Talking Soup

Well, we just got back from our annual Yosemite trip. We were up there a bit longer this time; my dad and I went up early on Thursday and the two of us hung out down in the valley until Saturday. I've never spent much time in the valley, but it's actually quite nice, aside from all the tourists and FREAKING MOSQUITOES. Bugs aren't usually a problem at Yosemite, but I guess I'm too used to being up on the rim.

Anyway, we checked Yosemite Falls first, the tallest waterfall in North America for the first night. After that we kind of just tooled around the valley till nightfall, when we went to this ridiculous premade tent-cabin area for the night. At least they had showers and food, but the whole set-up was just silly. Second day we went out Hetch Hetchy, which is a park/reservoir/dam, but it was too hot to do much aside from walk across the dam. Came back at night and just hung around again; saw a bear getting chased by a park ranger on the way back to camp

Next day we did a photo walk early in the morning and walked around some of the meadows taking pictures (saw a deer and her fawn!), then headed up to the proper campground to meet mom and Ben and his girlfriend. That was also the first night for the star party, though it wasn't much this year. Half of what remains of our group didn't go due to various issues, so there were literally four of us with scopes up there. The skies were the best I've ever seen them though, so it was nice all the same. Saturn was up and super clear with the rings edge on, and I could find galaxies and open and globular clusters just with my binoculars. It was cold, but awesome as all hell.

Dad left early Saturday cause he had work, but the rest of us spent the rest of the day there. We hiked Sentinel Dome, which is a smallish dome which has a view of the whole park basically. It's a super steep hike though, so we basically napped the rest of the day until going up again that night.

All in all a pretty damn awesome Yosemite visit, and seriously the best two nights of stargazing I've ever seen. I head back to Ithaca tomorrow night on a red eye, and on Friday I go in for job training at Borders. I'll also have new shoes waiting for me. And my mom who is awesome let me buy some DVDs. All in all this has been a freaking awesome vacation.

I'm exhausted now, so I'm gonna veg for the rest of the day. AKA watch Supernatural :)

Fuck everything.

THIS IS AN UPDATE.

Yes I am alive. The reason for my lack of posting is uh. Laziness and post-graduation now what/lawl future/lawl real life/fuck it I'm gonna sit on my ass for a few months ness that is now graaaadually wearing off. Yup. Mostly because I haven't been writing or doing anything productive this entire time and it's catching up to me in the form of OH GOD MY WORTHLESS EXISTEEEEENCE.

It's almost three AM, which explains this incoherence.

ANYWAY. It is almost Christmahanukwanzaayule again. Hooray! I have no money with which to buy presents for people. Boo! I'm relying at this point on tiny things that are cheap but awesome. Which reminds me, HEY, CMAK AKA kuribohcoast I NEED YOUR ADDRESSSSSSSS or you won't get presents and I will be sad ):

Oh, another reason for my lack of posting? I am now officially a WoWfag. Yeah. Inorite? Well, it's fun, when it works and when the patches update alright which they're not right now, and I'm not addicted (yet) so. It's sort of the same as RP in its addictive qualities, however, in terms of like "As soon as I finish this tag" which in WoW's case is "As soon as I finish this quest!"

But at the very least I think I'm ready to make a concerted effort not only to just generally write more but to really get to work on the edits/rewrites for Motley Crew. If not Pentagram as well. But, lol, for those of you who have known me awhile, you know how well my declarations of "I'M GONNA DO IT THIS TIME" go, so we'll see. At least I have a sort of method this time for keeping myself working on the edits. Plus new ideas keep springing up. Now if only I could buckle down and actually start either North or Jin or something...

I also need to finish my resume WHICH I HAVE BEEN WORKING ON SINCE AUGUST. Laziness and an unwillingness to enter the real world much?

Currently we have all just gotten back from Darkover con (which was awesome), we had our own Thanksgiving at home (I made Cornish game hens and didn't set anything on fire!), Julie has a book deal for her co-authorship with Tammy for the Tortallverse (Cara's in on it too), Pat still has his steady job and I'm...still at Michaels.

*sigh*

Also as of today the kitten is sick. Pogo has gotten a cold like this pretty consistently around this time so hopefully it's nothing serious. If she's still sick in a few days/she gets worse we're taking her to the vet, pet health program or not.

Oh and the second season of Darker than BLACK is out, and is about halfway over, and is awesome. That is all.

