Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons...

- Haven't touched NPT in a week, though I've been poking at other things that don't actually have due dates. Oops. ^_^;;;

- Ben and Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream mixed with chocolate almond milk makes the best freaking milkshakes ever. Just sayin'. (It's probably roughly the same with regular chocolate milk, but the almond is what I had on hand, so.)

- The USB game controller I bought specifically for The Walking Dead? Also works with my PSP emulator. *screech* Which makes Persona 3 about 1000 times easier to navigate, let me tell you. I would say that this is clearly the mark of the end of any productivity I might've had this summer except for one thing: my emulator crashes pretty much anytime I've actually managed to do anything useful, before I can save. >_<

- Finished Natsume- four seasons and two OVA's. I'll be honest with you, I was starting to get bored with it toward the end because it's the same thing every episode. Overall fairly enjoyable, and certainly not the worst thing I've ever seen, but meh. (I did come away from it shipping Natsume/Natori and Natsume/Tanuma. Mostly Natsume/Natori. Fuck, they weren't subtle about that, were they?)

- Also finished Akuma no Riddle. I'm... not sure what to think? I'm sitting here trying to decide what I should rate it on MAL, and I don't know. The whole thing was kind of meh, and then the last episode was a huge WTF. I think I wanted to like it a lot more than I did. Ehhhh I think 5/10 is fair.

- Debating watching Free! again before the second season starts... probably a bad idea though, I already have enough new stuff I'm trying to get through to justify re-watching something. Not like it has a complicated plot or anything. XD

- "Summer hours" start for the library as of July 1st, which cuts the time I can spend there as a safe place to avoid dealing with people I don't want to deal with. Ungh. I suppose that means more time at home reading manga and playing games and watching things that I've downloaded previously? XD

- I'm actually getting a bit of a farmer's tan on my arms from walking to the library all the time in t-shirts. XD Oops? Kind of weird, because I burn quickly, so I don't generally tan. (Well, that and I'm a homebody/don't like heat, so I usually stay inside most of the summer. XD)

So much for updating more. Oops. XD I've been doing the usual thing where I have a text file and I just keep adding to it until it's roughly the size of Godzilla and then never post it, so yanno. I -will- finish the December meme, I have two more to go, I just need to finish the recs post first because Liz is evil. In the meantime, I'll post a part of what I've got saved up. This is the fandom/media part, and probably later or tomorrow or something I'll post the RL part. I think that's the best way to go about this. ^_^ I was going to go someplace with wifi today, but I really don't feel like it, so I'm posting this from my phone- I apologize ahead of time if something goes wrong. Seriously, these days it's better to just follow my tumblr (same username), I post to that way more often.

★ I'm positive that you've all seen this by now, but in case you haven't or you've forgotten about it or something, there's a new round of blind_go sign-ups going here. They're open for one more week. Don't forget to sign up if you haven't already! I'm really hoping to have the theme sets posted before then. Unfortunately, between everything else that's been going on IRL, the lack of home internet, and photobucket eating pictures I upload, it's been a trial and a half. So we'll see. XD

★ I've been watching stuff!
-Managed to get caught up in Kuroko no Basket (anime). Primary reaction is that it needs more Nigou. :P But then, that's always true. They should just make the whole show about him. XD That being said, I find the show much more tolerable when I'm caught up. I can take once a week doses with a relative minimum of eyerolling, but much more than that gets me really irritated. It's starting to really annoy me again, with the incredibly overpowered/overdramatized players. I keep going, "Really? REALLY? I'm supposed to buy this?" XD
-I watched through season 3 of Sherlock. The verdict? They should've just left it at the end of season 2. Just... unghhhh. So much was stupid or didn't make any fucking logical sense whatsoever. I can't even articulate how much was wrong with it. adjsakljdklsa.
-Let's see... I was told Sakura Trick was cute, so I'd grabbed the first three episodes that were out. That was my first mistake. XD I watched the first couple and dropped it, which I -never- do. It does have it's cute moments, but it's so fanservicey that it's absolutely beyond ridiculous. I lost count of the number of times I rolled my eyes at it in two episodes. I wouldn't mind the fanservice quite so much if it didn't set off my pedo alarm. Seriously, the one girl looks about eight years old, and that squicks me the hell out. Nothing against people that are into that, it's just not my thing.
-I'm not terribly into sci-fi, so Firefly was something I never really bothered watching. Well... I finally gave in because I was sick of people being all horrified about me not seeing it, and it was on Netflix, so why not. It was reasonably amusing. Zoe is by far my favorite. :)
-I'm now six episodes into Oofuri. Reactions so far, because I know if nothing else, Krim will ask: I -hate- the opening song, but that's not a dealbreaker or anything, so whatever, it's just annoying as all hell. JFC, it's like they're begging for slash shipping here, even without counting the number of opportunies for pitcher and catcher jokes. XDDD Mihashi is ridiculously high maintenance. Poor Abe. XD My feelings on Mihashi are mixed- I think he's adorable half the time and completely fucking obnoxious the other half. I desperately want to punch him in the face during the obnoxious half because I'm a terrible person. XD Also, does this first game ever fucking end? I find myself longing for the three episode PoT matches, seriously. Ungh. That being said, despite my bitching, I'm enjoying it overall. I mean, come on, it's gay baseball. What's not to like in that equation? :P
-I've also apparently decided to pick up Merlin again, but so far this has only consisted of figuring out where the hell I stopped. Considering that I knew I never got to season 2, this process was harder than you might think. XD For example, I actually got most of the way through an episode before I realized I'd already seen it before. XD So yeah, turns out I finished season 1. That's probably something I'll do today- start season 2! :D
-On the upside, I'd tried getting netflix to work on my phone and it wouldn't, without a wi-fi connection. Now suddenly it does. Which means that watching stuff isn't going to be nearly as much of a pain as it has been. Quality isn't bad, either. I ordered a cheap stand on Amazon so I can watch it without having to sit there and hold the phone, because that gets really painful after a while. It actually just arrived today and seems like it'll work. Yay!

