Pokematic's 30th Birthday Fun

 Hey everyone, well I turned 30 over the weekend, and my family went pretty far out. Before I get to the fun I want to cover my third life crisis. I grew up in the 90s/00s, and extreme sports were a very big deal and had some interest in skate boarding, but never actually set foot on a skate board. In May I bought a skateboard at a garage sale and bought safety equipment online, and have been practicing it on the paved riding trails by my house. I've been getting decent at it and I'd say I'm at Squid/Sam level (that's a Rocket Power reference).

OK, time for birthday. Since mskate and I were going to see grandpa on my actual birthday on Sunday, all the festivities were going to happen on Saturday. We started by going to a semi-big local restaurant. They are most known for their burgers, but the Cubano sandwich looked really good (pulled pork and ham on Rye). I didn't want the sauces or cheese, so I tried ordering it modified, but unfortunately it was the single sandwich I couldn't modify. I ended up getting a burger with banana peppers and picked jalapenos. It was good, but nothing super special. While we were waiting for our food I opened my presents. My parents gave me some socks, a $50 star bill, nice pennies and quarters for smashed pennies, and Nickelodeon wrapping paper. My grandma gave me a card with money. IRA gave me a grilled cheese maker that puts pokemon shapes on the bread. It'll be fun to try at some point.

After lunch we went to Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum. When it says "museum," it really is. In addition to basic coin op arcade games, there are penny arcade show machines and foreign import games, and loads of interesting things hanging up on the wall and on the ceiling. One thing I don't remember is how macabre so many of the historical machines were. There were like 3 or 4 machines that were just "figures getting executed," and others were it was like "crazy body harm illusion" machines. It wasn't all that though, there were also ones where it's puppets and little shows, which were fun. My favorite were these nickelodeon machines, one that was the Hindenburg Disaster and another about a husband cheating with his French baker. One of my favorite machines was a drum game, very similar to Donkey Konga. There was also this Disney Tetris that wasn't quite like normal Tetris (there were pieces with 5 and 6 squares, while standard Tetris rules are only 4 squares per piece). I'm decent at Tetris, but the 5 pieces really threw me off, and I kept losing. Oh well, just for fun. The only other machine of note was when my brother and I played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (not Turtles in Time, original arcade game). This is important because when we were little and went to Wheels Inn we played TMNT Turtles in Time all the time because my brother was a major Turtles fan.

After the games we had birthday cookie. It was just sharing the big cookie and sang happy birthday. Around this time mom won a free t-shirt at a coin drop game. IRA wanted to win one but it just wasn't working for him (and winning is very difficult which is why they give away a $15 t-shirt for winning). For the tickets we won I got a key chain for the museum, which was cool. After that we went home. All in all great celebration.

Now it's Sunday, my actual birthday. Since Grandpa had a bad fall mskate and I just stayed around home. Church was pretty neat, because we were asked to take the gifts up at communion. No one had planned that, it just happened that way. God gave me a little birthday fun so that's great. After mass we went out to brunch at a local restaurant. I got a Ruben sandwich and it was quite tasty (mainly because of the sour kraut). When we got home I opened my cards and gifts from mskate. I got a crumble cookie, lemon drop cocktail mixer, a lemon candle, chocolate koala snacks, a lemon ornament, and lemon pickles (notice a theme?). It was very thoughtful and appreciated.

In the afternoon we decided to go minigolfing since we weren't seeing Grandpa and we enjoy minigolf. On our way to the minigolf place we drove by a zap zone entertainment center, and since it looked like rain we decided to go there instead (they had minigolf and it was indoors). We were going to play the minigolf, but it was going to be $9 for 9 holes per person, which was a rip off, so instead we just played arcade games. This one was more modern (the tokens and tickets were all handled on a game card, and all the games were from this century), but it was still a lot of fun. What we enjoyed doing was stretching our credits as far as possible, and we found one game that was really easy to farm tickets on. It was a "press the dog bone plunger to try to toss balls in the dogs mouth," it only cost 40 cents (2 credits), and paid out like 40-60 tickets a game if you were good enough (and we were). There was also this "knock the clown over carnival game" thing that had unlimited throws in a set time, which was great for us because we were able to double team it and always won 40 tickets. We also played Deal or No Deal, and we almost won 200 tickets (that was our case), but the case came down to 15 tickets or 200 tickets, so I took the payout of 105 tickets. Oh well, better than other times. I also utilized my coin pusher skills to win a Grandpa George card on the Willy Wonka coin pusher. I'm just holding onto the card to maybe get a full set and get the big ticket wins, and then if nothing else I have a decoration for my coin pusher. After about an hour and a half I got fried pickles for a snack, and then we spent another half hour to an hour using the rest of our card. Ultimately with all the tickets I ended up getting a Nintendo Surprise Controller Key Chain, and I ended up getting a rare golden gameboy keychain, which was cool.

Overall it was a really great birthday weekend. The only thing I missed out on was tinkering with my Intelivision and recording some lines for Bio, but oh well. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Christmas and New Years 2021 Blog

 Hey everyone, it's Christmas time again. Mskate and I got our Christmas tree up and all our decorations. We also had to take down our usual decorations, but couldn't find a good place for the American Girl Doll bike, so I used our left over wrapping paper scraps to wrap it up and make a Christmas scene.

Before I get into the big festivities, I have to tell a pre-festivities story that will pan out later. I don't know exactly how IRA found out about this, but he learned that my grandma didn't have a timer for her Christmas lights and bought her one. Since my grandma is his grandma-in-law, he didn't know where she lived and needed me to go with him. We stopped at the McDonalds by her for lunch and to maybe get Encanto Happy Meal Toys since mskate wanted them. We didn't want to deal with the drive through and thankfully the lobby was open for carryout. Unfortunately they didn't have Encanto anymore, and we ended up getting a Micky's Runaway Railway and Luca toy. I'll just try to sell those on ebay later. We setup the timer and watched the Rugrats 2021 Holiday special. It was cool, we learned about Las Posadas (because as my mom likes to say, "everything I learned about other religions and cultures I learned from the Rugrats"). It was fun.

OK, so it's Christmas Eve, and it's time for us to exchange gifts with my maternal grandma. We always exchange gifts on Christmas Eve with her ever since I was little, and part of the tradition was we would go to McDonalds while Santa delivered the presents. We didn't do it last year because everything was closed, and we almost didn't this year because Mom called and asked if dining area was open and when she heard "no," she thought that meant it was drive through only and we did frozen oven pizza. Because IRA and I went a week or 2 earlier we knew that the lobby was open, and I had to keep the tradition alive, I walked there and got grandma a McDouble and a large fry to share with everyone. We still had frozen pizza, but we also had some McDonalds When I got back I yelled "Santa Came!" like I would have when I was little.

