Pocari Sweat, nectar of the gods.

Mike and I went to the Azn food market last night. We got some omoshiroii okaashi (interesting candy) and five bottles of Pocari Sweat. Pocari Sweat tastes mostly like Gatorade, but in a lemon-like flavor that isn't available in the states. Its pretty much my favorite drink ever, and I am very thankful that I have that much of it to drink right now.

We also went to Best Buy, and played the demo of Rock Band. I played the drums through "Suffragette City", and tried to play the guitar through Faith No More's "Epic", but the guitar's buttons were a lot harder to press (I mean pressure wise) than a guitar hero guitar, and Mike and I could not finish any songs playing it. I did enjoy playing the drums very much, though I would have liked to try out the mic (but it had no buttons on it, we couldn't figure it out). I really can't wait to play the full version and rock out the mic and drums at the same time. I also almost bought Sing Star but then remembered, I have no money.

My Dad, Top of the Pops

I just remembered while driving home that I found out last weekend that my dad likes the Beatles. I never really knew that cause he was always listening to classic rock from the 70s. I knew he liked them but I didn't know he liked them. I said, "Hey Pops, do you like the Beatles?" as we drove up to Moon Base Alpha. Pops said, "Of course, they're the Beatles."

Duh.

The party stops here..

My brother is going to move in with me December 1st. Rather torn about it, but as I've been telling everyone I have to have a positive outlook on something since I've been in this rut for the last few weeks, and I might as well have a positive outlook on that.

Last night in Japanese class these two girls, one of whom I am sure is gay, kept talking throughout class and distracting me. I find that incredibly rude, and if one of them wasn't so unattractive than I might have been inclined to say something, but I figured looking like that has to be punishment enough.

Also in Japanese class one of Mike's friends kept talking about something regarding police being outside of her sister's apartment due to some kind of suicide. No one really cared, but she kept telling us about it, while Mike kept trying to get her to practice Japanese with us.

My mother made steaks last night, and these things were huge, I mean at least twice the size of a normal portion, and I cut mine in half yelling, "No wonder none of you lose weight! And don't put butter in the potatoes!"

The rape at MCCC didn't happen, as I predicted, no offense to real rape victims out there, but to you women who think its cool to make claims like this - this is why the real victims sometimes don't win their cases, you assholes. I hope you go to jail. And I hope you get raped there.

I really need a T.V. in my room. I also had a dream where I lost most of my teeth last night, while wrapped up in some kind of Power Rangers Mystic Force plot. This morning I woke up when the alarm went off at 7, but I was still tired, so I did what I thought was setting the alarm to an hour later. What I did however, was set my regular clock an hour later, so when I woke up at "9" and freaked out getting ready for work skipping my shower, it was really 8, and I felt very silly.

Mike and I have a date tonight! We are going to the Asian Market and then to the Halloween Store and then we are going to play Wii together. I enjoy spending time doing things with him. I do not enjoy spending time on the couch watching TV with him. I don't like doing that with anyone, to tell you the truth.

Tomorrow is Halloween!

Here is your picture for the day!


Outhouse by Pops with appropriate rainbow.

Rabanastre Declassified Information

Heres a conversation Dan and I had back in August about ffxii.

