GUSTAFF'S GONE VIRAL

July 13, 2017. I saw that Gustaff's old video that I posted on June 22, 2017 was shared by one of those IG accounts that likes to collect and repost popular pics and videos on their account. I thought, oh that's cool. And then other accounts started doing the same thing. Then Gustaff's video popped on a few other Facebook pages. We started getting DM's from companies that wanted to share the video on their account and other platforms. Some even wanted to buy the license! Vince and I were witnessing the phenomenal power of a video going viral. That's right. GUSTAFF'S GONE VIRAL.

His Instagram follower count shot up that weekend and before we knew it, we already had 1000+ followers. It was unbelievable. We made a video back in May to celebrate on hitting 200+ followers. This week, we made a new video to celebrate on hitting 2000+ followers. And it's still climbing! As of this writing, Gustaff currently has 4540 followers. That number is probably going to increase in the next few weeks because we authorized a few places like Daily Mail, Buzz Feed, UNILAD, Today.com, and other media companies to share his video. They'll edit and release the video based on their schedules.

I mentioned earlier that a few companies offered to buy the license to the video. Vince and I thought about it and we weren't really sure what to do. We thought we could try it out to see how it works. I didn't read any good things about it. I ended up talking to the owner of another popular Corgi, Zero Marie Hussein Corgibutt, who also had a video that went viral a few weeks ago. It was a really interesting conversation about how they handled getting those kinds of offers, how they made some mistakes the first time, not being happy with how some of the media companies handled their video, and not seeing the major profit they were promised. They said ultimately, it all depends on what your end goal is. They decided they were just fine giving back to the Corgi community and not trying to monetize all of their videos. However, they did end up selling the rights to one of their videos to help police it online because it was being shared on a lot of platforms with no credit to them. 

Since this was Gustaff's first video, we decided that we were fine with the video being shared and being non-exclusive to anyone - which is why it's popping up everywhere - but we agreed not to sell the license for it. If we spot someone sharing it without credit, we'll just tell them to link back to his account. I'm not worried about losing money on the video because I wasn't trying to make money in the first place. At the moment, I don't care if those companies are enjoying the million page views they're getting in their revenue. As long as they credit or link back to his instagram account, we're happy.

Gustaff now has a Gmail account so I can field the incoming offers and I'm working on his Facebook page, which I have yet to promote. I've noticed that a lot of popular Instagram pets do a lot of giveaways or contests to get more followers and connect with other popular pets. I don't want to do that unless I'm feeling generous and have money to spare, which I don't. I've actually considered making merch for Gustaff. I jokingly said that I'll start an Etsy store once he hits 5000 followers. I guess I better get started!

I'm sorry, Gustaff :(

Today, Gustaff was officially diagnosed with Giardia. What is Giardia? It's a parasite infection and it's pretty bad for dogs, especially for puppies. How did Gustaff get Giardia? Carelessness. This is what happened.

On Sunday, after Vince's mom flaked on us, we drove around with Gustaff. We decided to stop by and visit Josh and Tanisha since it's been a long while since we last hanged out with each other and they wanted to see Gustaff. They have 2 dogs that are currently staying at their dad's place since Tanisha is taking care of their second child. We hanged out in the backyard, and I was deathly scared for Gustaff to be around there. Josh said the previous owner of their house had a German Shepherd, who used the backyard as his bathroom and the owner didn't really pick up after him. Josh joked that he would find old dog poop showing up once in a while. Gustaff found and ate said piece of old dog poop. We didn't get to him in time and he ate most of it. I was worried, I should've been panicking because Gustaff just ate old buried poop in the dirt, but I thought maybe it won't be that bad. He was eating and drinking normally the rest of the day. And his poop was still solid. It'll pass out of his system. Puppies eat poop. It's normal.

I was fucking wrong.

Tuesday morning, I checked up on him and his crate was full of poop and diarrhea. We had to throw away the crate bed and his toy. Vince gave Gustaff a shower immediately and I wiped and sanitized his crate. We decided right there to take him to our vet, which was unfortunately on the other side of town where we used to live. I took a sample of his poop to bring in and we brought his papers with us since Gustaff is a new patient. Gustaff continued to have diarrhea with streaks of blood in there. We met a new vet, Dr. Wallace, and he prescribed to us 2 Metrodynozale tablets to give to Gustaff. He said he would call us with the results the next morning. That one visit cost us $120+. And Gustaff still had another appointment this weekend for his shots.

