My Story

How It All Began

Poachers came to take all of the eggs in a leatherback sea turtle nest in the Keys Beach in Florida and dropped one, JellyMan's egg. Hiwahiwa the green sea turtle found the egg and raised JellyMan personally. (she became known to JellyMan fondly as Granny Hiwahiwa) Meanwhile, another egg that was taken that night the poachers left JellyMan behind accidentally fell out of their truck and rolled into a computer warehouse. That ended up being Chocolate Crinkle. Chocolate Crinkle stayed around the computer warehouse and as she grew up, she learned all the ins and outs of computers.
When he was older, JellyMan started a small restaurant called Cabbage! that had cabbage in everything, and the restaurant became fairly popular. It was located in a smaller, quiet area in Florida, and JellyMan arrived every day at 7 A.M. and worked until 9 P.M. He was the chef, the waiter, and all of the other restaurant jobs that existed because he ran it all by himself. He set up a clever system that showed a menu on a display. It ran from his beloved HP Pavilion dv6 laptop which he brought every day.
Snappy is a lobster from Maine and UV Ray (Ultraviolet Ray) a stingray from Hawaii have similar, curious personalities. They were very happy where they lived until one day, they were captured to be sent to Sea Life Park. They first met each other at the port in Florida, where they escaped together. They became best friends through that experience. At the beginning they had to hide but a couple days later, JellyMan found them and brought them home where it was safe.
One rainy Sunday, JellyMan was visiting a yard sale and saw a mini working NASA space shuttle. His name was Boing and his previous owner had gotten rid of him because he would bounce whenever it was time to launch. JellyMan decided to buy Boing, and he turned out to have a big personality! He became friends quickly with Snappy and UV Ray.
Snappy, UV Ray, and Boing, grateful for everything JellyMan did for them, wanted to give him a special present for the holidays. They saw a silver 2012 Subaru Forester in good condition on sale nearby. Snappy, UV Ray, and Boing though that was a perfect present because JellyMan did not have a car and walked to work every day. To make enough money to buy it, they secretly started making key lime pies and selling them at a makeshift outdoor stand while JellyMan was at work. The pies were so popular that they had enough money to buy the car! When JellyMan woke up on Christmas morning, he was presented with the car keys to the Forester. Completely surprised, he opened the door and there, sitting on the driveway, was the car. JellyMan was very touched by this and he always drives it wherever he goes even today. Also, he started selling Snappy, UV Ray, and Boing's pies at his restaurants. They are a big hit, and he gives the profits from the pies to them.
Chocolate Crinkle accidentally stumbled upon JellyMan's restaurant while looking for lunch one day. Curious, she went in. It was quiet that day, and she got to have a conversation with JellyMan. As they talked, they found out that they had a lot of their past in common. Chocolate Crinkle came to that restaurant multiple times in a quiet time and each time they chatted. Curious, they did a DNA test and found out they were twins! Soon, JellyMan moved to a bigger house, Chocolate Crinkle moved out of her old apartment, and they all started living together.
Shorty is a young Galapagos tortoise. She was relaxing on the beach one day in the Galapagos Islands when a big storm struck and washed her away. She hung onto a log for dear life until Moby, a small blue whale passing by came over and gave her a ride. After floating around for a few days, they found themselves in Florida around the Keys Beach area. Shorty lived outdoors and visited Moby frequently, who was hanging around the beach. To pass the time, Shorty played with a yo-yo she had found and became a master at it.
Chocolate Crinkle met Emerald the green sea turtle when she was visiting Hiwahiwa with JellyMan. (Emerald is Hiwahiwa's daughter) Chocolate Crinkle and Emerald became attached and Emerald moved in with JellyMan soon.
One day, JellyMan was taking a walk when they saw Shorty. He asked her where she lived and when she explained she didn't have a home, he offered to take her to his house. She was very grateful but didn't want to go unless he took Moby with her, so they picked up Moby and happily went home together.
Chocolate Crinkle, who had been taking side computer repair jobs, decided she had the knowledge and inspirations to start a computer company, which became Droplet Computer Inc. She funded it with her own money, but on the first day as she was writing the opening lines of the operating system, Shorty came into her room and gave her a quarter. Chocolate Crinkle was touched and made her co-founder of the company.
Chocolate Crinkle was stuck a few days later on a section of her code. She had tried for hours but it simply would not work. Then, Shorty came plodding in. She was just passing by and accidentally walked over Chocolate Crinkle's keyboard, modifying her code. Turns out, that did the trick! Shorty had added the missing lines of code that would make Chocolate Crinkle's operating system work finally. She was promoted to Vice President of the company.
Chocolate Crinkle's company was a major success. Her products skyrocketed in popularity and within a year, she was making $10.7 trillion. Since their house was getting crowded, Chocolate Crinkle had a magnificent house built on the shoreline of the Keys Beach. It is 100 stories above and 100 stories below ground. It has large windows and a modern design and surrounds a lagoon that connects to the sea with a large glass bridge and balcony over it.
Since it's Chocolate Crinkle's house, she got the 100^th floor bedroom, Emerald got the 99^th, and JellyMan got the 98^th (he is very sad about it). The bottom floors underground store Chocolate Crinkle's servers, production, shipping, and large-scale computer projects. She works in her room which is a mess of papers, computers, cables, and computer parts and calls it Chocolate Crinkle Cookie's Creative Cove of Computers. Emerald, who is a phenomenal classical violinist, violist, pianist, and conductor, sets up an expansive music library on the 99^th floor. Her room was built with a passageway to an enormous concert hall (also accessible from outside), and this is where she rehearses for and gives her concerts. Emerald also has a beautiful kitchen where she prepares food (she is a master chef!) and the kitchen is located on a lower floor.
JellyMan had wanted a pet dog for all his life and now he finally had two of them. Chocolate Crinkle had bought JellyMan a Portuguese water dog from a breeder who he named Comet, but Comet was way too energetic to keep busy all the time, so Chocolate Crinkle bought JellyMan Flopsy, an Old English sheepdog. They became fast friends. It turns out that Flopsy and Comet are very smart, and they quickly figured out how to find treats from the table. Then they figured out how to open their crates, then the door. Then one day, while JellyMan was relaxing in the other room, they designed a Rube Goldberg machine from things already placed in the room to get treats off the high shelf. With a push of a tennis ball, items in the room aligned just right to knock the container to the floor. How clever! Chocolate Crinkle says it is up to JellyMan to keep them out of trouble. He loves them a lot and they love him too, but JellyMan has a lot on his hands now.
JellyMan, Emerald, and Chocolate Crinkle have all gotten much busier now, so Snappy, UV Ray, and Boing had less supervision. JellyMan has a back room in his restaurant with comfy chairs, books, and one iPad for them to share. He expects them to spend the day reading and doing online classes for school. But Snappy and UV Ray are not interested in learning and they argue a lot especially when it comes to sharing (in spite of being inseparable friends) so they were not very productive. Snappy mentioned he has an uncle in Boston who is very smart and went to Yale named Brick. Brick is an environmentalist. JellyMan contacted him and asked him if he would like to come and live in Florida at their house and if he would be willing to look after Snappy, UV Ray, and Boing. Brick said he would love to, packed up his stuff, and drover over in a week in his 2008 Camry Hybrid. He is the librarian at Chocolate Crinkle's house which holds thousands of books and other types of media. Every day he brings Snappy, UV Ray, and Boing into the library and helps them with their studies.

The Adventures Begin

JellyMan decides to create a major invention and starts working on an out-of-this-world RV. He spends the whole year working on it in his free time, and he gets parts from Chocolate Crinkle and the car scrapyard. In the end, it is a 2-story van with a huge control panel in the front, auto-pilot, a pool, a gym, a game room, bedrooms, and more. Best of all, it can fly, go underwater, and is completely solar powered! Chocolate Crinkle, as with everyone else, is forever impressed with the van, dubbed the Super Van.
One day, JellyMan is quietly reading the news on his 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Oops! JellyMan, as he is getting up from his chair, knocks over the caseless iPad onto the hard tile floor. It is cracked badly. JellyMan is known to drop his caseless Apple products and break them, but if Chocolate Crinkle sees another bill from Apple's repair service, he will really be in for it! So JellyMan decides to sell the otherwise working iPad on eBay for $150 (he bought it for over $1,000). Meanwhile, Chocolate Crinkle, later that day hunting for deals on eBay, comes across this iPad Pro 12.9 in. with just some cracks on it for $150. What a bargain! She immediately buys it. JellyMan realizes that his iPad was bought and hastily packaged it up and shipped it with expedited one day overnight shipping without realizing it was his own address he was sending it to. The next morning, Chocolate Crinkle received her usual mountain of mail, and she was most excited to find the iPad Pro. When she turned it on, though, the lock screen pictured flashed an awesome looking JellyMan dancing the disco! With some verification, she learned that it was really JellyMan's iPad. It happened to be JellyMan's birthday coming up, so she fixed it up and gave it to him with a case and a screen protector. JellyMan never figured out how she knew he needed a new iPad and how she got his data on this new device.
More friends are now joining JellyMan's household. Moby's friend from the sea, a clownfish named Bubbles comes to live with Moby. Moby's cousin also came to live in Florida. He is a narwhal named Kebab. Leica, from the North Pole, came with Santa Claus one Christmas. She and Kebab made good friends because they both came from the Antarctic region. Wilbur is a pig who was going to be sent to the slaughterhouse, but he was the runt of the litter and the farmer decided to get rid of him. JellyMan found him one day and brought him home. He is relieved and feels much safer now but is always slightly timid.
