to Caly's posts:
- Rock Stacking is a very amusing beach pastime for all of ten minutes at a time. Unless you're very patient and more easily amused than Morio here, (that's me!) in which case you can make some really bizarre, unstable, and above all, tall towers to throw rocks at and knock down later.
- I was coerced, I tell you! I wasn't going to, but... well, then for some reason I was. What am I talking about? Running up to see what the heck was going on with the construction, of course. They had a few miles of single lane going, and decided that the other side was more deserving than us. They let them go all through until there was nobody at all waiting at the other side, _then_ they opened our side for a few minutes.
- I bought SoD US when we all went to lunch at Washington Square. Unfortunately, Santiago hasn't come in yet, so I have to go back later, but I wasn't really trying as hard as you may have thought to get through it. You did, after all, note that I was putting it down quite easily when there was something else to do.
- most importantly, anime. Sailor Stars is... a little odd, this is true, but I think you were far too interested in finding it stupid to see any of the good parts, get the jokes, or have fun with it. And then you go and skip Princess Mononoke (note: this is the real name) despite it's being in no way connected. Maybe you should have skipped Tombstone too then, as it was also an image on that glowing screen thing? And the computer has one of those too...
heh, okay, so maybe that's a little too far, but still. I'm surprised at you. Did you know Brian Grant has agreed to a deal with Miami? Shocking.
to noire's posts (to date, that gets us up to Caly's house)
- umm... did you actually say anything that I know enough about to comment on yet? Well, get busy!
- it is not cheating to use everyone else’s writing to help myself remember, so there.
to dk's:
THANK you for reminding me about the tree! We need to pester Kel until he posts a script. That was very nifty.
Break. It’s now Monday morning. Mori is asleep on my floor, but I had to get up early, primarily to get my car to the shop. Has anyone mentioned this part of the story yet? Well, here goes nothing.
For me, the social started Tuesday afternoon. About three in the afternoon I packed my bag, wiped my windshield (a pointless task, as it turns out) and by four had taken off to do stuff. I made it downtown easily enough, found a parking spot and put more than I had to in the meter, and walked the block back to the train station. It took all of five minutes in the waiting area for the cry of “Hey, freak!” to turn me around. Kel had gotten behind me somehow. One evil plan down the tubes, we walked back to the car and began driving. Yes, I knew before I came that I was lacking directions on how to leave the city, but I did know one thing. I live in the southwest of Portland, and we were in the north. So, driving south, and driving west, we figured to make it out eventually. We kept a decent running dialogue going for such a boring car trip, listened to a little music, and went a little south, and a little west. Eventually we hit a road I knew, and made it back from there no trouble.
My parents, for their part, had insisted I bring him over before we took off for the beach, so we had steak for dinner at my house. He professed to like it. Then we wasted about fifteen, maybe twenty minutes while I double checked everything (I was satisfied after I remembered the one task I had stored for myself, make sure my little bird wouldn’t die of starvation while I was gone), and my sister asked for a ride to a fabric store. At least it was directly in our path to the highway, so it wasn’t too much trouble, but Kel was getting an eyeful of her friend Lori, a very long-legged blonde (she’s 15, you dirty old man!) who he later described as “anime-style”. Actually, that’s pretty darn accurate.
Two hours of very little but music and the road later, we hit… (dramatic music here) Warrenton. Warrenton is, supposedly, a little town that lies along the highway just between Seaside and Astoria. We passed through it, thinking all was well. However, not long after we reached the open highway again, a sign proclaimed to us that we were approaching Warrenton. Soon after that, another sign showed a junction to the left that would lead us to, you guessed it, Warrenton. By now we were starting to get a little suspicious, but it wasn’t until we passed through Warrenton _again_ that we started to get a little frightened. The town was following us! As it turns out though, we managed to outrun it soon after, as it only made one more appearance (on another junction sign that would supposedly have led us there, which I’m certain that if we had taken would have gotten us trapped in a temporal causality loop), and shortly after that we crossed the “medium-ass bridge” into Astoria. There wouldn’t have been any more trouble at all from there, if Caly’s directions hadn’t relied on buildings that had all their lights off for the evening, but even that was minor. We were the first ones there, and had five seconds to wonder who the lady Caly was talking to on our arrival was before we found out - nobody! Which is a good thing, because I did actually recognize most of the people who showed up later quickly enough, but I had no clue on this one.
