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NaNoWriMo, Day 3

2008-11-04T02:02:50Z

So ends the third day...

I still have a flu, though it's not as bad as it was yesterday. I'm toughing it out the best I can, not letting it affect what's really important. And I'm drinking lots of water. Can't forget the water. Not the soda, not the milk. WATER.

Starting tomorrow I think I'm going to have to actually CONSULT the outline I have written up. Considering I've done all my words so far in the interaction between two characters I haven't had to resort to the rest of the notes I have, but considering the rest of the story is built on Loads and Loads of Characters I think I'm going to have to use my notes.

Unless they start getting in the way of writing. In which case fuck 'em.

Words written: 5206
Words needed: 5000
Spread: +206

NaNoWriMo, Day 2

2008-11-03T01:34:40Z

I has a flu. It fucking sucks. Not only that, but trying to crack jokes about having the flu is squeezing blood from a stone. Everything there is to say about has already been said so many times it's not funny anymore.

This isn't exactly the rousing start to this contest that I was hoping for. I'm literally two days in and I got laid out by a rampant disease. But, as my mood states, "I won't lose". It will take more than a stupid virus to get me to quit. Not Tief Blau, and certainly not anything like a stupid flu virus.

I will finish 50,000 words if I have to pound on the keyboard with the bloody stumps that used to be my arms!

Words written: 3450
Words needed: 3334
Spread: +116

NaNoWriMo, Day 1

2008-11-01T22:52:26Z

For those of you wondering what NaNo is...

Status Report:

The first day of this task has gone rather well. After only two hours I managed to hit my quota for the day, and I rode this wave of productivity to build a healthy safety buffer in case I hit a block or a day gets too busy to work (read: Black Friday). I want to build a safety net large enough so that I can skip one or two days entirely without suffering for it.

It feels nice to come back to The Icks. I tried to run the story as a PBEM roleplaying game, but I forgot to take into account that I suck so it didn't last very long. I have a rough outline and a few characters set up, and other than that it's all coming off the top of my head. I'll be doing daily updates, so you can watch me finish my first novel manuscript. Or alternatively, watch my psyche unravel. Either way it'll be fun fun fun!

Words needed: 1667
Words written: 2137
Spread: +470

thearchimage @ 2008-10-31T00:26:00

2008-10-31T04:28:40Z

Considering my 27th birthday is coming up within the next two months, this makes me sad.

SEVEN DAYS...

2008-10-13T03:35:39Z

T minus one week until I break the hearts of hundreds of women nationwide and become a married man.

To tell the truth, I don't think it's quite sunk in yet. Just eight years ago I considered myself completely ineligible for a romantic relationship and I was right; I was a socially unacceptable, emotionally distant, conceited little bastard with a stunted libido. Not that I'm much different now, but I like to think I've tempered the more obvious flaws in my personality. I first met my girl five years ago. At that point in time I had only been on a single date about three months prior and I wasn't especially sold on the whole "female relationship" thing. I had seen her in the lunch hall once or twice (not often, since at the time I was living in the townhouses on campus and not on the cafeteria meal plan). All I really knew about her from our short meets was, 'Damn, her tits are huge.' Remember what I said about before about socially unacceptable? She wasn't on my "acceptable" list as she had a boyfriend at the time and even though I thought he was a douche from the moment I met him I don't do the whole "cheating" thing. It's an appalling lack of manners.

About two weeks later the girl I dated sent me an email telling me never to call her again. I had left a message on her machine saying I was still in love with her, even though I wasn't and hadn't even thought about her in weeks. It was a recurring pattern in that relationship; I acted the way I thought the man in a relationship should act, rather than let my actions flow naturally from my own personality and temperament. I wasn't especially heartbroken; hell, I don't remember her name, face, or really why I even decided to date her in the first place. I think I just told you about it solely to make an observation: if I had started dating my current fiance when we first met, it would have gone down in flames.

Over the next year I discovered quite by accident that I had an awesome power; I could seduce any girl over the internet and make her fall in love with me without even trying. The drawback, of course, was that the girl had to be under the age of consent. And I couldn't turn it off. Talk about your cursed gifts! I quickly became a popular member of certain chat rooms, despite going sometimes for hours saying nothing more intellectually stimulating than "Heh." I didn't quite realize the extent of the danger I was in until one of the girls asked for a "chatroom wedding" during a slow time and I accepted, thinking it was just a bit of fun. She was quite serious, which ended extraordinarily poorly when I finally made it clear that, no, I am not seriously dating you and in fact I would be arrested quite quickly if I so much as considered it. As you can imagine, some of my friends had a good laugh at my misfortune. I expect this post will open up myself to them calling me "pedophile" again.

