Bethjoy.com

Last weekend I had a larger amount of sugar and white flour etc. than usual and this week I’ve been feeling the effects of it. I haven’t really done many “productive things” and I’ve rather neglected Bethjoy.com, though not as much as I’ve neglected my school work. What I have been doing is either sleeping, using my computer, riding my bicycle and eating. And I’ve been doing it pretty much in that order though perhaps I’ve been using my computer more than I’ve been sleeping. I’ve watched quite a few DVD’s as I can do that while playing Neopets. If Neopets were the most important thing in the world then I would have done quite well this week but as it isn’t… I’ll probably need to start back on school tomorrow. At any rate I’ve had a pretty fun vacation. I haven’t done much writing lately, though I have done a great deal of thinking. And so far in my statistics I’ve had over 200 visitors so far this month so that isn’t too bad:)

I went to Walmart tonight and I bought nine yards worth of fabric, one pattern and a small cross stitch kit. At McDonalds I had a chicken nugget happy meal with apple dippers and a milk. I really like getting the little toys with the happy meals:)

And now I suppose I’d better go to sleep. Eventually I’m going to have to write another short story for hear, I haven’t done so in quite some time.

On Saturday I went shopping with Laura Beth. I had a grand time! We went to Target, Toys R Us, McDonalds, The Mall, and Walmart. Then we came home and after a while and two more guests arrived we had supper and Daniel brought down some fireworks and we shot those off. It was a very fun day and well worth writing about but I had a sugary something yesterday and I am rather out of it today. So writing is not particularly what I feel like doing now.

I was somewhat surprised at Andrew’s opinion of my stop action movie GUNGANMAN when he said it looked like the confusing sort of stop action movie that people normally do on their first attempt. I personally disagree with him and think that the movie I made today is much more worthy of a low opinion. So without further ado, here it is! Oh, and on toy packaging when they say, “Doll does not stand alone” they mean it. Just ignore the finger tips when you see them.

Watch this Stop Action Short Film

As I even bought a Pirate Cutlass at a dollar store in order to prepare for this event this evening I thought I’d just make something out of the ideas I’d had. As I half expected, it wasn’t half as impressive as I thought, and as I’ve rather disappointedly noticed, it isn’t very impressive but… Perhaps it’s better than nothing. So here you are, a movie trailer for a movie that probably won’t ever be made.

Watch Teaser

One of the interesting things about making this was that when I started filming I found that I had less than five minutes left on my camera’s tape. That condensed things a lot! I ended up filming only about a minute and a half of footage and I used just about all of it. If you observed me seeming to run around in circles it is because when filming I first ran away from the camera and then I had to run back towards the camera in order to turn it off so that I wouldn’t waste tape. It’s interesting what you can do in the editing process… Oh, and did you like the Widescreen Format?

This morning Daniel played me in the LOTR TCG and… Well… Suffice it to say that I’ve lost every single game that I’ve played with my new cards. Oh well, it was a fun and challenging game and perhaps the third time I play I’ll win. Maybe this time I’ll play against my bedpost! And maybe (evil grin) they’ll never use any of their shadow cards (cackle) and maybe they’ll never use any of their other cards either (maniacally chuckles with glee) and then if I lose that game then I’ll know somethings wrong!!!

But now I’m tired and at some point today I think I ought to work hard on my history so I’ll have a good excuse to buy some more booster packs as a reward for finishing history. After all, I don’t have an Eowyn card yet.

Today was the day the Lord of the Rings Trading Card Value Box I had ordered was supposed to come, and guess what? It came! I was very pleased. I had considered the terrible thought of only opening one trading card booster for each unit of school I’d gotten done and that thought lasted long enough yesterday for me to complete an entire unit of history. I JUST THOUGHT OF SOMETHING!!! I’m so very pleased! You see I have completed all ten units of language and now I’ve completed three units of history which makes thirteen units completed and thirteen is the exact number of trading card booster packs I opened! There, I did stick with my intention… to some extent. And now I’ve got an excuse for another box of trading cards to get me through History:)

There were quite a few trading cards I was hoping for specifically, and as I expected I didn’t get all of them. However I did get an Arwen card and quite a few other very nice cards(in other words, cards that had pleasant pictures on them). I spent about two hours this afternoon sorting the cards and arranging the cards and deciding which cards where going to be in the deck I was building and which cards weren’t. Finally it was time to commence the game. I thought I would try an easy opponent first so I pulled out my stuffed bear Polly and had her take the starter deck that had come in the value box while I played with the deck I had just built.

I quickly found out that shuffling your cards thoroughly before playing is very important because otherwise you just have a bunch of cards that are very similar and, as was my case, they might not even be playable without certain other cards that never showed up throughout the course of the game.

