Greenwood trip - July 27-July 31, 2006
So I visited the boy a few weeks ago. Um, I guess there are some vague MGS3 spoilers in here, but nothing major or even explicit.
Thursday, July 27, 2006 - Bus trip + Falc-birthday-stuff
The bus was late leaving Detroit. Then Greyhound's wisdom became apparent when the route from Toledo to Fort Wayne involved not I-80, as you would expect, but US-24, which, being not a freeway, was never faster (and often slower) than 55. My readers from Michigan are probably aware of this, but for the others - US-24 actually comes well into the Metro Detroit area; in my corner of the suburbs, it's Telegraph Road, which in Taylor is home to Gamestop, Wal-Mart, and a building that was formerly an arcade.
The trip was straightforward, though, and I called the boy from the dinner break at the Marathon gas station off exit 64 on I-69, north end of Marion. Called again from Anderson to keep him updated on my arrival time... but immediately afterward there was a detour for an accident, so we wound up on SR-67 for much of the last leg of the trip.
I saw him pull into the parking lot just as I was waiting to get my duffel from the under-bus storage. I waved him down, then grabbed my duffel and ran for the truck. A stop at Wal-Mart on the way back, then dinner (pasta yay), his birthday presents, maybe a little gaming (though I don't know what - I didn't start on MGA or MGS3 until Friday, same with Guitar Hero; I didn't even open MGS:DGN until Sunday, and didn't start Ouendan till the bus ride home... maybe that was when I did a quick Twin Snakes boss rush?).
I think this was the night he tried to give me a quick tutorial on the PSP hardware before bed, and I was like "dude, am wanting to go to bed, show me the PSP another time." :P
Friday, July 28, 2006 - "gay voice actors" + Ocelot + The Pain + The Bunny
Thanks to his +10 Alarm Clock of OH GOD THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, I was actually quite awake and ready to proceed with the day by the time he left for work. This was, say, 7:30 a.m. I decided to stay warm under the covers for a few minutes first.
The next thing I knew it was 9:30 a.m. z_z I showered, etc., then started in on Metal Gear Acid, which I have since completed. It is CRACKTASTIC. The story is whack, but the gameplay... well, I love FFT, and I love Metal Gear, and in the gameplay department MGA is those two great tastes that taste great together. It's a little piece of gaming heaven for me.
Aaron called from work at some point during the morning. We'd planned to go see Lady in the Water since I'm kind of an M. Night Shyamalan fan (and Sixth Sense was the first movie we ever went to together), but the reviews haven't been stunning, and it was going to make for a really long day. So, cancelled the movie. When he got home, we started in on Guitar Hero and ate lunch, during which I ran some FF12 music on the laptop. Then we headed out shopping - Best Buy, Wal-Mart... can't remember if there was anything else.
While doing our grocery shopping, we were discussing Metal Gear. (Just for the record, that sentence makes me go ^_^.) I think I was asking whether he thought Patric Zimmerman and Cam Clarke would both be working on MGS4, or just the latter. As we approached the Kool-Aid aisle in Wal-Mart, my boyfriend said, "So, speaking of gay voice actors..." and I laughed, because best non sequitur EVER that totally made sense in context. (He was leading up to the Lance Bass thing and I knew it, which is why I didn't go WTF on him.)
Once home from shopping, we hit up Guitar Hero some more. And then I got back into MGS3 after a three-month break... I'd started playing it in our hotel room during the weekend of Jay and Andra's wedding back in April. At that time I'd completed the Virtuous Mission, and gotten as far into the rest of it as the part where EVA rides the motorcycle up Ocelot's face. But now was my chance to get back into it.
According to Aaron, I got through Ocelot and The Pain on Friday. The whole game is a blur to me, so I'll take his word for it.
During the Ocelot fight, there are some animals moving around near Snake - a poisonous snake, and a brown rabbit. Right during the middle of the fight, I spotted the rabbit and got distracted. "Aw, how cute! A bunny!" I said. And with a manic gleam I added, "...can I shoot it?"
For dinner he cooked up some sausage and baked biscuits while I made the milk gravy from my mom's recipe. First attempt did not go so well. Second attempt was much better. ^_^
Probably more MGS3 and Guitar Hero after dinner. Maybe some more MGA.
Saturday, July 29, 2006 - "hithertofore unbeknownst" + FOOT STOPPAGE + SSBM ownage + "oh effing hell"
PRO TIP FOR THE GIRLS:
Guys LOVE it when you pull out phrases like "hithertofore unbeknownst" at 8 a.m. while still half-asleep.
