Wer Glaubt Noch an Die Sehn Gebote, Der Diesen Schwachsinn Schrieb?

A few brief-ish things:

I find myself wondering why I still update this thing. It seems that most of my FL has disappeared onto other pastures, or they just don't read this one. Another possibility is that I'm not really saying anything worthwhile or writing anything worth reading. I'll at least leave that possibility up in the air. And then I have to ask myself, why do I care if anyone reads this? Sure, it's embarrassing to have "0 Badger Bites" on one post after another. And yet, why should I care? This journal serves as a testament to things that I remembered as important. Things I knew I would want to reflect on, no matter how trivial they may seem to others. And despite what people have said in the past, that is all each one of our journals is about. It's what we wanted to write about; some of us have more friends or family to talk about, some of us catalog our days in excruciatingly fine detail. "First I woke up, then I had a piece of toast..." And why should any of us care what someone else thinks? If I keep this going long enough, I can look back years from now and see what I did now. If I can't remember the first time I held Reid, I can find that moment. If I don't remember when the babies were born, I have that recorded as well. It's not all insignificant nattering, you know. And if you happen to think so, I really don't give a shit, because your journal is probably even more insignificant. 90% of the blogs out there are just whiny little teenagers chronicling their daily "event", as trivial as "I had the best sammich today, la la la la la". I don't have to read it, so I'm not complaining.

Hmm... I don't really know if I conveyed my point there or not. I tend to get off on these tangents, and once I do there's no stopping me until I rant myself into a coma.

I was incredibly worried, for Shiva wasn't eating last night and seemed to be acting strangely. I took her in my room for a while, and she seemed okay in there. All for naught, she's eating again and hopping around being her usual self. Hooray!

We has the DSLs now. It took quite a bit of fusswork to sort out. There were no instructions on how to actually hook up all the equipment. After I got that worked out, we find out our water meter is hooked to a phone jack so the city doesn't have to send someone to read it, that was causing interference with it. Then it turns out that at 6.0 mbps (which is the speed we ordered) we can't get a stable signal here. Many frustrating calls to Earthlink later, there is a filter on every phone jack in the house, our speed is around 4.0 mbps, and we're getting the lower rate for longer because mom had such trouble with the Technical Support/Customer Service people (who were blatant testimony to how bad outsourcing has gotten). But it's sorted, and the intarwebs goes fast now.

Now I just need a new Operating System, and Target "team members" get a lovely discount on Software.

I got to babysit Reid for the better part of six hours this past Sunday. He was mostly well behaved, though I don't care if I ever see "Spirit" again. Bunch of sentimental hogwash; simplistic metaphor for European Expansion and the Untamed West's resistance, mixed in with far too much sappy nonsense. Animated horses spent about half the movie gazing lovingly into each others' eyes. Anyways. Reid was well behaved until everyone got back from my cousin's bridal shower. I got him to sit on my lap for periods of 5-10 minutes, which he only did before he could walk months and months ago. Etc. He also had a nap on the sofa, requiring far less hullabaloo than his parents said it would take to get him to go down. Idiots. He'll take naps when he's ready, he'll eat when he's ready. So there.

Errrrrrf. I don't want to work now. Yesterday was a short shift, made less tolerable by some stupid bitch's two screaming children (one was screaming because his spoiled brat sister was having a tantrum). SHE WOULDN'T GET OUT OF THE DAMN STORE. EVEN AFTER CHECKING OUT. 20 minutes of listening to those monsters screaming... yeah, you're really being steadfast in whatever it was you were trying to keep her from having... it's not working, get them out of there before I completely effing lose it. Bitch.

And then I had some obnoxious ghetto group come through who don't really understand how prices work. I seriously hope the lot of you gets gunned down in a drive by shooting. I mean it, especially the coked up asshole in the electric go-kart thing. You didn't need it, and you looked like you were high off your ass. Die.

Positive attitude!

"Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the lidless eye!"

I would like to say the following two words, and if anyone has anything a'gin it, tough:

Fuck Baptists.

Aunt Mary's service was a week ago Monday. The bits involving reminiscences from family, the songs sung by a family friend, and the slide show of her life were all very nice. The bit where the swarthy jackoff preacher went on and on about "It is so wonderful for us that we have Jesus, the son of the LORD, and he died to forgive us our sins now and forever, rar rar rar, why don't you feel worse for not being a troo Christian..."... not so nice. I found it highly offensive; yes, Mary was teh religious type, but you could have related it to her faith and spiritual side and how it affected her life. This was more of a disguised Fire and Brimstone routine that Christians use when they guilt people into converting. And he was REALLY fucking smug about it, too. It was utterly inappropriate, and outrageously offensive. Even my grandma was upset by this. She said "It was Mary's day". Addendum to that, it was Mary's day, not Conformity Lecture Day, shithead!

But yeah, I didn't know until last night that Mary was a Baptist, and this is apparently standard procedure. How crass.

A good thing about the memorial: I spent most of the time with Reid. My uncle Bruce did, too, despite my insistence that he at least be present for part of the thing... Mary being his sister and all... but no. Anyways, he was being very playful and happy and such. He also played briefly with some other kids his age; I met Julian who is unusual for a two year old in that he is shy around other kids, but has no problem with adults, according to his mother. I didn't get to see Reid right when they brought him in to the church, but when I finally got around to him, he came right to me and gave me the biggest hug evar. Sentimental hogwash, but it's precisely the thing I need more of. Mwa ha ha. He likes me, not you.

I've also now changed a total of 2 (two) diapers without maiming anyone or setting anything ablaze. Go me. When I babysit the bug on Sunday (supposedly this is what will happen), I'm sure I will see if can keep the streak alive.

I probably shouldn't mention streaks in the same subject thread as diapers.

Today was a fucking adventure. Twenty minutes before I was supposed to be at work, the car wouldn't start. I had to take the bus, and was an hour late. I called to tell them, and I still got a talking to: "This may show us that you can't be relied on to get here on time..."; not a good way to start. My Fuhrer supervisor Tiara ended up being more understanding than that, recognizing that I HAVE been early and at my station. She merely needed to beat me severely and toss me in the Fast Fun Friendly Dungeon "follow up" so that the higher ups would be satisfied. Arses to them. Given this and only having maybe two hours of sleeps last night, and having some intestinal fussiness all day, had me ready to kill. Only one customer was deserving of my wrath, but seeing as how he was only two or three, I thought it best not to pummel him with the scanner gun. Despite the fact that he shrieked like a fruit bat, and those shrieks sent sharp pains through my shoulder and arm. And before any of you go "That could be heart attacks, oh noes!", the pains only came when the little shit shrieked. So now toddlers have gained the power to cause cardiac arrest with their horrible noise making. Apparently.

Monday night was horrible... we were ass fucking busy the whole day, I was on Register 4 being blinded and roasted by the sun all afternoon. Then Wednesday was mostly an unimpressive night, aside from someone ( Not for those with weak stomachs )

The DS now has a competent and addictive FPS: Moon. If you've played Metroid Prime Hunters, it's like that, only there's more of an awesome story, and it's on the FUCKING MOON. And it involves hostile aliens. The underground complexes are a bit same-same, but there's more variety in the chambers than there was in the hospital in Dementium (same company). And it's not hard to find your way around. The game is so far rather easy, though the bosses have shown potential to become downright vicious. And for $20, it's a damn steal.

I may postpone any other model projects I have in the works currently. I found something on Federation Models, and I suddenly decided that I wanted to do a Sovereign class dreadnaught. It will be like the Enterprise E, only with moar of EVERYTHING. I need a few more components before I'm sure of the final configuration, and I'm debating whether or not I want it to have Klingon weapons. "But Doom, it will then be non-Canon!" Arses to it, I'm making it my own ship, and I can put whatever I damn well want on it. They never had dreadnaughts in the show anyways. Maybe one or two showed up in a book now and then, but certainly not a Sovereign class.

We will at long last be getting DSL intarwebs.

Foods times now, then beds times.

Man, you would think that a crisis of this proportion would get someone to can the bullshit for a while, but I guess not. My cousin seems to see her mother's death as more of an inconvenience for her than an unfortunate loss. Mary babysat for Paige and Reid all the time, and now it would considerably harder for her to do so, for obvious reasons. Other indications lead me to believe that my cousin is a completely hopeless, selfish hag, and I'm getting tired of it. One of these things: Wednesday we had a little get-together barbecue party thing; she decides at the last minute not to come because she believed that it was all for my Uncle Paul; he can't come to the service tomorrow, SO IT MUST BE TRUE. It was for everyone, and it did just about everybody a lot of good. And it doesn't help that Paul was the closest to Mary. What will it take to get her to stop being such a selfish cow?

