Tuesday Afternoon with Tijmen

Today Oliver and I both went over to Tijmen's house for the afternoon. On the way over (I live about a 2-minute walk away from him), I came across this amusing graffiti on the ground with a deranged chicken holding a fish. When I got to his house, Tijmen's sister Emma answered the door because he and his mom were out picking up Oliver. I came in and played Super Smash Brothers Melee until they arrived. We tried out his new copy of Guitar Hero: World Tour which he got for Christmas, while Emma was playing Strawberry Fields Forever and other Beatles songs on the piano in the other room. World Tour was the first Guitar Hero game to include drums and vocals as well as guitar/bass. We switched off instruments, but for the most part I played guitar, Oliver did vocals, and Tijmen played drums. When we got tired of this, we switched to Mario Kart Wii, where Tijmen, Oliver, Emma, and I all did 4-player races. While we were playing, Tijmen's mom made some Gouda cheese-covered bread, and toward the end we also got some really good brownies that Emma made earlier in the day. Mid-afternoon we went up to the field by the David Avenue school where we played croquet for a while. We came back and played Tanks on Wii Play and I left around five.

Spanish Bay with Matthew

This morning around 9:00 I went over to Matthew's house. I helped him with some effects in Photoshop and played SSB Brawl and Mario Kart Wii. Then a couple hours later we went swimming at the pool at the Spanish Bay Inn located in Pebble Beach.

One of the best thing about the Spanish Bay pool is that the water is non-chlorinated (just heavily filtered), so you can open your eyes underwater for a long time without any stinging. We took a break around noon and got food. I got a cheese quesadilla with guacamole, and Matthew and Michael (his brother) got burgers. After we were done swimming we went into the hot tub and then left back to his house, where we jumped on his trampoline and I helped them set up blogs.

Matthew's Blog: http://midnightsun1994.blogspot.com/
Michael's Blog: http://michaeljohnson-blog.blogspot.com/

Hampsters and Spiders

Today I went over to Michael's house because tomorrow he is leaving for a family vacation, followed by ID Tech Camps ("Nerd Camp" as he calls it) at Stanford. I found out that Katie got a really adorable pet hampster named Butterscotch who really enjoyed eating watermelons. Michael and I also played Battle for Middle Earth for the first time in quite a while, and painted some Warhammer spider-riding goblins.

After this we went on a short walk/run near the Fishwife and then went over to my house to play ping-pong.

RE: Goblin Green

I went back to Michael's house today and we did more painting on Warhammer miniatures. This time, I worked on a goblin standard-bearer holding the signature moon standard, a musician with a gold gong, and a "champion" goblin with a blood-stained sword.

Earlier on, we played Brawl, and this was the first time I had played with a Wiimote, as I usually hook up a GameCube controller. We also played more of Guitar Hero. I got a 149-note streak on Knights of Cydonia on Medium, as well as high scores on a couple other songs. However, I tried playing a song on Hard and miserably failed. Oh well.

Around 1:00, we went over to Carmel Valley to pick up his sister Katie from a Horse Camp, and hung around for about 15 minutes looking at the horses. We went up to a horse named Logan and said Matthew's signature "Eyyy Logan!!!" It seemed un-phased. On the car ride back we listened to Stairway to Heaven and Carry On, Wayward Son via the car's auxillery port and Michael's iPod.

Goblin Green

After going on a morning walk around Asilomar and 17 Mile Drive, I went over to Michael's house. Aside from the usual activities... Guitar Hero, trampoline, and Rome Total War (as well as practicing clarinet/bassoon for almost an hour), I helped him paint some of his Warhammer miniatures. Warhammer is a fantasy battle game that Michael, Riley, and Matthew all play. It involves painting small miniatures, usually about an inch tall, and playing a huge battle game with them that can sometimes last all day, using dice, measuring tape, and a terrain table (the dining table covered with fake trees and grass).

