inquiry and bloodlust

My mood has been so up and down in the past two days. Jeez. I only want to mention one bit of the sad - RIP Ryan Dunn - and then focus on the happy, because damnit! Happy!

- I discovered an amazing blog over the weekend: Wave at the Bus. The 170 days are magical.

- Discovered another amazing blog as well: Mich L. in L.A.. I've already ordered one of her pieces, made my own versions of another (which I will post pictures of once I'm not sleepwalking through the day), and have plans to tackle yet one more. Good, good crafty blog.

- It wasn't enough that Nendoroid Snow Miku exists for me to pine after. No, they had to announce a Pullip version of her as well. Damn you, world!

- Any of you guys play Rockstar games? I'm eh on GTA but in love with L.A. Noire, and I'm wondering if Red Dead Redemption would be worth the investment.

- I'm torn between three different stories for my originalbigbang, all surreal, but in very different ways. Do I go with the humor, the horror, or the in-between?

Okay, backing up a bit to the sad. We're marathoning the Jackass movies. The golf cart sketch in the first one got a little uncomfortable, and I choked up during the butt x-ray, of all things, but still. We're on the second film, and I'm on my second beer. It only seems appropriate. To you, Mr. Dunn. You were right; it is cacti.

Holy shit, you guys, I actually updated my site. That only took, like, years.

I'll catch up on the video game meme soon. Tomorrow. Yes.

Question submitted:
you are really gay

I actually busted up laughing at that. I'm impressed! Somehow, they managed to look at a site dedicated to a het pairing written by a girl who muses at one point on the attractiveness of the male character, and deduce that the site creator must be homosexual. What logic!

And that's not a question. Phbt.

On a related note, I love getting "questions" like that. I've only had two or three, but still. It means I've attracted enough attention to have detractors. Go me!

Someday I will update that site again and add my other planned FFVIII sites. Someday.

Jaime and I are compiling a list of promising-sounding apartments in Gainesville. We're heading up there tomorrow to look around, visit some places, and get an idea of where we'd like to live. I'm really, really psyched about this whole idea. Going back to school is going to be great, and having our own place again will be even better. Not that I don't love the family, but really. Gotta have my own little corner of the universe.

I kind of have website idea, though I don't know if any of them will actually come to fruition. Aaaaanyway, for my own reference, ( I should try to make these happen sometime. )

I still hate G4, but E3 coverage is worth putting up with their crap for, I think. Plus, Wiebe Watch is fun. Go Wiebe! A lot of Nintendo's stuff from their conference looks neat. I want 358/2 Days more than is healthy. I'm kinda pissed at Nintendo, though. Where's my new Kid Icarus, guys?! C'mon!

It's okay. I can content myself with this. Allow me to summarize that for you: ATLUS. WII. ROGUELIKE. RPG. TALKING. FERRET. MUST. PLAY.

Now, to await Sony's conference. Epic or epic fail, this oughta be good.

Apologies to the few people I've missed on IM recently. I'm really bad about checking to see if anyone's trying to talk to me, and then I feel all awkward and never quite want to message back. Social skills, what?

I finished Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia the other day after many unsuccessful attempts. Dracula is a bitchass. That game is hard, but not in an overly frustrating way. Like, with Circle of the Moon, I got annoyed at it because a lot of the enemies just seemed way overpowered and some of their attacks were incredibly cheap. There are only a couple enemies I feel that way about in Order of Ecclesia - for the most part, there's a reasonable tactic to be found for dealing with any enemy. I only managed to get one boss medal (Wallman, of course). Here's hoping I pick up a couple more during my New Game+.

It occurs to me both that I am inordinately fond of video games, and that Jaime and I are really weird.
Me: You should play some Guitar Hero!
Jaime: Maybe, but you have to take the plates into the kitchen and wash them.
Me: Ugh. Fine.

So... anyone know how to make $200 quickly? I have a website project I'd like to do before I go back to school in August, but I need to make a few hardware purchases first and just don't have the spare cash. Ideas?

I went to bed at 6:30 this morning. I just wasn't tired. I'm pretty sure I'd thrive on a schedule of being up for forty hours, then sleeping for eight. *shrug*

Finished my Harvard app, finally. I kinda had to wait on cash for the fee ($90 to apply, fuuuuuck), and since it forgot some fields everytime I logged out, I couldn't really fill it all out until I was able to pay. But! It's done now, except for financial aid, which is probably also due in a couple days, and I have yet to finish my fellowship stuff for UF either, but screw it, I'm not thinking about that now yay!

Did some fanlisting updates too. I'm still not done, but it's getting there. Well, for this round, at least. I'll still have tons of FLs left to find homes for. One step at a time.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned this, but some weeks back, Jaime started getting headaches. We think it's a combination of oxygen deprivation - his hemoglobin hasn't reached 11 since all this started, and normal human range starts at 14; plus, it regularly drops below 8 when his other counts drop - and inflammation of the brain lining, which is a potential side effect of intrathecal chemo. Which he's had about ten times. I'm so glad he should be on his way to recovery now. He hasn't had the scans yet, which means he's not officially in remission, but he's done with his scheduled chemo regimen at the very least, and everyone thinks he should be cancer-free. Fingers crossed so tight they might fuse.

