"Hanging around, hanging around..."

Just wanted to give everyone in here a heads up.

Mario's party is this weekend at Warren's house. The details are listed under "A Party for Mario." You can contact me if you need any other info. Right now it's bring your own bbq material, and there's gonna be plenty of other food and drink. Myself, as well as the few people I know that are going, will all be bringing something to contribute of sorts.

I will be bringing a framed picture of Mario and a stand for it, as well as his Hustler Helmet which he recently had signed by various adult actresses at the L.A. Erotica convention. It is Mario's little crown jewel, he loved the fact that he had it signed, and it basically represented a couple of his favorite things. Fast bikes and (fast) women. It'll be in a glass display, as he himself was particular about the ink "ever, ever" being smudged on the autographs.

I've just finally gotten the chance to go through some of Mario's things, even though I don't have all of them with me. From my understanding, some has been shipped to his parents and his sister, although I'm going to need to confirm this and that on the phone or email probably in the next day or so. His computer is still coming in from California, so I should (hopefully) get access to all his pictures and word documents here shortly. (Umm, if you're a close friend of his and you sent pictures that you may or may not want me to see, I'm sorry, but I'm gonna probably see them :)

When Mario moved to California some things went with him (his favorite and well, his best stuff), some was boxed and taken in a storage container, and some of it is still being stored somewhere here in Arizona. I'm just trying to make sure that all-things-Mario are not left behind. I've decided that his actual hockey equipment should be donated to the rink he last played at, so that way someone else may be able to piece together enough equipment to go out on the ice. Super would have liked that.

I wanted to give anyone and everyone an opportunity to ask me about something of sentimental value to them. His parents and sister are being taken care of, but if there is a favorite Mario shirt or something small of rememberance I will try to locate it if I can and send it out. Everything is literally scattered to the wind right now though...

Last but not least, I have a huge-HUGE list of things that remind me of Mario that I'll start chipping away at. After his party this weekend and once a few things settle down I will be in here to contribute quite a bit, as frequently as possible.

Mario of all people taught me the phrase, "what's in the past is in the past" - and per his wishes I'd abide by that, but this, Mario, is not a video game. Nice try! You gave me some good hints, but you never beat me (well, except that one time when we decided that racing at Mugello on MotoGP would only be fair if I gave you a 22-second head start.) During our gaming days, Mario's best track time was 21.9 seconds slower than my best track time, and we usually competed doing 5 laps.

What a great story that was. We laughed about it every time it got brought up. When Mario and I lived together, I'd often come home to find him in my bedroom sitting on the ground next to my bed playing the XBox. MotoGP is a game with racetracks from all over the world that are designed to be very real, everything from Le Mans in France, to Valencia in Spain, to Phillip Island in Australia. Mugello was Mario's favorite track because it was Italian, of course.

Mario couldn't stand the fact that even though both our motorcycles had been designed to be equal on the game, I would still DOMINATE him whenever we were on the track. In real life it was the other way around. It was in those days that Mario crowned me King of all video games, and shortly thereafter he basically bragged about me to anyone he could. Matter of fact, a guy in California recently said he could beat me at a dirtbike racing game (which I've never played):

"I wouldn't challenge him to any video game. If you give him 1-hour and the same equipment you have he'll destroy you. Matter of fact, I wouldn't challenge him to a video game if I DESIGNED IT myself. That's why when Jeff got the PS3 and I got F1 Racing, I wouldn't let JC play. It records all the times, and I'd be so pissed if I were playing and all the record times on MY game were not really mine!"

The 22-second headstart at Mugello was won by Mario by .002 seconds. It was so close that afterwards he and I were rolling around on the ground because we couldn't believe just how accurate our times were. I know we saved the replay and watched it like it was a real life race a bunch of times.

He always was so generous when it came to video game compliments. I stayed true to my word, 'cause when Jeff and Mario used to both challenge me at Halo (them versus me) I'd end up beating them both pretty bad. And if there ever was a time when Mario needed a gaming partner, he knew who to call.

And just like that, a story that isn't even on my list is out there...

*For you, Super*

- Justin