Four years ago I torpedoed a blossoming internet romance with my own deep-rooted paranoia and fear of rejection. Despite me being East Coast and she being West Coast we did like each other, quite a lot in fact. But she was something of a flirt, and it's just something I was never able to wrap my head around. Misunderstanding the situation I told her I didn't love her anymore, only to be told she still loved me. To date this is probably the only relationship mis-step I've made that I deeply regret; I really did care for this person, but in the end my own feelings mattered more than hers. In the end I simply didn't trust her. Or perhaps, couldn't; not through any fault of her own, but due to my own inability to have any faith in others. We were literally an entire country away, I did get over her fairly quickly afterwards, we fell out of touch soon afterward for unrelated reasons, and it probably never would have worked out. No matter how I try to rationalize it like that, remembering that January night still makes me want to smack myself in the head and say, "Dammit, I'm an asshole." I don't even know why I'm writing this here and now. But it's not something I can bring up randomly and I think it's a story that has to be told, a wrong that has to be admitted, or perhaps a demon that needs to be exorcised. If you're reading this now, I won't apologize to you here (that would only serve to make me feel better and nothing else), but I won't object if you want to contact me, even if only to yell at me.

From there I started a relationship with one of the girls from the Rivier Anime Club. In retrospect I think she felt something for me, judging by how she would continually ask to hang out and some of the conversations we had. At the time I was completely oblivious, enjoying her company as a friend but not really thinking of her as an object of romance. Of course, it's not like that particular relationship had a future after one of my friends (who, I should point out, can be quite vindictive) discovered that she was the internet stalker harassing him. As you can imagine, this made for some very awkward tension.

Around this time there was another internet relationship, this one with a 16 year old girl (which is legal in my state, so don't you judge me). To this day I can't really put a label on the relationship. Friends? Father and daughter? Confidants? We were close emotionally but it would stretch the term to unrecognizability to say we were seeing each other. Not because she was in Connecticut (I counted girl #2, remember), but because while she had a crush on me I was romantically cool toward her, sometimes even cold. It was with her that I had my first, last, and only session of "cyber". She declared me so good at it that I must have written lemons under a nom de plume, and I declared it an amusing experiment (especially since I was still a virgin at the time) but I had no interest in pursuing further encounters of the sort. I wasn't kidding when I said "stunted libido", either. Our relationship remained in a nebulous state until she came out as a lesbian. This did not stop me from drunk-dialing her in the early AM hours to ask, "Can we have sex now?" (in my own defense I intended it as a joke and this is how she received it). I still talk with her on occasion.

There was one final torrid (har har) relationship. I don't remember much about her, other than that we hung out a few times and that we were a salt and pepper couple (I am a pale white, she was rather dark-skinned... Hawaiian, maybe? Don't remember). I remember talking about religious beliefs with her, and I distinctly remember telling her that while I did not condemn sex before marraige, I didn't think it was necessarily a good idea (I should point out that I no longer believe this for totally unrelated reasons). I say "distinctly" because she dumped me the next weekend. I later learned that she had wanted to fuck me pretty badly. Like, from the moment we met. Ah, why could I have not thrust off the chains of repressed sexuality earlier?! Ha ha ha, that's a joke. No really hon, you can put the baseball bat down now...

Which, I suppose, brings us full-circle; during all this time I had become a friend of my current fiance, and we hung out together often. She had broken up with her boyfriend, somewhat messily. We began officially dating about three years ago; it only took as long as it did to get together because I didn't want to manipulate her by catching her on the rebound. I lost my virginity about a month later (the terminally curious can look through the archives of this journal; I made an unassuming but cryptic entry on the day it happened). About two years ago we began living together and haven't been seperated since. Throughout this time I have become intensely aware of her strengths, her interests, her idiosyncrasies, her thought process, and, yes, even her flaws. I've given up quite a lot to stay with her. I've had to smooth out more than a few feathers she's ruffled among our mutual friends. There have been times I have been furiously angry, deeply frightened, and inconsolably sad. But there really isn't anything about this relationship, past or present, that I'd want to change.

There is probably... no, most certainly nobody on this earth who understands me to the depth that she does. There are aspects of my personality that I fear making known, even to my closest friends; she has accepted all of them. If I am my own worst critic she is my greatest cheerleader as well as my most ruthless editor. I love her as I have loved no one else, and if all she asks in return for staying by my side is my name than I am happy to give it.

Jesus, how did that post get so long?

So anyway, I'm getting married in a week and I'm really looking forward to it.

thearchimage @ 2008-09-19T23:38:00

2008-09-20T04:33:20Z

I've been doing a lot of reading about politics lately. No, this is not going to become a political blog. I can't be that long-winded that consistently. But I have trouble in political discourse in person; I like to rely on things like "evidence" and "logic", neither of which is necessarily quick to have on-hand in a face-to-face chat. To say nothing about my stuttering problem or my difficulty in forming coherent thoughts quickly (for those that I have acted as GM for, that is the one place where improvisation works for me; it does shit everywhere else). I have a couple axes to grind that are near and dear to my heart, and I'd like to tackle them both at once so people who don't like to read political discourse can just stop now and be rest assured I'm not going to come back and spring another politics rant on them later. So if you don't like to read about politics, you're probably better off not clicking the big evil blue bar of text below. Just pretend I agree with you and walk away.

