Keeping Up With... Karen

It has been an awful long time since I've published less "formal" posts. Well, I guess not if you count my heated, passionate rant about driving, but um, besides that... I haven't really blogged much about how my life was going. So, as a debut post under my new URL for the year (ayyye, free domain for dayz), let's talk about my oh-so-exciting summer vacation.

It is currently almost Week 10 of summer vacation, and I haven't been any ounce of productive! The end.

...Just kidding. Only about the "the end," though.

Along with being unproductive, this summer has to be one of my most boring summers to date, because for the first time in a long time, I haven't gone on any trip out of the country, state, or even county at this point. At all. This is from good reason, since my mom has some problems with her foot, but I can't lie to you and say that I don't feel a bit sad over being a home potato this summer. It's really damn unfortunate how my mom's foot had to start having problems the summer before I start college. (Pouty face.)

Though, note that I earlier said "at this point," because I will be going on a little trip to Vegas today (LOL yes, today, because I really wanted to get this post up before I left) with my parents and a couple of my cousins. Watch us flock to the arcade games at Circus Circus and Excalibur, because arcade games are one of the few things that we're all ever interested in, anyway. Who needs to hit the blackjack tables? Who needs push that button at the slot machines? The only button I'll be pushing is the button to lower the claw in the claw machines. (#TeamClawMachines)

That aside, I guess as a compensation for not being able to go on an extreme, hardcore, sweat-filled, sore muscle-filled, I-can't-feel-the-soles-of-my-feet-filled vacation overseas this year, I've been spending a great deal of time with my cousins. A. Great. Deal. A lot more time than ever, at least. There was a period of time during this summer that we spent almost every weekday playing this game called Terraria; we only stopped because we pretty much did everything there was to do in that game, LOL. And every Saturday, we either go out somewhere or they come over to mi casa, or both. We've went to notably Santa Monica, this Japanese lifestyle store near Santa Monica Beach called Muji, Whimsical Alley, and The Last Bookstore, the latter two in downtown L.A. But usually the plan goes that they come over to my house to play games. One of my cousins plays, and the rest of us WATCH!!

(It's more entertaining than it sounds, just trust me.)

Just last Saturday, we were (or technically, my cousin was) playing Telltale Games' Game of Thrones, after I repeatedly suggested it since a week before, spouting "GAEM OF THRANS" like a madwoman. They all seemed to enjoy it, which is great because I frickity frackin' love that series; my two long blog posts about this game justifies that. Though, we got through four episodes in one sitting, and we've just caught up yesterday with Episode 5... Now, we're playing another Telltale Games series called Tales from the Borderlands that they are also enjoying, especially its Episode 3. Conveniently, Episode 3 is also my favorite episode. But after TFTB, I have no idea what game we're going to play, honestly. This is not an unfamiliar situation, however; we've been slowly running out of games to play since we do this literally every Saturday. Constantly playing games: a virtue and a vice.

It's a PewDiePie reference, by the way.

I also did get a new 13-inch Macbook Pro with retina display back in July. I've been dreaming about this laptop for years... and when I finally got it, I was so amazed, maybe a little too amazed, at how fast and responsive it was. My old 2010 Macbook Unibody was seriously an old geezer... Opening Google Chrome took like, five minutes, and I'd see the spinning beach ball of death every 10 minutes or so for no reason.

So, with good reason, I'm pretty darn relieved I don't have to deal with that anymore. Also, I can never get enough of that pretty retina display. It makes me want to go on my laptop.

I obviously thank my dad for buying me this amazing thing.

But even though my Macbook Unibody old geezer had caused me much hair-ripping and internal screaming and violent cursing, parting with it did make me feel a bit teary-eyed and wistful inside; it's like giving a favorite stuffed animal away to Goodwill. The old geezer had done me well these past five years, but then again, it's now in my dad's possession. I know the pops will take good care of it.

Well, regrettably, this is all what I've done that was relatively interesting this summer so far, so I shall end the post here. I start college in late September, so I'll be trying to make the most out of the summer days I still have left. Although I'll probably end up spending long hours playing Dragon Nest, or lying like a bum on the couch with my phone, snorting over posts in my Facebook feed, or doing some other unproductive thing... Go figure.