Day Eighty-Three through Eighty-Seven: A New Member Of The Family

9/10/15, 2:35 PM PDT

Most of these past few days were basically movie nights with Sam. I didn't tell you guys but I bought this book a few days ago:

You might recognize this from somewhere...

I finished it today and I very much liked it. But surprisingly, this is one instance where the movie was better than the book. Jesse Andrews, the author of the book, also wrote the screenplay, which I always love because it lets the one with the original idea essentially revise their already completed work, as opposed to some other person reading the story and trying to figure out everything the author was trying to say.

Also something we got this week was another member of our family. Say hello to Lolly.

Hello!

Lolly is a very small, very shy Yorkie mix who has been wanting to be adopted for over two years. We don't really know her full background, but we do know that she has been needing a home and my sister will soon need a companion after I go to college.

So after a lengthy process of negotiating and paperwork, we adopted her! And she (and my sister) are now very happy.

Even though it doesn't look like it.

Also, during these few days, I finally watched "The Notebook" with Sam and I absolutely ruined the romance in that movie, thanks to 18th Century American History and a scene where Allie resists treatment from nurses. It was hilarious, but Sam hates me for ruining something that she claimed was "required reading for couples."

We also watched Dope together, on a weekday afternoon when high school has officially started. Coupled with the fact that Dope has been out for awhile, we literally had the entire theater to ourselves. So we were free to comment as loudly and as frequently as we wanted to, and it was great.





RFotD: Lolly is a very very shy dog.

Day Eighty-Two: Snoopy's Strangulation

9/5/15, 10:58 PM PDT

Today, Kayla, Christina and I traveled to the mythical world of Dungeons and Dragons.

Hell yeah.

Or, rather, preparing for the mythical world of Dungeons and Dragons. Basically, we scoured Kayla's room for figurines we could use, a grid map we can use, and dice.

Dice seems to be the biggest problem right now, since all we could find were two metal D6 that Kayla had, but we had no problem looking for miniatures to use.

Granted, they weren't exactly the uniform-looking D&D miniatures you normally see, but a figurine is a figurine. Instead of knights exploring a large medieval landscape, we'll instead be little jaundiced Lego people aimlessly roaming a world of Pokémon and multicolored frogs and whatever the fuck this guy is:

I'm not kidding. We really have one of these guys.

My sister and I also went to Daiso to buy some college dorm stuff, specifically a coin bank for me to put the loose change that I will inevitably gather in LA. They had a few interesting looking ones, especially this one that I really liked but thought would be a little too intimidating for my roommates.

Because nothing...

says badass...

Quite like a can designed to prevent you from spending your change recklessly.

So I opted for this neutral looking yet still aesthetically-pleasing blue can.

I have no idea what it says.

Later, we went to Target and discovered what it sounded like to strangle Snoopy.

RFotD: While I was filming this, a man was apparently laughing behind me and staring while I was mercilessly shaking Snoopy. He started cackling right after I saw him.

Day Seventy-Eight through Eighty-One: The Social Habits Of The Filipino Mother (How I Almost Kidnapped Sam)

9/4/15, 11:20 PM PDT

So for the past three days, I have essentially been nonstop editing for the next VFX weekly. I wanted to try some compositing with 3D elements, so I decided to try and animate some Star Fox vehicles into my neighborhood.

Thankfully, to save me a ton of modeling time, I managed to find a 3D model of an Arwing, a Landmaster, and a Wolfen online. Bless whoever took those from Brawl, because if I had to model this thing...

...then this weekly would probably have become a monthly. I've only been playing with 3DS Max for about two months and modeling is still ridiculously hard for me. Thankfully, animating is still basically the same as it is in After Effects, so I had no trouble doing that. The only thing that was super difficult about this project was rendering. It took EIGHT HOURS to render, and it basically overworked my laptop in the process.

But I am very happy with the outcome. Take a look.

More importantly, however, let me tell you about the socializing habits of the rare and elusive Filipino mother. Upon the retrieval of their child at another Filipino family's house, such as Samantha's house, the two mothers partake in an elaborate social ritual. In the native Philippine tongue, it is called "wag ka tatahimic" but its closest English translation is "conversation." Though conversation, in the Western sense, is nothing compared to this.

