You can't make this stuff up

I wish I could convince my apartment people to just give me a new door. This morning the locks were so stuck that if I hadn't had a useless mini side-patio to escape through I would honestly have been trapped indoors. Really glad no one saw me hopping my own fence on my way to and from work today.

Lately whenever I feel like I need some cheering up, I watch this video and imagine the lady is talking to me instead. Adorable and unambiguously affirming voice! Just because! It gives me a happiness and emotional safety boost, and I thought I would share.

Does anyone know why, 10 months into The Greate Dreamwidth Projecte,* the tags for major things like cuts and username-links still have "lj" in them? Is that not going away anytime soon? Is there an alternate way I'm supposed to be doing these? Did I miss a memo?

...Oh! I went to Taco Cabana the other day (for the first time!), and as I was sitting there I noticed that on top of the music they had playing, there was a man's voice just... talking (pretty quietly, so it took me a while to notice it). The two didn't seem to go together musically, but I assumed it must be there to add texture or something-- but then it just kept going. In the breaks between songs I could could tell he was speaking English, and at one point I was able to make out an explanation of the principles of Buddhism. I was going to ask the nice chatty register lady about it when I left, but she was gone by then.

* Has it really been almost a year? WAAAGH

Today, Archibald Edmund Binns wonders: Is it a grand gesture to anonymously give a woman I think is beautiful a banjo? A long thread results.

Interneeeeetttt, come here so I can give you many hugs.

I got a lifetime supply* of popcorn and some money for being 24! Hooray!

EDIT GOES HERE: Aaaaa I can't believe I forgot! I got a Bronwen Weber cake by surprise, because my mommy loves me. <3 It doesn't have, like, lifelike flowers or astronauts or whatever on it, but geeeeeez is it tasty.

And before and after birthday dinner, I rewatched some Earth: Final Conflict with the family! It was one of the few shows we would make a point of watching when it was actually on TV. It seemed a little stupid now overall (which I expected, since I was twelve at the time), but to my surprise, Lili and Augur held up beautifully. Also the CGI didn't look half bad even now, so I can only assume it was amazing in 1997. I feel like I should remember being impressed by it, but I don't think I really noticed as a kid-- maybe I still expected to be perfectly fooled by everything and didn't really think about judging it one way or the other? But no, I've always loved behind-the-scenes stuff on special effects and whatnot, ever since that one featurette on the Wizard of Oz where you learn that that something like half the main actors nearly died from them, so I guess I have no innocence after all and I don't know why I seem not to have dedicated any brainpower solely to drooling over the glowy purple alien technology. I did love the ships and the buildings and things, but as objects, not as effects. -- So anyway, there was that, and even the less-impressive parts still provided hours of Mystery Science Theater fun ("So is Boone the protagonist here? I'm not sure"), and we all had some great nostalgia time.

...Lili and Augur. Man. I remember discovering the in-character website they'd set up for Augur. I showed my mom. And then at some point they started selling merchandise in the Sto'or. Great stuff. And yes, Lili was kind of a glorified chauffeur of the obnoxious LOL WATCH OUT THIS GIRL WILL KICK YOUR ASS** variety, but at least they surrounded her with characters who already respected her instead of wasting everyone's time making her prove herself to people.

...Hm. Now that I think about it, E:FC is the only thing I can think of right now that I've been into without imagining some elaborate self-insert version on the side. I guess the Complicated Intrigue and Danger:Cool Magic and Toys ratio was unfavorable.

Unrelated but I just thought of them for some reason:
Lightning!!! and
Coming in Like El Niño!, two real essays by Jeremy Lavine.

* Seriously though, several months' worth

** - WHICH WE BET YOU DIDN'T EXPECT BECAUSE SHE'S A GIRL - C'MON ADMIT IT YOU HAD EXPECTATIONS OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A WOMAN AND WE DEFIED THEM

Awesome names attached to addresses that send me spam:

Hillberry F. Elfriede
Fernando Hoover
Pencil A. Marisha

Also Order of Tales fanart!



I'd be astonished if she was actually supposed to be pink. But I had fun.

