Howsa Bout a Book Review? (or TWO???)

Last time my younger brother Tyler was here, he told me about two books he had that I had wanted to read. He told me he'd bring 'em over next time he was here.

Sure enough, he came home today, with the two new books. One was a big success with me, the other...

Let's begin shall we?

DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: THE LAST STRAW

By: Jeff Kinney

This is the third in a series of books, which itself was adapted from an online "webdiary". The first time I actually found out about it was when Tyler was on a website called "Funbrain Academy", and whenever he lost and got a GAME OVER on one of the games, it showed a link to the said webdiary.

Here are the first two books in the series:





They are a series of "novels in cartoons", the same subtitle I used for my "Secret Agent Stick" series (which the layout of was inspired by this series).

They all center around a self-centered nearly-high-schooler named Greg Heffley, whose mom gets him a diary to write in, which he calls a "journal", as "diary" sounds too girly.

He has his slightly overweight friend, Rowley, his slightly overbearing mom, his bullying older brother Rodrick, his slightly crazy dad, and so on...

We got the first two books from a school book fair, and we went to Ellysa's water polo game. Not being really interested in the game (no offense to anyone, and I got more interested later), I decided I'd read the first book in the series to pass the time...

Oh my goodness... I ended up laughing so hard that Cindy actually complained that I was being too loud. I even showed some of it to Dad and he loved it too.

I later read "Rodrick Rules", and while I wasn't as impressed with it at first, I just read it again recently and thought it was just as good as the first book.

THIS one, however, I wasn't really sure about. I thought Jeff Kinney may be running out of ideas (a problem exhibited by the author of the next book I'll be reviewing, and one I've encountered more than enough times). However, I began reading it in the car, and was already laughing out loud. In fact, I'd almost go as far to say that it's most likely the best in the series, and that's something for a threequel...

I'd recommend getting all three, especially if you have preteens.

Now, onto the next review...


CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS AND THE PREPOSTEROUS PLIGHT OF THE PURPLE POTTY PEOPLE

By: Dav Pilkey

The cover of the book would make you think this would be the most awesome of all books. Well, that's what I thought too, at first...

The very first "Captain Underpants" book came out in 1997, when I was 5. I got the book, maybe for my birthday or something, read it, and loved it. Then the sequel came out 2 years later ("...and the Attack of the Talking Toilets"), and I loved it even more.

Each book seemed to be better than the last, and they got more absurd, with often fourth-wall breaking, mildly crude humor, and other fun stuff.

The whole idea of the series is a little complicated, but I think I can paraphrase it well enough:

George Beard and Harold Hutchins are two fourth-graders who attend Jerome Horowitz Elementary in Piqua, Ohio. While these boys are very imaginative and like to write and draw comic books, especially about their best hero ever, Captain Underpants, the staff at the school discourages use of imagination and fun, and therefore, the two often get in a lot of trouble.

But worst of all is their principal, Mr. Krupp. Krupp is the meanest principal of all school principals, and after catching the boys pulling a series of pranks at a big football game, he enslaves them to do all his chores. To get out of it, the boys order a "3-D Hypno Ring" in the mail, and use it to eventually turn their principal into the hero of their own imaginations, only wearing a curtain from his office window and his undergarments (know who I'm talking about yet?). Unfortunately, he believes he really IS a hero, and goes out to fight crime. This actually leads to them saving the world from disaster, but in the end, they have to change their principal back to his mean, awful self.

But this change ain't permanent, because at the sound of fingers snapping, Krupp turns into the underwear hero once again, and the three continue to save the world from living toilets, zombie lunch nerds and aliens, and best of all: WEDGIE WOMAN!!!

I was satisfied with the first 7 books of the series, and the 7th had a cliffhanger that led straight into this one, so I wanted to read it really bad. Too bad it didn't live up to my expectations...

Okay, so a 16-and-a-half year old may most likely have outgrown this kind of thing already, but to prove the opposite, I had read the first 6 (7 was missing from the daycare bookshelf) over again, and still really enjoyed them a lot. So what happened here?

