Everybody is somebody's weirdo

i was bored.

2008-04-24T00:40:00.001-05:00

Random Survey!

When showering, do you start the water and then get in or get in and start the water?	start the water and get in. it\'s too cold otherwise.
Do you read the labels on your shampoo bottle?	rarely
Do you moan in the shower like the people on the herbal essence commercial?	pffft, yeah right! ¬_¬
Have you ever been forced to shower with one of your siblings?	no, but we did take baths together when we were little.
Have you ever brushed your teeth in the shower?	can\'t say that i have...
Have you ever dropped your soap on your foot?	not on my foot, no.
How old do you look?	probably about 16 or 17
How old do you act?	my actual age, i hope
What's the last song you sang?	aw, i\'m gonna sound like a real nerd now, but it was an anime song (i don\'t remember the title)...
Have you recently become a member of anything?	hmmm... no.
What are your plans for the weekend?	on friday i\'m going with my mom to the symphony, but other than that, just work.
Do you kiss with your eyes opened or closed?	closed, i think. it\'s been a while.
Have you ever ridden a mechanical bull?	no
Do you ever intentionally vomit after eating?	that\'s just nasty and sad. no.
If you were working on a pirate ship, what would you most likely be?	tough call... probably some cabin-person or maybe somebody who keeps written records of some kind.
Have you ever called anyone a slut?	yes
Have you ever been called a slut?	not that i know of
Have you ever smuggled something into your country?	no, but i know people who have (there\'s a funny story behind it too).
Does playing the guitar make a girl/guy more attractive?	not in particular
Tell us YOUR answers to this survey! Click HERE!
Created by Confused_Pete, taken 13292 times. Created at Kwiz.biz - Kwizzes, Polls and Surveys!

for real?

2008-02-26T14:06:00.002-06:00

i was taking a cake order on sunday and when i asked the lady her name she says what sounded like "anime". it was pretty weird. i almost asked her if she was serious, but i stopped myself and asked her if that was one word or not instead. so she spelled it out for me: "AnnaMae". i kept thinking about how any slight in pronunciation and accenting could have been helped for a while after (like Laura and Lara, where you listen carefully for the u), but i couldn't come up with much of a difference save for a slight pause between anna and mae. but since it was one word, it makes sense there's no pause? just plain bizarre. really.

for lack of anything better to do...

2008-02-23T20:49:00.002-06:00

and the sad thing is that i've probably already used that title before. :(

anyway, just thinking how i haven't posted on my blog is forever. so here i am. there's not really anything noteworthy going on in my life right now, which is probably why i haven't been posting anything lately. i simply haven't had anything to say. i'm all moved back in with my parents, and quite comfortable to boot. unfortunately, i'm still finding myself short on funds, though i'm not entirely for sure why. i no longer have to pay for food and utilities and stuff, so where is all that money going?! the only things i can come up with are still paying off xmas stuff, which is unlikely, and gasoline. so yeah. i'm poor because gas prices suck. that sounds plausible.

i was looking up cheats for age of mythology online the other day, and i found one where you can get yourself a flying purple hippo. it leaves a rainbow in its wake and does damage by blowing red heart things (or kisses, i imagine) at you enemies. not only that, but its shadow is a heart. pretty amusing, really. the other unit you could cheat your way into was the lazer bear. it has a canadian flag tied around its neck like a cape and shoots lazers out of its eyes. oh, and it has evil monkey henchmen that are constantly at its side. the thing is damn near invincible. an equally amusing critter. you could also get this "fork boy" but he was pretty worthless and died not long after i sent him into battle. he was really slow as well, and his fork didn't even look sharp.

... and now i must end this post prematurely, as my brother needs to use the internet connection. au revoir. (i think i spelled that right...)

the world's deadliest weapon

2007-12-06T01:16:00.001-06:00

the paper shuriken

funny stories, amusement, hunger, and my blog

2007-12-01T23:58:00.000-06:00

all are closely related. i searched for "funny story", "amusing", and "hungry" in my blog and came up with quite a few matches. i initially searched for "funny story" because i wanted to read something funny that had happened in the past. (you know, whenever you start telling a funny story you say "oh yeah, funny story..." or at least i do.) then i searched for "amusing" for the same reason. then i decided i was feeling hungry (which i still am, because i have only oatmeal and toast to eat :( ) and wondered how many times i'd mentioned that i was hungry whilst posting in my blog. quite a few.

so, to follow suite: i'm hungry. unfortunately i have no funny stories to tell, or anything amusing to say. finals week is bearing down on me and i am simply not in the mood to do homework. and i'm hungry. for something sweet. (not toast and oatmeal.)

been watching bleach lately. i skipped a bunch between the introductory episodes and when ichigo and company break into the soul society to rescue rukia (say that ten times fast). i've since decided that hitsugaya is my favorite. he's just one cool kid. renji's pretty cool too. interestingly enough, the endless bleach website compared the relationship of ichigo and renji to goku and vegeta (renji being vegeta and ichigo being goku). that was rather amusing (HA! there it is! this post contains both "amusing" and "hungry" in context! damn i'm too predictable o_O ).

hmm, well, i'm going to go remedy my hunger by snacking on some toast. or maybe oatmeal. i also have nutri-grain bars too (forgot about those...) farewell! (or don't fare well, your call)

my toes are cold

2007-11-28T20:32:00.000-06:00

but what else is new? most of the time, my toes are cold and i don't even notice it. why? because, like i said, they're cold most of the time. same goes for my fingers. though it's funny when my right hand is way colder than my left because i'm only using the mouse on the computer. you know what i mean?

anyway, i digress. i had something way more interesting to say, i swear. i think of fun stuff to say all the time, but it's when i'm out somewhere or at work or driving in my car, and usually i'm alone when i think of them. thus i end up talking to myself sometimes. usually under my breath, or else people would stare at me funny or think i'm talking to them. but by the time i get home and have access to my computer and the internet, i've already forgotten anything i had to say. so many words go to waste in my brain. well... maybe not to waste.

aha! i've just remembered something to say! (well, actually i remembered a few minutes ago, but i had to finish my previous point...) when i was at barnes and nobles the other day i was strolling through the non-fiction stuff and came across a section dedicated solely to computers and the internet. one particular book caught my eye: YouTube for Dummies. ...youtube ...for dummies... honestly, how can anyone not understand youtube? i don't doubt there are people out there who can't, but i think most of them don't because they haven't tried and don't care anyway (grandparents and other elderly people most likely). but seriously. they're not kidding when they say "for dummies". there was also a book entitled Hacking MySpace. now that one was downright scary. myspace is supposedly dangerous enough as it is and they're encouraging people to hack it?! turns out it was actually tips on how to get yourself noticed on myspace for business and "networking" purposes. i think they shoulda picked a more appropriate title. still, it did catch my attention, so i suppose they did something right. i've sold a bit of my soul to the masses and made myself a myspace account, by the way. but i'm proud to say i still retain my me-ness by boycotting ...attractive... pictures of myself and continuing to post ones where i'm making some sort of strange or unusual face.

there was something else i wanted to say a few days ago. but once again it escapes me.

my cell phone won't let me text message anymore and i don't know why. :( dammit. it's not like i send that many messages even to begin with.

hmm, listening to the nutcracker suite which i purchased from itunes. very christmasy.

i'm supposed to be solidifying ideas for possible subjects for my final project in intro theatre. ...yeah, so much for that. i'll probably end up slapping something together at one am when i decide i'm too tired to stay up anymore. i do that alot. i still need to read a play script too. and horticulture homework. and stuff to read for american lit. homework sucks. it always has... and it always will.

caffeine conspiracy

2007-11-24T22:39:00.001-06:00

go to Ill Will Press and listen to foamy. now.

No bumper sticker today. Sorry.

another change in scenery

2007-09-21T01:52:00.000-05:00

hmm, so yes. this is what my blog used to look like when i first started it. here's the deal: i tried to change it to a couple different layouts made by other people, but that was proving difficult and the coding was being uncooperative. then i thought about using an old layout again, but i was being lazy and didn't feel like updating the coding (i was too tired after dealing with the uncooperative coding...). thus, i used a template provided by blogger. it was a lot quicker, despite the fact i still had to re-enter all my links. actually, that ended up being all copy-paste, so it wasn't so bad.

i came to a realization today while sitting outside horticulture lab (which i still keep wanting to call herbology... me and my harry potter fixation...) waiting to take the practical quiz we had today (that i didn't know about because i skipped las week) and fretting over how i was going to totally fail (because i didn't know any of the material because, once again, i skipped last week). it's worse sitting (or standing or whatever) there in the classroom not knowing any of the answers or knowing you're not going to know any of the answers beforehand than it is actually receiving the paper back with the failing grade written on it. at least i think so anyway. i suppose it would be different if you think you did well and get your paper back saying you failed, but usually that's not the case with me. in retrospect, the quiz wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. there were a handful of questions that i knew the answers to from listening in lecture (sometimes i listen, sometimes i doodle in my notebook, and today i fell asleep during a video). there was also something else i came to realize today, but i completely forgot what it was.

yeah, so i've been utterly rotting my brain (not that i'm regretting it or not enjoying it) watching naruto on veoh. i was watching episodes on youtube, but the videos on veoh are generally better quality and aren't divided into twos and threes. there was a couple i downloaded from endless naruto, but it only let me download one episode a day (unless i paid actual money and opened a "premium" account on the video host they use). so next i really wanted to just download them all from dattebayo, but i couldn't get bittorrent to work fast enough for me (i am NOT going to wait nine days for it to work it's magic on one movie file). hmm, yeah... what was i getting at..... can't really remember...... though, i've gotta say, ten-ten is way cooler in the shippuuden series than she was in the original series. one, because she isn't wearing pink anymore (yes, i'm horribly biased against most things pink) and two, because it appears she's way better at fighting than before. though, to be fair, all you saw of her fighting abilities in the first part of the series was when she got her ass kicked by temari (who was always cool and is one of my favorites). unless she did more fighting sometime during the long string of filler episodes (which i skipped, as advised to by joe).

that's about all for now... i think i'm gonna go to sleep now, tomorrow i'm going down to plattsmouth, then coming back into bellevue with my mom to watch my brother do his thing with the male cheerleaders for the homecoming pep rally. apparently they're doing west side story, part of the brady bunch "keep on dancin'" dance, and some other stuff i can't remember. it sounds like it'll be pretty funny.

EDIT: i remembered!!! i learned today in horticulture lab that if you eat a few pounds or more (or maybe it was a pound or more) of apple seeds that you'll die from cyanide poisoning. crazy, huh?

long delayed vacation pictures

2007-08-14T13:11:00.001-05:00

well, before i get to posting some pictures from my family vacation, i'd just like to state that, apparently, there will be no house-warming(ish) party. um... sorry?

anyway, here's the pictures. we went to lake of the ozarks. click to see the full sized images.

here's me, my brother, and my dad by the bagnall dam (i think that's what it was called.)

here's me on the deck boat (a lot like a speed boat) we rented one morning.

matt on one of his water-skiing attempts:

me (top image) and matt (bottom image) tubing:

matt being weird (and me making a "uh... what are you doing?" face) at the ozark bbq restaurant:

this is a camera ham of a camel that we passed all the time on our way to town from the cabin where we were staying:

matt and dad posing for the camera in the cabin:

dad, matt, and i in the bridal cave (my mom was taking all the pictures, if you haven't figured that out yet.)

moving (again)

2007-06-21T14:07:00.000-05:00

yep, it's official! as of next friday we'll be moving into a townhouse in ralston. lindsey (a girl jessie and i work with) and jessie will have the bedrooms upstairs and i'll be taking the basement and converting it into my bedroom. it'll be a long and possibly tedious process, so i'll take pictures to post. that'll be fun. you see, i'll be makin my own ceiling and a couple of "walls" out of curtains. this should be interesting indeed. over the last week i've been at my parents' house switching bedrooms with matt, so i recently went through all my stuff there. now i just have to do it again here. luckily there's not nearly as much stuff here anyway. i kinda want to get started, but i just don't know where to start. there's that and the fact that i haven't procured any boxes from work to put anything in.

it'll certainly be nice to get away from all this construction... our... uh, beautiful view of the parking lot has become an even more gorgeous view of a torn up parking lot. my friend zack said it reminded him of a radioactive wasteland or something. we have to park over a couple lots behind durham and walk all the way around the dorm building. it's a real pain in the ass.

anyway, i think jessie wants to have a housewarming-type party after we get moved in, so be expecting phone call invitations, got it?

something new

2007-06-01T03:17:00.000-05:00

well, i felt the need to change my blog layout yet again. however, i didn't make this one; i'd just like to make that perfectly clear. why? because i'm just plain not this good. that and i still haven't managed to get a hold of photoshop 7.0 (i have the CS2 upgrade, but nothing to upgrade it from.... it was cheaper to do things this way).

not much else going on right now. still working on the audio skit; we're making pretty good progress. i'll post a link to the finished version when we're done as well as a link to the comics it corresponds to for anybody unfamiliar with it. we had to adapt the dialogue, of course, since there's a severe lack of visual aids in a radio play :P which is where i get the line "relax... i'm just wiping some pizza sauce off your lip" from. in the original comic you just see the character doing the said action.

yeah, so our cable's been turned off; the roommate who was in charge of the cox bill is officially moving out tomorrow... er, today, and we didn't bother restarting it since we'll be moving out shortly anyway.

i got a new harvest moon game recently too! it has successfully sucked out my soul and fed my semi-good/acceptable sleeping habits to hell. this is why i've had trouble getting to work on time lately (¬_¬)… well, at least the novelty is wearing off and hopefully i can get back to going to bed at a semi-decent hour and getting up before two o'clock in the afternoon. (looks like i won't be starting that tonight though...)

i cleaned out my make-shift easle corner when i was at my parents' this weekend. it was scary. at any moment i coulda run into that big, hairy spider that i saw scamper into the shadows back there a few months ago. luckily, i didn't. just a lot of dead ladybugs. and a dead beetle-thing. that was really creepy... i found lots of cool stuff i forgot i had, though. like about five or six old notebooks full of original writing and fanfiction (by me) and a couple drawings of our comic characters (from oh, so long ago) done by joe and presumably jessie as well. i found two old cougar callers, my test book for the PSAT (not even sure when i took that one... @_@ ), all the cards from my nineteenth birthday (though i pretty much have every birthday card i've ever received in a shoebox in my closet...), all the hand-outs (and notes) i received my senior year in english (i gave those to matt), all my statistics notes (also from senior year), a couple old newspaper funnies sections, my old broken portable CD player, my old portable cassette tape player, and a bunch of trash (i didn't throw any of that other stuff away... just reorganized it). it really brought back some memories!

