have i written anything since my last post? i have not. have i thought about it? barely. am i sad? super yes! not just about that, of course, but this blog post is not about my personal work-related ISSUES, so instead we’ll move on to something cool!!! … and something with less than three exclamation points … the Saint James Hymnathon!!! oh, sorry, i said LESS than three exclamation points. the Saint James Hymnathon!! how’s that? anyway. what we’re doing is, we’re replacing our organ at church. we have at the moment an historically awesome, but incredibly space-inappropriate 16th century Dutch replica Brombaugh organ. built under the style of this guy, it is an exact replica of an organ built during the 16th century Dutch renaissance, and is made to exacting specs. the problem? it’s built to play 16th century Dutch renaissance music. now, i personally lurv that music with a vehemence that is probably best reserved for discussion at some other, less delicate, time. for the moment, let’s just say that the way in which our altar is set up lays the altos and tenors on one side and the sopranos and basses on the other. now, being that the brombaugh is a) not invisible, and b) about as tall as two of me, this effectively prevents the alto/tenors from seeing and/or hearing the soprano/basses. we’ve tried all sorts of things to try and alleviate this problem, but we eventually had to face up to the fact that the organ was just in the way. and super limiting our repertoire. so we’re getting a new one. they want it now. like, yesterday. so they’re getting it the first week of may. so we’d better get on with the saying goodbye to it part. hence the hymnathon. we’re singing every single hymn in the 1982 hymnal. that’s 720 of them. we’ll be singing from 17.30 on friday until ~23.00 (or until we all pass out) and then we’ll start again on saturday bright and (disgustingly) early at 07.00 and then going for 12 hours straight. (not so) FAQ: Q. are you all mad? A. yes. next question. Q. so you personally will be singing 720 multi-versed hymns. A. the theory is that each singer will sing not more than two hours in a row, no more than 360 hymns total, and we’re only singing the first two verses of each hymn. plus, some hymns have only one verse. i personally plan on singing as much as humanly possible. i sing most of the day most days anyway, so i think my voice’ll stand up. Q. but the brombaugh sounds awesome! why are you ditching it!? A. we’re not ditching it, we’re selling it to a church in Kansas. they’re getting a whole new 1000+ seat church, and it’ll sound super awesome there. plus, it’ll also be 100% more appropriate for their space. Q. what kind of organ are you getting to replace it? and when? A. an electronic organ with its own pipes and then some extra pipes that our (organ NERd) choir director has had in cold storage for a while. we’ll have about 1200 pipes all told when we’re done. as for when, we’ve got some building/code things to fix before we can shuffle the new organ in, but we’re planning on having it by summertime at the least. Q. what’ll you do w/out an organ? A. a) we can sing a capella, you know. b) we’ve got a piano. c) we’ve also got some members of the OSU brass band for things like pentacost. Q. all that sounds awesome, how can i sponser you for this fundraising thing? A. email me with how much you’d like to spend per hymn that i sing (or a total amount no matter how many i sing, that’ll be fine, too) and i’ll tell you where you can send it. we take paypal, too, you know

yeah, what the hell was that about. i can always count on hollister to give me the straight truth. not necessary documentary-appropriate, but always the the straight truth. he’s a delightful man. (^_^) anyhow. i’ve got eight pages as of this writing. i should have… erm… 5 x 3,3 is… 16,5. sixteen and a half. huh. okay, have we got any good news to report? … … … okay, how about any mediocre news… well, i guess if we consider the fact that i spent three days watching the entirety of the NOVA back-catalogue, the fact that i’m 2.83 days behind means i’ve actually written about two days worth of pages this evening. so that’s not bad. and i’ve got tomorrow to sit down here and make shit up and write shit down, so maybe we’ll actually be caught up by the time monday hits. yeah. let’s choose, for the moment, to forget about the fact that school is nastyearly tuesday morning, or that work is now a machine factory instead of a telephone answering call center. let’s just focus on how many pages i got done today. 5. yeah. .

