Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: 8 Bit D&D
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On Saturday, April 5, 2003 at 09:51 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

First off, I'm glad you're alright Changeling. Feel better.

And now, I shall have my one moment of bitterness about being laid off.

They say that right before any major test is NOT the time to make life altering decisions. Do not dump your love interest of five years or start a relationship with someone new. Do not quit smoking or deprive yourself of caffeine. Do not decide that you need to find yourself and change everything about your life. In fact, do everything exactly the same as you've always done it.

Exactly one week before I am scheduled to take the GRE, a test that could very well decide whether or not I get into graduate school, I walk into work and am told that I am laid off.

Fuckers.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Ch6ppingbl6ock.6rg
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On Friday, April 4, 2003 at 09:55 a.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

At 8:30 when I got into work, I was told that I was being let go. No warning. No notice. I stayed long enough to do the mail. My manager was really nice about it, but there was nothing she could do. Corporate told her yesterday afternoon that today would be my last day. The people in my office all chipped in and got me a $25 gift certificate and a nice card. They were really, really nice people and I enjoyed working with them. I guess I'll contact Unemployment and the Temp. Agenecy this afternoon.

I really liked this job.

If you need me, I'll be over here in the corner quietly re-writing my plans for the immediate future.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: I love Egg Ninja Gaiden
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On Thursday, April 3, 2003 at 02:16 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

Ah, it is that time of the year again. The time of the year when birds sign and the weather warms and flowers burst forth in a riot of color. It's also the time of the year when trees attempt to mate with your sinuses and the bees attempt to pollinate you car because of the layer of pollen that covers it. I'll be glad when it rains this weekend. That way all the yellow crap will be on the ground instead of in the air.

In other news, I like Juuni Kokki. A lot. A whole heck of a lot. It reminds me a lot of Fushigi Yuugi only... more serious. I don't mean serious as in there's not as many (if any...) sight gags and such. I mean the themes and the points it makes are more serious. At first, I wasn't fond of the main character Yoko. But once she got over the crying twice every episode routine, I really liked her. And the bishounen... oh my. Definitely worth watching until the Emperor of En shows up. Purrrr... My only complaint is so far I see very little a) fanfic potential in general and b) yaoi potential specifically. At this point, I'm to afraid to write fanfiction for the series for fear I'd somehow screw it up. It's very, very self contained at this point.

White Cat, did you ever get my corrections and such for Lazarus Child? I'd getting kind of worried that maybe it got eaten. Let me know.

Wind, sorry to hear you didn't get into Cornell. What's the penalty for accepting and putting a downpayment at UConn and then withdrawing it? I know my sister is planning on accepting one college (due to the "LET US KNOW NOW!" policy of it) and just cancelling if another acceptance comes through. Maybe you can do something similar? Anyway, hope it work out.

And now, writing.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: YM Inuyasha (put here for Cneko)
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On Tuesday, April 1, 2003 at 02:05 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

As anyone who has ever spent any amount of time with me in real life (or has seen some of my entries or links of the day), I tend to be a font of truly useless and odd ball information. What this results in is some particularly bizarre, wandering conversations where my mind will start stringing together bits and peices of facts into plausible theories. Usually I'll eventually look up the truth on the internet and find out that, strangely enough, my mind was right. This was exactly the kind of conversation my roomie and I were having about the all important question of "Do cold showers really take care of horniness in guys?"

After some debate (she didn't think they did, I did) I came up with the peice of information from the depths of my brain "I think it would stop guys from being horny. I've been told that in cold water a guy's... er... balls will retreat towards their body. I imagine that sensation would effectively kill any desire." Then, suddenly my mind rummaged around for a possible reason for a guy's balls to do this. It produced a fact I remember from 10th grade Biology.

"I think it may because sperm are only viable in a very narrow temperature. If it gets too hot or too cold, they tend to die or become malformed, and then they have a much harder time getting to the egg. So the body reacts to cold by trying to retract the balls towards the body and keeping the sperm viable." Then after a few more minutes of thinking. "If I remember right, that's one of the reason why tight jeans are so bad. Because they press the balls too close to the body and keep them too warm for the sperm."

My roomie thinks about this for a few seconds and then says, "I wonder if some girl could try and cut down her chances of getting pregnant by having her boyfriend wear a ball cozy."

I realized that my mouth was hanging open. I closed it. I opened it again, but no words were coming out. Surely, she did not just say what I thought she said... "A ball cozy?"

"Yeah. You know like a covering you'd knit for a tea kettle. Only... for a guy's parts. To keep them warm."

I finally managed to kick start mine mind enough to ask "You've seen this?"

"No. Not one just for balls. But I've seen one for penises and it had a little pouch for the balls."

"Where did you see this?" By this time my brain had divided itself. Part of it was still in shock, trying to even conceive of the idea that someone, somewhere had done this. The other part was gleefully trying to see if it coyuld fit this into a fanfic somehow. Yet a third part was trying to figure out if it's possible to do such a thing in crochet (WTF mind? Who am I going to give a penis cozy too if it is possible to do in crochet?).

"I saw it on a craft site. Some girl had made it for her boyfriend. She said she had to kind of eyeball the size."

"Let's hope she used some very soft yarn," was my comment. And of course, as I write this, I immediately hit up Google to try and provide the knitters (and maybe crocheters) a pattern. No such luck. Though I did find some sites that sell a penis/ball set pre-maid and a site that sells a pattern for a cable knitted penis. Alas, no free patterns available. I can't even begin to imagine why.

Twig, I'll take any Math vibes I can get. Cool layout.

Thorne, look at it this way. If these people can get published, so can you. At first you might not be with the best publisher, but it's easier to get published once you've been published. And there's always reprints.. I know I'd never be able to find any of Terry Pratchett's early works (published by some dinky company before he became popular) if they weren't being reprinted. Congrats on winning the Kinky contest (that sounds so wrong... ^_^). And might not the yellow marshmellows be pots of gold? I seem to remember them doing some such thing with the marshmellows recently. Either that, or the moon has gone from being a crescent to a Borg ship.

Sunny, I though you might like to oggle (is that spelled with one g or two?) at this layout for awhile. Have a nice day ^^.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: The MS Paper Clip
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On Monday, March 31, 2003 at 07:59 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

*studies for the GRE*

*cries*

What do you mean I have to remember the formula for solving quadratic equations? I barely remember how to factor quadratic equations!

Exponents. Why did it have to be exponents? I had nightmares about exponents trying to kill me the first time I had to learn these rules. Is it really fair to make me relive that?

Slope and y-interecepts? I don't remember how to find these things! I haven't done these kind of problems in years! Who the Hell actually uses this stuff in real life anyway?

I have two more sections to study? I HAVE TO KNOW GEOMETRY? I am so screwed.

Why yes, I am going to fail the Math section. -_-

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Sodomy and the Supreme Court
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On Sunday, March 30, 2003 at 05:22 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

And for those of you who care (and I know the number is low since not many people like Digimon who read my pitas page) there's a small Season 2 fragment on my LJ here. That, and I wanted to share the link of the day with as many people as I could. The person writing this article is just... hilarious.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: A tribute to Ray Harryhausen
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On Saturday, March 29, 2003 at 07:04 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

Just when you thought you had seen it all, I have come up with a link that will make you scratch your head and blink repeatedly. It is mostly clips of Skelator, from the old He-man cartoons lipsynching. To... wait for it... YMCA. In what I've been told is Cantonese. It's one of those things that you just have to see to beleive that someone, somewhere did it.