i'd probably keep it too...

webcomic audio skit

2007-05-02T21:33:00.000-05:00

yeah, i just felt like posting this (i'm so proud of myself!): i recently auditioned for a part in a fan-made audio skit for one of the webcomics i read, El Goonish Shive, and i got a part! i play ellen dunkel, one of the eight main characters.

this is my audition (i recoreded a couple other auditions as well, for other characters, but this is the one i got) and this is the page that it corresponds to. (you'll want to look at the page whilest listenting to the audition to understand what the hell is going on.)

even more recently, each cast member has written/is writing an introduction for their character, sort of as a warm-up, get a feel for your character sort of thing. mine is here. (oh, by the way, i address the audience as "bunnies," that's because fans of el goonish shive are often referred to as "bunnies." weird, i know, but the whole comic is weird, so whatever.)

oh, this is gonna be so much fun!

fate is so cruel

2007-04-03T02:32:00.000-05:00

yeah, so i was doing a bit of name-research for a story i'm working on, and wound up doing heritage research just for the hell of it. so while perusing wikipedia, i came across a little paragraph about the genetics of lithuanians (my dad's side of the family). it said, and i quote "Lithuanians are among the tallest people in the world. The average height of males is 181.3 cm (about 6'), and that of females is 167.5 cm (about 5'6")." my initial reaction was calling the article a bastard (it's two in the morning, okay? bear with me, will you?) and saying dammit several times. after a minute of glaring at my computer screen, i remembered how my dad's two brothers (uncle john and uncle bob) was/is (respectively) +6'. My cousins Jason and Jessica also managed to fall into that nice little statistic. For the most part i take after my dad's side of the family: my eyes are lighter, my hair is lighter (in comparison to matt's and what my mom's was before she started turning grey :P ), and my facial structure generally resembles my dad. but did i get even an ounce of that height gene? no. and it wasn't bad enough that i'm the shortest on my dad's side (except maybe my grandma... but i think she's shrunk a bit since her prime), but i had to go and end up being the shortest on my mom's side as well! dammit anyway!

oh you won't believe this...

2007-03-31T01:23:00.000-05:00

yeah, so i was walking down to the mail boxes to mail my car payment and it's raining outside. before i left i specifically changed from pants to shorts so i wouldn't get my pants all wet. (and i brought an umbrella too, by the way). anywho, i notice on my way to the mail boxes that the freaking sprinklers were on! not only that, but they were watering the damn sidewalk! AND as i was about to reach the stairs, one just randomly turned on and squirted right at me! no umbrella can protect you from direct side attacks. now my shorts are all wet... dammit anyway...

"organic" food

2007-03-23T17:20:00.000-05:00

yeah, so what's the deal with "organic" food, you know? firstly, it's rather ironic that you can have "organic" and "non-organic" apples. how are apples not organic? they're fruit for christssake! you can't get much more organic than that. so while i was in the doctor's office waiting room waiting (duh) to get a vaccine-shot-thing i noticed an issue of Time magazine sitting on the table next to me. the cover was featuring an article about "organic" produce. this is where i finally found out what the hell makes "organic" produce more organic than the rest of it. it's pesticides. people are afraid that they're gonna get cancer and die if they eat produce with pesticides on it. uh, hel-lo! didn't they teach you to wash-your-food before you eat it when you were a kid? and yeah, i know that just washing off your apple isn't gonna decontaminate it, but seriously, why do they care? we've all been eating pesticides for the past at least half a century and just NOW they're afraid of getting sick from it? obviously we've been doing fine so far, seeing as we're not dead or anything. not only that but the article specifically stated that they can't even prove that pesticides will give you cancer. (yeah, sure, maybe if you downed a gallon of straight pesticide a day, but what's been sprayed on your fruit is hardly a fraction of that.)

it all reminds me of this conversation that jessie and i had with our roommate margaret about her organic something-or-other. she said she'd accidentally bought the "non-organic" stuff and we asked what the difference was (i think it may have been spaghetti sauce). she said that since there was a word listed in the ingredients that she couldn't pronounce, so it wasn't organic. jessie and i both agreed that that was no proof. after all, you've got things like sodium penthanol and hydrocholic acid in ORGANIC chemistry. you could also throw dihydrogen oxide in there too, and, hell, that's just plain water!

anyway, so these people are worried about what they'll catch if they eat food with pesticides on it, BUT have they ever stopped to wonder what they could catch from food that is grown without it? all sorts of things that pesticides kill off could grow in them like mold and rot and insect larva or whatever. i think i'd rather chance the light spray of pesticides (seeing as it hasn't killed me yet) over eating fungi.

if you ask me this is yet another case of people overreacting and getting into some paranoid craze like so many other things lately. things like "don't spank your kids" (so they'll turn into rotten little brats!), "keep children completely sanitized" (so they'll grow up with no immune system), "vaccinate kids agains chicken pox" (so they'll catch them as adults and possibly die from the more severe strain that adults always catch), and the list can go on and on. all these things that our generation and older have grown up with and we've obviously turned out just fine! seriously, all this crap does is piss me off.

let's see if this works...

2007-03-19T14:48:00.000-05:00

hmm, wondering why i haven't posted in a while? well, firstly i haven't had much to say lately, and secondly blogger continues to be a pain in the ass about letting me publish! i'll type everything up and it'll publish a blank post. grr...

yes, so in case you haven't seen my new facebook profile picture, for those of you devoid of facebook, here it is:

we had a contest at work to see who would wear the most green. despite the fact that other than the green hair, i only had on a green shirt and socks (and the bandana, as you can see), i somehow managed to be in the top four. and i must say i'm rather proud of that.

death forecaster

2007-02-22T19:32:00.000-06:00

i thought this was fairly amusing:

Anne's Death Forecast

i went back and changed it to two long-lived grandparents since i couldn't remember how old my mom's dad is and it added a whopping two years onto my life.

check your death forecast

actroids

2007-02-04T20:13:00.000-06:00

joe was showin' me this yesterday:GameTrailers.com - All Media Search

they're actual, factual robot girls...

i should feel so discriminated upon

2007-01-28T19:41:00.000-06:00

yea, so they were doing some poll at work; everybody had to fill out this sheet saying what their ethnicity was. so i scanned the list and was happy to see that the last option was titled "two or more races". unfortunately this happiness was short lived as the full line was "two or more races (not hispanic or latino)". seriously, what the hell? am i statistically impossible and not supposed to exist? lesser people would sue over crap like this. then i noticed several of the choices had the hispanic exclusion clause next to them (including white, but i've run into that one before). so i asked the girl who was manning customer service at the time (that's where we get out paychecks) what she thought. she said i should just check both hispanic and white, to hell with what the company thinks - they were the ones who asked. so once again, in revealing my ethnicity i completely contradict my identity. i am hispanic and at the same time, NOT hispanic (white). i know what it means, it's just funny to think of the irony and utter ridiculousness of the whole thing.

testing...

2007-01-24T14:48:00.001-06:00

i haven't been able to post anything on blogger successfully for weeks! (our new year's present to you, anne. -blogger) yea, thanks for nothin'... i also emailed inquiring about my problem and have yet to receive a reply. i'll probably get one now after the problem has remedied itself saying "well, we made a test post and it worked fine, and it seems you've managed to post successfully too" yes, that was so helpful....

anywho, if you haven't heard yet, i've got a new computer! and oh, it's SO cool! and to all of you who have taken my "how well do you know anne?" quiz: i made it hard on purpose and riddled it with trick questions (as i'm sure you've found out, heheh...).

jessie and i are now actively looking for people to replace us in our leases, but to no avail. we got one phone call (she left a message on jessie's phone), and jessie called her back and left a message, but she hasn't called back yet. jessie asked this girl if she was willing to wait until we find a second person to take over the other lease, but, like i said, she didn't call back. oh whatever...

:(

2006-12-23T21:45:00.000-06:00

my computer is broken. now life really IS sad. .......i'm so bored without it...

Goblins

2006-12-05T23:21:00.000-06:00

I found a new good webcomic (courtesy of Something Positive) the other day. it's based in a traditional fantasy rpg-world and contains metafiction similar to Order of the Stick, but with an interesting spin; protraying goblins, who are typically "evil" in games/comics such as this, as the protagonists. they have hilarious names too: complains of names, fumbles (who prefers to call himself senor vorpal kickass'o), dies horribly, can't think of a name cause he looks like a regular guy, piss off i hava headache, and stop the ceremony i swallowed a bug.

Goblins

Evangelion - Tank! - AMV

2006-12-02T00:19:00.000-06:00

yea, i have no life. here's another pretty funny amv. what really impressed me is the amount of editing they had to have done to make it all blend together so nicely.

Evangelion - Tank! - AMV

1985

2006-11-29T20:37:00.000-06:00

This is a really funny anime music video somebody made. Seriously, check it out, i thought it was hilarious!

1985

2006-11-26T17:18:00.000-06:00

Strider- said...
What's up with you and you're emo mode lately!? Just because life is so full of sadness doesn't mean the little enjoyments are so fruitless.

It seems to me that people are too lazy to try and enjoy themselves, or try to ease whatever sadness may be in their life. It's too easy to fall into depression and live a life full of regret and pain. Society, unfortunately, helps facilitate these emotions by mostly pointing out one's personal flaw ie. the perfect body, hair, relationship, etc. It does not really promote talking to someone or doing things to help depression except to take medication for it. In my opinion, even medication is just a band-aid on a potentially worse problem. People are not finding good outlets to help release all that stress, sadness, and anger. And no, video games aren't a outlet =P

Relationships, or lack of one, is really nothing different than anything else. It's just a debate of the road not taken. All the debate does is offer insight on what you should do better, or how you should act in a particular situation. If you end up alone at the end of your life, there usually is a reason as to why. Be it stubborness to not open up, too shy to try and ask a prospect, not having or wanting to take the time necessary, etc. It's personal desire, and maybe a lil luck.

As for music, sadly, that's pretty much all you're gonna hear on the radio these days, especially ours. It's easy to vent in music how much one's life sucks or to rant about the pain of being left by his girlfriend, or how they even want to die because they can't muster up the strength to suck it up. What makes me even more sad, is that they're getting paid to whine. 'Tis why I don't like Fall Out Boy, Simple Plan, etc. If I want to listen to someone bitch, I'll listen to my mother bitch about me cleaning my room.

In short, no more emo. Ninja's orders. That is all.

~Ninja Vanish~

sorry, i didn't mean to sound emo and i'm not really depressed either. it's more like i'm in a gloomy or dismal mood (heh, kinda sounds like i'm describing the weather). and speaking of weather, i'm sure that plays into my mood as well. it's been gloomy and downcast lately (wait, was it yesterday? i forgot :S it is today in any case) which is enough to put anyone in low spirits. i'm also tired. i worked sunday and monday, school all day on tuesday, worked on wednesday, friday, saturday, today, and will be working tomorrow. we all already know that i'm not the type of person who has endless bounds of energetic reserves to draw upon, so that brings my mood down a notch too. it also feels like my brain is in limbo or something because of it. i can't concentrate so well at the moment. @_@

as for the music, i actually haven't been listening to the radio lately. alot of instrumental stuff and certain anime soundrack songs. i've been specifically picking the ones that aren't upbeat merely because i feel like listening to slower, sad, pretty music. you know what i mean? it's not hopeless-oh-god-my-life-sucks sad, it's hmm...how sad. i hope that made sense. i've also been reading sappy fan fiction (though it's hard to find well-written stories most of the time and i'm kinda ashamed to admit it -- bad, annie! bad!)

it's true what you said about being lazy, though. i am being rather lazy lately (prolly cuz of my lack of energy...). and for the most part i'm too lazy to go out and make a real social life for myself. you're right, it is the road not taken; i choose not to put forth alot of energy in finding a boyfriend. what's making it seem sad is those damn sappy stories. when it comes right down to it, i'd rather be a little sad sometimes and content the rest of the time not being in a relationship. i believe that you can't find anything if you're actually looking for it; thus i don't go looking for a boyfriend. instead, i bide my time and wait for the right guy to show up. when he does, i'll know. i don't know how i'll know, but i know i will.... if that made any sense at all...

actually i don't ever listen to fall out boy. never really sparked my interest. as for simple plan, i haven't listened to my simple plan cd in a while because it hurts my voice to sing along when i'm driving. it's too low to sing in my girl-singing voice and too high to sing in my regular/talking-singing voice. heh.

p.s. i know video games aren't an outlet, but they're a nice distraction all the same :P

i think i posted that last post because i wanted to speculate on life and its sad aspects. not to bitch about them or whine, but ponder in a appreciative sort of way, as odd as that may sound. sometimes tragedies are the best stories.

so i'm sorry if i sounded like one of those dumb emo teens that seem to be all over the internet. that wasn't my intention. i'm just being tired, sappy (gah!), and stupid. what i really need is a day to catch up on my sleep. or better yet, christmas break. i need that.

life is so sad

2006-11-24T19:12:00.000-06:00

life is so sad, be it real or fiction. i wonder what people feel before they die, when they've gone and lived their lives without finding someone to spend it with? are they lonely? and what about people who have? are they content? or do they die full of regret for leaving someone behind? for the most part i live my life on a day to day emotional basis. i don't like to think about such things in the long run, it's just too depressing. so i'll concentrate on the next update of my favorite update, or the long-awaited release of the next book in a favorite series. for a birthday, for a tv special, anything new that will entertain me. sometimes everything seems like it's just a distraction from the inevitable sadness that accompanies all life. sorrow always feels so much more permanent and lasting than happiness, which seems so fleeting from a low perspective.

i need to stop listening to all this sad music... but it's just so pretty...

