I'm going to be short... the school computers are glitchy so it's taken me 20 minutes just for it to load woohu and to load my new color scheme on my journal. I'm happy its a 4-day week. Anyone going to the game at Hesperia? If nobody is going I have a date... With Soul Calibur II... Hey, it's better than sitting at home staring at the ceiling.

Linguine & Clam Sauce, Band Competitions, Sailing
Well we got second at the band competition yesterday. Not a big deal. The score was the problem. a 55.05 or something like that. That's bull. Two judges scored us significantly lower then what Mr. Gillette and anyone else in that stadium thought we deserved. One was a judge that scored us abnormally low last year; Gillette wrote him up and if this time we figure out he DID lower our score unfairly it will cost him is job (Nick and several other guys are also contemplating finding his house and...well I won't talk anymore... :-) )

We went to Topos after we unloaded... kinda sucks because I didn't find out everyone went to like El Camino or whereever and instead of going with them I was there with all my Parents, David's, and Dan's parents... but the Linguine with Clam Sauce made up for it

Soul Calibu II Character Tests: (Fun, but I'm such a dork)

You are Maxi -

Think you're the shit? You're Maxi.
This nunchuk-wielding Elvis look-a-like kicks ass and knows it.
You LOVE to leave your opponents in the dust, and for you, the smell of victory is right up there
with the other essentials such as food and water. This competitive nature and cockiness may turn
other people off though, but you know what? You probably don't care!

Which Soul Calibur character are you?


this quiz was made by david park

You are Voldo -

OK...Voldo's just retarded, but he also happens to be the funniest damn video game character EVER!
Your unconventional humor and love for the retarded makes you the perfect Voldo.
Unexplained behavior, interesting clothing, and a wicked sense of humor is what makes you the life
of any party! In the game, Voldo happens to be blind, deaf, and mute. Through your eagerness to
make people laugh, you may hurt people a long the way due to lack of senses. Be careful not to
bash on other wierdos, and you'll be everybody's favorite character.

Which Soul Calibur character are you?


this quiz was made by david park

Why are girls so damn...
well, I've had a run-in with a girl who has liked me for a few years, and i told her the best I could that I really didn't know what i wanted right now... I didn't know if I wanted a girlfriend or any relationship or anything... I've been that way for the last month. So now, I'm the bad guy, She plasters everywhere that she likes (even loves me) and now because I didn't want to pursue a relationship with her I'm the bad guy.


This is typical.


But it still sucks.





May I close with U2:


"Love is a temple, love a higher love"

"Is there a time for keeping your head down, a time to turn your eyes away?"

"I can't live with or without you"


And the one that really touches the moment:

"No I still haven't found what I'm looking for"

SSDD
Shocking Revelations.

People controlling my life.

Annoying "friends-of-friends" named Brandon (not Meier. He's cool).

Cappucino.

Funny Silent Films.

These are some of the elements of my weekend.

I got a new, cheap as all getout MP3 CD player the other day. I haven't opened it... I need to burn an MP3 CD I'll listen to (The two I made previous were bad attempts at making them... they were just scattered songs and weren't organized well) and then test it out. It was 30 dollars on clearance at Best Buy. This will make my life simple... my last one did (I broke it at about the time I got enough albums burned onto my computer to make a real MP3 CD) but then I broke it of course... a bad case of butterfingers on the hardwood floor.

I am continuing to feel out of the loop about many things. The ever fluctuating relationships my friends have drastically change and I don't find out till a few days later, I haven't been informed about my sectional being cancelled (again)... this time a weak link in the messenger system caused it. (Joyce... undependable) Other things at home I haven't been told about either. It's just like I'm unattached from the world sometimes.

Hmm...
Well Band didn't do as well as everyone hoped, but its what I half expected.

I'm getting over a killer migraine that i had from last night till about noon today. I'mve been lazing around all day with my Grandparents watching football.


A thing to note: in the announcements for the sick said not Ed Hodges today, but Nikki... something's wrong...

Meet Joe.








Joe is a nice guy.













Joe is NOT a convicted felon.














Watch "Joe 'Not-a-rapist' " Wednesday Nights on FOX.






Hahaha.. I just remembered that SNL commercial from last season... Funny stuff.



