I am getting on a plane tomorrow. Fact still hasn't sunk in yet. ^^;
It turns out I spent the entire day at home after all - the meeting of doom was postponed for some reason or other, and now it won't be held until after my return. So, I didn't have to go in, and thus, I stayed home and timed. The probability of me finishing the entire project by tomorrow night is seeming more and more slim. -_- I need to get as much done as possible. (I'm -still- stuck on the interview extra!)
I added several more gallery albums. Be sure to check it out! I'll also be uploading photos from CA when I get there!
Yeah... I completely lack regularity in my sleep schedule now. I did make it to work - the car arrived at the half-hour point, almost as if on cue...
If you were wondering why the car wasn't there in the first place, my mom had taken it to get its tires replaced. The rear pair was fine, but the forward pair, which was older, had been worn down to the point where there was almost no tread left. Being a rear-wheel drive vehicle, the tires were rotated forward, then a brand new pair of tires were installed to the rear, since it's more important to have traction in your drive tires. Suffice it to say, the car handles a bit differently with the tires having been rotated - it clings to the road a lot more, and the handling has increased - meaning, the car lurches sideways if I do more than nudge the wheel. o.O
After work, I ended up going to Jeff's place, as everyone had gathered there. It was a bit of an adventure finding the place, as I ended up entering the maze-like neighborhood from the wrong side, and I had to pull out the county road map to navigate myself to the proper side. How such a labyrinth of roads came about is beyond me. Konoha (whee!) was there, along with the usual cast of carpy, Dave, Kevyn, Bill, and of course Jeff (since it was his house). Kevyn and Bill left shortly after I arrived, to be replaced with Sarah and Mary a few minutes later ^^;
When I walked in, they were watching... a live Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles "concert" o.O The sheer... wow, I can't even find a word to describe it... was enough to turn Mary away from the room until it was finished. Need to get that tape vidcapped =P
The entire night was spent watching TV and other videos from the massive collection that had been amassed there for some reason. After TMNT, they watched an episode of "Captain Future", then switched to a very old dubbed anime which name I do not remember. That had decent entertainment value. ^^; Basically channel surfed after that, watching things like the end of an Iron Chef episode, Popeye shorts, a documentary of the history of superhero comics...
At around 4:30am, everyone departed from Jeff's - Konoha went to Dave's place, with carpy dropping them off before going home, and I dropped off the two girls at Sarah's house. I take what is probably the 2nd longest possible route home, since I'm not used to driving back from there.
I waste no time in peeling off a layer of tread from the new tires.
Well, suffice it to say, on Georgia Ave, I had my first encounter with a deer in my path. Of course, I was going at 45 and, while I saw the shadow of -something-, I didn't recognize it as a deer until it came into the range of my low-beam headlights. (The fact that I only have one low-beam working right now didn't help.) The sound of my tires screeching to a halt were enough to send the deer running, but stopping was quite good - I can once again stop on a dime, and probably wouldn't have hit the deer even if it had stayed still. Since the deer moved, I didn't have to stop completely, so I think I avoided burning major rubber. ^^;
Well, I should get to sleep now - I am done with my work shifts for a while (I only have to come in at 6pm for an overbudget store meeting), so I can concentrate on finishing up the ADV project before leaving... or otherwise, I'll have to take it to CA with me to finish. x_x
Those of you who actually look at the gallery may notice that I actually recompressed the Birthday images to about 1/3 their original filesizes - about the same compression ratio the 8otb photos have. I'm trying out Photo Studio for the purpose of actually converting my digicam output to sizes more friendly to limited-space webhosting such as mine. The gallery is not going to have very good image quality, simply because I don't have enough space to accomodate many images that way. I'll usually have higher-res versions of most images on my PC, though. I still need to get a better scanner so I can actually get decent scans of some of my film-camera galleries...
You probably didn't notice, but I also slightly increased the brightness of the text you're reading now. It's a stylesheet modification, so it should affect all the other pages as well. Some people complained about "low contrast" between the background and foreground back when I first put this site up (though the contrast was actually pretty high to begin with), so I decided to brighten it up just a little. Hopefully it's not too bright now - I didn't want to make it a pure white since that would be somewhat painful to read.
I have to be at work in an hour and a half.
On a Saturday I have to leave an hour in advance to make sure I have enough time to find parking.
My car is not in the garage.
How the hell am I supposed to get to work if I don't have my car in the next half hour?!
Yep, still up. When I checked my email, I discovered yet another declined charge (this time, my preorder for the Egao music DVD at AnimeJungle), and being so close to AX, I -needed- to check up on that right away. I called Visa, and after bouncing around the menu system for a while, then being connected to an advisor, then being transferred to another system, I finally figured out what was wrong - when the (failed) Konamistyle charge attempt occured, that lit up a caution flag because it was from a different country, a different currency, and they didn't send a merchant name for their request (probably because it was a pre-auth and not designed to be a final charge). So, they were waiting for me to call them and tell them that I was still in possession of my own card.
Since they know the card is still mine to use, hopefully it shouldn't be declined left and right anymore. -_- I already had to divert the Konamistyle order to the check card because of this.
I noticed Nugget has already direct-linked one of the gallery images - do note that I do frown upon direct-linking of images, but I'll let this one slide, mostly because I'm too sleepy to do anything about it ^^; (And it -is- a cute picture...)
