Go west, young zombie-hater
typed for your pleasure on 10 May 2005, at 1.34 amSdtrk: ‘The truth about Johnny’ by the Raveonettes
Come Tues morn or afternoon, whichever comes first, one of me mates Tomas, aka Krazy-Q, aka T-money, aka the Other Derek, will be driving westward across the nation to his new home in Portland, Oregon. Needless to say, it’ll be really weird once our circle of degenerates realises that he’ll no longer be getting together with us on Sat eve to watch foreign fillums, or to play Burnout 3, or to stuff vast amounts of Japanese cuisine in our mouths.
This past Sat, we all got together for his send-off. Wolfgang & Masako, Mike, Jeff & Kari, Dave Z & Lani, Tim, Joe & Heather, Derek & Steph, Frog & Jackie, Marika and myself, had an enjoyable dinner at Tokyo sushi /Seoul BBQ, as that’s been our restaurant of choice for years. Whilst we were digesting our dinner, there was almost an hour of hemming and hawing about what to do afterwards. This sort of behaviour is par for the course for our group; most of the time we always know we’re meeting up on Sat, but we usually don’t know where, or to do what, most of the time, and usually some panicky decision is made about an hour before we actually get together. So after making a couple of phone calls and pruning our group of a couple of members, we hit a bowling alley. Through no real fault of our own, we usually go about a year between bowling alley visits, and every time we bowl, we agree that we should do it more often. After great enjoyment flinging oversized marbles down the lanes for about three hours (mental note: the 12 pound balls are the Key to Victory), everyone went their separate ways, and Tomas, Mari and I got back round to Jeff’s house, to watch ‘Frog-g-g‘ which was just awful. It was a Troma film without the Troma, basically. Man. *shaking head*
But yeah! Tomas has been a good friend of mine. I’d first met him back in the early Nineties, when a now-defunct comic store in Ferndale used to hold a weekly anime viewing night called Tora tora Tuesday. He was Derek’s best mate, and I’d only met him once back then. That night, I’d bought an issue of AnimeV that had Catty from Gall force on the cover. I was undoubtedly going on about it, cos I had a thing for purple-haired Synthetik girls back then too, and Tomas suggested that if I let him borrow that issue, he could draw a pic of Catty for me. Eventually, he and Derek ended up leaving, but I had neglected to give him that AnimeV, and I remember being glad that I never lent it to him, as we didn’t see each other until several years later. I can’t even recall how or when we met (again) — it had to be round 1995 or so — but when I was looking for a place to move to when I was living in Clinton township, he suggested his one-bedder, as he had just moved out of it to an apartment unit one floor below. It was a fab place, in a good area, and it even had the unit number 23, which was definitely a good sign. I can’t count the number of hours we spent beating the shit out of each other throughout the entire Armored core series, or having the rest of the lads over for videogames and general chicanery. Good times!
He’s really into webcomics, and one of the ones we always get a kick out of is John Allison’s Scary go round. I would have to say that this particular instalment sums up the inherently goofy friendship he and I have..
myself, Jeff, Mari, Mike and T-money (foreground)
enjoying some painful cinema, as usual
We’re all gonna miss you, Tomas. Ganbatte kudasai, and be sure to give all the SuicideGirls a good rogering when you get there
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May 10th, 2005 at 7.14 pm
That’s too sad about your circle breaking up, but alas, that’s what circles do.
You wouldn’t figure that, being how circles are all… well, round, really 😛
The good news is that the Portland area is a nice one, once the adjustment is done with. And until everyone else moves out here LOL… 😉
Anyway, these days the Internet makes it so much easier to keep up with pals and somewhat minimize the mileage. But distance sucks, yeah…
Keeping in touch with them is the main thing! Friends are worth more than money 🙂
May 13th, 2005 at 4.19 am
Yeah, he’s really enthused about the move. Portland’s apparently ‘the most bike-friendly city in the US’, and since Tomas has a fevered obsession with bikes and biking, Oregon fits the bill for him. He’s got mates over there as well, so it’s not like he’ll be totally alone.
It’s shite when you lose friends, but life tends to suck that way, really. Good thing we have the Internet..