long awaits movie : Intensity

This was made for TV movie, and I've been waiting for it to get on DVD, VDO or anything, anything at all since 98 (the movie was showed on FOX in 97) And nothing, not a thing. I can't find it.

I looked for it on Amazon for the longest time. Had it been on DVD I would've bought it in a heartbeat, but alas, it was not.

And I've been looking for it on bittorent as well, anything really.

Finally, yesterday, I thought about it, so I thought, what the hell, I search for it, just in case.

And Voila!!

There was 1, the seeding was horrible, but after a day and a night, I got about 75% of it. I can't wait!!

Now, this is all w/o knowing if it's the right one, too. I hope it is.

New Laurell K. Hamilton book, damn, I didn't read the last three, because it got to be more of a soft porn than novel. She should really decide what she wanna write. I mean, dude, how many guys can a girl sleep with. I like her earlier Anita and not now Anita. And all those men around her. I don't like Nathanial, he's weak, and needy, well, actually just about every men around her are. It sucks. I'd rather see Edward hack and slash through them all.

I'd rather see her with JC. At least JC has a sense of humor.

I think I'm gonna stop reading, and I won't even start one the last three I already bought, I feel like I wasted enough money on it.

head arrived

The head of CustomHouse Ange-Ai Hani arrived today, I was expecting it tomorrow, since Tanya sent it out yesterday. It was a pleasant surprise, I felt like I'm getting a gift, even though I paid for it. LOL

She looked awesome, so I'll have to e-mail Tanya to let her know that the package got here. I think I might weird her out. LOL.

So, I have plan for this girl already, for her open box that is. It'll befitting the halloween.

It's time for me to put up a new layout for the homepage too.. probably by the end of this week, or next.

I want Little Red Riding Hood. :D

Excited with the new anime

Today a new anime in the list caught my eyes.

Kiddy Girl-and

The first thing caught my eye was that.. it has the word Kiddy G I was watching Kiddy Grade years ago (several I think) and saw a preview of a continuation, and I was looking forward to it, except it never came.

Now it's out!

Yeah!!

It's not that smart and deep dark series like I usually read or watch, but hey! I liked it.

Then another one.. Kobato.

I didn't know what it was, I thought it might be one of those ya know.. Kabuto. Anyhow, I googled it, and then bam! a new clamp.

Oh yeah,

Now more to watch.

Let's see.. so far.

Criminal Minds
The Mentalist
Ghost Whisperer
Medium
Supernatural
Drop Dead Diva
Fringe
So You Think You Can Dance
The Good Wife
CSI
NCIS
Monk
Bones
Sanctuary
...

There are a few that I'm still undecided, but hey... now 2 more anime..

Kobato
Canaan
Kiddy Girl-and


Busy, busy, busy...

new resin kid

I sent the head out to Tanya to get a face-up last week. It was the CustomHouse Ange-Ai Hani that I sent out, since she didn't come with the face up anyway, besides, I really wanna see her face-up in person. I'm still practicing, although I have to clean out the msc from the head entirely so I can get it sprayed again (I worn out a few patches from practicing)

My sister left her Slinky Neko Borry with me to be sprayed, so, Gabi is my guess right now. I'm planning on cleaning Chuck too, I noticed a spot of msc chipping, I'll do them all together.

That included a new resin the family. A Lati Yellow Magician Ver. Kuroo. Her name is Hayden. Because...

Tonight I'll get them cleaned up, and hopefully it's not raining on Sat, or they all will have to wait.

Working out kinks : upgraded desktop

I found that everytime I restart my desktop everything I've logged on and choose to remained logged on didn't. Confuses me, I thought that when I cleaned out junk with Ccleaner did it.

That until I checked out the internet option.

The damn security was set to whatever but it won't accept cookies, so I reset it to a reasonable level and it was fine again.

Tonight I'll scan in the drawing and see if the scanner need to be reinstall or not. Although I still need to install the tablet.

