For mine own reference...









I'll delete this entry when it's over; I just like seeing how I did on that calendar.  I'm kicking some ass so far, if I do say so myself.  XD
I was really struggling at first, since it's really boring to me to have to open the story, but the past two nights have been pretty great, clipping along at a good pace.
I'm hoping to avoid any red on that calendar but I'm pretty sure it's going to start lighting up around the 17th when Assassin's Creed: Lineage comes out and my productivity plummets faster than the stock market.  >_>

I'm also somehow finding time to keep up with school work and read Villette by Charlotte Brontë.  So far I'm liking it way more than Jane Eyre; it's much more dynamic and interesting.  But I'm sure Charlotte- with her morbid turn and inability to stomach a happy ending- will end it in a characteristically disappointing manner.  We shall see.  XD

Guess who arrived yesterday evening?
( More Gabriel Pictures! )

Wtffff PG&E??

Our power went out in the evening last Tuesday, which was normal for the first rain after five months of dryness. We lit candles and waited until it came back on at 7:30.

Today the power went out again at five pm, and now at 10:30 we're STILL in the dark. I heard the first transformer blow at five down the street, but a little while later another one blew somewhere behind us.(They make a pretty loud boom, if you've never heard it happen before.) Of course no one was available, and some poor guy that wasn't even working had to come over in his own truck to check it out. They mentioned that they'd have more info at 8:30.

We checked back (thank goodness for cell phones) and they said that we'd either have power back or they'd have more info by three in the morning. IN THE MORNING.

My mother just caught one of the workers down the street to ask for an update. He said they had an entire team out there working, but we'd be lucky if we had power by daybreak.

The worst part? We can see jackasses down the street that have electricity. Fuck you guys.

I'm bored as heck, so I guess I'm going to go take a candlelit shower and go to bed. It's a good thing I'm tired; I can't remember the last time I went to bed this early.

Thank goodness for Blackberrys as well. That's what I'm posting this on. There had better be electricity by the time I wake up... *grumbles*

Edit:
So much for the sleeping part. Seven of the biggest, strangest looking trucks I've ever seen have converged RIGHT in front of our house and are tearing up the transformer in between our house and our neighbor's. The one that didn't blow. The neighbors have an old Hispanic grandma living with them that thinks it's the second coming of Jesus or something. Poor thing.

Apparently a few blocks over a shooting just occured. WTF. I was wondering why that helicopter was circling.

Anarchy!

This was what I did yesterday morning. Worth getting up at five in the morning for? Hell yes. ;]

I shall now spam you all with tons of balloon pictures! (They're really cool balloon pictures though, I promise!)





They used to have a balloon race that drew in tons of balloons (about fifty, I was told) but most of them stopped coming when they stopped the race. I didn't count how many there were, but I think about a dozen. Living in a desert valley is really perfect for the balloons, with the air currents and lack of wind.

Sorry for the uber spam. >_> I was only going to post about a dozen, but then I realized that I had a neat chronological order thing going on and I decided to post more of an events-as-they-unfolded thing. I have some sequences that can be turned into animations (like Mr. Concentration from the moment he lights the burner to the moment the balloon gets upright) so I need to figure out how to do that.

Anyways. Hot air balloons FTW!

ETA: Kasha dives through soda boxes just like that Scottish Fold Maru on YouTube.  SO awesome.  XD

Flyby post before I forget...

Today marks four years of BJD ownership for me!  I wanted to do some sort of photo shoot for today, but that obviously didn't happen with classes devouring my life.  >_>

Buuuut I always miss these sorts of things, so I'm making a little post just to mark the occasion.

Yay for four years of little resin monsters!  XD

I haven't been on the internet as much lately because I'm trying to get used to classes again, but look! I have pictures!





I have some more of Nick, but I'm too lazy to post them right now. >_>  That last one is totally my favorite of them though.

Also, I haz a kitty. :D But that will have to wait until I can give her a proper intro.


