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writings
my essay on Bast, thoughts on aromatherapy, what this page is about, reviews of stuff, and an old archive of Vents images my art page, photos from Wag 2000, and the daily image of the day for the day cast I really ought to do this, eh? misc contact information, and maybe even banners someday
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Did I mention that, while I'm not even remotely close to being termed a goth, I do like some of their fashions? I said "some of". Honestly, I'm not that into the angst and the hair and the make-up, but I loooove the clothes. And some of the music. Not all of it, some of it. More places for finding goth-type clothes are here and here. >> 11:16:43 PM You have to like a song (well, maybe you don't) where the line "You are my love!" is followed by "You are my kiss!" in the chorus. You are my love! I kiss you! (For the record, I'm listening to it right now. Oh bite me, it's cute!) >> 2:40:41 AM
Talked to Dad. He's got a tube in his chest, but he sounded better than I feared. Took this morning off from work. It's a little scary, having a family member get hurt this badly.... ...but working on the quest system is EVEN SCARIER! Keh keh keh. By the way, if anyone ever tries to tell you Outlaw Star is Tenchi Muyo! in space -- hit them with a bat made of tofu. Thirty-six times. Thank you. >> 6:19:26 PM Sammy, just in case you read my journal, too: You is not people! >> 1:44:46 AM Tried to call my dad today, but couldn't catch him at home. I figured he must be sleeping. Turns out his condition was worse than a few broken ribs. He has a punctured lung as well. They took him to the hospital last night, expect to discharge him on Thursday. Iiiiya. He's a tough guy. He's going to be all right. But if you wish to add your prayers to mine I certainly won't stop you. (sigh) If I seem worried or distracted over the next few days...yeah. My dad has always been a somewhat confusing figure for me to grapple with. On one hand, I know he loves me, on the other -- I don't see him a lot, y'know? He's paradoxical...sometimes, he has a great sense of humor, other times...not so much of one. Like the rest of my family, there are points of his outlook on life I don't necessarily agree with. I have two fathers, which has been some conflict in my life. Two fathers raised me. Two men influenced me in the direct patronly fashion. Both have taught me a lot of things about life. Being fair, it's not a 50/50 thing with them. I am not 50% Phil's daughter and 50% Mark's daughter. I am 100% of both. I realize I don't talk about him, my dad-dad, much in this journal; mainly because very often I don't know what to say. He's a complex individual, and I don't see him or talk to him often; it's hard to talk about someone like that and be fair to their personality. This is the third time he's been hospitalized in the last four years, one time for a heart attack and another time for another bike accident where he broke his clavicle. Like I said, he's a tough guy. But I'm still worried about him. .... Anyway. I'm going to bed. >> 1:25:46 AM
My father fell off his bike on Saturday and broke six ribs and his scapula. He also discharged himself from the hospital yesterday. Ahem. Well, he is a doctor so -- I guess he knows what he's doing. The snacks came today. Hurray for Oh! Super Lemon! drops :) >> 1:35:08 PM
So I did today. I modified the recipe, of course. I used less soap (my face is very delicate and doesn't really need a lot to get it clean), and used essential oils that I think better fit my personality and complexion -- mandarine orange, rosemary, sandalwood, frankincense, and german chamomile. I also used lavender water in addition to the aloe vera gel. The amounts came out to about 1 part soap, 2 parts glycerin, 3 parts aloe vera gel and 2 parts lavender water, plus 15 drops of essential oil. It smells nice, and it had just a little soapy stick to it -- enough to pull the make-up off my face after dinner tonight with Peryt. Which, I might add, was fantastic. It took two hours to eat and I didn't realize until this morning that we set the date for Super Bowl Sunday, so the restaurant wasn't packed. Iranian food is very unique. I think it was sweeter than the other Middle Eastern food I've eaten, and very unique (my main dish was walnut-pomegranate chicken). Oddly, though, I think the thing I liked best was the simplest part of the meal -- an appetizer of parsley, cilantro, radishes, scallions, feta cheese, and pita bread. Something I could easily make to eat at home (and I may just buy the components for that next time I'm at the store). >> 9:38:22 PM Opening...song...to Outlaw Star...stuck...in...head....aaaaagh! (gurgling noises) >> 3:06:24 AM Yay! Blogvoices is back! I rolled up my Monk. Got pretty good stats for the type of campaign Mike's running (nothing below 11, and I had three good high rolls for the three major Monk stats), and I decided to name her Tsuki (which I think means "Moon"). I was going to name her Megumi ("Blessing"), but I figured that a) No one but me would be able to pronounce it and b) No one but me would consider that a pretty name (it does sound pretty funny to the English speaking). Let it also be noted that I decided not to name her Tsuki no Kage ("Moon's Shadow"), though I may still name her Tsuki no Nai Yoru ("Moonless Night"). She is a less melancholic twist on a character that I was very, very fond of back when I was a roleplayer in tabletop games (Tia Kinier). As I noted a few entries back, I grew out of the morose permanent victim mode a while ago. I don't know that I'll ever play Tia again -- I was constantly setting her up to never be happy, and I doubt I would even enjoy playing her now. This is all a lot of fun (I love roleplaying), but it's also a touch sad. I keep thinking about what the campaign would be like if Ron were here with me. Back in the RP community we were in, if I wasn't GMing, he was, which we never got to campaign together as a team. This would be one of those great opportunities to do that, but...ah well. The few times we did campaign together (Rath and Tia)...yowza. Our science was tight, friends. I'm being sentimental. Must be the pizza. >> 1:00:25 AM
