Yeah.. my life is lacking in interesting stuff at the moment. I unlocked Baby Luigi on MarioKart at last; I had a Carmen Sandiego dream last night where I discovered I fail at stealing landmarks, but at least I got a fish. Oh joy.

Anyways, have memes. :D

Respond and I will:

1. Tell you why I friended you.
2. Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a color, a photo, etc.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
6. Tell you my favorite user pic of yours.

In return you must post this in your journal.

~*~

Ask me seven questions. Not just any seven questions though. No, to keep it interesting, use the seven questions as per below - just copy and paste the following, replace the blanks with something you want to know/ask (e.g. 4. Donkeys or sandcastles and why?), anything you want, personal, silly, surreal or deep, comment away and I'll answer honestly as I can! Then post this in your own LJ and see what kind of things people want to ask you!


1. What do you think of _____________ ?

2. When did you last ____________?

3. __________ or ___________ and why?

4. What did you ______________?

5. What's your favorite ______________?

6. How would you ______________?

7. Who would you most like to ________ ?

~*~

And last, but not least:

List 12 of your favorite characters. And the follow the prompts. It makes for lulz.

1) Urahara Kisuke (Bleach)
2) Zaraki Kenpachi (Bleach)
3) Iroh (Avatar)
4) Carmen Sandiego (...guess.)
5) Maes Hughes (FMA)
6) Jin (YYH)
7) Calcifer (Howl's Moving Castle)
8) Marcus Cole (Babylon 5)
9) Julian Bashir (ST:DS9)
10) Beast (X-Men)
11) Hatori (Furuba)
12) Tasha Yar (ST:TNG)

( Okay. Now to see what insanity the prompts are... )

Yeah, yeah, bad pun. Oh well. MarioKart for the Wii is awesome. Awesome.

It's the right blend of old tracks remastered and new tracks with new ideas. Bouncing on mushrooms? Check. Going through underwater tubes where it's so cool that you get distracted and stop looking at the track? Check. Tracks that change, like areas filling up with sand? Check. New music that's fun and fitting? Check.

Even better? My favorite tracks have always been Bowser's Castle. This one has FOUR. Four Bowser's Castles. A new one, the Game Cube one, the N64 one, and the GBA one.

I just spent 3 hours beating all of the 50cc tracks, hee. I haven't even gotten to the bikes yet, in 100cc, probably will later today.

I &hearts Nintendo.

You know, compared to sitting at a desk, being at a conference is a nice change of pace. There were points that were extraordinarily boring, but parts that were fun and interesting too. I think I'm happy I was sent.

A few points were made that I'm not so sure I agree with, like everything needing to be experiential if we want to reach 20-somethings and 30-somethings, but more experiential stuff does work. Of course, it works more if you don't wind up alienating the disabled. But I know that people with disabilities are rarely at the forefront of people trying to sell their brand or product, so we kinda get lost in the shuffle. It's a little disappointing.

They served us a pizza lunch today, hee. And while eating, I'm looking around at our group. Someone was missing. I glanced at R. "Hey, R, where's D?"
She glances around. "She was just here..."
M walks in. "Hey, weren't you guys riding with D? Any idea why she just left?"
Yep. We were ditched. She didn't bother to say a thing to us. I'm less than impressed. I got a ride home, though, with another coworker, an hour after the planned departure time, but an hour before poor R.

I'm home, though! Yay! And I can rest and play and be gleeful about MarioKart coming out tomorrow, hee! :D

This whole post, summarized in case you don't feel like reading much: MegaCon = WOOHOO! Super Smash Brothers Brawl = WOOHOO! Pictures = this afternoon.


Picture spam to follow this afternoon in another post. I was going to shift pictures from camera to computer while at work, since it happens in the background and means I can work on appropriate stuffs while that happens, but the work dock blocks the USB ports, so that will happen later.

Mo, if you're reading this, I looked everywhere for you, and asked so many Axels if they were/knew a Mo. (One even got asked three times, whoops. Twice by me, once by a bunch of friends who was trying to help. Only because she was carrying a gigantic yaoi paddle later did I recognize her and not ask again. Poor harassed Axels... but they all started to look alike at the end there.)



( And now for the in-depth stuff that may wind up long enough to kill an f-list or five: )

And that was a relatively short summary of my exhausting (but very good) weekend.

My lungs feel rather tight. Ever since I finished the antibiotics, the cough has been slowly coming back. Yesterday was a little worse than the day before, and this morning has not been pleasant. I called the doctor's office and they called in a new scrip. I hope this one helps. If not, I get to go visit the doctor again. Fun.

