this is what I felt like last week . . .

Yeah that's right. Like I was on fire. Oh and let's all take note of Sunshine's brilliant point of how ironic it is that I got burnt in Hot Springs. It started two Sundays ago in the evening when we arrived at our condo/old folks home. Do you know what I'm talking about when I say "bronzed wheat?" These kinds of things are hanging on the walls, along with pictures of Jesus. The furniture is cheap late 70's early 80's. But not cool stuff. Just lumpy and hard (ha). Except for the dining room table. Very modern and black. So basically you could compare this to putting an astronaut in a western. I felt odd and out of place too, like I was living in the funeral home my dad works at (minus the modern).

My favorite part of the trip was Monday at the theme park. They got this awesome new roller coaster this year called The X Coaster, yeah it does have a dumb name. I'd post a picture of it but they don't have any good shots on their site, which is sad because it is a thing of beauty. There are only three coasters of it's kind in the world: one in Germany (where it was first invented), one in some other state, and (most importantly) one in Arkansas. Yes, it is strange that our crappy state would get something like this, and because of that I thought maybe poor design since there are so few, but actually it was probably the nicest riding coaster I have ever ridden.

Describing the X-Coaster experience, Aylward said, "When the riders leave the loading platform, they are taken for a vertical ascent of 150 feet, at which point the car performs a thrillingly slow quarter-loop backwards, which has the riders hanging upside-down. Then the riders are sent on a 360-degree corkscrew roll, followed by a plummeting vertical drop at more than 75 miles an hour."

He continued, "At this point it appears that the riders will return to the starting station, but instead they rocket past the station, stop on the lift hill, drop backwards through the station at high speed, stop upside down and rocket forward through the station again." Aylward said. "Then, just when you think you are ready to return to the station, you are picked up on the lift hill and taken over the top for a second time."

"The unique design of this ride guarantees that each row of seats provides a different ride experience," Aylward said. "The slightly elevated back seats in each car give an excellent view and the backwards motion of the train provides additional thrilling experiences.

All the while you are screaming like a ten year old girl at a backstreet boys concert and cursing like a sailor.

Yeah, it's what I live for.

Tuesday sucked really bad. That was the day that the world's worst tan line was discovered (pictured directly above). The poor camera phone image doesn't give it the credit it deserves. Everything was miserable: taking showers, sleeping, sitting, breathing. But it was fun during the day. We rented a party barge and swam and ate a lot. Oh and appartantly this is the rich people's lake. So once again, I was out of place. Seriously though, mansions were everywhere. I think I even saw a couple relocated Irish castles.

Wednesday we went and saw Michael Buble (hold comments) and the show was awesome. I like a lot of music that is different from many, like jazz and blues, plus some cultural.

Thursday we went to the mall, which is where I bought the cd's from the last post. We also looked in some of the small shops. That day kinda sucked too, because Josh's ac decided to go out in his explorer. But only for that 105 degree day. We found a guitar store and looked around. Nothing special. It was one of those places that wants you to buy everything but not touch a thing. Frankly I don't see how you can really pick out a guitar you want without playing it first. That is unless it's an upper-range Taylor. Then you can bet you will like it no matter what.

Friday we saw Pirates of the Caribbean 2 complete with the guy with a starfish on his face and another that had a squid-like creature for a head/face. Not bad. I liked it. But that's all I can remember. I think that night was Tequila night. Loads of margaritas and shots all around. Mixed with tons of ibuprofen and a vicoden rip off. It was a good night. I just don't remember a lot of it.

Saturday it was back to Magic Springs to see Foreigner, just because we were there and bought season passes. Yeah um . . . they sucked (surprise, surprise). On the way there, they lost half of their equipment so they borrowed some from a local guitar store. They borrowed absolute shit. Everything sounded awful. They didn't even have a good show because it was a small ampitheatre. And heaven forbid hot girls sit in front of us. No, we had the girls that thought they were at the backstreet/98 degrees coming out of the closet tour. And they were dumb as hell. The things they said -- even the way they talked. The whole time we wanted to say "shut the hell up already!" But we didn't, so we left instead. Along with everyone else. That's how bad the whole show was.

Sunday we left back for home. In between all those events was countless guitar/keyboard/reason playing and more swimming. Rented a few movies. Team America was never funnier. That whole puppet sex scene -- it kinda creeps me out a little though. Oh yeah and getting lost. Stupid condo was in hot springs village. Everying looks the same and makes giant circles. We didn't know if we were ever going to find it at first.

So that's it. Then End. I hope you enjoyed my novella.

And in the spirit of Pitt:

have a bad day