I forgot to mention that last Saturday (not yesterday, but a week previous) I was able to babysit the kids for a few hours. Reid is more rambunctious than ever, and I had to give him a swat from time to time to stop him from hitting. He was all over the place, of course, and generally being well behaved. I also changed his diaper for the first time evar without maiming either one of us or burning the house down. I consider this a great achievement and anyone who says otherwise will be beset by locusts. Another note: my cousin had said "you can flick Paige if she misbehaves"... my question to her is "Can I flick YOU when you misbehave?" Paige was very well behaved, as she usually is. I think that's about all I need to say there.

I have things about Target that I have come to despise in a record amount of time: ( I hate you all )

For the most part, people have been pleasant, cooperative and understanding. And thanks to a co-worker of mine, I don't work again (I swapped with her for Wednesday and Monday, because of the party and the memorial service) until Saturday night.

( And now for the Mandatory Pokemons Update )

Right, what I said about temptation... I managed to find two more sites that carry Resin Star Trek kits. Go me. I bought a 1/1400 Saber class ship from Starfleet Models. This one is nice, with a few questionable details (some of the windows weren't done right) but it needs moar phasers. Fortunately, I have a sheet of 12 curvy and 12 straight phaser strips. These look like they were straight off an Ambassador class starship, and they'll do nicely. I've also bought (in the same scale) a kit of the Dauntless from Voyager It's a trap!, and it too will get some phasers. Maybe. I bought this from Federation Models, along with a same scale Norway class starship. The Norway's biggest flaw is not having any weapons whatsoever included; the two other kits available have phasers molded on. This is probably because the Norway class is completely conjectural; it was a CGI model for the Battle of Sector 001 against the Borg (First Contact) and some genius lost the file. It's nice having spare phasers to work with. Plus, it comes with an optional bridge piece which I'm sure I can turn into a torpedo launcher without much trouble.

Additionally, I'm making headway on the Enterprise E kit. I'm repainting the medium and dark gray panels with colours that look much nicer, and I may add phasers to the warp nacelles. As it stands, the ship has little coverage to the aft, and they added phasers for Nemesis. I might need to buy another sheet of the buggers. I've also mostly assembled the Akira and Steamrunner ships, and they have been primed. The "rollbar" on the Steamrunner needs modification before it looks proper, and the Akira's nacelles need to be added. I bought supplemental decals for both of them, so I have a nice variety of names to choose from for both of 'em.

Hrm. I believe that will do. Memorial service tomorrow, and then the rest of the week I have bugger all to do, aside from rampaging at the mall on Thursday with a_bleeding_rose. Perhaps I'll get the Enterprise done yet.

What a hell of a weekend.

My aunt Mary went in to Urgent Care Saturday morning complaining of breathing trouble. While there, her heart stopped. It took half an hour to start it again, but given the results of follow up tests, the brain damage was too extensive. They took her off life support yesterday evening, and she was gone within an hour. The really fucked up thing is that Mom and Grandma talked to her Friday evening, and she was fine. It just goes to show... one minute everything's fine, the next minute you're gone.

Rest in Peace, Mary... you will be missed.


And as a follow up to that, I'm worried about my Grandma. The only thing harder than losing a parent is losing a child, because conventional wisdom is that your children should outlive you. I don't know how the kids will handle this... Paige is broken up of course, because she saw her Grandma every day. Reid did too, but he's too young to really understand where she went.

As for me, I will warn you that I will be fine as long as no one says "I will pray for you" or something along those lines. Empty sentimentalism! You really think something religious will help? Sacrifice a goat to Kali-Yuga and I'll be impressed.

This whole thing doesn't feel right.

Augh. Three days of work, and one of our bastard customers got me sick on Saturday. Either that, or it's our filthy break room. I dunno. I've already called in today, which I didn't really want to do, but since I coughed up a nice juicy chunk of something horrible, it was probably best that I didn't go. So I've been to the Urgent Care in Woodbury, got my Z pack, Prednisone, and a doctor's note saying "NO work until Wednesday". And I've already called in for tomorrow. Knowing me, I'll feel fine in the morning, so it will have been a wasted venture. The cold is already dissipating, aside from some unpleasantness in me lungs.

As you may have guessed, that "might have a jarb" is more like, I do have a jarb (pending any horribleness). My drug test came back negative for anything naughty, apparently my background check didn't turn up anything evil or naughty... so yeah. I had a four and a half hour orientation with 9 other people last Tuesday. I've already learned the register's bells and whistles, and I'm fine-tuning my system for bagging stuff, especially when it involves many grocery items, half of which easily go squish. Customers have been mostly tolerable; there have been some slow bastards, a few people with bad checks or credit cards, a few minor annoyances, and one lady carrying a Starbucks cup who felt the need to incessantly call me "Hun". These are not worth rejoining Customers Suck, though I somewhat miss the ol' community. The worst the slow ones have done is drive down my "Conversion Rate" or whatever it's called. We get timed on transactions, and anything below 88% we get blathered at until we die by the management. My ratings have consistently been above 90%, so yah boo, sucks to you, fritzie!

I would ask my fellow employees, though, to clean up the break room. It is "clean" at first glance, but the tables are always covered with bits of food and horrible things when I get in there. It's not too much trouble to wipe it up, is it? No. So DO IT. And another unpleasant thing is that I find myself getting drymouth like a bitch at the registers. Perhaps I'm being too chatty with the customers, or perhaps my theory of the registers being haunted isn't too far-fetched. After all, those conveyor belts seem to go whenever they feel like it.

I've come to the conclusion that liberals and conservatives are both full of shit. ( Please to be reading moar )

And back to the "Big Brother" thing: Conservatives love companies being able to operate independently. They love corporations having more money, more power. If anything, we should be worried about Creepy fucking marketing techniques ruining our privacy. And you're worried about the GOVERNMENT being all spooky and invasive? I think we really need to worry about the private sector and greedy asshole marketers taking over our goddamn brains.

Our "final" in Multicultural Education was a brief oral question: How are you going to use multicultural education in your classroom and in your life? My answer: I'm going to focus on the Eurocentric/Rise of the West myths that saturate every aspect of American culture. My students need to know that the asshole Spanish, French, and British did not discover everything and did not invent civilization. Whites are not the foremost authority on every goddamn thing on this planet. In fact, I also intend to show them that many places had quite advanced or at least stable civilizations until Europeans showed up to "civilize" them. And I'm going to teach them that no matter their background, they too can be somebody and contribute to society.

Onto something a bit less serious: ( My pokemans! Let me show u them! )

Fwee. My lungs have decided to close up again. I must use my medicinals now.

Edit: Drugs are bad. I should really stop updating while sick and under the influence of various medicines.

I most likely have a jarb for the summer.

Now I know 100% for srs that when an interview person tells you "We'll let you know" or "We'll call you in the next couple of days", they're pulling your prick. Monday, during my Team Leader interview at Super Target, he said "I'd like to offer you a position". I had applied for Merchandise Flow, Backroom and Cart Attendant (in retrospect, no... I do not want to wander around in the parking lot dying in the heat and leaving a sweaty carcass). Because I mentioned my experience in retail, he offered a front end position, and also said I would be able to move about the store in different roles if I wanted to. So far, it's a "conditional" offer; I have to pass a drug test and background check. THEY MADE ME PEE IN A CUP! And yeah, I know I said I wanted something better for the summer, and it seems stupid to be working in retail having a bloody degree, but since businesses are still protecting their precious bottom lines, I'll take what I can get short of punishing the white collar criminals. My loathing for retail work has not faded, and yet I foresee Target being less horrible than Toys R Us. Plus, I need money.

I can already think of a few things that would make this job more tolerable than the last:

1. It's not Toys R Us
2. The credit card scanners are simple enough for a lobotomy patient to use
3. I don't have to deal exclusively with snobby suburbanites who think the world exists to merely support their worthless existence. Now they come from the city, too!
4. I also don't have to deal exclusively with jackoffs buying M rated games for their 10 year olds
5. Working closing shifts means I don't have to stay two hours later just to clean up the FILTH from our pig customers, as Target is rarely understaffed
6. Having a floor staff might mean fewer "The price tag said this much!" incidents that I have no power over, because... see #5.

It only took me five years of trying, but I might be... The Next Target Lady. "Welcome to Tehrgut!"

Grades are in:

EDU 203 Multicultural Education - A
POL 101 Intro to American Gov't - A
PSYC 308 Child Psychology - A-
HIST 104 World History 1500-Present - B+

Semester GPA: 3.74
Overall GPA: 3.27

And it will be another six weeks before I get that lovely piece of paper that actually attests to my conquering the gauntlet at Metro State.

