excerpt from my post on the nano boards: woot~ one goal almost done! here is yatsu’s progress: things to Finish: college – yay! right on schedule, despite issues w/ the accounts receivable department! – english 565 (workshop II) | second story turned in, all but one critique complete! – linguistics 597.01 (language death, a GEC credit) | unfortunately, i won’t be taking this, as it isn’t offered again until after i plan to be gradeated (^^;) so i’m taking instead anthropology 597, which is titled The Molecular Revolution, so i’m hoping it’s all awesome and sci-fi-y bills (this one’ll be (T_T) ) – mastercard (hereafter known as The Rape Lady) | only three payments to go!!! – discovercard | super falling down on the job there. they’re probably kind of mad. (^_^) – car! | 7 payments left! (smart car will be yellow and black with little stripes!) – tuition payments (ouch) | three quarters to go. ouch. crafts – The Fabled Bag (pet name for the longest bookbag making in history (i swear). will eventually be done.) ZOMG! IS IT DONE!? IS IT FINALLY DONE!? it is. pics to be found here: http://www.flickr.com/notuboc/ – cleaning up my craft space? | yeah, that’s never going to happen. i’d best just give that notion up for good. (T_T) as for moving out on 1/1/10, that’s going along right on schedule; i now have two sets of legs for my desk, rather than just the one set (note to self: read the freaking box next time self, so you know how many boxes you need to buy…) and i have both of the black torchiere lamps that i bought (about a bazillion years ago) back in my possession. i should probably make a list of furniture and other goods that i need to have on hand for the move, ne? that’s right, you heard correctly, The Fabled Bag, she is done. i can’t remember if i’ve posted the pictures, so i’ll make that link an actual link. http://www.flickr.com/notuboc/ in other news, i saw a bumper sticker the other day that said “Save a horse, ride a cowboy.” that is all. nota bena : actually, there’s also some self-promotion. i’ve got my old palm T|X up on ebay. i threw the wireless keyboard in there, too, since i’m not going to have much of a use for it. (^^;) http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230330648211 if you’re interested. thxkbye .

like the other shoe, only more buttery. i’m still in lurv w/ my phone, as, i believe, i always shall be. (^_^) there’s a netflix client that i used to put a couple of movies on my queue in the middle of class on thursday. !. it was so awesome, i just about squealed. what i’m really here to do, however, is (finally) reveal the beauty of TFB. those of you who can remember back a reasonable amount of time will recall that the first mention of The Fabled Bag (way back before it even had a moniker) was in september. that’s right, nigh on six months to finish this bag. it took me a little over five months from buying the canvas to slinging the bag over my shoulder at 1.30 in the morning and then stumbling down to my bed. along the way, the bag gained a moniker, my wrist gained some kind of repetitive stress injury, (^^;) but my bag did eventually get finished. as proof, i offer the following evidence: that’s the front flap. you can see deedlit adorning the little corner there. parn was lost many moons ago. poor parn. i miss him still. (T_T) i have other pictures, which you are welcome to view on my flickr photostream. in the obligatory other news, we have an ongoing SAga at church about whether we should replace our (definitely gorgeous, academically SWEET, dutch renaissance-mocking) organ with something (perhaps something that doesn’t require x-ray vision for us to see each other? perhaps something that play in more than one style?) more suitable to our needs. the main problem is that, because the thing is so dutch renaissance, as in it was built to precisely replicate an organ that was built during the dutch renaissance, so that it could play those pieces as they were heard way back in those days (that would be the 1500s for those of you wondering), and so it’s what’s called a tracking organ. this means that when the key is depressed, it opens a valve directly to the pipe, and thus the pipes must remain precisely where they are when in relation to the organ, which is, at the moment, on top of the organ console (the keyboards). the organ itself is situated smack in the middle of our altar area, and the choir has to sit on either side of it. this makes it (impossible? rediculous? stupid hard?) difficult to see and hear each other, and so we’ve been sort of singing as two half-size ensembles, rather that a single large-size ensemble. this also means that what we hear when we practice in the choir room (where we are all allowed to sit together) is