Hey, ShikamaruRocks, here. How ya doin'?
I have another world. One called "Shika's Busy-ish Nook" that contains less random stuff than you'll find here. For the most part. I'll leave all the official stuff that's on here though, but all new official stuff will be there.
I AM A GIRL. So many people think I'm a dude, but I'm not. I promise.
Soooo, let's get on with it, shall we?
Most of these are in no particular order...
Favorite Manga: Fruits Basket, Saiyuki, Saiyuki Reload, RurouniKenshin, DNAngel, Prince of Tennis, Trigun, One Piece, KareKano, Lovely Complex, Whistle!, PeaceMaker Kurogane, Fullmetal Alchemist, HanaKimi, Ouran High School Host Club, etc.
Favorite Anime: Hunter x Hunter, Fullmetal Alchemist, Peacemaker Kurogane, DNAngel, Fruits Basket, TekkonKinkreet, Saiyuki, Mushi-shi, BECK, Avatar (it counts!!! grrrr....), Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, RurouniKenshin, etc.
Music Peeps: YellowCard, Death Cab for Cutie, Snowpatrol, A Fire Inside, The Used, Three Days Grace, Seether, Orange Range, My Chemical Romance, Hoobastank, Muse, The Pillows, Plain White T's, Angels and Airwaves, Flaming Lips, Bump of Chicken, and!!! The Jonas Brothers (my guilty pleasure).
I love cooking, drawing, reading (mostly manga but novels are wicked awesome too. I just don't have the time nor stamina for novels as much anymore...though I have been working my way back in. lol), knitting, watching my brother play Zelda/Metroid games (lol), and skateboarding, though I fail epicly at it.
Toodles!!
I'm back. Maybe.
So, some of you know from my sister's most recent post that my absence from theO has been due to a somewhat awful fall I inflicted upon myself due to clumsiness and lack of forethought. I pivoted off of a low stone wall, slipped in some mud, and ended up splayed out in a rather unfortunate-looking position on my face on concrete in a skirt. >.> Hurt my left elbow pretty bad and as such I've stayed away from typing and driving and things of the sort because they are painful.
I have to go to work in a couple of hours so I probably should be babying my arm or something right now, but meh.
Twisted started a MAL account for me. Tis under the same handle so feel free to look at it or something. I still haven't put everything I've read/seen on it or rated all of it so yeah. I'll get around to it one of these days though.
I plan on trying to update my Japan world in the next few days (it'd be good if I posted on it before I forget what we did each day...-_-') so you can also look forward to that, I suppose....
I really have nothing to say, I just wanted to let y'all know I'm alive.
Oh! One last thing of the minor fangirl-freak-out nature. I finally finished the Rurouni Kenshin manga. Rock on!!! I totally love Yakiho! He's almost incomprehensibly awesome. lol. Like a perfect blend of Kenshin and Sanosuke, only...10. XD Of course, when he's 15 he's much cooler and then in Yahiko no Sakabatou he's 18 and even more awesome, but yeah. I love him.
Till next we meet, I suppose. Sorry I haven't check out any of your posts and such. Hopefully I'll be getting on more frequently. Toodles.
So, Twisted, Tofu, our mom and I are going to Naka-Kon (an anime convention in Kansas City, Missouri) today. I would have liked to have gone yesterday and tomorrow too, but meh. Things happen.
So, I've been stoked about this for ages because A: this is the con where three years ago I first met my all time favorite voice actor, Greg Ayres (have I told y'all that story?). B: Greg Ayres is scheduled to be there again. C: Chris Patton (like, my second fav. voice actor. At least, he's way up there) will be there. D: We couldn't go last year.
Me and Greeeeeg :3 First time I met him, and I was cosplaying as Goku from Saiyuki (who Greg portrays. woots.) He said we were the best Sanzo party evar!! (Twisted, Tofu, and my friend (who is my friend no more) were the other three members of the Sanzo party.)
Needless to say, I was really really worried about Greg when I heard he had suffered a minor heart attack at a con a few weeks ago. Due to this, it is also needless to say that I was not very surprised when Twisted informed me that Greg will not be attending the convention. Doctor's Orders.
Still, that doesn't mean I'm not put out by this. The poor guy. I hope he gets better soon.
Well, I'm off to get ready. A certain Windwaker shirt bought while I was in Japan needs to be donned, so I'll talk to y'all after the con. Maybe we'll take some pictures for you?
Yay for Chris! Gotta love Sousuke, neh? xP
I have not posted in a long time.
FEAST YOUR EYES UPON THIS!!
To be painfully honest, I have no idea where that came from. I mean, I genuinely do no form of drugs so I haven't a clue.
