i’d almost forgotten what it feels like. (^_^) i’ve been watching training videos for two hours, and now i get to read pdfs until my eyes fall out of my head, but frankly, for a paycheck, i’m willing to do it. plus, if i’m going to write manuals & faqs for the things, it’d be nice if i knew how to use the stuff myself… (^^’) what am i doing, you ask? i’m a freelance writer! yays! working from home? check. writing for a living? check. resonably sassy boss? check. … maybe double check on that one. (^_^) took a break a few minutes ago to take a shower? oh yeah baby, check! i’m already in love with working from home. and i’ve already found something to waste my money on. seahope, a place for the watch-fetishist in all of us. hell, i’ve got like a dozen of the things. it’s that and shoes, basically. incidentally, i was cleaning my room the other day, and it turns out i have something like 20+ pairs of shoes. X_X

also, i sold one of the indiana jones books, so if you want one, grab one now, they’re going fast~

Labels: facts

and the very very fugly. i’m not going to go into the whole story until the labyrinthine mess of personal, financial, and dumbassity issues can be sorted out, but let’s suffice it to say that Dennis Hyundai has no idea what it’s doing when it comes to customer service. i don’t know what kind of customer they are used to dealing with, but unreturned phone calls, crossed wires, and the mistaken almost-reposession of my car do not bode well for my opinion of them. i prefer to shop in a professional environment, at companies that know how to handle a simple sale without fucking the entire thing up, and as such, will not be returned to Dennis Hyundai. thank you.

man, speaking of unprofessionalism, those toggles i ordered like SIX WEEKS AGO are still on back order, or at least that’s what i’m assuming, since i can’t get the damn company i ordered them from to return my phone calls. for christ’s sake, i know it’s a long distance number, people, but i’m calling them first, and i’m eager to pay them and receive my toggles, so all i can only assume is that they don’t want my business, because now i’ve got to find someone else to buy my toggles from. which REALLY sucks, becuase these people were the cheapest. the other places that sell toggles do so for at least 50 cents more PER TOGGLE. which means i’m even further in the hole on this job. plus, my customer’s just as ancy as i am about the whole thing. he’s all “what guarantee can you give me” and i’m all “dude, i can’t just pull the toggles out of my ass.” i’m relying on these companies to get the toggles to me, and once again, it seems simply getting what i paid for in a timely and professional manner is something denied me.

what’s even worse, is that mister japanese books wants me to ship the books i’ve got, but he doesn’t want to pay me anything, so he keeps reducing the number of books he wants me to send. at some point, i’m just going to have to put my foot down and tell him that he ordered them and that he will be paying for them. he’s playing me like a fiddle, and at this stage in my pocket book’s life, i really can’t afford to have that happen. he’s gonna freak when i tell him the price has gone up for any books he wants above this original 30, but there’s not much to be done about it, especially considering the change of toggle people.

alright, it’s not very professional to complain about a job so specifically, but it’s been going on for three months now, and my customer and i are both getting quite distressed about the lack of toggles. he’d like to start selling the things, and i’d like to get the things finished. hell, i had planned on having them done like three weeks ago, and that was AFTER i discovered the toggles would have to be back ordered.

anyhow. on to something not so frusterating.

…
…
…
…

oh wait, THERE’S NOTHING LIKE THAT AROUND HERE! media monkey suddenly borked and forgot where all my music files are, the printer’s no longer talking to the print server, and i’m overdrawn by like four dollars. plus i’m still unemployed. do i have some horrible Unemployable disease or something? i mean seriously, i’m hard-working, i’m independant, i’m organized, and i am desperate for a job. why are the only things available picking dead rats out of fast food joints and full-time suit-and-tie i’m-your-bitch gigs?

Labels: facts

remember those indiana jones diaries i was making a while back? no? … oh. well since i can’t find the post either, i’ll tell you. i’ve been making a series of tutorials (two to go!) on how to make a replica grail diary over on dA, and i’ve finally managed to finish them, so i listed them over on notuboc. it’ll be kind of sad to part with them, they are hawt, but i need mulah. (^_^) turns out we can only get about $200 for my poor tercel. i’ve gone as far as i can go with those purple japanese books, and i’ll be shipping at least 10 of them off as soon as i get his payment, and hopefully he’ll be so blown away that he’ll beg me for the rest of them [not likely, but a girl can hope]. i made a sale on etsy today, too, so my mood pretty much cannot be altered. … famous last words. now if only i could win the lottery or something… (^_^)

in other news, i’m thinking about setting up a mailing list for my shop. would anyone actually be interested in knowing when i list a new item?

