Song of the day: Hilary Duff - Come Clean

So yesterday, my mother and I were at a strip mall to get me some new school clothes (ugh, less than three weeks), and whilst we were there, we stopped at a dollar store. And me being me, what should've been a $5 trip turned into a $20 trip. I got two tubes of lip gloss (I LOVE LIP GLOSS), one a bright pink and one a subtler lip colour. I also got a little blending sponge thingamajig, some gum, some cookies n creme chapstick that I could not resist, and an apple cinnamon candle.

I've also been on the hunt for some nice concealer recently and at said dollar store shopping stree, I thought I had found the perfect product. Or at least the best one that I had seen in any dollar store. It was the lightest shade they had available (or should I say lighter? They only had two shades.) and in the bad dollar store lighting, I thought it was a pretty great match for my skin tone. But let's see what happens when we contrast my pale, could-probably-pass-for-a-vampire-because-I-rarely-go-outside skin and this tan, pretty-much-the-colour-of-khaki-dress-pants concealer. So yeah, that's two tubes of concealer I probably won't use. But on the upside, maybe if I scuff my wooden desk I can use it to cover it up.

Also, for some reason I've been obsessed with Gordon Ramsay cips on YouTube recently. Like I've spent maybe 1/3 of my YouTube-watching time over the past few days watching Hell's Kitchen, Hotel Hell, and like all of his shows. I've also watched some more Murder, She Wrote, and I think I love that programme more and more with each episode!

Also, I woke up this morning to rain. Thank God! And I can see the forecast through Thursday, and none of the days have a high above twenty-nine degrees! YES! The heat index recently was above forty degrees, so this is a WELCOME change.

Also, in quickfire news, the other day I was making some Kraft Dinner for lunch, and I meant to cook half a box of pasta. I put in the corresponding amount of water to half of a box of Kraft Dinner, but only after I accidentally added a whole box of pasta. I'm just glad my "not thinking whilst cooking" incident was when I was making Kraft Dinner, not something that can explode or something. (I'd hope Kraft Dinner isn't explosive).

But the weirdest thing about all of that is that somehow I managed to eat an ENTIRE BOX of Kraft Dinner. It was just a box's worth of microwaved macaroni and cheese, but by the way I acted, you'd think I'd just singlehandedly devoured an entire Christmas dinner meant for a family of ten.

But yeah, anyways, that's all that I have to talk about tonight, so I'll talk to you all later. Bye!

Song of the day: Carole King (feat Louise Goffin) - Where You Lead I Will Follow

In the recent trend of things failing to work as they should, the Internet Annoyance, as I'm dubbing it, has continued. In addition, an entire new annoyance has started. The Touch ID on my iPhone has seemed to become weirdly particular as to exactly how I place my finger and it sometimes take many attempts to log in, to the point where it makes me put my code in instead of my Touch ID. On the other hand, sometimes it works perfectly. Oh well.

Also, I just realized today that I have a Golden Girls themed board/card/whatever game that I got for Christmas and my family and I still haven't played it with my family. Well, it'll have to go on the list of bits and bobs that I want to do this summer. SPeaking of cheesecake (a main theme of the Golden Girls and the game is cheesecake), I really wanna bake some. I have a no-bake cheesecake mix in the pantry, but I'd rather make it from scratch. I have seen a 200-year-old recipe from a video that Ann Reardon did looking at an old cookbook which could work except that I'd rather not manually make cheese. So I'll have to scrounge around the Web for recipes that are made from scratch as in not just using some powder mixes and milk, but not as in literally separating cream and curds to manually make cheese.

Also, I found out today that the Office Depot in my city has closed since the last time I went there. Which sucks since that's normally where I got all of my notebooks for school and that kind of stuff, plus it was just a cool store. I guess I'll have to try Walmart or something.

Speaking of school supplies, I was looking through my supply list and found out that we get to know our electives THE DAY BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS. Not a lot of time to go out and buy supplies. Honestly, I wish there was an option for a study hall or something, as most of the electives seemed rather underwhelming. I suppose Astronomy might be nice though. I hope I put it as my first choice.

Also, the new episode of Belbel Land (a chaotic/amazing YouTube series that Verivery make) STILL doesn't have English subtitles last time I checked, only Chinese, plus the Korean subtitles in the video itself. Which is odd, considering that Verivery's team is normally so good with subtitles! But I don't speak Korean or Chinese, so I'll just have to wait. Oh well.

Anyways, that's all that I have to write about for tonight, so I'll talk to you all later. Bye!

