The small star that shines far in the night sky

Yay!! Hope its a day full of all of your favorite things, lots of fun and surprises and plenty of pure happiness! You deserve it, my friend!! :D

(And your present from us will be late as usual!! *facepalm!*)

YAYYY Everybody go wish jesskat all kinds of good wishes!! :D

I wanted to be there at 1pm. Instead, I'm sitting here at 2pm STILL WAITING for my sister to get dressed so we can leave!! I am SO SICK AND TIRED OF THIS SHIT. I wish I'd never sold my car. Then I could leave ON MY OWN, and actually get to places ON TIME.

This is even more incentive to get back to work, get my money together and get another car. As if I needed more incentive. Jesus Christ.

I just did some rather long-winded replying to comments on my previous rambling post about Bioshock, and so I've decided to recap (with edits and additions) here, as an entry...

After my previous entry, jesskat said: "There one part in the game that very much reminded us both of the Doctor Who episode "Blink" - you know, with the creepy angels that only move when you're not looking? Yeeeaahh.....I'm just sayin' you might want to prepare yourself for something like that when you find yourself in a room filled with water. If you haven't already passed that part, of course."

So, I read this comment this morning, and then had breakfast and turned on the game to attempt to gain way through Fort Frolic. So, I'm in the game, running around, hacking, slashing, powering up, all that jazz. Ooh! I say. A room I haven't been in yet! Lets see what's down here! Hmm, I say. Some loot. Grab this stuff, there we go. Oh hey, an ammo machine! Time to get some extra ammo! Hmm, I say... what was that that Jess said? This room is remarkably full of water. Oh well, I'm sure nothing's going to happen. Lets just buy this ammo. Ch-ching, ch-ching... ok! All se- OHMYGODWHATHEFUCKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! *BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!* **Pause, observe that this pale white enemy that appeared to be a statue at first and then effing MOVED TOWARD ME(!!!) is, in fact dead and lying motionless under the surface of the water** ...take aim... *BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!*

**pantpant!** O_O ... O_o ... *twitch!* ...o_O

...Needless to say... OH SHIT I WASN'T EXPECTING THAT!!!

Oh yeah, and then it happened AGAIN in another room full of water!! JESS DIDN'T TELL ME THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN TWICE!! ... Jess also failed to mention that this was a new form of Spider splicers, and that they'd randomly appear here and there, after that... AAAHHH!!

Bear in mind, all of this was after I had been in a flooded bathroom where there were 3 statues posed with *striking* similarity to the angel statue things in "Blink." I saw it, my heart stopped for a second, and I thought, "Oh, heh! This must be what Jess was talking about. Wow, yeah, they do look a lot like the things from Blink. Good thing they're not moving though. But just in case... *BLAM BLAM BLAM!!* Oh wow... they're... the statues are... they're bleeding! Huh. Weird. Well... good thing I shot them, then.

...And then I literally walked backwards out of that room, keeping them in sight the whole time... XD

BUT THEN, THEN that other part caught me COMPLETELY off guard!!! O_O

I survived it though! XD I managed to get through the rest of Fort Frolic. I uh... wonder if I'm going to survive the night tonight, though, without waking up in the middle of a heart attack from my HORRIBLE NIGHTMARES!! O_O

...*whimper!*

OH MAN. So I figured I should try taking pictures of enemies before killing them, again. And I figured I'd see if I could grab a shot of a Little Sister before harvesting her, and I did. It was a fantastic shot - I crouched down right in front of her and everything! But it gave me a 'C' ... :( lol!

Then I figured I should get a shot of Big Daddy. One of the solitary ones. So I saw one coming, equipped the camera, and thought, "Ok, I'm going to have to be really quick with this, and switch to the gun so I can grab the pic, then commence with blasting him!" Got my nerve up, got all set, grabbed the pic - Oh shit! He's so close to me, his light-face is filling the whole screen! AAH!! AAh... ah.. uh... he's... he's uh... he just... walked right by me? Without...attacking? o.o Wasn't expecting that! Hmm... well ok then. I guess I'll just let him go. And so I did; in the end, I only killed the Daddies that had sisters with them, and just watched in awe as the solitary Daddies passed right by me. ^_^ I love those guys! But yeah - I had no idea they would just leave me alone like that!!

I was actually going to mention something in the previous entry, about the part where I defeated Steinman, and the rather gory scene he was found in. Nurses all hacked up, splayed out as if crucified on cross-shaped examining tables. There were 3 of them hung like that up over the table where Steinman was hacking up another one. Its a habit for me, in games like this, to look all around and take in all the details... So I saw something there, and looked up, and... O_O It was pretty disgusting, but hella cool too. Definitely appealed to my macabre senses, my taste for the dark side and all that. ;) This game is LOADED with that stuff, the kind of stuff I almost feel bad about getting a kick out of, or that scares me SO BADLY that I just LOVE it. I'm weird like that, I guess... really love the adrenaline rush from pure fear, and that sort of thing... XD

When Bryant played through Arcadia for me, and I watched, there was a guy that appeared almost immediately, and he was like, "Hey follow me!" and kept disappearing in a cloud of red embers, then reappearing somewhere else, kinda like Nightcrawler when he teleports. Turns out, these guys are known as Houdini splicers. Oh shit man...! They really creep me out! And those suckers are so hard to CATCH!! O_O

Which leads me to Sander Cohen, main "boss" and head cheese, or so it seems, in Fort Frolic. After the reveal of his bloody insane, completely gory and twisted "masterpiece" was complete (he gave me the task of killing four guys, then taking a picture of them, and bringing them to a stage to be put on display among statues of men (splicers) with bunny face masks on) ...He was standing there in front of me, all serene looking, even opened up a previously un-openable glass case for me, with a power up inside. I was *just* about to let him go, after all this, but then I took aim and shot him... but he disappeared right as the gun went off, so I figured I missed. I ran around the rest of the place after that, got some stuff I'd missed, visited every room on the map, even hidden ones, and then started to run back toward the goal... only to find the sucker was STILL ALIVE in the Atrium and waiting for me!! AAAH! So I ended up killing him... it was HARD, too! Those Houdini guys are quick, but I think he was even quicker with that power! O_O

I definitely get the feeling that Atlas isn't quite the nice guy he's trying to come across as... I can't wait for this huge twist ending I keep hearing about! I have no idea what's going to happen! :D I definitely plan on owning this game eventually, and when I do, and I replay it, I'm going to save all the Sisters, instead of harvesting them, like I am on this play through. I wonder if the fact I saved one of them, so far, and have/will harvest all the rest, will change anything... o.o

So I'm all jumpy now, after playing this. This kind of game does that to me, I've found. Like, every sound I hear outside my room sounds like lurking Splicers. One of the neighbors across the street was banging on something earlier, and my immediate thought was "Oh shit, a Big Daddy is coming!" ... yeeeaaah... I'm gonna sleep with the light on, tonight... XD

...

This is probably the longest entry I've put up in... probably months! The closest ones I can think of would be the one about Puggy's passing, a few months back, or the terrible Christmas party a few years ago when Justin got horrendously drunk and my car got broken into... XD MY LIFE IS SO EXCITING that my longest, most thorough posts are about VIDEO GAMES! HA HA HA ha... ha... Oh.