This is half-implemented, but I can't stay awake much longer. Check out the Gallery link above. So far, only the birthday party from last year, and the Eight on the Break tourney I went to back in January are up.
And yes, the forums are dead. Except I still need to figure out how to delete the database for it. Ugh.
Well, today I ordered a pizza online for the very first time. The real convenience of this was that I was able to securely enter credit card information - otherwise, it is still more practical to just directly call to that particular location, since the online ordering is just a front-end for that. What really amused me was that I actually got a copy of Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey on DVD for getting that pizza - it's a reprinted run and packaged only in a paper envelope, but it's probably the exact same content as the storebought version. I just need to get Josh to scan and copy the keepcase art now =P
Spotted this in MegaZone's LJ: www.donotcall.gov is a government list of phone numbers that are illegal for any telemarketers to call. Thank god.
This is just too cute. ^^;
I changed my LJ layout to a different style preset. It looks a lot nicer now. ^^
Also, I was getting sick of not having a photo up on Friendster, so I took a quick shot of myself on the webcam. It's up on the About Me page as well. It's a pretty damn bad picture =P
Other than that, I'm -still- timing. I still intend to finish before AX - I'm ALMOST done with all the extras, then I can finally get to the last two episodes. Just 10 more minutes of interview to go... x_x
Lessee...
Yesterday was a day where I dealt with online order buttons that kept disappearing, reappearing, and disappearing again... UPS actually delivered a package via "Ground" service in 4 days, and they delivered a package via "3 Day Select" in 1 day (go figure)... I get attacked by chunks of salt (at least, I hope it was salt) about half a meter in diameter on the highway going to work...
Yeah... that was one strange day.
First of all... yes, I intend to strangle Wascy =P The pop'n music 8 SP preorder is acting weird - the button keeps disappearing, then coming back. I was -really- pissed about this the first time we noticed, as it looked like both Wascy and I had missed out on it entirely due to him not ordering it a month ago like he said he would... got into a lengthy rant made even longer by a kick/ban, which got me pissed off even worse. It should be a channel op's responsibility to give a WARNING before taking administrative action, even if the ban did last for only 5 or so seconds. Anyways, after the dust cleared on that (normal conversation didn't resume until hours later), we discovered the order button had reappeared, and we rushed in to order ^^;
Went to sleep, woke up, did more timing. I had wanted to finish with the Travelogue extras a LONG time ago, but I wasn't able to finish before having to go to Suncoast. I also kept getting distracted by the UPS trucks - two deliveries were made. The first guy rang the bell quickly (indicative of them leaving a package behind without requiring a signature), and I got upstairs in time to see him leave. It was the SanDisk stuff I had ordered from Amazon - a 256mb CompactFlash card, and a USB reader for CompactFlash/SmartMedia. I tried the reader first - just like it claims, no drivers whatsoever were needed for my XP OS - only took about a minute to load all the drivers up, and it was ready to go. I also swapped out the 32mb card that came with the digicam, and threw the 256mb in. So, now I have two 256mb cards and a 32mb - should be plenty for AX as long as I don't plan to shoot too many pics in 4 megapixel.
Later, I checked up on the UPS tracker pages I had open in Firebird - the Amazon tracker reported the package as delivered (obviously), but then I checked the tracker for the Saishuuheiki Kanojo game LE... and THAT reported as delivered, too. And, indeed, when I went upstairs to check the front porch, the box containing the Saikano game and the LE figure was waiting for me outside. This time, the bell hadn't been rung, so it had been there for a while. I unpacked it and inspected the figure - noting that it was half the size I had been expecting. Real shame, too... I would have killed to have that figure with the same size and level of articulation as the figure that came with the first DVD + box. It's still a gorgeous figure, nonetheless... unfortunately, it's probably staying in the box, as I've had incredibly bad luck with deforming PVC plastic.
I ended up running off to work - and, having not eaten, I stopped by Wendy's as usual. Yes, the same one that messed up my late-night order last time. This time was the exact opposite - I was prompted for an order almost right away, and it was taken down quickly and perfectly. I drove up, got to the first window to pay, gave him the cash, and - very impressively - he already had the amount of change I needed in his hand, and didn't even have to reach into the cash drawer to retrieve it. Drove up to the second window to pick up the food, and it was also ready almost instantaneously. I think I was in and out in just under two minutes, including the time it takes to drive in and out of that little center where the Wendy's building is (which has the worst entrance/exit design EVER).
I actually go to work relatively on time, too, and there were less idiots on the road as usual. Of course, I missed a long-assed red left-turn light, and I ended up going straight and doing an illegal U-turn to get to where I needed to go, but it worked out. (Disclaimer: I do not advocate illegal U-turns in any way.) Made it to I-270, which was pretty standard, except for one part where there seemed to be large white rock-shaped substances bouncing around the road, hitting cars as they passed. Yes, I ran right into several of them. I REALLY hope they were salt chunks. I didn't notice any dents on my hood afterwards, luckily. No clue where they came from - presumably, a truck had accidentally unloaded them some time before.
Work was pretty typical. I was lucky I picked up food beforehand, since Dan did not see fit in letting me have a break. He doesn't know about the fast metabolism thing, apparently. I did buy some things, though - and I once again forgot the $30 rewards certificate, so I had to pay it all. -_- My card is acting really weird - the register had us do a phone authorization, but it still worked. There's something weird going on with it - konamistyle didn't accept the card at all, and DeepDiscountDVD actually CANCELLED my order because they were declined of a charge. THAT I'm a bit pissed about, since apparently they don't give you the option of actually contacting them and having them try again, they just cancel any outstanding items left in the order and pretend they have no obligation to fulfill it. -_- They're definitely getting a pissed-off call about that tomorrow - and it takes a lot for me to PHONE in to an online store.
