D.D.D.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

If you have come to see a twenty-something nobody spiral into a Deep Dark Depression, you have come to the right place. The last job I wrote about, the closest job I've gotten to in fourteen months of looking, went to "an old family friend." I can't decide if her admitting that makes me feel better because, hey, at least I didn't just plain suck (probably), or worse because... ugh. Really? Ugh. But at least I now know I "seem like a very capable and warm-hearted woman"!


I'll show you "warm-hearted." Show you it right in the face.


So, I am now right back to where I was on 13 June 2009. Nowhere. Except now I have discovered Bertolli Skillet Meals for Two, which are only $6.50 and take ten minutes to cook, so now I have more time and money on my hands. And sodium.


Oh, and I have a new basket for my bike.

That's right, the basket has a handle because it clips off for maximum glory.
So... I think I'm stumped. There's only so much craigslist one person can stand!

Manga Monday: Dear Friends

Monday, August 30, 2010




Dear Friends
Mangaka Yoshi Yuu & Watanabe Ayu
Genre(s) drama, mature, psychological, shōjo, slice Of life, tragedy
Year 2005
Volumes 1
Summary  taken from Baka-Updates
There’s the affectionless father and the overly affectionate mother, and then there’s the beautiful 18 year old high schooler Rina. “Friends are just meant to be used,” is what Rina says when she is caught having sex with one of her friends’ boyfriends. Rina has such a low opinion of friends, but when she is hospitalized her classmate from elementary school, Maki, appears before her, wanting to continue their free-of-charge friendship from long ago. In this day and age, just what is the meaning of friendship?

Scanlated by Starry Heaven
Translation A
Scan Quality A+
Editing Quality A+

Review
Remember last week when I reviewed a manga about a girl and her uncle who live together and fall in love and said it wasn't creepy? Well this one is creepy. I don't really get the friendship that develops, and think Maki is a total creepster. And Rina is just an all-around awful person, the reasons for which I think should've been elaborated on. I don't know, maybe it's just that Rina reminds me of one of my sisters. You know you're a horrible person when getting cancer is the best thing that's ever happened to you. All that said, I think a lot of other people will like this manga, and it seems to get typically good reviews. I thought it was totally blah, but I suppose it's very possible I'd be in the minority on this one.
Story       
Art         



All is Fair in Post-Graduate Bad Economy Hell

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

I feel like I've done something bad. Don't tell me I didn't! I know the reasons! It won't make me feel any less guilty or any more justified, for I am capable of harboring both feelings at once. Kind of.

Lately my job search has been mostly focused on craigslist. A lot of the listings are shady, but they have some good stuff too. I can generally find a nice handful of listings every day for which to send my resume to.

Also, by the way, I totally changed my reason for leaving my last job from budget cuts, woe is me to omg my husband got a super good job offer so we had to move, which means I now have this cute I am new to the area, tee hee thing going on.

So, yes, anyway, looking through craigslist I found this totally fun-sounding job and got all excited. At the same time I'm also checking Facebook because my attention span is like that--must be doing three things at once and focusing on one thing for more than thirty seconds causes me to start drooling--and a friend of mine has posted as her status that she's totally applied for the aforementioned fun job. And she probably needs a job more than I do.

No, she definitely needs a job more than I do. But probably not emotionally, which is how I justify it to myself that I applied anyway.

Now she posts about how she's in talks with the employer about the job and how excited she is, and I totally am in the same boat but just not saying anything, which makes me feel like an ass, but at least maybe soon I'll be a gainfully employed ass for the first time in fourteen months.

Or maybe neither of us will get the job anyway and I'll be right back to where I was. Again.

Update: After emailing back and forth for a couple of weeks, she gave the job to her friend's daughter. I refuse to even process this.

