Christmas Blog 2012

Hey everyone, Merry Kanishmas. Kanish Kringle loved our Smingerbread House and left great presents. That was a Chowder reference if you didn't know. It's Christmas which means it's time for family, fun, and presents. In our family, we start the festivities the day before, so lets start there, on Christmas Eve.

It started out with lots of cleaning up. Since I don't have that much stuff here since most of it's at college, I didn't have to do that much. After the cleaning we went over to my grandparents were we exchange gifts there first, or last depending on the year. We met at McDonald's, like we do every year. When we were little, it was so Santa could get set up while we were away. We're older now so we know some things we didn't before, but we still go over there because it's fun. I got some cool things. Got money, Blu-Rays, (continue list afterwards.) Here's a picture

Tin Tin not shown. I got a nice model of the Monkee Mobile, lots of detail, a set of American coins from my birth year, the hat that I'm wearing that will be really warm, the bag of money that's hanging from the hat, X-Men Origins Wolverine and Wonder Woman on Blu-Ray, Planet of the Apes, Amazing Spider man, and Big Bang Season 5 on DVD, and the new lounge Pants. The Fedora I've had and wear regularly, aka; not a gift.

After their house, we went to Christmas Eve mass. Good service like always. But the big thing was when we left mass we had an inch or 2 of snow. It was a Christmas miracle for all the little kids who wished for a white Christmas. We didn't have any snow before mass, so this was cool. We watched part of the first airing of A Christmas Story on TBS. Now time for bed and await the fun tomorrow.

Now time for Christmas Day. I went to bed earlier than normal the previous night. I went to bed at 11 instead of 12. I was about to wake up. I was. It was 8 AM and I realized I had my 9 hours, but I had to let my body catch up to my mind. Well then my brother came in and flashed the lights saying wake up. Actually it was "I'm the spirit of St. Nicholas and you've been a bad boy." I caught up quickly and corrected him with "actually the other guy punished the bad kids." He knew but couldn't remember his name, and neither could I. I get downstairs and we had our gifts around the tree like always. Here's a picture of it all.

 

Top Picture: Tool set and bag, new video camera, Yellow shirt; short sleeve, long sleeve, and hoodie, headlamp, whoppers, Hershey Cookies and Cream Bar, Captain America Blu-Ray, Amazon $25 gift card, light up pen, Pokemon Stickers, and a chocolate bar.

Bottom Picture: My brothers and mine new PS3, a second Dual Shock controller, Inception, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes both Blu-Ray

There's a story to the pen. Dad was at a seminar thing and the speaker had pens. He gave them out and said they made great presents for the kids. Dad the jokester. I also really like the digital video camera. I can do travel vlogs now. That's something I've wanted to do but didn't really have the tech nor the money to do that. Now my joke of "I have a webcam" when my video club asks what we have tech wise is dead. I actually have a camera. I'm still gonna say "I have a webcam" but also going to add "and a digital video camera with 4X digital zoom." It's no where on par with the DSLR cameras some of our members have but oh well.

Now for a fun thing. Because my aunt moved away we now have Christmas at our house. Prety sure I've said this in previous blogs but this is for you new guys. This is where the cleaning comes into place. We cleaned up and hosted a party. We had my grandparents, second cousins, grandparents good friends and their son, and one of my mom's friends. This is my cousin whom I share many interests with. It was fun talking with her, however short it was. She's not very talkative. We ended up watching Captain America on Blu-Ray our new PS3. It was cool even though we only got about a third of the way through. After a third we had our fun with our family sing along. My grandparents friend plays the accordion and she brings it to most every party. We sang our songs and I recorded some of the evidence on my new video camera. It's amazing what an accordion, a packet of sheet music, and maybe a couple of drinks can do. I won't upload the video because I don't have their OK and I don't think they'd want it out there.

After singing fun time it was time for dinner. We had the entire dining set, the chairs from the dinning set in the basement, the card table set, and an extra folding chair, all for us. That's 13 chairs and 2 tables in total. The "adults" sat at our dinning room table with the leaf in it and the "kids" sat at the card table in the living room right next to it so we are part of the dinner to an extent. We kind of just overheard our elders conversation and then add our own commentary on it or just go off on our own conversation. We had beef, smoked and roasted. We also had potatoes, green bean casserole, broccoli, and rolls. I had rolls and broccoli. I love cooked broccoli with salt. Afterwards we had dessert, homemade chocolate cake and pumpkin pie and store bought ice cream. I had cake and ice cream. It was good. The party didn't last long after that. I did get to show my cousin my latest set-up and additions to my nerd cave in the basement. She's a gamer, I'm a gamer, I put all the standard def games on our old standard def TVs in the basement.

Now I have one more party to host tomorrow. I'll post that tomorrow as an add on to this entry. So if you're reading this tonight, you are awesome so a shout out to you now. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye, until tomorrow.

The next day.

Hi I'm back. Today I didn't do much for the day. At about 4, Mom's best friend and her kids came over. We went to our local comic book/trading card/video game/other nerd stuff store and looked around. I found they had Pokemon tapestries, and I'd buy them if I had the room. Things like that I would hang with pride, but I don't have the room. Got to many Naruto posters. Anyways, after that, we played super smash bros in my nerd cave. It's been a while since I used all my controllers on my N64. It was fun, and we almost got Ness unlocked, but then the game froze on me. First time that happened. We exchanged gifts and that was fun.

After they left, Mom's college friends came over for our Christmas party. Her friends have kids that are around the age of my brother and I. We hung out, played Risk, and enjoyed each other's company. Risk was fun, even though I lost. I got Asia for the most part, even though I was never able to get the 7 man bonus. Oh well. We had Pizza and enjoyed more fun time. We exchanged oranges and Chocolate bars. Now I can say this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

Lets shoot a short film

Hey everyone, so today I spent all day with my film club filming a short film. This was an all day event, that involved lots of shooting on location, with 4 or 5 different locations. One of which was a convenience store and another on a bus. It was really interesting.

Now as an engineer with some experience in video production, I lacked much of the skills which would be required to shoot to the level in which we were. I don't know how to operate an audio recorder of professional quality with all the specific settings. Low gain, high pitch, other things either on or off. I don't know what all that does. Mono or stereo or 5.1 surround, the extent of my understanding. I could work a DSLR camera if shown how, but I don't know all that would need to go into framing a shot. I could try, but I'll let the other guys handle it. I can act, but not to the level of the guys in the theater department. I ended up being an extra in one scene and equipment pack mule. I did have the plastic bag and the coke bottle that were useful, and added to the cool toys for the set up shot.

Now here's how my day went. I got up at 7:30 because I could have sworn the director said crew be there at 8:30, and I wanted breakfast, and since I lack a car requiring me to walk to the location, I allotted plenty of time. Well turns out the caf opens at 9 on the weekends. I wouldn't know that since I always sleep until at least 9 on typical weekends, with atypical involving some other form of breakfast available that's better. So I stocked my pockets with a couple power bars and ate one before leaving, since we were planning on eating at Jimmy Johns and I'm not a big fan of sandwich places. Well turns out no one showed up until 8:30 and that was just 1 person. Everyone else got there between 8:45 and 9. Oh well.

We start getting ready to film at about 9. Our audio person couldn't figure out how to turn on the audio or exactly what some of the settings were. I was able to do turn it on and that was the extent of my abilities. She figured out the rest. I ended up playing "guy milling about in store," and "dude," 2 extras. I got to just look around at the merchandise, and look like I was looking for beer with my friends, while watching the craziness. What exactly is that craziness, you'll just have to watch the video. We did end up making a bit of a mess with the fake blood. I asked our Director of Photography if he wanted help cleaning it up but he said it was fine. OK.

After that, we went on to do the exterior shots. Before I went out to do them, I got a 12 oz coke in a glass bottle. I've had 8 oz but not 12. This bottle is big. It doesn't have a twist off top, but good thing I have a can opener that I could use as a bottle opener on my multi-tool. This inspired one of my other friends to get one since he could open it due to my resourcefulness. Anyways, the next shot involved a little girl as a character. It's true, never work with animals or children. I later had a run in with the animal part, but here's what happened with our child. She was rather shy and quiet. When I heard that she might flub her lines but I didn't expect her to just not talk and get super stage fright. We ended up getting what we needed.

We waited for our main character to clean up to do the before the store scenes. And while waiting, a guy nicknamed "Sponge bob" came out to his corner and started his yelling free-styling and stripped dancing. He has his shirt pushed up so it's just on his neck and his chest is exposed, with his pants sagging. He harassed our guys a little since we were shooting some shots from across the street. Luckily once our director said that we were shooting a short film he left us alone. We got our shots on time, thankfully. Now time to break for lunch.

Most of us went to the caf right next to our next location on campus. In the credits, a joke is going to be Bistro 3 (the caf) catered the event. Our next scene involved the bus stop right our side the caf. It's adjacent to dorms, so naturally some guys start harassing us. They're throwing some really bad ones at us, ones I don't wish to repeat here since they got really R-rated and I like to stay at most PG-13. I was just thinking, "OK shut up guys, you're just being obnoxious." Then they quoted Money Python with "you're mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries." That made me laugh, but glad that the director was able to get them to shut up.

