Camping 2020 Fun

Hey everyone. It's been forever since I did a blog, and we all have the damn virus to blame. For those of you who may be reading in the future, I'm talking about the covid-19 pandemic/hysteria. That shot basically all the plans in the foot. Oh well, things cleared up enough for my family to go camping like we do every year, and boy was it fun.

This year was particularly fun, because mskate joined us this year. Why did she join us this year? Because we're engaged now. Yeah, I'll be getting married soon. Before I get to all that fun, first some pre-camp excitement. First off, my air conditioner went out, so I've been hot and have been taking cold baths to help with the heat. Normally I wouldn't be interested in swimming in the lake, preferring to sit on the beach and read my manga volumes, but because I've been SOOOOOO hot recently, I knew I would be going swimming. I also stayed with my parents the night before, because I needed a break from the heat and they had AC. It was a very quiet, simple night together; we chatted, ate dinner, and did some packing. Since I had been working 4 10-hour days that week instead of my normal 5 8-hour days, I was really tired and collapsed at 9PM. Mskate was asking what time we would leave, and I couldn't really give her an answer because my family "gets going when we get going, we're on vacation, no need to wake up early, the destination will still be there."

Now the fun starts. I picked up mskate around 9AM and pack her things in my car. Normally my family would just take 1 vehicle, but because we had an extra passenger with her own stuff, and I had a much smaller lease this year, we took 2 cars. For the drive up, mskate and I drove in my car and my parents drove in their car. I largely followed my dad up until we stopped at a rest stop. After that we went our separate ways as mskate and I wanted to stop at the outlet mall on the way. Her mom needed new croc flip flops, so we made a stop at the crocs store. They were having a "buy 2 get 1 free" sale, but since my current pair of crocs were still good and I had a back-up pair for when these give out, we didn't partake in the sale. We also stopped at the Coleman store primarily to see if they had pocket ponchos (we didn't have any, and they're good for camping). Unfortunately they didn't, but they had water bottles and mskate needed a new one. We got a 2 pack because that's what they had. Mskate wasn't exactly thrilled since she only wanted the one, but I told her it was good to have a back-up since she really likes those kinds and lost her last one, and if she didn't use it there was still packaging on it to indicate it's new so we could gift it. Since she loves giving gifts, that sold her on them. Around the crocks store I found a new store called "rewind." The name caught my attention, and inside was a millennial childhood paradise. They had Pokemon, Digimon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Sailor Moon shirts, stickers, VHS tapes, toys, original Jordans, original Supreme skateboards, and so much more. I really hope they can last, because that is an awesome store. I didn't get anything this time, but next time I go to the outlet mall I need to get me some stickers. We tried going to the Pepridge Farm store to get cookies for the group dinner, but they were closed. Oh well, we just got some from a super market instead.

After the outlet mall we continued to drive to our motel. My parents say "they're too old for tent camping anymore," so we get a motel room that's close to the camp ground and just visit for the day. Since we had 4 people this time, we got 2 rooms instead. Since mskate are not married yet and are traditional like that, my dad and I shared a room and my mom and mskate shared a room. My mom made the initial reservations so I had to call to change to my credit card on the way up. This is where I had to be very sneaky. Mskate has been begging me to get a new phone to follow her on dexcom, or other thing and with her birthday the following weekend, I got a new phone; I just had to keep it hidden from her all weekend. I asked her to drive while I called the motel and that worked to keep her from seeing my new phone. Men were in room L and women were in room B. Mskate commented that we should have switched, so boys were in B and ladies were in L. We didn't though, and unpacked our "hotel stuff" (toiletries, clothes, laptops and devices).

After checking in and registering on my godfather's site, we went around and said our hellos to everyone. It was really fun introducing mskate, because I got to say "[friend] this is my fiance [mskate], [mskate] this is [my friend]." It was kind of the first time I really got to do this, and it felt great. After introductions I wanted to get in the lake and enjoy the cool water. It's been years since I went swimming, and it was really fun having my fiance there with me. One thing we did was have fun with the buoyancy of water, where she was able to princess carry me with ease. We also spent time visiting with our friends as everyone else was swimming too. Dinner was simple, just hamburgers, hotdogs, and brats. After dinner we went to the ice cream store that's just outside camp, and it was fun getting to see my little god-siblings eat their ice cream. Ice cream is a pretty common date for mskate and I, so this was nothing new for us. After ice cream I went to the liquor store that was close by and bought sunflower seeds, because those are fun to eat outside where you can spit them anywhere.

Evening activities were calm, just a camp fire. What happened next was really cool. Since I took an astronomy class in highschool I was looking forward to seeing the clear, country sky and all the stars. As I invited mskate and some of the friends to the beach, someone asked us if we were going to see the comet. I wasn't, but now I was. I looked through the sky and I eventually found it. I pointed it out to everyone and they were really impressed. It was a little hard to see, but if you were looking at it in your peripheral, it was pretty clear. According to some news articles, this was the Neowise comet. Some friends were confusing comets for shooting stars, but then I explained what a comet is and why they're so rare. It was quite the experience, especially for someone with a mild interest in astronomy. After that we went to the hotel for the night.

Saturday was fun. We had breakfast in the motel room and it was simple cereal and muffins. After dinner we stopped at the camp ground, but then mskate and I had a zoom call for couples with a diabetic partner. This was our first real "engagement seminar" since covid killed all our plans. It was really fun being among other engaged and married couples in this kind of capacity, and I learned some things. After the call we went back to camp for lunch. Again, simple hamburgers, hotdogs, and brats; and bacon ends and pieces. I have a meat market by me where they fresh cut the bacon, and they sell the scraps. It made for good lunch. After lunch was more swimming. What was really fun was some more friends came up for the day, the ones with Louie the Chihuahua. We tried to take him swimming, but he wasn't really into it. He did enjoy the raft we put him on though, and he looked very regal in his pose. We also jokingly did some water zumba since some people were playing music on their boat. It was fun. After swimming mskate and I were going to go for a walk to the boat basin and watch the boats launch, and maybe find a swing to have a nice nature date. However, I had both room keys and dad needed to go back to the room. He called me a little into the walk and this is when mskate found out about the new phone. "Happy birthday, I got a phone for you." After walking back and giving dad the key, she set me up on her dexcom. We decided to drive to the boat basin instead. The boat basin was fun, but a little crowded. We weren't able to get on a swing, but had fun sitting on the side watching people bring their boats in. We also went to the camp store, just to look around since it was close. Eventually it was time to head back for dinner.

For dinner we got pizza from a local pizza place, and mskate and I split a pepperoni, pine apple, and banana pepper pizza. Everyone enjoyed the cookies we got. After dinner we went for ice cream again. This time my little god-brother was really thirsty. Since his dad did these kind of things for me at his age, I gave him a drink from my water bottle. His mom didn't know me then, getting married when I was a teenager, so I said "after all the times your husband did these kind of things for me, I can repay the favor." It's fun having that whole "full circle" thing. After ice cream we went to the boat basin and were able to swing. Mskate was really tired when we were swinging, so I took her back to the motel afterwards and came back by myself. More camp fire fun. I stayed maybe another hour, then I went back to the motel for the night.

