dmxrated

Damn! Forgot to mention on the 8th of January that during 3rd Period, Ms. Amendola (who had substituted for Ms. Bandows as my one-on-one that day) told me to watch over a magazine she was reading while she went somewhere briefly. I actually read it, before Ms. Darson called my name.

Anyway, today for Co7G, I'm only gonna record Sunday of that week, but I'm also gonna share some stuff that happened during the 3rd and 4th quarters that went undated.

January 17, 1999

I beat Banjo-Kazooie today. We also watched this movie tonight called Selma, Lord Selma.

Upon beating the game, Mumbo tells you about three secret locations in the game, where you can get either a special egg or a key. The secrets to accessing them were due to be revealed in Banjo-Tooie, but for time being, Brian tried entering some things in the Treasure Trove Cove sandcastle, such as "HELP" and "SHARKFOOD ISLAND". What I tried from that day on was starting a new game each time, postponing getting each item for as long as possible so that you can hear their voices as late in the game as possible, and getting whichever Jiggies you can get in the order specified in the player's guide. The real secrets were revealed in Nintendo Power shortly after the release of Tooie, and needless to say, you can also look them up online. I'll be sure to enter the codes when I beat the game this time around.

Now for the latter part, most of which I also mentioned on March 18, 2008:

-During either February or March, Marie had to go to a square dance at Charles E. Walters* with Mom. I don't remember if Brian went there, but I chose to stay home and play Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. From what I understand, though, Marie was supposed to write a newspaper article about the dance when she came home.

(Charles E. Walters: one of the three elementary schools in the Longwood School district. This is where I spent 4th and 5th grades and where Brian and Marie spent all their elementary years. The other two are West Middle Island and Coram Elementary School.)

-During the third quarter of the school year, I once overheard on the lunch line, someone talking about something his busdriver did. He told another boy that the busdriver put all the white students up front and all the black students in the back, just like during the times of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. He followed the explanation with "That guy is a gay-ass and a fucking bitch!"

-Once, Ms. Alfieri (my English teacher that year) asked the whole class to raise their right hand, then their left hand, then their right hand, and the pattern continued for about another minute.

-This happened during the 4th quarter. Once during Phys Ed, we were all outside, and some wild animal wandered into the school yard (at least a few yards away from us, thankfully). The creature looked like either a dog or a boar, and most of the students in my Gym class asked Coach O'Neal which it was. He said it was a wild hyheta*, and warned us not to get close to it as it might have rabies.

(Not sure if I spelt this word right, but Coach O'Neal did pronounce it as "high-hee-tuh.")

-Another thing that once happened in Phys Ed (4th quarter again): Normally, whenever we went outside, Coach O'Neal was on foot, as were me and my fellow students. However, he once did bring his bicycle with him. When we were going back inside the building, I tried to see if I could beat him on foot. I didn't say anything like "race ya!", but he noticed, and then asked me if I was like Superman. When I got back to the building, my stomach was so cramped that it hurt to laugh at someone who was either doing or saying something funny (don't remember what that student did or said).

-One time during Health, some black girl shared a Taz Mania doll with Taison. Mr. Westburg came over to them and said "This belongs in the second grade."

-Another time in Health, Mr. Westburg had some box of leftover cake, which he shared with the entire class.

-My then-friend Kenny brought this cute little stuffed dog sitting on his desk in Science once, and it became a distraction for me. Before class ended, Ms. Tscheimber told him to bring it up to her desk.

-During the fourth quarter, Kenny and my other Homeroom friend James told me that there was a bomb in the school. I simply said "Okay." I didn't actually believe them, and even though the rumor went on the whole day, no one actually panicked. The next day, Principal Verdi announced that there was no bomb at all, and told those who were just trying to scare others to "grow up". (It should be noted, though, that over the following two years, a handful of bomb scares would take place at school, during which the entire building would be evacuated for an hour or two.)

Back to the present.

Yesterday was a sunny day among quite a number of rainy days. Mom saw fit for me to mow some lawn and begin scrubbing the pantry shelves in the basement. Later on, Dad started to take apart the bathroom walls, beginning with the sheetrock in the top half of it. This had gone on for several hours, during which I had been dying to shower off. (Mom also told me that Phyllis will be leaving at some point, and for reasons that she didn't specify, the tiled half of the walls will have to wait until then.)

During whichever hours that they weren't working on something, Mom and Dad watched this movie series called Jazz, about the history of it back in the 1930's. Mom told me it was that "corny music", referring to November 13, 1998 in Co7G. Another time they referred to it was when I went over to turn off the XM Radio because of the bad reception it was getting. It just so happened to be playing jazz music, and Mom asked me if it was too corny. I told her that it was annoying to have to hear it go on and off so incessantly.

Anyway, all that work I was given sure helped me hold off on Pokemon Diamond for an entire day, only turning it on to check the lottery numbers and see if I won anything. I did play Banjo-Kazooie, though, and managed to complete two worlds in that game.

While I was waiting for Dad to finish up in the bathroom, I went onto YouTube and watched half an episode (or two 10-minute episodes, depending on how you see it) of this OAV called Koharu Biyori. Yeah, it's still in Japanese, and I'm not sure if it will be released in the states, but like with Ultimate Girls and Haruhi-chan, I can accept Japanese VA once in a while if there is no English dub (fan-made or official) for it. If any of you have read this blog during the summer of, I think, 2005, you might have read an entry where I mentioned this manga called Indian Summer. That's right: That's the English counterpart of the manga version.