The stretching is nice, it's not too strenuous, and I didn't have a problem with it. Like anything with me, the first dry run is always the worst because I didn't know what to expect and I'm sure I wasn't doing many of the practices correctly. The biggest problem was the breathing through my nose bit. My nose is treacherous. Anyone who's been around me in a quiet place for long knows that. I have allergies and what seem to be permanently obsctructed nasal passages. Not so bad so I can't breathe through them, but enough so that I sounded like Darth Vader during the exercises this morning. "If only you knew the power of the Downward Facing Dog stretch, Luke!" Corey, it was as much a shock to me as I'm sure it was to you. I think Dave sent me that link, and I went poking around, and low and behold! There was my friend Corey. Yowza! We named some Shemsu today. And I got blessed. Even in a chat room, it's always a Denorex experience. Tonight we're going to be rolling up D&D characters (I'm playing a monk), and tomorrow Ankhka, Peryt, and I are going to have Persian food. Fun weekend! I feel like things have finally stabilized. Nekhtet! >> 4:46:26 PM
So we (we being Ankhka, Jeff, and I) sat up for an hour and sat in the dark talking about the games we want to build, the things we're doing now, and the past we've learned from and grown beyond. We also watched four episodes of Outlaw Star. We watched the first Toonamized episode a week or so ago and were completely uninterested in it. But I'd heard a lot of good reviews, so I decided to rent it anyway (I could always watch it when the guys were sleeping). Within the first ten minutes, we knew why we didn't like the show on Cartoon Network -- they chopped it to bits. To be fair, they had to since they're showing it to kids, and in America we're not supposed to have heroes who shoot opponents five times in the chest and then retire after the fight to a cathouse for sex and booze. I understand that. But my censorship senses were tingling, and I'm glad I listened. It's a lot of fun -- a semi-violent, slightly sexy romp through space with a gunman, his sidekick, and the crew he acquires along the way. There's also much appreciated equal opportunity fan service. Half-nekkid women and men. Whoo! TGIF. More work on the quest system. In my off-time -- Kemet.org updates, hopefully, slicing in a few more pages of the Valdemar story, and some resolution on the danged Phoenix Coffee sidebar. I know the image I want behind the text panels. I need to get my scanner working again. I rediscovered some clothes I haven't worn in a year at the bottom of my clothes hamper. I've also rediscovered an interest in GemStone. And some more of the Pakhet information trickled in, which is very, very good. One more piece to the puzzle, and I'll finish this up and not worry about it for a while. :)
Could you paint me better off? Could you sympathize with my needs? I know you think I need a lot
She got diamonds on the soles of her shoes Well that's one way to lose these walking blues Diamonds on the soles of your shoes You know you're in for trouble when you see this: <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 2.0">
Abandon all snowballs, ye who enter here. >> 3:44:12 PM ...as well as an English-Mandarin Chinese dictionary. >> 2:20:38 AM Origins of printing. More stuff that is of random usage to a late-night writer of speculative fiction. >> 2:13:06 AM
(sounds of wailing and screaming in the background) Someone get me a competent swordsman and my wakazashi. I'm about to import the quests system over from the old website. (babble) >> 4:39:00 PM In order of best to mediocre: The Rasputina CD -- Thanks for the Ether -- is pretty good. I swear it sounds like electric guitars at one point on that album but...no, just the three celloists scraping their strings raw. The lyrics are macabre and clever. It reminds me of a goth Tori Amos with a cello and extra added creepiness. In a strange twist of fate, Ankhka likes it, and Jeff hates it (as opposed to my Tori Amos CDs, which Ankhka hates and Jeff likes). A girl just can't win. The Darling Violetta I Want to Kill You EP is...angst, basically. Musically very satisfying. The lead singer's voice takes some getting used to, but I like "Spoiled and Rotten", "Cocoon", and "Cure" (probably my favorite off that album). Seeing as there're only seven songs on the EP -- two of which are remixes -- three out of five ain't bad. And really, "I Want to Kill You" and "Awesome" aren't bad, but I cringe whenever someone uses the word "cyberspace" in a song. The Faith and the Muse Evidence of Heaven CD...is even worse than the Darling Violetta CD in terms of angst. Again, musically it's pretty good, but the lyrics -- oi vey. What happened to the band that wrote "Mercyground" and "Heal"? I know most people don't pay attention to the words in music, but I do, and this stuff sounds like the kind of flimsy poetry I used to write on the back of my three ring binders in high school. Here's hoping they spend more time on the lyrics next album. Good progress on the book. I have been doodling images of Myr and Kaiji together, and yikes -- they just never look happy. Not unhappy, but you can see that they're going through a lot. Their relationship is going to be complicated, which is a big change from the way this whole thing started (back when there was no Kaiji and Myr was destined to die midway through the book). Don't want to say much since, well, despite my headway I still haven't gotten back to the point I was when I trashed it (hush down there in the peanut gallery) and I feel like I'm going to jinx it if I do talk about it. And it still feels unprofessional to talk about works that aren't contracted or finished. Even if this is my journal. One other thing before I pop off. I've revised my article on Pasht on per-Bast.org in response to something that was posted to the AEL about it. I appreciate being notified about it; I do like to keep on top of things. The article will probably be revised again in a couple weeks when the last bit of research comes in. For now, though, I've made an effort to cut down on the cutesy tone I used back when I first wrote it a year or so ago for Ancientsites. I'm not half the smartass I used to be. ;) (...did I mention this bridge I have to sell you in the Sahara...?) >> 12:35:53 AM
