My Civic Duties

Blog No. 201: "Jury Duty"

I woke up to a cute little baby knocking at my door! XP

Audrey knocked on the door while holding little Lennox to say that they're going to IHOP with my mom, grandfather, and some relatives from Maine. Johnny is my grandfather's son, which is how my mom and sister say it. I don't really get family trees... I was also supposed to be on stand by for Jury Duty, so I also had to pack a nice buttoned shirt and some pants in my over-the-shoulder bag.

Anyways, John, Audrey, Lennox, and I met up with mom, my grandfather, Johnny, and Terri, (Johnny's wife), at IHOP. It was the first time I met Johnny and Terri, I mean I've heard about them through my grandfather but that was about it. They were pretty cool though. They did a lot of things just by whim. Apparently, on Sunday, they had went to Yosemite National Park and did some hiking. They also talked about how they were going to go to Niagra Falls once they leave here. Johnny, too, had been part of the marines, which is why they seemed traveled and what not.

After our conversations at IHOP and a stuffed french toast plate with strawberries, all of us, minus John, Audrey, and the baby, went to Target to get some stuff. Johnny and Terri needed luggage for their souvenirs and junk, while mom and I needed around the house things, like laundry baskets and fans. Once we sat down at the Starbucks inside Target, I made a call to the Superior Court of California to see if my group number was called in. After going through the pushing of buttons, the automated system told me, "Groups [numbers I can't remember] have finished their civic duty. No call backs are necessary. Your jury duty has been fulfilled."

Cool! Didn't have to wait in line! XP

Mom took me home, seeing as my option was either to wait with her at the nail shop and get a ride to school or ask King to come over for a bit and ride with him to class. I feel as though I made the right choice. XP

So Taka, King, and I made our usual phone charade:

• I call King, ask what they were doing, to which I get an unsure answer and hang up.
• Taka calls me, asks what am I doing, to which I replied "I'm up for anything."
• Taka passes the phone to King without any notice, which leaves me to ask, again, to come over, to which I get a more definite "we'll be there in fifteen minutes."

I love how we have a system now. XP

So Taka and King came over and we played Brawl for the greater part of the day. Then, King drove Taka home, then drove us to school for a quiz! XP

FAP

Blog No. 200: Freakin Awesome Podcast

Get your minds out of the gutter!... Would you guys get that reference?...

... Well, acronym the title, (FAP), then think about what noise masturbation makes...

Yeah... Well that describes the somewhat vulgarity of the "Freakin Awesome Podcast"... What this podcast is about is the original 365MMIX crew, John and his friends and relatives on Peksquared.com, basically giving their views on new movies, music, trailers, news, and graphic novels. It's usually 3-5 people sitting around our dining room table talking into an audio recorder. In my opinion, the first one is basically an experimental one, so you'll hear loads of giggling and edited cuts.

John asked me to be part of their 6th podcast mainly because I both read and saw Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, whereas the other podcasters have not.

So there we were, John, Sear, John's twin, Anthony, and I surrounding the microphone. To be honest, I've never been quite this nervous around my grandmother's old breakfast nook since the olden holiday parties. It explains why you never really hear my voice other than me being prompted to speak. But the guys were pretty cool. I think the nerves were really just the first time podcast jitters. They really do give an informative look on some movies and what not. They not only look at the mainstream, but at the independent scene as well. You'll also hear some publicity about goings on in Sacramento, which is pretty cool. XP

So yeah... I'll give you some information about that as soon as I figure it out! XD

EDIT: It should be available, FREE, on iTunes. Go to Podcasts in the Power Search option on the right hand side. Type in "Freakin Awesome Podcast" in the title. There you'll find the 6 or 7 podcasts already up. Of course, John's art design for the podcast really illustrates the point I was trying to make in the beginning...

