if i do this right, this will be my longest post ever
This will recount everything I (remember) did (doing) over the course of Wednesday, April 2nd to today, which includes my field trip and weekend.
Wednesday. Wednesday... Alright. Not too much happened on Wednesday. I do remember being stoked that it was Wednesday, the day before Thursday. Thursday being the day I was leaving on a field trip to Jackson for the Technology Student Association State Competition. I remember it was a good day except for one part with Melissa, which was really fucking gay*. That and my mindset at the time just wasn't right.
So Wednesday afternoon, I knew what I had to do. I had planned to go to sleep as soon as I got home. Planned, but I didn't. I got home, and some damned how or another I found something to do. It always happens that way. I remember burning my CD, though. I had been wanting to burn a good CD for quite some time. I believe I did. It consists of this (some may say I shouldn't combine the bands I did, but.. fuck them):
Adema - Blow It Away
Alice Cooper - Feed My Frankenstein
Caroline's Spine - Sullivan
Bon Jovi - Bad Medicine
Def Leppard - Foolin'
HIM - Bury Me Deep Inside Your Heart
HIM - Your Sweet 666
Iron Maiden - The Trooper
Iron Maiden - The Wicker Man
Metallica - Enter Sandman
Metallica - Of Wolf And Man
Metallica - Sad But True
Kansas - Carry On My Wayward Son
Quiet Riot - Cum On Feel The Noize
Rhapsody - Emerald Sword
Styx - Mr. Roboto
Twisted Sister - I Wanna Rock
I think its a badass CD. I burned it some time around 4 or something. I stayed up doing some god damned thing until like 12, when I finally packed my shit up for the next day and went to bed around 1.
Thursday morning, my clock went off at 3:00 AM, as I had set it for. I didn't, however, plan on getting up at 4:00 AM, as I had made my plans around waking up at 3:30 AM. Oh well. I showered, dressed, gathered up my shit and head out. I got mom to let me drive there, and it was a nice deserted highway driving experience. The whole way she asked me where I was going to be and the number and shit, and since I had forgotten to give her the paper Millro gave me, I told her to ask Millro for another one (stupid mistake). After wanting to hug me like six hundred thousand god damned times, I got away from her and got on the bus. I honestly don't remember anything until like an hour onto the interstate, when I got super tired.
Anyone ever tried to sleep (like, really sleep) on a bus? Its hard, and after a lot of work and a long time of music playing, I finally found a sweet position. I was sitting on the left side of the bus, oddly, as I usually sit on the right, so I put my left arm between the window and the seat. That made a nice headrest. Just a little while into digging that position, though, Millro offered us a place to eat and rest. We stopped in a very familiar location. I remembered there used to be a Ward's nearby, so I spoke of Ward's to Henry and Vanessa. Of course they had never heard of it, so I STFU'ed. Turns out the Hardee's or however-the-fuck-you-spell-it was in the place of the Ward's. I suppose Ward's is no more, which is a shame. I really liked the place.
After getting a bacon, egg, and cheese bizkit (with one tiny little piece of bacon), drink, and shit-browns, I couldn't really get back to sleep. It was cool, though, because no one else could, either. I talked to Mat and Henry and David and Vanessa. I don't remember all too much about the conversation, but I do distinctly remember at one point I turned to look at Vanessa and Vanessa was looking at my crotch. Her eyes moved from my crotch to my eyes, and she knew she was caught. I laughed for a long time after that, even on Friday. It stoked me out.
More of the Same Old Shit, and we arrived in Jackson whar we needed to be (the Clarion Hotel / community center). First things first, Vanessa's bitch bladder kicked in so she ran off in search of a restroom. After a small amount of packing and prepping, I believe everyone except for me and Vince Armata left to go inside. After a while I left Vince by himself, and went inside. And, Christ Almighty, that place was full of black people. I immediately felt uncomfortable and went back to the bus. Sooner or later we got the keys to our rooms, which was kickass. The first thing I did when I got in was called the free bed and demanded a key (keys being cards that got read by the digital lock thingey). The room was so gnarly. There was a microwave sitting on top of the fridge, a coffee machine sitting in the bathroom, which was just friggin' huge. I noticed the door that went from our (David G.'s, Chad's, and my) room to Bradley, Logan and Vince's room. I shouldn't have pointed it out, because it was somewhat of a burden, but I'm sure it would have been discovered sooner or later.
Ah, yeah, so the room was super kickass. I chilled for a while until everyone had to go to the assembly. I really didn't understand it. There was some old guy preaching, but throwing in things like, "up jump the boogy" and whatnot to keep the niggers happy. Speaking of which, we were all standing in the back of the room, and at one point this black guy to my lower right kept staring at Vanessa. By staring, I mean rubbernecking. He went way out of his line of vision to scope her out. I told Vanessa this, and we laughed at him at a decibel level he could surely hear, then when he did it again we both caught it and he turned away. Vanessa laughed like the silly goose she is. Eventually she started flirting with Henry, and they went towards the middle of the... big god damned room with chairs to sit together. I think Mat turned emo after that, but David and I pointed out some hot chicks and his man instinct kicked in so we discussed what guys discuss. There weren't many hot chicks there, but the ones that were there were super fucking hot. I pointed out one chick that was hot from behind, then Mat and I caught just her nose and thought her a butterface, but then when she turned all the way around she was really hot. Goes to show, you have to be sure. Once the assembly was over, I forgot what I did.
