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Name: Amy Interests: Science fiction and fantasy, anime and manga, drawing and painting, reading (fanfiction and otherwise), RPGs - both PlayStation and paper & pencil types - cats, and taking waaaay too many pictures with my digital camera.... Site:
Changeling Graphics Friends' weblogs (I don't read many yet, but this is subject to change): Archives |
Changeling rambled on at 05:43 p.m. on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 Now Playing: Outlaw Star OST Vol. 1 Do other people's comfort foods change depending on their mood? Mine do. Today, my comfort food is crab rangoons. They don't make the headache I've been fighting for the last three days go away, but they definitely make me less cranky about it. It's a disgusting cold, gray and rainy day today. Feh! Which means it's dead slow here at the store; I think we've only had three or four walk-in customers in 4 1/2 hours of being open. Also, I'm freezing back here at my desk. It's right under one of the air conditioners, which makes it one of the prime bits of 'desk-estate' during the summer... but when the weather starts turning cold, it starts resembling the Antarctic because cold outside air leaks in through the A/C unit, until some brave soul goes outside with a ladder and large garbage bags to cover it from the outside. ...I'm watching my fingernails turn blue, here. I've redecorated my work PC desktop (going with a Weathering Continent theme, since the darn thing didn't like my picture of crazy-man Tidus from FFX), and am toying with creating a new layout for my weblog when I get home tonight. Changeling rambled on at 06:55 p.m. on Friday, October 25, 2002 Now Playing: G Gundam Fight, Round 2 (co-worker's choice of CDs) I am in allergy hell. The past week or so has been bad anyhow, sneeze- & wheeze-wise; but today was "tear the store apart and put in new front counter" day. Which meant that things were getting moved that hadn't been touched for years. Which meant dust-cloud-o-rama. I have been desperate to get home, just so I can breathe again.... Changeling rambled on at 10:09 a.m. on Tuesday, October 22, 2002 No music on right now. Went to the Japanese Chrysanthemum Festival at the Phipps Conservatory this Sunday and filled up my digital camera's whole memory card with great photos. Now I'm frustrated, because when I upgraded my computer's OS it farkled something in the camera software for downloading the pictures onto my computer -- and I can't find the CD-ROM for reinstalling it. #@%$^&*!! The show was gorgeous, but I can't share. [sigh] Okay, I'm going to go beat my head against my messy desk now, in vague hopes of finding the CD I need.... Changeling rambled on at 04:55 p.m. on Tuesday, October 15, 2002 Now Playing: Best of Bastard!! So, I'm wondering how somebody got to my art site via the website of Drexel University in Philadelphia...?! I have these neat Nedstat counters (www.nedstat.com), which let me see what area or country the folks who view my site are peeking in from. If they get there via a link on another website, you can see that information too. Example -- I know a couple of folks have followed the link from the store's website, and at least one moseyed over from my friend N-chan's fanfic site. I'd just purely love to know where in the innards of drexel.edu there's a link to my humble pictures... I'd guess probably somewhere in the students' homepages. Maybe. Hey, if anybody reading this happens to be the little gremlin responsible, please let me know?! C'mon, have mercy, you know what curiosity did to the cat. >^0.o^< ...people *are* actually looking at this now. (wanders off to be weirded out for a little while) Changeling rambled on at 12:15 p.m. on Monday, October 14, 2002 Now Playing: Angel Links OST Vol. 2 "True Moon" Like a masochist, I signed up to work today (Columbus Day) at the REC, typing away like a mad thing. Feh. I figured, I usually work Monday nights anyhow, right? No big deal there. So as a result of my being a good little worker drone and coming in today when I could have sat home on my thumbs, they scheduled me to work an extra day this week. >,< Actually, they *tried* to schedule me for a day when I'm already working, at the anime store. When I said that was a no-no, they informed me that I'd have to come in on one of my usual days off. I wouldn't mind this so much (maybe...) except that they just had another huuuuuge hiring push to make sure the place is sufficiently staffed for the holiday mailing season. This is about the time they'd reassured us a couple of weeks ago, that our hours were supposed to be getting back to 'normal'. **sigh** I guess the newbies just aren't up to speed yet; heaven knows I wasn't, after only being there a couple of weeks. Blee. The other problem, of course, being that so much typing at work means the last thing I wanna do when I get home, is type MORE. Which is why my attempts at writing progress at the pace of a turtle on tranquilizers. (Yes, fear it - she's attempting to write again.) Oh, and also why this weblog hasn't been updated for a while. Since that's going painfully slow, I've overhauled the main page