Also, Halloween And My Birthday Happened, But That Was A While Ago

So I feel like bad today. Twasnt till 7th period English that a friend suggested I might want to visit the health room, and so I convulsed outside its door for twenty minutes until, lunch break over, the woman inside unlocked the door and let me in. So that means I skipped a half hour of school just to go home and have a wonderful dream about a fish - my god, it was a fantastic fish, just a big blobby fish I put in this bowl and when it was in the water it changed colour and appeared to be all happy and damn it was just such a great fish. You can tell I'm feeling odd right now.

SO! It's fun to tell people how much worse than them I feel, but I really should talk about the good parts of my life. Mostly I've just been playing too much Half Life and Left 4 Dead, both of which are pure zombie infested fun, but gaming doesn't make for interesting blogging either. Hunhh...

I went to Gram&Grampz and ate dry turkey after an eight hour car ride of pure jostle. Then I went back. There we go! That's something I did. This was nice. I think I'm just updating to make sure my blog isn't suffering from abandonment issues or something. Sokay, bloggy. You're still coo.

The Horror Has Begun Anew

I didn't finish the entry on Washington? Oh, what a shame. To quickly sum up, we looked at a purdy mountain an' then waint home.

I'm a Junior! Check me out! Isn't this great? Oh god, what have I gotten myself into!
I guess I've gotten myself into doing my entire summer essay a week into school, that's what I've gotten myself into. So really that's my bad, and I can't place blame elsewhere.

But if I ignore the Everest-high pile of pure workload looming ahead, this year looks like it might be fun. At least my English teacher enjoys Dinosaur Comics and has a poster signed by Jon Stewart, even if she'll make us write an essay each week.
At least my Biology teacher gives us snacks every other Friday, even if she attacks us with an endless torrent of puns.
At least my Latin teacher actually knows how to speak and teach Latin, even if... he's teaching us Latin, which isn't that thrilling a subject.
And at least my History teacher... well, there's nothing really redeeming about him, but he has an alarming tendency to shout/rant loudly about CONCRETE!!! and its importance in mankind's history. I don't really understand that, but at least it livens up the dry stuff he has to teach us.

So when I think too hard about it, this year is actually going to be wonderful. Now I have to go because my brain is melting out of my ears.

Update: Aaaand the winner for the Stupidest Essay Title Award goes tooo...

Electoral Not Perfectoral; Still, Acknowledge the College

Hooray for nonsensical Seussical writing. I should have used "pectoral," since that's an actual freaking word, but I couldn't think of what that had to do with politics, unless you consider Schwarzenneger, but he's not a presidential candidate, or I seriously hope not, anyway.

seattle travel tree

Tree, not log, because it's not finished. Hah! Hah.

So: inspired by Ed's recent lengthy recount of watching a lot of fast moving water and the many accompanying still pictures of fast moving water, I am going to tell the world of my longest vacation yet: six days in Washington. It hasn't really happened yet, but I hope some interesting things happen there.

[8-09, 0:35 AM] (cool kids use military time)
I guess I'm not, technically, on the trip yet, but this is a good opportunity to gloat that I've finished my joke of a driver's ed class. I aced the multiple choice final exam today despite answering a few questions with other letters, like "Q". That class was like having my brain steamrollered, except for that one guy who told us gory stories, like the guy in the metro pit whose guts fell out or the woman who was ripped in half by a tree. Good day that was.

[8-10, 23:54 PM] (but in WA, it's 20:54. screw that.)
They say that each year June 1st through May 31st is Rain Fest in Seattle. They're right. Christ. I think today I've seen more water than Ed saw pour over that dumb waterfall on his inferior trip.
I mean, when we were driving to my Great Aunt's house this afternoon, the cab driver pointed out Mount St. Helens
and Mount Ranier.
I never want to see another rainbow again. On a positive note, there's a street called "Butte Dr." near this house. It's pronounced "Byoot Drive", but we've come to a consensus that it is, from now on, "Butt Doctor". Salmon here tastes as delicious as cake, and is twice as filling. Also, I now have a Mac in the room where I sleep. Maybe I'm operating on three hours of sleep and suffering from jet lag, but I'ma be up aaall night watching old MST3k episodes. I can always sleep in the Space Needle tomorrow - it's not like we'll be able to see anything but bleak grayness pocked with an unhealthy level of rainbows.

