wifi/star war tribute

Tuesday : Me and another 2 friends went to pick up a Belkin Wireless ADSL Modem+Router G+ Mimo instead of going to my violin lesson, of course I was planning on canceling the class anyway since I wasn't feeling well and my throat hurt. So, it was a perfect timing when my instructor also called to cancel.

So, we picked up the Belkin G+ Mimo. Before that my friend also picked up a Belkin G+ for her home use, this latest one was for her cousin's office. We didn't think that there would be any problem, since they set up the thing easily, except the security which she called me up for help. It took little time at all for her and 2 brothers to get it going. Of course the one that actually did the setting up was her younger brother.

Now, right the next day she called me up that she couldn't get it to work. So, I sat and look through Belkin site for her, the hard part was that, I don't know what she was looking at, I have to be there to actually be of any help.

She said she should pick up her brother for him to do it. But she didn't.

Today : I spent most of the day trying to help her out over the phone, it's like flying blind, we did several times, but I never really sure what she was looking at. I guess we'll do it again tomorrow. She was having problem with the internet itself. So, I told her to try calling the ISP to see if their line was perfectly fine. SO we could be sure that it was the modem and not the ISP. My phone nearly die but before that she said she had it for today.

Guess we'll start again tomorrow.

I never knew setting up a dame wireless modem+router could be so hard.

I saw this the other day from Youtube... and well.. Love it!!



It was awesome, applause to the guy who made it.

Anime : Jigoku Shoujo : Mitsuganae/Mouryou no Hako

So, new season of Anime, and what I decided to watch...

First off, 3rd season of Jigoku Shoujo, titled Jigoku Shoujo Mitsuganae (The Cauldron of Three). Despite some repetitive theme in the series I actually like this one, so imagine my surprise that they made it a third season. Normally, they only made so many episodes and that's that. Though lately there are a lot of of the continuation of the well-to-do series. I guess there's nothing wrong about the studio trying to capitalize on their money maker.

I'm not gonna review the anime, I don't think I can keep up anyway, but I'll post the screencap and my reaction and stuff... whenever I feel like it. O.o



Emma Ai was punished at the last episode of Jigoku Shoujo Futagomori (The Two Prisoners) and we all thought that she's no longer the Hell Girl. So, even though I know that she would be the main character again, I was interested to see how they were gonna bring her back. So far we were introduced to another girl, Yuzuki, whom we are yet to know the relation to Ai, except that one bathing scene where Ai showed up in her vision and pulled her in, kissed her, Ai said she was cold and for Yuzuki to open. I'm assuming that she was Ai's vessel, a way for her to come back. We'll see how long this's going to last.

At the moment though, Yuzuki could see what Ai was doing, like Tsukumi did. We also get to see the new sorta servant, a boy Yamawaro, so we got another doll, different color.

And the story went as always someone felt that wrong was done to them, in this case a girl, whom pretty much self-centered, thinking that one teacher was out to get her, and that he was so horrible, though in my opinion, she was the one that was disrespectful. So full of herself that she thought she had to get rid of him because he dared written her up. Eventually we learned that he didn't, that it was all just a threat and nothing more. But it was too late he went to Hell.

Another one I'm starting to watch : Mouryou no Hako.

Just starting so more on that later.

Project : Bookmaking

I'm working on a book, no, not writing a book, but making a book.

Way back in July my current favorite fan-fic writer posted an epic The Devil Wears Prada fanfiction, Truth and Measure, and it was impressive size of story, a novel, I'd say, longest of its kind.

So, I decided to make it into a book. Why, I have no idea, I just wanted it to. Telanu herself had it made into a hardcover back via lulu.com. Me... I'm one of those that will do things by hand if I can.

So I made a book.

It is not complete, I have the back cover to make and also the spine. I'll pick up a metallic marker maybe, for the spine because it's so dark in color that anything less won't show up.

But this is what I got so far of the book.



I've changed the paper that I use for cover twice, printing the last part page by page by sitting by the printer and feed the paper by hand. The paper was one of those eyecare thing. I came to about 450 pages, while the Telanu's copy was 669 page. I reduced the size of the font to 10 pt. and the margin to 0.8" all around. Probably why I got less pages than she did.

Now I've just written Telanu's name on the front cover, what's left is the back and the spine. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Hopefully it'll come out good.

finding : Citroen commerical

I found this vid via Gizmodo It's an ad for Citroen. :) A dancing robot that is a car...

Project : Truth&Measure Book

I decided a while ago when Telanu posted Truth and Measure (The Devil Wears Prada fan-fiction)And epic for this fandom, comprised of over two-hundred thousand words. Telanu herself had it made into a hardcover book via lulu.com.

I myself, wouldn't let other people do what I can do myself (sometimes)so a bookmaking project was in order.

I started formatted each part. There were 6 parts plus the epilogue. Altogether made up a 450 pages book. I printed them at 10 point Times New Roman and 0.8" margin all around. Otherwise it would be a much thicker book. (The professionally made one Telanu order from lulu.com was 669 pages as she had posted on her LJ.

Each section I simply ordered it to be printed on both side I periodically check if the pages were stuck together, and with a fresh cartridge. But when I got to part 6 which has 100 pages. I had to sit by the printer and fed it one by one. just so I don't waste any paper, and avoid disaster.

Now, making holes. I made 5 for traditional Japanese stitch. Didn't work. It was much too thick to be bind tightly.

New plan. I unbound it and make more holes, this time 9. Allowing for me to pull tight.

I put cover page on the front with quote from Marie de France.

'For above all things, Love means sweetness, and truth, and measure; yea, loyalty to the loved one, and to your word.'

Right now I'm in the process of making the cover for the book. For that I went and bought a bunch of handmade papers, which I won't be using all of them, but it's good to have choices and laid them against one another. Now I'm settled on the blue, and inside orange.

The front over is almost done, a few more things, like author's name. Then it's on to the back, I already decided. Now all I want to getting something to hang off of the bookmark. Maybe a little heeled shoe. :)

New season of a lot of shows are also starting. Which made me really happy.

So far, True Blood is awesome, Sarah Connor Chronicles is shaping up really well, although I still don't know why they got Shirley Manson for the liquid. But I'm will to wait on the judgment.

Now I'm looking forward to Supernatural, which is tomorrow, and then it was Criminal Minds and NCIS. Man I can't wait for Criminal Minds to see who's the unlucky bastard to be in the car that got bombed.

I hope it's the southern detective, don't like him, and I will be very disappointed if JJ decided to leave BAU, because it would be such a bad move for a character that worked really hard to get where she was just to throw it away for a man.

Like Cruella DeVil said more good women were lost to marriage than any war or deceases.

Anyhow, gonna watch SCC now.

firefox 3.0.1

I have 2 computers.

1 desktop at home.

1 laptop at the store (which I share with my mother, whom only play solitaire on it.)

I used Firefox for my browser, and even though I still have IE on both my comp, I rarely used it, except to check on a few things. I'm happy with Firefox, for the most part.

When Firefox released version 3, I was kinda apprehensive, especially when I heard about a few bugs. But well, I upgraded anyway, but only on my desktop at home. As for my laptop, I left it alone.

And I found some trouble, but nothing that bothers me too much. Still I did not plan to upgrade on my laptop.

And then Firefox 3.0.1 came out.

That morning I went to the store, turned on my laptop, and when the prompt to upgrade came up, without thinking I pressed install.

What an Idiot!

Only after the installation of the new version that I realized what I've done. Man, did I feel like kicking myself. But what's done is done.

Then my first irritation began.

I could not load youtube. And I did almost everything I could think of, I cleared the cache, the cookies (as per the recommendation) still nothing.

So, the next day, I tried again, and it was the same ol' thing. And this time, when I tried to get to my friend's hi5 page, I could only get the text and not the format and layout. I tried youtube on IE and it worked just fine.

Now I had to look at all the add-on I have.

I went and turned off most of them, except a few. Then restarted the firefox. and Voila! Youtube worked, hi5 worked. Now I went back and turned a few back on, except better you tube, and one another. Man, I almost create a new profile. That would've sucked big time.

I hope nothing else is going wrong.

paper marbling : homemade liquid starch 2

Finally, after several trials of trying to make sizing that's gonna work.

The first trial was completely a waste of time and material. It was much too thick, I was going too fast, too much. So, that had to be thrown out.

The second trial, I stuck to the recipe I found. 1/2 cup of corn starch and 1 cup of cold water, mixed then pour into boiling water. (of course the recipe I found it said to mix corn starch and cold water in big bowl and pour in boiling water). As it turned out, the damn thing didn't turn clear and it was way way too thick. Since I didn't know how much of boiling water I was suppose to put in.

