Bunga Bunga parties, Video Games and Vampires

[General Goose]

((Michael Fischer start))

"And then, as if that wasn't, the guy who'd started the 9/11 conspiracy theory bullshit, he began rambling on about Gaddafi. You know, that Libya guy?"

"Yes. I do."

That was the one thing that annoyed Michael about Paul. He was a good guy, good brother (also a whizz at the subjects Michael was a complete failure at, meaning he was a convenient, easy-to-access source for answers to frustrating or long-winded problems Michael lacked the will and intellect to solve), but he had this annoying habit of mistaking Michael's political apathy for ignorance. He grew up surrounded by old stuffy (also almost unanimously white and male) Republican politicians; he knew what a continuing resolution meant, whether he wanted to or not.

"Well, this guy said, and I quote...well, not word-for-word, but, y'know..."

"Yeah, yeah" Michael interjected, with a tone that indicated to his younger brother that he should just get to the juicy bit.

"Okay, okay." Paul paused, clearly collecting his thoughts and building up to some obviously hilarious joke (if it wasn't hilarious, Michael would be sorely disappointed) "Gaddafi wasn't that bad a guy. Sure, when he began ordering his soldiers to rape women, that was pretty bad, but up until the West began to dispose him, he was alright."

Palm, meet face.

After removing his palm from his face, letting off a frustrated sigh and shaking his head in disappointment at the political "beliefs" in Paul's psychology class, Michael replied "How'd you respond?"

"Anyone who's a friend with Berlusconi can't be a good guy."

"Heh." Some Italian (Spanish?) guy he'd never heard of. A polite chuckle was Michael's response; he didn't want to appear ignorant, so he assumed Berlusconi was some mass murderer or Mafioso or child pornographer Gaddafi granted asylum. "So, this is the same guy who said that all Jews took a day off on 9/11 and that the government put subliminal messages in a song as a warning for a terrorist act they were about to commit?"

Paul nodded. "Yep."

"Was he the one you almost ended up in a band with?"

Like his elder brother, Paul was a committed bass guitarist. They were very much alike in a lot of ways, except everyone agreed that Paul was less boastful, more academic and more hard-working. Also, his friends tended to be more stupid. By a long shot. But that was probably pretty obvious already. "No", Paul replied, his eyes temporarily drifting to the side to either look at the contents of a store window or the rather nice ass of a hot girl who was looking into said store window (he'd seen the girl around before; a friend of a friend of a friend.) Michael knew which one he was looking at, but his non-family friendly thoughts were cut off by Paul continuing. "Nah, the one who wanted to start the band was that vampire book guy. The one who obsesses over Twilight."

"Ah." Yeah. Michael remembered that guy. Wrote some terrible "books". All, invariably, filled to the brim with super-strength vampires (one of the perks of being a vampire was supposedly losing any unsightly "baby fat" from your cheeks), gratuitous musical scenes, poorly done black and white morality, unfinished plotlines, names ripped from the guy's friends and teachers, and enough Mary Sues to fill a sinking ship. Those books were hilariously bad. Michael encouraged anyone and everyone to ask him about them. They were so bad.

All of a sudden, Michael's leisurely stroll was cut short, as Paul, walking at a pace just short of running and with a look on his face that was a cross between a hypnotised mental patient and Homer Simpson with a doughnut being waved in front of his face, cut in front of him without a word. Michael turned to the direction Paul was heading off in - towards one of the mall's video game stores, one that, for no real reason other than their easily-exploitable return policy, the Fischers had made their almost-exclusive place for video game purchases. Judging by the modest queues and the advertising decorating the store, it looked like one of those high-profile strategy games that Paul had a near-sexual enjoyment of was coming out.

"Hey, Paul, I'll be...err...near the music store", Michael apathetically "called" out to his brother, who almost definitely didn't hear him over the sounds of the mob of virgin nerds and confused parents in the game store he was pushing his way into. Eh. Not a problem. He's 14. Their mom really needed to be a lot less strict about having Michael escort Paul every time he wanted to go shopping for pointless shit.

So Michael wandered over to the store that he'd guessed (accurately, by the looks of it) to be a music store. Not really seeing any need to go in (Michael satisfied all his musical needs via iTunes or the internet anyway), he just sat down on a bench in front of the store, and began looking around to spot anyone he knew and thinking about possibly considering getting around to looking into the possibility of maybe doing some homework when he got home.

