What Powell's Has Hidden in its Deepest Chambers (A How-To For Blogging/Another Web Comic/Stable Income)...

     Hello, all, G-star here.  Yep, really liking the new site...
     As you probably know, Friday was my dad's birthday, and Saturday he wanted to go to Powell's Bookstore, the largest bookstore in America.  So, of course, we went.
     I spent my entire time in the Gold Room, where the fantasy and scifi genres dwell, along with, more importantly, the manga and graphic novels.
     I have a thing about actually buying manga.  I've always been a little frugal, so I don't want to waste money buying something I'll read in twenty minutes and never touch again (unlike novels, which I can read several times).  I convinced myself not to buy a manga by thinking "you can just read it on the internet or get it at the library for free....just walk away."  Of course, I ended up getting the first two omnibi of a webcomic called Applegeeks.  My main motivation for this was the fact that Fred Gallagher had done an illustrated foreword.
     If Piro likes it then it has to be good.
     And it is, at least so far.  Unfortunately, the book itself is horrible quality and the pages have been falling out ever since I started it.  It's very, very frustrating and makes me want to attack it with a roll of tape.  - _ -
     A couple alternatives that I had considered were a novel version of xxxHOLIC, which I deemed to be exciting to find but not quite worth it, and just some random three-volume omnibus of some manga that sounded interesting.  I didn't even have a particular one.  I've done this before and it almost always turns out well, so it's usually on my list of options when I go book shopping.  There was also vol. 2 of a manga I had started at the school library but could never find again.  Again, I didn't deem it worthy but I did sit down and find out what happened to my favorite character before putting it back.
     Along with the poorly made comic books I got a book specifically on blogging that I found in the science building my dad wanted to stop at.  I'm really not sure why it was there, but I was mesmerized, even if half the book was about advertising.  It had a bunch of stuff about title, design, topic, and "voice", which I think I have pretty well pinned down, don't you?  Apparently there are blogs out there that are entirely composed of pictures.  (I don't personally read blogs despite my obvious obsession for them, so I wouldn't know.)  I thought the whole point of a blog was to tell people things?  I suppose a picture "is worth a thousand words", but still....
     Like I said, about half the book is about advertising on and about your blog.  (I don't know the details though, I'm only partway through the book.)  Actually, when I renovated the site I considered getting an Adsense account to share my blog further or put up ads on my blog of products to get some spare cash, but I need a bank account to do either, and I don't have any money, much less an account for it.  I need a job.  (My parents have been trying to get me to consider babysitting, but do you really think that someone who spends all their time around kids their own age, using manga and music to tune out the world would be able to have authority over small children?  I don't think so.)
     A hotel was just torn down in my area and an organic grocery store is going to open there in a couple years.  By then I'll be old enough to get a job, so I may try to get one there...
     Or I could just get a bank account and open Adsense.  With the views I'm getting now I might get a fair profit.
     (Alright, I'm finishing this a few days later, so I have had time to finish the Applegeeks books I bought.)  Now that I'm done with the omnibi I've been reading the online webcomic, and I've already caught up to the most recent post.  The art changes a ton, but in a good way, unlike Fruits Basket.   It has various plot arcs and they all defy logic, not to mention physics.  But that's what makes it so interesting.
     We have another sub in Basketball class.  Very slowly, the disorder that follows the teacher ignoring the students has been driving me insane.  Finally I managed to get one of the girls to stop playing her own little game in the middle of the court during Blitz, and that gave me a small amount of bliss.
     ...and then the rap began.
     Patveli mentioned on a share for one of my posts that some rap is good, and does have a tune.  That may be true, but not for this rap.  (There are actually a couple of rap songs I enjoy, but they all have choruses and fairly meaningful lyrics.)  It's all cuss words and repetitive beat.  At one point the sub turned off Pandora or whatever it was and instead starting screwing with the radio.
     I liked him for about eight seconds before he turned the rap back on.
     I'm so glad I got out of that fast.
     Right now I'm posting from the school library because all the computers in the labs, including the one used for Business Class, are being updated.  It's nice since I don't have to be interrupted...and the headphone jack on this computer actually works. 
     Right.  All I really wanted to do was finish this, since I started it on Saturday.  Also, I've finished my story for Lit, but it needs a little editing and I may make it longer before I put it up here; I had to cut a bunch out to get it even near the maximum word count, and it's still well over 2,000 words.  Oh well.  I'll figure something out.
     I'll be back on tomorrow to edit it and I'll see if I can post a bit then.  Until tomorrow, this is G-star, signing off.

