Halloween party searching.

It's hard to find a good halloween party around here (or at least one that won't cost shitloads of money). I googled parties for my state and nothing with too much detail came up. I could only guess a handful of the parties that looked interesting were for children (especially since they had a chaperon special price... ugh).  Others are either too far away or look stupid. Or worse, have already happened.

Hay Rides and Corn Mazes just don't do it for me, which is the majority of the halloween events that I scanned through. I just never really cared for people to jump out at me for a scare or make a bunch of loud noises. And wandering through a corn maze... ... just seems stupid. My sister and mother had been to them and mentioned how there was hardly anything to them other than trying to find your way out. Big whoop.

I'm a bit mad at a friend of mine, who had gone to a radio show's halloween party and never mentioned it once to me. Shows how good a friend he really is, since I've told him before I'd love to be invited to events more often, yet he never mentions them until after he goes, and how much fun it was.

 

 Not that I have my green Ness costume together yet anyway, but I do have a back up of a knight costume I had for years (cheap looking fabric, but it works well enough). The yellow-and-orange-striped shirt remains elusive.

My old college has nothing going on either, and the "party" friends I had have either moved too far away, or I haven't been in touch with for awhile. My best friend doesn't like to travel too far and is about as social as I am, so I have no help from her. My cousin who I am close to has been a zombie since great-grandma died, not to mention i feel like we are growing apart so not bothering with her (not to mention she's always freaking busy). I may end up just caving in, and asking my sister if she mind me tagging along. Which I think she will since she wants to pick up guys, and it feels weird to do that with her younger brother around (And I feel the same way about picking up someone with her around). Not to mention, I like to have a friend nearby so I can fall on them when I get bored, and my sister is not the person I want to be chatting with.

I don't know why I want to go to a party so bad, considering I suck at socializing at them usually. Guess I just want to get the fuck out of the house and socialize with people around my age. Maybe I'll do what i did last year, and just go to the arcade in costume. At least there is something to do there.

...and that is my whiny rant.

Jury Duty Story

This is an entry I took from my livejournal, dated July earlier this year. Because its long, I'll cut after the first paragraph of it.
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I was supposed to serve in April but they postponed me until now. I took the train to the courthouse just because it's easier than driving or needing a ride there. The beginning was boring, I texted a bunch of people to keep me entertained (mainly J, S, and B). Then after the lunch break, I saw a guy who fucking looked like PETER GRIFFIN from Family Guy!

General Update+

Been reading more Kurt Vonnegut thanks to influence from Dan. In the past I had only read Welcome to the Monkey House and the short story Big Trip Up Yonder (which i found out I had already read... after rereading it). Some days ago, I read for the first time Slaughterhouse-Five which I must admit wasn't the greatest, but good enough to keep my interest. I am currently reading Hocus Pocus which is hard to keep focused on, I must admit.

Playing both Dragon Quest 9 and Dragon Quest Swords as of late. Hadn't had the motivation to keep playing Mario Party 5's story mode, so I only play it when a friend wants to. With DQSwords, I never beat the game since I kept wanting to level up. Somewhere along the lines, I got bored of leveling up but didn't want to fight the final boss and then years go on until I decided to revisit it now. DQ9 I play to level up my team as well as finish the DLC quests (which I'm backed up on currently). Lately just been doing Legacy Boss runs which involve trying to get certain drops and leveling the bosses up.

With all the costume options in DQ9, you can end up seeing things like this!

 

I actually stopped playing Animal Crossing: City Folk for a similar reason to why I stopped playing Dragon Quest Swords some years back: it felt like work. if I wanted to keep all my neighbors, perfect town status, flowers, and so on, I would have to play every day. Watering flowers was a nuisance, though. My best friend helped me with it sometimes (and I helped her) but we both were getting annoyed and exhausted with the work involved. Soon, I started to miss a day or two here and there, so I would time travel back to date last played and try to make up for days, which felt like make-up homework for school. While I still enjoyed the game, my perfectionism ruined the fun for me. I am unable to let the smaller things go like my flowers or certain neighbors. I believe if city folk was on DS, I'd be able to keep playing it. DS is easy like that. Not interested in Wild World anymore since I started a huge photo collection on my friends town, and I do not feel like trying to start all that over.

One of the rooms I designed in AC:City Folk

For the Halloween season, I started watching more horror movies. My friend and I saw Night of the Living Dead (1990), which was not so great, but a good start up. the movie had a lot of plotholes and bad parts to it, but made the movie more entertaining that way. The grabby-screamy farm girl annoyed me as much as made me laugh because of how she was. Thanks to Halloween movie recommendations from Savage Nugget, I gathered select Halloween movies either on demand from cable, or floating around online. Candyman, Dawn of the Dead, Phantasm, and Trick R Treat are ready to be watched. I was supposed to watch more today with my friend but she suddenly didn't feel well. Bummer.

Speaking of Halloween, I still need the yellow and orange striped shirt for my Ness costume. Regh, the one you linked me to was sold out. I don't count on getting to a shirt like that before Halloween, but I still would love to get my hands on it. Please keep your eyes open for it, everyone.

TV Shows

Each television season, my family and I have certain shows that are always to be recorded on the DVR. Of course, my mother is the "master of the DVR" as it is her shows that always have priority. This TV season, I only have a few shows I really can't wait to watch.

