I went to Wal Mart this morning (a place that really actually depresses me, especially when I see families going there to "have fun family time"), and I found black Wrangler jeans that decently fit, and I found black work shoes that are quite comfy and nice.
The day went by fast... the job is basically a cranked up version of the Loaf (like I said, it's really like a mixture of the Loaf and the Dam View, for those of you who have experienced both). I was familiar with all of the concepts, except I still have a hard time folding the wraps. Of the entire staff, the only guys are me and another older guy who works out front. The rest of my co-workers are nice though.
Driving back from the job was interesting. On the way back, I pass two of those little fire station signs that let you know the fire danger and whether they're giving out permits. The first one I passed said the fire danger was Low, and permits were available. The second one I passed informed me that the danger today was VERY HIGH. I was a bit confused.
Also, there's a place called Left Tees that I pass. I'm not sure what they sell other than shirts, but this fucking awesome carving was out front:
Quick update: I just found out that
- My grandmother had to have her knee replaced, and now it's made of titanium Fucking sick. - Salem State is putting on a production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch in May. Cool!
Yet again I must purchase black pants for a job (I think this is the third time?). Every time I try to buy black pants, they look horribly shitty on me. The first pair I bought had a huge waist and tiny ankles, and just looked like silk clown pants. I wore them at Bertucci's, and the bus boys (which was what I was) carried around spray bottles hanging from either the belt buckle or the pocket. So the weight of that dragged my pants down all night, despite my belt.
And then when I started working at Staples, I bought a pair of really nice almost black jeans, and they fit REALLY well, but I wasn't allowed to wear them because they weren't completely black. So I went and bought a different shittier truly black pair, and they were terrible. And for some reason, I look like an idiot with my shirt tucked in, as always, and it was a policy.
And now I need to buy another pair of black pants. I'm going to wake up early tomorrow and head to Marshall's, and I'm going to find myself a good pair of black pants DAMMIT.
Our house in Derry is basically halfway up a huge hill. I've been biking since I had my bike tuned up, and it's been pretty brutal either way. I go way too fast going downhill, and it's tough to get back up, but it's definitely easy to get in shape this way. I was in decent shape at the end of last summer, since I rode like 45 minutes everyday, and I thought I had lost that, but I still feel all right when biking now.
The route I take right now doesn't take me too far away from home. It ends in a cul-de-sac (which is good, because I'm usually going like 30 when I hit it, giving me enough leeway to turn around), and there is a pond that I ride by that's frequented by huge geese. I don't know if they're pets or something though, because they look really fat. I'm not ready to go on the main road, people drive like fucking idiots. I don't think I ever will go on the main road.
There's a few bike paths that I'd like to explore too. The Audubon center might have some, and I know there's ones near Lake Massabesic.
I've owned Secret of Evermore since it first came out--a good twelve years ago. It's one of the only SNES games I've bought that someone actually reccomended to me. Back then, I would rent whatever game looked the coolest, and I doubt the cover art would have appealed to my ignorant tastes. Hell, I didn't rent Earthbound for a long time because I thought the box art was shitty. The only reason I ever ended up renting it was because I wanted to know why the box was so damn big. Anyway, I recently have been playing through it again, and I'm almost done.
Story - The basic storyline is kinda cheesy, but at least it tries to be unique. You're a normal kid from the mid 90s (great already, huh?) who chases his dog into a big mansion where it's rumored that a terrible accident happened during an experiment. The owner of the mansion and his three guests went missing, and weren't heard from since. The boy encounters a strange machine inside, and the dog chews on some wires, sending both of them into a realm created entirely by the scientist (the mansion's owner) and his guests. All four of them still exist in this realm (though time seems not to have affected them), and they each live in their own respective made up worlds which span from prehistoric times to a futuristic space station.
This game has constantly been compared to Secret of Mana and criticized for not being as good. Fuck that, the Secret of Mana character development sucked. At least the kid in this game is a movie buff, and quotes fake movies all the time. And he has a 90s 'tude, typical of the decade.
Gameplay - SoE is an action RPG. Thus, you walk around hitting stuff, and numbers pop out telling you how hard you hit. It's a good system, however, borrowing from Secret of Mana. You can level up your weapons (independent from your character's levels) and subsequently charge them up to hit enemies even harder. Your dog also runs around attacking enemies as well, and you can switch to control the dog if you want (this is actually necessary later to solve puzzles).
You also learn "alchemy formulas" along the way, which you need to collect ingredients for before you use them. Alchemy in the game works similar to real life: it makes no sense. Mix oil and wax to create a flaming homing projectile? Sure! The system gets an A+ in my book. You can also level these formulas up too. While roaming the feild, your dog sniffs out stray ingredients for you, which is COOL.
