Paranoia is always justified...

We all love a good sale, right? I would have had more fun in Oklahoma City if we had any time to shop or get any deal since they had such cool places and things to do that weren't like here, but one of the only things I did manage to snag was cute little lanyard license plates that said hug me instead of our names... Nothing ever has our names on them because they're so uncommon, but these are way cooler, since the free hugs signs have been outlawed at the anime conventions. We could just say we're showing souvenirs, since for some reason... despite it being free... and despite it being only hugs... it's considered solicitation??? So weird. But a very cute thing for my son and I to have matching ones of from Oklahoma City.

I adore our Science Center and Planetarium here in Nashville, so of course I took Gryphon to the Oklahoma one when we arrived... not realizing... IT IS 20 ACRES!!!! I totally wanted to faint, considering how much pain I'm in, but we managed to do it, racing through with cameras and videos, and even caught a show at the planetarium, despite only having about 4 hours. It's actually 10 acres, but two floors... and OMG, so cool, I took vids... they ACTUALLY set stuff on fire and blow it up in there, because it's so big! So I must post the powder of doom! Bwahahahaa.

Coolest thing was that it was still educational even though it was fun and wild. All sorts of stuff I'd never seen, like a binary digital abacus, heh, and the show was about the shores in Southern Africa... less than 1/1000 of 1% of our coastlines and water are protected, yet Africa, despite being abundant in fish and desperately needing the money, has pledged protection of 20% of theirs. I wish we would all do that. It's really amazing. We also learned a lot about sardine behaviour, how they swim moving in big balls to appear to be one big predator and trick the other predators.

When I hear the words Symbol LS2208, I think it must be scientific, a new genome, or a new brand of car they've put out that uses alternative oils. It's actually a business tool, a barcode scanner like the one in my phone but with more features, since it's for business not wishlist purposes. I discovered when I got the G1 that having a barcode scanner that is attached to the internet is the greatest thing ever... I can look up competing prices and add it to my wishlist to buy it later online or use my phone right then to buy it online and get the other items I need immediately from the store. Sometimes there's a local store five minutes away that has a much lower price, and it includes those as well, not just online prices. Very cool, and very convenient for 'window shopping' to keep a wishlist when you don't have any money.

We are back from Oklahoma. Pretty tired and catching up on some stuff I need to do but I have tons of pics and videos. Random moment from trip: Meeting DarkStar and TexasDiva from Geocaching! That was so cool... and utterly weirdly random. More to come, gotta get some drawings done and move this blog over to the other server.

Anyone have suggestions on some good skin care products for people like me who simply can't handle sunlight? I'm still purple and burned, and it's very painful... despite using sunscreen. I have some nice masks and stuff to keep my skin pretty, but I need something to prevent, and then take care of sunburns so I can spend some time outdoors again. We want to swim at the lake, but it's difficult when even the highest sunscreen I found doesn't do much good, and I don't really want to swim with long sleeves and pants on... Well, this is my whining for today, I suppose. Control Panel is down so I can't do installs... just drawing and making lists for now, and about to hit 55 with Ryaeth in World of Warcraft... pretty boring day.

Westgate, though it somehow reminds me of Watergate, and is not anywhere near the same thing, because I'm just weird about words sometimes, helps with reservations... I'm hoping we do still get to go on our trip since the hotel is nonrefundable. If I'd paid $12 more per night, then it would have been refundable, but since I used the advance discount, it isn't. And I'm making a list of trips I'll be taking this year and next to have them in advance so that nothing comes up that interferes with it. Since I have this new tablet pc, I'll be drawing a lot more and hopefully it will improve my art, getting to use traditional-ish methods with digital tools. That's what I'm going to be doing today, as well as redoing some stuff on the other site, which has just had some filler pages so far.

Because Paypal is unreasonable and seems to ENJOY causing financial losses for people who cannot afford it like me, when I depend on sales to fund homeschooling and such, I will not be using them any more. You will have to wait extra time by sending money orders, or use Google Checkout. Sorry, but they are a bunch of scam artists, and this is not the first time I have been hit hard by the fact they offer buyers more protection than sellers... Even WITH a confirmation number from Paypal's own shipping process, they always give the money back to any buyer who complains or says they haven't recieved it, when you can prove you sent it.

I even had one guy tell them he got the item and just didn't want it... I offered a refund if he sent it back, and he would not, so they gave him the money and I was out the item and the money. SO DO NOT USE PAYPAL UNLESS YOU WANT TO GET RIPPED OFF.

We went to the midnight showing of Drag Me To Hell, despite me not liking Evil Dead, because it looked good and most people here are Raime fans... OMG IT WAS AMAZING! And Gry gamely made it through, though he did retch at one point and just narrowly managed not to puke on the floor... some parts were pretty gross. And even though I sleep with horror films playing, parts of it scared the heck out of me! I screamed a lot of times... but there was some pretty funny stuff too.