Chocolate Crinkle was taking a big interest in cooking recently, inspired by Emerald. Unfortunately, watching Emerald (a master chef) cooking was not a good influence because unlike Emerald who knew all the cooking techniques and recipes, Chocolate Crinkle is clueless. Chocolate Crinkle does not follow any recipes and tries out creative cooking techniques so she cannot even make instant oatmeal. Everyone avoids her when she is cooking and after she is done cooking because of this. Chocolate Crinkle does not pick up on any cues given to her to stop cooking things, and she thinks she is almost as good as Emerald. So Chocolate Crinkle decided to start a cooking show on YouTube. Her first episode was about making toast and it was livestreamed and unedited. Chocolate Crinkle opened by showing how to take the loaf out of the bag (the loaf fell into the sink) then cutting the bread (she did not know that hacking at the bread was different than slicing it) and finally ended with putting it in the toaster and toasting it (it came very charred). Chocolate Crinkle was a little disappointed with the outcome until she realized her video went viral! It got billions of views and people thought it was hilarious.
Chocolate Crinkle is always videotaping and posting videos on YouTube that she thinks are interesting. Her latest video was on Emerald playing Barber Violin Concerto, the 3^rd movement. Emerald played it perfectly and so, so, fast. She played so fast so when she reached her dramatic ending, the bow hair had burnt all the way through, and the strings were smoking from the friction. And the crowds went wild! Emerald had to get her bow rehaired the following day, though.
Shorty was working one day on testing a computer display when she stumbled on the games tab of the app store. Curious, she downloaded a couple games. She started with games like Doodle Jump and Pacman and went on to Alto's Adventure/Odyssey and Asphalt 8. She was casual about it but enjoyed spending a few minutes every day.
One day Chocolate Crinkle was driving around with Emerald in her 2013 Prius when it got a flat tire. She wanted to let JellyMan know she and Emerald would be a little late coming because she had to get AAA to tow the car. It was a long wait but finally from the distance they saw a rescue pickup truck in the distance. They assumed it was AAA until they noticed it swerving and speeding towards them. Then, with a magnificent jump in the air after hitting a ramp, the pickup truck hit the ground and smashed into the Prius which luckily neither of them was inside. Chocolate Crinkle and Emerald wondered who in the world would drive like that, when lo and behold, JellyMan hopped out of the car, a little shaken. He had come to rescue them. Unfortunately, now the Prius and the Mitsubishi Triton rescue pickup were totaled. And what was originally a minor flat tire went all over the news thanks to JellyMan's dramatic “rescue”!
One day JellyMan was coming home from his restaurant in the evening when he heard a commotion in the living room. There, huddled in the corner of the room were his fearless sisters Emerald and Chocolate Crinkle, throwing everything in sight at one spot on the floor. JellyMan asked what the heck was going on and got one word as a response: spider. Chocolate Crinkle often videotapes entertaining or interesting moments and posts them on YouTube, and JellyMan knew this was not an everyday sight, so he went to get his special Sony 4K Camcorder to film this occurrence. When he came back with the camera and started filming, though, Emerald and Chocolate Crinkle, who were out of things to throw, grabbed JellyMan's camera (with the neck strap still around JellyMan's neck), ran over to where the spider was crawling on the floor, and repeatedly smooshed the spider using the camera lens. It was a big relief for Emerald and Chocolate Crinkle that the spider was defeated, and JellyMan wasn't too sad either because Chocolate Crinkle got him a much nicer 8K Camcorder as a replacement.
One day, JellyMan was looking around on Zillow for fun to look at properties when he came across a massive farm in Kansas bigger than Kansas (100,000 acres). It had been just listed and was still available. Excited, he gave a presentation to Emerald, Chocolate Crinkle, and others later that day persuading them that it was a good idea (especially Chocolate Crinkle who would end up paying for it). Lucky for JellyMan, Chocolate Crinkle was charmed with the beautiful sunflowers as far as you can see in the sunset and bought it right away for a mere $500 million! The property, which they visited that weekend in JellyMan's Super Van, was just as stunning as in the pictures. Chocolate Crinkle had a massive upgrade to the barn house making it a cozy 50,000 square-foot modern cabin-style home with gorgeous windows and skylights all over. Now they always visit their farm once a month.
Chocolate Crinkle is known to be messy, and ever since she got her gorgeous 100^th floor bedroom, it has become unrecognizable. Although she knows where everything is, every corner you look there are computer parts piled to the ceiling. Cables tangle all over the floor and the walls. Monitors hang crooked from the wall, screws and old computers cover the bed… it's a mess! One day, JellyMan was in her room playing fetch with Flopsy and Comet when the ball rolled underneath Chocolate Crinkle's bed. When he crawled under to fish out the ball, though, he noticed a lot of computers sitting there. And they were not any old computers. They were brand new factory sealed premium computers, as well as other devices! JellyMan asked Chocolate Crinkle why they were kept there, and Chocolate Crinkle said she purchases them sets them on the floor, accidentally push them under her bed, and forget about them, because she buys so many computers all the time. She noticed JellyMan was looking at the computers longingly, so for his birthday, she invited him to pick out a couple of things from under her bed as a present! JellyMan picked out a Mac Pro with a Pro Display XDR. Now, Chocolate Crinkle gives an item or two from under her bed to everyone as presents (she has plenty always) except Emerald, who doesn't find any value in “heavy energy-guzzling aluminum light boxes”. Another favorite time for everyone (except Emerald) is spring cleaning, where everyone crowds to help clean her room.
It had come to Emerald's attention that JellyMan was not eating healthy foods. Contrary to Emerald, who ate her lunch of heated raw vegetables in a Fage yogurt container, JellyMan outside of some cabbage was eating chips, candy, Coke, and more. Emerald knew this was not good so she told JellyMan he should diet. She locked up all the junk food and only kept out the healthy stuff. JellyMan was doing a great job but after a week or so, he was getting impatient. That afternoon, he was in one of the dining rooms alone. The table had some fruit on it. JellyMan was hungry, but he did not want another banana. Then he noticed a Milky Way bar, fun sized, that Chocolate Crinkle must have accidentally left. He thought it wouldn't be such a big deal to have such a small piece of candy, so he slowly reached over and quietly unwrapped it. Just as he was going to pop it into his mouth, he heard a soft whirring and realized there was a security camera pointing at him. Chocolate Crinkle must have had installed cameras to enforce the diet! He still wanted the candy, so he hid under the table and put it in his mouth. What a delicious tidbit! Then he noticed there was another camera under the table, pointing at him. Meanwhile, Chocolate Crinkle was monitoring her security cams from her bedroom, particularly the dining room under-the-table camera. She saw JellyMan nervously eat the candy bar and contacted Emerald. Emerald pushed a big red button in her room and the dining room went into lockdown with the lights turning red. JellyMan was in big trouble and did a good job with the rest of his diet. Finally, Chocolate Crinkle made a new system of putting all snacks in a vending machine. Healthy snacks were free, however, based on how unhealthy they were, unhealthy ones would cost money (you can have one unhealthy snack a day for free). This greatly helped everyone in the house eat healthier.
Chocolate Crinkle often bugs Emerald for not having a computer, so Emerald finally decided she will go out and get one. So, she went out to Goodwill and found a $30 glass and plastic box with some holes in it, which she assumed was a computer. She brought it home in her Volkswagen bus proudly and put it on her desk. Later that day, Chocolate Crinkle was chatting with Emerald in Emerald's room when she noticed Emerald's new computer, a 1984 Macintosh. When she looked closer, she realized it was a really rare model that she had only dreamed of ever seeing before! Chocolate Crinkle gave Emerald $500,000, one desktop with dual 8K curved monitors, two laptops, a tablet, and a phone, which Emerald was happy with. (she would've given it for free in the first place) Emerald used the cash for her strings, bow rehairs, sheet music, travel, and other music expenses. The desktop is used as a stepstool, the monitors held her sticky notes, the laptops became doorstops, the tablet kept her backpack from bending, and the phone made a good paperweight. Emerald currently has an iMac G3 that sits on her desk. She has yet to use it, though!
Chocolate Crinkle is overall a very organized turtle but being so busy, she misses a meeting from time to time. She hired a secretary named Strawberry. Strawberry is a cupcake, and he has quite a temper! When Strawberry first arrived, Chocolate Crinkle could not help but ooh and aah at how cute Strawberry was. Strawberry tolerated it at first, but after a minute, he started to get upset. He started shaking, then his smile turned upside down, and finally he started screaming out of upsetness. Chocolate Crinkle sure learned to not do that again! Overall, they are good friends. Strawberry sits on a pedestal in a different room every day, pouring over Chocolate Crinkle's schedule on 5 monitors as well as keeping a close eye on the time. He also had a monitor showing Chocolate Crinkle's location to make sure she was at the meeting at the right time. When Strawberry notices Chocolate Crinkle is about to miss a meeting (particularly when it is in a location that she is not at), Strawberry calls Chocolate Crinkle. Chocolate Crinkle would see the caller ID which would show Strawberry's photo, and she always panics when Strawberry calls her. She will pile together her papers and laptop and mad dash to her Prius. Then she takes off, kicking up the beach sand behind her. Only then does she answer Strawberry's call and spends the drive calming him down because all he will do is scream at her about missing a meeting. One time she did that before getting to the car and ended up having to join from her phone.