★ In other news, I dropped my 3DS and now it's on max volume all the time regardless of where the slider is. <_< Bleh. Need to get one of those dust plug things for it for when I don't have my headphones plugged in.

Aaaand I think that's plenty long enough for the time being. :P

18. The meaning behind your blog name
I have this as a line in the sticky note on both journals, but whatever. So. This was around... senior year of high school or maybe the year after that? So I was 18 or 19, and trying to figure out a new username that my family didn't know. I know this is going to shock you all, but when I was a teenager I was an angst bunny. XD And being the angst bunny that I was, I took one of my most prominent feelings at the time- that I was lost- and put it into a translator to see what came up. I decided that the Dutch "verloren" sounded the coolest, so that was my new username (I discovered later that it also means the same in German). I've often had to add some version of my birth year to it because usually just verloren is taken.

Honestly? I've thought about changing it. I really have. But for one thing, it's too much work to change my username or get a new account EVERYWHERE, and also... this is the name everyone knows. I half suspect that even if I changed it, everyone would still call me "Ver" anyway. So then the point is what, exactly? XD


☁ Watched ParaNorman today. I wasn't really expecting to like it, but it was cute. ^_^

☁ The 1am thing yesterday didn't happen- I'm hoping for today- but it was in the interest of a good cause, hopefully. I uh, kind of realized yesterday that I have NO online presence as a writer, at least nothing that's semi-professional (and by semi-professional, I mean not fanfic or a personal journal like this, at least. My standards are not terribly high for "semi-professional." XD). So. I figured that I should probably work on that. It can't HURT, at any rate. I apparently made a Wordpress account at some point, so I used that to make a new blog and put up a post on it. Here we go. Mainly it's going to be video game reviews, I think, and gaming topics in general, because that's a pretty reliable source of material. And because my dream job basically involves me wearing jeans and a t-shirt to work and getting paid to play games and write about them. XD Not that there aren't a million gaming blogs already, BUT this will be a kind of online sample that I can use. Probably. If I don't stop poking at the writing, anyway. I'm hoping for a once a week schedule, but we'll see. I think by now we all know how things with me and planning go. XD

☁ BG- It's um, going. Sort of. There is a not even half baked idea, and there are words, at least? We'll see. <_<

☁ It's been BRUTALLY hot and humid for the last week or so, but thankfully it's about 15 degrees cooler today and the humidity is supposed to FINALLY break overnight, last I heard. Thank god. Seriously, the other day it was fucking 97 with a heat index of 106. And yes, I know to some people that's not a big deal, but I live in freaking upstate NY. IT'S A BIG DEAL HERE. When it's hotter here than in Miami? Or AUSTIN? There's something wrong. I saw a thing on facebook the other day where somebody was like, "I think NY weather is broken" and that about covers it. It was seriously hellish. Kelly went up to the boyfriend's house last night (she even tilted her fan towards me before she left, heh), so I took the opportunity to strip down to my underwear and slept that way. I woke up feeling nice and cool, it was GLORIOUS.

☁ Speaking of heat, my laptop has... not been dealing with it well. Like it turned itself off several times the other day because it was overheating. I'm not entirely sure whether it's the heat/humidity or whether it's something more serious, like the laptop is dying, but in the meantime I'm attempting to find my cooling mat and taking "keep temperature down" measures- blew out the vents/fan/everything I can get to, energy consumption is set to power saver, the battery has been taken out, have the vents pointed at my fan, and I'm trying to run as few things as reasonably possible. Right this split second it's running around 150, which is pretty normal, but again, that's with all that stuff going on AND it's cooler today, soooooo I dunno. I really don't want to buy a new laptop. :/ (Mostly I don't want Windows 8) It wouldn't be AS big of a deal, considering I have the netbook, but home internet hasn't worked on the netbook ever since the cable company changed our router box. :/ I copied a bunch of stuff to the external HD anyway, in any event.