So, I tried smaller portion of corn starch/cold water. This time it was 1/4 corn starch and 1/2 cup of cold water, into 6 cups of boiling water. It still didn't turn clear like the recipe said, but I found another one that said it might be cloudy, so I guess it's ok.

I left it to cool down, and now I found one that work!!!

So, next step, figuring out how much water and acrylic paint to mix and how much dish detergent to put in. Currently it was a good size acrylic and about 11 CC. of water and a drop of dish detergent. Seems like it was pretty good, but it spread out too much. So it'll be another few trials I guess.

Paper Marbling : homemade liquid starch first trial

I decided to make a few books, and I'd wanted to try to do paper marbling for a while now. So, it seems like a good time as any.

Well, I got the recipe, which is easier and use the easy to find things. Or, so I thought.

First acrylic paints, well, they aren't hard to get, so it's all right, I picked up a cheap set, because I still need to start slow.

Liquid starch, they said you could get it at the laundry section of any store. Well, I picked up a few and it wasn't usable. It wasn't thick enough and most of the paint just fall to the bottom. So, that's a bust. I went to the store again, hoping to get the powder kind, so I can mix it myself. No such luck.

I ended up having to make it, myself. I wasn't sure of the consistency that was needed, so I went big. like a cup of corn starch to 2 cups of water. Not good... there wasn't enough water, or rather too much starch (depends on how you look at it). So, I ended up with paste that I can't use, too thick, but they would work well for something else, so I save it for now. I might do a back of some fabric to make cover. I'll have to decide, but that's gonna have to be quick, because it'll go bad in several days.

Anyway, try again tomorrow.

another venture into the art of bookmaking... (well a part of it anyway)

Several years ago I took a papermaking class, at the time, it was a class that offered me nothing toward graduation (it was a filler for me, since all the credit I needed at that moment was only from Senior Studio). It wasn't a class I enjoy too much at the beginning, although I liked it.

Only by the end of the class that I enjoyed (not the project though) Then after that I wanted to take bookmaking, but it was full, much too quick. And I didn't feel like fighting for a spot with anyone. I did learn how to bind a book, though, and basic bookmaking.

I made a book for my last Senior Studio class, and my advisors loved it (as well as the people that showed up at the show) So I guess it's good. :)

Now, I tried my hand at another thing. Paper marbling.

Since I can't get the supplies here that are especially made for paper marbling, I had to go for homemade method stuff. And one I chose to do is with liquid starch. My first trial (which is barely an hour ago) was all right, the color wasn't as bright as I thought it was gonna be.

I used generic store brand liquid starch (which now that I can see it didn't seem to be thick enough) I might just make it from scratch.

The paint was a set of acrylic paint, which works well, but I have to play around with the consistency, although I read somewhere that oil paint will give more vivid color. Also I have to try with alum threat paper too.

I watched the vid of paper marbler, and the sizing he used was left clear once he finished with one sheet, so I don't know. Oh well, gotta try my hand in a few things I guess.

Another thing, I finally made that The Devil Wears Prada fanfic listing that I've been meaning to do for a while. The list keeps going longer and longer though. It's my favorite fandom at the moment (gotta give props to Meryl Streep.. she did really awesome Miranda, and man, I'd do her!)

Anne Hathaway is good too. :)

Now I'm gonna go watch a few Marbling demo on youtube. Maybe I'll get a better idea.

no class today!

I have no violin class today, my instructor canceled it, not that I feel all too good anyway.

Friday night I woke up (well, Saturday morning) at around 5 AM itching all over, but what I felt was stomachache first, but after that the itch set in. Man, that was a torture. I got some anti allergy from mom and took it. Then right the next morning she woke me up, and then I found that something was wrong.

Went to the doc, nothing serious, but annoying. I mean how would you like to go around all day feel like something stuck at the back of your throat you can't swallow and then when you tried you gonna upchuck all over the floor.

Yeah, so I got some medication for allergy reaction I had, which we still don't know what it was that I was allergic too. (suck, big time) Doc said I have to pay closer attention to what I was eating.

I wasn't even eating any seafood. weird.

But now I'm feeling a little tired all day because the med. Still I have to take all of them, for 7 days, and then I have another appointment.

A friend of mine decided that she's gonna clear up everything at the place she's at right now and come home.

I said it's about time.

I mean, she said she has opportunities there, which I wasn't sure about, but it's been years now and they didn't pan out, none of them.

And now it sounded like they are trying to chain her to where she was, and give her nothing at all. So, I told her, come home. Better off here even if she get small salary, because no rent to pay.

So, we'll wait and see if there's anymore obsticles.

Sometimes people thinks they are being nice by saying she would be miss and all, and she should say, oh what would we do without you and all that, but they didn't help when she has no money. So, how nice are they being?

Anyhow, I'm chatting with her everynight (well, almost everynight) I'll let her borrow money if she needs to, but she said she won't until she's really desperate.

C'est la vie.

fic rec : Truth and Measure

I've been anticipating the coming out of this fic for a while, ever since Telanu announced it a while back.

Personally I like a good size fic, I like to read stuff that has development and character driven, I mean, PWP is good too, but give me choices and I'll pic a good long one anytime.

Apparently it was more than 200,000 words. I'll put them in word and see how many there were.

I'm a little obsessed with DWP fic right now. :) (like anyone that read this wouldn't know that already)

I spent about a day reading (with some interruption in between) I finished at 4:30AM, and I started it at around 8:30AM. And man I wish there was more.

New project I assigned to myself was DWP fic-listing. It's been a long time coming. So, I'm gathering the links and the list right now. Typing a lot of them up, but I still have to go through the LJ to find more. I do remember a few that weren't post to DWP community, but instead posted on Passion and Perfection and such.

The format of it still need some work. I don't want to clutter up anything, but at the same time, if I want to put rating and summaries, and pairing, it'll be.

I guess I'll figure it out as I go along. Now I'll just get all the links and titles and authors down. Hopefully I'll get the first draft hammered out soon.

world : Miranda

I'm not surprise that Miranda was the biggest word in here, and Andrea was the second biggest. This came from 'She Likes A Prize Fight' By Telanu, my favorite Mirandy fanfic.

project : showerstall (cont.)

First two pieces of the contact paper went up without a hitch, of course that was not the case with the next piece.

It was the biggest piece in all of this. And it gave me the most trouble. It was much too big for me to manage by myself, although I did, but not without some compromise. I had to separate the piece up, cutting some parts so that I could put them up. Before that, however, they were tangled up so badly I nearly had to throw the entire piece away (and that, will definitely ruin the entire piece and force me to do the whole thing over again)

There were some parts that, I will probably have to cut off, and form it into waterdrops and stuff. After fighting with it for almost 2 hours, I got it up, and now I'm just waiting for the mist that came from the soap mix spray to evaporate, so I can see where I have to fix.

Then a couple of nights later I put up the third piece (well, I cut and put up the third piece) This one suffered from the mistake I made with the big piece, due to some misplace, the piece was higher than it should, and so I had to fix this one by extended the stem of the leaf, which is a must, or risk ruining the one thing I can't modify.

The fairy was the one thing I can not modify without ruining it, so I had to keep it in the same place, and with that I extend other parts instead. Too bad that the head was right where the handle was, kinda ruin it a little. But that's how it comes, not much I can do, most picture starts at the bottom.

But looking at it from the other angle, I'll probably work on a new one when I feel like doing it, which could be in a few months from now, so not attach with this image would be a good idea.

It's not done yet, there'll be another 1 big piece and 1 small piece to go up.

On the other note, I want sheet music from Apocalyptica (like I'm all that proficient with violin to play, really.) I'm not good enough to play something like that yet, but it's good to have goal, right?

So, on that thought, my goal for my first course of violin is playing Apocalyptica's Hope. :) I'll even buy the sheet music.

project : showerstall

A project that I've been planning for a while, and did start once, and stopped, because I didn't have the time and the image was way too complicate. So I started it over and got a new image.

So, I worked on the image and use posterazor to print the image out to side. Of course, they came out in pieces on A4. Took about 70 pieces. And I put them together with clear tape, and some glue. As for the parts that did not have anything printed on, I just leave it out, no need to waste paper more than I already did. Besides, I didn't have enough papers, which I didn't know before hand.

Needless to say, I had to hunt down the paper from all the room. Some of the paper has other things printed on one side.

I divided the pieces up, for easier handling.

