Sunday: Baseball, and Foy's party, volleyball like what!
Today started off with the intention of going to work and doing the half hour more I really needed to do Friday. But, despite leaving the house at like 11:30 and not having to meet up with Farren until 12:30... I took 99, that was dumb. Had to circle around the stadium, and since I'd intended to park near Uwajimaya, finally found a space like a block away in a lot that took credit cards (I had no small cash on me), ended up paying like $11 for parking AND it was 12:15 by the time I found the spot, so I had to pretty much run down to the stadium. Met up with Farren, went into the stadium, got lunch, got a scorecard, and we were in our seats by like 12:50! Wowie.
It was an AWESOME game. The Mariners rallied the 1st and 7th innings, for an eventual score of 13-2. The first inning was just insane. Ichiro led off with a single, then Guillen walked, Boone walked... so bases loaded, Martinez struck out. Olerud walked, which scored Ichiro. Cameron got on first with a fielder's choice, so Olerud was out at second, but Guillen scored. Winn was ALSO walked to load the bases... at this point they took out Standridge and put in Bell to pitch.
And Willie Bloomquist came up to the plate. And Willie Bloomquist hit his first home run of the year, which was a sweet grand slam, bringing the score to 6-0 Mariners. I've been saying for weeks and weeks that Bloomquist is going to be a star player someday if they'd just give him more time on the field, and I'm just so happy that he had an amazing weekend batting and fielding. He went 2-for-5 tonight (3 if you count an FC), batted in 6 runs, and made seriously amazing plays - like at one point he dived down a line drive up the 3rd base side, didn't quite get to his feet in time but got up on his knees to throw to first in time to get the runner out. He also was the lead on an excellent double play in the 4th inning.
Not that I'm saying he'll replace John Olerud or Shigetoshi Hasegawa as being my favorite Mariners, but he and Gil Meche are way up there too. :) Anyway, the upshot is, exciting first inning. Exciting other innings too. Olerud's been even more slow because of his leg injury the other week, but in the 5th inning he was walked and then Winn hit a long drive that ended up with a wild throw coming in and so Olerud scored on it. Good stuff. And Ichiro hit this ball that would have been a single if Edgar or Olerud had hit it, but because he's Ichiro, he got a triple out of it :) Cameron made a pretty amazing long CF catch in the 3rd and nearly snagged Baldelli at first, who had already run past second at the time the ball was caught. Yeah, and the Mariners put in Aaron Taylor to pitch in the 8th, and I'd never seen him pitch before, but he's HUGE! He's like 6'8 or something, and got 2 strikeouts in the inning - and Nelson actually got 3 strikeouts in the 9th. Wacky stuff. They subbed in Ugueto for Boone later and Mabry for Ichiro - savin' the all-stars for their game on Tuesday.
Anyway, it was exciting, and except for getting sunburnt I think Farren and I had a pretty good time there. After that we had to coordinate meeting up with Edgars going to Foy's...
Coordinating wasn't so hard. Ryan was parked somewhere south of the stadium and I was somewhere east. So we agreed to meet at Uwajimaya at 4:45, and Edgars also said he'd be there then. I went in to the office at US1, went to my desk, did the stuff I'd needed to do Friday, was done like 4:50pm, ran across the street, found Edgars and Ryan, and we got on our way! Whee!
Foy's party is a big blur to me right now, so I'm going to just write whatever memories I have of it. In no particular order:
- DJ's Pop'n'Music Arcade Style controller fucking rules. I got to play some normal 9-line and I got to play Battle mode with Rumi and with Nykkel. Serious fun and it's SO COOL and so big and clicky. Wow!
- Volleyball!!!!! I hadn't played volleyball since last summer and I hadn't seriously played since... well, a while. I think the last time I was really a fine-tuned volleyball machine was during the spring of 2001 when I was playing for Corey Kosak's GSA team. So we played a whole lot, some people were good, some people weren't, eventually we had some semi-serious games, and the BEST was when![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thethird and I were on the same team and he set me a bunch of times and I got to spike the ball. IT FELT SO GOOD. I LOVE HITTING. Other than that it was still a lot of fun, I ran around a lot and bumped the ball a lot and tried to set a little and mostly played backyard-style which involves just hitting it over, although my reflexes kept kicking in and I'd try to bump to front-center :) I utterly can't serve anymore though, and my accuracy has gone way down, but dude. VOLLEYBALL.
- (Among the volleyball players in several games were me, Edgars, Charlie, Casey, Foy, Ray, Keevon, Nykkel, DJ, Foy's friend Kurt, Jerrad, Okaeshi.)
- People had TV's and consoles outside by the volleyball courts and they were playing DDR on controllers while we were playing volleyball. It was odd.
- Leslie brought a jetski and we watched lots of people get totally drenched. Whee.
