inquiry and bloodlust

- I buy frivolous things.
- Glee has the best cast ever.
- Caroline is the best anything ever.
- L.A. Noire is so delicious that I can't even begin to put it into words. I've forsaken sleep in favor of playing more than once. Unf. Also, I'm convinced that everyone wants to sleep with Phelps. It makes the game far more humorous.
- In one day, I took care of dishes, cleaned the bathroom, played video games, did some writing, and painted my nails (OPI Gleek Out + China Glaze Black Crackle). A far cry from sleeping for 16 hours and spending the rest of the day moping and shaking. Yay for brain cooperation?
- New techniques I'm picking up: painting with acrylics (mostly toy face customization), wig treatment (including cutting and styling), sculpting with polymer clay, and digital painting/coloring. Up next: glass etching!
- Also, I'm now collecting Tangled stickers. Apparently, I'm not just a dork; I'm a five-year-old dork.
- On that note, anyone here involved in toy buy/sell/trade stuff at all? My WTB list right now is as follows:
--- Tokidoki Cactus Pups vinyl - Bastardino Jr.
--- Disney Store exclusive Rapunzel and Flynn dolls
--- Custom bait dolls - Pullip preferred, but I'm open to other types
- We bought a giant freakin' bean bag at a thrift store for $50. Jaime and I can fit on it at the same time. It is absolutely glorious. And the dogs love it.
- Jacks is now consistently eating fuzzies instead of pinkies. This pleases.

- GET UP, FROSH!
- This disaster advice is pretty sound, but how am I supposed to outrun the undead while carting gallons of drinking water? I've got to puzzle through that one for a while.
- Watched "Best Worst Movie". I am irrationally proud of myself for finding that movie and adoring it well before it became a cult thing. Seriously, the neighbor girls and I rented it from the local video place, watched it once, mixed vanilla ice cream and green sugar sprinkles into a mush, and then watched it again. Want some, Joshua?
- What are you guys going to do when 3% of the world gets raptured at 6pm tomorrow? I'm thinking booze and looting. Gotta enjoy those heathen months before armageddon.
- Name a game. Seriously. In the comments, list some games. Video, card, party, whatever. Please?

Skipping over all the real life rage and depression to post this:

Score this design: "Mr. Merlonster," to help it get printed on Threadless!



It's my first ever submission, and for the Threadless Loves Characters contest, no less! Help me out?

- ( Carousel )
- ( Teacups )
- ( Cuttlefish )
- ( Socks )
- ( Me )
I go asleep now.

Oh. My god. It has been too long, my friends. Allow me to explain:

- My great uncle died. He was the closest thing my mom had to a father, and though we knew it was coming, it still hurt. What made it even worse is that a bunch of "family" (i.e. bio-related and/or marriage-related, but jackasses I am not fond of) crawled out of the woodwork to steal, literally steal, his belongings. And I'm 99% sure one of them had a hand in his actual death. And some of them are ex-cons with past violent convictions. It's a big fucking mess. At least it's settling down now.

- The Japan trip is off. We'd kind of gotten to the point where we didn't think it was feasible for us both to go, but Jaime at least was going to bring me back a souvenir. Then the nuclear thing happened. What with Jaime being a cancer survivor and all, we got nervous about him going, especially since he gets a bunch of radiation from his check-up scans every few months. Long story short, he e-mailed, his advisor understood, and said advisor will present Jaime's paper for the conference so Jaime doesn't have to go. Whee!

- Being a TA sucks. The time. Yargh.

- Minor mental meltdown as a result of lab stresses. My advisor is the type to motivate with stress and doesn't seem to believe in positive reinforcement. Add that onto anxiety, depression, and a touch of Imposter Syndrome, and sometimes I just hit critical.

+ Second pup! We adopted Opal, a 1 year old hound mix, and she is soooo sweet and cute. ( Observe! )

( BONUS - the reptile corner! )

( BONUS BONUS - seen in a parking garage! )

Back from Disneyworld! Jaime and I were at the very lovely Beach Club for three days to celebrate 2 years of remission and 7 years of awesome togetherness. It was a blast. We hit up Epcot in the morning of the first day - for the record, there's a coffee stand near Test Track that has great apple fritters. I picked up a Duffy on the way to World Showcase. He doesn't have any outfits yet; I'm thinking baseball uniform to start with. Next time. Despite my moral reservations, I tried veal while having lunch in Italy, and damnit, it was delicious. I still can't approve of purchasing it for home consumption, but on special occasions, I suppose I can let the gruesome-factor slide. We then spent our afternoon cavorting about the Florida Mall (where I scored some scarves and jewelry from H&M as well as a veritable motherlode of Lush goodies) before heading to the House of Blues for dinner and mother-pluckin' Jimmy Eat World, y'all!

Okay, so I really really love Jimmy Eat World. This was my third time seeing them in concert and they just get better and better. Seriously, check this stuff out. Mind-blowing, yeah? Oh, and by the way, the bespectacled gentleman whose scantily haired but exquisitely cheekboned head you can see from 0:12-0:14 in this video would be Jaime. My short self was on the other side of him. I screamed my lungs out and bopped and sang and ended up walking away with a Jim Adkins guitar pick, which made me just about explode with glee. ( Blather about inspiration lurks behind this cut ).