of my art site and added a small section of the few 3-D pieces I've done; so far all amber stuff, although I do have a 3-D painted item I need to get a good picture of -- and I would still like to get a couple of my sewing projects online as well. Changeling rambled on at 01:47 a.m. on Monday, October 7, 2002 Now Playing: Still on the FF8 soundtrack. Currently on "The Man with the Machine Gun". (okay, so I lost count of how many times I repeated the fight music track...) Yeek. Finally fixed the two darn picture links in previous entries. *sigh* Angelfire. Guess you get what you pay for, ne? Good grief, somebody actually read this thing! My sincere apologies. ~_^ Changeling rambled on at 12:36 a.m. on Monday, October 7, 2002 Now Playing Final Fantasy VIII OST - I love the opening theme. (Now if I only liked Squall better....) {:-P Argh!! Why do I do it? I feel like a literary ho'. Or maybe I can't even call it "literary," since I was reading SF... why do some authors feel the need to make every story they write a freakin' angst wallow? "Oh, wait, this character has managed to scrape together a tiny shred of happiness or contentment during the course of this book. I must now gleefully rip it away from him/her and make him/her miserable again!!" **sigh**. Sorry about that... I just should know better than to get on a kick of reading Joan Vinge's series of Psion novels, since they only frustrate me. From now on I should only be allowed to read book two. (the irony here is that, traditionally speaking, book two of any trilogy tends to be the one I despise. apparently Ms. Vinge writes her trilogies bass-ackwards from the other authors in whose books I've noticed this phenomenon.) So, having vented that, I'm now going to cruise the web for fanfic to read. But I promise not to blow up about any FAW's I might read tonight in here. Changeling rambled on at 07:36 p.m. on Tuesday, October 1, 2002 Now Playing: Polling Rank of '96 Japan Animation Theme Song I scribbled down a series of random thoughts that occurred to me at work, at the REC.... The last three nights I've worked at the Encoding Center, I've gotten pulled from letters (recorded images), to "flats" (real-time images)... and they've been ssssllloooooowwww. >,< In fact, up until last night, the flats keying was so slow and boring that I was scribbling pen drawings on scrap paper in between the images trickling through. Did mediocre versions of Ryo and Seiji from Yoroiden Samurai Troopers, and a fairly decent Katchoo, from the comic book series "Strangers in Paradise," by Terry Moore. I know they have to keep the facility cool, because of all the computers in use, but should I really have to be wearing 3 layers, indoors, when October has only just begun? Did you know that "Miami", read backwards, is "I Maim?" ...it's very unnerving to glance up in the restroom mirror and see that on a co-worker's shirt. Especially when one is working for the US Postal Service. And lastly, it is possible (and frighteningly *easy*!) to eat enough Everlasting Gobstoppers jaw-breakers to give one a raw tongue, not to mention a sugar buzz from hell. Apologies for the random babble, I hope it was at least amusing -- and I'll really try to make more sense next time! Changeling rambled on at 05:50 p.m. on Friday, September 27, 2002 Now Playing ...the "Please Save My Earth" image album, an oldie but goody. [RANT ALERT!] I. Hate. SUVs! ...and quite a few of the people who drive them. Okay, now I'm not even going to rave for long about how much gasoline these monstrosities eat up, lining the pockets of the very people over in the MidEast who hate Americans so much. The thing that's set off my fuse today is the fact that so many SUV drivers seem to believe that the size of their vehicle exempts them from having to use good manners and common sense when they drive. Since I am the driver of a small vehicle, obviously this is going to concern me. There's nothing quite so disconcerting as driving down the street and suddenly looking in the rear-view mirror to find it FULL of the grill of some tail-gating SUV that wasn't there when I looked 30 seconds ago. @,@;; Extra bonus heart-attack if the driver is talking on a cel phone, rather than watching the road, as they threaten to go up and over my poor little Neon! Now, to be fair, I have encountered some SUV drivers who *do* still have decent road-manners. More power to them! But they seem to be out-numbered by the nits who figure they can run roughshod over anything smaller than an 18-wheeler. Gah. Feh! [end RANT ALERT] ...sorry, just had to get that off my chest, today. Changeling rambled on at 12:20 a.m. on Saturday, September 21, 2002 What Am I Listening To? ...Final Fantasy IX. The game, not the soundtrack - I'm kibitzing while my roommate Nan plays. Kuja is such an over-the-top little flamer!! ^_^ I think I must draw him a few more times. Playing or watching RPGs always gives me a brain full of "what if?" What if this character had done that? What if such-and-such happened? It could make for interesting 'fic, except that most of the time the what-ifs I come up with would require massive sagas to write. I pick one teensy detail that could