I found out yesterday that Pokemon Gold and Silver will be re-issued for the DS. A few days ago, when I was angrily ranting about something, I suddenly thought: "Hey, Nintendo should totally re-issue Gold and Silver!" So either they're fucking with my head, or it's a mere coincidence. This is good; my Gold cartridge crapped out a few years ago, and took all my teams with it. Crystal might still be good, and I still have some of the teams registered in Stadium 2, and still... stupid battery thing.

( Speaking of Pokemons )

Starship Modeler and Fantastic Plastic continue to tempt me with resin kits. I bought two 1/2500 scale ships: A Nova class ship and an E.S.S. Arrow. The Nova ship is from Voyager; it is incredibly small and will be an absolute delight to paint and build. Some of the pieces are smaller than an ant's ball bag. The Arrow, on the other hand... it's about 8 inches long, and the three hollow resin pieces are cast with almost no flaws. The thing is beautifully detailed, except for the edges where the two pieces meet. This could be fixed; the ship is designed to be customizable, and you can throw it into any series you want. To be honest, it looks a lot like a small Star Destroyer had babies with a Colonial Battlestar. So... Q.E.D. Now their Steamrunner, Sabre and Norway class ships tempt me, but Fantastic Plastic has a Colonial Defender that also appeared as a Reever dreadnaught in Serenity. *Squees* How is Doom supposed to save money with all this temptation?!?!?!

( Music Type review thing: Shallow Life )

Moving on!

a_bleeding_rose, I got your card and the other thing. EEE! Thank you; you really didn't have to give me money. Not that I'm giving it back... :P

Ugh. Nothing gets the ol' nausea going like sitting next to someone for an hour who lets off waves of smell. This person had smells reminiscent of olives and formalin (Formaldehyde, only "not toxic"). Sweet Jesus, lady... clean out your shitlocks or take a bath in something other than a taxidermy office.

And it didn't help that this was during the Child Psychology final. What DID help was the fact that it was another open book test. Hot piss! Here I was worried because I sort of ran out of time to study this morning.

( Pokemon ramblings, pay this no heed. )

I told you not to pay it any heed, and you didn't listen, did you?

Feh. Because of Commencement tonight, I had arranged to take the final Politics exam in the testing center. What I did not realize was that I needed to make an appointment, and it was at the Midway Testing center. I didn't even know fucking Midway had a testing center. So they tell me the earliest possible time I could take it is Tuesday afternoon. Thus, I'll be taking it tonight instead of that other thing. But it works out better for me. I didn't really want to sit through three-four hours of nonsense pageantry, and my grandparents couldn't make it either. The damn Earth Day fest is tomorrow, and I'm sure we'll have to be up early for that.

I have decided I am going to pioneer my own martial arts style. It will be modified Ling Sheng Su Bo techniques (less showy and more practical), and feature two techniques that do not use the staff. The First: Ultimate Dragon Palm Strike (Of Doom) and The Second: Supreme Backhanded Doom Slap (Of Doom). If you did not send your enemy flying back 20 feet into a pile of land mines and barbed wire with the former, you have failed and will be caned. If you did not cause your enemy to spin at least 6 times in the air fast enough to emit a comical whirring noise with the later, you have also failed and will be caned doubly hard. The signature staff technique will be Judgment, which requires you to channel lightning bolts with the weapon and smite your opponent with them. It would be helpful to wear rubber soled shoes while trying this. Electrocution means you have failed, and you are now completely and utterly dead. Wolverines will urinate on your ashes for desecrating the sanctity of Judgment (of Doom).

King Liger, Gul Tiger and Lidier all near completion, and each of them got some little customized touches. I think my Graduation present to myself will be another Gul Tiger.

Blimey. More filthy Earth stink monsters must be present. That's it. I decree those who smoke and/or soak themselves in perfume or cologne shall henceforth be lit on fire and then pummeled with a bar made of steel no more than three cubits in length. And lo, their remains shall then be desecrated by wolverines. YOU SMELL BAD! BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!

I was hesitant to face today, knowing that on Saturdays something always goes wrong. My alarm woke me up a bit early... does that count? Shit, I went to class, did my presentation (a bit disappointed that all the questions were on Czech beer, but hell, it stirred discussion) and came home. I suppose the so-far awful thing was having to sit behind a row of fucking Juggaloes on the bus. Fuckin' obnoxious white kids... "Hey look, that thing there is not a juggalo like us! Let us make fun of it! Our mockery ability stops at 'Lookitdatdude, hurr hurr hurr', and out wit is limited to 'Dat's fucked up, doo' but that never stopped us before! Also, we do not believe in bathing, and our scented deodorant smells like the rotting flesh of a thousand dead camels." Jaysus mary begorrah... I suppose it's tolerable because Juggalos are easy to troll. "Hatchetman carries a meat cleaver." "WUT U SAY FU STUPID FUKKER!" Ah ha ha. It's too bad my Disturbed shirt was hidden by my sweater... much lulz potential.

Something decided to smite me on Thursday. I had to take inordinate amounts of antacids that morning just to try and fall asleep, to no avail; whatever was in my stomach wanted out, but something wouldn't let it out. The rest of the day, I could barely move, with a nasty headache, fever and interferon nastiness. It pissed me off because I had to meet with my Politics group and prepare for our debate. Unbelievable. It only appears when I really need to be not sick.

My sister ended up in the hostiple this week; work has been piling shit on her, she got tweeked out, took a ton of Tylenol PM... yeah. She's doing much better now. It worries me, and at the same time I have no sympathy for anyone who does that. Particularly when they've done it before. That's all I'm going to say, except that I seem to be the only one in the family who hasn't had a drug related issue before. There are some days I wonder if I'm missing out on something, and yet... arses.

Moving on. This morning I had a very vivid dream I've had a number of times... perhaps. It was very vivid, and I got a sense of Deja vu within said dream, so who knows. It involved the long-lost cabin, and the lake. As I come into view of the lake, I can see some weird looking ship approaching some people in a boat. The yard is very visible from the lake, as there are fewer trees, so I dive behind a tree stump. I hear a weird noise, then see the weird looking ship sail into a cove not very far away from the cabin's beach (it's down a very large hill). And somehow, I know that these are pirates/ghosts that make boats and ships disappear and capture the people for as yet unknown but decidedly sinister purposes. Then Tyler from "My Hero" appears and tells me everything I've already known- these guys are up to no good, if you see them steal someone, they'll catch you and disappear you as well, and they're in their hideout. We need to sneak in and free the hostages. There's a small bay near the cabin that normally isn't there-between the cabin and the pirate's hideout-with a ship in it, so we can use that ship. As we try to get onto the ship, small spooky skull beasties latch onto us and try to drain our health. And then the dream sort of stops without any resolution.

Don't ask.

The 'Leet Four fell before the might of Team Doom! Bertha was taken down by MURDERFACE's unquestionable power and MONKEEEEY!'s Grass Knot. Flint's fire team was completely lixivated by NIBBLY and the might of Earthquake. Lucian was slightly pesky, but Giratina, MURDERFACE, and NIBBLY took him down easily. Everyone got a turn pounding on Cynthia's team; the real problem was her Garchomp. This is where Pokemon abilities helped: YARLY's Intimidate made her a bit less dangerous, GIRATINA's Pressure drained her moves, and then Dragon Pulse finished it off. Haw! No Champion can stand before the might of Doom!

I think my binge of collecting Zoids CPs is waning at least. I have a deliciously full box of CPs and more on the way. The only thing I really need is a CP-26 All Direction Missile Unit, and the only one I've seen is stupidly expensive. Perhaps I'll just have to lurk until I find one at a suitable price.

One last note on Twitter before any mention of it henceforth is banned forever and always: It seems like it would be perfect if you like the obnoxious assholes on your Facebook who update every two seconds with some inane bullshit status. DOOM DOES NOT LIKE THIS. And no, MKIO, Doom does not with to keep up with you on Twitter. The feeling is thus not mutual. LEAVE ME BEEEEE!

Some asshole has been calling every day for the past week or so for my parents, saying "I'm Brandon Smith from Loan Modification, this is for you to reduce your existing interest payments without having to refinance". At least, I think that's what it's about... Nice try, Hadji. Your name is totally NOT Whatever "Smith", that's probably just what your supervisors tell you to tell people so they'll be more comfortable talking to you. By the way, no one's buying it. Your operation is most likely a scam, timed thus because now everyone's freaking out about the economy and their mortgages and such. And STOP CALLING, GODDAMNIT. I am completely fucking tired of answering the goddamn phone and having it be some barely literate, jerkoff sellout who works for a company that needs a good swarm of locusts more and more every day. AUGH.