Time for presents. I got some PS4 games that I got on black friday and amazon prime day that my mom and grandma bought off me, some gift cards, candy, hand cream, and some puzzles. Mskate got me a present she was VERY proud of, Recess Miracle on 3rd Street on DVD, because it wasn't available on disney plus. Unfortunately for her I already had it on VHS from when I was a child, but it's good to have it on DVD now (but she was still a bit sad that I already had it on a home media). Mskate got some candy, puzzles, gift cards, and a special gift that I helped my grandma give. But before I get to that, I need to go through the gifts we gave my grandma. We got her an ornament we painted together some weeks ago, a Minnie Mouse we bought her in Disney World, a build a bear shirt we got on sale in Disney World, some gift cards, and this special gift of gift. Grandma is always saying "I don't have anything for you to eat" whenever we come over, especially since mskate has multiple food allergies. Well, on prime day I found these organic fruit snack starburst things that I knew mskate would like, but I knew she would like them "too much" and they wouldn't last a week in our house, so I wrapped them up as a gift from grandma to mskate, put it in a box, and then wrapped it up as a gift from me to grandma. When she grabbed the box, I told mskate to go over to her and get ready. When she opened it and saw it was another present, I said "read the label" and she handed the inside package to mskate, and mskate liked the organic starburst to keep at her house. We also gave vikingpolak some gifts, a universal socket, a tactical flashlight, and something I'm forgetting. Oh well, it was still fun. My parents got clothes and gift cards.

After gifts we went to church. It was a good service. After church mskate and I took dad back with us so he could get dinner started. Dad made a pot roast and some baked potatoes. It was really good. After dinner we packed up and went to mskate's parents house for the night. We exchanged some pre-gifts with her parents, some clothes and ornaments, and gave the dogs some toys. I wanted to watch A Christmas Story on TBS with IRA, but he isn't a fan of A Christmas Story so we watched my new Recess DVD. After the DVD it was time for everyone to go to bed because "Santa had to come set-up." I wasn't ready to sleep yet, so I watched some of A Christmas Story in bed on my phone. IRA offered to let me watch it on his DVD copy, but it has to be 24-hours on TBS, because 24-hours of A Christmas Story on TBS is my 14 year long tradition.

OK, it's Christmas morning. Last year we learned our lesson and put the dog's presents up high so Dalilah wouldn't get to them. IRA though was up at 4AM excited for all the stuff. Even though he's 24 years old, he's still a kid at heart and gets really excited for Christmas morning. The rest of us got up at about 7:30 AM, and we started at around 8AM (and while everyone was waking up, I watched some more of A Christmas Story). It was quite the sight, because my in-laws get REALLY into Christmas. I got some cool Sonic and Pokemon socks, some lego sets, puzzles, games, and blu-rays. Mskate got puzzles, legos, clothes, and Addie the American Girl Doll with bed. IRA got a bunch of movies, and we got him a "pokematic family staple," The 3 Stooges complete collection of DVD. He was REALLY excited about that. As for my parent-in-laws, we got dad a USB fan and washing machine cleaner (because that's the kind of stuff he likes), and mom got a peanuts colorform and spoon rest. They got some other things as well from us, but those were the key things that really got them excited. It's funny, mskate and her mom always had difficulty shopping for her dad because his standards were either too high, or they paid too much for what they bought, and they just didn't know what to buy him, then I came along and said "for the man who loves his computer and to keep the AC off in the summer, give him a USB desk fan."

OK, now it's time for breakfast. I had an over easy egg and medium well bacon, mskate had an egg replacement omelet, and everyone else had this egg casserole and medium rare bacon. While breakfast was cooking I watched some more Christmas Story, but with the west coast TBS feed because that was closer to where I left off last time. A little later mskate and I went to pick up her aunt to have breakfast and christmas with us. Nothing too spectacular to say, except IRA and I took her back afterwards and I finished watching A Christmas Story after that (once again, on the west coast feed), and that's how I watched all of A Christmas Story over 4 airings this year.

OK, now it's now about 2 PM, and time for us to spend time with my side of the family. My parents throw a party every Christmas and this year was no exception. Vikingpolak picked up my grandma, and their accordion friends showed up a little bit after. The really fun thing though was mskate's cousin M came as well. Mom said "if cousin M isn't doing anything, he can come to our house," and he did. We all visited for the first hour or 2, introducing cousin M to everyone and catching up on life. After that we had dinner. Since my parent's dining room table isn't big enough for everyone there was a "kids table" and "adult table." Since there's normally more than 10 people at these functions and my parent's china set is only for 10 people, and I'm a bit clumsy, I normally have to use a normal dinner plate, so when I asked "where's my plate," I wasn't being rude or entitled, I just knew my place. However, because Christmas was 10 people this year I got a china plate this year. I had ham, green beans, and a roll. After dinner we did the accordion sing along. IRA and mom-in-law came over for that, and it was fun. This was something new for cousin M, and he enjoyed it. While we were singing tanman called to wish everyone Merry Christmas. I was one of the last people to talk to him so I didn't know who to hand him off to, so I said "here, talk to cousin M." Neither of them knew what to so, but mom was like "no, here, talk to your accordion grandparents." After the sing along we all said our goodbyes and went back to mskate's parent's house since we still had festivities with my parents the next day. IRA and I watched one of his new movies, The Suicide Squad, not to be confused with Suicide Squad. This is the R-rated soft reboot, and I gotta say, it was pretty gross. Like, LOADS of gore and brutal deadly injuries, and I guess this is what people wanted, but it was a little too much for my tastes.

OK, it's now the 26th, the first day of Kwanza, and the day we're exchanging gifts with my parents. We met my parents and vikingpolak at Sunday church and had a good mass. My parents still had some setting up to do so vikingpolak, mskate, and I drove around the city a little. We went to the restaurant with really good gluten free bread to see if we could buy 5 pieces of bread quick and easy. Unfortunately the restaurant was closed so we just drove to the edge of the city and then back to my parents house. When we got there my parents had it set-up like they always do (brother's pile, my pile, their piles, and now mskate's pile). We added our stuff to their piles. Some of their key presents were a new French press for dad (since his was falling apart), a set of cooking tongs with a silicone tip one, and mom got a soap dispenser that dispenses soap in the shape of micky's head. There were some other things, like gift cards, but they aren't the main things that got a lot of fun. We also got my parents shirts from our Disney trip, and they all really liked them. We got vikingpolak some other things, but what they were escape me at the moment. Mskate and I got some puzzles, candy, a shirt or 2, gift cards, a build a bear thing, and plasticine clay builder thing. Vikingpolak then gave everyone special gifts. He gave everyone a utility bucket with a stuffed animal and gift card in it. I had a legendary pokemon, mskate got a corgi dog in a santa costume, dad got a snoopy in his WW2 flying ace costume, and mom got a queen bee. After gift exchanging we packed up our stuff and went back to mskate's parents house to pack up everything. The rest of the day was pretty basic, and we had some relaxing.

OK, now it's time to enjoy my week off. Monday was a day of shopping and doctors. Mskate needed to get some blood work done, so we went there after doing some shopping at BJs. Tuesday was more shopping, this time at IKEA and Ollies, and then dinner at an upscale steak house because we had a coupon for a free appetizer. That ended up getting crazy because while backing out I accidently hit the car behind me. I went around the restaurant asking "do you have a dark gray traverse?" and eventually found the owner. It was just minor damage, some scratches on the bumpers, but we still filed the police report. I called my insurance and got things taken care of, but it was a crazy night.

