:: Tensai Shoujo ::

:: Saturday, February 07, 2004 ::

My my, it's been a long time, hasn't it? You may say to me "for shame!" for not writing in so long, but really I have been writing quite a bit... in my LiveJournal. Yes, I caught the LiveJournal bug, just like most of my friends. However, if you've been paying attention at all, then you should already know about my LiveJournal. The link is the bottom most one on the left sidebar, the one that's just four dots or something like that. If you're too lazy to go click on that, here's a nice obvious link for you:

****~^^^@@@###LIVEJOURNAL LINK OMG WTF###@@@^^^~****

Ahem, excuse me.

No, that doesn't mean that I've abandoned this journal totally. In fact, I'm writing in it now, aren't I? Though I won't be updating it as often as the other one, I thought maybe I could use this space to review books and movies and things like that. And wouldn't you know it, I just finished a book about ten minutes ago, and I think I'd like to talk a little bit about it.

The book that I just finished is Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card. It took me like a month to finish, and I have no idea why because it was really, really good. I just haven't had time, I guess. Anyway, if you've read Ender's Game, then you'll know the framework that this book uses. It's basically the same story, only told from a different point of view, that of the secondary character Bean. I found that, even while knowing what would happen and what the "twist" ending would be (I won't go into that just in case you haven't read the book), I found myself just as enthralled in this story as I was in its brother. I think Card handles the psychology of his characters well, and made them very believable, and thus was able to tell the story from an alternate point of view effectively enough that the story was interesting in spite of being old.

One thing I also liked about this book was that, even though it's a sci-fi story, it wasn't filled to the brim with technobabble. It wasn't a difficult story to read, but that didn't mean that it didn't include believable science. There was some discussion of genetics that was really quite interesting, and the technology wasn't over-the-top either, which can ruin a good sci-fi story. But, I think the most important part of the book, that which made it really memorable for me, was the believability of the characters. Bean wasn't a very nice person through most of the book, and yet I had no trouble sympathizing with him. His attitude was just logical due to his past.

Well, that's my short assessment right there. I recommend this book to everyone, even those who haven't read Ender's Game, since both tell the same story and compliment each other.

Okay, well it's a lazy Saturday for me, so that means playing Kingdom Hearts (did I mention I got a PS2 last week? XD) and doing some artwork. Go visit my LiveJournal :)
:: Jessi 2/07/2004 02:23:00 PM [+] ::
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Yay, RotK got 11 Oscar Noms!! :D

Best Picture
Directing
Writing - Screenplay - Adaptation
Makeup
Music - Original Score
Music - Original Song
Art Direction
Costume Design
Sound Mixing
Visual Effects
Film Editing

Just thought I'd let everyone know. Oscars are on Feb 29th this year, let's cross our fingers :)
:: Jessi 1/27/2004 08:17:00 AM [+] ::
...

Holy Crap

I'm not going to be all like "oh, I'm so sorry for neglecting you my little bloggy-blog boo hoo cry me a river." Yeah, I didn't update for the longest time in a long time. I've been tired and busy with school. The tired thing is a bit alarming, however. I've been talking with some peeps of mine, and it seems that within our group, there are a lot of us who just find ourselves so tired that we can't do much but eat and sleep. If you look at my class load, you wouldn't think that I'd be having a problem. Only two classes a day three days a week, one class on Thursdays and no classes on Fridays, for crying out loud. And I still work the minimal amount I did all last semester and over break. So what's the problem here?

I have a couple of theories. My first theory is that it has something to do with the season and the weather. We get very little sunlight, because it's cloudy a good majority of the time, and to top that off, there still isn't much daylight. The sun still isn't up when I leave for work some mornings, and it sets at about 5pm. The weather is also snowy and wet and incredibly cold, which is very depressing and takes a lot of one's energy away. With my days filled up again, I feel like I don't have the free time to do the things I want to do, and I know other people I hang with feel the same way. So in some ways it seems a bit unfulfilling. The odd thing is, while I'm actually in class or at work, I feel really good and I have a good time with the people I'm around. So maybe being lethargic at home is a result of not being stimulated like I would be if I were around people all the time. Or maybe I'm stimulated a lot at school so I'm just exhausted when I get home. I don't really know the real reason, and it could be different for all of us, I suppose. It's a bit frustrating, though, when your brain is being all like "I want to do something creative!" and I have to tell it to sit down and shut up because I don't want to get off my bed and miss the end of Good Eats.

In any case, class was okay today. I had art class first, and we used our time to get acquainted with some of the different materials. I'd used ink and charcoal before, but we also used Conte Crayon, and I really enjoy it. It's like charcoal, only bound together better. It feels really neat in my hand too, really smooth. Our exercise was to make as many different marks as we could with the media, and then we displayed our best ones and had a little critique session. The people really liked one of my Conte Crayon ones, it looked pretty interesting. I may post it somewhere when I get it back eventually.

I had tons of creative thoughts today. Like, I experienced some emotion that sort of had hints of sadness and helplessness, and I started to make connections to the weather and it was like "ah!" and I felt lots better after thinking about it. Maybe a little writing will come of it sometime. That reminds me of the like five little writing things I've got going on right now. I really need to learn how to finish something before I go on to the next thing.

Well, Jenny's going to forward me an email that she wants me to read, and I don't think I want to really write any more right now. So ha!
:: Jessi 1/27/2004 12:59:00 AM [+] ::
...