2006-11-19T18:48:00.000-06:00

yes, i'm being morbid again.

i just finished watching the day after tomorrow again (man, i just love that movie!) it got me thinking: it's really funny how the best horror movies aren't even classified as "horror" at all! anymore, "scary" movies are just dumb (well, most of them, thirteen ghosts was pretty damn good) and predictable. on the other hand, you have action movies like the day after tomorrow and armageddon and, oh what was that one called?, deep impact, i think (actually i'm not even sure if i've seen the whole thing... but all those movies where they simulate the end of the world as we know it. they're horrifying! (hmm, to let you know just how that last sentence should be read, i should tell you i was smiling as i wrote it.) every time i watch the day after tomorrow i imagine what it would be like if that actually happened. we'd be screwed, that's what. pay close attention to the line professor hall draws on the U.S. map -- nebraska is oh, so most definately and unquestionably on the north side of that line. the north half of kansas is too, for that matter. of course, we wouldn't have to worry about all our belongings to freeze instantaneously like all the stuff they had with them in new york (there's only one eye of a storm and there's only one storm over north america, it can't be in new york and nebraska both). however, everything we have would probably receive severe water damage (it'd be covered in snow and when we take it somewhere else to warm up the snow would melt all over it getting it soaked. my books would be ruined! *sob*) all i've got to say, though, is that i sure as hell hope cheney is smarter than that jackass of a vice-president in the movie.

what would you do if you knew the world was going to practically end tomorrow and there was the possibility that you may never see your friends and family again? is there something you'd want to tell someone? would you want to do something in particular? who would you want to be with you during such a storm? which of your friends and/or family members do you think would be most useful in a life or death situation like that? when you see that sort of thing in movies the general stereotype is that the shy, underdog-type guy confesses his love to that special girl. do you think you or somebody you know would do something like that? it really makes you wonder. for that matter, if you could only choose a certain number of people to save, who would you pick? (like in deep impact where there was a shelter underground that could save people, but only a limited number.)

another thing i was thinking about today was useless trivia. just how much do you know about your closest friends and family? sure, you know how they act and stuff, but do you know their favorite color? do they have only one favorite color? or do they have a favorite color, then a different favorite color when it comes to clothing? what's their favorite song? band? flower? scent? food? tv show? movie? activity? just how much do you know about a person? probably not as much as you think? even the most talkative person could be witholding a completely different side of theirself. this summer several of my friends (you know who you are) were over at my uncle's for the fourth of july. towards the end of the day when my aunt and uncle (um, one of them) were getting ready to go home and take my grandpa home, they wheeled him past where we were all standing around doing nothing in particular, and my grandpa said "bye, annie-bannanie!" which surprised joe (i think it was joe) and possibly other people but they didn't say anything. is it really so surprising to hear my grandpa call me "annie-bannanie"? (don't any of you dare get any ideas -- nobody calls me that but him. if you try addressing me as such i'll sock you one!) there's another friend of my mom's (whose name is also ann) that calls me annie-fandango (same goes for that nickname people). i guess i just don't seem like the kind of person who'd tolerate being called silly nicknames like that. (well, come to think of it, i'm not. like i said, i'd slug anybody else who'd try calling me that. i can just see it: some smartass coming up and calling me annie-bannanie, thinking they're being all cute and funny. it sickens me.) anyway, it reminds me of the first day of gym class second semester freshman year. i was in the same class as cameron, rob, and ben. so anyway, ms. nano was taking roll call and as amost every teacher asks me when they first meant me, she asked "is it anne or annie?" and my standard reply is "either". but then the trio mentioned previously starts going into a fake cough saying "anne" in the middle of it. why they hell did they care? it still baffles me.

when i was down at my family's last week having dinner (mmm, chinese) somehow we got into a conversation about dating. my mom said that you always hear about this girl that reese likes or this girl that nate likes (or this girl that any number of matt's other close friends like), but you never hear about this girl matt likes. why is that? tobacco" src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y230/nayru86/gifsandpics/spike.gif" align=left> well, matt enlightened us on that one, and i totally know where he's coming from. he said that having a girlfriend was too much hassle -- she'll want to spend all this time with you and you'll have to spend all this money to pay for dinner and movies and stuff, etc. etc. seriously, it's the same with boyfriends (minus the paying for shit, but i'l get to the equivalent of that in a minute). they'll always wabt to spend time with you and they'll always want to be touching you in some way (be it perverted or not) or they'll want to make-out alot and they'll insist on paying for everything. it drives me crazy!!!!!! i know what you're thinking; why the hell wouldn't this crazy chic want things paid for her? well i'll tell you why. it always sends me on a guilt trip. i can pay for things myself too, i do have a job. it's just not very fair to have somebody else pay for my stuff. it makes me feel terrible. it may have some deep-seated connection with my need for independance (unconsciously), but whatever. and the touching and making-out part. *sigh* there are just times when i don't want to be touched by anyone. period. i'm not always in the mood for making-out. period. one time i was standing around with my friends (back in high school) and one guy was innocently rubbing his girlfriend's shoulders. nothing sick, nothing inappropriate, but imagining myself in that situation made me slightly ill. i'm not a touchy-feely person (which should be totally obvious by now). man, i think i just have issues or something. heheh, another thing i brought up in that conversation is that i don't give out points for persistence (you guys remember tim the freezer guy from my work.... yeah). then my mom replies "you don't give out points for anything!" which made me laugh. it's so true. it's also exasperating when other girls tell me i should get out there and try dating people. apparently, they just don't get it. i can't just decide one day "okay, i want to be dating someone!" who the hell would i date? and before any smartass decides to answer that i'd like to state that there isn't anybody around that i want to date. not only would it be stupid for me to get into a relationship with someone i have no feelings for, there's also the guy's feelings to take into account. that would just be cruel. i don't lead people on (despite what some of you may think! just because i can easliy talk with guys and am not a total bitch to the world doesn't mean i like somebody. i just wish people would understand that...) and i don't intend to ever do such a insensitive act. and don't you people think i'm going soft or anything! being that mean just isn't cool.

and i don't want anything at all!!!

really weird

2006-11-15T14:34:00.000-06:00

yea, so i was in the student center food court yesterday, and guess what i heard over the intercom on mav radio? it was the teen titans theme song... wtf?

is that the high school?

2006-11-10T23:19:00.000-06:00

this evening i drove down to lincoln with my parents to see the gross volleyball team play in the finals (they won, by the way). they played at lincoln southwest high school, which we had a good deal of trouble finding. so we're driving down the road looking for a large building with a fairly big parking lot. soon enough, we see a pretty big building with a fair-sized parking lot and my dad says "is that the high school?" as we drive past the front of the building we see what's written on it. it wasn't the high school. it was the state penitentiary.

yea, so i'm searching through the listings on e-bruno and writing up my potential scheduele and i run into a problem. just how am i going to arrange this?! for the past two semesters i've been able to scheduele all my classes on just three days. unfortunately it's just not working that way this time. i pretty much have to fix my scheduele around the writing class i'll be taking (poetry again, ick), which is on a tuesday afternoon. next i need to get started on my foriegn language. unfortunately they only offer elementary spanish on a monday-wednesday-friday scheduele, and each class is about an hour and a half long. now i'm left with thursday as my only day off (which is now officially the day i'm going to have to work on). next on the list is another lit. class and a natural or social science. my advisor recommended horticulture for a natural science, saying it wasn't really heavy on math and stuff, but unfortunately (again) it's not even being offered this next semester. i've always been thinking about taking astronomy, but after reading the descriptions i'm getting skeptical. it sounds awful algebraic. this really shouldn't worry me, as i'm fairly decent at upper-level math. i just don't like it. and i haven't had to do any more math than balancing my checkbook and adding the prices of stuff i have to order from decopac and bakery crafts at work (i actually don't really have to add them all up, i just prefer to. that way i know for sure whether i'm over the $90 and $75 marks where we get free shipping from each company). needless to say that's super-easy math. i also kinda want to take intro. to theater (it sounds fun). then there's the option of taking a social science instead. actually, come to think of it, i don't have to take more than three classes next semester, since the spanish class is worth five and the poetry studio is worth four that makes up the extra three i'd need for a fourth class (we need a minimum of twelve credit hours a semester). eh, i'd rather take four, this way i'll be getting 15 credit hours but it won't feel like it (usually you'd have to take five classes to get 15 hours, you know?)

anyway, i'm starting to ramble... so i'm gonna end this post here

Tips for being safe on Halloween

2006-10-31T00:00:00.000-06:00

Don't drink any nightshade tea.

Always wear a reinforced steel neck brace when travelling in the forest alone at night.

Have spaghetti for dinner ...and don't forget the garlic bread! (And don't brush your teeth after dinner!!!)

Don't assume that's a mask they're wearing...

Don't light any black-flame candles (unless you're not a vigin, then you can knock yourself out)

Check your pumpkin juice for veritaserum.

Don't use a metal detector to find your candy.

Don't go to any death-day parties. They're not worth your time and the food's rotten (literally)

Pumpkins aren't the only scary vegetables

Avoid anybody named Jack. (Just trust me on this one...)

When trick-or-treating, avoid dentists' houses (unless you really want a toothbrush).

Be wary of all creatures of the night (wolves, werewolves, bats, vampire bats, ninja squirrels, and, most of all, were-rabbits. Be especially careful of were-rabbits).

Avoid swampy areas.

Don't mess around with Jim (or tug on Superman's cape, or spit into the wind, or pull the mask off the ol' lone ranger...)

If you start to hear foreboding music in the background, don't run away -- that always makes everything ten times worse.

Wear night-vision goggles

As an extra precaution carry one or more of these items on your person:
- wooden stake
- gun loaded with silver bullets (note the plural bullets. carrying only one around is just plain dumb).
- cross or crucifix
- maglight
- garlic (salt or powder would be preferable, as they're more practical in combat, but cloves will work well as defense mechanisms)
- sword or sharp stick (these don't need to be reloaded)
- any sort of silver charm
Keep a torch and/or pitchfork by your door, just in case.

If you find yourself in a situation where you're staring down the end of a wand, all I've got to say is that I sure hope you've got a really good insurance policy...

No matter what the TV news people say, dress yourself all in black. Sure, it decreases others' ability to see you, but that can be a good thing...

And when all else fails, you can always try calling the cops. Maybe they'll act out of character and actually believe you.

interesting...

2006-10-25T15:51:00.000-05:00

i just took a test that is supposed to determine if you're more masuline or feminine. apparently i'm 65% masculine and 35% feminine: i'm sex-role transcendent: People who are sex-role transcendent have both low masculine and low feminine qualities indicating that gender is not a category that is critical to their sense of self. In other words, sex-role transcendent people develop and maintain their sense of self through roles that are not tied to gender stereotypes. also, i'm less of a sports fan than men and women on average, in between the two averages when it comes to decision making, really low on the scale as far as leadership goes (lower than both averages), and fairly high when it comes to aggression (higher than both averages). I'm just as analytical as men are on average, and slightly more of a principled individualist than men on average, both being higher than women on average. now, those were all considered traditionally masculine traits, when it comes to traditionally feminine traits i'm really really low on the cheerful scale, slighlt less low on the gentle scale, and the least low on the compassionate scale, but still pretty damn low. i'm more understanding than men on average, but less than women (closer, however, to the men's average). on the scale to determine how timid i am, i'm higher than both averages. the last bit is trusting: i'm higher than men, but lower than women, closer to the women's average and almost exactly in the middle of the scale.

interesting...

so cool!!

2006-10-25T13:49:00.000-05:00

okay, so i'm writing this five page paper i have due this evening when i get bored and decide to slack off for a bit. since i've already checked my email and read my usual webcomics today, i decided to google myself. turns out there are alot more people out there with the last name yankus than i thought. after i did that, i decided to google my blog's name -- i never did find a link to my actual blog on the list, there were ALOT of other sites that had "everybody is somebody's weirdo" listed on them somewhere. you'd think i'd be higher up the list being that it's my blog's name and not just found in the text. whatever... anyway, after that i decided to google "animetion express" (in quotes for more accurate results) and there were alot of links. but the really cool thing is that they were all links TO MY SITE located in various directories! a few of them had a mini-screen shot of the main page of each website next to the link and sure enough, there's my splash page miniturized. now there's a good birthday present for me: my website is actually known! (because i know i didn't add my link to those directories!) oh so cool, this makes me so happy.

because friday's my only day off!

just because i felt like writing another one

2006-10-19T01:04:00.000-05:00

hmm, yes, well the entire point of this post is because i felt like writing another person of the moment. my only problem was coming up with a person! then it hit me:

previous persons: Inaba of Urusei Yatsura - Ryuunosuke Fujinami of Urusei Yatsura
Kikyo of Inuyasha - Maggie Mui of R.O.D. the TV - Shinji Ikari of Neon Genesis Evangelion
Miaka Yuki of Fushigi Yuugi - Gene Starwind of Outlaw Star - Jakotsu of Inuyasha
Sousuke Sagara of Full Metal Panic

today's person of the moment is Lars from Girl Genius. Lars is my first person of the moment who isn't an anime character (he's just a regular comic book character :P ) We first meet Lars when he finds Agatha (the comic's heroine) hiding from Zeetha (who is set on training Agatha in the Skifander warrior tradition). Both Lars and Zeetha are members of Master Payne's Circus of Adventure, which is also a traveling Heterodyne show. In the Heterodyne plays, Lars plays the part of Bill Heterodyne, who, incidentally, is Agatha's father (thought Lars didn't know that at the time). Funnily enough, Agatha is cast as her own mother, Lucrezia Mongfish, and plays opposite of Lars. This is how Lars becomes interested in Agatha initially. He really falls for her after he finds out it was she who told the Jagermonsters Maxim, Dimo, and Ognian to go and save him from the weird monsters the circus was being attacked by. I've figured Lars to be somewhere between 23- and 27-years old, as he tells Agatha that ditched his cheesmaker's apprenticeship ten years ago to join the circus. I suppose he could be older, but I just can't see it. Lars's most interesting personality trait is that he's a big fat chicken. He completely loses it at any sign of danger, yet he somehow finds it in him to confront such dangers when he believes Agatha is in trouble. It's really quite sweet. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that Agatha is going to choose her other romantic interest, Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, not only because Agatha met Gil first (rule of shoujo (or any other plot involving romance for that matter) #3, see SUCCESS!!), but also because Lars isn't listed among the main characters on the Girl Genius website, and then there's the fact that Lars isn't a spark (a mad scientist or sorts) like Agatha or Gil. Poor Lars...

on a completely different note, i'll be twenty years old in six days, four hours, and twenty-nine minutes.

in the mood for something new

2006-10-16T20:37:00.000-05:00

yea, the light blue just didn't seem appropriate for the current dark and sinister season (oh, i love halloween!). i guess making all those halloween cakes and cupcakes and using those halloween sprinkles on those caramel apples (those were fun to make ^_^) put me in the mood. and besides, i like dark colors way better any time of the year. originally i kinda wanted to put up an exclusively halloween layout, but i couldn't find a picture i liked, so i settled for somehing just plain dark. and this way i don't have to take it down when november rolls around.

