Chad and the girls had vanished, and James and his friends were my only remaining companions. They're nice people, but they make Bill Gates look like Fabio. I was annoyed when I suggested a nearby restaurant for dinner, only to have it rejected out of hand for being too expensive.

Me: What about this place?
Friend: It's too expensive.
Me: You can get a burger on the cheap.
Friend: How cheap?
Me: *looks* $6.99 for a burger and fries.
Friend: No, too expensive.
Me: *dumbfounded* What were you expecting?
Friend: Something cheaper than that.
Me: This is about as cheap as it gets. You want cheaper, go to Burger King, and I didn't cross two states just to eat some fast food.
Friend: Burger King, huh? Did you see one?
Me: ...
Other Friend: I could actually go for Wendy's. There's one near the hotel.
Me: ...
Friend: Ooh, think the shuttle buses are still running?
Me: *blood vessel in brain ruptures*

I set off, with them bickering about the merits of one fast-food restaurant versus another and trailing behind me. We were recommended a certain restaurant called Hank's earlier by Chad, who said he was planning to eat there, so I looked all around for it, convinced that I could cudgel the rest of them into coughing up enough to eat there once I found it. Unable to locate it, I ducked into a nearby shop and asked directions. Once I had them, I exited the shop. Directly into Chad and his entourage. Funny how the world works, sometimes.

It was about then that I was told that they had abandoned their plans to go to Hank's, and instead wanted to go to a seafood joint called Hyman's. Anyone who knows the area will probably immediately know what I'm talking about, but for those unfamiliar with the Charleston area I will exposit further. James and his cadre sloughed themselves off from us and went their own way, so our party consisted of the following:

Myself, you know who I am.
Chad, the aforementioned fearless leader.
Renee, the artistic member of our group.
Raquel, a cheerful girl who is best friends with Renee.
Scarlet, one of two five-foot-tall 98-pound girls who joined the tuba section for some crazy reason.
Lalaine, the other such girl.
Her boyfriend, whose name I never quite got, so I'll refer to him as "Charles" from now on. Were he less of a nice person, I'd give him a less benevolent nickname such as "Booger." Such is my power.

We requested a table for seven when Hyman's came into sight. (Well, we did it once we had actually gotten to the restaurant. Requesting it when it was merely in sight would not have done much.) We were told there was to be a wait of 45 minutes, but this restaurant had been highly recommended by just about anyone who had ever heard of it, and the sign in front said it had been named the Best Seafood Restaurant in the Southeast by Food Magazine eight years running. So we waited, looking up our choices on the menu we were thoughtfully provided to pass the time.

We got inside. It was a nice place, we got a table by the window overlooking the street, and our orders were quickly taken. It was a family restaurant, and a member of this family, Rusty, came down to greet us. He asked who had thought of coming. None of us knew precisely, so we pointed to Chad, as followers point to a leader in such circumstances. (He really is a natural leader. And he's a sophomore like I am, so I'll be privileged to know him for two more years after this.) Rusty gave him a coupon for a free T-shirt from the general store downstairs. So that was nice of them.

One thing we noticed about the restaurant was the number of plates on the walls. All sorts of plates were strewn about in decoration. They had signatures and logos drawn on them from all sorts of groups and people, from the Monkees to Senator John McCain to the USC Gamecocks. We were intrigued by this, but had little time to ruminate further on the subject, for the food arrived soon.

Let me just say that the title of Best Seafood in the Southeast had not been unjustly earned. I've eaten in New England, at Fisherman's Wharf itself, renowned as some of the best seafood around, and still this place served up one of the best meals I've ever had. (One of the best non-home-cooked meals, anyway. Love you, Mom.) I had a combination platter of fried calamari (tender! juicy!), boiled shrimp (lightly spiced! flavorful!), and broiled salmon in lemon butter (melted in my mouth!). I was raving about the food for some time after, that's how good it was. Other people at the table were of a similar opinion. At the recommendation of our waiter, I had a baked potato instead of my customary french fries, and even that was scrumptious. I don't even like baked potatoes that much, but this one really did it for me. The plate was well loaded; I lifted up my portion of salmon at one point to discover more shrimp hiding under it, like buried treasures waiting to be unearthed. A fine, fine meal.

