Just a reminder that there's a little New Year's Eve informal party/get-together at my place tomorrow night. All local friends invited, and if you want to bring a friend or two, go ahead, as long as they're not going to cause tons of drama. I've got snack food, drinks, and some games - if there's something specific you want to bring, feel free. I'll probably be around most of the evening, as it doesn't look like there's much First Night stuff going on. I know Grace is coming around 10:30 after work, but...that's it at the moment >.>

Also, why has it taken until now for me to learn that there's a local goth/industrial/synthpop night? Well, local as in Boston, but close enough. I'm totally going Wednesday - anybody want to come with? It's 18+, $7 cover.

Leon totally hums 'Secret Agent Man' to himself as he drives to work. You know he does. Because he is a gigantic adorable dork.

*sings* Secret... aaaagent man~!

I just saw Army of Darkness for the first time. It's easily the funniest movie I've seen since...well, probably the original Dawn of the Dead over the summer. It's like Romero directs Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail. It's awesome. Seriously. Why did I wait so long to see that movie?

I totally need to find a good video store near campus and continue my classic cult film education.

WAIT WHAT VNV NATION IS PLAYING AT COACHELLA THIS YEAR. I am going to kill my brother. Like literally kill. Franz Ferdinand last year, and now this. Particularly as VNV Nation is doing a NA tour, and unless I stay in BC over the summer, I'm missing it, because I have finals when they're doing the east-coast portion, and thus will be in BC.

WHYYYYYYY.

No spoilers, as I am all of an hour into the game, so it's just mechanics and whatnot. The gameplay isn't turn-based like Nocturne - rather, it's real-time in a style very similar to the Secret of Mana/Seiken Densetsu games, although the battle screen is seperate from the field screen. I, personally, love it. I actually did enjoy the strategy Nocturne incorporated into the turn-based system, but real-time is where it's at for me. The two SNES Seiken Densetsu games are big favorites of mine (although I still need to finish them - stupid save files getting deleted).

The art-style is a little less stylistic than Nocturne, but more detailed in the environments - I think I'm going to enjoy the setting (1930's Tokyo), and they've done a good job fleshing it out with buildings and NPCs all over. It seems a little less overtly occult/religous in it's themes than Nocturne, and more historical, but I'm not quite far enough in to tell - I don't really mind either way.

And I gave the player character a non-lame name (is Raidou Kuzunoha a title? A name? An honorary name? I don't know), as opposed to my demi-fiend - Seichiro Makoto. Yami fans will get the first name, although I had to modify the spelling to fit the spaces, and the last name is the last name of the guitarist from a Japanese psychedelic band called Acid Mothers Temple that my brother likes.

Also, bitchy cat-demon FTW. Seriously, Gouto is like Mogget. I love him.

Went to the mall today to do some shopping, and while I only managed to get presents for two people, I hit minor paydirt myself - EB Games had new copies of SMT: Devil Summoner for thirty bucks, twenty dollars less than Amazon, which is where I was going to order it. So I snatched it up >.>

Of course, I just checked, and there's a copy of DDS1 used, for $55. Do I buy it? By the time I've made up my mind, it'll probably be gone >.>

Cut for spoilers which aren't really spoilery because I screwed up earlier and got the Neutral ending instead of the Musubi one.

Read More?

Merry Christmas to all my friends (and a Happy Holidays to those of you who don't celebrate Christmas). Mine was rather low-key - my mom had to work, so we didn't get around to presents until six o'clock. Gift certificates from various relatives, a really nice wool blanket and silly bumper sticker from my dad (the blanket was made at the farm he works at parttime), sewing supplies and a new sewing machine from my mom, and a nice coat from one set of grandparents, and this fish-thing that moves to music from the other. It's a bit silly, but kind of entertaining.

Anyway, hope everyone else had a nice Christmas! I'm sorry I haven't got my cards and such out, but they will be in the mail in the next couple of weeks (Audrey, you still need to send me those references if you want the cookies XD;)

Well, my mom didn't totally flip when I mentioned staying in BC for the summer, which is good. Still need job, though.

And Megan inspired me to play a bit more Nocturne, so I picked up my Musubi save file (as I've got a bunch of side-quest things to finish before doing the True Demon one), and played some of that. Very minor spoilers for Tower of Kagutsuchi bosses, but I'll hide it anyway.

Read More?

