3 Weeks Left

Been a little over a month since my last update, and even though I’ve waited so long there’s still hardly anything new to report on.

Usually I have projects to show but despite having two different studio classes I really don’t have anything to present for it. I’m editing a film in my post production class, but since I didn’t shoot it myself (nor do I really like it) I don’t have a huge desire to put it online. My sound design class has been really easy and the projects would be uninteresting to watch. With three weeks left, perhaps there’ll be something worth the trouble of uploading, but I guess we won’t know till then.

I did sign up for my winter classes though. History of Film, Advanced Post Production and Directing the Documentary. Advanced Post isn’t actually a required class, but I really love editing and continue to head in that direction, so I’ll be learning everything I can. Documentary was a pain to get into since SCAD’s course requirements and prereqs don’t make any sense: in order to get into Documentary I had to take English 180 (ENGL 180), however, ENGL 180 was not a required class. What? Documentary is a required class, but in order to take it you have to use an English elective for ENGL 180… so why not just get rid of the elective and make ENGL 180 required? Anyway, I contacted the correct people and got into Documentary and completely waived from ENGL 180, so now I can take whatever class I want. The schedule for next quarter is:

• Monday / Wednesday
  • 2pm Directing the Documentary
• Tuesday / Thursday
  • 11am Advanced Post Production
  • 5pm History of Film

Before I got Documentary all figured out I was actually thinking about taking an online Art History class, which would have me only going to class 2 days out of the week. Crazy.

Fallout 3, Game of the Year Edition, came out back in the 2nd week or so of October. I had already bought it at launch for Xbox 360, but I bought it again, this time for PC. It’s completely worth the purchase, though, and has already taken near 50 hours of my time (not such a big deal since I have nearly nothing to do this quarter). If you only buy one game this year, make it Fallout 3 (assuming you don’t already have it… then it’d be sorta pointless).

With just three weeks left to go, I’m more excited than ever to get out of here and back home. It’s not that home is all that exciting, but Mal already has her ticket to see me (December 22nd!) and I’m anxious for that day to come. I’m also planning on teaching a Photoshops basics class back at my old school, and the thought of doing even a little bit of teaching is of interest to me.

Less than 20 days remain. Break time here I come~

2 Weeks Down

The last entry detailed my wonderful trip to Wisconsin, so I figured since that has been a few weeks ago, it might be time to update my blog. So here goes.

I moved back into SCAD on September 12th, this time moving into Barnard Village, one of the nice apartment style dorms (this year I would not only be living with Alex, but also Dan and Taylor—and hey, Ian lives two doors down). Move-in went without a hitch, and all of us have been really impressed with the place. We each have our own room (plenty big enough for one person), there’s also two bathrooms and a full kitchen—dishwasher included (we were hoping). I haven’t taken any photos yet, but if I do (or if someone else does) I’m sure I’ll post them here at some point.

After the first week of classes I could already tell that this would be an easy quarter. I’m taking Sound Design (which right now is more or less ‘watch the sound-related special features of a DVD’ class), Editing (spend a bunch of time learning something I already know how to do—on the plus side I’ve been getting out of this class over an hour early each day) and 20th Century Art. I was most worried about that last one, but then I found out that not only are we never going to have a test, but we’ll also never have a research paper. Wow. You are graded on two or three papers that you have to write throughout the quarter, and apparently they’re both short.

With all this time on my hands, I figured now would be as good a time as any to go Super Saiyan in my geekdom: I started playing Magic: The Gathering.

Now I have to add here that I’ve always had an interest in Magic, ever since Pokémon cards started to die out quite a few years ago. I remembered all the fun I used to have going to Toys R Us on Saturday afternoons to participate in the Pokémon League, playing cards and just having a really good time. I don’t remember how old I was back then (maybe 12? younger? older?), but I did it for about 2 years and it was just a real blast. I wanted that experience again, the excitement of opening a booster pack wondering what could be inside. I wanted that magic again… so I chose Magic.

The reason for choosing Magic is solely because of it’s immense popularity—it’s been around since 1993, which is 16 years. Basically, it’s not going away. I bought a Pokémon card deck the day they came out, so you can imagine the daunting feeling of knowing I’m already 16 years late to this party. Even so, I hopped on AIM to talk to Chaz (you may remember reading that we stayed with him in Indiana on the way to Wisconsin) who is a long-time lover of Magic. He told me to pick up some Core Set 2010 Intro Packs and watch some instructional videos and I’d be all set.

So! That Thursday night we went to WalMart to pick up some groceries, I bought two decks, and we came back to the dorm to attempt play. Alex and I sat down and read through the (horribly explained) rules, and over the course of the next week, learned more through playing and asking Chaz specific questions. Since then if we’re at a store and I see a booster sometimes I’ll just pick one up, since it’s just a fun feeling to get new cards.

Yesterday (well, two days ago now, but Friday) we went to Sam’s Club and WalMart to get groceries, and on the way back to the dorm stopped by Morningstar Games, the official Magic dealer of Savannah (a place which, upon walking in, increases your nerdiness by at least 32 points). Even so, we all bravely entered the store.

The guy at the counter was probably about 50 or so years old, but dang was he ever excited about playing Magic. He talked about how they were drafting that night and we should stick around and play and how there was a new expansion and how they had new unlimited cards inside which were good (cause even the common was worth $8) and how—we couldn’t keep up. We just kept nodding along but were really lost. We explained that we were new to the game, which started another big spiel, but at least the guy was friendly and helpful. In the end, he managed to sell both Nick and myself $20 each worth of Magic cards—a box of 350 random common and uncommon and a 400 card box of land. He even threw in another box of 350, and buy the time everything was done, we each walked out with about 800 cards. They definitely aren’t the rarest or most valuable or anything, but we’ve just been playing casually, so it’s nice to have a big selection to make a deck from.