I'm seriously devastated for Gustaff. I mean it's easy to blame Josh for not cleaning up his yard of all the old poop but we're also to blame for not stopping Gustaff from eating it. Now Gustaff is sick and we have to monitor him. Vince is working from home again to keep a close eye on him. And I'm waiting for a call from the animal hospital to let us know when his meds are ready to pick up.

I'm so sorry Gustaff. We're gonna help you get better, buddy.

They beat Miz/Maryse, John/Nikki, and Daniel/Brie to advance in this "tournament."

Then again, it's just a Facebook poll.

But still!

LONG UPDATE! NOW WITH CORGI!

That right there is the face of the man I love holding a puppy that he's been wanting to own for over a decade.

Before Vince and I moved into our house and we were still in the early stages of house shopping, Vince did some research and looked into Corgi breeders. We went to a Corgi meetup last year and asked some of the owners for recommendations. He settled with Zion Corgis, located somewhere around Arizona. He filled out an online form and put a down payment to get on the waiting list around August. We were expecting to wait a little longer than the rest because we specified that we wanted a male Corgi, and the litter doesn't always get a lot of male puppies either.

Last week, Vince got an update from the breeder, Lindsey, asking if we wanted to get a male Corgi. The catch is that this Corgi is a little bit more expensive because she originally kept him to be a show dog. However, her other friends deemed him not show ready (I'll get to that in a bit) and she sadly had to release him for the waiting list. Vince and I talked about it and agreed to take the puppy plunge and let her know that we'd be driving over on Saturday morning to pick him up.

It was our first time ever to drive to Arizona and the drive was absolutely boring. There just wasn't a lot of interesting things to see along the way since we're just driving to another desert. Probably the only exciting thing was seeing a motorcyclist's getting flat tire as he was getting off a freeway exit and pulling into a gas station. And the roads had a lot of potholes that were badly covered up. This puppy was our sole reason to endure this trip. Also, seeing a bunch of Corgis running around at a ranch sounds fun too.

We arrived at Lindsey's place, which was huge. We saw she had a lot of crates in the living room with some adult Corgis just chilling in there. One of them just won a show before we arrived. She also had 2 cats, one of them being one of those hairless Mr. Bigglesworth breed, and she had kittens! They're actually pretty cute sans fur! Lindsey then led us to the puppy den that had 2 separate pens. One is for the puppies she's keeping and the other pen is for the puppies she was giving away. She picked up one big puppy and introduced us to Bullseye (her litter was named after Toy Story characters). Vince and I fell instantly in love with him.

She explained to us why she had to give up Bullseye. He didn't stand up straight like the other puppies. His elbows stick out and he walks around like a bulldog. She assured us it's not going to affect him as he gets older and he'll grow out of it. As a puppy being groomed to be a show dog, it's not acceptable. Plus, he had these stray white strands of fur on his mostly black body, and that was another no-no. She said Bullseye was her favorite so she was really sad about giving him up. We paid in cash and she gave us his folder of his information, like his shots and his certificate of pedigree (his parents are champs). She even bought us a crate, an exercise pen, and a puppy bed that we paid extra for, which saves us a trip). I drove the car on the way back so that Vince can comfort Gustaff during the long, now not-so-boring trip back to Vegas.

Vince told his parents about Gustaff and they wanted us to come over. We stopped by at Petco and signed up for a membership here, thanks to Lindsey giving us a Petco coupon book, and bought more things for him. We had to go back home and give him some food and water before we got ready to leave again. We grabbed some food from El Pollo Loco and then drove to his parent's place. His parents love him too! They couldn't stop laughing at how he looked like a stuffed toy. Freddie didn't really care for him at first but after a while they got to to formally introduce each other and sniff each other's butts, with Freddie nearly sitting on Gustaff. After that, we headed back home to play with him some more and set up his crate and pen in one of the spare rooms. Vince's plan is to not let the cats see Gustaff for a while. We want to introduce him slowly and get them used to each other, especially when both of us are not home during the day.

Our first weekend was a bit tiring now that we have a puppy to schedule around. This means Vince and I will be taking lunch breaks to go home and check on Gustaff mid-day to change his sheets and play with him. We have to wake up and sleep early, and the cats know something's up. Unfortunately, Gustaff's training with Lindsey is quickly wearing off so we'll have retrain him in the basic stuff like learning to use the puppy pads, getting used to being in a crate, and being more diligent with clicker training.

