このCD を ください。 なんだよ? インポート?

Roughly translating that subject line: "This CD, please. What? Import?"

It only makes sense if you know what I've been doing for the last half an hour or so.

I really want to get this CD: http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/switch-language/product/B00005V1M7/249-4554634-3534745?ie=UTF8&language=en%5FJP

You've probably noticed right away that it is the Japanese amazon dot com. Luckily, by looking at this page: http://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/1039606/ref=hp_1_13_1039606/249-4554634-3534745

One can learn that the Japanese amazon dot com does international shipping for DVDs, CDs, books, and videos. Hoorah for me! So, by looking at the prices down the page, for shipping and stuff...

The CD: ￥ 1,197
Shipping Rate: ￥ 600
Handling Charge: ￥ 300

So, in total, ￥ 2,097. How much does it cost in "real" money, meaning US dollars? According to xe.com, $18.2729. That means, to import this five track CD, I'd have to pay around eighteen bucks.

Much better than paying around forty to sixty bucks on the US amazon dot com for an import, for sure, eh?

Now the next step: Run this whole thing past my mother.

Yesterday afternoon...wow

As some may know, yesterday afternoon there was a tornado warning in the area of Waukesha city. Not watch, warning. That was a first for me.

At the time, I was at the house of a 4-H family from our club. It was drama practice for our skit, the Cookie Caper. I'll talk more about the practice later...

Anyways, the moms were upstairs when they saw the weather.

"Maybe we should turn on the TV," Mrs. W said, going downstairs into the basement, where all us kids were. She turned on the TV and changed the channel to the local news.

"Tornado Warning for the following counties until 3:15," the scroller read. One only had to wait half a second in order to see that Waukesha county was the one warned for tornados. It was a red zone all around Waukesha city. Nervousness stuck me as I gazed at the television, wondering if I was actually going to experience a tornado.

The rain outside continued to pour and pour, flooding the streets. Thunder could be heard and lightning seen before it. When one went upstairs to look through the W's front window, the water was covering half of their front lawn. You couldn't tell where street ended and the sidewalk began.

As bad as the storm was, a tornado never came to the W's house. Our 4-H drama troupe was safe. Come 3:30, the water finally resided enough for it to be much safer to drive home.

With the way the state of Wisconsin is, there were damp roads and flooded ones. The water trickled off of the hills and ran into the lower spots, flooding them. There were police cars and various roads. On the way to my home, my mother and I saw a fire truck, an ambulance, and a school bus, veered a bit off the road. As soon as I had saw the school bus, it clicked in my mind.

"School buses don't have seat belts," I said to my mom. "Why don't they? They take about seventy kids to school and back home every day of the school year. School buses are used for going to summer camps, also. The buses are so clumsy that if it slipped, kids could get concussions. The only person who has a seat belt on a school bus...is the driver."

Trees had been snapped by lightning. One tree fall over in someone's lawn, causing a sort of tree patrol to come and slow the traffic. Just plain tree branches were all over the landscape and roads.

But this isn't the first time I've seen something like this, either. It was just a reminder to me. The world has been at war with itself since the first sin.

But at least God's still here. The prayer that I made, while I was in that basement, worked. I prayed that all the people I knew, all my friends in the city of Waukesha would fine. Even the C's had lightning strike right in their lawn, but only a beach ball was harmed. From Uncle Sven's lastest post on his blogger, I can tell he's still alive and kicking.

Yesterday was exciting, I guess you could say. For now, I just pray there were no fatalities.

Just got home from seeing Cars

Once again, Pixar has failed to disappoint me. I'm glad. At one point during the movie, I caught one of Pixar's, "Let's put in something from a previous movie!" In one shot, you can see a Pizza Planet delivery truck. Of course, Pizza Planet is from the Toy Story universe.

I really don't know what to say about it, other than that it's worth seeing.

I guess I'm just shocked at learning at the end of the movie about this Joe Ranft guy...I never even knew about him. But to me, with Cars being his last film and him dying in a car accident, I can't stop thinking about it.

How does his family feel? How do his friends feel? How do his co-workers feel? I guess the shock might be over for them or at least not as large anymore. He died in August last year...

I guess I shouldn't concern myself. As I said before, I didn't even know of his existence before this. I think I just have the tendancy of feeling bad for people, even if I didn't know them.

