This weekend, I went up to C-bus for another Swing Hall Reunion with Nate, Feezey, and Griff. I left my place around 10:15 AM on Saturday and drove on I-71 for two hours. I took it easy and went about 69 for most of the driving, which turned out to be unnecessary, as I only passed one cop and he he was on the other side of the highway. I also used my (sort of) recently purchased GPS, which eliminated all thinking from the trip. So thankfully, the trip was uneventful.

I arrived at Feezey's dad's place at 12:15 PM and the three of us watched the OSU/Michigan game. I'd prefer doing just about anything other than watching stupid football, but Michigan didn't do very well, so it wasn't too torturous. Feezey and I then headed over to Nate's and he made me drive. I was pissed, because I had just driven for two hours and was ready to take a break, but I knew that he had to drive from Cleveland, so I did it. Feezey took the role of the Navigator, since he knew the way and I did not, but we ended up taking a wrong turn and had to turn around. This got me more pissed, but we quickly got back on track, so it wasn't the end of the world. We should have just used the GPS, IMO.

So anyway, we got to Nate's after another half hour of driving and played Rock Band 2. Griff arrived shortly thereafter and we had a full band. I got to try out the new Rock Band 2 drumset, and it was a significant improvement over the original, comparable to The Guitar Hero: World Tour set. However, I still like my Ion Drum Rocker set best. After that, the four of us left to get dinner, and we ended up going to bd's Mongolian Grill at Nate's recommendation. We had to wait for 25 minutes, but it turned out to be worth it, as the food was extremely delicious. Basically, each patron grabs a bowl and loads it to the point of overflowing with a large selection of meat and vegetables, chooses a sauce, and gives it over to one of the smack-talking grillers who stirfries it in front of you on a large circular grill. You take your junk back to the table and eat it with rice and/or tortillas. The tortillas seemed like an interesting addition to me, as I had always considered them a Mexican-themed style of eating and stirfry is most definitely Asian. But it ended up being a good combination, and the food was probably the best stirfry I've ever eaten. Man, I wish there were a bd's closer to me than Mason.

After eating, we went back to Nate's and played a round of hearts, a Swing Hall classic. Nate managed to win, beating Feezey and me by one point. It was cheap. After that, we decided to head back out again to pick up Apples to Apples and Trivial Pursuit. We ended up going to Wal-Mart first, but they didn't have a "normal" version of Trivial Pursuit. Nate bought Apples to Apples, but the self-checkout machine got a BSOD right as it was charging his card. Nate had to get a store person to look at it, but she couldn't do anything and said that she didn't think it charged his card, but all four of us were pretty sure that it had. She reassured us it didn't and checked Nate out. We then went to Meijer and Target in pursuit of Trivial Pursuit, but nowhere seemed to have what we were looking for. I ended up hiding in each of the giant stores, which is a favorite pastime of mine ever since the largest Kroger in the world opened near my parents' house a few years ago. Feezey tried to watch me after my first stunt at Wal-Mart, but it didn't work.

We returned to Nate's house with Apples to Apples and started playing. It quickly became very inappropriate and hilarious. At a few points, I thought I was going to die from laughing so hard. Some of the more notable plays were:

• "Radiant" - Challenger explosion
• "Sensual" - School bus
• "Cowardly" - Anne Frank
• "Ordinary" - Walt Disney (Nate was pissed)
• "Offensive" - Disneyland (Nate was even more pissed, but ended up picking it)

We ended up going through the entire deck of cards and looked at some movies for tomorrow. Unfortunately, nothing good was out that none of us hadn't already seen, and Nate checked his bank account. Sure enough, he had been charged twice for Apples to Apples, as we had suspected. We disbanded with plans to revisit Wal-Mart the next day. I drove back to Feezey's dad's place and slept in the open room, as always.

The next day, Feezey and I both drove back to Nate's again, since it's on the West side of C-bus and I was heading out afterwards. We called Griff, who had "husbandly" things to do, and was going to be late. So, we stormed over to Wal-Mart where Nate attempted to get the second charge credited back to his bank account. The customer service lady seemed pretty pissed and reluctant to help, saying that she couldn't do it here. She said that Nate would have to call somewhere else, and as she paused to think of the name, Nate guessed the "Better Business Bureau" aloud. Feezey and I couldn't believe it, but the lady didn't get more pissed. She ended up calling a manager who easily credited Nate's account and we got the "least weird" version of Trivial Pursuit and got the hork out. We stopped at Red Robin for lunch, which was good as always.

Upon returning, we played a "warmup" round of Trivial Pursuit until Griff arrived, at which point we started the real game. It went pretty well, although a lot of the questions dealt with old junk that my parents might know. The game dragged on and on and on, as it quickly became apparent that getting the exact die roll was harder than actually answering a question. Griff got all the required questions correct and headed for the center to win, but could not get the right roll. It got to the point of Feezey and me wanting to just "cheat" and say that he got the right roll so that the game could end, but Nate was too pissed because he wanted to win. So we kept going and going because of Nate, and Griff never actually rolled what he needed. Nate eventually got all of his pieces and made it to the center on his first or second try and won. It was pathetic. I'm never playing Trivial Pursuit again, unless we somehow deal with the stupid rule of having to get an exact roll. It really makes the game less about knowledge and more about luck, which defeats the entire purpose of the game, IMO. After that, we once again parted ways and I drove home. Again, it was uneventful, which was a relief to me. It was a fun weekend, and I'm looking forward to a relaxing three-day work week.