Now where did I keep the cd.

it's all coming together slowly

I'm getting things back, one by one, though, one by one.

I got my Photoshop, Dreamweaver, ActiveSync, RocketDock, Spybot, Avast, Firefox, Thunderbird installed in the last 3 nights. What a pain, let me tell you.

First and foremost, I got my firefox installed, because all my bookmark were on Firefox (my browser of choice for the last couple of years), but that was a bust at first, for whatever reason, I could not, for the life of me, start up the damn thing. It kept crashing and crashing and crashing, and this was after I loaded 3.5.3 version.

But suddenly it was working, so I still don't know what was wrong before. Weird, huh. And then the menu was in Thai! I was pissed!! I can't use it, I'm not use to it. So I went and load the en-us version and install, but I installed the wrong one (they were saved on different folders) by the time I figure it out I nearly pull out my hair. I mean god I just made a trip to the dentist that was bad enough and to add the headache to it?

Un-fucking-believable.

But after a while (like hour) I got that done, all bookmark synced. Now, on to Thunderbird. That was a pain as well. I can't believe. Took forever to set up too.

But now I got most things more or less the way I wanted, I can start update DWP list. I'm looking for good images to make new layout as well.

I gotta go get Enigma install for my desktop too..

desktop upgrade : 1 more day

So, I'll be expecting my upgraded desktop tomorrow before noon.

And I have dentist appointment tomorrow noon. I never like dentist, so I usually try to put it off as much as I could. *sigh* I really don't wanna go.

I don't think I'm gonna take laptop home tonight, don't wanna carry it around. LOL

I forgot to bring the new mouse to the store, though. Can't believe I forgot. I guess I'll have to give it to my mom tonight and let her bring in the morning, since it'll be her that will need it in the morning. She plays solitaire, I told her to play with other game, she won't try. Oh well.

BTW. how do you break a mouse?

desktop : off to be upgraded

I'm on my laptop right now, which I had to bring back from the store, since my desktop was off to be upgraded this morning. I'm upgrading ram, processor, power supply, and a bit here and there, not eveything. I'm not getting anew monitor either, since I like my old 19" one. I wouldn't know what to do with a bigger one otherwise, and what the hell am I gonna do with a perfectly good monitor if I get a new one. Throw away seems like a lot of waste.

I'll change when it's no good anymore, but not a moment before.

So, now I can't do a few things from this, I can't do anything with the website, since I don't have proper files and program on here. Though it was more of a no files on here. Can't scan either. I have to do the sign for a friend, though. I still can't figure it out what I wanna do. So, it'll be later tonight (it's later enough already, though) I'll do a few research too.

Face-up is slowly coming along, while I read through a few tutorials, I'm also trying to figure out how I wanna do it, and what I'm comfortable with.

A lot of learning process, let me tell you.

Well, off to do other things.

upgrading time : desk top

I'm getting my desktop upgrade, so tomorrow a guy I know will be picking it up at my house for me (I always have him pick up too.. I'm just lazy that way). It's been dreadful for a while now. With the weird noise and stuff... and since I thought about upgrading it anyway, so... here's the time to do it.

So, now I'm just moving stuff off of it and temporary save everything on my 1TB external HDD for now, mostly will consist of photos, musics and movies. I think this is the perfect time to declutter too.

My mom knocked out the mouse we use for the laptop at the store. It was so weird. At first I thought that something was wrong with the USB port, then I plugged in the flash drive and it worked fine, only the mouse that the light didn't come on, so I figure it was the mouse, so today I had to do with the touch pad, that was sorta annoying.

I'm planning on ordering some wig, shoes, clothes for the new girl, I still don't have name for her yet, and probably won't for a while, since I still gonna redo her face-up. Maybe I'll send it to Tanya, she's awesome with face-up anyway.

Ok, back to moving things.

Cindy : hey, how's it going?? :D You're doing well, I hope.

s6 ep2 of SYTYCD, and new doll

I just watched the new season of SYTYCD, don't see any favorite yet, so far from LA audition. I'm hoping that someone will stick out to me eventually. Hopefully.