Medium - I know this show gets a lot of criticism, which I guess because of how much of a feel-good show it is about death and the living. I have loved it ever since my mother got us all into it. This season has not disappointed me so far either. It's a hell of a lot more balanced than how the Ghost Whisperer tried a ghost related show. Don't get me wrong, I liked the Ghost Whisperer enough to watch it, but they threw way too many ideas about the afterlife that it got ridiculously juvenile. Medium keeps it mostly a mystery, besides dropping a few hints, which I think is how it is meant to be. I like the balance this show gives about family things, mysterious ghost related things, and even some crime/law themes as well. Not to mention, an assortment of different "powers." This season so far, there's been: a possessed hand, body switching, and a matchmaking ability. (All I can recall)

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit - Every episode this season has been great! Fascinating to see the depravity of criminals and the poor victims that suffer through them (along with a faulty law system). Although they say the episodes never depict any true events, they certainly are sometimes BASED off true events. The viewer can usually tell it loosely bases it of existing scandals, such as an episode about a wealthy man who would donate time and money to children, and even have sleep-overs with them (based off the machael jackson children molestation scandals). There was even one episode's story my best friend said her cousin was involved in... negatively. It was one about a teenage boy getting money and gifts from adult men online as he did promiscuous webshows. he eventually got kidnapped or decided to move in with one of his viewers who raped him (or in the show, about to rape him, but that could have been again). My best friend said her cousin (who she was not close with anyway, it was only through distant marriage) was the one that had kidnapped the teenage boy in real life. He's in jail now for a long time.

House - Even though the episodes generally follow the same type of story arc (Patient with weird problems comes in, house makes snide comments, does something outrageous, it works somewhat, it looks like all hope is lost until something someone said in a conversation sparks the answer in house's head and the day is saved), I think I enjoy the show just to see how the characters develop, as well as see the weird symptoms of diseases. This season has Cutty and House in a relationship, which gets the viewer in a nice "dawwww" mood.

 Criminal Minds - This show surprised me at how much I liked it. Really got into the minds of murderers and scam artists, as well as got in your face about the violent acts. I remember one episode had shown a child get beaten on by an adult, put in a box, and thrown in a furnace, which greatly bothered me. The show also pulls at your heartstrings, such as a wife saying her last words to her husband on the phone as she gets killed before hanging up. The cast is remarkable too, a wide range of different people, my favorite being the gothic-style computer nerd, Garcia!

These are my must-watch shows of the season. I have another handful of shows that are... not MUST watch, but I watch as filler, but I'll mention those tomorrow. What are some of your "must watch" shows?

Shorter entry today.

I get overwhelmed with how many video games I have that I have either started but not finished, or not even started. I still haven't played Luigi's Mansion or Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker and I got them 3-4 years ago. Lately, I have been not wanting to start new games till I finish others, but by "finish" I mean utterly beat everything there is in the game. Kind of delays me on other games, and if I haven't played in an extremely long time, I end up starting over instead.

How are you, my followers, with either getting around to you games, books, or even to your tv shows? Have you ever started a tv series, and stopped somewhere in the middle, meaning to get back into it, but keep putting it off? Started a book, but had to put it down for one reason or another, and still haven't finished it (and want to)? Let me know!

I'm guilty of all three; I know one book I wanted to finish but because of school coming up, I put off the reading. I have boxsets of an entire series that I have yet to get back into cause I want to watch it only when I'm sick. And I already mentioned my video game problem, haha.

Video share time!

I have been sitting on these videos for awhile. I'm sure many of you have seen at LEAST one of them, and if not... well I'm glad I was the first to show you them!

First one I am certain many of you have at least HEARD of. This was a news report of a very... what I will call negative stereotype of a black man talking about a rapist in the neighborhood. Someone decided to autotune his words into a song, which then had MANY people cover it, including a few professional singers (covers not seen in this video).



On with other auto-tuned new reports, this one is of a rather excitable woman recounting what happened during a robbery in a convenience store. This one I like a lot actually.



And now, unrelated to the previous videos, we have a Saturday Night Live skit of a guy who sings about the day. I love how random this one is.

 


I know not everyone either has time to view videos, or cares to see all videos, but I ask my followers to at least watch one of them. You should not be disappointed!

Blast from the past

Time for a blast in my past. If looking for something more current, well

This takes place when I was in high school. I was either a Junior or Senior, sometime when I either didn't have a car or my car was in the shop at the time.

I was walking out and this girl in my grade asked if she could use my cell for a sec. I said sure and she talked for about 5 minutes and then asked me if I wanted a ride home. I figure it beats walking so I jump in. She asks me if I mind taking a shortcut. I was a little wary, thought about just asking her to take me to the library since it half the trip, but decided to trust her.

She drove all the way to the other high school, left her car and said,"Sorry, I'll be back in five minutes". She goes to a guy who I imagine is her boyfriend's car, and then they proceed to fuck each other while I look away disgusted. 

After maybe ten minutes of them fucking, I tried calling and/or texting people to perhaps give me a ride home from here. Finally got someone to respond, but forgot he did not live near me anymore. By that time the bitch was done fucking and finally took me home. She apologized for taking so long and offered me a blow job for the wait. I declined. This girl was not attractive, nor did I wish to get any diseases she might have.


That was one of the more disturbing things that happened to me in high school. I don't know why this girl did not just take me home first since I hardly was far away and she could have had more privacy... unless she or her boyfriend liked people to watch or something.

