11/23/2005: "The thoughts that days both begin and end with.."

Marley was dead to begin with.

Oh, and tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Now that I've mentioned it, I won't really discuss that issue further, other than that I'm unaware if much will be happening (I'm guessing 'no') and that it's a shame that it's on a Thursday, because I'd much prefer to skip one for my Mon-Wed days of school rather than Tue-Thu. I much prefer the latter set of classes.

I have class soon, so I won't be writing much (which is somewhat the norm as of late, I guess). But, while I do have the time, I might as well write the details of my exploits as of late.

For those who follow video game news, or mayhaps saw a newspaper or watched the news in the past few days, you may be aware that the Xbox360 launched/went on sale Tuesday. You might also be aware that it's nearly impossible to get ahold of one unless you preordered a copy in May or are crazy and decided to wait outside a store in the bitter cold all night (and even that isn't an assurance of getting one). There is now an Xbox360 in my house, and the preorder was placed in early September. How did this happen? Simple, really. I was one of those poor, unfortunate souls who sat outside in the wee hours of the night outside of Target listening to the calls of the Windigo (link or just a picture, for those who aren't familiar with the Windigo) just to get an Xbox360. The funny thing is that it wasn't even for me, no. It was for my older sibling who couldn't possibly wait 2 months for one and had to have it as soon as possible. Obviously, I get dragged into these things for reasons that are beyond my understanding. We did luck out, though. The store opened at 8AM and we were set up at 8PM the night before, ready for a long, 12-hour haul. To our great fortune, mall security wouldn't let us stay there all night, so an employee took our names down and told us to come back at 5AM. Had security been "kind" and allowed us to stay, we would've been there all night. Instead, I was able to come home for awhile (I only would up waiting 5 out of 12 hours) and pretend to sleep. Yay! This is yet another experience I advise people against engaging in.

What did we do all night? Besides freezing and wondering just how thick my overcoat really is (oh, and for all my complaining, it only drops to.. about 45~° at night this time of year), I played a lot of "Mario Kart: DS" [NDS] before the sun came up (about 36 battle rounds and 12 races, if I recall correctly) and then started going through kanji flashcards after there was enough light to see.

I need to get running, as class starts in 8 minutes, and I suspect this clock is a bit behind. One more class this afternoon, two homework assignments to do before it starts (that I haven't started yet..), and then home to go.. do something, I guess.

As usual, I'll write sometime later.


School