Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Sexual Moments in Video Game History
________________________________
On Sunday, August 1, 2004 at 10:22 a.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

Miome: Tsaiko, I need to warn you about something.
Tsaiko: Okay...
Miome: That large penis shaped object under the brown towel in the kitchen? That's bread dough. So don't stab it or anything if you have to go in there.
Tsaiko: I'll be sure not to. *pause* You know I'm going to put that in LJ, right?
Miome: Yeah.
*longer pause*
Miome: What's even worse is that now I have to wait a while for it to rise.
Tsaiko: I have no words.

Just another fun filled morning around my apartment.

EDIT: And now she is in there pouding the dough and the bad sexual references will not stop coming.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Discovery: Forbidden Science
________________________________
On Saturday, July 31, 2004 at 08:10 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

That article gives me the creeps. On one hand, developing science without looking at the social consequences is not a good thing. On the other hand, developing social consequences without looking at the science is worse. Dictating who should recieve funding and who shouldn't based on not on what needs to be studied but on what makes good campaign politics? Brrrrr. I can see the consequences, all of them bad, a mile away.

In other news, I am not on AIM. Why am I not on AIM? Because, and there's a big TMI WARNING if you read further, I am BLEEDING from parts that I should never, ever be forced to bleed from AND I AM IN PAIN WHILE IT'S HAPPENING. At this moment my one desire is to rip someone's head off and then run them over with my car a few times. No, I don't handle pain well. At all. Whatsoever. If I'm ever pregnant and having children, I want to be dead to the world when it happens. Otherwise I want to be so doped up I don't feel a thing.

Friday, which is museum volunteer day, I got to play with glue. It was fun. To clarify for those of you who are now scratching your heads and giving me (or at least your screens) the "You weirdo" looks, I got to attempt to piece together several larger specimens from the smaller parts with epoxy. This is pretty standard procedure when working with stuff that can and will crumble during transport. Doubly so if you've got as much fragmentary material as we do. Anything that I can piece together helps. Besides that, it's fun and allows me to do something other than running around collections trying to figure out if the bone I have is a partial pubis or illium of a turtle (I settled on pubis).

The epoxy stuff is usually a thick, clear liquid that you apply to the bones with a tongue depresser. You then get to try and hold the pieces together until the glue dries by the creative use of rubber bands. I had one specimen (the nueral spine of a dinosaur (ornithopod) is what we've tentatively ID'ed it as) that was in three pieces and took no less than five rubber bands to hold together and keep the parts from shifting. And this is for just one bone. The office staff hates us because we steal these rubber bands by the hand full.

The epoxy stuff that I was given to use is actually pretty forgiving. If you need to take the specimen back apart it only takes a little acetone and the glue disolves. We break pieces apart because we found another piece and it won't fit in until we dismantle what we've already got glued together. Or someone (like me) accidently glues the wrong pieces together. Don't laugh. It happens more often that paleo people like to admit.

Personally, I think they gave me the forgiving stuff because they remember when I accidently broke the giant ground sloth vertebrae into three pieces. I would like to say that that was not my fault. I was told that there was no way I could break it into pieces because it was so much harder than the surrounding matrix. I was just proving them wrong. Scientifically.

Finally, my favorite drawer in the whole museum is one labelled "Identifiable but not by me." This is filled with stuff from the same site as the stuff I'm currently going through that we (myself and others at the museum) should be able to say is one animal or another but for some reason we are lost. They are fossils. They have identifying features like nobs, bumps, and in one case an entire vertebrae. We just can't for 100% sure say "This is what it is!"

I find it even more amusing that the labels on this drawer are in the Director of Collections handwriting. Nothing to make you feel better like knowing the guy in charge isn't even sure.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Forbidden ScienceDiscovery
________________________________
On Saturday, July 31, 2004 at 08:10 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: The Onion: Majority of Americas Out of Touch with Mainstream
________________________________
On Tuesday, July 27, 2004 at 09:08 a.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

I swear, sometimes The Onion is so accurate it's scary.

For the last four days I have been with my family (that is my mom and my sister) in Athens, GA where my sister attends University. I would have posted a going away message in my LJ but my mother, who is almost always late to everything, decided to show up at my apartment 40 minutes early. I didn't even get to finish my breakfast before she was here. Because I was expecting her at 9am like she told me repeatedly on the phone and not 8:20am, I had to run around to get last minute things done. Luckily, I had gotten up at 7:15 and had finished packing. Otherwise, I would have been treated to the "Why aren't you ready?" speech for the 1,457th time.

I would like to state that at times, I love my family. I actually get along much better with them now that my sister and my mother realize that I need 8 hours of sleep to function. To give some perspective, my mom and my sister can bother survive for long periods of time on 5 hours of sleep or less. I swear some days my sister doesn't sleep. She's always been like this, even when she was little.

Of course, they realized that I need more sleep not because I have always needed more sleep and they respect that or because we had a long, grown up talk about how I was not getting enough sleep while staying with them and that's why I often skipped family vacation. Oh no. They figured it out when we arrived at a hotel room at 12 midnight after a 9 hour drive and knowing that we all had to get up at 7am the next morning, my family decided to sit up and watch basketball until 12:30am. Then after the game, they discuedd the game for thirty minutes. Then my mom decided she wanted to read with the lights on for another hour. At 1:30am I got tired enough that had an arguement with my mom and went to sleep in the back of the SUV she had rented for the trip.

Strangely enough, after that, she was much more sympathetic to my need for sleep. If I'd known that all it took was acting like a five year old to convince her that 7-8 hours of sleep is a reasonable amount, I would have done it years ago.

I am still trying to convince her that when I say "I need to eat." it doesn't mean "Let's wait around two hours before even beginning to think of where to go." Asking nicely doesn't work. Asking repeatedly just gets me lectured about being rude. Hinting does the same. Complaining about how I feel dizzy, naseuated, and headachy gets me a lecture about exaggerating. I figure next time, I'll just pass out on them and let that damn well prove my point.

Other than the whole food issue, this trip wasn't bad. It had it's high points. My sister took us to the country club restraunt that she works at where the chef specially made us desserts and came out to the table to tell my mom what a wonderful work ethic she'd instilled. The food was excellent (as were the deserts... mmm... bourban pecan pie). While watching a special on Mary Magdeline, a special which speculated that she might have been Jesus's wife, my mom made the comment "I thought Jesus was gay? Look at all the Apostles!" I almost snorted my cran-grape juice at that. I have new dress clothes for work. We didn't fight, no major arguements, and I mostly enjoyed myself.

However, there are little things about my family that drive me nuts and make me glad I only have to spend four days or less around them. Let's talk about my mom and my sister's listening taste. For six hours down and six hours back (out of a 7 hour drive) it was all conservative talk radio all the time. I'm conservative but even I can only stand so much Rush Limbaugh and whoever the other guy was (he came after Rush and was more obnoxious that funny) before I start wanting to beat my head against the car window. I don't mind when they're making fun of the Democratic party. Hell, I do that too as well as taking potshots at my own party. It's when they go on their little tirades about the evils of libralism that I stop listening.

If you think it got better when we actually got to Athens, GA, think again. If my mom drove it was still talk radio although not more conservative bashing liberal radio. I'll take news or consumer advice over that any day. If my sister drove then it was constant modern Christian rock. I'm sure there is good modern Christian rock out there but my sister isn't listening to it. It's like elevator music. It's grating in it's consitent white bread blandness. I would take country music over it anyday, and considering how I feel about most country music that is saying something.

The other big annoyance is my mother. Don't get me wrong, I love my mother. Sometimes she is a wonderful, wonderful person and I love being around. However, she keeps forgetting that I am 25 years old and had been living on my own for over five years. I can manage my finances, hold a job, and manage my household. She will badger me about certain things until I want to scream. And it's not the big, important things like finding a job or considering buying a house or what my next car should be and how I can afford it. Oh no. My mother thinks I'm perfectly capable of making rational, informed decisions about the giant things in my life.

My mother has decided to focus in on the little things in life. Like shampoo. Yes, you read it right, shampoo. For three months every time I talked with her she would mention that I should try Johnson & Johnson No more tangles shampoo. This was the shampoo my mom use to use on my hair when I was like five. It's baby shampoo. It will not work on my hair any more. For three months I told my mom that I was perfectly happy using the shampoo I had now and wasn't interested in changing. I hinted at it. I told her I wasn't interested. I even argued with her about it. She would not let up. Finally, in desperation, I flat out lied to her saying I'd tried the shampoo and it didn't work just to get her to SHUT UP.

Another example of this is the black skirts I own. I do not like to go clothes shopping. I have never liked to go clothes shopping and I'm pretty sure you'll see why by the time I'm finished. However, I realize that there are certain things I need to own beyond jeans and T-shirts. These include a few dresses (for weddings and nicer events), nice business clothes, and a black skirt for funerals. On my own I bought a plain, calf length black skirt. It sits up in my closet and still has the tags on it. I've never needed to wear it since I've bought it and I don't like to wear it casually. I prefer dress pants or a ankle length dress. I can't wear it to work since in the past my work has involved hauling boxes around the office. Definitely not something you can do in a skirt.

But I do realize that I need to have a black outfit on hand and since I don't want a black dress, the skirt will have to do. My mom loves to shop for other people, including my sister and I. My sister loves it. I don't. Last year, I found myself in need of some more summer weight work clothes. Since I was between jobs at the time my mom agreed to buy the clothes for me. I got all that I wanted (two pants suits and that was more than enough) and was ready to pay. My mom insisted I needed a black skirt. I tried telling her that I owned a black skirt, that it was unused up in my closet. Didn't matter that I already owned a black skirt. She insisted that I needed a black skirt. In order to just get out of the store, I tried the skirt on and when it fit, let her buy it for me.

Now I have two black skirts, complete with tags, hanging in my closet.

This was another I need nice clothes trip. My sister was taking us to dinner at the country club restraunt and I needed an outfit to wear. Plus I needed some more dress pants since two of my old pairs had holes in them. So we went to the Mall of GA and were shopping. First of all, I am not a fashion concious person. Usually all I want is black dress pants and maybe a pair in grey or khaki pair. Definitely no navy pants since I don't have a lot of dress shirts that would go with navy pants and I don't feel like buying any. I also don't like shirts with no sleeves. It's a personal preference.

After that, everything my mom tried to get me to try on was either a) navy pants or b) sleeveless. I swear she went around the store looking for it. Every time I would try something on without sleeves she would spend five minutes telling me how good it looked on me. Which is fine except for the fact that I don't like wearing sleeveless ANYTHING. Dresses. Shirts. IT DOESN'T MATTER. Luckily my sister managed to find some black pants that were in my size and were short enough for me to wear. That distracted my mom enough for awhile. As we were leaving the dressing room, I asked my sister where the pants she found me were because I wanted to see if there was any in khaki.