Shorty, like all tortoises, is extremely slow. Chocolate Crinkle decided to make a gift for her to help out, an electric scooter. Of course, since it was made by Chocolate Crinkle, it was extremely high tech. Chocolate Crinkle gave it to Shorty when she woke up one morning, and Shorty was super excited! But just as she finished explaining how it was turned on, Chocolate Crinkle's phone rang, and it showed Strawberry's name. She knew right away she was about to be late for a meeting and panickily ran off to her bedroom while answering to the furious screams from her secretary, reprimanding her for being late. Shorty knew how to turn on her scooter, though, so she did, but she did not know very well how to control it. As it sped up, she accidentally ran it into a wall. The impact was small but just enough to damage the control board. The scooter stopped for a moment, then it suddenly took off full speed! Shorty tried but it would not stop because the control board was partially malfunctioning. The scooter thumped down the stairs and continued into the main hallway. The doors and photos on the wall were all a blur for Shorty as she worked to control the scooter. The hall helped her practice her scooter skills and she turned it into the living room, where Emerald was sitting. She was going so fast, though, so all Emerald saw was the pages of her score she was studying get ruffled from a soft breeze and a zooming sound! Next, she swerved into the dining room where Snappy and UV Ray were arguing over a cupcake (not Strawberry). Shorty jumped up and shot over the table, grabbing the cupcake in her mouth. The scooter sped under the table and Shorty landed on it just in time. Snappy and UV Ray only saw their cupcake disappearing and a zooming sound. Moments later, Shorty found herself outside and was kicking up sand on the beach. The moment she hit the water, though, the scooter automatically went into waterski mode and Shorty was dragged on skis and a rope as the scooter sped in front. Water kicked up many meters high and Shorty loved it. Next, as the scooter approached the tall house, it started scaling the wall. Shorty was now driving vertically! When she reached the 98^th floor, she saw an open window, JellyMan's. She went in and zoomed through. JellyMan was taking a nap then and when he woke up, all he saw was his curtains waving around. Shorty spent quite a long time looping around the house and eventually found herself back outside again. She now decided to take a look at the control panel as she was more comfortable with her driving. There, on the corner of her screen, was a button that was labeled “Jetpack Mode”. She hit it and suddenly she was being lifted up miles into the air and back down again. The scooter even deployed a suit for her to stay safe! Meanwhile, Chocolate Crinkle was in her long business meeting, one on finances. She was a little bored and as the 7^th speaker was speaking for an hour and was only halfway done, her mind started wandering. She wondered if Shorty was enjoying her new scooter and staying safe on it, too. She was slightly worried that she hadn't explained enough before she rushed off to her meeting. Behind her in her window Shorty could be seen from a distance rocketing up and down in the sky and making streaks, figure eights, loop-de-loops, and other tricks. Chocolate Crinkle checked her camera preview to make sure her pull down perfect-room shade was set perfectly when she noticed something in the sky – was it Shorty? – waving at her as it zoomed across her square in the Zoom meeting she was in. Chocolate Crinkle snuck a look behind her but all she saw were some streaks, so she wiped her monitor and went back to listening to the long meeting. It really was Shorty, though, and she had left the window view because she found a GPS setting on the scooter and set it to the farm in Kansas. Right now, the scooter was jet-packing her to Kansas at warp speed and she arrived in minutes! Shorty landed and the scooter switched back to the scooter mode. Boing at the moment was in the flower garden picking some flowers when Shorty whizzed over and trampled over the whole bed. Finally, she approached an apple tree where Brick was sitting and reading a book. Shorty jumped off the scooter and the scooter hit the tree, causing all the apples to fall off onto poor Brick. The scooter finally stopped, though, and later Chocolate Crinkle fixed up Shorty's scooter to be safer and more durable. It was a big day for Shorty!
One day, JellyMan, like always, was bugging Chocolate Crinkle and trying to chat with her while she was trying to do important work. She told him he should find something to do that would keep him occupied, and it worked! Chocolate Crinkle did not see him for the rest of the day. When she did see him the next time, though, he had just got off the phone. He was talking to the realtor who had just sold him a run-down abandoned mall nearby. With Chocolate Crinkle's credit card! Chocolate Crinkle was a kind of upset that JellyMan had just went and use about $1 million from her savings, but she was mildly intrigued so they took everyone to visit the next day. It was massive, reaching 1 mile from one end to the other. There were four wings to the mall as well as office spaces, loading docks, and outdoor areas as well. It stood 5 stories high and had many beautiful areas, but it was in shambles. Many years ago, a major hurricane struck and completely destroyed the area. Thing were left the way it was when it was abandoned with the merchandise and everything. The bottom two floors were especially a disaster because they got flooded, but the upper floors were unstable from the damage. As they carefully explored the dimly lit, run-down passages and stores, they came across an Apple store. The mall had been left for years but the computers were still there. Chocolate Crinkle diagnosed them with liquid damage, but when they went into the back room, full of old computers in brand new packaging, she bumped into a computer behind her. It was an old Mac Pro and it blinked to life. It had been sitting in sleep mode all these years! Of course, the glass in front of the Apple store was broken and littered with junk like most of the other stores. Later in the day, Snappy and UV Ray discovered a full-sized upscale movie theater. Chocolate Crinkle had no idea how to use movie reels but Emerald for once was more helpful in this case with the technology. They picked out Wall E and sat down to watch it. The seats in the theater were comfy, and although the speakers and technology were slightly dated, they had a great time. The next morning, JellyMan was sorting through his mail when he found the electric bill for the mall. He balked at the price. It cost $25,000 for just the one day! He ran outside, sped as fast as he could to the mall in his Mitsubishi pickup (his Forester was broken down and in the repair shop), and turned off the master power switch. JellyMan and his friends all pitched in to gradually restore the mall. Bit by bit they repaired the broken floors, fixed the walls, redid the electricity, foundation paint, and even replaced the big glass dome in the center plaza.
JellyMan was driving Emerald and Chocolate Crinkle to the nearby lake that they owned to relax outdoors. There was one thing to be careful about, though. Right before turning onto the parking area, there was a very sharp curve right and the edge. Although JellyMan loves driving fast, he is not very good and even he knows to slow down there. Today, he arrived at the curve and slowed to a crawl. Then, very carefully, he started turning the car away from the lake. The Subaru Forester was in tough shape, though, from poor handling and age, so as he turned the steering wheel, it unscrewed and fell off! That left JellyMan very surprised. It was not over though. Since the car was now heading toward the lake, JellyMan had no choice but stomp on the brakes…which broke off. The car rolled forward and came to a stop. The embankment was sloped so only the front half was submerged. Poor JellyMan got all wet! Emerald and Chocolate Crinkle stayed dry in the backseat. Luckily, JellyMan is a very regular AAA customer. Due to his rough and fast driving, the car either stalls or is totaled at least once a day, so all he had to do was to give his location and a tow truck arrived in 10 minutes. Everyone at AAA recognizes him!
The mall was under construction for a while at this point, and three of the four wings were more or less restored. The center plaza gleamed in the sunshine that day with a gorgeous fountain bubbling underneath. There was pleasant music on the built-in speakers and the empty stores were repaired to their original state. Although it was not open for public, JellyMan and his friends decided to spend the day relaxing and exploring there. But when they entered through Macy's, Shorty lost track of the rest of the group as she was looking through the long aisles of products. She found her way out of the large place but not knowing where to go, ended up in the unfinished wing of the mall. The music got quiet and distant, the floor creaked, and the dimly lit pathway lit only by a trickle of sunlight from the dirty and broken glass ceiling revealed an endless line of run-down abandoned stores. One of them caught her eye, though, and it was labelled as an arcade. She went in, and although most computers did not work, there was one in the far corner that blinked to life and loaded up a game called Forza Horizon 4. Shorty was quick to learn and was blown away by the high-quality graphics, its realistic-ness, and the vibrations in the controller that made it feel like she was actually there. After spending some time, she found her way back out to the main area, but she knew she had just found an activity that she truly loved: gaming. That was when Shorty realized, sitting next to her, was a shiny police squad vehicle for patrol inside the mall. She didn't know it was for emergencies only and thought it would be a fun change from her scooter which she used every day, so she climbed on and quickly started it up. She turned the dial to fastest and took off! Chocolate Crinkle, who was inside a shop nearby, heard Shorty driving the vehicle and sensed an opportunity for a great new video on her YouTube. She hopped on a squad vehicle herself and the chase was on. Shorty realized she was being followed, stood up, turned around, and waved for the camera while zooming through the halls. Shorty and Chocolate Crinkle are both very good at driving and they maneuvered around the fountain, onto the ramps, and made sharp turns. Finally, they reached the cafeteria where Emerald was making a delicious lunch for everyone. Shorty spotted her favorite snack, ant logs (celery stick with peanut butter and raisins), stopped the vehicle in front of the tables, and allowing the sudden braking to throw her off and right into the chair in front of the snack. Chocolate Crinkle caught the moment perfectly, edited it with slo-mo and dramatic music, and it went totally viral.
As the mall opened up, JellyMan started a computer repair business in the mall. It was called ASOM!!! JellyMan's Computer Repair and he repaired all kinds of computers. It was popular locally because he gave a guaranteed repair or double your money back. (Sometimes if he got stuck, he would ask a question from Chocolate Crinkle). Another business he ran was ASOM!!! JellyMan's Photo Printing. In that shop, you could buy pictures of JellyMan that he autographed. Alternatively, you can use the selfie booth (AKA a copy machine) and get your selfie signed by him. The mall also housed Moby's fitness club where he was the main fitness coach. He is very good at counting and usually gets all the way to two! Bubbles is a swimming coach there too, so the business is very popular. Chocolate Crinkle utilized part of the space for her company including an auditorium for presentations, conference rooms, and more servers and computers. (and a Droplet store, of course)
As Chocolate Crinkle is rapidly expanding her company, she realizes she needs a bigger staff than her and Shorty (Chocolate Crinkle does most of the work). She decided to hire Leica and Wilbur to the company because they had lots of computer expertise from their video game experiences. She also had met a frog who was just out of college and quite a math genius named Kermit. She saw the potential in him and hired him. And one day, she met a snowy owl who had always wanted a career in computers and was very interested in working for her. His name was Dusty, and he knew two words, “Dusty” and “who”. Chocolate Crinkle appointed him as Chief of Computer Security and he spent all day sitting on a 1984 Macintosh that she had gotten from Emerald a while back. Leica became Chief of Computer Hardware and Internals and focused on the physical parts of the device she was working on. Wilbur became Chief of Computer Performance and designed processors as well as other things that made the device really powerful. Kermit was appointed Chief of Server Management and Cloud Computing and worked with the servers located in the basement of the house. Shorty got another title of Chief if Audio and Visuals and she tested out the speakers and displays to check the quality. Because Chocolate Crinkle is Chief of Software Development (operating systems, programs, website), Chief of Product Design (how the product looks like), and Chief of Product Marketing (advertisements, slogans) so the company had a fairly complete leadership.
