Overachiever

Keeping track of your achievement score

2010-05-11T17:23:00.001-07:00

Here's where I'll post your score. You'll have to record the achievements yourself, but I'll post your overall score here. Also, just for the record, if you say you've gotten an achievement, I'll usually take your word for it, but I might ask for proof on some of the bigger ones or photography ones, so be prepared.

For the record, anything completed before May 11th, 2010 doesn't count. This is starting from scratch. If you've done part of the achievement (such as business cards, going to IT Day previous years, "Job Hunter" rejections, or the money you own relating to the "Yacht trader achievement, etc.), that still counts. But it can't have been completed before yesterday.

_________________________________

Wayde (WaydeUltima) - 300

Ethan - 500

Chris (Hobbitboy) - 100

Jamie (Coil_36) - 0

Travie (TravieYak) - 0

Your name here - X

Achievables

2010-05-11T17:18:00.000-07:00

So, I was thinking I should start working toward goals in real life in the same way I would work toward achievements on Xbox Live. And so I began compiling a list. Some of these are local, others are universal. Either way, feel free to post your own (make sure they're in the same format, of course), either local or universal, and if they're good, I'll add them to the list. Please, though, do be realistic with these. Nothing like "Kill 50 people" or "Save the world" or anything like that. Each achievement is worth a flat rate of a hundred points, and if you'd like to join me on this endeavor, give me a holler, and I'll help you keep track of your score in a separate post.

Update 5/16/2010 (later): Took "Tri-Cities" out of some of the achievement descriptions to make them more universal. You're welcome. And don't forget you can still submit your own.

Update 5/16/2010: Achievements marked with an E are those that Ethan has gotten, since I know he won't bother to record his own.

Update 5/15/2010: Achievements DO NOT count if completed before 5/11/2010, which was when this was posted.

Update 5/12/2010: Achievements I've completed are in bold.

Rules:
Most of these must be completed in the presence of a witness, or require proof, but some are on the honor system. Either way, don't cheat. That's not cool.

Coffee Connoisseur – Try every kind of coffee at Dutch Bros.

World Traveler – Travel to Finley, Burbank, and Benton City in one day.

All the Small Things – Spend $300 in one day on items less than $40.

Pocketful of Miracles – Donate to three charities in one day.

Overdrive – Drive at more than double the speed limit for at least five seconds (S. Limit > $30)

Wally World – Visit three different Wal-Marts in one day.

Hit the Streets – Travel 200 miles in one day without leaving the city.

Damien Walters – Do something outstanding (parkour).

Entrepreneur – Make $2000 in one day.

Adventurer – Explore three different forests in one day.

Top of the World – Reach the highest point in the city. E

Tech Nut – Go to IT Day three years in a row. E

Master of the Gym – Land a double front flip.

Hypothermia – Jump into the river between November 1st and April 1st.

Weary Walker – Walk 10 miles in a day.

Yacht Trader – Achieve total funds exceeding $10,000.

Bilingual – Learn a second language.

Why is it so Dark in Here? - Wear sunglasses continuously for 72 hours.

Tough Competitor – Win a mid-to-large-scale competition.

Mister Perfect – Bowl a perfect game.

Sucker for Scenery – Photograph the horizon from 5 distinctly different rooftops.

Star of Starbucks – Order coffee at every Starbucks in the city.

Coffee Mania – Visit every coffee shop in the city.

Eyelids Taped Open – Stay awake for 72 straight hours.

The Entertainer – Successfully perform musically in front of at least 8 people.

Job Hunting – Get rejected by 10 different employers.

T-Pain – Auto tune your voice while on some sort of watercraft.

Mortal Kombat – Win a fight.

Suspicious Person – Buy rope, sleeping pills, a knife, and a disposable camera all at once.

Fame – Be seriously mistaken for a celebrity.

Certified – Take a test, get a certification.

Orville and Wilbur – Build a flying machine.

Casanova – Receive five phone numbers in 24 hours.

Reach/Escape – Climb a 15-foot wall. E

Subsistence – Catch a fish.

Networking – Collect 30 business cards.

Scavenger Hunt – Photograph a speed sign that doesn't end in 5 or 0.

The Bush Doctrine – Successfully dodge a flying object.

MacGyver – Jerry-rig something worthwhile using household objects.

Gone Sour – Chug a full glass of pure lemon juice.

Acclaimed Author – Publish a book.

Grip Lv2 – Do 100 pull-ups in a row.

Over Troubled Water – Cross every major bridge in the city in under an hour. (Your city must have at least two bridges to complete this achievement.)

Guinness – Break a world record.

Dedication – Spend at least 12 hours out of one day doing a single activity.

Fast Food – Order 15 cheeseburgers at a drive-through.

Good Samaritan - Do something selfless and prove it.

Obsession - Play Xbox/PS3 for 24 hours without rest.

Apples to Apples - Win an apple slush drinking competition against an opponent (the apple slush is known for causing brainfreeze more violently than any other flavor. This has been confirmed by me. Dx). E

Over 9000 Miles - Play the song "9,000 Miles" by Pendulum, and drive 9 miles before it ends. (careful, this one's moderately dangerous.)

British Achievements:

I Say, Old Bean! - Eat an entire pack of crumpets in one sitting.

One or Two Lumps? - Drink 10 cups of tea in one day.

Lucille Le'Voire

2010-04-19T17:16:00.001-07:00

So, I'm trying to write a story here, but I'm never satisfied with the way I start. The rest, I've got it all planned out. It's just the beginning that's giving me trouble. So, I'll post all of the versions that I'm not going to use right here. First, alternate world history version.

Prologue: A Series of Mistakes

I still have two important memories from my childhood. Both are things that my father used to tell my brother when he'd mess up. The first was “Son, girls don't just fall from the sky.”. The second was “Life is just a series of mistakes that come together to form a semi-coherent continuum.”.

I haven't the slightest idea why those are my only meaningful recollections from the first 16 years of my life. So many questions are left unanswered, just by those two statements. Firstly, was girl trouble common in my brother's world? Secondly, was my father just an average man, a philosopher, or some guy who heard both of those statements on the internet? There are countless others, but one thing is more prominent in the situation at hand. Who am I?

I mean, I know who I am. My name is Alicia Wright. I was sixteen when this all began. I want to say I had an interest in learning about history, based on the random tidbits that I recall on occasion, but I can't be certain. But knowing your name doesn't necessarily mean knowing yourself. I'm a prime example of that fact. A typical case of amnesia. Well, somewhat typical. Actually, I wouldn't really say typical at all, come to think of it. The amnesia is typical. I woke up one day with no memories save for my father's arguably wise words. But everything aside from the amnesia isn't typical at all.

Allow me to elaborate. When I “awoke for the first time”, I was in an old house just outside of Paris. I had no memory of my name at the time, so I took on the name Lucille Le'Voire. Gustave Le'Voire, of course, was the name of the gentleman who found me wandering in the forest the previous day. He said that when he found me, I was just walking in a straight line. Staring into space. Disconnected completely from reality.

Of course, he also said that it was the year 1945. I was a little skeptical about that, partially because France was still apparently occupied by Germany. But I couldn't really argue on a level ground with someone who hadn't lost all of their memories, so I kept my mouth shut at the time. I just assumed that I had completely lost it, both figuratively and literally.

That thought of being totally crazy died with the first time I predicted the future. I knew that Truman was going to become President, one way or another. I also knew that some serious business was going to hit the fan on August 6th. Serious business that I was completely and utterly mistaken about. You might call it a “slap in the face”, except exponentially worse.

I lived with Gustave and his wife up until that day. They might as well have been my parents, the way they treated me. But my life wasn't exactly what you'd call a normal one. For one thing, I never got sick. Not even once. That's quite a feat while living in poverty in Nazi-occupied France. Also, and here's the kicker, I apparently spoke both French and German fluently.

I couldn't tell the difference, to be honest. It all just sounded like words to me. But I noticed it when speaking to someone who only spoke German, in the presence of someone who only spoke French. They couldn't speak with one another, but I could talk to either just fine. And when I spoke, they could both understand it. That was one of the more prominent things that set me apart from the general crowd.

Then came August 4th. That was the day that Gustave took me back to show me the place where I was discovered. That was quite a shock, once I saw the gigantic crater about a quarter of a kilometer away from there. It was even more shocking when I looked closer and saw the wrecked space ship in the center. And I about had a heart attack when I looked inside and found that it looked just like the inside of a bus, and there was only one seat that didn't have a rotting corpse sitting in it. That made me a space alien.

Two days later, just after noon, we heard the news on the radio. That was actually a little strange, because news generally hadn't been known to travel that fast. I suppose that was just the advancement of technology working its magic. But regardless, it seemed that Japan had just bombed the hell out of the United States using stolen technology. They called it a “nuclear weapon”. That was where I realized that my predictions were wrong. It was supposed to happen the other way around. Then things got serious.

One moment, we were sitting around and listening to the radio. The next, everything was gone. I could no longer recognize light, or sound, or anything else, for that matter. My senses were absolutely overwhelmed in every aspect.

I think I liked that feeling better than what came next. Darkness. Difficulty breathing. Black smoke consumed the world around me. Echos of the sound of pure, unbiased, unrestrained destruction. But no screams.

Even that feeling was better than the third and final stage of the event. When the smoke cleared, there wasn't a single building left standing. Paris was just a memory, at this point. Ironically one of the only few I had at the time. And I was the only living being within thousands of miles of where I was standing.

I later found out what had happened. Technology was much further along in 1945 than anyone had originally thought. In fact, most of the more important figures in Washington wore wristwatches that monitored their vital signs. If all of these were ever to go out at once (indicating that the city had been attacked), a signal was sent to the hundreds and hundreds of armed satellites above Europe. You can guess what happened next.

This was all Truman's idea, by the way. Something that you might call "The Mother of All Bad Ideas". He had assumed that if they were going to be attacked, Germany was going to be behind it. He had devised a last-resort system that would completely obliterate Europe, making sure Germany was entirely defeated in every way, shape, and form. Since Japan was behind the attack, though, the only thing Truman's system did was eliminate the competition for world domination. Whether that was the Japanese intention or not, it was right in front of them now, and they had no real reason not to reach out and take it.

But where did that leave me? Where did I fit in in all of this? And most of all, how is it possible that I lived through a nuclear explosion? I thought maybe that it had something to do with being an alien. I was like a cockroach or something. The first part of that was partially correct.

So there I was, wandering the post-apocalyptic countryside of France. A few days passed, then a few weeks. Eventually, I just gave up and collapsed, staring up into the polluted sky. I couldn't starve to death. I couldn't die of thirst. A nuclear explosion had recently killed the only family I'd ever known. There was really nothing left to do except lay there until I found motivation to move on, or the world ended. Again.

Something entirely unexpected happened, though. Little dots, buzzing around in the sky. Bugs, maybe? Nonsense. All of the bugs were dead. So were the birds. So I assumed that they were more bombs. That'd be fun, in a horribly sadistic and morbid way. But the buzzing dots were neither birds nor bombs. In fact, I was so surprised by what came next that I found the strength to move out of the way before one of the gigantic military ships landed on me.

There were three. All marked with with the acronym “AEDA”. Presumably more aliens. Maybe I'd get my memory back. Or maybe I'd just have thirty guys running down ramps and aiming guns at me. I wasn't lucky enough for the former.

Chapter 1: AEDA

I could almost feel the word “apathy” written several times in the air above my head as I stood up to face the platoon of soldiers. I couldn't have cared less whether I lived or died at that moment. I'd lost everything. I had no home, no memory, and nobody. I thought maybe that was the way it was meant to be, and that was why I lost my memory to begin with. No matter how hard I tried to build a life, it would always be torn away from me in the end.

I hoped that wasn't the case.

The air was dead still until the sound of footsteps cut through the silence.

A Challenge For You

2010-03-29T03:27:00.000-07:00

Just for fun. Give us a quick summary of your PC in the comments. Include the following:

- Screenshot of your desktop
- Screenshot of your login screen (not required from Vista users. Bonus points if you do, though.)
- Screenshot of your desktop with some windows open (show off some windows)
- Photos of your case, open case is optional but please do if you can
- A quick summary of your PC. You can easily get a summary using Everest software. Make sure to only get the summary, though, and not all of the product keys. Shouldn't be posting those on the internet. You can do a custom summary and only show what you want.

So, anyway, here's mine. Hope you feel compelled to show yours. :)

Desktop

Logon

Desktop (w/ open windows)

Case

Case (inside)

--------[ Summary ]-----

Computer:
Computer Type ACPI Multiprocessor PC
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
OS Service Pack Service Pack 3
Internet Explorer 6.0.2900.5512
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)
Computer Name ZUELLNI
User Name Layfon
Logon Domain ZUELLNI
Date / Time 2010-03-29 / 03:21

Motherboard:
CPU Type QuadCore AMD Phenom II X4 Black Edition 940, 3000 MHz (15 x 200)
Motherboard Name ECS MCP61PM-GM
Motherboard Chipset nVIDIA nForce 6100-4xx, AMD K10
System Memory 2048 MB (DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM)
DIMM3: Samsung M3 78T2863QZS-CF7 1 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM (6-6-6-18 @ 400 MHz) (5-5-5-15 @ 333 MHz) (4-4-4-12 @ 266 MHz)
DIMM4: Samsung M3 78T2863QZS-CF7 1 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM (6-6-6-18 @ 400 MHz) (5-5-5-15 @ 333 MHz) (4-4-4-12 @ 266 MHz)
BIOS Type Award (10/29/08)

Display:
Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce 9400 GT (512 MB)
3D Accelerator nVIDIA GeForce 9400 GT
Monitor LG W2361 [23" LCD] (190416843009)

Multimedia:
Audio Adapter Realtek ALC888/1200 @ nVIDIA nForce 6100-400/405/420/430 (MCP61) - High Definition Audio Controller

Storage:
IDE Controller Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller
IDE Controller Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller
IDE Controller Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller
Storage Controller A2Q5ABYS IDE Controller
Disk Drive Hitachi HDP725016GLA380 (160 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II)
Disk Drive USB 2.0 USB Flash Drive USB Device (1007 MB, USB)
Optical Drive HL-DT-ST BD-RE BH10LS30
Optical Drive Optiarc DVD RW AD-7203S (DVD+R9:8x, DVD-R9:12x, DVD+RW:20x/8x, DVD-RW:20x/6x, DVD-RAM:12x, DVD-ROM:16x, CD:48x/32x/48x DVD+RW/DVD-RW/DVD-RAM)
SMART Hard Disks Status OK

Partitions:
C: (NTFS) 6134 MB (3694 MB free)
D: (NTFS) 54148 MB (11126 MB free)
Total Size 58.9 GB (14.5 GB free)

Input:
Keyboard Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
Mouse HID-compliant mouse