Our next shot took place on a bus. That was fun. All 7 of us and all our equipment just get on one of the city buses and go for a 45 minute ride and shoot. I didn't have any part because I had extra parts in the convenience store. I just ended up talking with a friend while this all happened.

Our final shot took place at our main character's house and his "girlfriend's" house. His house had lots of fun stuff, comic books, comic book DVDs, video game Lego's, action figures, and the like. It was fun. I brought my Naruto key chain, Naruto figure, Trunks action figure, spongebob cereal box prize, and hidden leaf headband. Everything else was brought by either our star, or the guy whose house we were filming at had it all on hand. We shot it at one of our member's house, and he and his roommates have a cat with extra toes. The extra toes look like a thumb on her one paw. It's really interesting.

Like I said, most of my duties for this project were equipment lugging and extra. I carried the tripods, boom mic, and other stuff from location to location. Well location to car, and car to location. The rest of the time I mostly spent time being behind the scenes and bonding with other guys who weren't doing anything at the moment. Fun time.

Now I've been keeping things under secret this whole time. I don't want to spoil anything. Once it gets all edited, I'll be sure to embed it here. But I warn you, it is R material. It has some f-bombs and some strong violence. So strong that it made one of the cameras get blood on it. It might seem like it has more swearing due to the amount of times we ran scenes, but there is swearing. Not something to watch with your kids or parents, unless you guys are cool with that. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

Thanksgiving and Black Friday 2012

Hey everyone, hope you had a happy Thanksgiving. I know I did. Since my grandpa isn't able to travel like he used to, we've spent Thanksgiving at my aunts who's about halfway. It was great to see them again. We talked about how my year was going, and how they were doing. It was good fun. Since I don't like turkey, previous years I'd just eat rolls and stuff and then eat later, but because I'm in college and my dorm food is survivable, I had my grandma's beef. It is so great. It's hard to describe how amazing it is.

We left at about 6 because it was getting a little late for my grandpa. We went to black Friday after that. Now I know what people say, "black Friday is outrageous. People are crazy there. Try to avoid the stores if you can. ect." To that I say, "but that's the best part." Yeah, I love the crazy fun of black Friday at Wal-Mart, best buy, and GameStop. At Wal-Mart, I wanted some blu-rays and tried to get big bang theory season 5. I did get the blu-rays but wasn't able to acquire big bang. I tried reaching for BBT at 8 when the wrapping came off but missed out. My brother and I are just looking at other blu-rays, and not to much craziness on those. We got to enjoy the crazy from a safe distance. People were fighting each other for 50% off Black Ops 2 and such. They were rabid and fighting and such. There were some blu-rays that I wanted that were right by the games, so I'm just reaching down, trying to grab them, while people are fighting right next to me. Quite fun. I met up with my mom to give her our finds.

After checking out, here's the best part of the night. As you probably already know, I wear a safety vest for fun all the time. Well Wal-Mart employees wore similar vests so people would know that they work there. I was asked to remove it, and then I was radioed over the walkie talkies as a suspicious character. The employee said "alright I got him to take it off. He's also wearing a green striped shirt and a hat. It's not everyday that you're a suspicious character at Wal-Mart. Hehe, that was funny.

After Wal-Mart my brother and I went to GameStop to get a PS3 with their great deal. It came with 4 or 5 games, and they were uncharted and infamous, so it's not like they're crappy games. That's like a $100 value for free, also with a couple months of PlayStation plus, so $20 value free as well. It's quite a deal on the PS3 since we payed like $80 for it if you take away the games and plus. That's pretty cool. What added to the fun was that my friend Max joined us. He's always fun to hang out with. My brother and I were already camped out there, and it was like 10:30 when we got there, and he got there at about 11. GameStop opened at 12, and we were the first ones in line.

After GameStop we went to Best Buy. The line wasn't nearly as long as it was last year. It makes sense since we got there 30 minutes after they opened and all the door busters were gone. All that was left was our vulture scraps. I went there primarily for the deals they were having on blu-rays, but when I got there they didn't have as many that I wanted as I thought they would have. I did get a couple and it was just fun hanging out with Max. It was fun either way. Also remember how I said I wasn't able to get Big Bang Theory at Wal-Mart? Well they had it at Best Buy for cheaper. So I got mine there.

Now for a little rant. I think it takes away from the whole "black Friday" thing when stores open before midnight. I mean, it's technically Thursday, not Friday. It was only Wal-Mart for me that had deals before Friday, but still. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

I meet MTV's Catelynn and Tyler

Hey everyone, it's things like this that keep me blogging. Today I got to meet MTV's Catelynn and Tyler from 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom. Now unlike the Romney event where I found out last moment, I knew about this for a while, because the Pro-Life Group that I'm in are the ones who brought them to us at my college. I helped with promotion by chalking "Teen Mom's Catelynn and Tyler, 8:30 at [name of location with-held for privacy reasons.]" I also put up posters advertising the event. This was also a free event on a first come first serve basis, so remember that.

So now it's the big day. I was scheduled to help set up at 6:30, so I get there around 6:20 because that's just how I am. There is a GIANT line that stretched to the end of the foyer, and this is a big foyer. I get my clearance to enter the ballroom that it was being held in, and manage to get through the eager fans that were there at 5. It was kind of crazy. We set up by putting all the little information things on every chair, all 600 of them. Help set up when necessary, and play the waiting game. It's now 7PM and it's getting down the hall. I help one of the guys with the group that partnered with us to get some more things. I help him in finding the best rout to his car to get the stuff. Since we're mostly Christian we prayed thanking God for this wonderful blessing and the turnout. It's now 7:30 and we're told we need to start letting people in because they're starting to loop around the hallway. 600 seated and 50 standing, after that we need to start turning people away. If security hadn't shown up, one of the other group guys and I were going to be the men of authority saying "no more, sorry." Thankfully security did show up, but I was ready if they didn't.

Now we're letting everyone in. The flood gates were opened and people started just flowing in, but we had a system. Fill the rows, as far as we could. After that move on to the next row. Near the end of seating when there weren't many visible seats left, I was the one who did the whole "alright so we're trying to fill every seat, no more saving seats, if it's empty it's open." I'm just standing up there going "where's a seat? If there's an open seat next to you raise your hand. Lets see them. Oh! There's one. Right over there. Come on raise them high. ect." Good thing I'm the kind of person who would do that. I'm playing with the mic a little but nothing to notice able I hope. Keeping it professional while still having some fun with it. When doing that you kind of need to.

Now after everyone was seated, they had note cards to ask questions with. I was one of the people who went around and picked up the questions from people. Getting ready and stuff. Now that we're all set, time for the main event.

I gathered with the Students for life members. We were all just kind of standing in one area. Our group president gave the introduction saying who we as Students For Life were and what not. Then the guy from Bethany, the group we partnered with, talked about themselves a little, and introduced Dawn, the adoption coach for Catelynn and Tyler. Dawn talked about the adoption process and introduced the videos to remind everyone who Catelynn and Tyler were, or let people like me who have never watched either 16 and Pregnant nor Teen Mom, know who they are. It was cool since they had an abridged episode of the 16 and Pregnant episode that gave the MTV version. After that, Catelynn and Tyler came out. They told their story from their perspectives and answered questions. The same questions that were collected from the audience earlier. There were ones that were left out because they weren't appropriate for the event. This is about adoption and how it's good for the child, instead of being murdered, I'm sorry, "aborted." Questions about the TV show or whatever were left out, as well as duplicates or similar. They were really entertaining. Even for someone who didn't know who they were until today.

After the questions they stayed on stage for 2 minutes for pictures and high fives. No one was allowed on stage, but just so people could get the up close picture for their facebook to say "yeah I was there." Once "we will be on stage for 2 minutes for pictures" was said, everyone just flooded to the stage. Just fwoosh. After that Catelynn was escorted off and to the exit that wasn't the one everyone else used. I said "Thanks for coming" on her way out and she thanked me for having her. Tyler on the other hand went right into the crowd. Maybe separate himself so that they could sort of split the mob or something, but my guess is he might have just been soaking it up and fending for himself. Either way he drew some of the mob off of Catelynn, so there was some gentlemanlyness about it. Once he was on his way out I said "thanks for coming." He also said "thanks for having me." I helped clean up afterwards.

As I stated earlier, I've never seen either 16 and Pregnant nor Teen Mom. If I'm going to watch a reality show it's going to be educational like American Pickers or Pawn Stars, or about a Pawn Shop that's not to far away from my house. I'm also just wary of a show called "16 and Pregnant." Like is it promoting teen pregnancy or something. The concept just doesn't sit to well with me. After seeing Catelynn and Tyler, I'll definitely need to check out their episode. It's great that they're pro-life and that for them abortion wasn't an option for them. And I know people who have adopted and it's made their lives so much better. Definitely a great message from them at least.

Now I can't quite remember when in the setting up it happened, but since our group was putting it on, we were able to get a picture with Catelynn and Tyler. Here is the one that I got on my camera.

