The Train Job

20 September 2002, a Friday. 2002's landscape was one of hope. War was raging, but the economy was recovering. And TV offered grim doses of reality, but also great escapism.

I went home on weekends in those days from UH. We met Mal and the other Big Damn Heroes for the first time that night. I wasn't sure what to make of the promos. These 30 second spots had humor and spaceships which sold me. Yet, it was a western. What was I to make of this? (In retrospect, that's what the casual viewer would have said if they channel surfed onto it.)

The episode did an adequate job of introducing these highly interesting characters. It was unlike just about everything else on TV, yet was somehow familiar. I was enjoying the episode and thought it was better than most other things I could have watched during that awful time slot anyway. What cemented the show as something truly special was near the end, when Mal pushes Crow into his engine. Who would do such a thing? Only a Big Damn Hero.

It went on only a few other episodes but the show was something special, something to emulate, something to ... have faith in ... so to speak.

Leap of Faith

I may have mentioned that I played WoW, awhile, back in the day. In those days, I was as a god. Being a Shaman, it was only right and natural. Having the power to control the elements was an important aspect of playing the class. This sometimes manifested in interesting game mechanics.

To set the stage, the level cap was 60 and epic land mounts were the epitome of speed. At this particular time, I had been promoted to a Lieutenant General, so I had access to a special Black War mount, of which, I had the awesomest of the all: the Raptor. The cost of this mount in the game's currency wasn't all that much, considering. I had to invest time into PVP, in which I excelled as the overpowered class. Brandon, on the otherhand, got his epic mount the regular way which entailed 1000 gold, a hefty sum, indeed. Through begging, borrowing, and stealing (he actually did none of those things) he broke the 1000 gold threshold.

He was a Tauren, a minotaur-esque race, whose hometown was a series of cliffs known as Thunder Bluff. If you took a misstep, you could fall off. This often ended in pain, time wasted, and a slight case of death. In game terms, you'd have to go back to your corpse and pay a fee to fix your armor.

That being said, when Brandon finally got his mount, we went running around the town. At one point, I said, "Hey, look at this." I proceeded to take a running leap off the cliff. Brandon noticed I hadn't died. He figured that it was a side effect of the new mount. So, he starts thundering down and off he leaps... and promptly falls to his death. Baffled, he started the run back to his corpse and wondering what happened to me.

I, on the other hand, was still safe and sound, hovering a couple feet off the ground. Back in thsoe days, Shaman had a totem that had a "feature" that would stop a Shaman in his tracks, be it running, or falling in his death. While only situationally useful, this was later removed as it was considered a glitch.

But hey, I at least got to use it to screw over Brandon, so ... worth it! I also got to act out one of my most favorite jokes. Surely, you've heard it by now, neh?

When It Says Solo, Learn to Play It

When I did Joseph at Prendie for St. Andrews Parish I had another memorable memory.

The director was an excellent choral director. As far as the singing went, he put a lot of work into making sure making sure that the cast and all did their part. As far as the pit went ... well, there was me on clarinet, Justin also on clarinet who was a guy a year ahead of me who looked so much like Doug that that became his name, Jenny, the girl I liked on flute, and Gillian, a tall and quirky girl also on flute. And we had two percussionists. Oh, and the director on piano. So music-wise, it's a very limited ensemble.

I was lead reed (ladies and gentlemen, the world's tallest midget!). As such, I had to play most of the cue notes since there wasn't really anyone else. Thankfully, the director was more or less prepared to do the show entirely with just the piano accompaniment.

That is except for "Those Canaan Days" whereupon I decided not to learn the cue notes meant for an accordion. Part of that reasoning includes laziness but it also involved me assuming the director was going to play it himself.

Imagine my surprise opening night, when some classmates of mine who attended St. Andrews Elementary, walk up to me and say good job and all and that's when director starts chewing me out. Well, he wanted those cue notes covered too. They were a solo after all.

Every performance thereafter I played it, fairly well too, I might add.

Crazy for You

1999. 1999 was an odd time. People were partying all the time, like in that Eddie Murphy song.

Zoom, zoom, the world is in a mess. I was in stage crew for Archbishop Prendergast's winter show. It was an extraordinarily well done show, as per usual, don't get me wrong. And while Crazy for You isn't an awful show, I don't like Gershwin. And being part of stage crew, I got to hear a whole lot of it, over and over again. From rehearsals to closing night, always with slapping of that bass. Actually, wait, I did actually like that song. Okay, so that song apart, oh and that other ... well, okay, it wasn't a bad a show. It was a good show ... I just heard too much of it to enjoy it.

I worked stage right. I had one important scene change during the show. During a musical number, I had to move a heavy bar with the stage manager while the star of the show was in his spotlight. We had to move that bar almost next to him, but I had the side closest to the stage and not next to the actor. One night, we were off. It wasn't my fault (or at least just my fault), but the stage manager managed to get herself caught in the spotlight. All in all, though, it wasn't the end of the world. It was, however, fairly memorable.

My friend Rita worked stage crew for that show too. She worked stage left. During intermission we'd meet up and chat and that was cool.

On closing night, final performance, everyone got their accolades on closing night. For stage crew, that meant getting their own curtain call. During the appropriate time, Rita and I went out. We held a pose together while the audience of 1000+ applauded us (and everyone else on the stage like the principles and the dancers).

And that was the last time I was on stage.

The Spirit of Houston Cougar Marching Band: Iron Stomach

A common occurrence after a grueling ordeal that was a football game was catching something to eat. Since we wouldn't be free from a game sometimes until after midnight, that left few options.

Thankfully, there were 24 hour diners. One night, I went with Candi and Robby to IHOP. Of course, you can't really get anything healthy at that kind of place. You could also not tempt fate like Robby did.

Robby ordered the t-bone steak and eggs breakfast/dinner. He ordered the steak rare and the three eggs sunny-side up. The waitress asked him if he was sure and he responded in the affirmative.

The food came and the same waitress asked if the steak was done well enough and insisted that he send it back. He relented. When it came back, it was still rare, but Robby thought it was overdone.

There are times I wonder how we lived through college.

Nayellynapping

My wife and I have had pretty different life experiences growing up. In 2006, we had a salient example of this one night.

We had gone out one night and my wife got a call from her folks, asking her to take Nayelly, my wife's 6 year old cousin, to Nayelly's mother's work, whereupon Nayelly's mom would take her daughter home.

This was a bit odd for me, since it was past midnight when we had to do this exchange. At the designated time, we went to Judith's parents' place. And there in the living room were three girls. My wife said, "Okay, let's get Nayelly to the car." It was dark and I hadn't exactly met Nayelly before. I wasn't sure which of the three girls was which. And they were asleep, so I couldn't say, "Okay, Nayelly, time to go." So I asked my wife at least three times if the indicated child was Nayelly. Each time she was yes. So, I picked her up and walked to the car.

I should point out that Nayelly hadn't exactly met me before this point either. Thankfully, she didn't fully wake up before we got to the car. She awoke briefly and saw my Judith and proceeded to conk out in the backseat.

We arrived and delivered Nayelly to her mom. Still, I had never done something like before. It was weird, for me. Then it stopped being weird.

Names 4

In a club of people all with at least one sobriquet, it would be odd that the president didn't have one, wouldn't it?

Santos is an odd duck. Whether by design or happenstance, my brief acquaintanceship with him left me with a colorful bevy of memories and secondhand stories. However, this memory is about his name.

We went to a Gulf Coast Fencing Tournament. The club stayed in a town called Mathis. Mathis, Texas, has a population of around 5000. Mathis was the hometown of Santos, so we stayed at his folks' house the night before the tournament.

We only met 3 men, as in were introduced to, in our stay there. All three of them were named Santos, as they were Santos's grandfather, his father, and himself.

Imagine our surprise when Santos's mother called out, "Joelle," and Santos responded. The man who had changed a guy's name (the guy's longtime girlfriend still calls him by the new name) yet never got called anything other than his name ... well we still didn't have a nickname to call him, Joelle is his middle name.

Santos, like myself, is El Salvadorian. A common practice amongst El Salvadorians, as amongst Ancient Romans, is to not go by your first name. (Julius Caesar, one of the greatest men that ever lived was actually Gaius Julius Caesar. Gaius was his given name, he was of the house Julii, and he was called Caesar.) My father is René Mauricio. For family and friends, he is Mauricio. For coworkers, he is René.


What's in a name? To some people it holds cosmic significance. Some people believe one must live up to your name if it was written in a book two millennia ago. Some people believe that names are punishments you can inflict on your offspring just because you can. My name is literally "Reborn." I'm not sure about all of that. My pseudonym, the name I chose for me, is nonsensical, but it's mine. My default name for a crazy character is also nonsensical, but again, it's mine. I even have a song for her.

You can imagine how difficult it was to agree on what to name a person of our own.

Names 3

Shortly after I got my strip name the others in my class got theirs. This is the story of one such strip name.

I cannot remember his actual name but this is how he got the only name I remember him by.

We started fencing practice in the athletic club office. One day, the fencer came in asking a somewhat odd line of questions.

"Hey," he said, "does anyone use eBay?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Okay. I won an auction the other day and I didn't mean to. I got outbid and I didn't want to pay more than I had wanted to for something, so I started bidding to jack up the price so that the other guy would have to pay more. But, it turns out I ended up winning. So I didn't pay and they suspended my account. I was wondering how long it would be suspended."

"Well, what did they say when they suspended it?"

"They said they would suspend it indefinitely. How long do you think it would be before I can use it again?"

"Well, indefinitely."

"So, like after a day or so?"

"No, they said indefinitely."

"Oh, so like two days?"

"No, they said indefinitely. That means until they decide to reinstate it."

"Like a week or two, then?"

"..." At this point Carlos pointedly says, "Your name is eBay now."

And thus, eBay stuck. I wonder if he can use his account now.

Names 2

Fencers are a very odd sub-culture. One of the best things about it was the strip names.

I was told of the long standing tradition by Robby, whose name was Red (or Robot at one point). Santos, our club president in 2003 once ascribed a completely new name to a fencer, because the club already had too many people named Matt.

Carlos was my beginner's class instructor. During the second week, he gave me my strip name: the Discus Thrower.