completely different from what we hear when we’re actually in the sanctuary. this makes it terribly difficult (again, stupid hard) to tune to each other properly, and it makes practicing in the choir room kind of pointless. !. so, the new choir director, perhaps emblazoned by The Spirit, perhaps having just drunk a few too many of his overpowered homemade cosmos, decided to float the idea of replacing it with an electric organ, so that we could place the pipes elsewhere and have the choir sit together. well. you can imagine how well that went over, with a semi-old-people anglo-catholic episcopalian congregation. actually, it went over fairly well. there was one lady who didn’t quite realize that this was the “float the idea” meeting and not the “we are doing this so get over it” meeting, but otherwise, it went okay. we encouraged people to go up and see what we see from our little spots in the corner, which be hardly anything, or what the choir director can see of us, which be actually nothing at all, and they pretty much saw it our way, s oto speak. since our organ is so flagrantly hot, we may have an official offer on it as early as this weekend, although i think that’s a little fast in term of we haven’t even discovered how much it would cost to get a new organ and have that one installed. anyway, that’s about all i have to say on that. i swear, i started this blog entry like a week ago. my second story for workshop is due in precisely one week. i figured out a structure that doesn’t make me wanna hurl this evening, thanks to my muse, little sister dana-chan, so now i just have to put my butt in the chair and write the damn thing. yeah. good luck.

or at least i would be if i spelled my name properly. from the homepage (http://www.meredith.edu/) “Meredith’s tuition remains below the national average for private colleges and universities.” well i am cheap. (^_^) in other news! i still haven’t got any picture of the fabled bag. … i almost wrote the gabled bag. i’m sure it’s not that big. in news that someone may care about (whomever that one person may turn out to be) i’ve joined silkfair, and they’ve recently opened up a custom html feature for beta testing. of course i had to hop on that like something that hops on something else. my first task was simply to learn the templating system. since it’s beta, they don’t have a whole lot of (read: any) instructions about it, so i had to pretty much learn it from ground zero. luckily, it’s super straight forward, and kind of resembles blogger’s templating system (not just a coincidence, apparently). my first go round? a mad jumble to crap with absolutely no css. but? a far departure from the original: add a little css, and you get the beginnings of a real web page: i think once i’m done, i’m going to integrate it with my website so that instead of going to etsy, my BOOKS link goes to the silkfair site. the only thing i can’t change about silkfair is the shopping cart, and frankly, that’s the part i have no interest in doing myself. everything else i can skin. /me is off to watch The Prisoner. the original, thank you very much.

i’m sure i’m the last one to this party, but there’s this map thing called platial, where you can mark your own locations, and share maps of things, etc. anyway, one of my twitter friends mentioned that she had one of where she’d shipped her books, and i thought, that is way too awesome! and i jumped straight on that bandwagon. (^_^) so there we are. the 100 some odd places that i’ve shipped my books. i didn’t include my ACEOs nor my custom stamps, since i wanted to keep it just to books, and it turned out super cool! i’d forgotten about the one i shipped to corfu, and i also realized how many many goodies i ship overseas. i <3 overseas. seriously, i can't wait to travel again. for the moment, however, i must content myself with looking at people's maps and merely dreaming about where i shall go after i win the lottery, or kill a mafia boss and run away with all his moneys, or perhaps drug people up in great bunches and convince them all that they're addicted to books. (^_^) let's see, what other news...? oh yeah, on the G1 front. i think i'm going to buy one next friday. i'd be buying one right now, but one has to pay one's car. (T_T) i keep having moments this week when i think to myself, zomG i could use a g1 right now. i have so many story ideas and good phrases and names and things throughout my day, i need to be able to whip out something with a keyboard and type the scene out before it goes away again. i do have a palm t|x, but the onscreen keyboard is too tiny to be useful for fingers-only, typing with a stylus is impossibly time consuming, and having to bust out my (admitedly fancy) wireless keyboard