August 2005 Archives

Short version:

Lebanese, beer, shoe shopping, pawn shops, tennis, BBQ, badminton, cool tub, emergency vet, beer, horseshoes, Carcassonne, Wrath of Khan, beer, and Applebees with Kara, Reese, Chris, Angela, Billy, TJ, Michelle, Matt, Kordell, Cooper, Dave, Mom, Dad, Julie & Chloe.

Long version:

On Friday night we met Chris, Angela, and Reese for dinner at Ya Hala where we enjoyed some hot Lebanese action. After dinner, Reese took off but the rest of us drove down to Hawthorne to see what movie was playing at the Bagdad. It was Hitchhiker’s Guide, which I had already seen and C&A didn’t want to see. So instead we just walked up and down the strip and ended up stopping for beer at the Bagdad (weekend Hammerhead count: 2 pints).

On Saturday morning, Billy picked me up to go shoe shopping. We went to Nordstrom Rack and Gart Sports but neither of us found anything. While at Gart, I picked up a badminton set and both of us bought tennis rackets. Billy has been wanting to buy a bass guitar lately, so we drove down two seedy thoroughfares (82nd and McLoughlin) and visited every pawn shop we spotted. No luck, so we went to a tennis court to try out our new rackets... the rackets are good, we are not. There was many a ball hit out of bounds, and even a few hit over the fence! But I’m stoked to get out there and try it again. Oh, and we were playing in the middle of the afternoon when it was ridiculously hot outside.

We finished playing, exhausted and sweat drenched, and headed to Safeway. Kara and I were throwing a BBQ at 2pm, so I had to go pick up food. The BBQ was a lot of fun, TJ, Michelle, Matt, Billy and Kordell showed up and we played badminton, ate, and best of all, soaked in the not-so-hot tub. We turned the temperature down to 80 degrees a while back and it was perfect to cool down in! Reese showed up later and joined us in the tub and we all made plans to go see Hitchhiker’s Guide that night at 10pm. They all took off, and we had to take Coop to the emergency vet because his legs got paralyzed or something! The vet didn’t know for sure what happened and Coop got better after an hour or so (sounds like it might have been a seizure?)

Once we got back home, it was time to head out for the movie. As we were getting close to the theater, Reese told us that TJ & Michelle weren’t going to be able to make it, so we decided to just have dinner at the Bagdad and see if they all could join us later. As we were wrapping up dinner, the Arkos called to ditch out completely, so we finished up and headed home (weekend Hammerhead count: 4 pints).

On Sunday morning while Kara and I were trying to figure out what to do, Dave called and asked if we wanted to hang out. Kara was feeling kinda blah so she stayed home and I drove over to Dave’s. He recently bought horseshoes (on my recommendation/urging) so we went to Lents Park and threw them around. The first game Dave led nearly the whole time, but I started catching up and won the game (14-12) with a 3 point ringer! The second game was very close the whole time, but Dave pulled off the win (11-14). We kind of wanted to play a tie breaker game, but it was so dang hot that we decided to head out in search for food. Sandwiches at Subway, then back to his place for a game of Carcassonne: The Castle. He had never played it before, but he kicked my butt just the same; I am officially the worst at Carcassonne, I don’t know what it is about that game but I lose almost every time I play (regardless of the flavor).

After Carcassonne, we headed out to the Bagdad (yes, making it three visits in as many days). They were showing Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan as a matinee, and we thought it would be neat to see on the big screen. The print was pretty scratchy and had an orange-ish tint, but it was still watchable. The movie was actually pretty cheesy... I hadn’t seen it since I was just a little kid, and it didn’t hold up to my memory of it. It was still fun to watch, but there were multiple times where the audience laughed at parts that weren’t supposed to be funny. Had a beer with the movie, bringing the weekend Hammerhead count to a grand total of 5 pints.

After the movie, I met my family at Applebees. My parents had just gotten back from a vacation in Alaska and they had got us all some presents. So, we talked about their vacation, ate dinner, and got some cool little gifts (I got a commemorative coin recognizing Alaska’s induction into the Union and a little gold nugget in a booklet that shows where and when it was found).

I got home around 11pm and got in bed with my book. I figured I’d read for a while, but as soon as I hit the sheets I knew that wasn’t going to happen...

Today I entered a whole new echelon of video game geekitude; I imported a game system from Japan! Kara’s been digging the DS like crazy, so I decided to get another one for her birthday. But, here in America there are only two color choices... silver and blue. However, in the magical land of Japan there are a bunch of different colors, so I ordered a candy pink one from play-asia.com. The system was the same price as US systems, but the shipping from Hong Kong was 27 bucks! But, nothing is too much for my little game girl, right?

We also went to EBGames today and traded in 6 old GBA games to preorder his and her copies of Nintendogs (Ok, they weren’t his and hers, they were Chihuahua and Dachshund). That was seriously one of the best deals I’ve ever seen, 3 GBA games for a brand new DS game. All six games would have been worth $26 for regular trade in, but instead they got us $60 worth of games! I’m almost positive that Nintendogs will keep Kara entertained for quite a while (judging from her past Animal Crossing obsession). I just hope I don’t quickly tire of its open-ended cuteness. It should be fun to share the experience (again, like Animal Crossing) so I’ve got my fingers crossed.

