Bioluminescence in the abyss

elfstar18 @ 2009-06-27T13:51:00

2009-06-27T17:52:44Z

So, John and I are going to Raleigh tomorrow, and we want to eat somewhere good that we've never been.

This won't be hard because we haven't been to many places in Raleigh.

Any suggestions?

Decay Decay Decay!!!

2009-01-22T20:58:50Z

Hey! One of my New Year's resolutions was to be less negative, so I am not going to bitch about the fact that I am sick today. A sick day and a snow day all in one week? If only I were they kind of person who liked lazing about.

Oh, that was kind of bitching. Oh boy oh boy! Um... sleep! Goodygoody!

Maybe John will make soup if I look pitiful enough.

I am well enough to clean the kitchen, so I think I'll do that.

Quick! read it before it gets deleted.

2008-10-03T11:40:58Z

The REAL reason to vote, um, to vote for McCain. Yeah....

http://community.livejournal.com/marvel_universe/415527.html

elfstar18 @ 2008-09-29T18:49:00

2008-09-29T22:52:49Z

Matthew Brookshire is an old friend of NMtH. This is awesome.

I can see Russia from Alaska (when I look in your eyes)

Oh, and...

2008-09-24T19:46:48Z

Is anyone going to be watching the debate on Friday night, and may I join you? I'll bring beer or chocolate depending on your preferences. I am TV free, and while I can listen to it on the radio, I'd prefer to see it too.

(Normally Retrofantasma would trump even something this important, but I am too bug-phobic to handle a screening of Creepers.)

It the most important thing you can do. EVER.

2008-09-23T23:30:34Z

I guess at some point I should stop pointing out the fact that I have no life when I talk about how important the N&O's comics page is to me.

It's *really* important to me. The day that is so daunting and horrible that I won't crawl out of bed to read the comics is not one that will ever come. I consider the N&O's glorious two page comic spread one of the main arguments for living in the triangle.

Every once and a while they run a poll and change the comics page according to the reader responses. It is that time again. (Aren't you excited? I am so excited!)

How do I say this in as unpathetic way as possible?

If you love me, you'll vote. Please vote. Please vote right here: http://share.triangle.com/comicsvote . If you don't know who to vote for, why, look! I've listed *my* picks right below. It's barely any work. (And if you do have opinions of your own, I respect that. As long as you don't vote for BC or some shit like that.)

My Awesome Picks (That's right. I care so much that I don't even mind letting people know that I follow religiously a couple of heartwarming family comics.)

Baby Blues
Bizarro
Candorville
Frazz
Funky Winkerbean
Get Fuzzy
Jump Start
Lio
Pearls Before Swine
Sally Forth
Watch Your Head
Zits

(the guest strips were all pretty yawn-worthy, so I don't care who gets in. Agnes is really annoying, Scary Gary is cute, but the others aren't memorable in any way.)

For Matt, who I'm sure has already seen it.

2008-07-22T00:15:47Z

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/7/21/

Caitlyn

2008-07-17T12:04:08Z

Just wondering what your day looks like as far as lunch goes. I have a 10:45 doctor's appointment that I thought was earlier. I think I should still get out in time to have lunch, but it would probably be better for me to contact you after I get out then to make a plan for me to be at a certain place and time.

Is your phone with you? I could call you.

Will I still be on lj in 2025? I'll be 48. Hello 48! Where do you sleep and what do you dream?

2008-07-06T03:40:40Z

I don't know how to sticky this, but I feel compelled to formally announce my friends-only-ness. I pretty much don't feel comfortable even posting that which is benign and banal in public anymore, so... yeah.

You have to scroll pretty far back to find a not locked entry anyway, but I wanted to go ahead and make it official.

ETA Apparently, by "pretty far back" I mean, like, one month. You can't expect someone who is prone to making proclamations like this to not also be prone to exaggeration, though.

I am in a posty mood. And silly about clothes. (But the bag was reasonably, if not cheaply, priced.)

2008-05-29T20:07:46Z

My messenger bag was lost, it was lost, it was really really lost to the point where I figured I either left it in the Neon where it got towed away to a junkyard for all time, or I took it to the Goodwill in a fit of "I Will Simplify, Damnit!!!" purging.

I bought a new messanger bag today, mostly because I was out on Franklin and I caught a glimpse of myself reflected in a window and realized that my pink striped shopping bag (which I've been using for a purse whenever my box purse won't be big enough. Which is, like, all the time.) matched the pink striped socks that I thought added a cute fruitsy I don't give a fuckishness to my black tank-top and denim capris and made the whole thing look, egads, like an outfit.

And I am well aware that my desire to have my clothing choices seem carefree and unintentional is about the most hypocritical thing ever, but there we are.

