Something equivalent to a deep breath.

BPoT #196 [Tuesday]:

Rewatching my original inspiration.

It was one of those times where you had a long first day of school and you wanted to relax in front of the TV but you didn't have the energy to select and insert a movie so you just felt like flipping around the channels to see what was good. For me, this selection was also affected by the fact that my TV remote is broken so I have to stand next to the TV and press the "up" channel button numerous times until I found something good. I found Julie & Julia.

I didn't remember liking it the first time as much as I liked it the second time, which was strange because what I did remember was that this movie was the (or at least one of the) forming influence(s) for starting this blog. In case you haven't seen it, Julie & Julia is about a woman who works an unnamed cubicle job by day, and cooks for her newly married husband in their apartment over a pizzeria by night. She decides to start "The Julie/Julia Project" in which she cooks her way through all 524 recipes of the 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child in 365 days and blogs about it. Through troublesome duck deboning, chicken trussing, and husband wrangling, Julie eventually amasses a readership and popularity that cumulates in a novel and, of course, this film.

I was so inspired by her story that I turned my nascent blog into something more structured, hence The Best Part of the Day. However, sometimes I don't post because I'm being lazy and don't exactly having people counting on me. But that lead me to today's BPoT:

BPoT #197:

It's not all about the fans.

If people did things only to get famous, there would most likely be a lot less art going around. It's important to like what you do, because that's often when your best work comes through and maybe becomes famous. Of course it's great to feel needed, and when you are you don't want to let anyone down, but it's important to do things for yourself too. Not that these two things are necessarily in conflict with one another, but it's important to always keep both balanced in mind. Whenever I get down on the fact that I'm not an internet star like Julie Powell or Zefrank or the Vlog brothers, I try to remind myself that this blog is just as much for me as it is for anyone who reads it.

All the writers I have ever talked to have told me the importance of writing every day. Not writing emails or doing homework, but just getting your thoughts out there and forming them into well-written sentences. In that sense I kind of treat this blog as an opposite-diary. I say opposite because I always felt bad for the purple Tweety Bird diary I had as a kid and only wrote in when I was angry or upset and couldn't talk to anyone about it (this was before the days of texting and im'ing.) Rather, I want to create a record of something positive, something that will lift people's spirits.

Keeping that in mind, I know that sometimes there are few more boring things than hearing someone talk about their day. That's why it's hard when I have really good days and I don't want to go on and on about every little thing, so most of the time I try to choose the one universal thing that I think would brighten everyone's day (or at least choose something resembling a theme that ties all the parts together). Remembering 90's cartoons, for example, or finding a dollar on the ground, or a stranger saying bless you when you sneeze. Things that, when read, bring a happy thought to your mind and a smile to your face. I know that not many people read this blog, but I'd like to say thanks to anyone who has.

I'd also like to again share one of my other big sources of inspiration (and my internet homepage), Neil Pasricha's 1000 Awesome Things, which does what I try to do, only better.

The last "ahhhh" before school stress

BPoT #195:

A great day before school.

I had another one of those all-around good days today. I kept running into people accidentally, like when my roommate and I went out the wrong door for breakfast, but then I saw some friends I hadn't seen since last year. Then the place we were going to go for breakfast didn't have power, so we ended up going to a cafe for breakfast sandwiches and passed a poster sale! Since we have so much wall space in our room, I had wanted to get some more posters but was going to go to the library for another errand first. We ended up going to the poster sale first though, and saw some more friends browsing the selection at the same time. After taking a long time deciding and buying what we wanted, we made dinner plans and then parted to go hang our new purchases.

Before heading home, I finally finished up getting all of my school books, after a long search in the library for an obscure tome of fairy tales in a subbasement with space-saving, electronic sliding bookshelves. After dinner, my roommate and I met some of our friends' other friends, and then we watched one of our favorite design competition shows. All in all, we got in a lot of fun and relaxation in before school officially starts.

We're back!

Pretty unrelated, but it was a cute movie when I was little.

BPoTW #3:

A quest coming to an end.

Okay okay so I haven't written in more than a week, but that's partly because I was caught up in a whirlwind of pre-move-back-in-to-school activity. (As always, the other part is mostly cuz I was lazy.) But now that school has started I am(/should be) back for good ^_^

Last week, I was still searching the pair of TOMS' shoes that I wanted, a discontinued pair called Love is the new Black.

Unfortunately, couldn't find them anywhere. So I decided to buy a different pair online, but the shipping was $9! I was beginning to feel pretty defeated until there was a free shipping promotion exclusively for the pair I wanted to buy, and the best part was I could still use a coupon I'd found! So my quest for Toms has finally come to an end. Sort of. I'll still be on the lookout for any possibility to get Love is the new Black.

