I don't have any pictures of Sickles High School myself, so this one of the track team is the best I can offer (Photo courtesy schulzfamily.org)
For some reason I had this story come back into my mind the other night. Let me set the stage for you:
This happened when I was 17. My senior year of high school was about 1/4 done. That summer I’d started dating a girl I met at my job at Busch Gardens. She was older than me, 19-years-old, although she claimed that her paperwork was wrong, her name wasn’t her real name, and she was actually 21. That there should have been enough of a warning sign. Honestly, I don’t even know how much of what she told me was true. I did believe that she was Peruvian, at least, since she definitely looked and sounded like she was from Peru, but there were tons of little white lies told here and there that made me think that she may have been a pathological liar. Not to mention that, well, what kind of girl of her supposed age would be dating a high school guy?
She told me a story once about the former Peruvian president, Alberto Fujimori. This guy allegedly faked being born in Peru, stole lots of money, and fled Peru in a corruption scandal. In fact, he was at large until 2007 when he was apprehended in Chile and extradited to Peru. It’s actually a really fitting story, at least in terms of the deception and its ridiculousness.
Toward the end of our relationship, Stephanie became convinced by someone in one of her classes (I can’t remember if it was GED or community college classes at HCC) that I was cheating on her with some girl in my school. The best part about it was that she was kind of fumbling around latching on to every name of the different girls I’d been hanging out with, lending zero credence to her story. She eventually decided that I had been cheating on her with my friend Heather, who I had never even had any kind of flirtation with. It was patently absurd, but, hey, she was convinced.
One day I was walking out to my car and, lo and behold, there was Stephanie. She had made her way by bus from either her job or her classes (easily somewhere between 0.5 to 2 hrs depending on where she was before) to my campus, sneaked into the parking lot in the back, and was lurking around the portables waiting for me to get to my car. That meant that a girl who claimed to be 21-years-old was lurking around my high school campus to see if her 17-year-old boyfriend was cheating on her with one of his classmates.
It’s maybe not the most irrational thing I’ve ever seen a girl do out of jealousy, but it does remain one of the weirdest, semi-scariest things I’ve ever personally seen. If you’re wondering, we broke up not long after that. Things were getting really weird with her, I had quit my job at Busch Gardens to focus more on my other job at Publix, and I just wasn’t really into her any more.
The easiest way to shop for men's clothing.
I first heard of Trunk Club in one of Kai’s Tumblr posts and immediately thought the idea of having nice clothing automatically shipped to my door without having to worry about choosing what I got was brilliant.
Since trying the service is free, I figured why not check it out. What’s the worst that could happen, right?
This is the one where you learn that I cannot properly center a rectangle in my viewfinder.
Well, the worst is that you could have a completely unrelated to Trunk Club delivery scare. See, the items in the box are quite expensive, being designer clothing and all, so when I thought for a few panicky hours on Friday that the package was stolen from my back porch…well I was a little scared of what might happen. Turned out that the FedEx guy just can’t accurately judge which porches match the houses in front, because he delivered my package to my neighbor’s back porch.
Comes with a nice note for that added personal touch
Other than that, I’d say the service is a complete joy. As you can see above, the company assigns you a consultant whose sole job it is to help you get properly outfitted. I thought the personal note from my consultant, Lauren, was adorable and made me feel like I had my own personal shopper (which was precisely what I wanted from this). After talking with me on the phone to determine my tastes and size, she sent out the pictured box filled with ten items. Three sweatshirts, three shirts, a pea coat, a pair of shoes, and two pairs of jeans.
Too bad the shoes were too narrow to fit my hobbit feet. I really liked that grey sweatshirt, so I kept it.
While the prices prohibit keeping everything, I’d have to say that it was all solid. Every one of the ensembles or articles of clothing would look good on me, but it’s one of those cases where, based on the asking price, it’s not worth keeping anything that doesn’t especially pop. Tiffany helped me decide on a pair of the jeans and a sweatshirt, but the other stuff is headed back, with no charge on my part for them, to hopefully find a home with another dude who likes them more.
It really is a brilliant service that I am more than happy to continue using. I couldn’t realistically outfit myself with more than a couple of items every few months without completely draining my bank account, but the ease of use combined with the skill of the style consultants means that I will be dipping into this well more than once.