Well, maybe it's not me, but the series. The first couple books were surreal, but not TOO surreal. This 8th installment is just a little too bizarre for me, however. Or targeted more at the younger ones (which makes sense, I suppose, but why do that if some older ones were enjoying it too?). The story was also pretty anti-climatic, too, with moments that could've been epic just ending in a matter of moments.

WARNING: ANOTHER DETOUR...

As "Spongebob Squarepants" is on it's 7th season and 10th anniversary, it is now the most overrated show on Nickelodeon. I really liked the first three seasons for the most part, but then the show's creator left along with a number of the original writers, and so seasons 4 and onward have been very different, and, with a few exceptions, not in the good way...

One thing is whenever they come out with a half-hour (20 minutes w/o commercials) special, the whole world stops. Burger King creates an entire TOY LINE for this one episode (they've had a long history with Spongebob), and Nick advertises the living (not-so-good word) out of it.

The connection here? Well, the commercials make the episode seem like it'll be epic, while it's really not (after all, only 20 minutes). One special from season 4, called "Lost in Time", had a scene in the commercial of Spongebob and Patrick being in what looked like an awesome seahorse battle, and with them going on an EPIC quest to save the King's daughter as part of a prophecy.

When the special finally aired, it wasn't like what I expected. The seahorse battle only lasted a matter of 15 seconds (no kidding), and the scenes that should have been epic were totally lame and (*ding!*) anti-climatic.

END DETOUR

In a similar way, I read about how the two boys would be in an alternate universe where everything was backwards. It sounded really cool, but it wasn't used as much as it could've been. Then the boys' pet hamster ends up giant and heading towards the big city, and while it should've been a bit more epic, it lasted pretty short. This was a common trend with most of the "big battles", done in Flip-O-Rama (look that up online). Not to mention at the end, when their GRANDPARENTS end up fighting at the end, due to a comic book the two boys wrote earlier that they read (which happens to become reality, which happened in an earlier book), that's also anti-climatic and kinda dumb.

Overall, not the masterpiece I was expecting. Oh, and the 9th is coming pretty soon (I hope it's the last).

Anyway, that's the end for this rather lenghty post. Thanks for reading!

Mr. Brinkerhoff is off to bed (or is he?)

I'm Home!

...whew...
Boy, this was one heck of a Wednesday-Thursday-Friday! We rode probably around 100 miles total, including 55 in one day, and a lot of THAT was uphill! Well, that's all that we did, thanks for reading!





...








Okay, I guess I could've said more...

So, on Wednesday, I got up at 6-something, hardly got any sleep, probably 4 hrs. Dad drove me to the church (Cindy and I took all my stuff, sans my camel-pak, there the night before), and we were probably out of there around 7:00.

We drove down I-5 to Hwy. 101, to some highway that went across the peninsula, then back onto 101 until we got to Astoria, Oregon.

We stopped at Costco along the way, and I got a hot-dog for $1.50, which just happened to be the only money out of the $80 that I brought with me (crazy, huh?). We stopped again at an empty parking lot just outside of Astoria, empty except for the Whites (family from church). We got out our bikes, and read off "The Ten Commandments of Biking" (biking rules), had a prayer, and we were off for Tillamook (yes, home to Tillamook Cheese Factory), 24 miles away. Keep in mind that my furthest distance in one day is 26.8 miles.

When we FINALLY made it to the factory (picture below this paragraph), we went on a self-guided tour, saw the big operation room (where they make the cheese, not a hospital area), and went through a cheese-sampling line, featuring fresh cheese curds, medium cheddar, sharp cheddar, extra sharp cheddar, colby jack, and pepper jack, all of which were very good. And the last stop: ICE CREAM!




