Ravings of a Journeyed Mind

If you're looking for my writing journal, it's here: startofdreams

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

Pretty neat, my favorite color! Though I never thought of myself as 'cold' before :)

I found this meme, and figured I'd post it and urge everyone to pass it on, it's got some good points. I'll be posting this also in my writing journal, though I rarely post non-story updates there. I just thought this was a really good thing to share.

( Guidelines for the would-be fanfiction author )

Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?



Final Fantasy VII

I really don't know why, but I found this hilarious who I ended up as.

mmkay, for someone that actually pays ATTENTION to this journal, namely not even me, I have a question. I want to make a customized layout for my writing journal (not that I'm at all good with images or anything of the sort), and I need help doing that. I know there is a community that you can request to get one, but...I'm not sure they'd accept the kinds that I'd want to do. I have absolutely NO idea where to start to make one and could use a few pointers. Can I even make one if I don't have a paid account?

EDIT: Nevermind, apparently you have to have a paid account to make one. :/ Suuuucks

Noticed this on someone else's journal and thought I'd post my results here. :)

You Should Be a Film Writer

You don't just create compelling stories, you see them as clearly as a movie in your mind. You have a knack for details and dialogue. You can really make a character come to life. Chances are, you enjoy creating all types of stories. The joy is in the storytelling. And nothing would please you more than millions of people seeing your story on the big screen!

I'm finally back online. I feel slightly more human.

Got a new processor recently, an AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ and a new fan that finally keeps my computer COOL. What a novel concept!

It also proved that installing the dual-core without reinstalling windows proved impossible. After two days of trying to make it work, I ended up reinstalling windows. It was a very painful and ANNOYING decision, but I did it. Day before yesterday was when I started and finally got a game in. Was playing it at night when I hear this THUMP. Seconds later, my machine shuts down and won't come back up.

That thump was the sound of my new fan FALLING OFF and landing on my video card. This thing is HEAVY and it sheered off the clips on the side of the bracket that surround the processor. You know, the thing that ALL FANS CLIP ONTO?? That was a new one for me.

Thankfully the video card didn't break. That fan is HEAVY! Long story short, we put it back on there, but didn't fully crank down the arm to hold it on there. It takes such pressure to put it down that it would break it again obviously.

Either way, it'll be awhile before I write any more stories.

God, I'm so tired. I just want to curl up into a ball on my bed and sleep till next Tuesday.

The second Sunday in a row that my sister didn't come home so she can use our washer and drier for laundry free of charge. *rolls eyes* If she wants to say she's sick and not feeling well, I don't care. Let her, not like I need to be harried. Maybe she doesn't want to come because she knows I'll ask her about the $37.50 she owes me for some scanning. Make no mistake, I will ask her the next time I see her. She's ignored two emails from me and one from Mom about it and if she thinks I'll do a damn thing for her again after she's stiffed me when it was her who brought up the subject of paying me, she is so dead wrong. Pay me March 9th, my ass!

On an even more depressing note, my monitor is dying. :( It's been acting funky for the past year or two, but finally, Mom exchanged monitors on me with my request. I loved my 21", adored it, but I couldn't take it anymore. This one is a 19" and even older than the 21", but it still works perfectly. >< Then again, this one was from a different era. Like I'll ever trust Dell again. My first computer, a Windows 98 one, was great and this monitor came from that. Got it around 1996. Sometime in 2003, I bought another machine from Dell since the first was so great, and this one was a P-O-S. Some time in 2006, I cannibalized most of the good parts of the machine such as monitor, 5.1 speakers, and such to make a new machine. I bought a great new sound card and all, but still...now the only decent thing I have left from that Dell machine in 2003 is the speakers.

Mom said she wanted to get me a flat screen since mine was going, but we both agree we're not sure we'd want to do that. They aren't exactly reliable. The 17"s are the only half-way decent ones so we heard. Getting a working 19" is sort of a hit or miss and anything higher than that, according to her isn't worth the price.

Oh. My. Fucking. God. My sister is officially Moved Out.

Honestly, I feel like I'm going to collapse. Since 9 am this morning, with only one cup of coffee behind me, I've been moving and cleaning my sister's apartment. It was 4:30 pm before it was finished. But at least it's over. Sure, she'll be coming over here tomorrow and she'll drag us over there tomorrow, but as far as I'm concerned, the big part is over. At least she did it. I won't tell her this, but I feel both relieved and sad. I really will miss her.

