Quiet and Relaxation and... Tin Cans?

Work was the quietest it's EVER been while I was working there. Which isn't saying much since I've only experienced the Christmas rush and a tad bit before it. We finished work, and I mean EVERYTHING we could do 15 minutes before work actually was scheduled to end. Which is nice since we got off early but it's not for most people 'cause they didn't get their breaks. I actually didn't... but I got paid actually 15 minutes more than I should so I'm happy~

So I'm going to have a very relaxing New Years... NOT.







Anyways nothing much to post.

I just wanted to add tin cans 'cause I was bored.

Losing Things, Drawing Tablets and... Collars?

So my brother's girlfriend was at the house today. I might as well say fiancee... but I shouldn't jinx it. They'll be going out for four years as of the ninth of next month. Anyways she was sitting on his bed telling him where everything should go in his room and reprimanding him for keeping the bits and pieces of his models when he didn't really need them.

It made me laugh to see him getting made fun of. I'm a sadistic little sister.

Anyways while she was in his room a button on her shirt popped off. I said I'd sew it back for her. And so I did. Then when she put it on, she put it on so it made her (already naturally over-sized) breasts look EVEN larger. If that's even possible.

So she basically finished cleaning his room for him. Then I got amused 'cause she sounded like she wanted to try cleaning MY room.

And I finally realized that I kind of did need to clean it.

So I walked down the ten foot hall, yelled at them not to invade my room (which my brother usually likes to do anyways without asking) and got to work. For five minutes.

Until I remembered I needed to install my Bamboo Pen and Touch software onto my computer. I got a new one for graduation... nearly 6 months ago... and I have yet to do anything with it up until today.

So I broke that out of its drawer, plopped in the installation software and sat down. I didn't know it wanted the tablet attached during the installation... so I let it run for twenty minutes before I realized that I had to do stuff. So then I dug the actual tablet out of its drawer of crap and plugged that in then ignored it for another twenty minutes, then realized I had to manually click buttons first.

Then calibrate the thing to make sure the tablet has an accurate reading.

So I did that and was playing around on facebook, scrolling with it when I realized that maybe I should do some tracing practices to get my handling down with the pen.

So I looked in my pencil cup on my desk, which I usually keep my most often used utensils, and it wasn't there.

My room likes to eat things. It so far has eaten and spat back my friends' Christmas presents' finishing touches, my camera charger/computer cable, and now the pen. So I went looking for it. That took me a while.

All in all if I were a more organized person I'd have gotten my tablet setup in twenty minutes... but I didn't so it took me an hour. Huzzah!

Anyways I reprimanded my closet and then sat down... and suddenly lost the desire to do any drawing tonight. Which is a horrible thing... 'cause it's much easier to use a tablet then it is to draw things on paper, scan it to the computer, then edit things with a mouse.

And I've used a mouse to edit things quite often. In my High School's CG class we weren't allowed to use tablets until the NEXT level up... which I should've been in but they didn't let me skip. All we did was use photoshop... and I can do that ASLEEP and HIGH and still make things that are better than most of that class's. (Though I've never tried to use my tablet either high or asleep... perhaps I should try the latter...)

So that was my afternoon. Also I acted super pissy to my boyfriend's sister... I sniped at her since I'm on my monthlies without noticing. I'm a horrible person when I'm on my monthlies... Sorry Ro...

I got another collared, black, longsleeved shirt from the thrift store. But this time it has gold piping... so it doesn't look exactly like the others.

And I've realized that I really like wearing collared shirts. Which I hated with a burning PASSION when I was a kid. I even hated ones that were crew-necked. They just felt tight; like they were strangling me. But now I like having that feeling like my shirt is giving me a hug.

Christmas, Ornaments and... Coffee?

Merry Christmas everybody! I hope you got what you were asking for.

It's funny. None of my family woke up today until like, 10 in the morning. My mom was planning to make coffee cake, which is my FAVORITE and ONLY beloved breakfast food (I do not count crepes... they're more of a snack food...) that I will actually eat DURING the morning hours.

