Gambling

One of our new popular activities is gambling at Legends casino in Toppenish.  This last time those of us who are cool wore nice suits so we would look like high-rollers.  Andy and Rob actually did really well winning over $100 between them.  I was up $30 until I played Caribbean Stud Poker and lost $35 in less than five minutes.  That game is the devil.  Anyway, here we are all decked out!

left to right: Andy, Rob, me	Nice hat, Andy

Semester Break

Over semester/winter/holiday/Christmas/Hanukah/Kwanzaa/Ramadan/Saturnalia break, I thought I would snap a few digital photos of my old friends and new ones mingling together while they were visiting from the other side of the state.  Unfortunately, I kept forgetting, so I only took photos one night when we went bowling.  Here are a few of the best ones.  The light seemed to be playing funny tricks in Scu's picture...

Marty and Jodi get physical	Demons are about to be driven out of Bryan (Scu) in Jesus' name
WEST SIDE!!! (Preschool, that is)	Brian lifts his hat in respect for the Bishop, who was exorcising Scu

Swimming

Swimming is our number one summer activity.  Because we're strange, we rarely went before 7 in the evening, by which time it had cooled down outside.  There were less stinky, incontinent children that way.  Most people swim in swimming pools, but my friends fight.  It's sort of like backyard wrestling, but in water and without the gratuitous nudity.

Looks like trouble's a-brewin' in the pool.	While toweling off, Dave tries vainly to divide 374 by 13 in his head

Bowling

Bowling is a popular past-time in both Richland and Pullman.  That's how sad these towns are.  Anyway, pretty much everyone loves this game and we play it all the time.  Some of us, myself included, were even in a bowling class, which was awesome.  We got to bowl two hours every week and it only cost $26 for the whole semester!  I'm getting pretty good and probably added 20 pins to my game by the end of the semester.  Andy, Ian, and Jared are now in another bowling class, even though it is one level lower than the one we already took!  Bryan, Ian, Andy, Jared (substitute), and I have just formed an inter mural team called (sigh) Gutter Sluts Strike Back.  We get to play for 8 weeks every Sunday night.  Ian seems to think I'll drag the team down, but last time we bowled together I was probably second-best after Bryan.  However, Ian and Andy have supposedly gotten better since they bowl like every weekend.  On a side note, Jared Wible throws the ball crazy fast.  Anyway, these pics are from Fiesta Bowl in Richland.

Angela is downtrodden and Rob is fat	Rob's Super-bowl warps reality

Video Games

Sometimes we've been known to dabble in the mystical art of "video games."  Back in the day, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was the drug of choice, then Street Fighter Alpha 3, then Capcom Vs. SNK 2, and now D.O.A. 3.  Huge changes, I know.  Very rarely, we also play Dance Dance Revolution, which absolutely kicks booty.  My favorite video game series, though, is Final Fantasy.  I just finished playing the fifth one.  It was great.  Now I'm working on the sixth one (Final Fantasy III on the SNES).  Only five and a half more to go...

Ian is too distracted by the game to remember to hide his face	Jared in a mindless, video game-induced stupor

Hot Tub

After a long day of playing video games and plotting to take over the world, the Richland gang and I liked to "cool down" in our friend's old hot tub.  He doesn't even live there anymore, but that doesn't really matter cause he very rarely went with us anyway.  We made copies of the key.  The hot tub is a great place to go to relax or when there just plain isn't anything else to do.  Sometimes the hot tub is occupied when we get there, in which case we just stare at the people from inside the building until they leave.  They don't like that so much.

Rob looking particularly manly	Clockwise from left: Rob, Becky, Jessica, Dave

Shari's

By far, one of the favorite of my Richland posse's usual teenage hijinks is going to our favorite restaurant, Shari's!  We still do it whenever we come home.  With such favorite desserts as the Shari's Delight, Turtle Sundae, and Shari's Old-Fashioned Milkshakes, it is the best place to burn through your savings!  And if for some crazy reason you don't want ice cream, they have plenty of other good eats, too!  In addition to food, Shari's has some pretty interesting characters, especially this manager, Joe, who is more often spitefully referred to as "toothy."  For reasons beyond my puny comprehension, some people don't like him.  Once we got into a long conversation with him in which he made such wild claims as to being Spider-Man and that all the waitresses are actually robots. Later, we found out all the "robots" dislike him.

Spider-man, spider-man, doing things only a man with two upper teeth can	Jared being crazy as usual while Ian hides his face behind the lunch specials