Big mistake. My mom then tried to get me to buy a pair of every single color they had. No, I don't want chocolate brown pants. Or olive green. Or white. NO I DON'T WANT NAVY PANTS. Fine, I'll take a pair of gray pants if you will just shut up. Luckily, three pairs of pants seemed to satisfy her. We headed towards the register to pay. Then I heard the dreaded words.

Mom: Look. Black skirts. You really need a black skirt.
Tsaiko: No, Mom. I don't need a black skirt.
Mom: Yes, you do. A black skirt is very useful to have around.
Tsaiko: I know. I already have a black skirt.
Mom: I think you should try this one on before we leave to see if it fits.
Tsaiko: *sees red* I do not need a black skirt. Do you know what will happen if you buy me that black skirt? I'll tell you. It'll sit up in my closet with the tags on it, never to be worn, just like the other two black skirts I already own. Do you understand? I am not trying it on and I am not getting another black skirt.
Sister: ...
Mom: Well. You don't have to be nasty about it.
Tsaiko: ARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!

I am proud to say that even though I have one pair of black shoes I'll probably never wear, I did not come back from my trip with a single black skirt.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Drinking and shotguns in your pants don't mix
________________________________
On Thursday, July 22, 2004 at 08:54 a.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

We can only hope that this bozo is infertile for the rest of his life. We have enough morons as is. We don't need them breeding.

You can tell it's going to be an interesting day when you have an experience like the one I just had. I'm sitting in my living room chatting on AIM when it suddenly occurs to me that today is trash day. I loaded up the trashcan last night but didn't take it out to the curb. My roomie was supposed to take it out this morning, but I couldn't remember her doing that. So I got up to check.

Sure enough, the trashcan was still sitting up on our porch.

Now there's a reason I always ask my roomie to take the trash down in the morning or do it myself in the evening. If I take the trash down in the morning, it means I have to get dress (ie put on jeans and a bra) before taking my shower, take the trash out, and then either sit around in my clothes feeling nasty or immediately take a shower. I can't just do this right before I take a shower because the garbage trucks sometimes come earlier than that. So my whole morning routine gets fscked up. It's not the end of the world, but it is annoying. After all, I'm being deprived of valuable "doing nothing and trying not to go crazy" time.

Still, not a big deal. Given that Miome is actually working and paying bills, I'm not going to complain about the lack of taking out the trash. But I really don't want to go upstairs and get dressed. That's when I come across a brilliant idea. I'll just go outside in my pajamas! I have an old T-shirt on. I have my plaid lounging pants on. I'm decent. No one will notice! After all, I'm only going to walk the 20 feet to the curb and back. It'll be fine.

Cue the disaster music.

the first thing you have to know about this little fiasco is that our back door has two locks. One is a deadbolt which I have a key for. One is regular lock which I don't have a key for. Even if you unlock the bottom part so you can open the door, the lock has a mechanism that prevents you from opening the door from the out side unless you have a key. It's really a nice safety feature because even if you leave the deadbolt unlocked, no one can get in. And if you have the deadbolt locked, even if a burgler breaks out the glass window on the door, he's still not going to be able to get it open.

Since Miome is the only one with a key, I usually get around this safety feature through one of two ways. 1) I don't close the door all the way so the lock doesn't lock. 2) I make sure she's inside so on the off chance I do close the door all the way I can simply pound on it until she lets me back in.

Miome is at work. I am in my pajamas. I'm about to step out the back door. Can you all guess what happens? Click. The door locks behind me. Luckily, I had my keys in hand since I know how likely it is I'll shut the door behind me and have to walk all the way around the block to get to the front of the town home. If I hadn't had my keys in hand you would not be reading this story right now because I would be attempting to explain to the neighbors why I needed to use their cell phone to call my roomie to let me back in the house while wearing my pajamas. That is, if the police didn't pick me up first.

So now I'm standing on the back porch in my stylish blue and green plaid pajama bottoms, a grey T-shirt, and slippers (all clashing I might add) with my door very much closed and locked behind me. My cats, being the wonderfully helpful creatures that they are, licked their butts and wondered if the fat orange cat that was on our back porch yesterday was getting more attention than them. He wasn't because he wasn't there. I was soon to find out why.

I decide that maybe I can get out of this situation with my dignity intact (feel free to laugh at this point). It's early in the morning. Most people are already at work by this point. Everything will be fine. So I proceed to haul the trash can down to the curb. Suddenly, from the other end of the street, I hear a sound. Why, it's small YAPPY DOG. It appears that his owner has decided to take him out for his morning toilet and now he's spotted me. I've had run-ins with YAPPY DOG before when I've had to take out the trash. Generally he jumps and barks in a circle until he deigns to settle down long enough to pee on my foot. Then his owner comes and apologizes and we chat a while.

This morning I wanted to be around neither YAPPY DOG or his owner. I decide my best course of action is to walk quickly away from them and start trying to make it around the row of townhouses and to the front door where safety lays. Does this dissuade YAPPY DOG? Of course not! He thinks this is the best game ever. Now, not only am I in my (stylish) pajama bottoms, T-shirt and sandals (all clashing) but I also have a small YAPPY DOG doing high-speed doughnuts around me. As if this wasn't enough to make me self-concious I am also not wearing a bra. Why? Because I'm an idiot! I've got my arms crossed over my chest to prevent any unwarranted bouncing. It's a little known fact that once you get past being a teenager boobs will bounce only when you don't want them too. At all other times, they will sag or squish.

At that exact moment (8:33:47am EST) every male in the entire division suddenly decided that they needed to cruising on into work in their big manly pensis extensions. As they drove by me, no doubt their attention grabbed by the YAPPY DOG, who was doing more circles than a plane trying to land at O'Hare, they slowed down. To about 2 mile per hour. I don't know if this was a "WTF?" reaction or a "Ooooh. Girl." reaction. I don't care. All I know was that I was walking as quickly as I could in my sandals while simultaneously trying not to give into the urge to kick YAPPY DOG into low earth orbit.

Finally, finally I made it to the safety of my own front door. I quickly unlocked the sucker and let myself in. YAPPY DOG had given up his persuit of me in favor of doing more dog like things. Namely, sniffing the poop left by the neighbor's dog in our front yard. I've never been so happy to see crap on our lawn in my life. All four of the monster redneck trucks that had been tracking me sped off, their show for the day done. They are not getting a repeat as I have learned my lesson and will never, never, never, never go outside in my pajamas again. NEVER. The house could be on fire and it will just have to wait until I put a bra on. NEVER AGAIN.

And now, it is time for me to go get dressed. The end.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Helpful phrases in Japanese (I think)
________________________________
On Wednesday, July 21, 2004 at 01:51 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

I love getting letters. I really do. I don't ever throw them out. I cleaned out my desk at my mom's house and found postcards and letters that people had sent me in first and second grade. Did I throw them out? No. I reread them, smiled, and carefully stored them in shoeboxes with the more recent ones. I keep all the Christmas and birthday cards ever sent to me as well. Why? Because someone took the time and effort to write or pick something out for me and I like that. It makes me feel good. Any time I'm having a truly shitty day, all I need to do is stumble across an old card or letter and my day is instantly brighter.

I'm not a very good letter writer. At least, not when I'm writing letters to people as me. When I'm writing a letter as one of my characters, I'm okay. I know what to say and how to say it and what information I need to convey. But when I'm writing a letter to people in real life... that's when things break down. No matter how good I am at writing, there are certain things that leave me at a loss for words. I know what I want to say. Things like "I heard about your tournament. I hope everything went well at your show. Thank you for such and such. I really like the way your write." Things that let people know that yes, I do read their LJ or enjoy their AIM conversation or appreciate the fact that they write fanfics even though they don't have to.

Is that what I actually write down in the letters? Of course not. I stare down the blank card (usually I get blank cards because I love the nifty pictures on the front) and stare. Eventually I fill in one side of the card with a picture because I know I'm not going to be able to think of enough words to fill it up. Besides, I like coming up with pictures and ideas that I think fit whoever I'm sending the letter to. Then I stare at the the page some more. Finally, I just start writing. What this results in is a medium length, rambling letter that I can guarentee is not what I originally intended to write you about (unless it's a thank you letter. I can usually get the thank you part down).

Sometimes I will apologize for my handwriting. I do not have the neatest handwriting. I have been told that this is because my mind processes information so quickly that my hand has a hard time keeping up. Yes, I have been tested for this. I can't slow my thoughts down enough to syncronize with my hand. This is why I sometimes leave out words or change thoughts mid-sentence. On a computer, I can go back and catch the mistakes, but when I'm writing in pen... things get a little bit tricky. I really, really do try to think before I put pen to paper, but sometimes it doesn't always work.

Therefore, if you get a kind of rambly letter from me this summer (and darnit, I am going to get all of these suckers done before Sept.), please be kind of understanding. I really am trying. Really.

In other news, after applying to the temp agency over a month and a half ago, they have finally verified my references and are now actively looking to place me. Also in the good news department, the state budget was signed by the governor on Tuesday. That means that the departments I have been applying to now have money. This means that hopefully they can start calling people like me to set up interviews so I can, I don't know, work for them.

Also, after some debate, I've decided to go with my mom down to Georgia to visit my sister. I like my mom. She is (usually) a really nice, fun lady to be around. But lately everything I say turns into a political debate. As people who have read this journal for awhile know, I don't even like political debate. This would be why. I don't follow a lot of politics, I don't like politics, and I definitely know that I do not know enough about politics to debate anyone about them. Really, next time she does this I am going to have to just tell her that I don't care and change the subject. Because telling her "I don't like politics" ad nasuem just does not seem to be cutting it.

At least she hasn't tried to bring anything up dealing with the Federal Marriage Act or homosexual marriages in general. I think a few of my comments might have clued her in on what I think of that particular topic. One of these days I'm going to snap and tell her I write gay porn and got on and on about it until she knows exactly how I feel when she starts in on her political rants. Hehehehehe. Contemplating revenge that I'll never take is sweet.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences
________________________________
On Monday, July 19, 2004 at 01:42 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

As some of you may know already, I am haven't been on the computer every Friday for the past month or so. Don't expect this trend to deviate. The reason for this is because I spend about three hours each Friday volunteering at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. Back when I was in college I actually worked for the museum one summer, helping put their rather extensive collection into a database. I assume that it's still in a database somewhere in the museum, though I do wonder if anyone actually updates it any more. Anyway, after the whole fiasco with my Master's program, the people at the museum asked if I would mind volunteering. Since they were the best part of the whole experience, I said yes. Filled out the application, sent it in, and got a phone call about volunteering.

