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!"
Not looking forward to what the radio stations will be offering tomorrow....
I mean at least there's ONE thing I can keep an eye out for...
Also, Dad. I heard that Emo Philips got a standing ovation recently!!!!
Frank Conniff (TV's Frank) is a big fan:
Breaking News: My Instagram account has been suspended. I barely post there or make comments. I'm trying to delete my twitter account (Musk!) So my social media presence is basically this blog, I guess.
Yeah there's been a purge on a bunch of Instagram accounts randomly being deactivated\suspended. One of my friends said it happened to a mutual of theirs. Reports say accounts are slowly coming back up.
I guess it's a matter of "trick or treat!" SPOOKIEEEEEEEEEES!
We finally set up my VHS recording station!!!! I've been getting the hang slowly but surely when it comes to using tapes. So far I've got some episodes of shows like Cyberchase, Odd Squad, Wild Kratts, and more. We're gonna try and get channel 29 on the analog box so I can record this year's "Treehouse of Horror!!!" And maybe some Bob's Burgers as well.
On the topic of adult animation, we're gonna try bidding on some 2 hour long recordings of Metalocalypse (another one of Brendon Small's greatest creations). I've seen all of season 1 and a good chunk of season 2, I just haven't been able to watch it due to being busy pleasing thousands of people subscribed to my YouTube channel.
Fingers crossed I'm able to obtain these for my personal nerd collection!
Dad and I decided to put a halt on our thrifting ventures this weekend, as I am saving my hard earned cash for the "merch table" at the upcoming Paula Poundstone concert.
Morning
I've been having some issues sleeping in. For a few days, I've been sleeping until 8:16 at the latest. But as of late, I've woken up around 7:46 ish. Not bad, but it certainly could have been worse. Both of us managed to get our sorry butts out of bed as mom left for work. We had our France imported breakfast while tuning into "The Owl House." Our adventures consisted of things like shrinking potions and getting into Hexide! We also got conformation that Mitch will be here by Tuesday at the latest.
Afternoon
Dad had to return some stuff at the library, so I kept myself occupied by uploading a video and playing some Minecraft. I gotta say I've been getting better at survival mode. I wound up getting a ton of gold, iron, coal, and lapis from those mineshafts I found a few days ago. I also traded some stuff with the fellow villagers and am planning to make a world map soon.
There were talks of meeting up with family for dinner tonight too. So consider that your "evening report."
Just before autism burnout could claim my soul once more with its meaty grasp, I got the thumbs up from Budsies that Mitch has been shipped out!!!!
Wonder if it'll be here in time for the Paula Poundstone concert?????
(Random musing here)
I was gonna make this the theme of today's blog post but well...Things obviously changed.
On today's episode of "Bills Fans Make Me Cringe."
So I went with mom to do the weekly grocery shopping yesterday, even got a sub for lunch. Usually when mom is cashing out on the food items, I'll sit on a bench by the exit. So while I was busy giving myself some downtime playing Minecraft, I hear some discussion coming from the self checkout ahead of me. I look up from my game to see a man around my dad's age talking to a couple about, you guessed it, Bills stuff. The man said "I didn't say I was anti Bills, I'm just saying I put the Cowboys first!" I guess these people were bickering about how great the Bills are??? The cherry on top was that I was sitting right next to the giant rack of Bills hoodies and other apparel that I could care less about.
I was very tempted to add in my two cents, but I'm no sports junkie. And the only reason I'm a Cowboys fan is thanks to King of the Hill. There was some more to the discussion that I would add, but I've got plans....
Was playing Minecraft last night and stumbled upon not one, but two abandoned mineshafts! Seeing a mineshaft for the first time in years really hit me with that wave of nostalgia!
Back in 2013, during the Minecraft prime, dad and I found a (now old and redundant) build of the game and we installed it on our computer. Sadly, a 10 year old me could NOT understand the game physics at the time. I'd either be digging for a cave, but then I'd hit bedrock and fall off the map, or I'd fly but not know how to get down. But I gradually got the hang of it overtime and got to explore the game more often.
I was actually talking about the game a while ago and I asked dad what he thought of Mineceraft when he first started hearing about it through me and my church friends. He said he thought it was a really creative game and the design choice was unique for the time (still is).