The bulk of Saturday was more gaming, interrupted by tortilla soup for lunch, mm. We played Guitar Hero, he started MGS:Twin Snakes on Extreme, and I continued progressing through MGS3. He says I got to the end of Graniny Gorki, and I don't know whether I went any further. But if I got that far, that's probably the day this happened:
The first cutscene featuring The End ended.
Falc: "Okay, what do you-"
Me: "Oh, I SEE it, I don't need it pointed out, but..."
Falc: "Okay, so what do you think?"
Me: "I've seen something like that once before, a life bar for a boss you couldn't kill yet, when you have to go retrieve a sniper rifle in MGS1 but Wolf's still sitting there with a life bar anyway."
Falc: "Okay..."
He was trying to get me to realize I could've tried to off The End right then and there (since I'd already found the regular sniper rifle). I dunno, that scene was also my first major experience with Volgin all weekend and I was still kinda reeling and not thinking great, Volgin does that to me every time. >_>
That could've been Friday though, since that's after The Pain but before The Fear (and I don't know which day I did The Fear).
And here's Saturday's comedic MGS3 highlight.
The cutscene with Granin started, and I lay on the floor, on my stomach, with my feet up, kicking them back and forth in lazy rhythm. This had gone on for quite some minutes, and I wasn't commenting out loud on the plot at the moment... but when Granin was all "Thanks for complimenting the boots, they were a gift from Tatyana," my wiggling feet FROZE in place at the word "Tatyana." I had no physical reaction to that other than my feet stopping, but Aaron saw and was greatly amused. It was excellent.
Around 6:30, I think, we met his friends Chad and Ruth Ann for dinner. This was okay, and we established that there needs to be an official club, with jackets and a secret handshake, for people who get consistently owned by Aaron. Chad has known Aaron for two weeks long than I have - summer of '98 - so there was good fun.
Ruth Ann has a mouth like andrabbi's. It's not language I often encounter outside of webcomics, and it's not language I'd ever use outside of the confines of my brain, but, as with Andra, it's kind of a relief to spend time with someone that uninhibited.
Over dinner they'd decided they wanted to play SSBM together, and I said I'd sit and play MGA while I did that because I have no SSBM experience. But finally they convinced me into it.
So. Chad and Ruth Ann are of approximately equal skill, I am a complete noob, and Falc is, as Ruth Ann said, an over-confident asswipe. So it goes without saying that we chose to gang up on Falc, and every match we avoided purposely attacking each other until we'd achieved our goal of handing Falc's butt to him. Chad was the most consistently effective at this, but Falc still won pretty often. But not always.
For lo, in one match, he was down to one stock, I was down to one stock, and suddenly both Chad and Ruth Ann were out of the match.
Which is to say, Falc vs. Person In The Middle Of Her First Real SSBM Experience. A number of you have the appropriate personal experience to understand the pain I was feeling. ;_;
"Ohhh..." I said, unable to continue vocalizing my thought process because there were too many bad words in it, but Ruth Ann helpfully expressed the uncensored version of exactly what was running through my mind ("oh effing hell"). Through sheer luck (and a handicap of 8 or 9) I beat him.
I won another match later on, for much the same reason, but in that case Ruth Ann was the last one left; it was still a victory, but lacked the "oh effing HELL" thrill of having to face Falc by myself.
In yet another match, Falc was the first one down. His last stock was gone, and for about five seconds, Mewtwo, Pikachu, and Link just STOOD there doing nothing to each other; I think we were just waiting for Falc to respawn. I lost that time, but that moment was pretty funny.
Afterwards, we showed them a little Katamari Damacy, showing off in our favorite levels.
They left around 10:30, and Aaron and I went out to gas up his truck. By the time we went to bed, my stomach hurt from laughing so hard with the three of them. omg yayz. <3
Sunday, July 30, 2006 - "d00d!" + The End + 144.75
More Guitar Hero, including beating Falc in multiplayer for the first time, resulting in me exclaiming "d00d!" for about two minutes.
Got to The End. Tranq'd the parrot. Spent some time being unsuccessful with the directional mic and the thermal goggles. Got kicked by a donkey. Thought I found him at one point, and sniped, but missed, and got messed around. Sat in FPV with the thermals a little too long, and when an explosion forced me out of FPV, I could see him on the same part of the screen, running away.
