Category Archives: Travel

Bye weak, buy week

Posted on October 10, 2011 | Leave a comment

So the Phillies got bounced from the playoffs in the first round against the St. Louis Cardinals after the team’s bats got put to sleep against Chris Carpenter’s pitching. Then on Sunday, the Eagles beat themselves with stupid turnovers and penalties, allowing the Buffalo Bills to just sit, point and laugh. Had it not been for the Flyers shutting out the Devils or the Union clawing their way back into the playoff hunt, it would have been a lousy weekend to be a Philly sports fan.

There was a bright spot to the weekend, though…I got a chance to visit three flea markets and a farmer’s market. The latter was being held at Clark Park, probably not too far from where the “Occupy Philadelphia” protests were scheduled to take place…although I didn’t see anyone with costumes or placards until I went to the first flea market at a Presbyterian church, of all places. I managed to pick up some decent books (including Heir to the Empire, the first of the Star Wars “Thrawn trilogy” books, and a couple of Oscar Wilde plays, because I haven’t read a stage play since 12th grade Honors English and was curious), along with a few relatively current video games (Enslaved, Vanquish, and Data East Arcade Classics) from a game store located in the Drexeline shopping center. Oh, and also Mega Man X Command Mission, because I still need to play that and X8 to complete my collection. I didn’t like X7 very much, but I do intend to finish it one day.

Apparently, someone at the DCCC flea market had a hardcover copy of The Legend of Rah and the Muggles for sale for $1 (yup, the picture’s real, superfluous trademark symbols and all). I’ve heard a lot of silly things about this book, but I didn’t have any idea that it actually existed outside of the “Muggles” lawsuit. I didn’t buy it, of course; why spend money on buying a bad book for collection’s sake when you can laugh at what others have to say about it for free?

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Posted in Literature, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Shopping, Sports, Travel, Wii, Xbox 360

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Once upon a time up in Jersey, yo

Posted on September 5, 2011 | Leave a comment

And so, I did go on my journey to North “Joisey” to hang out with Sara for the weekend, and we both saw that it was good.

Getting there from Philly was a bit of an adventure. I’m used to getting my SEPTA tickets or tokens from the people at the booths at 69th St. NJ Transit trains have automated ticket booths at every station. So if you’re going to purchase a ticket that makes a connection at a different stop, you’ll need to buy them at the first stop instead of getting two separate tickets (I had to do that going into Ridgewood to get to my hotel, and then again from Westwood coming home on Sunday). With the connection times so close together and the on and off tracks at Secaucus Junction a few minutes of walking apart, I wondered if I were going to miss one of my trains and wind up late. Luckily, everything worked out in the end, so I’m happy.

We spent a lot of the day watching the first half of Season 2 of Avatar: the Last Airbender, making it roughly to the part where I had paused my Netflix viewing of the show (“The Great Library”). I got a chance to meet and talk to her parents at dinner. After that, we watched some Nostalgia Critic videos, a few of which I hadn’t yet watched before. The one that got me laughing the most was the anti-drug PSAs list. Honestly, you have to wonder whether or not some of the folks making these commercials were taking drugs themselves. How else would you be able to explain Paul Reubens, completely in-character as Pee-Wee Herman, talking deadly serious about the dangers of crack, while still doing the Pee-Wee voice?

I spent Saturday night at La Quinta Inn in Paramus, waking up feeling like a king. I had originally booked a room with a queen-sized bed, but at least one room with a king-size was available, so they let me stay in that room at no extra charge. Wasn’t really interested in watching TV, so I tried playing some Etrian Odyssey before going to bed I didn’t have enough strength to get past the Fenrir…I need to remember not to let my Landschnekt use his War Cry ability, even with his defense buffed to the max, or the Fenrir will surely tear him a new one.

I woke up the next morning close to 6 AM (I’m an early bird, see?) and had a hearty breakfast of waffles, cereal, yogurt and orange juice. I wonder if their waffle makers are sold in stores, because I want one so badly now.

Back at Sara’s place, we took a little tour of the stores on the street. Most of them were closed on account of it being the Sunday before Labor Day, but the good news is that she doesn’t have far to go if she ever needs a particular item. It was hot and humid outside, so we went back inside to watch The Neverending Story for the first time, and had a rematch in Pokémon Black and White (she won again, but I actually had a fighting chance because our Pokémon were auto-balanced to level 50, and only lost 6-4 as a result), finally ending by messing around with some of the functions of the C-Gear that I hadn’t tried yet. I also wanted to do a joint Entralink trip, but for some reason we couldn’t make a connection. Eh…that’s life, I guess.

If I were to give this weekend a report card-style grade, I’d give it an A-. The only thing preventing me from giving it an A was the wait I had to getting home. I really should have planned that out better. Other than that, I had a wonderful time, and I hope to meet up with her again one day.