Scott sent me this news item today (thanks, Scott). Speaking as someone who used to alphabetize the computer lab keyboards in high school to get some revenge on the jerks who used to tease me, I find this pretty funny. :) >> 11:46:30 AM I think I can safely say that at this stage in my life, I have moved past the need to indulge in self-deprecation for the purpose of avoiding the tricky, sticky business of being responsible for my own actions. Or, for that matter, for avoiding the responsibility of my own happiness. I used to be very attracted to the whole professional victim thing -- you could call it one of my faults in my college/teenage years. I really wanted to be the tragic victim. Two things happened to change this. 1) I met someone who really had things bad. As in, several diseases and unable to control their own bodily functions bad. As in, people hated them and were waiting for them to die to collect their money bad. As in, knew what people thought about them, and broke down into tears from time to time from the burden of that knowledge. 2) I met someone who was also attracted to the professional victim thing, and had made it a habit in their life to never be happy. Why? Because it garnered them attention from others to always be sick, to always be messed up, to always have something. more. to bitch. about. And I realized I didn't want either of those things. I also realized that no matter what I tried to do for those two individuals, to try and cheer them up or lighten their burdens, there wasn't anything I could do. Both of them were victims -- one of circumstance and one by their own actions, and both by choice. Both of them were miserable, no matter how much attention I or anyone else gave them. So, I am responsible for my own happiness. And I am happy. I have down days. I have days where things just go wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. And if I wanted to, I could wallow in all that unhappiness. Oh Gaaaawd I don't have my bachelors degree yet. Oh Gaaaawd I haven't finished a book yet and I'm turning 26 in less than six months. Oh Gaaaawd my boyfriend never calls or writes me. Oh Gaaaawd my cat just used the corner of the basement for a litterbox again. I can't tell you why these things don't bother me. It's not a denial of service attempt from my heart, because I really do care that I haven't finished a book and that my boyfriend is two thousand miles away and my cat is being a ninny. But despite that -- I'm happy. Maybe it's just as simple as knowing that no matter how much I screw up or how bad things get, the Heavenly Paw will always be there to keep me afloat. Throw me a line. Even if it's a two-bit knock-knock joke.
Who's there? God.
The fragrance oils from Sweetcakes are nice! I mean, really nice! I think the only one I am disappointed by is their Special Edition Vanilla, which just doesn't smell like the vanilla bourbon EO I love so much (it smells...lemony?). I would definitely recommend this place to anyone looking for fragrance oils. >> 1:36:13 PM Looking for Japanese swords? Well, try here and here, but be prepared to spend, at minimum, about $3,000 -- and that's running cheap. When I was seventeen, my family drove from San Clemente to San Francisco to go look at SFSU, the university I was looking to attend. During the trip, my stepfather and I stopped inside a small store in San Francisco to look at swords. They only had one set. So we asked the owner. How much for the katana? Oh, fifteen thousand, he said. Uh...nevermind, we said. That was the same trip where my mom reached into her purse for a tube of lipstick, pulled out her mascara instead, and smeared it all over her lower lip before she noticed. Earlier, she had taken the jar of Tiger Balm that I'd bought and, thinking it was lip balm, put it on her lips before I could stop her. It's all pretty funny now, but that was not a good trip for mom's lips. Heh. >> 12:48:39 PM
While I'm on the subject of one of my favorite meals, I should add that I also love bay leaf, and I was absolutely charmed to find five, six, seven of them floating in my red lentil soup the times I went to Habebe's in Chicago (Habebe was an Egyptian-Mediterranean restaurant with fabulous lamb dishes, wonderful pita bread, and glorious baklava). I know most recipes say to use one, maybe two bay leaves, but I always add that times five. A handful. I love bay in bean (fifteen, lentil, split pea) soup. I think I've also figured out one of the key ingredients that made Habebe's lentil soup so divine -- lemon juice! The recipe on the back of the bag I used for the fifteen bean soup I made today mentioned lemon juice, and I decided to give it a try. Wow!! It really adds a lot to the mix. Next weekend I'll make my turkey soup. Like the bean soup it's sort of a vegetable garbage soup -- that is, I grab the veggies that we have in the fridge or freezer and add them to it. Tonight's had onion, garlic, red and yellow peppers, tomatoes, carrots, and celery. I have some peppers left over, so I'm going to use them either to lengthen out the spaghetti sauce I have left, or in the Tuesday night meal. Started the Valdemar story. Watched Card Captor Sakura. Jeff came in and watched the first and second episodes, then left to go back to his Asheron's Call addiction, and then Dave came upstairs and watched the last half of the third episode and all of the fourth. Heh. And both of them came to the same conclusion I did -- it's a seriously sweet and cute show. Along the lines of a more intelligent Pokémon. I really enjoyed the episode about Sakura's mom. I still haven't come up with anything clever to do with that (#&$*(#&$ text bar on the left side of the Phoenix Coffee site. Sigh. Anyway, back to work on the Valdemar story :) >> 8:17:53 PM The mad scramble for truth is on! We'll see what it turns up. :) I made ham and scalloped potatoes for dinner tonight. Yum yum. Such a mess, though. We'll be scrubbing those pots for days. I think, when I die, I definitely do not want peppercorns shoved up my nose. If all of you could take note of that, I'd appreciate it. Okay, I'm being silly. Time for bed. >> 3:25:20 AM
