Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons...

Okay, so now for a few general updatey things!

★ No, I didn't gather up the courage to call about the tax thing yesterday. I'll try again Monday. *sheepish*

★ Only a chapter or two away from finishing Catching Fire. I'm reserving commentary until after I finish Mockingjay, but for now I'll just say that I still kind of like the movies better, not gonna lie. THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED TO ME, WHAT THE HELL.

★ I also have a bunch of other books out, including The Witches of Eastwick (because I love John Updike's short stories) and The Joy Luck Club (since I've read probably about half of it through various classes anyway at this point, might as well just finish the damn thing- also, I do like what I've read so far). So we'll see how those go, too. ALL THE READING. :D

★ So somewhere around... what, January or February, I realized that there was a lot more to Natsume Yuujinchou than I had previously thought- I'd only ever seen the first season, which was a long time ago, and there are actually FOUR. So I set off then to work on downloading everything. Well, I finally finished that recently and as of last night, rewatched season 1. Season 2 will start tonight. Wee! It should be fun. Also, the cute little boy fox should be in EVERY EPISODE EVER. Actually, maybe that wouldn't be a good idea, I'd probably die of squee. XD

★ Gaming hasn't really been happening. Oops. ^_^;;;

★ On the upside, I haven't had coffee in two full weeks as of today. Wee! On the downside, I haven't had coffee in two weeks. XD No, really, it's fine. I had a massive migraine the first couple of days, but then it eased off. It's just rough on days like today where it seems like I didn't sleep well, that's all. XD

★ (Edit- I remembered something after the fact, of course) Grades came in, by the way- all A's. Phew. ^_^;;; So that means that I'm transferring with a cumulative 3.93 GPA. Not too shabby.

I feel like there should be something else here, but the library is closing soon, so I need to go. Hopefully will have something interesting to report soon. \o

(for the December posting meme- jet )

Favorite genre in any medium?
Pffft, you say that like I can pick one. XD You will get two, so THERE. :P Anyway, one of the many things I grew up reading was the Nancy Drew Files (not so much the originals, this was a spin-off series they published in the 80's and 90's), and that pretty much set me up for my eternal love of the mystery/suspense genre. I'm not a fan of horror or gore, so once it crosses over into that I'm not into it, but give me a fun mystery novel/movie/whatever and I will consume it happily. (And no, I actually have never gotten around to reading Sherlock Holmes, which is a cardinal sin I know, but... it's just one of those things. XD) The only thing, though, is that I find that I don't enjoy it as much if the main character's life isn't at risk at SOME point in the story, usually the climax. Again, I blame Nancy Drew for this. The ending just sort of falls flat to me otherwise. It's kind of like, oh, well, that was easy. :/ I also haaaaate when the culprit is too obvious. Surprise me, I can take it! As long as it makes sense, I love love love surprises in mysteries. :D

My other favorite genre is fantasy, which is something that I actually picked up in my early teens even though I've always had a fascination with dragons and magic. Sleeping Beauty was always my favorite Disney movie as a kid just because Maleficent turns into an awesome dragon. :P Anyway. I was in the bookstore looking for a book on my summer reading list called Dealing With Dragons by Patricia Wrede. (Since I lived in a small town with one tiny library, it was often difficult to get summer reading books from there. It was usually easier to just buy them.) I didn't find it and these were the days before online ordering or anything like that, so instead, we decided that I would try the library again and in the meantime, I could pick out a different book to take home. I decided to get something in the same genre, and without actually knowing anything about fantasy, I somehow managed to pick a classic- Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. I quickly insisted on getting the rest of the books to continue the story and have been a huge fan of the Dragonlance series ever since. (Oh, and by the way, I did eventually get my hands on Dealing With Dragons, though I accidentally read the last book first and I was so confused for a while. Oops. It's fabulous and if you haven't read it, you really, really should.)

24. Your favorite childhood book
One? Are you serious? XD These days I unfortunately don't read enough, but when I was a kid, I constantly had a book in hand. My mom would yell at me to go outside (I still don't get why- I was always sensitive to light, she was never big on fitness, and yeah you could argue that she wanted alone time, but I was sitting there quietly with a book and not bothering anybody. She could've more or less pretended I was an extension of the furniture for a little while. XD ANYWAY.) So she'd yell at me to go outside and play. I'd bring my book. XD Eventually she caught onto that and started making me leave the book inside. XD I'm reminded of a thing I saw with Neil Gaiman where he was talking about how all this attention goes to promoting literacy for kids, which is all fine and good, but nobody talks about the kids from whom you have to pry the book so that they can, you know, talk to people and sleep and stuff. XD (I'm paraphrasing, but you guys get the point.)