The two Filipino mothers initiate the ritual by first gesturing to the other what appears to be a goodbye wave at first glance. However, between the two women, it is actually a signal that says "I want us to talk for an indefinite period of time in order to delay the work that both of our children have to do for as long as possible." From that point, the two women quickly jump from conversation topic to conversation topic while their children wait awkwardly outside of the car for them to finish. Which is what Sam and I did.

Eventually, when their conversation hit the 45 minute mark, we tried to play a trick on them. Sam snuck into my mom's car (my mom stayed in her car the entire time she was talking to Sam's mom) and she hid in the backseat while we waited for them to finish talking.

We ended up waiting an additional forty minutes, meaning their entire "farewell" conversation lasted an hour and a half. But eventually, my mom drove off.

She didn't notice that crouching in the backseat in the fetal position was Samantha, hidden from view by the back of the passenger seat, her occasional chuckles covered up by the hum of the engine and the guttural hyena-like roars of laughter that my sister was screaming out.

My mom immediately started saying that she could talk to Samantha's mom forever, and I just put myself into autopilot, saying "yeah" to whatever she said. At one point, my mom said

"Samantha's mom talks a lot though, huh?"

She asked that question at an incredible time, right at the point where we reached a stop sign and the sound of my sister laughing stopped for a few seconds. And, with equally perfect timing, in a perfectly silent car, Samantha said

"Yeah, she does."

My mom immediately looks in the backseat, notices that Samantha was still in the car with us, and IMMEDIATELY turns back around to Samantha's house, right as Sam's mom exits the house in panic mode, searching for her daughter.

We explained the situation and even though the entire car was laughing, Sam's mom was panicking. Upon exiting, Sam gave out this weird chimpanzee "WOOO!" howl and raised her arms in the air like Donkey Kong about to throw an invisible barrel.

Her mom threatened to smack us, but it was totally worth it.

RFotD: I feel bad that our little joke made Sam's brother panic too. Her brother's cool, he didn't deserve that kind of fear.

Day Fifty-Seven: Wok'ing Around Town

8/11/15, 12:23 PM CET

Today is my dad's birthday! In celebration of that fact, we decided to just relax and take it easy so it would be a low stress, low navigation kind of day.

Just kidding. We went everywhere. First up was Spain's Arc de Triomf.

Complete with unappreciative hipster man on the lower left corner.

For my readers familiar with la culture française, you'd recognize the similarities between that arch and the one in Paris. And you're right. They are very similar.

That's honestly all the city guide said about the arch. I don't know if they're connected or if they'll eventually turn into stargates, I have no clue.

Shrugs

We also visited a MASSIVE Gothic Cathedral that they had here.

Damn, look at those fractals.

Even from that wide shot, you can see the ridiculous intricacy of the architecture.

At this point, I think every blog post I have on Spain has contained the word
"architecture" somewhere.

It didn't really have a badass name like the Notre Dame or anything, it was only called the "Gothic Cathedral," even in the city signs. But it's still very fancy.

Incredibly, they had LCD screens at the time this was constructed.

Later that night, we ate at a delicious Asian buffet called "Wok."

This restaurant was across from our hotel, so since we didn't have to go far, we
just... wok'd.

The buffet wasn't that great compared to buffets in California though. They had sushi, but they only allowed you to take FIFTEEN PIECES per eating session. Which kind of sucked. But we still left with full bellies, so it was still worth it.

Happy 50th birthday, dad! You're a ripe old age now, but it's been fun having you as my dad for the past 18 years. Here's to many, many more years!




RFotD: My dad says he is 50 years old every time I ask him, so I'm not sure if he really is 50 this time or if he's just lying to me again.

Day Fifty-Six: Barcelona Life Is A Beach

8/10/15, 11:10 PM CET

Spain has so much gorgeous architecture that we basically have to stop every few seconds to take pictures of it all. It's a good thing that our main mode of transportation is the subway, else my camera would literally be full from all the pictures I take.

This wasn't even a landmark or anything, it was just awesome-looking.

One of the more prominent architectural marvels in the city, however, is the National Art Museum in Catalunya. And for good reason. It is MASSIVE.

See this? This is from A MILE AWAY. (Approximately)

This was the closest I could get while still getting all of its architecture in the shot.

The view from said building is magnificent.