I made an angsty noise, paused the game, and went downstairs to complain. "Kojima is a dirty rat bastard," I whined from the living room floor.
Falc told me the time-based way out of the fight. I laughed, because that's totally what should've happened - I'd get fed up and not touch the game again till our Labor Day visit, resist even picking it up then, and he'd cajole me into just starting it up and giving it another shot and then we'd do something else, except it would be five weeks later and I would erupt in shrieks of glee and "why didn't you TELL me?"
I think the only reason I didn't just set the clock forward was because I wanted to keep the parrot.
Went back upstairs. Refused to use Konami code, refused to do a time-based cheat, was determined to win it for real. Anyway, The End's stamina was getting low and I knew that'd be the easier kill. I found him sleeping, snuck up, drew the Mk22, and finished the fight in one hit before I even had a chance to properly hold him up for his camo.
There's a rabbit hopping around the area, and after I picked up the Mosin Nagant I just stared at the rabbit in FPV for about five minutes. It's small and fuzzy and doesn't want to kill Snake, and I felt like Snake needed a little bit of that.
Then The Ladder, which necessitated hooking up a different controller (analog stick was sticky, and then the connection kept cutting out), then The Fury, which I barely remember. This is all The Game According To Falc - it's all a blur to me.
Pizza for dinner, then onward with the game. Fun with Raikov, but then torture sequence oh God ew. A random, independent decision to check out the R1 near the end of that sequence resulted in me knowing exactly what I'd need to do next. Got to the prison cell, stabbed a rat with a fork, checked out the changes to FPV, and saved. That was it for me on consoles for the evening, although before we went to sleep that night we sat in bed playing video games in the dark - me on the PSP, him on the DS. We need help.
Also, the boy finished his Twin Snakes run on Extreme, and did better than I had. Grr. :P
Monday, July 31, 2006 - remainder of MGS3 + "infinite porn" + bus trip
Woke up about ten minutes before the alarm clock - around 9 a.m. Whined for a little bit about not wanting to go home, then decided I wanted to get as far as possible through the rest of MGS3 before I left.
It was 9:30 a.m. when he started the PS2. We planned to leave for the bus station at 3:45 p.m. The race was on. Based on my progress throughout the weekend we'd assumed I wouldn't actually finish, but with six hours on the clock I was going to give it all I had.
The nightmare minigame, The Sorrow, the C3, and Volgin are murky to me - I thought The Sorrow was cool, I had to reset a few times during C3 because although Snake wore a maintenance uniform, a guard noticed he was still wearing face paint, and Volgin took two tries.
After climbing into the motorcycle sidecar, I went into the backpack menu. Everything had infinite ammo, so that wasn't a constraint. Then I saw that the infinity sign was even below things like the cig gas spray, the handkerchief, the mousetraps... and the porn.
aquahaute: "Look! I have infinite porn!"
falcon815: "You found the internet in the sidecar!"
aquahaute: *flops onto floor, writhing with laughter*
A picture of my inventory for the entire escape sequence can be seen here. Yes, I consciously chose the fork. Because it's funny. Also, infinite mousetraps.
Unfortunately, as it turns out, the Shagohod is immune to porn. Also to forks.
From there on out the conversation was frequently punctuated with ordering the game to "Please get it OVER with already."
Final battle, mmmm, didn't wanna, even more than I didn't want to fight the final battle in MGS2. I insisted on a stun kill, for the same reasons I always prefer stun-killing Sniper Wolf. Good thing the handkerchief can't be disassembled; it constituted about 75% of my offense.
I cried, not very hard but I did, and I cried again later at the cemetery scene.
But I must confess to laughing my face off when the Codec chirps and she flings it into the fireplace because HAHA.
By the time it was all, all, all over, it was about 2:30 p.m. I had literally not stopped for anything except a quick shower and one bathroom break. We watched some stuff in Secret Theater for laughs over a late lunch.
They had to send two buses to Dayton from Indianapolis because there were so many people, and because a number of them needed to be able to catch their connection to Toledo and Detroit. During the layover in Dayton, I sat on my duffel and played MGA, which is awesome; on the bus itself I mostly played Ouendan, which is also awesome. Arrived home a little later than planned.
And that's the trip. His version of it is here. My impressions of MGS3 will be forthcoming in a different post, and I've already said what I needed to say about MGA - combination of my Metal Gear love and my TRPG love, story is crack, gameplay is yay. The boy and I discussed the mechanics in FFT terms, so, yes, great love.
