eighthphase

Danger Days will be the death of me. I worked up concepts for art for each track - not quite the same as the album's plot, but pretty close, I'd assume. I'm doing character concepts right now... although, since I'm listening to the album at the same time, it's slow going, because I'm torn between drawing and singing out lyrics.

Also, I knew Vampire Money was a response to the band being offered to do a song for the New Moon soundtrack, and I'd picked up on a few things -" sparkle like Bowie in the morning sun" and "hair back, collar up, jet black, so cool" being two particular lines that are pretty obviously a take that - I totally didn't realise that one of the lines in the chorus was "Play it right and drive a Volvo car" and, now that I've noticed, I think I love the song just a little more.

Plus it's, you know, catchy. Just like every other freaking song on the album.

Also, totally random, but I'm sure that if I'd worn my Lennon sunglasses today I would have been mistaken for a scenester. Which is cool, except that scenesters are just one level below hipsters on the douchebag scale. Have I complained about how I love their fashion but hate their personalities? Because I really do.

...also, I got TA for the teacher I wanted! :D And switched from ceramics to journalism, a class in which I will have almost nothing to do. Which is a good thing, considering the ridiculousness that will be my current art endeavours.

I'm supposed to be studying right now (finals, how I... am relatively indifferent to you, actually) but something I read in my soc book reminded me of AVID on Friday. They had a socratic seminar (or fishbowl discussion) that day where they discussed - or were supposed to discuss - separation of church and state. They actually mostly discussed religion and faith. This was surprising for two reasons - firstly, any mention of religion or belief is usually the one thing that makes any AVID discussion deader than a very dead thing, very quickly; and secondly, that some of the things said were actually meaningful and thought-provoking... for me, at least. (And by thought-provoking I mean that they gave me plotbunnies that I had to try very hard to squash. I think I succeeded.) Of course, it was ultimately talk of faith that killed the conversation, but it was nice while it lasted.

One of the ideas thrown out in the discussion's death throes was the idea that we, as teenagers, probably aren't truly religious, because we've never been in a situation where we had to have that kind of faith. Since we never needed to believe in the existence of something bigger than ourselves just to keep going, we're more likely to be... agnostic, or something; the actual phrasing was something along the lines of believe in ourselves instead of God, but I don't like the implications that come along with that wording (that neither our accomplishments or our failures are our own, because they were all God's will; so we shouldn't believe in ourselves, because we're not the ones that make anything happen). And that, of course, was what killed the conversation - because suddenly the answer becomes "God did it" and you can't argue with that, because there is no argument, because there's no reasoning behind it - that's the thing about faith; it's something you believe despite the lack of solid evidence.

Since I am agnostic, and I do believe in myself, I obviously disagreed. I suppose, then, that it's a good thing that I wasn't able to participate in the discussion, because I know that just by listening near the end I was starting to get annoyed. (Well, and near the beginning. And, uh, also near the middle. Suffice it to say that I only ever don't get along with people because they're either too different from me, or too similar in all the wrong ways, and the person running the discussion - who ultimately killed the discussion - is the latter.) Still, I was impressed, and some of it was pretty thoughtful.

...anyway, back to the Sociology Textbook Of Doom.

Chillin' with the dogs, since they were acting weird earlier and I don't have to worry about them escaping if I'm in the room with them. My brother's room is actually pretty cozy, so that's shiny.

Yesterday I met up with a friend to study for an English test tomorrow, and although we didn't actually spend all that much time quizzing off of my flashcards, we did spend plenty of time chatting over coffee, and it was really nice to hear that I'm not the only person who has all the issues that I have. It does raise some, um, other possible issues (I've heard the kinds of things that people say about her, for example, that relate to some of her issues, and since I have some of the same issues, I wonder if people say the same things about me - so I have to remind myself that I've got nothing to prove to anybody, and whatever they say behind my back doesn't matter and reflects more on them than it does on me).  I had fun, though, so I'd say that it was a success.