me: dude i had the most awesome fight last night too
i fought three marks and like, 4 minibosses last night
Daniel: damn!
me: can i tell you about them
i only want to talk about one mark and one miniboss
Daniel: of course
hahaha
I've narrowed this topic of conversation down into two subtopics.
me: so i started reading about the marks because i wanted to speed up
haha
so i started reading about the marks because i wanted to speed up how long it was taking me since greg was leaving shortly and taking his game with him
Daniel: hahaha
me: and there are two marks that i set out to defeat last night, one in the Necrohol of Nabudis, and one in the Nabreus Deadlands. Two very obnoxious places to be in.
I read about the one in (I'm saving this so i can finally blog about a game)
Daniel: (okay)
me: I read about the one in Nabudis first, and figured it wouldn't be too much of a problem - the one in the Nabreus Deadlands was incredibly foreboding (right word there?) of danger and even began with "So you're at this mark, eh?" so naturally I got scared and decided to revisit that one after a few more levels
Sent at 9:42 AM on Friday
me: However I had to go through the Deadlands to reach the mark in the Necrohol. I thought I was lucky because the one in the Deadlands was "hidden" in a "secret area" and I didn't think I would have to worry about it.
Sent at 9:43 AM on Friday
me: SO I'm running through the Deadlands for a bit because I figured while I am here I might as well get the stupid map, and as I'm running through this little tight piece of land before I get to the map urn I decide to try to find a secret area, which blows my mind, because I KNEW that the mark was IN a secret area..
Sent at 9:44 AM on Friday
Daniel: hahaha
goofball
me: I mean I kind of stumbled across it and kept traveling deeper into it but I knew what I might find - For some reason though I thought since this was the Deadlands (which in itself is a very scary place to be, its filled with thick mist and theres, well, dead shit in it everywhere) there had to be at least more than one secret area and maybe I'll find a chest because even though this was that "area through thick fog and tall grass" I thought maybe there was more than one
Well I'm running around like an asshole
And I start going up the side of this hill.. and all these skeletons are popping up at me, I mean, every three steps, I'm fighting 3/4/5 at a time
Daniel: sweet combo boost though
me: And believe me I am not really plowing through them but I'm doing alright so I keep going up a little bit more until suddenly somehow my fucking brain starts to function properly and I says to myself, I says, "Oh, so this must be the hill of skeletons you have to fight your way up before you get to the mark, oh and HEY LOOK THE HUGE RED DOT right up the hill past this fuckin army of undead right
Ok Molly, fuckin you're here, just deal with it"
Daniel: good good
me: And I'm pretty terrified, I'm using a LOT of magick to keep everyone alive and this mark is a magick user and uses fear on my people to drain their magick and holy shit its fucking HUGE its this GIGANTIC GOLEM LIKE THE SIZE OF RABANASTRE
All the while the fuckin skeletons are still comin at me
Daniel: hahaha
me: So I don't know, I kill off about 30 of those skeletons and finally get up to the golem who isn't really moving but hey thanks for casting fear on Penelo and draining my MP
Oh, thanks, there goes Fran
So here I am, with my arsenal of status spells, Blind, Silence, Slow, ok cool slow sticks, Dispel
I don't know how I did it, it took me a good fuckin 20 minutes to kill this thing just because ... ok well if you focus on the golem the skeletons stop coming at you but since Fran is magick using and bow using and in the back she kind of drums up a few of them here and there
So I'm running back and forth trying to save her while more skeletons pop up since I stopped fighting the golem and the golem is casting Blizzaga on me and shit and I'm just like
THIS SHIT IS BANANAS
Makes me wish I had this one Esper Greg was telling me about who's only ability is, well, to cast DEATH on everyone.
So I get up to chain 50 something at least with those skeletons
I kill that Golem.
I feel so fucking good at this point
I go and I kill the mark in the Necrohol, another Golem.
I go back, and I get mad shit as rewards.
So then I head back and visit Montblanc, he's like, man you are so slammin, Vaan, and I'm just like, yeah yeah I gotta go man see ya
Daniel: the only tim vaan will get a compliment.
me: I head out to The Port at Barlthformheim or whatever silly name they gave that pirate town
I talk to Reddas
Plot, plot, plot
I end up at this fucking huge dungeon
Greg says, you're only on the first ascent, or descent, or whatever the fuck they call it
"Don't even bother me"
There are three minibosses already in the first hour I have been in there
They have all gone down with ease
I mean I am slaughtering these guys
But I've got about five more marks I have to kill
An Esper I want to get, and some side quests I want to look into
However, I might just beat some more marks and end the game, and then go back and revisit once I move.
So thats my ffxii story, I can't stop thinking about it, right now all I want to do is go home and play it.

