How do I start the story of Atlantic City Weekend?


...I really don't know. Should I start at the beginning? Okay. Be warned. Spelling = Horrible


Thursday -

I got picked up on Thursday after hanging out eating dinner with my classmate Aaron, trying my best to learn Spanish. I give him extra credit for having red hair. I had red hair last semester. It'll probably be blue soon. But not yet. Anywho, my dad was pretty much hanging out at the rest stop before the New Paltz exit. I love my dad's beef stew and I made sure I ate some before fish Friday popped up.

Friday -

Waking up early to uh...yeah! Get a haircut. Then picking up 3 day fish feeder. Then... lying on my lazy bum. Doing a little laundry, and a little ironing. I dropped the iron twice. A little scary, but my floor is cool like that. Shrimp and Broccoli tasted good. Battered shrimp for dinner. Shrimp lo mein as a midnight snack. Umm...not packing. Food channel is now channel 66 and not 90. That's good. Did I ever mention that I gave up vending machine food for lent? But not vending machine drinks.

Saturday before limo-

Last minute packing is a wonderful thing. I've been all happy about getting me a griever/lion heart necklace (see This and Who Wears it) so I’ve been wearing it like crazy (though I’ve brought back "old school key" to New Paltz so I’ll be sporting it too) and today was no exception. I had to remember my glasses, razor, ipod charger, cell phone charger, nintendo ds charger, and my yu-gi-oh cards so I could play with Justin. I also packed a shirt for lea salonga's concert. I wore the same pair of jeans on Saturday and Sunday, no big whoop. Guys can do that. And I’m more of a light packer for short term (and a massive packer for college). Though i brought my laptop back for the weekend, I decided to not bring it. I dunno why thinking about it now. My parents were all packed up mysteriously before me. I dunno how when my mom packed the same time I did and I had less items. She even brought her maroon "Jessica Simpson" shawl which she never wore. Umm...contacts put on, changed, beef stew for breakfast, a quick spritz of shake hair thingy from fructis and we were off to the limo which was gonna pick us up at Arlyne's house.

Saturday pre-limo-time -

So of course we arrive first and Uncle Art is handing us doughnuts and offering us drinks via the "cup of joe" box from Dunkin Doughnuts. My mom was amazed by the massive size of the goldfish they had, and a little disappointed by the lack of decor in the tank. I didn't remember them having a bird. His name is Derrick and I guess he likes Uncle Art the most because he is tame when Uncle Art was "handling" him. Derrick must like my mom too because he flew to my mother, not scaring her, just a little surprise. I didn't realize how much Reggaeton Arlyne had. A few test pictures from Uncle Art. A few from Julienne. Justin asking me if I have my cards. Justin was looking spiffy for the ride on the limo; he had the dress pants and the button shirt without tie. Everyone slowly showed up. Aunty Pricilla last... actually everyone was in the limo when she showed up.

Saturday Limo-time -

The limo was a little more cramped than I expected. For an eighteen-seater, seventeen is a bit much. I finally used the Nintendo DS's pictochat ability and I was "IM-ing" Justin. With no wires! That's really cool. Then there was a little bit of me losing the multiplayer Mario game thingie. But we won't dwell on that. We had a pee break at Cheesquake. Cheesequake. No really that's what it's called. And everyone was looking at us emerging from the limo like we were important. (Of course i am very important) A little bit of a seat change solved everything, Julienne, Arlyne and I sat in the back and with the kids somewhere close to the front it alleviated the leg problem. A bad game of scrabble where Julienne and I had to make fake words and we had to "mulligan" our first letters, I had all vowels. In the midst of this weird Filipino stories and Filipino jokes from the parents. Did you know that Uncle Robert (auntie Pricilla’s husband) doesn't know how to speak Tagalog but can understand many of the words? Heh, I’m not the only one.

Saturday post-limo, pre-lea festivities -

We used the VIP check in. My family's room was 3005. Dad said something about three plus five equaling eight. And I tried my best to remember if that was a good hand in baccarat. I must recheck the rules for baccarat and pai gow poker. I did my norm boardwalk walk. There's no more Dance Dance Revolution at Ripley's! That's bastardly. I had one of those "sandwich" pizzas with a whole ton of meat inside. Yummy. I then walked the other direction (from Taj to Ceasars and then Ceasars to Tropicana) to get to the Arcade. Grr that M. Bison. I made it all the way to him with one quarter and then I get crushed. Meanie. I played a little bit of video poker and this one slot machine that I think is cool, but gives out these five point coins. I get twenty-five point coins from the video poker. I got enough points to go get two yu-gi-oh booster packs and a deck of cards, I had some excess but I try my best to save up on them. I went back to the hotel room and my mother informed me that we were going to church. We wanted to take a jitney (Aunty Marlette, Uncle Lito, Julienne, Arlyne, My Mom, and I) but the two that passed us by were full. So we took two cabs over to the church. I believe it's St. Nicholas. It's beautiful outside. If I had extra money I'd give that church money for support. I hear they only have two hundred registered parishioners, compared to three thousand they had years ago. So they depend on the visitors to help. I put in a dollar. My mom put in eleven. I think Aunty Marlette put in five, but that's not the point. The priest had a cool Frenchish accent. And there was a "doorbell" sounding button that the organist had. That was so cool. If I could pick what would define what a church would look like, I'd pick that church. I liked it a lot in there. After the mass we split Jitneys (since finding a five empty seat jitney is stupid) and my mother and I went first since my mom wanted to eat. So we paid fifty dollars (crazy!) via comp to eat at the buffet. We figure that the buffet was faster. The food was good. I had my key-lime pie (good) and my mom had this peach/pear thing (It wasn't that good). And we waited by the Cleopatra machines to meet up with the rest of the people. While watching, Julienne instructed me to take a picture of Arlyne and her walking. It turns out that (according to her) I take good pictures. If she posts (or e-mails, hint-hint) let's hope they look good for my sake.