is hardly an on-the-go solution. plus, the palm has to have a wifi spot in order to get on the internets, and since we haven't got one of those at work, it kind of defeats the point. now if only i could convince my car payment to go take a flying leap, i could get one. zomg! how could i forget! the fabled bag! she be DONE! done done done and oh yeah DONE! she's beautiful, by the way, totally perfect. holds things in ways i really did not imagine when i was designing it. if i'd had some brains, i'd've made it about an inch taller, so it would fit these silly 8.5 by 11 inch papers people keep insisting upon turning their stories in on (^^;) but it really is nice looking. carolyn-san bought me some bright orange webbing, which goes perfectly with the orange stipe, and then she very nicely sewed the snap on the cell phone pocket for me, since it was about to be 1.30 in the bloody morning, and meredeth was simply not prepared to sew on a snap. i’ll put up some pictures eventually here, i promise. seriously, having to work and go to class at the same time is really a serious drag. (^^;) anyhow, it’s back to downloading half the internets. (^_^)

well i’m watching The Devil Wears Prada, and i’m wondering what all the fuss was about. my general thoughts? vapid. miranda whatsherface is just such a bitch, i really think i’d like to see a movie where someone knocks her off. maybe if she was involved in something directed by bruckheimer, something where she’s the target of an assassination plot, something that made her life torturous hell for a couple of hours. that might make me happy. as it is, i think i’ll just bust out with the biggest photodump i think i’ve ever had! recent trips to the thrift store provide most of the material, but there’s a few moments of NERdism and a little bit of Wii awesome. so, w/out further ado, we go! mere days ago, my locality was hit with a semi-blizzard. my car is what you see above you. my sister, my mother and my father all broke their ice scrapers peeling an inch of ice off their cars, but luckily mine was saved. all i had to deal with was a good four inches of snow. ^ that would be the lid of my car that afternoon. this is one of the many benefits of starting work at noon. (^_^) earlier in the week, after i got over the second of two disgustingly snotty illnesses, i finally got to spend some time with our Wii. i’ve pretty much been too sick since christmas to play with the thing, so i went on a marathon of bowling. i beat the heck out of my dad! i stole his mojo~ and now we move on to thrift store moments! our first one comes to you in two parts, an item discovered in the christmas/holiday goods room of a local goodwill. can’t spot it yet? let me make it a little clearer: that’s right, a pad. luckily unused, but i think this is one of the weirder things i’ve ever seen at a thrift store. occassionally, i do see some cool things, however. this afternoon, i found the following: that’s right, circa 1995, a palm pilot VII! and is the box just a facade? is it just a trick to get us to search the shop for more goodies? NO! it’s actually a palm VII. and with all the goods, too. i swear, i almost bought that thing. do i have a palm T|X? yes. do i need another palm? no. one that’s so old, it thinks supporting the internet is a pretty neat idea? certainly not. did i want to buy it anyway? i kinda did. that is, until i found this: it’s a Risograph CR1610ui. it’s like a photocopier, only with different technology. it prints off of a drum like a newspaper or something, so it prints like 130 copies a minute! it’s meant for schools and places like that, that have to print off a bunch of copies of one thing. what happens is you put your original in, it makes a master of that original, and then you can print however many copies you want. it’s cheaper per copy for mid-level print jobs than copiers or printers. so i’ll probably be headed back there tomorrow afternoon to buy the thing. coz it’s just so awesome! and to close, we have the inevitable: my mother and father went out for a dinner date this evening, and so we ended up having spagettios here at home. it may seem like we just couldn’t find anything else to eat, but it just turns out that every time they have a date, we happen to have spagettios in the house. if we don’t watch it we’re gonna end up pavolvian about it. (^_^)

