7/01/15, 10:13 PM PDT
Today started off as a sort of bad day.
Alright, scratch that. Today started off as a really bad day. Thankfully, it was alleviated by the little date I had with Sam and especially the impromptu hangout at Angela's house. Most of the time I spent with Sam is largely pictureless since I was still pretty depressed at that time, but here are a few pictures I got.
Notice the absence of sand in his corner? That's because the entire time we watched him he was tring to crawl through the glass in that corner. At first we thought that he was crazy, or that he was trying to get the fly on Samantha's face (she never had a fly on her face, he probably just mistook the large mole on her face as an insect).
But then we saw this box directly across from the bearded dragon tank.
Because nothing says extreme like WordArt on a desert-like background.
He wasn't trying to escape or trying to get the thing on Sam's face. He was in love. With a picture. Aww. It's cute.
But man, it's weird, when a bearded dragon has a better relationship with a picture than I do. I mean that guy's trying to break through (from his perspective) an invisible wall of psychic energy to get to his wife. Meanwhile, Sam threatened to use this on me if I look at anyone of the opposite sex at UCLA.
She doesn't have to worry about that though. Cuz I only have eyes for her. And my balls are already gone.
Later, I went to Angela's house with Christina. Even though Angela only invited Kayla, we decided to show up anyway because why not?
I don't know if you've seen Angela's room before or not, but it is MAGNIFICENT. She painted and decorated it herself, right down to the meticulous placement of the room's clutter. Take a look.
The master designer herself.
A potato, bean thing. I don't know. There's a Totoro too.
The biggest part of the room. Not talking about Christina, mind you.
That... that should not be there.
Most of the day was spent either making music for our new band, The Nematodes (which you should DEFINITELY support, we're coming out with our first album never soon!) or playing Castle Crashers while Kayla edited some thing for a Yogscast contest or something. Here was the Photoshop piece she spent so much time on:
The Voldemort in the left corner's freaking me out though. (via Kayla)
Oh, and if you haven't heard of The Nematodes yet, don't worry. You'll hear us soon, just tune in to Channel 933. As a reward for being loyal readers, here's some of our behind the scenes footage, courtesy of Christina.
RFotD: I just now realized that Blogger's video quality is TERRIBLE. I should set up a YouTube account, I swear.
6/30/15, 11:14 PM PDT
Today, I found out that UCLA Athletics' Student Section had a selfie contest for people who were buying their den passes last minute.
Free hats, hmm?
Luckily for me, I completely put off buying my Den Pass until the very last day, so I got to be one of the few people eligible to compete in this. I saw that one of the criteria was "funniest" selfie. So, using my background in video editing, I took this very strange, cringe-worthy selfie...
Ignore the Post-It note on my webcam or the fact that I have a look of pure despair in my eyes.
Into this, equally strange, much more cringe-worthy picture.
Jesus Christ.
YES. I KNOW IT'S A HORRIBLE PICTURE. But let me explain my design process. So after I took that selfie, I realized that I had accidentally clipped off the top part of my head. I was too stubborn to retake the picture, so instead I tried to cover it up with something.
I didn't want a repeat of this picture where the hat was so obviously fake, So instead, I opted to cover it with a more reasonable beret. Then, I thought, since I had the beret, might as well put me in France so it makes sense, right? So I slapped the Eiffel Tower right behind me.
Then I thought, that's not a very funny or memorable picture, so I slapped the mustache and the (really crappy) cloud art behind it. And, as the French people say, voila.
Fifteen minutes, and some serious deliberation later, I decided to scrap the Eiffel Tower idea completely and go for something ridiculous to blow the judge's socks off.
This was the result.
Yes, that is USC on fire behind me. Yes, Godzilla is a Bruin.
After posting it on Twitter (and getting a boatload of likes)...
Later today, I went to Sam's house to meet some of her family members that were staying for two weeks. One of her cousins drew this picture of us:
BMOM stands for "Batman or Michael." Because my voice was so deep they decided to call me Batman when they first met me.
I'd say for the most part, it's pretty accurate. We're both squares, and I'm at least a tiny bit taller than she is. Telling you, this cousin's going places.
Afterwards, we all baked brownies, ate said brownies, and finished off the day with karaoke. One of Sam's cousins decided to sing this song:
Although soon after, the mic got handed to me because I had the deepest voice in the house. So I turned the knob on my throat to the "angry smoker" setting and sang my best Louis Armstrong impression.