On number 6, it even has my name on it! WOOT! I'm on iTunes! XP

I would be more excited, but I listened to my voice and I thought, THAT is not what I thought my voice sounded like... Does my voice in real life sound pixie-ish to you? 0 _0

Draw With Me

Blog No. 199: Saturday, 7/18

Another bored day on the computer, so I went onto DeviantArt and found this:

Totally sad yet totally creepy at the same time... XP

Ink to Paper

Blog No. 198: Friday, 6/17

Note the title. Today was the day I started writing in my checkerboard journal. What you may ask? I haven't the foggiest clue... Well I do, but it involves a jumbled mess in my brain that I'd need to sort out on paper and to even begin explaining it at this stage of the game would be a doomed effort. So I'm just going to leave that part of the blog as a cliff hanger...

Indeed.

I also went on Ragnarok Online to finish leveling up in the training camp. I learned how to equip stuff and whatnot, as well as get some bows and maces, which I couldn't equip.

After I reached level 10, I was warped to this town. I called Piper and told me the directions of where to meet up with her and JT in that world. So I followed her directions to Prontera. From there, we went to a specific spot on the map where we met up with Chaz and JT's character. The reason I say JT's "character" is because he REALLY gets into the whole "role-playing" of the game. This "character" was a high priest, and he acted as such.

He started giving us directions on how to become a ninja, then I stopped him and told him that I wanted to be a tae-kwon fighter instead. To that, he said, "Oh, interesting choice my dear boy. That's usually a hard character to start out with!" In my head I was thinking, well I'm still not sure what I'm doing, let alone why I am doing this in the first place. But I figured I just go along with it.

So Piper escorted me to my destination across 8 screens of forest, dessert, and forest. From there, I talked to this computer character that told me to level up once more in order to become a taekwon fighter. So Piper and I walked just outside of the town, where after a few minutes of squabbling, I died. I was basically transported back to the save point in the southern region of Prontera, back at the start... So frustrating... Then I just trained for about an hour and a half until I leveled up once more, that was when Piper escorted me back to that village, where I became a taekwon fighter.

Then, Piper had me follow her back to where we first encountered the dessert. There we met up with JT's other character who was a merchant. He gave me a few hundred bird beaks which he had me give this computer character, who exchanged these bills for levels. This character seemed a lot more sarcastic than his previous character...

After I leveled up and gave back the remaining bird beaks, JT's character got up and said his goodbye. We both replied, "Have fun!" a quirk Piper got from me.

JT's other character waved us off and muttered, "I remember when I was that young...," as he walked off screen...

JT seems very dedicated to his role-playing. XP

Ragnarok Online Hates Me

Blog No. 197: Thursday, 6/16

JT and Piper are trying to get me into this platforming game called Ragnarok Online. For those not familiar with it, here's a basic synopsis of it in the form of a picture:

Anyways, I said, "Sure, sounds like fun!" only after I had them beg and plead for me to play. XP

So, when I got home Wednesday night, I thought I should start the downloading the programs and stuff. I went through the steps one by one; downloading the game, downloading the Valkyrie server (the free one), and open all the Ragnarok programs to patch.

That's when I hit my first problem.

I double clicked on the little Valkyrie icon to patch its stuff, but then, as it started up, an error message popped up saying "Failed to patch [Random combination of numbers and letters]."

I tried looking online to see what was the problem and the Ragnarok FAQ basically said that it was a problem in the download, that the program didn't download everything correctly. So I uninstalled then reinstalled Valkyrie. Then I opened it up once more for it to patch, then the same error message arised...

So I called it a night and figured I call Piper in the morning.

When I called Piper, she was all, "Dude, the Valkyrie icon doesn't need to patch!" -->Even though she, JT, and Ragnarok Online had said, "Open up EVERYTHING and let it patch before gameplay." But she was right! The game started up and everything went alright...

Until the game didn't want to log me in with my password... Frustrations...

