chasing stars and stealing skies

2010 had been, for lack of a better term, totally awesome.



Also, goodbye, Multiply. I'm leaving you for Tumblr.

I rarely get those epic dreams of epic proportions these days (maybe the lack of cronies and minions in this place is affecting those dreaming capabilities; there's just no one torture in the world of nighttime wanderings over here. Sad place.) so when I got this one last night, well, let's just say that I was thrilled.

As one could see, I love dreams. The bizarre is always awesome and a lovely thing to get inspiration from (which I terribly need these days. College work drained the life out of me.) Also, it's a lovely topic to talk about with a few of my minions, namely Lorraine and Shaniqua.

This one was fairly short, but ah well.

---

I was with my friend, Lorraine, at a festival near a harbor. Fireworks lit the sky, filling the black canvas with so much color that it was impossible to tell that it was nighttime. At the far right, away from the water, people gathered around a giant Christmas tree. Around them were several village houses and tall buildings that looked like they were made out of candies. Each house and building was adorned with a parol on their doors.

The lights were wonderful, and the music was pretty. In retrospect, the place was like a mix of Manila and somewhere else (because it can't be just Manila if it was too clean.) By the harbor, we walked, resisting the urge to twirl with the music, which turned from something instrumental to some person singing "Holiday" by Madonna quite well for a karaoke attempt. We had some sort of mission, you see, and we couldn't really have fun if that mission wasn't finished.

Cue a very Pirates of the Caribbean scene: we were to fight(!!!) the pirates who sought to ruin Christmas.

Lorraine and I ran across the pier to greet the arriving ship with swords and magic. Lorraine had the sword; I had the magic: we were a force to be reckoned with, apparently. So the fight began, but instead of killing the pirates, we just pushed them into the water where they're taken by some water creature to a deserted island so they can leave the Christmas people at peace.

At one part in the battle, a dozen pirates came in, and it came to a point where the pirates were far stronger than us, the awesome sword-and-magic duo. However, our friends, Shaniqua, Shing, Valerie, Cielo, Vanessa, Pat, and Maio came to the rescue. They appeared out of nowhere and started fighting... all in the name of Christmas.

A cheesy ending, in my opinion, but oh well.

After the battle, we all headed out towards the Christmas tree where everyone else was, but Lorraine told me that they have to go, and that I should visit someday, specifically in two days. They were going to have a party and a movie-watching thing on Wednesday, and I should take the Teleporter tomorrow to get there in time. They were going to watch Narnia, and they even ordered a large plate of Jollibee spaghetti and cases of coke to celebrate.

Then they disappeared, as well as everyone else in the place. The fireworks, the tree, the buildings and parols were gone.

The end.

...it was anticlimactic, honestly.

---

So now, I really want to go back to the Philippines, grab some Jollibee spaghetti and have a coke drink fest while watching Narnia with my lovely cronies and minions on Wednesday.

So uh. Santa... Can I have a Teleporter for Christmas, please? In advance?

Bring back the lost day.

It's difficult to pick out my favorite when it comes to books. Anything I ever bothered reading is more or less awesome. After much deliberation (which consisted of randomly selecting one of the books) I've picked this one:



"Artemis Fowl" by Eoin Colfer

I impulse-bought this book way back in Second Year High School (which led to my impulse-buying the other books in the series right after.) The cover was too pretty and too shiny to leave in the bookcases, and so I bought it. (badhabityes.)

Luckily enough, the book was cool and was not a waste of money. If I remember correctly, this was what got me interested in writing again after several dull, inspiration-less months of nothingness. (Plus, its sort-of-sarcasm inspired me to channel a bit of my inner sarcasm when writing. Life-changing moment yay.)





And fuu... apparently, I missed several days due to freaky school readings. Spam-filled posts coming soon.

"...the four nations lived in together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop him, but when the world needed him the most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. Although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he can save anyone, but I believe Aang can save the world."

^ actually, I was just testing it out to see if I could still remember that intro. xD ^

And apparently, I still do. I guess this goes to show that this TV series is quite unforgettable.

My sister and I caught the first airing (lol pun) of this show on Nickelodeon when we still had cable. Our first thought of it was this: it was weird. If I remember it correctly, it was due to Katara; we just found her... strange, that's all... and, somehow, annoying. (I think this was foreshadowing: she WAS annoying in the later episodes.) That didn't stop us from watching every single bit of that episode though. At the end of it, this was certain: we liked it very much.