I was quite hungry again by the end of our shift, and we actually got out at a sane hour for once (though he can speed things up significantly by doing more tasks before the gate goes down). I ended up heading over to GameStop and keeping Calvin company as he and an associate there closed. GameStop takes -forever- to close. I found a great PS2 travel case they have that I need to pick up before leaving for AX - as I do plan to take my PS2 with me. The case even has an openable compartment in the back so you can boot the system without removing it from the case - very nifty. (Though I wonder if the case prevents proper ventillation that way.)
Got home, finally finished up the Travelogue extras, and did some work on the Interview extra. Hopefully, my check will arrive before I leave for AX so I can deposit it and pay off a large chunk of my credit card balance before I leave. That'll help the mysterious declines, even though I'm nowhere near my credit limit. The balance isn't due until the 14th of July, anyways, and I've already paid the minimum due.
I'm probably going to go try out the Saikano game for a little bit before heading to sleep, then I'll do yet more timing. I still have two more 45 minute eps to go after finishing the Interview extra - though, amusingly, each 13 minute extra has more timed events than the 45 minute eps themselves.
Got Rez in the mail today, and immediately checked it for rippable data. Doesn't seem to be any - according to the TOC, the disc is amazingly small (~200mb), and if this is to be believed, the whole of the game is packed into one file - only other files are the software drivers. The game shows an ADX logo as it boots, but ADX tools fail to find anything usable in that single file.
While Googling for possible answers, I came across this game - I'm not sure how I got quite that far off-track, but that's one of the best freeware shooters I've ever seen. Make sure to check it out =P
Need to mow the lawn, then continue timing. I keep missing my self-imposed deadlines, and I've already missed ADV's, so this isn't boding well, especially since I -NEED- to finish completely before leaving for AX. I'm going to need to work non-stop overnight, probably. At least mowing the lawn today means I get time to work on it more before I have to be at Suncoast.
Yes, my IP has changed for the first time since I was switched over from the now defunct @Home architecture to Comcast.net back in February of last year. So, I had the same IP for 16 months straight. I'm going to miss you, 68.50.119.176. ;_;
What this means for me: like all the IP changes I went through on the @Home architecture, my forward and reverse DNS do not match right now. Thankfully, IRC servers these days aren't as anal about that as they were two years ago. If that's not fixed by tomorrow I'll have to phone Comcast and have a level 2 or 3 tech fix it. It'll be the first service call I've had to place in a long time. Also, hopefully, I have DNS servers that actually WORK now, and routing that doesn't suck.
What this means for you: the Webcam might work, and it might not. Depends on whether or not the DNS change has propogated for you. Other than that, not much. At least StarCreator.com's IP is unlikely to change... now, if you actually read this site, THAT would have a noticable effect.
And, back to work...
Returned from the barber's a few minutes ago. ( We have a family friend that we go to for our haircuts, and they have a really friendly cat that I once again invited to my lap ^^; ) My hair is now abnormally short - though it should be at an okay length by the time AX comes around. I'm not going to make an active effort to take a photo of myself with this little hair, but you can look over at the Webcam if you really want to see it ^^;
Going to continue ADV work. Looks like I may need to mow the lawn yet again tomorrow, since I won't be able to do it on Wednesday (unless I do it immediately before work) and we'd have to collect lawn clippings again if I wait too long. At least it stopped raining continuously, for the time being.
Thanks to Kazara, I found a site with a more in-depth review and features listing for my camera. It's reassuring in that there really isn't a whole lot of difference between the S45 and S50. If I do buy another digicam, I'll probably go for an SLR model - though they're rather heavy, I do like them better for generic use.
My mom just put in the confirmation for my AX plane tickets... so it looks like my itinerary is:
Departing from Dulles at 6:00pm Eastern on Tuesday, July 1, to arrive at LAX at 8:08pm Western.
Departing from LAX at 12:00pm Western on Tuesday, July 8, to arrive at Dulles at 7:59pm Eastern.
Both flights have food, and it seems I'm allowed to carry two pieces of baggage. I will be using up 4,576 flyer miles.
And to AX we go~
Yeah, played that for a bit... my PA is sucky as ever, even on keyboard.
Yet more small site updates - the calendar links now jump to the most recent entry of the day when you click on one. This site template was clearly designed with individual archive pages in mind, instead of my monthly archive format...
I do intend to add more sections, and add the sidebar thing to all the pages. I'm debating whether or not the calendar should be on all pages, though. Also debating whether I should make the site primarily SSI, or if I should let Movable Type re-write each page every time I update.
I haven't received any comments for the About Me page, either here or at LJ... =P
Also, I'm experimenting with a Search function. I could have added the form months ago, but I'm lazy...
