Saturday, April 06, 2002

Dear Domain Owners:

While you seemed to have grasped the concept of leaving a note to tell anyone that happens by that there is no longer any content to speak of, you seem to have forgotten one little thing: -why-. Granted, the reasons may be complicated, embarassing, or even boring, but it wouldn't _kill_ you to put -something- up that tells people something, -anything- about why they've followed a link to nowheresville.

Not too much love,
Shan
Posted by: Shannon M.: 5:01 AM |

*Squint* I have a hentai fetish? News to me. *Blinkblink* Maybe I'll retake it.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 5:37 AM |

You are not very reliable but people like you anyway because you are so easygoing and fun to be with. And cute, too. Which Blogging Tool Are You?

Hmm... Hee. Maybe it's time to go back to bed.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 5:42 AM |

I need to do some scanning -- I've got Princessa FuzzyPeach (CDX, UDX, ScHIII, cert eyes, cert hips, and oh-so-snooty) clamoring for attention from the peons... I want to try integrating her with HappyPear, first, though.

...That, and I should scan some more HP stuff anyhow.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 10:22 AM |

Took the fetish test again, and yet again, I'm a fiction lover with a hentai fetish. Weeeeeird. *Shrug* Given that this is -me- we're talking about, it's probably the best-fitting option of them all.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 10:29 AM |

I have two blisters, one on each hand, from working on the ice that accumulates outside the back door. Yasminda tends to slip on it, and as the last thing we want is for her to suffer a dislocated hip. So every few weeks, I take the ice chipper, the shovel, and some kosher rocksalt to the mini-glacier. Before now, though, my hands have been fine -- now that I think of it, I was wearing my mittens. Ah well. They're not very big blisters, and they only hurt if I mess with them, so.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 4:51 PM |

I like the color of Maine's hockey uniforms.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 5:29 PM |

In other news, I should not read other people's idiocy when I'm in a potentially-cranky mood. Gr. I'd just like to say that so far, the slashiest thing I've seen in the last two months is LotR. Really. I've been playing FF VII, Tactics, VIII and X, and so far, the whole dressing-Cloud-as-a-girl thing is the closest I've seen to being remotely slashy. I -like- the FF franchises, though I'm slow at Tactics (I need another memory card... Hm.), and yes, I sort-of got into playing them due to having read FF yaoi. The _real_ tipping point for me, though, was the time I housesat for Roxy, Coco, and Buster. Their mom is a gamer, a hardcore console-RPG fan. She likes playing _Vagrant Story_. She's played Dark Cloud, Chrono Trigger, FFVIII, Legend Of Dragoon, Orphen, Arc The Lad, and others that escape me. I had the opportunity to give playing FFVIII a shot, and I was hooked.

An RPG where the people looked more-or-less like people. Where the towns were not made up of maze-like paths, the houses/businesses were not little flat icons (see Zelda). This was -beauty-, this was -plot-, this was -fascinating-. What happened next? Who was that? Who- why- where- And the twisty little connections that've emerged as I've played thrill me. No, really -- the revelation of the relationships between the main charatcers made me squeak with glee. Weird? Probably. I was alone at the time, so... Anyhow. I wanted to play FFVII so that I could understand references in fics I'd read, most notably The Conscience Of The King. I rented it, but I had other thing to spend money on, and forgot about it. I'd heard that FFT was fun and good and hard to get, so when I had the chance, I grabbed both.

FFVII is not as graphically...enhanced, as FFVIII, no. I don't care, because it's just as intriguing. I already know a few of the major events that occur, but I don't know _everything_. I want to play it through to the end to see what happens. Does Cloud succeed in defeating Shinra? Who is Tifa, and why is she being chased by what amount to the police when we first meet her?

Tactics is... A little slow, so far, due to having to start over once I've turned my PS1 off -- Like I said, I need another memory card. But it's just as interesting in a different way. I'm still not sure if there's a war on, if there's -going- to be a war, or if there has been a war and the aftershocks are still settling out.

