Friends Only. Mostly. 04.Jan.28 @ 12.12pm

All public entries more than a week old will be FO'ed, save book reviews and super huge events. Yeah, let's see how long this lasts.



53 never to be seen again ~ hop aboard that train

yo momma so fat she died of a heart attack. sorry you had to hear it from me. 09.Jul.09 @ 05.11pm New haircut owns.



70 never to be seen again ~ hop aboard that train

kucinich really is from a bizarre elf world so he can't be held 100% to human standards, but for all practical intents and purposes he's sane 06.Jul.09 @ 03.46pm This dude is my hero. Bringing good food and proper nutrition to all people and utilizing all space and being sustainable in farming practices GETS ME VERY PASSIONATE, THIS IS SO VERY IMPORTANT OMG

But I don't talk about it much because it just gets me riled. RILED. Long story short, read the article it is good.

Also, ( gardening, dog pics )

At least she likes getting brushed because someone has to pay attention to her while it's happening, which is more than I can say for Korky who decided some time in the past year that HE DOES NOT LIKE GETTING BRUSHED, NO SIR so he constantly walks away from you with this affronted look on his face as you chase after him, doubled over, with the Furminator in your pleading, outstretched hand.

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Also I don't think I ever really understood the adage "you're not a failure til you quit" until I started weightlifting. I did terrible - just terrible - on my 145# deads (worse than last week!) and my back is killing me today, but I didn't fail at them until I don't try them any more. Damn, lifting owns, everyone should do it.

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In sadder news, my tomatoes. They keep putting out blooms and then getting pollinated and now there are tiny half-pea sized tomatoes on them... but they never get any bigger. They are just sitting there. D: Maybe I'll move the pots into the middle of the yard so they won't be so hot. It finally cooled down to more manageable high 80s here but it's going back up to the hundreds this weekend. I... I hate summer.

e: I think the pots I have them in are too small. Only five gallon. But in my defense I was given these tomatoes as a gift with no information and didn't know they were indeterminate. I probably should have just assumed, I guess, but live and learn. Anyone think it'd still be ok for me to try transplanting them into the yard?

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terrorist (n): person who spontaneously explodes, or causes nearby explosions to gravitate towards their vicinity. 03.Jul.09 @ 04.11am Also! I didn't mention this, but I HAVE A HORSESHOE. A used, unpurchased horseshoe, manky with rust. I always wanted one over my door. Now I just have to figure out how to secure it, and where.

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Also I think I'll get rid of most of my clothes and buy a whole new wardrobe. I've never done that before.

I'm pretty sure the last thing I bought that wasn't absolutely necessary was last July. I still have t-shirts I wore in junior high.

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WHAT, THEY ARE STILL GOOD, I'M A SKINFLINT SAVER, GODDAMMIT

I'm buying it all off Etsy. If I do it, that is. havelock should come, too. We can start dressing like adults, or at least people of our means instead of penniless college students.

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Also going to chop more of my hair off and streak it black, this plan cannot possibly go wrong.

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What do you mean it's four in the morning?

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I know that.

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Shut up.

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imperialism just gets me SO FUCKING ANGRY *goes to poetry slam* 02.Jul.09 @ 09.22pm

RESTORE FROM DRAFT

( My favorite fairy tale. THE ANSWER MAY SURPRISE YOU )

Can't stop reading and writing microfic. Wrote one today that is 19 words long, and it's probably the best one I've written. I think it counts. Much is implied. I am in love with it. Also wrote one that I called, with the most noble of intentions, "They Tell Me I Was A Ninja Pirate Back During The War." It's relevant, I, um, swear.

This is one of my favorites that I've found: San Francisco.

Also playing Mass Effect and The World Ends With You. TWEWY is surprisingly fun. I like that I can just pick up the DS, flip it open, play a few battles, and put it away again. This is the best way to play an RPG.

23 never to be seen again ~ hop aboard that train

We acknowledge that a threat of death is torture, however it was not a threat of death, more of a guarantee of death 01.Jul.09 @ 10.27am Therion's album Gothic Kabbalah is surprisingly good, if you like that sort of thing. Which I do, for some reason. [edit: Jesus, forgot my cardinal rule to never listen to Viking metal lyrics, won't make that mistake again!)

Wrote like four original flash fictions yesterday. I thought they were all terribly clever and original when I wrote them. Now I don't like them as much. -_- Plus I have three iterations of the last one because the concept is sweet as hell but I can't seem to get it right. I was going to post them yesterday for concrit and then go play Mass Effect, but I just did the last part. Then I was going to put them here in this space for concrit, but it turns out I am a fragile wimp and I'm just going to eat breakfast and go to the gym instead.

