The escapades of an autistic daughter and her dad. Follow along to see what oddball posts will surface from the depths of the basement. In the words of Courtney Campbell, "Come on in and spend some time with us!"
Today is the last day of July. This month went by like the snap of a finger I must say! Between Craigslist adds written by potatoes, endoscopies, and everything else, July was a very oddball month for me and the family. Now, what are the weekend plans?
Today we will be heading to a yard sale (as noted in the last post) then afterwards my dad and I will be making a trip to a friends house before finally heading to The Delightful Octopus after a long wait. I've looked at some photos of some of the items they have in the store and I'm already desperate for a stuffed avocado. Yes... that actually exists...
Sunday won't be too much, my dad and I are mainly gonna focus on working on HMR amongst other projects. Followed by dinner from Subway and again, more Home Movies stuff. Its been a stressful weekend so Sunday is gonna be considered our "day off" but I do have plans for next Sunday!
Why do I have a sense of foreboding concerning the un-named plans for next Sunday?
Also aside from the avocado, I'm also interested in these things.
They give me "Chocobo's Dungeon" vibes.
Well, you know me; I've been a fan of avocados going back to the Kennedy administration!
Update! Here's the Haul for today!
At the yard sale, I got "Secret Life of Pets" on DVD along with CDS of Nsync, Backstreet Boys, and Green Day. Lots of the songs on these albums definitely slap, and all for like... $5? You bet its worth a deal!
I scored a pair of jeans, two pairs of shorts and a shirt for fiddy cent each. Yowza!
And from The Delightful Octopus, I got some cutesy animal erasers and a Korilakuma plush. Definitely going back there soon, the old man and I might drop by the ice cream stand later for some "frosty chocolate milkshakes!" I will reveal tomorrow what next Sunday will bring!
Tomorrow is the long awaited weekend, or to my dad and I its "Father Daughter Day." Where, on Saturday, we get out of the house for a bit and usually go thrifting or something and then on Sunday we also do thrifting as well as go grab a bite to eat for dinner while mother is at work. This weekend, I will be heading to a block sale with my dad followed by the anticipated trip to "The Delightful Octopus." This block sale in particular said that some of the money will be donated towards our local no kill shelter "10 Lives Club" which is the shelter where my mom and I adopted our cat, Belle. So that's a plus! And Sunday is still being planned, my dad and I will most likely be staying home and getting Subway or some sort of takeout for dinner. Potentially planning another Dollar Tree run in a couple weeks, but of course, minus the shitty dollar store chili. Might make sure the two of us stick with the FROZEN dinners. Hell maybe even do a movie night? I'll update you guys on the schedule as of tomorrow.
I have some stuff to drop off at my friend's house, which happens to be right near the "Delightful Octopus."
I hope we can all chill a bit this weekend as it was a busy week!
Probably gonna relax for a bit on Sunday since its been a long drawn out week. We'll still get our usual takeout (If we have the cash) but that'll be about it... besides I think I may have an idea for next week...
Well. I'm officially back into South Park, I used to use the initial, SP. But that would get me or my friends confused with Scott Pilgrim, another franchise I enjoy (and....am kinda making a music video dedicated to my favorite character, Kim Pine) Sooooo here's a bit of background info about how I got into South Park.
So when me and my family moved out of our house in North Carolina, we were staying with my grandma until we found a place to stay, sadly all my King of the Hill boxsets were in the storage unit and we forgot to pack them in a separate box. So I didn't really have much to watch TV show wise aside from a few Bob's Burgers episodes ripped to DVD or YouTube. So shortly after, I was desperately searching for an adult TV show for my 13 and a half year old brain to be kept entertained, first we tried Family Guy. Bought a few boxsets at a thrift store for only a few dollars each and got to watching them. One of my favorite episodes was the one where Peter and the guys formed a family band thanks to Meg's excellent singing. Sadly mother wasn't too keen on it after Peter dropped an F bomb in an episode I was watching (on Christmas Eve surprisingly....) So we shelved the boxsets which brought me back to my search...
Then while I was on YouTube, I found a video someone made of an LPS (Littlest Pet Shop) parody of the South Park movie, specifically the scene where the kids swear in class. So I watched it and I saw in the videos section an image that seemed very familiar to me.. It was an image of the original scene from the movie, then it hit me, I remembered catching my dad watching either South Park or Dr. Katz a few times when I was a toddler. So that night I told my mom about it and she was alright with me watching South Park.