Back in the hotel room, it was steamy. I located the AC unit, conveniently very close to my bed, turned it on high and at the coolest level, sat back and enjoyed the arctic breeze. Soon enough I had to go with Bradley and Chad to the Technology Bowl competition thing. After waiting there for half an hour, they told us that those who won in groups were to have the Tech. Bowl competition tomorrow. Good news. I headed back to the room, changed into my comfortable clothes, headed over to Henry, Mat, and David's room. Vanessa was there, but she was about to leave for her GIS competition. Henry, Mat, David and I all left to get some food. It was a good four or five minute walk to the gas stations and fast food places down the road, but it passed by quickly. At the first gas station, I was about to buy a 12 pack of Coke for 2.50, but everyone was leaving and shit. They told me to get it across the street where it'd be cheaper. There the 12 packs of Coke were 4.19**. Mat got some ice cream, and we went to Burger King. I got one of those italian really-good-chicken-burger things. The one with mozarella and marinara sauce. It was in a combo with a coke, of course, and instead of fries I got some onion rings. Wow, I'm giving way too many details. Anyways, it was really good.
Back at the Clarion, I hung out in Mat, David and Henry's room. We watched Conan for a little while, then QVC for some reason, then Henry played on his NES. Outside, some really stupid white kids were playing with a crappy frisbee. They kept throwing it over the fence towards the pool. They never learned. Mat, Henry and I cracked jokes about asking one of the girls to the TSA Dance***, which was was good old teen jesting. After that, I think Mat and Henry left to do some competition, so I went back to my room where Chad and David G. were playing X-Box. Of course I rued all over the place. Someone turned the AC off, so I turned it back on, then David G. went into Bradley's room to play DDR****. Seeing the opportunity to feel like a cock, I picked up the X-Box controller and started playing Dead or Alive 3. I cannot express how much I enjoyed it*****. DOA3 was sweet, though, and my character Tina, being piloted by a DOA3 noob (me) was kicking Chad's ass. Bradley walked in and scolded me for playing an X-Box, but told me it would be okay so long as I wished I was holding a PS2 controller the entire time. Vanessa came back in sometime when I was handing Chad's ass to him, and after just a little while we caught the bus to do our Computer Systems Troubleshooting competition.
We sat in the room at the place where we actually were (?) for quite some time. After a while, Millro's familiar friend° told us that we were going to working with and analyzing computers, and that we'd be given a series of questions, blah, blah. Sooner or later we went into the room, waited some more, then got our questions. They were things that should have been simple to get. They were set up like this:
You work for a company that is super retarded, and they want you to gather a bunch of information on this computer. Fill out the following:
Computer Name:
Domain Name:
Processor Type:
Processor Speed:
Virtual Memory:
Hard Disk Space:
...et cetera. I looked up what I thought I could find while Vanessa wrote down the answers. I was dumb enough to give her the wrong answers on the processor type°°. Also, she helped me find out the IP address of the computer, which was oddly nowhere to be found, besides what she mentioned (MS-DOS prompt, where I had to put in netstat -n). The first and second page consisted of questions like this, while the third page asked how to run programs without using the start menu. We were kinda pressed for time, so we didn't get much of any of those pages done. We left, and waited for them to generate the next series of problems. On the flat-system computers in the "waiting room" I went to my webspace and brought up a few painful memories for Vanessa°°°. After that, it was back to the problems. These didn't involve the computer, just writing. I told Vanessa what to write, and then somehow or another I think I wound up writing. I remember my palms being really sweaty, and controlling the tiny pencil they provided us with was very hard. The questions asked were something like...
"An employee is complaining that they have a problem with their monitor. Examine what may be wrong, and give your solution to the problem."
"An employee claims that there is something wrong with their keyboard. Examine what may be wrong, and give your solution to the problem."
"An employee says that their monitor 'looks funny'. Examine what may be wrong, and give your solution to the problem."
We gave all we could on those questions, then went back into the room and waited. This time the wait was very long. We both wondered what the fuck was going on. Apparently our next problem was to be a hard one. It wasn't, really. They told us that something had been done to the computer, and that it had to be booted up. First things first, we went over what was wrong. There was a complaint about a mouse not working, so Vanessa ran around to the back of the computer, and sho 'nuff, the mouse and keyboard had been plugged into the wrong ports. She fixed that, and we wrote down the steps that we did (one) then I turned the comp on. It gave me some letters, then slowly put some . . . . periods on screen. I restarted, went into BIOS and checked the boot sequence. Hard drive was fourth on the list, underneath two nothings and the CD-ROM. I put that up to the top, checked something else, and wondered if I should try and restart again. I was looking at some option for enabling Plug and Play Operationg System, but since I've never heard of a Plug and Play OS I just restarted. It booted up, we wrote down our shit, and headed out. I didn't think we did too good, and I don't think Vanessa did, either.
Back at the room, I got back into chillin' clothes and went to take a piss. I noticed that our toilet was clogged. ..but not with shit. It was like, clogged with piss, or something. I don't know. It was full to the rim of crystal clear toilet water. I just used Bradley's toilet. After a while, Vanessa wanted to get some food, so of course I invited myself to come along, and David and Henry came along as well. Vanessa got some kinda sloppy concoction from Taco Hell (lolz!!!!!!!!!), and ate it in a manner which fit its physical form perfectly. I just had some of those cinnamon twist things, which were very good. Vanessa's secret°°°° was let out, and I got a giggle out of it.
Over again in the Clarion, Vanessa was about to head to the mall as she had planned to go, and I wanted to go, too. Of course I didn't want to go with just Vanessa, because she doesn't want me pointing out nice asses to her, so I carried David along. We were going to try and hunt, but apparently neither of us have licenses, and it isn't hunting season. Oh well. After ditching Vanessa's parents (the ride to the mall), we warbled for a bit, and David and I demanded to go into Gamestop. There, I found Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions for eight dollars, so I considered buying. Then I found Metal Gear Solid for twelve dollars, and then saw a sign saying if I got two used games, I'd get one of lesser or equal value to the cheaper game FREE. I went up to the counter, and the ... counter-person said, "What can I do for you, sweetheart?" Heh. It was a black preggo, so I was stoked. She fetched the games out for me, checking the quality of them like ninety friggin' times. Vanessa didn't seem to be enjoying the wait, which just made it seem like longer time. The cashier woman pointed out that the VR missions disc was scratched pretty haggardly°°°°°, and that it might not play. She wrote on the reciept that the disc was scratched and returning was probably necessary. Also, she hooked me up with the good case of MGS, as the case I picked up was the nappy Greatest Hit version. I really think she was trying to impress me, and talk to me as much as possible. I don't too often feel like someone is flirting with me, but she made it obvious. After showing me all the products I was buying, she quickly glanced to the ESRB rating of the games (all 3 are rated M, which I didn't realize), and asked me my age. I robotically blurted out, "I'm seventeen," and I saw her shoulders droop a bit, and she muttered, "Alright."
