roboppy.net

I'm back!...okay, I've been back for a while now. I didn't die driving back from Baltimore, which is a huge shock. SHOCK! So my first Anime convention is over, not that I got to fully experience it, but it's probably better that way as I'm not a die-hard fan and seeing people in costumes without the accompanying skits was frightening enough. I gained a lot out of being part of the "artists alley", even if I wasn't really an artist (haha). And now I know what glomp means. I am very much enlightened. I think.

Saturday morning I had gotten sick after fasting all of Friday. I wasn't surprised, but obviously, it sucked. It would've sucked if I were at home but it really sucked since I was supposed to be manning my table and selling my crap. I could explain how getting sick made a lot of sense, but it would take me a while. If you're really curious you can ask me, but just for your information, when I fasted on raw food I never got sick to the point that I didn't feel like I could go about my regular activities. I slept in late and Diana went to the artists alley at around noonish. I think I got to AA at 2-3PM after deciding to eat some lunch, which I figured would suppress the weird feeling in my tummy and stop me from sweating for no reason (my whole body felt hot and cold at the same time, although more hot than cold).

I felt like crap when I got to AA, but shortly after that a girl who bought a coloring book from my table the day before came back with...fan art! AHHH! KAWAII! She drew this adorable picture of herself holding a giant poofy and lots of puddings all around. My first fanart...it was exciting! And made me happy. The sickness went away shortly after that and I made a lot of sales on Saturday. I made a surprisingly large amount of sales

I sold out of my cloud emotions and animal thoughts buttons, so I gotta make more of those. Sold out of my Poofy t-shirts too (I had 10 of them)! Tallying up other stuff, I sold 31 books, 50-something coloring book + sticker sets and I sold 21 poofies (I gave one to the girl who made me the fan art). I made enough money to pay my mum back for the books, woo! :) I made around $1000, although if I had to pay for my hotel, gas and food bills (and disregard all the money I spent on making my merchandise), the gross profit would be pretty meager. Mmwell.

Never again in my life will I hear so many people say, "I eat butter!" (that's what was written on the cover of my sample Poofy book). It's almost a sad thought, until I realized how weird it would be for people to say that on a regular basis. It was cool getting feedback about all my stuff; in case I wasn't sure before, I'm sure now that I'm very strange. WOO. Strange and random. That's me! I got compared to Happy Bunny and Filler Bunny. Someone said my book reminded her of Jhonen Vasquez's "Bad Art Collection", which I'll take as a compliment since I love him. However, the title is fitting. Very fitting.

Oh yeah, I mentioned the word glomp. If you don't know what this means, don't worry because it's nothing bad. It sounds kinda...strange. Kind of like "chomp" but not. That can be the motto! "Like chomp, but not!" Anyhoo, it pretty much means to hug, but I guess it primarily applies to anime related stuff. A lot of guys had signs asking for hugs...actually, there were a lot of people with signs in general. Why? I have no idea. I suppose it's an anime convention thingy. "HUG MEE!" I'd hug someone, but I didn't really get the chance as I was hiding behind my table. Woo!

It was kind of sad leaving on Sunday. Diana and I ate at Legal Seafood for our only real food in Baltimore before embarking on a 4 hour ride back to NJ. The NJ Turnpike was all congested, like mucus gooo. Ergh! But it was a really easy drive and I felt like I really accomplished something by driving without my mum. :)

I'll have photos up soon, or you can check out the photos page and see if I have anything new up yet. Now I have to prepare for England!

[transcribed from a real journal]

In the airport, tralala. Tralalalala...

My nose is all stuffy. Nooo, why am I sick? Was it the PUDDING? I hope not. I guess it's pretty important I stop eating so much junk so my lungs don't stop working. I like having functional lungs.

So yay, going to England! Happy exciting! At least no plane ride is as bad as going to Taiwan. Except...well okay, there are probably a lot of places, but England isn't one of them. Eh oh, the marker is bleeding through the paper kinda.

I am rambling. WHY? Brain must be full of mucus. Yuck. I don't have anything interesting to say. Newark Airport has wireless Internet for $7/24 hours. I hope someday all places will have free wireless Internet cos that would be nice. And then there will be lots of electrical wave traffic and my brain will be further damaged, but it'll all be worth it so I can check my e-mail.

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like without the Internet and I don't really know. It's a nightmare to think about. AH. STOP BRAIN PROCESSES. [beep]

Wow, my handwriting sucks. I'm kinda writing in mid-air here. It takes skill to do that well. I do not have this skill...obviously.

There is something very satisfying about starting a new journal. Mum gave this to me. :) Oh well, I guess she wasn't going to use it soon. And now that I have defaced it, it is ALL MINE! Weehee. It smells weird cos the cover is made of leather, methinks.

Nose = still full of mucus. Eeeeh! I want to banish the mucus demons to Kleenex hell. Goo! Warh...I know mucus is good, but...no. They're overcrowding my pipe system.

*SNIFF*

...eh. What else to ramble about? Well...I'm excited! No duh. I get to see Katherine, wee! Haven't seen her in three years, which I guess isn't really that long, but...moo. MOO. That's my reply to things I don't feel like explaining.

[blows nose] Good thing Mum told me to bring tissues.

[transcribed from a real journal]

I've been in the plane for a while now...about 4.5 hours. The ride has been nice so far. I watched "Mean Girls" and attempted to practice some kanji, but that didn't go very far. Doh. For breakfast I had a vegan meal of taters and...tofu? Well, that is vegan. I hadn't had tofu in years and I must say that it tastes the same as before: kind of like nothing. I also had a rice cake that tasted like a different kind of nothing. ;D Hopefully eating stuff that tastes like nothing won't screw up my health too much.

