Breakthrough

I had a breakthrough today. Well, Chris helped. BECCONOMICS! How awesome is that? Its amazing that I'd never made the connection before. Well, maybe I had, but didn't pay enough attention. I think it will be like horsism, but not non-sensical. Well, less non-sensical. Anyways, I don't have much more to say, other than that.

Inconceivable

My soccer team had its first game yesterday, and I think we did pretty well. We won, which is important, but more importantly, they played pretty well. After the first quarter, that is.

Yesterday we had a small bar-b-que at Chris' house in celebration of, uh, nothing really. It was fun. After we went shopping for the necessary food, we had a little bit of time before we needed to start cooking, so Chris and I turned on TCM, which has been having its month of stars, which is that every day is devoted to movies that a particular person stared in. We watched Adam's Rib, which was very interesting. There was all sorts of nominalism vs. realism. Very fun.

And right now I'm watching the Princess Bride as I type. I bought this at the same time that I bought my tv, as sort of a warming gift to my tv. So many classic lines in this movie. Its great. "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it does."

PS. The title was for the movie, not the fact that my team won.

New occurances

So last night Rob, Chris, and I, after watching some Simpsons (I actually had seen the two episodes we watched), decided to play some Settlers. I think I prefer the three person game to the four, because there's more room to expand, and I think the game is more interesting. Rob won on a two (very unlikely roll), which was kind of funny, except for the fact that he won.

In other news, I am now coaching a girls U12 AYSO soccer team. I'm still not quite sure how it happened, but oh well. It should be interesting to see if I can water down how I think a game should be played and teach them some stuff. I've decided that I don't really care what our record is, as long as I can manage to teach them a lot. We'll see how well that goes over with the girls, though.

For some reason last night my calf was mad at me. It could have been because I ran around yesterday at practice with no shoes on. Or it could have just realized that I had started being around a soccer ball and remembered all the fun it had had waking me up in the middle of the night cramping during high school and college. Anyways, its still really sore this morning, which is strange.

What else is new. Oh, my first volleyball game is tomorrow, which should be very interesting. I'm not playing, but refing, and I have no previous knowledge of the sport, unlike when I started refing soccer. But it seems really easy (although there are some people that just can't seem to get it, so maybe I'm missing something difficult), and Robby enjoys it, which tells me it can't be hard.

Oh, the other new thing is that today Brandon officially went to Basic (for the Army). I hope he has fun.

2-1-1

I believe that's my record thus far from playing Settlers of Catan, although I could be missing a loss in there. And yes, you can tie a game if you run past your allotted time because somebody has to go to bed. Anyways, last night after the Fantasy Football draft (yes I'm playing FF) Chris, Rob, and I decided to play a game of Settlers because we didn't quite have enough time for a Freaks and Geeks episode. So we played, and it was a very interesting board set-up, because all brick hexes were low (except for one 6 that Robert had but was always blocked). I had no ore or brick, but lots of wheat and a wheat harbor.

So after a while I realized my only hope of winning would be through D Cards. I think I ended up buying 8. And I won! Woohoo!

My family is a patron of two different pizza places, Rusty's and Papa O's. Its always a tough decision when we need to pick one. Rusty's (in my opinion) has far better pizza. But Papa O's has stuffed crust, which my family loves (I personally don't like it). Rusty's also has Bust-a-Move, which is one of the best arcade games ever. However, Papa O's has a lot more games, some of which give tickets, and most of which are newer. Which would you choose?

I have an eating disorder...

... its called laziness. Its really not a good thing. As I was going to bed last night, I realized just exactly what I had had to eat during that day. It wasn't pretty. So I've made a pact with myself to start fixing more food. Like right now, I'm fixing myself some ravioli (yummy!). Its a start.

In other news, Rachel's first HP discussion group is tonight, so we'll see how that goes. Even if its just us there, I think it will be fun. But I don't think it will be just us there, in case you were wondering. We'll see what wonderfulness we come up with that needs to be in Book 7.

Does anybody out there have a copy of Photoshop that I could have? I'd really like to have it. *coughRobertJasoncough*

Thunder only happens when its raining?

So Rach listens to this band called the Cors, and they have a song which has a line that is the same as the title to this post. And when I was in her car once, I mentioned that its not true, because you can have lightening storms where there is no rain. Well, as luck would have it, we had one of those last night. While it did sprinkle for like, a second, most of the thunder was happening when there was no rain.

Actually, it was pretty cool, because it was huge thunder and lightening. There was a black out for a second, followed by the longest roll of thunder I've ever heard (I think). Anyways, it was awesome. And then this morning, the sky was all cloudy, which was also pretty cool.

Also, last night Chris and I decided to play Oil Power, which is a game similar to monopoly, but a little different. Basically, you have to buy leases to all these fields, and once you have all the leases to a field, you can drill on the field. You can either get a gusher, 100, 50, or 0. Then, if a person lands on that field, they have to pay you money.

Chris killed me the first game because he kept getting lucky on his drills. He had something like four gushers and two 100's on his only field, and I couldn't find oil to save my life. But I won the second game pretty well, so it made up for it. It was a fun game. Its funny that I haven't played monopoly in a long time, and now I've played it and a game like it twice in a week's time.

He's going to be all right.

So last night was fun. Chris and I joined Rachel at a night of Major League Improv, where she was Ms. Voice. It was fun because there was a large audience, when there usually isn't. The only bad part about that was there were some suggestions that weren't very good. Major League Improv, for those of you who don't know, if like Who's Line Is It, sort of.