And for the first time in the past two years, my sister HUGGED me of her own accord. She never seemed to like it when I did it, so after awhile I stopped doing it. Plus, I got paid for the cleaning I did on her car, finally, so I can actually buy some manga.

Bad news is that Mom and I have to hurry to find a job otherwise we'll be starving real soon.

I think it's official now. My sister has completely lost her marbles.

She just got a look at her apartment last night and she says that including a few inches for a kitchen and bathroom, it's as big as her bedroom. That of course doesn't include all her furniture and all this crap. It may be big enough for one single person and you can walk through the whole apartment with three steps, but that doesn't include the guy she's planning on moving in with her and his stuff.

*rolls eyes* If she thinks she can come back like nothing happened once she leaves, she's gonna be sorely disappointed. Once she steps out that door, she gives up her room. And things aren't the same even if she does come back. And yet if she does come back and realize that we've used her room for other stuff, then we're the bad guys for "can't wait to get me out of the house", when she can't wait to get out >< Can't win, I tell ya.

I really need to get a job...

Well I just finished watching again that recent(?) King Arthur movie, the one with Ioan Grufford as Lancelot, Clive Owen as Arthur, and Keira Knightly as Guinevere. Personally, I'd rather have had Lancelot and Arthur live and Guinnie over there die. I didn't like her at all, she was far too smug even if she had her points about Arthur. (My yaoi soul says that Lancelot and Arthur would have been a great couple, but that's beside the point). My favorite knights always seemed to die, though the guy with like twelve kids (Bors, I think) lived and I was thankful for that, since I really liked.

Well, I can't say I'm surprised. My sister is pushing for getting her own apartment and it sounds like she's gonna try to move some time during February. *rolls eyes* I think she's an idiot, honestly. I don't think she can handle living on her own, and she also has apparently her b/f (or so far as I know) can come down to live with her.

I need to get a job soon >< Well, if she wants to go, she can go. I don't care anymore.

Am I disappointed? I can't really say.

I just finished watching KKM (which is Kyo Kara Maou). I finally got to see the last episode of the anime (I know there are many, many books). I like the show, don't get me wrong, but...somewhere along the way during the box-arc, things began to get a little dull. First of all, the art became less appealing and reminded me much of Sailor Moon in how you'd have "good art days" and "bad art days". During the bad art days, you just wanted to kill the artist because man, you couldn't see how anyone would like these girls because they were supposed to be pretty and they kinda weren't.

By the end of the show, and having watched a little of the beginning of it again recently, I can see that the art changed throughout, but it wasn't like Sailor Moon where you'd get episode by episode of different art. No, through a gradual change, it was. I prefer the art at the beginning. Then there had the middle art, of very round eyes and soft, girly features for Yuri. Then the last seemed to be an amalgamation of the two, which looked not very good and more like a "bad art day" for whoever did the climax.

Speaking of climax, it was kinda anticlimactic, to tell you the truth. I question why Shori, Yuri's brother, was there in the first place, since he didn't seem to do a helluva lot. A while ago, I read a fic which gave hints that Shori had ended up in a coma, but I guess that referred to something else, since Shori was just fine and dandy and useless as he came. I don't understand why he was there at all. He didn't do much protecting and that whole arc of him getting control of his power, he didn't do a helluva lot with it. Seriously. WHY was he there? ><

It also seemed to me that it was terribly easy to defeat Soushu. Hell, you didn't even see a battle! You just saw Yuri waving around with Morgif (which reverted from 'coolness' mode, naturally when Yuri was gone) and that's it. Given that, it didn't seem very hard. I mean, in the history, there was this huge showdown, but while Soushu was supposed to be as powerful as he was before, Yuri didn't even break a sweat. Not to mention, when it was over, everybody was catching flies in their open mouths. I want to see an expression of genuine shock that DOESN'T involve a mouth wide open ><

However, given all this, one of my favorite characters will always be Murata. XD I love his expression and slightly apologetic voice when he tells Yuri he wasn't sure if it would work, being thrown in the pond. Not to mention the expressions on Ulrike, Conrad, Wolfram, Gunter, and Gwendel's faces when Yuri and Murata showed up was just priceless XD

All in all, despite my disappointment (and it had some great music in the beginning of the last episode during the confrontation), I still really love the show.

