C.A. Talk Radio

I enjoy stumbling across random people's LJs and having other people be able to randomly stumble upon me. As such, I try to keep as many entries as possible public.

I only ask that you're a responsible reader -- as a whole, this LJ would probably be rated R, so if you're of an age that this could get you in trouble, please take a pass on reading here. Wait a few years, if you'd like, though I'll let you in on a secret: a lot of it is all hype.

Your result for Roleplayer Test!...

The Soap Opera Star

Plotful, Character-Oriented, Sexual

Take Roleplayer Test! at HelloQuizzy

I WOULD LIKE TO TAKE A MOMENT TO NOTE THAT NOT ONE OF THE CHARACTERS THAT I RP IS ACTUALLY IN A RELATIONSHIP-WITH-A-CAPITAL-R.

AND ALSO THAT

I JUST

...how can it be so accurate and yet so not at the same time.

And so I am returned from a short but lovely trip to New York. Highlights included synergic showing me video of lilorchid1023 wiggling her ass and icebellaseahawk summarizing Pericles for me, which resulted in me making a face comparable to the faces chash and synergic made after consuming the McNuggetini (the sort of face that screams "why" into the void of a cold, uncaring universe). I'll perhaps write up a bit more tomorrow, but mainly I want to post the answers to the Words meme that I finally finished while on the train ride down.

Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" (or you can just ask for the meme, I won't mind) and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you.

( Words from actualize, piecrumbs, hijiri and kingsraven... )

Hello, world. This morning, I passed out on the bathroom floor -- after hurling myself into the closet door and then presumably doing some more moving, as where I woke up was a couple meters away from the last place I remembered being -- in a grand crashing manner, so you all should tell me nice things about myself so that I feel like a useful human being again.

thefeelgoodmeme
my thread

In other news, Gatorade is gross.

I swear to goodness that I'm getting around to doing that "Words!" meme and recounting the grand adventures of the northern Kentity, but my internet was out at the beginning of the week (which led me to find another use for my Twitter account -- putting up a note if I'm unable to get online due to ISP restrictions or power outages) and I haven't been feeling very well since then. And I'm not going to be around much for the next couple of days as...

I'm going to be in New York from Monday afternoon through Tuesday evening. My mother and I are meeting a cousin for dinner Monday evening and I realize that people have school and work, but if anyone wants to meet for lunch Tuesday or what-have-you, well, I'll be around. I'll probably be getting some shopping (at least of the window variety) done -- it's been a while since I've just tooled around mid-town.

I think I'm going to spend much of my day lazing around and being an invalid.

In other news, stoned wallabies are making crop circles in Tasmania. (News tip from misspeacock.)

RIP Farrah Fawcett.

ETA: And how much does it suck to battle cancer for years -- and then have Michael Jackson die the same day that you do? Dammit, Luck, give the woman a break!

That being said, respect to the king of pop.

Andrew Sullivan has been blogging about the situation in Iran. One of his recent entries links President Obama's statement.

For a person who, in general, does not have what most would consider to be a particularly hopping social life, I seem to be awfully busy lately.

Thanks to the organization of a high school classmate whom I saw at last week's service and who has a lot more social initiative than I, there's going to be a mini-reunion next Friday. I mainly want to note a piece of advice that I'd meant to include in my earlier post of Seeing People From Previous Phases Of My Life: if you are seeing someone you haven't seen in a while, with whom you were perhaps friends but weren't particular well acquainted with the personal details of their life, please do ask how their family is. This allows the person being asked to include answer for all whom they personally consider family. This also allows the person being asked not to be asked how their parents are and feel caught in that awkward position of not wishing to shallowly answer with false platitudes but also feeling that it would be a bit out of place to respond, "Well, my father's still dead, but my mother is doing quite well, thank you."

Moving on, the weekend's trip to NYC was very enjoyable. I met piecrumbs and anatari in mid-town, and I tried to guide us toward Koreatown with very limited success. We finally made it, though, and had some delicious Korean BBQ. (The lack of Korean restaurants in the region where I live gives me a serious food mission whenever I find myself in a place where Korean food is available.) Then, we retired to anatari's place, where alioth and apology already were (and where synergic and brittyone would later join us). anatari was a wonderful host, as usual, and we were treated to both her bartending skills (I actually got to have a good mojito -- minty and refreshing, nothing like that sickeningly sugary crap they serve you in restaurants -- and the blue Long Island iced tea -- a.k.a. the Adios, Motherfucker -- that I sampled from others' glasses was equally delicious) and her delicious risotto. We DDRed our legs off on Saturday night, and Sunday was mostly spent in pleasant lethargy.

