Yep, that’s me and that’s my voice

If you’ve ever wanted to hear my voice…. or just see me in a video, now is your chance.

My sister has been working on a video that we made a month or so ago and she’s finally posted it in two parts on You Tube for a limited time for her friends to see. If you’ve not seen them yet, you’ll want to go watch them now by clicking the links below.

We were trying to make an interview, but it’s really not an interview. It’s… Kayla asking random questions (or saying she can’t think of any good questions) and me sitting in front of the camera looking like a derp and trying to answer all the odd questions that she does ask.

Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGauYGTryyo

Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o96LZFtXtE

If you guys watch it, leave a comment and let me know!

Oh, there are a few shout outs to a few of the followers that popped into my head at the moment. (Savanna and Fallon, I know you’re mentioned more than once in both parts!)

I now am going into hiding. *grin*

~Jamie

Back from the Abyss

one of my birthday presents: a Captain America ‘hero and hearts’ wallet!

Well, I kinda took a two week break there, didn’t I? It was an unannounced break which I didn’t mean to take but it was actually nice to have a short break. And I’ve had a good couple weeks.

I had a wonderful birthday; I got my 38 special revolver (YES, EIGHTEEN YEAR OLD CAN OPEN CARRY WEAPONS IN ARIZONA! ), books (my own copy of Dracula, YAY), some action figures, a Hawkeye slap bracelet and other random stuffs. Mom and I watched The Help that morning together, I got a call from two family friends wishing me happy birthday; I spent the afternoon on my laptop creating a visual world for a fantasy story which has been, without my consent, building up in my head. We had Panda Express for dinner and watched The Mysterious Affair at Styles e later I got Mom and Dad to watch Monsters Inc with me. THREE MOVIES IN ONE DAY! UNHEARD OF! It was a great day of relaxation and unwinding.

my favorite book, right here people.

I also got to go on a spending spree with my birthday money; I RARELY get to go to the mall, but Mom took me to a double decked one at the other side of town last Saturday and I got to go into any shop that interested me. It was my first time visiting Forever Twenty One, people. Yep. I went nuts at the Disney store; they had a corner full of Avenger and Spider-Man stuff. There were so many stuffed animals there, too; I could have died. I ended up buying a Donald Duck shirt for myself and an Avengers shirt for Kayla. I bought a very cute hat at a shop called Icing (I tried to take some selfie shots of myself wearing it but they came out miserably so you’ll have to wait to see what it looks like.)

Internet shopping is always fun too: I ordered a Joker shirt, a laptop skin decal and keyboard stickers off of Amazon as well. The stickers are the only ones to have gotten here; they ARE SO CUTE. It makes my keyboard look so colorful and cheerful. I took pictures, but they’re not coming up right on here. Wahhh.

It’s late right now. So randomness will start flying all over. Prepare to duck.

It’s the end of July and August has just started… meaning for me, summer is beginning to end. I remembered I’d written a short summer bucket list a while ago; let’s see what I’ve completed.

*Lite ten fireworks off on Fourth of July

*Finish the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes with Dylan

Complete and post the Avengers 40 Question Challenge with James (waiting on Kayla to work with the graphic)

Ride my bike more (ouch, haven’t done this very much)

*Dress in identical clothes with Kayla for the day

*Come up with a fresh novel idea for this year’s NaNoWriMo

*See The Amazing Spider Man with Kayla in theaters

Read Lord of the Rings (I did get the books for my birthday!)

and

*Think of some special way to celebrate my eighteenth birthday.

So, I actually did pretty good! Speaking of summer beginning to close, don’t you find it hilarious when you see different people complain about the recent season their in and long for another one? I always get a kick out of visiting different blogs and seeing, “Oh it’s so hot I want it to be winter soon with snow here I’ll post ten Christmas pictures now” and we get to the Christmas season and I’ll read, “I’m getting tired of this sludge I want to walk through grass feeling the summer breeze now I’ll post eight pictures of prairie grass and the beach”. It’s kinda on my not-really-but-sort-of list of pet peeves.

I don’t know why I just talked about that…. lol.

 Okay, so I mentioned up there that a fantasy story has been building in my head without my consent? Well, there’s nothing I can really do about but work with it. The picture above best describes my thoughts right now; fairies and books. And yes, this is the fresh idea I’m going to use for this years NaNoWriMo!