...Is AWESOME! :D

Yep! So I just went on a +fav'ing spree on deviantART, after searching for Bioshock fan art. Soooo much awesome stuff on there. And I am LOVING THIS DAMN GAME!! Now that its not, you know, scaring the LIFE out of me...!! O_O

...Ok, so it still scares the life outta me... XD But I've managed to get pretty far with it! I'm all the way up to Arcadia now. Coool. Haven't done anything there yet though. And I've yet to learn all the ins and outs of the game. Like, I'm not sure if once you've filled all your various slots, if that stuff is just automatically active, or what? And, I did pretty much the whole first segment BACKWARDS. o_O I got to the part where that one dude blasts the door out and you have to use Telekinesis to get through it, and I didn't have that plasmid yet. So I had to wander all back through the whole thing, down that long corridor tube thingy (where I could HEAR Little Sister and Big Daddy banging around, through the door, and it CREEPED ME OUT SO BAD...!!) and back down to Dandy Dental... I searched forever and couldn't find the damn Telekinesis plasmid. So I turned the game off. When I turned it back on again for a re-try, it put me back in some other section of that area, and it was like, right in front of me! O_O Is it supposed to do that?? Or is it like, adaptive difficulty taking over, and the game just figured I was too dumb to figure it out so it gave me a freebie? XD

Definitely could've done without the wander through the crematorium thing. I didn't get the power up there, because I didn't know you could get one by pushing the body into the furnace, until I looked it up afterward (which is when I discovered I'd done the whole bloody thing backward!) ...Glad I didn't, though. Bryant told me there was something in this area I'd be really freaked out by, but I didnt' find anything, so I figured he meant the run-in with Steinman. Which was pretty gory, gross, and horrifying, but I got through it without being *too* scared... Turns out Bryant was talking about some part in the funeral home area, where the lights go out and a body appears that wasn't there before, and attacks you? Hmm... think I'm glad to have missed that... o_O

Aw, poor Atlas's family in the submarine!! :( Oh, and I could've SCREAMED when I learned I'd have to take PICTURES of the damn Splicers before killing them!! O_O That is EXACTLY why I don't like playing Dead Rising, thus far! But thank God the camera in Bioshock handles easier than the one in Dead Rising... in that one, I kept getting convused which trigger button did which, so I'd get all aimed for a headshot, and instead of killing the zombie, it'd be all like "say cheeeeese!!" ... AAAH!!! Frustrating!!

But yeah! Awesome awesome game so far. :D And, my fear began to melt away once I finally confronted a Little Sister and made the choice between saving and harvesting her. I harvested, of course. lol. I was like, "DIE BITCH!" ... haha... My next fear obstacle to overcome was Big Daddy, but I took him down a LOT easier than I'd expected I'd be able to. Yay! Then I used my handy dandy Telekinesis and tossed him across the room... haha! DRUNK ON THE POWAH!!! MUAAAHAHAHAHA!!! ... o.o

Aaaaannnd... that's enough of my rambling. ^_^ Suffice it to say I'm a Bioshock fan now. :D

I don't really have a lot to say right now, so here's a phone-pic of a Scrabble game between Ray, Mom and I, a few nights ago:


Ray hardly ever plays. This was the first in quite a while, for her. When Mom and I play alone, we use 14 tiles to make the game go quicker. I kept getting crappy, crappy letters, the whole game. Which is how anus landed on the board... XD

A fox for reiko_sazanami:



*phew!* Took a long time! The Cockatiel, when I painted her, really needed something else. This one, I don't know... I got it this far and just really really liked it, and couldn't think of anything else listed in Reiko's interests, to add to it... Reiko! I hope you like it anyway!! ^_^

This is really good practice. I've already learned a lot about digital painting and tablet handling and stuff. Nifty skippy!

DUDE!! LOOKIT THE ART of my OCs, Cyrrix and Gavalyn Lirai, the Zhendon demons, that Blinddragon over on deviantART just did for me!!! O_O Does that not BLOW YOUR MIND?? Wow. Just... WOW. He took a long time to get his end of our trade done, but man, when it comes out THAT AMAZING, I mind even less than I already did! O_O

I haven't been this excited about receiving a piece of artwork since the commish I got from this same guy's GF, my buddy feral_grinn! AMAZING ART COMES IN PAIRS!!!!! Fer real, guys!!

EEEEEEE!!!!! LOOKIT 'EM! THEY'RE PERFECT!!! I know I don't draw them that often, but I still love them so so much. ^.^ Like my ink & paint kiiiiiids... ^.^

YAY!

Sasha Obama got to TOUR HOGWARTS!!! ...and the whole HP set, for her 8th birthday. And had a birthday party INSIDE THE GREAT HALL!! O_O And got to meet Daniel Radcliffe AND JK Rowling!! Color me jealoussss!!!! **seethe!** Aw man... To be 8 years old. And the President's DAUGHTER!

...Wah! lol!

Huh. Last time my tablet had been acting up, I looked up stuff online and found someone's comment about doing a "hard reset," i.e. pushing all buttons on the tablet at the same time and holding them down for a few seconds. So after leaving it plugged in all night to recharge, I tried that. Lo and behold!! ^_^ Yayyy its alive again! :)

So that's awesome. Yay. :)

Now for the not-so-yay... Took Dreama back to the vet yesterday to get her blood checked again and see if she's doing any better with this liver infection thing. Vet called today... he's a different vet from our normal one, and had a really thick accent. So I want to call Dr. Mingle tomorrow to confirm all this, but... He said Dreama's white blood cell count, at the first red flag, was up to 2000 something. Which is really bad, apparently. At next count, she was at 1300. Which was good. But now she's at 1400. And now they're talking about doing ultrasounds, and saying she's got cushings disease?? But I looked it up online, and she doesn't have ANY of the symptoms they're describing for that!! o_O

So once again, I find myself in the position of trying-not-to-freak-out... I'll call Dr. Mingle tomorrow to get further details and find out what exactly the next plan of action is going to be...

Meanwhile, I came across some articles about the ingredients in commercial dog food. Such as the stuff we feed Dreama. And... I'm desperately hoping its not true, because the laundry list of unsavory shit they put in it is turning my stomach. Diseased flesh, aborted fetuses (from cows), tumors, etc. that couldn't be processed into food fit for human consumption. And, even worse... euthanized dogs and cats?? And roadkill?? One website even said they don't even remove flea collars and such, from... ugh. I can't think about this anymore...

Suffice it to say I'm open to and looking for ideas on better stuff to feed Dreama. And, more than ever, seriously weighing the option of becoming vegetarian, myself... -__-;;

*sigh* Dreama, please be OK!! :( :(

So uh... I know I said I was going to "doodle," but, thing is, I've been wanting to try digital painting. So! I did that, on top of the doodle... heh.

I'm really proud of how this came out - A bird/Nintendo pic for feral_grinn!



And now, my EFFING tablet is DEAD!! -__-;; I worked on this yesterday and today, about 2 or so hours at a time. Finished it tonight, left the computer for a few hours, came back, and the damn tablet won't even turn on. -__-;; The bluetooth/EDR dongle thing is lighting up like its looking for the tablet, and the light on the tablet turns on to indicate when I've plugged it in (the adapter, I mean)... but the power light won't come on at all. -__-;; Anybody know what's going on, here? I'm going to leave it plugged in over night and see if it re-juices itself. I HOPE IT DOES!!! ... *facepalm*

Meanwhile though... LOOKIT MAH BIRDY!!! :D Really happy with it. :)

Ok, cool. Comin' up. ^_^

Hello out there in LJ-land... A special request for any of my fellow geeks/nerds/dorks... Any of ya have any good pics of either Soundwave, Shockwave, or Megatron? Preferably the first one... Animated, Michael Bay movie stills, ANYTHING. I need them for references for... something that will be pretty epic, if I can pull it off. What I really need is close-up pics of the face/head/helmet. I much prefer pics of Soundwave, from what I've seen so far I think he'll best suit my ideals, but am open to pics of Shockwave and/or Megatron as well.