The current content (which I wouldn't recommend for younger viewers) consists of three stories that all have interesting premises. As in the case of all projects of this type, though, the quality of the next installments will be entirely dependent on the quality of participants. AncientSites used to be like this -- those of you who were with me there three years ago when the Qenbet was started and the roleplaying aspect of it began will know what I'm talking about. Initially, starting small, the roleplay was a purer form than it became further down the line. I don't wish to give the inference that it became polluted or went bad -- but it did change tremendously from one group of roleplayers to several splinter groups. And some of them were more fun and better researched than others So we'll see how Panel Tag fares in this particular endeavor. The quality of artwork and storyline is encouraging, and I'll be interested in watching it grow. For the record, I have no idea what is wrong with Brian that he likes Creed. For that matter, I don't know what's wrong with Ankhka that he doesn't like Radiohead. Men. I swear. >> 11:20:56 PM Sexy Thang OooOOoOOOoOOooh. Someone's subbing the Sotsugyou M and Weiss Kreuz OAVs. O_o I will have to get them when they come out and secretly watch them when Jeff and Ankhka aren't looking. I know I am probably the only person in the household who would be even remotely interested in Sotsugyou M; it's a high school comedy animé which features five -- FIVE -- bishounen (beautiful boys) being silly. I will be surprised if the story is any good, and I don't know that I care. I just want to watch bishounen. :) So I'm sure you noticed (as I did) that I watch a lot of bishounen animé. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I think it's kind of funny that the first thing that pops into my mind when people mention Japanese cartoon cheesecake is not Lum from Urusei Yatsura in a bikini or Faye from Cowboy Bebop leaning forward or Shampoo from Ranma 1/2 giving fan service.... No, I see Van from Escaflowne with his wings stretched out, or Aya from Weiss Kreuz with a sword, or Tamahome from Fushigi Yuugi with his shirt half open. Tamahome! o.O I love that look the animators give him when he's being serious. And see, I know I know...these aren't real people. But I love cool art. And Japanese art, for whatever reason, looks cool to me. And when the Japanese draw cool guys...and give them cool voices...and cool storylines...(drool) I don't care if they're not real. I don't know that I want them to be real at that point. Here's a thing I figured out a few years ago -- for all that there is a thriving pornography industry in America for men (Playboy, Penthouse, etc.), there is a quieter one for women, and it's called the romance novel. I've thumbed through some of these things, and they're quite explicit. I was once told you can tell how explicit based on the heroine's state of undress and position on the cover; I haven't read any romances straight through, so I can't comment on the validity of this, but I have it on good authority from a couple friends who are avid romance readers that it is. You can't tell me, though, that women read these books for the plot and characterization. It would be like watching Independence Day for tips on hacking. I'm sure there are some romances that are an exception to the rule -- I know that two of my literary associates wrote romances that were quite good and historically solid -- but the bulk of these novels are, quite simply, sex stories for women. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that -- but I don't dig romances. They never thrilled me. It's kind of like cybersex; the one time as a younger woman I got dragged into it, I was bored and mentally correcting my partner's grammar and spelling throughout the two hour ordeal (yawn). I just don't get into that sort of thing. Maybe it's because I am a writer myself. I can write better sex scenes than 95% of the population -- and I can't afford the per-word rate of the other 5%. ;) I don't want you thinking I watch animé just for those handsome lads or sex scenes. In fact, I don't own any hentai (manga or animé of an erotic nature) at all. I don't disprove of (most of) it, I just don't own any (see the previous paragraph -- I can write better sex scenes for myself than most people can write for me). The reason I love animé is the characters and stories and gorgeous animation that are such a thrill to watch unfold. The beautiful boys are a notable and vastly appreciated bonus, and have their attraction (a la Fushigi Yuugi, GundamW and Weiss Kreuz) -- and an animé about nothing but beautiful boys is a definite plus. All this talk of sex is probably related to that fact that I posted a lengthy exposition on a Yahoo! group about Bast's relation to sex. At some point I'm going to write an essay for per-Bast.org that approaches the subject from the historical and personal angle and lay that puppy to rest once and for all. For now, though, if you really want to read it, go here and here. Hm. So, anyway, that's about all I think I'm going to say about sex for a while. I hope this didn't make any of you uncomfortable. It's a hard balancing act, talking about this sort of thing when you're a priest. People don't expect you to -- some people are not comfortable with you doing so. If you're not, I would appreciate you mentioning it to me, so we can talk about it. The goal is not to make folks shy away from me, and I'm not doing my job right if what I'm writing causes that reaction. Meep. >> 2:25:50 AM
I even installed it myself. Wow. I feel like such a geekgrrl. :) Off to blissfully load up every fricking image program installed on my machine. :) >> 4:31:56 PM Machine still crashy at work. Hard to work on a website design when your imaging and HTML editing programs error out for random reasons. Ugh. If we're lucky, we'll get new memory today. Would be nice to be able to work without worrying about what I'm going to lose to a crash today. >> 12:19:04 PM And then some nights you don't get to bed on time because someone really needed to talk to a priest and a friend. But I don't mind. Not one bit. :) >> 1:27:50 AM
My tomato sauce, though, was excellent this evening. And because I made it instead of pouring it out of a bottle or can, I won't get a case of indigestion from it. I used to be afraid of making my own spaghetti sauce, but decided a few months back to give it a shot, and have been pleased with the results. Here's what I've discovered:
My sauce recipe (the three cans) makes a lot of sauce; we always have some left over, which is fine by me. Sometimes we have separate meals in the household, so I just cook myself some pasta, heat up the sauce, and have my dinner. Saturday night I'm going to make my mom's wonderful ham and scalloped potatoes. Soooo simple and soooo good. Don't tell her, but I'm thinking of sprinkling some swiss cheese onto it. Mmm. Cheese. I've been talking a lot about cooking lately, haven't I? You'll have to forgive me; cooking is one of the ways I commune with my grandfather, who I used to watch in the kitchen as a little girl. I shouldn't leave my grandmother or mother out of this, either, as I've picked up just as much from them. Cooking, like footrubs, is a family thing with us, and whether I'm creating in the kitchen or tweaking a time-honored recipe toward my new-fangled tastes, I'm thinking of them. :) >> 11:53:04 PM  Oh heck. And while I'm at it I might as well put up the Chichiri icon I made as well.
