Sunny Side Up » Thought Bubble

July 2009
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03
Jul

US Trip Day 13: Disneyland

by iheartbadtz:mymelody.com

The happiest place on earth.XD My cousin has this really funny way of saying Disneyland, and he claims that it’s the only way you can say it correctly. Crazy guy.:P

Anyway, when we went there, there were a lot of people. Sure, it was a weekend and all, but it looked like there were more who came there than when we went there during the holiday season before. Strange. We ended up lining up for a long time in a lot of the rides (we were in line for Splash Mountain for a couple of hours). We got Fast Passes for Space Mountain too (second time!), but the time we were supposed to go back was pretty late, like right before midnight, and my parents wanted to go home already by that time, so we ended up not using them.

Anyway, it was pretty funny, because my cousins and brother dragged me to go on the rides. I freak out easily, so they would alternate between trying to calm me down and scaring me. My sister and my ‘rents hardly went on any of the rides, except for the Pirates and Indiana Jones ones. Cornballs.

Oh, and my cousin and I were always the ones who got wet in the water rides.x_x It’s funny though, because Splash Mountain scared me when I rode it when I was younger, but the second time wasn’t so bad. Maybe my imagination’s just really wild that I made myself traumatized.:P

Anyway, I didn’t really get a lot of pictures, since we were running off to go on the rides practically the entire time. Aside from Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, POTC, and Indiana Jones, we also got to ride Matterhorn, Big Thunder, and Haunted Mansion. We also took the Railroad and the Monorail. Yeah, I know, it’s a few.x_x We were in line most of the time.

There’s a female chipmunk?o_O

Fireworks!

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01
Jul

US Trip Day 12: Universal Studios

by iheartbadtz:mymelody.com

I guess Universal doesn’t really need an intro, so without further ado, let’s move on to the pictures.XD

Oh, but before that, the attractions we were able to check out were Waterworld, Shrek 4-D, the Studio Tour, Terminator 2 3-D, Jurassic Park, and the Special Effects Stages.

The stuff nightmares are made of.

I wanted to check out all the Wanted posters there, but the line moved pretty fast since the show was already about to start.

What I would give to sit on one of these.XD

Well, actually, I’d prefer to be more of a Producer/Writer than a director.

Some Studio Tour pics.

When I heard "Heroes", I couldn’t help but click like crazy.XD This area was where they shot the Mexico scene of Nathan and Claire. They’ve also used this area for other TV shows and movies (I think "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" was one of them, but I’m not sure).

Central Park.:P When NBC and Universal produce shows that are shot in Central Park, they don’t trek all the way to NY. They do it right on their backlot!

I have a sneaking suspicion this was also where HRG and Angela Petrelli had one of their talks in one of the episodes of last season’s Heroes.

I can’t remember what movie this was for.x_x All I know is that the huge ship on the film was just that small thing in the picture, and they just played around with camera angles to make it appear life-sized.

Jaws! There were actually two sharks there, and the bigger one suddenly appeared right beside me (I was at the rightmost side).

"Desperate Housewives" fans probably would recognize the next few shots, since it’s taken in Wisteria Lane.

"How the Grinch Stole Christmas" set.

Yikes! It’s Norman Bates!

"War of the Worlds" set.

Funny, while we were walking around, Frankenstein’s monster suddenly showed up and grabbed my head.

One of the T-1000s. "Come with me if you want to live." XD

Scooby-Doo, one of my favorite characters of all time!^_^

The Simpsons ride. We didn’t go in this one anymore, since we were running around to check out the entire park.

The Jurassic Park ride. We got on it, and it wasn’t as scary as I thought.:P

We had dinner here after. Man, they had really huge servings! I ordered ribs, and I ended up getting babyback ribs a foot long.o_o I couldn’t finish it even with help from my family.

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29
Jun

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

by iheartbadtz:mymelody.com

Watched "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen" with my brother over the weekend (I don’t think watching one single flick would count as eyestrain XD).

