Foam Monster in Emotional Reunion

Let’s see how this entry turns out. I have from last Monday (6th) to Sunday (12th) to go over. It seems like so much longer than that has gone by, but then when I write about what has happened, I realize that for the amount of nothing I did, it’s surprising that it feels that way.

Monday (6th): I honestly cannot remember anything from this day. This is the exact reason why I said I should update more often, daily even, like I used to when I started this blog. *sigh* It’s funny to look back and think “How many days have gone by, forgotten and lost forever”.

Tuesday (7th): We did the usual BT rush to Mother. Wanted to get some Council shots in so we’d have less to worry about on Thursday, but we sucked it up on Mother for some god awful reason. It was going really well too, 1 shotted everything up to her. Ah well, we’ll get a 1 night clear of BT some day.

Wednesday (8th): The guild thought it would be fun to go do Vashj and Kael to get vials for those who didn’t finish the quest 800 years ago when we were still doing tier 5 content. So, we headed into SSC and smashed our way to Vashj easily and pretty quickly. Then we proceeded to wipe about 6 billion times, finally downing the stupid bitch close to the end of our normal raid time. It was really sad and ridiculous, but what do you expect when everyone wants to bring their alts. The only reason we finally downed her was because most of the people who WERE on alts (me included) hopped on their mains. Soon as that atrocity was finished, I went to bed.

Thursday (9th): Going to talk about what happened at work first. Because I do not wish to really go over it again (due to the fact that I explained it to everybody a billion times), I’m just going to post the letter that I had to type up after everything happened:

To Whom It May Concern,

I was recently asked to deliver an envelope containing a bid for land surveying services to Mr. Mark Bowcock at Ocean County College. Liz Brady had given the request to me between 10 and 11AM on October 7th 2008 and the bid opening was to be held at 2 PM. When I say that she had given the request to me, I mean to say that she informed me thusly:

“John, has Art told you about the fun trip you will be going on today?” I replied “No”. She stated, “Well, I’ll let him explain it to you then”. Then after a few minutes of her being up in the print room, I asked her what was going on. She said, “Someone, it doesn’t have to be you, will be going to Ocean County College today. They will be dropping off a package and sitting in a bid opening, writing down bids from other companies that will be there” and she began listing off different companies. She then gave me the envelope with trip slip and said “Whoever is going should get there around 1:30, giving them 30 minutes just in case”. I then walked the package into Art’s office and asked him where I should leave everything for the trip. He told me to leave it on the stool, immediately to the left when you walk into his office.

Around 12:55PM, Art brought the package out of his office and placed it on the table next to his door. He told me not to forget about it and walked out of the room. Raou was already leaving for another delivery, so I took the envelope, grabbed some keys, went downstairs to get a notebook and pen (to write down information from the bid opening as stated by Liz), and headed out. I left the LGA office around 1:10PM as to arrive on the campus with sufficient time left. I arrived on campus around 1:30PM.

After pulling into the campus and finding a parking spot (which isn’t the easiest thing to do during school hours), I made my way to the Administration building as per the transmittal letter attached to the envelope (I mention this because there was no room number or anything else on the transmittal letter except the name of the man I was looking for and the department in which he works [Mark Bowcock, Purchasing; Administration Building]). Upon entering the Administration building, I immediately entered the room ahead and to the left of me marked Academic Planning & Advising, hoping I would be able to ask someone for their help in locating Mr. Bowcock. The young lady available informed me, after confirming with another woman who she called in, that Mr. Bowcock could be found in the Kean Office in the Library, Room 110. I left the office around 1:45PM.

I thanked both women and quickly headed off to the Library, finding the room they had mentioned and asking the gentleman at the desk if he could help me find Mark Bowcock. He told me that Mr. Bowcock would be in the Purchasing department in the Administration building (as stated on the transmittal) for Kean-Ocean, located across the street. So, I walked back to the car and drove around the campus to where I was directed. Once there, the help behind the desk (a man came to the front and two women were working at their computers) informed me that Mr. Bowcock was in a bid opening in the Administration building, where I had gone to in the first place. I left this office around 1:55PM.

