Another drunken observation: I normally consider "One Winged Angel" Uematsu's weakest piece of music. In the game it's incredibly pretensious and downright awful. I started to change my opinion when I went to the Final Fantasy concert in Atlanta earlier this year. Live, with an orchestra, surrounded by a couple thousand fellow FF fans marking out, it's a different experience. The rock/orchestra version in the movie may just be the version that makes me like it despite myself.

Drunken observation: Kadaj's summoning, what I saw in print called Bahamut Sin, has the face of a Jem-Hadar from Deep Space Nine.

Carry on. ;-)

Two things have taken over my life recently:

1) Star Ocean: 'Till the End of Time
Another incredible SquareEnix RPG. Great graphics, great music, great storyline. So far my only complaint is that the English voice track was not mixed in properly and is often drowned out by the music.

2) Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
With GameStop telling me it won't be released until January, I went ahead and downloaded a fan-sub. Two words: Holy shit! I still need the full-screen version (the one I downloaded is rather small), because I know I'm missing the little details Square is famous for not overlooking. But it's INCREDIBLE... the sheer brutality of the Loz/Tifa fight leaves me breathless every time. Kadaj is incredibly sympathetic, and Sephiroth... well, he is his normal insane self.
What I found most mind-blowing was how much the fanfic I wrote last year resembles this. It will only take some editing here and there to put it in the continuity after this. I can't wait to try to start that.

But first... *points to the vodka bottle* Be back later. ;-)

*bows deeply*

I'm sorry.

*bows again*

I have no reasons, only excuses.

I'm OK. Things are going OK personally, but badly at work. I need to remember the litany against fear more often, and throw out the unneeded things more routinely.

Jeremy Lopez, I hope you're safe in Texas.

Jeannie, my thoughts are with you. Hang in there. Feel free to throw the humans out and snuggle with Worf as often as needed.

Thanks to my health insurance policy not applying most doctor's visits to my deductable or out of pocket max, I'm probably looking at $2,800 in hospital bills.

I've planned out my paychecks from now until the end of the year, and I don't think anyone's getting Christmas presents, unless I work an assload of overtime.

Money really IS the root of all evil... *sigh*

Sorry I haven't updated more about Dragon*Con, but the last couple of days have been full of stupid drama at work. But now, despite what the guy who left might think, it is over because he's gone.

Today's my birthday! I'm 30 now. I've gotten small, thoughtful gifts this year, which is great. But, since I am part hobbit (and I have the furry toes to prove it), I will share presents on my birthday, too.

These were made HERE!

(edit: Sorry, Blogger doesn't seem to want to do the "Upload to blogger thing" today)



Top one is me at work (hence the dungeon). Bottom one is the best I could make a Lego Sephiroth.

Now, if you'll excuse me, there's whiskey to be drunk on this day. ;-)

Work drama. Lots and lots of work drama. Will not discuss it here.

OK, here's Friday... I'll do this a bit at a time as the drama allows. :-p

Can't talk about Friday without mentioning Thursday evening. Remember my post about how scatter-brained I was? That continued... I got home, packed, and got an hour into the hour and a half drive to Janice's house when I realized that I had left my Dragon*Con pre-registration postcard, schedule, and Jedi cloak at home. I turn around while leaving a message on Janice's cell phone that included the f-word at least 5 times. She calls back laughing (which I completely deserved) and says we can meet in Augusta in the morning.

So, in the morning, I dress up as a Jedi, and leave the house around quarter to 7am. Zoom down the interstate, being passed by a former co-worker and his current co-worker wife, also heading to Dragon*Con. Wait for Janice in one of Augusta's Park and Ride facilities, which was completely trashed. She gets there about 30 minutes late, we eat at IHOP, and down the road we go.

Downtown Atlanta is... *sigh* It's very pretty. It's very hard to navigate. It's full of people who sleep out in the parks and openly rummage through the trash, but you never really feel threatened. We found our hotel, a block from the main convention sight, but the parking garage for it was already full, so my car spent the weekend on the curb right outside the lobby. After a room snafu (they tried to give us a room with only one bed), we got unloaded and ready to go. The problem with Jedi is that they have no pockets, so the intubating catheter was tucked into my undies, while my room key, ID, and money got stuffed into my bra (I'm small, there's plenty of room).

We almost couldn't find the Hilton, managing to go in the wrong direction a couple of times. But we found the food court of a mall-like place, which is always good to know. Finally, we get to registration and get registered. I see my former co-worker and current co-worker again, who have to ask what I'm dressed as. Um, did the cloak and the big fake lightsaber handle not give a clue? Anyways, Janice and I compare notes and part ways.

Noon - Gundum SEED episodes 1 - 3
It took me forever to find the room (though I must have passed the room twice), and by the time I got there they were showing episode 3. I understood nothing of what was going on or why things were happening, so I didn't stay long. I have one of the many iterations of this anime in my NetFlix queue, so I'll catch it then.

1pm - TOR 40th Anniversary of Dune party
Met Louis (Hi Louis!) before going in, and hung out with him for this. We got food and drinks and free stuff (I got a copy of The Battle of Corrin)afterwards. Kevin J. Anderson gave a good speech about Frank Herbert and Dune and stuff he and Brian are planning for the future. Unfortunately, I have not been at all impressed with any of the book they've written, which does not bode well for them wrapping up the original series as they plan to.

Went back to the hotel for Advil and coffee.

5:30pm - Gaming and Free Expression (EFF discussion)
Man, this ended up as teh suck. One of the panelists runs what she calls a "mature" RPG thing and kept going on and on and on about how the Patriot Act was going to get places like hers shut down because of anything that could even remotely be construed as terrorism. Two other panelist, one who had actually READ the Act, said that it did not cover imaginary things, but she kept insisting. I left after the third iteration of their argument.

7pm - Wrestling! Four of my old Wildside buddies (Sim J, Azrael, Murder 1, and Rainman will be there)
Oh boy, did this suck. I know I was spoiled by Wildside, but really, you do not have to have every single match go to the 20 or 30 minute time limit. I saw my old pal David Young, who looked incredible, but I couldn't last until the end when he wrestled. At 8:30 they had only were just starting the 4th match, so I left.