Right now Yearbook is fun. That's an overstatement. Me and Andre (I love my grammar) are "working" on a presentation on how to sell an add... In reality I'm watching Andre pretend to talk into his headphones while I ponder his slow and painful death. (Not really he just started watching me at about "I'm Watching" so I had to type in something funny)

I'm at a weird point for homework/projects. I've got little homework lately, but I've got two projects hanging over my head where every day I have to go in and ask the teachers questions. And the FST project isn't due until a week, and I'm only halfway motivated to get it done by the extra credit day, which is tomorrow. My spreadsheets for that got really messed up so it took me 1.5 hours to do one of three graphs (if u know excel once you have the data in the spreadsheet it's like 5 clicks and you've got a graph) Soooo that was a lot more trouble then it should be...soo anyway I gotta work.

*sigh*
It's been a long half day of school. I really didn't get home until 2:30ish, so it wasn't much of a half day. School done at 12, then sister had NHS until 1, and then we needed to go get all Mildew-attracting things out of our boat, considering since my dad isn't going to be home for another 2 weeks and we haven't been on it for 2 weeks. Inside that boat when it's all closed up it turns into a tropical Rainforest climate, and mildew/mold is very common.

We have band tonight... it's not going to be fun, but I don't mind Wednesday nights too much.. just the fact 6-9 is primo homework time and it is being used for something everyone of us in band is in a love-while-hating/hate relationship with: Marching Band. 'Why don't you quit?' you ask? You know, every one of us in band is trying to figure out the exact same question: Why the hell DON'T we all quit?

Christmas dance talks were started on Sunday at Simmer's party, and it's wayyyy too early to talk about that stuff. It's three months away! Leah said that her mother would pay for her dress if she had a date, and if not, then she had to pay by herself, so I spoke up when we were sitting there and said I would take her if she wanted to. (btw Lauren, Leah's my friend, and I'd appreciate you not broadcasting your thoughts on that to our whole FST class again... or any class for that matter. It's just rude, that's all.)


I'm kinda bored right now. But band's soon... we have pics today... so we gotta leave soon. I'm out.

AND THE SOUL CALIBUR II GRAND MASTER IS... Melanie?!?!?!
I finally got to experience the full version of Soul Calibur II and I have to say, it is rather amazing! Greg, Mark, Michael and I (+ Melanie) tried it out Saturday night for a few hours, and we laughed, we cried, we threw shoes at each other, and Melanie somehow beat all of us, including Greg, the almighty gaming recluse who lives in his basement outside of school, perfecting his skills so he can kick the rest of our asses.

For those who don't know, Soul Calibur II is a 3-D fighting game for all 3 major consoles (+ arcade) that is definitely the most anticipated release of the year. Unlike more popular names like Street Fighter, Tekken, and Mortal Combat, this is weapons-based (ex. swords, not karate chops), doesn't include quite the ethnic stereotypes, and doesn't involve ripping out people's spines. The controls are easy to pick up, but get incredibly complex if you want to become an really good fighter. This is definitely not JUST a button masher... This can become the thinking man's fighting game.

I found the combat to alternate a lot between too fast and too slow. Even the characters that were known to be fast-attacking could be hit by slow, hulking ones before they made contact. Maybe it was my choice in attacks; some of them are very showy and take a while to hit.

I quickly developed three favorites, one a fast character, one a strong, slow one, and one that's just... well, let's be nice... unique.
The roster Greg had unlocked was around 20 characters, and I quickly developed a thing for using Talim, the Tonfa/Elbow Blade weilding girl from India, because of her speed and agility (plus in her normal stance she auto-evades... good for someone who can't time using their sheild correctly like me). I also used Nightmare, a possessed, heavily armored knight. He was rather slow... and finally I used Voldo, an undulating, snakelike guy with my weapon of choice: katars. I use him for the freakout factor... Even Greg did poorly fighting him because many moves involved Voldo wrapping around Greg's guy or using his Katars between the legs...


Now for Melanie. Using Michael's button mashing "use only 2 buttons and one move only" strategy, which was thoroughly annoying to me, she somehow beat everyone constantly. I think her controller was bewitched. But she's always use this one character who's grab/counter move was to spread her legs, put them (and all that's in between) right on her opponent's head, andpsh them face first into the ground. Slutty, skanky... disgusting... but hey, it worked!!!