Wednesday is when things got "fun again." Mskate had a doctor's appointment at 10 so I waited outside and watched Elvira while she was in there, and after that we went to see my aunt and grandpa. It was an hour and a half drive up to them, and then we had a fun visit. We exchanged some gifts, and they really enjoyed them. My grandpa liked to carve wood in retirement when he could and one thing he really liked to carve was santas, so instead of putting up a tree with ornaments my aunt puts up multiple little pencil trees and all her carved santas up in a little santa village. Some weeks ago we took my grandma to a pottery painting place and made a santa ornament for my aunt and grandpa for the santa village. I think he fits in perfectly with the rest of the santas.

We also got my grandpa a pair of wireless headphones for the TV. My grandpa is losing his hearing so he keeps the TV kind of loud, and one time she asked "is there a way to give him headphones or something," and after looking at the TV I said "yes there is," and when I saw bluetooth headphones on prime day I said "this would be great for grandpa," and since I already had a bluetooth transmitter that plugs into a headphone jack I knew I could get this for them. Unfortunately I forgot what the specific jacks were on her TV and didn't bring an RCA to 3.5mm jack adapter, but it works for his ipad and the cell phones since there's a standard 3.5mm audio cable option, and they are happy about them. We also got them bird feeder cylinders and lindor chocolates, and they enjoyed them. We had ham sandwiches for lunch, and we had some good conversations. It was a fun little day.

OK, it's Thursday now, and it's dad-in-law's birthday today. We went to my dad's first because we had to pick up some stuff and just wanted to see him. After that we went to mskate's parent's house and played our new Disney Eye Found it game. Mom-in-law didn't understand it too well, but IRA enjoyed it. After that IRA and I watched an episode of Seinfeld and then we just waited around for dad-in-law to come home from work. I played Animal Crossing New Horizon and watched Just Go With It on Hulu. When he got home we ordered pizza and made a lava cake we got from BJs on Monday. Everyone enjoyed them. It was a fun day.

Alright it's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday, and New Years Eve. Mskate and I planned on going to the American Girl Doll Store in Columbus for the new year release of the girl of the year, because mskate really wants the girl of the year since she's a future Olympian and her welly wisher sister is a figure skater. Thursday night she learned that they released them 2 days early, and so we went there New Years Eve before going to our hotel. It was a really fun store, and I may put some clips up.

We got the Welly Wisher, the skating outfit, an Olympic medal presentation set on sale, and some blind bags we felt to figure what we'd get (milk and eggs, cheese and grater, and waffle iron). After the store we went to our hotel and it took us a little while to check in (many people were checking in as well), so I just watched hulu while I waited. After checking in we drove around our hotel to find dinner. We found a Japanese restaurant next to a barcade (arcade that is paid for with alcoholic drinks) called Level One. We ordered avacado sushi rolls and a salmon sushi roll for mskate and steak teppan yaki for me. While we waited for our food, I went to the barcade and played "Russian Tetris" (the arcade version with more Russian imagery" and different mechanics and logic, knowledgeable Tetris players know that there are subtle but major differences between releases), and more importantly Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Turtles In Time. So, little story; when I was about 9 and my brother was 7, we went to a hotel in Canada called The Wheels Inn, where they have a giant arcade, mini-amusement park, bowling alley, laser tag, shuffle board, light gun shooting gallery, mini golf, giant "McPlayland" thing that was so big I sometimes got lost in it, bounce house, and more, and the game that captured our attention the most was TMNT Turtles In Time, but we weren't good enough to get past the 2nd level. When I saw it, I knew I had to play it, and if it was free play, I had to beat it.

It took about an hour and 40 free credits, but I managed to beat it. Young me was proud. The food was ready for a while, and a little cold, but it was worth it to me to beat it. When I sent the picture of the victory screen to my family they all said "oh that's great." After getting our food we went back to the hotel and ate dinner. The food was good, but not very filling (I'll get to that later). Mskate played with her new dolls and clothes, putting the Olympic outfit on the doll she brought and putting the skating outfit on the welly wisher.

After the play time and watching an episode of Numb3rs on hulu I went back to the barcade. I didn't buy a drink for playing TMNT while I waited for the other food, so I figured I should go back and get a drink. Mskate didn't want to go with me (not her thing, and she was tired), so it was just me and I could have all the fun I wanted. I bought a TRON, a cocktale with voka, rum, gin, and blue curacao "with a splash of sour and sprite," and it was REALLY good. If you ever go to Level One, I recommend it. I needed something to play with one hand while I drank so I played Q-Bert, a light gun game, and Frogger. After finishing my drink I played Tapper (which also has some history since that was my favorite arcade game to play on Shockwave.com in 5th grade, along with Rampage), Donkey Kong, and Punch Out. I could have played more, but I had to get back to mskate (but I'm definitely coming back here). Mskate was hungry for more food, so I bought her another order of avocado rolls. She kind of wanted more salmon rolls, but 1 salmon roll costs about the same as 8 avocado rolls ($4.50 for 8 avocado rolls, $3.25 for 1 salmon roll), and when she said "I could have gotten more salmon rolls," I almost said "like hell you are." She enjoyed the avocado rolls, so that was good. When I went to order more sushi rolls one of the employees said "hey, didn't you already order today?" and I said "yeah but we want more." When I got back mskate ate and then went to sleep while I watched Numb3rs waiting for midnight. Around 11:30 I accidentally woke her back up and 30 minutes later we watched the ball drop and rang in the new year with some kisses.

New Years Day started off OK. I woke up around 8:30 and went down to see about continental breakfast. The hotel was asking $12 for their continental breakfast, and I was like "no, I'll just eat the snacks and poptarts we brought." I ate my snack breakfast and called to find out when checkout was while mskate looked to see if there was a mass around us (Solemnity of Marry). Turns out checkout was the same time mass would be over, so we packed up our stuff, checked out, and went to mass. Since people were loud the night before (because new years), mskate didn't sleep as well as she would have liked, and wasn't sure if she would want to go back to the store, but would make the final call after mass. When mass was over she said "it's less than 15 minutes away (just barely at 13), so I want to go." We did and she found matching pajamas for the welly wisher and her, which was great. Unfortunately there weren't any big festivities, so that wasn't very good. Oh well.

After the store we went to the "mall building," where they have restaurants and this cool game store. Mskate got Bibibop and I got panda express, 2 things we don't get very often. At the game store I looked around at all the coin pushers they had to see if any were ready to pay out (I have a coin pusher at home and played it enough to be able to tell when they're ready to pay out), but unfortunately none were. We drove home and thus concluded our little adventure.

Overall this was quite a fun vacation. If I could do it over the only thing I would change is remembering the right cable for the headphones and getting it completely set-up. Well, now it's time for me to get back to real life. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Grandma's 85th birthday and 60th anniversary part with the family

Hey everyone, oh man do I have a story for you guys. So my grandparents have been married for 60 years and my grandma has been alive for 85 years, and because those are some serious milestones my mom threw a MAJOR party for them, inviting all the extended family for a weekend long celebration that for me basically lasted all week, and for my mom, a year of preparation. I'll start out with the little bit of prep that I had. For me I made a video slideshow of my grandparents throughout the years from marriage until about now. These were the songs we used, in the order of use.