More later!

I'm home.

It was AWESOME.

More later.

*sleeps for the next 13 hours*

Dragon*Con's going great!

Saw this on CNN.com and had to share...


Should President Bush nominate a current Supreme Court jurist for chief justice or pick someone new?
Yes
No

*headdesk*

Work rage issues. Just... GAH, I work with stupid people, for stupid people, supporting fucking retarded people.

Then I'm kicking myself because I played FF X this morning instead of finishing the packing, so I get to leave here at 6:30pm, get home by 7pm, finish packing, and drive in the dark back roads to Janice's house while tired. Fucking idiot me.

There are lines for gas at the gas stations here.

And the cost is $2.99 for the lowest grade.

*praying there's a New Orleans in the morning*

Since I am so very Virgo (remember, my NetFlix queue is in a carefully kept spreadsheet...), I have taken the info from DragonCon's webpage and made my schedule. ;-)

FRIDAY:
Noon - Gundum SEED episodes 1 - 3
1pm - TOR 40th Anniversary of Dune party
5:30pm - Gaming and Free Expression (EFF discussion)
7pm - Wrestling! Four of my old Wildside buddies (Sim J, Azrael, Murder 1, and Rainman will be there)

SATURDAY:
10am - Parade outside (sneak in if possible *grin*)
1pm - Panel with Robin Curtis
2:30pm - Honing your Psychic Abilities, Beginning Level
5:30pm - Star Trek Celebrity panel
7pm - Cowboy Bebop: Knocking on Heaven's Door

SUNDAY:
10am - Mars Exploration Rovers
11:30am - Christianity and Paganism
1pm - One Ring King Kong Presentation
2:30pm - Women in Gaming
4:30pm - Xenosaga episodes 1 & 2
5:30pm - Star Wars: Timeline in Crisis or Xenosaga episode 3 (only if the first two are decent)
7pm - Happy Hour in 10-Forward
8pm - Masquerade

MONDAY:
10am - Panel with LeVar Burton
11:30am - Fan Fiction, Fan Websites, and the Law (another EFF panel)
2:30pm - Cooking in Middle Earth

Hey, sorry, been trying to get some remote access stuff to work. So far, no go, but the tech support guy at Echo VNC is being a 1000% helpful and kind to this idiot.

Tree came down fine, although I didn't ask Dad how. :-p

And now there's rumors that Advent Children is being delayed until November. *goes off to borrow someone's materia*

I'm about to flee my house.

Sometime this past week (Tuesday or Wednesday night, I can't remember) we had a really powerful thunderstorm. It looked like a hurricane out there. I heard limbs bounce off the roof, but nothing bad, so I went back to bed.

In the morning, I saw that one of my neighbor's pine trees had snapped about 20 feet up in the air and was leaning on my maple tree. My house is in no danger - the worst that can happen if it falls now is take out the fence that divides my yard from his. I left my business card with my cell phone number on it and a note saying that when he called the tree people to let me know if they needed to get into my yard.

He calls me later that day, saying he's going to get a chainsaw and some friends to take it down.

His parents and his friend are here, and they're trying to take the godsdamned thing down with an underpowered GMC truck, some rope, and a chainsaw. I've called Dad over here, and I'm leaving. I can not watch these idiots kill themselves and/or take out my fence. I wouldn't mind packing up my cats, but I don't have a place to take them or money to board them for the day. :-p

*fleeing in terror*

Out of 2147... random... first 15...

1) WarCraft III 2001 trailer
- The music to the trailer that told us WarCraft fans that we were in for a real treat
2) Andrew Boyd & Robb Mills - The Pool Awakens
- From "Pool of Radiance - Ruins of Myth Drannor". There was a lot of good music in this game that is generally looked down upon because of some serious bugs in the original release. Once you patch it, you have an incredible dungeon crawl.
3) Kaze No Orchestra - Kaisou
- From "Record of the Lodoss War"
4) Prince and the Revolution - The Beautiful Ones
5) Hans Zimmer - The Way of the Sword
- From "The Last Samurai"
6) The Black Crowes - Sometimes Salvation
7) Mox - Fez
8) Evanescence - Bring Me To Life
- One of those songs I sing really loud in my car. ;-)
9) Noriko Matsueda and Takahito Eguchi - Aeons
- From "Final Fantasy X-2". OK, Bahamut, hint taken, I will work on the damn story...
10) Anastacia - I'm Outta Love
11) Aerosmith - Dream On (Live)
12) Brian Tyler - The Revolution
- From Sci-Fi's "Children of Dune".
13) Heart - Who Will You Run To?
14) Queen - A King of Magic
15) Larry Greene - Through the Fire

I know I'm not doing much more than this lately, but I'm just tired... I could complain about work, but it won't do me any good. I could complain about the pain in my left hand from the blood clot in it, and how it'll be weeks probably before it's back to normal, but it won't do me any good.

Besides, I don't want another email from some idiot about how I should take down my blog because my life sucks and I'm probably fat. ;-)

So if all I talk about sometimes is music and Sephiroth... well, that's good stuff.

Someone asked about the braid once in an email...


hehehehehehe...

Found a GREAT freeware photo editor software, called VCW VicMan's Photo Editor. Now, most of ya'll know I can't draw a straight line with a ruler, so shelling out massive money for Adobe was simply stupid. I've used Microsoft Photo Editor since Office 95 and love it, and it's the only thing about Office I miss. This is the closest thing I've found in the freeware department. Now I can make icons again! Like this bit of pure evilness...

At work. Joy.

Out of 2144... random 15...

