An · Honest · Effort

Today, I think, is the last day that I have the house to myself. It’s been a wonderful week. Quiet, tranquil, without any pressure. It’ll be interesting to see how that camp has changed dad and Gloria. Gloria’s mom came by the house yesterday evening to check up on me. She insisted she drive me to the grocery, so I picked up some chicken, pineapple, potatoes, and teriyaki sauce to make dinner that night and she insisted on paying. I am an excellent receiver. I was very grateful for her kindness.

It was ridiculously humid last night, though, and there was a large party across the street from the window in my bedroom. Between the humdity and the loud kids … ugh, I managed to find my way into unconsciousness around 2:00am.

I picked up Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows the other day and have been reading it every chance I get. I’m almost hesitant to finish the book but, when I do, I’m going to head out and pick up the first book and read the series from start to finish.

I dyed my hair red last night but it came out way too dark. I’m going to live with it for a while to see if it grows on me and then I’ll selectively bleach part of it to create a bizarre epidermal menagerie. Maybe.

We have our World of Darkness and Mage games this weekend. I only have one page of notes so far (it’s been a busy week) and I need to add more so something actually gets accomplished in-game. On the White-Wolf forums someone was asking about how to go about creating a character whose magic, nimbus and Legacy revolve around ice, snow and cold. So there was talk of Matter+Forces spells. Right now I’m wanting to flesh out the Legacy more with a history, philosophy, general goal and attainments. That’s slow-going. I’ll likely forget about it come Monday.

She is a virgin - in a world where men would even turn to soft fruit for pleasure!

Someone left an LG 8700X at my desk yesterday and I don’t know who it belongs to. It has no SIM card, it has no power left and the mass email I sent out to all staff hasn’t had any bites. I’m going to see if I can contact the service provider, given them the serial number and see if they can figure out who it belongs to.

Came in an hour early today for a training session with technical support, which was cool ‘cause that means I get to leave an hour early today. Yay! Five co-workers and I went to an all-you-can-eat fish ‘n chips joint not far from here. I finished one plate (which was actually the cheapest thing they had on their menu) and the metabolic furnace who works in QA had two and a half.

My skin and hair are doing things I wish they wouldn’t. I may need to consult a TCM doctor, perhaps as this is just getting to be rather silly.

Darling she's so cold, she has her period in cubes.

So my test results came back yesterday and I’m über-healthy. My heart rate is faster during the day and slower at night than normal, but it’s still within a range that the cardiologist feels is acceptable. Next they would like to send me to a stress test. Phwee~

I picked up a new shirt and some shorts for that camp as well as a whistle. I’m trying to look for red, orange and white clothing specifically. I couldn’t tell you why. I couldn’t find any decent foam mats or inflatable mattresses so I’m going to wait until I can go to Mountain Equipment Co-Op on the weekend to pick one up (in addition to a backpack with a hydropack).

Apparently the paperback edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has already been released and there’s 70 copies at the Indigo near my workplace, so I’m going to go there on my lunch break and pick up a copy. I’m so excited!

I may end up making a second post later today. Perhaps!

In about a half-hour I’m going to leave to see a doctor to get my test results. Whee! I’m very curious to know what they are. My mom said she’d like to call me later tonight so I can tell her what I find out. Hyuu~

I need to find a backpack with a hydration pack for that camp. This weekend I’m going to make my way to Mountain Equipment Co-op to find such a thing. There’s still a lot of things on my list I need to pick up. Now I learn I need an entire new wardrobe for it. I need to bring clothes that I won’t mind getting trashed. Which is just great since every piece of clothing I own is something I like (which is why I bought them), so now I get to go out and buy pieces of crap – it’s just another expense I wish I didn’t have to dole out right now.

Having the house to myself has been wonderful. Gloria has asked me to let the ferret run around in her room while I watch TV or something, but all the ferret seems interested in is biting me and drawing blood. I was able to fend her off for about five minutes before I put her back in her cage. 30 minutes is just not going to happen, but she did say she would be grateful for any length of time I could let her out to run around.

I actually watched television last night for the first time, like, forever. Television is dreadfully boring. I watched a half-hour program on … oh what fresh hell is this? I don’t remember what, while I ate dinner. Then I shut it off and went to go do something more interesting – internet.