Labels: facts

by the great tentacles of the flying spagetti monster! the air conditioner was fixed this thurday past, and it is finally a beautiful balmy 72 degrees fahrenheit in my house. of course, i haven’t stopped blowing my nose since it was turned back on, but i think i’ll take the trade. there are pharmaceuticals available for my nose’s problem.

the other thing i’m super happy about at the moment? the newest addition to our family! that’s right, we finally ran out of space on our valiant Leitmotif. that would be the hard drive we were using to store our music. the whole folder was shared on the network so we could all listen to the stuff. we had 75 gigs of it. that’s right, we filled it to brimming. so my lovely sister helped me adopt Proxy, a 250 gig “SimpleShare” network attached storage drive from SimpleTech. they weren’t kidding about when they named their product either. you hook the thing up to your router, you turn it on, and badaboom badabing, there it is. well, my original experience wasn’t quite as easy, but if you’re having trouble with yours, i advise you to make sure of the following thing: is your router’s firmware up to date? especially since this pretty much solved my entire problem. i sent the first one i got back as defective, but now that i’ve solved the problem, i have a strong suspicion that nothing was really wrong with it. so update your firmware, routers of the world! i now have 250 gigs of delicious music server. and it was just in time, too, because my main desktop has fried out. it wasn’t doing too well with the air conditioner out – kept overheating and when it was running, it was doing so about 20 degrees celcius over normal – but even now that the air conditioner’s back, it’s still not doing well – running in safe mode for about an hour before blipping off, and still running ~10 degrees over the norm. after much fretting and pulling of hair and rending of teeth, i found the problem: my processor is overheating and triggering the auto-shutdown on my motherboard. well, the processor’s old, and the motherboard’s about a generation behind, so i guess it’s to be expected. it seems to be the season for buying new PC equipment anyway. but of course, i STILL have not found gainful employment, so i guess Visited With the Justice of The Church is just going to have to sit there on the desk, its lifeless husk haunting my dreams and preventing me from furthing my quest to finish all five myst games. ah well, Sheol is still up and running, win 98 SE to be specific. i’m keeping it off the network and only using it for old school games like Realms of the Haunting and Lode Runner. oh and Tank Commander. How could you not like a game where you get to run over pedestrians with a tank. as part of your mission.

exactly!

Labels: facts

マジ。エアコンは壊れる。一週間前から。僕の頭も壊れるが、相変わらずこんなだなぁ。

[maji. eakon wa kowareru. isshunkan kara. boku no atama mo kowareru ga, aikawarazu konna da naa.]

seriously. the air conditioner is broken. since a week ago. my head is broken, too, but it’s usually like that, you know.

… i’ve been going through the Let’s Learn Japanese series. mary althaus? scary. mine-san? sugihara-san? kaihou-san? all scary. yan-san? somehow scarier. (^^;) it turns out that i can hear the words alright, even at natural speed, as long as i already know the vocabulary for what they’re saying. the only exception is katou-san’s 急いでください (isoide-kudasai). he busted out with it in the little skit today, and at first i was like wtf? then they went through a little review, and i was like oh!, but then they went back to the skit, and i was like, wtf? i’m sure that is indeed what katou-san was saying, but it sounded like gibberish to me. it is doing me some good, though. as witnessed above, i’ve got yet another excuse to practice my japanese. i seriously can’t wait to go. … which is a sentence that makes it seem like i’ve got plans for that, but so far my only plans run along the lines of “one day.”

for the moment, most of my plans run along the lines of “get a job.” seriously, i know it’s easier to get a job if you already have a job, but W.T.F. people!? i am perfectly employable. i speak english, i speak it well, and i am not afraid to interact w/ your customers. actually, what i’d really like is the Printer’s Assitant job i applied for the other day, but given that i have exactly zero experience, i’m not setting my hopes high. i’ve got an app for barnes & noble just sitting on my table, but frankly, i’m loathe to work retail again, even if it would be with sarita.