1) Neptunes - Superstar
- Cru Jones's second Wildside theme. I think that's the name of it. He told me once, but I have to admit I didn't always pay attention when he spoke... he had these perfect thighs... *sigh*
2) Metallica - Tuesday's Gone
3) Nobuo Uematsu - Crossing Those Hills
- From FF IX. It's actually a very cute variation of "Melodies of Life".
4) Hive - Ultrasonic Sound
5) Adam Ant - Goody Two Shoes
6) The Black Mages - Battle Scene (FF I)
- BTW, if you come across a live album of their's... don't. It sounds like shit.
7) Yoko Kanno - Tank!
- *bows in her general direction*
8) Kaze No Orchestra - Dark Island Marmo
- From the 80's anime "Record of the Lodoss War"
9) Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses
- The Lost Boys used this in an insane promo back in the day.
10) Hootie and the Blowfish - Only Wanna Be With You
11) Rick Springfield - Celebrate Youth
12) Janet Jackson - Interlude: Pledge
- "We are a nation with no geographic boundaries, bound together through our beliefs. We are like-minded individuals sharing a common vision, pushing towards a world rid of color lines."
13) Larry Greene - Through the Fire
14) Metallica - Ain't My Bitch
15) The Eric Gales Band - High Anxiety

My hands are getting better... I can hold things without as much pain. Now we'll just have to see how long I can use them without a lot of pain. That'll determine if I make it back to work tomorrow.

I'm home, but not for long. My hands are a fucking mess, one from the bad IV, the other from the good IV. I can barely hold a glass, and typing is painful after a couple of words. Heading to Mom and Dad's to spend the night, in case the right hand (the one where the IV slipped out and made it swell bad) gets nasty.

It was an abcess, but whatever caused has closed up and the infection is responding to IV antibiotics. I'll be going home tomorrow.

EMERGENCY UPDATE

I am heading to the hospital. Something has burst or ruptured or something, I am having intense pain and fever, Dr. Albert wants IV antibiotics and more tests in the morning.

Love ya'll. More when I can.

OK.

If this is disjointed, I'm sorry. It's late for me, and I took a Vicodin earlier.

According to Dr. Albert, after doing a contrast and fluroscope twice, and bloodwork, he has no idea what's causing my pain. There is no fistula, no abcess, no sign of any bowl loop out of place, my blood counts are all normal. Nothing comes up. He's frustrated and stumped, because he knows I'm in pain and knows it's around my pouch.

He's suggesting getting a foley catheter to use for the next few days, since it's very soft and flexible, and to keep him up to date every couple days, and to page him instantaneously if anything changes at all.

So I pop online, and there's a AIM from the daughter of a co-worker who got a BCIR after talking to me. Dr. James Pollack, my original surgeon, who was a doctor in Vietnam, died yesterday suddenly and unexpectedly. I've found no other details.

So... yeah. Now I need to get to sleep so I can go to work in the morning. Yeah.

Good news/bad news

Good news: I don't have an abcess.

Bad news: He thinks it's a loop of small bowel that's somehow gotten caught up by an adhesion or something around the collar and valve of the pouch. So surgery is still very likely in the near future.

Today he's sending me off to get a full blood spectrum, then I go knock back a shooter of radioactive sludge and have a CT-scan to see where it goes.

Lots of pain, but I can handle pain, know that I'm not panicking over an infection (yes, I'm weird that way).

Good news/bad news:

Good news - MRI went OK. I won't know results until this week. But it may be a moot point...

Bad news - There's something very wrong with my pouch. I don't know if it's another abcess, a badly behaving adhesion, or what, but there's very local pain and swelling around the stoma. I'm calling the surgeon who fixed me up last year to see if he can get me in to see what's wrong.

So right now I'm playing a lot of Diablo II, killing demons and crap. Helps the mood.

Harry Potter Meme of All Memes by Osaku
Name/Username
Age
Gender
House	Gryffindor
Wand	Oak, 12", Veela Hair
Best Course	Care of Magical Creatures
Worst Course	Divination
Pet	Havana brown cat
Patronus	Lynx
Quidditch Job	Referee
Wizard Candy	Chocoballs
Profession After School	Gringotts Banker
Quiz created with MemeGen!

Between my back and my pouch, I want to just lay in bed and scream and scream until they send the men in white coats after me.

I hurt. I've been up and down all night. I have an MRI today. This all sucks.

Can I call down a personal Meteor on assholes who make assumptions, and then plans based on those assumptions, without ever once thinking to ask me whether or not I was going to take a lunch break?

Yeah, I know, an hour of overtime looks good. But my back has been hurting for over 2 hours now, and I would have liked a break. Guess not.

On the back front, went to the doctor, got a prescription for a lot of Vicodin, and an MRI scheduled for Thursday afternoon. The Vicodin is with me here at work.

Don't tempt me. :-p

On Wednesday, September 14th, after work, I will go to my local Game Stop and pick up my reserved copy of Advent Children

*squees and giggles and jitters around

Now I just have to wait until then.

Don't ask me what I'm doing up so early... just seemed like a good idea 30 minutes ago. :-p

I'm doing OK (except for being up too early this morning), sleeping well and coping well. Mom's in less pain than she was before thanks to a nerve block behind her knee, but she's still not pushing for answers on the underlying cause.

Working my way through Final Fantasy II, a nicely linear and fairly easy to know where to go next kind of game. I've got a bad feeling, though, that the longer it takes to find Maria's brother Leon, the less happy the reunion's going to be...

Getting new glasses this weekend. The ones I'm in now are 2 years old and can't be cleaned well because of the scratches. I also think that's why I've been having some problems with vertigo... my astigmatism may be getting worse.

And... that's it for now.

Whee! Beat Final Fantasy I!

Yeah, on easy mode. Bite me. ;-)

Unfortunately, all the FAQs over on GameFaqs were for the old NES version, which meant that approximately 75% of stuff had a different name. :-p

So... anyone want to see me an old, cheap laptop? Doesn't have to have any networking capabilities... just needs to turn on and run Notepad. I think I'll write my own FAQ for the PlayStation next time I play...

Wow... I can't remember why I stopped taking the Melatonin before bed, but man that was a stupid decision. Slept great last night, feel a lot better.

We have a new phone system at work, and man, the hold music sucks. ;-) I told our phone guy that I'd make a CD for him, and here's the track list.