this is going to prove difficult

2006-10-10T01:49:00.000-05:00

yea, so i'm reading over everyone's critiques of my story and it's really weird how varied the responses are. i'm getting completely contradicting results! ..........come to think of it.... there's got to be some people who didn't give me reviews... what the hell?!

anyway... some examples of what i'm talking about is in the paragraph where rita is reading the old obituaries. one person said they liked it, another said it was too lengthy, confusing, and unnecessary. and some of the comments they put are rather dumb. no, seriously. i'm not being judgemental because they're criticizing my work, that's what they're supposed to do. there's this one guy who pretty much said i need to get rid of all my signature comical elements (the asides... much like this one... and several lines that were ment to be funny that he edited to be serious and plain). he also said i should change the dialogue in the scene where rita's mother is telling her to clean off the dining room table. obviously, this guy hasn't been around teenagers in a while. i originally wrote:

"Okay, Ree, now, I'm going to have my boss over for dinner tonight, so I'm going to need you to help me clean up the house."
"Mhmm..."
"Rita? Did you hear me?"
"Mhmm..."
Rita's mother poked her head out from inside the kitchen where she had been working, "RITA!"
"Huh? What?"

and here's what he changed:

"...help me clean up the house."
"Hhmmm?"
"Rita? Did you hear me?"
"WHAT?"
Rita's mother poked her head out from the kitchen where she had been working, "RITA!"
"Huh? What?"

kay, now the thing is rita isn't having trouble hearing her mother (and her mother isn't having trouble hearing her either, for that matter), they both can hear each other fine. rita's just not listening. everybody else picked up on that... plus there's the fact that it's completely redundant for her to yell "what" when her next response is "huh? what?" makes no sense, don't you think?

one person told me to change the kind of juice rita's drinking in one of the ending scenes. i have her drinking juicey juice. they said to change it to a specific juice (apple, grape, whatever). she's not drinking plain ol' apple juice or grape juice, dammit, she's drinking juicey juice! i also got the comment that rita sounded too young to be seventeen. "how could she not understand death? she sounds more like she's fourteen" okay, here's my problem with that: rita is a confidant individual. she demonstrates this when she shows no regard for authority and beats up her best friend in the middle of the school hallway. fourteen-year-olds aren't so sure of themselves and who they are, you know? there's that and the fact that they're giving seventeen-year-olds too much credit. just because you're seventeen doesn't mean you've dealt with death. you could probably live till your late 20s before anyone close to you dies (that you can remember anyway). living like that would make one extremely unaware of death and the repercussions that accompany it.

i also got some comments on giving more descriptions. i don't usually describe the characters' appearances or the setting much. why? i dunno, it just doesn't seem important. if they've got a feature that's important to the story, i'll introduce it. apparently no one likes to leave things up to the imagination anymore.

no one understood what "..." meant either..........

ah well, it was nice to get all that out. i needed a good rant. these people just aren't in touch with their inner child enough... a couple people said i'd be a good young adult fiction writer. i'm not going to argue the fact, because "young adult" fiction is come of my favorite stuff. it's more interesting than all the boring shit that happens in "adult" stories. i don't give a damn about some guy who's having an affair and meets his mistress in an apartment in the city where they get naked and scrub the tile floors together. seriously, what's the point there? a friend from my fiction class described my story as allowing for some great escapism. i can relate there. i like to read to escape, and i write what i want to read. reality is just so fucking boring.

be careful what you wish for

2006-09-25T19:59:00.000-05:00

ask me about the story i just wrote for my fiction studio class! i'm really proud of the climax (heheheh...) i would post it here, but it's always a risk to post original work on the web, you know?

artemis, artemis, artemis...

2006-09-23T20:15:00.000-05:00

eoin colfer has done it again! i just finished reading the latest artemis fowl novel that just came out... last week? and just when i thought there were no more adventures to be had! in this one, artemis fowl; the lost colony artemis almost meets his match, yet at the same time in a different perspective, i'd say she really is quite the match for him. he still outsmarts her though. i'm all for girl geniuses, but you just can't beat artemis fowl. the ending is rather sad though... as sad as a happy ending could be i suppose. artemis and holly get stuck in a time warp whilest saving the fairy world (again) and aren't able to return exactly the same year they departed. so basically, looking at artemis's parents point of view, artemis just vanished off the face of the earth for three years, only to reappear completely unchanged (with the exception that he and holly swapped an eye on the journey home... long story) and unaged. the thought was just heart-wrenching :( on the plus side, now his new girly-friend is about the same age as he. (she waited for him and everything, even though they had only met in person once, and only for a few minutes.) *sigh* i haven't had that good of a read since i discovered howl's moving castle.

a peek into the future

2006-09-15T22:32:00.000-05:00

yes, yes, i was bored and let my mind wander to interesting and strange places this afternoon and here are the fruits of my labor:

it's just a little something i'd like to call "what if anne got married and had kids" or "why anne would make a horrible stay-at-home mom"

frightening thought, isn't it? there was another panel, but it didn't turn out well (i took a picture of the drawing with my camera, since i haven't got a scanner).

to know

2006-09-13T00:30:00.000-05:00

i was pondering whilest on lunch break on monday. i was thinking about people's awareness of truth or lack thereof. i was watching an episode of charmed the other day that dealt with this issue. a powerful group of beings (that leo is a part of apparently) called the avatars was turning the world into a utopia free of evil and demons (thus making the charmed ones' lives much easier). however it all came at a price. all sources of conflict or mailiciousness were removed. not killed, not destroyed, just... removed. nobody knows where they went, but here's the kick: the avatars were controlling people's minds so that they didn't know these people had been erased from existence. these people would vanish in front of their eyes and then they would shake their heads, regain composure, and say "i'm sorry about (name)" "it's ok, he/she's in a better place" then return to whatever they were doing. it reminded me alot of the giver, where one member of the utopian society was charged with harboring all the memories of all things that weren't part of their mundane everyday lives. those included war, death, and pain, which you'd think would be a good thing, but the list goes on. these memories also included color, music, and joy.

so which is better? ignorant "bliss"? or knowing the truth? according to mythology, in the beginning people lived without all horrible things, then something happened and all the pain in the world was brought forward, like in pandora's box and the story of adam and eve. it's perplexing, really; a world without pain and suffering would be wonderful, but being so ignorant is horrifying.

it's all very similar to my theory that you can't truly know happiness without knowing sorrow. there's some mathematics rule that talks about a value equaling something that isn't something else...? (can't remember it) but i DO remember how to phrase it in terms of my theory:

what is the definition of happiness? ecstacy? joy? pleasure beyond compare? you could go through thesaurus after thesaurus listing synonym after synonym for "happiness" but essentially you haven't found out anything! the best definition i could come up with for "happiness" is "being without sorrow". so what is "sorrow"? "being without happiness". in order to understand one you must understand the other. fundamentally it all adds up with perfect logic. now just apply it to real life and there's my theory. the happiest person in the world can't ever know just how happy they are without knowing of the sorrow they are without.

and all within a mere hour lunch break...

ah, yes, life is good

2006-08-23T22:51:00.000-05:00

with the exception that classes have started again...

but yea: we've got a friendly new roommate, we've hooked up cable tv, i bought a cable to connect my tv to the cable outlet, i rearranged my room (yea well, a change every so often is nice... and my tv couldn't reach the outlet the way i had it arranged before...) unfortunately now my ethernet oulet is behind my bed (as was my cable outlet before), but this is fixable: i have a super-long ethernet cord at home that i can bring here. until then, i'm stuck computing on my bed with the computer in my lap (not such a bad thing, really... i just wish i had a lap-board...)

hmmm.... yea, that's about it.... oh! and my intro bookbinding class looks so fun! the teacher showed us all the bindings we're gonna learn, and they looked SO COOL! (man, i'm such a bibliophile........)

my dog ate my homework

2006-08-16T00:07:00.000-05:00

an age-old excuse that's so incredibly obvious that no one actually uses it anymore. so... what if someone were to actually use this excuse now? would the teacher dismiss it as a really lame lie, or would they actually believe the student on the grounds that no one's stupid enough to tell that particular lie? indeed it boggles the mind...

funny story; when i was in third grade, on my birthday i believe, my dog did, in fact eat my homework. no lie. well, to be technical, he only took a bite outta my assignment notebook/agenda/thing and chewed up my birthday pencil real nice. being the moronic little nine-year-old i was, i panicked. "the teacher would never believe me!!" looking back on it, the teacher would have to have been really ignorant and stubborn NOT to believe me. after all, the evidence was clear. there were teeth marks on my assignment book and everything. she even gave me a new birthday pencil the next day. it's the bizarre little things that make life as interesting as it can be.

yea, that was back in the good ol' days when jackson was alive. ah, yes, jackson; he ate so much chocolate he became immune to the fact that it's poisonous for dogs. one time he ate 6 one-pound bars of chocolate and we had to get his stomach pumped. that was the first time. i can't remember what he ate when we had to get his stomach pumped the second time. he also ate the entire contents of my easter basket one year (because i was stupid enough to leave it on the floor), and a 14 (or was it 12? or 10?) ounce box of mint melt-aways. he also ate a rabbit. a REAL rabbit. i didn't get to see him do it, as we were on vacation at the time and my mom's friend liz (and her daughter, my friend nicole) were watching him. i believe nicole relayed the story with definate stress on the fact that she started freaking out and yelling at the dog to stop, which of course he didn't. jackson also ate nicole's piece of chocolate cake one time. apparently it scarred her for life... or for a few years at least. jackson was also known to eat cookies out of my hand as i was walking back to my little picnic table to sit and eat them. he would sit next to matt at dinner (when matt was really little, we actually had a drop-cloth that we'd put under his chair) and rather than stare up at matt, begging for scraps, jackson would stare at the ground, anticipating scraps to fall on the floor.

oh yea, and jessie, here's that escaflowne thumbnail theater that i was telling you about. now you have something new to do while at work. ;)

now they've REALLY done it...

2006-08-11T08:29:00.000-05:00

i was sleeping at my house tuesday night, and before i went to bed, i decided to catch some adult swim. i cannot BELIEVE what they were airing before inuyasha! it was pee-wee's playhouse! that's not even a cartoon!! now i've really lost faith in cartoon network. you let me down, you bastards.

on a lighter note, i finished putting up the new layout on my website. go check it out.

a tribute to internet bumper stickers ('cuz i love 'em!)

2006-08-07T22:06:00.000-05:00

just their pastries, 'cuz those are damn good!

i'm reading it, but the fact just isn't sticking with me...

that and nobody else wanted the job :P

but only when the alarm clock is set too loud.

damn that opportunity!

yep, we're all a bunch of mindless uncultured bastards... i blame the forefathers

and neither does that hideous emo cut, am i right guys?

because you never find what you're looking for!

what? it doesn't!

why do people cry like that?

2006-08-04T23:38:00.000-05:00

it's pretty damn annoying, really. whoever lives in the room next to me (436C, i think) was just absolutely bawling their eyes out. i could hear them through the wall. "*sob,sob,SOB* i don't wanna be alone!" hmm..... perhaps i'm being insensitive, but at the moment i don't give a damn. especially if they're crying over being dumped. get over it, girly, life moves on. if they're crying over someone who died.... i guess i shouldn't be so annoyed, but i just have the feeling that that isn't the case here.

i slept alot today. it was refreshing, but i still kinda have a headache. next time, less spinning rides i think. and fyi, chris, i didn't stall my car once today. so there.

my second cousin samantha is staying over my parents' house for the next few days (her grandma and grandpa (my aunt and uncle) are in sturgis, sd for the motorcycle convention), so i was talking to her this afternoon. she thinks that hot topic sells skater clothes. i was surprised, where the hell did she get that idea? i also discovered that she is infatuated with that kid from high school musical that jessie was saying her sister lynsey likes or whatever. such teeny-bopper things are not of my concern...

i got a tan yesterday, too. yay!

earlier this evening i was over my uncle's for baby jacob's 1st birthday, and when we were watching him make a mess of himself with his smash cake, my mom was recounting how matt and i ate our lil' smash cakes. i didn't know we even had them. apparently i was so concerned with getting my hands dirty, i just stuck my face in the cake and ate it that way.... i fail to see how that made any sense at all. *shrugs* i don't remember any birthdays before my third anyway. that year i had snuffelupagus and big bird on my cake, heh.

school starts two weeks from monday. it never once felt like summer vacation... :/

that sounds like a really good idea right now...

SUCCESS!!

2006-08-01T22:52:00.000-05:00

I've finally figured out how to post on blogger without having to worry about getting that rare and lucky connection or whatever! i'd like to thank Joe for this one, for informing me of the existence of blogger for word and showing me where to find it! it took me a bit, but I've finally figured out how to post images from here too! (I fixed the last post up so now it looks like it's supposed to.)

now here's something I've been wanting to post FOR FOREVER! it was supposed to be in the giant robots post, but it took me this long to find an alternative way to post it!

another thing i came up with in my spare time (in the wee hours of the morning) was a set of rules for school-girl-getting-transported-to-another-world animes. currently i can only think of three series that this really applies to (two if it only counts when they have different names), but theres one more that sometimes applies. on with the list!

the girl must always be spunky, charismatic, energetic, and wearing a schoolgirl uniform at all possible times despite the fact that wearing it makes her stick out like a sore thumb and she'd probably be alot safer and attract alot less attention if she just adopted the local look.

there will always be a romantic triangle. it's almost always the girl and two men, but occationally (like in inuyasha) the girl will have a rival over a boy.

the girl will always end up with the boy she met first. always.

the guy she picks is usually the younger of the two, scruffier, and originally acted rather like a jerk towards her.

the guy she dumps is often older, more mature, and has that long, straight-haired feminine look. he continues to love her and look out for her despite the fact that she's actively pursuing a relationship with the other guy right there in front of him. he will also most likely have some sort of noble title (such as kight, emperor, whatever. this isn't to say that the other guy isn't of noble heritage or rank, however. he just acts like he isn't)

the girl will have some mystic power that enables her to become the saviour of the world she is transported to.

the girl will travel home once (and only once, with the exception of kagome), and while she's there, life seems to be going on as if she never disappeared. while there, she'll go to school, sigh, mope, and generally pine over her chosen man. (oh yea, and there's that whole world-saving thing to do too)

the girl will complete her mission and return home empty handed. she doesn't get to stay or bring her boyfriend with her, (what a gip!) only fond memories. (i'm not sure how inuyasha ends, but with the precedent of kagome being able to return home whenever she wants, one would assume that she doesn't get stuck at home without inuyasha. that and the fact that i don't think takahashi would end a series like that. evidence says otherwise...)

man, what i wouldn't give to live in an anime...

