Voices, Facebook apps, Pokemon, and Sociopathic aquatic creatures

I have little people that live inside my head.  All miniatures of real people in my life.  I have a little Alien that says "You should tell me when you're sad, because I love you and hate to see you cry."  I have a little Older Brother that I talk through conversations with so I can avoid asking tedious questions.  Today, I have a little Javelina and a little Earrings whispering, "YOU SHOULD WRITE A BLOG POST"And the little Cactus in my head knows that they're right, so here I am.

I've had a relapse with Farmville.  Now I know what you're going to say, but there's a NEW farm for me to work on!  It's the English Countryside.  And it has little horses and little bunnies and a red deer that I won in a stupid balloon pop mini game (An online balloon pop game... How sad is that?) and, and... AND SHEEP!  Guys they have sheep breeding now.  I have my own bloodlines of the buggers and they're all kinds of retarded not-sheep colors.  But they are wonderful, and I love them.  And they have all of these really cool English and Scottish and Irish breeds of livestock from Shire and Suffolk horses to Sebright chickens to little black floppy ear pigs...  They're pretty.  And this is the only way I will ever own them.  Or have an orchard.  And the lambs are DARN cute, okay!

Woo, enough rambling.  Let's see... Topics for the day...

GUYS!!!

Guys.

I just remembered.

POKEMON DREAM WORLD IS UP NOW.

I haven't checked it out yet.  But it seems super cool.

I really enjoyed the new games.  It had a darker, heavier story line than the last games.  I really appreciated the weirdness and contemplation that came along with it.  My team is composed of the greatest pokes of all time.

Left to Right: Amber, Willow, Cheddar, Bobobo, and Tsuki
(I always thought Cheddar was a little prankster)

Now I know that Ninetails is a first gen, but DON'T YOU JUDGE HER.  She was wild caught in THIS game, so she counts.  And yes, there are only five on my permanent team.  The last slot is usually for a HM slave or whoever I need to help out against a certain typing.  It's the party's fault, really.  They're terribly choosy about who they fight with.  And really,

*soulgaze*

Would YOU argue with this guy?

*pause for distraction from bathroom radio and Little One playing in the corner*

Oh, I bought fish.  Moved my tank to Alien's room since I spend most of my time in here anyway.  Little One is a corydora.  He looks kind of like this shamelessly stolen picture from Google:

Don't recommend staring into that eye for long

I named him Little One after "The Little One" (or TLO) from a Starcraft video Alien watched once.  Why?  Because The Little One was a survivor.  And so is this little dude.  My recommendation for aquarists (totally a word now) everywhere: Don't move your tank, refill it from half full (evaporation is a sad way to kill a fish tank), AND buy four fish in the same day.  It does bad things to your ammonia levels.  And, if you manage to screw something up in the move (say, jack up the tank heater to somewhere around stew) you can kill your three adorable otocinclus in just under twenty-four hours.  And then your friends can come along and point out that the three dead fish are missing chunks from their belly.  And then you can remember that the corydora is a bottom feeder, and he probably ate the dead guys for sustenance as he battled against the raging sauna that was his life for the last eighty-three days (fish time).

"I will eat you when this tank renders you
medium-rare"

That can happen.  So I don't recommend pushing your luck

Epilouge: took in the three dead fish, got two new fish, two new plants, and a thermometer in two days worth of trips.  The new otos are happy, healthy, and in need of names.

So that's the brain vomit for the day.  If you're lucky, I'll have something within the next week.  We'll see what the voices tell me.

Laptops are completely worthless without the internet

“Come to Friday Night Magic,” he said.  “Bring your laptop,” he said

So here I sit.  8:18 on a Friday night with nary a whiff of accessible internet.  I suppose that’s a lie: there IS a whiff.  When the correct stars align, there will temporarily be a guest network I can connect to, but the tease won’t let me stay on long enough to load a flash game.  The other five odd wifi connections, including gems of names such as NESPHTU, linksys, and greenBean, are all protected with a password stronger than “password”.