1) Nobuo Uematsu - Final Fantasy (piano version)
2) Yoko Kanno - Goodbye Julia
3) Nobuo Uematsu - Memories of Life (piano version)
4) Nobuo Uematsu - Aerith's Theme (orchestral version)
5) Nobuo Uematsu - The Successor
6) Nobuo Uematsu - To Zanarkand
7) Nobuo Uematsu - Path of Repentence
8) Nobuo Uematsu and Masashi Hamauzu - Someday the Dream Will End
9) Masashi Hamauzu - To the End of the Abyss
10) Noriko Matsueda and Takahito Eguchi - Eternity (Memories of Waves and Light)
11) Yasunori Mitsuda - The Girl Who Closed Her Heart
12) Yasunori Mitsuda - Nephilim
13) Yasunori Mitsuda - Warmth
14) Yasunori Mitsuda - Green Sleeves
15) Kimiko Itoh - River of Crystals
16) David Foster - Love Theme from St. Elmo's Fire
17) Queen - Forever
18) Emerson, Lake, and Palmer - Romeo and Juliet
19) Enya - Miss Clare Remembers
20) Enya - Watermark

If they actually use this, I'll let you know. ;-)

Why is it that when I'm in a fuck the world mood, after waking up badly (we won't go into my mental health issues, mmm-kay?), watching Advent Children trailers with him in them makes it OK to be mad, almost empowers it?

Is it really so bad to be bad?

James "Scotty" Doohan died this morning

*is sad*

*giggling* OK, I SO need these when they come out

I have a kitten in my guest room for a few days... Mom had one she'd been keeping for Project Pet while they figured out why her sibs dropped dead (brain leasons), then a pretty little baby kitten walked into the house while a door-to-door salesman was harassing her. Since pretty little baby does not have shots, I'm keeping Tripod (I'll get a picture up later) for a few days.

Goldeneye is growling at anything. Me: "Goldy, she weighs, like, 1/10th of what you go, will you calm down?" Goldeneye: *growl* *hiss* *lash tail*

More music, this time with occasional commentary! Yes, I'm trying to dropkick my inner writer into action, why do you ask? ;-)

12:53pm

1) The Forbidden Pool - Howard Shore
~~~Howard Shore so kicks John Williams' butt... Shore had to write 3 scores in 3 years, and made them all sound different. Williams has written a zillion scores in 30 years, and they basically all sound the same.
2) La Serenissima - Loreena McKennitt
3) He's A Pirate - Klaus Badelt
~~~From "Pirates of the Caribbean", such a fun little soundtrack. If this shows up in that Kingdom Hearts game, I'm in big trouble...
4) Middle of Nowhere - The Blank Theory
5) Back to the Rivers of Belief - Enigma
4) You're Not Alone! - Nobuo Uematsu
~~~From the incredibly fun Final Fantasy IX
5) Blackbeat - Apollo 440
6) More Human Than Human - White Zombie
~~~Under the headphones, this is just not as good as I remember. Maybe have to try to find a better rip, or just get rid of it. It doesn't have the crunch I always think of Rob as bringing to the party.
7) Dirt - Depeche Mode
~~~Fun little ditty from these guys... I used this in the soundtrack to the FF VII fanfic I wrote last year, because it seemed to summon up both Jenova and my characters changes perfectly.
8) Good Girls Go to Heaven (Bad Girls Go Everywhere) - Meatloaf

1:55

1) Praying for Time - George Michael
~~~"Listen Without Prejudice volume 1" was an incredible album that still holds up 15 years later.
2) Superbeast (Girl on a Motorcycle mix) - Rob Zombie
~~~See, this is what I'm looking for in Rob. Lots of crunch and bass.
3) Book of Days - Enya
4) Changing States - Emerson, Lake, and Palmer
5) Learning to Fly - Pink Floyd
~~~Way back in 1998, in between surgery and going back to college, I worked in the HR office for the US Postal Service during the Christmas season hiring insanity. Basically just did a lot of data entry and faxing of forms to SLED. "Momentary Lapse of Reason" spent a lot of time in my CD player, and by the end of the job I had written a "Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors" (oh, go Google it) series in my head. Unfortunately, it's never hardly left my head, and too much of it is lost. *sigh*
6) Warm Winter - Kid Rock
7) A Knife in the Dark - Howard Shore
8) Last Battle - Yasunori Mitsuda
~~~Here's a case of "I hate the game but I love the music." Shion is the most whiney, selfish, screechy bitch I have ever had the misfortune of controlling. I swear I will not pick up another one in this series until she is gone.
9) Long Time Gone - Dixie Chicks
~~~hehehehehehe... yeah, a little bit of that in here. ;-)
10) Come To My Window - Melissa Etheridge
11) Love Rears Its Ugly Head - Living Colour
12) Wishing It Was - Santana featuring Eagle-Eye Cherry

Not in the mood to write, just sorta aimlessly here at work...

Out of 2121 tracks on my Dell DJ...

1) old Wildside theme for Havoc (don't know what it is)
2) The Best Things - Filter
3) Smack My Bitch Up - The Prodigy
4) A Storm is Coming - Howard Shore
5) You're Alright - Michael W. Smith
6) Travel Agency - Masashi Hamauzu
7) Lightning Is My Girl - Auf Der Maur
8) Perfect - Alanis Morissette
9) Prologue - Loreena McKennitt
10) Never Tear Us Apart - INXS
11) Oniwa Banshu ~ Kyoto Tansakugata - Noriyuki Asakura
12) Only You Know and I Know - Phil Collins
13) Yesterday - The Beatles
14) Kodamas - Joe Hisaishi
15) Song of Prayer ~ Yunalesca - Nobuo Uematsu and Masashi Hamauzu
16) Beach of the Void - Yasunori Mitsuda
17) YuRiPa Fight No. 1 - Noriko Matsueda and Takahito Eguchi
18) Godzilla - Blue Oyster Cult
19) The Demon Power - Joe Hisaishi
20) Face to Face - Siouxie and the Banshees

That's me at work, in the space I shared with about 6 other people before this Antarctic outpost. Notice I have Sephiroth over each shoulder. ;-) And yes, I'm that pale, and yes, I've put on a couple of pounds. I'll be 30 in September. I'm cool with it.

