For your enjoyment, here’s a list of superfluous stuff that I want to buy.

1. New TV – probably just a 20 inch one since I’ll be putting it in my bedroom. Flat screen, stereo sound and S-video support are a must. Everything else is just extra bells and whistles. I specified stereo sound because, as I was researching in the past couple of days, some manufacturers think it’s funny to build and sell television sets with mono sound. I think I hear the quiet sobs of Baby Jesus in the distance.

2. Japanese PS2 – For playing games and to serve as a region 2 DVD player should the need ever arise.

3. Some games for the PS2

4. MAS stick or a custom homemade one with PS2, DC, PC compatibility. Competition sticks, convex buttons and a slanted top are a must. If it’s a MAS, I can live with concave buttons.

5. Bunch of manga – Pitaten 7-8, Mahoraba 3-5. I’ll start collecting Yotsubato once more volumes come out. They’re not that high priority since I already have the scans on my computer. I just want them for the sake of having them.

6. MP3 player – Totally unnecessary item. I barely listen to any music as it is. Plus, with the time I spend in front of my computer, I wouldn’t need to listen to a portable MP3 player.

7. DVD burner – To burn DVDs because CD burners just don’t cut it for high volume downloaders like myself.

8. Big hard drive – An essential for someone who has a dvd burner.

#1 is definitely happening. #2 is probably happening, and part of #3 as well because what good is a PS2 if I don’t have any games for it? The rest are strictly dependant on how much money I have left over from the above purchases.

Translation: #4 to #8 and part of #3 aren’t happening unless I round up Ma Beagle and the Beagle Boys and raid Uncle Scrooge’s Money Bin.

My birthday is in 15 days? What?

Yeah, I’m sure you can tell that I’m not going on any dates for a while. How unsexy, but at least I’ll be having fun with my PS2 on Friday nights! YES!

It’s nice to know that I have a social life. It’s also nice to know that my site doesn’t have to be filled with poorly written commentaries about video games and bad anime. Hopefully, it’ll always be like that someday, but that’s a topic for another time.

The 6th annual Christmas Classic with the guys from high school was held on the 23rd. What started off as a game of miniature golf and dinner at Hooters back in 1998 transformed itself to a drunken orgy of bowling and dinner at any restaurant besides Hooters. I’m not sure if that’s an upgrade or not but it’s one of those rare times where my old motto of “More Whitney, less politics.” is observed by everyone around me. It’s nice to escape to the past once in a while, especially when you don’t want to be around the stench of failure that constantly looms over your head in the present. I think I just made my entry more depressing than it should be, so I’ll just recap what happened that night.

Everyone (Ken, Kent, Scott, Diho, Shiny Jr., Ken’s GF and myself) gathered at Scott’s house at around 6 PM. After a botched gift giving ceremony for Scott’s mom’s birthday (not even a triangular box can fool her), we decide to go miniature golfing. Yeah, it rained earlier in the day but we had faith in Camelot’s management to leave the golf course open for us.

They didn’t.

So after careful deliberation, we decided to go to the bowling alley 1 block down and have our usual battle of the public vs. private schools. Since Ken and I are on the same team, we’ll just tear shit up like we did in Christmas Classic III, right?

Not quite.

If you read my previous entries then you’ll know that I hurt my back the week before. This meant that I couldn’t bend my back to bowl properly. The results of the first game proved this.

Christmas Classic VI
Bowling – Game 1 Results
Privates
Diho – 60
Shiny Jr. – 101
Scott – 136
Total – 297

Publics
Kent – 85
Sam – 65
Ken – 145
Total – 298

Yeah, we won by one pin but that was too close for my liking. The Privates team started their second game ahead of us and everyone got 1 or 2 strikes in the first 2 frames. If I didn’t step up, then we were in trouble. Fortunately, my newly devised strategy (throw the ball without bending my back) worked like a charm.

Christmas Classic VI
Bowling – Game 2 Results
Privates
Diho – 98
Shiny Jr. – 82
Scott – 121
Total – 301

Publics
Kent – 90
Sam – 152
Ken – 110
Total – 352

Sweet! The final combined score was 650 to 598 in favor of the publics and we retain the trophy for the second year in a row. Hooray!

