Miscellaneous creatures

01:14 pm - Free Obama Buttons!
...every 10,000 miles. =};-3

http://pol.moveon.org/obamabuttons/?id=-4441142-KBSyNDx

July 18th, 2008

07:01 pm - ComicCon Update: Boycott Manchester Grand Hyatt!
If you are coming to ComicCon and staying at the Grand Manchester Hyatt, you need to be warned. Doug Manchester, owner of the hotel, contributed $125K to support Prop 8, the "save marriage" bullshit coming up to vote this November.

Naturally, if already booked there, it's far too late to do anything about finding replacement lodgings, but you can still have an effect. You do this, as suggested by GirlAMatic.com editor Lisa Jonte (

arcana_j):

If you are boycotting the Hyatt:

1. Drink or eat anywhere other than the Hyatt
2. Save your bar tab(s) & receipts.
3. Scan or photo your tab with the total amount spent. (Include tips and food.)
4. email it to me lrjonte at gmail dot com

I will post the convention total on a public website."

And if already stuck staying there, I add the following:

5. No room service, pay-per-view, or other hotel amenities that aren't already free.
6. For the ones that ARE free, abuse the crap out of 'em. Extra towels & linens, run all your lights and AC all day long, grab stuff off the housekeeping carts (soap, shampoo, sewing kits, and the like) & give 'em to a battered women shelter in the area. Reduce the profit margin.
7. Don't mistreat or under tip the staff. Over tip, even. They're not the enemy, their boss is. Get 'em on your side. And don't mess with the hotel, they have your contact information.
8. After the con is over, be sure to compliment any staff who treated you well on comment cards, but state how you will NOT be going back to the hotel and why.

Thanks go out to

divalea for pointing this out.

(4 comments | Leave a comment)

05:39 pm - Witch Hazel:
Dead and gone, as of about an hour ago, more or less.

I made the decision to euthanize earlier today, when it became apparent he had lost all remaining interest in food and water for the last day, even junk food which he loved so much. He had began to behave deliriously, as though beginning to lose his mind from the wasting and hunger and thirst.

Thankfully, the affair went peacefully. He's gone now. He and his late brother were my first rats, and my first pets period in a long long time. As with his brother, it will likely be a long time before my grief feels sufficiently finished and closed on the subject.

It's July 18th, he was less than 3 months away from his third birthday. Incidentally, I'm 26 years old today. My birthday will have a new and deeper meaning to it from now until the end of days.

Tags: d

kymri

01:13 pm - Once bitten, twice shy...
( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )

Tags: games, omnomnom, shameless

07:22 am
I'm thinking of squirreling away a little over a grand of my next student aid check and using it to get a license/training/equipment in medical transcription. The advantage I'm hoping for is the ability to work from home a relatively liquid number of hours. I have concerns about whether or not this would be a good investment, but rational concern and judgement is giving way to desperate hope now that I have a broken car and no other realistic job prospects.

07:16 am
My car's dead, probably permanently. The radiator leaks like a sieve, one of the tires is blown without a spare, and to add insult to injury, it happened on the same day I just sunk nearly fifty bucks into filling up the gas tank.

In light of my ever-precarious financial situation and my rat's ailing health, this has not been a good month for me so far. Call me privileged if you may, but I've never -not- had a car to use. My parents were white enough to find a junker for me to use when I was 15, and when I was 16 I moved up to the junker I've been using ever since until yesterday.

I've never had to learn how to get around without one, and I have concerns about my ability to handle being around all the shmucks on the bus -and- on some days I doubt my ability to walk more than a few yards without my back either killing me or at least making me want to kill someone else.

At least I don't have an obligation to renew my insurance. It was due later this month and I couldn't really afford it anyway.

(1 comment | Leave a comment)

11:03 am - Househunting
Over the past years I've been looking at quite a few options when it comes to finding a new house. It's not easy, and luckily there's no rush since I have a shared apartment right now, but still it's nice to have a place of your own. Sadly I need to win the lottery first or marry a rich widow before I have decent options.

Leiden? With current budget I end up on the third or fourth floor of a 1960's flat without elevator, or at the outskirts of town. Or in a 24 m2 studio.
Schiedam? Affordable apartments, linked to Rotterdam by metro and rail. Too far down south though for my current job.
Zoetermeer? Affordable apartments, linked to The Hague by bus and rail. Little closer to work than Schiedam, but still tricky because of nearby highway traffic bottlenecks.
Hilversum? Bit of both: same old flats like Leiden and also big bottlenecks (A1) from there to Amsterdam
Alphen aan de Rijn? Affordable apartments, but all at the very edge of town, far away from the access to the motorways.
Amsterdam Zuidoost - Bijlmer region? Affordable apartments, close to work but has a bad reputation (crime, deterioration, high unemployment rate). City is trying to invest in everything that helps to improve the area, but word is you still don't want to be out after dark.