The cars from California were set to arrive at midnight, but in actuality turned up a good deal earlier than that. Everyone settled in, and we talked until about 1 am, just loosening up the atmosphere a little bit. Noire made that first post while looking the other way, and of course MA somehow managed to radiate enough evil that the computer blanked it out on her. Aside from that, not much happened. We talked a bit, it was your standard evening in chat. Dk threw her sleeping bag right in the middle of the floor, carefully taking up as many spaces as possible, and eventually everyone else dropped off too. And there was evening and there was morning: the first day.
Wednesday, we woke up around eight, and fell back to sleep. This performance was repeated at nine, but around ten we actually stayed up. I went out to my car to grab my bag that fateful morning, and lo and behold, the windshield was quite battered. At least two impacts from something, one that spawned a web of lines going out, and the other that somehow shattered out in two different directions, but then arced in to create this nice circular pattern. Would have been quite interesting, if it hadn't been my beautiful car! Theories about the cause still conflict, but officially with the insurance it's now a rock from the road. It's also now (just now in fact) been fixed at no cost to me, thank goodness. The auto glass people picked up the deductible, billed the insurance directly, and charged double the price, in case you care. Nasty little plan, that, but fine by me for now. It was somewhat disappointing, but turned out to not spoil the trip too much. I just moved it under the bridge (which we decided was almost certainly not the cause, at least without help) and covered it up, and moved on. Don and MA came back, and this was the day noire only just arrived at, when we went to lunch at the place where they'd already had breakfast. I ordered what turned out to be a very delicious and large roast beef sandwich (white cheddar and some specially flavored mayo, but I forget what of already). Kel stole some fries again, but also temporarily picked up my tab, so I have no complaints. In fact, I didn't even get close to finishing them, and ended up sharing with one or two other people too, who didn't have their own. Very good food. After that, we wandered around *ahem* downtown Astoria in a couple of shops... fed the sealions…I'm sure there was something else...
I skipped over the Column, didn't I? Well. It's big. It's a column. It's got stuff painted on the side, the town's first hundred years of history or so. It has stairs on the inside, from which you can see both the bridge the CA people were supposed to cross, and the one they weren't but did anyway. Actually, I only assume they crossed the first, they could have found an alternate route I suppose, but my vehicle crossed that bridge at the very least, so there. Anyway, we walked up the column, and spent probably half an hour or more just standing at the top. It was a good view, but I think everybody was just waiting for someone else to lead the charge down after a time. Dk couldn't get a picture of a deer that was seemingly glued in place by the side of the road from the column, because she couldn't see over the rail. After a while, noire lifted her up a bit, but then the zoom (which was quite impressive) wasn't quite enough to make it a decent picture, and some idiots chased it away anyway, proving that it wasn't in fact stuck to that spot after all. I think that was in the morning before lunch, but everything is getting jumbled up in my mind already, so I can't be sure.