Video-stalking was the skill that we learned and perfected. I could remember the two of us painstakingly waiting for the most recent episode to come out (We didn't have cable anymore when we decided to catch up to the series. And besides, the episodes on Nickelodeon were all re-runs.)

The entire series was fun, with plenty of likeable (and unlikeable-but-you-gotta-like-'em-anyway) characters. Plus, the art was just darn lovely.

Stalking was hard work, all right, but it was well worth it in the end.

I'm going to have to cheat a little. Instead of one, I'll share four, but then again, the first three is one trilogy so...

...still cheating either way. xD


The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

This has got to be one of the greatest (and prettiest) movies of all time.

Well, in my world, that is.

Bloody battles, action-filled scenes, great casting, musical score and directing, and, to top it all off, gorgeous scenery... those were enough to keep me at the edge of my seat (and not fall off due to boredom, as what its book did to me.)

I wouldn't mind watching these over and over again.

Pan's Labyrinth

The first time I watched this was when I was at my friend Lorraine's house. Because the (very weird) Filipino movie we were watching stopped midway, we turned to this one, which seemed awesome, pretty and promising.

And it was. But we didn't know that it would also be very graphic and disturbing.

Cue moments of screaming that "HE KILLED HIM! HE KILLED HIM OMG!" and "RUUUUN. RUN. GAHD. ANG BAGAL NAMAN. RUUUUUN." and just... utter disbelief at this bloody fairytale. (Mostly from me though. Lorraine's not the type to freak out like that.)

Still, despite the violence and unnerving scenes in this, I still found it pretty amazing, mind-blowing. Didn't get over this movie for quite awhile though.

"My Heart" by Paramore

Paramore fan, sorry, so it's only natural that my favorite song should come from them. Out of all the songs they've sung, this has to be the one that I really love. I guess you could say that it speaks to me. It's inspiration; it's hope in under four minutes. It's a nice song to cry to, and it's a nice song to sing when everything else is crying.

It is luff.

Someone recommended it to Shing.
Shing recommended it to Shaniqua.
Shaniqua recommended it to me.
I recommend it to... you.
It's a cycle of recommendation, and I find it rather cute.

Might as well.

Day 01 — Your favorite song 
Day 02 — Your favorite movie 
Day 03 — Your favorite television program 
Day 04 — Your favorite book 
Day 05 — Your favorite quote 
Day 06 — Whatever tickles your fancy 
Day 07 — A photo that makes you happy 
Day 08 — A photo that makes you angry/sad 
Day 09 — A photo you took 
Day 10 — A photo of you taken over ten years ago 
Day 11 — A photo of you taken recently 
Day 12 — Whatever tickles your fancy 
Day 13 — A fictional book 
Day 14 — A non-fictional book 
Day 15 — A fanfic
Day 16 — A song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 — An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.) 
Day 18 — Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 19 — A talent of yours 
Day 20 — A hobby of yours 
Day 21 — A recipe 
Day 22 — A website 
Day 23 — A YouTube video 
Day 24 — Whatever tickles your fancy 
Day 25 — Your day, in great detail 
Day 26 — Your week, in great detail
Day 27 — This month, in great detail 
Day 28 — This year, in great detail 
Day 29 — Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days 
Day 30 — Whatever tickles your fancy 

...don't.



While we loved(!!!) the free (totally awesome) tickets to the screening, we couldn't say the same thing about the movie. Maybe the traffic jam we were caught in on the way to Glorietta was a sign; it was fate trying to stop us from suffering fandom deaths.

I guess it was all too fast--too compressed. (Well, they did try to fit a ton of episodes of action!fun!adventure! in such a limited time so there were "bound to fail" warning signs over there.) Top it off with the poor scripting, useless storybook narration, and attempts to spoon-feed every single piece of information in a less than subtle way.

And gahd. Since when did "Aang" become "Uung"? I mean, I understand poetic license, Mr. Shyamalan, but there is nothing poetic about that.

The bending effects score a few points from me though. Pretty water is pretty, but that's as far as my praise for it goes. The rest of the time, I was trying to stifle my screams of despair and anguish at the total fail.

I. Am. Depressed.
Though I've already read a couple of bad reviews about it and prepared myself for the worse, seeing it with my own eyes is a different matter.

My logical, rational self gives it 3 stars out of 5.
My grieving fandom heart deems it too unworthy to have a rating.

...at least the trailer and ticket designs are pretty.