JellyMan had been driving his Subaru Forester for years at this point and now it is getting very beat up. He is also not a great driver, so it has gotten very banged up over the years. It is in a very fragile state and goes at a maximum speed of 15mph unless the gas pedal breaks off first. Today, JellyMan is driving on the road. The sky is beautiful, and his windows are rolled down, and this reminds him of years ago when it was new. JellyMan closes his eyes and imagines he is zooming around town. He hits the gas pedal and the car shoots forward swiftly. Then he hits the brakes and does a sharp turn, and he is pinned to the side of the car momentarily. Then, the car is shooting forward and arrives at a hill. For a few seconds, it is in the air and JellyMan feels like he is floating! Then, JellyMan opens his eyes and realizes he is stopped. Oops! He's broken off the gas pedal again. It is going to be a long day.
Chocolate Crinkle made a great ad for Droplet Phone. It featured Snappy and UV Ray, who were fighting over Chocolate Crinkle's phone, and tossing it through the air. Each impact, it was in perfect condition. Chocolate Crinkle even baked it in the oven absentmindedly in the ad! At the end her phone fell outside on the driveway. That moment, Emerald came driving in her teal Volkswagen Bus and drove right on top of the phone. Chocolate Crinkle bent down and picked the unharmed phone up which had made a big dent in the asphalt. In the background, JellyMan got out of the car and a phone breaking sound could be heard in the background followed by an “Oh no, my iPhone!” from JellyMan.
JellyMan broke his iPhone again after he dropped it down the stairs accidentally, but he got lucky this time because he had bought AppleCare, per Chocolate Crinkle's suggestion. He drove over that day and dropped off his phone. That night, Chocolate Crinkle announced plans to go on a big trip to France and England in a week! They were expecting to go for a while already, but Chocolate Crinkle had not announced the timeline yet. The exciting news made JellyMan completely forget about his iPhone at the Apple Store, which was fixed in after just one day.
Chocolate Crinkle had been nagging JellyMan for a long time to learn French in anticipation for their trip to France. Unfortunately, JellyMan put it off and kept saying he would do it later, so he ended up trying to learn a few words in the airplane. But the last few days had been hectic packing up and they had to catch an early-morning plane, so he ended up falling asleep after 20 minutes. On a side note, JellyMan had a big surprise waiting for him when he got into the plane when he heard Chocolate Crinkle as the announcer; when he asked her later, she proudly showed him her pilots license, to JellyMan's disbelief. They arrived at the airport in France, they were all having a little trouble finding their way out, so Chocolate Crinkle went to get help. JellyMan decided to get help too, armed with his French dictionary. In the plane, he learned “Bonjour” and promptly skipped to the pastry section which was not new for him. So, when he went up to a helpful-looking person, he had nothing to say other than “croissant” and “macaron”. Embarrassed, he found his way back to Chocolate Crinkle and was shocked to see her chatting away with someone, in French. Chocolate Crinkle had actually spent a lot of effort learning French before the trip, and she was near fluent. She made good friends with the French turtle chef, Chocolat Mustache and Chocolat was the tour guide in their trip. (luckily, he spoke English for those who didn't learn French) He now comes and visits very often where he stays in Chocolate Crinkle's house. Chocolat also cooks very popular French pastries at JellyMan's restaurant from time to time.
Chocolate Crinkle was not in France just to get a vacation. She was in negotiations to buy the Louvre, Musee D'Orsay, and Versailles as a part of Droplet Computer's Innovate@Droplet project. Wilbur, who is Chief of VR and Simulation in the Innovate@Droplet team, was working on a project to make an app that would let you virtually visit those monuments with VR headsets. The end product makes you feel like you are there. By Chocolate Crinkle buying these, she puts her Droplet Phones pre-loaded with the special software (you can buy software separately as well) in the gift shops exclusively and people can buy them as great souvenirs. She also has an agreement to help maintain and restore these places, very expensive tasks.
Chocolate Crinkle gave JellyMan a very special present: a working GM EV-1 that Chocolate Crinkle fixed up! Chocolate Crinkle told him he better not make so much as a scratch on the car because they are very hard to come by and repair, but JellyMan still decided to bring it to their France trip. Chocolate Crinkle bought a cozy house tucked away there, and JellyMan nervously and very, very slowly drove it to the neighboring parking garage. They got settled in when JellyMan realized he had to plug it in. Luckily, he came prepared. He screwed the charger into the wall and plugged it in. Now, the challenge was to reach the charger to the car! He had brought many extensions cords, so he connected them, tossed the end out the window, picked it up outside, and walked it to where his EV-1 was parked. Unfortunately, the cord was a couple inches too short, so he pulled really hard until with a final tug, it reached! Emerald was taking a nap when suddenly a chunk of the wall next to her came down with a loud crack. She screamed and looked just as JellyMan's EV-1 charger was flying out the window with the chunk of wall (and smashing the window too). Boy, was JellyMan ever in for it now! He will also have to get his charger fixed by Chocolate Crinkle before he can drive anywhere.
For their next leg of their trip, JellyMan and his friends were taking a trip to London. They took the Eurostar train to get there, and JellyMan was sure surprised to hear Chocolate Crinkle's voice on the intercom! He rushed to the front of the train and found Chocolate Crinkle, dressed in a train conductor outfit and hat, driving the train. She smiled at JellyMan and showed him her train license, leaving JellyMan awestruck. When JellyMan made his way back to his seat, he picked up some Lays chips and a Coke. He was tired, though, so he put them in the seat pocket in front of him and went to sleep. A bit later, he got up feeling hungry. Like always, he shook his Coke up before he opened it. What he didn't realize, though, was that the bumpy train ride had already shook the carbonated beverage during his snooze, so by the time he finished shaking it had lots of built-up pressure. As he opened the bottle, the soda spewed out of the bottle through the skylight like a big jet (it was an extra-large bottle). Emerald had wisely distanced herself from JellyMan and sat a few cars behind, but unfortunately, the train was going at the right speed so that the stream of JellyMan's Coke went right through the skylight above Emerald and landed on her! Boy, was she ever mad.
Chocolate Crinkle was riding the London Metro with JellyMan when the train came to a sudden halt at the station. Surprised, JellyMan dropped his latest-model caseless iPhone (he bought it at the Apple Store in France while Chocolate Crinkle wasn't looking), and it broke with a crack. It was a crowded train car, and Chocolate Crinkle, sensing a large audience and a convenient moment, gave a short sales pitch to the people in the train. Seemingly out of nowhere, she pulled printed-out visuals out of her purse and even demonstrated the durability of the phone by dropping her personal one on the floor. Finally, she pulled out phones and handed them to the people in the train. Lucky them, it even had her personal autograph, and now they all have a better phone.
JellyMan got back from his big trip to Paris and Chocolate Crinkle and immediately remembered his iPhone he had dropped off before the trip. Panickily, he checked his calendar and realized it was day 60. On day 60, Apple would take his phone and send it to the recycling center! JellyMan knew the minutes counted in this case so he dashed in his Subaru Forester. Just as he was driving in, though, he saw a big truck leaving. Soon after, he learned that his phone had just been sent off to be recycled. Disappointed, JellyMan went back home. The next day, Chocolate Crinkle was, like she always does, driving to the junkyard in her rusty blue 1998 Toyota Tacoma pickup. It put-put-putted along, running on the vegetable oil fuel that came from JellyMan's restaurant (she had converted the car herself, being handy at car repair). Radio turned high on some pleasant music, she rolled into the yard where they recycle computers. She buys certain computers from the junkyard for a good price and takes care of the erasing process. Then she sells these things as refurbished with Droplet software and a good warranty on her website. Like always, she sifted through the large piles of stuff, put them in old dusty cardboard boxes, loaded them into the back, and drove off. She put the truck into the garage, carried the boxes herself back to her room, found a good place to set them, and took a sip of coffee before sitting down in front of her favorite 17” MacBook Pro 2010. Although Droplet makes laptops, she is fond of this MacBook Pro because it was one of her first computer repair projects at the computer warehouse in which she grew up in. Just then, from one of the dusty carboard boxes of old computers and stuff she had picked up today, she heard a familiar song. She realized it was JellyMan's smash-hit single, Mes Am Mes Asom! She rummaged around and found the phone buried deep in the pile. After confirming that it was JellyMan's phone, she gave it back to him. He was very relieved.
As a present for JellyMan's upcoming birthday, Chocolate Crinkle brought home secretly a London double-decker bus from their trip. Now, it was JellyMan's birthday, and he was really excited to try it out. He had always wanted to drive a London bus. He hopped in the front, and with tires kicking up sand on the beach, took off. Chocolate Crinkle and Emerald stood and watched him drive off, but moments later, they heard a honking, a screeching, and a crash. JellyMan came back holding a tire and a steering wheel that came from his bus a few minutes later. Chocolate Crinkle sure had a few words to say to him!
Shorty was exploring Brick's library one rainy day. She wasn't finding anything much, though, and so she went to Brick to ask for rainy day suggestions. Brick looked up from his environmental sciences book he had been reading and thought for a moment. He remembered in the past he had enjoyed in the past listening to jazz on rainy days, so he showed where to find some good recordings. Shorty picked out an important-looking record of Louie Armstrong, popped it in the record player, and sat down in a comfy window seat to have a listen. As she listened to the recording, she fell in love with the styles and textures of jazz. She now knew what she wanted to do. She had been taking piano lessons from Emerald and decided to use the skill in jazz. She had also been learning trombone and decided that would be good in jazz too. With lots and lots of practice, she actually became pretty good. She invited a few friends to make a mini jazz band with her. Shifty, a squid, became trumpet player. Snappy joined with his drums, UV Ray with his singing. They would practice the hours away, doing different numbers as well as lots of improvisation.
