10.01.03 :: 11:40

I slept worth crap last night. Went to bed at 9:30pm and slept until 11:30pm when I woke up feeling very nauseous. I got up and played FFTA until 2:30am. Then I had a weird dream. I dreamt that I was at a high school or something and I could hear moaning from the boys locker room. I went in to investigate woke up. I laid there and heard a thud... thud thudddd. And again thud... thud thudddd. I thought one of the neighbors had the bass of their music turned up, but it was 3:30am. It freaked me out 'cause I'd just had a dream where I was hearing noises. After a couple more minutes of trying to locate the source I pulled out the rod I keep by my bed just in case (the beanie beat down stick) and traced it down. Turned out Pepper was snoring in a really odd manner that sounded like a deep thudding. I woke her up and she didn't do it again ^^;

10.01.03 :: 20:31

Welp, today ended up completely sucking ass. I was sent home from work around 4pm after throwing up in my wastebasket --; I rushed home as quickly as I could just to get in the door and do it again. Bent over a large bowl is how I spent most of the evening. Man, what a pain. I dunno what's wrong, I was feeling *fine* before yesterday evening. [growl] Mom wants me to go to the Dr. tomorrow instead of waiting on it like I did last month. Augh. And my boss is getting (rightfully) aggravated at the sickness even though there's no denying that I was ill. I so did not need this --;

10.01.03 :: 22:36

Feeling better after sitting for a while. I ate a half-can of chicken and stars soup and a half-cup of 7-up. If I keep feeling okay like this work'll be okay tomorrow :)

10.02.03 :: 20:19

I went to the Dr. this morning 'cause I was still vomiting this morning. I went to the immediate care clinic instead of my regular Dr. (It's a pain to get in with his clinic). It was my first time going to that clinic, so I had to fill out all the paperwork, then waited in line for my turn. (Played a few rounds of FFTA. I've got 97 missions complete and am clan level 27 now).

Anyhow, I told the Dr. my problem and that I'd had the same thing happen a month ago. She nodded and thought on it and asked me a lot of questions (a ton more questions than what my regular Dr. does). I didn't have any other symptoms besides the vomiting; no fever, aches, chills, etc. I think she's on the right track when she concluded that it's a menstrual problem. She thinks the male Dr. mis-diagnosed last month because the symptoms looked like a viral infection. Without a growing pattern she would have said the same thing.

So, for starters she prescribed some anti-vomiting medication (yay). Then she tried to think of a medication I could take to prevent the problem from getting to the vomiting stage (to balance out the hormones). The thing is, I'm allergic to what's in every medication designed for that purpose >.<; She thought she knew of one that would be safe for me to take, looked it up to be on the safe side, and I can't take that either =/ So, she said to take Tylenol since it was the only thing that might help that I wasn't allergic to =/

10.03.03 :: 20:24

I'm feeling a lot better than I was the other day, but man, am I tired x.x; At work I spent most of the day filing DSL records that dated back to January of 2002 --; Yeah, I got through the H's and had filed about 250 records. Then at home I needed to clear out my current bedroom 'cause we're going to be moving furniture tomorrow. I don't think I'm going to get that done tonight. It's 8:30 and I'm beat z.z Maybe I'll go to bed early, get up early, and finish then. I did get a lot done, I'm just not finished.

While cleaning I found a pile of writing notes from the SeeDfic. There was a half-written poem that I hadn't used, so I thought I'd post the draft of it here. Keep in mind that it's really rough and I dunno if I'll ever finish it ^^;

"Dance of the Balamb Fish"

You move effortlessly through the emerald bay
Avoiding schools of children at play
Going through life with no regret
Until I find you in my net

Across my deck you dance
For this will be your only chance
to escape, my silvery friend
or will this be the tragic end?

Flip, flop, sloosh and slide
You've got to find a place to hide!
Oh look, by the pail
you could hide amongst the kale -- (is there even kale in the sea?)

10.04.03 :: 22:36

Oh man am I tired >.<! I continued working on the rooms at 7:30 this morning and kept going almost non-stop until now. I've done so much today. My aunt and I got everything taken out of my old room and the furniture moved into the new room (where I'm sitting right now ^^ ) Taking the bed apart and putting it back together was a pain.

Mom, Aunt Ginny, and I went out to lunch at Applebee's to celebrate Aunt Ginny's berfday. It was good, but didn't sit well with my stomach x.x; I got her Yuki Kajiura's "Fiction" CD (amongst other things). I think it's her first real CD ^^ I made her a disc a couple days ago with some of Kajiura's music on it and she really liked it :) I'm glad. I'm also glad she's learning how to use her car's CD player ^^

After lunch mom left and the two of us went chair shopping. Aunt Ginny bought me a new chair as an early Christmas present. It kicks a lot of butt ^^ It's a green rocker / recliner, very plush and big. We also got an end table / file cabinet so that I have a place to set my drinks ^^v They're being delivered on Tuesday.

After that Aunt Ginny left and I resumed working. I got the contents of the two closets switched (so now the computer parts are in the workroom and my clothes are in the bedroom ^^ ) I also did some internal recabling. I'm not finished with that yet. I don't want to do too much until the electrician has done what he's going to do.