☁ It's mostly been too hot to clean really, but I did get the giant pile of crap in front of the closet cleared out, so I can actually- gasp- get in it now. Shocking, I know. In theory, that should make it easier, but now that I don't have a clear directional goal (like "get to the closet"), I'm feeling a little lost. But I guess... as long as I keep chipping away at it, it doesn't matter, really.

☁ Anime: Not a whole lot happening there. I knew I'd burn myself out eventually, because that's what I -do-, and it seems like that's what's happened. I'm still watching the new stuff as it comes out (Free is still fun, Brothers Conflict is still terrible, Silver Spoon I haven't really made up my mind about yet), and I managed to watch another ep of Tsuritama (it's still weird), but that's really about it. But this is normal. I'll cycle through some other media for a while before I come back to inhaling anime again. ^_^

☁ I did watch a couple of episodes of Doctor Who, so I'm now a few episodes into series 5 now. After seeing a few episodes with 11... I think I like him. :D Also of interest- as 11, Matt Smith is incredibly dorky looking. And not in a good way. He's apparently had a haircut, and he doesn't even look like the same person. Turns out he's totally adorable in a cute nerdy sort of way! O_O *was not expecting that*

☁ Oh, and I played The Walking Dead special 400 Days thing (I don't know if I mentioned it here, but I purchased the download for my xbox, but I won't do that again for season 2- I just don't have the hard drive space on that machine. I'll have to wait on season 2 until they put a disk out. Sadface.) My overall reaction was that I wish they'd picked one or two characters and stuck with them, instead of introducing five in such a short time span. You didn't really get to know anybody, really- though I like what I saw of Wyatt and Russell. Of course, those were the two that decided to opt out at the end. Argh. >_< So I actually have to go through it again... which is okay, because I did some stupid ass shit with Wyatt anyway. Seriously. There's a point where you have the option to try and drag this half-dead guy back to your car or leave him to get eaten by walkers, and for some ungodly reason I was like, yeah, let's drag him. Kelly was watching me play and was like, ".....what are you DOING?" "I DON'T KNOW, OKAY?" Which I guess... is one of the most interesting things about the game, really, since they give you no time to think about your decisions- you just have to go on your gut instinct. I tend to not always think things through to potential consequences, and my decisions definitely tend to lean more towards mercy and helping whoever I can when possible. I'd give examples, but spoilers. :P Which... yeah, can result in some really stupid choices as far as keeping myself/my group alive and safe. Whoops? XD

And on that note, I may or may not lie down for a bit because I have a migraine that doesn't want to go away (usually only napping cures those), and then it's some grownup stuff like laundry and figuring out what to make for dinner, and cleaning. Hopefully working on/finishing this thing for BG. Maybe. XD

This will be pretty quick, I promise! Just really trying to not post monster entries ALL the time. :P

☁ If my calculations are correct, and I'm pretty sure they are, I'm going to have a 4.0 GPA for midterms. FUCKING RIGHT. I just have to keep it there. ^_^;;; (Oh, and the tests I was freaking out about, Western Civ and Gender & Lit? 97 and 98, respectively. This always seems to happen to me. XD)

☁ Caved and got the 3DS XL. It's blue and humongous. I can't get over how big it is. I also got a Yoshi carrying case which included a couple of syluses (what IS the plural of stylus, anyway? Syluses? Styli? Meh.) and a screen protector for the touch screen, so that was pretty cool. Also picked up Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance and Zelda Ocarina of Time. Whoops? I've played a little of Zelda and it's already pissing me off. I've never played Ocarina of Time, though, so...

Best thing about it so far, though, is the music player. Messing with Re: Your Brains so that it sounds like chipmunks: awesome. ZOMBIE CHIPMUNKS FTW!

(Also, if anyone would like to add me, friend code is 1650-1537-2442. Just sayin'. :P)

( As per usual, this has been sitting in a file for weeks. Whoops. )

I'll do another post in a minute with specific class stuff- hence the part 1, because I waited so long to post this that I felt it would be too ridiculous for one entry even under a cut- so if you're not interested in that, obviously feel free to skip. ^_^

Okay, first things first- I'm alive. Some of you know that I've been in chat/available on AIM/commenting on things every once in a while. I'm here. I'm reading. I'm just not writing much outside of school work these days, and that apparently includes journals. Whoops. On the upside, this means you get a more general overview instead of a play-by-play. Which is good, because chances are you missed my angsting about basically every test ever, ESPECIALLY the Art History midterm which I was absolutely convinced I failed. I was completely prepared to drop the class. (C, btw- I'm starting to think that he's a very generous grader. XD)

( Seriously, I've had some version or other of this in my journal since September 9th. I need to just start posting stuff as it comes up, god. )

☁ I've wandered back to playing Ghost Trick the last few days, which is... interesting. I still love the art style, very different. I can't wait to find out more. The further I get into the game, the more I suspect that Sissel is not a good guy. Right now I'm trying to distract the crazy writer lady so her daughter can call her father. I'm not sure how far that is exactly, but meh.