Originally, I only divided to 6 pieces, and now I divided up even more, because the bigger the pieces, the harder it is to put it up.

So far I'm not done with it yet, but I've put up 4 pieces.
These are the first 2 that I put up the night before. They are also the first two pieces I cut, too...

Took me a while to straighten them out, since I didn't use the transfering tape, which I found kinda hard to do unless I have them all done and in one piece.

To put these up I just peel it all out and then sprayed a mix of water and shampoo on the back and the glass panel. It allowed me to adjust the contact paper and get the bubbles out easily.

The third piece was the worse, since I had to use transfering tape, since it has small pieces. The bad thing about this is, if I use the shampoo mix, I will have a hard time peeling the tape out.

It'll be another day or two for the color of the contact paper to clear up, it's kinda mucky now because it's not dry yet. Once it did it'll be semi transparent (don't mind the chair.)

There are more, but maybe later.

accident do happen, let me tell you

On Wednesday night something happened, due to my stupidity (at least I think that was the course of it.) I popped the E string on my violin.

Yes, I popped it.

Anyhow, I was left with a violin that had only 3 strings, and I couldn't leave it like that, no way, least something got pulled out of shape due to the uneven tension. Then I'd be left with a useless violin as well.

At least it was only 1 string, the other three still could hold it, for a while at least.

So, by morning I called up my instructor and asked what brand of string I should use, since I can order them, but a novice like me, I can't very well just go ahead and buy the string without asking first.

My instructor said Tonica is pretty good and I asked about Dominant. He said it's good too... depends on what kind of sound I like. But at the moment, I'll settled for what I can get in midrange. (he also said that I could get the cheap one to use for now, it'll cost me a few bucks. Of course they will sound terrible, I want something I can live with for now...)

So I ended up with D'Addario. They came in set of 4 (which I didn't know) And I had the guy at the store changed it for me right there... took a while because of tuning. But still the violin (which I will now call, Metis) is pretty new that it'll still adjusting anyway, so by Tuesday when my class come along, my instructor will still have to tune it for me again.

I just checked the price for Obligato, a set of violin strings cost about $78. Dominant cost about the same I think, although might be less.

Anyhow, I'm ok with what I got right now. And the new strings sounded pretty warm. I will certainly get new sets in the future, so I'm not worry about it right now. As for my old set (3 + 1 broken one) I kept in the new string package, not that I'd ever use it again (I don't think) But it might come in handy one day.

I got a music stand, too... the table top kind because I don't need another thing to clutter up my floor, 1 easle is enough. I can just fold this thing away after I finish. And rosin... this one is red, cost almost as much as the stand. :) I liked the color of it, and it came in a little wooden box.

My neck kinda hurt. I'm still trying to find comfortable position.. I'm thinking the way I had it wasn't right... so it'll be a while yet. But my bowing hand is pretty comfortable now. :) I guess I got it right. Finally.

I felt a little awkward for a while, the way I kept having to straighten my thumb out to hold the bow, which according to the book, the instructor, wasn't a way to go.

Live and learn, ha ha..

True Blood : pilot episode

The other day I found True Blood, a new Showtime show, which is still in production stage (I'm guessing) I got to see the pilot episode though, and just knew, it's gonna be one of my favorite shows!

True Blood is adaptation from Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series. I've been meaning to read her book for a while now, so this would be a good time to start.

In the series, Vampire were out of the coffin, since Japanese found a way to make synthetic blood that was exactly like the real thing, enable Vampire to live off of it without ever having to feed from human. The product is called 'True Blood'.

At the base of this, it was kinda like Laurell K. Hamilton, that vamp were legal citizens, although no other creature appear yet (it's still the pilot after all) Its setting is also down south, so it'll be kinda weird to my ear to hear that much sourthern accent. But it should be fun. I loved the pilot episode already. I can't wait to see more.

The main character Sookie was a very moral cocktail waitress with a loud mouth, and often rude bestfriend that could not keep a job, a boss that's in love with her. To top that off, she was also a telepath.

Her trouble started when a newly awaken vampire 'Bill' stepped into the place where she worked.

Another 3 months before the show was on. I'm all shivering with anticipation. LOL

My friend's going to love it too! I just knew it.

Violin lesson yesterday was kinda fun. Since I have violin now my instructor is giving me a homework. I'm to work on a song 'Can Can' I'm sure everyone heard of that song. He said so that my fingers get use to changing note and string. It's still on only D and A string, but every note on it was use.

I worked on it for a while last night.

I was alos on the phone with Angie for a while the other night too. It was nice talking to her again. Nice to talk to someone that knew 'lcf' and can sympathize. I told her, we shouldn't say her name too often because it might just conjure her up.

Ha ha

And I was right about 'her' being single, otherwise she wouldn't call me. Typical.

Oh well, I went through it all before, so I'm not gonna dance to her tune.

Speaking of tune, (random? yeah) I got my digital tuner, a Sandner SMT 330. It wasn't top of the line or anything, but as far as I read all the review about using tuner, it doesn't matter much, it will still work all the same.

Not that I'm gonna tune my own violin, probably not for a while. But it'll be good to check if it's in tune or not. It's also a metronome, so that'll be what I'm gonna be using it for (because online metronome requires me to be in front of the computer). And if I wanna practice while sitting anywhere else, I won't have it.

Make sense? I think it does, at least in my head.

Maybe 'Can Can' isn't a good piece to practice. I kept playing from what I remember of the song, instead of going with the beat.

bridge is fixed

On Sunday I brought my violin (which I'm going to call it Metis from now on) to my instructor while I brought my niece to her MLM class.

Sunday was also the first day of her Ballet class as well. It was a trial class, and apparently she liked it so she's going back. Which mean that I would be staying longer on each Sunday waiting for her.

Anyhow, the bridge on my violin was not square, it was leaning toward the fingerboard. The little feet on it was actually lifted off of the surface a little. My instructor said that it was probably because the pieces of Metis is still moving and settling in. He said that it'll be another 6 months or so. It'll get better for 3 and then worse before the sound got stabilized. Then it'll get better as it's aged.

Well, I'm ordering a metronome/tuner. Because, even though I could get one of those webpage that offer metronome for free (actually they have it on their page) I still have to be on computer to use it, this way I could just sit on my bed or something. And tuner is good, too, because I wanna know if I get the sound right. I don't really trust my ear for right now.

Tomorrow is another class.

I've decided that for every class I'm gonna put 1 sticker on the cover of my violin book. So, I have 3 now on the cover. They are just the printout of Mai HiME and Mai Otome fanart (ShizNat mostly) there are some Fate/Stay Night as well. I cut them out to small pieces and then put the clear contact paper on it, in case I wanna take them out. (probably not).

Well, new instrument almost always meant new problem to solve...

I was taking out my violin (I'm gonna find a suitable name for it now) last night to practice bowing a little bit. Because I found myself unable to only stay on one string at the time. Especially the D string. And then I was putting on some rosin on the bow (because I notice that on both end of the bow aren't producing the sound that they should) And after putting on rosin, it was giving out sound.

But then, bigger problem, I noticed that the bridge wasn't square. It was leaning toward the finger board. Which mean, the sound was going to be off. And since I can't do this myself, (I don't wanna make it worse) I'm gonna wait till Sunday when I drop off my niece for her lesson to have my instructor look at it. Hopefully he can fix it and we won't need to get it to the store or anything.

Hopefully.

I want Guitar Hero III, so I got one, and apparently my Wii doesn't take the upgrade very well, so it won't play the newer game (which mean Guitar Hero III and Boom Blox) and since my Wii is a modded one, I brought it to the store and have them check it out. we even tried the games on their console, and it plays fine, so I guess it might be the version of firmware that mine has. Although mine plays the older games without any problem.

I should know what to do with it in a few days. After all, I wanna be able to play new games, too.

Man, I can't wait to play. Already got the guitar and everything.

The faceplate of the guitar is white, just plain white, so I might stick something on it. Stickers, probably. Most likely.

teaching old dog new trick... it can be done... no, really, it can!

I'm learning something new.

Yeah, hard to really considering learning anything when you're at the working age, you know, you finished with school and now working, and you spent all your day at your respective jobs and stuff. But since I work for.. well, me and my family I can take the time out during the day to do something else, as long as my schedule doesn't conflicting with my mother's. Someone's gotta mind the store.

I've always wanted to learn an instrument. Lack of chance when I was a kid, and so, now seemed like it might be a little late, but hey, who knows.