Peripherals:
Printer Microsoft XPS Document Writer
Printer SnagIt 9
FireWire Controller Agere IEEE1394 FireWire Controller
USB1 Controller nVIDIA nForce 6100-400/405/420/430 (MCP61) - OHCI USB 1.1 Controller
USB2 Controller nVIDIA nForce 6100-400/405/420/430 (MCP61) - EHCI USB 2.0 Controller
USB Device ASIX AX88772 USB2.0 to Fast Ethernet Adapter
USB Device USB Human Interface Device
USB Device USB Mass Storage Device

DMI:
DMI BIOS Vendor Phoenix Technologies, LTD
DMI BIOS Version 6.00 PG
DMI System Manufacturer eMachines
DMI System Product ET1161-05
DMI System Version 9000
DMI System Serial Number PTNAD0Y003847000389000
DMI System UUID 40EF3FBC-E5B4DD11-8797DB32-2D817167
DMI Motherboard Manufacturer eMachines
DMI Motherboard Product MCP61PM-GM
DMI Motherboard Version 2.2
DMI Motherboard Serial Number OEM
DMI Chassis Manufacturer eMachines
DMI Chassis Version Unknow
DMI Chassis Serial Number 0000000000
DMI Chassis Asset Tag Unknow
DMI Chassis Type Desktop Case
DMI Total / Free Memory Sockets 4 / 2

--------[ Computer Name ]------

Computer Comment Logical
NetBIOS Name Logical ZUELLNI
DNS Host Name Logical zuellni
DNS Domain Name Logical
Fully Qualified DNS Name Logical zuellni
NetBIOS Name Physical ZUELLNI
DNS Host Name Physical zuellni
DNS Domain Name Physical
Fully Qualified DNS Name Physical zuellni

--------[ Sensor ]------

Sensor Properties:
Sensor Type ITE IT8726F (ISA 290h)
GPU Sensor Type Diode (NV-Diode)
Chassis Intrusion Detected No

Temperatures:
Motherboard 31 °C (88 °F)
CPU 23 °C (73 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #1 51 °C (124 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #2 51 °C (124 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #3 51 °C (124 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #4 51 °C (124 °F)
MCP 47 °C (117 °F)
Aux 54 °C (129 °F)
GPU Diode 39 °C (102 °F)
Hitachi HDP725016GLA380 25 °C (77 °F)

Cooling Fans:
CPU 2103 RPM
GPU 76%

Voltage Values:
CPU Core 1.34 V
+2.5 V 2.48 V
+3.3 V 1.78 V
+5 V 5.62 V
+12 V 12.22 V
+5 V Standby 5.08 V
VBAT Battery 3.22 V
Debug Info F 0141 FFFF 0000 0000 0000
Debug Info T 54 31 23
Debug Info V 54 9B 6F D1 BF 49 B6 (7F)

So how about them blog posts, eh?

2010-03-28T18:25:00.000-07:00

Well, howdy, strangers. Hard to believe my last post was in December. Seems like it's been much, much longer than that. ;)

But I happened to glance at the Blogger link in my bookmarks toolbar and thought I'd drop by and say hi. Maybe give a bit of an update as to what's going on these days.

Just got through with my second quarter at Columbia Basin College. First quarter, as you may remember, was Japanese I, Design I, and Intro to Computer Science. Second quarter was Japanese II, PC Hardware I, and Digital Photography.

Photography, for one, was actually quite the experience. Right there at the end, I didn't think I was going to have enough photos for the final presentation, so I was freaking out and thinking I would fail. Failure would mean losing my financial aid. That would have been bad.

My subject was parkour, of course, so it was difficult sometimes to go out and shoot. For one thing, it's not really something you can do with just one person. Maybe if I had some kind of remote for the camera, but I don't. That wouldn't really... Anyway, within reason, it's not something you can do alone.

So Ethan and I got it done at the last minute one day, and ended up with this sweet book. You should totally order a copy and view some of our wonderful photos.

Actually, in the midst of all of these parkour shenanigans, I seem to have injured my left foot. I don't know if it's a permanent injury or what. Maybe I should look it up on WebMD. But at first, I figured it was nothing.

You see, we tend to go hit the gym every Saturday. A friend of ours, Jordan, introduced us to it. It's good practice. I managed to learn my front flips pretty well there. But anyway, it seems like my first flip every Saturday hurts my foot. After that, the pain kind of goes away and I forget about it. But last night, I dunno. It continued to hurt. Still hurts today. This has been happening for over a month to the same foot, so I'm a little worried. I don't want to go to a doctor, for money reasons, but I may have to if it gets worse.

Anyway, in non-injury-related news, check out this video that Ethan and I did. I think you'll like the special effects. I know I did.

The effects at the end took absolutely FOREVER to finish, but I like how it turned out. In retrospect, though, I feel like I should have made the screen shake a bit. But, I didn't, so whatever.

Anyway, so I guess you could say I got myself a new computer. I mean, it's the old one that I got last year at Best Buy, with Linux and it and whatnot, but I bought some upgrades, a new case, etc. And also, I installed XP on it. Here are some pics, for your viewing pleasure.

I suppose they're a bit big. Comes from having a high quality camera, I suppose. Anyway, I've gotten a processor upgrade to a 3.0GHZ Quad, and a graphics card update that I can't remember, though I believe it was a... Guess I'll look it up. GeForce 9400. Finally, the PSU has gone from 110 watts to 750 watts to support the stated upgrades. Now all I need is a new hard drive, and maybe some more RAM. 150 gigs doesn't really cut it when you're into gaming and video editing. Oh, and by the way, I got a Blu-Ray player. That was the reason behind the processor and PSU upgrades to begin with. Didn't have enough power to run the Blu-Ray player.

Anywhoo, I also have a picture of my awesome setup. Complete with the new lamp I got a couple of days ago.

Beats the hell out of my old lamp, that's for sure. Goes better with the whole scheme of things, and it doesn't look as weird. I just wish I had a better chair to sit in. My current chair is a chair from a dinner table, with two pillows. One to sit on and one behind my back. Not the most comfortable thing in the world.

So, I forgot to mention that I'm back to doing videos for the Five Awesome RVBers. I'm on Mondays now and you can check them out on our Youtube channel. That's what that video above was for. An intro for one of my videos.

I also haven't mentioned that I play the piano now. Currently, I'm learning the Maple Leaf Rag. It's really fun to play. Got me one of them there Yamaha P85 keyboards, and I must say, I'm quite satisfied with it. Sounds amazing. I'll have to do a video one of these days, when I get a bit better.

If you've been following these blogs and enjoying reading them, then I can only assume that you're wondering how the whole "dream world" thing is working out. Well, there's really nothing of notable mention concerning that. Though I'm working on writing a novel based on the concept. I won't get into that until more of it is written, though. I'm not sure how far it's going to get before I drop it like all of the other things I've tried to write.

What else to report on... Well, I guess I'll leave it at that. Hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Or evening. Or whatever time it is when you're reading this.

<3

I am Turkish

2009-12-06T23:22:00.001-08:00

Take the quiz

Distance

2009-11-23T23:16:00.000-08:00

Is there a way I can trade my reality for my dreams? Just go ahead and switch the two around, so that I experience reality in my sleep and my dreams as reality?

Because with some of the things I've experienced in dreams, it makes life kind of mundane. Space travel, eternal life, love, technology, the future. There are so many things that I have seen and felt that I know I can never achieve in the real world. Well, I'm relatively certain I can never achieve. Who knows what the future has in store, right?

I have this continuing dream that I'll have to post one of these days. I can remember it all so well, and it's so long. Waking up is like returning from another world after an extended vacation. I just can't grasp the concept of how so much time can pass in my head while maybe seven hours tops happens in the real world.

What's the difference between dreaming and reality, anyway? They're all experiences. All things that you have seen firsthand. People you've met, things you've learned, things you've done. If a dream is as vivid as reality, who is to say it's any less real? It's a memory, like everything else you've ever done.

The only thing that's really real, in fact, is the present, be it a dream or reality. When you're there, it's unquestionably the real thing. And if you believe in something without a doubt in your mind, it's as real as it gets, right? Because nothing in the past could even be considered certain.

Think about it. What if the world began yesterday and we all just started off with a specific set of memories? Everything just started in the middle and went from there? You can't prove that anything has ever actually happened. Everything you see, hear, and feel is only real the split second that it happens, then it just becomes a memory mixed in with the rest of the human mind.

So maybe we're all just dreaming right now. Maybe what we perceive to be dreams are actually our reality, and the sometimes hazy recollection we have of them works the other way around. Maybe as I'm sitting atop the highest peak on another planet, or flying through space lightyears away, I'm sitting there thinking about how I had a weird dream about going to college, or having coffee, or watching a movie.

I think I'm more uncertain now than I was when I started this post. X/

That is, IF I ever started this post. O.O

Anyway, I'm going to bed now. I'm going to tell my space friends about this crazy dream I just had about blogging and uncertainty.

Wait! I think I just made a breakthrough. I don't recall ever listening to music in the other world, so whether or not this proves anything at all, at least this world is more musical than the other one.

College

2009-09-23T19:27:00.001-07:00

It's awesome. 'Nuff said.

So yeah.

2009-09-15T20:09:00.000-07:00

I'm looking into getting a job. How about that, huh? Thanks to Ethan, it's possibly that I may get a job as a runner. It's not nearly as cool as it sounds, but the description Ethan gave me actually does sound kind of cool, so I'm totally down for it. Besides, it's at the Toyota center, and that place it totally awesome anyway.

And if I don't get that, I'll look for something else. I desperately need a job and it's time I get off of my rear-end and find one.

Starting college Monday. WOW, right? Crazy stuff. I'm having a bit of trouble believing it myself.

That is all. WAIT! ..... Yeah, that's all.

A game of sorts

2009-09-07T03:13:00.000-07:00

Before we begin, I'd just like to say that Ethan informed me that I'm not the friend that nobody likes. So I feel better now.

Anyhoo...

Alright, so I have a challenge for you all. Serious business right here. The challenge is to figure out why I like having long hair.

That is, of course, aside from the obvious reasons:
- It makes me look awesome
- Seriously, I'm awesome

Nobody knows this, actually. This is the one secret that absolutely nobody in the world other than me knows. It is the "And that's the main reason Wayde has long hair." secret.

I've already challenged a few people IRL with this, and they have guessed wrong.
- I'm not gay
- It has nothing to do with anime
- It's not to hide my face
- It has nothing to do with shampoo commercials (though that is one of the reasons. Who wouldn't want to be able to flip their hair in slow motion?)
- It doesn't involve hiding the fact that I'm immortal... (which I'm not, by the way. Weird suggestion.)

If you're majoring in psychology, feel free to read my 600+ journal entries on Roosterteeth to try and formulate an answer. Otherwise, goodbye and good luck.

P.S. Ethan brought up a good point. It has occurred in anime, and it's therefore false to say that it has nothing to do with anime. BUT, by the same logic, there's really not much that hasn't occurred in anime, generally speaking. So when I say that it has nothing to do with anime, I mean that it's not like "Oh, it's because it makes me look like X character from X anime.". In other words, it was not influenced by anything anime related.

Now I just don't know

2009-09-06T17:34:00.000-07:00

I'm unsure of so many things right now.

For example, there's this girl I like. I'm completely unsure what she thinks of me. I mean, I know she doesn't dislike me, but are we anything more than acquaintances?

Furthermore, there's a girl that likes me (to my knowledge, anyway) and I really don't like her. I guess I'm just picky or something, but she's not exactly my type. She's fun to be around, kind of frustrating to talk to (in a good way, I guess, if that makes any sense), and there are a bunch of good qualities about her, but... I dunno. Just not the one for me.

Changing the subject, why do I spend so little time with my friends? Are they even really my friends? I'm beginning to think that I'm the friend that nobody likes. You know how there's always one of those in the group? Yeah. Just certain things that happen and the frequency that such things happen, it's definitely the impression that I get.

I know I'm an incredibly dull person, but am I so uninteresting that people would rather I'm not around? Or am I such a dick (for lack of a better word) that people are like "Man, don't invite him. He's kind of a dick.".

And social issues aside, I feel like I should be doing something right now. I have this constant feeling when I'm sitting here that there's something important that I'm completely neglecting, but I have no idea what it is.

For one thing, I'm sleeping too much. Now that I've finally solved the problem of not sleeping enough, I find that I'm sleeping from late at night to late in the afternoon. Like, 11pm to 4pm. That's got to be unhealthy. But I've been doing that for awhile.

Also, my problem of not eating enough is solved in a similar manner. I'm overeating and finding that my stomach hurts quite often.

One thing that bothers me is that certain people are saying that my weight is unhealthy and I need to gain more, but I'm a fairly healthy person (eating and sleeping habits aside), so I don't see what's wrong with weighing a little under 150. That seems like a pretty good weight to me. I'm not really skinny. I dunno what the problem is.

So, I'm supposed to get monthly checks from the VA for being in college, and they were supposed to start this month, but I guess not. Which really sucks because I'm prettymuch completely broke. I have $48 in my account right now. I was counting on getting paid this month, but I guess not. And I have no idea if it's even going to start next month, which is pretty disheartening. I was going to wait until I got into the groove of going to college before getting a job, but I just don't know, now.

Apparently, I have an extremely limited range of emotions. I just recently realized this. But ever since some certain things happened awhile back, my emotions are as follows: bored, annoyed, amused, disappointed, frustrated.

I spend most of my time with the first three. I'm never particularly happy or excited about anything. Just amused. Nothing makes me sad. Just disappointed. Something absolutely horrible could happen, and I would just have an "Oh. Well, that kinda sucks." reaction.

I guess it's a good thing that I don't get depressed. That's an upside, maybe. But when you think about it, the world isn't much of an experience with such a limited range of viewpoints.

I'm not getting nearly enough exercise. This is mostly because since I very seldom hang out with friends, I very seldom do anything active. Parkour is like swimming. Not something you should do alone.

I keep trying to write, but nothing comes to mind. Once in awhile, I'll get a great idea, but then I'll sit down with it and that'll be it. An idea. I can't seem to expand on anything much. This is obviously just an example, but it's like

"Idea. The ball is red. Hm. That's interesting. But why is the ball red? How does this affect the main plot? How will the characters interact with the ball?"

"Hell, I dunno. I just liked the idea of a red ball."

I can definitely say I've had a bit too much anime recently. Clannad, Kanon, Gundam 00, Code Geass, Vandread, Bokurano, Tales of Symphonia. That's been the past few weeks for me. Part of it is because I don't have the money to go anywhere, so there's not much else to do other than lay around.

The whole thing is just a mess. All of this stuff gives me a headache just thinking about it. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I kind of miss school. It's not that being in school was a particularly enriching experience, but there's really nothing to worry about when you're in school. You can just glide through life without a care in the world. Graduating is like metaphorically getting thrown out of a city and into a desert. There's just this blank horizon that I'm supposedly supposed to work with.