The longer I'm here, the more I want to stay out in Vancouver next summer. Because honestly, there isn't much left for me here. All my friends have split up and moved on to new lives, this city is _still_ a shithole with no real public transit, and while I love them, I can't deal with my parents for four months, I think. I may see about coming home for a couple weeks in May or something (re-checked scheduling, probably going to miss AB - I'd have to have all four of my finals in the first four days of exam period), but that, as well as me staying out there is largely dependent on finding a job, and what job I find.

Which means of course I'm worrying already about the job-hunting, but there's time.

Know what we need to do when we get back to Vancouver? Go out for some really good seafood, because I have yet to be exposed to really good seafood (clam chowdah excepted), and it's time I changed that. Or at least fish and chips or something. Unless you hate seafood, in which case I'll try to figure out someone else who won't look at me like I'm crazy when I suggest it XD;

(This is less random than it seems, I swear)

EDIT: And this place. It looks like some one crossed Finale's with a traditional English tea room, which is pretty much the greatest thing ever.

So, I forgot to mention part of my adventures Friday - in my rush and worry about my bags, I managed to leave my brother's Christmas present, the vinyl single of Franz Ferdinand's 'The Fallen' on the 424 bus. I waited for the next couple of buses (the 424 is the airport, and runs a short loop) with no luck. Well, having left things on buses and trains in the past, to have them disappear into oblivion within fifteen minutes, I had resigned myself to never seeing the record again.

Still, I called Translink's Lost Property office today just in case, and miraculously, someone had turned it in. The woman on the phone took down my name and number, and said they'd hold it until January 15th. My faith in humanity has been restored.

It probably says something about me that I want an antique or antique-styled pocket watch as much as I want a pair of mirrored sunglasses (think Morpheus, but with earpieces). Unfortunately, I largely can't afford the first, and have yet to track down mirrored lenses in anything other than Bono-style wrap-arounds. Someday!

...I have no idea what era I wish I was living in, but it's obviously not this one.

Grades are in, mostly - so far I have a 72% sessional average, which, if not fixed, is Very Bad - my first choice major, Microbi, had an admission average of 82% last year, and my second choice, Cell Bio and Genetics is 75%. Granted, I'd have the second right now if not for the fucktard of a Bio prof and his totally arbitrary marking scheme - I think he basically wants us to reproduce his lecture notes from memory, because while my final wasn't perfect, it was better than a 56%.

Deep breaths. I will not look at the whole elephant, just start eating.

Yes, it's six-thirty in the morning. I really ought to be asleep right now, but nooo, I'm sitting up reading various Torchwood things. The new ep was good - it made me actually like Owen some, and had Ianto in a pinstriped three-piece suit(!) and Jack in waistcoat with pocket-watch chain. I swear, this show totally feeds my love for classy and slightly archaic men's clothing. Need more suits. And a pocket-watch.

And I remember now why I like living on my own - my mom can be so passive-agressive sometimes, and it drives me crazy.

Oh, and Doctor Who is made of win. Am up to ep five of the second series and enjoying it immensely.

I made my connecting flight in Vegas, but my luggage did not, because US Airways is made of fail. It's coming on a flight tonight, so I'll have it tomorrow morning. My Leon cosplay stuff arrived fine, and is awesome, but more on that later, and my copy of PS2!RE4 is here too. WIN.

It's a bit weird being home - it feels like it's been both forever, and no time at all. The house is almost exactly the same, but some random furniture has been moved, so it's a little strange.

Internet shall resume sometime tomorrow - if I'm lucky, around one am tomorrow morning, but I have these awful visions of missing my connection in Vegas and being stuck the night there.

Yes, finally. I know it's really simple, but I liked the image a lot, so bah. And I finally updated the sidebar, too.

Not really that coherent, mostly for Julie.

Two post-Cyberwoman Ianto-centric pieces, bit of language but not much else:

Wide Open Spaces
Scrapings

And one post-Countrycide Ianto-centric with some graphic Jack/Ianto in the second part:

Lost, part one
Lost, part two

(Can we guess who Cocoa's favorite Torchwood character is? I think we can)

Dear Jack,

Your first-aid skills suck, but you are forgiven because it worked anyway and because that was really hot. Please, feel free to do that again some time.