- Yeah, so Foy's house is on Lake Washington or whatever in Kirkland. It's huge and they even have a bit of beach in their backyard. Wacky stuff.
- Charlie also let me play Tetris Attack on his GBA-SP. I WANT ONE.
- Casey is awesome! I love talking to Casey. He's the best geek ever. I probly spent more time talking to Casey than to anyone else. And Casey also has a Powershot S330, so we geeked out over that. Yay Casey :)
-animegothgrrl was there! Wow! I didn't really get to see her much but hopefully we'll meet up at a gaming thing sometime.
- Same for Rumi and Matt, it feels like it's been years since I saw them.
- I got to talk to Nykkel a lot, I really wish I saw him more often, he's so cool. We were both sort of debating what to do about the Kenmore tournament next weekend.
- Dianna and Stephen and Joelle were up from Portland. Joelle stole my soda.
-mwinzi and I tried to converge on the Last Message para but I got subverted by volleyball. I'm sorry, Jon! We'll have to try again some other time - I'm going to watch the video for that weird back-stroke step in the interlude though.
- Rumi and Laura and I did a little Para to IIDX too.
- IIDX controllers a wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Charlie's is WEIRD and it's clicky.
- The age thing is silly. I guess it's just a reflex for me to make jokes about Foy's age and sometimes I'm not sure he knows I'm kidding. And then there was the whole "kinda over 21" thing going on at 11pm. But Farren and I left shortly after people took out the alcohol.
- I gave back Amber's shoes and she left them at Foy's.
- I brought Secret of Mana but since Steve wasn't there I forgot to give it to anyone. Oops.
- I brought Apples to Apples. I never feel like playing it though. Dianna kept asking me to get it out and I finally did and then we went up to sing Happy Graduation to Foy and then nobody actually played it. Oh well.
- I probably should have made more of an effort to talk to Cracker at some point since I barely know him. Oops :(
- It was a pretty good party but somehow I still feel like I'm very disconnected. Oh well. I guess it's mostly just like, there are some people I wish I talked to more, and I don't.
Drove Farren back to his car in the south-of-downtown area, then drove home, then basically have been writing this and/or doing other online stuff. Whee. My left foot is still messed up. This sucks.
I have this sort of rant/personal essay in me about baseball, but I'll save it for another time. Suffice it to say, when Josh accidentally gave me tickets to the whole weekend of games and people were like "you're going to all three?" and I said "HELL YEAH!" there was a twinge of doubt that I would overbaseball myself out and be fed up by the end of the weekend. Well, no such luck. I love baseball, I love the Mariners, and I was SO happy to be at all the games this weekend. So there. :) If anyone ever wants to go to a game with me, just let me know, 'cause I'll pretty much always be up for it.
It was an AWESOME game. The Mariners rallied the 1st and 7th innings, for an eventual score of 13-2. The first inning was just insane. Ichiro led off with a single, then Guillen walked, Boone walked... so bases loaded, Martinez struck out. Olerud walked, which scored Ichiro. Cameron got on first with a fielder's choice, so Olerud was out at second, but Guillen scored. Winn was ALSO walked to load the bases... at this point they took out Standridge and put in Bell to pitch.
And Willie Bloomquist came up to the plate. And Willie Bloomquist hit his first home run of the year, which was a sweet grand slam, bringing the score to 6-0 Mariners. I've been saying for weeks and weeks that Bloomquist is going to be a star player someday if they'd just give him more time on the field, and I'm just so happy that he had an amazing weekend batting and fielding. He went 2-for-5 tonight (3 if you count an FC), batted in 6 runs, and made seriously amazing plays - like at one point he dived down a line drive up the 3rd base side, didn't quite get to his feet in time but got up on his knees to throw to first in time to get the runner out. He also was the lead on an excellent double play in the 4th inning.
Not that I'm saying he'll replace John Olerud or Shigetoshi Hasegawa as being my favorite Mariners, but he and Gil Meche are way up there too. :) Anyway, the upshot is, exciting first inning. Exciting other innings too. Olerud's been even more slow because of his leg injury the other week, but in the 5th inning he was walked and then Winn hit a long drive that ended up with a wild throw coming in and so Olerud scored on it. Good stuff. And Ichiro hit this ball that would have been a single if Edgar or Olerud had hit it, but because he's Ichiro, he got a triple out of it :) Cameron made a pretty amazing long CF catch in the 3rd and nearly snagged Baldelli at first, who had already run past second at the time the ball was caught. Yeah, and the Mariners put in Aaron Taylor to pitch in the 8th, and I'd never seen him pitch before, but he's HUGE! He's like 6'8 or something, and got 2 strikeouts in the inning - and Nelson actually got 3 strikeouts in the 9th. Wacky stuff. They subbed in Ugueto for Boone later and Mabry for Ichiro - savin' the all-stars for their game on Tuesday.
