The Last Airbender: A Mini Marathon

Last night me and Val really got into watching the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I wasn't to hot on the idea seeing as how I wanted to watch something that would be resolved before we went to bed. I'm so glad that Val talked me into it though. Everything about this show is obsessive worthy. The story is ridiculously complex, the humor is quite funny, the characters..... oh the characters. It sounds silly to have such high praise for a kids TV show but it is truly amazing. In my last semester in college I recommended the show to a hand full of people. They pretty much all gave me a look as if I was crazy. The conversation went something like this...



me: "So the show is about this kid, who's the avatar. No wait.... ok the show is also about all these nations that are fighting and can do stuff called bending. There are four nations and they can all do different bending fire, earth, air, or wind. The avatar can do all of them and has to save the world."

them: "So that's the entire show?"

me: "well..... kinda. (Incoherent ramblings in an attempt to explain the show)"

them: "Riiiiggggghhhhttt. Sooo, it's a kid's show."

me: "Well, yeah but it's not really. Just watch it. Everyone I've ever met has either seen it and loved it or has never seen it."



SO two of the 4 people rented it and watched the entire first season in two days over the next weekend. We all started telling inside jokes such as calling our group that was working on a project "Team Avatar" which is only funny if you've seen the show...... Anyways, check it out if you get the chance. It's well worth it!!!!!

It's My Birthday!!!!!!

So today is my birthday. I'm very excited. Everyone has been wishing me a happy one and Val made me some Makos Kifli!!!! It's probably my favorite dessert ever. She's gonna post pictures on her blog some time soon. I also got a picture from my friends at Le Peep (the restaurant that we frequent). It makes realize how I'm going to miss them all like crazy when we move to Hungary.
Today I've been very anxious to open my presents but i have to wait till later in the week due to the multitudes of people I need to celebrate with.

Come.... Walking With Dinosaurs!

Last night me and Val had the amazing privelage of going to see walking with Dinosaurs with her parents. It was an unbelievable experience and completelly worth seeing. It's a tad pricy but our jaws were dropped the entire time! Completely worth every penny! Have a look....

I come from the Borque!

So about 10 minutes ago me and Val were listening to some music on Pandora Radio on my Ipod. A band came up called "Hawk and a Hacksaw". We both seemed to really enjoy them. I was curious about who they were so I loooked up about the artist on Pandora and began reading. Nothing too crazy. The main guy wrote all of the music for the first album which was quite impressive. However as I kept reading I started to freak out! It turns out that the guy is from Albuquerque, New Mexico! Of all of the random places to be from... he's from my home town! What a weird coincidence, right? Well, it got weirder. As I read on I learned that his latest project was in...... (drum roll) freakin Budapest! I couldn't believe it. If you aren't a family member of mine or decided for this to be the first post you read on my blog, me and Val plan on going there to teach English in August. I found this to be incredibly intruiging. I'm going to see if I can get in contact with the guy through email just to see if he's still in Budapest and would be interested in talking with some fellow New Mexicans. I guess we'll see....

UPDATE: I tried to find an email address for the band but I guess there doesn't seem to be one there. I'll try and see if I could contact the guy alone. If not, oh well.

UPDATE 2: I gave up. I couldn't find anything right away and I thought it would be kind of pathetic if I spent a long time looking for the email address. Especially if the guy sent something back along the lines of, "How'd you get this email?"

No Slug Backs!

Me and my dad have always played the classic game of slug bugs. For anyone that doesn't know about it, whenever you see a VW Beetle you punch someone in the arm and say, "Slug bug (color of slug bug), no slug backs." It's a really simple game but me and my dad wanted to take it further. Rather than the game being about inflicting pain onto your friends and loved ones we wanted to make it about keeping score of who got the most in one day. I got to thinking, "What if people wanted actual rules or wanted to know how to play at all?"

I came up with 3 different versions that I've played with other people:



A. Classic Rules-This is the traditional version that I have seen played and played as a little kid. There aren't a lot of rules for this one and the rules that exist are mainly dependent on whether you even want them or not.

The Rules:

1. In this version anyone can get another person as long as they haven't already said, "No Slug Backs". This is a lot like tag when you say no tag backs. However, the person who got slugged got get slugged until they get someone else.

2. (optional) This rule is called "two for flinching". If someone flinches when you go to slug them you get to slug them twice.



B. Texas Save Em Up- This one doesn't have too many rules and has all of the same rules as the classic version except:

1. When someone says slug bug, they do not need to slug the person at the time. They can save them up and slug the person with all of the ones they have seen during a car ride at the same time.

2. The game is reset after driving somewhere and exiting the car. When you get back into the car all slug bugs can be gotten again. If you don't use all of your slugs before the next car ride, they dissapear.



C. B-ball style- This is the version that me and my dad play. In this one there are a LOT of rules. It's more for people that want the game to feel more official, as weird as that may sound.

The Rules:

1. The first rule is that old slug bugs are worth one point and new ones are worth two. This rule was inveneted when the new ones first came out and were not very common. However, this changed dramatically when they became more popular. That's why I call this the B-ball style. The old slug bugs act more like free throws rather than main points.