But I had fun, which was the main purpose behind my getting the game in the first place. Polly beat me though. I think I’ll have to have an even easier opponent next time, perhaps my beaded gecko or maybe one of my brothers. And just so you understand the last sentence in the proper context, I do consider my brothers to have a higher intelligence level than my beaded gecko but my brothers have never played this game before and therefore that must put them at a disadvantage and me at an advantage. You see even though Polly was my opponent I was handling her cards and therefore our intelligence levels were pretty much equal though our luck was not.

I might just play another game tonight, but then again I might not. At any-rate I hope that your day was a pleasant one.

Oh, and another important event happened today other than the coming of UPS, Laura Beth called and arranged the details of Saturday’s excursion. We are going shopping:) I am looking forward to that not only because I like going shopping very much but also because it will give me plenty of time to get to know Laura Beth and visa versa. I’ll just have to remember not to talk all of the time as I often do and not be silent the whole time I often do but to both talk and listen in approximately equal amounts as I very seldom do.

And now it is time to end this post. I had a fun day today and I did not do any school.

Remember, this being a “Random Story” the story is not always the same and may change greatly each time the refresh button is hit for the amusement of those reading it. Enjoy!

, was when . She and frightening the document.write(cn) who were document.write(fp). The document.write(cn) document.write(started) a document.write(tn) which caused such vibrations of sound waves that document.write(happen) causing document.write(mp). Finally the document.write(wise) document.write(old) document.write(treefrog) settled the matter by document.write(telling) everybody to document.write(bequiet).

THE END

Oh, and the collective animal nouns are all quite correct and researched. So apparently, yes there is a document.write(cn).

Today, instead of designing TCG games and making movies I simply played games, read the comprehensive rule book for the Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game, and rode my bicycle. Yesterday I purchased a very on sale “Value Pack” of Lord of the Rings TCG cards so I was wanting to know what I might reasonably be able to expect. Over the past few days I’ve looked at just about every single card I might possibly get and I’ve confirmed my opinion that Orcs are exceedingly ugly but some of the cards are actually quite nice(Eowyn, Female Elves, Beautiful Scenery, and plenty of Hobbit Cards) and humorous. So hopefully I will get a nice selection of cards.

It is really remarkable how very little the amount of effort exerted has to do with the profitability of whatever it is. I played a lot of games on Neopets today and tired my arms doing so and probably used more effort than doing school for the same amount of time. And yet, if I had done school for the same amount of time that I played on Neopets today I would have considered today a very profitable day, Yes, we would have my precious(Yikes! I think I see a result of watching one of the Lord of the Rings movies last night). However, I probably would have had a greater headache at the end of the day if I had worked on school:) Eventually however I will have to get it done. September is fast approaching and with it September 26th on which monumental day I will become Seventeen years old. And I probably ought to have eleventh grade completed before turning Seventeen.

I have rambled from my original subject, In fact, I’m not quite certain what was the subject upon which I was discoursing. Oh well, I probably should go to sleep now anyway. Tomorrow I may get to go shopping and then it will probably be a profitable day for somebody.

And remember, you may be able to increase your success by lowering your expectations!

Andrew did the animating while I clicked the camera and here is the result. I hope you will look at the previous post after enjoying this movie.
Watch Movie

Yesterday I thought I would make a TCG game, so I did. Currently there are fourteen cards that I have made categorized into the three different types of cards, Heroines, Accessories, and Pixal Monsters. What are Pixal Monsters you may ask? Well, they are the strange monsters attacking the Heroines that must be defeated. The game is simple, presumably, since I really haven’t figured out how to make it complicated yet but since it is still a work in progress there is hope… Now, for the cards! And yes, the most powerful heroine is me…

First of all, the Heroine Cards

Secondly, the Accessory cards. There aren’t many of these yet.

And now, the Pixal Monsters!

And now that you have seen the cards it is time to go into gameplay, though I would advise you to read all of this post carefully before actually playing. And by the way, this game is very educational as it involves addition…

There are three different types of cards, Heroines, Accessories, and Pixal monsters. The heroines can equip accessories in order to increase their stats. The Pixal monsters are the enemies of the heroines and must be fought.

To play, separate all of the cards out by type. You should have at least two Pixal Monsters(in order to make the game last longer) for every Heroine and it is advisable to have plenty of weapons in your weapons stack. You may only have one copy of each Heroine card, however you may have multiple copies of the other types of cards.

