e x o r d i u m

Since I'm clearly a follower of these internet trendy things - and last weeks DNoS of LJ was HUGELY detrimental to my 'must-have-fic-to-be-happy'-ness - I've decided to finally take the plunge and have asked _bluebells  to send me one of those DW invite codes.

Hence, any new posts will be over at necromage.dreamwidth.org (although it does come with that nifty inbuilt crosspost feature I'll probably avail of).

Not that I - post. Anymore...

This journal isn't going anywhere; I still spend 90% of all non-work time browsing the site for new fic-ness.

Also: hella changes since I last used the LJ's create post page! What's all this WYSWIG stuff!?

psuedoskribe has started posting again – so I figured I might as well start, too.

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And then the well ran dry – and we turned to Firefly yesterday. I’m not sure exactly what K had planned, she was already watching when I got up, but it turned into a 9+ hour Firefly marathon. I got absolutely nothing done yesterday (and it was going to be so productive, too!) besides testing out my pretty new harddisk. It works. I’m happy.

Oh, forgot to mention, I've also caught up on Supernatural. lyore and bob_ette, you guys can now discuss to your hearts content.

I will:

Never make anymore promises online, especially anywhere on Livejournal, about what I will or will not do on the site in the future. Because I inevitably break them and do the exact opposite.

(case in point: 2006’s new year’s resolution on the Noire Sensus LJ community – oh, the shame. Why did I bother? Someone stop me next time, please?)

--//--

I’ve spent the last three hours staring at my screen trying to compose a single email. If it where anything but site work, it would have written itself in under 15 minutes. Because it’s site work I’m agonising over every word. Sometimes the internet really sucks; can’t I just call them?

Random observation: I’ve noticed that over 50% of all my site related posts have ‘distressed’ as the associated mood. Maybe I should take a hint?

I’m – writing that email now…

eta: Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. My brain is not working today. I forgot to change the subject line…! Now I’m just waiting for me to post to the wrong journal like the lemming I am.

eta2: Ha! Saved by a dead email addy.

I have just finished the complete overhaul and rebuilding of the Tekken fanfiction site at Noire Sensus*. It doesn’t look that different, but the backend definitely is.

I have personally clicked through every link in the archive to check that they’re working. That does include (for once) the fics themselves, which I had to go through and reformat, too, ‘cos otherwise they’d all be broken because of the overhaul.

My brain bleeds.

I never want to see another Tekken fic ever.

And we haven’t even started the archival process for anything on site…!

>.<

… Note the excessive use of italics throughout this post. Clearly it’s a sign that I’ve passed overwhelmed and entered despair due to site work and the knowledge of the overarching issue here: are we going to be able to get the site updated before we leave? And everyone not working on the site doesn’t get it; we keep getting booked for work, dinners and lunches because apparently we have so much free time.

The past three weeks have been K and I madly working on the site when RL commitments – and there are so many this time of year! – haven’t interrupted. This week in particular I’ve been stayed up until at least 5am each evening (K goes until around 4am, gets fed up, and crashes) trying to cram in a year’s worth of site work into the few days we have left before enforced internet deprivation (aka an overseas holiday) prevents any further work on the site. And next week is chock full of RL commitments, dammit.

At least my site tasks while many, are varied, so when I get tired of doing one thing I can work on something completely different. Not like K and Merci (new recruit! So awesome!) who’ve been stuck with the drudgery of formatting 20MB+ of fics (I just did 10MB+ for Tekken so I know how they feel). K is grumpiness incarnate at the moment and I don’t blame her.

And this is for the initiated: reading and formatting a fic are at the complete opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. Unless you’re reading while formatting, which doesn’t work so well…

--//--

A note to all you Tekken authors out there: The world is in dire need of non-Jin/Hwoarang fics. Not that I have a problem with Jin/Hwoarang, it’s actually one of the pairings I do read in Tekken, but the numbers are telling. Noire Sensus stats for Tekken fics are as of 7 December 2006 (going by the size of the index files):

Jin/Hwoarang ~60KB
The next closest contender (Kazuya/Lee) comes in at a measly 15KB

Come on! It’s Final Fantasy VIII and Seifer/Squall all over again (though I admit, most of the blame is mine in that case).