After that occurrence, the bitch kept asking if I wanted a ride home, to which I politely declined each time. I made up excuses like I could use the walk, or I had to meet someone nearby and could take awhile. When I finally got my car (either back or first got) I didn't have to make up excuses anymore, so things were good. I have no idea what happened to her, and frankly I do not care.

Yesterday was mom's birthday so I had no time to do any blog things. My sister and I scrambled to get things right for mom. Rather, my sister did most of it during the day since I was feeling a bit sick so did things at home. I vacuumed, set up candles (so she can smoke without stinking up the room), put on air condition (because the kitchen was gonna heat up the house something fierce which would in turn, affect her MS), and helped make the dinner with my sister.

We attempted to make Vanilla Mousse since that is our mother's favorite dessert that is hard to find, but we may have ended up just making very tasty cool whip instead. When it was my turn for present giving, I showed her how to download demos of DS games on the Wii and told her I'll buy 2 or 3 of the ones she likes. A small handful of puzzle games were on the demo downloads so it worked out. I also showed her the games suggested here and that I thought of that were available as info videos on the Wii Channel. She actually is interested in Professor Layton somewhat, surprising me. Thanks for the suggestions on puzzle games, guys. She did try/looked at most of them, but only liked 3 so far.

This morning, she left me a note thanking me for putting so much thought into her gifts. My best friend and I had tested some games to see if she would like them or not, which she thought was really nice. It's great to make her happy since she pretty much is the backbone in this family (like most moms, I believe). It's pretty much like this every mother's day and birthday of hers; we all try to make her day the best. I almost feel bad for dad since we hardly do much effort for his days, but he also doesn't care too much as long as he has the TV and a good dinner for him, haha.

Meanwhile...

Thanks for the comments on the Halloween post, I made a reply. Thanks for all the suggesting, especially Regh on finding the shirt. I still would like to try to find a better fitting one, but may end up getting it. If I do, I will post a picture of myself in the costume (again, blurring out my face cause I'm paranoid like that, haha. Will even be sure it can't be seen through EXIF data).

Halloween is coming up!

With Halloween not too far away, I suppose I could use a costume for "just in case." What I did last year was dress up as Ness from Earthbound, but took on the Super Smash Brothers Brawl color change of green instead.

Problem was, I didn't have the yellow-and-orange-striped shirt. I had the hat, shorts, shoes, and a yoyo. My family helped look for places that could have the shirt, and no avail. What I ended up doing is finding an orange shirt and using yellow tape to make the stripes. It wasn't the best looking but did okay I suppose. I also forgot a bat (but felt it wasn't necessary to lug it around everywhere) and couldn't find the backpack. What I'd really like is to find the shirt. My family, friends and I have been searching since then and still haven't found one. So if anyone does find the shirt online somewhere, I'd be grateful for it.If someone can find the shirt, I might post a picture of the ensemble (assuming I can get it in time). I'd prolly blur my face though, haha.

Also, because of Halloween coming up, it's time to look for scary movies to watch! I believe Savage Nugget already gave me one movie, Trick R Treat, but I could use some more suggestions.

Thanks for any help in advanced!

Saw this episode earlier today, had to mention it! Plus you could say they are costumes which relate to the halloween theme haha!

Birthdays...

My mother's birthday is in two days and no one in my family knows what to get her. My dad, sister and I keep asking for ideas and she hasn't a clue. Normally, we get her jewelery, candy,  and things to help her MS, but we have plenty of candy around the house and she has plenty of jewelery. The only things I know that she wants is something we can't get; a dog.

Our landlord let us have a dog before, but only because of me. He felt that "every boy needs a dog" so he let us get one. My dog passed away some years ago, and that was the end of our allowed pets. Mom really could use a dog, and technically could get one medically, but first off, we rather not play that card on our landlord as he's been good to us over the years... and secondly, my dad apparently had an agreement with mom they wouldn't get a dog until we/they moved to another house. I don't understand the logic behind that really, but we just can't get a dog.

I started thinking of alternatives to a dog, such as maybe a rabbit or ferret or something, but unfortunately, those pets require a lot of room to roam, including inside the house, and our house is not safe for either. Plus mom doesn't really care about ferrets, and claims not to like rabbits, but I imagine she could warm up to one easily. Fish would be a simple solution, but they don't help as much as a creature you can handle. A cat is considered like a dog to our landlord, so they aren't allowed either, plus mom and dad don't care to have a cat.

All this leaves us back to we have no idea what to get her for her birthday. So far, we have taking her out to dinner with all of us present. Cake too, of course. But after that, no clue. I'll take some nice GENERAL suggestions from you all. I thought about maybe visiting grandpa's grave with her, but then thought that really should be a present, but more of something I should WANT to do. Cleaning the house some helps, but I can only get so far before mom or my sister's crap gets in the way that I cannot move. I'm done doing little love coupons as well. trying to avoid giftcards as well.

She does love puzzle games for her DS however. She has brain Age 1&2, suduko and maj jong for ds so far.

Lot of game playing

First, I found this while looking up some episodes for Family Guy. If the link doesn't work (direct linking seems to have problems), then just type in the site's search bar, "Family Guy vs American Dad." It's a pretty crappy game of, you guessed it, Family Guy vs American Dad. It takes on a street fighter spoof, except bad programming and slow computers ruin the game. I was able to defeat people by just holding down a button (except if you play as Chris Griffin, but he's a specialty type character). Also, the final battle is against Ryu of street fighter. I didn't get to battle him because for some reason he never showed up on the screen, so I was forced to quit every time I made it to the final stage.  It could have been just my computer though, as I played on my old tower computer since this laptop overheated when I tried to play. I played as Meg first since... *gasp* I actually like Meg on the show.