So for the past month of so, I've been going out there on Fridays for several hours. I volunteer down in the collections which is where they store everything not on display. Collections is down on the second level of the basement. It's a huge warehouse looking room filled with cabinets which in turn are filled with drawers which in turns are filled with all sorts of stuff. Not just fossils but also rocks and minerals, stuffed animals, bones, displays. In other words, just about anything that at one time inhabited the museum.

My job at the museum is to take the stuff that is collected out in the field at one particular site and try to identify it. I've already talked about what this entails. Pick up fossil. Look at it. If I can't immediately ID it (and after awhile, the most common things barely get a glance before you know what they are) start comparing it to everything else that's come out of the ground at that site and see if it looks like anything else. Label it or put it in the "Still looking" pile to ask the collections guy about when he shows up. The reason I'm so good at this is because my Master's was about turtles, specifically side necked turtles, and that's what most of the stuff coming out of this place is.

Now there is a difference between a fossil that you can identify and a fossil that you can identify that is useful. Any bone that is part of an animal's head, limbs, or vertebral column in immensly useful because these are the bones that typically let you know what the heck you're looking at. These are also the bones that will give you some idea of how the animal lived. What's less useful is stuff like teeth, shell fragments, scutes (which are little bony plates just under the skin. Crocodiles have them), claws, and partial bones. You can usually tell what animal or what general class of animal such stuff is coming from but it doesn't usually help you.

There's also the issue of rarity. If I have two thousand sharks teeth from the exact same species of shark (you think I'm making this up, but I'm not. I'm beginning to hate sharks), then the shark's teeth become progressively less useful with each one I identify. However, if I have one and only one example of a tooth from a fish then that one tooth is much more important that the 1,999 extra shark teeth I have. Because that one tooth proves that I have something other than one type of shark living in the area. Similar thing for turtle shells only the rare ones are pieces that are intact or have suture lines. Otherwise, it's just another turtle shell fragment.

I'm going to introduce you to a concept called "collecting bias." Collecting bias is based on a really simple concept. People like shiny, whole things that they can recognize. This is why if you send a person into a area that is litered with turtle shells, dinosaur vertebra, crocodile skull fragments, and mammoth tusks 99.9% of the time they will come back out with a bucket full of the most common shark's teeth you can find. Why? Because shark's teeth are recognizeable, shiny and can usually be found whole. All the other stuff gets used as doorstops (again I wish I were joking, but you would not beleive the number of important fossils that did time as doorstops).

One of the things I have to deal with when sorting through the fossils is collecting bias of a different sort. Some of the drawers were collected by a group of graduate students in paleotology under the direction of the head of collections. I can tell because these drawers have boxes with several fossils labeled such things as "F4" and "D3." This means that a grid patterns was laid out on the ground and the fossils were carefully removed from their appropriate square so that some poor fool making $0 an hour (me) can attempt to put the pieces back together into something that might resemble a whole piece of turtle shell.

These are the nice drawers. Because by some law that I learned in GIS but have forgotten the name of, things closer together are more alike that things farther apart. What this means for paleontology people is that things found close together are more likely to fit back together than things found far apart. So if everything is labelled in such a way that I can know that this piece of useless turtle shell was found near this piece of useless turtle shell, I can more than likely put them back into something resembling a large piece of useless turtle shell.

Not so with the drawers I'm currently rumaging through. These drawers were collected by the dread volunteer amature palentologists: people who have an interest in paleontology that doesn't extend past the "I've read lots of books on the subject and I've seen these fossils around my house for years and... OH! LOOK A SHARK'S TOOTH! THIS PALEONTOLOGY STUFF SURE IS EASY."

These are the people who define collecting bias. Everything is a very important fossil that needs to be collected right now and then thrown into a box where is will be kicked around so until it's in itty-bitty pieces. They've never heard of glue or epoxy (the stuff we use to keep larger pieces that obviously go together together). These are the people who think everything hard is a fossil (including but not limited to): rocks, compacted clay balls, bits of wood, a nail, and the fillings from worm tubes. They also put every single things that catches their eye into boxes, sometimes filling them to overflowing, until the boxes break due to the sheer weight in them. Usually they attempt to break all over the Collections cement floor.

The biggest problem is the wood. Wood doesn't stop decomposing simply because you stick it in a drawer. Oh no. It continues to break down until it get to the point that every time you open the drawer a lovely waft of decay hits your nose. Wood also decomposes all over your hands so that by the time I'm done, my hands stink of rotting wood. Lovely.

Nobody likes working with the volunteer amature paleontologist stuff. There are drawers and drawers full of it because no one wants to touch it. It's a painful mess to go through. Except me. I like to go through the volunteer stuff because you find some of the most interesting things in it if you can wade through all the stuff. I like trying to put together a puzzle where the box top is missing and the pieces I want are mixed in with the puzzle pieces of seven or seventeen other puzzles. I like the challenge and the tedious boringness and trying to figure out why someone picked up a piece of nail and thought it was a fossil. I like the volunteer stuff because no one else likes it.

However, last Friday, I strained my back getting a drawer that was way to full of volunteer stuff out. When I finally did manage to get it moved, I scraped the skin off of my knuckle. Then the box I took out almost collasped under the weight of the fossils piled into it. I wound up havign to take them out one by one until it was lighter. The fossils filled my table and it took me about 20 minutes just to sort them into two piles "stuff so crappy there's no way it can be identified" and "stuff that might can be identified." I filled my entire work space and still didn't get everything out of the box. It's waiting for me to go back next Friday.

I love volunteering. No really.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Mother Goose Rocks
________________________________
On Wednesday, July 14, 2004 at 10:23 a.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

Go to the above site. Click on the cartoons tab. Watch the cartoons (I highly recommend "The Wheels on the Bus" by Mad Donna, "Three Blind Mice" by Ohmya Twang, and "Old Woman in a Shoe" by Share, the Diva).

So I did my citizen's duty yesterday and sent emails off to both my Senators about the Federal Marriage Amendment and what I thought of it. I like to think it was a powerful and insightful email that will cause them both to vote the way I want them too. Or at least, it would have been. You see, I ran spellcheck on the emails before I sent them off. I didn't want to look like a dork by mispelling something in a letter to a Senator. It caught a few words and I fixed them. I copied and pasted my email into a text file in case the browser crashed spectacularly before it got off. Then I sent it off. Five seconds after I hit the send button what do I see? Instead of "Dear Senator" I had typed out "Dear Sentator." Somehow, the spellcheck managed to miss this.

So I'm sure all the spuds in office will be really impressed by my eloquence. *bangs her head against the desk*

In slightly happier news, I think I may have found out why I'm not getting any calls back on the positions I applied for at the University. For those of you who don't know, I'm trying to get a permanent job at the University I left because one of the benefits of being a permanent employee is that you get to take classes for $7 a semester. Since I am going to get my Master's degree no matter what, dammit, this would be a very nice thing for me. So I've been applying to all the jobs that I see on the site that 1) I'm qualified for and 2) seem to be something I want to do. For the most part, this has consisted of anything not in Student Health Services.

The problem has been that I've not heard back from any of the jobs that have made it through HR and gone to the respective departments. The departments are supposed to call me about such things as interviews. Only... no calls. This really baffled me because I've got about 5 jobs that are at this stage and not a single one has called me. WTF? I'm qualified for all the positions (sometimes I think overqualified). Why haven't I been called or at least sent the little "This position has been filled" letters?

The answer came when I read an article on the State Budget. It seems that the State Budget, which goes from July to June of the next year, has not been passed this year. It's still being debated. What that means, since it's now July, is that all state institutions including the University I'm applying to have been running on left over money from last years budget. Of course they're not going to be hiring anyone. They can't afford to. So I'm hoping that as soon as the new budget gets pushed through I'll be getting phone calls. Especially since my application for the one position I really want has finally been approved and is heading to the appropriate department.

And now for something completely different.

So people in the Digimon fandom remember me whining about the serious lack of good Kouji/Kouichi yaoi. So far I've found one good fic that wasn't so completely OOC that it made my eyes bleed. Well, two nights ago I came up with a strange idea for a Kouichi/Kouji/Takuya fanfic. Yes, all three of them in character. It started off as just a throw away idea for a PWP between two other characters (Davis and the Digimon Emperor if you must know) that turned into a "What if?" game.

Next thing I know those three were in it. And then it grew a plot. What am I saying? Kouichi's angst is a plot unto itself and wherever Kouichi goes it follows. With it's plot. Now I have this crazy, crazy idea that I can see happening and I'm debating with myself if I'm going to write it or not. I get lots of ideas but this one is actually sticking around and bugging me. I could do it. I could write this because it seems so few other people are doing it.

The real question is: should I?

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: The Kingdom of Loathing
________________________________
On Tuesday, July 13, 2004 at 01:13 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

Everytime I sit down to write a rant about the NEA's little book study, I reread articles on it and am reminded of Mark Twain. "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." Some of the statistics in these articles makes me weep. I've about decided that what I need to do is get my hands on the original study by the NEA and look through it. Some of it was compiled by the US Census Bureau so it should be available to the public. Because really, I need the definitions of some of their terms (like "literature") before I can rip it apart.

Thanks to everyone who wished me luck on the interview. The testing went okay. I didn't do as well as I'd hope because it was a slightly different version of Office than I was use to. But I did okay. The interview... oh dear lord. You could tell the lady interviewing me had done this hundreds of times and she was going to be doing it hundreds of times after me. I might as well have had an interview with a computer or tape recorder. "Why should we hire you over someone else? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What would be your ideal job?" I hope I managed to impart upon her that I want a job where I actually work as opposed to working for two hours and then having to entertain myself and look busy for the next six hours.

Right now, according to the website, they are still reviewing my references (that is my last three employers). Ugh. I'll call them tomorrow (one week from my interview) if they still have gotten through to people.

Now to talk about the people that sat next to us at Red Lobster on Sunday. Oh dear lord. Now I am not fond of sitting next to children in restraunts. Especially screaming, whining children who run around the restraunt, kick the back of my chair, and are generally brats in public. They tend to ruin my lunch/dinner and there's not a thing I can do about it without someone getting snarky at me. Some children are absolute angels. Some are not. However, I will taking the most obnoxious children known to man over the groups of adults we had to sit next to on Sunday.