So, what I’m saying is: non-Jin/Hwoarang writers unite! (and write more fic)! Come on, it’ll make the world a better place. Really :D

______
* The new site isn’t live so don’t bother checking it out yet. That’s why I haven’t linked to anything onsite in this post. And yes, the current links from the Bookshelf are still broken; they will be fixed when the revised site goes live.

You know what one of the best wake up calls is? The Star Wars main titles being played on ABC classical (it’s what the radio’s tuned to on the way into work) – it’s such a nice pick me up and it wakes you up, too!

I think I might need it as my alarm - psuedoskribe, know of anywhere we can get it? It really does work, and Rufus’ theme is starting to give me nightmares. I don’t like it when one of my favourite ditties becomes a harbinger of doom… I do so hate getting up in the morning...

Haven’t been doing much, been feeling too ill recently. I think it’s the change in weather and the increase in airborne stuffs that screw up my sinuses and give me headaches. Last few days have been mostly: take lots of painkillers and edit more essays – none of them mine. There’s something cathartic about editing essays when you have none of your own to hand in. Or maybe I’m just strange… yeah, that’s probably it.

The parents and I went to David Suzuki’s public lecture last night here at the university. K had too much coursework and stayed in the library through the whole lecture, which, if memory serves me right means she was in the library all day yesterday…! Some people are so dedicated.

The lecture was very, very good. It’s so refreshing attending a lecture presented by someone who’s actually a good public speaker, especially after five and a half years of lectures...! He was talking about his autobiography which came out earlier this year, so the lecture was basically him telling us anecdotes – and man does he have a lot! – about his life from childhood to the present with photographic and movie accompaniment. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen David Suzuki as a hippie!

It was advertised as being one hour long, but when we got there the first announcer said it’d run for about an hour and a half which was oddly enough fine. He’s more of a storyteller than a lecturer, and I’ve always loved a good yarn. Parents bought the book; I’ll read it later.

--//--

With site stuff: I usually get the urge to work on site stuff at work or when I’m in the shower… or in bed trying to sleep, y’know, basically times when it’s not particularly practical to be working on a computer, but am severely restricted with my computer at work – everything I need is on my laptop at home! And can you believe, there’s no Winzip on this computer? One of the basics of life, and this comp doesn’t have it…! I can't check anything anyone's sent me cos I don't have WinZip...!

Hm… I told myself I’d get some formatting done today at work… I might just get started on that…

I need to find Mom a present.

That said, I still need to find other peoples presents, too… Why do you guys all have your birthdays in October!? And I just spent all my money at Animania >_<

We also went to Max Brenner! And OD’d on chocolate…! But it was sooo nice…. It’s a good thing it’s up in Sydney, or I’d be going more often.

Animania was insane amounts of fun and soreness. Tons of cosplayers and merch to be bought – I literally came back with $8 dollars left (I left with close to $500). I have no idea where it all went, I tried to do a tally yesterday but it didn’t come close to the right amount. I think I was giving more money than I thought to K. Like K says there was a procedure: I hold Mokona and the backpack, and she dishes out the money and figures out where to put our new goodies. It was fun.

Saturday was brilliant – heaps of fun and we were both dead tired when we got back. When we work up Sunday neither of us could figure out why our arms were sore – until we spotted the giant white plushie on the dresser. Honestly, we had to treat the thing like a baby carrying it around all Satur day since it was big and white and everyone wanted to touch it… It was so easy to get dirty! If Mokona wasn’t so absurdly cute…! And then we get it home in pristiness and it promptly got glomped the next day by a 3 year old. Even Mom’s calling it my baby – it’s what she said to get the three year old off it (the jury’s still out on whether Mokona is a ‘he’ or ‘she’; ‘it’ and ‘insanely happy, cute-fuzzball of death’ does me fine).

The only downside I can see is that K now has the cosplay bug. Initially she wanted to round up a bunch of friends and dress up as the DMC crew, but we’ve decided that was unfeasible. So now we’re looking at Hyng Tae Kim designs (everyone does Square Enix, but there was no one from Softmax!); I’m starting to get a little worried.

--//--

Spring time is officially here – the fluff is out!

Short, shorts are back in (oh, the pain)!

There are so many sayings when it comes to rants and university. The people on the Canberra LJ community summed it up pretty well e.g. (paraphrasing here) if you haven’t started studying by the time the fluff is out, kiss your uni-bum ass goodbye.