I didn't understand it. It's the same password I used for my Meebo and KoL accounts! I must have typed in my password over fifty dozen times, in every variation of the password I could think of multiple times. I typed in my login and password to the online Kafra Shop over the internet and that worked! Then I tried looking at my account online and tried to change my password. Thing was, it required my old password to change it to a new one and, although I logged on to see my account with that same password, the password changer still did not recognize it. So I could log on to change my account, but I couldn't log on to change my password or to actually play the game...

After some more frustrated yelling at inanimate objects, I clicked on the link for forgotten passwords, which I only found after filtering through the FAQ, and it sent me an email. As it turns out, the password I typed in would have worked if I forgot to type in the last character of it. The password I thought I typed in only differed by not having that last character...

So frustrating...

After a few deep calming breaths, I started doing the training camp thing in the beginning of the game. After awhile, I kinda got bored. The only way to level up was to attack cute little creatures by clicking on the monster... again and again...

And again...

So I logged off and decided to look at the RO website once more to look for what class I wanted to be. Right now, I'm just a novice, but after novice I get to choose from a few different jobs, like mage, acolyte, swordsman, theif, monk, and archer. After a bit of searching, I thought that the ninja job was pretty cool.

Then I headed to bed. XP

Checker Knights

Blog No. 196: Wednesday, 7/15

I went wandering across Youtube and found this:

Completely AWESOME!

It's the music "Checker Knights" as heard on the Halberd stage on SSBrawl.

I think I played this video about 50 times before I logged off. It really got me inspired to continue with Piano, which I was having some doubts as to actually continuing. Unfortunately, he doesn't have sheet music for it, nor does he plan to make any! DX

Just the same! I'm going to practice some music now! XP

Tap Dancing Wizards

Blog No. 195: Taka's and Abril's Grand Tap Dance Final Adventure, and, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Yep. A mouthful.

Taka and Abril asked a while back for me to come see their tap final and to record it on video. I was with them during their process of figuring out their moves in the cafeteria, (well it was half preparation, half trying to look up the ending theme of Captain Planet, XD). Originally, they were editing a sound bite of Mortal Kombat, which was as techno and cliched as you'd think it would be. Then, sometime between that practice and their final, Taka elluded to me that they changed it from Mortal Kombat to that House Disney song she found. I was hoping it was the Captain Planet song... The Power is YOURS! XP

So on Final day, I had arrived early-ish to hang out with Taka for a little bit. She was giving me the gist of their routine. Granted it's not broadway, it still looks pretty good. XD

We met up with Abril a while later, only we didn't know whether or not it was her because her blackness was well hidden in the shadows. XP

They lead me to the little dance studio next to the gym. It was pretty big, prolly bigger than the ones at my high school but not as nice. It had mirrors and a pretty loud sound system. The teacher was pretty cool.

Apparently, some alumni from Charter attends that class also. When I saw Shoua and Saman walk in, I was surprised! I noticed that Shoua recognized me, what with seeing me the most recently with the facial hair and the ponytail. However, I saw Saman do like a short double take, like she was confused as to who I was. Have I really changed that much? :/

It was really funny watching everybody. The instructor was teaching them a routine thing that I guess taught them some basic skills and was able to be accompany an old time jazz song. From looking at everyone tapping, it didn't look that hard. It was a matter of keeping time in your head and translating that into phsical movement in the legs. The instructor then pulled out some canes for them to dance with! It was hilarious! XP

Then Taka and Abril, after a decent hallway practice, performed their routine. I set up my video camera on my 30 dollar tripod and filmed it, just like the good ol' days in filmmaking... *sigh* Nostalgia...