If Meg was real, she'd probably look like that, though slightly less heavy.

Meg's character was simple, just use her hailstorm attack and stay back. Only Chris gave her some trouble because he only has one attack which really really hurts! Everything else he does is self-inflicting or just leaves him open. It was sort of fun, but got really boring really fast. When you beat peter, he does the leg holding thing where he groans for about a minute which feels like forever. Some victory poses also take forever too. Besides that, the game is interesting enough to try for a little. I'd only play it if bored... which I was.

Speaking of bored, I've been playing Neopets's games out of boredom. Yes, the site itself is stupid, but the games can be sort of fun. I like to build up about 20k neopoints  in normal flash games then blow it on the chance games, like the slots. Like mentioned in my vacation post, the slots are one of my favorite ways to gamble, and since neopoints don't really cost me anything, it's a way to harmlessly get my gambling itch out. Plus, I once got a trophy for hitting the jackpot in one of the games, which was pretty cool. Right now I been playing the neopets version of minesweeper, Negg Sweeper. I like logic puzzles and using process of elimination, which makes it perfect for me. I know I could just play my computer version of minesweeper, but it feels more accomplishing when you get something for winning.

Speaking of logic puzzles, another form of game I been playing have been this online website, Puzzles.com (Logic section). It feels good to exercise my noggin since I'm not in school anymore and... not really doing much while waiting for calls back from jobs I applied to, and looking for others to apply for. Some of them got really annoying for me, however, as after you get so far, you have to really try to interpret the wording a certain way... which I am not always able to do, so I just make a guess. Annoying, but still feels nice to do every now and then. Completed about 5 of the logic puzzles so far.

I stumbled upon the site when searching for logic problems, as n the subject where they have symbols and special formulas to follow to find if somethign is true or not. I took a Logic class in college and really fell in love with it. Haven't done any of those sort of problems in awhile, however, so wanted to try to find something like it. No luck so far, but I got plenty of distractions, heh.

Hope the link dumping provides some entertainment to the bored here!

Was at a cousin and her husband's housewarming party. She's the oldest of my cousins and the first one of the family to get married AND buy a house, so this was a big deal.

The house was sort of small, but nice. They just need to do a little more with the cellar and attic and the place could be considered quite large. After viewing the place, I pretty much stuffed my face. The food wasn't really that good, but I was hungry enough to eat a lot of the little I liked. (String beans and peanut oil = yum). I of course ate a lot of the desserts too. However, I became bored after stuffing my face, so resided in the living room where people were watching the football game. For the rest of the time, I pretty much sat there playing Dragon Quest 9 and feigning interest in the game. I don't really care about football (or many sports really), but I do know the Jets won. Good for them.

Not exactly my most social moment, but I did take some time to eat and I did socialize then, so I call it okay.

QUESTION for my followers: How are you with family social events? Are you the mingler? Life of the party? The one in the corner of the room hiding from everyone? Let me know!

The wakes and funerals.

Some random artsy image before the long entry

There was some mild drama that I believe my mother and sister thought up and my cousin was the worst stick in the mud, but overall it was a good experience. I really hate wearing a suit though, and the collar of it gave me a skin irritation on my neck. My neck is still sore and makes it look like I have a rash.

Earlier this week, my sister and two of my cousins (Let's call the older one who wanted to run thing O and her younger sister Y) worked on selecting pictures to put up for the wakes & funeral. It was completely unorganized, because O, who was closest to great grandma was acting like she wanted to take over for these arrangements but never really asked for help (then complained no one was helping her). My sister and I offered to help, expected something to be set up but essentially we had to really push her to get started (Don't get me wrong, I love my cousin, she's one of my good friends, but she was also close with great grandma, so I believe she was just really thrown off in general. Not that it completely excuses her though). My sister was getting frustrated having so much indecision (Y just goes with the flow for the most part), so she took over a lot of it on the first night. The second night, I had to step up and organize the pictures. O and Y would find pictures they liked of G-grandma while I'd set them up in different categories as best I could. The goal was to set up the poster boards into different categories and post the pictures on them so people at the wake could easily look at them. We managed to get things done really late at night with some small annoyances in between (O not telling us she needed fun tack until really late for instance). Both those nights I ended up eating fast food, which I rarely do.

The wakes, only O was zombie. Even my grandmother was in better spirits with all the different people that showed their respect. I had thought things were going to be quite boring with no one to talk to, but I felt more able to talk to strangers, plus my best friend came in for the first wake period and kept me company. Second wake period, had a few awkward conversations with strange relatives but then just chatted it up it O's boyfriend (who, too, felt useless to help O and her zombie-like state) and her sister about random things. It made the time go by really fast.

Which brings us to today, the funeral. I was a pallbearer, so had to come in extra early to the funeral home before we transport the body the the church for services. O & Y's pastor showed at the funeral home (the one I talked about some time back that creeped me out with how close she was acting to my cousins) and she kissed them both on the forehead, further freaking me out. I tried to comfort O but she was still a zombie and unreceptive. Speed things up to the funeral procession, drivers don't seem to understand that a bunch of cars lines up with their bright & hazard lights on is a funeral profession. People kept trying to butt in and beeping their horns. Dad (who drove me) cut people who butted in which was scary yet exciting at the same time haha). One person who had cut in later apologized as she passed by, which did restore some faith in humanity, heh.