Ren Faire was today, and I went to it. Alas, I was sick. Very sick. So sick that after three hours of alternating between warm, humidty and cold, windy, rain I was ready to go home. I have a sore throat, headache, low grade fever, chills, and aches. Lord, I ache. My joints hurt as does every muscle in my body. I've taken cold medicine, but for some reason, it's not doing a very good job. I can tell because cold medicine effects me very strongly. It'll start off as a very cold feeling at the base of my neck that will spread down my spine, and then I'll start acting like I am on major recreational drugs. Heaven help me if you get me on a computer. I am not responsible for what I'll write.

But this stuff... nothing. Normally, I would be thrilled to finally have found a cold medicine that doesn't make me go loopy when I take it. However, it's not doing anything for the symptoms. I'm still running a fever, I still ache, my throat still hurts, and I feel like crap. Overall, I am not pleased -_-.

Thorne, two things I want to tell you. First, you'll find that a lot of authors only need to be good for their first few books. Or they'll be okay their first few books and then, as they get use to writing will become really, really good. Or they'll just gain noteriety because of one thing they did. Then you'll notice something about their writing. It will change. The plots will be less well thought out. The characters will have all the depth of a parking lot puddle. It just won't be... as good as their other books.

This is when the authors have started writing more for the money than for the love of writing or because they have a really good story to tell. It really shows. At this point, they are going for quantity over quality. The reason? A lot of people prefer to read series of books, to keep the plot and characters alive long after someone should have taken a shot gun to them. As soon as they see the next book out they will wonder "What happened next?" even if the last book wasn't that good. People will always hope that maybe this book will be better.

Authors know this. In fact, they count on it. Hence the never ending series of books (like Sweet Valley High).

In Dean Koontz's case, his readers are not looking for a deep read. They're not even looking for a really good read. What they are looking for is to be reasonably entertained for several hours. Dean Koontz, for me, is an ariplane author or a poolside authors. If I have to be stuck somewhere for several hours then I want to be mildly entertained. I do not require much else. After all, anything is better than twiddling my thumbs. That's what Dean Koontz's career is riding on.

Second, I would be more disturbed by the Addam's Family fanfic if it were not for one thing. I once read a Vampire Hunter D fanfic where the talking hand with the mouth (did it even have a name? I never watched the series. My only contact with it was this one fanfic) was giving D oral sex. The entire time I was reading this illuminating piece of literature, all I could think was "Would that be classified as a blowjob... or a handjob?"

Right, right. I will put the horrible puns down now.

One of the things I most often reant about in this journal is writing. I've been doing it for many years, have taken apart and put back together a number of stories, have read critiques and criticisms of writing, and have read more suggestions on how to write than I even want to read. This doesn't make me an expert on it by any stretch of the imagination. However, it does give me a fairly good base on which to make recommendations on people's writings. One of the genres that needs the most help is smut writing.

I've ranted about this before, and I thought I had covered most of the mistakes people make. Obviously, I missed one. I thought it was obvious, but silly me, I should have known better. If you are going to have stuff happen without the lights on, keep in mind that your characters will be in the dark. Now, obviously some people have never been in a dark or dimly lit room before so let me explain something. It is harder to see things and people in the dark.

In the dark, you will not be able to see the gleam in a the person's eyes. Colors are muted. Expressions, unless they are greatly exaggerated, are harder to read. It's easier to misunderstand in the dark. You have to go by things like touch and hearing more than by eye sight. Most importantly once the lights go out, unless you say otherwise, they stay out! So stop writing like your characters can see in the dark!

Finally, as most of you know I have an Amazon wish list. And because I hate getting recommendations for stuff that I don't actually like (usually because of all the romance novels I buy for my mom), I routinely go through and look at the recommendations and edit them accordingly. So I was checking through them when I noticed that I was being recommended a grill brush. I do not own a grill. I couldn't even imagine one good reason WHY this was coming up. I've never bought anything that would even suggest to Amazon.com that I would own or want a grill. Out of curiousity I clicked on the "Why was I recommended this?" link.

According to Amazon, I was recommended a grill brush because I own... a Playstation 2 memory card.

Do I even need to say anything more about this?

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: When they told Gaav...
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On Friday, March 28, 2003 at 09:47 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

Do you know what I am doing?

Do you know what I am doing?

I am doing homework. That's right, homework. More specifically, MATH homework. That's right. Math. I am not in High School, not in College, Hell I'm not even IN SCHOOL and yet here I am on a Friday night doing math problems. Why am I doing math problems, you may ask?

BECAUSE THE STUPID GRE PEOPLE HAVE DECIDED THAT SOMEHOW, FOR SOME GODDAMN REASON, BEING ABLE TO DO MATH PROBLEMS WITHOUT THE BENEFIT OF A CALCULATOR, WHICH YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE ACCESS TO IN THIS PLACE WE LIKE TO CALL THE REAL WORLD, IS A SIGN OF INTELLIGENCE.

If I suck on this part of the GRE because I can't add 2 + 5 together in my head DEATH will ensue.

I hate math. *goes back to doing problems*

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: The Penis Shrine
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On Friday, March 28, 2003 at 03:11 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

I like this link of the day. I'll consider it an step in my effort to educate the world about Japan. Strangely enough, I knew about the penis shrine before seeing this site. I was watching a program on human sexuality, specifically what makes people sexy in different cultures, and this shrine came up. The funniest thing you will ever see is some nice old Japanese lady bowing reverently to a giant penis.

So it appears that the email collection bots have been hitting up peoples pages for email addresses. I was going through my Junk Mail Folder (something I am forced to do occasionally as Hotmail will randomly send emails from such places as Livejournal or PayPal to the folder for no good reason). As I was quickly scanning through the list I noticed an email sent from some random person to... twigbrnch. This lovely email, which is trying to sell me a Corporate Fleet of vans, was CC to myself, Thorne, Catt, and I think Morgan.

The reason I'm mentioning this is because I've had at least one lovely SPAM list somehow associate two of my email addresses together. I regularly get email supposedly FROM MYSELF trying to sell myself penis enlargments, herbal remedies, and other various things. Nevermind that the email address that is supposedly sending me this SPAM is no longer working (it was my old University account). They're still trying to get me to go to their sites by saying the email was sent from my old address. So if you start getting offers for live webcam sex shows from me, it's not really from me. Really. ^_^

Have a good trip Lunar. Per your request, I will try to find the Relena x Wing story. I don't have much hope though. I don't remember the author or even that much about the plot (if there was one. I tend to beleive there wasn't...) and the only ML where I saw it posted is up to 66,000 messages. Somehow, I don't think I'll be able to wade through all those to find it, and the search features SUCK. However, because I did promise you horrible, horrible fatal car wreck like fics, I present to you the Duo x Deathscythe story, complete with sequel!. I have been told, having never read these two lovely pieces myself, that there needs to be a nonconsensual warning and an mpreg warning.

And I think that shall be all today. Oh wait, it's less than a month till my birthday. Let the panicking commence. Until later.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Bush x Blair yaoi!
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On Wednesday, March 26, 2003 at 02:28 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

More proof that no matter how bizarre and twisted the idea someone, somewhere has done it. To music. I am not responsible if your head explodes. Thank you Eslington for the link.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: iFruit Comics - FoxTrot
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On Tuesday, March 25, 2003 at 02:48 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

The link of the day is put here especially for Kalil, because he reminds me every other day just how much he loves the iFruit. ^_^

And now, because I can't think of anything interesting to say, REFERRER HITS!