What memories do YOU have of us playing the game back in the day, dad?
I liked the music. And yeah, not figuring out how to stop flying was very concerning. (The music has very much evolved overtime as well! Will show you some soundtracks later!)
I was kind of like Legos, but there were no pieces to step on with your bare feet.
May use this song for the McGuirk unboxing (whenever THAT happens...)
1 more week until the Paula Poundstone concert!!!! Gonna see if we can get directions to the venue in the next few days. And see if they allow video cameras too. If not, I'll just record the trip up here and maybe take a few photos here and there. I've been waiting almost 2 years for this moment, and unlike last time, I'm fully vaccinated!
And I'm also putting some cash aside for the merch table. And it'd be SUPER COOL if she actually ran it too! Dad actually told me about his experience meeting a celeb at a merch table.
On a side note: The number of times Emo (Shannon) Philips liking a post of mine has gone up to 5. That is all.
We watched episodes 4 and 5 of The Owl House yesterday. Both episodes were really good, though the covention one could have been better in my eyes. Maybe tonight I could save that project file to a different folder so I can continue working on Home Movies REVAMPED. Audiences have been waiting desperately for me to release this episode, and I can't wait to bring it to them!
I believe there are 2 scenes left after I finish the one I'm working on now.
This is what it'll look like when I'll be stepping down as head animator.
Anyways, we'll worry about that first before watching more Owl House.
So I premiered a little animation for my most recent character who I can now reveal as "Judith T. Newton." And I'll say, I was impressed with how she's turned out so far. I've been working on Judith's character for a few months now, and just when I was about to start designing her visually, Judy Tenuta (the very obvious inspiration for this character) died. So that kind of threw a wrench in my plans to post any fan art because I didn't want people to think I was using somebody's death for clout. But without further ado, here are some drawings I've made leading up to this moment.
Some concept\reference sheets.
And one out of a few pieces I made just for funsies.
Wouldn't be a Judy inspired character without THIS.
Also I can't work on HMR today cuz I accidentally saved the project file to one of dad's thumb drives that he took out. That'll be something to worry about tonight ^^;
Hey! I just wanted to post my 500 subscriber special. (I hit 501 today!)
No, not the explosive I used in Minecraft when I was, what, 10? But this initial stands for Teddy and Tina. Dad and I had a local "Fall Fest" at our church that we'd be helping at instead of pantry this week. So here's today's rundown.
(Morning)
To keep up with the theme, we watched a couple episodes of Bob's Burgers. Those being "Topsy" and "Two For Tina." We chose the first one specifically since dad needed to know how to dress as Teddy.
Favorite Song!!!!
(Afternoon)
We arrived at church around 12:15 or something. I really cannot remember. Dad and I set up the car, blasted our "Bob's Burgers Volume 1" CD (and Home Movies towards the end). The turnout was....Exceptional, but can't complain as I (along with Shannon) helped "clear out inventory." Can't talk much now! Gotta get back to projects!
Today marks our 500th post to this blog!!! While I would celebrate, I've gotta totally rework something.
(Morning)
Nothing to say here. Started off with French toast followed by Home Movies (Season 4). We watched the episodes "Camp" and "Bye Bye Greasy." After breakfast, it was time for me to grind away at some projects.
Firstly, I finished my Home Movies short. It will premiere tomorrow night at 9:30 pm Eastern.
Then it was onto the big project that we haven't touched in MONTHS...And that is "Home Movies REVAMPED" episode 8. I had dad get the last few assets drawn out and animated...But ONE not so tiny problem occurred when I was saving the project...
I open up the studio after it saved. Only to receive the message "This project contains missing media. Would you like to recover it now?"
So now I'm re-syncing EVERYTHING we had just animated. So after that, I won't be working on this project AT ALL until tomorrow (prior to Fall Fest)
Nothing to talk about in regards to how the afternoon went. See you guys on the flipside.
I recently came up with a King of the Hill episode sometime during season 12 where Lori (Joseph's toxic girlfriend who was only in basically the Shannon amount of episodes) uses Joseph for Dale's credit card. Funny what my brain will come up with when I'm in the deepest of sleeps.
