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 Fifty-Nine: A Fun Flight, A Not-So-Fun Landing

8/13/15, 9:23 AM PDT

Today, we finally leave Europe. It's a bittersweet sort of feeling. On one hand, Europe has been an AMAZING experience with a lot of sights, food, experiences, and especially food, so I'm definitely gonna miss it. But on the other hand, I can't wait to hang out with my friends again, so I'm pretty glad that I'm leaving.

It was a nine-hour flight from Barcelona to our first transfer, which was Atlanta, Georgia. There were a few things notable about the flight. One, their in-flight safety video was pretty funny.

(This next one wasn't the one we had on our flight, but I found it while looking for the one we had and it is also very funny)

And two, their in-flight film library was ENORMOUS. I decided to watch three films, which were The Imitation Game, Slumdog Millionaire, and, my favorite, Assassination Classroom.

Just reading the synopsis makes me excited.

I'm not gonna lie, Assassination Classroom has a VERY weird concept. Basically it's about a yellow octopus-like creature with ridiculous superpowers that decides to teach a classroom of middle school failures how to become assassins before destroying the earth at the end of the school year if they don't kill him by then.

Yeah, it's weird. But I absolutely LOVED it. It was really funny, had surprisingly decent CGI, was over the top, and ended with the promise that there would be a SEQUEL, which I am very excited for. You can take a look at the trailer here, if you like:

Now, on a different note, let me tell you about the migraine that is the Atlanta International Airport. We were only here to wait for a transfer, but for some stupid reason, we had to get the luggages we checked in to the flight from the airport just to recheck them in after we got them. Why do we have to do this? Why can't they just take the bags themselves and put it on our transfer flight, like every other airport does automatically?

And before you say "Oh, Michael! You're overreacting, it's only one tiny baggage recheck, that's not a brain hemorrhage waiting to happen!"

Except we never got our luggage from the carousel. So we couldn't recheck in our bags because WE NEVER GOT THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE. And the airport staff were absolutely no help either, whenever we asked them they would interrupt us by saying "Oh, just wait for them at the carousel, they'll show up eventually." EXCEPT THE CONVEYOR BELT ISN'T MOVING FOR OUR CAROUSEL ANYMORE. So when we got that message through, they'd say "Okay, then just go to LAX without your bags and they'll probably be there when you arrive."

Probably. Probably. Oh so if we do go and they don't end up being there, we're just dead, huh? The bags are stuck in Atlanta forever.

We asked several other people and NONE OF THEIR ANSWERS WERE THE SAME. Some people suggested looking at other carousels to see if they got mixed up, which we did, in vain. Some recommended going to our airline at this airport and filing a baggage claim, which we couldn't do because our connecting flight was leaving in 20 minutes and the line looked like it was moving slower than the earth's tectonic plates. And some just gave us a "Sorry, but I don't know what else to tell you" which I guess was the best thing they could have said because at least they were being honest.

So we eventually flew to LAX, landed at 9PM, waited in their luggage carousel, and lo and behold, our bags weren't there. So we filed a baggage claim and after the hour long line, you know what happened to our bags?

They got put on a DIFFERENT FLIGHT. So Delta promised us that they'd fly them over to San Diego's airport and deliver them to our door tomorrow morning.

Hopefully they follow up on that promise.




RFotD: Yes, they did deliver on that promise, thankfully.

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 Eight: I Do Nothing

6/23/15, 11:24 PM PDT

Today was a pretty chill day. I went on a movie marathon and watched Good Will Hunting and The Big Lebowski, both of which were movies that I can't believe I waited this long to watch.

Hmm... not much else I can really write about today, since I don't really wanna bore you with a movie review and pretty much all of today was movie watching. Which was great, by the way. I mean I know it's not the most exciting thing to read about on a blog, but for me, it's nice to just have days where I do nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Guess how many times I've used this picture on my blog?
(via SpongeBob/engadget.com)

BUT, the next few days will be way more interesting to write about, promise. Wednesday I'm finishing my video reel to try and take me some jobs. Thursday, squad's coming over to harass Mocha the dog from his peaceful slumber. Friday's gonna be one HELL of a day at Del Mar. And the weekend's the weekend, so it's given that those days will be fun.

But for today, it was just peaceful. Peaceful and relaxing and full of Steve Buscemi. 

RFotD: A picture of Steve Buscemi is located inside of Samantha's wallet. Ask her about it sometime.

Day Seven: Thanks Samantha

6/22/15, 11:08 PM PDT

Today was a MUCH better day than yesterday, largely because Samantha came over to watch movies with me. The day started off pretty rocky, but as soon as she came over, everything was all better. She has that effect on people and I'm so thankful that she does.