During said fine meal, we inquired our waiter, Gage, as to the possibility of obtaining a plate that we could decorate and put on the wall, to leave the mark of the mighty Pride of the Sunshine University of Florida Fighting Gator Marching Band. (That's our full title. A bit unwieldy, perhaps, but it can impress people.) He conspiratorially glanced from side to side before assuring us that he would "do what he could." We glanced back and forth, trying to puzzle out this mysterious behavior. At least, they glanced back and forth. Once the immediate mystery was over, I went right back to tucking in.

Soon, Gage brought a plate over, pressing us to keep it hidden from any lurking managers we might see. Apparently, these decorative plates were not to be handed out lightly, but a finished plate would likely be accepted (to not do so would be an obvious insult), whereas a request for one might not be. Renee, our master artist, set about drawing an elaborate design and escutcheon with a combination of a permanent marker that stopped working shortly after being uncapped and a dry-erase marker Gage had provided. Roving managers threatened, but our catlike reflexes prevented discovery midway through the creative process. Soon, the plate was finished, with a Gator logo on, the words "Hyman's Rocks" on the sides to encourage acceptance of this marvel, and all manner of decorations. We slipped it to Gage, who held it behind his back to conceal it in preparation for hanging it up.

Of course, the back of his shirt smeared around the dry-erase markers, and half the plate was unreadable. To prevent Renee from having an apoplectic attack, Gage quickly retrieved it and provided us with a working permanent marker. Having re-designed the sketch, it was hung up and approved by all. The Gator Band had left their mark. And what's even better, there was no immediate room to put ours up, so we suggested that they take down Auburn's plate, seeing as it was so old. So that was a plus for us and a minus for our hated rivals. That'll teach them to best us in football in our own stadium, we thought.

We left the restaurant, and having an hour before the buses were to take us back to the hotel, decided to lark about a bit more. We went through the remains of the outdoor market, surveyed a last few vendors hawking jewelry and small decorative objets d'art. Chad spotted an illuminated building in the distance, and we made for it, only to lose it behind looming buildings repeatedly. When it was finally found, it became apparent that it was a cathedral. Behind it, at the spot we came up to, was a graveyard. We could not make out any of the names on the graves, as it was so dark, but a sign with a light on it said "The only ghost here is the Holy Ghost." Being the sort of person I am, after reading this to the group, I turned to Scarlet and added, "And that one behind you." Since it was night-time in an unknown city, she jumped a mile, and we all had a laugh. This joke was repeated several times by several, all to great amusement. I suppose anything's funny after you've just had an excellent meal.

We eventually returned to the hotel. So was that night concluded. Saturday morning dawned bright, cold, and clear...a beautiful morning. Or so I was told. I slept until 11:00. Wishing to save money, I accompanied my roommates and some friends to the aforementioned Wendy's near the hotel. It was just as well: The money the band gave us for eating and such during the weekend had all but vanished after last night, and my funds were rapidly becoming meager. After lunch and a brief bit of exploration, we set off for the game.

The stadium was two hours away from where our hotel was. This vexed many until it was pointed out that we stayed so far away so we could explore the historic city of Charleston on Friday night and Saturday morning, which calmed the tempers of those who had previously complained. On the way, we watched a movie called...dang, I can't remember. It was about competitive gymnastics. Apparently, every other person in competitive gymnastics, from the coaches to the parents to the snotty superiority-complex performers to the judges, is a complete and utter jerk. Questions to Scarlet, who had previously participated in competitive gymnastics, revealed that this was pretty much true to life. It excited us to the point that when we arrived at the stadium (and sat pointlessly in the bus for an hour and a half after we arrived, no joke) and unloaded, the movie was just at its climax...the tuba players, who before we watched the movie would have cared about competitive gymnastics only insofar as we could watch the girls in their skintight leotards prancing around, were upset and anxious about knowing the ending. So better than Lord of War, anyway.