Oh, so anyway, yeah. I ducked into a shop and bought a bag. Because mine is gone, and clearly I need one, and YES I DO CARE THAT MUCH ABOUT LOOKING TOO GODDAMNED MATCHY MATCHY.

And now I'm home and making vague stabs at housecleaning while also reading the internet and comics, and I saw my backpack peeking out from under the couch in the library, and I remembered. I stuffed my messenger bag and my messenger *backpack* (which I got for free and kind of forgot that I had) into my regular backpack and then stuffed the lot under the couch in the library (which is a legitimate storage zone here in my house). Because I barely use them and don't hardly need them. Especially now that I have my cute box purse.

*damnit!*

But my new bag is cuter, and anyway I can't take it back because the tags are off and I've been using it all day. So, HA!

(My forgetfulness and foolishness together conquered my budget, and I feel like *I've* triumphed. Huh.)

Dear Kimberly,

2008-05-29T19:04:56Z

Pretty much now would be a great time for you to catch up on Astonishing. Or to accept spoilers. Like, seriously.

Dear Caitlyn,

Thank you for lunch! It was lovely, and we must do it again.

Dear Will,

I saw you! I was on the BCX, and you (or someone who looked a hell of a lot like you in a green shirt such as one could very easily imagine you wearing) were walking in the general direction of campus. I mean, you were pretty much on campus, but you were walking deeper into it. And this is notable I don't know why. I would have waved, but you'd have been oblivious, and then everyone on the bus would have thought I was a dork. Which I am.

Oh No!!!!

2008-05-27T12:44:24Z

So I was making paneer this morning because I can do that and I am awesome (announcing that fact really isn't the only reason that I am posting, though I do feel like standing on my porch with my hands in the air and some Queen playing every time I do it), and as I was pressing out the extra liquid, my brain, my horrible, evil, wants me to be crazy brain started singing, "Wringing out the cheese. Wringing out the cheese. We shall come rejoicing..."

And that's going to be in my head ALL DAY now.

Also, I have to leave for work in like, 18 minutes and I haven't even showered. But I have *posted to livejournal* because that's important.

heh

2008-05-06T17:53:34Z

http://somethingpositive.net/sp05032008.shtml

What made me the most pissed about the X-men book was the flashback panel showing Pixie's happy school days at Xavier's. The one where she's playing baseball in a long sleeved ribbed leotard and no pants.

(And then, really, that's only if you count 'made me pissed' and 'made me roll my eyes' as the same thing.)

(The Drawn and Quarterly book was really good, as was the collection of old EC comics!)

Happy Birthday Double You Sea (Or Double You Emcee!)

2008-05-05T23:05:50Z

stolen from ignescent

I don't usually do these because I am all like, "wah! No one will do it and then I'll feel lame and stupid!!!"

so um... help that not happen please and thank you.

Leave one memory of you and me together. It doesn't matter if I know you a little or a lot, anything you remember! Next, post this in your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you.

I do not like

2008-05-04T14:10:44Z

it when I wake up and it's all pretty out and there are things that I want to do like go pick up some soil from Kathy for my herb garden. (Which is already yellow and limp even though I water it faithfully. I am going to go on the Morticia Addams school of gardening -- arranging dead stems and calling it lovely.)

I don't like it when I wake up and it's a beautiful day with things in it to do and all I have to do is take a shower and go out, but instead for some reason I sit for two hours at the computer, reading archives of Separated by a common language and, like, the Wikipedia entry for Pepper Potts and stuff.

Blablablagrumblestupid.

HELLO!!! HAPPY GOOD MORNING! I AM GOING TO TAKE A SHOWER NOW! I AM GOING TO USE MY FANCY EXPENSIVE SHAMPOO FROM AVEDA!!!

************

Iron man is really good. If you're not doing anything today you should probably go see it. Renee is awesome and so brought airplane bottles of Hennessy, so we drank every time Tony S. mentioned weapons (and also, you know, any time he looked particularly cool in his Iron Man suit and any time there was an especially impressive explosion).

Truer words were never spoken by a creepy metallic voice

2008-04-21T03:53:08Z

My grandmother had an antique Chatty Cathy doll. Her speaking mechanism involved a series of small plastic records that were inserted into her back. My grandmother only had one of the records though - a collection of maxims and proverbs. I played with that doll non-stop and never got sick of her tinny chirping. "A watched pot... never boils." I remember her saying, complete with the random and meaningless pause between pot and never.

This has nothing to do with anything really, but I left D&D early because Eisley was playing at the Cat's Cradle, and I had to leave when we were fighting an abolith (sp?) and everyone was nearly dead, and I was nearly dead and charmed besides, but I had to go because I called the Cradle and they were like, "we're on the third band and Eisley is the fourth." So I emailed an "Am I dead? Are we dead?" to the group, and I can't accept that I won't receive a reply before morning. It is too cruel.