Anyways... I played Assassin's Creed yesterday. It is awesome. So much fun, so well-made... I got to Damascus and made my first real hit. :D I love how huge the world is, how much stuff you can climb, how many different horses you can steal borrow... It's got a lot of different commands, and in some games I tend to mess them up (Hello, Pirates of the Caribbean. Nothing like blowing myself up with a bomb when I wanted to shoot the guy...) but it tells you how to do what, in a non-intrusive and non-patronizing way. And it's so much fun. Slide up behind the guy, and down he goes... Apparently there's also these other guys lounging around, besides the main target, that you can slide up behind and take out, and aren't innocents, so you're allowed to do it.

You can also climb up these huge towers and look around, and then leap-of-faith off the top. If you do it right, you land in hay and it's awesome. If you, say, hit the joystick slightly wrong and he goes off the side, though... yeah. It looks painful before he dies. Not fun. I like jumping railings and leaping into hay. It's fun to hear the normal villagers comment as they watch Altair (the character) running and leaping and climbing.. "Is that normal?" "He's going to hurt himself." Hee. I just wish I had a console that would run it. Oh well. I can hope I get invited back to Logan's place to hang out with him and Jason again. (These are, by the way, Nameless Arrancar and Isshin of the Bleach Mob, respectively.)

I bought Okami. I will be starting it soon. :D Though, I need to re-beat the GameCube Fire Emblem on Normal so I can get the Wii Fire Emblem and enjoy the bonuses from having beaten the GC one...

I haven't had a scraped elbow in about ten years. Apparently, that's too long. Poor elbow.

Anyways, my church had our annual Christmas party, and this year the theme was 'Reindeer Games.' Only eight reindeer ever performed well enough to qualify for pulling Santa's sleigh, so our pastor decided this meant the games had to be physically tough. They were.

I made it without injury through the paper relay, the snowball fight, and the snowball-clean-up-race (smart game, hee). But then it was the wheelbarrow racing. It's been ages since I have wheelbarrow raced. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, one person lifts the legs of a second, and the second runs on their hands. Dad had my legs. We did very well the first time, moving quickly. The second time, though, we were nearly halfway done when the pastor yelled "Twenty seconds!" Dad sped up. There was no way I could keep up with him jogging. We crashed dramatically. My arms and elbow hurt. But it was fun.

The BleachMob Christmas party did not go as planned.

Jason, Logan, and Lisa made it. It was cool to see Logan again; since he lives so far away he hadn't been to any of the gatherings, and I hadn't seen him since AFO. We were first supposed to go to Amura. Amura is apparently no longer open on Saturdays. We went to Crispers instead.

After a difficult time figuring out how the restaurant worked, Logan showed interest in the Hot Russian sandwich. He rapidly backtracked, but it was too late. Jason teased him about it for almost two hours... We discussed Avatar, and Laura's idea that we cosplay Avatar characters one day. Logan's for it, might cosplay Iroh. Jason still hasn't seen it. And I think he's probably still scared by 'the giant flying thing,' Appa.

We watched the Death Note movie, which is apparently only the first half. It was different from the manga, but in a good way, mostly.

Then Lisa came over and we played Super Smash Brothers Melee. I'm not very good at it. But it is fun being Kirby and getting different hats. We unlocked the stage that turns. I fell more times than I can count. I don't like that stage... Because of Lisa's work schedule she had to leave after that.

For dinner we were going to get Chinese food at Panda Express, but Jason decided he was too good for my directions and we drove in a giant circle. He saw Smokey Bones so we headed there, but ended up driving in more circles to get to it. That was great. Dinner was also good, but we were still rather full from Crispers and ice cream.

Went back to my place, watched the two most recent Bleach Eps, checked out the PSP Bleach game, discussed posters, Chocolate Rain, and facebook, and I gave them the mini-lesson in swing-tenor I gave Laura, Lauren, and Taisa. Jason figured out in five minutes a move that took one of our band's swing tenors about two years and took me a day. I'm only slightly jealous. Really. Just slightly. First time picking up the sticks. What the heck...

After that, they headed out. It was about 1:30 a.m. We talked a bit by the cars as it started to sprinkle, but it was late.

Both things were fun. Here's hoping, though, that we can pull off a Bleach Mob Party instead of a Moblet Party...

A minor sidenote: I have a burn on my left hand, and no idea how it got there...

I now has a PS2. :D

Lisa found a Wii and her fiance got a PS3, and they decided to creatively recycle their PS2. I am quite happy.

I need game recs, for it, though. I've always been a Nintendo girl. Yes, there are many games I have gazed at in a dreaming fashion for other systems... but now I don't remember them. Lisa is loaning me Kingdom Hearts, so that's a good start, and I'll be snagging every used Final Fantasy game I can find, but what else is out there? She also gave me Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland and the Lego Star Wars games. (They're getting the special edition with all of them.)