There's something about the rain that makes me want to run outside, splash in the disgustingly dirty canal water, and laugh hysterically at the sky.

...or perhaps it's just me suffering from dementia due to heat stroke.

I vote for the latter.

Anyway, today is pretty much the same as every other day of this long summer (minus the heat.) I've found plenty of things to entertain myself with though, such as this awesome song hidden amongst the jungle that is youtube:

It's so... fun. And different. And apparently, it's stuck in my head.



Also stumbled upon an animation tutorial, which got me interested in flash again. So I basically spent the day trying to remember how to animate things, more specifically, how to make balls bounce of walls /rhyme. After that, it would be how to make things walk. asdfgkl;

...hmm, I think I'll make an animated dragon someday.

Mom gave me this link [click] and my sister and I just had to try it. Mostly because:

1) It's cake and success with this baking thing means that we'd have the power to make cake whenever we want. Joy.

2) It brings a bit of excitement in life.
(Oh the thrill of possible mug-cakes exploding in our faces.)

And so we experimented with things.




The stuff to be played with:
Flour, eggs, sugar, chocolate milk mix, cocoa, marshmallows (though we never got to put them in for fear of everything exploding in the microwave), cookie bits, oil, milk, and a nice, big mug.

Everything was clean and shiny and pretty.

But that didn't last for long.

(Figure 2: See Kat with a bowl filled with egg. Picture-taking FTW)





At this point, we were utterly clueless on how to go about it, since the instructions were basically "PUT EVERYTHING IN MUG AND HOPE FOR THE BEST."





Spillage of flour and other things.





It doesn't look appetizing.






In the microwave, it goes!




Though the instructions say 3 minutes, DO NOT BELIEVE IT. 4 minutes and 30 seconds should do the trick~




1




THE MOMENT OF TRUTH.




Microwave-baking: It's like ~*~*~magic~*~*~




Eat up.
Needs more sugar but wth.



To sum it all up:
Summer Project: Making Mug-cakes = SUCCESS

1. I was posting some new art thing at dA this morning when my younger sister Kat came in and looked at whatever I was doing. She blinked, did a double take and said, "Ikaw nagdrawing nito?"

I gave her a weird look and asked, "Yeah, why?"

"Kala ko ibang tao gumawa," she said. "It's so not you."

I blinked and gave her another weird look. "What? Why?"

"Wala lang. You improved," Kat told me. "Compliment iyon."

Cue the glowy happy feeling deep down inside. For the first time, I actually believed it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
2. We had another one of those blackouts. Due to boredom (but mostly hunger), I got some breadsticks and challenged my sister to some breadstick-eating thing.

"On my 13th breadstick, I swear... we'll have LIGHT again!" I said while munching on a few.

Maybe it's because the breadsticks are actually magical, or maybe it's because I have awesome predicting powers-slash-luck.

Either way, we got our electricity back.

Just watched "How to train your dragon" awhile ago, which sort of left me feeling empty. In retrospect, dragon-related movies always leave me in some kind of empty state.

Yes,Iwantmyownfreakingpetdragon.

/randomramble

The funny thing about bringing a dog along to a procession is that people forget that they're in some solemn church event, and turn to the sweet yet annoying, barking dog that's just demanding attention.

The late afternoon of Good Friday was spent at the Mall of Asia, specifically at a Church near there, where people were gathering for the stations of the cross and for the yearly Lent procession.

Jack, the family dog whose eyes just scream "oh hey, I'm cute, come look at me," was with us, and of course, with him, come a hundred or so fans who were just begging to pat and poke the plastic little doggy.


They do not know the evil that lurks beneath that innocent face.




And of course, Good Friday shouldn't end without dinner at Friday's.




Jack eating ice.
Because the truth is, we forgot to bring his food.

So, a few days have gone by since graduation day, and so far, things are going great. Who knew freedom was this awesome?

Here's my summer so far, a ramble, of course.

...

The 28th - The Killer Shoes Party Debut

So this was the day that I had been dreading for quite a while now. Because:
1) Parties = very uncharacteristic of me.
2) It will be a night of utter embarrassment on my part.
3) ...my birthday was a week ago.

But good lord. It's a good thing it pushed through because it was by far, the second-greatest birthday celebration in the history of my life. (the first being the birthday celebration thingy I had on the 19th)

Everything turned out well... the cake, the cupcakes, the freaking venue with purple balloons, the family and family friends, and the friends who came~ (I saw you sneak back to the buffet table tharr :)))

Tita Rhycel and Mother did an awesome job with it.

