Ellie

Yet more Xeno stuff!

2009-12-17T03:18:33Z

OK! I'm going to be out from Friday, December 18 until January 4, but I wanted to set up the Xeno plot ideas so you could all get a head start on it. Go write a vignette about your character's life over the last five years, at least! I want to read stuff!

I posted the information on the old XenogearsMUCK LiveJournal community as it seems like the best centralized place for it.

Yes, I will write stuff for Dirah and Margie, who are my most likely candidates for this plot~.

NOSTALGIA, NOSTALGIA EVERYWHERE

2009-12-08T03:46:57Z

All righty, XenoMUCKers! Does mid/late January work? I want to avoid the holiday rush. (Also, I'm going on vacation for 2 weeks, so no one's allowed to RP over Christmas. NYAAAAAAAAAH.)

That'll give me time to write up a little summary, too. Nothing much, just a more detailed explanation of how the whole NOSTALGIA RP might go. And maybe we can do a trial run with a few people to make sure the concept actually works in practice before we get the whole boatload of people in on it.

The game's up and running anyway! I'll get the address to you all soon.

In other news: I am going to be away on vacation from December 19-January 3! I MUST GET IN ROLEPLAY BEFORE THEN. MUST.

OF ANY SORT.

Xenogears Anniversary Thoughts!

2009-11-30T03:07:41Z

Today I suffered a massive nostalgia blast. So I am scheming! Scheming!

I really would like to do something nostalgic for the 10th year anniversary of XenogearsMUCK. Although, er, it's already November, I have a vacation coming up in a couple weeks, and I know a few folks who are crazy busy right now. So this is going to be an 11th year anniversary, I guess.

But! If we have enough people to do something, then we might be able to do something in January or February. And it seems like we may have some interest from most or all of the people who were in the memorial plot.

* A friend has kindly offered to host a backup of XenogearsMUCK. Yes, you heard that right--Not the MUSH, which we all know and love--but the MUCK. This is intentional. This is for NOSTALGIA. Early-era, like-it-was-10-years-ago nostalgia. Brain-burning, "How did I ever like this?" nostalgia.

* I have no idea what to do for a plot. Random ideas have been pitched, such as: "5 or 10 years in the future, so everyone can show how everyone's characters turned out." OR "Set it back in 2000-era XenogearsMUCK, when all we did was have Solaris and the Ygg fight, and continue to have Solaris and the Ygg fight because... nostalgia!!!" The latter sounds kind of embarrassing. The former idea includes a high chance of tiny Fatimas running around, so I have an obvious bias.

* No idea what to do for the actual EVENT, but it should probably be a bit smaller than the wedding plot. Because we barely got through that, and it took us months--on LJ--to finish it. Nostalgia clearly isn't good for that long a plot.

Any ideas are welcome! I'll see what I can come up with, too. This was all dropped on my lap rather abruptly.

EDIT: Okay, after a day's hard plotting, here is what four people have managed to join together and think up:

It's set sometime in the future, 5 or 10 years or so. Everyone on the Ygg (since we only seem to have Yggers or people friendly to them left) is having a reunion ICly. They get together and reminisce about all the adventures we had on XenoMUCK.

We have STORYTIME OF FORMER ADVENTURES and can do several things:
* Do mini-reenactments of old plots
* Totally exaggerate/lie/make up stuff/"creatively retell" old plots as if they happened in a less embarrassing way
* Otherwise totally play with old ideas, and have half the scenes be roleplaying retellings of old things we did before, and half of it be the present time, where we're all older and joking around.

I am going to have to put some serious thought into how to make it work, because it sounds REALLY HARD, but lemme think.

