Oh Noes, Swine Flu! And Other Things

A little over a week ago, I woke up with a sore throat. It's turned into a cough and nasal crap, and I've been joking that it's swine flu. I'm kinda wondering if it's not a joke anymore, except that I'm usually knocked out more by the regular flu than I am by this. I keep telling myself I'm going to go to a doctor and get a check up, but it hasn't happened yet. -__-;

I heard yesterday that my best friend Kate is engaged to the guy she's been seeing for... a hell of a long time? (Their's is one of those relationships that has a few different points where they can say they started dating. I'm not sure which one they consider to be the start.) It's strange. Didn't think any of us were going to get married till our late twenties.

I'm still heading to NY for the Frankie 95 festival next week. The plane leaves a week from today, and I'm no where near prepared for this. I still have to do laundry, still have to figure out which outfits and shoes I'm taking. I finally took in my pair of Converse sneakers to a cobbler to get dancing suede put on them. Hopefully they'll be done next Tuesday. ^__^;; I'm a little anxious; this is the first time on a plane since I went to San Francisco in 2003. (And in looking back for a link, I see that I put the chronicles of that trip on a separate website that has since died. Sad.) And this is my first major out-of-town swing dance event, and it looks like it might be the biggest one ever. Considering how I'm usually so out-of-place even at Cowtown when all the out-of-towners show up, we'll see how I deal.

Last Sunday, Mother's Day, I took my mom and aunt to see Star Trek. How this came about: I mentioned to my mother about how I was going to see it with friends at the IMAX. Her eyes lit up, and I started looking for tickets for Sunday. I was surprised it wasn't sold out. I was a little disappointed about how they didn't really take advantage of the IMAX screen, and that the print had bugs all over it, including a smeared one in the center of the screen. (At first, I thought it was a projector booth problem. I talked later with a coworker who also saw it there the next day. He also saw the bugs, so it was on the actual film.) I might see it again, if someone wants to go, but I might encourage going to a regular theater, maybe one with digital projection (and no bugs).

After the movie, I headed out to assist in an attempt to beat the Endless Setlist 2 in Rock Band 2 and get the Bladder of Steel achievement (play with no pauses) for a couple of friends (somehow, I've become the main drummer in my group of friends). It was a good time. I stayed on drums for the most part, trading out to take breaks, eat, and try my hand at bass and vocals. It's funny; I hadn't played any of the guitar parts for so long, that I forgot how to hold the controller. It was handed to me with the strap going the wrong way, so the song started, I'm thinking, "This isn't right" and ended up flipping the guitar around and playing without the strap. (In my defense, I played bass again right afterwards and got 100%. So I can brag and say that I got 100% at least once on all the parts I played.)

I was on drums for the last hour and a half, I think. I might have been relieved once because my wrist was hurting a bit. I know "Chop Suey" was the last song I did on another part (singing). The song I was worried most about, "Battery" (because the drums are the only insrument on the off-beat), was no real problem for once. And I had never played the last song in the list, so I was caught off-guard by the fact that it starts and ends with drum solos... but I aced both of them (and it's on video! I think. Haven't seen it yet). We documented parts of it. I know on my breaks, I usually picked up the camera and goofed off. It probably looks weird though since I'm constantly looking off-camera and at the screen. -___-; So now that we've gone through that with no real problems except a goofy microphone (even though I never noticed any problem with it, everyone else did) and getting perfect 5 stars on every song (barely in a couple of cases), I think we've graduated from medium levels on the instruments (or at least our primary ones). I'm going to have to play hard level drums from here on out. -___-;;

It's strange. Ever since I moved out, and especially this last month or so, I've had something going on most nights of the week, whether it's dancing or gaming or what. It's gotten so that I don't know what to do with myself on the nights that I don't have anything to do. I almost want to be around people now, which was unheard of as little as five or six months ago. Maybe it's due to the fact that I'm living on my own now. I need to clean this place up so I can have people over. To do what though? The TV isn't in the best of shape, everything's yellow, so movies and the Wii aren't of the best quality (can't say that it's really stopped me before though). And I don't have the collections of board games (or the room, really) to have those gamers over.

I don't know. Time keeps going forward, and it seems to be speeding up, leaving me behind.