Boy was that half a mistake...
This newfound obsession led me to buying a TON of merchandise off Ebay and other places. My most notable being a poster my dad and I found for $10 and a Kenny plush from a yard sale at $3. Needless to say South Park was my go-to show until early 2020 when well....Home Movies came along.
However... there's one character that the companies behind South Park merch NEED to make merch of!
I mean, if you can make a Randy plush, you can SURELY make one of the Mayor, right????
Hey, how about making, oh, I don't know... some more episodes?
Today I went to the hospital for an endoscopy. And good gravy was it a hellhouse. We get there, call to get admitted, things seem to be going fine, right?
(one hour later)
Me, my mom, and my dad are still waiting in the car. Nothing from the people in admins.... So my mom calls and they all get everything set up. And things SEEMED to go smooth sailing from there, my mom and I got to the room, watched a bit of South Park, and then I was wheeled back to get knocked out. The procedure had went on for about 20 minutes before I was wheeled back to my room and woke up a few minutes later. I'll let my dad elaborate on what happened....until then? Time to watch some more South Park.
I also plan on catching up with my best friend, who has been to the hospital loads of times before. Where he lives its about 6:45 pm right now as for me its 3 hours ahead....check mate. Anyways go ahead, dad.
Mostly, I just sat in the car between 9:00 am and 4:00 pm with a break for lunch.
Even the diner's service was slower than slow, just to keep the theme going. But, on the up side, that egg salad sandwich was delicious.
Oh, yeah. The doctor told Mom (whose birthday, as I type this, is today) she'd send three prescriptions to the drug store. Of course they only got two sent over and one of them needs further authorization from the Department of Death, uh, I mean out "health care provider."
But, hey! At least I had a day off from work, so there's that!
So, yesterday I had participated in a Multi Editor Project (or MEP for short) for the first time, basically an MEP is where a bunch of editors like myself come together and make short clips of a character(s) of their choosing and will have their clip featured in the MEP! I made a clip using Luz and Amity from "The Owl House" for this particular project... but uh... let's just say my inspiration went too wild last night.
Looks like ol' nostalgia has hit me again!!! I was listening to Brittany Spears' "Circus" on Spotify last night and my mind went "Gia from Madagascar 3" all of a sudden. So I'm putting together a animash\multifandom MEP right now and I being the nostalgic nutcase I am decided to make my childish mind happy by putting together a few clips I'll be uploading sometime today along with the MEP itself.
In other news I might not be posting tomorrow due to having a procedure done in the hospital which will probably leave me bedridden the next few days so my dad will have to take charge of posting while I'm out of commission.
I'm going to my volunteer job today in hopes to earn a little extra cash aside from my weekly allowance. My mom pays me for my work after my little "shift" so that's nice... turns out my new job is gonna be year round now! Initially these were gonna be for over the summer but now it will continue during the fall. But..... What IS this job?
You see, my parents attend a UCC (United Church of Christ) and we've just started doing community meals, I don't come that often as I'm an atheist and don't really believe in God. The only exceptions I'll make, however, are for my job, or for the LGBT support group held there (yes, our church is LGBT friendly) but the community meals are basically me and a few staff members putting together meal orders, today's specialty being turkey sandwiches. But at the end of it all, aside from my payment, my mom and I get to pick free food that was unable to be stored in our food pantry.
Just don't bring home any dollar store chili. I'm begging you!
In other news, Melissa from Home Movies did indeed win the poll I posted so she's gonna be commissioned soon, I'm having my dad get her reference sheet set up so I can do some fine tuning before submitting it to Budsies. Other than all that, I don't really have too much to do today. I will probably spend my day watching The Office and playing Chocobo's Dungeon, kupo!
Also, just hopped onto Twitter and found this!
I'd totally get one if they were real....
The seven exes wanted Scott Pilgrim's head on stick, so this makes perfect sense.