Special shout-out to the ones who agreed to sing for the 18 thingies. I'm still amazed that it was easy to convince all of you to do that potentially embarrassing thing.

1) Lorraine -- Gotta Go My Own Way -- Good lord. That song @_@ which has no connection whatsoever. ily, Twin! I still can't believe you agreed to it xD

2) Cielo -- Tomorrow -- You sang one word of it xDD ...thank you, fellow cat-person!

3) Valerie (with Vanessa) -- Fake Wings -- You two were creepy @_@ like living dolls of doom. Thankies, Valerie and Vanessa (even if you were utterly clueless about this little plot of mine)

4) MJ -- Brick By Boring Brick -- Heh. Fate is definitely unkind to you~ You still got to sing (and you did sing it quite well c: )

5) Shaniqua -- Granger Danger -- I still can't believe you did that. I should have made a bet slash agreement with someone that you'd actually sing. I would have won ice cream (again.) Thank you for being brave out there, Friend-nonetheless.

6) Shing -- Much More Beautiful -- *speechless* No words can describe that lively performance of yours back there. And I just want to say that I (and a lot of other people--they told me :P) loved it. I WISH SOMEONE RECORDED THAT :C

...

Witch

It's freakishly kiddie and full of friendshipness that it's making me twitch. Sometimes I wonder why I bother trying to catch up to this again :c and how I could stand this sort of thing.

...

Go With Grace (from Shing)

I swear. This comic left me disturbed and distraught.

How disturbed and distraught? I cried over this.

Twice.

...but strangely enough, I still liked it.

...

Lelouch Plushie and Poster (from Valerie)

<3

...

Perfect World

Why didn't I download this thing earlier? This thing may just save me from that same old summer curse: boredom. I basically spent the past few days killing things, exploring, running around, and trying not to get myself killed (Thank you, Valerie, for teaching me stuff and not letting me die just like that 8D)

...

Cat Sanctuary News: Three New Kittens

One of them is a loner who hates people. We're calling it "Slate."
Full name: Slayer

The other loves the attention. We're calling it "Chess."
Full name: Cheshire.

The last one is freakishly adorable. We're calling it "Fenny."
Full name: Defenestration.

Just cuz we can.

...

Script Frenzy

...starts tomorrow, and I still have no idea what to write for it.
Good lord. Someone inspire me please.

Like. Right now.

...

Here and Now

Sleepy and craving for cake.

...that the last day of high school + cake + Alice in Wonderland + gaming + wandering about at Shang + dinner at Fish & Co. = BEST DAY EVER.

Sweaaaar. What the heck happened today.
I still don't get it.
^{(ILYFRIENDSANDYOUCAKESPONSORPEOPLESLOOOORDASDFJKL; <3)}

I did not just spend my weekend reading "Shopaholic and Sister."
I did not say "Well, that was nice. On to the next book!" after finishing the whole thing.
I also did not just spend a fraction of my life reading comics.
The comic is not Witch. No. Not at all.
Okay, so maybe I'm slightly appreciating the art a little bit. Slight. Just slight.
That little confession over there did not give anything away.
I'm not looking for more comics by the way. I did not spend a few moments of my life searching for Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman" over the internet so I could read for free.
I also did not go back to Neopets to play a *few* games.
I did not stay for over an hour. No. That's just wrong.
I did not stop and wonder about my sanity and how kiddie I am.
I did not sign up for the April Script Frenzy, which involves writing a 100-page script for 30 days.
No, I'm also not going to attempt illustrating that during May. That's just crazy.
I did not secretly miss the hectic writing month that is NaNoWriMo.
I also did not spend my weekend constructing my playlist, and still am.
I did not stick it at the side of this page.
No, it's not on autoplay so people would have no choice but to listen to the wonders of Paramore and Dashboard and shiz.
And no. It's not filled with Paramore songs. I'm not that much of a fan.
And Dashboard too. And Mika. I'm not a fan at all.

And just so you know, I'm not bored.
Boredom does not exist in my world.

And no.
This isn't denial.
Nope.

The good news is there are six more days of grad practice left. The bad news is... there are six more days of grad practice left.

I think I'm going insane.

...

In other news, I found this awesome piece of awesomeness. It's just <3 <3 <3
"1000 Words" --- Art by Yuumei; Video by Propheaker

This day was so awesome that I didn't even feel the ache and pain brought about by my four-inch shoes of death that much.

Saturday, you've been amazing.