Hello Again

It's been a while since I posted, hasn't it? That just seems to be the way it is with this blog. Like always, the end of the school year is extremely busy for me, especially since it's my senior year. Prom, grad, projects, family obligations, and life in general have been overwhelming me just a bit. Still, I thought I should just check in and say hello. So... hello. How is everyone?

I have to admit, I've been better. I'm looking forward to summer. I've got a lot to do right now, but hopefully during summer I can relax a bit. I'll try and get a proper post done for this blog soon, but as always I make no promises.

I hope you're all doing well.

Laterz

I Love the Internet #2

I've discovered some awesome new sites since the last time I did this segment, so I thought I'd share. Just a warning first: prepare to waste all your free time.

Let's start with something useful. Have you ever had a song stuck in your head, but try as you might you can not remember the name of it? Midomi is a search engine that allows you to search songs by singing, or simply humming the tune. The only downside is that you need to have a microphone or web cam to use it, and if you only know less than ten seconds of the song it will be harder to find a match. If you sing/hum more than ten seconds though it is very accurate.

The Useless Web is a huge time waster, but it's so much fun. You just click a button and it will take you to a useless -and often hilarious- website. There are at least a couple dozen websites that can come up, and they seem to add more every now and then. Just in case you're wondering, my favourite is Leek Spin.

Ava's Demon is a web comic about a girl named Ava who is haunted by a demon named Wrathia. I can't really say much more without giving things away, but trust me when I say this is definitely worth reading. It's only about 350 pages at the moment, most without any text, so it's a pretty quick read. It updates every Thursday, so it's easy to keep up with. Also, it has some of the most gorgeous art I've ever seen. Take a look:

Homestuck is the first, and best, web comic I've read. It's much longer than Ava's Demon at around 7000 pages (I think), and completely different in both plot, art, and story-telling style. I'm not even going to attempt to explain what it's about. Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia:

Homestuck begins when thirteen-year-old John Egbert receives a beta copy of an upcoming computer game, called "Sburb," in the mail. Installing and running the game on his computer triggers a meteor attack on his real-life house, which survives only by being transported to another planet, thus immersing him completely within the world of Sburb. As John's friends Rose Lalonde, Dave Strider, and Jade Harley join the game with him, they learn that they have unwittingly triggered the end of the world, and that it is their duty to play the game and thereby see the story through to its completion.

And that's only the beginning. There are trolls, and alternate timelines, and romance, and pretty much everyone dies at one point or another. It starts off a bit slow, but if you stick with it I can guarantee that you will love it. Like Ava's Demon, there are a fair amount of panels that are textless, although it takes a while to get to those. The story is told through images, chatlogs, text, animations, and even a few flash games. It's extremely fun and interesting, and definitely worth reading if you've got the time.

The first panel of Homestuck

As you can see, there is a lot of variation in the panels

Well. I hope you are able to enjoy these sites as much as I do. What are some of your favourite sites? Leave me a comment (and remember I have endless amounts of free time)!

Laterz

Happy Holidays

Hi everyone! I thought I'd just pop in and say Happy Holidays! It's Christmas Eve (20 minutes to Christmas) here, so Merry Christmas to those of you that celebrate it. Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Kwanzaa to anyone who celebrates either of those. And to everyone else, Happy Holidays. I hope you're enjoying the holiday season.

I'm excited to spend tomorrow with my family. I haven't seen most of them for a while, so it will be nice to see everyone again. I'm sure I'll have tons of fun with my crazy cousins. On boxing day I'm celebrating Christmas with my mom's side of the family. It will be a smaller gathering, because most of the family lives out of town, but it will still be fun. Then a quiet New Years at home with my dad and my brother.

I almost forgot to mention, we're having a band meeting on January 3rd, to work on the song. I've finished up the lyrics, so now it's up to the others to come up with music. I don't play any instruments, so I'm kind of useless with that. Hopefully I'll have some good news to report after the meeting, so stay tuned.

And just to help you get in the winter spirit, here's a picture I took the other day.

I think that's all for now. So, does anyone else have any fun plans for the holidays? Let me know.

Laterz

Music

So you may know from my past posts that I'm a huge music lover. I spend almost all my free time listening to music, and I sing whenever I can. In the past I've posted links to playlists and songs on Youtube. You may have also noticed that I semi-recently joined tumblr. Well, I've now made a tumblr page for my favourite music. It's called You Are The Melody.

Fun fact about the name: It's inspired by a song that my friends and I are writing - and hopefully recording - together. We're just starting, so hopefully I'll have more on that later.