Does it sound like an idea? c.c

It's some number of years in the future, and everyone is invited to Fatima Castle for a reunion. Then they get to reminiscing about old crazy stuff we did. The pattern goes:

1. Someone in the "present time" starts a story: "Hey, remember back when..."
2. We go into STORY MODE. We all know who we're playing--Either temps or our own charas--and we start right in the action part of whatever classic scene we were in.
3. We pose normally, as if we were then and there.
4. But at any point, you have the right to go WAIT NO THATS NOT HOW IT HAPPENED and totally change the scene--what's going on, who's in it, whatever--to what you remember.
5. Then we have to continue RPing from the "new" perspective, until someone else changes it.

And if you weren't there or don't remember it, who cares? MAKE UP STUFF.

All stories are kept short, at only a few rounds per story.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

2009-11-28T05:14:30Z

Oh shoot!

Sirus just pointed out that XenogearsMUCK was founded in early 1999.

So we, like, totally missed the 10 year anniversary.

Aughghghg, now I have to do *something* nostalgic...

Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T16:10:30Z

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

My one goal this break is to write. I don't think I've gotten any meaningful writing done for about two months. And this is *tragic*. I have a silly 4-story novel I've been working on for a while, and I'm on the last part. And even though the last story should really be the easiest to write, I took a little itty-bitty break after finishing #3 which has now drawn out into two months of complete writing ennui.

So! Today and tomorrow! No videogames, no internet, no chatting. Just sitting on my rear and writing. And if it's complete crap, that's fine. I'm just going to spend another year editing it, anyway, so what does it matter?

And, er, I guess I have to go down to the parents' house mid-afternoon today. All the more reason go start writing once I finish this soda.

Hopefully I'll actually get something done~

Cinnamon Rolls

2009-11-15T16:43:01Z

THESE CINNAMON ROLLS

MAKE THEM

THEY ARE TO DIE FOR

You don't need a bread machine--The first comment has a decent explanation on how to do it by hand. Ignore most of the other comments, because they are all insane--You don't need less cinnamon, and the person who suggested making double the icing has to be a lunatic or something, because one batch of icing made so much that I can barely find my rolls under the tide.

1. I absolutely couldn't get the yeast to proof with milk. Apparently it's possible, but not easy? Oh well. Here's what I did:

* Instead of using 1 cup milk, I measured out 3/4 cup milk and 1/4 cup warm water.
* I also measured out the sugar in advance--All 1/2 cup of it.
* I mixed the 1/4 cup warm water and 1tsp of sugar (right out of the 1/2 cup!), plus a full 7g package of yeast.
* I waited somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes for the yeast to proof--when it foamed up real high I knew it was good to go!
* I dumped the 3/4 cup milk and the rest of the 1/2 cup of sugar into the margarine mixture instead, then dumped the margarine mixture and yeast mixture separately into the flour.

2. The dough totally didn't look like it was rising when I left it out for an hour. Honestly, I thought I had broken it. But it was snowing like a bitch and I was determined to try, so I went ahead and made the filling and such. I'm glad I did, because... I don't know, maybe they're slow-rising? After I put it in the fridge overnight (see #4) they had risen to fill out the entire pan.

3. The old "use dental floss to cut off cinnamon rolls" trick is super easy. My rolls are all still kind of dumb looking, but who cares? I'm eating them, not admiring them.

4. After I had the 12 rolls in my 9x13 pan, I threw plastic wrap over them and put 'em in the fridge overnight. This morning I got up, popped 'em in the oven, made the icing while I waited, and now am gorging myself on wonderful cinnamon rolls <3

Seriously, they're fantastic. Make them.

Cooking adventures!

2009-11-14T22:19:09Z

Oh no! I bought a full package of bread flour, not realizing that I had a 90% full one still in the cupboard! I'm making cinnamon rolls right now, which is why I bought the stuff in the first place, but now I have to come up with another project. Or three.

Oh well. I only started playing around with the grand world of yeast-risen breads last year. I guess this is a sign that this is the winter I'm going to get good at them. Or eat a lot of bread. Or break my wrists from too much kneading. Either way.