OH, I owe you guys some Legoland pictures, so have at it!

Welcome to Jurassic World Legoland. Cue music!

We got lost at one point because this sign had really horrible directions.

When the janitor said the bathroom was "over there" I didn't think it'd
be all the way in Japan.

There was also BLATANT racism on one of these signs.

"C'mon, every Asian knows that Tokyo is only 29 million chopsticks
away from Legoland."

Aaliyah, you might get a kick out of this license plate if you read this stuff.

I absolutely LOVED Miniland though. I tried to take a few forced perspective shots of everything. Here were my best takes.

Cute.

The Luxor hotel. Also known as the Illuminati Headquarters.

A nice little white castle. They probably sell really good burgers.

I think Pacquiao's having a fight here later tonight.

That's no dumpster...

They had a few cute Easter eggs too. Here were two I found in the Chinese Theater.

"DOES HE LOOK LIKE A FEMALE DOG?"

I haven't seen it yet, but I think this is Reservoir Dogs.

A few neat little Star Wars landscapes...

Maybe these are the droids we're looking for.
Probably not though.

Trench run! Kinda like the one I went on last night with your wife.

DC was cute too.

Oh, wait, sorry, this is still Star Wars, it's where the Sith lives.

Here's the place for scale.

Actually, I just have a really small dad.

At the waterpark, we found this FULL BODY DRIER (which I tried, it wasn't fantastic).

Five bucks for 1/4 of your body dry. Worth it?

Dad looks up in wonder at the beauty that man can create.

"They recreated the pose I take when I'm on the toilet so well..."

And we found this cruel hellhole of trapped Pikachus in the park.

How Pokemon managed to sneak into a Legoland theme park, I don't know.
But they certainly got them all.

Yeah, we saved one from its prison.

Hell yeah.

See you, Legoland.

Anyway, back to the present. So Sam stayed at my house today and we watched a really scary movie called The Den and I LOVED IT. It was the first genuinely scary film I've seen in a long time, evidenced by how tightly I was holding on to Sam during some parts. And I can sleep through Insidious, so it's not like I'm just being a wimp this time around.

Anyway, thanks Sam, for making today a lot better than it would have been.

Sorry, I'm really tired and I've fallen asleep a few times typing this out, I hope some of my words are still coherent after this, haha. I'll find out in the morning.

RFotD: Michael doesn't sleep. He crashes and burns.

Day Two: Sushi, Shooting, And Sobbing

6/17/15, 10:48 PM PDT

It's days like this where I wish that teleportation was a feasible, non-lethal way of transportation. Today's itinerary consists of the following:

1. Sushi at near Westfield UTC with my English group (the Hurly Burlies) at noon.
2. Filming at La Jolla Cove with Limbert and the Bang Bros (great band name, by the way) at 3PM.
3. Watching Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (for free!) at the movie theater with Kamichan and Sam.

Don't worry about the abundance of group names right now, you'll get used to them as the summer progresses.

So, first stop, Sushi Ki, for the much awaited Hurly Burly Sushiventure that Christina has been proposing for OVER NINE MONTHS.

Better be worth it if I had to wait an entire pregnancy
for this to happen.

But before we could even think about eating sushi, we had to deal with getting there first. And getting there was... scary. I initially told Kayla's grandpa (our main source of transportation) that I had to get home by 2, and since they didn't start picking people up from their houses until 12:15, we had to LEG IT to make sure we had enough time to eat everything. We probably went over 70 MPH down residential roads to pick up Angela, Christina, and me in under a minute, and a few times during that drive, I think we almost died because Kayla's grandpa decided to pull some risky maneuver that saved precious seconds of sushi-eating time in exchange for the safety and well-being of the passengers in his car. But because of a combination of his skilled Air Force pilot training and the alignment of certain celestial bodies, we managed to make it to the sushi spot in one piece.

So this lunchtime sushi trip would be the first time that Kevin T. has EVER eaten sushi, so we went pretty damn crazy with our orders. Here's an exact list of the stuff we ordered.

• The Crunch Dragon
• The Spicy Washington
• The Ki House Roll
• The Baked Salmon
• The Spider
• The Spicy Girl
• The Rock and Roll

Jesus. Those sound less like pieces of fish wrapped around rice and more like really painful yoga/bedroom babymaking positions.

"If I can't even do downward dog, how the hell am I gonna
be able to do the Spicy Washington?"
(via trish52newthings.blogspot.com)

The sushi was AMAZING though. I'm not much for food pictures, but just take a look at some of our plates.

Even before we started eating, Christina was calling out to her inner Ho.