Aside from our Magical experiences, I had a horrible computer problem where ethernet stopped working, Final Cut died, and things were just really really broken. I decided that I would move to Snow Leopard to fix everything. Well, right before I decided to move, I managed to fix some things… well, everything. But at that point I was so gung-ho about moving to the new OS that I decided to adapt a ‘well, screw it’ mentality and just do it. So, yesterday I took 7 hours out of the day to wipe the internals and install Snow Leopard (10.6). Things went without a hitch, and I’m still in the process of reinstalling all the software (Logic, Final Cut, CS3… my space is gone before I even start).

Other than that, the only other mentionable thing is that Mal and I have been dating for over a year and a half now. I’ve been keeping this blog since before I met her, so if you want to see more posts about how we met and our time together, just dig through the archives of this blog.

Wonderful Wisconsin Week (Alliteration!)

To avoid the syndrome known as “oh crap I can’t remember what happened 6 days ago”, I decided to write down what happened each day at the end of each day, so at the end of the week I would have a very comprehensive list of things I had done. So without further ado, here’s how my week in Wisconsin was, August 31st to September 6th.

Monday, August 31st

Mal and I woke up around 10am, thankful that we didn’t have to set an alarm for the first time in a few days. Sleeping in was a good idea, and we were finally well-rested. After we got ready, we headed over to the brand new Sonic that opened up (it had only been open for one day). The midwest is new to Sonic, but apparently very, very eager to try it: it was so busy that people had to direct traffic to get us into the parking lot. They even tried to explain how to order (“you’re going to want to press that big red button, ya hey”), as if it wouldn’t be self-explanatory (that, and the fact we’ve had Sonic in the south for years).

Even so, we ventured through the bustling fast food joint and ordered up some food. Popcorn chicken for both Mal and myself, with ranch and honey mustard dipping sauces (I ate both of the sauces since Mal likes chicken plain… yeah, I know, gross, right?). Sonic is delicious no matter where you are, and here is no exception. I know they’re going to give Culver’s (located right across the street) a run for their money, but Culver’s welcomes them with open, sarcastic arms (Culver’s sign says “Welcome to the neighborhood, Sonic”).

After we finished eating we traveled over to Britt’s house, a friend of Mallory’s whom I had met for a few moments way back in June 2008. We spent some time talking to her and playing with her cat (subtitled by Britt, “the worst cat in the world”), and after an hour or so we headed back to Mallory’s house to meet her mom and boyfriend Rob for dinner at Waverly Beach.

Dinner was nachos and pizza with sausage, pepperoni and green peppers. We spent some time talking afterwards, but since it was getting cold (yes, even in the summer, and to make it worse I had only brought one pair of pants) we headed back to the house.

Once we got back to the house, Casey and Tara as well as Nicole and Patrick all wanted to go do something, so Casey suggested bowling. We had to stop by WalMart so I could buy some socks (hey, I live by the code of Rainbows, ok?), then we headed off to Sabre Lanes.

We bought three games and split it up men vs women. Our team consisted of Sally (myself), Peter (Patrick), and Cashew (Casey—though I’m starting to feel like I should just call him Cashew from now on). The girls used their regular names (how boring!). After the first game, I had beaten Mallory by 20 points (109 to 89), but games 2 and 3 didn’t bring in the same victory tunes. She beat me pretty badly, but hey, there’s no shame in losing to a girl, right? …right?

When we finished bowling, we said goodbye to our friends then headed back to Mallory’s house. We were both exhausted (it would be a few days before the effects of the car ride got out of our systems) so we headed to bed. Well, right after I set up the wireless router so we could use the internet. Then we used the internet and headed for bed.

Tuesday, September 1st

Today was the day we’d be heading to Wisconsin Rapids to spend a few days at Mallory’s father’s house. We woke up and were out of the house by 1pm, and headed to Mallory’s grandparents house first since it was on the way (Mallory hadn’t seen them in a while). We stopped and talked with them for about half an hour, then picked up some double chee at McDonald’s before heading off to Rapids. Somewhere in there we stopped at a game store and looked for SNES games, but there were no purchases.

When we got to Rapids, Mal had to stop by the UPS store to pick up a monitor she ordered for her computer. After that it was just a short drive over to her dad’s house where we unpacked our stuff. He wasn’t home from work yet, so we decided to use the computer for a while until dinner (we had dinner plans with some of Mallory’s old friends from school). However, since I had reformatted Mallory’s computer, she no longer had the WEP key, so we had to reset the router and set it all back up again. By the time we nearly had it working again, it was time to head over to Steven’s Point and meet some folks to eat some food.

Stephanie still lives in Pray-Sims (the dorm her and Mallory shared when Mal still went to school there), so we drove over and picked her up. She was sporting Fangamer swag on Fangamer swag, the latest in geek style this season. We went to the top of the hill to Hilltop Pub (what a literal name!) and met up with Cassie, Morgan, Liz and Lindsey. We sat outside (and got annoyed to death by the lakeflies), but had a good meal. I got a chicken tenders basket (oddly enough, with ranch and honey mustard, just like the day before) since I had been craving it. It was nice to meet Mal’s friends, especially since I had heard so much about them for over a year now. We took a picture together then we parted ways (well, mostly—we took Liz back to her house, then we drove over to Cassie’s house to meet up with her and Steph).