I'm absolutely tired of Saturdays. I'm always in a good mood after my class, but something always ruins it; usually some loudmouth asshole on the bus, or traffic is absolutely fucked up on 38th making it hard for me to get home, or some bullshit like that. So good mood already canceled, I came home Saturday to find out Eagle died in the morning. He had seemed fine when I left at 8, so what the fuck. The fact that he's gone hasn't hit me like it did with Smokey or even George. I've had him since he was born in 1995, so it's like a big part of my life is gone. Eagle was only one of two birds we've ever had who enjoyed being pet, or who would come over. All I had to do was waggle my fingers, and he'd fly over and perch on my hand. His cage has been above Shiva and Shippo's for the past year and a half, so I'd gotten into the habit of calling him over for attention after I'd pestered the bunnies. And I still find myself doing it. So, maybe it has hit me. Jesus, I don't even know anymore. Why does this have to happen?

If I hear one more thing about Twitter, I think I'm going to lose it completely. I don't even know what the stupid thing is, nor do I care. I'm just tired of hearing about "twittering" or "tweet"ing or whatever the trendy assholes are calling it. It sounds like another fucking useless cell phone, and I'm sick to goddamn death of the yuppies floating around acting smug about their latest precious little turd they can whip out to show off.

And good, the Minnesota courts finally decided that Al Franken won the senate race. of course, that dumbshit Coleman is going to appeal to the Supreme Court... haw! The entire country is tired of hearing about this crap, and the state is about two seconds away from just telling Coleman to shut the fuck up and go back to Massachusetts. Except the dumb shits who still want him around.

I suppose I should balance this with a few better things, not that it really matters.

I've blazed through Metroid Prime 3 Corruption in the past week or so. It took a while to get used to the controls and the aiming system, but I've done it, and the game is goddamn brill. My only fussy problem with it is that the bosses are a bit too easy, and I've missed two pickups and have no idea where they might be. The Pirate Homeworld seems the likely candidate, because I found the Pickup Map Data for Norion, Bryyo and Elysia, and they show I've gotten everything there. Alas, this is something I may or may not remedy.

Valga is built. It took me about three hours, so that should give Zoiders an idea of how complex it is for a wind-up. It does indeed interconnect and segment nicely, and has some lovely springs to drive all the action. It's very small, maybe three-four inches across when rolled up, which happens to be its default position. For the action, well... mine sort of spazzed the hell out trying to roll over, and ended up stretching out on its side. It's supposed to roll up and stretch like a pill bug, but it doesn't work on uneven surfaces very well. Bottom line: If you like unorthodox Zoids, you must buy Valga.

My entire team is Level 50 at last, so I've finally decided to take on the 'Leet Four. YARLY and MURDERFACE swept Aaron's bug team with some help from MONKEEEY! and ZIPPY, and now we take on Bertha. I foresee problems because I switched out Lumineon with Giratina, and Bertha only uses ground types. Perhaps I'm just going to have to have MURDERFACE and NIBBLY beat the holy hell out of them.

My brain hates me lately, and I hate it right back. It has conspired against me to not allow sufficient sleep. Since winter break, whenever I have a day off I find it far too easy to stay up until the small hours of the morning, and after a day or two, I'm right back to some bullshit of getting up at 8 in the evening and going to bed around noon. This leads to Problems when I have homeworks to do and class the next day. The past few days, it has become an entirely new level of horrible; even if I manage to get to sleep at a normal hour, the evil blob of gray horribleness wakes me up too early and won't let me sleep again. Thursday night, I got to sleep around midnight after a tiring day, and then I wake up before 4 in the morning, completely wide awake and wired. Of course, that wired energy was gone by about 10, AND IT WOULDN'T LET ME SLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. And then it happens that I get really tired, try to lie down for sleeps, and then I get some sort of bullshit second wind that lasts long enough to get me up again. Last night, I managed to get off to sleep by 11 (waking up 20 minutes later because the contents of my stomach decided to relocate to my lungs), and then I kept waking up throughout the night, finally giving the hell up around six.

This isn't funny, brain. Knock it off, or I will pummel you with a hardcover copy of Don Quixote.

I did manage half an hour of naps times yesterday, but I was rudely awoken because "nyergh, we're going to go color easter eggs, babyhead will be there, aren't you coming, are you dead, rar rar rar". Did it ever occur to them that I don't respond because 1. I'm dead and 2. can't mooooove and 3. I WANT TO SLEEEEEP. Alas, I did go and it turned out to be worths it. Since Bruce wasn't here, Reid stayed with me most of the time. And yes, only having three hours of sleep was not very conductive to playing with an energetic two year old. Nor an energetic 10 year old... alas, he really wanted to play outside (which was a welcome break from him playing with the bloody train clock for hours on end), so we did. He did some easter egg hunts and played "catch", though it was far more amusing for him if I teased him with a football. Yeah. He shared my cake, though he only wanted to eat the frosting balloon; the rest of it was chocolate, or "dirt" as he called it. At one point, I lay down on the floor for a bit for obvious reasons, and he lay down with me for about two seconds. Later that night, he got very mad and had a bit of a tantrum because he wanted to go outside and it was too dark and cold to do so. So instead I took him upstairs, and then he had to amuse himself by going up and down the stairs with me. Bloody stairs... Something he did that I find endlessly amusing is whenever one of my sisters asked him for a hug (he rarely sees them), he gave me a hug instead. Haw haw haw!

I noticed a pattern to Hope's bitchiness, too. When they're at grandma's and its time to go, Paige has to get her stuff ready IMMEDIATELY or her mother commences screaming at her. She did indeed try this last night, despite the fact that Paige already had her stuff together, and just about everyone called her on it. Maybe not outright, but "She's already GOT her stuff together!" said in the right tone certainly did the trick. And more people were right there, noticing this crap. Yeah... I think the game is up for this shit. It'd better be... I've noticed Hope doesn't expect the same of Reid, but it's only a matter of time before she starts it with him. I'm leaving it up to my parents and aunts to handle it, because they're the only ones with any leverage, as I've already mentioned. Yeah.

Onto other things. My teams of chinpokomons still continues to develop. I have all the badges, and I'm at the 'Leet Four gate, but there's no fucking way we're ready. Perhaps. Maybes? I dunno.

ZIPPY (Jolteon, Male) Lvl 46: Thanks to my breeding efforts, Zippy's Special Attack stat is completely insane by this point. I need to revamp his moves a bit, because Double Kick and Pin Missile are absolute garbage with his low attack stat. I finally replaced Shock Wave with Thunderbolt, so anything that's weak to Electric will not stand a chance. If I gave him Rain Dance, I could DESTROY things with Thunder, but that's too much effort. ZIPPY is rather frail, so I have to be careful with him.

MURDERFACE (Scizor, Female) Lvl 46: I had intended to swap out Scizor with Giratina or another legendary so I could survive the 'Leet Four originally (the entire game is pretty much to plan for these a-holes), but MURDERFACE is a goddamn tank. Technician boosts her weaker moves, and her ludicrous attack and defense stats mean she can dish it out and she can jolly well take it. The only problem is fire. If a Magikarp could learn Ember, it would probably take her out, but not much else hurts her. Shit, I'm keeping MURDERFACE for the 'Leet Four. She'll beat the shit out of them.

YARLY (Staraptor, Female) Lvl 46: YARLY is also frail, but is insanely powerful. Close Combat and Aerial Ace leave very few opponents standing. I just have to keep her away from Ice and Electric stuff.

LUMINEON (Lumineon, Female) Lvl 46: I haven't thought of a good nickname for her. She's... decent. Her defense is strangely high, but the one stat I really needed (Special Attack) has developed alarmingly slowly. Alas, if I really need to, she will probably be the one I swap out.

MONKEEEEY! (Infernape, Male) Lvl 47: A move tutor gave MONKEEEEY! Thunder Punch, so he's actually been useful against water and flying types, which are Bad for a Fighting/Fire type. MONKEEEEY! is a powerhouse, but needs stronger type matching attacks. He's also rather frail, so it's imperative that he plows the competition before they can do anything.

NIBBLY (Garchomp, Male) Lvl 48: Holy shit. NIBBLY gained 40 HP, 40 Attack, and 25 Speed when he evolved. Gabite was dangerous as it was, but damn. His defenses are decent, but that doesn't matter. He'll kill the shit out of anyone before they can blink. I totally need to give him Draco Meteor to replace Dragon Claw. Cynthia's Garchomp won't know what hit it, and it will negate my need for an ice move.

That's for all three of you who know what I'm talking about. For the rest... I have a ball. Would you like to bounce it?

No Gul Tiger GC yet, but Valga inabox. I had Toy-Wave give me another one, though I wasn't sure why. After exploring just what Valga has to offer, I can see I made a good choice. Valga's a medium sized wind up; not motorized as I had expected. It's a bit on the small side, but that doesn't matter at all. It looks to be an insanely complex build (for a wind-up) relative to the size, which is very good. Just about all its pieces connect and I can see from the instructions how the segmentation works. Apparently, it will roll into a ball during its movement routine. Hee hee hee. Pill bug Zoid is superior. I can see that it will be fun to build and amusing to set loose. I'm at least going to do a palette swap on the second unit; small Zoids don't make for easy customizing with parts.