Lesbian paleontologist porn: What scared me about this hit, beyond the fact that someone was being that specific in the porn search, was that there's an actualy link for it. The first link takes you to a sex picture gallery. There in that big list is a picture labelled "Lesbo Paleontologists Frolic." Now since you have to be a member to see the pictures, I can only imagine what this picture has in it to let you know that yes, these two women doing stuff to each other are in fact paleontologists.

NASA fanfic smut: I can't even begin to imagine why someone was looking for this. I guess ever since the Pit of Voles took their real life fanfiction down, people are getting desperate. Still... the mind boggles o_O.

dinosaur tickle foot: What do you say to a search hit like this. Sorry, please try again later when we have a time machine?

subliminal "penis enlargement" -Pheromones: Because you know, using pheromones would be cheating. Instead I shall use the power of my mind to make my penis larger! Oh come off it. Guys have been trying this trick for thousands of years. If it actually worked, don't you think someone would have created a seminar for it by now? And by the way Your penis is shrinking. Your penis is getting smaller. And smaller Girls are laughing at you as we speak

FF7 OSCAR THE GROUCH: Everytime I read this hit I keep getting horrible images of Oscar doing Cloud's sword twirling move with the his garbage can lid while the FF victory music plays in the background.

yaoi s-e-x images: Okay, if you're too embarrassed to write the word as a whole and have to spell it out in the search engine, then you are not mature enough to be looking for yaoi pictures. Thank you.

free nude pictures of the stages human body growing up: I still haven't decided whether this is an anatomy request or a porn request.

harry potter fanfiction "feminine": Talk about being specific. They were searching within my site for this. I hope they found what they were looking for...

melty blood: For those people looking for melty blood (WTF?). Or maybe they were looking for Melty-san instead. Watch out Melty. I'd be afraid of this referrer hit.

free lunar hentai pictures: Lunar? Is there something you're not telling us?

goverment smut: What really frightens (and amuses) me about this referrer hit is that it's from the google site with the language set to Arabic. Really makes you wonder sometimes.

bush sadam dance: Do a little dance! Make a little love! Get down tonight! Kemmy I know you supported Bush x Blair yaoi. How about Bush x Sadam? (I am so going to referrer Hell for that...)

pencil drawings of anime having a wedding: How would you pick which anime would be the groom? Or the bride? I mean, how do you sex anime? Not that I'm against same sex anime marriages. But still, one can't help but wonder about the silliness of it all. I mean, would the anime be require to invite it's in-laws to the wedding? Even that one anime that just sits at the wet bar, drinks all the booze, and then gives a loud embarrassing speech that winds up mortifying all the guests? Because you know there's always one in every genre...

Finally, if the people over at The Great Conjunction (you know who you are) start a mecha x people archive I will dig up some of the stories that were sent to the GWML and send them to you. There is one particular gem involving Relena and Wing Zero that has all the fascination of a fatal car wreck.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Embarrassing Kitchen Bloopers
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On Monday, March 24, 2003 at 02:34 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

I am now about to rant about my family. This is not my extended family, which I will rant about at the drop of a hat if you give me even half chance (HAH! Mixing metaphors for fun and profit since 1981). No, this rant is about my immediate family. It is also about why I will be spending as little time as humanly possible with them. I'm tired of it. This is where it ends.

I called my mother on Wed. or Thurs. to find out when she was wanted me to be ready by. She told me 3:00 or 3:30. She told me that the drive from Raleigh to Blacksburg would take about four hours. Which meant we would be getting to the hotel around 7:00 or 7:30. Add another hour because we'd probably stop for dinner and it put us getting there around 8:00 or 8:30. Reasonable times. So I planned my Thursday around that and went to see Dralion by Cirque du Soliel for the 8:00pm showing. Got out at 10:45 and got home around 11:15 or 11:30.

Needless to say I didn't get to sleep until after 12:00. I didn't sleep well that night, in fact I was woken by the alarm which never happens. I maybe got 4 or 5 hours sleep. But I figured I could sleep on the way up to Virginia or perhaps go to bed early Friday night. After all, we were going to be getting there before 9:00. I went to work where my manager wanted me to stay a few hours latter than normal to cover for a co-worker. I stay 2.5 hours late instead of 3 because I wanted to make sure I was packed by 3:00. I called my mom to let her know I would be ready at 3:00 and left messages since I couldn't get in touch with her. Everything was good.

A little after 3:00pm my mom shows up at my apartment to pick me up. As we get on the road, I notice that we're heading back towards my home town instead of NW towards Virigina. "Oh," my mom says "Paul is coming with us." Paul is my sister's fiance. He's an okay guy, and while he wants to become a youth minister, he's not that bad about preaching his views. One of the things about him that I'm not fond of is that he lets people walk all over him. Really, let's them walk over him. And that's what happened on Friday. "His work decided to hold a youth baseball clinic this afternoon and they needed him there. We'll be picking him up from there and leaving right afterwards."

Now keep in mind he's known about this trip for quite some time. He took Friday afternoon off because he knew my mom wanted to go ahead and get on the road. He told them this, but his work is infamous for asking him to stay late or do something for them without any form of notice. They do this because they know he won't complain but will do it. And guess what? He stayed for the clinic. We picked him up around 6:15 and 6:30. Add another hour to our trip to go to Wilson and get back to Raleigh. We would now be getting to our hotel around 11:15 pm.

This was not what I signed up for. However, I still figured I'd be able to sleep in the car. My mom had rented an Ford Explorer because her little car was not up to handling long road trips or mountains. Just in case I let her know that I'm really tired and didn't get to sleep until late the night before. Her response was "Well I got even less sleep than you. I've been up since 5:00am." Lovely. We picked up dinner around 7:00 (which is late for me and which I will bitch about later) and stopped for gas. I figured we'd make another pit stop and I could switch from the front seat to the back and take a nap. We never stopped. My suggestion to stop (I should have said I needed to use the bathroom) was shot down. So we kept going. We drove straight for 5 hours with one gas stop.

The car ride was one of the most uncomfortable experiences for me. The seat was no conductive to sleep (I tried). I couldn't turn the radio on because my mom would demand that it be set on a) a country station, b) the war with Iraq where they repeated the SAME 10 FACTS EVERY 20 MINUTES, or c) ACC tournament. I hate country, hate sports, and by the end of five hours was beginning to seriously hate Iraq. The radio spent most of the time turned off. To fill in the time we talked. It was pleasant for the most part until my Mom or Paul made some statement that made me want to cring. Like how we should evacuate all the civilians and then just nuke Iraq (and where are these people supposed to live after we do that? In the nuclear wasteland we've turned their homeland into?) or how America would be so much better if we made prayer in schools mandatory (I'm all for letting people pray if they want to, but requiring them to? I don't think so).

Did I also mention the cell phone? In the five hours we drove my sister called and spoke to her fiance 3 times. The fourth time she called the phone was handed to me so I could write down (incorrect) directions. It seems that her team, instead of dropping her off at our hotel, took her onto VA Tech's campus and left her there. This meant that we had drive for another 40 minutes trying to find her and bringing her back to the hotel.