Not recommended

2009-08-20T13:17:00.000-07:00

This is definitely a bad idea, simply because it's so effective.

Caffeine and ibuprofen. The first to keep you awake and the second to get rid of the headaches caused by the first.

So basically, you're doing damage to your body and suppressing the signals that are saying "Hey, you idiot, go to sleep."

Luckily, I've been sleeping a little better. Last night, I dreamed I was in this forest with somebody, and we were going down to the edge of the river just for the hell of it. Then we found a duck. Dunno why. Just a duck. That was prettymuch it. Guess I was too tired to have an incredibly epic dream.

Sleeplessnessness

2009-08-18T23:26:00.000-07:00

No dreams this time around. Simply because I haven't had any dreams. Simply because I haven't been sleeping. I go for so long without sleeping, that when I do sleep, I just kind of die and then come back to life 12+ hours later.

But, I do have other stuff to talk about. Even when very little is happening, it'll accumulate enough for a decent blog post eventually.

So, I got into college. Going to be taking Design, Computer Science 101, and Japanese. Here's My schedule.

Japanese: 8:00am-9:00am, Monday-Thursday
Design: 9:10am-10:10am, Monday-Thursday
Computer Science: 5:00pm-7:20pm, Monday and Wednesday

And thanks to the Department of Veterans Affairs, and of course to my awesome grandfather/father (long story), my total tuition came to $36.11. Amazing, right? School will start on the 21st of next month, and go until some time in December. Absolutely wonderful. I'm so excited for Japanese and Design. CS101, not so much. But it has to be taken before I can take anything more specific.

So, in other news, I've gone through some odd musical phases lately. Like, at one point, I was straight up ska. I wouldn't listen to anything else, ever. Then at one point, I spent a couple of days stuck on J-Pop and the like. Then, for the past couple of weeks, I've been hardcore into Muse, just because they're so darned amazing. Now, since yesterday, I've been listening to a playlist consisting of Jamie Cullum, Michael Buble, and The Corrs. So Jazz and Celtic, prettymuch. But yeah, I love jazz. Love it sooooo much. It's not just a phase, really. I've liked jazz for a long time. That's what I was into right before the ska kick. I'd say that ska and jazz are my two all-time favorite genres.

Current favorite songs that I'd definitely recommend to anybody:
Angel - The Corrs
Twentysomething - Jamie Cullum
Moondance - Michael Buble
High & Dry - Jamie Cullum (beautiful!)
Butterflies and Hurricanes - Muse

Which brings me to my next point. Apparently, I have a knack for the piano. I heard the solo in Butterflies and I just had to try and play it. Within a couple of days, I could almost play it at full speed. Which, to me, is amazing, because I don't even play the piano. Like, it was the first time I've picked up my keyboard in years. I didn't even play it before. Never took lessons, nothing. The whole thing struck me as kind of weird.

Something else weird, I lose an incredibly intense game of chess last night. Against myself. And throughout the game, I never could read my opponent's strategy. I can't really explain how that happened, but trust me, it did.

So, a couple of weeks back, I met this girl. Well, not really "met". I've known her for almost a year now. But we never really talked, or anything else. She was essentially just some random chick from school. But we hung out once, and I dunno. Things progressed extremely quickly. Pope Benedict kicked it into hyperdrive, so to speak (if you don't get that reference, google it. It's quite funny.). And then she left for an extended vacation halfway across the country. Which is mildly depressing. But it's okay, because she'll be back in a few months.

I don't even know how things are going to turn out between us. The circumstances are just so weird, and she might be moving permanently to another state pretty soon. But it's just so weird. I've never felt this way about someone. It's a feeling like... Like "If things progress further between us, that's amazing. If not, that's perfectly fine, too.". Weird, right?

And she's such an amazing person, too. Like, she's absolutely hilarious to talk to, and she's really intellectual. In a weird way. But she's absolutely beautiful. And her eyes... Something about her eyes. I can't really explain it. But I've had a crush on her since October of last year. And it all started with the eyes. Just the way the sun hit them at one point, I dunno how to explain the feeling. I guess something comparable to getting hit in the side of the head with a brick.

So, changing the subject again, I got a new desk and a new laptop. In that order. The laptop is simply amazing. I take back everything bad I ever said about HP. Of course, there were really no grounds to any of the things I said in the first place. They do make some pretty decent computers. My first computer was an HP way back in '98.

And the desk, well it's simply amazing. It's glass, very modern looking, and much better than that green card table that I was using as a computer desk up until I got this one. I guess I could post a picture.

There on the left is my laptop. Oh yeah, and I got a new monitor for my desktop. Just thought I'd mention that. It's very nice indeed.

Tomorrow, I'm going to get some new curtains for my bedroom, because I absolutely hate the ones I've got now. They're horrible, aren't they? Gonna get some bright green ones. Not like neon green, but green like the color scheme of this blog. I wonder how much it would be to get a new light for the ceiling in my room. The current one is just a little metal thing hanging down. It's pretty awful as well.

So, I've started rewriting my book. Again. But it seems like it gets better each time, so I've got faith in this one. I'm changing the name of the planet to Eternity. And Ultalimia city is going to be really crappy instead of good. Skylanos is up in the mountains, and Benzanue is on a big platform of raised land, rather than just on a normal mountain. Think of it this way: A seemingly endless forest, and then there's a bunch of rock that just kind of sticks out of the ground. The dropoffs are straight down all the way around, and the city is right there on top.

The government is a monarchy, in contrast with the earlier versions. Angelo (the king) is still alive, rather than having died in the war thousands of years earlier. I have a better motive for the moon to be attacking, as well. Instead of just attacking because they like the land, they want the secret to eternal life (everyone on Eternity lives forever. They can still be killed, they just don't die of old age, disease, etc.). Overall, this version of the story holds together better than earlier versions.

Well, I think I might actually go to bed tonight. Haven't for the past two nights. Although I went to bed at 6ish this morning and woke up at 5pm. I'm still pretty tired, so we'll see what happens. G'night, folks.

Two methods

2009-08-14T01:56:00.000-07:00

I suppose there are two different ways to practice the piano.

1) Play as accurately as possible, gradually increasing your speed.

2) Play at full speed, gradually increasing your accuracy.

Can you guess which one is more annoying? :D

And so there I was

2009-08-08T22:42:00.001-07:00

The sky was gray, and it was cold. The wind was blowing.

I was in a building complex. It was still under construction. I was on a raised platform in the midst of a square opening in the building. I can only assume it was some sort of office building.

But anyway, there was a tower in the middle of the platform. But it was only the framework of a tower. There was a ladder in the middle. For whatever reason, I was compelled to climb this. And so I did. I climbed up to another platform, and there was a flight of stairs. I continued to climb. Two more flights of stairs, then another ladder.

Now there was something interesting. Rather than a third ladder, the challenge was increasing. This time, there were two chains hanging down. about a foot and a half apart. Parallel. About 15 feet up, there was a metal bar that stretched across to the frame. Then the chains continued for another length equaling the first. I climbed. It was easy. I reached the bar, and immediately pulled myself up without stopping to rest. I continued up to the next level. Now there was just a pole. A single pole. Climbing it was no problem at all.

Now I was on the eighth level. There was a wall. And next to the wall was an opening in the ceiling. This proved easy, too. Amateur stuff.

Ninth level. A bar stretched outward from the ceiling, roughly 15 feet up. On the end was a rope. In other words, it was at least a nine foot jump out into nothing to reach the rope. I went for it. Made it. Easy stuff. Climbed the rope. Next level.

Level ten had a staircase right in the center that led up through an opening in the ceiling.

There was the top. A narrow walkway that seemed to stretch on forever. It stretched out into the distance. For some reason, I hadn't seen this from below. But from up here I could see everything. The city. There was no limit to it. No end. It just continued outward in all directions as far as the eye could see. Nearly colorless streets and buildings. Everything had a dull blue tint to it.

I turned around. I was wrong about the city going in all directions, for behind me was the ocean. The moon hung over the ocean, silently watching me. Larger than I'd ever seen it before, mostly invisible through the clouds. But it was there. It glowed, breaking through the haze. I started down the walkway. I couldn't see the other end.

Before I knew it, I was running. Was I running from something? Or was I running toward a goal? I could feel the icy breeze on my face. I was sprinting. Was it for the sheer thrill of running? What was so important that I couldn't take my time?

I knew something was different. I didn't feel fatigued. I continued running, but never seemed to get tired, no matter how hard I pushed myself. Finally, I could see something in the distance. Something black. As I came closer, I could tell that it was a long coat. A long black coat, with a hood. There was a man underneath. He was standing at the very end of the path. I didn't stop. Now I felt angry. Why was I so angry? He didn't turn around. I didn't stop. Closer and closer.

He leaned forward and fell from the edge. I had too much momentum. I jumped right over him. Now I was in the air. Was I flying, or falling? I looked back. He was falling. The metal walkway was gone. It was as though it had never existed. Everything seemed to be in slow motion. We were miles above the ground. There was nothing but sky around us. I hadn't noticed as I was running that the city had disappeared.

It was only him and I. Falling through the air, helplessly. I was falling after all. But I didn't care. I wanted to kill this person. I wanted his life to end. Was it revenge? What had he done to inspire this rage within me? It was a feeling I've never experienced.

Now, I may very well have been flying. The distance closed between us. I grabbed his coat by the arm. He fought back. It was a struggle in the clouds. I punched straight at his face. He dodged to the side. I kicked at his chest. He grabbed my leg and threw me away.

Now I was spinning out of control. He was perfectly stable, upright, calm. I could only see his face from the nose down. He was grinning. I stopped spinning, somehow. The wind in my ears was the only sound that existed to me. The clouds flew past at terrifying speeds, and now I could see the city. There was no tower. No ocean. Just and endless city, and the man in the black coat with the glowing blue moon behind him. The ground was coming up fast.

He suddenly made a dive for me. I managed to flip myself out of the way. I caught a glimpse of what was directly below me. A gigantic intersection. I was exactly above the center. It was deserted. There were cars, but no one was driving them. They just sat there, askew in the midst of everything. And then came the impact.

An explosion of sound and debris. I could feel the ground crumbling beneath me. I could see the brown earth beneath the asphalt. I could hear the windows of the surrounding buildings shatter. And then everything was silent.

I was standing. A perfect crater was around me, and I was on my feet. I ran to the surface. The man in the black coat was there. In the street. Staring at me. Taunting me. Now was the sound of wind, the spell of dust, the cold humid air.

I ran toward him. Sprinting again. I felt no surprise that I was okay from the fall. This was normal. I had done it many times before. In fact, this whole situation had happened countless times before.

As I drew nearer, I knew that just before I reached him, he would disappear. He would vanish into thin air just before I could rip his head off. But this time was different.

Throughout all the times I could remember reliving this exact event, I was different this time. I had some sort of power within me. Something I had never had before. 100 yards. The size of a football field.

I was trying to think as I ran toward him. What was it? What was different? How could I defeat him? 50 Yards. That's when it happened. In a split second, I went from 50 yards to two feet. A burst of speed? Did I teleport? Irrelevant.

The only thing that mattered now was my hands around his neck. I took him by surprise. Wiped that smug grin right off of his face. But he was strong. He grabbed my arms, tried to pry them off. I could feel a sort of rushing sensation. We were moving in the opposite direction at an inconceivable speed. Everything was a gray blur. He threw me. When I continued to move, I began to realize that the boundaries of the universe no longer mattered. Once again, it was just him and I in a seemingly endless void.

He charged toward me again, this time more aggressively. He was screaming at me. He had fangs. He had claws.

I put my head down and reached forward. My subconscious had taken over fully. I had no control over my body at this point. I could only sit and watch in amazement at what I was capable of. My hand made contact with his chest. His momentum was too much. My hand went right through his body, and I ripped out his heart.

His body went limp. I never saw his face. He just dropped into the abyss, fading away as he fell.

Blood dripped from my arm. An odd feeling came over me. A gravitational pull. The blurred dimension was gone in a flash, and I fell out of the air, bouncing, rolling, sliding across the ground. I came to a stop. I didn't move. I just stared at the ground, which was inches from my face.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I slowly began to pull myself to my feet. I was in the middle of the street. Just like any other street, really. Devoid of life.

My clothes were shredded. I was bleeding. Apparently his ribs had been made of something at least as strong as metal, because my arm was pretty sliced up. Not to mention all of the flesh that had torn off when I landed in the road. But it was no big deal to me.

I looked around, then began to walk away. Toward the moon. Toward the tower that now loomed over in the distance. Toward the building under construction that surrounded it.

Everything faded to a blur. I was blinded by light. I could hear faint music somewhere. My alarm clock. I woke up.

Needless to say, it doesn't feel at all like I got any rest last night.

Waydetionary addition

2009-08-04T18:37:00.000-07:00

Frorrient (adjective)

- A combination of frustrated, worried, and impatient.

Obviocity (noun)

- The state of being obvious, or level of which something is obvious.

Too Quiet

2009-07-28T12:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, so to explain the lack of blog posts, I can assure you that nothing worth blogging about has really happened. I haven't even had any weird dreams... Of course, I haven't really done enough sleeping to have weird dreams.

I've been having severe sleeping problems the last five days or so. Maybe ten hours of sleep over the course of four days.

But, I digress. While I have nothing of particular interest to tell you, I do have a new episode of John in the Forest for your viewing pleasure.

Holy crap.

2009-07-17T17:58:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what to do about these weird dreams. The craziness just seems to continue.

Okay, so here's where it began. The world was flat. I don't know what would have happened beyond the edges. Maybe you just fall off. Anyway, I lived in the east, which was like Nevada, I guess. That's what it reminded me of. For some reason, I was a little kid, and there was one of my friends with me. I think it was Ethan. He was little, too. Anyway, we were escaping from someone. We were running down a dirt road in the desert. Every once in awhile, we'd hide from people.

I also remember something about flying a plane at one point, but nothing specific.

At one point, I went down into a tunnel. Like, a tunnel that you'd see in a city. Except that there were no cars on the road. But now I was back to my current age, and Ethan was gone. But I didn't really notice it. It's not that I didn't care, but it's like there was a half-assed transition to another dream, because in my mind, he had never been there. But I was still on the flat world and knew that I had just come out of the desert. I was going west, by the way.

So I continued through the tunnel, and finally, at one point, I went through a door to the side. Everything was very old and worn, by the way. I walked what seemed like forever through a series of hallways. Then, one more door and I was suddenly on a walkway that was next to a harbor. It was nighttime. I turned around and saw a city. Somehow, I discerned that I was in Hong Kong. This was the westernmost part of the world, which was apparently all one continent. Anyway, I met this one guy who I was apparently old friends with. He looked just like the acupuncturist from Eli Stone. I talked to him for awhile. I guess I had come to China seeking his help.