I don't like all the sugar. I LOVE sweet things. As in, I will drown coffee in sugar because it's not sweet enough. That's how much I love sweets. But breakfast foods have just too much sugar in them.

Anyways there's an ornament on our Christmas tree that my mom got back in the day. I guess it was one of those short-run, one-year-only types of ornaments, 'cause I can't find ANY MORE of them online.

I've tried etsy, E-bay and I will try Amazon next. I hope Amazon has it. It's a cute little Victorian house that's a brown ceramic with some white ceramic on top to make it look like snow's fallen. The only problem with it is the fact that it's REALLY heavy. I think it's about half a pound or so. Which, for an ornament, is just a bit ridiculous.

But my mom loves it and so for her birthday (which is in June) or mothers' day, or some other random holiday I thought I'd get a couple more for her since she loves them so much.

But nope. They're nowhere to be found. I'm going to try Amazon once and see but so far NOTHING looks even remotely similar.

Nope.

Anyways my brother's girlfriend "Coraline" got an espresso maker from us this year as her Christmas present. So we decided to whip it out and try making something with it.

The first cup we used decaf coffee grounds, non-fat milk and tried it. The milk was cold and the espresso was really weak.

The second cup we tried non-decaf coffee which we ground extra fine in a little grinder, the non-fat milk and whipped it up again. It was better but the milk was weak.

Third time's the charm.

Anyways that's all we've done this morning and afternoon. Coraline's taking a nap, Alejandro is playing on his computer.... some game or whatever, and based on what I can hear, my mom's cleaning something in the Kitchen and my dad's playing his tank game.

All in all... Our Christmas festivities were all pretty limited to yesterday... When we opened our presents. But it was fun to hang out and fail at making coffee. Now we just need to play Eurorails and Jenga and then we're all good.

OOooooh. I found the ornaments. They're here... Gingerbread House Ornaments. I think they look adorable. Heee hee. The one we have is the "Townhouse" version. I think I like the Queen Anne Revival one best.

Mysteries and Books and... Psychics?

So Der Boifriend, his older sister Ro and I were walking around later tonight, just chilling and we decided we should go to B&N. So we did and we were walking around looking at journals for Rubles, my badminton buddy, some Star Wars books, I pointed out the fact that Battle Royale is the ORIGINAL Hunger Games, and is better written, pointed out a book for UP (which is in my top 10 of movies, along with The Hobbit, Bed-knobs and Broomsticks, and many classics from my childhood~).

Apparently, Ro loves amigurumi, which is new to me. I know she crochets and is learning how to knit, but I didn't know she liked something so Japanese. She's very stoically Irish and American (I blame homeschooling for all of her life), but I was pleasantly surprised. BIRTHDAY PRESENT IDEA~

So we were looking around and I found a plushie version of Bilbo Baggins. Complete with fuzzy feet, his red coat and a little scarf. And Sting. Which is a necessity. But no Gandalf, which made me sad on many levels (I was planning to buy him for Der Boifriend, but since there was none and they probably won't get a shipment before Christmas I decided against waiting and bought him something else. HAHAHA I'm not telling my love~) (<= He reads all of my posts.)

Anyways so we were bored and were walking around and Ro and I decided to go to the mystery section of the store and flip all the books around so you saw the pages and not the spines.

And I got a picture!

Sorry Barnes and Noble clerks!

It took us about five minutes of furiously turning them around, one by one so that they were still in order. It was really fun actually. Now I know why being a deviant is so desirable... it's quite thrilling doing things you're not allowed to do normally.

Anyways that's basically all I did today. I slept in until noon, watched TV while I was painting my mom's Christmas presents, and then played Battleship over facebook chat with Der Boifriend.

And it was really funny too. We wrote the 10 by 10 grid on a piece of paper, one for each of us, and began to play. I beat the crap out of him. It wasn't really a competition. I hit 17 of my 27 tries. And most of my tries were next to the ships. He hit 10 of 27.

This just adds to the fact that he thinks that I'm psychic.

I finish everybody's sentences, I know exactly what they're thinking and say it out loud, I tend to be very lucky with games like this (card and board games), I have dreams where the dream comes true and so on and so forth. So once I was bored and chatting with him and Bean online and took a psychic test.