It was pretty funny. Together, they were doing fun stuff, like chasing each other and sweeping arm movements. They utilized each other very well. Well I thought it was just fine and so did the teacher, (after I took a sneak peak of their grading sheets! XP), but Taka and Abril wanted to do it again, only in a more open setting in front of friends! You HEAR THAT? Yet another excuse to get together over the summer people! XP

Taka had to immediately leave right after for her camping trip, so Abril and I kicked it at the cafeteria for a bit. I bought her lunch as well as an Icee from the slushie machine for myself, (which we apparently have now... XP). The strawberry slush drink didn't really taste like strawberry. It tasted more milky... DX

Afterward, mom picked me up and took me home. I basically went of Facebook/play with my Wii until that night.

~~~

Audrey, John, and I dropped off Lennox at grandma's and went straight to Regal, where we saw the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

When we got there, my friends Achona and Brandi, or Chocho and Brando McVeal as I usually call them, walked up and surprised me. I basically hung out with them while John and Audrey got our seats. Chocho had a few sheets of paper that was basically the entertainment for the night. There was a scavenger hunt where we had to find all the people in costume as HP characters with distinguishing pins. They left out Arthur Weasley on that list, yet we found like 3 of those. Then there were obscure, random characters I hardly remember. We totally blanked on who Madam Malkin was! XP

Then Chocho and Brando took me to get sorted by the sorting hat, the long and common tradition amongst Potter fans. Apparently, the both of them had gotten Hufflepuff when they really wanted Slytherin. I usually get Hufflepuff as well, but this time around, I got Slytherin. Chocho was so mad at that hat! XP

Then a giant Death Eater appeared!

We also ran into 2/3 of the Matutis Clan, Angel and Ella. Ella's the one in my graduating class, Christine is a year older and Angel a year younger. They pretty much looked and acted the same. I asked how Christine was and they said that she stayed behind with the baby. XP

Ok I kept you waiting long enough!

~~~

Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Warning, if you have yet to read the book, GO see the movie while you still can! The movie strays so far from the series that it might as well just be a stand alone movie. It's impossible to compare the book to the movie, so don't even worry about it!

Lord Voldemort is alive, out in the open, and he is pissed! He comes up with a complicated plan that is seen earlier in the movie that involves Draco Malfoy. We also know that Snape gets involved by Draco's mother, Narcissus, with the unbreakable vow.

Meanwhile, Harry works closely with Dumbledore to try and get an understanding of Voldemort's motives. This involved Harry trying to manipulate Horace Slughorn, the new potions master, to relinquish a revealing memory in his and Voldemort's past. This time between Harry and Dumbledore is the transition to Harry's final mission in the seventh book. He learns of the Horcruxes, each holding a piece of Voldemort's soul. It shows what lengths Harry will have to go to in order to defeat Voldemort in the final book...

Oh! And Dumbledore dies. XP

Each of the important characters in the book has face time in the movie. It focused some of the attention on the hidden emotions of Draco or Snape. They may have had some extra time in the book as well, but the movie seemed to emphasize this a little more. It showed how Draco's emotions reeled back and forth between total hatred and immense fear.

It emphasized on the love and the danger in this movie. Some scenes were added for a visual and dramatic effect that evil is on the horizon, like the pedestrian bridge scene in the beginning. Most of the movie is in complete darkness. The only spackle of any color is that of the Weasley joke shop run by the Weasley twins. It also emphasized a lot of the love triangles that went on, like Harry's jealousy over Ginny, Hermione's jealousy over Ron, and a lot of back and forth with a few of the extras. That Lavender Brown is one creepy chick.

3 Out of 5 Thumbs Up--> Great to see if you're a Harry Potter virgin!

*Singled Out: Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood

The picture really says it all doesn't it?

Luna Lovegood provided a lot of the comedic humor for the story because of her weird and out of the ordinary personality. They pulled off the scene of where they introduced Luna in her Gryffindor lion head very well! In the scene where Harry has to find a date to Slughorn's party, Harry shows an immediate and almost sarcastic response, "I know the perfect person!" Cut to Harry walking down the hall with Luna, who prattles on about how she wears shoes to bed because she sometimes sleepwalks. XD

She certainly is not afraid to be herself! Luna, you've been singled out. XP

~

I'm tired of this blog now. TIME TO POST IT! XP

Kaylah's Closet

Blog No. 194: As The Monday Turns...