My dream as told to Eric this morning:

I was having a very very bizarre dream last night. in it, there were two small towns which existed in pockets about a mile apart, and my house was in one of them. I went over to Jill's house one evening, and after Saturday Night Live, this movie came on, and I thought it was still part of the comedy, but I was drawn into it and appeared in my house. There were a couple of 1950's police guys in there, and they had drilled a hole looking out towards the street where a black car had been parked for like a week already. I wondered what was going on, and I gathered from what they were saying that they knew there were some aliens on earth already, and they wanted to figure out what they were doing. They thought the black car was a car from the aliens, so they were keeping a close eye on it. I looked out my other window after a while, and I saw that this mini-house office thing had been put up on the front yard, and I assumed that it had been done by the police, but they hadn't actually done it, and they were freaking out that it was the aliens. It was then that I looked out the hole they'd drilled in the wall, and instead of just being parked on the street, the black car looked to be facing right towards the house and I was totally freaked out. So I ran outside, caught the bus which toured the neigboring town, and rode away. When I got there, I realized this other town was little more than a roadside stop, with a couple gas stations, some small buildings, and a high school which looked a lot like a movie theater. It became dark, and the high school looked like it was giving a performance of some sort, so I went over there and walked past some girls who started screaming with glee when they saw me. I got into the school, and found myself at the auditorium, right offstage, and it looked as though a musical was going on. [Eric] was there, the main character in the play, but there were no lines because I was the one who had written the play and I'd forgotten to finish it and submit it to the school. So I brought a book that I liked, and it had some latin phrases in it, so I started singing music to these latin phrases and everyone loved it.

So yes, it was a weird dream night last night. I think a lot of it was because I went to sleep when I was actually tired, didn't try to stay up much later, and slept the whole night through. And that doesn't happen that often.

Well, so it looks like we got our old room back for anime club :) I'm really happy about it, since the old room actually had tiered seating so everyone could see the anime. Plus it just had a better environment about it, it wasn't so darn new and clean and all that. And I don't think it'll seem so crowded, either. The Rapson Hall room just seemed to crowded all the time; people were sitting in the aisles and on the floor, just anywhere they could find the room. So yeah, this'll be like old times again and that'll be fun.

I've already written of my first day of school elsewhere, so I'll leave that to you to find, but I'll summarize here that it was pretty fun and I think I'll like my classes. I have friends in both of my classes so far, which is really nice. Not only will I have someone to sit by, but I'll also have someone to email in case I miss a class or something like that. Anyway, it was good. Today I have art class (Advanced Drawing) and Japanese. I think both will be fine. I like having an art class, because that's like three hours that I can just sit and chill and do something that I like to do. Japanese, as I've said before, looks like it'll be very interesting this semester, and not necessarily due to the subject matter. I've talked about this to a friend of mine who'd taken Japanese at the U when she was an undergrad, and we decided that Japanese class is a lot like high school, because it's a small enough group of people that everyone ends up knowing each other. This can be a good thing and a bad thing, of course. Anyway, any drama that occurs is very obvious.

Man, I just looked outside, and the weather looks quite crappy :( Not only is it cold, but it's like windy hard core. Gonna need the scarf today for sure.

Well, time to get ready for school. Maybe something else interesting will happen today for me to talk about :) Later.
:: Jessi 1/21/2004 11:22:00 AM [+] ::
...

Today's been kind of a lazy day. I didn't have to work today (actually, I don't have to work again until Thursday which isn't too bad) so I managed to sleep in until about noon since i got to bed so late last night. I had a couple of odd dreams, one of which involved a giant purple monster who stole guinea pigs, but I don't really think you all need a big description of that one. Majorly weird, it was...

I've spent most of my waking time today going through my massive collection of NES roms and deleting the redundant ones so that I can burn them to CD for Jill. I started doing this in the afternoon yesterday, but it was a short time into it that I realized that i had over 9,000 roms in the folder, and that it was going to take a long, long time to go through and delete the ones I didn't need. So I didn't finish yesterday. I'm actually not even finished now. I just got into the S's in the alphabet, and there are a whole lot of those so it still may be a while.

What prompted this is that I really, really need to clean some stuff off my computer. Even every time I clean off my anime, I still only have about 30GB free on an 80GB hard drive. I need to get rid of my Fraggle Rock episodes, a lot of the music I don't listen to, and whatever else I can so that I can have a little more room to work. There are some Stepmania files that I know I can get rid of because they're bad, so that's something. And I know I have a lot of redundant MP3s to go through and delete, but that'll be a bigger job most likely so that'll probabably have to wait longer. Yarrr. I'd just like more room to work on my art, because I'm starting to think that, with enough time, i could supplement my meager income by selling art prints, but people will only really want to buy them if they look cool and are of the highest quality I can do. So I'd like to have some of that empty room for high-res poster-size files to make prints out of. Then maybe people would like to buy some commissions :D

I played a little Ocarina of Time today. I'm plodding along at a slow pace, since it's been long enough that I don't have the whole thing memorized anymore, but that's okay. I still remember where some of the secret items are, so I spent some time getting a couple of bottles and some heart pieces instead of actually progressing in the game today. Right now I'm about to go after the second spiritual stone in Dodongo's Cavern on Death Mountain, which isn't one of my favorite boards, so I've been dilly-dallying trying to get more bonus stuff.

I also spent a little time reading while I had some lunch. I've been working on Ender's Shadow bit by bit for the last week or something like that. It's a good book, I just can't seem to sit still long enough to read much of it at a time. *But* I did just buy Shadow of the Hegemon, which is its sequel, so I really need to finish reading this one.

Mmm, we're having a pot roast for dinner tonight, and it's been cooking in the crock pot since I woke up. The smell's been wafting throughout the upstairs rooms and it smells really good. I guess i'm just not used to my family cooking stuff either, it's usually just fast food or every man for himself here. Bah.