☁ Looking at possibly getting a dictionary and a thesaurus for school- no, I don't have them currently- but I've always just used internet for that, so I'm not convinced I even need to spend the money. Thoughts?

☁ Had Thai food today. :3 Verdict? It's... very different from anything I've ever eaten ever. I don't mean that in a bad way. It's just weird. XD I had a pineapple curry which was REALLY GOOD, but the combination of super sweet and spicy sort of broke my brain. XD As good as it was, I'm not sure I would get that particular thing again. I would try other things though, absolutely. :D

☁ I just got a letter in the mail from a collection agency saying I owe almost $700 to a local electric company... which I have never dealt with. I would blow it off, except for one thing- when Erin was setting herself up in an apartment of hers years ago, I let her use my name for the electric company- with the explicit promise that she wouldn't fuck me over. Yeah, well... looks like she might've anyway. I messaged her about it, so we'll see what happens. Either way, I'm not paying it. It's not my responsibility, and I certainly don't have $700 to blow on fixing something that I didn't even do. SHE will be paying for it. God, I feel sick. Sooo basically right now I'm waiting for a response from her. I just. AKJDLASJKDL. I'm SO FREAKING OUT, you guys. THIS SHIT IS ON MY CREDIT REPORT. I'm going to throw up. Or cry. Possibly both. I mean, here's the thing. If it was my debt and I knew it, I would obviously  take ownership of that because it was CLEARLY my fault and I would take the hit to my savings account. Obviously. The thought that I have been screwed over so badly and this is on my GOD DAMN CREDIT REPORT when I was doing my sister a FAVOR is just. Too much. Especially since when I get my apartment for the fall, I won't be able to get electricity to my place until this is taken care of. BECAUSE I TOTALLY NEEDED THIS SHIT. *sobs in a corner* (And before anybody says anything, it is NOT beyond the statute of limitations on collecting debts in my state. I checked.) I'm trying to decide whether it's worth the hassle to try to get them to delete the record from my credit report once it's paid- it's going to disappear from the report in September 2015. A little over three years. Might be worth a shot though? I mean, the worst thing that's going to happen is they say no. On the other hand, it would be a lot easier if Erin just paid it online, which I don't think she can do if I do that? But then since the debt is under my name, they might not let her do that anyway? I don't know. I'm not really sure how this works, to be totally honest. Whenever I've owed anybody money I just shipped off a check. XD

...god, I so need to do laundry and I can't concentrate on anything right now.  Fuuuuuuuuck. >_<

Been a while again. Whoops. ^_^;;;
( You guys know the drill. Everything under the cut. XD )

☁ For anyone into nail polish: Zoya has a fabulous promo going on until Monday, details here. I'm still trying to decide what I'm getting. It's so hard to choose! The two that have gone into my cart and stayed there, though, are Dannii and Suvi, so I'll definitely be getting those as the freebies.

☁ The last thing from Gamefly was Blue Dragon. The first thing I noticed was that it actually gives you a language option, so you can play it in the original Japanese with English subs. I wish more games would have that option- a lot of JRPG players would prefer it, actually. That being said, it was interesting, but I found this a bit clunky. You end up searching in every little corner, crevice, plant, etc. all the time for money and items... maybe this will be less of an issue later in the game when I'm assuming this stuff is more available, but to start with it was irritating. Battle animations were laggy and took WAY too long. I really disliked the character designs- very oldschool anime style in the worst way. It's certainly not a bad game- I would probably not have any problem buying it, just not at $20. Though I see you can get it for around $10 new on Amazon, including shipping. Now THAT'S more like it.

☁ Beyond Good and Evil arrived, which is awesome because I've wanted to play it for FOREVER. We shall see~!

☁ Posting fic on AO3 is going well- THERE IS FINALLY LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL. It's probably still going to take me another week or so to finish, give or take, but eh. I don't write particularly long pieces, usually, but there's more of them than I ever realized. No wonder I've never successfully posted a proper mirror. ^_^; Qem has been going through and sticking a kudos on pretty much everything, which is really cool of her. I'm kind of in awe of it, actually- like I said, there's a lot of them. That takes a special kind of dedication. XD

☁ Anyone like wine? I'm looking for some suggestions possibly. Seems like it's been a thing lately, and as most of what I've tried is disgusting... thought maybe I'd try to get some opinions. :D I'd rather not do red wine, but I'll admit I'm biased. The one and only time I've had red, it tasted like cough syrup. Blech. My alcohol tastes tend to run very sweet, and wine is no exception. Hence, dry is not a good idea. SUGAR IS GOOD. Thoughts, anyone?

☁ Kind of weird- I took a guy's passport, right? Note that said guy was probably in his 40's, Asian. He looked at the passport frowning and said to his wife, "I look Korean." I probably had a dumbfounded look on my face, because his wife then smiled at me and said, "He's Indonesian." (Or whatever it was- I unfortunately forgot where she said his heritage was. FAIL. XD) I was just like, "Er.... O_o" Racism, yay! XDDD

☁ On a related note, I was watching a thing of Carlos Mencia's, and he had this to say about racism in America: "We just fight with each other because we've got nothing better to do and we like drama." AHAHAHAHAHA. Interesting take, I have to say.