“You could play some Magic if you want!  We have a spare deck if you want to enter!”

“Here, play this game with me!  It’s just against our friends, so you’re awful play mistakes won’t matter here!”

These are the bids I’ve been offered for the evening.  I had a book for the first two hours, but the last fifty pages I was hoping to busy myself with were just a short epilogue and some weak advertising from the publisher.  I had the brief joy of my novel being recognized by a stranger, who professed to own the whole series.  This interaction was ended by a particularly weak high-five, and a call for the next round of Magic to start.

At first I wasn’t too worried about my book ending.  Right up until I remembered that I had taken the next 350 page novel out of my backpack.  Wanted to “lighten the load” as I went up and down the mountain Alien has chosen to live upon.  Because I apparently have the stamina of a mouse with leprosy.

So while I kick myself in the shins for lack of forethought, I thought I would write up a post.  Which is refusing to be saved due to a permission error.  PIKACHU, I SWEAR, IF YOU CAN’T DO SOMETHING SO SIMPLE AS-

Okay, it’s working now.  Sorry for threatening you.

Where was I?

Oh right, Hobbytown USA.  So I’m stuck here for the next hour and a half, with naught to do but write up a post for you all, weeping occasionally.

Just went outside with the guys on smoke break.  Someone suggested I hit up the Barnes and Noble for internet.  A tempting prospect, but I don’t really want to abandon Alien here, since he asked me to come with so we could spend time together (ironic, since he knows I can’t keep up with the speed these guys play at.  And since the original plan was me coming here and bumming around on the internet [a solitary occupation as a rule])

I walked over to Earrings and Italian playing with the wind-up toys.  I made a triceratops walk an inch or so and then they left.  Decided that playing with wind-up toys alone was lonelier than sitting in a corner typing presumably to myself.

There’s something to be said about the camaraderie to be found within a large group of nerds like this.  Men and boys (and a female?  Maybe two?) can come together and manage to not only have fun, but also be civil to one another.  This isn’t always a garuntee, especially if you have any experience of nerds through x-box live.

Earrings just brought over a trailer of the new x-men movie for Alien and I to watch.  I’m convinced the meaning behind this was to show off his internet connection skills.

I’m eagerly awaiting the US release of Pokémon Black and White.  Once I have my paws on the newest edition in my drug of choice I won’t have to be bothered with petty things like “being bored without internet”  Because I may not have a book on me, but I wouldn’t be caught dead without my ds.

Which reminds me… I wonder how my Pokéwalker is faring.  I sent it through the washing machine, again.  This time it wasn’t just a generic Growlithe that took a tumble; it was Kenya, my lead Arcanine.  I have her sitting in a Ziploc bag of rice in my room, but I think I may have done myself in this time.  I know I can recover her through other means, but that just feels like cheating.  Kenya was my responsibility, and I’ll be darned if I can’t resuscitate her through rice-y dehydration!

I’ve been religiously avoiding the new Pokédex.  The Pokémon franchise was hoping that the new 161 would be a “fresh start” for trainers, old or new.  Personally, I think this is FANTASTIC.  It’s a chance for me to enjoy something familiar, with an updated storyline, and a whole new host of characters.  I have not, however, been able to avoid seeing the new guys entirely.  I’ve seen the starters, the teeny gen-required normal-flier (check the generations, they ALL have a normal-flier), the B&W legends (I heard one of them is FIRE-DRAGON.  First thought: redundant?  Second thought: Why haven’t they had this before!), and of course Zoroark, aka Pokémon’s answer to the Lucario fan club.  I’ve also been exposed to the Lightening Unicorn, the Stag-of-Seasons, Gear-mon, and Ice cream Cone With a Face.  And Turtle Bro, but that’s only because I saw him in our Poke-DnD campaign.  Oh, and I know the ghostly candle guy too, also from the campaign.  And Sandile.  CRAP, I EVEN KNOW THAT ONE BY NAME!