For whatever reason, I've been in one hell of a cooking mood lately. I haven't done any creative writing (outside of RPing) for about two months--Which is horrifying, because I was, until that point, being a very good girl about submitting things to agents--and now I can't bring myself to do anything at all. No writing. None.

No translating, either. My poor translation blog lies dormant.

Instead, I'm cooking. Everything. Made cupcakes (I never do cupcakes) and a bunch of meals I've never done before. Made the most fantastic twice baked potatoes last week, and some so-so breaded-sausage patty things, I'm trying a new but easy slow cooker recipe this week, did the homemade pizza thing and tried some new stuff... I'm thinking about baking most of my Christmas gifts this year, and so I'm looking through some awesome looking recipes, while trying to find something for my 100% dairy-and-dairy-derivative-free friend.

I suppose it's good to be productive, but it's not necessarily the normal way I like to be productive.

A collection of random nonsense

2009-11-07T21:48:47Z

The weather has been so weird here lately. Right before Halloween we got a foot and a half of snow in a single day--I got a day and a half off of work, which was nice, but it was absolutely insane. Snowed in. In October.

This week, meanwhile, it got back up into the 70s. I guess I'm not complaining, but it's still weird as heck.

Otherwise, it's been quiet. Work isn't trying to murder me anymore, so I've been trying to catch up on games (especially now that I have a TV that my Xbox can connect to again.) I've been totally sapped of any urge to do creative writing lately, but I'm hoping that'll come back soon.

In the meantime: Remilia's Homecoming! Monday! I am stupidly excited to have Remi get to do something again. Got a small crowd together for it (though we'll see how well that pans out), so hopefully it'll be fun~

Random Touhou/RP Stuff

2009-11-05T14:55:11Z

First off, something sylvri2k found: One of the catchiest Touhou videos I've seen in a while. With tons of beautifully done folks from Remi's game all the way up to Tenshi. It's gorgeous, and I can't stop watching it.

Speaking of Remilia!

Remilia's been in a plot in the Grand Line for nearly 2 months now. It was a lot of fun, but I tend to be a very narrow-minded RPer. While I finished up some old, unfinished scenes, I otherwise tried to be available for plot-related RP more or less exclusively. That's a problem! I've barely chatted with anyone else on Gate for ages.

In the last few weeks, the plot's petered out without finishing. Which is really too bad--there wasn't much left to do, but a combination of unfortunate real life/online events kind of made the bottom drop out. It's not a big deal, it's just disappointing.

So now, while I'm glad to bring Remi back home (and free to RP with everyone/everything again), her Huge Dramatic Homecoming doesn't really have the same punch when Tenshi and I had to construct an elaborate way to cop out of ever talking about how the plot ended. c.c;

Anyway~ Hopefully I can get Remi back in to the swing of things.

Some days

2009-10-30T13:37:44Z

Sometimes you just wake up knowing that you're going to have a bad day.

When your cat jumps on you at 4 in the morning and throws up on you, it is one of those days.

AUGUGGHG

2009-10-28T17:49:10Z

SNOW DAY

IN OCTOBER

Jesus, it's not even Halloween yet! And yet 5 friggin inches have fallen since I got in to work. And now I get to drive home. Yes, hurray, going home early is nice, except it's probably going to take me FOREVER to get home, and it's slick and nasty and auggghghhghg

I HATE SNOW

The past is a treasure box of horrors

2009-10-28T00:37:15Z

Friggin' nostalgia!

It's really just a vicious circle. I remember something fondly from years past, I go dig it up, and I'm horrified by what I find. Last night was pretty classic: Yesterday Geocities closed down. I have a few copies of old websites I worked on, so I dug 'em up. Old sites I had as a high schooler, mostly--Lots of weird stuff, some RPing things, the original XenoMUCK.