We have been "about to be audited" since I started working at Micheal's.

An audit is exactly what it sounds like. Some person comes in to the store and decides what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong. Then they give you a score and tell you what you need to improve on. The reason this was happening was because we essentially failed our last audit.

So when I first started working, the managers pressed for thoroughness and efficiency, because the auditor was supposed to arrive in the next week or so.

He never came.

Weeks went by. Every once in awhile we would somehow receive word that "The Auditor" was in the area, or would be heading down over the weekend, or would probably be in on Monday. Lots and lots of false alarms, but of course we never got any explanation about why The Auditor hadn't come yet. It became this sort of joke and this sort of mystery.

Three weeks ago we finally got word that the reason The Auditor had never come was because he had been on sick leave. For the past several months. No one bothered to tell us. So they told us they were sending someone different, and that she would be down around the weekend. The managers were certain that we would be audited that Friday or Monday.

She never came.

Again, no word as to what was going on. She was "in the area", but there was no sign of her. We knew she was around, though, so the idea was that she could basically drop in at any time.

A week went by.

And then another.

Today, apparently this morning, we were audited.

We passed.

Koop has done it again! His last video had something missing from it--but it's back in this most recent video of his, Twilight. It's beautifully rendered, the song fits wonderfully, and it's got the deep sense of emotion that was missing from the previous video. Hooray!

...And now I need to see Kanon. Well, crap.

Called in sick to work today because I woke up feeling insanely tired and woozy. So I slept in, hung around the house for awhile and walked to the Commons. Got a mate from my favorite cult NRM. Then finally managed to check out the little liquor store near the Lost Dog. Good selection! They even have a bottle of tequila complete with worm, which is a big win for me.

My last year of college begins on Wednesday. What the fuck. What happened to all of my time? The future's coming at me so fast. I have no idea what I want to do with my life beyond writing. Although lately I've been semi-sort-of-seriously considering...voice acting. Yeah...weird, I know. But I'm pretty good at sound effects, so...*shrug?*

Starting my senior project on Wednesday as well (supposedly). I'm going to be working on revising Pentagram. Should be epic. Should also get me off my lazy ass on editing the damn thing and maybe, hopefully, starting to send it out. Of course I've said that before, but this time it's for an actual grade. So.

Speaking of college, my brother's begun at Expressions, which is an art college in California. He's in their Sound Design program, which is pretty amazing. Apparently he loves it, but I haven't gotten a chance to talk to him yet.

Work is going well, though hell if I can figure out the website :\

*wards off the oncoming Future with various talismans*

Yeah, remember me? Look, I'm alive!

So, summing up the past, what, two months? We have moved into our apartment/house and are slowly making it all homey, our landlord is an anal retentive douchebag, Julie and I got cats--Elwood and Nephry (Elwood is mine), I went home to see my brother's graduation (he actually did it!), and I finally got a job--at Michael's. I'm actually going in for my second day in about an hour :D

Julie and I are still in the RP, of course. It is so epically awesome. I absolutely love the people there, they're all such good players. I'm actually playing two characters now--Hei and Amaterasu from Okami.

We're still working our way through Persona 3 and Tales of the Abyss. Also, I bought a few new games for Ezili (my DS) including The World Ends With You. I like it so far! And I finished the first Phoenix Wright game, hooray! The last case was pretty epic.

I finished the first season of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni which was terrifying and awesome. Now I need to get through the second season (ni Kai). I'm also working my way through the 114 episodes and several OAVs of cheese that is Saint Seiya. It's ridiculously epic.

Julie and I have begun, watched through, and finished what we both agree is the best television show we've ever seen, which is Life on Mars. The British version. We don't talk about the forthcoming American version. Basically, Sam Tyler is a cop who gets hit by a car and suddenly ends up back in 1973. Awesomeness ensues.

More evidence of the BBC's prowess for good telly, Doctor Who has been pretty amazing this season, with a couple of ups and downs. The most recent episode was...well. "Fuckawesome" comes to mind. I'm talking about the most recent episode that aired in Britain (and is of course available online), not the most recent one that aired in America. The question on everyone's mind right now is of course ( SPOILERZ XOMG! )

I haven't really been writing, like, at all. I'm such a failure. New ideas have been swimming around my head, though. And that key kid is still nagging at me. There's a new character as well--well, a new double-character, I guess. But I'll go over all of that in a locked post like usual.

