Busch Gardens trip!

I was really worried about this trip before I went, and even more worried at the start of it... but it actually turned out to be really good trip, and I had a lot of fun even though I got cut off from most of the other people from the trip (aside from random sightings throughout the day) and wandered around by myself most of the time.

First, the bad part (since that was what happened first.)  Had to get up at 6:30 in the morning and rush to eat half of a microwaved Italian sub from Subway for breakfast, finding that they are much better freshly toasted than they are never-toasted and then microwaved.  Wasn't bad or anything, just nothing compared to an actually-toasted one when it's still warm and the cheese has melted really well.  But anyway, got that done and rushed out to find... that I was pretty much early and they hadn't even started to fill up the vans yet.  And it was raining, so I had to rush back to my room and get my umbrella.  Ended up getting stuck on a van with very few people I knew (and none I really know very well), so for the most part the drive over there was pretty miserable.  Once I got there I found that at least it wasn't raining anymore... until it suddenly started raining.  After I had left my umbrella in the van, and had walked far enough off from it that going back would've been annoying (even ignoring the fact that I wouldn't have been able to unlock the van to get in anyway.)  So I bought a random blue poncho from the first gift shop I found, after sitting in line miserable for a while, and then got started wandering around by myself since (as always) everyone else rushed off and formed little groups that left me behind.

It actually wasn't bad after that point, even though I was pretty much on my own the whole time.  I wandered around for a bit not really being too interested by anything until eventually I stumbled across an Eurasian eagle owl that was hanging out on a girl's hand (with a special claw-proof glove, of course.)  Apparently seeing huge birds is a good way to improve a day, because standing there watching this bird look around, turn her head around 180 degrees, and flap her wings a little (making huge blasts of wind, more than the fan that was behind her) turned my mood around pretty well and I ended up staying there for a while.  I found out that these owls have about 3 inches of feathers all over them; you can actually stick a finger into them and it will be almost completely covered in feathers.  They also only weigh about 6 pounds.  So basically, owls are all fluff.

After that, I also saw some lemurs (which were just sitting on a ledge to stay out of the rain, not really moving around a lot), a macaw (who no speaka English--the only thing she says clearly was "hello," and she didn't even want to say that while I was there... though one of the smaller green birds a short distance away did), and a very large and cuddly iguana.  Several times she licked the face of the girl who was holding her, and she didn't seem to mind being petted at all (even on her shedding patches, which were flaking off in big chunks of lizard dandruff when I was there.)  After that I did a lot of wandering around, and eventually ended up riding the Rhine River Cruise (a boat ride down a semi-artificial river they've built into the park), during which I found out that during the grand opening of one of the roller coasters (Apollo's Chariot, I think) Fabio got hit in the face by a goose.  Also ate a churro (which were being sold in... New France aka Canada, of all places) for the first time ever (it was really good, I'll probably eat more the next time I can find some) and won a giant Jamaican banana by breaking a couple of plates with baseballs.

Unfortunately, that meant I had to carry that giant banana around with me all day... but it turned out pretty good regardless (though my arms did get a bit tired.)  Since it was raining, I even gave him his own poncho made of trash bags.  After getting the banana, I also rode one of the sky-lines (little cabs on wires that carry people from one side of the park to the other) between the Germany and England areas, and then walked around some more.

Around that time I noticed I was getting pretty hungry, so I went off to go get lunch.  Ended up eating at an Italian restaurant (in the Italy area of the park, for obvious reasons), where I got a sandwich (with salami, ham, turkey, some veggies and cheese on foccacia bread), cheese sticks, and a Coke.  The sandwich came with some sort of pasta salad stuff, which was actually pretty good--I'll have to try pasta salad again sometime if I can find some that isn't saturated with disgusting mayonnaise.  This stuff seemed to have oil and vinegar on it instead, and had rotini pasta, onions, peppers, celery, some carrots, cucumbers (which, oddly enough, actually didn't taste bad--they may have been a different kind of cucumber or something... or maybe they were actually zucchini?), and a few black olives.  Despite being cold pasta (which generally seems like a weird idea to me) it was actually really good, and I ended up scarfing down all of it.  Of course, the sandwich and cheese sticks were also good, though the cheese sticks' cheese wasn't melty enough in the middle.  Oh well, they still tasted good.