speaking of sarita, she bought me a book on the history of books the other week, and let me tell you, it totally rawks. the guy who wrote it is obviously as much of a book nerd as i am. the chapter i’m on at the moment is all about the koran, and there was an awesome story about this guy in venice, alexandro or something, anyhow, he was a printer, and in 1537 he produced the first known printed text of the koran. now mister venetian printer was a christian, and the koran was on the index of prohibited books, which means that he wasn’t supposed to own or read it. but he printed it. (^_^)-b makes me want to write another installment of jonathan of the ever changing last names.

Labels: facts

because i am lazy.

that is all.

well, alright, it’s not actually all. the picture is the six books/boxes i have finished for budokan. they’re not turning out to shabby at all, even if i do say so myself. i’ve got most of the rest of them well under way, i’m just waiting for the rest of the toggles i ordered. man, those things were a hell of a lot more expensive than i figured they’d be. unfortunately, i’m going to have to raise the price if they want me to make any more books. i’ll have to tell them when i give them their books, too, in case they want to shop around. part of me says, yes, please, find someone else, these things are bloody tedious! but part of me says, they look so awesome when they’re done, and i love getting paid for making books, don’t you dare find someone else! … so i guess either way, i’ll have something to be happy about. (^_^)

speaking of things to be happy about, i’ve finished the first indiana jones grail diary. did i tell you already? i can’t even remember this morning, let alone however many day ago i may or may not have told you. i don’t think i did. anyhow. i finished it. it’s gorgeous and hawt and smexy. now i’ve gotta list the thing, and that means taking pictures of it, and that means setting up the little fake-ass lighting box i made out of a massive cardboard box. the problem is, even with my “light box” the lighting never turns out terribly good, and i’m getting a little impatient with having to photoshop every single picture.

of course, it’s not like i’ve got a lot of patience just lying about the place these days. on the contrary, i have even less patience than normal, and i don’t normally have that much. every day that passes, i hate my altima more and more. the only thing i love about that car? the cruise control. pretty much nothing else is doing it for me at all. and i’m still unemployed. wtf is wrong with people? i know i’m employable, i’ve had jobs before, and i was darn good at them. i can understand the first place not hiring me, they were looking for full time, i was looking for part time. as for the other half dozen places i’ve sent my resume to, i don’t know what their problem is. especially the print shops. i would probably stab someone to work in a print shop. unfortunately, there isn’t a place on a resume for Jobs I Have Always Wanted, and there’s only so much “please give me this job, i will love it i swears!” that you can stick in a cover letter.

and etsy’s not helping that much. i had a couple of sales last weekend, but it’s summer, and the summer months are notoriously slow over there, as, i image, they are for most retail.

i did manage to crack the secret of belgian eyelet binding, mostly thanks to some pictures over on bookgirl’s blog. it turns out to be silly easy. i’ve done up a couple of books in that style (of course which i have yet to take photos of and list, see above) and i absolutely love it. it’s a little ungainly for the first couple stitches, but i love the way the spine sort of floats alongside the book. it’s not actually glued to anything, it’s held in place by the stitching through the cover. also, i found a chart with historical book sizes, so i did what’s apparently called a folscap or some such thing. it’s pretty much the perfect size. i shall have to make more.

Labels: facts

how do you like it? i’m pretty well enamoured of it. i wanted it better integrated into my main site, notuboc.com. i suppose i could just install blogger on my main site, and the integration would be total, but then anyone crazy enough to visit this blog on a semi-regular basis would be a tad lost, so i settled on changing the design of this site. i almost miss the sidebar, but not really.