Not going to give any spoilers, but I was happy with the ending as well. It was exactly what I hoped for, without it being predictable, and was wicked social commentary and pretty gruesome... So I'd recommend going to see it. It was a theater type movie you should see, due to the loud sounds and shock effects, so I wouldn't wait until it goes to dvd.

For one, you are offered the opportunity as you are with other companies, rather than trying to grab them before others, many of whom were runnin unqualified, spam type, low-quality, and misspelled blogs with very little in the post about the desired content, often rushing and including only a bottom link or the such in order to pass the automated system... What this ended up being for those of us who do work at home and do know how to write, was an absolute nightmare...

You had to grab an opportunity, but because it was so fiercely competitive, you had seconds to go ahead, throw the links in, submit your url to pass for payment, then quickly go back and write actual content... and even if that took under a minute, you often didn't get what was reserved for you - so what was the point of reserving? It was very stressful. This system allows you to know what you're getting, and that it isn't going to get taken away within seconds, allowing 3 days for you to accept or decline an offered opportunity.

Another thing, you aren't paid until you reach $30 or more for payout, which is both good and bad... bad if you don't get opportunities and so did $25 of work, only to never see that money, also bad if you decide that you want to leave them when you've cashed out and worked your way back up to $20.... but good as far as weeding out low quality blogs. We'll see. If I don't get opportunities after this, then I won't have the ability to cash out for this work, you know? And they'll have gotten their exposure without paying me... but if I do get opportunities, I prefer the new setup. That's my take on it.

This post was sponsored by Izea.

I don't know if anyone needs as many hard drives as I do, including the various externals, flash drives, and mp3 or mp4 players being used as storage. I need ones marked for each individual type of thing that I store, maybe 100 terabyte ones? I am such a data pack rat, honestly, and given that I carry several cameras and video cameras with me to all events and random places, it eats and eats memory, plus I like to do some video editing, and the art I create takes up quite a bit, along with various web site projects and programming development. Fun, fun, fun always trying to gather together scattered bits of data from folders that are randomly labeled at 3am after 4 days without sleep... And yes, I am still in love with Jiji. So silly. --

Indiana... weird. Anyhow, I am sick as all get out, fever, coughing up stuff, delirium, all sorts of pleasantness, so I did one of my famous sharpie type things. Prepare to be disturbed, since that's what the infamous five-minute art jutsu is for! I love Jiraiya, but I have no idea why, just because he was supposed to be happy, he came out so young and ukish... Well, I'll post real art soon but here:

So you're really a pervert? by ~mercynre on deviant

ART

Okay, okay, so there are times when my own nature gets the better of me, like last night... errr... this morning. Was writing, don't think you need to know anything more than it was Jiraiya (which should say enough in itself due to HIS nature) since it'll be posted on that site with the big warning on it, and I've gotta say...

I think I'm a freaking Narutard now. Or at least hot for Jiraiya. Which means I need to rent the series. Plus... I didn't go to bed until 6am, and slept 2.5 hours that were... interesting to say the least.

As much as it pains me to say this (meaning it doesn't because what? you think I have shame??? silly you), I think I am Jiraiya of all the characters in Naruto, except for the shinobi part, unless you want to count that I'm a retired martial artist. The whole Master of Perversion title... really should belong to me, considering I'm still flushed and it's been 9 hours... and I still have plans on posting it, because I'm not ashamed that I have a devious mind. I know that it squicks my friends at times when I push way past the limits of social acceptability, but those dreams... yeah... Everyone has been acting strange so I realllllly have to wonder what sort of things I might have said in my sleep, especially since I went to sleep while they were awake.

And, heehee, it seems my lovely girl is starting to work past some of her squicks, because I am such a corrupting influence. The sort of things we wrote last night, I believe she would have run screaming from about six months ago. XDXDXD You know who you are, lovely. Now,  as for me, I MUST go get this pink out of my cheeks before my parents ask me awkward questions...

And how freaking old is Jiraiya? I mean, it doesn't matter for art purposes, he's way past the age of consent, but I'm just sorta wondering. I get 60 from someone and 32 from someone else, so now I gotta look it up, and that involves going to Naruto websites, which frighten me. I went to one of those once, and the rabid Kankuro fangirls were scary. o_O

Okay, being the clueless brat that I am, I FINALLY realized there's a monitor port on the side of my mini laptop. Which is great, being as there's this gorgeous monitor that's been nothing but a paperweight, and my laptop screen is the size of my hand. I also realized there are card slots. Nifty, how unobservant I am for an artist...

So it works wonderfully, but it's even slower, because I still don't have enough computer memory. How can I add any to an Atom that isn't just ReadyBoost? THIS IS DRIVING ME INSANE. I finally have a huge, BEAUTIFUL monitor to play World of Warcraft on, and there's the... lag. The ever constant lag.

