Day Sixty-Five: Computer Cleaning

8/15/13, 1:43 PM PDT

Ooh, reached 1,000 views on this blog, which is pretty awesome. Almost half as popular as my writing blog now, which is great!

Speaking of my writing blog, got a disappointingly low number of readers on the newest story, which sucks. Ah well, I advertised it too late, that's what I get. Next week'll probably have more readers.



Same day, 5:11 PM PDT

Caught up on Broadchurch on BBC today. It's pretty good so far. Pretty hyped to see Arthur Darvill and David Tennant in it. Don't know what else to say, since I've only seen two episodes of it.

Also, went to the Teen Writing Club ten minutes late. Oops.

Anyway, they had a poetry writing session, which was pretty nice. Focused on metaphors and managed to make a pretty good poem in less than an hour. Not too shabby.

I'll probably post the poem on my Tumblr. Maybe

Now I'm at Carl's Jr. Swear, my friends and I have been here so frequently that we might as well call it out second home.



Same day, 10:34 PM PDT

Before I go into the bulk of the day, I'll get the small things out of the say. Went for a bit of a run, which I'm pretty proud of. Also watched Olympus Has Fallen, which was ridiculously violent. Pretty good patriotism movie though, since even my mom, who usually hates gratuitous violence, yelled in excitement when spoiler alert the main terrorist guy gets stabbed in the skull.

Anyway, to the main point. So our family computer, used by my sister and occasionally my parents, is EXPLODING with viruses. Up until a few days ago, they've been tolerant with how slow their computer's been running as well as how many popups come up when they use it.

Then they got a virus that looks like this.

Well then.
(via http://deletemalware.blogspot.com)

See that tiny little box on the top left? Yeah, that takes a picture of you with your webcam. And it FREAKED OUT my sister when she saw this, so much so that she CRIED and got really scared that she'd go to jail.

Of course, it's all bullcrap, but considering the fact that it locks the desktop, prevents Task Manager from opening, and some third malicious thing, the virus problem for my family computer was no longer ignorable. Which means they called me in.

AND IT TOOK EFFING FOREVER to fix. Eventually figured out that I had to go on Safe Mode and do a system restore. So I did.

Only problem? I cleared out a bunch of unneeded programs and virus-like things from the family computer two days ago and the latest restore point was the day right before that. SO ALL THE VIRUSES CAME CRAWLING BACK. Went back to uninstalling more unneeded programs, like before, but for some reason it couldn't uninstall them this time around because all of their uninstallers HAVE ALREADY BEEN UNINSTALLED.

"F it," I said. I deleted them from the Program Files manually, restarted the computer and BLACK SCREEN. Desktop doesn't show up anymore. Just the mouse and the void.

I gave up at this point. This entire thing took FOUR HOURS. Tell my parents that they'll have to run in Safe Mode here on out, I'll figure out the problem tomorrow. Probably.





RFotD: The term "pudding" used to exclusively refer to savory dishes, not the dessert that we all know and love.

SGAT: Kept up with my running program.

Day Sixty-Four: Pacific Rim

8/14/13, 6:02 PM PDT

NEW STORY OUT! CHECK IT: CLARENCE PORTER, URBAN SURVIVOR.

Watched Pacific Rim with Kayla, Angela, Christina, and Brandon. Little word of advice, spoiler alert for the movie coming up, so if you want to watch it later, skip the next paragraph.

OH MY GOD, IT WAS SO FRICKING GOOD. THE PART WHERE THEY EFFING BEAT UP KNIFEHEAD IN THE FIRST PART WAS FREAKING AWESOME AND THE GUY'S BRO DIED WHICH WASN'T THAT SAD BUT HOLY EFF WERE THE SPECIAL EFFECTS AWESOME. I THOUGHT IT WAS KINDA BULLCRAP THAT THEY PULLED OUT THE SWORD OUT OF NOWHERE IN THE DOUBLE EVENT WHEN THEY WERE FALLING OUT OF THE SKY, BUT JESUS, THAT SEQUENCE WAS AWESOME. THE FALL LOOKED REALLY GOOD. THE END WAS A BIT ANTICLIMACTIC SINCE THE FIGHT SCENE WAS SHORTER THAN THE DOUBLE EVENT, BUT STILL THAT ALIEN WORLD WAS MODELED SO WELL AND THE UNDERWATER NUCLEAR EXPLOSION WAS REALLY GOOD TOO. MAKO WAS SO PRETTY TOO, AND I LOVED ALL OF HER SCENES, ESPECIALLY WHEN SHE WAS A CHILD BECAUSE I WAS AMAZED AT HOW WELL THAT KID COULD ACT SCARED IN A GREEN SCREEN ROOM. THE MOVIE WAS A BIT LONG AND I THOUGHT THE DOUBLE EVENT WOULD BE THE LAST ACTION SCENE BUT ALL IN ALL IT WAS AWESOME AND YOU SHOULD SEE IT.