The boss fights are usually strange. Each boss seems to have a haphazardly planned set of stats (some bosses go down fast, others take forever), and it almost seems there were a few different design teams that split the work load for designing the bosses. But it does work, somehow. I guess the diversity keeps me interested (i.e. they didn't just slap a different palette on an old boss, although this happens once or twice).
The dialogue itself shows attempts at humor and keeping the player interested. I have to give them that. But there are a few puns that make me want to kill myself, and there's a ton of un touched-up dialogue that's really just shitty (bad punctuation, etc.). I don't even think that it was translated from Japanese...
Graphics - They're pretty good. Like I said earlier, the design of some characters and enemies won't really mesh well with others, but it works. For the most part, you can tell they took the time to design things that didn't look "square" (like in Final Fantasy for example, everything seems almost grid-based). Minutiae abound if you know where to look.
Music and Sound - I'd have to say the weakest part of the game. Though the music is almost ambient in some points, the ambient noises just aren't convincing enough (sound very sampled). The only music I really enjoyed was during the Medieval section of the game. Being out in the pink trees with the turquoise hedgehogs and bizarre music made the area memorable. The sound effects can be glitchy too, and annoying. But the splat noise when you kill a bug is MEGA-SATISFYING. WOAH>
Overall - This is the epitome of the 90s, so that might make or break the deal for you. Regardless, I think it's a game that you need to play when you can appreciate it. I didn't like it back when I was a kid all that much. I like it a lot more now. I'd give it... 8 OUT OF 10 SCHOOLBUSES DOING WHEELIES Click the Youtube video below to see how intense just one school bus doing a wheelie is.
For those of you who have spent a lot of time on the highway:
This is how I see things. Usually you're either passing someone, or someone is passing you. It's very rare to be going the same speed as someone. Every once in a while, I'll find that someone is behind me the entire time I'm on the highway, whether I'm passing someone or staying in the right lane. It's funny, but I always get this sense that I'm being complimented on my driving. The other driver is basically showing that they respect the speed I'm driving at and the choices I make while passing other cars. It's almost a sense of camaraderie. Am I crazy? Probably.
Also, I did learn something new today at the bike shop. It's a good idea to check and clean out your brake pads, as bits of rock and metal get stuck in them and scrape up your wheels. Also, pumping up your tires with the emergency pump that attaches to the bike isn't a good idea, since it can only fill the tires a certain amount. So I bought a floor pump.
I also saw an old family friend today, James Beal. It was awkward at first, because I just walked up to him and said, "Hi, I'm Matt. Matt Sweeney." Which wasn't really enough, since it had been like 12 years or something. But eventually everything was cleared up and then he gave my lil ol' big a big ol' tune-up.
Things at the Wrap Shak are working out perfectly. It's basically going to be a mixture of working at the Dam View and working at the Loaf and Ladle. The people working there seem nice, and I'm starting at $9.50 an hour ("how in the hell?").
On the way back from my interview, there was this dude on the side of the road, furiously scratching all his dandruff out into a sewer. It was fairly funny.
I drove to SSC today and cleared up most of the nonsense going on with what I owe them. My van got stuck in a mud pit at one point. Massachusetts drivers still suck. I should open up a brake repair shop somewhere down there, since it seems the way they drive, they should be replacing their brakes every week or so.
My interview with the Wrap Shak is tomorrow. I can't forget.
To tie in with this weeks theme of misery and death (brought by the weather), I took a picture of some fucking vulture bird eating roadkill. There were two, and it's a shame I didn't get a picture of the other one because it had intestines hanging from its mouth.
I did a lot today, more than I thought I would. I saw Andy driving around when I got into Exeter, alerting me that something was up (he usually works on Tuesday mornings). I called him, and he told me the Loaf is close (and has been closed, and will be closed until probably Saturday). That means I have only one more day there, and he's not mad at me!
I called the Wrap Shak. I have an interview on Friday at 10:00 AM. Hopefully things go well, it seems like they are excited to have me. Also, it's right next to a place called Game Castle. Within is a bounteous trove of nerdly delights, but I usually stick to the D&D products. When I went in, there were tons of guys at some back tables playing Magic or Pokeemans or something. I didn't ask.
Jenna left for boot camp today. It was an awkward goodbye, because she and Dave were busy, but at least I got to see her. I'm curious to see how it affects her. But then again, it's not like she's going into the Marines. Some people I know that come back from different branches of the military seem to have lost their senses of humor and personality... it's kind of scary.