Actually, this is where I got the plane. It was like one of the American planes from Battlefield 1943. He gave me the plane, and I flew back to Nevada and landed near Area 51. At least, that's what I assumed it was, because it was fenced in.

I can't remember anything after that for that part of the dream.

But the next thing I remember, I was with three other guys. This was a parkour dream. Their gloves and outfits were themed around orange, while mine was green-based. We were running to a hotel where there was really nice architecture. The first jump was off of some air ducts at the side of the building onto some orange awning that resembled the awning at the school. We were in a hurry because there were two cop cars coming down the road and we wanted to hide on that awning. The edges were raised a couple of feet, so we could hide behind them.

But suddenly we were moving. The part of the building we were on detached from the rest of the hotel and started floating away. One of the guys made a comment about not realizing that it was a boat. And at the time, it wasn't weird at all, but thinking back, there was no water. We were floating across land.

But I bailed out, because I think we were seen, and I ran to the junkyard, where I ran into a guy with black hair and glasses. He told me that they were waiting for us at their secret lair, but we couldn't know the way there. I guess I had planned this, because I knew what was going on. But we got into a crate and some big dude closed the lid, and suddenly we were being lifted by a crane. One side broke off of the crate, and I looked out and saw that we were way the hell up in the sky, and there was another crate flying by next to us. Cainan was inside that one. There was a board missing out of the side, that's how I could tell. Of course, there's Cainan's cameo on the dream. He's got this thing for appearing in everybody's dreams as much as possible.

BAM! Dream transition. This one was complete. None of the events up to this point are relevant to this next part of the dream.

So, I was in the forest with some friends. We lived in a village in the forest. This whole part of the dream was Celtic themed. We were all wearing green and everything. I don't know what we were doing or anything. Flying kites or something. Which is stupid in a forest. But anyway, these people showed up. They were wearing light yellow/gold colors. And they told us to follow them. I was there, there was some really hot girl, Damion was there, and there was the little kid from Knowing (I don't get it either). But anyway, we went with them to this gateway. There were no walls. Just a gate. There was nothing on the other side of the gate. I looked. But the mechanism was odd. Two people on either side were required to lift up a log using ropes connected through a pulley system. They opened the gate, and we went underneath, basically, and suddenly there was this clearing. A huge, solid gold monument stood in the center of the clearing, and all of these people like the ones that came and got us were standing around worshiping this god, I guess. They told us to pray to the monument, and so we did. And then suddenly there was this hella loud knocking sound, and I woke up.

My grandpa was knocking on my door.

But yeah. I don't know about my dreams. What surprises me the most, though, is that I can always seem to remember them really clearly.

Down in Flames

2009-07-17T03:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, so now I'm kind of mad. I've been playing Tribal Wars for quite awhile now. I've already lost a village (that was a long time ago), and so I tried a new strategy. Build up my forces and resources early so I can hold out against enemies later on. Well, this one guy named RadChem who is significantly more powerful than I (seriously, I didn't stand a chance) decided that he was going to obliterate New Venezia (my village). So now I'm left with a smaller village that's half as strong and my tribe prettymuch flat out refused to help me. I attempted to reason with RadChem, but that was no good either.

But anyway, I'm sad that I lost New Venezia. I've been working on that village for months now. Once I foresaw the downfall of New Venezia, though, I decided to start a new village in World 40, named Aeros. It's still in its early stages, but I'm working on putting together a tribe composed of the villages all around me. That way, the tribe can offer protection instead of saying "Sorry. You're 153 hours away.".

The title of this blog of course refers to the wonderful song by Reel Big Fish. One of my favorite RBF songs.

Oh, and you may have noticed the change of skin in this blog. That would be because of my newfound preference for bright colors. I've been wearing light green, light blue, etc., etc. lately. And I just like seeing such colors.

Which reminds me of a sweet idea I thought of earlier. When I have my own home, I'm going to paint all of the walls white with neon colors around the bottom part of the wall. That's a pretty poor explanation. Something like the walls in Mirror's Edge. Only not red. Probably lime green. Actually, the halls will be green, I'll have a red room, a blue room, an orange room, things like that. I'll have to refine the idea, but that's my plan. It's going to be absolutely awesome.

Oh, and I got another new pair of shoes. I wouldn't normally buy two pairs of shoes in such a short amount of time, but I saw the grip on the bottom of these, and I had to buy them. They were only $20 anyway. Starter brand. I'll have to post a picture.

You wouldn't even believe that grip. I can't wait to go running at WSU when I get back to Wash. Ethan, you'd better be ready. Eat lots of bananas and drink lots of Powerade, or else you'll never be able to keep up with me.

Although I do have a slight problem with these shoes. They don't quite offer as much padding as the green ones. I'm thinking I should wear a green one on the right foot and a red one on the left foot. I climb left foot first and land primarily on my right. See the logic there?

So, I saw two amazing movies today that I definitely recommend to anybody and everybody.

The first would be Knowing, with Nicholas Cage. Although I didn't really care for the way it ended, it was still a very good movie. Quite suspenseful. And the disaster scenes were very well done. I was highly impressed.

Next was Push. It was way better than Knowing, in my opinion. The special effects were great, and the system of skills was well thought-out. I liked the fights between the two "movers". I like when the main guy combined his power with punches to the face. It looked totally sweet. This movie is one of those that's right up there with Jumper. Actually, I think I'm going to watch Jumper tomorrow. I'm craving sweet special effects now.

Only two days!!! I'm so excited it isn't even funny. I'm teeming with energy and I'll be so happy to be home, see my cat, see Aunt Karla and Uncle George, watch the last two episodes of Robin Hood, play my guitar, use my desktop, run around town, hang out with Ethan, hang out with Zack, hang out with Joel, hang out with Cainan, hang out with Dylan, hang out with Shauna, hang out with Antonia, hang out with... Ricky, hang out with... I dunno. Probably even more people. And these are people that I know will keep plans as long as plans are made.

And, it's not as hot there!! Yay for moderately warm climate! And my Caprice. *drools* I can't wait to drive my Caprice again. I miss my baby.

Oh, here's an interesting fact about Globe. It needs to be in a freakin' Fast and Furious movie. Seriously, EVERYBODY here is a speed demon. Everyone's always racing, revving their motors, trying to get around you. The road rage is crazy. Just driving into town is like playing Need for Speed or something.

Well, I'm probably going to go to bed. I'll catch ya later. :)

Neglect

2009-07-16T03:27:00.001-07:00

I know, I'm not blogging as much as I should. But I've had a lot of stuff going on, and because of that, I have a lot to blog about!

First thing I'd like to share is the following video.

See, this is the kind of thing that I want to do. Get a group of friends and go out there and do parkour. Find lines, gaps, walls, things like that. Get a different perspective from everybody. So far I only know one person who's into this, but I'm going to try to find more.

Here's a story. Damion, Elizabeth, and I were at Chris's house. Damion and I wanted to hit this fence near the high school (there is a waist-high fence then a dropoff). So, we went on over there and checked it out. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I mean, I know it would be easy, but it looks big when you're standing there, and I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Anyway, so we headed on up to one of the other buildings, and this is where we found this awesome setup. Basically, it was an air conditioner, a four foot jump, a seven foot climb, and then three more feet to the roof. All in all, about seven seconds. Previously, the only plausible way to the roof was to stand on Chris's back to climb up on a metal box and jump to the roof. Anyway, that was totally awesome. We messed around with that area until just after dark.

After that, we headed back to Chris's house, and Elizabeth left at one point. I can't really remember anything around that time because I was absorbed in the internet for awhile. But after she left, Damion and I went out and built a half-pipe. We dug out the shape of it in the dirt and then laid this really hard mat over it, and BAM! It was skateworthy.

Skateworthy goes right in there with -Extrasocial and -Precisify. I'm going to have my own dictionary pretty soon.

Anyway, Damion skated that for a bit, then I challenged him to a race. The terms were that we had to race from my car in front of Chris's house to the roof of the primary school gym. If he accepted my challenge, I was to tell him the answer to life, the universe, and everything. Because somehow he didn't already know it.

He accepted, and we raced. Across the road, over a large fence (bars, rather than chainlink), through the courtyard, up a wall, jump to the roof, jump across to the awning, jump to the other roof, then run around and the goal point is the last air conditioner on the roof. I won.

Why?

Because I had practiced with the wall more. Damion went around and climbed up the gate on the other side. I just climbed straight up the side. That wall was the deciding factor in the race.

So, we explored the school a bit, ran, jumped, climbed, etc. here and there. Then we went back and got a skateboard, then came back to the school and ran around a bit more. By about 4am, we were kind of tired and went back to Chris's house.

So then I said "You know what? We should go look for more buildings in Lordsburg." which is about a half hour away from where we were. And Damion agreed. Split decision, and we went at around 4:30. We got there, hit the skatepark, did some other stuff, and I paid over $6 for a Bacon, Egg, and Cheese McMuffin. Don't know how that happened. But then after some more physically taxing activity, we finally returned around 8am. I dropped Damion off and went home and went to bed.

Since then, I haven't done any parkour. It's the longest amount of time I've spent on the ground all at once in like six weeks. I need exercise. But anyway, I'm in Globe right now, and my flight back to Washington is on the 19th. I thought it was going to be Saturday, but as it turns out, it's going to be Sunday. That kind of sucks, because there was someone flying in from Vegas that I know on Roosterteeth that I was totally going to hang out with, but he's going to Yakima immediately after flying in, so I'll miss him because of this slight change in plans.

But I'm still glad to finally get back. It's going to be totally awesome.

Oh, and guess what? I'm going to college this fall. That's right. Another spontaneous decision from the Wayde man. I'm starting to like making random decisions, because they're turning out really well. Out of the blue decisions I've made lately that have paid off (now in convenient list form!):

- Buy new shoes. Excellent for parkour.
- Battlefield 1943. It's amazing. Play it.
- Go to college. Seriously, it's going to be awesome.
- Jump from the roof onto that metal box seven feet below. I fell, but it was worth it.
- Go to Lordsburg. It was fun. Last thing I did before leaving.

So yeah. I'm taking Japanese for sure, then two computer classes on which I'm currently undecided. I'm thinking web design and something else. That's three nights out of the week, 15 credit hours, paid in full by the VA. I win. Hardcore.

Okay, so I have another weird dream for your reading pleasure. This time, I wasn't a witch hunter, but it would have been quite beneficial if I had been.

So, I was with a big huge gang of runners. We were tearing up the high school. Apparently we were all pro. But then I lost my cell phone at one point, so I was running around looking for it. And suddenly this witch shows up. And she's also parkour-savvy. And so I was running from her, and still looking for my phone. Everyone else was hiding on the roof. And suddenly like ten more witches showed up.

And then I woke up.

Subject jump, I almost never get random friend requests on Roosterteeth, for which I am thankful. I've gotten four since I made this my profile pic.

I'm thinking the noobs were like "Holy crap, a girl on the internet!!". Tch. Everybody knows there's no such thing.

Actually, it's a screenshot from a screensaver/cool flash thing called Uniqulock. Essentially, it's just a clock that periodically shows a bunch of hot Japanese girls dancing. Also, there's catchy music. If you're on Roosterteeth, there's currently an avatar trend going on which is screenshots like this. You should get in on the action.

Anyway, I was listening to the Drunktank podcast, and I heard something interesting. Did you know that somebody has figured out a way to create a keylogger that works through the electrical socket on the wall? Apparently you only need a laser and a laptop with a soundcard. Insane, right? It doesn't seem like it would be able to log keystrokes on a laptop, though. Just because of the whole battery thing. Read the article and you'll see what I mean.

So I've played two amazing new games lately. Like, unbelievably amazing. The first and foremost is Battlefield 1943. Seriously, I can't think of a better multiplayer experience. It's right up there with the Halo games. With the wonderful flight simulation and the 24 player games, it's like one of the most epic things you'll ever play. Although there's one major thing that bugged me. Coral Sea. After all that hype about unlocking it, it's very mediocre. I dunno, maybe the buildup was just too much. If it had been there from the beginning, it probably would have been totally amazing.

The second game is Peggle. After buying BF1943, I had about 800 points left over, so I thought "Hell, why not get this Peggle that everyone's talking about?" and so I did. It's sooooo addictive. Like, if I had more time to play it, I'd be playing it right now. It's nice when I need a break from the stress of Battlefield, I can just quicklaunch right on over to Peggle in like two seconds.

Ooooh, I almost forgot something important. As of last night, I'm officially an Eagle Scout. Went to my board of review, and prettymuch passed with flying colors as far as I can tell. It was weird. I wasn't nervous at all. I was totally cool about it. I think it's from all of the building jumping. Once you've jumped from enough high places, nervousness just seems kind of pointless. Thus is why I'm going to ask this one girl out when I get back to Washington. Because she's absolutely beautiful and has the cutest voice and Ricky was flirting with her at Shauna's last party and I glared at him and it was funny even though I don't think he noticed. But we were talking, and she seems really, really cool. And apparently she likes nerdy guys like me. So I'm going to go for it. I figure I've got nothing to lose.

Alrighty, then, I think this is longwinded enough. I'm going to leave it at that and see you all next time. By the way, expect an epic video in the near future. I'll link here, obviously. Peace out, my friends. Peace out.

:D

Crazy Insane Dream

2009-06-30T16:26:00.001-07:00

I used to label myself as a vampire regularly, but I'm converting to witch hunter, because it's way cooler.

Alright, so in this dream, I was a witch hunter. I was walking through the forest with a bunch of other people and we were all dressed in black outfits and black coats, with sunglasses, like in the Matrix or something. Anyway, we reached this clearing and there was this altar with runes and whatnot, and this guy in red robes was casting a spell. We had been called in to deal with this guy, because his spell was apparently meant to bring on the apocalypse.

So, I stopped him using fire magic (because apparently I could use magic, too), and we all just kind of stood around. Job well done and whatnot. Well, my phone rang (this is all modern day, by the way) and it was one of our watchmen. Apparently, someone was in a stadium on the other side of the city casting a spell to bring back all of the people who have ever died in the Tri-Cities. Well, we got there just before it was complete, and I started an incantation, but I tripped over my words and his spell went through, and all of a sudden, there were skeletons with spears running around all over the place.

Before I knew what hit me, I was running around and fighting skeletons. I had a handgun in my right hand and a sword in my left, and I was totally kicking ass. I ducked into a hole for a break, and one guy next to me said "I don't think we should be killing these skeletons."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I just saw one that's starting to regrow its organs." And so I peaked out, and by that time, they were developing flesh, and even clothes. And within seconds, they were just normal people. It's like they were brought completely back to life.

