Freedom From the Metal (A New Age of Art).

     Hello, all.  G-star here.  I actually could've posted this sometime on Friday, but since I posted on Wednesday I thought it might be a little much to write two large posts in the space of two days.  This is gonna be a long one.  (Besides, if I changed to a daily schedule I would feel guilty every time I couldn't go on the computer...I don't need the stress.)
      First things first: Thursday morning I got my braces off!  As my mom had continuously told me, if felt slimy.  I had to get a permanent lower retainer along with a nighttime upper one and the upper one hurts like heck to yank off my teeth.  They have to take a cast of my top teeth the make the retainer, which has got to be one of my top three things to avoid.  They have flavors for the pink stuff they use, but that doesn't matter because I can't taste it.  All I can taste is the icky metal tray they hold the pink stuff in.  Not only does it trigger my gag reflex, it makes my stomach sick, a combination that can come to no good.  But the braces are off and that's what matters.  I've also found out that when the lady who works on my mouth says "you're going to feel a little pressure" she means "it's going to feel like I'm yanking your teeth out of your mouth, but don't scream!" - _ -  Great.  I bet that's what they're trained in: reverse hyperboles.  
     To celebrate MC and I went to the grocery store across the street during lunch and bought sour gummy worms.  Well, I did, she bought sour gummy worms and fake tea.  Then, over the course of lunch she ate the entire bag of gummy worms and finished off the tea, and after she did, she asked if we could go back and buy another bag of candy.
     ...
     I thought I was supposed to be the hyper one?
     I only ate half the bag, and the rest's still in my lunch box.  (No, MC, you can't have any.)  That tea had a ridiculous amount of sugar in it, too.  She was pretty jumpy...
     I like drawing.  You could even say it's a hobby.  But I don't do it a lot.  Like, I'll doodle something when I have an idea or come up with something stupid when I'm bored...or I did.  Ever since I drew up the picture for Akira's and my contest I've been drawing a lot more, on full-size paper instead of in my sketchbook no less.  I even go over the drawings in softer lead to darken the lines and am considering inking a few of them.  I finish more and faster, too.  I think I may finally be on the road to actually continuing one of my comics.  I also found out part of why I don't finish a lot of my pictures; most of the time I don't like how they look because the eyes suck.  I love manga and all, but when it comes to the face the people have to be symmetrical, and that's nearly impossible with anime-style eyes.  So I've been taking a page out of Applegeeks's and Megatokyo's books and doing lazy yet expressive comic eyes, which mainly consist of a slightly curved line and a white circle.  And hey, it works!  I'm still using anime eyes every so often when what I'm drawing requires it, but mostly this comic style works great.  And I don't have to worry about changing the style too much when I go back to working on Zane's comic because their eyes are already like that, just a little bigger.  So it works.  I like it.
     Now that I have my braces off I can eat so many things I couldn't before.  Mom bought a huge bag of dark chocolate caramel pretzels from Costco.  They're DELICIOUS.  And just last night I got a caramel dessert when I went out to eat with my grandparents.  It seems that when they're here we eat out a lot.  Not that that's a bad thing, but...actually, maybe it is.  I'm stuffing my face with fattening foods every weekend, not to mention my frugality won't let me rest...  At least we're eating at sit-down restaurants.  But my mom used to make a nice dinner whenever they came to visit.  I wonder what happened to that?  Mmm, pork roast...
     I uploaded the cyborg picture to G+, so I can post it here for you guys to see, despite my being on a school computer.  Ah, the wonders of technology.  (I did promise.)  The hat and tail are based off things Piro wears in Megatokyo...I always thought they were so cute.  :3  So enjoy, and until next time, this is G-star, signing off!

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.