My parents pissed me off this evening when they nagged me about the print shop. In a way they really make me appreciate people like Sean 'cause he realizes that I'll actively resist doing something if I've been nagged about it. Thus he'll give the occasional prod, but never goes into the full guilt-trip thing. My parents have lived with me my entire life and haven't figured that out. [sigh] I'm going to try to find the time to do what they want tomorrow, but it still pisses me off. I doubt very much that they've written down the information I've asked for when I tend the shop (little things like the number of the copier repairman).

10.05.03 :: 21:06

I called Aunt Ginny this morning and asked if we couldn't take today off. She was agreeable so I spent the morning with my parents doing their crap instead. (Guess what? I'd done most of it before. Gyah --; )

After that I went home and started working on the house again. I took down all the posters I had up and then took down the wood panelling. (If I ever meet whoever invented wood panelling I'm going to kick him in the nuts --; ) Then I spackled all the nail holes in the wall. I took a break after that and went next door to tutor the neighbor on how to use her computer for an hour. When I got back I unpacked my games, books, and DVDs. I'm glad for all the room that I have now. My things are crammed onto shelves. (It won't be that way forever, mind you, but it's a nice feeling for now ;)

And the RT:Legends tourney started today. Currently I have Nancy creating a traffic jam and shooting her gun at the hovercar Lance (from GTA: Vice City) and Zappa (from Guilty Gear X2) are in. S-ko's going to show up and probably beat on Nancy some. At least it's some action. 10 hours into the tourney and people are still doing story posts and not much fighting posts. Gotta get some action going :>

10.06.03 :: 20:05

I'm having a great time with RT:Legends right now :D MH and I made it through the first round ^^v Now onto round two o.o; Today Nancy has tried to kill Yomiko by pushing her off a pier, got into a fight with Zappa and S-ko (from Guilty Gear X2), found her "savior" in Tommy (from GTA: Vice City), tried to kill Lance again, and is currently floating in the sea 'cause Tommy knocked her off the speed boat for using him as a human shield :P (It's been a busy day, yo!)

Ginny got some more things done on the house while I was gone. The biggest project was to repair a hole in the wall in my old bedroom and work on finishing the walls (they'll be painted tomorrow). Gyah, the fumes from that room are giving me a headache and I have the doors closed ._. I also have this terrible feeling that I'm forgetting to do something important =/ (And also that I'm out of money, though I just got paid and I know for a fact that what I've spent doesn't exceed what's in my bank account, so it's a stupid worry). I think I'm going to sign up for the bank's overdraft protection if, for no other reason. than to keep me from having weird feelings like this one :P

I got my paws on a copy of Guilty Gear X2 because I've been really curious about Zappa and S-ko. It's a pretty good fighting game. Heh, it doesn't hurt that I like the genre to begin with ;) I'm surprised that the PS2 controller reaches my desk now, though it's too far away for me to read the TV with or without glasses =/ My green plush chair is supposed to be delivered tomorrow. That'll be so great! Sitting in a comfy chair with the PS2 controller in my hand and being close enough to the TV that I can read it. (See? I don't want too much, just the simple things!)

10.07.03 :: 20:18

Man, what a day! A lot of bad stuff and a lot of good stuff, so it was just a lot of stuff! (Like I haven't gotten my fill of that lately). First, at work, this lady called up to bitch us out. She wasn't in front of her computer where we could address the issue. No, she was in the drive through lane of a little coffee kiosk getting a latte. She was barking at both me on the cell and the kid taking her order. WTF?

Not long after that I spoke with a lady who could not for the life of her answer yes or no questions, and then got pissy at me when I insisted that we try to stay on task. (Honestly, you only need to tell me your problem once. If I need it repeated or elaborated on I'll ask questions that shed light on the bits I'm confused on). There shouldn't be any confusion when I ask "What icon do you hit to view webpages?" If there is I'll rephrase the question. If I run out of ways to rephrase it, then we've concluded that you have the IQ of a rock and shouldn't be in possession of a computer. Anyhow, I browbeat her into doing what *I* wanted us to do and *gasp* got her problem fixed. (It's amazing how that works, isn't it?) But, that wasn't good enough, nooooooo~~ She had to berate me for another five minutes after I fixed the problem telling me what a rotten person I am. Yeah, yeah, talk to my manager if you're so inclined. He'll probably tell you I'm a rotten person too ^^; (Or at least that you've had to have done *something* to earn my ire).

Anyhow, on the good side of the ledger, my new chair was delivered today :D I can't find the exact chair on their website, but this is close (minus my chair being green and not vinyl. It's *very* plush and soft and plush *_* ).

Dave gave me a copy of Medieval: Total War this evening ^_^ I talk so much about other strategy games and how much I liked them that he considered it a crime that I hadn't played this one yet. I haven't installed it yet (going to do so after I blog). It looks like it'd be right up my alley. (Kind of like Kessen ^^ )

Evil Nancy and Yomiko made it to the third round of RT:L! W00t! I haven't done as well this round as I did in the last one (just don't have my writing mojo jojo going for me), but it's picking up. Currently, Nancy has dragged Yomiko into battling goblins and a sandworm. Yomiko's paper supply was eaten by the sandworm. Luckily, Santa Claus showed up and gave her a present. Nancy helpfully suggested that Yomiko use the wrapping paper as a weapon and Santa began hitting on Nancy (dirty old Saint Nick).