I may or may not be going down to the U of M tomorrow with my sister. I think I intend to go anyway, but she may be coming with so that she can learn how to ride the bus. So that will probably mean getting up early or something, blegh. Well, after how late I slept in today, I guess I deserve it. I don't like sleeping in as late as I did, that was kind of crappy.

Meh, I can't think of anything else right now, maybe I'll have some deep thougth during dinner or something.
:: Jessi 1/18/2004 05:10:00 PM [+] ::
...

I haven't been doing a lot of computer stuff the past couple days, so I haven't gotten around to posting at all. Which I'm sure is kind of depressing for all of you who look to me as a source of daily drama. So here I am at 2am, making a post for all of my fans out there.

On Friday I had a fun day. I went down to the U and had lunch with Eireann at about 1pm at Village Wok :) We had a good time talking and catching up on things. You all know how keen I am on sharing the drama of my life with everyone that will listen XD So we both shared some drama, laughed, and spoke a little Japanese (which reminds me how very, very little I managed to study over break, but I don't really care all that much). After that, I walked over to Eric's humble abode and he, Willie and I played a little bit of Mario Kart: Double Dash. I of course wasted both of them. It was a slaughter, really. I own at Bob-omb blast in battle mode, I tell you. After that, they started playing Project Gotham Racing, which looked sort of complicated because it involved drifting around corners and stuff like that. I watched both of them play, and it was sort of fun to root them on. I made a very good joke about if the game were played by pigs, it would be called Project Got-Ham Racing, and it made Eric groan with agony... at the greatness of the joke, of course :)

At about 5:45 we left to go to Folwell Hall for the Anime Club planning meeting. There were already a whole lot of people in the room when we got there, so it was quite loud and warm. I began to get a headache about then, which wasn't really a surprise because the obnoxiousness level was a little higher than it should have been. I mean, people had to be told to shut up like thirty or forty times throughout the three hours we were there, which is really just pathetic. Damn otaku. Anyway, many people had brought in clips of the shows they wanted to suggest, so it took a little longer than it might have without them, but I think it was a good idea to have them, just to get an idea of what we were getting into (because some people just are not very goot at summarizing a show for other people.) For our pre-showing (6:00-6:30), we voted in Yami no Matsuei, which seems to be a fave amongst fangirls. I looked online today for some art from it, and basically the two main characters look like a total Shounen-Ai couple, so I think I can understand where that comes from. For the main showings, we voted in GetBackers, Scryed, and Prince of Tennis. I was really rooting for Prince of Tennis, both because I've enjoyed what little I've seen of it, and because it was up against Princess Tutu. It's not that I don't think Princess Tutu is good, I think it's very good - for a specific audience. I think it's a good magical girl show for children. But there are way too many guys in anime club who really like it a lot, almost too much... and it creeps the living hell out of me. Not to mention the fact that people seem to find depth in it where there isn't any. The show is a bit abstract and confusing, and people seem to think that if they can't understand something, then it must have a deep meaning, and so they cling to that and assume depth where there is none. Anyway, in the voting process Princess Tutu and Prince of Tennis were tied 13 to 13 votes, and so to break the tie we watched a longer clip from each show and voted blind - meaning we shut our eyes so as not to be influenced by our neighbors. And Prince of Tennis won when the person who had shied away from breaking the tie publicly decided to vote when people didn't have to know it was her. So that was very cool :D

After the voting was all taken care of, we went back to Eric's place, along with his friend Scott, and played some video games. Scott brought over his Japanese PS2, and a couple of rhythm games. He first showed us Pop'n Music, which was colorful and looked like a good time (though I didn't try it out because I was really feeling my headache). We also saw IIDX, which was frickin' insane looking. The controller has a little turntable-type deal and seven keys, and you have to play along to the music. Yar, it looked difficult, but Scott was really good at it. My jaw dropped when I saw the speed at which he was playing. Madness, I tell you.

I left there at about 10pm, and I didn't do a whole lot because I had to work really early this morning and needed my beauty sleep :) Work in the morning was okay. I was in the cash office today, and everything went really smoothly except for one thing; the check encoder decided to be really retarded and set me back like fifteen minutes. See, the check encoder looks at the account number on the checks, matches that to what it has in the database for the previous day, and prints on it if it's been read correctly, and then goes into a holder so that I can stack them together in order when I'm done. Well, if it can't read them properly for some reason, they get sent into the reject bin, and I have to do more stuff with them later. Well, when I was going to do the rejected checks, I noticed something; there were an awful lot of good checks in the reject tray, and I was somehow missing a bunch of ones that hadn't been read properly. So I had to sift through and find all the ones that didn't belong in the accepted tray, and replace them with the ones that belonged there, which was a slightly tedious job, but I found all the checks and everything worked out when I finished, so that was okay. I was also done really quickly today in spite of that. I had punched out by 11am, which is a personal record for me :D So I really am getting better, and I like this job more and more each time I get to do it.