today’s assignement, should you choose to accept it, is to translate the controls of a japanese bread machine. yup, that’s right. a bread machine. i’d go of on some tanget about the pointlessness of bread machines except that i own one. i’m addicted to it. it will be one of the first appliances purchased for my new kitchen next year. fridge? microwave? breadmachine. the essentials. (^_^) anyway, this is actually YOUkun’s bread machine, as blogged about in entry number 625 in its original and my english translation. i had someone the other day ask if i would translate the buttons, apparently they own one of these machines, too, but can’t read the buttons, so w/out further ado, here goes! TWINBIRD, of course, the brand name. underneath the arrows, next to the display window, TIMER little yellow circle words: Loaf Menu and then: 0 (i’m not sure, maybe Additional Baking?) 1 One Loaf 2 1.5 Loaf (i’m really not sure what the little box next to this one says, it’s too small for me to read. 3 1.5 Loaf (somthing else that i can’t read) 4 1.5 Loaf (Quick Baking) 5 Soft (as in, soft crust, i believe) (and the big yellow button says Menu) next menu, Variety Menu 6 Whole Wheat Flour 7 French Bread Style 8 Sweet Bread (big pink button, START) next menu, Special Menu 9 Dough (as in, the machine just mixes it, it doesn’t bake anything) 10 Pizza dough 11 Jam (… i’m not sure if this means, If you have a jam in the mixer or what …) (and the big white button, CANCEL) miss Cik Di, if you can scan in the manuel, or find it online somewhere (i didn’t see it on their current site…) than i’ll be happy to translate that for you too. hope this helps~

work on TFB continues… my lord, how long has this been going on? it’s like you found out your girlfriend’s been cheating on you and all you can think to ask is how long it’s been going on. (T_T) ANYWAY. despite distractions (snow, dream where i killed my mother’s cats, sister got laid off) i did manage to finish a project this afternoon. i don’t have a picture yet, but i finished a watch. it’s got a fancy beaded strap, in delica beads (super expensive, mildly better than other beads due to their fairly consistent shape) of peacock, butter, and galvanized steel green. i have plenty of beads left over, so i think i shall be making ring(s) to go with it, maybe this weekend. what i do have pictures of is january’s Book. why in the name of all that is holy do i have so many pictures? … well, i’ve decided it’s not up to my standards to be listed on etsy, so this is my only venue for displaying it… hopefully the other books will be saleable. although a series w/out the first month is kind of stupid. WHATEVER. what i’m doing tonight is making myself a super custom wallet that holds my list book as well as my cards. at first i was going to make it out of plastic canvas/needlepoint, but then i realized that TFB is still in process, and it turns out that i’m really not interested in starting extra needlepoint projects at this time thank you very much. (^_^) this way, i get experience making boxes, which i totally need, AND i get to use my (plethora) of cardboard boxes hanging around the place. i’ll post shots of my handiwork once i finish it.

alright, in the spirit of Goal-Setting, we shall herein list and keep track of the year’s goal. they are many, but this is The Year of Finishing Things, so they will be Finished. things to be Finished: college (graduation christmas 2009, even if i have to quit my job and rob a bank to do it) – english 565 (workshop II) | two stories to turn in for critique (1 of 2, down!) | two re-write assignments to complete (1of 2 not gotten due to prof losing my story, but i’ll complete re-write on my own) | weekly critiques of others’ works’ (8? 7? of 36 done) – linguistics 597.01 (language death, a GEC credit) (not yet scheduled) – another english 565 (because i can take it more than once for credit) (planned for final quarter, not yet scheduled) – generic english class at 500-level or above (not yet scheduled) bills (this one’ll be big (T_T) ) – mastercard (hereafter known as The Rape Lady) – 5 payments to go – discovercard – so many payments i really can’t count that high. i don’t even know how much total i owe them. … might wanna look into that, i guess. (^^;) – car! – 9 payments left! (then i can pre-order a smart car! yes BABY!) – tuition payments (ouch) – $800+ dollars left for this quarter – three quarters beyond that to go. ouch. crafts – The Fabled Bag (pet name for the longest bookbag making in history (i swear). will eventually be done. i’ve got about half of one panel left, and then i’ll have to stitch it all together. oh yeah, it’s needlepoint.) – book a month (club?) (repurposing of a make your own calendar kit i bought and then decided not to use | january book done (pictures to come later)) – cleaning up my craft space should also be on this list, but i am SO certain that it will never be done, that i almost don’t want to put it down here. (T_T) ok, well i think that’s about plenty for one year, but i will state my goal (technically for next year) is to be prepared to move out on january 1, 2010! yay! ~meredeth.

