the better part of me

And now it's time for...

A POST! Of STUFF that's been GOING ON. zomg

There's a lot of it. It's been a while, and I'm really busy this month.

I had an okay time at Ohayocon. A con report is in order, but I have yet to get around to it. Hopefully I won't forget everything by then... ^^;;

There's one last thing I can try to fix my broken hard drive, but at this point it's pretty definitely dead. My six-month-old backup of my data will have to do. I'm going to send it in to be fixed, since it's still under warranty and I want to sell it to a friend. In the meantime, I bought myself an ASUS Eee PC, one of those new mini laptops. I'd been planning to switch to a desktop/netbook combo in a few months anyway, but I can't afford the desktop at the moment, so I went ahead with the netbook for now. So far, I really love it. It's so light and portable, and can handle just about everything I need to do. I don't dare try Premiere on it, though, so vids are out for the moment.

The UFO Awards are rolling along. I'm behind on getting the nominee badges and some of the notifications sent out, but with two weeks left, I'm confident I can get everything squared away in time to start voting March 1st. I'll probably work on that some more tonight.

House-hunting and packing have been taking up most of my spare time outside of work. Our lease is up at the end of March and I want to rent a townhome for a change of scenery. After a lot of looking around, I found one I absolutely love. It happens to be owned by a retiree from my company, so he's particularly interested in renting it to me. :D I'm going to call the rental agency tomorrow and tell them we want to go for it. I'll have to learn to be a bit more responsible with my money, but I did the math and I should be able to afford it easily without too many changes. ^_^

Speaking of changes, I'm officially leaving the Anime Detour staff after this year's con. I gave my notice, or whatever, to the chairman and my department heads at today's meeting after thinking it over at great length. I don't fit in there, I'm never going to, and I've decided to face that fact and let it go. My dad's disappointed, but everyone else has been pretty understanding. Not being on staff will give me the chance to try other things. Like a Sailor Moon room party in 2010! :D I have big, BIG plans. :D I don't want the fanfic contests to disappear, though, so I'm technically going to be at-con staff in the Programming department so I can keep running those. And I told Ryan I'd chip in if they need extra help with the website. But that's it after April.

This Thursday I'm flying to Seattle for a friend's wedding (and hopefully to see killyoudead as well!). I'll be there in time for the bachelorette party, but my friend's pretty religious, so I'm not expecting anything wild. I still have to pick up a wedding gift, but she's registered at a few major stores, so that shouldn't be a problem. After I get back I have a few more nights of work, and then I'll be headed north for my godson's birthday party. Gotta fit in time to get him a present, too. >.o This year's his fifth, so as long as I remember my video camera I'll finally be ready to make the DVD of his first five birthdays like I've been planning. After I get a replacement computer. x_x

I've got the second Ouran set with me tonight, I'll break that open if I get my UFOs work done. I'm hoping to finally see Coraline this Wednesday on my only day off between now and March. @_@

So that's all the news that's fit to print. How is everyone? With all the above, LJ has been the farthest thing from my mind lately.

Some reminders to myself regarding cosplay.

• Finish sanding down and repainting my staff. Don't forget the topcoat this time. Goal is to be ready to spraypaint this weekend. Needs: Spraypaint, topcoat, dropcloth.


• Prepare Sharpie dye for darkening my replacement wig. Goal is to be ready to dye when the new wig arrives (likely this weekend). Needs: Sharpies, bucket, rubbing alcohol.


• Style my replacement wig.


• Make earrings. They're just studs, so I'm probably going to stick them on with spirit gum instead of making clip-ons. (My ears aren't pierced.) Needs: Materials (unknown ATM).


• Obtain necklace. Hopefully Ash will have it ready in time. *crosses fingers*


• Do a makeup test. I'll be needing feedback from the cosplayers on my flist, so be prepared for me to come bothering you. ;) Needs: Lipstick.


• Make an improved choker. Needs: Fabric or ribbon.


• Add a pocket to my dress so I don't have to carry a purse. Needs: Snap fasteners.


• Add elastic to the top edges of my gloves so they'll stay up better? Needs: Elastic.


• Figure out how the hell I'm going to get my staff on a plane.

Been a while since I posted. Nothing new going on really, just the usual work and making bentos and doing Detour stuff. It's almost March already. :O I'm both excited and terrified for con season to start. There's so much to be done, and only three weeks - three weeks! - before Anime Boston. Ah, the craziness. My tax refund should be on the way and I got my AMV entries in on time, so thus far I'm reasonably on top of things for a change. I decided at the last minute to try to squeeze in making a new wig, though, so who knows. And of course there's the UFO nominations ending and the Detour fanfic contest submission period closing, and the Anime North fanfic entries to be judged are piling up in my inbox. Crazy times. But I have hope.

Oh, I also need to order new business cards for .moon and myself and get going on the Detour contest prizes. And get my RenFest pictures printed out for Vay. *adds to reminder list* In retrospect, setting the UFOs in spring was not a good idea. @_@

In offline-land, it was my godson's fourth birthday this past weekend. I had to draw a giant Spongebob. I feel tainted. ;_;

It's been insanely cold here lately. I kind of miss the peaceful, overcast, snowy days of Christmastime. The days do seem to be getting longer, though, I saw some pre-dawn light before falling asleep this morning and a bit of dusk after waking up.

Tonight is my last night shift in this rotation. Tomorrow I'm off to my hometown, I've missed the holidays and a couple of birthdays and need to catch up with the people up there. Unfortunately that means half a day of sleep tomorrow, ugh. I've had a hard time waking up these past few days, so that isn't going to be fun.