Spoilers are done. Anyway, roamed the mall a bit with them. Hit up Old Navy and took pictures with the headless mannequins. We pretty much used them like the cardboard paint things in faires where you poke your head through the hole and make your face look like it's on someone else's body.

Anyway, Kayla and Angela were the only ones thin enough to make the head replacements look realistic, so they were the only ones that took pictures with them.

Afterwards, went to Ross, where Kayla bought this weird giraffe urn. That wouldn't be the last of her strange purchases today though. Although I didn't grab a picture of the urn, I did manage (after several photobombs by Christina and Angela) to take a picture of this:

It's an inflatable unicorn horn. Spyke sure looks happy.

Yeah, I don't know either. Kayla getting her molars violently ripped out of her skull must've affected her cognitive judgment.

Later, we went to Panera, where most of us ordered bread bowls, except for rebellious Angela, who ordered a panini. Brandon refused to eat anything, preferring instead to follow his culture's tradition of filter feeding. Talked for a good hour about a lot of things before Angela remembered to give us our gifts from Comic Con. LOOK AT THE THING BRANDON GOT.

Brandon's life motto right here.

But more importantly, look what I GOT.

Cats are cool.

THAT'S RIGHT. It's the 11th Doctor, IN EFFING CAT FORM. Awesome, isn't it?

Later, head off to Aaron Brothers, where I bought A FRAME FOR THE 11TH DOCTOR CAT.

Interestingly, I have no pictures of my family in my
room. Only this cat.

We found a credit card on the ground belonging to a Ms. Karen Tran. I ran over to Barnes and Noble and dropped it off with the security guard, then jumped into Alex's (Angela's brother) car. I hitchhiked to Target and they punished my parasitic actions by blasting "Niggas in Paris" in the car and repeatedly opening the window closest to me. Everyone was raving in the car and all I could manage to do was facepalm.



Same day, 11:29 PM PDT

Skype call with Hellen. Helped her figure out that she could use her debit card to order online. She previously thought that she couldn't buy online because everything asked for a credit card and she only had a debit card. Ridiculous, huh?

Rhea hopped on later in the evening too. She was the first person to read my latest story, which I'm pretty happy about. She asked me if I was high after reading it, which was a bit funny. But OH MY GOD, I am AMAZED at how fast she read the story. The entire thing literally took her less than a minute to read in its entirety and I know she wasn't skimming because in three seconds, she says

"What the? Where'd the baby come fr-Oh, it's the doll."

THERE WERE TWO WHOLE PARAGRAPHS BETWEEN THE BABY SEGMENT AND THE DOLL REVEAL. TWO. AND SHE COMMENTED ON BOTH IN THREE SECONDS.

Upon inquiry, she said that her eyes just scan the text really fast and her brain automatically processes what's happening in the story. Damn, I want that skill. Takes me 15 minutes to read five pages of The Secret Life of Bees.

Oh, and I finished my roughcut too, or at least, from the footage that we already shot. Hot damn, 30 minutes of film. I haven't trimmed it down yet, so of course it'll be shorter, but still, that's a lot.





RFotD: The average reading speed is 200 to 250 words per minute (WPM). Roughly calculated, Rhea read 169 words in three seconds, putting her at 3,380 wpm.

SGAT: Finished the roughcut for my film.

Day Sixty-Three: Running. Just Running.

8/13/13, 7:09 PM PDT

Finished my story a few hours ago. Oh, I really like it, heh.

Went out for a bit of a run, from my house to Seafood City and back. Not very far, I know, but a big improvement from being stagnant all day in my house. Added with the fact that I've been doing roughly 40 pushups a night for the past month, I think I'm more than ready to take on real-world parkour. Tomorrow, probably gonna scout for parkour places and just go.

Gaaaaaaaah, I haven't done parkour in so long and I've gotten so fat. This is awful.

Oh, and while running, I ran into Mrs. Takei. Also ran into Emilee (didn't spell her name wrong this time, hah!) on my run back too. Pretty cool.

Sorry if this entry's just sprawled everywhere, I'm just so tired from running.



Same day, 11:51 PM PDT

A bit of work on the roughcut, then watched Death of a Superhero online. It's a nice little movie, though I can't really rate it right now since I'm a little under halfway done. But it's nice so far.

Oh, and I finished my story! I think I already said that though. Did I? Let me check.

...Yep, I did. Ah well. I finished!





RFotD: The fastest mile time ever recorded was run by Hitcham El Guerrouj, finishing at 3:43:13 in 1999.

SGAT: Worked on the roughcut, ran a bit.

Day Sixty-Two: Waffle Fries

8/12/13, 3:01 PM PDT

Approximately 20 days left of summer, which means I'm about to get WAY busier. Not only do I have to catch up on summer homework, I'll also be getting back into my writing blog, working on planning/finishing the rest of my short film and... some other third thing that I'll write down later so that I can follow the rule of threes.



Same day, 7:01 PM PDT

Went to Vons to fill up our water coolers. Saw Ivan there, skipping to get a shopping cart like a sissy. Easily asserted my dominance by forcibly pulling out a shopping cart with force equaling a hydrogen bomb.