They were laughing pretty hard whenever I sang "What a wonderful world" so I don't know whether or not I did a good job on that song.
What I do know is that I got some GREAT footage of Sam singing a certain Taylor Swift song...
RFotD: Samantha actually entered a Taylor Swift lookalike competition. She came in 5th, but she would have ended up in last place had it not been for her stellar moves.
Actually, because I have an unusually comfortable floor, it was more like this:
Just imagine that dry riverbed consists of really comfortable pillows or something.
So yes, today was a really, really lazy day. I played Melee for a few hours, wrote blog entries for a few more hours, played Castle Crashers for even more hours, and now I plan on sleeping for a few hours.
Lazy day. Lazy lazy day.
RFotD: Christina believes that the Blue Knight in Castle Crashers is horrible because his magic is horrible. How misinformed she is.
6/28/15, 11:10 PM PDT Today, my sister had a dance rehearsal at the very pretty Poway Center for the Performing Arts. Look at her. All costumed up and everything.
D'aww.
For the past few months, she's been going to practice every week to dance to this song:
And she has been so secretive about what the dance looks like. She told us the song well in advance and she even sings it when she's in the shower, but she has never shown us anything about the dance, so tonight would be a nice surprise for all of us.
The venue they have this at is amazing too. I brought my actual DSLR along for the ride and took a few pictures.
You know it's fancy when 50% of the building is glass.
The actual stage is really cool too.
So based on the fact that there's a large black uvula hanging from the
ceiling, I can safely assume that this is a female theater.
I don't even know this woman, but her hair caught the light in a really cool
way so I took a picture of it.
Unfortunately, due to our capitalistic society, video recording and photography were prohibited during the actual performance because they wanted to sell us DVDs later, so I couldn't take any pictures of the performance. We ordered the DVD anyway because we're a bunch of chumps we want to remember the performance forever, but that doesn't come until a few weeks from now, and that's no good for this blog.
So instead, to get a feel for how amazing their performance was, imagine that my sister is any one of the following people.
Oh, and there were also these two REALLY adorable dancing groups comprised ENTIRELY OF TODDLERS. Again, no footage, but let me just recap the things that made that performance so adorable.
They're toddlers.
They don't have very good muscle coordination.
None of them have any clear idea what they're supposed to do.
They made little clicking noises every time they walked because of the tap shoes they had.
They're all wearing small blue tutus.
They waddled in holding hands in the dark because the stage lights were turned off.
They were toddlers.
SERIOUSLY. God, I wish I got footage of it because it was the most adorable thing I have ever SEEN. I can't even post a video that's similar because there was NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING that can compare to how cute those toddlers were.
I could die so happy right now. They were so cute.
RFotD: Michael should seriously buy some spy sunglasses to discreetly film in film-prohibited places.
6/27/15, 11:23 PM PDT
Today, we have a birthday party to go to. My mom's coworker's daughter's first birthday. And it was ADORABLE.
The party I mean. I'm not calling the baby "it." But the baby was pretty cute too.
You know, I don't normally enjoy these kind of parties too much because I don't know anyone and it normally consists of me just on my phone until my mom decides to leave, but this party was a whooooole 'nother thing.
I only like these parties for the food. And this party had bomb-ass food. I'm talking AMAZING, top-tier, free food. Don't believe me? Look at what they have.
CREPES. FREE. CREPES. LOOK AT THIS.
Oh my goodness...
Their menu is so beautiful. The picture is super overexposed, but that shouldn't take away from the beauty that is this menu.
See the last thing on the menu? The little text at the bottom that says "Build your own?" That's the real kicker. Here, they have the entire list of things you can order.
But hey, it's a birthday party for a one-year old, so I think I should at the very least put a picture of the baby here.
Kinda tall and yellow for a one year old...
Afterwards, we went to Coronado for my parents' anniversary. I got some really pretty pictures, thanks to the iPhone's HDR capabilities. It looks a little unnatural, but it was either this or super overexposure, so I'll take the HDR.
Man, these government workers really went creative with their street names, huh.
There was a guy building a HUGE sandcastle too.
Unfortunately, the little Terracotta Soldiers were stuck in China and couldn't be here right now.
And of course, the always picturesque Hotel Del Coronado.
