Day Twenty-Five: How to Save a Beetle

7/6/13, 1:28 PM PDT

Slept early last night, after knocking out a few chapters of 1Q84 last night. I'm not sure if you'd consider 10:30 to be early, but compared to my past nights of sleeping at 3, I'd say it's a dramatic difference.

Still, for some reason, woke up at 10. Huh. That's 12 hours of sleep. Was I that tired? Guess so.

My mom's friend's family picked up Mocha today, much to my mom's relief. She doesn't like the dog very much because he leaves a mess everywhere. Must I remind you about the horse peeing incident?

Now planning out my next story while simultaneously watching the KTAR7 Brawl livestream. Considering going on hiatus for my story-a-week blog so I can focus on my script and get more ideas, but we'll see.



Same day, 3:28 PM PDT

Barnes and Noble. Went to buy the required summer reading for Junior year English. Sister bought an encyclopedia on dinosaurs but she's only looking at the pictures, so I told her to read it. Now she's reciting dinosaur facts.

I'm so proud.

Also, went to Panda Express for lunch. Absolutely STUFFED myself on fried rice and orange chicken. I'm so full right now. If Ms. Frizzle took her Magic School Bus to explore the inner parts of my body, she'd see a disgusting mix of orange chunks, vegetable bits, and stomach acid all the way to the edge of my esophagus.

But hey, at least my fortune cookie was positive.

I WISH THAT I HAVE A MECH SUIT AND EXEMPTION FROM
ALL LAW!

Same day, 7:16 PM PDT

Watched a lot of "Two Best Friends Play" since I've been really bored today and don't really feel like writing.

A few minutes ago, my sister ran to my room screaming at the top of her lungs like there was a murderer in the house or her Roblox account got banned. I asked what was wrong.

"THERE'S A BUG IN THE HOUSE OH MY GOD."

So I walk into the living room to see what she's freaking out about. And it's just a tiny little beetle.

"KILL IT. KILL IT NOW."

You may remember my increasingly negative position toward spiders in blogs past. I still hate them, don't worry (Well, venomous ones at least, but that's a different story). But my hatred of bugs don't extend very far from spiders, save for the always-menacing centipede, millipede, bees, hornets, or anything yellow and black.

So when I saw this tiny, laughably pathetic beetle on the ground... I couldn't kill it. Especially when it was turtled and trying in desperation to get up with its stubby legs. So I got a disposable cup, overturned it, and put it over the beetle, put a piece of paper under the cup, and sent it outside, right side up.

The poor thing quickly and adorably flipped itself over again while attempting to walk over a tile on my backyard porch.

Some people never learn. Back to scripting!





RFotD: Fortune cookies were invented in America. Their existence is practically unknown in China.

SGAT: Wrote a bit.

Day Twenty-Four: ScribbleScript

7/5/13, 9:58 AM PDT

Dropped my sister off, then played fetch with Mocha for a bit. I can tell my neighbors' dogs are jealous since every time the ball hits the fence, they whimper and whine. One of them even tackled into my fence to try and get the ball, which startled Mocha and I.

Scriptwrite time, here we go!



Same day, 11:44 AM PDT

YES. CHECKED MY APWH SCORE, GOT A 4 ON A SCALE OF 5. THAT'S FANTASTIC.

LOOK AT IT. I WANT ALL OF YOU TO LOOK AT IT. MAKING IT HUGE SO YOU CAN'T IGNORE IT.

Thank god too. Words can't even begin to describe how unprepared I was for this test, especially being in Fulks' first year of teaching. You remember that story I wrote awhile back about the APWH test? That was non-fiction, I literally BS-ed my way through the essays and roughly half of the multiple choice.

God, I'm shaking, the few minutes before my score was revealed must have been the tensest minutes of my life. So relieved I know the score now.



Same day, 3:31 PM PDT

Haven't been following my exercise schedule, unfortunately, which means I've gotten... flabby. Gotta go do exercises so I don't end up blob-like.

Actually, now that I think of it, I'm in a pretty deep mess. Sleep schedule's horrendous, I've done minimal movement since my parkour accident, and I've gotten pretty lazy. This will not do. And come to think of it, my friends do judge me a lot for looking like a mess. Also, I've gotten a pretty bad habit of cursing.