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Posted in Friends, Internet, Life, Nintendo DS, Travel

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Irene, Catherine and Sara

Posted on August 30, 2011 | Leave a comment

Hurricane Irene barreled its way up the East Coast over the weekend, and as is typical of fierce storms that threaten the Philadelphia metro area, there was a lot of rain and wind, but not to the degree of devastation that some of the coastal states got. It started out as a Category 3 storm, but was downgraded to a Category 1 by the time it reached the mid-Atlantic. I’d imagine a lot of people were disappointed when they didn’t see flying cows miles and miles of smashed windows, but I’ll bet some of them changed their tune when they saw their cars submerged in 4-5 feet of water. My town always seems to avoid the worst of it, except for one part that’s maybe only a few feet above Darby Creek. Of course, it got flooded, but most of the floodwaters washed away on Sunday anyway.

Luckily, I had enough time to finish Catherine before things got really ugly. I had trouble getting through the last few levels of Stage 7 and had to resort to video walkthroughs to figure out just what the hell I was supposed to do. 7-4 is deceptively easy-looking, as you only have to climb up four stories to reach the exit, but the block configuration is extremely tricky. Stages 8 and 9 after that were easy in comparison. I expected 8 to be a pain in the ass, since it’s an escort mission within a boss battle. Luckily, the escortee is smart about climbing, even if she is a bit slow. The black hole blocks that appear in Stage 9 suck up anything and everything above them, so you have to be smart enough not to try to climb onto one if you don’t want to die. I finished the game with the “True Lovers” ending, because I was determined throughout the game to not make Katherine want to kill me.

In much less depressing news, I’m going to pay a visit to Sara’s house for the weekend. I’m excited because I’m finally going to get to meet her face-to-face (we’ve talked to each other on a regular basis since the beginning of the year, and exchanged pictures and phone numbers and all that good stuff), but I’m fairly nervous because it’s a long way from Philadelphia to her home in norther New Jersey. Since the trip requires me to take multiple trains, I need to make sure that all of the arrival and departure times sync up properly so that I don’t miss one and wind up being late – in the words of the White Rabbit, “for a very important date”.

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Posted in Friends, Life, PlayStation 3, Travel, Video Games

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Family Vacation 2011

Posted on August 4, 2011 | 2 Comments

I’d been out of commission for almost the last week or so because I’d been out visiting the Wildwoods with my family. It’s been a tradition of ours to go down there every July or August. I missed out on it last year because I’d been laid off, so it was relieving to get to go back down there this year. I was able to get some good photos this time around, and I’ve posted them to one of my Flickr albums.

Sunday: We arrived at our hotel and took a walk on the beach. The ocean water was a bit warmer than it was in recent years. Either that, or I’ve grown accustomed to taking dips in the water on a regular basis.

Later on that night, we went to the boardwalk, and found out that one of Mom and Dad’s favorite arcades, the Supercade, had gone out of business and replaced with a store called the 5 Mile Marketplace. That’s where they used to win a majority of their stuffed animals, but since that’s gone, they didn’t do much this year. Me and my sister, on the other hand, cleaned up at the Mariner’s Arcade just across the street. Those slot machines give away tokens like it’s Christmas.

Monday: Dad was able to figure out how we could get Internet access while we were here. I had to take my laptop down to the sundeck, since I couldn’t get any kind of signal within my room. While unfair, I think it makes sense, since wireless receivers don’t really have enough range to reach every room in the hotel.

I also managed to beat Z.H.P.: Unlosing Ranger vs. Darkdeath Evilman twice in the span of 15 minutes – once normally, and the second time on a zillion-to-one critical hit chance in the first encounter with the final boss. The game’s got multiple endings based on when and how you beat Darkdeath, so I’m going to keep my save and try to get them all.

We didn’t get much boardwalk time done, since my sister spotted this wicked storm cloud that just kept growing and growing until it enveloped the entire sky above us. Rain and thunderstorms were inevitable, so we had to go back for the good of our health.

Tuesday, sis and I cashed in our arcade tickets for candy and a few small stuffed animals. We got the small ones since we didn’t want to overstuff our car coming back home (it’s been known to happen a few times in the past; I don’t think we have any of those stuffed animals now).

On Wednesday, we took two trips to the boardwalk – once in the morning to get souvenirs, and later at night to play miniature golf on one of those glow-in-the-dark courses. Getting down there by ourselves was easy, but we had a harder time getting back, because the trolley stops between the Mariner’s Water Park and the south end weren’t clearly marked (we didn’t see our first one until we reached the Convention Center). We did make it back in time to start packing up our stuff, though, so at least we had that going for us.

Arrived at home today at around 10:30 AM, and as with all of our previous vacations, I’m glad I got away, but also thankful to be using my own stuff after a while. Mom and Dad don’t know if they’re going to come back down to Wildwood next year, but at least we had the time and resources to do it this time around. Thanks, you guys…you’re the best!

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Posted in Family, Internet, Life, PSP, Travel, Video Games

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