Sunday, April 6, 2008

My birthday (part II) ~ A Content Reversal

I know my last post was not the happiest of posts - indeed it was a bit gloomy. I expect this one though to be of a more buoyant if not content nature. These set of days, inclusive surrounding my birthday, have a way of bringing about such a Jackal & Hyde response from me. They end up nicely balancing themselves out so I suppose that makes it all fine in the end.

Anyways, in an unforeseen move from my eldest cousin, Kim had decided to take most of the family out to Long Island to visit this arcade/restaurant place called Dave and Busters. I had spent most of the morning at my father's house, so when I finally did arrive at my aunt's house, I came across everyone there all dressed as if they were going someplace. At first I was disappointed - I had planned to take a bit of a nap there and when I saw them in that prepared state of anticipated departure, I thought they were going to drag me into following them around shopping. But when I thought about it a second time, taking in all of the details more throughly, I found that something seemed off. I began to ask around to find out just what they had in plan and no one really gave me an answer. It was not until I asked Kim herself that understood - she wished to treat everyone in recognition of my birthday.

So all seven of us - my mother, cousins, aunt, uncle, and myself - got in my mom's car, and with Kim at the helm, set off for Long Island. Now I must say this: I greatly enjoy long drives. particularly along highways. I like watching the surroundings whiz past. Also, I'm given the chance to go off in my own little world for long stretches of time without someone bothering me. The drive was of a pleasant length. While it was long, it full of enjoyable conversations shared by the vehicle's passengers. Their range of topics, for example, were from the man expecting to give birth to a baby (this one within itself is a doozy. I'm going to restrain the need for further explanation. It starts to pain me after a while of dwelling on it...) to the advancement of science and to me learning how to drive. All in all, it jumped around the place.

Finally after some directional mishaps - Kim and my uncle kept going back and forth about which way to go to find the place. Each battle ended up with Kim following his suggestions, which turned out to be wrong, causing me to start trusting her judgment more - we found the place. When we got inside it was a bit more fancy than a typical arcade, due to the existence of the restaurant. We by passed all of the big, bright flashing lights and sounds of the entertainment around us and went to eat. This may have been the best part. The barbecue sauce was just great - and I, being a hardcore barbecue sauce addict (story(ies) for another day), fell in love with it at first taste.

Afterward we ran around the place for at least another three hours just playing the games there. The highlight of this would have to be when we were watching people play a DDR-like equivalent game. Really, there are some crazy skilled people out there. The first kid was able to move his legs at such an amazing speed - he held on the the bar behind him and was able to play what should have been a two player game by himself. Really, bloody cool. The second great player was actually two that performed as one. When you watched closely, their legs seem to be moving as if they were connected to the same mind - they touched the pad at exactly the same time, with the exact same speed (which was nothing less than blinding, much like the guy who went before them). I seem to have some weird complex of respect for those who are able to do such things on those types of games. It was a visual delight to be able to watch and just left me in awe.

The second game worth noticing was the virual reality boxing game. It was much like boxing from Wii Sports. You have to move your body around to hit and dodge the attacks. So I went first. I began with no real problems, but as I progressed I started to lose it. That game broke me down so much that at a certain point, I was just pummeled the living hell out of my opponent. I even started to be on the screen out of fear that he would somehow get back up again and take me out. I refused failure. Of course, I lost in the second round due to fatigue - the game took out Kim and my uncle in succession because of that element after me, though they tag-teamed and were therefore able to get farther than me (12th place instead of 87th).

So yeah. Yesterday was probably the better out of the last three days. So I'm happy I was able to end on such a content note for this 17th birthday of mine.

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