Anyway, on to the question. I loved Roald Dahl as a kid- that was way before I knew that he was an asshole. LOVED Choose Your Own Adventure books. I'm pretty sure I read every single one my library had at least once. There was also Nancy Drew and Babysitter's Club, you know, typical kid stuff. It was always a bit of a struggle between what I wanted and was able to read and what adults seemed to think I should have been reading, because there was often a big difference between the two. So most of what I read as a kid was fun, but not challenging at all, you know?

☁ Turned in BG. Managed to pull off two fics, somehow, I don't even know how that happened. It was originally all part of the same idea, sort of, but... eh, it's complicated. Anyway. I was Vanessa and wrote two Hikaru and Waya fics- one pointless gen and the other smut. *shrug* I was terribly obvious and didn't bother to hide it. I was hoping that the pairing would throw people off at least a little, but uh, I guess not. XD Guessing didn't turn out too bad, though! 5 out of a possible 8, which is my best showing BY FAR- I have been known to get zero right, after all. Of course, if I'd actually looked a little more closely at some of the hints posted later on, I would've realized that a couple of my guesses were obviously wrong, but whatever. XD

☁ Somehow got talked into trying Naruto again, but of course I was only 7 eps into it to begin with and that was ages ago, so I just started it over. It's. I dunno. Kind of obnoxious. I can see why I didn't really feel a push to continue it before.

☁ The book cataloging is getting ridiculous. I've been taking a break, so there's still everything on my bookshelf at this point plus what's in the closet and whatever else I find that I'm not seeing right now- but the manga should be done, anyway, minus the first 13 of Hikago. I'm up to a total of 174 books and not even close to done (we won't even discuss how much of that is manga). I think I have a problem, you guys. XD Also recently I had decided to try and organize my ebook folder, because that's a huge clusterfuck, and all I can really say about that is... holy GOD, why did I do that to myself? I don't even know how it got like that.

☁ Money stuff for school is mostly taken care of, I'm waiting for the last grant form to go through, but it's nothing that's a huge deal right this split second. Like I can pay my bill and stuff without it, anyway. Re: school stuff, now all I have to do is get my certificate of residence (I'd like to do that tomorrow, tbh), pay my bill (by the 15th, but would like to do it next week to get it done and over with), get my books, and figure out exactly where my classes are and how tight I'm pushing my transport time on a couple. So that's coming along nicely.

☁ As far as RL circumstances... not a lot has changed, for good or for bad, at this point. I've been taking a bit of a hiatus on the cleaning because I've basically felt like shit the last week (yay for being female- not), plus being distracted with other things, see next cloud bullet, but I'm hoping to get back on track in the next couple of days.

☁ So remember how my laptop was overheating and I wasn't sure if it was the heat or something else? It was something else. -_- After some investigation, I discovered that the fan was no longer working. I'm not comfortable taking apart the laptop, since I can't get to the fan without pulling apart the ENTIRE thing (which is stupid but whatever), and it's not worth paying Best Buy $200 bucks to put a new fan in a four year old laptop, soooooo as much as I didn't want to spend the money and didn't want Windows 8... I didn't have a whole lot of choice in the matter. I bought a new one. XD I have named it Phoenix. :3 It was less than the previous one, under 400 before tax, so that wasn't bad. I've been super good about money over the summer, so I'm not going to beat myself up over spending the money or anything. Specs wise, I just wanted something that was at least as good as what I already had for relatively cheap, which was actually more difficult than you might think? Go figure. Sooooo I have another Toshiba- because fuck, I beat Haru all to hell and it still lasted four years, and above all else I did not want a Lenovo (very bad previous experience with IBM, and Kelly having to replace her Lenovo laptop TWICE since March does not help my opinion of them. I told her not to get a damn Lenovo. But nooooo, she didn't want to listen to me. Pfft.) Anyway. I still hate Windows 8, but I knew that already. Classic Shell makes it bearable, fyi if anybody on the flist ends up having to deal with this OS, though I still keep triggering stuff to pop up by accident. Grrr. The keyboard is pissing me off, at least until I get used to it. So there are minor frustrations with it, but that's true of any new device, especially with something like a laptop. Mostly I love it. It does what I need it to do (including connecting to the internet without a problem, which I was nervous about after the netbook), zips along speedily, and so far has handled everything I've thrown at it with grace. (It IS worth noting, though, that the "max temp" on Phoenix is significantly lower than it was on Haru- Haru's was 212, on Phoenix it's 194. Go figure.)

