Werewolf Balls, Spaceman Balls.

Here's a little update since I haven't posted anything in a while.

I went to a St. Patrick's Day party at my cousin Megan's house. We ate food, talked, played board games, played Rock Band (including the wonderful LEGO version). Here's a photo of some of us playing Rock Band. I'm the tall guy standing up.



A week later, I went to the mall with Patrick and Caleb. It was Caleb's first malltrip with us, and I was worried that our malling style was boring him, because we generally just wander around aimlessly, but I think we all had a good time.

We went to a toy store in the mall, and played in there for quite a while. This toy store always has cheap, statuesque "action" figures that don't come in any packaging, so it was quite easy to play with them, or mostly just posing them. I put a man with a gun riding a white tiger, shooting at a triceratops. There was a werewolf figure that I noticed was so detailed that it was actually anatomically correct. While it was wearing torn blue shorts, they were very tight, and you could easily see the bulges where his penis and testicles were. Whoever designed that figure must have been such a perfectionist. I made the anatomically correct werewolf ride a horse.

When we went to the food court to eat dinner, there was a new Chinese restaurant right next door to the Chinese restaurant we usually get food at when we're at the mall. We were walking past the new restaurant to get to our usual place when we were intercepted by a young man giving out samples of chicken. Then we noticed our usual place also had a person out in front aggressively handing out chicken samples. The other restaurants in the food court must have felt that these two competing Chinese restaurants giving out samples were making them look bad, or maybe it just got them into the competitive spirit too, because several other restaurants were giving out free samples of their food too. If we had just walked one lap around the food court collecting free samples, we probably would have gotten the equivalent of an entire meal, and I'm not exaggerating at all.

The Borders Books at the mall went out of business. I had no idea until we got there and the store was almost completely empty. There would be an almost completely empty shelf except for one lonely book I'd never heard of sitting there. We didn't even go in because it looked so depressing. Borders was probably my favorite store at the mall. Besides the fact that it just had so many things I'm interested in, it also stayed open an hour later than every other store in the mall, so even after most of the mall was closing, you could go hang out at Borders for a while before going home. Now when all the other stores close, there's no where to go except home. We walked by Borders again later, and it was completely empty. No books on any shelf, and there was a sign on the door that said "Closed". I assume it meant for good, so we practically watched it die. I looked in the window of that empty store with empty shelves, and a sign on the bookshelf ten feet in front of me said "True Crime". Well said, sign. Well said.

We also saw the movie Paul. I'm kind of shocked I haven't heard anyone talk about this movie, even though it's been over a week now since I saw it. It's seriously the best new comedy I've seen in ages. I didn't know much about it going in, aside from who played the three main characters, and I was expecting to at least enjoy myself, but I couldn't have guessed I'd be nearly as entertained as I was. There were so many wonderful actors showing up throughout the movie, including Sigourney Weaver (whose voice I recognized immediately), and there was a "phoned-in" cameo by one of my favorite filmmakers. There were so many references to science fiction movies that I love, but they were always really clever references. There was a lot of swearing, but it all had to do with the story, and was really funny swearing that I can guarantee you've never heard anything like before. The movie was also surprisingly pretty deep and intelligent. Anyone who is a fan of comedies, or a fan of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (from Spaced, Shaun Of The Dead, and Hot Fuzz), and anyone who is into Science Fiction needs to go see the movie.

Also, I guess I should mention I finally took a driving test today and passed. I now have a license to drive.

To: Me, From: Me

I went for a Christmas season mall trip yesterday with my sister and Patrick. On the way there we listened to the Low Christmas album. You should listen to one of the songs from the album while you read this blog entry. It's a cover of the traditional Christmas song "The Little Drummer Boy". I love how it is noisy and distorted, yet beautiful.