THANKYOUUU~!

( Behind the cut: 21 photos of Dreama, babysitting Aaron yesterday, Peasants Feast party last weekend, and mooooooore! )

Yayyyy for PICS! :D

Today was fun. :) We took care of Adrian's son, Aaron, for the 3rd day this week. He came over Monday, and I was apprehensive as hell because last time I saw him, he was afraid of me. (This is the kid who was also afraid of the Spongebob cake I made him, even though I wasn't even there to give it to him... haha... he was 2 or 3 then, though...) Anyway - he's 5 now, but I was still thinking holy terror little demon child, going to tear the house apart and/or spend all his time screaming in bloody fear of me, as most children do...

But! This was not to be! Monday was a bit weird at first, but before too long, I was blowing bubbles with Aaron and Ray on the back porch, everybody giggling and having fun. Yesterday was cool; we all colored in coloring books together, and ate PB&J for lunch! (Its good to be 5... XD) We also played the Disney Magic racing game on PS2, a game which is much like MarioKart or any other kart racing game, except in this one, you can turn your opponent into a frog, or get him caught in a spinning tea cup. Well, apparently Aaron doesn't know a tea cup when he sees one, and instead kept calling it "sippy cup," and also had great, great fun turning me into a frog throughout the game!

Hence, we now know each other as "Captain Sippycup," and "Fwoggie!" (Which is of course "Froggie" in thoroughly, completely cute 5-year-old-Aaron speak! XD)

Back to today - We picked up Aaron at about 11am, and then spent the day doing all sorts of free fun stuff in and around the Disney area! First stop, Animal Kingdom lodge, where Aaron was thrilled to see Zebras, Giraffes, Bongo Antelopes and various other cattle-like creatures (all of which Aaron promptly and excitedly dubbed "reindeer!") A friendly hostess at the lodge told us that if we ventured over to the new Kidani lodge area, we would probably see lots more animals because the grass was newer over there, and they preferred this fresher vegetation. She was right! We got really close to a truly magnificent Giraffe, and thus my heart fell out of my pants leg. ^.^ We also saw more Zebras, "Reindeer," and even some Ostriches, which is a word that is really hard to say for this particular 5 year old. ^_^

Somewhere in this area, it was realized that my sister was without a proper nickname, and so Aaron quickly dubbed her "Berry." I uh... have no idea where that came from... XD

From the AK lodge, Berry, Captain Sippycup and I traveled over to the 192 area to see about getting some lunch. We stopped and ate at McDonalds, and Aaron had a great time playing in the play place, up until the weather got too scary. Then we spent some time taking cover inside and the 3 of us played with his happy meal toy. Again, its GOOD to be five! XD

Next stop - Contemporary resort, and a series of fun rides on the monorail! Berry, Captain Sippycup, and myself all got to ride in the front car, too. :D We took the long long ride all the way out to Epcot center and back. When we got off, the monorail "driver" gave Aaron an official Disney Monorail Co-Pilot card, thus rendering him completely beside himself with joy! ...once I read it to him and explained what the heck it was... XD I told him it was his license for helping the nice lady drive the train. OH MY GOD, he went nuts! XD

We took the monorail around all its other possible routes, after that. Twice, actually, because Ray and I were dumb and forgot to get us off at the right stop to switch trains and go back. Haha oops. So when we did finally make it back to the Contemporary, we spent some time wandering around the shops and the arcade, and even took Captain Sippycup out onto the observatory roof, where he got to see a monorail go right over his head, and was again very excited. ^_^ He also determined that Cinderella's castle is Berry's house, he himself lives in Space Mountain, and Froggie lives somewhere in the woods nearby. XD Lucky me!

We bought Aaron a Mickey Mouse pez dispenser, and took him back to meet up with his dad at the end of the day. It was a lot of fun. ^_^ If all kids were as well behaved, smart, and polite as Captain Sippycup, here, I would have no problem with 'em. ^_^

Oh one more funny - While we were coloring on Thursday, Aaron suddenly started taking an interest in mixing colors by coloring one on top of the other. So I showed him some color blending on the back of one of his coloring sheets. He decided my little color blob looked like an island, so I drew a palm tree on it for him. Next thing I know, he's drawing out a complete "map" to show me that this island is our house, and way way way over there spiraling almost off the edge of the paper, is his house. With mommy, daddy, brother and sister standing outside. So I asked him how we could get there, and he proceeded to draw a sail boat. He then added 3 stick figures, and happily said to me, "Look! You're on a boat!"

...Thus, I had a moment of completely unbeknown to him sheer joy and trying not to laugh too hard out loud... XD Yes, ladies and gents, I am on a boat. And I have rudimentary 5-year-old's stick figure art to prove it!! XD LOL LOL

(YouTube link for those who may not get the reference (edited version))

Yay! :D So we came home afterward, completely worn out. We watched Bedtime Stories (predictable but cute fun) and now... time to pass out. And tomorrow? All day local rock show! With Gargamel! At... 11pm! At Firestone! ... and I uh... honestly don't know if I want to go for the entire thing. 12:30pm until midnight? Wow. o.o Well, we'll be there for part of it anyway. And will definitely see Gargamel play. ^_^

WWZ - The Battle of Yonkers - by `adonihs on deviantART

Just give up trying to find something as awesome as this image. You will fail.

...Except yeaaaaahhhh!!! :D

Really stoked about this project - Dennis came up with the thought recently that, here we are, both of us reasonably capable of artistic-ness. He's had formal schooling in the field of animation, I have not. He has yet to get any sort of work or focused usage out of his degree... So what if we posted a want-ad for other such individuals, under the premise of a non-paid opportunity to work on an animation project?

Well, we had our first meeting today - Dennis and I met at our local library. For most of the time, it was just the two of us, batting around ideas. We got sorta bored with it before long, because admittedly, we spend a LOT of time on the phone, and could've done all this discussion that way, if we'd known that nobody else was going to show up. Not much after that though, a young man by the name of Hai came along. (Turns out I had met him randomly before, at the farmers market!)

Much tossing around of ideas ensued, and we now have the sketchy preliminary details of our first animated short, which will also be sort of a trailer or "pilot episode," if you will, for an animated series if we are able to get it that far! :D We're hoping to maybe bring some other folks into the project later on - There was actually quite a good response via our initial online ad posting; we got responses from local background artists, designers, sound engineers, and voice actors! Unfortunately, these folks were unable to join us at the first meeting, but these things can start slow, so no worries!

The idea, the premise of our show? Well - I feel its best to mostly keep it under wraps for now, but I can say that it involves a family of zombies living in suburbia! We were all full of some pretty exciting and creative ideas, and I can't wait to meet up with the group again to get this show on the road! :D

Wish us luck!!! My first gig as a character designer... Wheeee!!! :D

And thus, my previous Emo is tickled...