I think my favorite thing about it, though, is that it's a definite upgrade. I've said before that my laptop was hardly state of the art when I got it (and neither is this)- but you know that rating system Windows has? Old lappy was something like 3.3 or 3.5. This is 4.8. In both cases, the score is based off of the graphics card and everything else is AT LEAST a full point higher. When I turned on the Sims to double check that my saves would work, I was like, holy shit, they look like that? O_O It runs so much smoother now, without all the jerkiness and lag, and there's so much more detail. Like wow. Amazing.


Okay, I need to shut up and just post this already, so. Next time~!

...you know, I keep trying to post more, and I'll type something up, but then I don't post it and I wait so long that I have to rewrite half of it because it's no longer valid. Whoops. XD

( Blah blah blah )

So basically, things are generally going pretty well at the moment. I'll probably be singing another tune in a month when I'm trying to write four different research papers, but eh. XD

☁ You know those moments where you can kind of imagine your head exploding? Yeah. I actually =felt= my brain explode Monday. Well, not literally, obviously, but I felt SOMETHING happen in my head. That's... not good, is it? O_o (Basically, the cause was a severe WTF moment with a coworker. I was seriously like, "Uh... what just happened? O_O")

☁ Faith in humanity- somewhat restored. THANK GOD. I'd say that maybe the defeat in Mississippi will make these idiots rethink this whole "Personhood" thing, but.... my faith in humanity isn't THAT restored. XD

☁ Kinda scary how I hear myself in this video. Not the whole thing, mind. But the part where she's talking about coping mechanisms, and the people that totally shut down? Yeeeeeah. I have actually SAID the phrase she uses. That being said, I don't think it's a coping mechanism for the fear of loneliness. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely a coping mechanism. But it's more as a way of avoiding pain in the first place. She does mention that, but I think the connection to the fear of loneliness is misplaced. Fear is part of it, sure, but that's a fear of rejection, not loneliness. Though maybe that's just me.

☁ Okay, BN, really? =SIX= separate shipments for eleven items is "as few as possible?" Especially when three of those shipments have one or two books? WTF? I really don't get how these companies work sometimes.

☁ It's strange how sometimes you can have a strong reaction to some inanimate object you've never seen before. I saw this journal in the mall the other day and it just... pulled at me. I don't even KNOW. All of a sudden I was just trying really hard not to cry (how embarrassing would THAT have been, jeez), and GUH. Butterflies have an instant association in my head with my grandmother, as she used to call me Butterfly. I don't know whether it's that she's been on my mind subconsciously or what, that made me react the way I did, but... needless to say, I purchased the journal. (Luckily it wasn't that expensive- it's actually cheaper in Hallmark than it is on Amazon, go figure.) I've decided that I'm going to use it as a "school journal" when I go back. Appropriate, in a way. ^_^

☁ October 20th is Spirit Day- wear purple! I have to work (of course *eyeroll*), so I'll just be sporting nail polish and possibly earrings if I can find them. STILL COUNTS.

☁ Persona 4: The BANE OF MY EXISTENCE. The first thing that annoys me is that they have a building traits system that reminds me a lot of those harem games where you build particular stats to fuck a particular girl at the end. They even have the same kind of "day passing" system where you have to pick and choose what skills/relationships you want to enhance, at the cost of everything else. I don't like it in those kinds of games and I really don't like it here. The second thing that annoys me is that I was trying the game for Naoto, who I'd seen enough of in two different RP's to be interested in her character. Naoto, apparently, doesn't show up for quite a while, which is extremely disappointing. But I could've lived with all of that if it weren't for what happened to me last night. Seriously, I got a bit over 7 hours in and then discovered that I was totally fucked and would have to start over. Really, game? I would've totally RAGEQUIT (and believe me, I was FURIOUS) if it wasn't the principle of the thing. I went through again and saved Yukiko's sorry ass, so now I will happily send back the game and be glad to get rid of it. (Also I think I'm going to need a new PS2 controller soonish. The one I have keeps alternating between not working at all and going fucking berserk. You might guess that this didn't exactly help with my frustration levels, to put it mildly. XDDD)

Verdict? I'll watch the anime instead, thankyouverymuch. I enjoy the characters- Yosuke is my favorite so far (though the weird thing? His persona totally reminds me of this guy from Monsters Inc. Don't ask. I think it's the eyes? <_< ), and Kou and Daisuke are so hilariously gay for each other it's extremely entertaining. As are Chie and Yukiko. It's the gameplay that's driving me insane. I may regain interest once the anime is done, though. Who knows.

☁ I love being able to renew library books online. <3 Especially when I kind of forgot about them and got an email today going, "Uh, yeah, you know your books are due in two days, right?" XD Whoops. I could finish them in two days, no problem, the thing would be actually dragging my ass to the library before work. So... note to self. Finish those books this week so you can bring them back on Tuesday.