I knew there was trouble when they put together two tables for a large group. Large groups are usually (not always) obnoxious or at least noisy. When this group came in, they imeediately started singing "Happy Birthday" and then stated "We cane say it's your birthday and get some free stuff." Oh yes, we have some real winners here.

This group was fresh from church as evidenced by their nice clothes and the fact they gossiped about people in their congregation the entire time my roomie and I had the misfortune of sitting next to them. I have nothing against talking about people. My friends and I talk about people all the time, usually as a way to catch up on what is going on in people's lives. However, we don't do it in the middle of restraunts loud enough that everyone in the section can also hear it. We also are not malicious about it. These people had no qualms about being malicious and vindictive as they waited for the rest of their group to show up.

As a side note, the rest of their group never did show up. After sitting next to these people for 20 minutes, I can understand why.

First on their list of people to talk about was one guy's neighbor. What was this neighbor's sin? Why he mowed his lawn once a week instead of twice a week like everyone else in the neighborhood. How dare he make everyone else look lazy by mowing his lawn more often that his neighbors. But that's okay. He himself doesn't mow his lawn. He gets them black people to do it. Have to wonder about that. He must be giving them drugs in order to get them to work. Because you know black people won't actually work unless its for drugs.

I wish I was making this up. My jaw about hit the table when I realized what they were saying. After that I tried to ignore what they were saying. That didn't work because these people were like watching a fatal car wreck. You know you shouldn't stare, but you can't help it.

Their next vicitm was some lady in their congregation. It seems that one of the guy's, the unmarried on, had been flirting with her for a few weeks before someone took him aside and informed him that he needed to avoid her. Why? Because she was divorced and had a child from her first marriage! The horror! But a far greater sin in his eyes was that he thought she was 25 when in reality she was closer to being 37 in age. How dare she look younger than she is. Doesn't she know how to dress her age? It's decietful the way she leads people to beleive she's only 25 and not 37. Doesn't she have any kind of respect for herself and her child?

After this bit of wisdom I did my absolute best to ignore these people. I did hear bits and pieces afterwards including one part where they were making fun of another woman who suffered from boughts of depression. As soon as we could, my roomie and I fled the restraunt.

You know, this mentality was part of the reason I left my hometown. This kind of closed-mindedness that says "Everyone who isn't just like us, who doesn't think just like us, who doesn't act just like us, is wrong. And we are the only people that matter or exist." Granted most of the people in my hometown were not as narrowminded as this (I know a few are. I unfortunately have met them), but the mentality is the same. If you asked this group do you want to move or leave, they would probably stare at you in horror and confusion. They are trapped in their own little world of what is proper and will never leave. They will never want to leave. They will never look beyohd their town, their church, their friends and associates for some kind of new ideas. Oh no. Because being different is wrong.

Ugh. I have to go read gay love stories now. It's my own personal kind of brain bleach.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Nobody Ever Admits They're a BNF
________________________________
On Monday, July 12, 2004 at 01:16 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

So I was going to do a big, long rant on the National Endowment of the Arts report and all the news articles about it. But I'll do it tomorrow since I'm feeling lazy. Today I shall talk about one of the most random things I was taught in school: how to fill out a check. Specifically, I was taught this in the seventh and eigth grades in Middle School about the same time I was taught the proper way to fill out a job application (blue or black ink, put N/A through anything that doesn't apply, list previous jobs in order from most recent, etc).

The reason I'm reminded of this bit of my childhood is that today is bill paying day. Unlikes most people, the bills are all due between the 15th and the end of the month. So I do them all in one big batch, and therefore have to write a lot of checks at once.

It's kind of strange to hear your teacher's voice in the back of your head every time you fill out a check. "Capitalize the first letter in the number. This is where you put a dash and this is where you put the "and." You do this for the amounts less that a dollar. Don't forget to sign it here." It's kind of amusing and nostalgic at the same time. Some twelve years after I took the class I can still remember how to properly write out numbers on a check.

Of course, I never really understood why they were teaching this in middle school. I could understand teaching us (hurriedly) about the proper etiquette of sendingout graduation announcement in twelfth grade. Things like this is how you address the inner envelope, this is how you do the outer envelope, you should expect RSVP's, this is how you do thank you notes. That's something you use right away and then reuse when you get married and/or graduate from college. Or really, address anything for a really important event.

But learning out to fill out checks in seventh grade? How many checks did you write as a 13 year old? I didn't start writing them until I got a bank account of my own at 18. I did use the how to fill out a job application training (such as it was) before that. I was working when I was 16 and that came in handy. Still, it could have waited till highschool, something like freshman year.

Oh well. It's just a trip down memory lane. Now for something I learned in basic accounting. Having to pay more than you're bringing in does not make for a happy bank account. Cry little account balance. Cry.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Angst Technology
________________________________
On Tuesday, July 6, 2004 at 01:12 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

I'm tempted to write Gundam Wing fic again. Specifically Duo cutting his hair off and how it feels to suddenly live without the weight of it at the base of your skull. I go through this everytime I get so much of my hair cut off. I know what he'd go through. The lightness of your head. Jerking your brush through the end of your hair because you expect there to be more. The way it falls in your face when you're not expecting it because you still think it's down to your waist. Automatically using way too much shampoo/conditioner on it out of habit. The way you keep touching it to convince yourself that yes, you really did get that much cut off.

I think I could do a pretty good job describing that right now. I empathize with those feelings. My problem is trying to come up with a good idea for why Duo would suddenly cut his own hair off. And it would be voluntary. Maybe even something he did with a pair of scissors in a fit of "I can't take you stupid idots any more, dammit!" right before leaving. Can you imagine walking into Duo's empty room only to find all his badges/ID along with his braid lying on the bed? I bet whoever sees that, knowing what Duo's hair means to him, about craps their pants. They have to wonder just how pissed off he's got to be to make that kind of statement.

And I can see in my head Duo with his hair cropped incredibly short, shorter than mine by a long shot, touching the fine hairs at the back of his neck in disbelief. After his little gesture with his braid he went to hairstylist and got more cut off. I can hear bits of convesation in my head "It looks like someone took a pair of scissors and butchered your hair. This cut is so uneven. No wonder you're jumpy. I'd be jumpy to if some stylist did this to my hair and I had to go back to one to get it fixed." And Duo laughing because really, what can he say to that that won't make him seem crazy?

At the same time, Duo hates what he's done to his hair. He punches out a mirror, like it's the mirror's fault that years of tribute got shorn away in a moment of frustrated rage. Eventually it just becomes natural to have shorter hair. He gets it trimmed every once in awhile but slowly it grows out. I say slowly but once again I'm going to model Duo's hair on mine. Mine will be back down to my waist in about a year, if not less. Duo's I can see taking a couple of years to get a decent braid. You know that first time he braids his hair he's got to laugh himself sick, it's so damn short and pathetic looking, because if he doesn't he'll cry.

Flashes and brief glimpses of scenes. Duo some place on earth running, the middle of podunk nowhere, running a hole in the wall bar. Learning the ropes. Decorating the walls with war memorabilia, though no one knows why. Then Heero finding Duo and punching the crap out of him because you just don't leave your braid, your pride and joy and the one thing you treasure, lying on your bunk with all your official ID's and a slip of paper that reads "Fuck this shit. I quit." Not unless you want the perfect soldier to track you down and demand to know what you were thinking.

There's a story in there, threads of an actual plot that I need to pull out and weave back together into something whole. I may let it stew for awhile or might try writing. I've been itching to get something down, but not having a whole lot of luck in getting anything worked on. Maybe this will break the dam and let me do something.

In other news, sometimes it's nice to be your own fangirl. This morning, for the first time since before Middle School, I came within a quarter of an inch of touching my toes. As far back as I can remember I've never been able to touch my toes. That is, stand with my feet on the floor, not bending my knees, and touch my toes. However, I've been doing stretching exercises in the morning to try and cut down on the muscle cramps I get in the back of my legs when I walk for long distances. It's been helping tremendously and has the added benefit of letting me get closer to touching my toes.

When I finally am able to touch my toes, all of you will hear about it. I take my victories where I can get them.

I'm also my own fangirl in that I was reading back through parts of the Phoenix Universe Digimon fanfic and actually squeaked at something I wrote. It was these two parts even though in my word document they're combined into one longer part. Still, so very very cute.

And now, back to my regularly scheduled bordeom.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Weboggle
________________________________
On Monday, July 5, 2004 at 04:41 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

I am now minus a foot of hair. My head feels really weird and light. This is what happens when you let your hair grow down past your waist and then get it cut to just below your shoulders. I think I also managed to lose about 5-7 years with this one haircut. Which is annoying because I bet 2:1 that people start asking me why I'm not in college yet. Oh well. As long as it gets me the job I interview for on Wednesday I don't care what people think. Still, it feels weird to have my hair this short again.

Hey, at least some cute Asian guy washed and cut my hair. He had great hands and was nice to look at. He was totally worth the $5 tip I gave him.

I have been watching several things over the last week. First is Kyou Kara Maou which is a series I have repeatedly described as being "on crack." That is the only way I can describe it. The main character gets flushed down the toilet to another world, told he's king of the demons, has several guys falling over themselves to serve him, get himself engaged to another guy, has the servants making bets on whether he and his fiance have kissed, meets the former king (queen) who I promptly dubbed "Hoochy Mama," has to wear black thong underwear, gets saved by a chattering flying skeleton (don't ask), get sent BACK to his own world and shows everyone his knew black thong underwear. And this is all in the first three episodes.

CRACK! COMPLETE AND UTTER CRACK! But I'm not complaining. Cute guys! Yaoi potential! Yeah, I'm hooked.

Watched some of the Digimon movies (1-4) subtitled. I cannot beleive how different the American version was from the Japanese version. True, they took the first three movies and squished them together to make the American version. But still, it was so vastly different. Although the third movie dragged so badly in parts that I resorted to the fast forward button to get us through about 15 minutes of it until they killed the Bunny o' Doom. I can understand why they cut some of that because I know I would have fallen asleep in the movie theater if I had to sit through the original.

Shoi was also introduced to Digimon by those four movies. Which was interesting to say the least. She got a lot of "Okay, see him? He's got the goggles so he's the leader. That's Tai but his name is Taichi in the Japanese version. And his is sister is Kari or Hikari. She's a little special at this point. What am I saying? She's always a little special. And that's them being cute. There's the digimon. Crap I don't remember what Agumon's smallest form is. Oh well, there's a bubble blowing black thing. It's a Digimon. Now it's Koromon. And oh dear lord, their Dad is a drunk in this verion? Holy cow I need to work that into a fanfic somehow. Anyway, now Koromon is Agumon and then he'll become Greymon to battle the giant parrot... thing."