Tomorrow is the series premiere of The Vampire Diaries, I'm really hoping that I won't be disappointed as well. I was disappointed with Twilight, really I was. Good thing I didn't have such a high expectation of it to begin with. I think the only reason I went to see it was that my cousin wanna see it. What vampire doesn't have fangs, that just take the fun out of the whole thing.

And what I really don't agree with was the whole relationship, annoys the hell out of me. Someone who does not love him/herself, will never love anyone else. Edward hates himself, so my suggestion would be, go kill yourself. It was horrible.

My sister said she read the book (I won't bother with it) and she had to put it down every so often because Bella annoys the shit out of her!

Tomorrow also season premiere for Supernatural. I'm really looking forward to that!

Now that LCF is out, what's gonna happen next!

I got a new doll the other day as well.. a Ange Ai Hani from CustomHouse. She's 27cm. so she should be able to share some clothes and stuff with Chuck. But I have to get her a pair of shoes and some wig. I'll have to start from scratch for this one, since it was sold with no face-up. I got a pair of purple glass eye with her though.

Now my plan is..
1. sand her down (only a little)
2. coat her with MSC uvcut
3. Face-up

and my extra plan was that if the face-up I did was dreadful I'll book a slot with either Tanya or someone from BJD board for a face-up. LOL. Can't go wrong with Tanya though, she's awesome!

I'm hoping that I won't have to though, so anyway, I'll have to pick up 3 grades of sandpapers tonight. I'll start with head first.

Ok, that's the plan for tonight, sand the head.

Oh yeah and make some logo for a friend's. Yup.

new bjd tiny

I got my latest doll the other day, I had my sister bought him for me from a dealer. She had the dolls in hand, so it wasn't a long wait or anything. It's unfortunate that Lati only open for order 4 times a year, so to get Lati is having to be up to date on their schedule.

Anyhow, my sister bought 2 already from Lati, Lati Yellow, Prayer of Angel Lea, basic ver. Lumi. They are cute, but a bit too small. I mean, I'm happier with honey-delf and kid-delf, they are good size for me. Although when I saw Magician Ver. Ruki I just couldn't help it. He's cute!



this is him in his full set, except the broom, they didn't have broom for him, despite the fact that in their promo pic he had broom. Oh well. I can make him one.

Also did box opening thing too, but it'll have to wait for another time.

...

I'm planning on changing the layout, unfortunately, so far I hadn't been able to find anything interesting enough to use as a layout.. I love my BJD (well, Dillon was mine, the rest are my sister's but she still owed me for Chuck..)

I'm planning on making a dollie Ouija board though. :D

And maybe a bunk bed. Um... I need to clean out the desk that I wanna use as their dwelling more junk out. LOL.

Soon, I think, soon, I have to finished coloring Buffy/Faith Babies first.

BJD, some clothes, new doll

My sister got a new BJD, I don't really know when she got the doll, but well, she needed me to sprayed MSC UVcut for her, since she won't do it herself.

It was a Lati Yellow, Angel Prayer Lea version.

It was positively tiny!!

I can't imagine what a Lati White would look like smaller than this. Anyhow, now between the two of us we have 4 BJD. And 4 letters in the Alphabet. LOL.

We have..

Alice : Luts : Kid-Delf Bory girl
Bea (Beatrice) : Lati Yellow : Angel Prayer Lea
Chuck (Charlotte) : Luts Honey-Delf Lolly
Dillon : Luts : Kid-Delf Hodoo

Hodoo was the first doll that I wanted.. it was so weird, I saw him on Luts and I thought, wow, I want that one!!

So, Besides spraying UVcut, I have to make them clothes as well.. which meant that the doll trunk got push aside, I should picked it up again, very soon. I'm just lazy right now.. LOL.

And I had a thought.. I wanna get Lati Yellow (sp.) 1 Lea and 1 either Cookie or Lumi.. to make Baby Buffy and Faith. LOL..