As for my health (the plane is a tad shaky right now, eek) I can breathe more easily now, but my mucus is still present in annoyingly large quantities. JOY. I forgot how bad my mucus problems were until I looked at my mini pad of tissues. I remembered that when I used to go to Taiwan, I'd always have lots of mini packs of tissues with me. :( I can breathe through my nostrils now, what a joy.

Oh wow, I just got more vegan food. It's a banana and a cute little sandwich. Yay, that's not bad. I like getting bananas. Bananas would be a nice food to live on for the rest of my life, if I had to...

1:20 to go. I'm looking at the sky mappy thing right now and the UK looks tiny! Or the USA is too big. Mm...yeah, more of the second one.

If I were at home, I'd probably be waking up at about now. Bert probably won't get up for a while since he went to sleep right as I woke up at 4:15 AM. Gee, what a coincidence. ;P Not that I really wanted him to come to the airport of anything.

TIME FOR VEGAN SANDWICH (& naner).

[transcribed from a real journal]

Mm...I am settled in.

LITTLE DAVEY PANTS WAS EXPOSED TO SPOOOOOONS!

I love that animation. Heehee.

So! Kat's house is nice. The bathroom is cool &...it's nice! The kitchen is cool. I ate some fruit. MM Nectarines. Mmm. & I ate some cakey cookie thing. I'm still kida asthmatic & mucus-ee. :( Oh well. Maybe there's weird pollen here, or maybe I just suck.

If I were at home right now it would only be about 7:45 PM. That's weird...I already feel like it's really late. It's good though, so I can get adjusted to the time.

Kat's parents are very nice. Weeee. Tomorrow we're going to walk into town. So far all I've seen is...trees &...road & more trees. :P So yay for seeing more, I guess.

Weee I'm happy! I wish my lungs worked better but that's okay.

Kat is playing a funky game online right now involving fish that poo out money & aliens that try to eat the fish. Wow, that's random. Even I couldn't think of that!

Bloop bloop...road signs are different here. (no duh) They're kinda cuter, or maybe I like the font more than whateaver's used in the US. Mm well. There were some temporary signs held down by sandbags though, which isn't something I saw very much in the US...or at all. ANYHOO! I am tired, yes.

Right now I'm kinda lying across my roll away bed & Kat's bed cos they're smooshed up right against each other.

WORD OF THE DAY: SPASTIC!

Okay, that was random. :P

Should go to sleep soon...aw, Kat's fishies died. Virtual fishies.

[transcribed from a real journal]

So it's been about 12 hours later. I had a nice sleep. :) I'm still breathing weirdly, but Kat is having problems too. We spent some time simultaneously blowing our noses. Weee! It's a fun pastime to facilitate breathing (wheeze).

It's thundering outside, which probably isn't such a great thing. OH WELL! Today we're going to plan stuff to do and roam around town.

I think I have to blow my nose again.

[transcribed from a real journal]

Kat fed me baked beans in tomato sauce on toast for lunchi. She said it was very British, sooo...trying it at least once wouldn't kill me. :D It tasted good! It looked a bit odd because...erm, it was beans on toast. [illustration] Yum! Really.

After that we walked to the town center (or centre) where we walked...duh, I just said that. The first place we went to was a bank so that I could exchange money. It's almost $2/£1! Doh. Oh well. My first purchase was at Woolworths where I bought 5 chocolate bars, a bag of CRISPS and a water bottle. Well, a bottle of water. And a drink for Kat. Mm...junky food. I'm gonna become a fatty. I wanted a Toblerone but I also got stuff Kat recommended to me. Chocolate bars don't appeal to me in the US but here they seem cooler even if they're not that different. Kat said Kit Kats taste better. :D

We walked around some more...went to a little stationery store, bookstore, passed electronic shops and stuff. Saw a McDonalds & Starbucks! Doh. Also went into HMV, where there were some really cheap CDs and freakishly expensive ones. OH, I saw a great book of drawings of bunnies commiting suicide. I swear it was funny.

Kat is playing a new game she got (or rather, my brother got) for PS2 called Monster Rancher 3. She's controlling/training this cute pink penguin/duck creature...thing. Sometimes it's scary looking but when it just plops around it's cute. When it loses a battle its mouth & eyes go buggy.

Oops, got sidetracked there. We also went to a little nearby market. I bought some plums for 70p, which I guess is a little less than $1.40? Mm, yum! Someone was selling some bread and pastry stuff, which I thankfully didn't get a chance to buy, but there was a box of assorted broken biscuits. Um. YAY. I thought that was funny. I'd probably eat the whole box.

Eek, my mum called! She didn't get my e-mail! :p

Oops, we woke up really late today, as in just a few minutes ago. We stayed up until about 4AM playing with stuffed animals & making weird voices & talking about movies (but mainly making weird noises). Kat has a stuffed animal monkey called Bongo who sounds like a semi-American from the SOUTH who has a British accent every so often. I played with the British Cow, which is the name I made up because I'm not very creative.

Soo...we have no ieda what we're doing today cos we woke up...now! Um! Well we'll do something.

[transcribed from a real journal]

For dinner I ate some barbecued chicken and salad...and a slice of bread. :) I hope i'm eating less here than at home. I don't feel like I'm overeating too much at least.

We went to Costco, which is pretty much just like Costco in the US but with...British stuff. And American stuff. It was nice to get out of the house, I think.