[8-11, 1:27 AM] (I guess I don't really need to put the inaccurate time down, since I have no time to update this during my busy days jam packed with water watching. I'll always post at night...)

I started this travel log as a joke, because this town is nothing more than a bowl of mountains containing a whole lotta pregnant clouds, as the legendary Paolini once described those puffy floaty rain thingies in one of his beautiful poetic similes. Today was actually interesting, however. I'm worried that means it's the climax of my journey. Well, anyway:

I had my first Starbucks Coffee today! Fitting, since the Starbucks plague grew out of Seattle. Maybe we'll get to visit the original store where from the virus spread. Verdict: It tastes like hot, dirty black sink water, just like all other coffees.

Then I met a few more relatives I didn't know existed, including a nice cousin and her soccer-crazed Aussie friend. We visited a waterfall that has a longer drop than Niagara does. Okay, so maybe it's just a little bit skinnier. It's still better than Niagara and you know it.

It was in the town where Twin Peaks was filmed!!!!!
I realize this is exciting only to me, and maybe any confused David Lynch fans who stumble across this page, but still: Twin Peaks!!! And we ate at the Diner that was there in the show! My cousin's friend ordered the Aussie burger for fun. The waitress told her her Australian accent was "pretty close". We all laughed at the waitress's ignorance, breaking her spirit. Good fun.

Then came the Space Needle, which doesn't look at all like a needle and certainly doesn't go into space. I guess it looks a bit like a syringe, but when I hear "needle" I think "little kids at Glen Echo camp shoving into my face asking to thread for them" - you know, the sewing kind, not the fun kind. The experience was pretty ho-hum, but I'm sure it was more fun than, say, being in a tall rotating restaurant in Canada, which sounds pretty stupid to me.
Looking down from up there we saw a theme park with rides, and it all looked just like RollerCoaster Tycoon, except you couldn't drown those people. Maybe you could try to spit on them, though.

After wading out through the TTT (tower tourist trap) we decided to actually ride one of the roller coasters. It was a crappy local fair so the rails were composed almost entirely of pure rust. This meant a painful ride - whacking your head against the car and your knees into the bar - but a really, really fun one.

Then we played with my uncle's three golden retrievers (in the rain) and ate pizza until the day was over. I don't know what we'll do tomorrow, but it will probably be much more fun than a cool hotel room sink or a plastic mouse in your bed. I mean, this week is really shaping up. We almost saw the sun today!

[8-11, 19:37 PM]

Went to Museum Of Glass and watched glass being blown by glassblowers. They were making a large glass fish. It was neato.

Right now I'm home alone with my great aunt's corgi, Dixianna. So far I've chattered at her for ten minutes, thrown food and balls at her, and made duck noises while holding a wooden duck. I think she's really annoyed with me. She's lying down in another room, giving me dry looks whenever I try to provoke a response from her. In response to her insubordination, I'm establishing dominance by closing myself in my room and blogging. They teach that in books, I think.

[8-12, 0:53 AM]

I think Dixie might not hate me - she's sleeping in my room for some odd reason. Maybe she just knows that she makes annoying noises as she falls asleep and wants to bug me. Whatever, I'll be unfazed on the computer until she's unconscious. The thing looks like a big fat twinkie! All corgis do, apparently.
Well, I saw The World's Deadliest Mountcano, Ranier. Sort of. Uncle Mike drove me to the parking lot in front of the liquor store and I could see about half of it. It hasn't rained all day. Nature here seems to have accepted me, grudgingly, and turned all sunny and things. Sweet.

Had cherry pie for the first time ever. That's about all that's happened. Here's a fish!

O <---bubbles o o __n_,,,-`| ( o u _ < \/ ``-,| I guess it only really looks like a fish if you squint, though. And then move your head back and forth in the right motion. And then look at a fish.

[8-13, 2:18 AM]

Since that roller coaster didn't sufficiently snap our necks, we drove back to Seattle and whipped through really hilly neighborhoods today. I think our plan is to be as touristy as possible, as evidenced by:
-The way we've taken pictures of everything fitting the criteria that it's already been photographed by enough tourists to bleach it
-The fact that my mom and I are both wearing "Seattle" shirts, just in case we get kidnapped and boated to Alaska where one of the kind Inuits will notice that we're in the wrong place and ship us back
-I bought a stupid hat.

I really like that hat. It helped deflect rain.