I don't know how much she took away beyond the fact that all of them are cute when they're little, Davis is a spaz, Ken and Davis are so a couple, and there's quite possibly a threesome going on between Sora, Matt and Tai. Anyways, at least she'll have a vague idea of what Miome and I are talking about when we plot.

Finally, we watched the 6th DVD of Junni Kokki. I had been forewarned about what it was like. So I wasn't going "Who the Hell are these chicks?" very much. Still, I was not expecting the overwhelming bitchiness and angstiness of the DVD. Good lord, did we really need four episodes for Youko to grow a spine? I thought we'd already been through this once! Still, it became known as the DVD of Bitch. Hopefully, the next DVD will focus more on the real reason I watch Junni Kokki. Cute, angsty bishounen kirin and the Emperors/Emperesses that love them. ^^

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: CSS Zen Garden
________________________________
On Tuesday, June 29, 2004 at 12:36 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

So I was a big slug yesterday. Seriously. I think I got two things done all day long: I took out the garbage and I managed to drag myself out to lunch. That was it. I didn't even get an entry typed up. Which is sad.

On Friday I went and volunteered at the musuem. This was how my "training" went. "Well, you know where most everything is. Here's a few cabinets with some of the stuff you're going to be seeing. Here's the cabinets full of stuff that hasn't been identified or catalogued. You've done some identifying before so I don't really need to train you much. Just do what you can. Oh, by the way, I'll be on vacation for the next two weeks so I won't be able to answer any of your questions. Have fun!" And then the musuem guy wandered back to his office and I was left alone in the big collections room with cabinets full of fossils.

If there was a heaven for me, I have reached it.

I spent about three hours ID'ing fossils and getting a feel for what I'm going to be working with. For those of you who have never ID'ed anything I'm going to tell you what this entails. First, all the fossils and such are in boxes. This is what comes straight from the field. As such you get everything that people thought was neat, nifty, or fossil-like collected. This includes pieces of wood, worm tube fillings, more teeth than you can shake a stick at, as well as fossils that could be identified by God as to what it once was.

From this I make an initial sorting. Anything that looks similar (like shark teeth or turtle shell pieces) gets stuck together in neat little piles. From those piles I try to see if anything will fit together (ie I have parts of the same fossil and they just broke apart during transit). Then I got through the piles (especially the turtle shell pile since that's almost always the largest) and ask myself "Even though I know this is turtle shell, is it useful? Can I tell what part of the shell it came from? Are there any sutures visible?" Luckily, I've got a lot of experience already working with the turtle shells (see, I did get something from my defunct Master's!) so this goes rather quickly.

Then I go through the other piles and ID anything I can. This is basically stuff you've seen so many times, like crocodile scutes (armor) or fish teeth, that you don't need to spend more than five seconds telling what it is. Then it gets a little more detailed. Shark teeth can't just be called "shark teeth." You have to tell what shark they came from. This requires taking the specimen and comparing it to either teeth in a book or teeth that have already been positively ID'ed. Which means I have to walk from one cabinet to the next comparing the specimens to figure out what I have. Repeat for everything that you can't identify. Label appropriately. Three hours on my feet but I don't care.

Then we get to the leftover pile. This is stuff that is fossils, are definitely important looking, but are to obscure for my limited knowledge. Usually this is the stuff the museum guy needs to look at and help me with. This includes a lot of the limb bones especially when there is only a fragment of the limb bone to go on. When I volunteered on Friday there was one piece that after soe scratching his head and looking at it, musuem guy thinks might be part of a vertebrae of a hadrosaur. WOO!

I can't wait to go back. Even if my feet hurt afterwards.

And now for your entertainment, I shall give you a retelling of five minutes in the life of my cats as transcribed and embellished from an AIM conversation I have with Sugah.

It starts off with Nadia on my knees. Nadia likes to sit on me. I think it makes her feel superior. However, she only like to sit on my when I have the blanket on my lap or am wearing jeans. New jeans are the best since she enjoys the sounds I make when she leaves little pick marks in brand new jeans. Right now, Nadia is glaring at me since I have the laptop in my lap as opposed to letting her take up one corner of the lap with the option of taking up my entire lap should she feel like it. The laptop is elimating that option, makeing clickclick sounds as I type, and slightly jiggling my knees.

Suddenly, Ms. Nadia has had enough! She jumps down from my knees and stalks across the floor. Where is she heading? Why do fight her sister Kira for domincance of the Best Buy bag that is laying on the floor. Oh wait. First, she needs to stop and wash her butt. But now she's back on her feet. Nothing will stop her from pouncing upon her sister and gaining control of the rare Bast Buy bag.

She is less than six inches from her sister (who knows of Nadia's intentions and is beginning to lash her tail threateningly) when something catches her eye. Or maybe she decides that the Best Buy bag isn't worth a fight. After all, there's always the Wal-Mart bag in the upstairs hallway. Whatever the reason, Nadia now stiff the carpet. This always bothers me because I never know what has captured the cats interest. No cat should take that much interest in the carpet. It makes me nervous that in a few seconds I might have to race over their and protect my cat from whatever she has "discovered."

She's now batting at the carpet. Is it an ant that's captured her interest? No. Is it a wasp that has captured her interest? No. Is it a twist tie that has captured her interest? No. Why, it's a piece of darker colored lint! Gasp. A few more snifts confirm that it is not edible so Nadia comes over, gets back on my knees, and glares at me. After all, it's might fault I didn't leave little bits of beef or chicken strewn across the carpet on the odd chance they might want to eat a piece of tasty lint. How thoughtless!

Of course, it's always amusing when I do give my cats treats on the carpet. Then anything that is a slightly different color becomes a possible treat. Is this a treat? Is this a treat? Is this a treat? No... it's a piece of leaf. Is this a treat? No, it's a stain on the carpet. Is this a treat? No, it's twist tie... LET'S PLAY WITH IT. *insert mad racing around the room while visioucly attacking the twist tie of LETHAL INTENT*

I so need to get a job.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is:
________________________________
On Sunday, June 27, 2004 at 09:11 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHANGELING

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Final Fantasy VIII necklace
________________________________
On Wednesday, June 23, 2004 at 11:04 a.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

I ran out of my regular toothpaste the other day. Now understand that I buy toothpaste in the largest tubes I can find. It's one of those things, like shampoo and conditioner, that I know I'm going to be using everyday and I'll only run out of when at the least opportune moment for me to go get some. Like say, when I'm naked in the shower (for the shampoo/conditioner, not for the toothpastes. Weirdos). There's no reason not to buy in bulk. Hell, if Food Lion sold conditioner in gallon containers with a little pump I'd buy it.

Excuse me a second, there are strange noises coming from my kitchen. I highly suspect one of my cats is doing something she shouldn't.

Where was I? Oh yes, I ran out of toothpaste. Last night in the process of making another rum cake we had to do a run to the grocery store. I check but they didn't have the type of toothpaste I normally get. So I grabbed the closest thing to it: Colgate Total with whitening. I usually try to avoid toothpastes with whitening agents since a lot of them can damage the enamel on your teeth, but I was desperate. I wanted toothpaste and I didn't want one that tasted like ass. Since Colgate is usually pretty good about not tasting bad, I figured I was fine.

What I didn't realize until I got the stuff home, opened the tube, and squeezed some out was that this was not toothpaste but toothgel. It was dark electric blue with a white stripe and sparkles in it.

I have not had sparkles in my toothpaste since I was a kid and my mom bought me the Crest stuff with sparkles. It was kind of amusing especially since I know what those sparkles are made of. Mica. That's right, your sparkling toothpaste is full of little, tiny mineral flakes. While brushing my teeth (and I'm happy to report that it doesn't taste bad and left my teeth clean feeling), I checked the label. Sure enough mica was listed as an ingredient.

What also caught my eye was the next ingredient listed: titanium dioxide, TiO₂. This is the mineral rutile, ground up to provide that nice white color in most toothpastes. I guess in the gel it's what made up the white stripe. I wonder why they don't just list the mineral name (rutile) like they do for mica? I've seen some products do this (mostly make-up like blushes, eyeshadow, etc). Then again I've seen a lot of these same products like hematite, the mineral that gives most cosmetic products a red coloring, as iron oxide.

I do know why they didn't just list the chemical formula for mica (I've also seen the chemical formulas listed on products). The chemical formula for muscovite mica (which is generally the mica what is used in these kinds of products) is K₂OAl₂O₃SiO₂.

I guess mica is just shorter. ^_^

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Anime Jewelry
________________________________
On Monday, June 21, 2004 at 08:53 a.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

For those of you who may not know, I actually own two cats. Nadia (also called Nadia-chan and Fuzzy) and Kira (also called Kira-neko, Other Fuzzy, and Ms. Whiny) are both rescued cats we got from Second Chance, a no kill shelter/organization. They are sisters, both torteshells, and the only way to tell them apart (other than personality) is that Kira is the long-hair and Nadia the short-hair. I call them my incestuous lesbian kitties because Nadia will lay or get on top of Kira and kneed her back. It looks very cute and very wrong at the same time.

As with all cats, my cats have their special moments. Take Nadia for example. Nadia weights about 6 pounds sopping wet (Kira has a little more weight on her, but not much). Nadia also thinks that any cardboard box left on the floor is there for her personal enjoyment. We have a rather large box we left on the floor specifically for her. It's almost ripped to shreds. There is nothing like sitting a box down on the floor only to turn around and find that the cat is now systematically turning it into cardboard mulch.

Nadia-chan has discovered a new means of destruction pass time called playing with curtains. In our kitchen we have white sheer curtains over the bay windows. This lets in lots of light and keeps the neighbors from getting too nosy. The other day I noticed that there were hundreds of little claw picks all in the curtains right next to the chair we provide the cats so they can watch their equivalent of TV (ie the squirrels and birds that come to the neighbors feeder). I also noticed that the curtain rod was bent from where Nadia would hang all her weight on the curtains.

As we were getting ready to leave I pointed this out to my roomie. Nadia had jumped up into the chair and was watching us with big eyes. Miome shook her head in disgust and we left the apartment. As Miome was locking the door, I looked over at the window in time to see Nadia completely wrapped up in the curtains and wrestling with them. I pointed this out to Miome who knocked on the window to get Nadia to stop. Do you think this stopped Nadia? Oh no. She then, while still wrapped up in the curtains, used the infamous Puss in Boots face on it complete with giant eyes.