My result was (while I was actually trying) was usually somewhere close to 65%. And the probability of it was close to 30%. That added it on to. Bean was thoroughly convinced that I'm psychic. I tell him there are none but whatever.

Speaking of which, Bean's a funny nickname isn't it? He wanted to be Bane... like the character from The Dark Knight. So while he, Der Boifriend and I were chatting online (which we do quite often until the wee hours of the morning and I fall asleep) he told us that. So Der Boifriend, being the weird Celtic boy he is spelled it Baen 'cause it looked cooler and you pronounce it the same.

And so me, who was very tired and didn't read it right decided to call him Bean.

Poor poor Bean... He doesn't even like the name... Oh well whatever. He's used to being the verbal punching bag of the group. For some reason he just sets himself up like that ALL THE TIME. Der Boifriend and I think that perhaps he does it on purpose...

Technical Difficulties Fixed!

Update 12/19 1:23pm I FIXED IT. I had to change the layout choice to something else but it looks just as cool!

I was changing the format for the layout (including a major overhaul of how everything functions) and I came across a bug in the system. I didn't add any custom CSS in it or anything... this annoys me slightly.

Anyways please excuse the boring blog layout... I'm waiting for somebody to get back to me to help fix it!

Licorice and Gummy Bears and... Finals

So on Sunday I made a gingerbread house. Or at least... I was going to. I looked around for a gingerbread house kit and NONE WAS TO BE FOUND. Except one for $10 but I'm not going to spend that on gingerbread that nobody eats. So instead I decided to make it out of graham crackers instead!

So I bought one of those store-brands (Like Kirkland) and just ASSUMED that the graham crackers were the size of the normal ones. A rectangle that you break into four other rectangles. Normal right?

NOPE.

Mine were only little squares that break into two rectangles. LAAAME. So I was forced to do more stacking than what was really necessary in order to build a frame to make the house. I was thinking I'd go for a Victorian style... but then I built it too wide at the base. It now looks more like a church... whatever. Makes sense. Gingerbread house... church... they both reference Christianity... Close enough for government work.

So from there I built a spire on the side (which just adds to the church look) and then VERY TENDERLY placed a roof on top.

You should really see the supports for the roof. I'm not joking... the thing is hovering in midair. And it leans downwards on one side.

Props to Der Boifriend for helping me hold that damn roof on straight.

I have learned... nothing. Other than the fact that I want to make a gingerbread house out of crackers again next year that looks like Falling Water. AKA this...

Falling Water House, Frank Lloyd Wright 1930 

Wouldn't that just make an awesome gingerbread house? I BET IT WOULD.

Anyways my favorite treats are licorice and gummy bears. Why? I love black licorice. Ooh no... my hipster is showing. But I love the flavor. It's much cooler than the strawberry flavored ones. And I'm very picky. Australian licorice is GREAT. Never eat the salted stuff.... t'is just bad.

So behind my church I glued two gummy bears face to face with royal icing. Der Boifriend tried to go in for a kiss but we're BOTH sick with DIFFERENT stuff... so it was only a peck on the cheek. Poor Boifriend. He hasn't been kissed on the lips in days. Sorry... but we're sick and I don't want it to last any longer.

Anyways my last final was today. Well... my two finals. One was a very interesting one and the other was take-home internet-is-okay-because-nobody-knows-the-answers-anyway type of test. The interesting one was something like this.

You can either do 50 multiple choice questions (my route), write 2 essays including all this stuff in order for it to incorporate the whole semester's worth of information into one test, or 30 multiple choice questions and 1 essay.

I don't like writing essays but my friend 'Zu does. Apparently... She and I have the same teacher so I tutored her on all the basics of being prepared for this stuff. Not that I'm prepared. But I am good at forcing others to do so. So we gathered at my house and I lent her the book that she needed to pull quotes from (she didn't even have hers for the midterm poor soul...) and started outlining the basic concepts and some information for 4 of the 6 essay possibilities.