Just imagine the best sushi you ever had, multiply it by fifty, and you'll start
to imagine how some of this stuff tasted.

And here are the people that I shared this delicious food with.

All Christina ever wanted was Angela's love. She'll have to wait another day.

Kevin chooses his sushi as if he's studying for his midterms.

About halfway through the sushi session, we figured out that the selfie sticks we got for free from the senior breakfast have threaded holes in the bottom of them. And since they had threaded screws on the top of them too, we tried to combine two selfie sticks to make one super long selfie stick.

And we succeeded.

I wasn't able to get a profile view of both sticks, but
just take my word for it. It was really goddamn long.

We didn't really have an opportunity to take pictures with it right there, but we did get this rare footage of me almost cheating on Samantha.

Given the circumstances, I believe she would understand.
(via Christina)

One last group picture...

Hurly Burlies for life.
(via Christina)

And then I quickly got dropped off home by Kayla's grandpa, changed into my prom clothing, and got a ride with Sam to La Jolla Cove. Where we waited for Toossi to come film us...

And waited....

And waited....

For a whole hour. They didn't get here until 5 PM, which was a lot later than we would have liked. But hey, we got to film with Toossi and his beautiful girlfriend, so it was worth it.

They'll make beautiful children. Hopefully without
too many defects.

Sam and I were running late already by the end of the shoot, so we didn't have time to change out of our prom clothes. Instead, we went to the early screening of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl looking like this:

Some people thought we were part of the movie because
we were dressed fancy, hah.
(via Christina)

We eventually watched the movie. And it was a BEAUTIFUL movie. Really funny. Really entertaining. Really sad. I would really love to discuss it here more in detail, but it hasn't come out yet officially and I really don't want to spoil anything, so just WATCH IT as soon as you can. It's got story, acting, animation, titties, it has EVERYTHING you could ever want in a movie. Watch it. Please.

Oh, and to close this entry off, remember that super long selfie stick we got from combining two sticks? Here are the resulting pictures.

The selfie stick's tip was like... 20 feet off the ground?

 

We're all smiling now, but inside, we were all scared that the selfie
stick would snap in half and destroy a phone.

All in all, a very good day.

RFotD: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl was acquired by Fox Searchlight for 12 million dollars after Sundance, which was the largest acquisition deal in the festival's history.

Day Zero: Senior Breakfast, I Talk To Red Books

6/15/15, 10:07 PM PDT

(Note: I'm still getting used to the blog being back up again, so the first few days probably aren't gonna be too photo-dense)

So today, on my last day of compulsory, government-mandated school, we had our senior breakfast. For non-high schoolers or my readers in foreign countries, it's basically a breakfast with our entire high school class that's more or less an excuse to have the entire Class of 2015 do one last thing together before we go into the real world. The cold, cruel, frightening real world.

If it's anything like MTV portrays it to be, we're all screwed.
(via wikipedia.org)

I would say that it's surreal that today would be the last day of something I've been a part of for the past four years. I would say that it'll be strange to imagine not having to wake up at 5:45 AM every day, plow through six straight hours of school, pass out at home for a few hours, and start homework at 8 PM. And I would say that I'm gonna miss seeing a bunch of people on a regular basis.

But I skipped breakfast today and I was starving, so none of that was going through my mind. I was just thinking about the food. The delicious, delicious food. I didn't grab any pictures, but they had bacon, scrambled eggs, breakfast burrito stations, omelette-making stations, and some weird apple-cinnamon thing that looked gross but tasted delicious.

It sort of looked like this, except more syrupy and less appetizing.
(via guavarose.com)

And it was ALL YOU CAN EAT. Which meant my famished little stomach was very very happy.

They had a bunch of activities too. There was a photobooth (which of course, my friend group and I hit up).

It took me two pictures to realize that the camera wasn't
on the ceiling.

And a flipbook, which my friends also indulged in.

It's supposed to be an allegory to nature's inevitable triumph over mankind
or something.

There was also DDR, which we played, and karaoke, which we did not do because 90% of the time it was playing Nickelback and our requested song, Party in the USA, never came up. In hindsight, I think it was a good decision not to sing because if we did, we probably would have ruined the entire senior breakfast for everyone. Because everyone's eardrums would have been ruptured.

A cool thing they also had was this one dude promoting a movie called "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" and it looks pretty damn good. I haven't really heard a synopsis or anything of the film, but based on the guy's mumbled spiel, the fact that it's a Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury/Audience Award winner (which Whiplash was also a past winner of), and all of the free merchandise we got, I'd say I'm pretty hyped about it.

And I mean it when I say we got a lot of merchandise. We got posters...