Yeah, it's too bad this thing doesn't have directions...

aw, but i just LOVE ranma and akane!

2006-07-31T19:01:00.000-05:00

i was in the mood to play with pictures of ranma and akane together, from the figure skating episode in particular. i just love that one. next i think will be from the romeo and juliet episode. i love that one too.

today was tiring and i hate our damn weekly reviews. i can never think of what to write...

previous persons: Inaba of Urusei Yatsura - Ryuunosuke Fujinami of Urusei Yatsura
Kikyo of Inuyasha - Maggie Mui of R.O.D. the TV - Shinji Ikari of Neon Genesis Evangelion
Miaka Yuki of Fushigi Yuugi - Gene Starwind of Outlaw Star - Jakotsu of Inuyasha

man, haven't had this in a while... anywho, the person of the moment is now officially Sousuke Sagara from Full Metal Panic (which is in no way related to Fullmetal Alchemist). Sousuke Sagara is a man on a mission in every sense of the phrase. Sousuke is a sergeant at the secret anti-terrorist organization mithril and he has been assigned to guard over Kaname Chidori, a high school girl and one of the whispered who possess severly advanced technical knowledge in their subconscious. back to sousuke: he would be a pretty low key guy if not for the fact that he's completely un-used to japanese high school life (having been a mercenary since age eight and all...). that being said, sousuke causes a lot of unnecessary havoc around his and kaname's high school."I'm not a nerd, I'm a specialist!" as i just mentioned, sousuke has no idea how to act around normal people his own age, which is why his classmate shinji's dating sim called him a nerd. it was quite a humorous scene.
sousuke is all about utility. he doesn't own anything that isn't useful in some way. at one point in the first series when Sousuke forgets about an appointment he made with Kaname, he buys her a pair of earrings and a bracelet to make it up to her. but Sousuke, being Sousuke, wouldn't just buy kaname plain ol' jewelry. the earrings are actually flashbangs (and wonderfully inconspicuous, seeing as no one will look twice at a girl's earrings), and the braclet contains a tracking device, so he find Kaname if she ever gets kidnapped (which she promptly does later on in the episode, of course).
despite his social inhibitions, Sousuke has managed to attract his very own classic anime romantic triangle! both his superior officer Captain Teletha Testarossa (Tessa for short) and Kaname (thought she has issues admitting this) have developed feelings for, as his friend Kurz calls him, Sergeant Serious.
one thing i've really got to commend sousuke for is that he's not afraid to walk around in ridiculous costumes (such as a cardboard AS). hats off to our favourite serious-minded sergeant, Sousuke Sagara!
Image courtesy of JASMS 106: Full Metal Panic

the advanced cookie guard and keeper of the cakes

2006-07-30T20:38:00.000-05:00

yea, that's just something i came up with at work. i thought it'd make for a funny title. nothing eventful happened at work today to inspire a post dedicated to ranting about moronic customers. apparently a lady did complain about a cake i did, but i was at lunch, and she was just being bitchy. stephanie said the cake looked just fine, hence the bitchy lady received no discount.

another thing i've been thinking about is a list of rules. just rules in general about life. nothing that one is forced to abide by, just plain fact. so far i've come up with two: 1. there is an exception to every rule (i believe i've justified this rule in a past post) and 2. you will never find something when you're actually looking for it (another way to put that would be that you only find what you want when you're not looking for it). and that is so damn true. especially for big and important things. abstract entities even more so (i.e. you can't find happiness, love, whatever by looking for them, they just show up unannounced when you're least expecting it).

hanna's almost completely moved out now. her room is empty... it's weird... our new roommate sounds very friendly, though, so this is a plus (she called me up the other day).

p.s. the new bed is nice, but very tall...

a new bed

2006-07-24T22:43:00.000-05:00

there was a note taped to our front door when i got back from class this evening. it read:

434B

You are getting a new bed! Either a new mattress, boxspring, or both!

An "X" should be on the piece of bedding that will be replaced. Please remove personal bedding to make the swap easier.

We'll be starting Tuesday morning about 9:30 and progressing throughout the day. You do not need to be present - just strip your linen!

"you do not need to be present," funniest thing i've heard in a while. sure, i don't need to be present, but what about the fact that i'll be asleep at 9:30 on tuesday morning?! what the hell am i supposed to do about that?! "and progressing throughout the day," so there's no guarentee that if i get up and out by 9:30 that i'll actually be helping the matter. there's always the chance that i'll have gotten up for nothing. so what's a girl to do, dammit? do i get up early for potentially no reason at all, or do i sleep in and risk them showing up to switch my boxspring and mattress while i'm still sleeping on the old ones? (both had "x"s on them, i checked.) the whole situation sucks. they replaced our couch cushions the other day too, now they're all firm and........firm. you don't sink into them comfortably like you used to. hopefully my new matress won't be like that. personally, i don't know what's wrong with the one i have now. feels perfectly comfortable to me. perhaps that's why jessie felt the need to get two mattress pads when we moved in: her mattress is newer than mine (obviously, as i'm the only one getting a new bed). dammit anyway...

Sticky Site of the Moment - InternetBumperStickers.com

2006-07-23T17:31:00.000-05:00

Sticky Site of the Moment - InternetBumperStickers.com

holy crap, check it out! how lucky can you get? remember last year when my blog got picked as the sticky site of the moment? well now they've gone and picked my website as sticky site of the moment. i feel so special...

does anyone know what the hell is up with this?

2006-07-18T00:59:00.000-05:00

no matter what i do, blogger just won't let me post some stuff. i don't get it. but other things, it has no problem with. i have a theory that my crappy internet connection may be involved, but the only way to test that it try posting from the computer at home....... i just don't get it. what the hell?!

when it all comes down to it, they're just giant robots

2006-07-12T13:29:00.000-05:00

have you ever stopped to think just how many names there are for giant robots in anime? seriously, you can't have the same name in two animes! there's mobile suits, gundams, mechas, guymelefs, arm slaves (or AS's), battloids, transformers, evas, etc. etc. not only that, but just about each brand of giant robot has its own prodigy robot: wing zero, escaflowne, arbalest, unit 01, the list goes on. maybe i've just been watching too much anime with giant robots in it lately.....

blogger's being a bitch

2006-07-10T22:23:00.000-05:00

i had this awesome post all typed up and everything. what does blogger go an do? fucking error 404 page not found as soon as i try to post it. not only that, but there was no way for me to recover all that stuff i typed. it was pretty funny too. now i'm to tired to think of it all and type it all out again...

a little slow on the uptake, this post...

2006-07-06T11:24:00.001-05:00

well, as you most certainly already noticed, i changed my layout again. i know it's pretty damn obvious that it's myoga from inuyasha, but hey, it's for posterity, okay? i actually put it up the same day i posted last, but i didn't want to have three posts in one day, so i put off announcing the new layout's arrival till now. the picture was a screen shot from the first movie. eh, that movie was all right.... i liked it the least out of the three i've seen. the best part is towards the end when miroku shouts up to sango (riding kirara) to jump into his arms, and sango, in response, throws a piece of her armor at his head. (he gets the idea from kagome randomly jumping down off kirara counting on inuyasha catching her (which, of course, he does) it's funnier when you actually see it in context though...

Girl Genius 101 Online Comics!

2006-06-29T22:56:00.000-05:00

Girl Genius 101 Online Comics!

i found a new favorite web comic, hooray!

damn, this took me forever to publish...

2006-06-29T17:55:00.000-05:00

heh, this made me laugh...

You Are 4% Girly

Um... you're a guy, right? If not, you're the most boyish girl in the world.
And for you, that's probably the ultimate compliment.

How Girly Are You?

a few words

2006-06-16T18:00:00.000-05:00

jasmine, syrup, phantasmagoric, ostentatious, sox, gouge, thorough, pox, doxy, snogging, setee, juxtaposition, qualms, myriad, youths, nitwit, oddment, blubber, tweak, taint, scour, allegorical, desperation, meow, alliteration, thailand, aloha, cheese, crane, usurp, arc de triumph, que, whimsical, tsch, shame, gait, saunter, odour, nutella, hors d'oeuvres, cast, tint, lawn, maniacal, pseudonym, placebo, entourage, vehement, valkyrie, precocious, conspicious, espionage, literature, dinero, valhalla, ought, naught, crash, yeoman, myth, chimera, psi, edible, wry, sod, cyanide, coup, chicken, fib, daunt, renegade, fulfill, onomatopeia, chide, scoff, philanthropist, philanderer, caustic, callous, errand, amorous, cronk

yes, they are all real words (some, of course, should be obvious). look 'em up.

p.s. nick's a jackass

a review!

2006-06-09T16:27:00.001-05:00

just for your information, if anyone cares to know, i've finally gotten a review up on my website's review section! (i've had the section up for months without any actual reviews...) And my first anime to review is.... Outlaw Star!

and as a closing note, i've decided that instead of using the tradtional star ratings, i'm going to rate in cuccos.

The Grand List of Console Role Playing Game Cliches

2006-06-06T18:13:00.000-05:00

The Grand List of Console Role Playing Game Cliches

and it's so true too.

Anime Blood

2006-06-05T19:58:00.000-05:00

Anime Blood

This is the best explanation and description I've found for this yet.

Authorized Service Shop

2006-05-17T07:47:00.000-05:00

Authorized Service Shop

this reminds me of algebra 1 and geometry class: the ass. (associative) property and those triangle rules, SAS (side angle side), ASA (angle side angle), and the one that doesn't actually exist (we asked the teacher and everything) ASS (angle side side)...

god damn UNO bookstore!

2006-05-16T17:55:00.000-05:00

those fucking bastards, i am never buying anything from there again! hell, maybe i won't even sell my books back to them anymore, those rotten bastards. ok, here's the deal: so i ordered my textbooks online on amazon.com because it's cheaper. unfortunately, the first (and second) days of class came and went and i STILL hadn't received my second textbook in the mail. so yesterday, since i really needed the fucking textbook goddammit, i went down to the bookstore and bought it, figuring if the book ever came in, i could return it. well, this morning i get a message on my cell phone saying there's a package that i haven't picked up... i had been checking my mailbox daily for the stupid slip saying i had a package to pick up. so i go in today, and there it is. according to the record book, it had been there since BEFORE MY CLASS EVEN STARTED!!! so the first on the list of goddamned bastards to blame is the people in the UV office for not getting me my fucking slip on time. so next thing i do this afternoon is walk down to the bookstore to return the other book i had bought (for $20, as opposed to about $5 on amazon). and guess what they tell me... no, you can't return it because your class started over a week ago.... even though I BOUGHT THE GODDAMNED BOOK YESTERDAY! so here i am, out $20 and thoroughly pissed off. those fucking bastards...

some summer vacation this is...

2006-05-04T20:34:00.000-05:00

it's exam week and luckily i've only got one exam to take, but where am i on all those other days off i have? at work. graduation season sucks. and next week, the first week of "summer vacation" where will i be? at work. yes, yes, graduation season really, really sucks, but that's not all! summer classes start when else but next week as well! and to top it all off, thanks to an extremely hectic scheduele i had around easter, i'm on the verge of failing speech. i really, really hope i'm able to squeeze by and not have to take it again. the exam is tomorrow and i really should be doing the review (which i can also turn in for extra credit), yet here i am... surfing the web and typing out blog entries. i'm such a procrasinator, and no, that's not entirely why i wasn't able to finish my last speech on time the wednesday after easter. that was primarily due to burn-out and work, work, work!

i got into a new manga series recently, saiyuki. it's great, and not because of the bishounen element that stupid little fangirls love so much. perish the thought! (no, i'm serious). when i was at borders buying the first volume (along with the second and third volumes of azumanga diaoh, the ninth volume of maison ikkoku, and the first two volumes of no need for tenchi!) there were some potentially annoying fangirls looking through the graphic novel section. this is just a huge pet peeve of mine. i quote "blah-blah-not-really-listening MY inuyasha blah-blah" and "yadda-yadda-not-important-enough-to-remember my sesshomaru yadda-yadda". i jure HATE it when people do that. they're characters in a book and technically, the only people they BELONG to are their creators (in this case rumiko takahashi). it just really, really, REALLY bugs me when people refer to their favorite characters like they're dating them (not that many people even refer to their significant other as "my..." anyway). dumb little fangirls... what's worse is i probably appeared to be their age... *shudders* know what i mean?

Sound the Alarm!

2006-05-04T20:32:00.000-05:00

Sound the Alarm!

"Where viewers of the original 'School House Rock' are today..."

Cheerful Lion

2006-04-28T17:10:00.000-05:00

Cheerful Lion

i got a laugh outta this one.

Epilogue to Looking Glass

2006-04-19T00:00:00.000-05:00

now, normally i don't like poetry, but this just really appeals to me. ...trust me to like the stuff written by a 19th century guy with a fascination of drugs.

Epilogue to Looking-Glass

A BOAT beneath the sunny sky
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July --

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear
Pleased a simple tale to hear --

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise
Alice moviing under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream --
Lingering in the golden gleam --
Life what is it but a dream?

-Lewis Carroll

from the desk of a poor college student

2006-04-11T19:27:00.000-05:00

yep, i got the envelopes and payment slips for my car in the mail the other day. and DiscountAnimeDVD.com is having all these awesome sales. damn them!!! i want to spend money, but i know i shouldn't. the stuff from the courthouse came in the mail a while ago too. now i have to go down there sometime and register my car and pay for its taxes. indeed, i have become a poor college student. between food and car payments and anime, i have limited currency. oh well, it isn't that bad. it helps that i will actually make money when selling my books back this semester. (i bought them on Amazon.com for less than half thier original value, and the bookstore will buy them back for half their original value. yay cheating the system!)

my posters came in the mail friday. now my wall isn't so.... white:

in other news, aliens have invaded my brain and are telling me to destroy all humans. they're rather interesting fellows, i must admit, and are promising that they'll make all my wildest dreams come true if i comply with their demands, er, requests. unfortunately, they will only accept slaughters, and they have to be done with alkaline battery-powered softnose lasers, which i just can't seem to find anywhere.

i'm doing my last big speech on gender stereotyping, and i had to make an audience analysis survey for this one. the results were mildly interesting. the last question on the survey was "do you believe that all girls should act feminine and all boys should act masculine?" most people answered things along the lines of "no, be yourself" or "no, it'd be boring that way", but there were a few with solid "yes, that's the way it should be" replies. those are probably the kind of people who are like rob (reiter) when he said to me, rather randomly, "anne, you're such a tomboy." my reply was "yea, so?" (or maybe it was "i know, so what?"). people like that need to have more of an open mind about these things. there was another question where i asked my classmates if they considered themselves girly-girls/manly-men, average/androgenous, or girly-men/manly-girls. most people put the middle option, and a few selected the first, but i thought it was kinda funny how one (and only one) person selected the last one. there's nothing wrong with that, props to them, but i just thought it was humorous that only one person selected that answer. it was an anonymous survey, so it's not like people needed to be worried about being embarressed.

oh yea, did i mention that souha left? it was a happy, happy day when i got a text message from hanna (it was back when jessie and i were in minneapolis) stating "ding dong, the witch is gone!" rude, probably. funny, of course!

