Saturday, May 27
Nintendo... Power?
Alright. Awhile back I made sure to register my ds games that I bought, and I eneded up being able to take advantage of their offer of getting 3 free issues of Nintendo Power for registering 3 games. I thought that was cool and took them up on it. On that page when I signed up it said specifically that after taking that offer I could re-sub and get 12 issues for $12, which sounded pretty good to me.I wasn't sure if I was even going to re-sub but they didn't even need a credit card for the 3 free issues so there was really no harm in trying. About a week ago I decided to go ahead and re-sub, looked for the page with the 12 for $12 offer and followed the links and entered my info and sent it off.
Not TOO long after I got an e-mail from them saying they couldn't process my card which was very odd b/c I know for a fact that there's much more than $12 on it, but when I tried again the next day I realized that I may have entered in my number wrong so that's why it wasn't going through, no big deal. So I did it again and even got an e-mail from them saying that it had gone through AND it showed the change on my personal page on nintendo.com AND the order is showing up on my online bank statement.
However. Today I get a letter saying that there was a problem with my order and to call them or to send it by mail. (They even gave me an envelope!) I'm looking at it, and the date on the letter is the 21st which is when I was having problems re-ordering, and the date the order shows up on my bank statement is the 22nd. But... even from Washington State, isn't a week a bit much for a regular size letter? :: sigh :: I was going to call them, but now I'm not sure if I actually will. Tomorrow at least. I especially won't mail them a check b/c the offer for 12 for $12 isn't even on the paper to send to them, so there! It wouldn't hurt just to call them anyway, to innocently check the status of my sub, meh.
I may wait a few days, or even until I'm supose to get my next issue THEN see as well as keep checking my bank statement & what nintendo.com lists as my sub status.
Posted by Avila at 10:21 PM
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Wednesday, May 24
Blah Day
Today has not been a good day.When I don't have to be anywhere in a day, I always end up sleeping in a lot later than I plan to, and promptly feel guilty for doing so & starts my day off on a bad note. Then I realize when it's all said and done that I did next to nothing with my lazy day feeling worse about not just sleeping in but sitting infront of my computer for the rest of it.
And I do have some things that I'd like to get done. I've been meaning to do some cleaning up and have a few errands to run. But, at least in my mind, on Tuesdays and Fridays when my father is working from home those are not days to do things like go out or leave my room as that will draw attention to myself, a generally bad thing.
To add to all this in the past few weeks we went from me ending school for the semester, to Scott ending school for the quater and him driving all day today. While the last bit doesn't mean that I can't talk to him, when I did so we had terrible reception which simply gets me frustrated when I have to repeat myself 4 times while wandering from room to room.
I think it's just been a day of a lot of little things all piling up into a horrible blah day. And there are more things that have kinda added up, but I don't really feel like writing about them here... Just trust me that they've all made my dad very blah. It's a shame that the weather is finally nice just when my mood isn't.
Posted by Avila at 12:12 AM
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Monday, May 22
Discombobulated
The power went out this morning :\ I think it was around 8:30 but I could be wrong. I woke up to my ups beeping, and my alarm clock off. Having no idea what was happening. I kinda figured out that the power had gone off in my half-awake state, but it really did take dad saying "Kiddo, the power's off" for the whole picture to come together. I think it was b/c of the wind.Despite the beeping ups, I didn't just turn it off b/c... I didn't want to I tried to go back to sleep. For a couple hours (I think) it was a half-sleep and I counted that the ups was beeping every 30 seconds.
After that things are really hazy because I did wake up and I actually turned off my ups, and my clock did come back on! Then my dad did infact call and have me turn on some other things and I got really confused and thought it was about an hour later than it actually was.