in related news, if you’d like me to design you a blogger template, i’ll be more than happy to do so. i’ve got a listing on etsy about it, but it’s sort of borderline illegal over there, so if you want to just email me, that’d probably be better. it runs about US$15. you can check out my other sites for stuff i’ve done:

http://www.notuboc.com/
http://meredeth.blogspot.com/

Labels: facts

this has got to be the weirdest thing i’ve ever made. it’s a palm leaf style book, which means that it’s basically just pieces of paper with a hole punched in them and a string run through the whole job, but it’s shiny and it’s got little shiny bits of shrinky dink stuck on and it’s got shiny bits of mica on it and and and. … yes, you heard right, shrinky dinks. if you haven’t communed with the shrinky dink god lately, you need to get to it. i found a package of the stuff at joann’s, but i think michael’s sells it, too. in this case, i combined it with some of those “perfect pearls” or whatever hyperbolic name they’ve got for it over at ranger inks and it turned out exactly as i wanted it. you maybe can’t see it real well in the photo, but they are perfectly shiny. the cord is regular paper cord, as bought in the jewelry aisle of joann’s, and the cover is corrugated cardboard. the pages are technically usable; they’re 32 lb computer paper left over from my (never-ending) budokan job. that job is definitely taking longer than i thought it would. the problem is, well the problems are a) it’s my first wholesale/mass production job, and i grossly underestimated the amount of effort it would take because b) while making one japanese stab binding book isn’t that hard at all, making 30 of them seems like torture. … actually, they’re going to look very nice when they’re done. i finally got some of the stupid lid pins in (a little under half of them are still on backorder) and tomorrow i’m going to finish the first batch of 10 (well, 9 in this case since i glued the first one incorrectly and had to discard it) so i’ll get to see some of the fruits tomorrow afternoon. i can’t wait. and i know the budokan people can’t wait either. i know they’re getting a little impatient to have their books. frankly, i’m getting a little impatient to give them their books. i took this job before i left for sweden, and i really thought i’d have it done by now.

the other thing i’m impatient to get done is that(those) demian syndrome extra(s). i haven’t had a chance to finish typing that one up yet, and i probably won’t until this weekend. i’ve got ergo proxy vol 3 tonight, and that show trumps breathing if necessary. tomorrow, besides making the boxes, i’ll be taking some pics for and listing some things on notuboc (i made a sale today!) and hopefully working on the first of three grail diary replicas. i’ve got the book itself finished, so now i’ve just got to copy a select few of the illustrations into the book, and then it’ll be done. technically, it’s not a grail diary replica, because i’m only putting a few of the movie illustrations into it, but i think it will be so much cooler for the future recipient to be able to put their own story next to the grail illustrations. they can put their own grail hunt into it. … oh man, i’ve been reading too much yuu-kun. you can tell coz i’m all like, “humanity rulez!” i’m only reading the guy’s blog, and his enthusiasm for Life is catching. it’s really a mystery that gackt managed to stay so sober and morose around him for as long as he did. that must have been some Sober he had going on.

the other thing i’ve got to do is play more tales of the world! man. i love me my tales of phantasia, and the opportunity to create my own character with whom i get to fight alongside The Chester? it’s too much awesome! i swear, i’m taking on quests that are like five levels below me just so i can fight next to him. and i’m playing a male character. it’s kind of disturbing. not that hogo isn’t a cutie. what i’d really like to know, though, is why all the special Exchange outfits are for girls. my hogo is girly, but he doesn’t want to wear a pink fairy princess outfit, thanks.

Labels: facts

what’s this? i finally managed to take pictures of the newest addition to my driveway? did i, for once in my freaking life, make a point of doing something about which i previously said, ‘i should do that’?

yes. seriously, faint now.

iya~ i’m in a pissy mood today. i’m sleepy. i was making those freaking japanese books (the commish from the chap in dayton? he ordered 30 japanese stab binding books with boxes) last night and then i went to watch some tv before bed and then suddenly is was 2.30 in the morning. not that that’s particularly late for me, i suppose, but i have been trying for a “1 am as bedtime” idea since i got back from sweden. oh, that reminds me. my grandmother requested i print out a couple of my pics from the trip for her. she’s a tad tech-challenged.

anyhow, my car. it’s a 1997 nissan altima, with power everything, which i hate, and the fugliest exterior this side of a chevy. also, the inside is built for people with long legs, a demographic to which i most certainly do not belong. the speaker up by the driver’s seat is busted out, something i suppose i’m not horribly concerned about given that i have plans to replace the stereo system anyhow, but what i really don’t like is how loud the interior is, even compared to my tercel, which, let’s just state for the record, was not built for luxury. the engine on the altima is actually quieter than either of the engines ever were on my baby, but the way the interior is designed, all of the low-frequency noise rumbles around the cabin in a bold if desperate attempt to give the driver a headache. also, i hate bucket seats. who the hell thought that extra padding would best be placed in the exact space where i normall put my arms. i realize i’m going to have them up at the steering wheel for most of the time, but when i’m at a stop light and i put my arms down, i don’t want to feel like i have to hunch forward to accommodate my own freaking appendages.

