Saturday, August 20, 2005

   Roses really smell like.....

I'm sure you all know that it's Friday night and time to post!

---

Well, my day was fairly uneventful. Did a virusscan this morning, nothing found as usual. Even the "Potentially Unwanted Programs" that were hanging out in the Restore/Archive files were actually gone! Whee! I guess that they finally left under their own volition.... or something like that.

Well, it was time for the trip to Sioux City with the brother as usual. We did our usual running around. Found a new sketchbook at Wal-mart! Yay!!! I now have enough paper for those pictures. I still have to do some fiddling about to get the computer part done.

Caprice, you're right. Someone with my education needs a better system to work on. I just need money to be able to get to that point!!! Anyone got a spare couple thousand bucks I can have to get the system up to what it should be? I dream big....

---

Well, tomorrow's excitement includes a haircut! I've not had a haircut since February and it's been driving me nuts. I pull it back into a ponytail just about every day. Other than that, I don't know what we're gonna do. It's more fun being somewhat spontaneous.

---

Laters!

Comments (6) | Permalink

Friday, August 19, 2005

   Banana split for my baby and a glass of plain water for me.

Thursday night at last!

---

I feel much better than last night... except for the slight stomachache now. But that may be from those incredibly dense crackers I ate a little while ago. Ooog.

---

Well, to catch up on a few things that have gone on in the past couple of days. As for the phone interview... Well, it went well enough for them to email me the art test. I have a slight problem with that, however. I need to do five hand drawings and have only 4 pages left in my sketchbook!!! The other problem is that they also want 2 computer drawings done in either Illustrator or Freehand. I've got Corel. I checked Adobe's website for a trial version of either of those and ran into a few problems there. The trial version's download is over 300 MB in size. I'm on dialup. It needs either Windows 2000 or XP. I'm on Millemonum. *sigh* Well, I guess I'll have to see if I can export files from Corel into either of those formats. *sigh* Lack of technology is holding me back...

And another thing that was commented on the other day. I think it was Nikorasu that said something about the freezes I have on this beast being due to it running Windows ME. No. That's not why it's freezing. I had uninstalled the McAfee Firewall and was experiencing no freezeups. I think that there are still some traces of the old firewall in here. I just need to become adventurous and muck about in the registry, which I don't particularly care to do. But, if it helps out and I get the freezes to stop, I'll be very happy.

And a note about the subject line from that early post last night. I was listening to Louis Prima and reading Rurouni Kenshin while waiting for pages to load last night. It was very relaxing, even though I had a nasty headache.

---

Well, that's about it for tonight. I hope this was interesting enough drivel for you!

Laters!

Comments (10) | Permalink

Thursday, August 18, 2005

   Even more rare: a post done in the morning.

Thursday morning

---

Hey all. Feeling much better now. Headache is gone, yet the allergies persist. I'll be back later tonight with hopefully tons of interesting drivel for you all to read! Wheee!!!!

Laters!

Comments (7) | Permalink

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

   Louis Prima and Himura Kenshin.....

an early Wednesday night post.

---

Sorry everyone, no post tonight. I have a headache again. (Stupid allergies!) So, I will be wandering off now.

Laters!

Comments (0) | Permalink

   I'm such an idiot sometimes.

yadseuT

---

Well, I decided to reinstall the McAfee Firewall tonight. I did it only because of the news of a new, vicious computer worm running around the internet. (I'm probably safe from it because I'm running Windows ME and not 2000 or XP.) But I had to go and reinstall it anyway. And I'm getting the little freezes again!!!! Figures....

So, I've been trying to find out more about uninstalling ZoneAlarm once and for all. And that's taken a bunch of time tonight. *sigh*

Of course, the McAfee Firewall had to go and update itself right away. It's been installing for almost 2 hours now. *sigh, again* If it doesn't finish the installing in the next few minutes, I'm just gonna shut down the system and go to bed!

---

Well, that pretty much sums up what I've been up to for the past 2.5 hours. Oh, my day was rather dull. I watched "Fairly Oddparents" all afternoon while working on Japanese. I got that phone call/interview thingy. I just have to read the email the lady sent me now and see what they want me to send back in return.