I saw Bonde do Role!

When I first got back from this show my immediate reaction was to sit down and write a review, but it was so damn late, and I was pretty intoxicated. I figured it wouldn't be a good idea to write it right then. I decided to put it off until the weekend, but that didn't happen either. Now, four days later, I know I don't remember everything awesome about everything I wanted to mention, but there are a few things that I can cover here with confidence.

First off, I went with two of the four ex-roomates, The Vegan and The Pharmacist. Since they are no longer part of a much larger circle of people that I frequently refer to in my life, I can from here on in call them by their real names, Lee and John, respectively.

First thing I should mention about this show was the venue. A small club in the Fishtown area of Philly, two floors, definitely posh, definitely not a place I would be going to if it weren't for the group performing that night. I don't know what other events happen there, but I can say that nothing led me to believe that anything but electronic music was played there in the last ten years. Also, the people there were more or less dressed way nicer than I ever would dress to go out on a Thursday night to see a group perform, and absolutely beautiful. I'm talking like hand picked top of the line Philly 20-30 crowd photo shoot stuff. Even the fat chicks looked good. Not hot, but good.

We got there during the tail end of a little group called GANG playing, consisting of a bass player, a drummer and two female singers who could try a little harder to look better if they're going to be relying on their charm and and looks to sell the crowd on their music. They were a direct rip off of the B-52's, with that kind of mis-matched we make our own outfits but don't look as good as Punky Brewster edge to them. The two girls sang over a taped track written by the two remaining band members, while the drummer plays his riffs while listening to headphones and the bass player stands in place with her back half turned to the crowd looking like some soggy unenergized cross between Kurt Cobain and Janice Tanaka (but less cool).

Regardless of what they looked like, their music was forgettable. The beats/riffs/hooks/bass/whatever wasn't anything remotely funky enough to support the energy of the two singers, who had forgettable voices but kind of nice smiles. They did a pretty gray cover of Rock Lobster (suprise!), and even though we only saw two more songs (three more songs?) after that, the only thing I can still remember from their performance is the choreography of the interactions between the two girls, which was more weird and over-thought-out than entertaining. I'm not sure if they were going for funky or performance art, but if you're going to be doing this kind of thing with this kind of "listening to this in the background at work and not really paying attention" music they really should pick one and run with it.

Seondly a group I can't remember played, and I'm not going to comment on them, because I honestly didn't have any feelings for or against them, but I am going to comment on the group's DJ spinning a 20 minute set of not-quite-main-floor house music before the group went on.
Number 1- What is the deal with that?!
Number 2- Where the fuck is all the vinyl?
Number 3- Just because you can cue some tracks up doesn't mean you deserve to be called a "DJ".

Lastly Bonde do Role came on.

WOO!

They were great. I mean, its pretty hard to screw up a performance when you're in a group like that when 90% of the crowd doesn't even know what you're saying anyway, when your DJ has the shit already cued up on his laptop, and when you look as good as Marina does. However, their energy was over the top, their little stage antics are just incredibly hot and somewhere in my heart it just makes me so happy to see bands from all over the world do well in other countries. It was also a little gold star in my heart to see a group from another country perform, especially one that plays music that I otherwise would not have been exposed to if it weren't for my former roomates. On a final note, they all looked like they were having loads of fun, and everyone in the place was enjoying them on top of that.

When we got back to John's house, somewhere around 3am, Lee ran upstairs and put his stereo on full volume. He then tripped and fell somewhere and put a hole in John's wall.

So that's pretty much what I remember from that night. If you're really interested in reading some technical stuff about Bonde or just a better review of their performance, I'm sure you can google something up. I read a few over the weekend and well, its pretty much the same thing no matter what. Just keep in mind the next time they roll into town, and you're not sure if you should go or not, that Marina is way hotter in person than any picture of her I have ever seen.

The coolest thing on the web that I haven't seen yet.