I’ll try to summarize my idea of the story and I apologize ahead of time for it not being the most thought through. Basically the short of it is (you’ll probably recognize where some of the inspiration came from, lol) two young people, boy and girl, get sucked into separate fictional world inside a novel and find that they’ve unsuspectingly been given the chance to experience the book’s adventure first hand inside a fantasy world with fantasy creatures. The problem is that being in different world is breaking down their bodies and they quickly decide that they’re not going to dilly-dally with the story, or the characters, or the plot but only find a way to get back to their world where they can exist without having their bodies slowly destroyed by the world’s atmosphere. However, the girl is kidnapped along with several other of their novel’s characters, and the boy of course can’t go home without her, so he joins their novel’s characters to rescue the girl and make sure the book has a happy ending before they return to reality. And yes, as they discovered, their own presence can completely alter how the book will end.

I’ve been using butterflies as part of my inspiration for the fairies

And yes, somehow, I will get fairies to have something to do with the story.

This is all still up in the air and I’m still `having plot inspirations. But Scrivener has been an absolute life saver for the novel planning; I’ve been saving all my inspiration pictures in there and writing down my plot ideas and so forth.

I’m glad I have new story idea growing, actually. The other story idea I have is so much more complicated that I don’t think would have worked for NaNoWriMo. This new one  here is taking leaps and bounds in all sorts of directions and I’ve not felt such creative for a fictional work for quite some time. So, this is really quite exciting for me!

Just had to share about it.

Soooo, Kayla and I watched Batman Begins again and I thought I’d give some thoughts on the main characters. Oh, and if you haven’t seen Batman Begins or The Dark Knight, I highly suggest you check them out, especially if you’re an action/superhero fan. It’s not Marvel but they’re still pretty good movies.

I really do like Batman Begins quite a bit. I don’t care so much for the beginning half but all the scenes that take place in Gotham are great. I do think it’s an underrated film which I think is kinda sad. I actually think I would enjoy it more than The Dark Knight except that The Joker took the cake in that one. If it wasn’t for the Joker, I probably would like Batman Begins way more than The Dark Knight. As of now, I like The Dark Knight just a little more for The Joker’s sake but Batman Begins is just under it.

*there may be spoilers lurking below*

Bruce Wayne: I like his character development throughout Batman Begins (he wasn’t anything special in The Dark Knight because his character development basically didn’t continue in that one and I didn’t enjoy him that much.) Bruce’s whole story of being orphaned, wanting revenge, living with criminal, learning different fighting forms and then ultimately creating his alter ego Batman is pretty cool to me. Trying to live two lives makes for an interesting aspect in a film. The fact that he battles with obvious human feelings like a fear of bats makes him more human and real. Overall, I like Bruce and Batman makes for a pretty interesting ‘superhero’.

Rachel Dawes: I personally preferred Katie Holmes’ acting for her over the actress in The Dark Knight (the other actress had cute features but I didn’t care for Rachel’s character progression in The Dark Knight either. She was basically brought down to marriage bait for the plot and she took her pretty time picking between Bruce and Harvey (and kissing both.)) In Batman Begins, we see her history with Bruce is, how she’s a smart District Attorney and one known to have strong principles that can’t be bought off. While Rachel didn’t stand out in any special way apart from other female characters in movies, I did like her and appreciate her strong stand in her principles. (Oh, I like how she has and uses a taser. lol)

Alfred: I LOVED THIS CHARACTER SO MUCH! Oh my goodness, Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce’s butler, is such a refreshing, wholesome character. Noble, dignified, witty, loyal, and tender yet firm. He’s one of the delightful characters that just make you smile. He’s easily one of my most favorite characters from the Batman movies. I couldn’t say more because it would turn into “alksjdkaljdklsjaksdjfkaslj” really quickly….

Ra’s al Ghul: Okay, so, I’m all oooh, Liam Neeson, cool, okay. However, as we got to know the character a bit, he really started to annoy me. He asked Bruce to do things that weren’t right and that wasn’t great considering he seemed to be a good guy. And while I think he was supposed to be a mysterious character, he ended up being too mysterious for me. And than SPOILERS he turned out to be the bad, bad guy in the end. Wahhh. END OF SPOILERS. So, he was an okay character. Liam Neeson was good though.