I had a cone of their "Sweet Centennial" flavor (this year is their 100th anniversary), then, feeling guilty about not getting a double scoop, got some Bubble Gum ice cream in a bowl, also good...

xDETOUR WARNINGx

I like SOME interesting flavors of ice cream, like the aforementioned Bubble Gum and Pistachio, but on the list was "White Licorice" ice cream, which turned out to be black licorice flavored. I HATE black licorice, and just to prove I could do it, I ate an entire licorice. It took probably 5 minutes to get through the whole thing. It was THAT bad (to me anyway).

xEND DETOURx

That was the end of our first day of riding, and we packed our bikes in the trailer and went to a campground about 5-10 miles south (we rode on 101 the whole time). We stayed at Camp Lookout State Park for the night, had hot dogs for dinner, and had a fireside on the beach around a campfire. Then we went to bed.

Next morning we had some assorted muffins for breakfast, and then we packed our stuff up, including tents, and were off. Packing was an absolute PAIN for me, and made the mornings pretty rough, but once we got to riding, it was OK.

Our second day of riding was nothing special. We rode from Lincoln City (I think) to South Beach, around 26 miles (my current bike-distance-in-a-day record), and we drove a short distance into the state park there, aptly named "South Beach State Park".

For dinner, we had venison stew (Brother Hathaway, one of the adults who came with us, is a hunter, and he shot the dear himself and made the meat), which I even enjoyed AFTER hearing what it really was (Cindy was grossed out when I told her about it). For dessert we had apple-blueberry cobbler, a la mode, and had another fireside. Beforehand, some of the guys went out to the beach to swim. The only time I've really been able to tolerate ocean water is when I went to Hawaii last spring, but other than that...

Needless to say, I only got up to just above my ankles, and everytime a wave came over them, my legs went completely numb. I decided I was done after that.

Third day (ironic, I know) was the biggest ride of all. We RODE OUR BIKES out of the park, and then kept heading south.

We rode to a small town called Yachats (which pompously called itself "Gem of the Oregon Coast", a title it probably doesn't deserve, but hey, what are ya gonna do?), and had lunch (sandwiches, just like the day before, which had ham and turkey and american cheese, and came with butter or mayo, the former of which I preferred most). Then we rode on...



and on...





and on...







and ON...




We had been running on a "go five miles and meet at a stopping point" plan, but since we left Yachats, we hadn't had any stops, and this had been for nearly half-an-hour. Not only that, but there was uphill after uphill, so much it just got exhausting.

When we FINALLY stopped, Brother Cameron Masters, who had been following us in his truck, and had brought some guys along (they didn't feel like riding through all the uphills, which I can't blame them too much for), said we had ridden 45 MILES.

This already broke my record of most-miles-in-a-day, but we still had a long way to go. Our next checkpoint was in Florence, 5 miles off. We made it, then we had to go even FURTHER.

(side note: Ben Betteridge, a guy in my young men's group, got a flat tire TWICE on the stretch between this stopping point and our destination. He got there 10 minutes after we did.)

According to Google Maps, which I've been using to calculate distances this entire time, it was 5 miles more from Florence to Honeyman State Park, where we stayed for our final night. In the end, it was 55 MILES of riding. That was over twice as much as my original record. And believe me, I had NO interest in riding my bike anymore by the time we reached our campground. The guys who rode with Brother Masters, however, did.

For dinner, we had spaghetti, and after that, I just got right into my sleeping bag to relax for a little bit. I saw a really tasty-looking chocolate cake and chocolate cupcakes in the back of one of the trucks, and I wanted to be awake for dessert.

Too bad.

I must have hit the wall HARD that night, because next thing I knew, I found myself inside the tent, with other guys around me sleeping, and it was early in the morning. Drat, so much for my plan. Apparently the guys ate the sweets, AND also had milkshakes. However, one of them said it was a good idea to go right to sleep after the huge ride yesterday, and a couple of other guys ended up missing it too for the same reason.

We got all set to go, and took off on our 6-hour trek back up to Tacoma, and if Ben didn't have his iPod handy (like I've said before, I live for music), I would've been just about bored out of my mind the whole trip. Oh, and we stopped for burgers on the way up.

