May’s Long Weekend: A Summary

Alrighty.. first of all, on Saturday, me, Ben, and Quin all went paint-balling.
It started off kind of bad, even, so I guess I should’ve known the day would go to hell, but in the end, while it wasn’t the best paintballing experience, I had fun with my friends. Anyway, it’s probably best that I start at the beginning… (cue flashback chimes/music)

Woke up, got out of bed, ran a comb across my hea–wait, those are the lyrics to “A Day in the Life,” by The Beatles.

Anyway, I got up abruptly to the sound of my phone ringing. “Quin’s ring tone. What does he want? It’s 9:47, he’s not supposed to be here ’til 11,” I think to myself. I slowly rose to get the phone, just as it stopped ringing. “Great,” I gargled. I picked up the phone, and pressed 18–the speed dial for Quin’s house. I hit send, and suddenly I heard Quin on the other end. “Hello?” he asked. I responded in some sort of strange gargling/gurgling noise that can only be described as Chewbacca in a blender on “Puree.” He must’ve known it was me, because he said: “Yeah, I’m going to have to pick you up at about 10:20, my mom’s on a bit of a deadline.” Having just glanced at the phone, I knew it was 9:50. I thought to myself: “I have to get ready in half an hour, when I’m this tired? Good luck.” but said: “Sure, that’s fine.” to Quin. He hung up, and I proceeded to the shower.

I won’t bore/disgust you with the details, but I went through my morning routine –albeit quickly, I might add –tried to dress camo-ey, and proceeded to head upstairs and await Quin’s arrival. When he arrived, I got into his van, and we head out to town. We stopped at the Royal Bank in Sechelt, and his mom popped out to grab some cash.

I don’t quite remember what we talked about, but I’m sure it had something to do with Quin’s remorse at having to wake Ben up so early, when he said he didn’t wish to be disturbed until at least noon, but we had talked him down to 11:30. It was 10:35.

When his mom got back, we headed over to Ben’s, unloaded the paintball equipment from the back of his van, and put it in front of Ben’s house. We went in, said “Hi”, and what-not, and somehow ended up eating bacon…

Anyway, when we were finaly ready to head out to get the C02 tanks filled, and buy some paintballs, we first had to stop by the Daily Roast for a muffin and a croissant (or similar choice) since his mom had to drop his sister off at work, as well.

Instead of realizing that I’m big, and Ben’s big, and Quin can’t handle being squashed between us in the back of a stationwagon, Ben’s sister Amanda sat in the front, thus killing Quin slightly, and making me sore.

After we dropped her off, I got into the front, and after a bit of adjustment, we were good to go. We head out to the local “Source for Sports” to fill our tanks and get some ammo. When we arrived, they had only 500 paintballs (a 20 oz. tank will fire around 1500-2000, if you’re lucky, apparently) and barely filled our tanks. We headed out to Canadian Tire, much to Sheila’s chagrin, and bought more paintballs there. I ended up having 500 yellow ones, and 500 pink ones. Ben had 500ish green ones, and Quin got 750ish white-filled purple ones. On top of that, I had the smallest C02 tank, at only 12 ounces.

Anyway, we head back to Ben’s house, assembled our guns, filled the hoppers with paintballs, filled the pods with excess ammo, and threw all of that (other than the guns) into Ben’s back pack. Quin got into his camo, and I got ready to complain as we head up the hill behind Ben’s house, to the middle of a giant field full of telephone poles and old rusty junker cars. A good place for paintball, eh?

We were excited, so we each shot off quite a bit of paint on the way up, at random rocks, abandoned car corspes, and other stuff like trees. By the time we reached the top, I had shot off a whole hopper full of paint (200 balls), and Ben and Quin had each shot about half of that. We started our first match, me and Ben (newbies, if you will, as this was my first time, and Ben’s second) versus Quin (a seasoned veteran? Well, maybe not, but he knew what he was doing). Quin had the high ground, we had the low. We had to get past him and touch the telephone poles up at the top of the hill, atop what we call the “sitting rocks.”

