MILES to GO || before I sleep

Grr, argh. That's my common phrase for this mood, ne? So I decided to try and play some Katamari Damacy again, just because I've been working like crazy the past few weeks -school work and work-work- and I decided I needed a break. For once, I have no looming essays, applications, or anything to worry about (save my article due for Journalism, which I will get to work on tomorrow afternoon). Today, I was worried I wouldn't even finish my Japanese HW, but Takase-sensei was about 30 mins. late anyway, so I finished it up just in time as the TAs did this replacement for our response drills thing. We wrote all 16 answers down, instead of picking one out of the 16 (from either e, e/supplement, or f; we added g, so we don't have to do it on Monday). I think I did okay... I got some things wrong in my Situational Drills, I know that, but it's better than nothing at all. I have to get my Listening Comprehension done by Monday though, because now the website's back up. :P

Anywhoozle, so I'm trying to get the Camera in Make A Star 5. And after you get past the 45 cm hill, you hang a write, go around the corner for a bit, and head up this ramp-like green fencing. And then you go to the narrow part of the fence in the far right corner, and there's a crow hovering in the air, your Camera (Present) in its feet. All the guides I've read recommend you "dash" to get to it, but every time I do the Charge 'N Roll, NOTHING WORKS! Like, the ball will spin very fast for about 2 seconds, and then it's like slamming on the breaks. It stops right at the tip of the fence, and I can't "shoot out" to catch the present.

HELP!

I'm going to try and play again (between bites of the Chinese takeout I ordered... yum!) and see if being BIGGER helps at all. Maybe if I fall, but I'm at least 1 m, I can catch the present anyway. :P

In other news, looks like I'll be adding a Hall of Fame to 30kisses. What makes that job easy is that so few people have finished claims, so I'll be able to grab most of their finished claims pretty easily. One person already has a made banner; if the other person wants one, I can make it for them. And that'll be the Hall of Fame. :) Whenever more people get close to finishing, I'll probably need more help with the HoF, but that's not the case at the moment.

I've also been adding Memories to betasquad, even though it's not that active at the moment... but as I write more WDKY24 (still need to get some info from guardian_kysra before I'll feel comfortable with this one scene), more will go up. A new member has just joined from the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom, too, so yay to that!

Today's The Big Day. I finished Japanese and managed to breeze through my dialogues and response drills; next is facilitating some poetry readings and responses in Creative Writing. Easy enough. Then comes hand therapy at 2:45 (I hope whoever I get is nice...), and my written DMV test at 4:10. Watch as I kick ass and take names!

Tomorrow? I'll go to Red Robin and anime club. Phil's a bit of a prick for changing his mind twice about whether or not the club should participate in the natural high fair, and supposedly we're going to try and set up a table to do origami-- if it's not too late. The fair is about 10 days away by now...

In any case, if I do get the Red Robin job, I can say goodbye to Friday nights. As I thought with last semester, I don't think there's too much I'm going to miss. Alas, Ben is gone. There's no one else there that captures my attention, and everyone there either takes me for granted, treats me poorly, or ignores me. Besides, if I make server and I get $400 in tips every weekend, do you think I'm going to give a rat's ass about ANIME club? Shit, I'll be able to buy anime from Japan on DVD, or get boxed sets from Suncoast and stuff! I'm sure there's some way I can keep up on fansubs... Hmm, I wonder if there's an RSS for d-addicts and animesuki?

I think I fixed betasquad's security problem, though. I edited two of my past entries to be friend's only, but to test and see if I really made all the entries community-only and not just friend's only, I need someone on my friends list who is NOT a member of betasquad to go to the community and tell me what they see. I would really appreciate some help, guys!

Also, I can't get my layout to work right. Anyone have experience tinkering with layers, because I checked it out yesterday, and they changed the editing system for S2 when I last used it, and I am lost! I tried contacting unfloopy, who made the 3-columns layout, but I can't get ahold of her.

Time to work on some critiques!

Ladies, wouldn't it be nice if we could just splash some cold water on ourselves for that one week a month and become a guy? Sure, it would cause problems and weird our friends out, but it would mean the end of nausea, indigestion, that bloated feeling, cramps, and all that icky mess...