Cassie insisted on showing us her dog, Mini Lassie, er, uh, Romeo, then we headed over to see the lot where her new house was being built. Back at her house, we all sat around and talked about how technology sucked and disputed over prices in a Best Buy sales circular. We agreed that we should meet for lunch the next day at the KFC buffet (much to Steph’s dismay, who stated that she hated fried chicken).

We took Steph back to her dorm, and also went inside to look at it. It’s quite different from SCAD—Stevens Point looks more like a prison than a dorm, really. We met her quiet Chinese roommate, Yi, then said our goodbyes as we went back to the car. While we were on our way back to Rapids, I called my parents to say hello, but also to tell my father happy birthday (52!). 20 minutes or so later, we were back in Rapids at the house. Mal’s dad was already in bed, so we quietly made our way inside, where Mal proceeded to rip open her monitor like it was Christmas morning. After we got it all hooked up, she just stared at it, wide-eyed.

“It’s… so big!”

I mean, I guess so. 20” is big when you’ve been stuck with the Macbook’s incredibly tiny 13” screen, so I can see why she’s excited. She played around with that for a bit, then we watched a little Family Guy on television before heading to bed.

Wednesday, September 2nd

Woke up at 10am and promptly got out the Macbooks. After we goofed around for 2 hours or so on the internet, we got ready, ate some pop-tarts (well, Great Value brand toaster pastries, for what it’s worth), then headed off to Stevens Point again. As planned, we were to meet with Cassie and Steph again, this time for lunch at the KFC buffet. We went to Cassie’s house then carpooled over to the KFC in Plover (Mal and myself took a car separate from theirs since we would head back to Rapids afterwards).

I’ve eaten plenty of KFC in my day, but never had I had the chance to try the wonder that is KFC buffet. Try to wrap your mind around this concept: $7.99. All-you-can-eat. Full menu (like, near everything—original, crispy, grilled, honey bbq wings, salad bar, mashed potatoes, corn, biscuits), and even the drink was included. They also had vanilla pudding and an ice cream machine (with toppings!!). Honest to God, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a business put into my hometown as badly as this before. Getting to pig out on the Colonel’s secret recipe before diving into applesauce and pudding (and, of course, ice cream) was the highlight of my day (well, in terms of eating). I can only hope we get these in South Carolina soon (or in Savannah), because it’s a crazy good deal. Steve Campos (Plo) even called Steph during the meal, so I was able to talk to him for a minute or so (despite the volume being incredibly low on the phone, or so it seemed).

Anyway, after my south had shown all over the place, we drove over to a petstore across the street looking for some sort of dog treats that Cassie wanted for her dog, Mini Lassie Romeo. They didn’t have them there, but they had some really cute puppies that proceeded to lick the four of us near to death. They were tiny and cute, but the huge signs that said “DON’T PICK UP THE PUPPIES” as well as the Wisconsin hick at the counter convinced us to follow protocol. We pet their heads and they wagged their tails, but we were off to find the pet treats again.

This time we headed to a Petco, which I’m assuming had what we needed (though we were there for a long time so I’m not really sure if Cassie ever got what she wanted). We looked at the animals (including two cats, Daisey and Vee Vee, priced $75 and $5 respecitively—putting a price on love is wrong!), then went next door to the Best Buy so Steph could get the new Professor Layton game. We also attempted to play Rock Band with no sound—we passed, but we have no idea what song we were playing. Kinda takes the fun out of the game, methinks.

When we left Best Buy we knew it was goodbye, so we said our farewells to Cassie and Steph, and gave the expected hugs. Steph’s flying out to Seattle for PAX (I wish we were going!), so we wished her happy trails (clouds?) and a safe trip. I’m sure we’ll see each other again sometime, just give it a few months.

Mal and I headed back to her dad’s house in Rapids where we’d finally get to see him (you have to remember that even though we’d been there for a day now, we hadn’t seen him yet). He greeted us and we sat and talked for a while, and showed him some pictures from the long ride up. One of his friends was having a cookout that night (apparently we were the only guests), so we waited around a bit then headed over there—but not before taking a ride in her dad’s Corvette. I had never been in a Corvette before (let alone one that had upgraded everything), and I have to say—that kitten can purr. I mean, purr. Dang. Mallory had described it to me as being on a rollercoaster. She was right. Anyway, after that, we headed over to the coworker’s house.

The guy (I believe Troy was his name) had a big house, and a fire going in the backyard (they actually had a firepit built right into the deck—awesome). He invited us down into his basement for a drink. Like a typical Wisconsinite, his fridge was loaded with this and that beer, and when he asked Mal and I what we wanted, he was sort of stunned when we repied “Coke”. He actually asked “…seriously?” We spent the rest of the night eating cheeseburgers and brats, and watching a TV while sitting around the fire. It was really nice, but I knew we’d smell like smoke later. We checked it when we got back to the house—yep. Especially our hair: it was like we had lit it on fire.

We changed clothes then snuggled on the couch to watch Donnie Darko, a movie I had seen at school with the guys, but had wanted Mal to watch for quite some time. As I suspected, she really enjoyed it, but had to take a trip over to the Wikipedia page before she understood it all. We watched an episode of Good Eats and Family Guy before heading to bed.

Thursday, September 3rd

Woke up really late, watched TV, took showers, and basically laid around not doing much anything today. When Mallory’s dad got home (which was around 5:30pm), we went to look at some houses in the Stevens Point area, and then headed over to The Bamboo House for dinner.

Our waitress was very obviously new, as she frequently did many wrong things (though it could be that we notice things more easily now that we’ve walked a mile in a server’s shoes). The food was good, however, and Mallory, her father and myself enjoyed a delicious dinner of hibachi shrimp, teriyaki shrimp and teriyaki chicken, respectively. After dinner we headed back home, then Mallory and myself went to pick up some movies at Family Video.