After I got home from Target (my dad had to pick up some new wiper blades so I was delayed a little bit) I had some soup for lunch and then took a nap for about an hour. It was kind of a dumpy nap because I don't think I ever actually got to sleep, but it was better than nothing, and it sustained me for the rest of the day. After that I was really hungry again, so after my parents went to the grocery store, I cooked some rice for a snack. I haven't had rice in a long while, and eating some made me want to go to United Noodles :) I haven't been there in ages, not since the summertime, I believe. I'll have to make a trip there sometime this semester. Jill called me a little after that and said she was going to pick me up soon so that I could have dinner at her place. She made lasagna, and a couple of her hubby's friends were going to join us also. One guy ended up not being able to come, so it was just Jeremy's friend Tuyen who joined us. He brought over his DVDs of the first season of the TV show "Curb Your Enthusiasm," so after the very tasty lasagna, we sat down and watched six episodes of that. It's a very funny show, and I'm thinking of getting the DVDs myself, since they apparently sell them at Target. After that, Jill gave me a couple CDs of photos from her wedding and showed me proofs of some more, which were all pretty nice. I liked the humorous ones, of course :D We ended up playing some Grand Theft Auto for a while. Near the end, Jeremy and Tuyen both tried to get the army to come after them, but they both kept getting killed before that point. Oh well, at least they got to sleep with prostitutes and blow shit up :D We watched a little Azumanga Daioh after that, because I wanted to show Jill something. Jeremy and Tuyen didn't seem to get it, but I had a good time.

Well, and that leads me up to this point, the here and now, me writing in my good ol' blog. It's been a fun end of break, and I don't think I'll really mind going back to class on tuesday. I'll get to see my friends again, at least, and Anime Club looks like it'll work out to be pretty enjoyable, at least since the pedophiles won't be peeking up any Tutus this semester XD
:: Jessi 1/18/2004 03:16:00 AM [+] ::
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GRRRRR, I'm pretty mad right about now. See, I was writing a short story, and I was about half a page through it when I decided to leave the room for a bit because my mom was going to vaccuum. So I quickly hit the 'save' icon at the top of the page, then shut down MSWord and left the room. Well, half an hour later I came back to it and wanted to continue from where I'd left off... but when I loaded it, about two and a half paragraphs were missing. Ugh, and that was a lot of hard work! I can't imagine what happened except that maybe I shut it down before it was actually finished saving, but geez... I'm pretty darn frustrated right now. Of course I want to try and recreate what I had, but I don't know if I can because it's still close enough that I have an idea about what will be different from what I wrote before. Man, I feel like kicking chihuahuas into the garbage right now >:(
:: Jessi 1/15/2004 09:30:00 PM [+] ::
...

Well, today started off kind of blah because I managed to wake up early. That might not sound like such a bad thing, but lately my body has tended to wake up early in spite of going to bed rather late at night. So while I could really use like 10 hours of sleep a night, I've been waking up after like 7 hours. I think my internal alarm might just be wacky, or it might be that the sunlight comes in my window and just blasts me awake. Or maybe that my mom is always so loud getting ready for work in the morning. I don't know, in any case, I was lethargic for a lot of the day.

That is, until I decided to get off my ass and play some Stepmania. I figured out today how to time my workout so that it'll be perfect for the way my body works. See, I found a water bottle of my sister's that holds 32 oz. of water, and filled it up. I decided to play the game until the water was gone out of the bottle. And like I quipped earlier, no, that doesn't mean until it evaporated, it means until I drink the whole bottle. And no chugging, just a little bit when I need it. So that lasted a little over an hour or so, I think. Not bad. I also tried a song that I couldn't do before called "Sandstorm." I still failed at it, but only because of one stupid part which was really much more difficult than the rest of the song. I will beat it someday!

Awww Yeah!

So because I'm exhausted after all that exercise, here are some hilarious quizzes results for you all to peruse.

My inner child is sixteen years old!

Life's not fair! It's never been fair, but while
adults might just accept that, I know
something's gotta change. And it's gonna
change, just as soon as I become an adult and
get some power of my own.


How Old is Your Inner Child?
brought to you by Quizilla


You represent... anger.
Mad at the world, eh? You have a tendency to...
freak out easily. Overly emotional about
everything, you're most prone to bouts of
cruelty and moodiness. Other people may be
afraid of the fact that you explode so easily,
but at least you're honest... even if you're
honest about not liking anything.


What feeling do you represent?
brought to you by Quizilla



Legolas Orlando


What Orlando Bloom are You?
brought to you by Quizilla


You're Skittles!!! You have a very interesting
personality, you're so unique. You're the kind
of person who always thinks outside of the box.
You're also a very accepting individual, and
believe in inner beauty.


Which kind of candy are you?
brought to you by Quizilla


-Perfect- You're the perfect girlfriend. Which
means you're rare or that you cheated :P You're
the kind of chick that can hang out with your
boyfriend's friends and be silly. You don't
care about presents or about going to fancy
placed. Hell, just hang out. You're just happy
being around your boyfriend.


What Kind of Girlfriend Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla


Tree Fairy thats what you are
Please rate my quiz even if it is a 1 thanks


Which Fairy are you?(for anyone many out comes)
brought to you by Quizilla


Yaaay :P I promise not to do that again for a while, ha ha :D
:: Jessi 1/14/2004 10:12:00 PM [+] ::
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Well, after a couple of weeks waiting on bated breath, my Zelda compilation disc came in the mail yesterday. I was quite happy, but I haven't gotten a chance to play it yet. I'm really interested in having the two N64 ones, since I can't seem to find my N64 games at all, and this way I'll have them both. Of course, I love the two NES ones included also, especially the second one, because I like the music ^.^ I was wondering why the SNES one wasn't included, but a friend of mine wiser in the ways of video gaming explained that it was because a Gameboy Advance version was in stores currently (I didn't know that...) and so they didn't want to give something out for free that they could charge money for. Makes sense.