...Er, anyway, a lot of stupid crap happened that nobody in their right mind would care to read an essay about, so I'll list stuff. Oh, and I gat serm pikchurs! :D

-We actually did visit the original Starbucks! It looked just like all the other ones, except it had a different logo and lots of retail mugs with that logo on them.
That's the front of the store. I don't know how to crop pictures with this stupid computer, so I'll leave Random Portly Man on the side there.

-Went to market. They have every kind of flower you ever saw and every fruit or vegetable and every fish you could imagine being sold there, along with such randomosities as bear costumes and ocarinas of time (seriously) and sculptures crafted from Mt. St. Helen's ash. (When a state is devastated by a horrible, deadly natural disaster, America decides to capitalize. That's the lava-red ash-white and clouded-over-sky-blue spirit!)

-Watched men throw fish.

It's a famous shop stand where you order up a fish or jar or whatever and the workers belt out robust chants and calls that the surrounding crowd can join in on, then they throw the fish over a dozen feet right into the paper it gets wrapped in. Then you pay.

Americans seem to love handsome men throwing things and yelling. Incorporating this into your business is guaranteed success. I'm totally going to paint paintings and then stand in a street stall hurling them at people! And I have these fine fish throwing men to thank.

-Drove by homeless man with cardboard that read "ANOTHER DUMB SIGN." My cousin generously decided that was worth a few bucks.

-This photo doesn't have much to do with anything, really. It makes Seattle look deceptively rural, though. Those are totem poles in the background. See the beautiful sky? I haven't been kidding about the weather. Much.

-It's hard to tell from behind, but this is Vladimir Lenin. He has a massive, infamous statue over in this neighborhood. He stands right in front of a strip mall where we ate delicious gelattos. The story goes that some guy found him selling for a lot of money at a yard sale and decided he'd spiff up the street, or something. Awesome. Apparently people put silly clothes on him sometimes.

-This is the Troll. He's under a bridge. On Troll Avenue. Coincidence? You decide! He has a Volkswagen buggy in his left hand, so that should show you how big he is. (very)
I climbed up his shoulder and leaned jauntily against his head in another picture, but it was taken with an old school disposable camera and I'm not going to go get that stupid thing developed and then scan it in back home just to put my face on the internet and get killed by internet samurai stalkers.

-Then we drove up and down a bunch of hills to get this cool snapshot of the city. There's supposed to be a big mountain behind it. Pretend it's there.

-On the way home we passed the Starbucks factory. It's really large and daunting. The only indication of whose HQ it is (beside cousin Zach telling us) was a tall tower with the Starbucks lady's eyes peering out at the top in all directions. A high level of creepy. I've had enough of coffee, already! I swear we slowly drove by one intersection in a neighborhood with FIVE coffee shops, including a Starbucks, a Tully's, a Seattle's Best and a few more private-owned stores. I don't say criminy a lot, but criminy is that a lot of coffee.

-Then I went home and punched the Mac until it did what I wanted it to. Stupid thing.

Nothing Continües To Happen

But I might as well alert the world that I will be driving next week, so its residents had better clear the streets/sidewalks/front lawns. I care aboüt driving less and less the more I learn street signs and lanes and watch oütdated movies aboüt other people driving cars and being safe while other people drive their cars. Cars cars cars cars. Try saying "tüna taco" ten times fast. I discovered that one when I was eating a tüna taco for lünckfast.

I guess driving might come in handy now and again. Had I access to a car, I woüldn't have walked a few düll miles in a büggy, hümid drizzle to what Google Maps claimed was a Barnes & Noble, büt was actüally a college filled with tall ümbrella toters. I'll never get my hands on Good Omens üntil tomorrow, it seems.

...Actüally, my dad just paid an ünexpected visit, so now I have a lift to a Barnes & Noble that probably actüally exists. Cool. Üncanny, actüally.

Oh, it's a shame - since I don't have access to a private jet, I can't visit Italy and sample their thoüsand flavoürs of gelato üntil probably never.

...

Okay, no dorkily garbed pilots jüst knocked on the door, so I'll settle for the book. Away I go!

Edit: A WHILE OR TWO LATER

I am now two books richer! (and 16 hard earned monies poorer.) Sweet cyanide, so müch excitement happened while this post was being written. Between that action and all the ümlaüts, it will probably go down as the most interesting post on my blog.