The game was piles of fun. As you know if you follow such things, we crushed the Gamecocks 51-31. Though they received the intial kickoff, they fumbled and we recovered on the very first play, which we quickly drove for a touchdown. And then another one shortly thereafter. Our fervor was dampened somewhat when the extra point kick for the second touchdown ricocheted off the side of the goalpost rather than going in, and the fact that they scored twice to put the score at 14-13 served only to depress the situation. That was the only time in the game that they were ever winning, though. We quickly regained our momentum and toppled their offense, and smashed their defense.

The game was an important one to win. For those who don't know, Steve Spurrier is the coach of the Gamecocks, but as early as five years ago, he was the coach of the Gators (he even led us to our first national championship title in 1996), when he left for other opportunities. Most Gator fans see this as a betrayal. So seeing him beaten was an important thing, like the student finally surpassing the master. ... I've spent the last ten minutes trying to think of a Darth Vader/Obi-Wan style metaphor to meet Urban Meyer and Steve Spurrier, and have come up with absolutely nothing. So fill in something appropriate for yourself, if you think it's worth the effort. (See? My writing is intellectually stimulating!)

Behind me were a few fans who were good to talk to. I had questions for them during the more technical aspects of the game, and they were full of questions about the marching band and its inner workings. We got along well. Another fan behind us was full of vigor for the band in the initial stages of the game (yelling such things as "WOOHOO TUBAS!" and during "Let's Go Gators," yelling "LET'S GO, TUBAS!!" instead), but quickly tired of our playing and began yelling "GIVE IT A REST!" and "COME ON, NOT AFTER EVERY PLAY!" later on. Some band members were of his opinion, but we had no say in the matter.

After the game, we rode home, finally getting to watch the ending of the gymnastics movie which we had so coveted on the way over. The interesting part of this story is pretty much over. I went home and immediately went to sleep. Our call time was 10:00 the following morning, so I set my alarm for 9:00, for plenty of time for packing and such. I was awakened instead at 9:51 by one of my roommates, Preston, charging in and yelling "Why aren't you guys [the other three of us] up yet?!? The bus leaves in ten minutes!" As they say, hijinks ensued. It's a testament to my skill to marshal my abilities in time of crisis that I was able to get all my stuff packed and get on the bus by only 10:15. (I guess my skill to marshal my abilities in time of crisis isn't really all it's cracked up to be.) Fortunately, we had apparently planned to leave at 10:30, and the 10:00 call time was to cull latecomers like me from the herd and get us in so we could leave "on time." Tricky, but effective.

That's really just about it. The rest of Sunday and most of Monday was mostly just me loafing around and playing WoW, and hearing the tales of the fun things my girlfriend had gotten to over the weekend (she had gone to her best friend's birthday party, which had lasted all weekend). So that's it. Dang, what an update.

I just realize that I had no reason to name Lalaine's boyfriend, since I never referred to him again. Oh well. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Crooked.

REPLIES.

Wednesday's first.

Stephe: I am starting to develop a mental block about you talking about cantaloupe. With a little luck, I'll be able to excise the wretched fruit from my conscious mind entirely. And my goblins are quite capable of a turn 2 win...if I'm extraordinarily lucky, but forget that. I can overcome any goblin hate you can come up with. And as for something on YouTube? I might implement that on Wednesday. In fact, I really like the idea of a Daily YouTube Mention (not daily, but I'll call it that, because "Tri-Weekly YouTube Mention" just sounds daft), and will do that as soon as possible. Which means Wednesday.

I meant like long-term detrimental effects, such as cirrhosis of the liver or whatever. I'm not interested in your anti-governmental ranting. There are better forums for that than here. You just heard about Bill Nye, how about that. I'm glad you're so entertained by the thought of me wandering around like an idiot, and you're an idiot if you think FSU will crush us. We'll wipe the floor with you.