This time is now 11:45 pm. We are now at the hotel. We have to get up at 6:00am to get my sister to her tournaments games. I have mentioned to my mom that I am exhausted. This is an understatement. I am so tired that my higher brain functions have ceased to function. I figure since we're so late getting in, we'll go right to bed. No such luck. My mom decides that rather than getting sleep or letting anyone in the room get sleep, she had to watch the last part of the ACC game going on. My sister tried to molify me by saying she'd mute the TV. They didn't. Instead, while I'm desperately trying to sleep, they are loudly discussing every single shot and play made in the game. I was not able to sleep.

By this time I am so tired that I am crying. No big huge noisy sobs. Just hot tears that I can't stop that flow into my pillow. The game goes off. It's now sometime after midnight, maybe 12:30 or so. We have to be up in 5.5 hours. Finally, I can go to sleep.

It's at this point that my mom decides she's not tired. She proceeds to turn on the brightest light in the room (I later checked), and starts to read. I don't dare say anything about the light, because if I do my mom will start yelling at me. She's done so in the past. Then she notices that I'm upset and asks what's wrong. I tell her. "I'm tired." Her response "Then go to sleep."

At this point I lost it. I was so incredibly mad that I literally saw red. I had been trying since 9:30 to go to sleep and as far as she was concerned it was my fault that I wasn't already asleep. I got up and demanded to know where the key to the car was. She pointed to it, or maybe even handed it to me I don't even remember. I took the key, a hotel key, a pillow, grabbed my glasses (though I didn't put them on), and put on my shoes. Then I left the room, went down to the SUV, and opened it up. I couldn't figure out how to get the trunk open so I crawled in through the front door, over two sets of seats, and into the trunk.

My mom always takes a blanket with her in whatever car she drives. Always. She's paranoid that she's going to wind up stranded somewhere and freeze to death. So I wasn't going to get cold. Though I did have another crying fit when I couldn't get the interior light to go off. A few minutes later I managed to pull myself together enough to look for the switch, which I had hit when climbing over the front seat, and turned it off. Then I laid down in the back of the Explorer and attempted to get some sleep. It was quiet. It wasn't too bright though the hotel sign did give off some light. I was warm. And I was fully expecting to spend the night in the back of the Explorer.

After about 30 minutes or so, my mom knocks on the window. I open the door and she opens the trunk. I climb out. What are the words that come out of her mouth? Are they "Sorry?" No. They are "I'll turn the light off," and then "It's just as bright out here and it is in the room." No, it wasn't. She then tells me she'll let me sleep in tomorrow and will pick me up at lunch to see the second half of my sister's games. Sounds good to me. I go back to the room and go to sleep.

I never got an apology. I never do. This is not the first time we've fought over things like sleep or food. If I want to go to bed before her on trips like this or even when I had to sleep on the couch at home because my bed was at my apartment, it was up to me to get to sleep despite any lights or TV's she has on. If I wanted to sleep late and ask her to please not turn on any lights at 6:00 am then the response is "I'm not going to sit in the dark." My mother has repeatedly shown that while she expects me to conform to her and my sister's schedule, little things like me needing SLEEP don't nee to have any respect. After all, a basketball game is much more important than my health.

It's called consideration. I have sat in the dark for a few hours so that the people I'm sharing a room with can get some more sleep. If I don't want to sit in the room, there's always quietly getting dressed and going outside. Or reading in the bathroom. It is not necessary to turn on the light first thing in the morning.

I am tired of this. I am tired of going home or on a trip with my family only to come back more exhausted and more stressed than when I left. I'm tired of getting sick the week after I go home because my immune system is depressed due to disrupted sleep. I'm tired of everyone being put ahead of me. Most of all, I'm tired of being made to feel like somehow at fault when I ask such things as "Do you think we can go to bed early tonight?" or "I'm hungry. Can we go ahead and eat?" Was I being unreasonable in wanting to sleep? Was I being unreasonable in stating that I hadn't slept well and thinking that maybe that would make a difference? Was I being unreasonable in getting mad that a basketball game and a book took presidence over my health?

At this point, I don't think I care. I'm not doing this again. If my family wants to see me, they can do it on my terms. I don't need to see them. Hell, there have been times when I didn't even want to see them. I've tried being the repsonsible one. I've jumped through their hoops and done what was expected of me because these people are my family. Not any more. This won't happen again. I won't let it. I'm not sure my health and my sanity can take it.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Howl's Moving Castle on Half.com
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On Thursday, March 20, 2003 at 02:10 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

In a complete reverse of how this usuall works, everyone go read the Hikaru no Go fragment in my LJ.

Note to self: convince one of my minions friends to buy me Howl's Moving Castle for my birthday.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: The Tractor Incident
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On Wednesday, March 19, 2003 at 03:01 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

Okay, first, some brilliant idiot from NC comes up with the idea of "Freedom Fries" and one of our representatives spreads and supports the idea. Then, some yahoo from NC drives his tractor with the flag upside down attached to it into the reflecting pool, in the process snarling DC traffic up for hours. I would like to formally apologize for the state of NC. At this rate, the people of the US are going to come here and paint a big target on our state. First in line will be the commuters from DC...

I confirmed with my mom today that yes, I will indeed be at VA Tech this weekend. I will be heading up with my family Friday afternoon and we'll br driving back down on Sunday. I didn't realize VA Tech was towards the Western half of the State, so I don't think I'll be able to get up with you Jeram for lunch. Espcially since I don't have a car and I don't want you to have to drive 3 or 4 hours just for lunch. Alas, we are foiled again. I am still kicking myself over not being able to get up with you when I was in Maryland -_-.

Anime tonight. I cannot wait. Until later.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: The Food Timeline
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On Tuesday, March 18, 2003 at 01:41 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

I took 35-40 calls in a 3.5 hour period. When I got into work the voice mail was FULL. All I did today was take phone calls and handle the messages in VM. So this is a dead Tsaiko day. I wll only be resurrected long enough to watch Wolf's Rain tonight with friends. Then I shall go back to being dead.

Good luck on the interview Twig

White Cat I promise to have your story, completely beta-read, back to you by Wed. If I don't, I will write you something as apology. As it is, I'm a day late in getting it back to you (it's been a month already? Crap.) My apologies.

Now, I die.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: The Kitsune Page
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On Saturday, March 15, 2003 at 03:10 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

And now, for your amusement, Tsaiko will clean out her Junk Mail folder!

Youngagainn@yahoo.co... HGH- The Fountain Of Youth! 2
Yeah, Ponce de Leon looked for it too. Try Disney World.

DR. Telgheder Do you often feel tired?XO
Of this crap you keep sending me? You bet. Hugs and kisses.

Revolutionary Products Tsaiko1 Do you want Immediate Rock-Solid Erections?
Why yes. Do you know where I can find some cute, cheap guys? I prefer them in pairs. It's for... research purposes.

Hot_Haley REALITY Lesbian Sex Site
As opposed to the imaginary lesbian sex sites? Or maybe the virtual ones?

susan rich Is your computer hurting your children?
Why? What do you know? Does this mean I can set the computer to slap around every kid that decides to flame me? Tell me!

