Day Twenty-Two: Poem Writing, Art Drawing

7/5/14, 6:29 PM PDT

(Oops, I forgot to write this last night, my bad.)

Went to the library with Samantha again to write the duet poem that we're planning on performing before summer ends. Briefly met her mother *gasp!* before we started writing.

Rest in peace, me.
(via soundcloud.com)

Nah, just kidding, it wasn't a bad encounter at all. She actually likes me *bigger gasp!* which is awesome.

Anyway, back to the poem. Initially, we were trying to write a depressing poem and we played around with that idea for around two hours until we realized that it was really hard to write a depressing poem if neither of us are depressed. But we kept typing away at the library, trying to come up with a good depressing poem.

...Until Samantha got hungry.

An accurate representation of Samantha at the time.
(via mashable.com)

So we went to Panda Express. And I'll tell you what, it is ridiculously hard to eat fried rice with chopsticks alone. It's not sticky enough to pick up in clumps, so you have to either pick up individual grains of it or get lucky and hope that vegetables and scrambled egg chunks manage to create a sort of clump that you can easily grab.

I always got the former. So I gave up after the umpteenth try and started using a fork. I don't know how Samantha managed to eat using only chopsticks for so long.

Because their portion sizes were massive, we had some leftovers that we put in take-out boxes. But it was too loud to write in Panda Express, and the library would've never let us in with all that food, so we decided to write for a bit at Chick-fil-A. There, we decided to change up our poem to something a little less gloomy. I won't go into the details of it now since the idea's sounding pretty good and I don't want to ruin the surprise, but let's just say it'll be pretty fun to write.

Later, we tried to go back to the library, but it was closed, so we walked to Carl's Jr. instead. We finished the outline for our poem there and had enough time to come up with our own little secret handshake before we left.

Same day, 11:59 PM PDT

Went on Flockdraw with Angela, Kayla, and I think Joyce (Kayla brought another person along and she said it was Joyce but I've never met her). We played a game where one person tried to draw something and the other three would try to copy it as best as they could. Then, the original artist would pick their favorite.

Here's a few screenshots of the more notable rounds that happened. For reference, Joyce is in the top-right corner, Angela's in the bottom-right, Kayla's in the bottom-left, and I'm on the top-left. Click the images for full resolutions.

We tried to copy a drawing of Olaf that Kayla drew. NOTICE HOW They all look like they're suffering.

Oh god, I do not want to build a snowman anymore.

Next is Angela's Link. I think my drawing was the best, but she chose Kayla's because she made her Link's arm SO LONG that it went into Joyce's square.

"Joyce's dagger looks like a penis." -Angela

Kayla drew Beemo. She circled mine first, but then freaking Angela had to steal the show by drawing biceps on hers, so Kayla changed her mind and picked Angela's instead.

It's not fair.

Okay, so one of the unspoken rules we had was that color selection didn't matter. Which is why when Kayla drew Shrek (or whatever the hell that thing is), mine looks effing DEMONIC.

Close enough... right?

Whenever it was my turn, everyone just got confused. Especially Joyce, who gave up midway through the drawing.

Isn't it obvious that it's a water bear tackling a walrus?

I also drew the Cat in the Hat.

Kayla's cat face is so adorable.

I also tried to replicate a rubber dinosaur that I have on my desk. Here's the dinosaur for reference.

When you squeeze it, its eyes pop out.

And here's the drawings we came up with.

Not bad, not bad. Angela's has a gimpy leg though.

RFotD: Sometimes, Michael forgets to write these posts. Sometimes.

SGAT: Wrote more of the poem with Samantha.

Day Twenty-One: The Birthday of the Greatest Country in the World

7/4/14, 6:12 PM PDT

Today is America's birthday. I'm gonna use that fact as an excuse to post the most goddamn patriotic pictures I can find.

HELL YEAH. FUCK SLAVERY.
(via reddit.com)

ONE BICEP FOR EVERY WORLD WAR THAT WE'VE WON.
(via imgur.com)

It's... it's beautiful.
(via reddit.com)

Following the traditional customs of my great, great country, I decided to leave the house today and watch my local parade.

...Except I only caught the end of it because it took me 45 minutes to walk there alone since the rest of my family wasn't patriotic enough to drive down there and watch it.

They probably wanted to attend this parade instead.
(via baltimoresun.com)

Met up with Angela and Nick afterwards though. We hung out at the park around the rec, where they had a bunch of food/snack stands, some game booths, and even a few rides (although most of the rides were for smaller kids). We watched a few breakdancers that were performing underneath a gazebo and at some point, a guy in a red shirt walked up and started doing moves that kinda looked awkward. Don't get me wrong, he has waaaay more guts than me for performing in public, but compared to the other guys (and especially Ricky, who showed up later and just WRECKED everyone when he danced), his moves were... strange.