One day, Emerald was rehearsing Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin for her upcoming concert. She got to the trombone solo where Shorty was supposed to play, though she realized Shorty was nowhere to be seen! She called Shorty's name multiple times, until finally, everyone heard a muffled “Eeee?” from backstage. Shorty, who had been taking a nap in her shell, came slowly trudging onto the stage with her trombone. She had no idea what was going on as she was sleeping, so she smiled at Emerald and started singing a song that she had written, inspired by the trip they took to France. She called it “You Went The Wrong Way Old King Louie” and it was just a fun song about King Louie and the French Revolution. She led the intro on her trombone, and when it came time for the song itself, she looked at Emerald, who sighed and started jamming the piano part. They sang the song, and everyone had a good time of it. When it all ended, Emerald went straight to her part after the trombone solo in Rhapsody in Blue. Shorty went back to her seat in the brass section and fell asleep in her shell.
Emerald was giving a concert in the mall. She was standing under the glass dome area near the fountain, with a large crowd in front of her. She had asked JellyMan to make an announcement over the intercom right before she started, and, 5 minutes after the start time, JellyMan made a rushed announcement about the concert starting. Emerald was starting her opening of Bach's E Major partita when suddenly, from the intercom came a song that she very well recognized: JellyMan's Mes Am Mes Asom. JellyMan was listening to it on his headphones and singing along as loud as he could (and a little bit out of tuning). Chocolate Crinkle heard that and rushed to the mall control room. She flung open that door and glared at JellyMan, who stopped singing, looked around panickily, and realized his mic was unmuted! He rushed to turn it off, bumping other buttons sending announcements and noises throughout the mall before pushing the right one. JellyMan was really in for it now!
JellyMan came home from his restaurant job one day and saw Chocolate Crinkle and Emerald casually chatting and eating a snack. Emerald was reading the paper and Chocolate Crinkle was on her phone. JellyMan, wanting to join the fun, casually walked over and asked if he could have a few, and when his sisters said yes, he grabbed a seat and popped a few into his mouth. It turned out, unfortunately, that those snacks Emerald and Chocolate Crinkle were so much enjoying, were Carolina Reapers, the world's hottest peppers! JellyMan's head felt like it was on fire and he looked around for something to wash it down. He grabbed a jar on the table and put the contents in his mouth, which turned out to be chili powder. Coughing it up, he grabbed something from the refrigerator, liquid, which he drank. Bad idea. That liquid was chili sauce! Just as he was pretty sure he wouldn't make it from all the heat, Chocolate Crinkle noticed JellyMan might find the peppers a little hot and handed him a tub of ice cream. JellyMan finished it fast and felt much better afterwards. He now looks twice before having Emerald or Chocolate Crinkle's snack.
Emerald was having a rehearsal with her orchestra. This time she was playing Bartok's second violin concerto. JellyMan was playing in that orchestra, and he completely forgot about the rehearsal. He was instead chatting with Kermit on the 100^th floor underground, admiring his work with the servers. Kermit was doing a major upgrade to the system and everything was strewn around. JellyMan's eyes drifted towards the digital clock on the wall when he realized he had to be at Emerald's rehearsal. He was 20 minutes late already! JellyMan grabbed his backpack from the corner, wished Kermit good luck, and ran to the elevator. Much to his dismay, a sign on the elevator read “Out of order”. His only option was to run up 105 flights of stairs to the 5^th floor hall, so he turned on his clip-on JBL speakers on his backpack and started running set to music, his Asom Disco Beets. 15 minutes later JellyMan burst through the hall, huffing and puffing. He had completely forgotten the fact that Emerald was in the middle of playing and that his speakers were on, so he dashed on the stage and squeezed to his seat, knocking over backpacks and crowding the other orchestra members with his giant backpack. He got in his seat when he saw everyone staring at him and Emerald was giving him the evil eye. Sheepishly he turned off his speakers and got his stuff out to start playing. After the rehearsal, Emerald said that rehearsal is dismissed, but added that she wanted to have a word with JellyMan. From the back room, all the orchestra members heard Emerald shouting, “JELLYMAN!” as she lectured him to not be late for a rehearsal again.
Chocolate Crinkle's house is very big, and that means that from time to time she holds fire drills. It was fire drill day, and Chocolate Crinkle had informed everyone about what to do. Snappy and UV Ray were playing a car racing game together when the fire alarm went off. They were resting their MacBook Airs they were borrowing on an indoor balcony ledge with a drop of 7 floors below. Snappy and UV Ray tried to remember what they were supposed to do, and although the built-in computer screens built in throughout the house flashed an escape route and an intercom announced instructions in the case of a fire, they weren't paying attention and instead went with something they read in a book long ago: stop, drop, and roll. They stopped the racing game, grimaced as both of their cars crashed, and then dropped the MacBooks down the ledge, watching the laptops crash on the ground beneath them. Then, Snappy and UV Ray started rolling. They rolled and rolled and rolled, until Chocolate Crinkle found them a while later. They didn't make much distance in rolling and stayed around the same place they started, but they were sure dizzy when they saw Chocolate Crinkle sternly looking down at them, holding two crushed MacBook Airs.
JellyMan was out walking one day when he spotted a sticker sheet on the ground. He picked it up and found some sleek looking car bumper stickers that read “Lyft”. He didn't know what Lyft meant but he knew he loved putting stickers on his Subaru Forester, so he went home and stuck it on. The next day, JellyMan was driving around town when he reached a red light. As he was waiting for the signal to change, though, a man he had never seen before flagged him down from the street corner. He ran to the car, opened up the passenger seat next to him, handed him a $20 bill, and asked JellyMan to go to get him to the grocery store nearby. Puzzled, JellyMan politely obliged because of the $20, and he drove nicely to the grocery store. He was on his way back home, pleased with the money he had just earned, when he spotted Chocolate Crinkle, holding her meeting portfolio and phone and waving him down. JellyMan pulled over and Chocolate Crinkle jumped into the car. As she was doing this, she ended up spilling the papers in her portfolio so as she was busily picking them up, she handed JellyMan a wad of $100 bills and asked him to get her to her meeting, quick! Chocolate Crinkle had not actually realized it was JellyMan's car; her Prius was not starting today, and Strawberry had made last-minute plans for her to take a Lyft ride to her meeting. She was almost late because the meeting would start in five minutes. Chocolate Crinkle finally pulled things together and took a deep breath when she realized JellyMan was driving. She asked him what in the world he was doing driving for Lyft and he explained he didn't even know what Lyft was. He drove her at top speed, breaking all the traffic laws, and after a very turbulent ride of passing through red lights, driving on the wrong side of the road, and bumping into a few lampposts, they made it just in time. Chocolate Crinkle let JellyMan keep the money, and she calmly walked into the meeting room right on time as if nothing happened. JellyMan sure needed that money, though, because his car was in tough shape after this.
Paco is a groovy chameleon from Madagascar. Every day, he would take out his guitar or ukulele and play up on a tree and eating fruit from the tree. But he was interested in a new life and some adventure, so he hitched a ride on a plane (first class) and flew to Florida. Carrying a small suitcase and his instruments, Paco realized he hadn't made any plans for what he would do when he arrived. Looking around, he found a flyer on a lamppost. It said that an electric guitarist is needed for a band, and to go to JellyMan's Cabbage! Restaurant. Paco played electric guitar too and had brought his along, so he grabbed a taxi to the restaurant and went in. It was relaxed there and JellyMan, after serving him some food, invited Paco to have a jam session with him and his new band, the Sugar Rush Band. JellyMan played piano and steel drum, Snappy played drum set and backup steel drums, UV Ray sang and did general percussion, and Boing did synthesizer and staging. Paco jumped right in and started rocking out with the band, and JellyMan quickly knew that Paco was the perfect guitarist for them. After the jam session, he told Paco the good news and that they would be meeting again the next afternoon around 5. Paco agreed and left, but when JellyMan closed up shop a while later, he saw Paco still outside, strumming on his guitar. JellyMan asked why he was still there, and Paco explained his dilemma. JellyMan invited to drive him to Chocolate Crinkle's house where he can stay the night. Chocolate Crinkle was surprised that JellyMan brought home a chameleon with him, but he promised it would be just one night (and their 200-story mansion had a little extra room). That one night became a week, a month, and finally, JellyMan got permission to have Paco stay for good. They were great friends at this point, and Paco slept on the top bunk of the bunk bed. Chocolate Crinkle was happy to have Paco, though, because now the house is filled all day with pleasant sounds of guitar and ukulele, another instrument Paco plays. Emerald was also delighted that Paco knew classical guitar and they performed together the Paganini duet for violin and guitar, which was a big hit! Every evening from 6-9, the Sugar Rush band rock out and play pleasant Caribbean tunes. Abby Cadabby, a fairy from Sesame Street, is another chef at JellyMan's restaurant and now JellyMan doesn't have to be there to cook constantly. Extra help also lets him stay open for more hours. Paco cooks Jamaican food as well as tacos, too, so the selection at the restaurant is much bigger now and is more popular than ever!
One day, Chocolate Crinkle texted JellyMan that she would come over to his restaurant briefly after work. JellyMan got a meal prepared for her and she arrived after the Sugar Rush started performing. She sat down near the stage and casually enjoyed her dinner while she worked out the next Droplet Phone design. The band brought in a good number of customers, but today, it was record-breaking. The crowd packed in the restaurant and lines winded down the street. Everyone was cheering and videotaping in JellyMan's direction. It was a good night. JellyMan and the band played all their best hits as the crowd cheered them on. Then, something strange happened. Chocolate Crinkle, who needed to leave for a late night meeting with VP Shorty, quietly slipped out while using her phone. The cheering crowd, as well as the cameras, followed Chocolate Crinkle out the door until there were only a few people left. Disappointed, JellyMan watched as Chocolate Crinkle signed autographs and had her picture taken (she is good about acknowledging her fans). JellyMan complained to Chocolate Crinkle at home. It is hard for JellyMan when his sister makes $10.7 trillion every day! At least the restaurant had lots of customers that day.