☁ Talked to Mr. Bossman about Thanksgiving week- I pretty much had to sell my soul just to get the weekend after Thanksgiving off, even though I'm allowed that vacation time. He also acted like I didn't even say anything about Thanksgiving, conveniently forgetting the fact that I work every god damn holiday for him. Oh, yeah, and he was trying to make me feel guilty for it the whole time. Sometimes Kerry is cool, but other times he can be a real asshole. Still have no idea what I'm going to do about the other three or so days of vacation time I'll have left. Damn. If I knew he was going to pull that shit, I would've taken it earlier. Maybe I should just not take it and let them pay me for the leftovers after New Years? Well, at any rate, I have the weekend after Thanksgiving off. At the cost of forfeiting random days off with probably no warning. Yaaaay.

☁ The Good: Worked on my room. Still needs some work, but it's loads better. I really have no idea how it gets looking like that. O_o
The Bad: I realized today that I have no idea where my phone is. Aaaand of course I can't call it because the stupid thing would be dead by now. (And yes, I tried anyway.) >_< I'm REALLY SUPER HOPING it's at work. Because if not... uh... I don't know. I guess we'll see.

☁ Vacation~ I have spent the last three days doing absolutely freaking nothing. Went out to Friday's with Mary on Tuesday, which was fun, and we're supposed to go out today so I can get a "birthday outfit". Because, apparently, I can't wear a regular t-shirt on my birthday, I need to wear something that I look amazing in. I'm not so sure about that one happening. We will see. :/

☁ One of the (three) books I'm currently reading is something called "An Underground Education" by Richard Zacks... fascinating stuff. Disgusting, at times, but really interesting. Some of it so far I've already known, but a lot of it I haven't. And the Mark Twain stuff is freaking hilarious. Seriously. I haven't read anything of his since I was a kid (LOVED The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, heh.)... I think it's time to revisit those sometime soon. ^_^

☁ It's now the 15th- meaning about 4 1/2 days until the blind_go deadline. I think it's time to panic. WHY THE FUCK do I always do this to myself? Seriously, WHY? >_< I'm starting to think I'm going to have to take my own advice and disconnect the wireless on my laptop. That's a sad state of affairs. I was planning on getting up semi early and going to the library for a change of scenery, but uh, it's kind of pouring, so... I think I'll pass on that one for today.

☁ There are two different local festivals on Saturday, so I need to figure out which one I want to go to. Meh. (Though if I don't get anything written in the next two days, I may just skip it and stay home to write... something.)  I suppose I could go to Irish Fest first, stay for a few hours, then go to the other one (which ends at 5:30). Or vice versa. It seems like a waste of money to go to both though, and Irish Fest IS the more expensive one... I DON'T KNOW. D:

Okay, I've spent the last hour and a half screwing around instead of writing- going to get in the shower and try this again. With the wireless off. :/

There's a meme going around that apparently everyone's doing, so I guess I'll be one of the cool kids and join since I keep seeing it everywhere. It's based off of NPR's "Top 100 sci-fi/fantasy books." Even though I don't really like sci-fi, just fantasy. Hence, the results of the meme are rather depressing. ^^;;; I will say that there's SO MUCH that's excluded from this list. To a point it's not surprising because it's the result of a popularity contest, but... NOTHING Dragonlance? Not even a single thing? REALLY, GUYS? That's not even mentioning a million other things. There ARE a lot of books/series on here I've never heard of, though. Might look into that.

Bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you fully intend to read someday. If it's a series and you've read one or more, but not all of the books, underline it.

( The List. Clearly I need to read more. A lot more. )

☁ Been in more of a reading mood than a video game mood the last few days. Which is fine- I have a lot of unread books- but I strongly suspect that I'm procrastinating. I know I'm getting to the end of Suikoden II and I don't want it. ;~; As it is, I explored the first available bad ending- Shu slapping Riou is FANTASTIC. Also there was a little bit of confusion on seeing Georg. Suikoden timelines are confusing. Somehow I thought V took place not that long after IV, but uh. Definitely not the case, apparently. (Eternal love for Suikosource and their timeline. <3)

That being said, there's apparently a theory that the timeline jumps around from game to game because we're actually following Viki's teleportations, so it's in chronological order to her. It's as good of a reason as any. ^_^

I should probably quit procrastinating, though. After all... there's still III that I never got very far into (I believe it was at the first character change, as a matter of fact). I should probably give it another shot. ^_^;;; Or IV, which I'm at the end and can't seem to beat the last god damn boss (there's no way a TREE should kick my ass that badly! >(  ). Or V, which I was about halfway through and stupidly loaned it out, and have yet to get it back (along with the first Kingdom Hearts). Meh.