Complete with large Mexican child too. It's any photographer's dream.
Oh and I found this tree that was so big that the government actually had to install a post to sustain it.
Or this resourceful tree just found a walking post. Clever ent.
We ate at a restaurant called "Sheerwater." And everything here is SO EXPENSIVE. I decided to channel my inner adventure seeker to try something new, so I ordered the Kurabota Pork Picatta even though I had no idea what 66% of those words were.
It's... Japanese? I think?
This is what it looks like. And yeah, I know I said I'd spare you the food pics, but c'mon, look at this thing.
They hid the vegetables because they knew I don't like them. Thank you, Sheerwater head chef.
And since it was my parents' anniversary, they brought out a special little dessert for them. Cheesecake with swordfish!
I don't know how this swordfish feels about being pelvis-first inside of a cheesecake that he'd only just met a few minutes ago.
Happy anniversary, mom and pop!
RFotD: Mama and papa Evangelista have been happily married for 20 years.
So I checked the weather today. And it was nice. Lots of sun, but not too hot. As far as SoCal's concerned, it was pretty fair.
Hah. Get it? Because we're going to the fair today??
I'm sorry for the double puns. So sorry. But yes, today is my friend group's third annual summer faire trip. But we don't have Brandon this year, so in his place will be Gwendolyn. Oh and Sam's jumping in too, since she hasn't been here for over seven years.
So anyway, in the beginning of our day, we decided to do some light sightseeing. We decided to rip off our faces and paste them onto cartoon animals to see what we'd look like if we were born beautiful.
Kayla and Angela messed up the face-pasting process and accidentally brought their shoulders along for the ride.
"Oh you, mom!" -Angela
(via Christina)
I, on the other hand, face-swapped perfectly. And I was pretty content with myself until I realized that the new body I had only has one really large nipple.
And an outie belly button, but that's not as bad.
(via Christina)
We also managed to find a one-man band. Sam, Kayla, and Gwen all bought signed pictures of him for a dollar. I thought it was a pretty stupid purchase until I actually saw the picture. Now I kinda regret not getting it.
Who wouldn't want a picture of a mustachioed man
firing sparks into the sky while wishing you to be cool?
Afterwards, we went on the rides. We started off pretty tame with Crazy Mouse, but we spiced it up by setting up a little wager. The Crazy Mouse is one of the few rides that takes reaction pictures of you when you go on it, so we bet that whoever couldn't make a neutral face when the picture is taken would have to get a design chosen by everyone else painted onto their face.
Sam lost that bet. Or maybe she didn't and we just rigged it by preventing her from seeing the picture. Either way, her face vandalism painting will come later.
We rode a LOT of rides. So much so that we actually got Sam to be PHYSICALLY INCAPABLE of riding any more rides. But I think the absolute highlight was going on this guy:
It was so tall that it couldn't fit in one picture.
So I had to put it in two, with a postage stamp of Angela
in the lower right corner.
That ride is INSANE. It spins in a HUGE radius, so even though it's a ridiculous height, it's actually a REALLY smooth drop. Smooth but fast. I don't know how else to describe it. It's like... a bowling ball sliding through a really long tube covered in butter, I think that's the best comparison I have.
It probably didn't help much, so instead, take this video of Gwen and I screaming like little children on the ride.
We also won a few prizes from the game booth places. Technically, we didn't really win it since we only played the racing games where you compete against other people, and we rigged it so that we were the only ones playing. But a win is a win, and when the prize is an adorable little BMO, I'm glad I shelled out 15 dollars for it.
If you look carefully, you can almost see my wallet killing itself in its eyes.
Angela got a little something something too, thanks to the collective efforts of the entire group, and ESPECIALLY thanks to Christina's sharpshooting skills. We won this behemoth of a dog in that water racing game where everyone got a prize for participating and every single time Christina played, she won. Because of that, we managed to swap in 25 dollars worth of stuffed animals for this guy:
She named it "Vezpoochy." And shortly after, she performed a suplex on poor Vezpoochy.
Before we left the games/rides area to go eat more food, we were approached by a sketchy old man with a deep, gravely voice and a look in his eye that radiates psychopathy. Normally, you wouldn't listen to such people, because nine times out of ten you'll end up in a shallow grave next to the I5. But he said the magic words, the words that would immediately disable Gwen's firewalls and hit her right where she's vulnerable. He said...