After eating and some more wandering, I rode the Flying Machine (which was a ride that spins around and goes up in the air a lot; pictured above.  I got a bit freaked-out when it got going fast enough.)  Bumped into a few people; first, one of the chaperone-type guys and one of his kids, who I found was only about as tall as my Jamaican banana (...that's a big banana, it's as tall as or taller than people's kids!)  Sometime after that, I ended up meeting a couple of girls I knew who had also come on the trip, and I watched their stuff for them while they went on one of the roller coasters; they didn't want to pay a dollar just to keep their stuff in a locker for just the time it took to ride something once, so they needed somebody to make sure nothing got stolen.  Between me and the Jamaican banana watching over the stuff from the tree behind it, nobody dared to grab anyone's stuff, and after a while they came back for a bit before leaving (because the people they rode there with--they didn't get on the big shuttle vans the school had provided--were heading back to school soon.)  Around that time, the rain finally stopped, and I wandered around a little more.  Found that my 3DS had gotten a street pass from some random person during the day at Busch Gardens, which turned out to be a guy who had made his Mii look like Link (complete with hat.)  Rode the spinning teacup ride, during which a couple of girls were randomly singing "I'm a little teapot" and freaked out when they saw the giant Jamaican banana.  After that point I stopped wearing my poncho, since it wasn't raining anymore; bumped into some more people from the school (a handful of them were riding the Mach Tower, which spins you upward slowly and then drops you down really fast for a few seconds before slowing down again) and did more random wandering before buying an ice cream cone which came with hot fudge, several whole brownies, a bunch of peanuts and walnuts, and whipped cream.  Needless to say, that was really good, though a bit messy as the hot fudge was all along the inside of the cone and so some of the ice cream kept melting out from the sides as I ate away the cone's edges.  All throughout the day random people commented on the Jamaican banana I was carrying; I heard a lot of people say something about a big/giant banana, and a few others mention that it was Jamaican or Rastafarian (yep, it had the hat and dreadlocks and everything.)  One guy called it "Bob Marley Banana," and one time I walked right past a black guy who actually had dreadlocks (who just did a double-take as I passed by him and then laughed.)  Later, after I had bumped into a few more girls from school and rode the carousel, the lady running that ride suggested that I make a video of the banana singing a reggae song and upload it to Youtube. XD

After a bit more wandering, and playing a soccer goal-kicking game which won me a stuffed duck, I just happened to bump into the same two girls from the teacup ride again.  They immediately recognized me... or at least the banana; I was just walking by one of the shelter-ish areas when one of them yelled out "JAMAICAN BANANA!"  We ended up talking for a little bit and... one of the two girls randomly asked me for my number, like almost immediately after I came over there.  There was more talking, goofing off with the banana (one of the girls would not let go of the thing; at one point she even looked like she was about to fall asleep on it), and eventually I ended up walking back out toward the exit with them (still talking.)  The girl who had grabbed the banana and didn't seem to want to give it up finally did when carrying it made it hard for her to walk very well (she had a hurt foot, so that was hard even without carrying that huge thing), and then we walked through about half of the park to get back to the entrance, talking about all sorts of random stuff along the way.  Apparently one of the two girls had just recently moved out here to Virginia (from Texas, if I remember right?) and was living in the Hampton area, and the reason she had randomly asked for my number was because she doesn't know many people out here yet.  She's also apparently bipolar to some degree and taking meds for it.  It's kind of funny how I know so many people on medication of one kind or another, it's like people who have to take pills just sort of gravitate toward me or something.  But yeah, I'm glad I bumped into them, since I really needed someone to talk to and the walk out of the park ended up being a lot more fun than I thought leaving a place would be (lots of banana-related silliness, including people being hit by that huge thing... heh.)  The drive back in the vans wasn't nearly as awful as the drive to the place was, and the trip even seemed shorter when heading back home--probably because I wasn't miserable, and instead was joking about the adventures of the banana (I may actually end up using the giant Jamaican banana in a game or something later, though I don't think I'll have any way of slipping it into my currently-started games) and just talking to people the whole way back.  I was actually kind of surprised when I found we were only 45-50 minutes away from home--it didn't seem like it had already been more than two hours since we left Busch Gardens at all.

Overall, I'd have to say it was a really good trip, and I am actually glad I went after all.

Yesterday was a really good day.

Yep... though it had its less-than-great bits earlier on, yesterday turned out really well.  Though I'm still waaaay behind on my Western Lit reading (we were supposed to finish the Aeneid on Wednesday and then start on Dante's Inferno... I'm still on chapter 11 in the Aeneid and haven't even bought the Inferno yet.)

But anyway... I ended up watching The Great Mouse Detective with a few friends down at Carriage last night.  I thought this was the first time I had ever seen the movie, but it turns out that I might have actually seen it once before when I was really young (like 5 years old or so, way back in kindergarten)... I know I definitely remember that there was a brief period of time when I was around that age where I was afraid that a giant orangeish fluffy cat would come and eat me at night if I didn't duck under the covers, and after watching the movie again I think I know where that came from. XD  I can't think of any other movies off the top of my head which involve giant fluffy orange cats eating someone, anyway.