We start practice with stretches. During one stretch I apparently assumed the position of an olde timey discus thrower.

I liked it. However, the following practice, Carlos changed my name. He said, "The Discus Thrower is too long. You are now The Olympian."

Booyah. Yup. That's a sobriquet I should use more often.

Names

Of my four names, I got to pick one.

I did chose my pseudonym, though. It was 1998, and shortly after I saw Saving Private Ryan in the fancy theater in Delaware, and I was playing WWF Warzone with my friends. We created wrestlers so we could fight each other without having to fight each other.

My wrestler was a fearsome sight: a clown. He was a bit of a badass clown, but still the most fear-inspiring monster on earth.

His first name was easy: Willem. His stage name? "Clown Fixer." The last name? Ah, there was the rub. I went with Nomandy, like the town, but no. Nomandy. I really liked the ring to it. It was also easy to get to Nomad from there. I was on to something.

Thus the first part of my pseudonym was in place.

Santo's easier. Santo was my brother's nickname, since everyone liked him and he was a saint.

I still sign my compositions with Nomandy Santo.

My strip name was awesome. Maybe I should start going by that more often.

Doom 2

It was, of all things, a First Person Shooter that started me on a path of programming. This would be bolstered, of all things. by a Real Time Strategy game, some time later.

Around 1998, there was a computer and software show that stopped at our local mall. We had gone by chance to the mall and found the vendors there. They were lined up in front of the stores. Applications, programs, graphics, designs, etc, amongst other things, were available for sale on floppy diskette or compact disc.

I remember buying three things in particular: a disk with DOOM stuff and two CDs of DOOM II stuff.

One of the CDs had an editing program for DOOM II, with which many mods on the disc were made. The mods varied greatly in quality, but brought a lot of options for playing Doom II again and again.

Using the editor, I decided to make my own changes. I wanted no reload speeds and for all weapons to be fully automatic. This took a little tinkering and I found out that to do so, I just needed to skip frames in the animations. Easy enough. Of course, I found out that if you skip the wrong frames in the animations, you hard lock your computer. A lot.

I recall that one thing I was proud of was that I got the rocket launcher to shoot out the enemy type Lost Souls who burst into evil fire for massive amounts of damage.

Thus the first steps were taken.

The Nightmare of Sleep

Falling asleep during hurricanes has its perks. Thus far, I've not fallen asleep driving, unlike Brandon, and haven't fallen asleep while eating at a dinner table, with his eyes open, like Lehman did one time.

However, in December of 2002, I did something pretty stupid.

I was studying for my Cal I final. The exam started at 1p. I stayed up cramming, trying to get derivatives straight and all of its related properties. I set my alarm for 12:30p. I lived on campus so I was only about 10 minutes from the classroom.

At some point I fell asleep in the morning at my desk. I woke up at 2:30p. The alarm had been sounding for 2 hours continuously, but it had no effect. I'm not sure what actually woke me up. My roommate wasn't around and no one was by my door.

When I realized the time, I grabbed a pen and started jogging to the classroom. I arrived, sweaty and out-of-breath and pleaded for a chance to take it. My professor seemed to consider it. He finally then handed me an exam. I did decently enough, at least.

Next time, more alarm clocks.

The Joy of Sleep

While I've mentioned insomnia before, I occasionally have the opposite condition. This is handy for some reasons and not so handy on others.

This brief memory is a handy occasion.

September 2008, the Dread Hurricane Ike struck. It made Texas its mare for awhile. We originally didn't plan to evacuate when the storm was downgraded in its predictions to hit as a category 2. We ended up evacuating in the end, up to Houston, to stay with my brother. My sister-in-law's family did the same thing. So, we were sitting cozy, 3 cats, 1 dog, 8 people in a Houston townhouse.


My brother and I theorized as we watched TV and movies and drank gin. I hadn't slept the night before the evac, as I had been eying the storm details up until the last possible minute.

We were anxious. We didn't really know how bad it was going to be and how our house would look afterward, let alone the affected areas of the state.

Then, the storm hit. First the power went. We were staying in the upstairs guest room that faced the other buildings. A branch came through the window with furious anger and broke it. This and the horrible howl of the wind made everyone rush to the room to observe nature in its fury.

Or so I'm told. I was asleep through all of this. I awoke, uncomfortable, to find that the storm that was billed as one of the worst in human history didn't overly affect my immediate surroundings. We took a drive to see what there was left to see in the city of Houston.

It was bad. We heard radio reports of how awful the storm was and how much damage was estimated.

Apparently, I was one of the few to sleep the night the storm hit. For that, I'm thankful.

Movie Bet

2002, Sentell and I were enjoying my lunch one day in high school. We were talking about movies, which was appropriate in preparation for our 5th period class: Analysis of Visual Media (read: Film History).

Lunch discussion has topics ranging from things like me saying, "Hey, give me back my food," to things like Sentell, "The Bible is pro-Satan," with requisite faulty reasoning, to things like bad movies. We were talking about Mortal Kombat: The Movie. That led invariably to discussion of Mortal Kombat: The Unnecessary Sequel.

What it boiled down to was that he thought Christopher Lambert was in both movies as Raiden. I knew this was not the case. He was sure of his side, I sure of mine. So, we made a bet. I think the bet was for all the loose change we managed to scrounge up: $0.79.

We walked purposefully into 5th period and asked the teacher, "Was Christopher Lambert in both Mortal Kombat movies?" He thought about it and answered in the negative. Sentell handed over the change and said, "Huh. I thought he was."

That pretty much set the tone for other stupid bets to make: all for silly things and all for trivial amounts of money.

The Lehman APC

I didn't start driving until I was 18. I don't typically like driving; when someone else could do it then it's for the best. At times, I'm not the safest driver. Other times, I intentionally make mistakes to make my passengers think I'm not a safe driver.

Anyway, in high school, in order to do stuff, we needed a driver to get to places. In my sphere, we had two drivers: Hai, twin brother of my then best friend, and Lehman, an overall good egg. Hai drove the Twinmobile. Lehman, however, manned the APC.

Lehman was not the safest driver, either. I've personally been involved in 3 motor vehicle incidents with him at the wheel.

Lehman, when he could drive, would always seem willing to do so. This was handy when we needed a lift to the pool hall or to the movies. Lehman would get us places and we'd have a good time doing things friends do.

Lehman would drive us in an old Chevy Astro van. This van was a formidable opponent. It was a bit run down, but we were interested in a vehicle that'd get us to the place in two or fewer pieces. That's not to say that the Chevy Astro van was a deathtrap. When there was vehicular damage, its occupants would emerge unscathed. The same could not be said of the van. But it held together. Thus it earned the moniker of the Armored Personnel Carrier.

It was a mighty fine APC. It survived its many missions with limited casualities. It earned the Silver Star of Santo and the Distinguished Vehicle Wrench. It was eventually decomissioned and while efforts were made to preserve it as a museum, these plans were not realized. Its memory, like that of the USS Enterprise (WWII), is better honored without reducing the great vessel into an empty shell.

The APC lives on, as part of all of us... and part of that trailer it embedded itself into that one night.

A Place to Sit

To beat a dead horse: eating is a social experience. This was a conundrum when I didn't know anyone my first day of school in Texas.

2000. Lunch time came around and I shuffled into the cafeteria. Since I started after the beginning of school, I missed my chance to carve out my niche. Sure, I was the new guy, but I was at least an upperclassman.

I was trying to find a vacant spot when some band people I vaguely recognized called me over and asked me if I needed a place to sit. Well, I did. For that trimester, I always had a table from that point on.

It was a pretty good arrangement too. I always brought a lunch, so I was able to hold the table and secure chairs for the overcrowded eatery. In turn, I didn't eat alone.

Simpler times.

Ceiling

There are a great many differences between Texas and Pennsylvania. Today, I'll focus on just one aspect.

2000.

Texas is far away from Pennsylvania, geographically and architecturally. This is to be expected, but then again, it's a different matter when you're used to one and then here's the other.

I was walking through the Baybrook Mall. Malls are generally the same, pretty much everywhere, I'd imagine. The remarkable thing to me was the size of it. Not the building, per se, but it was the ceilings that got me. The ceiling was as tall as the large two story mall's back at Pennsylvania.

It made sense. Hot air rises. Texas is 13.7 times hotter than human life can be sustained (in August). It's simple math, really.

The grandeur of tall ceilings when I first moved here gradually was replaced by familarness and even expectation.

I decided then and there that I would like to rekindle that grandeur in my summer palace, should I ever build one. Its walls would blot out the sun for surrounding towns for my one story palace.

Cowboy Bebop

Cowboy Bebop was an awesome show. It lasted only one season because that's where the story ended. The story followed Spike Speigel, his bounty hunter partner Jet Black, a hired hand Faye Valentine, and a kid named Ed, oh and a superdog named Ein. Spike left a crime syndicate by faking his death. He had hoped to leave with his love, Julia, his former crime syndicate associate's girlfriend.

Dense, neh? Every session was named after some song or musical concept. I started watching it in 2001. Cartoon Network would show Cowboy Bebop part of its Adult Swim lineup.

Anime is not usually my thing, but this show resonated to me. In the first movie my friends and I made we even had a scene that was in there solely as a homage to the show.

Looking back, I'm glad to have only gone as far as I have into anime. And I'm glad I didn't get that far into it. Spike and Julia, my cats, agree.

A Cat Always Lands Precisely Where He Means To

In the olden days, in our house in Folcroft, we had a very formal living room. The living room had fanciful furniture and our entertainment center. We had the sofa facing the entertainment center with the love seat 90 degrees to next to it. Across from the sofa was a single chair with a footrest.

One day, a year during which I was still in grade school, we were watching TV together. Our cat Skinny was with us as well. He wanted to jump onto the footstool and have a seat to join the family. So, he went through the normal motions. He tensed up, shook his tail in preparation, and then made the leap. The leap took him soaring into the air and right past the footstool. We saw him and we laughed.

Cats have a very large sense of ego. Cats were once worshiped as gods, after all. Suffice it to say, cats don't like to be laughed at. Skinny looked up at us. He then began to stretch out, as if to say, "I meant to do that, dammit." He then walked up the stairs to leave us mere mortals below him.