---

Sorry I didn't hit sites today. I did so good yesterday, didn't I?

Laters!

Comments (3) | Permalink

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

   If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower....

Monday, Monday.... Can't trust that day.

---

My day consisted of laundry. Big surprise there, eh? I always do at least two loads of towels every Monday. Today I also washed bedding and regular clothes. Big thrill!!

---

My mood today has been rather mixed. I got a callback from Barnes & Noble. I didn't get the job. So that had me down... But a few minutes after that call, I got a call from another place that I sent my resumé to and have a phone interview tomorrow. *sigh* I sort of wanted that B&N job, but this one I have the interview with is more along the lines of what I've been getting certified in. Wish me luck!!!

---

I actually hit a bunch of sites tonight! First time in about a week!!! I'm so sorry that I haven't been by very many sites lately, but with this roller coaster of emotions I've been on and the idiosyncrasies of the computer, I've just been getting offline quicker than usual so I don't have to deal with the thing.

---

Well... on that note. I think I may meander offline and do the Ad-aware and Spybot scans.

Laters!

Comments (7) | Permalink

Monday, August 15, 2005

   Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap!

Sunday and it's AC/DC and Aerosmith night! Oh, yeah... you've been warned: this post will be kind of long.

---

Yeah... I dug out the old AC/DC disk. It's old, but it's a favorite of mine. And my Aerosmith disk is the O, Yeah! one.... best of Aerosmith stuff. Best listened to at loud volumes. Good thing I'm here by myself, eh?

---

Well, the tiger is done and will be in the fanart as soon as I get done with this. My brother-in-law has seen it and likes it a lot. So, it will eventually become a tattoo! Yay!

---

The day was incredibly uneventful. I finished the tiger and played computer games. That's about it. So, as promised/threatened, here's the next part of my story. For those of you that don't read it, feel free to go look at the tiger or wander off to other, more wonderful things.

---

Night had fallen, and Hikaru was watching the girl sleep. She had been crying because of the man. He had spent much of the evening watching them argue. Hikaru had a feeling that they were arguing about him. Finally, she had left the dining area in tears and went to her room. Hikaru stayed behind in the dining area for a while, watching the man as he talked to the Japanese woman named Midori. The man was frustrated and Midori was trying to calm him down.

Hikaru went to find the girl, and after trying to knock on doors, he realized that he could not touch any of them. He found he could go through them as if they weren’t there, and was about to start searching for the girl when he heard her sobbing behind one of the doors. He found her face down on her futon. She seemed unaware of his presence.

He sat down next to her and reached out to feel her hair. The color of her hair was like nothing he had seen before. It was the color of the sun. He began to stroke her hair the way his father had when he was small and had been frightened by something. Soon the girl had stopped sobbing and fell asleep.

Sometime later, there was a soft knock at the door, and it slid open to reveal Midori, who had come to check on the girl. “Sam-san?” she said quietly. She tiptoed over to the girl and saw that she was sleeping and left. Hikaru now knew her name…Sam.

As the night progressed, Hikaru stayed by Sam’s side as she slept. In the partial light, he finally remembered where he had seen her before. It was the night in the dojo’s garden. She had been the girl in the shadows. He had frightened her then, but there was no fear in her eyes when she had found him at the shore.
***
The day after the funeral dawned rather soggily. Takeda had taken Hikaru back to their house where he would be comfortable. Of course, the doctor had not been able to find any physical reason for Hikaru’s condition. Like so many of the townsfolk, he was concerned about the boy. And, like so many of the townsfolk, he had no idea of the real reason Hikaru had collapsed. Only Takeda knew, and he was desperately trying to find the boy.

He had spent much of the previous night searching the area around the temple hoping to catch sight of Hikaru. Once it became apparent that the boy was not there, he headed back to the house. He stayed by Hikaru’s side the rest of the night, hoping the boy would find his way home.