Ladies and gentlemen, my writing bug has returned. I'm currently working on a few little drabbles for either Home Movies REVAMPED or just stories to put on my Wattpad account. Right now, however, I'm busy working on a Home Movies YTP.
Last night, I finally introduced dad to what I'd consider one of the gayest shows on TV (saying that in a positive tone of course). And that's Danna Terrace's "The Owl House."
I've seen episodes 1-6 prior to the two of us watching it together, and since dad downloaded the first 4 episodes, It'd give me a bit of a refresh. I found out about this show through various fans on TikTok who ship Luz with another character dad will meet soon enough. And when one of my online friends got into it, that was what got me to watch it initially. But now that seasons 1 and 2 are on Archive.org, I can rest easy knowing that we can download more episodes without having to battle against those darned ads.
So what do you think of the show so far, dad?
Looks like a fun series. And it's a DISNEY show?!? (So, owls are gay, eh?) 😉😜
Dad set up the treadmill the other day, so I was thinking maybe the two of us could start using it tonight. I'll uh....Need to go through the ropes since this isn't as up to date as most other treadmills I've seen on here. Which is partially a shame since the day after we got this one, dad found a much better one in the free section! Oh well. We'll put up with this one for a while.
I also wanna say that it's a miracle that I actually slept until 9:00am today! Would you look at the time, gotta have some bacon and eggs!
This weekend's project: Setting up my recording station.
And I'll also be doing a little something for my inner teen, as well.
Been hopping on the nostalgia train lately (go figure). What show would I POSSIBLY be obsessing over this time, one might ask. Well, this time I'll be taking a trip back to a little Christian program called "Veggietales."
I discussed this show on here a while back after the creators got fired for little to no reason. But sometimes you just have those moments where you can't help but watch a little show about talking veggies. (Highly recommend content by Media Mementos. They've made some of their OWN episodes!)
I would definitely do another routine post tonight, but I've got work to do.
Woke up sometime around 8:00 or something. Did the usual catching up with some friends before dad and I went to starting our morning with French toast followed by King of the Hill.
After that. It was off to class for me.
(Some musings from class that nobody asked for).
Today, we were learning about acting\improv. This involved us picking a name from 3 buckets. One was Marvel characters, the second was "general characters," and (the one most used), ANIMATED characters! First, we made an "audition tape" where we did impressions of the characters we picked. I got to play Miles "Tails" Prower from....Well.....Sonic the Hedgehog.
I'd say the best voice impression I saw in that portion was one of my friends doing an INSANELY accurate "Jack Skellington" impression, visually and voice wise.
The same person would later go on to improv as Mike Wasowski
Then there was one kid who was supposed to audition for "Spongebob" as part of his tape. We were told by the teachers to simply state our name an who we'd be auditioning for (followed by some prompts about the character).
So the kid goes up and says "Hi. I'm ____ and I'll be auditioning for the role of Spongebob." And just walks off camera, with laughter ensuing. (No worries, folks. There was a 'take 2').
After that, it was break time.
(Afternoon)
After the break, we did an imrov game where we'd get to pick ANOTHER character and would have that character get interviewed for a job as something you wouldn't really expect it to be. (Ex: The Grinch as a mental health counselor, Mike Wasowski as a heart surgeon,) and for MY performance, Vanelope Von Schweetz as a Pre K teacher.
By the time my improv rolled around, dad was already there to pick me up afterwards.
After that, we got home, had a quick lumch, and went to the comic con..... Which was a fail....Again....
So we just stopped at Amvets where I got a couple new sweatshirts for $15 all together.
Probably my favorite from the bunch.
(Evening)
Te three of us were far too rung out to actually cook anything, so we turned to Mighty Taco. I got myself some bacon nachos while mom and dad got their own variety of burritos. Let's see whether or not we have pantry tomorrow.
Tickets have been purchased! Now it's time to start a video countdown. And a countdown to the short (if I feel like working on it today. It was already a massive pain just getting the voice lines done yesterday).
I printed out our tickes, so all they have to do is scan our QR codes and we're in!
Luckily, I have some footage from a plush video I recorded yesterday that I can easily just slap together and call it a day. I'm currently more invested in making some more tunes. I think I know SOMEBODY who might wanna join in on just SLAPPING loops together.