But I'm ok now! I got some lunch and am watching my daily dose of WNTW ^_^ I'm also enjoying not having school, and have been playing a LOT of Sims 2 *_* I've seriously gone through phases with that game! Still, I'm know I'm not going to get any more expansion packs for it, I don't feel like I need to add anymore to my game play experience and there are other games that I know are on their way that I want to play :)
Posted by Avila at 12:34 PM
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Saturday, May 20
Proving a Point
Not always, but more often then not it seems, that when I'm reading about a new scientific discovery/explanation/theory it just confirms the order as well as complexity of the world we live in, and to me shows that we have a creator.In the latest issue of National Geographic, there's an article about nano technology. It amazed me how small a level science is working at. We're talking about individual atoms being moved and formed into structures! At that level there's still so much happening and so much to be gained from it, from stain resistant clothing to curing cancer. It's hard to even think about things that are that small, much less how they can be manipulated and have very distinguishable characteristics that are so different both from other atoms and from their larger selves.
It's very similar to what we talked about at the end of my Astronomy class and how BIG the universe is. Once we got into dark matter & dark energy you realize that science still has some gigantic mysteries to "figure out" as well as that at the galactic level there's still order and structure to what's happening and how things are moving.
I have a very hard time just leaving things that small and intricate as well as that big and grandiose up to chance. Just the way that the same rules of Physics work the at a microscopic (and smaller!) level as well as the galactic level is amazing. Going back to the nano technology, one of the scientists said that as much as we're doing now, it's still nothing to how the human body works. I don't understand how that could have just happened. Amathematician once said something along the lines of God speaks the language of mathematics and I couldn't agree more.
Posted by Avila at 7:40 PM
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Friday, May 12
Fan Fiction
Fan fiction is a big part of why I'm currently online as much as I am. HP fanfic was the stepping stone from being a casual web surfer to having place to go and people to "see." Even when I was head over heals for the original Sims Mr. Wright couldn't persuade me to spend more time online than was needed or tempt me to visit other sites. Part of this could be contributed to our slow connection at the time but writing and musings about the Potter-verse really caught my interest the best.That time was between the 4th & 5th books releases. It is what I consider to be the golden age of HP fanfic. Not that I've read very much at all after that, but after book four was published it let out a flood of writing compared to what was there before that. Finally we as fans could see the direction that JKR was going, and the long wait for book five fuel our imaginations as to what the war would look like and the kinds of defenses and offensives could be used by either side.
For me (almost exclusively as a reader) when we got book five a certain light was cast as to how things were to behave and be set up. It was also so different and so wonderful, AND required a huge change of mindset not just for writers but even for those of us who were simply throwing out ideas and trying to connect the dots. I could put myself back into that world in a big way as much as I tried.
I have a feeling that a lot of others felt the same way. Those adults who had been so excited before were thrown for a loop in a very odd way. The adult fans at that point had good reason to enjoy this fandom and had the talent and the drive to make something good and intelligent out of it all. Anyone who would come after had either been under a rock, didn't care nearly as much, or wouldn't have the background to produce actual writing of worth rather than just ideas.
However, a few days ago I wanted something to read before bed. I didn't want to try and plow through some more RotK while I was kinda tired, and I was already in bed so going over to my messy bookshelf to try and find something worthy seemed way to big of a project. That left my computer that I already had with me, and what should I read? Fan fiction! The last time I went to the site it was after HBP to see if I wanted to add any ideas to the already too huge discussion thread. I decided to forgo it and talked to my friends instead. Still, I fired up my browser and scanned the list of authors for any names that I recognized hoping that one of them had written something within the past two or three years that would suffice my need for some light literature. That's when I found it, a very AU (alternate universe) fic in a world that I knew. It was chapter length and I only read a bit of it that night (and then worked my way through the rest over the past few days) and found myself really enjoying getting back into that mindset of "what if."
I think in some ways that's the key for keeping your bit of imagination alive in someone else's world. For someone's "book five story" a whole world was open for the imagining. But as each new installment is published following the trio & co around the castle has only become more and more set. I found this when I dabbled in SW fan fic for Episode III, they were all the same! The people who knew the world inside & out knew the major plot points and didn't have as much wiggle room to play with.