I saw this one guy I know, named Levi. He's not even dead in the real world, but apparently he was in this dream, because he was brought back. I said hello to him and he just kind of growled. Apparently he didn't like life or something.

Then I saw someone else I know, Petey Puckett. Some of you may know him. He's not dead either. But he was all friendly like "Hey, man! Long time no see! How's it going?"

And then, without warning, I wasn't there anymore. I was in a magic academy. I went to see the headmistress for whatever reason, and it turned out to be Maleficent. Or at least, that's who it looked like. She was angry at me (probably because I was a witch hunter. I remained the same person throughout the dream, which is unusual.) so she came after me. I took off out the open window and busted out some parkour. It was seriously Mirror's Edge style action escaping from her. Except there were also a bunch of proximity mines all over the walls and floors, so I was avoiding those. Finally, I reached the ground level, and after jumping over a fence, I looked back and the magic academy was gone.

Instead, the Duncan Elementary School was where I had just escaped from. Maleficent was still after me, though. Suddenly, Chris came flying up in his truck and picked me up, and we escaped. Apparently his truck is faster than Maleficent. Anyway, we stopped at some house in the deep south. I can't remember anybody's names, but there was an old man, and old woman, and two teenage boys. The family name was Fry. And their accents were so thick that you couldn't hardly understand them. But at one point, we all went into the basement because there was a tornado coming.

And then I woke up. And Joel, I think this beats any weird dream that you've had, unless you've had a better one since I last talked to you about dreams.

John in the Forest

2009-06-28T23:39:00.000-07:00

I guess I've been kind of neglecting this blog for the past couple of weeks, eh? Well, the thing is, I haven't really been online a lot. I've been doing things. Things like the following, for example.

Remember to rate, comment, and favorite. <3

Things that might actually matter

2009-06-16T19:22:00.001-07:00

So, I had to take my mom to the dentist in Lordsburg today. While I was sitting in the waiting room for what seemed like two hours (it may have only been one. I prettymuch lost all concept of time), I picked up a Time magazine and got some new insight into the world.

Normally, I don't really stay up to date on the whole politics thing. I hear about it here and there, but for the most part, I tend to be somewhat behind. For example, when I heard people talking about all of these stimulus packages and whatnot, I had no idea what the point was. I live with a pretty conservative family, so obviously I didn't get all of the details. All I heard was "Looks like Obama's throwing away more money.".

Well, from what I've seen, there's more to this stimulus thing than I've thought. The auto industry is expecting a huge boom in car sales by 2012, which makes perfect sense. Most of the cars out there are really old. On average, cars on the road in the United States are 7 years old. By 2012, all of these cars are going to be wearing down, and people will need to buy cars. But with the economy the way it is, companies like GM won't make it until 2012.

And that's where the stimulus comes in. And it's not like the money is being given away for free. There are certain conditions that need to be met, deals made, etc. That money is to keep the company from failing to reach that oasis of sales in the future.

Let's say that there were no stimulus packages. By 2012, the major US car companies would be long gone. People needing cars would suddenly be buying from foreign companies, because there would be no cars being made in the US. All of that money in car sales would be gone, and the recession would last even longer.

So that means that all of this money isn't just being "thrown away". Maybe there's some merit to these shenanigans after all, huh?

And in addition to the economy, I also learned something today about army recruiters. Did you know that they have a higher suicide rate than the rest of the army put together?

Apparently, recruiters have long work days (15-19 hours) and way too much stress put on them. They have to meet a quota of 2 recruits per month minimum. And if they don't, they risk their careers. They have to go out of their way and go to desperate lengths. For example, in order for marijuana users to pass drug tests, there have been cases where they've forced them to drink gallon after gallon of water to flush it out of their system. Bad records have been covered up, people have lied and deceived, etc.

Recruiters have to take somewhat unethical measures. And between that and what some of them have already been through while on tour, they just can't handle the torment. It gets to be too much and they can't take it.

What a world, huh? These things interest me. I think I might subscribe to Time. Keep more up to date with the world. Actually, I'd rather get the Wall Street Journal.

That's Scott. He's a dick.

2009-06-14T22:11:00.000-07:00

Sorry guys, but I'm using the same post that I just journaled on my Roosterteeth. After you read it, you'll probably understand why I'm not in any sort of mood to be creating a unique blog in addition to a Roosterteeth journal. This is something that needed to be in both though.

Warning: I swear a lot in this post. Because I'm as fucking pissed of as a God-damned son of a bitch-ass motherfucker. In hell. Damn it.

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

God damn it, I'm fairly infuriated at this predicament. But allow me to start from the beginning.

I got in to Globe, I dunno, like three days ago or something. But regardless, it was absolutely the most horrible trip of my life (and probably my mom's life, too). She was driving, rather than me (two days of manual experience isn't enough for such a journey), and she had to follow that fucking Budget truck the entire way, because we didn't know how to get there. My grandpa was driving the Budget truck, and he kept speeding up, slowing down, swerving, making last-minute decisions that we couldn't follow, the list goes on. Trying to follow that thing, she probably had at least 25 infractions just in Flagstaff alone. If she had been stopped, she would have been arrested. Not only is there a warrant for her arrest in the state of Arizona (long story, but it's not nearly as bad as it sounds), but we had an open bottle of something alcoholic (can't remember what it was) in the truck that we completely forgot about. I'm seriously surprised we made it alive.

Anyway, somebody had BORROWED my car, and they had yet to return it when we got here on... Friday? Thursday? Yeah, Thursday evening. We had been scheming to get here fast enough that we could get the hell out of Globe and go back to Duncan, but guess what. No car. No one told me of this or anything. Needless to say, we were pissed. But we rode it out, and got up as early as possible to get out.

We headed for Duncan, then everything was absolutely such a relief, you wouldn't even believe it. John (my mom's boyfriend) and I went and got the RV (which he had borrowed) and moved back into the yard that evening, and I slept better that night than I have in years. Because now (well, not like now as in RIGHT now. I'll get to that.) I'm finally free. No more bedtime, no more having to fucking call every hour so that Nan will know I haven't gotten hit by a meteor or something, I can prettymuch come and go as I please. The only rule is to put the toilet seat back down when I'm done and don't make the dogs bark if I come in in the middle of the night.

So, Saturday, I went to the pool, apparently "nothing" ever happened between Sarah and I, if you know what I mean, and then I hung out with everybody for the rest of the day. I was at Chris's house at about 1 this morning and Damion and I decided we were going to go freerun the elementary school nearby. It was totally awesome. We got to the top of one gym and back down, but when we went to the top of the other gym, I was too scared to make a jump (I jumped one way, but it was sloped and I felt like I was slipping when I tried the other way) so Damion had to go get a ladder so I could get down. [smiley4]

I went home and went to bed around 4:30. Then (and this next part was planned, by the way. It was just one of those things that you have to man up and take.) Chris called at 8 and asked if I was ready to go to Lordsburg to the skatepark. Of course, we went for it. Later that day, I was helping move a piece of a funbox, and I ripped my jeans right up the crotch, so I had to go find a Family Dollar, buy a pair of shorts that I didn't realize until later were too small (I wear 34 now, apparently [rather than 32]. I've gotten fat.) for 12 bucks, then drive back to the skatepark, and subsequently back home with Damion and his girlfriend making out in the back seat of my car.

That was today. At 6, I had to leave for Globe because there's apparently something we have to do in Phoenix (besides take the Budget truck back) tomorrow. That's where I am now. Globe.

But some asshole drove 10-15 miles under the speed limit all the way from Pima to San Carlos. When I tried to pass him, he sped up to 65-70-75-80-HOLYSHIT SEMI GET BACK IN OWN LANE. So I still didn't get to pass him because the motherfucker sped up. I tried again and he pulled the same shit. In case you can't tell, that really, really made me mad.

So now I'm in Globe and Nan is controlling my life again and said "if everything goes according to plan, you can go back tomorrow evening". And I told her "There is no 'if'. I'm going back tomorrow evening regardless of circumstances because I have things to do Tuesday morning. This is not optional. I have to go camping with a bunch of people and make an MvW-esque documentary about John and his survival skills. Which is going to be totally amazing.

Other plans include but are not limited to watching roughly six hours of anime with Jessica and taking mom to get new teeth (the old ones rotted out due to an unfortunate circumstance with a crappy-ass dentist.). And I have to stay at least until the 8th of next month because I don't want to miss Chris's birthday party. Then when I go back to WA, it seems that I'll have the same newfound freedom that I have in Duncan. Which is amazing because I was getting sick and tired of the whole "be back by 1" thing and the "honey, why don't you go to bed. It's late." thing.

I'm just pissed because I'd really rather be in Duncan than in Globe right now. That is the end of my rant. Thanks for listening.

Hey, I have a conundrum I need help with. There's this hot redhead that might or might not have STDs (multiple. She gets around.) and if she finds out that I'm in Arizona, I have a pretty decent chance of some "action". How should I handle this situation? Is there a way to test for this kind of thing? And don't say anything about "The Lemon Test" because that's a bunch of bull crap. It's been disproven. And use common sense. HIV, for example, wouldn't cause that kind of reaction anyway.

That's all I've got. Later dudes.

By the way, the title is a reference to the fact that there's only one road between Globe and Duncan. And I followed the only road. Twice.

Conflicting Ideals

2009-06-08T18:59:00.000-07:00

Up until very recently, as you know, Arizona has been my holy land. It's even gone beyond reality and is now an abstract concept that represents happiness. Or at least, it was. But something like that doesn't just go away. Even now that I've become a part of the world I live in now and don't want to leave it, it still radiates that feeling of wanting.

But now, the wish to remain here is equally powerful. I have friends here now, and the likelihood of success in the world is significantly higher here. And on top of all of that, a new factor has appeared on the battleground.

Normally, when I like a girl, it's like "Yeah. She's cute.". There's something there, but it's not really a noticeable change in everyday life. Maybe the occasional passing thought, or tripping over my words when I try to talk to her. But the other night, I met this one girl. And it didn't hit me immediately. I had talked to her before, but we didn't really know each other well. This was maybe the third time I saw her. But we talked a bit, told some jokes. She's pretty cool, you know.

Well, the next day, I went from the normal amount of attraction to "Holy shit, I can't think straight.". Just something about her. I don't even know how to describe it. And therefore, I won't.

But still, you know what I mean, right?

Anyway, I'm leaving for Arizona in two days, I believe. And a month... That's a really long time. I really wish I could talk to her again before that. But it sucks because I know that I probably can't.

Could this whole "vacation" thing be any more inconvenient? It'd be a stretch, but I guess it's possible. Maybe if Jesus was coming in a week to be my best friend or something.

X/ This is the first time I've ever experienced such a mixture of attraction and annoyance.

Graduation

2009-06-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow morning. How about that, huh? High school graduation.

Big deal... I've been trying to get out of going to the graduation ceremony for months. I just want my diploma. Walking up and shaking somebody's hand, then getting a little holder for my diploma seems kind of pointless. They aren't even technically giving out diplomas until Monday.

But yeah, practice was today, and it went okay. Nobody had any idea what they were supposed to do, so I was glad that I wasn't the only one totally lost. But once everything got organized together, we prettymuch figured it out.

And then, sometime soon after Monday, it looks like I'm headed for Arizona. I'm planning to do a series of blogs and vlogs documenting the trip. I'm totally going to kick ass. Partially because I'm significantly cooler than everyone else, and partially because I just kick ass in general. Hopefully the motels we stay at will have internet connections. I can't imagine going 2-3 days without the internet.

More Weird Dreams

2009-06-02T21:18:00.001-07:00

Alright, so I just need to stop sleeping. Period.

This was actually a recurring dream, except it was longer than the first time. It was, like, an extended director's cut or something.

I was in what seemed to be some dude's yard. He lived in a small trailer, and there was a bunch of junk laying around in the yard, like pieces of cars, and large metal objects and such. It was in the middle of the night, apparently, but the guy in the trailer was awake, and cooking some sort of soup, apparently. There was this girl with me, but I don't remember anything about her other than that. We were hiding in the yard. For some reason, we were running away from somewhere.

It was a mild temperature out, and I could hear a river somewhere in the distance. We were somewhere in a forest, and there was a dirt road that went by the house.

Suddenly, the guy came outside. He had a really kind expression on his face, and he was holding two bowls of soup. He was short, old, and chubby, and didn't give off any bad vibes at all. It was just some kind old man, giving two runaways some soup out of sympathy.

Then, there was an old Chevy pickup passing by. I guess this whole thing was happening about 60 years ago. It stopped for a minute, and we both went and jumped into the bed of the truck, just before it drove off. After the man's trailer was out of sight, there was nothing but forest for a long time. I don't remember myself or the girl talking, but there was an air of excitement. Then, we crossed over a stone bridge.

Out of nowhere, we turned a corner into a small town. There were a bunch of small buildings with a fountain in the center of the town square, and some houses around on the outskirts. The truck stopped next to one of the houses, and after the driver got out and left, we jumped out and headed north. That was where the road led.

And that's it. Weird business. I don't even know what the heck was going on or anything. This all happened, by the way, while I was taking a nap earlier today after school. I've got to quit sleeping during the day. I don't like it. I wake up feeling worse than when I fall asleep. Once again, it seems that sleep-related problems are prevailing over other problems I have to deal with. Such as...

ZOMIGOSH, finals tomorrow. I'll do fine, though, because of my insanely good memory. I'm not too worried. And besides, even if I get a zero on the history final, the worst grade I could possibly get is a 79%. Don't know about CWP, but whatever.

Man, this blog needs more viewers, but I don't know how to gain e-popularity. How do other people do it?

Weird dream

2009-06-01T23:47:00.000-07:00

I seriously slept for 5 hours today. I went to bed around 5 and just woke up about an hour ago. And I had a hella weird dream, too. For whatever reason, I drove all the way to Maine (in a shiny new Celica) to get Brian and bring him back to a party. And, like all of my friends on the internet and in both AZ and WA were there. The reason I had to go get Brian is because he was doing his whole "I'm not going." thing as usual. But anyway, we stopped at McDonalds on the way into the Tri-Cities, and Joel was there. And they got into an argument over the defining properties of prog rock. And I walked over and sat down next to Ricky, who was also there, and I was like "Sup, man?" and he replied "Oh, hey. How did that one thing go at Southridge?" and I was like "I didn't have anything to do at Southridge..." and he looked at me and he was like "Wait, you aren't Cody..." and I was like "And you aren't Ricky."

And it just turned out to be some dude that kind of looked like Ricky. And then I was at Home Depot doing something. Can't remember what. And everything in the world had a registry. Like, I could walk up to a garbage can and see the I.P. addresses of all the people who had used it. Weird as hell.

My word

2009-05-30T01:06:00.000-07:00

Main Entry: Extrasocial
Pronunciation: Eks-truh-so-shel
Function: Adjective
1 :Sexual

- "He was with her last night after the dance. It seems the two were having extrasocial relations."