He kinda reminded me of an Asian version of Ian.

Actually, I think this was one of the guy's moves...
(via Ian's Facebook)

The 85 degree heat eventually got to me, so I ended up buying some Kona Ice, which is basically shaved ice except it's called "Kona Ice." Technically, they were just selling flavorless ice since the truck that they used had the flavored syrup dispensers on the outside of the truck, free for anyone to use. Clever, I'll give them that, but it sets itself up for some abuse. For instance, someone could just bring their own shaved ice and mooch off their free syrup dispensers.

Or someone could just drink a cupful of syrup without buying any ice. Kinda like what Nick did.

Okay, I"m exaggerating, he didn't drink an entire cupful of blue raspberry flavored snowcone syrup. He drank a quarter of a cup. A quarter of a cup of concentrated, blue raspberry flavored snowcone syrup.



Same day, 10:39 PM PDT

Went outside to go watch the fireworks. Photodump incoming.

Here was the first picture I took. I zoomed in waaaaaaay too close, but I think I got a pretty amazing shot out of it, so I'd say that was a great accident.

Pretty pretty.

Zoomed out a bit and got a ton more shots. Check it out.

I especially like this one.

This one was one of those fireworks that changed color from red to
white. I got it mid-transition.

Got a picture of the grand finale too.

Yeah, it's pretty...

...until the rest of it goes off in one horrifyingly overexposed explosion.

And I'll also throw in this shot I got of the small crowd of people that happened to watch the fireworks in the same place that I did.

Happy Fourth of July.

RFotD: The city of Suwa, Nagano in Japan hosts an annual fireworks display, usually happening around August and September. Part of this fireworks display involves a contest where manufacturers compete to see who can come up with the coolest new fireworks.

SGAT: Finished a summer blog post BEFORE 2 AM!

Day Twenty: Samantha Dies a Lot

7/3/14, 11:37 PM PDT

I find it distressing that we are just about a quarter of the way through summer.

"And all I've done is play Left 4 Dead and watch TV..."
(via thewaterlilyway.wordpress.com)

Today, I got Samantha to play Dino D-Day with me. She had NO IDEA how to play, which was pretty funny because even though we were on the same team, she tried to kill me REPEATEDLY. Then, when the auto-balancing system kicked in and switched me to the other team, I made it my personal goal to find and kill her as many times as possible.

Surprisingly, it was pretty difficult to find and kill Samantha. Because she always died ten seconds after she spawned.

"I FINALLY FOUND YOU SAMANTH-Oh."
(via steamcommunity.com)

But I managed to find her once. She was a tiny velociraptor. I was a goddamn protoceratops with a machine gun on my back. Guess who won?

Not Samantha.
(via dinocrisis.wikia.com)

In short, it was pretty fun. Samantha liked killing the goats that are scattered around the map.

No sympathy. None.
(via steamcommunity.com)

Meanwhile, I went for prey that was a little bit bigger...

OH GOD IT'S CHRISTINA.
(via steamcommunity.com)

RFotD: On average, T-Rexes are around 15 to 20 feet tall.

SGAT: Absolutely NOTHING. DAMN IT.

Day Nineteen: Dino D-Day

7/2/14, 11:34 PM PDT

Today, courtesy of the wonderful people in PC Gamer, my friends and I discovered the magic of Dino D-Day. For the uninitiated, this is what Dino D-Day is:

It's just your normal average World War II, Player vs. Player First Person Shooter. Kinda like Team Fortress 2. Except one team is composed of GODDAMN DINOSAURS. Dinosaurs which have GUNS (well, most of them do). And of COURSE everyone wants to join the Axis side because that's the dino team, so the game might just be part of a secret plan by the Nazis to recruit more people to their cause.

And so far, it's working. Don't get me wrong, I am very patriotic, I love living in the greatest country west of the Mississippi. I eat freedom for breakfast with sunny side eggs on the side. My best friend is a bald eagle and my other best friend isn't my friend anymore because he was a Communist.

God bless the second amendment.
(via wallpaperzhd.com)

But when I got put on the Allies side on the first game I played, I was genuinely disappointed.

But when the damn Fascists have this on their side, can you really
blame me?
(via meh.ro)

Angela and I found a really empty West Coast-based server to play around in (Kayla kept crashing when she tried to play and Christina disappeared mysteriously off the face of the Earth by the time we started). It was fun for a bit, but eventually it got boring with us two being the only ones in the server, so we left.