Well, after I wrote last night's entry, my mom tells me to have my room cleaned up completely or she goes and cleans it for me (a.k.a. toss out everything of importance I've ever earned). We spend a good two or so hours emptying a closet of packing boxes, crushing them down, and taking them to the trash. Well, there goes all my packing material. It seemed I was finally going to get time to work on timing, then my mom throws that right into the crapper. -_-
A clean room (which isn't that bad, aside from the fact that I'm currently using the bed as a table) or a paycheck. Which do you think I really want to do? -_-
Saturday afternoon, I left to pick up my new set of glasses. These frames are fun - they were very expensive, but it's fun to bend them to whatever shape and they'll go right back to how they were - except for the leg joints and the nosepieces, as you need to adjust those for a good fit. Also got a new pair of sunglasses, so I don't need to use the monstrosities I had before. Every glasses purchase I make is a size smaller than the previous set - these are the smallest lenses I've ever had. Look a hell of a lot better, too, I think. And these actually stay still if I'm moving my head =P
When I picked them up, the person there adjusted them for me. I had a chat with him about general things while he was going about this. I had been really annoyed with my mom as she insisted on bringing up the room -again- before I left, but talking to him helped out a little. I was still pretty much annoyed for the entire day, though.
Went to work, which was amazingly empty for a Saturday. The bulk of business had already passed, with the Harry Potter novels sold out hours before I got there. Calvin doesn't like Dan. Apparently, I'm the only one that can actually stand him - and he does get annoying. I can see why he doesn't have his own store, though.
Well, today (Sunday), I managed to hold off the warpath (but I have to watch her in case she decides to try to raid my possessions), but I end up spending most of today in the bathroom. -_- So, I do get another set of extras done (out of four), and I'm going to be working on getting the rest done... then I have two more 45 min eps to go.
Now, the extras are only 14 minutes apiece, but they take a LOT longer to do than normal dialogue, simply because of the incredibly poor quality of the translation. I am two weeks late now, even though I've been working every spare moment - but because of the unneccessarily time-consuming nature of these extras, and the complete lack of free time, I've missed yet another deadline. I'm not the only one, but I was actually on schedule back in May - which REALLY annoys me. And, I'm not likely to get a check before I leave for AX. Meaning I'll have to run and deposit it -right away- when I get home.
And I still have to do the damned cleaning. Not just my room, either. Have to clean the adjacent guest room and the basement, too. WITHOUT tossing valuables and irreplaceables in the trash can like she would.
I -really- don't need all this crap right now.
Site update: Archives link in navigation bar is gone - it's not needed since there's a complete list of links to the right. Yes, the navigation bar will eventually be on every page. Forums are still scheduled to get the axe whenever I get around to figuring out how to delete a MySQL database. Also, managed to get the centering on the navigation bar and the calendar to work properly in Firebird.
Another work-filled day. Did as much timing as possible before leaving to eat and go to work. Urgh. Did stop by Wendy's on the way to work - was in and out quickly with no problems on my order. I was lucky with traffic light timing this time, so I actually made it to work without getting caught by 5 lights that take 10 minutes to turn in a row.
Work was pretty much the same old thing, except tonight we had to set up a display for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix after closing. There's something to be said for arranging a large display for large hardcover books in a movie store.
On the way home, I decide once again to stop by the same Wendy's. Probably not the wisest move. There is a minivan in front of me at the ordering position. Not too unusual, except neither side is talking. Eventually, she screams an expletive that was probably audible from the next building, and just drives forward. I drive forward, and it's a good 5-10 minutes before I'm prompted to give them a food order. At least I was patient enough to wait. I ordered the typical - a number 6 (Spicy Chicken combo), coke with no ice, and a baked potato instead of fries.
That lady pretty much screwed over the entire line by not waiting and scooting forward - she probably intended to leave, but there was a car in front of her at the pick-up window. When she got up to the pick-up window, I could see the confusion start as they confused her for me. x_x She apparently had to give her food order right there, and everyone was forced to wait 5-10 minutes for -that-. She eventually drives off with her food.
I get there, and pay the correct amount. One person in there asks me, "We only have two nuggets, do you want large fries instead?" At that point, I really didn't care what I got as long as it was food, so I agreed, not really understanding his question. They give me a bag full of chicken nuggets and fries, and no drink... not even close to what I had ordered. It turns out, they had mistaken me for the person behind me, and given me the wrong order. -_-
Some swapping of food occurs, and I finally get something reasonably close to what I ordered. (I had to tell them again what drink I wanted, and I got the fries anyways.) I considered bugging them for a baked potato, but decided it just wasn't worth the effort, and pulled up so the person behind me could get his order mixed up too.
Got home, talked to Jessica over the phone for a bit (and I once again prove I must be the most boring person in the world to talk to over the phone), and now microlith and I are trying to coax konamistyle to ship two pop'n music 8 preorder packs to Miyako's address in Kyoto. Tomorrow, I -finally- get to pick up my new glasses (yes, I've been wearing the glued-together cracked ones all week), and I'm off to yet another fun-filled day of work made even more interesting with the Harry Potter display up front. x_x
Dammit, and I want to finish ADV timing -_-
Made another site update... this time to the comment templates... I noticed that the "Cancel" button did absolutely nothing in my hacked implementation of the comments =P I removed that button, and lowercased the button captions, because the uppercase was getting annoying. Someday I'll get a real photo of me up, too =P
Yesterday == work. That was pretty much it. Visited Calvin at GameStop after my shift, and he gave me one of these posters:
Not a bad poster... but the artbook will be the most interesting part. That I want to see...
Today, woke up briefly in the morning, then promptly went back to sleep... then mowed the lawn, collected the clippings just before it started raining heavily - again. (We're starting to see flooding over in parts of our lawn because the ground can't take any more moisture!) Ate some dinner, and... went back to sleep.