We knew we wanted to rent Twilight (not because we actually had any desire to see it, but because Chaz had given us the RiffTrax back in Indiana and we were excited to listen to others make fun of it), but we had no idea what else to rent. I had recalled reading on RottenTomatoes that I Love You, Man had scored at least in the 80%, so we went with that. Afterwards, we headed over to Copp’s to pick up some snacks (and lemonade!).

We got back home and put in I Love You, Man (Twilight needed to be ripped then aligned with the RiffTrax in an video editor). The reviews on RT said that it was humorous throughout, but never really gut-bustingly funny. After watching the movie, I would say that that was correct. It was okay, but we found ourselves chuckling instead of laughing.

Once the movie finished, we watched a little King of the Hill (which Mallory has finally come to love) while waiting for some laundry to finish.

Friday, September 4th

Woke up this morning around 10:30 or so. Mallory’s dad was off today, so he was working around the house. We got ready and packed most of our stuff, then went over to WalMart so Mal could do some school supply shopping. After we spent a good deal of time in there (and debated on whether we should each purchase PC copies of Left 4 Dead), we went to Family Video to return the movies and stopped to get gas. On the way back to the house, we stopped by Trade-A-Game and looked through their selection. They had a good selection, but the prices were too high (3 copies of SMRPG, but $75 each? no thanks). We didn’t find anything of interest so we headed back.

After quite a bit of time we finally finished packing and loaded up the truck. We said our goodbyes to Mallory’s father and headed off to Eau Claire (about an hour and a half drive). Our plan was to stay with Hayley, but she was in class when we were scheduled to get there, so we wasted some time in the ShopKo (think of a store that’s less than Target but classier than K-Mart). Finally we could go meet Hayley and Mark.

We took our stuff up to Hayley’s dorm, attempted to get the Twilight Riff working, got angry, tried some other stuff, then eventually settled on something that would definitely work, all before heading out to get some food. Across the street lay in wait Mancino’s, a place to get “grinders and pizza”. Option 1, sir.

Good food, normal meal, but I do feel like pointing out a ridiculous story that may or may not make me look like an idiot/crazy. When I got up to the counter and ordered, the cashier told me the total was $11.15, to which I handed her a 10 dollar bill and a 1 dollar bill. Now, in my mind I was actually expecting change back—85 cents, you see. That’s why it struck me kind of odd when she asked if I had any cents, to which I replied “nope, no cents at all.” She looked at me funny and said “uh.. okay” and started looking at the “take a penny leave a penny” station for some change. She gathered 7 cents there before looking over at the other cash register. Mallory walked over in the meantime and asked if I needed change. I was like “sure, that’s fine”, thinking that I could get my dollar back. Mal handed her a quarter and the woman gave me back a dime…. oops. That’s when I realized I was an idiot and meant to give the woman twelve dollars instead of eleven. Man, I felt dumb. Anyway…

After the meal we went back over to ShopKo to get socks or something. I don’t remember, I was very full from my huge sandwich so the world was a blur. Then we headed back to Hayley’s dorm to watch the RiffTrax of Twilight (which was hilarious, by the way). We finished the night by buying Left 4 Dead on Steam and seeing how it performed on a 2007 Macbook in Boot Camp (answer: very, very poorly).

Saturday, September 5th

Originally we were going to wake up around 8am, but I talked Mal into letting us sleep until 10am. As such, we woke up around 10am. I put on some pants then realized the horror: I had to get ready in a real college bathroom. SCAD offers each room their own private bathroom, but this was real college. Bold font.

Getting ready wasn’t as bad as I would’ve thought it (but it was still bad and I have a deeper appreciation for having my own bathroom, even if it is with Alex ‘Hairy McGee’ Forsythe), and I was ready for the day afterward. Hayley took us around her campus for a few minutes before we went back to the room to gather our belongings. We loaded the truck again and were off.

My stomach was growling seconds after we left (seconds before, too), so we stopped at Sonic to get a sausage, egg and cheese croisSONIC (no, that’s seriously how they spell it) with a strawberry slush (pretty much the only drink I ever order at Sonic). Mallory didn’t want anything (which made me feel fat), but we ventured onward anyway (despite the fact we’d eat only a few hours later at the mall of America).

Before we arrived at Hayley’s house, Mallory drove us over to Menomonie, where she goes to school (at Stout). We saw her dorm, looked at the town, then headed over to The Devil’s Punchbowl, a really cool looking natural occurrence from nature. That may or may not have made any sense, so just check out the pictures of it and hopefully that’ll explain something. During our adventure there, I slipped and got mud all over my sandal. I wasn’t too happy about that.

45 minutes or so later, we arrived at Hayley’s house to drop our stuff off. Her mom greeted us, gave us a coke, then went back to yard work (I guess you could call it that—there was recently a tornado that went through and there were like 50 trees down and they had like 10 people that day helping them cut the trees into smaller pieces and also burn them and stuff). We got back on the road, this time heading toward the Mall of America (or as I thought of it before today, the mall with a roller coaster in it for no reason).

The mall… was large. Very large. Larger than anything I had ever seen. It took like 40 minutes to walk around a single floor, and there were 3 floors. That’s not even counting actually walking into places and checking them out, either (there might be some slight exaggeration here, but it’s for dramatic effect, and thus, necessary). Despite looking for hours, we only ate a small amount of food in the food court as well as buy a single gift for my mom. I should also mention that we found a vendor trying to sell EarthBound for $129.99. I told him he was out of his mind (recent completed eBay listings show the current price is between $70 and $90). The guy was obviously insane, though: he was trying to sell a complete FF7 Greatest Hits for $99.99—what? eBay listings for that are anywhere between $25 and $40, and I bought mine new a few years ago at a KB toy store for only $15.