To make things maybe a little easier, I love puzzle games, quirky racing games, RPGs, and questing and exploring. My favorite games are the Myst series, the pre-Wii Paper Mario, and MarioKart.

We had our last ceramics class last night, and we glazed our pieces to be fired again.

My coil sake bottle is going to be turquoise with the kanji for 'spirit' in white puffy-glaze. Should be pretty. I picked that symbol for two reasons: one - I hope someday to have a chance to do more coil work, and make four matching glasses that say earth, air, water, and fire, and two - the pun amused me. Spirits, sake, yeah. I have a lame sense of humor.

My bento tray survived, and is going to be speckle-brown with rust edging. Shall see how that turns out.

My pinch-pot will be a dark blue with green and white speckles.

My wheel pot was not dry enough to be fired, so it will be fired and not glazed. That's all right, I can always paint it or something later. It's as nice looking as I remembered it. I'm still surprised that it came out pretty.

Switching tacks... I called Hana's moves funny the other day. They're not against Kenpachi. I defeated the first seven opponents in Hanatarou's chapter without dying. And then I died on Kenpachi. FIFTEEN TIMES. I can't seem to get him lower than half-health unless we do the rock-paper-scissors thing. Zaraki is a freaking tank, and Hana... yeah. I end up healing Kenpachi, too. I'll beat that chapter, but I need to figure out how.

First of all, the good points:

1. Kenpachi is tough. While I don't like dying, I can accept dying on him during story mode. And when he's in Bankai mode (takes off eyepatch) he can squish freaking EVERYTHING.

2. The movements are intuitive. I admit, there are still times when I'm hitting the A button wondering why Hitsugaya is just staring at his opponent, but then I remember to swing too.

3. The chapters are excellently sized. It can take 10 to 20 minutes to defeat a Chapter/Episode, depending solely on how many times you die on Kenpachi. Oops. This means you can speed through a chapter on, say, a lunch break. ;) This lunch break, I intend to crush everyone as Zaraki...

4. I've beaten the first three chapters so far: Ichigo, Renji, and Hitsugaya. Renji and Ichigo's storylines are believable, as the two of them are not the brightest bulbs.

5. Hanatarou attacks by ROLLING, since his Zanpakutou heals. Funniest (and most surprising) attack yet. "What the... he fell over? Wait! Ouch!"

(Edited to add) Two funniest moments of the game so far:
A) Byakuya posing and telling Ichigo he will punish him. I was just waiting for him to pull out a wand and yell "Cherry Blossom MAKE-UP!"

B) Hitsugaya vs. Shunsui - Hitsugaya tells Shunsui to give Hitsugaya the shards, and Shunsui can punish him however later. I don't know how safe it is to tell Kyouraku Shunsui that, to be honest...


Not as good:

1. Yes, you're an English voice actor. But that is no excuse for completely mispronouncing stuff. Zangetsu may look like it has three syllables, but it has two. I promise. And Soukyoku has two also, not four.

2. Hitsugaya is not stupid. Shunsui is not going to ignore someone and fight solely on orders from Yamamoto, regardless of what the other person is trying to do. Kubo wrote this. Why is he not keeping them in character?

3. Orihime's shirt is apparently stuffed with jello. It doesn't stop moving, even when she does. I get it, she's buxom. But... come on.


All in all, it's good. I wish the voice acting was half as decent as the Japanese version, and I wish there was logic behind some of this stuff.

My left thumb and right arm are a little sore today. I wonder why. ;)

As a few of you may know, I've got a Wii. As none of you knew yet, I bought Super Paper Mario last night. :D It's lots of fun, though it's very different from the other Paper Marios. It's more of a blend between Super Mario World and Paper Mario. I don't know if anyone on my f-list likes Mario, even, but I am a bit of a Mario addict.

The Paper Mario series had turn-based fighting, which was more like an RPG. We're back to jumping on enemies' heads and using tricks to beat the bosses. There are still partners, which I'm glad of, but they don't really fight. Sure, one can pick up and throw stuff, and you need him for a couple of places, and there's a bomb-type (no, not Bomb-omb, that's not a typo, unfortunately) who can blow enemies up, but they don't seem to have the same connection with Mario. It's not bad, though. It's not a real Paper Mario title, but I'm enjoying it nonetheless.

Fun stuff aside, am going slightly insane. I don't think my Uni wants me to graduate. They keep telling me I don't have enough credits for May graduation, but each time I talk to them they admit I do. I'm a bit confused. Three papers left to write in my entire scholastic career. It's a very, very odd feeling.

Done. No more tests or revisions. Have Mountain Dew, Nintendo 64, MarioKart 64, and Chinese food. Time to kick back and relax.

Hmph. My fortune cookie says "The only certainity is that nothing is certain." That's not a fortune. Silly people probably spent too much time on Sloganizer or something. Anyways. Time to Red Turtle Shell some Donkey Kong.