Before my nap, Kay & I attempted to catch fish with an empty soda bottle. You cut the top off & invert it and shove it back into the bottom bit. [illustration]

Sooo we brought that to a nearby stream thing after tying it with some twine. It took some work getting it full of water but after that we left it over a little bridge and took a walk. We walked to some other streams & took photos of Poofy in trees & stuff. I probably need to have him quarantined. I also got stung by some evil plants appropriately called stinging nettles. Damn them. They feel sharp & then they semi-itch...and then they make your skin swell up like a little bug bite. Lovely, eh?

For a while before (or after) we went out roaming we playeyed with stuffed animals. Kat has a scary puffkin squirrel named Chuck & he mainly says "ARE YOU MY FRIEND?" in a pseudo southern accent. Mildly frightening. British Cow is afraid of Chuck.

We have issues.

Kat is playing Monster Rancher. It's very cute. The monster attacks by sitting on the other dudes. Or punching them. But it's cute.

We should go to bed earlier today. Before 4 AM at least.

[transcribed from a real journal]

Doodah...today has been full of food and weird stuff. We went to Tesco at 9:30 AM, which meant taht we WOKE UP WOW...yeah, that's a huge place. There was an organic aisle, which was cool. I ended up spending about £7 on food products. Eek! And I ate SO much today, it's disgusting. I decided that biscuits are my favorite food cos they're like crackers & cookiies mixed together. I can probably buy them in the US but there are SO many more of them here. Tesco also sells TVs and clothes...kind of like Target with a supermarket. They should have a proper supermarket with produce and stuff, not just crap cereal. :p

After that we went to the Living Rainforest, which is this indoor rainforest place. It was really humid inside, understandably. The butterflies kinda freaked me out beacuse they were huge like hummingbirds. The plants were neat though, like a huge leaf thing with hole sin it. Woo. There were also monkeys, some fish, frogs...mainly cool plants.

OH GOD Kat's monster, Bob, just died! Ahh he was so cute! Now I'm sad. :( POOR BOB! He was a cute penguin thing. Now we need another monster. She got three shark footstool looking things...OH!!! She got the Bob creature again! YAY BOB II!

Happy again. Like buying a pet that looks just like the one that died before.

[transcribed from a real journal]

Last night we had a barbecue for dinner. Two of the Masons' friends came over, who were very nice. There was a lot of MEAT and wasps, which were killed mainly by catching them in cups of liquid and squishing them out. I ate YUMMY SALMON and salad and tatoes.

Last night Kat and I went absolutely nutters talking about random crap and laughing until we wheezed. Then again it doesn't take much for us to wheeze, but we were laughing really hard. We think the Jaffa Cakes had drugs in them, or if not, then Jaffa cakes are just...deadly for us. Ooops. We finished all 12 of them! They're not that big but still...it was like, "MORE HAFFA CAKES!" And then massive eating.

Last night at...eh, really late (after 10 PM) I wanted PUDDING so we went to the kitchen and found trifle. I ate some of that. And there was yogurt in the fridge so I ate that too. And then i felt very stuffed and puke-like. OOOPS, bad idea. We ate so much. SOOO MUCH! The Jaffa cakes and biscuits will haunt us forever.

You know what's funny? Or not? The word "bumper" said like "boompah." It was in an advert. BOOMPAH! HAAA!

We have issues.

I think I forgot to mention that we watched Watership Down the day before yesterday. It was kind of disturbing. BUNNIES! CRAZY BUNNIES! Bunnies are cute but crazy ones not so much.

So last night we watched TV...oh wait, yesterday afternoon we watched TV. There was a movie on called "A River Runs Through It" and it was depressing. It didn't hav much of a plot either. It gets all happy near the end and then Brad Pitt's character is murdered. Lovely! It's not exactly a picker-upper.

I dunno what we're doing today. We should write songs about tissues and Jaffa cakes and random stuff!

NOUGERT!

[transcribed from a real journal]

Kat & I are on the train to London now! Wooo. I woke up at around 8:15 which is buttloads earlier than yesterday.

I ate so many biscuits yesterday, I think I'm gonna DIE! Today so far I drank h20 and ate a Polo. They're like lifesavers but better because they're called...POLOS. AUtomatically better. :) I must be up to 120 lbs by now.

Last night after dinner (salmon, salad, and tater salad) kat and I went out for a walk. We went to a convenience store where I spent way too much time looking at the sweets and cookies and junk.

Today we're planning to go to the museum of natural history and the science museum. And we'll walk through Kensington Gardens cos it's...there. WOOP! The end.

Oh wait no it's not. Yesterday we made up the CHUCK song with me on guitar and drunkingly singing and kat going "YER MAH FRIEND!" It is so bad, it's kind of good.

END!

[transcribed from a real journal]

In the train...woo! It's crowded.

Anyhoo, Kat and I walked loads today. MILES. US. Our legs hurt a lot but we got around okay. It initially sucked because it was raining, but it was kinda on and off. We walked through Kensington Gardens, which was kinda deserted when we first walked through there cos it was early and raining. After that we walked around some MORE and ended up at the Natural History Museum. WOO!

So the museum...was absolutely full of people. Nutters. Lots of kids. KIDS. They're scary. First we went to some "human biology" section. It was silly and fun...conveying all the aspects of human bodies. It reminded me of psychology class. We also saw the many MANY numbers (uh, I didn't think that was grammatically correct) of dead stuffed animals. There was a dog near the horse (cross sections) and this kid said the dog was a baby horse or something. Uh...

