This weekend, my mom and I drove to Yosemite, and I went snowblading. Big fun for a 3-day weekend. I recently bought an MP3/CD player. What a great invention. All my mom cares about is that I can fit 200 songs by Bob Marley, CSNY, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Simon & Garfunkel, and more onto one CD-R. So it made for pretty sweet listening during our 5-hour car trip to Yosemite, with our nifty mic-plug-to-audio-tape dealy. I brought an Electronica CD along, and she even enjoyed that. I also got a cigarette-lighter universal DC adapter, so I now can plug most anything into my car. Anyway, our Yosemite excursion was great. We had originally planned to go skiing elsewhere, but every other major skiing resort in California was completely crammed, and there were no vacancies. But heck, Yosemite is beautiful. And their small Badger Pass ski resort is great. So the first full day that we were there (we had arrived about midnight after driving a few hours through zero visibility Central Valley fog), we headed on up to Badger Pass through YARTS, a new transportation service that lightens the parking load and exemplifies many from the $20 entrance fee in Yosemite Valley. I was the only snowblader on the whole mountain, so I gained a bit of popularity. While skiing down advanced-level moguls, everyone from the lifts above complimented me on such peculiar-looking things I had on. For those not in the know, snowblades are just like skis, only about 1/3 as long and more rounded on the edges. I don't need poles, since I can maneuver them like rollerblades as the name states, and they're easier to control. (Also, when you take a spill, you don't have to re-align your pelvis like you do while skiing... you just get back up.) After tiring from KICKING BADGER PASS'S ASS, I had some really awful barbeque ribs and went back into the Valley. Lots of snow above the valley hadn't melted, but the two waterfalls in the Valley were pouring at such a perfect rate that I could climb some rocks to get really close to the fall (risking slipping on some boulders, smashing my head open, and getting pounded into the ground by the rushing water). So the next day, we went back home, with me getting PaRappa the Rapper 2 at an outlet mall along the way. On Monday, I had planned to do a buttload of work (like I did today), and ended up doing none (like I did today). Instead, I worked on TEH ADVENTRUES OF PUAL CUHN, beat FFX (w00) and PaRappa 2 a few times (00w). The end to FFX didn't really leave anything hanging, but that was because there was nothing really to hang in the first place. But since I don't really have anything else to play now, I'll probably go back and work on getting the ultimate weapons for some reason, even though the weapons I already have are rather freaking powerful. 2/19/2002 07:14:39 PM

Ugh. I was getting even more done when we had dial-up. No one ever get DSL. Ever. Especially anyone who lives near me. Pacific Bell DSL has major downtime. Also, Trillian is starting to suck because of AOL Instant Messenger's new feature: it can tell what IM client you're using, and if it's not AIM, it disconnects. Poor, poor Trillian... But now I have to turn this post towards something much, much more serious... a former classmate of mine committed suicide. I have no freaking idea why... but the usual ideas come to mind. He could have been lonely, his parents could have neglected him, I don't know. But whatever it was, I know that this guy wasn't a big academic contributor, and that the jocks didn't care much for him. That's all that matters in terms of popularity... this whole thing will probably be forgotten in a day or two since he wasn't really in the spotlight at all. I mean, he transferred to Madrone, a local "slow" high school, at the beginning of this semester, and no one really noticed. All the jocks really would care about is "ugh, a suicide? How disgusting! It's a good thing he didn't get blood all over the place, since he drowned himself off the coast of Bolinas!" If it were anyone who was involved in sports or student government, the jocks'd be weeping out their asses. Personally, I knew this guy from last year, where he worked on an Ohio Kent State Shootings presentation with me in World History. He came over to my house a bit, and for the first time since 3rd grade (when I moved to Marin), I actually talked to him and found out that he was a friendly guy. I think my class was the first to find out about his death, since our teacher used to have the guy in another period. So in class, I got to say what I've pretty much written already, and the period ended rather awkwardly with our teacher in shock. At lunch, the door to my anime club's room was locked, as it often is, so I went to the teacher's lounge, as I often do, to retrieve the key. I couldn't, because the lounge was locked, as there was a SUPAR SEKRET meeting going on as our principal, Mr. Barnes, told all of the teachers what to do with their students. As I found out, next period, my seriously-in-need-of-retirement Math teacher read this little note she was given, threw it out, and then gave a quiz to a class of 30 stunned students (who didn't believe what I already had said, being the little prankster I am). AFTER they found this out, they all felt like kicking my ass for a conversation that Aaron and I had afterwards... Aaron (whose website is GONE but goes by Sir Tokes-A-Lot at the Shroomery) was talking to me about his job at a photo shop (right next to TEH MIGHTY QUINN, San Rafael's premium toke- smoke-shop). His job is to help develop the photos, so he gets to look at each one, touch them up, and so on. Stupid morticians live right around the corner and send FREAKING AUTOPSY PHOTOS for Aaron to develop. Aaron theorizes that they're just taking these pictures for fun ("Looook! I'm holding a brain!" "Hey hey, I opened up this guy's head to take out a bullet, and his eyeball fell out!"), but he tells me this because he'll probably see pictures of this dead guy from school. Pretty freaky. (On a side note, Aaron says that he's seen lots of pictures of drown victims before. Since they're on their back, all of the blood rushes to their back, making their fronts all white, and their backs all brown. Lovely.) This is where the conversation got humorous, since neither of us really show emotion (or respect) toward a big tragic event (see the Sept. 11 posts). I had a burning question answered: do people actually lack the dignity of buying a digital camera, and take amateur pictures to be developed? The answer was a disgusted "yes." In fact, Aaron tells me of this guy who comes in weekly and drops off his roll of film. Aaron is subjected to developing dozens of pictures a week of random males' asses getting rammed by that sicko. I think the guy knows it, also. Another burning question arose: Does he tell you to touch up the picture? Like, do anuses need to be treated for red-eye? This is about where I got the idea of posting the details of this conversation on the internet. Anyway, back to that suicide... it sucks. I don't know the last time since someone committed suicide at our school, but it definitely wasn't recent. I don't feel good in finishing this blog on a depressing note (I brought it upon myself), because I don't really feel depressed at all about it, and I think it was pretty stupid for this guy to go and kill himself. But hey, life goes on. Wait, no it doesn't. 2/19/2002 05:21:52 PM