Time for Sunday. We had simple breakfast in the motel room and got in our church clothes. We went to church together like we do every year, but because of social distance requirements we weren't able to take over the back chair section like we've been doing for 30 something years, so we just spread out. It was a good sermon. After church we went back to the motel to change into camp clothes, pack-up, and check out. There was a communal breakfast were we share what we have left, so some of the bacon ends and pieces went, as did the ice tea I brewed the previous day. I intended to make my iced-tea and lemon drop moonshine cocktails, but I forgot so we just had iced tea. I also brought some of my home made bread, and everyone really liked that. After breakfast we went home. Mskate and I drove home separately, and I dropped her off at her parents house with all her stuff. Well, except for her camp chair; that got left in my car. Oh well, I'll return it later. All in all a great time. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

2019, a Year in Review

Hey everyone. To end off the year (or start the next due to the time of writing), I figured I'd do a little "year in review" kind of thing.

Since this is my "adventure blog" though, I should probably give a little "adventure" I had on New Years Eve. A family from the camping friends group hosted a New Years Eve party, like they do every so often. Normally someone in our camping group will host a new years party. I went over to my parents and we went to their house. I brought a bottle of wine, 2 liter of Sprite, and my home made pickled carrots. They went over pretty well. I ended up playing Monopoly with some of the "people of my generation" (I can't call us "kids" since we're all in our early 20s and such) for like an hour and a half, and even though I joined later taking over for someone who wasn't doing well, I managed to drag out the game for a while. After Monopoly everyone played catchphrase for an hour or so. Then it was time to watch the ball drop, and we all had glasses of Champaign (or for the non-alcohol drinkers, sparkling apple juice). It was a really fun time.

Now for the year in review. Lets start this off with the first and most major event, I got a girlfriend. If you've been following my blog, my longtime friend mskate and I decided to give dating a try, and it's been a wonderful experience. We've done so much together, like SpongeBob the musical and Dayton historical park, multiple weddings (like this one), many movies I probably wouldn't see otherwise (like the art of racing in the rain, and Lion King 2019), and a lot of other fun. I'm looking forward to a fun 2020 with her.

Another really cool thing is I got to see multiple minor celebrities live in person. First there was Tommy Wiseau at a midnight screening of the room. He was a really interesting dude. I also got to see Mike and Micky from the Monkeys and I was so close I could see their wrinkles. I also Jay and Silent Bob IRL, but I was in the nosebleed seats. There was also Toby Mac in concert, whom I saw with mskate.
While meeting Tom Green was at the end of 2018, I still want to include it, because I also got my friends together to watch his run on big brother.

Lets see, this was also a year I did multiple collaborations. I want to start off with the one that probably had the most reach, and that was the Animation Lookback Cartoon Network Part 7 April Fools Day with AniMat. That was a really fun collaboration that was my idea. I was a patron of his for years and I said "hey, you didn't cover ALL Cartoon Network has to offer in your 6 parts, can I make a request for you to review Animation Lookback Cartoon Network Part 7," and he said "that's a good idea for an April Fools video." There was also the String Cheese Commercial I did with one of my friends on hugelol. This was a commission from one of the other guys on hugelol, and for correctly figuring out what a nonsense video of me in an oddish cosplay (which was from my review of Detective Pikachu), BackseatDriver made a guest contributor. There was also my podcast with bio. But the big thing was my 2nd major multi-user collaborative project, Vidmewashere 2 Electric Boogaloo. Here's a little behind the scenes; this only happened because some guy with a sega said "here's my story if you make a sequel" and stoonios getting real life in the way of videos the first time, and realizing that there were SOOOO many different avenues I didn't use when trying to find people with the original vidmewashere (like lost media wiki discord, youtube, and vidlii). However after finding all the people I could (this time drama crew), and general disinterest from many people, I think I've exhausted everyone that is willing to discuss vidme. If anyone else wants to take up the vidmewashere mantel, you can and I would be happy to contribute. I wonder what kind of collaborations I will have in 2020.

One thing that was very surreal for me is 2019 was my 10 year anniversary of my online presence (as catholiccontriversy). It's kind of weird looking back at that, just thinking "I've done this for 40% of my life."

One of the funny things that just kind of happened was one of my first Pokematic videos was SpongeBob Truth or Square for SpongeBob's 10th anniversary, and this year was SpongeBob's 20th anniversary with Big Birthday Blowout. I reviewed both, and remastered my Truth or Square review. It was kind of weird remastering the Truth or Square video and seeing just how much I refined my character, with the comparably slow delivery and weak expressions. Looking back at the last 10 years, sorry Happy Gamer, I had plans for you, but since your videos are so hard to make, you get maybe 1 a year. But speaking of "improve as an artist," 2019 was also the year I decided "I'm going to rereview Catcher in the Rye and give it the thorough destruction since I didn't have the chops to do that when I started." I unfortunately didn't finish it because it was so rage inducing and was taking a serious toll on my sanity, plus I wanted to focus on vidme 2. I'm like 75% of the way through the book though, so I'll be able to finish it in 2020. Plus, I found I'm serving an underserved market with my "Holden Should Have Killed Himself" video being a top result for "catcher in the rye sucks," and "Catcher in the Rye is Meaningless Dada" being the ONLY result for "catcher in the rye dada."

I'm going to finish this. I owe it to myself and the world. The musings and thoughts I get when I think about analyzing catcher and why it's so bad are great, and I just need to refine them to cohesive arguments and counter points to "this is one of the greatest books ever." I have a pocket notebook that is about half full of notes and an entirely separate folder on my audio recorder for dictation.

I think that just about covers the major things that happened in my life. What, were you expecting a reflection on current events and news? No, there are so many other people doing that, I just want to reflect on my own life. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

The Christmas Blog, 2019 Edition

Hey everyone. Ahh another year another Christmas which means it's time for another Christmas blog. Unlike other years where I broke up certain things, I'm just going to combine it all. You'll see a lot of similar things, but this year the big new thing was mskate and I dating, which added another layer of fun.

I suppose things kind of really started back at Thanksgiving where I did black Friday shopping (technically amazon prime day, but the only point of note was I had a box of presents in the middle of my bedroom for half a year). Normally I would do a big Black Friday blog like I've been doing for the past, 8 years? Well this year was pretty uneventful. I hung out with IRA as we went to various stores. He really enjoyed the adventure since I've gotten it down to a science (there's a 10 mile loop that I follow every year to hit the stores I want to, and it's always the same order). Since he's much younger than I his mom, my mom, and mskate said "pay close attention to him, DON'T LOSE HIM!" Having heard this, he played a little joke on me and hid at one of the stores. I picked up a lot of things for my family and self, including 2 fry pans that I originally was going to get for myself, but then decided to gift to my dad and brother (brother recently bought a house and needs things, and I know at some point in the 24 years I lived with my parents I destroyed a pan at some point). I also picked up some gloves I plan on donating to various "keep the poor warm" campaigns. It was a fun night and a lot later than IRA is used to, struggling to stay awake as we were finishing up. I also bought some wrapping paper at Black Friday that lasted almost all the presents. Mom and dad had 1 with news paper and a strip of left over wrapping.

Now for the start of Christmas things. Mskate and I have made a small tradition of going to the wild lights at the Detroit Zoo (read the other blogs here and here). For the most part, it was a lot of the same as previous years, so I won't retread everything (plus the pictures would be very similar as they were last times), but it was also different enough to warrant the new visit. So in the same vein I will try to showcase some similar but different. Once again we went to the restaurant that is close to the zoo beforehand, and then parked in double secret locals only free parking. A lot of the lights were similar, but were in different locations. Like last year there was a cool display on the side of the penguin exhibit, and there were cool animal lights.