The Water's Gonna Rise

Sentell and I had known each other for awhile before we actually became friends. He and I were pretty much that guy over there to each other for awhile for junior year. Actually, he was that guy who was bleeding from his face after his car accident to me, during junior year.

2001.

Sentell and I were both in Music Theory in our senior year. Music Theory at this level consisted of a lot of things we already knew since we'd been in band so long and some things that were kinda neat. It also gave us a chance to hang out with our band friends for a class period a day under the guise of learning. The assistant band director taught the class and it was a lot more laid back than a standard band practice. He used a lot of candid life examples to stress points in this setting.

That being said, we also had more time to chat. One day, during a horrible rain storm, with flooding as we are prone to, we were comparing stories. Jakubis went into a long example of how his car got flooded in the last great flood. He drew diagrams and all.

Sentell turned to me afterward and said, "As I was floating down 517 this morning, I thought to myself ..." I cannot remember what he said after, but he had started saying it when I realized what he said to start his story.

Factors Part 2

I've said before that my Algebra II class was just a less difficult, slower paced version of my Algebra class, with a less excellent teacher.

Third trimester, 2001.

When we got to factoring, I barely suppressed a chuckle at having to go over this yet again. When the work came, I easily blew passed it, leaving everyone far behind. This was good since this lead to me having free time during class as the rest of the lot struggled. After a little while, the brighter ones picked up on how to do it easily. I was happy for them, really. This meant that I had people to play cards with. The correlation between mathematical ability and being in band held up, as my new found card buddies were mostly band members as well.

I was in the middle of proving my utter dominance in 13, when I was approached by a classmate, asking me for help on how to factor. Helping someone is a mixed bag, for me. One, I like that people ask me for help because that means they need my help. Two, it means that I need to stop what I'm doing and help them.

I looked over the girl in question. She had dyed blond hair, was very fit, and attractive. She knew it, too. I made up my mind of how to respond when I looked at her paper, mentally solved the problem she had been working on, compared the answer to her work, and found it to be a better use of my time to return to my card game.

They say that first impression is what sticks with people. They're wrong. I didn't give the girl another thought and when I finally did, it wasn't that impression I went back to. Sure, I used it to write her off, and she the same for me, I'm sure. But things change.

Things change. I never taught her how to factor. She later claimed that she still didn't quite get how to factor because I never taught her. I doubt that's true, but still....

Looking back on it, I still wouldn't have helped her, to have it to do over again. That way she would still be that girl in my dumb Algebra class that I didn't talk to. She would still give me another shot to make get to know her. She would still be the one that gave me a ride home now and again. She would still ask me if I shaved my hands. She'd still make me feel horrible about relationships for a long time to come that way.

If I did help her, I can't help but feel that all that would have happened but only worse. I was angry then, got angrier because of her (not just her specifically, but a very important factor). If I started on the niceties earlier on, perhaps I would have been more loath to engage in similar behavior later on. Either way, factoring helped lead to my life now.

7x^2+2x-5 is (7x-5)(x+1).

Factors

I'm good at math. I'm the resident matheologist in the group as long the math remains math instead of becoming squiggles.

In 9th grade I was in Algebra I. This Algebra I class was for the advanced freshmen who were also in the advanced chemistry class. We would go from the Algebra I class taught by Mr. Celadonio, a very excellent teacher who had many, many years of experience, and Father Ferrence, another teacher who was an excellent teacher with many, many years of experience. They were possibly the oldest teachers on campus, but they were possibly the best as well.

This Algebra I class was difficult but also extremely engaging. We had a lot of demands on us, and to even pass the course, we had to factor 10 problems in 2 minutes, just 12 seconds a problem. So, when I see 3x^2-7x+2, I quickly see (3x-1)(x-2). This proved to be quite helpful in other facets of math and led to a fateful encounter later on.

The Spirit of Houston Cougar Marching Band: Gala

2004.

Gala night for the band was supposed to be a big to-do. Our band director had huge plans for gala night. He also had big plans for the money gala night would bring in. He was like that, but very, very good at what he did.

The marching band as a whole only had one thing to do, just one song if memory serves. This meant we would have to sit through the entire thing until we did that one damn thing. Such is the life of a marching band member: hurry up and wait.

We had a very long practice for that one thing. We had to sit and wait and sit and wait and then do something, then wait. It was frustrating.

We had a break and Robby, Channing, and Candi went to eat. We went to the McDonald's by campus, chatting and having a good time, a very nice change of pace. After we were stuffed, I uncharacteristically said, "Let's not go back."

I was the guy who was always on-time. Not just on-time, but band on-time. You see, if you're on-time, you're late. If you're early, you're on time. I just didn't feel I had anything left in me and I wanted to quit. And I finally let myself voice it.

Candi called me on it. "What? You're the guy who's always ..." blah blah blah. Yeah, I was that guy. I quickly retracted my statement and got up, ready to head back for more punishment at the Moores School of Music for the remainder of the gala rehearsal.

We got back to the rehearsal and an elite cadre of the band, some of the Haves, got up to perform in an instrumental performance that really helped the lot of us not mutiny. They put on a heavily choreographed and impeccably performed rendition of Santa Esmeralda's "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood." I know it wasn't written by them, but the performance more closely matched that version.

I found one of the performers afterward and thanked him. It was one of the finest demonstrations of musicianship I had ever and thus seen.

RISK

I am a fan of RISK. Not risk management, not taking risk, but the boardgame.

RISK is a great game that requires immense skill in strategy, diplomacy, and dice rolling. Any good RISK player is good at rolling sixes. (Likewise, bad D&D players are good at rolling 1's.)

2004, not a bad year. So one night, it was around February, I played a very great game of RISK.

I was playing with Robby and Brandon and some other guy. Robby and I had to wake up early to go march in the Rodeo Parade the following morning, but we decided to hang out into late morning. We broke out the RISK board and started playing.

As is par for the course, I had set up my headquarters in Southern Europe and quickly consolidated the surrounding area. A few turns in, I entered into a non-aggression pact with Brandon, to expire in about 20 turns. Around the 12th turn, he attacked me. I was far from shocked; not that I was expecting the non-aggression pact to last, either. Attacking me was the right move. I was growing too powerful and I would soon smother Robby's forces and inevitably turn on Brandon.

He started his preemptive strike after he turned in a RISK set. He had a large force assembled and began attacking. He blew through an unimportant pigeon (a country with only one solider on it) and started onto the next, more important territory. I had about 4 forces stationed there, as it was on the border of my European stronghold. The first three bouts, we both lost one unit apiece. Then, the universe righted itself and Brandon's luck turned. The next 37 turns, my sole defender prevailed. I rolled a lot of 6's, and Brandon a lot of 1's.

When that last man finally fell, Brandon had lost too many forces to really continue the battle. I was sure to have a memorial plaque in that one guy's honor, so that his family can pay to come visit in my palace.

The following turn, I turned in my own risk set and defeated Brandon. I received his remaining RISK cards when he was conquered, and then immediately turned them in to receive additional reinforcements necessary to crush Robby.

So, all in all, I won the game and felt good about that. Robby and I also didn't sleep before the parade. So, I marched 2 and 1/4 miles without sleep. That I didn't feel so good about.

The important part, though, was winning the RISK game.

Mustachio

I can't really grow a mustache. Try and try as I might, it's not so much on the happening side. Alas. My beard, though, grows in quickly, wildly, and sometimes multi-colored.

In high school, the dress code forced us to be clean shaven. We were permitted a well-groomed mustache, however. Seeing as I had to start shaving when I was 13, and cannot grow a mustache, this was a bit annoying.

2001.

I didn't show up to school always clean shaven, but not with a bunch of facial hair. Kinda like a light coating. The girl I had liked at the time was Cameron, the en-reddened gymnast, the one I got a stick thrown at me for.

I looked less like a bum when I shaved, so I suppose it was because of that Cameron liked it when I shaved. So, one day, I made a point of shaving in the morning and telling Cameron. She liked it. I hadn't bothered shaving the few whiskers that grew above my lip, so she quickly pointed them out.

Defensively, I asked, "Do you know how hard it is to shave there?"

"As a matter-of-fact yes, I do."

"... what?"

She then explained to me that when she was little, she would watch her father shave. One day her dad gave her shaving cream and a razor without a blade and she "shaved." I thought it was a cute story.

I still hardly ever shave my mustache. It's still a pain and I still hardly grow any hair there. C'est la vie.

Chicken Cheesesteak Shot

I am not a gambling man. In a poker game, I can usually clean up, given a fair deck and long enough to read people. When it comes to the ponies, craps, or all that jazz, what's the point?

I learned this lesson early on.

In the 90s, I liked ordering food from the local pizza joints. We had two really good places just a few blocks from the house: Folcroft Pizza and Italian Style. A favored after school activity was playing basketball. For awhile we had a basktball poll behind the house. Then my neighbor did.

In 7th grade Bob was over. We went outside to play some basketball. I'm less sure of the buildup to this, but I'm sure we at least played Horse. Then, after making a few difficult distance shots, he set up to attempt a shot from two houses over. Well, after some bravado from both sides, he said that he bet me a chicken cheesesteak from Italian Style that he could make it.

What were the odds, neh?

We ordered food. Bob really enjoyed that free cheesesteak. Afterward we dubbed the spot of the shot the dreaded chicken cheesesteak shot. Bob had the best shooting average from that spot, by a longshot.

Getting into the Kitchen

I am a connoisseur of food. I have a wealth of information of culinary arts and at least a little bit of the science behind it. Whatever information I lack, I make up in bluster.

I cannot cook. When food is being made, however, I offer my services freely as a critic, or better still: as a criticizer.

1994.

I was enrolled in a summer program, a cooking one for children. I and 4 others went to a building and which had a kitchen. Every week for 5 or so weeks, we'd go and learned simple tips to take with us for the rest of our lives. Then we would make the recipe of the day and get to take home some samples.

I don't recall any of the tips, really, aside from using hot water to wash dishes. Oh, that and I can bake a really mean Mac'n Cheese when there's a cooking instructor going step by step through the recipe and 4 other kids to help.

The Sweetest Milkshake

Back in the day, I had a habit of catching midnight showings of movies. This was mostly to accommodate my friends' schedules and to get to watch movies in more peace than at the prime showings with plenty of teenagers. This also went well for big releases, since we'd catch the first showing.