my new car’s official title? What I Could Afford. we’ll see how long it takes me to find a new job, get out of college, and get a new car. one that i want. for instance, a late-model hyundai accent. they’re purdy.

in other, more useful, news, i’ve overhauled notuboc.com. it’s also purdy. i also took some time to give theplushiefoundry it’s own site. now if only i could be bothered to make some actual products for it. (^^;) i’ve been a tad busy. i have finished my initial translation of the first demian syndrome extra i’m working on for storminheaven. i started typing it up last night, but it’s a little wierd because there’s text all over the place in most of those panels. i hope the editor can tell what’s supposed to go where… after that, there’s a little 6-page DS extra, and then it’s back to lunar desert. actually, i’m looking forward to something where the biggest obsticle to translation isn’t the manga-ka’s own handwriting. (>_<) … ok, there are about a bazillion spelling errors in this post, but i’m not really in a mood to care. … … … … normally – weird – obstacle

Labels: facts

once again, i have forgotten to take a photo of my new baby. perhaps it is because i’m not as enamoured of my new baby as i could be. it’s not horrible, actually the interior’s pretty nice. it’s just so much wider than my real baby, and so much uglier from the back, that it feels wrong. plus, i haven’t been able to use my mp3 player in it because some doofus put a stupid aftermarket stereo in it w/ no tape player, so there’s no way it can be mine yet. plus, it’s an altima. i’ve never really liked altimas. they’re just ugly, especially at the back. a car should be an expression of a single line, slightly raised at the back, with no breaks or interruptions. the 1997 nissan altima, as indeed the newer ones, are two lines shoved together and forced to fight it out to the death somewhere in the middle of the car before finally coming to a compromise concerning the uglification of the vehicle round about the back seat doors.

we now have five cars at this house. a tercel, an echo, a saturn, a crv, and now an altima. we’ve got the tercel for sale (my poor baby. i know. i know the whole story, honey.) and we’ve put the plates on my new baby, so we had to put the tercel in the driveway, lest it get a ticket for being derelict. during the Great Rearranging, i took the following:

that’s my tercel, mom’s crv (and mum herself), (my sister and dorky dad) my new altima, carolyn’s echo, and dad’s saturn. we basically have a parking lot now. we have five cars parked outside our home right at the moment. i’m stuck parking on the other side of the street, technically in front of someone else’s house. it’s pretty obnoxious. i’ve really got to sell that tercel as quickly as possible. so, if you’re in the columbus area, and you need a tercel for parts, drop me a line.

what i am quite pleased with is our new pool. last year, our poor pool gave up the ghost, so this year we started the search for the replacement. two target stores, a toys r us, and a meijers later, we found this beauty. fifteen feet across and forty-two inches deep. it’s so lovely! we bought it yesterday, and set it up straight away. it was actually super easy to do. the box says “ready for water in 45 minutes,” but it took probably less than that. of course, there were five of us, all eager to get the thing done. then we started putting water in the thing. it hold 3861 gallons of water. we turned the hose on just before 5.30 pm sunday night. about midnight, the pool was maybe 2/3rds of the way full, but we turned the water off. we turned it back on in the morning, and it wasn’t full until like noon. this pool? is huge. this pool? is delightful! the water really was quite chilly this afternoon, but i went for a swim anyway. i couldn’t help myself. my brain was basically broken with anticipation.

oh man, speaking of things that brake my brain! i went to check my stats for my yuu-kun diary translation, and wham! 600+ views! that darn gackt-camui.com has shot my views up like nobody’s business. the scary yellow peaks are delightful to see. they’re a little scary though. makes me wanna go study…

also, there is no show by simon schama that i will not watch. i’m not even particularly interested in fine arts, but The Power of Art is yet another chance to listen to schama-sama’s accent. three cheers for pbs!!!

Labels: facts