King left last Friday to go on his camping trip with his youth group/church thing. It means that all this week, he would be absent from class, (lucky...). XP

It also means that I'm left behind most of the time. King was the one who gave me rides home and rides before class to various places, like their home, the tennis court, Burger King, etc... Not only was he a means of transportation, but also a means of entertainment...

So when my mom dropped me off at the usual 3 PM, I had nothing to do except sit in the shade by the tennis courts...

...

So I decided to call up some folk. I called JT, but he didn't answer, I figure because of work. He did text back, which our conversation consisted of 2 parts confusion and 2 parts Ragnarok. No idea why...

I called Piper, and we talked for a bit. She was basically telling me about her time the night before when her and Tom went over to JT's for an RO session. Kinda makes you wonder if RO is an online game then why do you do it in the same room as other people... It's kinda like calling your number with someone else's cell phone, then continuing to have an actual conversation with both phones at both ears... It's pretty insane, really. XP

Then I called Taka to see what she was up to. I heard music in the background, which meant that her and Abril were practicing their tap routine for their final performance tomorrow. So I let them practice and hung up.

Finally, I called Kaylah. Kaylah is the basic southern white girl. I made fun of the 'southern', I made fun of the 'white', but I never thought I'd get the chance to make fun of the 'girl'. Kaylah was basically complaining about her 3 bags of shoes, how she couldn't find the shoes she was plannig to wear that day for her chef job, (pardon *cough* chef MANAGER job *cough*), interview. She also doesn't have any of the furniture set up in her room yet! She justified having these shoes with, "well, I need a certain shoe for each outfit!" which begged the question of, "well, how many outfits do you have?" and that, my friends, was where she was speechless. XP

She only broke the silence to reply, "well, it's not that I have too many clothes, it's that I don't have enough room! I swear, when I retire to a two story house, I'm dedicating a full room as the closet!" She can be such a girl sometimes. XP

I was telling her that I, too, have realized how much clothes I have, only I admitted I have to give away some of these clothes. I also complained back to her about having too many shoes as well, (only I had 3 pairs, not 3 bags). I made her fussy by that remark. :P

"That's not even counting the boots!" XD;

An hour and a half later, I was feeling the sun light burning my face, so I retired inside Davies Hall. There, I sat in the hallway in front of a classroom adjacent to my own. When the teacher arrived, I used the door handle to prop myself up, only I was surprised to find out that it was unlocked... Something to remember for later... XP

Jardine gave us our quiz. He talked about Christianity. I was spacing out, thinking of images of Monty Python, the cheshire cat, and chest wax...

Then my mom came by and took me home!

... The Monty Python--> Cheshire Cat--> Chest wax tangency made sense in my head... XP

A Weak Back? When Did You Hurt It?

Blog No. 193: A Week Back! *Buh-DUM-tss*

A while back, (pardon the puns), I proposed a deal with Dustin and Patric to help me paint my room. We talked about it through Facebook that, in exchange for their manual labor, I would treat them to lunch.

In the morning before they arrived, I was frantically trying to clean and clear my room out some more. I was trying to do stuff in between my spackling last night, only my sister had complained about the noise coming out of my room. Next time, I should try and not spackle with a butter knife... XP

I carried out my clothes, my shelves, and my desk stuff out of the room. It's sometimes hard to realize how much stuff you have until you pull it out of your room... Then I vacuumed the hell out of the carpet, which took about an hour and a half to do to prevent a sudden overload or a vacuum implosion.

Then the guys arrived and we started going at it! XP

We really had no experience painting before. I only painted canvases and paper, and the one time I painted, (during my volunteer work at the PTK job on Fort Natomas), I only painted one plank of wood until someone pulled me away to lift something heavy... Like a hand saw... XP

So we just started to work. We pulled the big things I couldn't lug out to the center and covered it with plastic. Patric opened up the can of paint and we started painting with our rollers. Dustin had played some "painting" music for the mood. If you heard his usual playlist, you'd know it be full of J-Rock/Mainstream music. A few songs were Spice Girls, a few were GREEEN, yada yada. I swear, the song "There She Goes", (the Sixpence None The Richer version, not The La's), kept popping up again and again...