Love,
Me

(Bonus points to the handful of people who know which Jack I mean, because God, are there a lot of them XD; )

After like an hour of fiddling with screentone effects and what-not, I totally decided to scrap my previous plan for a new blog layout and start over. The moral of this story? Nocturne art, while pretty, does not work with any style other than super-clean. The Hitoshura layout has exactly two fonts, one of which is Times New Roman, and no special effects or brushes at all - I should have done the same with this Isamu screencap from the start. Ah well, I like where it's going now, so all is well.

Also, did some checking, and Ally can (and possibly does) have a CA driver's license, which is a truly terrifying thought, and my MA driver's license is totally valid here as long as my study permit is, and if I were to permanently move here, I'd basically just have to surrender my old license for a BC one. Hooray!

Back to editing and Torchwood (it's like the X-Files with more gay and cute Welsh butlers).

...Well, okay, mid-afternoon, but I just got up. Music I have aquired over the last few days, by various means:
- :wumpscut:, two albums
- Cesium_137, one album
- Ministry, one album
- Skinny Puppy, one album
- Front Line Assembly, three albums
- Assemblage 23, five albums
- Apoptygma Berzerk, ten albums and ten singles
- Metropolis compilations, four albums

Why yes, that is in fact a shit load of music. And I've got about six billion things I want to say right now, all of which are probably worth of their own entry, but I will settle for this - LA!Asher's profile now has a spot for current hair color (subject to change without notice), and I have little snippets between him and Ally for both 'verses floating around my head. But for now, laundry and Heroes!

I think this would make Asher implode of happy. Both Ashers. It makes me really wish I knew how to ride a motorcycle, and had a lot of money.

Back to Firefly and Photoshop!

In no particular order, with no major immediacy.

- Finish Christmas lists
- Go Christmas shopping
- Rip Altan CDs for Justin
- Buy some DVDs and burn tv shows onto them
- Get at least one of the Nocturne endings
- Find X movie and bring it back in Jan to show Caitlin
- Give Yana back her manga
- Header image for Anya's userinfo, wiki profile pics for her and Asher
- New layout for this blog argh
- Renew domain
- Some other stuff I can't remember right now

Also, what is it about this area that seems to bring out the industrial/EBM musicians? Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly, Assemblege 23 down in Seattle - yeah, there's tons in Europe, too, but a lot of the NA ones seem to be out here in the Pacific Northwest. Not that I'm complaining, as it increases the likelihood of tours coming through here, I just don't quite get where they're coming from - rebelling against the organic-hippy-Starbucks lifestyle out here, maybe?

Speaking of - recs for 80s and 90s industrial/industrial rock/industrial metal woul be appreciated - I'm making up a playlist of stuff for LA!Asher.

"You just don't like it because you don't like it!" - Julie to Caitlin, on Choco Mountain in Mario Kart 64.

Mario Party and Mario Kart 64 with friends is a good way to spend an evening. We also got overpriced pizza from Domino's because it was the first one we found open at one am, and had some interesting roleplay-meta kind of discussions while playing Mario Kart - what sort of characters we're drawn to, what influences our OCs' personality and backstory, how voices differ between characters, that sort of stuff.

The only downside to this is that I've got an exam at 3:30 pm, although luckily it's English and open notes.

Oh god, Julie, why do you show me these things? I am never going to look at a cactaur the same way again.

Or possibly a Mr. Coffee. I think that may have forced my Tseng to use that spork on himself.

(And ahaha. Someone totally needs to show LA!Asher video games. And by 'video games' I mean 'Final Fantasy 7', because the irony would kill me ded. In a good way)

Also, everytime I see a reference to Leeroy, I'm going to be sitting here going 'LEEEEEEEROOOOOOY JEEEEENKINS' in the back of my mind. Because it's never not funny.

Apparently my default AIM downloads folder is listed as being created in 1984.

On the plus side, though, my Gallery install stopped being made of stupid! So I sat down and imported all the folders from my previous two installs, so everything that was in the last one, plus some, is now here. I've got a few more folders sitting around my harddrive to go up, but I need to sort and edit some of them first.

(And Mara-thing, we totally need to do a photoshoot with the wedding kimono at some point, just because that's one of my favorite outfits and I have so few photos of it)

Quote from Augustine, found on the forums:

"Once Jack and I concoct a way of installing the Wii onto my laptop all will bow to me! Well at least until one of you swings just a bit too hard and the Wiimote flies into the laptop. Then I live under the tables feeding on scraps mourning the loss of my dear companion. While this may sound pitiful and emo, on the plus side, the room will be cleaner."