Stoked, I walked towards David who was in the mindset I was going to buy him a game. I told him I'd buy him something 10 dollars or less to convince him to go, but then realized that was a lot so I changed it to five, which he didn't hear. Oh well. He left empty-handed. Again we warbled until one of us got the bright idea to stuff ourselves into one of those portrait booths and get our pix taken. Vanessa paid for it, and it came out good/silly. She still has it. I wonder if she really even likes it. Just a short way down the mall, Vanessa found the Godiva chocolate place she had came to the mall for, as she wanted a hella-expensive strawberry (five dollars for one). We found some furniture, chilled on it and scoped out asses. Vanessa scoped my crotch again, I believe. We had a discussion about that. Then David threw up "the sign" to this retarded black guy, who almost kicked David's ass. Good times. I'll also note that this entire time Vanessa was flirting with David. I think I was the only one who caught it. Walking back to the car, Vanessa somehow was told that my mom called me at the hotel. God damnit, she's so annoying. That pissed me off so much.
In my room at Clarion, the AC was again off. David gathered up his camera, and we hit up the TSA Dance. It suxed bad. The only cool part was the asian-who-was-playing-music's comp. He was playing music from winamp over the sound system. Anyway, his comp had a clear case, and the case fans had rainbow lights on it. Pretty sweet.
Later on, I got the camera from David and we warbled around the hotel a little north of the Clarion. We came across this guy... he's... just this guy. His accent was like a drunken brit with a speech impediment. He was so sweet to listen to, but it was so hard to make out what he was saying. He told me I had been on TV at 9:15. I looked down at my watch with the camera... 9:30... hm. He kept talking about girls and saying cuss words and stuff, and it was all very confusing, but he was really cool. After a while, I asked him where he was from, and out of nowhere his voice was like a deep American accent and he said, "Biloxi." Apparently he isn't foreign; he was born in Florida someplace. While still talking, some chicks walked upstairs and distracted him, so David and I left him to meet up with Mat and Logan. Right as we got to the bottom floor (we were on the fourth), David pointed out into the parking lot at what he thought was Mat. Behind us I heard a voice, I turned around, and there was Mat. I turned back to the person we saw, and it was the guy! Weird! So we introduced Mat and Logan to the guy, who was now carrying a pillow. We walked for some way, while the guy uttered something like, "OhandIsayafuckingshitmahn, issjussagotdamnfuckshitass." Honestly. After a little while he turned back, ran, set the pillow down a distance away, and caught back up to us. He then walked ahead of us, took a right into the Clarion, and left David, Mat, Logan and I to ourselves. Of course Mat and Logan went off to find glowsticks or some shit, so David and I had to walk through what had to have literally been six hundred black people all going to the pool (being the pool with the 'Out of Season' sign on the gate). After filming these monkeys acting stupid, I turn to the right to see... the guy! He was all over the place. Some black guy got in the camera's face, boasted about being from Hattiesburg, and I did my best to ignore him. I filmed a nice ass, then filmed my crotch in the mirror, and receded to my room where Logan, Bradley and whoever else were throwing a party. Once my room and bed area was clear, I did my best to go to sleep (surprisingly easy).
I woke up in the middle of the night, with the AC off a-fucking-gain. I was sweating my ass off, not only because of that, but because the hotel provided like six different sheets and covers. The CD player I had put on to go to sleep had gotten past the song I wanted to hear (Foolin') twice, and was now on Emerald Sword. I turned it off and set it on the ground. Then, something happened. I moved my right leg in some kind of way, and my right calf got so tense. It hurt so bad. It was like my calf was in a vice grip that was only getting tighter. I would have screamed had it not hurt so bad. That probably doesn't make sense, but it was so utterly painful. After it dissappeared, I got back to sleep.
The next morning, Logan woke me up to tell me he had bought some Honey Buns, and that everyone else was lame and went to Waffle House without us. I thxed him and went back to sleep, until Bradley woke me up to tell me it was 7 (we had the Tech Bowl at 8). I stayed in bed until 7:30, then I got up, brushed my teeth, and got in the shower. The soap I used was some french shit my brother gave me. It did the opposite of what I think soap should do. Instead of making my skin smooth yet moist, it dried me out and made my skin feel haggard. It really fucking blew. I left that soap there. After getting out and getting dressed, Bradley told me I was going to be put into Cyberspace Pursuit, and we headed to the Tech. Bowl.
Again, we had to wait, but this time was much longer. We probably waited for an hour and a half before we got to go in. While waiting, though, Millro stopped by and told me he thinks Vanessa and I did good in the Computer Troubleshooting competition. I was happy about that, and then the guy who ran that competition came by and asked me what I thought about the questions. I told him that I couldn't answer some of them because of restricted user privelages, and he said that they realized that fact later and didn't count off.