Oh! I should probably explain the choice for his name. His full show name (just for kicks) is Gustaff Growlithe Gallifrey the Third. We have seriously planned this name for like 2-3 years. His name is a combination of our nerdy passions:

• "Gustaff" is named after Tron Bonne's robot from Mega Man
• "Growlithe" is from Pokemon
• "Gallifrey" is from Doctor Who
• "the Third" is from Lupin The Third

Even better was seeing the names of his family lineage from the certificate of pedigree. The certificate lists his parents, grandparents, and great grandparents, etc. by their full registration names. Vince told me he spotted "Triple H" somewhere and he was right; from both sides of his family, he had great, great grandparents named "Triple H" followed by a baseball reference. Anyways, we love him so much and we hope we can raise him to be a good pupper.

Update!

Hey! ... I gotta update this more frequently. So random stuff happened since my last post.

• I dyed my hair dark blue for our friend's Halloween party. Vince dressed as Bojack Horseman and I dressed as Diane Nguyen. Since a part of my hair was already lightened, that part of my hair came out bright blue. I kinda like it! Last time I had blue hair was when Vince and I went to the the Comic Con at Mandalay Bay.
  
  
• Later on that week, I hanged out with my coworkers for a late Halloween party. It's been a really long time since I hanged out with them outside of work. Got to see some familiar faces (i.e. the people who don't work at Pololu anymore), drink, played games, and have fun. I brought One Night Ultimate Werewolf and it was just absolutely fun to see everyone open up and debate about who to believe and stuff. I mean, I worked with them for 4 years now, I gotta hang out with them some time.
  
  
• I joined a gym! Fitness 19 is pretty close by to our house so I decided to join there and pay a little extra for 1 guest in case Vince wants to join me. It's pretty weird for me because I feel so intimidated by everyone and I have a bad habit of staring. On a plus side, it's comforting to find a few people that are just casually working out so I'm not alone. The reason I joined was because I was getting annoyed by Vince asking why am I not doing any exercises at home. He has free access to a gym at his work and I don't want to use the gym we have here at my work. Even though one of our rooms has temporarily converted into a gym, I'm not doing any exercises there because I just don't feel like doing it when I get home from work. Vince wouldn't be the shape he is now if he just worked out at home with just 2 sets of dumbbells and an olympic bar and weight set. It really helps to be in a different environment with right equipment to stay motivated.
  
  
• On the pro-wrestling front, I'm fully on Team Smack Down. I may watch some portions of RAW either on TV or with their youtube clips but like I said before, I can't invest 3 hours with the show. Smack Down is just easier to get through. Speaking of which, Ambrose and Styles are going to be headlining TLC (A Smack Down PPV) next month again and it might be the final blow-off to their feud. There's no major title defense match this month. Everything's sort of on hold for now because both brands are gearing up for Survivor Series next Sunday. It's also going to be The Shield's 4 year anniversary since their debut!

Birthday Weekend Recap (9/22/16 - 9/25/16)

Thursday (9/22):

• For my actual birthday, we treated it like a regular day. Go to work and then go home.
• Earlier in the week, Vince bought 2 new dresses at EVER and a necklace at Old Navy at Town Square for me to wear for my birthday weekend.

Friday (9/23):

• Met with my Auntie Auring, Auntie Francine, Uncle Bobbit, my mom and my dad at Buffet@Asia for dinner.
• WE ARE NEVER EATING THERE AGAIN. That was suppose to be the nicest location with the better food quality over the other Buffet@Asia locations and it was just horrible. The food was blah. The food stations were poorly maintained, and they even had plastic plates and bowls out.
• My auntie Auring got the staff to surprise/embarrass me with a plate full of crappy coconut cake squares with a lit candle as the 2 waitresses sang to me. I got an envelope from my auntie with cash in it.
• After that, the clan all left for The Cannery to find a club to dance in. Vince and I went to Lowe's.

Saturday (9/24):

• We went to Vince's parent's place to drop off the truck early in the morning and it turned into home improvement day.
• Their washer was leaking so Vince had to help his dad. Then we went to Ferguson to buy shower faucet stuff, then to Floor & Deco to return stuff, then to Home Depot, and to Lowe's again. By the time we got home, it was 2:30. We had a short break to get ready before the 4 pm dinner at Gen.
• Aside from Josh, everyone was freaking late. Christine and Michael had trouble finding the place. Joel and Pam ran late (as usual), and Andrew and Joanne couldn't leave until their house viewing was done. We didn't eat til after 4:30 pm. Still, we all had fun and ate heartily for 2 hours. It's a good thing I brought cash because I covered Josh, Joel and Pam who forgot to bring cash.
• After dinner, Tanisha and her daughter Nix met up with us at our house and we had an official housewarming after dinner. We all just gathered around to talk and stuff.