Soundtrap and Bandlab are waiting for you, dad.
Am editing a plush video. there were MANY instances where Lilly and Mimi were butting heads with each other off screen. (These clips were unusable as you could hear Lilly hissing in the videos) But I made an exception and gave the girls a brief appearance in the episode.
We got the treadmill!!! Dad is gonna figure out where in the basement we'll put it, while I figure out a schedule on how many times a day I'll wanna use it.
Right now, I'm putting together a reference sheet as well as some stuff on Soundtrap for my upcoming short. My best friend says I'm improving on the Home Movies art style, which is always a good sign. And I'm very proud of how this character is turning out! Now to put together a little ocarina showtune for her in the short.
It has already been a week since Judy passed, too...
On the topic of comedians, we also gotta reserve our tickets today for the Paula Poundstone concert coming up on the 4th. SO EXCITEDDDDDDDD!!!! (Is it normal to type about another comedian while watching Judy Tenuta stand up on YouTube?)
Dad found a free treadmill on Craigslist. We're currently making plans on when to pick it up soon. This will probably help us out in case we're too busy to do a mall-walk or don't have the motivation or energy to do one. And with thrift store season coming into play, it's sure to happen more often.
Dad told me he used to have a treadmill back at our old house, but he got rid of it when I was a toddler due to not wanting me to get hurt. I have no doubt that I'll struggle at first with such technology, due to being the most unfit couch potato in the entire house.
Might be able to pick it up tonight. We shall see.
Anyways, gotta work on some music for an upcoming short!
Yep, we're going to get some pumpkins before all the good ones are gone and all that's left are misshapen gourds.
Been working on some sketches in the meantime. And I'm REALLY liking how this character I'm making is turning out! Just gotta do some minor tweaks first before I finally have that spitting image. I've been showing sketches to my production team behind "Home Movies REVAMPED" and they're loving the progress so far! And, would you look at the time. Gotta do more sketching!
Been working on a new character of mine for the past few days. This character has been in the works for ages now, but it was only until recently I started planning her design. I would show off some doodles I've made, but I still have some stuff I wanna work on such as designing an outfit and some other little tidbits.
It will be worth the wait...
Also, dad. Could you help me find something in the basement tonight?
Looks like somebody made a video on why The Weird Al show was so short lived!
Game season has officially started here. Well, it technically started 2 weeks ago. But that's besides the point.
Morning
GOOD MORNING, USAAAAAAA~ (Sorry...)
So I got season 1 of "American Dad" at Goodwill yesterday. I had only seen one episode so far prior to achieving this set, so I had a small memory of the characters. From what I've seen in the 4 episodes we've encountered so far, it seems to be a really good show! Your thoughts, dad?
There was also supposed to be a meeting my dad had to attend, but that got cancelled. So we went on with our morning by getting washed up etc.
Afternoon
As promised, dad and I went on a quest to get our hands on those "Cactus Buddy" happy meals! We drove to a chosen location and were greeted with nothing but disappointment. I place my order and the cashier whispers "We can't sell those anymore because we ran out of the toys." Maybe NEXT weekend will be better...If they're still available.
This reminded us of a situation from many years ago.
So when I was around 4, maybe 5. McDonalds had these "Hello Kitty" pencil holders out as their happy meal. And what little girl would turn such an offer like THAT down?! So one afternoon, my mom and I went to McDonalds to get my grubby little kid hands on a pencil holder that's probably worth 5 cents now.
*At drive-thru*
Mom: I'll have a 6pc McNugget meal for a girl, please!
Guy behind the speaker: Oh, sorry. We're all out of the Hello Kitty toys.
Mom: Yeah, probably cuz you took them all! (Don't worry, folks. She was saying that out of sarcasm).
Needless to say, I *likely* wound up with one of the other happy meal toys they were serving at the time.
(Present Day)
Then we went home where we went on to plan how we're gonna set up my recording station for my VHS tapes! We've not plugged in anything just yet, aside from the antenna. More updates on that soon!
All grieving aside, dad and I went on about our weekend schedule.
(Morning)
The morning started off with leftovers for breakfast accompanied by "Oddballs." A Netflix series created by TheOdd1sOut. Dad and I are two big fans of James and his work, with our first encounter on his channel being THESE two videos respectfully.
