Zombies Over Chicken

Had quite an enjoyable time at Andy’s this weekend. I left about 2:00 pm yesterday, had an easy drive up, and was greeted by Andy yelling down from his window. Greg let me in, and I headed upstairs…although I had parked behind a white Carolla, I didn’t quite put two and two together until I saw Matt fiddling with Andy’s “MePod.” Matt gave me one of his new business cards; turns out he’s working for some company that has come into existence because of HIPAA (a health insurance privacy law, which has started to make itself felt at my work).

After more iPod fiddling and watching Andy get kicked, and then kick back (all pretty quickly) in Warcraft III, Matt took off. Sometime here I had some watermelon with Andy’s family, and the discussion somehow turned to chicken feet. Andy and his mom were discussing how some people would (!) fry ’em to gnaw on; Greg then interjected from the couch, “but they’re chicken feet!” Andy then made a comment about how the business major had finally figured out the topic of discussion; I pointed out that Greg had, in my opinion, found the relevant points of the topic.

Andy and I then went out to find a copy of the Bebop movie—he had tried to pick up a copy at Fry’s earlier, but they were apparently sold out—as well as some foodstuffs to throw on the barbecue. After striking out at Fred Meyer’s, whose electronics department layout is mirror-opposite that of the Albany Fred’s, we won at Circuit City. The Cowboy Bebop movie was not in the anime section, however; it was in action. Right next to (the anime version of) Chobits.

Circuit City also uses double-wide receipts, for no discernible reason.

After securing our evening’s entertainment, we hit WinCo Foods. The store layout is almost exactly identical to my local WinCo, which really threw me for a loop. (“I didn’t just drive north for an hour and a half to arrive back home, did I?”)

We returned to find Nick trying to get into Andy’s garage to find some charcoal briquettes for the barbecue. After lighting the flame, we kicked back in the kitchen; Andy and Nick had a beer [to which Eric says “!?”], and then started chanting “drink drink drink” to try and get me to drink one, too. I instead pulled out a “Tropical Sprite Remix.” I gathered it wasn’t too popular in L.O., as it was the same Tropical Sprite Remix as had been available at graduation.

The doorbell rings, and Andy comments that he hopes it’s Tammy, so they can repeat their chant for her. It was Tammy, and so Andy and Nick started up their chant again; I joined in for kicks. [It seems that Tammy’s appearance was also related to Matt’s disappearance earlier, FWIW. Breakups aren’t fun.]

Talk ensues, from the fact that when Rascal (Andy’s large dog) naps you can pretty much do anything to him—illustrated by Andy repeatedly lifting up and dropping one of Rascal’s paws—to Nick’s lawyer-ish work. Andy makes some comment about “if [Nick] keeps this up, [Andy would] be libel to slander him.” Only Andy laughs.

Nate materializes quietly at some point, and Kevin and Lisa show up soon after. We sit out on the back deck and chat as Andy puts chicken on the grill. Nick says that he and Neil were thinking of going to see 28 Days Later, the new zombie movie, sometime Sunday. He then goes on to say that the worst criticism of the movie seems to be that “it doesn’t advance the zombie genre.” We then discuss what might “advance the zombie genre”: Nick suggests that it might be the zombies becoming more picky about what brains they eat—”grr! not smart enough!”—and Kevin adds that the Grade D brain would be relegated to prisons and schools. I had a different train of thought, though, and have a brilliantly simple way to advance the zombie genre: Zombie Shakespeare.

Just think about that for a minute. It’s hilarious.

Andy’s barbecue chicken sandwiches were delicious, and the company was exquisite. After dinner we went upstairs to watch our hard-won Bebop movie, which looked really nice on an HDTV. It’s a fun movie, and people seemed to enjoy it.

People started drifting away after the movie, and soon it was just Andy, Nate, Tammy, and me. Some ice cream and a game of Hearts sprung up, and despite my eating 20 points the first round and dishing the queen to myself on a couple occasions, I didn’t lose. Andy and Tammy both went out in the same hand, and Nate silently whipped us all.

Tammy bid us adieu after her defeat, so we fell back on the PS2 and played some Capcom vs. SNK 2, followed by Guilty Gear X2. As the two games have almost no controls in common, the switch threw us all. I’m happy to say that Andy’s Jam is no longer the top of the heap; my EX-May handily trashes all comers. Heh. I even defeated Potempkin with Axl, which had to be embarrassing for Andy.

Greg had his girlfriend Rachel over as well, and so (as they retired long before we did) Rachel took the guest room and the air mattress that I usually use. I got to sleep on Andy’s floor, which actually wasn’t too bad; his room has a ceiling fan, and that kept the air circulating nicely.

This morning we discovered that it was Greg who pilfered the air mattress and guest room (Rachel used Greg’s room). Ah well. Andy’s parents made a nice breakfast for us all, and afterwards Andy and I played a bit more Guilty Gear, took Rascal out to run around in the grass, and then visited the Washington Square Mall in search of a new hat for Andy. (His old one was lost last weekend—you might recall the California trip I had been invited to join—on the first roller coaster he rode.)

Portland department stores, and by extension Portland department store patrons, seem to favor Oregon over OSU. Inexcusable. Suncoast had a sizable collection of anime DVDs, almost all marked at retail; Electronics Boutique had (per Andy) a plethora of used Harry Potter Gameboy Advance games.

Once we declared defeat in our quest, and just before I headed home, Andy showed the Azumanga Daioh Very Short Movie (which is kind of a five-minute remake of the first episode, with a heavy coat of gloss on everything) and an episode of Azumanga Web Daioh. Yes, Web Daioh does exist! The episode I saw was a film of the class, created for a time capsule, and so was entirely shown through the lens of the camera—a fun twist.

I love Azumanga Daioh.

 

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