Well, I've read that Meryle Streep learned to play the Violin when she was 40, so that goes to show you that the age isn't important if you wanna learn. (ok, so she learned it to take the role of a violin teacher in a movie, but man, she could certainly demand a stand in or something) I've been telling my mother that we should get my niece to some classes, you know, piano, violin, cello, whatever, so she gets the skill to do something creative for herself when she's older. As for whether she would keep up with it when she's a teenager, well, I hope she will.

If she can't draw, then she can play something.

And so we started her on basic music course. You know, notes, tempo, a little bit of piano. Things that a 4 year old could enjoy. And since I'm the primary chauffeur, and they offer a violin, cello guitar (among other thing) I decided that I wanna take Violin class. It's only once a week, so it doesn't interfere with other things. Might be a little expensive, but hey it's no more than me getting the next toy.

Mom said if you want to, then go ahead.

So, my niece is taking the basic music course (they called it MLM, Music for Little Mozart) on Sunday (because Saturday is not set in schedule, we might need to go somewhere since the store is close) at 10 AM. And by the 15 we'll be starting her on ballet right after that too. (this one because she wanted to, I think she just likes the tutu)

As for me, Violin class on Tuesday (yeah, why not the same day? Unfortunately, someone else (older than me) already booked that time for piano lesson so, out of luck) at 1 PM.

Today is my third week, so far so good, I just got my violin too. Not the terribly expensive one, because I'm just a beginner, after all, when I'm good at it, then we'll see about a good one.

I don't think I'm gonna be shelling out for a $1,700 violin when I'm still just starting out. Now I'm looking to get a tuner/metronome. I'd need metronome for practice, but as for tuning, I think my instructor will probably gonna be tuning for me for a while. But it'll still be something I need to learn to do it for myself.

A while back I also decided that I'm gonna cut sticker for my glass shower stall. At first I wanted something from Mai HiME or Mai Otome universe (which for me, is equal to Shizuru and Natsuki) But it gets really complicated, and I could not find an image that I like enough to do something this big for. So I rethought the whole thing. I want something that I can look at and not go.. what the hell was I thinking (of course ShizNat will not get that reaction for me, it just that I don't wanna do it and found it came out horrible) So I picked something far less busy.

I found an image on Clo-cro site, and I thought, hey I could do that and not get bored with it too soon. I'm figuring how I was gonna do it, put on the clear contact first or cut first. Finally I decided that I'll cut first and that way I don't have to deal with the seams that will surely come with putting the contact paper down first.

I did separate the image along the places that weren't connected, for easier cutting. Still a few pieces were big enough that it's still hard to handle.

I got a few of them done already and found that a few pieces can be separated even more. So I did.

Should be done in a week or so.

learning to use new thing in the old program, and teaching this old dog a new trick

I've been using Photoshop for ... um... since I got my second computer. I remembered clearly that my first photoshop was a 4.0 and I got it full feature with my first scanner. (considering how expensive the program was, that was kinda extraordinary) But my first PC wasn't powerful enough for me to use, it was too slow, and I just couldn't get through the 'layer' because I simply didn't understand how it works.

Then the second pc came and so I started to use it. Once I understood 'layer' it was all a breeze for me. After I learned how to use it pretty proficiently, I took Photoshop class with Lance Hidy, because you could never know too much about something, right? I did learn a lot in that class, Lance was an illustrator, I intended to take Illustrator class too, but didn't due to other requirement that I had to get done. Kinda suck, because I really wanted to.

One thing I never get to learn or rather wanna learn was 'Pen' tool. Lance talked about it, but we didn't get to really spend time on it, and I never touched it since then. So, now I'm learning it (trying to teach myself it, rather) and I spent last night trying to do some illustration with pen tool. Hopefully, by the time I finish the image I should be comfortable with it. Again, hopefully, is the operative word here.

I've been participating in PMOG. :) Almost get to level 7 now. I should've use the mine more than I did, because it would've put me in association with Destroyer and I can get mine, now I can't because I don't have Destroyer as my association, instead I have Seer, Benefactor, Pathmaker.

Another thing that I'm learning is Violin.

Why?

I wanted to.

I like the sound of strings, cello, viola, violin. At the moment, violin seems more viable, due to the size, too. I just had my first class, we'll see how that goes on the second class next Tuesday.

New things, ha ha...

anime, new project, and new Jdrama..

Mnemosyne episode 4 with sub is out, and I'm finished loading it earlier.

I can't wait to watch it later tonight. I also got Osen several days ago, but still didn't watch it yet, maybe tonight will be a good time. Also got Hakaba Kitaro. A bunch of thing to watch tonight.

I got some transfer tapes, 8", 4", and 2" wide. Just what I need. My next project is the glass shower stall. I started it a while ago ( a long while ago) It's the scene from Mai Otome manga, where all the HiME and the Otome were face to face. Then I ran into some problem. So, I stop, now I have to start over, maybe the same image, maybe different. I'm looking though, maybe I'll find something nicer.

My friend said Shizuru and Natsuki ( yeah, she's one woman cheering team ) I said maybe.

Saber will look good on it, too, I think. Especially when the image cast shadow onto the wall behind it. Ummmmmmmmm... something to think about.

Now I'm working on the box for my friend, let's just call her Y. *snicker*

I told her I would cut sticker for all sides, which means, 6 images, probably all of them on Emma Ai (Jigoku Shoujo) Well, I've made a monster, I think. She loves the series. Seriously, there were parts that it's a little flimsy at best, but then, when you're talking about human and human emotions, some of them just don't make sense. Same thing as when you have 2 people going through the same sort of ordeal, one came through fine and the other came through with MPD. weird...

Yeah...

A lot of things to do still.

I should get back to the gym again, but still too busy to. Anyhow, I'm playing workout mode on DDR, kinda fun, if you think about it. I made a mistake of stepping on the down arrow and press A without checking, so I had to hop around to match the game (because so far, me and my uncoordinated self had been playing beginner level of the game) But it was good, I sweat so it's all that count, right. Besides, keep it up and I should be able to do it. I hope.... maybe, I wish...

I'm trying to get into making things again.

new layout, some complain about some show, rearranging the wire again

Finally, I made a new layout for the blog (obvious, isn't it?) I made a bunch of layout, they just didn't make it to the coding part of the work. So, they were never use, and right now they reside in my image folder, probably never gonna get used either.

I'm a little into Terminator : The Sarah Connor Chronicle these days. Which explain the layout, isn't it. Both my homepage and my blog. I like Summer Glau as Cameron (I like that name... um... and on a girl.. hot girl at that!!) And Lena Headey.... yummy.

I promised a friend that I would make her a box. So I did, with the same material I used to make the dvd boxes, plastic corrugated board (they called it future board, I have no idea why). I still have an entire big one left, so I did, and now I'm cutting images of Emma Ai from Jigoku Shoujo to go on it.

Now, the cutting is not that hard, the harder part is how am I gonna keep the thing from falling off. Since there were a bunch of little pieces that aren't connected to the large piece that will hold them in place. I almost made her nose fall off the other day. I need to get a roll of transferring tape, the masking aren't working very well, because I left it too long and the thing just kinda stickier than it should be.

I'll be picking some up later today if my mom feels all right to come in. Have to take her to a check up this Saturday, because she's due, and she needs to get herself looked at. She had insurance and she wouldn't have to pay a dime, but she doesn't wanna go, go figure.

I'll be watching new episode of Criminal Minds in a few minutes. I can't believe last week episode, there's no indication that JJ has a boyfriend, there's no evident of it, they only flirted in the episode in New Orleans and nothing else. No sign that they were having long distant relationship.

How impractical is that, when you think about it. JJ works the works that she does, the way it's presented to us, is that she's so busy, with all the cases fall on her desk before she decided which one and where the team was going. How believable is it to think that she would hop on the plane to go see this guy, how expensive is it.

Oh well, and Emily... awwwww.. poor Em. She didn't look too happy about JJ having a boyfriend.

Still it was kinda funny at the end when they were all like.. it's about time!

Let's hope they don't mention that this week episode so I can pretend it did not happen!

I spent several hours the other day underneath my desk, working on the cleaning up and retying all the wires. All the pic will get post later. (like anyone is reading this.)

Candy Boy is out. it's only 14 min long, it was cute and didn't require any higher brain function. I don't care what people say about it being weird and has no substance, it doesn't have to be the stuff of legend, I mean, hello! Strawberry Panic anyone? That show was annoying as hell, and has absolutely no value at all. Not very entertaining either, with the crying every fucking five minutes, drive me up the wall. I don't like character like that. Nagisa needs to shut the hell up and stop the water work. Shizuma also needs to get over it. The whole tragic love story thing, it was all well and good but damnit, it's fucking over done in this one. I'd rather see Shizuma with Miyuki.

