One Abnormal Girl

It’s about that time again–time to overhaul the Website.  I’ve also gone ahead and changed the Wordpress theme.  I really liked the old one, but the main page was somewhat confusing with its vogue two-post set-up.  Now I’m back to something a little more traditional, though still very plain.  I also needed to choose something newer so that I could take advantage of the new Wordpress features without trying to figure out how to code them into the theme myself.  I think I made a decent decision with the new theme.

I also plan to redo the Website.  Again, I like the current version, but I’m in the mood for something else.  There’s a lot on it I just don’t use anymore, so I’m looking for a way to make my own experience more efficient with it.  It’ll also be good practice with coding, as I don’t do that often enough anymore.

And with these changes I have some tidying up to do.  There are currently two working feeds for my fanfiction posts–one is automatic, from Wordpress, and the other is manual.  The manual feed was useful because you could subscribe to it via e-mail, but now that Feedburner does that, I’m migrating its functionality to Wordpress/Feedburner.  I just need to send out a final manual post about the change–I think.  There was a time when I imagined this would be a complicated switch, and I feel like I’m missing something, because it no longer seems so complicated.

I also need to transfer more fics over here from Livejournal.  I only got so far before I gave up for the time being.  It’s not difficult, just tedious, especially with my Wordpress taking freaking-forever to accomplish anything involving its database.*  I need to look into that, but I hardly know where to start.  Probably with the plugins, grr.

Most of this is waiting on me getting a desk, though, since I need space for the external drive and so on.  A desk will be very exciting.

*Turns out it was an extension called Bad Behavior.  It was meant to block phishing sites from clogging up my list of referring Websites, but I’m not sure it’s worth it if it slows down the administration and commenting this much.

I’d need a cigarette.  I just ended up submitting a fic at 11:59pm on the day it was due and my nerves are shot.  It’s my own fault for procrastinating, but I really didn’t expect its final stages to take quite that long.  MUCH THANKS TO LACIDIANA FOR BEING MY AWESOME BETA-ON-DEMAND.  I think I ended up with something at least cohesive and interesting, I just hope I didn’t somehow disqualify myself by submitting it so freaking down-to-the-wire.  I also hope I didn’t overlook something egregious.  And that I followed directions when I submitted it.

But even if something did go wrong, and it can’t be entered, at least I wrote something.  It’s something I can’t bear to look at for two months (until the contest is up), just in case I see a mistake I want to beat myself for, but I haven’t written anything of worth in so long that I’m glad I forced myself to do it, and with an idea that isn’t terrible.  Confusing maybe, but not terrible.

Now I need to go relax, kick back with some Jon Stewart and maybe a little Dick Van Dyke, and definitely some cookie dough.  I thank hulu.com for those first two, but I get credit for the last one.

So I used a Walmart giftcard (courtsey of the team at my last temp job when I left!) to buy myself this.  Now I’m about to zoom off to the bank on it!

Pay no attention to the Xtreme Danger depicted on the Webpage for the item.  These are also used as non-fatal modes of urban transportation.

Now I just need to find a gate that isn’t locked so I can get out of here and back.  lulz no gate key.

I MUST EAT THESE PANCAKES AS FAST AS POSSIBLE

or I will not be able to finish them D8

So it’s getting pretty scary that I don’t have a job yet.  Hope somebody calls me back, geez D:  More resumes to go out tomorrow woo!

But on to less stressful things.

In my large amounts of free time (I MISS CRAZYLOSTSTAR) I’ve been watching some Kyo Kara Maoh and Junjou Romantica.  Junjou turned out to be one of the more enjoyabe BL anime (with a potential second season, depending on how the DVD sales go), though its main couple is the only one that seems to have any substance for me.  The other two relationships, while somehow intertwined with the first, just don’t connect on a realistic or emotional level.  They have stories and backgrounds to accompany them, but their reactions and personalities often don’t make any sense.  This anime also offers a healthy dose of “I’m going to throw you on the bed, and you’re going to fight me, even if you just said you wanted this,” which gets uncomfortable.