☁ Bills: I always think the credit card(s) are due about 2 weeks earlier than they actually are, which is both a good and a bad thing. Good because it means I've never been late for a payment. Bad because right around the 20th of every month I freak out because I think I've missed the due date. I have the 15th stuck in my head for some reason when it's the 28th. I should probably stop that. XD

☁ It's been brought to my attention that TokyoPop/Blu has gone under. I wonder if I should hurry up and get the rest of the series that I'm missing? ^_^;;; Looking through my manga, though, makes me realize that I was following a lot more of their stuff than I knew. Five, as a matter of fact: Loveless, Junjou Romantica, Gravitation, Fruits Basket, and Chibi Vampire. Three of those are complete, but unfortunately, those are the ones I'm most behind in. Fortunately, the two that aren't are popular enough that they'll likely get picked up by another publisher. If I was to get everything that I needed up through current volumes, I'd need to buy... 34 volumes. Christ. (For the curious: 1 Junjou, 11 Gravi, 13 Furabura, and 9 Chibi. I'm up to date on what's been released of Loveless in English.) Out of those, though, the ones I care about the most are the Fruits Basket, Junjou Romantica, and Chibi Vampire, in that order. I still have $50 worth of gift cards to Barnes and Noble from Christmas- maybe I should use those to work on that. Then again, they're a hell of a lot cheaper on Amazon...

☁ I was asked to post these, so to my absolute mortification, here you go. These icons are totally Lish's fault. Just... don't even ask. Seriously. Though I need to mess around more with the first one because I still don't like it.

       

☁ Been re-reading some old Harry/Draco fic. Hell, I missed these two. <3 It's totally not helping me write blind_go , though. Pffft. I've also been DL-ing a lot of PoT doujin lately. XDDD

☁ Also fandom related: people have been posting to the kink meme, which is hysterical since it's three years old. I generally still get posts on it every once in a while, but the sudden interest is amusing. :P

☁ And speaking of Harry Potter, couple of annoyances about the new release of Deathly Hallows Part 1. The first is that Walmart had an exclusive on the special edition DVD. Really, WB? I know the studios are trying to push the Bluray, but honestly. I don't have a Bluray player. I have no intention of purchasing one- if I'm going to spend the money, I might as well save a bit more and buy a PS3 so I can play games on the damn thing. STOP TRYING TO SHOVE THE FUCKING BLURAY DOWN MY THROAT.

*ahem*

The other thing that pissed me off was actually in the deleted scenes. Now... when I saw DH1 in the theater, I was incredibly disappointed that it didn't have the scene with Harry and Dudley when the Dursley's were leaving. It was a big moment for the both of them. But guess what? It was in the special features. What the ever loving hell. I think it's WORSE, knowing that they filmed it and decided that it WASN'T IMPORTANT, as opposed to not shooting it (there could've been a number of reasons why they didn't end up shooting it, after all). Seriously. What the fuck, WB.

☁ WHAT THE HELL IS IT WITH RANDOM PEOPLE INSTANT MESSAGING ME LATELY? It's getting ridiculous.

☁ Dear Mother Nature: We had about 50 thousand feet of snow this winter- I promise you, the ground doesn't need anymore water for a while. Possibly the entire summer. You don't need to rain all freaking week. No love, Ver

☁ Class started today. So as part of my first assignment, I'm supposed to be reading at least one book about writing and/or creativity. I have a bunch on my laptop that I have yet to read (in addition to one or two physical ones whose whereabouts are currently unknown), so I decided to look through. Just on the lappy, I have enough that I could read two books a week for almost the entire length of the course. O_o And only three of the 20 are grammar centered. *headdesk* Although on the other hand, it's as good of an excuse as any to get some of those under my belt?