Fix Your Credit Would You Like To Eliminate Up To 60% of Your...
Spam? Why yes, yes I would.

mapjeyw@gxvmtwagv.co... From The Top a
From the English language a complete

Farm_Lovin Free Farm Sex
Just what I want to see. Billy Bob Wayne and Mary Jane Thorton going at it. Thanks, I'll pass.

angel@cjxnbnc.netmcr... Lose pounds in the Shower!
Yeah, but I hate to kick the soccer players out before I'm done with them.

tabitha stuart tsaigh Is your TV hurting your children?
What is up with you people? First my computer is hurting my non-existant children, now TV? What am I going to use to teach my children? What do you think I am? A responsible parent?

bethober@msn.com boost cellaphane reception
Boost the use of a dictionary.

asdf4awrtsaefkl@culo... Make love like a porn star!
I already do. Unless your proposing to buy the cameras, lighting equipment, and props. Then lets talk.

toupgfuitzxdcwxmako@... Nice Try Pal
My thoughts exactly.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: The laser game
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On Friday, March 14, 2003 at 02:07 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

I have the only green thumb in my family. It's true. My sister just doesn't care about plants and my mom has the Black Thumb of Death when it comes to plants. In other words, she manages to kill them within a week or so. The only thing that she can't kill but that I kill on a regular basis are cacti and other desert plants. I tend to over mother them while my mom is perfectly happy to leave them alone for several weeks and then dump a little water on them. At one time she had one of the largest aloe vera plants I've seen (the thing was HUGE, lived many years, came from a very small pup I purchased at a fair).

Needless to say, I love green growy things. I have several house plants I've saved from my mother. For some reason, people think that plants are a wonderful gift for my mother and I always having to save them before she kills them. I'm getting ready to start my outdoor plants that I grow in pots. I want to do some plants this year that I can use for cooking and drying. Because flowers are pretty and all, but I prefer to have useful, pretty things around me.

Two of the plants (lavender and parsley) I'm going to try this year need to be grown indoors for several weeks before I can put them outside after the threat of frost. This will be my second seeding of them. The first seeding didn't sprout, although that could be because both plants have a longer sprouting time than a week. However, I don't think the first batch of seeds will ever sprout. Either I planted the seeds to deep (a distinct possibility) or the first night I left them outside because it was supposed to be warm, was actually cold and they were killed. Either way, after a week, I tried again.

The second seeding is going much better. I soaked the parsley twice as long as what the seed packet said. Already I've got sprouts from it. I was a little worried about it because I left it outside all morning while I was at work yesterday and when I came home I discovered that the DAMN SQUIRRELS had dug a hole in the pot. Luckily, I covered it up and the seedlings don't seem any worse for wear.

The lavender is a whole 'nother matter. There are STILL no sprouts. However, I found on a website that lavender doesn't take from seed well, has a high rot rate, and is in general hard to grow. Well bugger. If this seeding doesn't take I think I'm going to try another plant. I'm going to grow some dill (for the seeds as well as the leaves) as well. Any suggestions on what I should grow if the lavender doesn't take? I'd prefer something flowering and useful that can be grown in a pot on my porch. I've got spaces that get full or partial light. I'm thinking possible chamomile.

Hmmm... there doesn't seem to be many flowering herbs. I am slightly disappointed.

And now, some making fun of Devil may Cry (Dante's first line is kind of ad libbed since I don't remember it word for word and the script I found on-line sucks).

Dante: My mother always told me that my father was a righteous man...
Tsaiko: Demon.
Dante: ... and in the name... huh? What?
Tsaiko: Demon. Your father was a demon. D-E-M-O-N.
Dante: I knew that.
Tsaiko: I'd hope so considering it's a major plot point of this game.
Dante: Can I just get on with my speech?
Tsaiko: Oh yes. Sure. Go right on ahead.
Dante: You're not going to interupt me again?
Tsaiko: Wouldn't dream of it.
Dante: I don't beleive you. You've been making snide comments and laughing at me this entire game.
Tsaiko: I promise I will be quiet as a mouse.
Dante: Fine then. Good. Where was I? Oh yeah. My mother always told me that my father was a righteous man...
Miome: Your mother also always use to say he was good lay but I don't hear you speachify-ing about that.
Dante: ...
Tsaiko: *snicker*
Dante: That's it. I quit.

I love this game.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Hello Kitty 40,000
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On Thursday, March 13, 2003 at 02:25 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

I hate my body. Why it has now decided to try and make me pass out while sitting at my desk, I do not understand. Blah. Stupid body.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Index of Japanese Panasonic Commercials
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On Wednesday, March 12, 2003 at 02:08 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

For those of you who have read my journal for awhile, you know that I see these weird little things out of the corner of my eye. I often refer to them as figments or little pieces of reality. Usually, I go through periods of several days where I see shadows or colors or shapes that aren't there. Then... nothing for several weeks to months. Then the whole process starts all over. Shadows and colors and shapes and occasionally really sharp images that disappear whenever I try to look harder. This has been going on for as long as I can remember, though it has gotten worse since I hit puberty.

Well now these things I see out of the corner of my eye have discovered a new strategy. Instead of seeing an entire batch of little things and then going for a nice long period of time without seeing anything, I now see one REALLY CLEAR figment every one to two weeks. The latest one was on Monday, where I saw the edge of a white piece of cloth (maybe the edge of a sleeve or a hem? It was several inches above the floor) go past the door of the bathroom while I was drying my hair. The door wasn't all the way open so I only caught a brief glimpse of it.

What was really creepy is that I was kneeling on the floor petting Nadia, my cat, at the time. I do this every morning as I dry my hair. She was begging to be rubbed like usual. Only when the figment went by the door, Nadia stopped, looked away from towards the door, and her ears swivled towards it. I glanced from her, to the door, saw the figment, looked back at her, looked back at the door, and then jumped a little when she resumed her demands for attention.

What this means is that not only can I see these things, my cats can see them as well. This adds a whole 'nother layer of creepiness to them. Although it's nice to know that the cats don't sense any kind of malice in these things either. Nadia just seemed more curious than anything else.

I had one person suggest that maybe my apartment is haunted, and that I'm seeing ghosts. I don't think so. I've been in places that are haunted before. There's a feeling that they all share... like time has slowed down or stopped for someone there. A kind of chill to them. I don't get that from these things. The most I do feel from these figments is a kind of... watchfulness, and even then that's not as common. Most of the time I get nothing from them beyond that brief flash of them being there.

I've had it suggested that I try to get rid of my figments. No thank you. As much as I complain about them, they aren't hurting me or anything. Besides, I kind of like the reminder that there's some stuff I don't understand about the universe. So I live with them.

I just wish they would decide how they want to be and stay that way -_-;;.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: #AR Blackmail file
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On Tuesday, March 11, 2003 at 02:34 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

I would like to address a comment left in my LJ by Shmitz. In it, he quotes Isn't all fanfiction, especially yaoi fanfiction where authors attempt to make "straight" characters gay, by definition OOC? Not really. You see, the important word in the definition is "contrary." and then makes a very good point about how most yaoi falls into the contrary category because it takes a handful of moments to support their arguement and completely ignore any other relationship presented in the canon.

Which is a perfectly valid observation, and one that I will agree with. A lot of authors don't address the issue of canon pairings in their quest to put together other people, and I also agree with the comment Itland left. Just randomly putting characters in homoerotic settings will not autmocatically make them gay. I prefer that if authors are going to write yaoi that they 1) address the pairings the canon set up and 2) actually put some thought into why your characters are the way they are.

However, I don't require it. I prefer it stories to do it, but I don't absolutely require them to do it. It's a difference in the amount of credit I'm willing to give the author. Credit is a concept I mentioned briefly in my last post. It's a suspension of belief, a willingness to see what the author is going to do and be willing to see it through to the end. It's basically extending the author a line of credit with the understanding that the story is going to pay it back in the form of a good plot, explanation, characterization, and/or ending.

