Day Thirty-Seven: Mitsuwa is Beautiful

7/20/14, 10:11 PM PDT

So today, a certain someone called me out on the fact that I haven't been keeping my promise about posting every blog entry at 11:30 PM.

It's YOUUUUUU, Nicholas.
(via theclassical.org)

So in order to appease to these demands, I'll be reinstating my automated method of posting. Basically, every post is gonna autopublish at 11:30 PM every day whether I'm finished with the entry or not. Happy now, Nick?

Anyway, I went to a really cool store called "Mitsuwa" today. On the outside, it looked like any other average normal every day Asian marketplace.

Meat-su-wah? What even is that?

But when we went in...

Yeah, it was pretty much your average normal every day Asian marketpla-JUST KIDDING, IT WAS BEAUTIFUL INSIDE. Upon entering, you are immediately HIT with the delicious aroma of freshly cooked noodle soup, thanks in part to not one, but TWO noodle shops immediately left of the entrance. Swear, the entire time I was there, my mouth was watering because it smelled SO GOOD. Hell, even after I stuffed myself with tempura udon soup, I still felt hungry because of the scent in the air.

Being a Japanese shop and all, they'd of course have a few... interesting foods for sale.

Uh... strawberry flavored?

That Doritos bag was actually salt flavored. I don't know why they picked its color to be pink.

They also had this little adorable food thing to celebrate Japan entering the World Cup.

The mere existence of this box more than compensates for the fact that
Japan didn't even make it out of pools.

And here, have these too. I don't even like Sriracha, but why not?

After eating this, I might have Sriracha Pees
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. ...You pee it out, right?

And the holy grail:

RAW GRAPE FLAVOR LYCHEE-LIKE CUBES.
SWEET TOSTADAS.

But the real selling point? The shop in the corner of the market that sold a ton of ANIME THINGS. I don't even LIKE anime and I loved the shop because all of the stuff they sold was SO COOL. Oh, and my apologies if some of the pictures already have captions on them, I took some straight off my Snapchat since I forgot to save them to my gallery before posting them. (Psst, you should totally add me on Snapchat by the way. User: Shroomush)

How convenient. Sexy soap for a sexy dude. SOLD.

(They're Dragon Balls, if you didn't know)

They also had really cute signs throughout the store.

Oh and the shop's name was "Trendy." It's not
the guy's name, promise.

And I know those Minecraft swords and pickaxes are super common, but have you ever seen a Minecraft AXE? Because I sure as hell haven't.

Is it gold? Diamond? Rune G? I don't know.

Even their ceiling is interesting.

My Neighbor Ceiling Cat?

And LOOK AT THIS TAREPANDA.

IT'S SO EFFING CUTE.

My favorite thing in the store though? This DANGANRONPA BACKPACK. The picture really doesn't do this thing justice, the art was AMAZING quality, I would've bought it if it didn't cost effing FORTY DOLLARS.

Why do you cause me so much despair,
Monobear?

I'll leave you with this picture of a chicken I got while I was at Bed Bath and Beyond.

Hey babe.

RFotD: Mitsuwa Marketplace, surprisingly, is only found in America, with locations in California, New Jersey, and Illinois.

SGAT: Edited more of my short film.

Day Thirty-Six: Seals and Skylines

7/19/14, 10:25 PM PDT

Got lazy last night, sorry everyone.

Anyway, a few of my cousins came over today. Older cousins, mind you. They're like... 19, 20 now. It's crazy.

So since they were here, we all went to La Jolla beach to look at the seals. Or sea lions. Seals? I can't tell the different between the two and my Internet is glitching out like crazy right now so I can't double check, so for now, let's call them seal lions as a compromise.

Look at some of the pictures I grabbed. Pardon any blurriness, I had to take all of these shots with a sort-of-long-ish exposure and I didn't bring a tripod.

"Yeah, get my good side, Michael."

Here's a seal lion that was trying to pretend like he was a bird.

"Arf ar- I mean, caw... caw?"

I especially loved the ones that were separate from the main group of seal lions. Notably, these two.

This one didn't have very many friends. And he's okay with that.

 After being diagnosed with ALS, life seemed bleak for this seal.

What main group, you say? Why... this group.

THE COLONY.

I also got pretty fascinated with this seal that held this position for awhile, as if it were waiting for a loved one to return from the sea or something.

"Oh, Sealmantha, I will stand atop these flippers until the day you return."

...But eventually it got tired.

"lolnvm"

Now, let me introduce you to the MAJESTY of... the king seal.

Bow before my blubber.

Seriously, this champion held this pose for a SOLID 10 minutes. Look at how prideful it looks. It's like a seal's status is directly proportional to how many chins it has and this guy has A LOT SEVERAL.

And also, look at this wannabe seal, trying to be like the king seal.

You don't even have chins, aquarean filth.

A lot of the seals were just sleeping on the rocks, which was adorable. I especially loved these two seals, who were doing the seal equivalent of spooning.

D'aww.

Afterwards, we went to Mount Soledad. It was pitch black by the time we got there, which meant I couldn't really get any good pictures of the cross. But on the bright side, I got to try out taking some long-exposures of San Diego at night.

Pretty.

This one, the camera was a bit too close to the glossy, table-ish thing that I was using as a ghetto pedestal, but it still resulted in a pretty cool shot.

#twoskiez. Make it trend, America. Make it trend.

A few times, my sister nudged the camera while it was taking the shot. Messed up the shot, of course, but it ended up making some pretty cool effects.

Tiny little angels... everywhere.

It's like one of those long-exposure light art things, except
with drunk cursive.

Here's my favorite two pictures I grabbed from the night though.

Pretty x2.

Pretty! (That's a factorial symbol, mind you)

Ended the day with a brief Cards Against Humanity game with Samantha, Seth, and Samantha's volunteer friend before passing out at 1 AM.

RFotD: My Internet BLOWS right now.

SGAT: Edited more of my short film.

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.