Mom: The sermons are entertaining but unfortunately un-reproducible. Unless one of us decides to take up stenography and copies one down, it isn't happening. I think alcohol is more psychologically addictive than physically addictive, which is why some people get addicted and others don't, as opposed to something like cocaine or heroin, but this isn't the time or place to discuss such things.

Vic: I still don't get the pants thing either, and his opinion on the subject is pointless to me. I mean, it's him. What does he know from fashion? And, oh, yeah, I'm going to cut my hair soon. <3 br="br">
Stephe: My hair may be long no longer...is that correct? Yeah. Good. But I'll probably cut it soon. I think it makes me look like a girl. I'm sick of that.

Cantaloupe. Gngh.

Daniel (sign your posts, willya?): It's called proofreading, man. It'll only take a minute. I haven't followed FF or Messiah Complex, recently. But it's good you got a copy. As for mentioning Bill Nye, it's because I went and saw him. And who isn't Ultron-happy? She's Ultron, the robot everyone loves to hate and who also tried to take over the world a few times, but we don't like to talk about that.

Stephe: Don't worry about it.

Friday's, now.

Stephe: I don't know, Stephen. Have you sought treatment for your FACE? And that's good about Tuesday. It'll be in the evening, around 6:30-7:00, but I can make that earlier if that's necessary. Lalala, can't hear you, not listening, lalala.

Mom: Jake adequately answered that, so...

Jake: It was quite a lot of fun with Powerthirst being brought up in Toon. I hope we get to play again, but I think I'll actually go all the way and actually think of something ahead of time first.

Stephe: How long did it take you to come up with all that? And Chuck Norris can be persuaded to give up his hair in...certain special circumstances. Especially if those circumstances lead to the creation of a fighter jet made of biceps. I can see him approving of that.

Daniel: I just did! And Cobra Commander is such fun, isn't he? He's the villain you love to hate but who tried to...wait a minute, I did this joke already.

Irene: Glad to see you finally comment, Irene. I think that sort of blog would be quite entertaining to read about. Lord knows I enjoy the tales of students told by the teachers...I followed the writings of an American teaching English in Japan and the foibles of his students for quite some time. Yours should also be interesting. And yes, that is a classic.

Bye.

A Slight Delay, But At Least On Time

This is just a minor update. I know, I know, I said I would tell you about Bill Nye and the rest today. I forgot to take into account that I’d spend all day traveling to South Carolina with the rest of the band, and I don’t have enough time to post a long and exhaustive update. I’m trying to write it accurately right now, but I just don’t have any kind of creativity going on right now. Last two times I posted, I was just flowing...I’m doing less so at the moment. I will catch up to absolutely everything on Monday. Last week, Bill Nye, and this weekend...I’ll catch up to it in an update with so many Greek letters, I may have to get representation from the Inter-Collegiate Fraternal Organization.

I promise. Really. Certainly. Not even kidding.

Sorry. But at least I’m updating on the correct day.

Bye.

Super-Mega-Gamma Edition! (That's Epsilon Part II.) Also SUPREME.

So. Saturday. As has been mentioned, I got absolutely no sleep on Friday night. None whatsoever. Well, okay, four or five hours. But that really doesn't do much when you've had a day of marching and performing previous and have a day of marching and performing facing you. So it was with a heavy heart and even heavier eyelids that I dragged myself out of bed at 7:00 on Saturday morning. Walter complained that I was waking him up. Frankly, as far as I was concerned, he could take his complaints and lodge them where the sun does not shine. (A P.O. Box in Walpole, Oregon.)