I'm all about the one that's the most loyal. Miyuki's been there and there and there and still was passover for some snotnose girl who knew nothing, and did nothing but cry.

Vomit.

Ok, enough of that. I barely got through 2 episode of that.

Candy☆Boy was... well, the twin were adorable. I loved the beginning of the episode when Yukino was calling Kanade to get into the bed, Kanade dropped hair pin and climbed right back in! Now if they weren't sisters, I think there'll be more people squealing over it. But then this is anime, I've seen weirder relationship.

Angel Sanctuary anyone?

Now, for someone who reads Blackcest, this pair of twincest is down right pristine and very much PG. They are so adorable.

Another show I'm looking forward to seeing is Osen. I read the manga and I loved it, so I'm interested to see it in Live Action. Now I'm just waiting for English Sub... so far it's 3 episodes already. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that some group would pick it up.

As for Last Friend, this is getting... the whole domestic violent thing. I do know the mindset of a girl like that, but then while I was watching I was like.. man, just leave!!! arggggg...

I'm off to see Criminal Minds now.

my dvd shelves last (finally)

my dvd shelves last (finally)
Originally uploaded by Xavacid

The carpenter's recently delivered 5 bookshelves to us (me, because they are really mine) They were more of cabinets than shelves, really, because I ordered them with sliding doors (want glass at first, but we got kids in the house, so... last thing I need is broken glass everywhere).

Once they came and put in the locks for me, I slowly moved all my Japanese manga that I collected out to the cabinets. (they were made to my specification, only wide enough and deep enough for me to double stack the manga, and high enough to have a little space on top of the books.) And so, I freed up space in my room.

Previously, my DVD were haphazardly stacked, since most of the space on the shelves that I have were occupied by the manga. I can arranged them now, except to put them in stacks on top of another stacks on top of another stacks.. just the thought of looking for one of the DVD that I don't watch on regular basis by removing the rest of the DVD out... Not fun, not fun at all.

So I came up with an idea, if I could find boxes that's fit DVD and deep enough for the shelves, then I can arrange it for an easy finding. So, I went to look for some.

No such luck, nothing fit my need. Nothing.

Last option, make it myself.

Well, DIY, is something I do all the time. And since I don't need them done in wood or anything, I took out my stash of white plastic corrugated board and made a prototype.

The prototype held 30 DVD at 8" wide and 5" high 17" deep.

Once that work, I went and got 6 large sheets of clear plastic corrugated board and made 9 of them, but this time at 18" deep... and so each box held 30+ DVD, 3 shelves, with 3 boxes each, I can now have 270+ DVD with east reach and easy to look through.

It's still too plain, so I satisfied my itchy fingers by making some sort of illustration on it..

Several days and seveal conversations with a friend (she's a one woman cheering team) I settled on one of my all time favorite character Jack Skellington (yay for Tim Burton). I measured, slice, printed, and measure again.

And finally I got this.

Watching : Stardust, and website that need to get done...

I picked up a copy of Stardust the other night, because I liked the movie, a lot. DeNero was awesome as cross dressing pirate. It was fun, and made me feel good. Michelle Pfeiffer was good too, it's been a while that I saw her in the movie at all.

Speaking of movie that made me feel good, I kept watching Imagine Me and You. I think Lena Headey is becoming one of my favorite now. Her role as Sarah Connor was awesome, I mean, Linda Hamilton was good in the movie, but Lena was WOW! Sizzle, and add Cameron to that equation... yup.

So, Imagine Me and You made me happy, especially when we are up to our neck in sh*t.

Oh well, we'll get through it.

I'm making a website for a friend of mine's Professor. Good thing that he wasn't in the hurry, and he knew that my father passed away, so he told me, through her, that it was ok, that I don't need to worry about it. But I'm finalizing it now, so I can start slicing and dicing.

As for the info inside, my friend should be over in a couple of days and we'll sort through it then. As long as the layout is done, we should be all right to go ahead and add text.

My brother asked for me to install game on Phobos (the laptop) I did, and so he should be coming into the store more often now, seeing how he went out and bought the controller to play it with. Hopefully, this won't add too much crap onto my machine. I guess I just have to keep checking and cleaning.

And on that note, I just did a little clean up on my uncle's pc as well. I told him to use Firefox, since it'll help with the popup and stuff. Also just updated his Spybot too. Hopefully I get some time to check his machine for more junk later.

I wanna get LG slim drive, the DVD-RW external drive, cause they have lightscribe. For some reason I really want it. I guess it's for that DVD or cd I made for keep. You know... Series I made into DVD and wanna keep and stuff. Like Poltergeist : The Legacy, when will they release that into DVD I'll never know.

A few more days and it'll be Thai's New Year and so, we'll get a little time off, I wish I could go out of town with my uncle, but it's a bust again this year. Man, I feel like being locked up, but hey, not much we can do, is there.

Trouble surfacing, bored out of my mind, wanting another toy

Well, things aren't all settled yet. So, we do have some trouble with the bank account and stuff. Man, it'll be a while yet, before my mother was clear to take care of everything (in the legal sense) *sigh*

Not much we can do about that, so it's a waiting game right now. I should really go after some people now. Really, I should.

Maybe I should stick my father after them. Ummmmmmm.. there's a thought.

I recently started watching Terminator : The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and I like Lena Headey (despite the fact that I saw her before and paid absolutely no attention to her) and Summer Glau. My friend asked if I like older woman (in her case, she meant old like mom's old) I said no, I like smart, strong and capable woman, there's a difference.
Anyhow, so I finally got to see Imagine Me&You as well.

Not that I have all that high expectation of the movie, I'm not one for romantic comedy anyway. But I like this one. It's my feel good movie now, especially the fact that it has happy ending.

So often we watch movies with lesbian character and then boom at the end they never get the girl. So, this one is gold. Lena was cute. (unlike her in Sarah character, that one can kick ass and take name all the way till the cow comes home)

In the midst of all the crap that came after the funeral, this was one little refuge for me.

Back to the crappy relative, these people makes you wanna gauge your eye out with a rusty spoon. One in particular, she's my dad's cousin that he used to help her out and get her started on the current occupation that she has now. Well, ok, she loves my father, good. But she acted as if she's done everything for him. If that's true, then why wait for my mother to order to medication, instead of just go ahead and do it herself?

Because the med cost $4,000. That's why.

Well, she has the money, so why wait for us to do it, since she loves my father so much. What a hypocrite. Then she has the audacity to tell my mother that she was not family. If my mother isn't family then she's a stranger.

With all the talks, you'd think she paid for everything when it's not true, we paid for everything, hospital bills, funeral and other miscellaneous stuff.

Narrow minded, petty, hypocritical, and to top that off, she's also very much self-center and self absorb.

So, after this, we're not going to ever contact her ever again.

I guess one good thing out of this, is that we know who we can count on and who we can trust.

Funny, people has opinion of how to treat him, when the doctor said that there's nothing they can do for him, other than treating him according to symptoms. But of course, we should do more, keep him with us longer. Why? So he could suffer more? And the medication, they said you should try, he worked so hard all his life, this is nothing.

Yeah, right.

The med did nothing, it didn't help, we knew this, the doc knew this. Even he, himself knew this. We tried anyway, because my mother didn't want them to all bitching behind her back about how we didn't do all we could for him.

Bullshit.

I don't see anyone coming up with the money for anything.

I should calm down now, because it's over and done with.

But I am not the one to forget easily. Doesn't matter what happen from now on, I'll always remember what they did.

Because I'm a bitch like that.

Finally, finally, finally....

The funeral is over and done with, now we are waiting for 100 days and then we're bringing the ashes and scatter it in the sea (I think, maybe we're taking the boat out, maybe, nothing is set in stone yet.) And we are finally being left alone, for the most part, which is a good thing, because I had about all I can handle of running around and seeing so many people that had so many things to say, and none that I wanna hear.

I prefer being left alone and deal with our own mess than having people's noses in our business. If I need help, I'll ask for it. Now we are starting to find out how much of a mess my father had made. I think my mother would definitely drag him out to smack him around if she could.

Enough of that though, what ever gonna happen will happen. Nothing we can do about it but deal when the time comes.

Finally all my bookshelves were delivered today, and instead of calling me so I know they were coming, so I can take a look and see if they were all to my order, noooooooo... I found out when I got home that they didn't put the locks on for me. So, I'll have to call them over again to take care of that. This gonna suck, I just knew.