The church services were mostly bland, except O singing one song of g-grandma's favorites. Also people coming up to speak was rather touching, even the annoying caretaker that performed CPR when she probably shouldn't have some time back had rather good words. The Reverend guy though was a real bad public speaker. He was pretty much babbling trying to find comforting words and then rambled on his point of view of finding out how G-grandma died (which was utterly pointless). It was obvious he did not practice his words for this, which I felt was rather insulting.

After the annoyance that was the church services, we had one more funeral procession line to the cemetery. This part was absolutely retarded. Apparently, O and her mother thought it would be cute to have the procession pass by g-grandma's old house (which was rather out of the way and a horrible idea for a whole line of cars that would hold up traffic). If I'd have known that was what they were going to do, I'd have insisted to dad to just head to the cemetery and wait for them to do their stupid route.

At the cemetery, we said our final goodbyes to great grandma, and then distributed flowers to the graves nearby (the only cool thing the reverend guy suggested before he babbled on). We found some graves relating to us which I typed in my phone for my family tree, and then passed flowers on them and several other graves nearby. After this was just a luncheon back at the church, nothing very eventful really, and then we returned home and napped our asses off.

I was wrong in the last entry about how my grandmother now is my eldest living relative. My father's late parents still has siblings alive so I still have great aunts and uncles (or would they be called grand-aunts and uncles since they are in the same generation as grandparents?). I never really appreciated my extended family much until great-grandma died... I am grateful for that gift, and will try to be a more social person when it comes to my other family.

I may have a few more entries similar to this for a few more days, but things will pick up to general annoyances and less depressing posts soon enough. Tomorrow I do have another cousin of mine's housewarming party to go to, which might make a fun update to do as well! Take care everyone!

Just wanted to let my followers know this week might be a bit tough for me to update because of my great-grandmother's funeral arrangements are being taken care of all this week. Today, i spent most of the night picking out pictures that would look good to put up for the wake and funeral. Tomorrow, we're doing more of that, Friday is the wake, and Saturday is the actual Funeral day. I imagine I'm going to be exhausted by the end of each one just like I was for my grandfather's last year.

I started an official family tree last night since I was so tired of hearing names of family and not knowing who was who. So far i have listed over 130 people, but have a fair amount more to put in. It has been comforting to do for some reason. I mean, it's not like I am depressed about great grandma dying but I do feel rather out of sorts still. My only grandparent now is my grandmother who is the daughter of great grandma. Dad's parents died about 10 years back, mom's dad died last year (and on his birthday). I suppose I still have my uncle Dick, step-grandfather and more of a grandfather figure than my dad's actual father, but he's not doing quite well either.

I guess great-grandma's death has affected me in some ways; making me realize how much older I am getting, since people who I felt like they'd be around forever are starting to leave me.

...I just realized I had a rather unplanned introspective moment. I was planning just to type in about how I am getting busier, and I ended up writing a lot more than I thought I would. Ah well. I leave you with a more comforting image.

On the way to the hospital, i was chewing gum, and it caught itself up on the loose tooth... and half of it split off and out of my gums. Only time will tell when the last half of it is gone. It actually doesn't hurt too much, but to be honest, I was more upset about my tooth then the death of my great grandmother. I know that sounds so shallow, but great grandma was pretty much ready to go. I suppose in a sense, my tooth was too... eh...

In better news, that amazon person who illegally returned my book never requested a return and it has been 30 days. I believe under amazon's policies, they are not allowed to request a return now so I technically got 12 bucks for nothing. They didn't leave negative feedback either. I suppose this does not mean I am in the clear just yet, but it looks promising right now.

And back to the bad news, it seems my professor is now ignoring my requests on the update of my grade for Creative Writing. I'm going to e-mail bomb her ass until she responds though.

Days are rather up and down I suppose.

...

As mentioned some weeks back, my great grandmother had a nasty fall, but managed to recover. About 15 minutes ago, I just got a call from my younger cousin telling me she passed out and was rushed to the hopsital. I spoke to my family to tell her the news when my cousin called back to tell me great grandma didn't make it. I'm heading over to the hospital now to be with my other family members. I suppose to grieve with them, though I must admit I'm not devastated by this news. Sad, yes, but nothing too far.

Off I go.

Anger

I have an odd thing with anger. I can get so angry with the stupidest thing, yet when something major comes along, instead of being mad, I'll be sad or disappointed first usually.

For example, I'm playing a video game, something doesn't go quite... favorable (see the Brawl comic in a previous entry for a GREAT example). I'll get pissed off, slam my fist down on something, squeeze the controller tighter than I should, stomp my foot, and so on. Yet, let's say a friend says, "Hey bro, wanna hang out today? I'll text you a location when I know where we going..." I get ready to go out, friends that invited me elsewhere I turn down cause this friend invited me.... and they never get back to me. Instead of feeling pissed off with my friend, I'll first feel like shit cause I turned down someone else, or that I chose a bad person; sad or disappointed. I won't get angry until they contact me or I contact them at a later time.