One thing that was a little different were the beavers weren't completely in bed, so I got to see one swimming in the exhibit. Yay. The otter exhibit was also open, but they were all asleep. Oh well. I did get to see some reptiles at the reptile house because since they have heat lamps that need to stay on constantly they don't have the same kind of "we need to sleep" schedules like the mammals. We stopped at the artic café just to get our bearings and warm up a little, and I saw on the menu they had a "wild bacon stack." That got me excited, until I saw it was just a bacon cheese burger.

Oh well, I wasn't hungry anyway. We also saw this really cool "light decahedron" thing, that projected onto the ground and surrounding areas. There was also the "choreographed light field" where the lights danced to the music, which I think was there last year. Video of both below.

We also went to the wild life photography exhibit, which was really good. I can't show any images of it, because "no photography," but there were some really great images. One that really sticks out to me was one taken from the bottom of a lake looking up at the lake weeds to the surface of the water. It gave off this feeling of being in a forest looking up at the sky, but it was different because of the lake weed. We also bought some kettle corn, which was really good. After the zoo I hung out with her family for a little bit, then I went to my parents for the night.

Now for the festivities with my dad's side of the family, I spent the night because the next day (today) we were going to see my aunt and grandpa. The big gift I made for them was raspberry jam with my late grandma's last raspberries that have been sitting in my deep freeze for years. I made probably 4 different trial batches to make sure I figured out how to make jam, and from those trials I made jam for my family. I even strained out the seeds and pulp for my grandpa since seeds don't like him. Mom brought up how it was just like grandma picking out the onions from the beef broth because "I don't like onions." Some more fun was my cousin recently had a baby and we were able to facetime with them so everyone could see the new great granddaughter/great niece. We also set-up my aunt with the special photo sharing app they use, so she and grandpa can see the baby. It was a great little visit.

The 23rd was my "break day," and it wasn't a great day. Long story short, things broke down on me and I wasn't able to "rest." You can read the full story here. Back to fun.

It's December 24th, and it's time for Christmas with my mom's side of the grandparents. They paid for a lot of the things I bought for myself on black Friday, and I got them each a little gift. I also gave mskate half of her presents then, the clothes ones. They gave me candy, some movies, a cordless mini-vacuum, and Kingdom Hearts 3; and some scratch offs, but they also gave my brother and mskate the scratch offs too. I got mskate a yellow dress and pink fuzzy sweatshirt. She liked both of them. I got my grandma afresh dish washer cleaner with a build a bear gift card taped to it (she likes build a bear), and I got my grandpa afresh washing machine cleaner (no gift card). The reason I got her something else and not him is because we made grandpa's real gift a new 43 inch 4K TV. We realized his current TV stand was too small, so I'm trading him one of my TV stands. One of the funny things was since my mom worked for the mall Santa she was able to get the boxes that the "Santa Snow Sticks" came in (a little present for the kids after getting their picture taken). Since we were getting so many boxes grandpa kept asking "where did all these boxes come from?" and no matter how many times we explained, he still didn't get it.

We went to church afterwards for Christmas Eve mass and mskate went home to go to mass with her family. It was a Catholic Christmas Eve mass, nothing super special. After mass we went to the restaurant my grandparents always go to on Christmas Eve after mass. Normally my family has Chinese food, but my grandparents wanted us to join them this time. Normally drink orders aren't THAT interesting, but ever since I was of legal drinking age my grandparents insist I get a glass of wine when we go out because they know that's my alcohol of choice, even though wine is overpriced at restaurants, and most of the time I just plain don't want a glass of wine with my meal. Mom knew they were going to insist I have a glass of wine with dinner and that I shouldn't get it "because it's too expensive," and I told her "no worries because I don't want a glass of wine with dinner." Well that wasn't good enough for them because when I said "I'll just have water," "no [Pokematic], you can have a glass of wine, we're paying for it." "No, price isn't the problem, I just don't want a glass of wine." I had some difficulty figuring out what I wanted, because they have a very limited menu on holidays and nothing was really "speaking to me." The brisket sounded good, and had sides I would have liked (broccoli and a potato gratin). Initially when I said "I'll get the brisket," they said "oh no, you like prime rib don't you, get that instead," probably thinking "because it's cheaper that must mean it's inferior, and [Pokematic] is only looking at price." I said "no, the prime rib doesn't come with sides I want, and I like brisket as well." Well, as we were ordering our waitress got the message that they were out of brisket, so I reluctantly had a steak. I say "reluctantly," because it was an expensive cut I normally can't justify cooking to my liking (well done) and it came with sides I don't like (baked potato and asparagus). I asked if I could substitute, but unfortunately that wasn't an option. Well this put my grandma in a tizzy, "because I want my little boy to have food." She offered me her sides, and I had some difficulty explaining "that won't do me any good because you're getting the same sides I'm getting, which means I won't like those sides." I was able to trade with other people in my family though, because they preferred asparagus to broccoli and baked potato to gratin, and the steak was good, just not worth that much in my opinion.

My grandma got prime rib and ordered it medium well, and for some reason my grandpa wouldn't stop talking about "how it was cooked how she liked it," like she wasn't sure she would like it. Mom got frustrated because 5 minutes of "this is how you like it, this is good, they did it right," was getting annoying and obnoxious, like he was implying that it wasn't done right. Well after dinner and time to box everything up, grandma didn't want to take home the half of a prime rib she had left. For people that love food so much, they sure do struggle with the concept of left overs and finishing the good food you paid for at a later time. It's not like it was all cut up or anything that would "harm the structural integrity" or something, just "she didn't eat half of it" and it looked like a complete meal. Mom tried to explain "this is enough for a lunch or something, it's a good piece of meat," which to her meant "this is something you should give to your starving grandsons" (which for the record neither of us are starving). Well because she was adamant, my brother took it. Good to see some things never change.

My mom took my grandparents home after that and we put out the luminaries. My parent's neighborhood does this really cool thing where everyone gets 6 white paper bags and 6 tea candles with a little note that explains what to do, except for the people on the end of the blocks or with large lots who each get 10. I know this because my mom was block captain for 3 or 5 years and it was my job to assemble the kits. Anyways, the instructions are to fold the end of the bag over some to keep it open, put something in the bag to keep them upright (like rock salt or kitty litter), put the candle in the bag on the stabilizing material, and light the candle. We figured out that if you put the candles in a dixie cup they have a better chance of staying lit and make it easier to light them and put them in the bag. We made ours and the across the street neighbors. A day or 5 earlier I had to take apart the couch to look for something that fell in it, and I found one of my brother's lighters. I initially put it along with a pocket knife of his I found as well in his stocking as a gag, but then we needed it for the luminaries. Nothing more to say on that. I spent the night at my parents house just so I wouldn't have to drive all the way back to my place and all the way to my parents house in a 12 hour period.

Now for Christmas Day. I put my family's presents out the day before, and I wanted to make sure I got done before mass. It was kind of funny how eager I was to open presents, just like a kid. I got more candy and chocolates, movies, and super monkey ball on switch. I got my brother a pocket knife (which he added to his pocket immediately), a tactical flash light, and a frying pan. I got my mom parchment paper, chocolate chips, and oatmeal. I got my dad a grill cleaning thing and frying pan. Because I couldn't remember who I bought them for, I got my dad and brother a set of plastic beer glasses. I also got my mom and dad a year supply of foaming hand soap. Everyone enjoyed their practical gifts. My brother got my dad and I...well I'll just let the picture speak for itself.

He's going to email us amazon gift cards, and he wanted to have some fun with it. Next was mass. It was a good mass.