More to decorate my room with.

Shirts...

I'll be wearing this during finals week in UCLA then.

And this dumb looking box.

Unfortunately, it does not contain embarrassing pictures of Spongebob
at the Christmas party.

But what was in this dumb looking box? A FREE SELFIE STICK! AWWW YEAH.

Or, as the kind women at the convent call it, the Vanity Pike.

Here we have the lovely, Berkely bound Kurtland Chua demonstrating its length.

A natural born Vanna White, huh?

Pretty glad I got this thing. I'm probably gonna use it as a ghetto crane for films and stuff, as soon as I find a way to either make my hands less shaky or stabilize the camera. I'll figure out a non-selfie use for it someday, promise.

Later today, the squad and I (with "squad" being defined as Angela, Kayla, Christina, Gwendolyn, Samantha, and Nick) went to the movies to go watch Insidious 3. I think the scariest part about that entire movie was the fact that I drove there. I suck so much at driving, I swear. I can't wait until robotic cars are the norm, I hate driving so much. In UCLA, as long as I have public buses, trolleys, a scooter, and my own two feet, I will be a happy, happy boy.

We also hit up the local Barnes and Noble, as is standard in our film-watching escapades. A few days ago, Christina found this ritual online that involved a red book and allowed us to communicate to ghosts or spirits or Mexican demons or something. But basically, the gist of the ritual was that you'd grab any red-colored book, ask a question, flip to a random page, and point to some text and whatever you pointed to would be the spirit's response.

So we did that at Barnes and Noble with an assortment of red books.

The first red book we tried got some pretty tepid results. The demon we contacted didn't really wake up on the right side of the bed, so it said we couldn't play and we went on our merry way. It was when we got to this cookbook where things got interesting: 

It's red. It's bound like a book. It checks out.
(via simonandschuster.com)

You know, for a cookbook, it had very feisty responses. It started with an innocent "Are you a boy or a girl?" Then, one thing led to another, and eventually I figured out what she (it was a she-demon, a shemon) was wearing, I figured out that she liked it when I pressed her covers, and I landed myself a date with a cookbook this Friday. Sorry Sam, but I've got a hot date with a hot, hot demon.

RFotD: In a ranking by U.S. News & World Report, the Paleo Diet ranked last in a list of 32 diets. The traits used to compare the diets were healthiness, weight loss, and ease of following.

Day Sixty-One: Dropping Tablets and Cutting Hairs

8/13/14, 12:01 AM PDT

Dad arrived today, a fact that my mom is not too happy about. My other grandma arrived too, a fact that my mom is much happier about. This morning, I was tasked with bringing her stuff to her room, which consisted of two purses, a smartphone, and a tablet. It should have been no problem for a man of my physique.

Basically.

I had a death grip on all that stuff. A white-knuckle, space-Alcatraz, we-will-not-let-you-go death grip.

But my grandma's tablet made a jailbreak. It made the most explosive cracking sound ever. And the back of the tablet broke.

As broken as my future.

I. PANICKED. Literally less than five minutes after she landed, I managed to break something of hers. And not just any old thing either, a TABLET. TECHNOLOGY.

Over a thousand years old and I managed
to break it.

It was only the back plating though, it's not like the screen shattered or anything. And on closer inspection, the damage wasn't too bad either. I put the wires back into the tablet's body and after a bit of ingenuity, I put the back plating back.

Good as new. Right?

In less tragic news (or more tragic, depending on who you are), we went to the mall again today. I got me a haircut.

You don't need to see the rest of me, right?

And I also played with Ice again. The niece, not the state of water.

Yeah, she's smiling, but she secretly wants
to murder me for taking pictures of her.

Ice, about to do the Five Point Palm Exploding
Heart Technique.

My family watched a movie too. My mom, my dad, and my sister watched the Ninja Turtles movie. I, having something against Michael Bay movies, opted to watch Lucy alone.

How dare you do this to me, Michael Bay.

And I mean I watched it ALONE. There was literally NO ONE ELSE in the theater with me. An auditorium for 40, 50 people and I was the only one in it.

It was wonderful. I got to comment as LOUD as I wanted to at whatever happened in the movie, a privilege which I took full advantage of because there's just SO MUCH going on in Lucy that it gets confusing as hell.

Of course, when that random checker dude came in every so often, I'd shut up and pretend that I was a normal, civilized moviegoer. Which of course, that day I wasn't.

RFotD: Lucy would've been a good movie if it weren't so confusing. I mean first it's acting like a revenge movie, then it's all philosophical, then it turns into an episode of Through The Wormhole. What?

SGAT: Learned to keep my films concise.