Wednesday evening sucked because my period was TEH EBIL. It's weird, because being on BC is supposed to make it easier to handle; that sort of implies that if I wasn't on the pill, it would have been worse. X_X I took a short nap in the library, wrote a quick story in WRP2 class, and went home by 8:30. Thank goddess for soup, saltines, and short classes.

Today's been a bit better; even though I was late to Japanese class, everything went well, and surprisingly Scott was waiting for me outside of class. We went to the Collaboratory together, where I wrote a quick critique for my Creative Writing class, and then we walked to the Exchange to get me some breakfast. Scott again apologized for the other night when he was so rude, but he didn't go into detail as to what was on his mind. Truthfully, I figured I didn't want to know, so I didn't ask. But I did tell him, if the next time he finds himself with free time and a load on his mind and he DOESN'T want to talk to me about it (because he didn't seem to want to; not that night or today), then he certainly has no obligation to hang out with me when he doesn't want to be social. It's no crime.

Creative Writing class got cancelled, so I went up to the Photo Lab to find Scott again and hang out for a while; I got the mini-tour of the new, filled space there, and then I headed over to the Brown Center to meet Baba and Grandpa after their swim lesson. I hung out at home for a bit and checked my email; WDKY19 is getting mixed reactions, and no one's responded to the finished WDKY20 up at the betasquad forums just yet.

As for WDKY19, I'd like to establish my view on the whole steam scene: I wrote it because I felt like it was time, because it fits with the people I have established as characters (or advancements of Takahashi's characters), and it fits with the series as a whole (encompassing CO7 and ED, as well). As some readers pointed out, regardless of how long Seto and Téa have actually been going out, they have lived together and been through so much in a longer span of time (sexual tension!) and they've known each other for even longer. IMHO, real life relationships work that same way. Sometimes sexual attraction is apparent from the get-go, sometimes it's onesided, and sometimes, even when it is shared, it takes a while to develop. Factors contribute, and that's what I've tried to make clear in WDKY. It's not like they just suddenly decided to jump each other's bones; this is something I've been hinting at for a while now! I'm not trying to preach anything either, but I stand by my rating. I'd like to believe the people reading WDKY are mature, but sometimes the reviews I get seem to say otherwise. I really wish that the younger set reading WDKY would understand that I am not trying to condone anything that goes against one's personal beliefs, religion, etc. THIS IS A STORY!

Backtracking a bit, WDKY needs editing. It really does. Ch. 1 and 12 were the biggies, just because I glanced over them again today; most of it is tense and formatting, nothing big story-wise. Something in Ch. 12 references something in Ch. 20, so I need to edit the beta version I posted at betasquad to appropriately reflect that. People noticed that I like to leave loose ends hanging for an unspecified amount of time, to bring them back later with a surprising bang... well, the loose ends are about to start getting tied up! The story's almost done, ladies and gents! 20 chapters done out of 36 leaves only 16 left...!

In other news, I'm going to Knott's Scary Farm (read: Berry Farm done Halloween style) with Eva and one of her roommates tomorrow. I think we'll miss the special park's opening, but it's open till 1am, so we should still be able to get some good scares in. We can't dress up though, so whatever I choose to wear will have to be both comfy and eye-catching at the same time. (I told Scott I could wear my red plastique brassier and my leather pants and go as a skank; he told me to please, please promise him to be careful and not let weirdoes around me... I thought it was cute.) As for Halloween night, still no plans... I might stop by the photo lab and try to "scare" Scott, but other than that, MEH. What, am I supposed to go trick-or-treating? All the parties are 21 and up only, and I'm not in a sorority or co-ed fraternity... and the Halloween Haunts and such on the Night Of are either going to be crowded, expensive, or both. Either that or they're too far for me to reach on foot. :P If worse comes to worse, I can dress up and "have fun" at home by watching whatever scary things might be on TV (I can try to go to Blockbuster and rent Army of Darkness for laughs) and give the candy we have out to trick-or-treaters (not that we get many in this neighborhood...).

Ugh, my tummy still hurts, so I think I'll take a nap now...

I mention the communities I'm either in or that I own/co-moderate, but now it's time for some serious pimpage. Get ready.

