Dear Journal,

I have come to the conclusion that wise philosophers are usually right. This time I am referring to this quote: “Work expands to fill the time available.” Before I go on, I just want to say that I am not trying to sound like Ludwig, but time is a very important thing to me.

Lately my siblings have been getting on my case about how much time I use the Internet computer. I use it a lot more than I should, but when you have 6 siblings and 2 parents, the average time is not long. Unfortunately for me, Larry recently did some smart talking to Dad, and now my time has been cut in half, to about and hour and a half a day.

At first, I did not know how I would continue to run Lemmy’s Land, since it usually takes me at least two and a half hours to finish all the things I need to do each day. I have already been using some tactics to reduce my time on that computer, but they didn’t help enough.

To my surprise, today, the first day of the new system, I finished all the things I needed to do and had plenty of time to spare. I didn’t have any less work to do, and I didn’t use any magic either. Somehow, I just got faster.

The net result is that Lemmy’s Land should continue almost as usual, despite the time cuts. I am very glad about this, as well as about my ability to shorten the time requirement.

In other news, my birthday is in just under a week. I’m hoping for a ball!

Dear Journal,

Today I will write about racing. Why? Because I love racing! I’m not sure that I love it as much as Koopa The Quick does, but I do like it an awful lot. However, I don’t love every kind of racing. I am usually to bored to watch any ordinary kind of race, and I would never even think of being in one (and I’m not thninking about it now). I love wacky kinds of races, with obstacles, weapons, warps, and unexpected things. I like to be sneaky.

I love to watch Dad in his races with Mario and his friends. I don’t know why he is racing and not fighting, but I really don’t care. I love to see the racers get bombed and see the one lucky one way in the lead, perhaps after taking a short cut. I tried to persuade Dad to let me take his spot during a race one time, but he said it was too dangerous. I think he was just making an excuse and that he likes it too.

To go along with my delight of wacky races, my vehicle is equally wacky. I use a magic ball, and it is suitable for almost any situation. The ball is huge, although I can make it small, and every rotation I make carries me a long distance. I’ve learned how to make rotate quickly, so I can go very fast. More important than that, however, is that I can change the properties of my ball. I can make it lead, which allows me to go through walls and not be hurt by attacks or weapons. I can turn it into rubber and bounce high over an obstacle, or float on water. I can turn it into a negatively charged metal, which pulls me towards magnets, so it is very useful if there is a magnet near the finish line. And, of course, the ball is perfect for squishing my enemies. It is the perfect vehicle.

I am hoping to someday have something like Koopaling Kart, where my siblings and I will race some wacky courses. I expect to have them flattened in no time!

Only 5 days until my birthday...

Dear Journal,

Well, yesterday was my birthday, and it was quite a day. I had a meeting in the morning, because I wanted something to occupy my time so that I didn't get too anxious about the party. The meeting was short, so I went home and played some games for a while. Then it was party time.

I am known for my unique entances into parties, especially my own. Sometimes I actually turn out to be in the cake or maybe I'm the lightbulb. This time I decided not to enter. Instead, I transported the entire party, everything in the great Ballroom except the walls, floor, and ceiling, to an empty, quiet park, which was cool but not cold. Everybody thought (or at least acted as if) it was amazing, although in reality any Koopa Kid should be able to do it.

Then we danced for a while. I love to dance because all my dances are creative, and I never actually know what I'm going to do until I do it. This, of course, can often be annoying to whomever I'm dancing with, but usually my dance amazes them so much that they are willing to put up with it.

When it was time to eat, I decided I wasn't really hungry, so I had some cold chicken and then did some ball tricks. I also did a demonstration of learning a trick, in which I attempted a ball trick that I had never tried before. I didn't quite make it, but I didn't fall down either, and I'm hoping that my audience didn't realize I had made a mistake.

Later people gave me gifts. Usually gifts don't thrill me, because I know people will give me balls, or joke books, or maybe a box of ice. Still, I like adding balls to my vast collection, and I got several very interesting looking joke books.

Finally, we had dessert- chocolate ice cream with chocolate syrup, chocolate sauce, chocolate chips, and chocolate sprinkles. As my teacher said, don't mess around with the chocolate. It was great!

Then the guests left and I spent the evening playing my new jokes on my siblings. Well, I thought it was funny!

Dear Journal,

Guess what?! Bagels just got married! She- What do you mean you don't know who Bagels is? I never told you? Well I am now!