I know that last example has a few holes in it, but just take it at face value if you don't mind. The point is I find it fascinating how I am more likely to get angry over something trivial rather than something that could matter. There's also different ways on how I deal with my anger. When I get angry at a video game or so angry I could break something, I choose to work out my anger with exercises. Grab a few dumbbells and punch the air as hard and fast I can, do push ups or sit ups until the anger is gone or I just can't do anything anymore. It really does help some and a good way to give myself some exercise as I figure. Usually if I am really angry, I am able to work the anger out by the time I get tired or sore. I figure since I am so mad and have the energy to waste being mad, may as well put it toward something productive.

Unfortunately, exercise isn't always a good way to get rid of anger, such as if I am in a public place. I'm not going to drop and do push ups when someone pissed me off, or punch the air like a crazy person. This doesn't happen as often to me, but usually I then vent my anger in my head by imagining choking said person or breaking something really fragile. This does not help as much as exercise, but it's all I can do without calling too much attention to myself.

I have tried the "count to ten" methods for cooling off a hot head, but honestly, that just pisses me off more! Counting just holds it in, and I've learned it's best not to hold in your anger. Doing so usually makes me resent people for stupid reasons. "Ugh, look at Jake! Stupid son of a bitch didn't apologize for stepping on my foot! What a fucker!" Retarded, right? My mind will do that though from time to time, even when I know it's retarded, but telling myself that ends up pissing me off more for letting something so stupid get to me.

I can't let go of the past too well either. I DO hold grudges on people, and I DO go for revenge when I am able to. For example, in the game I mentioned a few times, Archipelago Remastered on BYOND, I continually make sure to get revenge on anyone who betrays me or wrong me. I even go so far as to make some people quit because they have wronged me. Petty? Extremely. Will I stop? Probably not until I stop getting interested in the game.

What happened was I was still rather new to the game and didn't realize all the functions of the game. I had worked hard on becoming a blacksmith instead of training on my building skill. The better building skill you have, the more sturdy your walls are which means the less chance invaders have to steal your home. Someone invaded while I was home, so I tried to fight them off, but died. They then proceeded to board up my home and steal everything I had. It was a group of three people that did this injustice to me. I started over and found another island of my own. This time, I was focusing on my defenses, but 2 days after finding my new home, someone took it over, boarded up the place so I couldn't even get out without killing myself, and of coursed mocked me. I wasn't going to take it anymore though! I waited till none of the three were logged in, and filled their home up with so many walls and buildings that it would take them forever to tear it down. I then joined another server of he game, to which then they joined and demanded I tear everything down or they were going to make my life miserable. Hahaha! They never were able to make good on their threat, and I even eventually was able to take over most of the land on that original server, to which they complained and cried about. I also followed the leader of that group on every server he played to make sure I ruin his gameplay experience.

I know it's stupid and petty, but sometimes it just feels so good to be so stupid like that. Unfortunately, I probably just e-bullied a bunch of kids. :X

Taken from my livejournal a long time ago: MAD Lib story

Was looking from my livejournal for a few funny or interesting entries and found a mad lib one I wanted to share.
To view it, click after the raccoon.

Mario Party 5 again

So I finally started working on single player mode of Mario Party 5. Unfortunately, the entire single player mode is essentially dueling. Compared to the previous games' story mode, it's rather boring and repetitive. Nothing changes up really except the boards and dialogue. Not even an extra mini game in between boards is there. I'm a very disappointed...

However... It does have a Super Duel Mode which is rather interesting... Build your own battle mobile with parts you buy with coins, and the coins are obtained by your mini-game playing. Made a rather kick-ass vehicle and played around with it a little. While the feature is interesting, I suspect it will be short-lived as there doesn't seem to be much else to do with it other than play with different cart styles and play one of 3 battle areas...

I mentioned this game maybe a few weeks or more ago, since it was the only Mario Party I didn't currently have and I wanted to have them all. I suppose I should play story mode a little more than once before assessing it, but it really just doesn't seem that great as an overall game. The minigames themselves are mostly good, but way too many luck based games. Didn't count exactly but they always come up when you really need to win them it seems.

On the other hand, this comic generally depicts the mario party games... somewhat... 

Horrible dream.

Had a very horrible dream the other night. As some of my earlier followers may know, I have a loose tooth problem and can't do anything about it. So of course, my mind decided to give me a nightmare to further my fear.

I was in the living room talking to my cousin, who was on my computer for some reason. I was telling her about my tooth problem when while talking I heard/felt a crunch in my mouth and pull out not just the offending tooth but several other teeth. I start going nuts while my cousin tries to think of what to do, but can only come up with to tell my parents and hopefully they can shell out the cash for a dentist. I head outside the house to the backyard where I apparently know where they are and tell them the situation. I had another bunch of teeth fall out and can feel the toothlessness in my mouth... Felt like every other tooth. I tell my parents (with no trouble speaking despite several teeth have fallen out), and they mention dentures, where I freak out. Then I woke up.

Upon waking up, I feel for all my teeth, feeling relieved it was just a dream... but also severely pissed off! I'm used to stupid nightmares with scares of monsters, murderers, or disasters in general... But playing off the fear of a disability or something... just fuck off


---------------

In other news, I have the house to myself for the next three days, which is nice. Had my best friend over and we watched a bunch of shows and played some smash which is why this entry is later than usual. Still, I look forward to having the house to myself for a few days.