I ended up traveling by train, though I had been considering trying the Megabus for the southward journey. But I do so enjoy the train, so I think that it was worth the $12 extra that it cost me. (There hadn't been a bus running for when I was returning, so I would have taken the train back either way.)

I finally finished The Days of the French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert on the way down. I very much enjoyed it, though I think that I'll have to read it again. It takes you through the entire revolution, from the marriage of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to Napoleon becoming one of the three consuls, in 304 pages, so it's quite the whirlwind of names, place and events -- sometimes difficult to keep straight on who's who and what's what, particularly when read in piecemeal, as I did. But the whirlwind feel of it all is fitting, after all, and I look forward to going through it again. I had been rather rusty on my French revolutionary history, so it should be much easier going this time around.

Also, the day before I departed for the city, I read Naked Pictures of Famous People by Jon Stewart, which I'd picked up in a used book sale at the library some time ago. I must confess, I was quite disappointed by it. It was published in 1998, and it certainly hadn't held up over time. Most of it was very broad topical parody and not very amusing, in the same way that I find a lot of political cartoons to be not very amusing -- okay, you've drawn an over-the-top, ridiculous, not-particularly-clever picture of something that tells me absolutely nothing that I don't already know. Being a Jon Stewart fan, I tried pretty hard to like it, but I eventually abandoned that effort and just stuck it out to give it the chance to produce anything more entertaining. It might have been funnier if I had read it when it first came out, but as it exists now, it really isn't worth the read.

As a final note, because who knows what the weather will be giving us, to anyone who received the message that I was feeling sick last night, thank you for the loving kicks to the head that I know you were all giving me. While it's becoming a pretty regular thing, it's nothing serious or agonizing -- I just tend to feel worse and worse as the day progresses during periods of unstable weather. Headache, nausea, related/resultant lack of focus -- nothing too terrible, just enough to find socializing/thinking appear to be too great of an effort and make me much rather be sleeping. If it keeps up, I might have to do some dramatic and slightly unpleasant re-structuring of my day, which will involve a good less talking to people, simply due to having fewer productive hours of the day to work with and, thus, having to do some strict prioritizing in order to get anything done.

Let's call this a continuation of last night's entry! Just a simple resuming after far too much time spent in bed. Ah, that most persistent of my sins -- truly, I think that I'm reaping the biological karmic punishment of all of the sleep that I didn't get in high school and most of college.

There has been a rather poetic quantity and quality of traveling in the past month for me. Starting, of course, with the road trip from my job in Orlando, FL back home at the beginning of May. My mom flew down and drove up with me, which, in addition to adding pleasant company, was really sort of a requirement for any sort of progress being made, as both of us have not-so-great backs and I have a habit of uncontrollably falling asleep after lunchtime. A hardcore roadtripper never shall I be, alas.

While the trip southward had stayed closer to the coast with I-90 (passing through kerbox and aviy's neck of the woods), we went the more inland route back north. To be honest, I spent most of the trip as the DJ, armed with my iPod and a little AA-battery-powered mini-speaker, where I turned such wonders as bringing on Chattahoochee as we drove over the Chattahoochee River. This was an American musical roadtrip, people. Best be respectin'.

Also, one of my requirements for the trip was that I actually get some real southern food while I was still in the south, because god knows that I didn't get any in Orlando. And my wish was granted as, with the help of my GPS, I guided us to this little hole-in-the-wall BBQ joint, where my mom and I were the only non-black people in sight (interestingly enough, both my mom and my initial stating of the situation was that the two of us were the only white people around) and looked like such tourists that it was a little ridiculous. It turned out that the place was mostly a catering/take-out business and had won first place in the local 100 Black Men's BBQ competitions (commercial division) for the past ten years, except for one year when they took second. It was amazing and so delicious and, man, I am getting hungry just remembering it.