I also found out that Florida has four main exports, and they all start with the letter C.  I can't remember what one of them was, but the other three are corpses, cocaine, and crazy.

Finally done with papers. Now, it's insanely hot! Also, a bunch of trips coming up.

Yeah... finally got those two papers done (one for Art History, and another overdue one for Classics of Western Literature that was technically due before spring break started... but since I didn't even know what to write about at the time it was due, it took me a little while longer than that to actually finish it.)  Have been taking a break from homework after that... I do have a little bit of Spanish homework to do and the last chapter-and-a-half of the Aeneid to read, but that stuff can wait a little bit while I recover from having to write two papers in two days.
Instead of doing homework, I've been watching Youtube videos of people playing through Super Mario World hacks and messing around with some of my own stuff--The K'hyurbhi Lands, of course, and also a Super Mario Bros. 3 hack I recently started called Pothead Mario Bros. 3.  Yeah, it probably sounds like one of the 567935 different "change the graphics to something offensive" hacks that have been made if you just go by the title, and of course there are some "change things into drug references" bits--the title screen says "Pothead Mario Bros. 3" instead of the normal title, the Super Leaf is now a marijuana leaf, and when you hit a box with a vine in it, the top part of the vine that grows upward also looks like a marijuana leaf.  But that's not all there is to it; I'm also changing almost all of the graphics, and I plan on changing the levels significantly once I'm done with the graphics hacking.  If I figure out how, I may even change some of the music or alter how some of the power-ups work.  Here's what I've done so far...

• Small Mario's sprites replaced by GB Donkey Kong Mario sprites, or edited versions of them in some cases (like the swimming animation.)  Every single instance of a little Mario in the game, aside from the 2-player minigames which use different graphics, has been changed over to this type of graphics already.
• Raccoon Mario no longer has the raccoon ears (or a hat), replacing them with a giant afro.  He also has lazy-looking half-closed eyes.  He still has the tail, though.
• Fire Mario's palette has been changed to be purplish with a really red face (to represent drunkenness.)  His fireballs have been replaced with bubbles, which he burps up at enemies.  This also means that Pirahna Plants that spit fire are going to burp now, too... I guess I can make them drunk Pirahna Plants, or something?
• Mario and Luigi's palettes have been changed around so that they have blue outlines like in Super Mario Bros. 2, which also means they actually look like they have blue overalls again (and that Mario's afro doesn't blend in with black backgrounds anymore.)  Luigi's outlines are a more purplish shade of blue than Mario's, while Mario's skin is darker and oranger than Luigi's, also like in SMB2.
• The Super Mushroom, Raccoon Leaf, and Fire Flower sprites are changed (the mushroom to a modified version of SMB2's mushroom with a face, the leaf to a marijuana leaf, and the flower to a beer bottle.)
• The rectangular platforms that appear in some levels are now city-type brick buildings.
• The bushes in the background of those levels have been changed into trash cans.  The "multiple bushes clumped together" graphics have been changed around a bit to make a big Dumpster instead of just being a bunch of little trash cans jammed together.
• Bob-Ombs are now little terrorist guys wearing turbans, who (of course) blow themselves up.
• Giant Pirahna Plants are now crazy hobos who come out of pipes wielding some sort of spiked log or board, which they hold over their heads so you can't jump on them.

The weather has gotten ridiculously warm in the past few days.  Yesterday was in the mid/upper-70s and today was even hotter, maybe even reaching the 80s... I'm guessing the only reason the air conditioner wasn't blasting all day today is because I wasn't really in my room very much, though I think I'll probably have it on for a while before I go to bed so it'll actually be cool enough for me to get some sleep.

And somehow, it turns out that the next two weeks I have trips... this coming Saturday, I'm going over to Washington DC with my drawing class to see the Picasso exhibit at a museum (and also eat lunch at this Italian restaurant somewhere in the area), and the Saturday after that I'm going on the Busch Gardens trip.  I should be okay money-wise for the DC trip, but I may want to get a little more out of the bank before Busch Gardens comes up.  It shouldn't be too wallet-draining since it's only a day trip, but still, it'd be a lot better to have extra that I won't need than to run out and be completely broke and unable to pay for food.

...where the heck did those come from??

I just walked outside my room and found several dozen DVD cases sitting in the trash can.  Of course, they were all empty (believe me, I checked)... but since they were right on top of the trash and nothing nasty was in contact with them, I grabbed the whole stack anyway and stashed them away in my room for later use.