Thursday, July 27, 2006 - Bus trip + Falc-birthday-stuff
The bus was late leaving Detroit. Then Greyhound's wisdom became apparent when the route from Toledo to Fort Wayne involved not I-80, as you would expect, but US-24, which, being not a freeway, was never faster (and often slower) than 55. My readers from Michigan are probably aware of this, but for the others - US-24 actually comes well into the Metro Detroit area; in my corner of the suburbs, it's Telegraph Road, which in Taylor is home to Gamestop, Wal-Mart, and a building that was formerly an arcade.
The trip was straightforward, though, and I called the boy from the dinner break at the Marathon gas station off exit 64 on I-69, north end of Marion. Called again from Anderson to keep him updated on my arrival time... but immediately afterward there was a detour for an accident, so we wound up on SR-67 for much of the last leg of the trip.
I saw him pull into the parking lot just as I was waiting to get my duffel from the under-bus storage. I waved him down, then grabbed my duffel and ran for the truck. A stop at Wal-Mart on the way back, then dinner (pasta yay), his birthday presents, maybe a little gaming (though I don't know what - I didn't start on MGA or MGS3 until Friday, same with Guitar Hero; I didn't even open MGS:DGN until Sunday, and didn't start Ouendan till the bus ride home... maybe that was when I did a quick Twin Snakes boss rush?).
I think this was the night he tried to give me a quick tutorial on the PSP hardware before bed, and I was like "dude, am wanting to go to bed, show me the PSP another time." :P
Friday, July 28, 2006 - "gay voice actors" + Ocelot + The Pain + The Bunny
Thanks to his +10 Alarm Clock of OH GOD THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, I was actually quite awake and ready to proceed with the day by the time he left for work. This was, say, 7:30 a.m. I decided to stay warm under the covers for a few minutes first.
The next thing I knew it was 9:30 a.m. z_z I showered, etc., then started in on Metal Gear Acid, which I have since completed. It is CRACKTASTIC. The story is whack, but the gameplay... well, I love FFT, and I love Metal Gear, and in the gameplay department MGA is those two great tastes that taste great together. It's a little piece of gaming heaven for me.
Aaron called from work at some point during the morning. We'd planned to go see Lady in the Water since I'm kind of an M. Night Shyamalan fan (and Sixth Sense was the first movie we ever went to together), but the reviews haven't been stunning, and it was going to make for a really long day. So, cancelled the movie. When he got home, we started in on Guitar Hero and ate lunch, during which I ran some FF12 music on the laptop. Then we headed out shopping - Best Buy, Wal-Mart... can't remember if there was anything else.
While doing our grocery shopping, we were discussing Metal Gear. (Just for the record, that sentence makes me go ^_^.) I think I was asking whether he thought Patric Zimmerman and Cam Clarke would both be working on MGS4, or just the latter. As we approached the Kool-Aid aisle in Wal-Mart, my boyfriend said, "So, speaking of gay voice actors..." and I laughed, because best non sequitur EVER that totally made sense in context. (He was leading up to the Lance Bass thing and I knew it, which is why I didn't go WTF on him.)
Once home from shopping, we hit up Guitar Hero some more. And then I got back into MGS3 after a three-month break... I'd started playing it in our hotel room during the weekend of Jay and Andra's wedding back in April. At that time I'd completed the Virtuous Mission, and gotten as far into the rest of it as the part where EVA rides the motorcycle up Ocelot's face. But now was my chance to get back into it.
According to Aaron, I got through Ocelot and The Pain on Friday. The whole game is a blur to me, so I'll take his word for it.
During the Ocelot fight, there are some animals moving around near Snake - a poisonous snake, and a brown rabbit. Right during the middle of the fight, I spotted the rabbit and got distracted. "Aw, how cute! A bunny!" I said. And with a manic gleam I added, "...can I shoot it?"
For dinner he cooked up some sausage and baked biscuits while I made the milk gravy from my mom's recipe. First attempt did not go so well. Second attempt was much better. ^_^
Probably more MGS3 and Guitar Hero after dinner. Maybe some more MGA.
Saturday, July 29, 2006 - "hithertofore unbeknownst" + FOOT STOPPAGE + SSBM ownage + "oh effing hell"
PRO TIP FOR THE GIRLS:
Guys LOVE it when you pull out phrases like "hithertofore unbeknownst" at 8 a.m. while still half-asleep.
