MILES to GO || before I sleep

I couldn't think of a better subject line.

My NetNewsWire (NNW) RSS reader isn't reading my LiveJournal Friends' Page RSS feed anymore. The NNW guys think it's something on LJ's end, which...yay, it's not exactly officially supported; it's just a layout and style layer that someone made. I hope that someone can figure out what's wrong, if it really is an LJ issue at all. It was working up until the 23rd! Gah.

( Meredithology 101 )

HAPPY Tax Day BIRTHDAY LiveJournal MAMONO!

a.k.a. bewareofdogz!

:D

:D

:D

Whoo-hoo! I finished my five quizzes for Environmental Geology (chapters 7, 8, 10, 11, 12 and 13) and my Exam (cumulative for all of those chapters) and I KICKED ASS! I got As or Bs on all of the quizzes, and an A or A- on my exam (I got a 96%, that's an A or A-, right?). Last exam, I missed 6 questions, this time, I only missed 3! :) :)

But the fun never ends, oh no. I still have a biology quiz due tomorrow morning at 10am, my flood insurance rate map assignment due for geology tomorrow night (but I want to get it in earlier so I'm not thinking about it when I'm out with the gals... STALKING RPATTZ! I am kidding. Sort of. More on that later.), and a paper on war (or something like that) for my gender and women's studies class.

So yeah, no shortage of school work here. But I seem to perform best under pressure, so, armed with some delicious Green Tea flavored with honey and ginseng (iced, of course) and some freshly made fudge walnut brownies I SHALL EMBARK UPON THE NOBLE QUEST OF EDUCATION!

And caps-lock of rage, too. Except it's not rage, it's something completely different and bizarre.

This month is just non-stop. Aside from already having missed my deadline for my environmental lifestyle audit for my Recreation and Tourism Management class, I've also failed to update WDKY26 within one year. *hangdog face* I'm quite ashamed, but seriously, looking at all this school work and all the drama I've had in the past year, does it surprise anyone? I'll get that damn thing done... if it kills me. HA HA I MADE A FUNNY! -_-

Coming up: thinking about getting the new T-Mobile G1, since my contract with T-Mobile is just about up, I think, and I'm due for an upgrade. Plus, I wanna get my PSP. Of course, both of those involve spending money I DO NOT HAVE but... minor detail, seriously. Also: possible Bangra dancing on the 15th, Thanksgiving coming up (Dad is mysteriously and suddenly okay with me having a room of my own at the Hilton we're staying at in San Diego. I wonder what he did? He won't tell me), HOPEFULLY a new baby cousin (Brooke said last night there's no baby yet, which means she's kinda overdue at this point afaik) and Scott (and his twin brother Ryan)'s 29th birthday! Whew. Oh, and then Alcatraz in early December, because WHY NOT!? :D

Don't get me started on all those other personal projects I've got lined up, like getting my stuff on Fanworks Finder, working on Epiphany, changing the layout for BEA and the Secret Society Girl fanlistings, adding my stuff to AnimeXX, working on the RPGClassics Star Ocean 3 shrine, fixing my laptop iTunes library, working on all my fics, and, and, and...! I've probably forgotten a few. My brain feels like it might "asplode." But I guess that's better than FURSPLODE! Ha, ha.

Oh, I'm going to love it when this semester is over. Only two more to go. And then what? I have no freakin' clue, but I imagine at least a little bit of relief will be involved. Even if I love learning.

I think I'm a day or two early, but it never hurts to be the early bird, right? But in this case, Sandy (aka guardian_kysra, assuming Real Life hasn't eaten your soul/time on LJ), the worm goes to you.

WORM:

A ficlet of your prompting
OR
An image of your description (icon, banner, etc.)

So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY KYSRA! May your day be a kick-ass one. :)

A little over an hour (and a half?) ago, my uncle Neal, Baba, Grandpa and I got back from UCLA, where we attended my cousin Erin's double-graduation. Double because she got two bachelors degrees: one in design, and another in anthropology, with a minor in urban planning. The first one was big and huge, but we cut out as soon as Erin got her name called-- the second dragged on despite it being "smaller" --they started late, and the speakers all just kept GOING AND GOING. Erin even had time to pass back a note to her mom (my aunt Joyce) that said "I thought I graduated already, so why am I getting lectured!?" when the dean just kept going and going and going...

And I still like all the excitement of graduation, even if the prospect of paying off student loans, finding a "real" job and moving out on my own (really, for the first time) is a bit daunting. I wonder if keeping my Japanese minor just to put that off for a bit longer is a good idea... I'm still undecided on whether I want to keep it as a minor.

Before the graduation, we went to my grandparents' cousin's 90th and 94th (!!) birthday celebration at this fancy restaurant in Westwood called Lawry's. It was very dark and wooden, though I think some rather rich kids (perhaps Beverly Hills ilk?) were having a party in one half of the restaurant, while various branches of the Sweet/Goldberg families filled up several tables in the other room.

