Currents of Time

No plane crashes! Or anything else horrid and painful!

( This is kinda long )

And then last night I pretty much went straight to bed after dinner and slept until, like, noon. SO TIRED. Still tired. But not to the point of being unable to function anymore. WORK AGAIN NOW.

Maybe pictures later, after work.

Entirely too early morning followed by car ride followed by being very hungry followed by excellent lunch, much fun, and a million new DVDs.

Ssssort of.


My family used to go to New Hampshire for a few days every October, so mostly we just revisited a few places. I actually don't think we went anywhere new. The Mexican restaurant was a place we'd eaten, we've logged hundreds of hours at the arcade that was the reason my father wanted to do the trip at all, and the used stuff shops we raided were all familiar territory, as well.


I don't really know why my father suddenly decided he wanted to visit the arcade, but, you know, they have some really awesome games there, so who was I to say I did not want to go? We hit the used stuff shops first and they had half a million DVDs and about as many video games for pretty much every system ever (big increase from last time I was there). Didn't get any games, but I did pick up a bunch of DVDs, but more on that later.

The arcade was a blast. Mostly I wasted my tokens playing the racing games. I generally don't like racing games except when they're the arcade-type with the whole seat set-up. (I did go a round of air hockey against my father - I won - and also played a bunch of Skee Ball, but the huge racing games take like 3 tokens per game and I only had about 30 tokens.) They'd gotten rid of a skateboarding game they'd had, though they still had Hydro Thunder (YAY!), and they had a bunch of new car racing ones. One was called Drift and my mother talked me into playing a round of it, and it was actually a lot more fun than it looked.

But because my life is hilarious in strange ways, it was kind of weird. They used actual car models (instead of the typical "here is a car that bears striking resemblance to actual cars, but is also obviously not" thing you see). I was going to pick one car, but my mother really wanted me to go with the Mazda RX-8. I like those fine, so I went ahead and picked that one. I made it white, because I am lame and/or easily amused. After watching me once, Mom decided she wanted to play, too, so she jumped in. As a Ford GT (it was even blue). AND ALSO one of the cars the computer controlled was a yellow Camaro. With the black stripes, of course. So Alternators Jazz and Mirage and Movie Bumblebee all had a race. (JAZZ WON. Though one time Mirage tackled him out of the air and made him crash into a building, which wasn't very nice.)


ANYWAY THE DVD STORY NOW. My father, being my father, bought a used DVD, too. Girls Gone Wild. My mother made a joke about the case being sticky and, and I can't figure out if he was making an intentional joke here or if he was unaware, my father responded he could always take it into the bathroom to deal with it. dsbhfjglk my family why.

Also I got a bunch of used CDs and I hope they all work but they were only a dollar each so even if they don't it's not a big loss.

Anyway again, I was just taking the tape off the DVD cases, and one of the ones I purchased was a copy of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. They didn't have a widescreen edition of Return of the King and I was sad, but whatever, I got the first movie free (my mother bought it, then bought the huge long version and so gave me her first copy) and the second one for cheap, and I opened the case to check the backs for scratches and stuff and OH GOD THIRD DISC HIDING INSIDE fell out onto my computer and it was

a widescreen copy of Return of the King. Um? Woohoo!


I don't have a pretty case for it (or any case at all, really), though, which kind of annoys me. NO I AM NOT WHINING ABOUT A FREE DVD I just wish I had something to put it in.

EDIT:
ALSO BECAUSE I AM STILL LAME haha, new issue of Game Informer arrived and they had an article on FFXIV aaand the Miquo'te (the new Mithra) they chose as an example is pretty much Hisime's albino twin, which made me far more pleased than it had any right to. (OHMIGOSH LOOK IT'S HISI'S CHARACTER MODEL EEEE)

EDIT II:
ANIKO I SUSPECT IF YOU SEE THIS YOU WILL FEEL COMPELLED TO SAY YOU ARE SORRY FOR HAVING AN INTEREST IN PLAYING YOUR OWN VIDEO GAME THAT YOU JUST BOUGHT. It is okay, you are allowed, I am not annoyed or angry or thinking you are full of failure, it was just a thought I included in there based on previous experience watching you play games so that if anyone was enjoying the random I AM PLAYING FFVIII FOR ANIKO commentary I kept throwing up they would know why it has suddenly disappeared again, if you do follow your usual habit.

