Swimming & Pokemon Quiz

Bianca and I went swimming Wednesday, here's a video of us jumping in.

And since I've been playing Pokemon all week (and accidently deleted my Regigigas and Shaymin - go me), here's a Pokemon quiz I took.


Funny story about this Pokemon actually, at the end of one of the 1st generation games (can't remember which) I was battling the last Pokemon of the Elite 4 (not sure if it was my rival or actually someone of the E4), and my opponents Dragonite had no moves left and all I had was a Metapod with tackle that was severely under-leveled. In the end, I beat the Dragonite with tackle, over, and over, and over again for a long long time, chipping away probably literally just a few HP at a time. /shrug

The High End of Low

Manson's new album hits stores May 26th, and I have to say, I'm extremely excited. More than I was when EM, DM was about to land, besides the entire CD having been leaked a while before (which was pretty lame). I always feel like I'm cheating myself listening to leaked music before it's sold, but its hard to resist.

March 27th (now) "We're From America" will be released for download on Manson's official site, which myself and thousands (if not more) of other people are waiting for I'm sure. But as for the leaked material (two songs) I've heard so far, this CD is going to be spectacular (no, I'm not really going out of my way to look for these songs either, anyway by the time this is read I'm sure they'll be wiped from my source anyway). Unlike with EM, DM, I've loved the songs since the first listen. It's very poppy imo, very 'get ready to go out' kind of music (a lot of other fans that've heard are relating them to MA). What can I say, I'm inspired and in love (joking of course).

To add to this quick blog, apparently Twiggy Ramirez has a Twitter.

Busy Weekend

I feel like I've been on the go all weekend with no breaks. I haven't gotten a wink of sleep (literally) since Thursday night either, and definitely not by choice.

Friday Kaffa and I went to Erin's for a while, and then out to Barber Park again. Bianca met us out there a little later around 12:30.

Saturday was the first OYA car wash of 2009 at The Center, where we were raising money to buy tickets for Disney for Gay Days (we'll be having a few more car washes before June). I took a ton of pictures and a video, check them out. We had a really good time, but I was really exhausted by the time my dad stopped by so I left when he did. That night he took Kirk and me to Chipotle, and we drove around for a little while.

Today (Sunday) I still hadn't slept, but regardless we still went to GameStop a little after 9am to get Pokemon Platinum. I've been excited all week, and although being completely drained I was still glad we went this morning. I played it for a little while (my brother gave me one of his FireRed verisons too), but then I went over to Bianca's house for a Sunday 'get-together', haha. All together it was me, Bianca, Sarah, Oreo, Brittney, and Justin. It was really nice, her mom cooked us food too. :D I took some pictures, but they aren't uploaded just yet. Anyway, I had a really good time, we're (Bianca and I) supposed to be hanging out tomorrow too when she gets out of school.

Anyway, I think I'm done for now. Really tired, hope I can sleep normally again tonight, phew. Going to spend the rest of my evening uploading pictures, playing Pokemon, and talking to Rob when he gets off work (he just recently got a job, I'm really proud of him :)).

Tacos & Changeling

Wednesday Bianca picked me up, and we went over to her crib downtown. We played pool, which ended up in us making our own 'extra' rules, haha. Pure win, honestly. We hung out for a few hours, then I went home. /shrug

-~-

Lisa left straight from work today to go visit her parents, so it was just my dad, kirk, and me home. My dad taught me how to prepare tacos, which ended up being quite interesting. The shells we were going to eat smelled weird when we took them out of the box, but I cooked them anyway. After taking them out of the oven a few minutes later, they still smelled funny and we discovered they were from 07, so gross.

We came across another problem - we had no hot sauce. My dad and Kirk went to Taco Bell down the street, bought a drink and took some sauce, haha. By then everything was done, and we ate. (Earlier today I had baked apple streusel muffins, they're pretty good too.)


After Kirk went to bed my dad and I watched Changeling, it was a good movie but really dragged out towards the ending. I was pleasantly surprised to see Clint Eastwood directed/produced it, but he does make the best. Angelina Jolie did a really good job at the role, some of the badass looks she gave were really amazing and hilarious to me because it reminded me of her part in Tomb Raider, haha. Overall it was a really good movie, I recommend seeing it. It def. deals with parent/child relationship hardships, so if you can't handle that I wouldn't though. But it may make you appreciate it more if you do choose to watch it. :)


I've uploaded some new pictures to my Flickr of Kauvuo and No Name, and I've begun uploading all my videos to YouTube starting with this playlist of videos from Barber Park the other night with Kaffa and Jordan. :)

New Gecko

After a doctor's appointment today, my dad and I went to Barnes & Noble so he could spend his gift card (he bought a book with poetry/CDs, I'll post a link to it later) that he got yesterday for his birthday.