Animé and Kemetic icons. How's that for specialization? (If you want to make this your icon, click here.) >> 4:19:01 PM Heh. 
Sorry, it's a Kemetic AOL Instant Messenger joke. If you really want to add this as your AIM buddy -- you have to have AIM for this to work -- click here. >> 4:09:38 PM Well, I was going to make an effort to go to bed early tonight. Dammit. This is what happens when I start writing. Guh. Blame it on that apocalyptic session with The World Tree last night. My brain is in writing mode and it has nowhere to go but forward. >> 1:51:59 AM The history of...boots! It's things like this that make the Internet absolutely fantastic for a young author looking for information she wouldn't otherwise know. So can anyone tell me if riding boots are uncomfortable or not? >> 12:54:34 AM
So last night I got the second-to-last installment of The World Tree out, and then I spent the next hour, post-publishing, correcting errors in the story. And I'm still not happy with it. I'm not happy because I really didn't plot any of this stuff out before I started writing it, and when you take four years to tell a story that you are releasing a chapter at a time to the public, you have to plot it out beforehand because there's no room to go back and fix plotholes. But part of the process of writing is discovering the story. I always knew how it was going to end, I just didn't know how I was going to get there. At any rate. I'm finishing it in the next chapter. Finally. Maybe someday, in the very far, far future, I'll go back and rework it so that it's more coherent and so that the continuity works, but for now I'm just going to have to be content with imperfection -- both in the story and in that page's godawful webdesign. The second Card Captor Sakura DVD came. Wai! Wai! >> 12:21:28 PM
I was lusciously annoyed when my.mp3.com stopped allowing me to beam my CDs up to it. Since I shuttled from work to home in a car that I frequently drove long distances to many places, it was really convenient to have my CDs in one place. Wow! I could listen to a CD at home that I'd left in my car. It was amaaaazing! But the record industry snuffed that bright light of hope, and there's nada you can do about it, pilgrim, because despite the fact that I have bought CDs based on listening to MP3s, they're reacting based on instinct, not fact. Whooya. Feel the love. Anyway. The reason I bring all this up is that someone's picked up (sort of) where MP3.com got burned. Myplay.com is kind of like the beam-a-CD deal that MP3.com was doing, except that it's more like beam-an-MP3. Nothing new about that -- IDrive, Driveway, and other file storage sites have been doing that for a while, and Live365 lets you put together playlists. Except I'm pretty sure none of them offer you a free account with 3 gigs worth of space. Boy howdy! So take the cool thing about Live365 -- mainly, the ability to make "mixes" of songs you've uploaded and share them with people -- and remove the sucky parts -- the low quality requirement, the crummy interface, the space limitations, the inability to skip a song -- and you have Myplay. At some point, when I get my collection uploaded, I'll make a mix and publish it. It won't be for everyone, but at least now you can hear those foreign language tunes I keep talking about :) I just hope this site manages to stick around. Maybe if we're all REALLY, REALLY QUIET, the recording industry won't care. Here's to hoping! >> 1:12:38 PM If you think about it, the cat is really quite a beneficial creature. You can put it in a grainhouse, and know that it'll eat the mice but not the grain. That's a pretty powerful tool toward gaining civilization. Sooo, I have this absolutely fantastic article on Mut by H. Te Velde courtesy of Imy-set'a Neferuhethert. I really want to quote sections of it on my Bast website, and I probably will, but you know what sucks? I know someone's going to rip it off and never credit me or her for that information. Of course, the dishonest will be dishonest, and continue to lie to themselves, and I know that, and I know that there's not much I can do to stop it. The best I can do is not let them stop me. It really is a wonderful article. I've learned a lot in the last ten mintues that I didn't know before. I'll have to work it in somehow. >> 12:11:40 AM
(cough) Well, it was 3 a.m. >> 8:16:36 PM Might I add that Dreamweaver is galactically slow on my poor 300 mhz machine at home. Doesn't matter that I have 128 megs of RAM in this thing. No, what matters is that I can watch as, frame-by-frame, my status bar slo-o-o-o-wly creeps up whenever I try to access another program and I have Dreamweaver running. It's irrational to expect tight, lean programs from companies like Macromedia and Microsoft, I guess, but crimeny. This is HTML. I could write it in Notepad were I so inclined. Shouldn't 128 megs be enough? I've known Java compilers that ran faster on my machine. I know, I know. Two years ago, 128 megs of RAM was a bigger deal than what Lewinsky and Clinton were doing together in the Oval Office, and nowadays it's blasé. But, dangit, it's not like I'm scanning the galaxy looking for signs of intelligent life with this thing! What exactly is Dreamweaver doing that it has to chew up all my memory? I just need more memory. As you can see, I'm still not in bed. I don't know why I'm still up, don't ask. I think I'm listening to Koyasu Takehito singing in a language I don't undersatnd, though that I keep thinking I'll learn through spontaneous osmosis or something. Like that part of The Third Warrior where ultra-dishy Antonio Banderas magically picks up whatever Nordic tongue der ultra-dishy Vikings were sprechen. I definitely ought to go to sleep now. I think that would be good. >> 3:42:11 AM And five hours later, I finish with the initial redesign concept. God that text menu is ugly. I'll work on a better one tomorrow, when the idea fields are fresher. Right now, I need sleep. Except that to get to Sleep, I need to go up the stairs. Past the living room. Past the Playstation in the living room. Past my saved game of Chrono Cross, waiting in the Playstation in the living room. (whimper) >> 3:23:43 AM
