The Second Day
Yeah, I know, I'm way behind on this. It's been rather busy here so I've not had much chance to write about the rest of the trip. But fear not, I will try to finish ASAP.
Anyhoo, on to the next day...
Friday was the first full day I had spent over at Orchid's. As I said before, my stomach wasn't liking me too much the day before, but I was feeling somewhat better so I was able to do a little more. I woke up pretty late since I hadn't slept since Tuesday night, not to mention the whole dragging around stuff at the airport really tired me out. I tried to eat a little breakfast, which was one of those energy bars I had brought with me on the plane. After that, I went out to the living room to see how Orchid was doing and spent a bit of time talking with her and her mother.
I had decided I would rent a car on the second day rather than the first one so I wouldn't be too tired to drive it (obviously, it's not too good of an idea to drive after not sleeping for about a day and a half). We needed to go out and get that done pretty early so Orchid's mother could have the afternoon free, so we went there around noon. I went with Enterprise since the other company was really rude to Orchid's mom on the phone. It was also easier to rent from Enterprise since they were located right on the main road, so it was easy for me to find it to return in (my sense of direction isn't exactly stellar, to say the least).
I rented a little grey Kia Rio since it was the least expensive vehicle they had there. It was a nice little car that drove really close to my own car at home, so I had no difficulty adjusting to it. I also really liked it since it had fantastic gas milage. It only used about a quarter of a tank for driving up and down the area, which was a good number of miles since it's basically a 20 minute drive to the nearest area from her home. It cost me a little more than I expected since I had to purchase their insurance since my own only covers my vehicle and couldn't be used for the rental, but all in all, it only cost me about $250 for five days (they did fortunately give me the weekend discount for all but Monday and Tuesday).
After everything was signed and the keys to the car were given to me, we went back to Orchid's house so I could get a feel for the area. Shortly after that, Orchid and I went down to the nearby town so I could explore the area. Our first stop was a resturant called Hardee's since my "breakfast" didn't quite fill me up, and I hadn't eaten anything else since 7 AM the day before. It was kinda amusing since my first observation was that the smell of the food cooking was identical to Carl's Jr over here. Ironically, it turns out that Hardee's and Carl's Jr are one in the same, the even have the exact same happy star logo. The menu was a little different than back home, Hardee's seemed to have burgers that Carl's Jr did not, but didn't have Carl's Jr staples like the Superstar, Western Burger, and the fancy Six Dollar Burgers that they always advertise about back home.
I was hungry, but not too hungry, so Orchid and I decided to split a Two Cheese Burgers for Two Dollars deal they had posted on the window. It was interesting since the burgers had either a nacho cheese or one of those cheese spreads since the cheese on them were practically liquids. We also split a larger order of fries, which we didn't finish because my stomach started to bother me again and I didn't know Orchid was such a light eater (I don't think she finished any of her meals in one sitting when I was there).
After lunch, we went to some of the nearby shops to look around. The first one we went to was Big Lots because I wanted to see if there were any differences in the ones there compared to the ones at home. It was pretty much the same, though their prices were much better there than they are at home, and I found alot of good deals. We wandered about inside and I teased her with some of the Pokemon keychain toys there, but I don't think she knew who many of them were since they only had toys of the first generation, and she started playing in the fourth generation. We also stopped at the kiosk where they had DVDs and Computer games and looked through all of those. I picked up Hitman 2 and Fantasy Star for the PC for only six dollars each, as well as DVDs of Mr Peabody and Detective Conan for about four dollars each. I teased Orchid about some elf fanstasy cartoon DVDs they had there, I dunno what it really was about, it was just one of those dollar-store shows so I can't imagine it being very good (certainly not for two dollars), though it might make for interesting Youtube Poop material.
Next to Big Lots was a little pet store that had moved into the area recently. It was mostly fish and aquariums, but they did have a big parrot that Orchid and I tried talking to. She tried to get it to say the usual "hello" type words while tried to teach it funny things like "Chicken McNugget." There were also some really cute hamsters like the one I used to have (if anyone remembers Thor), as much as I'd love to have one, I don't think it'd be good to bring live rodents on the plane, not to mention I don't have any place for it anyway. Orchid wanted me to buy a snake but I said it wasn't too good of an idea to bring one on the plane (just ask Samuel L Jackson), plus, I really don't care for snakes or reptiles anyway (if anything, I rather have had that mouse that was put in the cage for the snake to eat, which the snake pretty much ignored).