The bulk of Saturday was more gaming, interrupted by tortilla soup for lunch, mm. We played Guitar Hero, he started MGS:Twin Snakes on Extreme, and I continued progressing through MGS3. He says I got to the end of Graniny Gorki, and I don't know whether I went any further. But if I got that far, that's probably the day this happened:
The first cutscene featuring The End ended.
Falc: "Okay, what do you-"
Me: "Oh, I SEE it, I don't need it pointed out, but..."
Falc: "Okay, so what do you think?"
Me: "I've seen something like that once before, a life bar for a boss you couldn't kill yet, when you have to go retrieve a sniper rifle in MGS1 but Wolf's still sitting there with a life bar anyway."
Falc: "Okay..."
He was trying to get me to realize I could've tried to off The End right then and there (since I'd already found the regular sniper rifle). I dunno, that scene was also my first major experience with Volgin all weekend and I was still kinda reeling and not thinking great, Volgin does that to me every time. >_>
That could've been Friday though, since that's after The Pain but before The Fear (and I don't know which day I did The Fear).
And here's Saturday's comedic MGS3 highlight.
The cutscene with Granin started, and I lay on the floor, on my stomach, with my feet up, kicking them back and forth in lazy rhythm. This had gone on for quite some minutes, and I wasn't commenting out loud on the plot at the moment... but when Granin was all "Thanks for complimenting the boots, they were a gift from Tatyana," my wiggling feet FROZE in place at the word "Tatyana." I had no physical reaction to that other than my feet stopping, but Aaron saw and was greatly amused. It was excellent.
Around 6:30, I think, we met his friends Chad and Ruth Ann for dinner. This was okay, and we established that there needs to be an official club, with jackets and a secret handshake, for people who get consistently owned by Aaron. Chad has known Aaron for two weeks long than I have - summer of '98 - so there was good fun.
Ruth Ann has a mouth like andrabbi's. It's not language I often encounter outside of webcomics, and it's not language I'd ever use outside of the confines of my brain, but, as with Andra, it's kind of a relief to spend time with someone that uninhibited.
Over dinner they'd decided they wanted to play SSBM together, and I said I'd sit and play MGA while I did that because I have no SSBM experience. But finally they convinced me into it.
So. Chad and Ruth Ann are of approximately equal skill, I am a complete noob, and Falc is, as Ruth Ann said, an over-confident asswipe. So it goes without saying that we chose to gang up on Falc, and every match we avoided purposely attacking each other until we'd achieved our goal of handing Falc's butt to him. Chad was the most consistently effective at this, but Falc still won pretty often. But not always.
For lo, in one match, he was down to one stock, I was down to one stock, and suddenly both Chad and Ruth Ann were out of the match.
Which is to say, Falc vs. Person In The Middle Of Her First Real SSBM Experience. A number of you have the appropriate personal experience to understand the pain I was feeling. ;_;
"Ohhh..." I said, unable to continue vocalizing my thought process because there were too many bad words in it, but Ruth Ann helpfully expressed the uncensored version of exactly what was running through my mind ("oh effing hell"). Through sheer luck (and a handicap of 8 or 9) I beat him.
I won another match later on, for much the same reason, but in that case Ruth Ann was the last one left; it was still a victory, but lacked the "oh effing HELL" thrill of having to face Falc by myself.
In yet another match, Falc was the first one down. His last stock was gone, and for about five seconds, Mewtwo, Pikachu, and Link just STOOD there doing nothing to each other; I think we were just waiting for Falc to respawn. I lost that time, but that moment was pretty funny.
Afterwards, we showed them a little Katamari Damacy, showing off in our favorite levels.
They left around 10:30, and Aaron and I went out to gas up his truck. By the time we went to bed, my stomach hurt from laughing so hard with the three of them. omg yayz. <3
Sunday, July 30, 2006 - "d00d!" + The End + 144.75
More Guitar Hero, including beating Falc in multiplayer for the first time, resulting in me exclaiming "d00d!" for about two minutes.
Got to The End. Tranq'd the parrot. Spent some time being unsuccessful with the directional mic and the thermal goggles. Got kicked by a donkey. Thought I found him at one point, and sniped, but missed, and got messed around. Sat in FPV with the thermals a little too long, and when an explosion forced me out of FPV, I could see him on the same part of the screen, running away.