Cat Cam! For those who wonder what exactly their cat gets up to when he/she wanders off! - Pretty awesome, really! The video is kinda boring, but the photos of Mr. Lee's various journeys are pretty neat. :)

Cake Wrecks! When "professional" cakes go horribly wrong! Some of these really take me back to my days of working in Publix bakery... Be sure to skip back a page in the blog to see the "Falker Satherhood" cake. Its like a word journey!

Guy Robot: Robot figures made of various junk stuff! I love robots. I love hoarding all sorts of random shiny objects and broken electronic/industrial bits and bobs that should actually have gone straight to the trash/recycle bin. I love gluing old stuff together to make new stuff. Thus, this image archive of awesome little Junk-Bots thoroughly amuses me! :D

Annnnnnd... that's my link share for the day. Things are quiet around the house, so I'm now going to go and attempt to get things done, while I have some time. Here goes!

...to myself. -__-;;

I'm being driven slowly insane with everybody home all the time. Its been days and days since I've managed to get anything done, due to constantly being pulled away to go help somebody else with something else. Today I woke up, thought, Ok, I'll finish cleaning up my room, then tackle some other projects. Nope. Mom was cleaning her room, and needed me to help move furniture around. And there went pretty much the whole remainder of my day.

Every single day is like this. Every. Single. Day.

And I can't even get a word in edgewise, either. Tried to talk to the fam. about ScreamFest plans, tonight. About whether I should try putting up the huge expense of getting a table and taking a shot at that. Barely got the thought of it out, and Ray randomly says something about her biology class, which leads Mom into 20 minutes of stories about milking cows on the farm she grew up on, or something. And then its all just null. Never even gets back to what I was trying to talk about in the first place.

I know I'm going to miss her rambling stories when she's gone someday, but in the meanwhile, goddamnit I would like for ONCE to bring something up about MY life, or what's going on RIGHT the fuck NOW without her relating it back to something that happened in 1960-something and completely derailing all hope of conversation!

I just want to be left alone, for once around here. I can't go into my room for FIVE MINUTES without somebody calling me into another room for something, or coming in my room to bother me. And I can't say anything, because it'll undoubtedly lead into friggin' world war around here!

And I can't leave Mom to do her shit by herself, because she's puffed her fucking lungs out on cigarettes, and gets winded just moving a damn box from one corner to the other, so she needs help with pretty much everything! And of course, Ray won't help with shit. She's too busy either sleeping or watching TV all the damn time!

And I can't. Say. A Fucking. Word. Without WAR. And I don't want war. So I keep quiet. And watch as all my time... goes flying out the damn window. And I get nothing done. Again. Day. After. Day.

/angst.

Hello LJ pals and friends! :D

I have a request, to anyone who sees this... (Though y'all have been scarce lately, and I wonder if annnnybody will see it... lol!) - Tiz almost time for the annual backyard summer shindig we throw at my house every year. Much fun to be had next weekend, yes yes yes! :D

I have a playlist of music set up to play, like last year, with my awesome bass bumpin' speaker setup, for much dancing and great joy! But... I'm finding that said playlist is in need of a little bit of updating. Some fresh material, ya know?

SO! I was wondering if anybody wanted to swing me some music? Got any mp3s that you think would be great ones to play at a backyard summer party? Upbeat is preferred, obviously, and any genre is fine because its a diverse crowd that'll be here.

My playlist is very 90's, I find. Updated tunes would be great! Or ya know... whatever!

Also - if anybody's got "The Way," by Fastball? Justin wanted that one, but I can't find it...

THANKYA GANG!!! :D And to my online friends in other states, countries, far-far aways... I WANT YOU ALL TO BE THERE FOR THIS!!!! Open invitation, seriously. ;) COME ON DOWN! :D

Is anyone in need of A LOL?


( Haha... Its photo dump time! Easter with Jen, my dog being weird, the latest chalk art day, and more! )

(Be warned: 12 pics behind the cut, mostly normal size but a few are large compositions of several pics!)

Just found this on YouTube - Video of goings-on inside the Guang Ming Buddhist temple that was built right around the corner from my house last year-ish. Pretty awesome...

When we drive by it, we can always read the sign out by the road and see what's going on that day/weekend/etc. Yesterday, we drove by and the sign read "Cloud and Water Exhibition." Do any of my fellow Avatar fans agree with me that this sounds particularly interesting? ;) I want to go see some Air and Water bending!!! ^_^

Seriously, though, it'd be interesting to know what its actually about. Or what services there are like. Maybe when Eva moves back down, she'd be interested in going one day to a service there. I'd like to check it out. :)

Ok, so I haven't updated in a full TWO WEEKS, but I just had to stop by and say...

Tonight's Grey's Anatomy: O M F G!!! O_O

...That is all.

George Romero is on the guest list for SpookyEmpireCon/ScreamFest this year! Again! :D I uh... I hope he actually makes it, this time!! :) And that he doesn't charge an arm and a leg for photos... That always lessens my opinion of the celebs I look up to... grah.

Anyway uh... Did anybody watch Ghost Hunters tonight? Particularly the asylum one and the Connecticut multi-generation home one? OMFG. DISCUSS. Because both of them fully freaked me out!! Esp. the latter... O_O

Somehow, neon pink super happy robot icon doesn't seem quite appropriate for this post anymore...

OH WAIT!!!!

Mom got Ray and I tickets for X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE midnight show tonight!!!!! AAAAHHH! I can't wait!! I haven't had an X-Men fix in... in... INNNN!!! ...a while. I LOVES ME SOME MUTANTS!!! And, as much as Wolverine has never been ya know, my *favorite* or anything, this movie looks like its going to be pretty bad ass. ^_^

ONE MORE THING before I hit the hay... at... 4am.... here. Again... -__-;; I have two new Monster Girl sketches done and waiting to become finished Monster Girls! &hearts Yayyyyy-ness! :D They look cool so far. One needs a lot more work than the other, but yeah. Oh, and the one that needs less work is actually based on a photo I took myself. Of this awesome chick I met at last year's ScreamFest/SpookywhateverCon. :) JAZZED! That's me! **boogie**

K. Laaaaater! :D

Adrian came over today and attempted to fix my computer. I don't know if what he did has helped or not... He took all my stuff off, backed it up on his external hard drive, then re-installed the OS from square one. I now have XP "professional," and all my stuff back... but honestly, its not running very much better than it was. I mean, it sort of is... At least it doesn't take all damn day to start up Firefox, or just to open a folder. But the 'net stuff isnt running much faster than it was. I guess that could have to do with the connection, though. I do want to eventually get a memory upgrade, and a high performance video card. We'll see if that's ever in the stars, financially speaking...

Most of my money has now been spent on trying to keep my dog healthy. My poor girl still has a liver infection. That is NOT the news I wanted to hear today, after taking her for her follow-up appointment yesterday. All I wanted was for Dr. Mingle to call and say everything's fine, no worries. But no. Its barely even marginally better than it was. Dreama now has to go back on daily medications, and an increased dosage at that. I'm worried. I'm worried this is going to keep getting worse and go to the point of no return. Why hasn't she beat it yet??

Meanwhile, my own infection was almost entirely cleared up, and now I've taken a step backward, too. My arms and neck healed almost entirely, but the sunburn is peeling, and that is making whats left of the rash on my arms flare up again and be extremely irritatingly itchy. My leg doesn't look any better than it did, and in fact the red blotchiness has crept up further toward my knee. Its also now one big mass of red instead of the spotty bumps it was before.