But Eisley was good. They pulled another sister on stage for half a song, proving again that they are a bottomless well of siblings, and the guitarist sang a little which made me glad because she always sings along un-miked anyways.

And now I really am going to bed.

After checking AOL one more time.

elfstar18 @ 2008-04-19T08:34:00

2008-04-19T12:45:35Z

At the Carolina for Retrofantasma last night, I ran into darklordmoeser and the perpetually lurking lexman1978. Had just enough time to think, 'Huh. who knew they were Cronenberg fans?' before realizing that, duh, they were there for The Yeomen of the Guard. I'm glad I did run into them because I would have completely missed the obvious fact that the two events were occurring simultaneously, and since I *did* realize, I was able to, erm... well... sneak into the theater between films and catch a glimpse of tribalkittykat and kibarika (right after a sextet went on about "rapture rapture doleful doleful"), and saw that they were both very pretty and adorably twinful.

Meanwhile, plans need to be made to see The Secret of Nimh among other UA movies, yes?

I am not an Earth goddess.

2008-04-17T20:24:01Z

I kill an herb garden every summer. It's a ritual. This year, I've hung the container over my balcony on the theory that the shade of the balcony roof is why I so consistently fail. Still, I don't feel *very* confident. Confident enough to buy the stuff and fantasize about picking my own cilantro and parsley from the porch though.

*******edit***********

There is a bird corpse on my porch. As though the bird just keeled over there. Um... Maybe my gardens die because my porch is poisonous? I do paint minis out there... Or maybe it froze?

Jesus H, how do you remove a bird corpse? Without, like, touching it or really going near it?

Thanks Kiba!

2008-03-27T03:33:16Z

Pretty accurate, though I think the strength and con scores are a bit inflated due to my high alcohol tolerance and the physical aspects of my job. (I use power tools. fun!) Man, I love memes of this nature.

I Am A: Neutral Good Half-Elf Druid/Bard (3rd/2nd Level)

Ability Scores:

Strength-13

Dexterity-13

Constitution-11

Intelligence-13

Wisdom-13

Charisma-15

Alignment:
Neutral Good A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order. However, neutral good can be a dangerous alignment because it advances mediocrity by limiting the actions of the truly capable.

Race:
Half-Elves have the curiosity and ambition for their human parent and the refined senses and love of nature of their elven parent, although they are outsiders among both cultures. To humans, half-elves are paler, fairer and smoother-skinned than their human parents, but their actual skin tones and other details vary just as human features do. Half-elves tend to have green, elven eyes. They live to about 180.

Primary Class:
Druids gain power not by ruling nature but by being at one with it. They hate the unnatural, including aberrations or undead, and destroy them where possible. Druids receive divine spells from nature, not the gods, and can gain an array of powers as they gain experience, including the ability to take the shapes of animals. The weapons and armor of a druid are restricted by their traditional oaths, not simply training. A druid's Wisdom score should be high, as this determines the maximum spell level that they can cast.

Secondary Class:
Bards often serve as negotiators, messengers, scouts, and spies. They love to accompany heroes (and villains) to witness heroic (or villainous) deeds firsthand, since a bard who can tell a story from personal experience earns renown among his fellows. A bard casts arcane spells without any advance preparation, much like a sorcerer. Bards also share some specialized skills with rogues, and their knowledge of item lore is nearly unmatched. A high Charisma score allows a bard to cast high-level spells.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

elfstar18 @ 2008-03-22T18:24:00

2008-03-22T22:30:58Z

Regarding the cheese-steak shop with thePlease Speak English signs -- It makes me want to open a neighboring shop with signs that say, "Hell, just point. I'll take your money."

elfstar18 @ 2008-03-16T23:35:00

2008-03-17T03:47:57Z

I am the kind of person who would rather pay to have my car battery replaced because it just died and wasn't my fault then have it be jump-startable and only dead be cause I left the dome light on or something. I've left the dome light on *enough* times in my short life. I would like to think I've moved beyond it.

So when the triple-A man's little electric reader thing said "replace battery" instead of "charge battery" this afternoon, I was just a little bit satisfied.

Then after he replaced the battery though, the car came back to life, and the mother effing *hazard* lights were on. *bug eyed hands-to-heavens foot stomp* How?!?!?

"You do put your foot on the dash." said John, which made me angrier. I do not put my *right* foot on the dash; how would I drive? Don't be ridiculous. I don't know how the hazard lights come on. I just know that somehow it was my fault.

But anyway, there is no nicer feeling than having your car start when it very recently wouldn't start, so I feel better anyway. And our game today was awesome in a we 'made it out of a "surrender or die" scenario (of the sort where the DM doesn't bother to make up what would happen if we win and so has to wing it) without doing either' kind of way. So that was nice. I shot perfectly and did great flipping wads of damage. And tomorrow is the Midtown Dickens show, and then my birthday. And Renee and I are going to see Duran Duran at Walnut Creek this summer, so I'm really not in a bad mood at all.