Congratulations on making it through a year Imakhu Sataset Inibmutes. You've been a lifesaver, a splendid confidant, a clue-by-four to the head, and one of the best friends I've had in years. Thank you. >> 3:57:37 PM It's so exciting to have children being born into the faith :) It's pretty incredible when you realize that other people feel the same way about your beliefs that you do; that they love them and feel strongly enough about them that they're willing to raise their children with its guidance. That's a pretty powerful statement. Congratulations to Asetmekti and her new granddaughter. :) I'm so happy for her. I think if I do have kids -- it's still an if -- I will raise them in my beliefs, but make it clear to them that they are free to choose whatever faith they wish. I think about the friends of mine from high school who were angry at their parents for forcing them to go to church, and I don't think I'd want to do that to my kid. But at the same time, while my parents had strong morals and raised me, I think, very well, I often wished for the religious guidance as well. So if I can, I'll bring the best of both to my if-kids... ...and they'll probably hate it anyway, knowing teenagers. (laugh) That's a little juvenile humor for ya. ;) >> 3:52:56 PM We figured out what was wrong with my computer at work when it went down this afternoon and didn't come back up. It was time for my annual harddrive failure! Poor harddrive. You know, of all the catastrophic things that can happen to a computer, the worst is probably the loss of a harddrive. This is my second one (at work) that I've burned through. I don' t know what it is I do to these things that traumatizes them so. So here's the weird part: I should be ticked, but I'm not. Really the only thing I'm going to miss off that drive are, well, all my program registries (ugh - me no like having to reinstall everyt'ing) and the cache of MP3s I kept on that drive. But on the bright side, the new drive is 16 gigs more than what I had before, so I should be able to install everything on that one drive without having to juggle it between the other two available drives. Of course, this sets back Web 2.0 even more. I have a feeling that I'm going to making up the time in upcoming weekends. Not so bad...I want to get it done just as much as Jeff and Dave do, so that we can move on to.... ...other things. ;) >> 2:59:39 AM
(I've been thinking about this one.) When I have paper money in hand, I have to face the bills and put them in sequential order, least dollar amount first, most dollar amount last. I know where this came from -- working a year and a half as a McDonald's cashier when I was in high school. I play with my hair constantly. My sister and I both have this quirk. I like the feel of my hair. I can't help it. I have to stop and look at myself in mirrors. It's a little bit a narcissim and a little bit of habit. I tend to check to see if there's anything stuck in my teeth or if my hair looks okay (see the previous quirk). The whole back to the door thing, unless Ron is with me. One of the few people I trust enough to have the awareness to watch his back and mine. Foot rubs. I understand the bulk of Western civilization sees rubbing the extremities as something sensual or risqué, but it's a family tradition where I'm from. I rub my mother's feet, my sisters' feet, my grandmother's feet, and my grandfather rubbed my feet and my back when I was little. I am training Jeff in this art now. I just love good footrubs. They remind me of my family. A constant flow of music. I don't work right without it. And speaking of which...playing the same music over and over and over and over.... Doodling. Everywhere, on anything, even if I don't have a pen (I draw on the fogged window of Jeff's car a lot). Destruction. I like to rip the labels off bottles I'm drinking and stuff them in the bottle after I finish drinking it. Matches. I like to light matches. Reversing the letters in words I'm speaking, or using an antonym of the adjective I actually wanted. I'm a lousy spontaneous orator. Walking around my house in a towel. Ankhka thinks this is a quirk, and so does Inibmutes. I don't, but I grew up with three siblings and at one point we did only have one bathroom. Caramel sauce on quarter pounders from McDonalds. I don't do this as often as I'd like because it's soooooo bad for me, but it tastes sooooooo good (I treat myself to maybe one a year, anymore). A permanent sense of forgetting. Even before my memory started to go spotty on me (and I mean the memory in my noggin, not the chip in my computer), I have had this sense that I'm always forgetting something. I've learned to live with it and it's why when I'm at restaurants I'll check the area I ate in to make sure I got everything (phone? purse? coat? wallet? canned moose?). There's more, but I have never seen myself as unusual until people point this stuff out. :) >> 12:21:51 PM
