GuiltyRed's Into The Nexus

I'm watching Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears and I am not very ashamed.

It does serve to remind me that I miss my CD of the Disney Afternoon theme music, though.

This star is part of a decoration outside of my grandparent's house. I did a little creative editing to take away the tree and add the little lights.



In other news, my poetic quote of the morning, Today I licked the air and tasted...Lucky Charms. ^__^

Guess what guess what guess what?

Zack is going to be in Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep (Japanese only, sorry, but you can scroll down to see the screencaps of Zack--pic 7 & 8) He's going to show up at the Colosseum level, and he, of course, asks about going out on a date.

:DDDDDD

Yeah, we've moved. Almost two weeks ago, in fact (first Thursday in December was the move in date); all over save the unpacking now. Himself seems to have most of the networking problems sorted out (for a while there we had two out of three of internet, working wireless network, and working gateway) so while I don't yet have a desk (it's on the list of furniture to purchase at some stage) I'm able to turn a corner of the dining table into my computer space.

The new place has a lot of good features about it, but one of the negative ones is there's approximately one-third the storage space of the old place. On the positive side, it has a bedroom more than the old place, so we've turned the final bedroom into a storeroom. It's also holding my chest of drawers, since the bedroom I've chosen turns out to be just large enough to hold my bed (queen size) and that's about it. The main bedroom of the house has been turned into Himself's den, so he's in another of the secondary bedrooms for sleeping. The secondary bedrooms all pretty much face east, so I get a nice early wake-up in the morning (as you'll probably have figured out by the posting time of this update).

At present we're still learning what's available where (neither of us have lived down in the extreme south of Perth before - Himself was based in the western suburbs, I'm from the south-eastern corridor) and sort of finding our feet. Our local shopping centre is reasonably comprehensive - two major supermarkets, two discount/seconds/reject shops (no regular stock listing, but lots of weird and wonderful variety, all of it cheap), a greengrocer and a butcher, plus a bookstore which immediately won my approval by having a range of merchandise including one of the Twilight/Buffy crossover t-shirts ("Then Buffy staked Edward. The end."), along with a chemist, a discount shoe shop, and a pawnbroker. This last is confirmation we're in social security recipient heartland. The nearest regional centre (Rockingham) has a larger mall which I visited yesterday to find out what was available, and the main cinemas are just across the road from the mall.

Since I haven't had the opportunity to start putting books up onto bookshelves, I've been filling in time by playing games on the Xbox. Mostly "The Last Remnant" - I've discovered if I sit a bit closer to the screen, I can make out enough of the text to get a reasonably good idea of what the words are. So I've restarted playing through (I'm up to the first runthrough in the Catacombs, but I'm busy doing a stroll through all the other areas I've opened up first... have I mentioned I over-grind something 'orrible? Battle level 60, and counting) and I'm doing my usual note-taking and such (I'm now up to about a dozen different pieces of paper, each covering different things). It's a good game to be fiddling about with - nice bishounen heroes, easy battle system, standard Squeenix battle frequency (walk walk attack), and it keeps my brain busy enough to get through the hottest hours of the day.

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Beware the virtual currency scams!

Health insurance industry trade groups opposed to President Obama's health care reform bill are paying Facebook users fake money -- called "virtual currency" -- to send letters to Congress protesting the bill.

Here's how it's happening:

Facebook users play a social game, like "FarmVille" or "Friends For Sale." They get addicted to it. Eager to accelerate their progress inside the game, the gamers buy "virtual goods" such as a machine gun for "Mafia Wars." But these gamers don't buy these virtual goods with real money. They use virtual currency.

* By accepting offers from third-parties -- usually companies like online movie rentals service Netflix -- who agree to give the gamer virtual currency so long as that gamer agrees to try a product or service. This is done through an "offers" provider -- a middleman that brings the companies like Netflix, the Facebook gamemakers, and the Facebook gamemaker's users together.

It's this third method that an anti-reform group called "Get Health Reform Right" is using to pay gamers virtual currency for their support.

Instead of asking the gamers to try a product the way Netflix would, "Get Health Reform Right" requires gamers to take a survey, which, upon completion, automatically sends the following email to their Congressional Rep:I am concerned a new government plan could cause me to lose theemployer coverage I have today. More government bureaucracy will onlycreate more problems, not solve the ones we have."

story: http://www.businessinsider.com/health-insures-caught-paying-facebook-users-virtual-currency-to-send-letters-to-congress-opposing-reform-bill-2009-12

thanks browngirl for link!