I have a few minutes to kill, so I might as well post this entry that's been sitting in notepad for three days, right? XD

( I really need to post more often so this doesn't happen... )

☁ 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.

☁ 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.

☁ The new Donkey Kong Country- it's fun (I'm definitely purchasing it at some point), but it IS a bit of a departure from the previous ones, gameplay wise. Not being able to throw Diddy: fail. The difficulty level was also higher than I expected it to be, straight from the getgo. Then again, in all fairness, there are many levels in the original ones that I can play backwards and forwards at this point, so... they're easy to me NOW. Doesn't mean they were the first time I played them. XD I was always BOSS at the minecart levels and shooting barrels though, and the minecart level in the first world is DEFINITELY harder than those used to be.

If you like the first three, I think you'll like this one- if you've never played the first three, you can either get them for the GBA or download them to your Wii. I would suggest trying one of those first (my favorite is 2, personally), rather than spending the cash on the new one. $10 is better than $40, yeah?

☁ Okamiden- CUTEST. GAME. EVER. ADJKLSJDLK. (Here, have a trailer.) I totally hit "keep" on this one- it's only about 20 cents cheaper on Amazon anyway, so I might as well keep the cartridge that has my save.

Next up on the Gamefly queue: Uh, Kirby's Epic Yarn, apparently.

☁ Absolutely disgusting. There is NO excuse for this- the man physically assaulted a student. He should be in jail, and he shouldn't be allowed to work with children ever again. Period. You don't touch kids.

☁ Also I finally got Suikoden V back. I actually didn't end up having to ask- when I went up to Stef's last week, she was like, "Oh, here!" and handed it to me. She is apparently still working on Kingdom Hearts, which is fine. As long as her room didn't eat it, we're good. XD I think I'm going to have to restart Suikoden V, though, as I only remember bits and pieces of what the hell was going on. Buuuuut that's what I get for loaning the game out when I wasn't finished with it. :/

☁ I just found out about a really neat thing my library has- they're part of an online site that lets you download music, legally, for FREE. You're limited to three a week, and only what they've got (read: Sony), but hey. Free is free is free.

☁ There are, apparently, emulators that allow you to play GB, GBC, NES, and SNES games on a DS R4. O_o I don't know, somehow it just never occurred to me that you could do that? It's probably like the other R4 stuff- some of it works great and other stuff doesn't- but I tried a couple of games and they seem to be alright, though. Might be good for the stuff that Nintendo won't put in their online stores to purchase for current consoles. *cough*WhoFramedRogerRabbit*cough*

☁ I recently tried two new kinds of rice- well, not new really, but new to me. Jasmine rice, which is quite yummy though I wouldn't want to have it all the time; and Basmati rice, which I'd never even heard of before I saw it in the store a couple of days ago. The grains are really long so it almost looks shredded, and it tastes really freaking delicious. It doesn't even need any salt or sauce or anything. I think I need to find the brown version and buy a bag. :3

- Got my hair cut again after putting it off for a few weeks. It's the kind of short I've been trying to get and failing at (seriously, she used clippers on a lot of it XD) My mother's response to the haircut? "Why don't you just shave it off? You might as well at this point." ............................
*growl* Fuck you. Seriously. NOBODY ASKED YOUR GOD DAMN OPINION.

- Scored jeans at LB for 40% off, they're not flare or boot-cut, AND they're a size lower than what I got last time I bought jeans. Woo! I have no idea how I managed that, being that I haven't lost any weight and I'm not working out, so it's not like I've lost fat and gained muscle all of a sudden. Oh well. I'm certainly not going to complain. :D

- Also found volume 12 of Junjou Romantica, which I've been looking for. So! That one's totally caught up. \o/

- Level grinding in FFIII. What makes it suck even more than usual is that I'm kind of stuck where I am right now, due to story events, so I'm basically having to run up and down these stairs ad nauseum. UGH. Hopefully I can stop after one more level up and not get totally slaughtered by the boss.

- Apparently about a month ago, Konami put up a post on their Facebook group "What Konami game franchise would you love to see brought back?" I didn't read all 924 comments, but seriously? I did go 100 comments back, and all but TWO were along the lines of "SUIKODEN VI, DAMMIT!" *dies laughing* You think maybe they got the hint? Someone commented "Looks like Suikoden fans have made their own army now. :D" *dies more*

- Awesome video of Tom Felton on Conan- there was Harry/Draco discussion, and pictures! So funny, and he was so freaking cute when he literally turned PINK when they showed a couple of Harry/Draco photo manips. On the other hand, it did feel a bit strange having fandom acknowledged out of the blue like that, and on such a popular platform. And to think the actors actually read fanfiction and see fanart? Kind of like... er... what? O_o I don't know. It's a little too close to home for comfort. A great clip and interview, but just... made me feel a little like a bug under a microscope lens, if that makes any sense.