On my way back, I had called Art Sorian to explain what was already going on and that I would most likely be late for the bid opening. I again had to find a parking space and make my way to the Administration building I went to the first time. By the time I made it back to the Administration building and up the stairs to the office I was pointed to this time, it was around 2:05PM. I asked the secretary, who asked another secretary, if I was able to go into the meeting or at least give the envelope to Mark Bowcock. Both secretaries discussed this for a few minutes and then called for another woman named Joyce Ann Lamparello. Joyce took the envelope from me and after a minute or two of reading it and thinking, she finally knocked on the door, said a few words to the people inside, closed the door, looked at me and shook her head.

She began telling me that I was too late and that the bid was denied. I immediately called Art to explain what was happening. He asked me what the woman’s name was (whose name at the time I did not know). She rudely told me that she would write it down, which I told Art. He asked if there was anyone he could speak to. I asked Joyce, who finished the note stating that I had arrived late (2:11PM) and that the bid was denied. She said, “No, they are all in the meeting right now” and immediately started walking away. I asked if he could speak with her, but she exclaimed that she was too busy at the moment.

Afterwards, Art told me to try and get the names of the people who I had spoken with, those who had given me false directions throughout the campus. I returned to the Planning & Advising room downstairs, but the woman whom I had first talked to was not around. They did give me the main campus phone number to call if I had any questions: 732-255-0400, and said that I could contact the office at a later time. They also gave me the extension of Mark Bowcock (Ext. 2046). I proceeded to make my way to the Library to ask the name of the man who had tried to help me earlier, but there was no one in the office. I spoke to the receptionist in the front of the Library and she gave me the extension for his office (Ext. 356 or dial direct 732-255-0356).

Finally, I gave Art all the information I had received. He told me to head back to the Administration office where they were having the bid opening and to wait until Mr. Bowcock had finished, to try and see if I could get a word with him. When I got back to the office, the door where the meeting was being held was open. I asked the secretaries if I could speak with Mr. Bowcock, but they didn’t know where he went, just that the meeting had ended. I sat around for a few minutes before he showed up. He was a very nice gentleman and greeted me immediately, listening to my story of how I had traversed around the campus looking for him. However, he told me that, “Once the door is closed to a bid opening, it’s against New Jersey state law to let anyone else in. I’m sorry”. I shook his hand and left, calling Art and telling him the details of what took place.

After checking Ocean County College’s website, I found Joyce Ann Lamparello’s extension (Ext. 2383). I gave the note she had written and transmittal to Mike Giuliano upon returning to the LGA office. Looking back, the only person who gave me any problems was Joyce Lamparello. She was very rude while I was there and I felt as though she thought I was wasting her time being there. I tried to explain that I had arrived half an hour earlier than the bid opening, but she just kept shaking her head and saying “Too late, too late”. Everyone else was helpful, although they gave me incorrect information, which led me to be late.

Very ridiculous all in all. Funny thing, this was 2 1/2 pages originally, until I was asked to revise it and include more details. I had the new stuff in bold, but then I just figured I would keep it all normal and not pretend like I was asked to do more than needed.

After the fun day at the office, it was time to finish off Council and Illidan in BT. We didn’t have the best makeup for Council (a lot of healers missing), so like the day before, we had a lot of alts. After a few wipes, some healers started getting on finally and we were able to normalize the fight once again and continue on. Illidan went down after one or two attempts and I was able to call it a night after that.

Friday (10th): Still on edge at work, figuring I’d get fired at any moment. My boss felt it necessary to tell me that he was getting his ass chewed out (multiple times) by the higher-ups. Fun stuff.