Several of my friends identify as "libertarian", but I've never been able to coax what that means out of them. So I looked around myself and found a document explaining their beliefs. Now, at first it all looks pretty nice. More freedom? Good. More civil liberties? Yes please! Then we get to section 2 and it all falls apart. Their faith in the "free market" is absolutely ludicrous; the past week should have taught people that businesses don't care about absolutely fucking anything but making profits, but libertarians insist that they'll somehow have a "mandate" to be socially and environmentally responsible? Since when have they ever taken such a mandate seriously? This isn't just idealistic, it's mind-bogglingly ignorant of history and a total failure of common sense. Markets should provide for education? So I guess if people WANT to be taught creationism we should oblige! Never mind that the education level of the United States is in a pretty sorry state right now, and letting people get taught what they WANT without any oversight or accountability is only going to make things worse. Matter of fact, giving businesses control of just about anything without regulation and accountability is a really bad idea, and has been since 1928. Oh whoops, did I just make all of you deregulation nuts out to be frauds? Damndest thing. So yeah, I will never, EVER vote libertarian or take your political views seriously if you claim to be one.

Several of my other friends have expressed disinterest in politics, saying they will either abstain or put in a joke vote/third party vote. See, this kind of thing is what we call a "bad idea". A lot of people did exactly this in 2000. This kind of thinking put the missing link in the White House (for the record, I voted for Gore; seven years later, he's won a Nobel Peace Prize and correctly pointed out that global warming is real and man-made while the monkey has presided over the worst administration in US history and guilty of multiple impeachable offenses). And for what? So that they can claim "I voted for the other guy" no matter who wins and skirt any responsibility for doing your fucking job as a member of a democratic nation? Socially and intellectually inexcusable. Get your head out of your ass, study the relevant issues, and vote for the candidates in each office who you MOST agree with. No, you might not agree with any candidate on everything. You aren't going to find a custom-fit candidate in an off-the-rack system. It just ain't gonna happen. But if you don't vote FOR the guy you agree with more, then you're helping the guy you agree with LESS to win (a.k.a. "The Lesson of 2004"). Elect someone whose positions you would most like to see enacted, then engage in protests and letter-writing campaigns to sway those elected closer to your views. Make yourself heard. Yes, it takes work. Yes, it's sometimes hard and nothing is really guaranteed. But, and this is going to really hurt to hear, if you simply lay back and act smug about how you KNEW the guy who got elected was wrong, or act defeatist about how "it doesn't matter who wins it will still be a politician", or just check off the box randomly without giving any thought, or vote straight down the party line without really looking at what each candidate is saying and what they stand for...

Then you're part of what's wrong with US democracy. Not the media. Not the politicians. Not the special interests. YOU.

thearchimage @ 2008-09-01T22:43:00

2008-09-02T02:43:59Z

Wii Fit is killing me one day at a time.

At least I've lost six pounds this week.

thearchimage @ 2008-07-23T12:08:00

2008-07-23T16:34:24Z

I broke down and bought an MP3 player the other day. It's just a cheap, outdated, obsolete 2 gig dealie that was being used as a display model and was now being sold on clearance. All told, I paid about $30 for it. I didn't think I'd need any more space than that. So, I brought it home and started filling it up. I have about 7 gigs of MP3s on my hard drive. I've spent a good four or five years collecting it (understandable when you realize very little of it was pulled off of CDs and none of it is widely available on this side of the pond). When I finished uploading all the music that I could stand to listen to on a daily basis, it took up about 600 megs. I still have two-thirds of my tiny drive empty. I think the wheat/chaff ratio of my music collection is a little borked. I would like to correct this, but most of the music communities that are the main reason I joined LJ in the first place have long since dried up and died.

In the meanwhile, what the hell do I do with the 6 gigs of music that didn't make the cut? It seems like a waste to delete it, especially since it's not like I hate the songs; I just have to be in a specific mood to want to listen to them. At the same time, that's a lot of hard drive space that I could use for other things.

A "better" blogger could probably turn this into an anti-consumerism rant, or a life-affirming "out with the old" style call for everyone to examine what's really important in their lives, but not everybody wants or needs every event in their life to have deep, hidden meanings. And NOBODY deserves to read someone waxing philosophical due to tangentially related boring crap that nobody cares about. Sometimes a post is just a post, problems really are as small as they seem, and there doesn't need to be a point to doing something beyond doing it for its own sake.

Oh shit, I still have one of these don't I?

2008-07-11T08:54:36Z

Does anyone even still have me on their friends list? Hello?

I can't say I'm surprised I've let this journal languish for so long. Probably the thing that keeps me from posting here more is that I don't consider my life very interesting. On a good day, I spend the day at the house of my future mother-in-law doing laundry and playing FFTA2. On a bad day, the post would read something like "I went to work, picked up my fiance from work, came back home, went to sleep." And who the fuck really wants to read that? Oh yeah, that's the other thing. I got engaged, and it never crossed my mind to post an update about that. I like keeping my private life PRIVATE and off the internet. I don't see this as a negative in the grand scheme of things, but it's not very conducive to a site you're supposed to be using to keep everyone updated on your situation.