Sorry that it's not the best. I'll see if I can find one that's better since many were taken. Tyler's in the white hoodie, I'm next to him, kind of, in the bright yellow vest and Fedora, and Catelynn is on his right in the blue and yellow shirt. Here's a better one, but you can't see me as well.

I did get one with them with just me, but since my batteries were starting to fade, it flashed like it was taking, but didn't. Oh well. I was there, and with them in a picture. This was really cool. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

My Old Channel Description

With the current youtube lay out that prevents me from having a channel description longer than 1000 characters, and with me being a bit long winded, I haven't updated my channel description since it came out, since the old description was over 1000 characters and I was grandfathered in. What was keeping it over the limit was the links to my blog and dailymotion, and with the link thing, I could get rid of those. Before I remove it forever. Here it is.

Please rate videos, coment, and post video responces.
My Dailymotion acoun where i post Pokematic and happy gamer videos and backup my other videos.
http://www.dailymotion.com/user/catholiccontriversy
Our blog. This is where you can find info on upcoming videos.
http://pokematic-pokematicsblog.blogspot.com/

I had a bout of writers block, but I now have some ideas, and I was selected to alow longer than 15 minute uploads.

On some videos, you may see ads. I am alowed to monetize on my videos, but will do it sparingly limiting to videos I have put a lot of time and effort into and videos that recieve a lot of negative attention. The lot of time because I would like to be compensated for my effort. The lots of hate becaus I would like to be compensated for the emotional toll the trolls put on me.

I'm not monetizing everything because I am hear to teach, not to make money. I would like to keep money out of this, but when I recieve lots of hate or am required to put forth great effort, I feel some non-profit reembursement is fine.

Just to make known, all mone recieved will be put into production of content weather that be me, happy gamer, or pokematic.



The character limit is stupid, but whatever. This was made for old lay out and not the current one. Don't feel like signing out, so bye.

Audinece participation, you're doing it right

Hey everyone, since I don't have anything to do this weekend, and because I'm interested in it, I went to a meeting of "Anime Addicts," where we get together and watch anime. We watched Shakugan no Shana and .hack//BEYOND THE WORLD. I doubt that either of them was downloaded leagally since the subtitles on .hack had bad grammer and the translation of the subtitles for the English parts, where it was origionally in English so they had Japaneese subtitles that were then translated into English and they came from the same place, but that's the topic of a rant, not an experience. This is about the fun I had.

Normally the meetings are in the Chem building since they have lots of seets and have 2 screens to stream off of a computer. Unfortunately the leaders didn't do proper planning so we were locked out of our room. After we made the treck over to the student organizations section of the student union, we set up in the conference room, which probably has a maximum occupency of 12 but we crammed 20 people in there. There was some things about us getting the connections right so we could stream from the computer to the big TV in the room.

Now for where the title of this post comes into play. Since this is a group of young adult anime fans, there's gonna be some "audience participation." When there's a plot hole or just something to make fun of, someone will make a joke and hopefully get a laugh. When it gets good,then we all shut up and pay atention. Since the .hack movie we watched was kind of bad, there was lots of making fun of. Lots of jokes. It was great fun. Even Shukagan had some fun things to make fun of. And there was also some hypothetical what ifs that added to the fun while watching Shukagan.

Rocky Horror fans, take note, ANY SUB-PAR MOVIE IS FUN TO MAKE FUN OF WITH FRIENDS! Any movie can have funny things said at the right moment, and if it's all spur of the moment, it's alwayse different. You don't need a soft gay porno to have that kind of fun. If you roll that way, that's cool, but I don't want to see that, so stop saying it's such a great thing. These movies could have probably been good if they didn't have the fun of comentary with friends, but because of the comments, it was super fun. Hey guys, maybe you shoud get some of your friends together, get a bad movie, watch it together and make fun of it. You might find it super fun. A bad movie that is made fun by friends comments, at the end of the day is still a bad movie.


rocky horror review - The best home videos are here

As much fun as this was, I don't think I'll be able to go to more meetings. The meetings go on for hours on Saturday. Why, because we watch anime at them, and those take time. I spent the bulk of my Saturday with them, and that's something I can't do on a regular basis because I'm an engineering student. Since it's the first week, we didn't learn much so there's not much to homework to assign. Once the year goes on, probably within the next week, the work load will pial up, and last year my Saturday days were prety well booked. Now I know one of my friends who loves Rocky Horror might be reading this. DarkenOptomist I don't have anything against you, just don't like Rocky Horror. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

Moving back to College.

Hey everyone, if you read the daily blog, you'd know that I'm now back up at college. Let me tell you about how it went. Well for the last week or so it was all prepping. Pulling the bins down, cleaning the carpet and futon, and generally getting everything ready. Not the funnest thing in the world because that means I need to go back and learn but hey, that's life. Then the Friday before we left to bring me back we packed up the van and car with things that can stand the heat, so no chocolate or electronics in either vehicle. Then on Saturday, put the last couple of things in and take some pictures. No pictures available at this time because I don't have the camera.

With 2 cars my mom and dad drove their respective vehicles. I road up with Mom since she is gonna miss me the most. We listened to some satellite radio mainly switching between 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. Once we get there I go in and check in with the front desk to get my keys and do room check. Everything checked out thankfully. After that we started moving everything in. Let me tell you, getting that carpet set up was no easy task. We had to cut it in so many places. Thankfully it just needs to get me through my college years. If anyone I know wants it they could have it after I'm done with it as far as I'm concerned. I roomed blind again this year and my roommate seems like he'll be fine.

Every year our dorm does a theme for the entire year. Last year it was movies. This year it's 90s entertainment. There are some cool things like there's going to be a 90s game night with 90s board games and video games. Here a picture of 1 of the posters.

Others on MySpace

After all was set up I went with my parents to the hotel they were staying at for the night. I enjoyed cooling off and eating ice. I love ice. I watched some TV and surfed the web. It was good. We went out to dinner at the Texas Corral. But before we went there, I realized I didn't have a dress belt, so it was a good thing that the Goodwill store was open. They have some good things there. One day I need to go back. For dinner I had a half slab of ribs and a 6 oz steak, medium well. I don't really care for medium well and prefer well done, but since I know I'll be eating hockey pucks, I'll just have it for fun. I got some left overs as well, so I'll have a good snack later on.

I stayed at the hotel with them last night. One last time to be with my family for a while. The next day we went to church and dropped me off for real. We got some pictures in front of the sign of my dorm hall. Here's just me.

More on my MySpace

 

It was a little hard. I got choked up some. But being away from my didn't last long, since I found out quickly that my alarm clock didn't work. It wouldn't let me set the time, so I had to text my family and say I needed to get a new clock. Dad and bro went to bed bath and beyond to get me a new clock, but then the radio part didn't work. I need the radio since it'll be different every day. My brother has a buzzer alarm clock, and it woke me up a couple of times during the summer, but then I got used to it and it never woke me up again. I need the variety else I get immune to it. So we went back to BB&B and exchanged it, this time making sure it worked at the store. Then we said bye for real. And here we are now. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

I guess I've come to terms with my summer

Hey everyone, if dreams are really the key to the subconscious, then I've come to terms with summer ending and going back to school. Last night I dreamed that I was like in prison, but it was nice, like a dorm meets hotel. I felt trapped and decided I was going to bust out, with some help. I had like Batman and Cat Woman and some friends help me, and it was all elaborate and stuff. But it wasn't going to be easy. I had people out to get me and keep me there.

The big day came, and I wend running. Initially it was a little hard to get my momentum, but once I got going, there was no stopping me. I had guards and traps trying to stop me. But they were no match. Then things started getting hard. Like I was in an elevator and the enemy cut the motion, so I was stuck mid floor. I wasn't going to have that. I forced the door open and slipped onto the main floor. I made it to the door, after dodging many obstacles, mostly things just in my way. I get outside and I'm in a parking lot. There was just 1 car. This was my get away car. All I had to do was hot wire it, and I knew how to do it, sort of. I reached under the steering wheel and grabbed some wires that were already pre-cut for hot wiring. I try some combinations, but none of them worked.

Then out of nowhere, I just give up and decide to go back quietly. I don't know why, but I decided to just let what had to happen happen. I put my hands where they can see them, and decide to just go back. But when I get to the door, no one attacks me, just say "welcome back" and escort me back to my room. My room looks a lot like my dorm room, and my roommate is different.

Now I'm no psychologist, but I know enough to know that that wasn't just another one of my crazy dreams. What I believe it meant was that all summer long I've been running away from school. I needed to get my momentum going initially, but after that I was in the clear. As time went on it got harder and harder to deny the inevitable, even up to the last week, being the elevator that I forced open. Then the lot, just one way out, but it can't be accessed, because I lack the necessary skills. Then eventually it kicked in that this is what happens and will happen, so just accept it. School didn't want to hurt me, but welcomed me. The help in the dream I think was my friends that I hung out with over the summer.

When I woke up I realized that it wasn't just another dream. From that I realized it was over. It had a good run but it was over, and it was time to accept my fate. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

Let's go to Hardcore Pawn

Hey everyone, this is really cool. Ever watch Hardcore Pawn? For those of you who don't know, it's a TV show about a Pawn Shop in Detroit, similar to that of Pawn Stars but with more emphasis on the characters that come into the store, since it is Detroit and all. Well since I live in one of the suburbs of Detroit, and since I like the show, I decided to do a mapquest to see where it is. Low and behold, it's approximately 5 miles from my house. My brother and I decided we need to go there some time. Well today was that sometime.