After work I headed over mom’s for Terry’s birthday. I picked him up a card and gift certificate for Home Depot on the way ($25, mom already picked up the $40 heater, so with the card and whatnot, it was about $70 total). We had dinner (Joan was there), then played cards afterwards. Terry enjoyed his gifts, and in the end, mom realized we never sang “Happy Birthday”. No political discussion (amazingly), so it was a good night

Came home, hopped on WoW. We did some arenas (3s – my paly, jace’s warrior, carl’s lock). Wasn’t too bad, though I really hope that when WotLK comes out, I can work some arenas with people where we’re getting points every week and actually trying to be decent. I hate being stuck in the 1500 – 1650 bracket.

Saturday (11th): Planned on going to Gavino’s early today, but I wasn’t feeling well. I got up around noon-ish and got ready finally. When I got to his house, we watched some stuff on the computer and then headed out to Collingswood auction to see our asian media friends from the Rt. 18 mall (recently moved down here). After hanging out there for a bit and buying 2 dvds a piece (gotta love $10 movies), we headed to the mall for some bubble tea. I got delicious coconut and Gavino picked up whatever for him and April. We headed back to his place, he got a phone call to do some maintainence work (of course the day we hang out he’s got the phone, when is that different from normal) and headed out to take care of it. I played some Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and April came home. After a little more playing, I said we should play Castle Crashers…so we did. Gavino came back finally and after hours of trying to decide on where to eat, we picked Panera Bread.

Now, usually when you go out to eat, you go out to fucking eat. Well, when we got there, I was told I should order first since I already decided what I wanted. Should I have asked if we were eating there? I figured, since they both said they WANTED TO EAT OUT that we’d be EATING OUT. Many times we brought up the idea of ordering in, but it came down to going out to eat…UGH…not that I mind, I love to eat out…but okay ==> So, I go up to order, move to the left to get my drink, and then they go up. I hear them say “to go”, and I say “what the fuck?” (not exactly, but I give them the look and say “Um, we’re not eating here?”). They both start laughing and tell me to quickly say I want it to go to the woman putting my food together. After all that nonsense (there’s more, but I really don’t feel like going into it), we head back to their place? Of course not. April wanted to go to Toys R Us. So we went there, checked out the board games (which is cool, she probably wanted to buy one since Gavino told her how we were checking out the sweet board game store in the mall). Of course, we didn’t buy one, and they proceeded to walk around for another 6 hours.

Finally we headed back to their place. I started to eat my soup (which was all kinds of delicious – cheese and broccoli) and noticed I didn’t have any extra bread to eat it with (besides my sandwich). So I asked if they had any bread, went in the kitchen to get some, came back and proceeded to smash my soup to the floor by accident (obviously). After cleaning it up and deciding we had time to watch a movie, I started eating my 1/8th of a soup and sandwich (still amazingly good). We tried watching 2 movies, but Gavino’s had no subtitles and my first selection had LITERAL TRANSLATION (worst thing ever…”WE ARE ESCAPE!”). So, it’s time to take those back. But before that (and not until some other day), we watched my other choice: “I’m a Cyborg, but that’s OK”. I really enjoyed it, and they did as well, so it was all good.

Gonna do Sunday another time, gotta leave work!

Society Crumbling Around Me

Sept 30th (Tues) – Oct 5th (Sun)

Sept 30th (Tues) – Work as usual, though this week was pretty ridiculous. Jackson Woods stuff finally came in, so we were overrun with tons of prints and whatnot to do all week. After work, I got home and hopped on WoW. We did the BT run up to Mother to set us up for later during the week (in case we didn’t do too well in Sunwell). Went fine for the most part (from what I can remember), so not much new there.

Oct 1st (Wed) – Wednesday, the usual “head over to Gavino’s for podcast and hanging out” day. We missed the previous 2 due to him cancelling, and with work being a bit crazy and just not being in the mood to drive all the way down for nothing, I said that I wouldn’t be able to make it. It gave me time to relax, watch some stuff (this week I’ve been watching 30 Rock and Little Britain [wanted to re-watch it since they had the new show coming to the US]), and play some video games. I hopped on WoW and we proceeded to kill Gruul as is the norm on Wednesday off nights. I ended up winning the roll for the pants on my paly (was going to use as ret gear), though the master looter (stupid, stupid Fatweight) gave them to a priest (wrong class even), because the stupid priest rolled on the wrong loot. And although I talked to a strange GM about it and the priest said he/she put in a ticket, I never received the pants. Ahh well, whatcha gonna do.