So, obviously keeping this thing as an online diary has failed miserably, as my last relevant post being years ago can probably attest. So I'm thinking about what to do with this. It seems like such a waste to just delete it (after all, it doesn't cost me anything to upkeep it), so I figure there must be some niche it can fill. Did anyone even read the short fiction I posted last time? I dunno. I'd like to keep this journal as a place for writing stuff, but I don't have the urge to post short fiction often because my plots grow too complex too quickly (I was once accused of being unable to have a walk-on character that didn't have a complex backstory). I might post excerpts of whatever I'm working on, maybe as a way to keep the creative juices flowing and get some feedback on it. And I DO plan to do NaNoWriMo this year, so this might be a neat place to keep track of my progress.

I don't want to promise frequent updates, but I do want to at least make my intentions known. Anyway, it's time to clear out a few cobwebs and do a little dusting. You know how these old places get when they haven't been used in a while...

Thought exercise

2007-11-15T00:54:04Z

I live with a human.

He usually calls me his "pet", but also jokes with others that "I'm really his pet", so I don't really know what kind of relationship we have. All I know is, he dispenses food for me, and in return I just have to be quiet and hide in the closet when someone he calls "the landlord" appears. In the early years he seemed to truly enjoy watching me toy with mice, but he must have grown out of this. Those particular playthings haven't been around for a long time, but he doesn't seem bothered about it.

I don't see much of him anymore. Not long after the sun comes up he dresses all in black and leaves, and doesn't return until the sun is going down. While he's here, he mostly just stares into lights. He gets home, the large box in front of my favorite resting spot starts emitting light and sound, and he just sits in front of it for hours. He has a similar, but smaller box on his desk as well. This one never turns off. He'll sit in front of that one for hours too. Every so often he emits a chuckle, but for the most part he simply stares into space. I think he'd just stay like that and forget to eat if I didn't distract him every so often. Not that he ever appreciates me saving his life. No, it's all, "No, you're not allowed up here", or "Hey, I can't see!" or some other comment. Maybe humans are like plants, that they need to be out in light to get their energy? It certainly seems to make sense, since he sleeps only when all the lights are out. Does he turn out the lights to sleep, or does he sleep because the lights are out? I ponder this while he's gone, but I always end up falling asleep. It's not a terribly interesting topic.

Tonight he's sitting at his desk. Sometimes his fingers dart over the keyboard, but today he's just moving his mouse a lot. "You're right," he talks to the box on his desk. "You're absolutely right."

I dread that he's not going to tell me all about what he is agreeing with and leave me to wonder what has gotten into him this time until my curiosity gives me a headache. Then I dread that he is going to tell me all about it.

The latter of my fears comes true. "This man," he says, pointing at the screen. "He says that once we get out of school, we don't give ourselves enough time to play. We go to work, living just to survive, and forget about all the things we loved. Doesn't that sound like me, Buddha?"

He says that name a lot. I think he's referring to me when he says it, since when he does say it he's always staring directly at me. I never really understood why humans have to name things. If it were to tell things apart, well, it's because they look different, feel different, smell different. It's not a difficult skill to master. And if you want to get someone's attention, there's an inherent beauty and simplicity in second-person pronouns. But I digress. Back to the human's rant.

"I mean... I work in an office. And yeah it pays the bills, but is this really what I wanted to do with my life? Figure out when to clock out so I'd make an extra eighty cents I didn't earn? Hell no!"

He's getting heated again. The last time he did this was also the last time that female human appeared. He spent a lot more time in front of those boxes after that.

"When was the last time I read anything? I used to love to read. I still have that book that I read instead of going to commencement that I STILL haven't finished. Isn't that weird? Has my life really gotten that empty? This man... he's got it right. 'The mass of men lead lives in quiet desperation'... It was Thoreau that said that. And it's true. I don't spend enough time playing. Having fun."

He shakes his head and strides across the room. He grabs his coat and looks at me from the door. "Well, I've had enough of it. I'm going out, Buddha. I'll be back in time to feed you, so don't worry."

The door opens. The door closes. The room glows a very faint orange. The sun is already most of the way down. I put my head back down on the floor. Honestly, where do humans get all that energy? Maybe they aren't like plants after all.

Computer blues...

2007-05-27T04:00:55Z

My computer's been something really funny lately. When I try to play some games, the game immediately gives me a blue screen and restarts. I am curious, because it seems to happen only with some games (I can play Alice with no trouble at all, but FastCrawl dies instantly).

Through exhaustive research, I've narrowed the problem down to two possible culprits:

1) A driver issue. Entirely possible, but unlikely; I didn't upgrade the drivers until

2) Damaged capacitors on the video card. This would SUCK, since I don't even make enough money to pay rent, let alone replace it. Unfortunately, this is what seems most likely.

In order to check that, though, I'd need to crack open the laptop case. This is not something I have much of a desire in doing at all, given that it is highly likely I would not be able to put the damn thing back together again. Which means that I now have a huge stack of games that I cannot play.

Sigh.

PS: I do not care if my password is easy to guess, livejournal. If someone wants to hijack my journal, they can have the damn thing.

Anime Boston Wrap-up!