 Gordan: He was one of the uncorrupted, dependable police men in Gotham and I liked him. I connected well with him good which helped with certain events that happened in The Dark Knight. I liked how he just rolled with the flow when Batman kept showing up. He just quickly learned to adapt to him and that was nice to see. It took me a while to realize the reason Batman/Bruce went to Gordan was because he was an officer who comforted him after his parents had been murdered. Anybody else say, “Awwwww, no wonder”? So, in that way they have a connection. I also loved seeing him interact with the Tumbler.

Dr Crane/ Scarecrow: Okay, I had a bad case of, “He’s familiar, have I seen him somewhere else???” During the movie and it wasn’t till afterwards that Kayla solved the problem by saying, “That was Fischer from Inception!!!” Anyway, Dr. Crane was a great characters. He was with the good guys a lot and functioned easily around them even though he was one of the corrupted people. His mask for Scarecrow coupled with his fear gas was a great aspect in the film for me because it seemed quite original. (speaking of which, the special effects for all the fear gas scenes were very cool and a little scary!) I thought Crane was a decent bad guy and  his character worked well with the film’s whole plot.

All in all, I enjoyed the cast of characters a lot, more so especially in Batman Begins than in The Dark Knight. But, yes, I would recommend both for a mature audience.

I’m not going to talk about The Dark Knight, at least not in this post. I have a post about villains in the works where I’ll exploit The Joker a bit, but that’s it on Batman for now.

So… I’ve been eighteen for almost two weeks. People keep asking me, “How does it feel to be eighteen” and I think they half expect me to go with the old joke of, “not much different from seventeen”. *sarcastic lololololol* And while it doesn’t feel obviously different,  it’s still a great feeling to hit a big age. It just feels bigger than other birthdays. Dylan turned eighteen early in the year, so I got some understanding; he and his mom dropped by the other day for something really fast and somehow the age came up. He simply stated, “Isn’t it great to be eighteen?!” And I nodded and said, “Yep!” So how does it feel to be eighteen? The answer is, “It feels good.”

Anyway. I guess I had to quickly rant about that. lol. So. End of that story.

And now I’m posting this just to see if anyone will actually do it! LOL, I mean, why not?

I have some posts I need to finish; I have another “Being Me” edition on the trials of having naturally curly hair, my plans for later this year and then that villains post. So, you can watch for those in the near future.

I’ll let you know next time I plan to have another two week break, by the way.

~Jamie

I’m feeling the need to *talk*

Wow, it’s been awhile since I rambled to you guys (or, rather, to my white computer screen in which you all live in. lol.) I feel the need to just talk, though, so, if you’re expecting something orderly and cohesive…. well, just don’t.

Anyway. Moving on.

I’ve been busy–July is always so busy for us; I’ve not had time to respond to emails or even the past few comments or leave comments on anyone’s blogs (I am reading them, guys, I promise!) Between stressing out over family stuff, keeping up with Princess and kittens, babysitting Nathan twenty four seven, and sighing over my cardboard box of school books…… well, yeah, my mind and emotions have been on a roller coaster.

Long sentence there. Wow.

Yeah, I’ve been busy.

Oh, and the home school convention is this Friday and Saturday. This is, like, one of the biggest events on my family’s calender. So, yay!

This past Sunday, Kayla and I attended our first official sleepover with the five girls from our church. We had to pick up Lauren, so we threw a surprise for her by having her mom fake that the whole thing was cancelled and hiding in the Basha’s restroom and jumping out at her (there is a whole other story about that, and it was a lot more fun than I just made it sound, but moving on.)

After arriving at the one family’s house, we put on our pajamas and covered the coffee table with candy and chips and watched Seven Brides for Seven Brothers together in the living room. That took us till midnight and than we watched Tangled. That took us to two thirty, at which we hauled ourselves up to bed and fell asleep in the girls’ bedroom and the guest room. Seven in the morning found me, Kayla and Lauren awake, so we chatted for, like, an hour about little siblings and dental experiences while everyone else slept in. We all had breakfast at about nine and we didn’t get home till about ten in the morning.

I went to bed super early at eight that evening and slept till nine in the morning.

I’m still not completely recovered.

I’m sad to say that Dylan and I have nearly finished The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes; we only have the Final Problem—which, has a huge plot twist at the end, as y’all Sherlock fans know (and I honestly don’t think he knows just exactly what he’s going to get smacked in the face with yet from this story.) I’ve been reading all I can bout Holmes’ death, how it turned into a ‘faked’ death, and all the extra stuff to explain to him. I personally cannot wait till we can discuss it together.

