Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons...

23. Your dream job
Uh, I would settle for something I didn't completely hate and paid a decent amount, to be totally honest. I would LOVE to be able to write for a living in some capacity. I would also like to be able to wear jeans and sneakers to work, though the chances of that are even less than somebody paying me to write. XD Something like video game journalism is right up my alley (research/review side, not so much on the interview and talking to people in person side), but that's SUPER hard to break into. I don't know, maybe something like getting involved in social media would be more realistic, like the people that post as the company to Facebook and stuff? I have no idea, I just want to be able to pay my freaking bills and not have to sweat money all the time, okay? Preferably doing something that doesn't make me fantasize about a ginormous meteor hitting the Earth and killing EVERYTHING. That's my dream. XD

( More random )

☁ I've been pretty MIA lately- sorry about that. With my sister visiting and family stuff and being sick and all of this crap, it's been kind of difficult to really sit down and get anything done. My already limited attention span has been pretty much zero lately. (I haven't even bothered attempting to read that last Eragon book, if that tells you anything. XD) I'm still sick, but it seems to be getting better, so. Things should be winding down back to normal. Hopefully. As normal as December gets, anyway.

☁ WANT. ;_; Money is a major concern, but hopefully they'll come up with a payment plan that I can live with. WHO IS GOING WITH ME, DAMMIT?

☁ Anyone have any experience with Zoya nail polish? I've been staring at the website for several days now and I can't decide whether it would be worth trying or not. They're expensive. :/ On the other hand, I did just spend $6 on a super glittery blue polish that I'm totally in love with (and actually kept on for about two days, which is a miracle), so really... it's not THAT much more, in the big scheme of things.

☁ I can has an AO3 account! I will probably not keep up with it, because I have a hard time posting crap to my freaking main writing journal much less anything else, BUT... it's another backup and maybe I will? ^_^;;; That and it will give my stuff some more exposure, since I'm uncomfortable pimping myself out in the comms when I post something. So... you know. I only have a few things up there so far though. I'm trying to not piss people off by flooding everything at once. XD

☁ Ended up making peanut butter frosting (don't ask)... ASDJKALDJSLA that shit is DELICIOUS. Now, I wouldn't use the frosting all the time, for the simple fact that I still hate making frosting. BUT. It is definitely easier than regular frosting, at least. No food coloring is needed, so that headache and mess is eliminated. Two- It came out perfectly mixed and fluffy with just a spoon and some stubbornness on my part. Read: no mixer required. Which is awesome, because while I'll use a mixer when I have to, I'd rather not. It tends to be messy. It probably could've been fluffier with the mixer, but I didn't really see the need. The only problem? Now I have all this freaking frosting in the fridge. UGH.

☁ Speaking of food, I purchased three new things to try: sweet potato fries, pesto sauce, and garlic hummus. So far, I've tried the pesto and the fries. The pesto is good- I wouldn't want a ton of it in a dish or anything, but it's yummy. The fries though? Weeeeeeeeird. :/ I haven't decided whether I like them or not. I ended up putting a crapton of salt and Old Bay on them and it was an improvement, but I don't know. The sweetness bothers me more than I thought it would.

( Rant brought to you by South Africa and condoms with teeth. Needless to say with South Africa lately, this could be triggery for rape. )

☁ I should probably do my school applications soon. *sob* SCARY! ........... Dear Self: You are being utterly ridiculous. You are applying to community colleges, not Yale. You'll be fine. No love, Ver.

☁ The problem with regional/cultural foods is that the little secrets that are traditionally used to cook such food can be left out of the cooking instructions. It's simply taken for granted that people KNOW certain things. I recently learned this with basmati rice. I've been having a lot of trouble when trying to cook it, which drove me to google to try to figure out what was happening. Aside from the obvious option of "ur doin it wrong," I was thinking maybe there was something wrong with my rice cooker. This, of course, led me to this: You're supposed to rinse/soak it first. Honestly? I'd never heard of such a thing before. I've made rice of both the brown and white variety with absolutely NO problems. So this was strange to me, but I tried it anyway, with a mixture of both white and brown basmati rice just to see, plus a little oil for good measure. And you know what? It freaking works. I think I could've used more water for the brown (should've thought about that, regular brown rice needs more water too), though it's still edible. Just a little tougher than I'd like. The white was PERFECT. Go figure.

(Also, Ai: ♥♥♥♥♥. I tried the chicken rice thing you gave me- holy CRAP that's good.)

☁ In other food news, this recipe for stuffed shells sounds AMAZING (and ridiculously low in calories- just under 83 calories per shell!) and I'll have to try it at some point with a few swaps. But I'm used to doing that sort of thing due to my tastes. ^_^

☁ LEGO Harry Potter- Okay, it's cute, and the video scenes are funny. I'll give them that. Unfortunately, that's about all I can give them. The first thing that's a bit of an annoyance is that if you don't know the story, you will have absolutely NO IDEA what's going on. None. Obviously I know the story, so it's not a deal breaker by any means, but it's still irritating. The deal breaker? It's BORING. From what I can tell, you basically go around and collect shit. Which is okay at first, but it gets old really fast. I found it really disappointing, to be honest.