Also, Mom was putting chemicals in the pool today... she saved the clarifier for me to do, because I like piercing the pouch and shooting it across the pool like a squirt gun. (Little things, how they amuse me. ;)) However, one of the pouches I guess had been sitting in the sun too long or something, and had started to sort of ferment. It had debris floating in it, as though it'd gone moldy or something. Mom said it should still be usable, so I went ahead and tried to shoot it in, but instead it sort of gooped out and ran all over my hands and between my fingers. Now, I have developed lovely little ant bite looking bumps all over both hands, and they're extremely itchy all the time.

But hell, I got 100 points for making a nice Pluto in Beautiful Katamari tonight!

-__-;;

In other news, Ray and I were at Wal-Mart today just in time to see a dude get chased out by 2 employees and tackled to the ground for trying to steal stuff. One of the guys chasing this dude actually body slammed him to the ground RIGHT next to the space we were parked in, while we were standing there after just getting out of the car. It was sort of exciting. But then, I don't get out much these days... lol.

So, I am thoroughly GOBSMACKED to have just found this website, this LJ community, and especially, this bit of information: Doug Jones played ..."Billy Butcherson in HOCUS POCUS ... the Lead Gentleman in the Buffy episode HUSH," and ... THE SILVER SURFER?? I had *NO* idea! Man he pops up in some random places, this guy... I love him most as Abe Sapien though... lol of course. ;) I just caught a terrifying glimpse of him when I watched "Quarantine" a few days ago, too. Ray still swears it was a mutant baby in that room though, not a full grown mutant man. XD lol...

So yeah. Wasting time online in the middle of the night, and finding some neat stuff. :)

Damn you guys write a lot... I've been unable to check LJ for several days, and just tried to review everyone's happenings, and daaaayyyummm!! YOU GUYS WRITE A LOT!! XD But its good to know what is up with you all. Congrats to you on your congrat-ables, condolences where those are needed, and *HUGS* all around. :)

Been unable to check LJ because I've only been using Mom's computer and just don't want to venture here on hers. The reason I've been using hers, is because mine is a TRAITOR. Seriously. If I want to wait from 10am until about 4pm and then have about a 60/40% chance (against) of being able to even open Firefox, then yeah, I'll turn this bucket of bolts on. I don't know what the hell is wrong with it now... So, I resolved to shut it down and LEAVE it down for several days. When it starts back up, IF it lets me open the task manager and shut down a bunch of stuff, it tends to start Firefox just fine and let me do what I need to do. *IF* it lets me get that far. Which generally, it does not. -__-;;

What else what else... Well my hideous skin infection/rash thing seems to be mostly going away. My arms and neck are only somewhat bumpy and itchy. My leg, however, is still as red and rashy and itchy as ever. It worries me because its RIGHT in the area of my tattoo!! So help me God if this thing doesn't heal up in such a way that it has no effect on my gorgeous lovely beloved body art... I will... I WILL...!! Oh hell I don't know what. Be really pissed? Yeah. -__-;;

Adrian gave us his copy of Beautiful Katamari for X360, which was super awesome of him! Mom and I are attacking it with vigorous addiction, and have already gotten to the part where the task is to roll up pretty much all of planet Earth. :D FUN TIEMS!

Jess is mad at me because I canceled on her for going and setting up at the farmers market today. I say she should get used to it because I probably won't be doing it much anymore. I don't have the extra funds to go and blow it every weekend and make nothing back. I mean, yeah, I kinda let her know last minute, but I was back and forth on the issue until last night when I finally let her know. I don't have to answer to her. She is not the boss of me. So she can get over it. *nod*

Dreama goes back to the vet tomorrow, hopefully for good news!

Been feeling generally like crap the last several days. Zero motivation. Just feel generally wiped out. Totally blah. Completely incomplete. :( I don't know what the hell is wrong with me this time. Lonely. Depressed. Exanimate. Lethargic. Shitty. Can't get enough sleep, either. I went to bed early last night, and got up at about 11am today, and could've turned around and got right back into bed again.

So instead, I'm trying like hell to stay motivated today and get done the plethora of little things I've got to do, that I've just let stack up and become... a plethora. Not much so far. Got some laundry done. Got a few things ready for the mail. Checked up on the ol' LJ friends list (after having gotten this bucket of bolts computer running again)... Shall be outside to hang said laundry and get pictures of some of my new creations, in a minute here...

Guess that's about all for now. Hm.

There's like, eleventy billion and one things I have to do right now, but, I just found this and HAD to post it because it is VERY LOL-WORTHY!!



**gigglefit!**

My skiiiinnn... :(

It feels like I'm made of oatmeal!! And its spread now, too! Its all the way down my left arm, further down my back, and coming around to the front of my neck!

THIS IS WHY I NEVER GO OUT IN THE SUN!!! THIS!! THIS IS WHY!!!

**crawls back into her dark cave and hisses warily**

So... bumpy!! So... ITCHY!!

If this hasn't started to get better by morning, I'm going to find myself a doc to fix me.

Must... not... scratch!!!

So Saturday's chalking went really well! I had a ton of fun with it, and it came out beautifully if I do say so myself. Which I do. ^_^ I didn't win anything, but that's ok. It was a good time, and I did get a lot of money put in my bucket toward the "People's Choice" award, which has never happened before! It was pretty exciting. Especially when one girl came around and dropped in a $5 bill! O_O Mom said she could've sworn it was TWO fives... holy ___! haha... Pretty awesome! And all that money goes to charity, so that's awesome too. :)

I'll tell ya what's NOT awesome, though - - - Allergic reaction to SUNSCREEN! O_O About half way through the day, I finally thought it might be a good idea to put some on, what with the broiling heat and all. So Mom helped slather some on my neck and arms. Thankfully not on my face. Because I am now ALL BROKEN OUT in a RASH of little BUMPS!!! O_O I don't know really if its an allergic reaction, or just my skin freaking out because it was uh... OLD sunscreen. The stuff had been in the closet for a good number of years. Whole bottle, though, so we didn't want to waste it, and it's never occurred to any of us that sunscreen might have an expiration date. There's none printed on the bottle, anyway...

BUMPS! I'm so itchy...!! :( :( :( :( I don't think any doctor visit is necessary, though. I think if I just keep it clean and use astringent and stuff, it should be fine. Here's hoping, anyway. I've got my eye on it, and if it gets any worse looking, then to the doc to the doc we go... -__-;;

Speaking of docs, Dreama's due at Dr. Mingle's next Monday. I really wanted her to go one day this week, since her meds run out in the next few days, but Dr. M said that stretching it to the full 3 weeks from the last visit would be fine, and I trust her, so...

Barragrggghhhblibble!!! Must... not... SCRATCH!!

As for the chalk - Pics soon! ^_^

Today (well, technically tomorrow) kicks off the 15th Annual Rotaryfest! Which means... CHALK DAY FOR STEPH! WHEEEE!!!

They called for volunteers to put down a couple of logos for the event, and I volunteered. Today, I went down to Lake Eola and I chalked THIS!:



They gave me a black and white photo to work from, and I added ... COLORS!!!!!!! :D Well, they said I could have fun with it... XD

Crappy phone pic, as I was dumb and forgot my camera. I shall NOT be doing that tomorrow, when I go down there to do my actual you know, entry. ^_^ Also, its a bit blotchy because I'd just hairsprayed it.

FUN TIEMS!!! :D

I got so wrapped up in my silliness yesterday, I forgot to mention Puggy's birthday!