The other part of the assignment is to get a "writer's journal", which isn't a problem because I have a zillion empty notebooks. Unofficial assignments through the course include writing for 10 minutes a day NO MATTER WHAT and to spend at least an hour a week doing something creative besides writing (I'm thinking scrapbooking/playing in photoshop. :D)

( Possibly triggery/TMI, who knows. Cut just in case. )

☁ I just found out today that Hikago will finish publishing in English in May! Wooooooooooooo~ Okay, I'm a few volumes behind because they never HAVE what I need when I go to the bookstore, but nevermind. Still, this is exciting. When it comes out and I get the last few volumes, it will be the second COMPLETE series I have- the other being Death Note. .......urgh, I probably look like a total Obata fangirl, don't I? ^_^;;; I HAVE OTHER THINGS, I PROMISE! *flails*

☁ I'm starting to think that I'm going to have to write the evil BG bunny and get it out of my system so I can, you know, come up with a better idea. I even put a cute bunny picture as my cell background to remind myself that I'm supposed to be bunnying- no dice. Argh. It's eating my braaaaaaaaaaain. D:

☁ That being said, I really have to pick up my re-watch of Hikago again. It got frustrating because I was doing screencaps too, so even watching one takes freaking FOREVER. Maybe if I start doing one a day? I won't be done by the time I need to be finished with BG, obviously- I was only 10 episodes in to begin with- but it would be something.

☁ I've started trying to post what I've got of the icon bases, too. I mean, it's been just over a year, holy crap. It's just... a pain in the ass to put them all in the chart. D: (though I found a way to make it a bit easier, thank GOD.) I only had the first two episodes cropped, though, out of the ten I have capped, so I'm currently chopping up episode 3. Oye. Something else to work on. But maybe doing Hikago things will kick the muses into high gear for BG? One can hope.

☁ Some new DS games I didn't know about- Okamiden, for one. A new Kingdom Hearts. You Don't Know Jack, which I remember from the original Playstation and LOVED (Even if it got to the point where nobody would play with me anymore because no one could beat me. Boo.). Some other random RPG's that look interesting too. Clearly I need to keep a half an eye on Amazon. This is what happens when I no longer get gaming magazines and there's no gaming store in the immediate vicinity. I lose all track of shiny new games. XD

☁ Because of this, I discovered that I'm having some trouble with my R4. The new stuff won't work and I'm trying to upgrade it and it's just... not going well, to say the least. *sigh* I finally got it to stop giving me this error:



after about two hours, but the damn games still won't load. Urgh. *headdesks forever*

☁ Also windows decided to freak out on me earlier. Clearly technology hates me today.

☁ Edit: Got an e-mail saying that the release date for the final book in the Eragon series has been announced- the title is Inheritance, and it's set to come out November 8th of this year. Also cover art. You know. For anyone that cares. ^_^;;;

☁ I transferred a good chunk of money into my savings account. I still left a decent amount in checking for groceries and this week's portion of rent and whatnot... honestly, probably more than I actually need, but then I do need to go get my hair cut this week. We'll see- if I have a bunch left over at the end of the month, I'll put in more.

☁ I'm probably going to start putting $50 in savings every week again. I got out of the habit somewhere along the line. That's bad. Not only does it keep my spending in check (because otherwise my brain will go "Ooooh, I have extra money, I'm going to get a bunch of things that I've been wanting and couldn't afford!" XD), but it helps me save for the bigger things I really, really want. Also a cushion to fall back on would be nice. If I was to be laid off tomorrow, I would be so royally screwed money-wise, and I'd rather that not happen. Plus I need to work on making sure I have money for deposit/first month's rent, that kind of thing. AND saving for that pesky reward system I have set up for my weight loss, which requires me to purchase shiny things as I hit specific milestones. I haven't had to worry about these milestones for some time now, since I've been more or less maintaining my loss, but I'm trying to get things going again. So. :D

☁ Speaking of weight, as of this morning the bathroom scale puts me below a number that shall remain nameless that I haven't seemed to be able to break for the last couple of months. I had been there, but gained about four pounds back. And now they are mostly gone again. :D :D :D :D :D (The Wii Fit scale, of course, is an entirely different thing, as always. Bah.)

☁ Also I've decided that I really, really want an e-reader. Honestly? It's part of the reason I shoved that money into savings. If it's in savings, I don't see it, and if I don't see it, it doesn't exist. That means I don't go to the Amazon website and order a Kindle just because I want one. Though staring at this PDF in all it's black text/white background glory and trying to read is making it really, really tempting. >_<

☁ That being said, I had decided a few weeks ago that I was going to start keeping a list of what I was reading again. I used to, and then I just stopped, somehow. Probably because I was reading a lot less. *cough* However! In 2010 I read a TON and didn't keep track, so this year I'm making a list. My goal for the year is 50 books read (re-reads don't count, but manga does), which considering how fast I read is a freaking JOKE, but whatever. Got to start somewhere, right? I've read four already, since the first, and working on a fifth. I'll grant you that none of these were particularly difficult reading, either technically or emotionally, but still. Considering work and sleep and the fact that I have to take numerous breaks because reading on my laptop for extended periods KILLS my eyes... yeah, I'm pretty damn proud of that. ^_^

☁ As far as writing is concerned... there is now yet another bunny in my head that I'm not sure I want to write. Ugh. I feel like it's been so long that I couldn't possibly remember how to do it properly. Or do the characters justice. Then I think that I probably need a canon review, and then some part of my brain goes "Jeez, wouldn't this be easier with your OWN characters?" And... yeah, it's just this continuing downward spiral. XD I should probably quit whining about it and just freaking WRITE something, possible OOC issues be damned. At least get me going again, you know? At one point I had decided that I would write at least 100 words a day. Maybe I'll try that again. I can do 100 words. 100 words of WHAT is more the question.