"Hey, I need two people to ride Speed for free."
Speed was Gwen's favorite ride, so she effing LEGGED it. She made it to her seat and strapped herself in before he finished saying the word "free." Swear to god, she broke the sound barrier in that 100 meter sprint to the chair.
No one else was willing to ride the giant, towering thing, so I decided to hop in and ride the thing AGAIN.
Angela and Christina got some pretty great pictures of us on the ride. I especially like these three, which I think tell a story.
In the words of the wise Christina, here is the story I titled "Ephemeral in Nine Words."
"Here they come." (via Christina)
"Now they here." (via Christina)
"They are gone." (via Christina)
Beautiful, isn't it? Who would have thought nine simple words would have such a profound effect on its readers? Nine words, all carefully chosen, that convey the happiness, sadness, and inevitable end to every friendship, every relationship, every single event that one will encounter in their entire life and even encompasses the entirety of one's own life. Truly a literary masterpiece.
One of the exhibits we visited was a rock display. Which yeah, sounds boring, until you actually look at some of the really creative stuff they have, especially their stone food display. They made a bunch of food-looking stuff entirely out of rocks and I LOVED IT. I'm especially impressed by the grapes.
I don't believe that these things are capable of wrath.
Take a look at it zoomed in, every single grape is made out of a rock.
This thing must have been a chore to make. Hahahah... ahhhh.
They also had the world's saddest frog for sale too.
When you realize that your entire life is worth three bucks, you'd be pretty depressed too.
So anyway, rocks aside, remember the little bet that Sam lost about halfway up? Yeah, this is the part where we plaster her head with whatever designs the rest of us choose to put on her mug.
She went from this:
Beautiful.
To this:
Even MORE beautiful.
The face painting artist really didn't have to do much, honestly. In fact, she didn't even have paint on her. We paid her nine dollars to basically erase the thick layer of foundation on Sam's face. The pink, purple and black hairs on her head are all natural, and the blue sparkles are just really bad acne.
She doesn't like to show other people her true colors (pun not intended). I mean the first time I saw it I was actually pretty surprised. Not disgusted surprised, but happy surprised. Like when a kid opens a present and sees a box from Macy's, immediately believes that he got clothes for Christmas, but then when he actually opens the box, finds a dead puppy because his dad forgot to put air holes in it.
Yeah. I'd still date her even if she had that much hair. I mean she does already, and I've kinda grown attached to it.
The rest of the day consisted of us roaming the fair and looking at cool stuff. We went to more of the exhibits and took more pictures of ourselves.
Here we see Angela doing what her ancestors have been doing for thousands of years.
"Vezpoochy gon' taste real vezgucci when I'm done with 'em."
And we found the sign that I'm gonna hold in my children's room if I ever meet a woman unfortunate enough to be stuck with my mini-me's.
Well, when you call it "domestic abuse," of course it's gonna sound bad...
We also found Kayla's ancestors.
Her legs are twigs. This thing is literally a twig. ANCESTRY CONFIRMED.
We found a wild valedictorian too.
Too busy taking a Snapchat of a blooming onion to notice that our blooming friendship is now shriveling up.
Not to be outdone, I also have a pic of something brown, circular, and delicious to post.
It's a funnel cake, you pervert.
I also found the best license plate EVER.
This thing got me at least eight likes on UCLA Social, hah.
And we rode the gondola too. The rest of the group isolated Sam and I to our own gondola because of our gross, disgusting, lovey-dovey nature, so have this selfie of us.
Thank you, SCOTUS, for making our relationship valid at last.
I got a picture from the gondola...
But Angela took another one that just TOTALLY shit all over my picture so I'll leave it right here.
Then again, she did use a filter, which might have been the deal sealer.
To end the day, we took the obligatory group pic. As always, here's the past years we went...
Year one...
Year two...
And here's this year. Somewhere along the line, Christina and I switched and Brandon turned into a woman. All of which were better improvements prior to the last years.
Also notice how our arms have gotten progressively closer to each other. It symbolizes our friendship.
See you later fair. Thanks for a great three years, hopefully we can get the entire group along together in the future for more annual trips.
"You're welcome, Michael." - Balboa Park tower.
RFotD: Every time I fall behind on my blog entries, a small demon comes out of my vent and slaps me with a spoon until I get a bruise. It's the worst thing, I swear to god.