Yup. Old girl would've been fifteen yesterday, had she made it. We all recognized the day in our hearts, and when we went out to eat, we toasted to her with crackers. She always loved to eat crackers.

Happy Birthday, Puggy!

Aww! lol I forgot I had these... some pics taken last year on her birthday...







&hearts

hahaha...

( I needed a hanger to display stuff at the craft shows I've been doing... SO I MADED ME ONE!! )

I am *endlessly* proud of this silly thing... XD

...And I'm gonna build you up and build you up...
Gotta keep this precious thing
Gotta keep it going on and growing strong...

Not pushing the panic button. There is no need to panic. The vet said not to push the panic button, that it would be fine, and its going to be fine.

*sigh* Got Dreama's blood test results back today. I called Dr. Mingle's office for the results, and they said that she herself would be calling me back, so I knew there was something wrong. Turns out D's got a liver infection. Dr. M said its not fatal, though it could be, but its in early stages and with medication, it should clear up. She specifically said not to panic, and I'm trying not to. I'm trying really hard not to. Still, its been the only thing on my mind all day.

She's on 2 medications now, for about the next 2-3 weeks, and then goes back for another check. The thing that worries me worst is, Dr. M said this sort of infection is sometimes a sign of a tumor. And then lo and behold, while Mom was out picking up the prescriptions, I gave Dreama a belly rub and discovered another lump on her underside, under her armpit. But its not firm, its soft and kinda squishy like the one on her side and her neck that turned out to just be fatty bumps. So I will not worry. I will not worry. This is me, not worrying...

Now THAT was the weekend I was hoping for!! :D

Saturday, of course, was World Pillow Fight day!

PHOTOS ARE UP ON ORLANDO SENTINEL!! :D Ok, pic #1, you can see me toward the middle-ish with my long pink body pillow. My sister is to my left, covering her face with her green pillow! You can see us both plainly on pic #2! Pic #8, you can see my leg on the far right... Pic # 10 you can see half of me with my purse flying in the air before I set it down... lol that thing is a deadly weapon! XD Pic #11, there's a guy in the middle with a red shirt, you can see my sister over his left shoulder, wearing her white sunglasses. :)

ETA: I thought there were only those 13 photos - but there are LOTS MORE! Hahahaha way to miss the "of 100" part! Click the arrow on the end of the thumbnails. Ray and I are in a bunch of them. I feature prominently in #73! XD

According to the article, it was "over 100 people." It seemed like double that, to me! Look at that group shot! And there were more people around that didn't get in on the group pics, too! I love all the diverse pillows in the crowd... XD

Here's a ton more photos on someone's Flickr account!

AND MORE!

SO MUCH FUN!!!! Don't miss it when it comes to your home town in 2010, guys!! ITS A BLAST!!! :D

So for a while before that, and a while afterward, Ray and I hung out at Coliseum of Comics. They were having a big sale. Ray went comic crazy and bought 100 comics, because there was a deal on sets of 100. So there we were, on our hands and knees pouring over box after box of comic books... XD She didn't quite find 100 that she wanted, so I got some from a Jubilee spinoff, as well as some from a Nightcrawler spinoff, and then 2 singles from Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. I have the trade paperback anthology thing, but I like the color cover art, and besides, they left out some of the really funny shorts in the anthology, like Happy Noodle Boy's stuff. So yay! :)

Saturday night, I believe, we watched Twilight. It was... uh... well it wasn't all bad. It was just mostly bad. I find Robert Pattinson hard to look at. The kid always looks like he's sick. When he's NOT trying to portray a sparkly walking cadaver. And then when he is trying for that look, its just... difficult to watch. Plus that sparkly thing? Heh heh yeah... no. And there was NO PLOT YOU GUYS. NO PLOT AT ALL. "I know what you are!!" "Say it. Out loud." "You're a fairy princess! unicorn! snappy dresser! vampire!" "Are you scared?" "You SHOULD be!(scared for your career!)" "No." Oh okay then, well, come meet the family. Oh they'll hate me! Nah, they'll want to randomly play baseball with you! It'll be great! I can jump really high into treeeeeees!! Oh! Uh oh! Three of our rivals are approaching! Oh, but only one of them actually wants to kill you, lolz! And we don't even know why! Perhaps he's just hungry... we've long since established that you are indeed quite tasty! Ok, so we're gonna kidnap you now. Lalala! Fight fight rippy rip stab stab! Oh oopsie, almost made you into a sparkly pretty pretty like meeeee! Ok, happily ever after tiem, lolz! TEH END!... On the other hand, the baseball scene was actually pretty cool. And some of the characters were at least likable. Somewhat. Hm. Eh. Am I a fan, overall? No. Absolutely not. Do I want to read the series. Heh heh yeah... NO.

Woo... way too long even talking about that. Moving on...

So today, we took Dreama down to Lake E(b)ola for the Spring Fiesta thingy. No farmers market today... It was awesome though! I got to show Dreama off to Judy, the lady who made it possible for us to adopt her! Honestly, it was kinda like meeting a celebrity, to me. I got the chance to say thank you to her for bringing my best friend into my life. :)

We wandered around a bit, saw some neat stuff and some amazing dogs. There was an ALL WHITE (like, albino! White eyes, pink nose, even!) Great Dane. Oooh he was pretty! :) We met up with Jess, and she bopped around with us for a while, until the heat got to be way too much for all of us. I got a lemonade slushie thing, and we piled in the car and went home. Ray took a nap while me and Jess watched the first Lexx movie. As in, the sci-fi series Lexx. It was... weird. Kinda fun, though. There was this line, something like, "I am a robot that wants to live in your underpants!" ... and I died laughing. ^_^

We ate dinner, then Jess and I hung out in the craft room and did some painting. I'm getting much better with symmetrical designs, as proven by the (rather kickass, if I do say so myself, and I wish I'd gotten a pic of it!) pendant I painted for her. I promised I'd do one for her, for her birthday, which was last week. She was pleased. And she decorated two stars for me. We'll get to that later... ;) Hung out for a while and then took her home.

And here I am, going on and on and on and on and on about my weekend! BUT IT WAS GREAT, YOU GUYS!!! Just the dose of out-and-about that I really needed. And I got a little bit of sunburn too. Not enough to be uncomfortable, just enough to give me some color. :)

Plus? I think Ray just agreed to get matching Sisters tattoos with me!! :D YAY!! MORE INK FER STEPH!!! Dude, you have no idea. I am ITCHING to get my next one! ITCHING, I SAY!! O_o So yeah, she says to come up with a design and she'll be likely to go for it. YAY! :)

Plus plus? Jen called and wants me to come over this weekend and see about doing some murals for her and her sister in their new place! YAY! :)

Plus plus plus? I did another Tegaki 'splosion of arty-ness... this one was mostly just a quicky to show Jess how a tablet works, though... not all pretty and time consuming like that last one...


Plus plus plus plus? MINUS!!

lol g'nite. :)

Fwee!! World Pillow Fight Day here in O-town was SO MUCH FUN!!! There must've been about 200 some people there, fer real. I brought along my big ol' bright pink body pillow, which made for some pretty awesome action - Pillow nunchuck! Pillow guard *and* attack at the same time, using both ends! Pillow sandwich smack (quickly wrapping it around enemies from both sides at once!) And more! Hehehehehehe!!!