So I'm sorry, America. I should've never left you. Are we cool?

"NO. DEMOCRACY IS NON-NEGOTIABLE."
(via scp.wiki.net)

Oh, and in other news...

Oooooooooh, mysteeeeeeeerious.





RFotD: The diet of a bald eagle largely consists of fish, carrion, smaller birds, rodents. However, they have been observed to hunt larger fish, larger birds, and "Damn Dirty Communists" on occasion.

SGAT: Wrote a bit of the Anniversary Story.

Day Eighteen: Interval Runs and Facebook

7/1/14, 11:59 PM PDT

Aaaaaagh, I'm really tired again. Sorry about all these late entries, I don't start writing them until my day ends and recently, my days have been ending at 12:30, 1 AM, so yeah.

So at work today, the kids made props for their movies. And by "made," I mean they drew and cut out pictures of the props they'll use on construction paper. They were the most ADORABLE props I've ever seen. I couldn't take a picture of them since phones are banned at work, but they were just so creative with their drawings and sometimes a kid would turn in something that looks like garbage but when they tell you what it is, you take another look at the drawing and you get that epiphany when you figure out what it's supposed to be.

And it's CUTE.

"It's two pigs standing on a carrot, teacher-man!"
(via psych.usyd.edu)

Met another one of my co-workers at work too. Sophia wears these cool shirts every day. One day she wore a shirt with a "Nutritional Facts" thing on the back and it ended up being about her APUSH class, which was interesting. Also, one of my co-workers decided to add me on Facebook. So I figured "Screw it, might as well add everyone else you've talked to at work as well." And now I'm up five friends on Facebook, it's wonderful.

After work, went for a run with Samantha around the rec center. We did these things called "interval runs" where we alternate between jogging and sprinting, but ten minutes in I started whining, so she gracefully added a minute and a half of walking in between sprints and jogs. So thank you, Samantha.

But in exchange for adding that time, she called me "Princess" and "Weenie" for the rest of the run. If it means not fainting during a run, then I'll gladly take those titles.

Afterwards, we watched Kill Bill Vol. 2 on SyncTube. We started at 11 and the movie was TWO HOURS LONG. Don't get me wrong, it was a pretty good movie and she liked it, but god DANG, in the last thirty minutes, I think both of us were about ready to pass out. I know I was, at least.

God, my eyelids are practically closed right now and I can't think of anything else to include in today's entry. Ah, what the hell, f it, have this remix of "Sad Machine" by Anamanaguchi. I've been listening to it on repeat all DAY.

RFotD: Michael is REALLY tired.

SGAT: Realized that Samantha and I only have a month to finish our spoken word poem, so we're gonna get to that real quick.

Day Seventeen: Running Is Hard

6/30/14, 11:59 PM PDT

Today was a pretty simple day. Went to work, where gasp, ALL OF MY CLASSES WERE ACTUALLY REALLY GOOD. Wustin was actually a really good kid today and the Jets and the Sharks actually paid attention to Mrs. Bartels. Awesome, huh? Tomorrow, the kids do a table read for their movies, which should be interesting. And also, I realize that I should probably do a table read for my movies in the future since a few times during last summer's shoot, I had to change things literally at the last minute, which was no good at all.

Met a few new people today. Amy, a girl that goes to Scripps Ranch, told me how awful Scripps was because of the admins and the ASB's lack of participation. Eric, a kid that goes to Torrey Pines, told me that they can eat paninis in their library. Damn it, I wanna be able to eat paninis in our school library too.

Exercised a bit today. Sort of did a fusion between running long distance and doing parkour, where I'd alternate between walking and bursts of running/parkour. Okay, don't laugh at me, but I have gotten WAAAAAAAAAAY slower in my three plus years of minimal physical activity, so I'm trying this new "Couch to 5k" workout program and I guess it's working. I feel like a total weenie for doing it, since at my level (level one), it calls for alternating between one minute of running and two minutes of running, which SUCKS. But the last time I tried to run for thirty minutes straight, I couldn't walk normally for two weeks straight, so maybe this gradual improvement is a good thing. And I'm making it a little more strenuous by including a few vaults and precisions along the way. So I'm not a total weenie, right? Right?

GOD DAMN IT.
(via ask.fm)

Also watched Kill Bill Vol. 1 with Samantha via the wonders of SyncTube. She loved it, especially the crazy, overexaggerated blood squirts. Kinda worrying that the blood squirts are what she specifically mentioned was what she liked the most, huh? Maybe she's... a psychopath.