We returned to Caly's house, hung around a bit, and then it was time for everyone else to go to the fair. Kel and I, meanwhile, had a very meaningful conversation about the internet, fantasy, and all the stuff we like to pretend this forum talks about a lot, and then I beat the crap out of him at Super Smash Bros. He got significantly better though, to his credit, at a nice quick pace. Given that I've had the game for nearly a year now and play it quite often with a bunch of friends, that's not bad at all. Really. After that, he turned on Survivor and watched people stand on a board for nearly three hours. Well, they were standing there for three hours, but we didn't really watch that whole time, it was condensed of course. Still, I don't know what I actually think of the show. After that, we plugged in Escaflowne, which is an excellent series that I brought nearly the first third of, and just as we finished the first two eps the rest of the group arrived back. Escaflowne was soon replaced with Sailor Stars, which less people had seen, and after some time of that, everything goes blank, and I think we must have just gone to sleep. There was more room on the floor this time though, so I wasn't stretched out in nearly as inconvenient of a space, and I think I must have slept pretty soundly. And there was evening and there was morning: the second day.
Thursday. I woke pretty early, but stayed where I was until long after noire and Caly had left to go food shopping. This was to be our beach day, we checked the tide table and found out the best time to go out to Haystack Rock was at five in the evening. Lounging around, talking, and watching more SS got us through most of the afternoon, people made their own lunches, had some conversations that should have been memorable but somehow aren't (except for those few quotes which I'm sure are already going up on the page, mostly by noire), and just generally enjoyed the afternoon. It all seems to zoom by so fast in memory, but it felt very nice and relaxed at the time. Life was good... now I want to go and do all this again really soon, maybe every other week or so. I'm feeling so bored already. At least Mori is still here, but I've written all this and he's still sound asleep on my floor.
Anyway, about four we packed it up, threw some stuff in the cars, drove down to cannon beach and parked in some old lady's driveway. Well, I still maintain that at least. There are free, public parking lots right by the main beach entrance, I'm telling you! I didn't even get to get any taffy, which is a shame because they make it really well there, because we never actually spent time in the town. It's a fun town, but oh well. We walked out to the big rock by very carefully hopping on the little ones that were sticking out of the water. Thankfully, they all had a few inches of barnacles for traction (but you'll want to keep your shoes ON, definitely) and it wasn't too much trouble. I got caught by the camera beyond a sign (which I swear I didn't see until afterward) that said people weren't supposed to go past it. Eventually we came down off the rock and Caly (who never actually went out to it) and I took off one way while everyone else who was still coming back (I being the first one off) picked the opposite direction. I set my stuff down, and began looking around, only to realize a little later that I'd have to pick it all up again and walk the other way down the beach. This took a bit of time, but not much, and I was just about to run flailing across the middle of the "Freak Out 2000" logo drawn in the sand when I got waived off. Phooey. It would have made a good picture, too, if I'd been able to time it right. As it was, this is where we all got to glare at dk as she stood outside of a picture we made a random person off the beach take so we could all be in it. He did give a nice confused look though when mentioned to him that we just wanted it to be taken from a few feet higher off the ground *g*. After that, we stacked some rocks. Mine kept falling down, but I blame it on the rocks themselves, of course. I did get a good one going when I moved over a ways and built directly on top of this... small boulder I guess, not being sure where the cutoff between rock and boulder lies exactly. It was about 2 feet across in any particular direction though, at the least. After we had built these towers up a ways, we stood back and threw rocks at them until we knocked them down. I think Kel, MA and I each got one, which was nice. I seem to have the worst aim while sitting down and lobbing, but I did get mine first when I tried pitching style, which I've always thought I was pretty good at.
Quick question for gathering-goers btw, I'm just curious. Did anyone actually notice me throwing, writing, eating, doing anything left-handed? I thought I saw a few blinks, but nobody said anything. Yes, I am a lefty, and we're still working on our plans of world domination, just be patient.
When we rejoined the group after that, that was when we found dk with a ball of kite string (which when I had last seen it had been neatly coiled) and began tackling that. We spent a good deal longer than most of the other people wanted to I think, but it was our whole car excepting Caly, so Freak Leader could actually have gone sightseeing or taken off ahead. Kel, however, had Caly's keys, so we were content to wait. It was just after the incoming tide wiped out the Freak Out sign that we got one of the two strings out and rewrapped. Btw, Mors, when those pictures go up, just you watch - the rock is right there. It's part of the official history books now. For those who hadn't heard, the rock was taken from the beach. When we got back to Caly's house (after the construction incident) everyone signed it with a thick black marker, and the california-bound car just dropped it off in a not at all secure location in Morsayne's town. I hear it's already been recovered, too. Hope you enjoy it, and if you treat it nice it'll bring you good luck... or something.