This did not work on Miome. She unlocked the door, stormed in, and chased Nadia away from the curtains. I imagine this worked just long enough for us to leave. Once we were gone, Nadia probably started swinging from one curtain to the next in high Van Helsing style.

Nadia also likes noisy things to lay on. It makes her fulfilled as a cat or something to lay upon crinkly paper or plastic grocery bags. This is cute and amusing until she discovers something crinkly at 3am.
Tsaiko: So very tired...
Nadia: *crinkle*crinkle*
Tsaiko: ARG!
Kira: Meow? Meow? Meow?

The last would be Kira, Ms. Whiny if you've lived with her. She is the four footed alarm clock. If the alarm goes off and you are not up in 15 minutes (and no she doesn't care if the alarm went off because you accidentally turned it on even though it was a weekend), she will come and annoy you with the most ear piercing meow ever devised by a cat. She will also do this at night just as you go to sleep, because really you're not doing anything while lying in bed in the dark? Therefore, you must want to rub her! She also thinks you want to rub her when you 1) watch TV, 2) enter the kitchen, 3) sit on the sofa, 4) walk in the house, 5) get dressed, 6) open the fridge, 7) put a book on the shelf or doing anything really that requires movement and/or breathing.

Kira-neko is a brush whore. We use to have a kitty brush. I really have no idea where it has gotten to. Possibly it got pushed up under the sofa or something because if you left the brush bristle side up, Kira would throw herself on it in an attempt to brush herself. Nadia never got the benefits of us having a kitty brush. Everytime we would try to brush Nadia, Kira would shove her sister out of the way. Then she whine/meowed at you until you brushed her.

If you picked up the brush, Kira would start to whine about getting brushed. If you made eye contact with the brush, Kira would start to whine about getting brushed. If you made a vague motion which might be construed as possibility that some time in the not so distance future you might reach for the brush, Kira would start to whine about getting brushed.

The kitty brush is gone, but now Kira is convinced that NO ONE should brush their hair without her getting brushed as well. Ever if they are using a human brush. She will viciously whine at you until you give it. And she can hear bristles going through hair anywhere in the house. It doesn't matter where I hide: the bathroom, the kitchen, my room, the livingroom. She knows when I am brushing my hair. I'd be more disturbed by this, but there is something highly amusing about watching a seven pound cat hurl herself down the stairs in an attempt to get to me and my brush before I stop brushing my hair.

Kira has her specific place on the couch too. It's the arm of the couch closest to me. Most times when I'm typing she'll be doing her best kitty loaf impression beside me. Most times she watches TV (and if something really catches her eye she'll get down and go put her paws on the TV to see if its real). Occasionally, she'll reach out a paw and put it on my typing finger to get me to rub her. Which I will. Then she'll try to roll over and usually fall off the arm of couch. Heaven forbid I have my laptop resting in her place. Don't I know that that is her place? She'll whine at me until I move it and she can resume her perch.

I love my cats. They are cute and sweet especially when Nadia forms a perfect Nadia ball while curled up asleep (kind of like what she's doing now in Miome's spot on the couch). For all their faults (like Nadia eating too fast and heaving up her breakfast on the floor for me to clean up), they are wonderful pets.

Now if only I could convince them that walking into the kitchen does not automatically mean I will give them treats.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Really Bad Fanfiction . com
________________________________
On Friday, June 18, 2004 at 07:35 a.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

To: the guy in the music video on VH1
From: Tsaiko

Dear guy in the music video,

I know you are trying to be all gothy. There is evidence in your music video that you are trying to be all gothy. For example, the fact that you are holding your "concert" in a replica of the underground catacombs of Paris, France complete with walls made out of bones. Also the people all dressed up as goths and writhing around in an attempt to "rock out" is a good a clue. However, your goth credit is not flying with me for the simple fact that you are wearing those pants.

Shiny, silver pants that reflect back rainbows when the lights hit them in the middle of your angsty, gothy concert and while singing your angsty, gothy song. Dude, there's a space ship somewhere who's wondering where its outer hull went. Please go give your pants back to them so they can return to their home planet.

Hugs and Kisses,
Tsaiko

PS- While some people benefit from the anorexic look you are not one of them. Go eat a donut or three.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Kingdom Hearts II
________________________________
On Wednesday, June 16, 2004 at 12:45 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

Love and happiness is a purring kitty loaf beside you on the couch. Although, Kira-neko is way to fascinated by the television. She prefers Discovery Channel or National Geographic channel. Anything that puts critters on the screen. I know this because if something really fascinates her, she'll get off the couch and put her paws up against the TV screen. She also show some interest in my laptop screen, especially if something is moving on it, but for the most part, she's a TV kitty.

My head feels much better this morning. That will teach me to go walking any where near the candle/incense section of World Market. It triggers massive headaches in me. I don't know if they're migraines, even though I sometimes call them that. All I know is that the Aleve I took didn't even put a dent in the pain. Or if it did, then I'm glad I did take it because I was feeling bad enough as it was. One day, my body will not improve and/or fix itself just by me going to sleep. But I haven't hit that point yet and I'm glad.

This week has been the week for me injuring myself. I fell down the concrete stairs at the front of the apartment and scraped my leg on Sunday. I have weak ankles and occasionally they turn up under me. Doesn't ever hurt my ankles when I do, but it does send me to the ground where I usually hurt myself. Once I fell while holding a note book of yaoi. Instead of trying to catch myself all I could think was "SAVE THE SMUT!" which meant I fell flat on my ass curled around the notebook, protecting it.

You can all see where my priorities are.

I hate it when I get writer's block. I seem to be suffering it right now. The worse is that I have several stories that I want to finish, but can't figure out how. I've got one in particular that is driving me up the wall. It's a Ken/Davis story. I love the scene I have done. I love the characterization of them and the other Digidestined. However, that scene alone doesn't make for a finished story. There should be something more to it, another scene. Possibly smut. But I can't figure out what needs to be added.

This is a common problem in my writing. I get inspiration in three forms: scenes, ideas, and moods. To get longer stories, I have to string together scenes and fill in between with what's going on. Ideas are often in the form of questions (such as "What if the Digital World really did exist all in Davis's mind?" or "What if Hikaru got shot protecting Akira?"). Moods are the hardest to write. I just have a feeling or sense I want to give the readers and I have to figure out what I need to write about in order to do it.

The problem comes when I get a story that is one or two scenes and nothing else. Then I have to figure out a way to end it. Which is where I am now. Struggling to find a way to finish some of these stories now that the main scene that inspired it is done. Sigh. It's very, very frustrating.

Ah well. I think I'm going to clean some more since tomorrow is trash day. Maybe I'll find a way to get this story done with so I can post it.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Otaku Grocery
________________________________
On Friday, June 11, 2004 at 04:17 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

Oh dear lord, when will the cleaning end? I have been on a massive cleaning spree since yesterday afternoon. I've hurt my back sometime yesterday, but obviously not bad enough to stop me. Oh no. The carpets downstairs are clean and vaccuumed. I have a leaning tower of boxes, bags, and garbage sitting next the back door and they are going out with the trash. They are not going back in the entry way and they are not staying in my apartment any longer. I want them gone. I don't care if it takes a couple of weeks it is going away.

So I guess this means that I've finally decided that this is home. It certainly explains the house cleaning drive.

I am also finally getting rid of some of the massive amount of clothes that I don't wear. They are getting boxed up and taken to Goodwill. I swear I don't know where some of this stuff comes from. I know a few pieces are hand-me-downs from who knows where. But I don't know about some of this stuff. It's not even something I like or want to buy. How the heck did it get in my closet? Did the clothing fairies come and bless me with butt-ugly clothing at some point?

I'm also throwing away clothing that needed to be thrown away a long time ago and for some reason I never did. I admit it, I hoard stuff like nobody's business. Then I get really frustrated with all the clutter and throw stuff away. Hopefully, a large amount of the clothing will go instead of me holding on to it. I'm not using them for rags (which is probably why I saved them in the first place). I'll never use them for rags. They need to go.

On the bright side, I found my college class ring. In fact I'm wearing it right now. Happy. I really need to get a nicer jewelry box at some point. The one I currently own is plastic and was given to me sometime in Middle School. I need a nice wooden one that has places where I can hang my necklaces and earrings so they don't wind up tangled together. It's something to look for.

I also watched the Digimon Movie. It was the English version, which means it is actually the first three Digimon movies editted and smashed together. That's okay though. Someone is sending me a tape of the original Japanese versions. Life is good. Digimon looks to be the fandom that will not die for me. Every time I watch an episode or read a fanfic, I squee like the fangirl I am. I love this series.

Although I am highly disappointed in the lack of good Kouji/Kouichi fics available on the web. I should write some. I really should. I don't know if I will though. I have no motivation.

Wanted: motivation to write fanfiction. Please leave all donations in the form comments can be left here. ^_^;;

And finally, I may complain a lot about my mom. She sends me religious forwards (even though I'm not religious and have never been religious). She sends me forwards in general. She tries to guilt me about not going to family events, but never tells me about the events until they're almost done. However, when I told her about what my advisor had done and the email she randomly sent me (and five other people) early this week, my mom told me that not only did she understand and support my decision to leave the Master's program, she was proud that she'd raised a daughter who refused to let people walk all over her.

Really, I had a great mom and I love her. ^_^

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Etiquette Hell
________________________________
On Thursday, June 10, 2004 at 08:42 a.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

And now it is time for another edition of "Those Crazy Referrers."

"so you want to be a wizard" pwp: You know, there's not much I hold sacred in my childhood. I'll read just about anything. But the idea of a "So you want to be a wizard?" PWP sends shivers down my spine. Who the heck are you sticking together? Kit and Nita, I assume. If someone is writing yaoi "So you want to be a Wizard" who would you slash? Kit and Fred? Kit and the Lone Power? What about yuri? Okay, I'm stopping now before my mind grabs on to one of those ideas.

peeps smut easter: When I initially got this hit, I was like "WTF?" But after using Google, I found there are sites dedicated to peep smut. Yes, you heard me right. Most of these are peeps that are in inappropriate shapes. Penis peeps. Then, I stumbled across an X-files peep smut fanfic. Then, I made the mistake of looking further until I found The X-files Peep Challenge. Now, I am eternally grateful that I a) never got into X-files and b) never got into the X-files fandoms. If there is a peeps challenge in any fandom I write for... I'm not sure I want to know. Again, running away before my mind seizes onto any ideas.

blowjob marshmellows: Once again, my mispelling brings in search engine hits that were better left in depths of cyber Hell. Now that that's out of the way, what are they looking for? Marshmallows to practice blowjobs on? How to use marshmallows to get rid of the after taste? How to give a blowjob with marshmallows in your mouth? Okay, stopping now.

brining ox tongue: I don't know why or how someone got to my page with this hit. I don't think I want to know. Just rest assured that I have not now, nor will I ever brine an ox tongue. Sorry.

super volcano ass: Every time I see this hit I roll with laughter. Who knew super volcanos had an ass? I certainly didn't. Unless you're talking about the idiot tourists who go poke the volcanos and fall in...

misinformation about gays, wearing pads, anal sex: Once again, we have a search engine hit that I couldn't explain if my life depended on it. Looking at the other pages that come up doesn't even begin to give me a clue as to what this person was looking for. I hope they learned how to use a search engine and then found what they were looking for. I just have this lingering fear that the pads in question were maxi pads and I'm trying desperately not to let my imagination go there...