As usual, no hours at work. It'd be great to earn some monies, and at the same time I couldn't really give an eff right now. Biiiiiitch, pleeeeeeeeze.

Lately I've been having dreams with a recurring theme: me finally losing patience with everyone here and leaving home. Either just temporarily, or yeah... usually I'm leaving with the intention of wandering around for hours and perhaps getting lost somewhar, but someone or other won't let me. ( This time, it ended in a rather different fashion. )

I suppose the most unusual thing about that was that a gun worked for me in a dream for the first time ever. Break out the schnapps!

Friday's dream was strangely prophetic for the day's happenings. We were supposed to go Grandma's to see babyhead and have pizza. I slept a bit late, and when I came out of the shower, the parentals had obviously been through one of their little tantrum spats. I went to get dressed, and three minutes later, mom had left. Dad said she just went to Target to get some things, but when she didn't come home for almost an hour, it was fairly clear that he was lying. So I said fuck it, and took the bus over there. Everyone was all "oh she just left to go get you, how did you get here, durr durr durr". And my response was that I have no more patience for their nonsense. Feh. Whatever. I still got to see the kids, and borrowed Paige's Eevee for some breeding.

I never said I wasn't going to buy Pokemon Platinum, so I bought it. Nyah! Each time they makes a new Pokemons games, I am reminded of how it can still be enjoyable, and how with each iteration of the game Nintendo is trying to drive me further out of my mind with impatient rage. I suppose it all balances out. Here's my team so far, with nicknames in parentheses!

Monferno (MONKEEEEY!): Fire/Fighting - Lv34 Male
Staravia (YARLY): Normal/Flying - Lv33 Female
Gabite (NIBBLY): Dragon/Ground - Lv33 Male
Jolteon (ZIPPY): Electric - Lv35 Male
Scizor (MURDERFACE): Bug/Steel - Lv33 Female

ZIPPY is short for "Zippy Brillnipper", aka I Couldn't Think Of Anything Better. My last team slot will either be filled by a Lumineon or a Milotic, the latter provided I don't fly into a violent, unstoppable insanity trying to find Feebas. Which I will... I can't get the bastard for a while and it's nearly impossible to find. All but the first two of my team have been bred. Out of four eggs for each, I selected the newborn Pokemon with the ideal personality trait, nature, and ability. I'm almost sure it helped; to test this, NIBBLY is actually the second Nibbly; bred from the first Nibbly and a female Gible I named WHORE (so named because she refused to be catched and wasted so many Pokeballs). It's a lot of effort, but pays off in the long run, supposedly. Update on that: NIBBLY the second has slightly better stats, but the same Attack stat. Asdfjkl;adf.

Hmmm... someone has requested a print of one of my photos on DeviantART. I don't quite understand why; it's not the best photo, I allow downloads of the images (given the background I use, there's very little chance someone could steal them and pass 'em off as their own), and... yeah. I smell trickery. So you want a print of Shadowy Giga's Side View? TOUGH!

Another college student disappeared after wandering away from a party. Surprise surprise, he was drinking before he left. There's been a lot of this lately. This is not news. Idiotic beer-swilling assholes get drunk and wander off, fall into a lake, they drown, everyone bawwwsss, tragedy of epic proportions, and we move on until it happens again. It isn't news, it's just natural selection taking care of a bunch of drunken idiots. Good riddance to the lot of them.

Finally, Valga shall be MEEIIIIIINNN. Thank you, Toy-Wave.

Also, I don't have to file taxes this year because I only made $2300 last year. Soooo... yeah!

Blimey. Again with the staying up all night, self? You're killing me.

Discussion teims in History has taken a new horrifying turn. Someone will say something vaguely relating to the question or topic at hand, and then four other people have to "go off what he/she said", and they essentially say the same damn thing, only reworded a bit. I suppose that's to be expected of a discussion in a 100 level class; everyone just mimics the last noise they heard like some witless mynah bird. It's especially irritating because the first thing said usually is the intellectual equivalent of "Mooooooooooooooooooo...".

A vending machine tried to take my money. Fortunately, I persuaded the stupid thing that that would be a bad move on its part and it relinquished my money (and then some!) Some stupid kid had stuffed dirty pennies in the coin slot. Got your pennies now, you little prick...

And all I had to do was stab it repeatedly with a Tootsie Roll Pop.

I'm going home and go bed now.

Addendum of irritatedness: Why do people pay good money for newspapers and then just read the sports section? What the fuck. None of you know what those statistics mean I'm sure, and the damn terminology is fucking stupid and doesn't mean anything. Read a damn book, and not one about your precious sports idols.

Dude sitting in front of me on the bus: First, burn off some of those damn moles. You looked like you had insects crawling around on your neck. Your backwards Twins cap was also irritating, and it made me want to flick your stupid ears.

Why are Snickers "Snacklish" ads allowed? "Climb Mt. FOODji", "Afternoon DeBITE"... those aren't funny, those are barely puns. If there is any justice in this world, the bastard who came up with this is being nailed to an operating table and having shrieking insects poured in their ears. These insects only scream Jonas Brothers lyrics in "Alvin and the Chipmunks" voices. DAMMIT. NOT FUNNY.

That will do.

Metroid Prime Hunters is much better than reviews had me believe. Yes, the platforming bit is unwieldy and the recycled bosses are obnoxious (Bolse Core Cybernetic Tower of Doom Ver. 3? Very well...), but it's still fun. And the game has managed to scare me half to death a number of times: The first, when I stepped on a Geemer and it exploded, and various points when damn Guardian Bots came racing out of nowhere shrieking merrily and shooting me 8 billion times.

The subject of cross-dressing has come to my attention on several fronts lately. baphijmm mentioned something about it, and then on the news people were talking about some local contest. I don't mind the cross-dressing, as long as it's tastefully done (or not, it doesn't matter to me that much). But this local thing... it was fathers dressing up as Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus and competing against each other. Fer chrissakes... they could have at least done something worth dressing in drag as. "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" comes to mind. "Rocky Horror" is acceptable I suppose, though I didn't care for the movie. But Hannah Montana? It's just creepy when 30-40 something men dress up as a teenage girl that their pre-teen girls idolize. Creepy, and insulting to trannies everywhere. I'm no tranny, but I would imagine this is most obnoxious. Yes? No? Maybes? 10-ish? Less? Not more though.

But for men; if you're going to wear the dresses and make up and bra and what not... please, shave before you go out. I had the fright of my life when a customer of mine looked like my 7th grade English teacher (complete with stubble) in full feminine regalia.

Haw. I remember my sisters calling me a homophobe because I didn't like Rocky Horror when I first saw it. I said it was just a bunch of idiots stumbling around a mansion wearing dresses and singing obnoxious songs. "OH NOES, U IZ HOMOPHOBE". Ha ha ha ha! Indeed.

I did indeed get to see Reidyroooo on Sunday. He was at last saying my name, and is also finally speaking in short sentences. For once, he wasn't all over the place; rather, he was perfectly content playing with the magnetic train/clock thing. He so does not have ADHD... he had far more patience for that train thing than I did. Bwee. Just hearing him talk moar and sensing more comprehension and learning and such from him... my baby's gettin' all growed up.

And his mother still needs to get busted in the head for being such an idiot bitch to Paige... next time she calls, if the subject happens to come up, I cannot guarantee I won't be slinging around some salty words, me hearties... I keep doing this; every time I say I'm going to say something, and then I don't. Maybe it's because I know she won't listen to me, and in fact probably would just say I can't see them anymore because I'm meddling or suddenly she doesn't like me. Politics exists in families too, you know...

Erm... I suppose I could throw something in here about Zoids. Lidier will probably be the quickest custom I've evar done. I didn't do much, but it's still a custom, dammit! And it has taken me less time to customize it than it did to build King G. Also, Gul Tiger will be here soon. Stop me, I can barely contain my girlish squealing. Srsly.

Here I was feeling guilty for not having gone into work since the 12th, and what does my boss say upon seeing me there yesterday? "What are you doing here? I've got nothing for you to do!" Erf. All this guilt for nothing. Alas, I had wanted to go in to mail confirmations, and this proved to be a bad idea. Either I fail completely, or paper has become life threateningly sharp lately. I managed to give myself four paper cuts on one finger at the same time, one of which went under the skin and bled. And then I managed four more cuts on other fingers at separate times. I have never given myself a paper cut while folding confirmations before.

