Both these games can be found by going to dictionary.com and clicking on Word Games.

Word Kingdom: In this game, you earn supplies for your kingdom by spelling out words using tiles representing each item: food, wood, stone, and gold. At each level you are given certain tasks to complete. At first it starts out easy as your first objectives are just to gather enough items to build a level one marketplace, level one blacksmith, and a level one archery, stable, barrack, or magic guild. Then you have enemies to worry about attacking or defending against. If you're defeated you have to start the level over again. These enemies get tougher as you go along and while they're attacking you have to keep spelling out words to replenish your supplies in order to have soldiers defending your castle. This gets very annoying as most of the tiles will not be the ones you need (food, gold, or magic if you've decided to go with a magic guild). You can't pause the action to stop and replenish items or trade your unwanted quantities of stone for any of the other supplies at your marketplace. Sometimes I wonder if it's even worth it since a good percentage of the time my troops will march right past an oncoming attacker and wander off-screen never to be seen again! They use up so much of my resources they'd better damn well be doing their job! After almost a week of playing, I'm still stuck at the same level, but that's okay since my Flashplayer will probably conk out again by Christmas and I won't be able to play anymore. Although I hate it that my Flashplayer routinely updates itself every 2-4 months and then stops working after a week, I will not miss playing this game because it frustrates the hell out of me.

Ad Lib: This game is designed a lot like Tetris, only with letters instead of groups of four blocks (since most of the words I'm able to hash together on the quick have four letters, Tetris is a pretty accurate comparison). The more words you spell or the more of the same letter you group together, the more rows you eliminate. One way this is not like Tetris is the storyline they give you. In the beginning, you see two siblings walking into a room and picking up a supposedly magic book that turns one of them into an owl. You're playing as the other sibling and you have to spell out words to pass all the levels to turn your sibling back to normal. If this were one continuous game like Tetris, I think I'd enjoy it a little better because just when I'm getting into the zone, I get enough points to pass and the level ends abruptly. Plus, every so often little messages will pop up warning you about the different kinds of blocks that will appear: unmovable letters, exploding letters, freezing letters, and extra points letters. As usual, if you can't spell any words to eliminate enough rows, the game is over once the top row reaches the top of the screen. After a certain number of levels, the sibling is returned to normal. You'd think you've won and the game would be over, but not so. After the screen announcing his return to humanity, the game still continues until all the letters reach the top of the screen. There are still levels to pass, however, but I haven't been through enough of them since the game does get harder from here. I do enjoy this game - in fact, I think I might be addicted to it. It's a great game to pass the time with because it's way more exciting than the daily crossword (about the only game on that site that will work after my Flashplayer inevitably dies again) and nowhere near as aggravating as Word Kingdom. It will be missed. In fact, this is probably going to be me after my Flashplayer stops working and I won't get to play for months on end:

"Going crazy...Need my Tetris..."

I was just thinking of all the things I have to do for next week....wow....

Anyway, that got me to thinking about Harry Potter. Specifically, I saw a Christmas tree that looked like Luna's dress from Half-Blood Prince. I know that was Slughorn's Christmas party and Yule Ball was in Goblet of Fire, but whatever. It sounds better. Which leads to my question: if you could invite anyone to your party, real or fictional, who would it be and why?

Aside from my friends and tv.com friends, it would be Ryou, of course. After that, Luna herself and possibly Hermione. If I lived in the Potterverse, I hope I could call them friends. Then there's Abby and McGee from NCIS. Hopefully Abby would bring Caf-Nog and gingerbread Abby cookies. Finally, there would be several Power Rangers invited: Tommy, Zack, Rocky, Adam, Kimberly, and possibly a few others.

Now I have to go kill a fly because I haven't felt comfortable eating and stuff with it buzzing around the house for the past two days.

Hi! I've changed to a more festive banner for the month. On the left is Wilson Jermaine Heredia as Angel from RENT, and on the right is Jesse Martin as The Ghost of Christmas Present from A Christmas Carol (2004).