10.08.03 :: 21:37

Woohoo! Made it to round 4 of the tourney! This round takes place in a world that's like hell. Nancy has sabotaged a guard's tower and some other players are going to take it down :D Yay! Chaos! I'm pretty pleased with how the tourney's gone. Nancy ranked up today. Her starting class was "Dark" and she could have gone to "Gladiator" or "Villain" depending upon her actions. She ended up going into Gladiator because she accumulated 'light' points. (I was aiming for Villain 'cause Villain gets the Seduce skill XD ) Bah, but the host is right, Gladiator is a truer match because Nancy is actually becoming a nicer (less blood thirsty) character.

Other stuff... Aunt Ginny has worked wonders on my new workroom. It's so... GREAT! I spent some time just laying on the floor and soaking in the good vibes this evening. The work tables are in place, along with a gooseneck lamp, and office chair. The love sofa that's in there will probably stay in that room (it's not hurting anything by being there). And shelves! Yes! With more shelvish goodness to come! There's a perfect spot in the corner for me to put a small TV once I've saved up a bit of money to pick one up (the cable outlet is right there :) This whole project is coming together so well... I'm just so excited! :D

Work has been insane. One tech is sick. Lincoln's missing work because his wife is about to give birth to their son :D (I'm praying for you!) I think the techs that are there are doing a pretty good job of holding down the fort while chaos reigns. There's been other issues with servers and such, but each problem we've tackled aggressively and gotten resolved quickly. That's the most you can ask for, right?

I watched Read or Die TV 3 & 4 tonight. I'm torn between Nenene and Anita being my heroes. Haha, I like how grumpy Nenene is (plus being an author is freaking cool). Anita's the most collected of the sisterly group ^^ Not to mention creative with paper. I can't wait 'til the DVDs come out. It'll be cool :)

10.09.03 :: 21:44

W00t! Made it to round 5 of the tourney :D Today's round is in a desolate place of nothingness. So pretty much, we have to interact with each other if we want things to happen ;) So far in this round Nancy's met up with Zappa and Yomiko. I would recommend reading LordLocke (Zappa) posts because of the humorous way Yomiko's paper supply is refilled. I've been working with him to try to do a bit more plot stuff. Dunno how this round is going to turn out. Hopefully well since it's all gearing towards a big fight :D

I finished the massive filing project I've been working on for the last week. I figure that I made about 700 file folders and sorted them. Ouch. My thumb has a lot of papercuts on it and it itches ^^;

The workroom looks so great. I really wish I had my camera so I could take a picture to post. The love sofa now has some throw pillows and a throw blanket on it (both purple/lavender colored). The curtains are a matching color. (The carpet is lavender). I spent some time this evening going through my model paints to see which bottles I'd need to replace and then put them away in the bins on the work table :D I know my aunt's been worried that I won't like what's been done, but I can't think of a way to express how very pleased I am with everything. I've said it many times, every day I tell her, I wonder if I should send her flowers or something.. hmm.. maybe..

10.10.03 :: 21:28

Holy crap, made it to the semi-finals o.O!! I know I've been working hard on this, but also that others are being kind to me 'cause my partner hasn't been participating much. I'm grateful. I'm also having a lot of fun. The character development is phenomenal. The current round is in Washington, D.C.

I had a pretty busy "day off". I worked at the print shop for around four hours being "trained" on how to run it. Um.. Yeah.. I was pretty tolerant of it all until tonight when dad started to tell me how to unlock the back door --; That's too much guys. I KNOW HOW TO UNLOCK THE DOOR! It's not like I haven't done it zillions of times in the past. And dad told mom to stop repeating instructions to me 'cause it was getting on his nerves as well. (They're both a bit waspish right now. Pre-vacation stress I figure). They're leaving tomorrow morning. Thank God.

10.11.03 :: 22:12

Really big holy crap, made it to the finals! O.O; I really like how the story is progressing / set up. The two teams are fighting together rather than against each other. No matter how this turns out, I'll feel like a winner. I care more about story than winning, and this is some invigorating writing :D I don't get to do round-robbin' that often.

My parents left on vacation this morning. I'm glad, they needed this ^^; They called me this evening to let me know that they've arrived in Portland safely. They're flying out in the morning for New York City. It's their first time on the east coast. I hope they enjoy it :)

Work was such a pain --; One tech was gone half the day helping an admin set up some wireless stuff on the roof. That left Lincoln and me to cover the phones, and the phones weren't in working order. (They would ring, we couldn't hear the people on the line, but they could hear us). Yeah, so we called in to get that fixed =/ And then there was a customer who, for the life of him, absolutely could not get both his username and password typed in correctly at the same time. For an hour either one or the other was wrong and he'd keep calling us telling us the server was down. Um, no, I'm watching the authentication server and you left off a letter, or misspelled something, or didn't put in a password at all, do you have a cat, sir? Yes, could you get it to type in the username and password for you? :P

It's freaking cold around here lately. I pulled out the space heater and have been using that since it's been around 60F in the house lately =/ I was such a moron last night. Looking for an outlet to plug it into I pulled out a cord that was my router ^^; Yeah, I disconnected myself from the net on accident, oops.