In the morning, Takeda was awoken by a knocking at the door. He had dozed at Hikaru’s side. He was disappointed to see there was no change in the boy, and was reluctant to leave his side, but the knocking continued. He went to the door and opened it to see the anxious face of Satsuo. “Come in, come in,” he said. A look past Satsuo revealed Ashida watching from across the street. “You were followed, Satsuo-kun.”

Satsuo turned and saw Ashida across the street. “I’m sorry, sensei,” he said. “There was no way to avoid it. I tried to evade him.”

Takeda slid the door shut and reassured Satsuo. “That’s all right. He would have found us sooner or later. Now what brings you here on this soggy morning?”

“Mother sent some food for you and Hikaru. She’s worried about him after his collapse yesterday.” Satsuo held out the wrapped bento box he was carrying. “How is Hikaru?”

“The same as yesterday. He still sleeps.” Takeda took the bento boxes and led Satsuo to Hikaru’s room. “You may stay with him for a while. I’m going to put the food away.”

“Thank you, sensei.” Satsuo sat next to his friend and quietly told him of what had happened the previous day. He spoke of how Hikaru’s grandfather was worried about him. Finally, he told about the foreigners staying at the inn.

After he had put away the food sent by Satsuo’s mother, Takeda looked in on the boys. He smiled at how Satsuo was chattering away at Hikaru. He then returned to the sitting room and wrote a message to Nakamura. Once finished, he went to Hikaru’s room to get Satsuo. He realized he had not eaten since the day before. “Satsuo-kun, let’s have some lunch. It would be a shame to let what your mother sent go to waste.”

“Of course, sensei,” Satsuo said. He turned to Hikaru and added, “Take care, Hikaru. I’ll be back when I can.” He left with Takeda.

Over their meal, Takeda talked with Satsuo about what had happened. “This is related to what you saw in the garden that one day,” he said. “I’m not entirely sure what caused him to collapse yesterday, but I do ask that you say nothing of this to anyone, especially Nakamura and his men.”

“Of course, I will tell no one of this.”

“I do have a favor to ask of you, Satsuo-kun.”

“Yes, sensei?”

“Take this letter to Nakamura-san for me. If you can get it to him without Ashida seeing, it would be good.”

“I’ll try my best.”

“Thank you, Satsuo-kun. Tell your mother ‘Thank you’ for the food as well. It was good.” Takeda returned the empty bento boxes. “Forgive my rudeness, but could you come back later? I did not sleep well last night.”

“Of course. Let Hikaru know I’ll be back soon,” Satsuo said as he gathered the letter and the boxes and went back to the inn. He noticed that the man was not watching the house when he left.

At the inn, Satsuo found his mother and told her what Takeda had said. He went to the main hall to look for Nakamura. He saw him sitting with the two men. He would have to get the message to Hikaru’s grandfather with the men there after all. He cautiously approached Nakamura. “A message for you, sir,” he said as he held out Takeda’s letter.

“Thank you,” Nakamura said as he took the message. He opened and read it quickly. Ashida and Yonaha were curious, yet showed no sign of wanting to read. Nakamura beckoned Satsuo to come over. “I will have a reply for you to deliver. Please come by my room in about an hour and I will have it ready.”

“Of course, sir,” Satsuo said with a bow.

Nakamura got up to return to his room. He made some excuse to Ashida and Yonaha that he wanted some time alone. Ashida was getting impatient with all the delays, but said nothing. Yonaha was getting impatient with Ashida and was trying to figure out how to tell Nakamura about it.

Outside the rain continued to fall.
***
Samantha woke to the sound of rain the next morning. She was somewhat surprised to see Hikaru sitting in the room. “So that was you last night,” she said. “I know you can’t understand me, but thank you all the same.”

There was a knock at the door and Murphy’s voice, “Sam, are you awake? Can I come in?”

Sam looked at Hikaru and said, “Oh no, he’ll kill you if he finds you in here… what am I saying? He can’t see you!” She got up and opened the door. “Good morning,” she said to her uncle.

Murphy looked around. “Who were you talking to?” he asked.

“The boy. He’s here,” she said. “He’s over by the window.”

“Sam, there’s nobody there. You have got to get some rest. Come down and have some breakfast and we’ll talk there.”