Speaking of Sherlock Holmes, last week I was surprised by how excited I got by The Greek Interpreter. I hadn’t read that one and it had me so interested. I’d known about Holmes having a brother but it was a delight to finally meet Mycroft and then see him and Holmes rub shoulders throughout the story. It was also quite action packed by end, and I enjoyed the way the story was told. It’s now one of my new favorites.

I don’t know what we’re going to do once we’re completely done. Will we, like, sink into a book relapse or depression or something? Geez, that wouldn’t be fun. I like talking about books.

Guess what. This is the song I listen to if I have monotonous work needing to be done; like ironing or preparing chicken or washing dishes. I play the track from Iron Man 2 called Nick Fury on repeat and I get my stuff done. Just like that.

I’m having a ‘identity crisis’ with Nick, too. My siblings and I haven’t actually gone around calling each other Avenger names (when we do, Nathan is Cap, Kayla is Thor, and I’m Iron Man). What we actually stick with is SHIELD. Kayla loves Maria Hill and since Maria Hill is Nick Fury’s right hand, guess who I get called. Yeah, I’m Director Fury (and we call Nathan Coulson, which he does not like: “NO! I’m Captain America!”) So, now I think I’m Nick Fury. Which is okay, because he was actually pretty cool in The Avengers.

So, go figure.

*****

My birthday is about six days away. *faints*

*****

Drastic topic change here, but I have to squeal for a minute now; first off, a huge THANK YOU  to Emily for being the first (and only) person to bring my attention to the writer’s friend, Scrivener! It’s a wonderful program for writing your stories in and…. “aklsdjfkalsdjfkasldjfakldsfj” is the best way to describe it. I downloaded the tryout version, read some of the tutorial and after a couple days realized, “I need this. Like, I need this right now.” So, I bought the download this afternoon and I ordered the software on a CD as well. It looks like it will be the most perfect thing ever for all the writing I’m planning on doing this upcoming fall!!!!!! YAY!

Speaking of writing, I realized this afternoon that I’m quite different; at least from the general public at large. You know, that exclamation that I’ve read on so many different blogs saying, “I’ve always loved writing; I had that one special pen that the ink just flowed out of and I filled notebook after notebook with stories and thoughts in my special writing nook with that steaming cup of early grey tea.” Yeah, that one. And I thought, “lol, I started off spinning around on a computer chair dancing my fingers across a keyboard and following the blinking line as I created words on a fresh Wordperfect document.” Yep, I actually started on the computer. Notebooks were neglected, the pens stayed in their containers, and I was about seven years old, so there was no drinking tea nonsense. To this day, I still do all my writing through my keyboard. A pen and paper have no worth to me. Maybe that’s weird, but hey: I’m at least unique.

Well, right now I’m sitting in the dark on my top bunk bed listening to James Newtown Howard and feeling the sugar from all that ice cream I ate wear off, thinking over a weird plot idea about fairies and telling myself I could not pull that off and wondering how I can make up an original deliciously evil villain like Cruella DeVille.

Speaking of Cruella DeVille, that reminds me I have a guest post for Kayla that I need to work on, so, I should really come to end of this prattling. Have a good night everyone. Don’t let the bed bugs bite!

~Jamie

My first summer/hot/lazy day

Summer is upon us; it is a hundred and ten degrees outside. And it can get much hotter than that here. Thankfully, we’ve put up a pool to stay cool in and we have air conditioning.

Tomorrow we’ll be attending another graduation party. Which brings me to share some good news: I’m hoping to official graduate from high school this coming fall! My mom said that if I finish everything up by September or October, we might be able to do a graduation/eighteenth birthday party (even though my birthday is really in July). But at least it will be cooler in Sep or Oct for having people over to celebrate. I’m really hopeful that this will pull through, so keep your fingers crossed.

….

My hair is wet from swimming for a half hour with little bro. I’m listening the Avengers credit song Live to Rise, which makes me want to become an official Avenger. The next thing on my agenda is to read Scandal in Bohemia; the last time I read this story… was probably a good three years ago. Speaking of Sherlock Holmes, Dylan and I finished reading through the entire Adventures of Sherlock Holmes book. We’re now starting The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes with enthusiasm. So, I need to finished up Scandal of Bohemia… and I need to do some writing.

Better get started.

~Jamie