Some random lyrics... from "Rise", the second Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex opening theme:

I'm a soldier, born to stand
in this waking hell I am
witnessing more than I can compute

Pray myself we don't forget
lies, betrayed and the oppressed
please give me the strength to be the truth

People facing the fire together
if we don't, we'll lose all we have found

Square E is really sucking me in...

I hated Kingdom Hearts. Not the concept, which was great, but the camera control was ass and the button mashing killed my hand.

But they're really going to make me buy the second one. First they tell me Auron's going to be in it. Then this picture is released. Barbossa and Will Turner?

Fuck yeah, I'm there. I'm so pathetic...

Can I just stay home and watch more Deep Space Nine?

Please?

It'll be more fun than having the new guy at work hovering over my shoulder all morning...

OK, vertigo, you can go the fuck away now... I took off a little early yesterday, I'd really rather not have to take off early again...

Let's see... Music Playlists, Play All Tracks, Shuffle...

1. The Devil Came Back to Georgia - The Charlie Daniels Band and Johnny Cash
2. Time of My Life - Macy Gray
3. She Talks to Angels (accoustic version) - The Black Crowes
4. Praeludium in a-moll - Diertrich Buxtehude
5. J-E-N-O-V-A - The Black Mages
6. NWA Wildside theme for Kaos (never knew who did it)
7. One Moment in Time - Whitney Houston
8. NWA Wildside theme for Seth DeLay (something by Silverchair)
9. What the Hell Have I? - Alice in Chains
10. The Gift - Annie Lennox
11. Go Faster - The Black Crowes
12. Right Now - Van Halen
13. Carrion - Fiona Apple
14. B.O.B. - Outkast
15. Enemy Attack - Junya Nakano

Dear Dodge,

Please hurry up and make the hybrid Ram. I miss my big pickup.

Love,

Me

My apologies... I'm spending as much of the weekend drunk as possible. Need the analgesic. Here's me and Harley -



Yes, she climbed up there herself. That's what she did, climbed and jumped and careened off of anything and everything.

Now I cry about her.

Mom just called... little Harlequin died today. When I get home from work, I'll find a picture of me and her.

Harlequin was from a litter of kittens Mom fostered last year. The mother cat was disinterested in two of her babies and stopped feeding them. One died the night we got them, but Harley hung on. She was teeny tiny... it took 5 or 6 months for her to get to 2 pounds so she could be spayed. But she was fiesty and had the weirdest, roughest cat call you ever heard.

Mom got her back a couple of months ago, after she was diagnosed with feline herpes and thus rendered unadoptable. She lived with Johnny and Xerxes, Mom's two persians (Xerxes already has herpes), tormenting them greatly. Then, in the last week, her nose started running a lot and she'd sneeze brown junk. Also, she deevloped some weird lumps on her belly. The vet said to bring her in today and he'd do some surgery to see if it was breast tissue (she was spayed while she was in heat) or something else.

Surgery went fine, he didn't find anything bad. But when they tried to wake her up, her little heart just stopped.

Ieyui
Nobomeno
Renmiri
Yojuyogo

Hasatekanae
Kutamae

I, Jennifer Sigman, give myself permission to write out of order. I also give myself permission to write what I'm not working on right now, to write imaginary conversations between me and my boss, and to write what I told myself not to write yet for another year or two. If it's in my head, write it down.

I move into a new space at work today. Not an office, but part of the open space next to the server room. It's cold over there. It's also light years from anyone else in the department. Supposedly, it's temporary.

Over/under on my getting sick? Anyone?

There's a special kind of shower that doesn't happen all the time... conditions have to be just right. But then you get your hair shampooed good and the conditioner in and your still-sharp loufa sponge full of soap. You're covered in suds and scrubbing hard, and once you rinse you're probably missing a layer or two of skin, but it's the kind of thing where you can then step out and loudly proclaim, "I am CLEAN!"

Yeah, that's me. ;-)

Still very sick, but not quite as bad as before. Had another high fever yesterday, and woke up this morning with a 100 degree fever, but nothing since. Very tired. Very hard to focus my eyes on the screen.

Got to the concert Friday night despite fever and sore throat.

Spent Saturday wishing I would die, between fever, sore throat, and vomiting. Missed the concert.

Dragged myself home yesterday, went to the Urgent Care, got a bag of fluid (my pulse was 120 despite the fact I had been laying down for the last 15 minutes), a diagnoses of strep throat, and doctor's orders to stay home.

Going back to bed.

At 4:55pm yesterday, my doctor finally decides to call me back. I left the message about 10:30am. :-p

I am feeling a little better after the first dose, although I'm sure people will tell me it's the placebo affect. I haven't felt like I needed cup after cup of coffee to keep going. In fact, I've only had my one early morning cup.

Mom and Becca left for New York before 7am this morning. I left a message on Mom's cell phone, just to let her know I'm thinking of them.

'Scuse me, that's her. :-)

ADDENDUM: They're doing fine, they're just over the border in Virginia getting lunch. Mom thinks they might make it to Terrytown tonight. Um... it took 6 hours just to get that far, it's at least another 8 or 9 to go. I hope she doesn't push Becca too hard.

So I leave work yesterday at 4pm, thinking that if Becca and Mom are going to take my car to New York, I'd go ahead and get the oil changed and tired rotated. As I drive in, I see that the place I'm going to is also doing a free brake inspection.

Brakes are fine. Tired are toast. They had 56,500 miles on them and no tread left. So I spend $300 to get new tires.

Go to Mom's, hang out with the new kitten Tripod (named because she has three grey tabby legs and one golden tabby leg) that she's fostering. Go home, start cleaning out my car.

Mom calls. She had just gotten off the phone with Becca, who decided (or badgered JR into doing it for her) to borrow her in-law's Taurus instead.

Today, I'm calling the doctor. I'm not coping. I need help.

OK. Way back in March or April, my brother-in-law Paul (husband of Heather, my half-sister) goes into the hospital to have a small cancerous thing removed from his bile duct. He spends a month or more in the hosptial (until mid-May, if I'm remembering right), partly because they had to remove part of his pancreas, partly to recover from an infection.