A SUCCESS! Well....kinda.... You see, we DID get the food but we wound up going to 2 different Dollar Trees just to get food. My dad got some chili and tortillas for his dinner and I got some frozen meals and candy for mine (with a complementary rubber shark toy from the 50 cent machines I love so much) the first location sadly didn't carry frozen food which left us with chili, tortillas, and some cereal bowls that the missus wanted us to pick up while we were there. So then we went to a second location where I got my dinner (thank goodness) So here's our rating on the food we had tonight.
Dinnah is served!
Nerds Gummy Clusters: Not too bad, some of the nerd flavors (orange and grape) I didn't quite like but overall good snack. (9\10)
Dollar Store Cinnamon Bun: A classic snack food. Gooey and delicious! (10\10)
Pop N Chicken and Fries: Childhood food item right here, reminded me of a diner me and my family would go to that had the same type of french fries in the shape of emojis. (10\10)
Cheese Sticks: REALLY GOOD! I was genuinely impressed at how good these dollar store sticks were made. perfect bread to cheese ratio (10\10)
Choclate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Sandwich: Pretty good! Not a bad treat but pretty good! (8\10)
Overall, my dinner was $6 well spent
Canned Chili (with beans): Off to a rocky start with this one. I opened the can and there was a 1/4" discus of some sort of reddish lard on top of everything. I skimmed that mess off and put the rest of it in a saucepan to heat on the stove; it has turned very soupy - like a chili chowder. I was going to make some ersatz burritos with the tortillas, but no way, Jose! I thought about buying some rice to go with the chili and I think it would have saved the day. The beans are not kidney beans, but rather those Van Camp "pork-and-beans" kind of beans. Edible but not something I'm going to revisit. (3/10)
Tortillas: Am heating them up in a pan to crisp 'em up a bit. These are gluten-free corn tortillas. Not bad; they would make good cheese quesadillas. (8/10)
Overall, $2 down the drain. 😒
This was definitely a fun activity! Would we do it again, OBVIOUSLY! But....let's hope dad can get something better next time. Next time we do this, it'll be Dollar General. Catch ya later! -Mariel
So we got my mom her new computer. It wasn't the one she wanted because it wasn't on sale anymore but we did get her a somewhat similar one. Things seem to be looking up, but me and my dad's trip to that import shop is now being pushed to NEXT weekend (They are only open Wednesday through Saturday) but to make up for it, I got "The Office: The Complete Series" on DVD
(Ours wasn't on Blu-Ray)
So that'll keep me entertained, I haven't been able to watch the show the past few months due to being unable to afford Peacock (the service that The Office is on since Netflix removed it from their lineup)
Also tomorrow is me and dad's DOLLAR STORE CHALLENGE! As I've explained before, we have to buy an entire meal (for dinner) with a maximum budget of $10. Hope this all goes as planned. We'll be going to a different location as the one we went to didn't really have much of a selection in frozen foods.
It's great to have that box set of The Office! Lots and lots of bonus material, which I always appreciate.
(I'm typing this on the new laptop, BTW.)
We had pizza for dinner tonight, so please, no dollar store frozen pizza tomorrow, m'kay?
I have a COVID test this afternoon in order to prep for a procedure being done on me in the coming Wednesday. After that, me, my mom and my grandma will be OTL (out to lunch) at...well...wherever we plan on going! Speaking of which....
My grandma wants to treat me to my next plush commission (as a reward for my good grades) which after some thinking (thanks to hyperfixating) I have a certain cynical brunette that's about to join the Budsie family.
This is my first NON HOME MOVIES character. (don't worry, Melissa and other characters will be produced.)
Update: I'm holding it to a vote by some friends on who gets to be next so yee
So I'll be seeing a nutritionist soon (by soon I mean sometime in October) because I'm not exactly the healthiest eater in my family (Who am I kidding, no one in the house is) but there's two huge problems here.
1) I'm the pickiest eater on the planet
2) I stress\binge eat when I'm in a bad mood. So that's a REAL BIG HELP! (thanks a lot, hormonal depression)
So this nutritionist has herself a bit of a challenge. She apparently works with kids and teens which is great! Though once I get this diet, I'm likely gonna follow it for 3 days and then fall back into old habits. So that's a bummer, at this point I'd may as well just give up.
