Currents of Time

Despite what the tag might imply, this entry has nothing to do with dolphins and most certainly nothing to do with Ecco the Dolphin. You'll just have to take me at my word: they (read: Ecco) ruined my life.

Finally got around to going to the bank and checking my account balance to see how much damage the BotCon registration actually did. (...I should probably be more grateful for these eight-hour shifts at work, all things considered!) I'm still a little nervous, since I'm not going to know anyone there and I can be overwhelmed by crowds, but it's going to be worth it. I knew that, but now the first images of the convention exclusives are up here on the BotCon website and man, Dirge looks pretty. I do not care that his wings have not been remolded. I will not care if Thrust's wings are not remodeled. I do not care! They are pretty and they are the remaining three jets and they are mine and oh yeah, I guess there are those other guys, too.


WORK.

I have eight hours shifts on Saturday and Sunday! What?! I asked for less time this weekend! What would they do if I asked for more? Fire me? Augh! How am I supposed to write twenty pages worth of research paper if I'm working all day and coming home exhausted from standing for eight hours?! Fragger!

I finished early again, so I did more writing. You can see it here. (EDIT: edited to be upright!) Along with baking notes and positions they're currently hiring for.

Or, for those of you who find my scrawl unintelligible (I can write neatly, I just don't bother if I'm sure no one else is going to be trying to read it) and actually want to be able to... you know, read it. ( Here it is again! )


I do not entirely consider myself a bad ... sketcher (I am not an artist, I just like to doodle), but I have become inordinately fond of Ridiculous Stick Figures. I draw them everywhere, and I have started adding traits to them when they are supposed to actually represent someone. For example, because I play a Mithra in Final Fantasy XI (most of the time, anyway),* I add Mithra ears and sometimes a tail to "me" (like so). Sometimes when I am bored, and because I am not much for real identifying features when I am doodling in class, apparently, they end up on other images. (Sometimes I do stick figures and non-stick figures all at once, too.)

It it fun. Or I am easily entertained.


*I actually have three characters. My main is Hisime, who is adorable and also camera-shy (and I only have one full screenshot of her current outfit uploaded? Wow, I'm slacking off in my blatant favoritism), my second is Ayarei, who is an Elvaan and not sure why she puts with with the silliness of the other two, and my third is Kihara, who is a tremendous goof and who has a younger sister (it's Ki on the right and Nomii on the left), or so we pretend.

I cannot believe this was all online already (er, with the exception of the writing-bit, because I made that today, obviously). I have got to clean out my PhotoBucket account, as I obviously have no idea what's in there anymore.

You can tell I am brain dead and bored from working on my reports because I added entirely too many image links to this entry. My apologies, and don't feel obligated to look at any of the FFXI ones. ^^;

Part one? Introduction? I have no idea how long this is going to be or when I'm going to actually find time to work on it. The only reason I have this is because they changed the schedule at work. Now, instead of closing at 7, we close at 8. ...The problem is that there simply isn't an extra hour's worth of stuff to do, so I still finish at 7 and then find myself bored to tears for the next hour. So today I brought a pencil and, in the last twenty minutes or so of my shift, scrawled this out in my entirely illegible handwriting. Now, with no further babbling on my part...

( Transformers and Top Gear )

Rough draft of the opening, I guess. Like I said, I wrote it after being busy, brain dead, and on my feet for over seven hours. I am well aware it needs work.
(No one is under any obligation to tell me otherwise. I have very low opinions of my own work, so it is best to just ignore my whinings.)

... no idea how I'm going to pull any more of this off, though. bleargh, free time, come back...!

Classes end May 2^nd, and then there's nothing on the schedule until June. I suppose that will work well enough.

We're going to restore it soon (because, wow, it's a completely new level of "doesn't work"), which means I'm looking through the old files and pulling out the ones I want to keep. This is the one that can't send email (or do much of anything, really. I'm not sure why the internet works on it, to be honest), so, uh, yeah. 'Nother file transfer post, here.

Stumbled upon a thing I wrote a while back (don't remember when) featuring the original character of a friend of mine. (Incidentally, the same one I was up all last night writing about. Creepy coincidences get along well with her. Go away, Silent Hill / OC crossover.) (Jade is my character, but the main person here is not. (un?)Fortunately, Hotaru's creator allows me to do pretty much anything I want with her.)

( This girl is craaazy. )

And now I must accompany my mother to her Christmas Eve church-thing. By "now" I mean, in an hour.


Edit:
Hotaru? Look, I'm terribly sorry, but as you no doubt know already, I had a nice chat with your creator tonight, and she fully endorses your jaunting through Silent Hill. What's more, she even rather liked the bits that I showed her from the story.

Guess you're stuck with this.

...And if anyone could explain why I suddenly find myself writing characters into Silent Hill scenarios on Christmas / Eve, I'd... greatly appreciate it, really. I mean, of all days.

Stuck in a cavern.
The Clan attacks! Run away!
Oh no! Crocodile!


Perhaps I like writing Ecco-haiku a little too much (they're cathartic, shut up).


