dog$

Thanks to some temporary payroll hour restrictions at retail work, I had some upcoming days in which I was not scheduled where I normally am, and my wife logged onto the site for me a while ago to determine that the coming Friday and subsequent Monday would be two such days. As it turns out, though, it was today that was one of the Mondays which I was not scheduled, so imagine our surprise when I went through the normal morning routine and arrive at the place to make that discovery. Fortune had it that another employee of a different department called off, so I was allowed to stay; this helps allay two concerns about the upcoming impromptu time off. One, when the days were, and two, if I should try to recover any of those by asking to work regardless.

On the subject of my wife, she came across some gifs of one of those movies that was newly released for home formats recently, In the End or some shit, one of those Hangover looking movies, and it features Everybody by the Backstreet Boys at the end for its hilarious climactic finish. Some time ago I had shown her this video out of the blue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MozAy4YOx0 (as well as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-kHJwhQyHI), only it wasn't exactly that video and was one of the originals instead. She asked me to find the BSB rip anew so I spent some time to do that. I'm not sure why it took me so long to even find that much and not be able to find the original after a good twenty minutes of poking around to search. And here I was before her going to bed thinking that I'd have plenty of time to write today and have a nice long rest. Silly me.

Draft.

19180311 09:03:40

CQ-N-8257

William woke from sleep in feeling dull pain cover the right side of his face. He had somehow managed to sleep on that side of his body despite the bandages pressing into his head throughout his rest. With a sigh, he rolled his body upright and kept his eyes closed as he limply reached a hand up to gingerly touch the bandages, and confirmed that the wounds were still sensitive enough to that limited amount of pressure. His response to this realization was seething and annoyance; after succumbing to that attack, he was all the more resolved to improve his physical training and response time. Lounging in idle recovery would also give his mind a platform to brood over his defeat. To be forced to spend the next few days doing little other than being awake and eating was a dreadful prospect, and his mind raced to form a plan of what to do instead.
Two goals were instantly manifest. The first was to get out of the room and preferably out of the house, and to not lie or sit down while out of school. The second was to immediately start to learn how to use a weapon. The injury was proof enough to him - he didn't have the reflexes to dodge something as simple as a broken bottle being swung at his face, so relying on his own fists for the purpose of offense was something he now regarded as an assured failure. This immediately led to the next question of what weapon to use. At the present moment, his options were limited. Guns were outlawed. He wouldn't have access to any kind of bow or knife. The only item which he possessed that was a reasonable choice was a baseball bat. It would have to do. William sat up and pivoted his body to get out of bed, and walked over to the dresser to get some kind of clothing on so that he could go outside to the backyard. Once he was ready to go out, though, he knew that he would have to interact with his mother.
Mary looked over from her seat at the kitchen table to the hall as she heard the footsteps approach, and the soft smile on her face which she had upon seeing her son in front of her, healthy and alive, quickly changed to confusion as she realized that he was already dressed. She didn't like the implication.
"Hi Ma." William glanced at his mother briefly as he entered the room and turned her back to her as he faced the stove to get some coffee from the pot.
"What are you doing? You're not going anywhere."
"No, just outside." He pulled a kitchen chair away and sat at the table to face his mother with a mug of lukewarm black coffee in a plain white mug. "I can't just sit still in my room, or even in here. I'll go nuts. I'll need to keep myself busy."
"Well, maybe if anything you can help with doing some laundry washing and hanging, and pick up some-"
"Yeah, but I want to do some practice too."
"Practice with what?"
"A baseball bat."
"A ba- what? A bat? How?"
"Well, maybe, like, you'll throw rocks to me and I'll try to hit them."
"No way." Mary was as galled by the suggestion with how dryly her son made it. "You'll break a window in two seconds once you do that, if not one of my legs or my own head, Jesus. No, boy, the doctor said-"
"Ma, I can't just sit here. I can't. Don't you see that? I'll just think about it and keep thinking about it and it'll make me angrier and angrier."
"You'll look like a fool out there with gauze wrapped around your head and swinging a baseball bat at rocks that I throw at you. That is just ... weird."
"Fine, OK, I'll try to think of some way you can help. Or I'll try to do something by myself. Either way. And I'm only going to the backyard so it's not like most anyone will see me."
"Fine, fine." Mary let a heavy sigh come out as a half hearted groan as she folded the newspaper up and went to her room to put on some appropriate clothes. William tilted his head back to take in the remainder of the coffee in his mug in one gulp, then went back to the stove to pour another half cup and take that all in with a single swallow as well. Now he felt ready. After sitting down to tie his shoes, he went out of the house through the rear doorway and removed the baseball bat from the outdoor shed. William held the bat with both hands and extended it out in front of him as if he held a diving rod, then made a point to loosen and tighten the grip on the bat as a way to become acclimated to its weight in his hands. Then he brought the bat up to the baseball batter stance, holding the bat tightly and hovering over his shoulder, before squinting his eyes shut and swinging the bat with all of the power that he could channel into his arms. During the third such swing, he saw his mother step out of the house and stand still at the opposite side of the doorway as she watched William swing the bat.
"Good. I had an idea, then. What if I stand in front of you, and you toss some of those rocks there over my head, and I try to swing at those. That way you're not in front of it."
"All right, but just don't swing for the fences or something. Just try to hit this into the ground. Only thing worse than you breaking something of ours is to break something that isn't ours."
"Yes Ma, yes."
Mary sighed with more resignation than anger at this point, and bent over to pick up some of the light lava rocks which lined the rear wall of the house at the ground.
"All right, ready?"
"Yeah Ma. Go ahead."
She dipped her hand down and tossed a rock upwards in an easy underhanded lob. The rock went up in a high arc and came down inches in front of William's body, and he couldn't back away in time to get proper clearance to swing the bat.
"Go farther out."
Mary wound her hand back and threw the same as before, but releasing earlier to propel it more forward than upward. The arc was sufficiently large enough that William had enough time to take two steps forward and wind up before swinging. The attack connected, and the rock was drilled into the shed door with a loud strike.