I'm not moving up to 145# on my squats, even though I got all 135# last week (with terrible, awful, no-good form). I haven't been sleeping well and my 145# deads were miserable. I've also never failed out on squats before and the thought scares me. That's a lot of weight to fail under. I mean, there are safety bars and everything, but... yeah.

I have a fic I have to finish. I have to. I don't like it hanging over my head and I need to move on.

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BLEEP BLOOP CALCULATING ANTI-IMPERIALIST COEFFICIENTS 30.Jun.09 @ 01.22am There were hornworms on my tomatoes. I'm glad I noticed them, because I wouldn't want to lose to the mother-in-law in our tomato grow-off (she kind of made this into a competition, even though I am the one who tells her what to do to make sure her tomatoes don't, you know... die Like, "don't put them in a ten inch/one gallon pot," and "have drainage holes," &c.). Anyway. I found six hornworms (the one plant that had three is looking rather sad and defoliated), and I hope that was all of them because those assholes are hard to see. I peeled them off and threw them on the driveway and squished them with a brick. They went splat. It wasn't nearly as upsetting as I thought it would be, although there are now bright green hornworm guts all over the concrete.

On the upside I think, despite the atrociously hot weather, that the plants are setting fruit.

Also finished Persona 4. While I like the characters in P4 better than in P3, I think P3 is the superior game and had a more satisfying (to me) storyline and ending. Then I tried to finish Odin Sphere. But I messed up who the characters are supposed to fight during Armageddon, so there's no way for me to get the Good Ending now, which I didn't know about, and just... fuck it. Seriously, fuck it. I got hours of entertainment out of that game, and I'm ok with watching the ending on youtube.

I'm not doing well at all, but what else is new.

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You quoted Marx! The world falls to serfdom. 27.Jun.09 @ 05.52pm
Obama Drastically Scales Back Goals For America After Visiting Denny's

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Have I really not updated A Thousand Beautiful Things since two thousand fucking six? I should get on that.

( Boring Sad blather )

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It's effing hot. The cicadas have been rattling for weeks now. They're so loud I can hear them from the bathroom, from inside the shower. I'll be taking a shower, hear a cicada rattle, and, without fail, I will think, There's a rattlesnake in the drain. Get the ax.

29 never to be seen again ~ hop aboard that train

It's okay to be openly American again. 20.Jan.09 @ 01.07pm President Barack Hussein Obama.

Feels good, man.

gravity always wins: general mix, suicide songs 20.Dec.08 @ 03.09pm It's that gloomy, dark time of year, when all is cold and gray and thoughts turn inward. Here's a mix that may or may not cause your wrists to spontaneously slit themselves. From the inside. Only one song is vaguely upbeat in its chorus, but it's in Russian and the weight of centuries of culturally sanctioned misery cancel it out. So there.


( another died and the world just shrugged it off )

Comments appreciated.

As always, if any links expire, let me know and I will reup. Anyone wants to give a half-decent translation of Eto Zdorovo, that'd be much appreciated. <3

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fanmix: reasons to freeze to death 13.Nov.08 @ 04.06pm Hello, flist. Did I make a RavenxRita fanmix? I surely did. And was it hard as fuck to find songs that fit the crazy version of them that lives in my head? It surely was. And is there a half-finished fic to go along with it on my harddrive but that will probably never see the light of day? There surely is. But now there is music, some old, some new, so all is right with the world. I love every song in this mix (some a little too much), so. Enjoy.

( see how she's driving me down )

If any of the links expire I will be happy to reupload them for you. Just leave a comment!

72 never to be seen again ~ hop aboard that train

This guy says it far better than I ever could. 04.Nov.08 @ 10.01pm

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Nina Simone - Feeling Good

stars when you shine
you know how i feel
scent of the pine
you know how i feel
oh freedom is mine
and i know how i feel
it's a new dawn
it's a new day
it's a new life
for me

90 never to be seen again ~ hop aboard that train

Man wouldn't we look foolish if we got Obama elected and then his first act as president was to send death squads to kill us all 19.Apr.08 @ 01.30pm Recently I decided to go "more veg," as in more vegetarian because meat is terrible for the environment, yo. The only meat I'll voluntarily eat (that is, if it is not served to me at someone's house) is chicken. And since I don't really like chicken I've been virtually meatless for almost three weeks. Funnily enough, it doesn't really change my diet. But I've started cooking more. I've made rice my staple food and spend a lot of time stir-frying and steaming. Also around the time I decided to go more veg I found this lovely little Afghani place up in Frisco called Chopin Grill and fell in love with a pumpkin dish they serve. Since that's too far away to go drive there every day I decided to try making the dish myself by feel and with a little help from a similar recipe. It turned out to be very easy and quick to make and was a hit with the test group (havelock, the Human Bottomless Pit, and myself).