Super Smash Brothers: Brawl

I spent most of today trying to collect all the stickers in brawl. Sort of. See, since I first got the game, I had been trying to beat all those unlockable areas without using a helping hammer. I've had everyone of of these challenges beaten within the first year... all except the "collect all stickers" one. That one has been haunting me forever. Yes, I've done the sticker factory custom stages, focused on getting stickers in multiplayer and single player matches whenever they are available, and even done the coin launcher over and over from 9999 coins to 0 constantly and I'm still missing 2. Originally, I had 4 stickers missing, but earlier in the year I somehow encountered ONE of the missing ones during classic mode run, and the other one my friend randomly got in the coin launcher about a week ago. It's freaking annoying.

While I wait for the last two elusive stickers, I play Boss battles and classic mode on intense to see if I can beat those modes without continues with all the characters. I got a couple characters through classic and only one through Boss Battles. Unfortunately, I fucking choked with Donkey Kong on the last boss of the run... He had one hit left and I just couldn't move fast enough out of the way from the boss's attack and died. Goddamn that sucked. I know Donkey Kong can do it at least, just need some more patience... I suppose.

Other than that, I haven't been playing Brawl as much as I used to. I once had to play the game at least once a day, then that turned into a week. I even used to go over a friend's house to play a weekly brawl night which was a lot of fun to do. Now that hardly happens, and none of my friends like to play brawl anymore (or at least when I want/am able to). No, this isn't going to turn into a brawl friendcode exchange.

I just am such a perfectionist when it comes to games, I have to try so many different ways to beat them and get nearly everything. Some exceptions are like pokemon, where the breeding and EV stats and what not drive me too nutty to do, or the stupid Battle Frontier challenges. I don't have the patience for them, plus feel my time is better spent elsewhere. Hopefully, I'll get those last two fucking stickers sooner rather than later... but I do know even if I do, I'll still be playing to get intense w/o continues on boss battles, classic and all star mode.

And with that I leave you with a smash bros related comic:

Guess who's back?

The vacation was not entirely horrible. I didn't care for my sister's driving (we took her car up so she was the driver for me most the time) as she is a bit reckless, and she kept getting lost since I don't think she knows how to work her GPS very well.

I didn't mind the dinner and breakfasts with each other though; it was nice to get together for a meal for once. I didn't care for having to play Scrabble and Boggle with them though. Not all that good at the two.

No pictures because there really wasn't much too interesting. If I had my camera with me, I might have video taped the road that felt like a roller coaster with its steep hills and tight turns. Ah well.

The casino was rather fun for me. I stuck to the slot machines as usual, using only 50 bucks. This Dragon penny slot machine got me up by 13 bucks, then a deal or no deal one sucked me down to 35 dollars remaining... And the rest of the time i stuck to a quarter slot machine that kept bouncing my money up and down, but never as much as the dragon slots did. I went from only having 8 bucks to 55 dollars... then it went down a lot, up a little, down a lot again, and so on until it finally used my whole 50. I stopped there, as I had my fun, plus we were getting ready to go. I didn't have the patience for blackjack that night, my other favorite thing at casinos.

We had a dinner at a Red Robin, which had this awesome chicken sandwich (also in burger form) with lettuce, tomato, onion ring straws, chipostle mayo sauce AND bbq sauce mixed in that was just so good, I had to write about it. :P

While I did have internet access, I didn't have much time to update or do the usual blog things except on the first night I got there, so I'll be catching up shortly after I finish this post. I'll leave you with another hot cosplay image I found.

Sudden Vacation

So over the past few weeks, my parents had been talking about going on vacation. Thing is, it is the same place they always go when they go on vacation. This time, they really want me to go, since I never like to go. Reason? It's boring there, I tend to be a stick in the mud when I am there, plus I hate them spending so much money on me when I owe them so much. I feel like a complete leech and it bugs the shit out of me.

However, this time, mom says it would mean a whole lot to her if I go, and would make her very happy. I was really torn on whether or not to actually go still ,since I felt like I'd end up ruining the vacation for them or something since I did that one time many years ago by not wanting to go anywhere THEY wanted to go.... (Because like I said, been there done that. Nothing new) My vacation that time was just staying at the hotel playing games on my playstation 2 that I brought, sleeping, and watching tv. Stupid? Yes. Thus why I stopped bothering to go to the same damn place every time. It was pointless, and just going to aggravate them, so I saved them the trouble.

This time? It's only 3 days which is all they ask of me. Technically it equals out to 2 whole days since there's the drive up today, tomorrow, and the drive back the day after. Not only that, but when I get back, I'll be home alone for a few other days so I can sort of have a vacation from them. So... I figured I would just deal with it, make them happy, and then leave. I WILL have internet access while I am there, so I may be updating from there, but you don't see an update tomorrow, you know why!

And with that, have a rather sexy Ivy cosplay from Soul Calibur 2.

Dragon Warrior/Quest

Since I was talking about how much I loved the Dragon Warrior/Quest series, I decided some Dragon Quest images were appropriate. This depicts the final battle in Dragon Warrior 4, which I thought was incredibly epic.

Like I said yesterday, I was playing Dragon Quest since I was 5 or 6 years old. My father originally got the games for the NES since he was into fantasy storylines as well as video games. I used to watch him play and get all excited seeing him kill a monster on screen. From just watching him, I also learned what monsters were hard and which weren't. I was still learning how to read then, not very good at it. I think I started my own journey on the first game without really knowing what to do, but just recalling what I could remember my dad doing. I couldn't talk to townsfolk for help because... I couldn't understand what they were saying! I recognized the symbols of shops and inns so I could survive, and I was able to recognize numbers for the most part, so figured the more expensive the item is, the more powerful it would be. In the first game, that was true, but after awhile, that strategy started to fade.