1. So I finally got around to actually sitting down and reading The Lovely Bones, which I've been meaning to do for MONTHS. Even with continually stopping to do something else distracting, it was a quick read. Verdict? Beautifully written, but depressing as hell. When I first saw the movie, I thought that they spent waaay too much time focused on the heaven bit and not enough on the living people bit. The book only reinforces that opinion, really. Heaven, death, is not the point. Life is the point. Horrible things happen, but life continues. Maybe not the way it was before, but it does, it has to for those of us that are left behind. What other choice do we have?

...now, of course, I need to decide what to read next in my pile of "been meaning to read" books. Hmm.

2. FMA manga is done. I... can live with the ending. I don't want to say much more to avoid potentially spoiling people, but... yeah. Roy's ending is a little too neat, though. I think that would be my sole complaint about how things worked out.

3. Speaking of manga, RAWR, where is the Hourou Musuko update? *pokes the mangaka with a stick*

4. Thinking about picking up SW again... though I don't know if it would be with Al. Probably. I miss playing him. Not that I was ever that active, heh. Character squatting FTW? On the upside, it would be a chance to create a not-sucky username for him. The only problem there is that I suck at coming up with clever usernames. Pfft. Also I'm not sure how re-apping would work. *groan* I hate writing apps.

5. Haven't been wearing my claddagh ring recently... it's weird. I have my reasons for it (mostly, I'm just not sure how to wear it at the moment), but it's just... I've been wearing the damn thing so long now that I feel a little naked without it. Problem there is that I don't own any other rings to replace it. Damn my fat fingers. XD

6. Possible TMI territory, but eh. Don't like bra-talk, don't read any further. :P

The band on my bras have been seeming loose, so I borrowed a tape measure and did some measuring. The Good News: My band size IS smaller- I've gone from a 42 to a 38. \o/ The Bad News: My cup size has only gone down an inch... so not nearly enough in comparison to my band size. There's a 10 inch difference between the cup and the band now instead of 7. Which means that I'm not even ON Lane Bryant's chart anymore. The highest they go is 9, which is an H. SOB.

Really, that just means that I need to go get measured properly... at some point. My old bras are still fitting more or less okay, so I'm not terribly worried about it at the moment. But GUH. This is the biggest thing I was afraid of with the losing weight thing, and now it's HAPPENING. If I end up with freakish measurements, I'm NOT going to be a happy camper. You hear that, body? CUT IT OUT. >|


Okay, I have to go get laundry out of the dryer and whatnot, so I'll shut up and stop spamming everyone about stupid stuff. For now. ^^;;;

1. THE LAPPY HAS OFFICIALLY BEEN ORDERED. *\o\* *\o/* */o/* It's not the best laptop in the world, but unless it doesn't work at all, (*sob*) it's GOT to be better than what I have, you know? Maybe next time I'll save up more and splurge on a better system. But for now? This is GOLDEN, and $450 is more than enough to be spending. It's not the original one I had been looking at because wal-mart took that one off their site *grumblegrumble*, but this one I found on newegg is more or less the same thing AND it's 50 bucks cheaper. SCORE. That leaves me with more money to buy accessories- like a freaking USB mouse, since it doesn't have a PS/2 port.

2. Speaking of which- I'll need a name for the new computer. Suggestions, flist? :3 Something reliable oh god please. XD Also, keep in mind I have or have had in the past: Ed, Alphonse, Isumi, Kuwabara (baaaaad idea, that one XDDDD), Ochibi (surprisingly good tempered, actually), Oishi, Vivi, and possibly another that I'm just not thinking of at the moment. For various devices, obviously, not just computers. :D

3. I have managed to lose my DS. I wasn't worried at first, but now I'm seriously not finding it and I'm starting to freak out. D: It's got to be around here somewhere, though, seriously. WHERE ELSE DO I GO? XD

I'm beginning to think it's run off to the same place that my mp3 player disappeared to. Must be some kind of heaven for electronic devices. D: Come baaaaaaaaack!