So:

Kada Burani a la Res
(Cinnamon Squash with Garlic Yogurt Sauce)

( SQUISH )

In other news, someone on the Economist staff had a bit of a nervous breakdown. Half the time I feel kind of bad for campaign journalists ("Candidate A visited Podunk, USA today and ate [local cuisine] at [local diner], then talked to the citizens about [issue] which voters say is important in this election. Candidate A then spewed out the portion of his stump speech most closely related to [issue]..."), and the other half of the time I remember it's their fault for creating the retarded framework we use to discuss problems in this country. Fuck corporate media.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Ben and Jerry's Crème Brûlée ice cream is the best ice cream in the known universe okay thank you for your time

18 never to be seen again ~ hop aboard that train

I can't be bothered to read this so I'm going to have to agree with it 18.Apr.08 @ 09.46am Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo recently golden_meliades, who is wonderful and lovely and amazing, sent me another pair of hairsticks so this seems like a great time to tell everyone all about her and her Etsy shop, The Far Grove. (I was supposed to do this like a month or two ago, but, well, I suck.)

golden_meliades makes jewelry. Like. Really really fabulous jewelry. She specializes in hairsticks but has branched out into necklaces and earrings and everything she makes is gorgeous jewel tones and earth tones and twinkly pastels and every time I open up her shop I kind of want to eat the merchandise. Yeah, I admit it. It looks delicious.



This one is my current favorite. I really dig bone.

I currently own three sets of hairsticks: a long green wooden one with green and purple glass beads named Olivia and a set of black bone with blue glass beads called Shesha. I love them both, Olivia because she's super fancy and I could probably kill someone with her if I move my head too fast and Shesha because he's short, easy to work with, and looks great with the application of a hair tie and four bobby pins. Personally I tend to pull my hair back into a ponytail, skewer the hairsticks behind the tie, then wrap my hair around them all fancylike.

Or you can just do this:



My newest set, whose name I cannot remember because all my personal effects are out in the garage including the card that came with them, wah wah wah, but this is just a bun tied with hair band and stuck through with the sticks in an extremely lazy fashion. Yes my hair is messy shut up.

Long story short, go see her stuff! Virtually anything in her shop would make a wonderful gift. :D



On a personal note I miss LJ. Maybe now that the house is in order and the life is back on track I can start reading my flist again. :/

21 never to be seen again ~ hop aboard that train

you can do those kind of things when you're like 3000 years old, a giant sandworm, control the geriatric spice, and can see through time. 29.Jan.08 @ 08.57am Q: So if she floods her flist with things people should buy or do...?
A: ...then she's... shameless?
Q: And therefore...?
A: ...A PIMP! A PIMP!

Today I am pimping "Kitsune for Charlotte." The background on this is that my dear and talented artist friend merimask has a lovely and talented daughter by the name of Charlotte who has been given an opportunity to go to Japan on an exchange program. This is one of those experiences of a lifetime, but unfortunately it's going to cost a lot of money. Like, in the thousands of dollars money. That's WAY more than Char could ever raise selling lemonade or magazines door to door, so the lovely and talented Meri has put up a new section on her site called "Kitsune for Charlotte." All the pieces in the shop are specially made for this fundraiser, and all the money spent on these items will go directly to Char's exchange trip fund. They are limited edition designs, and they will never be made again after the goal is reached, so GET THEM WHILE THEY'RE HOT! (Also YES there are KITSUNE masks in the shop, and they are kickin' rad. The whole shop section is Japanese themed, and there are tons of little pieces you can snatch up for only $15-$20.)

To whet the appetite, I don't think I've ever showed this before, but here is the lovely and gorgeous mask of Amaterasu (from the video game Okami) that Meri gave me.



I will personally vouch for the beauty of the craftsmanship and the love and thought that goes into every detail of Meri's art. (Seriously. Look at this piece of work. LOOK AT IT.) So grab something nice for yourself and up your karma by sending a bright young woman on the trip of a lifetime!