2. The second rule is that the person who gets the first slug of the day gets twice as many points as normal. Basically, an old slug bug is worth two points and a new one is worth four.

3. For two people playing the game is pretty simple. If the person does not say, "No slug backs" the person who was hit can get them back. For three or more any person that is hit can not hit another player and the person who hit the person can not hit more than one person per slug bug. (For example) If there are four people and I hit person 2 and person three hits person four, only person 3 and I get points and 2 and 4 can not get eachother.

4. In the case of a tie both players get the points, even on the first slug bug.

5. If you consistently play with a person/people and see the same slug bugs over and over, you can vote on whether or not that slug bug can be gotten in the future by a majority vote. However, this only goes into effect after the slug bug has been gotten for that day. In the case of two players, both must vote on whether they agree to the slug bug being unusable.

6. This rule is really just to make the game more personal. If anyone wants to change a rule they can do so by a majority vote. This applies for ANY rule.

7. For this version of slug bugs, make sure not to hurt eachother. This one's all about the points and making it into a fun game. :D


Well, I hope people find this interesting, if you have any other versions that you play you can reply to my post. Happy slugging!

Impatience

I've started getting increasingly impatient to move to Budapest, by the way I'm moving to Budapest. There is so much to do before we leave but it seems to be completely set up as far as a job and living. Me and Val will be leaving in August and before we leave we need to get in some teaching hours, finish our TEFL certification, clean up our living area in preparation for leaving, AND find a flight, which right now is proving more difficult than we originally thought. We looked up some flights before and found some for 1200 a piece..... not bad but not great either. The problem is now they've jumped up to 1600!!! This is pretty concerning considering the dramatic change. I think for now we have to sit and wait for the price to hopefully sink down during a discount period. Besides flight trouble we have a lot to get prepared for before August. Val's sister is getting married on top of everything else we have to do and we need to prepare for it, even though it's going to be a small wedding there's still a lot to do for it.
However, on the bright side, we are ready to move to Budapest and begin our teaching. We've picked up this handing language program called Pimsleur's Hungarian. It was pretty pricey for the one we got but seems well worth the price as we learn more and more. We can't wait to meet new people and have the experience of traveling abroad. It seems that there are a lot of other Americans who have gone to Hungary and generally been happy with their lives and experiences there.

Finally, Val and I will be making a short animated film so be looking for that in coming posts.

Holy Alligators Batman!!!! (Florida pt one)

So I just got back from Florida. It was really amazing. In Part one I'll discuss the amazingness of the Everglades. This was just a day trip but it was BY FAR one of the best parts of the trip. The day started out rainy and really quite terrible. The car ride down to Everglades City from Marco Island was about an hour long and the rain was pouring. I got really discouraged, thinking we wouldn't get to see any of the Alligators. Me and my dad got to Everglades City and figured if we couldn't see any Alligators we'd at least spend the day in the small town and just hang out and see the sights. We first went to the town "museum". I put museum in quotes because it was only one room with a couple of panels on the wall. However, it was PACKED with people trying to get out of the rain. After about 45 minutes of looking around, we went to the Rod and Gun Club, which was a restaurant that had a lot of history in it. It was apparently where a lot of service men stayed during WW2. It was a pretty neat little place.

This is a picture of me in front of the Rod and Gun Club. My hair's a mess but I usually wear a hat.

After we ate the clouds began to clear up and we decided to try our luck at taking an airboat ride in the Everglades. We asked the waitress where the best place was to go and she told us they were all about the same. However, I'm glad that we went to the one that we did. It was a place called Jungle Erv's. When I heard the name I thought for sure it'd be a pile you in and give you a generic experience kind of place. It was the BEST airboat ride I have ever been on. We saw an 11 foot gator right by the place where we boarded the airboats.

I got a picture of him. He was just hanging out underneath the porch they had.

Then We headed out on the airboats. Because of the rain we were the first one's to go out for the day and we were on one of the smaller boats which was nice. We had an interesting collection of visitors who joined us on our boat. There was a couple from Holland. The husband spoke amazing English but the wife didn't seem to speak any at all. However, the guy had a lot of trouble trying to understand our guide, I think mainly because of his heavy, southern accent. The second couple was from Minnesota.... I think. I don't really remember but they were a really nice couple. The woman was a nurse and the guy never really said what he did. I actually thought he was gonna be a huge jerk, mainly because he looked like one of those UFC fighters. In reality he was really nice and friendly, as was the woman.

Here's a picture of the airboats.

The trip started out slow. We saw a couple of birds and some snakes in the lava rock surrounding the everglades area.

Then we saw the 8 foot gator. He got REALLY close to the boat. In fact, he got under the boat, as you can see here.

He was really awesome and I got a bunch of photos of him. He loves the marshmallows. Our guide told us that the Alligator can run up to 35 mph on land, in short spurts. This guy never got even close to that.

I got a video of him eating some of the marshmellows and you can see how close he was and how sharp his teeth are! O_o

Next was the babies!!!! The were adorable.....

but I guess they're pretty aggressive though.

Part two of the Florida trip to be continued....