BPoT #192 [Wednesday]:

Triaelstrom!

What is a triaelstrom you ask? It's when you try to see as many of your friends as possible before you go back to school. In my case, it was three people but all at separate times because of the way planning works. I had coffee with one friend, lunch and a movie (Cowboys and Aliens, which was surprisingly entertaining) with another and then dinner and conversation with another. All in all a full and fantastically fun day.

BPoT #193 [Thursday]:

Back to school shopping.

Does anyone love this as much as I do? There's nothing like a shiny new batch of pencils, sticky notes, and notebooks to take the edge off of the end of summer and going back to school. Score.

BPoT #194 [Friday]

New and returning friends.

I was intending on moving back to school on Saturday, but with the impending storm we quickly switched plans and decided to move in a day earlier. This actually took away the opportunity to feel sad and nostalgic about leaving home since I was too preoccupied with packing up the car with my sheets, books, refrigerator and the like. Added to that, it was great to see my roommate again, and meet one of our new suitemates, who seems rather likeable as a first impression. I hope the coming semester will be as fun as last night ^_^

Clean cars with personality

BPoT #191:

Car wash with love.

It was strange, I have always loved my silver '98 volvo but I have never felt closer to it than today when I gave him a full cleaning and hand wash. I meticulously vacuumed every part of the inside and methodically scrubbed every surface on the outside. As I knelt wiping the face of license plate and undercarriage I looked at my car head on and felt like I looking at a real person with a real personality, thinking I'm cleaning this hood with love. And when it was all done, and every window lever was scrubbed clean, every grain of sand was sucked from the cracks, I felt proud of my Norbert.

Yes, my car is a boy. Being a volvo with the male enameled on the hood insignia, I feel it's fitting. I also feel that people decided their car's sex based on the opposite of their own; that's why all guys think their cars/boats/motorcycles are girls. But I just can't think of my car as a girl; it's strange. My sister's green Saab: Salazar. My mom's Silver Honda: Percy Weasley Jackon. My friend's black Jeep: Frederick. The only girl I know with a girl-named car is the name of an owl: Hedwig.

I didn't realize this until later, but, with the exception of Frederick (who, granted, was the first named car I knew) , most named cars I know tend be Harry Potter names. Which says of course that "Words are our most inexhaustible form of magic." And what are names but words we give?

Clean cars with personality

BPoT #191:

Car wash with love.

It was strange, I have always loved my silver '98 volvo but I have never felt closer to it than today when I gave him a full cleaning and hand wash. I meticulously vacuumed every part of the inside and methodically scrubbed every surface on the outside. As I knelt wiping the face of license plate and undercarriage I looked at my car head on and felt like I looking at a real person with a real personality, thinking I'm cleaning this hood with love. And when it was all done, and every window lever was scrubbed clean, every grain of sand was sucked from the cracks, I felt proud of my Norbert.

Yes, my car is a boy. Being a volvo with the male enameled on the hood insignia, I feel it's fitting. I also feel that people decided their car's sex based on the opposite of their own; that's why all guys think their cars/boats/motorcycles are girls. But I just can't think of my car as a girl; it's strange. My sister's green Saab: Salazar. My mom's Silver Honda: Percy Weasley Jackon. My friend's black Jeep: Frederick. The only girl I know with a girl-named car is the name of an owl: Hedwig.

I didn't realize this until later, but, with the exception of Frederick (who, granted, was the first named car I knew) , most named cars I know tend be Harry Potter names. Which says of course that "Words are our most inexhaustible form of magic." And what are names but words we give?

Taste the [frozen] rainbow

BPoT #190:

Frozen candy.

Skittles are pretty good. Tropical skittles are better. What's better than tropical skittles? Frozen tropical skittles. Delicious. Also frozen Charleston Chews. Especially strawberry ones. Both of these things remind me of summer at the beach my family has been going to since I was little kid, where the snack bar with the best french fries squeezes all their candy in with their snowcones and ice cream sandwiches and power ranger powerpuff girl ice pops. There's nothing better on a hot day than getting a frozen rod of chewy nougat covered in chocolate and slapping it still wrapped on a picnic table so that when you opened the package it was full of chilled bite sized pieces. Or you could get a bag full rainbow pearls that cracked like pop rocks when you popped them in your warm mouth and slowly melted to the perfect chew, while leaving sticky rainbow remnants tattoed on your hand for you lick off when you were done. That's what summer tastes like my friends.

Birthday treat (with a catch)

BPoT #189: [Friday]

Free wings.