10.12.03 :: 19:22

Welp, the tournament's over and I didn't win, but I feel like I did ^^; That sounds arrogant, but I had such a fantastic time writing~~ Locke and JSG really deserved the win. They wrote circles around me and I'm glad they got it. The final round was amazing. I've been on a high since yesterday with how it's turned out. A fine piece of writing for four authors working without an outline [grins].

Worked on the house a bit today. Aunt Ginny came by with an endtable and lamp for the work room. She's also going to make curtains to cover up the closet (I took down the doors 'cause I didn't like them). It should turn out nice :) I took most of the garbage that we've built up down to the print shop's dumpster this evening.

What else today... I fell asleep while playing Guilty Gear X2 in the green recliner. It was so comfy ^^ And the Chargers didn't lose this weekend 'cause it was their week off :P I rewatched some RoD TV. If anyone has an mp3 of the opening theme, please drop me an email or IM ^^; I'd love to have it but I don't use Kazaa or WinMX or anything like that.

My parents called me from NYC. They're having a good time, but the city life definitely isn't for them. Dad complained about how there weren't any mountains around. Mom complained about all the people and the crazy drivers. I think the taxi's frightened her the most ^^; Also, the hotel didn't have their reservations =/ Dad was able to get them a room, but he had to pay for it even though their room was supposed to be prepaid. They found this little hole in the wall place that serves an outstanding steak. Dad was very impressed by that, heh.

10.13.03 :: 18:22

The first day of print shop-sitting went pretty well. Of course every copy machine jammed at least once, but that's to be expected. It was actually pretty quiet, which I appreciated. It gave me a chance to whip out the vacuum and clean the place up some. (That's saying a lot coming from me, vacuuming rates as one of those things I *hate* to do... too noisy =/ ) Little hole punches are the worse for getting out of carpet. I think mom has a little dirt devil in her apartment. I may swing by there tomorrow and borrow that for getting into the corners and such.

I also started working on the list of things she had for me to do while she was away. Top on the pile was to fight MCI on her behalf. She changed phone companies on September 2nd and MCI is still billing her on all three of her phone lines --; Clearing the problems on one of the lines was easy enough. For the other two I had to call work and get one of the CSRs (Customer Service Rep) to help me. (I don't work in the phone division, so I don't really have the ammo that it takes to go beayatch on a phone company flunky). The CSRs slapped MCI around and got them to let go of another one of the phone lines. Then we tried to clear up the problems with billing on the third and really weren't successful =/

See the line was supposed to be transferred Sept 2nd, all the records on my work's end of things show that date. MCI shows Sept 19th 'cause that's the day they made Mom go through their self-deactivation 'cause they wouldn't honor the original deactivation order from my work. Thus they extracted another month worth of service (and revenue) out of my mother that they shouldn't have had. (It's up to two months now 'cause they're only being slapped around today). I growled at them, and snarled, and didn't get very far... but overall it was a victory. I got the erroneous phone charges of around $50 reduced to erroneous phone charges of $7.07. I think mom can live with that ^^;

I'm disappointed that mom's computer doesn't have a video card good enough to play Medieval Total War =/ I was planning on doing that between unjamming the copy machines and answering the phone. Ah well, that's what FFTA and DemiKids: Light is for ^^ (104 missions complete, clan level 30).

I wrote part of an epilogue for Nancy/Yomiko that'll tie into Zappa's epilogue. The story's not finished yet. I'm not sure who's going to finish it.

10.15.03 :: 21:17

I forgot to blog yesterday, oops ^^; I blame Phht for this, he didn't reminds me. (Though that's not really fair. I told him that I'd worked on SeeDfic2 yesterday and that distracted him from pestering me to blog ;) He's been putting a lot of work into the weapon's cost chart for the FF8 d20 RPG tonight. (Yes, this is another shameless plug for his d20 RPG).

I had a hectic day at the print shop. I took in four jobs for my parents to print when they get back from their vacation. I also did a bunch of photocopy jobs (I went through three reams of paper -- 1500 sheets). The only bad thing that happened was the main copy machine was having a fit. I ended up pulling out every tray, roller, hatch etc. that I could find to figure out what the problem was. Then I pulled out the heating unit that fuses the toner to the paper and took that apart. Inside I found two very scrunched up sheets of paper that were partly burnt. I cleaned that up, slapped it back together, and the machine ran like a champ the rest of the day ^^v

Lincoln's wife had their baby last night. The lil tyke's name is Fox. (NOT after X-Files, the kiddo was named after people on Lincoln's side of the family). Anyhow, my congratulations go out to them!