Three foods I have written off

This morning I was feeling a little hungry, and since I was up rather early thanks to The Boyfriend motivating the two of us to wake up early enough for him to get to class on time, I had a few minutes to spare and decided on using them to stop at the 7-11 that is on the Pennsy side of my drive and directly on the way to my employer.

(Regardless of what time I woke up I still would have stopped there; I feel like I should note that. However, I must declare that waking up early enough to get to work before 9 does help me to justify my actions more, and I do not (did not?) feel guilty stopping somewhere when I have so much time to spare.)

I perused the aisles for some grub, and while originally I had intended to get a blueberry muffin for some reason my stomach told me to get a breakfast sandwich instead. I think that had something to do with how many calories I presumed are in a muffin compared to the sandwich, which when looking back doesn't make much of any sense at all considering how greasy and fatty the breakfast sandwich looks, not to mention tastes. I opted for what I THOUGHT was a bacon egg and chee on a croissant, but upon opening the sammich in the car I realized I had not read the entire label, and I mistakenly bought a sausage egg and chee sammich instead. I continued opening my morning grub up, only to be disgusted by the what seemed to be plastic slab of cheddar, soggy-ass bread substitute they were trying to pass as a croissant, paper thin egg-substance, and sausage that looked like it had been shat out of the last person to eat one of these horrendous concoction's ass formed back together in patty shape and placed right back into where it had originally called it's home.

Of course I ate it anyway, I was hungry. I did remove parts of the cheese that had been hardened for what I could only assume was hours of abuse under the warming lamp in the store, I kind of pushed/brushed/picked off the parts of the bread that had been liquefied, and I nibbled at the parts of the sammich that appeared to contain some kind of flavor or solid chew-able ingredients. Of course it tasted horrible, of course I couldn't finish the whole thing, I think I got about 3/4 of what was left after my redecorating and balled up the rest inside the wrapper.

Never again will I buy one of these sandwiches. Not after that. The risk of ever getting a sandwich that is even half less as bad as that is way too high for me to ever spend money on that item again.

So in lieu of that, here are the three basic foods that I have sworn never to eat again:

1. Cup Ramen
Ramen is good. Everyone loves ramen. Heck, I still love ramen. However, the pre-packaged ramen that comes in those environmentally unfriendly containers with the freeze dried "meat" is something that will never pass my lips again. The last two times I had this food I have thrown up within the hour, and this is without having drank any alcohol beverages. Fans of mine may know that I puke a lot after a night of drinking, and my stomach can be set off by a variety of simple things that have to do with the preferred drug of Christians and Jews everywhere, but when food accomplishes making me hurl all by itself I have no other choice but to raise the white flag and call it quits.

2. Mushrooms, sans Portabella
I do not like mushrooms (except portabella)!!! Mom, Dad, get that through your head. For the last 27 years I have been trying every concoction that the two of you make using mushrooms, and I have not liked a single one. Does that tell you something? This isn't one of my five-ten year old phase fits where I just refuse to eat something. I just DON'T like them. I don't like them in my salads, I don't like them with my steak, I don't like them in my chicken. You have seen me try them. You have seen me say "NO I DONT LIKE IT" every time I try it. Please stop asking me to try things with mushrooms in them. When you invite me over to eat please do not cook things with mushrooms in them. I will not like them. I do not like them. Maybe in ten years my palette will change, but until I directly instruct you to use them, please don't waste yours and my time.

3. Squid
One time in Japan my ex boyfriend and I were attempting to eat at a place and something looked good on the menu. I pointed at it and ordered it, thinking it was chicken. Nope. Some kind of squid. I think that at every meal I had in Japan that I attempted to order myself there was squid in it. I don't think I ever really *LIKED* squid, but I never *DISLIKED* it either until I had it by *MISTAKE* so many times. The experiences I had in Tokyo completely ruined that half-assed fish for me, because every time I sit down and look at a squid-meal I am remembered of how horrified, disappointed, starving, and disgusted I was when I accidentally ordered that food.

This post is a bit hasty, yes?