After that was Christmas with mskate's family. I bought IRA a target gift card and a star wars happy meal toy, and gave mskate the last of her gifts (an instant camera and accessories, and I Want To Eat Your Pancreas). Her family also got me some things, more candy/chocolate and Spiderman Far From Home. It was a re-gift since IRA got it and already had it, but that's OK with me. Her mom also gave each of us a kinder surprise egg, and it just so happened that each of our toys was just right for us (mskate got a little pony, I got a little bike, and IRA got a little alligator). I also had brunch with them, over easy eggs. After gifts mskate and I went to get her grandma from her assisted living facility. Getting her out of the assisted living, into my car, out of my car, and into their house was very similar to helping my grandparents. She even gave me a little card, which was really nice. After that I had to get back to my family festivities.

PepperBC and her family had already arrived, and it was fun catching up with them. They recently got new phones which means they're able to play Pokémon Go, and Aunt K is really into it. Apparently we had some pokemon in our front yard, so she was playing when she came in. A little bit later my grandparents showed up, and we had to help get them into the house. It was just like earlier today. Not too much later their friends showed up with the accordion and pies. We basically spent 2 hours hanging out and then it was time for dinner; ham and pulled pork, with green beans, corn, rolls, and mashed potatoes. I had it all except for the mashed potatoes (because I don't like mashed potatoes). We all had to squish into the dining room table, and my grandpa and I didn't get to use the good China since we can't be trusted with it.

After dinner mskate joined us for dessert and sing along. I had 2 slices of pie, 1 lemon meringue and 1 chocolate, and 1 scoop of ice cream. That was about as much as I could afford to eat. After dessert we had our sing along, singing various different Christmas tunes like we do every year. After the sing along my great aunt called and wished my grandma and grandpa a happy birthday. While she was talking to them mom got her present for mskate and I. She got us matching warm ponchos. It's a cute little couples thing for us. Not to much longer it was time to open birthday presents for my grandpa, because he's a Christmas baby. It was a fun little time. Then there was some fun excitement with my grandpa getting a major cramp in his leg. He stood up and then it was crazy pain. He felt really embarrassed over how he couldn't do much and needed us to hold him up. After 5 minutes of holding him up I told someone-anyone to get the walker. We got him to the good chair and had him rehydrate. It wasn't very good. Mom got them home, PepperBC and her family got headed out, my grandparents friends got headed out, and I got headed out.

The 26th and 27th weren't much to talk about. I wrote a "your 3 minutes" blog for the 26th. On the 27th I went to see Star Wars Episode 9 (read review here) and went grocery shopping. I made the mistake of going grocery shopping when hungry, so I bought $180 worth of food on sale, saving $50. I also had to figure out which TV stand I could give to my grandpa for his new TV. I realized my garage TV stand would be perfect (right size, can hold the cable box and DVD player, and grandma's knick-knack decorations).

Now for the final "Christmas" event on the 28th. Mskate and I went to see Frozen 2, dad and I set-up grandpa's new TV and TV stand, and hold our Christmas party with my mom's best friend and her family. Frozen 2 was really good. I saw it already but mskate hadn't, and she really enjoyed it too. The TV went well. Grandma was worried that a new stand wouldn't be able to hold her knick-knacks, but when we brought the stand in and started setting it up she was happy. It was a little difficult to explain "no, you're getting this new stand and I'm taking the old one," but eventually they understood. The TV was also a little difficult for grandpa since he couldn't use the cable remote on his TV, so I ended up doing the "put tape over the buttons you don't use" thing. Now for the final party. It was a pretty calm event, basically everyone hanging out and talking. We had pizza for dinner and leftover sweets for desert. We also did a little gift exchange where I got a "make your own bouncy balls" kit, and I'm going to have fun with that. After gifts it was getting late. I drove mskate home and we said our goodbyes.

And there you have it, Christmas 2019. I guess I also saw zeldamaster93 on the 29th, but all we did was get pizza, give each other gift cards, and hang out for like 2 hours. All in all it was a really fun time. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

A Historical SpongeBob Weekend

Hey everyone. Back in August I saw that SpongeBob The Musical would be playing in Dayton this weekend (November 22nd) and I asked mskate if she would be interested in seeing it together since I was interested and Dayton is close enough for us to go to. While SpongeBob isn't really her thing, she knows it's something I enjoy and would enjoy having a little date weekend. Friday was SpongeBob, Saturday was all mskate's choices, and Sunday was travel home day.

Friday was a simple day. I took the Friday off work and left 7AM after eating a quick breakfast. I drove all the way to mskate but since she was still working I had some time to myself. I went to the videogame store in her city and spent about an hour there, looking for PS2 games I don't have. I picked up 12. After shopping I went to the thrift store in her city and did some thrifting. Unfortunately I didn't find anything there. Oh well. I still had some time before mskate got home to let me in, so I sat outside her apartment and watched some hulu and youtube with the end of the range of the wifi. When she got home she needed a rest, so I just watched Home Improvement in the warmth. After the rest, we watched I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, and she really enjoyed it.

Now for the main event, SpongeBob the Musical. I got dressed up all special.

Slightly kidding, I wore that under my pants and jacket.

Mskate wasn't too thrilled about me, being me about it, but once she saw I wasn't the only one wearing very casual and SpongeBob stuff she was cool with it. The souvenir stand didn't have any posters, so I unfortunately didn't get something from there; I have enough t-shirts and don't use buttons and bags and such, but I like getting posters to hang in my nerd cave. Since we got there early the doors weren't open yet, but thankfully there was a guy giving a talk about the history of SpongeBob and the musical. Here's a brief clip I took.

It started with Stephen Hillenburg's start in a tidal pool park and his creation of a comic book of the marine life in tidal pools and went all the way to the creation of SpongeBob the Musical. I didn't know he created a comic book, or worked on Rocco's Modern Life. When he said "Rocco's Modern Life," I gave a small excited fist pump and he said "oh I see you're a fan, anyone else fans? No, you should check it out." Also when he said "SpongeBob has been on the air for 20 years" I thumb pointed to myself saying "fan since the start." Then at the end there was a little trivia question for "how many times has SpongeBob failed his driving test." I was thinking about the season 1 episode where he failed 38 times, and the speaker said "superfan, let's let the kids have a chance." When they were saying "1000 times" and "that's too low," I thought "oh no, it's the episode where Mrs. Puff gets replaced, that was...9,256 times," so when he called on me I said "well if you're going off the season 1 episode it was 38 times, but later it was 9,256 times." I was still off, because it was 1,258,058 times, but because I was such a super fan he gave me a consolation prize of a reusable bag.

By now it was about time the doors opened, but first I went to the bar to see if they had any SpongeBob themed drinks. When I go to the movie theater it's not uncommon for a big movie to have a themed cocktail, and I like to try "the cliffhanger" and similar. Unfortunately there wasn't "the fry cook" or "Texan squirrel" or similar, so I didn't have anything. Just like with The Monkees we went to a higher floor thinking "based on what I paid we're probably up higher," but then the usher told us "no you're on the 1st floor." After finding our seats I decided to walk around some and take in the sites.

After doing my blogger/vlogger thing, I sat down and enjoyed the band.

It was pretty fun. Mskate got a little frustrated when they just kept going beyond when the show was supposed to start. Anyway, about 5 minutes or so before the show started there was a guy dressed as Patchey that was walking around taking pictures.