Some people are willing to extend authors more credit than others. For example, someone who likes to read fantasy or science fiction is giving the author more credit that someone who likes to read something like a military novel simply because it takes a larger suspension of beleif to read fantasy/science fiction. Not only does the reader have to buy the idea of a world with different physics, technology, and civilizations but they also have to deal with the plots and characters that the author has created. That's a lot of credit.

In fanfics, I'm willing to give authors enough credit to change the characters sexual orientation. Some people go further. I know WhiteCat is willing to extend writers enough credit to change the gender of one of the main characters. She likes to see how people handle the interactions of the characters when one of them is another gender. I know some people who like male pregnancy fics. They like to see how the author handles the impossible. Then again, I know some people who will only read hardcore, NC-17, S&M yaoi fics between one pairing from one series and a certain character MUST be on top or ELSE.

I like to think that this is where the habit of labeling fics came from. Not only so people who were looking for a certain thing to read could find it, but also to keep people who didn't want to read something from accidently reading it. Trust me, I know more want you to be disgusted by something I write than you want to be disgusted by something I write.

Some writers don't get this idea of credit. They think that readers should be ever so greatful that they deigned to put their stuff on the net. Don't beleive me? Just try writing these people with anything less than glowing, groveling respect for their stories. They'll be the first to tell you just how great they are -_-. What they don't realize is that readers don't have to read their stuff. In fact, it's rather hard to convince people to read your stuff. Think about every link you have ever seen to a story. EVERY link in mailing lists, chat rooms, IRC channels, ICQ, LJ's, emails, etc. Now, how many did you click on having never, ever read the author before? Yeah... that's what I thought.

Just by deciding to read your stuff, readers have given you some credit. Now keep in mind that the more complex and convoluted your plot, the more twisted and deep your characters are, the more credit your readers are going to have to give you. If you demand too much credit, they'll stop reading. If you don't pay back the credit, they'll not only stop reading, they'll probably not like your book. So what you need to do is make sure that if the plot is complex and convoluted, you tie up all the ends and explain all your actions. If your characters are deep and twisted and change radically from begining to end, make sure that you explain why and how they changed. It's sounds simple, but in reality is very hard.

And now, my brain hurts and I think I didn't explain myself nearly as well as I wanted to. Oh well.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Popping a water ballon in space
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On Sunday, March 9, 2003 at 02:18 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

Today I would like to talk about OOC-ness. For all those who don't know, OOC stands for "out of character." It's something that happens in fan fiction when someone writes a character in such a way that he/she/it is acting contrary to how they would act in the series. Most people consider this one of the cardinal sins of fan fiction. Okay, I consider it a cardinal sin of fan fiction. It's right behind "Thou shall not use a crap ass plot" and right before "Thou shall not for go the use of the spellchecker."

In other words, when I read a story the characters being OOC is the second most common thing that will get me to stop reading. I can bad grammer/spelling skills if the plot is good. I cannot take perfect English if the characters are so far OOC that it appears thayou've got your hand so far up their arse that they might as well be your original characters.

But why do I hate OOC-ness so much? I mean, what's the point? Isn't all fanfiction, especially yaoi fanfiction where authors attempt to make "straight" characters gay, by definition OOC? Not really. You see, the important word in the definition is "contrary." It leaves a lot of room for hedging and manipulating the character while still being close to the canon. It also leaves a lot of room for interpretation. What I see as OOC others might think is perfectly fine and even in canon. I've seen a lot of debates favoring one characterization over another with good evidence for both sides. But there somethings that are just so far out in right field that most everyone who has seen the series will say "Who the Heck is this?"

In addition, by setting up a lot of backstory and using the plot, an author can change the characters from what they were into something new. However, this usually takes quite a bit of time and planning. A lot of fanfics don't have this luxery because they are written in a short story or short series format. Because of this, character development isn't as focused on as in a novel simply because of the constraints of the plot.

Again, we come to the all important question of, who cares whether character are OOC? Especially if an author is writing in a format where character development isn't possible. The reason I (and a lot of other fans) care is because it fanfiction. When you write fanfiction you are giving up some benefits (like the ability to create your own orginal main characters and to some extent the ability to create your own setting, originl plot, etc.) in return for other benefits. Namely, not having to develop a backstory, characters, and an audience for your work. The canon has already done this for you. You just have to keep is consistent.

A good metaphor for this (you may commence in the panic, I'm using a metaphor) is Greek mythology. In Greek mythology, the gods had certain personalities, abilities, and symbols. Zeus was into women, while Hera was a jealous wife. Artemis was the huntress who's arrows caused swift death, while Apollo was a musician and healer who's arrows caused lingering, suffering death. Athena was represented by an owl, Demeter by sheafs of grain (either corn or wheat), Poseidon by a trident. Everyone knows this, and if they don't, it only takes a few good books to catch them up.

Now, suppose that I wanted to write a Greek myth. I decide to make Zeus a devoted and loving husband and Hera into a pious virgin. Artemis, instead of having to exact her revenge some other way, simply swiftly kills all who desescrate what she stands for. Apollo can swiftly kill his foes too, and actually prefers it that way. I represent Athena with a spear, Demeter with a bull, and Poseidon with a gate. Ta-dah! My Greek myth is complete.

Only, is it still a Greek myth? I have completly obliterated any and everything that made it similar to the orginal Greek mythology with little or no explanation. Those people who read my story thinking they are reading a Greek myth will find themselves lost. Nothing will be familiar. All the backstories and meanings will have no place in this story. It will be an original piece parading as a actual Greek myth.

It's easy to see why authors do this. I know for a fact my fanfiction gets more readers than my original stuff. It's tempting to turn every story idea I have into a fanfic simply because I know it will get more attention. But that doesn't mean I do or I should.

Personally, I think that's why OOC-ness is so frowned upon. People go into a fanfic expecting one thing only to find themselves reading something else. They feel cheated and abused, tricked into reading something that should have been an orginal piece. Making characters OOC without explanation or reason is a form of deception. Whenever you write, simply by reading your story, your readers are suspending their disbelief, hang-ups, and convictions. They are counting on you to make them want to read your story. They are giving you a chance to prove you can write. By promising them one thing and delivering another, you're breaking that trust.

Is it any wonder why people get mad when you do?

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Star Wars line improved with the word "pants"
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On Saturday, March 8, 2003 at 09:48 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

I normally don't read that much FF8 fanfiction. I mean, I've played the game, though I never finished it. I know all the characters. I know most of the basic plot/concepts. So if I see a writer I like has written FF8, I'll read it. Most times I'll even be entertained. But I don't actively go out and hunt down FF8. And I usually am not completely sucked in by it. Especially if it's about Seifer/Squall.

Therefore I was amazed and astounded when I started reading Twig's "Grasshopper". I loved it. The set-up is great. The characterization is great. The idea is great. Go read it.

Twig, I once again bask in your greatness and glory.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: When is a pancake not a pancake?
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On Friday, March 7, 2003 at 02:41 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

My manager probably has strep throat. She's waiting for the doctor to get the culture results back. I will be royally pissed if I get strep throat. You see, the problem with me is that when I get strep throat I don't exhibit one of the major signs of strep throat. That is, I don't get a sore throat with strep throat. What I get is a high fever, general blah feeling, soreness ans stiffness, a little bit of nasuea, and/or a headache. In other words, I get all the wonderful symptoms of the flu. Only, I really have strep which doesn't get indentified.