2007-04-24T01:07:10Z

Thursday- Rode down with Jerran and one of his friends. We got a late start, so it was late evening by the time we arrived. Wasn't much to do other than sign-in. There was a rather severe problem with the shower, though, causing most of the carpet to get soaked. Not my fault, I swear.

Friday- Signed up to volunteer at the manga library, where I proceeded to spend the rest of the day checking books in and out. This felt like the biggest scam ever: here I was reading manga, and I got free food, a t-shirt and pin, and even a refund on my registration fee! This only really works if you're anti-social enough to spend fourteen hours at a convention reading manga, though. Needless to say, this was no problem whatsoever for me. There was a showing of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, but I decided instead to brush up on my Melty Blood skills and sign up for the tournament the next day. I had already missed the Guilty Gear competition (I figured I would have stood no chance in it anyway, having not played GG for months and having never TOUCHED XX#), but I wanted some fighting game competition. Thus, Melty Blood. By the time I left I had gotten most of the movements down and was ready for action!

Saturday- My free day at the con! Miaka had jitters going into the Voice Acting competition... which ended up not mattering because she wasn't called up. Unfair. -.- I also participated in the Melty Blood tournament. I'm glad I got to play the game again, but the difference between my meager skills and the top tier was just too much. I got knocked out in the second round, though to my credit I didn't get perfected even though I spent more than half of my second match getting pounded in the corner. x.x Why couldn't my friends have made it to my much cooler first match? Grr. Went with friends to the Cheesecake factory; having not eaten anything for breakfast and it being past 4 by the time we were seated, I was rather hungry. This was good, because the mammoth portions provided were intended for just such an appetite. And Rivier College ended up with the tab! Not bad, but Miaka's food wasn't so good (who the hell ever heard of Shepard's Pie with barbecue sauce?!), so she was irritable. This did not help matters when we went to get cheesecake after 11, and the only place open served a tiny little saucer's worth of cheesecake for $7.50 and wanted three bucks for hot water and bagged tea. What a gyp. Which reminds me, don't ever go hotel restaraunts, specifically the Sheraton's. It's a waste. We finished the evening with some light television watching. Miaka was browsing the menus and, I being without my glasses at the time, thought the options looked like kanji. Imagine my surprise when I put on my glasses and found out, "Oh, it IS kanji!"

Sunday- Finished up work at the manga library. They cancelled the second showing of "Haruhi Suzumiya", which I kinda wanted to see. I heard later that the English voices sounded "weird". Picked up a puppy Amaterasu pin at Artist's Alley, and kicked myself for not bringing enough cash to get one of the Shadow of the Collossus prints. Took the bus back to Nashua with Miaka's family and discovered that we probably should have taken the bus down, since it was not as low-quality as the both of us imagined it would be. Well, next time.

All in all, not a bad trip. I still don't quite understand all the noise, but I guess cons will be around as long as people enjoy them. It also got me to start thinking about uniform designs for Para/Normal, I got a couple of character ideas for Tiny Angel Jam!, and developed a really MEAN scenario for "The Icks" (a BESM roleplaying campaign I'll be running with my friends, muahahaha). And anything that helps with writing is a GOOD THING.

Sometimes...

2006-09-27T07:28:38Z

Sometimes it feels like, if I put my hand to a wall and push, I'll fall right through.

Sometimes I think it would be interesting to bump into something heavy with my car.

Sometimes I feel like eating even when I'm not hungry.

Sometimes I'm not sure whether the bad things I've done were really all that bad to begin with.

Sometimes I wonder where all the time goes.

Sometimes I believe that I had a luckier childhood than most people.

And sometimes, I have the desire to post random crap at 3 AM and lamely disguise it as some sort of emotional piece.

Yeah. I think we've all been through that.

thearchimage @ 2006-09-23T03:33:00

2006-09-23T07:33:09Z

Hirano Aya - GOD KNOWS

Yeah, it's been a while since I updated. Again. Let's skip past the token apologies and just move on to my pointless rambling, shall we?

I love how the Livejournal tool yells at me for having a simple password. "WOOOooooOOOO, you're going to get HACKED!" Yeah freakin' right. Not like this is spectacularly important or anything. I prefer a password I can remember easily to the one that is slightly harder to guess. If my journal gets hacked, more than likely it's because someone stole my password than because someone rammed on key combinations until they got lucky.

My poor luck with the job search has led me to conclude that I am doing something wrong. I'm currently reviewing my previous attempts and am trying to pinpoint where and how badly I'm fucking up. In the meantime, I chickened out of quiiting my deli job (again) so I can at least keep paying the rent while working through this slump. One of my co-workers got busted for stealing money from the register, so I inherited all his hours. This is good in the sense of getting my bills paid, bad in the sense that I have to work there more. Can you tell I'm anxious to quit this job?

Won't be buying any new games for a while, so its good that what I just got is really good. Picked up Disgaea 2 a few weeks ago, and Okami just the other day. By the way, Okami is fucking awesome. Not only does it look amazing, but using the brush is very intuitive and fun. Within an hour or two I was making trees and grass bloom, cutting damn near anything in half, even making little firework-bombs. And I don't even have half the powers yet! If you have a PS2, you owe it to yourself to go play it now. And try to play it on a big screen; the game is too gorgeous to waste on a 12".