☁ Trying a brownie recipe I've had for a while but haven't attempted yet- white chocolate raspberry swirl. I'm not sure about this one. :/ For one thing, it uses more cream cheese than the freaking cheesecake ones, which is just strange. Also I have a naughty habit of tweaking recipes as I go, adjusting them for my own taste, and I'm afraid I put in too much raspberry extract. Meh. We'll see what happens when I bring the pan to work.

☁ I've been trying to think of what I can do for the pointless little "extra" in the holiday cards this year- especially since I didn't do any last year, because I waited too long. (Hence me thinking about it early.) I -think- I might have something... but we'll see. Experimentation will be needed. And a trip to Michaels.

☁ Yes, I'm aware I screwed up the daily meme thing already. Whoops. I will maybe catch up on that later.

☁ Happy Mommy's Day to the moms on the flist. ♥ I will possibly be baking something for my own mother in a bit. Possibly. If I feel like it. XD

☁ I... am apparently not a ninja. Which is kind of a disappointment. Just saying. ^_^;;;

☁ New version of Firefox. UGH. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Also LJLogin doesn't work, and that's a HUGE downside. LJLogin is the only reason I haven't packed up and moved over to Chrome, after all. Well. That and all my bookmarks are in FF. The only good thing I have to say about it is that it's definitely a lot faster.

☁ Just found out yesterday that you can make a website with Google. Holy shit, I'm in love. Keep in mind that my previous website-making experience was with Geocities, which was a gigantic pain in the ass. I can COPY/PASTE in this. I can not even explain to you how big of a deal this is to me. I DON'T HAVE TO RETYPE EVERYTHING. And there are actual FONT CHOICES beyond Times, Arial, and Comic Sans. And there are some really pretty backgrounds. I actually had a hard time choosing. I basically copy/pasted my masterlist for now, so everything links back to LJ, but go check it out if you want.

( Cut for rantyness. XD )

☁ And so to not end this on a totally depressing note, I think I'm going to try to make these. Oh, and Mike's (as in, Mike's Hard Lemonade) apparently makes a margarita now. There's the regular lime flavor, raspberry, and peach. I tried the peach and it's pretty yummy. Just. Yanno. FYI. :D

Edit: Tried the muffins- YUCK. I'm not even pawning them off on coworkers, straight into the garbage they go. Too bad.

☀ Reminder to self: Kelly has specifically requested cheesecake brownies for her birthday. Heh. It just amuses the hell out of me, really. XD

☀ Speaking of brownies, I've decided to offer up some brownies for the help_japan  auction- check it out! Someone offered $10 (yay!), but that's still cheap for an 8x8 pan! :D

☀ Remember how there was that one co-worker that I can't stand that I was SO excited to not have to work with anymore? ....guess who's working on Thursday? -_- Clearly "luck of the Irish" isn't going to be going on for me on St. Patrick's Day. Boo.

☀ I can haz credit card! Seriously, an honest to God credit card, not just a store one or my debit card. It has Starry Night on the front. ^_^ This... should probably not be as much of a big deal as it is. XD But I need to work on my credit, and the Lane Bryant card isn't really doing it because I hardly ever shop there. So. My plan is to use the new one for things that I always get anyway- bottles of water at work, that kind of thing. So I wouldn't be spending anything that I don't actually have and it'll keep payments nice and low so it'll be easy to deal with. Not to mention that I'll keep having a balance so it can keep doing good things for my credit. :D Plus it has a $300 limit- so if god forbid anything should happen and I need some extra, it's there should it come down to that.

Though I'm thinking about christening it with an order to Wings later. I only rarely get Wings. ^_^;;; (Mostly because I'm positive that their calories are THROUGH THE ROOF.)

☀ Edit: Just found out that firefox has been streaming video of two red panda cubs. EEEEE CUTE! <3

-I should probably not mention this, but I'm going to anyway because if I have to live with it, I'm going to inflict it on you guys: I have actually posted something on the writing journal. It's completely terrible. No, it's not the previously mentioned smut fic, though there's just a touch of that in this- something in RP pinged me all of a sudden and my brain started developing an ill thought out back story to a character, and... yeah. As I said, it's horrible, but at least it's SOMETHING. Which is better than not writing at all. Right? *crickets*

*cough* Anyway, it's here, for anybody who may be a glutton for punishment. XD

-Also god, I really need to catch that journal up. It makes it look like I haven't written anything since '08, which is absolutely not true. Okay, I'll grant you that I haven't written -a lot- in the last couple of years, but still. I think that should be my next project.

-Finally made those black forest cheesecake brownies Sunday night to bring into work Monday. Oh my GOD, you guys, these things were freaking awesome, and I don't even like cheesecake. I think I like these better than the peanut butter ones- and that's saying something. However, it leaves me with a dilemna- the recipe involved frosting, which is fine, except I have a ton of it left. Frosting is only good for so long. Meh. I bought some cake mix on sale and might do cupcakes or something? Aside from possibly making the brownies again. What do you guys think of cherry frosting and a butter pecan cake with maybe some chocolate chips mixed in? ^_^;;; (What can I say, I'm a fan of taking mixes and altering them, heh.)