No Carbs!

2006-04-11T19:09:00.000-05:00

No Carbs!

heheh, amusing...

The Order of the Stick - by Rich Burlew

2006-04-06T22:17:00.000-05:00

The Order of the Stick - by Rich Burlew

i just found wednesday's comic to be extraordinarily funny.

HOLY SHIT!

2006-04-05T13:35:00.000-05:00

freaking EVERYBODY is on myspace! i DON'T BELIEVE IT! a couple weeks ago, matt showed me his myspace profile, which wasn't a surprise i must say. he's a social guy. anywho, i was reading eric's blog just now, and noticed all the links on the side to his various profiles. so i clicked on myspace. i scroll down and look at all his comments and i see someone who looks suspiciously like jessie's sister kristy. sure enough, it is kristy. this is also unsurprising as she, too, is a rather soical being. then i scroll down on her page and see a link to "my little sister". sure enough, it's jessie's (and kristy's) youngest sister lynsey. lynsey's still in grade school for christ's sake! this knowledge that such young kiddies were on this wacked-out craze of a website set off some sort of miniature explosion in my head. i mean, HOLY SHIT! my eyes widened slightly and everything. maybe they bugged out, but i dunno, my eyes aren't that wide to begin with. to tell you the truth, after matt showed me his profile i was tempted to sign up, just so i could make fun of his self-proclaimed atheism in his comment section thing, but with this new knowledge of freaking EVERYBODY AND THEIR KID SISTER (OR BROTHER) being on it is rather deterring. it's not like i need another profile somewhere, damn. oh, and one more thing that was surprising. kristy's profile said she was 17. eh-hem, i don't think so. she's three days younger than my brother, who just celebrated his 16th birthday two weeks ago today. i dunno about you, but people generally can't age an entire year in less than two weeks. hmm.....

in other news, i got my hair cut. it was getting pretty long (by the standard of what my hair has been in the last year and a half); now it's very short.

but yea.... it's like what my roommate hanna said: those things (myspace, facebook, etc.) are just popularity contests for most people. i mean, why else would jill, (yep, that's right, the ever-despised jill) add me as a friend?

Mud Filled Paradise

2006-04-01T18:28:00.000-06:00

Mud Filled Paradise

...

boredom reigns true

2006-03-31T13:12:00.000-06:00

You Are 22% Evil

A bit of evil lurks in your heart, but you hide it well.
In some ways, you are the most dangerous kind of evil.

How Evil Are You?

Your Scholastic Strength Is Deep Thinking

You aren't afraid to delve head first into a difficult subject, with mastery as your goal.
You are talented at adapting, motivating others, managing resources, and analyzing risk.

You should major in:

Philosophy
Music
Theology
Art
History
Foreign language

What Should You Major In?

interesting...

stormy weather

2006-03-30T18:50:00.000-06:00

yea, the downpour that started this morning was actually something that got me to jump out of bed at 7 o'clock in the morning (i was worried it might be hailing on my poor new car). then at work at about four o'clock, they announced over the intercom that there was a tornado warning in effect (or is watch the worse one...?) everybody please head to the back of the store and the associates there will tell you what to do. so after about a minute of saying "that way to the produce cooler" i found myself spending the next 15-20 minutes standing in the produce cooler with half the store (the other half was in the meat freezer. see why we chose to go to the produce side? ;) ). it was an interesting experience. before we shut ourselves in (sorta, the door was cracked, but that doesn't even matter, because the other door is just a swinging plastic door) one lady was looking for somebody who worked in the bakery, so i raised my hand up high (i was standing behind some people). she said there was a little girl who was already in the cooler who's dad was in korea and was scared and crying. to tell you the truth i don't see why the dad being in korea was relevent, but that's not the point. anyway, she asked me if i could go get her a cookie; i obliged, bringing the whole package, so the rest of the lil' kids got cookies too, if they wanted.

other than that, it's been your average boring day.

one more thing, i found this on a friends journalspace:

*TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF - The Survey*
Name:	anne
Birthday:	october 25, 1986
Birthplace:	papillion
Current Location:	omaha
Eye Color:	hazel
Hair Color:	brown
Height:	5'2"
Right Handed or Left Handed:	right
Your Heritage:	half-mexican, half-lithuanian
The Shoes You Wore Today:	my phat farms with all the colorful icing stains on them
Your Weakness:	...like i'd tell you
Your Fears:	...to cease to exist
Your Perfect Pizza:	cheese
Goal You Would Like To Achieve This Year:	um..... not sure
Your Most Overused Phrase On an instant messenger:	heh
Thoughts First Waking Up:	rrrmmm.... snooze....
Your Best Physical Feature:	my figure, i guess...
Your Bedtime:	anywhere from 11pm-2am regularly
Your Most Missed Memory:	if i'm missing it, how am i supposed to remember it?
Pepsi or Coke:	pepsi
MacDonalds or Burger King:	mcdonalds
Single or Group Dates:	um, i don't think i've had enough experience to make a decision on this one.... pass
Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea:	neither, i'm not a tea drinker
Chocolate or Vanilla:	chocolate
Cappuccino or Coffee:	neither, i'm not a coffee (or things similar to it) drinker, either
Do you Smoke:	ew, no
Do you Swear:	heheheh.... yea
Do you Sing:	sometimes
Do you Shower Daily:	every other
Have you Been in Love:	no
Do you want to go to College:	i AM going to college
Do you want to get Married:	not sure
Do you belive in yourself:	well this is an awfully deep question for a survey that just asked me if i prefer pepsi or coke...
Do you get Motion Sickness:	no... unless i'm already queasy to begin with
Do you think you are Attractive:	i don't think i'm unattractive...
Are you a Health Freak:	no... i like junk food :P
Do you get along with your Parents:	yea, i'd say so
Do you like Thunderstorms:	yes
Do you play an Instrument:	not currently, but yes
In the past month have you Drank Alcohol:	no
In the past month have you Smoked:	i already said i'm not a smoker, stupid
In the past month have you been on Drugs:	NO ALREADY WITH THE POTENTIAL ADDICTION QUESTIONS!
In the past month have you gone on a Date:	no
In the past month have you gone to a Mall:	yes
In the past month have you eaten a box of Oreos:	no, but that sounds like a good idea
In the past month have you eaten Sushi:	i've never eaten sushi
In the past month have you been on Stage:	no
In the past month have you been Dumped:	i've never been dumped
In the past month have you gone Skinny Dipping:	i don't like to be naked in public places, thanks
In the past month have you Stolen Anything:	unless you count sample cookies at work, then no
Ever been Drunk:	no
Ever been called a Tease:	me, a tease? what planet are you from?
Ever been Beaten up:	no
Ever Shoplifted:	no
How do you want to Die:	.....this is an obscure question... well, i don't want to die in some dumb accident like so many other people my age, so you can eliminate that one
What do you want to be when you Grow Up:	technically, i am grown up, but just to humor you, i'd like to be a novelist
What country would you most like to Visit:	japan
*In a Boy/Girl..*
Favourite Eye Color:	i don't have a favorite
Favourite Hair Color:	same as above
Short or Long Hair:	not actually long, but often considered long on guys, you know what i mean?
Height:	...like i care... though i'd prefer under 6 foot, just because that way i wouldn't feel so incredibly short
Weight:	athletic
Best Clothing Style:	casual
Number of Drugs I have taken:	zero (unless you count prescription meds)
Number of CDs I own:	why would i care how many cd's a guy owns?
Number of Piercings:	doesn't really matter so long as they're not in obscure or conspicuous places
Number of Tattoos:	i'm not a big fan of tattoos, but it doesn't really matter. under 3
Number of things in my Past I Regret:	seriously, why would this be relevant?
CREATE YOUR OWN! - or - GET PAID TO TAKE SURVEYS!

those obnoxious aliens

2006-03-29T02:17:00.000-06:00

hmm, yea, so i was slacking off a little bit more and came up with this new layout featuring mr. fujinami, ryuunosuke, lum, ten, mendo, ataru, kotatsu-neko, cherry, shinobu, and sakura (in that order left to right, top to bottom) from urusei yatsura (which can be translated to 'those obnoxious aliens' roughly).

car photos!!

2006-03-25T22:02:00.000-06:00

i got my car on wednesday! one of the photos is kida blurry, but that's because the night portrait mode is really sensitive.

snow day?

2006-03-19T22:09:00.000-06:00

i want it to snow, but i don't at the same time... if it snows a whole lot, they'll cancel classes (two of my classes have already been canceled, actually, via email), but then i won't be able to get my car *sob*, so at the same time i don't want it to snow. it is quite a conundrum.

also, i was reading through my past blog entries (i enjoy doing so from time to time) and noticed that i haven't had a person of the moment since last july! it seems that gene starwind has had far longer moment than the others, hmm..... anywho, i thought i'd bring that one up again.

previous persons: Inaba of Urusei Yatsura - Ryuunosuke Fujinami of Urusei Yatsura
Kikyo of Inuyasha - Maggie Mui of R.O.D. the TV - Shinji Ikari of Neon Genesis Evangelion
Miaka Yuki of Fushigi Yuugi - Gene Starwind of Outlaw Star

this moment's person is Jakotsu, member of the Shichinin-tai (Band of Seven), from Inuyasha. Jakotsu is by far the most out-going and flirtatious member of the Shichinin-tai, as well as Inuyasha's #1 fanboy. Jakotsu is of the homosexual persuasion and has a twisted little sadistic crush on Inuyasha, though he doesn't have any qualms about Miroku: "You're pretty sexy yourself there, monk." That along with some comment on how cute Inuyasha's ears are (and how he wants to cut them off ^^V) are pretty much the first things Inuyasha and his traveling companions hear out of him. (Koga, on the other hand, "just [doesn't] do it for [him]") Jakotsu reminds me of Nuriko (Fushigi Yuugi) in that he, too, prides himself in his appearance, and even when dressed as a man still manages to look alot like a woman. He also has a wonderfully care-free attitude for most all the time and a hilariously excited attitude while fighting. While he takes great pleasure in engaging other men in combat, Jakotsu has no patience with women whatsoever. As soon as Sango steps in to assist Inuyasha in their fight, Jakotsu becomes uncharacteristically angry and strikes her with his weird hinged-blade (or "snake-like") sword Jakotsuto, cutting her arm. Tied in first place as my favorite member of the Shichinin-tai (along with Bankotsu), hats off to Jakotsu!
Image courtesy of Jakotsu, the MSN Group.

spring break in minneapolis

2006-03-18T19:26:00.000-06:00

yea, sorry i haven't posted in a loooong time, but i wasn't in the mood.

first order of business, I GOT MY NEW CAR... well, sort of. it's here (i ordered it), but it's getting the paint sealant put on it. weather permitting, i'll get it on monday. ....yay!

next order of business; jessie and i spent part of our spring break in minneapolis, and i finally put my camera to good use!! we met up with joe, hung out, and went shopping at the mall of america. i'm only going to put some of the pictures here (click on them to see their full size), but you can see the rest on facebook. ...what? it's easier to upload and display alot of pictures there! html can be a pain in the ass.)

these were taken in the movie room at joe's dorm:

here's some i took at the mall:

this one's for you chris:

and here's where jessie and i stayed during our spring break in winter wonderland:

soon to come: photos of my new car!!!

i went car shopping today!!!

2006-02-04T22:06:00.000-06:00

man i haven't been car shopping like this since i was eleven-years old when we bought my mom's "new" (it sure ain't new anymore) taurus. what's even better is that I got to test drive them. oooooo, it was so much fun!!! i test drove four, but i'm only considering three.... well, two when my practical financially-minded side kicks in. it's just so hard to choose!!!!!!!

first my mom and i went up to stan olsen by the westroads and i test drove a new beetle!! oh my god that was the coolest thing ever! sad to say, though, the one i actually drove was priced over $20,000, so if i actually did buy a beetle it wouldn't have all the super-cool features this one has. nope, i'd have to go without the moon roof, heated seats, satellite radio, etcetera, etcetera. my mom was the one who really liked the heated seats though. and once i think about it, i really don't need a moon roof. the car was cool enough on it's own.

next i tried a hyundai elantra. they only come in sedan models, but are way cheaper. i'm not considering this one in the slightest. i want a sportier-lookin' car, dammit.

after that we drove down l street and visited h&h chevrolet. there i test drove a cobalt, and the sales guy was really thorough. five-star crash test rating, weird (but really nice looking) plastic engine covers that muffle the sound and keep the engine cleaner. personally, i thought the engine looked really nice all covered up, but i do suppose it helps that i'm not a teenage guy (no offense, but generally guys like engines more, you have to admit it). the cobalt had the prettiest color: laser blue. it was gorgeous! in certain sunlight it looked a little purple too. oh, so pretty... this one is the cheapest that i'm considering with a base price of $13,000. unfortunately power locks and windows don't come standard (you would think they would in this day and age...) so i'd have to pay extra to get power locks installed or get the more expensive model which was something like $15,000. this one also came with an excellent warranty; the standard factory warranty plus a 10 year or 10,000 mile warranty given by the dealer.

lastly we stopped by honda cars of bellevue (down on fort crook) and looked at a civic. this one was nice too! it had a nice blue color, but not as pretty as the one the cobalt offered. the civic was also rated five stars in the crash test thingamajig, and #1 motor trend car of the year (or something like that). this one came standard with all the stuff that i'd have to pay extra for on the cobalt, but the price was higher, so it almost evens out. it was $17,000, so it's still cheaper than the beetle, but more expensive than the cobalt. the civic had a digital speedometer, and it (along with the temperature and fuel gauges) were located just under the windshield on the dashboard, as opposed to behind the steering wheel. that was just plain awesome. (i haven't been around new cars much, can you tell?)

all of them got good gas mileage and the chevy and honda salesmen specifically said that the cobalt and civic were low maintenance cars. which is perfect for me, of course, being that i really don't think about that stuff... ever. now i have to discuss finances and stuff with my dad (i'll be paying for the car, of course, and trading in my cavalier which according to the blue book website is worth a lousy $350 trade in. what a jip!) and then we'll go back and look again, and stuff, but it's gonna be a real drag driving to work in my car tomorrow, what with the memory of driving all those new cars reminding me of just how old my cavalier is. *sigh* what a pain....

and now some actual text for a change

2006-01-29T19:25:00.000-06:00

yes, no new news on the sink wars, but hey, in this circumstance no news is good news. souha has thankfully gone out of town for what we assume is a week. (it would be nice if it were more, though.) and ever since i lost my temper and blew up at her, (and hanna 'had words' with her later that evening) she's been giving us all the silent treatment. then on thursday i found out she had left. i was telling ashley (my cousin) about this while we were at culver's on lunch break, and she suggested that we unlock her door, and just leave it open. so when she comes back, the door will just be open, to unnerve her. you see, hanna wrote a note talking about meeting with an r.a. and left it in souha's room, because she didn't think that souha would read it otherwise. souha flipped out and told us she was locking her door (she was on her way out) so we wouldn't take her stuff. hanna replied with something along the lines of "we have our own stuff" though i can't remember if she threw "bitch" in there or not. oh yea, i'd also like to mention that it is really weird to hear souha swear. it just doesn't sound like it has the right tone behind it.

anywho, on a much lighter note, later that night (um, it was tuesday) hanna and i went and rented phantom of the opera and a pint of ice cream each. it was a nice way to unwind from a stressful day.

last night i went to see chronicles of narnia; the lion the witch and the wardrobe with my mother. it was great, though i wish i would've got to read the book first. oh well, i'll read the book whenever jessie finds her copy. or something like that.

hmmm... i think that's all for now.

new layout!