Sam held up a hand and gestured for Hikaru to stay in the room and followed Murphy to the dining room for breakfast. Hikaru followed along. Sam noticed him and whispered, “No. Stay in there,” and repeated the gesture. Hikaru stopped briefly and then followed again. “I give up,” Sam said.

“What did you say?” Murphy asked.

“Nothing,” she muttered.

They arrived to find the dining room somewhat full. The rain was keeping many people inside. Sam and Murphy found Midori waiting at a table with breakfast. Things were a bit tense until Murphy broke the silence by saying, “Well, with this rain, we won’t be doing much sightseeing. Which is good, because you need to take it easy. I think you should stay in today.”

Sam wasn’t paying attention to her uncle. Rather, she was watching Hikaru move around the dining room. He followed the large boy that worked at the inn, until he left with some food. Sam could see the frustration on Hikaru’s face. She tried to get his attention to come back over by her.

Murphy was beginning to lose patience with his niece. “Samantha, that is enough. Stop this nonsense. I don’t care what you and Esther think you’re doing here. You’re going back to Boston.”

That got Samantha’s attention. “You can’t do that. You have no right to order me around like that. I’m not going back to Boston. Don’t you understand? I found him. He’s here in this room and he needs me.”

“Stop it. There’s no boy here but the one serving the food. You’re not well.” He put his hand on Sam’s arm.

She pulled her arm away from his touch and stood up. “Don’t touch me,” she said. Tears were forming in her eyes. She left the table and went over to where Hikaru was standing. Grabbing his hand, she said, “Come on. We’re getting out of here,” and walked out into the rain, ignoring protests from her uncle within.

Samantha wandered through the streets of Kamakura in the rain. Hikaru followed behind trying to get her attention. He finally grabbed her arm and pulled her into a sheltered area out of the rain.

Back at the inn, Murphy and Midori were trying to decide what to do about Samantha. “I have to go find her,” he said. “I can’t leave her alone like this. Not now.”

“I know, Murphy-san,” Midori said. “But she needs your support, too. She is so convinced that the boy is here, that I’m almost ready to believe her.”

“Midori-san, please. I don’t need this right now. I just want to find Samantha.” He got up and went to his room and grabbed his hat.

Midori followed and got an umbrella from her room. “All right, I will help you find Sam-chan.” Together they went out into the rain to search.

Samantha waited in the shelter for a while until the rain stopped. Hikaru took her by the hand and led her outside. They walked through town to the temple. He seemed to be looking for something. A priest came out to ask what Samantha needed, but of course she couldn’t understand him. Hikaru left her alone for a moment, but suddenly reappeared and grabbed her hand and left the temple in a hurry.

“Wait. What’s wrong?” Sam asked.
Hikaru didn’t reply and led her through town again. This time he stopped at a house. He took her by the wrist so she could knock at the door.

After knocking for a while, the door was opened by a rather sleepy looking man. He looked at Samantha and asked what she wanted. He seemed to be a little upset at the intrusion and was even more angry when she moved past him into the house and to Hikaru’s room.

Samantha was surprised to see the boy she had been helping lying asleep on the floor in the room. He was also standing by her side. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Are you twins?”

The man was clearly upset at her presence and was trying to get her out of the room. He was saying something, but she had no idea what it was.

The silver boy looked at the man and shook his head. He let go of Sam’s hand and went to his sleeping form and sat down directly on it – or in it. Samantha looked on in fascination as the silver form lay down into the sleeping one. The boy on the floor opened his eyes and looked up at Samantha and smiled. “Arigatô,” he whispered and reached for her hand.

Samantha took his hand and sat next to him on the floor. The man seemed to forget his anger and asked Hikaru about Samantha. He received no answer as the boy had fallen asleep.

---

Well... there we have it. A rather long part of story... finally Sam & Hikaru are together... sort of.

---

That's all for tonight. Now go comment on this and go look at the tiger!

Laters!

Comments (5) | Permalink

Sunday, August 14, 2005

   w00t! Round numbers again!!!

It's the end of another week... or Saturday.

