Mechanics of the Horn

Of the many posts I've had in mind, I've had the image for this one on a flash drive for several months. Finally removed it, and fixed it up with the addition of some colors this morning.

In case you can't tell what it is, it's a cutaway detail of my OC, Apple Core's, apple launching horn.

I can picture the scene where he explains how he came to have it, along with his cutie mark. The Cutie Mark Crusaders approach him...

Apple Bloom: Uh, Apple Core???

Apple Core: Oh, hello young fillies. What can I do for you???

Scootaloo: Well, we were wondering...

Sweetie Belle: How did you get your cutie mark?

Apple Bloom: And that horn of yours that shoots apples from it... that just doesn't seem natural!!!

Apple Core: Well, it was some time ago... back when I was a young stallion. Me and a couple of other young stallions would hang out at night outside of the 7-11. To this day I don't know what the attraction in doing that was.

Scootaloo: Yeah???

Apple Core: Anyway, one of the other ponies, Larry the Loser, really short, even for a pony, always wore this seedy leather jacket. He told us about the apple core game.

Apple Bloom: The apple core game???

Apple Core: I'll explain that a bit farther along in the story. Anyway, about that time in my life, I also broke my horn.

Sweetie Belle: Ouch! How did that happen???

Apple Core: Why, I'd mistreated it for years. So Foolish. I used to go around sticking it in everything. Stuck it into watermelons -- just for practice. One day, I stuck it into the dirt -- broke the tip off.

Sweetie Belle: Oh, how awful.

Apple Core: Yeah, that really hurt me. [ Sighs ] but that's okay. I made myself a new one.

Scootaloo: You can make new ones???

Apple Core: With a little inventiveness, you can make just about anything. I came up with the idea for one that would screw onto my horn-stub and launch apples, but I needed some way to trigger it.

Apple Bloom: How did you do that???

Apple Core: (Displays a blueprint drawing of his horn prosthetic) I happened upon a lazy bird, Tweeter. We came to a symbiotic agreement, where I supply him with apples, which he eats down to the core, and in return he would handle the cocking, opening and triggering of my horn!!!

Sweetie Belle: Neat-O!!!

Apple Bloom: But what about the apple core game???

Apple Core: OK, this is how it goes, when you've eaten an apple down to the core, you shout out "Apple core!", then one of your crew tries to be the first pony to reply "Baltimore!", then you answer back, "Who's your friend?", and the pony who said Baltimore first gets to name back one of your other friends... and it goes from there... I'll show you how it goes, OK???

Cutie Mark Crusaders, in unison: OK!!!

Apple Core: Apple core!!!

Apple Bloom: Baltimore!!!

Apple Core: Who's your friend???

Apple Bloom: Scootaloo!!!

Apple Core launches an apple core at Scootaloo, and then flies off laughing, "Not no more!!!".

Sweetie Belle: He's kind of a jerk, huh?

Bonus XP Weekend

Last Thursday afternoon the supervisor who does the scheduling comes up to me and asks if I want a middle shift for Friday. "Yea, sure, thanks", I'm usually up for getting out of work an hour 15 minutes earlier than normal, even when it means having to get up earlier, and usually worse traffic too. Then she says, "And you've got Monday off..." Huh??? I do??? Apparently I'd selected it when they were doing the vacation selection at the end of last year, and I was just throwing on random Mondays. Cool.

Saturday and Sunday weren't much different than normal weekend days, although it was wet and rainy most of the first half of the day, and it was pretty cold the rest of the weekend.

I have been doing a little work on the walls in the kitchen, trying to get 'em evened out for fresh paint. Did a bit of sanding on them.

This morning it was bright and sunny, but still chilly. Got the family together and we went up to Mount Baldy!!! It was an awesome day for it!!! Much better than the last two times. The drive out didn't take long at all, and it wasn't crowded.

There was a good amount of snow, around 6 inches most everywhere, and a good 4 inches or so of that was fresh powder. We got to do a bit of sledding, rolled up some snow balls into snowman size balls. A great way to spend the last day of Winter!!!

One of my co-workers had a half day of Friday for his birthday. His wife and him were going to Souplantation. I haven't been there probably more than 20 years, and that got me thinking. On the way home we stopped there.

If you've been following my Twitter feed, you've seen what else I did this weekend. Runescape was having their bonus experience weekend. I did just over 8 hours, racking up about 950,000 experience points. Started off with herblore, which I leveled 3 times, in the first half hour when the bonus factor was 2.7x. Next I did construction for 2 levels. Got 2 levels of agility, and one each in thieving, crafting, fletching, and prayer. Not leveled but heavily trained was smithing, which I did a lot of right after the herblore and construction. Did around 3/4 of the way to the next level, not bad since I'm at 86.

Oh yeah, the first picture is a snow apple core my boy made me!!!