And woke up just now. It feels like I was asleep for all but like 4 hours today.
Naoki Standard double... yeah, I suck. =P At least I finally made it to D2R, but I had eaten a giant roast beef sandwich (plus Arby's curly fries!) just prior, so that was messing me up too =P
I found out, the hard way, that Suncoast employees can no longer get a Best Buy discount today. Best Buy's computers list me as "terminated", even though I'm still working for Suncoast. That was fun, just walking out on a ~$350 pile of merchandise without taking anything. =P
Started heading over to CP from there, since they had upgraded to MAX2 (presumably using SF's old bootleg upgrade kit). Traffic was hell. There's no fast way to get from Gaithersburg to Silver Spring in rush hour.
By the way, Namco DDR arrows suck. Even the plexiglass type is different enough to mess me up. I'm glad SF's new machine doesn't have those... yet.
Josh had long departed by the time I got there, and I found myself in a funny situation - the arcade had run out of tokens. Completely. I had brought 9 tokens with me - and found I was the only person in the place to possess any tokens at all. In order to play, Kevyn had to get the attendant to put credits onto the machine manually. (Kevyn arrived a bit later.) I did pay for that Naoki Standard doubles set before that, though.
We both left the arcade when we were DDR'd out. At this point, the digicam is begging for a battery recharge. The battery ran out pretty quick. -_- Shouldn't Lithium batteries last much longer?
Kevyn and I both went to Dave's place after that. Fear the Disco Mecha! =P We watched Dave go through all of Rez to unlock more extra stuff - he's trying to get everything in the game unlocked, and apparently it requires playing the game over and over using different settings. He got the good ending, where the lady sends off a fleet of butterflies from her hands. ^^;
Kevyn left, I stayed for another half as we watched pieces of Samurai Jack, Who's Line Is It Anyway, etc. After that, I departed into the heavy rain, drove home, and showered and stuff.
Guess that was about it. Most of those pics were taken at "Medium 1" resolution - most of those bigger images are actually 40% of the original size. The output is pretty nice. ^^
Original link: http://megami2003.tripod.com/sugar.jpg
This morning: emailed Adorama about digital camera, asking when it would be shipped.
This afternoon: decided to order a pizza from the local place.
A few minutes later: as I departed to make my way to the pizza place, the path was blocked by a UPS truck sitting in the driveway. The UPS guy walks over to me and hands over a package, addressed to me. I open it up, and guess what's inside?
Just have to wait for the lithium battery to charge, then I can try this thing out ^^
Slight update to the web code again today - took the code for the icon image thingy from HnK, so you should be seeing Norma in the address bar... at least, if you're not using IE ^^;
Today consisted of finishing off the lawn, then thoroughly washing it off to get the crap from yesterday off it. Took a fairly long nap, woke up to eat steak, and here I am now.
Really need to finish ADV timing. x_x
Yes, the "... or we'll shoot this dog" banner is finally gone. That was getting annoying, and I wonder how many dogs were harmed in the time I had that up ^^; (I also found out, despite giving at least 2 referrals, I didn't get a red cent from the affiliate program. I need to bitch about that more actively.)
Removed the "Recent Entries" section from the sidebar since all the entries it listed are viewable on the front page, and without individual entry page generation the entire section linked to the same thing (and without using the anchors, even). Also took the opportunity to -finally- add a few link buttons. I'll figure out what else to add later. AnimeJUNGLE's button is far too long, though.
I -almost- finished mowing the lawn today, except at the tail end of the job, I was making a turn around a tree when instead the lawnmower decided to slip into the ditch that we dump all the grass clippings in. (Remember that I've done grass clipping collection at least two or three times? I ended up stuck in a month's worth of decomposing grass.)
Yes, I was, more or less, stuck in a compost heap.
We actually had to call our neighbor to help push me out, and by that time, it had begun to rain - heavily. We've been getting short but torrential downpours for the past several months, and it's getting really annoying - I think I've seen more rain this past month than I have since the turn of the millenium. It makes it impossible to mow lawn on a regular schedule, too, since lawn has to be dry when you mow it.
Well, at least the rain washed off all the decomposing crap that got on me.
Immediately showered then headed off to work. Once again, left early, and once again, hit ridiculously slow traffic, and the obligatory people-who-have-no-business-owning-a-license idiots all over the place as well. I wasn't late, but for leaving early, I sure came close. Yes, it's fucking impossible to get to the mall with any sort of time to spare.
Calvin left when I got there, leaving me with Dan, the new assistant manager. Jason, our old assistant manager, was promoted and given management of the store in Frederick Towne. (At least, that's what I think it's called - it's only a few minutes away from Francis Scott Key.) Dan had transferred from that very store, and this was my first time meeting him.
I have to say... he reminds me of an older, white version of one of my friends at MC. He's not a bad guy, but gets a little carried away when talking about things. He's even worse on the fullscreen vs. widescreen thing than I am - he won't stop even when the customer has already gotten the point. x_x Working with him went relatively smoothly, since he's been with the company for a long time - I only had to tell him some of our store-specific nuances.
Well, smoothly, if we had a working communication system for the registers.
I spent the entire day asking people to pay via cash if they possibly could, because all credit card purchases had to be authorized via phone - the registers were not able to communicate to the outside world. Checks were an even bigger pain as those have to be authorized vocally to a live operator. Gift cards were next to impossible to process. So, yeah, we ended up with long lines of people as transactions were taking ridiculously long with us having to wait for the other to be done with the phone so we could authorize credit card charges.