I see him last week when I'm in Terrytown, he's lost 30 pounds and half his hair, and has a drain in for the infection that was lingering.

Today he was going to go in just to get that infection scraped out. Instead, they take out more of his pancreas, more bile duct, and something happens with his aorta that makes him lose 7 pints of blood. Tomorrow they'll take part of his femoral artery to fix whatever's wrong with his aorta.

So, Becca and Mom will drive up to New York in my car (the only dependable one), I'll take Dad's VW Bug to Atlanta, and Dad will cram himself in Mom's Oldsmobile Achieva.

You know you're doing bad when you'd rather stare at a hard drive formatting itself than write something... *sigh*

Sorry, but for whatever reason I am very worn out and tired most of the time.

The fact that vertigo struck on the way home from New York didn't help. Neither does the thinly-veiled hostilty from my co-worker.

One bright spot (to me, anyways) has been playing .hack part 2. This game is as addictive as crack, and three times as much fun. ;-) Can't wait to get home and play some more.

*frantically waving Arlene away*

SHOO! Don't be messing up my flight home Sunday!

Be careful shipping overnight with UPS. Your box may end up looking like this:





There was a laptop in there. Fortunately, it still works.

I guess what gets me the most worried about everyone else going to lunch without me over and over again is that the new VP is now part of that, excluding me from plans and not even asking if I'd be interested. If he thinks that little of me, how secure is my job?

Let's see, what have I accomplished today...

1) Watched Deep Impact Awesome, excellent, incredible movie. I'm sobbing like a baby at the end. I love the ones that focus on the people.

2) Went to Mom and Dad's to help them out. While we didn't get a chance to wash Mom's red Persian cat Johnny, I did help get her laundry done and ate a most excellent dinner prepared by my completely stressed out Dad. She's doing better, less pain unless she does something silly (like try to bend over and grab Harley *sigh*), but Dad needs about a week of uninterrupted sleep.

3) Got the grocery shopping done, and for less than $40.

4) Watched Return to Oz What a trippy movie... That gets me all caught up on my NetFlix stuff.

So now I can spend the next few hours drinking whiskey and playing Aardwolf until my friends start begging, "Ref, nice to see you, but WILL YOU TAKE YOUR DRUNK ASS TO BED ALREADY?!?!?!?" Tomorrow I can split my time between house cleaning and starting .hack part 1

*phew* After about 45 minutes of looking, finally booked a decent and decent-priced hotel for my Nobuo Uematsu concert at the end of June. Travelocity just seemed to deal with the $100+ a night rooms, Expedia got me in at something a bit more reasonable.

Now I'm in a good mood. Off to go eat out.

You Are The Wayfarer Guide
"I'll show you the way."
Your deep insight and quick wisdom never ceases to amaze those around you. You are the guiding light for many of those you know and are not afraid to help anyone else who asks. Not very many acknowledge your tremendous help and effort, but you do not mind that so much. You've seen what is in store for them, and will be there should they need your help. You enjoy people in general, but are very selective of who you let see the real you. Others see you as an enigma of sorts, a mystery that is seemingly ever changing.

Which Classic Story Role Do You Play?
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And that's how I write myself most of the time, too.

I realize this may not be a popular opinion, but John Williams' music is rather boring.

Don't get me wrong, I still get chills when I hear "Imperial Death March", and "Duel of the Fates" was very good, but if you've heard one of his soundtracks, you've basically heard them all. If you have to own just one, get "Empire Strikes Back".

Got this from Janice, and it sums up my feelings on about 75% of the people who call themselves Christian.

An honest man was being tailgated by a stressed out woman on a busy
boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow, just in front of him.

He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have
beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.

The tailgating woman hit the roof, and the horn, screaming in frustration as
she missed her chance to get through the intersection. As she was still in
mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a
very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with
her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched,
finger printed, photographed and placed in a holding cell.

After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the
door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer
was waiting with her personal effects.

He said, "I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your
car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you,
and cussing a blue streak at him. "I noticed the 'Choose Life' license
plate holder, the 'What Would Jesus Do' bumper sticker, the 'Follow Me to
Sunday-School' bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem
on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car."

Since no-one's here and there's nothing to do, figured I'd write a little something. This may or may not ever get into what I'm working on now, but it is part of it. Enjoy!

PS: Dave, Vince McMahon couldn't afford me, and his daughter would fire me 3 seconds after I turned the first script in. ;-)

*****

The light was hazy, bright, and starkly white. Yuna couldn't tell exactly where she was, other than it was vaguely and disturbingly familiar. There was shouting coming from somewhere in front of her. Hearing familiar voices, she ran towards it. The featureless corridor emptied into a huge room filled with smoke. There was a battle going on, but she couldn't see the participants. She plunged into the greyness to find her answers.

Someone fell to the ground nearby. Turning towards the sound, she edged forward slowly but still somehow stumbled over the body on the floor. She turned back to see the prematurely grey hair and permanently empty eyes of Paine. Yuna screamed.

Somewhere nearby someone else screamed back. She knew that high-pitched voice, but she couldn't make her mouth form any words. She ran forward to see Rikku fall across the twisted form of her brother. Yuna screamed again.

The smoke cleared, and the room was revealed to be a huge Chamber of the Fayth, but one with an altar on top of the Fayth scar. Collapsing over the altar was the fading dragon-form of Bahamut. Spread out on the altar was the fading form of Tidus. All around her horrifyingly familiar laughter echoed off the walls...

"NO!"

Yuna say up in bed, gasping and shivering. Had she screamed? She felt the beloved form in the bed next to her, still sleeping, one arm in her lap. "A dream," she whispered.

Tidus murmured her name and sleepily wrapped his hand around her waist. She fell back into his embrace, frantically holding him and thinking, THIS is real, THIS is real...

Just got off the phone with Mom and Dad, who just walked in the door from the hospital. They gave her IV muscle relaxants and morphine, and she's got prescriptions for the same. I'll swing by there to help do Dad's laundry (he got no sleep, having spent the night scrunching his 6 foot 3, 300 pound frame into a chair 2 sizes too small) and check up on things.