So yeah! I'm alive, things have been good. Ithaca is as awesome as ever.

So I'm in Ithaca, obviously, in my fantastic apartment that I'm sharing with the other three. Two floors! Kitchen! Spiral staircase! It is wonderful. We get to cook our own food! I am pleased.

My schedule this semester is a bitch. 18 credits. I've done it before, but my classes are looking tough:

MWF

Intro to Social Institutions and Organizations
9:00-9:50
Social Change
10:00-10:50
Grants and Proposal Writing
11:00-11:50

TR

Fiction II
9:25-10:40
World Civilizations
2:35-3:50
Global Conflict and Terrorism
5:25-6:40

Grants writing will be hard since we have to actually write a REAL grant proposal for a REAL organization in Ithaca. I've heard war stories about that class, but I think it'll be good experience and that I'll get a lot out of it.

Fiction II is being taught by Godfrey, like Intro to Creative Writing freshman year and...the woman's a bit odd. We'll have to see how it goes, but if she hands out the same kinds of stories that she handed out in Creative, it's going to be a looooong semester.

World Civ looks fascinating.

Terrorism is going to be a fucking intense class, since already in the course of one class I had my opinions changed about both the Iraq war and the Revolutionary War. *sigh* But it's an interesting topic, and a class I'd really like to take. So.

Meanwhile, ASIC is back and running, woot! We watched Paprika which is beautiful and stunning and completely insane, much the same as Paranoia Agent, really. Don't have time for a review now, but expect a post with lots of reviews soon, since I still haven't reviewed those other ones. We're gonna be watching Death Note and the second part of Jubei-chan for the rest of the quarter, or so.

I did get a lot of ideas from Paprika since it deals with dreams, and this newest dream-based idea has been simmering nicely.

As for writing, I worked everything out with Motley Crew and we're on speaking terms again, though we've yet to go on a real date yet. And North hasn't really been returning my calls, though Kaiyss keeps jamming up my phone line.

Spent a few days in Minnesota with Julie, in transit between Cali and Ithaca. I met her awesome dad and her awesome sisters (Darcy is so cute). Also saw The Invasion while I was there, and we all went to the Minnesota State Fair, which is legendary and deserving of the stories. Cheese curds roxors my boxors.

I've also gotten Julie deeply, deeply into Kingdom Hearts, and she's almost finished with the first one. Woo! I also finally buckled down and finished up Okami, for the second time. My homework schedule is light since it's the first week.

Julie and I will be meeting with two others from ASIC, Amanda and Sharona, to watch Excel Saga tomorrow. My brain will probably be melted when I come back.

Also, I made hash browns and funnel cakes the other day and got grease burns on my hand, but at least they were tasty.

And BB hasn't sent me all my paychecks yet. *grumbles*

Whut? WHUT? What's this I hear about Jerry Spinelli releasing a sequel to Stargirl? Holy crap, MUST HAVE! Stargirl was one of the most amazing books when I was younger and it's still pretty high on my favorites list. Now after all this time, a sequel?? I guess it's not coming out for awhile, but still!

So yeah, I notice I haven't had a real update in awhile. Let's see.

Well, I did end up seeing Hairspray (like, two weeks ago, lol) and it was quite excellent, quite charming, and I've already ordered the soundtrack. Haven't seen any movies since, though.

I also got my hands on The Mirador, though I haven't really started it yet (XOMG *squee!!* Mildmay! Felix! And now even Mehitabel gets some airtime!!). I also grabbed a copy of some H.P. Lovecraft story collection. I figure, considering I'm sort of kind of part of the fantasy writers crowd, I should go find out what's the deal with this Cthulhu guy. Cthulhu fhtagn?

I've also gotten the latest of all my manga, and hopefully no more will come out between now and the end of August, since I'm already shipping quite a few books to Ithaca (not nearly as many as last time, though).

And, in my neverending pursuit of new anime to watch, I've stumbled across yet another incredibly obscure show called Black Blood Brothers. I've only yet seen the first episode, since the second episode doesn't want to work for some reason, but boy did it snag me. It's an actual Aftermath series! I might not have explained it here, but I love stories about aftermath--you know, what happens after the journey is over, after the world has been saved, after the hero's triumphant return, because the story never really ends at "happily ever after." So in this series, near as I can figure, Jirou is some kind of vampire (so cliche, but I do love me a vampire) who has already lost everything important to him and is now trying to make his own way. Great fight scenes and great animation all around. Plus Jirou has a pretty freaking awesome hat. In fact the only complaint I have with the first episode is that they have a timeskip, but they don't really specify how much time has passed. But that's nitpicky. Pretty good so far, though of course I'll need to see more to make a sound judgment. And Sousei no Aquarion continues to thoroughly entertain.