Once we were ready, we went to American Jewelry and Loan. It's right at 8 mile and Greenfield, and is just a skip and a hop from our house. Knowing it was Detroit, we made sure we knew where we were going, since it gets bad FAST. Luckily they have a really big sign saying "here we are." I had to get over some lanes, but luck was on my side and I was able to get over easily. Even before we get into the shop I start seeing things I recognis3e from the show, like that intersection Les chased a guy out of that was buying Pawn tickets. We pull in, and I already recognise the outside from all the times people get thrown out. There was a police car outside but I didn't think much of it. Now I walk in.

We go in, and I see the lines and counters from the show. I'm doing my best to not start freaking out, because while that might get me on the show, I don't need that kind of publicity. Then I see the couches and furniture that people go crazy on in the show. This place is much smaller than the show lets on, like my local Salvation Army is larger, but still amazing. I go over to the electronics department hoping to maybe see Seth since that's his department, but no. I did have some employees ask if I needed assistance, so I told them not at the moment but I love your show so I decided to come check you guys out. I think they enjoy seeing fans. Humoring fans is all good PR, and since I live close, it's really good.

I look around some more, and then I see the big man himself, Les Gold. He was out taking pictures, but I missed him on this time out. I did however, see a guy with a TV camera. He was taking video for the bumps. You know, when they just get some footage of people looking at stuff before the crazies put on their show. Well my brother was filmed looking at stuff, so he might end up in a future episode. I also over hear the camera guy and some employee talking about if they got the arrest on camera, and they did. Sounds like I just missed the action. I think it was fine that I didn't because it would have sucked getting caught in cross fire.

Now for the really cool thing, I got to see Les work his magic and get a picture with him. Some one brought in this old tractor toy thing, like one where the kids ride on it while pedaling. I got to see him haggle, and they didn't make a deal. It was cool. After that, I asked for a picture. He said yes. Here it is.

 

Turns out he's a nice guy. He asked where I was from and I told him. He said "wow that is close." Since this was taken on my older digital camera, my brother called it a Dinosaur, but fumbled and called it a Dinothore. Les joked a little about that. It was really cool. We left soon after that. If I go back and buy something, I will ask for a full family picture, with him, Seth and Ashley. Since I wasn't buying something from him, I decided this was enough. So cool. If you're in the area, I recommend going to see them. Well this has been Pokemtic signing off and bu-bye.

A follow up to "the largest buzzkill EVER"

For the original, click here.

Hey everyone, well it's been a little over a year since I wrote "the largest buzzkill EVER." I was cleaning out some school stuff and found the original popcorn bag and paper towel I wrote it on so I decided I'd better get around to uploading the pictures. After that, I decided to read it to see how true their predictions ended up.

For starters, I recall having a very good summer with no cares about school. My grandma wanted to bring up the fact that "it's so amazing that you're in college now." I explained to her many times, "I don't think about that. It's summer, a time for not even thinking about school. Don't even mention it in the slightest." After about 3 times she caught on, and stopped bringing it up until 1 week left in summer when you do have to seriously think about it.

School chants and fight song, don't know the chants but do know the fight song. It's important to know the fight song, but since I don't do sports, I figure it'd be a waist of memory.

Now for the big thing on changing. Long story short, IT DIDN'T HAPPEN. (Raspberry) I'm still the same geeky kid I was when I went there. As I said, I don't change, I amplify. I still love cartoons, anime, and collecting video games, but maybe just a little bit more. I'm far more interested in politics, but still a conservative republican, so suck it liberal indoctrination camp. Well to be honest, my professors didn't really get into politics, and the one that did was conservative. I did lose weight, 15 pounds actually. But happy about it and good amplify. To any one who is afraid of college changing you and you have no control over it, it's garbage. You'll change only if you want to. You'll probably mature because it's a lot closer to the real world, but your personality and interests, all your decision. Me, I chose to just amplify, keeping the vest and getting a safety yellow hoodie.

The part about losing all your high school friends, also garbage. While in college I texted my best friend from high school what seemed like every day. ZeldaMaster93 and I are still best friends who enjoy talking about video games, movies, and to a lesser extent life. I helped my ex through a tough time in her life in realizing that "bad high school is over, the best is yet to come." She even wrote about her soul searching adventure in her blog. We didn't talk much during it because she needed distance from her old life and I was part of it, but we're still friends. I don't talk much to my ilose friends, but that's because I guess I never got to close to them. I did try to keep contact with CleveArtois93 but he changed his phone number with out me knowing so some poor guy is getting my "talk to me damnit" texts. But yeah, I'm still friends with some people from high school.

So yeah, anyone who is going off to college and is afraid of losing your self because of what everyone says, don't be. You'll mature if you aren't already at that level of independence, but other than that, you are the master of your own destiny, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

A mini rant on AVGN

Hey everyone, I was going to do this on the video website, but decided it was better for here. Now I just recently found out that AVGN is making a movie, and he's going to review E.T. for the atari. Not only did Irate Gamer beat him to it, so did I, LOLS. Now I will do a review proper, but for now I just want to say, I don't like AVGN and prefer Irate Gamer. Blasphomy I know, but here me out. I've seen a fair amount of AVGN reviews, and I have to say that his jokes just aren't funny, and if there are any that are, they're overshadowed by the horrible ones. What are all his jokes? Quite simply put, "a s*** load of f***." Really, all the jokes that I've seen are just him swearing like a sailor and diahhrea, literally. Then there's his "I'd rather have (insert crazy, disgusting thing here) happen to me than play this game."

Now maybe I'm being a bit harsh since after all, that's how IG got his start, but then as time went on he started throwing actual jokes in there that were related to the game and an over arching plot. Who knows, maybe AVGN matured. I was wrong. Watched one of his most recent videos and still swearing like a sailor, bodily function jokes, but wait, there's more; now it's compleatly monotone. I quit halfway through because it was boring. I can't imagine a feature length movie of this garbage. I'll let you know when I review proper. This has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

My last concert, and some fun at the zoo

Hey everyone, well here's some possibly depressing news, but it was coming anyways. For the past month I've been playing with the high school Jazz Band, the same one I played with during my years in high school, well not the exact same since most of my friends graduated with me. Well last Wednesday was our last gig of the year, the annual JARC gig at the Detroit Zoo. We play for about an hour and then get to go into zoo afterwards for free. The gig went well. We played some good Jazz tunes, but my favorite was when we played 25 or Six to Four. It's the only piece I would solo on. I soloed and it was fun. I would have recorded it, but I would have had to set up my lat top, do sound checks, had someone run it, and then do something with it while I went in the zoo. My dad got some pics though.

It went well. Afterwards I went through the zoo with my brother. We had our fun. Unfortunately my favorite exhibits, the butterfly/bird house and penguin house, was closed. Oh well, still had fun. I saw a bunch of exotic animals. We had fun at the reptile house, especially when we saw some lizards getting it on. Some parents had to explain that "they were wrestling."

There was free food, well included because there was a charge to get in normally. I had a hot dog and a Pepsi, no product placement, because I prefer coke products, more specifically sprite. Coca-cola company, I'm willing, send me checks, or stock.

After I ate we went to other things. I got a picture of me in front of Rackam Fountain. Here it is.

One of the great newer exhibits is the kangaroo exhibit. It's open with the kangaroos running around. We have a path to stay on and the kangaroos just run everywhere. Once I had one kind of come up to me and since they can get dangerous, and they warn against it, I was being really cautious. But that was 2 years ago, and this time nothing.

We got to see them feed the Polar Bears and seals, and that was really cool. The seal was doing tricks. Then in the farm area, the horses were fighting, like with kicking and biting and stuff. That was interesting.

An exhibit I really like is the greater apes exhibits. Unfortunately they didn't have all them out, but I got some picks of my hand against the moldings of other apes. Here they are.

 

I had fun. It was fun. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

Family Camping 2012

Hey everyone, just came back from camping with friends that I have been camping with since, well forever. Mom and Dad were in a singles group, where they met, and they've all been camping together for over 20 years every year. We've grown and shrunk over the years, and this year seemed much smaller. I used to have trouble keeping tack of everyone's names, because we would have like 10-15 families all with kids and I only saw them a couple of times a year. This year we had 6 families, all of whom have been constant in coming to most gatherings. I know their names, except for a few who still trip me up.

Well now for the fun. We arrived Friday where we helped our friends who we were staying with set up their tent. Mom and Dad didn't want to do full camping so they stayed in a motel while we stayed with some friends in their tent. Friday tends to be a day where we all just kind of hang out and catch up. It's also the day when we go to the ice cream store that's right within walking distance, and is affordable, and as what happened a couple years ago, has onion water. I had crunchy munchy peanut butter. It's vanilla ice cream, with chocolate chunks and peanut butter. Really yummy.