Guys, guys, knitting two socks at a time on one circular needle is the most awesome thing ever! I must have MOAR SOCK YARN and MOAR SOCK BOOKS!

Edit: It shouldn't be any harder to convert instructions on two circular needles to two on one, than it is to convert instructions for DPNs to one circular, right? I mean, it's still a matter of dividing up the front/top and back/bottom stitches into groups. I ask because I'm considering going back to my copy of Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles (the book that nearly made me swear off socks) and knitting the kitty socks.

I am in the library trying to do some final touch up work on the Kashmir project. I am also hopping myself up on more soda/cola/pop to keep myself from falling asleep. So tiiirrreeeddd.

The history test wasn't so bad. I think I got all of the matching right. Only two of them might have been confused. And the multiple choice was a little iffy in spots, but it was only worth 35 points, so I don't really care. It's done and that is all that matters.

In a little over three hours I will be home and (hopefully) nestled in bed for a nap, 'coz damn.

Expect to be spammed at will today...especially if I start to drift or get sleepy. Good ole internetz...keeps me awake.

For serious. Really, it's the only way we are getting through the last push of the semester.

I am sitting in psychology right now. See, I have this knack for memorization and putting that stuff in sys memory. I said before that I wasn't going to be a part of this school crap, but... I have an excuse! My brother is stressed out and because I care (yeah, yeah...) I am helping him out with some things. Look, I am not very good at this crap, but at least it is getting done and we are getting points toward our grade, right? And right now, being all stressed out and junk, we don't care what our grades are going to be...just have to get through.

So, I am in psychology and we are reviewing... and I am being one of the potatoes in this big lecture hall of potatoes. It's boring, but hey, I am recording it, so I can go over it later.

Yazuu sold our books back this morning - a whopping $85. Hey, it's more than we thought we were going to get. And that money can go toward several very important things now.

We haven't been sleeping. I think we are probably averaging 5 hours a night. We get to bed around 5a and get up somewhere between 9 and 11 am. It sucks. Really, we are so exhausted that we just can't sleep. And that is just so fucked up. We want to sleep...really. We just can't!

What's left for us before we collapse in a big bed of pillows, cats and comforters:

History exam
Hand in Term paper
Group project presentation - Kashmir
Book critique - Juki Girls
Psych exam

Almost there...

Time spent: 33 min
Calories burned: 127
Current BMI: 28.8

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm slacking. I didn't work out yesterday, since I had been dancing for hours the night before at a club, and today I had to make myself start (I usually don't have to), I only half-heartedly laughed at the male trainer (but the "Dork!"s that came out unbidden were whole-heartedly, because AHAHAHAHAHA, DORK), then I got a slight cramp in my side when I was doing the hula-hoop thing, which is a first. So I figured I'm tired and should rest. I did, however, do 30 jackknives (I'm kinda proud of myself; I'm getting a lot better at them; yay, muscle!) and did the evil hold-yourself-up-by-your-arms thing I failed at every other time. I managed it, even though GOD, it was hard, and I'm sure I'll feel it later. I did those first, which is why I think my abs and sides were like, "...eff you, we're done." XD;;;

So, yeah, I made myself do 30 minutes, and now it's ramen time, since I'm le hungry.

I just wanna hide under lots and lots of blankets for the next few days. Unfortunately that will have to wait. Final push of projects - finished the awful book review and the term paper, still have presentation of group project (hopefully, I don't make a fool out of myself tomorrow) and another book review. the last final will be online on Wednesday - hooray!

You see up there where I reference the "awful" book review? Yeah, that review turned out to be 14 pages. I hope the instructor chokes on it...

See, the assignment was this:

"Your review must be divided into two parts: a descriptive part and a critical part."

No problem...that's do-able. Here's the insane part:

go over every chapter in the book and offer a brief description of the author's key points.

Wait, there's more!

When doing so, explain the method of development - the way the author supports his/her thesis. Illustrate your remarks with specific references and quotations from the book.

For a book that has 13 frickin' chapters...holy hell, professor! You could have had the class write research papers and they would have been more fun and entertaining. Talk about sucking the life out of a project.

Then...

In the critical part of the review, you need to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the book... yadda yadda yadda.

Yeah, so that's done and I am glad that it is. That means that this particular class is finished for the term.