We went through the morning practice with some trepidation. After all, we had spent the entire week's worth of practices on getting ready for the Gator Growl performance, flaming field or no, and we had not touched upon our halftime show in a full week. For any kind of marching band, this usually spells disaster, as well you may imagine. But with remarkable speed and efficiency (remarkable for our band at least), we managed to get things together, pre-game and halftime, in just about two hours. Our director was to remark on this new and interesting occurrence, but our associate director had no opinion on the matter. This was because, as I failed to mention previously, he had abandoned us back on Thursday, as his daughter had just been born. An understandable reason for delay. (He showed up again at yesterday's practice, gray-faced and unshaven but smiling.)

After practice, as I was informed at that very moment (and had not paid attention to during previous moments of information), I was told that the band was to fracture into two groups. The first group was to be a pre-game pep band to go into the football stadium and play various songs as the team warmed up on the field and the crowd filtered in. I had done this earlier in the semester, and it was boring and undesirable, not to mention that the food they gave us was atrocious. I awaited the second option eagerly. It was revealed that the other part of the band was to engage in a "GatorWalk" pre-game pep band event. The difference was that this section was to stand outside the stadium and play for only a few minutes, while the football team walked in, to the accompaniment of cheers and applause from the crowd. (The team was, I mean. I doubt they would have noticed the band's existence if the drumline hadn't been blocking the way into the men's room. No respect, no respect at all.)

So the band split. I packed up my horn and made ready to join the group at GatorWalk. I had no actual idea where we were to be heading for this event, but I assumed I could just follow the crowds. Besides, I had done this last year, and I vaguely remembered which entrance we were supposed to go to. I had just set off when I realized that

1. I shouldn't have put myself on auto-pilot following the practice, because
2. It would have been a lot easier to play in GatorWalk if I had not packed up my horn, it being essential to playing, and furthermore
3. I am an idiot.

So, cursing myself profusely, I unpacked my horn again and assembled it. Grabbing all my band accoutrements and my backpack (containing my uniform, keys, and wallet, among other things), I stepped out from behind the trailer to catch sight of the crowds of band people heading towards the GatorWalk area.

I had taken too long. They were all out of sight in the crowds.

Swearing with even greater intensity, I trudged through the crowds towards the location where we had last held GatorWalk. There was nobody there. Uttering expletives so foul and furious that birds fell from the sky and small insects burst into flames, I made my way towards the other side of the stadium. Through sheer luck, I located a similarly lost-looking snare drum player. To my annoyance, he too had no idea where he was supposed to be going, but at least he had the excuse that he was a freshman. I had no such shield against the blistering criticism of my fellow tuba players. Regardless, we resolved that if we were to be lost, then at least we would be lost together.

He had the bright idea of listening for the band's playing, so as to home in on them through sound rather than sight. This would have worked perfectly, if it had not been for the many, many loudspeakers all blaring the tunes of our marching band seemingly everywhere we went. We thought we had discovered the band at any number of esoteric locations, including outside of the actual campus itself and inside an SUV so large that it could possibly have accommodated the full band. But luck was with us, for helpful members of the crowds directed us towards where we were supposed to have been for the last twenty minutes. We arrived, literally, within seconds of the band ceasing play and breaking up into fragments. I would have cursed more, but if I had increased the potency of my language any further, my tuba would have melted.

I feared getting into trouble for wandering around like a lost baby bird instead of actually playing in one band or the other, but as it happened, nothing came of it. Either nobody cared enough to punish or even reprimand me for it; or, as I believe is more likely, the people in the stadium thought I was outside and the people outside thought I was in the stadium. The two groups did not correspond until later, when such things had been forgotten. So I suppose I lucked out there. As the GatorWalk band disintegrated, I caught sight of one of my friends in the tuba section, a fellow named Christian. Real nice guy. He and I and one or two others made our merry way back to the field we had practiced on that morning, having been previously assured that the trailer that contained our tuba cases and such would be awaiting our return.

It wasn't.

While Christian made angry phone calls to Stanley (our section leader) trying to determine the trailer's whereabouts, my fury seemed to have burned itself out. I resolved to be at peace with the whole situation, even if it meant I'd have to take the marching field in just my uniform pants. For my uniform jacket, as you may recall, I had left in the care of Stephanie, and so far she had not returned it to me. But even this failed to anger me. I was calm. This lasted for about eight seconds, when panic overtook the placid waters of my mind. Oh well, it was good while it lasted, I lamented.