We also looked at the dinosaur section. It was quite large. Very. There was a bottom level with the dinosaur...stuff. There was an upper level where you could look at the dinosaur skeletons suspended in air and the top of other people's heads. The stuffed animals (literally) section was huge. OH, there was another section where a humpback whale (or some kind of whale) took up the whole length of the room. There were also lots of goats and stuff in there.

The bird section was kinda freaky. There were some bird heads displayed and a baby bird preserved in the egg. Mm, how yum. :P

There was one huge beautiful room full of minerals. Um. YEY! In the back of the room there was a semi-random room for meteorites. We rested in that room a bit because it was very uncrowded in comparison to the rest of the museum. Kids aren't very into rocks, I suppose.

After that museum, we went to the science museum, which was right by. It reminded me of the Liberty Science Center cos it had an IMAX and some flight simulator ride. It had free admission, like the natural history museum. One of the rooms was nearly designed...all blue inside and the cafe had tables whose surfaces lit up. We walked aimlessly around since a lot of the exhibits seemed random...or maybe just one of em. Something about human advancement and stuff. I think the museum had seven floors but we only wen to the first one and the basement...oh, there was this other floor with lots of hands-on stuff, which meant it was bursting with kids. (shudders) We kind of ran out of there.

After science museum was HARRODS! Ooooh. It reminded me of Neiman Marcus in that it had lots of super expensive stuff that you always wonder is bought by what crazy people. Or something. You know, like scary expensive designer bags. I think I saw a fountain pen that was nearly £900 or something close to that? Eek! I can't imagine a pen being worth that much. There were also loads of teddy bears and I was wondering if I should've gotten one for Mum. They weren't TOO expensive...the little ones at least.

But the best part about Harrods was the food. I feel like they hit every type of cuisine. They even sell produce! I would've been tempted to buy chocolate if it hadn't been so crowded. Maybe I'll go back later if I have time. It took an hour to walk back to the station. They sold chocolate covered dates! What the hell? There was a Krispy Kreme donut counter inside as well, next to the bakery. And a gelato counter...oh man. :P I could hardly believe there'd be a Krispy Kreme place in there. But literally, it was all there. Chinese, Japanese, Indian, meat, cheese, patisserie...

...Oh well. Heaven. Kat and I went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. It was pretty nice inside, so we must've looked out of place being all rained on and teenager looking. I got Vietnamese spring rolls and rice noodles and kat got chicken and rice. It was very good, although I've had better spring rolls. We ate everything but the portions were rather small...which was good. That's the first time I've eaten in a restaurant here. So maybe portions are usually small.

After that we walked back to Paddingston Station, which took about an hour. We walked a lot of miles...4 or 5? Or SEVEN?

Ooo I bought postcards. It'll take me forever to send em all. Crap.

[transcribed from a real journal]

We walked a lot today. BUMLOADS. First we got...semi lost getting to the British museum and then we found it somehow.

Actually, to go WAY back in time, we got on the 11:41 train cos Kat is SLOW and has too much HAIR to brush. ;) We ate breakfast and she took a shower and we were just a little bit too late. SUCK! We roamed around Newbury town centre for a while and I experienced the frozen delight called a Twister. It's some artificially flavored fruity sorbet center surrounded by a twist of some other artificially flavored frozen substances. Quite interesting to eat and 10-something AM. That was on top of breakfast, which was LOTS & LOTS of shreddies & some chocolate & some...clementine. Yeah, and lot. OOPS. Suck. Kat made chicken sammiches. SAMMICH!

SOOO much walking was done. We walked past Hyde Park to...somewhere and ended up...somewhere. Lots of pretty houses and stuff. Oxford Street is freakishly long to the point that it needed two HMVs, McDonalds, Marks & Spencers, GAPs, among other things. It reminded me of being in a mall. We went into M&S to look at FOOODS. Mm.

Something I noticed it that there are lots and LOTS of sandwich shops. Like too many, in fact. I have got to eat a prepackaged sandwich. I've only seen those in the US at the Japanese bakery or in Taiwan in any bakery. British influence, I guess.

Wow, my writing is total crap. I'm on the train going home now. The door just wheezed. :)

The British museum reminds me of the Met. It had lots of old stuff and it was freeee! The entrance was absolutely beautiful...I'm figuring ti used to be the open air court area of some...old nice place and so they built a huge glass thing on top. We looked at some Chinese jade, modern art drawing stuff, and some Egyptian stuff. Not much time was spent there cos we left late and it took us hours to walk there. SO POOOPED! And outside the museum was a PANCAKE PLACE! Oooh.

We tried to look for Chinatown after that and ended up...no wait, we went semi-through Covent Gardent, which had a lot of shops, or at least where we walked, and ended up bear Charing Cross station. A bit more walking and we were at Tralfagar Square, where there were loads of pigeons, people playing in the fountain (today was nice and sunny, unlike yesterday) and people climbing on the lion statues. Basically, it was crowded.

As though an angel had heard our "Where the hell are we?" plea, we found a map that told us where Chinatown was. It wasn't a very large section but it was full of Chinese restaurants. We ate at one, so that's Chinese food two days in a row. Chinese food is always good. :) Our dinner was £30, which is $54. Scary. Everything really costs a lot, when you eat out at least. I spent $100 or so on two dinners, neither which had much food...which is food I guess. I'm going to have fish and chips tomorrow, I think.

We decided that trying to walk back to Paddington Station would've been suicidal so we took THE TUBE, which is actually easier than the NYC subway. It totally confused me at first cos each line has a proper name (now 1, 2, 3, A, B, C) and its own color, but THAT MAKES SENSE! NYC does not. We took the Bakerloo line, I think...or the brown one for £2. Not bad. Either that or walk 2 hours. Oh yeah, on the way to the station we went to Piccadilly Circus...I mean, that was the station. It was Times Square-ish.