Kwantlen University has a fashion design course and applicants are requested to submit a portfolio, naturally. They’ve requested several sewn pieces and I couldn’t help but raise a brow. I want to go to University to learn to do that kind of thing. If I could do it already then why would I bother seeking out higher learning for it? It seems silly. I have no sewing machine, but I could always hand-sew something and then say it’s unofficial haute couture.

I think, though, I can get away with submitting anything that demonstrates creativity. I can certainly do that. Provided that’s the secondary education route I want to take should the opportunity come my way.

Lately I’ve had a bit of an addiction to cinnamon.

So dad and Gloria are off to one of their camps and I have the house to myself for five days. It’ll be interesting to see the changes in them when they return. Then, in a couple of weeks, I’m off the to the Enlightened Warrior Training Camp. I still need to buy a few supplies for it beforehand, though.

I have a doctor’s appointment for tomorrow to learn the results of my heart monitor test. I’m very curious to know what it indicated.

I just took a multi-vitamin and feel a little bit nauseous. Is my body just not used to getting all its vitamins? Perhaps!

I watched the first episode of Dollhouse the other day and I want moar! I can’t find the second episode. Delightful how it was able to draw me in with the first episode. Joss Whedon knows what he’s doing (at least what buttons to push to get me to watch).

For our Mage game I want to have the players eventually leave the Asylum, so I’m looking to wrap up the Asylum plot in the next few sessions. Things have been building and eventually there’ll be a whacky ice-monster Silent Hill-ish boss battle with Paradox and Abyss-lings and a musical number. Whee!

In the other Mage game I’m playing in instead of running, Nick is convinced he’s gone insane and is invested in an intense delusion. Inside, he’s coming apart at the seams, he’s giving into any and every emotion that comes his way rather than controlling them. He’s beat a man to death and eviscerated another, has dropped in morality and is straddling that nebulous region between thinking, “It’s okay, none of this is real” and “Oh god, what have I done?!” This is okay, though, Nick needs to be broken down before he can be rebuilt as the glorious shining champion/exotic dancer he usually ends up being. Phwee~

OMG thank Freya it’s Friday. I might go to the Winners downtown this weekend. They’re the only Winners in the city that has a section devoted to designer labels. Apparently some shoppers have found Dior in there. How crazy is that?

I can’t stop yawning and I think today is a good day for soleada gelato (pineapple + papaya + guavara).

I’ve had “The Sacred Line” from the Silent Hill: Homecoming soundtrack playing through my head for the last couple of days and I’ve listened to it a few times to try to appease my brain but it demands moar! Not sure why. I, personally, have been preferential to Miss Aguilera and Lady Gaga lately. Well. One little song can’t hurt. (OMG! That’s what she said!)

Pr0n stars generally seem rather miserable outside of their modelling careers. I think it’s very interesting. Tragic, but interesting. I guess it’s not really surprising. At some point you have to wonder, “Is this all there is to my life?” Though I know that just about everyone asks that at some point in time. It’s just interesting to me, for some reason, in that particular context.

Tequila = Yes

Different day and another war

Order shifts, tumbles down…

Guess what I had for dinner last night. Go on, guess. I’ll wait.

Correct! I had margaritas for dinner! It was pretty fierce. I was fucked up and I ended up with an exquisite Poor Boy label velvet coat. Gloria and I got hammered and then we went on a romp through her walk-in closet. She was showing me this gorgeous designer dress she found, it’s just stunning. I’m in love with it. While we were there she pulled out this jacket she had from a long time ago and hadn’t worn in forever and which no longer fit her. It fits me though. So now I need a cravat and a shirt with laced cuffs. It’s ridiculously hot. I just need to find a place to wear it now.

When I woke up this morning I was still tipsy which is great because it meant no hangover.

On my way home last night I decided I wanted to see red things. So I began to see them everywhere (this phenomena isn’t new to any of you). This morning I’m walking through the mall and I see they’ve changed all the mannequins Tan Jay and they were all wearing red. Also, they had brought in a car for some kind of auction and, naturally, it was red. I’m going to use this power for fierceness. I want to see Christian Lacroix pieces everywhere. RIGHT NOW!

Sad, though, Christian Lacroix, one of the few people authorized by the government of France to make haute couture is having to close his business due to financial difficulties. Jean-Paul Gaultier, however, made a good point: He’s a creator, he’ll be back. This is not the last we’ve seen of him. Which is true. He’ll never stop creating and, in the name of all that is good and pure in this world, he should never stop creating. What that man can do with fabric is magic.