Oh, a question before I go. If I post a couple of my stories and friends-lock them, does that mean they don't count as being published? I know that if I post them in the public domain many people view them as published, but I wonder about private...

Yeah, I know I missed several days there. Let's see... I've been going insane starting to work on Christmas presents, I've been stuck in bed two days because of the stupid low pressure fronts that made me ridiculously dizzy and achey, I've been playing Neopets, of all things, had fun throwing up blood today... Hm. Nothing really major, though. My muses ran away, again. At this rate I might as well give up on being a writer. Oh well.

Here, want to waste time playing with dragons and other cute pet things? Click on the Xweetok... the green-and-brown thing here:



Enjoy. I get rewards too if you do that, though I can't recall offhand what they are. Oh well. I'm boredtadan and plushietadan there.

Had to add this, gotten from Zara's journal ( http://strangeland.blogdrive.com/ ) Apparently schools are now trying to punish students for activities outside of class... http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113268572534704333-kl_gh5uVNgDPNPepwznr7DnkfW8_20051204.html?mod=blogs

La de da.. sitting in the classroom before class starts again. Got here quite early because I had a test in the class before this one. Bored. Quite bored. And the teacher doesn't like Runescape so I can't fire that up while I wait.

If I was smart, I would have stored my homework stories on my USB drive. But I'm a blonde. Alas and alak.

One of the questions on the test was "What is a mugwump?" Is it bad that my first thought was Albus Dumbledore, Supreme Mugwump? I may have someone to go see Harry Potter IV with, I may be able to go with my aptmates. I hope so...

Yeesh. So BORED. Oh well. At least I'm confident that I did well on the test. Now if only this computer had solitaire.

This holiday season has been rough. I've wanted it to just be over since right about the time it began. But I'm reconsidering that feeling now.

This morning Paul was at church. He's my former youth pastor who moved a couple of years back for a different job. He is also the closest person I've ever had to a mentor. I've missed him for a bit, and seeing him was an awesome surprise. He went out to lunch with my family, and we spent a while talking.

Had a pretty peaceful afternoon. Little ones played with Sonic and Chao babies. I got to speak to Tony and straighten out the stuff that was going on there... then Thad came on. :D

Just having a chance to talk with him, to know that everything is fine, makes for a wonderful evening. Not to mention thinking about the fact that he'll be here in less than 48 hours... exciting and a little frightening.

I am so bored with life right now...it seems repetitive and dull. Get up, play gothador, do school stuff, work on writing, do more school stuff, do gothador again...I need to get a life. Of course, to have a life, one would need a means of transportation. I may be walking again come december...but I have no idea when I'll be driving again. I don't know how I'll ever drive again. I'm terrified to think of myself behind the wheel of a car. I'd be seated, so I wouldn't lose my balance, but I'm not sure how I'd stay on the road. So those both have me down...

The U.S. Social Security administration also is discouraging. It's been a year and a half since I've been disabled and not able to work. Christmas is coming around again, and I'm not sure if I can cover everyone in my family. But who could I leave out? I can't.

A happy face is so draining at times.

I miss Thad. It's been a week since he's had time to say more than "Hi, exhausted, love you, goodnight". It's almost scary how much I miss him. What happens if we don't 'click' when he comes down here? What happens if we *do*?

Enough pessimism. I tried the new Pepsi 'Holiday Spice' tonight. It's pretty good. At first it tastes fairly normal, but there is an aftertaste that reminds me of spiced apple cider. Tried looking for a new LJ icon today...found some possibilities, but nothing that really stood out. I'll try again tomorrow, I think.


Edited to add: I'm worth $2,341,823.61. How much are you worth? Yeah. I think they're a bit off...I wish I was worth that much.

I'm at the point where I have so much to do that I can't focus and do one thing at a time. I have a powerpoint presentation to make, an excel chart to fill out, two stories to rewrite, a story to proofread/critique, a quiz to take...and all I can think of is how much I want to play Myst:Uru and go back to the Kadish Tolesea gallery. I do need to beat Uru before I get Myst:Revelations. It might help if there was a way to listen to the gallery music while working...

Oh well. I met with my Creative Writing professor today...got signed up for an internship next term with the University literary journal and was assured that I'm getting a high grade in the course. I think she gave three of us heartattacks in class last night when she said, talking about how more classes might open for next term, "Some students will fail and have no idea they're failing" and looked us in the eye. Nothing like the potential for failure in a class I've worked hard in to add more stress to the load.

Going stir-crazy. This is the latest I've ever waited to start Christmas shopping. I hate having to rely on someone else to help me get out...Well, if I'm lucky, I might be driving again by my birthday. That would be an awesome present to give myself. :)

*sigh* And back to trying to work I go...