Saturday is typically beach day, and this year was no different. We spent time at the beach, and since the friends we were staying with brought their dog, we spent time at the dog beach. The other time their dog came, 9 or so years ago, she was afraid of the water. This time, she went all the way in, with a little coxing, but fine, and had fun. I went toobing, and was able to stay in, until they made me turn around, then I kept falling off. The toobing was taken on the way to the sand bar with the drop off. It wasn't to too special. It was kind of on the other side of the lake with a bunch of people docked there. I swam off the drop off, and it's like a 45 degree angle. I did see drunk people partying on a pontoon boat. My friend that also went toobing didn't see much with the sand bar, so we just hung out on the boat and chatted about things. One drunk guy swam up to the boat and asked if we'd take him toobing in exchange for the rest of his beer. Friend handled it well with "this isn't my boat so not my call." He was like "OK I can respect that, but if you want to just find me." Well that was our fun on the beach and on the lake.

It was nearing dinner time, and Saturday dinner is always the big dinner with everyone. We have had different dinners over the years. This year, we had pizza and bread sticks. I had my pieces and we just had fun visiting. Our group has a Bob and a Larry, both dads, and they have young kids. As good Christian families, we all love Veggie tales, so Bob and Larry both have Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber T-shirts respectively, and their respective kids have shirts just like their dads. We got this really cute picture of Bob and Larry with their "little Junior Asparaguses." I would upload it but I don't know if they would want it up for the world to see. Just take my word for it.

Sunday, today, was go to church together, pack up, and say goodbyes. We're all Catholic, so we all go to church together. It's a nice church, and to my knowledge, we've all sat in the same spot since we can all sit in this one area. We normally go out to breakfast, like we did back when we all went to the same church and before everyone started moving away, but we had to get my brother to boy scout summer camp and had to miss it. To bad, it's normally quite fun. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

A dabble in lucid dreams.

Hey everyone, yesterday I read a thing on how to lucid dream. You know, controlling your dreams. Well the first step is knowing if it's real or dream. I already had that covered since I dream in 3rd person, and things are so weird all I have to do is look at it to know it's a dream. Now the next step is realizing it's a dream while dreaming. I've done that when it was a nightmare and was successfully able to stop it and go onto another. Before I did that in my dream, all 3 of us awakers, catholiccontriversy, happy gamer and I, were bracing themselves for going into the dream instead of just watching, hence the 3rd person perspective I guess. Well I tried calling out the dreams. The dreams didn't like that. The people in the dream would scold me and say that's not how it goes, reset. This happened many times until I realized that I need to just ride it, probably because the dreams got revenge. They were like "OK, you don't want a show, here's a field, there is nothing in this field, except for grass and small nuggets of aluminum. Go find the aluminum, in first person." Next thing I knew the sleepy time was over.

So now I'm awake. The 3 of us get a stern talking to by the dreams. They said basically that "this is our turf. We take a back seat to you guys during the day. This can give us ideas for dreams but we never interfere with the awake world. If you're going to interfere with our time, we're going to interfere with your time, and you know what we're capable of." The 3 of us were all "OK, we're sorry. We didn't know. Please don't screw in the real world."

Here's how I guess you could describe how it works with the dream. The dreams are magician. They put on a show, with things that are known to be not real, but you don't know how it's done. Even if you know how it's done, you don't let on to it. You don't say "well that's how you do it everyone!" The magicians don't like

Here's more reason why. We've had our issues when one of us spilling into the other's turf. When I made videos on catholiccontriversy's channel on youtube, he caused catholiccontriversy nothing but trouble. When I went on a journey with happy gamer and left CC behind, he got them banned from blip after 3 days. We have a yin-yang relationship, where each person has their place without the others interfering with the place unless invited to which we get the dots in yin-yang. Still even, just in different places. But when one tries to take area, bad things happen. Now have the yin-yang on 1 side of a coin, with the dreams controlling the other side. They have much more control but only exercise that when the coin is flipped, aka sleep. If they were to start coming over to the other side, bad things are sure to happen. I'd likely start hallucinating, not sure what is real and what isn't. I have a feeling I'm going to pay for my insolence tonight in the dream. I'm going to be invited up on stage for the craziness. No more trying to lucid dream, just going to enjoy the show. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

Evensvill trip 2012

Here's the compilation of all my daily blogs from the trip. If you read your 3 minutes, you will have already read them. Even if you did, read the forward for some background and some things I forgot.

Forward.
Here's some back ground. I have one female cousin who lives in Michigan, same state as me, who came with us down to Indiana. I have 2 female and 1 male cousin, 2 aunts, 1 great aunt, one uncle, and one great uncle. I had fun with my great uncle but I can't remember the day and I forgot to log it. He has an amazing garage and lives where my grandma and her brother and sister grew up. The old home stead. There was also a time when there was a thing about most people outgrow there awkward phase by the time they're in their late teens. I said I out grew that a while ago, but my aunt that I stayed with said that I'm still rather awkward. Yes but I'm not awkward about being awkward. Now for the fun time.

7/11/12 Trip day 1

Woo hoo, first day of family trip to Indiana. This time my grandparents didn't come so we were able to do the trip in 1 day, 10 hours. We watched bang theory season 1, and king of kong, fist full of quarters. There is this awesome video game store that was on the way, but moved so now it isn't. Still had to stop though. It's called Play N Trade, and they have everything, from NES to 360. It's amazing. Well when we got there, it was closed. When I checked the web site, there wasn't anything about it being closed today. There was a sign that said "closed July 11th, reopen the 12th." It's Wally World from National Lampoon's Vacation.

Once we got there, we visited and had fun. We went out to a local restaurant where I had a brain sandwich. Yes you heard me right, and no I'm not going zombie. It's deep fried pig brains, with pickles, on a bun. I can't imagine it'd be the healthiest thing, but it's my treat when I come down. Here is a picture

Here's something that was interesting that happened soon after we got back from the restaurant. There was a fight that broke out in front of my cousin's house. I didn't see it, just heard it. I then saw the aftermath with the cops. There were 5-6 cop cars at one time. And then there came an ambulance. It was crazy. Don't get action like this at home. It's scary but in a weird way cool. Until tomorrow.

7/12/12 Day 2

Today was fun. We went to Holiday World in Santa Clause Indiana. We've been going there, well the family has, since it was just Santa Clause world. We have video footage of the family on the couple of rides that were there when they were kids. Well a lot has changed since then. Here's what we did.

We went on the Legend, a fun wooden roller coaster. We went on the log flume after that. I rode with my girl cousins, and they didn't want to get wet. Well the right way to not get wet is to put the heaviest person in the back so the water flows under the boat, but they put me, the heaviest person, up front. Well since they wanted to use me as a shield, I decided to get them really wet, while still keeping my pants dry. I leaned as far forward as I could. I got them wet. We went on the Raven, world's number 1 wooden roller coaster. It was fun. Went around to different rides in fourth of July and Halloween. After lunch, we went to the water park that's there as well, and it's included. I enjoyed the park. There were some slides. One that is like a toilet bowl where you spin around in a funnel thing. It's fun.

After the water park we went to Thanks Giving. We were going to do the Voyage, voted America's best roller coaster. Unfortunately there were problems that caused us to not go on it. I went on the turkey gobbler, which is basically a moving shooting gallery. It's fun. There is this glass blowing shop in the park and it's fun to see what they had. My brother bought a glass sword a couple years back. They had drinky birds. Here's a picture.

After we got home I had a standing contest with my cousin who's a dancer. Black belt vs dancer, who can stand on 1 foot longest? We went on for about 10 minutes. My foot was killing me, but I worked through the pain. She on the other hand, her calf and hamstring were starting to hurt. Her mom interfered and just stopped her, since she knew I would win. I did win. Now we're watching lilo and stitch. Until tomorrow, later.

7/13/12 Day 3

Boy today was fun. First we went to Adventureland where we went go carting and mini-golf. When go carting I won both times. I lapped my brother and cousins both times. Then at mini-golf my one cousin won at 48, my brother right behind her with 48 1/3, and then my other cousin and I tied for last at 51. I watched most of Monty Python's and now for something completely different with my other cousin who likes the Pythons as well. After that we watched their turtles eat crickets. It was funny because the turtle was chasing them.

After that we went to a Chinese buffet. I had lots of Steak. They had good teriaki steak. I made myself a rice ball, or what is close to one that I make one. Just steamed rice and salt in a bowl because I don't feel like making a ball in front of my family. Afterwards I had an ice cream with a cone I dipped in their chocolate fountain. Great idea on my part. After the buffet I went to my aunt's who's cleaning out magazines. I looked through them to see if there was anything of value. I found that the children's digests had adventures of tin tin serialized so there is probably some money in them. After that we were going to watch National Lampoon's Vacation, but the DVD wouldn't work. My one cousin was all "I ain't watching no stupid vacation movie. Marty Moose, I hate that Disney Channel crap. Derp Derp Derp." I told him "this movie is rated R for swearing and sexual content." That shut him up quick. When the movie wouldn't work we watched this Betty White DVD of her series "Life with Elizabeth." She is funny. Untill tomarrow.