Appreciate the pictures, because I almost got in trouble for them. One of the ushers came up to me and said "no pictures." I thought he was just a super fan cosplaying as Patchey, but apparently he was part of the show. Anyway, the show started not much longer after that and you can check out the companion review podcast.

It was a really fun day. At the end of the show they shot streamers over the front of the audience. The last time I went to a show where they shot streamers over the audience I stuck around to collect the streamers. Then again, the last show I went to with that was Sesame Street Live when I was 7, so there's that. Seeing that it's almost 20 years later I didn't do that. We left the theater pretty much immediately after the show. We went to our respective sleeping locations and that was it for the night.

Now comes Saturday. We went to our favorite breakfast place once we were both up. I decided to try something different this time, super breakfast sandwich; scrambled eggs, bacon, and cheddar cheese on white toast. She had an omelet. After breakfast we went shopping. We went to TJ Maxx to get clear nail polish and a picture frame. The clear nail polish was to seal the decal I put on a hair brush for her birthday gift, and the picture frame is for a Christmas present for my grandma. After TJ we went to Bath and Bodyworks for a little Christmas soap present shopping for the ladies in our life (moms, grandmas, and her) since all the hand soaps were on sale. We did some more walking around the mall, but there wasn't anything else worth noting. We just hung out at her place and watched Home Improvement for a few hours until our next activity. It was fun watching it with her because we were both little kids when it first aired and our dads really enjoyed it. "I remember watching this when I was really little, my dad really liked this show," "mine too, I remember watching it at our old house." I had soup from the grocery store that's across the street from her for lunch. We also made a gingerbread turkey as a little art and cooking project. The turkey turned out good.

Now for the next activity, Christmas village thing at the Dayton historical village. The historical village is a bunch of different buildings and such that was around Dayton for the last 200+ years, like from the time before electricity to the late 40s. They were making gingerbread cookies, roasted chest nuts, and hot cider in the pre-electricity area, and I had a gingerbread cookie. It was a good cookie, and the first one I had this season. After the cookie place we walked around the village some more. We went to a working printing press, and it was cool to see all the old equipment and old way of doing things. They also had the backgrounds on some old sayings. Like, "mind your P's and Q's is based on how lowercase p and q look similar, and with print mirrored it's easy to mess up," and "dingbat is actually fancy way to fill empty space." We also went to a history of bikes from this factory. Here are some pictures.

Bicycle built for 3, and a bike with a radio. It was neat.

The next place was this train museum. They had cabooses, trolley cars, high class train cars, and souveniers. There was also a little train we could ride on. Like, it was this mini-engine that could pull 4 cars with 5 people to a car around a little track. It reminded me of this part that was by my house we called "the train park" because they had the same kind of thing. Mskate and I had a fun little ride. Here are the pictures of the train car.

We also went up this observatory tower thing. The sign said it was 120 steps, and by the top we were tired and I felt like I had a good work out. However, we did get a really nice view of the lights, and it was worth it for the exercise. After that we went to a Wright Brothers museum. They had the work shop they worked in, some prototypes, a 13 minute video of the history of their experiments and journey to flight, and the piece de resistance, the actual plain the Wright Brothers made their flights on and the final project of Orval (bring the plain back home and build a museum around it).

I had some cheese fries after the Wright Brothers, and after that we looked around the historical museum. Apparently cash registers were a big industry in Dayton, as was prohibition.

We're definitely going to go back there for a day trip sometime, because there is a LOT to see, and we were getting pretty tired. We had take-out for dinner, and I made it romantic with candle light, and watched more Home Improvement the rest of the night.

Sunday wasn't too spectacular. I had my left overs from dinner for breakfast and went to church. After church we packed up my stuff and I went home. It was a really fun weekend, full of a lot of fun things. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Family Campout 2019 Fun

Hey everyone, it's that time again, family campout with my camping friends. It's always fun seeing the camping friends considering we only see each other a few times a year (not because we're anti-social, but because we all live so far away now and it's like the only time we can see all get together). I packed everything on Thursday and went over to my parents house for the night. When we were planning things on Wednesday my mom asked me what time I would get there on Friday, and I said "well I was planning on coming over on Thursday night," and that made things a little easier because we were able to practice pack. Then at night I watched SpongeBob using my parents slingTV subscription. I have playstation vue and don't get Nickelodeon, so it's great watching Nickelodeon at my parents house. I watched SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout, and I need to do a review of this, because it's the 20th anniversary special and it's basically an apology for Truth or Square, one of my first reviews. [Editor's note, I did do a review, here it is]. We went out for pizza on Thursday for family fun. That was basically Thursday night.

Now for Friday. We packed-up the perishable things (cooler food) and that was it since we packed all the other things the night before. We drove a while and stopped at the outlet mall. Normally we stop at the pepridge farm store because I like goldfish crackers and millano cookies (and it's always fun to see what kind of other things they might have), but since I still have a bunch of stuff from last year we didn't stop there. We did stop at the Colman store and I got a cooler and my parents got my aunt a cot. After that I just kind of played my switch and slept while I waited for us to get to camp.

Now we get to camp. We were squatting on my godfather's site this weekend. We arrived before them, so we spent the time waiting for them to show-up visiting with the others that were already there. We gave my aunt the cot and not too much longer my godfather and his family showed up. I helped them set-up their tent, and being the tent expert I am, it went up quite easily. While I was working on the tent, my godbrother was on top of the car helping to unload the cartop carrier. Watching him do that, I was quite jealous, because my parents never let me climb on top of the car for any reason. After helping them set-up camp, we had lunch. I had a hamburger and spam sandwich, with cheese. Yum. This year I didn't have to share my burger with my cousin's dog Louie, because he was far more comfortable this year. Here's a picture I took with him.

After lunch we went to check into our motel. It was pretty uneventful, just unload our night bags, sleeping stuff (my cot and sleeping bag), and electronic stuff for at night. After check-in we went back to camp. Since it was so hot and I brought my gold rush nugget buck, and I read there was trace gold in the area, and that it's recreational gold panning is legal in my state, I put on my swimsuit and went swimming for the first time in years. My goal was to go into the lake some, dig down to what I thought was black sand (I remember from as a kid if you dug deep enough you'd get to black colored sand) and hopefully find some gold. If nothing else, just have fun playing on the beach. I didn't find anything. A lot of my camp friends asked me what I was doing and wanted to watch, and I have experience panning the dirt I buy online so I kind of know what I'm doing, but there wasn't any gold in the lake. Doing a little more research on where to pan for gold, I figure a lake is a pretty bad spot since you want basically "1 way water flow to wash away lite sediments" instead of "2 way waves layering the lite stuff on top of each other." Oh well, it was all for fun anyways.

[time skip in writing]

Woops, I must have said "I'll come back to this after a break" and then 3 months go by. I'll do my best to recall what happened, but it's going to be a little more fractured.

After swimming we had dinner and a camp fire. It was a fun time hanging out. When it came time for the squatters to leave we went back to our motel. The rooms didn't have air conditioning, so we were hot. I remember waking up like 4 times throughout the night and drinking 4 cups of water because I was losing so much water. Breakfast was pretty typical. I had a muffin and bacon at the motel before we went to the campground.

