Moving.

Saturday was the big move for two of my good friends, Sarah and Bertie. Truthfully, I blocked off the entire weekend for this project. Had you met Bertie and Sarah, you probably would've done the same thing. I even made two surprise inspections Friday night, mostly to be a pain the ass, but also to make sure appropriate progress, as I define it, was being made. I am proud to report more than appropriate progress was made. The bulk of packing was done before midnight. In my book, that is amazing. I'm usually a last minute packer anyhow.

On Saturday at 8am, the move commenced. Apparently, the U-haul people were being difficult with Sarah. Sarah and Bertie wanted a 14 foot truck for 24 hours. The U-haul lady said, "You will have a 10 foot truck for 4 hours." Gotta love a jerk who can make such definitive statements. I love people like that. Of course, Sarah cooked up her own response to this U-haul lady. In good taste, Sarah didn't deliver this response directly to her. She just told us what she would've or wanted to say later. "10 foot truck. Fine. 4 hours. Fine. And fuck you." No one does exasperated better than Sarah (except for me).

Regardless, I think the 4 hour time limit actually helped us. (Just to piss Sarah off, Bertie and I decided there was a 2 hour time limit. So all our countdowns would coincide with the 2 hour instead of the real 4 hour limit. I would shout, "55 minutes left!" Sarah would roll her eyes and say, "Until the 2 hour mark, right?") We finished with some time to spare. Enough time to get some of Sarah's things over to her brother's house for storage. One of my favorite moments was sitting in the car with Sarah as we follow the U-haul truck. Sarah was getting frustrated because we seemed to be taking a longer route. She kept saying, "It's 99 cents per mile!"

Amazingly, everything fit into two 6'x6' storage units. This is especially amazing for Bertie. It turned out Sarah actually didn't have that much stuff. A couple odd shapes, like a futon, an end table, etc., made the storage unit look artificially full. But Bertie's unit is full. Andy, Sarah's brother, and I moved a fully loaded filing cabinet. I tried to step-up onto the truck while holding my end of the cabinet. I felt like I was dragging a Steinway piano to the summit on Mount Kilimanjaro. The best part is to hear the defense of every piece of paper in that cabinet. I also moved a set of 10 pound dumbells that were stuck in a backpack, as if that is all the disguise these dumbells needed. Then again, judging from the size of Bertie's guns, I'd say those dumbells make great door stops. Bertie also wanted to save her childhood dresser. Apparently, this dresser was endearing because the lining of the drawers was bicentennial liner paper with patriotic images. Bertie claims, "The little 'clink' noise of the metal handles was the soundtrack to her life." O brother.

All in all, the move was a success. And I'm sure you will hear more regarding this in the comment section.

Video "Games"

The speaker of the following statement is old: “Back in my day, …”

At least that’s how I take it. Kind of like Dana Carvey’s Grumpy Old Man skit on SNL.

But, oh my goodness, have you seen the freakin’ video games that are out these days? That “kids these days” have?

Context: I was born in 1974. (Holy crap). Also, despite advanced Army training, I am a geek. Hence the topic.

My first video games were on my friends’ Atari's.
"Pong," in addition to being (really) the World’s First Video Game, was one of the first games I ever played.

I suppose you’re predicting that I’ll say, in predictable old-man style, that those early ones were the best.
Nope. The vast majority of them really did suck.

But these days (oh boy, soundin' old), video games are unbelievably complex. Today’s games are so involved, they cannot be simply picked up and messed with. You have to INVEST TIME in learning about them.

And there’s often a TRAINING PROGRAM within the game which the manual says you should do before attempting the demandingly hyper-realistically complex actual game. I’m serious.

The baseball video games are so advanced that I would have to learn more about baseball than I already know in order to play them even vaguely well. AND I PLAYED BASEBALL AS A KID. Not well, mind you, but I did the whole little-league thing and several summers of my life were spent playing it.