Final Verdict: Easy to piuck up, but not against people with cheap strategies, beginner's luck or no social life. Frustrating to master, fun to play, incredibly deep combat. 9.0/10 (5 being average)

Reoccurring Dream Theme
I occasionally have a dream where I'm in this gigantic shopping mall at night (midnight? It's really dark outside). This mall is huge: i remember looking at the mall map in my dream and there were like thousands of shops, and the mall is like 6 miles long. If you go outside the totally desolated parking lots, with lights every 6-7 rows of yellow spaces, the lots go out about 100 yards and run the whole length of the mall. There are all sorts of stores; sporting goods, voodoo, Museum Company, Spencers, even a Sears, but it's bizzaire... When I go into the mall (that's always how the dream starts) I'm with family or friends, and it's daylight outside. As soon as we get inside it goes pitch black out. We split up and go shopping/buying stuff, like you would normally do. There's one store that's closed, but the lights are on and employees are in there, and they have a rock band in the window playing (don't remember what their name was). At various times I go outside and look at the parking lot, still totally desolated. Then we do some more shopping, and we leave out one of the doors, and they lock up behind us. We leave the mall not in a car, but we just start walking the length of the parking lot, and dissappear into the dark.


Not a very crazy dream, not too much is out of the ordinary, but the wierd thing is it's a recurring dream. I distinctly remember having it monday night and last night, but I've had it like 6 times this month. Hmmm...


Any interpretations?

I am really bored right now in yearbook so I'm going to just type something here to kill time. Isn't this fun?

Ray r00ls at magik
Ray (Matts Brother) performs at Branns every Sunday and Thursday(?) night doing magic tricks. We went there tonight without remembering he was doing it tonight and it was kinda fun.

Fuck Band
I'm really pissed off at Mr. Gillette and all of Band right now. First off, practices on wednesdays are a hassle, though they are only once a week and only 3 hours, it's still a lot (6-9 is primo homework time for everyone).

Second, certain people are making it very difficult to do sets correctly, and others are telling me to do things that are stupid and not right (no really not just attitude.) Ex. people (not directors) are yelling at me for not guiding to the line in a set, but at the time, going from the previous form to this one, I am the only one moving back to meet up with the line as the rest line moves forward to a central location between their last place and mine

Third, I wasn't even told of a sectional we had wednesday night. Gillette called it the day before, a day whe I was at Yearbook. He didn't send me a message, didn't tell others to tell me about it, and even the people in my section either forgot or didn't bother to tell me. So I learned about it from Matt (A TUBA. Not in the woodwinds. ) the day of, during 1st hour. Then in Band wednesday I checked. Not posted on the board. 4 things wrong with that:

1. I should've been notified.
2. Calling a sectional the day before and expecting everyone to be there is heinous, even if it is the hour before band practice. People are busy. I barely made it there on time anyways
3. It should've not been Matt telling me. Gillette should have, if not him then Jennifer the section leader, then others in my section.
4. It should've been posted on the board in the band room

At the sectional I got pissed about it, everyone said "you didn't hear it in class, too bad" And my response to them was "Well, too bad I wasn't in class, and Gillette should've known that. It's in my official class schedule." (Oh, by the way, Mr. Gillette I believe should probably been there, and wasn't, seeing is you need an adult/teacher around at any school related event after hours) So I sat inside for 25 minutes of the sectional as protest, my reason being "I'll come out when I want. If I hadn't found out from Matt, I would never have known about it, so having me at the sectional for part of the time is better then me at none of the sectional. If it weren't for Matt, I would've been there at 6 like everyone else." Some of the woodwinds understood me. I'm not sure about Jennifer.

At 6:25 I went outside after blowing off some steam with Matt, Megan, etc. Aroung 6:30 Jennifer made us all go to attention and she told us something like "You all need to come out to sectionals on time. I don't have to be here, so if we're here on time we'll need to call less sectionals." Along with that 2nd sentence making little sense (She's the section leader of course she has to be there) I don't know if that was directed to me or not. Everyone was a few minutes late soo... Well whatever.

So, today (Thurs) I missed recording the show with the full band. No big deal really it seems, but still, Mr. Gillette originally tried to do it Friday but golf was gone so no Dan or Troy would be present, and they're vital. I never heard him formally say "Okay we'll record on Thursday." It slipped my mind that we might change it to Thursday because I never heard that announced. Anyways, Thursday is my Yearbook day. I can't just go to band or Mrs. Miller won't know where I was, and that could turn into problems. People asked me pointed questions why I wasn't there today, but that's not bad. I don't care as much about recording today, cuz I could care little.


THis whole Band/Yearbook thing... It's just a pain in the ass. I'm ready to march up to Wiewora and quit one of the two. I'd rather quit band, but quite possibly it will end up being Yearbook if I'm serious about this, because band "needs me in the forms"...


There's a quiz in Yearbook tomorrow, which I didn't learn the info yesterday and will not take tomorrow. Damn.

But seriously, either way, one has to go. I'm missing too much in both of them.