It's kinda reminding me of when the little kid (I know his name, I'm just not writing it down for his family's privacy) from my church died a couple of years back. I didn't even know exactly who he was, but I felt devastated for those he was close to.

Anyways...on a more happy subject...

I finally made Wisconsin Writers Unlimited, like I had been planning. So far, Melty has joined. Tara and Jake will be joining, because they BOTH (XD) told me that they had been busy and were getting around to it. The just leaves Jenn and Casey. Jenn is the one I'm pretty sure will be joining. Yep.

じゃね、 みんなさん! (Hahaha. :P)

Last night was a doozy. I'm okay now, though.

I was working at the Waukesha County Fair yesterday. It was about seven hours. I ate a BBQ pork sandwich right before I left the fair grounds, maybe around 9:45 PM. I got home, checked my email, and went to bed.

I ended up throwing up about half an hour later. Yeah, fun. Right on my flour. It got in my hair a little, too, so I had to take a shower.

I'm feeling better now. It's kinda funny. I thought I might've thrown up because of stress, but I really don't think so; I prayed for Andrea, Casey, Uncle Sven, and Jenn last night. They are my biggest worries, and I felt relaxed after I prayed for all of them. I started feeling sick in my stomach later.

AND SARAH! The only reason I was "worried" about Casey is because he's at camp and it sounds like his brother has a heckeva kid to watch. >.o

I should probably get dressed and take a shower...going to see a Waukesha Civic Theatre show tonight!

AIM convo with Sarah...

Sarah: when I am enraged, I sniff my wonderful kleenex box of scent to calm myself
Sarah: mmmm it smells kind of half like Forrest
Me: o.o
Sarah: xD
Me: SARAH'S DOING COKE!
Sarah: Forrest smells like sunset and roses and sugar and vanilla
Me: AND SHE'S KEEPING IT IN KLEENEX'S
Sarah: I love coke
Sarah: mmm mom has coke in the fridge
Me: She does?
Sarah: I have to beg her to let me have it with supper
Me: She could get arrested
Sarah: yeah it's in a red can.....
Me: Oh, you naughty family!
Sarah: XD
Me: Possession of coke is illegal!
Sarah: coca cola
Sarah: XD
Sarah: you knew that though
Me: :P Know you specify
Sarah: you're just being sarcastic
Me: *Now
Me: Really? XD

Dumbledore is not dead.

Yes, I have joined the legion of fans, who do not believe that Albus is, in fact, "pushing up daisies."

I must thank my Uncle Sven for directing me to this lovely site: http://www.dumbledoreisnotdead.com/

I just finished reading the main parts of the site. I think I'll read the guest editorials a bit later.

On other matters, fair judging is, in fact, finished. Fo' shizzle. What you say? I'm not allowed to write "fo' shizzle?" O RLY? NO WAI.

Yeah. Just a bit excited and silly tonight. I only got two red ribbons this year and four of my projects have possiblity for a higher ribbon. Sweet!

I shall go now. I have food to eat.

Fair judging is today, woot!

[Current music: Yubiwa, from Escaflowne: Girl in Gaea]

I managed to finish things pretty well last night. The only things I have to finish up for tomorrow's judging is:

Mount the photos from Walgreen's.
Crop the "Bait" picture and print it off with printer.
Mount "Bait" picture.
Do Home Enviroment project.
Figure out how to print Japanese characters on a transfer sheet WITHOUT the characters having to be printed reversed.
Finish dehydrating potatoes.
Put dehydrated potatoes in jars.

For today's judging, everything is pretty much set. The only thing I have to do is pack all my Shonen Jump issues and all my manga in a box.

Don't want to make this too long.

As far as my gripe on Mom yesterday...

I know it really isn't a big deal. Others have to deal with way worse. But it's better for me to express that somewhere. Otherwise I might end up exploding at her, with the way my temper seems to work. And if I griped at her I wouldn't be making things any easier. I just want to avoid conflict if possible.

I decided to include two of my photos from one of my photography entries.

Ah, such is life...

Good times and bad times.