Bagels Woof is the family dog, and therefore she os the queen of dogs. That's how it works around here. Anyway, she is so loving and cute that you would think that she would be the Princess's dog. My dog, Shadow, is very cute as well, but he is no match to Bagels. I wish I had a picture of her I could show you. One look and you'd understand! She has never done anything wrong, at least not on purpose, and she does everything cutely.

Anyway, Bagels decided she should get married. She told us she might a while ago, but we didn't really believe her. Oh yeah, with some of our magic, she can communicate in Koopish with us, or we can just understand her Dog. Bagels has now officially decided to marry Domino Bark. Domino is not quite as cute as Bagels, but he is every bit as sweet. I am glad to have Prince Domino as an addition to the family.

I haven't gotten much work done lately because they are both too darn cute, and I have to keep watching them and petting them. Well, I don't suppose that's so bad.

Dear Journal,

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!! I almost made it! I think I had better explain the situation to you, but you may want to save it for later if you have just bought Mario Party.

You see, Bowser buys us all the games with Mario in it so that we can spy on him and learn techniques. Of course, we're forbidden to play them and have him win, but sometimes we do anyway. I have been playing Mario Party with Yoshi, which is not quite as bad, although I should be punished.

My first complaint is that Bowser is in it and not me. He plays nasty tricks on the goodguys, like selling them fake stars. That's what I like to do! I can do it even better than he can, and I would probably even enjoy it more.

My second complaint, however, is that my siblings and I just missed being in it. There are six boards that are readily available, but there are two more. Bowser's Magma Mountain can be accessed by beating the other six. Eternal Star can be accessed by earning 100 stars, which Bowser steals. When you go to Eternal Star, Bowser gets rid of Koopa Troopa and Toad, and puts some of his minions as the star holders. What are they called? Baby Bowser (which of course is not really true)! And, more importantly, how many do you suppose there are? Huh?! 7! For some reason Nintendo did not want to put me in during a perfect situation!

I think I will have to go to Earth and conquer Nintendo, because that may be the only way I appear in another game. So close!!! Although the Baby Bowsers were kind of cute.

Dear Journal,

Yesterday was Roy’s birthday, but I don’t really want to write about it because I’ve been spending too much time writing about birthdays. Instead, I will write about one of Roy’s favorite topics: Sports.

I am told that a lot of our sports are like the ones on Earth. Ludwig told me that, and I think when I am done writing this that I will ask him why that is. Anyway, the games do have some differences. For example, in our Basketball, there is one hoop for the two teams, no shot clock, no referees, and whoever is holding the ball at the end of the quarter gets blown up.

In our hockey, you can do whatever you need to do to get a goal, and you just wear shoes, not skates. When played professionally, the goals move. Of course, this is my favorite game.

Basically, the main difference between our games and Earth games is that we allow more physical display to reach the goal, and the game is often more hi-tech.

Roy’s favorite game, which as far as I know has no counterpart, is called Lumko. Players take turns throwing stuff; whoever can throw the heaviest item the farthest is the winner. I don’t think that game is much fun.

Except for hockey, and maybe baseball, where my Ice Land team excels, I don’t like sports too much. This will probably be the only time I mention it, so savor it while it lasts!

Dear Journal,

Yesterday was April Fools! It’s not really April 1 here, but we do celebrate some Earth holidays- especially if they’re fun! I had great fun playing jokes on people all day! So what did I do? Well, since you asked...

I spent the day impersonating people. One of my magical abilities, as a joker, is to change my shape so that I can be anything. I turned into Bowser and sent Roy to the dungeon, although he has been “nice” lately. Then I turned into Roy and pretended I was going to beat up Larry and nearly gave him a heart-attack, but then I turned into Morton and talked to him for a while, which did give him a heart attack. I turned into Ludwig and offered Bowser my new invention, which was a squirting flower. I turned into Wendy and demanded some gold coins and got them. I doubled myself and confused people. I doubled Iggy and got him in trouble for wrecking the gym equipment. I turned into Luigi and threw a meatball at Mario, then turned into Yoshi and ate the meatball, and then turned into Mario and beat up the original.

During the day I made an ice statue of everybody I saw- and left them to melt. Of course, no one was particularly happy about that, but they couldn’t stop me, not on April Fools. And then there was the regular arsenal of money on a string, spiders, and worm spaghetti.

Ludwig once made an invention to stop time. Maybe I will make an invention to reverse time, so that April Fools can come more often. Next year!