There's probably other stuff I should be talking about (like more work dramaz), but I don't feel like it. For now? MOAR SUIKODEN! You can safely just skip this entry if you're not interested. :D

( Last time, you guys, I swear. You won't have to hear any more about this. )

I haven't decided what to do now- part of me wants to jump into Suikoden III and give that another shot, but... I kind of want a break, too. There are things to watch and fics to write! I should probably take at least a week from it and just chill, at any rate. ^_^;

☁ 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...

☁ Suikoden II:
-Jowy: *SOB* I think I know what he has in mind, but. He is Wrong. I know he's wrong because this is Suikoden and the Hero always wins in the end, goddammit. You should give up and run away because you're postponing the inevitable, my ass. *growls*
-A case for frequent saving- in the middle of a random battle, the game froze. Due to game events, I hadn't been able to save in quite a while... plus I stupidly just hadn't when I had the chance. I had to do from the Greenhill Ghost incident to successfully escaping with Teresa twice. GAH. >_<
-That being said, I was reminded quite vividly of why Flik is Awesome. You know he just did something seriously impressive if even Luc admitted that it wasn't bad.
-Kind of funny, the whole time Nina was going after Flik, I was thinking, Viktor would never let Flik live this down if he knew. I'm so glad he got to see it. Viktor's immense amusement and Flik's reaction of RAGE was totally worth doing pretty much half the Greenhill arc again. <3
-Also Nanami freaking about the ghost and trying to include Pilika in the freakouts, while Pilika is all "?" was freaking hysterical.
-I was randomly thinking, for the characters that were also in the first game (with the exception of Viki, because I don't think she really even notices things like war going on around her. XD)... I have to wonder if most of them aren't thinking something like, "Another teenager with a true rune in his hand. How the hell do I keep ending up following these kids around?"
-Last one, I promise. I understand that with 108 playable characters, I'm not going to like all of them. But Sid? Really, Konami? The whole time you're recruiting him, he's being all creepy and the pickpocket kid with wings whose name I can't remember at the moment (Chaco?) was all "NOOOOoooooooooOOO!" and "Don't touch me!"
...
......
...........

It's incredibly disturbing that the Hero knowingly recruits a guy who's probably going to molest this kid. Just saying.

☁ Obviously with all of the Suikoden talk, I haven't really been watching too much of anything at the moment. Should probably stop that. I have a manga rec too that I should probably try to get to at some point. I don't read manga very often because when I do I tend to inhale a whole bunch at once and I burn myself out for a while. It's been about a month since the last time, though. Probably due. :P

☁ Not much of anything is happening in LJ-land today. *pokes it*

☁ I forgot to mention that the New York Post on Sunday had a fabulous Rapture related headline- "WORLD ENDS! Heaven looks exactly like New York City" I totally started cracking up when I saw that on a customer's paper. Customer looked at me like I was nuts, but it was totally worth it. Brilliant. <3

☁ Did I mention that I found a new video game/book/movie/music organization site? Well, I did. Yes, I realize that when you go to the site, it talks about buying and selling, but you can just have "collections" too. You don't have to sell anything if you don't want to. On the upside, if you do decide to sell anything, you can do that really easily from there too. (Though they do take a percentage, but most sites like that do.) I only have some DS games on there so far- it's kind of neat because the way they set it up, it's almost like you're shopping through your own stuff, which is kind of neat. ^_^ Of course, you can buy on the site as well as sell, which could be dangerous. But we'll ignore that.

☁ Stef had me watch Once Upon a Mattress, which was cracky and kind of hysterical. Zooey Deschanel's eyes are kind of weird though, aren't they? It seems like she's always like O_O, at least in this movie, and it was a bit off putting. Though Google shows plenty of pictures where she looks normal, so I think it's just a thing she does. She's a pretty girl, but seriously, this? Creepy.

☁ Sobering fact I just learned: in over HALF of the country, 29 states in fact, you can legally be refused service in a restaurant because of your sexual orientation. Just. There are no words. New York is thankfully not one of them, but Texas is. Which isn't actually surprising, but it's disheartening. The list: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Many of those aren't a surprise. The southern states especially, and to a lesser degree, the Midwestern ones. But PA? Really? I don't really think a state that boasts "The City of Brotherly Love" really has any room to discriminate against gay people, but whatever. It's just disappointing that in 2011, so much of the country is still hell-bent on making our lives miserable.

☁ Related: This is disgusting. It's not up to doctors to make judgements about who their patients are. They're supposed to DO THEIR JOB. Funny how the two religious people didn't seem to care, but the doctors did. This isn't the first time we've heard something like this, of course, but the fact that this KEEPS HAPPENING is proof that we need marriage rights. What we have isn't good enough, because they can ignore it when you have all of the legal documentation that you're supposed to need. Civil unions are not enough. We need marriage or this kind of despicable behavior is just going to continue.