And
Dad applauded the M&M technique in this video.
We had some errands to do afterwards, let's list them out!
Errand 1) Get a new lightbulb
My grandma wanted us to come and help install a new lightbulb in her bathroom. No worries, we just trudged off to Home Depot (was right around the corner from her house). Dad got the bulb while I was belting out Jaxx's debut hit "Victoria's Secret" in the car. The song played TWICE on two different radio stations. Highly recommend giving it a listen for yourself.
Errand 2) Go To Best Buy
Best Buy wasn't far away either, so we drove there to get two important things.
1) SOMEONE'S Christmas present.
2) An indoor TV antenna for my bedroom (to record stuff on my VHS tapes).
Both were easy finds (Duh, they were in the same section). So we didn't spend too much time.
After that, we went back to grandma's to install the bulb.
Errand 3) Goodwill
I've been wanting to stop buy the Goodwill around the corner from our house lately, so I took some allowance and change leftover from Best Buy and used it for today's thrifting ventures. Didn't wind up with too much today, but the highlights were getting a South Park "Chef Aid" CD, as well as a talking "Mei-Mei" doll from Turning Red. I personally find it odd that this doll was at a Goodwill of all places since Turning Red only came out in March. When you press Mei's tummy, she swings her arms up in the air and yells "AWOOGA!" As for the Chef Aid CD, I'm glad to have found it since this CD itself is VERY hard to find on EBay and when it is listed, it's usually far past my preferred price range.
Quick fact check update: The CD has since become easier to find compared to 3 years ago when it was HTF cheap online. So whoops!
(Afternoon)
Dad and I spent the afternoon re-organizing my plush collection in the basement. We're clearly making progress right now and I'm loving it! Everthing from Build a Bears to Webkinz have been neatly organized into various boxes (And we actually bothered to label the boxes for a change). So yeah, more tomorrow!
Now to binge watch more of The Love Goddess while I build a minecart system in Minecraft.
We lost yet another comedian last night. This being Miss. Judy Tenuta (also known by her loyal fans as "The Love Goddess"). Judy had been fighting cancer for a while now and it was only yesterday that she passed.
I found out about Judy and her work when I first watched the very underrated "Weird Al Show" from the 90s. It was shortly after that I found that she used to be married to EMO PHILIPS! When I broke the news to dad, we wound up laughing over how the wedding must have gone. (HINT: It was probably pure chaos).
I'll be spending the day re-watching old stand up material as a way of practicing the religion known as "Judyism." Maybe binge The Weird Al Show, too. Who can tell.
Aside from our little VHS project, dad and I have some secret plans of our own.
So mom was talking about how I should start planning a budget for buying Christmas presents for the family. I usually don't go all out, so I just stick to my mom, my dad, and my grandma. Now dad wanted to get mom a smart-TV for her bedroom some time ago, and its in the cheap-ish side of about $100, basically the amount I use to pay for a Budsie no less.
So the plan is, go to Best Buy to get the TV, stop at Goodwill to do some thrifting, come back home and take care of our project, and maybe buy ourselves those adult happy meals that just came out.
What can I say? I just wanna relive the "happy meal experience" with this collab.
I've been using SPStudio.de for the past 5 years, either for animations that a kindergarten student could do better at, or for my South Park episode reviews! Recently, the avatar creator site is celebrating its 20th anniversary, and there was a contest held where you could submit your avatar to have it featured on the site's banner! I submitted my character and well......
Source: SPStudio (Particularly the "blog" section)
That is totes amaze-ballz!!!
Anyways, I've been pumping out a TON of tracks from Soundtrap. One of them is a simple guitar duet track meant for an animatic that I'll start working on tomorrow. Today's theme for music falls under the sort of mystical genre. Thinkin something based of the Legend of Zelda franchise.
AKA: I wanna use the option to play an ocarina as an instrument.
Random musing: I was talking to mom about us possibly going to Denny's with grandma next week. What exactly drove me to pitching this idea???? Look below.
This is NOT clickbait, its as real as real can get. (Plus I saw a commercial for it on TT).