Shit, where was I before the shameless plug? Oh yeah.

Within the next week my girlfriend will be moving in with me. While it will be nice to see her every day, cleaning up the apartment for her arrival is not fun, especially since I have to switch rooms.

My sleep schedule is 100% fucked. After two days of practically no sleep, I didn't wake up until 5 PM today. Which means I won't be tired for several more hours. Unfortunate.

Okay, I'm done babbling now.

And the rain rain rain came down down down...

2006-05-15T22:28:44Z

MOMO - spillage

Hey, look! I'm not dead after all!

It's been raining pretty hard for the past few days, resulting in some minor flooding. My understanding is that it's even been appearing on the news, though it seems to have calmed down a bit now. All I know is, I didn't get to see Miaka yesterday because of it. I'm still a bit steamed about that.

In other news, I graduated from college Saturday. Well... sorta. I still have a couple credits left before I get my degree. Graduation ceremonies aren't any more interesting when you're a part of them, sadly. The only thing I remember about it is a piece of advice that supposedly comes from Col. Sanders of KFC fame: "If you want people to listen to you, wear a white suit." The fact that this is only an aside should be an indication of how much I care about it.

Currently, I'm a little more concerned about finding a new job. The sandwich shop pays the bills, but I think it's time to get a real job with actual room for advancement. I'm tossing resumes around... hopefully I'll get a few nibbles within the next few days.

Me and my big mouth

2006-02-18T04:13:35Z

One Piece - Believe

Earlier today, I wrote:

"For those who have never closed in a restaraunt before; it sucks. It is slow, repetitive, and terminally boring. I'd rather deal with a lunch rush shorthanded than stand around for two hours watching the clock."

Ha fucking ha.

We got bum-rushed from about 6:30 on until 8. The computers died at about 6:40 and didn't come back until nearly 9. This meant that all three of us (yes, shorthanded) were running around like chickens with our heads cut off, using the good old fashioned method of a calculator and a copy of the menu to ring up orders, and giving out handwritten receipts.

Well, I asked for it. And at least it was the computers that went down and not the coolers.

A few thoughts about LJ

2006-02-17T22:06:56Z

Berryz Koubou - Nanchuu Koi wa Yatteru YOU KNOW

LiveJournal is a weird beast. Allow me to explain what I mean by that and thereby waste several minutes of your life that, let's face it, you would have wasted just as unproductively elsewhere.

Locked posts have never struck me as well-implemented. I just don't understand them. I'm not the paranoid type that constantly wonders whether someone I know will find my journal and find out I wrote nasty stuff about them. I insult most of my friends to their faces without a shred of regret, and if I don't care whether I hurt their feelings why the hell should I worry about people I don't even like? That being said, sometimes I feel the need to write something but am unable to figure how to word it properly and fear someone may take it the wrong way. I don't care if I make enemies with my blunt nature, but I don't need people thinking I'm suicidal or an axe murderer or something. At times like those, I may consider friends-locking the post. Unfortunately, most of the people I would prefer to hide the post from are ALREADY on my friends list. So much for THAT idea. Private posts may fit the bill, but the concept of putting something on an online journal that only you will see is completely counter to the whole "attention whore" aspect of the LiveJournal experience. (And yes, I count myself among the attention whores. Why else would I make all my posts public? Seriously now, let's not lie to ourselves. Just say it: "I like receiving attention from other people". There's nothing wrong with it, and you'll feel a lot better.)

So normally, I just let those posts wither and die on their own. Two days later I don't remember what I wanted to write about, so the dilemma solves itself quite nicely. Still, I can't help but feel LiveJournal would benefit greatly from a "selective reading" type of post where only friends you designate are able to read the post. I'm sure lots of people would relish the opportunity to bitch about their friends behind their backs, and it would keep people from worrying unnecessarily about me. Everybody wins. Well, except for the people being bitched about I guess. And for the people on my friends' list who would rather not have the "honor" of being deemed worthy of listening to more of my babbles.

Side note: if you're one of the latter, why are you still reading this? Go play more video games. Actually, even if you like reading my rants video games wouldn't be a bad idea. As some random dude in Wild Arms 4 said, "The world would be a much more peaceful place if everyone just played more video games." Preach it brother.

Now, where was I?

Moving on to the next LJ related topic: friends-only journals. Now, these things completely baffle me. So you won't let people read your livejournal unless they a) put you on their friend's list, b) email you to tell you they are on your friends list, and c) wait for you to get off your lazy ass and add them to your friend's list? There's no way I would consider my brain-diarrhea to be a sufficient reward for all that hoop-jumping, and I doubt anyone else's is worth it either. I often won't go to such lengths for a journal that posts j-pop, and I loves me my j-pop. Granted I am an exceedingly lazy person but my point still stands: if you want to meet new people through LJ, making them endure such an asinine procedure just to see a single one of your posts is not going to convince them that you're cool.

I guess that's all the LJ-themed ranting I have for now.

