The Homefront

This past summer, I remember blowing through most of a roll of film at Otakon 2003 (Sadly, I had bought 4 other rolls and never used them). I will get around to sharing some of the Otakon 2003 and explaining other things that I never mentioned in my lecture, but for now, these are some pictures that I took to kill off the roll.


Pictured: Toothbrush holder
Two entries ago, I mentioned that I gave a toothbrush holder to Erin as a present. The shot is a bit out of focus and was taken on the floor at my house, but you can probably "see" things more clearly if they are explained. Anyways, it holds four toothbrushes and it looked like a bathroom sink complete with faucet and hot-cold handles. If you can see a yellow dot there, it is supposed to be a rubber ducky. I am sure that women go nuts over cute stuff like it, but I have no regrets about giving it to Erin; she will put it to good use.


Pictured (Left to Right): Matt Wilson, Brandon Arce, Meghan Turk, and Lance Joseph
Okay, story time.

I already said that I needed to explain the Brandon-Meghan connection two entries ago. Well, here is the deal: they are back together again. However, it is not as simple as that. I already previous mentioned a while ago how Brandon and Meghan had broken up because her mother had walked in on her while her lips were wrapped around Brandon's penis, and that had been the end of their relationship. After some turbulent shit involving Brandon making fun of Meghan and a lot of drugs being done (All on Brandon's part), Brandon matured. Towards the end of this summer, Brandon had told me that he and Meghan were cool once again, and he gradually began inviting her to do stuff with us from bonfires to hanging out wherever. Eventually, he told me that he was in love with Meghan, and this came as a mild shock to me. Then, I remember driving back to my house from Brandon's place one night, leaving Meghan there to chat it up with him; as soon as I stepped into the door, the phone started ringing. I picked it up immediately (My parents were sleeping), and the only words I can clearly remember to this day are "Eric, I told her that I loved her, and she said the same thing back." In short, both of them are back together, and this time, they are taking the relationship very seriously. Whatever they do, I hope that they end up happy.

And I dare not forget my brother, Lance. Yes, my fraternal twin brother (No, he does not stutter) does not look very much like me at all. Anyways... well, he is my brother. There is not much else I really can say about him. Given a certain subject, I could rant on and on about this or that pertaining to my brother, but I have already talked a bit about him throughout these posts.

Matt Wilson is someone I will probably never forgot; not because he is particularly memorable, but rather, because it seems like he is a test in extremes. On one hand, Matt is a painfully nice man who will do almost anything, and on the other hand, he is a pathetic pothead/alcoholic who cannot control himself. The bad part is that these aspects are dual-edged. Allow me to elaborate. Matt is incredibly nice; he will bend over backwards and crack his skull open just so you can have a sip of cool water. The bad part about this is that other people realize this, and thus, they take advantage of Matt. These other people range from his friends to his family to even his girlfriend. I mean, I really do like him as a friend, but there is hardly anyone in his life that does not stomp all over him. Basically, this aspect of him can be summed up in one word: lemming. Yet, the other aspect is almost entirely opposite. Matt does not do drugs or alcohol a whole lot, but whenever he does, he quickly goes from manageable to ridiculously fucked up. I have lost count of the number of times where he has drank so much that he even has a problem falling on the ground and where he gets so high that he forgets most of the English language. And I find this quietly sad: he is a good person, but he will forever allow people to use him until he "grows some balls" and can get other people to properly respect him.

Now, as far as the picture is concerned, we were all in Brandon's basement screwing around with Matt's old potato gun. Meghan is holding a screwdriver (The mixed drink) in her hand, and Matt is pouring himself a glass of Banker's Club vodka to mix with orange juice. Lance is busy checking the potato gun to make sure that the igniter/sparker works properly. I was just sort of chilling out on a chair when I took this picture.


Pictured (Left to Right): Brandon Arce, Meghan Turk, Andy Arce, Lance Joseph, and Steven Whetstone
This picture was taken a mere three minutes after the previous one. Steve had shown up at Brandon's house (Probably because he could not spend any time with Allison that night), and Brandon's father (Andy Arce) had come down into the basement. At this point, Andy is probably telling Meghan crazy stories about his college days spent driving through Oklahoma and Texas, and meanwhile, Brandon was goofing around and pointing the unloaded potato gun in Steve's general direction.

Anyways, what happened was that we realized that the potato gun still worked, so Matt and I drove to the local Walmart to pick up hairspray and a bag of potatoes. Forty-five minutes later, we were back at Brandon's house and ready to rock. That was my first, solid experience with a potato gun; learning the Do's and Don'ts were not that difficult, but actually firing off the gun is not as simple as it may seem. After we blew through most of the bag of potatoes, one of them got stuck in the tube too far, and since Matt had installed a safety screw that would prevent a potato from sliding into the expansion chamber, we had no means to take it out. However, it was still quite a lot of fun while it lasted.

Oh yeah, and there is a much better picture of Lance.


Pictured: My Desk
Here is the first picture of my desk. Yes, this is not exactly the most exciting thing, but I wanted to get a shot of part of it so I could kill off the roll. You can see most of my anime DVDs on the left side of the desk (Click here to see what I have), and my computer on the right. In between both of those is a CD rack that holds practically all of the games that I have. Sadly, on the very top are all of the Star Wars books that I have. I still cannot believe that I collected so many of them despite how repetitive they were, but oh well.

Although you cannot see it in this picture, there were a dozen boxes to the left that sucked up what little space I had in my room. I forget exactly what they were filled with, but I think that most of them were old clothes, and my mother had decided that it was best to keep all of that stuff in my room... but not in the basement. Then again, it is her constitutional right to act like a blonde if she wants to.


Pictured: My bed
Wow! Another thrilling picture packed with excitement... featuring my bed. Yes, this was just another shot used to kill off the roll. My bed came with a shelf-attachment, and I have a large collection of gaming magazines (PC Gamer, PC Games, Computer Gaming World, et cetera), comic books (Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes, Far Side, et cetera), random books, and not much else.

Next to the lamp, you can see a picture of what looks like a dog; that is actually a piggy bank (Or doggy bank, if you prefer), but I have not used that in years. Instead, I use an old moonshine jar that Lance and I found many years ago in on our grandmother's property (It was probably a part of a trash pile, but we rooted through it anyways) for all of my spare change. On the bed itself is my work uniform and my backpack (Which came in handy numerous times throughout the summer when taking stuff from the warehouse), and on the far right is my dresser with the underwear drawer left open (Yes, I wear briefs).


Pictured: Stella a.k.a. Fluffy a.k.a. Fluffums
Last but not least is a picture of Stella. If you are wondering about the "a.k.a. Fluffy a.k.a. Fluffums" part in the picture caption, that is more or less Lance's other names that he calls her. However, my father called her Stella, and since he is her cat, I am not about to argue over simple matters such as a name.

Anyways, Stella is, for lack of a better word, stupid. I am not saying that she is a bad cat at all, but rather, the way that she acts and her mannerisms are way too laidback for any normal cat. My parents like to call her for whenever they are serving her dinner, yet they do not realize that, instead of calling out "STELLA", they can just call out "ASSHOLE" or "DOG FOOD" and she would still come running towards them. Yet, despite her severe lack of brain cells, she is still a very gentle, loving, and cuddly cat. As a big bonus, her fur is the softest I have ever felt.

Okay, so this was not the most interesting entry ever, but I still enjoyed it quite a lot.