Day Thirty-Three: Californians Encounter Their Worst Fears

7/18/15, 11:07 PM PDT

If there's any stereotype that's true about us Californians, it's the fact that we are the exact opposite of extremophiles. Our bodies are only designed to survive in very very very specific conditions. The temperature has to be between 70 and 79 degrees inclusive, the sky has to be blue and cloudless, and there has to be either a beach or an In-N-Out within twenty miles of us. Or we all shrivel up and die.

So when Zeus throws this shit at us, we have no idea how to react.

"WHY IS THE SKY CRYING?"

Our infrastructure was just as scared of today's thunder, lighting, and sky piss as we were. As we drove to Target, pretty much every stoplight was either broken or turned off completely, and it didn't stop when we got there.

When we were buying stuff, it actually BLACKED OUT inside Target. But only for like... fifteen seconds or so before their backup generators or something kicked in and some of the lights turned back on. The registers took FOREVER to boot up, so even though we were only buying like 10 things, we waited for a whopping 20 minutes in a four-person line.

But we got a three dollars off coupon and I got to talk to Chamberlin and Theresa while I was there, so it was worth it.


Afterwards, I played with 3DS Max some more (I'm trying to model out an Animal Crossing house), went to Angela's house with Kayla and Christina, and went to Chris' birthday party at Manna BBQ, a nice little restaurant where you order raw meat and you're supposed to cook it yourself on a grill that they provide.

I went with these handsome people here:

The Chopstick Crew™.

The only people in our group that can drive by themselves.

Daniel was just happy to be here.

And of course, the birthday boy himself:

Look at his excellent profile.

The food is actually really good. Despite the fact that my cooking level is so low that I still burn shrimp, we surprisingly did not get salmonella or food poisoning. We probably got a bit of E. Coli, but that's not a huge deal.

"Whatevs man. This kbbq's good."

So remember how our infrastructure hates thunder and lightning? Midway through our dinner party, guess what happened.

...The Lakers beat the Supersonics??

It blacked out AGAIN.

But we didn't care. We didn't care that the vents turned off. We didn't care that half of the restaurant left because of the smoke.

We kept eating our food.


Actually, no. We did more than just eat our food. We ordered MORE. And god damn it did we enjoy it.

Look at that expression of pure happiness on Ivan's smug, smoggy face.

Eventually the lights did turn back on, but not before half of our group went crazy from smoke inhalation and the other half flat out DIED from carbon monoxide poisoning.

But before we all died from breathing in the toxic fumes of the Korean barbecue, we still got to sing Happy Birthday to Chris, accompanied by the workers of Manna.

Happy birthday Chris!





RFotD: We also went to Yogurtland afterwards, but nothing really happened there except for overeating.

Day Thirty-Two: Megan's Molars

7/17/15, 11:44 PM PDT

In a child's mind, there is nothing scarier than the dentist's office.

Pictured: The office of Dr. Dentist, DDS

Today, Megan had to face that fear. She was gonna have her first tooth extraction today. They were gonna rip out her molars, all four of them. With the rustiest wrench that they could find. And then they're gonna cackle and laugh as they raise her teeth in the air while she slowly dies from the geysers of blood coming out of her gum holes.

That's probably how he imagined dentist visits to go because on the drive there, Megan was SOBBING. Even though we stopped by In-N-Out and got her french fries (her favorite), she was STILL crying like she just got wrongly sentenced to death or something.

But I've known our dentist for a long, long, long time, and I know that she'll be fine at the end of it. Hell, he has a toybox specifically set aside for kids and they're ALWAYS good toys. I got a model glider in there once and it's AWESOME.

But yeah, today, Megan had her molars extracted and by the end of it, she was perfectly fine. Her talking was kinda funny because of the anesthetic, but otherwise, totally, completely unscathed. Which was a lot better than how I turned out after my extractions all those years ago.

RFotD: My first extraction, I sobbed SO HARD because the anesthesia wore out halfway through and they had to rip off one of my teeth in parts because something went wrong. I got two toys from that entire ordeal though, it was crazy.

Day Thirty-One: I Almost Take A Seal's Life

7/16/15, 11:15 PM PDT

Despite its name, Old Town is surprisingly not solely comprised of the elderly people of San Diego.

It's also made up of really old (and really cool) shops.

But still mostly old people, one of which I may or may not have killed today. But more on that later.

