Final Fantasy 8 & Work Retreat 🏝

Date: 11/1/2016

I was playing a remastered version of Final Fantasy 8 where it was only Squall exploring ruins with the mission to rebuild a wooden bridge/staircase. The battle system was different, too. Instead of random turn-based encounters, I could just walk up to enemies in the world and hit them with his gun blade. The weapon upgrade system was similar in that you needed to collect the necessary items, but it was streamlined so that the upgrade would happen automatically once all items were acquired. I got this crazy gun blade early on that had an insanely fast attack speed that a game moderator entered my game as an NPC and suppressed me because they thought I was hacking. Next thing I know I'm in Hawaii doing some shopping during downtime from a work retreat. I was at a souvenir shop that specialized in Japanese goods and was having difficulty finding anything cool. There were these Sailor Scout enamel pins that were kinda interesting because they emphasized their eyes, but then I realized it was the Scouts as My Little Ponies and was annoyed by that. Then I saw Pochacco journals that reminded me of ones I had when I was younger, but they were overpriced so I left. Then I went to a Marshalls type of store to see if I could have better luck with clothes. I saw a pile of folded shirts and noticed one had an image of Aaliyah on it. I unfolded it and the front had two oval-shaped logos of Batman x Aaliyah across the sleeves and chest, and the back was an image of some rapper. It was so bizarre that I wanted it just as a sleeping shirt, but it was something like 4100 yen so I decided against it. As I was leaving, I saw a colleague, Anna, trying on a bunch of bold dresses and was jealous she actually found interesting clothes in the store. Back at the hotel, my former boss, Anthony, was telling me that a smaller group of us had been selected for a mixer at a different hotel. I dressed up for the occasion wearing an overall dress and heels, then went to the front to meet up for a carpool. When I got outside, I was having trouble walking in heels and going sooo slooow. I tried to run, but I couldn't. Eventually I got into the car with my teammates, Blake (driving), Mark (shotgun) and Vasilios. In the car, we were talking about FF8 and Blake was very animated about it. He was a little too into the conversation that he wasn't paying attention to the slow down on the off ramp. In a panic, I screamed, "Danny!" which made him pay attention to the road. I told him I wasn't sure why I didn't say his own name, but it worked. The reason for the slow down was a car had pulled over and there was a lot of rubbernecking. We were inching past it and I noticed a dude and a golden retriever covered in brown stuff, then a young woman looking pretty dazed and another golden retriever behind her that was also covered in brown stuff. As we got closer, it seemed like they had to pull over because the girl had uncontrollable diarrhea. We kept driving past and saw a huge van with its trunk open revealing a massive kennel with even more golden retrievers and more of the poop, too. In the seats ahead of it were more people and a ton of stuff like they were moving all of their belongings. It was horrifying to say the least and I wondered if we should call an ambulance to help the girl out.