I use strategy guides. Why? Not because I need "hand-holding". I need them because for me, the obvious is not always so blinding. In fact, I try -not- to refer to them unless absolutely necessary -- or if I'm dead-set on completing a side quest. I've never looked for codes to any of the FFs, because... Well, I never thought of it, for one thing. For another, I don't -need- them. I don't feel like fighting monsters? That's what the 'escape' function is for. I don't necessarily -enjoy- having to go through some of the rigamarole, but hey. It's part of the game. For the most part, I can figure things out without in-game tutorials or the guide, sometimes things just escape my grasp. (Fer instance, despite reading the strategy guide and watching the Junctioning tutorial about fifteen times, I _STILL_ don't get the whole stat-junctioning thing. I just do an auto-junction and let the CPU take care of it.)

So, that's it. That's my take on my Final Fantasy experience. Your Mileage May Vary.

A note on the Vagrant Story emphasis -- I tried to play it, because I loved the artwork and the plot sounded interesting. However, the battle system was counterintuitive as all getout and I just -couldn't- make it bend to my will. Unless I find it as a bargain for a dollar ninetyfive, I'll probably just read the fic and look at fanart/doujinshi.

Posted by: Shannon M.: 6:05 PM |

GAAAAAAH! *Whines and flails about for the No Whining Stick* Boys, boys, boys. Just get back to the smut, pleeeeeeeease?

In other news, I found my favorite online Finnish dictionary, again.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 7:18 PM |

Profundity from my mother, in answer to wondering if C&Ping writing from elsewhere would go unnoticed (it wouldn't, I'm sure): "Self-plagarism is still plagarism." *Snerk*

I will finish this. I will write this properly, and I will write it from scratch. And I will have it done and spell checked and mailed before I go to sleep.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 10:05 PM |

Friday, April 05, 2002

*Pokes stuff* Hrmph.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 1:47 PM |

I had some ample free time, today, but I spent it grimacing and trying not to cry instead of thinking about Tikka, Marc and Vic, or Kelvath and Avrath. I -couldn't-, because I was getting my teeth cleaned. I would rather be awake and alert for arthroscopic surgery, childbirth, brain surgery... Anything but getting my teeth cleaned. I hate it.

I also hate people, for the most part. I much prefer the company of animals, as they simply (usually) pour out nothing but conditional love, and ask for some chow and some attention for their trouble. See, there was this guy walking a horse down lower Huffman. Now, they were across the street, but I slowed way down anyhow. Why? Because it's polite. Because you never know how an animal is going to react to vehicles, and I didn't know if the man had just spent three hours chasing down a skittish horse. So, I slowed down, and waited until I was well past them to accelerate again. I got honked at.

Animals don't care if your hair is messy, or if you get all sweaty cleaning up your room, or if your nose is running like a faucet. Animals smell better than people, and they never critisize your taste in clothes, music, or art. So there.

Animals also don't care if you're a fangirl, a fanboy, if you agree with Falwell or not, if you use Japanese honorifics or not, or whether you're a 'girl gamer' or a gamer that happens to be a female. I'm tired and cranky and wanna chew someone's ear off, so I think I'll go mess with linkage and site tweakage instead.

Also? I'm trying to decide between DrakNet and APlusNet. Both have attractive hosting packages, and both do domain registration... Hm. Anyone have any stories, or lists of pros/cons for either one?

Posted by: Shannon M.: 2:12 PM |

I'll fix the beginning of that post in a minute, no worries. There! All better, more or less.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 8:08 PM |

I found The Wild Wild World of Batwoman, h'ray. It is to be hoped that I'll find Doc Sidhe next.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 9:01 PM |

Nine Things, or Five Things. Your choice. The base templates were snagged from... Er, BlackRose, I believe, for the five things; and someone whose blog's best post was the nine things one.