---

Today's song session was rather good. I was shocked to see that I had an increase with Absolute, but I did feel myself playing fairly well from the onset. The only real bad plays were an awful read of Ballad For You (probably early the entire time), and getting hit by 3y3s at the end, where Random on that chart is an assured round of pain. Everything else was records or plays that were respectably close.

Lunar Beat. Extra Mode. Double play. "@" denotes Random chart modifier. All songs are of highest difficulty type unless specified.
First line, by column; song title, EX score percentage and letter grade rank, EX score value and pass/fail, judgment readout (just great, great, good, bad poor), highest combo reached, note count of chart under Extra Mode, original note count of chart, percentage increase of Extra Mode notes over original note count, timestamp.
Second line, by column; pass count / play count, EX score percentage difference from record, EX score value difference from record, judgment readout difference from record (if current play is new record), highest combo reached difference from record (if current play is new record), timestamp of old record (if current play is new record).

Code:

			EX% & Rank	EX.p/f	pg.gr.gd.bd.pr		combo	nc	onc	%+nc 	date
energy drive		33.16 E		1276.F	422.432.511.170.721	0077	1924			2013-11-05T00:57:18:255Z
0/5			01.58-		0061-

absolute A14 @		50.78 C		1876.F	668.540.446.73.290	0181	1847	1338	038.04	2013-11-05T01:00:36:097Z
0/4			00.70+		0026+	30+34-39-9-39-		0099+				2012-04-08T23:47:06:769Z

miru key way @		65.75 B		1966.F	793.380.181.74.195	0120	1495	0909	064.46	2013-11-05T01:04:22:842Z
0/9			00.87+		0026+	42+58-45+2-16-		0003+				2012-06-18T01:06:52:439Z

ballad 4 u @		72.43 A		0791.P	284.223.35.1.4		0267	0546			2013-11-05T01:07:34:562Z
6/6			08.24-		0090-

marmalade reverie H14 @	71.22 A		1765.F	697.371.112.18.112	0109	1239			2013-11-05T01:10:08:026Z
0/8			00.16-		0004-

comic magic @		42.78 D		2135.F	778.579.587.204.812	0095	2495			2013-11-05T01:15:51:265Z
0/6			01.14-		0057-

a flower garden @	52.65 C		1725.F	640.445.279.74.353	0093	1638	1071	052.94	2013-11-05T01:19:17:826Z
0/5			02.56+		0084+	50+16-12-11-12-		0029+				2012-06-08T02:08:59:829Z

fly away to india @	73.66 A		1049.P	401.247.49.3.20		0171	0712			2013-11-05T01:22:39:738Z
3/3			00.84-		0012-

中華急行 @		45.51 C		1715.F	620.475.381.170.682	0062	1884			2013-11-05T01:27:09:178Z
0/4			00.66-		0025-

月光 @			57.71 B		1714.F	624.466.267.31.216	0116	1485	1175	026.38	2013-11-05T01:31:15:897Z
0/9			00.78+		0023+	15+7-14+14-16-		0037+				2012-05-04T01:39:21:208Z

ling child @		55.60 B		2489.F	904.681.406.100.367	0152	2238	1224	082.84	2013-11-05T01:35:42:730Z
0/7			00.71+		0032+	26+20-23+3-38-		0084-				2013-07-24T00:29:23:625Z

minimalian @		56.60 B		1149.F	424.301.184.40.153	0152	1015			2013-11-05T01:38:49:329Z
0/5			00.00·		0000·

quark @			39.24 D		1756.F	604.548.537.195.867	0068	2237			2013-11-05T01:42:07:114Z
0/7			01.00-		0045-

charlotte @		78.48 AA	1678.P	680.318.47.5.32		0144	1069			2013-11-05T01:45:56:793Z
5/8			00.46-		0010-

星の器 @			38.45 D		2138.F	728.682.731.304.915	0131	2780	1756	058.31	2013-11-05T01:54:27:113Z
0/2			00.39+		0133+	64+5+75-8+92-		0018+				2013-10-27T00:51:01:884Z

100% minimoo g @	63.42 B		1904.F	689.526.211.13.142	0150	1501	1414	006.15	2013-11-05T01:58:58:217Z
0/8			04.06+		0122+	51+20+38-9-43-		0002+				2013-10-10T01:58:11:384Z

drivin @		70.95 A		1253.P	495.263.91.9.52		0126	0883			2013-11-05T02:02:45:457Z
3/6			00.33-		0006-

pluto @			36.53 D		1362.F	477.408.503.142.619	0076	1864	1328	040.36	2013-11-05T02:06:57:874Z
0/5			03.17+		0118+	51+16+4+38-72-		0011-				2013-08-13T00:31:41:171Z

3y3s @			30.47 E		1693.F	563.567.844.321.1264	0068	2778			2013-11-05T02:13:13:905Z
0/9			05.36-		0298-