Saturday: Lea Salonga -

I feel so tall amongst the sea of Filipinos. But it wasn't just Filipinos. It was broken into 4 categories: a) Filipinos b) Musical Fans c) Lea Salonga fans and d) Four year olds that watched Aladdin or Mulan. There were tons of empty seats on the sides. So it wasn't really sold out. She had quite a few good songs. It made me want to check out the musical "Chess" by the two B's of ABBA. The wonderful song she sang was 'Someone Else's Story.' I found a version of it by Dennis DeYoung...I might sing it one day. She also sang this song "Anak" originally sung by Freddie Aguilar...that might show up somewhere soon too. I loved the concert. It was cool. I think that Lea was trying to go for more of "An Intimate Night With Lea Salonga" because (I know she doesn't have the budget as Josh Groban but) it wasn't that visually happy like Josh Groban's concert. Very Jazzy. Ooh, yeah creepy white guy (that falls in category b) musical fans) checking me out during the break, now I know how it feels like for eyes to be lasering you. I knew this because I turned really quick when I passed him by and he was staring at me while walking the other direction. Eww. But I did like the Lea Salonga concert, and that's all that matters.

Saturday: Post-Lea Salonga -

So Julienne and Arlyne were hungry so we managed to find Aunty Priscilla and we ate at Cafe Roma. I had a fruit salad. It was good. Aunty Pricilla is so... talkative. She kept going on and on with these stories of Mariah Carey, and knowing Rudy Giuliani. It was cool/annoying. It felt like she couldn't do anything but talk about herself and her family. And I remember a certain talkative person during the Christmas party talking for said son. That sang the same song. But let's not say anything else. We then watched Taxi. Bad acting. Good visuals. But what would you expect in a Jimmy Fallon movie? Nothing much really. I taught Julienne Castles. Castles will slowly creep in and be the next Uno.

Sunday -

So I went to sleep at 2:30 and woke up at 9. Yep, I’m weird like that. I was refreshed and when we went downstairs some of the families were awake. The adults (except for aunty Lia [heh, i never know how to spell that]) went to the "head honcho" club, did I tell you my dad was accepted? Heh. My mom after years and years, then my dad wins something and they like him more now. But I ate breakfast with auntie Lia and the kids (Justin, Andrew, Allison, and Alex) at cafe roma. I must remind myself to have the ham egg and cheese in a croissant next time, it was good. Afterwards, I hung out with the kids in the room and Arlyne, who woke up late, was eating half a bagel. We went to shop at the outlet, but before that Arlyne wanted to check a bootleg cd/dvd store before Julienne showed up, so we did. And it wasn't that selectively nice. So we walked back, trying to figure out the phrase in the song "Let's get blown." We agreed that the girl says, "Gonna get my thrills" but we both had different ideas for the idea before we agreed. I still like, "Gonna get my grills," but it's just because it's funny. We then went outlet shopping with Aunty Lia and Julienne. Auntie Lia bought a coach bag and shoes for Justin. Julienne got some stuff from The Gap. Arlyne got pants from the gap and some shoes with a very short heel. And me? I got an "outfit" at the gap. We then illegally snuck through the casino of Ballys to get some of the cool soup that this Chinese store has. It was good. I had a number one which had pork, water crest, and ginger. Julienne wanted a hot dog right after so we got one at a store next-door from the Chinese booth. We then had to sneak back through Ballys to get to Wild Wild West, where Julienne wanted Lemon Jelly filled Doughnuts. Then Julienne realized that she needed ketchup so we walked to a little side store called ... something Express. Probably Caesars express. But it was closed and there were these bars covering the window. But there was ketchup right on the other side of the bars. Julienne tried to get it, but she couldn't reach. So I tried. Right as I grabbed two packets. The cash register started to print something and we got freaked out and ran. Today's goal was to get Julienne a "body" shot. And it turned out well for her. After that, I corrupted the children by teaching them Castles. I got a call from my mother saying that I had to give my card to Auntie Susie since she was arriving then. With the kids. I thought it was funny that right as we were leaving, they were arriving. Limo ride. Snow. Bad game of scrabble. A stop at cheesequake. Cheesequake. Can you see I'm trying to fast-forward as fast as possible? Arlyne taking lotsa crazy pictures of mostly her, since she kept cutting me off. Ipod is the best thing when bored.

Umm...I think that's it. If not I'll put some side posts in the comments or something.

-Mike

PS After this post I downloaded someone else's story karaoke. So...maybe expect it one day. I dunno, the key is a little low for my taste, maybe if someone could help me up the thing by a step or something, please help. Maybe Chris, you could learn the thing on piano. And you know...transpose it.