Eric Kaplanek, My Cousin

Eric Kaplanek is as incompetent as a young child. Every time he comes out of the bathroom, there is what else but a 1/3 of a roll of toilet paper stuck to his heels. Every time. Did I mention he works as a waiter at The Chancery? You know that one employee with the untidy hair and untucked shirt? That’s him, constantly getting customers’ orders wrong, spilling food and drinks on the carpeting, tables, and even customer’s heads. It’s just an average day for him.

 And then there was that one time, when he was shoveling snow, he put all that he shoveled on the road! Being so silly, can’t Eric Kaplanek do anything right?

Every time he does something he knows he shouldn’t have he yells “Doh!”, but with a much quirkier voice, as if Homer Simpson were an Oompa-Loompa.

A Minecraft Story, Part II: A World Of Danger

     With my back against the door, I waited and thought. I had injuries that would be considered near-fatal, but somehow they didn't bleed or even hurt at all. I peered through the door and saw the spider that could have killed me. It was big for a spider and had glowing red eyes that were fixed right on my door as it continued to jump and screech with anger.
     Turning around to my workbench, without thinking I put two planks on a stick and in moments made a wooden sword. With a hit towards the door it immediately swung open and invited the spider. It took a few slashes, but he curled over and withered away, and dropped two flat pieces of string. I collected these,  and before I could wonder what these would be good for, I heard another noise. It sounded something like "bbrains...."  and gargling sounds from only I could imagine. A blocky world with skeleton archers, spiders, and zombies? It seems either insanity is sinking in, or I need to figure out how to get out of this nightmare.
     While putting 7 sticks in an "H" formation and creating two ladders, I decided to dig into the ground to see what kind of ore I could use to survive. I dug with my shovel, then with my pickaxe when I hit stone. I discovered iron ore, a peach colored mineral that I had to upgrade to stone to collect. I used 8 of the stone I collected to make a furnace, and used coal to smelt the iron ore cubes I obtained.
     Because of my strange super powers, It was apparent I didn't need to heat rock to extreme temperatures to create a sword, I could make one with my bare hands! Burrowing more of my mineshaft, I reached a cavern, and when I put a torch in the dark abyss I saw something terribly strange. Half in the darkness there was a green creature with four tentacle-like legs, and on its face was a wide-eyed look of pure horror. Its look was suddenly fixed on me as it started charging forward. I turned around and ran, but was too slow. With a hissing sound, there was an explosion and all I saw was nothing but red and spinning.... spinning..
     With a sudden intake of breath, I found myself standing on sand with a pool of still water right beside me. The same place I awoke less than two days before. It appears every time I'm killed I appear at this spot. Interesting...
     On my way back to the shelter, I noticed two things: there were no zombies, skeletons, spiders, or those weird green things around at all, and they seem to have been replaced with farm animals. I saw a herd of cows, and I became intimidated. "Are they friendly?" I thought timidly. But my fears seemed unnecessary as the cows just looked at me, then continued to meander and occasionally moo. I utilized my punching abilities to see what would happen. It yelped in pain, then continued as if nothing happened. I then started to punch the cow until it keeled over and disappeared, and in its place were two flat pieces of leather hide. Continuing past the rest of the cows, I noticed a herd of pigs, and I proceeded to kill them to obtain porkchops.
     When I found my wooden house, curiosity got the best of me as I climbed down the ladder to the cavern where I was killed. I found that my corpse seemed to have disappeared, and there was a sizable crater that opened up the cavern to another entrance. All of my items were scattered across the stone floor and the crater that the creeper created.
 To be continued....

Informative Writers Magazine is Informative



Hey, look! I'm reading!

     As my next assignment looms, I just won't do it. I am too caught up in Writers Magazine, with their instructions on how to market your self-published book. Of course I do aspire to be a writer, or have some kind of writing related career. I always thought it would be interesting to write a book, perhaps a life story.
     This article is a short and sweet page that outlines 10 pieces of advice relating to books and how to publish them. one of these is to try to arrange interviews with radio and television stations. Now, this is where I went "Woah woah, how can I, some average loser, gain enough attention to be on the radio with a book?" Surely it would probably seem sadistic to have a life story, but getting enough attention would be difficult. I'm just not writing not those Soup For The Soul or other ridiculous self-help guides. Hey, paper! Yeah you! You live your life, and I'll live mine.
     It also advises it's readers to use social networking sites such as Facebook and Youtube to publicize my work. My reaction to this would be a resounding YES! I've got a good 300 friends on Facebook from all over Wisconsin. All those people spreading my work to other schools and such, this would be beneficial. I could also use like pages and other things to connect to people from other parts of the country. After all, who doesn't like spam? Everyone needs it once in a while.
Feel free to comment, and I will continue the story of our miner, Steve, and the blocky world he is trapped in. Where is he? What exploded behind him? Will he survive this strange place? Stay tuned.