When we left the mall it was about 5:30pm and we headed over to Karley’s dorms in Minneapolis. We checked out the inside of her dorms then took her car over to a local sushi place called Kukigawa. At first I was worried because the sushi seemed so expensive ($4.50+ for a single piece), but then I realized the price was for two pieces of nigiri and suddenly the world was okay again. We had our fill (and tried shabu shabu) and headed out. We stopped by Karley’s dorm again to say our goodbyes, then headed back to Hayley’s house.

It was about 9:30pm or so when we got back to her house. Hayley wasn’t home (and wouldn’t be for a while), but her parents welcomed us (back) with open arms and let us use the hot tub. We soaked in there for a half hour or so then got in the showers (well, not until Hayley’s dad showed me his awesome Resident Evil 4 skills—he’s apparently beaten the one-player game multiple times). Once we finished, we caught the last half hour of Coraline on Pay-Per-View then waited up for Hayley to arrive. She didn’t arrive until midnight or so, and things after that are hazy. I recall falling asleep on the blow-up mattress.

Sunday, September 6th

Woke up at 8:30am (the alarm was set for 9, but I laid awake for 30 minutes trying to swat a fly that wouldn’t leave my poor ears alone). Eventually I woke up and got ready, then Hayley made some pancakes (I should clarify that ‘some’ was equal to about 20 or so). Mal and myself managed to handle 5 each before calling it quits. Hayley’s parents arrived back home before we left and saw us off. Hayley, Mal and myself made our way to the airport.

It’s a fairly long drive (45 minutes or so), but it feels so, so, so much longer when you know that this is the end. The end of the summer, the end of a long period of time before you get to hug that person again.

When we got to the airport I said goodbye to Hayley (who waited in the truck) while Mallory and myself went into the terminal. I got my bag all checked in, went to the bathroom, then we sat down on the benches—a position we’ve been in way too many times before. Sometimes I’m leaving, sometimes she’s leaving, but it’s always hard. We sat there for a good 20 minutes or so; Mal just about soaked the shirt I was wearing with her tears. Eventually I made my way toward the gate and she waited in line with me. As we neared the end of the line, we knew we had to stop, so we slowly let go of each other and said our last goodbyes. And then… she was gone.

There’s always a sigh after she leaves. A sigh of relief, in a sense—the event that I had been most dreading for the past 3 months is now over. No more Mal everyday. Have to go back to Skype every night. It’s a weird feeling, really. We haven’t had to talk to each other on AIM in a long time.

I made my way through the concourse and found my gate. Ate a chocolate chip cookie before I boarded. It was a pretty long flight to Charlotte (2 hours or so), so I decided to finally try out Final Fantasy 3 for DS. When I landed it was about 5pm EST.

I got a slice of pizza and talked myself into getting a Cinnabon (always a good decision). I took my time eating and eventually was able to board the plane. The time was 6:20pm, but after that I don’t remember anything. The next sound I heard was the plane coming down, to which I shakingly woke up. 7pm and we were back in Myrtle Beach.

And well… that’s it! That’s the story of my week in Wisconsin. Third time I’ve been there, even though I swear it feels like more. I unfortunately had to leave my girl there, but I know I’ll see her again in December. School starts a week from now, and I’m heading back to Savannah on Friday. 10 weeks of school… time to get back to the grind.

Oh, and as always, if you want to see the nearly 300 photos I took during the week, you’re more than welcome to by clicking here.

We Meet Again, Wisconsin

So with summer winding down and August finally here, we knew it wouldn’t be too long before we needed to stop our jobs at Carrabba’s and get everything ready for the big trip: since Mallory had driven down to Myrtle Beach, we had to take the car back to Wisconsin. Yep, you guessed it: road trip.

We stopped working on August 23rd (a Sunday) and took a few days to ourselves to wrap up any other loose ends or do things we still wanted to do. On Wednesday we went to the beach one final time, a particular visit that Mal is sure not to forget, as she burnt her feet as we ran across the hot pavement/sand (and got 5 blisters in the process). Thursday we decided to head over to my old highschool in Conway. I let them know that I’d be interested in teaching a Photoshop basics class when I got back from college in November, and they were quick to write it down. I’ve always had an interest in teaching, and it would be fun to teach something like Photoshop. We also met with Jarrett one final time at the Outer Limits restaurant (Mal’s first taste of a real country buffet).

Friday morning we were packed and ready to leave. My parents had left two days prior to head to Maryland to take care of some last remaining things with my grandfather’s estate, so when Mal and myself headed out on Friday, we left Rocko alone (but heavily armed with about 1lb of food). We were initially trying to get out of the house by 9am, but of course we got held up till about 10am. As we were loading the car, Dan Settembrini called.

He was calling to let me know he had gotten a speeding ticket (actually, no ticket, just a court date—he was speeding in a work zone, ouch). He was traveling that day as well—to Lillington, NC, to visit Rhett and Link, two internet celebrities he interned with last summer. He told me he got the ticket near Walterboro, SC, and Mallory said I should go look it up on Google Maps. As it turned out, he was 1 hour and 40 minutes from Florence, SC, which we also had to pass through. Do you know how long it takes to get from Little River, SC to Florence? Yep, 1 hour and 40 minutes. I told Dan that we should try and meet in Florence for lunch, and he was game.