We made the long drive and ate at Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles. It was good stuff as usual. The real fun started when we got back to Scott’s house. We played Texas Hold’em poker for 5 hours. The highlight of the night was when I went all in on an off-suit ace and king, with a pair of aces. I got everyone to fold except for Kent and he called my bet. We turned our cards over and…

We both had an ace and king off-suit and we had to split the pot. It was grossly unsexy, but the anticipation of awaiting your fate after going all in was top tier. I have lots of respect for all the professional poker players that I see on ESPN. I don’t think I can do what they do when thousands of dollars are on the line.

All the shit talking (to each other and about people not present) and the psuedo HBO pr0n in the background made our poker game a very memorable experience. I suck at poker and I ended up in the red but that’s no different from all the countless Marvel tournaments I entered in the past so I’m not bitter about losing. I’m just glad that I wasn’t the first one to run out of chips though.

Texas Hold’em Poker Results
1st – Diho
2nd – Scott
3rd – Vee
4th – Kent
5th – Sam
6th – Ken

For our final activity of the night, we had a game of pasoy with 5 people and 3 decks of cards. It sounded fun in theory but when people started laying down five-of-a-kind hands, I realized the folly of my ways. Hey, at least I won this game.

Pasoy (5 people, 3 decks) results
1st – Sam
2nd to 4th – Who the fuck cares?
5th – Diho

Then we called it a night at around 4:30 AM and nobody claimed the trophy so I’ll be keeping it in my closet for another year.

On a serious note, it seems like age is catching up to us. Diho said that it’ll be tough for him to make it out to Cerritos from Boston starting next year because of his medical school duties. Without him, things just won’t be the same.

Other notes
- The golf course at Camelot was closed, which meant that I couldn’t check if all the pictures that I drew on the picnic tables back in September were still there.
- Diho had 2 decks of cards in his poker chips set and they said “Aristocrat” on them. If you know him, I’m sure you’re laughing right now. It’s funny because it’s true.
- Chicken skins…
- We watched Real Sex on HBO while playing poker. I know why they call it Real Sex now. Those people are Real Ugly.
- Ken got me a t-shirt for my Christmas present, while I got everyone a big fat sack of nothing (I’m still a college student!). Thank you Ken, I’ll reciprocate for your birthday, I promise.
- My back still hurts and my legs are sore. I don’t know why they’re sore, so don’t ask.

Now, I’m busy for the rest of my winter break and I’ll have to revert to my unsexy ways becaue I’ll have no time to play with my friends.

I bit my tongue yesterday while eating dinner. Now the part that I bit is swollen, which increases my chances of biting the same spot again.

Why must life be so cruel?

My back still hurts. I still haven’t taken my shit because the thought of having to sit on a toilet and enduring the pain is not a pleasant one. I’m a little bit more mobile now than I was when I wrote the last entry but I still have pain while walking.

If I twist my body a certain way, my left arm starts shaking and I start losing the feeling in my left leg. It also hurts like a motherfucker when I do that so I stopped. I hope I get better in time to play miniature golf with the guys. As it stands now, I don’t think I can even drive a car.

Shiet…

Cute, but I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing them.

I hurt my back today and I can’t get up from my chair. Previous attempts to stand up have resulted in screams of pain and falling on my face. I need to take a shit. Soiling myself sounds nice (and painless) right now.

What will be my fate as the day comes to a close?

Stay tuned!

Two interesting things that I saw last weekend (both sports related)

#1 – Fake Football
Last Friday night, I saw something called the Match of the Millenium on ESPN. Let’s see if I can explain this for those who aren’t familiar with sports.

What they do is take 2 dominant football teams from certain decades and fabricate a game between them. The one they showed on Friday was a game between the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers and the 1990s Dallas Cowboys. The producers of this thing take footage from the 70s and 90s football games between these two teams and splice them together to make up a scripted football game.

Here’s an example…
Terry Bradshaw (The bald guy who does the 10-10-220 commercials with Alf and Mike Piazza) hands the ball off to Franco Harris (70s Steelers), then the scene changes to Leon Lett (90s Cowboys) making a tackle on some Steelers player (not Franco Harris) from the 90s. Then they show the 70s Pittsburgh crowd and the 90s Dallas crowd cheering for their respective teams.