7/14/12 Day 4

Today we didn't do much. I hung out with my cousins most of the day. I looked up the prices and what not for my aunt's magazines. If we wanted to, I was going to rent National Lampoon's Vacation through Amazon instant video for $3, but there wasn't enough interest. I was the only one who wanted to watch it with everyone, but no one else wanted to, so I just saved $3. Oh well.

It wasn't until we had our picnic at my aunts did things become interesting. We had everyone over at her house where for starters the grill didn't want to light. So instead of grilling we George Forman Grilled. They were fine. I went to church with my other aunt and great aunt. They have a really nice church. The big highlight for me for the night was when my uncle thought one of my cousin's friends was my brother. Edited to hid names, here's how the conversation went.
Uncle: "[brother] I didn't recognize you."
Friend: "that's because I'm not [brother]"

It might have been a had to be there thing, but was funny none the less, and it's my blog so I'll say what ever lame story I want. We packed up to be ready to leave the next day. So until tomorrow.

7/15/12 Day 5

Today was head home day. We left at about 7:20 my time. My cousin who came with us and I watched big bang theory season 2 the full ride back. We stopped at play n trade. Turns out that the place is a family business and there was a funeral on the Wednesday that I was going to go initially. I got this Play Station pinball game for $3 and a set of 5 gameboy game cases for $1. It seemed like there inventory shrunk since the last time I went.

Now we're home. Cousin with us is really into video games. First I had to try my new game to make sure it works, which it did. After that she and I played super smash brothers melee. It's been forever since I played so I was quite rusty, and she's never played, so we were at rather even playing fields. We were called to dinner after about 30 minutes. When her parents came to get her, we all had fun talking about our trip for an hour or so. Now to put this all together in a full blog. Laters.

Alright, hope you had fun. I know I sure did. This has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

Happy independence day

Hey everyone, yeah that's right, independence day. I had the day off in honor of the independence of our great nation, or for you outside the US, the great country that is the US. Like many Americans, I would have likely celebrated with a Barbecue, but it was to damn hot and humid today. I had trouble walking to my car it was so miserable. Instead some of my family and I went to Golden coral, and I had steak, ribs, pot roast, cotton candy, and chocolate dipped things. Yummy. I went to the movies with my grandpa, like we did on Tuesday before I had a job. We went and saw the Amazing Spiderman. Review here. Now I would have gone to the sort of local fireworks display, but storms were on and off and right before the show started, or would leave for it, storms went on again. Thankfully I went to the fireworks I've been going to for years a week or so back. And the lightning caused some serious flashing, and people have been setting them off, so I can look out my window and see them. All fireworks were declared legal this year in my state, so people have been enjoying the freedom.

Now for a look at what Independence day is to me. As a proud conservative American, this is the birth of our great nation. While not quite as important as it is with veterans day, it's a day to remember the men and women who've died for this great nation. Fireworks celebrate our separation from Britain, even though we're cool now right British friends? Back yard barbecues, yet another way for us to celebrate independence with our friends and family. Listen to a rendition of the national anthem, but with so many versions out there, I won't pick it for you. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

WHY WON'T ANYONE HIRE ME!!!!

Hey everyone, I need to blow off some steam at the moment. I've been home for about a month now and have been vigorously looking for work. I've been getting all the leads I can, and going to places that say "We're hiring" and even those that aren't. I must have applied to 20+ places and NO ONE WILL GIVE ME A CHANCE! My first choice would be our local family video, who had a big sign saying "we're hiring, apply within." I applied there twice and nope. I went up and down our main street that's covered in businesses, with only some giving me applications. I applied to everywhere that people gave me a lead. I applied most everywhere that had a sign that said hiring. I've been at this for about a month. Only today did one of the first places I applied to give me a call back. And they said "oh sorry, we aren't taking temps." I also went to this job fair today at Meijer and that seemed promising, then during the interview "oh we aren't hiring temp college students." I got the call when I was driving home from Meijer. I yelled and said some choice words in the car.

OK, I know it's a tough job market, but my anger really comes when people say they're hiring and then I don't get any word on if I'm hired or not. Then there's all these places that say they're hiring but they aren't. I cleaned myself up so that I look presentable, wore a long sleeve nice shirt, either combed my hair or wore my nice new fedora, and some other things. I got interviewed at the IHOP, and if they don't hire me that I will understand. I kind of botched the interview.

Now here's my back-up plan; if I can't find a job, and even if I do, eBay business. Buy stuff at garage sales or elsewhere and then sell on eBay for a profit. I got some inventory, and at a good deal, one of which is a new in box star trek phaser. I got it for $17, listed for $35, and that's a deal since most of the time those go for $40-45. I got 3 watchers but no bids. Why won't those geeks place bids? Ugggggg. I want to work. Why won't anyone get me? I'm an eagle scout, anyone would vouch for me. Ahhhhhhhhhhh. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

Moving out

Hey everyone, would have posted this sooner, but got busy. Now that I have some time to breath, here is my moving out of my dorm blog.

About 2 weeks ago, I just had my last finals. All were on Monday, and I was planning on moving out saturday, so I had some serious time to pack. I started with the easy things like packing up all my school stuff. I was able to fit all of it in one bin. It was quite heavy. Then I moved on to the other things like my clothes and what not, just keeping out enough for me to last the couple of days. I had milk crates full of snacks, and I was able to move some stuff around to be able to empty one. In that empty one, I put all my super nintendo stuff, and the couple of other videogame things I aquired to bring home, in that one crate. It was Wednesday when my roomate was over with his finals, so with that, we took apart the futon. We just used our desk chairs to watch TV until move out day. Here's the pictures that I gathered of moving out.

Where the futon was

The plan was I move out Saturday, but aparently "My parents can't come and get me until then, wasn't a sufficient excuse to stay beyond closing. So instead they came to get me Thursday. My roomate's parents came up on Wednesday night. You could tell we were moving out, along with a bunch of other people because the halls were full of stuff. We were able to get the majority of his stuff into his parent's van, and that which wasn't he put in his truck. We folded up the carpet and moved his bunk over to the other wall, because aparently that's how it needs to be. I baught the futon and carpet off of him, so new stuff to bring home. Once we were done moving his stuff, we got my stuff back in the room and it was all right where his bed used to be.

Now my parents come up. We move everything, using the dolly, cart, and freight elevator. My dad was able to pull the van right up to the loading zone. It made it a little easier to fill the van. Luckily my grandparents had their van because our van was full but I still had stuff. We were going to check out with our RA, but my roomate got called into work even though he was told he wasn't working that day. So instead we had to do express checkout where we run the risk of a $200 fine if our room isn't right without having to check out with the RA. I haven't goten the fine so I think we did it right.

So now I'm home, and all my stuff is unloaded in the living room. All I had to do now was go through it all. I did it in a couple of days and now I'm all home. Now I feel closure. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

Ahhh seeing old friends.

Hey everyone, this was such a great day. Didn't get a job but I did see a bunch of old friends that I haven't seen in a long time. I got to see my friend mskate, zeldamaster93, max, and other band friends. I'll start with mskate.

Mskate, her brother, and I went to see the Avengers. No this isn't a review of the Avengers. I will do one proper after I go see it with Zeldamaster93 and Max, the same guys I went to see Captain America with, after we watch all the lead up films, Hulk, Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America. She hasn't seen any of the movies and was there just to take her brother and enjoy a movie. I think she brought me along just to help explain what was going on. It was cool, even if I didn't get to just watch. It was fun seeing her again.

Then later today there was a band concert at my old high school. Like many band geeks, and others who did multi grade activities like robotics, had friends that weren't the same grade. Sure I didn't see older friends, but did see a bunch of younger, still in high school, friends. This was my first time seeing one of our concerts as a "civilian." I say civilian because I wasn't in the band preforming. There were a couple of the Jazz Band songs that I knew and played previous years and might have been able to join in, but no. Zeldamaster93, also alumni, sat with me at the concert. We had fun listening and doing a little catch up. The bands were great.

Now for fun. At the end of the year we do a band banquet where we recognise band letters and accomplishments, along with the seniors. It's held in the cafeteria, and zm93 and I would always sit in the same spot every lunch, along with other friends. Our other friends were either not there, or were elsewhere with their parents and such. Here's zm93 and I.

Ahh deja-vu. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

I'm now an official Pokemon trainer

Hey everyone, today I just joined an official Pokemon League. Today was the first meeting of the new Pokemon fans RSO at my college, which is also an official Pokemon TCG/Video Game League. That means that if I complete the required amounts of matches, I get official Pokemon league stuff. I do have a bit of a problem regarding that though, I don't have any Pokemon video games up here at college with me and most of my cards, also at home, are near mint vintage from back in the 90s. I have some garage sale cards but from what I recall, they're all also really good quality. Plus I have all my cards organized by Pokemon or card. I'm going to need to go through them to find some lower quality garage sale cards.

With that I also don't know how to play. I would have learned if the thing at my school was playing, and not collecting. I still have all my "how to play Pokemon TCG" books from back when I bought the cards those 10+ years ago, so I'll work at learning over the summer. I'll also look into getting some "for game" purpose cards off eBay or amazon. When buying those "100 assorted Pokemon cards," I can't imagine them being of super high quality.