I'm just full of eloquence, aren't I?  Oh well, I blame the heat.  I was going to make a sensible post and then I was lugging things around in the nasty sticky heat and now my brain has melted.  X3

Dollmore really needs to stop sending me red eyes with their eye giveaway things. Because this is what I do with them.




( All That's Missing is Black Hair and a Striped Shirt )


After I took these I decided that I was too lazy to take them out and replace them because Nick's eyes are retardedly hard to get in, so I left these in. Once it got dark I walked by, glanced at him, saw the light gleaming off the red, and jumped about a mile. I then promptly changed them back.

I felt like SUCH a dork.

Apparently our jackass mail carrier decided that instead of taking my package back to the PO after attempting to deliver it like he was supposed to, he was going to leave it on the truck in the 100+ degree heat all. Day. Long. I have attempted to pick it up twice today and had them tell me that he never brought it back. This is the same asshole that deliberately ran over our trash cans because he was too lazy to back up and came all the way to the door to bitch to me when the mailbox was blocked instead of just hopping out and putting the mail in. If you can file complaints about your carriers, I will definitely be doing so with him. /fumes

I found a pretty awesome but inexpensive lens for my Nikon that seems to be ideal for taking doll pictures, so I shall be ordering that soon. Amazon sold out of it the morning after I had added it to my cart but I detest Amazon anyways, so I've been checking out other places. Adorama has it but they appear to be kinda shady, so I think I'll pass on them. I looked them up on Reseller Ratings and while they have a good rating, it seems that every time the company makes a mistake they are quick to blame the customer to the extent of lying about what happened to make themselves look good. Uh, yeah, no thanks. My last stop was B&H, which seems to be the best option. Plus, they offer UPS 2nd day air for $10, which is perfect. New lens FTW!

Yes, I am wasting time before going to the PO again, at which time they had better have my package.

Here, have some shots of Kieran looking like an insolent bastard. XD



No wonder Nick was scared of him when they first met. He looks... conniving. And I had no idea that he had so much shading to his faceup until I took these. The yellowish shading around his dark eyes makes him look conveniently undead. XD

*stabs the grain*  There wasn't enough light for a 100 ISO.  The new lens will fix that.  >.>


 Okay, back to the PO. Wish me luck.  >.>


Edit:  I HAVE THE HEAD!  I won't be entirely sure until he's painted, but I'm pretty sure this is Gabriel.  As always when I first get a head, my first reaction was "Ew!"  But after sticking the wig on and having a look at him I think he's going to be perfect.  <3  He'd better be, because this is his third shot and I'm sick of his bullshit.  >:  Why must he give me so much trouble?  It's not MY fault Nick hates him.  Really.  It isn't.

I have several ideas for pictures that would require a bit of work, but it's hot and taking pictures in the heat sucks so here are some other ones of Nick. XD


They're so delicious. XD There's a random bakery that only sells cupcakes, so I bought two each of vanilla, red velvet, chocolate/chocolate, chocolate/vanilla, chocolate chip, and orange creamsicle.

Cupcakes FTW! :D

ETA: My mom's cat will not leave these cupcakes alone.  .___.  She LOVES them, and she harasses me while I eat them.  And I thought Sydney's sweet tooth was bad...

I didn't realize I hadn't posted in two weeks. Huh. I've mostly been enjoying my break from my mother and not getting on the internet much at all. XD

Anyways, we went to San Francisco to visit my brother today. (It's a pretty short drive, actually.)  And um, holy crap he totally surprised me by buying me a new Xbox to replace my 3 1/2 year old one that finally succumbed to the Red Ring of Death after tens of thousands of hours of gameplay. o_o I was NOT expecting that like, at all. I had wanted to replace it for a few months, but I've been busy shuffling the dolls around and didn't really want to toss $200 that could go into completing my plans into a 360 instead. I'm way too exhausted to set it up now, but tomorrow that is totally what I am going to be doing.

