The weekend started out simple. Fry's for Saturday morning, and I was the one driving. When we got there, I sort of stood outside the store in a strange awe as a few words managed to leave my mouth. "It's...themed?" I muttered softly as I tried to grasp the concept that this giant electronics store had an Egypt theme. Sure enough, as we walked in past the palm trees, past the stone counters, and into the store itself, it became apparent that somebody invested far too much money into decorating the place. I wandered aimlessly, looking for nothing in particular, yet being preyed on by a salesman every 3 minutes or so. You could have probably kept time by it too. I think I was able to look at something for only a few moments. The instant I looked interested, someone was offering me information on the device, and the information they were offering was the exact same stuff on the computers themselves. Telling them "I'm okay, I'm just looking" won't suffice apparently, as they continued to pester me, telling me things that I could clearly read on the computers and the signs themselves. Since it was obvious they weren't going to leave me alone, I decided I would have some fun. Asking about the iBook brought a strange look to their face, as ALL their laptops were some breed of Windows. I followed this up by asking about benchmark comparisons, and they slowly stopped pestering me. This also reaffirmed my suspicion that they were salesmen first, knowledgeable second (or eighth). However, this trip was not in vain for me, as I have discovered Suzuka, and she shall clearly not be found at Fry's Electronics. Now, this process of getting a laptop is not something easy, and probably won't happen for more than a year. But, it is a nice thought all the same.
After lunch, we made the drive back to Monterey. With the campus Notwork being much as it was before, we got a hold of Kryn and Scribbles, and did some more C&C Generals. Because there were so many people, we decided to do a 4 on 3 match. Ten minutes into the game I remember why I dislike playing RTS against other people, especially those I live with. The teams were Matt, Lisa, Scribbs, and myself v Kryn, Jake, and Eric. I had to take the spot closest to them, and so I knew I had only one actual purpose: keep relentlessly attacking one of them to buy everyone more time. Jake happened to be closest, so for 1/2 an hour I pounded him with everything I had. Eventually Kryn showed up, and so I called to Lisa, my closest ally for help. I was rewarded with 0 units coming my way. She had shot up the Tech tree, and while the 4 Particle Cannons were threatening, Kryn and Jake almost amusingly rolled through her once they were done with me. I had moved my command center deep into Matt's base at this point, and continued to call artillery strikes every chance I could. Scribs was scattered but not defeated as well, and by the time Jake and Kryn turned their attention to Matt, he had over half the map and a ton of missiles landed on Jake / Kryn's tanks. Over the next block of time, Matt, being the only person capable of doing anything more on our side was victorious. It was then time to break for dinner. (Yes, the game took almost 2 1/2 hours.)
Dinner was at the Olive Garden, and the service was below abysmal. It wasn't the waiting for almost an hour to be seated, it wasn't the fact it took 40 minutes for simple breadsticks to arrive at our table, and it wasn't even the fact it took another hour to get the food and the lettuce of my ceaser salad was all wilted and nasty. It was all of this, a waiter that was more interested in flirting with his colleagues instead of at least offering some kind of service, spilling soup on Kryn after we asked to see the manager, and a general overtone of not caring. I doubt we will be going back there any time soon, despite the manager who insisted we come back and redo the dinner some time. We usually have great service from there too. I guess it was just our 18ish year old slacker / waiter hard at [anything but] work. 3 breadsticks and a soda were about the closest to a meal I came for the night. We got back about 11, and fired up natural selection. I won't bore you talking about how I suck at the FPS genre, and I won't bother trying to explain how horrible I am at anything Half-Life related. Natural Selection (a HL mod) was the game for the night (and morning), and I must say, it was the least amount of fun I have had in a long while when it comes to playing games. Amidst the running around, I asked Charles what exactly I was supposed to do. His reply fell along the lines of "evolve, go, and kill". No matter how much evolving, going, and killing I did, The power of turrets were supreme, and there was nothing that could be done about it. Long story short, I finished with scores like (kills/deaths) 1/16, 2/18, and my personal favorite 4/48. Since the team of Jake / Kryn / Eric knew the levels and the rest of us were new to the game, it quickly went from fun to boring and pointless. We ran, we died. They expanded, built 3+ turrets that take more than 3 minutes each to kill, built the cannons that go through walls, and left little dead alien carcasses everywhere. Funny how they didn't want to play as the aliens. The standard rule of any FPS held true though. Unless you are packing a lightsaber, ranged weapons will always be supreme. On that note, we called it a night, and I think I may try and avoid NS at the next LAN party we do.
Today brings large amounts of homework, which I have managed to put off by writing this. Ethics, proposals, programming, and downloading VoH manga top the list. Yes, I know the last one isn't homework, but I needed something to break all the work up with.
it comes it never passed you by
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