Manga Monday: Ai Hime - Ai to Himegoto

Monday, August 23, 2010




Ai Hime - Ai to Himegoto
Mangaka Mitsuki Kako
Genre(s) drama, shōjo, romance
Year 2006
Volumes 3
Summary  taken from Baka-Updates
They met. They kissed. Their fate has brought them to be uncle and niece. Even though they're not blood-related, can Mao decide to love him and go through the struggles to be in love with him?

Scanlated by Serenus-Dreamers
Translation D
Scan Quality A-
Editing Quality C-

Review
A girl is kissed by a stranger, the stranger turns out to be her uncle, and then she moves in with them and they spend a lot of time kissing and stuff. Nothing creepy about that, right? No way, totally not creepy.

So yeah, once you get past the creep-factor, this is an excellent manga. I find the characters enjoyable and love how their relationship develops. It's a really solid story that doesn't shy away from issues that one might deal with in having a secret live-in love relationship with... your uncle. Ugh. No, but it's cute. And the end is really solid. And the art is cute. I would venture to say this is one of my favorite mangas. And, yes, the translation is pretty broken but I still find it perfectly readable.
Story       
Art         




Deep Breath, Positive Thoughts

Friday, August 20, 2010

There is a job coming my way. This week. I can just feel it. The universe of the employed is calling to me. It's speaking to me through my dreams.

I know that 'cause I totally Googled it. I'm not usually a "dreams have meanings" kind of person, but DreamMoods.com says "To dream that you are urinating, symbolizes a cleansing and a release of negative or repressed emotions. Depending on your dream context, urination is symbolic of having or lacking basic control of your life. You are literally 'pissed off' and not expressing yourself in a positive or constructive manner."

Yeah, 'cause my dream was that I was, like, peeing everywhere. Also, there were eggs in the toilet, which means "something new is about to happen."

And you can't argue with that. It's science!

Except that when I woke up I really did have to pee really kind of a lot. But the eggs!

Also, there comes a certain point in a reject's life where you just kind of stop caring. And isn't that when things are supposed to happen? I mean, I've put out quite possibly a bijillion (big number) job applications, so I am due, dammit.

P.S. "Kicking your urine at people who get too close to your egg-filled toilet and bug you" is not in the dream dictionary.

For the Sake of the Future

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

I just discovered today, despite it being reported several months ago, that the Library of Congress plans to house every public "tweet" ever. I am not sure how I feel about this. I almost want to be a little excited that many of my thoughts and feelings (510, to date) will be recorded in the Library of Congress. Especially such gems as, "My left eye is so sleepy, but my right eye wants to keep watching documentaries on Netflix." Future generations must have access to this. Look at me, I am significant!

But seriously, what if my super-mega-great grandchildren someday look up my tweets as part of some genealogy project for fancy-future-school? They should know how excited their super-mega-great grandmother was to discover that the Japanese word for vasectomy is "paipukatto" (say it out loud until you get it; it's funny). Then again, it makes me re-think tweeting things like steam punk-themed adult toys. But I couldn't link to them on Facebook because my mother-in-law's on there and I just had to share that link! (Speaking of which. NSFW, obviously.)

I can't help but wonder at the practical use of this idea. I imagine such horrible things as future-people using old tweets to study what percentage of Americans use the word you versus what percentage use u and ur. Or to discover the horrible truth about just how few people know how to use the word you're.

Of course, that would mean that future-people are all grammar-nazis. Which I kind of approve of.

Moral of the story: Tweet responsibly. When the aliens finally invade and take over, we don't want them looking through our tweets and wondering how our species survived so long in the first place. Nor do we want them getting too distracted by the intensity of Double Rainbow.

Manga Monday: Canaria Child

Monday, August 16, 2010



Canaria Child
Mangaka TSUZUKI Setsuri
Genre(s) drama, supernatural, shōjo, horror, romance
Year 2007
Volumes 1
Summary  taken from Baka-Updates
Kayuu, a doll-maker who was murdered six years ago, made living dolls at the request of clients. Mitsuki, his daughter who is still finding out the mystery to her father, together with her favorite student Yue, are faced with countless ordeals. What is Kayuu's hidden secret?