Anyway, it was exciting, and except for getting sunburnt I think Farren and I had a pretty good time there. After that we had to coordinate meeting up with Edgars going to Foy's...
Coordinating wasn't so hard. Ryan was parked somewhere south of the stadium and I was somewhere east. So we agreed to meet at Uwajimaya at 4:45, and Edgars also said he'd be there then. I went in to the office at US1, went to my desk, did the stuff I'd needed to do Friday, was done like 4:50pm, ran across the street, found Edgars and Ryan, and we got on our way! Whee!
Foy's party is a big blur to me right now, so I'm going to just write whatever memories I have of it. In no particular order:
- DJ's Pop'n'Music Arcade Style controller fucking rules. I got to play some normal 9-line and I got to play Battle mode with Rumi and with Nykkel. Serious fun and it's SO COOL and so big and clicky. Wow!
- Volleyball!!!!! I hadn't played volleyball since last summer and I hadn't seriously played since... well, a while. I think the last time I was really a fine-tuned volleyball machine was during the spring of 2001 when I was playing for Corey Kosak's GSA team. So we played a whole lot, some people were good, some people weren't, eventually we had some semi-serious games, and the BEST was when
thethird and I were on the same team and he set me a bunch of times and I got to spike the ball. IT FELT SO GOOD. I LOVE HITTING. Other than that it was still a lot of fun, I ran around a lot and bumped the ball a lot and tried to set a little and mostly played backyard-style which involves just hitting it over, although my reflexes kept kicking in and I'd try to bump to front-center :) I utterly can't serve anymore though, and my accuracy has gone way down, but dude. VOLLEYBALL. - (Among the volleyball players in several games were me, Edgars, Charlie, Casey, Foy, Ray, Keevon, Nykkel, DJ, Foy's friend Kurt, Jerrad, Okaeshi.)
- People had TV's and consoles outside by the volleyball courts and they were playing DDR on controllers while we were playing volleyball. It was odd.
- Leslie brought a jetski and we watched lots of people get totally drenched. Whee.
- Yeah, so Foy's house is on Lake Washington or whatever in Kirkland. It's huge and they even have a bit of beach in their backyard. Wacky stuff.
- Charlie also let me play Tetris Attack on his GBA-SP. I WANT ONE.
- Casey is awesome! I love talking to Casey. He's the best geek ever. I probly spent more time talking to Casey than to anyone else. And Casey also has a Powershot S330, so we geeked out over that. Yay Casey :)
-
animegothgrrl was there! Wow! I didn't really get to see her much but hopefully we'll meet up at a gaming thing sometime.- Same for Rumi and Matt, it feels like it's been years since I saw them.
- I got to talk to Nykkel a lot, I really wish I saw him more often, he's so cool. We were both sort of debating what to do about the Kenmore tournament next weekend.
- Dianna and Stephen and Joelle were up from Portland. Joelle stole my soda.
-
mwinzi and I tried to converge on the Last Message para but I got subverted by volleyball. I'm sorry, Jon! We'll have to try again some other time - I'm going to watch the video for that weird back-stroke step in the interlude though. - Rumi and Laura and I did a little Para to IIDX too.
- IIDX controllers a wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Charlie's is WEIRD and it's clicky.
- The age thing is silly. I guess it's just a reflex for me to make jokes about Foy's age and sometimes I'm not sure he knows I'm kidding. And then there was the whole "kinda over 21" thing going on at 11pm. But Farren and I left shortly after people took out the alcohol.
- I gave back Amber's shoes and she left them at Foy's.
- I brought Secret of Mana but since Steve wasn't there I forgot to give it to anyone. Oops.
- I brought Apples to Apples. I never feel like playing it though. Dianna kept asking me to get it out and I finally did and then we went up to sing Happy Graduation to Foy and then nobody actually played it. Oh well.
- I probably should have made more of an effort to talk to Cracker at some point since I barely know him. Oops :(
- It was a pretty good party but somehow I still feel like I'm very disconnected. Oh well. I guess it's mostly just like, there are some people I wish I talked to more, and I don't.
Drove Farren back to his car in the south-of-downtown area, then drove home, then basically have been writing this and/or doing other online stuff. Whee. My left foot is still messed up. This sucks.
I have this sort of rant/personal essay in me about baseball, but I'll save it for another time. Suffice it to say, when Josh accidentally gave me tickets to the whole weekend of games and people were like "you're going to all three?" and I said "HELL YEAH!" there was a twinge of doubt that I would overbaseball myself out and be fed up by the end of the weekend. Well, no such luck. I love baseball, I love the Mariners, and I was SO happy to be at all the games this weekend. So there. :) If anyone ever wants to go to a game with me, just let me know, 'cause I'll pretty much always be up for it.
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Awww, weird bad or weird good? I'm used to it by now :D