This is my word. You may use it if you'd like.

Flip it, ninja!

2009-05-29T20:48:00.000-07:00

I think from now on, if I try to register for a forum or something and the username "Wayde" is taken, I'm going to use VVayde. Depending on the font, though.

So, I almost died today. Heatstroke is serious business. There was this inflatable maze race thing at Tri-Tech (spring social), and I went through it four times. This was in the middle of the day, by the way, and the only thing I'd had to drink all day was a large coffee from Dutch Bros.

But it was awesome, regardless, because in the third run, I did a frontflip through the air instead of sliding down the slide, then I landed at the bottom and had too much momentum, so I flew off of the end and rolled into the grass. It could have been worse, though. What if it had been concrete?

Anyway, after the fourth time, I was starting to feel dizzy, everything was going black, I felt like throwing up, etc. It was pretty harsh. But after I went inside and got a drink of water, I got better.

It was pretty sweet. But at the same time, it kind of sucks, because today was the last day of Tri-Tech. After two years, it's hard to believe it's over and done with. Hell, after 12 years, it's hard to believe school is over and done with. Next week is finals week, then that's the end. Crazy stuff.

So, I've got this paper that Mr. Garvey gave me. It's a study guide for final in WA History. But it might as well be made of solid gold, because if I don't give it back, I can't take the final, and therefore won't graduate. And also, it can't be written on, creased, torn, stained, or anything. It has to be returned in perfect condition. So it's practically like holding my future in my hands. Creepy.

Tomorrow, I might go do some serious freerunning with Ethan. We get a kick out of that kind of thing, in case you hadn't noticed. I'll make sure to be thoroughly hydrated beforehand, though. And rest often.

So, Phillip DeFranco (Youtube news guy. You've probably heard of him.) is going around the country meeting people, and I hope to see if I can catch him in Portland on the 12th. That would be pretty sweet. The timing is horrible, though, because while he's coming in this direction, I'll be going the other direction. Because that's roughly the time we're going to AZ.

That's all for today. I'm going back to playing racing games.

Eighteen, huh?

2009-05-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I don't feel any different than I did yesterday. Although I guess I do feel a bit more legit. There's really not much that you can do after you're 18 that you couldn't do before. Nothing I'm particularly interested in anyway.

But it was a good birthday. Got some money, had biscuits and gravy for breakfast, opened up a savings account, had some spaghetti and meatballs for supper and busted out some serious pie & ice cream action to follow it up.

But more importantly, man, my allergies have been driving me absolutely insane for the past few days. We've got these Russian olives blooming all around the house, and it happens to be one of the top three things I'm allergic to, coincidentally. But every day is a vortex of pain, misery, sniffling, etc.

This whole Twitter thing is as convenient as everybody says. I just wish I had more followers. Of course, I'm sure everybody's like that. Especially when they have very few followers.

So, I've seen five movies since Saturday, which is weird because I normally don't watch very many movies at all. First, I watched Duel by Stephen Spielberg. That was totally epic. I saw it because my TV Production teacher showed a clip from it in class, and I just had to see the rest. I kind of want to make a reference to it or something during a video sometime in the future. Like, have a completely unrelated scene where two guys are walking down the highway in the desert, and suddenly an orange car and a brown semi come flying by. It'd just be really cool.

Second, I saw Sky Crawlers. That was sooooooo slow. It was like watching paint dry. About an hour in, I had to pause it and take a nap. Then, since napping during the day doesn't really work for me (I just drift in and out of consciousness for the duration of the "nap?), after "falling asleep" about 9 times throughout the next hour, it completely mangled the storyline in my memory, so I had even less trouble following it.

Then, I watched Mall Cop. That was hilarious. Especially the part when he comes out of the ball pit on the segway. I laughed so hard.

Then, I watched "The Lost Samaritan". Don't know what to say about that one. I mean, it was interesting. I'd recommend it. But it wasn't necessarily anything special. It was also kind of weird, and the story was a bit generic. But it was worth watching.

Finally, I saw Valkyrie today. That was simply amazing. I was hooked from the very beginning of the movie. Definitely one I'd recommend.

Oh, by the way, the first episode of the show is up. I forgot to mention that. Just do a Google search for Vidiacast. I'm too lazy to link it. But I'd say it turned out pretty well for a first try. And theoretically, it should get better next time, and even better the time after that, and so on.

Ethan showed it to me before he posted it on Sunday night. Then, we decided we were going to film a chase scene, and headed over to WSU, which is conveniently located like 2 minutes away from the studio. So, a college campus at 11 P.M. is a pretty amazing thing, especially when there's a bunch of stuff to freerun all over. At least, it is until you accidentally try to freerun through a rosebush. Hey, it was dark, alright? I accidentally told Ethan "Okay, go up those stairs, over that planter, over that railing, and up the rest of the stairs.".

Alright, with that, I'm out. Gotta get some sleep so I don't fall asleep in class again tomorrow.

The Passage of Time

2009-05-25T11:54:00.000-07:00

You know, I really like staying out at night rather than staying out during the day. Because in the day, it's like "Oh, it's dark. Oh, well now it's light. Whoops, getting dark again."

But at night, it's light, then dark, then light again. And for some reason, the sunrise is just inspiring or something. Because when you stay up all night, it's like your creating a bond between two days.

When you go to sleep, you create a gap from one day to the next in your memory. But when you stay awake, the passage of time doesn't seem to matter anymore. Two days become one long day. The past and the present are connected by an invisible bond.

When you don't sleep, you never "run out of time". There's no need to "call it a day". If you're doing something important and it starts to get late, you can just keep on going with it. Things get done. Satisfaction comes faster. Imagine how fast the world would advance if humans could eliminate the need for sleep entirely.

That's another reason I don't like to sleep. The first, of course, would be that I'm afraid to sleep because I might have another dream where I realize I'm dreaming.

So now I'm wondering. Is there a way to avoid sleep entirely without doing major damage to my body?

The Bandwagon

2009-05-23T23:09:00.000-07:00

Alright, so I finally got a twitter account.

Also, I just accidentally posted this before it was finished. Lol.

I haven't posted in a few days, but now I have something of interest. First off, Zack asked me to make him a song with a lot of bass in it so he could listen to it in his car. I came up with a song that I like to call Epic Win for obvious reasons. It's just so damn catchy and it sounds great in my car, which actually has pretty crappy bass. So my question is... How would it sound in Zack's car? Or better yet, Ricky's car? I need some subs. That's what I need.

So, we finally got the show filmed on Friday. I don't know what's going on with that right this second, but the first ep should theoretically be up soon. It was weird, because normally we don't get anything done at all, and then Zack and I invited Ricky (who seems worse about doing work than everybody else put together), and like as soon as he got there, even though he never did anything at all, we all buckled down and got it done. Maybe he's like our mascot or something. Or comedic relief.

Speaking of Ricky, earlier that day, we went to value village and picked him out a suit. Because we're becoming some sort of suit cult or something. But anyway, the jacket is gold and mildly shiny, while the pants are grey and also mildly shiny. Ricky pulls it off, man. It looks totally dope. If me, Zack, Ethan, and Ricky were standing in the mall wearing our suits, girls would probably talk to Ricky first. That's how dope it is.

So, it's Sunday, and I'm turning 18 on Wednesday. Isn't that freakin' sweet? Most people would be like "Man, I can move out!" or "Man, I can buy tobacco and lottery tickets." or "Man, I can go to strip clubs!". Apparently most people begin all of their sentences with "Man,". But anyway, for me it's like "Man, I can start making money off of the internet because I can get a bank account!". How nerdy... But hey, I'm working toward a black Celica GTS. And my goal is to get it by the end of the year. Think I can do it? It's going to be tough, but I'm going for it.

Anyway, that's all that really mattered to me this Sunday, May 24th, 2009. My name's Philip DeFranco and... Wait, no it isn't...

Conditioner

2009-05-20T21:10:00.000-07:00

I have weird thoughts. Like, randomly weird things just pop into my head. For example, I was in the shower earlier and I picked up the bottle of conditioner that I haven't actually tried yet, and this is what I was thinking:

"I'm always worried when I use new things on my hair. Seriously. What if it makes all of my hair fall out? What if I have an allergic reaction and start breaking out in hives? What if I can't get it all to rinse out? What if somebody at the company decided to play a prank and there isn't actually conditioner in here?

What if using this starts some weird chain reaction that eventually results in the death of me or someone close to me?

What if using this conditioner is part of a very specific code that's been entering from my life into an invisible command prompt since I was born, and that code will ultimately lead to something horrible?

What if using this causes the Matrix to shut down and we're all force-ejected from the system? The economy is already bad. The last thing we need is to be fighting against a bunch of robots."

My hair feels great, by the way. Guess all that worrying was for nothing.

Okay, so here's something weird. I'm getting mixed signals from my history teacher. Sometimes he's really cool, and sometimes he seems like a complete jerk.

For example, I wouldn't have had to take the final if I had perfect attendance all year, but apparently in this specific case, having a Tri-Tech field trip counts against me. So since I was gone for two field trips, I have to take the final. That's BS.

But, today I took in the Lewis and Clark Documentary soundtrack that I got off of Amazon awhile back to ask him if he wanted a copy. He said yes, then wrote me a check for $10 for letting him copy it. That's just really cool for some reason. But that leaves the question: is he cool or is he an asshole?

Don't say both. There's no such thing as an asshole who is also cool.

I just don't get it. But, no need to over-think it. I over-think too many things.

Here's something interesting. Have you ever been in a dream, then figured out it was a dream? One of two things happens.

1. You're in a dream. You can do whatever you want.
2. You instantly wake up.

Not me. It's really bad when I figure out that I'm in a dream. Imagine yourself falling at terminal velocity and spinning around in circles really fast. Now imagine that there's a mess of debris around you, random things flying around, broken glass, and everything's really dark. Like almost pitch black. That's what happens when I realize I'm in a dream.

I don't know why it happens. My aunt suggested that since I think so hard about everything, that's just what the inside of my head looks like, and when I realize everything is fake, I don't see the fake stuff anymore.

But so far, it's happened twice. Both times under the same conditions. From now on, if I find myself chased by a killer, or attacked by demons, or overcome with darkness, I'll be hoping like hell that it's real, because if it's a dream, it'll be much worse. X/

Anyway, I'm beginning to wonder about the real world lately. It's being overtaken by the web. I have a prime example of the damage that's been done to the world's social experience by the internet. Like a year ago, this guy named Donovan added me as a friend on MySpace. I never accept random friend requests normally, but since this guy was from Kennewick, I figured I'd go for it. Neither of us has sent the other one a message. Ever. We haven't even acknowledged each others' existence.

Yesterday, I was looking for someone on MySpace, but apparently she didn't use her real name when she signed up, so I couldn't find her. She's in my 3rd hour CWP class. I thought about it, and I was like "Wait... She's friends with Donovan in real life. Maybe she's on his MySpace friends.". So I searched for the name Donovan in Kennewick.

So as it turns out, the Donovan I'm friends with on MySpace, and the Donovan in my 3rd hour government/CWP class: same Donovan. I had no idea. I bet he doesn't know either, because he has like 800 friends. I just find that interesting that I haven't ever talked to him in real life or on MySpace, but we're friends. I wonder how many other people in the world are like that? Like, let's say you walk down the street in a city. It's possible that half of the people you see, you know, but you don't know it.

Anyway, that's it.

Filler

2009-05-19T20:35:00.000-07:00

Nothing eventful today. Therefore, I shall post the first chapter of the infamous story. I haven't really come up with a decent name, though. We'll start with a prologue and chapter one.

Prologue

The sun had just peaked the hilltops in the distance as the birds began to chirp and the crisp air of morning came about, only to linger for upwards of an hour then to again turn to the humid atmosphere of the day. As the early light shone on the leaves, they seemed to reflect a green glow that illuminated the forest. The sparkling water of the river ran from a large spring at the highest point on the mountain and crashed down in the form of a large waterfall, continuing into the grassy plain at the base of the mountain. The most notable aspect of the waterfall was the tree, gigantic even by tree standards, that towered to a point halfway up the fall. It's large branches held a variety of creatures, including even a sixteen-year-old boy who enjoyed relaxing while listening to the water impact with the rocks below.

As one could plainly see from the seemingly unreachable place he had chosen to relax within the branches of the tree, this was no ordinary boy, though it would seem to be the contrary at first glance. His attire consisted of a plain white button-up shirt, reasonably baggy black slacks, and brown hiking boots of a generic store brand. He had a longsword on his belt and his hair was light brown, falling just beyond his shoulders. His brown eyes were as sharp as those of a cat, though he had a look of complete peace and serenity as he rested with his hands behind his head, staring dreamily into the sky.

Beyond that bright blue ocean above were thousands of other planets colonized by humans. His planet, Ultalimia, was only one of many. Even this galaxy was adjacent to the Milky Way. Humans had advanced a long way by this time, yet people often tended to live by more traditional means. For example, this boy lived in a simple two story house with all of the luxuries you'd expect to find in the late 21st century, despite the technological discoveries that rendered the majority of these things obsolete. Even in the village, people traveled by foot, or sometimes by car. An airship was something no one even bothered to buy.

Even the people themselves did not know why they chose to live this way, combining random aspects of both the distant past and the distant future. It was just the way they lived. Humans could exist in whatever way they chose in this world without war, without poverty. War was done away with soon after the space age began, when people decided that their biggest problem was religion and they should all simply agree not to try and force their beliefs on others. That was the first sign of evolution, when people could overcome petty quarrels to work toward a bigger goal, which was the journey into the great unknown.

The original world of humans, Earth, was nearly uninhabitable. What was once a beautiful blue planet was now a wasteland void of nearly every drop of water it once had. Though some people still lived there, it was generally not by choice. There were a few prisons on Earth, being an ideal place for them seeing as it was impossible to escape. They did not even require large facilities, fences, or walls. Few were dumb enough to try and run away into quite literally endless desert that spanned the entirety of the world.

But regardless of the state of a world that once was and is no more, many more planets stood strong to take it's place. This was one such planet, where the boy still sat on his favorite tree branch, listening to the waterfall, gazing at the clouds. As his mind began to return to the present time, his thoughts focused on what he had to do during the day. His first chore was to travel to the next town and retrieve some groceries that could not be found in Benzanue Village. It was a long walk, but he did not mind the exercise and he might even have a good fight along the way.

That was another of his hobbies. He enjoyed the thrill of battle though it was not one of the things he would often experience. The Fields of Irisia south of the mountain were once filled with monsters that would provide an excellent challenge, but the population seemed to get thinner by the day. These days, he would be lucky to see a field mouse during the day's venture to Kirseli, the mining town in the mountains to the south.