So starting today, I'm gonna fix everything I can. Scheduled a mandatory auto shutdown for my computer at 9:45 PM every day so I have no excuse to stay up until 3 now. Put sticky notes EVERYWHERE, reminding me to exercise and maintain good posture. Gonna go back to slapping myself when I curse now, either over chat or in real life, just so that I can stop doing it subconsciously. As for my fashion style... might need a bit of help with that.

Especially with my hair. I feel like 16 years of the same haircut's gotten quite stale. Send me pictures of people with awesome hairstyles so I know what to get next time I go to the barber's, please.


Same day, 7:38 PM PDT

Got really, really into writing the script for my short film. Been writing it since 11 in the morning and I think it's turning out GREAT. Really excited to get people involved in it.

Also, played a bit of Scribblenauts for inspiration. My god, the intro's the most adorable thing I've ever seen. I'm serious, look at this intro.

ISN'T IT ADORABLE?!

Same day, 8:09 PM PDT

Auuuugh, I''m exhausted. Been napping on and off this entire day. Think I'm gonna go sleep early. One more hour or so. Night all.

RFotD: The original Scribblenauts had 22,802 different usable words. Scribblenauts Remix and Scribblenauts Unlimited both added to this count substantially by introducing adjectives and Nintendo characters.

SGAT: Wrote the HELL out of my script.

Day Twenty-Three: Two Animals and a Dead Lemongerine

7/4/13, 3:51 PM PDT

Woke up pretty late again since sister doesn't have school. Decided to let my SCP get deleted without revision since it really wasn't that great anyway. Still keeping the idea though, don't worry.

Nothing much really happened today so far, apart from my mom making mango smoothies today, which she hasn't done in around five years. I've missed them so much, you don't even know.



Same day, 7:21 PM PDT

Pretty much spent the entire day on the Internet today, doing unproductive things. Break day? Sounds good to me.

Don't worry, I'll go do productive things tomorrow, when my sister goes back to school.



Same day, 8:39 PM PDT

Leaving the house for the 4th of July, awwww yeah.

Found a big, yellow, citrus-y fruit on the ground that looked like a big tangerine, but colored like a lemon. I figured it was feeling pretty lonely, so I decided to kick it to the rec, where all the fireworks would be.

Hello, new friend!

Unfortunately, I accidentally kicked it too hard and it cracked open. It died by my feet, and that is a fact I deeply regret. My sincerest condolences, dead lemongerine. I have failed you.

Now sitting on a foldable chair in the park, waiting for the fireworks. Did a bit of walking around the park with my sister to look at why stuff they had for sale. They had funnel cakes, pizza, shaved ice, and god damn bacon-wrapped hot dogs. Fun fact, I actually tried those last year. They tasted awful.

Also saw Ian, Alan, Matthew P, Angelo, and Noreen, which was pretty cool. Didn't really make much conversation, just kind of said "hi" and left. Note to self, learn how to deal with seeing people outside of school with minimal awkwardness.



Same day, 11:32 PM PDT

NOOOOOOOOOOOO. SAW MY PRECIOUS LEMONGERINE CRUSHED BY THE CRUEL FOOT OF FATE. OH GOD, I'M SO SORRY.

"I'LL NEVER FORGIVE YOU, MICHAEL!"

Ah well.

Anyway, Minecraft with the Skype Group again. We found another ocelot trying to break in to our chicken farm, so we caught it, renamed it "Swiper," and freed it into the wild.

Swiper, no taking other peoples' property without consent!

Swiper has a lonely, lonely life ahead of him. Since ocelots are considered hostile mobs, they respawn and despawn unlike most other peaceful mobs. But, if you name an ocelot, they'll never despawn. So he gets to live out his entire life with his ocelot family until one day, they despawn and he's left all alone.

Tragic. But he deserves it for eating all my chickens.

Speaking of chickens, we named one "Cousin Kony" and swore on our lives to protect him from all harm.

I don't even know. Ask Kayla, she thought of the name.

Will we succeed? Only time will tell.

Oh, and Mr. Enderman visited our biome today! He really likes it, I can tell.

"I really do, Michael. I love it."

RFotD: “When people feel lonely they are actually far less accepting of potential new friends than when they are socially contented.”

SGAT: None really.

Day Twenty-Two: The Battle for Tetherball

7/3/13, 10:01 AM PDT

New story! Morning Never Comes: An SCP Related Tale. Read it!

