Day Thirty-Five: A Damn Cute Baby

7/18/14, 9:10 PM PDT

Met up with Samantha at Starbucks to practice reciting our poem again. Well, actually, we only stayed at Starbucks for like 10 seconds before we moved to Baskin Robbins since Starbucks was a bit too quiet for us to recite sappy sappy stanzas.

Managed to (sort of) memorize a little over a quarter of our poem, although I definitely need more time to memorize since whenever I tried to remember the exact lines of the poem, my facial expression ended up looking like I was trying to move something using only the power of my mind. Complete with the fingers on my temples.

Pictured: Shane Dawson replicating what I did.
(via drstevecho.ca)

Made some minor revisions, recited a few more times, then my empty stomach finally got the best of me and we ended up going to L&L so that I wouldn't die from hunger. Bought me some spam musubi, which tasted good for the first few bites, but started to suck after the first spam musubi... brick? Log? What is the official term for a unit of spam musubi anyway?

Pictured: A bundle of spam musubi... prisms.
(via asianweek.com)

We talked for a bit before a baby sitting a table away from us kept staring at us and stole all of Samantha's attention. Seriously, whenever I tried to say something, every twenty seconds or so she would just look at the baby and pout or make a face at it. And even though I had to repeat a sentence upwards of five times before she actually paid attention to me, I think that was worth it since some of the faces she made were hilarious.

And I don't really blame her for paying so much attention to that baby. With his poofy hair, drool-covered chin, and his giant eyes, that was a DAMN cute baby.

Pictured: A damn cute baby.
(via fanpop.com)

Afterwards, dad dropped us off again. When I got home, tried to get Summer Wars working on SyncTube so that Samantha and I could watch it together, but that didn't end up working too well despite my best efforts. Instead, I played a few rounds of Cards Against Humanity with Viet, Rhys, Nick, Brian, and Kevin.

I take pride in the fact that I won one game in this obviously rigged contest. I mean, come on, one of my answers involved "panty shots" and "middle aged men on rollerskates" and that one-two combo lost to effing... effing... I don't even remember, that's how much that winning answer sucked.

C'mon, what could possibly beat this?
(via gochengdoo.com)

RFotD: A man rollerskated down a rollercoaster. Check it out.

SGAT: Edited more of my short film. Also, tracking motion is hard.

Day Thirty-Four: Kids Disrupt My Exercise

7/17/14, 11:59 PM PDT

Oops, fell asleep before I hit publish. My bad.

Went for a run today. Starting week three of that Couch to 5k program thing, I think I'm getting better at running. I think. Definitely an improvement from when I first started and got tired two minutes in, that's for damn sure.

While running, I encountered two kids walking on the road, both probably eight or nine years old. When they're about ten, fifteen feet away from me, they suddenly step onto the sidewalk that I'm running on, stretch their arms and legs out like they're doing jumping jacks, and block my path, Gandalf-style.

"YOU SHALL NOT EXERCISE!"
(via mqotd.com)

Swear to god, those kids have a future as NFL defensive linemen because I could NOT get past them. I tried everything short of just knocking those two over like bowling pins and they just wouldn't let me go. I ended up losing that battle since my last attempt to go around them ended with a botched spin maneuver and a collision with a parked RV trailer, followed by the boisterous laughter of two nine year old kids.

But hey, I got past them while they were busy laughing, so I guess it was worth it.

You know. If sacrificing your dignity for marginal exercise was worth it.
(via gif-emporium.tumblr.com)

In other news, editing my short film continues. A bit unhappy with how one shot turned out. It was a POV shot sort of like this except only a few seconds long, but hey, considering at the time I didn't have my GoPro and I had no idea how to even begin taking a shot like that, I'm happy.

Here's a screenshot of the film so far (ooh, scandalous, scandalous leaks).

Who is that mysterious stranger?

RFotD: Nothing in life has ever made me more frustrated than the Rotoscope tool in After Effects.

SGAT: Edited more of my short film, exercised.

Day Thirty-Three: Ice Is Slippery

7/16/14, 11:59 PM PDT

Went ice skating with Samantha, Tina, Danielle, Danise, Yasmine, Nhi, Janet...