Perhaps it has something to do with me staying up all Thursday night thinking I really needed to go in and get something done... I did accomplish the task of "Lacerate the living shit out of your fingers". So, yeah. Productivity!!!

Damn cheap Malaysian paper, in my day paper came from old growth oak forests in the north shore and it folded up with a proper crease, none of this razor sharp, wrinkled edge nonsense. By gum, we wouldn't stand for this shoddy craftsmanship if Taft were still in office!!! Damn kids and their Barack Obamas and Jonas Bros...

Oi... I should not have stayed up all night. Again.

Spring Break came, and is over already. Some good, some not so good.

+ HobbyLink Japan has re-earned my trust by being cooperative and also featuring good deals on things I nevar knew existed.

+ At work, scheduling for the year is now done officially and finally, full stop, nevar again. This has created the problem of there being almost nothing for me to do the rest of the year. That is, until more people start complaining that "Meh, this day won't work for me, can we plz to have change?" or "I'm sending my request for visit nao, can we come tomorrowish or Specific Day at Specific Tiem?" No. I am schedule master, I say whether or not it can be planetarium teims nao.

- Obtaining the new Zoid Valga has proven near impossible. LeoShop wanted to charge me outrageous fees for shipping, Toy-Wave and HLJ still don't have them, and Ebay's Valgas are too much. My impatience led me to try Treasure Island Sports once again, leading to...

- Treasure Island has earned more than its share of wrath. I tried to order a Valga from them on the sixth. They took my money, and a week later I hadn't even received a shipping confirmation email. Their listed phone number wasn't even close to being right, and emails sent to them went ignored. I opened a dispute on Paypal, and three days later got my monies back, but still no communication. I can't help but feel I dodged a bullet with this outcome, so despite my previous success with this store and the refund, I would say avoid them. Rotten arseburglars.

+I've gotten rid of six games that I was getting tired of. Viewtiful Joe, Sonic DX, Resident Evil 4 (GC), Maximo, Rayman DS and Yoshi's Touch N' Go are now out of my library. I got a whopping $20 for all of them together; I hadn't had success selling half of them on Amazon, and I was tired of them. So there. With that, a used games deal and gift card, I got Warioware Touched, Elebits, Metroid Prime Hunters and Metal Slug Anthology. I've also bought Warioware Smooth Moves, though separately.

+Minty/Glacier Wolf is done.

+I've got both the interviews done that I needed to for this week. In the process, I spoke with Samira, a sixth grader at Hancock who I met at the Earth Day festival last May. Then I called blue_kitty_18 Monday night. I met her in 2004, and this is first time we've actually spoken. Vicki, your accent was very subtle; you actually sounded like a friend of mine... who I haven't seen or talked to in 6 years. *ahem* I imagine that I sounded like a angry, male Sarah Palin. You betcha.

-Our neighbors changed again... Same damn house, same damn problem. Actually, the last guy was fine; he was quiet, it was friends he had over now and then that were loud motherfuckers. This new lot... frequently I hear them pulling up anywhere from 10pm to 2am, they get out of the car, and then some loud-mouthed whore thinks its okay to shout and holler and "Woot!" across their backyard. Last night i got to bed a bit late, and I hear them pull up blaring music at about 2:30, cue the slamming of doors and the "Wooooo"-ing... then the stereo comes on. After about half an hour of this, I went into the backroom to see if I could see them; crack a window, maybe get them to turn it down. Nope, they're all going into the garage to "smoke it up" or summat (Their words, not mine). I went over and pounded on the front door to no answer (the stereo still blaring some fucking country music), so I decided maybe the police needed to scare them quiet. Soon I hear the police show up, and the stereo goes off a bit after that. Half an hour later, it's back on again.

...I would've thought that nearly having the police find them doing something most assuredly illegal would have made them think that "Hmmm, maybe we oughta belt up at night". I guess not. You stupid noisy whores. I will ring the filth every goddamn night if I have to. They will get sick of hearing from me and having to deal with your bullshit. Once that happens, well, I'm sure they wouldn't mind me shotgunning the stereo through the wall. I have no patience for this shit, and no one should have to develop any patience for that. At night, city/state ordinances require you to belt the fuck up after 10pm. Motherfucking loud-mouthed whores, I am not to be played with. I will murder your families!

+There may be a potential seeing of Reidy-roo on Sunday, as long as his mother doesn't pull any bullshit.

-Mom keeps getting embroiled in office politics at work, this time with the science teacher I once worked with and the Principal (though that's nothing new). Kelly has apparently gone off her nut since I left, and that has created strife. First she was Bridezilla, now she's just insane. Great. Any chance of getting a letter of recommendation is gone now. She was a prime candidate for that, because she's the only one who saw me working with kids. At any rate... mom gets into these spats and Margie reams her very personally (Mom knows she's an insane, bureaucratic twit, so why she continually takes that woman so seriously is beyond me), then gets upset and tells me to nevar become a teacher. She forgets that I've already been a victim of bullshit office politics, and yes, it infuriates me. Gossipy, narrow-minded harpies with their own selfish interests in mind will try to undermine anyone they don't like, so a lot of people are driven out of the system. That affects the kids' education and society as a whole, which makes it even worse. Which is why we can't let bullshit political crap ruin everything. It does deter me, but only a bit. And come on, ma, two days ago you were ranting about how when I start teaching I'll be making $37,000 a year, possibly more.

Something that does infuriate me: Mary Hedenstrom won some Minnesota Science Teacher of the Year award. 1. She wasn't teaching, she was "coaching", which a whole load of shit in itself, and 2. She was a horseshit teacher. Kids hated science because of her, and her legacy has endured because she had Kelly wrapped around her little finger. Ugh. Must be strong.

( Have a recurring dream )

Damn those North Koreans and their Doom Train schemes.

+King Liger inabox. Photos don't really do the poor bugger justice. The white and red I was aware of, but the chrome is actually Gold plated parts, and the "silver" is a fairly standard medium gray. It works better than I thought. The only problem is that King Liger's only visible weapons are its "Mega Vulcans": two dinky little cannons poking out of its neck. Can it be King Barons teims nao plz?

That is all.

A continuation of Earlier Memes is afoot!

a_bleeding_rose gave me "K". Interesting to note: Four of fourteen "K" songs on me Itunes are by "Eisbrecher".

"Kali Yuga, Part 1" - Therion
"Killing Me" - Skindred
"Kleid Aus Rosen" - Subway to Sally
"Komm Süsser Tod" - Eisbrecher
"Kotov Syndrome" - Rise Against

She also gave me: models, swords, adoptions, birds, and Brit films for associations. "And bunnies, but that's just a given." I've already done bunnies. Nyah!

Models: Zoids and Gundams and Ships and Aeroplanes, oh my. Were it not for models, I'd have gone mad by now. Madder. Maddest! Ah ha ha! Buildy things keep me busy and I have the fine motor skills to do so. The finished products lining shelves also make my room look like no other. I've been doing models since I was 7; I started with motorized carnival rides (half of which are now completely defunct), then moved to Aeroplanes and ships (most of my old stuff is also rather messed up, too). After working with Gundams and Zoids exclusively for the past several years, now I've come back into Aeroplanes. They drive me insane, but I still love the bastards.

Swords: I dismay at the popularity of guns. Guns also make me nervous, even if they are unloaded with no ammo in a radius of 6 light years. I just know the tricky things are waiting to go off and cause trouble near me... Swords are an old fashioned weapon; they can be an extension of your limbs when used properly (yes, I am aware that they just as well serve to "de-extend" your limbs with one slip). Wielding a sword is just far more comfortable to me, I feel as though I can control it and that I serve no danger to myself or others around me (unless I intend to use it against them, but that situation doesn't come up very often). Plus, I can protect myself from other sword users. Guns aren't sporting; whoever draws first wins and the other guy often dies. Thus, I prefer swords as weapons; though my true choice is the staff.

Adoptions: If you've been paying attention, you know that I intend to adopt. I want to have a son or two at some point, but since I never intend to get married, adoption is more or less my only option (getting a surrogate mother is a choice, but I've heard too many bad endings to that). There's the obvious problem of too many people grunting out too many babies that they don't take care of, so what right do I have bringing another child into an over-crowded world when there are so many kids around the world who need parents. I'm definitely waiting until I'm established in some sort of job and house of my own before starting the process. The process itself will be daunting, expensive and drawn-out, and children adopted after six months of age tend to have more problems, but it's something I know I want to do. Some people say that they "couldn't love something they didn't give birth to"... which is magnificently shallow, considering that 1. You didn't give birth to your spouse, siblings or parents, 2. Your child is not a "something", and 3. That's some narcissism; saying you could only love a child with your genetic material. Someone certainly has a high opinion of themselves. I just don't understand people and their conditional affection. I love Paige and Reid; they're not my kids, but I've spent enough time with both of them to form that bond. Any child I adopt will be my baby regardless of "legal" or "biological" definitions, and I will love him and take care of him because it is what any child deserves as a human being. Yeah.