Architecture as far as the eye can see...

Tell you what though, these Spanish people are a bunch of wannabes. Look at them and their blatant ripoff of my college's Janss Steps.

Biters.

We also visited the Olympic Park that they had. It wasn't as pretty as the one in Munich, in my opinion, but it is still very very nice.

With a public foot dipping station too! Wow!

I think my favorite thing about their Olympic Park was this AWESOME trippy space needle-like thing that looked like it could be straight out of a sci-fi dystopia film.

Complete with giant alien traffic cones too. Oooooooh, spooky.

When the sun started getting less hot, we decided to get on this thing called a funicular. Basically a slanted trolley thing designed to take you up steep slopes, it's hard to describe but if you've ever seen The Grand Budapest Hotel, it's the pink thing that takes the people to the hotel.

The pink thing in the center of the frame.

From there, we briefly looked at a Spanish fort they had...

Proof that I mean "my family" when I say "we," I'm not just roaming Spain solo.

Looks like a sandcastle made with those rectangular buckets from Target.

Then rode the gondola...

Gondola, cable car, I'm never really sure what to call these things.

All the way to their beach!

Perfect timing for golden hour too!

Every shot of the beach I got is a shot that I absolutely LOVE. Look at this!

Look at that glow, man.

Vague silhouettes are gorgeous.

We ate at that restaurant, it was actually not that deliciosa.

Good night, Barcelona!

If there's one thing I can say about Spanish beaches, it is that their sand is INCREDIBLE. It's clumpy and lumpy, but still somehow manages to feel incredibly soft and silky to step on. It's interesting, definitely.

Sorry I'm cutting these entries pretty short, I'm in a rush to catch up on entries right now, BUT for good reason. I have a little special something that's more career oriented for me that'll require a bit more time, but I'll disclose information on that later!





RFotD: ALMOST CAUGHT UP. Writing this as of August 16 and I am ALMOST DONE.

Day Fifty-Three: Cobblestone Hell

8/7/15, 8:23 PM CET

Today was yet another transportation day, the final one for this vacation. We traveled from Lucerne to Zurich via bullet train, then from Zurich, we flew out to the very beautiful (and very hot!) airport of España.

That means Spain, for you non-Spanish speakers. I think.

As always, during the trip, we designate the day we arrive to a country as a rest day, where we just relax, briefly walk around the hotel to see where we could buy food and supplies, and plan for what we're gonna do in the country.

Today, however, was not a rest day. Today was exhausting, strenuous, physical labor day. And all because a subway station didn't have an elevator.

So our vacation is for four weeks, and since my family hates laundry with a passion, we decided to avoid it by bringing along enough clothes to last us 30 days without ever having to deal with bleach, detergent, or missing socks ever again. That of course, meant we'd have to bring very large, heavy luggage bags to store it all. Heavy bags which we would have to bring from the airport to our hotel.

On prior trips, this wasn't a huge issue because public transportation was very wheelchair-friendly and the roads were smooth enough that our bags wouldn't vibrate up and down like an Amsterdam masseuse with a really, really good client.

In Spain, however, we were plagued with both cobblestone streets, and the fact that the subway station we had to go to not only had no working elevators in sight, but also happened to be TEN KILOMETERS UNDERGROUND.

So to get to the hotel, we had to drag four suitcases, each weighting approximately three humpback whales each, across sixty miles of stone pavements specifically designed by 18th century Spanish masons to ensure that our luggage bag wheels would sound as much as an AK-47 on full auto as possible, before finally reaching the subway station. Then, we'd have to carry the bags, which combined have the weight of one Christina, down the literal seven circles of hell, climbing down at least 50 stories worth of staircases before finally reaching the trains.

Yeah. We're exhausted. But our lord and savior Booking.com saw our struggles, and rewarded our persistence by granting us the Elixir of Comfort, which today, took the form of an AMAZING HOTEL ROOM.

(Me being the moron I am, forgot to take these pictures, so just imagine that we had a hotel room with these things:

LOOK AT OUR KITCHEN.

WOW!

AND OUR BEDS.

Amazing!

AND OUR DUELLING TOILETS SETUP.

So you can share even your most intimate moments with your s/o.

RFotD: We really did have a kitchen in our hotel room and it was fantastic.