After my mother was struck by a whim and a memory, with much searching, we managed to find Stone Mountain the first evening. (You wouldn't think that a giant stone mountain would be so difficult to find.) Here's a tip: if you pay for driving admission into the park, you can just hang out in the parking lot of the main area and get some great views of the mountain without bothering with the kitschy Frontier Town-like place that they've built up around it now (and that costs additional money).

Next day, we headed into Tennessee, my first time in that state, and met up with kingsraven, who gave us quite the guided tour. And licked my ear. And then the two of us were assholes in IRC while ending up watching The Wedding Date, which was surprisingly entertaining, in the motel room. I know that everyone in the IRC chans that I frequent just can't wait for the two of us to be on the same laptop again. Just can't wait.

After that, my mom and I had a shared experience of "STFU BITCH" the next morning, as we had one of those morning programs on in the room as we were getting ready to leave, and some skinny bitch was on as a guest and talking about how horrible it was that clothes manufacturers were now making regular, fashionable clothing for young women in plus sizes. The poor lady who had to sit next to her, who was providing the other side of the "debate," had this hilarious look on her face where you could just tell that she was struggling with actually believing that that much idiot bitchery existed and was sitting right next to her. I believe that my mom and I actually both said, out loud, to the television, "...oh my god, shut up."

Anyway.

Then, it was a relatively straight shot back home. We stopped in Lexington, VA, where we ate at a very delicious little French restaurant -- La Nicoise Cafe, only with little accents on the "c" in "Nicoise" and the "e" in "Cafe" that are a pain to bother with on a laptop -- and stayed for the night. And, in the hotel pool, I swam for the first time since... I'm swum in a hotel pool on the way down south. Can we tell how much I took advantage of living in Orlando?

In any case, we tried to drive a bit of the Blue Ridge Parkway, but it was horribly foggy, so we said nuts to that and completed the rest of the journey through Pennsylvania and to home in a day. And shortly after that, I went to see Star Trek with the local game crew -- and channe, whom I'd totally failed to see (but for once) the entire time that I lived in the same city as her this past year. Can we tell how much I took advantage of living in Orlando?

I spent pretty much the entire month of May obsessing over the music for amcb13's wedding, which was at the end of the month. And so, at end of said month, I hauled my ass over to Williams and, appropriately, was in full-body pain by the time I set foot in town. It was great to be back on the organ in Thompson, though, and the wedding was wonderfully. I saw a number of people whom I hadn't seen since graduation. And also, the reception had an open bar. Curiously enough, a lot of people through their mid-twenties (which is to say, older than I am) got carded at the bar, much to their chagrin.

I did not get carded.

I choose to believe that this is because I looked sophisticated.

And so, I came home and felt sick for about a week. Which wasn't helped by bringing my college roomie, who crashed at my house, to the train station at a very early hour on Sunday, which was followed by a service at my high school to honor our campus president, who was retiring at 32 years. It was quite a nice service, and it was quite nice to see a classmate or two (though not many were there) and all of my old teachers. I also received several compliments on my appearance from said teachers, which is certainly never unwelcome. Although I have a feeling that I failed to give the correct and polite response when one of said teachers went on to say how cosmopolitan I looked -- and I burst out laughing. Me! Cosmopolitan! Who would have guessed?

So, in the past month, I've managed to travel from out-of-state employment, to living at home and working on music, to college, to high school. In a way, perhaps there was even a bit of middle school at the end of that, as I've been watching the Stanley Cup finals, indirectly harking back to my middle school days of playing street hockey.

And now, I'm going to set my mood as being "accomplished," since this is sort of an accomplishment, especially relative to all that I've been failing to accomplish over the past couple of weeks.

I started today at home. I put nearly 140 miles on my car. I ended today at home. As much as I enjoy staying at the old homestead, damn! This is why I tend to become a hermit out here!

That was intended to segue into a brief and belated recounting of my journey north from Orlando last month, but I must take a brief pause to mention how North Korea is so bewildering to me. For a citizen of a country to say of their leader that "I never thought that Kim Jong-il was human and thus mortal" is just so mind-blowing to me. (I'll admit to laughing at the "Cute Leader" moniker for Kim Jong-il's youngest son, though. "Kyaaa~ Kim Jong-un, so moe~"?)