Birds: I liked the dinosaurs and still do; since birds evolved from the dinosaurs, it seems a logical extension. Some birds have the pretty calls, some are pretty colours, etc. I do prefer the birds of prey over other birds, simply because of the freedom and power they represent (ironic how white American dipshits nearly hunted Bald Eagles to extinction. Wonder what THAT symbolizes?). I've become a bit disenfranchised with birds lately because of our birds being so damn noisy constantly. Drives me right out of me gourd it does. Yet, they still have a special place for me. Birdy birdy bird.

Brit Films: I'm not 100% sure what you meant by this, so I may go off on a tangent here. The only films I can recall done by a British group that I've seen are "Shawn of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz" (both by Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright). Both are brilliant films; a rather witty take on a zombie outbreak and a gory, humorous take on a creepy village ending in an "American film" style shoot-out. Briliant. They're not really films, but I've also been watching BBC shows since I can remember; my first was Red Dwarf, and then it expanded to Blackadder, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Fawlty Towers, Are You Being Served?, My Hero, Vicar of Dibley, and French & Saunders. British comedies such as these have just proven themselves to be far funnier, wittier and enjoyable than many sitcoms in the US. I mean, look at the competition: According to Jim, Still Standing, Gary Unmarried, Rules of Engagement, Friends, That 70s Show. They use tired cliches and dumbed down sex jokes for laughs. The only US shows that come close are Frasier (intellectually witty), Third Rock (which is loooong gone), and a few others. Yeah. Maybe it's my ancestry of British, Alsatian and Bohemian farmers/peasants, but I find British shows to be far better. Or at least, they WERE. I'm not exactly up on the more recent shows.

So there.

Now if you'll excuse me, AC Wolfie is scooting around on his bottom looking very cranky. I think he wants his back legs attached.

Meme the first:

1. Reply to this post and I'll assign you a letter.
2. List (and upload, if you feel like it) 5 songs that start with that letter.
3. Post them to your journal with these instructions.

pointytilly gave me "S"

"Schneekönigin" - Subway to Sally
"Six Feet Under's Not Deep Enough" - Angtoria
"Skalds and Shadows" - Blind Guardian
"Skraelings" - Leaves' Eyes
"Stupify" - Disturbed

Far too easy. I just chose five from my Itunes list, so I won't be picky about how you wish to do yours. And I'm not uploading them, it would kill my computer.

Meme the second: Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

baphijmm gave me: Rabbits, German metal, Zoids, Video games, and Minnesota

Rabbits: Bunbunbunbunbunnybunbuuuuuuunnnn. Bunnies are far less noisy and destructive than dogs, and they're cute. Some can be cuddlies. I've always had sort of a fascination with the bunnies (not sure how it started), so it was neat when we started having them as pets. Whiskers was our first (2000), and the babies who are not quite babies anymore are the newest. Yeah. Bunnies are fluffy.

German Metal: It all started with Rammstein, but you can't stop with one band. Megaherz, Eisbrecher, Stahlhammer (to a limited extent) and moar. There's just something that works so well with crunchy guitars, throbbing bass (hurr, I said throbbing), and occasionally folksy instruments being delivered with harsh vocals in a language that always sounds angry. I'm actually looking to expand my inventory of worldly metal and rock music, and if it's sung in another language, then so much the better.

Zoids: I generally can't stand Anime, and in keeping with that I don't watch the show, and I probably never will. But it helps that the toy-model hybrid mecha that are Zoids are so damn neat. Why line your shelves with boring knick-knacks when you could instead line them with mechanized prehistoric beasts bristling with cannons and experimental weapons?

Video games: What's not to like about video gameses, apart from the obvious? They provide an escape into imaginative worlds and allow you to perform feats and see things that in real life are impossible or just don't exist. They're a good time killer, too. I must also mention that games can be powerful emotional catalysts; sometimes it's easy to get attached to a character, then be devastated when said character gets wiped out by a 30 gigaton energy bomb from space or sliced in twain by some horrible blargh insect from the Caverns of Traal. The negatives? Er... it's a time killer that eats up hours like nothing else (FFXII's game lasted me over 120 hours, which I could have been using to do something productive). As for the emotions... I can't tell you how many times I've come close to bursting into flame or smashing a controller/game/system with anything available for pissing me off. Seriously, games can get fucking frustrating. But I still keep going back to them.

Minnesota: I like the idea that mentioning winters we get here can make most of the rest of the 'States cringe in pain and horror, not to mention anyone from the Southern Hemisphere or within 45˚ of the Equator. "Today, it was -40˚C here!" "GAH!!!" It amuses me most highly. Ah ha ha. Aside from that, I like our verdant Northern Woods and North Shore (the southern part of the state is fairly unremarkable) and our abundant lakes, though it's stupid to say that we're the land of 10,000 lakes. We're the land of ~11,400 lakes. Our cities are not completely trashy either. I do, however, express dismay at the fact that our rural populations are very right leaning because they don't understand the issues confronting the minority population in the cities, and the fact that our Governor's a fucking idiot and tool.

We finally went to see Babyhead... er... two weekends ago? Yeah. Paige got a Wii for her birthday, so I spent most of the time playing Wii bowling with her. Reid still managed to distract me significantly. He was getting tired, and when I removed him from the kitchen (as he was in the way), I got a snuggle. *melts* He is better able to respond to questions and make distinctions. Behold!

Me: "Are you tired?"
Reid: "Yeah."
Me: "You wanna take a nap?"
Reid: "No."

Have an update on my current and planned Zoids customs.

Current: Right now I am partially repainting an HMM Command Wolf AC. The blue armor will be is now Glacier green. As for the grey underpieces, I'm leaving those alone. There's enough pieces for me to fuck up to begin with, and I'm not having paint on the jointed bits. That's just ASKING for trouble.

Since Gundam Store still had some for under $25, I decided I could do with a second Death Stinger. I had the brilliant idea of customizing it, and then I saw this. *head explodes* How am I supposed to compete with THAT?! More to the point, do I want to? I don't want to enter Zoids into contests or anything, I just want to make 'em look nice how I want them. And yet, this still burns my ass. I suppose I should be more concerned that someone out there went to that much trouble. Tryin' to make the rest of us look bad...

I have no idea what projects my CPs will be involved with. I still have Death Stinger, Salamander Bombvern, Gildragon, Liger Zero X, Gustav, Ultrasaurus, King Gojulas, Orudios and Lidier. The only one I have any idea what I want to do with it is Storm Sworder, and all I know is that it'll have missiles, and it's getting painted Glacier Green. TEAM GLACIER FORCE EXPLOSIOOOOOONNNN!!! I also have King Liger, and I'm probably going to do something with it; as it stands, the pictures depict it as a silver and white nightmare.

captain_ioga and I have been trying to get together since winter break. Instead of coming here for vidya games, I needed to borrow his wi-fi intarwebs to use the Wii's Virtual Console store, and Ioga had to show me all his shiny new Eggs Bauwcks games and features. Thus, we finally managed it on the 17th. And now I have quite a few games to rant about, even if only a little bit. ( Under the cut, if you please. )

While there, someone came up with a new word. It was either me, or Ioga's mother: At some point, his mother was pestering him to close the blinds in the living room, for it was getting late and no one likes having their blinds/shades/curtains/whatever open when it's dark out. Ioga was whining about it or something, so I said "Just imagine that there's a zombie outbreak going down. Not only does closing the blinds prevent them from seeing you, but it gives the house kind of a private, cozy atmosphere." So, I believe his mother said "It's a sort of Zombie Ambiance". I heard it as "Zombiance". Thus, we have a new term. Zombiance: Abstract noun. "During a zombie outbreak, closing your blinds and keeping your lights off or low and staying indoors gives your home a somewhat cozy, private atmosphere; despite the threat of danger from brain nibblers, this is a pleasant sensation. Prolonged exposure can cause cabin fever, however."

If anyone has a better way to define "Zombiance", feel free to make suggestions so I might ignore them. "Zombiance" is ™ and ® 2009, Doom. So there.

( An old favorite, finished at last? )

My pants have zippers.

That is all.

Oh dear... Yoshi somehow removed the splint/bandage on his own this morning... The vet insisted that it wasn't ready to come off for at least another week, but since I held him after noticing his lack of splint and he purred like a madman instead of tweaking out, I would assume that his leg is healed.

Full post to follow later... perhaps.