Baba had chicken, Grandpa had fish, and I had this massive steak the size of my head that was so overdone (I asked for well-done, not BURNT TO A CRISP) that it was dry, and I ended up eating more creamed corn and mashed potatoes than I did steak. There was also a ton of fat on the steak, which... well, looks like white jelly, and is not appetizing to eat. So I tried to cut some of it off. I gave some steak to both Baba and Grandpa (because they asked), but even then, I got so filled up off everything else-- salad, a bread roll, and what little steak I could eat. Then I had to try and eat some dessert, but by then, we were running late to meet Erin for her graduation, which began at 4pm.

All in all, it was a very filled day-- fun, but filled. Toward the end, I was so cold and hungry, it made me irritable and a bit more complaining than I usually am (or would like to be). What's frustrating is how UCLA, quite unlike CSUN, is very wide and spread out, and not the least bit flat. It's all over hills, with major thoroughfares passing through it. They have traffic lights WITHIN the campus! CSUN just has a million stop signs. So it took a while for Neal to get the car after the second graduation (because Erin had to show him how to get to where he'd parked), and then he drove RIGHT BY US when he finally DID come and find the place. >_< We had to call to get him to turn back around and find us.

When we got home, I made myself a yummy nectarine-and-raisin bowl of Cream of Wheat and watched "Legally Blonde" with my aunt Joyce and my uncles Neal, Fred, and Dan. It was kind of fun, though IMDB.com says that the sequel wasn't all that great. ;_; Too bad.

Other cool stuff:
* Working on customizing more skins for Epiphany (which I *MUST* get up by the end of the summer) and Dragonfayth, including all new ones, like WritingPlus3, a new version of Safari, and maybe more!

* Fixed Epiphany's "elegance" skin using the oh-I-can't-believe-I-forgot-that CSS Box Model. Okay, so it still needs a bit of work. Can anyone on a PC with IE6 (*not 7* as I can test for that on my end) test for me? Let me know if you can check for me, please... :)

* Managed to convert (using CrossFont, a shareware program for Windows) HUNDREDS of Windows-only fonts into Mac-readable ones, which I immediately imported using the super-nifty FontExplorerX, which even detected duplicate fonts for me! Because I managed to actually USE said fonts and delete the duplicates, I saved some disk space.

* Talked to Scott (aka fountain_the) today-- it was nice hearing from him again! Plus he sent (in an email) photos of his tiny (looks like a loft) apartment. Cooking is apparently impossible there... which I can't blame him for thinking. It took me a while to get used to the tiny fridge, itty-bitty cabinet space, and minuscule cooking area myself. I told Fred that Scott missed his old job with SDMM, and Fred smiled (in that Fred way...) and said he would tell the gang at SDMM that Scott said hi, and YES, they did get his postcard, which everyone read. :)

Not-so-cool stuff:
* I've been trying to install more games on my Windows side, since I upgraded to Parallels 3. I managed to get the Doom Collector's Edition working well (in fact, I spent most of Friday at work blasting Imps and Demons), but when it came to one of my favorite simulator games, "Pharaoh" with the Cleopatra expansion, I couldn't do it. The first attempt stalled at 37%, the second at 80%. I read a tech support tip on the Sierra forums that said to try copying the CD contents to the HD and installing from there, but it tripped up on the LAST, most important file, data2.cab. :( I guess I could try finding the game again (my CD is somewhat scratched up), but I'm hoping there's another way to get this ONE stupid file. No one on this FL happens to have that game, do they?

* Room is a horrid mess. Haven't had the motivation to clean it, assemble my bookcase, put my clothes away... it's funny, because I have motivation for coding, but little else. And I *NEED* to have that motivation, because there's a lot to be done (Semester at Sea app, preparing for Philly, among other things).

* I tried selling my Hot Gimmick set on eBay and there were a bunch of problems-- I thought it was because of seller fees owed to eBay, an old B&N order where PayPal saw the authorization as still pending... but in the end, I think it was because eBay saved my old Yahoo! address under the listing. After finally figuring this out, I notified the seller with step-by-step instructions on how to pay to my PROPER PayPal address, but she said it still didn't work and she wasn't interested in buying them anymore. :( I hate to think if she'll negatively feedback me, but I can understand her frustration. The problem is, I relisted the item for Second Chance, and I had no opportunity to indicate my proper email. If the runner-up wants it, they might have the same problem unless I can notify them where to send the payment! Stupid eBay... they should change email addresses EVEN ON ACTIVE OR CLOSED LISTINGS the minute a user changes it in their profile. Or I could blame PayPal, for not catching the payment even though the Yahoo! address is listed as an alternate email on my account now. Of course, the user didn't say she GOT the same error, and she wouldn't say what she did get... methinks she was just so frustrated, she didn't bother with it. Shame.

