Hm.
January 5th-6th
I got a call from mike about an hour before he was supposed to arrive on the 5th saying that he had bought the wrong train tickets and wouldn't be arriving until an hour later than expected. I picked him up at the Wilmington Station, and we went to Arby's for a quick bite to eat. We discussed the $0.01 coupons on the tray, which made their way to FailBlog because idiots didn't understand the marketing campaign (but comments kept calling it "Arbus" instead, so this was clearly worthy of a FailBlog Fail). We took his bags to my house and met my parents, my two dogs beat him up, and we took refuge upstairs. He purchased train tickets online for the next day for his next stop, at which point we headed to the Septa platform in Claymont. I got a call from GerbilSoft making sure that we were coming and we boarded a train for 30th Street Station in Philadelphia to meet him. His voice sounded surprisingly like a jock over the phone, going completely against the mental image I'd had of him.
We ended up talking about TSC on the train ride, because it's more fun in person than on IRC, or something. I commented on the argument #soniccenter had over the competition rules right before I left to pick mike up, then said that I should take a week off from chat before I strangle somebody (I didn't >_>).
We arrived at 30th Street Station, and I said to mike that I had no idea where GerbilSoft is, trying to judge what he'd look like based on the impression of him I formed from his voice over the phone. Right after saying this, I heard, "I'm right here," and turned around to see somebody in a trenchcoat holding a silver briefcase. I started hearing that song "Secret *beat* Ag-ent Man, Se-cret..." in my head, but didn't say anything aloud. We followed GerbilSoft to his workplace, where he showed us a heck of broken and/or old computers, and then went to his dorm. We needed IDs to get in, and I almost panicked when I couldn't find it when mike pointed out that I'd moved it to my jacket pocket. In his dorm, GerbilSoft showed us some of the projects he was working on such as his emulator, and mike did a lot of smiling and nodding as the discussion went over his head while I hung on by a thread with sparse bits of knowledge I'd picked up on my way to Tech Membership at Sonic Retro. We ended up playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the rest of the night, and while I won most of the matches, they weren't easy matches by any means, and I realized that I really miss having live competition. We also had a Manaphy appear, but it was during the all-Sonic match we had before we left, so it was more of a Manaphail. (Another Manaphy appeared during a match of me vs. DsS later that week and it worked; my karma must've been awesome). We went to the train station and GerbilSoft saw us off.
On the train, I went to apologize to mike that the day was a bit dull, but he was falling asleep with his head on the seat in front of him, so I figured it was probably better that way anyway. It was late when we made it back home and he had an early train on the way out, so the rest of his time here consisted of him getting on the Internet to keep in touch with people while I was playing the cool parts of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games.
The next day, we made it to Wilmington Station with plenty of time left to go before his train left, so we sat down and waited. His train was then delayed 10 minutes. 10 minutes later, the train was delayed indefinitely. 30 minutes after that, Amtrak gave him tickets for the express train going to the same destination at 1:12pm. I pointed out that it's 1:09pm right now, and we ran to the platform where the train arrived, and he left. I stood there on the platform watching it pull away, then went home.
Exciting stuff.
January 12th-13th
Mom made something I didn't particularly care for for dinner, so I spent about a half-hour making and then eating Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. I went back to my computer afterwards to find MSN blinking.
(5:57 PM) Mike:
hey thorn, you there?
(5:57 PM) Thorn:
yep
caught me just as I came back
(5:57 PM) Mike:
heh
if there's a couple of missed calls on your phone they're from me >_>
(5:58 PM) Thorn:
...oh, what's going on?
phone was off, sorry
(5:58 PM) Mike:
I'm in philly and have nowhere to go >_>
(5:58 PM) Thorn:
oh, heh
where in Philly?
(5:58 PM) Mike:
well I say that, I could -get- myself somewhere to go right now
at 30th street, just got off a train
I do have friends here >_> but they can't put me up for a night so I'm going to have to see them tomorrow
(6:00 PM) Thorn:
heh, iono the local train schedule for today, I think it changed yesterday from what it was last week
lemme check it out
(6:00 PM) Mike:
hahaha
(6:01 PM) Thorn:
not actually sure, but I thought I saw a sign while I was waving goodbye at your train that said the schedule chaged yesterday
(6:03 PM) Thorn:
so what's going on, you want me to come up there, or do you need a place to crash again?
(6:03 PM) Mike:
I hate to ask... but yeah, a place to crash
Thank God I didn't take that week off from chat, or I'd've never gotten the message: my phone had no memory of the calls. I picked mike up at the Claymont platform at about 7:15pm, and given that we didn't really do much last time outside of ride trains and talk, I decide to head to the bowling alley instead of heading home and doing nothing. I go to enter our names onto the scoreboard, and get stuck before deciding on TALLMIKE and SHORTMIKE. TALLMIKE pulls 7 to 9 pins every frame consistently while I get between 1 and 8. Eight frames in, it's 88-60 in TALLMIKE's favor. He ended with 100 even. I bowled a double followed by two throws for a few and end with 102. BS was called during the game. We went home and played 1 vs. 100 Live, where mike was surprisingly competent with American trivia. The rest of the night was spent watching SDA Marathon runs such as Pianotoads and eating chicken nuggets.
The next day, mike tried to book train tickets for an 11:36pm train from Wilmington to New York City, but his card was denied, so we decided to purchase them at the train station before he left. I took mike to the Claymont platform where he left to meet some friends at Villanova. While he was gone, I had another friend call, and we hung out for the time being. I got a text from mike later on saying
Hey mike, going to
get the 5:14 back, 8
minutes late
so I went to the platform again to meet him. The train arrived 35 minutes late, which was followed by a 20-minute line to leave the parking lot. We made it back home at about 7pm, and his train left at 11:36pm, so we had time to get his stuff together and to play a rousing game of Sonic Shuffle. I beat a CPU with an emblem tie but more rings, and mike sat in last place. :( We then played a bit of Sonic Adventure 2 and experienced the most epic camera screw known to man. We drove to Wilmington Station, where the ticket counters were closed and the electronic ticket machines wouldn't take his card either. We spent the next 45 minutes panicking until the train came, at which point a security guard explained the situation to the staff on the train, and mike was allowed to purchase on-board. I'd given mike money in case there was a surcharge for the late purchase, and before leaving I said, "See you later." I then started leaving, thought about it, walked back, and said, "wait, no I won't."
It was more fun than it sounds. It also turns out that there was no surcharge, so hopefully mike put that money to good use while meeting flyby and SonicAD.