Emerald is a master chef and is world famous for her cooking. She also knows by heart how to cook almost everything, and she has definitely made most good recipes that exist. (she even made her own) But there was one thing that Emerald never had made: fruitcake. And that was what JellyMan asked Emerald to make for the holidays, so Emerald struggled and struggled but managed after many hours of painstakingly frustrating coaching on the behalf of Chocolate Crinkle to find a recipe online on her iMac G3 and print it out. She went to her kitchen, followed the recipe carefully, and came out with a beautiful fruit cake. There was one problem, though, when she tried to cut it. The recipe from online was not a good one and produced an extremely dense and hard cake which made the knife break. She tried another knife, which completely bent out of shape. At this point, Emerald knew the cake was worthless, so she tried to chisel it apart with a screwdriver and hammer. The screwdriver broke and the hammer head came off. She took it to the concrete sidewalk outside and dropped it. The sidewalk cracked and was left with a big dent. She soaked it in water with no luck, and finally in acid, also no good. Emerald was done with the fruitcake. It was too much trouble! She went to a high balcony and threw it onto the beach. She threw it hard, though, so it went through the ground. She didn't think much about it until the next day, when she was standing on the same balcony. From the sky, suddenly, a flaming red object came streaking across the sky and landed with a boom on the beach. She panickily ran over to see what happened, and there, smoldering, dirty, but still perfectly intact, was her fruitcake. Kermit studied it and spent a while figuring out what might of happened, and although he isn't sure, the only explanation is that it went into a wormhole and came back hurtling to Earth at such an incredible speed, landing back on the beach it was originally thrown to! Now that fruitcake is locked in a box in the basement storage room, because it is dangerously dense, and no one can figure out a way to dispose it.
JellyMan needed a waiter at his restaurant to take people's orders. Sometimes customer's built-in-the-table computerized ordering system didn't work, and he would have to stop cooking to take restaurant orders. Since Strawberry so good at giving orders, he thought he might ask him to take the position. Strawberry agreed, and the next day, he got Strawberry set up on his counter. Strawberry wanted a very fancy and comfortable place to sit, and all his equipment to be Chocolate Crinkle's secretary, so that was set up as well. The customers started coming into the restaurant that day and Strawberry caught their eye. There was an adorable pink cupcake sitting on the counter smiling and sitting in front of a computer screen. So, everyone lined up to see him. They looked at him closely, cooed and talked about how cute he is. They also wanted to take selfies. Strawberry was staying relatively calm at first, but he did NOT like to be called cute. After 10 minutes or so of smiling and nodding while people praised him, he lost it. He was shaking with anger. He was screaming and fuming and looked like he would explode. But when everyone saw him lose his temper, they thought it was so adorable that a cupcake was shaking and screaming, so they started filming him. JellyMan came out to see what the commotion was and saw the issue. Meanwhile, a long line was forming to order food, but Strawberry wasn't listening. Lucky for JellyMan, though, Strawberry's friend Nicolo, a pear, was there to visit. He sat down next to Strawberry, smiled, and gently took menu orders and entered them into the computer system. Strawberry calmed down eventually and now people try not to call him adorable. Then, he smiles nicely and nods as customers list the things they want to eat. He enters them into the computer, and although he doesn't need to, turns arounds and shouts at the top of his lungs to the kitchen the contents of the order. Robots made by Chocolate Crinkle wheel the food out to tables. And Nicolo is always there for the times when Strawberry loses his temper.
One day, JellyMan thought it was good weather to try out his golf cart. He had gotten it at the yard sale but forgot about it, so it stayed in the garage for a while collecting dust. So, he invited Paco to come, and they went on a pleasant (but slow) spin around the city. He was not paying attention to the battery indicator, though, and it started blinking the low battery indicator when they were almost home. JellyMan hit the gas pedal but he knew there was one obstacle between him and their house: the hill. Their house sat on top of a steep hill. The golf cart went up and up, but right before reaching the top, it slowed down and came to a stop. JellyMan and Paco, wide eyed, looked at each other as the golf cart, now out of battery, started rolling backwards down the hill. It sped up and sped up until it zoomed across the street and into a nearby candy shop. They happened to be the 100,000^th customer and won a shopping spree. How exciting! JellyMan plugged in his golf cart and decided to go candy shopping with Paco. They came out with a cartful a few hours later and started on their way home. Unfortunately, they didn't have any candy left by the time they arrived home because they ate it all, but it was a great day for the two candy lovers.
JellyMan and Chocolate Crinkle were attending a benefit auction for a charity. It was a silent auction, so everyone was wandering around and writing down bid amounts. Chocolate Crinkle wanted to donate money, but she just wasn't seeing anything that good. She already had a bunch of stuff and was thinking of maybe just donating money instead. There was only about 15 seconds on the clock when she spotted the item she wanted: a pair of fuzzy wuzzy fox socks! As she ran over, it caught JellyMan's eye. He was nearby and was wondering why his sister was dashing to a specific item on auction. He arrived when Chocolate Crinkle had written down $1,000. JellyMan wanted the socks too, so he wrote $10,000. Chocolate Crinkle responded by adding two zeroes to her's, making it $100,000. With 2 seconds left on the clock, JellyMan and Chocolate Crinkle madly wrote zeroes as fast as they could until they heard the buzzer... Chocolate Crinkle won. She went up to the checkout counter, proudly forked over $100 trillion and accepted the socks. JellyMan was close behind at $10 trillion. Emerald says that it's a good thing he didn't win because he would be able to pay off a $100 trillion pair of socks in his lifetime, but he still didn't feel good about it when Chocolate Crinkle smirked at him the next morning at breakfast, showing off her new pair of fuzzy wuzzy fox socks.
JellyMan was taking a trip with everyone to the woods. He was near the edge of the cliff alone when his phone started beeping. The woods were so serene and quiet so JellyMan got surprised and dropped his phone off the edge. Not knowing how he could possibly live without his phone, JellyMan jumped to grab it. The good news was that he got his phone, but unfortunately, he was also falling now. He had his phone, though, so he texted Chocolate Crinkle who was nearby. “can u come get me pls” he said. Chocolate Crinkle texted back “sure where r u?”. “I am here” was JellyMan's reply. He sent his location. Chocolate Crinkle of course had no idea where to look but as she was driving her Prius, she came to the road right under where JellyMan was falling. JellyMan was taking an “asom selfie” for his Instagram and was approaching the ground when the Prius passed underneath him just right for him to fall through the open moonroof and right in the backseat. Paco was there too and greeted him with a “what's up, dude”. Chocolate Crinkle also said hi to her brother and they all went home.
Brick always drove his 2008 Camry, but since he took care of Snappy, UV Ray, and Boing, he needed a bigger car. Also, the car was getting a bit old. Chocolate Crinkle drove him to the Toyota dealership. Brick picked a Sienna hybrid as his next car and sat down with the shady salesperson to buy it. Brick had taken Snappy, UV Ray, and Boing with him, and soon Snappy and UV Ray got bored of the endless car-buying paperwork. They wandered off and a shiny new red Supra caught their eye. Another car salesperson saw them admiring it and took them for a spin. Snappy and UV Ray knew that Brick must want such a flashy car and told the salesperson so. They picked out all the premium and top-tier features for the car. The salesperson, eager to sell a car, got all the paperwork ready so Brick just needed to sign in a couple places. Brick had finally finished the car buying process when he realized he had lost track of Snappy and UV Ray. Boing found them near the Supra, and Brick came quickly. The salesperson waved him down to come and sign the forms and Brick realized what had happened. He politely declined getting another car that day and he drove Boing as well as disappointed Snappy and UV Ray home in his new electric blue Sienna.
JellyMan is not a good driver. He drives really fast (when his Forester isn't stalled) but bumps into a bunch of things. He would swerve through the middle of the intersection, switch lanes, and even go in the wrong direction! Chocolate Crinkle also drives really fast in her Prius, but she is extremely accurate. One of the things she is famous for is parallel parking. She doesn't even have to think and can zoom into a very tight space without slowing down. She is also great at driving backwards down the driveway at full speed. Today, JellyMan was parking in front of the store. It was a busy day and there were not any spaces. Finally, he found one on the curb of the street and immediately decided to take it. Something caught his eye though, the car on one side was a Porsche and there was a Bugatti on the other. JellyMan was suddenly nervous and decided to be really careful. Shaking a bit and definitely sweating, he cautiously eased in. Oops! He went a bit too far and made a dent in the Porsche. Surprised, he hit reversed and banged into the Bugatti even harder! Oh no! Chocolate Crinkle ended up paying a sum of $1 million for repairs after JellyMan pleaded to her. He will never try to park in such a small space again.