This is basically a “what if” scenario if these two dominant teams were to meet. I’ve seen something similar to this before but this particular matchup had some (five) eyebrow raising parts to it.

1. They interviewed players “before” the “game” and asked them about their gameplan. Yes, they interviewed 50+ year old Lynn Swann what he was going to do to Deion Sanders in some game that’ll never be played.

2. They had a halftime recap show with Chris Berman and they showed “highlights” of the game.

3. The announcers had bad pre-scripted jokes and gags to provide some entertainment during the game.

4. Speaking of announcers, THEY BROUGHT HOWARD COSELL BACK FROM THE DEAD FOR THIS GAME!!!!!111 They had an impersonator do his voice, and they also took his soundbites from the 70s and integrated it into the dialogue between the modern day (and ALIVE) announcers. It was funny and insulting at the same time.

The Steelers struck early and often and had a big lead at halftime. Then the Cowboys came back to take the lead. Terry Bradshaw and the Steelers offense made one last drive down the field. As time ran out, Bradshaw throws to Lynn Swann in the endzone and he catches the ball. The play is overturned and ruled incomplete because the officials said that Swann was out of bounds when he caught the ball.

Here’s the best part of the whole game.

5. THEY BRING OUT INSTANT REPLAY IN A SCRIPTED GAME INVOLVING 2 TEAMS WHO HAVE NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE!!!!! Instant replay to review questionable calls by the officials was first put into use in 1999 (yeah I know, but the Cowboys dominated in the mid 90s). Howard Cosell (who died in 1995) asked what the fuck is going on and the modern day announcers had to explain the whole process to him. After the play was reviewed, the decision was overturned and it was a touchdown. They even showed footage of 90s Cowboys players being visibly upset and protesting the call. The 70s Steelers won the game on an instant replay judgement, whoda thunk it?

The entire game was pure comedic genius. I really hope it was intentional.

#2 – White people and Slamball
I saw my first full game of Slamball on Saturday night. Slamball is a made-for-TV game where two teams play a variation of basketball. There are four huge trampolines near the basket and players jump on said trampolines and try to score baskets.

There was a white guy on one of the teams and all he would do is stand behind the trampolines and shoot long-ranged jumpers all game long. WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!?!?! I was getting mad at him for shooting jump shots all day, I can’t even begin to imagine how the audience (who presumably paid to get in) felt about this travesty.

People pay money to see players jump 10 feet into the air on the trampolines and run into each other, just like the time when Rod and Todd Flanders jumped on the Simpson’s trampoline.

“Each leap brings us closer to God!”
*Thwack!*

That’s awesome. Long range jump shots from behind the trampoline are not awesome.

=*(

After hours of thinking of what to put on my banner, I finally put my thoughts into practice. Fifteen minutes with MSPaint produced this masterpiece.

Bow down.

Man, I need a tablet.

Since finals ended yesterday, I found myself with absolutely nothing to do. To cure myself of my boredom, I went to some sites that I’ve never been to before. I got two things out of this excursion, both Azumanga related.

1. A new wallpaper because Yukari is badass

2. I read some post somewhere that Chiyo’s friends from elementary school look just like Yukari and Minamo. This meant that I had to bust out my archived Azumanga episodes to check. Well, what do you know? They do look alike. So what did I get out of this? Knowledge, my friend, for it equals power and once you get the power, then you get the women. Slurpslurpslurp!

I’ll try to write a more meaningful entry soon but after I’m done redoing the layout for this site.

-Edit-
Holy fuckin’ shit! Even their names are similar! Wow, that’s just too freaky.

Okay, this whole Thursday Wednesday thing is starting to piss me off. If I can find where the days of the week are defined in the MT code then I’d change it myself. Sadly, that is not the case, and the people on the MT support forums aren’t helping either. Although, I could change the date format to another language (probably Spanish), I’d rather keep it the way it is.

Samia grows weary of this. Samia demands satisfaction.

Why am I referring to myself in third person? What am I doing up at 6:40 AM anyways?

This is something that I’ll have to take care of as soon as finals are over (tomorrow).