Seriously, it’s still hot if both parties consent.  You don’t have to simulate force/protest every time, all the time.

Still hoping for a second season, though.

During other hours, I installed Mabinogi in my WoW withdrawal, searching for some game to play that my laptop could handle.  It has some interesting turn-based fighting, and some remarkably realistic animal animations, but hell if its difficulty doesn’t spike.  I uninstalled it.

Next up was Maple Story, but I just can’t navigate it.  If you want to do quests in other cities, you either have to come up with the incredible (at low levels) sum of money to be teleported, or you have to somehow walk there, but being 2-dimensional, you can’t avoid the mobs in your way, so you’d never get there if you’re low level, trying to do other low-level quests.  I don’t know if I’ll keep Maple Story either.

Finally broke down and used crazyloststar’s computer to log in to WoW, remembering the time limit on mailbox items, but I’d already lost everything in there–mostly auction items that didn’t sell, but also auction money from things that might have sold after I listed them before I left.  Grumble grumble.  That’s a lot of gold.  Ended up killing a few hours with a lowbie rogue that seems to kill things a lot more slowly than rogues ought to.

So envious of her video card. 8D;

I can’t wait to have a job so I can buy things again.  Like furniture and computer parts!  Ooooooooo.

Ever snce Blingo decided that making search results usable wasn’t really their priority, my search-engine use has defaulted to Google, which is great, but it doesn’t give me a chance to win money.

Enter Scour, a search-engine aggregate where points are awarded for searching and rating results.  Points would probably accumulate slowly depending on how often you search and how many friends you refer, but 6,500 of them will score you $25.  Can’t hurt, right?

http://scour.com/invite/arcanewinter

When I first found Blinklist, it was pretty fantastic, and boasted a lot of improvements over the bookmarking giant Del.icio.us.  By now, however, the greatest of those improvements (the ability to mark certain bookmarks as private) has already been incorporated, and all Blinklist has over Del.icio.us is an easy-to-type domain.  But my real concern here, as I was never tempted to use Del.icio.us before, is that Blinklist has become almost unusable.  It feels as though its developers have left it behind: the Firefox add-on hasn’t been updated in years, there have been no major changes aside from the removal of some useful features, and the service itself is majorly unreliable.  Even when the service is up and responding, I can’t trust it to hold on to the link I just submitted to it.  Blinklist is becoming less and less usable.

This leads me to either Del.icio.us or Ma.gnolia.  The former is no-frills but simple; the latter is gorgeous but socially complicated.  There’s no requirement to use all the social tools that Ma.gnolia boasts, but just having them there makes me feel like I’m not living up to its standards.  So despite the fact that Del.icio.us can’t seem to overcome its infatuation with pre-Windows-95 underscores, and forces me to un-private every single link I just imported, I’m choosing Del.icio.us.  So begins the edit of all 644 of my links.

So I’m still in California!

This came as a mild surprise to me upon returning from Anime Expo–for once, when the festivities ended, I did not pack up my things and get on a plane, foregoing physical peer contact for months into the future.  Nope, I got all my things back into a car and then I came home to an apartment not so far away, still in the company of crazyloststar.  And that’s totally awesome.  We had shabu shabu for dinner, and that was also awesome.

My first AX was a very good time, though it had its dubious moments, such as the one where some group in charge of some part of the shuttle process decided that only those people whose names were actually listed on their hotel rooms could ride the shuttle to the hotels.  Anyone who has ever been to an anime convention knows that, for good reason, not all parties in a room are on the room bill.  This presented a large problem.  Luckily, some registration officials were less strict about the rule, and the problem was solved (for our room, at least), but I would expect it to be enforced more universally next year, since we will have apparently learned how it works by then.  But it remains to be seen.

Still had an awesome time among awesome company.  Only bought for myself 3 doujin at the Yaoi-con booth price, which is far less than I usually spend.  I had taken two cosplays, but one had a partner cosplay that didn’t work out in time, so I rather happily stuck to the movie!Roy.  Eventually I will have something new, something different, but it’s a good fallback that I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of.