2006-01-26T00:49:00.000-06:00

yea, i was in a read or die mood.

SINK WARS! (or Project Kitchen Sink III)

2006-01-24T15:55:00.000-06:00

New developments have occured that need to be documented. (Seriously, this will come in handy later on if we end up needing R.A. mediation. Hanna pointed that out to me.)

Same as usual.

Project Kitchen Sink II (part 2)

2006-01-24T12:35:00.000-06:00

Hanna has had her say.

You know the drill.

Project Kitchen Sink II

2006-01-24T00:46:00.000-06:00

We have had some new development in the sink wars. An hour or so ago Jessie got home and noticed that someone had left a note above the sink. I've taken a picture of it for your personal perusal.

(Once again, to see a larger version of the image just click on it.)

Next we have exhibit A, the kitchen sink, as of 12:00AM on 01/24/2006.

Naturally, I replied.

The sink war wages on with no end in sight.....

In lighter news, it was Jessie's birthday on sunday, and I made her a cake.

Also, it must be noted that we have made progress in the Souha's-shit-all-over-the-living-room conflict.

And that's all for today. As always, I am Anne Yankus, your special correspondant in the war against all things we mutually hate as respectable, and for the most part courteous people.

P.S. I was the one who washed the dishes that Souha mentioned in her note. Heheheh....

Project Kitchen Sink

2006-01-16T00:50:00.000-06:00

Yep, that's right, i'm following the progress (or lack thereof) of our kitchen sink via digital camera. Just so you can see exactly what we're dealing with here.

click on the images to see a larger (and more in depth) version of the photo.

Here is the sink as of saturday evening, january 14 from the same angle as the previous photo, taken only 24 hours before.

this is just taken from a higher angle, so you can see what's in the cups and bowls and stuff.

here's a close-up of the blue cup. sadly the camera was unable to capture just how nasty the crusty white shit was inside it. it looked like itty bitty shriveled up grains of rice, but i have a sneaking suspicion that it was dried up milk. eww....... and on top of all that, that's MY cup!

miraculously enough the sink is currently empty (empty, yes; clean, doubtful), as souha washed the dishes earlier this evening (when i was at church, i believe). i'm apprehensive as to how my poor cup will look even after being through the dishwasher. souha doesn't have the best reputation for scrubbing the dishes clean enough (our dishwasher is really crappy, all food particles need to be off prior to being washed in the machine).

i will keep you posted.

i got a new camera and it's so much fun!

2006-01-13T21:11:00.000-06:00

yep, that's right, brand new digital camera, all mine! so in honor of the newest addition to my stuff, i thought i'd share so photos with you of areas of interest (uh, somewhat) around our dorm room.

this is our dirty sink. isn't it yucky? all those dishes were last used by souha. (actually, to tell you the truth, this is really good as far as how bad our sink gets.)

this is our big tv, courtesy of tim, and our christmas tree, which i still haven't gotten around to putting away.

this is souha's trash. one would think that a person puts their trash in front of the door so as to remember to throw it in the dumpster on their next venture outside (the dumpster is a whole 10 yards out of the way when one walks to class), but no. those have been there for a couple days now.

this is more of souha's stuff. it used to be sitting in the spot where her empty box is in the previous picture until we moved it in front of her bedroom door when we put the christmas tree up. she moved it a whole foot west and it has been sitting there since. truth be told, i'm reluctant to take down the tree lest its space become occupied with more of souha's crap.

this is my bedroom door with all the prettyful comic strips i put up for christmas/new year's.

this is my keyboard, recently decorated with happy bunny stickers i received for christmas.

and last but not least is the dorm room branch of my manga library. i have alot more at home.

thus concludes the tour of apartment 434's oddities.

as a closing note, i'd like to give props to chris for actually going out there and having a life. seriously, way to go! it's alot more than i can say i've done for myself...

is it still considered caniballism if all they're eating is ash and bone?

2006-01-12T23:01:00.000-06:00

we watched a video about it wednesday in sociology. amazonian tribe (no, not the mythological women, people who live near the amazon river) who cremates their dead then mixes the bones and ash into a banana soup and eats it.

school is going pretty ok so far. i have tuesdays and thursdays completely off, and monday is a holiday so three-day weekend! yay! mondays are my longest days. i have short story at 10, speech at 11, sociology at noon, and fundamentals of poetry from 1 till 3:30. last time he let us out an hour early, though, thank god. wednesdays and fridays are easier. they're the same as mondays minus the poetry class. and no, i'm not taking this poetry class completely of my own free will. it's required for my degree.

i've been doing alot more uploading on my website lately. the galleries are slowly becoming more and more complete. yay!

i'm enjoying the presence of my tv and gamecube so far, but i feel i really should look into getting cable. unfortunately the cable hookup is behind my bed and the tv is across the room, so i'm mildly concerned that i may trip over the cord (if i get it that is) in the middle of the night and bang my head on my chair. ow....

crazy weather for january, huh? there was a what, fifty-something degree high this week?

jessie has taken joe's place in the downloading and distributing (well, distributing to me and her anyway) of subbed anime as of last sunday. so far she's downloaded DNAngel episodes 1-6, and we were laughing at their use of the word "keen." sound familiar, joe? golly, mister, that's keen! she's planning on downloading azumanga diaoh too, which is supposed to be really funny.

we gave speeches on wednesday on what we do in our leisure time. great thing about this speech class is that we don't have to write out complete speeches and read them word for word. we write outlines and talk. it's so awesome. anywho, we also had to bring visual aids for our speech. i brought artemis fowl, my computer mouse, and jessie's cordless gamecube controller. my conclusion was that these leisure activities show that i'm not really an out-doorsy person and prefer to stay inside and work on my pale complexion. the class found this amuzing. of course, my skin is nothing compared to yours, master penny. i wonder which of us actually stays inside more, though?

um, happy new year... and whatnot

2006-01-08T19:46:00.000-06:00

yea, well let's start out by saying OH MY GOD I HAVEN'T POSTED FOR A MONTH?!

now that that's out in the open... i'd like to say that it's not due to lack of computer and internet availability, i had access to matt's computer any time i wanted (well, technically it's not really matt's, but he uses it the most). i just like blogging on my computer better. that and i didn't have anything significant to say. as a matter of fact, i haven't got anything significant to say now either, yet here i am.

did anybody watch that episode of fullmetal last night? first time i've been able to watch it in forever and damn what an episode to drop in on.

good news, my television and i are reunited!!! i held my end of the bargain and did one more (the deal was no D's, but i didn't get any C's either! ....and while we're on that i feel obligated to mention that i didn't get any A's as well). my gamecube still waits patiently for my return at home, but i promised it i'd be back later this week to bring it here. i simply had too much to carry already, and there is simply no logic in bringing the gamecube without the tv. what am i gonna do, hook it up to the big tv out in the living room? uh, no, that would be redundant; jessie's is hooked up there. some may inquire as to what the point would be in bringing a second gamecube here. well, as i mentioned earlier, i promised my beloved gamecube i'd be back for it. and it's less of a traffic hazard if i just play games in my room.

got a new game for christmas (merry christmas to me from me, courtesy of the money my grandma yankus sent) the sims 2. it's so much fun. i've made a sim for each of my immediate family members and each of my roommates. in our sim dorm, we have a arcade machine, it's so awesome.

yet my pocket book still calls for the eviction of my cash (or debits) all the more stronger and my wall is stongly urging me to cover it up as well. unfortunately all the things i spied for myself whilest christmas shopping for others have gone un-remembered and it's driving me crazy!!

i really should go grocery shopping, too. or else i'll have to eat hot dogs or microwave pizza for breakfast tomorrow. and i really think i'll be needing breakfast, being that i'll have school for 6 hours straight with merely 15 minutes before 11:00, 12:00, and 1:00. that's a long time to go without food when you add on however many hours i've been sleeping to it. 15 minutes, of course, is not sufficient time to run from the arts and sciences building to the student center, buy food from the food court during peak hours (meaning there will be line-waiting involved), eating my purchases, and running back to the arts and sciences building, as any fellow maverick would know. thing is, i don't want to buy milk down at the saddle creek bakers (we have cereal, just no milk) because they never have sufficient sell by dates and all the milk available for purchase expires withiin a few days of purchasing it. at the twin creek bakers (where i work, as most of you should know) does a much better job in stocking milk that lasts over a week. i suppose it wouldn't hurt to drive down to bag'n'gag if it's just for buying milk (i like my 10% discount at bakers), it is closer after all. but i'm being lazy and don't really feel like going anywhere at all :/

i can't remember what i was originally going to say.... because i don't think any of this was it.... oh well...

for lack of anything better to do...

2005-12-07T21:34:00.000-06:00

well, i do actually have some stuff due, i just don't feel like doing them right now.

i'm so mad at myself!! i was going to go to two of these theater reading things so i could write up my second and third performace-response paper things, BUT I WENT AND FORGOT TO GO!!! so now there's only one left. i better not forget that one too! i haven't been able to go to any readings because i'm either at work or in class. goddammit!!

in other news, i've been in uber-uploading mode with my website for the past few hours, and now the host is being crappy and won't let me login so i can finish uploading!! i've got SO MANY more pictures uploaded now!

and chris, i dunno what you're talking about; i don't find simple plan depressing in the slightest.

i kinda wanna go to sleep, but i can't thanks to the fact that i have homework that i really REALLY need to do. :(

c'est la vie

2005-12-06T14:24:00.000-06:00

so i wake up this morning and i find a little stocking hung on my doorknob with candy and an ornament inside it bearing a tag reading "to anne, from st. nick" a pleasant surprise, but i'm still not entirely sure which one of my roommates put it there. either jessie or hanna, i'm sure of that much.

it's really cold out today; the wind chill is negative somethin' or another. it makes me wish that my internet jack (and consequently my desk) wasn't under my window where the cold air goes straight to my toes. maybe i should actually wear slippers :P i have a couple pairs at home. i find that socks are of no help in keeping my feet warm, and are rather constricting on the toes. hence i walk around the house (or dorm) barefoot all year 'round. it really tests my tolerance for cold when i'm walking around on the cold linolium floor in the basement at home, but oh well. i've really been wanting hot chocolate lately, but i haven't gotten around to actually going out and buying more milk. and no, i don't want to just use water. it doesn't taste anywhere near as good. maybe i should just go and buy milk now, i'm not doing anything else. i have a paper i need to write by next monday, and essay that was due last tuesday and i need to edit my latest story to present it on thursday. but right now i'm being a lazy-ass procrastinator. i really need to start on that essay, though. and after this evening i'll have a take-home math test to do, but that shouldn't be hard. it's, as mr. west would say, baby algebra.

in the process of reading the fourth, fifth, and sixth harry potter books right now. third time reading order of the phoenix and it will be (when i finish number five) the second time reading half-blood prince. i'll be reclaiming the latter from my mother, who still hasn't finished reading it through once. she's had it since july when my dad and i were each through reading it(which was less than a week after it was released, we are such nerdy book worms). as for goblet of fire, don't ask my what number time this was reading it. i have no fucking clue, i lost count after four, and that was four years ago. so anyway, thanks to all this i've come down with a moderate case of potter fever which will only be cured by reading the books again and driving myself to insanity waiting for book seven. oooo, i can't wait!!

it's funny, before i was reading harry potter again i was reading artemis fowl, who really reminds me of draco malfoy. they're both rather evil and described as distinguished looking (artemis is actually described as looking very vampiric several times). only differences are that draco is blonde, while artemis has black hair. draco has two brainless cronie thugs, and artemis has butler (yes, that's his surname), who is the best friggin' bodyguard ever! to tell you the truth it's an insult to compare butler to crabbe and goyle. there's nobody you could compare with butler; he's in a league all by himself. anyway, back to artemis and draco. another large difference is that artemis is a boy genius (despite how cliche that sounds), while draco is an average hogwarts student. artemis, though he lacks wizarding blood, does have some magical connections, those being the People. yea, that's right, capitol 'p' and everything. the People are comprised of elves, dwarves, gnomes, goblins, pixies, and the occasional centaur (which would be foaly, the technical genius). and as the series progresses, artemis becomes less of what can be described as "evil". to tell you the truth, i don't know if you can really really call draco evil either. read half-blood prince and you'll know what i'm talking about. well, you should anyway. if you don't you're being too close-minded and not picking up on what is really being said about draco. in my opinion, anyway.

well, i think i'll go freeze my ass off now, and scrape off my car and go grocery shopping. we need a couple other things than milk, and like i said, i'm really not getting anything done sitting here.