We pulled into the church parking lot around 6:40, and everyone's parents were there waiting for us. I put my stuff in the trunk, and drove home with Dad.

I had gotten some fancy bike stuff before the ride (thanks, Cindy!) at REI and Big 5. I got a biking shirt and shorts, and some bike gloves. I lost the bike gloves, but if I managed to get through the aforementioned 55 miles without them, I don't think there's anything to worry about...

Oh, and I brought sunscreen too, but I didn't do such a great job with putting it on, as confirmed by the following pictures:

Picture number 3 shows the interesting burnline I got from wearing my bike shorts. A few of the guys called me "The Pill", because my leg was one color on one side, a different color on the other, and it apparently looked like a pill...

That was my excellent trek, and now I think I should take a shower...

Andrew Brinkerhoff, ULTRA-professional bike rider, OUT!!!!!!!

It's Finally Here!!!

Oh, and look, it's my 40th post!

Tomorrow, I'm off to Astoria, Oregon to begin the 2009 Soundview Ward Oregon Coast Bike Trip! I'll be waking up at 6:30 AM tomorrow, but I think that's a small price for what I'll be experiencing for the next 3 days (I get home on Saturday).

I'll make sure to get into all the details when I get back, and I might need to do two posts again (boy, it's been a busy couple of weeks!)...

Oh, and I just thought to put this up as a TUESDAY FUNNY:

Q. How do rednecks tell the weather?

A...

^ Genius ^-^

Andrew Brinkerhoff, professional teenage bike-rider, OUT!!!

What a "Weekend"!: Part Deux

Okay, where was I?

Oh, yeah, so I got totally whooped on the innertube, yet on the other hand, Tyler was totally impressed with how I managed to hold on the whole time (actually, so was I).

Ellysa got to drive the Wave Runner for the first time, so I got a ride with her (I'm planning on learning to drive one next time we're there), and then I headed inside for the final time.

Later that night, Richard and my Dad set up a projector and DVD player, along with a projection screen, and all of us grabbed some chairs, and we watched "Toy Story 2". I still have a hard time getting the "Woody's Roundup" theme song out of my head...

Next morning, me and Ellysa were woken up early to leave with G'ma and G'pa, as they had to go out and start their big trek across the country. Ellysa had to work at the Fircrest Pool, I had another practice bike ride that was presumably going to be on Anderson Island, which I was really excited about...

Well, I was slightly disappointed to learn that we wouldn't be doing that, as only 3 of us showed up, so instead we went up to Pt. Defiance again, riding this time, and didn't take the whole five-mile loop, but still rode around a little. But then we went back south and headed across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (which I had crossed back over just hours ago, coming home), and back. So, Anderson Island or not, it was still a fun ride.

A couple hours after getting home, I was picked up by my step dad Dave on the motorcycle (see here for more details) to go to my cousin Haylee's going-away party in Covington (my Uncle Ian's, Haylee's biological dad, house). Haylee's biological mom and her new husband moved to Texas and she was just visiting and she's heading home this Wednesday (day of my bike ride, what a coincidence!). I then got taken home by Mom later that night.

This morning, we were going to Aunt Linda's local church for her son and my cousin Nathan's homecoming (he was in Germany for two years on a mission). Along with his talk, Kaylee and my cousin Kevin sang a duet of "A Believer's Prayer". While I was nervous about going to a church where I hardly knew anyone, I actually hooked up with one of the priests in Sunday School, and the lessons we learned in both that and priesthood (in Sunday School we learned about Zion's Camp, and in Priesthood about forgiveness, story of Joseph) were great, too.

We then went back to Aunt Linda's house for lunch, where we had ham, rolls, fruit salad (courtesy of Uncle Richard, who had come to church with us that morning as well), veggies, and for dessert, BROWNIES, complete with "shell" fudge sauce and vanilla ice cream, the same huge "Cash-n-Carry" container we had out at the lake. Then we came home and did nothing in particular, up until I decided to write a post about my weekend, and... well, here we are.