Mom's been having excruciating sciatic nerve pain since Mother's Day. Her doctor's been mealy-mouthing along, pissing me the hell off. Thursday she started feeling a good bit better, and today she tried to go to Raven's ballet recital.

That lasted until she tried to get out of the car, twisted a little, and stopped dead unable to move from pain. I told Dad to take her to the hospital. Thankfully, he listened to me and not Mom (who has been uncharacteristically passive about the whole thing).

I should get exactly no sleep tonight...

Last round of pictures... everyone's going to Project Pet to be spayed/nuetered and adopted.

Jenn-i-purr, back in her sleek form
Purrfect, her clone *grin*
Lion, just laying around
Lamb, stretched out on a chair
Daffodil, who never stops moving

Stop paranoia
From ruining your work day.
Does it still matter?

It does not matter.
This, too, shall pass and you will
Be the one standing.

You scored as Yoda. Yoda 75% Darth Vader 72% Padme Amidala 61% R2-D2 56% Obi Wan Kenobi 50% Anakin Skywalker 44% Mace Windu 44% General Grievous 42% C-3PO 39% Clone Trooper 39% Chewbacca 28% Emperor Palpatine 22% Which Revenge of the Sith Character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

2) Write a scene with one character, a setting and a change. No dialogue is allowed. Yes, you can

He was utterly lost.

He had accepted being kind of lost an hour ago. When he flashlight had flickered just before then, he had decided to walk and change the batteries at the same time, trusting that he knew exactly where he was going. When one of the batteries fell from his hand and rolled away, he didn't panic, he simply turned around and headed back the way he had come.

The old-timers had always talked about new tunnels appearing in the "haunted" cavern. He had dismissed them as nonsense made up to spare the families of whatever idiots had gotten lost. He had walked this cavern a hundred times since he was a boy and never had a problem being home in time for supper.

Now he was stumbling through stalagmites that seemed just a little off kilter, as well as completely unfamiliar. Now he was trying not to blubber like a baby for his mother. Now... now he was completely lost.

The stalagmites stopped abruptly, like a forest that had been cleared. He took cautious steps forward. He could tell from the echoes that he had entered a huge, open space. In all his exploring, he had never come across anything that felt even remotely as big as this. It was like being at the edge of a pro football stadium.

One slow step at a time, he edged out towards the middle. He felt the ground rise up beneath him. He paused, straining to see around him. There was a grating noise, metal on stone, and suddenly the room was filled with blinding light.

1) Write a scene with a setting, NO CHARACTERS, and a change. The change must have real importance, dire consequences. Yes, you can.

The peninsula was a long strip of land, three parts water and one part sand. It was wide enough that even at the full moon's highest tide there was several hundred feet of dry land. The sun was just a silver of orange on the horizon, setting in the direction Humans called "west" and Treans called "uwar". The ocean shaded from dark grey to soft pink, depending on where one looked.

Night fell with the suddenness that the topics on any planet were famous for. To the east, or "tuor", the horizon took on it's own red glow, obscured by a rising haze. After a long moment a red light sprang into view, and all the water it touched boiled.

Feeling a bit creative today. Got a couple of writing challenges from Dawn's blog that I'm working on. Came up with this work haiku a minute ago.

I have to just stop.
Fretting will do nothing more
than make me feel bad.

And yeah, that's hard as fuck to do.

Woo-hoo! Finally got all 63 CDs re-ripped. Now to delete all my old playlists and start over with much better sounding music.

Don't worry if you don't hear from me today. After I'm done with Joshua, the hermit crab side of me comes out, and I may just sit around drinking Jack Daniels and watching anime, playing FF V, etc. But I'll be OK. I need me time to unwind from the insanity that is my job.

*resisting urge to throw headphones across the room*

Stupid ancient things keep cutting out on the left side... *sigh*

44 minutes late to lunch

14 minutes past when my co-workers was supposed to be back.

The lunch I wanted was eaten by my Dad.

Yes, it's a shitty day.

Update - She's OK, just got arthritis in her spine between her shoulder blades. I'll get to try to give her liquid prednisone for a while. Anyone got any kevlar gloves? I named her after a psychotic war chieftess character for a reason...

Fierce little kitten
Psychotic war chieftess cat
Please don't leave me now

Kahvi's at the vet. More later when I hear more.

Amazing how much less stressed I am by keeping myself under my headphones...

As promised...

Purrfect, 3 weeks old
Purrfect, 6 weeks old Those are Dad's hands in these pics, they wouldn't stay still. ;-)
Lamb (left) and Lion, 3 weeks old
Lion, 6 weeks old
Lamb, 6 weeks old
Daffodil, 3 weeks old
Daffodil, 6 weeks old and already almost 2 pounds.

Blah blah blah, works sucks, people I work for are assholes, blah blah blah.

I'll get kittens at 6 weeks old pictures up tomorrow.

If there is at least one person in your life whom you consider a close friend, and whom you would not have met without the internet, post this sentence in your journal.

For my bestest friend in the world... last month was 8 years. You're more my sister than my flesh and blood, and you knows it.

Just finished beating Devil May Cry, admittedly on Easy/Auto mode. The problem I have with button-mashers is that the arthritis in my hands won't let me do it for long. :-p Nice little story, though, enough for me to maybe make a visit someday.

Up next: Final Fantasy V

A friend of mine who shall remain nameless in case the sharks circle sent me this lovely bit of poetry.

What can I say, I'm disenfranchised, displeased, disillusioned, and disappointed. I'm looking to dis back and hit the door. Looking towards the business industry but cannot figure out what widget to sell.

It took me several minutes to figure out how to answer that in the appropriate manor. I figure we'll be doing this all afternoon. ;-)

So I finally go get to have a talk with the new VP of us. I discuss my medical situation, about how I had my large intestine removed and how I can't lift more than 20 pounds.

Him: "You're really handicapped!"

Me: *boggle*

Excuse me? Handicapped? Um, no. My friend Dave's wife Christina is handicapped. Inconvenienced occasionally, yeah, but that's it.

So, to numb my disbelieving rage, I am about to crack open a new bottle of Jack Daniels. I think decisions are going to be made in the not too distant future.