What sort of songs do you like to listen to at this time of year? My favorite classic to listen to is Carol of the Bells, especially the version played by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. My favorite classic to parody is The Twelve Days of Christmas, my favorites being The Twelve Pains of Christmas and Shrek's Twelve Days of Christmas. And there's this other song that's been stuck in my head ever since I heard it called Merry Frickin' Christmas. Not to beat you over the head with Christmas, I'm going to shut up now. But first, a few elf pics because over at the Yu-Gi-Oh Elfed thread we kinda got bored of it around Thanksgiving.

I finished my crossover fic and was able to post it to my quizilla account (which for some reason wasn't working last week so I also posted a Halloween parody of A Christmas Carol kinda really late). If you're interested, here's the link: http://quizilla.teennick.com/stories/15687550/the-azumanga-daiohouran-host-club-mixer

Other thoughts:

Flipping through the TV guide I found a movie starring Laurence Fishburne called Biker Boyz. In last week's CSI trilogy, his character Dr. Ray Langston hopped on a motorcycle to chase a bad guy in a New York junkyard. This explains so much.

Can't wait for TMNT Forever to air next weekend!!

Starting December 1st. I'll post screen cap highlights every so often. Also, I'll put up a holiday banner on that same day.

And because Emerald mentioned it...

I'm sick of being picked on for my opinions and and feeling like everyone is against me. Nothing I ever say or do is right, so what's the point anymore?

South Park: While I liked the ghosts of dead celebrities - especially Billy Mays - I didn't appreciate how they made fun of Ghost Hunters. Jason and Grant were portrayed as idiots, which would have been funny if they were actually idiots. They aren't. And if they're going to make fun of them, they should do it right. Kris and Amy didn't really look like Kris and Amy, and Steve and Tango weren't there at all. They could've had, for instance, Steve trying to pull a prank on Tango but ending up getting eaten by a giant spider or something.

Survivor: As much as I kind of hate the fact that I still watch this show, I can still find something to laugh at. For instance, Jeff's unprecedented absence at the reward challenge. My private joke is that he was so happy that Ben had been ousted that he drank too much and was too hungover to officiate. In earlier seasons, an irate Jeff would have gone on a mini-tirade about contestants who have challenged him or insulted him in some way. But now he's mellow, Emmy Award-winning Jeff. I like comparing him to Kirk Fogg. God, I miss Legends of the Hidden Temple.

Project Runway/Models of the Runway: Tara going home was crap. I don't know what happened there, but it sucks. I'm not quite sure what happened with the designers since South Park was on at the same time, but I'll catch up with that later.

Agh, my back is killing me. I've been helping my brother make a scrapbook for the past week, which involves sitting at the computer printing stuff all day, organizing them into piles, hole-punching the pages and putting them into a binder. And right now for some reason I have worse acne than I ever had as a teenager. It's very frustrating because nothing is working and it just keeps getting worse.

Anyway, here's the Billy Mays character I'd made on the South Park Character Generator. The one from the episode looks better because they're not limited to the generator on the show. And I assumed he was going to Heaven...

I don't know what to do anymore. I'm running out of ideas on the Yu-Gi-Oh! forum, and I don't feel much like I belong anywhere else. I'm always being made out to be the bad guy or some weirdo when I'm just expressing an opinion or telling the truth on the boards, and the Yu-Gi-Oh! forum has not been an exception. Most people aren't interested in what I have to say, which makes me feel like I can't speak my mind, that nobody cares about what I have to say, and that the root of the problem lies with me because I never say anything interesting enough that makes people want to care about me, or they just don't want to hear it. So if I go days without posting much of anything, this is the reason why. I don't want to be the bad guy or some weirdo. I want to feel like people care about me, and for that to happen I have to be someone worthy of your time. So that's it. I'm not doing this for attention or anything - this has never been about that. I'm just saying what I feel I need to say, and then I'll see ya around.