First we stopped by a local vineyard to get a bottle of wine for Mallory’s father (birthday gift), then we headed to Florence. Sure enough, we ended up at a McDonald’s within 3 minutes of each other. We had lunch together and Dan finally got to meet Mallory (Dan sees Mallory on a daily basis at school, only over my shoulder while I talk to her on Skype). We said goodbye and Dan headed off to North Carolina while we trecked further west.

Originally our plan had been to stop in Spartanburg, SC, to get lunch at The Beacon, but since we already ate lunch with Dan, we decided to go straight for the interstate instead. With the GPS leading us, we traveled another 4 or 5 hours until we arrived in beautiful Knoxville, TN.

We checked into the hotel before heading off to one of Knoxville’s many malls to look around and grab some food. When we arrived at the Knoxville Center Mall, the first person we passed going through the door was wearing a cowboy hat. It was awesome. Unfortunately it wasn’t as I had suspected: not everyone in Tennessee wears cowboy hats, as that one guy was the only person that I saw. Regardless, we looked through the mall and found a store called Packard’s that dealt in video games from all generations, all ‘buy 2 get one free’. The selection was really good, including harder to find SNES titles (no Earthbound, though), but the prices were crazy. Well, maybe not crazy, but not the sort of prices I’d like to pay for SNES games (okay, so what if Donkey Kong Country is worth $30, I wouldn’t pay more than $8). I found StarTropics (NES) for $5 and picked it up. The guy at the counter reminded me that I could buy another game and get one free, but I told him it was the only game in the store worth buying.

We walked around for a little bit and got some dinner at Taco Bell, then grabbed some cookies from the Great American Cookie Company that we’d eat later in the hotel room (long story surrounding those cookies: the sugar cookies sucked completely and weren’t edible, so I had to email the company letting them know). When we bought the cookies we left the mall. It was about 9pm.

A little backtracking here: on our way to the mall initially, Mal thought she heard a rattling in her car. I couldn’t hear it at first, but after a while I started to. When we parked she looked at her engine but everything seemed fine. We thought we maybe should have it checked, but we’d do it after we had looked in the mall.

Back to the story. So we’re leaving the mall at 9pm, and as we’re driving out of the parking lot we notice a auto repair shop. We figured they were closed, but drove over to see what time they opened so we could have it looked out in the morning. To our surprise the lights were still on, but the sign did say that they closed at 9pm.

“Hi, we’re on our way back to Wisconsin and my car is making a rattling noise.”

Despite it being closing time, a friendly mechanic jumped at the opportunity to help us, driving the car around then into the shop, lifting it up and peering underneath. He found the source of the problem: apparently there’s a shield around your muffler and Mal’s bands that hold it on had rusted, causing the shield to become loose. They rattled against the muffler, but it wasn’t anything serious. Relieved, we thanked the man and went back to the hotel to enjoy our cookies (but you already know that story).

The next morning we were up in time for the continental breakfast (7am). I enjoyed a waffle with apple juice and Mallory ate a muffin and some fruit. We got our stuff packed and were on the road by 9am.

The plan was to take a 30-minute detour to Louisville, KY, to see Seth Woodley, who had recently moved there for school. GPS said we’d get there in 4½ hours, right around 1:30pm. Off we went, into the hills of TN (and eventually Kentucky).

On the way, Mal had to get gas so we stopped at a gas station that had a Taco Bell attached to it. Knowing that pretty soon sweet tea would be gone, we went through the drive-through and got a single large sweet tea. When we got to the window, he handed us the sweet tea before asking, “would you like any mild, hot or fire sauce with that?” After a few moments of silence we slowly responded “…no”, to which he started apologizing and laughing for being an idiot.

As the clock hit 1:30pm, we arrived in Louisville and met up with Seth at a Buffalo Wild Wings (despite having eaten there only 2 nights before). We ate some wings, exchanged hugs and talked for quite a long time. We could tell Seth didn’t want us to leave (and we certainly would’ve loved to have stayed), but the road was calling our name. Particularly Mallory’s name; she was driving.

As we left Louisville, we set a new marker on the GPS: Muncie, Indiana, home to Chaz Estell (aka βlackLeader, aka DJ Beta), who let us stay with him and his girlfriend, Elizabeth (who had met Mallory already, but hadn’t had the opportunity to meet me). We arrived in Muncie around 5pm and unpacked our stuff into the house. We talked for a while before we left to go eat at Amazing Joe’s (The Answer Is Yes). I had the Monterey Jack Chicken: a grilled chicken breast smothered in cheese and mushrooms. I probably didn’t rave about it then as much as I should have, but it was amazing. I hadn’t tasted anything that good in a long, long time. It even rivaled that of Carrabba’s.

Once we finished eating, we went back to the house. Elizabeth went to bed since she had to be up for work at 11pm, and the other three of us watched an episode of MST3k (Final Justice, for those who are interested), as well as plenty of RiffTrack shorts. At one point I could feel myself nodding off, so I went out to the car to grab my trusty box of Apple Jacks. Eating them one at a time kept me awake, though. We went to bed around midnight, maybe half after the hour.

We woke up that Sunday morning around 7:30am and were out the door in about an hour. We stopped at Burger King and got some breakfast before continuing our journey north. Today’s stops included Mitsuwa (Japanese) Marketplace, just north of Chicago. The GPS said we’d get there around 11:15am, but accounting for the time difference it was actually 12:15pm.

Driving through Indiana was anything but exciting. It was flat, plain and simple. 50 miles on this road, 50 miles on that road, nothing but corn on both sides. Then something interesting came up on the map. Kokomo, Indiana! A little out of our way, but worth it, right? For those who are uninformed, Kokomo was the birthplace of Reid Young, webmaster and co-owner of Starmen.net. While driving through Indiana we were passing towns that were literally 100 feet long (think of seeing a ‘welcome to’ sign then immediately a ‘now leaving’ sign), so we’d easily find Reid’s house, right?