I feel...exhausted. I didn't get my sis' car washed, so no money to buy manga just at the moment. Instead, I finished that project that I took a break from since December 21, 2006 to finish. What a massive task. Not including duplicates, there are 870 pictures taken from my childhood and I had to scan in them all, crop, and adjust the colors of every single one.

So, given all that and my fingers are tired and I'm cold, I shall take this day off from writing. People have gotten used to having a chapter a day, but I'm beat. I've written more in the last week and this than I have in two months. So I shall try to stay warm and just watch X-Files, so I don't pass out.

I'm out of cash for manga, so I asked my sis to get me the third volume of Legal Drug since there are some pages missing of my scanlation. However, she did me one better: she will pay me $20 for washing her car and I can spend it how I like. If I penny pinch, I MIGHT be able to get xxxHOLiC, LD vol 3, and one more. I'd have to see if Junjo vol 2 has come out. If not, then I'll buy LD vol 2.

I am a terrible person. Really. Let me explain why.

Last night, as I was going to bed with a headache the size of the Louisiana River, I found that my sister was drunk off her ass. Second thing that I found out is that my sister is maudlin and a surprisingly honest drunk. I didn't know for certain at first if she was drunk, but as she clung to my arm and laughed her head off for no reason until she began crying and begging Mom and me not to hate her for wanting to move out and be proud of her, I figured she was.

I also found out last night, as it hit the one a.m. marker and listening to my sister vomit, that if I ever date someone who drinks that I am going to tell them if they get drunk: "You're on your own, I have no sympathy."

I understand why she did it. My sister makes $500 a month from work and her bank took it all. Every charge she made for buying Christmas presents, they took an extra $40 dollars! They put her over and into the negatives and when you go into the negatives with your money, they will take a $48 dollar fee. The only reason she went into the negatives was because of them. So when she called them on it, they told her as rudely as possible that she "should know how this works." It upset her so bad, rightly so, that she was crying at work. She was crying last night when she was drunk because she was upset that I might not get a present this year and like I told her, so long as she was there I didn't care if I got a present. It's like what happened last year with my present to my mother: I ordered a customized throw rug for $120 in early November, plenty enough time for them to make it and ship it to me. On Christmas Eve, I get something in the mail that tells me "I didn't send a picture", but when I shook the original envelope they sent back that I sent them, the picture was in there! I ended up sending them a blistering note of unhappiness and sending them not only another picture but uploading it to their damn website. I didn't get the present until February of the new year.

Anyway, to explain why I am a terrible person. I helped my mom a little when she was taking care of my sister, I couldn't help but revel in satisfaction in a very small part of my brain. It's very evil of me, knowing how upset she was about what happened to her bank and that they stole all her money and she can't get it back, but I just did...

Well, I have taken on the monumental task of preserving all the pictures taken over my life, which is probably going to halt my story for a bit.

I'm maudlin tonight. I scanned in 80 pictures today to add to what I think was 30 or so pictures the day before and that's not even the tip of the iceberg. My whole life is memorialized in pictures. We have three picture books full of pictures with usually four to five pages each and anywhere from 140 to 200 pages apiece.

There are so many of when I was little and my dogs. I've been around dogs all my life. All the dogs from my childhood have died. Dancer (female, full name ShadowDancer) and Bear (male, full name NightHawk), father to Shadow (male, full name ShadowHunter)...

Bear died of a tumor I think at least nine, maybe ten, years ago. It grew on his elbow and no matter how many times we had it removed, it kept coming back. Then Dancer died five or six years ago, of old age (she was an ornery old bitch XD but I loved her to death). And then Shadow died this July (of old age as well). We got Bear and Dancer when they were barely seven weeks old and I was only five or so. Then they had their puppies, so...

I just never felt alone. Even when Bear died, I had Dancer. Then when Dancer died, I was still connected to them through Shadow, who I loved more than life. But now that he's gone...we don't have any connection with any of them anymore, since Shadow never had puppies of his own.