Marni and I made some nummy chicken salad today. It was pretty tangy actually, with ginger and garlic in the dressing, and also some toasted almonds for crunchiness. The dressing turned out to be a bit salty, since Marni forgot to mention to me when I was making it that I should halve the salt, but it was still good. Just a little heavy, and it made me pretty thirsty. It was also sleep-inducing. I spent a good portion of the rest of the afternoon, in spite of it being super fun, yawning and feeling like taking a nap. Even the wonders of the Vh1 channel couldn't keep us interested for more than a couple of minutes, or maybe hours, ha ha XD. Man, so I thought that Vh1 was a music channel, but oh no, I'm so, so wrong. It's a channel of endless top ten/fifty/one-hundred lists of interesting things. Not that it's a bad thing, it did allow me to see Viggo Mortenson and Brad Pitt in the same half-hour, which wasn't too bad :P

Before all that though, I worked this morning. I was in the cash office, which I found pretty unusual seeing as how there's a lady who works the entire week in there, and the other girl and I are usually only weekend people. Well, it turned out that they'd finally realized that I hadn't been scheduled a third day of training, though I'd received one off the record; Terri, the manager, came in one Saturday when I was working alone and finished off my training. So I'd say that there was probably no good reason for me to be up so darned early this morning, because I didn't really learn anything new that was important or that I'd probably ever need to use. Yarr, precious hours of sleep wasted :P At least I made some money. And I like working in the cash office, since it's nice and quiet an all.

Dude, so Marni and I rode the bus home tonight at about 8:00pm. Downtown we were waiting at a bus stop on Nicollet Mall, and there were a couple of guys standing outside the bus shelter talking. Suddenly I smelled the unmistakable smell of weed wafting into the shelter, and Marni and I gave each other a half-smirking look. She told me that it reminded her of school, ha ha. I think there's still a slight smell of it in my hair though, it's gross. Blegh, that's what I get for taking a bus so late.

God, that chicken salad has really made my stomach do interesting things. I think the problem is that my system isn't so used to rich foods because I've been trying to eat better stuff lately. So now all that mayonnaise and garlic and all that have been an overload on a system used to things a little more bland. It's not that I really prefer bland foods, but I went through a period where I didn't eat much, so to get things back on track I sort of had to eat stuff that was a little more settling to my system.

Man, I've been up waay too long today, i'm going to bed. Peace out.
:: Jessi 1/14/2004 12:18:00 AM [+] ::
...

I forgot to mention earlier that I started using a new web browser today. It's called the Avant browser, and it's just IE but better. It blocks shitty popups which is very nice (it makes a little pacman sound every time one's shot down, it's sort of entertaining to go to popup-laden websites on purpose ^_^), and it also has it so that when you have multiple windows open, they're on buttons at the bottom of the browser instead of totally seperate windows. Very convenient.

Anyway, continue what you were doing.
:: Jessi 1/12/2004 07:26:00 PM [+] ::
...

So my sister showed up back at my house just a little bit ago, and I thought that she was done babysitting but apparently she is not; there's a little 5-year-old boy sitting on my bed with her and they're playing Mario 3. He's cute, but I can't understand a word that he's saying... and he's scared of me, he he :D Jessi Silver; college student, artist, frightener of small children XD He did let me help him with Mario 3, though.

Man, but my mom was totally pissed off that the kid was over here to begin with. I heard her yelling (well, not yelling, because it more like speaking forcefully through clenched teeth) at my sister that she never again wanted little kids in her house. Yikes. Makes her wonder why the hell she wanted my sister and I at all. Really, I wonder why some people have children in the first place. I guess from an outside standpoint I can see the reasons why a lot of people shouldn't; I see them acting like an ass in one way or another, and I can tell that they probably wouldn't be great parents. But for some reason a lot of people feel they should anyway, and I'm sure they don't often take a good hard look at themselves and decide on a very personal level whether they'd be good parents. I hear too many stories of women my age (22 if you didn't know) who are having kids, and I look at myself, and I think "if they're anything like me, then I feel sorry for their children." It's not like I'm a bad person; I tend to think that I'm pretty good and fun to be around. But really, I would not be a good parent at this point. There's just too much stuff that I want to accomplish right now, and I feel like having a child wouldn't allow me to do that - a sure sign that I'm not ready. Maybe some of those other women are, but I tend to think that those types are few and far between. I guess the problem is that the people who are ready to have kids know better not to XD Sorry, just kidding.

I did some DDR exercising this afternoon for about 45 minutes, which is beyond my 30 minute minimum that I set for every other day. It's nice how much more open my lungs feel after a good cardio workout like that. And the side effect is that I'm super hungry, more hungry than I normally am :)

OH MY GOD!!! The damn dog has been sitting outside my room crying for 20 minutes now to get in, and it is sooo annoying.

Grr, I think that just fizzled this post :( Maybe I'll feel like writing more later.
:: Jessi 1/12/2004 06:02:00 PM [+] ::
...

I had a dream last night where I was shopping at some crazy-looking Kohl's store, where I apparently also had a job. I was looking for a baby shower present, and had picked up something in a box, which I believe was a stroller or that sort of thing. As I walked around the store, I realized that there was all sorts of weird stuff going on. Like, apparently one of the big-wigs from the company was on a visit, and when I turned to look at him he was wearing a sweat suit and walking around the store on stilts. There were also crazy products. Like, I walked over to the kitchenware section, and there were these new crock pots they were selling which had premade food splatters on them, made from silicone gel. They were infused with spaghetti sauce flavor for accuracy. When I went to pay for my item, there were tons of people up at the front lanes, so they were calling for backup, but no one had come yet. There was one lane with no one waiting even though there was a cashier, so I went there. I said hi to the woman, and she just stood there. I put my item down, and she didn't do anything. I kept saying "hello?" over and over until another employee came over and politely informed me that her name was Helga and that she couldn't talk. Well, obviously she couldn't do anything else either. Luckily another lane opened up, and a guy that I knew from Target was there, so he helped me out. The register computers were really bizarre. Like, they were sort of like PDAs in the way that they were controlled by the use of a small stylus. That's about all I remember of that one.