At this bar and restaurant called TK's near my town, on your birthday, you can get free wings in the number of years of your age. Since you have to be at least 21 to go in, that's at least 21 free wings. But here's the catch, if you want to bring them home home, you have to pay for them. So that's where friends come in. It was my friend's birthday on Friday and I was more than happy to help him finish his 22 wings. That's what friends are for.

Yay surprises! (the nice kind)

BPoT #188:

Xbox warming presents!

In a quite unexpected show of generosity, my sister bought a couple of surprise gifts for me to celebrate the arrival of my new xbox. Since I brought it home, I have been playing nothing Assassin's Creed, which is perfectly fine with me because I'm absolutely enthralled by that game. But my sister bestowed upon me the newest installment of my favorite Gamecube game in the Xbox version: Soul Calibur 4. I am fascinated by it, having played no other version of Soul Calibur on any other system besides Gamecube before. I am particularly interested in the Create your own Character feature, which allows you to adjust the finest details of your own player, from the clothes and the shades and hues of colors of his/her outfit to the hair style and color to the very tone of his or her voice. Interestingly you can also play as Yoda. This "guest character" in the Gamecube version of Soul Calibur 2 was Link, and Yoda is no less impressive in play.

The second cool present was a clear xbox controller that lights up green when you plug it in! This is good because up till now I was playing on the one plain black controller I got with the console and you need for multiplayer battle. Interestingly, we have a similar clear controller for our first system, the N64, but it didn't light up as mine does now. Now I'll never lose my controller in the dark! ^_^

Crazy about literature

BPoT #186:

A rainstorm by a window.

BPoT #187:

Getting more than you bargained for.

Books are behind both of the days that I missed posting for. (Technically Blogspot is behind yesterday's because it was "temporarily unavailable," but whatevah.) Tuesday was a perfectly lovely rainstorm during which I read The Subtle Knife by a window and took my dog for a walk and got perfectly soaked. Wednesday, I went looking for the next book in the His Dark Materials Series by Philip Pullman. The first bookstore I went to did not have it, but every other book in the store was $1, so I got a whole bunch of new graphic novels. And then I got The Amber Spyglass at the next bookstore. All's well that ends well.

The Secret Library

BPoT #185:

Attic? No, treasure trove.

When was the last time you poked through your own attic? How many of you have ever done it? If your attic is anything like mine, I would highly recommend it. Since I'm taking a Children's Literature class next semester I figured I'd look for some of the children's classics around the house before buying new ones. I was successful in finding my old copies of The Secret Garden, Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, along with a heaping side of nostalgia. But while I was moving wrapping paper rolls and old coats aside to get to the kids book box, I discovered half a dozen other boxes of books I never knew we had! I never would have appreciated them before, but I found things like Little Women, Moby Dick, andInterpreter of Maladies, along some others I'd read before and lost track of like Bel Canto andBeowulf. I even found and old fabric hardcover copy of True Grit, which I was intending on buying after having seen the excellent new movie. Even though I love supporting bookstores, I have to say that the next time you need a book, I'd look in your attic first. But then go to your local bookstore the next time. ^_^

Fighting world suck, one awesome thing at a time

BPoT #184: [Friday-Sunday]

Nerdfighteria weekend.

A photo essay and list of the most awesome things one could do with other nerdfighters.

1. Sopio card game, courtesy of Alex Day's brain.

The perfect way to start any nerdfighter gathering.

2. The Princess Bride. A classic.

3. Strawberry Hill, from Looking for Alaska. We discovered Alaska has terrible taste in $4 wines, so we added strawberries.

4. Sleepover. Complete with cocoa and gossip.

5. Crumpets. An english breakfast to prepare us for what was to come.

6. The Harry Potter Exhibition.

The awesomeness was only slightly dampened by the inability to photograph the event because of the overpriced photo books for sale in "Diagon Alley."

7. Toys R Us.

Where an indoor ferris wheel isn't enough, so they also had a lifesize T-Rex from Jurassic park and a two-story Barbie house. And death eater lunch boxes with Draco Malfoy thermoses.

8. The M&Ms store. mmmm.

9. The Disney Store.

Where dreams comes true. Unless you want to buy something, in which you're out of luck unless you have a royal bank account. But still pretty to look at.

10. Forbidden Planet.

Dr. Who merch, real weekly comics, asian snacks, nerd patches for nerd messenger bags.

It's all there.

11. The Strand Bookstore.

Where a book lover can spend hours and never, ever be done.

12. Nintendo World.

Is there anywhere more nerdtastic? They have everything from a Gulf war era, half-burned gameboy to the 3DS Ocarina of Time (which is mind boggling). Awesome.