Well, Jüly is ending on a high note. I watched the fantastic movie Twelve Monkeys, ate my first Dairy Qüeen sündae, listened to the Beatles' White Albüm, managed to keep down the Dairy Queen sündae while clütching myself in an agonizing, hallücinogenic haze in the back of a car for two hoürs listening to the Beatles' White Albüm, and regained access to my blog.

In other not-me-related good news, Pratchett's brain soüps may yet have a fighting chance. Now excüse me while I go lock myself in my room, looking for typos in my new books to boost my self confidence and banging my head against the ceiling as I try to participate a certain newly-annoünced drawing contest. I'll be banging my head against the ceiling anyway, since my bed's legs are... in dire need of an axe.

SUPREME MEGAUPDATE: THE XTREME REVISITATION

Actually, "homage", in English, is generally pronounced as "hawwwmidge", with or without the h sound. Only pretentious newscasters and art critics give it the authentic French pronunciation.

Amazing things have happened

Things the likes of which I could never have predicted, things that HAD they not transpired, would never have happened have happened today, and they happened in a way deserving of poetic imagery, metaphor, and art.

The above is a joke! Ha! It's time to laugh now, because my life is still quite boring, like God has writer's block.

Today I ate miso soup, mistook somebody for somebody else, watched a hot red sunset over a milky white lake, thought of a stupid science fiction concept (that we all have a doppelganger made of pure antimatter, somewhere out there in space, and they are hellbent on finding us and canceling us out with them), petted a very large dog, and watched a strange art awards show. The audience laughed collectively and loudly at anything the MC said, although he wasn't trying to be funny, and the man who won the 25k in moolah lost his voice and gave a one-minute "speech". Some people, on the way out, were obviously annoyed about that, but I still feel indebted to him for saving me from horribly boring boredom. Then I walked around a lake and counted my steps for part of the way. I got up to 765. Then i went home, wished I could break into the construction site (there's a little black door in the gate they forgot to lock) but didn't because I'm a pussy, and watched really old Jhonen Vasquez Q&A youtube videos in a happy haze.

...Oh, and I learned that I've been mispronouncing "homage" for all of my life. It's really ohhmauhjhhe, not haaawwmidge.

That was my day. You can stop reading now.

POST THE SECOND

Post the second what, you say? I don't know myself, but stop talking - it's my turn to talk.

I had a fascinating and educational day yesterday. What do you think YOU would do if, while staring peacefully and introspectively at some crappy artwork, a hand is firmly clamped over your mouth, your body is seized in place by some mysterious entity behind you, and a voice whispers in your ear, "Don't make a f*cking move".

Well, I found out what I would do: I would scream a muffled string of expletives, thrash around pathetically like a fish, and consider spitting into the hand, but not doing so because that would be grody. In other words, I would totally die. If there was a knife to my neck, anyway.

WHAT? What's this? Why didn't my dashing ninja moves kick in, where I wheel around and jump 20 feet in the air and land in a hurricane of claws and kicks? I'm pathetic. Fortunately, I still have time to hone these ninja skills, because my attacker was a friend of mine - the only interesting person at my art camp. When not trying to kill each other, we discuss video games like Pokemon, eat whatever free food is available, and ponder what the world could be like if wars were conducted within WOW. He seems criminally insane, too, but that's okay, because he's a good source of entertainment. Anyway, yesterday, we were trying to take our minds off the nude model we'd been previously drawing. Yeah. I really don't get WHY drawing naked people - IN PERSON, mind you - is such a staple of art.

Anyway, while I'm within a paragraph of the topic of videogames, I have an assignment for everyone who reads this:
BUY THE EXCELLENT GAME PSYCHONAUTS AND THEN BUY SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS. Then play them. Then send me a fruit basket with a letter of sincere appreciation for my fine recommendations.
Thank you! See yooz!

Post Script:
I made MacSpinnington Hurtfordshire The First And Only last week at Glen Echo. He's a huggable li'l chula.

Salut!

I attempted to log into BlogSpot, using the same name and pw I use for everything. The unexpected fact that I already have a blog really struck me at first, but then I realized that blogs have finally grown so in popularity that they have attained sentience, or at least they've reversed the system, and now they have people instead of vice versa.

He's a cute little blog, I think, so I'll keep him! What do you think?We'll just have to kick some sense into him and make him drop his slovenly traits and slobbery gaits and things.