have gone differently - and if it had, the entire story of the game would be different. I don't think I have the patience (or skill) for an epic along the lines of Twig's "A Long Hard Road" or N-chan's "Sakura and Snow". *sigh* Our youngest cat, Tavi, just sprawled out next to me on the couch... he's being a cuddle cat. I just hope he doesn't decide to gnaw on my chin to show me just how much he loves me. ("And they can't take me back, 'cause I have cat spit all over me!" ...with apologies to Steve Martin) In marginally more mundane news, this is the last weekend of the Renaissance Festival. It's your classic good news/bad news thing; I no longer have to spend my days off frantically sewing lined cloth belt-pouches. That's the good news. The bad news is, it's also the last weekend to sell any of them. But I think I'll be happier with a little more spare time back! Changeling rambled on at 11:15 p.m. on Sunday, September 15, 2002 What Am I Listening To? James Galway's "The Enchanted Forest" - very cool flute & synthesizer adaptations of traditional Japanese songs. "Nakasendo" is amazing. Okay, having proven to myself that nobody *but* me ever sees this thing, I have a confession to make: Someday, I'm going to finish an anime fanfic. Honest. I keep starting them, but I write in this truly annoying patchwork fashion... I start with whatever 'cool' scene(s) inspired me in the first place, and then get bored and/or stymied when it's time to paste them together in some kind of logical, makes-sense fashion. [sigh] And then there's the matter of whether anyone would ever get to read the finished product.... Compared to some of what's out there on the Web already (like yours or yours, I'd feel hopelessly unworthy. (Alternatively, a lot of what's online makes me feel like my stuff wouldn't be bad a'tall! -- too many examples to list, for this category....) I have a -- well, you couldn't call it a phobia, but an aversion? ...to letting anyone see my work in-progress. There was one e-mail correspondent I sometimes sent partially-completed stories to; only after a couple of times, I realized that this individual found a way to "kill" any story I sent. I doubt it was a deliberate, conscious effort, but I do suspect that this person's subconscious was being very competitive. If I stop writing, voila -- no competition, they win! Since my self-confidence in this area is pathetically low to start with, it stopped me from writing at all for a while. I've started back up since (although I've never been able to go back to the stories that got stomped flat), but that particular correspondent is never going to see an unfinished work from me again, at least for anime fic. For finished work... well, if I ever put anything on the web, then it's available to anybody with Internet access. (Shrug) But I'll reserve the right to jeer at anybody who flames my writing then. ^_^ Changeling rambled on at 12:48 p.m. on Thursday, September 12, 2002 What Am I Listening To? ..."On the Turning Away" from Pink Floyd's A Momentary Lapse of Reason, and finding it eerily appropriate. I don't really have anything to say today, but these song lyrics do. On the turning away It's a sin that somehow On the wings of the night No more turning away Changeling rambled on at 11:49 p.m. on Tuesday, September 10, 2002 What Am I Listening To? Crickets again. Stupid bugs. I'd love to have some music on for a distraction, but one of my roomies is already asleep and I don't want to wake her. Woke up September 10 with a migraine. Not an unheard-of thing, I sometimes get them when my sleep cycle has been messed up... and I did stay up later than usual one night over the weekend. I took Tylenol before going to work at the store, and packed two Excedrin with me in case that didn't work (Excedrin usually stomps these headaches flat in one dose -- two if it's *really* stubborn), and didn't think much more about it for a while. But the Tylenol didn't work, and after I resorted to the stronger stuff at work, I starting thinking. [yeah, I know, sad that the brain cell didn't kick in before then, but pain makes it cranky.] If the brain-pain were a result of staying up too ghodawful late Saturday night, no way would it have held off until Tuesday to let me know about it. And when another hour had gone by and the Excedrin wasn't working either, I started to wonder if maybe the date was more to blame than my sleep habits of the past few nights. I don't live in New York or D.C.; the closest event of last Sept. 11 was the crash of Flight 93 in Somerset County, well over an hour's drive away from here. I did not personally know anyone who was killed on 9/11. I only watched the events, along with most of the country, in the endless replay on network TV. (Does anyone else out there find it ironic that the newscasters would solemnly list the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and then go back to showing - yet again! - the footage of the plane striking the second tower, or the collapses?!) In a strange way, maybe I don't feel as if I have the *right* to be so affected by the memories, a year later. Who am I, that it should make me spend the day before the anniversary