Bah. Friday the 30th, I got off work half an hour later than I intended to. When I got home, no one was there, Yoshi's cage had a blanket over it, and he was nowhere to be found. Engage panic circuits, panic circuits engaged. I called just about everyone trying to figure out what the hell was going on, and I finally find out that Mom had to rush home and take him to the vet at 2:00, approximately 20 minutes before I got home. He had hopped up on Snoopy's cage, as he usually does to investigate Boo, then got his foot caught when he hopped down. And lo, as bunny skeletons are fragile, something broke, and his foot was apparently askew. I called mum's cell phone 3 times, and FINALLY she picks up and tells me they had to sedate him and put a splint on it. They brought him home an hour later, and he was sitting in the back of the carrier with something that looked like a cast on his back leg. He was also extremely unhappy looking.Though he's had some trouble with the damn thing-for the first two or three days he had to drag that leg around and he could only hobble-Yoshi has since more or less adapted. That hasn't stopped him from nibbling on it a bit, and licking it obsessively. He goes back next week to see if they can take it off.



I suppose I should be thankful that he didn't break his back. The splint was the least evil of the three options presented. Option 1: Kill Bob! The Splint. Option 2: Kill yourself! Surgery to implant a pin. Or Option 3: Kill everyone in the whole world, ah HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAA!!! Amputate the leg. *twitch* And Universe, what did I tell you about this kind of crap? Knock it off, or Zodiark will knock so many holes in you we could market you as a new cheese. LEAVE MY BOYS ALONE, GODDAMMIT.

The 27th marked the fifth anniversary of this here Livejournal of mine. Normally, anniversaries can go take a poo, but something about the fives strikes me as important. Five years of my bitching about random nonsense and shrieking about the liberal media various and sundry things. I started it as just bullshit to keep me distracted in between classes at the University of Minnesota. Holy shit, that was five years ago! I'M GETTING OLD! WHERE DID ALL THIS TIME GOOOOOO!!?!? GEORGE, I TOLD YOU NOT TO EAT IT!!! But he ate it anyways...

This would normally call for highlights of the time period, but really, not much significant has happened. Honestly. I started the journal, got out of the U of M, quit Toys R Us, started working in St. Paul public schools, started at Metro State, declared my Major, started working at Como, quit at Hancock thanks to inter-office political crap, decided I wanted to be a teacher... yeah.

( Oh yeah, and somewhere in there, Reid was born. )

Not sure where all that came from. Alas, for the remainder of this post, have random nonsense.

( Brief reviews of musical type things, and moar. )

I also bought Fall Out Boy's new release... I can't really review it properly because I can't remember half the album. "Disloyal Order of Water Buffalo" was excellent, even if it was similar to "Thriller", and "I Don't Care" is one of the few singles ever that I could enjoy. So there.

Lacuna Coil's new album (has it really been three years since Karmacode? Damn, it has.) will be out in April. I have since forgotten what it will be called. I suppose I could look it up, but that would be more work for me. Disregard that, it is titled "Shallow Life". I do remember that Ms. Scabbia herself claims that it will be rock-ish with a Middle Eastern-y sound. ZOMG TERRORISTS! Or it relies on things like Sitars more... I like Sitars.

My "custom" Zeekdober/Siegdober is done, as well as my HMM Saber Tiger Schwalz. ( I ramble too much, so I'll at least do you a solid and hide most of it )

I do have photos of Zeek/Sieg and Saber Tiger, but I refuse to submit to Photoimpression's compression trickery any further. As you've probably noticed, any photos I upload here or on dA become heavily pixelized. My camera, I have noted, is not the problem. A gigantic picture of Saber Tiger revealed that the camera takes gorgeous photos, provided I'm not inebriated or being incompetent. Photoimpression is a pile of crap. Since Photoshop is $700, there is no way I'll ever be able to own it. However, I have an intermediary solution. Once I get a flash drive, I will copy my camera's memory card contents on to it (done), take this drive to school, and use Photoshop CS2 contained on the computers there. Hopefully, this will not cause heavy pixelization. If it does, then I'm completely out of options and will be resigned to half-arsed photos for all eternity. Or overwhelmingly huge photos that ruin your internets.

Hey, spell check recognizes "intermediary" as a legitimate word! Yeah!

I now intend to pursue as many Zoids CP units as I possibly can. Somehow, painting Zoids just isn't enough anymore, so I will get these and add them to the customs I have yet to finish. Thus, I have two Assault Gattlings, which can be separated into a missile launcher and gattling cannon; two Molga canonry units, which are nice sized cannons; and a Booster cannon, which seems to be two cannons with boosters on the back. I want more of all of these. I wish I bought some of the better ones before they became impossible to find. Ah well.

Normally, commercials enrage me... somehow, the newest Capital One commercials amuse me-that would be the ones with Vikings and the stranded-on-a-desert-island theme. It doesn't make me want a Capital One card, but Vikings adapting poorly to modern situations and a fat guy attacking a picture of a cheeseburger are a nice break from "Buy this GM car!" or "Latest kill death movie where Liam Neeson threatens Albanian sex traffickers!" or "Blaaaah blaaaaaahhh bleeeeeeeeee blaaaaaahhhh". So there.

That will do for now. Now need food.

Yeeaaaahhh, greeaaaat... now Yoshi's broken his leg.

Fuck.

Holy CRAP. I want to know what the hell I ate to cause the dream I had Wednesday morning. ( With this amount of nonsense comes a long-winded explanation. Be warned. )

There were other dreams since then that demand explanation, but I have since forgotten them.

Despite reading of her strange brand of insanity as described by Al Franken, I was ill prepared for Ann Coulter on Weekend Update... Holy fucking hell, that woman is NUTS. Sure, her bit was rather funny, yet I couldn't shake the feeling that this is exactly how she is on her show: A blithering batshit, fuck-crazy, fundy right-wing Feminazi who wants to castrate all men while shrieking about the liberal media. And I got that just from her hair. It's not some disastrous rat's nest, and yet after staring at it long enough to avoid her ceaseless, unblinking gaze, my brain started to unravel. I know the writers formulated the entire bit for comic effect, yet I can't help but feel that Ann Coulter really is THAT unhinged. Her mind-altering glare is of no help... try to avoid looking into her eyes; you can't, and yet it hurts. I get the feeling that something supremely evil stares back at me. Or it just might have something to do with the fact that in her true form, she is Leviathan.

Either way, she scares the pellets out of me, and I will not feel safe until several light years, a fleet of intergalactic warships, and Zodiark himself stand between me and the cauldron of boiling lunacy that is Ms. Coulter.

Our class participation system in History has become painful to watch in action. Since our professor is still learning everyone's names, she has to mark people on the attendance sheet when they contribute to the discussion, as in raise yer hand and answer a question. This is painfully bureaucratic to begin with. And of course, there's about half a dozen people in the entire class who think that answering everything will lead to moar points. At first, I sometimes think maybe these are the people who will be the smart ones, then after two hours I'm red in the face and twitching because these people keep raising their hands to interject irrelevant crap. One guy next to me was so utterly proud of the fact that he had done a "personal research project" on some topic... some chick in front of me kept raising her hand to the point that I just wanted to bite it off. Hates them, precioussss....

Since I missed the first class meeting due to the horrible cold, I was dropped from Child Psychology. You're not supposed to be dropped unless you missed the first TWO class meetings. Since I showed up at the second one... yeah. I think it has been cleared up, as the class is back on my schedule and my account seems in order. It took two days for it to let me back into the class' D2L site, and my NetDirect schedule appears to have been devoured by some Unix. Hm...

Our Midway campus has a computer lab. It's fairly small, but it's there. Now, the 1 1/2 hours between the two Thursday classes will not consist of me finding a spot to read or stare at the walls. Though, everything on Midway feels cramped... and most of the rooms lack windows, so it's a bit like being in a bomb shelter or secret underground lair. And despite my thinking that Thursday would be impossible, both classes went rather swiftly and were enjoyable. It's amazing how short group discussion activities break up the flow of the class.

What else... er... HLJ has updated with some stock photos of Gul Tiger, due out in March. And it suggests that Gul Tiger will come with its compatible grade-up item: The Gyrocrafter. I think. It's a pair of fans that made the IRL Tiger hover. Hovering Tiger look silly... they also have pics of King Liger, which make me wonder why I want one. Also, the new HMM Saber Tiger has started shipping, though it is now called Saber Tiger "Schwalz". Yeah. And since my last post, the Tigershark has taken yet another obnoxious turn. Some of the decals are doing something that I can't describe properly without bisecting my tongue. I'm hoping it's just because I didn't seal them on with Flat Coat yet, but I might have done that. If another coat doesn't help, then I say arses to the rest of the decals. Also, I just randomly decided that Zeekdober could stand to be painted. Thus far, it's only some of the detail work, but it just may expand to the whole thing.

I find it questionable that this is the only Target Lady sketch saved to NBC's video archive. Where are the rest, damnit!?