Anyway, dropped my sister off to school. Then, at around 9-ish, my mom's friend's family dropped their dog off. If you've read previous incarnations of this summer post-a-day, you'll know who he is, but if not, I'll give a bit of backstory.

My mom's friend's family is insanely wealthy, so they go on vacation every chance they get, a fact that I am very, very jealous of. But I guess our family benefits from their vacations too since every time they leave, they drop off their dog, Mocha, to our house while they're gone.

And I swear, this dog is a genius. Especially when he plays fetch. He predicts where the ball's going based on your elbow position, he knows when you fake him out, and when he brings it back, he nudges the ball towards you with his nose. Clever, huh? And he's adorable too, with his fluffy, wool-like coat.

But today, when they dropped him off, I noticed something off.

They cut his hair.

AND HE LOOKS HILARIOUS NOW. SERIOUSLY, LOOK AT HIM.

SO SHAVED.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.



Same day, 3:20 PM PDT

Woo! Finally caught up on Doctor Who. Took me a little over three months, a bit over my promise to Camille to finish it in two weeks, but hey, what can you do.

Aaaaaaaaagh, I can't wait for the new episodes to come back on November, I'm hooked. It's a great series, I love it.

Now I'm not sure what I should do. I kind of want to work on my script. I think I'll go do that now.



Same day, 10:47 PM PDT

Submitted my SCP to the SCP Wiki. 1365, my first child.

And it's currently sitting at a -4 rating.

But I'm glad. They've pointed out a few bad things about my SCP, like the fact that it requires a 30 METER CUBE TO CONTAIN. I didn't do my conversions too well and that's roughly the equivalent of EIGHT-EIGHT THOUSAND CUBIC FEET. And the fact that the origin of the poem has no set backstory.

Gonna go revise it now so as to maintain my reputation as a writer.



Same day, 1:20 AM PDT

Minecraft. Brandon brought back saddles and a bunch of horse armor from the Nether, so we decided to put it to epic use. As you know, my server's on Hard mode, which means that there are a ridiculous number of hostile mobs that spawn at night. First night after we got the armors and saddles, we decided to test them out by defending our village.

We were ready.

What resulted was the most amazing battle in Vanilla Minecraft that's ever existed. Arrows fired from our horses filled the night sky and pierced the flesh and bone and carapace of the mobs. Creepers exploded left and right, leaving dozens of impact craters scattered throughout the world. Tetherball, our village chicken hanging on a nine-block tall pike near the outskirts of our town, watched the entire battle from close-up. In his honor, we have named this battle "The Battle for Tetherball."

For Tetherball.

Later, I spawned in name tags so we could name our horses. Afterwards, went to check on my beautiful, bustling chicken farm.

What the hell.

So after a bit of snooping around, managed to find this ocelot. Still had a chicken bone in his mouth.

You can barely see its tail behind the leaves as it's running away.

HE ATE EVERY CHICKEN. EVERY SINGLE ONE.

I killed him on the spot and mourned my dead chickens. The Skype Group couldn't stop laughing at the fact that a single ocelot took out 100+ chickens in one day.




RFotD: Ocelots are considered hostile mobs in Minecraft and thus, can despawn. They do not spawn naturally in Peaceful mode.

SGAT: None really.

Day Twenty-One: I Forgot

7/2/13, 9:42 AM PDT

Yay, sister's well enough to finally go to school, which means I'm up early again.

Unfortunately, I haven't exactly stuck to my exercise schedule since I landed on my neck at parkour. I'll probably catch up tomorrow, but today's dedicated to exclusively writing. Running on five hours of sleep, here we go!



Same day, 2:28 PM PDT

Picked up my sister. Saw Theo walking to the same school my sister goes to, so I STARED HIM DOWN UNTIL HE LOOKED AWAY TO ASSERT MY DOMINANCE. As soon as we made eye contact, he turned his head so fast, I thought his neck would've snapped. Then, he kept on sideways glancing toward me to see if I had looked away BUT I HADN'T. I STARED RIGHT AT HIM AS IF HE WERE A WEEPING ANGEL AND HE SUFFERED EVERY SECOND THAT I STARED AT HIM. BWAHAHAHAHAHA.

Back to writing. Really excited to release tomorrow's story, I think it's great so far.



7/3/13, 8:41 AM PDT

SHOOT. Got too into writing, forgot about finishing this entry. My bad, guys!





