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.