4husorting
If you're a Harry Potter fan, you simply have to join. If you've ever wondered what "house" you belong in, but think you might have traits from more than one house, check us out! And it's not just simply a pretty community with a cool name (now that I think about it, we're "four house union" but we have six houses...) it's a place to interact with other people, get to know them... and in a sense, it's a personality-based rating community with an actual GOAL in mind, none of that superficial "rate me on my boob size!" crap. :P

We're just starting out, so the more the merrier! We're aiming to have contests, a quidditch pitch (think scavenger hunt and HP knowledge quizzes), and house competitions. How fun! If you decide to fill out an application, mention that you heard about it from me, the_sweet!

betasquad
A great community devoted to helping fanfiction writers improve their craft with people from the fandom of their choice-- be it anime, manga, or video game-based. Now we have a beautiful website, an active community, and a great forum! Come join us! (I'm posting all of my Yu-Gi-Oh stuff up there, so all my calls to betas should be directed there.)

ygo_offtopicon
Where the random resides! Do you ever tire of icontests that feature only one running theme-- like song lyrics, poetry verses, stills from the show, character-based themes... blah! How boring! Why not try something that's never the same, and always unpredictable! Learn to expect the unexpected with fun, frivolous, and stimulating themes ranging from Indiana Jones to Autumn!

30kisses
"Bigger, faster, and better than ever!" That's what separates us from the original 30_kisses, and from all the other spinoff communities. We also have alternative lists created by our members, a shorter claims list with quicker filling time, and an extended system of archiving everyone's submissions! So come join us and test your mettle with 30kisses-- and then some!

ygo_goodfic
We all see enough Yu-Gi-Oh badfic out there-- enough to spork our eyes out with from here to the eight-millionth millennium. But what about GOOD fics? What makes the good ones so good, and what have those authors got that other authors don't? Make recommendations, postulate theories, or just lavish praise over your favorite authors.

ygo_lyricwheel
A lyric wheel is a contest/challenge where people submit song lyrics to fit a particular theme. After everyone has submitted, the songs are randomized and re-distributed, and people write a fanfiction (of any length, style, or pairing) inspired by or using the lyrics from the song-- and the fic has to fit the original theme. It's quite a challenge: unpredictable and fun. You might just get a new favorite song, or be challenged to write for a musical genre that's not quite to your tastes! The second round will end on October 25th, with the third round starting shortly thereafter. Come join us!

And finally, a question... where does the "Shop Smart. Shop S-Mart" line come from (Evil Dead or something, right?) and why the heck do people always associate it with shooting people? I've seen icons using the line for Rufus Shinra (FFIV: AC) and Alice (I think... from Biohazard/Resident Evil). WTF?

Ugh, I hate all the political-based responses to the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. The representative for the White House keeps accusing this one MSNBC/Newsweek reporter that he was finger pointing and playing the blame game (his exact words, repeated to infinity). The guy was only asking a yes-or-no question. -_-; Then again, I'm biased because I'm a journalist-in-training, I guess. Mamono, what are your thoughts on recent coverage?

Well, if it seems/feels like (on my end, anyway) that I've been dead, it's because I've been trying to get my new Dell Inspiron 6000 to work... to no avail. I upgraded to Win XP Pro the night I got the laptop, but apparently something went wrong in the install, and since I didn't buy the Pro from Dell, I have to reformat and reinstall the Home OS, and then bug Microsoft for help regarding the XP Pro upgrade. I won't have to reinstall much:
* Firefox (bookmarks, extensions, themes)
* Thunderbird (old email -still on this comp- and account settings)
* LimeWire
* iTunes 5
* Winamp

Also, no one from betasquad has said yay or nay to my idea of having a website/forum (something I originally proposed to nekokilala), which kind of bums me out. I have tons of 30kisses claims to catch up on, and I'm wondering if there might be an easier way of letting svelterose update when I'm not available.

I want to post WDKY18 --tonight, if possible, now that it's pretty smoothed out. I'm spending so much time (or what FEELS like a lot of time) at school, studying, at work (ugh, especially tomorrow!) and trying to clean up my room (I got most of the closest sorted out; now I have to put my desk papers and such together). The comp is running strangely slow right now (great, just what I need), so I'm going to finish this entry, install the latest Java in the hopes that it'll fix my future Apple.com downloads, and restart. More later, perhaps.