So everything has its pros and cons. Then this week I heard some good stories about another part of Amsterdam Zuidoost. Motorway nearby, close to work, affordable, nice area, lake, hospital nearby, subway to city center nearby. Think I'll keep an eye on the area from now on. Which area? Gein/Gaasperdam. See below for visual reference. CLICK TWICE to get the full picture.

Any thoughts?
Current Mood:

curious

(7 comments | Leave a comment)

July 17th, 2008

bikerwalla

09:38 pm

OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

Also. please make my egg hatch. I'd click on it myself, but well, you know.

(3 comments | Leave a comment)

andrian6

05:49 pm - Riot Fail!
( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )

kymri

09:28 am - Rembered with pride, rather than shame
( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )
Current Mood:

lethargic

Tags: history, media, torture

ayrn

12:10 am
HA HA! I got my first F and it was totally in Grad School.
That Ethnomusicology class? Yeah, I sucked that out loud big style.

SO maybe I lose my TAship, maybe I get put on academic probation, maybe I even get kicked out of grad school...but I'm still at a 3.6 so my chances of the above are approximately 40%, 20% and .01%, respectively. My understanding is you don't have any bad crap happen to you unless you drop below a 3.5, but I've also heard that a single F puts you on probation. This was, of course, outside the realm of TFT curriculum and I may have some wiggling room, but hey, we'll see how badly I fucked myself.

At the end of the day, it's somewhat liberating to get the F of Failure. I know for damn sure one thing I will never be able to do is please a certain professor, nor will I be able to function in a field that is decidedly far from my understanding.

Gonna be a fun ride!

-C

EDIT: I'm not fucked! 3.0 is the cutoff for shit going down. With that I'm back to LA. PEAS.

July 16th, 2008

10:27 pm - Bunny rescue fund in need of donations

A sweet bunny could really use a little help, no matter how small. Read her story by clicking on the image.

(3 comments | Leave a comment)

12:10 pm
Witch Hazel (The 'big baby' shown an update or two down from this one) is probably going to die within the next couple of days. He is very old. It would be proper to say that I could not have possibly expected a more happy, long-lived friend than the nearly 3 years he has spent with me. But it still hurts a lot to see his deteriorating little sleepy body and know that he will not be alive with me much longer.

It's like there's a long period of time where a rat is 'just old', and then when the dying happens, it just comes on so rapidly. It felt like only a week ago he was still energetic enough and loved to stick his face into places it didn't belong, and in a matter of days he's wasted away so much...he seems to breathe with much more difficulty..he prefers to just sleep, and still loves to be touched and cuddled though he has not enough energy to reciprocate much of that affection in kind.

The true moment of broken feelings and gibbery bawling came this morning, when I realized he had lost most if not all interest in food and water, and will not eat any more treats from me, though he will take them and keep them close to him. Even writing about it now makes my throat close up with sorrow. It is this lack of interest in the vitalities of life which now convinces me that , provided they don't come back, means it won't be long before he is gone.

You ever feel like you have a sorrow that will never end? There's a certain higher order of reasoning that tells you it will. That in time, your spirits will feel a little better. But in times like this, it's really hard to heed that reasoning. My rats are my life.

July 15th, 2008

ayrn

12:26 am
Things are really good.

I spent the weekend driving the circuit from Denver to Gunnison, Gunnison to Trinidad, Trinidad to Colorado Springs and then Denver afterward, meeting up with super-important people along the way. I'm sad I didn't get to see everyone, but the untold multitudes of awesome folks did me a thousand worlds of good. I feel like I got some important perspective on who I've been, and in the face of all these extremely talented people I'll be going back to, I've needed to pull out some stuff that makes me feel like a really super-cool person.
Which I totally am, as I realize.

I mean, who the hell else becomes possessed by the spirit of Styx during a drive back from Crested Butte at 11pm after a ridiculous drunken wedding reception, wildly deconstructing and then explicating the delicate poetry of their master work, "Come Sail Away," all the while blasting mad vocal skillz to a party of erstwhile unsuspecting yet totally lol'ing BARELY ACQUAINTED traveling companions?

Or meets a dude in a parking lot of an Old Chicago to play with a bullwhip, much to the cheering entertainment of dinner patrons? That was lollable.

I drove about 14 hours in three days for the sake of spending a few short hours catching up with some of the most important people in my life, and let me tell you, not a second was wasted. Even the ones during those dirty great plains in southeastern Colorado between Trinidad and Denver where it's just flat and ARGH. Also I was playing "Toy Soldier" by Britney way more than anyone is allowed to. I was pulled over outside of Pryor for it, actually, but I told them I had a license to ill and they let me off with a warning. I had to recite the entirety of "Rapper's Delight" though.