Speaking of noisy and distorted, we first went to Toys "Я" Us, where I bought a First Act distortion pedal for my guitar. I don't have much guitar pedal experience, and before I bought this one, the only pedal I had was a First Act analog delay pedal, which I love. I think First Act is a really underrated company, and their analog delay pedal sounds so much better than any digital delay pedal I've heard from any other company. It has so much character to it, which is something I really love when it comes to music equipment. Seeing as how so many people use all the same stuff from Line 6, I think it's cool to have something a little different, to stand out a little from the crowd.

I found the Series 3 collectible LEGO minifigures at Toys "Я" Us too, which I was very happy about.


Before I got the Series 2 figures from Borders on Black Friday, I was beginning to think my search for these was a lost cause. I brought my "cheat sheets" that I printed out on Black Friday just in case I found any of the minifigures, but they didn't really help me any this time. My sister and I sat on the floor with a box of the minifigures and my cheat sheet and tried to match the new bumpy codes on the packages up to the dots on the sheet, but we realized most of them didn't match up. I know I printed out the American codes, but they didn't match. A lot of the packages had an extra bump, making it just about impossible to match them to the dots on the sheet. When we were picking out my Series 2 figures on Black Friday, I attempted to feel the figures through the bag, but that was much more difficult than I thought it would be, and I went back to just trying to match up the barcodes. This time since the codes weren't any help, we went back to trying to feel what each of the figures were. It took us over an hour to pick out all the ones I wanted. An hour of sitting on the floor groping little plastic bags of toys while customers and employees walking by gave us very confused looks. I got all of the figures I wanted though!

My favorite from Series 3 is the cyborg space villain, because he's an awesome minifigure and he reminds me so much of Lord Dread.


He's just missing his purple cape and cutlass, which are things I have in my LEGO collection. Old friends of mine in the internet LEGO community might remember that many years ago I made some LEGO Captain Power stuff.

So I'm doing quite well at catching up with the LEGO company on the release of these figures. Now I just need to get the ones I want from Series 1, and Series 4 still won't be out for a while.

Besides that, I bought some shirts. One from a store called Around The World which had a section of shirts made from artists in Thailand I believe. I also bought some really nice quality blank shirts from H&M to work on the prototypes for my Jacob's Shadow t-shirts. I'm excited about finally getting around to doing that, and looking through the shirts in Around The World was inspiring.

Since depending on how fast you can read, "The Little Drummer Boy" might be over now, listen to this other song from Low's Christmas album, called "Just Like Christmas". Now since you won't be reading, you can really pay attention to the lyrics of this one, which I think are clever and cute.

The blackest Friday there ever was: The Revenge!

I forgot a valuable part of the Black Friday story until just now. It has to be told.

Throughout the night, we witnessed a lot of shoppers that were very zombie-like, who were usually walking around aimlessly. Patrick and I are both amused by really simple things in life, and one thing that often seems to amuse us is mannequins with unintentionally funny poses. I'd say it wouldn't be uncommon, if you were stalking us at the mall, to see us walking through a store laughing at and doing impressions of funny mannequins. At one point during the night, we were in Old Navy, and Patrick pointed at a mannequin that was up against a column and said "That is the most depressing mannequin ever." Then the mannequin moved, revealing itself to be the most depressing live human being ever, and Patrick felt like a huge jerk. At least the depressing girl had a good enough sense of up to date style that she could pass as a mannequin.

The blackest Friday there ever was.

I wasn't planning on going out shopping for Black Friday. I don't think I've ever experienced it. Thanks to a tip from my cousin Megan after Thanksgiving dinner, I knew that Borders had the collectible LEGO minifigures near the checkout. I really wanted to get them before they sold out, because I've been wanting those minifigures for a long time and I have not been able to find them anywhere. Most the sites on the internet that sell them give you them randomly so you don't have any idea what you're getting, and in some cases limit the number of them you can order to 5 or something. Since there are 16 in each series, that's ridiculous. Anyway, I knew my sister really wanted to go shopping on Black Friday because she's also never experienced it and loves shopping. We talked about it half-jokingly at first and then somehow it became a real plan where my cousin Patrick and his girlfriend and my sister and I were going shopping at 1 AM. I figured not going out on Black Friday is kind of like staying inside during the apocalypse or during a zombie outbreak. It's probably the smartest thing to do, but you're missing out on a unique experience. I wanted to have that experience at least once.