Well, no. I was actually serious about finding his house (had I have found it, I probably would’ve introduced myself and Mallory to his parents and tried to explain what a good guy Reid was), but Kokomo was way different than the other towns. It was huuuuuge! At least as huge can be for Indiana. There were chain restaurants all over, and we just kept driving and driving. We would point at places and say “I bet Reid ate here!”, but after doing that 2 or 3 times we realized that it was beginning to sound creepy so we just tried to get back on the main road.

After taking our Kokomo joyride and losing about 20 minutes or so on our time, we continued the path to Mitsuwa. As we got closer to Illinois, we couldn’t help but notice the GPS was telling us to go through—no, it couldn’t be—Gary, Indiana. I’ve been told that Gary is the homocidal capital of the U.S. (I researched this and that’s apparently not true: it has been, however, on the top 10 list of most dangerous cities). Driving through Gary was an adventure in itself. The city is like a ghost town, with everything looking run down, dilapidated, and vacant. A once thriving steel town, Gary is now nothing more than a bad place to live (also, a name for a man). To make matters worse, the route that the GPS told us to take didn’t even exist: construction (which seemed to have been there forever) was in the way, with detour signs pointing the way.

Gary did a heck of a job with those signs. Some pointed one way, some another. Some told us to keep straight, others to turn. Navigating around was incredibly confusing, all the while the GPS is yelling at us for not going a way that would be impossible to go. At once point we wound up at the steel mills: no cars around, not even a person around. ‘Creepy’ doesn’t really begin to define it, and the entire time Mallory was freaking out. I told her to keep calm and that we’d be out of Gary soon enough. Maybe I spoke too soon when we passed a pair of rusted schoolbusses that were just sitting on the side of a residential street. Way to go, Gary.

Even so, we eventually got out of Gary and continued on our merry little way to…. traffic. Chicago wouldn’t be Chicago without traffic, and we were stuck in the middle of it. It took 30 minutes to go 3 miles, and during that time I realized that maybe I shouldn’t have gotten the 36oz Gatorade. I honestly thought my bladder would burst before we made it all the way to Mitsuwa, but by 2pm we had made it there. I rushed to the bathroom and then we looked around the market.

Mitsuwa was really cool, I had never seen anything quite like it. It felt just like being in Japan, with little shops selling everything imaginable. We went to the food court and got real Japanese ramen (no packets here) and it was amazing. We bought a bubble tea, too, then walked around a little bit more. They even had the super delicious Koala Yummies (called March of the Koalas in Japan, or Koala March), but we bought some bakery goods instead. They have these little loafs of bread called Melon bread, which is essentially a cookie/bread hybrid. Imagine if you took a cookie and inflated it using bread, then put a chocolate chip filling inside. Yes, it tastes as amazing as it sounds.

With that out of the way, we were clear to head to our final destination: Appleton, WI. It had been a long journey, but we were almost home. We started traveling again, and got out of the Chicago area.

About 2 hours from Appleton, right outside of Milwaukee, we hear a loud boom noise while driving down the middle of the highway going 70mph. We start to lose control of the car and the brakes aren’t slowing us down like they should be. Problem? Well… our tire exploded. Not just went flat, but really exploded. We pulled off to the side of the road and I got out the number for AAA (hurray for having AAA!). No sooner had I got the information in and the guy told me he was sending someone out, then did a huge truck pull up behind us. A man walked out with a nametag that read “Josh”.

“Who are you?”
“I’m with the FST, we take care of any and all road problems.”
“Oh. Well, we’ve already got AAA on the phone and —”
“Tell them to cancel it. I work for the government of Wisconsin, and we do it for free. Plus, I’m here right now, and it’ll be 30 minutes or more before they get anyone out here.”

So with that, I told the AAA guy on the phone not to come, and we watched as Josh changed our tire for us. Within 10 minutes we were back on the road again, but this time the plans had changed. We couldn’t drive all the way to Appleton on our little spare, so we headed to Mallory’s Aunt Mary and Uncle Tom’s house, conveniently only 10 minutes or so away.

We got there, looked up a nearby tire place, and got everything settled. No, we didn’t get home in Appleton at 5:15pm like we thought we would, but at least we took care of the tire issue. Everyone who looked at the tire said we were lucky to be alive: the tire was in pieces, and it was a wonder the car didn’t flip or do something crazy like that.

3 hours later, we were on the road again. Soon enough we were back in Appleton, and Mallory was home (although later she said it no longer felt like home: she was used to the South, used to my home and my family). Casey (Nesskid) called to find out where we were, and we met him for dinner at Culver’s after we dropped our stuff off at the house.

And that, my friends, is the crazy story of driving. 7 hours each day, multiplied by 3 days, is 21 hours in the car. Even so, Mallory and myself managed not to kill each other, and things are going good now as well. I’m taking a ton of pictures, all of which will be uploaded to Flickr and linked to here. I’m here till Sunday, and I’ll be sure to fill you in on the rest of my time here.

Given the chance, I’d do it again… just not anytime soon. Also, if you’re interested, here’s the entire collection of photos from the 3 day trip.

July Ends, August Begins

Seeing as how it’s been a while since I posted anything, I figured I would update this blog to remember things later on. Or something.

I haven’t said much because I haven’t been online all that much. When I’m not at work I’m normally playing video games or doing something with Mal, and it’s now a rarity to even see me on AIM. I know that’ll change when I get back to school, but it’s weird right now to think I’m not online very often.