I had another dream last night that was somewhat more vague. I remember images of being in the car with my parents, and driving past trees in Fridley laden with peanuts (do peanuts even come from trees?). I remember my parents were fighting, and I was thinking about archaeology in order to distract myself. For some reason, I had a couple sheets of paper with me, and I believed that they were from Eric, some piece that he had written that I was reading over for him. I don't remember the exact nature of what he'd written, but I do remember that whatever it was made me feel quite sad. Hmm.

I just got done with a conversation with Eric actually. We were talking about the new Silent Hill game which was announced, and which looks to have very good graphics. He said that the creators of the game were supposedly changing the focus of the game a little, towards more combat, where the other games were more puzzle-oriented. Whenever I hear something like that, I always immediately jump to the conclusion that the designers are succumbing to pressure from fans who want gratification now; they don't want to have to work through puzzles, they'd rather run around and beat shit up. He told me that he didn't think that would be the case with this game, and I surely hope so.

I think that the reason I get so defensive about this is a result of my relationship with the Final Fantasy series. These games have always been a bit more story-oriented than other RPG series, which I enjoy. However, I feel like the later games have begun to lose their focus, trying more and more to look pretty and have awesome cut scenes, while not backing that up with a really great story. Don't get me wrong though, the stories are still solid, it's just that the focus has gone awry. Like I remember this with FFIX especially. I remember thinking how cool the game looked, and there were tons of great CG cut scenes... but I was done with the game in like a week. There wasn't enough content to back up these amazing cinematic scenes, and it was a little depressing. I also think the latter Final Fantasies have sort of lost the spirit of the series, and there are others who agree with me. Like, for me, the Final Fantasy universe, while never exactly the same from game to game, always had the same sense of blending technology with fantasy, and it always worked really well. But starting with FF7 on the Playstation, they switched it more over to a technological focus, and it sort of bothered me. Yeah, that was when they started selling more games, so there was obviously something that hit a nerve with more people, but I felt it sort of cheapened everything for me. It was like "thanks for supporting us for so long, see you later, we've got bigger fish to fry now."

I haven't played FFX much or its sequel at all, but I get the feeling that, though many people really love these games, it's a lot of pretty with not much else. I mean, especially with FFX-2... I hate to sound like an ass because I've heard from friends of mine that, despite appearances, it's actually a fun game, but I feel like it's too separate from the soul of Final Fantasy. I feel it's more of a guilty pleasure or childish diversion; I had tons of fun playing with Barbies and changing their outfits when I was younger, and even when I was not quite so young, and so there's a real solid appeal to a game where you have three pretty girls that have different outfits that you can change and play around with.

Okay, I'm starting to sound like an elitist ass now, I'm sorry. That means it's time to quit and think about something else, because these things are worthy of an eye-roll, not rage or anger -_-;;

Eric sent me a song to listen to yesterday, and I liked it a lot. I told him today that I think it was because the chord progression was really appealing to me in some way. I described it as making me "feel like it gives me a sense of emergence, with a slight hint of the fantastic." I know that sounds kind of weird, but it's something that's very difficult to actually put into words. It's like a recipe you just sort of know without it being written down. Hmm.

Well, I need to check websites and things again because I go to work soon, so that's it for now ^_^
:: Jessi 1/11/2004 02:35:00 PM [+] ::
...

Wow, so I've had quite a week this week. Quite a week. I'll try and cover the whole thing without going into too much unnecessary detail.

Monday was one of the more interesting days this week. I had been begging my sister to go to Return of the King with me for about a week and a half, and she finally got out of working in the evening on Monday, so we decided to go. I was really excited, it would be my fourth time seeing the movie, which would match my record of seeing The Two Towers. Anyway, about a half an hour before leaving, my sister got a phone call from her "sort-of" boyfriend, Scott, and they apparently made some extra plans for after the movie. I guess my sister wanted to have me come do something that she wanted to do, because I was having her do something that I wanted to do. It was a fair trade, I supposed. Well, it turned out that they wanted to go to Deja Vu, which if you didn't already know is a strip club in Minneapolis. I was a little nervous about the whole thing, because I didn't know if it was a nasty place at all. But, because fair is fair I relented and said we could go. So after the movie, we drove down to Burnsville where her boyfriend lives, and met up with him and his friends, then drove back to Minneapolis. My sister and I made a quick stop at the Arby's near the U of M because neither of us had eaten since lunch time, and it was coming up on 9:00pm at this point. After that, we drove back downtown and went into the club.

It was actually a pretty classy place after all. Once I was inside, all my nervousness melted away and my sister and I sat down and enjoyed the show. In all seriousness, I thought that, once seeing the strippers at work, I would boil over with anger at how degrading the whole thing was, but that didn't happen. In fact, I saw just how powerful and exciting those women were, strutting on stage, hanging and doing practically acrobatic things from the poles, and just generally being sexy. It gave me an entirely new view on the job these women do every night. Interesting stuff. One of them offered me a lap dance, I politely declined ^_^ I wasn't that into it, you know, ha ha.

Well, I'm sure you know that after that, my internet went out sometime Tuesday morning. Go back a couple of posts for an explanation of that ordeal. I did finally come to the conclusion that it wasn't a bad thing, though it might have seemed that way at the time. I actually got a couple things done that I'd been working on, and I managed to do a little reading and some more drawing at that. Go me! It was nice to have a little quiet time to settle down and think. I mean, I do spend plenty of time thinking already, but this was nice, quiet, uninterrupted thinking. It's different, I tell you!