Sunday (9/25):

• Went to Smith's to do some grocery shopping before heading to the Lion Habitat Ranch. I paid extra for the hand feeding for any lion.
• Awesome little side note: I was wearing my Dirty Deeds shirt and one of the staff members recognized it. He came up to us and talked to us and said that Dean Ambrose was here last year. He wasn't sure if it was him but the Tapout logo on his shorts gave it away and he took a picture with him. He said he just showed up out of the blue and no one else recognized Dean besides him. He also said he was there with his girlfriend who does Talking Smack (Renee!), and they wanted to see the cubs. He also mentioned Ryback and other local celebrities like David Copperfield and Britney Spears stopping by too. But he kept going on and on about how weird it was to see him show up out of nowhere, so it sounds like he made this guy's day :D
• I had to wait a bit for the trainer to get the food ready for the hand feeding. One of the staff members suggested picking Jesse, who's one of the male lions who makes a lot of growling sounds when he's hungry (that sounds nice). While we were waiting, one of the other lions in the cage turned around and pissed right at the crowd. One couple who actually got peed on practically shoved Vince out of the way.
• Vince has a video of me feeding raw meat balls to Jesse through through a plexiglass barrier. It was pretty scary to be that close to a full-grown lion O_O
• Went home to make some Spicy Coconut Chicken curry and watched Clash of Champions. To be honest, I thought the overall PPV was decent. The matches were great but I didn't agree on most of the matches' endings and shenanigans. New Day retained using Fracesca. Sheamus vs Cesaro's final best of 7 match ended in a ref stoppage after a pretty long and grueling match (both guys came out great btw), Reigns defeats Rusev to become the US Champion. And Owens retains thanks to Jericho and Stephanie sending out a second ref at the last minute to distract Rollins. Owens freaking won but the focus was on Rollins vs Stephanie. It honestly felt like RAW on Sunday. One major positive was seeing TJ Perkins' official PPV debut with an awesome new theme song.
  
  

What to expect for Monday Night RAW & Smack Down Live!:

Going to be honest here, I've actually stopped watching RAW a few weeks ago. I'll watch a few matches based on the east coast results but I'm not investing myself to watch from 8pm - 11 pm anymore. Conversely, I've been watching all of Smack Down and watching the wrap-up show, Talking Smack. So considering that I just described Clash of Champions as another episode of RAW, I can't bring myself to watch it live tonight. I'm bias but I'm more eager for Smack Down and their next PPV, No Mercy, since it has a better build.

Update!

Hey! So, I have a bit of time to do a quick update. I haven't blogged as much because we moved! To a house! And it was fucking exhausting! And financially draining!

We had to do everything in a week. I'm actually grateful that my work was able to grant me 2 days off on such short notice. We basically had a 5-day Labor Day weekend to move. Highlights include:

• Moving some stuff we had loaded into our car on Wednesday night and driving straight to the house after work
• Being greeted by a neighborhood cat named "Kitty"
• Getting a rental truck and moving all the heavy stuff on Day 1 (Thursday)
• Moving the smaller stuff with NO ELECTRICITY on Day 2 (Friday)
• Finding out that we almost left on bad terms with the San Moritz management due to miscommunication from their weekend staff members. Jennifer apologized for saying that we don't have to pay the second $895 (October rent) until someone moves in. Her manager Judy wanted to make sure we were properly moved out since we were long-time residents.
• Our 3 cats, Hibiko, Ayumi, and Tsukiko, becoming enemies for a few days because Tsuki segregated herself, and smelled different to them
• All of the neighbors coming to us to introduce themselves. We look like the youngest couple in the neighborhood.
  

So we're all settled in. We have a bunch of house projects to do for the next few months. It's nice to have an actual home :)

Also...

AJ Styles is the new WWE World Champion

I'm a little sad that Ambrose dropped the title at Backlash (which was a pretty great Smack Down PPV) but honestly, Styles really deserved it. It's an amazing accomplishment for someone that was in TNA, ROH, and NJPW, and now part of WWE in under a year. Ambrose didn't have a terrible champ run but he was starting to slip after Summerslam (thanks Ziggler). He is back on the chase again and he is absolutely pissed. Aloof champion Ambrose was fine. Angry and relentless Ambrose is the guy I became a fangirl of.