Rick: "make sure to avoid the rat trap by the pop storage locker :("

I got about three hours of sleep last night, which was enough to sustain me through my Bio final (only had to utterly BS one question, yay), but I've had a cup of tea, a cup of Starbucks peppermint hot chocolate (as much as I hate to admit it, delicious), and a can of Rockstar Juiced, and I'm both about to fall asleep, and on the verge of seriously wigging out - I have no idea how I'm going to make it through my 7:30 - 11 shift tonight. I am also desperately striving to remain chill - Katamari and Oscar Wilde quotes help.

There is some one on third talking, or listening to a movie, or something, and I can't figure out who it is to yell at them.

I have to be up in six hours to write an exam I really need to pass, and it looks like I'm going to end up laying awake wearing another layer of enamel off my teeth, as I've discovered I grind them when I'm angry. And right now I am very angry.

I love DC++ so much. There's a hub on the school network, which means it bypasses the bandwidth throttle, which means I just downloaded nine episodes of Heroes in half an hour. And some old school industrial rock. And I'm going to go download more Firefly.

And a RR non-rant (because I am not ranting any more. I promise) - I am ecstatic to see not one, but two people choosing to play Arab characters in Jerusalem, including, it looks like, one member of a terrorist cell. That takes balls and skill, and I'm happy to see people rising to the challenge - this is going to be one hell of a ride, I think.

...I reeeeally should study for Bio. Failing would be no good very bad.

Well, I managed to answer my own PB question by browing RE image galleries and going 'Oooh, Annette scan! ...Wait, no, that's Jill', and then realizing if I recoloured Jill's hair, she'd be pretty close - a little too pretty, but better than anything else I've found so far. And I had to rename her, because there was an Elena already - so she's Anisia now.

And I made delicous Sexy Evil Bastard Soup today, and Liz made snickerdoodles, and it was full of win.

I'm writing up Elena-app, and she has managed to get stuck in my head as looking like Annette Birkin (but with far less crazy. Sooo much less crazy). Unfortunately, there are exactly two images anywhere near icon-quality for Annette, which makes it a bit difficult. I'll go with that if I have to - hell, Asher has three (thank you for your lack of character sketches, Capcom. You suck), but I wondered if anyone could present a decent lookalike. This is Annette.

Guess who finally caved and just bought boots and a shirt for default RE4!Leon? Yep, me. I couldn't resist, though, the boots were sooo cheap. Like $25-for-an-$80-pair cheap. And I really will wear the stuff outside of cosplay - my two pairs of everyday shoes are kind of crap for Vancouver winters (one soaks through easily, the other has no traction on most wet surfaces).

...Yeah, I can justify _anything_.

Dear Johannesburg,

Why no black people D:?

Love,
Me

(Yes, I am actually going to do something about it, I think. Have about eight tabs open looking up the history of South Africa)

I have some really cracked out stuff floating around on my computer. I was trying to dig up the conversation in which Asher was named (because I am having too much fun with wiki-editing for RR), and I came across this thread, and then, going through my AIM logs to find the AIM convo I had with Jesse about it, discovered that I also have all these chat room logs - mostly the FMA dub chat, and a whole bunch with Mara, Claudia and Yuumei. I'm poking through the later bunch as well, and so far have found references to Alexis molesting everbody and the Vegtable Peeler of Happiness (owned by Michelle). My life is so very, very interesting sometimes.

And Scientist Chick has a name now - Elena. I'm mucking around doing research for her and wishing Yana had internet and wasn't writing the Putnam today, because I need someone to translate course listing from Russian. I am also happy to see that Rio has more actual Brazilians now.

I am saddened by the thus-far lack of Brazilian characters in Rio de Janeiro, and, to be blunt, black characters in Johannesburg - I'm really, really hoping that some of the unfilled slots end up being those, because otherwise I will go to sad to annoyed. There's some great oppurtunity for diversity here, and I am seeing a loooot of white. Hell, I'll write up Mira on principle, even, despite the fact that I'm a little 'eh' about her in this setting (she is totally a Sprawl character).

And holy fuck, is LA popular. To the point where I am now kind of wishing I hadn't apped there, because Asher is totally just going to get lost in the crowd, I think :\

I also have another character concept floating around, who for now is just the Scientist (or possibly the Scientist Chick) - either Berlin or St. Petersburg, depending on which ends up fuller, most likely, although St. Petersburg gives me the bonus of being able to pester Yana for info.