I also played about a million hours of Latale... predictably. I spent a couple of hours on Saturday levelling a freshly-rolled warrior up to about twelve, and the rest of Saturday and yesterday levelling my engineer more, up to twenty-four now. I was tweeting kind of a lot at the time, as well... mostly stuff like OMFG BEARS and OMFG MORE BEARS and FUCK BEHEMOTH STOMACH... things like that. (ughhhhh, so many quests in Behemoth Stomach. I get swarmed every time by monsters that aren't the ones I'm questing to kill, and they don't even give good xp...)

I'm off for more torture in Behemoth Stomach, I think. Maybe the spawns will be nicer to me today... (and maybe the channels will be emptier, since it's a Monday and all... but it's also a holiday, so maybe not.)

...I need a Latale icon. Maybe I'll do that today, too...

And then I spent the first day of the new year at the cinema! I saw Tron: Legacy finally. It was pretty epic! I want the soundtrack, haha.

Also, yet another strange thing involving technology happened to me! Two, actually; both in the arcade. See, my brother and I got to the cinema about an hour early, so we decided to kill some time in the arcade. So I played a couple of rounds of DDR (Sexy Planet is hard orz). Last song of the first round, I couldn't find the song I actually wanted to play, so I decided to do Dynamite Rave instead. And the high score for Dynamite Rave on light? Was set by me.

Now, I knew that I'd played on that machine before, but I'm not terribly good at DDR and I certainly didn't remember setting any high scores, so that was a complete surprise. Plus it had to have been at least five years since I played that machine... I guess nobody else does. (Can't blame them; I hate Supernova.)

And then later, when playing air hockey against my brother, on the last game, the table seemed to lose power before we even finished the game... even though nothing else in the arcade did. Which was a hell of a lot weirder than seeing an old high score, I'll admit.

Finally, I just want to say how much Bridges-as-Flynn was like Bridges-as-The Dude. I mean, "You're messing with my Zen thing, man!" anybody? Such a Lebowski line. Mind, I'm not complaining... it was just kinda funny.

I have lost track of how many cups of tea I've had to drink today. It's somewhere between five and seven, but other than that I have no idea. I've also consumed about a quarter of a bottle of honey with all that tea... but at least my throat isn't sore any more.

Played even more Star Ocean! I think Nel was actually 76 or 77 when I went to advance the plot... well, when I went to refine me some Boots of Prowess, and then go advance the plot. At which point I learned that either my memory is really poor, or this game is horrible.

See, to get to the penultimate dungeon, you have to go through another one from earlier in the game. When you get to the final room, you fight a boss, and two new doors open. The eastern one, which the boss came out from, takes you into an underground area full of water. This area is lit solely by floating enemies, so you can barely see. You're supposed to stumble around blindly until you find a turtle you can ride through the water (but only certain bits of it!) and then feel your way around to a specific area where you fight another boss, which lowers the water level, at which point you can continue to wander around blindly until you find some pillars you can disintegrate with your Ring of Disintegration, behind which is a faintly glowing crystal embedded in the ground. You find one of the floating light monsters and lure it over to the crystal, which unlocks a door behind which is a boss fight against not one, but three of the most annoying boss ever (actually three different bosses, only one of which you've fought before, but the other two are exactly the same except with different elements). This then leads you to a room containing a cutscene that opens the penultimate dungeon.

Or you can go through the western door, behind which is a cutscene that opens the penultimate dungeon.

I figured this out by looking at a guide online, after ten minutes of trying to lure the damn light monster to the stupid crystal, which I did after half an hour of "I hate this game. I hate this game. I hate this game." I honestly cannot say I regret it! Even if I passed up the opportunity for a couple of battle trophies, I didn't get the trophies for the stupid boss the first time around, so I doubt I'd get them against three of it.

In other news, I have half the main body of a katamari! Now I just need to crochet the other half and then fourteen little nubby bits. I don't have any magnets, but then maybe this first one should just be stuffed anyway. (: I also learned how to do a magic circle and how to finish off a crochet piece, since whenever I ask mum to show me how she just kind of does it for me, which is nice, but defeats the purpose of asking. /: But now I can do it myself, so I don't need to ask.

I am not drinking any more tea today. I have had so much tea. I'm probably going to crochet more, though.