It was a big day for Chocolate Crinkle. She had a big speech at an annual Droplet event at noon where she would talk about all the things Droplet phone can do and how versatile it is. The speech would be broadcast all over the world! She went early that morning to the mall where the event would take place and started setting up. Suddenly, her phone rang. There was an issue with the servers in the mall, and Kermit was booked. She had to go fix them herself. The repair was complicated and took her a while. When she was done, she had to go to a meeting that preceded the conference. She wouldn't have time to go home and get her laptop as well as her presentation materials. She called JellyMan and asked him to bring them 15 minutes before the event and he agreed. Chocolate Crinkle had organized them to grab when she woke up, so he didn't have to find them. To make sure he wouldn't forget, he set an alarm on his iPhone. Figuring he had a little bit more time, he decided to take a nap before leaving at 11:30 to bring the things. It was 11:45 and JellyMan still hadn't arrived. Chocolate Crinkle started to get worried. What was really happening was that JellyMan's iPhone was silenced, and he did not hear the alarm. He kept sleeping. At 11:59, Chocolate Crinkle could not wait any longer. Trying to figure out what to do, she suddenly had an idea. She had a Droplet Phone that could be connected to the Droplet Dock and be turned into a regular desktop! All her files were in the cloud as well, so she quickly pulled them up. She walked out at 12:00 on the dot and waved at the cheering crowd. Then, she prefaced the speech with the story from the day about how she didn't have any speech materials, but she did have her Droplet Phone and Dock, so she was able to access her presentation and run the whole meeting from it. JellyMan woke up at 12:20. Looking at the clocked, he panicked. He had overslept! He ran up to Chocolate Crinkle's room, threw together the pile of papers, yanked the laptop, and grabbed a big, tangled mess of cords that were attached to it. He ran back down to the car and took off. By the time he made it, it was 12:45. Chocolate Crinkle gave her closing remarks as Paco started up the event closing music backstage. She was waving to the cheering crowd when suddenly, from the back of the room, everyone heard a loud “CHOCOLATE CRINKLE!!” as JellyMan panickily ran up to the stage, papers flying everywhere. He tripped on the stage and dropped everything. Quickly, he picked it up, shoved the papers into Chocolate Crinkle's hands, and started furiously plugging in the laptop to everything he could see. Chocolate Crinkle went up to him and explained the conference was over, and embarrassed, he waved meekly to the crowd as he walked out backstage with Chocolate Crinkle. She wasn't mad, though, because the incident made for a great selling point in her speech, and it was a huge success.
Emerald was playing a concert, Brahms Violin Concerto, and this time, with Chocolate Crinkle's help, it was being livestreamed. Chocolate Crinkle was busy with Moby and Kebab backstage to work the camera angles. During the concert, JellyMan really needed to use the bathroom. He slipped out quietly when he realized he might be able to get into the backstage restroom instead since he was Emerald's brother. That felt more important, so he went through the secret door and was walking around when he tripped over a cord. He happened to trip over the cord powering the livestream and all the cameras. Moby and Kebab gasped when the screens all turned black. Chocolate Crinkle though was calmer. Luckily, she had her phone out there as a livestream backup, so the stream automatically switched to her Droplet phone. As JellyMan made squeezed his way back to his seat, he had another misfortune: he knocked over the camera! Everyone watching throughout the world suddenly saw the stream go blank and then JellyMan trying to fix it back into place. Chocolate Crinkle was fuming from backstage. He was in big trouble later from Emerald too, because he should not have been back there in the first place.
JellyMan and Paco were going Christmas shopping at the nearby store. They picked out a present for Chocolate Crinkle there and got to the cash register. When it was their turn, the cashier asked them if they would like the present wrapped. But JellyMan misunderstood and thought the cashier said “rapped”. Excited, he pulled out sunglasses for him and Paco, and started up some “asom beets” to dance along. They started dancing and kept dancing until they realized the cashier wasn't doing any rap song. He was just staring at them, wondering what in the world they were doing. Embarrassed, JellyMan and Paco stopped the music and put away their sunglasses. JellyMan quietly paid for the present and said he would wrap it himself.
It was snowing, and JellyMan and everyone were taking a weekend off in the Kansas farm. When they arrived, there was a snowstorm. Everyone ran inside to warm up in the cozy house, but JellyMan had a new toy: a snow blower. He really wanted to try it out but there was no snow in Florida, so he finally got his chance. Paco wanted to watch too but he does not like the cold because he is from Madagascar, so he stood off to the side, all bundled up and out of the way. JellyMan started it up. It worked like a charm! He had the whole walk cleared in less than five minutes. In his excitement, though, he had forgotten to look at where all the snow was blowing too. He was proudly walking back to the house on the newly cleared sidewalk when he noticed where Paco was standing there was a big mound of snow. He poked around and realized that Paco had gotten covered with the snow from the snowblower! JellyMan picked up frozen Paco and they warmed up inside together in front of the fireplace.
Emerald was fed up with not understanding computers. She knew how Chocolate Crinkle was a genius with computers, so she thought she would ask her. “Chocolate Crinkle, can you just explain computers to me please?” she asked. Chocolate Crinkle was more than glad to explain. In fact, she was ecstatic. Chocolate Crinkle had a presentation on computers that she was waiting to use. It was an excellent presentation. Chocolate Crinkle, however, did not think about how clueless Emerald was with the topic, so she spent the next straight 9 hours non-stop talking (not asking for questions) about the complexities of computers, how they work, what they can do, and moved on to talking about programming, programming languages, elements of design, and more. Filled with passion, she brought the presentation with a close with “any questions?” when she realized Emerald had fallen asleep much earlier! Luckily, Chocolate Crinkle was recording it. She put the class on Udemy, and it was a big hit.
Snappy and UV Ray starred in another successful Droplet Phone ad. They are known to not be good singers, and in the ad, they went in a big hall to do a singing duet. The ad showed JellyMan, Emerald, and Chocolate Crinkle all videotaping. As they squeaked out different off-pitch notes and struggled through rhythms, Emerald's camcorder broke. The tape started rolling out the side and the lens crumbled from the bad singing. Soon, JellyMan's iPhone did the same, cracking on the front and back glass as well as experiencing LCD and logic board damage. But Chocolate Crinkle's Droplet Phone was just fine. As the walls of the hall started to crumble from the noise, Snappy and UV Ray ended their song and Chocolate Crinkle sent it to Granny Hiwahiwa. She was delighted to hear Snappy and UV Ray's singing and happily watched it on her Droplet Phone as the windows of her house cracked and the plants wilted, again, from the singing.
Chocolate Crinkle invents and designs everywhere she goes. That is why she always carries a Raspberry Pi with a breadboard and a few other things in her purse. That day, she was in the backseat with JellyMan driving. She was trying to work with a circuit and ended up shorting it. There was a big boom and a puff of smoke. Everyone in the car screamed and looked at the source of the sound. Chocolate Crinkle sat there, already moved on. She experiences it a lot, so a small explosion did not surprise her at all!
JellyMan and his friends were going camping for the first time. They picked out a nice location in the woods and drove in the SuperVan. Of course, a big concern was food, because the SuperVan was basically a hotel on wheels. Emerald assured everyone that she would take care of that, and she carefully planned out the week of delicious meals. They arrived at the campsite the next day and went about setting up the campsite. They spent the next few hours busy outdoors. That was when they started to smell a pungent odor coming out of the SuperVan. Chocolate Crinkle was missing, and there was even smoke! They went to investigate and realized it was coming for the kitchen. That is when they saw it: Chocolate Crinkle was standing in front of a bunch of burnt, cooked food. She was reading a recipe from her phone while pouring a container of salt into a pot. She noticed her friends standing there, eyes wide and mouths open. She exclaimed, “I cooked all the food!” and when she got no answer, she asked, “Does anyone know what's a teaspoon?” They went home that day. Chocolate Crinkle continues to enjoy cooking, but by herself in her own kitchen. She also ends up eating it by herself too.
Emerald is still uncomfortable with computers, but she decided to challenge herself one day to check her email for the first time. She booted up her iMac G3 and was surprised when it made a chime (Apple startup chime). She immediately called Chocolate Crinkle. Chocolate Crinkle assured it was fine, so she went on. She had her password taped to the computer, so she typed it in. She missed one letter, though, and it told her her password was wrong. She called Chocolate Crinkle and she assured Emerald it was safe so Emerald typed it in again correctly. She started up the web browser, a version of TenFour Fox that Chocolate Crinkle had ported for OS X 10.3. This was the first time using a web browser, so it asked if she wanted to import web browser data from Safari. Alarmed, Emerald called back Chocolate Crinkle, who explained there was no point in importing any data when there isn't any to import in the first place. Emerald, relieved, made her way to her never-checked email inbox. It loaded up and suddenly thousands of emails popped up on the screen, blinging each time there was a new one. Overwhelmed, Emerald shut off the computer. That was enough technology for a week, maybe even a month. Maybe someday she will actually check her email.
JellyMan was going with everyone to Hawaii. Emerald lectured him when they were packing to make sure to pack lightly. He tried his hardest, but in the end, he had packed about five bags of things. Partially it was because Snappy and UV Ray were given only one bag and they had a bunch of stuff, and there were so many things, his tennis racket, his Xbox, and his entire seashell collection. He was not alone, though, because when they got to the airport terminal, he noticed that Chocolate Crinkle had nine suitcases! Emerald was irritated at both of them. They got to the hotel, and JellyMan dumped all of his things out (and ended up not touching them for the remainder of the trip; he only used his phone). Chocolate Crinkle, however, opened the first suitcase and pulled out a large stack of laptops, including her prized 17” MacBook Pro 2010. The second and third suitcases held a few PCs, ranging from USFF (ultra-small form factor) to MT (mini tower). The fourth and fifth suitcase was packed with monitors. The sixths had all her cables and adapters, the seventh had her external drives, and the eighth had some broken computers to repair and extra parts in a ninth. When everyone stared at her, she smiled and said it was a working vacation. She plugged it all in, to a set of power strips but the hotel electricity shut down for a few minutes on overload. When power was restored, though, Chocolate Crinkle happily set up her workstation and got to work. She did not forget, though, that she had her Raspberry Pi in her purse. She pulled it out and completed her on-the-go office.
JellyMan does not exercise much, but when he does, he exercises to the third movement of the Barber Violin Concerto. For the 3 minutes, he will stand up and shake back and forth until the movement is over. He has got into a habit of doing that whenever he hears the piece, though, so one day Emerald was rehearsing. He was sitting in the audience and started shaking back and forth, flippers flipping. Emerald was irritated but she got to the end and asked what he was doing. JellyMan realized he had not only done his exercise routine in front of Emerald but the whole orchestra and a few audience members visiting the rehearsal. Embarrassed, he sat back down in his chair, but he always continues to work out to the piece.