There, I'm done, now go to bed, Phht! :P

10.16.03 :: 19:45

For as busy it was at the print shop yesterday it wasn't today. I watched Chicago virtually undisturbed. (I'm still amazed that some people aren't grasping the concept of limited service. There's a lot of equipment in that shop that I'm not trained to run safely and there's no way in hell I'm going to attempt it for a piddly $10 job. I value my fingers more than that). Anyhow, I think the most productive thing I did today was decorate the shop for fall. I suck at drawing, but I'm capable of photocopying a pattern on colored paper and cutting it out :D I made some pumpkins and football helmets and a ball. Considering my limited craft ability they look pretty good IMO ^^

GameInformer has an article in this month's issue of the 50 greatest games in this generation of consoles thus far. While every game they chose has merits, I thought I'd do up my own list of top 10. This is a highly personal list with factors like story and playability going into it. Another thing that goes into it is overall value. If the game is 8 hours long and it cost you $50 I hope it has a high replay value or you *really* enjoyed it. Okay, to the list. In not particular order:

• Jet Set Radio Future - Xbox: This game is an improvement on the first in every way. The controls are refined (though still troublesome at times), the levels are larger, the music is still great, and the skaters are more 'connected' with their world than the first game. (Having no time limit and skating from zone to zone really helped make it feel like a city rather than levels chosen from a map).
• Animal Crossing - GameCube: AC is way too addictive for its own good. I'm too lazy to weed my own garden but I'll obsessively pull weeds anywhere I find them in town. It takes the intensively of The Sims and puts it on a level that I can manage.
• Super Smash Bros Melee - GameCube: This is a fine example of a fighting game that's welcoming to every level of player, even people who suck at fighters can enjoy SSBM. I think it's due to the familiarity of the characters and the easy to pick up controls. (Mastering them can be another matter, but there is some merit to button mashing).
• Dynasty Warriors 3 - Playstation 2: I chose 3 over 4 because 3 was a greater evolutionary leap. 3 was the first one that incorporated the ability to play two players at once. That added a ton of playability. Because of all the unlockable items/weapons/characters a single play through won't cut it. You'll end up playing every character multiple times if you want everything unlocked.
• Final Fantasy X - Playstation 2: A fantastic story coupled with a sweet battle system rocketed this game up near the top of my all time favorite Final Fantasy's. Even after beating the game I still went back to play more because I hadn't gotten everything yet.
• Suikoden III - Playstation 2: Suikoden III caters to the story lover in me. I love how the story of three people are intertwined and how different perspectives on events can make you feel differently about them. It's a good lesson to remember in life and it's refreshing to see it shown in a video game.
• Disgaea - Playstation 2: It's not often that you find a strategy game that's actually funny. So often it's moving units around in epic battles and so serious, but Disgaea tips that concept on its ear. Plus the amount of playability is unreal. Never mind going after story battles, just leveling up items can keep you occupied for hours on end.
  
  I'm getting tired, so honorable mentions now...
  
  
• Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution - Playstation 2: $20 + tons of unlockables == sore thumbs :)
• Kessen 2 - Playstation 2: I have 8 units with 13,000 troops each in them? Cool! Let's take over China!
• .hack//[insert title here] - Playstation 2: Have fun trading!

10.17.03 :: 20:38

.hack//MUTATION is ticking me off. The dungeons don't seem to be in order of difficulty, so I'm banging my head against a level 35 one and then a level 30 one comes up, WTF? Guilty Gear X2 is ticking me off too. I was playing in Story mode and I have no problem getting to the last character in the story and then I can't damage them. It's like they have a Regen spell cast on them or something. WTF again. I know I'm hitting them, why aren't they hurting? ;_; I didn't do anything else today of note. Just played games and was bored most of the day...

10.18.03 :: 10:56

Wow, I slept 10.5 hours last night o.O; I feel like an old lady for going to bed at 9pm, but I guess I really needed it. I'm feeling pretty peppy this morning 'cause of being well-rested ^_^ I figured that I'm working 28 hours at my normal job and about that much at my parent's shop, so, yeah, I can justify being tired ^^; But so far so good and I'm half way through it!

10.18.03 :: 22:34

Luna from Random Insanity is running a mini tournament for the folks of #fanfics. I'm extremely grateful for this. I think people will enjoy it if they can get over the hurdle of understanding what it is. Phht followed RT:L, so I know he's got a pretty firm grasp of how Survivor 0 works. It's gonna take all the help I can get to explain the idea to everyone ^^; I'm going to sponsor Nausicaa with Teto as a fluffy sidekick. (Though I've had second thoughts on that. If I uses an evil character I could force confrontations and prod people into reacting if I had to...)

I watched the Chrono Trigger OVA this evening. It was... Kinda weird. Not what I was expecting at all. And it reminded me of 10 Little Gall Force for some reason ^^; (Probably it's omake-ish story). Noir 7 and Haibane Renmai 2 come out on the same day at the end of the month =/ I don't want to wait two weeks ^^;

Remodeling the two rooms is pretty much done now except for the electrical. Aunt Ginny put up some curtains in my bedroom today to replace the closet doors I took down. They're really nice. I'm not sure I can describe them, but I'll take pictures when I get my camera back.