After the movie, we would go to a diner, often the nearby Denny's, and eat. Depending on how much money I had, I'd have breakfast and a milkshake, or just a milkshake, or just water. In 2006, Denny's briefly had a promotion where employees would wear a sticker saying, "If I don't offer an appetizer, it's free." There were other stickers offering specific appetizers, or their ghastly fruit drink things, or a milkshake.

So one night, after seeing whichever movie, I was at Denny's with J. and Sentell. I had planned to order a milkshake. J. and Sentell ordered their food and then I didn't order anything. The server started to walk away when I said, "You didn't offer us a milkshake, so it's free, right?" The server was wearing the milkshake sticker and seemed to have forgotten about that. He quickly took it off afterward and then tried to say that milkshakes are for dessert. I didn't buy it.

When J.'s and Sentell's food came, there was my chocolate milkshake. It was probably spit in, but it was delicious.

Fun with Hall Passes

Being a part of Monsignor Bonner's Jazz Band was almost always a hoot. There were only a few of us but we were all kinda odd ducks so we generally always got along and had some good laughs.

2000, a year shy of the famous Odyssey.

One day, we were waiting for our director to show up to begin rehearsal. Rather than take initiative and practice ourselves, we tried to find something fun to do.

Joseph Gribbons was a tall guy with red hair that played keyboards, guitar, and bass, as needed for the band. He was smart and knew a whole lot about music. So, Bochanski and I were talking and waiting while Gribbons was rifling through our director's desk. He walked up to us and handed Bochanski a hall pass he filled out.

Matthew Bochanski was to report to J(ustice) U(nder) G(od) immediately, as per the orders of Mr. Urethra.

Ah, good times. Though ... we never did use those passes to actually get out of class.

Easter Egg

I wasn't a fan of hard boiled eggs for a long time. It just wasn't my thing.

In 1995, I was in 5th grade and we had to bring in some decorated eggs. Not being inclined to decorate eggs, I sought help from my family. My brother helped me come up with some better ideas and my mom help me paint.

I can only remember two of my designs. One was a rocketship. The other was a result of a mishap. The back of an egg got cracked. So we glued a toothpick into it. We then painted on a really shocked face on the front and then a bunch of blood around the toothpick.

I don't recall if I won, but a lot of my classmates really liked that one.

Thank you, Easter Bunny.

Random Dog

I am not a dog person. I believe dogs to be evil and that their loyalty is suspect. That's how they get you, you know. First it's the puppy dog eyes to melt your heart and lower guard. Then, it's the old betray-them-because-I'm-a-dog routine. My wife doesn't believe me for a second and thinks that I'm just making it up.

One day, back in the dark years of somewhere between 2003-2005, there was a terrible rainstorm. The rainstorm wasn't the worst I'd seen, but it wasn't too pleasant. My brother had a friend over. They had been hanging out outside. They saw the weather turn and quickly hurried in. My brother had left something outside, so he ventured back out. He returned quickly, fairly wet.

Around this time, my brother's friend pointed out, "Hey Mo, there's a dog in the house." The dog was a retriever, the golden sort. He casually strolled through the living room and into the bedrooms before turning back. Our cats were not enthused at the intruder. Then, the dog returned outside and wandered out.

That was pretty weird.

Pomp and Circumstance

By Edward Elgar.

Ah, the standard graduation song. Starting in 1998, I had begun playing it for every high school graduation I had to go to. Since I was in band, that meant every one. And since Monsignor Bonner was the boys' school and I was in their Jazz Band and Archbishop Prendergast was the girls' school and I was in their orchestra, I had double duty for the schools.

Pomp and Circumstance is not a bad song, considering. It's a nice march and it sounds like what it's called. It sounds less nice when you have to play it again and again and again and again, year after year after year.

This memory comes at the bitter irony. The one thing I looked forward to was forcing someone to play it ad nauseum. So, one fateful night of 2002 in May, it was time for me to finally graduate. I was happy to do so, hoping to never see some people again and unfortunately not seeing some of them again too. As the time drew near the excitement was building.

And that's when the rain started. Downpour. Bad. Torrential, even. There wasn't really any lightning, but it was enough to get us worried about a cancellation. After about half an hour the rain had died, taking with it a large chunk of the audience, and the band.

We did not take a lap around the stadium, we just started the ceremony, without the ceremonial march. We didn't have our first speaker and instead our only speaker was ... Christina Cody was her name? I don't recall. What I do recall was the horrendous speech she gave. It involved an opening that got no response that she had banked on. It then involved saying that September 11th really helped the school become stronger. She said other things, but we had stopped listening to her.

So ... yeah. Not much to change about this one, other than building a weather control device first.

The Matrix (Revisited)

Say what you will about the trilogy as a whole; it deserves it and so much worse. The first Matrix was a good and important film until the foul taint of the conclusion ruined it all.

2000. By this point I had seen the movie quite a few times and I was dying to see where the story went. That alone is enough to make me want to change it if I had it all to do over again. Though, I was specifically more inclined to kill to see it anyway, rather than die myself.

Anyway, this particular memory comes from me trying to explain the Matrix to a friend of mine from high school, and his family.

Matthew Bochanski, a gifted musician, was an overall good kid, if a bit naive. I went over to his house one day to play some music and otherwise hang out. Over some food, I mentioned the movie and tried to wax poetic on some of the philosophical points brought up in the film. His mother was confused, so I did my best to reconstruct the film and explain what was what. Specifically, she, and Bochanski's younger siblings couldn't keep track of what was the Matrix and what wasn't. I tried bringing up things I had read like color schemes or the more obvious plugs and gaunt appearances and they still didn't catch on so well.

Looking back, maybe they had it right, considering the end result.

The Spirit of Houston Cougar Marching Band: Sara Who Loves Life

Band's a repository of memories. This was probably the most random.

2003.

We were eating lunch before a game in the band hall. We didn't always have enough places for us to sit and eat at a table per se, but we'd find places to hunker down and eat. I had done just that with Robby and a few others by the lockers.

A clarinetist walked by and asked us if we had ever played the Locker Game before. We responded no and that we didn't know what it is.

She explained that it was a game where you take turns doing random things as you run past the lockers to make the other person laugh. She demonstrated by running and jumping like a ballerina. She was laughing all the while.

Robby, straight-faced and monotone, responded, "Wow, you must really love life."

She was a music major who was almost always bubbly and energetic and ... loving life. I've long since forgotten her last name, but we remember her as Sara Who Loves Life.

Lunch Money

Lunch Money, the card game. The game, Wikipedia tells me, came out in 1996. I had never heard of it until 2000.

I like card games, provided I'm good at them and they're fun. Lunch Money is one of those. It has randomness, sure, but it's still entertaining. You have attack cards, weapon cards, defensive maneuvers, and the ultimate trump card: the humiliation card. This trump card not only trumped the card it was played on, but allowed a free attack on top of it.

Sentell is the only person who holds a deck and thus he was that introduced me into. With Lunch Money in the rotation in addition to 13 and Egyptian Rat Fink, we had a healthy selection of time wasting card games.

Hispanic Dancing

There are many things I'm not an expert on, but I might try to pass myself off as one anyway. Dancing is one of these things. Sure, I'm not exactly graceful, but I can claim to know a thing or two ... even if I can't do it myself.

The reason why I can say this about dancing, though, is because I had someone break down Hispanic dancing for me.

2003 was a pretty good year, at times. I was in the beginner's class for fencing at UH. Our instructor was a heavyset man, from Guatamala, named Carlos. Carlos was a physics grad student who was pretty fit, but was stocky. Either way, he was an excellent instructor as he was thorough in teaching the basics.

One of my favorite parts about fencing, aside from the rogues' gallery I met, was the sense of community. Sure, practices lasted 3 hours, which was longer than most marching band practices, but afterwards, we'd eat together. I may have mentioned that I've always found eating to be a social event. Carlos would go with the beginners, often to Wendy's. After such a long practice, we would be hungry and tired, but still wired from all the work, so we'd talk for a long time, even after we'd finished eating. Sometimes, we'd go down to play some pool and continue to hangout. It was fun.

Carlos had the gift of gab. He's a gifted storyteller and had good comedic timing. So, when he'd tell us a joke, he'd take his time getting to the end, but the journey was always enjoyable. However, when he would tell a story, we weren't always sure if it was the truth or not.

One day, he told us about the secret of Hispanic Dancing. Being Hispanic, I was interested. He gave us a demonstrations as he spoke. He said that behind all the moves in all the styles the men's parts involved a lot of moving, but if we really noticed, none of that moving took place at the man's midsection. This was to make sure the man's belly fat didn't giggle. He continued dancing and sure enough, the arms, shoulders, legs, feet, and behind all shook but not the midsection. He then showed us what would happen if it did. Lo and behold, he was right.

I hadn't really danced prior to that but when I finally did start, this sagacious memory was always close to mind.

Memoirs

Where will I be in 2048? I was first asked that question in the spring of 1998 and I still don't have a convincing answer. Our final for 7th grade writing with Mrs. Crane was to write just that: our memoirs.

Seeing that far into the future as a 12 year old was a daunting task, in all honesty. Seeing that far is a little easier now, but in all honesty, still daunting. In my youth, I wrote that in my late 20s I was a fighter pilot that fought in a war akin to what the Cold War would've been if it wasn't Cold. I wrote that I was shot down a few times, but escaped with my life, unlike my comrades. We eventually won, and I retired to be a novelist. I lived peacefully and retained my sense of humor.

That assignment was probably the best thing I had written to that point. I do not have a copy to this day, but I wish I did. Things didn't go to that plan, but I never really intended to follow through with that plan. But it was the first time I had truly visualized it, that far into the future. To see what potential I had and what I could do with it. The world was getting more and more real. I was about to be an 8th grader, which was practically being in high school. Then I'd be off to Penn State and then ... and then?

Well, I got over wanting to fly planes around 9th grade and I know I'll probably never write professionally. I never got to Penn State. Eh.

I will probably retain my sense of humor by the time I get to 2048. At least I hope I do.