Once called into the Tech. Bowl, we basically sucked. They asked a bunch of questions I didn't know, then one about aesthetics, then one about the fastest hard drive type which I knew but didn't answer, then one about an example of a live load on a bridge which I did answer. We still lost 35 to 60. Oh well. Onto Cyberspace Pursuit, I didn't know what the hell it was about. Apparently Bradley had made some website, and I had to show up and answer some questions. Inside, the lady first asked Bradley, Logan and I what we did on the site. Bradley said he designed, Logan elaborately said he did the research, and I said, "Uh.. I'm just here." The lady got confused and asked if I did any work on the site, then Bradley told her I did the coding. Good call. After that, she just asked what URL stood for and what it was, and I suppose I was the only one there who knew, so I told her.
After that, I went back into my room and tried to .. do something, I don't know. I tried to read, but didn't, so I tried to nap. It seems that right as I did that, David G., David, Logan, and Chad all piled into my room to play Halo. Ugh. Chad's silly ass was screaming like a girl the entire time from sheer excitement ( \m/ Halo! \m/ ... :\ ). Despite this, I still managed to sleep a good bit. I woke up and a few minutes later someone said shut up, and that I was trying to sleep. I didn't care, but it was nice of whoever that was. I got up around 11:50 AM, as Mr. Milling was supposed to pick us up at 12:00 to take us out to eat. He was late, so I made the coffee using the coffee machine and coffee in our bathroom, and watched Henry and Bradley play the Castle minigame hidden in Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete. After that, Millro showed up around 12:45. I had to get dressed back into the uncomfy dressy clothes, pack all my shit, and get on the bus. After eating, I couldn't go back to the room, so I of course took all the hotel soap, shampoo, and mouthwash. Then I put all my stuff on the bus, and Millro drove over to where the restaurants were. I followed everyone except Logan and Vince into Taco Bell, where I got six tacos, and forgot taco sauce. We ate most of the food on the bus, then went to the award ceremony.
Again here, more time-consuming bullshit that was completely unnecessary. Oh well. I sat next to the hottie that could have been a butterface. >:) They announced our awards eventually, where each and every one of us got at least one award. In my case, I got first in Cyberspace Pursuit and Computer Systems Troubleshooting (which I am very proud of: I just kept thinking that I 0wned everyone in TSA out of all of Mississippi in computers, and that's a pleasant thought). So it turns out that there was a tie for first in CST, and Millro's familiar friend was confused over who to choose. Mr. Milling asked him, "Which one of these would you want to employ, if you had to choose?" Of course our papers had the most detailed writing, so we won. Kickass.
The bus ride home was entertaining. I cracked some joke about getting a Happy Meal with extra happy, and Henry said something about a Mighty Burger served by a Mighty Man, and did a very good impression of a Mighty Man handing me my Mighty Burger. I was stoked. Vanessa fell asleep in a manner which kept making me think I'd spot a cameltoe if I was looking, which was kinda offputting. In what seemed like no time, Mr. Milling stopped at a gas station, and I tried to rouse Vanessa, telling her that if she had to use the restroom she best go now. Of course she tried to go back to sleep, only to come in two minutes later and act like I didn't give her any good advice. I also offered to buy her something if she wanted it, but she took some money from Logan, which is fine. While we were there, I spotted this group of badasses come in from outside. I named them as Linkin Park fans, but Henry thought them more of the Limp Bizkit type. After we got back on the bus that Millro was filling up, however, Henry changed his mind and admitted they looked like LP fans. That is, until, he realized they were piling into a church van. I then declared them Creed fans and we made fun of both the guys and Creed.
After that, nothing really happened. There was a lot of good and humorous conversation, but I don't remember any of it, except that I said I was going to go to sleep as soon as I got home. This year's TSA was a good crowd. I tried to go to sleep, and woke up as Mr. Milling was heading south on Washington Avenue. It was after 8 PM, 2 hours after we should have gotten back in. I took my stuff from the bus to the car, and whatnot. We had our little, "Hey man, we did good. Congrats to everyone," meeting, and I was the first to leave. On the way home, my mom bitched and shit. When I got home, I stayed awake until 9, when I somehow got the great idea to watch Pearl Harbor. It was a good movie.
Saturday I just played MGS:VRM as much as possible, and I thought up a way to give my mom shitloads of clothes worth lots of money she could use for tax deduction, and she would only give me a fraction of the price in cash. Just another way for me to get something for nothing, I guess.
Sunday I told my brother about my ghey hawaiin shirt, and I think he likes it. I also got the idea to wear my nice grey shirt buttoned-up to school. We went to Wal-Mart, I got myself a nice new scent, and then we rented A.I., which was a good movie.
Today, Melissa showed up to school early, which was cool. She claimed to be tired, but she was moving very strangely. I can't explain it. Man, I brought her that driving booklet thing today, too, and I didn't get to give it to her. I was surprised I remembered that she said she needed one, as she said it in a very off-hand comment. Oh well :\. No one commented on my shirt, although a certain someone gave me a different look, and I caught some longer glances from the ladies. Not to sound like I'm boasting, but I did. I got one comment on my scent, though, so that's cool that maybe that one person noticed.
Shit, it took me two and a half straight hours of typing to get all this down. Someone better read it.
* -- No one really gives a fuck, so I won't explain.
** -- The first gas station's fountain drinks were Coca-Cola products, and the second gas station's were Pepsi. I figured the chain's differences in sponsors changed the prices.
*** -- What the fuck?
**** -- WTF was my initial reaction to someone bringing DDR on a field trip, but it was Bradley Tolar's. I won't argue.
***** -- Using positive adjectives.
° -- I could swear on my life that I've seen him before, but I couldn't name a time or place, so Vanessa and I deduced that he's just one of those people that are oddly familiar.
°° -- As I later realized it was a Pentium 3, not a Pentium 2. The long-haired fellow named Ashton to my left made it obvious I could have just looked at the sticker on the front of the tower. Yeah, fuck you.
°°° -- http://bellsouthpwp.net/t/u/tuck4746/kgay.jpg
°°°° -- Teehee!