I tried to change my avatar and the stupid O wouldn't let me. Poodles.
Anywho, today is gloomy. Hm. Raining and all that.
I've recently read volume 13 of Trigun. The final volume is 14 but who knows when that'll end up being translated and released for me to be able to purchase in and continue crying.
Today is one of my treasured days off. Woots.
Shortly I'll be going off to pick up my paycheck (currently only has $14.76 to her name) and then get a free drink from one of my favorite cafes (not from the place of employment). I get a free drink because I have purchased 9. Yayz.
Oh! And I'll be posting soon about Twisted and my babies! We each have one and they are truly beautiful. My babies name is Kaylee and Twisted's is Zoe (fresh cookies for you if you know where their names are from). They both have a respiratory infection of some kind and we are hoping that hamster vitamins will clear it up. They're rats, by the way. I'm going to post a video and some pictures sometime soon, I hope. We think they're maybe a couple of months old. Very sweet. We got them last Wednesday (NOT yesterday).
Twisted, our mom, and I watched a really cool anime movie yesterday. It's called "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time". I strongly recommend this movie to all of you. It was humorous, as well as heart wrenching. There was a certain degree of action, and quite a bit of cerebral involvement. I actually had quite a bit of trouble falling asleep last night because I couldn't stop thinking about it. haha.
Also, I totally love one of the characters. Squee! lol.
I've been seriously contemplating some form of fanfic...
Speaking of, today I had a discussion with Tofu (my bro) about the possibilities of publishing some original works of fiction. Tofu has been planning a series of kids books (for years) that will be soooo amazing once he finally gets around to them. I told him to write the first chapter of book one and I'll do the illustrations for it (we've been planning on me doing the art since day one). I'm stoked.
Also, through the years (about five, now) I have come up with multiple original stories that I genuinely believe would be amazing as movies, books, manga, anime, anything. Here's an example. I'm sure at least a few of you have looked at the few pages I have up of my comic "Artificial Hairband" (which I fail at drawing for and updating).
Now, you probably think that it might be "OK" but there's now way it would actually make a worthy novel. The thing is, I stink at drawing stories. I might have a small amount of skill at drawing a single picture, but there is no way I could ever carry out an entire story line in comic form. I'd love to, but it's not gonna happen.
The point is, even if I drew more of it (which I still would like to) no one but me would actually have any idea what it was about, reeeally, or it's potential.
I have spent many nights, days, months, years fleshing out this and other stories and I think it would be best if I simply finally typed them up. Which is what I plan on doing soon, starting with Artificial Hairband.
I may start a world for it, so people can actually read it, but who knows. I mean, I really don't plan on trying to publish anything I write, ever. I just have to see it done, you know? Notes, partially written scenes, character outlines, these are all fine and dandy, but they aren't enough.
You all probably don't care. heh heh. Sorry.
I can't think of anything else to say at this precise moment in time, so...
Toodles!
So, what's your favorite food? Come on. I wanna know. Please?
Anyway, mine is bread. Basically any kind of bread. Though I love focaccia, especially with rosemary, seasalt, and fresh ground black pepper on it. Mmmmmmm.
The kids in my Culinary Arts class figured that out and would kinda make fun of me about it (which makes zero sense to me, but whatevs). So, I got to eat a lot of tasty breads when I was in the class and I got to bake a bunch, too. Whenever we were assigned some baking thing to do lots of people wanted to be in my group. lol.
That's not the point, though. Point is fresh baked bread really is a comfort food. Also, baking bread is therapeutic.
First, you get to beat something up, which can be very nice.
Second, you get to smell the lovely aroma of the bread as it rises and then while it's baking.
And third, you get to devour it after all your hard work.
I had a yucky day two days ago. Actually, I've had a yucky couple of weeks. So today I decided to cook. All day.
I started out making a huge batch of mashed potatoes (another of my favorite foods and a comfort one. Hm. I wonder why... xP) because we had 7 or so pounds of russet potatoes we simply had to do something with because it is just criminal to let potatoes go to waste.
In the middle of my train of thought I am saying something entirely unrelated.
I am way super dizzy right now. Whoa. Think I need to finish typing soon because I'm about to fall out of my chair. @.@ Not cool.
Anywho, after the potatoes I went to WallMart for some bread flour, yeast and boxed mac and cheese (I'm gonna be lazy later. lol). I made the bread dough which was super fun cuz I got to knead it for 10 minutes. Yay! lol. Then I let it rise for an hour. I just punched it down and put it in the fridge. By the time I'm done typing this (hopefully I won't be dizzy anymore...) I should be able to shape the dough into little blobs to rise a second time which I will then bake into little individual blobular roll things.