And oh horror of horrors, it was pretty horrible. Not the web design or anything--I don't care about that--I care about the CONTENT. The things I thought were amusing. The things I wrote. My excessive and unnecessary use of emoticons ^o^ in the middle of sentences! ^.^ When they're not needed! \^o^/

And because I'm a masochist, I read some old webpages, and ended up reading some old logs, and augggggghh

aughhhhhhhhhhhhhh

So yeah. Whenever I go down merry old memory lane, I end up wishing I could pretend I never existed before 2006. Why was everything I wrote and did and enjoyed so dumb? c.c

Work, work

2009-10-21T23:56:37Z

Oh dear, I've been MIA and quiet and vaguely antisocial lately! I'm sorry, everyone!

I've had just about the worst two weeks ever at work--Not because anything bad is going on, just crazy. Crazy crazy. Batshit crazy. I'm on the most stressful, high paced project I've been on since I got here, and while it's not going badly, it's definitely driving me insane.

So! I'll be, like, quiet and missing and not too social until like... Next week? Around Tuesday or Wednesday? Maybe then this particular project will stop TRYING TO MURDER ME.

Noooo, my TV

2009-10-15T04:07:51Z

Man, my TV's been in the shop for, oh... About a week and a half now? The person I took it to was a certified Samsung repairman who's apparently crazy popular. He wasn't even able to look at my TV until now.

He looked at it today, and apparently it has a fried circuit board. He called it "normal wear and tear," which is really just horrifying. The thing is one year, one month old. It shouldn't have "wear and tear" enough to STOP WORKING.

I'm really just incredibly peeved. A brand new TV shouldn't break so easily. I guess there might have been a power surge or something? But the TV has always been plugged into a really hardcore powerstrip, and I thought that'd more or less protect it.

Oh well. I suppose I just won't buy another Samsung. z.z Hopefully it won't break again in another year.

But yay, I'll be able to play my Xbox again!

Word dorkiness!

2009-10-10T16:08:54Z

Well, damn. It's snowing. I have a ton of errands to do today, which a meager half-inch of snow should not keep me from. But snow makes me grumpy. Maybe I'll wait until tomorrow. z.z

In the meantime! I work in an office full of writers and editors, so people forward along dorky word-related announcements all the time. And now you get to join in the dorky editor-joy, too!

Save the Words! A ton of words that are dying out from lack of use. The site will drive you right out of your mind if you don't immediately turn the sound off, but you can otherwise sign up to save your favorite words.

I haven't adopted anything, because I'm a lazy bum and hate registering for sites, but just looking through all the words is fun~

Well, that... that's unnatural.

2009-10-07T02:47:30Z

So, um. I've had my car two years now. And so I get a happy email from the place that has been servicing my shiny, beautiful car.

This email is addressed to my car.

It... it's weird.

Here, just look at it:

Dear Civic,

"Happy Anniversary" from your friends at [Gonna be paranoid and blank out the location]!

I hope you and Elizabeth are getting along well and that Elizabeth is taking good care of you. I hope Elizabeth thinks you are just as beautiful as the day you met. If you need to put a little spark back in your relationship, stop in for a full-day body treatment. We will give you a sudsy shampoo inside and out and steam clean under your hood. We follow with a full body wax, a tire shine, and finish with a mist of perfume. All for $199.

Have Elizabeth give us a call to schedule an appointment. We will give you a complimentary check-up while you are here, too!

I hope you and your owner have an excellent day!

CREEPY

I think they want me to go on a date with my car.

Clearly I had a lot of free time

2009-09-30T02:22:27Z

Oh, right. I have some compulsive need to make log archives. I used to mooch free Web space off of people to dump my logs on, but alas, I have no such thing now. (And really, all things considered, am not interested anymore, anyway.)

And since Gate has an LJ-based log archive, I figured I'd swipe the idea and make a personal one. This way, at least, if I ever RP anything interesting, and/or grow a backbone and can bear to have the general public look upon my scenes, I'll already have stuff formatted. Ah ha ha.