Eventually, I went to AJs and we hung out for a while. We went to Hampton Beach, which was pretty chaotic, though it seemed to have recovered from something much worse. I'm fairly sure most of the roads right on the coast were completely underwater yesterday.
Some houses still were:
The military had blocked off certain areas that were still very bad. Sorry for the shit pic.
Nature vomit
Turtle
MISERY MIRE
I have some live footage of the surf that actually doesn't do it justice, but Youtube is being slow so I'll upload that later tonight.
Later on in the day, after going to Pawn and Pizza shops, I realized while in Exeter that I had class in Manchester in half an hour. So I left pretty quick and got there a bit late. Turns out not many people were there, so she hadn't even started lecturing, and we had a minimal class anyway. Here I am. Joe's Pizza usually makes me sick. I'm just realizing that.
I guess tomorrow I ought to go to Salem State personally and figure my shit out. I'm scared about my car though, because it's acting funny again. Either the starter is starting to not work again, or I've been bad at putting it in park... hopefully the latter. I'll need to look at colleges tomorrow too, since I didn't really today.
I'm not going to force this Blog to be fancy or anything. It's here to document my thrilling ascent from the cess-pool that I've drowned myself in over the last four or five years. This shit pit derived from the turd life.
Anyway, I'll start off simple with a list of things that I really oughta do for myself before they drag me deeper into the mire. Bear with me during this boring phase, things should get happier and more exciting soon. The hardest part is realizing that I have to do things for myself by myself.
1. My way of dealing with things that suck is usually to pick up and leave--to sever ties with whatever shitty situation I'm dealing with. This has left me in a couple of bad situations for a few reasons. The first is that I never actually offically withdrew from Salem State. Now they are threatening to bill me for another semester that I didn't attend. Luckily I was able to prove to them that I wasn't there at all, and so I need to call tomorrow and make sure that everything is all right (for peace of mind).
2. Another bad situation derived from running away: I left work early on Sunday. Although I'm sick of almost everyone at the Loaf now, I really shouldn't burn any bridges. I only have a few more shifts, one of them on Thursday morning. I need to apologize to Andy, even though I have a few gripes left unspoken. As I write this, I have gotten Aleah to take my Friday shifts and my Sunday shift, so I'm not working with Sara at all, the root of all the problems. Which is excellent. I'm going to ask for Saturday off too, since I want to go to PA with AJ.
I feel like the things I've been pulling are classic "Matt Sweeneys." The thought of that disgusts me. As always, I hate the reputation I've given myself, and I'm disgusted I haven't broken out of it by now.
3. Back in Salem State news: I need to figure out exactly what I owe to SSC in anticipation for when they bill me. Most likey this will happen before I am enrolled in another college. Which brings me to my fourth order of business:
4. Apply for colleges for next year's spring semester.As usual, I haven't checked out any colleges and I don't know what I want to do. This subject is too complicated to expand upon now.
5. I have a job interview opportunity at a place called the Wrap Shak. They specailize in, gasp, wraps! I would work in the kitchen, not with people. That would be ideal. I'm sick of customers for now. Hopefully I get the job, and they called me almost immediately after I dropped off the application.
6. Waiting for some internet transactions to come through. I also have to ship something tomorrow. Soon my online empire will be established (seriously, I'm hoping I'll have some sort of small success with this business endeavor; it would be nice).
7. Financial Dilemma: Pay a little over $300 for the convenience of a gym (for a year), or figure out how to get in good shape on my own? Or I guess I could get a checking account and do it monthly. If i choose to do it on my own...
8. ...I need new tires for my bike. Not a huge ordeal at all, might even be fun, I might learn something.
9. As ever, my credit card bill. It went from almost $4000 to $1400 in around 2 months. One of the only recent things I've done I'm truly proud of. With my penultimate paycheck from the Loaf, that will go down to probably $1250.
I'll be able to sell my school books back to Manchester Tech too. That should net me another $100. Wahoo.
10. Inspecting my teeth closely has revealed a decent sized cavity where recently there was just the faint whisperings of one. Dentist is a definite stop on my list of important things.
I'd also like to expand creatively (specifically in my writing) and enrich myself with different things. A few easy topics to start with would be: music, news, politics. If you ever want hit me with some knowledge, I'm game. I don't feel like I'm living up to my potential.
Tomorrow I'm going to visit Jenna. She's leaving for the Navy at 4:00 PM. I wish her luck, but I regret not getting to know her as well as I should. I'm sad that she's not as close to Mel as she once was. Such is life (ooh boy, do I sound wise or what? yeah, that's a +3 modifier to wisdom, betch).
I'm not gonna lie, I hope this blog is interesting and popular one day (or I hope it at least leads to other opportunities that I have in mind).
