logomancer | There and Back Again: Williamsburg (Reply)

I started my journey on Friday, with a 5.5 hour bus ride. Finished Cryptonomicon on the way. All in all, a good read. Watched a bit of The Matrix on my laptop. By that time, we were pulling into Hampton where robertliguori's parents greeted us. I could've sworn that the car that brought us to Williamsburg was not the same car that brought robertliguori to Blacksburg in August. Anyway, we arrived about half an hour later at robertliguori's house. His parents are very nice, and were that way for most of the time. Anyway, after a punctuated dinner, robertliguori and I went to collect tadakimacun from her apartment just inside the city limits. And thus, I met tadakimacun for the first time. We went back to robertliguori's house and played various games, to wit Fluxx, Unreal Tournament, and Zilch, the traditional Liguori family game where you roll six dice to get various scoring combinations. It wasn't bad. I tied for second. After that, we had to take tadakimacun home, where her stepdad showed us the Lego Knights on his Monty Python Special Edition DVD (which I now greatly desire). Thus ended Friday.

Saturday was pretty good. The three of us -- robertliguori, tadakimacun, and myself -- went to Colonial Williamsburg to walk around a bit. In the process, we bumped into JP, an old friend of robertliguori's from the CW Fife and Drum Corps. The two of them caught up on old times whilst tadakimacun went to find chocolate-covered almonds, finding some, amazingly, not far down Duke of Gloucester Street (CW's main drag). In any case, we all went walking and talking through CW, avoiding piles of horse manure and tourists along the way. I got a picture (thanks to robertliguori) with myself and tadakimacun in the stocks together. We eventually made our way to Merchant Square and a bunch of stuff. First the William and Mary bookstore, then a gelato place (we had coupons from someone handing them out somewhere in CW). Eventually, tadakimacun had to get herself ready for the dance (and so did we). We dropped JP off at his house, and tadakimacun at hers.

We (the three of us and JP) went to Ruby Tuesday for dinner (tadakimacun's parents' idea...they work there, and they wanted to show us off to their co-workers). They were packed to the gills with high schoolers going to Homecoming dances (from two high schools) and a large birthday party. I felt sorry for tadakimacun's parents. It also made for delays getting out, so we showed up at the dance fashionably late. Fortunately, we weren't missing much; the dance Sucked. Or, more accurately, it bit parts off. The music was mostly rap with a few seconds of other stuff mixed in, and the DJ (who was from a local sucky radio station) told everyone to "make some noise" after every third song. I guess this is what happens when total preps organize a school dance -- from that dance alone, I could tell that, on the 1-10 Prep Scale, this place ranked an 8 or a 9 (for reference, my high school rates a 5-6). On the plus side, I did get the pleasure of slow-dancing with tadakimacun, whose feet I stepped on -- literally, as she took off her heels since they were hurting her. Everyone else was doing the same thing, too. Which poses the question -- why do women wear heels like those? A question for the ages, no doubt. Anyway, we met back at the car around 22:15 -- except JP, who decided to get a ride with someone else. I got dropped off at robertliguori's house while robertliguori and tadakimacun went back to her apartment to (presumably) make out like crazed weasels. I spent the time finding out why the Liguoris' wireless router didn't play nice with my wireless card. I never did figure it out. I also slept.

Sunday wasn't that eventful. tadakimacun came back, and we played Secret of Monkey Island all the way through, which took some time. We also played one more game of Fluxx. I decided to borrow the Monkey Island disc (which was robertliguori's to begin with, as I found out), and we took tadakimacun home one last time. I got packed, and, in the process, found a library book that robertliguori lost a year ago. Go me. On the bus ride back, I read Mostly Harmless, which I bought at the Barnes & Noble in Hampton whilst waiting for the bus. It's unimpressive, and doesn't hold a candle to the first four. Not nearly funny enough, too predictable, and too reliant on gimmicks. And the ending Sucked. If you absolutely have to read this book, check it out from the library. It's not worth the $7.50 they're asking for it. I also played Scrabble on the way back, with robertliguori helping me kick the computer's shiny metal buttocks. We got back around 22:30, when I got food and then went to sleep soon afterward.

Overall verdict: I enjoyed myself this past weekend, and it sucks that I have to wait 6 months to see tadakimacun in person again. The one thing I wish hadn't happened on the excursion was my headache, which dulled the enjoyment of some things. Ah well. I still had fun.

Today was OK. robertliguori and I skipped Unix class. Chemistry was more physics material. We're getting into templates in OOP. And Discrete was an annoyance. Brown was in rare form today, being more of a jerk-off than I thought he could be (see robertliguori's recent post regarding his grading of tests). Fortunately for me, I got a 91 on the test, so no groveling for Brown from me.

It's starting to get cold and wet. I hate that kind of weather. But I'm stuck with it for the next six months, so I better get used to it. But now, I must sleep.

Photos from Williamsburg are obtainable here. It's a 5-meg Zip file.