Saturday was pretty eventful. The morning started out pretty tame, just hanging out, catching up. One of the gen 2 girls teaches Zumba and brought her music with her, so she led a Zumba class for anyone that would join in. My mom was one of them, as were some of the other moms. I also did some dog sitting for Louie while his owners went swimming. He had some separation anxiety (because he was rescued off the street), but when I took him for a walk he got really happy and enjoyed the exploring. I brought some manga with me (Splatoon volume 2 and Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest) and decided to read it after lunch. Well then it started raining, and I was REALLY glad I brought my manga because otherwise I would have been really bored. Everyone huddled under various dining flies, and some people brought out cards for different card games. I had a few people look over my shoulder to see the manga, and I had a little fun explaining why it read backwards. I think around 3PM my parents said "lets go back to our motel," and we did. I did some web surfing and watched TV, and we waited until it was time for mass.

Mass was a little different this year. Normally we go to this church that's kind of out in the woods on Sunday, but this year we went to a church that's in the city on Saturday. That meant I wasn't able to watch the sign language interpreter, because the woods church has ASL. Afterwards my mom ran into someone she knows, apparently an old friend of the camping group. She introduced me as "remember my eldest son? This is him now." That tends to happen quite frequently with me; not as much as when I was in middle school and such, but still happens occasionally. After church we went to the pizza place for dinner. We've been going to this place for about 10 years now, and this year we decided to eat in the restaurant. While we were planning to eat in the restaurant, it was really good since it was still raining. While I was there I found this little sign.

I thought it reminded me of Sarcastic SpongeBob. wE wAnT yOuR cOmEnTs

By now it had stopped raining. We had a camp fire with the wood we kept dry and the chairs we kept dry. We also burned some card board boxes. One thing I did was I brewed decaf sun tea all day, because that night I was going to make my special cocktail "backwoods arnie." I made up some shots for everyone that was old enough to drink and interested, and a lot of people were and thought it tasted really good. My godbrothers also wanted some to drink, so I let them have the decaf sun tea. I made sure to tell their dad it was just decaf sun tea, because I didn't want him thinking I was giving his 11 and 6 year old alcohol, or caffeine before bed. When we went back to the hotel we realized we should probably open the window, and that made things much better.

Sunday was pretty low key. Normally Sunday is church day, but since we already went we didn't go. We had a communal breakfast where we had pancakes, bacon, French toast, and whatever was left over that people didn't want to take home. After breakfast we said our goodbyes, packed-up our camp chairs and other things, and went back to check-out of the motel. After that we started our drive back home, and after unpacking all their stuff I made my way back home. It was great to see everyone again. This has been pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

My Cousins Wedding Adventure

Hey everyone, it feels like it's been a while since I had a good old adventure with my family, probably because it's been a while since I had a good old adventure with my family. Well my cousin turtlegirl got married over the weekend and that means it's time for an adventure. The first of gen 3 to get married, and it's all the way down in Evansville. Those familiar with my adventures will know that we've been going down there for many years.

Everything started Friday morning. My dad and brother showed up at about 6:30AM and we transferred their stuff from their car to my car. It was a very fast process. I already had my stuff packed, and they didn't have a ton of stuff either. Since we were picking up mskate about halfway through the drive, I agreed to drive to her place and they would drive the other half. Aside from dad spilling his coffee within 1 mile of leaving my house, things were pretty uneventful that way, it was just like all the regular trips I make to see her except it went a little faster since I had company.

Now we pick-up mskate and things get fun. I brought my laptop and headphone splitter so we could watch movies on the way down, just like when my brother and I were kids watching VHS tapes on the car TV on road trips when we were little. Same splitter actually, which I spent probably 10 minutes looking for. Together we watched Christopher Robin and Wonder, and on my own I watched the first 2 episodes of Pokémon Orange Islands. Mskate isn't into Pokémon, and when she saw I brought it she was wondering why I brought it, but she didn't want to watch movies all the time so I took that as my opportunity to watch it, and I'm glad I did. We stopped for McDonalds for lunch, and I learned they're doing a Pokémon promotion. Mskate and I split a happy meal, and I got an additional McRib, because that's apparently in season. McDonalds doesn't advertise like they used to, which is annoying because then I don't know what the promotion is. This took us to Evansville.

We get to our hotel, and they don't have our room ready, so we're sitting in the lobby with all our stuff on the cart. My grandparents were already there, and other relatives started arriving as well. It was fun seeing everyone again as they show up. We were able to get my grandparents set-up, and then my grandpa was able to get in the pool. He used to love to swim, but isn't really able to anymore because of stiff joints and such. Well this pool had a handicap entry chair that loads people into the water. This was quite a scene, because this was apparently the first time the hotel ever used it and none of the staff knew what was needed. My aunt, brother, and I were all gathered around the chair trying to figure out how it worked, and we realized we needed some kind of pendant to control it. Well, we knew there was some kind of controls, but we couldn't figure them out. We went to the front desk and they brought out the controller, and I was able to figure out which port it plugged into. However, when I turned it on and set it to lower it wasn't moving very fast, so we figured the battery was dying. The hotel staff went to the back room to get the other battery pack, but that one was completely dead. My aunt thought that maybe it was missing the contacts or they were dirty, but after putting my hand on it I could feel it was trying but just didn't have a charge. The staff then went and got the other battery and we put it back on figuring it just moved slow for safety reasons. My grandpa was already in the water by now after my mom and brother helped him down the stairs. However, this was good for getting him out. Unfortunately the pool wasn't very friendly to him, having a very steep drop-off and a rather small shallow end. He was able to have some fun, but not nearly as much as he wanted to, and he was really looking forward to it.

Once we were able to check-in I set-up my bitcoin miner and enjoyed free hotel electricity; the returns on mining doesn't compensate for the cost of electricity, but when I don't pay for the electricity it's all profit. Mskate and I went grocery shopping because we weren't going to like the wedding dinner, so I brought my crock pot to make us something on Saturday. She also wanted to get an Indiana Starbucks Cup, and I wanted to go thrifting, so we went to the goodwill that was right by Starbucks, and then went to Walmart to get food. I unfortunately wasn't able to find any rare or mystery VHS tapes, and I already had the videogames or they weren't worth the price tag, but she was able to find her Indiana Starbucks cup. At Walmart I let her chose between meatballs and pot roast. She chose meat balls, and I was able to find a ground beef and pork blend which was really good. I also picked-up BBQ sauce, and she also found some snack food she can't get elsewhere. I checked the electronics to see if there were any amiibo or PS2 games I wanted, but they didn't have either so it was only groceries. After that my brother, dad, and I went to the liquor store to get some drinks. I didn't really have anything I was looking for, having brought stuff from home, but then I saw moonshine pickles and I said "I can't get that at home, I need to see what that's like."

Now it's time for the rehearsal dinner. It was at a fire house banquet hall thing. Apparently this is where turtlegirl and hubby (I'll need to find a screenname for him) went on some dates, so it's important to them. However, it was way out of the way and kind of in nowhere, so it was kind of hard for us. Anyway, mskate, dad, bro, and I head over and we were the first there. Now long time readers may remember I had pink hair at my aunt's wedding (link if you don't remember). It was a college fundraiser for breast cancer, and my family wasn't super thrilled. I wanted to do something similar for turtlegirl (that was the first thing I thought of when I heard about the engagement), but as a professional adult I can't dye my hair crazy colors anymore. So I did the next best thing, pink wig.