A Minecraft Story, Part I: The First Night

I woke up on a sandy beach with a pool of still water by my side. I felt dazed, then realized the scenery started to look very strange. Everything seems to be made of cubes, and I can't seem to remember how I got here.
     My experiences are even more strange, as it appears I have gained superhuman abilities. I started to punch a tree, and I found that within seconds I had a log in my pocket. Well, a cube of log, I suppose. The only thing is, my pocket is invisible, and my wood is now flat. I proceeded to punch down the rest of the tree and the next. I found that I could make 4 wooden planks out of one log, and I could put those planks in a square and create a handy workbench. I wasn't exactly sure how I was doing all of this.
     I put two planks on top of one another, and made 4 sticks. Using my creativity, I went to my new workbench and created a shovel, a pickaxe, and an axe using these sticks and my planks. These tools could only do what I could do, but slightly faster. Also, I found my invisible pocket can hold 36 items, and can somehow carry 64 of each of these items. If you are confused about this, just imagine how I felt when I found I can hold up to 2,304 items and not sink to the ground under all that weight!
     I decided to explore this strange world a bit more, and what I found was just breathtaking. Before me there were floating islands with trees and giant hills with waterfalls that infinitely ran down to a small pool of still water. I was struck with awe, and therefore didn't question the blatant disregard for physics and logic. As the sun was setting, I went under one of these cliffs and found that some of the rock had bits of coal in it. I used my pickaxe, and gathered coal as the stone around it simply disappeared. As soon as I was done, I placed the rest of my planks to create a small shelter. As I went briefly went outside to add a door, I heard a hissing noise. I ignored this for a second, then BOOM! I was thrown to the ground and suffered severe injuries. For some reason I wasn't bleeding at all, but it was clear I could die if anything more happened. I turned around, and found that there was a large crater behind me. "Who could have done this?", I thought. Is someone playing tricks on me, and decided to set TNT behind my back? I looked around, but couldn't see much through the darkness of the trees.
   Suddenly, I got hit with an arrow! I turned around, and there was what appeared to be a human skeleton. Although he had no face, I could tell his intention was murder as he drew another arrow from his quiver. In my terror, I screamed and ran for the door. I turned around to get inside, and I saw a huge black spider on top of my roof! He screeched with anger and jumped towards me. I ran towards the door and was just able to close it before he pounced, ready to attack.
     It was now clear that the outside is not safe at night. I must do what I can to survive.

Evoking a response



They're adorable, until you give them a hug.

 If you don't know already, I really don't like games such as Call of Duty, and other First person shooters. However, I did like Goldeneye for the N64, but that's about it. Of course, I now enjoy Minecraft, an innocent building game without a specific point. No mindless killing, and even though there are monsters, killing them is only about survival.
First and foremost, I think COD, and similar shooting games have a very crappy fan base, and overall concept. Every nose-picking 12 year old whom loves guns to the high school douche bag to the 30 year old who lives with their mother LOVE these games and pick at them like a scab. That is, until the next game in a "series" comes out a year later, and everyone jumps on that bandwagon.
Also, it kind of sucks to play a game that you eventually get extremely angry at. I've actually seen these people, it's unhealthy. Crying, screaming, cussing, damaging your own controllers, etc. is not a way to play a game that you like, and if you really get that upset about a game where killing is okay, you should really stop playing the game! Such a HUGE concept, I know!

Also, you should invest in some Pampers because you are a BABY.

Compose Time!

Hi, I'm Alex Pilmore, and this is the initial post of my blog: Composing Slowly.

The overall purpose of this blog is not only for the grade, but to vent or talk about things that are interesting.

"Why slowly?", you may ask? There are two reasons.



Isn't he cute?



1. Last summer, my job consisted of crazy people, and as they started seeing strange things and comparing co-workers to pokemon, they compared me to the Pokemon Slowpoke.

I originally saw this as an insult, thinking they were attacking my intelligence. But after several hours of deep thought and careful self-research, I came to a startling conclusion. They were absolutely right! I really do look like the a Slowpoke, talk like a Slowpoke, and (sometimes) act like a Slowpoke. So I must be a Slowpoke..... right?

2. Since we have a conclusion that I am a "Slowpoke", I am definitely slow at writing and get very self-distracted. Who's fault is that? Mine. Does it matter to me? Not particularly.
Even at this very moment I am listening to music that I would advise small children not to listen to, switching from editing this post to Facebook to biting myself from playing Minecraft. You can see how this would make it hard to type?

Well, actually, not this time. But we shall see, we shall see.

The Beautiful.

I am expecting this to be rather enjoyable, with that said, let us commence! All for America!