-Weird thing: the other day, someone drove past me as I was walking to work and beeped at me. I couldn't tell who it was (I suck at identifying people in moving vehicles, pfft), but I did see that they flipped me off. WTF? I wished it was summer just for the fact that then they probably would've had the window down and they would've shouted at me whatever the hell their problem was. Though it's probably a little twisted that I'd rather be shouted at than left going "Bzuh? O_o"

-Other weird thing: Had a couple of customers get into it in the store (basically, she was holding up the line and he politely requested that she move it along- she pitched an absolute FIT at him, to put it mildly), which was crazy enough, but then... the woman actually FOLLOWED HIM HOME. I'm not even kidding, the guy came back later and told me. Cue Ver expression: O_O!!! People are freaking PSYCHOTIC.

-I think I got Kelly to agree to watch Glee with me for the trainwrecky lulz. Should be fun breaking her brain. XD

I keep falling asleep, so probably time I put this away. \o

I went to bed and got back up again, so I figured I'd post this entry that's been sitting in notepad since yesterday. ^_^;;;

-Ugh. The first thing I've written since blind_go , and guess what came out? *headdesks repeatedly* No,  not one of the more serious bunnies I have sitting on my desktop. Of course not. Of COURSE I had to be pinged by a smutty suggestion. I don't think it's something I want to inflict on the internet- it's not just smut, but it's bad smut. Fandom really HAS twisted my brain, hasn't it? I swear to God I wasn't this dirty originally. D:

I did get another idea for original fic (brought on by a local news story, of all things), but it's another one of those "I'm not sure I want to write it" bits. God. Everything my brain comes up with lately is either porn or totally fucking morbid. GAH. >_<

-So cool! The fireworks one is neat too. There's a link somewhere to download a free fireplace screensaver, which I totally downloaded. It is the awesomest. :3

-Also, this was recently brought to my attention... I'm not a big fan of Kurt's character overall, but the kid that plays him seems really sweet, and his reaction to winning this award is just too cute. The cast had to prod him to get up, because he was in utter shock, and then after that it was like he kept waiting for someone to go, "Where are you going? That's not you, sit down." He's very sweet and naive. Hollywood is going to eat him alive.

-Have I ever mentioned that I hate snow? Yes? Well, then, I'm mentioning it again. I HATE SNOW. It wouldn't be so bad except we've been getting slammed this month... just storm after storm after storm. Plus it's been cold as all holy fuck up until yesterday. Seriously, guys? The low was -13 (-25 in Celcius) the other day. At least it's warmer for now- around 20 degrees. It's like a heatwave. What we've had is the kind of cold where you go outside and you can't BREATHE. The cold just steals all of the oxygen out of you. It's like your lungs suddenly shrink or something. Is it spring yet?

-Playing Professor Layton and the Curious Village finally. It's... humbling. Puzzles like this are not my strongest point, certainly, so it makes me feel a little dumb. ^_^;;; I've had to look up answers for puzzles more than I care to admit, and I figured out the "secret" of the village WAY before they told me, but it's interesting.

-I keep trying to get into The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan- I liked the Percy Jackson books, and I thought this would be like Percy Jackson with Egyptian mythology... oh how wrong I was. I can't even quite put my finger on what's wrong, aside from the little things that bother me, I just find myself drifting off to do something else all the time while I'm reading because I'm BORED. Bah. I'm determined to finish it, I'm just not sure how long it's going to take.

-Purchased a slow cooker and a cheap hand mixer in the past few weeks. Yep, definitely getting old. I figure I'd rather make little purchases here and there, rather than having to spend an obscene amount of money on all this stuff I need once I move out. Especially this one place that's in consideration- it's a lot more expensive than I'd like, which is why I haven't jumped all over it... however, it has no kitchen. Hence the slow cooker. I have an electric griddle that I purchased about a month ago, too, and of course I've had my rice cooker for a couple of years. Electric appliances that allow me to not require the use of a stove/oven are gooooooood. ^_^

That being said, I tried a recipe that was supposed to let me make cake in the crock pot- do not try this at home, kids. It was a complete disaster. The bottom burned and the top was still all cake batter. I ended up trying to pour the useable portions into a pan and sticking it in the oven. The cake is... passable. Not great. Might try it again sometime with just the oven and see if it's any better. On the upside, I can get decent macaroni and cheese out of the slow cooker. :D

-A friend that I haven't seen in some time, but am friends with on Facebook, sent me an invite to a gay ladies speed dating thing on Saturday. It's too short notice for me- if I'm to get a day off of work, I need to ask for it more than two days in advance- but it was nice that she thought of me, anyway. Although let's be honest, even if I didn't work weekends, I probably wouldn't go. I'm way too much of a social reject for that kind of thing. ^_^;;; Besides. There's trying to push myself a little out of my comfort zone and then there's throwing myself out of it completely.

Wow, 8am. Back to bed with me. <_<