Tell me about it! And, as noted in the previous post, symptoms of Type 2 Diabetes include increased hunger and fatigue. Not exactly a recipe for eating right and exercising. 😕
So my dad and I made a pit stop at our local dollar tree while at the comic con, and we were kind of just mindlessly browsing around while also going on a bit of a snack run... When we suddenly stumbled upon the frozen food section. I then made a passing joke about us living off of dollar store food for AN ENTIRE MEAL!!!! Which got me thinking..... That should a be a little something for this weekend! So dad let me ask you this..... Dollar Tree or Dollar General? Take your pick!
The budget is $10 and will take place at dinnertime while the missus is out doing her evening job.
I say we go to the Dollar Tree on Saturday and stock up for the challenge on Sunday.
What do you say?
I say....challenge accepted >:b Though let's not forget to use some of our McDonalds or Burger King coupons at lunch!
So our dinner will consist of
Entre
Appetizers
some kind of side
and a dessert (cuz duh why not!)
We'll know better once we get there, but, in the meantime, here's a link:
My mom has been using a Windows 7 laptop ever since we first moved to our new house. The past year or so, its been deteriorating mechanically, causing it to become REALLY slow at running things. And with that, we've come to the decision to get a shiny new Chromebook. However, we've run into a FEW problems this morning. Which...I'll let my dad get into ^^; But we will be getting one Thursday night btw.
Basically, the store's website would let me put the Chromebook in my cart, but it kept asking for a verification code that was supposed to be sent to my email. Except, of course, it wasn't and, despite my repeated requests to re-send, it never came.
Then, it hit me. Maybe I should check my phone's text messages. BOOM! There it was!
I entered the code and of course the message I got back was "This code has expired."
Yeah, we'll just go to the danged store and buy it, like a normal person would.
So one of me and my dad's favorite comedians, Paula Poundstone, is gonna be playing in the area on....the 20th anniversary of 9\11? (jeez, could have picked a more depressing day am I right?) and I'm saving up to buy tickets for me and dad to go. With that, we're also gonna be making a collage of some of the cartoon roles she was in (Home Movies, Science Court, and whatever else she was in) and HOPEFULLY, we can get it signed! That'll be tonight's project once dad gets home from work this evening.
The only other cartoon voice I can find is from "Inside Out" where she voiced "Forgetter Paula." Go figure!
Today was a blast, father daughter day is back on schedule. Today started off with my usual cereal with no milk (seriously, lucky charms just taste better without milk in my opinion) before suiting up to go to the local comic con happening today. There sadly wasn't much I found other than some comic books that I passed on for another time, but did snag a cool Scott Pilgrim pin and a Bisexual pride kitty pin.
Soon after, father and I made our way to Joann fabrics to grab some material he needed for a project. They somehow have a cosplay section now!? I poked around there first to see what they had to offer when really it was just different fabrics you could use for a cosplay (heh go figure) but hey, at least we got the fabric, right?
After that, we made our way to Burger King for lunch. Tried the ChicKing sandwich and honestly, its much better than the MCDonald's chicken sandwich. Of course, once we arrived home, our 18 year old cat could smell my sandwich from a mile away (she LOVES chicken) so yeah, pretty successful day! This weekend will be a trip to The Delightful Octopus.
I'm pretty stoked about the vinyl fabric cover I found:
My buddy Bill and I are making a "Mini-Me" version of this speaker cabinet, and finding a match for the covering has been quite the low-level ordeal.
The regularly scheduled "Father Daughter Day" went off to a not too good start. Its been pouring out today and my dad and I have decided to stay home today. We were initially gonna go to a Japanese import shop called "The Delightful Octopus" which is a little further from our house. But due to concerns from mother, we'll be pushing that back to NEXT Saturday. Thankfully it'll give me and my dad some time to work on my Home Movies project since we haven't been able to work on that in the past few days. Then tomorrow I have a local Comic-Con before going to dinner with family for my Uncle's 50th birthday. Here's a picture of the character I'm going as for the Con.
(Going as Inez, the one with the glasses)
I managed to do crude lip sync on two sentences that Quick Rick speaks to Maloney:
I was using my little computer last night while on a video call with some friends and just casually having a grand old time, suddenly I stumble upon a post from SaberSpark (one of me and my dad's favorite YouTubers) on the community tab on YouTube.