My only regret of the day is that YOU WEREN'T THERE!!! ;)

Pictures to ensue!! :D

Hey look! Something that could've gone wrong today, DIDN'T!! Something that could've been horrible... WASN'T! :D

Took Dreama to see Dr. Mingle today. She was overdue for some of her shots, and almost due for others. Plus, we discovered a lump on her neck a few days ago, and I wanted to get it checked out because I was worried about my baby. Turns out, thank GOD, it was only a fatty bump! :D *BEYOND* relieved about this. :) :)

Dr. Mingle did confirm that Dreama is way overweight, though. Heh heh... she's in this family, what do you expect? ;) ha... yeah. No that's bad. So we are going to try and get her back down to where she should be... about 20 or so lbs. less than where she is now... So its good that D loves her walks. She got shiny new updated jewelry for her jingly-thing today too... lol the new rabies tag, for her collar. She hears me jingle it and comes running from wherever she is because she just loves to go places. :)


Been art-block-ish lately. Lots of ideas, but everything pretty much turns to crap when I attempt to actually *do* it. Hope this lets up soon, because I really want to get down to some projects...

Did a little bit of stream-of-consciousness doodling tonight on Tegaki:

(Click for fullview) I like how it turned out. ^_^

No farmers market on Sunday, due to some spring festival thing that's going on instead. I do plan to go and walk around and check that out, anyway. And take Dreama. :) Might hang out w/Jess afterward, we shall see. And Judy's going to be there, the lady that runs the adoption thing that we got Dreama from, so it'll be cool to see her and say that this here was one of your rescued babies, thank you so much she is awesome, etc.! :) And we have donations for her too, some of Puggy's old things, and some bedding stuff.

So... I dunno. Its been kinda a crappy week, but it looks like its going to turn into a good weekend. ^_^

OH YEAH!! World Pillow Fight Day is tomorrow, too!! :D Can't wait for that, its going to be coooooool!!! Although I seem to be the only one around here interested in going. Baaahhhh stick in the mud people. LETS GO! If not, I'm totally going to steal the car and go by myself...

I uh... I just used the word "going" a LOT.

Well, got to get going... XD

Been very blue lately. Just... mentally meandering. Can't get myself to focus on much of anything... I started a painting, a really girly looking skull... sanded it all off a few days later. It was horrible.

Justin's been here the last few days. We took him home today. I love him dearly, I really do, but he always brings with him such a cloud of negativity. Every single thing you bring up to the guy, he some how twists it around to make it about sex or violence or just makes it dirty. Hard to explain... I was watching a show about Orangutans on Animal Planet, and he went on this whole tangent about how its a waste of money and time to try and take care of them, and they're just stupid animals. We drove by a belly dancing shop on the way home, and he started a rant about how belly dancers are the same thing as strippers, and they only do it for the money, and some other crap. He also says he's going to shoot his dog. I know he doesn't have a gun, but I wouldn't put it past him to get one from somewhere and actually do it. Says the dog doesn't know anything. Can't even give him a bath because he's afraid of the hose. Uh, hello? YOU made him that way. You keep him in a little fenced in area in the back of your yard, and the only time you get near him is to yell at him or hit him when you think he's done something wrong. He doesn't know anything because YOU didn't take the time to teach him! Wonderful, you rescued him from living on the street, but now look at him, is this really a better life? But what do you care, he's just a stupid animal.

I don't understand how someone who's so good-hearted, good natured and helpful to myself and my family, and so many other people... can be such a hypocrite about so many things, and so hateful and scornful of so much. He's working on a 3 wheel bike for me right now. Has it all taken apart and sanded down, and is going to get hold of some new parts it needs. He did all sorts of yard work for us while he was here the last few days. Its not that I don't thank him for it! Of course I appreciate all that he does! Just... He's *so* not the person I met 10+ years ago. :(

He says nobody will want this dog of his. I want to track down someone willing to adopt him, and get him out of there.

*sigh*

In other news... well, there's not much I guess. Been giving Mario Sunshine another go. Got pretty far in it, actually. I moved the Gamecube into my room where I can sit closer to the screen, and it seems to help with the ridiculous camera angles and poor controlling and such. At least I can see where I'm going. Just reached 50 Shines last night.

Have also been helping Mom play Donkey Kong Country, the old SNES game, on the computer. Adrian hooked me up with an emulator a long time ago, and I kinda forgot about it. I also have the original Mario, and Mom segued into DK when she got bored of that. DK is HARD! They throw so much crap at you all at the same time... argh!

This is also sort of working to a disadvantage, for me... I've been wanting to try out some digital painting ideas I've had, and also have been wanting to catch up on Dr. Who and some other stuff... but Mom's on DK all the time. lol. Will probably move the emu. to her computer...

Reading "The Tales of Beedle the Bard." Meh.

Am anxious to try out all my new displays at the farmers market on Sunday.

And...

*shrug*

Guess that's it.

Grah!! >.o

I hate Florida so much sometimes. Whyyyyy save all the rain for Sunday?? I was up til 3am last night getting all my stuff prepared for the farmers market today! Mom and I spent most of the day yesterday building display boards out of scrap stuff we had laying around (which is awesome, btw, and they look great!) And then I stayed up til 3am making everything super snazzy. AND NOW THIS!!

**shakes mighty fist of rage!**

Ok, I'm done. My hands smell great because I just washed them with Gothic Blackberry soap from Cocoa Pink. :)

This post is sponsored by this great song: "A Painting By Chagall" by The Weepies Grab it. Love it. :)

And now a random funny - I browsed into an article about how Miley Cyrus might be the next Lindsey Lohan or Britney Spears. I don't normally care about celebrity star status or gossip type crap, but once in a while I'll read a headline and have a curious. So I clicked this one, skimmed the article, said "who gives a sh.t?" and then scrolled down a bit and saw a comment before leaving the page, and LOL'd!!

"milly is really hannh montana
i am her bogest fan"

I don't know why, but that comment tickled me SO much. XD I hope someday I like something/someone so much that I can call myself a bogest fan, too. ^_^

Friends list? I am your BOGEST FAN!! :D


And now, a thing!

Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

I actually got subject lists from two people. raynala gave me 5 back in February, but I was very busy and never got around to answering hers. Then a few days ago I commented jesskat and got 5 more. So now I bring you... MEGA LIST!! ^_^

Parties: Hmm... When I turned 18, I threw a big party at my house, and ended up with just about everyone I knew there, for a total of 27 people. My house was crowded and fun and AWESOME! Since then, I've found that I really enjoy large get-togethers, or not necessarily large gatherings of people that I know. The more the merrier! And I feel that there are lots of things in life to celebrate. Like last year, raynala and Dennis and I had a fully impromptu July 3rd party. Cupcakes and movies and hanging out = awesome. :) Then there's our annual "Peasants Feast" thing in May, and I can't wait! Last year's was so much fun. :D

Cupcakes: There is no other food which is quite as aesthetically pleasing as a perfectly round cupcake with bright colored frosting and sprinkles on top. Cupcakes are art food, to me. :) Cakes in general, really. Although to be honest, I actually usually prefer my cake and cupcakes without frosting, because its just too much sugar. But I will lovingly and happily pour hours of my time into making anyone a character cake or fancy cake with layers and layers of frostingy beautifulness and awesomenitude. :D