Video baseball game of my childhood: you could pitch fast or slow. You could try to swing or bunt. Two dimensional only. (My Rating: Sucked)

Video baseball game, some time ago (6+ years?): you could pitch fast or slow in three dimensions. You could alter your swing power and steal bases and stuff. (My Rating: Great!)

Video baseball game, today: when pitching in high definition 3D graphics, you have the option of curling your little finger on release if you press R1+R1+square+triangle, but if you hold down triangle, you could over-curl it and peg the batter, but be careful if you try this after about 10 batters, because your PITCHER ACTUALLY GETS TIRED AS THE GAME GOES ON, and it really depends on who’s pitching, because the pitchers are REAL PITCHERS from MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL™, and you kind of have to know their stats in order to pitch well with them. (My Rating: …um…think I speak for all old-ish people when I say: “Holy crap.”)

A Pretty Good Apple.

So I had every intention of writing about my OKC trip. (And I still will). But for now, I had to share a real short story.

I got back to work today, and it was great seeing some of my work-friends again. Pat and Mark took sheer delight in sharing a little story with me that they knew would get me going. While I was gone, Mark apparently had, "the best apple of his life." They both told me this story and just waited for me to react. I was going to hold it back, but I couldn't. The best apple of his life?! Really?! I was shocked at how easily he discarded every apple from his past. He's probably had hundreds of apples in his life. I don't think it's fair to casually toss around statements about the "best apple ever." It's not a reasonable statement, especially since, with time, the taste of any one apple fades. How careless.

OKC!

I just finished packing and it is 12:20am. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I am heading to Oklahoma City with 10 high school students for a summer service project. I still can't believe I am doing this. It is not really my style. I've never led a service project like this... as an authority figure. I've been involved with service projects, mostly with peers, and I've had leadership roles. But most of the kids going on this trip were born after 1988. Half of them were born in the 1990s! This is my first experience as a chaperone. Ew.

I'm sure things will go well. I'm bringing a camera to record the madness. At the OKC site, there will be nearly 300 participants, of which two-thirds will be high school kids. I'm banking on a positive experience. We'll see.

I'm not going to get see the final World Cup game... good luck to the Italians. Beat those Frenchies! And an equally exciting sporting event, go Team MPRI, everyone's favorite Bloomington coed softball team! Beat those Baptists on Saturday! We need to secure 2nd place!

DUI: Dialing Under the Influence

I was out at the clubs with some friends on Saturday night. This entails meeting people and dancing, all of which is regularly facilitated by alcohol. Somewhere between 10:30PM and 2AM I probably consumed 4 or 5 drinks (vodka-red bull, vanilla stoli and coke, and the ever-popular "whatever you're having").

The Drink and Dial: Is this ever a good idea?

I submit to you that, like most things in life, it depends on the context. If you're having a blast and you miss a friend who isn't there because of, say, a geographical impossibility, a quick shout-out voicemail can be fun. Kind of a "hey, we're having a blast, you should be here, man, peace, brother (nondescript yelling)" message MAY be acceptable. It may be, in the parlance of the evening, "completely awesome." Let's look at the deciding factors:

1. Are you coherent or will you babble? (Coherent: good. Babble: probably not good).
2. Did you leave a voicemail or did you actually wake the person up, locking yourself into an awkward 1 minute conversation where the person you called has to yell to be heard over the G-Unit throbbing in the background, which, for some reason, you really want to get your swerve on to at this point in time? (Voicemail: good. Other: varying degrees of bad).
3. You did call a friend, right? You're not calling an ex with no other agenda than somehow expressing painful emotions, right? RIGHT? (Friend: probably good. New girlfriend: possibly good. Ex-girlfriend: I have never even heard of an instance where this turned out well.)

As for the phone call I placed last night, it was all good fun. Today my friend and I concluded that I shall be known for a period of time as "Drunk Dialey, the little known 8th Dwarf."