Here are some things from the weekend I wanted to mention but forgot, in my sleep-deprived haze:

( Yes, more on this. )

Anyway, my new field placement started today! AT 8:30 AND BY THE WAY I HAD TO DRIVE FORTY MINUTES TO GET THERE so I had to crawl out of bed at 7 am and I'm still recovering from the flight home, but I made it. IT IS SO AWESOME.

We went out on a boat and drove around and I got to do stuff already! No standing around stupidly this time, they put me right to work putting things in the lake and taking them back out, and dropping them in the lake, and hauling them back out, and tossing things in the lake and heaving them out again and THROWING THEM IN THE LAKE AND THEN PULLING THEM UP AND TAKING THE SAMPLE AND we saw some great blue herons in their nests at the top of some dead trees, and a bunch of fish clearly not adapting well to living in the lake-proper instead of the hatchery they must have been from, and also there were spiders all over the boat augh, and oh man, I am so excited and grateful, but I am seriously going to have blisters the size of China growing on my hands in a week's time ow.

I GO BACK AT 9:30 TOMORROW. Not nearly as far, though. I had to go to Waterbury to do some paperwork and stuff, but they'll be picking me up from a much closer location from now on.

SOEXCITED. (Too excited for the space key, evidently.)



And, while we're on the subject, SQUEENIX I HATE YOU.


WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY


THE ONLY GOOD THING HERE IS THAT I DIDN'T SEE ANY TARUTARU IN THE TRAILER AND I COULD LIVE WITH NO TARUTARU BUT AAGERHJKTLGEMNH


(And that's all beyond that they're promoting XIV before XIII is out...)

Gonna try and finish it all up today. HERE IS THE REST OF THE TRIP!

( Images )

Next post will be APARTMENT. OH GOD MORE IMAGES.

Oh! Also, as usual, if anyone wants copies of all the photos, or larger copies of anything, let me know and I'll make you a CD.

I am home, I am exhausted, I need to unpack and immediately repack, my ankle and wrist are trying to kill me, and we were all worried we were going to have to spend last night in the Houston airport on account of the snow going on all over New England, and even then I still didn't get home yesterday.

BUT I AM HOME AND I HAD AN AMAZING AND EXCELLENT TIME and I'll post more on it later.


BY THE WAY, I sent a few postcards, so if you're one of those people - I had to give them to someone else, because I couldn't get to the post office. Therefore, I am not sure the postage is correct, so if you end up having to pay the extra postage, I am so sorry and if you'd like, I'll pay you back somehow.

In 48 hours, I'll be en route to Mexico. We'll be in the air somewhere. FLYING WHEE. Please do not lose my clothing, I'll be quite annoyed.

(If anyone would like anything from Mexico - like a trinket, or maybe a postcard if I can find a post office - now would be the time to speak up.)


My life consists of nothing but packing for the trip, packing for moving when I get back, trying to reach my landlord about which gas meter belongs to the downstairs, and then spending my evenings packing more, running about Vana'diel like a lunatic, trying to write, and harassing Aniko over AIM about everything else on this list.


...I cannot believe 8 GB is not enough space, though. Stupid mp3 player, not holding both all of my soundtracks and a nice assortment of vocals. I need to take a few things off so I can add some new stuff, but it is so hard to pick what to remove.

Also, need to find a bag to use as a carry on and pick a book or something for the flight. AND BATTERIES OH GOSH I JUST REMEMBERED THOSE. Shoot!