I need a new hair stylist.

So I picked up a book yesterday called Busting Loose from the Money Game which was recommended to me. Deliciously, it’s not really about money but is about the view that what we experience on a daily basis is a game. There are players, a setting, rules and a goal – sort of. The thing about the money game is that no one can win and it’s designed to bring failure. Yet this money game is just one aspect of the larger human game.

The way he describes the human game triggers all kinds of thoughts related to Exalted. Reality (Creation) is a construct of incredibly intelligent and powerful beings. In the book, these beings are our “expanded selves”; in Exalted they would be Primordials. Reality was created so that we could entertain ourselves (play the Games of Divinity). The hardest part of the game was to convince ourselves that we’re not Primordials (to continue with the metaphor).

Because if you power-game, the game loses its appeal. It’s not challenging and it’s not convincing enough to make us want to continue to play (in this way it’s also kind of like a movie wherein suspension of disbelief plays a key role).

It’s a fascinating read so far and it’s made it quite plain that I am, indeed, an insufferable Exalted nerd. LAWL

So I’m strapped into my 24-hour heart rate monitor. It’s interesting. A little bit itchy but I’ll survive until tomorrow. It’s kinda sort of drizzling here which is nice as it’s cooler. The last few days have been hot.

The Mage game I’m running isn’t going so well. I haven’t been able to come up with any great ideas, and we’ve been languishing through random blather. I haven’t had a lot of time to give it much thought.

Our new WoD game that the other player is running is going quite well. I’m playing as a re-imagined Nick before his Awakening. He had a dream with a gold dragon and died trying to kick its ass. He figures, the dragon is really an aspect of himself that he’s determined to conquer. LAWL

Wow I got, like, very little sleep last night. Not sure what I was doing, to be honest. I do recall, however, that there was a late-night issue regarding dishes. I was already asleep when, late at night, I heard some hollering. I figured out from that incident and one like it a few nights ago that the human female who occupies the master bedroom has a strange expectation of me. That, to her, it would be ideal if I were to wait until everyone else in the house went to bed just in case one of them wishes to fix for themselves a snack and uses a cup, a dish, a bowl – whatever, so that I can scurry downstairs, wash the dishes, and then return to my room.

Naturally I think this is a bit silly. I wash the dishes each night before going to bed. If someone uses a dish after I got to bed, then I shouldn’t be required to wake up and go wash it. Well, that’s all right, though. I understand that she is going through some … things, so I should take all of these little absurdities with a heaping teaspoon of salt.

Sometimes, though, I wonder if it would be going too far if I were to make it quite plain that I did not leave behind my mom, my childhood friends, my dog, everything familiar and even my last job so that I could move out here to clean her house. Somehow I don’t think that would go well. So I bite my tongue until I can afford to move out. Oh good lord how I want to move out. I will not waste my every spare moment cleaning someone else’s house when I’m in one of the most beautiful and resourceful cities on the planet, where I have access to spiritual, martial and academic teachers, practices and resources (not to mention shopping).

I have to remind myself, though. It’s not personal, she’s just going through some things. This is helping me to practice patience because without antagonists there would be no opportunity to cultivate patience. She does have great style, I must say. Yesterday before she left the house she showed me her $1000+ pair of Italian silk dancing pants. I could never pull those off but hot damn I wanted a pair for myself! That’s all right, though. Some day I will have my low-rise Dolce & Gabbana jeans. Some day.

Today is my Friday, I have tomorrow off. I’m sure I wrote about that yesterday but I don’t remember and I can’t be bothered to look it up. Besides I’m blogging this from Windows Live Writer instead of Livejournal’s editor. I have another five minutes before I go back to training clients.

There should be a new Naruto chapter available today, maybe tomorrow. Crunchy Roll tells me the latest free episode of Naruto Shippuden is available to watch. I still resent having to watch Naruto on an “anime YouTube”. I am still very much displeased with having to wait for a video to buffer and, goodness gracious, if I want to watch it in SD or even HD? Well, I should leave it to load, go away for a weekend in Paris and by the time I get back it should be ready to watch.

They’re done the filler arc with the Three-Tails and have returned to the canon story. There was some drama between Orochimaru and Sasuke, a snake and a hawk was involved, I still want to punch Kabuto in the nuts (he really drives me crazy, he’s incredibly boring and lame simultaneously; he’s the annoying recurring villain that I stopped caring about after his second appearance in the series).