Angela, Christina, Kayla, Gwen, Ken, and I all went to Old Town largely for two reasons. One, to eat at every single place that sold food there, and two, to loiter aimlessly in all of the shops, ultimately buying nothing but incense sticks and candy.

There was this place, that sold handmade tin ornaments, and they sold some beautiful stuff.

Even in crappy 720 iPhone resolution, it looks fantastic.

No, they weren't selling a portrait of Kayla over there.

We visited the Wells Fargo Museum. Which was basically an empty room with this thing sitting in it:

Oh and there was a "Do Not Touch" sign in there too, I forgot.

Strangely, I felt like I've been there before though. I don't know, do you have those sorts of feelings, where you feel like you've been somewhere you've never been before? It sounds strange, but it felt like the entire museum, the single room in the middle of Old Town, was something that I had not only explored in the past, but had grown to love.

It was probably because of this picture I saw there.

Ah, the good old days when I roamed the open plains and abused one-hoofed,
two-legged horses.

We went to a candy shop, then a candle shop, and then I found this neat little thing at the candle shop called a "courting candle."

How a judge and a jury use this candle in their decisions,
I'll never know.

Here's a closer look at the sign.

I think I remember one of my exes had a dad that used this thing. As soon as he saw me, he moved the candle all the way to the bottom and told me that I couldn't marry his daughter. My third grade self was crushed.

They also had the option to dip your own candles in candle wax, which was pretty cool. I thought the sign was pretty funny though.

Number three would've been great to know a few nights ago.

At one point in the day, I was taking this picture.

I think I actually might need a worry doll soon.

I have this habit of taking a few steps backwards immediately after taking a picture, probably because Fatal Frame trained me to believe that as soon as I snapped a shot, the ghost of a Japanese lady would come out of whatever I took a picture of and murder me. In most cases, stepping backwards is pretty harmless.

In this case, I almost ended an elderly woman's life.

I'm not even sure what I did, I think I bumped into her or stepped on her toe or broke her rib or something, but immediately after we made contact, she made this horrible, HORRIBLE pained cry that sounded exactly like this:

The next few seconds after that were a bit of a blur because she caught me TOTALLY off-guard with the seal mating call she made, but I think I said "Oh my god, I'm so sorry" and ran away or something like that.

Man, in hindsight, I shouldn't have left her so quickly. Maybe I should have fed her a sardine or something to make her feel better.

We also found a MODEL RAILROAD PLACE and it is AWESOME. I'm just gonna picture dump right now, but LOOK AT HOW COOL IT IS. Even with crappy iPhone quality, hopefully you guys can see how detailed this thing is.

Back off, billboard. Can't believe a sign would hit on my wife. That's Chris
Brown's job.

Fun fact, the streetlights change every 30 seconds.

I was especially mesmerized by this one tiny aspect here.

This guy must have mad buns and thighs.

I don't know why, but I LOVED that tiny little detail. Maybe it's the idea of a weary traveler walking to somewhere unknown, starting a new life that I loved, but I could not stop taking pictures of this one tiny person. The one above was the only good one I got because the glass ended up reflecting off the other photos though.

We bought some churros (one caramel filled, one cheese filled, both delicious) and ended the day by seeing this sign.

Never again will I use the word "pussy" in a
derogatory way.

RFotD: There actually aren't that many old people in Old Town.

Day Thirty: The Pursuit Of Happiness

7/15/15, 10: 52 PM PDT

Pretty relaxing day today. Sam came over, we watched a nice little movie called "Hector and the Search for Happiness" which starred Simon Pegg and it was really nice. It was very similar to "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" except better because their end sequence is a lot more impactful than Mitty's ending.

Hmm... I didn't get to take any pictures today, huh. But I mean today was an indoor-only sort of day, so that's alright, riiiight?

Also I have been procrastinating WAY TOO MUCH on my 3D work, so I gotta do that PRONTO.




RFotD: I gotta work a HELL of a lot harder if I'm gonna make it as a VFX artist, swear to god.

Day Twenty-Nine: Songs From A Songbird

7/14/15, 11:19 PM PDT

Phoenix can SING. And by "sing," I don't mean just say words in different notes to a melody, literally anyone can do that. Except me.

No, I mean, she can goddamn sing. I could write extensively detailed descriptions of how well she can sing, but honestly, I'm just gonna let my videos speak for itself.

Pardon the glitching in Phoenix, Vol 2, I don't know what happened there, I think my iPhone glitched out. Angela says that she could totally imagine Phoenix singing in a warm little cafe playing solo and I wholly agree with that statement.