I personally don't care much for the game; it is extremely pricy and turns take way too long in my opinion. However, painting the miniatures is still a lot of fun, and I ended up finishing four goblin archers in the half hour or so we were painting. I used, as would logically be expected, the color Goblin Green for the skin, and the cloak was Bestial Brown with a red ink wash. Various other paints were used for the weapons and such, including a metallic gold (what the "official" name is I have no clue).

Michael invited me back over for more of the same sort of activities.

The Past Few Days

I've been kind of busy and lacking on writing, so I'll briefly run through the last couple of days...

Sunday morning was a church youth group meeting, and Michael and I decided to organize a church NERF battle at Cypress Street Park. I made a poster and the date is set for the 20^th of July. Later that evening, I went over to Michael's and we had a movie night and watched Austin Powers, as well as playing Guitar Hero.

Yesterday I went over to Michael's in the afternoon where we did the usual activities, as well as walking on the PG recreation trail. Later in the evening was a scout Court of Honor, where I was presented the Oceanography Merit Badge from last weekend. Following the normal one was Chris Simmons' Eagle Court of Honor, and the night concluded with some cake (from a distance it looked like it was going to be Angel Food Cake, but unfortunately it was normal vanilla cake; still good all the same) and ice cream.

This morning my mom took he and I (Riley was supposed to come as well, but didn't show up) to the Del Monte Forest where we had a NERF gun battle. We also planned for the church event later on, and I will make flags out of old home-ec materials to play Capture the Flag.

The Last Day of Jazz Band

Being the last day of after-school jazz, we had a party and Michael brought the popular game Guitar Hero III and the PS2 to play on. Last week, his mom challenged Ms. Priest to a face-off in the game, so today they played two songs. Ms. Priest won on the Rolling Stones' Paint It, Black on Medium, but Darla took the victory in Hard mode on Barracuda by Heart. Afterwards, we had free time to eat chips and play the game. I versed Riley on Paint It, Black on Medium while Riley played on Expert mode (even though he had never played the song, he owns Guitar Hero II). I beat him because of this advantage, but I refused to try it on Expert, being that I have only played the game about 10 times.

Kayaking and Other Stuff

Today after church I went over to Matthew's house. After having a pancake breakfast with his mom's scrumptious apricot jam, we went kayaking in the bay across the street. His brother Michael and Michael's friend Sean were there too, in the other kayak. We got about 6 feet away from a young white harbor seal.

When we got back, we did math homework (a PoW problem of the week) and then relaxed in the hot tub for a while. Then we jumped on the trampoline, playing "bacon", "eggs", and other games, and finished it off with Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I also helped him learn how to use Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.

As I was leaving, we saw a large whale off the coast pretty near the shore. It was slapping its tail against the water (much like a beaver does) and spouting a lot.

Fantasy Landscape

I made this picture in Photoshop with the Dodge and Burn tools for shading, mainly using the paintbrush for creating the actual elements. Fantasy Landscape was inspired by one of the stage-builder places in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, as well as Fantasy Meadows from Kirby Air Ride.

Wii

Hopefully, soon I will get a Nintendo Wii. I am going to sell my GameCube and most of my games (excluding Super Smash Bros. Melee, Kirby Air Ride, and Super Mario Sunshine). Then I will be able to link up with Oliver, Michael, Riley, Matthew, Tijmen, Yann, and just about everyone else I know who has a Wii.

I plan on getting Super Smash Bros. Brawl first, as well as Wii Sports, of course.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Super Smash Bros. Brawl came out last Sunday!

I've played it once so far, and it was really awesome. Meta Knight is personally my favorite new character, with a tornado attack and other really cool special moves.

I managed to find an mp3 of the theme song, which is an all-new choral song in Latin (See the lyrics here). Hopefully this weekend I can go over to Riley's with Michael and Matthew and have a tournament.

Fountain of Dreams

Download MP3

Great piece of orchestral music from the Kirby video games:
Fountain of Dreams is a 4-section piece composed by Jun Ishikawa, an acclaimed video game soundtrack composer.

Click the image at the right to view a vector PDF file to print out. The score works best for instruments in Concert Pitch because this way, you can play along with the mp3.

The song Fountain of Dreams was released on the CD Smashing... Live! by Nintendo Power.