In an effort to reclaim the disaster zone that is my house, I have signed myself up for an account on Chore Wars and created my own party - I spend an inordinate amount of time playing MMOs, so I figure that if I can make all the stuff I don't want to do around the house seem like an MMO, I can make myself do it >___> Which I realize is kind of deeply tragic, but I found a few ants in the kitchen the other day so something must be done.

On the subject of MMOs, Free Realms is basically crack in code form. It's WoW for attention deficient 8-year-olds, and is basically minigames galore. I usually play on Server 2 - my toon's name is Quinn Jadeblossom, so feel free to give me a poke.

(Unrelated to MMOs, but take photos of the back of your own neck is hard - working on my Sailor Uranus fuku and I was trying to see if the choker clasp was laying right, as I have only a bathroom mirror in the house)

I went and bought stuff today \o/ Most of it planned, though a few little impulse items I know I won't regret.

-BPAL - A bottle of Thunder Moon (for $12!) and a bottle of Eanach Dhuin (which smells just like the wonderful and long-discontinued Dublin on me)
-Pair of black New Balance trainers (hopefully will help with the knee/back pain I had at work last summer)
-Lush bubble bath bombs
-Cheap posters (Two Zelda, one X, one FF7 and one FFX)
-New glasses prescription

...Okay, so I didn't quite 'buy' the last one, but I did have to pay money to obtain it. Apparently my left eye has gotten even worse, which means that there's pretty much one and only one brand of coloured contacts I can buy (The Acuvue 2 Opaques, which go up to -9.00 - my new glasses prescription is -9.25), although it seems like most of the normal ones go up to -12.00. I also got my eyes dilated for the first time, which was a deeply strange experience - I wandered around for about two hours afterwards looking like a grey or something - there was almost no iris showing. It's kind of worn off now, although my pupils still aren't changing quite right in response to light.

(Also, re: There is no homosexuality in Star Wars, I offer this)

Reinstalled FF7 because I have been on a major Turks kick lately, and with finals done, I actually have gaming time now \o/ Also it keeps me distracted from rereading A Long, Hard Road for like the four time because I hate myself (great fic, but I would be MIA for like a week). And man, I had forgotten how much of a dick Cloud is at the beginning of the game. Barret's all like 'We have to save the _Planet_, man!' and Cloud is like 'Whatever, I don't give a shit as long as I get paid." Seriously Cloud, you're more apathetic than some Shadowrunners I know.

Also, I love how the game proudly informed me when I installed it that it used the latest in 3D technology, and that I might need to install new video drivers to run it. Yes, Squaresoft, your DirectX 5 game is obviously far too mighty for my DirectX 9 system (actually, this is sort of true - there's a known crash bug in the game under any Windows later than 98 - there's a fanwritten patch you have to install to fix it)

You don't have to buy an expensive plane ticket to get that sticky eight-hours-in-an-airplane feeling! Getting five hours of sleep, spending two sweating over a huge exam, and then another four sitting in the same chair vegging afterwards does it just as well.

(and then I had another exam that evening, and one last one tomorrow afternoon - I'm feeling a bit insane right now, though I know getting some sleep and getting my last final over with will make me feel infinitely better XD)

Sometimes, in the small hours of the morning, this hits me so hard it's almost painful.

(When I was home at Christmas, I convinced my mom to take me to the Museum of Science, which is hands down my favorite museum in the world. We parked on the roof of the parking garage, because with it being winter break, the place was packed. When we went to get the car after the museum closed, dusk was falling over the Boston skyline. It was achingly beautiful, and I wish I had been able to capture it on film, to keep forever)

I was trying to find some Rufus/Tseng doujin I thought I had, and found this essay on Rufus instead, which appears to have never been posted here. I'm pretty sure it's from the same time period as this essay on my love of cities, which sort of informs it a little XD.

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I love the smell of rain, particularly on a (relatively) warm spring night. Rain on flowers is a plus ♥

(I managed to get my hands on a full version of this - how did I not know about it's existance until last Tuesday? Truly, you have failed me, interwebs - and while much of is 'same old, same old', there are new Turks scenes, for epic win)

Because I am being a slacker about finishing off a real con report (it's started, I swear!), and I don't have all the photos yet (we're collecting a big batch from everyone in our party, so once that's done I'm going to a huge image dump from about five different cameras), so some quick notes here and there.

Wait at the border going down: 5 hours
Wait at the border coming up: 20 minutes

Despite having a full car, we managed not to drive each other insane (well, more insane anyway). I credit Freddie Mercury via my two Queen's Greatest Hits CDs. Stopped at a grocery store not too far past the border and me and the other American went a little crazy with the stuff we can't buy up here (my stash: two 12-packs of Mountain Dew, a bag of onion bagels, my favorite brand of cheap ramen, and five Paydays).

I managed to somehow not run into anyone I really knew that wasn't in the group that came down with me, although I saw a few cosplayers and dealers I've seen at other cons (the Twinbells Doujinshi lady is always so nice ♥). I also spotted Eurobeat King, although did not say hello as I strongly suspect he wouldn't recognize me despite one rather memorable night getting pulled over by the police in his car.

Cosplay was sort of a grab bag - KH, Bleach and Naruto were the big ones I saw, although there was a surprisingly large number of Sailor Moon cosplayers, which made me kind of sad that I didn't have time to do Sailor Uranus, but ah well, another con. Rufus turned out a lot better than I thought. The last week or so of detailing was misery, and I spent the whole time going 'Oh god this is so hideous and full of flaws ugh it sucks ugh ugh ugh QQ', because I am very good at seeing exactly what is wrong with my costumes, but it actually looked very put together once everything was on and ironed (for half an hour - stupid cotton twill). One of my black gloves went AWOL the night before we left, so I ended up having to borrow a tan pair from Jon, which looked okay. Turk presence was middling - there were a lot of Renos and a few Rudes, but not much else.

Dealer's room swag:
-Unwired (shut up it's cheaper in the US okay :<)
-Munchkin Cthulu 3
-Six shirts of epic win (see backs for additional win - to really pile the win on, the Cthulu one glows in the dark)
-Two DMC doujin, both Dante/Vergil fluff by Cardinal - one very short one, and another longer one
-One FF7 doujin - Turks, by Wasab'z - I may attempt to bribe a weeaboo at the club with Mountain Dew to translate it for me, as it's actually a fairly lengthy story.

So tonight in Earthdawn, I passed up a chance to join one of the most powerful magical societies in the province for RP reasons \o/

On that note, have an RP meme I stole from :

Canon characters:
-Tseng (FF7)
-Braska (FFX)
-Eva (DMC)
-Satsuki Yatouji (X/1999)

OCs:
-Asher (FF7/RR)
-Ally (FF7/SR)
-Isak (Earthdawn)
-Jorim (Earthdawn)
-Alixia (WoW)
-Astareal (WoW)

(last two more for lulz, but they have personalities in my head >.>)