I have the Pacific World in Transition in 19th Century class ending tomorrow. the other two will be finished on Wednesday and then, I swear to whatever god or goddess may be frickin' listening - I am so going to hibernate for three days (at least)!

Yeah, I'll get right on that...just as soon as I read that book that should have been read last week for the book critique that is due on Wednesday! O__o

Hey, I got an idea.

I'll hire myself out to small geek venues - comic shops mainly, but local cons would work too - to dress up in cosplay and play Dance Dance Revolution. For an extra fee, I'll dress up as Starscream and call their fanboys 'pathetic flesh creatures.'

:D

.....yeah, the endorphins from exercise don't last long, but while they're there, I'm flying high with the birdies.

Vintage Gackt and You, Gackt sings T-Bolan's Hana shita kuwanai.
(Gackt often tells the story of how one Xmas Eve - a romantic time for Japanese lovers - his date stood him up, and he called You-chan, who left his own girlfriend to cheer him up! Now that's friendship!)

I've decided to post a holiday themed photo everyday to count down the days to Christmas.



This window decoration is in my grandparents' kitchen.

Less than a week, less than a week...

Sazh's Brunhilde summons/boss fight:


...I kinda refuse to believe Squeenix is setting up Vanille/Sazh pairing, but lord, if everything I've seen so far from trailers doesn't point to that. XD;;;

Battle system/Shiva summons:


The making of Snow's CGI (Japanese only; also, the event motion director is hot):

This is an awesome, quirky, frenetic little animation. It is awesome.



And as a bonus, Jay-Z meets Zelda mash-up:

Chapter 2 is now available. The links take you to my DW journal to read it. Otherwise, you can check it out on Fanfiction.net.

Only I could turn a college acceptance letter into an occasion for angst.

Thank you twilight_zone for the card!! I love the poinsettia and snowflake decorations. ^__^!!

( Random Photos wearing a special Christmas gift... )

I received training for the Civil Service Collection and I'm really excited about it. I learned how to expedite orders for exam booklets we may not have for upcoming exams. I get to check city, county, and state pending exams on a weekly basis. It'll be quite interesting when I take over the collection in January as it is highly circulating.

I've also been ordering books, weeding through my collection, maintaining displays, processing new materials, working the reference desk, and just the other day I learned how to use the book lift in the closed stacks (the hidden floors of the library, oh yes, the downtown library has hidden floors that you need an access code to enter).

----------
Dear Patrons,

When asking a reference question and then waiting for the answer, please do NOT smack your gum and proceed to snap it in your mouth over and over and over again while hanging over me. It makes me twitch and it is annoying as hell. I am not the only one who thinks as such.

Also, just because a book doesn't have the exact WORD you're looking for, there are similar words that mean the SAME thing. Really, asking three librarians and getting the same response wasn't enough of a hint?

Sincerely,
Your Neighborhood Friendly Librarian

-----------

Let's see, WSE stuff is going well too. I've been weeding through nonfiction, maintaining the library facebook, and doing my usual there. I may also have a hand in developing a Disaster Management Policy and Evacuation Procedures. We shall see. While the system has those policies, our branch does not quite have the specifics for our location.

In other news, I've started to read The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. It's really quite enjoyable. Dresden is one awesome, badass wizard (who I think sometimes just needs a hug and a first aid kit permanently attached to his belt).

In other other news, the house is still being worked on. We've got tile in the bathroom and the kitchen is being worked on. Cupboards are installed and next will be the countertops, then appliances when those are ordered. We've still got a ways to go.

A stickied thread on RP rules is rolling along nicely on the official forum for the Wymrest Accord server on World of Warcraft, when new guy Plagueburger blunders in to tell all the tyrannical, rude roleplayers that they're violating his rights, and he's being oppressed by the violence inherent in the system. Or something. So, he attempts to replace their rules with his own.

I don't bash/grief RPers, but I do ask them to keep it to themselves, as it is still rude, regardless of what kind of server it is.

The point, is that the policy goes too far, it suggests that any "non-fantasy" chat in channels such as party, yell, and say is punishable, which is unacceptable no matter the circumstance. I can see open bashing of RPers/etc being punishable, but for example, if I'm having a nice political/theological debate over general chat, then it should be perfectly fine. That is what GENERAL chat is for, general conversations.

Alas, he tries only one more angry post before he beats a retreat.

That's a whole lot of entitlewank there in just two posts, Mr. Plagueburger.