Oh well. Remilia logs here: frillyvampire

They're friends locked, because I fear judgment. Also, they are retarded. My powerful love of incredibly insane and dumb scenes corrupts even the mightiest of little vampires.

Friggin' TV

2009-09-28T04:30:51Z

Man, my TV is busted. :( It's a small flat-screen Samsung that's just about one year old, and the picture's broken--Whenever I turn it on, the sound clicks on, but roughly 9 times out of 10 the image won't. It's an incredible pain in the ass because it looks fine when it's working. The picture just won't turn on most of the time.

The stupid thing's one-year warranty ran out a month ago. Hurray! And I bought it from Circuit City, which went out of business last December, so... I guess I'm glad I didn't get an in-store warranty, but still.

It's a friggin' Samsung. I kind of though they'd wait longer than a year to start konking out.

Anyway, it's annoying! I haven't been watching a lot of TV or playing a lot of games lately, but the very idea that I *can't* play games, even if I want to, is pissing me off.

All the stories are true

2009-09-26T17:58:37Z

After I overheard a bunch of people singing the praises of Scribblenauts, I went out and bought it.

It is adorable. Holy crap.

I'm not very good at puzzle games, and I often don't really have the patience for them. But with this game I don't really care--I just keep making dumb stuff and setting it off everywhere. I'm hardly even playing the game like I'm supposed to. I'm just making things.

Not that I've made anything super-amazing yet, but still. Good times.

And when it actually does come to beating the stages, I mostly just murder everything hostile. I think I'm going to have to learn to be more subtle. c.c I'm sure there are better ways to deal with difficult situations than dropping sharks and vampires on everything.

You're kidding me

2009-09-22T13:53:35Z

Uh-bwah

THERE'S A WINTER STORM WATCH TONIGHT!?

IN SEPTEMBER

Oh man, I need to move back to the west coast. :|

EDIT: So, uh. It's snowing. Not a lot--Only an inch is supposed to fall, and it's supposed to melt almost immediately. The roads are supposed to be covered in a rain/snow slush tomorrow.

I'm chatting with a Russian who translates Touhou games and chats with me occasionally. He lives in, and I quote "a plain in the middle of Siberia" and he just told me "Wow, it's really early for snow, even for us."

COLORADO, YOU SUCK

The onslaught of the winter blues

2009-09-20T03:55:53Z

Oh no! On Monday, the low is going to dip to the high 30s! Jesus, it's only September. We can't have near-freezing weather yet.

Except, honestly, this happens all the time in Colorado. It can snow between September and May, and there really isn't an autumn or a spring. For example, "autumn" is the one-month period where the weather swerves madly between the 80s and 40s. By October it's cold and snowy, and the weather stays that low until May.

And I mention this all because it *depresses* me.

I have discovered that I really do seem to have a sort of seasonal depression. Except, instead of being distraught about sunlight, I just hate snow SO VERY MUCH that every time the weather starts to cool I get depressed.

And god, there shouldn't be any surprise why. I live a mere 15 minutes from work. But if more than an inch falls, it can take twice that to commute. If we get anything sizable at all, it can take hours. Last April there was a series of storms that took me 3+ hours to navigate home through. During one, people were stopping on the road in terror, spinning out on the side of the road, getting stuck every few feet...

I hate snow. I hate hate hate hate HATE snow. I know how to drive in it. But it's such a pain in the ass to travel in, and people here are so *DUMB* about snow that I hardly go outside once the snowy season starts--I don't want to travel in the snow, I don't want to deal with other drivers, I don't want to get stuck because other people are flipping their SUVs over. So I stay at home, bake a lot, and end up being grumpy until May.

I have no business whatsoever living in Colorado. But augh. It's going to hit the 30s on Monday, and I am sad.