Millions of Peaches

In 1998, I started high school, that lovable time when everything sucks and the world is stupid and you hate everyone and everyone's stupid and you're stupid and everything's so important because it's like the end of the world if x, y, and z happens but it's okay because if it does, you'll just play it off like you don't care and all.

Anyway, I took the bus to school. It was a fairly long ride. Sometimes I'd sit next to the girl I liked whom I had met in grade school, but was a year ahead of me.

She and I were contentious at times, but again I liked her and she didn't like me that way so on it went. One day after a tiff or whatever, she ended a conversation as the bus pulled into the school by saying, "You know, you remind me of a peach."

I spent the rest of the day baffled, wondering what the Hell she meant. That was ... more than a decade ago. Yeah, still not sure there.

A Pound of Flesh

I liked Fridays in grade school. We had specials like PE and Music and Art and often did funner things in regular classes.

One Friday in 1st grade, we had a competition. It was the great showdown of 1991, a chance for academic prowess to reign supreme. The class was divided into two teams: one was comprised of the boys and the other the girls.

We had a variety of fields, with questions ranging from 10 to 50 points. Titan that I was, I was confident in team XY's chances. We were lined up in single file and each side alternated taking choosing questions and values to answer. Whoever was at the front got to pick and had to answer alone, so teamwork wasn't an issue. When it got to my turn, I asked for a 50 point math question.

"Which weighs more: a pound of feathers or a pound of bricks?"

"Uh ... bricks?"

I walked back to the end of the line in shame, mostly at having failed myself, really. The next girl took my question and answered, "Bricks?"

The next few girls answered, "Bricks?" as well. Then a few of them answered, "Feathers?" I snickered since I had figured it out after a few more seconds of rational thought and here they were still tossing out bricks and feathers. I got my chance at redemption and finally answered correctly.

It was a good feeling this redemption. It beat the Hell out of being wrong; that's for damn sure.

Truth in Advertising

Teacher knickknacks are a good way to quickly communicate one's views to the children they have to instruct. A student spends a fair amount of time looking around the room they have to learn in. These can range from motivational posters to state mandated things. Then, there's some teachers who put other things up.

1995-1996.

Mrs. McLaughlin was a tough teacher. She was a force to be feared. She taught math and theology. She also yelled, a lot, often, and loudly. Get something wrong? That's a shout. Speak out of turn? That's a shout. Do anything you're not supposed to be doing and she'd let you and the neighboring classes know about it.

I liked her a lot. That's probably because I excelled in math and didn't get yelled at, but it definitely helped me with rote memorization that's key for early math concepts like fractions, percentages, and decimals. Whenever I think of fraction values I see the white chart she had hanging in her room. 1/3? That's 33 1/3% or .333. 1/12? 8 1/3% or .0833. It was all on the chart.

She had a variety of other things hanging around. I can only think of one other thing. It was a simple saying on her desk.

"Life is hard, then you die."

Well, we couldn't argue with that, could we?

Chair, Desk, Floor

At Saint Gabriel's my grade was a small grade, it was eventually consolidated into just one class. But before that happened we went through the years as two small classes. We graduated as a grade of 33, or thereabouts.

In 6th grade I was in Honors Math with two others, one Gaetano Castiglioni, the other Gabriella Costello. I'm possibly mangling the former's name, but it's a hard name.

Gaetan was short and very athletic, a hockey nut. He was always a bit of a clown, but at least he was bright about it. That made him especially entertaining. One day he derived a new routine. He didn't tell us the names of these things, but I'm going to go ahead and name it "Chair, Desk, Floor."

It consisted of him jumping onto his chair, saying, "Chair," then jumping onto his desk, saying, "desk," followed by jumping back onto the floor. He would do this in sets of 3 when he could get away with it. It was hilarious to us. He never got caught doing it by the teacher since he'd have the sense to wait until the teacher had made the mistake of leaving us unattended for longer than a second.

After we graduated from 8th grade, I saw him once more: playing hockey for Cardinal O'Hara against Monsignor Bonner at the Skatium.

I later heard he was injured and couldn't play hockey anymore. That's a shame. I hope he never lost the ability to entertain and his sense of humor.

Skins

Eating and conversating with friends and family is amongst my favorite things to do. I believe I may have mentioned this before.

In 2004 I was in an ensemble with Brandon and Robby. We went to lunch together afterwards. We added a fourth, Candi.

One day, the lot of us went to lunch at the BBQ place at the University Center. Candi mentioned that she really wanted a baked potato. Both she and Robby ordered one. We ate a decent meal and had an excellent time hanging out together. At one point, Candi said something along the lines of she hadn't thought she could finish the whole thing. Robby pointed out that she still didn't.

"If you don't eat the skin, it doesn't count."

It was a contest, you see. Candi didn't know that in the baked potato eating contest that the skins are part of the potato and she therefore lost. She argued, futilely, and thought that it was a stupid rule.

Hey, it's not like we invented it.

The Spirit of Houston Cougar Marching Band: The Time I Almost Got Kicked Out of Band

A little backstory for this one: our band director was on the warpath around October of 2003. Saturday was game day, baby, and we had important practices on Friday evening and Saturday morning. The Friday before this game, Herr Direktor kicked someone out of band. This poor soul "talked back" to the director, a mortal sin. The director responded by telling him to get off the field and not to come back. The band was either a majority music major or just about music major majority by this point. This day was pivotal since the non-majors really felt as if we were no longer needed.

The day of the game it was rainy. Not raining, per se, but rainy. We were given our water ponchos, a bright yellow, monstrous affair, to protect our wool uniforms. When we started on our traditional parade to the stadium it was rainy. At the completion of the parade, I think less than 1% of the band had brought their ponchos. The director was irate. When the director yelled at us, "Why did you think we gave them out today!?"

What happened next was mostly reflex, honestly. I was a smartass and saying things as a flippant and humorous response was natural. So I said, too loud, much louder than I had intended, "Because I paid for it last year."

The director barked out, "WHO SAID THAT!?"

I did the only responsible thing: hide. I didn't want to get kicked out of band, after all. After about 5 seconds of uncomfortable silence and trying to make it look like I was apalled at the gall of an individual to make such a comment. The director then moved on. I'm pretty sure he never found out it was me and if he had, that would've been the end of my band career.

Good times.

Things Ain't Going Well

In my musician days, prior to my imbuement as a composer, I used to be a pit musician, from time to time. Ah, those were simpler days.

2000. There was not blood this year.

I did my time in the trenches, working my way through Andrew Lloyd Weber and all. I signed on to do a gig for St. Andrew's, I believe. It was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The show was held at Archbishop Prendergast, on their main stage.

There's a few memories to be had from that show, but the first and most salient occurred one night where everything was a little off. The star came in late a few times, the narrator missed a note or two. This was a parish show, after all, but it had very good standards since Prendie's Choral Director (a South African man named Mr. Mayes, was it?) was the musical director of the show. A few minor errors were bound to happen but didn't really ruin the show. But this show had a few minor errors clustered together. The musical director was visibly frustrated but soldiered on.

About halfway through the show, when Joseph is imprisoned, we had a heavy set of bars set off the the side. Well, the stage crew must've slacked or something, but during the chorus' part, that set of bars fell, taking out Mr. Mayes' music stand and narrowly missing him. He had shrieked, the flautists screamed a little too, and so did some of the cast.

After everyone recomposed themselves the narrator picked up where she left off. "Poor, poor Joseph, things ain't going well ..." which got a pretty big pop from the crowd. I couldn't help but laugh, and so did Doug and the flautists.

Clarinet Trio

Writing music is not easy. It's easier when you have an expensive program that handles must of the scut work, though.

2001, or so it says on the music file.

I don't know why I first sat down at the Band Hall's Music Library's computer. The Music Library was a small office that had (probably) thousands of pieces of music. There was also enough room to hold private lessons comfortably but that's about it. There was also an old computer there. It had Warcraft and a few other old games on it as well, or it did from time to time. It also had Finale.

One day, I was waiting for something or other and my friends were hanging around the band hall as well. We ended up at the music library and passed the time. For some reason, I opened Finale. I tried to see what I could do at first, but it wasn't much.

The next day, or thereabouts, I sat at the computer again. I started a new piece with a clarinet, tenor sax, and trumpet. I think I was trying to remember the blues scales I had learned at my old school and wanted to use all Bb instruments to make it easier on me. It was pretty bad.

Some time later, I started a new file with three clarinets. Instead of trying to do blues scales, I just tried to write. And write I did. I learned how to better use the program as time went on and I spent a few weeks adding to it, saving my work to a floppy disk. Eventually, I was done. I knew I was done because I showed my private lesson teacher it and he suggested an ending. I took his advice and lo and behold I was done. During one session, he and I played through the melody of my piece. It was excellent.

The piece is a baroque-esque piece. It is not that way by design, but somehow, I slopped together enough notes to make a 2 and a half minute plus song that sounded decent. Doing that really helped me feel happy about things again.

I've retouched the piece only slightly since I finished it in 2001, only to add dynamic changes really, to make it more palatable to the ear from newer versions of Finale. To this day, however, I still don't have a name for it; it's just Clarinet Trio.

The Spirit of Houston Cougar Marching Band: I Never Learned the Damn Fight Song

I think one of my crowning achievements throughout UH was that I never did once learn the school's fight song. It wasn't the hardest thing, but it was not the easiest either.

My second year of band they instituted a squad system that had every member under a squad, each squad under a the section leader (equipped with XO), under a particular drum major. The band director issued an order that everyone was to play off the fight song. My squad would play it as a section, which was easy to fake my way through. The section leader or the assistant would break us into smaller groups and play off individually. I'd pass off any errors as reed troubles or horn malfunction. I'd say I'd fix it and try again later. I never did.

One day, the drum major in charge of the clarinets pulled us aside, gathered us into a circle and pointed to us one by one to do a final play off. She never picked me. She then sent us back to our sections to continue practice as per usual.

I ended up learning the trumpet part throughout my tour at UH. During games, I'd sing the song rather than play anyway.

Good times.

I Don't Shave My Hands

2001, May or thereabouts.

Junior year was a time of great upheaval and change. In Algebra II, a rehash of Algebra at my old school, I met a more diverse group of people than what I was used to in a math class. I was no longer with the best and the brightest, because my Pennsylvania and Texas differed on what to call certain mathematical concepts.

