Turn up the bass!

Yesterday was the Black Bass Fishing Tourney in Alleria.
I wasn't sure I was going to participate since I've already got my trophies. Why be a show-off? Why not give somebody else a chance?
So I started off casually fishing, not worrying about being in first place. Until I ran into Snake.

Excuse me?
What's with the attitude, buddy?
So I started getting a little competitive. "That Snake, he needs to be put in his place", I thought. I know he's a jock and he thrives on competition but that was just rude!
With each of us going back and forth it turned into a war. A trash talking war.

I was pulling black bass out of the water left and right. Running back and forth, turning in new fish trying to beat my own record of 22.0 inches. Then Blaire came out of nowhere and did me one better, literally. 22.1 inches. Gah! That's just wrong!
I ran into Snake once again.

As the sun slowly started sliding down, Snake was starting to lose his temper. He hadn't beaten any records! I started to wonder if he was actually catching anything. Was Snake all talk? Was he trying to boost his confidence and luck by talking smack to me? It wasn't long before I overheard him talking to himself.

Ohhh boy. What a cheater....er, what an idiot. Chumming the water? Are you serious?
That's about the time that I wrote Snake off. He's no competition. He's my buddy but he's definitely not the brightest bulb in the world.
Snake and Blaire weren't the only other ones participating in this tourney. Antonio tried his best also.

Oh yeah Antonio? Kind of like this?

I rule.
Honestly, Antonio didn't have much of a chance. That was pretty evident when he let me in on a little tip.

Poor guy.
Even Marcel tried to get into the spirit of competition.

Marcel was nowhere near the river. I tried giving him a push towards the right direction but he just ended up getting mad at me. Darn you Chrissy! I still love you, Marcel.
After all the trash talking, cheating, and general spirit of competition, I won.

And with that, I'm thinking I should probably retire from the rigorous Alleria Fishing Tourneys. Maybe give Snake a glimmer of hope.

But the fishing tourney wasn't the only thing happening yesterday. I was able to also catch a few things I've been looking high and low for.

Since the only time I do a lot of river fishing is during the specific fish fishing tourneys, I found that the catfish is actually located in the river. You see, my guide says 'pond' and I assumed that to be the little bodies of water scattered throughout town. No. Those are 'holding ponds'. The pond the guide is referring to is the areas in the river that are wider. So, now that that is cleared up I caught quite a few of those feline fishies.
The next one was something I've been actively looking for in the river.

I'm glad that the fishing tourney forces me to stay looking on the river. Even though every time I passed the river I would keep my eyes peeled for the 'goldfish shadow', it wasn't until yesterday that I managed to snatch one up.
And finally! The most exciting catch for me.

FINALLY. This little camouflaged insect has been tricking me for quite some time now. I know he hides on white flowers but every time I would let my guard down and move quickly around areas I knew had white flowers planted, one would inevitably be hiding and would fly off before I noticed. I spent a lot of time sneaking around, trying to spot one of these boogers. Yesterday, I just happened to be moving along at a quick pace and stopped in my tracks when I saw him. I'm glad the search is finally over. Can you spot which one he's on?

When I skipped over to the museum to hand him over to Blathers, he explained how disgusting it is when you pick up a flower and accidentally touch the underside of the mantis's belly.

Oh. My. God. Blathers has some underlying issues with bugs that are worse off than I thought. Whenever you hand over a bug he always freaks out but this was the worst reaction I've seen. He needs some help with that. I tried comforting him all to no avail. Poor guy.

After all the excitement of catching fish and bugs, I decided to pay a visit to the poor creatures to whom I've served a life sentence to in the Alleria museum.

Stuck in overcrowded tanks, this is what they will see for the rest of their lives. Sorry, water friends.

I snuck off to the city to see if anything interesting was going on.

It was raining so I guess the storm front that was hanging over Alleria the past week has moved onwards. Since there wasn't any watering done yesterday, I'll see if the rumor is true. Supposedly if it's dry in town and raining in the city when you visit, all your watering will have magically been done. I guess I'll find out today.