9/9/9: The Day of the Bloggers (Request to Destroy/Unrealistic Writing Limits)!

     Hello, all.  G-star here.  View stats are at nine hundred and ninety-nine, so this is a landmark event!  (I admit a couple of those were probably me checking the layout on different computers, but it's still kinda cool.)  After you read this (or even before; I really don't care) comment below and the first comment (AKA view if you do it right) gets their choice of a blog dedicated to them about the topic of their choice (well, it has to be appropriate) or a hand-drawn picture of them.  So get commenting!  (I think I may prevent MC from participating.)
     Speaking of drawings, I finished the one I was working on for the background.  It turned out great and I think it represents the blog pretty well.  ^_^  The only problem I have is how I'm going to get the color scheme of the page to work with the colors I used in the picture...ah well.  It'll all work out.  How odd that if I'm working on my comic or just some random drawing I rarely get it finished, EVER, but if it has to do with my blog I'll finish it in two days.  There's my dedication for you.
     Now that the background's finished I'll (probably) be working on editing the site all day.  It may be offline if I can figure out how to make it so, and oddly, I hope I can because I have this cool picture I found to put up when you can't access the page that I doubt anyone's gotten a chance to see.  I don't know exactly why I've been so impatient to change the layout, but one reason is probably because I just got bored of looking at it.  While it looks decently cool, I need change once in a while.  (As long as it's not moving or going bald or anything.)  Another reason, however, may be that, if I get my blog looking better and put my own art up, it might get more popular.  I want to put up Adsense as a part of the new template but I don't have a credit card, much less spare change, so it'll have to wait until I get a job...or something.  Until then, do you think any of you may be able to mention or advertise it on your various social networking sites?  I'd do it myself, but the only ones I use are roleplaying sites that I only use one of at a time and G+, where my posts are already published regularly.
     If you can, then thank you.
     A substitute teacher has been overseeing my basketball class this last week, if you can even call it that.  He has no authority, and even if he did he's not very threatening so I doubt anyone would listen to him.  While we were supposed to be doing drills half the class was just wandering around and shooting randomly.  A few just stood and dribbled in the middle of our Rush drill, and it was annoying BEYOND BELIEF.
     For the last twenty minutes of class (T-T Twenty minutes....that's too long to do one repetitive thing!!) we played Blitz.  The teacher has an amp setup at the back of the gym and has someone play music the whole class.  For some reason during Blitz the person always plays rap.
     This combination of a repetitive game I hate and repetitive music I despise nearly makes me crack.  Every day.  I had an odd Nagato-like urge to go up to the substitute, say in a monotone voice "Request to destroy.  Permission?" and then go bust up the amps until I couldn't hear that boring beat and incessantly fast swearing. 
     Yeah, I wish.
     I really do hate rap music.  It can't even be called music, because music, by definition,

"an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color."  Rap does not contain melody or harmony.  Color, however, it has in abundance. - _ -  Yes.  It's very colorful.  It's colorful like a war zone.

     Topic change time.  In IHS Literature we just finished the book we've been reading, The #1 Ladies' Detective Agency, and now our end-of-book project is a choice: an essay on theme, an essay on character, an extra chapter for the book, or a short story about the detective of our choice.

     A "short" story.  Right.

     I, of course, picked the short story, which seemed the best choice, especially since I already had a detective character from a story I started in middle school (but didn't save or print and so lost to an end-of-year computer wipe T-T).  Originally he was based off the main character of my comic/previously posted half-story (hence the name Zane White), but ended up being much different than the original.  And for the better.  I centered him around the classic PI characteristics.  Technically I'm not sure if they're "classic" per say, but they were in Calvin and Hobbes and that's good enough for me.