To be honest, I was a little disappointed. I really loved the first movie, and I had high expectations for this one. It just didn’t deliver. It’s like they had so many things planned for it that they went all over the place in an attempt to reach their goals, and they just fell flat on their faces. The plot was blah. Sam Witwicky somehow turned into Indiana Jones (wrong film, Shia). His parents stopped being funny and just became annoying in the first 15 minutes of the movie. The robots didn’t have any faces anymore. I can scarcely remember their names, as opposed to the first movie where I knew which one’s which (heck, I even had a crush on Jazz, just because he transformed into a gorgeous car XD). The ultimate battle scene lasted for what? Less than a minute?

I did like Jetfire though, but they just put him there more for comic relief than anything else so… Bumblebee was cute though, even more adorable than the first film, but I don’t think he can do anything that people won’t think of as cute anyway. At least Starscream got more dialogue other than "Hail to the Decepticons!"

Verdict: if you like these sort of movies, sure, go and watch it. If you’re looking for a good film but a solid story, you can easily skip it. You’re not really missing anything.

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26
Jun

Visit to the Doctor Part 2

by iheartbadtz:mymelody.com

I wasn’t able to post yet again yesterday because I went to visit another doctor, since it’s been days since I’ve started feeling dizzy and I doubted that it had anything to do with laryngitis.

The doctor gave three possibilities: one, that it’s just vertigo (cue in Alfred Hitchcock music), two, there’s something wrong with my eyes, and three, there’s something wrong with my brain. Obviously, the third one’s the worst of the lot, and if it gets to that level, I’ll have to consult with a neurologist. In the meantime, I’m under observation for a week. He’s given me medication for vertigo, and we’re hoping that the dizziness will be cured by it, otherwise…I do have to admit that the med has an effect though, I’m still feeling a bit dizzy, but not as bad as how I was the past few days, so that’s good. I’m also supposed to get more sleep (which would be hard, since I’m naturally an insomniac) and I’m supposed to avoid straining my eyes too much, which means that playing on HKO-SG won’t be happening anytime soon, unless I want to blow a fuse in my brain.:P Not that it matters, since I still haven’t downloaded it yet. Last time I tried to torrent it, there were 0 seeders and 1 peer, so I didn’t even get to download one single byte from the game.

Anyway, ’til next time. Sorry my recent blog entries haven’t been that sunny.x_x

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24
Jun

Alice in Wonderland

by iheartbadtz:mymelody.com

I just saw on the net that Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are collaborating on yet another movie: "Alice in Wonderland". Not a live-action version of the Disney movie, but a combination of live-action, digital magic, and stop motion animation. Alice is already 17 in the movie and takes a trip back to Wonderland, which she had forgotten about.

Check out the stills:

From L-R: Mia Wasikowska as Alice, Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter (sorry, couldn’t resist putting his name on bold XD), Helena Bonham Carter (of course!) as the Red Queen, Anne Hathaway as the White Queen, and Matt Lucas as Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Also in the film is Alan Rickman as the Caterpillar.

Is it just me, or does Johnny look like Elijah Wood in this picture?

Anyway…

I hated the Disney movie, the Caterpillar scared the heck out of me when I was a kid, but I’m definitely catching this flick.XD As you guys probably know by now, I love Johnny, and him + Tim Burton = epic, so I’m watching this. I’m also pretty excited about "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus", since it’s Heath’s last film. I heard that Johnny, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell will be donating their wages from the movie to Matilda, Heath’s daughter. Pretty sweet of them.:)

In another news, I’m still sick. My head’s not spinning so much (that’s why my blog entry’s longer :P) but I’m still a little dizzy. Plus, I’ve been coughing all day, to the point that I had to lock myself in the bathroom for about 10 minutes coughing non-stop, with my eyes watery and my nose running. Gross mental image, but that’s what happened a couple of hours ago. Urgh. I’m a little worried because it might trigger an asthma attack because I can feel the pressure on my lungs already, and that’s going to suck since I haven’t had an attack in years. I’ll try to look for my inhaler later (heck, I’ve never really been dependent on an inhaler even in my worst asthma years, but desperate situations call for desperate measures), but I don’t know if I can still use it, it might already be expired.