°°°°° -- It totally isn't.
-- That movie is 3 hours long.
-- You know who you are.
Wednesday. Wednesday... Alright. Not too much happened on Wednesday. I do remember being stoked that it was Wednesday, the day before Thursday. Thursday being the day I was leaving on a field trip to Jackson for the Technology Student Association State Competition. I remember it was a good day except for one part with Melissa, which was really fucking gay*. That and my mindset at the time just wasn't right.
So Wednesday afternoon, I knew what I had to do. I had planned to go to sleep as soon as I got home. Planned, but I didn't. I got home, and some damned how or another I found something to do. It always happens that way. I remember burning my CD, though. I had been wanting to burn a good CD for quite some time. I believe I did. It consists of this (some may say I shouldn't combine the bands I did, but.. fuck them):
Adema - Blow It Away
Alice Cooper - Feed My Frankenstein
Caroline's Spine - Sullivan
Bon Jovi - Bad Medicine
Def Leppard - Foolin'
HIM - Bury Me Deep Inside Your Heart
HIM - Your Sweet 666
Iron Maiden - The Trooper
Iron Maiden - The Wicker Man
Metallica - Enter Sandman
Metallica - Of Wolf And Man
Metallica - Sad But True
Kansas - Carry On My Wayward Son
Quiet Riot - Cum On Feel The Noize
Rhapsody - Emerald Sword
Styx - Mr. Roboto
Twisted Sister - I Wanna Rock
I think its a badass CD. I burned it some time around 4 or something. I stayed up doing some god damned thing until like 12, when I finally packed my shit up for the next day and went to bed around 1.
Thursday morning, my clock went off at 3:00 AM, as I had set it for. I didn't, however, plan on getting up at 4:00 AM, as I had made my plans around waking up at 3:30 AM. Oh well. I showered, dressed, gathered up my shit and head out. I got mom to let me drive there, and it was a nice deserted highway driving experience. The whole way she asked me where I was going to be and the number and shit, and since I had forgotten to give her the paper Millro gave me, I told her to ask Millro for another one (stupid mistake). After wanting to hug me like six hundred thousand god damned times, I got away from her and got on the bus. I honestly don't remember anything until like an hour onto the interstate, when I got super tired.
Anyone ever tried to sleep (like, really sleep) on a bus? Its hard, and after a lot of work and a long time of music playing, I finally found a sweet position. I was sitting on the left side of the bus, oddly, as I usually sit on the right, so I put my left arm between the window and the seat. That made a nice headrest. Just a little while into digging that position, though, Millro offered us a place to eat and rest. We stopped in a very familiar location. I remembered there used to be a Ward's nearby, so I spoke of Ward's to Henry and Vanessa. Of course they had never heard of it, so I STFU'ed. Turns out the Hardee's or however-the-fuck-you-spell-it was in the place of the Ward's. I suppose Ward's is no more, which is a shame. I really liked the place.
After getting a bacon, egg, and cheese bizkit (with one tiny little piece of bacon), drink, and shit-browns, I couldn't really get back to sleep. It was cool, though, because no one else could, either. I talked to Mat and Henry and David and Vanessa. I don't remember all too much about the conversation, but I do distinctly remember at one point I turned to look at Vanessa and Vanessa was looking at my crotch. Her eyes moved from my crotch to my eyes, and she knew she was caught. I laughed for a long time after that, even on Friday. It stoked me out.
More of the Same Old Shit, and we arrived in Jackson whar we needed to be (the Clarion Hotel / community center). First things first, Vanessa's bitch bladder kicked in so she ran off in search of a restroom. After a small amount of packing and prepping, I believe everyone except for me and Vince Armata left to go inside. After a while I left Vince by himself, and went inside. And, Christ Almighty, that place was full of black people. I immediately felt uncomfortable and went back to the bus. Sooner or later we got the keys to our rooms, which was kickass. The first thing I did when I got in was called the free bed and demanded a key (keys being cards that got read by the digital lock thingey). The room was so gnarly. There was a microwave sitting on top of the fridge, a coffee machine sitting in the bathroom, which was just friggin' huge. I noticed the door that went from our (David G.'s, Chad's, and my) room to Bradley, Logan and Vince's room. I shouldn't have pointed it out, because it was somewhat of a burden, but I'm sure it would have been discovered sooner or later.
Ah, yeah, so the room was super kickass. I chilled for a while until everyone had to go to the assembly. I really didn't understand it. There was some old guy preaching, but throwing in things like, "up jump the boogy" and whatnot to keep the niggers happy. Speaking of which, we were all standing in the back of the room, and at one point this black guy to my lower right kept staring at Vanessa. By staring, I mean rubbernecking. He went way out of his line of vision to scope her out. I told Vanessa this, and we laughed at him at a decibel level he could surely hear, then when he did it again we both caught it and he turned away. Vanessa laughed like the silly goose she is. Eventually she started flirting with Henry, and they went towards the middle of the... big god damned room with chairs to sit together. I think Mat turned emo after that, but David and I pointed out some hot chicks and his man instinct kicked in so we discussed what guys discuss. There weren't many hot chicks there, but the ones that were there were super fucking hot. I pointed out one chick that was hot from behind, then Mat and I caught just her nose and thought her a butterface, but then when she turned all the way around she was really hot. Goes to show, you have to be sure. Once the assembly was over, I forgot what I did.