And, if we were both occupied at the register, guess what was going on at the back of the store? -_-
Some product was stolen and not very well hidden, but the real kicker - someone had managed to urinate in one of the Care Bears wastebuckets we sell.
That HAS to be a new one.
We also didn't get out of the store until 10:45. Vacuuming took forever, as usual, but usually when I vacuum, most of the work at the counter is done by the time I'm finished, and all I have to do is count the money. Not so this time.
And, that was pretty much the day. My days are getting progressively worse from the looks of it. I'm not liking this trend.
If I don't hear anything from Adorama about my digicam by Tuesday, I'm calling them. It should have shipped by now, or at least they should have told me if there was a problem. I want my new $460 toy already =P
As I posted on LJ, I'm looking for questions to answer about the About Me section. I thought perhaps it would make things a bit more interesting if I added answers to random questions people wanted to know about me... so, if you want me to answer something on that page, leave a comment here, and if I have a good answer for it, I'll post it ^^;
Yesterday was mostly trying to finish the ADV work, being hindered by a power outage that wiped out most of my work I had managed to finish. -_- Still not even close to done, either - I could have timed a full disc of Excel Saga faster than these extras.
Today I don't even get a chance to work on it more - I have to mow the lawn, then head to Suncoast to work the evening.
New glasses don't come in until the middle of next week. The shattered lens is actually now being held together by Elmer's glue, which worked better than I expected - as long as I don't get it wet.
I'm getting all the work that either no one else will do, and/or has the crappiest translation on the planet.
Edge-enhanced that a bit so you could see it better. In the middle of a nonstop DDR set, lens popped out (like it has been doing for the past half year), fell onto the DDR pad, and shattered into three pieces. Yes, I managed to shatter plastic. The crack was already there, it just needed one more impact to completely self-destruct.
It's taped together with transparent tape right now, but it has adhesive on both sides, which is causing it to fog up more than normal tape would. So, the drive home was interesting ^^;
Yes, I drove all the way down to SF to play on their brand new, shiny, sparkling clean... 3rd Mix Asian. Hey, I wanted to play Boom Boom Dollar K.O.G. G3 SSR Doubles again =P Did better than last time I had attempted it (and it would have been pathetic if I didn't) - a pretty decent A grade. PA sucks as usual, especially on a 3rd Mix.
I actually passed SSR Ranking 3 single for the first time. This was a major goal of mine back when 3rd Mix Korean1 was still at CP. The set consists of Afronova, Boom Boom Dollar K.O.G. G3, Vol.4, and Dead End, all SSR. Used the vivid code (I'd be stupid to attempt playing without my glasses without vivid), and went at it. I was danger for the entire last two songs of the course - to be expected when I don't have the aid of glasses - but I managed to make it through. Score sucks - only 76,140,650 - but it's the first time I've ever completed the course.
Yep. Best DDR Extreme on the east coast =P
Going to shove Tutu 26 out the door - finally, we've brought a series to its conclusion - then take a shower and try to glue the shattered lens back together. I still need these until I can go buy replacements (and I do have a new perscription to fill anyways), so I'm going to need a better solution to this...
I saw Patty's car in the parking lot, too... she wasn't at either arcade, and I checked Macy's too - her mom was there, but she wasn't... I guess we had just missed each other.
I've actually gotten around to making an "About Me" page. The link above will actually lead there now, rather than just looping you back to the front page.
And yeah, I know that there's only navigation from the front, and subpages only have nagivation back to the main page. This entire site is a very simple hack of Movable Type's default templates, so bear with me ^^;
I really should just bring someone in to stylize this page a lot better... my ability to design a webpage is truly lackluster. I'm very impressed with the work going into the Hikari no Kiseki website redesign, though... too bad you guys can't see that just yet ^^;
I'm probably removing those forums soon. I'm already using up half my hdd space allotment, and those forums are the largest space eaters I'm storing...
Just dumped $460 on a new digital camera - a Canon PowerShot S45. Over the course of 2 hours I had managed to convince myself to buy a new one, and one that was better than the one my bro has...
Well, we'll see what happens when this thing comes in. ^^; I'll have to pick up some CompactFlash media at Best Buy, too...
Probably going to cut back on other purchases for a while. Yes, I have a $4000 credit limit, but I still plan to be able to clean out my balance every month.
I really need to try to regulate my sleep hours better. Sleeping at random hours is causing me to basically be sleepy all day and be generally unproductive. x_x
On Monday, I woke up about 10 minutes before my mom came home early. Apparently, she came home because she wanted to book the plane tickets, but we ended up cleaning up the lawn clippings instead. That was basically the entire day.
Yesterday, I woke up a bit earlier, but was a bit lacking in sleep. My mom came back home again during lunchtime apparently, but left before I could get back upstairs after showering. I ended up finally getting the schedules on campus, then decided I needed food, and headed to the Wendy's off 355. Gave up on food after sitting for 10 minutes in the drive-through line without moving an inch. I'm not going to THAT Wendy's again. That kind of delay during late lunch hours is just ridiculous. They weren't even serving food to anyone in front of the line - it was just inexplicably standing still.
I dropped by the bank at King Farm to deposit the paycheck, then ran off to work - once again, leaving early, I only made it with one minute to spare. So, I completely missed lunch. Again.