We then went into the neighboring music shop since I wanted to find a CD (I collect CDs from trips and big events so I can think of the trips and such when I listen to the music on my iPod). I felt a little nervous in there since the items I bought from Big Lots kept setting off the alarm and I didn't want anyone to think I was stealing anything there. They didn't have very much in the ways of music I'd listen to, it was mostly rap and R&B, stuff I really don't care much for. My stomach really started hating me there, so we had to go back to her home so I could lie down.
Back at her home, I lied down while she sat beside me. I pulled out my portable DVD player and watched the second Shrek movie since she wanted me to see the third one, but I hadn't even seen the second all the way through yet. It was pretty funny, especially watching the extras afterwards that showed all the glitches and errors they had when animating it, such as super stretchy arms and crazy hair flowing in every which way. I blame her for getting me hooked on Shrek. We also watched the rest of my Whose Line Is It Anyway disk, which I always enjoy even if I've seen those episodes a gazillion times already.
After the videos, she wanted to show me some of her games, so I lied in the bed and watched her. First she tried to get the SNES hooked up so she can show off her skills in Killer Instinct, but unfortunately, no matter what she tried, the SNES refused to connect to the tv properly and so she had to go to Plan B, which was the Gamecube. She set up Melee so she could show me the silly things the AI do when she plays with them, such as Bowser spamming his Down Special, that butt-pound attack of his, on Pokefloats. I started to feel better after watching a few matches, and decided to join her. I had a bit of trouble adjusting since I had been playing the original N64 game the months before and Melee is so much faster than the original (inversely, Brawl is about the speed of the original), plus, her second controller was one of those Mad Katz ones, so the button layout was a little different from the standard Gamecube controller.
I started with Pikachu to warm myself up to the game, but I didn't do very well and got my behind whooped badly, though it didn't help that we went to Pokefloats, which is my worst stage. Next I moved to my Melee main choice, the Ice Climbers and did a little better, but I hadn't played them for so long that I was totally out of sync (she beat me both games). Finally I moved to Fox, which is my current main in the N64 version, and I actually did much better since my N64 playstyle transfered to Melee pretty decently other than the fact that Fox is so bloody fast and his grabs are so bloody slow. I managed to beat her on Brinstar since she self-destructed trying to get a tomato. After a few more matches, she went to go take a shower so I spent the time playing around with Captain Falcon and his deadly knee.
When she came back, we played Mario Kart: Double Dash since she still needed to unlock a bunch of stuff. It took a bit before I could do too well, since that was another game I hadn't played for a very long time. I kept getting screwed over on the Wario track since the AI opponents love to bash me about, but I managed to beat the Special Cup on 150cc so she would get the All Cups cup. We played that on 50cc and she kicked my butt badly because all my turning was off due to my experience playing a much faster game with 150cc (I haven't played 50cc since 2003), so she unlocked quite a bit on her own with my just following in second place. It was alot of fun, I don't mind when she beats me at all, though I was getting annoyed with the AI.
We played Mario Kart until it got pretty late, so after that we went to bed. Their friend had gone out for the weekend, so he let us use his bed for the time being. Unfortunately, one of the cats left a super poop in the litterbox nearby, and since the room didn't have any doors, the smell was very strong. Orchid tried to clean up the smell with some of that Frabreeze stuff, since they were out of air fresheners, but that seemed to be worse. Orchid tried sleeping out there first, but she ended up feeling pretty sick from the smell, and I didn't want her to be out there with that in the first place, so I traded places with her so she could get a decent night's sleep. Unfortunately, I couldn't get much sleep out there, so I had to go hide in her room until early the next day just to get some sleep. I was worried about her mother having a problem with us sleeping in the same room, despite the fact that we weren't going to do anything but sleep in there, so I tried to go to the other bed before anyone woke up that morning. Fortunately, for the rest of my time there, I was allowed to sleep in Orchid's room with her (trading places between the bed and camping on the floor), so we didn't have to deal with the super poop of doom anymore.