Speaking of cluelessness, you know I'm drawing this Naruto doujinshi with Gaara? Even though I've been DRAWING him, my friend pointed out she can't stand his lack of eyebrows. So I go to check, and sure enough, the bishie has no eyebrows. One would think I'd have noticed, but now I'm... twitching.

Okay, so we've probably all read the jokes, but yes, it is true that Pfizer is giving out free viagra for patients who have been on it more than three months, and who have lost their jobs, for up to a year.

What most people aren't saying is that they're doing this with several other drugs for more serious medical conditions, which I most definitely applaud.

However, I am disappointed that Viagra is on the list. It seems promotional, not helpful, and if the concern is that not having sex will result in depression, then focus on depression, not sex. Because... if you're unemployed but still get to have unlimited sex, do you have the money for protection? I'm sure Pfizer isn't going to pay for unplanned and unaffordable pregnancies, and not everyone knows to go to a clinic to get free birth control. And if you're really too broke to get your meds, you may not have money for transportation to get to the clinic for free birth control...

This is such a mixed message for me. I want to be glad they're helping with the other meds, but I don't like Viagra being included, unless they plan to force birth control on everyone recieving that particular drug, because OBVIOUSLY you can't afford a pregnancy, or even an abortion, if you can't pay for the drug. It worries me, the odd messages we send the rest of the world...

Today I was chatting with some people about this case in Florida where a guy threw out a baby on the freeway, despite the fact he'd severely harmed a two month old before, and the legal system just doesn't seem to do what it should. And people wonder why I'm such a Death Note fan... if only there were really detectives like L in real life, who sacrifice everything for justice. Life hardly is fair, though, my fiance's niece got diagnosed with cancer at 12, so it's a cruel world for kids and adults alike. I don't know which type it is yet, whether it's Mesothelioma Cancer or not, but she did have to have her ovary removed... and though I've never met her, I wish we lived in a world where karma was instant, where innocents didn't suffer, but only the guilty did, and yet still had a chance to fix their wrongs. Sometimes the only world I find that in is anime... in my beloved L, who doesn't even exist, and who is dead because another character wanted to do the 'right' thing but was too arrogant to see what he really was doing...

On a random note, watching certain horror films, or even Dragon Ball Z ( ducks the flying Ramune from DBZ fans ) works as a fairly good appetite suppressant. Man, I should not have watched Midnight Meat Train so many times in a row, but I just HAD to see those two scenes and they were too ick not to watch over and over and over. Which reminds me, I need to get away from the computer and read actual paper printed books for some reviews I need to do, but I'm trying to finish paneling first... And stupid people on eBay annoy me. Trust me, you know who you are, and you're a bunch of morons, and I have to completely modify all future auctions because of your ignorance, which wasn't ignorance, it was just trying to get around the rules. Grrr.

Okay, actually working on YaoiGirl today and on the book our group has coming out, so maybe something will actually get posted. dead I am freaking exhausted, and nervous as heck about Wednesday, about having my nerves burned out... So I've been moping around the house not really doing anything.

I gotta draw... and I suppose hitting 55 would be nice so I could have my Death Knight. I'm just... bleh, this week, maybe because of the weather? And I know a grown woman shouldn't be saying this but OMG someone please get me the new Pokemon DS game!!!!! It's so fun, and that's what I wanted for Mother's day, but big surprise... nothing. shrugs Whatever.

I really love customizing pretty much everything... I skin my game systems, I hand paint cases, I decorate my furniture, and since there generally aren't pieces for the handles I want for dressers and other furniture pieces, I end up painting wood ones to attach. These little things can make the biggest difference in whether custom furniture is truly custom, or just sorta cool... I really wish someone would make plastic knobs from different anime series that I like jut to add an easy, yet official, final touch to some of my furniture... Evangelion, Death Note, DNAngel, Escaflowne, or Yu-Gi-Oh would be especially nice, but who knows? I would probably keep making my own since they'd have limited poses, although I would collect them.

Well, in news of the weird, aka how much mobile phone companies have changed lately, there is now a new kind of pre-paid plan out there. This is jut another step in showing how things are changing... I mean, what with the G1 able to get pretty much the same applications as the iPhone for free, business models are changing left and right, and I think it's great that cell phone companies can't gouge as much as they used to. I have tons of free applications on my G1, but if there were a few that worked well, I would be willing to buy them...

Anyhow, I've heard of pre-paid minutes, and pre-paid months, but now apparently there are pre-paid days, which is an odd way to go about it. I'm not sure about you, but I don't know anyone who limits phone use to say... every other friday, which would result in a $6 a month bill under this plan. Still, having the option is cool, and it would be a major money saver if you were the type who could limit it in such a way... And then during unexpected days, at least you're only paying the price of a fast food meal for emergency usage, right?