I was really tempted to call this post 'atttack of the tree semen!!!' - But I didn't think that'd go down too well.

Official springtime!weather rant begins here:
Yesterday was particularly bad; walking through the main university avenue was like walking through a blizzard. A soft, hazy, sticks-to-everything-and-doesn’t-come-off kind of fuzzy, blizzard. That goes up your nose. Monday was insane especially if you were going over Commonwealth Avenue bridge – double wammy of fluff and dust hurtling around at 100kms per hour. So of course we picked that day to go to Floriade; us, and the rest of the state it seemed.

Standing in the sun is like being under an open heating element: it’s hot, and it burns. I can’t figure out if I’m reacting to the sun, the food at uni (always possible, uni hygiene, y’know), or having a weird hayfever symptom. The temperatures nice though.
/end rant

Random observation of the day: I’m really going to miss uni next year. Not the course work, oh noez, just the atmosphere… I did so love being a uni bum. I think I’ve already started to live vicariously through K…

First off, congrats again to loqia on the engagement. One day this will sink in. Hopefully, before the wedding (btw, any plans on that front?).

Yeah, I’m posting a lot. I’ve run out of new games to play on my PS2 so I’ve turned back to computers for companionship ::sniff:: I’ve started putting together a new template for the site. Trying something a little different this time from the construction POV: putting it together in the reverse of what I would normally do. It’s hard. I knew it was a bad idea starting site work after 9pm; it took me 3 hours to put together a frame I liked, and now I have to start filling it in… I’m stuck on the ‘filling it in’ stage.

With all my brand spanking new time, thanks to a.) no more job applications – yay!, b.) no more uni - double yay, and c.) no more PS2 games, boo – I’ve started reading books again. I have 3 partially finished books sitting around my room (and in my computer) that I just can’t be bothered finishing. I get bored and move onto something else. I even bought a Hellboy book which I’m pretty sure K’s read, but in which I haven’t even looked at the first page yet. Really, I bought it for the premise: angels attacking the Vatican – what more could you ask for? K said the coolness wasn’t actually born out through the prose, but the idea, the irony makes me cackle. I’ve noticed that when it comes to printed you-can-hold-the-thing-in-your-hand books, I have more of a preference for non-fiction these days. I guess fandom fills all my other needs.

At the moment I’ve gotten back into Timonthy Zahn’s Star Wars novels. As in, pick up one book, read a chapter, and then switch to another book because I just remembered a scene I liked. I’m trying to properly read through (i.e. without the switching) his original so-called Thrawn Trilogy. ‘So called’ because I don’t think that’s the actual official title, is it? I think I’ve also heard it referred to as the ‘Empire Trilogy’. Anyway! It’s interesting how interests change as we grow up. I can remember as a little tyke, reading it mainly for the ‘Rebellion’ side of things, while this time (which is really, only the second time I’ve actually read them all together), I’m more interested in the Empire. And it’s amazing how much more of the text you understand as you grow older, and what you missed when you were younger.

The other thing that's interesting is reading his 'original' Star Wars trilogy now that he's fleshed out his story; seeing if he's forshadowed anything or if he's contradicted himself. And seeing characters he's fleshed out later at the very beginning when I never even noticed them. It's fun :)

I think I’ve become pro-Empire, especially in light of all the recent EU books which I really can’t stand. I stopped buying SW books after the Hand of Thrawn Duology – which I honestly thought was the end of the EU! They’re nice bookends to the EU universe: start with Zahn, end with Zahn. The only one of the books I like which is set after Vision of the Future (come on, how does that not sound like the end of a series?) is, again, a Zahn book. I don’t know if I’ll like his new SW book due out next year; there’s no Thrawn in it :(

I think I need to start reading his original works.

I have this nasty feeling I'm going to be joining the darkside soon >_o

I've finally caved and now have a Plus+ account with LJ. I'm completely ripping off K's ficjournal account 'cos it was so pretty. There were a few others that appealed, but one was just too dark (I know, didn't think it was possible either), and the other just looked 'orrible with the adds.

And that is the reason I think I might end up paying for this thing I rarely use - the adds are so ugly! <.>

LJ is cunning, I'll give them that. Only by appealing to my obsession with aesthetics have they been able to bring me to this point.