Oct 2nd (Thurs) – Time to head into Sunwell again. We cleared trash pretty quickly again, even with the big event going on: The 2008 Vice Presidential Debate. Now, I’m not going to go into it here, I’ll just post a link to the debate and leave it at that. There was enough debating going on Friday between me and Terry to make me not wish to worry about it at the moment.

Anyway, so we wiped numerous times on Kalecgos, getting him to around 50-ish% again a few times, but not much more than that. So, we finished off the night, after trash respawned, by heading back into BT to finish what we had left in there. We killed Council after a few problems and then proceeded to have a wipefest on Illidan. So, we pushed that to Sunday and called it a night.

Oct 3rd (Fri) – Headed over Mom’s after work as is the norm. Brought her a DVD with Mamma Mia! on it and some episodes of Little Britain for Terry to enjoy (hadn’t seen it yet, though he’s heard of it). We ate some dinner, debated (or as I like to call it “had Terry yell at me, saying I’m stupid for what I felt or believed to be true, and ended up just saying ‘yes’ / nodding until it was over”), and so on. We ended up playing Spinners instead of the normal UpWords. Spinners, a variation of Dominos, was actually pretty fun. It didn’t take much longer than a normal game of UpWords, and we had a lot of laughs.

When I got home, I finally bought and got to play Mega Man 9. What an amazing game it is. All the nostalgia of the original 2 Mega Man games, mixed with some sweet new stuff (new enemies that are really cool, new puzzles to get past, etc). Within the first 30 to 45 minutes, I had played every board, getting to some end bosses, sometimes not. I put it aside for a bit to play some Silent Hill: Homecoming that had arrived for me, but ooooooooh my god, scary shit right there. I got through about 10 minutes of the game and said “that’s it, back to something that won’t scare the hell out of me”. *laughs* Sadly, I really never played any of the Silent Hill games by myself for very long, which is probably the reason it took me so long to beat them. Although, I think this one is aiming to be a pretty damn good, creepy version of the series. It’s probably because it’s a lot darker than the original few tended to be…that may be because I turned the screen a bit darker for the occasion? Who knows, all I know is that I have to beat it sooner or later (well, at least play it, lol).

Oct 4th (Sat) – Noone was on WoW Friday night, so I wasn’t really too in the mood to hop on very much Saturday and Sunday. Saturday I woke up a bit late due to the fact that I didn’t go to bed until pretty late the night before (watched some stuff, I can’t remember if I watched Primer that night or some other time). Played GTA4 for a few hours. Finally decided that I bought the game months ago, only played the multiplayer with some WoW friends, but barely played the story. By the time I was done playing Sunday (stopped playing before raid), I had finished a decent amount of the game (as far as I can tell). I was pleased by how the story moved along, and the gameplay was pretty fun (as to be expected), although I was a bit miffed by the mini games they put in, such as pool, bowling, darts, and some weird arcade game. They’re neat to have, but really…kind of pointless. And anyone else who says that they’re cool is just too lazy to call up a friend and see if they want to do them in real life (and I don’t want to hear the excuse that you don’t have money, especially when you buy video games).

I also played more Mega Man 9. By the end of Sunday, I had cleared up to the first Willy stage (all the 8 bosses). I wanted to try and kill as many of the bosses as I could without using any special weapons, and I was doing good for a while, then when I had 3 bosses left, I couldn’t take it anymore. I think I started using special weapons first on Plug Man (that bastard). I’ll end up going back and playing the game again, trying to beat it as I wanted to in the beginning, and then trying to see how fast I can do it the 3rd time around (the time attack videos I’ve seen are pretty awesome, gotta try it myself someday).