10.19.03 :: 14:12

I've done an awful lot for it being a Sunday o.O I bought and wrapped dad's berfday gifts. I also bought a new winter jacket. Mine's looking really worn ^^;; Did dishes and laundry... Yeah, I think I can justify relaxing some now ^^ Maybe I'll give my bro a ring and see what no good he's up to.

I forgot to mention it yesterday, but while I was driving home from work yesterday I passed a fire o.O Here's the news story on it.

10.20.03 :: 20:01

I had a couple of real winners at the print shop today ^^; I tossed out a college student who was sleeping in the shop. He came in while I was helping some other customers and decided to take a nap. He told me that I shouldn't throw customers out. I told him customers don't sleep and he should try buying something :P

Another customer accused me of jewing him (his word, not mine) when I refused to break a prepackaged bundle of booklets for him. (He wanted only one and they come in packages of four). We went around and around, him trying to coax me, but I wouldn't budge. He then said he was going to call my mother (he knew she was on vacation). I pointed out she was on a cruise ship and it'd be kind of hard to do. He said he had a cell. I wished him luck. I know that this one will come back to bite me 'cause he does a lot of business at the shop, but I was given an exact list of what I can and cannot do and breaking packages was listed under the don't category.

I went up to their apartment to get some change for the cash register after the shop closed. Freaking stupid cat ReRun wouldn't let me by the door until I outgrowled him. Then I went to the bedroom to get the change and he went under the bed. He then had me pinned in a corner. (I had to walk by the bed and I knew he'd attack if I did). I got too close once and he attacked my leg. I shook him off and he went back under the bed. I was still pinned though =/

I stayed there for a good 5 - 10 minutes considering my options. He couldn't've done too much to hurt me... Could kick him to get him if he came out... And I considered snapping some of the coins I had in my pockets at him to drive him away... I also considered pulling a belt out of the closet and snapping that at him... In the end I pulled the bedding off the bed so that it covered him up and made my escape while he was under the blankets --; I feel like an idiot for having to do that, but I know mom would be furious if I hurt her cat no matter how much he hurt me to begin with --;

We had a new tech start at work today. He's pretty experienced, so it won't take much to bring him up to speed. He seems nice enough, but I really didn't have a chance to speak with him today. I was up to my eyeballs in Lincoln's problems :P (Trouble tickets he'd started last week and I finished off this morning).

10.21.03 :: 06:37

I had a dream this morning that I was working on a writing project and someone wanted me to read some of it aloud to an audience. I laughed, was coaxed, and eventually agreed to do it. How many people could there be that'd want to hear me read a passage of my work? I stepped out onto the stage and looked out. The lights blinded me, but as my eyes adjusted the number of people increased until there were tens of thousands of people in the audience. I was so startled that *that many* people would want to hear that I woke up.

A bean can dream, can't she?

10.21.03 :: 19:40

I booted another person out of the print shop today. This time it was a man with only one tooth in his mouth who was trying to convince me that my mother gave him money whenever he came by and asked for it. Can I spare $10? Hell no. Now get out unless you want to order some printing.

My PS2 controller broke today --; The L3 joystick makes my character run around in circles and rebooting the PS2 doesn't make it stop. I bought a new controller from Freddy's, a Nyko Air Flo EX. I'm not sure how keen I am on the idea of a controller with fans in it, but it was the only thing they had that wasn't cheap. (Y'know, a controller you just know you'll be replacing again in three months).

Also, no good deed goes unpunished. I'm finally calming down after being furious at a customer who's abusing my good nature. What he needs is a webmaster to rewrite his CGI scripts for him. I rewrote one as an example and sent it to him... So he copy and pasted what I rewrote into other pages and guess what, his site's broken now! This is so not my fault even though he's trying to pin it on me. I'm going to reiterate, forceable if I must, that he needs to have a webmaster fix his site; not me and certainly not him. I wouldn't have gotten in this mess if I'd been more firm on not helping him in the first place --;

10.23.03 :: 20:13

Didn't blog last night, was too tired / irritated. I had a very busy day. The CGI guy from the other day sent an email blaming me for breaking his website and it left me furious, *really* furious. At the print shop I was really busy. I took in five jobs for mom and dad to print when they get back from vacation. I also arranged to have a rush job printed (had to order the paper, get the master copies, get a hold of the pressman, etc).

Today was much better. I only had one exceptionally stupid caller. It was a woman who insisted (and would not be persuaded otherwise) that the Internet caused her mouse pointer to jump around the screen. She wanted us, as her ISP, to make her mouse pointer stop jumping around. I suggested logical things like cleaning the mouse, updating drivers, slowing down the sample rate, but she wouldn't hear any of it. At the print shop I played .hack//MUTATION pretty much uninterrupted. Maybe a half dozen people came in total. And the only phone call I got was from Dell trying to sell me an extended warranty on one of the computers I'd bought from them.