Getting around in Chocolate Crinkle's house takes time. There are 200 extremely expansive floors. Chocolate Crinkle has an especially hard time, because the company's servers, supercomputers, and factory are all located in the bottom floors of the building. Her bedroom is on the top, though, so she sometimes has to go up 200 stories to get to an online meeting. The elevators work but they are sometimes in use and not very fast. So, she designed a tram system to allow her to go throughout the house. It is like a capsule and is inside a tube. It goes to different areas of each floors, and of course between different floors. It even routes to other places like JellyMan's mall and restaurant. There are two lines that run at the same time, and extremely fast. Chocolate Crinkle was very pleased with it and took it down to the 100^th floor underground that morning to check in on the servers. JellyMan and Paco woke up that morning at 11 and noticed the newly installed tram system. Curious, they hopped in and looked at the destination list. To their delight, they could map to every vending machine in the house! They put all of them into the route and started on their journey. Meanwhile, Snappy and UV Ray woke up at 12. They also noticed the tram system and there was the remaining line open. They hopped in and looked at the control panel to see how fast it could go. There were four options: slow, fast, faster, and fastest. Of course, they picked fastest. The tram shot off and Snappy and UV Ray were plastered to the back side as it whizzed throughout all the floors of the house, the mall, and the restaurant. Chocolate Crinkle was done in the server room and needed to get to a meeting in ten minutes. She was glad there was a tram so she could sit down and relax, get upstairs early, and refill her coffee mug at the coffee station. But when she looked, both trams were in use. That was fine, because she was glad that it was being used and it went fast so it would surely come back quickly. It did not. The one barely moved on the map. It would get to a vending machine and stop for 3 minutes. She looked at the camera and realized JellyMan and Paco were raiding all the vending machines. Then the tram would inch along to the next vending machine. Annoyed, she gave up on that one. The second was moving so fast and non-stop on the outer track. Time to time, it would flash by. That was when she saw Snappy and UV Ray plastered to the back (and having a blast). Fuming, she took the elevator and arrived in her room barely in time for the meeting. She watched the tram status, though, and throughout the day, the one stopped constantly while the other zoomed around. Finally, it was her break. She went to the main tram station and waited there sternly while she worked on her MacBook Pro. Eventually, JellyMan and Paco's tram came to the station. The tram was filled with candy and sugary drinks. JellyMan and Paco were carrying an armful out when they saw upset Chocolate Crinkle. Soon after, Snappy and UV Ray's tram broke down. It ended up at the main station and they got out a little dizzy. Chocolate Crinkle gave them a piece of her mind!
JellyMan and Paco were driving home one nice summer day. The weather was nice so they rolled down the window and listened to Asom Disco Beets. They were feeling very “asom” when suddenly, a sleek blue 5^th generation Toyota Supra pulled beside them at a red light. Paco saw it first and pointed it out to JellyMan. They were admiring it when the window rolled down. They were shocked with what they saw. Chocolate Crinkle was driving. She smiled at them and drove away when the light changed. JellyMan and Paco just stood there, even with a big line of cars honking behind them. Chocolate Crinkle can easily afford any car in the world, but she is known to not go overkill on cars, hence her 2011 Prius. JellyMan has asked many times now to let him take the Supra for a spin, but she always says no.
JellyMan was driving around town one day. Chocolate Crinkle was working on her MacBook Pro in the backseat. They were in slower traffic that day, and JellyMan did not like slow traffic. He liked driving fast. The traffic finally cleared, but just as JellyMan was getting to the intersection, the light changed to yellow. He was fed up and decided to try to make the light. He zoomed through just as the light changed. Chocolate Crinkle looked up and noticed JellyMan's reckless driving. “JELLYMAN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” she shouted at him. JellyMan was partway through the intersection and got surprised. Instinctively, he went into reverse, ending up bumping into some cars behind him and leading to more shouting from Chocolate Crinkle. The end result was a mess of an accident and a big jam at the intersection. Chocolate Crinkle was very embarrassed going car to car and paying everyone for their repairs.
The US government was giving out COVID stimulus checks. Chocolate Crinkle and Emerald made way too much to get the checks, but JellyMan qualified. He proudly opened up his $1,400 check from the mail in front of Snappy and UV Ray. He told them he was the only one in the house who would get it. Snappy and UV Ray asked why, to which JellyMan responded that he is very special, and he ends up with free money whenever there was an opportunity. Snappy and UV Ray were VERY jealous. One day, Chocolate Crinkle announced to Snappy and UV Ray that she would give them monthly allowance. Excited, they followed her to her room eagerly. Chocolate Crinkle pulled out her wallet and took out a huge was of bills. Snappy and UV Ray smiled. Then, to their disappointment, she reached in and handed them 50 cents each. They went back to JellyMan and told him what happened. They also asked him if he gets a lot of allowance because he is special like he said he was. JellyMan said that of course he gets allowance and to prove it, he went up to Chocolate Crinkle and asked. She smiled sweetly and said of course he could get some. She pulled out her wallet and a wad of bills…and handed him a quarter. Snappy and UV Ray sure had a good laugh!
JellyMan got a new car: a Nissan Dayz. He was taking it for a spin when he realized it was quite slower than other cars; it didn't have enough zip. He was on the highway and he watched as all the other cars passed ahead of him even when he pushed the gas. In fact, it slowed almost to a crawl when going up the steep hill to his house. Emerald didn't mind it, though, so he gave it to her. Hiwahiwa always had her eye on Emerald's Volkswagen bus, so she gave it to her, and everyone was happy. One day, JellyMan happened to be driving behind Hiwahiwa's Volkswagen, but he did not realize it was her car. Hiwahiwa drives really slowly and JellyMan was stuck behind her. He was starting to get irritated and honked. Finally, he had an opportunity to pass. He zoomed forward angrily and opened his window to shake his flipper at the slow car. But as he was doing that, Hiwahiwa saw him and waved. He had been honking at his Granny! Awkwardly, he smiled and waved back but Hiwahiwa never got offended; she was just happy to see JellyMan.
JellyMan and his friends were traveling. It was far away, though, and JellyMan rented a car for them to ride. When they arrived at their destination car rental place, though, it showed up that JellyMan had accidentally order a Smart Car rental. Chocolate Crinkle took one look at it and shook her head. She couldn't even fit her suitcases in that thing! She went up to the rental desk and asked the person there if she can buy a car. When the person said they don't sell the rental cars, she pulled out a large wad of hundred-dollar bills. The clerk stared at them, shocked, then smiled at Chocolate Crinkle and said she'll see what she could do. After splitting up the money with the other colleagues, they let her pick out a couple cars. They picked out two Nissan Serena e-POWERs and piled in. They had a good trip with two good cars as a souvenir.
Snappy and UV Ray had always wanted their own computer, but Chocolate Crinkle wisely said they weren't responsible enough, so they ended up borrowing someone else's. But one Christmas, Chocolate Crinkle surprised them by announcing she had decided they were ready to get their own computers. She spent 45 minutes giving speeches about technology, technology use, talking care of technology, and education with technology while Snappy and UV Ray squirmed eagerly. Finally, she revealed them…two iBook G4s! Snappy and UV Ray were disappointed to say the least, especially after they booted them up and the only game on it was Tetris. But they were encouraged when Chocolate Crinkle told them they could download more from the internet. She explained that they need to hook up to a modem. She had a connection in her room and took them there. She pointed in the general direction of the modem, but after 20 minutes, they still couldn't untangle the mess of cables and ended up asking Chocolate Crinkle to find it for them. She did, and after hearing all the noises from the modem it connected! They found only one other game available, Marble Blast Gold, but they decided it was better than nothing and clicked to start downloading. The connection was so slow, though, so they sat impatiently for 30 minutes when they heard the phone ringing. It was the landline, and Chocolate Crinkle needed to answer it. She apologetically explained that she needed to take the call and that is when the connection dropped for Snappy and UV Ray (because you can't talk on the phone and use a modem connection at the same time). Their download failed, and each time they tried to download the game, Chocolate Crinkle would get another call. She works from 4AM to 2AM so it is hard to time it when she isn't working. And the time between 2AM and 4AM she is sleeping; Snappy and UV Ray know better than to hook up to the noisy modem at that time.
One day, Moby decided to go out and paint the gorgeous sunset on the beach. He is a very talented painter and created a beautiful watercolor piece. Kermit noticed and was intrigued. He wasn't great at drawing, but he knew a lot of math. He went out next to Moby and opened up Desmos graphic calculator. There, he made equations of different lines and colored them, accordingly, making an intricate set of graphs that looked like the sunset. Chocolate Crinkle saw them working together and wanted to join in. Chocolate Crinkle can't draw a straight line to save her life, but she can program. She is also incredibly fast at typing (she sits down from 4AM to 5AM and responds to every email in her inbox every day) so she brought her MacBook Pro and sat down. Then, to Moby and Kermit's amazement, she started, pixel by pixel, filling in a blank file. As they watched the output, a nearly identical replica of the scene emerged on her screen. She finished it off with an e-signature and was pleased with her work. That is now her desktop picture.
JellyMan has a fairly popular computer repair business. He is good at it too and can do almost everything by himself. But sometimes he has to tap into Chocolate Crinkle's vast computer resources (and skills). Today, he was replacing a hard drive and performing a clean install of OS X 10.3 on an iBook G4. The repair went fine, although getting to the hard drive is a bit complex, but he was looking through his basket of operating system install discs. He had worked on iBook G4s before and even has one of his own, but he realized that he was missing OS install disc 1 of 3, so he asked his sister. She had one and pointed to a heaping pile stuffed with discs. They were a mess with a bunch of jumbled, unmarked discs, and after an hour of shuffling through discs fruitlessly, Chocolate Crinkle offered to help. She stuck her flipper in and immediately pulled out the disc! It is an organized mess for Chocolate Crinkle but just a mess for everyone else.