...Yeah, if you didn't figure out by now, I was the only boy in a group of 10 people. But hey, considering my Skype Group is 60% double X-chromosomes, I think I'm pretty used to being surrounded by women. Also, damn, I sound like a pimp in that last sentence.

Mind on my money, money on my mind.
(via hollywoodlife.com)

I think I'd be the worst pimp ever though, since when I got there (by walking, mind you) I was immediately greeted by judgmental laughs of nine girls on account on the fact that I was using an umbrella to protect myself from harmful UV radiation. But we'll see who's laughing 40 years from now when my skin is still flawless and they all look like worn out leather chairs from their sun overexposure.

"I should've listened to Michael..."
(via harvestmoon.co.uk)

Went inside, got a pair of rental ice skates, laced them up after 20 minutes of figuring out how those things worked, then we all got on the ice and started skating.

Well... about 80% of us did. Samantha and I kinda camped the wall for a bit until she got courageous enough to stop clinging onto the wall and to start using me as a sort of human crutch.

Us, in clipart form.
(via rjacobpost.blogspot.com)

When we first started, for some reason we attracted the attention of a bunch of little kids. Whenever we passed them, they were waving at us like we were in a parade or something. A few even tried to help Samantha skate since at the very start, she looked like she was flailing more than she was skating. Maybe they were really nice kids or maybe they just pitied her, I'm not sure which.

The cutest part? We saw these two little girls, both with matching teal helmets, holding each other's hands and slowly, slowly skating through the ice. Probably going at a speed of a couple millimeters a second. It was adorable to watch.

Speaking of adorable to watch, Samantha ended up falling around seven, eight, twenty times. I think it's a testament to how horrible of a human crutch I am, which was a fact that her friends were more than eager to tell me. The second time she fell (and the first time everyone else saw her fall), the other eight girls MOBBED me and said that I shouldn't have let that happen. And I know I should have caught her or something like that, but in my defense, I was SERIOUSLY trying to keep us both balanced and upright. But considering that on ice, Samantha was about as stable as a middle schooler's emotions, there's only so much that a human crutch can handle before collapsing.

Before today, I had a four year streak of not falling during ice skating sessions, a streak that was broken today because Samantha dragged me down with her pretty much every time she fell.

Basically us the entire time.
(via taureaneclipse.blogspot.com)

But that's okay. Breaking that streak was worth it if it meant her making a cheesy pun about how we were both "falling for each other."

Here's a few other pics of the day. We ran into the ice rink's mascot while skating. In here, they were mid-conga line.

You don't know how badly I wanted to take a picture with that ice cube.

Tina also grabbed a few pictures. Big thanks to her for letting me post a few of them here!

Group photo.
(via Tina Cao)

Wait... hold on a second... one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-ni... oh my god. Do... do you see that?

See what?

WHO IS THAT GUY?

"Accept me as one of your own, children."

Oh and also there's this one little kid that snuck into the photo like a ninja too.

"Don't mind me, folks."

After almost three hours of skating, we called it a day and got off the ice. I brought over the poem Samantha and I wrote and we recited it in front of the others as a sort of test audience for when we perform it at an open mic sometime this month. I was kinda reluctant to say it at first, but they ended up liking the poem, which is a relief.



After I walked home, I passed out for a bit, then edited a lot more of my short film, with Angela, Kayla, and Christina watching via Google Plus' screenshare program. As always, they decided to have a bit of fun drawing on each other's faces.

"I'm so kowai desu!~"

The truth is finally revealed.

And Samantha's probably gonna hate me for this, but let's end this entry with my favorite picture from the day.

Winner of this year's Least Balanced Couple Award.
(via Tina Cao)

RFotD: Scientists are still genuinely baffled as to why ice is slippery when skated on. An early theory was that the pressure generated by the ice skate would raise the temperature of the ice beneath it just slightly above ice's melting point, creating a layer of water and thus, an almost frictionless surface, but that theory is incorrect.

SGAT: Worked on my short film some more, rehearsed the duet poem with Samantha.

Day Thirty-Two: Late For School; Poetry Writing Some More

7/15/14, 7:32 PM PDT

Almost forgot to drop my sister off at school today. Normally, I wake up at 7:30 to drop my sister off at school, but today, I didn't wake up until 7:49. And her class starts at 7:50.