We went to Petco next door to look at geckos. Over the weekend I gathered correct information on the care of leopard geckos, credit to many websites I googled and especially GeckoForums.net, where members actually directly helped me out. I highly recommend signing up, it's a large community of friendly people, and it's not only for geckos, but for other reptiles.

Anyway, today at Petco I picked up a log similar to this, a thermometer (not sure if this is the one I should have or not), and a red light bulb. Before just buying a gecko, I requested to be able to touch them all, like advised on various websites. I poked at all of them, and picked up a few. There were two that were larger than the others, but not as large as the ones I saw the other day in Tampa. I eventually picked out the one that came home with me (even though he is really small), who as you can see in the picture is quite bright and colorful, which definitely matches the personality he's showing. He loves to be held, and you have to nudge him a couple times to get him off of your hands! He's really cute, and I'm still debating on names (which I list at the end of this blog).

It was suggested that I should get a gecko from a show or breeder rather than a pet store (especially chain I'd imagine), but I looked up breeders and couldn't find any close enough to me, or any shows in the near future (some just passed actually).

Later on (after taking him home) we (+Kirk this trip) went to PetLand to buy crickets and another small hut. We looked for fake plants, but they didn't have much of a selection. They had leopard geckos there too, two for 50$. Oh well though, I'm really happy with the one I got.

We went to Publix after for carrots and an apple to feed to the crickets to gutload them, hopefully it works and I'm doing it right. I might switch to the pre-condensed gutload cubes later on though depending on the opinions on GeckoForums.

Here's a video of him that I made for Kaffa (even though she'll see him tomorrow, haha):





Anyway, I think that's all I had to say, so here are the names I'm thinking about! (I'll post a poll to the right, but I doubt I'll get much votes as my blog is fairly new.)

1. Smiley
2. Felix
3. Rorschach
4. Willis
5. Slim
6. Nelly
7. Waldo
   

Smoking During Pregnancy

This is a topic that has bothered me for as long as I have been aware of smoking and pregnancy in general.

I've seen it come up often in my life as of late, I'm older, and more of my friends/acquaintances are having children. With that, people I know feel the need to smoke (some who aren't even 18, in which that case it's illegal), and don't care enough to quit while pregnant. Check out this quote from lungusa.org:

"Smoking-related diseases claim an estimated 438,000 American lives each year, including those affected indirectly, such as babies born prematurely due to prenatal maternal smoking and victims of "secondhand" exposure to tobacco's carcinogens."

However, if you're smoking while pregnant I doubt the facts are going to get under your skin far enough to make you quit because you've probably heard it from others. Everyone knows that smoking can hurt developing babies, but sometimes that isn't enough.

So from my own opinions, first of all smoking is absolutely disgusting, pregnant or not. You're really putting toxins up to your lips, and for what? To get through hard times? That's an excuse, because up until the moment you picked up your first cigarette you got through life without them (it doesn't matter how well you did, the fact is you did because you're still here). But today I'm not here to lecture you on your own health as much as I am about your unborn child's health. Here is another quote from ash.org:

"More than 60 percent of all crib deaths, also known as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), could be prevented if people stopped smoking around their babies and pregnant women, the report in the British Medical Journal said."

If you read carefully, that's just around babies and pregnant women. I am absolutely positive the risks go up if you are the pregnant woman smoking! Not only that, it is positively selfish to smoke while pregnant, because not only are you harming yourself, but you are harming another human being that cannot get away from it. Do you really want to bring a child into the world who's body is telling them to get away from you? Smoking is toxic, and while it doesn't directly kill like heavier narcotics, it kills nearly half a million lives in just America due to related issues (as said in a quote above).

Cutting down on cigarettes won't save your baby either. It's proven that those that force themselves to smoke fewer cigarettes inhale deeper when they do, equalling the effects of smoking more cigarettes with regular inhalation.

If you're pregnant and you can't control yourself enough to stop smoking while pregnant, in my opinion you're not ready to be a mother. If you cannot control one extremely dangerous aspect of your life, and can't show self-control from the very beginning, how can you raise a child healthily with such bad habits? Children take lessons from their parents sub-consciously very early on. Do you really want your children to take after these horrible examples?

Abusing substances, and even alcohol, is horrible. But there is hope! There are many ways and many people that are willing to help you overcome addiction, and you can take the first step today. If you decide today is the first day, try finding a Narcotics Anonymous meeting near you with this locator. Generally NA is typically for those using harder substances (so I've learned anyway, I could be incorrect), someone there I'm sure has some advice, or some direction to give you.