Work has been going pretty good. The economy has definitely affected business, but there’s been $100+ nights (rare, but they’ve happened). It’s cool to think you can walk in at 4:30pm and walk out 5 hours later with over a hundred bucks in your pocket. The job is pretty easy and is mostly just being someone’s personal servant for 40 minutes (something some folks like to take advantage of).

I had a huge list of video games to play and beat this summer, but I also wanted Mal to play some of my favorites. She’s beaten Gears of War and Halo 3, Portal, New Super Mario Bros, and we’re almost finished with the first Phoenix Wright game. I normally don’t juggle so many games at once, but here’s my ‘now playing’ list: Fable 2, Gears of War 2, Phoenix Wright, Chrono Trigger DS, Pokémon Leaf Green, Sonic Unleashed, and a handful of other DS games. Tomorrow I’m going to pick up Wii Sports Resort, even though it’s mostly for my father.

Despite juggling so many games at once, I’m doing a pretty good job of keeping up with the stories of all of them. There’s a few other RPGs that I’d really like to start, but I know I can’t handle any more right now. I’m nearing the end of Phoenix Wright, then I’ll probably devote a good bit of attention to Fable 2. I’m also having Mal play through Half-Life 2, since that should really be a requirement for anyone who loves video games at all.

But, besides work and video games, there hasn’t been much going on. I had a Halo party for my high school graduating class again (it normally happens about twice a year or so), but I’m assuming that would fall under video games. Even so, the summer hasn’t seemed dull or boring at all, and I’m enjoying it to the fullest, especially since I’ve got Mal with me.

So there’s my update, internet. Keep on the lookout for more of that weekly Ninten Speaks stuff, since that’s the most you’ll be getting of Stephen Georg online until school starts. (And oh yeah, I also just released a new song about EarthBound—you can listen/download it here, but I’m sure it’ll show up on my site in another day or so).

Waiting Tables and Playing Games

July! I can’t believe it’s already July. A guess quite a bit has been going on, so I’ll elaborate a bit on how my summer has been going thus far.

Mallory and myself got jobs at Carrabba’s, a nice Italian restaurant chain that happens to be only a few miles away. Being a waiter was something I really didn’t have in mind, but it’s work and pays well. Training was a week long and was pretty brutal, but now that I’m doing things myself I’m much more comfortable with it. We got the jobs shortly after getting back from Savannah, so we’ve just been working, mostly.

Aside from working, we play games. I had ordered Pokémon Leaf Green and Fire Red from eBay and I put a few hours into Leaf Green so far. I also bought The Sims 3, which we’ve probably put more time into than anything else (well, at least Mallory has). We even took the time to recreate my house, which came out surprisingly accurate. If you haven’t played Sims 3, you really owe it to yourself to pick it up since it’s a huge jump up from the previous two installments.

Mal and myself also played through Gears of War (I had beaten it before, but we were looking for good co-op games to play), finishing it last night. We’re probably going to start on the Halo series soon so she can see what all the fuss is about.

We both ordered DS flashcarts (for those looking to order one, get the AceKard 2.1, it’s easy and awesome) with 8gb memory cards each (they’ll hold approximately 100 DS games). We decided to try out Phoenix Wright and we love it. I finally see why everyone raves about the series: it’s really good. I also tried out a bunch of other games I’ve been curious about. I had tried GTA: Chinatown Wars when Alex had it a few months ago but didn’t play it enough to really get into it, but now that I’ve put 10+ hours into it, I realize that it should really be respected as a full-blown GTA title. If I were to recommend a game on DS to folks, it’d probably be GTA.

And! Because Chrono Trigger is on the DS, I decided to finally play what is frequently referred to as one of the best RPGs of all time. I’m a few hours into it and I already see why it’s earned the title. I’m very impressed with the game thus far, and look forward to putting more time into it.

After a month of being too busy to do a new Ninten Speaks episode, I finally got around to filming one today. Then I went to the computer to open Final Cut and… no go. Apparently the update to 10.5.7 on my Hackintosh made Final Cut decide to not work. *sigh* I’m currently trying to figure out how to resolve this problem so I can get this episode up in time for the 4th of July. I’ve got Premiere Pro, yes, but my camera is weird and requires certain things be done for it to work. Whether or not it’s even possible in Premiere is yet to be answered, but I’m not willing to give up on Final Cut… it’s my baby :’(

That’s about all that’s been going on as of late. Like I stated in the title, I’m waiting tables and playing games. I’ll be sure to keep you updated on which games I’m playing as they change. And hey, who knows, maybe something exciting will happen. We’ll see.

Hello Summer

It’s been quite a while since I bothered to update the internet with my life, so perhaps it’s time I did so.

School is done, finished. The last week was absolutely crazy and I thought I would die, but I finished it. The last big thing to do was the final video for my Lighting and Field class, which I titled Burger Fever. Not my best work by any means, but it was definitely fun to do (if not a little gross and/or disturbing). I got my grades for classes just recently and I managed two B’s and one A (in Psychology). I actually don’t know how I managed that one, since looking at the grades shows that I should’ve gotten a B, but I’m not going to question it. Sophomore year is finished: two years down, two to go.

On Sunday, Mallory and her roommate Hayley arrived after a 23 hour drive spanning 3 days. Needless to say, they were happy to get out of the car. The three of us did a lot and had quite a bit of fun in the few days Hayley was here, but you can read more about that on Mallory’s blog. As her post states, we’re currently in Savannah, and leaving in the morning to head back to SC. It’s been a nice little getaway, but it’s time to get back to reality and find summer jobs. Having her with me all summer will be nice, but definitely a little different. We both feel like it’s needed, though. Here’s to a wonderful summer with a wonderful girl—and many, many more awesome friends.