I think I'm going to re-redesign my Vent area and rename it. It used to be I was writing three or four essays a week for it, and now it sort of gets filled when the mood strikes me. I don't think Vent is the right name now. If anything, this page is my Vent. :P Any ideas? >> 11:31:53 PM So we watched Mononoke Hime again tonight; my third time seeing the film, but the first time in Japanese. I still contest that, for a dub, the American voices are pretty good, and that the translation conveys the film's meaning. I vastly prefer the Japanese voices for Ashitaka and San. Though Billy Crudup did a pretty good job, I really disliked Claire Danes's voice. I caught more of the film this time around than I did before; reading a movie really lets in a lot of plot elements that otherwise wouldn't work its way into your head. I like Ashitaka as a character more now than before -- there's a fateful determination about him that's so memorable. Anyway, if you've never seen this film -- even if you're not an animé fan -- please do watch it sometime. There's some graphic violence, so don't let your kids watch it, but -- the story, the art, the music, the overall feeling you get watching it. Ooooh. It's always going to be one of my favorites. >> 11:18:54 PM A...cow flinging game, link courtesy of Scott. My best score is 400. Mooooo. >> 4:12:08 PM There are other, little things I hate about Dreamweaver 4 and Ultradev 4. Like, for example, the synchronize feature not remembering the way it was used last. Every day I have to reconfigure it. Or, when I'm in HTML editing mode, the fact that Macromedia doesn't handle keyboard highlighting the same way the rest of the world does. If I hold down the SHIFT key and press UP ARROW followed by HOME in any other program I've ever used, It'll highlight everything from where I start to the beginning of the line I stopped on. But in Dreamweaver/Ultradev, it takes your cursor to the home and clears the highlighting previous to that line. I am not a mouse-happy user -- if I can execute it from the keyboard, chances are I will. Chalk it up to two years using a laptop exclusively and three years with a computer setup at home that doesn't facilitate the use of a mouse. Not to mention starting out at my high school, writing book reports on a Mac that didn't have a mouse. Ungha! >> 12:31:28 PM Three computer crashes at work today. That's three in an hour and a half. I don't know if it's Win2k -- we're suspicious about the memory on this machine -- but it sure is annoying. >> 12:23:41 PM An example of why good technique is so important to a restaurant is Tachibana's. My meal this evening consisted of a bowl of steamed sticky rice and a char-broiled teriyaki chicken breast on a bed of sauteed vegetables. Very basic. And yet it managed to be about ten times better than the veggie burger and rice I had earlier in the day at Ruby Tuesday's, or anything else I've had recently at other, more expensive restaurants. Maybe I'm completely delusional, but I would venture to say that somewhere in the back kitchen of Tachibana's is a cook who actually cares about the meals he or she is serving people. I do know they've perfected the art of making damn fine teriyaki. Dave and I were commenting this evening that you could pour their shitake teriyaki sauce on a brick and we'd probably eat it. It's that good. I promise anyone who ever comes to visit me that I'll take them to Tachibana's. When you go there, ignore the people around you who are all ordering sushi; the sushi bar at Tachibana's is good -- oh yes, it is good -- but the rest of the menu is the real reason to go. It teaches you that there's more to Japanese food than just knife-juggling and raw fish (and I'm starting to like this style of food more than those expensive teppen-yaki filets and chicken breasts). Ack! Cat on chest! You don't know true terror until a 13-lb Maine Coon jumps up onto your chest from the ground with claws bared. Ungha! >> 2:04:12 AM
It's official -- I'm not going to Chicago this weekend. I wanted to, and was looking for a way to, but I have so much work I promised other people and myself to do that I can't do it. Sorry everyone. You'll be in my thoughts. I really wanted to be there. >> 4:50:04 PM To Corey and Johnny (yes, today is blog catch up for me) -- thanks. Your posts in regards to my previous one of a few days ago -- relationships and such -- have, surprisingly, helped me a little in this. Thanks :) >> 12:59:32 PM Bruce! Noooo! Avoid Legoland at all costs! You're putting your soul in danger there, dude! And Bear, I hope things go better for you. In a way maybe they have because you're getting out of a place that obviously didn't appreciate your talents, but I'm sorry it happened and you're in my thoughts. >> 12:49:31 PM The moon was gorgeous last night, so big and round. Made me feel safe, just looking at that huge eye on the horizon when I walked out last night to look at the pre-night sky. Big moon. :) >> 12:25:10 PM I think I've played 25 hours of Chrono Cross now, and I'm still on disc one. That's not too bad. Tonight's dinner was an interesting (yes! I'm using that! boring! word!) combination of skillet-fried meatballs and cream of mushroom soup. I made the meatballs with a pound of ground beef, one crumbled slice of white bread, one egg, two cloves of garlic, some minced onion, salt, pepper, and paprika. Fried them till they were evenly cooked. Drained the grease out of the pan, then put it back on the stove and deglazed with orange vodka. Added a can of cream of mushroom soup, a can-full of milk, more salt, pepper, and paprika, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Now, I know those last two sound a little strange -- but trust me. This was not a bad meal. I reduced the resulting mess until it was to the consistency I liked, and then served it atop noodles. If I'd had egg noodles, I'd have used those, but all we had that resembled that type of noodle was Chinese lo mein noodles, so I used those. I liked it a lot, actually. I might have toned down the garlic a little (I underestimated the power of the garlic press) and I would have made more meatballs with real breadcrumbs (the slice of bread I used was too wet, and the meatballs didn't stick right), but it didn't taste bad at all. Pretty good for an on the spot invention. The spirit of Carl was with me. I ought to stay up and write a passage for the book -- a conversation between Rain and Kaiji -- but I need to sleep. I've done the "I need to push myself to stay up and write this or it'll never get written" rationalization two nights in a row now, and two nights I've gotten seven hours or less of sleep. First night: daiijoubu sa. Second night: okay, but yawny. Third night, I think I'm going to ignore the writer and listen to the sleeper instead. Besides, today I did set down what I think was a neat scene between Myr and another character (la villain la la). I have been trying to find a way to make him creepy-icky instead of just your typical kicking-grandmothers-in-the-throat type of villain (see: The Patriot for examples of what I don't like in villains). And I think I'm heading in the right direction for that. So I've accomplished something today :) Nyan-nyan say, "Suri-pu! Suri-pu!" >> 1:48:44 AM