Jobbage has slowed considerably since they cut hours all around, so I'm only working two days this week, tomorrow and Saturday. Not that long, either. I suppose it doesn't matter much since I'm leaving in about a week anyway. Gotta talk to my boss about that one. I'm leaving the 18th to go hang out with Julie for a few days before the lot of us drive back to Ithaca. Yay, I get to see a Minnesota State Fair for the first time! I hear it's quite an experience.

And after an entire summer of not writing, I'm actually writing again! I've finished the next chapter for my fanfic, finally and it's posted if anyone wants to go read it. I'm also writing some scenes for North--I finally got to introduce Rain and Chia! I've also got some pretty sick ideas for what happens next in Mot, so I think I might gravitate in that direction once the Rain and Chia scene is over. And I've been giving more thought to that idea I mentioned, the one that involves dreams. I still need to get a handle on the characters over there, though.

As for the 100 Situations, well, I still haven't heard back from the site mod, so I have no idea what's happening with that. I do want to start it, but I can't actually post anything until my claim has been confirmed. *shrug* I've even left comments asking what's up, but no one has replied.

And an XBox 360 has randomly come to live at our house. My brother can't possibly have any money left over. And the poor PS2 is so neglected. Did I mention that I also bought my own PS2? I just have to steal some of Ben's controllers and I'll be set. Man, that's a lot of stuff I'll need to ship, though fortunately all my books fit into one box this time.

Ooh, also got the latest volume of Digger, Ursula Vernon's awesome webcomic. You can get to her site on the links in the sidebar. Go support her, she's awesome!

And, holy shit, Blue Planet is going to be on the Discovery Channel starting Sunday! HO-SHIT. I'm excited!

Think that's about all there is. Summer's winding down, can you feel it?

One more thing. Withing Temptation=FTW.

ALA;KJDLFJKDL;LSAS you guys. Two days. Two days, that's it! Two days until all questions are answered. Until we find out the truth about Snape. Until we find out if Harry lives or if he dies. Until we find out where and what the last Horcruxes are. Until we bid farewell to Harry, the OT3, Hogwarts, and all the characters we've come to know and love for a final time.

You know, the first time I even saw a Harry Potter book was when my grandparents sent me one for Christmas. I think I was 12 or 13. I looked at the cover and wasn't particularly enthralled and didn't actually start reading it until some time later. Now I'm twenty and the series is ending. This is something I've grown up with, so this is important.

Wow.

I'll promise you all right now that I will not post any spoilers on this LJ, not even under cuts. No hints, even. I'll post a review of the book, but that's it. I won't even tell you if it had a good ending or not. Nothing. At least not until a few months have gone by and I can assume that most people have read and finished the book, and even then I'll put everything under cuts and put up a spoiler warning. I care a lot about this. Especially since I found out that some asshole put the book online not long ago and that some people out there apparently know what happens. I'm trying to avoid anything and everything I think could have info about Harry Potter.

Two days. Yeah. It turns out that I work until 9 on Friday, which gives me the perfect amount of time to get home, get some shit done and then head to the bookstore. And I do work Saturday but not until 5, I think, or maybe even later than that. If I stay up all night, and I intend to, there's a chance I'll get to finish the book before I have to go to work. Last time it took me a full day, and that included stopping to eat, so yeah.

Holy shit, guys.

Anyway, the job is going pretty nicely so far. I really like this job, now that I'm starting to get the hang of things and I'm not fucking up all the time. Though I'll tell you right now, they have the most rancid liquid soap in the bathroom that I have ever seen. Ugh.

No writing or anime lately, though I did pick up three new volumes of manga from Borders the other day--the latest D. Gray Man, Black Cat, and Monster. The latest two volumes of Monster are out, finally, but I only got the next one. The picture on the back has Tenma holding a sniper rifle, so I'm fairly worried.