My internet came back on Thursday, and I was pretty happy because at least I got to check my websites and talk online with people a little. What's fun about being gone for a couple of days is that your email inbox gets full of stuff and it's fun to pretend, at least until you read them, that they're all from actual people instead of spammers ^_^ I also got plenty of messages on deviant art, and got to catch up on all my webcomics. Sort of a fun time.

Friday was my most interesting day of all, though. I mean, the morning was fun, because my sister and I went down to Coffman Union so that she could get a U card. We met up with a kewl and secksy friend of mine for lunch, ate pizza and giggled a lot, and then left. Now that was fun enough that I could have had a good day just doing that, but oh no, that was not the end of my day. After leaving the U, my sister and I drove to the piercing place so that she could have her piercing adjusted (the ring was too large and it was wiggling around), and I ended up taking the plunge and getting my nipples pierced (I'm sure some of you know of this event already.) That was quite the experience, I'll tell you that much. So now I'm a bit more decorated, and I'm absolutely loving it. Sorry, I'm not posting any pictures :P

Later that night, Jill and I got together for our weekly game and chat fest. We went out for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant (Jill, I forgot to pay you back for dinner, let me know how much I owe you -_-), and then we played some Dr. Mario and other games at her place. After that, we made some juice and watched Office Space which is still hilarious every time I see it. One of my personal favorites, to be sure. After that we talked for about an hour and a half about this and that, then watched an episode of "What Not to Wear" which is really a funny show, in a wicked way that is. Then it was like 1am and I really had to go home since I was working the next day.

And so now that brings us to the current time. Nothing really went on today except work, which only lasted for about five hours and was pretty boring. I mean, there were no really irate customers, nothing really out-of-the-ordinary happened... bah, kind of a throwaway day, but at least I made some money. I have to work at 7am two days this week, which is wanky mcspanky, but at least I get to leave early then.

Gosh, I think I've run out of things to say for now (gasp!). I think work dulled my mind for today, so I'll blame it on that. Plus I want to get this post done before it becomes Sunday, because I don't like skipping days :)
:: Jessi 1/10/2004 10:46:00 PM [+] ::
...

Hey dudes. I got my internet back, huzzah! The router came at about 1:30 today, and I plugged it in but wasn't sure what to do after that, so I had to wait until my dad got home from work. It was only like a two hour wait though, so that's okay. I had worked this morning, so I wasn't really too keen on thinking very hard about anything. Which is odd, because while I'm at work, I seem to be prone to doing an awful lot of thinking... hmm.

Like I said last night, though, maybe having a break from the internet for a couple days wasn't such a bad thing. I did end up doing some reading. I had started the book Ender's Shadow sometime last year or something, but it got misplaced so I stopped reading it. But I dug it out of my book pile (which is contained in a cardboard box in the corner of my room) and read like the first 100 pages. It seemed to me that I read it really fast, then I remembered that I've been reading Lord of the Rings lately, which is a whole lot more difficult to read. Not that it stops me from reading it or anything :P he he. Now that I've seen all the films, I like to play this game with myself where, while I'm reading the books, I try to find lines that they used in the movie, whether they altered them or not, and whether they're said by the same character. Yes, I'm a nerd. But it's a fun game and it makes me feel knowledgeable, so ha! Everyone needs a hobby.

Let's see, what else... oh, so I went to Deviant Art today, and I suspected that I would have a bunch of messages from the two days that I wasn't there. I had 7 of them, which I thought was awesome until I realized that none of them were comments on my stuff -_-. I mean, it was cool that Laura had some pics from England and some people on my friends list had uploaded stuff, but damn, I was hoping for some comments on my Six Short Pieces that I had up here a couple of posts ago :( I think you all should just sign up for a Deviant Art free account so that you can all just leave me comments ;) He he. I actually started paying for a full membership there, which isn't very expensive (8 dollars for three months is what I got, just so I don't commit for a full year without knowing whether I really really want to be a paying member or not). I actually like it more already, because things load faster and stuff. And I get an asterisk beside my username instead of just a tilda :D He he,