Back in the hotel room, it was steamy. I located the AC unit, conveniently very close to my bed, turned it on high and at the coolest level, sat back and enjoyed the arctic breeze. Soon enough I had to go with Bradley and Chad to the Technology Bowl competition thing. After waiting there for half an hour, they told us that those who won in groups were to have the Tech. Bowl competition tomorrow. Good news. I headed back to the room, changed into my comfortable clothes, headed over to Henry, Mat, and David's room. Vanessa was there, but she was about to leave for her GIS competition. Henry, Mat, David and I all left to get some food. It was a good four or five minute walk to the gas stations and fast food places down the road, but it passed by quickly. At the first gas station, I was about to buy a 12 pack of Coke for 2.50, but everyone was leaving and shit. They told me to get it across the street where it'd be cheaper. There the 12 packs of Coke were 4.19**. Mat got some ice cream, and we went to Burger King. I got one of those italian really-good-chicken-burger things. The one with mozarella and marinara sauce. It was in a combo with a coke, of course, and instead of fries I got some onion rings. Wow, I'm giving way too many details. Anyways, it was really good.
Back at the Clarion, I hung out in Mat, David and Henry's room. We watched Conan for a little while, then QVC for some reason, then Henry played on his NES. Outside, some really stupid white kids were playing with a crappy frisbee. They kept throwing it over the fence towards the pool. They never learned. Mat, Henry and I cracked jokes about asking one of the girls to the TSA Dance***, which was was good old teen jesting. After that, I think Mat and Henry left to do some competition, so I went back to my room where Chad and David G. were playing X-Box. Of course I rued all over the place. Someone turned the AC off, so I turned it back on, then David G. went into Bradley's room to play DDR****. Seeing the opportunity to feel like a cock, I picked up the X-Box controller and started playing Dead or Alive 3. I cannot express how much I enjoyed it*****. DOA3 was sweet, though, and my character Tina, being piloted by a DOA3 noob (me) was kicking Chad's ass. Bradley walked in and scolded me for playing an X-Box, but told me it would be okay so long as I wished I was holding a PS2 controller the entire time. Vanessa came back in sometime when I was handing Chad's ass to him, and after just a little while we caught the bus to do our Computer Systems Troubleshooting competition.
We sat in the room at the place where we actually were (?) for quite some time. After a while, Millro's familiar friend° told us that we were going to working with and analyzing computers, and that we'd be given a series of questions, blah, blah. Sooner or later we went into the room, waited some more, then got our questions. They were things that should have been simple to get. They were set up like this:
You work for a company that is super retarded, and they want you to gather a bunch of information on this computer. Fill out the following:
Computer Name:
Domain Name:
Processor Type:
Processor Speed:
Virtual Memory:
Hard Disk Space:
...et cetera. I looked up what I thought I could find while Vanessa wrote down the answers. I was dumb enough to give her the wrong answers on the processor type°°. Also, she helped me find out the IP address of the computer, which was oddly nowhere to be found, besides what she mentioned (MS-DOS prompt, where I had to put in netstat -n). The first and second page consisted of questions like this, while the third page asked how to run programs without using the start menu. We were kinda pressed for time, so we didn't get much of any of those pages done. We left, and waited for them to generate the next series of problems. On the flat-system computers in the "waiting room" I went to my webspace and brought up a few painful memories for Vanessa°°°. After that, it was back to the problems. These didn't involve the computer, just writing. I told Vanessa what to write, and then somehow or another I think I wound up writing. I remember my palms being really sweaty, and controlling the tiny pencil they provided us with was very hard. The questions asked were something like...
"An employee is complaining that they have a problem with their monitor. Examine what may be wrong, and give your solution to the problem."
"An employee claims that there is something wrong with their keyboard. Examine what may be wrong, and give your solution to the problem."
"An employee says that their monitor 'looks funny'. Examine what may be wrong, and give your solution to the problem."
We gave all we could on those questions, then went back into the room and waited. This time the wait was very long. We both wondered what the fuck was going on. Apparently our next problem was to be a hard one. It wasn't, really. They told us that something had been done to the computer, and that it had to be booted up. First things first, we went over what was wrong. There was a complaint about a mouse not working, so Vanessa ran around to the back of the computer, and sho 'nuff, the mouse and keyboard had been plugged into the wrong ports. She fixed that, and we wrote down the steps that we did (one) then I turned the comp on. It gave me some letters, then slowly put some . . . . periods on screen. I restarted, went into BIOS and checked the boot sequence. Hard drive was fourth on the list, underneath two nothings and the CD-ROM. I put that up to the top, checked something else, and wondered if I should try and restart again. I was looking at some option for enabling Plug and Play Operationg System, but since I've never heard of a Plug and Play OS I just restarted. It booted up, we wrote down our shit, and headed out. I didn't think we did too good, and I don't think Vanessa did, either.
Back at the room, I got back into chillin' clothes and went to take a piss. I noticed that our toilet was clogged. ..but not with shit. It was like, clogged with piss, or something. I don't know. It was full to the rim of crystal clear toilet water. I just used Bradley's toilet. After a while, Vanessa wanted to get some food, so of course I invited myself to come along, and David and Henry came along as well. Vanessa got some kinda sloppy concoction from Taco Hell (lolz!!!!!!!!!), and ate it in a manner which fit its physical form perfectly. I just had some of those cinnamon twist things, which were very good. Vanessa's secret°°°° was let out, and I got a giggle out of it.
Over again in the Clarion, Vanessa was about to head to the mall as she had planned to go, and I wanted to go, too. Of course I didn't want to go with just Vanessa, because she doesn't want me pointing out nice asses to her, so I carried David along. We were going to try and hunt, but apparently neither of us have licenses, and it isn't hunting season. Oh well. After ditching Vanessa's parents (the ride to the mall), we warbled for a bit, and David and I demanded to go into Gamestop. There, I found Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions for eight dollars, so I considered buying. Then I found Metal Gear Solid for twelve dollars, and then saw a sign saying if I got two used games, I'd get one of lesser or equal value to the cheaper game FREE. I went up to the counter, and the ... counter-person said, "What can I do for you, sweetheart?" Heh. It was a black preggo, so I was stoked. She fetched the games out for me, checking the quality of them like ninety friggin' times. Vanessa didn't seem to be enjoying the wait, which just made it seem like longer time. The cashier woman pointed out that the VR missions disc was scratched pretty haggardly°°°°°, and that it might not play. She wrote on the reciept that the disc was scratched and returning was probably necessary. Also, she hooked me up with the good case of MGS, as the case I picked up was the nappy Greatest Hit version. I really think she was trying to impress me, and talk to me as much as possible. I don't too often feel like someone is flirting with me, but she made it obvious. After showing me all the products I was buying, she quickly glanced to the ESRB rating of the games (all 3 are rated M, which I didn't realize), and asked me my age. I robotically blurted out, "I'm seventeen," and I saw her shoulders droop a bit, and she muttered, "Alright."