I moved some of my manga out to the shelves already, but I'm not sure if it was a good idea, after all, we have 3 small kids in the house, last thing I need is for one of them to start dragging my manga out. If it happened whoever babysit at the time is a dead meat.

Gina is back! And I'm very happy about that, I've been wondering what happen to her, but now she's back and sounds like she's doing well. I think I'm gonna get back to drawing and photo manip and stuff now, maybe that'll help me along in my writing too, since it's been rather slow lately.

But then with all the shit that's been going on, can you blame me?

Anyhow, tomorrow is another day and I got some cleaning to do, most of the manga and small paperbacks will be in the new shelves, probably gonna move little by little, besides I wanna know when they are coming to put in the locks, because I don't wanna risk it.

Funeral, exhaustion, friends you can count on, people you wanna deck...

So, finally after over a month of agony and confusion and hopes and disappointment, and 15 days in the hospital, my father passed.

He was going to turn full 57 next month. A bit too quick, yes I know, but he hadn't been paying attention to his liver for years now. Had he done what the doctor told him to do, we might've caught it much much earlier, but what is done is done.

No use crying over spilled milk.

Anyway, he's not suffering anymore. I had a thought that maybe he was waiting for my grandmother to drop by, because the night she came to see him and she stayed with my mom and my aunt to watch him that night, he passed bright and early in the morning.

Mom called at 6:33 AM. to tell me that he's gone.

Sad, yes, but I feel better knowing he's not hurting anymore.

Now we are left to deal with a lot of things, including the mess he left behind. If my mother could, she would probably smack him around some for some of the shit he pulled.

But that aside, I'm so sick of all the people already, I can't wait for it to be over. They were all, tradition blah blah blah... I'm like, the death don't care! Everything is for the living, and they aren't even for us, the family that should be grieving, instead we have to deal with these people. More than half of these people showed up, I don't even know. But whatever.

My friends came as their respective jobs allowed, and I appreciated that. One of them came to help out since the first day, and another is coming back again tomorrow morning, she had to leave after Wed, because work needed to get done, and she's coming back again for the cremation.

They are trying to be there for me. I'm trying to figure out if I'm still in that stage that the whole thing is in suspend, because I don't have time, or I'm just all cried out since he was first diagnosed.

I'll keep myself occupied, with one thing or another, it'll pass. All the bad things will pass and I'm hoping we don't get buried neck deep in crap before it's over.

At the hospital, again, second night staying with my parents.

Apparently, my father is sleep most of the day, due to the medication that they gave him. I guess it's better than him being in pain or vomiting his guts out. Now, it's my mother I'm worrying about. It's not good for someone to stay with the patient 24/7, stress level is too high.

And my aunt won't stop shooting her mouth off.

She just doesn't know when to stop, she wants what she wants when she wants the way that she wants it. Even when it wasn't her business. I'm stop dancing to her tune, my mom still is to some extend. But I'm sure that will end as soon as she saying the shit she said to my mother's face, she's said to someone else though.

What. A. Bitch.

When the doctor give us a go to take him home, we're taking him home. I'm sure she'll fight to take him to her place, and I'll tell her to fuck off. Bad enough that she wanna prolong his pain, (but dull it by wanting to give him drugs) and it's all for herself and not for him, nope, nothing to do with other people, it's for her.

I'm so sick of her now, this is why I never gone by that way for years.

I need to occupy myself or I'll go nuts.

The stress make me sick, my head kept spinning and my sinuses hurt.

At the hospital on my laptop and hospital wifi.

My father has been in the hospital for about five days now. He's really sick and we could lose him really soon. But now we are hoping that the drug will work and he's not in pain. I don't want him to be in pain. He's really frail right now, barely able to walk by himself, but being the stubborn guy that he is, he still try to.

He's lucid, which is a good thing, I'm told that he's been sleeping all day today, after he's taken the drug. We're also wait and see if there will be any side effects, vomiting and such, so far there's none, but you can never be sure.

Normally, I would be at home, and my aunt would stay with my mom through the night, but she has things she has to take care of, so I'm here tonight, I doubt I'd sleep much, since I'm a light sleeper, but I'm rather exhausted myself, so. It could go both way, me lying awake all night, or slept right through everything.

I do need some sleep though, so maybe a few hours here and there if I have to get up to help him to the bathroom and stuff.

A movie would be helpful right now but well, I guess I have to watch it on my laptop instead.

Death and Dying : man, how I wish I'd taken that course.

My father is dying.

I've said it out loud and I know it. I guess it's better to accept it, but at the same time I don't think the relative on my father's side do.

I'm not a very extroverted person, and people that knows me knew that. However, these people, who were so concern about my father and I have to give it to them, because I know that they do love my father, but they don't know me.

The fact that he ran away for a couple of day, my aunt thought I was such a horrible daughter for not calling her to ask. Why didn't she let me know that she knows something? How am I suppose to know to call, when she was the one that told me she didn't know where he was? I'm sick of her already.

Bitching and moaning, isn't that what I'm supposed to be doing and not her, this is my father, after all. She did things without tell me, that's fine, but she did it without telling my mother, is that how they do it these days?

My father was a good man, yes, but whatever he does, other than helping them, and what he did in the last couple of years, they had no idea.

She applied her standard to me, I'm not her and I'm not her kids. No wonder people are sick of her, I AM sicked of her already. Let's just say, I won't be seeing her for a long time to come, however this thing play out. I can take advice, but advice not demands.

Not to speak ill of the man, but is it right for him to go seek attention outside, while we work our asses off, then saying we don't pay attention to him. We all do what we were taught to do and act the way we were taught, what's to say which one is wrong way to act. I wish they would just fuck off. It is getting tedious to bear their grieve on top of mine.

And I'd like to ask, what about the one that got left behind. So we're suppose to work as well as stay up all night to watch him. Can't do both, someone has to pay for the treatment and hospital, and we are paying, so there's gotta be money coming in. I can't certainly say fuck the work, because the consequence is long lasting.

Even after the dead is gone and buried.

Illness, New Anime :

My father is sick.

He has liver cancer, and it just got diagnosed several weeks ago. Last stage.

Like a bomb, he was fine one week and suddenly he was bed ridden, it hurts too much to actually move apparently. Anyway, we are doing what we can, and so we went unconventional ways right now, due to the fact that the hospital couldn't do anything for him. Other than giving him pain killer that is.

Anyhow, my mom is staying with him. So, it's me opening the store and stay till closing. Then after that I have to drive over to see them.

My aunt took him to her house, she bought and all decorated and fixed up, but she didn't plan on actually moving in, so the timing was perfect. It was quieter there and stuff... fresh air.

Anyhow, I drove there to see them after the store close, and then come home, so I barely have time.

I'm exhausted now.

LOL

Oh a happier note, Mai Otome S.ifr is out!!

Yay!

No Shizuru or Natsuki, as far as I can tell, but I like Rena Sayer, sadly her offspring was rather... um... uncool. Her first robe was Lofty Crimson Jade, which broke due to the fact that she was much too powerful and the GEM couldn't handle it.

First ep and we got a little girl girl there.. with Elliot trying to cope a feel with Rena. It was pretty cute. LOL. I was happy watching it. I don't care what they say.

I like all the series.. Mai HiME, Mai ZHiME, Zwei, and now S.ifr.

It's be really perfect if there're some sort of ShizNat incarnation somewhere.

bookshelf spectrum, revisited

bookshelf spectrum, revisited
Originally uploaded by chotda

One word, WOW.

This is awesome, beautiful, amazing.

I love books, and I always love a well organized bookshelves, and normally, mine would be trying to get the same series, or the same author together, but this color coding... it's just gorgeous.

I wish I could get a bookshelves like this.

Someday.

And someday I'll have wall to wall ceiling to ceiling bookshelves.

New toy, website, hosting...

Well, I went to look around for some webcam today. I didn't get it.

I wanted Creative ones, because they have some of the smaller ones, I don't want the big, octopus look alike perching on top of my monitor, so the logictec ones were out of the question. My friend asked why would I need one, who am I gonna chat with.

I don't know.

I just want one. LOL. Isn't that enough reason to get one? (well, maybe not)

Since I didn't see the one that I wanted, I went ahead and looked at some HDD external case. I want one that is also a media player. I didn't get any yet, obviously, since mom won't give me the money (I asked her for my birthday, well, it's been almost a month I don't even see a bill coming this way. ) I guess I'll have to get that for myself as well. Wow, don't you feel the love?