Song of the day: Iyaz - Replay

So, my Internet connection has been a bit... upset recently. It gets slow as it pleases, I think mainly just to get me ticked off.

Also, I don't know if I told you all about it, but a week ago yesterday I volunteered with a local volunteering group making dinner at the Ronald McDonald House. Well, I did it again last night with the same group, including the same leader and one of the same other people. Anyways, it (like the previous time) was really fun! Sadly, I don't know if we're scheduled to do it again.

Also, I've had a bit of inspiration to start baking recently. I love watching baking shows and YouTube channels and that kinda stuff and I just wanna learn to bake like that! Like, I can just imagine myself baking a cake and it just being amazing and I want to get to that place. Like Ann Reardon or Mary Berry. It kind of runs in the family, as well. My grandmother used to have a little business where she'd sell cakes. Actually, maybe I'll just have her teach me or at least give me some tips and tricks next time I go up to her house.

Also, does anyone else have an addiction to tvtropes? I love to look up the trope pages for my favourite shows/films/artists/etc and just explore that site for hours on end. I suppose it's just my version of the classic Wikipedia binge, though.

Speaking of addictions, I've also watched some videos by Gordon Ramsay and a ton of videos by Vi Hart recently. Honestly, I think I'm addicted to Vi Hart's videos now. They somehow make math fun!

Anyways, that's all that I have to talk about for now, so I'll talk to you all later. Bye!

Song of the day: Vanessa Carlton - A Thousand Miles

So first off, today and yesterday, I've watched so much more Murder, She Wrote. At this rate, I'll probably finish the whole show before school starts back up.

Speaking of that, I got the supply list recently. I forgot what I ranked my choices as on the electives form, but I'm just hoping that I don't get a few certain classes. I don't want to gripe too lengthily, but yes, teachers have something to do with that.

Also, it was finally cloudy today! It's been nonstop sunny for the past week or so, so it was a relief that it was finally nice today. But, it'll only last so long: it's supposed to be thirty-six bleeding degrees both this Wednesday AND this Thursday! Thankfully, it's supposed to rain on Friday though. Thank God!

Also, I found out recently that they've posted episodes of The Facts of Life on YouTube. They being a YouTube channel called The Norman Lear Effect, dedicated to the shows of Norman Lear like Diff'rent Strokes (which Facts is a spinoff of), Maude, and of course, The Facts of Life. They have three episodes up now. I saw that they used to have another one (Mother and Daughter, from season 5) but I guess they got rid of it.

Speaking of TV, I kinda want to watch I Love Lucy. I just remembered a Golden Girls show where Blanche and Rose watch a marathon of it, and I've heard great things of it. I mean, if people still talk about it this long later, it must be worth watching!

Anyways, that's all that I have to talk about for now, so I'll talk to you all later. Bye!

Song of the day: Stacey Q - Two of Hearts

So today, I sat on the couch with my laptop and watched Murder, She Wrote for a good five hours or so in all on the TV. (Does time fly!) I wrote as well while I did it, and I felt like I really got something done! Honestly, I think that Cabot Cove kinda made me want to live in a small town, combined with Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls. But I suppose that there's something to be said for city living as well.

And I'd want to live in a "big small" town as well, if that makes sense. I have some family that live near a small town (honestly, it might qualify as a village, I don't know for sure), but it's rather smaller than either Cabot Cove or Stars Hollow from what I know of them, and personally I'd rather the town I would live in have a population of maybe 10,000, and also maybe a 15 or 20 minutes' drive to the nearest decently-sized city, so I could go to a mall (I love malls) without having to drive for ages and all the kinds of stuff I'm used to living in a proper city. Also, I'd want the town to have a good Internet provider. In the words of my mother, said family's Internet in that town/village is "worse than dial-up". It actually takes a good few seconds to load the Google homepage.

Also, I want to branch out in terms of food. Nowadays, my family and I generally eat one of a few meals, but I really want to start eating more types of meals. We've checked out some cookbooks from the library, but haven't got around to making any new recipes from them soon. I hope we will soon.

Also, one of you commented on my profile asking to see my paintings from my Bob Ross classes. I just finished the classes up yesterday, and I have three paintings in all from them, as one took two days whilst the others took one each. Once they dry and I can find a place with better lighting than the room they're drying in, I intend to show you all pictures. But until then, suffice it to say that I think the last one is potentially my favourite painting that I've ever done. The reflection in the water is a bit weird, but other than that I think it's genuinely good!

Also, partially aided by my checking it out from the library after my mother influencing me to do so, I've finally set myself on reading Pride and Prejudice. Longtime readers of this blog (or just those of you all that have read through it all) will know that I loved the BBC's adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (especially Mr Darcy!) so I'm super excited to see how much I like the original book.