well, i said i was going to ignore the internet today. so, that seems to be going well. yeah. the other thing i’d said i wouldn’t bother doing was this year’s ScriptFrenzy. yeah. so my plot is about half pinoccio half pygmalion. it’s going to be a fictional documentary about the first group of scientists to successfully build an android, and the emotional/ethical repurcussions of their stunning success in their field. in other news, it’s edible book festival day today! over at the BESTbooks blog we’ve been having a grand old time making books and book-related objects out of just about anything we find laying around our kitchen. my sushi book won an award for technique (coz i did a japanese stab binding out of japanese ingredients! ftw!) and there were even a couple that looked edible! (^_^) you can check out the winners on flickr or on our blog, linked above. /me is off to write more pages. MOAR PAGES! .

now, i am a girl inordinately desirous of taking a survey. i like to fill out forms. when tax season comes around? i am the one my siblings look to. in high school? i would spend those extra minutes making sure the bubble was completely filled in. it’s like? i have OCD or something. so when i heard from everyone’s favorite local college’s pulmonary studies department (that would be breathing functions at the ohio state university for the rest of you) emailing me to say, hey we’ve got some studies starting up are you interested, i said, heck yes. whilst reading the little information/consent forms, i came across the following: “You may get tired or bored when we are asking you questions or you are completing questionnaires. You do not have to answer any question you do not want to answer.” wow. now that must be some seriously boring forms for them to put it in the consent agreement. i can’t wait. (^_^) the other study’s info sheet listed “discovery of undiscovered conditions” under potential side effects of the study, so i guess i’m eager for that one to start, too. (^^;) speaking of beginnings, class starts tomorrow, bright and early at (read: at the unGODly hour of) 8.30 am. anthropology 597, the molecular revolution. i’m already working on a sci-fi story. for scriptfrenzy. what am i, crazy!? i completely FAILed at march madness, i’ve got about fifty-hundred projects half-done, and i have the nastiest class time possible, twice a week, for the next nine weeks. yes, crazy i think is the most appropriate word for me. in other news, i have found my reward for this quarter. see, every quarter, i buy myself a big time present as a reward for successfully refusing to skip class and getting a grade that doesn’t suck horribly. my first quarter it was a phone, the next quarter it was a laptop, this past quarter… was actually another phone (but this one way cooler!). this time, it will be an mp3 player. not that my current zen touch 40 GB is bad, it’s really not. i’ve had it for about four of five years now, and it still basically works. … yeah. the battery life is pretty much suck at this point, and it randomly restarts if it doesn’t like the temperature of the air, the way i’m walking, or the particular speed of the planet’s rotation at that very moment. i’m thinking of getting either a Cowon D2+, which has absolutely stunning battery life (50~52 hours) and plays ogg and flac files, or a zen x-fi. now, they both have 16 and 32 gb models, the prices really aren’t that different, and they both have SDHC capablities. the zen doesn’t integrate the card into the rest of the player, which is both lame and lame, but the cowon apparently has a 8000 file limit (4k for internal memory and 4k for memory card) effectively making the 32 gb model pointless and seriously crippling its desirability for someone (such as myself) with an mp3 library of 24k+ files. which is a shame, coz that battery life makes me wanna cry with Happy. i use my mp3 play a lot. i mean a LOT. anything even close to a 52 hour battery life could make me a terribly happy gal. and upon further inspection, i’ve only got 6725 tracks over ~35 gbs on my zen right now, so a 32 gb player with an SD slot would be kind of overkill i guess anyway. too bad that doesn’t mean that i don’t want it. (^_^) you know they sell 32 gb SDHC cards now? 64 gb mp3 player? oh hai~ anyhow, in closing, i shall leave you with some juicy potential storylines from the ScriptFrenzy plot machine: Lost in the Africa wing of the Science Museum a ticklish polar bear ingests a pheromone that attracts weasels. Halfway through the big to-do list a group of retired superheroes fights a saint in a dark alley. In a remote jungle in Brazil a seriously lost Bedouin tribe travels back in time to kill Hitler. ftw. .