Coelacanth Hunting

I went fishing late tonight (technically, last night) and spotted two coelacanths. The first one I missed. But the second one I caught easily. I kind of feel foolish now that I've caught two and seen another. Why didn't I try later at night? Well, I guess I have an excuse. It hasn't rained this much in Alleria, usually it's over in an hour or two. This rain has lasted three or four days. Also, I get up at 4:30AM for work so I don't play very late. Hurrah for the weekend!
Okay. I thought I ended up with better pictures but I was kind of disappointed in them. For anybody out there that has trouble finding that elusive coelacanth or hasn't seen a fish larger than the sea bass, here is the difference:


Sea Bass




Yes, a coelacanth!

This guide has better pictures than mine. Very handy.


I forgot to mention that I've had the basement for about a week now. Obviously haven't done anything with it until today when I moved the tuna down and put the new coelacanth beside it. I'm thinking I'll move the upstairs Mario room down. That room is a mess, it's actually embarrassing. It's been model room of the month because of the feng shui. I hope it's not appearing in anybody else's town. If it is, my sincerest apologies for that terrible disaster.

Had another hybrid today.

Yes! A blue pansy I grew myself. I guess my white pansy parade paid off and not in the way I was hoping. I had actually planted those in hopes of spotting a orchid mantis. I still chase those damn bugs away. But hey, I'll take a blue pansy any day!

My good buddy Snake decided to come up with a new, not-so-flattering nickname for me.


Because we're pals, I agreed. Hopefully it will fade away. Either that or I grow fond of it.

And what is it with my crankier neighbors getting the itch to move away? First Static and then today Avery approached with the big news:

I just couldn't deal with my friends leaving me. What would happen? Another duck would move in, that's what. And I'm just not prepared for Duck-apocalypse 2009. Or another round of the bird flu.
Luckily I didn't have to convince Avery at all. I just stated, "Don't go" and he quickly changed his mind.


Maybe he was just looking for some extra attention.

Now that Static has recovered from his moving 'bug', he's back to his good old sarcastic self:

Ahhh, that's the Static I know and love.

Ever wonder why Blaire never gets spoken about? No? Well, she is still in town it's just that she seems to be a house hermit. She stays inside alot and repeats the same thing over and over.

I go over for semi-daily visits but it's a bit awkward. I'm not sure she realizes that all we talk about are the 'special visitors' of Alleria and what I notice when I walk into her house. Oh well.
She's a bit nutty.
(I know. Terrible pun.)
Anyway.
Tomorrow...er, later this morning is the fishing tourney. I'm not too concerned about winning since I have both the silver and gold trophies but I will certainly participate. It's a good way to earn some money.

Duck Hunt

It's been pretty quiet in Alleria.
Most of us have been enjoying the endless sunshine and pretty spring flowers...not really doing a whole lot.

Static, Avery, and I played train for a bit.
And we've all had an endless amount of inane conversations.



Marcel does seem to have the most. I love him, though.
As expected, Winnie moved on to bigger and better things.

I do kind of miss her now. Especially since somebody new moved into her old spot.

Ugh. Yes, Pompom, we do.
Pompom. Another duck. That brings Alleria a total of 3 ducks: Miranda, Deena, and now Pompom. That also brings Alleria a total of 2 ducks too many.
Miranda was here originally, Deena moved in not too long ago....I believe that gives Miranda first dibs on land. I officially declare it Duck Season in Alleria. But please, if you must take a duck, I ask that you do it humanely. We're all about animal rights around here.
Other than the duck overpopulation, the only other thing of note going on is the Able Sister Drama. Yes, that whole story has finally started to unravel in Alleria.

Label?

Ohhh, Labelle.
Yawn.
Before Pompom moved in, I re-started my campaign to convince Gaston to move to Alleria.

He mostly ignored me when I stopped him in the square at the city. So I took to disguising myself in the hopes he would mistake me for a friend.

I guess it didn't work so well....

I even offered him a balloon!
(One day, Phineas and I were a matching pair!)

And I guess that the word got around that I was recruiting a new Allerian. When I ran into an old pal, Vladimir, I suggested he pack up and move on over. He wasn't very receptive either.