---

I like round numbers. A week or so ago, I saw this one when I got to my Backroom:


Well, tonight when I got here I saw this one:


Then later it was this one:

---

Well, as you may have guessed, my day wasn't very exciting if I get excited by those numbers. My brother and I did go to LeMars to do grocery shopping today. Bought lots of food.

Other than that, not a whole lot went on with me. I played Gameboy for a while again. I'm currently off the Pokemon Pinball kick and have been going full tilt at Golden Sun again. I also chose colors for the tiger I drew. I think I'm just gonna color this one in without my brother-in-law's opinion on the colors. The dragon was a different story... that one needed his input on colors. There's only so much that can be done to a tiger. They're a kind of orange color. 'Nuff said. I should have it done tomorrow sometime, so I'll post it tomorrow night. Again, I will also post pictures of the progress of the actual tattoo as it's being done. I just need to know if the tattoo guy has white ink....

---

Well... I think I may go do some typing on my story now. Hopefully my thumb/wrist issue won't be too much of a distraction as I type.

Laters!

Comments (9) | Permalink

Saturday, August 13, 2005

   Je m'appelle Charles..... Je ne le crois pas.

Friday... and I'm trying to speak French?

---

I get an email from a book publisher every week with sample pages from some of their books. There was a couple pages of French phrases this week. I printed them and am utilizing what I've got. Somewhere I have a couple pages of handy phrases in Russian! Whee!

---

My day got off to a wonderful start. I slept until a little after 10:00!!! No rain to wake me this time... and the cat didn't make noises at me like she usually does to get me to get up and feed her.

So, with getting a late start, I didn't get much done that I had intended to get done today. I did, however, finally start the tiger that my brother-in-law requested for another tattoo! I have the black & white done but need to color it in yet. Once I get the coloring done and the approval of my brother-in-law, I'll load it up for you all to see.

Otherwise, I didn't do much that was very exciting today. Did the usual Friday trip to Sioux City with my brother. We stopped at the motel where he works for a little bit and then went to KFC for eats. I made short work of my piece of chicken! I was hungry!!!! Then we wandered around Wal-mart and had ice cream at the Blue Bunny Shop in there. After that we did a trip around the mall. I communed with the spirits of the foxes that were killed so their pelts could be put on display at Scheels... poor little kitsune. Then it was off to Target and I got some more DBZ cards!!! Yay!

---

Well, I have a couple more quizzes for you. I found this one on katocool's site and had to take it. Love the result!



Total slaughter....total slaughter...

Find out what anime bad boy you are.

Then this one was the most recent one listed at the Quizzes page here. I haven't seen any of the show, but out of the pictures I've seen, I've always been attracted to this guy.




What Samurai Champloo Character Are You?


Hosted by theOtaku.com: Anime. Done right.

---

I may or may not have another part of the story ready to go soon. It just depends on how quick I get it typed up!

Laters!

Comments (8) | Permalink

Friday, August 12, 2005

   *dances like a maniac*

It's Techno Thursday!!!

---

Quite a change from last night, eh? I've been listening to some sampler CDs I got out of magazines about 4 or 5 years ago all night. It's been mostly techno dance music. It's really lifted my spirits from last night's poopy mood. I'm still frustrated by that which I let get to me, but tonight I just don't care nearly as much.

---

Well, I awoke to one of my favorite sounds this morning: rain on the roof of the kitchen. No, I wasn't sleeping in the kitchen! My bedroom is on the top floor and the kitchen is downstairs and extends off the back of the house. So, the roof is outside my north window. I love the sound of rain on that roof. It's so peaceful.

---

In answer to SunfallE's question about yesterday's pretty picture: that's the Grand Canyon. I've been there twice myself. I didn't take that picture, but I do have a nice sunset picture somewhere that I did take the last time I was there. I wonder where that photo album has gotten to by now.....there's lots of neat pictures in it from my two trips to the Four Corners area and the Colorado Plateau.

---

Well... now that I've been dancing for the past 3 hours, I'm tired! I hope to get better sleep tonight than last night. Sweet dreams, y'all!

Laters!

Comments (8) | Permalink