I'm tired a lot lately. I go to bed tired, and I wake up tired. I'm second-guessing myself a lot right now, and that leads to strange dreams where my cats are being hurt and I can't do anything about it, and I wake up exhausted.

I know what I probably should do. I'm just nervous about doing it, which is the other reason I'm exhausted.

Project for the moment - Go through my older CDs and re-rip them.

I've been making MP3s since 1999, when the technology was fairly new. Some of my oldest MP3s are still in 96kbps format, since that was the best you could get then. Now I'm going through the CDs I still own and re-ripping them at 192kbps. Should take me several hours.

From Jeannie, who deals with twice as many idiots as I do in a day...

"We need an invention that when the idiot on the other end of the phone is being stupid, you can zap them with electricity. Zap! Sorry, wrong answer. Please engage your brain and try again."

Hell. Yeah.

burning my eyes out because my Virgo-ness insists that I stay up to fix problems NetFlix made with my queue by sending shit out of order and randomly taking stuff out and saying it's "not available"

OK...

1) Bought my Dragon*Con tickets.
2) Paid Janice for my half of the hotel
3) Bought my Nobuo Uematsu convert tickets (got GREAT seats, 3rd and 4th row of the first balcony) AND got discount parking passes
4) Will look into a hotel after I pay off more of the credit card.

That's June and September taken care of. ;-)

Seeing Sin City today, then seeing an old high school friend give a classical guitar concert tomorrow. Hopefully it'll help me take my mind off of stress.

Republished because of a shit comment. One more of those, and no comments will be allowed, period.

More pics!

Purr-fect, weighing in at exactly 8 ounces
Lion, weighs 8 5/8ths ounces
The camera-shy Lamb, 8 3/8ths ounces
And Daffodil, the heavyweight champ at 9 3/8ths ounces Yeah, he'll need a new name. ;-)

And I caught Kahvi and Sweet Thing curled up on the bed, in exactly opposite directions. They say it's a twin thing, we wouldn't understand...

Bourbon Congratulations! You're 113 proof, with specific scores in beer (60) , wine (83), and liquor (69).

Screw all that namby-pamby chick stuff, you're going straight for the bottle and a shot glass! It'll take more than a few shots of Wild Turkey or 99 Bananas before you start seeing pink elephants. You know how to handle your alcohol, and yourself at parties.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 28% on proof You scored higher than 87% on beer index You scored higher than 87% on wine index You scored higher than 87% on liquor index

Link: The Alcohol Knowledge Test written by hoppersplit on Ok Cupid

Hell yeah it's a good day.

Hooked up my new Logitech digital speakers, and I am frequently orgasmic from the experience. This, my friends is how music should be heard. So far there has been no interference from the massive BASS I have vibrating out from under the computer desk. No fuzziness from any guitar solos or lyrical content.

Then I go to Mom and Dad's, to help celebrate my brother and sister-in-law's 40th birthdays. Dad makes ribs. I die and go to heaven eating. I now have extra ribs in my fridge which I plan to take to work, microwave so everyone can smell them, and eat like the barbarian I am.

Now I am finishing off the last of the Jack Daniels, blasting the Black Mages through my new speakers *music-gasm*, and planning to play on Aardwolf until I can't type anymore.

Yeah, good day. :-)

KITTENS!!!

Pile o' newborn kittens
Another pile o' newborn kittens
Between the three pics, you can see everyone's face.

Proud and exhausted new mom
Also a very watchful and protectful new mom
She really won't let us get too close to them yet

There's 4, born sometime last night. For now, they're Daffodil (the orange and white one), Purrfect (the one who's an exact copy of Mom), and Lion and Lamb (the two black and white ones).

My 7 1/2 year old neice.



When did she get so big? *cries*

It's not that I don't have internet access at work, it's that I'm still feeling out what's kosher and what's not. I basically check my email and a couple of news sites a couple of times a day, and leave it at that. I don't see my co-workers doing a lot of extraneous browsing, so I don't want to make waves. Yet.

So far, so good. After making sure my boss understood that I wasn't there to be an Admin for the Director of IT but a Help Desk person, I didn't get asked to schedule shit or get her mail anymore and learned how to do more help desk stuff.

And it turns out that I will get paid for one week by Edens & Avant (yes, I'll fix the link later) next week, so I went ahead and bought myself the vaccuum cleaner I need, then took out Mom and Dad to Longhorn's last night. I won't have time today, but tomorrow I'll swing by Best Buy and get some new computer speakers. I'm also considering a flash drive (or 3) for home backup purposes... My MP3 collection is 7.74GB and growing, and some of the stuff in there would be a pain in the ass to replace. I'll see what they have. If not, I'll just buy another spindle of CDs and get to work.

Last weekend, being bored, I went out and bought a new game, Final Fantasy IX.

LOVE it. Love it love it love it. It's so funny and so lighthearted but with serious tones at the same time. I've blown through disk 1 in record time, I'm sure, but everything's so gorgeous I won't mind at all if I have to start over.

And Vivi... that's me. That's me before I found my voice and the courage to use it. I can't wait to see the whole thing through.

Your anime hair color is blue.


What is your anime hair color?
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Home early from work with a sinus infection. 875mg of Augmenten twice a day for the next 10 days should kill it dead.

Don't have AIM on... Linda has to learn how to cope at work without me. She's quite capable, just needs some self-confidence.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm about to go waste obscene amount of time here, playing Lone Wolf. Think "Choose Your Own Adventure" on steriods, on the web. Thank you, JT, for showing me this.

Finally gotten out of my slump enough to write some. A bit here, some scribble in my notebook there, but it's something.

I'm also slowly taking things out of my office and deleting them off of that hard drive. I'd rather not take the chance of leaving anything behind that someone could come back after me with later.

Did my taxes Sunday, and I'll be getting around $900 back between state and federal. Unfortunately, instead of being able to spend it on things I need like a new winter coat, a vaccuum that's good for hardwood floors, or new computer speakers, I'm going to have to use it to pay bills because of the difference between Nexsen Pruet's and Edens & Avants' pay schedule.