RFotD: The current world record for longest time gone without blinking is 20 minutes, 53 seconds.

SGAT: Finished a story.

Day Twenty: A Whistle Pen

7/1/13, 4:19 PM PDT

Oh boy, day twenty. Summer only gets faster from here on out.

Watched "The Call" this morning since it was on TV. It's those kinds of movies that make me so thankful I'm not a white blonde teenage girl. I'm so lucky, you know that?

Anyway, kind of a late entry since I've been pretty deep into writing this script. Transitioning from the rough outline on a word document to actual script format. Expect it to be done by the end of this week.



Same day, 6:23 PM PDT

Played a bit of Minecraft 1.6.1 today since it just updated. And I do mean a bit, not the entire day like the last few times. We lynched a pig. It was awesome.

Now, I'm writing my spy script again, back in a bit!


Same day, 11:24 PM PDT

Wrote a lot, but also took a bit of a break for Minecraft again. Figured out how Redstone comparators and daylight sensors work, which I'm very proud of since I've figured out how to build lights that only turn on at night as well as more complicated donation booths to unlock doors.

Also, repaired the pen for my old ideas notebook after a year or so. I've missed you, RhinoBook.

"I missed you too, man."

While looking for pen cartridges to replace my old one, I found this... thing.

Pen... Whistle?

...What?

It looks like a pen with a built-in whistle? And the... Diet Coke label? I don't know what their PR was thinking, but I guess it worked because I've been looking at it for awhile now...

And the whistle doesn't even work. Based on the shape of the labium (the slicey-whistley hole part), I should be blowing into the end opposite of the writing tip, but there's a pocket clip in the way and it won't come off. I haven't tried tearing it off exactly, but I'm scared to break the tip off. But I have applied a decent amount of pressure and it doesn't come off, so I'm guessing it's not intended to be removed.

Weird.





RFotD: Aspartame, the artificial chemical in Diet Coke had previously been thought to cause cancer. This is false.

SGAT: Wrote a lot of my script.

Day Nineteen: Sandcastles and Shotguns

6/30/13, 11:55 AM PDT

Woke up early, went to church, it's HOT outside.

Well, not really. It's actually quite mild. I don't know where I was going with this.

Anyway, we're headed to Toyota because my parents think they got overcharged for the car repairs. It's a bit worrying since they can get into some pretty heated arguments, and I don't really want that to happen in public.



Same day, 1:22 PM PDT

Well. That wasn't as bad as I thought. Sister and I explored the Toyota shop thing. We found a free coffee machine and made people out of styrofoam and coffee stirrers.

Here's mine. I call him "Stormageddon."

My sister's. She called it "Cup."

We may have gotten a bit too attached to them, since we brought them with us to the car.

Now, we're headed to Imperial Beach to go look at the sandcastle building competition. On the way, we got hungry and decided to stop at Filippi's Pizza Grotto. Man, we haven't eaten here in forever, we used to eat here all the time. This place is the best, they gave me a chunk of pizza dough to play with every time we ate here. Their food is the best too.



Same day, 3:08 PM PDT

So there was only one sandcastle. And it was pretty crappy.

The castle was happy because it mocked us. It knew we drove far away
and got stuck in traffic. So it mocked us

JUST KIDDING. THERE WAS ONE MORE AND IT WAS PRETTY BEAST.

WOAH.

HOW THE-

HOLY CRAP, WHALE.

The people who owned the magical, magical hands that built this.

The entire sandcastle. Daaaaaaaaaamn.

Still, there were still only two, and they weren't that great. Last year, it was an entire competition that took a huge chunk of beach. Shame they didn't do that this year.

But hey, there were bird people!

Quetzalcoatles? Quetzalcuati? What's the plural form of Quetzalcoatl?

A red flamingo? A phoenix with a really long neck? Hope it doesn't come
any closer or else I'll-

OH JESUS.

The guy that controlled the giant red ostrich thing had a pretty killer mustache.

See what I mean?

And a single guy played the music for the entire event, one-man band style. Homemade kick drum made out of a bucket and a kick pedal on one foot, tambourine on the other, a ukulele in his hands, whistling simultaneously... Damn.

A bit washed out, and I had to stealth-pic the guy.

Same day, 11:27 PM PDT

Whoops! Didn't get to write so much today, too busy playing Minecraft since it was Christina's last day here before she gets deported to Vietnam so her crimes against humanity can be punished. She promised to bring me back a copy of Pokémon Vietnamese Crystal when she escapes their concentration camp though.