In the money

2006-02-17T21:08:43Z

Cardcaptor Sakura - Catch You, Catch Me (don't you fucking dare judge me)

I've been having a little trouble with work lately. Not with the work itself, mind you, but rather that business has been slow and as a result I haven't been getting a lot of hours. This is bad, because the money from this job is what pays my rent. I've watched my saving dwindle over the past few weeks, becoming increasingly edgy as my checking account slowly evaporated.

All that ended this week, though.

One of my co-workers stopped showing up to work suddenly. We have no idea what happened to him, and the managers won't waste their time trying to get in contact with him. Unfortunately he was part of the morning prep crew during the weekdays, so they couldn't continue to have just one person do all the prep work for the day.

I'd like to think "timing" is one of my best skills. I am quick to recognize opportunities, and this time was no different. I offered to cover his hours, and suddenly this week's workweek jumped from 4 hours to 29. Still not quite full time, but at least it's enough to live on. The only bad things is that I must now get up every morning at 8 in order to get to work on time (which I'm sure you all think is just TRAGIC) and that several hours of this is the closing shift. For those who have never closed in a restaraunt before; it sucks. It is slow, repetitive, and terminally boring. I'd rather deal with a lunch rush shorthanded than stand around for two hours watching the clock.

I seem to have usurped the hours next week as well (everyone else either can't or won't work those hours), so assuming no more bouts of food poisoning or other nastiness I may experience a positive cash flow situation for the first time in the new year.

Speaking of which, I've made a full recovery from last week's nastiness. It turns out that dehydration played a big factor in how lousy I'd been feeling, so I'm drinking a lot more water and staying away from soda for the time being. I'd be more concerned about this, but frankly it's about time my lousy diet caught up with me. I'm surprised this hadn't happened years earlier. The other half of it was that the fridge was set too low, so the food inside wasn't being kept at a safe temperature. So THAT'S why the milk kept going sour a week before the expiration date!

itchy... tasty...

2006-02-10T08:39:00Z

Takahashi Youko - Yoake Umarekuru Shoujo

It all started this Monday, when I started feeling a little chilly. Since heat is so expensive in our apartment, this isn't an uncommon occurence. I just wrapped a blanket around myself and continued pecking away at the computer.

A few hours later, I was deathly cold. I was underneath practically every blanket in the apartment, I could feel my pores sweating, but I was still shivering. I can't remember much of what happened during this time... it's mostly a blur. I do remember vomitting, though, because afterward I felt much better. Ah, just some food poisoning. Well, now that I had purged it from my system that should be the end of it.

I slept through all of Tuesday, only getting up every five or six hours to get a glass of water. I had a fever, and I still thought the apartment seemed unusually cold. This continued in the same vein for most of Wednesday, and I didn't wake up for good until 5 in the afternoon. I felt in tip-top shape, and THAT should have been the end of it.

After two days without eating anything, I was understandably a bit peckish. I figured I would need at least a good meal or two before my stomach calmed down. I was able to eat two Pop-Tarts. That's all. I would hardly even consider that a snack. This morning I had a single donut for breakfast and didn't eat again until 10:30 at night, where I was able to eat less than half of what I ordered from the Chinese food place. My appetite is a mere fraction of what it used to be. More terrifying, though, is that even with this little food, my stomach still feels queasy. After every time I've eaten, my stomach rebels against the food inside it, making me nauseous. It's as if it doesn't trust any of the food that goes down my throat anymore.

I usually have a pretty good idea of what's going on with my body and what the best thing for it is. But right now I'm stumped. I have more than enough things out to get me right now... I really don't need my body crapping out on me now.

(expect a bigger, more relevant post soon)

thearchimage @ 2005-10-27T00:09:00

2005-10-27T04:07:08Z

Nami Tamaki - High School Queen

Not a real update. Nothing really to report in life at large. Just...

There is a plant growing out of our sink. According to Mary, it is definitely rooted in.

What. The hell.

Winner is me!

2005-09-26T18:46:37Z

I've music - Prey (Remix)

Originally, this was going to be a post of how my roommates pulled some stupid prank last night that really pissed me off. But I've since calmed down, so I don't feel the need to elaborate so much. Instead, I just thought I should share some good news with you all.

I got a job. ^_^

It's at the D'Angelo's sandwich shop just down the street from my apartment, $7.25 an hour with room for advancement. Not the most glamorous of jobs, but the bills are stacking up and I'm getting paid, so it's kinda hard to complain.

thearchimage @ 2005-09-20T09:51:00

2005-09-20T07:49:53Z

Before I get into the meat of this post, I wanted to debut a new feature of this journal. From now on, every entry will have available for download my "current music". The download will last for 25 downloads or 1 week, whichever comes first. I'm doing this partially because, my tastes being what they are, it's likely that I'm the only person I know who's heard these songs, and I think that's a damn shame. Mostly, I'm doing it because it's fun. Here's this entry's music.

Moving on...