If you want to find me, my user name is "pokematiconline," because naturally "pokematic" was already taken. I know there's TCG online and I hope to enjoy that.

I kind of wish that I knew about this earlier, because then I would have kept my vintage Pokemon Adventures chapter here and not send it home. At least I would have had something to show off my enthusiasm.

Now for my history with Pokemon.

I set out on my Pokemon journey when I was 6. I remember the first episode I ever saw, The Problem with Paras. I believe it was at Cedar Point. It was all the rage when I was 5 and it was everywhere. As mentioned earlier, I set out on my journey when I was 6. I collected the cards, and put them in a binder. I the games, but was never really good at them, mainly because it was very text based and couldn't read at the time. I loved the Burger King toys and still have all of them, including the deadly Pokeballs. But my main love, was the anime. I remember when it aired on Kids WB and UPN every morning before school. Pokemon was actually the first anime both my parents let me watch. Dad let me watch Sailor Moon, but mom wasn't cool with it. It was always the morning, and never the afternoon. I lost touch with pokemon when I was 7 or so, mainly because it was no longer on in the morning on kids wb, only after noon. From what I recall, KWB stopped doing morning Pokemon right after Orange Islands ended and Johto was about to begin. Unfortunately for me both my parents worked and I had to go to an after school program at my elementary school. They didn't do Pokemon, except for the one time that they showed Pokemon the first movie. Because I was unable to keep up, I never got into Johto. I never got rid of my Pokemon stuff, partly due to my pack-rat nature as a kid. I kept in touch with the movies and still bought cards when they were cheap at garage sales, but we didn't really hear from each other, until much later.

I reconnected with Pokemon once the original kanto region episodes started airing on Cartoon Network. I would watch those old episodes every night at 7pm. It was a bit weird because Pokemon was always a morning thing, but whatever. Then the episodes started airing in the morning before school, just like when I little. I wish that they showed the Johto episodes, but unfortunately no. They did do new episodes every Saturday, so I went to the end of the Hoen region episodes. For the longest time I was able to keep up with the Sinoh episodes. Somehow I was unable to keep up, but I still love Pokemon. Now I'm really into collecting. When McDonald's did their Pokemon promotion, I made sure to collect them all, and keep them NIB, new in box. I guess it's not technically a full collection because there were 8 toys and 10 cards, so there are 80 different variations of card toy combinations, but I don't have that kind of time, and with the cards typically being covered, I wouldn't be able to know if I had it unless I opened it.

I got into the manga when I was in high school. The first one I ever read was the Gingies rescue adventure what was in Nintendo Powers. I even read all 8 volumes of Pokemon DP Adventures for an independent reading project for school. I gave a presentation as Hareta, complete with costume I made out of a pair of cargo jeans, a white undershirt, an inside-put tuxedo vest I got from the Salvation Army, and a red paperboy hat. Because Hareta was raised by Pokemon, including Manky, he had a tendency to climb things. I got permission from my teacher to jump on top of her desk in the front of the class. It was a great presentation.

Over all, I guess I embraced the idea of "Gotta Catch Them All" more than anything about Pokemon. I was into the collecting and not really the playing. Wish me luck because this will be awesome. This has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

Some troubling news for us at ccpandhg incorperated

Hey everyone, catholiccontriversy here standing in for Pokematic because right now, Pokematic and Happy Gamer are having some issues. You see, a couple of days ago, Pokematic and Happy Gamer set out on a business venture where they would upload their videos to Blip and make money off of the revenue program and embed the classy video player in our video site. They were going to do this without me. Long story short, Pokematic got them both banned from blip within 3 days of registering. Happy Gamer didn't even have the chance to upload any of his videos, so now he hate's Pokematic.

While I am enjoying this lesson in the real world Pokematic is getting, mainly read the key points of the TOS and err on the side of caution, I do hate to see them fight like this. Hopefully soon we'll put out a video of us all telling our sides of the story. We're busy. Back on the topic of fighting. Pokematic and I would argue occassionally. OK, alot, but it was alwayse things where I knew I was right and he eventually learned that. We never held a grudge and would be fine really quickly. Unfortunately this isn't the case between Happy Gamer and Pokematic. "No I'm not going to call you Un-Happy Gamer and Pokematic the scumbag that robbed you of greatness."
For those of you who are just tuning in, I, catholiccontriversy, have a youtube channel and Pokematic has a metacafe channel. All 3 of us, me, Happy Gamer, and Pokematic, all upload to Dailymotion. I have a fair number of videos, and so does Pokematic, and we both have our own little get aways. Happy Gamer on the other hand, is stuck on Dailymotion and has only 3 videos. He doesn't get out much, and I beleive he saw this as his chance to get out there, and Pokematic ruined it for him.

Pokematic, you need to make this up to Happy Gamer, somehow. Maybe instead of making blogs and videos, you could think of how to make it up to him. But here this, I'm not going to fix it for you. This is your problem, and apart from you two destroying each other, I won't interviene. You didn't want my help with running the blip account, you won't need me here. Well this has been catholiccontriversy signing off and may God bless you.

Alwayse an experience when I get free tickets

Hey everyone, I have been to 3 different plays this year; one great, one horrible, and now another great. I'll get to that in a minute, but first I need to tell how I got there. See as part of the honors college, I have the opportunity to see plays and musicals here for free, just so long as I pick-up a ticket at the honors college, and I got one for the show tonight. The show started at 8, and I left at 7:50. I was planning on 7:45, but got caught up in an episode of storage wars. I realize it's 7:50, and now I need to walk across campus to get to the theatre complex. Last time, when I didn't know exactly where I was going, I took the long way. I go outside and think "I bet I could take a short cut. This campus is very walking friendly." I never walked that way before, but theorized it based on a map and some experience with location relative to each other. I will not be taking rout again. Here's what happened.

At first, it was nice. There was a clear path, through some walk ways around some buildings. It was all down hill so not super tiring. Then it starts to go south, literally in that the theatre is to the south of my dorm, and figuratively in that it starts to not be pleasant. The cement walkways end, so now I'm walking behind buildings. The ground is firm, so no real complaints, but now it's 5 minutes till show and I can't help but think I'm still quite far. I pick up the speed a little, and now I'm down in the on-campus apartments. I'm not to far I think, but it's just, uggg. Some sections of my journey are paved, some aren't, and those not paved areas are in a valley, so it's kind of wet. I get a little turned around, trying to think of the path of shortest distance, with the minimal knowledge that I have of this area. I'm right there, I can see it. I'm cutting through this picnic area in the on campus apartments area, and I find this rinkey little play area. It had a little slide and a way up. I would have taken a picture, but I have to get to the theatre because it's in sight and I have 1 minute. It was up hill, and I'm a little late. I had to get late seating and missed the first few minutes, but that's for the review. Please take a moment to read it now.

[Read Review Here]

Hope you enjoyed my review. I stayed around after the show for the cabalre performance, but mostly to get the actors' autographs. I was able to get 5 of the 7. I'm slipping I know, but the outfits they wore during the show made it a little hard to make them out in streets. Still happy none the less, and I helped boost their ego by asking for autographs, like in big time performances. I also ran into an old friend from high school. It was cool to see him again. After that, I walked back to my dorm, it's 10:30 at night, 70 or so degrees, and I'm just enjoying the temp. As I'm walking back on the long, well lit, not wet and through the apartments, way. Then I guess that that spring brings out the humans and zombies.

At my college, we have a thing called Zombies Vs. Humans, where these people act as either zombies or humans. The humans shoot the zombies with Nerf guns, and the zombies tag the humans and turn them into zombies. They have arm bands to signal who's playing and who isn't. I guess it's a real life left for dead. It started at the beginning of the year and gets super intense at the end of the year, so I'm told. Never played, and not to much my thing. Well I see these people gathered together, and it's late on a Friday night, not prime traffic time here on campus in the middle of the education section of campus. Then I see the Nerf guns, the big many dart guns. Then I see a clip sitting on the lamp post. I had my suspicions that this is zombies vs humans, but that theory was solidified when I heard this guy yelling pep talks to the "humans." I'm just walking by minding my own business. They won't shoot unless you got the arm band. One guy sees me and takes aim, then notices I'm not playing. He yells "oh you're not playing. sorry." He didn't shoot me, just took aim. It was interesting. Now for some real fun.

Our dorm had this highlighter party, where we would bring a t-shirt to highlight and then there would be a black light. I planned on going, and was really looking forward to it, but then I realized the play. Luckily I got there for the last 15 minutes or so. I didn't have my t-shirt to highlight, but I had my safety vest. Here's a pic I took.

My camera on my phone isn't the best, so you can't really see my face, but can definitely see the vest. There was music and pop. I had about half a cup of coke, and it was a bit flat. I did some "dancing." I use quotes because I'm not sure if you could call it dancing. I got to put on a song I wanted. Those of you who know me know what it is. The only dance I can actually do. For those of you who don't know me, it's the Macarena. I put it on and started macarenaing. Some people joined in and we partied like it was 1997, or whatever year the macarena hit it's highest popularity. Afterwards it was dovestep, or however it's spelled. I'm shaking my arms in time, at least I think it was in time. Oh well. Now I'm here writing. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

My First College Spring Break

Hey everyone, I just got back from spring break and man was it awesome. The hotel, the partying, the girls. I got photos.