I had a marvelous time at "Uncle Sven's" (slur the 's' in Sven to say it right) yesterday. He gave me a bunch of nice comments about my story. Really wasn't what I expected to hear, but I'm glad. He mostly asked about the pendents in the story. How they worked, how one got one, when did one get one, etc. It really made me think and he gave me some nice ideas. XD; He also said, "Is something going to happen to make the main character more sympathetic?"

It was a blast being over with Jenn and "Uncle Sven" yesterday. I had fun with those two.

After that, I went over to Sarah and Gabe's for dinner. Ethan got to play with his first glow stick, because I brought along the one I bought at a store the other day.

Now, this morning. Got up, got ready to work on 4-H projects. Quite obviously. The main surprise was that I had an email from Mr. Casey. Apparently, his email had been broken for about three weeks. So, I emailed him back.

Mom's just a little frustrating this morning. I don't think she realizes how stifling she is to this whole family. She's almost always pessimistic about everything. When she's happy, it's about something stupid, like music or a new movie. At least that's how things seem to be.

I just can't figure her out. How hard is it to close four Internet windows when you're done with them? Three having to do with Spider Man 3 in some shape or form, and one a server could not be found. The last one is the one that's confusing me the most; why wouldn't she close it? And, somehow, she'd rather waste her time going up and down stairs to close the windows she failed to close earlier.

I guess it may be for the better. By doing this, maybe she'll actually start to change her habits about leaving windows open so she doesn't have to trek up and down stairs. Maybe.

OMG I WON SCENE IT! YES!

Yaaaaay! Tim and I were on a team. We were on the second ring of Final Cut. So far, whenever I've played this game, I've sucked majorly. So, anyways...

The first question, I knew the answer to. "Oh, oh! Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius!" The second was...

Which Japanese animated film from 1997 had the actors [blah], Minnie Driver, and [blah] in the dub?

Now, at first, I was confused. But then, I made what I felt was a wild guess. "Princess Mononoke!" And, I was right. :DDDD

But, I digress. I've been really busy with 4-H projects. I just finished the hand-sewing on a baby blanket today, as well as reaching the 6th disc of Full Metal Panic at the same time. XD; Yay~

I went out to dinner tonight with Aunt Vicky and Uncle Dan. Mom, Tim, and Dad came, too. Then we saw Pirates of the...I'm not going to try to spell that word.

Anyways, yeah. I'm going over to Pastor Brian and Jenn's house tomorrow, and I'm bringing 4-H projects with me, HOOHAH!

Well...in three days, it will have been three weeks since I've heard something from Mr. Casey, from "Sock." I sincerely hope he didn't die or something. That would be unfortunate. I just hope he's off at a camp somewhere, or he's so busy working his freakin' butt off that he barely has computer time.

Catch all of you later.

Parents are gone.

I think tomorrow I have to work on 4-H like nobody's business. I was a really lazy idiot today, so I need to make up for that. D: I hope whatever happens, Mom isn't going to yell at me...

I wrote roughly 600 words last night. I have NO idea if it's any good. I just know that the mood of what I was writing went from humorous to dead awkward with two words. I'm really not sure if that's good or bad...

All I know is, writing at night with a laptop and iTunes on works for me. I can't even use the Internet on Tim's laptop, so that gets rid of procrastination on my part. He has a Webster like program installed on his computer, so that essentially takes the place of dictionary.com and thesaurus.com for me.

So, yay! 4-H camp is on Sunday and I'll have to be prepared to watch kids. Yep.

Well, I'm home.

[Current music: Karenai Hana, ED from Full Metal Panic]

Now it's time for 4-H projects. It's kinda funny, but my summer is always more hectic than my school year. Maybe it's for balance? Who knows?

I had a semi-bout of depression yesterday. Had an arguement with Mom. We really can't communicate that well. I think it'd be easier for both of us if one of us was less sensitive.

Otherwise, I'm pretty good. I'm working on getting my Home Enviroment project for 4-H. I have to wait about four hours to bid on an NES controller on E-Bay. I also bought two NES games from Good Will today. I can scan in the cartriges and print the pictures. One is Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt. The other is Tetris.

I just made a new filter for my email. Yay! And Tim brought me part of my dinner. He's really sweet sometimes.

The computer is getting rather laggy, though. It makes me wonder how many programs my mom has open. *sigh* She's even a pack-rat with the computer...that's the one place where I'm well organized. Oh well.

Well, I don't have much else to write about...see ya.