One time, when playing Dragon Warrior 4, I did not know how to spell my name. By that time I was able to read somewhat decently, so I could get farther in the games. But since I did not know how to spell my name, I decided to just spell a simpler word. And the word that came to mind? Ass. But I wanted to use as many letters as I could, so my hero's name was "Assssssss." I figured no one would notice either, even if it was a bad word, since normally I wasn't being watched when I played the game. Also, you don't get to play as the hero of the game until 4 chapters of other characters, so I figured I'd have plenty of time to play without getting in trouble. However... I was playing the game one night while my aunt and grandparents were over, parents were in the room talking to them as I played. And OF COURSE, they happen to pay attention as soon as I finish chapter 4, so I would be encountering the hero next. I forgotten about the name thing by this time as well. The intro text of the chapter pops up, and it says, "In a small village, unknown to everyone, the hero of the world, Assssssss, lives..." In my mind I was cursing to myself at how much trouble I'd be in, but my family instead laughed their asses off. :P

The game did help me learn to read as I played it. I recognized the common words on screen, such as "defeated" and "level up." This increased my vocabulary a lot, but it also hindered me in some ways at school. For instance, I thought "level"'s definition was when you kill enough monsters, you get levels (or in the case of mario games, I would think it meant the next part of something). I was proud that I knew the meaning of some words over other people because of the game though. I knew what a "legend" meant, and the meaning of being "cursed" (as opposed to others who though curse always meant bad word). I also think the game series got me into reading more since I liked hearing about adventures so much, I'd read about other people's adventures. Those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books were becoming one of my favorites.

Around middle school  age, we got our first computer that had internet. I started searching and found ROMs out for the first time. Of course I downloaded Dragon Warrior 1-4, but then I found out there was a 5 and 6 that never came to USA. I attempted to download those as well, but was disappointed there were no english versions. More searching around, and I found a walkthrough to the game. It was a bit difficult at times, but I managed to beat both of the games after a month or so of playing them. The walkthrough wasn't very helpful for when I got into battles. I wasn't sure what the options were exactly... So I started writing down charts and other info for what I needed to know to make battles run smoother. I was also lucky that when buying equipment, the attack and defense values would show the increases BEFORE buying so I could see what the wiser purchases were. It sucked when I had to remember what key items were where though, as I had to go down the list, trying each item out until it worked. I eventually made it through both games after a few months of hard work. I don't know if I'd have as much patience to do something like that now, heh. :P

I'm really glad the game series bounced back after a dry period of so many years. I've managed to beat all the games so far from 1-9, and almost all the side series that came to USA as well (some exceptions; I didn't have a playstation when two side series came out here and I haven't encountered them since, and I keep putting off to do the Dragon Quest Sword game for Wii). I've based a lot of my stories I write around Dragon Warrior themes because of how much it affected me. And if you like RPGs (especially old school type) I recommend you trying it out too. Obviously because of my exposure to Dragon Quest at such a young age, I prefer it over Final Fantasy. In fact, I haven't played many Final Fantasy games either.

Random things.

Been awhile since I threw a comic on here. So here!

Great Grandma was placed in a regular room yesterday, and is on the road to recovery. She'll be able to go home.. ...eventually anyway. It might be awhile, but it's a positive thing, I suppose.

Tonight is my usual DDR night (Dance Dance Revolution), so to speak. Actually, it's more like, ITG night(In The Groove, a more customizable and difficult version of DDR). I like to play it at least once a week to get myself some exercise. Since a friend of mine usually can get me free games, it's a source of free entertainment and exercise. Yeah, I know it sounds stupid, but it's better than sitting to play video games, and a bit more fun than normal exercise. Good cardio work-out, haha.

Got a bit of a headache and my left eye has been twitchy at times. I wonder if it's because of how much I am in front of the computer, heh. It happens occasionally, usually in spring, so I'm going to make a guess it is due to allergies with all the rain and weird heat we been having.

I entered a Dragon Quest 9 "Fashion Show" on a Dragon Quest fansite for a chance to win DQ9 action figures about a week or two ago. Out of the 4 characters I submitted, only one made it to the finals. A shame it ended up in 5th place... 2 more votes could have gotten it to 3rd, enough for an action figure.

 These are the four I entered: The Poor Hero, Untitled (Two above, left to right),  The Pimp, and Vivi-alike (Two below). Only the Pimp made it to the final round.

I don't think I really mentioned this often, but I actually am quite the avid Dragon Warrior/Quest fan. Played the game series since I was 5 or 6, one of the first video games I played. Even played two of the versions that didn't make it to the USA in full Japanese using a walkthrough as a guideline. Though now one of those two have made it to the USA on the DS, and rumor of the other coming soon.

I been playing Dragon Quest 9 since it came out until recently, where I started getting back into fire emblem games (Let's Play's of them made me want to try challenge/specialty runs, such as killing all story related characters, excluding main character). I suppose it is to be expected after playing the game so much that I'd want to play something else.

Speaking of other games, I was playing Archipelago Remastered on BYOND, but got bored of it quickly. I got my revenge on people that were assholes to me when I was new, and pretty much got nothing much else to do now, haha.

Yeah this update was all over. Just had a lot of different things to say without any real reason. :P