Finally, while Kara was picking up dinner at Olive Garden (soup, salad & breadsticks to go) I ran over to Gamestop and bought Feel the Magic for $16. I’ve played a bunch of it today and it’s pretty much what I expected... silly mini-games. You can really tell that they were experimenting with all the DS features, and it’s fun to play around with them. The game gets surprisingly hard at one point, which I guess is a good thing because it kept me from beating it tonight... I have a feeling that I’ll be trading this in not long after I beat it... it’s fun enough to play through, but not good enough to keep.

I've been laying low the past week, so not much has been going on. Billy, Dave, Kara and I have been getting together to play tennis. A bunch of us went to the Clackamas River on Sunday and soaked in the water. But that's about it. So instead of just posting that and calling it good, I've decided to get all nostalgic on your ass.

Let me tell you about an old friend named Nathan. Why? Well, I had a dream about him a few nights ago, and then out of the blue, my mom mentioned him yesterday ("Do you ever wonder what happened to that friend of yours that used to do illegal stuff?") Yes, I do wonder what he's been up to since I haven't seen him for many years (I think he stopped going to my high school after Sophomore year). I tried looking him up on the internet yesterday, but didn't have much luck. He's registered over at classmates.com, but you have to pay money to see contact information... lame.

Ok, Nathan was very much in to computers, but before we go any further I must put you in the right time frame. We're talking about early 90's, so back before the widespread usage of the internet. Back then, when we got online it was using a dial-up modem to connect to a local BBS (a text only interface where people got together to chat, play games, share files, etc).

Well, Nathan ran one such BBS. But, here's the other thing about Nathan... he had a, let's say, relaxed sense of morality. So, he didn't run a regular BBS, he ran a pirate BBS (one focused on the exchange of copied and cracked PC games). Usually the way these worked, you'd dial up and upload a game that wasn't already on the BBS. You'd get credit for it, which would then let you download a game that you didn't yet have. Because I was a friend of the sysop Shadowfyre (aka Nathan) I got a leech account where I didn't have to upload anything; I had free reign to download anything I wanted! This would have been great, had I had a good modem. However, I had only a 1200 baud modem.

Let me try to explain how slow this was... Currently, Comcast's broadband speed is up to 4Mb/s, which is roughly 40 times faster than a 56k modem. Ok, but that 56k modem is 48 times faster than my pitiful 1200 baud. Therefore, current broadband speeds are 1920 times faster than the modem I was using! 1920 times!! With broadband, you can download an mp3 in about 6 seconds. That same song would have taken 3.2 hours to download with my modem. At that speed, you learn a whole new level of patience.

So, I didn't do much downloading. Every once in a while, I'd connect in the evening and let it download overnight. More often, however, I'd just go over to Nathan's house with a huge stack of empty floppy disks and leave with a handful of games. The number of pirated games I played back then was astounding, and most all of them from Nathan. King's Quest I-IV, Gold Rush, Civilization, Colonization, SimCity, Warlords III, Dune, Dune 2, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Cool Spot, X-COM, Lemmings, Quest for Glory and I'm sure plenty more that I'm forgetting.

Ahh, the good old days. Well, that's enough for now, but I'm not finished with this homage to Nathan. I've got quite a story waiting to be told. I mean, I assume the statute of limitations has run out on the nerdy crime we committed... ?

This weekend was exhausting! On Saturday morning, Billy, Dave, and I met up in Canby to go on a bike ride. A 40 mile bike ride! The loop started in Canby, worked its way past Monitor, through Molalla, Mulino, and back to Canby with dusty farmland filling the spaces between the little towns. I won't deny that I was dead by the end of the ride... In fact, I was dead BEFORE the end of the ride! But it was worth it, to get out into the country and put down some serious miles thanks only to my manly muscles. Lots of fun, but I think the next ride I plan will be a bit shorter, something in the 20-30 mile range.

On Sunday morning, Michelle and Reese came over and we headed out to McIver Park. A bunch of us hung out there last weekend, and we decided then that we'd raft down the Clackamas River the following weekend. So, that's exactly what we did! We dropped a car off at Carver Park and put in up at McIver Park for what we thought would be a 4-5 hour trip. It turned out to be significantly longer, something more along the lines of 8 hours. We were ill prepared for such a long trip, so we drew straws to see which one of us we would eat... ok, not really, we just rationed off the meager supplies that we had. The trip was fun, but we were all ready for it to end a couple hours before it did. Here's a satellite map of the road between both parks. Zoom in a bit, and you see the section of river we rode, north of the marked road.

I’m seriously enjoying this awesome summer weather! Now if only my house would cool down at night, because I need good sleep after all this activity!

Man, I’ve got a lot of stuff to post about, but I haven’t been in the mood to write lately... sucks to be you.