I think these would fun/interesting/fascinating/your adjective here to do for characters. Hm.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 10:14 PM |

Thursday, April 04, 2002

Yasminda is deeply asleep, beside my bed. Her feet are crossed daintily, and her eyes are closed, dark streaks marking them, like someone has been careless with eyeliner. Her chin is getting grey-white, the color creeping up under her nose and into the shortshort fur around it. She'll be ten at the end of the month, heading for the geriatric end of the shepherd spectrum. The rest of her, though, is all colors of the rainbow -- smokey grey and taupey-sand and cream-white on her chest, legs and belly; sable and charcoal and black on her head and face and neck; vanilla tipped with black and russet and roan spilling down her back. She's a beautiful dog, especially when the sunlight hits her. She doesn't really like to be combed out, but she needs it, having more fur than is really necessary. She's going to start blowing coat here in a little bit, so she'll need even more attention than she's been getting. (I need to remember to get a shedding rake and a backcomber.) Her tail has a black tip on it, but it hasn't quite been the same since someone stepped on it and she walked off, effectively removing those hairs. *Wince* I think we've all stepped on her -fur- without _anyone_ knowing it. We always apologize, of course, feeling terrible for having hurt her. She seems to forgive us, as if she knows we're just big dumb clumsy humans that can't help themselves. She's awakened a couple of times since I started writing this, but as it is -such- hard work being the dog, she's gone back to sleep.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 9:53 AM |

Because I am five, I am eating Spaghettio's A-to-Zs with meatballs for lunch. Yum.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 12:52 PM |

I think one of the signs of a good doctor is having them say "Look, there are -lots- and -lots- of options. We'll start you on this particular set of meds, and if it doesn't work, or you can't deal with the side-effects, then lemme know and we'll try something else."

I'd rather that I didn't -have- to have my little pharmacopia, and yeah, I haven't been so thrilled with all of the side effects of some of my pills, but all in all... I can deal. To be -me-; to be able to go to the Dimond Center and hurry through it because I'm on a time-table, not because I'm -afraid-; to be able to pipe up in class when no one -else- is going to answer... Those things are worth a little nausea and a few palpitations. And if I decided that it -wasn't- worth it, I could call my doc and consult with her, and find something else. I keep marveling that I waited -so- _long_ to fix this... I'm such an idiot, some times.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 1:03 PM |

This place, it gets in your bones. People come, leave, and come back again. It's home, and it has a pull that no one save perhaps Robert Service can explain. I will miss all of it, from the long sunny days to the long cold clear nights, the moonlight and the stars, the ravens and the moose. I will miss it deeply, and it will gnaw at me, calling 'come home, come home, you silly girl'.

I will miss it, and I won't. I can't say that I'll miss having cold hands, a cold nose, and slipping and sliding on ice... Yet it's hooked into my soul, these treacherous things of winter. And they will call, and I will miss them, despite all of my bellyaching. And I will go home, and wonder why I ever thought I wanted to leave...
Posted by: Shannon M.: 1:36 PM |

Er... Dear CoJCoLDS: That commercial is -weird-. You're very very lucky that it was not me, and that you didn't film it secretly... I'd have snapped back something sarcastic. As it is... It's still a bizarre little commercial.

Not yours,
Shan
Posted by: Shannon M.: 1:53 PM |

I shoulda taken a nap. *Yawn* I hope I can stay awake during class... It promises to be interesting, but I have a terrible time -looking- interested in class, as I invariably end up yawning and yawning throughout.