Mom scanned a bunch of their old pictures and that was a bit of a challenge, because pretty much all the pictures they marked as wanting them were from the last 20 years (grandkids). There were some wedding album pictures, and some with my mom and her siblings as kids, but most were grandkids. I'm like "uhhh mom, one of the songs is 'when your old wedding ring was new,' it doesn't match well if all I have is when the old wedding ring is old." She then found more pictures from the wedding and when they were newly weds, with bringing their kids home from the hospital and babies. I also found all the vacation slides of theirs I digitized for a Christmas present 12 or so years ago, from all the vacations they took with their kids (my mom and aunt and uncle) as kids. It worked out great.

Now for the start of everything. My girlfriend mskate came in for the party and she arrived Wednesday to stay in town with her parents (about an hour away from where I live). I also had a doctors appointment out that way, so we were going to have a little date night after the appointment. Well, I got caught in really bad traffic, and had to reschedule. I happened to be stuck about where we were going to meet up afterwards, so that just meant that we were able to spend a little more time together. We went out to dinner, and then walked around our little down town area for some fun. We went to the salvation army, and a jewelry store that was downsizing and had stuff that was 80% off, and a gamestop. We went to the jewelry store just for fun, and maybe I would find something deeply discounted that I could either flip in some years or make for a really nice gift, but it was all still out of our price ranges. The gamestop was mainly for me because she knows I like videogames, but she doesn't really care for them. We did find something we would both enjoy, a Wreck it Ralph 2 mystery figure. We decided to get one and depending on which character it was would determine who got it. She wanted a Vanellope, and I would have been happy with Ralph, Felix, or anyone else. It ended up being YES! and she decided she liked it for the in-joke and would rename her "yep." (I say "yep" when I want to acknowledge that I heard you but don't have anything to add to the current topic). As we were walking around, some kids decided to play the penis game as they drove by while we waited to cross the street. For those of you who don't know, the penis game is when you yell "PENIS" in a public area and/or at a complete stranger, commonly played by middle schoolers and immature high schoolers. We were just standing there minding our own business when this car drives by and this kid sticks his head out the window and yells "penis" at us. My girlfriend didn't know what the penis game was, and so I had to explain it to her, and how I didn't know those kids, and how it's kind of like a dare, and how he's probably not going to get in trouble with his mom because the driver was probably his friend, and how it was a game that some kids used to play back when we were in middle school and it's still around 13 years later. After our little date we went to my parents house so mom could fill us in on what we needed to do for the party. I'll save those details for when they come.

Now for Thursday night. All my family came in that Thursday, and so my grandparents hosted a dinner at their house. It was basically just at their house, because my aunt made the food and my mom organized the rest. With all the traffic and construction, it took me 2 hours to get to their house (it normally would take about an hour). When I got there PepperBC was already there, which was really fun catching up with her. My brother Vikingpolak was also there, but I see him far more often then all my cousins. My aunts and uncles were there, but I enjoy generation 3 (my generation). Not much longer before turtlegirl and her friend show up, which was more fun. An hour or so later MMT and R showed up, and we had fun catching up and making fun of each other. I might as well say this now so some of the events make sense; with this side of the family we make fun of each other to show we love each other. Light teasing and comebacks that are all based on personality traits and past stories is how we let each other know we remember things about each other and that we are close enough to have a little fun at each other's expense. It's not just limited to gen 3; gen 2 (my parent's generation) does that amongst themselves, and all the generations will engage in some light teasing across the generational gaps (gen 3 will poke fun at gen 2 and vice versa sort of thing). It's all healthy, we know when it's appropriate and when it's not, and is just something my family does.

Anyways, not long after MMT and R showed up we had dinner. Because it's my grandparents party, generation 1 ate first. After gen 1 got their food, gen 3 got their food. Someone in gen 2 asked "why is generation 3 eating after generation 1?" and I said "because gen 1 likes the grandkids more than the kids." That got a "savage" from my brother and my mom overheard the reaction but not what I said. Then in her own little teasing but could be scolding manner she asked if I was using "kind words." I repeated what I said and she thought it was funny and true. After dinner gen 3 decided to walk down to the liquor store and get some drinks. I remember back when it was a video rental store, back when I was like 4. We visited some more, and then I went home at like 8 PM, because I live an hour away from their house.

Now for Friday. This was our "fun day" where the different generations do what they want. Gen 1 and 2 went to visit with Aunt K, and gen 3 hung out around my parents area (except for turtlegirl and her friend, they went to a museum I think). Mskate joined us and got to get a little acclimated to my crazy family. Trying to find something to do was REALLY challenging. Here's how it went down, mskate, brother, and pepperBC said "I'll go with whatever everyone else wants to do," I'm suggesting all sorts of things (laser tag, zoo, barcade down town, my condo, bowling, minigolf, museums, other sight seeing, thrifting, etc.), and then R was being poopy all "I don't want to do that, I just want to check in at my hotel and get a good shower, and play fortnight while I wait" (he and MMT were staying in a hotel Friday and Saturday, but stayed with my parents Thursday night, and check-in wasn't until 3PM), and MMT was like "I'll do whatever R says, though I do want to do something." Looking back at past times, I guess it's normally Turtlegirl and I that break the tie of everyone else not having strong opinions on what we do. Eventually we decided to go bowling. I think I managed to convince my brother to vote hard yes on "lets go bowling" to break the tie, or maybe I convinced R to stop saying hard no, but regardless I got a single vote to break the deadlock. Mskate and I were both wearing sockless footwear, so we had to borrow socks from my family members; her from my mom and myself from brother.

This is where things get a little silly. Soooo, there are like 4 different bowling alleys in a 5 mile radius of my parents house, buuuuuutttt, only 1 was open. We first tried the one that is just down main street, but they apparently open at 6PM on Fridays. Bro, MMT, R, and pepperBC were driving together and Mskate and I were driving separately. We pull into the parking lot, I get out and start talking to them while they're in the car. Next we wanted to go to an alley that's close to their grocery store, but they've been out of business for over a decade (you wouldn't know it though, the place still has the sign and no notice of "for lease"). So then we called the combination bowling alley-movie theater 1 town over, and they thankfully were open. I haven't been there in a while, so I didn't know that they renovated and removed the lanes on the 1st floor, and neither did bro. So we get there, walk over to where the bowling alley was, and are all "where's the bowling, we want to bowl?" We were ready to give up, but then an employee overheard us and told us they're upstairs and we needed to pay at customer service. It was a great deal, $6 for an hour each. Mskate, pepperBC, and I played on 1 lane, and MMT, R, and Bro played on another. Apparently R was on his high school bowling team, and he wanted to show his skill to everyone. Well, this was the 2nd time I've been bowling in like 10 years, and I was never really good, but I found I'm pretty good when I go marathon. R was getting really competitive, and I'm like "oh whatever, I'm just here for fun." Well...I ended up winning. I scored something like 400 points over 3 games, and R only got like 380 or something. After our hour, he was lying down on the chairs saying "I can't believe I lost to [pokematic]."