So that was my action-packed weekend, how was yours?

Andrew Brinkerhoff, signing on.





...






(oops, I meant "off", sorry...)

What a "Weekend"!

The second half of the previous week was really fun...

Cindy's parents, Grandma Jeanie and Grandpa Joe, came over for a couple of days, and came with us on our trip to Uncle Richard's...

Oh, but I'm forgetting something. I have a big bike tour from Astoria to Portland, Oregon from July 22-25 with my Young Men's group at church, so we've been taking some practice rides. On Wednesday, we drove up to Point Defiance, and did the entire five-mile loop around the point. It was a darn good workout, and I was even closer to being all set for the big ride a week from then...

The next day, we packed up and drove out to Uncle Richard's cabin on Mason Lake, along with Zoe Ferguson, one of Cindy's daycare kids who was hanging out with us all week. Richard wasn't there at first, he was working. No worries, though, even without the Wave Runners (you may know them as Jet-Skis) and the boat/big innertube, we had fun just swimming with the smaller innertubes and inflatable sharks. The sharks themselves worked like (word deleted), but Ellysa, who was out taking pictures of us with my Dad's fancy camera, got a great shot of me with it:

(currently my Facebook profile picture, BTW, and yes, I DO have hairy armpits)

Then Uncle Richard and Aunt Dorothy came out later that afternoon, and we got to do a little Wave Running.

We also had a family who used to go to our church but now live somewhere outside of Belfair, the Bullocks, come over, and all of us had a grand old time.

Kaylee, Zoe, Tyler, and I sat down to watch "Get Smart" (Kaylee's 3rd favorite movie, behind "Twilight" and "Enchanted"), but everyone but me fell fast asleep about 30 minutes in, so I just watched the rest alone, and got to bed at 1:15 PM...

...yet I was the second one out of bed in our cabin the next morning (nothing unusual for me). I was out in the water before anyone else, and Ellysa got some more pictures. Here's what she got of me:


BUOY BOY!!! (ACTION SHOT)

ME WITH A PINK INNERTUBE (ELLYSA'S REQUEST, ALSO COULD'VE BEEN FACEBOOK PIC)

JUMPING WITH SAID PINK INNERTUBE!

DOING THE MOONWALK... ON WATER!!!

Jonathan Bullock brought his own Jet-Ski out, along with a 180-in. innertube, which apparently goes extremely fast. Needless to say, Kaylee went on it multiple times with Zoe/one of the Bullock kids/Tyler.

I went on the innertube attached to Richard's boat with Tyler and... wow. I didn't fall off once, but my entire body slipped off the innertube at one point, getting me sprayed with a giant jet of water, and my swim trunks almost fell off, meaning I could've mooned someone (if they could notice it while we were going 60 mph). Yikes.

Wow, this post is getting kinda long; I think I'll end this here and continue on a new post...

Hacked Mario Level Makes Music...

This is the most genius thing I've ever seen. This was made by a japanese person who made his own Super Mario World (for SNES) level that, with each action, adds SFX to the track already in the bg. You won't have to watch the whole thing to see how awesome this is (yes, WAY ahead of "Bambi Meets Godzilla")...



Mr. Brinkerhoff, signing off.

Quick 4th of July Recap

Boy, it's been nearly 3 weeks since I last posted...

Well, I had to say that last Saturday was a lot of fun. Maybe we didn't have the now-legendary "Quaker Oatmeal Bomb", or maybe THREE-HUNDRED-EIGHTY-EIGHT sparklers taped together lit off at once, but no biggie.

It all started in the morning with a special church activity. The first part of it was the "Freedom Walk", a big walk from somewhere a ways back from our church to... our church. We all slept in (except Dad) late, so we missed it. Kind of a bummer, since I wanted to go, but that slight disappointment was cleared up with the second part of the activity: breakfast.

