Another world, another time, in the age of wonder... I went to eat at this newly opened place for my birthday, a fairly early one, that was on the hill overlooking the Roy Rogers that I would one day call home. The Metuchen child who would over a decade later express anger at me sleeping with
When my first stepfather and mother looked for a group to game with, they found a group that played RPGs weekly at a comic store in downtown Woodbridge. I was nine at the time. Some fifteen year old kid named Scott was part of the group, and the two of us became friends. Six years later, I was a fifteen year old kid now living down the street while he was a twenty-one year old guy living with his mom. Through my high school career, he took me to the mongolian BBQ on the hill regularly. He was friends with the owner, Charlie, and the three of us would sit there night after night. We'd talk about love, life, and how silly the talking monkeys that populate this planet are. Good times. Charlie was a wise old Chinese man, who remembered customers and ran a good cheap place. My senior year, I determined I was going to


One time, I think my sophomore year, a bunch of my Drew friends joined Scott and I there. When I showed up, Charlie gave me his usual warm loud greeting.
So I blew Scott off on his 30th birthday. And I hadn't seen him or even called in months. And I didn't invite him to naked sushi. So he was, understandably, miffed. So I agreed to hang out with him and the Russian SPY! on Friday. Like SNaP! (smooth and nasty artistic productions), that phrase always gets a bang at the end.
We met up at Charlie's place, had our usuals, less than we ate as starving teenagers. We went back to Scott's new place, mere blocks from where he grew up and my dad's house. In fact, I once was hooking him up with a friend of mine during an off of his on-again off-again relationship with a girl named Erin. One night, she wanted me to ask him certain questions and pry information out of him. So I drove by his place, and she wanted me to park a couple of blocks away, as he had a nice view from his bedroom. I hung out with him, asked him the questions, and tried to get away without letting him know anything was going on. He kept on distracting me, a skill I now use on the likes of
So we hung out, and I got to check out his NWN server. Then we hooked up Hambone for some Gauntlet action, beating the first world and a couple stages of the second. So I'm up to three characters, as everyone insists I start over to be fair. Meanwhile,
Like I posted, Saturday we were supposed to all go to Belmont. So I got up quite early, got ready, and started heading to the city. I was going to park my car in Hoboken, and take the PATH into Penn Station, meeting up with my friends at 9. My friends are lazy stoners. I got a phone call after already getting on to 280 that they weren't getting up. I called each and every one of them, threatening to kick their asses and screaming at them.
Dipping dots were discussed, and YET ANOTHER parable for our social grouping was constructed. We were a group of brothers. I'm the oldest brother, I've done everything, so I'm off doing my own thing and just responding to everything with how I already did it. Then comes
We spent most of the day watching the OTB channel, watching Belmont and reading Post articles about it. As I said, we ended up blowing off
Taking the 6 in to NYC to meet up with
During a transfer, we realized it was the weekend of the Puerto Rican parade. A recent year was marred with incidents of groping, splashed t-shirts, and violence. One guy was wearing a Puerto Rico flag earring with little LEDs. I suddenly got Taco Flavored Kisses stuck in my head, and had to share the pain with
We got to Penn Station, and waited for the bridge and tunnel people to show up.
After that, we headed off to the Quiet Party. Check out
At the end of the evening, we got the award for the messiest table, a bottle of bubbles. We rushed outside to make cancer balls, so people took turns making them.
Everyone else went home, while
After the meal, they drove me back up to
Sunday I had to wake up way to early, to work a shift alone with Jiminy B. I made some great sales (not that the job's anything but free Microsoft and spending good times talking about games with good people), and he had to listen to me talk about the night before at length all day long. My day was made when some kid sat in front of the Halo 2 gameplay DVD Jiminy B. made, his mouth on the floor, eyebrows shooting up from time to time. He kept on drooling, while his brother kept on slamming on the keypads hooked up to the demo units, not realizing they were disconnected. ``I'M PRESSING START!! I'M PRESSING START!! I'M PRESSING START!!!'' He whined and whined, while his brother drooled and drooled. That, personally, made my day.
After that, I talked with a good chunk of my friends, and was entertained that the Taco Flavored Kisses episode was on. Trigun and Bebop were good, and it was an episode of Undergrads I hadn't seen that often. I posted, and went to sleep.
UPDATE: Yes, I spent some time today listening to Japanese techno from Bloodyang's last return to the states while using hard drive platters from the drive