We got back to the station with lots of time so we roamed a bit with the intent of finding CHEAP PASTRIES! And I did...75p. And I got chocolates for 45p. Ooh, earlier I got 12 postcards for 95p. And a teddy bear for £3. I'm cheapo. Oops. SO YEAH I have food and I sucked navigating byt all is well. WEE!

The door wheezes.

OH oh...loads of people sold ice cream. There's something called 99 Flake, which is soft serve (or real) vanilla ice cream in a cone with a Cadbury flake stuck in, but it's not 99p. I guess it was at one point but now it's £1.20 or £1.30. Kat got one but I guess I'm better off without.

[transcribed from a real journal]

Today I SPLOOODGED! I ate so much and now I'm full of biscuits and tea. It's probably a toxic combination.

We woke up at 1 PM today ish. OOPS. Sooo I ate Shreddies for breakfast/lunch plus some fruit. Kat, Jenny & I went to the town center to look at...stuff. Mainly for FOOD, hence the too-many-biscuits thing. I feel so fat. Like FAT POOFY!!! OH GOD!

Um yeah. My handwriting isn't that bad, usually. I don't have an excuse now cos I'm not on a moving train. Anyhoo, I also mailed out postcards...nine of em. WOO! We got loads of biscuits from Tesco...JAMMIE DODGERS! We (three of us...uh, yeah) ate the whole box on the way home. I ate half the box. OOPS.

We also went to a cute little store called Sunflower and I bought a cow ear headband. WOW! FOR 50P! I dunny why no one wanted it...it's so kyoot. Ah! SO. YEAH. I'M A COW (literally).

Kat cooked yummy dinner...turkey and rice and peas and carrots (unfrozen) in Brazillian sauce. FROM A JAR. Kat calls em "jar meals" but pronounces it JAH MEAL. I make fun of her. HA!

I talked to Lea on the phone last night. She was coool. She sounded...Australian (meant to say New Zealand-ian), obviously. I probably sounded nuts, cos I am. SUCK! Me. Yes.

Kat and her mum cut Cleo's nails today. She was all squirmy and cute. She's kinda scared of me and glares a lot though. :(

[transcribed from a real journal]

I hate Shreddies. I ate some this morning & I think they make me sickly. :( I coughed & became the WHEEZING MONSTER! Rar.

I'm really killing myself eating all this crap. It makes me kind of sad. I love biscuits. For now I'll stop with the Sheddies. Shreddies = deathy. I woke up at 7 AM cos I couldn't breathe properly.

Kat's dad is driving us to Leicester. I can't believe how nice he is. I need to get him the GREATEST GIFT IN THE WORLD, but I don't know what of...damn moo! Ka's parents are really cool. I wouldn't wanna drive 400 miles in one day, although I did that once.

BLARGH my contacts are making my eyes buggy & it's bothering me.

Ooh, I didn't write the pound sign correctly before. So lemme practice. (poorly drawn pound signs)

Cleo is less afraid of me now, but she still doesn't like me very much. Doh.

[transcribed from a real journal]

Kat and I are drawing maniacal stuff where the last panel is always, "It happens to the best of us." We're weird.

We took the 9:41 train this morning. When we got to London we went to Buckingham Palace. It was nice although not as pretty as I thought it would be. It was huge though & the gate was...huge. We saw some guards change, although it wasn't the official changing of the guards cos that was CANCELLED. Ho hum.

We took a look outside Westminster Abbey and Big Ben. The Houses of Parliment were there too but I didn't really look at em. We could see the London Eye from there...it was really big and slow moving. You'd have no idea it was moving.

We decided to go back to the Brit museum and get a better look. Lots of...OLD STUFF! Score. We looked at Egyptian and Greek stuff, mainly. There was this random exhibit about buttons/badges with political messages.

Before going to the Brit Museumwe went into a great little comic book shop. It was kinda expensive but they had great stuff...like FILLER BUNNY! Truly awesome.

After the museum we went for a snack at a nearby pancake place. It was SO GOOOD! Not like American fluffy pancakes, but like crepes...thin and sometimes crispy and soft.

We went to Oxford Street after that so I could buy tacky stuff for me and my friends. YES. Oh, also near the Brit Museum there was a discount book store so I bought a Norwegian phrasebook. At Oxford Street I bought some keychains, a street sign, a t-shirt, a shot glass, and pins. WEE STUFF.

Then we wandered and ended up in the National Portrait Gallery. It was good and FREE!

We found Chinatown and now I'm burping Chinese food. MM. Nooodles. I bought some huge ass pastries for not much money. Sweet. They're so good mm CAKE! And I bought some for the Masons.

MORE WALKING and now we're coming home. We did much tubing today...took it four times on a day pass. WOO. It's fun and easy to use compared to NYC.

I FEEL FAAAT!

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Today we woke up at around noon and proceeded to do nothing. WOO. We ate lunch, went on the Internet, lalala...watched TV and Gladiator and some of the opening ceremony of the Olympics. OOH. Bjork is singing, or she already has. I'll see photos from it later.

Right now I and Kat's family are in a pub called The Taste of England. It's kind of in the middle of a farm. There's a band playing here tonight and they're just about to start...it's about 9:15 PM right now.

Sooo tomorrow Kay and I are going to London again. WEE! I'll be seeing Lea for the first time. Hopefully we'll have fun.

Gladiator was a really sad/good movie. I guess it took me a few years to actually watch it.