well that’s three hours of my life i won’t be getting back… well, no, to be fair, it wasn’t really that bad. let’s just say i’m glad i had a slight buzz thing going on. (^_^) it certainly was gorey. i like mel gibson has a gore fetish. in other news, i’ve managed to actually translate a few pages of something! exhibit a, a specially made notebook (by yours truly, yes, thank you) specifically made for this project. exhibit b, yellow pencil (all the way over to the right, boys and girls) that i lurv. and the best and brightest (literally) my long-suffering DS. at the moment, it’s playing the part of japanese dictionary/handwriting recognizer. the latter is probably quite difficult given my horrid handwriting. (^_^) it always gets boring right before class starts, since i don’t want to start another project and then get interrupted by, in this case, anthropology 597, (T_T) but i was glancing through my emails (i have like FIFTY-ONE of them pending) and i saw an email from my dear (and also long-suffering, i believe) translation group leader, from when she gave me this project. when was that, you ask? … yeah. july. of last year. (T_T) (T_T) (T_T) so i thought i might get going on it again. there are two other chapters in this volume i have to finish, and about three other mangas i’d like to get to AT SOME BLOODY POINT. but first i have to finish this. it’s short, it’s not really that hard. i’m just easily distracted. for instance, THIS VERY BLOG POST. .

because i’ve obviously been spending way too much time at work. in other news, this is what i’ve been doing with my free time. that? that is a book made of nori. and “rice sticks.” and wonton wrappers. and, uh, er, fruit roll-ups. yeah, my teeth are pretty much a sugary mess at this stage… you can see more @ the BESTbooks 2009 Edible Book Fesitval flickr group. wow, that has to be the longest link i’ve ever put up. reminds me of a crazy lady i used to work for. i know precisely jack about search engine optimization, so when i started picking on all the (what appeared to me to be randomly crazy) link styles, she was like, what are you, a retard? anyway. those are sad memories, and frankly, from like a year and a half ago? do i really not have anything better to think about? oh wait! i do! my shiny new soopsee account! it aggegates from my blog, from my etsy shop, and all in a fancy little uber-designed place. it’s cute~ i’ve got a corkboard theme going on right now, and it /is/ cute, so go over and check it out. it’s in beta, so if you’ve got an etsy shop, sign up~

not much to really say this evening, i just thought i’d mention that i was featured (along w/ a bunch of super cool artists) in a dA news feature this afternoon. check the glasses. they are cool~ on a (not at all) related note, let’s do a meme thing! 1. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names) Ann Alan 2. NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother’s dad, father’s dad) Howard Bob 3. STAR WARS NAME: (the first 2 letters of your last name, first 4 letters of your first name) Bemere 4.DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) Blue (i don’t like animals, so i’m just blue. like yoko kanno!) 5. SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you live) Ann Columbus 6. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite alcoholic drink, optionally add “THE”) The Green Daiquri 7. FLY NAME: (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name) Mett 8. GANGSTA NAME: (favorite ice cream flavor, favorite cookie) Cherry Garcia No Bake Oatmeal Cookies(. wow that was nonsensical) 9. ROCK STAR NAME: (current pet’s name, current street name) (i have three kittehs, so here’s all three) PJ Endicott Ginger Endicott Baby Endicott 10. PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on) Mickey Rimmon nb my mother’s porn name? Goldenboy John. that? is brilliant!