After bowling we went to the Mexican restaurant that's close to the theater-alley. This was another one of those "indecisive things." I wanted to go to the noodles restaurant that was down the road, bro wanted to go to the Mexican restaurant, R was saying "I don't want to go there," and everyone else was "I don't care." Because I didn't want another hour of deadlock, I changed my vote to the Mexican place just to make it 2 against 1 against 3 no opinion, because my hunger was greater than "I don't really care for Mexican food." I had a burrito, without much of the fixings that they include; "you can have 2 different proteins" just beef, "what 2 sauces do you want?" none, "what kind of beans do you want?" none, "you get up to 3 different vegie things" just lettuce, "you sure, I mean it's all included in the price?" yes. I basically had a $5 burrito for the price of $8, but that was worth the price of not having deadlock. We all got a table and visited while eating. After lunch MMT and R left us to go check into their hotel, so then bro, pepperBC, Mskate, and I hung out at my parents house for a while. We watched the 1980 Popeye movie on plutotv. Well, I watched Popeye, PepperBC and Mskate and bro took naps, though PepperBC and Mskate at least started watching the movie with me and then fell asleep where they were sitting. After the movie we walked down to the ice cream parlor, and then we walked down to the card and game shop my brother frequents. Bro was really in his element, and since pepperBC and I are both geeks we didn't feel too out of place (even though table top isn't our thing), but mskate felt very out of place since she isn't really into any of this stuff (though I'm slowly introducing her to things, and she enjoys some of it). We were there for a little bit, but thankfully bro realized we weren't that into it and so we left. After that we went to the minigolf place by my parents. MMT and R caught up with us, and I think turtlegirl and her friend joined us. I don't quite remember, but it was a fun time. Nothing really exciting happened, except that I did pretty well and I think beat R again, and he's really into minigolf. I guess because I spent so much time at that course I know the holes really well, even though I can't remember the last time I played that course. After the mini-golf I took mskate home and went home myself.

OK, now for the main event. And ho boy, this was something else. I picked up mskate and we headed over to the hall. We got there an hour early, so we drove around a little to find something to do, and we decided to go to Meijer. I found a smash bros Daisy amiibo, which was great. We went back to the hall, and mom exclaimed "please tell me you brought a change of clothes!" I was wearing my cargo shorts and a polo shirt, because it was a hot summer's day and the weekend (I have to wear long pants for work), so I figured I'd wear my cargo shorts. Apparently that went against mom's dress code of looking nice (even though all the pictures would be from the waist up). So mskate and I went back to Meijer and I bought a pair of kaki long pants. A lot of other men at the party wore shorts, and I was a little pouty about it, but not to the point that I was causing problems (because I'm better than that).

OK, so now for the 2nd crazy situation. Remember how I said I made a video presentation to project against the wall? So there was some miscommunication with that. I was under the impression that the hall had a projector we could borrow. I asked mom if they had a projector, and I guess she asked "would we be able to project a video," and the hall took that to mean "is there an open space to project an image on." I go to the office and ask for a projector, and they said they will give us a projection cart. 10 or so minutes later and I'm like "uhhhh, where's the projector? You were giving me the projection cart." Then they were like "yes, here is your cart, you can put a projector on it and project on the wall." And I'm like "no, I need a projector." "Oh we don't have that." I go over to mom and, let me just write out the script.
Pokematic: Mom, they don't have a projector. You said they had a projector.
Mom: What? Wait, you said you were bringing a projector.
Pokematic: No, I didn't; I said I'm bringing both of my computers so I'm covered no matter what inputs the projector has. I don't have a projector.
I know my mom thinks of me as a tech guy, and for the most part I am, but I wouldn't have asked "do they have a projector" if I had a projector. So now we have basically all my aunts trying to figure out where we can get a projector. Thankfully someone remembered mom works for a library and maybe we could borrow one of theirs. She called up her people at the library and she had z-man pick it up on his way over. Crisis averted.

So now the party is going. All the guests are showing up, and it was fun. MMT enjoyed hanging out with AG again. So fun story time. When I was a senior in high school and she was a sophomore, she came up for some event, and she said "hey [pokematic], invite all your friends over and we'll have a party," with the plan being "I'm going to meet some cute senior boys." Well, when zeldamaster93 and mbinski showed up, she quickly realized "oh yeah, Pokematic's a geek, of course his friends are also going to be geeks," and she was definitely one of the more popular girls at her school. Well, AG showed up and since he's a hockey player he was able to fill the "cute boy" desire, even if it was just for 10 minutes. So it was a fun little reunion for them, though he kind of stopped being a "cute older boy" in the 8 or so years since then. There were also a lot of picture taking, and my grandparents were so happy to finally be able to spend some time with mskate. The lunch was good, and I piled on the food. I played the video and everyone loved it; they told me how much they loved it and that I did a really good job on it. Some people shared some stories, and my grandpa said some that were a little inappropriate (because he doesn't understand the concept of "appropriate for mixed company" anymore).

OK, now for my little "I told you so" story. Because it has been a while since my grandpa last wore his suit and gained a lot of weight since then, his pants and belt didn't fit well anymore, and he really needed suspenders. Meijer didn't have suspenders in his size. AG had a pair of drinking suspenders in his truck (it holds shots), but those were too small on him. Mom is freaking out "how can we make it so his pants don't fall down at church?" Let me once again write out the exchange.
Pokematic: I have the necessary stuff to make a makeshift pair of suspenders.
Mom: Really, you have suspenders that will fit grandpa?
Pokematic: I have 2 straps that are 3 feet in length, and about 15 feet of elastic cord, I can make a pair of suspenders out of that.
Mom: Really? Where do you have that?
Pokematic: In my shorts. ARE YOU GLAD I BROUGHT MY SHORTS!? Be prepared. That's why I wear cargo shorts with all sorts of random things in it.
Mom: OK MacGyver, you and bro take grandpa to the bathroom and make him some suspenders.
After that, I rubbed it in a little. "See mom, it's a good thing I brought my shorts. We would be in trouble if I didn't wear shorts." Nothing too serious, but enough to let her know "I was right." I was, at church when they were renewing their vows his pants didn't fall down.

After church we had the after party at my parents house. It was pretty simple, but still kind of crazy. We had birthday decorations, a birthday tiara, and birthday brownies. Since my mom is into brownies, she frosted some brownies and stuck candles in it. We all just continued to visit, and enjoy just the family, and remembered the old days. There was some "musical chairs" because everyone kept taking "the good seats," and I remember one time there was just enough room on the couch for me to sit down, and so I did. It was a pretty chill night. After some time I took mskate home and went back to my place.

Now for Sunday. Sunday was basically "whoever's left, hang out at my grandparent's house." Well, first I stopped at my parents house. It was like the aftermath of a college party, with so many people sleeping in chairs, on couches, and the air mattress in the middle of the living room. In "my family likes to tease each other" fashion, my mom and aunt planned to make today the "surprise birthday party for my uncle even though it's in 5 months." The plan was to reuse the birthday girl banner and balloons from Saturday night, and put the birthday tiara on him. As they were plotting, saying things like "oh man, he's either going to laugh at this or hate it, either way it's going to be great," I told them "yeahhhh, I warned [mskate] that we like to tease each other kind of hard, and we do it to show we love each other," and they were like "yeah, it can come off as kind of harsh, but we all know it's in good fun." We packed up everything and went over to my grandparents house.