Now that you clicked on the page from the google search and the first couple of lines of text, time to get into what really happened over spring break. If I did fool you into clicking, joke's on you.

OK so I pack up and get ready for the train ride back home. Taking the train works really well because I get on a city bus, get on the train, and then my brother comes and picks me up 4 1/2 hours later. Here's a "just my luck" incident; I get to the station, I'm sitting and waiting, reading my newspaper comics. 5 minutes before the train gets here, and I realize I forgot my laptop charger. I had the feeling that I was forgetting something but couldn't place my finger on it until it was to late. I read my newspaper comics on the train as well as played my DS until the battery died. I didn't want to use my laptop because my battery only lasts 4 hours on a single charge. I watched some TV shows I got off Zune for the last hour of the ride home. Yeah I use Zune. Zune doesn't ask me to update every week and I can get free Microsoft credits by searching with Bing. Never seen apple or google do that. Anyway back to the train.

Most of the time I'm lucky and can get a set of seats to myself. This wasn't the case this time. I sat next to a gentleman and there was no issues. I didn't get to spread out like I like to but oh well. Still more room than on an air plane, plus I didn't have the same amount of crap that I brought home last time. Last time I had 2 weeks worth of laundry, my SNES games, and other things I'm forgetting. This time it was only a couple days of laundry, my suggie, and toiletries. Still brought all my electronics but that all fits in this shoulder sack my grandpa got from Sports Illustrated and gave it to me. I was wearing my safety yellow hoodie like normal and this time around my brother was out waiting for me at the station and not in the car. He was able to pick me out easy. Then again not many people wear safety yellow, at least not yet.

I get home and say hi to my parents and such. I try to see f maybe, by chance, my dad's laptop charger would fit mine. Maybe if he had HP as well or if I had Toshiba as well, but no. Crap. That meant I was going to need to use the family computers, and I've really come to like mine. I don't have to share mine, and it's more portable. I haven't destroyed my laptop battery like my dad intentionally did his. And while I can make mine just as connected as a desk top, it's not like the one upstairs. Plus I was going to move my videos off my hard drive and put them on the data hard drive with all my other videos. I keep the masters in case something goes wrong. I managed, like a wizard with someone else's wand, or a teen with someone else's phone.

When I got home, I enjoyed the comforts of home; dark quiet sleeping space, Disney XD, Nicktoons, our leather couch, SOFT toilet paper, a shower I don't need to wear shower shoes into, everything except home cooked meal, because it was a lent Friday. Home cooked meal, and Costco muffins came the next day. Saturday wasn't much. Just relax and work out plans for the coming week.

Sunday was a nice day. It was the 2 year anniversary of my uncles death. We had a mass for him and then went out to the cemetery. I won't forget you Mike, I miss you. Afterwards we went to the Golden Corral, where I had about 3 servings of steak, a cup of chicken noodle soup, and some chocolate fountain desert. It is funny, they have Golden Coral commercials playing on these big screen TVs while we wait in line, and it's the same 2 commercials over and over. Last time I told my grandpa to bring his TV remote because it's the same brand as his home TV so we could see what else is on. I asked him where the remote was, but he didn't remember. Oh well, they would have frowned upon it and might have banned us.

Monday was fun. My grandpa and I went to see The Artist, which you can read my review here. I'm just gonna say, great movie. My grandpa liked it. It wasn't really a blast from the past for him since he grew up with talkies, but he liked it either way. I also brought over my new to me copy of Robot Gyromite for the NES. They have a NES and I don't. I tried to play it, and it worked fine to my surprise. No Nintendo blow, wiggle around, or blinking red light. Maybe I just need to clean the games that don't like working all the time. I wish I had a R.O.B. because it's really awkward trying to hold 2 controllers at the same time, using the player 1 controller for moving Dr. Gyro, at least I think that's his name, and then the second controller to move the pillars. Oh well I bought it for fun.

Tuesday I hung out with my boys, Zeldamaster93 and Max. ZM93 recorded Bad Teacher on Starzsummer here. Afterwards we watched South Park Cartoon wars parts 1and 2. ZM93's parents got us all pizza. Max had to leave soon after that, but I was able to stay. We watched an episode of Super Mario's Super Show just for some fun and to make fun of it. It used a lot of the sound effects and music from the games so I was impressed some. Then at the credits, because we're nerds, we were "doing the Mario" with the instructions. It's this dance thing that the Mario guy does during the credits and they say "do the Mario do do the Mario," and tell us how to do it. We're nerds. When I got home I watched the movies my brother and I rented Saturday. It was Iron Man 2 and Thor. Good movies.

On Wednesday, I ate 3 plumbs, but I was still hungry. Hungry Hungry Caterpillar joke, sorry if that's a bit to obscure. I returned the movies to Family video, and asked for an application for work. They said it was online, so I did it. I forgot how much work goes into filling in an application. Spent the better part of Wednesday working on that. I did get to see my best teacher from high school, whom I'll refer to as Mr. G. I had hi for American History, Web Design, and the Web Design class I helped in. He's a great man. He wrote some recommendation letters for me for eagle, scholarships, and college. We went out to lunch at a local, not gourmet but high quality, burger place. We talked and ate, Mr. G's treat. Great seeing him again.

Thursday I got applications to other places around my home town. I got them from our local toy store, local bowling ally, local grocery store, and local hardware store. They seemed promising enough, except for the bowling ally who said that I probably wouldn't get hired. So when I was about to fill that one out, I decided against it and put it in the shredder, because I already put some important info in. I got the hardware application only after I got the proper nut and bolt for the pair of scissors I was fixing. The plastic hut thing holding the 2 pieces together broke but that was all, an easy fix. Mom said just throw it out, but for 64 cents, I saved a perfectly good pair of scissors, with just a minor ghetto factor. While I was there, I thought "hey, I'll get an app here too." Filled out the applications for the rest of the day. This was also the day my grandparents took me to Logan's Road House. Had the steak and ribs combo, and because it was that, they didn't bug me about "you don't want that get this instead." It was a nice sampling of steak and ribs, and fries, and chips. I also went over to the high school because my brother needed his Saxophone. While I was over there, I thought "hey I'll go visit." There were a few minutes of class left, so I thought, "who can I interrupt to say hi?" I chose my old AP Calc teacher, A, because he was closest, B, because he knew and liked me well, and C, it was individual work time. He showed me off to his class and it was fun. I saw other teachers and some friends I know that are still there. The Jazz Band guys wanted me to stay and play with them, but I told them "when I'm home in May." Fun Fun.

Friday was great. I finished up the applications, took them back to toe stores, and hung out with my friend Mskate. She's great, but we are just friends, regardless of what anyone may tell you. We just sat and caught up for an hour and 40 minutes. Talked about life. She then gave me a ride to the high school so I could pick up the car. That's when I dropped off the applications. Once my brother got home we went to the salvation Army. I think now would be a good time to mention that we got a new HD TV earlier in the week and I connected the Xbox 360 via HDMI midway through. I didn't say earlier because I don't remember which days those were. We're also going to set up the old TV, and my old school video games in the basement. At the salvation army, I was looking to see if they had a TV stand, because sometimes they have what you need, but most of the time they don't, at least in my cases. I did find Xbox 360 component cables, and since we got the lower model or something, our 360 only came with standard def AV cables. Even though I got the 360 connected with HDMI, giving us the best picture available, I still got the component cables, because they were $3, much cheaper than retail, and because I want a complete set. Call me weird, but I couldn't pass it up. No stand unfortunately, but we wouldn't have had time to set up anyways. We moved the old TV down to the basement, and while we were doing that, I kept having visions of "smash! Noooooooooooooooo!" Thank god that didn't happen, because quality tube TVs are kind of hard to find for sale. We also went out for dinner because it was the last time we'll all be together for a while and it's close to my brother's birthday. Even though it was Friday and lent, I had meat and we all agreed that because it was the last celebration, I can give up meat for dinner tomorrow.

Now for today, Saturday. I had my last Costco muffin for a while. I did my last minute packing and got on the train. I read my volume 1 of Pokemon Adventures Diamond and Pearl Platinum. Based on the characters on the cover, and the title, I thought it might be a continuation of DP Adventures, the series I read for an English project. Unfortunately it's not, but still good in it's own right. After reading that, I watched some promos and extras I got off PSN on my PSP. That lasted me an hour or so. After that I watched Rocco's Modern Life that I got off Zune. After 1 episode, next stop my stop. Packed up and got ready to get back to my dorm. We made sure I got back on Saturday this time because no buses on Sunday and don't like taking the cab. Got back, unloaded my stuff, got my back week of Wall Street Journals, watched some TV, and went to eat dinner. I got down the steps and realized I didn't have my vest. No one was really there, but I couldn't help but feel that some people didn't recognize me without my safety yellow. I did have the sacrifice of no meat because tonight was good burger with bacon. It was a sacrifice because all I had was a slice of cheese pizza and toast. It was food for survival, like dorm food is. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.