I've had Scarletina (mild case of Scarlet Fever) three times because the strep got left untreated. The only reason they figured out it was Scarletina was because I started breaking out in the oh so lovely rash and started getting chills. I've also had strep throat that got caught before it became worse because I basically THREW A FIT until I got tested for strep. Sure enough, I had it. I do not want nor need to have to go to the doctor because I get strep. Especially since I have no health insurance.

Twig, I dare you to do it. I double dare you.

The politics of my former department look to favor getting me into grad. school. Here's hoping.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: The Letter Box
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On Thursday, March 6, 2003 at 01:59 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

This is not Tsaiko. You see, Tsaiko's brains have been eaten by some form of alien life form. SLURRRRRRRP! Yep, no more Tsaiko brains left here. They have been eaten and are slowly being digested in the pit of acid that is known as the inside of an alien's stomach.

Tsaiko: I hope they give you indigestion.
Alien: You're just bitter because I ate you brains.
Tsaiko: Damn right I'm bitter. I NEED THOSE BRAINS!
Alien: To do what? It's not like your in school or anything.
Tsaiko: Hello? I'm a writer. I use those things everyday.
Alien: A writer? What do you write?
Tsaiko: Smut mostly.
Alien: You don't need brains to write smut.
Tsaiko: I hate you.

I've been finding old authors that I remember back from my days when I first started reading fanfiction. Some of them no longer write or their sites are gone. This makes me sad. Other ones are still writing, including for series that I've recently gotten addicted to. This makes me happy. I will have to email them and encourage them to keep writing. Especially the Hikaru no Go stuff.

Tired now. No more writing.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Visual Thesaurus
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On Wednesday, March 5, 2003 at 03:01 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

I'm watching a program on VH1 about gay and gender bending in music. I just got through watching a program on Drag Queens. I have to say this is quite interesting.

Nothing much to say today, so this will be a short entry. Unless something strikes me and I decide to rant about it. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

I'm writing again. Going through a phase of just wanting to write a lot. It happens and I'm going to milk it for all it's worth. Maybe I'll be able to get some stuff done. Or so I hope.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: One Piece Typing Game
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On Tuesday, March 4, 2003 at 01:19 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

You know what happens when you need to be somewhere at 4:00pm and you go to sleep at 2? You almost are late and you wind up running around like a chicken with their head cut off. And I am still tired. Three hours of sleep Sunday night, and only four hours last night. I am tired... and I have no idea why insomnia has decided to hit. Gah. Blarg.

Although in other news, I have begun writing again. Hikaru no Go mostly. Including one really good fic that I really want to finish and put up for review. I like it. A lot. I like the idea behind it and what i've done on it so far. Of course, I wrote this last night around 10:00 while very, very tired drunk. I'm going to look at it again today to see if it's as good as I remember it being. If not... I think I'll cry.

Thorne, I've read both retellings of "Beauty and the Beast" by Robin McKinley. I liked the writing in the first one better, but I liked the ideas in the second one better. However, I was slightly disappointed in the way the story was laid out in the second one. It seemed... less well thought out. There were times in the "Rose Daughter" where I felt the author was really pushing the plot to happen instead of letting them flow in the story. It lead to some really jarring scenes that didn't seem to quite make sense in the context in the story.

And it does not surprise me at all that both you, Thorne, and Twig have both found erotica books with the Beauty and the Beast theme. Heck, if I remember right it's one of those themes that pretty much found in most, if not all cultures. There's a Chinese version of it that I read once, though I can't bring to mind any of the details at the moment. Which makes me want to work on my own personal version of the story. Which also screws around with the European knight, princess, dragon stories from Victorian and Medieval times.

Not that this is a hobby of mind or anything...

Every time someone mentions or adds to the "How do moogles reproduce?" debate I keep looking over at my small statue of a moogle riding a chocobo. Then I get the most horrible idea for a fic before I smash it out of existance again. Then someone mentions the debate and my eyes are once again drawn to that small statue.

Tsaiko will be strong. Tsaiko will not write cross species FF sex. Tsaiko won't. BAD MIND! VERY BAD MIND!

Note to self: Add changeling to my page.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Passing of a Winter Love
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On Saturday, March 1, 2003 at 10:57 a.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

I really like this fic. It's Beauty and the Beast and addresses one of the problems I always had with the story. What if Beauty didn't want the Prince? What if she wanted the Beast? I mean, she didn't fall in love with the Prince. She fell in love with the Beast. Maybe she didn't fall in love with him despite of his beastial nature and appearance because she could see the humanity inside. Maybe she fell in love with him because of them and the humanity just tempered his bestial nature enough that she could live with herself for loving him. An interesting idea that I really wish the fairy tale dealt with more. Or if not the fairy tale itself, then other people.

So because it was on sale and because I had heard a few other people speak of it, I *cough*cough*my roomie*cough*cough* bought Devil May Cry last night. So I played it, and I got up this morning and played it some more. I like this game. It is my kind of game. It's broken into easy to play chunks that I can save after completing. The enemies aren't too easy (after awhile) and they aren't so hard I get frustrated. The biggest surprise is... it's a puzzle game in the same way Vagrant Story is a puzzle game. You have to figure out what to do to get to the next part. And the puzzles are fairly challenging unless you take a step back and think about what you are supposed to do.

This came as a big shock for me because in the opening sequence it is made painfully clear that the main character you are playing, Dante, has all the brains and patience of a waterbuffalo in heat. Dante, honey, sweetie pie you're in the messed up castle with monsters, warped statues, evil auras, and things trying to suck you in and kill you. You're walking around the library and you find an entire section on evil rituals and the occult from around the world. The correct response is "Wow, maybe I should read this. It might have something useful." Your response should not be "Whatever..." Dammit, boy!

So... I think I like him. No one to slash him with (yet). Sure he's a smartass and arrogant and not the brightest bulb in the place. Yet somehow, that just adds to his charm.

I am going to steal Twig's analogy and then run with it. Writing for me is like the goldfish falling. Only before I get the gold fish into the water, another one falls. And then another. And then another. So there I am in a field full of large, dead gold fish. I wander around a bit and poke at them, maybe nudge them with my shoe in the general direction of the water. There's some people usually crowded around one or two of the goldfish begging and pleading me to shove the goldfish into the water. Sometimes I'll be inspired to wander over and pull at those godlfish. Most times I just kind of smile politely and wander around some more.

And the goldfish continue to fall. Sometimes I have to dodge them. Other times I can hear the faint sound of them going "Splat!" somewhere in the distance. Occasionally, I'll watch their desperate gasps for air and will feel sorry for them and will pull them towards the water for awhile. Then I get bored and wander away.

Only suddenly, one of the gold fish will rise up and I'll realize it's no longer a goldfish. It's a very large, very irate oriental dragon. Here comes Tsaiko running like crazy, frantically towards the water because if I don't make it to the water before the dragon catches me, it will eat my brains. If I'm lucky it will get bored and go to sleep, waiting with a half open eye for me to wander back by. Otherwise, I make it to the water and it goes in itself, and life is good. I have a finished story and am free to wander around the fields of dead goldfish once more.

Right. Putting the metaphor down now.