Day Fifty-One: Chocolate Factory!

8/5/15, 11:20 PM CET

Did you know that Lucerne used to be covered by a glacier hundreds of years ago? Well, it was. And the only remnants of the glacier now are the very intricate carvings it left on some of the bedrock in Lucerne, some of which we got to see in the appropriately-named Glacier Museum.

Woo! Geology!

...Yeah, a museum entirely about glaciers rocks sounds really boring. And it kinda was. I mean the science is cool, but when the museum is largely just pictures with a bunch of text, it becomes about as fun as reading a textbook. Which is to say, that it isn't much fun.

Thankfully, it wasn't exclusively about rocks and ice. They also had an AMAZING mirror room, which, although completely unrelated to glaciers, was still my favorite part about the glacier museum. Check out these really trippy photos I got while in there. For added confusion, try to figure out which people are real and which are reflections.

Don't worry if you can't do it, my mom couldn't either, and she was
actually there.

Yeah, I am one of those people that use the viewfinder to take pictures.
Don't judge.

I don't know why, but my sister looks like she's Angelina Jolie on the poster for
Mr. And Mrs. Smith.

Things got especially trippy when we reached the end of the maze, where they had a bunch of really tiny mirrors that show off just how cool of a look you could get with a few mirrors.

I like this one a lot because of the lights in the background.

I think this is my favorite picture though:

I call it "Joby in Space."

At one point, Megan actually ran into a mirror believing that it was a passable hallway and it was pretty funny because she was saying something like "It's this way!" but she got interrupted mid sentence by her reflection, which was pretty funny.


Also, the plot of land that the museum is on includes part of a mountain. They had a little wooden tower built on the top of the mountain as a viewpoint, so we climbed it. And the view was SPECTACULAR.

Seriously, it's AMAZING. It looks like it's straight out of a painting.

Afterwards, we decided to explore our inner Charlies and pay a visit to a real Swiss chocolate factory!

Unfortunately, Johnny Depp was not there to greet us.

Initially, I thought their mascot was really creepy. Look at this brown, almondy bastard:

The "A" on his hat actually stands for "asshole," not "Aeschbach."

...But after the entire tour and seeing him literally EVERYWHERE in the factory, I grew to love the guy. And so did Joby.

Awwwwwwwwww.

"It's almost adorable how ugly he is." -Samantha, when talking about me.

The actual factory was awesome too, except for the fact that I probably got diabetes from all the FREE CHOCOLATE WE GOT DURING THE TOUR. They outlined every step of the chocolate making process, as well as the differences between types of chocolate (largely determined by the ratios of cocoa cake/cocoa butter/sugar used in making them), and after every step they showed, they had stations for FREE CHOCOLATE. I especially liked it when they let us sample their white chocolate, since that's the chocolate I like the most. But my favorite chocolate dispensing method they had wasn't the free chocolate fountain with customizable toppings nor was it the Skinner Box-esque dispenser of small chocolate cubes, it was this hot piece of ass.

Little do you know, the back of this donkey actually has a cutout of Olivia
Wilde's face.

You see, when you press the green button on his face, something magical happens. Doctors would almost call it miraculous. And if you see it yourself, you'd definitely be inclined to agree with them.

That's right, they have a DONKEY THAT VOMITS CHOCOLATE COINS IN THE FACTORY AND IT'S AMAZING. We came at a time where there was literally no one else in the factory, and since the donkey dispensed a coin EVERY TIME, we decided to exploit it and get a BILLION of these things.

Actually, it was more like thirteen gold and silver coins, but nevertheless, it's a lot of free chocolate.


My sister and I also got to make and decorate our own chocolate, which basically involved pouring melted chocolate into a mold and putting toppings on it before it hardened. Here was my sister's chocolate bar:

Colorful, melty goodness.

And here's mine:

Uhhh...?

I think it's quite obvious who the more artistic one is here.


We ended the tour with a picture on this massive stack of chocolate coins:

And by "we" I mean Joby.

And we FINALLY wrapped up the day by exploring the sights that nighttime Lucerne had in store for us. Take a look at my pics:

Every day, we ate at the lakeside of Lucerne, and every day, we loved it.

Switzerland is amazing.

RFotD: Switzerland would be even more amazing if the stuff there wasn't so expensive.