Anyway, we began driving back to Astoria, only to find that the road was stopped up. After a good 5-10 minutes, I let myself be convinced to take a walk ahead and find out just exactly what was going on. I didn't know Oregon drivers were that cruel! A lot of people seemed annoyed, until I was coming back and letting them know it was almost time to move that is. Amazing how good news changes stupid ideas into good ones. As I walked back up to the correct car (and yes, there was another purple saturn behind another mobile home, so it wasn't my fault!) I found the door was locked. This started to freak me out for a moment, because I was sure I had the right one this time, but I quickly noticed the now-familiar faces inside, and gestured annoyedly until they let me in. We didn't hold back the traffic too much though. Maybe five additional seconds, tops. What I haven't mentioned yet, is that as we pulled up into this line, the other Freakmobile got impatient. Rather than wait in the line, they decided to take off on highway 26 east , when what we really wanted was the opposite direction. By the time we got back, we were ready to either kill them if they were waiting or laugh when they made it if they weren't. Thankfully, it was the latter, so all went well. I'm sure there was something else that was quite funny that happened on that trip, but the only words I remember are those that came over the comm as they switched on their blinkers (for once) to take the wrong exit.
"Freak One? This is Freak Leader, we're taking off on a little adventure here, care to join us?"
No thanks. Noire and dk (I hate starting sentences with those handles btw, it seems so strange to put the capital in) had volunteered to cook dinner, and it came out really well. Both of them deserve a special commendation for that. More SS, more talking, a little bit more web (not sure when noire actually made that second post, I think it must have been by then) and then it was sleepy time again for everyone. Except I think we actually stayed up till about three that morning before everyone else started dropping off Did I mention yet how I spaced out the first time I got called "Jerry"? It was quite strange to adjust to that, and it took about this long before everyone really, truly started to think of everyone else as the people we had known for so long, I think. I'm still not sure if it would have been better to call everyone by their real names, or by their screen names for this. Both were fun though. Oh yes, this is also the night on which we watched Tombstone, which is an excellent movie. I think I may have to go buy that DVD now. And Jarihn saw that it was a Good Thing, and there was evening and there was morning: the third day.
Friday, ah friday. Our last full day with the nine of us. So sad, but we also had a lot of fun. Again the morning spent lazing, a simple breakfast, and then we turned on Mononoke. It certainly looked to me like about everyone enjoyed it. It's a very beautiful picture, a bit bloody at times but with a lot of feeling. An excellent theme of industry and nature, and the balance thereof, combined with some great action and some eerie imagery. One of my all time favorites, for certain, and another flick to get the DVD of when it's finally released. Most of friday afternoon is lost to me again. I think this is when we tried to make the shirts, but we gave that up entirely when the first attempt turned out invisible.
"Well, on the upside Caly, now you have a nice black t-shirt with this one really stiff spot!"
said I, and that went over pretty well. I think there was a little more gaming done, and we got through even more SS (we almost finished, now I have to find a way to see the end!) Then it was time to spend the evening at the beach. I think we got considerably more time than Caly's estimate, probably closer to a full hour. We had time to get a roaring fire going, roast and eat marshmallows, and stand around and talk for a while. When the police announced that we had ten minutes, the guys kicked over the fire (which was pretty decently sized still, and had some nice coals going - my shoe is still sooty) and we piled back off the beach pretty quickly. I really don't think they could have towed us immediately, because there was nobody nearby to do it, but we decided not to risk it. There was, after all, that helicopter.