[Aster]

((Jason Meyers- Start))

The mall wasn't the place Jason would spend time at. He could be at home, doing things. Yet, he was here, clutching a Best Buy Mobile bag in one hand and an iPod in the other hand, blaring Ponybeat into his earbuds. He glanced around, seeing people going about their business. He wished that he brought his camera along. There was an endless amount of photos here. That guy drinking coffee, the woman over there, even that kid next to that trash can!

Jason put a hand on his stomach as it growled. He was hungry. Jason looked around. He decided to go to the food court and get something to eat and quench his hunger. Maybe Subway. Yes, definitely Subway. A sandwich with mayo and bacon, maybe some lettuce... ah, he would figure it out later.

But he'd have to find the food court first. Unlike his classmates, Jason didn't frequent the mall. The place was completely foreign to him. It took him half an hour to get to Best Buy Mobile in the first place. Jason didn't like being in unfamiliar territory, especially the mall. He just couldn't stand being in here.

Jason sighed and sat down on a bench in front of a music store. He pulled out his map and began to search for the food court.

(OOC: Sorry for half-assedness. Better one will come later.)

[Palhinuk†]

((Royce Chambers - Start))

"Welcome to Zumiez, can I get you anything?"

"Yeah, my kid, he's into those...what d'you kids call 'em?  Skateyboards?"

"Y..yes sir, skateboards."

"Yeah, I don't see the point of the damn things.  Seems stupid to glue a bunch of wheels on a plank.  Honestly, have you heard of anything that goddamn retarded before?"

Royce was visibly biting his lip at the moment.  The customer couldn't see it right now of course, being one of those suburban douchebags that doesn't ever actually look at the people working in the mall, or as they love to affectionately call them, "the help".  If he had given a glance upwards, he would see the white hot seething rage boiling under the facade of politeness Royce was putting up.

Royce had been working at the Zumiez for about a year now.  It was a fairly decent part-time mall gig.  Most of the people that came in were kids looking to get a start in skating and teenagers looking to hang out in a store that didn't wreak of body spray and arrogant white guys in polo shirts.  Occasionally you'd get jerkass punks who buy skater fashion but have never stepped on a board before.  They were easy to handle.  But this.

"It...It's not, um... not retarded at all sir, it's actually a lot of fun," Royce managed to irk out, quelling his reactionary tendencies for the moment.  He was on the job after all.

"Yeah yeah, fun, whatever..." the old man grumbled.  He was a stocky gentleman, only coming up to Royce's stomach.  Then again, a LOT of people only came up to Royce's stomach.  He was dressed in typical upscale suburban dad fashion, khaki slacks with a wrinkled button-up shirt.  He looked as if he had just come from one of those uptown bars, with the dude in the bathroom who hands you a mint after you take a piss.  The kind of guy who probably paid a doctor to give his third wife a new nose.  Which, knowing Royce's father, was probably him. "You know, back when I was a kid, we played baseball.  How hard of a concept is it to like baseball?  You hit shit, you run around, you do it again, it's tons of fun!"  The man pulled out a cigarette from a pack in his pocket and began to light it.

"Sir, there's no smoking in the ma-"

"And now all you kids, fuckin record yourselves getting racked in the balls and putting it on YouTube.  It's damn stupid, if you ask me," he said, taking a heavy toke of the cigarette and blowing the smoke inadvertently into Royce's face.  It took every ounce of restraint he had to not take the cigarette and put it out on the man's forehead.

"Well, sir, we skaters don't always do tha-"

"Listen, I honestly don't give two shits about this stuff, so why don't you just give me a good skateyboard and whatever so I don't have to waste another minute in this place," the man said, eyeing all of the skate gear and decks with obvious disdain.

"Yessir..." Royce muttered back, taking the opportunity to head to the back room.  Fortunately, the thick walls and store music made the rapid-fire string of expletives that streamed out of his mouth as soon as the door closed.  It would be another minute or so before the boiling rage had calmed enough for Royce to be able to think straight, giving a heavy sigh as he grabbed a random deck and took it out front.  He assembled a set of matching wheels, trucks, griptape, and the works, rang them up, and bagged them for the old guy.  "Here you go... that'll be $115, please"

"And expensive as all shit too" the old man grumbled, producing a Platinum card to pay with.  Royce gave another heavy sigh as he ran the transaction through.  He handed the card, receipt, and bag to the guy in one motion, eager to see him leave.