Tonight I did something I haven't done in a very long while: go out for a long walk well past my bedtime. I do this on occasion because it simultaneously fulfills the twin needs of being able to think to myself and to pace meaninglessly. Despite my love of it, I have a hard time reccomending it to others because of both real and imagined dangers. Some places are, simply put, not safe to walk around in after dark. Even in the places that are safe, it's easy to convince yourself that they're not. Walk down a dark country road after midnight and you'll see just how badly your mind can trick you! But I digress.

I used to walk frequently in both Manchester and Nashua. This was my first time walking since moving into my new apartment in Milford, so I had to focus on my surroundings a little better than I normally do. Because of that, it was stunningly obvious when I walked into the center of town... and it was dead quiet.

The streets were dark, but not pitch black due to both the mostly-full moon as well as the intermittent street lights. There were lighted signs of various stores, all of them long since closed. The traffic lights changed colors on their timers, even though there was no one there to care. I could hear the rushing of a nearby river and the sounds of my own footsteps; nothing else. It would have been one thing if it had only been for a few moments. That sort of thing happens on occasion even in Manchester, but only for a few seconds. No cars, no pedestrians, not even a stray pet passed by me for a good fifteen minutes.

It's difficult to put into words the kind of loneliness that is borne of that moment.

Cross your fingers

2005-09-06T22:23:32Z

I just bought $100 worth of clothes. Kinda sucks, but that's what happens when you're asked to "dress professionally" for an interview and all you own are jeans and t-shirts. If all goes well, I will be gainfully employed by noon tomorrow. *knocks on his desk*

Fatal Frame 3!

2005-08-18T18:15:47Z

I am terrified... but so completely happy. :D

As you may or may not know, I have a soft spot for survival horror games. I like being scared. Fatal Frame is the cream of the crop as far as I'm concerned, and now they're coming out with a new game in the series. I couldn't be happier. If you like survival horror games, you owe it to yourself to follow the link above and download the trailer. It's all in Japanese, but the awesomeness of the game should make itself clear.

Things I like most:
1.) There are multiple characters with different strengths and weaknesses. In particular Miku, the heroine from the first game, is back! Let's hope her English voice actress has learned how to emote dialogue.

2.) The "charge" system from the first game also makes a return. What that means is, you have to keep an enemy in your sights for a while before you can attack with full power. This leads to tense moments where the enemy is approaching but you're just not building power fast enough... It's removal in FF2 was, I felt, a serious blow to the game, so I'm glad it's back.

3.) The storyline is, as par for the course, weird and creepy as hell. It seems to borrow a bit from other games, what with the nightmares of the characters starting to seep into reality (Silent Hill, anyone?). The horror is still trademark FF (a relatively gore-less psychological mindscrew that makes you paranoid enough to sleep with the lights on), so I'm not too worried that it will change the game I know and love. And I STILL say ghosts are scarier than zombies any day of the week.

Yeah, this is pretty much just me ranting about how excited I am. Sorry. I'll have a better update soon, hopefully.

thearchimage @ 2005-08-11T14:55:00

2005-08-11T18:55:20Z

Been a while since I updated this. Of course, right now my internet access is pretty limited, so it's to be expected. Last week has been pretty eventful, so this entry MIGHT get a little on the long side.

Friday I moved out of my mother's house. That was a trip. I didn't pack much (bathroom stuff and some clothes), but luckily some of my other roommates dropped by and unpacked a bit. In particular the I ended up going back home to grab my laptop and PS2, plus Miaka lent me an inflatible mattress and a few pots to cook ramen in (that girl is a LIFESAVER!). I would not have telephone or internet for the next few days (no TV either, but I don't watch TV anyway so I didn't miss it).

Saturday I hung out with Miaka pretty much all day Saturday. That was great. ^.^ It was her birthday, so I went with her family to a Japanese steakhouse. A warning for those who have never been to one: when the chef puts stuff on the grill, do NOT lean forward to try to get a better look at what it is! All you need to know is, it's flammable. The food was good, but I got a glimpse of the bill and nearly had a heart attack even though I wasn't the one paying.

Sunday I... pretty much lounged around the apartment, alternating between writing and playing video games. Nick came over and we went out to eat, but that was about it. Monday was pretty much the same thing, only with the addition of talking to Verizon about getting my phone switched on.

On Tuesday I was starting to go into internet withdrawal, especially because the telephones had not been connected as promised. A software error on their part, or some crap. I didn't get phone service until 11 at night, at which point I immedietly (sp?) got new access numbers for my new home and went online... getting booted off within twenty minutes. Ha. John also dropped off some stuff after arriving well past when I thought he would arrive, but that has more to do with my completely unrealistic estimates and than his driving skill.

Wednesday night John finally brought Mary over, increasing the occupancy of the apartment by one. She brought her fish, so the apartment has pets now (if you consider fish "pets"). John also set up his couch/futon, though whether it's staying in it's current location remains to be seen. Mary said she would be bringing over a couch, but I didn't see it among the junk of the apartment.

Which brings me today. Supposedly I'm going back home to grab my bed and the rest of my clothes, but John and Mary went off somewhere (they mentioned "storage", but didn't quite catch the rest) and only John has a car big enough to transport the mattresses. Which means I'm stuck sitting on my thumbs. Fun fun fun!

More on the situation as it develops.