We made it back again around 10:30 or so, and that's when Hotseat got taken out. Apparently we went through about 90% of the cards, but Caly skipped about three out of every four to find one that anyone even wanted to hear about. That's a horrible, horrible game. It kept us amused for a while, (though the only memorable quote for me was vel's response to "what kind of donut would the person on your left (Kheltan, in her case) be? The answer? "umm.... one of those really twisted ones.") and then we fell asleep. You know the drill, but tomorrow morning was to be our goodbye. There was evening and there was morning, and we got up early for it was the last day.
We packed. I got permission to bring Mori home. I climbed back behind my spiderwebbed windshield and off we went, trailing the other car (which still somehow managed to take the name Freak Leader) behind us. It was Kel, Mori and I in front, with noire, vel, dk and Kheltan behind. Since we'd left so early, we had a little time to do stuff, but only after we dropped off Kel at the train station. We were on time to the minute (for his half-hour safety bubble, that is), but Freak Leader missed the turn and crossed yet another largish bridge to the other side of portland. After driving around the Rose Quarter (and past the Rose Garden Arena itself) we finally picked up their signal and managed to get them back to the station to join up again, then we left the city. I only picked the wrong road once, on a hesitant decision where the road split into two. If I'd had the time to think about it I would've picked the right one, but oh well. We turned right around and made it, so no harm done. Unfortunately, then I went and did almost the same thing, but this time it was right on a road I knew. We had decided to have lunch at Washington Square (the biggest local mall), and though we didn't get to see much of it, and I failed to warn about Macheesmo Mouse in time (mexican health food - blech) it still went pretty well. People bought a bunch of books, because we got to use Kheltan's employee discount at BD and also benefit from the lack of sales tax, and this is where I picked up SoD. I later realized that I really, really, really should have shown everyone the niftiness that is the Made In Oregon store at least, but oh well.
We took more pictures in the parking lot, and then said our goodbyes. And then there were two. Bags were unpacked at my house, and I'm going to lump Sunday in with Saturday here, because really not much happened. More lazing, gaming and anime, but with only two people it just wasn't as exciting. Still fun, understand, and a few good laughs have been had (especially when we noticed that Kelanin had apparently taken fully half a roll of my stock of sweetarts with him (though I've just talked with him, and he claims no knowledge...), and left his bag of Tim's Cascade Style jalapeño chips, and then again after we'd eaten them and both our throats were burning - the bottom of that bag was vicious).
Which reminds me, of course, of another quote from the past week, one that I don't think has gotten too much credit lately: vel's sickly sweet "I'm not vicious!". Maybe you had to be there.
Break. Monday evening. Nearly Tuesday now. Mori's gone, delivered to his plane, and almost certainly off the ground by now. Now, it's truly over. I've gone and turned on "Epilogue: To Good Friends" because it seemed so very appropriate. Aww... who am I kidding? I need a nap. Anyway, Mori got up around 12, after my windshield was already repaired, and we ate breakfast. From there, we decided to hit the movies, so we went down to the huge-o-plex about 10 minutes from here (it was completely empty, first time I've ever seen it that way) and caught Space Cowboys with all of 6 or so other people. This is another nice movie. As long as you like space and aging icon actors, that is. They all do great though, and made it quite fun. Despite our resolution to find stuff to go and do today, we were left with dead nothing after that. So, back to the anime! He got through Macross Plus (which is an absolutely excellent short OAV with more unbelievably good music by Yoko Kanno), and then we had another good meal, chatted a bit, and made it to his flight. I think I agree with him, once you're down to this few people there's not much you can do. Still, it was some fun. And also, he got to eat of the mighty Tillamook, as it turns out we had some great strawberry ice cream awaiting us at my house.
So here I am. His flight should now be well on its way, and I'm home. By myself. *sigh* I can't wait to do it again now, I feel so alone. Goodbye, goodnight.
Jarihn