The tournament on Write or Die is shaping up to be interesting. About as many people as I guestimated signing up have, though not necessarily the ones I thought who would. I told Lincoln about it this morning (I haven't seen him since last Friday) and he wanted to give it a try since he's seen me having so much fun. There's still a day or so left to sign up. It's a tournament for newbies (the only non-newbie signed up is me, and I intend to help people learn). This is a great opportunity to get in on learning the ropes in a 'safe' environment and on equal footing with everyone else :D

10.24.03 :: 22:23

My parents called a half hour ago, they're back in Oregon. I'd gone to bed around 8pm and they woke me up ^^; Blogging before I go back to sleep. Gotta work tomorrow after all...

I went to Sherri's for dinner tonight. (Think Denny's only less grease). It was pretty busy. Since I was alone I'd brought this month's Electronic Gaming Monthly with me to read. (I question calling it this month's since the cover says December 03. A little ahead of ourselves, aren't we?) Anyhow, there was a line at the register to pay after eating and an old couple was ahead of me. The old man saw the magazine in my hand and said, "It's so nice to see young men nowadays take an interest in electronics!" (He must have thought it was a trade magazine or something). His wife chimed in, "Kids nowadays don't have any interest in learning." No, no we don't. Check please? ^^;

I know that I'm probably just feeling extra irritable about this lately because I've been tired, but this is a general warning that I've started adding people to my IM ignore lists who IM me repeatedly while I'm away. If I'm available to chat, I'll set myself as being here. You're free to IM me if I'm set as away. If I'm around and have time I'll often times respond. But for crying out loud STOP SENDING ME DOZENS OF IMs ASKING "ARE YOU THERE?" If, after the first one, you don't get a "hi" in response you can be pretty damn sure that I'm otherwise occupied. This warning is really only aimed at a handful of people who will probably end up blocked anyways, so people like Jeffy, Jeffrey, Fishie, Jackie, NB, Yun, Sean, Helen etc. don't need to worry. I always love to hear from y'all if I'm around :)

I watched up to episode 9 of .hack//SIGN tonight. I'm not sure whether it's better to have played the games first and then watch the anime or the other way around. Jeffy says anime first, but there's a lot of things I've spotted just in the first 9 episodes that I wouldn't have caught if I wasn't near the end of MUTATION already. I'm not sure it necessarily matters since the stuff I'm recognizing is all minor (like locations, items, people, etc).

10.25.03 :: 22:07

I've decided to revisit my Halloween costume from a couple years ago and be a blanket. Yep, I'm going to walk around Friday with a blanket wrapped around me and if someone asks what I am, that's what I'm going to tell them. I'll be the warmest person in the office :D

I visited with my parents for a couple hours after work. They told me stories from the cruise and I told them what mischief I created over the last couple weeks. I don't doubt that we'll get together tomorrow so that I can help them with the print shop. They brought me back a number a goodies; a foam crown-thing from the Statue of Liberty, a sweatshirt from Canada, and more fridge magnets than you can shake a stick at. I needed fridge magnents and had mentioned it to them at some point. So they bought me one at every tourist-trap place they visited ^^; The fridge certainly has more.. uh.. personality now ^^;

Y'know, I've been waking up around 5:30am these last couple weeks... And I got to thinking, if we're doing the fall back thing tonight that means my body's going to be messed up and waking me up at 4:30am according to my alarm clock. Wonderful. I feel so messed up already. I'm about ready to fall asleep at the keyboard as it is. At least I return to a normal work schedule on Monday.

I had plenty of stupid callers today. The most remarkable was a university student who couldn't get his email from his university mail account. I have no influence over that mail server and explained that to him. (If his net connection is work as well as the email account we provided him, then there was nothing I could do). He declared that he was going to cancel his account with us because I didn't know the university's mail servers. Y'know, if I were him, I would demand a refund from the university. He's obviously still stupid =|

10.26.03 :: 20:42

I was way too busy today. I slept a lot, yay, but was woken up when Pepper decided to protect me from a cub scout who came by selling popcorn. (I really need to get on the ball about putting up some no solicitors, keep out, no trespassing, beware of dog signs.) His dad was with him. I remember them coming around last year (his grandpa lives a few houses down the road). I looked at his sheet and saw that every other neighbor had bought something. Aww man... So I bought $20 in popcorn and told them to deliver it to the neighbors who live behind me if I'm not home ^^; It was funny though. Pepper was barking and barking and I yelled at her "If you're good I'll give you some!" and she suddenly stopped barking ^^; I know she couldn't have understood me, but I do know that she loves popcorn ^^;

As I was saying, I did a lot today; laundry, paid bills, filled out the paperwork for my 401k, went down to the print shop and worked for a couple hours... Also my computer's CD-R decided to die --; Went to Circuit City and bought a new one along with some RAM for mom's machine. (I had yet to find any that worked, but was willing to give it another shot). Put the RAM in mom's computer and it worked (yay). Took the CD-R home and put it in Baku and it worked (yay). My only complaint is that Nero doesn't recognize it but Roxio does --; What a pain. I prefer Nero, but as long as the disc gets made I don't care which program burns it. So yeah, I burned CDs and cleaned off my harddrive this afternoon. About the only thing I didn't do was watch any football >=(

Kami-sama, the Chargers are playing Monday night against the Dolphins. This is going to be painful to watch ;_; If dad wasn't up to his eyeballs in printing I'd ask him if he wanted to go to the bar and watch the Chargers get slaughtered...