What use would I have for empty DVD cases? Well... if I get The K'hyurbhi Lands into "demo to be given out to people for beta testing" stage before the semester's over (which is looking pretty likely at this point, though I may have to leave out Plekoboro to pull it off), now I'll have containers to distribute it in.  All I would need is to buy some blank CDs from Wal-Mart or something and print out some replacement labels for the DVD cases (I'm pretty sure it's possible to remove the labels they come with and slip in something else; I know I've seen people do it before.)  I doubt I'll need more cases than what I already have, so that means I won't have to actually buy any cases.  And plus, this way I could even include a printed instruction manual or other extra stuff, like in old video games!

Wow, my legs are really sore now.

Yep... the Devil's Marble Yard trip yesterday turned out really well, despite the fact that I had to wake up at 7:30 in the morning to go.  Apparently my legs are not used to climbing around on giant rocks all day, though, because they are both pretty sore now (the right more than the left, for some reason... probably because that one ended up being bent into more weird positions that I didn't think were physically possible than the left one did.)  I found out that Gus and Elizabeth are apparently much more used to climbing mountains than Ruth and I are... because they went zooming up the rocks and left us way behind, and when we stopped for a snack break we found that they were only about 20 minutes from the top (while we would've taken another hour or so to get there from the little mini-forest among the rocks where we were.)

After we got back down from the rocks, we went and ate at Subway for lunch (followed immediately afterward by a trip across the street to Burger King, to get milkshakes and sundaes for dessert.)  Didn't have much of anything to do the rest of yesterday, but... after having such a good time for the first half of the day (we didn't finally get back on campus until after 2:00!!) I really didn't have much of a problem with that.

Last night, I had kind of an odd dream.  Apparently I had been watching some superhero TV show and had figured out based on that show that in the Marvel Comics universe, Hinduism is the only religion that's actually true.  Apparently there was a Hindu superhero in the dream (who I don't think is a real superhero) who occasionally would pray to one or more of the Hindu gods... and whenever he did, something would always happen pretty much immediately and obviously resulting from that, whereas when other characters of other religions prayed it was more like real-life praying (in other words, just about as effective as talking to yourself, but I guess it helps some people calm down if they're stressed out or something.)  Afterward, I tried looking through the comics themselves and apparently found that in the comics, this only happened once; it was only in the TV version where they had him pray to Shiva or Vishnu or someone like that every few episodes.  Weird.

Oh, and I've also been working on The K'hyurbhi Lands again lately.  The Castle of Roas is almost completely done (the only thing missing is Roastado's textboxes and scripts, which let Kirber learn a new Kihlah attack), Spam Valley is finally 100% finished, and now I've started to work on Yuckow Tower.  It's looking like the demo version will definitely be done in time for the Heart of the OHR contest later this year... I might even manage to get it done in time to distribute it among SVU students for beta-testing before I enter it in the contest.

Spring break... maybe not as much death by boredom as I thought?

Yeah... before spring break started (and during it, for a couple days at least...) I was really worried that I would have absolutely nothing to do all week and would probably die of boredom.  Now that I'm a couple days into the week, however, it turns out I'm actually having some stuff to do--yesterday I randomly got into working on The K'hyurbhi Lands again and finished up the Spamlord's scripting and graphics, and today I got together with a few friends and we ended up planning a trip to Devil's Marble Yard tomorrow.  I've been there maybe twice before; once with the Boy Scouts a long time ago and once with Dad and Julia somewhat more recently (but still years ago)... but it's still a really neat place and I'm looking forward to the trip.  On top of that, we're also planning on stopping by one of the pizza places (Papa John's in Lexington, I think, since Elizabeth has coupons for them) for lunch on the way back after the hike.  Sounds like it's going to be a really good trip, overall, though I'm not looking forward to having to wake up at 7:30 or so in the morning so I have enough time to wake up all the way, eat a quick breakfast, and brush my teeth before heading over to the tennis courts at around 8:10 so everyone can cram into Ruth's car and drive over there.  If it was just a little later it wouldn't be all that bad, but 8:10 is just so early... I'll probably need to take a quick shower and shave tonight before I go to bed, because there is absolutely no way I'll have time to do it in the morning (and plus taking a shower right before a hike is a little pointless, heh.)  I should be able to pull it off without too much trouble, though--I was able to get up at 6:00 for the trip to the Washington DC temple last semester, after all, so this shouldn't be too big of a problem.

I'm also going to be going back home to visit my mom and sister sometime Thursday, probably staying overnight and then coming back on Friday.  And sometime last weekend a girl randomly suggested that I could come and watch a movie with her sometime this week; I haven't seen her much since then, so I guess the next time I do bump into her I should bring that up again and find out when/if she wants to do that.  And then of course I still have some homework left to do... that Iliad/Odyssey paper, an Art History paper, and some very late Spanish homework (...I might go ahead and do the Spanish homework later today, actually.)  So it turns out that I might actually have a lot of random stuff to do this week, and so dying of boredom probably isn't as likely as I originally thought!