Dear Journal,

Wow! I haven't written in you in a long time. Well, the reason is that, after living for nine years, things don't seem exciting anymore. I meant you for recording really interesting things, and, while my life is cool, I don't see anything especially interesting. But I'll write about how I spent my summer.

Part of the reason why I had a dull summer is because Ice Land kind of shuts down at that time. As would make sense for such a place, Ice Land thrives in the winter. In the winter, our businesses include selling ice, ice fishing, growing the plants for harvest that can grow in Ice Land, frozen food, and oil drilling. We also have a large tourist industry. In the summer, most of these things shut down. This makes my job as ruler kind of easy, but it's boring too. In the summer, mostly a settle disputes and try to stimulate some kind of economy while preparing for next winter.

I've been doing well in school, but that's kind of boring too. I recently had finals and now I am davancing, which makes it harder. I go to school a lot in the summer because I'm busy in the winter and relatively free in the summer.

I've spent a lot of time building Lemmy's Land, that really is fun. Unfortunately, I've been too lazy to do what I will want to do, which is write stories and stuff. However, my creative bug just struck me and I'm beginning to write some stuff. Like this.

I went on vacation with my family. We went on a general tour of Plit. We went up mountains, down in caves, and we did lots of hiking. I like hiking and caves, but I don't like mountains too much.

Overall, it was a nice summer. Now that it is getting into fall, Ice Land will begin to revive and my life will have more excitement.

Dear Journal,

As the fall season starts and Ice Land's economy begins to come alive, I remember a time when Ice Land was in serious trouble. I believe it happened four years ago, and it was the most I could do to not have it go bankrupt.

There was a particualarily hot summer that year. In addition to the economy closing down as it usually does in the summer, so much ice was melting that he really couldn't do some of the things we can do in summer, like some food packaging. We were really in need of a good, cold winter, so that our economy could boom back to number one on the charts again.

But this did not happen. That year, for whatever reason, it never did get cooler. Roy probably had something to do with it, since whoever rules Sky Land has some control over the weather. Either way, while Morton and the Desert Landers were having a blast, matters only got worse in Ice Land.

None of our industries were able to function. We couldn't ship ice or use it to package food, it was melting so fast that we needed to ration what was left, just so that Ice Land wouldn't fall apart. We couldn't grow our crops, because they are specially bred to grow in cold climates, and Ice Land's climate was too warm. We couldn't drill for oil because two much melted ice got into the pumps to get it economically feasible.

The heat rose and conditions fell. Many Ice Landers had heat strokes, others suffered from numerous other diseases, and nearly everyone suffered from economic loss. It was a terrible depression. Ice Land was almost a second Water Land, I would have liked to call in Wendy as an adviser, but she had just been given her own land and was in no position to help me or anyone else.

I'm still not quite sure how I managed to pull through that year without watching Ice Land go bankrupt or selling it to the highest bidder. We pulled through, and the next yea was bountiful, the economy soared again.

I hope that this year will be another good year, but it is still too early to tell. Maybe I should get on Roy's good side.

Dear Journal,

As I write this, Roy is getting hauled off to the dungeon. I remember a time when I was sent to the dungeon. I was baaaadddd.

I had just invented my Freeze Gun, and saying that I was excited was an understatement. Of course, I had to use it very time I possible could. You know, against a squirrel, against the cat Playful, against Bowser, you get the drift. To say the least, Bowser was less than impressed with my antics. Apparently he didn't have a sense of humor, and didn't want a snowball fight.

Anyway, I was in big trouble. Bowser wanted to drop me in the lava pit, but Clawdia reminded him that lava would kill me. Bowser nearly did it anyway, but relented. Then he wanted to have me frozen for a week, but since I can't be frozen, at least by ordinary means, that didn't work. So I had to spend two weeks in the dungeon with nothing to do and no food or water.

Needless to say, I was not happy. That was the worst punishment I ever received, but at least it has caused me to shape up. I still play jokes, but I haven't gotten in trouble since-

Oh, hi King Dad! Heh heh heh...

Dear Journal,

Have you ever had just a really lousy day? Well, you're only a booklet, so most likely you haven't. I have had a really lousy day. I had this really lousy day today. I should probably be in bed instead of writing this.

