The Real Folk Blues
Aug. 9th, 2004 12:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
morrigirlDespite Thursday's down hearted entry my nine days in DC were quite smashing. Thursday was probably the single worst day of the entire week, and should not be taken as an accurate depiction of what the other eight days were like. All in all this trip was far more enjoyable then my previous two. Here's an in depth run down for all interested parties:
Day 1: Arrived at Union Station on time and was met there by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zombie_dog soon after. We had dinner and then went to go see Spiderman 2 which was good, but not as impressive as everyone is saying. Awesome fight scenes between Spidey and Doc Ock, but other then that...well...Hmm, I'll put it this way, Brother Mike told me it was the best super hero movie he'd ever seen because it was about more than the special effects and the fight scenes. I didn't really agree with that assessment. Sure Peter Parker goes through a whole existential crisis: who am I? Who do I want to be? What do I want? What are my obligations? But...every fucking super hero goes through that! I didn't think there was anything particularly impressive about the inclusion or execution of that aspect of the story.
I'm sure we did more that evening, I just can't remember what. We probably sat around and talked. Gabe probably showed me a few video games and interesting websites. Gabe, do you remember what we did after the movie?
Day 2: Saturday was Gabe's brother Jamie's tenth birthday party. The shindig was held at the home of a family friend and not only was it a party but it was a pool party, a little fact no one had bothered to mention, else I would have brought a swim suit with me. Roberta had me try on a couple of her suits before we left the house, but none of them fit. While I would have loved to take a dip I think it was better that I stayed out of the water. I helped the Sandels set things up as best I could, and even after people started arriving Gabe sat and kept me company for a while. Gabe had come down with a really bad cold the day I arrived and within 24 hours he'd managed to pass it on to me. So the two of us lounged about sniffing and snorting in chorus.
When he finally decided to get in the pool I was struck with a sudden productive streak. On my birthday I began writing a story, the first story I've attempted to write in over two years. For about a week I wrote one page a day. I figured the story would be between 10-15 pages long, and was hoping to have it done by the end of June. Well,starstealingirl's visit kinda interrupted my flow, and I didn't write a single word in continuation for the rest of July. But that Saturday whilst everyone frolicked in the chlorine I wrote another page. *claps hands excitedly* I decided to gloss over the portion where I'd been stuck. I can always flesh it out in revision, the most important thing is just getting it all down on paper. Getting it out is the hard part. Once you've laid out the skeleton fleshing it out is effortless. I'm at a part now where I'm gonna need help in order to continue. I need to ask satinalien if she would mind answering a couple dress making questions for me.
In any case the party was nice and everyone seemed to have a good time. I kept to myself but I didn't feel weird about it. After the guests left and all the fun was packed back into the car Gabe and I went out to eat, and then rented Equilibrium, which he'd said I HAD to watch. Again, an okay flick but nothing to die for. It had a few plot holes I found bothersome. I liked the premise but I thought it could have been executed much better. But I was entertained, I was into the story, I wanted to know what would happen next. And Taye Diggs is HOT!!! Just had to throw that in.
This was also the night we started in on our wonderous journey through the world of Cowboy Bebop. As most of you know I'm not a fan of anime. What little I've seen has been fairly lame. Was never able to get into it despite the fact that most of my close friends are hardcore anime fanatics. Well, before venturing down to DC I told Gabe I wanted him to expose me to a few things I wouldn't normally go in for, and anime was one of them. DDR and Fatal Frame were a couple others, but more on that later. So Gabe suggested I watch a few episodes of Cowboy Bebop as an introduction to good anime. That evening we watched the first three sessions. Needless to say I was hooked. Told him then and there that our goal for the week would be to get through the entire series.
Day 3: Gabe took me around downtown Silver Spring. He demonstrated how one plays DDR and I shook my head in wonder knowing I would never possess the coordination required of such a game.
My cold was getting worse. Walking around tired me out pretty quickly so the two of us took a nap when we got back to the house. Gabe's friend Dan showed up at some point and drove us...places. All I remember about that excursion was laying down in the back seat with my head in Gabe's lap, and Gabe telling Dan that the strangely pleasant smell in his car was the scent of my shampoo.
Upon returning to the house the boys sat me down and played a game of Fatal Frame 2 for my benefit. For weeks before hand I'd been engagaing several of my gamer pals in conversation concerning how a video game could possibly be scary? I quit playing video games when I was 13, right before Super NES came out, so I still picture video games in terms of Atari and Nintendo graphics, neither of which were ever scary. (Although I will admit to being a bit startled by Gannon in Legend of Zelda. That dude was harcore.) I honestly can't imagine video games as being scary, but since everyone I know said Fatal Frame made them scream like a little girl I wanted to see for myself what all the hoopla was about. Well...I saw...and I did not scream like a little girl. In fact I was a little bored. Call me old fashined but I don't think video games should contain scenes, or dialogue, or plot twists. Such things slow down the game. Video games should be about action, and playing not following the story. If I wanted a story I'd read a book or go to the movies. So yeah, the game dragged for me, and because of the dragging I didn't find it the least bit scary. There was nothing that surprised or spooked me. Very disappointing though not entirely unexpected.
After Dan left I called Other Mike and solidified the next days plans to meet him at my hotel around noon. After that Gabe and I wwatched three more session of Cowboy Bebop before turning in.
Hmmm....didn't intend on writing a day by day synopsis. This is getting pretty long enit? Not to mention boring. Guess I'll break it up. Give my readers time to regroup before I inflict more meaningless details of my trip upon them.