     Understandably, my Lit. teacher doesn't want to sit and grade twenty novels, so she put a word limit on the short story of 1,500 words.  At first glance it seems perfectly reasonable...until you start writing and realize how unrealistic that goal is.   White has just found clue 1/5 and I'm already a thousand words in.

     Yeah, THAT'S NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

      I don't want to have to make the teacher read a novel in two days, but no amount of cutting and editing is going to get my mystery anywhere near her limit.  It's a bit worrying, but she said to just write and then work that out later.  Right.....she's going to end up having to read my 4,000-word book.

     Once it's finished I'll post it up here, because it's actually pretty good, at least so far.  I might end up having to take out several parts, but I'll put the full one up here, possibly with a continuation if I can't fit in absolutely everything I want to write.

     The rough draft's due next Monday, so I should have it up at latest by Wednesday.  I'm considering doing it in chapters like my previous story for shortness's sake, but you tell me what you want.  I'll be updating the site for the rest of the day and possibly longer, so don't wait up.  Until then (or tomorrow, if I have a reason to post), this is G-star, signing off.   

DON'T TOUCH THE WAAAAAAAALL ("Fitz-Simmons" Liars, Perhaps).

     Hello, all.  G-star here, slightly annoyed (as I have been for quite a while now) at the fact that Blogger doesn't seem to acknowledge that tab = paragraph indent key, along with several other websites.  Nnn.  Blatant disrespect for obvious writing rules like that one on the internet just bug me.  Just like people putting an apostrophe in a possessive "its" on, of all things, a writing website!!!  Not only that, but incorrect uses of "to" and "too".  Gosh, if you're going to write, do it right... (pun not intended.)

     Anyway, after ranting about laws of writing, let's get to the actual subject of this post, which, to be honest, isn't really anything in particular.  The one thing I've been wanting to talk about is something I watched with my parents a few days ago; I walked into the room and they were playing some sort of action movie, so I sat down, interested.  Within five minutes (of movie, not counting commercials) of me getting there, three people died in violent, horrible, extremely morbid deaths.  You know those horror movies where you can see the murderer around the corner, but the character can't, and you're shouting like a madman at the TV, "DON'T GO IN THERE!!!  HE'S RIGHT TH...NOOOOO!!!"  (I probably shouldn't have talked about horror films, now I'm afraid there's a guy with a knife behind me. -_-)  Well, this was the same thing.  The characters were in this office building that kept being struck by lightning while at the same time being chased by this really bad CGI ball of pink electricity, and the buff, handsome, evidently genius main action guy was telling everyone not to touch the walls or railing of the staircase, because if they did, they'd be electrocuted, but it was really tight, and this one lady kept sort of stumbling toward the wall, so you just knew something bad was going to happen, and I was yelling "Stupid!  Stop tripping!  BE CAREFUL MORON!!!"  (Dag, that was a REALLY long sentence.)  ...Then the lady fell down the stairs, got electrocuted, and when another guy, noticing she was still breathing, tried to help her, he died too.  It was HORRID.  At that point my parents gave up on it and when they went to the guide to turn something else on, I noticed the name of the movie was "Ice Twister", and the description said that it was about some scientist guy who somehow puts shards of ice into a tornado.  That had absolutely NOTHING  to do with the movie.  I don't know why they even try.  Oh, remember how I mentioned the "really bad CGI ball of pink electricity"?  Well, I wasn't kidding.  It was pathetic how bad the special effects were.  The ball wobbled around with the camera instead of with the background, so the fact that it was edited in was plain for all to see, not that anyone would want to.
     Speaking of horror, I was watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. again last night.  This one was akin to a scary movie, as it was about a girl the team was keeping in the plane who was being haunted.  This guy with a monkey wrench kept appearing and disappearing before and after beating people up and/or locking them in closets.  He took out the power, but the lights kept flickering, and when the lights would be on you'd see him in a doorway, then they'd flicker and he'd be gone.  It was almost like Slenderman the way he disappeared.
     This doesn't have to do with the ghost guy, but it does have to do with the show.  I believe on one of my "culture updates" (they're beginning to have less to do with manga and more to do with stories in general, so I'm going to call them that instead) I talked about how much I love the fact that Fitz and Simmons seem more like siblings than coworkers.  Well, recently I've noticed a lot of the other characters referring to them as "Fitz-Simmons" like they're one person, and I think that's funny.  That's just me, though, and just because they're my favorite characters. ._.
     I just went web-surfing and discovered that someone made a fan video of the amazing tech duo's origins, appropriately named "Fitz-Simmons".  Apparently they had the idea in May, which I don't understand since the series started this fall.  (What...?)  Anyway, they said they were going to have it out by early summer (again, don't understand the timing) but I did a little searching (when I say a little, I mean five minute's worth) and I couldn't find the video itself anywhere, even though they had a Kickstarter for it and everything.  (*nose randomly explodes*  Guh...sorry, someone must be talking about me.)  Needless to say, it's a little concerning, not to mention disappointing.  (Speaking of noses, mine has been hurting on one side [on the outside] whenever I touch or accidentally press on it.  There's a sort of lump...maybe I was stung by a bee or something, although I think I would've noticed.)  Anyway, I'll see what I can find out about that video, but until Saturday, this is G-star, signing out.