Everyone had what I call a sleep hangover (didn't sleep much the night before after tiring themselves out), all except me. I went to bed at around 11 or so, whereas everyone else was out until like 2. They went to some bars and did karaoke or something. Oh well. I wanted to do some things, but they didn't feel like it, so we basically just lounged around all day. My uncle thought the princess birthday was funny, so that was good. One thing I did manage to do was pick up the CRTs from pepperBC's parents. I took my uncle back up to his place and drove back with 2 CRTs for my future video wall (that way my aunt and pepperBC still had the car and could drive back). My great uncle didn't realize what I was doing with them and thought I was going to scrap them.
Great Uncle: I find people throwing them out all the time, I'll save them for you.
Pokematic: no, please don't, when people throw them out that normally means they don't work.
Great Uncle: well of course they don't work. Why do you want them working? Ain't you just going to take them apart and scrap them?
Pokematic: No, I'm going to use them to make a video wall.
Everyone was asking where mskate was, but she had to drive back home. I was telling everyone "she had enough of our family for a while," and they understood perfectly well.

So that was basically the weekend. It was great being able to see everyone again, and even if things didn't go completely according to plan, it all worked out. I also enjoyed introducing mskate to everyone. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Happy 80th Birthday Grandma

Wow, this weekend was super fun. So my grandma turned 80 this past weekend. I'm just finishing up from the fun festivities. If you want the short, it was great. All my relatives on her side from all over the country came to our neighborhood, and we live in the USA, and people are from EVERYWHERE. I got off work for 4 days so I could enjoy it all. Now I think I'll get to the details.

I normally work on Fridays. I was able to get Friday off and enjoy the big pre-birthday dinner with everyone. My great aunt and uncle (grandma's brother and sister), 2 of my aunts, and their kids tan-man and MMT. My one aunt is my mom's sister, the one with tan-man and my other aunt is my mom's cousin with MMT. They were there when I got there. I haven't seen tan-man in years. He used to live relatively close to my family, but then he moved away like 10 years ago, across the country. I haven't seen him in 5 years. When I asked "so how have you been?" he gave the normal "I've been good, got my first year of college done." Then I said "yeah, but what about since the last time I saw you?" He chuckled and was all "well lets see, I graduated high school, I decided on what college to attend," and other things that happened since the last time I saw him. I told him how I took the NES home since it kind of was my grandparents for us to play with as kids, but it wasn't working anymore. I told him "yeah, the 72 pin connector is shot, we were rough with it as kids." I saw MMT 2 summers ago so it wasn't such a big deal, but it was still fun to catch up.

After awhile my other aunt and her daughter showed up, and both of these relatives are geeks like me. It was so fun to see peperBC (my cousin) again. We talked about geeky stuff like Dr Who, Monty Python, and Pokemon. I also asked her how her first year of college went, but since we live in the same state (just kind of on opposite sides), I see her a little more often than my other cousins, so there wasn't much catching up to do. Mainly what we did was make plans for what we would do together if we got away from the group. The big thing was this comic book/video game/all around geek store that's right by my house. We never got that far, but we did have fun planning. She's a little quiet, so I kind of did most of the planning. Another big thing was I wanted for peperBC and her mom to listen to Pac-Man Fever with me. Why? Because it's wonderfully 80s and is about classic arcade games, something all 3 of us really enjoy.

The dinner was fun. I got to talk to my aunts and uncles that I haven't seen in years. One thing about my family is that we get really silly. Like you would think that we had a lot to drink silly, but we we could all pass a sobriety test. We went out to the little park right by my grandparents house and took some pictures that were reminiscent of our youths. And if you think I'm talking about my cousins and I, no. We did that yes, but not to the extent that my mom and aunts did. We looked super serious compared to them. Like one of the things they did was all slide down the slide and not get off so that everyone was right up against each other. One of them yelled "straddle me!" Yeah. That's my family everyone.

This wasn't even everyone. In my generation, we were missing turtle girl, and my mom's generation was missing one more of my aunts and my one uncle. Funny thing with my family tree; my grandma had 2 daughters, my great aunt had 3 daughters and 1 son. When they all got together, and when they still get together, all the girls get really crazy and silly, and my uncle just kind of sits on the side line. Now he has some of my uncles to talk about how crazy their wives are, but he still is like "I'd rather sit this one out." Well if I didn't have my brother and tan-man, or if peperBC wasn't a geek as well, I'd feel the same way, because we're all very much like our mom's and aunts when we get together; and then my one male cousins who's MMT's brother and didn't come, well he's kind of like my uncle since he's normally left with MMT and turtle girl alone. But yeah, it's all good. We had our fun and then came back to "my" house for the sleepover. My grandparents and my family unit are the only ones that are local to the party, and with our house being funner, all the young cousins stayed at my house. We watched National Lampoon's Vacation and then went to bed.

Saturday was basically a day for us to do what we wanted. We didn't have any party or set-up so us young people were left on our own. All of us went to 2 of our "local" malls. One of them is a very upscale place with a lot of the high end and expensive stores. Also, a lot of clothing and accessory stores. They got rid of all the toy stores, electronic stores, video game stores, and the other fun stuff. They do have a microsoft store and a somewhat novelty electronics store with things like massage chairs and pocket video projectors, but not like anything super fun.

However, the main reason for us going to the upscale mall is because they have Build A Bear. When we were little, my grandma loved taking us to build a bear. We made her a bear with our voices in it, and we would get different outfits for it for all different occasions. Fast forward 10 years, and she still likes it. We don't do it as often, but we still get her a bear outfit for occasions, and since my grandpa accidentally threw out her entire bear's wardrobe, we've been slowly building it back up. Well all 6 of us went to build a bear and made her a birthday bear. We tried using their new voice station thing were it's out in the middle of the store and you talk into the background noise canceling microphone. Unfortunately since tan-man, my brother, and I all have deep manly voices, the machine thought we were background noise and it came out all muffled. The girls voices were fine, but ours weren't. One of the employees got us the old version voice box, took us to the back room, and let us record it there. We did and it turned out great. We picked out the bear and had it stuffed. This was a sight; when you stuff the bear they have the little kids get one of the little stuffed hearts and rub it on different parts of their body so the bear has different attributes; like "rub it on your forehead so the bear has all the wonderful memories." All 6 of us are between 18 and 21 year old young adults, my brother and I have pretty full beards, and we're doing this routine. Rub on our cheeks for smiles, rub on your tummy so never hungry, rub on your muscles so it's strong, etc. After that we did the "wash the bear" station, which is toy brushes and a smart screen that projects an image of a bath. Yeah. We then look through all the clothes to get a good outfit. We chose a summer look. We set up the birth certificate and got the bear ready. Quite fun actually.