I met a girl there that I thought I loved. The meeting is its own memory, but one that's far lighter is that once we did get to talking, we'd have this thing of taking turns asking random questions via AIM. (I would pour over these in the Library for further obsession.)

One day, at a particular timestamp I used to think was important, she asked, "Do you shave your hands?" I was surprised and wondered what prompted the question. When I was 16, I had a lot of arm hair that for some reason just stopped after my wrist. She thought it was because I shaved them and that she did too, because she used to play piano.

My hands remained free of hair until around 18. At 24, I still have a section on each hand that's uncovered. And no, I don't shave my hands.

The Power Outage Ending

I like Matrix Reloaded. It wasn't a great movie, but I liked it. (Just ask Laurence Fishburne how "awesome" he thought it was, though.)

I ended up seeing Matrix Reloaded a total of 3 times in theater. This is the memory of the first time.

The movie opened May 15, 2003. We saw it at midnight, opening day, a thing we used to do back in those days. I'm less sure who exactly "we" were at this point. It was at least myself, Sentell, J., Lehman. Brandon was probably there, but I'm not sure. Robby probably wasn't, though.

We liked the flashes and the pretty action sequences and the music and the whole Neo being unstoppable and Agent Elrond kicking ass and all that jazz. We were less jazzed about the pointless twins, the keymaker, the Merovingian, and the ending.

A word about the ending ... around 2:15 AM, or thereabouts, the Southeastern power grid of Texas failed. Hospitals and businesses were on emergency power only. What did this mean to the AMC 30 Gulf Pointe? Lighting to get people out and no movie projection or air conditioning.

The Power(s?) That Is (Be?) chose this power failure to happen when Neo jumps into the Source. All we saw was white screen followed by the emergency lights coming on. I laughed. I applauded. Who would have the audacity to have an ending like that? It was brilliant. I told my friends that it was like those old movies: a gimmick and it worked so well. We sat in our chairs chatting about the movie excitedly. The majority of my friends (I think all) thought that this was a malfunction of some kind. They were right and an employee came in and told us to come out with our ticket stubs to get a free pass to come back another day to watch the movie. We had to go all the way back to the customer service desk, aided by power of flashlight and limited lighting. By the time my group neared the front of the line for passes, we heard the power had come back and the movie was restarting.

We rushed back to our seats and watched as the Architect explained everything and Trinity took forever to die for the first time.

In our post-movie mandatory Denny's discussion, the "Power Outtage Ending" was vastly superior to the actual ending.

I saw Reloaded twice more, in theater. It was possible that the ending was so bad because the flow of the experience was interrupted. This was not the case.

Pennywise, the Dancing Clown

November, 1990. This was when the world went from being a wonderful, exciting and new place to that of a sheer terror in every waking moment and sleep brings no respite.

I saw IT. IT was terrifying. IT doesn't stand up well to the test of time, and leaves a lot of unanswered questions, but when you're 6, IT's the stuff to traumatize you.

I am afraid of clowns, to this day, because of Tim Curry's top-notch and pants-wettingly scary portrayal.

Sure, Bob Gray, Pennywise, is just a fictional creation (albeit created by the best horror writer of the modern era), but I was 6! I didn't really know better. Here was this clown that ate children ... that was ... later a spider? Is there a turtle involved? I don't remember.

I ended up trying to read the book later and ... I think I might have to reread it. There's points that still don't make sense to me.

Yes, they ALL float down here!

Ted

Ted, the unbeatable billiards game.

No one really knows the origin of Ted, a most insidiously designed malady of a game. Carlos and Terrence were playing it one day when I tagged along with them after Fencing practice.

Carlos was a character, and a I'll have a full memory of him later. Terrence was also a character. Terrence also wasn't his real name, it's just what we called him. They were both fencers, a unique subculture that stands out as being the most unique one I was ever a part of. Fencers, by and large, are interesting and fascinating people.

2005. Spring.

So, this is the story of Ted. Ted is a simple and evil game. Simply evil. The objective? Sink all 15 balls without missing. The player's only opponent is Ted. Ted has an intrinsic turn limit on it of 15 shots. Every shot must sink at least one ball. With me so far? Good.

The position of the balls is key. There are two balls, touching, next to each pocket, both side and corner. The remaining 3 balls are put into a triangle where the balls are usually racked in a more standard and less evil billiards game.

Now, I may have mentioned that I have played some pool. I was never able to beat Ted. Later on in the semester I had heard that Carlos and Terrence managed to conquer Ted, but I had never seen it myself.

Perhaps, one day, I shall conquer Ted myself.

Egyptian Rat Fink

Or ERS. Or Egyptian Rat Screw. Or Egyptian War. Or what have you.

Egyptian Rat Fink is a simple game. The deck is dealt face down to the players and at no time is the player supposed to look at their cards. Play goes clockwise until a face card is played... and so on and so forth. It's an easy game requiring a decent amount of luck. What makes this game unique was that you could slap doubles and collect the cards. That makes it a fun, fast-paced, sometimes painful game.

2001, I think early May.

I was stuck in Algebra II, a class that was actually a slower-paced repeat of my Algebra I class. One day we essentially had a free day. I broke out my trusty deck of cards. I also had my trusty class ring by this point. Normally, we had a rule that for slap games rings weren't to be worn. That day, we decided to go ahead and ignore that rule.

My reflexes are typically fast, faster than the next person's. This is useful in a variety of ways but especially useful in a card slapping game. First to slap the pile gets the cards, true. That also means that he who gets the cards has become a target for the others.

I think there were two upperclassmen and two others in this particular game. I backed off slapping first. One particular salvo, I nailed someone's hand with my ring peridot side down, I think her name was Jamie. She got a welt in her hand. I got a chip in my semi-precious stone.

The important part was that I won that hand; I s'pose in more way than one.

Corned Beef and Cabbage

Every year for St. Patrick's Day my mom makes corned beef and cabbage. As far as Irish food goes, it's not so bad.

The first year of this traditional took some getting used to. Corned beef can be tough if not properly prepared. It can also be bland if not properly seasoned. My brother used to say that the Irish people ate this because they were too drunk to cook anything that tastes good.

Little by little I came to look forward to corned beef and cabbage. Such a simple dish, but comforting at the same time.

Of course, this pales in comparison to the only other thing the Irish gave the culinary world: Guinness.

Old Man Sayings.doc

I used to keep a list of quotes in a large text document. This file was created on 09/01/98 or thereabouts. I last updated about two years ago.

"You must be flexible like Silly Putty, yet hard like a frozen bagel."

That's the first entry. It was from the Game Revolution website, a site I still trust for honest game reviews going on 10+ years. That was from their Tenchu: Stealth Assassins review. While describing the game it infused silly quotes as section breaks. It was quite humorous at the time. So I wrote the best of them down. I then started gathering quotes from my favorite movies, shows, songs, and the ilk. I kept no citations so I'd have to rely on my impressive memory to recall all of them. As of today, there are 1549 quotes. I can still identify most of them, but yeah. If it was important to me at the time, it went into the file.

“Every second not getting your beanbag tortured is a worthwhile second.”

That's the second to last quote I have. That was from Robby in a conversation we had about the 2006 remake of Casino Royale. Even if you haven't seen the movie, that's pretty sagacious.

When the Nixon-esque library went the way of the dodo, I saw less and less point to the Old Man Sayings File. I still sign emails with a quote. I usually pulled them from this file. At one point I just used one that was in my head at the time.

Now the title... that was something a bit different. My brother and I had created a character called the Old Man. He would be a stereotypical old Asian man who would dispense wisdom whether wanted or not. It seemed natural to keep a file for his sayings to dispense inopportune sayings. Sometime later, my friend Bob and I thought up a backstory for him: back in the day he was just The Man. But, the ravages of time are cruel.

I will depart with the final quote: “There should be an ‘I’m glad you’re not dead’ Hallmark card.” A different memory for a different day.

Hannibal

While I'm a cat person, I'm not overly fond of other animals. They're useful, yes, but still, they're not my favorite things. I enjoy going to the zoo as much as the next person, but I prefer going to a steakhouse or seafood restaurant for animal contact.

However, in 2007, I went to the Texas Renaissance Festival. This was a yearly tradition but this year was special. My wife-to-be and I rode an elephant. We paid our money and hopped on. The poor creature took a few slow laps around the little designated area with us on top.

I had never ridden an elephant. And while riding an elephant was on the big life to-do list, I never especially set out to do so. So ... I had my excuse. The ride was short and slow, yes, but it was an elephant, a powerful, mighty elephant. At this point I had ridden a horse (also, a slow, few laps around designated area affair) but this was different.

Horses have been used for a wide variety of uses by humans for a very long time. Elephants too. But oh what would have it been like to ride an elephant into battle? Trampling foes, shattering lines, and crushing hope. That wonderful beast could let me do such magnificent things. Hannibal crossed the Alps with 37 of these beasts. He had maybe 20 for the Battle of River Trebia and used them to crush the greatest military of the ancient world. His further victories against Rome, ironically and eventually, also caused the Roman Empire to rise up and conquer almost all of the then known world.

Power.

This moment made real for me the battles I've played in games and watched on TV and in movies. Of course, it wasn't entirely real. I wasn't in battle and wouldn't ever want to be personally, but that's why its escapism.

I do know one thing: my elephant won't be named Stampy.

The Sleep of the Dead

Back in the dark ages of 2002, again first semester at UH, I witnessed a supernatural event before my very eyes.

To give the proper context, I must mention my fascination of the walking dead. I've read The Complete Zombie Survival Handbook and World War Z. If a movie has zombies, I'm obliged to watch it. If a game has zombies, I'm inclined to give it a shot. I used to have conversations with my wife prior to our marriage of why I wanted to do a particularly goofy thing. She'd ask why I would ever think of that. I'd respond, "But, honey, what if the dead rise?" She was never satisfied with this answer but let it go. I do think it's necessary to be prepared if the dead rise. I'm less sure that it will occur (in my lifetime).