P.S.
Have any of you seen FLCL (Fooly Cooly)?  If so, is it good?  The club I introduced a while back reeeeaaally wants me to watch it.  Apparently they've all seen it several times.  Also, the way this country is going by way of education, I'm a little concerned that most kids my age may not even know what P.S. means.  Put a comment below with the definition if you know, but NO GOOGLING.  Yes, I already know, I just want to know if you do.

Mini-Ramble: Chapter 1 (Offensive Referrals).

     Hello, all.  For the first time in several weeks, I've actually remembered to post this on Saturday!  And, though it's too late for this now, I have something to talk about.  I was watching "Oprah: Where are They Now?" last night with my mom (for the simple reason of her bed is comfortable and that's what she had on) and I saw two very interesting commercials.  First, you know those toilet paper commercials where they take one of theirs and one of the "nameless competitor's", get them wet, put a roll of quarters on them, and drag them across a table to show which one's stronger?  Well, I always thought that not naming the product you're better than was sort of an unwritten rule of advertising, but that seems to be changing.  There was a commercial for the new Window's Tablet and, at the end of the commercial, the actor specifically said "it's better than an iPad." (Quote not exact.)  If my life were a cartoon, I would've paused it right there, turned toward the camera, and said "Woah, woah, woah, did he just say what I think he said??  Did he just diss Apple??"  About twenty minutes later there was an ad for a truck (forgot the brand) where, after getting inside the truck that magically seemed to block out the noise of the neighboring busy interstate, said "It's so much better than those other brands like, say, Ram and Ford."  (Again, quote not exact.)  That last sentence was completely unnecessary, but they still had to name off brand names they're better than (or think they are).  It's a sad day for the advertisement industry.  Anyway, here's the next part of the story.  I'll see you on Wednesday.  Until then, G-star out.

Chapter 1 -- Sensei

He was greeted by the sight of two boys practice fighting on a gymnastics mat.  The woman was standing in the corner by the mat, correcting the boys’ stances every so often.  “Adam!  Raise your arms higher when you punch!  Brenton, you need to watch for his attacks, not stand there waiting for them to hit you in the face!  I can’t afford another hospital bill because you weren't paying attention.”  When the battle ended with Brenton on the floor and Adam with his foot on Brenton’s chest in triumph (the boy got the feeling that this had happened many times before), the woman clapped her hands, causing everyone’s heads to snap towards her.  “We have a new student today.  Adam, Brenton, say hello to Zane Hart.  And make sure you have his attention before bothering to say anything,” She said, rolling her eyes and beginning to roll up the mat.  Adam came over to Zane while Brenton stood up, grumbling and brushing himself off.  “Nice to meet you.  I’m Adam Smith,” he said, shaking Zane’s hand.  He was thickset in a muscular kind of way and tan, with wavy black hair.  He sort of emanated a friendly vibe, hippy-wise, and Zane liked him.