13. Sleepover and Cocoa, the sequel. Thrills! Spills! New mug!

O brave new world, that has such video games in't!

BPoT #183:

New system!

One christmas a couple of years of ago, my sister splurged on her gift to me and bought a Nintendo DS. That was still the new thing back then, and I adored it. Over the next couple of years as my sister and I got more and more into video games, and I kept getting more and more enjoyment from my DS my sister started pining for her own. Even though something like that qualifies as a want more than a need, I have a method of deciding when to buy. If you're in the store, having a long time deciding whether or not you need the thing in your hand, then you probably don't want it. If this is the case, then you'll probably forget about it later. But if you find yourself thinking about something over and over then you probably should get it.

That's how my sister felt about the DS she eventually bought, and how I felt about the Xbox 360 I bought today! I've wanted one ever since my sister started dating her current boyfriend Greg, who frequently brought his over to our house and I became addicted to the different type of game the Xbox offered. While most of the Nintendo fare is sort more cartoonish, and family-friendly with titles like Mario Kart and Animal Crossing, Xbox is for a more mature audience. Most of the games have more lifelike characters, but that is kind of oxymoron because my attraction to Xbox is to games with a strong mythological thread. Games like Halo, Assassin's Creed and Dante's Inferno really pique my interest because of their immersive, historical feel and, I admit, their intense fighting sequences that are mostly absent from the gentler Nintendo games.

That's why today when I went to Gamestop to trade in some of my old games, I couldn't resist putting the credit towards the refurbished xbox they had on the wall. Most of the time, I find those promotions in which you get more in store credit than you do in cash, but today it worked in my favor when I got a for-all-intents-and-purposes new Xbox 360 with wireless controller and 20GB hard drive for $116. I broke it in with a used Assassin's Creed for $8. The one thing that always solidifies my opinion about buying something I'm not sure about is getting it for a great bargain; that way I feel like it was really worth it.

Vacation?

BPotW #181.5:

Otakon.

Wow. Hey. So BPotW #2, by my count. So much has happened since my last post. The one before that, number 179 is actually more indicative of the past week and a half's activity. The week leading up to the 28th was consumed by creating my second costume for the Rosalina character. Given that I'd spent Friday at my friend's birthday party made me kind of rush, and though the costume as a whole turned out well, there are still some things I would have liked to have done better. But overall I think they both turned out well and we had a great time.

Did you know that the energy to power a Gundam for 9.3 hours could power the United States for a whole year? (If you don't know what a Gundam is, look it up. No, they're not transformers; they're better than that.) Or that a teru teru bozu charm keeps rain away? Or that you can sculpt chibis using tin foil as a base for clay? These are just a couple of cool things we learned at Otakon this year. My sister Sara and I also snapped hundreds of pictures, which will follow on facebook soon (there's just so many!) We also, at Greg's insistence, did some gaming this year, unlike the past year, and it was great fun. We played a Taiko drum game much like rock band but entirely in japanese. We all played some Mario Kart, and even though it's not exactly my game of choice I won the first time and held a pretty steady second thereafter, which was quite pleasing. Sara and I didn't play last year partly because we thought it was only for those who had signed up for tournaments and partly because we thought anyone hardcore enough to play at a convention would easily destroy us. Happily, this was not entirely the case.

But then there's the not so great parts. Like how someone stole my badge right off my backpack lanyard as I stood admiring dealer's room wares and had to buy a replacement for $40. Or how Sara's car AC stop working on the drive home. And then started smoking. And then making a whirring sound. And then cutting out all together as we pulled into a rest stop and had to push it in neutral into a parking stop, have a mechanic look at it, then get it towed, find out it needed a new radiator, and then a new engine, and then finally decide leave it in Maryland, giving it to the junkyard for parts. So basically we were stuck in Aberdeen, Maryland for nearly 3 days.

But we still made the most of it by going swimming, mini-golfing, sightseeing at a Chesapeake Bay boardwalk, and sampling the local creameries and restaurants by the recommendations of our exceedingly friendly constant cabbie of Elk Cabs, and the folks at Thompson Towing.

After finally deciding to leave faithful Salazar the Saab with Thompson Towing, we then took a train home, since Aberdeen amazingly had an Amtrak station only minutes from the garage. And at last this brings us to:

BPoT #182:

Coming home.

After a very long and complicated weekend, it was wonderful to walk through my own front door again and be greeted by the delicious smells of a home cooked dinner just waiting for our arrival. Then I rolled into my own bed, where I can be sure there are no foreign bedbugs, curled up next to my puppy dog's warm little body and wrote this whole post. And the best part is, I don't have to check out by noon tomorrow.