Anyway, this new page will have all the cool music I find on tumblr. I'll probably be updating it more often than I update my blog, so you should definitely check it out! I'll also link to it in the sidebar.

Laterz!

Travelling, Part Two

At long last, here are the pictures I promised.

Before we got to our hotel we decided to do a little shopping. There were flowers everywhere along the street, and I couldn't resist getting some quick pictures. Skyres wanted to actually shop, so I didn't get very many, but this is my favourite:



Eventually we finished shopping and got to the hotel. We had an amazing view of the falls from our window.



 It was pretty at night because everything lit up, including the Sky Wheel.



The next day we went to see the falls, and they were just as beautiful as I remembered. I recently got a new camera, and I was so excited to take pictures.

After that we headed down to the Maid of the Mist. Despite all the times I've been to Niagara Falls, I've never gone on the Maid of the Mist, so it was a first. It was an incredible experience. I didn't get many good pictures though, because I'm short and I ended up in the middle of the boat. But if you're wondering, this is the view from the middle of the Canadian Falls.

Basically, it's misty and wet.

Once we got back to shore I did get some pictures of the boat as it headed out again.



And I spotted a little inukshuk hidden by some leaves.

Then Skyres and I went on the Sky Wheel and played some glo-golf on Clifton Hill. The view from the Sky Wheel was fantastic.

After that we had dinner and headed home the next day. I had tons of fun, and I can't wait to hang out with Skyres again.

Laterz

Travelling

Home at last. It's been a while since I've been home for more than a couple days. My suitcase hasn't been unpacked for at least two weeks. It's always like this for me in summer. I'm stuck at home for most of July, and then in August I'm hardly ever home.

First I was staying at my dad's house for a week. Then at the end of the week Skyres and I went to Niagara Falls for a few days. We went together a couple years ago, and we had just as much fun this time as we did then. I got to go on the Maid of the Mist for the first time ever. It was absolutely amazing. I got some great pictures too. I'll put those in another post.

After that I was home for a day before leaving for Mississauga with my family. A family friend was in an outdoor art show there. She makes things out of glass. I couldn't resist buying an adorable little owl. We stayed overnight at a hotel and did a little shopping before we left. My favourite purchase was a TARDIS mug. When it's empty it shows the TARDIS on a normal street. When you put hot water in it the TARDIS disappears and reappears on  the other side in space. It's super cool.

I was home for two days after that before going over to my friends house for a sleepover. It was good to see all my friends again. I don't get to spend much time with them in summer. We had a great time together. While I was there Skyres dyed my hair for me. We did the tips blue. I only did one colour, because hair dye is a lot more expensive then I remember. It turned out great, and I'm so glad to have colour back in my hair.

I got back from that yesterday, and tomorrow I'm going back to my dad's for a few days. Then I'll be home on Monday or Tuesday and hopefully this time I'll stay home.

My camera's still packed away, so I'll try to upload pictures as soon as I'm home again.

Until then,
Laterz

Randomness and Obsessions

I just realized how long it's been since I last posted. Believe it or not, I'm not dead. I may have completely forgotten that I had a blog, but that's debatable. And now I'm not making sense. I should probably be practising my dance for my exam tomorrow, but I've decided that I don't want to do that, so I'm doing this instead.

I didn't really plan what to put in this post. Probably should've done that...

Oh! Here's a playlist I made of some of the songs I've been listening to lately.
PLAYLIST

I'm not sure if any of you knew, but for about a year I had coloured streaks in my hair. I had to remove them in May for a play I was in, but I'm thinking of putting some colours back in my hair. This time I was thinking of doing just the tips. Kinda like this:


I'll probably just do purple and blue though. My hair looks almost exactly like that, except mine is shorter.

Hmm, what else to talk about? How about some of my recent obsessions? I've started watching a few different shows that I really like; Merlin, Doctor Who, Sherlock, and Legend of Korra, to be specific. I've only seen the first season of Merlin, and I just started the third of Doctor Who. As much as I love David Tennant, Christopher Eccleston is still my favourite. I absolutely loved Sherlock. I've watched the whole series twice.

And I just watched the season finale of Legend of Korra today. There are no words to describe how much I love that show. For those of you that don't know, LoK is like a continuation of Avatar: The Last Airbender. It follows the new avatar Korra, a hot-headed and rebellious teenager from the Southern Water Tribe, as she faces the anti-bending Equalists and tries to master airbending. For those of you that have watched the show, you'll understand me when I say Oh my goodness it is the best show ever! I would definitely recommend you watch it if you haven't already, especially if you're a fan of the original series.

Well I think that's enough for one day. I'll try to update more often, but I make no promises.

Laterz