Brandon and I were in Intro to Psychology in 2002. When finals came rolling round the bend, he and I needed to study. We picked a time to study and we had a plan: grab some dinner at the dorm cafeteria and then study. He had told me to stop by his dorm at the appointed time and make sure he's up. He was in the Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps over at Rice and he was often tired after NROTC obligations. So, 7:00p, I showed up at his dorm. I knocked and got no answer. I tried the door knob and it was unlocked so I let myself in. And there was Brandon asleep on his bed. His roommate wasn't there, but he often wasn't anyway. I started kicking his bed and shouting his name, telling him to get up. He looked up at me and said, "Yeah, it'll be another 15 minutes." I waited 15 minutes as he slept and kicked his bed again. "Yeah, it'll be another 15 minutes." I waited. I started kicking again, but this time I was kicking him. Gently, at first. Finally, he said, "Yeah, it'll be another 15 minutes." And again he slept.

Around this point, I picked up a book and started reading. It was The Republic and I read it aloud, taking breaks at 15 minutes to kick and shout at Brandon and he'd say, "Yeah, it'll be another 15 minutes."

Eventually, around 11:30p, I was reading aloud still and Brandon shot up, looked at the time and said, "Why didn't you wake me up!?" "WHAT!? I DID!" "I said, 'Yeah, it'll be another 15 minutes.'" "THAT WAS ALMOST 4 hours ago!" "... oh."

We hurriedly ran down to catch last call for food at the cafeteria and then finally started on Psych around midnight.

Perhaps I should have ... kicked harder?

Relativist

College was an interesting time. So, back to the past of 2002.

In English Composition II, I met a ... let's call her relativist because that's what she called herself. I was freshman and in my first semester, I was just getting used to non-high school classes and classmates.

Her name was Reesa. I could take a stab at her last name, but I don't think I'm remembering it right. She was an interesting person. She never wore shoes and worked as a Celtic dancer. She had a very offbeat way of viewing things. I liked it. As did our professor. We quickly rose to the top of the class with our incisive and distinctive writing styles.

Everything is relative. Of course, that's an absolute statement and therefore false; however, it worked for her. And I knew it would never work for me. Reesa was one person I didn't really compete with in a class which was small and somewhat competitive at least in terms of the paper writing. After class, we would sometimes catch some lunch together and talk about stuff in our weird ways. One day walking through the UC, she cut her foot. That also sealed the deal for me on always wearing shoes.

She taught me a toast I use to this day:

Here's a health to the company
And one to my lass
Let us drink and be merry
All out of one glass
Let us drink and be merry
All grief to refrain
For we shall or shall never
All be here again

After English Comp, I lost track of her. I wonder what she's up to.

Can You Hear the Drums, Fernando?

Humanities. My favorite definition is that humanities is the study of what it is to be human. There are things universal to all people, regardless of language, credo, nationality, and parentage. What changes really are the specifics.

Humanity has been around for oh, what, 200,000 years? Longer? Shorter? Still, that's an extremely long time. How we made it that long without coffee percolators is beyond mortal comprehension. Still, though, man has lasted a damn long time on this planet. Regardless of what impact we have on our place, we haven't really changed the fact that we are animals with the same basic needs. Sure, the specifics have changed. Hunting involves modern man going to the supermarket or drive-thru. Shelter of today required the advent of economics and bad mortgages to acquire and then have it foreclosed away from him.

2005 was a scary time. The housing bubble was going to burst and the world economy melt but people kept on living beyond their means anyway. Of course, that didn't affect everyday life then, nor was anyone really worried about it. So it wasn't really scary times. They were the best of times. In those best of times I was a new student at UHCL. I was focusing on my remaining core classes.

I had Humanities I. I wasn't thrilled at the prospect of reading a bunch of old books for a weekly 3-hour lecture class. My professor was Dr. Fernando Casas, recently of famed Rice University. Dr. Casas was originally from Spain. He spoke about 4 languages fluently and understood a handful more. He had an impressive knowledge of literature. He was also insane.

His English turned out to be very good. The first day we were less sure. He was stop mid-sentence ... AND SCREAM! BANGING on the board when necessary. He was a very passionate man and he managed to inspire the class to give a damn about a book written by someone who died about 3000 years ago.

The Greeks didn't have convection ovens but went through all the stupid crap that we whinge about on a daily basis. They just did so in a low-tech world and spoke Greek. He also stressed that we are not unique in our feelings. It was strangely comforting, that. Not my insignificance, no, but that things worked out well for those Greeks, at least for a little while. He also used the Romans as examples a lot, a group of people I like to identify with anyway. He would tell us personal stories of when he visited different cities and told of meeting the people there, seeing the ancient landmarks.

I took him again for Humanities II. It was an excellent class that really helped my writing and my worldview.

He told us he was working on a book on time. I keep looking for it. I would like to read it some day.

This is not a blog.

I don't often share my feelings. With friends, family, foes, and minions, or anyone really. My poker face used to hold up pretty well. These days, it's not so good. And either way, that poker face cracks when I get angry. And you wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

I don't keep journals. I don't keep a diary. I don't tend to open up to people who aren't married to me. Being a guy, that's somewhat common.

In high school, my best friend Tan was my best friend because we had a lot of similar interests (in one very ironic way in particular) but also because he could tolerate my ranting. All in all I didn't have a lot to rant about in essence. But I did so anyway. It was the thing to do. We were both 16 and the world was a big, scary place that was unfair and the girls we liked didn't like us. Blah, blah, blah and all that cal. I didn't really know how to deal with it. He didn't either. None of my other friends did either. But, every Wednesday we'd say oh well what the Hell and have fun and play some poker or whatnot. But when I didn't have that best friend to listen to me rant anymore ... well, I was kinda lost.

2001. Early November.

State Marching Band competition. We were in Waco, on the way, rather. I was no longer on speaking terms with my best friend, the drum major. As much as I hated the guy, I didn't have an escape. And my band friends were also his band friends because we had similar non-band cliques. So ... rock and a hard place. I didn't want to talk to my band friends since Tan's and I falling out wasn't formalized. I had to keep appearances up for sake of my own sanity and because at some level, I had hoped to deceive myself too. State Marching is a tense and emotional enough time for some people. That was when I turned to writing down what was going through my head.

I had brought along some schoolbooks to do my homework. When I was done, I held onto my math notebook. Unlike most kids in Texas, I used composition books instead of notepaper or spirals or whatnot. I grabbed a red pen and started on the composition book. I wrote my general experiences and my thoughts and my feelings. It was about 13 pages front and back in scrunched handwriting.

When I reread that journal I saw how emotion looked on the page. I was not happy with it. It made me look weak and I had a record of it. The red ink and the frantic writing at the end was pathetic. I decided to never do it again.

When I tried it again in college for the Oklahoma trip, I didn't get more than 3 or so lines done, but I didn't have that burning emotion inside me anymore. Back then, I was tense and was without anyone to really rant to anymore. So, I just kept it to myself.

And when dealing with my friends afterward, I hid my animosity when I could. I failed, often, since I lose my poker face when I get angry. However, I tried to manipulate people when I could. Successful manipulation requires low vulnerability and control of information. If I never let them know where I was weak, I could get further in my plans. That sort of thing. And it's harder to get hurt when I'm in control.

I'm not that high school senior anymore, angry about losing his sphere of friends and not getting the girl and otherwise feeling powerless. But, I still cannot keep a regular blog. The audience would dictate content rather than my emotions and experiences. How could I keep a record of what I'm doing and what I'm feeling when it's crucial to a plot of mine for that to be hidden?

And yes, the statute of limitations for some things has expired so stuff like this has recently been declassified.

Wisdom

2001.

The human body is a funny thing. It has a funny bone that burns like liquid hot magma when you hurt it; it has an organ whose very name speaks to its superfluous nature until it bursts and tries to kill one of my friends; it has teeth that don't fit in the skull. At least most people's skulls these days.

I had to get my wisdom teeth out when I was 17. I had it scheduled for Christmas break so I wouldn't miss class as I recovered.

I went to the office early for my appointment. I was nervous. I had never been put under before and it was sort of unknown and scary. When I was set in the chair ready to be operated on, the doctor had to put the anesthesia to put me under in my arm. He looked around for my vein. He said, "Hmm." That was not comforting. He eventually found a vein and stuck me. He then told me to count backwards from 100.

"Okay. 100. 99. 9-"

I woke up some time later. I shot up out of the chair and started walking to the exit so I could get in the car and be shuttled home. All the while I thought I was walking straight. This was not the case. A nurse had been assisting me in not falling over. My mom took over and placed me in the car. I went home, and with aid, made it to bed. I slept. Slept hard.

I awoke in pain. But that's why God invented painkillers.

Poker Night

2000-2001.

At the end of Junior Year I started a weekly institution: poker night. It was fun: my closest friends would come over Wednesday nights and we'd sometimes play cards. My mom would have snacks for us and we would have a grand ol' time.

My regulars were Tan, Hai, and Lehman, all band friends. If no one else, at least my best friend Tan would make it every Wednesday. We wouldn't play poker, but we'd watch a movie or some TV or throwdown in some other game. It was a fun routine that was nice and stable, which is something I desperately needed after having to leave everything I knew back at Pennsylvania.

When we had enough for poker, we did usually play poker. We only played 5 and 7 card draw and stud as well as Texas Hold 'Em, but I usually won by the end of the night. I hardly needed to bluff, as my luck tended to catch good cards for me. Also, I could read my foes. Friends, rather. I'm not the best player, but I'm good enough at odds and lucky enough at beating them.

Poker night, as with all good things, came to an end. Alas.

Oh right, my poker chips. Actually, my chips came from my friend Bob (technically, his dad I think). And they weren't so much donated insomuch as Bob left them at my house one night and I moved to Texas a few months later and that's what I used to use on poker nights.

So ... uh ... thanks, Bob. You were instrumental in a favorite tradition of mine even if you were 1500 miles away at the time.

Snowball Fight

2000.

Pennsylvania. Was it Sharon Hill where this apocalyptic showdown occurred? It might have been.

I went with some friends to hang around on a snowy weekend day. What was significant was that it wasn't with my usual friends. (Perhaps one of my crew was there. I'm less sure now.) I went with guys I had met in high school and hung around with for a brief while. There maybe 6 of us in all, but I only recall 2 guys by name: EJ and Schwenke.