All told, I spent a lot of time these last couple weeks asking myself big stupid questions, like what the hell is in LA for me, what do I feel I could get from sticking around, what direction am I really heading, have I wasted the last two years, blah de blah de blah. I've come to the conclusion that there are an unexpectedly large amount of people who love me for my little eccentricities and WOULDN'T HAVE ME ANY OTHER WAY, chewing over past glories for hours with smiles and sunshine. SO the past is in good shape.
I'm at home at the moment, chilling with a little gin and some Red Dwarf. Today I woke up in the best possible way with someone very very special to me, drove to meet perhaps my favorite acting partner (simply because of the amount of time we've spent opposite one another on stage), rounded that off with finishing the outline for my new play (with GREAT excitement!) and meeting up with perhaps my OTHER favorite creative partner. On the way home I managed to catch my family eating dinner and got to join them to finish it all off. SO the present's pretty well worked-out too.
Tomorrow I'm gonna peruse our music collection and make sure I get some corkers like "I've Had the Time of my Life" and other random stuff, then I'll be making some Chicken Tikka Masala with naan bread, maybe writing a bit and generally enjoying the feeling of being home. This of course includes a not insignificant amount of time bogarting my brother's Wii for the enjoyment of Twilight Princess, because come on, WOLF LINK. Awesome. Then I'm going to LA and people want to see me, feel me, touch me...er...at least see me and dance with me, hear from me, hang out, blah de blah, not the least of which might end up being an awesome dating prospect. And what's this? Three shows in the works, not even counting the play I want to produce, and SPACED is getting released on DVD in an event at the Secret Stash? Future looks bright ahead.

Tonight I will go to bed loving my life and all the people who've made it happen this far.
That is perhaps the most awesome thing I've had ever in my whole life, and you know, I think this should be how things work from now on. I have a lot of really cool stuff to make and be a part of in the next handful of decades, so I might as well get used to the notion of having a wonderful life full of perfect, beautiful and fantastic people.

July 14th, 2008

bikerwalla

08:13 am - Barenaked Ladies - Pollywog (In a Bog)

For your viewing pleasure... It gets awesome at 2:12.
Aw yeah! Thanks for telling me,

wicked_sairah!

07:11 am - Shhhhh...
You know how I've been rooting for "Presto?"

Look for yourself. Viva Brasilia!

(6 comments | Leave a comment)

10:35 am - Hobbyserver LAN weekend, the deluxe edition.
This one goes out to

jonesybunny and

damanique, but everyone else: keep reading.

Hey Dutchies? If you've ever wanted to go to a LAN party weekend, but were afraid of sweaty gamers in a sportshall who can only stare at their screen: think again! This one is totally different:

Date: August 15-17
Venue: AINSI in Maastricht, a former industrial building at the limestone quarry of ENCI.
Location: Satellite picture, Lage Kanaaldijk 113, Maastricht

BONUS! During that same weekend there's a cultural festival on the AINSI grounds with music, theater, film, dance, visual arts, sports and shows!

There's room for 40 people at the LAN, right now there's 17 people registered. This LAN *needs* more people, it is going to be so much fun. I am also hosting a little show (Cheetah's Freakshow) with one hour of the best/worst internet videos. No gaming experience required, just a decent PC and/or laptop.

Costs: 12,50 euro if you pay before august 1st, 17,50 after. That includes 2 breakfast buffets with the legendary Hobbyserver cheese toasties. Everything else you need to know (about registering and what to bring) can be found HERE (in dutch).

Come one, come all. Historical venue, festival, Limburgse Vlaai, and me as your host. What more could you possibly want? :P
Current Mood:

geeky

(1 comment | Leave a comment)

10:11 am - Hashshashin!
It could have been such a productive weekend. Same as with previous weekends. But the XBOX 360 has me in its clutches. I finally finished Mass Effect last week, then I was so foolish to borrow

bander's copy of Assassin's Creed. And that's what ate up this weekend (along with an awesome Mystery Visit to Restaurant Woods in Leiden. So after three days of furious climbing, stabbing city guards, eavesdropping, pickpocketing and interrogating, five of The List Of Nine have been slain by my hand, and the sixth is moments away from meeting his doom (Second mark in Jerusalem: the executioner). It's been a while since I've been sucked up in good storylines and visually appealing games. I don't mind the repetitive quests or simple button bashing as much. And you know what? I don't miss World of Warcraft one single bit.

Mmmm, gaming. Procrastination at its finest. And I still have a few cars and gates to find in Burnout Paradise. If only I didn't suck so much at Stunt Runs.

(5 comments | Leave a comment)

July 13th, 2008