On to happier and less important things, I love Persona 4 so much I want to feed it pie and give it sloppy kisses. It is a beacon of awesome in my life at the moment. It doesn't hurt that I completely ship the four characters you start with neatly in two pairs. Guy with guy and girl with girl, no less. Chie and Yukiko are meant to be, no lie, and Main Character (Henry Smith in my game, to go with my James Smith from P3) and Yosuke are just too perfect. I may also be slightly in love with Yosuke. To the point that Jaime calls him "Yo Sucky" in response to me declaring I would totally do him. Jaime, as an audiophile, has been trying to figure out what headphones Yosuke's remind him of. He's also told me he'll graciously wear headphones around me all the time. I'm torn between my desire to have him listen to me and my weird adoration of characters who wear them. It's a tough choice.

I need MC/Yosuke fic, but I'm TERRIFIED of spoilers. I'm in early June in the game (and have spent 30 hours on it already. How do I do this?!), for the record. Help?

Edited to add a new userpic - my husband Yosuke! <3

- Aaaaaalmost done with grad school apps. I have the three needed letters of recommendation in, and most everything's filled out - I only have a couple little paragraphs to write for Harvard's general and UF's fellowship stuff - so now I'm just waiting on money for fees and then everything can be submitted.

- At 6pm, Jaime will be done with chemo. Yesssssssss.

- Picture explosion post coming soon. I've resized a bunch of photos already. Just need to write up the post.

- There were carolers in 4N yesterday. They sounded lovely, and after they finished, they gave Jaime a present. More on that in the picture post.

- I LOVE CASTLEVANIA. Jaime started replaying Portrait of Ruin, which led to me replaying as well, and now I'm fangirling like crazy. Oh, and my online research has led me to conclude that Alucard is a slut and everyone is related to him. Yep.

- I memorized how to solve a Rubik's cube. It takes me five minutes or so, but I can do it.

- Reading up on C and some cancer biology. Fun! I may be a hopeless geek.

- Decided on some more fanlistings and submitted a few update forms. I'm not completely caught up, but it's close. Unfortunately, a large number didn't get any apps, including a few that mean a lot to me personally and I'd hate to close. I'm going to have to write another set of adoption posts, I think. Sigh.

- Hand sanitizer rocks my slightly obsessive-compulsive world. Booyah.

As you may have noticed, my life's been thrown into an unexpected amount of turmoil the past few months. Once this stuff resolves, I'll been getting some of my own health issues fixed, trying to find work again, and getting grad school apps out, and... it's just too much. So, I've decided (at length, and with much trepidation) to adopt out all of my fanlistings. I'm going to be making posts at TFL and TAFL and e-mailing previous owners within the next few days or so. For now, I thought I'd open it up to people on my friends list and let you guys have first swing. Now open to everyone! If you see something you'd like to adopt, please e-mail me at rinoaheartilly[at]gmail[dot]com with your name, e-mail address, sample URL (a FL, your collective, whatever), the subject you'd like to adopt, and your reasons why you'd like it. Please do not hold back! These will all be getting closed if they're not adopted, and that would just break my heart. Ideally, I'd love for them all to find new homes. So please, apply apply apply!

For the curious: the TFL post and the TAFL post. Did I forget anything?

( The Big List of Fanlistings )

I fixed it! One & Only is no longer borked! Hooray!

And, I think I've finally gotten up the courage to close my FLs. Not that I'm going to do it this moment, but I think I've accepted that I eventually will. Feels good.

I can't log into my Easy Banner admin panel, so I can't update my banner exchange, and I can't find the database the information's in, so I can't back it up and just reinstall the thing. It's making me cry.

Also, I discovered that if you switch to PHP 5 on Dreamhost now, YOU CAN'T SWITCH BACK. They're phasing out PHP 4. So. I'm not even sure for how much longer my fanlistings will work. This raises a few questions - should I switch to Enth? I kind of hate a lot of things about it, and it would be a huge hassle to switch over all my FLs. I don't know if I care enough to do it. And that's the other issue - is it even worth it to keep running them? I haven't had a lot of time for my FLs lately, and frankly, they're stressing me out more than they are making me happy lately. Jaime says I'll regret it if I close them all, but I'm not sure. I have this niggling little urge to delete everything but this livejournal and just disappear from the internet for a while. It's not like I ever built up a lot of friends or admirers or anything, so I doubt most people would notice if my sites went kaput. It's something to consider, at least.

I'm actually rather depressed to think about this. These things used to make me so goddamn happy, and now I can't get up the spirit to work for even a couple minutes. I was forcing myself to update One & Only earlier, in the hopes that I might love it again once I'd gotten started, but then I couldn't log in, as mentioned above. That site, at the very least, is going to have to be shut down, I think, as I just don't know how to salvage it.

And then there's the other thing - if I did shut down my FLs, I'd have to send in forms, and people might be disappointed in me, and there's no way I'd ever get some of those topics back if I wanted them again in the future. I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO. A hobby isn't supposed to freak you out like this, is it? Gah, I don't know. I just don't know.