Sooooo apparently bikinis are considered "non child friendly" over in Persia? See folks, a lot of other countries see things differently from us "hillbilly Americans" and it always gets a good laugh out of me. I mean.....remember 4Kids? Instead of introducing kids to Japanese culture in their dubs for cartoons like OnePiece, Sonic X, and Pokemon, they would try to work their way around and censor as much as they could. I mean.....you all remember THIS, right?
Yeah... Well I can't wait to see more of this if\when SaberSpark uploads a video discussing it. Gonna probably make my way to Paula's Doughnuts and grab a dozen sushi ro- I mean....jelly doughnuts....
So my dad had informed me to check our OTHER blog for some "BREAKING NEWS" and it turns out our beloved Budsies is gonna be pumping up their summer sales event until the END OF JULY with EVERYTHING 25% OFF!!!!! Which got me thinking..... might be a good idea to get Melissa right now while I still can cuz ordering in October can be a pain since they get backed up with a lot of orders from desperate parents.
So last night, I was at my local store and bought some pre made sandwiches since I'm trying to lose a few lbs. (Gotta try to win some guys over) and I picked up a "veggie crunch" sandwich. So I took a bite out of it earlier during lunch...and good LORD was that a mistake. Turns out there were these bean sprouts in it and it tasted awful. SO VILE that I had to hurl (ok well I did spit it out but I DID gag) This is just a textbook reason as to why I AVOID NEW FOODS AT ALL COST.
Hope you saved what was left of the sandwich - I'll finish it!
So I was casually talking with my online friends this morning while brainstorming some ideas for content, right? Well when I got up to play some Wii Music, I got a MESSAGE FROM BUDSIES in my DMS! I was contacted by them because they hand selected an image of Shannon (one of my plush toys I've commissioned from them over a year ago) and wanted to feature it on their social media pages! All they had me do was fill out a small form asking for the story behind Shannon so I shared some stuff about his origin and what led me to commissioning him. I can't wait to see what they have to say about my young lad.
Also. For those who think I'm joking or looking for attention.
Here's proof.....you're welcome....
Congratulations! Are you now officially an "influencer?"
PS: I (my dad actually) received an E-Mail from Budsies gifting us with a 10% discount code in honor of our "1 Year Budsieversary" Which, depending on whether or not it expires, I plan on using for Melissa in the coming months. (That's the B plan if I don't win the free giveaway) And Yes, dad. I'm on my way to becoming a Budsies Influencer HAHAHAH
My dad finished one of his lines for McGuirk. I'm making a small second of animation for Shannon as I'm typing this soooooo yeah! Will update tomorrow :D
Sorry I'm so s-l-o-w at doing my scenes. That cheap-o drawing tablet makes it kind of hard to do the basic artwork. Once I get that stuff done, then tweaking the drawings for the animation is faster. But, hey, I managed to squeeze out six seconds of screen times, so... on to the next scene!
Sadly my dad and I haven't been able to do our regularly scheduled "Father Daughter Day" this week. But we made up for some lost time tonight by ordering some MCDonald's. Tried the rave reviewed "Crispy Chicken Sandwich" and it was pretty good. Though I didn't really care for the type of bun they used but overall a pretty decent choice from the somewhat expensive menu. Now we'll continue working on HMR.
(A sneak Peek of what's to come <3)
I really liked the spicy Crispy Chicken Sandwich, but I think I'm "over it," at least for the time being.
I managed to animate two brief scenes so far:
McGuirk pulls up in his beat-up Trans Am (or whatever "Reckless" is supposed to be)
McGuirk inside the car pulling off his sunglasses.
I started to draw out the lip-synch artwork, but then time ran out for that session. Maybe more this week?
I just entered a giveaway for a chance to earn a free Budsies plush. What's Budsies? Well they're a plush company in Florida that have a service where you can submit a drawing and they'll make it into a plush! How cool is that?! I've been becoming a regular customer since July 2020 where I ordered my Shannon plush. I've since ordered two more (Duane and Brendon) and who knows....if I win this giveaway (probably won't considering my luck last time wasn't too good. oof) I plan on ordering Melissa to be made into a huggable plush alongside Brendon and his fellow companions. And who knows....maybe Jason will be next? (He's definitely gonna be in the lineup cuz well.... I wouldn't be Home Movies without Brendon, Jason, and Melissa.)