My sister and I effing SPRINTED to school. Me in pajamas because there was no time to change, my sister in nerdy clothes and RealD 3D glasses with the lenses popped out because it was "Dress Like a Nerd Day" at her school today.

Pretty much us this morning.
(via recipesforweebs.tumblr.com)

And I know being that late doesn't exactly call for such drastic action, especially since she's only in second grade and her school is literally across the street from my house. But in my entire academic career, I've never been late to school without a genuine medical-related excuse and I'll make damn sure that the same goes for my sister.

And hey, we actually made it in time, partly because of my sister's amazing skill with her Heelys, partly because of my Usain Bolt legs and Frogger-like ability to avoid incoming traffic.

Others weren't so lucky.
(via thatcaption.com)

Later, got home, immediately went back to sleep on my bed, and quickly regretted my decision to set a second alarm at 9 AM.

I'm not a morning person.
(via kazsocial.com)

In other, non-sleep related news, I went to the library with Samantha to rehearse our duet poem. One of her parts involved a pick-up line that went something like this:

"Hey, are you a Little Caesar's Pizza? Because you're looking hot and ready."

I shudder to think of what "Fresh out of the oven" means in this context.
(via 4integrityrealestate.com)

We made a few more revisions before heading over to Starbucks so that we wouldn't have to worry about being too loud when we recited it. We came up with even more awkwardly funny pick up lines that we could potentially include in our poem (and by we, I mean Samantha, she pretty much did all the thinking, I just laughed at them). One of them involved coffee, but in fear of having to flag my blog as NSFW, I'll refrain from including it from today's entry.

After we were finally happy with the poem, we went over to the Pizza Hut at the spot where Jolibee used to be. Bought us a tray of chicken alfredo pasta, exchanged a few funny stories, and got made fun of because I couldn't separate a breadstick from the rest of the... loaf... thing.

Eventually, her mom arrived to pick her up. She saw that I was planning on walking home and figured out that my house is pretty far away, so she ended up dropping me off, which was a bit of a mixed blessing since it meant that I would have waaaay more time to work on editing my short film when I got home but also meant that I wouldn't be able to burn off the calories I gained from eating Pizza Hut food. But hey, getting dropped off also meant that I got to meet Samantha's brother, Justin, which was pretty fun. He's a pretty cool guy. Especially love that one of the things he said during the car ride was "To get a good job, you need a college degree."

Wise words, Justin. Wise words.

RFotD: The high paying jobs available to Americans typically require college educations. One major exception, however, is drug dealing.

SGAT: Finished tracking on my short film. Will work on lighting tomorrow.

Day Thirty-One: New Smash 4 Characters

7/14/14, 11:59 PM PDT

They announced a few new characters in the new Super Smash Bros. game today. Take a look at the video.

Now, I'm not big on Fire Emblem at all. I've never played a Fire Emblem game and my knowledge of the series only extends as far as the Fire Emblem characters that are present in Smash so far and the one day in Science Olympiad where I played with Kurtland's 3DS and "accidentally" (intentionally) killed off his entire team in one fight.

But the REAL gold of today's announcement?

Hell. Yes.
(via reddit.com)

CAPTAIN. FALCON. AWWWWWWWWWWWW YEAH. For those of you that read my blog that aren't into competitive Smash like I am, let me tell you why this character is so awesome. In Melee, Captain Falcon is easily one of the HARDEST characters to master for several reasons, reasons which, for the sake of not boring you guys, I will not go into right now. Look it up.

But for those that have mastered the character... my god, is it amazing to watch.

Yeah, I'm a pretty big fan of Melee, haha. And also, aside from napping half the day, I didn't really do much else today.

Huh.




RFotD: I get lazy sometimes.

SGAT: Worked more on my short film. Have a very attractive explosion happening behind Nick right now.

Day Thirty: Where a Kid Can Be a Kid

7/13/14, 11:59 PM PDT

My bad, I fell asleep late last night writing and I forgot to write this. But hey, here I am now, better late than never, right?