Well, gotta save up, I guess..

HP6 and random ranting

I went to see Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince last night with a couple of friends. Just so that we didn't catch ourselves settle for the inconvenient time, I ran to the theater and bought the tickets ahead of time.

The show time was every 50 min, and still the seats were full. I mean, the only ones that aren't occupied would be the roles up front, who would wanna sit there, right.

Anyhow, I read the book, so I knew what was coming. It was a good movie, understandably short for the size of the book. I mean, they cut a lot off, which was to be expected.. what I can't stand was...

WHY WAS NARCISSA SO OLD!!!!

In the book she was supposed to be beautiful, if she didn't make the face as if she was smelling something unpleasant. So, why did they cast someone so old. Lucious wasn't that old. And I thought Narcissa was younger than Bellatrix!

I don't care, to me, Cissy is younger than Bella!!

God.. that was painful, good thing she only showed up for 2 scenes.

I'm learning how to face-up.. lots of practice, told myself.



I did one, I think I'm gonna try attaching the lashes before erase this face-up to do another. But not tonight. I'm spraying Chuck with UVcut. Almost done now though. Only 2 coats, or we'd be doing it all night.

Introduce Dillon and Charlotte



Also been playing Farm Town, Pet Society, Restaurant City on Facebook... man, was that addictive or what.

Well, better get back to the spraying, I still got to do the hot glue seuding of the joints as well.

new hobby

Yes, I got a new thing to be obsessed over. BJD (Ball-Jointed Doll) I've been wanting it for the longest time.. Actually I saw it just a bit after my friend showed me some Blythe's picture, I found the first photo of BJD on Flickr.com I think. And since then I've been looking at them and wanting them, I think it's been a year now and I finally got 1 (or 2 depend on how you look at it).

I placed an order with Luts on 4/27 which was a Friday, which meant that even though my payment confirmed right away (like no more than 30 min after) the order won't be sent to the production till Monday. The waiting time is 35-45 business days, which was why I didn't expect the dolls before 2 months (because of the face-up too... that is another 14 days tacked onto the waiting pediod).

Surprised, surprised, we got the dolls less than a month later. :)

I ordered a Kid-Delf Hodoo and a Kid-Delf girl Bory.

They are adorable. I was afraid that I might not want them anymore once they got here, but hey, so far so good.

I learned to sew.. yeah... I didn't think I would but I did. Not so good at it right now, but I'll make it.. practice, baby, it's all about practice.

Gah! I've been so busy with BJD that I hardly do anything else, it's time to get back on the horses as they say.

new collection

I bought a small set of Sylvanian Families the other day.. it was Papa Boris' Garden set. I like small things, so Re-Ment, Sylvanian Familes (Calico Critters in the US I think) are right on target. :)

The mall nearby has a sale right now. You can get 3 or 4 levels shelves for $8 and $11 respectively. The outside of it is white, but the inside is either blue or pink. I wanted the blue, but there as no blue (or maybe I didn't see it) so I picked up 4 levels one, I might get more. Maybe I'll lay in on the side on top of my other shelves. Actually, the purpose of it was so I can have a place to put my dolls in and small things, because they occupied my other desk and I needed the space, last thing I really need is to knock one of them off the desk because I was getting stuff. They are a bit too expensive for that.

The size of each level was pretty good, even though it's not high enough for the doll to stand (it was a little under 12") But it's fine. I made a closet for it too, cause I need a place to hang up the doll clothes.

My sister just sold 1 and she's gonna go ship it out today.

She said she's gonna bring all her dolls (the one she might sell) and leave them all with me, because there seems to be problem everytime she said she gonna sell. It was weird.

I told her maybe they didn't wanna leave!!

Anyhow, I got stuff filled in on each shelves already, but things are subject to change. :)

Blogger's being a B yesterday, I couldn't get in, don't know why.