4. Don't remember offhand if I mentioned, but we did actually get that Wii. It's neat. I haven't really done much with it yet, though, aside from downloading and playing a couple of old school games. Adventures of Lolo, FTW? ^_^;;;

5. Finally got around to finishing The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I say finally because I've been reading it off and on for several months now. Actually, recently Kelly saw me with it and made a comment which prompted the following conversation:
Kelly: You're STILL reading that?
Me: Meh, it hasn't really caught my attention yet.
Kelly: ...er... you're more than halfway through it.
Me: ................
Aaaaand that about sums up my stance on the book. It just never really captured me. There were a few things that had me giggling, none of which I can remember offhand, but overall... meh. I've never been big on sci-fi, and clearly this book is not an exception. Give me dragons over robots any day of the week, seriously.

Am now reading Czars by James P. Duffy and Vincent L. Ricci. Muuuch more interesting. I'm such a history geek. XD


On that note, I should probably go to bed. ^_^;;; Night all!

GAH. TWO DAYS IN A ROW. Monday it was video games, and yesterday, Stef and I were at Barnes and Noble, and......... *sigh* I'm telling you, zero self control. XD So... my new shinies:

-No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty (We all know plot is basically the bane of my existence as a writer. So... hopefully this will help with that. I'll let you guys know how it is. Though the cashier gave me a high recommendation. It was fun, talking about plot and characters and writing with a live person for a change, even if it was only for a few minutes. ^_^ Not that I don't love you all (<333), but online is different, and it was like, 'wow, it's nice actually talking to someone about this stuff.' You know? Or maybe you don't and I sound like a jerk, in which case, I apologize. I mean no offense. ^_^;;;;;;;;;; )
-The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver (I remember reading this in high school and LOVING it, so I picked it up. I'm now on chapter three and have one comment: <3)
-Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver (Apparently, a sequel to the previous.)
-xxxHolic Volume One- CLAMP (Going to try it, and we'll see how it goes.)
-ALL FOUR TEMERAIRE BOOKS. BECAUSE AI KEEPS TALKING ABOUT THEM AND THERE WAS A SET OF THE FIRST THREE ON DISPLAY THAT CAUGHT MY EYE AND GUH. And it drives me up the wall when I'm in the middle of a series and don't have the next book, and can't get it, so... yeah. Got the fourth one too. >_< Never mind that I don't even know if I'll LIKE these books. I've bought whole trilogies without reading them first, but that's always been when I've already been familiar with the author. I'm really hoping I don't end up regretting this.)

After shopping and spending WAY too much money, Stef and I went back to my house for the specific purpose of playing DDR. I only have one pad, so we played by just switching off on songs. The end result? It was seriously fun, we played for over four hours, and Stef is seriously considering getting a second pad for us so we can actually play against each other. XD

On that note, I should probably go back to bed. *yawns*

So I went to the mall today, with the express purpose of bra shopping. The verdict? Meh. I couldn't seem to find anything that fit right. I could've spent more time, but after five bras I was pretty sick of it and left. So, basically, it was a giant waste of time. I suppose I just wasn't in the mood to deal with it today? But... I came home and borrowed Mom's tape measure and measured myself. I... really didn't want to know. Assuming I did it right, I'm a 42H. O_o "H" in this case stands for "Holy fuck", naturally. XD

I went in Borders, though, since I figured that I might as well make sure that the trip wasn't a complete wash. Er... yeah. Volume 11 of Hikaru No Go, Plum Lovin', and volumes 2-7 of Loveless came home with me. <_< Did I mention that I still haven't read the manga that I got a couple of weeks ago? XDDD Epic fail, Ver. Seriously.

One of these days, I'm actually going to learn how to use chopsticks without dropping my food on myself. Today is not that day. *headdesk* On the other hand, I picked up a package of Oolong tea in the Chinese takeout place, since they had them free. I'm curious to try it. ^_^

Kelly's all pissed off at me now because I won't leave the bedroom so she and her boyfriend can be in here and fool around. O_o Dude. I mean, of course she didn't say that, but she said they wanted to be "alone". Now... they're alone out in the living room as it is- the only thing is, obviously, that they can't lock anyone out, so either my mother or I could walk in on them. Hence why they want the "alone time". Honestly, she thinks I'm so stupid when it comes to this stuff. XD

I did nothing the two days I had off. *sigh* At the very least, I need to do a load of laundry before I go to bed. I have zero clean clothes for work tomorrow. >_<

...So I took the floppies off my desk, right? You know what I was just forced to put there in place of them? Manga. O_o I'm running out of places to put books. Seriously. All I can think of right now is Sciezka in Fullmetal Alchemist, when they first met her and she was buried underneath a pile of books. XDDD