All in all, good luck with your baby. I hope you make the correct decision!

Daddy's 39th Birthday

March 15th was my dad's 39th birthday. :) Happy birthday!

On Saturday (the 14th) we went to visit our family in Tampa, and they had a cook out for my dad's birthday with hamburgers, hot dogs, potato/macaroni salad, chips, etc. We had a good time, the food was really good. Mema Kay made chocolate cake and banana pudding for dessert. Kirk missed mostly everything however, my mother picked him up from the house in Tampa and he spent the night with her. I took a ton of pictures (and some videos), which I put on Flickr today.



Today (technically yesterday because it's 1:30am, haha) we had a party here at home for my dad. Stephanie, Lisa's friend Audra, and Lisa's parents Chuck and Peggy came over. We had caesar salad, chicken marsala, and spaghetti. For dessert we had teramasou, cannolis, and gelato. I took pictures/videos today as well.

The presents my dad got overall: G1 phone, Pizzazz pizza maker, bike gloves, bike tire gauge, lemoncello, Barnes & Noble gift card, book light, $50, and a picture I drew him with a quote of Arthur Schopenhauer.

Barber Park Woods Adventure with Kaffa & Jordan

My face hurts. I've been crashing all day, but it's been a wonderful day.

Kaffa, Jordan, and I went out to dinner at Little Saigon aka the Noodle Hut (Vietnamese food), which was delicious like usual. We went by my house to pick up my camera so we could do vlogs, haha.

We went to Barber Park and had adventures. Scary Blair Witch adventures. I'll upload the pictures/videos later. Just have to say, it's been a long, interesting day.


EDIT 03/15/09: Okay, here's the pictures/videos from the adventure!

Spring Cleaning/Survey

Obsessed with this song right now: 'If You Can Afford Me' by Katy Perry

-~-

I didn't think of it as spring cleaning until I needed to come up with a title for this, but that's what I'm doing; cleaning. :D So far I've cleaned a little in my room (it's at that mess stage before the big swoop of clean), and I've cleaned out the cabinets under the sink in my bathroom.

I've taken some pictures for Flickr/my blog. I had an idea last night of taking pictures of everything I own that's Hello Kitty, to see how much it would amount to. So far, a lot, haha. I was inspired by KittyHell.com, which I found a few weeks ago (I think Brandon showed it to me?). It's a pretty funny/ridiculous website.

Anyway, here's a survey while I stall cleaning anymore 8D (I feel like I'm crashing from the Monster I drank with lunch, I went to sleep at 6amish :/)

-~-

1) What were you doing at 7:00am?
I had just fallen asleep

2) What did you do bad today?
I didn't respond to an IM. I had an away message up, but I was cleaning and didn't want to reply :( (Sorry Brandon)

3) Are you happy?
Yes, somewhat

4) Who text you last?
Rob

5) What are you doing this weekend?
Not really sure

6) Anything fun you looking forward too?
Sort of. Tomorrow I'm going to Tampa for my dad's birthday, Sunday is his actual birthday and we're having a party here in Orlando.

7) What were you doin before this survey?

Writing the first part of this blog, and cleaning.

8) What is something that made you smile today?
Something I don't want to say

9) What pissed you off?
Nothing

10) What will you be doing later?
I don't know. Cleaning shouldn't last all night. So, talk to Rob. I want to go out but I don't want to waste money

11) What did you do today?
Woke up, went somewhere with my dad, came home, now I'm cleaning

12) Are you happy with your life?
Somewhat

13) Where is yer phone?
Yer? It's on top of my laptop next to me

14) Do you miss who you kissed last?
Yes, very much so :/

Vincent/Outing

I was still down today, naturally. I've looked up a lot of information about leopard geckos, and I found I did a lot of things wrong with V. I feel guilty because I did so many things wrong, but I honestly didn't know. One thing I have learned is to NOT TRUST PET STORES. Advice they give is usually WRONG WRONG WRONG. I looked up PetLand's website, and they say to put a bright light over your reptile (categorizing them all together), and I read on a website for gecko care that such lights can make them not eat.

If I do get another gecko, it will of course not be the same. But I will have a lot more knowledge than I did with Vincent. However, the guilt still tugs at me, because it's not his fault I had poor knowledge. It's mine, but it isn't at the same time. I was fed wrong information, and believed it, and he suffered ultimately in death.

-~-~-~-~-

Well, today I went out with Steph. We went to Olive Garden, I saw Casey Anthony's parents and brother there, which I thought was worth sharing as a 'celebrity sighting', even though I've seen her mom 'in the flesh' before. I saw Katy and Rocky walk in too, haha. Anyway, they got rid of the entree I love (it was limited time only unfortunately), so I probably won't be back there for a while.