And at $36 US, I think I could even afford it. ;) Man I love the introduction music to Chrono Cross. Please don't ask why I'm awake at 2:30 am listening to it. It's going to be a coffee day tomorrow. >> 2:38:33 AM
Of course, this explains why the show was so good -- the head producer/writer is Aaron Sorkin, who also wrote one of my favorite movies, The American President, and writes/produces The West Wing (which I've never watched, but Ron says it's pretty good). >> 1:54:54 AM So we're watching reruns of Sports Night on Comedy Central and I'm thinking three things -- a) wow, great camera work, b) hey, this is pretty good, and c) jeez, ABC canned this in the second season? Well, at least we have 44 episodes to go through. That's almost as many as Fushigi Yuugi! (mmmm...Fushigi Yuuuuugiiii...) >> 1:52:49 AM
They groom and fight and groom! Groom groom groom! Fight fight fight! The Amber and Kioko Shooooooow!* * To the tune of the Itchy and Scratchy Theme Song, natch. >> 8:31:27 PM Right now, Suz, the thing defining my life is Chrono Cross. Crimeny. Seven hours today. I feel like such a slothbunny. But I also came down here around 11 pm and sat on my tail for three hours answering questions, processing email, and doing other fun stuff. One of the topics for the evening was a walk down memory lane. And one of those things we talked about was a very brief fling I had with someone who'll remain nameless. This someone came into my life at the worst possible time -- I'd just been evicted from my Berkeley home, been forced to break off from school, and had been told by Ron he wasn't going to move to be with me anytime soon. So anyway, this person had the misfortune just then of walking into my chaotic life. They were intelligent, witty, good-looking -- in a word, appealing. And I did something somewhat stupid, flirted with them, and wound up in bed with them. We didn't "do anything" -- though in my opinion, I'd already "done something" by sleeping in the same bed as them, as well as holding and kissing them. Ultimately, we parted ways and things went the way they did. I told Ron all about this last year, because it was one of those things that had weighted on my shoulders for years. What transpired between him and me remains between him and me -- I don't feel comfortable divulging that. He knows. I know. End of story. What I didn't fully realize until this evening, however, was a second weight that's been on my shoulders -- the fact that I led a person on and hadn't even realized it. It's not something I did on purpose, or did because I had an agenda -- all I had was a bruised heart, and I was looking for someone to kiss it and make it feel better. I find it difficult to speak to the person about this, because I don't know how to go about it, or if it's even necessary? I'm pretty sure they got on with their life and gave up on me, if they were even interested in the first place. I have no delusions that I was so goddamn attractive that they were pining over a tear-stained photo of me. But I'm not psychic. I don't know how much or how little harm I incurred. But if they're reading, I want them to know that I'm sorry if what I did to them did harm them. I did a lot of stupid things between the age of nineteen and twenty-one. That was one of them. There were no agendas. No plans or motives. Just loneliness. I'm twenty-five now. I like to think I know better, but I had to have the experience to learn that. >> 2:26:32 AM
Someone has sold our pristine home phone number to a marketing list. With three people in the house, it was bound to happen eventually, but it's still damned annoying to be woken up at 9 am by the phone ringing. We of Mooville aren't like most mortals. We go to work at 11 am, which means we can usually stay sleeping until 10:50 am. I'm kidding on that last one. Sort of. The shrieks of delight that came from Melissa and Bubba's office when they saw we had been released to allow screencaps of the new design escape were interesting, to use a comfortable, well-worn term. They were somewhat akin to the sound of Cthulu sucking the brains out of a rabid pug. Or something like that. I'd describe it further, but I fear for my own sanity (as well as yours, dear, Dear Reader) at the notion of describing the slurp-happy noises Bubba makes when I send him over to the dev site to see what we've cooked up lately. I had to axe the earlier post from today (as well as the associated BlogVoice comments) because it was, as I said in it, hand-edited in. This causes much confusion for Blogger. I kept the important bits, though, which follow. I like making people laugh. I write and say things specifically to hear that sound. We were talking about the various different kinds of children of God last night in a chat, and if you have to ask how I echo my spiritual Bast, it's there -- I like to manipulate people's reactions. I like to see them laugh. It is, very much so, an intentional thing on my part. I could wax philosophical on this, but I think instead I'm going to leave you all with a screencap of what it is I've been working on here at the office with Ankhka, Jeff, David, Tracy, and Andy for the last few weeks: |