Hmm... let's see, what happened in Minecraft... first days we played in Hard mode. Wasn't that bad, except forHOLY CRAP, ARMORED MONSTERS.

WHAT THE-

OH GOD, BUTTER SKELETONS.

And apparently, a special little Enderman really likes our mini underground biome. I've seen him warp here a few times and all he does is move the grass blocks to his liking.

It's quite cute, really. Once you get over the fact that he can
brutally murder you.

Occasionally, he picks up flowers.

AWWWWWWWWWW. He's like the shy kid in school that's actually really nice but has murderous intentions when you make eye contact with him so he has to wear a dog cone all day.)

He's even tried to make a tiny island.

Aww, don't walk away, Mr. Enderman. At least you tried.

Enderman, you're welcome to live here whenever you like.

Also explored the Nether a bit with Kayla and Brandon. Later, when we got back, Kayla had the genius idea to give our tree farm a "controlled fire" to take out some of our wood, which we had much too much of.

The entire thing burned to ashes.

WEEWOOWEEWOOWEEWOOWEEWOO.

I found a dog too. Named him "Hates Christina" because he kept trying to murder her. But as I was walking home, he decides to take a little detour...

GOD DAMN IT. NOT THE RAVINE.

Later, we decided to take a group picture in the Crab People shrine that Kayla built in our attic. Christina "misfired" her bone shotgun and "accidentally" killed me.

This started a war. Many died. And this was the picture.

Was it really worth it? You decide.

RFotD: Endermen noises are actually the voices of normal people reversed, slowed down, and distorted.

SGAT: None really.

Day Eighteen: The Great Virtual Chicken Exodus

6/29/13, 6:50 PM PDT

Late blog entry, didn't really get a chance to write until now, my bad.

Had a dream that I was back in school. It was the first day of Junior year, yet for some reason, there were a bunch of people wearing white graduation robes. Then, I walked to Carl's Jr, but took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up walking down a dark forest path with trees on my left and right. It was nighttime and pitch black. Then, I woke up.

Maybe it's trying to say something? I don't know.

Anyway, pretty much all Minecraft today. Worked on an underground tunnel, which quickly turned into an awesome underground room.

But then, an Enderman showed up.

Sup, Enderman.

And he dropped off a grass block.

"How's it going, Michael?" Pretty good.

So, as to not waste it, we decided to build an ARTIFICIAL BIOME. WITH WOOL CLOUDS AND SHIZZ.

AND WOLVES.

AND OCELOTS.

EVEN MORE OCELOTS.

At one point, I accidentally punched a wolf and it got incredibly angry at me. So did the rest of its family. I logged out, attempting to escape it, but when I relogged, they formed some sort of demonic circle around where I disconnected.

KALI-MA. KALI-MA.

HECK YEAH!

Also, all of the villagers died. We tried guarding them, we really did, but they were just so stupid. I mean seriously, what kind of villager opens the door when there's a zombie trying to break through?

If the Skype Group and I were all parents, the US' infant mortality rate would be way, WAY higher.



Same day, 11:47 PM PDT

Pretty much all Minecraft today. I feel bad that I wasted an entire day playing, but it was pretty fun. Guess it's a guilty pleasure.

We managed to bring in a pair of cows, sheep, and pigs from faraway lands, so we have a very good animal farm going on now.

But our chicken farm was still microscopic. So, I decided to expand. How could I expand without reeling in more chicken? Easy.

I dug a tunnel. And had a chicken exodus.

So, as a refresh, here's how the chicken farm looked earlier.

Tiny, huh?

And, EXODUS.

THEY'RE TRAVELING DOWN THE UNDERGROUND
RAILROAD! I'M HARRIET TUBMAN!

Speaking of Harriet Tubman, we made fun of Kayla for being an American that didn't know who Harriet Tubman is. Remind me to change the sign over her bed to something Harriet Tubman related so as to mock her.

Anyway, here's the chickens' current home.

It's... beautiful.

Recap, here's the entire village as of today.

Note the completed mansion roof and the sugar cane farm.

We did good today. We did good.

Also, Brandon finally joined the server.

In cat form. Ignore Christina's bed sign.

RFotD: Chicken can be fed with Nether Wart to initiate breeding.

SGAT: None really.