She actually thought she could use this scene for dating advice.
(via arstechnica.com)

Also I promised her that I wouldn't make her seem like a crazy person on my blog anymore, but I couldn't help it today, lol. Oh well, sorry Samantha!

RFotD: In Kill Bill, the scene where The Bride cuts a baseball in half with a katana was actually done genuinely on set by Uma Thurman's stunt double, Zoe Bell.

SGAT: Exercised. Became a little better at parkour.

Day Sixteen: A Really Great Dog

6/29/14, 11:59 PM PDT

Meet Marlo.

Hello ladies.

He is a very cute poodle. He is also very big.

I am very big.

I tried to take a picture of his head. But he wouldn't stop moving.

Please do not take pictures of my head.

But I kept trying. And I got a picture of his head.

You got me, human.

Look at my tongue.

...Yeah, not a lot of things happened today. Stayed at my dad's friend's house for most of the day because it was my dad's friend's birthday, but I spent a big chunk of the day sleeping and watching movies on TV so yeah.

But look at how cute Marlo is.

I do not like to be petted.

Yeah, he's a pretty great dog.





RFotD: Male poodles typically weight around 45 to 70 pounds. Females weigh between 45 to 60 pounds.

SGAT: None. Damn it, another zero day.

Day Fifteen: A Fair-ly Fun Day

6/28/14, 4:24 PM PDT

Went to the Del Mar Fair with Angela, Christina, Brandon, and Kayla. I'm lucky too, I convinced my mom to let me go at pretty much the last possible minute.

I forgot how patriotic the trash cans at the fair were.

Earth's beautifulest country since 1776.

So immediately after entering the fair, guess who greets us?

George Harrison's not looking too good today...

We tried walking around them. See that guitarist guy in the front? Yeah, HE WALKED RIGHT NEXT TO US WHILE WE TRIED TO AVOID THEM. Christina was the first to spot him and she practically shat her pants when his creepy mask ended up inches from her face.

Oh, and you won't believe this, but we saw JAMIE HYNEMAN FROM THE MYTHBUSTERS. We ran to grab a picture with him, check it out!

Ignore the fact that I look worried in this picture.

We got there at around 10:15 and rides didn't open until 11, so since we had some time to kill, we decided to get picture-happy.

In this performance, I endorse cannibalism.

If you look at that palm tree, you'll see a ripe Christina, ready for picking.

From left to right: Me, Kayla, Angela.

Twice while walking, the people manning the game booths offered my group a free shot at that game where you try to keep a ball inside of a giant angled plastic bucket. I stepped up to the plate both times. The first time, I failed MISERABLY. I had three tosses and my first toss DIDN'T EVEN TOUCH THE BUCKET. Second one bounced out, but thankfully, the guy working at the time gave me a little tip to help my game: aim for the sides so that the ball doesn't bounce out. So I did that, the ball stayed in, and he didn't give me a prize because I needed to make it in the bucket twice.

Second time around, when a different guy gave us a free go, I already knew the game's little secret, so I got the ball to stay in the bucket the first time around. And even though he pulled out three balls, I didn't get to try two more times, so I still didn't get a prize.

Speaking of prizes, here were the more notable ones that I managed to take a picture of.

Nipple Pierced Penguinz!™

Knock down all three pins with one ball, win a little slice of FREEDOM.

Pretty soon, it was 11, which meant RIDES. The first one we went on was Alien Abduction. Basically a centrifugal force ride, where everyone lies around the circumference of a circle that spins really REALLY fast so that you stick to its walls. This thing, pretty much:

Imagine this, except only occupied by five screaming teenagers.
(via jazzwhiz.blogspot.com)

I swear, my throat almost collapsed on me during that ride because that thing spun around FAST. I remember Mr. Lawrence said that centrifugal force wasn't a real force waaaaay back in Freshman year, but I think my ribcage almost being crushed is evidence enough that centrifugal force is real.

Next, we went to Storm. Another spinny ride, which, in hindsight, was probably a BIG mistake since it was around this time that my head started hurting. But it was fun. Or at least, as fun as almost-accidental organ rupture can be.

Crazy Mouse next, followed by Bobsled. Thankfully, both weren't spinny rides, which was a nice break from the two crazy spinning rides that we went on so far. There was a guy on the microphone at the Bobsled ride that kept singing to the song that happened to be playing at the time, and when my group of four Asian people and one white girl found our bobsleds, guess what he said?

"Herro."

Followed quickly by

"I seeee you. Ooooooooooo, I see you toooo."

IN THE WORST ASIAN ACCENT I'VE EVER HEARD. It was SUPER racist, but I thought it was hilarious because of how bad his accent was.