Anyhow, what I got today was 2 movies, and a game. Also a charger for rechargeable batteries. It's a rapid charge one, that will get your batteries charged fully in 15 minutes. It came with 4 rechargeable AA batteries, and 2 AAA. Man, it's the best, I go through batteries so quickly it's starting to become really tedious to keep replacing them, not to mention the amount of garbage that created.

So, as of now I have about 10 AA rechargeable ones, and 2 AAA ones. I'm all set. My wireless mouse and keyboard both use batteries, so is my toothbrush. And you wouldn't believe how quickly. Especially the toothbrush.

A friend of mine asked me to do a website design, I said sure, if you're not in a hurry, I don't really have the time. Well, I banged something out and sent some draft to her already. We'll see how that goes.

Also borrowed some Japanese novel from another friend, they are detective novel 'Kyuketsuki wa Otoshigoro' 'Yuki Ni Kieta Akuma' 'Mineko Homuzu series'by Akagawa Jiro. Don't know if I'm gonna read it, but we'll see.

New thing to watch, sick friend

I'm watching Ugly Betty.

Well, it wasn't my intention to really watch this show, I normally don't watch these kind of show, because I like it better when someone dies in my show. LOL.

Thus, the Criminal Minds, CSI, Medium, Ghost Whisperer, Supernatural etc.

Like that's a surprise, right?

At least I'm starting to write, a little bit, which is really a good thing.

It's Chinese New Year today, and so far no one gives me red envelop yet. *sigh* I guess I'm getting nothing again this year.

Life just sink a little lower to another level. *sniff*

Anyhow, I've been dubbing Ugly Betty season 1 that I've tapped to my friend. She liked it, and now I'm watching season 2. Although, I do feel that if I watch a lot of episodes of something so close together, I'll get sick of it, and I won't finish it.

Which happened before.

Anyway.

I was chatting with a friend the other night, not my usual early morning time, just late at night (before midnight, let's say) And while I was chatting (with my bluetooth headset on) I go under my desk to tie up my wires and cables over again. I used the metallic blue twist tie (decorative ribbon, they said on the paper roll) And well, I just didn't like how it doesn't hold really tight (It would if I did it in the first place and not just do it after the fact) and so I took those out and just use the zip tie.

Someone asked why don't I use something that can be take out and put back again, like velcro. Really, people. How often do you think you gonna change the location of a modem? Power strip? Printer?

Velcro is considerably more expensive than zip tie, zip tie is cheap and quite strong, I can't justify the extra spending on something I probably never gonna change the location ever again. Or if I do, it'll be long, long while yet. So, what's a few ziptie.

I cut a few already, and probably gonna be another few more that gets cut. I bought all sizes, shortest, short, medium, long, overkilled? Maybe. LOL.

But it's useful.

Save me the clutter of all the tangled wires, and dust that collected there.

I told a friend that I'll do it for her, she said let her get settled first, and that was, what... almost six months now?

Well, she's sick, right now. First fever, now cold. She needs to get exercising some, it'll help. Speaking of working out. I should too. But I'm feeling like I'm getting a flu.. it's weird. But what else is new...

Really, really sleepy now.

Hey Cin!

Happy Chinese New Year.

Desk Trauma

Desk Trauma
Originally uploaded by 8lettersuk

I used to want a glass top desk, but now that I saw this, I think I won't be getting that glass top.

But then, with all the junk underneath the desk, glasstop wasn't a good idea to begin with. Oh well, that idea is out the window.

Now I just wish for a bigger desk, heavy, hardwood. like teak. I saw a few that I'd love, but then, I guess I have to move first before i could have that, since my parents saw it fit to have built in furniture in my room. Grr...

Wireless desktop, Comforter cover

I bought Kensington Pilotboard Wireless Desktop set almost a year ago, it was on sale at the time, and the sale's men told me that the warranty was a year and if something broke I can bring it back and change for a new one.

Well, a few weeks ago, the mouse broke.

I didn't really know what happened, only that my mother changed the batteries and it just went dark. There was no laser blinking like it should, so I thought hey a new battery, nothing, and so I took it out and put it back in, there was an instant of first contact that the laser came back on, and blank again. It was strange, and in came on for a little while, then blank again.

I looked at the sticker at the bottom (where they have their store's name and the date I bought it) and I still have another month before it expire. I didn't have time to go change it, but finally today I had my cousin take the whole set and went to the store.

I expected a little difficulty, I don't know why.

But nothing, they changed it, without much of a comment, and so my cousin brought it back to me, I tested it and it works perfectly (a new set, but they kept the box, which is good, I don't need more trash) My mom should be happy now, she didn't like the small mouse that came with the laptop.

I got a new comforter cover today, it's a t-shirt 100% cotton, I love it!! I bought a set of sheets for my father a while back for Father's day, and he didn't say anything about it, so I don't know if he likes it or not. I wanna get a set for me, but well, I have way too many sets already and my mother would definitely give me crap for buying more. So, I just get the cover and that's it. I need to send it out to be wash first.

Man, money just go out pretty fast. LOL.

I wanna get webcam for my desktop at home. Not sure why yet. I've been wanting to, but I'll think about it first, do I need it, not really, is there anything else I have to get, yes, so, I'll think about it for a while.

ISP, Continue from last post, really long e-mail, and Cindy!

Well, on my last post I was talking about movies I watch.

I do like big movie as well, you know epic film. LOTR, HP, PoTC. The kind that looks good on big screen.

My favorite movie of all time is Silence of the Lamb. I like the book as well, actually I like all of the books, Hannibal, Red Dragon, Silence of the Lamb, as for Hannibal Rising, well, I didn't have time to read it yet. But I did catch a glimpse of what Lector's childhood tragedy from Hannibal already.

For some reason I like Ghosts of Mississippi, don't ask me why, because I have no idea.

I used to go to sleep watching Autopsy on HBO. It's a part of America Undercover series that they have. Autopsy talks about what else Autopsies, so there were murder victims, serial killer. They show actual footage too.

Another interest of mine : Dissociative Identity Disorder, or Multiple Personality Disorder. Movie that brought this on was Primal Fear, good movie, I loved it! However the one in this was only a genius boy mimic the symptoms and not really suffering from it.

Oh yeah, another one, courtroom drama. James Woods was so good in Indictment.

I can go on and on, so I'll save some for later.

Hey Cin,

I hope you feel better, but yeah when you get busy your old injuries tended to come back and haunt ya. Happened with my right elbow too. (A dog bit me several years ago, the bite didn't bother me as much as how many shots I had to get for it!) For some reason Friends wasn't all that amusing to me. I have a morbid sense of humor, so black comedy with some sense of irony will have a better chance of making me laugh. My friend loves Friends though.

I'll e-mail you in a few days.

I'm getting my ISP changed, so, I'm calling them to get the details tomorrow, (the new ISP) I need to know what promotional they have and all the little details, although my cousin uses this company and they are pretty good. I can get it up and running within 7 days. (so, now I'm calling them) Free modem. Good. Tomorrow I'm gonna pick up the application. And I better cancel the old one while I'm at it too.

Well, my birthday was last Saturday, and my mother went to see a medium. Yes, a medium. Anyhow, long story short, we got a bunch of things we have to do yet. *sigh* I wrote a long e-mail to 2 friends of mine about it. I'm not writing it here because it's so damn hard to explain. And this post will be like a short novella.

Not very pretty.

I really should take a picture to show them while I explain too. Might make it easier.

Nah..

I'm gonna go shower and watch Rendition now.

There, another favorite right now... Meryl Streep. Yeah, she's awesome. So far I've got...

Music of the Heart
Death Becomes Her
Kramer Vs. Kramer
A Cry in the Dark
Angels in America
The River Wild
Defending Your Life
Silkwood
Sophie's Choice
The House of the Spirits
Marvin's Room
The French Lieutenant's Woman
The Deer Hunter
Adaptations
The Devil Wears Prada
A Prairie Home Companion

I want Plenty, but well, maybe in a month or two I'll start ordering again, have to pay off what I have on the card first.

Needs must.

The type of movies we watch, books we read

Have you ever notice these things?

In comparison to some of your friends?

Well, I just read a friend's blog, and she talked about the romantic comedy 'Nothing Hill'. Have I seen it?

Yeah, I have.

Was it that memorable?

Well, not really, and until she brought this up, I hadn't thought of it in years, and perhaps the little line in the movie was stuck with me more than the rest of the movie itself. But then I like quotes, so it's no surprise that I remembered that little line in the movie. I always remembered them long after the movie itself long faded from my memory.

And so I was looking through my collection, because my other friend was asking what movie I have (so she could borrow..) Well, let's start with my series.