"kama sutra", "eyeballs": Wow, someone's looking for Clamp's X/1999...

"lord of the dance" pantyhose: Now available in stores near you. You to can have the authentic brands of pantyhose used in Lord of the Dance. Not to be confused with the hose used by Legolas in Lord of the Rings *cough*cough*.

How to turn in Digimon the fifth season if you've written it: Wow! Some random person has written the fifth season of Digimon and wants to know how they can turn it in so they can have it animated. I don't know how you do this. If I did, I'd be sending in my own version (or at least an extension of season 2). However if you do discover how to do this, please make sure that the fifth season has at least four cute guys in it available for slashing. Extra points if there is a set of twins or brothers available. Thank you! ^_^

Alas, not as many as I would have liked. I'm either becoming more picky about what I find outrageous -- after all, when you see fifty variations of "Digimon porn" in more configurations and positions than you ever wanted to you tend to become immune to this kind of thing -- or if I'm just getting less hits. Ah well. I hope these amuse you.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: The Evolution of a Programmer
________________________________
On Wednesday, June 9, 2004 at 01:37 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

You know, I thought I had everything with my Master's Program sorted out. I was withdrawing and I wouldn't have to deal with this crap any more. My ex-advisor emails me yesterday. Obviously someone mentioned that I was pretty upset on Friday. I was. She didn't notice because she practically raced back to her office after barely saying "Hi!" to me. Well, she emails me basically wanting to know why I was so upset, how doing a Master's is about communication, I should do what I love, so on and so forth.

I didn't mind that. I was upset that she chose now to try and fix this. Really, its over. She sent me an email saying she thought I had made the right decision and I figured that was it. I couldn't understand why she was now emailing me, but I was looking forward to being able to privately telling her some of the problems I had.

Then I realized that she'd sent this email to several people. Why would she copy these people on this email? They probably don't care.

I really just want this to be over with. I don't want to deal with this any more. It's part of the reason I left. Sigh. But if she wants other to know about this, I'm more than happy to oblige.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: US Air Force Official Identification Chart
________________________________
On Tuesday, June 8, 2004 at 07:53 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

By all that is unholy, I LOATHE job applications. I swear they are the most useless waste of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen on the face of this earth. Given some of the people I met in my lifetime, that is saying something. They take forever to fill out given that you have to fit all sorts of detail, complex information onto a line that is less than a centimeter wide and you have to do it in pen. Which means if you fuck up, guess what? You have to either cross off the damn mistake, wasting space on an already tiny line or you have to do the page over again. WTF?

The questions asked on these things are either the most ridiculous things ever known to man or they're a perfect example of Things that belong in the Department of Rendundency Department. Really, how many times to I need to list my name, social security number, and birthdate? Can't these people figure it out the first time? Who the hell cares where I've lived the last seven years? I don't even remember where I've lived over the last seven years much less how long I've stayed at each place. And really, why do they need to know how many hours I passed in college? I have my degree! That's all they need to know.

The sad thing is, you know no one actually goes line by line through these damn things. It would be a complete waste of time. Or if there is someone going through this line by line, they don't care. All they're doing is putting it into a database. Which is really sad when you consider I printed this off of the web only to fill it in by hand and send it back. Because you know, we can't just fill out the application on-line and submit it. Oh no. We've got to have some poor data entry schmuck who probably loathes his/her job to enter all this stuff back into the damn computer where ir came from in the first place. Why, the world may cease to spin if we did things the easy or obvious way!

The worse is listing all the places you have worked at for the last 5-7 years. But they don't want you to just list "I worked here. This is what I did." Oh no. They want you to list where you last worked is/was, what the main number is, what your manager's number was, what you did using action verbs, how many times you were reprimanded, what was the color of the office walls, whether you lost a limb in service to your company, etc. And they want this all crammed into a space about two centimeters big.

Now I don't know about you, but for some of these temporary jobs, I don't think I was ever told my manager's last name. I might have been at the beginning. Then it was always "Call me Chris" or "Call me Debbie." I haven't worked these places in years. What the heck am I supposed to put down? "Well... I don't know her last name. It was something or other." Yeah, that makes me look real good.

At least I no longer have to list my Dairy Queen job any more. That's a releif. Have you ever tried to make "Ran the cashier and made blizzards for annoying, bitter customers" into something positive, responsible, and goal oriented? Yeah, my only goal at that job was to get out of there as fast as possible while still having something to put on a resume.

I hate how everyone wants you to put down what goal you achieved while working for various places. I achieved the goal of not being unemployed. Otherwise, I was a temporary worker. Goals? The only goal my employers had for me was to come in every day that I could and to answer the phones.

Maybe I'm just bitter from having to once again look for temporary work because the places I applied to can't be bothered to so much as call me back and let me know they're not interested. ARG. I hate when companies leave you hanging. It's annoying as Hell.

At least my cats still love me.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Ancient Seaways of NA in the Cretaceous
________________________________
On Sunday, June 6, 2004 at 11:52 a.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

Didn't mean to fall off the face of the earth for the past week. I've been getting things through so I could get out of my Master's Program and that has made me busy. It's also made me weepy (a lot). I feel so bad for one of my former professors. I went into his office at the Museum to ask him where the head of collections was because I needed to return some literature and pictures he had lent me. Only I broke down crying when I had to tell him I was leaving the Master's program. He thought I was crying because I couldn't find the head of collections. Then he ran around trying to help me like a chicken with his head.

He is a sweet guy and I feel really bad for crying like that. I kept trying to apologize, but I think that only made it worse. And of course, I kept breaking down crying all day long. Sigh... why can't I cry once? Why do I have to get these nice waves of tears for hours afterwards?

But the stuff is mostly taken care of. All I need to do is withdraw from my classes and it will be done. I shall be FREE! And then comes the fun of job hunting. Won't be the first time. I'm hoping that I can get a job on campus because while I love my car, it's almost ten years old and it really isn't as nice as it use to be. It hasn't died yet! But if it does, I'm in trouble. However, if I have a job on campus then I can just ride with my roomie and now have to worry about it. Or about getting a permit for parking on campus.

Went and saw Prisoner of Azkaban yesterday with Miome and Shoi at the local movie theater. I liked the movie. I could have dealt without the screaming baby (though to be honest the mother did take him out several times). I could have also dealt without the lady with way too much perfume and deodorant (here's a hint people, if I can smell it when you are four feet from me, then the deodorant you are using has TOO STRONG A SMELL) had not sat right next to me. At least Shoi was really nice and changed seats.

I have to say this. OMG, the slashers are going to have a field day with this movie. And I will not write happy, happy Ron/Hermione/Harry threesomes no matter how the movie may tempt me. Also need to verify that the movie mispelled "Mooney" on the Marauder's map. If it did, I've got an amusing little fic I need to write.

I hope to have more interesting stuff to say later. Right now, I have to write. ^^

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: SUV: Big and Bad
________________________________
On Tuesday, June 1, 2004 at 08:30 a.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

After a day of recovery, I will now talk about Animazement. I will try to keep the con report as short and interesting as possible. Because really, you people don't care what kind of loot I got (other than Shoi, for whom I got a book of sketches and concept art from Yami no Matseui) or who I met at the con (assuming I could track down all their LJ names). So I shall cover the highlights.

As people who read this from my LJ already know, I spent 15+ hours volunteering. I say 15 plus because only 15 hours were official and the rest was helping with the artroom (which is becoming something of a tradition for my roomie and I). The fifteen hours were spent at the TAAS table in front of video room one. Trowa bear (I really need to fix his clown mask before next year) supported by signs which had lots of pictures taken of them. I will have to share when a) I find some of them on the internet or b) when I get copies from friends and my hosting place fixes it so I can actually login to my account.

I chatted with several people, including a few who randomly decided I was their entertainment (WTF?). Met Digimon fans, chatted with yaoi fans, and yelled at idiots. I take it upon myself since the con staff can't be everywhere, to make sure people are following the rules in front of video room one. I repeatedly had to tell people not to cut in line, block the hallway, mock fight in the crowded hallway (idiots), or scream repeatedly because people were trying to watch anime in the room behind me. The most interesting thing I had to shout all day long was "Hey, no throwing kitchen utensils in the halls!"

Also had a lot of fun with the signs for video room one. Someone was smart and set up a giant sign that read "REGISTRATION ->", with the arrow pointing down the hall and away from our table. We still had people ask if we were registration -_-. We also had a sign up telling people not to use one set of doors. We couldn't lock them because of a fire hazard, but they were right next to the screen so if anyone opened them the light would hit the screen. This was fine until a bunch of idiots started coming out that door. So I yelled at them "Don't use that door. Please use the door you cam in." Their response? "Well, there isn't a sign saying we can't leave through this door."

So to keep these twits from whining and being idiots, I had to go inside the pitch black video room and tape a sign that no one could read on neon orange paper telling people to use the other door to leave. *beats her head against the desk* I taped it across the doors. Even then, I would sometimes hear the tape rip as someone attempted to open the doors from the inside.

I guess we shouldn't be too surprised. These were the same people who kept walking into the video room after 2:00pm on Sunday (when all the anime stops), blinking in the now lit room, and then looking at me as I'm cleaning and asking if we were still showing anime. We had to put a sign up stating "NO! We are not still showing anime."

Cleaning up the video room was interesting. We found a half smoked cigarette, an unsmoked cigarette, an unopened can of Coke, numerous jolly rancher wrappers, $.14 in change, and... a pair of safety goggles. I don't even want to know what the safety goggles were used for.

I have two copies of the yaoi zine (well, three, but one is my copy). If anyone wants a copy claim yours soon. I haven't looked through it yet, but my story is the first one. That makes me twitch a bit. One of my friends came over and scolded me for doing a fade to black in it. I explained that I ran out of room. So to make it up to her, I'm going to be writing the smut scene in and releasing a NC-17 version probably on Adult Fanfiction.net. That means I need to get an account there and donate, because I try and donate to everything I use somehow. So yeah... NC-17 Hikaru no Go smut!

