The Capybara is the largest living rodent in the world...

Summer nights are best enjoyed in basements with loved ones. Or something like that, anyway. Joe's parents got the new couch upstairs and it looks dazzling. The old furniture ended up downstairs in the finished basement and I've migrated down with it, TV and video games in hand. I finished Fable II for the second time and got most of the achievements that I (someone without Xbox Live) am capable of. We even got in some Rock Band (which I've been itching to play for awhile).

My neck and back are feeling better after a visit to the chiropractor. She informed me of some exercises I can do so that my body stops falling apart. The transition away from caffeine/soda should be helpful. I'm not getting caffeine withdrawal headaches anymore and that's always a plus.

I spent a lot of time playing Culdcept Saga last night and a short while playing it today. It's an Xbox 360 game that is a mixture of Magic: The Gathering and Monopoly. That's right... MTG and Monopoly. No, I'm not exaggerating it  or being silly. It's exactly that. You move around a playing board set down monsters on tiles and when your enemies land on them you collect revenue. If said enemy is feeling courageous they'll use their own monsters (which by the way are CARDS) and you'll have a Magicesque stand off for the territory. The games even last countless hours. What would Monopoly and MTG be without the hours and hours of productivity consumption? 

At work today I read about this free browser-based MMORPG named Earth Eternal. It's like a free WoW clone with animals instead of people. I've been poking at it tonight and it's absolutely dead. It doesn't seem like a lot of people play it. 

My goat lady :D

On a different note, I finally paid for my Summer II class. Part of me was somewhat hoping that they would be like "I'm sorry, you're past the payment date and you've been dropped from the class," so that I could get a break this summer, but alas I was "lucky" enough to have made it in time to pay. Oh well, I'll be happy when I have one less class to worry about. I just feel exhausted and wish I had the chance to enjoy more than a few days of my summer. I guess the long weekends will make up for it.

*The sky is over...*

Shamrock hats and candy necklaces...

Once again Futurama is on TV. For some reason they keep replaying the new episodes (although the one on right now is an older one). We just played some Magic: Two games. I lost both. Joe won the first and Brother won the second one. I haven't particularly felt interested in Magic as much lately. I like collecting, though.

Two nights ago we had Chinese food and I got a pretty snazzy fortune:

You will enjoy good health, you will be surrounded by luxury.

Sounds pretty good.

Yesterday afternoon, we saw a mother bear and her two cubs:

Bear cubs!

They were sooo cute! The mom was out of sight by the time I got my camera but the cubs were still running around the yard trying to catch up with mommy. 

I got distracted from Pyraliss pages again today by Fable II. I was going to work on it in the evening but we got into a project that took up most of the night. We cleaned out a lot of the basement so that we could put the old furniture down there and make room for the new couch. The basement is pretty nice (barring the intense cold) and we figured it would be a nice game room of sorts. I played a game of foosball with Joe's mom (and lost), then I played air hockey with Brother (and lost) and then I played air hockey with Joe's mom (and lost). Amongst the clutter I did discover a nice little piece of Joe's childhood (well... he wasn't that young):

Lord of the Rings Homemade Castle

It's pretty awesome, made of cardboard and paint all sorts of adorable materials put together by an adorable man. When we finished cleaning up (and getting rid of the horrible spiders all over the place), Joe, his mom, Brother and I played a game of darts. I did pretty well, but Brother won.

 

Scoreboard (I'm "S")

I was pretty surprised Brother landed the 19, but he did. While I was taking a picture of the scoreboard, my Droid managed to slip out of my hand and smack me in the face. I think that's what caused that weird lighting.

All-in-all it was a pleasant Sunday. I'm not looking forward to working tomorrow. I wish I could have the week off just to relax. Unfortunately, I can't really afford to do that... It's an annoying dilemma. I guess this is a good time to get myself to bed. I have to clear my stuff out of the living room in the morning before I head out for work.  

*The sky is over...*

Never a Master of Photoshop...

I'm listening to Dream Theater and about to pick up some Fable II. I've played through it twice, and completed most of the quests. I'm looking forward to finishing the second expansion since I only recently purchased it with the money I don't have. It wasn't expensive, I'm just broke.