Anyways, I should probably go cook myself some raviolis or something for dinner, so I'll talk to you all later. Bye!

Song of the day: The Supremes - Stop! In The Name Of Love

These past few days, I've continued my Bob Ross classes (my last one is tomorrow) and I completed another painting (this one took two days as it's rather complicated.) I think the most recent tutorial we've used is the same one Ann Reardon, one of my favourite YouTubers, uses in this video:

Or at least I thought it. It turns out they're just very similar, but the one we did has a trail and the land shape is different, plus it's mistier. But either way, honestly, my finished painting isn't perfect, but I think it's still pretty great! I'd say it's pretty great for my first time painting mountains, and I'm at least glad that I salvaged the snow caps on top of the mountains (there was a moment when I almost completely thought I had ruined it) and that I managed to make the trees in the foreground look somewhat similar to trees instead of just green triangles.

I've also finally felt the inspiration to write again! (Huzzah!) Sadly, I'm not able to write at my old rates yet, though. Somehow, in the springtime, I was normally managing 1000 words a day, whereas right now I'm doing maybe a fifth of that. I suppose I might just be a bit rusty though, as it's my first time in two months or so where I've felt able to write any stories at all. I should also finish a couple unfinished WIPs I have laying on my hard drive sometime.

Also, my school sent out the supply list, which includes the named of the teachers for each class, and apparently the new science teacher who'll be teaching chemistry and biology shares the same last name as my great-grandparents. I wonder if we're related? I hope that said new teacher, as well as the new English teacher, are cool.

Also, I need to read my human geography summer reading book that we've been assigned but honestly, I don't think anyone else in my grade has done any summer reading, and I don't want to think about school yet, especially not the person who's teaching it. (I don't know if I've said this before here, but he will swear up, down, left and right that he won't give us weekend homework and then assigned something on Thursday and makes it due Monday or Friday and makes it due Tuesday because it's apparently not weekend homework if we can work on it during the week.)

Anyways, I want to go write some more instead of griping, even as therapeutic as complaining to my Internet friends may be, so I'll talk to you all later. Bye!

Song of the day: Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart

So I had a double-dip of cool stuff to do today. First, this afternoon, I did a cool little Bob Ross art class with a local organization. I have three more classes this week, and we're making one painting per day, so that'll be super cool! Second, I volunteered with some other people my age to make meals for the Ronald McDonald House and it was super fun! There were lots of jokes amongst us and stuff, plus we got to taste test bits/eat excess bread that couldn't fit in the pan when we made garlic bread. I'm doing it with the same organization one week from today, and I'm super excited. Plus, as a bonus Shut Up and Dance and Total Eclipse of the Heart, two pretty good songs, came on the radio on the way home, so I had a nice time jamming to those.

Also, yesterday, my mother and I travelled to her hometown for my grandfather's family reunion and we stopped off at my grandparents' house for a bit afterward. My little cousins showed me their paddleboat thing and my uncle showed me how to drive my grandpa's golf cart-like thing. I even got to drive it on the gravel roads that my grandparents and uncle live on. It was technically my second time doing that, but I'd rather count it as my first official time driving on real roads for some reason. The only side effect was that between driving the golf cart, plus like an hour and a half each way to get there/get home, and probably half an hour on the merry-go-round thing thanks to my cousins make me spin them, my head was spinning slightly all day.

On the annoying side, though, apparently my grade has to go on a "team-building" day retreat this autumn, which I'm dreading. At least we don't have to spend the night there and sleep in weird, uncomfortable beds like the last retreat, though.

Anyways, that's pretty much all that I have to talk about right now, so I'll talk to you all later. Bye!

Song of the day: Celine Dion - That's The Way It Is

So today, I've been getting into 80s fashion. I kinda wanna get a big 80s curly type hairstyle, and I definitely wanna start dressing like an 80s teen pop type person with acid washed denim and abstract graphic t-shirts and bowler hats. So basically just Robin Sparkles from How I Met Your Mother.

Also, I've finished watching Facts of Life, or at least all that the Logo channel is going to show. They skipped a few episodes from the first 7 seasons, but they just flat-out skipped half to two-thirds of the last two seasons. What a rip-off! I guess I'll just have to buy the DVDs.

Also, despite the fact that I'm multiple years away from university, I've found myself thinking a lot about it and watching a lot of YouTube videos about university. I've already set up a university e-mail address for universities to e-mail me, as my school's university counslor recommended. I put said e-mail address on a standardized test recently as well, which has led to it being inundated with random universities e-mailing me, though most of them are (at least in my opinion) rather unremarkable. Oh well.