Many would think it an unsafe practice to take nothing but a sword and the clothing on your back to battle scores of monsters at a time, but those people did not know Wayde, nor did they know the nature of this unnamed galaxy bordering the Milky Way. For any average human, fighting the monsters in this world would be utter suicide. But for one who can control the elements, particularly the wind in this boy's case, it was child's play.

With that, we meet our hero, Wayde Ultima, the swordsman who can create hurricanes with a mere thought. He is the first and foremost of the people we will come to know and love as we follow the adventures of this young man. He is Wayde Ultima, and this is his story.

Chapter 1: Proving Grounds

Leaves rustled in the breeze as Wayde walked solemnly through the forest path, following the river southward and toward the main pathway leading between Kirseli and Benzanue. He had grown up wandering this forest, and could navigate it with his eyes closed if such was necessary, though the action seemed as though it would be quite pointless. As he trudged onward, he wondered if he had spent too much time in the forest, and not enough attempting to acquire a social life. Though people admired and respected him in public, he didn't care to talk to anyone for any extended period of time, be it because he was conceited, humble, or otherwise.

The path soon revealed itself beneath the fallen leaves and shrubbery. A number of stones were imbedded into the ground to form a somewhat solid surface. Wayde wondered if this was done by man or machine. Regardless, it was an expertly crafted trail and had withstood many years, having been created long before Wayde could remember. His boots quietly thumped against the stones as the mountain's edge slowly came into view.

Light flooded his vision and it took his eyes a moment to adjust as he walked out into the open, near the edge of the great stone stairway that led down the side of the mountain. It was impractical, but it was a sight to behold. Each step was carved right out of the side of the mountain and Wayde estimated that the staircase was roughly thirty feet wide, dropping an altitude of three-thousand feet. He began his descent, looking out over the green glow of the fields below that extended beyond the horizon. The occasional tree or shrub decorated the plains, and even a traveler or two could be seen wandering the plains, some with a given destination and others without.

Step by step, each brought him nearer to his destination, just as every second of life brings one closer to heaven. Heaven was one thing he firmly believed in, though it had no concrete evidence of it's existence. He believed that a soul would find peace in the afterlife no matter what, and he also knew that death was not the end of everything, but more of a new beginning. Once, he feared death, but he realized in his early teen years that a life in fear of death was not a life at all. The best thing he could do was live while he still could, and never regret things that happened in the past, for they could not be undone.

Sunlight shone down on him from above as he reached the base of the mountain that morning. He turned and looked back upon the stairs, wiping the sweat from his brow in the heat. Going down the stairs was a chore. Going back up them was nearly impossible. He continued southward through the fields, wondering if he should steal a horse from a traveler that happened to be passing by. Deciding this was not the greatest of ideas, he walked on.

By noon, Wayde was entering the dreary mountain pass that followed the fields. his journey had gone unchallenged, to his disappointment, and he was getting a little bored as he saw the first house on the way into the town of Kirseli. He rounded a corner and the town, having only a single road running through the center, presented itself. Stands were set up along the sides of the street, selling everything from necessities such as food and drink to trinkets and jewelry. Wayde's list of items to get consisted of five things: Kyraidian chili (imported from Kyraid, the third planet in the system), a few artichokes for dinner, some rare seasoning salts, a jar of Irisian honey, and a pound of ginseng.

He searched among the shops, knowing that nearly ever item would be sold elsewhere than the last, and finally, among the passerby, he spotted the man selling a variety of chili. He approached the counter and browsed the goods, seeing Irisian peppers, rare Clausian chili (which was nearly impossible to retrieve from the hostile planet at the edge of the system), and even one whose name he couldn't pronounce, coming all the way from somewhere in the Milky Way. Not seeing his desired product, he inquired to the man behind the counter.

"Excuse me, do you have any Kyraidian chili?" Wayde continued to search as he spoke.

"Nah, haven't had a shipment in some time. I believe that stand right over there has a few left, though. You might try asking." The man pointed to a small, home-made stand just down the road. Wayde thanked him and departed for the stand he was directed toward, taking care to avoid a passing traveler who was obviously carrying more than he could handle. The pack on his shoulders was more than enough of a load already, but added with two satchels, three bags of grain, and a single, large roll of straw, he was packing enough supplies to nourish twenty people for a fortnight.

Wayde approached the chili stand with high hopes, but to his disappointment, the owner had just sold the last of his Kyradian chili to an old man who had came in all the way from Skylanos, the city to the east, just for that particular product. Wayde sighed, pulled the shopping list out of his pocket, and crossed out Kyraidian chili. His next objective was to get some artichokes, which were by far his favorite food. He noticed a farmer's market in the distance and made it his next destination.

As he traveled through town, he noticed that clouds were starting to form in the sky above. He could not recall any recent rainfall in Benzanue Village, at least not since the early spring. Now, it was late in June, and the sun had been shining with little or no cloud cover all summer. Though the air was moderately humid (nowhere in Irisia was more than one-hundred miles away from the ocean), precipitation was not common during the summer. Some people credited this to the spirits of the sky, and others said that the planet's tilt caused the sun to dry all of the moisture up (even though that argument didn't make any sense, because such a thing would make it rain more, in theory). Wayde didn't believe in either of these arguments. To him, everything that happened was just coincedence.

The farmer's market contained a variety of goods, including ginseng, artichokes, and the seasoning salts on the list. Wayde was quite pleased that he managed to find three things in one place, despite the fact that they were horridly overpriced. He smiled as he walked out from under the awning and looked around for a place to buy honey, shielding his eyes against the clouded yet still bright sky. Next to the market was an overweight fellow selling all sorts of jellies and jams. Quite the oxymoron, Wayde thought to himself as he browsed the selection, searching for honey. Unable to find the desired product, he asked the man.

"Irisian honey? If you want something like that, you're going to have to get it yourself. Ever since the miners began to work near the Beehive cave to the northeast, those vermin have been in an uproar. It's impossible to get." The man had an angry tone to his voice. Wayde could only guess that Irisian honey was a best-seller in particular and the inability to get it was hurting business.

Unfortunately, Wayde had no choice in the matter. His mom's two favorite things in the world were, of course, Kyradian chili and Irisian honey. If he returned home with neither, there would be hell to pay. The problem with the situation? Collecting honey from Irisian bees was no walk in the park. First of all, these particular bees were already angry because of the disturbance caused by nearby mining. Second of all, Irisian bees were as big as wild boar and their hives spanned the entire inside of the cave they had chosen to reside in.

Wayde reluctantly traveled northeast, out of town, weighing his options. Which would he rather fight, a swarm of giant bees or his mother? The choice was obvious as he crested the hill that looked down over the entrance to the cave. He shook his head and began to make his way down the hillside. As he approached the cave, the sun shone from behind the clouds for a brief moment, revealing a hideous mass within the darkness, then went back into cover. Wayde cringed at what he had seen.

He hesitantly walked down into the darkness and lit his light crystal, illuminating the entirety of the situation. Light crystals were an energy efficient replacement for flashlights. They could charge up days worth of light energy by being in the sunlight for a few hours. In this case, though, Wayde wished he didn't have to see what he was dealing with. He saw before him a yellow and black wall of mush with a blank spot in the middle and hexagonal shaped openings around the edges. Each opening was at least three feet in diameter, and there was a faint hum echoing softly from inside.

Wayde drew his sword and, with a quick downward swing, he sliced open the wall and viewed the inside, a shiver running down his spine. Thousands, if not millions, of insects were crawling about along the walls and ceiling. Small pockets of honey lined the walls and the insides of the hive molded to the walls as passages descended deeper into the ground. The bees didn't seem to notice Wayde as he slowly entered the hive, his feet squishing into the soft floor. A low buzz was radiating from somewhere deep within the cavernous dwelling.

The overly sweet smell of honey burned Wayde's nostrils as he made his way through the crowd of bees, taking care not to aggravate any of them. He approached a decent looking honey pouch hanging from the wall and began to dig in, filling a number of jars he had gotten from the market. After screwing the lid onto the fifth jar and tucking it away withing his satchel, he was quite pleased as he began to take careful steps back toward the opening he had created. Just two more steps to go and I'll be out of this dreadful place, he thought, taking a final step and setting his left foot forward on solid ground.

An explosion sounded from somewhere nearby, rattling the cave and stirring up the bees, and just as Wayde began to pull himself out of the nest, the ground collapsed beneath him and he plunged into the dark depths of the cave. With a dull thud, he hit the floor of the cave. He groaned as he slowly raised up, gathering his wits about him. He had landed flat on his back and he could already tell that it was going to leave a number of bruises.

Wayde stood up and re-lit his light crystal, which had gone out with the impact of the ground. Luckily, the things were nearly indestructable and came in the convinient form of necklaces. He looked around and saw that in the damp depths of this part of the cave, there was no beehive. Either they hadn't gotten this far down yet, or they hadn't bothered. He walked forward and into a passageway, unable to get back up through the hole through which he had dropped in the first place. There was no sense in standing around waiting to be found. No one knew he was up in the mountains and his phone wouldn't get any reception in a cave.

As he strolled casually through the tunnels, he noticed the quiet sound of running water up ahead. As he got closer, the air began to get more humid. Finally, he walked over to the edge of a large chasm and looked down. Surely enough, there was a large underground river at the bottom, likely about six feet deep and twenty feet wide. There were rumors of underground springs up in these mountains, but no one ever actually had proven that they existed. This river made it obvious enough that they were there, indeed.

Wayde descended to the water's edge and looked upstream, then downstream, wondering which would be more likely to lead outside. Just as he was about to head downstream, he heard a foreign noise among the echoes of the water. Holding his light crystal above his head and illuminating the ceiling revealed a horrifying sight indeed.

The entire ceiling of the cave was covered with a nest of Irisian wasps. These wasps tended to live near the bees and feed off of their honey, so it was no suprise that they were here. The only problem was that they were ludicrously aggressive and the slightest irritation would set them off. Wayde felt a chill as he thought of the horror stories of these insects, or rather, beasts. At least twice the size of Irisian bees, they injected a poison that caused your body to inflate and explode when they stung you.

Wayde slowly moved toward the downstream exit, grateful for the fact that they hadn't attacked him climing down the wall. He was getting an itchy feeling all over his body, commonly experienced by people with entomophobia or the like. Every inch of his body itched, and he was getting a very bad feeling that something was going to happen. His mind went back to that earlier explosion. What had that been all about? He seemed to recall something about the bees being aggravated lately due to mining nearby.

"Oh crap." Wayde said out loud, and as if someone behind a curtain had been waiting to act upon his realization, another explosion shook the cavern, sending the entire situation into a chaotic mess. The wasps, who had likely seen him but hadn't thought him a threat until this point, swarmed toward him. Acting completely on impulse, Wayde jumped into the river was startled by the powerful undercurrent that sent him rushing into the darkness.

Re-lighting his crystal a third time, he struggled to stay above the water as he glanced back, only to see the determined wasps following quickly and closely. The freezing water rushed past him as he choked for air, now worried about drowning, rather than the wasps. He suddenly felt a sharp pain in his back as he collided with a stalagmite that hadn't been completely eroded yet. It would've hurt more if his body hadn't already been numbed by the cold. He let out a grunt as he forced his body to the side so it could again be picked up by the current. He would have more than just back pain if the wasps caught up to him.

As if his problems weren't enough, a third explosion compromised the structural integrity of the passage, causing the cave itself to begin collapsing. This double-edged event picked off wasps with large rocks that fell from the ceiling, but it was also a bother to Wayde, because he didn't even know if the river would lead outside. The cavern shook and rumbled as boulders splashed into the water below, but even this noise wasn't enough to completely stifle the sound of wasp's wings beating against the air.

To Wayde's dismay, the river ended in a waterfall that poured into a gigantic room with water around the sides and a dry floor in the center. In the middle of the room was a black and yellow organism, much resembling a wasp, only much larger. Around the walls and on the ceiling, there were thousands of large nests that were completely full of unborn wasps. Unfortunately, this was about the time of year that they were due, and this only added to Wayde's problems.

For the sake of understanding, let's riff a short list, shall we? First of all, Wayde was surrounded by deadly wasps that could make his body explode with a single sting. Second, he was in a collapsing cave, and laying on the floor after a not-so-graceful fall from a waterfall. Third, he was shivering, nearly to the point of having frostbite. Fourth, the thousands of baby wasps in the nests could hatch at any time. It could be a week, a month, or even a few seconds.

Finally, peering down at Wayde from it's tiny little eyes was a king wasp the size of an elephant. Irisian wasps had a sort of heirarchy, if you will, similar to that of the bees. Instead of a queen bee, though, there was a single wasp in the nest that grew abnormally large every year, and when it would reach full size, it would contest the current king for its place as the leader. Whichever wasp won, obviously, would claim or keep the throne. The wasp throne.

Wayde slowly climbed to his feet and pulled his sword from it's sheath. His entire body was shaking, and the insects were closing in around him, so he really had no other option than to fight the king wasp. I mean, come on. What would you do?

"Alright, then..." Wayde could barely stand. His back was killing him and he was suprised he didn't break any bones or sever his spine. The wasp walked toward him, it's giant wings occasionally twitching, then it jumped at him.

He dodged to the side, barely avoiding the stinger. Even if it had gotten to him, he would have been impaled and equally dead, with or without the poison. The beast landed on the ground with a loud thump, then it angrily turned and lunged at him again. For such a fat monster, it was quick. Wayde was ready for it this time, for it's attacks lacked any creativity. He spun out of the way of the stinger and used the centrifugal force he created to slice right through it, cutting it about halfway down and causing poison to come spewing from the hole.

The king shreiked in agony, and Wayde jumped back, having expected more of a roar than a high pitched scream. Now, though, without the stinger to worry about, he charged toward the creature and used a rising cut to create a gash from its stomach right up it's chest and throuh it's skull. As if that wasn't enough, as the creature gurgled it's final breath, a chunk of the ceiling fell and crushed it flat, exposing the room to a beam of sunlight and a shaft that led straight to the surface. Now it was Wayde's time to shine.

The air inside a cave was hard to work with. It was stale, and there wasn't very much of it, and there wasn't very much room at all. But the outside air was a different story entirely, and Wayde knew it. He held his hands in the air as the swarm closed in around him, and the air began to shift. Soon, it was coming into the room around the edges of the shaft, going downward around the walls, and rushing upward and out through the center of the shaft. Wayde jumped into the air and rode the wind all the way up and out of the cave, blinded by the sunlight as he shot through the hole and into the open air.

He landed softly on the ground and stood, stretching his arms and scratching his head. He checked his pack and saw that every last jar of honey was still intact, so he smiled to himself and began his trek down the mountain, seeing that it was already early evening. The clouds had cleared and the sun was shining as he crossed the field, but he spun on his toe as he thought he heard a buzzing sound faintly behind him. He sighed and swatted a fly that was zipping around his head. Apparently the trauma from seeing this many bees and wasps in one place wouldn't wear off for some time. The sun fell below the horizon as Wayde began to ascend the stairs to Benzanue Village.