ALSO because the roads might be a little bad Friday morning, my father has decided we're leaving here for Boston at 5 IN THE MORNING.

I need to meet the group at 11.

It is a 3 hour drive.


..... okay, then.

ME, Maine, the state. Not me, the person. Silly coma-induced figments of my imagination! There are not fishes in Jecca! (... or if there are, she doesn't know about them.) Also, Jecca is not deep blue, though she was told once that her aura was blue.

MY MOTHER, SHE WANTS TO EAT THE LOBSTER. The lobster is better in Maine. (Probably on account of Maine having, you know, an ocean coast?) On Friday, we attack at dawn! And we stop in to see ineptmagicuser, because we can and it's what all the weird people do. Then we go to Portland or something and eat seafood, spend the night somewhere, and head home again Saturday morning.


Just to eat dinner! I don't know, it seems a bit excessive, but hopefully it will be fun.

NERVES, if you'd rather. We are sorry. My brain has defaulted to Al Bhed again. (Actually, it's a bizarre Spanish and Al Bhed mashup, which is even worse. "Estamos cunno," indeed.) I will try to type in English.

It's just caught up with me fully. It's a little over two weeks to BotCon and I am starting to stress out a bit. My parents still have the disposable phone they bought for my brother back in November when he drove himself back to campus alone (for the first time) in a blizzard. They're sending it with me, but I don't know how to answer it.

I've tried, but of course to make it ring, I have to dial it and, while watching me try to dial one phone while trying to answer another is probably hilarious, it is not something I appear to be at all capable of. Curse you, rotary phone. And when I have my parents home, they always just show me rather than letting me actually answer it, which is the only way I'll reliably learn it. So I'm going to go to Cincinnati with a phone that I can barely even turn on, never mind answer or use to call someone with. HELP AUGH.


Also, transportation from the terminal. I have never in my life hailed a cab. I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO DO THESE THINGS I LIVE IN VERMONT. I can navigate subway systems in Japan and Montreal, and I even managed the Japanese bus system (why was I able to figure out everything in Japan when none of it was in English? I will never understand that), but I don't know the first thing about getting a taxi and getting them to take me somewhere.

Doesn't help that the only time I've been in a taxi, the driver nearly killed all of us several times. That was a horrifying night.


Also, despite the amount of travel I've done, I have never actually gone anywhere completely by myself. AAAAH!


Any help or advice or anything anyone has to offer would be greatly appreciated.

HELP HELP I AM GOING TO DIE

So, today plans went down suddenly and rapidly and all those other things, and now I am going to California in December.

For, you know. Four days. Thursday the sixth through Sunday the ninth. Plus two travel days. The weekend before all three of my Finals! Well, one is a take-home, but considering we will leave Wednesday afternoon (immediately after my class gets out, really) and get back late Monday (just enough time for me to adjust to the time zone!)... When will there be time?! ON THE PLANE, OBVIOUSLY. Or maybe I can duck out of the Family Stuff on Sunday. please please please please my CA relatives are so insane


They're burying - or reburying, or moving, or however you refer to these things - my mother's father (my grandfather, though I never met him. He died of lung cancer about four years before I was born), and my mother wants to go! And I was asked if I wanted to go, and since I am always up for a trip if there's time in advance to get work off (which is about the only reason I wasn't in California last summer)...


HEY! mysticeden, my grandmother's house (we'll be staying with her) is only about forty, forty-five minutes from your guys' place. WE SHOULD MEET UP. o.o)b?

AFK BOTCON


I hope I have fun! And also I am sorry in advance for making what will undoubtedly be a very, very confusing and obsessively fan-ish post Sunday evening when I get home again.

I am so, so nervous. Oh, God. Crowds of people. Lots and lots of people, and I'm not going to know anyone. I cannot handle crowds. What made me think this was a good idea?

... Twenty-four hours from now, I will have received my toys and seen the new movie! eeee!