Yesterday marked the 4th anniversary of when we adopted our lovable black blob, Belle. For context, Belle is a black cat that my mom and I adopted in July of 2017. We went to our local "Pet Supplies Plus" by our house where we have a little kitty adoption center sponsored\run by a no kill shelter known as "10 Lives Club" They basically take in cats from overcrowded shelters to prevent them from being put down. The story behind our little Belle is that she and her sisters, Bindi and Bailey were rescued down south after their mother had been killed (likely from a wild animal or being run over by a car) Belle and her sisters were rescued and fostered before the shelter took them in. So my mom and I went to the pet store one day to find that Belle and Bindi were still there (Bailey had been adopted already, we found out about her a few weeks later) it took one millisecond before we quickly grew attached to Belle. Bindi was too busy sleeping to care. So when we got home, I was telling my dad about Belle and Bindi and he offered me a deal that if I would clean the kitty boxes for a week, then I could adopt Belle....um....that didn't last too long sadly.
About 2 days later, mom called the shelter to ask if the two adorable twins were still available. The volunteer working there said YES they were indeed there. She offered us both but as much as we would have loved to keep them together, we already had 2 other cats at the time, Tucky (17, deceased) and Chloe (then 15), and we didn't want to overwhelm them with two 4-month-old kittens rampaging through the house. We went to the pet store, adopted Belle, and the rest is history.
So....what happened afterwards?
When we brought our little black ball of energy home, she soon met our two other cats. Tucky being the one she warmed up to the most, it took him a couple of days to get used to her, and he did. I would constantly find the 2 snuggling together by one of our cabinets. That night when my dad arrived home from work after receiving a text from mother that the cat was home, I remember the first words from his mouth were "Alright where's the little monster" before Belle kindly walked out and plopped in front of him. Belle and my dad never really had the BEST relationship in the past 4 years, but our little blob is slowly warming up to him.
Present day?
Here's a picture of our little meatloaf 4 years later.
A little back-story, folks. At one time we had four (yes, FOUR) cats. We were "down" to two and on our way to the optimum number, which is zero.
And then this happened.
As noted above, Tuck passed away not long after Belle made her appearance. With Chloe now heading toward 19, it won't be long before another cat shows up here. I. Just. Know It.
Well folks. Old Cheetohead is at it again. Trump is still claiming that he'll be in office again as of August 13th. AKA MY FICTIONAL CRUSH'S BITHDAY! Which I highly doubt that is to be true. If that IS the case, he'll probably fail....again.... and the fucking cherry on top???????
Me and my mom were in the living room watching some TV and catching up on the news. When suddenly THIS pops up.
First TikTok and now this?! Now I personally don't have a Facebook myself but my dad does and he's currently taking a hiatus from the site for personal reasons, hence why this blog was founded. But I do use Twitter every so often to promote my fan series, Home Movies REVAMPED. This is probably gonna be another one of his failed attempts. I'd consider Trump and his bs to be a guilty pleasure of mine since occasionally I will watch some of his worst quotes on YouTube just to get a good laugh when I'm having a rough day. Hell I actually have a book my dad got for his birthday this year where someone took some of Trump's speeches and made them into poems. My dad wanted nothing to do with it so I took it. Needless to say, I'm curious to see how this shitstorm goes down.
PS: Sorry for the sailor mouth, its just my way of speaking. Especially in situations like these. -Mariel
So I have a fan made series based off the Adult Swim classic, Home Movies.
I FINALLY got all the voice recordings from my crew behind my series. I'm less than a minute into the episode so far and I have my dad helping out with some of the animation as Coach MCGuirk.
Hopefully the two of us will get cracking on it later tonight. Until then I'll see what I can work on.
I was having trouble drawing McGuirk's "Reckless" Trans-Am yesterday. I was kind of worn-out by the holiday weekend and ended up going to be early. Let's see If I can get back on track tonight...
UPDATE: Here it is, such as it is...
(It's pretty rough-looking, but it'll be seen in a long shot, so...)
The old man and I were on Craigslist earlier and we stumbled upon what I would consider to be THE BEST AD I'VE EVER SEEN! I mean, just look at the image and just TRY not to laugh!