We had standing orders to return to the band room after we got out of GatorWalk, but these orders were predicated on the assumption that the trailer would have been there to receive our instruments, and thus they were without substance. That was at least the way Christian saw it, and I came around to his way of thinking swiftly enough. He suggested that we, instead of going back to the music building to receive a box lunch, go to Tijuana Flats, a nearby Mexican restaurant. This would not normally have been such a ludicrous suggestion, except, as the alert reader might have surmised, we still had our sousaphones with us. I cheerfully agreed nonetheless. I seemed to have some kind of invisible shield around me that prevented me from being yelled at for my various indiscretions through the last two days, and why not? It would be fun.

Long story short, it was.

Short story long, it was a much longer walk than Christian led me to believe at the beginning of the exercise. So we trudged on and on, past groups of tailgaters (or tailgators, as the school whimsically refers to them) and drunken fans of both teams. We were forced to decline various shouted requests to "play us a tune, won'tchya?", as such a thing would have landed us in hot water with the director had it trickled back to him. The fact that we were concerned about getting in trouble for playing a few notes when we had, in fact, gone AWOL and off-campus to secure food, only served to demonstrate how relentlessly irrational people can become under stress.

We arrived at the restaurant to enthusiastic welcomes from the fans and employees, the latter of whom assured us we could bring our sousaphones inside as long as we didn't bash things up with them. As we waited in line, Christian wryly observed that they had jacked up their prices for game-day. Who could blame them, I supposed. The restaurant was one of those that has bottles of all kinds of hot sauce prominently displayed, ranging from "mild" to "spontaneous human combustion." They had humorous names and ostentatious illustrations, except for one in particular. It stood out to me because of its bottle - a third the size of most of the others - and its complete lack of gaudiness or crazy fonts or pictures. It said, in simple and small black text on a white background, "Dave's Insanity Sauce." Whoever knows this name, it seemed to say, knows everything. And there was no admitting the possibility that any hot sauce aficionado would not know the name of Dave's Insanity Sauce. I avoided it. It was probably for the best.

The service was excellent. We both ordered a chicken quesadilla to go, and the girl behind the counter was kind enough to tell the cook to make ours ASAP, as we had to get back to the band quickly. We grabbed our food, thanked them, and skedaddled back to the band room. It was quite good, by the by. I'll consider going back there when their ridiculous game-day prices are not in effect. The envious stares of our band-mates, who had had to make do with a box lunch, made the whole excursion instantly worth it.

So, lunch consumed, we put on our uniforms (Stephanie had recovered my jacket and sent it to me) and went outside. When the band is ready to warm up for the game, we stand around a statue near the music building known as "the Gator," likely because it is a gator. There is always some period of milling around aimlessly on the parts of the band students before the director arrives, and the tuba section puts this time to good use. Each day before a home game, we have a "tuba sermon." We all gather around in a circle and chant and clap rhythmically, except for one person, who stands in the middle, and delivers a speech condemning the other team and all who support them, while elevating our team to near god-like status in terms of hype. This is usually done in a very enthusiastic, fire-and-brimstone style, but Jared (the tuba player who volunteered to sermonize) did this one deadpan, calmly and eloquently. Quite an effective presentation, we agreed later.

The director arrived. We warmed up and played the alma mater and the national anthem to cheers from the crowd; in the lack of a football team to distract them, we became the most entertaining thing in the vicinity. We formed up and marched in the parade, performed pre-game nearly without a hitch. I say "nearly" because I had discovered a problem: My tuba bell was misaligned and it made me look crooked. Sure as sunrise, this was discovered at exactly the moment when it had become too late to fix it. So I marched pre-game somewhat crookedly, but full of confidence and vigor. Crooked vigor. I like the word "crooked," in that it looks like it should only have one syllable, but in fact it has two. More words should be as awesome as "crooked." Crooked crooked crooked. Okay, I'm done.