with a headache so bad I was queasy all day? I'm torn between wanting to do Something Significant tomorrow in memory, and the desire to crawl into a hole and NOT turn on the TV or radio all day... but I guess in a way I've already done one thing. I gave blood yesterday, for the fifth time in a year. It's a small thing, but it may well be signifcant to somebody out there who needs a pint of AB+, or parts thereof. And we'll have our flag out on the front porch first thing tomorrow morning... but if my head still feels like it did today, I may spend the whole day in bed with the covers over my head. Changeling rambled on at 10:32 p.m. on Sunday, September 8, 2002 What Am I Listening To? ...crickets. It is too dang quiet in this house. @_@ For the next two or three months, I'm a guinea pig. Inconvenienced and made uncomfortable, all in the name of Science! (Well, I can't say "tortured", it just isn't that bad. Poked, prodded and annoyed, but not tortured. Thank goodness, none of the researchers on the project are named "Hojo"....) It all started when I got a postcard in the mail; a local university was looking for volunteers who were in overall good health but subject to high stress, for a clinical study. I'm not going to go through all the details (not that they're classified, that I know of, they're just not that interesting!). Apparently, I'm enough of a stress-bunny to suit their requirements. I've finished all the pre-testing now, so the next time they call me in, I'll either be given the medication they're testing (which is already FDA-approved for other uses), or a sugar pill. Guess if I become insufferably calm and mellow any time in the next two months, then we'll all know which I got, ne? Went to a scrap-booking "crop" this afternoon, because it's my boss Joy's birthday, and that's what she wanted to do for her party. Everyone who attended made her a page for her birthday album... and her mother & hubby were busy with their digital cameras to make sure there are plenty of pix of the actual event to go in there as well. I'm not sure it's something I could ever get into as seriously as she is, but it was more fun than I expected. Changeling rambled on at 10:01 a.m. on Tuesday, September 3, 2002 What Am I Listening To? ...the sound of my neighbor revving up his motorcycle. Oy. ...I have "wench-burn." Spent Sunday at the Greater Pgh Renaissance Festival, in garb, and like a prize moron forgot to apply sunscreen to those portions of my hide not covered by chemise or bodice. So, I have a fairly nasty sunburn in an interesting, mostly-symmetrical pattern on my neck, and on a narrow section of each shoulder that was peeking out between the bodice shoulders and where my chemise was tugged down to. And somehow, I ended up with more of a burn on my left side than my right -- even when I'm walking, I get a "driver's-side" tan, or wench-burn in this case. >,< *grumble, grumble* However, my friend J's costumes are now completed; mission accomplished, she's dressed for this year's Faire! While I still have a little sewing to do (making cloth pouches to sell at her booth, and perhaps a dress for myself before I go back) what remains isn't under any kind of deadline. The Faire was fun, and I finally snapped and got one of those custom-struck coin pendants that I've been drooling over for years. It was hard to choose only two from all the various designs they have... some day I would dearly love to be able to go to an event like that with thousands of dollars to spend! There's always sooo much cool stuff -- but then, if I brought home that much ~stuff~, where would I put it all?! Oh well... hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go! Changeling rambled on at 05:04 p.m. on Friday, August 30, 2002 What Am I Listening To? Metropolis (anime) soundtrack. It's not mine, and I'm not quite sure I like it.... After doing some online research into medieval and Renaissance garments, it looks like the dresses I've been making for J are *not* Italian Ren in any way, shape or form. What they are, I have no clue... but she says they're going over pretty well at the Faire. In spite of the fact that the "Rat-Basher" smeared mud all over her brand-new gown, after it rained last weekend. *sigh* I'm either having one of my worst allergy days yet this year, or coming down with a cold; got that itchy-eyed, not-quite-inside-my-own-skin feeling that usually indicates a low grade fever, oh joy what fun. (Isn't it time to close the store and go home yet...?) Changeling rambled on at 01:15 p.m. on Friday, August 23, 2002 What Am I Listening To? ...the Xenogears OST. I think the next topic was supposed to be hobbies, right? I have quite a few, and they're mostly fannish... figures, eh? First of all, the ones I deal with on a regular basis: I belong to three different Pern fan Weyrs... well, okay, I *belong* to two of them; Fort Weyr Ninth Pass, and 10th Pass Haven Weyr (whose webpage appears to be down right now). I'm fool enough to have taken over *editing* the third club, High Reaches Weyr Ninth Pass. I illustrate for these clubs, as time allows, and submit stories when I have time to write them. Other things that eat great