I made an angsty noise, paused the game, and went downstairs to complain. "Kojima is a dirty rat bastard," I whined from the living room floor.
Falc told me the time-based way out of the fight. I laughed, because that's totally what should've happened - I'd get fed up and not touch the game again till our Labor Day visit, resist even picking it up then, and he'd cajole me into just starting it up and giving it another shot and then we'd do something else, except it would be five weeks later and I would erupt in shrieks of glee and "why didn't you TELL me?"
I think the only reason I didn't just set the clock forward was because I wanted to keep the parrot.
Went back upstairs. Refused to use Konami code, refused to do a time-based cheat, was determined to win it for real. Anyway, The End's stamina was getting low and I knew that'd be the easier kill. I found him sleeping, snuck up, drew the Mk22, and finished the fight in one hit before I even had a chance to properly hold him up for his camo.
There's a rabbit hopping around the area, and after I picked up the Mosin Nagant I just stared at the rabbit in FPV for about five minutes. It's small and fuzzy and doesn't want to kill Snake, and I felt like Snake needed a little bit of that.
Then The Ladder, which necessitated hooking up a different controller (analog stick was sticky, and then the connection kept cutting out), then The Fury, which I barely remember. This is all The Game According To Falc - it's all a blur to me.
Pizza for dinner, then onward with the game. Fun with Raikov, but then torture sequence oh God ew. A random, independent decision to check out the R1 near the end of that sequence resulted in me knowing exactly what I'd need to do next. Got to the prison cell, stabbed a rat with a fork, checked out the changes to FPV, and saved. That was it for me on consoles for the evening, although before we went to sleep that night we sat in bed playing video games in the dark - me on the PSP, him on the DS. We need help.
Also, the boy finished his Twin Snakes run on Extreme, and did better than I had. Grr. :P
Monday, July 31, 2006 - remainder of MGS3 + "infinite porn" + bus trip
Woke up about ten minutes before the alarm clock - around 9 a.m. Whined for a little bit about not wanting to go home, then decided I wanted to get as far as possible through the rest of MGS3 before I left.
It was 9:30 a.m. when he started the PS2. We planned to leave for the bus station at 3:45 p.m. The race was on. Based on my progress throughout the weekend we'd assumed I wouldn't actually finish, but with six hours on the clock I was going to give it all I had.
The nightmare minigame, The Sorrow, the C3, and Volgin are murky to me - I thought The Sorrow was cool, I had to reset a few times during C3 because although Snake wore a maintenance uniform, a guard noticed he was still wearing face paint, and Volgin took two tries.
After climbing into the motorcycle sidecar, I went into the backpack menu. Everything had infinite ammo, so that wasn't a constraint. Then I saw that the infinity sign was even below things like the cig gas spray, the handkerchief, the mousetraps... and the porn.
aquahaute: "Look! I have infinite porn!"
falcon815: "You found the internet in the sidecar!"
aquahaute: *flops onto floor, writhing with laughter*
A picture of my inventory for the entire escape sequence can be seen here. Yes, I consciously chose the fork. Because it's funny. Also, infinite mousetraps.
Unfortunately, as it turns out, the Shagohod is immune to porn. Also to forks.
From there on out the conversation was frequently punctuated with ordering the game to "Please get it OVER with already."
Final battle, mmmm, didn't wanna, even more than I didn't want to fight the final battle in MGS2. I insisted on a stun kill, for the same reasons I always prefer stun-killing Sniper Wolf. Good thing the handkerchief can't be disassembled; it constituted about 75% of my offense.
I cried, not very hard but I did, and I cried again later at the cemetery scene.
But I must confess to laughing my face off when the Codec chirps and she flings it into the fireplace because HAHA.
By the time it was all, all, all over, it was about 2:30 p.m. I had literally not stopped for anything except a quick shower and one bathroom break. We watched some stuff in Secret Theater for laughs over a late lunch.
They had to send two buses to Dayton from Indianapolis because there were so many people, and because a number of them needed to be able to catch their connection to Toledo and Detroit. During the layover in Dayton, I sat on my duffel and played MGA, which is awesome; on the bus itself I mostly played Ouendan, which is also awesome. Arrived home a little later than planned.
And that's the trip. His version of it is here. My impressions of MGS3 will be forthcoming in a different post, and I've already said what I needed to say about MGA - combination of my Metal Gear love and my TRPG love, story is crack, gameplay is yay. The boy and I discussed the mechanics in FFT terms, so, yes, great love.