Afterwards, we went to Lengthwise, where Rob caught up to us. Poor Robert just had his wisdom teeth out, so he was a littl puffy, but I insulted him till he braved some real food (french fries), so I think he's glad he went, because now he knows he can eat real food, it just takes a while. Then we went over to Chris' where Nat joined us. It was a fun evening.

Lately I've been wathing Arrested Development, which I think I've mentioned. It is one of the funnies shows I've ever watched, because its so bizarre, but with the characters, bizarre seems normal. That might be the reason I like it so much. They manage to make strange an every day occurance, which takes some work. So its awesome, and very much a show that we would enjoy, which we do.

Summertime, and the living is easy

I'm going to be sad once the summer ends. Its like everything is put on pause for summer, and then fast forwards once its over to make up for it. Soon I'll be officiating volleyball, and subing, and maybe working someplace else, plus the occasional soccer games on the side. Meh. Oh well, it'll keep me out of trouble, I guess. Wait, what am I talking about. Nothing could keep me out of trouble.

Catan

I just spent the evening playing a very fun game by the name of Settlers of Catan. Its pretty awesome. And actually, we were playing an expansion of that game called Knights and Cities of Catan, which is a lot more complicated thatn Settlers. It also means the game takes a lot longer, so we didn't finish it, although Nat and I got pretty close to winning.

Its a great game, which has a little to do with economics, but not much. Mostly its about how lucky you can get with dice rolls, although Knights and Cities makes it a little less based on luck. Only problem was, we were too sure on the rules, so Rob, Chris, and I were at a slight disadvantage (because Nat had played before), so once she did something, we realized we could, but would have done it sooner had we known.

I just wish that there was some way to destroy the other player's towns once you get strong enough. You know, more like Civilization or something, where you use your knights to go kill and take over. But then again, I can just play Civilization.

My brother is gone for two weeks, which means my house will be very peaceful. Now if I can only get the other one to leave. Yeah right, like that will ever happen. He won't go anywhere there isn't a tv and a vcr.

School starts soon, and it'll be weird not leaving to go. I keep thinking that my life will change a lot once the summer is over (like it always has in the past), but it really won't. I'll still be here in Bakersfield, hanging out with Chris and and Rach, Nat, and Rob when they're in town. Oh well, I suppose that isn't so bad.

The Aftermath

So I'm back from my fun weekend around Santa Barbara. It was a blast! I had so much fun hanging out with my family. Some of you will be amazed that I just typed the previous sentence, but I did.

On Saturday we gathered at the Arroyo Hondo Ranch, which is now a land preserve in Santa Barbara County. It really hadn't changed at all, except that this year there were no tents in the meadow to get hit by volleyballs. We played the required volleyball game, which was awesome, but I think my team loss. Not that we really kept score. Its hard to really keep score when you're playing with at least three kids under 8 on each team.

After the main day of activities, we went to a campground where a lot of people were staying in these nice little cabin things and played cards and just hung out until about 11 when we decided that it was time to head in. So my brothers and I drove to Solvang where we were staying because my parents didn't get on reserving a cabin in time. But that was cool because I got to drive by The Hitching Post. If you don't know what that is, you're lame and need to watch more movies. Unfortunately I didn't get to stop in, because it was closed by 11:45 when I drove by.

The next day was spent at the beach with the assortment of Aunt, Uncles, and cousins that had stayed. We got there about 1 and played about an hour and a half of Ultimate Frisbee. Half of the field was in the ocean, so it was a blast. I had only expected a couple people to play, but almost all of my relatives played, which made for an amazing game. Then we played in the ocean and made a huge sand fort with my younger cousins, got sunburned, and headed home.

Its really funny that I do the same thing with my family that I do with my friends, which is play cards, sit around and talk, and this year, play frisbee. But really, there's not many better ways to waste time, so I can't complain.

In unrelated news, I'm so excited that my past couple of posts caused so many comments! Woohoo!

A Few Good Days

Got back from SB today and played a little frisbee. It was fun because only six people showed up, and all six were siblings. I was there with Robby, Chris with PJ, and Rob with Tim. So first we played older siblings vs. younger ones, and then we mixed it up a little bit more. Was really fun, but really tiring.

Billy and I had a blast over in SB doing nothing. Yesterday we hung out around the pool of my Aunts hotel, then went to the beach for a little bit. Today we hung out around my grandparents house and went on a walk with our Aunt (a different one) and cousins.

Then on the way home we stopped at the Outlet Mall, where I got a sweatshirt for 4 dollars. Go me! So it was a good couple of days, to soon be followed by another good couple of days starting on Saturday. Yay for the summer.

I need you like Ben Affleck needs acting school.

Well, I'm off to Santa Barbara today, if my brother would ever get up. Then its back to Bakersfield on Thursday, and back to the SB area on Friday. Woo! Some of you might be wondering why I'm spending so much time over there. Well, first of all, its like 20 degrees cooler over there than here, and second, my family is sort of congregating over there for this week, so I'll get to see some people who, due to school, I haven't seen in a long while.

Two nights ago, Chris, Nat, Rach, and I watched Sideways, which was awesome. In recognition of the film, we went to Vons and bought a Pinot Nior (I think that's how its spelled) and drank it during the film. Then last night Chris and I watched Team America and had some Bombay Sapphire and tonic, which was great. (There's a scene where you see some bottles of Sapphire, so that's why we had it). That is a very wrong, but funny movie. I don't think I've laughed that much at a movie in a long while. But afterwards Chris and I were talking about it, and I realized that I really couldn't repeat any of the funny scenes, mostly because they're unrepeatable.

But I do love the songs in the movie, my favorite being the two montage songs, one called Montage, and the other, well, I don't know what its called, but it makes fun of Pearl Harbor (the movie, not the historical event).