I recall we were in a parking lot of a shopping center where I had only really gone with my folks before. But we didn't go to a lot of stores. It was cold but I can't recall how it started, but we ran into some other guys we both knew from high school. The other group of people had maybe 8 or so similarly aged kids. There were some jokes, some ribbing, some light insults exchanged.

And then commenced the throwing. Who knows who threw the first ball? Snowballs came hurling from the other side. Retaliation came from my side. We broke for cover, throwing snowballs back. Getting hit with a single snowball does not hurt very much. Getting hit with a single ball of ice with some snow packed around it hurt a good deal. Getting hit with many of either can result in some serious hurt over time. So, the battle was on. Their side was largely throwing some pretty tightly packed snowballs. Getting hit with those from someone with a good arm stung a lot, especially if caught in the face. Despite presenting a large target when I aimed and threw, I didn't get hit in the face a lot. My large brown leather coat did an excellent job of protecting me and keeping me warm throughout the encounter.

This would be a good time to point out that throughout my entire life in Pennsylvania I had never learned to make a snowball. Ammo wouldn't have been an issue since there were still about 5-6 inches on the ground. They tried to show me how, but I couldn't quite get the feel through my heavy gloves. But even if I could form the plentiful snow into projectiles, I was pretty severely outclassed.

EJ was a pitcher for the high school's baseball team and some of the guys on the other side were also ball players. Schwenke, I recall, was a catcher. The other guys were fit and thin. Schwenke was bigger, but also fit. Anyways, for some reason, he ended up throwing a couple of snowballs at me. I was running out of small chunks of ice to throw at people. I had seen a small boulder of ice by me. I tried chipping some pieces off to throw at people but found it too slow a process. I decided it was then a good idea to pick up that boulder and charge Schwenke with it. He pegged me with a couple of snowballs before bracing for impact when I stood over him with my boulder. As I smashed it down on his back I cried out in victory. He cried out in pain. He then found a similarly sized ice boulder and smashed it down onto my back. We both collapsed right there.

The encounter continued. I'd see a snowball land around my general area now and again, but I just laid on my back for awhile. After maybe 15 minutes, the last ball was thrown. EJ came by and helped Schwenke and me up.

It was fun. This was just about the only real snowball fight I have ever been in. This was also just about the last time I hung out with that group of people from high school.

To have it to do over again, I'd have learned how to make a snowball before that fight.

Jessica

2006. And on and on and on and on.

The measurement of friendship is a hard thing to objectify. Does one friend have more utility than another sure? Robby's my offline Wikipedia, but if I ever needed an illogical paradox that is humanity's only hope to stave off the rise of the machines by causing their circuits to short, then Sentell's my man. However, at the end of 2006 Robby gave us all a new way to codify friendship. It wasn't a theory he espoused but it came to be as a direct result of him.

The measure of friendship is how much money you're willing to shell out to do stuff with them. Sounds simple, almost dumb, eh? Well, so's strumming on a small plastic guitar with 5 brightly colored buttons.

One night, Robby brought over his Guitar Hero 2 disc and his guitar and we proceeded to rock out and have the most fun brought to us via videogame format as well. With this rockening in mind, I couldn't wait until my next hit for very long. The week-long wait when Robby would bring his kit became unbearable. By Christmas I bought my own set. Freebird remains one of the top boss fights of all time.

Regardless of skill level, we always had a blast playing Guitar Hero. Cooperatively, competively (which is redundant to say because of Contest Theory), and just watching, good times were had by the lots of us. We learned key concepts such as "Yellow is not blue" and sometimes not even star power can save you.

Robby remains the best guitarist out of the lot of us, but I can give him a run for his money time and again. It's okay, though, because he's a robot and he's programmed that way.

The Vacation

1992.

Coldness, thy name is Canada. I have relatives that live in Montreal. For Christmas that year my family decided to visit them. We also had family in Kanata, we also visited them.

It took 10 hours to get there by car. This is the only real trip out of the country I can remember. (I went to El Salvador to visit my grandfather when I was 5, I'm told. I have no recollection.) The car trip wasn't so bad. Mo and I were switching off on the Gameboy and books and stuff. I recall passing the border pretty late, but making sure to stay awake so I knew what it felt like the leave the greatest country on earth (again).

I recall the cold, cold weather. We spent maybe two weeks in Canada total. We spent one day sledding down a giant hill and almost freezing. We went to our relatives' house and warmed ourselves by the fire.

For Christmas, we drove around for awhile and Santa brought some SNES games that I had wanted: Final Fantasy Mystic Quest and UN Squadron. Both games rocked at the time. Neither hold up well to time, but I was young and got what I wanted for Christmas and it was awesome.

When we finally returned home, I enjoyed being in our own snow, not the unforgiving Canadian Wildness.

15-Ball

2002. UH.

Brandon and I spent a lot of time playing pool. We played more pool than we attended our psychology lecture. Around this time I was playing a lot of an online pool game called Carom 3D, which was programmed by Koreans. It was fun enough and did a decent job of pool physics. I played a lot with Sentell and Hai since we didn't live anywhere nearby at that point.

One day at the UC games room, I thought up a new pool game. I dubbed it 15-ball. It was simple: it was 9-ball, only played with all 15 balls and was for points, not sinking just the 9. The 1 ball was worth 1 point, the 2 was worth 2, and so on to 15. A full rack had 120 points in all. The object ball was always the lowest numbered ball and had to be struck first. But if, say, the 1 was struck first by the cue ball, and then that 1 ball hits the 15 and the 15 sinks, it was worth 15 points for sinking that ball.

We usually played to 500 or 1000 points. This would take hours. It was a lot of fun. Of course, I found out this variation of pool already existed, but I had thought of it prior to that. Oh, but we forbade the use of the bridge, just because.

Perhaps my time at college could have been spent more productively. Perhaps.

Warsong Gulch

2005.

I used to play WoW. I beta-tested it back in the day but decided that no game was worth paying a monthly fee to play.

I played one character, the leader class of the Horde, the Shaman. I was a Troll on a RP server. My name was Nomadis, a handle I use from time to time when Nomandy isn't appropriate. This memory focuses on a very fun stretch of time when I used to play WoW's sole battleground at the time: Warsong Gulch, often abbreviated WSG.

The Shaman was an extremely versatile class. A Shaman could do massive amounts of melee damage, cast spells at range, could heal, and had just enough survivability to be a major threat. The Shaman also had totems to help fight against all other classes. So a duel was usually a matter of knowing what spells to use and what totems to lay down when.

Warsong Gulch was a battleground where the righteous Warsong Outriders and the treacherous Silvermoon Sentinels vied for control over a valuable patch of woods. The Outriders need it to expand industry and create jobs for the struggling Horde economy. The Sentinels are just using it for staging grounds for their good-for-nothing, murderous army. So, naturally, these two factions play a 10v10 Capture the Flag game for dominance. First to 3 caps won.

Shaman had an ability to turn into ghost wolves to run faster but fight less effectively. This was useful in the flagrunning aspect of the game. So, this position was naturally suited to the Shaman (and Druid) class. I was pretty good at it. I played a lot of Warsong Gulch and made a name for myself on my server. I singlehandedly won games by getting all three requisite flag captures on myself. And on several occasions I returned the Horde flag so that I could capture the Alliance flag to win. On the server forums, I was even called out by someone on the opposing faction. And I still won.

I had but one nemesis, a gnome mage named Stimblefaud. He turned out to be a good guy but he was pretty good at killing me. (He was pretty difficult to kill, but I sometimes did.) I eventually got on a PVP "team" of sorts, where the most dedicated PVPers worked together to get honor and move up the PVP ladder, cooperatively. I accidentally entered their instance of WSG where 9 of the 10 team members were in. They politely asked me to leave. By the time I had responded, I had captured the flag. They were impressed. And thus I became part of their team.

Power.

It was good to be an unstoppable duelist in WoW. But, things changed. I changed. And to be honest, maybe here's another I'd like have back.

Juan, the Really, Really Evil Guy

1998.

In 8th grade we had to keep a journal. This didn't involve writing down our feelings or what we did that day, but it was a writing journal to get us to write on an almost daily basis. Now, my writing has always been a bit off-kilter. Vivid, strange, and well-written, despite being rife with stream of consciousness and run-ons and fragments. Yup, that's me.

I went a bit overboard now and again. While that's a common theme in my life, there were two particularly long stories I wrote from an extremely simple prompt. The first involved writing a story on what if I ended up on my favorite show. A paradox is that I'm extremely open about myself (just check my openness score on my psychological profiles) but I hardly ever tell anyone my feelings. So, in 8th grade, I didn't reveal more personal details than I had to. Such a silly thing, neh? I ended up writing a very long story that involved various shows and movies but at no point did I identify my favorite show. It wasn't great, but it was fun.

I don't recall the prompt for this story.

What I ended up writing was 21 pages (in my handwriting, so double that for normal people figures) about this post-apocalyptic wasteland of a world. I hadn't played Fallout by this point, but it's a similar world to that. I wrote it in the first person and the narrator was essentially a middle-aged version of me that had all the answers for questions no one bothered to asked him. A despot rose to power and his name was Juan, and he was really, really evil. That's all I ever elaborated about that. Life sucked but the narrator had a little niche carved out for him. In one of the many chapters, I had ridiculous titles to keep it somewhat amusing, there was a preacher that passed by the narrator's town. He preached and got people to follow him in a crusade to demand justice from Juan. He preaches and the narrator holds town meetings afterward, trying to dissuade people. Before the preacherman left, the narrator spoke to the preacherman for the first time in the story. He calls him by his real name, Parsons, the name of my best friend at the time, also playing a middle-aged version of himself. And they marched off to do the right thing and demand justice. All but 3 others run off, and Juan kills the preacherman as an example and lets the others go to tell others of the preacher's fate.

Finally, things come to a head ... somehow. There's an air combat scene for some reason, and the narrator had been a combat pilot at one point, like I had wanted to be at one point. Juan is defeated and the narrator takes strides in ridding the world of his influence.

The epilogue is short. A farmer begs the narrator for fairer taxes, that his children are starving, and he cannot continue. The narrator mocks the man and then dispatches him in the same way Juan killed the Preacher. A new reign of terror had begun. Bwahaha.

Yeah, that was my happy ending even in 8th grade. I ended up losing that journal and with it, the story. Alas.