Yesterday I mopped the floor. Then my brother came home and tracked in DOG CRAP. Then he told me he found ten dollars in the boys locker room after gym class and took it home with him instead of turning it in to the office as per school policy. While I understand that if most people found ten bucks lying on the floor, they'd keep it too, but something about that just makes me crazy. Well, whatever. You don't want to hear my depressing stories of my everyday life, so here's an interesting dream I had last night. For some reason I was walking around campus with the Ouran Host Club, and we went into the cafeteria. They happened to be selling this new drink called Switch, which is carbonated juice, for about a dollar a can. For some reason, probably because it doesn't have any added sugar and therefore is less likely to give Honey cavities, Mori approved and bought a ton of them for us. Then one of them made a comment about how crowded it was in there and I explained that it is a public campus and the cafeteria lets in paying customers off the street and that sometimes we are urged to share our guest meals with people with no money. Tamaki reacted to that, and that's about all I can remember.

Here's a new caption:

That's right, I need a new banner. Here are your options:

This one:

This one:

Or neither.

Also I was bored so I made another caption.

That's all for now! Oh, except I had this weird dream last night where I was in the Ravenclaw dorm and then I got invited to the Gryffindor dorm but had an existential meltdown by realizing Gryffindor was better than Ravenclaw and I didn't know where I belonged anymore.

Also, trying out some Azumanga Daioh/Ouran Host Club crossover stuff. The pairings I put together I thought were appropriate but still odd. Not romantic pairings, but at a school dance or something: Mori and Sakaki, Honey and Chiyo, Kyoya and Yomi, Tamaki and Tomo, Hikaru and Kagura, Kaoru and Osaka, and Haruhi and Kaorin (with Haruhi still disguised as a boy).

This is the second time in about as many months that I've had dinner ready for my mom when she got home, and she knew it, but she still got McDonald's on the way home anyway. And I still had to do the dishes myself and take out the trash and recycling because every time she tells my brother to do something, he refuses, so I'm left to do it. I had just spent all day cleaning and trying to figure out what my chances were of getting into the library or writing industries, getting nowhere fast. At least I'm earning my keep even if I'm not earning and income just yet.

I'm actually glad Kathy Griffin's live show at the local theater was delayed from April. It was awesome. A lot of hot topics came up between now and then that she got to joke about. Didn't get to meet her though. I swear, are voice actors and Comic Con panelists the only ones who sign autographs nowadays? No one does meet-and-greet signings after live shows, at least not the ones I've been to.

While watching the Roast of Joan Rivers, there were two commercials featuring Jeff and two of his puppets, Walter and Achmed. In addition to making cracks about Joan, it was also advertised that The Jeff Dunham Show would be premiering in October on Comedy Central. I wonder what kind of show it would be. A recently divorced Jeff, all his puppets, and Brian Haner (a.k.a. Guitar Guy) popping in from time to time, maybe? Whatever it is, I hope it's good and I look forward to seeing it.

Otherwise, not much going on with me. I just had an unsatisfying experience at my primary physician's, and I'm trying to work on a few writing projects at once. As soon as my brother goes back to school next month, it's time to aggressively look for work and go on morning jogs - you know, all the stuff my mom doesn't allow me to do. Despite my abilities and desire to work, I am anticipating failure. I at least want my health.

I got bored. Here are some captions I did.

(This next one came from the Invader Zim fan video "The Most Horrible Short Ever")

I don't know what it is lately, but I'm always so tired. Maybe it's the weather, or boredom, or my failed attempts at getting my brother to do his summer homework. Yesterday I did a lot of cleaning, and I've got some errands to do today too if it doesn't rain too badly. I think even dreams make me exhausted. Last night I dreamed I was running all over campus between classes and stuff because I didn't remember where anything was. On the way I ran into people and stopped to talk to them which wasn't exactly helping. David McCallum was in there too for some reason filming an interview and I stopped and talked to him for a while....*sighs* I don't know.

The current manuscript I'm working on is coming along slowly but surely. I haven't found any good job offers yet, especially since lots of people don't call me back and the only jobs I keep getting offered are sales positions at banks and stuff, which is the last thing I want to do. Lots of these offers come from a long ways away, and I just got a letter in the mail from the governor congratulating me on graduating and telling me to stay local.