I was having one of my infamous sensory overload episodes. Two of the most prominent symptoms in these are migraines and nausea. The nausea was a key factor yesterday. Usually, this symptom sort of fades out after a certain period of time, but yesterday, it stayed. And after my grandma called us at 9:30pm, my anxiety worsened it.
10:30 rolled around and I went to bed, not before....Well...I'll let this infamous Family Guy clip describe the situation.
I'm just gonna do some messing around on Soundtrap today. Speaking of, we're working on that VHS project over the weekend! Care to elaborate on your idea, dad? (If you've got a free moment).
Since there's already a VCR & TV in your room, I'll simply hook up the converter to the VCR and get an antenna to pickup the digital broadcast signals. If you need to record from your DVD to VHS, we'll simply feed those to the VHS deck using the RCA outputs. All we need is to pick up an antenna to make it work.
EZ-PZ, right?
As long as I don't wind up projectile vomiting again, we should be fine.
So when I was at the flea market yesterday, I found a pack of 2 sealed VHS tapes for $2. I suggested to dad that I've been wanting to try recording some shows off the TV in our living room. Now we don't have cable, so the only thing I actually watch has always been PBS Kids (most days since our move have been occupied by the fast speed internet).
So we popped one of the tapes into our VCR. Sadly, we could get any of the channel since our TV isn't analog. BUT...We do have a digital to analog converter box in our basement. Maybe we can plug it in and I could check my local schedule for what shows I actually care about are on around these parts. Something tells me we've got a mini project on our hands.
I saw an article of "Best Digital Converter Boxes To Use In 2022."
Maybe we should give that a look!
Another thing I wanna TRY to do is convert some old DVD recordings from NC to VHS! A lot of it are either random episodes of shows (mostly Odd Squad and Cyberchase), or the weekend event known by us (and many down south) as "Read-A-Roo's Block Party." Where every month, there would be a 3 hour marathon of a specific show. Well I happen to have a few that we could try transferring.
Today was the last "Garage Sale Sunday" of the year. Meaning flea market season will be laid to rest until April\May 2023. I got a ton of items that I can't list all at once, but my highlight out of the lot this time round would be...
$10 for all of em!
Anyways, here's today's rundown.
(Morning)
I slept surprisingly well last night considering Lilly was making it a bit difficult to let me fall asleep last night. (NOTE TO CAT OWNERS: Don't leave any toys with bells or anything that makes noise on your floor before retreating to your bed). Dad and I settled on having cereal this morning, he had Rice Krispies, I had corn flakes.
Nothing wrong with being simplistic.
After that, I threw some clothes on and got ready for the day while dad was busy having stomach problems. After we got our shit together (pun not intended), we headed out.
(Afternoon)
While there were quite a few people out today, the weather was a tad bit chilly. And unlike dad, I was all bundled up with a Hello Kitty sweatshirt and some light long sleeved pants. Again, I bought a ton of items. And it wouldn't be the last trip of the year without dad getting his precious kettle corn.
Was hoping to see my one vendor today, but she wasn't present today. (Likely preparing to watch the Bills game). But I can't complain with the loot I got. After the flea market, we stopped at DQ since I had been wanting to go there lately. Dad got a 3 pc pretzel stick snack and I got my chicken strip basket (I traded one of my honey mustard packets for his cheese dip). I also got myself a "Brownie and Oreo Cupfection" which was basically a sundae with, you guessed it, brownies and Oreos! Will definitely order again if we're in the area!
(Evening)
Yes, I am actually gonna include an evening report. We were planning to order takeout with my grandma tonight. We settled on Chinese food where I got some cheese wontons and a pint of egg drop soup. The wontons weren't all that good, but I've got some leftovers saved for tomorrow.
Nothing much to report here, but since this is a daily blog, I'll give you the rundown.
(Morning)
Lilly woke me up this morning. I've been pretty used to being woken up by furry creatures. Whether it be them screaming to be let in, or jumping on me. Either way, I briefly caught up with my friends just as mom was leaving for work, and dad and I had what we like to call "The Toast Imported From France." Dad would be meeting with a couple that happened to be interested in buying the table he had been working on since summer. In short: They took it for $250.
(Afternoon)
Got home from class and spent the afternoon playing Minecraft and getting ready to drop 7 songs I've produced in my class so far!!!
