It's not worth anything more than this at all.

Sooooo here's a long-overdue personal entry.

The giant void in my LJ calendar last week was my five-day run of days off from work. I normally go north during that break, but it was my dad's birthday Friday, so I stayed in town. And wow, did I have a GREAT break. I did a fair amount of lazing around, but amazingly I was actually in a mood to get things done much of the time, so I had a week that was both productive and fun! Yay! :D It was generally one of those weeks that's comfortable and relaxed and makes you happy to be alive. ^___^

Of course, now it's difficult to remember what all I did. Highlights would be seeing Cloverfield again, going on a midnight dessert outing with my sister and a friend of hers who's staying with us for a couple of weeks, and hanging out at pkat and shorinai's place. I may have created some new Mai-HiME fans. :3 On the productive end, I finally got all our Christmas stuff taken down and put away, and got some much-needed cleaning done around the apartment. And on the fandom front, I captured all the needed footage for the AMV I'm going to assemble for mechaboydos.

My AMV to-do list is, unfortunately, scary and long, and most likely in this order.

• Polish up "The Bad Crack" and submit it to Anime Boston and Sakura-Con


• Finish my WTF entry for Anime Detour (I was making two, but now it looks like it'll only be one)


• Throw together the ultimate Sailormoon AMV in time for Anime Boston


• Create mechaboydos's video


• Make... something... for AnimeIowa, after winning the contest last year I can't really skip it this year ^^;;

Somewhere in there, I also need to fix up my cosplay before con season kicks off (in less than two months!). This is gonna be a crazy spring. Oh, and while I'm on the subject of cons, his lordship Chaos asked me to throw my name in for the Sailormoon panel at Anime North, so I did. For the heck of it, I volunteered for the general fanfic panel as well, we'll see if that pans out. Should be interesting.

Friday was my dad's birthday, and I took him and his fiancee and my sister out for a nice dinner at this new Alaska-themed seafood place. Whooee, was that ever expensive. My sister's going to pay me back for a portion of it, but still. @_@ My meal was kind of mediocre, but Dad and his fiancee really enjoyed theirs, so overall it was a win. Unfortunately, Dad's birthday present still hasn't arrived. It's one of Peter S. Beagle's autographed books. I've heard the delivery on those is slow, but I had been hoping it would get here in time. :\

And of course, after I blew all that money on Dad's birthday dinner, I found out my mom got dropped from her temp job and really needs my financial help. Sigh.

Sunday was the Detour staff meeting. I seem to have found a niche as a sort of Ops secretary. I've been taking meeting notes and putting them online (and getting lots of thanks from the out-of-state staff members), and when we made a trip to the storage locker after the meeting I took inventory of the department's supplies. Plus, I've been handling the operating manual and other documents. Yay, I'm making myself useful! I love feeling useful. ^___^ (But OW I just bit the inside of my cheek again I HATE THAT ow ow! Evil Jelly Bellys! ;_;)

I've also found another judge for the new Detour fanfiction contest, and at the meeting pkat and I pitched the CRAZY IDEA OF DOOM that we hit on when I was hanging out at her place on Saturday. Now that the initial shininess has worn off, I'm kind of having second thoughts ^^;; but after seeing how excited Kale got about the idea, I'm not about to back out now. ^^;;;

OOH, I almost forgot to mention! pkat loaned me the Playstation re-releases of my two all-time favorite games, which were originally for the SNES. I can play them on my PS2, but I didn't have a Playstation memory card, so I hit the mall Sunday to try to find one. Of course, places like GameStop don't carry old stuff anymore, but they pointed me to a kiosk on the third floor with tons of old-school games and equipment. Not only did they have the memory card I needed, but they also had the games I had borrowed! So now I am the proud owner of Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI! *geeks out* I am so excited by this, it's so dorky. xD But I've only gotten to play these games as ROMs before, and Chrono Trigger wouldn't play all the way through. The Playstation versions have some obnoxious lag points, but I'm so happy to finally be able to play these games as they're meant to be played without having to shell out $60 for rare cartridges. Their 16-bitness is so glorious on my TV. *_* And they came with two other FF games for bonus fun. :D

That about sums things up for now. There's some more I want to ramble about, but that'll have to wait for a flocked post when I'm not at work. >.>

I'm still alive.