I'm still aiming to finish the new main page and default theme for .moon in time for the site's secondary birthday this weekend, but as I've spent the past few days doing large amounts of nothing and now I'm going to be out of town, I don't know if that's going to happen. But at least I'm getting a few things done, even if they're not the things I really should be doing.

---

for sm_monthly, January (Silver Millennium), Day 2 (Fireworks)

Title: Sparked Interest
Fandom: Sailormoon
Rating: G
Genre: Romance-y?
Setting: Silver Millennium

( when I was a child )

I've created a separate journal for updates and info regarding dotmoon.net: dotmoon

I'll be using that journal to blog about new stuff I'm developing for the site, and to post announcements of new events or downtime. Anyone who belongs to .moon or is interested in what goes on there may want to friend the new journal. I won't be posting .moon stuff here anymore (at least, after announcing the start of voting for the UFO Awards, since I can't resist any opportunity to plug that :3).

dotmoon!

(In other news, I will eventually be finishing my AN con report, but the UFOs are eating my soul. Maybe next week after voting has started.)

.moon is currently unavailable. Our host appears to be having major problems. Not only is THEIR website down, but the status page which is supposed to be hosted on an entirely different system so it will be available in situations like this is down as well. And that makes absolutely no sense. Did the CEO take the cashbox and run, or something? o.o

Just last night I was thinking about how to pay for the next year of hosting, and now I'm back to thinking about jumping ship. -_- At the very least, we'll be getting that mirror site I've always talked about making.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted if I find out anything.

For the first time since the site opened, there are no new stories on the .moon New page. There wasn't a single submission this past week. A couple of new chapters are all that saved the New page from being completely empty.

Is this where a year has gotten us?

Site's down.

Host suffered a power outage at their data center.

Details at 11.

.moon's back up.

.moon is fixed, if anyone out there hasn't noticed. Hopefully things will be working much smoother from now on.

I'm back from my monthly excursion to my hometown. It went pretty well, except I probably got myself in future trouble with my sister by telling my mom something I shouldn't have, and my grandma is in the hospital. Everyone thinks Grandma will be okay, though, so I'm not too worried. She's supposed to be going home tomorrow so I'm planning to try to call sometime this week to see how she's doing.

Last night my best friend and I went to a casino and I won $150 at the penny slots. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before. The sad thing is, I feel rather guilty about it, since I'm the last person I know who needs an unexpected stack of cash. Things may not stay that way, however, since I've somehow misplaced my notebook containing my list of what bills I owe when, so I have NO IDEA what bills I have owing. Not good. That notebook also, unhappily, contains my running list of unwritten story ideas, and all my notes for "Fantaisie Sign." This could be bad.

Speaking of stories, I wrote a good chunk of chapter one of "Blood Red" over the weekend. There will probably be a half-dozen chapters of this. I said the same when I started AAO, and we all know what happened there, but I'm making a point not to enforce chapter size limits on this one so hopefully it won't balloon out of control.

In thinking about the story over the weekend I've hit on what seems to be the plot that was lurking under the surface of the initial idea. Earlier I wrote that I just wasn't feeling this fic, but I think I was looking in the wrong place. I've found the real meat of this story and now I'm genuinely excited about it. The focus of the fic has shifted a bit, so while the romance will be a key piece of the plot, it won't be the entire plot, and most of the fic is going to be entirely from Endymion's point of view. That last detail in itself makes "Blood Red" really unique as far as I can tell. The fandom can always use more Mamoru-centered fics.

On the other hand, the content of "Blood Red" is really starting to frighten me. It's really damn dark, and cruel, and twisted, and it kind of freaks me out that something like this is coming out of my brain. I'm going to write it, because I've become fascinated by the concept, but it's guaranteed to drive off half my readers and (I fear) a few friends as well. I kind of wish I hadn't told anyone about it so I could post it under my pseudonym. ^^;;

Moving on, I forced myself not to wimp out and went to the Anime Detour planning meeting this afternoon. Of course, I didn't know anyone and was shy as hell, so I didn't meet any new friends even though lots of people were introducing themselves to each other. -_- Not bad for a first step, though. There's always next time. Unfortunately I'm going to miss both con room parties they have planned. I did, however, volunteer to help out in the Ops department, and I plan to throw my name in for Tech as well for extra fun.

I'm sort of also on the website team, and have a leg up thanks to my PHP experience, but at the meeting I got out-geeked by these internet guys who went after the webmaster as if it were a job interview. -_-;; I have never seen so many people fighting so hard over the right to make some simple HTML website updates. It was incredible in a sad kind of way. And frustrating, because I KNOW I'm better at web stuff than any of those 1337 geeks. :P Anyway, got my foot in the door. I really wish I'd done this a year ago. There's semi-scary competition going on now. o.o

Man, I'm reeeeally tired. I do have to go to bed soon, since I'm working at 6 AM tomorrow morning, but I'm stalling. I'll be working regular 8-hour days this week and next week, which is 6 AM - 3 PM, which means I'll be on AIM a bit more often in the afternoons before bedtime. I hope to snag some rare chat time with some of you then.

Gosh, this ended up being really long.

As you've probably noticed, .moon is still down. Apparently Dreamhost is having system-wide DNS issues affecting lots of sites.

On the positive side, the crabby note I sent yesterday got a response. They've offered to move .moon to a more stable server. If that doesn't fix the frequent downtime issues, I'll be moving the site to a different host when the year is up this September.

EDIT 5:20 PM: The site seems to be working again, for the moment. The server move may still be happening today, however, so it may go down again for a while. Otherwise, I've requested the site be moved next Wednesday morning, so there will be downtime then.