Anyways, that's pretty much all I have to talk about, so I'll talk to you all later. Bye!

Song of the day: Jessica Simpson - Irresistible

So it's finally rainy! The past few days, it's been rather annoyingly sunny, but suddenly, this afternoon it's super gloomy and it's supposed to rain rather heavily, so I'm a happy camper.

Also, in terms of Facts of Life, we've reached the Cloris Leachman/Beverly Ann years. During the season 8 premiere, when Mrs Garrett was telling each of the girls what they taught her, I literally sobbed. Also, I think they may be skipping a few episodes as thet run through all the seasons. They've also seemed to quit cutting random parts of scenes in favour of speeding most of the episodes up noticably, and I don't know if it's better or worse.

Also, speaking of missing parts of episodes, I'm watching the show on satellite and conveniently, the satellite started having weather issues just in the middle of this last episode. Oh well, I can just wait until they show it again or buy the DVDs on Amazon. That was the last episode of Facts of Life they're airing for the day anyway, so I guess I'll just watch some Full House or something on Hulu. Sitting on the couch with a quilt, writing my blog and watching old TV shows as it rains outside - how cozy!

Also, since when is Shaquille O'Neal in so many ads? I don't know if it's something that's always happened and I've just noticed recently or if it's only started happening recently, but it seems like he's in a ton of commercials. He's in a Frosted Flakes/Frosties ad, as well as some insurance company's ad. At this rate, I figure it's only a matter of time before Shaquille O'Neal is unescapable.

Anyways, I wanna go enjoy the coziness, so I'll talk to you all later. Bye!

Song of the day: Fifth Harmony - Miss Moving On

So I've been watching (what else?) more Facts of Life, and they've finally reached the era where George Clooney was on the show. In case y'all don't know, George Clooney got his big break playing George Burnett, a handyman/construction guy on the show. He was a main cast member in season 7, and recurring in season 8. Anyways, he was pretty handsome in the 80s, if I do say so myself. Honestly, I think that guys having dark, rather short, curly hair is just weirdly attractive to me. I mean, Colin Firth's Mr Darcy AND George Clooney circa 1985-87? 2 for 2 for the dark curly-haired hunks. I've also started watching Full House on Hulu, and Jesse was attractive too. Maybe men were just more attractive in the 80s and 90s? Who knows?

Anyways, my family and I went out to dinner again tonight. While we were there, some man who dresses like my grandpa walked up to us out of the blue and started chatting back and forth with my dad. Some woman (that I don't think I've ever seen in my life before tonight), who I believe is his wife, showed up behind him soon after and nodded at me like we were acquaintances. As it turns out, my father and his siblings went to school with this man and he was best friends with my father's older brother. Anyway, they chatted for a minute before the man and his wife (and some other guy who looked to be a bit older than the others, who might have been with them, idk).

Anyway, on the way home, there were some people working on the roads (like they have been for around two months now) on the way home, and as we passed them, there was just one of the workers looking at a machine thingy in front of him which was on fire (flames were like shooting up). Honestly, I wish that I had had time to take a photo of it, but sadly, we were but passing them on the highway of life.

Also, if any of you pay attention to the Now Reading section on my homepage (does anyone?), then you'll know that I've been reading a lot of Sarah Dessen books recently. I've read like 5 or 6 so far, and I just finished the last one I had on hand tonight at the restaurant. Thankfully, my mother dropped one off next to my desk before we left, so I have one to last another week or so, but sadly I've worn out all the Sarah Dessen books in my house and my local library, so I'll have to turn to some other YA books or maybe some more biographies/historicall books. I wish I had a Kindle but I don't :(

Anyways, other than that, I don't have much else to talk about, so I'll talk to you all later. Bye!

Song of the day: Boys Like Girls - Be Your Everything

So yesterday, I went to a museum with my mother and found some interesting things, which I wanted to show you some of. First, there was this TV that looked like a giraffe.

There was also this horrible map, which excluded not only the entire island of Ireland, but half of Nunavut, as well as Hawaii and some other places.

The last thing I want to show you is this painting, which I thought looked rather like Mrs Bennet from the BBC's Pride and Prejudice.

Finally, I want to leave you on two videos. The first is this video by Count Binface, who ran for mayor in London this year.

The second is this video, which is just amazing!

Anyways, that's all that I have to talk about today, so I'll talk to you all later. Bye!