This is Nonsense, But Video Games Come Up the Most (Smores are Delicious).

     Hello, all.  G-star here, with not much to talk about...  Well, firstly, here's a shoutout (no, I don't know what that is) to my friend Bianca (AKA Smore) at justmehighschool.blogspot.com!  I haven't checked it out yet (she won't let me open the page at school -3-) but you should!  I bet it's great!  Other than that, I don't know what to say.  Well, in that unofficial club I mentioned a few posts ago, we've finally decided what we're doing.  We've decided to make a video game; specifically, a dating sim.  We had two different versions; one where there's one protagonist and one main character, designed to make you like her.  The other was one customizable protagonist and a bunch of different main characters, each one with a different path should you choose them.  I think the latter would be too difficult, as it involves programming more paths and choices (not to mention characters), while the former would be simple and fun.  I made a survey and I'll edit this post and insert the link as soon as I can access it.  (Which I can't from the school computers.)  Anyway, so far my idea has been outvoted 8 to 2, but I think it has a better chance than the more complicated one.  Once the survey is up, please vote!  It's only one question; I'm sure you can find the time.  Please, blow their overconfidence in our collective abilities out of the water.
     Speaking of video games, my little brother bought a paintball Wii game.  (I didn't even know they had those.)  As he was taking the tutorial he could shoot the guide character in the face without it saying anything.  That's one resilient NPC.  Yes, I know, that was completely pointless, not to mention irrelevant.
     I'll see if I can talk about something more interesting.  Lessee... that book MC and I were working on maybe three months ago is finally being continued.  FINALLY.  I had written the second chapter and was waiting for her to continue the story, because I couldn't do anything more without her character doing something, but she took forever getting to Google Drive.  But now chapter three is on its way to being completed, so everything's okay!  And now I'm out of things to talk about again.
     UURRRGH.  This is like the problem I had with another blog website I attempted, trythistopic.weebly.com.  It was a complete and utter fail, mostly because I couldn't advertise it anywhere.  The biggest website I had presence on had a nasty habit of changing any link you posted to connect to said big website, so you couldn't advertise other websites.  The problem was, even worse than the fact I had no visitors, was that I needed comments to run the site.  People were supposed to comment with ideas about what the next entry would be on, and I would comply with my opinions.  Needless to say, it died after a week, though it is still active.  Comment on the latest post and I'll see if I can bring it back to life.
     This has to be the worst blog entry I've EVER written.  Normally, the night before I come up with a topic and outline for the next day's post but I fell asleep fairly quickly last night, and it doesn't help that hardly anything happened this week.  Seriously, all the things I just talked about were the most interesting happenings this week.  That seriously sucked.  In apology I'll do an update on my most recent reads.  Until Saturday, G-star out.  Gonen'nasai.

Recent Manga/Book/TV Update
Ouran Host Club (Bisco Hatori)- I actually watched the entire anime two months ago, but I'll count this as a recent read because I only just started reading the manga version, starting with volume 15 (I think?).  It's just as amazing as the anime, though the art is very different.  I've already read some of her series Millenium Snow, and that was definitely amazing, but this is even better.  Volume 16 contained a short story about when Haruhi's mother and father met...is it messed up that I'm now hopelessly obsessed now over Haruhi's father (pre-crossdress) and that I relate to her mother about how amazingly adorable he is?  ......
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.- I just love Fitz and Simmons.  LOVE LOVE LOVE XXX OOO {3{3.  Fitz is the best, of course, but the sibling-like duo's relationship is just so fun to watch!  The most recent episode was all about them, and I was sobbing like a small child when her goldfish dies when Simmons was about to die.  Ayaw........