Well, it's getting sort of late, so I think I'll just post some nice filler in here :)
-----------------------------------------------
Name: Jessi Silver
Age: 22 years
Astrological sign: Sagittarius
Chinese zodiac sign: COCK!!!
IQ (if known): According to the Emode website, it's 138
Innie or outie: Innie. I don't think I've ever seen an outie in person
What joints can you crack?: fingers, my weird inner thumb joint, elbows, shoulders, back, neck, ankles
What is special about your eyes?: Umm, they're awesome and they're two colors together (brown and green).
Favorite body part: my hands. Some people would have you believe that it's my breasts, and I can see why they would think that also.
Ideal hair color: auburn. mine is like that in the summer sometimes.
If you were offered the ability to fly in exchange for a bodily organ of yours, would you do it?: Yeah, I've always dreamed of flying.
If so, what would you sacrifice?: a kidney. I mean, I have two and all.
How does music make you feel?: Man, I get so caught up in music sometimes. Like, I can listen to music and be moved to tears, that's how it is with me sometimes.
What is more attractive, brains or beauty?: Brains. I mean, beauty will keep you happy for a short while, but brains will keep you happy for a long while.
Massages, giver or getter?: Oh, I like both. I think I'm an okay massage-giver.
What is more important in a relationship, friendship or romance?: Friendship, because not everyone is really that romantic, and that's just fine.
Give a plug for the last really good movie you saw: Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. See it.
Do you get along well with children?: Yeah, I deal pretty well with them.
Name something truly beautiful: Looking into someone's eyes.
What TV show do you watch most often?: Ummm, pretty much anything on the food network.
What animal are you?: technically a human. In my imagination? A dragon :)
Favorite artist: Hmmmmm. I always have trouble with this question. The guy who did the Mario comic book that I have.
Favorite mythical creature: Dragons, or Elves :)
Favorite class: it used to be Japanese... (grumble, damn new book...)
Most creative thing you?ve ever done: I painted a mural in my room. I don't know, I do a lot of crazy writing, but I don't know the distinction between "creative" and "crazy."
Guilty pleasures: E! entertainment television, Chipotle chips and guacamole.
Been reincarnated: Umm, I couldn't tell ya.
How would your friends describe you to other people?: Smart, creative, maybe sad depending on whatever's going on.
Aren?t drunk people funny?: It depends, am I drunk with them or just watching them?
Long or short fingernails: Short, long ones are just scary, like talons or something.
Math, science, social studies, or English?: English
Ever done drugs?: It depends. I've never done marijuana or crack or anything, but I've had alcohol before.
Best lesson you?ve learned: Don't try and force things to happen
Worst thing that ever happened to you: I can't really think of something to fit well here.
Boy bands: Sexy but shallow
Poetry: psh, don't get me started.
Songs: "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon" by Ernie :D
Pencil or Pen?: pencil for drawing, pen for writing
Earliest memory: I remember I was like 2 or so, and my dad told me to clean up my room, and I told him no and then got yelled at. Nice, I know.
Really nasty words: sac, moist
Best thing about summer: I get to see my friends, and I don't have to think too hard unless I really want to.
---------------------------------------------------
Lol, I'm such a copout sometimes. Well, I'd already gotten to that hazy point so my brain wasn't working quite at optimum capacity. So now I think it's time to go to bed. aaah, sleeping.

:: Jessi 1/09/2004 01:30:00 AM [+] ::
...

Hey, so if you usually talk to me online, you may wonder what the heck is going on, since I haven't been online for like more than a day. Well, funny story, see Monday night everything was going fine, you know. Internet was working, I did a blog post and uploaded stuff to my deviantart page. Well, I woke up Tuesday morning and tried to get online, and it worked for about five minutes. I was in the middle of loading like half of the deviantart page when it just like stopped. So I figured that we'd been kicked off again, which usually happens in the middle of or after I've been doing some heavy uploading and downloading (like getting something using bittorrent). Well, I went downstairs to where the router is located which networks our house. Usually the remedy for this problem is to unplug the internet cable from the router, wait about thirty seconds, and then plug it back in. This usually works right away. Well, when I looked at the indicator lights on the router, and the one showing the internet coming in was all cool, but the ones that indicate the other computers were blinking like mad. So I wondered about this. Anyway, I did the usual procedure, ran back upstairs, and went to click on the router address from my computer. Well, it wasn't going there, so I knew something was up. I spent the whole afternoon waiting for my dad to get home so that he could take a look at it, and when he got home, he couldn't figure it out, so he called the internet people. Turns out that it was the router, it was burned out and died. I was like "but we've only had it for like a year and a half!" but apparently that's a lot longer then they're usually expected to last, which I find rather annoying. Things are supposed to last longer than a year and a half! Well, that's just my apparently old-fashioned sensibilities talking there. Hmph. Well, so that's what's been going on. You may wonder then how I'm writing in my blog. Well, Marni and Staci have graciously allowed me to commandeer their computer for the moment so I can have some contact with the outside world for a little bit.

Actually, to tell you the truth, not having a choice in being cut off has probably been a good thing for me. I mean, no offense to anyone, but while I'm typing things on my computer, sometimes I just let myself get all distracted by all the IMs and things coming in, and so maybe I'm not doing my best. I dunno. I've been sort of lonely, but not lonely to the point of depression. I mean, there was a point when I didn't have 24/7 internet access (gasp!) and I must have found something to do during those times :) I'd like to thank those of you who've had the heart to call me. Okay, the one of you, who would be Eric. Thank you for the nice phone call and being worried about me.

So yeah, needless to say, Marni and I hung out today. I came over here at about 3pm, and we sat and had tea and talked. I ranted about a particular dilemma I've been having, and she was sympathetic, but at the same time couldn't offer much advice. I suppose that's both the wonder and the dilemma of being Jessi Silver. I experience all these things that most people never think of or just don't get bothered by, and while it can be frustrating, it also affords me a measure of pride knowing that I'm just so darn unique. Or something :P

Anyway, Staci came home for about a half an hour and we laughed because she talks really humorously about things. Then she left and Marni and waited for some insurance lady to come so Marni could take a pee test proving that she wasn't a drug addict... for insurance purposes, really! Then we started making dinner, Kung Pow chicken with some seasoning from a seasoning packet. I chopped up onions and celery and broccoli. Marni chopped the chicken. Then we started stir-frying, and at the last second decided to put in pineapple, so I chopped that up and we added that in, along with some peanuts which we had been roasting with oil, salt and garlic :) Mmmmm. So needless to say, it was super tasty, and we were proud of it, though Marni really did do most of the work, he he.

Well, I think I'd better finish this off, since it really isn't my computer or anything. If any of you would like to call me on my cell phone, I'd be happy to hear from you. We probably won't have internet back until tomorrow evening at the latest, and I'm always happy to talk to people :) Anyway, talk to you all later.
:: Jessi 1/07/2004 10:54:00 PM [+] ::
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