Song of the day: SS501 - Love Ya

So there's this museum in my city that specializes in historical stuff, like old art and artifacts (there might be some pun there, but I can't be bothered to find it) from ages ago. So it's moving to a different building in town, and tomorrow is the last day that it'll be open before it moves, so my mother and I are going to drop by in the morning to take one last look at it all as it is.

So lately, I've also been watching a lot of videos from the Onion. Honestly, some of their things have oddly come true recently. Like there was a video in 2009 or so about Friendster dying, and later on it actually did. There are probably some more examples, but once again, I can't be bothered.

To continue with the theme of being just kinda lazy, I still have yet to finish the script for my first summer reading video. I've read plenty of books this summer so far, but I do NOT want to actually do any videos for summer reading. Ugh.

Anyways, that's all that I have to talk about (summer can get kinda monotonous), so I'll talk to you all later. Bye!

Song of the day: M2M - Everything You Do

So yesterday and today, I've been trying to come up with a little tune to serve as the intro for my video diaries. I've made the channel icon and banner 80s-themed/vapourwave, in addition to my website's new logo, which is 80s-inspired, so I wanted it to sound 80s-esque. However, so far, though I've watched videos and dug through Garageband, I can't seem to find anything that sounds how I want it to. I've come up with a short draft, but even that seems a bit too simple, and the only 80s-style bits about it are that the drum loop I used was labelled "80s" and I used synthesizers for it that some guy on YouTube recommended. But alas, I had to resort to royalty-free music, though I think it's pretty cool royalty-free music.

I've also been watching some Sarah Millican clips on YouTube recently. She's a British comedian who has posted a lot of her clips as well as three of her standup shows to YouTube and they're hilarious! If I'm just having a so-so day, then I can pop one of her shows on and be laughing a ton and it'll just brighten my day!

Also, today, I (begrudgingly) went out for dinner for the first time since COVID, with my parents there as well. I had myself some toasted ravioli and french fries, which were both amazing, and my parents chatted with the owner for a bit before we made our way home. I also, of course, watched more Facts of Life this morning, which (other than two taped episodes I watched yesterday) were the first Facts of Life that I've watched this week, as yesterday, when Facts of Life normally airs, there was a marathon of Married with Children on. I don't know how long it was on for before I checked, but I looked at the TV guide feature thing on the TV at about 11 AM, and it was on until ELEVEN PM! How can you watch one show for so long?

Anyways, that's pretty much all that I have to talk about, so I'll talk to you all later. Bye!

Song of the day: Momoiro Clover Z - Hashire

So it's still been hot, and on Friday it's supposed to get up to THIRTY-FOUR! Why coudln't my ancestors have stayed in cooler places? I'm well sick and tired of heat. And just to rub it in my face, even though it can't be cool and rainy, today there have been fireworks that sounded kinda like thunder, to remind me of the miserable, hot, humid weather.

Near-obligatory temperature rant aside, I've also been somewhat attempting to work on summer reading these past couple of days. I have like a paragraph and a half of a script for one of the videos done, which, though miniscule, is probably more than can be said for many of my classmates.

I've also started to play more mobile games recently, and one of them has been Paper.io 2. I played it a while ago and it was generally cool, so they couldn't have ruined it right, since? Wrong. Nowadays, it's absolutely bombarded with ads (I kid thee nay, there was one like every thirty seconds of gameplay.) I tried Paper.io 3D, though, and its ads were less annoying. (I still have yet to try the original.) However, Paper.io 2 really needs to just... stop. Anyways, other than that, I've been playing Tomb of the Mask, a cool 8-bit inspired gamed which I used to play a lot, as well as Pokemon Go, which I tried to play on my old phone, but it didn't really work. Lastly, I've also been playing Cut the Rope, which I used to play a ton! It's a great game!

Anyways, other than that, I don't really have much to talk about, so I'll talk to you later. Bye!

Song of the day: Girls' Generation - Everyday Love

As expected, it's been hot recently. Unbearably hot. It's supposed to be a whole 33 degress Celsius here on Tuesday, and it's 28 right, which, coupled with all the humidity that we got last week, makes for purely miserable weather. What a joy!

Also, I have to get thinking about summer reading. There's an assignment from my school, which is at least better than previous years (we only have one required book, for my AP Human Geo class), but we also have to make videos for all (or at least some) of the books that we read this summer. There's a shared Google Drive where we're supposed to put all the videos, and checking it, literally nobody from my grade has uploaded one yet. My mother keeps trying to get me to start working on it, and I finally started to think about it today, so I guess I'll have to work on it.

Anyways, other than that, I'll talk to you later. Bye!