I think this is what he thought we looked like.
(via hngn.com)

And then we went on the Orbiter.

Oh god.
(via wikipedia.org)

This entire thing spins. And each set of three chairs ALSO spins, angled at an axis PERPENDICULAR TO THE DIRECTION THAT THE REST OF THE RIDE IS SPINNING. That's... that's a lot of centrifugal force.

I think I almost fainted in this ride because midway through, while the ride was in full swing, I started feeling REALLY dizzy and my head felt really heavy and hard to hold up. Or I could just be a pussy and it could've been the natural feeling that the ride gives people. Either way, I managed to stay awake only because Christina's goddamn hair kept slapping my face when we spun around and it hit me like a WHIP every time. It hit my eyeball once and it felt like a tiny katana slicing through my retinas.

Lastly, Christina and Angela rode the big pendulum pirate ships that go side to side. They stayed at the very end of the ship. And they quickly realized how big of a mistake that was.

Look at that look of sheer horror in Angela's face. Or constipation.
Could be both.

All that took us until noon, so by the time we ran out of ride tickets, we were STARVING. Most of us bought hot dogs from this stand called "Pink's." They have a little gimmick where instead of giving you a number and calling out your number when your order is ready, they gave you the name of a celebrity instead. Look at the name I got.

I don't think they gave these names out randomly, they probably
just thought I was his stunt double. I don't blame them.

LOOK AT WHO CHRISTINA GOT.

Samantha, you feeling jealous yet?

After eating hot dogs, we bought a beautiful, beautiful funnel cake topped with strawberries and whipped cream, drizzled in chocolate syrup, and coated in powdered sugar. Absolute bliss. Didn't grab any pictures of the food, so just Google "funnel cake" and whichever one looks the most delicious was exactly what we got today.

Then we went over to the actual fair's theme building, where they had a big thing on The Beatles for display. They had a really cool "wish tree" where they let the fair visitors write their wishes on tags so that the workers could hang them on the tree at the end of the day.

Pretty.

Closeup. Look at how dense the tree is.

Here's what I wished for.

World peace can wait. I want Terminator feet.

And here's a few interesting ones that we found while looking at the tree.

AWWW YEAH.

Let me just take a picture of this with my... *ahem*
iPhone 5... (just kidding, mine's an iPhone 4)

This person needs to be President of the World.

Deep.

Poor Nodoxy. Good thing this ain't no Death Note.

We also tried to take an Abbey Road picture. But we couldn't find the actual Abbey Road, so we took this instead.

They won't notice... right?

Just kidding, we found it.

When we took this, we knew that everyone and their mother would be taking a picture just like this, so we wanted to make ours look different. And to do that, we had the genius idea of pretending that we tripped while walking on the road. But I reasoned that if we only pretended like we tripped, then it wouldn't really look like we tripped and no one would understand our picture.

So I suggest that we should all legitimately fall. And they agreed.

I told the cameraman to count to three as loud as he can and to snap the picture RIGHT AFTER he said three. We posed exactly like we were taking a normal Abbey Road picture, but on three, we all just HIT THE GROUND. I might have oversold my performance a little bit since I ended up shoving Christina as HARD AS I COULD into Angela and I ended with a dramatic little parkour roll when I fell on the concrete. I heard the crowd watching us all gasp in unison so I'm pretty sure they were impressed and/or aroused by my theatrics.

In hindsight, they probably thought we were stupid, but THAT'S OKAY. We got a pretty AWESOME picture from it, check it ou... oh wait, no. No we didn't.

The guy didn't take a picture of us when we fell.

Shit. Well at least we got this...

I mean I guess it's just as good...

Last thing we did was hit up the LIVESTOCK HELL YEAH BEST PART OF THE TRIP RIGHT HERE CHECK OUT THESE FOUR LEGGED THINGS.

HOTOT. OH GOD IT'S SO CUTE.

AWWWWWWWWWWWW IT'S SO FUZZY OH MY GOD.

THIS SHEEP HAS A BETTER HAIRSTYLE THAN ME. PLEASE TELL
ME WHO DOES YOUR HAIR, SHEEP FRIEND.

"Hey how you doin lil mama let me whisper in your ear..."

It likes me! Sheep number 00576 really likes me!

I also learned something today.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

When we left the fair, we decided to try and replicate the picture we took last year.

Hello, old bowlcut self.

Here are the results.

Oh how we change in one year. And also I didn't know when
Kayla's grandpa would take the picture.

Good trip, good trip.

Thank you for asking, LSDtopus!

RFotD: Sheep have smaller brains now than they did 12,000 years ago.

SGAT: None really. But I don't regret not working today.