The game was a total blowout. We absolutely flattened the poor Vanderbilt Commodores. (An interesting aside: In our pre-game parade to the stadium, one of our drum cadences has a bit where we all chant in time "Go, Gators! Beat, the [insert opposing team name here]!" Many of us in the band shortened their name, so it became "Go, Gators! Beat, the Commies!" The first time this was said, another band member roared afterwards "Beat those damn dirty Reds!" This served only to demonstrate why I should never try to laugh and play the tuba at the same time. It sounded like James Earl Jones was choking on a microphone.) Wow, an aside that took up nearly the entire paragraph.

But yes, the game was a blowout. At the end of the first half, we were leading 35-10, which is an absurd margin. Despite a number of questionable calls in the first quarter, we managed to prevail and absolutely trounce the Commodores. The remark was heard during this period of referee-related anger: "That twelfth man Vandy has on their side is killing us. You know, the guy in the black and white stripes." A particularly notable punt reception was made by Brandon James, who it seemed was certainly going to take a hit or take a knee. Instead, he slipped past three defenders to get an extra thirty yards. As he is in my public speaking class, I congratulated him on this today.

Our halftime show was excellent. Since I had fixed my tuba previous to going out on the field, I was un-crooked (hehe) and unafraid. It was later said that our performance was one of the best we had put on in recent weeks. Perhaps it was the infectious vigor of homecoming week, or the fact that we were finally winning by an enormous margin that electrified the band, but either way, we did fantastically well. Good thing, too, as this was the oft-mentioned Fun and Games show, with Saturday morning cartoons, superhero themes, and video game medlies throughout. I only wish I could get my hands on the video of our performance, I guess I'll ask my band director.

Tebow was absolutely on fire. With an injured shoulder preventing him from running the ball as much as he usually does, his passes always hit their mark, and his runners smashed through the defensive line. Percy Harvin in particular was astonishing all, being the first player in school history to achieve 100 yards in both rushing and pass yards. The last quarter saw Tebow and several of our other powerhouses removed and freshmen put in their places. The rationalization for this was that we were so far ahead, that it didn't matter how badly they screwed up, we were sure to win. Also, running up the score on an already-defeated opponent is considered unsportsmanlike, and there was a perfect opportunity to let the freshmen get in some actual plays in an SEC game. I consider it a bit of an insult to the other team to withdraw one's best to put in rookies, but whatever. The game's outcome was already decided by that point, and it ended 49-22, us.

I'm sorry to keep prolonging things, but this is about all I can eloquently describe to you in one sitting. I'll talk about Bill Nye and Sunday and Monday...on Friday. Yes, I'm developing a bit of a backlog, but I'm confident I can work through it. This is, after all, my second major update in two days, as I resume regularity.

REPLIES.

Vic: You really said that to Steven? How odd. Yeah, I've been kind of temporally misaligned as well, last few days. And yes, I have every reason to believe that they wouldn't let me borrow jeans because it's "gay," Stephen Nebb's response notwithstanding. I really don't get it. I mean, am I going to give them cooties or something? Jeez.

Stephe: You can dream all you like. I'm not eating any cantaloupe. Not quit raving about it, for Pete's sake, it's just a fruit. How peculiar, that you never wear anything but jeans and I just plain never wear them. I never actually saw the field get set ablaze, sadly. And I've been wangling together a Goblin deck. The hardest part is actually condensing it to 60 cards. I mean, really. I've got it to 64, have trimmed all the lands I feel I am going to trim, and absolutely feel I cannot take out even one more card. But it's utterly broken, I assure you. And I have no plans for YouTube, seeing as I write better than I speak and I'm not exactly photogenic. I may change this in the future, however. And alcohol is generally classed outside of drugs, in that its detrimental effects on the body are long-range rather than immediate, and it is not physically addictive. I know you're about to say something about marijuana, shut up.

Adios.

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.