So we printed out a list of the special opening times for the stores in the mall, and I printed out the barcode "cheat sheets" for the collectible minifigures, and we were on our way. First stop was Toys "Я" Us. We didn't have any problem on the drive there or with getting a parking space. We walked up to the entrance and noticed yellow caution tape that we could tell used to hold a line of people, but had long before been trampled over. I was using the apocalypse scenario as a metaphor, but at that point the look of the entrance of Toys "Я" Us looked kind of post-apocalyptic. Immediately upon entering the store, I felt extremely judgmental as I witnessed all of the people in the crowded store, before realizing that I was one of those people. Still, we seemed to have a different mindset than everyone else, almost like we were just witnessing the events of the night. I realized the worst thing about Black Friday is probably waiting in line for the checkout, because I'm serious when I say that the checkout line wrapped completely around the interior of the store, and that is a huge store. There wasn't anything any of us really wanted, at least not enough to wait in that leviathan of a line. As we were walking empty handed back to the car, I declared that some aspects of Black Friday seemed underwhelming, and other aspects seemed overwhelming. The rest of my fellowship agreed and we journeyed to Carousel Mall.

It was pretty strange to be in the mall in the middle of the night. I've talked with friends before about how it might be fun to be locked in the mall over night or something, but this wasn't anything like that would be. It was actually not too far off from being like any normal day at the mall because there were people everywhere, and except for the lack of sunlight coming through the skylights, there didn't seem to be any evidence of it actually being night time. We went to various stores throughout the night, going to each one we wanted to go to just after it opened to avoid having to wait in lines outside the stores. Since there wasn't any specific items or deals we were going for in the stores, it didn't matter if other people got to them first. Everything was surprisingly casual. Like I said, it just seemed like any other day at the mall. I didn't witness any fights, and no one was even pushy or rude. Is Black Friday not nearly as intense as the media makes it out to be, or do I somehow live in a place surrounded by some kind of enlightened beings that only consume in peace? We actually witnessed a few stores opening, and there weren't lines outside them! The employees just opened up the gate things at the entrances, and customers very casually walked in one at a time at the pace of rainwater dripping off leaves after a storm. The only stores that seemed to have lines and heightened security were the electronics stores. Most of the stores didn't even have very long checkout lines.

Most of what I bought wasn't even for sale, so it kind of was like a regular mall trip to me, just at night. I got some new long sleeve t-shirts that were for sale, a Darth Vader sweater that wasn't for sale, and of course...

Collectible LEGO minifigures. When we got into borders, which was our last stop in the mall, I went straight up to the checkout to check out the LEGO figures. A young woman at the cash register asked me if I was ready to checkout and I told her "No," and that I was looking at the LEGO figures. All they had were Series 2 out of the 3 series available, but that was much better than nothing.


Patrick noticed another box of them a little ways away from the checkout so I went over there to avoid feeling weird about the young ladies at the registers watching me match the barcodes on the packages to the barcodes on my "cheat sheet". I was making a pile of the figures I wanted next to the box, and a couple in their 20's walked up and the woman picked up one of the figures I had already selected. I said "Oh, those are ones I already picked out for myself." and she set it down and apologized. I told her that she didn't have to apologize because I'm just a crazy person, and then I made an offer where if they wanted any specific figures, I could find them for them with the "cheat sheet." They immediately walked away, clearly weirded out by me and my weird display of weirdness. It was really kind of difficult to match up the barcodes, but after a while I was successful in finding all the figures I wanted. After hanging out and looking at stuff in Borders for a while, we decided to make our way back home.

I can say for certain, now that I've held it in my hand, that the tiny minifigure trophy the karate guy figure is holding is the cutest LEGO piece I have ever seen.