I think I have a cold, and I'm pretty sure Taco Monday didn't help it much. I'm so ridiculously tired right now it's not even funny. D:

No Star Ocean today, which is probably a relief more than anything. Instead I spent the day lazing around until about noon, at which point I got dressed and headed out for Jack in the Box for Taco Monday. I didn't actually eat tacos, though! But I did get some food, and hung around with friends, and that was cool. And then I walked home and puttered around a bit and tried not to instantly fall asleep, though at this point a nap might not be a bad idea. I do have to stay up forever tonight, after all. Maybe I'll play some Star Ocean later to keep me up...

And speaking of later! I have always always thought it would be totally cool to, like, re-enact some of those final KH scenes in front of a lunar eclipse. I mean, just imagine it. It would be totally epic.

And then, two hours later, I am pretty damn sure that I have a cold. It is a horrible night to have a cold.

And then my physics teacher wasn't there for the first fifty minutes of class, so I "conveniently" forgot about making up the test yesterday. With luck he won't bring it up again!

Got further in SO3; I'm about to go to Moonbase. I forgot about how contrived that one plotline death was... e_e; Still, drama as the plot demands it, or something like that.

I was listening to the news for the weather, before I started making this Christmas card that I completely forgot I had to do until like 9:30 last night, and I saw along the ticker at the bottom, "Newark High football star stabbed to death at--" and all I could think was Not Kennedy, not Kennedy, please not Kennedy... and then I breathed a sigh of relief when it finished with, "--East Bay bus stop." I mean, I know I shouldn't be happy that somebody got stabbed to death, and I'm not, really; I'm just glad it wasn't near my school. Because my school has a bad reputation that we didn't create and don't deserve, because people from other schools in the district decide to go shoot and stab people from their other schools at my school. So then in the paper the next day you'll read about how somebody was shot/stabbed/killed at Kennedy, and it never really clarifies that the aggressor wasn't a Kennedy student and that the victim wasn't, either, and people go around talking about how Kennedy is such a dangerous school, man I'd sure be nervous if I had to go there. And we're all, "...it had absolutely nothing to do with us, actually, and the school is perfectly safe," but nobody actually listens.

Also, speaking of Christmas cards I made in twenty minutes this morning! That's actually kind of a lie, since I wrote the text in about twenty minutes last night. But today I drew and coloured the front and wrote the text inside. (In English we all drew names from a box and had to make a holiday card for the person whose name we drew with certain literary devices in it.) Fortunately my person gave permission to do a Christmas card, so she gets a Christmas card with a cute little Santa on the front. ♥

Finally, last night I started writing something that might end up awesome and spacey and scifi, assuming I ever finish it. I guess that's what happens when Panic! At the Disco and Star Ocean 3 cross paths in my head! (Speaking of Panic!, they're supposed to have a new album out in March. I'll have to give the singles a listen before I buy it! But I'll probably end up buying it anyway.)

Today I danced around like an idiot, delivered an airheaded line, voiced over a commercial, joined five other people in the eating of an entire package of bacon, and played some Star Ocean 3! I actually wanted to play Final Fantasy X, but I don't know where my copy is.

Also, arguably most important, I got my very first wireless controller working again. It's this tiny little MadCatz thing that's absolutely perfect for me, and out of all the wireless controllers I've had, it's worked the best (and the longest. even longer than the official Sony one!) Except that it just stopped working one day, years ago. I still had it, though, and today I was so driven to play something that I decided I should see if I couldn't get it working again. So I dug out the controller and the receiver, cleaned them off, pried the old batteries out of the controller, took all the screws out and popped them open, removed the cat hair that had inexplicably found its way inside the controller, put everything back together, put in new batteries, and plugged it in. And it worked!

(I didn't manage to get it put together quite properly; the R2 button ended up a bit stiff. In my defence, controllers are complicated! It took me like fifteen minutes just to get it to the point where I could put all the screws back in. And anyway, R2 isn't an important button anyway.)