I walk into the hall with this on my head and the grooms aunt, or whoever was setting up, called the grooms mom saying there was a suspicious man here, thinking maybe a vagrant wandered in. Once my family started showing up she could tell I belonged, and most of my family got the joke. My uncle who married my aunt when I really died my hair pink didn't get it, and neither did turtlegirl's father, but all my aunts and cousins got it. Mskate kept trying to get me to take it off, because she doesn't like it when I get eccentric, but turtlegirl had to see it. When she saw it she just shook her head with "of course Pokematic would do that." After she saw I took it off. Dinner was alright, catered fast food Italian food, nothing super special. Near the end of the party the grooms mom said "I got a call about a suspicious man that wondered in." That was my first time meeting his family, so yeah, here's "crazy cousin Pokematic." Nothing really happened after that.

Now for the big day.  I started up the meatballs and let them cook for 4 hours in our hotel room. Since the ceremony was at 2PM, we gave a tour to dad and mskate. First we picked up pepperBC from her grandma/my great aunt, and her mom gave us a tour of the house. Because great aunt got her hair done but it wasn't sticking, some of my other aunts had to find hairspray. The tour was fun, hearing all the crazy stories they had from "trips to the darkness" and "the murder that took place before great aunt bought it." The hairspray was called "big sexy hair," so we joked about how she now had "big sexy hair." After great aunt's house we went to this hill that is like the highest point in Evansville where you can see the whole city. It was cool. After that we went to see great uncle's house, the same house that grandma, great aunt, and great uncle grew up in. He has a very interesting house, like a street light in his driveway and a fire hydrant next to his garage. I lead the tour on that, because I really like his house. There was a split where the men played in the garage and women toured the house. It was just a quick little stop.

After that little stop, I placed a take out order for an Evansville delicacy, brain sandwich. I also ordered chicken livers for my grandparents, because they like chicken livers and the Hilltop Inn has some of the best according to my grandparents, and Hilltop is one of the few places you can still get them. We dropped everyone off except for msake and dad, because they wanted to see the place. When mskate stepped out of the car she said it smelled bad/funny, I said "it smells like fry oil." She didn't want to see me eat the brain, but I took some video back at the hotel if you want to watch a mini food review.

Now for the big ceremony. We got dressed and my grandparents in the car. It's always a bit of an ordeal getting them anywhere. It was Mskate, bro, and I in the car, and I was driving. I missed our turn, and that was kind of crazy. We got in and found our seats after saying hello to the family. It was a good ceremony, and my mom was a Eucharistic minister. That's important because she distributed the wine, and it's the Eucharistic minister's job to drink the leftovers in their cup, and there were a lot of leftovers. After the ceremony my mom said she was feeling tipsy and needed some carbs, and was glad she wasn't driving. We had about an hour before the reception, so mskate and I had our meatballs at the hotel and we just hung out for a little while.

Now for the reception. We had some fun trying to find the place, and find a parking spot. It would be another hour or so before the festivities started, but that just meant time to visit with the family and get mskate a new lock screen photo (because the last one was from the last wedding we went to). Now it was time for the wedding party to enter. The ushers were first, and they tried to do a group act that ended with one guy face planting. I ran into them in the dinner line (because I wanted some salad and rolls) and his friends were trying to fix his bleeding nose. However, they were all drunk/buzzed and were struggling. I offered to help since I was pretty sober (half a glass of wine, I wasn't feeling anything), but they didn't want it. Oh well, later in the night I saw he had a nice X of bandages on his nose, so someone helped him. I had green beans and corn, as did mskate.

Now that dinner is over it was time for dancing. The bride and groom had their dances with their respective dad and mom, and then there was the dollar dance. I remember great aunt wanted a dance with her new nephew. I didn't participate because I knew I'd have my dances with them later in the nigh. In addition to the dancing they rented a photo booth, which is something mskate and I enjoy doing when we find them. We did it twice by ourselves, and once with grandma. Grandma was fun, because we didn't really know what we were going to do, and the last picture involved mskate sitting on my leg while I kissed her cheek, which was a lot harder than anticipated because I didn't realize how much taller she would be when sitting on my leg, and while this is happening grandma is trying to get out of the way while mskate is trying to pull her back into frame, and we only had 5 seconds to figure out what we wanted.

Dancing for the most part was pretty standard. We did some line dancing, and the ones I knew were really fun (like cupid shuffle and cha cha slide). I was trying to do the line dancing for cotton eye Joe, but it was a little to fast for me and I kept tripping on myself because I kept trying to catch up. Then there was the macarena; when that happened, I started yelling with excitement and ran onto the dance floor. I love the macarena, it was the first dance I learned as a little kid back in the late 90s. The slow dances were pretty fun too, mainly because I had a partner. Even when mskate was sitting them out I still had fun joining in on the group hug slow dancers (because for reasons I'll get to shortly, there were many guests that got creative with some of the dances). The fast dances were also great; I'm not very good, but I have fun. About halfway through the night I was able to have a dance with turtlegirl when she was on the dance floor and didn't have a lot of people around. I was right, I didn't need the dollar dance. All the families were allowed to request 1 song, and my grandparents requested a slow dance. The DJ made a note it was a special request by "great aunt and uncle," and we got them up and out on the dance floor. Unfortunately because they move so slow the song was about a third of the way done, so I had the DJ restart it. It was really sweet to see them hold each other and dance after 60 years together without their walkers; surrounded by their kids, grandkids, and other family making sure they don't fall and no one runs into them. After their dance they took their walkers back, and grandpa stayed on the dance floor for one more, dancing to a fast song with people. It was all really sweet.

Now for some shenanigans. My mom and I were basically the DD for "our immediate family." Since neither of us really drink a lot, that wasn't a big battle. However, the same can't be said for the rest of my family, and apparently the same for the rest of the wedding guests. The dance floor had a nice layer of dry beer on the floor, which felt really weird since this was in a school gym. When we did RockyTop (a dance where it's like "make a bridge, go under the bridge"), mskate got a little upset since someone spilled beer on her dress (she's not a drinker either so this was extra upsetting, but she didn't want to drive at night so she wouldn't DD even if I was a drinker). After my brother had a few and a slow dance came on he wanted to dance with me, which I said yes to because I wanted to have fun, but we basically spent the entire time trying to figure out who would lead. Some of the groomsmen and other male guests started up a chorus line with one of the songs, which I joined in on. There was a guy that was double fisting them on the dance floor that always seemed like he was lost. Later into the night I saw my brother slow dancing with one of the groomsman, and they were both pretty smashed. I also did a fair amount of bad and excited dancing, but I do just because I like dancing. Since I'm just weird I don't need alcohol to do the silly things, so I basically had "drunk fun while sober," which mskate made a joke about. I was wearing my Pokémon tie, because I have a Pokémon tie, and everyone was complementing it (except for mskate, she doesn't really like it). I told her "I'm getting a lot of complements on my tie," and she like, "yeah, from DRUNK PEOPLE!" (I do get a lot of complements on it regularly though).

Now comes the end of the night, the reception is coming to a close and we need to get the grandparents back to the hotel, along with the rest of the family. By now mom just kind of "doesn't want to deal with drunk people anymore," so when drunk guests were hanging out in the hall on the way to the car, she just pushed them out of the way. "Out of the way, my mom and dad need to leave." She also told me I was in charge of my brother, and he needed charge. He took his boots off because they made it hard to dance or something, and I had to tell him to get his shoes. As we were driving back I was channeling my safe ride home skills from community service back in college. I got really good at driving nice and easy for the drunk passengers so they don't get sick, and he said I did really well. He also kept wanting to go to Denny's, and I kept telling him "no, mom said to get you back to the hotel;" "but Denny's." I told him I have meatballs at the hotel if he wants them, "but Denny's." "If you want to stumble down the block to it I won't stop you, but I'm getting you to the hotel." Ultimately he didn't need Denny's. I was supposed to sleep in the bed that night, but he laid down in it not long after getting into the room, and I realized "that ain't moving," so I slept on the floor again.