...actually, I think that I'm going to just fall into bed now, because I feel so miserably exhausted. This is actually not due to any sickness-induced fatigue, but thanks to my sleep having been so marvelously disrupted by aforementioned sickness that, now that I'm feeling better, I'm left with a massive sleep debt to pay off.

Because good customer service should be appreciated: I had been quite frustrated by the fact that my Wacom tablet pen had apparently lost its mind and was no longer functional -- and this after having bought the pen directly from Wacom just this past March (to replace the pen that, after many years of use, was no longer functional through nobody's fault but my own).

So I fired off an e-mail to their customer service and received a reply back with a troubleshooting suggestion. And if that didn't work, the e-mail said, call them and they would run some more diagnostics.

...this being me and this being summer, some time passed.

But I called them this afternoon, and the fellow on the other end of the line, after receiving a brief recounting of the pen's erratic behavior, seemed to be rightfully taken by the fact that I've owned the thing for fewer than three months and just said, "...please confirm your mailing address, and we'll send you a new one."

Wacom, you have brought a happy customer back to yourself!

In other adventures in consumerism today, I stopped at Plato's Closet after my dentist appointment this morning, and I picked up a pair of nice trousers, a vest and an absolutely huge purse -- for approximately $25 total. As much as it pains me to part with my money, I do need to continue to work on building that professional wardrobe. At least second-hand shopping helps to soften the blow a little bit.

Random ETA: There was just a slug on my DDR pad. Unusual.

I am so incredibly gay for Neil Patrick Harris right now. In general, I think that I'm always a little gay for him, but at the Tony Awards tonight, he truly stole my heart.

(Also, those three boys who won for Billy Elliot were just adorable. And there seemed to be a notable number of dresses that were Bad Decisions among the ladies tonight. But I digress.)

Neil Patrick Harris. I am gay. For you.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, 2009 -- By The President of the United States of America: A Proclamation

I got the link from hamburger. And, despite the slightly sour feeling in my stomach and headache that have been telling me to go back to bed all day, I am feeling a little awesome right now.

Despite that awesome, however, the aforementioned ailments make me not so keen or able to write anything of particular note right now. (They also mean that, despite my finally managing to haul my ass out of bed at a reasonable time, I had possibly the least productive day ever. Though I think that I watched more television today, with the E3 coverage, than I have in the past half-year or more.)

So, instead, have a collection of memes.

---

List your top ten OTPs and have your friends try to guess your "type"! Though I was unable to come up with ten... so I propose this! After checking out my list of nine, suggest what you think should go in spot #10 for me! Exclamation point!

Top Ten OTPs (in no particular order)

1. Tatsumi/Tsuzuki (Yami no Matsuei)
2. Umeda/Akiha (HanaKimi)
3. Spitfire/Kazu (Air Gear)
4. Enjolras/Combeferre (Les Miserables)
5. Treize/Zechs (Gundam Wing)
6. Sirius/Lupin (Harry Potter)
7. Hakkai/Gojyo (Saiyuki)
8. Sora/Kiric (Air Gear)
9. Septimus/Thomasina (Arcadia)
10. ...?

---

The problem with LiveJournal is that we think we're close, but really, we know nothing about each other.

So I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me, something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about, or something you've always been curious about but have never asked, or something completely silly that you'd like me to answer for kicks. No limits on the range of questions, either: ask me anything you want to know about, whether it's a fannish opinion or a question about a fic of mine or trivia about my real life or my thoughts on events in the offline world.

Ask away. Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you!

---

And here's that bolding meme, where you bold what's true about you. (Any notes that I've added are in italics.)

( bolding meme! )

I should probably get past the first 10 minutes of gameplay in at least one MGS game before getting so excited about the new one (which will be for PSP, which I don't even own), but man, that cardboard box don't ever get old.

But yes. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker for PSP, set in the 1970s in Costa Rica, coming out in 2010.




One day I will try again to play MGS3 without screaming. Maybe my nerves are a little steadier now.

Texas is trying to outlaw lighting designers. Effectively.


...seriously, what.

bbl dog is dying

Apparently, I would make a very good CEO.