We went to JoAnn's to get something for Steph's ceiling fan, but instead she got three pairs of knitting needles (some ridiculously huge), three balls of yarn, some acrylic paint, and brushes, haha.
After we went to Stardust for the slam, which was our initial reason for the outing. /shrug

-~-~-~-~-

Here's some pics. This one is my word map in the game of Bananagrams we played at Stardust. Pretty fancy words~

Here's some of the enormous needles Steph wanted to buy, that I talked her out of, lol

And here's some cookies I made last night.

"The moment you step out that door, you have to depend on fellow humans valuing their lives. If they don't, they will kill you. If you don't, you will kill them." - Me

RIP Vincent Valentine 03/11/09

You've been sick for a long time.

We tried everything, but guilt still pulls at me, and by instinct I am screaming blame within. I know deep down it's not my fault, or anyone's fault, but having someone to point the metaphorical blame finger at would make this all make sense.

You were so young, only a few years. I still remember the day I got you. You were so tiny, and out of all the other geckos in your tank at PetLand, your tail was absolutely perfect. It was so long, I loved it. Your curious cat-like eyes grabbed me, and I knew you were the new friend I was gaining that day.


I've always been scared to feed you because you ate crickets, but I remember sometimes I would feel bad because someone had forgotten to feed you for me. Despite all my fears, I put a few crickets in your cage myself, so you wouldn't be hungry.



And now, well over a year later, you seemed to not want to eat at all. I thought maybe it was just the seasons changing, but I didn't remember you shying away from food that way. Every few times you've eaten in the past few months it's lifted a weight off my heart, knowing you're still hungry.



But then you stopped opening your eyes. You just walked around with them closed, and stayed in the same position for over twelve hours until I moved you. I remember when the slightest tap on your cage woke you, and you came to nose my finger even though it was through glass. But lately you don't stir at even the loudest tap.



You've passed now, and I'm crushed. I keep looking up at where your cage was (I couldn't stand to look at the empty cage anymore, so I moved it), expecting to see you looking back like you used to. But then it hits me again that you're really gone. I'll miss you more than anyone knows.

Tomorrow I will bury you, and with you, your belongings. I'll miss how you sat on my shoulder, or curled up in my pocket to sleep. Or how just the other day when we were sitting outside you crawled towards me and into my pant leg to sleep. I'll miss you so much, I can't say it enough. No one will ever replace you. You'll always be special to me, you were the first lizard I've ever had.


Kauvuo, daddy, and I love you very much, Vincent Valentine.

What Watchmen character am I?

You Scored as Doctor Manhattan
YOU ARE DOCTOR MANHATTAN You are a bastard child of science with unlimited power and perception. You sometimes feel you are no longer human.

Take the quiz here~!





Speaking of Watchmen, after my dad and I saw the movie Sunday I looked up the comic on Ebay for price-checking, and found this one for not even $10!

My dad bought it, and I have to say, it's gorgeous. The pages are so glossy and colorful for such a 'dark' comic. Really love it, so far I've read all of Chapter I and some of II.

Really a great buy! I love it already. It's look and everything def. has a 'collector' look to it. (My dad's going to put it in one of his book cases once we're both done reading it.)

The movie is extremely similar to the comic (as of what I've read), down to details of what's in a picture frame on the wall in a shot. Really amazing! The writing in the comic might as well be the script for the movie too! Really, really impressive.

Regigigas @ Toys R Us/Bananagrams

Well, Monday my dad, brother, and I went to Toys R Us. A few days before we were in there so my brother could spend his allowance (but he ended up not after throwing a fit, realizing he would want to buy Platinum when it comes out in a few weeks), and we saw a big sign for a Regigigas give-away from March 8th-21st (which means you can still go get yours!).

So that leaves us at Monday. I tried to get a signal from outside the building (a friend has been able to before), but no luck. We went inside and I saw some other geeks way older than me (all guys), and that's saying a lot, haha. Anyway, we got our Regigigas' (my brother got two, he has Pearl and Diamond) smoothly.

It's funny, while we were doing so we literally hovered no more than two feet away from the Regigigas sign, haha. My dad made a comment about how funny it was and said it 'doesn't have any Pokemon wi-fi powers, you don't have to stand right next to it', haha. I thought it was hilarious.

If you want more information on how to get this Pokemon click here :)

EDIT 03/13/09: Here's a picture of the end of Pearl, I beat it a few nights ago.

~-~

Today Steph and I went to the Drunken Monkey, and played this game called Bananagrams. I suggest for anyone to check it out that likes board games/word games. It's a lot like scrabble, but you're not working as a team to make one word map, you work separately on your own.