And on the writing front, while I haven't really done any writing, I did have a brand new, major idea the other day. The muse is so very fickle. Her attentions are never where I want them to be. This new idea is sounding pretty nifty, though. Pretty much, dreams can come alive, and the story is about a guy whose job it is the quell dangerous or violent dreams and nightmares. It's kind of Mushishi-esque, but I'm trying to stay as far from it as I can. I'll tell you guys more when I figure more out. But I'm pretty sure my MC's name is Walks Alone. Yep. Me and my utterly insane names. My characters must hate me ^_^

I've been keeping tabs on the business with Cloverfield, not quite enough that it could be considered obsessions, lol, unlike some other folks out there on the wide, wide web. People have been picking the trailer apart frame by frame, unknotting the Flash programs on the 1-18-08 site as well as the Slusho! site, analyzing just about everything that can be analyzed, but so far nothing has really come to light. The general consensus right now is that the main clues to figuring things out are in the trailer and in the History section on the Slusho! site, which has a lot of interesting tidbits to chew on. And supposedly we're going to find out a bit more soon, since JJ is gonna be at Comic-Con next week.

I have two movie reviews for you, but it's late, I'm tired, and I'm not really in the mood to type them up right now. Sorry. But I'll probably have them up tomorrow, since I have tomorrow off, woot.

The bunny peed on me. Again.

So we've entered the infamous California summer now. It's been over 100 degrees for the past two days. It's kind of insane. I can't even step outside without wanting to drink a whole shitload of lemonade. And we don't have any lemonade. And one of the teeth that had a cavity is now sensitive to cold, so I wouldn't be able to drink it anyway.

Fortunately there's a very nice air conditioner at Blockbuster. I worked today and yesterday and I'll be back tomorrow. I think I'm finally in the system too, so I should be able to start training tomorrow. Never mind that I still don't have a shirt. Lol, but I like it there. I've been doing mostly gopher work but my boss is nice and so are my coworkers, plus it's been pretty easy going the past few days. It'll probably be busier tomorrow since I'm working a late shift, but ah well.

I don't think I mentioned this before, but my brother's girlfriend bought a bunny at the fair and it is currently living at our house. Which means of course that me and Ben are the ones who are mainly taking care of it. He's a very nice bunny, and a color I've never seen on a rabbit, but he's still a bit timid and he always pees on me.

I'm thinking of getting another tattoo. Don't know what or where on me, though.

Okay, so. The other night I went to see Transformers. Actually I went to the 8:35 showing but they were sold out until 11:05 so I hung around the Game Stop and Best Buy until then. We even had to wait in line for 45 minutes--and this wasn't even on opening night either! But I broke down and got Pokemon Pearl at Game Stop--I've decided to fully embrace my inner dork, thank you--so that and Ezili kept me occupied.

But. Dude. There was this...trailer. Attached to the movie. It...well, I'm not going to explain it because that would ruin it, but it was probably the most perfect trailer I've ever seen. I'm not saying that the movie it was for necessarily looked awesome, though it did, muchly so, but the trailer was just so well done. Which makes sense when you look at who's doing the movie.

The movie is by J.J. Abrams. The guy who does Lost.

Which explains why the title of the movie is being kept secret.

And the premise.

And the plot.

All we know is it's some kind of monster movie. Shot with camcorders and handhelds. There are two codenames going around for it--"Cloverfield" and "The Parasite."

Damn does JJ know how to hook 'em. I've gotta fucking see this movie.

And now for movie reviews.

( Transformers )

Well I also got my hands on a couple of movies from Blockbuster. I'll probably have watched every movie on my to-see list by the time I'm done working there, lol. I grabbed The Last Mimzy, Layer Cake, The Squid and the Whale, and Capote all of which I've wanted to see for some time. Only got one in tonight, though.

( The Last Mimzy )

Julie, you're not going to believe this, but I missed the last two 4400's! I was even here for them, but I just totally forgot they were on. Sunday+summer scheduling=fuck you, viewers.

I am very, very slowly getting back into the writing groove, but the muse is still reluctant. I've got some ideas for Mot. And I still really, really need to finish the last bit of the fic chapter. And I'm still waiting to hear back from the 100 Situations people, so I haven't started any of the prompts yet. Hmph.

I had the weirdest dream last night, and I don't remember much of it, except that there were all these rooms and hallways and doors that led to different places. And at one point there were furry river dolphins. And they weren't friendly like your average oceanic dolphins. A river dolphin is one mean motherfucker. These guys were nice to me, but they were still pretty badass. And furry.