Last night I decided to work on Pyraliss for awhile. Although I had a sketch of the World Map of Pyraliss, I'd never quite finalized it so that's what I did last night. I also thought it might be nice for readers to be able to see where the characters were throughout key points of the story, so I made sprites of all the characters and will be plotting them on the map accordingly as the story progresses. Here's a little preview of what can be expected:

I think it's a nice way to keep track of their travels, but I'm also very silly. I'm going to work on pages later when Joe's family comes back from couch shopping and I'm forced to relinquish the TV.

*The sky is over...*

A new chassis...

Brother has Overhaulin' on and they're trying to figure out if they should change the whole chassis or try to fix the old one. This seems much less ridiculous than the episode of Pimp My Ride that we saw last night. Someone should overhaul my van. That'd be nice. The Dragon Wagon needs to stop sucking.

That reminds me that I had a strange dream last night. It started with me going to an old ladies' house for a party. When everyone got there we found out that someone had broken into her house right before we got there and she was a little shaken up, but we decided to have the party anyway. Once it was over everyone was leaving I decided to stay with her because I thought she would be scared of staying home by herself after what had happened. She had to go out and do some errands so I stayed in the house to keep an eye on things. After the sun set a handsome man, seemingly in his 20s, broke into the house and I tried to stop him but he somehow convinced me that he didn't have malicious intentions and instead we talked. I distinctly remember his name being Nick and he looked like an older version of what I had imagined the main character (Nick) from The Child Thief by Brom looked like. Suddenly we realized the woman would be home soon and I was trying to convince Nick to leave before they caught him. He ran out and a few moments later another man (that resembled Xzibit, a result of being subjected to Pimp My Ride right before bed) came running down the stairs. I was yelling at him and asked him if he worked with Nick. He seemed to find me amusing and grabbed my hand and we walked out of the house into the night. While walking I told him we couldn't pass by one street because we were directly in front of my grandparents' house and they would flip if they saw me walking around late at night with a stranger. He disregarded me and instead we just ran by the house. I kept asking him about Nick and he thought it was funny that I was so interested. He also admitted to me that  he was only 16 and I thought it was strange that he looked younger than when I'd first looked at him. I admitted to being 22 and he brought me to a building and told me Nick could be found on the 2nd floor. Then he said something like, "You and Nicky? Yeah... that'd be good." I took the elevator up and got off on the 2nd floor. There was a thin ledge that led out of the elevator door and then there was a gap, followed by a train track followed by another gap and followed by another floor. I had to jump across. On the other side, there were offices everywhere and I was looking through them for Nick. There were a lot of people in some of the offices and all of them had sheets over the desks and furniture and paint cans and tools scattered all over them, giving the impression that they were under construction. I realized then that I didn't remember what Nick looked like and felt like I would never find him. I found a hallway that seemed to lead to this big garden and as I walked through it a kid passed by me. We both suddenly stopped and turned and looked at each other and I recognized that it was Nick, but he looked 10 years younger. We were walking and talking and he told me he was also 16 and I felt uncomfortable and wanted to leave because he was getting on my nerves.

It was a very strange dream and I'm not sure how it ended. The whole dream had a strange, eerie vibe to it. Not really sure what it means but I thought it was worth documenting.

I'm working on sorting through all of my pictures with Picasa and setting up all the right dates on them. It's a big job that I've been working on for a few weeks now. I think I'm almost done. It'll be nice to have all of my pictures backed up and tagged with the right people.

*The sky is over...*

A Single Footprint in the Sand...

Where did it come from, where does it go? One single footprint.

I have decided to start blogging again. I've had many blogs, I always give up on them after awhile, but I decided to start once more. Blogging is a simple way to practice writing and elaborate on your ideas.

Recently, I've been sending some stories in hopes for publication. I have two out now and I'm waiting for some replies. I'm thinking of sending out a few more, but I'm not feeling too motivated. I haven't been drawing a lot lately, but I've been poking around with the tablet a little bit. Corel Painter stopped working for some reason and I'll have to find a new version soon. I kind of want to make a background to replace the generic one I have now.

I just finished my first session of summer classes. Had an exam for Basic Audiology this afternoon. I'm relieved that it's done and over. I start another class in about a week and a half, but I'm jut going to try to enjoy the break. I'd like to spend the next few days working on Pyraliss updates. I would like to make a buffer for myself because it's very hard to keep up with updates during the school semester. It'd be nice if I can get a big chunk of it done to tide me over until I'm done with school next year.

Just watched the first new Futurama episodes in years and I wasn't too amused. The characters seemed a little strange. Maybe they just have to get back into the swing of things.

*The sky is over...*