Rules for Surviving a Horror Movie

2005-12-04T19:40:00.000-06:00

Rules for Surviving a Horror Movie

i know i said that you can use anything and everything as a lethal weapon, but poptarts?

i thought this was more season-appropriate

2005-12-04T01:15:00.000-06:00

yea, so i was in a winter-y mood, and felt like my blog needed to have a more winter-y theme. so here we go; asuka and rei in the snow.

and yes joe, i do know harry potter down to the bone, or however you put it. it's my job. i know almost every little ridiculous bit of trivia from all of the harry potter books. note the word almost. i used to know more, you see, but i can't remember exactly how long harry and his parents' wands were anymore. i still remember that hagrid's wand was sixteen inches long before it was snapped in half his..... third, i think, year at hogwarts when he was expelled after being falsely accused of being the heir of slytherin by the actual heir of slytherin. (best way to prove your innocence, you know; pinning the blame on someone else).

you know what a good song is? my alien by simple plan. it reminds me of lum from urusei yatsura. yea, i know, i'm weird like that.

i can't wait for christmas break. no more school for several weeks, and hopefully i'll be able to hang out with everybody that i haven't since this summer.

i got ranma 1/2 season 4 in the mail the other day. this is the one where they switch the person who voices ranma. they switched from the lady who sounds like a rather convincing guy to the guy who was also the voice of inuyasha. the first episode was really weird because i was sitting there thinking "it's inuyasha..." @_@ but then i got used to it and it started to sound more uniquely like ranma. i can't wait till i order season 5, it starts out with the episode with the pork bun people who try to steal the dragon's whisker that ties the end of ranma's pigtail. i call them pork bun people anyway, jessie calls them the dumpling guys, but they actually have names. i just have no idea what they are. they aren't mentioned often.

Ah, back to the previous layout...

2005-12-01T03:40:00.000-06:00

I decided that I liked the Ranma and Akane layout better, so here it is.

I went to see the newest Harry Potter movie, and I must say it was the best one so far. Unfortunately, though, it would have taked over five hours to show the entire book, so they had to cut SO MUCH out. All you movie-goers out there, you have no hope in understanding this one without the book, so tough luck. What I was really disappointed with was the Quiddich World Cup part. Why? Oh, gee, just a little something or another like I ACTUALLY WANTED TO SEE THE QUIDDICH MATCH! It wasn't that long! They coulda taken all that extra time they wasted on the first task and used it on the world cup! And speaking of the first task; WAY over the top. Seriously. I just re-read the 4th book (for the umteenth time) and it specifically stated that Harry was the quickest to get the egg, which was under ten minutes I believe. They didn't go flying all over the fucking castle, dammit! The reason they chose those specific dragons were because they were nesting mothers, therefore they wouldn't WANT to leave their nest (where the golden egg was hidden) let alone the arena. Another thing: Beauxbatons WAS NOT an all girls' school, and Durmstrang WAS NOT an all boys school. It is specifically mentioned that boys and girls arrive from both schools. They didn't show Hagrid's Blast-Ended Skrewts, either, which was dissappointing as well. I also wanted to see Dobby again. I have no idea how they expect movie-goers to follow the plotline in the next movie, honestly, because they've had to cut out so many plot points in this one. Unless they've read the book, of course. Nobody's gonna know that Fudge is furious at Dumbledore and point-blank refuses to believe that Voldemort has returned. Nobody's gonna know that (almost) the entire world thinks Harry is an unstable pathological liar thanks to Rita Skeeter's many untruthful articles. They won't know about how Hermione discovered that Rita is an unregistered animagus and has been spying on all of them all year in the form of a beetle. Nobody's gonna know that Dobby works at Hogwarts now (or that it was actually supposed to be him that gave Harry the gillyweed right before the second task. Harry almost overslept and missed it too.) Nobody's gonna know that Fred and George have been developing magical joke-stuff and that Harry have them his one thousand galleon prize money of them to open their joke shop (or that Ludo Bagman cheated Fred and George out of their bet-winnings on the world cup; Ireland wins, but Krum gets the Snitch). So how're they going to explain Professor Umbridge's appearance? Why is a ministry witch suddenly posted at Hogwarts? (because Fudge doesn't trust Dumbledore anymore, that's why). They totally left out Percy and his overly-ambitious attitude toward his new position in the department of International Magical Cooperation at the Ministry of Magic. this is important too! Because Percy ends up disowning his family and siding with the Ministry rather than admitting that Voldemort really has returned and taking an active position in the Order of the Phoenix (like Molly, Arthur, Bill, and Charlie Weasley do). They don't show Bill or Charlie either for that matter! This is also important, because we find out in book six that Fleur Delacou (Beauxbatons champion) gets engaged to Bill Weasley.

*sigh* You know, if everyone would just read the book we wouldn't have this problem. I could go on and on for hours about all the things they left out, but it's already four in the morning and i still have homework to finish.

PotterPotterMovie

2005-11-23T00:09:00.000-06:00

PotterPotterMovie

personally i found this pretty damn funny.

be sure to exit out eventually, i think it's just a continuous loop and keeps repeating over and over.

a firm believer

2005-11-15T16:50:00.000-06:00

i got the idea to write a post like this when a kid sitting behind me in my philosophy class stated "i'm a firm believer in 'money can buy you anything'". and it got me thinking. am i a firm believer in anything? before i delve more into that topic i'd like to address the kid's statement. sure, you can buy anything with money. no, i'm not kidding, ANYTHING. but, yes, there is a but, you can't buy the best of anything. sure, money can buy you the best car and the best house and so on and so forth, but money cannot buy you the best form of feelings. it can buy you happiness, but only superficial happiness, and anyone who says that's good enough for them will one day realize what a sad and lonely life they've led. they'll probably realize this on their death bed.

now on to what i'm a firm believer in. i thought long and hard about it, and came to the conclusion that i'm a firm believer in there being an exception to every rule. i know it seems odd, but hear me out. there really is an exception to every rule, nothing is absolute. there is an exception to every rule including the rule "there is an exception to every rule". for example: murder is wrong. but murder isn't wrong when it's done in an act of self defense. there is an exception to every rule. but some things, like killing someone for the pure and simple pleasure of seeing someone die is wrong. you get my meaning? so that's what i have concluded; this is one thing i cannot refute: an infinite loophole. this is my "cogito ergo sum."

thinking...

2005-11-03T11:36:00.000-06:00

hmm, so i'm thinking. about my latest story. i needed to write it for my oral interp. class. so i made really quick work of it. and it turned out cute and funny, but it wasn't deep or engaging. it was one of those itty bitty pieces of writing that you read as an example in a grade school class. a piece that doesn't really go anywhere. a piece with no objective.

so now i need to strip it down and build it back up. this time i need to give the characters more depth.

to start, then need names. i'll name the guy nick. there are alot of nicks in our generation. i can name five nicks who are around my age off hand. the guy has to be generic, that's why he's invisible. he was too generic, so he just faded away. ok, his name is nick, he's 20. his birthday is june 5, 1985. he has brown hair, brown eyes and is of average build. he doesn't have a last name. he can't remember it, just like his family can't remember him.

now the girl. she's... ok, can't think of a name right now, we'll get back to that. she's angry. she's always angry. she hates everyone, because she feels that everyone hates her, in a way. she had a rough childhood. her mother left, then her father left to go looking for her. her brother was much older than she, and left for college right before her mom left. no, i take that back. she was an only child. for several months she lived alone, till child services found out and sent her to a home. this home had alot of kids. so she felt her foster parents didn't have time to like her. she never got along with kids at school, because she was just one of those unfortunate people who wasn't born with the popularity gene. so she hated her classmates. she hates all people her age. she hates everyone. her name is jo. she's 21. she just turned 21. her birthday is november 1, 1984. she was born on the day of the dead, and often wishes she was dead. or invisible. she hates people and hates talking to them. but they try to talk to her anyway. till they get to know her a little bit anyway. then they think she's a bitch. and they leave. deep down, she just wants somebody to like her (or love her, but that sounds too cheesy for my tastes).

it all started nick's senior year in high school. he didn't notice it though, since nobody really ever payed attention to him anyway. it started to become more evident when he left for college. he always attended class, but the teachers marked him absent. and when he'd approach them about it, they wouldn't recognize him. and they would forget about changing their attendance records. so they flunked him. they would somehow lose his tests and papers, or sometimes they'd turn out blank. his family stopped calling him. they forgot about him. and stopped paying his tuition, so he was forced to drop out of college. now everything is starting to freak him out. he moved back in with his family, but one day he woke up and all his stuff was gone. he was sleeping on the floor. they took his bed right from under him. his parents can't see him or hear him. so he leaves. just recently, he's noticed that parts of him have started to fade away (arms, legs, hands, feet). at first he tries to ignore it, but it's getting worse and worse, and he's really starting to flip out about it.

then somehow he runs into jo, literally. he freaks her out, and she pepper sprays him.....(that was my original written scene). no, she doesn't pepper spray him. or else it'll be hard for me to convincingly have him find her again. she can see him. or at least she can see as much of him as he can. but he's starting to forget things. and he really really needs her help. because she can see him and hear him. he does something. something nice. i'm not sure what. something that keeps jo from hating him, and gets her to help him. she really does want a friend, but she doesn't want to admit it. but how can she help him? hmm....

well, that was a good brainstorming session. now to figure out how to put it into context....

glasses!

2005-11-03T00:23:00.000-06:00

glasses, glasses, glasses!!! I HATE THEM! wearing them annoys me SO much!!!!! but without them, when my contacts are bothering me, i can't see for shit! it's no fair!!!

thank you that is all.

Oh My God!!

2005-10-30T22:15:00.000-06:00

Oh My God!!

oh my god!! this is funny

the birthday post

2005-10-25T15:03:00.000-05:00

yay! *today is my birthday! today is my birthday* and it just got 10 times better thanks to all the people who posted on my wall on facebook, the email from gabe, and a birthday post on the anipike forums!

but today, i'm not going to talk about what i've been doing. why? well i just told joe what i did this morning and i don't wanna type it all twice in a row. today i'd like to rant. but not in the "oh my god does this suck or what?" way, but the "here's a shitload of information all at once that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with anything else, so deal with it." so here we go, where i'll stop, NOBODY KNOWS!!!

ah, so i'd like to start out by discussing joe's comment to my last post. discussing with myself that is, since nobody can comment in the middle of the post. nobody can see what i'm typing till i'm all done. anyway, joe mentioned the existance of some people who try to make you feel bad because you like anime. WELL THEY'RE A BUNCH OF DICKHEADS!! that's like trying to make jocks feel bad for playing football, but nobody would dare question that! FIGHT THE MAN, DAMMIT! DOWN WITH THE SYSTEM!! anyway, i digress. i think that it's a load of horse shit and very prejudice of them. i know people like that too.

next topic!!! well i was on my way to english class yesterday evening and i thought of something. of several things, actually. and that's the entire point! first i thought about how i'm sure plenty guys would like to know what a girl's thinking. i think that if anybody heard what i am thinking (especially as i was thinking this, because since it is physically impossible to literally be thinking of two things simultaneously (and separately)), it was like i was flipping back and forth between five or six ideas, like one would flip tv channels really really fast. ok.... i lost where i was going with this..... o yea, i think if someone were able to hear my thoughts they would be really really confused. especially at that point in time, it would be a major information overload. one thing i was thinking of was that i had forgotten to find possible topics for my next english paper, another was of this guy i went to gradeschool with who said hi to me on my way to class. yes, i know, weird, but nobody really talked to me in gradeschool, so it's still a strange experience for me. nextly i was thinking of the manga series vision of escaflowne, which i had just got the remaining 5 graphic novels in the mail that day. i had to stop at a climatic part, so i was thinking about how it would end.

hmm, interesting...

2005-10-23T22:32:00.000-05:00

Manga and Anime
taken from Free Reading: Implications for Child Development

In the assessment of popular children's entertainment forms, it is impossible to ignore the influence of manga, contemporary Japanese comics, and anime, the animated versions of manga stories. Millions of children and adults are avid consumers of comics; many manga comics are for adults only. The contemporary Pokemon series is an example of manga and anime that have been embraced by American children, with much marketing of toys and accessories. The 1970s Speed Racer cartoon was originally a Japanese anime, as were the enormously popular 1980s Transformers cartoons, animations, and toys. The major difference between Japanese and American comics is that manga portray a more complex and realistic view of life (Izawa, 1995). In manga, the death of a major character is frequently portrayed, whereas in American comics the topic is typically avoided.
Manga often portray adults at work, using high-tech computers and communication technologies, an area of life that is nearly invisible in American comics. The people—generally not superheroes—who populate manga work, go to school, and interact with their parents. Characters also have a "secret life" where friends and robots help them to defeat their foes. Foes are not necessarily depicted as the embodiment of evil; enemies of manga characters have complex motives, pursuing rational goals. Unlike American superheroes, manga characters make errors and learn from their mistakes; they grow morally and intellectually as stories develop. Izawa (1995) believes that the "everydayness" of manga may be a liberating factor in readers' identification with characters and events. Finally, unlike American superhero comics, manga stories deliberately end. They are designed to finish with a character getting married, going off to college, or even dying. Grounded in familiar reality, the adventures progress and build a kind of bridge to the fantasy world as they develop. It is possible that, as in my own experience as a new reader, comic book reading can open the door to other genres.

Desmond, Roger. "Free Reading: Implications for Child Development." Handbook of Children and the Media. Sage Publications, Inc. Thousand Oaks: 2001.

i came across this while researching for my classical argument paper and thought it was rather interesting. it's nice to see a positive spin on anime published in america (and by someone who isn't an avid fan).

yet another new layout

2005-10-15T22:13:00.000-05:00

yes, i got bored. so i made another layout. this one features mint from ranma 1/2. mint is one of herb's attendants and a member of the musk dynasty, a dynasty that gives bestiality a whole new name. for more info. on mint click here.

also, check out the new links i put up to chris's and ben (rasmussen)'s blogs, strider's shack and ducktape for the chicken's soul respectively, under 'blogs'.

$2.80!!!

2005-10-08T12:08:00.000-05:00

yesterday when i picked up my paycheck i noticed that the raise i was supposed to get has come into effect. but i never expected THIS much of a raise!! $2.80!!!! this is SO awesome!!!!! i'm SO excited!!! (well, as excited as i get...) i woulda posted this yesterday, but my internet was being a royal pain in the ass and wouldn't connect at all...