And that's about it for now. I'll try to get the next one up alot sooner than it took me to get this one done. XP
Anyhoo, on to the next day...
Friday was the first full day I had spent over at Orchid's. As I said before, my stomach wasn't liking me too much the day before, but I was feeling somewhat better so I was able to do a little more. I woke up pretty late since I hadn't slept since Tuesday night, not to mention the whole dragging around stuff at the airport really tired me out. I tried to eat a little breakfast, which was one of those energy bars I had brought with me on the plane. After that, I went out to the living room to see how Orchid was doing and spent a bit of time talking with her and her mother.
I had decided I would rent a car on the second day rather than the first one so I wouldn't be too tired to drive it (obviously, it's not too good of an idea to drive after not sleeping for about a day and a half). We needed to go out and get that done pretty early so Orchid's mother could have the afternoon free, so we went there around noon. I went with Enterprise since the other company was really rude to Orchid's mom on the phone. It was also easier to rent from Enterprise since they were located right on the main road, so it was easy for me to find it to return in (my sense of direction isn't exactly stellar, to say the least).
I rented a little grey Kia Rio since it was the least expensive vehicle they had there. It was a nice little car that drove really close to my own car at home, so I had no difficulty adjusting to it. I also really liked it since it had fantastic gas milage. It only used about a quarter of a tank for driving up and down the area, which was a good number of miles since it's basically a 20 minute drive to the nearest area from her home. It cost me a little more than I expected since I had to purchase their insurance since my own only covers my vehicle and couldn't be used for the rental, but all in all, it only cost me about $250 for five days (they did fortunately give me the weekend discount for all but Monday and Tuesday).
After everything was signed and the keys to the car were given to me, we went back to Orchid's house so I could get a feel for the area. Shortly after that, Orchid and I went down to the nearby town so I could explore the area. Our first stop was a resturant called Hardee's since my "breakfast" didn't quite fill me up, and I hadn't eaten anything else since 7 AM the day before. It was kinda amusing since my first observation was that the smell of the food cooking was identical to Carl's Jr over here. Ironically, it turns out that Hardee's and Carl's Jr are one in the same, the even have the exact same happy star logo. The menu was a little different than back home, Hardee's seemed to have burgers that Carl's Jr did not, but didn't have Carl's Jr staples like the Superstar, Western Burger, and the fancy Six Dollar Burgers that they always advertise about back home.
I was hungry, but not too hungry, so Orchid and I decided to split a Two Cheese Burgers for Two Dollars deal they had posted on the window. It was interesting since the burgers had either a nacho cheese or one of those cheese spreads since the cheese on them were practically liquids. We also split a larger order of fries, which we didn't finish because my stomach started to bother me again and I didn't know Orchid was such a light eater (I don't think she finished any of her meals in one sitting when I was there).
After lunch, we went to some of the nearby shops to look around. The first one we went to was Big Lots because I wanted to see if there were any differences in the ones there compared to the ones at home. It was pretty much the same, though their prices were much better there than they are at home, and I found alot of good deals. We wandered about inside and I teased her with some of the Pokemon keychain toys there, but I don't think she knew who many of them were since they only had toys of the first generation, and she started playing in the fourth generation. We also stopped at the kiosk where they had DVDs and Computer games and looked through all of those. I picked up Hitman 2 and Fantasy Star for the PC for only six dollars each, as well as DVDs of Mr Peabody and Detective Conan for about four dollars each. I teased Orchid about some elf fanstasy cartoon DVDs they had there, I dunno what it really was about, it was just one of those dollar-store shows so I can't imagine it being very good (certainly not for two dollars), though it might make for interesting Youtube Poop material.
Next to Big Lots was a little pet store that had moved into the area recently. It was mostly fish and aquariums, but they did have a big parrot that Orchid and I tried talking to. She tried to get it to say the usual "hello" type words while tried to teach it funny things like "Chicken McNugget." There were also some really cute hamsters like the one I used to have (if anyone remembers Thor), as much as I'd love to have one, I don't think it'd be good to bring live rodents on the plane, not to mention I don't have any place for it anyway. Orchid wanted me to buy a snake but I said it wasn't too good of an idea to bring one on the plane (just ask Samuel L Jackson), plus, I really don't care for snakes or reptiles anyway (if anything, I rather have had that mouse that was put in the cage for the snake to eat, which the snake pretty much ignored).