Busy busy busy

2009-09-16T02:59:35Z

Argh, I am way too busy lately! Work is going to murder me. I normally work at an insane pace, and I never have *too* very much of a backlog. But the last couple of weeks have been crazy. I am on one huge, crazy project that is full of insane amounts of Angst and Drama and Stress. And in the meantime, I still have all these other rush things to do.

Because that's what I do at work! I do all the things that have to be done IMMEDIATELY. When there are half a dozen of these, suddenly nothing else gets done.

Weeks of being crazy-busy aren't so bad, but I haven't felt like doing anything creative and fun when I get home, so I haven't really been doing anything at all. And when I'm not getting fun stuff done at home, I am generally not in a good mood. :|

Ah well. I'm in a mini-plot on GateMUSH tomorrow, so hopefully that will be enough chipper fun to lure me out of this lull.

At least my kitty is all right. Because everyone wants to hear about my thirteen year old insane cat. He is eating and happy and healthy again. He still sounds a bit hoarse and raw when he meows, which worries me, and he hasn't been very playful. Hopefully he'll be back to his old self soon, because it's already been a week since the dental work. It was just a cleaning! :| You're supposed to be OK now! You were supposed to be better 6 days ago!

Kitty adventures!

2009-09-09T00:21:16Z

My cat got more dental work today!

My poor cat. He has chronic gingivitis, apparently. He has the absolute worst teeth of any cat I've ever owned. When he was about 8 or 9 (back when I was in university) one of his teeth just fell out of his jaw. Terrifying. He ended up getting like 3 teeth pulled. Then, last year, he ended up having really major surgery to remove about 7 teeth.

And now he had to go in for more dental work. They gave his teeth a good clean and removed a couple more teeth. The poor thing's gonna run out of teeth at this rate!

It's absolutely awful. I have one other cat, 16 years old, who is brutally mean but is also, apparently, immortal. She has no health problems (except arthritis) and perfect teeth. And yet my precious fluffball, the cutest little Himalayan in the world, who hops on my face when I wake up and spends the rest of his day on my lap, is 13 and losing all his frigging teeth.

At least he's healthy otherwise. Fat, but healthy.

Anyway, the poor thing is still kind of sleepy, so he's stumbling around. Being the crazy cat mother I am, I am now required to spend the next hour or so doting on him, which means I wont sign online early enough to do anything. Sorry, people on GateMUSH!

EDIT: Or maybe he'll just *hide*. Well, so much for doting. :(

EDIT EDIT: Oh no, he won't eat and he keeps snorting. His nose sounds stopped up or something, since he makes really weird noises when purring. And I think he's purring because he's upset, not because I'm petting him. Wahhhh, I hope he's better tomorrow.

EDIT EDIT EDIT: Kitty's OK today! :D Had to buy him some better wet food before he started eating anything, though. Now hopefully he'll recover nicely~

A plea

2009-09-06T20:13:16Z

Dear History Channel:

I know that it's the only arguably historical thing you show anymore, but please. Please stop showing these insane Nostradamus conspiracy theory weekend marathons.

Please.

They're dumb.

Babble babble babble

2009-09-05T17:39:58Z

Okay, so, this was a hell of a week. Work was absolutely insane for about half of it. I'm on one super-massive project right now, and yet I'm still responsible for all the DROP EVERYTHING panic requests from my normal work, so I spent most of this week just frantically trying to respond to everything. So I kept coming home half dead, and sleeping like the dead or not sleeping at all.

All this maybe-not-sleeping has bloomed into a persistent low-grade headache, which has been bugging me since midday yesterday. Whee!

Otherwise, this week was just kind of annoying. There's been a few disappointments, a few obnoxious things, and I've had *no* energy for anything fun.

So, in short: WHINE WHINE WHINE

Argh, and I just tried to play a bit of Touhou: UFO, since I haven't had a chance to play it until now. Goodness, the game is terrible. And dumb. Extremely dumb. I'm going back to Hisou Tensoku. z.z