After going to the upscale mall, we went to a more low key mall. This one has a lot more fun stores. It has gamestop, FYE, an arcade, hot topic, and the Sears where my grandma used to take my brother, tan-man, and I to get our photo taken. Thankfully for us, Sears Portrait Studio is no more. The 3 of us went to the place where the portrait studio once was, peered in and laughed. The girls didn't come with us, because they never had to endure "birthday pictures," "Christmas pictures," "Halloween pictures," "Easter pictures," "end of the school year pictures," "beginning of the school year pictures," "groundhog day pictures," "we haven't had your picture taken in 2 weeks pictures," etc. After laughing at the demise of the weekly torture station, we went to the food court and had Panda Express. I had beef and broccoli. I also had a taco from taco bell. After lunch, pepperBC, tan man, my brother, and I went to FYE. PepperBC and I looked at the anime and Doctor Who stuff. Tan man and my brother looked at all the movies, music, and TV shows. After FYE, pepperBC and I went to the arcade and had fun playing some arcade games. We tried the DDR clone, and we accidentally set the difficulty to high. We failed missurably. After failing at DDR, we played some pinball. Man I love pinball. Once I get my own place, I'm getting a pinball table. After pinball, everyone was ready to leave. We went back to my house.

Once we got to my house, my great uncle, his wife (Aunt C), and my grandparents wanted to go to the hardcore pawn shop. My great uncle and Aunt C love Hardcore Pawn, and since it's less than an hour drive away, they wanted to see it. I've been there before, so I knew what to expect. I took them down there, and as we pulled into the parking lot, we saw Les Gold making a deal on a classic Cadillac. We stood there and watched for a couple of minutes. Aunt C is exclaiming "THAT'S HIM! THAT'S LES!" She was really impressed. I walk them up to the front door and she's star struck. She sees the front door and is like "that's the front door." We walk in and she sees the loan window; "that's the loan window." We walk onto the showroom and there's Seth Gold. "That's him, that's the Son." She walks over to the small merchandise sections and picks out a Hardcore Pawn t-shirt and mug. My great uncle got a matching shirt. By that time, Les and Seth are right there. They welcome may relatives and shake their hand, except for Aunt C and Les, she gave him a hug and said "I watch your show all the time, this is so cool." They hadn't completed the shirts and mug transaction yet; all together the 2 shirts and mug would normally cost $75, but Les saw how happy she was to see them so he gave her a deal, $50 for everything. He and Seth also autographed everything. That made their trip.

After getting the t-shirts and mugs, they wandered around the shop floor. It's not a huge place, I was able to see them no matter where I was in the store. My grandma wanted to get me something for my birthday, and I saw a couple of PS2 games. I asked how much and the employee said $5 each. These were like madden titles and other games that aren't worth $5 used, new maybe, but not used. She was like "[Pokematic] let's get them," I calmly say no, "why not $5 isn't much, $5 is reasonable," bear in mind, she's saying this rather loudly, not screaming, but loud enough. I whisper to her "those games aren't worth $5 each," to which she loudly exclaims "they aren't worth $5!" I'm hushing her telling her to not make a scene and just drop it. She does. I look around some more. They have a pinball table. See some other things. Well then my grandpa notices the fur coats. My grandma has a fur coat she wants to sell because she never wears it and never really did wear it. He's like "[Pokematic] why don't you bring the coat down here?" I calmly tell him no. He says "why not I'm sure they'd give you a deal." My grandma gets in on it and says "yeah, just sell it to them." I whisper to them "I'll get more if I sell it myself." Like before, "you'll get more if you sell it yourself!" they exclaim. Shhhhhhh, not so loud. "I guess you would get more if you sold it yourself! But we don't care so long as you get some good money for it!" they exclaim. "shhhhh just drop it. Don't talk about it." Really, I was worried we were going to get kicked out because they don't comprehend that you can't openly "badmouth" a place of business at the place of business. Oh well, we were fine. They really enjoyed seeing a place they see on TV all the time.

That was basically it for Saturday. All my cousins and brother went to put put while I took my older relatives to American Jewelry and Loan. All us young ones watched Frozen. It was fun.

Now is the main event. Grandma's birthday party. We all woke up relatively early to get ready.We set up all the tables and food areas. We got the living room ready for the photo studio, and we made sure everything was all set. Then the people started arriving. My aunt, mom of tan man, and her friend the photographer showed up first. The first picture we took was a recreation of a picture we took the last time everyone was together back when we were REALLY little, like 12 years ago. That was fun. Then my grandparents and her siblings showed up. More pictures. Eventually everyone made it and we had fun. Lots of normal party things happened. I talked with people whom I haven't seen in a while. I had snacks. Eventually it came time for my grandma to open her presents. She did that. We then ate dinner. After dinner, my grandma's friend that plays the accordion played her accordion. Always a fun time. We then did a little celebration for my grandpa because his birthday is on Christmas and he always feel like he misses out on something. Since everyone was there, we had a little celebration for him as well. What a day. After the party we began taking things down. Just so much.

Now for the last and final day of the festivities. My grandparents and other relatives enjoy going to Frankenmuth, a very German city in Michigan. If you like chicken, the Bavarian Inn and Zender's in Frankenmuth has some of the best chicken so I'm told. I don't like chicken, so I wouldn't know. Both restaurants also own 1 hotel each; the Bavarian Inn Lodge and Zender's Splash Village. My grandparents used to take my brother and I to those hotels at least twice a year. Splash Village is mostly an indoor water park with a small arcade. The Bavarian Inn Lodge has a giant arcade, 4 different pools, a mini-golf course, and a little indoor playground thing with some free bar games. Memories aside, we first went to this place called the River Place shops. They have a bunch of different shops and boutiques. They used to have a huge and awesome arcade with this nerf ball fun place thing, but then they replaced it with a clothing store and moved the arcade to a different building, significantly downsizing it. They no longer had pinball, DDR, or any classic arcade games. Oh well. We went to this fudge shop and I bought a half pound peanut butter cup. This thing was massive, check out the picture.

We went to a bunch of other shops. There was one place that was kind of a nerd and immature humor store; like I saw some videogame joke t-shirts and Obama condoms. Anyway, the piece de resistance was when I heard the original version of "What's Up" on their radio thing. Not the techno version He-Man sang, the original. I had to use everything in my power to not break down laughing.
This one. Though it would have been very funny to hear the techno He-Man version.

4 Non Blondes | What's Up by phatt n00b
All 6 young people generally stayed together, but then pepperBC and I got separated from everyone else for a little while. We went to some other stores. They now have this hall of mirrors, and an all day pass is $7. If we had more time to just do our thing, that would have probably been fun. The guy let us look in to see it, but we didn't have the kind of time to spend in a hall of mirrors. Oh well.

After the River Place, we went to the Bavarian Inn. They have more than just the restaurant. In the basement, they have the Castle Shops. We went into one shop with some fancy things. They had these clocks that like, dance, when they strike an hour. They were really cool. They also have a candy store, a store with some novelty souvenirs, a toy store, and a wine store. We spent some time in the novelty souvenirs and toy store. My brother and I played checkers. I won. After playing around, it was time for dinner. Almost everyone had family style chicken dinner, except for me, pepperBC, and her mom. I had the rib dinner and they had like the chicken finger lunch. Now the Bavarian Inn has some of the best chicken noodle soup ever. I don't like having vegetables and chicken bits in my chicken noodle soup, only broth and noodles. They do it only broth and noodles, and the combination of seasoning and whatever they use is incredible. I think I had 3 cups of it. Thankfully it's unlimited. The ribs were good.

But now it's time for my favorite part of Frankenmuth, the Glockenspiel at the Bavarian Inn. They have a glockenspiel that "plays" a song on the bells. It has all these bells, but it plays a recording over a loud speaker, no real bell ringing happens. But that's not the best part. The best part is the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin as acted out by these statues that were made in Germany. When I was a little kid, I loved it. My grandparents took me to every showing, because I wanted to see every showing. They were sick of it. To this day I still know the entire story. Watch it here.