Stoked, I walked towards David who was in the mindset I was going to buy him a game. I told him I'd buy him something 10 dollars or less to convince him to go, but then realized that was a lot so I changed it to five, which he didn't hear. Oh well. He left empty-handed. Again we warbled until one of us got the bright idea to stuff ourselves into one of those portrait booths and get our pix taken. Vanessa paid for it, and it came out good/silly. She still has it. I wonder if she really even likes it. Just a short way down the mall, Vanessa found the Godiva chocolate place she had came to the mall for, as she wanted a hella-expensive strawberry (five dollars for one). We found some furniture, chilled on it and scoped out asses. Vanessa scoped my crotch again, I believe. We had a discussion about that. Then David threw up "the sign" to this retarded black guy, who almost kicked David's ass. Good times. I'll also note that this entire time Vanessa was flirting with David. I think I was the only one who caught it. Walking back to the car, Vanessa somehow was told that my mom called me at the hotel. God damnit, she's so annoying. That pissed me off so much.
In my room at Clarion, the AC was again off. David gathered up his camera, and we hit up the TSA Dance. It suxed bad. The only cool part was the asian-who-was-playing-music's comp. He was playing music from winamp over the sound system. Anyway, his comp had a clear case, and the case fans had rainbow lights on it. Pretty sweet.
Later on, I got the camera from David and we warbled around the hotel a little north of the Clarion. We came across this guy... he's... just this guy. His accent was like a drunken brit with a speech impediment. He was so sweet to listen to, but it was so hard to make out what he was saying. He told me I had been on TV at 9:15. I looked down at my watch with the camera... 9:30... hm. He kept talking about girls and saying cuss words and stuff, and it was all very confusing, but he was really cool. After a while, I asked him where he was from, and out of nowhere his voice was like a deep American accent and he said, "Biloxi." Apparently he isn't foreign; he was born in Florida someplace. While still talking, some chicks walked upstairs and distracted him, so David and I left him to meet up with Mat and Logan. Right as we got to the bottom floor (we were on the fourth), David pointed out into the parking lot at what he thought was Mat. Behind us I heard a voice, I turned around, and there was Mat. I turned back to the person we saw, and it was the guy! Weird! So we introduced Mat and Logan to the guy, who was now carrying a pillow. We walked for some way, while the guy uttered something like, "OhandIsayafuckingshitmahn, issjussagotdamnfuckshitass." Honestly. After a little while he turned back, ran, set the pillow down a distance away, and caught back up to us. He then walked ahead of us, took a right into the Clarion, and left David, Mat, Logan and I to ourselves. Of course Mat and Logan went off to find glowsticks or some shit, so David and I had to walk through what had to have literally been six hundred black people all going to the pool (being the pool with the 'Out of Season' sign on the gate). After filming these monkeys acting stupid, I turn to the right to see... the guy! He was all over the place. Some black guy got in the camera's face, boasted about being from Hattiesburg, and I did my best to ignore him. I filmed a nice ass, then filmed my crotch in the mirror, and receded to my room where Logan, Bradley and whoever else were throwing a party. Once my room and bed area was clear, I did my best to go to sleep (surprisingly easy).
I woke up in the middle of the night, with the AC off a-fucking-gain. I was sweating my ass off, not only because of that, but because the hotel provided like six different sheets and covers. The CD player I had put on to go to sleep had gotten past the song I wanted to hear (Foolin') twice, and was now on Emerald Sword. I turned it off and set it on the ground. Then, something happened. I moved my right leg in some kind of way, and my right calf got so tense. It hurt so bad. It was like my calf was in a vice grip that was only getting tighter. I would have screamed had it not hurt so bad. That probably doesn't make sense, but it was so utterly painful. After it dissappeared, I got back to sleep.
The next morning, Logan woke me up to tell me he had bought some Honey Buns, and that everyone else was lame and went to Waffle House without us. I thxed him and went back to sleep, until Bradley woke me up to tell me it was 7 (we had the Tech Bowl at 8). I stayed in bed until 7:30, then I got up, brushed my teeth, and got in the shower. The soap I used was some french shit my brother gave me. It did the opposite of what I think soap should do. Instead of making my skin smooth yet moist, it dried me out and made my skin feel haggard. It really fucking blew. I left that soap there. After getting out and getting dressed, Bradley told me I was going to be put into Cyberspace Pursuit, and we headed to the Tech. Bowl.
Again, we had to wait, but this time was much longer. We probably waited for an hour and a half before we got to go in. While waiting, though, Millro stopped by and told me he thinks Vanessa and I did good in the Computer Troubleshooting competition. I was happy about that, and then the guy who ran that competition came by and asked me what I thought about the questions. I told him that I couldn't answer some of them because of restricted user privelages, and he said that they realized that fact later and didn't count off.