Really, here's book 7 and any book 7 fan fic: Harry dramatically leaves the Dursleys, Hogwarts is in a lot of danger, Harry sets out to destroy the horcruxes, Something happens to Hagrid, Harry does destroy all the horcruxes, Ron & Hermione finally get it on, Harry meets Voldemort in a final battle and kills him. The end. Now, instead of simply telling that with your own little twists and fantasies, we need to speed ahead into what the fandom will be like after JKR's version is published. Going way into the future, or way into the past. Maybe some short vignettes of the scenes we really didn't see, and that's it. Please.
Posted by Avila at 1:18 PM
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Tuesday, May 9
Styl-ish
Because of my new hair, I'm currently in the position of needing to do some styling every morning for it to really look right. When I got it cut my stylist assured me that if I didn't want to do anything (either all the time or on certain days) that it would still look fine. I however think it looks best when I do beat it into submission.This is partially because I am in the routine of showering at night. I know many people think it's weird or gross but it really works for me and I hate getting up in the morning. This often translates into letting my hair air dry over night so it's ready to brush out nicely in the morning. I have lately been trying to shower earlier so that it can dry a little bit before I slam it into my pillows or I can blow it out so it won't be nearly as unruly in the morning. Any way works now because I end up flat ironing it in the morning which takes care of the frizz and natural wave.
However, this brings me to my real point. No matter what I did with my hair the night before, I need to flat iron it (and would even if I took a shower in the morning unless I drastically improve my blow drying skillz) and more so than the time element I'm faced with wanting specifically to look at the back of my head. Now, this isn't impossible as I can use the "trick" of holding up a small mirror and looking at its reflection of my head back's reflection from the big mirror in that. BUT it’s impossible (for me at least) to perform this while actively ironing out my hair.
I encountered this awhile back when I last had my hair cut in a way that preferred to be styled with a burning implement, or when I've used our curling iron just for kicks. Then I either asked my mom if it looked good or dealt with holding the mirror, putting it down, picking up my tool to style & repeating. I thought at that point that it would be wonderful if I could somehow have a flexible mirror that could be positioned on my shade (the window is right across from the mirror in my bathroom) so I could unroll it while doing my hair and be able to see the back of my head without an extra hand. Today I took a step in that direction and taped up my mirror suspended on some string. It almost works but it spins :\ and likes to settle angled to the left. Further attempts to steady it proved frustrating.
I'm planning to keep it up for at least a little bit. It is less work to steady the mirror with one hand then the whole picking up and putting down routine of before. I realize that they do in fact make mounted mirrors for this purpose, but I don't think I could find room to mount one in my tiny bathroom. I am still holding out for a flexible mirror, that'd be pretty cool.
Posted by Avila at 4:31 PM
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Friday, May 5
I finally did it!
I finally got my haircut :D I do really like it, and it's actually quite different then I've had in the past. Even though the length isn't odd, it's much more shaped than I've gotten before rather than "shoulder length and lightly layered" hehe. I didn't take a specific "before" picture, but my other flikr photos should give you an idea if you can't remember ;)
Mom and I actually went together to Solari and both got new cuts. Hers isn't as dramatic as it was fairly short to begin with, but she got it re-vamped and modernized so it looks really nice and fresh.
She's decided to go ahead and do a trial run with them for the next few months, I'm not 100% convinced just b/c I'm rarely excited/commited with my hair to stay with a particular style for very long, but I want to try very hard to keep this looking nice, really! I'm hoping that having a nice cut (like this) will motivate me to not just put in time in the morning but making the time for upkeep by getting it cut more then every few months.
Also very exciting in the hair relm is that any remnents of my former red color are now very much out of my hair! It had grown out enough that they're all cut off and ready for me to lighten up naturally with the sun this summer. Hair is fun.
A part of me wants to write about how silly/interesting it is to spend so much time thinking about hair and doing so much with it. But I don't have enough thoughts on that currently formulated in my mind. I'll have to think on it a bit more.
Posted by Avila at 10:19 AM
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I love your hair a LOT. I hope you are still checking up on your LJ friends. :(
By Shane, at 12:08 PM, May 05, 2006
Very very pretty :D
I don't get the whole "trial run" thing, though.... They have some sort of membership plan? How does it work?
By Scottish, at 12:59 PM, May 05, 2006