Anyway, right off the bat, Quin tried to shoot Ben, and the ball went over his shoulder, and hit me in the leg. I was out. Whee. After that, I realized my gun was malfunctioning anyway, as it wouldn’t even fire properly. Quin’s shortly did the same thing, and Ben shot Quin in the back. We realized we were all out C02, and were infuriated. Needless to say, we hucked some of our paintballs around, made a mess on the rocks, and then headed out to Chatelech Secondary School to await a ride from Quin’s mom, as you’re not really supposed to walk around with paintball guns in public. Hell, taking them to Chat was risky, but we figured we weren’t hurting anyone anyway.

After a while of sitting, we headed down to the Source for Sports, and they refilled our tanks. By refilled, I mean they gave us another 200 rounds’ worth. They admitted their tank or nozzle was malfunctioning, and said that we could have that refill for free. We headed out, and got a ride to Quin’s place. Gave his dog a walk, and then got a ride to my place. We went into the woods behind my house near the stream, and shot off some rounds, etc, and had another match. Me and Quin versus Ben. Unfair, you say? Well, yeah, but it was fun.

That is, it was fun until Ben’s gun sprung a leak, and he had to take out his C02 tank. Then my gun misfired and the barrel was full of broken cloggy paintball. Then Quin’s gun stopped firing properly, as it ran out of C02. We took turns using Quin’s main gun (did I forget to mention I was using his secondary one?) with our tanks to shoot off as many paintballs as possible, and I even got to shoot Ben in the chest. It was hawtsome.

Anyway, after that, we took them back to my place, and I grabbed my laundry and head over to Quin’s house. We were going there anyway, to return his guns and see a movie, and since my washer and dryer aren’t working properly, I asked if I could do my laundry there. I did so while we watched “The Prestige,” and awesome movie. After that, we ate spaghetti for dinner, and each got a ride home.

It was a good day, all in all, though too full of disappointments.

–

On Sunday, I went to the city to do a bit of shopping, and see “Shrek the Third.”

The movie was pretty good, and I had a free admission from buying Shrek 2, which was cheaper than the cost of seeing Shrek 3, so, it was all worth it.
I spent the rest of the day shopping–and subsequently updating my “Books” and “Music, Movies, and Games” pages when I got home! –so here’s a list of what I got:

      Books:

      The Younger Gods (Book 4 of 4) – David & Leigh Eddings
      The Wilding – C.S. Friedman
      Halo: The Fall of Reach – Eric Nylund
      Halo: The Flood – Eric Nylund
      Halo: First Strike – Eric Nylund
      Halo: Ghosts of Onyx – Eric Nylund

      Games:

      Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (Collector’s Edition)

Yeah, I bought a lot of books. On top of that, recently I’ve received ten-or-so books in the mail, ordered the complete Harry Potter series from Amazon.ca (to be shipped upon the release of “The Deathly Hallows”) and I still have to read “The Dreamers” series by David & Leigh Eddings that I’ve bought thus far, as well as The Swans’ War by Sean Russell.

I’m behind on my books, but I’ve also read about five in the last month alone, so.. I’m confident I’ll finish ‘em soon enough. ;) I’m thinking about starting on The Wilding, since I’m in love with C.S. Friedman’s writing style, and the storyline of In Conquest Born –which I’ve read over six times now –et al, but I’d also like to read the Halo series, to get me pumped for Halo 3′s release in September… but there’s the whole summer for that, right?

Oh, and the only reason I bought Lost Planet was it was on sale.

On Monday, I plan on lounging around my house in a sleepy daze, playing Lost Planet, playing the Halo 3 beta, and perhaps watching the pilot for “Heroes.”

Anyway, this post is much too long now, and I don’t expect anyone to read through the whole thing. It just feels good to write it out, eh?

Oh, and as an end note, if there are any weird errors with the post, I wrote part of it in my browser, ’til my server went down temporarily, then wrote s’more in Wordpad, then wrote some more in my browser again, so… there might be formatting errors.

May 20, 2007 · Filed Under Journal, Projects

Comments

2 Responses to “May’s Long Weekend: A Summary”

  1. Jenna Bush on May 23rd, 2007 8:55 pm

    Have you seen the Lost season finale yet? Ass-kickin’!!

  2. The Lazy Canadian on May 24th, 2007 7:06 pm

    No, not yet.

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