Pool floaties: lol huh?? XD raynala, you're so silly... ;) Must've had Peasants Feast on your mind, and the big green floating pickle monster! Haha... Mom and I went to the dollar store in search of preparations for PFeast last year, and in our wanderings, found an inflatable alligator for the pool. Except, it didn't look like an alligator at all... And well, there you go. Pool floaties make pool enjoyment more enjoyable! YAY FOR FUN! XD

Amazing art: ^_^;; I could spend hours browsing deviantART and other such websites, seeing the artwork done by others who are way beyond my level of skill and talent. My mind is blown by some of the things the artistic hand can be capable of. I think raynala was referring to my own art, but I don't know if I'd say I qualify as amazing quite yet, when I see the type of artwork that's out there that I refer to as "amazing." (But thank you!! :D) Art is life, y'all. Fer real. :)

Magazine clippings: Another "huh??" lol um... I have a huge wall collage of magazine clippings and other such stuff hanging up in the craft room over here. It has been growing since I was about 16-17, and it used to be covering a wall in my bedroom. When we moved, I couldn't part with it, so I took it down and now here it is! I really want to finish up the rest of the wall, eventually. I still have a whole box full of clippings I cut out way back then, stuff that I liked and eventually want to add to the wall. I encourage anyone that wants to to create me a "patch" for it on a separate piece of paper, and I'll add it in! :)

Disney: My mom took my sister and I to Disneyworld back when we were just little kids. My Grandmother used to tape all sorts of random Disney cartoons off the TV for us kids whenever there would be a free Disney channel preview month on. So since kid-hood, Disney has always been associated with family and happy memories, in my life. And now, we live in Mickey Mouse's back yard! My sister worked in Cinderella's Castle for a few years, and through her, I got to hear some of the stories that make a lot of Disney cast members so jaded by the whole thing... so I've got a bit of that dimming down the full-on LOVE for Disney that I used to have. But not by much. I still love and enjoy all things Disney, and probably always will. :)

Art: I picked up a crayon in my tiny little hand when I was but a babe in diapers, and have never looked back! I don't know... I think in art. I live for getting to spend time on art. I love looking at art. I hope to be lucky enough to make a career for myself in art. I took some private lessons with an amazing artist who was a friend of our family back when we lived on the west coast, (age 10-12), but other than that and regular school classes, I've taught myself all that I know. I continue to seek new forms of art, and new lessons in the forms I already create in. And these days, I'm really pushing to make art work for me, and to be able to turn it into my source of income and never have to work for the "man" again... ;)

Zombies: bwaha!! XD They scare the hell out of me!! But I'll take any opportunity to "be" one, at zombie walks and whatnot. Long as its not permanent... ;) I think actually, as sad as its going to sound to any hardcore zombie genre fanatics, I began to really love zombie films when I saw Dawn of the Dead. Yes, the remake. There was a 10 minute preview aired on TV back when it came out. I was at Bryant's house, and we watched it, and it scared me like whoa, and so I decided to see the movie. Which I ended up seeing alone. Literally. I was the only one in the theater. At the time, I was working with Eva at Happy Pet, and told her about it. She wanted to see it too, so we made plans and went. (Again, we were the only two in the theater!) She told me she'd seen another "Zembie" (her imperfect English, lol!) movie a long time ago, but it was different; the Zembies took their time getting to the people, they walked instead of ran, and they took their time eating the victims and seemed to really enjoy eating them. (Her words! XD) Turned out she was talking about the original Dawn of the Dead. Which I saw soon after that when I was dating Rob who was a zombie film buff... He also showed me Shaun of the Dead and Day of the Dead... and yeah! I got hooked! I stand no chance of survival in an actual outbreak, and I know it. I love the survival guide, and (Especially!) World War Z. I can't wait for the next Zombie Walk. And I rock out to "Aim for the Head!" :D

Colors: lol... As I sit here with Mediagods open on another tab so I can color-code my subjects... XD I've loved rainbows since I was in Kindergarten and we sang a song about them. (With the colors out of order in the song, lol!) Since then, well, what can I say? I just love putting together color combinations, using colors, coordinating colors. Someone on deviantART whom I admire once commented a piece of mine and said, "You're really not afraid of color, are you?" - and since then, that's sort of been a catch phrase with me... The more color, the better! :)

Hellboy: ...is awesome. ^_^ As for the obsession, I blame abe_kroenen ... When the movie came out in 2004, believe it or not, I wasn't really into it. I saw it, I was like, "Well, that was cool. Hm." ...And that was it. Then I found abe_kroenen, began reading, began grasping the full-on awesome that Hellboy and all his comrades and related characters could be. Re-watched the movie. Caught the animated shows. LOVED. And now whenever HB comes up in conversation with anyone, I tell them he's my Big Red Hero. And I loooooove him. :D Plus, I seem to have a thing for misunderstood antiheroes. And for abe_kroenen. ;)

Talking too much: I'm good at it. ;)

nyimnyimnyimnyim... NYIM!!!!

/whatever that was

K. Um... I'm very tired. I don't know why I don't just go to bed right now, but I guess I will in a minute.

First of all, I've been saying this in person a lot lately, so let me go ahead and say it here too - I'm sorry I'm the most depressing person in the world these days!

But on a good note, the last few days have been a lot better. Having our memorial space in the back yard for Puggy has really helped me deal with her passing, I think. I still can't believe she's gone, though! I still keep thinking, "oh, I can't leave that box on the floor, Puggy pees on that rug a lot," or when we come home from being gone a while, "Ok, there's Dreama, now I know Puggy's off somewhere sleeping, where is she..." and stuff like that. Then catching myself and having that melancholy little "Oh... yeah." moment...

*sigh* But its kinda funny in a way, to think like that. So its okay.

Went out today and got some prints made, to take with me on Sunday. I'm going to try once more at the Farmers Market, and see how it goes. I've got a lot of ideas to freshen up the overall look of the table, and they may work. Here's hoping, anyway...

I also started a new skull painting, but I don't like it much. I'm gonna finish it, but its definitely not a style I'll keep going with. It was sort of an experiment. Bleh, though. :/ Some people can do that style. Like this girl, for instance. This painting was heavily inspired by her work. She does that style really well. Me? Not so much...

Lets see, what else... I have a few new songs stuck in my head these days.

"Pretty Fin," by Pati Yang. GOOD stuff. It seems to be about a mermaid bringing someone down under the waves with her. Lines like "The water is cold/And we'll be alone/But after little while/It will feel like home," and "I'll let the river know you're moving in/I'll let you tango with my pretty fin," or something like that... Very quirky, with a good beat and overall cool vibe to it. I can't find it anywhere online to download though...
"She" by Groove Coverage. The NON vocal version. Well... there's vocals, but its just "na na na," ... I don't like the actual lyrics. Can't find that one anywhere for download, either.
"Count to Ten" by Tina Dico. Good song. Great and unusual voice too - she reminds me of sort of a country version of Ani DiFranco. ^_^
L'Amour Toujours (instrumental w/guitars) which I actually just found while searching for the other more pop/dance version by Gigi DiAgostino, w/vocals. I've loved this song for quite a while, and am just now finding out how many versions there are. Like this dancey version with vocals, which would be better off without the blatting synth-trumpet or whatever that is in the beginning, but isn't too bad overall...


AAAAAAHHHH!!! I said I was tired, right?? Holy crap go to bed, stupid! -__-;;

lol ok... Goodnight. :)

My latest painting. Its about 15"x7" and done on recycled wood from an old piece of furniture...


La Sirena Muerta by ~webmyrcury on deviantART

I *so* need an art-post icon...