Along those lines, though some of you have known this for weeks, I will be working at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, NJ as a stage management intern next season (August-June). There had been acceptances and agreements and such, but I just got some paperwork in the mail in need of signatures and returning, so it finally seems settled enough to me to announce.

But a side effect of this is turning up the heat on searching for a grad school program. I know now that I want to attend graduate school -- for extremely practical, my-career-path-requires-it reasons -- but there still remains the problem of grad programs not conforming to what I need. Curse them! Where at the independent studies when you really need them?

Also, I realize that I completely failed to provide any sort of tales relating to my journey back north, which is a shame, as it was a great deal of fun. That will have to come later, however, as I'm still going to be convincing myself that I'm doing work for a few more hours this afternoon. (After which I still should be doing work, but give me some credit for being at least a bit of a realist here.)

In other news, this morning, after nearly having gotten up on time but instead rolling over and going back to sleep, I dreamed that I was an amazing swimmer and that we were having the heart-warming moment of manful tears as my long-time coach told me that there was nothing more for him to teach me! The time had come for me to journey out in the world! No, I protested, that cannot be! I will always learn from you! But then Michael Phelps gave me a hug and the townspeople all gathered -- in the pool, from which the water had now disappeared -- to congratulate me and see me off and also all of said townspeople were black, which made me realize in hindsight that my dreams are usually full of white people.

First point: I cannot be reached by internet means today. I can't connect to IRC and I can't get into my e-mail (which also means that I don't have access to my comment notifications for this journal). (Comment notifications for RP are go, but actually getting to the threads to reply is a nigh impossible slog.) The best way to get in touch with me is via texting. (And I really do mean that, as the cell phone reception where I live is so weak that regular calls don't always make it through).

Second point: the reason for this is that the lovely satellite internet that was in place when I got home is a double-edged sword, due to very tight bandwidth limits. When the limit is surpassed, the connection goes to slower-than-dial-up for a period of 24 hours.

Conclusion: I really need to teach the other people living in this house how to use download managers.

But also, if I completely disappear off the face of the internet in the future, this is likely what happened. My apologies for any interruptions it causes. (I swear, I'm really not trying to set the record for being the slowest, most unreliable comment tagger ever.)

ETA: With some patience, I've managed to log onto IRC. Oh, what music to my ears is that little ping.

So I had a surprise social life and went to see Star Trek in IMAX with the local crew last night. It was a very fun time! A great summer popcorn flick, even if I didn't have any popcorn.

And I always fail at doing write-ups for movies I've seen, but I swear that I'm not going to this time. The internet empowers me!

( cut for slight spoilers )

In testament to how overwhelming the task ahead of me is, I have failed to report my safe arrival home (on Tuesday night) until now -- despite the Miraculous High-Speed (Well, It's High-Speed To Me) Internet that is now in our house after 13 years on dial-up.

But yes, I am back home and doing something like unpacking. One thing that nine months of living in an apartment has done to me, though, is given me the experience of a fresh start.

...my room has more than 20 years of accumulation of Stuff in it. Which, upon my return, feels a little bit insufferable.

To say nothing of the mess in the rest of the house.

This is going to be quite the project.

I had been hoping to get more information before posting about this, but no more information came. Granted, I haven't searched for it, but that hasn't really be within my means, time-wise (and, now, internet-wise as well) -- and really, it's rather disappointing to me that things like this aren't hanging right in front of our faces.

Afghan Women Protest New Law on Home Life [NYT, 15 April 2009]
Afghan Women March, America Turns Away [NYT Op-Ed, 19 April 2009]

And closer to home for many reading this: Is Rape Serious? [NYT Op-Ed, 29 April 2009]

(Also, unrelated to the above, but in case anyone is interested and hasn't seen this: Amazon’s "Glitch" Myth Debunked. An interesting thing to keep in mind. Really, I think the main things that I've taken away from the whole #amazonfail debacle are: 1) I should stop being lazy and get my ass back to an indie bookstore already, 2) I love the wilderness of information of the internet, even if some of it is a little like poisonous mushrooms, just because it's there, and 3) despite point #2, Twitter still freaks me out a little, though in a disappointingly bland sort of way.)

And now, out of the wilderness I go, to another night of virtual disconnect. Thank heavens for text messaging. Those 160 characters keep me hanging on, man.