Meh.
After getting ran out of the city, I retired to stalking the neighbors of Alleria.

BUBBLE ATTACK!

What can I say? I live in a town with 10 animals. I think it would drive anybody a little crazy.
And today was the Fishing Tourney. Largest fish wins the purty gold trophy.

Wiiiiiiiinnnnaaaaaa.
Tomorrow is Bunny Day. I'm looking forward to tearing up all my beautiful grass looking for foil for a bunny who will exchange it for egg-shaped furniture. Hurrah.

Perfection

Greetings from Alleria.

The past week has been another busy one in town. Wendell stopped by and supplied us with a horizontal path.

Sometime soon I'll spend some time editing the two paths Wendell has bestowed upon me and I'll lay a nicer path in our quaint little village. When I have the time...

Oh! Great News. Astrid moved!


Erm, obviously I couldn't contain myself. So long Astrid! Woo!

Last weeks fishing tourney was a huge success.

Crucian Carp was the name of the game and my 13.8 incher snagged the trophy.
I didn't have any competition because my record stayed all day...I think I beat my own records three different times. I even had my own cheering squad in Antonio.

He even lent me his secret:

Focusing on the one type of fish helped me concentrate solely on the river. I tend to head towards the ocean for recreational fishing so I was able to catch two fish I hadn't snagged for the museum yet.



After the fishing marathon, I had to stock up for the flea market the next day. I didn't get a whole lot of good fish so I was kind of disappointed.
Luckily I was able to head over to Rhonda's and Marcel's to purchase some stringfish that I had sold them at the last flea market. $15,000 each and I was able to sell them for $44,000 and then buy one more AGAIN from a silly neighbor to sell.
*sigh*
I'm ashamed at my dirty capitalist methods but what am I suppose to do? Not pay my mortgage? Oh well.
It seemed like my neighbors were eager to buy my over-priced fish.
Antonio made a particularly loud entrance:

And my good bud Static thought he was going to a party:

After selling a ton of fish and doing my part to make Allerian houses over-loaded with fish, I made a good amount of money. Which of course went directly to Tom Nook.

After a busy weekend imagine my surprise to find this on Monday morning:

Whaaa?! Really?!

Yessssssss~!
So let me take some time to discuss my Perfect Town Strategy.

I don't have one.

Yeah, I know people work their asses off dividing out their towns into perfect plots - counting the squares, planting the exact amount of trees and flowers to insure a fool-proof way to stay in the green for 15 days.
In all my time living in towns with animals, I've always planted trees where it looked like there might be a need for a tree or two. In the wild world of Kradia, I planted my flowers in neat little gardens. Here in Alleria my flower planting strategy has solely been to plant in ugly patches of dirt. Especially where those ugly patches ran into a path I was making.
It doesn't exactly make for a beautiful looking town or a Perfect Town but, hey, it works.
I've never hasseled over making my town perfect. It just happens when it happens. So we'll see how long it keeps up.
As of today it's been almost 7 days. We've got 3 pretty Jacob Ladder's growing cliff side. I'm proud of Alleria and its ruggedness. Hopefully we can hold out for another week.

But hey. I can't brag. We may be perfect but we sure as hell are still clumsy.


ANYWAY.
After Astrid left it wasn't long before we had a new neighbor.

Wait a minute...Blaire? Don't I know you from somewhere? Oh, yes. You're currently living in Kradia. Weird. Two different worlds at once.

And finally! This town finally got some Pikmin love!

I could of easily gotten the hat from those that had received it AGES ago but I held out. And patience rewarded me with a lovely-yet-ugly full headed hat.

That's a tuna. Maybe the hats lucky!

The other day, Winnie came to me with an odd announcement.

Which is cool with me. Do whatever you want, Winnie.
But then the day after that she came up with another announcement.

I guess she feels the fish calling to her. To Mermaid Land.

And that's about all going on this past week in Alleria.
Here's two quips I couldn't pass up sharing.

It's true. I think that's why Astrid left.

When you listen to her blab 7 days a week, you learn to tune out. But this was funny.