Aside from watching DBZ movies I also revisited some of the older selections in my DVD collection: I watched Days Of Thunder and really enjoyed myself until I realized I had a blown speaker on my TV. Dammit, I need a real sound system! I must have been on a Tom Cruise kick because the next film I dropped into the player was Top Gun. I only got partway through that movie, about 25 minutes in, before I decided I was done with movies. A lot of my time that day was spent online, even while I was watching the movies. Can you say "addict?" Sure, I knew ya could. It was cool, though, because I got to spend a lot of time hanging out and chatting with
Also of interesting note was that around 8:00 PM or so on Friday night my parents called. As you may recall, I have a very weird relationship with my parents. Sometimes we get along perfectly, other times we're at one another's throats. This animosity usually tends to be held between just one parent and myself, with it alternating between my father or my mother based on the topic at hand. In past months there has been a lot of sparks flying between my mother and myself for reasons I couldn't really determine, with my dad trying to mediate but not really achieving anything. Then, like magic, the whole thing cooled off and now all three of us are getting along great again. I can't really say that it's anything I did, although I would be more than happy to take credit for it. What I think happened is that my parents -- most specifically my mother -- have come to the realization that no, I am not moving "home" to Minnesota. Illinois has become my "home" now. I had to throw away all my ties to family, friend and job when I moved out here for school. It's taken me six years but I've finally reassembled my life into something I'm even moderately proud of, and I've built a base of friends -- low in number but incredible in quality, I wouldn't trade a single one of the Illinois Pack for anything -- that I'm simply in awe of. I won't tear my life asunder by giving up on them just so I can move back to my old stomping grounds and live near my family. I think when my mother finally realized that I wasn't going to move back she was finally able to get behind the idea of my buying a house and was able to see all the benefits it will have for me. My dad seemed a lot more at ease talking about the subject with me, too, going so far as to offer me the loan I mentioned before to help with my down payment. It's funny when you think about it, but all that tension and underlying anger was generated just because my parents miss me and wanted me to buy a house back in Minnesota so that I wasn't as far away as I am now. Weird, huh?
The phone call went very well, though. My mom had various tidbits of news about current events in Minnesota that I was interested in, and talked with me for some time about my plans for house hunting. Eventually the call was passed to my dad, and he and I shot the breeze for another hour or so, touching on the house topic again for a little bit. Then he asked how I was doing at my job and I laid the honest truth on him -- things haven't been so hot. He understood, and then the next half an hour was passed trading war stories about how stupid the bureaucratic system was and how similar the problems can be in the workplace between the public and private sector. Hearing that his boss at the fire station had done incredibly stupid and costly things as well helped cheer me up, even though my head still hurt that late at night.
Saturday saw me waking up once more at 730 in the morning, partly in a panic because I thought I was late for work. The moral of the story, kids, is that if you miss work on Friday you'll wake up the next day thinking it's Friday -- sort of like your own little version of Groundhog's Day. I got up, performed my morning rituals (checking LJ, synchronizing my Handspring and reading my e-mail, naturally!) and then hopped on line for a bit. I shot the breeze with
After we had gorged ourselves (I believe Aureth's exact words were "I am a bloated Mongolian tick," yet more evidence of the influence of Cthulhu prophet
Once the movie was over Roho and I proceeded to go right back into the gaming mode and whipped up on one another some more in Bloody Roar 3. I played the hell out of that game and started to get fairly comfortable with a couple of the characters it contains. It is a bit unsettling for me, though, to discover that I play the cute little anime cat girl "Nuriko" (described as the "half-beast" in the game) so well. Why can't I play really well as somebody fearsome like Long or Stun? No, I have to play the cute innocent little girl who happens to grow ears, paws and a tail when she morphs. Still more disturbing is that I kicked some ass with Alice, the rabbit, as well. Alice wears the obligatory Japanese nurse outfit. Help me.
Boozing and gaming went for some time, and eventually Jen's machine was restored to a minimal level of functionality. It has a few of the base programs that she needs installed on it, and seems to be much more stable now. I know for a fact it's definitely faster, but a complete reload of Windows can do that for nearly any system. Around 11:00 PM or so I bid the cheetah and fennec a good night, packed up the electronics in my truck and drove home. When I arrived home I hopped online, said goodnight to everyone and then promptly fell face-first into bed.
Today is MFF meeting day. I've got a small presentation to make which should provide good news to the con chair, the head of registration as well as the art show lead. The rest of it I will probably not participate in, though I do plan to keep an ear open just in case.
Tomorrow I go back to work. Why is it these three day vacations are just never long enough?
Now I ain't saying it's right, or it's wrong