San Francisco was nice. Damen and I walked about four miles up and down the hills in the heat, and I'm about to keel over now. XD We went to Golden Gate park, which is ridiculously huge. It has several museums, a flower conservatory, an aquarium, a polo field (3x larger than a football field), an archery range, a dog training park, etc. Oh, and a paddock full of bison right in the middle. What are bison doing in San Francisco? No fucking clue. I suggested that they might be the city's official bovine. Hey, why not?

Before I forget altogether, I've wanted to post these shots of Vincent with his new eyes.



That's about it. San Francisco is gorgeous, but utterly filthy. I need to bathe like, now.   XD

I can't get over how well she poses.  She can even touch her face by herself!  *__*
Also, the box was packed with a Korean newspaper review of the Half- Blood Prince movie, which I found really amusing for some reason.  XDD  I wonder what they had to say about it?

Also also, WHY does LJ hate Firefox so much?  What did it do to youuuuu?  ;__;

New arrivals! :D
( More! )

I've been meaning to post some pictures or something, but I just haven't had time.  Things have been crazy around here lately, and I haven't even been able to keep up with commenting on my F-list.  >.<  (Which I apologize for.)

My mom's cat has been sick off and on for the past two weeks or so, and for some reason my mom has decided that I am her sole caregiver while she's ill.  So I've been responsible for feeding her and changing her diet and stuff, which seems to have helped a bit.  I think one of the main problems is the heat though; she has a TON of hair, and when she eats during the heat of the day I think it makes her sick.  =/

Speaking of heat, it spiked to 112 degrees (44 C) today, which was just retarded.  I stayed in the house all day and didn't feel much of it, but it was still hard to keep the interior cool.  When it reaches 100 degrees before noon you know the day is going to suck.  But hey, I guess that's what you get for living less than 100 miles from one of the hottest places on earth.  *dies*

( Lots of Half-Blood Prince Ramblings )

In other news, still no shipping notice from Luts.  They've been whipping out orders like crazy lately, so I'm hoping that I'll have them before they go on holiday.  *crosses fingers*

Edit:  Ilu for proving me wrong, Luts.  ;__;
I wrote this, took a shower, came back, and found a shiny new shipping notice in my inbox.  21 business days for two dolls with faceups, plus extras (I ordered on June 22).  Not too bad!  Now I'm going to be a wreck for several days while I wait.  The good news is that if it gets on a plane today (and if customs isn't retarded), they'll probably be here Wednesday.  Shipping from South Korea to California can be ridiculously fast under the right circumstances.

Since I'm editing this, does anyone know anything about metabolism?  Mine went haywire about a week ago and it's driving me crazy.  I literally have to eat every three or four hours to keep myself from starving, but I'm not gaining any weight.  In fact, several more ribs are visible than usual.  .___.  Add that to all the stuff that has been going on these last two weeks...  *shuffles off to eat some more*

Well, I am officially waiting for three dolls. I'm kind of surprised, actually, since I've always restrained myself to ordering one at a time. I'm on week three (business day 13) of the Luts wait already, which is hard to believe. After nearly four years of owning BJDs I guess I've perfected the "order it and forget about it" method. XD Four years in September already. Holy craaaaaaaaaaap.

Anyways, I'm not going to talk about the molds or characters that I ordered because telling people about it makes me more impatient to get them. X3 One of them is Gabriel's third attempt of course, and since it'll be the thirteenth doll that I've owned and thirteen has always been a lucky number for me, I'm hoping that this one will suit his character. I'm getting sick of trying out molds on him, so I really hope it works. >.>

( Writing Babble )


Is anyone else on DeviantArt? I just joined there again a while back, and I must say it's an... interesting... place. Why are there so many teenage girls pretending that they're boys? It's like, a new trend or something. I see it all over the place, but it's totally obvious that they're not boys because a) they act really fucking girly and b) they often post pictures of themselves. Um...what? I even saw one person that had two separate accounts with one saying she was a girl and the other claiming she was a boy. Every time I see it I hear Hank Hill's voice saying, "That's just asinine." XDD

I think I've been watching too much King of the Hill lately. >.>

I got my 4D order yesterday, which was awesome. And apparently Nick can pull off ruffles. 8D