While at the con, I got to explain to Shoi why whenever I say something snarky, angry, or evil in letter form I end it with "Hugs and Kisses." Several years ago, Miome and I came up with a (tongue in cheek) template for sending flames to ML's. After all, why take the time to design your own flame when you could use someone else's? At the end, it was signed "Hugs and Kisses." I'm going to reproduce it here, with some additions and subtractions. You'll still get the basic idea.

Hi everyone! (minna-san for an anime based fandom)

I don't understand why we all can't be civil. We all love the same (movie/series/show) and are a part of the same fandom. Why, we're a family/all brothers/all sisters/a community. Surely we can put our differences aside and just get along.

By the way, I think (insert screen name here) is a bitch/asshole.

(Here is where you rant, explaining exactly why the person you mentioned above a bitch/asshole. Be sure to include incidents that did not even happen on the ML and lots of personal attacks. Just let all your pent up anger out. Did Mikey steal your candy when you were in kindergarden and that's the reason why you act the way you do? Put it in! After all, the ML was created to be your personal soap box. There's no need to be shy. Be a drama queen. This is your time to shine.)

All in all, I don't see why we can't just get along. Plz don't respond to this email. This list is about movie/series/show.

Hugs and Kisses,
(insert screen name here)

And the snippet of conversation over at the Mews alomst had me spraying my laptop with coke. Oh lord, if I'm cremated I want my ashes to be spread over Johnny Depp as well.

EDIT: I have been told by Miome that "Hugs and Kisses" most likely came from Technomancy. Eeep. I thought we'd come up with it, but its been so many years... So many apologies and credit where credit is due ^_^;;.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: USGS: earthquakes
________________________________
On Thursday, May 27, 2004 at 04:01 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

Project "Find roomie a birthday present" has been a success. It almost wasn't. I spent most of the afternoon driving around Raleigh trying to find what I was looking for. If I was smart, I would have ordered it off the internet a month ago. What can I say? I'm a procrastinator. But I found persevered and found what I was looking for. YEAH! She better like it. OR ELSE... I'll make her take it back and get something she really likes. ^_^;

I'm on driving duty since Miome's car needed to get brake work done. Hopefully, it will be fixed before tomorrow or else I'll be on driving duty for Animazement as well. Eeep. This means I have to move the giant papazan chair that is taking up my backseat out of my car. Luckily, Shoi wants it. The thing has been in my car for almost a year now. It is time it went to a good home. Preferably not mine.

I have not finished the signs, but I've had two requests for what drawings to put on them. So I will be putting the Full Metal Alchemist symbol on one and the symbols of some of the ninja villages from Naruto on the other. Naruto symbols go on one of the yaoi posters. I also get to shop for Cneko at Animazement this year. I enjoy shopping for others (as evidenced by my running around all afternoon).

I'm looking forward to get some typing and actual writing done this weekend. I usually bring the laptop, plop myself down, and chat while I type. I don't have as much to type up as I did last year (mostly because I've been typing stuff up as I go along), but I'm hoping I can get some writing done.

I have a small kitty loaf on me. Really, its Nadia on my leg, but she looks like a loaf of bread with her feet and tail tucked under her like that. I'm trying not to disturb her considering I almost gave her heart failure earlier when I was using the scanner. I'll need to post the picture I scanned. It's a newer one of Motomiya Davis I did using a Sharpie and no kind of prep work.The chin is a little off and it looks like he's wearing a black collar, but over all I'm pretty proud of it. Especially his hair.

Last night was quite interesting because we had a 1 1/2 inch long pincher bug also known as an earwig. I hadn't seen one since I left CA, but I remember catching them all the time when I was little. They were much smaller than this monstrosity. No one should ever walk into their kitchen and find something that big and with pinchers hanging on their curtains. I don't like to kill bugs, spiders, or anything else that creeps/crawls/slithers into my house. I prefer to catch them and put it outside. Most things are actual beneficial and will eat insects that are pests. So I dig through the cabinets and find a glass jar complete with lid. I then proceeded to try and catch this sucker.

It proceeded to fall on me. Insert frantic squeaking here. My cats, upon hearing my distress (or possibly just realizing I was in the kitchen and therefore might feed them) ran to my rescue. Only to meow up at me and then attempt to swat at the earwig. I didn't want them to get pinched (it hurts) so I was trying to shoo them away while also keeping track of the earwig lest it escape to parts unknown in my house. My roomie comes in, sees what's going on, and claps loudly to scare the cats off. Kira, who sometimes has a brain the size of a turnip, panics and proceeds to slip and slide across the kitchen floor and into the recycling bin as fast as her little furry paws can take her. It was like watching ice skating, only on tile and not as graceful.

I did eventually corral the earwig. Kira was fine if a little paranoid afterwards (the great thing about cats is they've completely forgiven you by the next feeding time day). And I got to watch the nifty thunderstorms that rolled in late last night while chunking the earwig off the end of my porch. Life is good.

But if one of those suckers falls on me again, I'm going to squish first and ask questions later.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Attack of the pink dinosaur
________________________________
On Wednesday, May 26, 2004 at 04:06 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

Those of you who went to Animazement last year might remember seeing a girl sitting at one of the tables with a little hand drawn sign. If you didn't know already, that was me. I'll be back again this year with more signs. This time they will be on posterboard with pretty colored markers I used for doing the NaNoWriMo poster.

I've got the lettering done on one of them, and need to add the Crest of Courage and the Crest of Kindness from Digimon to the upper left hand corner. I finally managed to track down a picture of the Crest of Courage, but I'm still looking for the Crest of Kindness. Links would be appreciated. Another stumbling block is that I'm missing my circle template. I don't know where it's gotten to. Oh well. I'm going to be doing it the ghetto way then. Wander around the house looking for round things and then tracing the circles from them.

I will not be detered from adding a Digimon touch to my "Do not feed the scary yaoi fanfic writer" sign. I shall over come!

I'm still debating on what to put on my other three signs. Maybe something about the fanfic writer is plotting? I want to generic signs and two yaoi signs so I can switch them out as I get bored with them and as the con goers get more mature. That is, I don't want to have to explain to a group of 11 year old girls what yaoi is this year. If they want to find out, they can use google. Like I told them to last year. ^_^;;

I also want to add little pictures to each of the signs. Hence the crests from Digimon. I might try a Hikaru no Go one, possibly with a Go problem in one corner. Might also do a Naruto one though I'm not sure what I'd do. Symbols or animals would be best and easiest for me to do. I'm not even going to attempt people unless I'm feeling really inspired. That leaves at least one I haven't decided on. Again, suggestions welcome.

Only a few more days till Animazement. I can't wait.

EDIT: Nadia, I love you dearly. But laying on my posterboard does not count as helping. Not even when you purr up at me. Silly kitty.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Cicadaville.com
________________________________
On Monday, May 24, 2004 at 12:47 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

Had a good weekend this weekend, which is what I needed after all the crap I've been going through for the last two weeks. I applied to some jobs at the University and according to HR (who finally found their asses with both their hands), I have been referred for two of them. For those of you wonder what that means, it means that I've passed the first hurdle of not only being qualified but one of the more qualified people to apply.

This is a major hurdle because HR likes to do stuff like "We require 2 years of experience, but we see you only have 23 months actual experience. All those years you spent learning how to use the programs? They don't count. Too bad. NEXT!" HR also likes to do such stuff as require three years of experience and a college degree in order to do such important tasks as file papers and answer phones. Because you know, anyone who has just spent 4 years of their life and $20,000+ is going to just be chomping at the bit to work for less that $18,000 a year doing some of the most boring and tedious work known to man.

And HR wonders why there is such high turnover.

Still, the fact that I was passed onto the individual departments makes me happy. It doesn't mean I will get the jobs (or even get a phonecall), but it does mean that I can get a job if necessary. I'm also going to call the contact for the other department and talk with her today. I want to find out exactly what changing departments is going to do to my funding. If necessary, I'll withdraw, work a year, and reapply in order to get better standing. Not a great hassle.

The only thing about dumping this project that I feel really bad about is the people at the musuem. I've worked with the people at the musuem before. They all know my name. I didn't work with fossil collections guy much, but he heard of me from the geology guy. Every time I go down to the musuem and I let them know I'm coming, the fossil guy makes a point of coming down and seeing me. He'll ask me how I'm doing and talk with me about any questions/concerns I have. When I was struggling with ID-ing something, he even went to the musuem library and got out all the articles they had on turtles.

If my advisor was half as concerned about me or this project as he was, I wouldn't be having a problem. Heck, if the fossil guy was at the University, I'd ask him to be my advisor. But he's not, and I need support in my department if this is going to get done. I'm not getting any support. Heck, my advisor still hasn't emailed me about getting together to do paperwork and it's been a week since I emailed her and asked to arrange a meeting. Oh well. I'm not concerned any more. Well see how she does with 8 graduate students. That ought to be a nice fiasco.

Anyway, this weekend I watched all five DVD's of Junni Kokki (12 Kingdoms). Kirin! Bishounen! More random terms than you can shake a stick at! I love the series despite the fact that at times it's confusing as Hell. Of course, I've been a unicorn fangirl since I was four and have been collecting them for as long. So yeah, anything with unicorns (or kirin) is good in my book. It helps when one of the kirin is a guy with a stick shoved up his butt who looks like a reject from a Pantene commercial and has the people skills of a turnip. Yes, I am talking about you Keiki.

And small, black, angsty kirin! Taiki (or Kouri depending on what name you want to use) is the cutest little angst muffin there is. Although I will agree with everyone else. Enki is the best. I mean, he smacks his Emperor when Shouryuu(sp?) is being stupid. None of the other kirin do that when their Emperor/Emperess are being stupid. At least, not that we've seen. So yeah, good times.

Note to self, reread Junni Kokki fanfiction now that I'm not so confused about what's going on.

And in my defense of what Shoi said about me. I'll have you know we were talking about Weiss Kreutz at lunch and it was mentioned that Seishirou took care of cherry trees (okay, only the pink one). So he'd fit right in with Weiss people. Shoiryu started making up the conversation that would occur between Seishirou and Omi (not me). I just took it the next step. Seishirou leans threatening over Omi and says in his best pedophile voice "I like little boys."

The look of horror on Shoi's face was so worth anyone calling me a pervert. Which she did. Repeatedly. But really, she started it ^^;.