( Suikoden rambling, for those that care~ )

☁ I sent out that check yesterday morning, so... no taking it back now, eh? ^_^;;;;;;; I'm SO freaked. It's just a non-credit class, but... it's been nine years since I've been in school. Even if this IS just a trial run, it's still scary. :/ *incredibly nervous!*

☁ So I saw a current picture of my father. God, time has not been kind to him. I mean, I know he's older now than when I remember him from- the man is going to be 55 this year, and he was never a particularly handsome guy to begin with- but wow, he looks like HELL. He looks at least 10 years older than he actually is. Just... wow.

Also he made a Facebook account, and friend requested both of my sisters but not me. I kind of understand why he didn't- Kelly told him I didn't want to have anything to do with this- but dammit, it would've been nice if he had at least TRIED. Is it really so wrong to want him to show some kind of effort after all this time? Honestly, I'm pretty conflicted about him at this point. It would be nice to be able to have a relationship with my father... but I can't forgive him, and I certainly can't trust him. So what kind of relationship would that really be anyway?

☁ I set up DW to import stuff- I know DW isn't doing that right now to not be a burden on LJ, but this way I can just forget about it and DW will import the stuff when things are better with LJ. It's not like it's a rush or anything. They'll do it when they do it. And this way I don't have to remember to import everything later. ^_^ That being said, trying to put stuff in the DW comm is incredibly frustrating- the bases post, for example, refuses to post right no matter what I do. There's random html tags everywhere and the cuts refuse to work. GAH. >_< At least that only seems to be on that one post? I deleted it, in any case. I'll fool around with it some other time. Maybe.

☁ Recruiting in Tierkreis. Which is kind of annoying, because a lot of it involves traveling in the same areas over and over again. Oh yeah, and there's random battles in those areas. It's a good thing I love this series, because otherwise this kind of stuff would totally turn me off. On the other hand, it's a good opportunity to level up the more severely underlevelled characters? :D

☁ 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 really should be doing laundry, but pffft. Don't feel like it. I'm also really super tired, but rather than do the intelligent thing and go to bed, I'm just going to bore you all to tears instead. XD

- Been feeling bloaty and icky and exhausted lately, and I have no idea why. Spring is coming- that usually jazzes me up- so I don't know what's going on at the moment. Hrm.

- I realized quite unpleasantly that one of the evil plot bunnies I've been avoiding for MONTHS now (because it's wicked depressing and there's SO many things I could mess up)... could very well end up a  multi-chapter fic should I ever give in and write it. BAH. All the more reason to ignore that one. *glares at the bunny*

- Speaking of which, the bunnies have been weirdly active lately. This is good- to a point. It's not exactly helping me to post the backlog of fic, though. XD Also most of them are still things I don't want to write. Stupid bunnies. *grumbles* On the upside, the backlog of fic is decreasing, slowly but surely. Hopefully I should be finished with it sometime in the next year. >_<

- The ten year reunion for my original class is coming up. I've been invited. I didn't graduate with them, mind, but... ugh, ten years, seriously? Where did all that time go? I have no intention of GOING though. There's really... maybe a few people I would like to see, but that's about it, and I don't really think it's worth putting myself through the stress for. I'll admit that a big part of it is a high level of embarrassment on my part. I am certainly nowhere NEAR where I would like to be at this point in my life. Which yes, is kind of a sore point and I don't really feel like explaining to people how I've ended up in the gutter. It's just... bigger things were expected of me. I expected bigger things from me. So I think going to something like a reunion and having to show my general failure would just be torturing myself. If I at least had a date I could bring, that would be immensely better, but alas. Maybe by the time the 20th comes around, I'll not be completely mortified by the thought of having to explain my life to people I knew as a child.


( And for Jet- Suikoden II Thoughts So Far :P )

-Work has been eating me alive, so I haven't really had the energy to write. Last week was HELL- this week seems to be a -little- better, at least, I'm just hoping it continues that way. Last week I ended up putting in overtime. This week the drama is that we're apparently not getting shipments from the outlab that we're supposed to- but that outlab is telling the customers that we have the orders when we don't. And it's not just one day's shipment, this is three different customers with three different orders on three different days. Different WEEKS, even. Isn't that fun, they're starting on the Christmas bullshit early. JOY.

-The holiday card post should be up soon, I'm just... trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing with that. I may have to just give up on creativity this time around and just send cards. :(

-Still haven't sent that message back, still procrastinating. Urgh. It's not like I don't know WHY I'm procrastinating... I'm afraid. Point blank. She's probably lost interest by now, meh.

-I read an article today about how a breast cancer survivor who'd had a mastectomy was forced to show the TSA person her prosthetic. Seriously, TSA? That's DISGUSTING. There's stories of them messing with medical equipment, too. This on top of the new screenings... yeah, suddenly I'm glad I rarely fly. Jeez. If the choice comes down to either getting molested or having an x-ray picture taken of me that shows WAY too much detail for comfort... I honestly don't know what I'd say, aside from "O_O MEEP!" It's absolutely humiliating. And while I've never had a problem with Obama before, I take issue with him going "Yeah, it's necessary, deal with it." When he doesn't have to. He'd probably feel differently if he had to watch his wife or one of his daughters put through that, hmm?