We then went into the neighboring music shop since I wanted to find a CD (I collect CDs from trips and big events so I can think of the trips and such when I listen to the music on my iPod). I felt a little nervous in there since the items I bought from Big Lots kept setting off the alarm and I didn't want anyone to think I was stealing anything there. They didn't have very much in the ways of music I'd listen to, it was mostly rap and R&B, stuff I really don't care much for. My stomach really started hating me there, so we had to go back to her home so I could lie down.
Back at her home, I lied down while she sat beside me. I pulled out my portable DVD player and watched the second Shrek movie since she wanted me to see the third one, but I hadn't even seen the second all the way through yet. It was pretty funny, especially watching the extras afterwards that showed all the glitches and errors they had when animating it, such as super stretchy arms and crazy hair flowing in every which way. I blame her for getting me hooked on Shrek. We also watched the rest of my Whose Line Is It Anyway disk, which I always enjoy even if I've seen those episodes a gazillion times already.
After the videos, she wanted to show me some of her games, so I lied in the bed and watched her. First she tried to get the SNES hooked up so she can show off her skills in Killer Instinct, but unfortunately, no matter what she tried, the SNES refused to connect to the tv properly and so she had to go to Plan B, which was the Gamecube. She set up Melee so she could show me the silly things the AI do when she plays with them, such as Bowser spamming his Down Special, that butt-pound attack of his, on Pokefloats. I started to feel better after watching a few matches, and decided to join her. I had a bit of trouble adjusting since I had been playing the original N64 game the months before and Melee is so much faster than the original (inversely, Brawl is about the speed of the original), plus, her second controller was one of those Mad Katz ones, so the button layout was a little different from the standard Gamecube controller.
I started with Pikachu to warm myself up to the game, but I didn't do very well and got my behind whooped badly, though it didn't help that we went to Pokefloats, which is my worst stage. Next I moved to my Melee main choice, the Ice Climbers and did a little better, but I hadn't played them for so long that I was totally out of sync (she beat me both games). Finally I moved to Fox, which is my current main in the N64 version, and I actually did much better since my N64 playstyle transfered to Melee pretty decently other than the fact that Fox is so bloody fast and his grabs are so bloody slow. I managed to beat her on Brinstar since she self-destructed trying to get a tomato. After a few more matches, she went to go take a shower so I spent the time playing around with Captain Falcon and his deadly knee.
When she came back, we played Mario Kart: Double Dash since she still needed to unlock a bunch of stuff. It took a bit before I could do too well, since that was another game I hadn't played for a very long time. I kept getting screwed over on the Wario track since the AI opponents love to bash me about, but I managed to beat the Special Cup on 150cc so she would get the All Cups cup. We played that on 50cc and she kicked my butt badly because all my turning was off due to my experience playing a much faster game with 150cc (I haven't played 50cc since 2003), so she unlocked quite a bit on her own with my just following in second place. It was alot of fun, I don't mind when she beats me at all, though I was getting annoyed with the AI.
We played Mario Kart until it got pretty late, so after that we went to bed. Their friend had gone out for the weekend, so he let us use his bed for the time being. Unfortunately, one of the cats left a super poop in the litterbox nearby, and since the room didn't have any doors, the smell was very strong. Orchid tried to clean up the smell with some of that Frabreeze stuff, since they were out of air fresheners, but that seemed to be worse. Orchid tried sleeping out there first, but she ended up feeling pretty sick from the smell, and I didn't want her to be out there with that in the first place, so I traded places with her so she could get a decent night's sleep. Unfortunately, I couldn't get much sleep out there, so I had to go hide in her room until early the next day just to get some sleep. I was worried about her mother having a problem with us sleeping in the same room, despite the fact that we weren't going to do anything but sleep in there, so I tried to go to the other bed before anyone woke up that morning. Fortunately, for the rest of my time there, I was allowed to sleep in Orchid's room with her (trading places between the bed and camping on the floor), so we didn't have to deal with the super poop of doom anymore.
And that's about it for now. I'll try to get the next one up alot sooner than it took me to get this one done. XP