Last weekend I saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and I was kinda disappointed. The acting was not on the level I was hoping it to be in some scenes. Attack on the burrow - totally unnecessary. Should've had Dumbledore's funeral at the end, but instead it was rather anti-climactic. Tonks/Lupin didn't get any mention, Bill/Fleur wasn't there, Harry was train hopping instead of staying with the Dursleys, and the movie as a whole kind of just stumbled along. Of course it was hard to judge it on that based on my mom asking me to explain things every five minutes. I may just succeed at getting her to read the book. Last night she still was asking me questions and claiming the movie was better. Ha!

The old blogs are back, but the one I made while they were down is now gone. To recap: Michael Jackson's dead, Sony and his family wouldn't let So You Think You Can Dance? do a tribute show for him, and that pissed me off. If there was anything else, I can't remember.

Tomorrow is Independence Day, known to some as "Fireworks Day." Fireworks can be used on many ocassions and fulfill many purposes. However, in the U.S., we celebrate July 4. Anyway, I just found this and thought it was pretty funny: the RedvsBlue PSA in which the characters demonstrate what not to do with fireworks (or in their case, grenades and tanks).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99LguwhQE00

This summer is off to a pretty rocky start, especially with the weather being below average temperatures with lots of rain. One of my summer goals was to get a job right away, but so far that's not happening. My mom says that I've earned a summer vacation and that I shouldn't go on any more interviews until the fall. Which brings me to my next goal - finish the last three raw manuscripts of my Magic Paladins series (a cross between magical girl and sentai type of genre). That's what I do every summer, work on my raw manuscripts. There's no chance of them being profitable in the foreseeable future, however, but I'm at least going to finish raw versions for all of my manuscript ideas if not just for my own enjoyment. Other than that, I've got odd jobs around the house for which I may or may not get paid. One of my neighbors is going on vacation next week and is paying me to water her plants. She's unemployed too since they're laying off so many teachers and not hiring a lot of new ones (makes me feel guilty since I just graduated, but then again I'm not in any better of a position to be hired by anyone either), so I'm wondering whether or not I should be accepting this money.

AnimeNext happened recently, and once again I didn't go. One of my friends emailed me and told me all about the Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged booth. I recently saw episode 40 of abridged as well as videos someone took of AnimeNext 2007. And this is something that's going to haunt me for a long time - Ed Paul (also known as Ted Lewis) and Wayne Grayson were there that year. I am so mad at myself for not looking into it and not going back then, but it probably wouldn't have mattered since that was the year I got seizures and was in and out of the hospital. Not to mention AnimeNext is a very expensive trip to begin with. I didn't expect to like episode 40 since it deals with round one of the semi-finals, but I really did enjoy it. Maybe it was because I prepared for the worst and was pleasantly surprised on many levels. It was just very well-written and well-thought-out as a whole.

Father's Day is this weekend, and it looks like it's just going to keep on raining. I actually find it funny though that there were a lot of videos posted to YouTube this past Wednesday all dealing with Father's Day (Chad Vader, Jeff Dunham and Achmed, Neil Cicierega, Marvel/DC and ItsJustSomeRandomGuyandGal). Good times. Here's hoping that Sunday isn't a total washout so I can do some fun outdoor activities with my dad.

Today was the graduation ceremony for my college. It rained again this morning too. At least my high school graduation four years ago was sunny. Anyway, I avoided my roommates and sat with some of my classmates, and that made me happy. For the first half of the ceremony it was really cold, but it warmed up toward the end. Connie Chung was the guest speaker and one of the pieces of advice she gave us was not to end up on Maury's show. Despite the fact that I am not sure what kind of job market awaits me, I am ready to move on with my life. It will be tough finding a job, though. I rely on good memories and having fun here with you guys for strength.

Once again it's the end of the semester and my roommates cannot stand me. This happens everytime. I knew going into this semester that living with my friends would either bring me closer to them or drive them further away from me. It turns out I was right because both happened. They regret having me here. I regret ever thinking I could make this work. I don't know what's wrong with me or them, but a lot of negative things have happened this semester and I just think we're all at our wits' end. But as far as I'm concerned, I pretty much never want to see or hear from them again. More importantly, I don't know who to hate more - them or myself. I've decided that I'm not cut out for living with anybody except my own family, so when I do finally move out of my mom's place, I will be going it alone. I am not worthy of companionship because I would only end up inadvertantly driving away those I care about, and those I care about always seem to misunderstand my intentions. And somehow the blame is always on me. I'm tired of being blamed and accused. Even complete strangers accost me. I'm just not cut out for interacting with people because in the end all that results from it is needless suffering.