The opening ceremony was pretty funky and full of floats and firewords and stuff. OOO. Seeing all those atheletes made me feel extremely unfit. Weee I'm still blobbish and everytime I bought I get wheezy. It kind of...SUCKS. WHEEZE!

[transcribed from a real journal]

I bought Fat Bunneh today at Hamleys on Regent Street. There were many fat...things. :)

Kay and I met up with Lea and her boyfriend Jeremy today at Paddington. I've known Lea on the Internet for...a pretty long time. Almost four years maybe?

First we went to Camden Markets, which is a really trippy shopping area. It was really crowded so Kay and I may go back on Tuesday depending on how dead we feel. There were loads of clothing stores and food...TOO MUCH! There was a super trippy place called Cyberdog that was like a rave with lots of...weird clothing, some fluorescent. There was a relaxing spirituality type of store across from there, ironically. We went into a few clothing places but didn't buy anything.

After much walking around, we went to Covent Garden and found the Covent Garden Market, which is right by the Royal Opera House. It's pretty big...I bought a yummy chocolate bar at Throntons. Mm chocolate! We also sat down for a bit at a pub, where I had a hot chocolate and gave Lea and Jeremy some Poofy stuff. :) YAY CHOCOLATE! I don't even like it THAT much but since I'm going to stop eating grain products I digure I can eat chocolate. Lea and Jeremy got some ice cream cones that looked yummy...but I think I need to stay away from that. :P

Sooo more walking bruoght us to Leicester Square. There's lots of pedestrian only streets there. Jeremy disbanded before dinner and Kay, Lea and I went to a mediterranean buffet. It was really small but yum. I'm seriously running out of money. :( I'm not even sure how I spend it all.

After dinner we went to Piccadilly Circus to have a proper look around. It REALLY felt like Times Square, with a huge Virgin Megastore and the like...Starbucks, McDonalds, Burger King, GAP, other stuff. The toystore was seven stories and was kind of like FAO Schwartz...maybe not as nice, but older. The buildings on Regent Street looked really old and nice, like they've been there for hundreds of years.

Okay, time to write straight...I AM on a train that's wobbling around. Wellll...the stuffed animals in the toyshop were the best. :)

Kat's sleeping now. She must be pooped.

I feel pretty fat. Cos I am. At least I'm going to stop eating biscuits now. I had to use the inhaler really early this morning cos I coughed and got wheezy.

Concert tomorrow, wee!

[transcribed from a real journal]

It rained.

Oo something is starting and now I can't see. UHOH! OO my handwriting isn't so bad when I can hardly see.

We're in the indoor stage now cos...it was raining...oh god this is loud. Not bad music. I don't know who it is though. Ooh there's light so now I can see! :)

It would be nice if us humans had larger pupils.

Anyhoo, Magnet was really good. I was around...magnet fans! I wish I had spoken to someone. The girl next to me seemed like a big fan. She wanted Even to autograph her shirt...she wrote the message on one of the plastic ASS MATS, which I already lost two of. AH my ass mat!

I met James, the dude who e-mailed me about making the website. He's cool...rather young, has a funky phone (don't ask why that's all I bothered to describe).

I CAHN'T SEE and now I'm kinda deaf, damn. Crap. Oops.

So...today I've eaten chocolate, a flapjack, a banana, and a funky veggie burger. I wasn't planning to eat until tomorrow, especially not bread...oh well. :( Yesterday I managed to not eat bread. Baby steps I guess.

Earlier today it was so nice and sunny. It was hot too, but that was better than being rained on. It was a nice touch during Magnet's set though.

Kat said she liked Magnet. YAY i win...um, yeah.

I wonder if there are any other Americans on holiday here?

[transcribed from a real journal]

Back home in Newbury! Wee!

So...today was rather good (I like saying that). It was EXCITING! And wee!

Okay, time to..explain stuff perhaps. Well Kat and I met up with the Magnet gang people after the Belles performed. It was rather awkward. I'm so not used to being social and especially around musicians I like and stuff since I like...musicians. I'm shy but I can be semi-social when forced to do so. But I'm not especially comfortable with it. I'm kind of mad with myself for the stupid things I said or did not say and for being unable to remember anyone's name. Seriously, names stay in my head for about 0.2 seconds and then they move on to better things. Like death.

ANYWAY...ooh, I didn't explain about how I called James earlier and met him and such. [Well...I think I just said it.] He thought I was 20 or something...dammit NO! WHY THE HORROR! I know short hair makes me look older but long hair sucks and BLAH!

Okay, that was random. Anyway, everyone was so nice. I shook a bunch of hands. Even was very nice of course. He asked me some questions but my mind went blank and I didn't really ask him any. I wanted to get something for Angie...argh! I haven't even called her and I doubt we'll be able to get together now. :( ARGHY BLARGH! I hope she's okay.

We all chatted about junk for a while...website, life, lala. James talked about going to NJ not long ago for a Franz Ferdinand concert at Maxwells and that NJ was...well, they were in a sketchy area I guess. Franklin Lakes is boring and crime free.

At some point an empty bench was spotted nearby and we all moved towards it like a giant...blob. Okay, not really. Well we MOVED and shortly after that some TV people came by to interview Even. I dunno where they were from but it was rather random. Kat and I felt awkward so we went to the main stage area for a bit (I bought a poster and Kat bought water) to kill some time. The internet seemed to ask a while...I'd like to see it if I knew where it was. Then...some more talking. About stuff. Um...oh, I got some random group photos that Kat took of all the Magnet people and me and some random woman and the TV lady (sorry for the run on sentences, I swear that I have been taught proper grammar usage...maybe). Weird, but fun!