Silver lining:

* Got Dad a killer trio of Father's Day/birthday presents. Can't wait to call him tomorrow and hear his reaction. I just hope he doesn't bring up some of the drama that's plagued us earlier this week... which I suppose I'll get into in another entry, when I figure out just what to DO about it. Have to talk to Joyce.

Happy Birthday Mamono!

You may now return to your regularly-scheduled LiveJournal.

Happy Birthday!

to syn_zero (even though I doubt he still reads this) and katiat325!

Happy Birthday Shelli!


"If you really want to have a sex scene and yet don’t feel comfortable writing about it from the POV of any of the parties involved, there’s always another solution: write it from the head of someone outside the action entirely. And no, you don’t have to use a voyeur, either. Use a completely neutral party. I like the idea of the evil wizard’s spy-raven watching the hero and heroine thrashing on the grass below, knowing what they’re doing, but not really caring about anything other than the fact that these people aren’t quite dead enough for it to eat yet."

(emphasis mine, for contextual purposes of the following...)

...I blame a_white_rain for inadvertently conjuring the image of Harry and Hermione doing the thrashing while a non-existent spy-raven belonging to Voldemort spies on them.

I'm not even a H/Hr shipper! I mean they're cute and all, but D/Hr all the way for me! AWR, what have you done to my brain????

(It seems to be working better, can I keep it?)

Oh, that snippet came from here, a rather useful resource on sex in fanfiction, especially for those of us that can't seem to bring ourselves to... well, "do it." DO EET! DO EET NOW!

Happy Birthday bejiin and cutieme4u!


I GOT INTO TOKIWA UNIVERSITY!!!!!!!!
I was one of only SEVEN applicants accepted from CSUN and CSU Fresno, and it's ALL EXPENSES PAID! Plus I get paid a small stipend to teach English conversation while I'm there. Sure, it's only one semester, and it's 2 hours from Tokyo by bus, but YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Happy Birthday ceruleansan, mischiefmagnet and missandrony!


Okay, so I did it. I'm being an unoriginal, damn-good looking wh0r and going as Songstress Yuna for Fanime. I have pre-regged. I have (almost) bought and paid for the cosplay... and I might get a microphone accessory from someone else. The boots won't match, but who cares? I can also make the hair accessory myself (Yay for FIMO!). I have no plane ticket, no hotel room and no money for food/dealer's room at the moment, but I will once my birthday paycheck comes through (it just happens to fall on or around that day, yey me), but I will deal with that ASAP. I've also just emailed my mom, so at least she can help me out with the hotel (I hope), and Baba and Grandpa might help me with the plane tickets and shuttle costs (the plane tickets I would pay them back for, duh).

Anyway, it'd be nice to offset my potential hotel room costs if someone wanted to room with me. $45/night for 3 nights isn't bad for a 4-star hotel right in the convention center. Anyone interested? (Note: I'm looking for ONE, *maybe* two people for a double-bed room. Completely non-smoking, and for the love of god, no whirling-dervishes for roommates. I like people who are neat and relatively decent guests.)

atlantian_magic, I owe you Kaiba the Virgin Sacrifice. I've actually been quite the busy bee, working on WDKY24 (which is late, I realize-- I apologize to my betas and my Wonderful Historical Consultant, guardian_kysra). It's being a stubborn brat. I've also been playing FFX-2 almost non-stop (bad Mer, bad!) in lieu of having a decent Karaoke Revolution (Party Mix SUCKS!) or The Sims (I refuse to buy the PC CD version. It's DVD Special Edition or BUST!). Now I'm leveling up in the underground Thunder Plains cave, by rubber banding my X button down with a quarter, and setting the Analog stick to constant roam. Bwahahaha... it's so slow leveling up. I thought I'd be tons of leveled up by now, since I went to Target with Karin and her boyfriend, the aptly-named Guy. But Grandpa wanted to "turn it off" and so he unplugged my Memory Card and controller. -_-; I told him never to do that again, and just turn off/change the channel if he didn't want to see Yuna ramming herself into a wall and battling Machina. So now he knows. :P

Back to KtVS: (Kaiba the Vampire Slayer!? WAAAH!?) so what would be a more effective perspective, I wonder, for this first foray of mind into probably-smut? Kaiba, our unwilling "hero," or Anzu, the mysterious seductress? I have two separate opening lines, and the opening line determines "whose story" it is. Note that this wouldn't be a first-person fic (eeeuch... for a smutfic?), but with Kaiba's perspective, you'd probably get more humor from his being stuck in such an awkward situation. From Anzu, you'd understand from the get-go everything about the plot, minus the ending. Anzu's story would also be darker, up until said ending.