16 never to be seen again ~ hop aboard that train

The only time that book is useful is if you're stuck in a tower in an alternate timeline where the Nazis and Japanese won WWII 02.Jan.08 @ 05.51pm So I read no fewer than six books during the Rome vacation. Some were quite bad. One was quite good in some areas and not so good in others. One was delightful, but since I think I'm the last children's and YA reader on earth to read it I won't go into it.

And one I'd never heard of before, but it charmed the socks off me and I want to recommend it to everyone because it was witty and original and well plotted and had great characters and a weird conceit that I loved and now I'm afraid to read the sequel because I'm afraid it'll be screwed up but I'm going to buy it anyway:


The Secret of Castle Cant by K. P. Bath

In truth I find it almost impossible to describe. It takes place in the Barony of Cant, a tiny country hardly ever found on maps and stuck in the past. The pasttime of the upper classes is chewing gum. Lucy Wickwright, our heroine, is the maidservant of the Adored & Honourable Pauline von Cant, the young daughter of the baron, and must pander to her every whim. Unfortunately Pauline is very prone to Whims, and one whim lands Lucy in the middle of a plot against the Barony. She's too polite to say no, and so becomes a revolutionary. Until, of course, she discovers what they want to do to Pauline, &c. &c, &c. the whole thing is utterly charming and you can read the beginning here.

And an excerpt ( of my own choosing: )

So. Yeah. Loved it. Never heard of it. Thought I'd put it out there.

18 never to be seen again ~ hop aboard that train

I support Dennis Kucinich because only a hobbit is sufficiently pure of heart to bring the ring to Mount Doom. 20.Dec.07 @ 09.57am Yesterday I got a card from jacobford and a necklace from the wonderful and talented merimask! Thank you both!

And THIS seems like a good time to pimp out merimask's (semi)new website, where you can buy all her gorgeous leather artwork. She's really amazing; she's sent me four masks and several little pins (fluterbyes ♥ ♥ ♥!) and each one is awesome beyond description. Observe:

( Korky mask! )

( Orobouros mask! )

I also have a Sesshoumaru and an Ammy, both of which freak the hell out of me because they hang in the library and whenever I pass the door in the dark (which is every day) I think there's SOMEONE STANDING THERE OMG AAAAAAAAAA

...Uh, bottom line, she's amazing and you should look at her store and buy her stuff.



7 never to be seen again ~ hop aboard that train

People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore. 11.Apr.07 @ 11.20pm So it goes.

could a gorilla take down a bear using a trashcan full of babies? 24.Jun.06 @ 05.55pm Bear v. Man. Hilarity ensues.

I laffed.

Then I cried:

( Eragon, Chapter Two: In MEAT which MEAT our MEAT hero MEAT tries MEAT to MEAT buy MEAT MEAT MEAT. )

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Please prove I don't have a herd of unicorns that live up my butt. 14.Jun.06 @ 01.35pm Tee hee! I thought about going into law just so I could be a judge one day.

Anyway.

If you're here for the Aragorn Eragon, friend at will. Though I have no idea if any of my subsequent updates on the matter will be as entertaining as the first because this book? Is FUCKING BORING. Eta: it would be better if I just fucking rewrote it, but that would be a waste of time. I'm sorry.

( In which our hero discovers dramatic irony, but without the drama. Or the irony. )



I'm going to the library to write. Hopefully I can salvage something from my poor brain's wreckage. Holy shit this book is so fucking awful.

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All that reading...words nuance choosy hard. 13.Jun.06 @ 09.48am Spent the day yesterday walking all over Boston with the lovely and irrepressible moko_moko. Because we are in such an historic and incredible city, she took me to a bunch of wonderful, historical sites - mainly graveyards - and I took a bunch of wonderful, historical pictures - of gravestones - and all was well. We also ate candy, Thai, and Ethiopian. The last was with havelock who chewed through his ropes at tech ed and escaped to come home and find us selling his clothes to hobos and Japanese businessmen. Also reading Aragorn Eragon. This is all moko_moko's fault. Luckily, the chapters are short, so I will document and complain about each and every one for posterity's sake, starting tomorrow, maybe, if I'm not dead of walking. Which I love but which also killed my feet.

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Oh, what the hey.

( In which Paolini builds the world from his semen and the body of his mother. ...okay, just kidding, he's not nearly that creative. )

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Interweb spotty at best. Aquarium calling. Must go.

115 never to be seen again ~ hop aboard that train