Sunday wasn't super spectacular, just a drive home. Dad was the first one up and woke us up at around 7AM. We ate breakfast, packed up our stuff, said our goodbyes, and started our drive home. Mskate and I watched some movies again, finishing up Christopher Robin first and then watched Storks and Bandslam (which is a great film). For lunch we stopped at a McDonalds and shared 2 happy meals (I ate the burgers and 1 of the fries, mskate ate the apple slices and other fries), and we each got our own toy; Pokémon for me and Hello Kitty for her (because she likes Hello Kitty). That took us to her apartment. We unpacked her stuff and said our goodbyes. We then began the drive home. Because I took care of him after the wedding, bro drove about halfway, leaving me time to watch more Pokémon and take a nap. We stopped at a rest stop and switched drivers, so now I was driving. Dad and bro commented on how boring the drive is and how "there was nothing around." Yeah welcome to my drive every 2 or so weeks. We got to my place, swapped vehicles, and that was it, rather uneventful.

All in all it was a great trip. I really enjoyed seeing my family again, seeing mskate again, and with turtlegirl and her new husband the best. I'm glad my grandparents were able to make another trip, because it's getting harder and harder for them. Soon we may have a gen 4, and then trips may be a little more regular again. Time will tell, but until then, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

I go to the Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Roadshow

Hey everyone. When I saw Jay and Silent Bob Reboot with fathom events I learned about the reboot roadshow, a live show where Jason Mewes and Keven Smith introduce the Jay and Silent Bob Reboot live on stage and do a Q&A afterwards. I'm not going to talk about the movie itself because I already did that with the fathom reviews. Watch here. Instead I'm going to talk about my experience of going to the theater and the live aspect.


I looked up where the tour was stopping and saw they were making a stop in Detroit at the Fillmore, which was possible for me to make it to. I hadn't made my decision to see it yet, but I said "yeah it could happen." Well then I forgot about it, and if it wasn't for one of my facebook friends saying they were interested in it the day before I wouldn't have remembered. I bought my ticket online and was ready to see it. I was really glad I had a $20 bill in my wallet, because I forgot that parking costs money in downtown Detroit, and since there was a big show happening parking was $20, a quarter mile away in a sketchy area. Oh well, it was that or somehow turn around on a 1 way street to get to the $10 parking half a mile away, $30 for a somewhat closer lot that was only a little less sketchy.

Since I got there after the doors opened I didn't have to wait in line, which I kind of planned on because while there was quite a large police presence (because it was a big event), I still wouldn't want to wait around outside in Detroit. I had my ticket on "willcall," which meant they would give me my ticket at the box office after showing them my credit card and photo ID. I glad about that, because that meant I got a physical ticket, because the alternative was a digital ticket on my phone, which required the app, and I have windows phone. I got my ticket, and then got in line to get my drink wristband. I wasn't planning on drinking, but I said the same about The Mike and Micky show, and then I decided to get a drink. This time however, I decided not to drink. After getting through security I had a look at the merch table to see if they had a poster or something I wanted, but all they had were t-shirts and 1) I already have more than enough t-shirts, and 2) I'm not the kind of person that would wear a Jay and Silent Bob t-shirt; while I enjoy the occasional Kevin Smith film, the only one I would care to watch more than once (outside of a special event show like this one) is Clerks. Anyways, since The Fillmore is like a "serious historic venue" there was a lot of really cool architecture and posters, and since I was 30 minutes early I decided to explore the 4 levels. Here are some pictures of things I took.

After exploring I went to find my seat. Because I'm not a big Kevin Smith fan, and I'd already seen the movie with fathom events, and I need to save money, I got the cheapest available ticket. It ended up being in the lower balcony off to the side, 2 rows away from upper balcony. The seat also didn't have a lot of leg room, barely any at all, and it was pretty far from the screen.

Before I left for the show I charged my 3DS and brought it with me. I was really glad I did, because I had time to kill and they started 10 minutes late. Why did they start 10 minutes late? I'm going to guess it's because Kevin was smoking up back stage, and that's not me passing judgement, when Kevin came on stage he said he was getting high before the show and was "really happy to be in a weed legal state." Well the lights went down and out walks Kevin in his jorts and purple blazer. He gave a fun little intro and then brought Jason Mewes out. Jason brought out his phone and said he was live streaming on twitch. You can watch the rebroadcast here.


Watch detroit live just a quickie intro from jay and @thatkevinsmith Reboot Roadshow! from jaymewes on www.twitch.tv

After they gave their intro the show was apparently sponsored by audible. They made these commercials for audible as Jay and Silent Bob, and were pretty funny. Kevin also joked about how "like every podcast ever, we're sponsored by audible for some reason." Well, not ALL podcasts considering audible rejected me. OK, now the movie is starting, and I'm starting to get a hunger headache. While Kevin said I shouldn't miss any part of the show because it never stops, I'd already seen it before so I knew I wouldn't miss anything. I went to the snack bar and got some nachos. At first the clerk said "we're out of nachos" (the line was very long before the show, so it made sense stuff was running out), but knowing I had to eat something I asked what they had, and after asking the guys with the food he said "hotdogs and nachos, I guess we do have them." I got my nachos and had them on one of the standing tables on the first floor. I watched the movie from behind the bar glass, because I didn't want to take them back up to my seat and potentially drop them. After the nachos I went back to my seat and watched the movie.

Now the movie is over and Kevin and Jason come back out on stage for the Q&A. Since they only had like 30 minutes left on their rented time they only allowed 12 people to line up to ask questions on first come first serve, meaning the people with the really good seats were able to ask their questions. Here's what I would have asked if I had the option "hi, you can call me Pokematic [and yes, I would have used my screen name, hoping someone would hear that, do a google search, and find my stuff], a piece of trivia for Clerks is you sold half of your comic book collection to finance the film, I was wondering if when Clerks made a ton of money you bought back your collection." The questions that were asked were pretty good, including a little look into what older drafts of Reboot would have been like.

SPOILERS!!!!!!

Since Kevin and Jason were close friends with Stan Lee, Kevin was going to have him be in the movie, specifically, he would have been the director of bluntman v chronic that Shan Yu wants to kill, but because Stan died IRL Kevin Smith as himself had to fill that position. Also Ben Affleck was originally not going to be part of this, and Jay was going to get his dad inspiration from seeing a girl (his IRL daughter Logan) dressed up as Jay with her dad dressed up as Silent Bob at Chronicon, but because Ben wanted to be a part of it last minute (Kevin did launch his career), he wrote the Holden and Chasing Amy scene we see in the final product.

END SPOILERS!!!

I really wish I recorded this, but I didn't think to. I saw a lot of people with their phones out, so hopefully this shows up on the internet at some point, because I want sources to back this up so I can make a LMW article on it. Anyway, with the last question there was a loud noise and I think it was the stage manager cutting them off, to which Kevin joked about being shot and "scare the guy that had a heart attack." I left the theater, and I felt REALLY uncomfortable walking alone in downtown Detroit at 11PM at night down a dimly lit street to get to my car in a sketchy parking lot. I also had trouble finding my way out of the lot, because there wasn't really a place to turn around, so I just drove over the curb (it was kind of low down). I made it home safe though, but I'm thinking I won't do something like that again for a while. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.