I obviously haven't written any of it yet-- except for the planner, so don't shoot! I like asking people's opinions about everything.

I finished reading The Mediator: Darkest Hour and The Mediator: Haunted (yes, in less than a day. The series is that addicting). Now it's onto the last, dramatic, and hopefully ROMANTIC book in the series, The Mediator: Twilight. Now, am I the only one who read Book #5 and thought "If they made a Mediator movie, THIS WOULD BE IT!?" Too bad I'm not so good at adapting novels into screenplays. I could totally do it the other way around. (I would also be a much better Suze than Hilary Duff or somesuch. Not that I've ever wanted to break into Hollywood, but still. :P)

Anyway, ugh... stomachache from that mini Pizza Primo I got at Target's Pizza Hut Express. I knew it was a bad idea the moment I stuck it in my mouth, but alas... I didn't like the looks of the pizza Karin and Guy brought home with them from before, and I know there's little to nothing else to eat in the house except pancakes and cream of wheat... which I'm right sick of. Well, except for the pancakes. But what to do for a quick meal that you don't have to prepare carefully?

Gotta go! (P.S. What's up with this new "Current Location:" thing in LJ? I use Semagic, and the client hasn't updated for this field, and there's no news or FAQ announcements about it... help?)

I'm not someone who just sits around and writes in LJ all day. Honest. I actually go to university. :P And today I got my 10-question Weather & Climate test back, along with my "midterm" (I guess?) paper on traveling from Crescent City across the state (describing the geographical features we'd seen on our way). I got a 80% on the first one, and a 14.5/15 points on the second. So it's not perfect, but I'm pleased. :)

o_o... would someone please tell me why I have 132 userpics? No, not really-- I only have 81, but there are 132 SLOTS. ;_; That's too many! I NEED MORE ICONS! (I don't have that many lying around... at least, not that many that I haven't used already and WANT to use again)

Too many people have birthdays in March. *shakes fist* And me without my rainbow-colored font colorizer. Maybe I'll take a page from crpsaiyan's book and make a massive monthly-themed birthday image and put everyone's name on it. :P

Speaking of birthdays and birthday-type food, does America have a Cupcake Day? I mean, we have National Craft Month and Hug Your Dog day (maybe?)... every day and every month is something; every color and pattern has some sort of significance. We're holiday-crazy. I want a Cupcake Day. mklutz says she had one on the anniversary of her school (founding, perhaps?) and they actually had a RAINBOW of CUPCAKES. Who the hell wouldn't want one of those? I've actually been (unreasonably) craving cupcakes for a while. Just one, delicious rainbow-cupcake, and I'd be a happy camper. In the meantime, CUPCAKE DAY, DAMMIT! Quite possibly on my birthday.

Hawaiian cupcakes? *shrugs* Why not?

Back to the fun that is Carmen Electra's Aerobic Striptease, I find it incredibly difficult to do that whole "wiggle" thing where you shift the top part of your body to the side, but without moving your hips or feet. As in, moving just your chest using your ribcage. o_o... This makes it harder to do the full body roll, because even though I can do the "Cat Cowl" thing, trying to combine all the moves into one causes me to become really short of breath, for some weird reason. But for everything else, I breathe just fine. I know I'll never be able to do the workout on Mondays, because I'm so busy, but I can do it for the rest of the week.

Scott finally "guessed" (I dropped about 10 tons worth of hints; sometimes that boy is so adorably dense) about what I'd got, and he was pleasantly 'surprised.' He was working out too, to build up his own endurance (and for me, he said. That makes me giggle). So now we're "even." He's definitely coming up here for Passover now, just to see if he can get a sneak preview of me supposedly knowing how to striptease. *laughs* something tells me I'm going to turn into a potted plant and not be able to do it without looking stupid.

When I have some free time:
* Get a wireless card
* Move everything around/clean for Passover (since I won't be here during Spring Break)
* Finish up my scholarship applications
* Finish up my 5 on-hold fics for 30kisses - "Kaiba the Virgin Sacrifice," "Girls' Club", "Sight Unseen," "Voice," and "Someone Else's Wife." Just by looking at the titles, which TWO would you want to read the most? (atlantian_magic, if you read this, your choice is important. It's your birthday coming up, and I wanna give you a fic. :P)
* Layouts? Everywhere (LJ, seventh-star.net, etc). I need to get the site-formerly-known-as-AMC up. I need a new site title. HELP!
* Tax return? Hey, it was $100 I didn't have before. And now the damn school is jumping down my throat over it. So I need a 'dependent' verification form (shiz. Am I still considered a dependent in school/legal/medical terms, even though Mom doesn't financially support me?), her tax return (copy), and my tax return (ugh).

So much for the end of stress. I can't wait until spring break.
19 MORE DAYS!!!