And when I finished the dolltrunk, I will start on a new layout for this and my site as well.. time to change.

been a while

Well, I've been away from blogging for a while. Maybe because I've been doing something else. :D

I've recently gotten a new phone. Only because the last one died. I'm not one to change phone often, because I like familiarity, I like to know what to do with what I have. Everytime I change cellphone, it usually takes me a little while I get use to it. This time is no different.

My last phone was iPaq,a pocket pc. It worked for me.. although I don't think I've used it to its full potential. :) I rarely even sync it to my comp.

At first I wanted to wait for iPhone, for the 3G to be ready in my area, but well, when I thought about it, what's the point. And since my phone died, I needed to get a new one..

And then came Omnia.

I've always liked Samsung, my very first phone was Samsung and it served me well, until the washing and drying took it. LOL. Then my second phone, also Samsung, and the third was also Samsung VGA1000. I loved that phone.

Even my fourth, until it was stolen, that is.

So, now it's Omnia, and so far, I liked it a lot. :) It's easy on the eye, the camera on it was 5megapixle. It sounds good, and well, not that complicate.

Also, my family's into Blythe recently as well. The damn doll is on the rage right now here. It's cute, but I won't spend fortune on it.

I have 5, 2 of which remained in boxes, 2 were second hand, and 1 was brand new, the only reason that the last one got taken out of the box because my nephew accidentally stepped on the box (I'd rather not think that my sister planned it so I would take the doll out... )

What I have ... Excellent Hollywood (only because she reminds me of Miranda Priestly from DWP, and I do love Meryl in that role) French Trench (another short hair girl) Dainty Biscuit (I'm not big on pink, but her eyes are gorgeous) Miss Sally Rice (well, her hair's blue!!) And my last My Little Candy (another gorgeous eyes colors.)

Also been making doll trunk for everyone else but me.

I've make 2 already, first one my aunt took..



And second one, my sister took..



Now I'm currently making a third one, which again, my sister called dip on it. This one holds 2 dolls. And a girlfriend of my cousin asked for 1, but she didn't get me material yet.

I used cardboard from a Microwave box for the first one... one large cardboard box was enough for the entire thing!

The second one was made from cardboard boxes also, 4 of them, from this healthy juice thing my mom ordered... they are small, so... still recycle!! (or was it upcycle?) Hardware I got from local hardware store, and some handmade paper to decorate.. not to shabby. :)

Also made the hangers too...

Belate, Happy New Year and all that

Wow, it's been a really long while.

I've been occupied with other things. Nothing really stand out, just a bunch of stuff.

Recently (well, it's been months) We decided that a wireless internet access is a good addition to the apartment/hotel thing we have. So, yeah, we talked for a while, mainly me and my aunt, since she's overseeing day-to-day things here. Quite a few guests were asking for it, already. So, we decided, yes, we'll get it.

First, the phone company was being an ass. I don't see why we couldn't get 2Mps speed when I can get it easy for personal use. They said they couldn't, my question was why, since it's not like they send us the wireless signal, but instead we got it through phoneline like in the house. What morons.

Anyhow... we set it up normally, though I have no idea if it was the way it usually done in building like this. But it's easy for me to get it done and maintain myself, so it'll have to do.

We got N1 Vision by Belkin because it has the strongest signal. Of course, that doesn't cover 5 floors, so after N1 is set up. I picked up range extender, also Belkin (easier to get them all the same brand, compatibility is key here)

I got the extender set up this morning. Worked well, when I figured out that the security didn't match on both.

Had to be WPA and TKIP, instead in N1 it was WPA+WPA2. Now I just have to hook it up on the 3rd floor and then maybe another one on the 4th and we're homefree.

Picked up a new Nintendo DS lite as well. A black one. I had N5DS before hand and whatever people review said, it did not give me any problem. At all.

Also got NDS Lite in white for my sister too.. and Kitty's case for it. Cost me a pretty penny, so she better appreciate that.

Now I'm addicted to it. I'm playing My Sims, Harvest Moon IoH, Animal Crossin : WW. Such a dork I am.

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...