Set the Heroine pile in front of you with the accessory pile to the left of it. Then, leaving a gap with room for at least three cards or more in-between set the Pixal Monster pile. Then you are ready for your first turn. First, take out a Pixal Monster card and place it face up somewhere on place you are playing that is in-between the Pixal Monster deck and the Heroine and Accessory deck. Next take a Heroine from the top of your pile and place it so that the top of the Heroine card touches the bottom of the Pixal Monster card. Then observe the stats.

Let’s say that the Pixal Monster is a Weakling Dragon, Blunders: 4, Battle Terror: 4, and Repulsiveness: 4 and the Heroine is Tiny Kitty as Elizabeth Bennet whose stats are Accomplishments: 8, Battle Power: 2, and Charm: 10. Now the Accomplishments stat on a Heroine is the equivalent of a Blunders stat on a Pixal Monster as is Battle Power to Battle terror and Repulsiveness to Charm. Now, the higher stat wins the contest. In this instance the Heroine has higher stats than the Pixal monster in two out of three stats but her Battle Power is 2 which is lower than the Weakling Dragon’s Battle Terror of 4 so she cannot win the contest. The stats of the Heroine must be greater than all of the stats of the Pixal monster.

Looks hopeless? Well, not really. You see the accessory deck is there and each turn you draw one accessory card which you can place, by sliding the card underneath the heroine until just the stats show on whichever heroine you chose. And this is where the educational addition comes in because you add the stats of the accessory to the heroines stats.

Let’s say you draw a Suitcases card. It adds 2 to all stats which means that the heroine’s battle power stat is now equal to the Pixal monster’s. It’s a tie there but because her other stats are higher she wins the contest as she would if all her stats were greater than the Pixal Monsters. And now it is time to observe the Stamina stat. Each point of Stamina shows how many turns it will take to defeat the Pixal Monster once the Heroine’s stats are higher than the Pixal Monsters. When the Pixal Monster is defeated you start a new pile of cards by placing the Pixal Monster face up beside your Pixal monster draw deck. When all of the Pixal Monsters are in this stack you win the game!

On each turn you draw one Pixal Monster, then one Heroine, and lastly an accessory card which you can equip on any heroine. When you run out of a type of card you simply don’t draw it any more but you keep on drawing the others.

Now at some point in the game you are either going to have more Pixal Monsters than Heroines or more Heroines than Pixal monsters. When you have more Pixal Monsters than Heroines you merely set them down just as you would normally do. When you draw a Heroine you can chose which of the Pixal Monsters that do not have a challenger yet that she will challenge. Also, these Pixal Monsters can be challenged by a Heroine that has just defeated another Pixal monster though she must wait a turn before beginning another battle.

When there are more Heroines than Pixal Monsters the Heroines just stay where they are and wait for either more Pixal Monsters or the end of the game. However, if you run out of equipment cards and one of your heroine’s cannot defeat the Pixal Monster she is facing then an idle Heroine can join her in that fight.

And now that you have read the rules and you want to play the game it is probably time to print out the cards. If you have a printer this should be easy, if you don’t… Sorry but I don’t have an online version of this game yet. Printing this page might the easiest way to print but if you have a picture editor program then save the pictures to your hard drive, import them into your picture program(Like Photoshop) and then you can fit six cards to one page. This saves paper. Then you just cut out the cards and there you have it!

I think I’ve covered everything now. I may have forgotten something since I’ve only played this game once myself and I only started making it yesterday and this is the first time I’ve written the rules down. But the main point of the game is, have fun! If you desire to make your own rules of the game by all means do so. And if you want to you can take of each card and pull one of every type of card out and then place them face down then try to figure out if it was Arwen Evenstar with the Hand Cross Stitched Sword fighting the Tooth Monster:) I’m referring to the game of Clue in case you are wondering.

There probably will be more cards for this game on here in the future, and who knows? I might make some new types of cards eventually. And perhaps I’ll even explain why the Pixal Monsters are attacking the Heroines in the first place.

Oh, and case you weren’t able to tell, all of the outfits worn by the heroines were made by me, Elizabeth Von Fange. And I did make the lightsaber and the sword as well as doing the graphics work on the Pixal Monsters. Indeed, I put all of the cards together and took most of the pictures.

Today, in between long bouts of listening to Jane Austin while finishing a job I had to do, I made a movie. This movie I made with Lego’s using my digital camera to take the pictures and then my video editing program to make them into frames. I recorded dialogue, selected music, and I am very pleased with the result. It is very funny! I think I like Lego stop action better than photoshop animation.

I did not make credits for this movie but credit should probably go where it is due. I borrowed liberally from George Lucas, Superman, and Tchaikovsky. I hope this bit of information makes you more eager to watch the movie and so that you will have the earliest opportunity of doing so I am going to post this at once:)

Watch Gunganman!