Buffy : The Vampire Slayer (who doesn't have those?)
The X-Files (I waited forever for these to come out)
The Dead Zone (I like the ep where it doesn't concern the damn arch they had)
CSI (I watch all of them)
Supernatural (really, you watch Buffy, then you can't really miss this one)
Criminal Minds (ah... like they said American favorite past time)
Medium (I dream of dead people)
Ghost Whisperer (look above and ask me if I can miss this one)
Monk (just because)
Bones (again... I like these kind of stuff)
NCIS (need I repeat myself?)
Shark (I like James Woods)
Women's Murder Club (Angie Harmon... yumm)

So... my friend borrow, Criminal Minds, The Dead Zone, Buffy and Supernatural... well, and she said don't you watch anything else?

Um...

No.

Of course even my anime... she said that do they have to be depressing? I said not all of them!

Sick kitty, Slightly clean puppy, New puppy salon

Well, Monday morning (slightly toward noon) I dropped off the pup at the new store, my friend took hers there, and apparently they are pretty good, and very nice to the dog, they didn't keep him in the cage. Anyway, they just opened the store so they don't have that many customer yet. So, not a lot of waiting.

So, I took Gizmo, and he was his usual self, messy all around, he's been romping around in the garden, after all. And he needed a little trim.

So I went in, the girl there was still in PJ, so I asked if the store is open, she said it is. I told her the dog needed a bath, and some trim, she asked what style I told her not like my friend's dog (money bag) She laughed. Yeah, he got all his fur buzzed off! It was funny. We thought he looks like Yoda!

Anyhow, I picked up Gizmo and he was all right. :)

My aunt once again picked up a kitten, well, the mother left the thing on the steps of my house, so she picked it up. It was sicked, so I said we should take it to the vet. And we did, I took Gizmo too.

The kitten has cold. So it's a shot for her, a good thing we brought her to the vet, otherwise she would've die. So now my aunt will keep an eye on her. I'm pretty sure she'll survive, can't say the same for my aunt, since she's gonna be up and awake all hour to see that the kitten gets to eat and stuff.

Gizmo got 3 shots, no wonder he won't turn his back to the Vet. LOL.

I also bought a hairdryer too, because I lost the other one, it was kinda small anyhow. A new one is good. Not that I ever blow dry my hair, (a reason I kept it short) But when I give the dogs a bath, I needed it. Last time I let him sit in front of the fan and I had the a/c on. He was shivering and whimpering, it was pathetic if not a little funny.

Saturday is my birthday, I'm trying to get another friend down here for that. I mean, last time she was over we barely get to talk, since she was only over for a night, and not even 24 hours, she got here in the afternoon and left early in the morning. It sucked!

Hopefully, she'll be able to.

It's well into the new year now, and well, all I can say is same old shit different year. I still can't go anywhere, can't really do anything. My domain is due for renewal, and I'm thinking of changing.

My friend wanted to learn some music instrument and I think I might join her. Piano? Violin? I'd love to know how to play both, but better focus on one thing. I think that too many things at once will be too much and I'll lose interest.

Medium, National Treasure, birthday plan

Medium : The first episode for this season, a really late start to the season. But I guess it's a good time, since it retain the old slot of Monday night. And while nothing else is on because of the strike and all.

I wonder how that's gonna play out. I hope it all ends well.

Anyway, back to Medium.

Now Allison and family had to deal with the fact that she was 'out' and everyone knew her name and half of the people believe her, the other half didn't. Manny was gone, about to come back, he didn't know what was gonna happen to him, his career and everything else. The new DA was an ass that concern more with the image, as far as I can tell.

Even Scanlon, he had seen what Allison can do and yet he ignored her. I do understand that association with Allison made him some sort of social outcast, so much so that he was reduced to talking about safety with the school children. So, he's resenting her, but then over the last season he's been doing this thing, where he'd disregard what she said or what she told him, even though she was proven to be right over and over again. What was his problem? The fact that he's a hard ass homicide cop? Even cops take intuitive leap sometimes, don't they?

His attitude probably isn't going to improve, even though the clue she gave him was right, once again. Won't even credit her with it, even to himself. (I don't expect him to run to the DA and tell him where he got the clue.)

The investigator, well, she had some sense about her and it's good that she recognized what Allison can do for her and for the work she's doing. This episode was mostly about transition. At least she refused to ignore who she was (like she'd done when she was younger, by drinking herself silly so she didn't hear or see anything) and still trying to help. Too bad that her husband and the kids had to suffer too.

Well, she's got a way of making a living now, so it should get better from here (or maybe not). I'm looking forward to where Manny is back and now he fits into all of this. If he's still gonna be DA or they just permanently replaced him.

I finally got to see National Treasure.

It's been out for a long while by this point, and I finally get the chance. It was entertaining, certainly, more sight seeing, and kinda funny at some point, but I think the whole adventure thing.. um.. could've been better. And the bad guy turned into an OK guy.. no I did not like that. He started so promising and just turned into 'that' at the end? Man.. so all the thing he did was so that his name could be in history? Seems like a lot of effort for someone that seemed to concern himself with money.

Well, at least it wasn't a bust. I would've been really disappointed otherwise.

Today is my friend's little sister's birthday. And on the 12th is another girl's birthday, and the 19th is mine. I guess I'll throw a little get together thing, mostly to eat, and I won't be the one to arrange it, my aunt will take care of all the food. :)

I still have to be the one to drive her to get them though.

What do I want for my birthday, well, no one asks me that. Probably no one will. *sigh* so I guess I'll have to get things for myself if I want anything. I don't think my poor wallet could take it though.

I better drop by to see grandma, I hadn't seen her in a really long while. She was the one who raised me when I was 2 to about 7. Saturday, I think.

I lost another fish the other day, angel fish, he got stuck underneath some rock, stupid fish. Oh well, they are so fragile anyhow.

My optical mouse is being a bi-otch it kept flicker in and out, and I never drop the thing to warrant this kind of reaction. I'm thinking of getting a new one, but then it came in a set of keyboard and mouse set (wireless desktop set by Kensington)

Mom wants a new mouse because while I have a spare mouse (they gave me one when I got the laptop) it was too small and she said it doesn't feel good in her palm. Yup, new mouse, big one...

Well, right now it is working, so... we'll see how it goes.

New Year's Eve, Pain Doctor, and the week leading up to it.

On the last week of the year, I spent it, as I always expected, in the damn mall. I had to take my aunt shopping, or rather we were getting ready for a party, actually we had it for the employees, mostly. I mean, there weren't that many people, but we always make more than enough food (too much if you ask me.)

Anyhow, so it was 7 hours for my mother and aunt to get all the presents (there are 2 sets, 1 to give to them, and the other was for the swap thing...) At least I didn't have to go with them to get those. I'd certainly hang myself in that case. That was Saturday.

And Sunday, it was me bringing them to get food supplies, 2 full carriages of stuffs, and it wasn't even done!

We couldn't get the chicken wings. I have no idea why that was the case. They ran out?? How could you possibly run out of chicken wings?

So, the next day it was me being pissed off early in the morning, I rarely get enough sleep these days, and then they had to wake me up over and over again throughout the morning. Like every f*cking hour. I kept telling them, I'll get up when I get up. Keep knocking on my door will only piss me off.

Seems that the message did not get through.

Because it happened way too often and I ended up slamming my door or window everytime to drive the point home. I do not what to be wake up before noon!

People are idiots.

Anyhow, my friend had her friends over, and well, we invited her, as always, and so by extend her friends too. I met them. And you know how people that are alike will usually hang out with people of the same personality? Well, that is the case with this friend of mine, so I can hang out with her friends, no problem. There were so much laughter it was painful!

Well, we ate, then we migrated to my friend's mom's friend's condo (confusing?) It was perfect, 10th floor, has the view of the ocean on both sides.

But we were early, so she told me to bring some game, I brought Pain Doctor (Pain Doctor : A Game of Recreational Surgery) I hadn't touched it for so long it took a game to figure out all the rules again. So we were playing, and it was like, another 5 min the fireworks gonna start and we were like.. yeah yeah, ok. I'm about to chop up this patient.

It was funny!

Then after the fireworks we were back at it!

We played 2 games, and left the condo at 2:30 am. It was fun, all things considered. I'm considering making a copy of the game, or rather the board piece. I really like the game so the last thing I want is for it to get all kinds of tears in it.

I'm gonna go through the camera to see if there's any photo that is of any use. After all, I suck at taking pictures period.

Days later, my friend still asked if we gonna play the game again. (yeah, she killed the rest of us last time, so I better get back)