10.27.03 :: 20:08

After work I went down to the print shop to help my parents (they're absolutely buried, as expected). The coffee cup they'd gotten me on the east coast and that had arrived today was broken =/ S'kay... They also told me that my dad is going in for plastic surgery in December. He has these growths on his neck and face, has for as long as I can remember. I have no idea what they are, but he's going to have them removed. I also found out that my grandma had cancer. It's not too bad, they think. They caught it early, but it is on her face. They're going to start doing testing on Thursday to see how deep it is. Grandma's scared of them having to carve chunks out of her lip. It's scary, but I think that it could be worse. They could tell her that she only has a few months to live... So I'll take that mercy and thank God for it.

10.28.03 :: 22:49

The OPM demo disc arrived today with much Final Fantasy X-2 goodness on it. I spent about an hour playing with it and watching the movies ^_^ I'm glad to hear that Paine doesn't sound horrible from what little I've heard. This is encouraging. The battles are too fast paced. I want to sit there and watch them move around and change outfits and instead I have to input the next move ;_; Then again, I thought FFVIII's battles were too fast paced until I got used to the system. I'm sure it'll work out once I have some quality time with the game ;)

It also sunk into my brain today that I plunked down $600 in cash for electrical repairs to my father's house that I don't own. (If he wanted to sell the house tomorrow he'd have to do these repairs to bring the house up to code). ._.; Do y'know what I could have done with $600? (Well, b'sides squander it on video games and DVD). That would have made a nice dent in my college loan or my credit card payment =/ And I dunno if my parents even care ._.

I brought Pickles indoors tonight 'cause it's supposed to drop 20 degrees beyond what it's been averaging at. (In other words, it's going to be freaking cold). So, both pets have been driving me up the walls tonight. Pickles has to explore ever nook and cranny while Pepper is sniffing every inch of carpet Pickles as touched. They've finally calmed down for a bit. Pickles is asleep on the bed while Pepper's laying by my desk.

I've also come to realize that I spend a lot more time daydreaming / wishing I were playing video games than I actually accomplish playing them. Like, while I'm at work I'll be wishing I were at home playing games... but then I get home and I have chores to do or I get tied up into chatting and I don't get any games played. Then I tell myself that I'll play some tomorrow and it's the same thing all over again ^^; I always think that Sunday is my big video game day cause I reserve it for resting, but I very rarely sit down and play. Sad, isn't it? ^^;

10.29.03 :: 20:38

I keep thinking today's Thursday and tomorrow's Friday. Suck. Let's see... Switchblade tallied the awards from RT:L tonight and posted them. I won the "One Man Army" and "Best Friendship" awards ^^ Now Locke and I need to finish the story ^^;;

The electrician did a lot of work today *_* I now have enough juice going to each room to host a healthy LAN party (assuming I had enough room physically, which I don't ^^; ) But yeah, plenty of outlets, lots of power. He even rewired some of the kitchen 'cause he said it wasn't safe =/ Doesn't surprise me considering how old this house is. Aunt Ginny cleaned the kitchen for me while he worked. I'm embarrassed about that =/ I don't use the kitchen that often except to get to the fridge or use the microwave, so I don't mop the floor that often or anything... =/ The kitchen and living room are just areas I pass through to get to my bedroom ^^;

I have a lot in my brain right now. I told my co-workers yesterday that they couldn't ask any more of me because my brain was full... That's really how I felt, especially Monday after work. My mind had so much on it that I was forgetting things. I still feel that way. I think I'll go to bed again early tonight. Though last night I woke up and felt a bit guilty about all the sleeping I'd been doing lately (I went to bed around 9:30pm last night). I don't think it's a bad thing...

10.30.03 :: 19:20

I was having a surprisingly good day at work until I got in a tiff with a manager in another department =/ Oh well, that's nothing new ^^; Most people just let themselves be bowled over and grumble about it later. I'll snap back :P

A former boss sent Linc and me a program that's very amusing. It demonstrates physics by pushing a guy down the stairs and scoring it XD There was another one testing the body and a truck. We spent a bit too much time trying to figure out how to get the highest score ^^;

10.31.03 :: 20:41

I had such a nice day ^_^ I got off work an hour early. I was snuggled up in my blanket at work :) Lots of sugar was floating around the office for anyone with a sweet tooth. I got yummy Japanese food for dinner (though it's killing my guts right now). Actually, that was weird. We were expecting Shoji's to be packed 'cause it always is and only a few people were there o.O; It was creepy. I've never been there when it wasn't packed.

Dad liked his berfday gifts ^^ I found some great "weird crap" for him :D He's a big Jeff Gordon fan so I got him Jeff Gordon Christmas ornamented and a Jeff Gordon helmet snow globe. He really liked them. He's going to drive his co-workers nuts with them on Monday (he's the only Gordon fan in the shop ^^ )

I'm cold. I'm going to crawl back into my blankie now.

Name: Amanda Anderson
Nickname: Greenbeans
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Home: Centra Garden

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