I hate getting sick.x_x

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23
Jun

Sick

by iheartbadtz:mymelody.com

Just a quick entry today. I haven’t been blogging that much recently because I’ve been sick. The doctor’s official diagnosis is acute laryngitis, but I don’t really know why my head’s been spinning for the past few days. I can’t even stare at a computer screen for a long time without feeling a little whoozy. The doctor did say it’s not swine flu, so I guess that means something. I guess it’s a result of getting rained on for three consecutive days.x_x I always bring an umbrella, but if wind comes enters the picture, you’ll get soaked no matter how huge your umbrella is. Hopefully, I’ll feel a bit better so I can go online when HKO-Indonesia closes. At least I don’t have a fever anymore. Anyway, just logged in to check my mail, so I decided to post an entry today.

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18
Jun

HKO Indonesia Goodies and Buddies

by iheartbadtz:mymelody.com

Hi, I’m…

And I’ll be your guide to HKO Indonesia today.XD

That’s my current avatar. So, urm, yeah, the name I’m using in-game right now is teal, because, for some reason, an error message appears when I try to use iheartbadtz. Or iheart. Or i<3. Or i<3badtz. Or heartbadtz. Or Iheart. Or ihrtbadtz (which I changed quickly, since they might think I’m out to get XO). You get what I mean. I’ve tried those and other derivations of my name, but the error message keeps appearing (I translated it, and it says someth like the characters are invalid, which is weird since it’s pure alpha characters, but who knows if the online translator is reliable). After I realized that I couldn’t use any name based on my original one, I settled for the next thing that popped in my head: teal, which is the font color I usually use in the blogs and forums.XD (Actually, I first tried to use "heart" just to see if that’s the word being blocked, but it’s not, and I didn’t want to run around with "heart" as my name. That’s kinda corny.)

Anyway, first thing I did in-game was to PM the people I know were playing. I first poked Kaito and Sere. Kaito replied, and I asked him if there were others from FB or in the older betas who were in, and he mentioned Bi, azog, and some others, so I tried to poke ‘em too. Bi replied, but I think azog was offline at that time. I also tried adding JamJam, Starrfire, and shesroyaltee too, but they were offline at that time too, I think.

I’m still in Flora, but these are some changes that I noticed in-game (Sere blogged about these already, but I thought I might mention them again):

- There are technically new mobs, in the sense that two creatures that resemble alike (like the old bees) have different names. The only difference, aside from the names, is the damage they give so far.

- There are palette swaps of creatures! Almost every mob has a pumped-up version of the typical monster. Just thought that would’ve been helpful in the Monster Rancher quest back in FB.

- The Mafia merchants are gone, to be replaced by the marshmallow merchants.

- You know those buildings that you couldn’t get into before in Flora? Some of them are open already.

- Some of the characters have been displaced and transferred somewhere else. For example, Pink No Corisu is no longer stuck in the forest, but in her own home.

- The quest log is prettier!

- One thing I didn’t like was that if you mine, gather, etc., the count doesn’t appear at the top of the page. It loads on to all your open chat boxes in bright red text, so they’ll all automatically alert you when there’s really no legit message in them.x_x

Other screenies:

Screenie with Bi!

"New Day" sun is still alive and kicking. It welcomed me as soon as I entered my rocky farm.

Newbie look! I chose the same look as the original "iheartbadtz" initial avatar look.:P

Lookie!

Anyway, will post more tomorrow. I’m running late for school already.XD

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15
Jun

US Trip Day 9: SeaWorld

by iheartbadtz:mymelody.com

I’ve always loved SeaWorld, so it was great going back there.:P

Just some things though: there’s something about Sea World that didn’t feel… right. I don’t really know how to describe it, but compared to when I was there in 2001, they seemed to have "downgraded" it in some way.

For starters, there were less shows. Maybe our going there on a weekday instead of a weekend had something to do with it, but (if I remember correctly) Shamu only performed twice, and the other shows only had three performances for the entire day, so we spent the majority of time shuttling from one show to the other to get good seats that we didn’t really get to check out the aquariums and other exhibits. Also, there seemed to be less sharks (in number and in species) now compared to before. I seem to remember hammerhead sharks in the underground aquarium before, but I didn’t see one when we went there. I was also sad that Cirque de la Mer wasn’t open yet when we were there.:(

Still, it was pretty cool. SeaWorld’s still my favorite amusement park in the end.:P

I was looking for a cute penguin, seal, or polar bear plushie there, but the stuff they have there were definitely tourist trap prices.x_x Gah. I ended up buying a couple of snow globes instead, since I always get at least one when I go there.XD

On to the pictures!