If that becomes a regular occurance, I'm quitting.
Last night, also couldn't sleep, and ended up finally watching to the end of Kurumi (the 1st series). It's fun. ^^ I'll probably buy the whole series next time I see the whole thing available at Best Buy. Still need to watch the OVA follow-up episodes, though.
This morning, slept late again, though I kept waking up, doing a few things, then going back to sleep. I did notice that my mom had made plane reservations this morning - both nonstop flights to and from LAX, arriving in the afternoon of July 1st and leaving in the morning of July 8th. Though, I may look into leaving on Monday instead. I'm not sure yet.
Well, hopefully I can get some more timing work in today... I've had very little chance to do that this week.
Well, sleep is evading me for the moment, so I guess I'll do just that ^^; I actually fell sleep at a sane hour for once, but I was only out for about an hour and a half... and I've been up since -_-
I'm in luck... my mom saw the printouts from United Airlines for flights I was looking up, and I think she realized there was no real way of stopping me from going as long as I had a summer class schedule to show her. Of course, I don't have that yet, but she'll book the plane tickets tonight if I actually register for -something-. And I haven't even figured out what the heck I want to register for. Oh, well... I'll probably just take some generic CS course that isn't already full. So, AX plans are falling into place, surprisingly much nicer than plans for Anime Boston or Katsucon went...
It rained on Saturday, but it was clear yesterday, so I ended up mowing the lawn. No real problems, though the ground was a bit damp. Noting all the problems with trying to collect grass clippings when they're even slightly wet, I opted not to even give it an attempt.
Talked to Jessica on the phone again yesterday, but not for very long. Conversation was a little more confined, this time to talking about cats, rabbits (killing each other), and a bit about costumes. I'm still pretty sure I'm not going to do much in the way of cosplay, though I like most costumes I see. I had to cut off the conversation when I was called up to dinner, which consisted of... a little more than one crabcake. I might as well have stayed on the phone. x_x
Aforementioned sleep happened at some point here.
Woke up, found out Tutu 25 was being sent to me for QC. oishii likes to send these things to me without any advance notice, but I usually end up going through it that night anyways. Took a bit longer since I was sleepy, but got through it... great episode, though things are really feeling rushed in this last crunch. Though, I'm not sure if the events would have the same sort of impact if it weren't running at this pace... one more half-length recap special, then we've got the full-length finale...
Spent the entire night pretty much overseeing distribution, chatting, and basically doing everything except the ADV project. Argh.
I think that was about it...
Though, just for kicks, I filled out the form to apply for an Industry pass at AX as well as the normal unpaid preregistration form... it's too late for the Industry pass to be completely free, but $15 still looks a lot better than $50, if this works. ^^;
I think I'm going to make another attempt at sleep...
Wow... it's been a long time since I've just talked on the phone... especially for two straight hours ^^
Talked to Jessica - we talk a lot on IRC and I said she could call me at work if she wanted someone to talk to ^^; She did call me at work, but I was in the middle of vacuuming the entire store, then we had to straighten stuff and count moneys...
So I got home, and she called me here, and we basically talked about a whole bunch of stuff for two hours. It's amazing that I can hold nice conversations with people I haven't met in person, but I tend to be very quiet in social situations (though I tend to go to every occasion it's appropriate to go to)... though, I'm still mostly on the listening end. ^^;
It's fun to talk to her... I should get a cell phone to be able to call long distance for free, since she called me all the way from Washington state... ^^;
AX is going to be really fun this year ^^
As posted in LJ (friends only, sorry, but I figure most of you reading this site are probably on my friends list anyways), I've committed to a hotel room, MANY thanks to Lauren M. ^^; We're now looking for a couple roomies since we have a room to ourselves and that can be a tad expensive...
So... AX is now 100%. I'm going.
Just have to break it to mom. x_x And maybe see if I can get them to use some of their miles... otherwise I'm paying for the plane ticket too...
... for some reason, they always seem to follow each other.
Dinner last night was good. Lots of meat on swords ^^; Sarah, Mary, and Jeff already said plenty about it, so I'll leave it at that. ^^;
Yeah, we went to Barnes and Noble afterwards, where I bummed a whole bunch of manga off carpy. ^^; Yeah, I gave him $40 to cover both the manga and the food for the night, since I had forgotten to take out cash beforehand.
Then, the bad set in. My stomach doesn't like taking in large amounts of exotic food, despite how good or bad it may be, so after the group left the store, I had to re-enter to use the restroom. x_x After we all disbanded, I took Josh home, where I ended up using HIS restroom. X_X
When I woke up this afternoon, I made an attempt at mowing the lawn... I got a whole 20 minutes in when one of the blades started making very loud, unwholesome noises - it had run loose and was starting to scrape against some of the adjacent metal. After returning to the garage, I inspected the floor and found that my brother had forgotten to install a certain vital part when reinstalling that blade the previous night. x_x I did not have the expertise to reinstall the blade myself, nor did I have the time, since I had to go to work.
Thinking I'd be able to eat on the way to work, I departed at 4:15 (as it usually only takes 25-30 minutes to get to the mall, or 20 if I'm lucky). On the way, I realized that I was not carrying any cash (as I had given all $40 to carpy the previous night) and thus had to skip a run to Wendy's and go directly to the mall.
Shady Grove Rd. was backed up until next month.