I am just $116.00 poorer. Damn.

Low Expectations

2008-03-11T17:45:00Z

I am feeling right self satisfied about emptying the dishwasher while home for lunch, boy howdy. Even though the sink is totally full of dirty dishes because the clean ones in the dishwasher were from, like, Friday or something. I will re-load it *after* work.

Also impressed with the 'home for lunch' portion of my achievement because the temptation to debit $10.00 for Chinese buffet was *SO* present this afternoon. I work next to the yummiest Chinese buffet IN THE WORLD. It is also the strangest, given that it has tacos and tamales on it. You wouldn't think so, but eventually you get to where egg rolls and tacos are a normal and in fact preferred lunch combination.

I avoided the temptation by calculating that the Dansko Lolitas that I covet are worth about twelve buffet lunches.

It is easy to feel all gold-starry and halo-ed if you treat yourself like a person with severe limitations and so reward yourself when you make even the most basic efforts. Still, I guess the alternative is to go "Gah! Do the dishes? Fuck that daunting and monumental task!" and do nothing which is the only other thing I can imagine I would do.

Wait Wait, don't tell me...

2008-03-09T03:57:04Z

I would just like to say, for the record, that I feel nerdier about listening to NPR than I ever do about playing D&D.

That's all.

elfstar18 @ 2008-03-06T13:58:00

2008-03-06T19:25:34Z

To be fair to myself (or, more accurately, to be overly lenient with myself... as usual) I have gotten a lot done today. My kitchen is filthy, the dining room table is a paper avalanche waiting to happen, and I haven't vacuumed in you-really-don't-want-to-know-how-long, but I *have* been productive today.

Laundry is happening in great glorious loads. Some club at the high school is having a garage sale for charity, and so I did an end of season sort and purge that was *dramatic*. Frightening, really.

Also I cleaned out my car. Sort-of-ish. I mean, I brought some stuff upstairs and threw out a ton of trash. Go me.

Today's best "chore" was ordering my new glasses.

OK. I didn't do any of the $39.99 sites. I waited until I got my tax refund and bought them from the optometrist. Here is why:

*The pair I was eying on-line was... well... pink. pink metal cat's eyes. Pretty much. I tried on a similar pair when I got my eye exam and the effect was ghastly. So my judgment? Not what we will call *sound*.

*My left ear, the one that was taken off and put back on in surgery? is a full inch lower than my right ear. I've bent my wire frames into a ridiculous configuration that *does* sit straight across my face, but I couldn't do it with plastic frames. And I am sick of wire frames. And the man at the shop promised that he could heat the plastic and bend it to my crazy specifications.

*The pair I tried on while getting my eye exam AFTER I tried on the unfortunate pink pair were pretty much the glass slipper of frames for my face. When I went into buy them today, the guy working was like, "usually I like to try a selection of frames with my customers... but you should just get those."

Also, I bought summer work pants today. Two pairs of the same pant in different colors. I stupidly went to the mall first, steeling myself to just spend $30.00 on a pair of serviceable pants and be done with it. (God, I hate pants. My body is Not Normal.) Ok, I and the mall are a little out of touch. Pants cost $50-$70 now and are ugly. Pants at the Gap are expensive and ugly. Pants in the adults section of the department store are expensive and ugly. Pants in the teeny-bopper stores are expensive and ugly. What The fuck? So I fled after a wasted hour, oddly aware if the fact that I am not ever going to go clothes shopping in the mall again.

Then I went to Target, whose pants usually are weird, and found some that are too full in the ankles really (though that is apparently going to be THE look for summer as everyone's crowing about their wide, wide legs...) but make my butt look really fine. And if there is one part of my body that I am abnormally proud of, it is my nicer than usual butt. So there. And they were only $19.99. So there again.

And now I have done all of my scheduled tax refund spending, and the rest is tucked safely in savings. Whee...

elfstar18 @ 2008-03-04T18:53:00

2008-03-05T00:02:57Z

My boss called to tell me that Gary Gygax died this morning. I was kind of broken up which was hard to explain. I mean, not hard to explain exactly. I just had to apologize, "I'm sorry, I wouldn't have expected me to react like this either." Which, actually, maybe we should have. I am not exactly steel in the face of sad news.

Slightly amused by AOL news' D&D-for-the-layperson reporting. Quotes follow--

"The game known for its oddly shaped dice became a hit."

and

"Dungeons & Dragons players create fictional characters and carry out their adventures with the help of complicated rules."

Yep.

Kim, I wish I were with you so we could make a proper toast with our Mountain Dew.