K, so my alarm didn't go off on time. It was only ten minutes late, but for some reason it really ticked me off (no pun intended). Then I somehow managed to step in a puddle, and forgot some things so was really stupid, and was messy with breakfast, and stepped in the puddle again. And I didn't want to go to school, only I had to 'cuz I have meetings the next couple of days and won't be able to go then. And I lost some card games that I usually win, and just had a rotten day.

This day will be forever incorporated into Lemmy's Land because the update which was supposed to be last Sunday will have to be today because my power went out yesterday and so I couldn't do it and now the update will be cut short because there are obviously bad omens against it.

Oh well.

Dear Journal,

I'm going to make like Ludwig and state an observation that I've made: Sleep is really boring. Every night I get to sleep later than I planned because as I make my way to my bed all sorts of things distract me and then I have to do them. Some of those things are very obviously fun, such as building Lemmy's Land or playing a video game. But others are not things I would normally consider fun, such as cleaning up or reading.

The trouble is, I know sleep is important, and I always function better when I've had a good night's sleep. But it's one of the last things I want to do. Plus, do you realize how much time I'd save if I never slept? I'd be able to do all kinds of stuff I never had time for before. And I might be able to beat those Mario Brothers while THEY are sleeping!

If I had the time, maybe I'd make a machine so that I wouldn't have to sleep. Sleep is probably some kind of biological doohickey so all I have to do is find what causes it and remove it. And maybe I'd have time to do that, if I weren't too busy sleeping.

I'd love to write some more, but I have to go to bed soon... maybe when I'm a big grown-up Koopa I won't have to sleep anymore.

Dear Journal,

I was asked why I had started Lermmy's Land, and, since that sounds like a good question, I've decided to write a little piece about it. So here goes!

Back in the first half of 1998, I knew very little about the Internet or how to use it. I mean, why would I use a system that isn't as good as what we have on Plit? So I never paid much attention to it or the one computer that had it.

But Wendy did. Wendy decided she wanted to make a webpage. You can't do that on Plit's equivalent of the Internet, or at least not as easily, because it is informational and not entertainment-based. Anyway, Wendy wanted to make a Koopa page to show the world how great she was. She got an Email account and a web address, and started buidling. She was very slow because we didn't know much about HTML, nor did we have the programs that let you build directly. But she was started.

Now, when Wendy was planning and when she had first started building, I had openly stated that I was not interested in building a site. My reasons were that it would take up too much of my time, and that I would eventually become bored with it. (The first of those is true, the second is not.) But when Iggy also began to build a site, I suddenly saw the potential of creating my own website.

All the ingredients were there. I had the time - it was in the late summer, when I don't do as much as other times of the year. I had the resources - the one computer was still usually available, and we already had accounts (at first we would all use the same Email and web account). I had the basis - I had already written a number of stories in my free time, and they were at my disposal. Finally,.I had the ideas and the spark of interest that I needed to create a webpage.

So, in Auguest of 1998, I finally took the first step and started building Lemmy's Land. And on Auguest 12, I opened it up to the public with seven sections. It was very small, and there was no "fancy stuff" (all I knew how to do was text and links), but it would eventually become one of the largest Koopa sites out there.

As for Wendy and Iggy's sites... well, they are still around, but they are no longer being updated. I guess I outdid them.

Dear Journal,

It's not easy writing in a journal when you only have one thought a day. Still, I can't complain too much; I know many who at least seem to have less thoughts than I do. Ok. I just wanted to quickly write that Ice Land is in a small recession. Or not really even that, but it is winter now, and the economy isn't booming as it should. After some slow brainstorming, I have decided to slow output of ice and oil to the other Lands, this raising the price. Then the economy ought to be better than usual.

You probably don't care about this, but I wanted to write it down somewhere so that I wouldn't forget. Sorry to waste your time. Next time I hope to have something funny to tell you.

Dear Journal,

Today a saw this Koopa Troopa who had somehow gotten himself stuck in a wall. Hey, I didn't see how it happened, but anyway he was crying out for help. So I, the good samaritan that I am, went over and pulled him out of the wall and flung him into another wall. I thought his shell would break, but instead he careened through the wall and into the bathroom, where some of the plumbing subsequently broke. As I am writing this, Morton's room is filling with an unidentifiable liquid. Now, that's funny!

When Bowser found out, he said to call a plumber. I said I'd call Mario, but we needed someone dumber. He asked who would that be, and I told him to call down Iggy. So he did, but the strange liquid scared him away, so Ludwig had to fix it, which he's doing now instead of doing what he wants to do. A fun day, I must say.

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