So yesterday was a very long exhausting day! We woke up at 5am after a night of restless (if any) sleep. Andrew needed to be at the Airport for a 7:30am flight. After moaning and groaning a bit, whining about wanting to stay in bed and pleading not to go, I finally got up and went to go wake up Andrew. We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, there weren’t that many people flying out of the area so the lines were sparse. Given that we had some extra time, we stopped off and had a Cinnabon for some breakfast. Camping out near the security line I managed to inhale my sugar coated dough ball called a cinnamon roll. Andrew got to say his good byes and he headed off through the gates. Sarah and I headed back to the house to catch a quick nap.
This is when that syrupy monster took its revenge. My stomach began to twist and started to test out sailor knots with my intestines. I was experiencing the Red Bull effect. (for anyone who knows what Red Bull does to me). After expelling the demons, I was beat and took my nap. While we had only planned for a quick nap, Sarah fell asleep on the couch and woke up at 10:30am. I was so passed out that she took quite the effort in getting me awake again. We got up and headed downtown for our day off. You see, Sarah works different hours and, where my days off are Saturday and Sunday, hers are Monday and Tuesday. The fourth was one of the few days where both of us had off. So we parked at the Metro and went for a downtown adventure!
The first stop was the Botanical Gardens. I had never been to any of the places on our list so this was all new to me. The Gardens were really cool to visit. All of the different plant life growing was just awesome to see. They also had a Titan Arum there, also known as the Corpse Flower. It was not entirely in bloom so it didn’t stink yet, but it did look very cool. I managed to get some pictures of some of the cool flowers, but haven’t uploaded them yet. Right next to the Botanical gardens is the Native American Museum. It served as a great checkpoint into the DC Mall Cordon. (Set up for the 4th celebration). We took a quick tour of the top floor before our Stomachs turned on us and we needed food.
Thankfully, there was a folk festival going on all along the DC Mall and one of the booths had a great big “FREE FEAST” sign above it! We made a bee line and were treated to a yummy pasta salad and some curry or saffron flavored trail mix. Not entirely a feast but it defiantly helped with the hunger. All brought to you by your friendly neighborhood Hare Krishna. There was a whole section of the folk festival set up for India. We even learned what Ghee is! Unfortunately, the experience was soured by the extremely loud and obnoxious booths that a few Christian groups had set up to overpower the Indian music booths and warn of the Heathen ways! Apparently some people haven’t grasped the concept of “learning about other cultures”. After the India visit, we toured some of the local Virginia booths and saw some of the Irish culture set-ups. This was when the pasta salad gave out and we required more to eat. The National Gallery was a great choice and we headed over to the Café there to get some much needed nourishment.
On that note, I will continue the rest in part 2!
So, yeah, umm I haven’t really posted in the last few weeks because, thankfully, everything has been just status quo lately. Work has been the standard, there haven’t been any big events and everything else is just going along swimmingly. The future, however, has a number of things coming up. First though, Video Games Live
The show itself was amazing. It was in one of the smaller sides of the Center so the stage was not as large as what you see in the trailer off the website, and because of this it was limited as to what “on stage” things they could do. Really though, you don’t go to the NSO to see a stage show. They had the big screen above the stage to show different clips from the games, and the lighting and visual effects were awesome. They played music from all sorts of video games, from classic arcade games to Halo and everything in-between! It was, by far, one of the best concerts I have been to! Even Andrew was excited to be watching it. Many of the games they showcased he had played and knew the music from. 
Speaking of Andrew, as of Wednesday he will be out visiting his Mom in Arizona (as well as a whirlwind west coast tour) for 2 whole months! Which means that it’s going to be very strange around my place. To fill the void we have Shoreleave coming up on July 13th and this will be Sarahs first convention hanging out with the rest of us wackos. We should also have Episode III for Stupid Hobbitsess out very very soon (I hope). I guess more to come as it happens!
So I have been doing the whole Myspace thing for about 8 months now. For the most part it’s been fine. I managed to not make a disaster of my profile page like 90% of the rest of Myspacers have. I enjoy browsing the bands and film maker’s sites there are listed. Cheese It even has their own Myspace page for pimping of the Stupid Hobbitsess Videos (though I think the Youtube versions get more hits). The concept of Myspace works very well and I enjoy checking it and keeping in touch with friends.
If I have not met you in person, or at least know you so well that I talk to you on a regular basis, I have no need to add you as a friend. This is important because I regularly get invites from people that are “LOL yur in a costume that’s cool! Be my friend” Or the less offensive ones of “Hey Club buddy, I do that too!” Sorry, even though the 501st is a tight knit club, there are still 5000 of us out there and that means probably a good 4900 that I haven’t met. I like the 501st all well and good and you may be like me but, but let’s be honest, if I met me on the street at random, I may not be inclined to talk to me. ESPECIALLY do not send a friend request without a message as well that says “hey, I am so and so.” Just getting random requests does nothing for me.
You have a new Myspace Message! Hey there Handsome! Now Belinda is sending me a message because she thinks my myspace profile looks cool and so I must want to hang out with her cause, like, you know, the picture I have is so totally hot!. She has hot pics of her and her BFF (Jill?) on an isolated island together where they had to sponge bathe each other. I should check out the link she sent. This would be fine and dandy if I hadn’t gotten this message on the Cheese It profile page. Which has no pictures, or any personal information.
So over all, myspace is not bad. There are just so many people registered that it brings the average IQ of myspace down to that of a 3 year old. So please people, help bring this average up. Flag the spam as spam to help Tom Identify the bad guys. Ignore/Deny the spam friend requests. And please, if you honest and truly know me, feel free to add me as a friend, but if we have never met, try getting to know me first!