So yeah, hurray for SO3. I'm still on disc one, but I went from "Let's go talk to Crosell!" to... "Let's go talk to Crosell!" I also fought two bosses and the O button, won four battle trophies, went on a fetch quest, recruited a new inventor, tried and failed at item creation, got a spiffy new key item, and was about to go break the game with IC and synthesis when my mum decided she wanted to watch TV. Still, not bad for four hours. Tomorrow I'll get to disc two! Or at least fight Crosell, which is practically the end of disc one. (Actually, getting to the Aquaelie is the end of disc one. Still, you fight Crosell, watch a bunch of cutscenes, go to the Diplo, watch more cutscenes, go to the Kirlsa Training Facility, more cutscenes, boss fight, even more cutscenes, and then you're on the Aquaelie. So that shouldn't take too long.)

I also taped the pages that were falling out of my SO3 guide back in. There were more pages falling out than I originally thought. The guide awkwardly opens somewhere between Sphere 211 and Firewall now, but at least I'm not in danger of losing pages anymore.

Thanksgiving is over! I couldn't be happier. (It's probably not over - there are probably going to be phone calls and other unpleasant things. But I can hope, right?) Dinner was great and I realised that I do, actually, take after my dad a bit, temperment-wise - though I think I'm a bit more genuine about it than he is. If tomorrow works out okay then I hope Christmas ends up the same way - I don't care if it's traditional; gathering my family together under the same roof never ends well and I would prefer to avoid it forever.

Meeting with Pride and Prejudice group on Friday - we're watching the film, eating pizza, and allegedly planning project bits. I should probably, then, spend tomorrow alternately reading Pride and Prejudice and working on my Frankenstein project, though I'm betting only one or even neither will get done.

I am convinced that Borders hates me! All I wanted was one of two specific Mercedes Lackey books, but no, we can't have those in stock, that would be too easy! And then, to add insult to injury, I figured that I could probably swing the hardcover I did end up getting, since after all I had five bucks in free money in my Borders account, only to learn that no, that free money that was supposed to expire at the end of the month? Expired yesterday. Which was really useful, because mum only told me about it yesterday! So now I'm out $20 with a book that wasn't actually the book I wanted to read. ...though I'll probably enjoy it anyway, but really, it's the principle of the thing.

Also the one thing I hate more than anything about online fic is that, very often, I'll get into a story and it's totally engaging and awesome... and then I realise I'm stuck at a cliffhanger because the author hasn't updated in #long-period-of-time. And then I get annoyed, because really, how could they?! And then I feel bad, because I of all people should know that writing is most often not anybody's number one priority, and even when it is life can and will get in the way in the worst ways possible. I still feel sad about not being able to read the rest of the story, though.

Standard Time, how I missed you! No longer will I have to trudge to school in the dark (not that I did anyway), no longer will I be able to tell between 5pm and 6pm! It's good to have you back, Standard Time.

Got all caught up on wordcount, and stuff. Christian's Inferno is... probably going to be much much shorter than Albert's Legacy! But that's fine, because some of the others are going to be ridiculously long anyway. It'll even out in the end! (And anyway, for now I get to actually write crazy!Damien, and then really awkward!Damien and Mao. That conversation is going to be fun, haha. "So, uh. I'm Damien." "Yeah, I know. You tried to kill me." "Yeah, and then you called down lightning on me and nearly killed me." "Right. Um. No hard feelings?" "Sure, okay.")

I've got like a million layers on right now, and I'm still kind of cold. Mostly it's just my fingers, since I'm not wearing gloves - my thumbs are warm, though, since I've got armwarmers on. (And the rest of me, since I've got two shirts, a jacket, leggings, shorts, and sweats on. ) I'm actually kind of glad that the weather report for today is "really cold;" I've kind of missed that, too. There's nothing like bundling up and knowing that you aren't, actually, going to regret putting on all those layers - so far it's been pretty iffy, since we've had temperatures in the seventies and eighties for the past few months, but today's supposed to be barely sixties, so it's time for layers! :D

Anyway, time for some Let's Play Metroid Prime 3. The forums kicked me off because I didn't have an account (or archives, for that matter) but I checked the site the videos were archived on and, lo! MP3 LP. That kind of totally distracted me yesterday, haha.