I ended up stuck in bumper to bumper traffic, BEFORE hitting the interstate, for probably 20-30 minutes. So, even though I had left 20 minutes earlier than usual, I arrived late. By one minute.
Calvin gives a damned lecture about calling to work if I think I'm going to be late.
What the hell?! NO ONE leaves the house 20 minutes early when they expect to be late to work. I was already pissed off by the fact that I had lost my chance to eat (as I hadn't eaten since dinner), and he had the sheer nerve to say something like that, for being late by ONE MINUTE. He's lucky I didn't take him up on his offer to let me smack him - they would have had to call security on me if I did.
My mom called around 6:00 to ask why the lawn wasn't mowed. I give the quick explanation - I REALLY wasn't in the mood to talk about that.
I'm pretty much simmered down after I get a chance to eat around 7:40 (yes, I had to wait that long until I could finally EAT something), but Calvin pretty much avoided talking to me, since I must have exuded that "pissed off" presence all night. So the entire night passed without a single conversation, other than the aforementioned lecture.
Heading home, guess what I hit? MORE TRAFFIC.
As retarded as it is repaving the entire 8-lane interstate on a Friday night, they did it anyways - leaving standstill traffic that probably crossed the state line into Virginia. So I end up arriving home much later than usual.
Turns out, my dad fixed the blade and mowed as much as he could before it got too dark to continue, so I have to finish in the morning before working. If the blade had been mounted properly in the first place, it would have been done today and I wouldn't have to deal with it at all.
AND, I have an ADV deadline on Tuesday that I'm not very likely to be able to keep. Life sucks right now.
I need to get AX plans finalized, or else it's just not going to happen. I need some kind of excursion this summer, and AX is probably going to be it.
Uhh... yeah. Instead of sleeping, I ended up finally finishing the GBA version of Yoshi's Island...
Though, I beat the game, but I'm not done yet. I have to finish Extra 6, then the six new "Special" levels they added for this version. Then, I can claim somewhat mastery of the game all over again. ^^;
The levels don't seem to be all that much different - one of the only in-level changes I've noticed is that if you get door #3 in Bowser's Castle, they changed the music in the chase scene from the boss music to the pre-boss music. Odd change. They also changed the name of Extra 6 - it is now "Ultimate Castle Challenge" rather than "Castles - Masterpiece Set".
A lot of the in-game effects are kinda off, though... platforms that shifted up and down on a sinus wave no longer do so smoothly like they did on the SNES, and morphing effects are really slow - this is painfully apparent during the staff roll when the animation is going a whole 4 fps. -_- I had previously noted that Yoshi does not take as long to recover from a hit - I've also discovered the counter runs down slower.
Though, I'm not sure why I'm talking about Yoshi's Island rather than sleeping...
In about 12 hours is the big group dinner with Sarah, Mary, Dave, Kevyn, Josh, Jeff, Bill, and carpy (because it's more fun calling him carpy than by his real name)... that'll be interesting, especially since it appears half of us have never had Brazillian barbecue before...
Check out the new "Webcam" link above. I'm going to live to regret this...
And yes, I'll probably say that everytime I add a new feature to this site ^^;
Anyways, today I actually went out for the first time since the work frenzy this weekend. Did a Best Buy run (picked up Animatrix, Rune Soldier vol.2, and, unexpectedly, a kit for my GBA SP that included a car charger and a headphone adapter that also allows you to charge the battery at the same time), picked up Josh, then picked up Kevyn, and we went to SF for a bit. Had a fun time with Time Crisis 3, Soul Calibur 2, and Gunbird 2 ^^;; (along with Darius and Mr. Digger...) DDR on that machine just completely sucks now, though - good thing the Extreme will be a new machine and we won't have to deal with that pad anymore. Went to IHOP after that, then dropped everyone off and headed home.
And now I'm letting everyone see a live picture of me. Yeah, this is probably a bad idea =P
[23:25] <Sapphire> you dial-up people
[23:25] <Sapphire> how do you LIVE?
[23:25] <Sapphire> its like a half a life
[23:26] <Sapphire> its so sad
...
[23:29] <AuldDragon> see, I don't need broadband
[23:29] <AuldDragon> since I don't download nything
[23:29] <Praseo> Auld: you just think you don't!
[23:29] <AuldDragon> and I don't play internet gmes
[23:30] <Sapphire> auld
[23:30] <Sapphire> you think
[23:30] <Sapphire> YOU THINK
[23:30] <Sapphire> you don't need broadband
[23:30] <Sapphire> you
[23:30] <Sapphire> are wrong
[23:30] <RivenLeFay> the only thing i have that isn't broad is my internet connection, i can't win
[23:30] <AuldDragon> no, trust me, I don't NEED it
[23:30] <AuldDragon> I get by fine on dialup
[23:30] <Sapphire> no
[23:30] <Sapphire> you don't
[23:30] <Sapphire> you
[23:30] <Sapphire> you've just told yourself you do
[23:30] <AuldDragon> Sapphy, what am I going to download?
[23:30] <Sapphire> its okay
[23:30] <Sapphire> its a common lie people tell themselves
[23:31] <carpboy> auld: what wil you download?!?!??!
[23:31] <carpboy> you silly boy
[23:31] <carpboy> you'll download
[23:31] <carpboy> love
http://jotohe.tripod.co.jp/mikomiko.html (Flash 6)
Waaaai~
Tiggs got me addicted =P