is what i have. what i do have is pictures of the second of eight TARDIS books. i heard from the owner of the third of eight (this is starting to sound like a post about the borg) and he told me that he and his Girlfriend (his capitalization, not mine; that must be a special girl~) will be trading the book back and forth across the country during the long-distance phase of their relationship. i was like AW!!! so cute!!! (^.^) it was actually kind of a shame. i have no other knowledge of the dude, and i was like SQUEE~ … yeah, i’m pretty easy. cute NERdage and i’m on board. that’s right, a book of the great and wonderful TARDIS. with hand-sewn endbands and leather recycled from THE most disgusting skirt ever. evarz. seriously. dismantling it was a mercy. (^_^) also, i’ve been on a bookbinding bonanza. i finished three of a planned ten-book series this evening. i’m out of paper, or i’d be doing the others right now. they’re all made from some paper i bought during our recent Ikea Excursion. it was the last roll of this paper in the store, in fact it was discontinued about eight or nine months ago, so it really shouldn’t have even been there, and the floor associate had to fill out a special form so i was allowed to buy the thing, so it’ll be super limited edition. the roll actually had five sheets of some cheerfully-colored handmade paper, and it’s ending up to be some super cute little books, so i’ll have pictures of that here before too much longer. what i have pictures of right now is the pokebook. or rather, pokeboc, don’t you think? (^_^) i’m pretty sure my brother’s super liking it. he wrote in it the first day for like six hours straight. he was on his way to another marathon session the next day too, but he comes up to me about three o’ clock like, ok, i’d like to write some more, but my hand is cramping up. i was like, hahah~ i win. nb : random promotage: my latest etsy listing.

well, i had my last story for the quarter critiqued. i’ve put the un-revised version, or rather the version that i turned in for the class to critique. they said the things that i knew they would say about it, namely that we need about five tons more world details (which is right, because even i haven’t got a completely firm version of this world to build off of) and oh by the way, what the hell is Martose actually doing in this story. someone said that Wright felt pointless, and i would have to agree. he just showed up in this draft, and i’m not really sure why he’s there. lee k (my prof) pointed out martose’s role as a sort of foil for joachim, and that is true to some extent, and there were questions about what joachim’s political views were, in light of the fact that he’s killing a politician, and the way i wrote it right now, joachim’s pretty far to the right, but in some parts, especially in the saving of the little boy and his sister, jo seems kind of leftist, so you see that i need to decide precisely what the hell’s going on there. i’ve got a little work to do, but for now, i’ll be chilling for a bit. i’ve got the second of two TARDIS books to finish by this weekend, and then maybe half a dozen stamps to make by next weekend. never even mind the projects i’d like to finish for myself. oh yeah, and i’ve got a … *coughcoughpokemonbookhackcough* to finish from my brother’s birthday, which was like A MONTH AGO. it’s going to be an awesome book, though, it’s going to just drip pokemon. … yeah, pokemon. anyway. in other news, the poor poor venture that was manganovel.com. they didn’t quite make enough to keep themselves in business (T_T) but they took all the points that people had earned, which was like the in-house dollars, and donated them to UNESCO japan. they sent out an email to say that they’d ended up donating 100,000 yen. that’s about USD$1020! i was like, awesome! too bad i didn’t get to translate more stuff for them. they didn’t really have too many adult-level titles, it seemed to be mostly bright fluffy kid things (hence their demise, i’m afraid) but the idea was certainly awesome. to have the community translate stuff, rather than having the publishers have to pay in-house. i guess the quality maybe isn’t going to be industry standard, and certainly it’s not going to be as consistent, but for amateurs such as myself, it was a great opportunity. oh yeah! i was featured on a blog the other day! saima-sama made a little post on michael jackson, and included my ZOMBEH book, as it is based on mr jackson’s jacket from the Thriller video. so go give her a visit. her blog is nice looking, too, clean and polished. (^_^) alright, i’ve got to get back to my TARDIS book, i’ll post some pictures when i’m done. i’ve got photos of the other one taken already, i just haven’t had a chance to lightroom them yet. ja ne~ p.s. my palm t|x is still up on ebay if you’re in the market for a pda.