So we also went to a place called "Pieology" and despite sounding like the hardest AP class that Mira Mesa had to offer, it's actually really cool. I'm pretty sure I'm one of the few people that have never eaten at Pieology before, but just think Chipotle's level of customizability, but with pizza. Choose your own bread, cheese, sauce, and toppings, all at a flat rate, it is BEAUTIFUL.

I ordered this thing:

Also I know I said I'd limit food pics, but it's one of the few things I had
pictures of tonight, so sorry guys.

That right there, is alfredo pizza with mozarella, ricotta, parmesan, feta, and gorgonzola cheese, herb butter sauce, chicken, bacon, mushrooms, sliced tomatoes, garlic, and basil, all for... eight dollars or so? I forget, Sam had to pay for me since I forgot my wallet at home.

It was delicious though.

RFotD: In total, I probably owe 100 dollars in total, spread across all of my friends because of how financially irresponsible I am. Sorry guys.

Day Twenty-Eight: A Taste Of Sweden

7/13/15, 11:10 PM PDT

If there's anything that makes up for the ridiculous cost of an American college, it's the fact that you get a ton of free stuff just by having a .edu email address. One of the best deals that I've found so far was the Autodesk Suite, free for students for 3 years, but for everyone else, costs 2,100 dollars a year.

So a large chunk of today was following Brandon Laatsch's tutorials on 3DS Max. Here's what I made so far:

Beautiful, huh?

Obviously, it's nothing fantastic, but hey, small steps. Small, small steps, because there are SO MANY TOGGLES in this software that I'm scared if I hit the wrong keystrokes or do something wrong, the software will blow up.

Seriously

We also went to the Swedish Embassy today.

It stands for "International Koalition of swEden
in America"

We bought a neat little backpack for my college purposes, and I LOVE IT.

They even stole an airplane seatbelt buckle for it!

It's got a ton of pockets, adjustable straps (in the sense that you can wear it as a backpack AND a manpurse), and it's the perfect size to fit my behemoth of a laptop. But you know the biggest reason why I like this backpack?

Because the main compartment had this in it:

And it was still hot too, can you believe it?

RFotD: I'm just kidding, we bought the meatballs separate. But a backpack that could make that on demand would be amazing.

Day Twenty-Seven: Lawn Con Part Two

7/12/15, 11:59 PM PDT

Lawn Con day two! This time, with Samantha and Megan and a gimpy left arm.

Also I'm not sure if "Lawn Con" is the official term for the stuff outside of the convention center but I'm gonna keep using that name since it's catchy.

Of course, we saw some pretty sick cosplayers. There was Oogie Boogie, which was AMAZING.

The guy gave Sam a flashback to the day we first met.

Oogie finally straightened out his life, gave up on gambling, and successfully
raised a family.

The thing from Insidious was here too.

Why he has a lightsaber, I'm not entirely sure.

There was also a guy who wasn't sure whether or not to go as Deadpool or a Pokémon, but knew for sure that he wanted to be awesome.

Poolkachu? Deadkachu? You decide-kachu.

And of course, the Assassins from yesterday.

I wasn't trying to look cool in this picture, promise. Sam
took the picture mid-sneeze.

There we go.

Not to be outdone, a guy came up with an AWESOME Assassin's Creed costume of his own, without sponsorship from Ubisoft.

Great job, Mayla!

And after some adventuring and some caw-caw-rawrs, we stumbled upon this guy.

Don't mind the dead dog on the ground. He just got hungry.

This guy was AWESOME.

I actually asked to take a picture with him but then he
whipped out this pose so I ended up just taking a pic of him.

These guys were alright too.

Not actually cosplayers, just people wearing pajamas and walking outside.

For the most part, Sam, Megan, and I just looked around at the stuff Lawn Con had to offer. Here's some pictures!

I'm actually not sure if these guys are actual protesters, or just making
fun of them.

"I actually read this book when I was a kid. It sucked."
-Sam

We eventually went over to Horton Plaza, where we got this awesome picture.

WE MATCH UP SO DAMN WELL WITH THE CUTOUTS.

LOOK AT HOW AWESOME IT LOOKS. LOOK AT IT.

SEAMLESS. WE LOOK PERFECT.

I'm gonna campaign to make this my new profile picture, swear to god.

RFotD: Being behind on blog entries is stressful. But it's a fun stressful. Sort of.