Wow, I just had to space out every paragraph. Apparently Blogger doesn't go for using tab to indent. Oh well. Feedback?

The Night Life (cont...)

2009-05-18T17:39:00.000-07:00

Alrighty then. So yesterday, we tried yet again to film the show. The show is called Vidiacs, and it was started by Ethan and Zack. Prettymuch every week, we try to get it off the ground, and not much happens with that. I feel like we're getting close, though. We've almost got it worked out.

It's basically a show where we have news in technology, video games, rumors, etc. The only problem is with us. Every time we try to film, it just kinda doesn't go anywhere. But maybe the nth time's the charm.

One plan was to go out and do some field stuff. Like free running. The idea was to go back to the skatepark during the day and have Ethan do his whole parkour thing in one line throughout the place, and film it. Then see the reactions of the people around there.

Most of the problem with that was that there were too many people for it to be comfortably accomplished. That, and the people who were hungrily watching Zack's car. Next time we go around a lot of people, I'm going to suggest we take my car. Because it's not nearly as appealing.

From there, we went to the skatepark in Richland, which was equally hostile, if not worse. Because there were actual skaters there. And those guys were a bunch of jerks. But regardless, we shot some semi-interesting footage there. And I ran around a bit, which was bad because today I've had sore muscles all day.

After that, I went home. I had to be home by ten.

Then today (ugh, Monday) school was murder. I almost didn't make it through third hour. I was barely awake. But I forced myself to stay awake, because I have a history of talking in my sleep, and I've been dreaming about some weird crap lately.

Tri-Tech was a bit more bearable. Because the environment is more laid back. Which doesn't make any sense, but whatever. After I got something to eat, I was a little more awake. I guess that was what did it. Which reminds me, I'm kind of hungry now.

I just woke up from a three-hour nap, by the way. I got home and completely crashed. I'm still tired, and I'll probably go to bed early tonight. That's what I get for staying out until 3 A.M., I guess.

Oh yeah, and I have to do a current event for history tomorrow. That is comprised of finding three different articles about one thing. One article has to be liberal, one has to be conservative, and the last has to be either moderate or international. Then I have to summarize and write my opinion about each. Fun...

The Night Life

2009-05-17T11:11:00.000-07:00

So, last night at around 8:00, I headed over to Burlington to hang out with some friends. After looking at suits none of us could afford, we headed on over to the mall, in which everything was closed.

Now, keep in mind that each time we went from one place to another, there was at least a half hour of speculation on where to go next right before that.

Zack was the only one without a jacket, so we went from the mall to his house, which was on the other end of the Tri-Cities. Well, almost. But regardless, it was a long way. The mall borders on being in Richland, and Zack lives in Burbank.

Anyway, After Zack was properly dressed, we headed on over to Ray's. We didn't go inside, though. By the time we got there, Besymer (Joel's band, which was the entire reason we went to Ray's) had already played. But we did see Joel (and embarrass him in front of his friends). Then we got bored. So we headed on over to the nearest gas station (on foot). Zack got some Reese's Cups, I got a bottle of Starbucks, and Ethan got... Well, nothing. He did royally piss off the guy behind the counter, though. He's good at being difficult.

From there we went back to our cars and just stood around for awhile. Then we somehow ended up playing pong with Zack's Celica GTS. He put it in neutral, then we pushed it back and forth for quite awhile. People in front of Ray's were like "WTF are they doing?"

Anyway, then we went back to the mall, and left mine and Ethan's cars there, and in Zack's car, we all went to WinCo. I looked like an idiot because for the past two years, I've thought you needed a membership to shop there. Apparently you don't. But Ethan was taking forever, so we went outside without him. Then Zack moved the car around to the side of the building and we watched as Ethan came outside and looked around, then headed for the sidewalk. We followed him, flying through the parking lot and pulling up next to where he was. When he saw us coming, he took off sprinting across the road and around behind a building. We followed.

As we went to pull into a parking lot behind a building, it was dark, and rather than pull up the little rampy thing, Zack drove right over the curb. Considering that this car is like four inches off of the ground, we both went flying out of the car to check on the front bumper. Luckily, it was an unusually low curb and there was no noticeable damage.

But anyway, we found Ethan and headed over to Columbia Park to the skatepark. As we were headed through the park, we were waved down by some chick. Apparently her and some guy had run out of gas. Well, we didn't have a gas can, nor did they. And we couldn't give them a ride, because we were "Just on our way home". So, we drove off.

First thing, I was terrified. The people we talked to were on my side of the car. Second, the guy looked like Gandalf. He had long gray hair and a huge beard. This was at like 1:00 AM, by the way. But yeah, we hoped they wouldn't come by the skatepark later. That could have been potentially hazardous.

We skated for a bit, but what was particularly interesting was Ethan's ability to freerun. Oh. My. God. First, he climbed up the fence and then jumped to the half pipe, which was about... I dunno. My armspan plus about two feet. That's the distance between the two. But anyway, he jumped over the railing on one of the quarter pipes and fell about 12 feet, then came running around the side.

This wasn't all in one combo, by the way. There were breaks in between.

He came down the half pipe, handplanted over the spine, then ran up the other half, jumped over the railing, spun in the air, and landed on a picnic table. That was one line.

Then, and here's the kicker. He came flying up onto the box, jumped over the fence (which was about 7 feet away), hit the ground (the total distance of the jump was about 15 feet), and rolled. It was insane how far he flew. This guy... He's amazing. It would be amazing to be able to do all of that. I don't think I'm physically able, though. I have to go to the chiropractor every two weeks. I used to have to go every week. Ever since an incident that involved me flying a kite and running my face into a mailbox at top speed, my whole spine has been kind of messed up.

But still, Ethan is crazy. He can do stationary backflips, continuous back handsprings, and I'm sure there's more I haven't seen. He should be a gymnast or something.

After Ethan was totally exhausted, he laid down in the middle of the road and Zack drove by him at like 65 miles an hour. Then, I stood on my skateboard and held onto his car. Immediately afterward, I held on to the driver's side window and we were going down the road, and Zack started ordering food. Then he said "Yeah, and I'd like an order of you're gonna fall!" then slammed on his brakes. I didn't fall. I almost did, but I didn't. Then, I guess, we left. If anything of interest happened after that, I don't remember it.

I've decided I'm going to save the book excerpts for days that I don't have anything to write. So sorry if you were looking forward to that. Anyway, that's all.

Spring Cleaning

2009-05-16T16:40:00.000-07:00

Ever heard a song that's really good, but leaves you wanting for more? Like, "that chorus needs to be longer. There needs to be more bass there.". Something like that? Well, that's how I felt when I heard the song "Music is My Boyfriend" by Skye Sweetnam. It's a really good song. It's got a good beat to it. But the only thing is, there's not enough.

Well, I took the song into ACID Pro and made an extended version with longer choruses and more distortion. And it's amazing.

It's kind of funny because you can always tell what kind of music I'm currently into whenever I remix a song. If I'm in a techno mood, I abuse the echo effect. If I'm into something like Muse, I abuse distortion. Which is what I did here. But it's totally worth it.

Anyway, I had to clean out my old trailer today. When I first moved here, I lived in a trailer separate from the house itself. I lived there all of the first winter and half of the second one. I had to move into the house in November because it was just too darned cold to handle. I'm surprised I didn't freeze to death on multiple occasions. Oh, and when memory foam gets cold, it forgets. Remember that.

I never thought I'd throw away as much as I did. I'm kind of a pack rat. But, I managed somehow. It's not finished, but it was so hot outside that I gave up for the day. I'll probably do some more tomorrow morning. It's well over half done. That's the point.

So, for the last 13 years, I've been working toward becoming an Eagle scout. Lately, I started my Eagle project, which involves replacing some signs and painting tables at a local shooting range owned by the police. All that's left to do is hang the signs up, and we're good to go. Well, that, and I have to finish up my paperwork. In like an hour, I'm headed down to the shooting range to take the signs. It's amazing that this is finally going to be done. That's the last thing that I'll have people nagging me about, at least for awhile, and I'll be free to sit and not worry about... well, about people nagging me about things. So I'm really excited for that.

Which reminds me, I'm taking a truck so I can transport the signs. I'd better burn a CD since it doesn't have a tape player that I can plug my mp3 player into.

Alright, that's finished.

So anyway, I'm thinking about doing a vlog. Not right now, of course, but I haven't done a vlog in a long time. I'm also thinking of starting another new Youtube channel and use it for nothing but vlogs. That would be cool. Should I? What are your thoughts as a reader?

Anyway, I'll have to cut this a bit short because I've got to start getting ready. Tomorrow, or possibly this evening, I'm going to post the first two chapters of my book. Then, if you could comment and tell me if I should keep going with it or scrap it and come up with something else, I'd appreciate it.

Anyway, thanks, bye.

So, how about them blogs, eh?

2009-05-15T22:50:00.001-07:00

Alright, so I was looking up ways to make money on the internet. Wait, that was grammatically horrible. I'm just going to start over.

Alright, so I was just on the internet, looking up ways to make money. Usually, I use the internet for things like Roosterteeth and Youtube, but I've decided to expand my horizons a bit. I'm doing this for several reasons, namely:

1. I'm graduating high school soon and need (want) money.
2. I'm lazy.
3. I'm intent on making about $80,000 to buy a car. I know this isn't exactly an efficient way of doing that. I'm getting to that, though.

According to the internet (and the "Monetize" button at the top of this page), you can make money from blogs. Well, blogging is essentially effortless. I've been doing it for free on Roosterteeth for years. So why not? Even if it isn't much, it's something. I really wish I could get a job, but I have a prettymuch mandatory trip to Arizona next month (I'll explain that in a minute), so even if I did get one, I don't think they'd be happy about me taking a month's vacation.

So in a nutshell, I'm doing this entirely because it could possibly be profitable. Well, maybe not entirely. I really do like typing stuff, and if I keep posting RT journals, John will never catch up. I'm sure he's behind by at least 300 journals by now.

Okay, so now that I've introduced myself (sort of), let's give this a try, shall we? I'll start with my trip to Arizona.

It began when I moved from Duncan, Arizona to Kennewick, Washington in June of 2007. I hated it. I hated it soooooo much. I fought with a passion against moving, because I had friends, I was really happy, etc, etc. Of course, that didn't work out, and the next thing I knew, I was watching South Park on a TV in a motel room somewhere in Utah with all of my stuff in a U-Haul outside.

I'm just going to randomly add some backstory here. I was living life in a little town out in the desert. I really enjoyed skateboarding, though I was awfully mediocre at it. Still am. I was also a major otaku. Still am. Actually, I'm worse now. At both skateboarding and being an otaku. But anyway, there weren't even 2,000 people in that tiny little town. Owned and ran by Mormons. Semi-decent education system. I didn't have any complaints about it, aside from the crazy English teacher. Anyone from Duncan High in 2005-2007 would agree with me. But looking back on that, I probably wasn't going anywhere with that life. I would have ended up a bum like every other male in the surrounding area. But after our house flooded twice (among other problems), Nan decided that we should move.

For future reference, Nan is actually my grandmother and adopted mother. So that makes my biological mother my adopted sister. And my aunt is also my sister. And my cousins are my nephews. Weird, huh?

But we moved, and I weren't none too happy 'bout that (see what I did there?). So presently we live with my aunt and uncle. One of my two cousins also lived here until he got married and moved out in December. There was another guy who came here with us under odd circumstances and stayed... Oh, I'd say about three months before going back to Arizona. His name was Randy, and he lived in Safford, until at a family reunion, my aunt asked him to come with us (for whatever reason). And so he did. It was an impromptu vacation from life. But he was a really awesome guy. I say "was" because he wasn't as awesome last time I saw him in December. He's changed. But he prettymuch saved my sanity those first three months. I hadn't been to school yet, and therefore didn't have any oppertunity to make friends. He taught me how to drive, things like that. It was pretty depressing when he left.

So, anyway, when school started up, I went three periods to actual school (American Literature, Financial Math, and U.S. History in that order), then I went to Tri-Tech Skills Center after that to take a class in "Digital Video and TV Production". I've always liked filming things, and after two years of that class, I still love it.

Oh, and by the way, I've lived here for two years and the dog still tries to bite me as I walk by, barks at me, won't come withing twenty feet of me (unless in attack mode), etc. Don't know why that is. And it's only me, too. He warmed up to Randy after the first month.

So you don't get bored, I'm going to skip a bit. Later posts will surely fill in the blanks anyway. So then, until about a month and a half ago, I was intent on moving back to Arizona after graduating. But one day, I suddenly came to my senses, awakening from a dark slumber of ignorance fueled by hatred to realize that that is the dumbest thing I could possibly do. Where's the opportunity in Duncan? Nowhere. That's where. Got it?

So now, I'm staying here. But Nan, oddly, is moving back to Arizona next month. I can't imagine why, overlooking, of course, the harsh winters and psychological damage caused by all of the noise. But anyway, I've been driving Nan's '93 Cheverolet Caprice Classic for the last two years, and I'm not too keen on giving it up. I offered to trade her my car (which I can't remember the year, model, maker, or anything else of), which happens to be in Arizona right now. She agreed, on the condition that I still go to Arizona for a month this summer. Looking at the situation as a whole, it's completely absurd. But I'm obligated to do so, or else I won't have a car.

Which brings me to the present. I'm going to immediately start applying for jobs when I get back. That's for sure. I need to find something that pays more than minimum wage, too. Because although I'm free to live here as long as I want (withing reason, of course), it's not the most desirable place of residence. Also, I'm going to work toward getting a 2009 Nissan GT-R. So that means milking every possible resource for money. Because I'm not a patient person. I'd rather work without so much as a bathroom break for a short amount of time than work reasonable hours for a long time. But this here is a resource. It's not much, but it adds up, you know?

I'm going to cut you off here. But here's a short list of things to look forward to in the future:

- Samples of the book I've been writing for like four years now. I've finished it and scrapped it twice. Right now I'm at the beginning of chapter three in what is the best version I've written so far.

- Youtube videos. I do those all the time. Right now I'm working on the third installment of the Two Cowboys series. Can't figure out how I'm going to edit it, though, because all of the video is in HD and my laptop can't handle it. So far, the plan is to let my friend Joel handle it. It'll probably turn out better that way anyway. He's got Final Cut, whilst I've only got Adobe Premiere.

- Life events. My life has been insanely boring up until recently. Ever since I found a Hawaiian shirt at Walgreens for ten bucks, my life has gotten oddly interesting. It's definitely my lucky shirt, because my luck has just been totally amazing since I got it.

Alrighty, then. Peace out, my friends.