I hate Windows Vista. I've had this computer for a matter of weeks and it craps out constantly with "Not Responding" messages. It has no rhyme or reason, and it's a daily occurrence.

I searched around for cures, and the only thing I've tried is system restore. That made no noticeable difference, if any. IS there a cure? I don't want to live like this, being forced to yank out the power and reboot. That can't be good either.

Alice in Wonderland. An article, a few photos, etc. on Yahoo!Movies

The cast list makes me shiver with antici..........................pation.

Exciting hail storm yesterday. They're bigger than they look -- at least marble-sized. This is the roof at work; my only view of the outdoors.

I will be getting my life back.

I’ve quit my soul-sucking, thankless job and will be starting a new, less harmful one soon. This has been an extremely long time coming, and I feel such a weight lifted from me that it’s even easier to breathe.

The powers that be have been panicking, trying to keep the collective head above water for a non-profit arts organization suffering in this economy (and under its current flawed leadership). This has meant budget cuts galore, staff layoffs, charging us for health insurance, and pay cuts. It’s been rapidly progressive over the past few years, and I’ve never seen so many unhappy, stressed, overworked masochistic staff.

Gory details aside, I am free. It’s not so much the place or the work that I need to escape from as what it’s doing to me. It’s robbed much of my health, my time, and my happiness. But I’m gonna get those things back, dammit. I’m totally pulling a Lester Burnham here, baby.

The new job is just a nice, small-office desk job. Normal daytime hours, weekends OFF, holidays OFF (instead of being assured that I will work every one of them), and a mere 40 hours a week. The business is THRIVING enough to create this new position because they need more help. Plus, after I get my bearings back, I can start taking massage clients as my part-time gig. Plus plus, after 90 days my salary will be back to what it had been before my current workplace’s pay cuts, so perhaps I can look into house-hunting after all.

I want LJ back too. I’m sorry I’ve been distant, but in times of depression I tend to retreat. LJ is my happy place, and I despise that I haven’t been able to enjoy it like I want to. It’s another pleasure I’ve been robbed of. The creative impotence bothers me the most. I miss writing, and there are fandoms gnawing at me like none have ever done before.

The light at the end of the tunnel has finally arrived, and things should sort themselves out. And now, I’m outta here. The weather is fanTAStic, and I must go enjoy it before summer gets here.

A bit of advice: don't drop your laptop. Not even a bump. It's expensive.

I must have bumped mine too many times because after her little topple the other night, the monitor was just the white screen of death. Yes, the monitor was shot. Replacement was not as cost effective as a new computer, so, wisely or not, the latter is the route I took. It's not an expense I had been planning on, but wow, laptops have come way down in price since I bought HAL-9000 three years ago. This computer is four times better and $100 cheaper.

This is Archie, my new laptop. I do love him. I haven't decided yet what to do with HAL. With an external monitor, it's fine, just not very portable. I'm considering giving her to my mother, whose ancient, steam-powered computer is old and useless. But I'm kinda digging the idea of having two computers.

While I'm at it, here's another animated short which, as your doctor, I recommend. I saw it once in college in a film class, and though I haven't seen it since (until just now; thank you YouTube!), I've thought of it often often often. Left such an impression on me, this tight little microcosm of human nature.

How could I forget this?!?!

They showed this trailer before Star Trek yesterday. Shane Acker's animated short film, 9, has been remade/expanded to feature length. I. Can't. Wait.







Here's the original film:

Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

A friend (from RL) seems to be under the impression that I died. I have yet to get the details on this, but apparently he felt obligated to check with a mutual acquaintance of ours to find out for sure.

I don’t know whether to correct him or not. I could be looking at a unique opportunity here. I should go haunt him or something.

However, if it is ME who is mistaken, please let me know. I mean, when you die, do you notice? When I was seven years old I was pretty obsessed with that question. Maybe I died. How would I know for sure?

Puzzling choice of an afterlife I’ve created for myself, though.

I stuck my “Fully Functional” pin on my jacket and headed out to see Star Trek today. On the way, the first random track out of my mp3 player was The Picard Song, so that seemed to be a good omen from the Great Bird Roddenberry himself.

It was Cool. Cool with a capital C like none of the other films have been. Swashbuckling, dazzling, sexy, nostalgia-inducing. Zachary Quinto was a brilliant Spock. He had that underlying intensity that Spock has. And he sports those eyebrows just as well as Nimoy does! I prefer them to his normal ones, in any case.

I did find myself grinning a lot with geeky fan-glee. I adore the giant white glare that IS the Enterprise bridge. And oh my goodness -- Captain Pike! The Kobayashi Maru! Nurse Chapel! Well, she only got a lightning-quick mention. By necessity, managing to work in every main character led to a few contrivances, but it would have been disappointing to leave anyone out. Not enough of Dr. McCoy - my traditional favorite - but at least he got more to do than Sulu. Not that I know anything about Simon Pegg's personal life, but I have the feeling that he was living out a childhood fantasy playing Scotty. The not-so-subtle Spock/Uhura shipping was amusing. Nice set-up for Amok Time, guys. Yeah, we caught that.