We went to the indoor stage shortly afterwards to see Ed Harcourt play. He was good but didn't have a drummer...i think that would've been nicer. Ed's a tad odd, methinks. james gave me a red wristband and a backstage pass as mementos. :)

Then it was over. Boo. A great day though and easy to get around cos Mr. Mason drove us to Leicester. That was REALLY nice cos it was a long drive...almost 8 hours for the day. We saved a lot of money though since all we paid for was gas (which is SO expensive here).

I didn't talk about Magnet's set, did I? Oh wait, I did. Well. I LIKED IT! Duh. I can't remember everything he played but the setlist included Lay Lady Lay, Last Day of Summer, Overjoyed, On Your Side, The Day We Left Town, My Darling Curse and other stuff I can't remember cos I suck. Even told us to clap during Lay Lady Lay and...yeah, it was kind of fun. And the rain and stuff was a nice touch. I couldn't have been much happier than hearing my favorite music in a calm rain.

[transcribed from a real journal]

Egad, I just missed writing yesterday. Well today was relaxing and tomorrow is also a day for relaxing. Kay and I went to One Stop after dinner and I bought a lot of chocolate. MM ROSES! They're yummy but I ate way too much. :P

For dinner we ate fish and chips! They were quite tasty and according to the Masons very good on the fish and chips scale. :) Mm for deep fried stuff. I keep forgetting that chips are french fries for some reason. CRISPS = potato chips and chips = french fries. Got it.

I spent a long time today typing blog entries...finally got the first week of my travels in a digital format. I don't know how i'm going to organize the photos since there are hundreds of em. Oops. :P

I'm overwhelmed with the Magnet site at the moment since I haven't done anything yet. I think I'll work on it tonight...just keep it really simple, I guess. Woo. I dunno quite what I'm doing, but that's okay, maybe.

Man, I ate too much chocolate. I bought these things called Penguins, which are chocolate covered biscuits but...more chocolate than biscuit, so I didn't think they counted as biscuits. Kind of cheating, eh?

Earlier today Kat and I watched TV and we found this really bizarre channel called Kiddie Pops that plays music videos for children. They were REALLY weird videos though, mostly not stuff I'd think were for kids. They'd be great for people tripping out on pot or something. They played "Don't Stop the Beat" by Junior Senior though, which was really cool. I love that video.

Katherine has been working on a wolf drawing today to be possibly used as a tattoo. It's really cool. I can't imagine drawing something like that. If I practiced a lot, maybe...hohum.

Website website WEBSITE! I tried a bunch of blogging tools today (b2, plog, wordpress) because I wanted to possibly blog the entire HOM site but I really only understand MT. Ergh. It's not open source/free though, so I can't really use it. BLOOP!

[transcribed from a real journal]

Ooh my last night here! It's sad. :( Today Kat and I doodled (ie lazied in the house...not actually doodling) and junk. We walked into town for a while and I finally got to eat a SAMMICH! It was egg and watercress...quite good for 1 pound. We also went to Thorntons and I bought chocolate covered hazelnut nougat. SO YUMMY! I officially really like nougat. So I have more money than i originally thought I would (20 pounds to be exact) cos I exchanged my old 10s at the bank. I also mailed out Angie's package.

I finally called Angie and we had a nice conversation. I already know she's sweet but she sounded very sweet as well! :) So yay, that was fun even if we didn't get to meet.

I finally made a page for the Magnet site since I've been given the US release info. It takes me ages to decide what to do design wise. :P

Dinner was very yummy tonight...chicken with stuffing, potatoes, peas, and gravy. However, after watching a program on TV called "You Are What You Eat" with Kat, I want to rething my eating habits. I mean, I already wanted to but not I'm really sure. I have one more day to indulge/pig out and then I really need to eat healthily again. :P I'm getting FAT, it's scary! The asthma is the worst though. I guess one is never simply fat without other physical problems. Not being able to breathe just sucks. :)

I ate loads of chocolates today. LOADS. I've almost finished the roses. Eh oh. There are only 2 pieces left. I almost finished the nougat as well!

[transcribed from a real journal]

I'm at the aiport now to go back to...JERSEY! :( I can't believe this trip is already over, it's felt so fast.

This morning I made my first update to the magnet site, woo! new album out in the US in about two months. Doh. Hopefully I'll have more of the site done by then.

Kat and I walked to a nearby pub for lunch but it wasn't open yet so we walked to One Stop. We bought a lot of stuff cos I wanted to use up my money. So I spent nearly all my money on food...sammiches and meat pies. MM! And chocolate, of course. At the airport I bought even more stuff...Toblerones, some biscuit thing for mum, more chocolates, water, and some magazines. Blech, marrying so much stuff!

The ride from Kat's house to here was about 45 minutes, which wa sfast. A family friend, Irene, drove us since Mr. Mason was unavailable. It was very nice to him to arrange a ride for me. Overall the Masons were really nice and generous for my two week stay. I hope Kat can visit NY/NJ sometime next summer.

I don't want to start school. I have to get my books and sort out my schedule since it's poo at the moment. ARGH! And there's so much web stuff to do as usually, although if I set my mind to it I can probably finish the Pretty in Skulls site semi quickly. I need to draw more comics for poofy.net.

I think I better fast when I get home because I've ben eating loads of crap, mainly chocolates. There is SO much chocolate here...actually it probably isn't a whole lot different than in the US but it seems like more here.

Not much else to talk about. I'm still earing my Summer Sundae bracelet.