And I'd still like to know why (and to where) my copy of Doc Sidhe and The Wild Wild World Of Batwoman eloped.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 1:55 PM |

Wednesday, April 03, 2002

I can't decide if Alex Beam is jealous, just grumpy, or frightened. At any rate, he reminds me of Dvorak, and not in a -good- way. Where's my camera?
Posted by: Shannon M.: 8:50 AM |

I like Lulu 'cause she's A) got that kickass outfit and B) 'cause she's -the- magic user of the group. No one else can zap, freeze, fry or drown an enemy like -she- can. Her mode of dress? Not offensive to me. I do have to admit to worrying, vaguely, every once in a while, that she was going to fall out of her top, but other that... *Shrug* Well, that, and being sad that I don't have the cleavage to pull off cosplaying her, should I ever have the opportunity to do so.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 9:04 AM |

Also, I like Rikku. Finally I can start outfitting my characters with -useful- weaponry! And I can get the bits and pieces necessary for said outfitting!
Posted by: Shannon M.: 1:02 PM |

I tripped over my own feet, on the hem of my -clamdigger-length- PJ bottoms, and a whole bunch of junk that my brother keeps in the doorway of his room for just that purpose. Yes, he's a slob. An even bigger one than I am, actually -- he's the one that had the jar of nacho cheese dip in his room for 6+ months. Ick.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 1:18 PM |

I have got to stop eating junk for breakfast. I guess I'll take a shower and get ready to venture out into the world of men... Er, go do my usual errands. Yeah.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 1:32 PM |

Mm, happy-tired. We had birthday-doings for Ev's girlfriend, which was fun. More later, when I'm feeling marginally more A) coherent and B) charitable toward the intelligence-challenged among us technoelite. Or something like that, anyhow.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 10:55 PM |

Since no one has taken the bait, I'll fess up: the Delirium-hairdo post was my April Fool's joke. I -do- have stubble, but it's only a little bit and it's only on the back of my neck. I like the way it feels, and it makes me want to write more K/A... Which makes me a little sad, because I want some M/V/T, dammit. Someone hand me my SuperGigantic Extra-Pointy Poking Stick.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 11:04 PM |

Tuesday, April 02, 2002

It's five o'clock in the morning, and it's getting light.

No, I'm not kidding.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 5:05 AM |

I now have more puncture and slice-like wounds (due to the cat) on my body than anyone else in my family. I'm not particularly -proud- of this fact; initial acquisition hurts like the dickens. That and the ones on my toes are mostly my fault for not moving the ribbon we were playing with...
Posted by: Shannon M.: 5:09 AM |

I certainly would like to know what I did with my Wild Wild World Of Batwoman tape. Not because I'll die without it, just because I can't -find- it and I _know_ it has to be around here _somewhere_.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 5:11 AM |

I think I'll go back to sleep, now. I took my medication, had a drink of water, let the dog out, and fixed my template... I accomplished a lot in twenty minutes. Now, if only I can accomplish a lot with my -report- in a few hours... On the plus side, it doesn't _have_ to be 5 pages long. 5 pages is the -maximum- number of pages it can be, plus bibliography (I'm guessing, anyhow). So, hooray!

Sleep, that was what I was going to do...
Posted by: Shannon M.: 5:14 AM |

Monday, April 01, 2002

Mm... Not much to mention, at the moment. Have journal entries to do; updated my Nothing link; had breakfast and am contemplating dessert. Oh! I -did- get some candy, for those of you waiting breathlessly for that tidbit. Some Robin's Eggs, Cadbury mini-eggs, and a few creme eggs. My mother said she'd buy us chocolate bunnies, and then we all promptly chose other things. I love my family.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 8:59 AM |

Faaaaascinating. In Opera, if I get the 'please reenter your password' dialogue, Blogger posts my post without the 'no ID given' error. *Pats it* Good Blogger.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 9:01 AM |

I've never paid much attention to Mr. Ebert, and now I'm beginning to think I've missed something. Time to go read up, I guess.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 9:59 AM |

I finally figured out that <3 is not 'less than three'. It's a -heart-. Or it's supposed to be, anyhow, depending on your font settings.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 10:16 AM |

It's funny how having to schedule eating around medication suddenly enlightens one to the fact that one grazes -all- _day_.