I went on YouTube and found a couple videos each for Bakura and Yami Bakura using the songs "Forgotten" by Avril Lavigne and "Missing" by Evanescence. Since those haven't been taken down, at least not yet, maybe it's okay to make my own. I'd drawn up plans for them years ago but never got around to making them. The ones that are up there now are good, but mine would be different. Not necessarily worse or better, but different. Anyway, I'll give it a shot. If they stick and don't get automatically removed, great; if not, oh well. I'll start assembling the materials within the next couple of days and probably finish them after finals are over at the end of this week.

My group project is due Tuesday morning and I finally got both my group members to meet yesterday. We are practically pulling this one out of our collective asses because we just want it to be over and done with. Until we meet Monday night to finalize everything, I have nothing to do since I finished my part last night. In fact I have had nothing to do since about the middle of last week (the culminating event that really ticked me off was not being invited to my friend/roommate's birthday party and they unceremoniously ditched me on Friday), so I have been making a lot of progress in my Pokemon fan fic. We have just arrived at the main plot and are about to engage in an ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny (Lemon Demon reference). I even take a jab at myself for being a Ted Lewis fan girl (five characters that appear in the story are voiced by him: Giovanni, Tracey, Butch, the samurai from season 1, and Brock's dad).

Sakura Matsuri was interesting to say the least. It turned out to be a nice sunshiny day even though it was raining a bit when we were waiting in line to get into the garden. There were all types of cosplayers from Naruto characters to Soul Eater characters to KH2 characters, even a Yussei from Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds. There were also people with resin dolls being swarmed by photographers, girls dressed as Lolitas, and some people in animal jumpsuits (turns out they were furries). I had fun taking a lot of pictures and relaxing under the cherry trees, but there were some things that I missed out on. First, I wanted to visit Daffodil Hill, but nobody in my group knew what I was talking about. Turns out that's because all the daffodils were dead by the time the cherry blossoms bloomed (very sad for me since daffodils are my favorite flower, but we'd come for the cherry blossoms anyway). Three voice actors were scheduled to do a panel in an auditorium that didn't appear on the map so I had no idea where it was. I wasn't really all that motivated, though, because it was Veronica Taylor, Rachel Lillis, and Jamie McGonnigal (nothing against them, they're just not my favorites. I'm not even sure who the third one is either). And then about an hour or so into our visit, half my group split off to go shopping in Chinatown and told me I couldn't come. I kind of wanted to, though. Pisses me off. How can they just decide for me what I can and can't do?

The worst part of the trip however was the ride back. First the minor inconvenience. I had never ridden the subway before since I'm not from there and had never been there before. On the way to the garden, I couldn't get through the turnstyle fast enough before it locked again and it took my money. So on the way back I had to put more money on my metro card and try again. I have a big bruise on my leg from trying in vain to get through the turnstyle. I freakin hate those things. Now the absolute worst part - the train ride back home. The train was filled with some of the most obnoxious people I have ever met in my life. In our car there were a bunch of drunks that had come back from the baseball game and were sexually harrassing people on the train, including some of my friends. In the next car, two of my other friends had rude comments made about them by a homophobic family. Before the scene turned ugly, they came back to the car where the rest of us were. We were all so angry and upset. I never want to go back there again if every train ride home is going to be like that. Then when we got off at the station there was this guy with a ton of luggage and this one a-hole was getting mad at him and all up in his face because the rolling luggage he had was bothering him with the noise it was making. What an idiot! On the plus side the guy ended up carrying that bag for him, but what a rude way to have that happen.

And guess what? My teacher still hasn't posted that assignment. It's due tomorrow. It better be up by tonight so I can do it at the very last minute otherwise I am screwed.