MILES to GO || before I sleep

Okay, so when I left home this morning at 9:30 or so, my MBP was still backing up to my external HD. Everyone I know is saying it shouldn't take that long, but no one can seem to agree on how long it's SUPPOSED to take. For the record, my HD supposedly has 74.21 GB on it, and the external, a 250 GB Western Pacific MyBook, is attached via USB 2.0, which is SUPPOSED to transfer at a rate of 480 Mbps (Mb, as I learn =/= MB... it's about 8 times SLOWER). All the calculators I found online said it should take anywhere from 1-2.5 days, which it's been by now, I think, but azhp was saying it should only take a HALF hour, and my bosses at work are all saying it should have been done "by now," but that doesn't tell me much. I hope it IS done when I get home, though.

Anyway, the important things are music, pictures, my website stuff (including fanfics), and my programs. I think I've gotten the majority of those by now... and like I mentioned in my last post, it's not as if the computer is dead or really dying-- I just want to be sure/safe. (Funny how I can have that attitude about a computer, but not about certain other things...) Basically I'll end up a) giving the computer to Grandpa or b) selling it for parts, but where, I don't know. Apparently Apple doesn't do laptop trade-ins or recycling.

As for the new stuff, I can get the new MBP + $200 off a new iPod video, and it's cheaper to use my college discount as opposed to taking advantage of Sean's discount (though the temptation is strong, it's just not enough). I wish there was a way to ditch my old iPod Mini while I was at it, but I doubt that I can stack discounts (10% off a new iPod purchase with the trade-in of an old one) like that. Besides, I might as well keep the mini until it dies, right?

All of that good stuff won't be until mid-August at the earliest, since I turned down Baba giving me an "early" graduation present. I know that might sound stupid, but I'd rather get this with my own money so I have my own personal reasons for taking better care of it IMMEDIATELY. It's supposed to be an investment, not a present and not a toy.

Speaking of money and investments, I'm looking to get back on PayPerPost, but not here on LJ, since it's not allowed. Facebook now has a PPP referral app. which I've added, and since MySpace has blogs already, I might as well make use of that there. So check out both my profiles and I'll let you know once I get things running so we can ALL rake in the dough!

Other than that... only two hours and a half to go (huzzah), and I might be meeting up with Shawn again-- he got himself a car, which means we can probably meet up a lot more often. He finally came over for dinner last night (though he wasn't in the mood for anything hot, so he had CHEERIOS, of all things... actually, I made him a blitz-- he didn't mind it being charred-- and in making said blintzes, I got hot olive oil on my arm and chest, and now I have a nice blister on my left wrist. :P) and we hung out for a bit, played Katamari and FFX and he got me the Sun Sigil for Tidus' Caladbolg! All that's left now is the Saturn Sigil for Kimahri (damn butterfly game!), the World Champion for Wakka (more blitzball...?), and the Mars Sigil for Auron (more monster catching). SQUEE!

Speaking of the butterfly game, does anyone know:
a) if you can beat the Spherimorph again within a certain amount of time? I'm already near the end of the game when I can go to Sin/Omega Ruins, etc.
b) Where the butterflies ARE? I know there are north and south versions of the game... do you have to play them both to get the Saturn Sigil? Are there any maps of the butterfly locations? I can find about five or six in the loop area, near the bird man, but not the seventh one. HELP!? I've read there's a suggested route in the Ultimania Guide (one of the three, anyway), but I only have the Ultimania guides for FFX-2. Even if the FFX ones weren't out of print, I'm pretty sure there are scans of it SOMEWHERE on the 'Net, or someone who DOES have one, but the only place that was supposed to have them is gone. :( BOOYAH! MAPZ!

Fixing my tags right now. I think I should have some sort of tag master list somewhere (I mean besides the front page of my LJ) so I don't keep mangling my system.

So if it was "Miss Independent" running around in my head before (a total Mai x Jounouchi song if there ever was one), now it's "Just Missed the Train," which has inspired me for something for 30kisses, particularly theme #25: fence. It's annoying though, because like I mentioned before, I have all those other 30kisses submissions sitting on my computer at home, they're just unfinished because I can't think of how to end them... well, except for Kaiba the Virgin Sacrifice, but I have to be in the right frame of mind to sit down and write that without turning into some sort of tomato!

I'll get around to writing it later, maybe at work. I have my flash drive with me, so I can save it on there and not worry about it.