See my way of thinking is this. Multiple choice are great for people who don't feel like explaining themselves. They just mark the answer and it's either right or wrong. Essays are great for people who don't know all the details but can concisely develop a concept into an argument in five seconds. Me... I usually go for the first one. It's also much faster so I have more time to doodle in the margins of the Scantron.

Which I've been meaning to say...

(At least for my teacher) I can doodle on the unused areas of the Scantron... even those areas made for bubbling in the answers, and I DON'T GET POINTS OFF.

So I challenge thee... try that on a low-point quiz one day and see if it works for everybody... It might become a fad...

The Shire, The Rain and... Clarinets?

This is what the sky of my hometown looks like after the rain.

THE HOBBIT WAS SO VERY GOOD.

The cinematography: perfect.

The soundtrack: perfect.

The link between the soundtrack from the rest of the LOTR and Hobbit: UNEXPECTED AND LOVELY

The plot: (as related to me through 'Der Boyfriend') Aligns well with book.

The length: For midnight it might be hard without caffeine or sufficient sleep. Any other time would be perfect.

The actors/actresses: PERFECT~ (Cumberbatch~ Though you only see a hazy image of him not his whole beautiful form yet. And MARTIN FREEMAN WAS PERFECT~ Though in the later to come movies their meeting (s) will be a SHERLOCK REUNION PARTY~~~~~) (You should see me right now... I'm fan-girling as I write this... Deer Lawd what have I come to?)

Anyways it's been raining on and off. And it rained after the Hobbit. So what did "Der Boifriend" an his brothers decide to do? RUN THROUGH IT.  Sorry to say that I was smart and had an umbrella. The Russian caps (look like this) I carried back to the car for safe keeping.

We watched it on Friday morning. It is Saturday night and my hiking boots I wore because they have good arch support are STILL drying. I was going to wear my rain boots, but because of the eminent line that we thought would be outside I decided not to wear them. I should have. My jeans were soaked from knee down afterwards. I tried to hold an umbrella, three Rooskie caps and run after the boys on the way back.

Yup didn't work.

It was fun though.

Anyways... Michaels sells (or at least they did before they ran out) Gingerbread houses. And on Sunday (tomorrow) I'm going to hang out with "Der Boifriend" and some other peeps and build Gingerbread houses. But because my word sold out of them and I'm LAZY at nine at night I decided I'd buy graham crackers instead. I'm planning on making a house that's very Victorian inspired. And I have to do a little turret-tower... though how it's going to actually get done I have no clue.

I will do my best though! If it turns out well I'll post pictures. Now that I have the cord for my camera I should be able to get my phone's pictures off of it faster than I did before... hahahahahaha.... (I failed...)

Anyways... I have almost 400 page-views. THANKS ALL~

Though I might just change the layout... AGAIN.

Hahahaha... don't get mad at me. I'm one of the most indecisive people you'll ever see... or read her rants about.

Anyways. I should rant some more. It's very relaxing.

I've been meaning to start a page entitled "A Million and One Ways to Keep a Healthy Level of Insanity". I think I'd be good at it. And to let you know I typed that normally and went back to capitalize things. I make too many typos for the capitalization of random letters to be ACCURATE.

Unlike one of my friends I shall call Zu (Like Zoo...) It's the last two letters of her name... and since saying the first half sounded too much like her twin sister's I decided to make a distinction between them.

Anyways they finished this Type-To-Learn thing on our elementary's computers MONTHS ahead of the cut-of line for finishing a certain number of them. They were so good we had them finish OURS because after level nine... it was too much of a gap to be possible for normal human fingers.

Especially mine. I'm a clarinetist. I do not finger a violin at mach 4 and run a bow over strings at mach 2. I play at max mach 1... and my fingerings are methodical and easy. Unlike flutists.

Which I must say they seem like they have a hard time. Their fingers are always going in different directions. In my old elementary, in 3rd grade you had to chose either strings or vocal music. In 4th we got to chose between vocal, stringed and now wind instruments. We had 21 flutes... 13 trumpets and 5 clarinets.

In sixth grade we had 3 flutes, 1 trumpet, 2 trombone players who failed, 1 bassoonist and 5 clarinetists.

And 4 of those clarinets were the same.