Yesterday what I suspect to be the highest, most unreachable smoke detector in my house began its beeping dance of death. This morning (SATURDAY!) it woke me up at 0630. My feelings this morning were the closest to genuine rage I’ve ever had. Dear God why are those things SO ANNOYING?! Now I’ve either got to find me a ladder that I can borrow or a big stick to beat on the smoke detector UNTIL…IT…JUST…SHUTS…UP!
This is not my car, but my passenger window looks a lot like this.
Well…my car was broken into. Passenger side window smashed in and GPS/cell phone charger stolen. Good times…
Today marks 66 years since the atomic bomb was first used as a weapon, unnecessarily killing 160,000 human souls.
There is no excuse for the continued threat of nuclear weapons on this planet. Weapons that terrible to power unnecessary war have no place in human society.
The National League showed up to play and it was a sight to behold. Managed much more like a baseball team that wanted to win, Bruce Bochy’s NL squad trounced Ron Washington’s AL team with seemingly little resistance. Other than an Adrian Gonzalez bomb in the third, the AL hardly threatened. I know there hasn’t been a Game 7 in ages, but I really hope we get one this year and the AL loses just to rub it in their face that they need to try a little harder next year.
Congrats to Prince Fielder on being named the MVP thanks to a 3-run bomb that propelled the NL into a comfortable lead.
GO NL!
Hope you all enjoy your summer fun!
Here’s an unrelated video about the Uncharted 3 Multiplayer Beta
Yup, here we go again. Periodically I end up locked out of my Hotmail account because my gamertag still exists on my stolen Xbox, but the password has been changed.
Seems that they keep trying to either guess the password or log in or reset the password, which gets me locked out of my email. I’m just so frustrated and annoyed by this right now.
Ok guys, blog posts may be more or less frequent now that I’ve been robbed. Either the business of replacing stuff and dealing with the cops will take more time or I’ll have more time to focus on this blog.
For those who don’t know, I was robbed last night. I lost almost all of my 360 and PS3 games along with their corresponding systems and my 3DS, among other things. It’s kind of a bummer, but thankfully no one was hurt and, aside from save files, everything else is replaceable.
Pros: Now I can get more reading in. Cons: I lost ~3k worth of stuff
It’s just so funny to me that I played L.A. Noire on my PS3 the same night it was stolen. I was solving crimes and…now I can’t.
So that’s what’s been up with me this weekend. Hope you all had a better weekend than I did.
About a week into January of 2010 Eric found and installed one of the best wordpress plugins I’ve ever seen, WordPress.com Stats. Thanks to that, I’ve got some performance numbers for the site to share.
Top Posts
Remixed Objection, No Yakuza 3?, L4D2 (Again), and Pokémon Cosplay [Game Overview] (1,182)
I know precisely why this link is top of the list. It features a stunning picture of Jessica Nigri very liberally cosplaying a Pikachu. It seems sex sells. Surprise!
Great Dwarf Fortress Stories [PC] (412)
There’s a rather large gap between #1 and #2, but it’s thanks to Dwarf Fortress’ niche status that anything Eric or I post on the topic gets consistent hits. It seems not many other sites cover it, but people regularly look for info.
The Villains of Final Fantasy Week 11 [Game Overview] (404)
My most popular villain feature isn’t FF VII it’s an MMO that I never played and did a rather half-hearted job writing about? Weird.
The Villains of Final Fantasy Week 10 [Game Overview] (355)
Considering how popular FF X is, I’m not that surprised.
Mother 3 Review [Big N] (313)
This is my proudest part of the top five. I spent a lot of time on this review and I’m glad so many are finding it.
Runners Up:
Otakon 2010 Scott Pilgrim
Otakon gets high on the list thanks to its cosplay pictures (some of which also feature hotties) while Scott Pilgrim benefits from internet popularity.
Now for the big announcement:
2010 Hit Totals By Month
Jan: 1,733 Feb: 2,015 Mar: 2,284 Apr: 2,353 May: 2,015 Jun: 2,137 Jul: 3,058 Aug: 3,629 Sep: 3,461 Oct: 3,806 Nov: 3,077 Dec: 2,844 Total: 32,412
I honestly never expected so many people to see my random ramblings and I’m quite proud. I think October stands out as hit leader thanks to all of the cosplay pictures being used for costume ideas. Wow, 32k hits. The gauntlet has been thrown, 2011. Can you beat this?