So, why are all the weird people on MySpace? I mean, there are non-weird people on there, but today I just got a message from someone who says he and his girlfriend are interested in trying out a threesome, and if I'm interested... My face goes: o_O; (okay, I'm totally NOT pulling an Usagi Kou here and taping an emoticon to my face. But you get the picture). Does anybody READ the profiles on MySpace? I'm "in a relationship" or whatever the hell you wanna call it, and even though I'm bi, I won't just hop into a bed with 2 people I don't know and trust because THEY need to add some spice in their love life!

o_o; Geez.

In other news, I'm going to San Diego this weekend. I know my last Amtrak adventure was harrowing (very late trains and the like), but I'm going to hope that it was just a one-shot thing... in any case, my train leaves Chatsworth around 8:40pm or so on Friday night, so I can either ask Zack to take me there straight after work, or I can go home with my grandparents and let them take me. Last time I liked having them there, because the train was very late, and it was extremely cold out. I liked being able to get in the car and warm up while I waited for the train. Chatsworth is an outdoors station, and it's the porn capital of the world, so creepy people are always lurking about...

I'm going because this weekend and next weekend are mine and Scott's only chances to see each other before he goes to Belize and I go to Hawaii. It feels like we've been seeing each other often, but realistically, it's only a few times each month. After living with him for so long, I never thought I'd be able to survive not seeing him for such a long stretch of time, but I'm managing. I have moments when I really wish he was with me, but for now, things are okay. I only hope that wherever life takes him, I can be with him sooner rather than later. :)

And now for more crazy stuff: I have to finish my Gilman application, the Bridging scholarship application, and now I have to send a Financial Aid Award letter (via fax) to the NSEP people in Washington. Which means I have to pressure mom a bit more (already talked to her last night) about the letter of Dependent Verification (which I sent out this morning) which she has to mail back to me with a copy of both mine and her tax returns (she'll do it electronically for me, and have the gov't deposit it automatically in my bank account. Sweet!). I won't be able to get that Award letter until I give all the stuff from mom to school... probably. I should check with them anyway. In any case, the stuff for school is due within 3 weeks, and the award letter I have to fax to NSEP is due by the 31st. YIPES!

What else? I worked a lot on WDKY24 last night; I kind of got inspired for this particular scene that is essentially dropping a big piece of sticky candy in the middle of an anthill. I'm eager to see if anyone will pick up on it (call it a "hidden" piece of candy). Still Anubis' backstory is a tough thing to tackle, but with Kysra's help and some good research, I think I can make this work relatively "realistically" (for the WDKYverse, anyway).

I also FINALLY managed to get the style I got from _premadelayouts to work for my Friends' page, but many things are still out of place, and I'm not sure how to rearrange them so they ARE in place. Is there a way I can make that style public so other people can go "oh, you have your %%blahblah%% variable in the wrong place, which is why your username is way off to the right, and your entries are all indented 20 pixels"? (Also, think anyone can help me with that?)

I got a $20 Amazon certificate from StartHereGoPlaces.com after a survey I took, which is nice. I thought I wouldn't get it, since I'm not a business major (and that was what the survey was about), but I still did, so I'm getting the last 3 books in the Mediator series by Meg Cabot, and a book in the Elements of Fiction Writing series (which I'm sorta re-reading at the moment) called Description. I was thinking about buying all the Princess Diaries books I'm missing (Volumes 4-7, including the 4.5 "Princess Project"), but I decided against it-- there's so many, and Amazon sure made it confusing by offering the British versions, too! @_@

AAAAAAAAAND I got Volume 2 of Yu-Gi-Oh! R in the mail from Sagusa Books. How come I've never heard of them before? They're great! :D I realize Jenniyah is already scanlating (crappily, but still scanlating) YGO!R, so souten_scans won't be taking that on in the forseeable future. But I'm still waiting on dm_san to get back to me with whether or not our groups will work together for the scanlations of the Gospel of Truth, since she already has very HQ scans that would save us a lot of time and unnecessary effort.

I'm getting my hair done tomorrow-- a partial weave of highlights (as suggested! ^_~), I still need a wireless card, to do some cleaning, and now catch up on reading for Women Writers of Asia, because if I post *something* on the short story we were supposed to have read by yesterday, it's better than nothing. I also have to revise my English essay and try and get it to my professor before 7pm tonight. So much to do, and yet... I'm not too stressed. Let's just see if I can remember it all!