In other news, it's weird to listen to a TV show wherein the interviewee shares your name, not to mention some of your interests...
Posted by: Shannon M.: 11:32 AM |

I can spend all day recording the dullest, most trivial thoughts here. I could spend twenty minutes telling you all about what all I planned to do over spring break. I could spend another twenty telling you what I managed to accomplish, out of all of my plans. So how come I can't make myself do the same thing, save that it's transcribed in Japanese?
Posted by: Shannon M.: 11:34 AM |

Ah, lovely. So far, I have yet to be suckered by anyone, be sent email featuring articles from The Onion, or gotten soaked. However, the cat did decide to take up mountain climbing, with myself standing in for the mountain. Ouch.

I don't wanna go to class! I don't know why, either, aside from sheer laziness.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 5:02 PM |

Ahem. *Pokes things and makes a few technical adjustments* I hereby retract the first statement of my last post.

...But at least it wasn't MS copyrighting ones and zeroes again. Heh.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 8:49 PM |

*Pokes more stuff* Hmph. That's weird...

More Trivia: had the chapter seven test in JPN today. Misawa-sensei asked me -why- I liked the ocean. I had no way to answer him except for 'wakarimasen' -- I don't know/understand. I also stuttered, stumbled, and made faced as usual. I completely spaced how to do comparisons, which require a couple of particular little words. I didn't write the best journal I could have; once again I confused poor Misawa-sensei by including strangely-rendered place-names... But he said I was doing a good job and he gave me a whale and a starfish sticker on the top of my journal, which made me feel marginally better. I think I'm going to have to buckle down and go to tutoring tomorrow.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 9:10 PM |

I get my hair cut tomorrow! I'm getting it razored down to stubble, except for a fringe up front, which I'm going to grow long and then bleach, followed up by pink dye. Kind of a Delerium-from-The Kindly Ones idea, really.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 9:13 PM |

I also took the plunge and went with YACCS as my comments system. If it gives people fits, or adds interminable loadtime to my page, lemme know, 'kay?
Posted by: Shannon M.: 9:34 PM |

I'm almost terrified to post this... My template box is blank.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 10:06 PM |

Grmphle. Well, if nothing else, I now have a copy of this layout with the hexidecimal link colors. Ooh.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 10:18 PM |

Sunday, March 31, 2002

Happy Easter, or Ostara, or ึster, or whatever you celebrate today. *Grin*
Posted by: Shannon M.: 9:52 AM |

Toulouse is a pleasure shedder. When she's happy, kerfwoom, her hair falls out. My shirt and my keyboard are covered with hair...

In other news, I wonder if I can get some Easter candy before it's all gone... (We haven't bought any in I don't know how long. I want a bunny, and some creme eggs, and Robin eggs, and... Well, you get the picture.)
Posted by: Shannon M.: 9:57 AM |

Toulouse also tries to bury her food. *Blink* I guess to keep Yasminda from eating it, or something... As I only have carpet in my room, it doesn't work too well.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 10:02 AM |

I'm always looking for new music. I think 5plendid will help.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 11:00 AM |

Lysol, Pine-sol, either way they both reek. Please pass the white vinegar and the bleach... And gallons and gallons of -very- hot water. *Snort* I have to go vacuum and fold clothes, now.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 11:11 AM |

Strange Pictures From Soggy Camera... A Cautionary Tale, Of Sorts. For Tom, Reesa, and anyone else that's curious.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 4:13 PM |

Stuff like the bills mentioned in this article, not to mention the payola involved (and look! Stevens is part of it! GRRR.) is what pisses me right off about politics. As I've mentioned, I try to avoid it because it raises my blood pressure, and causes me to think thoughts of coups and revolutions. Anyone wanna help me take over the country?
Posted by: Shannon M.: 5:06 PM |

Mount -Dew-, not -Doom-, according to those that know these things. I still say it's a silly name for a mountain that's home to lots of Evil, but hey. JRR never asked me.
Posted by: Shannon M.: 5:42 PM |