Oct 5th (Sun) – Again, not much going on this day. I was stupid this weekend and didn’t watch any tutorial videos like I usually enjoy doing. Instead, I played more video games and just hung out around the house. Gavino ended up calling, saying how he thought I hated him, that he didn’t hear from me in a while, how he wanted to get back into making viral videos (as a joke to put out that he wanted to go back to filming), yada yada yada etc. I told him that I liked watching anime again with him and that we should do it again sometime (to try and put out that I didn’t want to just sit around and talk about making videos).

Let’s go into this for a second. He’s a great friend as I’ve discussed before, and although I know already that I have my faults, he’s got his own that can sort of bother me sometimes. Sadly, though I told him that it was a joke when I said that he wasn’t invested enough in our project, and it was at the time, it kills me to think sometimes that he really isn’t. There have been numerous times he’s stated that he was going to do things to help out, but they just disappeared as soon as the word were said. Gave him some audio to extract from the H2 and send to me for the first time we were out filming for Julius, never happened (at first I asked him to cut it up and send it, but then shortened it to just taking it off and sending it, neither happened). Gave him some storyboards to work with and write up some ideas, and I even rewrote most of the first and second episodes in front of him with the storyboards. He said he was going to use them and come up with stuff, never happened. He said he was going to work on the device that would be used in the second episode, never happened. So, you know how sometimes you hear someone say that they’re going to do something or that they want to do something, and it just goes in one ear and out the other since you know that it’s not going to happen? Well, that’s sort of where I got to with filming when it came to him.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate the guy for it. I just don’t know what to do anymore. This was the main reason I cancelled out on Wednesday, and although I didn’t “ignore” his texts like he said that he thought I was doing (I actually replied to 90% of them; which is funny, because when I send him a bunch of texts and receive no reply and mention it, I get the “I was busy” or “I don’t usually read texts, I like talking on the phone more” response), it moved into the weekend and why I didn’t ask to hang out. It’s sad sometimes, I don’t know what to expect. If I put a lot of time into the project and expect to get things done, like hanging out Wednesday (to discuss what we will be filming and hang out) and one day on the weekend to get things done (film for a few hours, prepare episodes, etc), it works out for a week or so, and then the excuses start piling on. Maybe it was just because I was glad that we started filming on a schedule and he complained that he wanted to “hang out instead of work for a change”. That was pretty upsetting, because for the most part, all we ever did was just hang out. We only did a small amount of filming (I’ve got the tape to prove it). For the most part, we would just sit around and ponder what it is we should be filming, instead of actually doing anything.

Anyway, I’m really debating on what to do this Wednesday. I’ve got the choice of heading over there like we used to do 4 weeks ago and seeing how it goes (with the possibility of either just sitting there and discussing what we could do and then watching movies or some stupid tv show), or I cancel and continue to think about what I really want to do with the whole project. It’s come to the point that I want to work on a documentary of some sorts, something that will take some time to work on, but something that I can plan out and put together over a few months…that will be something amazing once it’s finally put together. I wish I had the support or people to work with on this, instead of one day a week, if that, to film for 15 – 30 minutes. I know everyone wants to say that they’re tethered down to their job and their relationship and whatnot, and maybe because I’m currently not in a relationship I don’t see it, but if that’s the case, then just don’t feed me false hope that things can and will get done.

Ugh, life is such a fucking complicated thing sometimes.

Oh, and we 1 shotted Illidan on Sunday, then wiped a billion times to finally down Archimonde that we bought from some guild (helm finally dropped and had less points than Zomm, jioqthatatalhklh).

Now it’s 15 minutes after I should have been out of work, but I’m finishing this up. So this week I’ve got whatever we raid on Tuesday, whatever I decide to do on Wednesday, whatever raid we do on Thursday, dinner and cards with mom/terry/aunt joan on Friday, and then whatever my crazy mind can come up with this weekend.

Peace.