So it's Canada Day and I'm at work, but I get a roaming day off which I'm going to use this Friday to prepare for the next session of our new Mage game. I will try to buy most of what I need for the Enlightened Warrior Training Camp next weekend. After that is said and done I would like to buy my plane ticket to Regina for my trip this summer and save up some spending money.

I also need to get started on my cosplay costume for Anime Evolution next year. I want to dress up as one of the Akatsuki, probably Tobi, but I'm not completely sold on the idea. I wish I could get away as dressing up like Suigetsu (from Naruto) when Taka/Hebi were employed briefly by Akatsuki to capture the 8-tails. I don't have the complexion or the androgynous features to really get away with it. I really like the red-cloud-on-black aesthetic of Akatsuki.

Exalted Thoughts: Gaara as a Chosen of Cecylene or sand-themed God-Blood or sand-themed Earth-Aspected Terrestrial; Suigetsu as a Lunar Exalted or water-themed God-Blood. Need to find an Exalted 2ed gaming group in Vancouver. Need to.

Watched a couple T.E.D. talks on memetics and OMG! MEMES R EVERYWHERES! They're taking over our brains! Oh noes! Run away! D:

Once again feeling that I wanna do something with my life itch again. Not sure how to scratch right now.

Was having awful hair for the last couple of days due to the moisture in the air. And I mean awful. Like, birds nest made of dry straw picked at with a comb awful. I had to buy a new hat to cover up. It is a cute hat, but damn that was some bad hair.

In addition to the six piercings in each ear and the industrials, I'm also thinking about getting my left eyebrow pierced, too. I think that would be as far as I would go with piercings. Then, perhaps, I may have some more ideas for tattoos. I've been sketching (badly) designs for clothes I would like to make. One of them is an Akatsuki-themed t-shirt that's a bit longer at the bottom (which flares out slightly).

Was browsing some picks from Men's Fashion Week in Paris and Milan and, this season, Versace was hit rather than miss. Loved the short-shorts. Dolce didn't wow me, but they're hit and miss for me, too. They're mor hit than miss whereas Versace is more miss than hit.

Sony's PSP-Go is outrageously over-priced. Sony's excuse? "We're charging that much because we can." Clearly they haven't learned their lesson from their ongoing struggles with making a profit off the PS3. No one is going to want to buy a lighter, slimmer PSP that's more expensive than a Nintendo Wii and comparable to an X-Box. It just isn't in the cards, darling. Do you suppose Sony has low self-esteem? Is that why it's sabotaging itself?

Speaking of, Square-Enix's Final Fantasy VII has sold over 100 000 copies through the Playstation Network. If that many copies have been sold so quickly, why wouldn't Square-Enix want to consider a full re-make of the game? Well, because they're Square-Enix. They make a great team with Sony because they both live by the same creed: Listen to your consumers/fans, and then do the exact opposite, or get about halfway there and then quit and jack up the price.

Tomorrow we'll begin our new Mage game using the Asylum supplement. Since I had to leave my hardcopy of the book back in Regina, I'm going to schlep my laptop to the game and use the pdf. I'm curious to see how it will go.

5:00pm Okay, so I've managed to waste a half-hour.

I watched the movie adaptation of Confessions of a Shopaholic and I did not care for it at all. Unsurprisingly formulaic. Girl gets new job, her new life is wonderful and fabulous, but she harbors an embarassing secret. Falls in love with a guy. Secret comes out, drama ensues. Girl does something noble, guy accepts her back. Happy ending. *gag* Did they even read the book? The Devil Wears Prada did it better.

Why does the soap I like have to be so expensive?

Darling, every troop didn't have to contain Yasmin Le Bon, the Generals didn't require big hugs after every manoeuvre, and the whole operation did not have to be co-ordinated to rap and Japanese avant garde pipe music. Because you know, darling, I think if it had the outcome might have been rather different.

I wrote a blog post over at the ChampionsWay community. Don't know how great it is, just wanted to be more active there, to help promote the place. If I get no comments, that's fabulous. As long as they don't yank my post.

I've been practicing hydrating myself in preparation for that camp in July. Now I have to pee every hour. OMG.

I hope you're wearing thick pants.

On Sunday I'm going to Vancouver Island with a friend from back home. Should be fabulous. I haven't been on the ferry for almost a year.

Should I be twittering this?