Get a fic blog Lunar. You know you want to. The guy in the dark alley trying to give you the fic blog? Listen to him. Sure it's free. Sure it won't eat your soul. Why would he lie? Take the fic blog Lunar... take it...

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: 2003 UNC System Field Camp
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On Friday, February 28, 2003 at 03:35 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

At the request of a friend I shall now rant about Field Camp. I can't remember if I have spoken about it before. Quite possibly I have, though a quick session of googlebation turns up nothing but my rant about Boxers (which is the absolute last entry on this page. So now I present my Survivor's Guide to Field Camp.

First off: what is Field Camp? Now for those who have never gotten, attempted to get, or even heard of a Geology Major, field camp is a six week course spent out in the field (ie where we look at rocks in place) that is required in order to recieve a degree. Those of us in Geology know better. Field Camp is really a way to see just how many hoops you will jump through in order to do what you love. It's also a way to find out whether you really want to do Geology. A lot of people find Geology or the idea of Geology fascinating on paper, but when you're actually out there in the blazing hot sun looking at the ground with absolutely no idea what it is you're looking at, that's when you discover whether or not this is what you really want to do.

So rest assured future Field Campers, it does have a purpose other than making you live out of a tent for five weeks.

Tip #1: Bring sweaters and pants
You're going to a desert. Deserts are hot, right? You won't need those pesky sweaters and pants! WRONG. I was lucky. I grew up in Southern CA and realized that while it might be a 100 degrees during the day, once the sun went down it could drop into the 40's. So I brought sweaters and pants. In fact, I left the shorts at home. The desert is full of many sharp, pointy things that don't like you. Bugs, cacti, rocks, and longhorn steer are all out to get you. And they won't mind taking a chunk out of your legs. My year we had one guy who got some kind of infection from a wound on his legs because he was wearing shorts. Learn from him.
Addendum: Only bring clothes that you can throw away later. Buy packages of socks from Wal-Mart. Do not bring anything really nice or new. By the end of Field Camp, no matter how much bleach you dump into your whites, your socks with be brown with dirt. As will your undies. Your shirts will be sweat stained covered in a layer of brown, though not as bad as your socks. Your pants will have more holes than cloth. Bring a patching kit and expect to chunk them.

Tip #2: Do not buy a tent with mesh that you can't cover
I mean cover as in you can completely seal off all the mesh "windows" in your tent during the day when you are not in it. My tent had mesh all around the top that was loosely covered by the rain cover. While the rain cover kept the rain out, it didn't not keep the fine sand and wind out. Let me tell you, there is nothing more frsutrating then coming in out of the field only to study the ripple formations that have accumulated in your tent.

Tip #3: Bring a tarp
The tarp is for putting up under your tent. It keeps you from ripping the underside of your tent apart. You want to fold the tarp till it as close to the underside of your tent in size as possible. This will protect it from the ground but keep the dew/rain from collecting on it and running up under your tent.

Tip #4: Be able to carry whatever you bring
There are times when the camp site is right next to where the vans park. Then there are times when you will have to lug all your stuff up and down hills to the camp site. Make sure you can carry all of it in one trip. Tent, packs, bedding, etc. This is especially important if you are racing to put your tent up before the skies open up and the second flood starts.

Tip #5: BUY THIS BOOK
Robert Compton's "Geology in the Field" should be required for everyone going to field camp. It has all the charts you got in your classes that you probably threw away figuring you'd never need or could just look up (and really, how many of you remember what percentage of quartz a rock has to have to be classified as syenite?). It also has tips about how to do your first field maps, symbols, and strata columns. Get this book.

Tip #6: You do not need to by the most expensive pens
Drafting pens seem to be really popular with people. You know those expensive set with nibs and ink that can put you back $100? Forget them. The nibs break, the ink bleeds, and they clog like crazy. What I recommend is Rollerball pens purchased from Staples, Office Max. Like these or these. Just make sure you get them in fine, extra fine, medium, blue, and red. Don't worry about the different hardnesses of pencils. I never really used them, and you can mooch off someone else if you need to.

Tip #7: Do NOT buy your canteens at Wal-Mart
They break. They leak. The seal onthem let water leak everywhere. Invest in a good canteen (or two) with straps. You will thank yourself for it.

Tip #8: Buy mechanical pencil
There are no pencil sharpeners in the field. Sandpaper like the Field Camp site suggests sucks. You will be using these pencil to make field notes and to alter your field map. I would recommend buying mechanical pencils with sturdy leads.

Tip #9: Prepare for the worse
Bring bug spray. Bring braces if you have a tendency to sprain things. Bring medication. You feet will be mass of blisters. Be prepared for pain. Make sure you pack enough food for the day. I am hypoglycemic, something that I never quite got through to most of my professors. So I had to make sure I ate enough and tried to control my blood sugar as much as possible. Make professors aware of any medical conditions you have. Tell them repeatedly. Some people will suddenly find themselves susecptible to disease because they have never been at such high altitude.

Tip #10: You may be miserable
Some people take to field camp like a fish in water. Others suffer through it. You will get wet. You will be hot or cold or hate some of the people you are with. You will feel stupid. There will be times when if someone offered you a ticket back home with the stipulation that you will fail, you would take it without a second thought. The Field Camp is a physical, mental, and emotional strain. But you can get through it. You will.

Tsaiko's neat, nifty URL of the day is: Return your Virginity in Japan
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On Thursday, February 27, 2003 at 02:43 p.m. Tsaiko was slowly going insane. This is why:

Archived page: Check
Updated links to pitas I read: Check
Cold outside: Check
Blankets: Check
Cats: Check
Painkillers: Check
Girl Scout Cookies: Check

Life is good. FAFSA got processed on time. Filled out Scholarship Application for NCSU. Now, I just need to get my stupid grad school applocation done. I hate having to beg for references, but that's all I need to do to get it complete. Oh yeah, and the essay. Filling out all the paperwork for this is making this a lot more scary. Suddenly, it's real and it's here and it's time for me to get moving. I don't know what I'm going to do if I 1) don't get accepted or 2) can't get up enough money to go. I've got my savings, but it will only last for a year. Sigh...

I'm watching a show about Collies right now. I suddenly miss my Australian Shepards. A lot. Even though they've all been dead and gone for... 10 years now. Don't get me wrong, the mongrel hunting dogs we had after them were great, but I loved those Aussies more than anything. I want a big dog. I can't wait until I live in a real house (or trailer) with a yard. I want a really big dog.

My cat is once again sleeping on my coat. I do beleive she is tyring to add a layer of fur to the inside of my coat. I'd shoo her off, but she's just too darn sweet.

I was reading this article about the Motor Fleet. One of the things that caught my eye was the guy who was caught having sex (they put it as "enaged in a intimate physical act") in a van. Now I have been in a University Van and a Motor Fleet van. They are possibly the most disgusting things ever. They are usually covered in mud, grit, or dirt. They smell funny. In one case, in order to keep the door from falling off, one of my fellow classmates had to hang onto the door as we drove down the road. Needless to say why anyone would want to get into much less get physical in a state van is a mystery to me.

I am debating on whether or not to enter the Shot in the Head Fanfiction Challenge. On the one hand, I have so much stuff I need to get done. On the other hand, I really, really want to write something for this. It's not often I find a fanfiction contest I want to AND think I could write for. There are lots of contests I want to write for. The problem is given how slowly I write the deadlines are often to soon. I need a long lead time to get my act together.

I think that is all the rambling I want to do. Bye all.