Speaking of better late than never, I went to Chuck E. Cheese's today because my sister's friend had a birthday party. Which was great because a few months ago when we used to go to Chuck E. Cheese's practically on a weekly basis, I discovered this wonderful game:

Sorry that the quality is awful, this was literally the only video of the machine I could find on the Internet. But basically, the game involves a spinning wheel with a ton of holes on it. You roll coins down this ramp and depending on which hole the coin enters, you get a certain amount of tickets, with the jackpot being a hole on the outer edge of the wheel, accessible only through a tiny slit barely wider than the width of a coin.

Sounds hard, right? Except the wheel spins at a constant rate. So with a little work, you could figure out the exact timing you need to get the jackpot every time.

And that's what I did. I figured out that if you use a certain colored ramp (the ramps were all at different elevations compared to the wheel) and put the coin at a specific time, you could reliably get the 50 ticket jackpot every time, with occasional slip-ups resulting in a still decent 12 ticket gain. Here's a picture of one of my peak days. We had to use multiple receipts since the ticket counter kept breaking when we tried to put them all in that day.

Pokémon trainers call me "Drizzle." Because I make it raiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin.

But when I went today, I'm pretty sure they installed a new randomizing element in the machines since one, the new jackpot was one hundred tickets and two, my normal timing (which used to be perfect) was now netting me one or two tickets per coin instead of the usual 12.

Oh well. Still managed to get 175 tickets with the handful of coins that I got from the party, enough for my sister to get this massive goddamn dinosaur skeleton.

Nature has an order.

Just kidding, it's pretty tiny.

Rawr.

Speaking of a handful of coins, my sister had upwards of 30 coins when she went to the party. And you know what happened? Some guy that looked like an old angry biker went up to my sister and effing took 20 coins.

"I need them so I can win the 7,000 ticket Barbie Summer Dream House."
(via tout-bon.com)

Okay, I might be exaggerating a little. He asked for 20 coins politely and we willingly handed them over, he didn't exactly snatch them from her hands. But STILL, who the hell asks for coins from an eight year old girl instead of buying them themselves? The nerve.

"I could've ridden more rollercoaster simulators with those coins..."
(via familyfriendpoems.com)

RFotD: Chuck E. Cheese's used to be called "Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theater" and first opened its doors to screaming kids and parents looking for a mini vacation in 1977.

SGAT: Finished my half of the duet poem. Awwww yeah.

Day Twenty-Nine: Visitors

7/12/14, 11:59 PM PDT

Had a mini heart attack this morning when I practiced the piano. Accidentally hit one of my keys too hard and got it stuck on the "pressed" position. Pretty much this:

...Crap.
(via kansascitypianotuning.com)

Okay, it was less of a mini-heart attack and more of a "flip-the-hell-out" moment. I've had the same beautiful piano for... upwards of seven years now? Yeah, no way was I gonna let it break today.

So I fixed it.

...Somehow. To be honest, I was just frustratingly hitting the key really hard hoping that something would happen and just my luck, it fixed itself. Lucky me, I wasn't ready to tell my parents that I broke the piano that's almost as old as my sister because I tried to play something in fortissississississississimo.

Speak of piano, learning a new ditty today. Still working on Sad Machine, but I decided to learn a new upbeat piece since "Maple Leaf Rag" gets boring to play sometimes and "Original Rags" is too obscure to be appreciated by most people. So now this is what I'm learning:

Memorized about a third of the notes so far, but the version I'm working off really SUCKS, so I have to add in a few extra notes to make it sound nicer on the piano.

Worked on more of my poem, went for a run, briefly got lost during said run, and when I got home you know what was waiting for me?

Visitors.

No... no... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
(via collegecandy.com)

And just my luck, they get here at around dinner time. Me, being the socially inept person I am, decide to hole out in my room and wait until they all leave.

They don't leave until midnight.

Needless to say, since I skipped eating dinner at 6 and went straight to my room after that run, I was STARVING. So I wolfed down large plate of food, which probably wasn't too good an idea since I finished at 12:45 AM and at the end of it, I felt like I was nine months pregnant with triplets.

RFotD: Psychologists say that extroverts tend to seek immediate gratification due to lowered cognitive processes. Hey, I didn't say that, AP Psych did.

SGAT: Almost finished my part of the duet poem. Almost.