mood: writerly song: Hard Man Hard Knuckles Mix (by DiscoDan) not that i have enough visitors to actually worry about down time, but if anyone showed up in the past half hour or so, they would have been greeted w/ perhaps the most pointless page i have ever produced. i was editing my entries template in an effort to put the dateline below the title, but meredeth hasn’t quite mastered the intricacies of the foreach loop yet and thus her attempt ended in disaster. it was kind of funny in a way. it said: “no entries to display.” and: “entry 1 of 143 entries.” one of these things is not like the other… anyway. nothing’s really going on today, we’re pretty much ALL sick at my house. at least i can speak again. i was NOT looking forward to calling off for another day. i get paid for it i guess, but it’s still a drag being ill. it definitely hampers the writing effort, which is something i really can’t afford right now. the prof didn’t give me any specific re-writing Assignment as such, but i’ve been stewing on it for a day or two now, and of course i’ve got Ideas. the other night, actually, i was just about to go to sleep when i was struck by an Idea, so i ended up staying up for a couple of hours writing it down. wore out my reading light’s battery. (^_^) i think the whole plot is going to end up changing. not the broad outline, but the details like city names, and number of cities destroyed, and which cities they visit, stuff like that. i think what i’d like to do now is Bowl. Wii Bowling. addendum @ 22:43 ok, i’ve finally found something to write about, and since i think starting another blog entry mere hours after finishing one is a bit retarded, i’ll simply addend the old one. (^_^) first on the docket is my favorite topic, books! i recently bought one of those make-your-own-caledar kits from my local paper fetish store, but when i actually opened the thing, it was inspiring in a calendar way. as usually happens when i spy paper, i thought BOOKS and any calendar-ish thoughts i may have been thinking flew away like the flighty things we all know my thoughts to be. (^^;) in the end i just gave up and ordered a super cool one from deviantART (by the way shipping charges have gotten reDICulous all of a sudden!) and gave myself over to the inevitablity that is this paper becoming books. in honor of its original destiny as a calendar, however, i have decided to do only one book a month, using the papers originally intended for that month. this is convenient for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that i have about half a bazillion unfinished bookblocks hanging around this house, and i’d like to be rid of all of them by the end of the year. this? is the year of finishing things. the calendar was to be only 8.5 by 11 inches, so they have to be small books, but the day planner i have already printed out for this first one is moleskine size (3.5 by 5.5) so they shall all end up being that size. i may even be feeling ambitious enough to do that one tonight. (^_^) the other thing i may be feeling ambitious enought to do tonight (not least of which because it’s already written) is post the first of my serendipity tutorials. the more i use this thing, the more i like it. it’s endlessly customizable, super easy to use, and embeds like a pro. i could build a whole site around this thing. oh wait, i pretty much have. (^_^) and best of all, it’s super free! (^_^) unfortunately, it’s also community supported, which usually i’m all in favor of (hell, i’m using there software, AND i’m posting this from ubuntu at the moment) but in this case, it’s meant that i’ve had one hell of a time finding documentation. so, rather than simply whine about it, or spend a hundred in the forums trawling through things that may or may not be useful, and in lieu of learning german (the official manual is in german) i have decided to simply learn by f-ing things up on my testblog, and then i shall cement my knowledge by writing a serious of tutorials on what i have done. i’m starting with installation and shall be moving on to things such as installing plugins and, my favorite, coding your own theme from scratch! yeah, it’ll be ongoing. (^_^) the thing i have already felt ambitious enough to do tonight is taxes. now, some of you are out there like, damn, that’s a lot of ambition, but what you don’t know about me is that i like doing taxes. i rock at math, i like filling out forms, and even when i started, when i thought i owed the government ~$56, i still couldn’t resist the alure of e-file-ing. i once did my brother’s taxes for him, and i routinely help my sister with hers. so this year, i sat down and plugged in some numbers and found some deductions, and it turns out i actually get most of what i paid back. i could have gotten more probably, if i wasn’t so late w/ my college tuition payments… yeah. anyway, most of my return is probably going to bills. actually all of it is probably going to bills. actually all of it is going to bills. (T_T) anyway, in the long term, that’ll help get more money into my pocket, coz it won’t be going to bills and late fees and overdraft charges, so that makes me happy. (^_^) this is, after all, The Year of Finishing Things. oh yeah, also? work still continues on The Fabled Bag. also also? the bowling was cool. i won all three sets!