Aaaaanyway, Epcot had extra magic hours on Friday night and we were thirsty after the concert, so we sprinted in long enough to grab a Fanta and ride Spaceship Earth before we passed out. Saturday was the day of Kingdoms - first Magic (where I purchased a Minnie apron that I've been wanting for a while now and matching Minnie and Mickey mugs and we got Ezra as our ghost FUCK YEAH) and then Animal. Fun fact: The Flame Tree has the best ribs in the entire fucking world. You have to eat with purpose, because the sheer touch of lips may cause the meat to fall off the bone. It's that tender. Mmmmm. Scoped out some animals, fist-bumped for the Dinosaur ride photo, and oh! Bought a big Carnotaurus doll. It's so lifelike that Benny is wary of it. Completely serious - he jumped when I wiggled it, growled at it, attempted to sniff its butt, nudged it with his nose repeatedly and in various locations, and (this is the kicker) barked at it when he managed to get a moment alone with it. And Benny is not a barker. So yes, this doll is the most badass doll ever. Love.

Saturday afternoon was devoted to visiting Benny at the pet resort. We took him out to the dog park; he made friends with a pup named Mojo and ran around like a maniac until he flumped. Saturday evening, we gorged ourselves at a seafood buffet (where I drew Adventure Time characters on the paper tablecloth in crayon) and then wandered around our hotel and over to the Boardwalk, where we encountered a very odd fellow. This guy walked up to us, a girl lingering behind him silently, and said that we were the fifth people he'd asked this: "Do you respect your elders?" Jaime said yes and the guy asked him why. "Because they have more life experience," Jaime explained. The guy seemed to like that answer - he and the girl told us they'd heard "because they covered for us when we screwed up," "because they respected their elders," and "because we got our asses beat when we didn't." Everyone chuckled; it was odd, but not too odd. What happened next took it there - he asked where we were from, and we told him. "Ahhhh, the big [initial deleted to maintain my mysterious persona]," he said. He seemed familiar with the area. He then held out his umbrella - a large black-and-white striped affair - and asked Jaime to hold it. Jaime did the logical thing. "No," he said. The guy insisted; "No trick," he said. "Free umbrella! Just go with it."

And that's how we got a free umbrella. It's a really nice one, too, with a carbon fiber tube and Mickey golfing on the canopy. Retails for over $40. It's officially Jaime's, since not only was he the one it was directly given to, but also I have my own umbrella which I am quite content with. Weird night.

Side note: This morning, I saw a guy in maroon skinny trousers and a slim-cut leather jacket carrying a rainbow striped umbrella. I want to be his friend.

Oh, also saw a family with two adorable little boys while watching fireworks. The younger one had gotten a Yoda pin that day and just had to read it aloud and tell Jaime all about it. The mom laughed, while the dad kind of rolled his eyes and said, "We get this show every night." I told them, "Hey, it's been a long time since my brothers were that cute."

For our last day of vaycay, we returned to Epcot, as it is the undisputed king of parks. They have dolls of the catball thing from Captain Eo - can you believe that? Of course, I had to have one, which led to an amusing conversation with the cashier. She cooed over it and complained that everyone says it's creepy, to which I replied that Jaime told me not to get because, and I quote, "It's creepy." This then devolved into the respective merits of cuddling with a cat/butterfly/rat hybrid or a dragon. I campaigned for the catball, but only because there's no debate without two sides. In reality, I love Figment more; I mean, I walked out of that store with a fleece plush of said lovable purple fellow, so it's not like I played favorites noticeably or something. Dragon and catballs both have their merits.

... And I bought a rainbow zebra scarf, and we traded a castle vinylmation for the Jon from Carousel of Progress one and a duplicate Figment pin for one of the logo from If You Had Wings. Yes!

In the end, we made it home well before the Super Bowl (which I half-watched for the commercials and mostly ignored in favor of Puppy Bowl clips online) and Glee (which I will have a post about later... probably) and found ( one last souvenir... )

Best. Vacation. Ever.

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There have been quite a few good games this year - FFXIII (though that was 2009 in Japan), Heavy Rain, No More Heroes 2, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Kirby's Epic Yarn... but there's one game that stands triumphantly above the rest.



Boom. Done. No room for argument. Best game of the year.

Hope everyone had a good day yesterday, celebrating Christmas or no. I, for one, am a huge fan of secular Christmas - forget the Jesus stuff, let's all give each other gifts and eat like pigs and make merry! In that spirit, here're some neat things I've stumbled across on the web recently.

- I'm not a big fanvid person; mostly I enjoy (warning: P4 spoilers in these three) weird Japanese AMVs and genre-altering trailers and I stay away from anything too shippy. Well, I had to make an exception - this Puck/Kurt fake trailer. It's so well done. Want.
- CROCHET FAIR ISLE. Seriously. I need to start doing this.
- Penny Arcade got into the seasonal spirit in the most logical of ways.
- Tom and Lorenzo reposted their fantastic White Christmas Musical Monday. Go rejoice in the ambiguously oriented glory of old musicals.
- If anyone's interested, here are some recipes we used. Granted, we changed pretty much all of them, but they're all good starting places nonetheless. Season's eatings!

Prime rib with portabella mushroom/Cabernet Sauvignon au jus
Gorgonzola gold potatoes
Sauteed brussel sprouts with bacon
Chevre/chive/smoked provolone corn timbales

Chocolate cream pie
Pumpkin pie
Ambrosia salad

Martinelli's sparkling apple cider
Eggnog with Jack Daniels

Oh yeah. This is gonna be good.

Not to mention that I already made ginger cookies, linzer cookies, coconut macaroons, and mini pumpkin pies for the guys in my lab. The reason for the season is eassin'. I mean, eating. Damnable rhymes.

TV post time!

( Dexter )

( Glee )

I am mesmerized by my own userpic. Hee.