Went to Chick-fil-A to eat while working on the outline for Wednesday's story. Gonna be a good one, I promise. Also talked about the physics of making crisscut fries. I proposed some sort of machine that cut the slices in curve shapes, but after a few minutes of debate, my dad looked it up on YouTube and we saw a guy dragging a potato's stupid face against a glorified cheese grater. Lame.



Same day, 11:05 PM PDT

Knocked out a few chapters of The Secret Life of Bees for summer reading. It's a pretty decent book, as far as I can tell. Really noticing a few similarities between Bees and The Help, mainly the theme of race and the black servants. I don't know.





RFotD: The earliest recorded account of a person eating french fries was in Belgium, circa 1680. The origin of crisscut, or waffle fries, are unknown.

SGAT: Read a bit.

Day Sixty-One: The Benefits of Circular Gallifreyan

8/11/13, 2:48 PM PDT

Woke up at 9, went to church, no big deal. Just like every other Sunda-OH GOD, IT'S MY DAD'S BIRTHDAY AND I COMPLETELY FORGOT.

Ah well. Dad's alright with me forgetting. He'll just beat me with a giant belt to compensate. (To my readers, note that the last sentence was a joke and my dad doesn't really physically abuse me, he's actually a pretty cool guy.)

Anyway, went to Target to buy new school supplies, including a new, much needed backpack. It's a THOUSAND TIMES tinier than my old one, which is great because now I won't look like a turtle every day. Gonna scratch that off my summer bucket list now.

Speaking of which, I finally got around to updating that list. Looking back, I wrote some pretty strange stuff on there. Not dumb, per se, more like really impractical. I mean, I guess learning Circular Gallifreyan is cool, but aside from Tumblr and Doctor Who episodes, when is that really gonna be something I brag about?

I pulled the cigarette away from my lips and the smoke seeped from my mouth like a toxic gray fog. Bored, my eyes slowly wandered the maroon bar. Wooden tile floors, with the occasional dark spot signifying a stain from a spilled drink. A handful of people, some in pairs, some in groups, some talking, some staring at the wall mounted television closest to them. A bartender yawning as his hands wiped the inside of a shot glass with a white cloth.

There, in the corner of my eye, I saw her. She wore a black one piece dress which ended in a short skirt. The skirt's folds sat still against her thighs, showing off her smooth, slender crossed legs as she sat on a barstool, drinking a martini and gazing at an uninteresting point in the wall. The tips of her black hair just long enough to touch the top of her neck.

Despite her attractive physique, not a single man approached her, as far as I've seen. Perhaps because of the time. Quarter to  on a spring Wednesday night. Not exactly happy hour. Or it could be that her aura sent mixed signals. Her body created natural curiosity, but a few nuances, such as the way she held her drink and the apathetic glances she threw around the room, make her seem intimidating, unapproachable. Almost scary. 

I took one last puff of my cigarette and buried its tip on a glass ashtray. I stood up. And I walked toward her, taking the seat right next to her. I paid no attention to her as I lit another cigarette. Taking my time, I purposely flicked the thumbwheel several times to create dramatic tension. Flick. Flick. Flick. And the cigarette was lit. 

I brought it to my lips and inhaled, taking in its sweet, sweet poison. I glanced at her in the corner of my eye, noticing that she had turned to face me. She was curious.

I exhaled, pulling the cigarette away from my mouth. I turned to her. Looked straight into her piercing eyes. And I said.

"I know Circular Gallifreyan."

And she was putty in my hands.

I guess that's a plausible scenario. And wow, does it feel good to write again. Speaking of which, gonna be releasing another story this Wednesday, so look out!

Back to school supplies. Found a notebook with Yoga Animals on them.

What the...

I don't even know.



Same day, 2:50 PM PDT

OH WHAT, THERE'S MORE OF THEM?!

WHAT

OH JESUS

WHAT THE HELL

Wh...why?



Same day, 5:07 PM PDT

Played giant chess with my sister. It was her first time playing, but she picked up on the rules pretty quickly. When I put her in check mate, she kicked my king in the face and said "I WIN" really loudly.

Grandmaster chess player right here.

Oh, and we bought some strange candy called "Bubu Lubu." Haven't tried it yet, but it looks delicious.

Sounds like something I'd say while sleepwalking.

Mmmmmmm.



Same day, 9:13 PM PDT

Absolutely stuffed myself at Okami. Also got around to fixing my Fig Rig.

It's okay, baby. I got you. I got you.

Got PVC glue on finger, which sucks. Washed it off, but now it hurts.

I'll probably have to amputate. Comment below on what I should do with the finger when it's gone.





RFotD: Fig rigs, because of their simple design and usefulness, are incredibly popular tools for amateur filmmakers. However, they don't see much use in professional shoots, partly because cameras are heavier and need less stabilization. Also, they look pretty silly.

SGAT: Fixed my fig rig. Still no progress on my rough cut, which I should get to working on.