So apparently I have gone missing from the blog in the last week. After the release of Stupid Hobbitsess last week I kind of took a breather. It was nice to step away from the PC and just relax! I did play a little on the 360, but hey, can you really ask me to completely unplug? So here is a run down of the last week.
My shoulder is killing me now because I went a little overboard on playing pool. It has been a long standing tradition to go and play pool for lunch every Tuesday. I have been doing this for about 2 years now (maybe even more). Well, last week on Friday it was a slow day so we decided to go again. Then on Saturday, Paul calls me up and asks to go shoot pool. Then Sunday Andrew and I have started a tradition of going to play pool and eat brunch. So in one week’s time I was playing pool 4 out of the 7 days! Towards the end there it showed too. I was worn down. 
Interesting note and something that maybe you guys can explain. Why is it that teenagers feel the need to argue even if they know, and have been proven, they are wrong? Seriously! There was a shot in pool where the 9 ball was sitting near the side pocket. It was very close to the corner bumper of the pocket and from the angle I was shooting at, it would have caused it to hit the bumper and roll out, instead of going in. So I shot for something else. Andrew asked why I didn’t go for the 9. I explained why I didn’t and he didn’t understand, instead saying that it would have gone in. After explaining again, he still didn’t get it. So after the game was done I re-set the ball in the exact location and lined up the cue. He then spent the next 10 minutes trying to sink the 9 to no avail. Even now it claims that “it should have gone in” even though he proved to himself that it wouldn’t. WHY???????
Ok, I have been asked enough about my opinion on Spiderman 3 that I will do a full up post about it (as opposed to the one I did a while back). So, a little back story on my spider fandom. I Love Spiderman. I was into photography and science when I was in school, I was the geeky kid and every time I tried to Microwave a spider and get it to bite me it only ended in a messy microwave. With the exception of a few years of black out, I have been collecting Spiderman comics for a long while and I am fascinated with the Black suit. I loved it when he got it, I loved it when Felicia gave him a new version of it that wasn’t all angsty. I even followed the 3-4 Different origins of the costume through the different media forms. (Cartoon, Video games, Movies, Etc.) I actually own 1 Spiderman Costume and will have another one shortly. 
Spiderman 2 was amazing. They already established the characters, so there was no really awkward introductions. They brought in Doc Oc, who is another great villain. Even approached the idea of Spidey having issues with his powers. You really felt was he was going through and saw the pressures of the costume. The side story of Harry having father issues was a tad distracting but forgivable. (In the comics, since Goblin didn’t die, he was in jail, everyone knew who he was and Harry knew he was a bad guy). One scene I wasn’t fond of was the subway thing where Peters mask was off and everyone did the whole “We won’t tell” thing. BS. There would be about 30 Cell phone camera flashes going off and J.J. would have front page stories for a month! And, of course, they kill off the bad guy, again.
The black suit. This is where I am a little touchy. I realize that we can’t do the whole Secret Wars thing for the movie so an asteroid as an origin is fine, they even used it in the cartoon. The look and feel of the symboite was even good. I loved how it mimicked his old costume even! But that would be where the good stopped. One of the benefits of the black suit was that it could mimic clothing. ANY clothing. Peter would just think of something and bam, that’s what he was wearing. No need for new clothes, no need to duck in somewhere and change! This way he was always wearing the suit and it could bond with him. The symboite LOVED Peter, it loved being (the goddamn) Spiderman. It gave Peter the extra strength and made him a little extra angry. It didn’t turn him into the lead singer of My Chemical Romance! (The shot of him pulling the hair down into his face made me groan)
Now, Venoms origin was dead on! Eddie Brock hated Peter (and wasn’t all that fond of Spidey) and the whole bell tower church thing was pulled right from the comics. Topher Grace even did a pretty good job of portraying Eddies arrogance and attitude! I am willing to forgive some of the relationship between Peter and the Symboite being left out because of time. When I say that the black suit loved Peter, I meant it. It was a bond. Like that of a girlfriend you had been dating for a very long time. Those feeling don’t go away even if that person was slowly trying to kill you/drive you crazy. In the comics, Peter went to the bell tower because he knew that the sonics of the bells would drive the suit away……at the cost of his own life. The bells of deafening, and the sound was also killing Peter. When the suit leaves him, it realizes this and drags Peter to safety BEFORE bonding with Brock. But that’s ok, time constraints kept that out. The reason that this is important is that it becomes leverage in the future fights with Venom where Peter uses this love to Defeat Brock. In the comics Peter actually invites the suit to come back to him and it causes inner turmoil in Venom because it had already fully bonded with Brock. But I digress.
Last point of criticism, Gwen Stacy. WHY OH WHY WAS SHE IN THE MOVIE???? Gwen was one of Peters first girl friends. She falls in the timeline while Pete was still in school. He was on again off again with Mary Jane and started seeing Gwen while MJ was with Harry. They were quite serious. Green Goblin kidnapped her and threw her off a building. 
Almost forgot
So, a funny story for you. We all know about the water heater disaster from last weekend. Well, ever since they finished up with all of that there was this strange noise like air in the pipes coming from the tub faucet. (also a new drip). On Wednesday evening I asked them to come take a look at it. The office told me that it would be the next day. Since I could still take a shower with no problems, I figured that was cool. Well, that night it was pretty warm out. It was pretty warm inside too. A little too warm. Hmmm Maybe I should turn up the AC. Wow, it’s blowing out air, but it’s not cold. Lets crank it up some more. Nope, not doing the trick. [Sigh]. 
When I got home I went into the bathroom to check the tub. No more noise and no drip! Unfortunately, the cold water knob now doesn’t work!!! Not sure how you would miss that one. 