Mmkay, gonna go board semi soon...:(

It's been a while since I've updated this thing, but those of you who are my livejournal friends know I'm alive (alive and eating doggie treats. And if I weren't alive, I wouldn't be typing this whilst listening to Sondre Lerche. So there you go: Robyn = alive. Now the world may resume sucking.

I can't believe it's already been more than a week since Summer Sundae. I'm still in denial that I'm back home and that I have to move into my dorm in just a few days. And I'm in denial that I'm getting older as my birthday looms ever closer and I edge my way out of teenager-ness. I'd like to believe that in some ways I was never a typical teenager, but I was...a teenager. I mean, I still am. In about another year I won't be, but let's not think about that right now or else my hair with burst into gray-ness.

I've been thinking about my blogging over the past four years (four freakin' years; I actually started before that without a blogging tool, but here's my first blogger entry and what I've gained from it, besides getting used to writing in such a self-centered manner. [ponders] Not much. That's all I can come up with at the moment.

Over the weekend I didn't do much (unlike last weekend...[sigh]). I walked to the public library with my mum and found out it only took 25 minutes, as opposed to the 30 minutes I thought it took (hell yeah, shaved off five minutes!). The problem with my town is that it's not pedestrian friendly, otherwise it'd be pretty nice to walk around. There's a walkway for a bit of the walk, but otherwise cars may be dangerously close to turning you into roadkill. Not that they would, but it still sucks tip-toe-ing on the edge of the road and the overgrown grass. I don't know how much sidewalks cost but the library got a hefty makeover that must've cost a lot. SIDEWALKS! Put some sidewalks by the school as well.

I'm not much of a walker, but after being in London and Newbury I became more accustomed to walking. It would take Kat and me 30 minutes to walk from her house to the town center, but it was a really nice, pleasant walk through bountiful scenery and the lack of roadkill danger. Hells yeah! I'll keep those characteristics in mind when I want to find a place to live.

Last Friday I went to NYC to visit my dorm and time the walk from campus (Washington Square Park) to my home for the next year (200 Water Street). I don't know if I'm just an extremely slow walker, but it took my mum and me 50 minutes. I heard it would take around 40 minutes so I guess it's not far off, but still...blech. I can walk at least one way each day and both ways if I'm in a weird mood and feel like walking a lot. Don't worry, there are school shuttles and the subway that I can utilize. It's just such a difference from Vassar and getting to roll out of bed and be in class in about 5-10 minutes. Dammit. Then again, my dorm should be much nicer this year than last year. Then again, with the distance I probably won't spend as much time in my dorm as I did last year.

Mum and I walked around Chinatown, which was much fun since it's chock full of FOOD...that I shouldn't be eating. I'm trying to eat better than during the trip (as in major decrease in chocolate and biscuit/grain product consumption) but I'm still screwed. I think the only way for me to lose the 15 pounds or so I put on is to go back to 100% raw food. I'm currently eating fruit, yogurt, and steamed veggies, although more than half of what I eat consists of fruit. It's still a really good diet compared to how most people eat but it's still not good enough for me. :( Some people think I have major food issues and some people think I don't, so to clarify: I do have issues, but they're...well they don't make much sense, besides that just like most human beings, I enjoy the process of shoving food into my mouth and masticating to the point that I can swallow said food and let it churn in digestive juices until my intestines are ready to try and absorb whatever nutritients it can and hopefully expell said food in a timely and clean manner.

You can relate, right? Yeah.

I've been going through lots of website thinking lately since I'm still not sure how I'm designing homeofmagnet.com (which doesn't work at the moment...kind of a mixed blessing for me). I've done one and a half designs so far (the half is one I started but gave up midway since it was craptacular) and the one I've got now is crap. Okay, it has a tiny bit of potential but it's not something I'd be willing to show anyone yet. Lee mentioned to me how if something is wrong with a fansite then it's just the fan's problem but on an official site it's also the artist's problem ...not that I intend to make problems but that's something I've been thinking about. Looking at the stats for evenmagnet.net, it says 2.9% of my audience is using Netscape 3.x. WHAT? Who are these people? I can't imagine how my site works (or doesn't work) in that browser. Really, what the hell? Mmwhatever, I'm going to try and make my code nice n clean and SPARKLY, or something...

I also chatted with Truck, not that my experience is really the same but his was the closest I could think of and...okay, that didn't sound grammatically correct. You're probably used to that by now though. HOORAY, your English skills are slowly deteriorating as you read my blog. Super! Anyhoo, yeah. He gave me quite a lot of good insight except...[looks at watch]...I have yet to heed any of it. But I'll keep it in mind.

[wheeze] Dammit, when I cough I get insanely wheezy right afterwards. It's a bit disturbing because having your lung tubes (that's what I call em) constrict isn't a sign of good health. It's hard for me to believe that I actually was doing the 100% (ish) raw food thing and feeling pretty good physically, at least compared to how I feel now, which is fat and un-breathe-ee. [WHEEEEZE]

Oh, those doggie treats I referenced in the beginning of this entry are quite good. I swear. Yeah, this is the nutritionist-in-training speaking. Figure the ingredients listed on the label weren't euphemisms for lesser quality foodstuffs (honey = dirt clods!), they were much better than most stuff you'd find in a supermarket for human consumption. I'm sure the people who made the treats ate them themselves too. The only thing I know I did wrong was eat something like half of the bag (so about 5 ounces) while dogs wouldn't be given that many treats in one day. But if I'm dead tomorrow, I'm going to blame it on the doggie treats (from the grave).