My eye is fine now. The bloodshot bump went away all by itself. I swear some good fairy must have cast Regen on me as a baby. I may be impervious to bullets; I have not checked. So, based on that, and the way it gradually got less uncomfortable, all I can conclude is that it was... maybe... a mosquito bite? On the surface of my eyeball. Does that happen? I'm just glad, but surprised, that having this theory has not made me more afraid of bugs.

Speaking of which, you know what's a great mosquito repellent? It sounds like a joke because it makes so much sense, but I find it to be true: swatted mosquito. Just get the first one, and display it (smearing as desired). It feels very war-painty to me.

Moving the salt shaker just out of arm's reach worked great, until I started writing this very entry. But it's back on the shelf again now, since I got to this paragraph, looked down, and felt shame. (A tiny bit.)

And that girlfriend I mentioned-- scratch that; apparently we are friends. :c I actually raised the issue with her intending to confess that I wasn't sure about the relationship and I didn't know why, but before I could get there... I found out why! It was all very friendly though, and she went home and I lay around going "o_o..." for a little bit before taking a walk and angsting into my paper journal about my shortcomings in human relations. Then I came back and instead of taking stock of how I needed to grow as an individual person and all (as I'm sure you all can tell I should do), I instantly hit up OKCupid~ =_=

I think that mood may have passed again already. But there needs to be a more casual outlet for the need to be hugged and have your hair petted.

( Continue for remarks on entertainment media things referenced last time )

* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence along with these instructions on your journal.
* Don't dig for your favourite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Okay.

"Read the message and click Print Check Pattern to print the nozzle check pattern."
--Canon PIXMA iP4000/iP3000 Quick Start Guide

Yeah, I think this meme works better on students.

Right now, I am almost done with a glass of apple juice, thinking about picking up where I left off on the chocolate bunny rectangle I accidentally left in the car and am now scraping away at with a fork. I probably won't, though, since I just had a plastic egg full of jelly beans. I got Easter candy from both my grandmother AND my parents this year. We are such a smart bunch of people, having so many holidays devoted to candy. I tell you.

This, just so you know, is the other type of entry you can expect from me. There are only the two. And a lot of these ones will be about how I saw something interesting when I don't even have a camera to show you with, because no cameras are any good.

So I definitely explored one abandoned, tore-up, decrepit-ass restaurant last night in the dark with a tiny keychain fla--

I can't even finish that word right now. Firefox spellchecker does not know "keychain." Augh. I don't think I'm going to import my LJ here, with all my other spellchecker moments, but you should know our battles have been many. Fields stained ... desaturated yellow ocher?... from irritation, shed over things like "Wiccan" and, at one point, "spellchecker." And lol. Honestly, Firefox, you are not the OED or something, you are a browser. WHAT IS THIS LOL; I AM NOT FAMILIAR WITH IT. IS IT FRENCH?

So, the restaurant. It was underneath the piano bar that I left my friends behind in because I don't even like bars, and certainly not ones where the piano guy not only refuses to perform "I Will Survive" when requested-- because apparently it is a song about how all men are pigs? I did not know this-- but belligerently interrupted the chick piano player forever so she could not play it either. The mood required that she not openly ask him what his problem was, but she held her turf pretty well, though she did it by calling out things like "THAT'S OKAY, WE WOMEN KNOW WHO'S REALLY IN CHARGE HERE" and getting loud cheers, and I wished that part could go differently as much I did the other. Seriously, people need to stop acting like we have to be enemies. How old are we, here?

So I wandered around the parking lot, and sat in the designated smoking area of some CompUSA offices where there were benches and trees, watching the light turn on and off on a timer... and wishing I had a big janitor-style sweepy broom to clean out the parking garage with, and getting some hot chocolate, until I finally decided that the ridiculosity had reached critical levels and texted, come what may, the epically and obviously passive-aggressive: are y'all about done?

AND THEY SAID NO.

( So, the restaurant. )

So that was yesterday. Today I killed a fly by slowing it down with spray adhesive first, but only because I didn't have any hairspray around, which works much better. Write that one down, for real. If you can get a fly in a good stream of hairspray, it will literally fall right out of the air. It's the best trick.