There she goes... There she GOES again! XP

Anyways, after the majority of the wall was painted, the can of paint was almost empty. So, we decided to take our break and move on to lunch at In n' Out. The both of them had something called 'Animal Fries', which was what Terry had gotten on our last Kaylah Day. I had tried theirs too, and remarked the same thing about how it looked, only I cleaned it up. The animal fries had the cheese, onions, and secret sauce that did not combine to a very eye pleasing color. I described it as, "it looks too pink to be considered food," and spared them the "something that bleeded, amongst other things, in your pants" reference I had made with Kaylah and Terry. XD

As we headed to the car, some lady in her car asked us to help her with her business class. Basically, she had us try some samples of cologne, like those annoying Macy's attendants at the mall. We left after the third spray around...

Then we went to Home Depot for the paint.

We were joking around a bit. Somewhere in Dustin's thought process, he made the plan of chest bumping the wall with his blue painted chest to leave its imprint behind. In my mind I was thinking he wouldn't go through with it. Then he showed me his hairless chest. Apparently he shaved for the occasion...?

So I agreed, at first, to see if he'd actually do it. All he told me was, "pick out the blue you want, Rabbiman, and I'll do it!" So I picked a darkish blue I could see against the green wall. I asked the guy for the smallest can of that color, which he made and gave to me along with another gallon of green. I looked at Dustin and he didn't protest about it.

So there we were, back at the house, continuing to paint the room green. When we finished, Dustin took his shirt off and started taking pictures with his phone while Patric was getting the blue paint ready. First, Patric drew a weird face on Dustin's chest so that I could take a few pictures to send. Then Patric and I dipped our hands into the blue paint and started smothering the stubly man chest...

My wall, feeling up Dustin's boobies... XD

Now if I only I had female friends that would let me do this... XP

Then Patric, with his already blue hands, added his hand print and other things on the wall. While doing this, Dustin hugged Patric from behind, making a blue blob on the back of Patric's white shirt. XD

I, too, made my mark. XP

After cleaning our hands and Dustin's chest, we played some Brawl on my wii in the computer room. I found out a few things during that Brawl session, like Dustin has a lot of time on his hands, or that I can pwn Dustin's Olimar with my Olimar, or that Wario is able to EAT his own motorcycle... Odd. XP

All in all, it was a pretty good day!

Now I have to put all my stuff back into my room.............................. DX

Caught a Few, Threw a Few

Blog No. 192: Frisbee Day

The basic highlight of this day was another round of Ultimate Frisbee (UF)... Yes I decided to use an acronym... XP

The gameplay wasn't really remarkable this time around. We had the usuals plus a few people. I find it somewhat awkward to meet new people, being the awkward person that I am, I don't usually give off a nice first impression. However, I noticed that I didn't care after a certain point because I end up introducing myself with a handshake to the newcomers, then pile driving them into the ground a few seconds later... I also noticed I did run a lot more than I had when I started this thing. Although I ran a lot, I didn't do much to affect the tide of the game.

During game play, my foot immersed into a gigantic mud puddle, much like what happened on one of my Oolong Days, but it wasn't deep enough for a pool of water.

Bryn brought her dog this time. He kept barking and calling for her, and he almost ended up on the field a few times. I thought it had wanted to catch a frisbee, but all he wanted was to run around and play with his owner.

By the end of the game, it started to sprinkle a little bit, which was odd because today was supremely warmer than any other day of UF... The acronym is fun saying aloud... XP

Anyways, after the game, JT drove me to home depot for a spackle run. Along the way, he invited me to come over with him to hang out while he played that Ragnorok Online game. He was trying to entice me to get into that game, which seemed really annoying and mundane when I saw Taka and Fishie play it a couple of times... So I said I'd think about it. XD

So he dropped me off at home, and I spackled my room for a bit, preparing for the painting day tomorrow! :P