"Thank you for shopping at Zumiez, sir..." he said, pinching the bridge of his nose as the guy turned away.

"Yeah yeah, get a real job kid."

"Will do sir," Royce added, flipping the guy the bird as he stormed out to find his third wife and her new nose at whatever store she had run off to.

He then called back to Kyle, his manager, who was in his back office.  "I'm taking lunch early!" he yelled, needing a few minutes to clear his head.

"Don't choke and die on me, Roy" Kyle responded, "I hate having to hire people because of dead clerks.  Too much paperwork."  Royce groaned a little under his breath.  He hated being called Roy.  But, Kyle was his boss and he liked getting paid too much to complain.

Royce shuffled quickly out of the store towards the food court.  He decided to swing by the music store for a second to see if the they had anything decent before heading over to grab something quick to eat.

[General Goose]

((Sorry for lateness and mediocre post.))

Michael was too busy looking at his phone to notice a boy he would vaguely recognise as a classmate move to sit down next to him. He had a few new texts to read; one was from his mother, reminding him about some unimportant family appointments that were still a few months away, the others were from a "friend" he hadn't talked to in years who had a habit of sending unfunny and often slightly racist jokes and idiotic chain letters to everyone on his contact list. Deleting all of the latter and ignoring the former, Michael slipped his phone back into his pocket just in time to notice the old bench squeak slightly as another person sat down on it.

He glanced to his side, looking at the boy who had just joined him on the bench. He recognised him from school, name was Jacob or Jason or Jaxton or something with a J and an A and then another letter and then an O and then another letter. He didn't know enough about him to be able to work out if he was a decent guy to talk to or, more importantly, an acceptable guy to be seen with. He was looking at...was that a map? The guy lived in Seattle; hasn't he ever been to the mall before? It's not like you needed a map to get around anyway. Just use the obnoxious signs in that stupid font that were planted on every spare section of wall or ceiling not taken up by lighting or advertising, and you'd be able to find everything aside from the parking lots and toilets.

The signs for them were ALWAYS small and hard to notice.

But yeah, the guy was using a map, like some middle-aged tourist who was surprised when they found out Washington and Washington DC were different places.

He'd met a tourist like that once. Vaguely Germanic accent, asked where the Washington Monument and Capitol Hill were. Michael decided to not be mean and sarcastic, and instead directed them to the airport.

Yeah. Going by the map alone, this guy was probably a nerd. Or a weirdo. Or both, the two were not mutually exclusive.

Actually, probably not a nerd. Nerds were smart. Nerds would not need a map to get around a cookie-cutter mall where the only directions needed were left or right.

Still, talking to a weirdo, even if it was in a patronising or sarcastic tone, was better than the awkward silence of sitting next to a weirdo as he tried to fumble with a map. So Michael turned to Ja-something-o-something.

"Hey. You go to Aurora High, don't you?"

[Aster]

Jason looked up from the map, and answered,

"Yeah, class of 2012. You go there too?"

Jason did know who he was, and didn't know why he was playing stupid. The boy was Michael Fischer, a boy in his Humanities class that sat in the back and generally kept quiet, which bothered the teacher greatly. Jason also saw him at the school newspaper last year, and he also generally contributed little and kept quiet. This, combined with the fact that Jason didn't want to talk to him, is the reason why he mostly melted into the crowd of students in Jason's eyes. He had heard that Michael used to be on the higher end, but somehow was punted down to upper middle class for some reason people didn't know. Not really caring, Jason usually brushed the knowledge off, and went on with his daily life. Michael Fischer (Jr.?) once again was forgotten.

Damn, he was really hungry. Jason would have to get to the food court fast, but a little chit-chat never hurt anybody. He decided to try and play stupid in this conversation, maybe to amuse himself. Once again, he didn't know.

"Do you go there too?" Jason asked sheepishly, putting the map away.

[Aster]

((It's been 2 months. I'm abandoning ship thread))

[Aster]

Before Jason could answer, his stomach growled. Smiling sheepishly, he muttered "I'm kinda hungry." to Michael. Jason stood up and departed for the food court.

"Hey, see ya at school."

(Jason Meyers continued elsewhere)