My Cloverfield fic seems to have gone over well. I got six glowing reviews on FF.net, more than almost any other story in the (tiny) category. :3 Now I just have to get in the habit of responding to reviews, which never really became customary in the Sailormoon fandom but seems to be everywhere else. ^^;

I really do have a gift for fanfiction. Whether that gift will also apply to original fiction remains to be seen.

And now for some memes I got tagged on and hadn't gotten around to doing. They have tag instructions, but if you get tagged and don't want to do it, no biggie.

from vayleen

The Handwritten Meme

1) your handle/name/username
2) left or right handed?
3) favourite letters to write
4) least favourite characters to write
5) write "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."
6) tag 5 people



from yellowallamanda

A. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
B. Tag seven people to do the same.
C. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag "whoever wants to do it."

1. I write a handwritten first draft of almost everything before typing it.

2. I know I'm lucky not to be one, but I can't stop wanting to be a BNF. -_-

3. My favorite sound in the world is the wind in the leaves.

4. There are certain words I really, really like for no evident reason. I intend to make a list someday. Two that come to mind at the moment are "planet" and "weapon."

5. I love having long hair, but I'm too lazy to do anything with it. Most often I just braid it to have it out of the way.

6. I love the smells of the various seasons. Not the items associated with each season, but the scents of the seasons themselves. My favorites are autumn and fall.

7. I'm a very lonely person, but I don't let myself feel it most of the time.

I tag a bunch of the new folks on my flist:

lexie_b
lunarkitten
sd_segara
ryou_lover15
serasaturn
tesh_chan
lunapitty

from preshrunken

1. Leave me a casual comment of no particular significance, like a lyric to your favorite song.
2. I will respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.
3. Update your lj with the answers to these questions. (Or leave a comment. Say if you want it screened)
4. Include this explanation and offer to ask others in your own post.
5. When others respond with a desultory comment, you will ask them five questions.

------------------------------------------------

1.) What's the one biggest regret you have?
That would be a tie between not saying "no" when he told me he considered me his girlfriend and asked if I felt the same way, and Otakon 2005.

2.) If you had to write for one fandom for the rest of your life, which one would it be and why?
If it's allowed, my own. >3 I've had a canon in my head for the past fourteen years that I'm constantly making up stories for. Someday it'll be a book. If that doesn't count, though, I'd have to go with Sailormoon. It's still the fandom I'm most inspired by, even though I'm ready to move on to other things now. I wouldn't enjoy being stuck in one fandom forever, but if I had to, I could write Sailormoon indefinitely.

3.) Who is your role model?
Ehee... if I have one, it's probably sache. ^^;;; All hail the mighty Fic Bitch? ahem >.> *hides* I'm sure there's someone else, but no one's coming to mind at the moment ^^;;;
(ETA: You know, the more I think about it, the more I think I don't really have a role model. There are people I admire, certainly, and would love to be more like, but I don't attempt to pattern my life off theirs or anything.)

4.) Do you have any weird quirks? What are they?
Mmm... I read the same favorite books over and over instead of checking out new ones. I go to the movies all by myself and it doesn't bother me in the least. I wear the same necklace almost every day. I haven't watched/read at least a third of the anime/manga I own. Sometimes I drive and drive in no particular direction just for the heck of it. And I find it incredibly difficult to convince my brain that the online buddy I'm meeting and their virtual persona are one and the same person.

5.) If you had to pick a movie to describe you or your life, which one would it be?
For the first eighteen years or so, that would be Never Been Kissed. God, that's dreadful to say. I saw that movie once and could never watch it again. Too much of a reminder of things I don't want to think about. When it comes to my 20s, however, there really isn't a good match. But I plan to write one. :3