See you space cowboy.
Day 1: Arrived at Union Station on time and was met there by
zombie_dog soon after. We had dinner and then went to go see Spiderman 2 which was good, but not as impressive as everyone is saying. Awesome fight scenes between Spidey and Doc Ock, but other then that...well...Hmm, I'll put it this way, Brother Mike told me it was the best super hero movie he'd ever seen because it was about more than the special effects and the fight scenes. I didn't really agree with that assessment. Sure Peter Parker goes through a whole existential crisis: who am I? Who do I want to be? What do I want? What are my obligations? But...every fucking super hero goes through that! I didn't think there was anything particularly impressive about the inclusion or execution of that aspect of the story. I'm sure we did more that evening, I just can't remember what. We probably sat around and talked. Gabe probably showed me a few video games and interesting websites. Gabe, do you remember what we did after the movie?
Day 2: Saturday was Gabe's brother Jamie's tenth birthday party. The shindig was held at the home of a family friend and not only was it a party but it was a pool party, a little fact no one had bothered to mention, else I would have brought a swim suit with me. Roberta had me try on a couple of her suits before we left the house, but none of them fit. While I would have loved to take a dip I think it was better that I stayed out of the water. I helped the Sandels set things up as best I could, and even after people started arriving Gabe sat and kept me company for a while. Gabe had come down with a really bad cold the day I arrived and within 24 hours he'd managed to pass it on to me. So the two of us lounged about sniffing and snorting in chorus.
When he finally decided to get in the pool I was struck with a sudden productive streak. On my birthday I began writing a story, the first story I've attempted to write in over two years. For about a week I wrote one page a day. I figured the story would be between 10-15 pages long, and was hoping to have it done by the end of June. Well,
starstealingirl's visit kinda interrupted my flow, and I didn't write a single word in continuation for the rest of July. But that Saturday whilst everyone frolicked in the chlorine I wrote another page. *claps hands excitedly* I decided to gloss over the portion where I'd been stuck. I can always flesh it out in revision, the most important thing is just getting it all down on paper. Getting it out is the hard part. Once you've laid out the skeleton fleshing it out is effortless. I'm at a part now where I'm gonna need help in order to continue. I need to ask satinalien if she would mind answering a couple dress making questions for me. In any case the party was nice and everyone seemed to have a good time. I kept to myself but I didn't feel weird about it. After the guests left and all the fun was packed back into the car Gabe and I went out to eat, and then rented Equilibrium, which he'd said I HAD to watch. Again, an okay flick but nothing to die for. It had a few plot holes I found bothersome. I liked the premise but I thought it could have been executed much better. But I was entertained, I was into the story, I wanted to know what would happen next. And Taye Diggs is HOT!!! Just had to throw that in.
This was also the night we started in on our wonderous journey through the world of Cowboy Bebop. As most of you know I'm not a fan of anime. What little I've seen has been fairly lame. Was never able to get into it despite the fact that most of my close friends are hardcore anime fanatics. Well, before venturing down to DC I told Gabe I wanted him to expose me to a few things I wouldn't normally go in for, and anime was one of them. DDR and Fatal Frame were a couple others, but more on that later. So Gabe suggested I watch a few episodes of Cowboy Bebop as an introduction to good anime. That evening we watched the first three sessions. Needless to say I was hooked. Told him then and there that our goal for the week would be to get through the entire series.
Day 3: Gabe took me around downtown Silver Spring. He demonstrated how one plays DDR and I shook my head in wonder knowing I would never possess the coordination required of such a game.
My cold was getting worse. Walking around tired me out pretty quickly so the two of us took a nap when we got back to the house. Gabe's friend Dan showed up at some point and drove us...places. All I remember about that excursion was laying down in the back seat with my head in Gabe's lap, and Gabe telling Dan that the strangely pleasant smell in his car was the scent of my shampoo.
Upon returning to the house the boys sat me down and played a game of Fatal Frame 2 for my benefit. For weeks before hand I'd been engagaing several of my gamer pals in conversation concerning how a video game could possibly be scary? I quit playing video games when I was 13, right before Super NES came out, so I still picture video games in terms of Atari and Nintendo graphics, neither of which were ever scary. (Although I will admit to being a bit startled by Gannon in Legend of Zelda. That dude was harcore.) I honestly can't imagine video games as being scary, but since everyone I know said Fatal Frame made them scream like a little girl I wanted to see for myself what all the hoopla was about. Well...I saw...and I did not scream like a little girl. In fact I was a little bored. Call me old fashined but I don't think video games should contain scenes, or dialogue, or plot twists. Such things slow down the game. Video games should be about action, and playing not following the story. If I wanted a story I'd read a book or go to the movies. So yeah, the game dragged for me, and because of the dragging I didn't find it the least bit scary. There was nothing that surprised or spooked me. Very disappointing though not entirely unexpected.
After Dan left I called Other Mike and solidified the next days plans to meet him at my hotel around noon. After that Gabe and I wwatched three more session of Cowboy Bebop before turning in.
Hmmm....didn't intend on writing a day by day synopsis. This is getting pretty long enit? Not to mention boring. Guess I'll break it up. Give my readers time to regroup before I inflict more meaningless details of my trip upon them.
See you space cowboy.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-08-09 12:39 am (UTC)What's Equilibrium about, I dont know if I've ever heard of that movie
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Date: 2004-08-09 03:38 pm (UTC)by the way, love the new icon.