I wasn't about to watch it by myself though. No, I took all the young people out to watch it. My brother and tan-man saw it when they went to Frankenmuth with my grandparents, but MMT, turtle girl, and pepperBC only saw it once and they didn't really remember it. Me, I get excited every time. I'm really hyping it up. The pre-show bell song went on much longer than I remembered it. I kept saying "and now it's going to start" every time there was a pause, but the bells kept ringing. Then it finally started. Afterwards, I was happy. My brother remembered it, and he sees it every time just because it's a staple of our Frankenmuth trips and it wouldn't be the same without seeing it. Tan-man hasn't seen it in years, and he told me afterwards "I don't remember it being so dark." Yeah, you kind of don't realize that the piper stole the town's children as revenge when you're little. As for the girls,  well they were kind of "well, OK. I guess that was cool." Mom reminded me, "there's a bit of a difference between first seeing it when you're 4 and watching it every time you're in Frankenmuth since, and first seeing it when you're 18" (the age the girls are). Though here's something I learned. I always knew they told the story in German afterwards, but I didn't know they did the whole statue thing again. My grandparents always told me that they just said the story. For 15 years I've been believing a "we want to do something else" white lie. Oh well.

After dinner, we all went to Broners, the worlds largest Christmas store. It is, the largest, Christmas store, in the world. Everywhere you look, Christmas. They have ornaments for everything. Well, everything family friendly. But yeah. They're also very Christian and good at keeping the Christ in Christmas. That's really good. Tan man, my brother, and I hung out and wandered around the store. We saw all they had, they even had things for Halloween, Easter, St. Patric's day, and Valentines day. We looked at the Halloween stuff and started singing "what's this" from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Yeah. We got kind of board after an hour, since it is a bit of a boring store if you aren't everything Christmas. I remember them having a larger toy section, but now it's just a little corner in the store. We fell asleep at the end of the store. It was funny. Now it was about time to go home. Some of my relatives left that night, others left the next day. MMT and her mom were the only ones left at my house that night. Oh well. Still good fun.

Such a fun time. I look forward to the next happy gathering of all my relatives, because we're a fun bunch. I wanted to see if mbinski was able to come over because the last time MMT and pepperBC were at my house for something, MMT wanted to have a party with my friends, and mbinski was the only one who was able to make it on such short notice, and since then the running gag is that we want to have him over, because he fits right in with how crazy my family gets when we get together. When my mom and aunts dropped him off when he had fun with us, he told them he lives by the lions at the zoo, so his name amongst my family is "[mbinski] who lives by the lions." Well this has been pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

PS: I started writing this blog post the last night everyone was here because my sleep schedule is all screwed up due to the hours I work at my job. I got up to the end of the build a bear section, then went to bed thinking I'd finish it in the following days. I finished it 2 weeks after the event, but things were still vivid enough to remember. I would post some of the pictures of my family, but that would require asking them for permission, and I don't want to deal with that.

Happy Birthday and Graduation

Hey world, I just finished a day of fun. First things first, let me tell you what today was; my 18th birthday and graduation from high school party. I turned 18 today, so that means I can do everything I could do before, but legally. I know I already said this in my last post, but I've bought air soft and gift cards and upon reading the fine print realized I had to be 18. Well to celebrate, I bought a lottery ticket, LEGALLY! I probably could have bought one at any time, but being a good kid, didn't want to chance it. It was a scratch off, and I lost. I love scratch offs, and I know that because I would do scratch offs with my grandparents and parents. Well now let me tell you about the festivities.

I woke up, and ate my muffin. I am interesting in many ways, but not my moring ritual. Every day except when I need to carbo load or something, it's always 2/3 of a chocolate chip muffin from Costco with an optional 3 strips of Bacon. Bacon is typically during school, and no, I never get tired of it and rarely miss a day. I had to help set up for my party, causing me to miss today's episode of Pokemon. Yes I still watch Pokemon, and many other cartoons at that. I was bummed, but life goes on. After setting up, I went to my best friends graduation party. Ironically enough, 3 of my friends all had their parties on the same day as me. I was able to make it to 2 of them because there wasn't overlap in out party times, but one was exactly the same time. My best friends was before mine, and I got there right as they were setting up. I was only able to stay for an hour or so, but we had fun. Then it was time for mine. So many people, in our average size backyard. It was cool, I got to see some people I haven't seen in years. Many of my friends showed up, but unfortunately not all of them. Still quite fun, and good food. We had these guys that cooked the shoulder of the pig, or the spam part for those of you who are in the know, and it tasted like spam just without all the salt and preservatives. It was great, and I'm glad we didn't get the caterers my grandma thought of. One of her really close friends has this caterer that does all of their parties, "and they do chicken and mostacholi and salad" all of which I don't like. In fact this was the conversation my mom and her had. Grandma: "Gean has this great caterer. They have chicken and mostacholi and salad." Mom: "yeah, and does [Pokematic] like any of that?" Grandma: "oh I guess he doesn't." Mom: "I'm just gonna stick with the pig guy." Anyways, I was told by some of my guests it was the best pulled pork they ever had, and it was definitely up there with the professional stuff I've had. There were also a lot of pictures that I may or may not upload to myspace. Might with some of the friend pictures, but probably not all the pictures with the friends of the family.

Well after everyone left, I went over to my friend that I've been friends with since kindergarten's party. Grammar Nazis don't hate, you know that was an awkward to word sentence and you probably couldn't do much better. It was at the tail end of his party so not a lot happened. This was my day. Probably won't be a new blog until next week when I have more graduation stories. Later.

PS: I've been considering crating another blog, where I just talk about my days. I really like blogging but I don't want to fill this blog up with boring stories. Think it's a good idea? Leave me a comment on your opinion.

So long minorism

Hey everyone, it is the day before my birthday. Tomorrow I am an adult, and I can buy everything I pretty much could already legally. Given my facial hair, I have never been IDed when buying some age restricted things. Now before you start making rash assumptions, I don't mean alcohol, tobacco, or porn. I'm referring to visa gift cards and and air soft pellets. Now I can legally buy visa gift cards and air soft pellets, and lotto tickets. I like tickets, my grandparents used to buy them for me and I'd scratch them off. They're fun. I wonder if I can go to the casino this year with my family when we all get together and the adults go to the casino and us kids hang out at my cousins house. It would be great fun. But I might need to be 21 to go to the casino. Oh well. My dad bought me lotto tickets as a gift and if I won I'd be able to redeem them, but alas I lost.

Tomorrow is my graduation/birthday party. Our living room looks like a party moved in but hasn't unpacked. We have so much stuff everywhere. But then I have 2 other parties to go to tomorrow as well. 2 of my good friends are also having their grad parties on the same day as me. Oh well, I'll still have fun, because there is some time where our parties don't overlap and I can go over then. It's next week where I have 5 parties to go to on the same day. Hurray for having friends.

I know this was a bit dull, but I just wanted to get you warmed up for tomorrows blog where I'll talk about all the fun I will have had tomorrow.