It can join the others once FF.net starts working again. ...I know they're called "of Hope" because you find one of the orbs there, and because the Outcasts live there and they're not all evil and spiky (despite trying to kill you by throwing giant shells at you when you arrive) but, ugh. I really here it comes hate that level. Stupid Clan. Stupid leader-dolphin running away every time one of the Clan so much as looks at him. Stupid giant crocodile. Stupid vitalits. When they brought Ecco: DoF to the PS2 from the Dreamcast, they changed the location of one - one - vitalit. In the whole game, they changed one vitalit. It was, of course, in this level, and I died eleven times (stupid air gauge!) trying to find it!

I was less than amused to discover a small, glowing thing hovering in the air above the pool after the crocodile.


Edit:
Hey, so, why does FF.net email the author when they put something up? I mean... I'm well aware I've uploaded something. I was the one that uploaded it. So weird.

NaNoWriMo starts in eight days. Aaaaagh! Aaaaaaaaaaaaa - oh, hey, Titanium Scourge is out? Perfect! I just picked up a pay check today!

Toy store even carries Titaniums (unlike Classics and Alternators and... well, most everything), so maybe I'll stop by after classes tomorrow and see if they've gotten him in yet. I wonder if there are plans to make the other two Unicronians. (Is that even a word?) (( Edit: Didn't see him today. :\ ))



Back to NaNo, though. Probably going with the Final Fantasy XI bit. I've obtained permission from most everyone who has a character (or two) that I'll need to use. Just need to get in contact with Crytuf and Shadowlotus' player. And Nehima / Nomii's, though I'm quite sure she won't care, as I use her characters all the time. Better to avoid potential problems in the first place, though. Of course, getting in touch with her is going to be a problem. She didn't give me her dorm phone number or address, she never checks her email, and she doesn't use instant messaging programs. Annoying.



Dear Primus, eight days? Ugh. I am so, so slagged.

So, work's going okay so far. Today was only my third day, and I still don't know how to really do too much, but I am learning! I'm a little sore from lifting and carrying around racks of muffins and cookies and pies, and scrubbing counters and floors and... everything else all day, though. Stupid neck.


For the last few days (pretty much since my last entry...) the internet has been either down completely or very slow and flaky. It's fixed now, thankfully. ...not an addict, really! ._.


So, obviously I have been watching too much G1. Very recently, I somehow ended up watching the second half of season two, the movie, and all of season 3 in the course of about two days, so my brain is a little dead. I blame Mike. He's the one who wanted to watch it. Ignore that I could have said no or something. He lets me pause the episode and run commentary and spout off random facts or compare continuities halfway through the episode.

Friday, while I was driving to work, I was followed (rather closely) for a ways by a bright yellow, shiny sports car (nothing really super fancy, but it was a very pretty car). Mostly I was too busy looking forward (eyes on the road and all), but tailgaters make me a little nervous so I kept glancing back at it in the rearview mirror and mostly trying to ignore it as they (couldn't see the driver at all, so I don't know if it was a guy or a girl...) practically drove up my exhaust pipe and occasionally drifted side to side and stuff. Impatient driver or something. The last light before my work turn-off was red, so I sat in the left turn lane and zoned out. The left lane gets a turn arrow a few seconds before the 'go straight' lane changes to green, so I was halfway around the corner when the yellow car (who was in the other lane) completely floors it and charges through the intersection - there was just a yellow blur in the rear-view mirror. ... For perhaps an incredibly stupid reason, I giggled insanely until I pulled into the parking lot a few minutes later. ...I've started mentally referring to it as Sunstreaker, even though I know it wasn't a Lambo. I suspect I will be maimed for this someday, but geez.


I finally posted that XI-bit (I put it here a few weeks ago) up on FF.net. No reviews, but it's been getting hits so, in theory, people have been reading it. That's more than enough for me.


I have an irrational desire for more icons. There is no such thing as too many icons! And I really, really need a Transformers one. I don't want ads, though. Hm. Dilemmas.


...My brother gets good Chinese and sushi once a week in his cafeteria. *sigh* Some people get all the luck.


Whatever. Gonna replay Dirge of Cerberus or something now.

Dentist visit was today (er, yesterday?). The problem with my tooth being so sensitive to cold (and a little sensitive to heat) was probably because, when I had a cavity filled two months ago, the porcelain they put over it affected the shape of my bite ever so slightly and it caused my tooth to eventually become enflamed. I would have noticed earlier, but since the weather had been fairly miserable up until recently, I hadn't been eating cold food, so... It should go away now.


My evil, evil schemes plans to at least educate someone about Transformers is going over well. Since she's already a fan of Beast Wars (we both watched it when it was on television, but then she kind of fell out of it. When I discovered they made DVDs of it, I pulled her back in - as well as my brother and a few other people. Glee!), it's a little easier, I guess. We started watching G1.

She thinks the Decepticons are cooler but still likes the Autobots, too. (This doesn't surprise me. Decepticons are cool!)

Of course, we're only about seven episodes in, but I'd really like someone to talk to about one of my main interests. ...I should see about getting the more recent series on DVD. Maybe I can get her to watch those, too.

(Also, it kind of amuses me that people are so weirded out by female Transformers fans. I don't know any that are male!)


I found a story idea. It's based loosely off a dream I had a few mornings ago (the dream involved pirates. The story idea does not). The only real problem is the characters aren't mine. They're the FFXI characters of a friend. Fortunately, I know the personalities of the two well enough to at least attempt it.


...Email alerts have stopped going off randomly. Now they are not going off at all. Also, today I got an email that was sent four days ago. Yahoo must be feeling buggy.