Ah, man – you should all work where I work: the people (in general) don’t give a crap what you do, so long as the clients can’t see it (which is why I love the Switchboard - no clients anywhere) and you get your job done and you do it well.

Anyway! The reason why you should all work where I work, besides the ability to surf the Net with impunity, is because of days like today. Everything was going wrong, but it was so much fun (for me).

First thing you need to know: the library where I work is mostly completely open to the general public – they can wander through about 80% doing anything they’d like except eating, drinking copious amounts of liquid near the computers, and engaging in indecent acts in public. The other 20% is where I luv, luv being. The doors open at 8.30am and close at 11pm to the general public.

TODAY! I get to work at what I think is around 8.40am (I start at 9am) – and there’s a massive crowd outside the library. I have no idea what’s going on, keep checking my watch, peer through the glass doors into the building and their clock says it’s past 8.30 – but everyone’s still outside! Now, for people who don’t know, at my uni most of the students practically live in the library and this sort of behaviour is utterly bizarre.

So, not knowing what else to do, I wander in through the back thinking ’suckers!’ the whole way – I love staff access – get into my office – and no one’s one the phones… We open at 8.30am, it was now 8.45am. I logged in and there were many irate people on the other end of the line sick of talking to machines. Oh, well.

Turns out everything was going wrong today:
1.) With the front doors: apparently they just wouldn’t open = I gloat. They had to usher the students in through the staff access, which is around the side of the building in a dank dark alley – it was so funny. It’s a pity they’re fixed now.
2.) At work: the 8.30am person had no idea she was working at 8.30am, which was fine, I just had no idea what was going on and as always, when there’s only one person to answer the phones, they rings non-stop. She got in over an hour late, but I thought that was pretty good for only finding out she was on half an hour before.
3.) Traffic was a mess ‘cos the bus drivers were on strike. I had no idea and have now arranged transport home.
4.) And to top if all off – there’s a coup in Thailand?!? What the hell? Where did that come from?

I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the week I’ve been having. Trip plans keep changing, we’re now definitely going to Animania even though we’ll have to pay the painful day prices (if we had known we were going, we would have pre-regged, dammit!), I got another job offer from my second choice who have the added bonus of being just a five minutes walk away from my house so now I dunno who I want to work for… I think I’ve been absolutely manic at work lately – drank Red Eye today and yesterday ‘cos I keep thinking I’m off my game; it just makes me hyper, but tastes so good... But am awake. Awake is good today. I really have to stop; have the health assessment for the APS tomorrow and what would the doctor say if he saw all that caffeine and sugar in my system…?

K didn’t come into uni today – it’s her day off – so I had no company at lunch = really, really bored Mage. So, had a pie, drank my Red Eye, and went back to work. I didn’t start again for another half hour so spent the time bugging my colleagues who were on, and then wandered off to start pushing in chairs all over the building… I was really bored, and nothing was happening – people thought I was insane. Honestly, you should’ve seen all the looks I was getting. I wasn’t wearing my uniform yet, so people just saw this insane, anal retentive student going around pulling out chairs and hauling them all over the place. I have to admit, it probably did like weird. I’m blaming the Red Eye.

One other thing about Red Eye: it increases my ability to remember phone extensions and type ‘em in really quickly. It hasn’t helped my sudoku though o_o

I’ve just paid an itty bit of my HECs debt – Noooooooo!!!

Work is finally starting to formally separate the two jobs I do for them – and the second job just deducted some of my pay for my HECs. Why?! Why, god, why?!? I also just got hit with my first substantial tax cut – the pain! How do you guys do it?! All my lovely monies gone… :( I don’t even have a full-time job yet, and they’re already hitting me with HECs…

Apparently, I’m also now charging for essay editing; getting paid on the low-low though I wasn’t looking for the extra aggravation: some random contacted me the other day asking me to edit their essay – not that I minded; I was just surprised since it came completely out of the blue. She’s the one who offered money – that came as a shock. I just keep thinking of all the extra revenue I could’ve been earning these last 5 years if I’d known I could charge for this service.

I’m still waiting for me monies… I think she wanted to give them to me yesterday, but I was working at my ‘official’ job and couldn’t leave the office at the time… Oh, well.