Scanlated by Aerandria
Translation D
Scan Quality A+
Editing Quality A

Review
Don't be fooled by the story only getting two and a half stars; I did really like this story. There are just two problems with it: Firstly, it was too short. The overall storyline and the characters were really cool, but they only got four chapters to do their thing. This manga could've--and should've--been way longer! Nothing in this story was given the time it needed to develop, but if it had I'm convinced this would have been an excellent manga. Secondly, the translation sometimes made things difficult to follow. At first I was hesitant to give a low grade for the translation, as I figured it just as likely that the manga was poorly written to begin with, but after several glaring grammatical errors it became obvious that the translator for this manga wasn't quite prepared to localize the dialogue and make it flow properly for English readers. Taking both of those things into consideration, I think the manga is short enough that those two things can be overlooked, and you can enjoy a manga that should've been cooler with little time investment.
Story      
Art         



A Day in the Life of a 20-Something Reject

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Today I topped-off the swimming pool. That is my contribution to society today: I wasted more perfectly drinkable water in case I want to go swimming tomorrow. And I got spiderweb in my mouth.

I also watched the last three weeks of True Blood in one sitting. But I was on my stationary bicycle, so it's all about self-improvement.

Speaking of which, I've lost like ten pounds. Mostly in my boobs.

I try to do something job-hunting-related every day. I can't even get a "job" as a juror! I got summoned for jury duty, and when I called to ask them if they could move me to a courthouse closer to my home they were just like "Oh, you are no longer a resident of Riverside county? Nevermind." Fiddlesticks. I was all ready to hand down my judgement on somebody too.

I spent something like three days in an argument with my dad about same-sex marriage. On his Facebook. I won.

According to my media log (which is typed up in Notepad), I'm on my 15th novel so far this year. No, that doesn't count manga. Of those, my favorite has been The Virgin Suicides.

I've started scrapbooking. Not that overly-fluffy lets-take-one-picture-and-surround-it-with-stickers-and-die-cuts scrapbooking, but the kind where you actually put stuff on the page.

And I drink a lot of tea. Out of cute cups only, of course.

I think I need... an office. Maybe on the patio. A place to make a mess.

Sims 3: Simtington Beach~ CC Included

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

In my never-ending quest to expand my Sims 3 creation resume, I have decided to share a community lot. I wasn't originally intending on creating a community lot for sharing but (a) I really needed a community lot with more to do so as to attract more Sims (b) I love the beach, (c) the default beach lot was boring, and (d) I think it came out pretty fabulous so what the hey.

This is Simtinton Beach, oh-so-cleverly named after Huntington Beach here in Southern California, home of the sushi bar that serves the Hello Kitty roll. Which, in case that wasn't obvious based on the name alone, is amazing.

I created this lot with the intention of my Sim never having to ever go home. Because who would ever want to go home from the beach?









Lot features: public toilets, sinks, changing rooms, showers, easel, sculpting station, chess boards, baker's half-dozen stand, box car cafe, laundry line, telescopes, Grubb board, full playground, fire pits, BBQs, bar, fishing, music

EP and custom content: All custom content is included in a separate file; there are 32 CC items total. If you see anything you don't want, just don't install it and the game should automatically replace it with whatever the object was originally cloned from. This lot uses objects from both World Adventures and Ambitions. I don't know what'll happen if you try to install it without one or both of those EPs.




Custom content credit list and links to full sets:
Aikea Guinea @ ClubCrimsyn ~ vending machines
Naru Lambada Set ~ sign post, bar, stool, tiki umbrellas, two towels (need link!)
Shoukeir ~ SH Fossil Bench (need link!)
kyta1702 @ Sims 3 Nieuws ~ douche flux los (that means shower or something)
Unknown ~ vintage transistor radio (TS2 version by Shannanigan @ TSR); surf board
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