Bird’s-eye view of the park from the Skytower. We were there right during the opening, so there aren’t that many people yet.

Some of the dolphins and their trainers:

I wanted to post pictures of the sea otters, but the glare was so sharp on the photos, you could hardly see them.:(

One of the orcas of the Shamu show:

"Believe", the new show format of the Shamu show

Pets Rule! What’s cool about this show is that the pets they have there have been rescued from pounds.

Dogs dating.XD Heeh!

Clyde and Seymour Show - my favorite!

Parody of "CSI". Loved the fish outline.XD I laughed so hard when the sea lion imitated Horatio Caine.XD

No pics for the dolphin show, sorry.:( We ended up taking videos of it, and my net’s still pretty lousy to upload it on to Dream Studio.

Aquariums:

Flamingos!

View from the Skyride. You can see the Cirque de la Mer place from here. Got a little freaked out here, since I’m scared of heights.

Sharks!

Manatees!

Those aren’t floating ice things. Those are Beluga whales.XD

The polar bear was feeling lazy, I think.

A walrus having fun

Last, but not the least, penguins! Yay!

We also rode the Shipwreck Rapids ride. As luck would have it, my mom and I were the only ones who got wet - change that, drenched - out of all the people on the raft.x_x

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12
Jun

US Trip Day 8: Balboa Park

by iheartbadtz:mymelody.com

Yeah, we actually went to Balboa Park on the same day we went to Old Town and Hotel del Coronado, but I thought I’d create a new entry for this one since I’ve got more photos from here.

To start with, Hotel Coronado is really huge. We didn’t even go in the museums there, just walked around the area, and it took us more than a couple of hours to check out the whole place.

Anyway, I’ll let the picture speak for themselves. I’m glad we went there during spring, because there were a lot of flowers blooming in the area.

It looks better smaller, trust me.XD It looked fine on my phone, but when I transferred it to my PC, it looked weird.x_x

Funny, the dog jumped right in the water. He must’ve been really affected by the heat.:P

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11
Jun

US Trip Day 8: Old Town and Hotel Coronado

by iheartbadtz:mymelody.com

In case you’ve noticed, yep, I’ve skipped two days.:P That’s because over the weekend, we didn’t really do much sightseeing, just spent time with our family there, and since I don’t really post our pictures online, I moved on to the next sightseeing place.

By Day 6, we were already back in San Diego, so we went and explored it for the next few days. The last time I was there, we just went to the malls and other commercial places, so this was the first time I’d be seeing Old Town and Balboa Park (my entry for tomorrow). I’ve been to Hotel Coronado before, but it’s always worth a visit, especially for the bridge you have to cross to reach Coronado itself.:P

I definitely loved Old Town. It’s pretty much a recreation of 19th Century San Diego so you can see how they lived back then. Each booth offers something new, like structures for blacksmiths, dentists, miners, shoe cobblers, trial courts, candy shops, and more. It’s really a place history buffs would love to check out.^_^ In fact, while we were there, there were some kids who were there for a field trip, which was pretty cool.

My brother got a kick out of the lucha libre masks there.XD I bought a really lovely pair of moccasins there, I’ll take a picture when I get it (we sent it to our home address from the US along with some of our other stuff, since we couldn’t carry all our baggage if we tried). We also bought a set of assorted sugar-coated nuts, which were really yummy.

On to the pictures!

The spices shop. I loved that place, it smelled really nice, and I wanted to get so many things from there.:P

The first SD courthouse.

The home of SD’s first newspaper office. I had to take a picture of it, since it’s a landmark of journalism.:P

I found the sign so funny I had to take a picture of it.:P Just sad that photo or note takin’ isn’t allowed in the shop, because they’ve got a lot of funny signs inside.