While they are baking I'm going to slice, season and sautee some beef which I will then mix into some mac and cheese that has been doctored with a little extra milk and some Velveeta to make it semi soupy. Then I'm going to empty out the little loaves into bread bowls and serve the mac and cheese in it to my family for dinner with some corn or green beans. Haven't decided.
I haven't baked bread in a while so I'm really happy right now.
Maybe you can tell me what your favorite food is after the room stops spinning.
Yesterday I had to go to work in the morning. I wasn't overly happy about this, yet I also wasn't super annoyed. I was only going to be at work from 8 to noon. I just didn't want to get out of bed at 6:30.
So, I take a shower, make breakfast, take my prednisone (I have psoriasis and the steroid is part of the treatment. I'm almost done with it o(^-^)o ) and leave at 7:30. I get to work by 7:50. Though I'm early and it is technically not so legal for me to work when I haven't clocked in yet I start turning on the oven and filling the sink with sanitizer and stuff. I go and clock in, get a walkie and come back to get the food all situated in the display case and put the chairs down off the tables and whatnot.
I brew the two kinds of iced tea and am actively putting the coffee beans in the espresso hoppers when I notice a funny little reading on the screen of the machine. Remember the evil screen of death that said "Powder/Piston Error" that I wanted to murder? Well, now it said "Heating".
At first I was like, "Ok. It says that for like 4 seconds when you turn the machine on. Big whoop." But I hadn't turned the machine on. It hadn't been off. It had just been saying "Heating" for who knows how long. It won't let me pull shots.
Great.
It was 8:25 and I was finished with everything else early. The espresso machine was all that was left and it normally only took about 7 minutes.
35 minutes till open.
I pulled out the manual for it and looked up "Troubleshooting". Nothing about a heating problem.
Crap.
I was going to have to call the stupid manufacturing/ maintenance people.
One of the store managers (one of my favorites) came up with my cash drawer and I told her what was up. I said I'd be calling the company and she asked me to keep her posted.
So, I call the stupid people. The lady asks me some basic questions like my store number. She confirms the stores address. She makes sure I understand that I'm at a Seattle's Best not a Starbucks (which I told her when I was saying why I was calling, but whatever) and doesn't even really ask what's wrong. She just tells me she's calling in a work order for me which will go through somewhere between 4 and 24 hours. Yeah. 24 hours would be reeeally helpful. Uh-huh.
Crap.
After about 10 minutes the store's phone rings. I don't answer phones at work because I can't answer the questions most people have (they ask about books and what we have in stock and things. I only work with the coffee, so yeah) so I don't answer the phone. Duh. About one minute later an employee walks up and asks me to get line one. So I do.
It's a guy from the matenance company for our area. He asks me some questions that actually seem to mater like it there's water in the grind tray (there was) or if the water that comes out when I press the rinse button is hot or not (it wasn't). He tells me that someone should be there to help in about half an hour. By this time it's 8:50. Half an hour. Let's see....That would be, say, 20 minutes after we open?
Yay!! -_-
So, I brew coffee and wait.
I also draw this. To, you know, illustrate my current state of mind.
Now might be a good time to mention that it had been raining since the night before and we were absolutely dead. I had like 3 customers in the first 30 minutes, two of which were employees and one was a regular who always gets a medium mug of medium roast with no room for cream.
So, I wander into Paperchase (the section of Borders that has cute notebooks and markers and stuffed animals and things. In our store it also just so happens to be right by the cafe) and start organizing it. By this point the rain had turned into really huge snowflakes.
At 9:30 the guy shows up. He takes the machine apart (completely) and looks at it for a while. Apparently it has two leaks which caused electrodes (or something) to fritz (or something) which wasn't allowing the water to heat up.
By 10:30 (AAAAAAUGH!!!) he had the machine put back together after having to go out in the rain countless times to get parts and call people and ask questions and such. He said it should be working fine but he'd wait around a second to make sure.
It's only supposed to take 4 or 5 seconds for the machine to heat up (which it said it was doing now that it was put back together).
After 12 minutes of it continuing to say "Heating" the poor guy groaned and took it apart again.
And what did he find?
Another leak! Yay! D<
Now, you must remember that I am on a steroid and thus much more touchy and annoyed than usual. I was having to hold back. A lot.
So, I chat with him about how annoying it must be to have to be at our cafe for so long.
The business starts picking up and now I'm having to apologize to people who are going to simply die if they can't get their small, double, skinny, extra-hot, sugar-free vanilla latte with a packet of Splenda. Ugh.
At 11:55 the machine is finally pulling shots.
The girl who is coming in to replace me won't have to mess when any of the horrible crap I had to go through and I'm happy for her.
So, I have to go to work in one hour.
I hope nothing breaks.