I don't know what the answer is here, but this is definitely going too far. This is humiliating people on the million to one chance that they have a bomb in their underwear or something. We've given up entirely too many freedoms already, this is just... the icing on the cake, really. I shouldn't have to be forced to let a stranger get to third base just to get on a fucking plane. The new system is BEGGING for abuse, and it's already happening and it hasn't even been a full month yet I don't think. There's a line between being reasonably cautious and being unreasonably paranoid, and I don't think there's any question now that they're well over the line. Fear is taking over now. This isn't good.

-My mother has apparently decided that she's not talking to me, which is pretty much the most hysterical thing ever, because it means that she thinks that this show of extreme immaturity is actually some kind of punishment for whatever horrible offense I've supposedly committed this time. She doesn't get that this is what I -want-. I want her to leave me the hell alone. But whatever, I'll take the amusement while she's offering it. Probably won't last long.

-Messed up with SW. Again. Never actually responded to the post like I was supposed to, and then I've been completely and utterly inactive. Meh. I know this is probably going to sound horrible, but with work being what it's been lately, and the holidays coming up so it's going to be all that much worse... I can't really bring myself to care all that much at the moment. I'm too freaking exhausted to care. So it's probably a good thing. Maybe I'll think about it again after the holidays, but as I said before, I also have to consider that this will be twice now that I've left, and apping the same character three times at the SAME GAME is a little ridiculous. :/

-I've been playing a lot of Sims 3 the last couple of days. I had the Sim lifespan set pretty short, and I realized quite unpleasantly that this is nowhere near enough time to do everything I would like to do... and this is just with Sim!Ver, that's not even including the actual, yanno, story kinds of things in my head. So I've set aging off for now. I at least want to get Ver's lifetime aspiration done with- she's an Investigator, and she needs to solve 35 cases. I think I'm on... 21 or 22? Case stuff isn't difficult, it's really just time consuming. A lot of running around. Most of it is kind of dumb, so I honestly don't think I'll be doing that particular career path again. I mean, okay, most jobs have you staring at a building while your Sim is at work, but still. A lot of the cases are like... stolen garden gnomes and stuff, and Ver is a level 9 investigator. Seriously. I WISH I WAS KIDDING. I want to play with the travel things more, too. At least get a level 1 Visa, dammit. XD We'll see, though, I'm not using the money cheat like I normally do (and that's really the only cheat I use, unless I need something specific). Need to move her out of the current house, though, first. The house she's in is more like a closet. XD Aaaaaaaand now that I've bored everyone to tears with Sims crap... I should probably get going, it's after 6am, and there's work later. *sighs forever*

...holy crap, didn't I post anything before this? Oh, right, I lost it after lappy decided to overheat. Bah.>_< So let's run through some stuff, yeah?

☁Regarding LJ's recent fail: FAIL, LJ. COMPLETE FAIL. This kind of goes without saying, and I don't think anybody would actually be dumb enough to do this, but if anybody does the facebook/twitter link thing to anything on my journal- public or locked- you'll find yourself off my friendslist. Yes, I have a few LJ people on Facebook, but overall, these circles are separate FOR A REASON- just like I don't have my LJ linked to my facebook for a reason. I complain about people on my facebook here WAAAAY too much to want them to actually know about my LJ, okay?

☁FFXIII- Kait talked me through Odin and so I'm unstuck, at... Palompolum now. Am hating Hope a little less. Kind of wanted him to kill Snow. Need to play that more. :/

☁Work driving me crazy. I really, really need a vacation. So badly it hurts. Doesn't help that I've been totally exhausted lately, I'm getting over a cold, so... yeah. Fun stuff. Of course, that's also why I haven't really written lately... ^_^;;;

☁Have glasses. They're less rectangular looking than I remember them being, which is good. It's also totally possible that I just wasn't SEEING them correctly originally. XD Either way, they're not bad, and I have some sunglass clippies for them, which is awesome. Especially since when the sun sets at work, the light is directly in my face. People look at me weird for having sunglasses on for that little bit, but hey, I'm rocking it. :P

☁Still doing the maintaining thing weight-wise, but I've been snacking way too much lately even when I'm already full. I'm trying to curb this- I bought a shiny new electric toothbrush today, and when I feel I'm done eating for the day, I'm going to brush my teeth and hopefully that will keep me from running to get a snack every five minutes because my teeth are nice and *~clean~*. It's been working for a good 3 hours now, so... ^_^

☁Plane tickets are purchased- I'll definitely be going to Texas in October~ I even bought a new bathing suit for the occasion. The good news is that it's a 12-14 and it FITS! \o/ The bad news is that it doesn't fit my boobs. Not even close. D: So... I'll keep it and maybe it'll fit next year. Right? :D In the meantime... I guess I need to find another suit. I'm hoping I can find the one I had before so I can at least see if that still fits, but so far it's not turning up.

.......and clearly I need to go to bed if I'm misspelling words like "occasion". *stares at self*