amounts of my time... let's see, watching anime, PlayStation RPGs (right now I'm sloooowly working my way through Final Fantasy 10, and constantly being amazed at the graphics) - or watching my roommate play them and making MST3K comments, which is frequently almost as fun! I draw anime art (as evidenced on my website), and write scraps of fanfic that almost nobody ever gets to read because it's so rare for me to finish a story. *sigh* I love reading other people's fic online, though, and it often keeps me at the computer ~far~ too late into the night. Lately I've been trying to do some sewing projects, too; I just finished an Italian Renaissance-style gown for my previously-mentioned friend J, who's working the local RenFaire this year. I hope to get a photo of her in it so that I can show off a little, since it turned out pretty well for somebody who's mostly faking it at the sewing machine. ^_^;; I have another to make for her, and then it's time to adapt the pattern-size so I can make myself one! [**Poof!** I'm an Italian Ren gown...] (ahem. Sorry, I see I'm in "free association with every $10 purchase" mode...) Oh, and right now I'm also doing guinea pig duty! One of the local universities is doing a clinical study on stress reduction and how it relates to one's health (heart, blood pressure, etc.). Apparently, I'm enough of a stress-bunny to be useful to them, although that's still in the preliminary testing stage. I think half of what they've been putting me through in the prelims is specifically designed to *raise* a body's stress levels.... Changeling rambled on at 01:05 p.m. on Saturday, August 10, 2002 So, last time I mentioned what I do for a living. Right now I have two different part-time jobs (yeah, I know, and at my age, too...). They're about as opposite as jobs can get while still being in the same vague clerical/customer service type field. Job Number One (3 years and counting) is at Joy's Japanimation, a Japanese animation specialty store. Dream job for an otaku, ne? They may get most of my paycheck right back in the till again, but at least I'm supporting my own habit. ^_^ I answer all the questions that come in via e-mail from the store's website, order the soundtrack CDs, and help out with general customer service. Job Number Two (10 months and counting) is at the US Postal Service Remote Encoding Service, as a "Data Conversion Operator". I don't handle any mail directly; the REC is the largest cubicle-farm I've ever seen, packed full of tiny cubes only large enough to hold a workstation and nothing else. We DCOs stare at a video feed from the various mail processing plants, of all the pieces of mail the automation couldn't read on its own -- for any number of reasons from mistaken Zip codes, to bad handwriting, to address labels put on the envelope crooked, to credit card companies sending out mass-mailings and not bothering to make sure they have valid addresses before sending things out. Okay, insert brief rant here: Pointer To Anyone Reading This: if you're ever tempted to address a letter to a friend using 5 different colors of metallic gel-pen inks -- please don't! >,< The machines can't read it, the *cameras* to the RECs can't read it (which means folks like me can't get it to the right address, either), and it will have to wait in the plant until somebody there has the time to examine it by hand and get the right bar-code on it. This could add many days of extra time for your letter to reach the person it's addressed to! Okay, I'll stop the rant now. So, that's what I do to keep my bills paid. Maybe next time I'll babble some about what I do in my "copious spare time" [snork!]. Changeling rambled on at 01:43 a.m. on Tuesday, August 6, 2002 After much waffling on the subject, I've finally decided to try a weblog (just to see how much of a fool I'm willing to make of myself to the general public... @,@). Why "a changeling's diary"? Well, it has nothing to do with the role-playing game by that name. I'm an adult adoptee, from a state with closed-record adoptions. Growing up, I was the only person in my family interested in SF/fantasy, anime, comic books, drawing and any number of other things -- so in a lot of ways, "changeling" seemed appropriate. (I was using the name long before the RPG came out, and stubbornly refuse to give it up now!) As for a diary... well, if this goes anything like the paper diaries and journals I've tried to keep in the past, let's just say I won't be taking up *too* much space on the server, ne? ~_^ I spent Sunday at a state park - Prince Gallitzin, to be precise - with my friend J and the two roomies. In theory we went out there to work on Pern club story illustrations; really, we were lazing in the shade by the water, trying to keep cool. It's a scary scary thing when the weather's too hot to let a body *draw*! We counted 99 motorcycles on the road, there and back, which J says is not up to the usual total. I think I must be a biker-repellant or something; the only other time she took me with to the park, there were only 81 bikes. Go figure. Next fascinating entry: What do I do for a living?! |
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