Once called into the Tech. Bowl, we basically sucked. They asked a bunch of questions I didn't know, then one about aesthetics, then one about the fastest hard drive type which I knew but didn't answer, then one about an example of a live load on a bridge which I did answer. We still lost 35 to 60. Oh well. Onto Cyberspace Pursuit, I didn't know what the hell it was about. Apparently Bradley had made some website, and I had to show up and answer some questions. Inside, the lady first asked Bradley, Logan and I what we did on the site. Bradley said he designed, Logan elaborately said he did the research, and I said, "Uh.. I'm just here." The lady got confused and asked if I did any work on the site, then Bradley told her I did the coding. Good call. After that, she just asked what URL stood for and what it was, and I suppose I was the only one there who knew, so I told her.
After that, I went back into my room and tried to .. do something, I don't know. I tried to read, but didn't, so I tried to nap. It seems that right as I did that, David G., David, Logan, and Chad all piled into my room to play Halo. Ugh. Chad's silly ass was screaming like a girl the entire time from sheer excitement ( \m/ Halo! \m/ ... :\ ). Despite this, I still managed to sleep a good bit. I woke up and a few minutes later someone said shut up, and that I was trying to sleep. I didn't care, but it was nice of whoever that was. I got up around 11:50 AM, as Mr. Milling was supposed to pick us up at 12:00 to take us out to eat. He was late, so I made the coffee using the coffee machine and coffee in our bathroom, and watched Henry and Bradley play the Castle minigame hidden in Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete. After that, Millro showed up around 12:45. I had to get dressed back into the uncomfy dressy clothes, pack all my shit, and get on the bus. After eating, I couldn't go back to the room, so I of course took all the hotel soap, shampoo, and mouthwash. Then I put all my stuff on the bus, and Millro drove over to where the restaurants were. I followed everyone except Logan and Vince into Taco Bell, where I got six tacos, and forgot taco sauce. We ate most of the food on the bus, then went to the award ceremony.
Again here, more time-consuming bullshit that was completely unnecessary. Oh well. I sat next to the hottie that could have been a butterface. >:) They announced our awards eventually, where each and every one of us got at least one award. In my case, I got first in Cyberspace Pursuit and Computer Systems Troubleshooting (which I am very proud of: I just kept thinking that I 0wned everyone in TSA out of all of Mississippi in computers, and that's a pleasant thought). So it turns out that there was a tie for first in CST, and Millro's familiar friend was confused over who to choose. Mr. Milling asked him, "Which one of these would you want to employ, if you had to choose?" Of course our papers had the most detailed writing, so we won. Kickass.
The bus ride home was entertaining. I cracked some joke about getting a Happy Meal with extra happy, and Henry said something about a Mighty Burger served by a Mighty Man, and did a very good impression of a Mighty Man handing me my Mighty Burger. I was stoked. Vanessa fell asleep in a manner which kept making me think I'd spot a cameltoe if I was looking, which was kinda offputting. In what seemed like no time, Mr. Milling stopped at a gas station, and I tried to rouse Vanessa, telling her that if she had to use the restroom she best go now. Of course she tried to go back to sleep, only to come in two minutes later and act like I didn't give her any good advice. I also offered to buy her something if she wanted it, but she took some money from Logan, which is fine. While we were there, I spotted this group of badasses come in from outside. I named them as Linkin Park fans, but Henry thought them more of the Limp Bizkit type. After we got back on the bus that Millro was filling up, however, Henry changed his mind and admitted they looked like LP fans. That is, until, he realized they were piling into a church van. I then declared them Creed fans and we made fun of both the guys and Creed.
After that, nothing really happened. There was a lot of good and humorous conversation, but I don't remember any of it, except that I said I was going to go to sleep as soon as I got home. This year's TSA was a good crowd. I tried to go to sleep, and woke up as Mr. Milling was heading south on Washington Avenue. It was after 8 PM, 2 hours after we should have gotten back in. I took my stuff from the bus to the car, and whatnot. We had our little, "Hey man, we did good. Congrats to everyone," meeting, and I was the first to leave. On the way home, my mom bitched and shit. When I got home, I stayed awake until 9, when I somehow got the great idea to watch Pearl Harbor. It was a good movie.
Saturday I just played MGS:VRM as much as possible, and I thought up a way to give my mom shitloads of clothes worth lots of money she could use for tax deduction, and she would only give me a fraction of the price in cash. Just another way for me to get something for nothing, I guess.
Sunday I told my brother about my ghey hawaiin shirt, and I think he likes it. I also got the idea to wear my nice grey shirt buttoned-up to school. We went to Wal-Mart, I got myself a nice new scent, and then we rented A.I., which was a good movie.
Today, Melissa showed up to school early, which was cool. She claimed to be tired, but she was moving very strangely. I can't explain it. Man, I brought her that driving booklet thing today, too, and I didn't get to give it to her. I was surprised I remembered that she said she needed one, as she said it in a very off-hand comment. Oh well :\. No one commented on my shirt, although a certain someone gave me a different look, and I caught some longer glances from the ladies. Not to sound like I'm boasting, but I did. I got one comment on my scent, though, so that's cool that maybe that one person noticed.
Shit, it took me two and a half straight hours of typing to get all this down. Someone better read it.
* -- No one really gives a fuck, so I won't explain.
** -- The first gas station's fountain drinks were Coca-Cola products, and the second gas station's were Pepsi. I figured the chain's differences in sponsors changed the prices.
*** -- What the fuck?
**** -- WTF was my initial reaction to someone bringing DDR on a field trip, but it was Bradley Tolar's. I won't argue.
***** -- Using positive adjectives.
° -- I could swear on my life that I've seen him before, but I couldn't name a time or place, so Vanessa and I deduced that he's just one of those people that are oddly familiar.
°° -- As I later realized it was a Pentium 3, not a Pentium 2. The long-haired fellow named Ashton to my left made it obvious I could have just looked at the sticker on the front of the tower. Yeah, fuck you.
°°° -- http://bellsouthpwp.net/t/u/tuck4746/kgay.jpg
°°°° -- Teehee!
°°°°° -- It totally isn't.
-- That movie is 3 hours long.
-- You know who you are.