We had 3 wards together for the french toast extravaganza, and I got to see some of my friends from seminary last year (most of the students in my seminary class weren't in my ward), and even got to help flip some of the french toast sitting on the grill!

One thing, though: I was sitting with a friend from seminary, and got up to go say hi to someone else, and when I returned, my plate was gone. Apparently her parents thought I was done and dumped it. I didn't really stuff my face at this breakfast but oh well...

Afterwards, we went up to my Aunt Linda's for the day. My cousin Nathan had returned home either that day or the day before (I can't remember), and it was good to see him again. Me, my other cousin Kevin, Nathan, and Tyler went out on the trampoline and did a bunch of crazy stuff. I managed to even jump right off the trampoline onto the ground! (yes, I did it on purpose; no, I didn't get hurt, even with bare feet). For lunch, we had burgers, chicken burgers, and garden burgers (I had chicken), and shortly after that we went outside to blow up some cans (as previously mentioned on my Dad's blog, and in last week's "Rodney and Jim" strip)!

After Nathan showed me pictures from his mission (he was in Germany), and I showed him my book "The Adventures of Secret Agent Stick" on Facebook, we went to the main event: Uncle Richard's.

It's pretty much become a family tradition to celebrate the 4th at Uncle Richard's cabin at Mason Lake, but due to reasons I'm choosing not to elaborate here, we were doing it at his "normal house" in Normandy Park, apparently the only place where it's legal to light off real fireworks (sorry, blowing up cans doesn't count...).

We had a bunch of barbecued stuff for dinner: ribs, coconut chicken, etc., and an entire cooler of soda. For a while, people were playing badminton and some other game where you toss two balls connected by a rope onto a rack of three poles, and tried to score points for doing so. Then, when it FINALLY got dark, we got to the fun...

We had the typical roman candles, one-shot mortars, quick-firecrackers (these insane firecrackers that explode a second after lit, and the braver boys were lighting them in their hands and throwing them as fast as possible), and so on. But among the big "boxes" of mortars, there was a BIG one that was called "BRUNO" (yes, I know it's ironic that there's a Sacha Baron Cohen film of the same name coming out in a couple of days) that would be lit off last. For the whole night we were all speaking in fake German/Russian accents talking about "BBBBBBRRRUNO!".

As I didn't want to go the whole 4th of July without lighting anything, I decided I would take the opportunity with a one-shot. Considering it was being done with a cigarette lighter, I had to get in close, which didn't end well: when the fuse sparked as I lit it, it hit my thumb, which pretty much hurt for the rest of the night. Ouuuuuuuuuuuuch...

In the middle of the big display, we were treated to some homemade ice cream. We got Vanilla flavor, we got Chocolate flavor, we got... ROSE FLAVOR?

Yep, Uncle Richard actually made rose-flavored ice cream. Now, for someone who likes pistachio ice cream, this isn't as crazy to me as it may sound to you, but I was a little apprehensive. But I tried some anyway...

Actually, it wasn't bad. If you've ever had musk candy (found primarily in Australia, where one of my Dad's friends lives), it sorta tasted like that. Oh, and for the record, I like musk candy too, even though almost anyone else in family who's tried it claimed it tasted like perfume, which is not far off from the truth, but... oops, gotta get back on subject.

We finally lit off "BRUNO", and after waiting with bated breath, we were treated to some of the most awesome fireworks ever. Each mortar exploded into at least 5 smaller fireballs, which all fizzled after a few seconds. Now those were something to look at!

Finally, we got in the car, and even though it was like 10-something at night, I wasn't the least bit tired. We had to drop off Tyler at his mom's on our way home, so we did, but we got there earlier than we said we would, so we had to wait. I had my head on the window during most of the drive, which made me a LOT more tired. I planned on taking a shower that night, but by the time we got home, I was so incredibly tired I could hardly think, so... no shower.

That was the 4th of July for me, and I'm glad I enjoyed it.

Happy Birthday, America!!! Andrew Brinkerhoff, OUT!