Highlights of the con were:

• being recognized with crazyloststar through livejournal
• learning some Para Para
• actually going to the rave
• the Ghost Stories dub
• Paprika
• MEETING LACIDIANA FINALLY
• SEEING THEREGALTIGRESS AGAIN
• discovering that one of the doujin featured Hyuroi in a phonebooth
• peanut butter [and jelly] sandwiches around 4pm in the hotel room
• meeting new people!

We did have a string of rotten convention-related incidents leading up to, and slightly overlapping, the convention, but all in all it worked out and it was good times.  The swelling from my sunburn from the beach last weekend had gone down enough that I wasn’t too bothered by it, which was a blessing.  I’m only glad I was so covered by my cosplay that I didn’t have to worry about the random red/tan skin patterns.

And now, I have other things to think about!  This includes finding a job, temporary or otherwise; planning out upcoming cosplays; possibly writing something for y-con; and reading 07-Ghost, which we learned about through the con.  Huzzah!

I wanted to post something more thoughtful than this, but I’m totally whooped!  And so I can only drop these links to you.  I’ll be using Twitter to track our progress pretty regularly from state to state, and Tumblr to post any memorable photos on the way!

• http://twitter.com/arcwin
• http://arcanewinter.tumblr.com/

Both of these have rss if you swing that way.

All in all, I still don’t think this has sunk in.  Today was my last day at work, and tomorrow I leave my family to move in with my FAVORITEST PERSON EVER and although I’m sad regarding the family, THAT’S PRETTY AWESOME.

Stay on the lookout for updates!  Now I need to get some sleep!

Five Questions meme
If you want to play, leave a random inane comment and I will ask you five questions, which you will then post the answers to in your journal, along with these instructions.

[lj] Pollinia asked me:

1. You’ve done your share of traveling. Where would you like to go next? Or, is there somewhere you’ve already been where you’d like to return?

I once read an article about Prague in a National Geographic magazine, and ever since, I’ve had an otherwise unqualified desire to go there.  Barring that, I always enjoy a trip to New Orleans.

2. What would your version of hell be? Does it involve office cubicles, yes or no?

I actually don’t mind office cubicles very much!  At least they offer some semblance of privacy, where I can work without the need to keep someone else entertained by wasting precious thinking on small talk.  No, I think if there were a Hell fashioned for me, it could very well focus on relationships gone wrong.  Human relationships may appear to be heart-warmingly steadfast, but I rather think they are inescapably tenuous.  The smallest comment or action can very easily change someone’s perception of you forever, no matter how close you are.  I fear this seemingly unavoidable disaster because it is so unpredictable, yet emotionally painful, so a possible Hell would include the people important to me, only in Hell, those people would no longer want to be around me, and I wouldn’t know why.

3. You live on your own. I bet you cook for yourself! What do you think is your best dish? Like, the one you’d use to impress a boss, or to woo a person of interest (which may or may not be your boss…?

I actually don’t cook!  I enjoy foods that are simple: rice, steamed veggies, other things that don’t include more than hydration.  It’s not that I don’t like to eat, I just can’t justify spending that much time on something that won’t last.

4. When is your most productive time of day? Why?

I haven’t been very productive at all, lately, but I’d say sometime after 11pm.  If I’m writing, the degree of productivity increases conversely to the amount of sleep I can expect to get on account of it.

5. What is your most embarrassing moment, which you would be willing to share on the internet?

I remember this to be more terrifying than embarrassing, but I”ll have to go with my Intro to Improvisation final exam/performance.  I was really terrible at most of it, and for one of the premises, I didn’t even hear what the situation was supposed to be.  Other than that, I’d have to say everything between 4th and 9th grades.  But really, I’ve never suffered through a moment of sheer embarrassment, and if I have, I’ve successfully repressed its memory.  HUZZAH.