The film’s a bit…commercialized? Softened to reach a broader audience? It’s a little hollowed out like Star Trek hasn’t been since the film with the whales. Number 4. Don’t get me wrong; I could watch that one a zillion times, but it is rather fluffy. Nor does this one feel particularly epic. But that’s fine. (oh, but i wouldn't call this one fluffy.) What I do find extremely charming is all the emphasis on Kirk and Spock getting to know each other. At its heart, it’s a great vehicle for the Kirk-Spock dynamic. Head vs. heart -- the theme which rules all humans. (And Vulcans too.)

That’s the beauty of science fiction -- the exploration of our struggles with humanity.

Yesterday I went to a fairy festival and plodded around in the rain and mud all day.

Next year, costumes are imperative, but I'm glad we skipped it this time because the weather was a challenge. Tons of vendors, musical events, lots of shows for kids, quillions of rather impressive fairy costumes -- all on the premises this organic farm. We did this rather treacherous scavenger hunt in the woods (treacherous due to the depth of the mud!), but it seemed only appropriate to be damp and dirty, communing with nature. Great day with friends.

Someone lent me a copy of Twilight -- mailed it to me, in fact. Thought I'd look into it just to see what everyone is talking about, but if you'd like to dissuade me, I'm open to trusted advice.

There is a distinct shortage of HRG in season 3 of Heroes. Just sayin'.
ETA: I take it back. Guess I was just in the middle of a few dry episodes. Can never have enough HRG, though.

I've only just started watching Heroes. In this episode (season 1, ep 14), George Takei guest stars as a CEO-type guy. His character's license plate made me laugh out loud:



(Oh, uh...that's not him in the photo, by the way.)
He also spoke Japanese the whole time. I don't recall ever hearing him speak it before.

Also in it -- Christopher Eccleston. And in the following ep, Missi Pyle.** This show is awesome for its guest stars :)



**HA! And she punches Hiro in the face after calling him "Sulu"!

So yeah, the production values of these action figure stories sure have changed over the years. I hesitate to say "improved" because these so-called "improvements" require a certain investment of time to go with them. I'm liking the speech balloons, though; makes the panels neater and more contained. Shooting against a white wall was an easy cheat, but I'm enjoying having backgrounds even more!

Back in 2005 I had crappier equipment -- dial-up Internet, an elderly computer, an obsolete camera, and only Paint for photo editing and special effects. Hell, maybe all that struggle was the investment in time!

Suffice it to say, I like a certain amount of rough-around-the-edges. But my hands hurt now from all the resizing of images. And I had to spend hours searching for photos of naked male bodies...and young naked male bodies. And altered my facebook so I could pretend it was Adrian Veidt's. And then looked for more photos of male bodies. Such a slave to my hobby. It all makes me laugh, and who doesn't need every laugh they can get?




Title: "Investigate Further"
Starring action figure Rorschach and action figure Nite Owl.
Rated PG
Summary: Adrian Veidt's "boys" folder holds many secrets.
Warning: Lots of photos.





( Story under the cut... )

My ducks have come back!

That bird feeder attracts all kinds, eh? They hung around here often last year, this pair. Yeah, I might be pretending that it's the same couple, but I like to hope it is. Anyway, I was really glad to see them.

People do fantastically weird and creative things.

I was about a week late paying my credit card bill this month (because it got buried on my desk and I forgot about it.) Will this do bad things to my credit rating? It's always been really good. I've had it since 1995 and never been late and never carry any balance on it. Anybody know?

For this, I break out my old Rimmer icon!


Starbug!....or CARbug!...driving down the set of Corry!?!?!?!?

WOW! When worlds collide, what?

Get back to you when I've watched the whole special....

Happy anniversary, Strunk and White -- grammar Nazis extraordinaire. I will be marking the occasion by The occasion will be marked by my use of the passive voice (to piss off White) and by my stringent adherence to correct punctuation (to please Mr. Strunk).

( THE RULES, as set by these guys )

I’ve been operating under “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” mode for quite a few weeks now, but I miss posting entries. I just don’t find it very clever to use LJ for ranting, so I tend not to use it for that purpose myself. It’s just my job that’s injuring me. We’re overworked victims of the recession; and that’s all the complaining I’ll do here.

In hobby news, I have decided to become a more superficial person. Starting with my hair. Other than two temporary Halloween-y, costume-y situations, I’ve never dyed it. My ex-classmate is a hair stylist, and today she did some red-red Redrum-red stripey underneath layers on me. Depending on how my hair lays, you can’t see them, but if it swings…there they are. It’s not photographing well, or I’d show you. I think they’re great.

I’ve felt creatively stifled these days, and I reeeeally need an outlet. Fanfiction doesn’t seem...appropriate. I’ve been trying to get into anybody’s RP-ing comms, but I’m not quick enough. The idea of starting one of my own has occurred, but I’m extremely good at talking myself out of things. It’s going to come down to a showdown between my own laziness and my fandom-need-so-deep-it-makes-my-hands-ache-to-write. My recent angry state of mind has not made me any more proactive.

So I just erased the next two paragraphs. They were complaining paragraphs, so they have been struck. I’d better just go. I don’t like what I’ve become.

Title: Creature Comforts
Rorschach/Nite Owl -- the plastic versions
Rated...? PG-13? for suggestiveness
Summary: Dan's adding improvements to the owl ship, and Rorschach wants to try them out.
Warning: lots of photos

A short story acted out by my action figures...

( under the cut )