It's not that I don't love Daemon. He is the sweetest and most adorable thing and he tries SO HARD ^^ I love him as much as I loved all my dogs. It's just...not the same. I guess, looking at all these pictures...I guess looking at me when I was four years old cuddling Dancer who was barely a year old just...If I look through my memory, the only ones with any clarity of Dancer are when she was older with white on her mouth. (She lived to be twelve years old, which is a very long time for a big dog like her. She really was like an ornery old bat XD. Even Shadow lived to be thirteen).

Honestly, I love Daemon, but I miss Bear, Dancer, and Shadow terribly. (Dancer had twelve puppies, but the only one we could keep was Shadow, so I really only got to know him.) They were all so adorable when they were little and I just had so much fun...

Pictures:
Bear aka Summerseas NightHawk
Dancer aka Summerseas ShadowDancer
Her ear never did stand up ever.
My wonderful, wonderful shadow in the prime of his life
He was always like that, with that assured attitude. There never will be another dog like him.
Honestly, look at that attitude *sad smile*
Shadow, and guess who's shirt that is *wink* Yours truly, of course
This picture always makes me laugh
Bear looks so fierce and yet he was such a gentle, pushover kind of dog. I guess what makes me giggle is the puppy (don't know which one) looking up all wide-eyed and impulsive at him. LOL!
Danielle, my sister, and dancer. Really, wasn't Danielle so adorable?
Me and Dancer. Wasn't I so tiny...?
I was always so happy with my dogs...

I just look at these pictures and I feel sad. I need to keep a camera close to me when I see Daemon, so I can catch him doing memorable things in daily life. We don't take pictures like we used to, but digital cameras make things easier.

Dancer, Bear, Shadow...I miss you so much.

Well day before yesterday I broke up with my boyfriend. There really was no future for us. I'm actually kind of just relieved it's over. Long distance, internet relationships really don't work out. In the entire year we were together, he never came to see me.

Anyway, I found this great band called Nox. I think they're Hungarian, but there's this English song that they did that impresses me a great deal: you'd never know that English wasn't her first language O.O

God, am I tired. I spent all morning washing the entire floor (twice, since it was realllly dirty still after the first) then waxed it. I threw puppy outside for all those hours until everything was fully dry XD I wasn't about to let him come wander in with his muddy footprints. We did that once when I tried to wash it and it ended up looking even dirtier than it did before I started it. Also ended up cleaning the counter and bathroom (floor anyway). I was going to do the table too, but by the time I finished the counter, my feet were about to fall off and after I broke a ceramic jar that we've had for almost seventeen years, I figured that now was the time to stop XD

Today, I got my copy of Junjou Romantica!! It was the very first day of the shipping estimate too! *_* Now, if the scanlations are to be believed as accurate, then upon reading this book, half of it was almost word for word. It was incredible!

There is a LOT of Akihito's novel translated in here that Misaki reads.....*_* And even though Blu is a subsidiary of T-P, I'm still impressed they even kept the honorifics. T-P has been doing a helluva lot better with manga and I'm glad to see it's subsidiary is doing it too. There is a small thing I noticed: Even though in the English book, he calls Usami "Usagi-san" instead of "Usagi-san-sensei", which is no big deal to me. Only thing that really bugs me is that there were these two color pages in the beginning of the Japanese books that has Takahiro talking to Usami about Misaki before they met (you know, the one where he asks him to look over the book report and stuff)...instead of them being in the beginning of the book and colored, they're b&w and in the back :/

And the BEST line was kept in the whole first book: "I DON'T WANNA UNDERSTAND!" (Last page of Act 1)

God, I love this story! It's so adorable that I can't help but say that buying it is worth every penny! I'm definitely going to buy as many as I can when they come out in English with what money I have. It's definitely a book that I'd recommend (though it is yaoi, so be prepared).

This whole story ALWAYS has me giggling.

I got paid a few days ago and I've already spent half of it XD Ordered meself volume 1 of Junjo Romantica that just came out and 100 pk dvds with a $15 rebate and FREE 3-day shipping. I also bought a few things at the story.

The main thing is that I managed to get some pictures ^^ My puppy is just SOOOO adorable. I took some good pictures of him today.

Daemon, pic 1
Daemon, pic 2

These were taken a few days ago:
Daemon and my sister (I'll let you guess who's who ;))
Me and sis (she wanted to give me those rabbit ears XD
Me and sis, pic2
Me and sis, pic3
Me and sis, pic4 (good picture)
Danielle (my sis)