Dang.  That’s like (counts) 28 out of 161.  Maybe this won’t be as new and fresh an adventure as I was hoping for.  But it HAS to have at least 8 gym puzzles to work through, and those are always my favorite anyway.

Current time: 9:24.  Time wasted to date: 66 minutes.

Current time: 9:33.  Fonts tampered with, grammar checked, sanity lost.  Going to venture to the bathroom in hopes of finding something more to life than whiney tweenagers and bleak white walls.

Current time: 9:40.  Plank with bathroom key was acquired.  Bathroom was stunningly clean, but even bleaker than the current room.  A conundrum was posed to me when I realized there was a locked-from the-inside stall door within the bathroom.  Crawled underneath to investigate.  Discovered cleaning items, toilet paper, and two wicker baskets.  No portals to Narnia discovered.  Relieved and defeated, I returned the bathroom plank to the manager.

Current time: 10:05.  All friends present and accounted for, leaving this place for good.

Suffer from migraines? Short Attention span? Bad weather? Then KEEP READING!

It's days like this that make me wonder if i might have some mild form of attention deficit disorder.

It all started when I walked outside this morning had a migraine last night (we'll get to the morning later).  Having a migraine (for me at least) is like receiving sensory information from every fiber of your being simultaneously assulting your brain and demanding your immediate attention.  Bright lights are terrible, because they force you to take in every corner of the room with your ultra sensitive eyes.  And where little repetitive sounds are annoying to me on a good day, during a migraine, they are shout-at-inanimate-objects unbearable.  WOE be to the fool creature with a crinkling plastic bag that happens upon me when I'm having a migraine!  My main coping strategy for migraines, aside from taking meds, is focusing HARDCORE on a single train of thought.  This means, no joke, saying aloud whatever I am thinking.  This could look something like:
"I really ought to finish mom's scarf, because it was supposed to be finished by christmas I love christmas I'm so glad it isn't snowy anymore what should i wear tomorrow probably a tanktop I love tanktops I miss horse camp well not really I miss the horses This room is really dark but that's a good thing I wonder where Alien is with my medicine right about now."
Somewhere during this process I will have started shaking with pent up energy, so when Alien finds me I'll be lying in his bed looking all for the world like I'm having a seizure.  But then I take my meds, realize that I really had no pent up energy in the first place, and fall asleep where I'm standing.

The next day is usually an odd (probably hangover like) haze of slow thought processing and sluggish movement.

But not this time.

Today it was freaking BEAUTIFUL outside.

I don't know what the climate looks like where you're from, but where I live, it is unseasonaly balmy for February.  That means above 40.  In fact, the high today was (looks it up) 68.  Degrees.  Like, outside.

Nebraska, if this your way of making up for the disgustingly cold weather we had last week, then consider your apology ACCEPTED.

So I stepped out in my aforementioned tank top, ready to eat a live bear, solve racism, and go to my British literature class.  And you know what I saw on the way to class?

Coats.
COATS.
BEING WORN BY PEOPLE!

They must have missed the memo.  The earth is apologizing for the inclement weather of weeks previous, and they celebrate in the joy of 68 degrees of clear sunshine by wearing COATS.

If I was mother nature, I would have felt insulted.

The rest of my day consisted of attending classes with an unreasonably good attitude, reading more of Black Powder War by Naomi Novik, and searching the internet for something to hold my interest long enough to entertain my goldfish attention span.  So I wandered to my favorite flash game site, and clicked on the first thing I laid eyes on.  Which happened to be this:

Pictured: the crack cocaine of cute

In Sushi Cat 2, you are a small blue blob of neko, who wishes to be a large blue blob of neko.  To do this, you drop him with a pair of chopsticks into a gravity maze of adorable sushi.  It kept me entertained for almost an hour.

After which I had the unfortunate experience of finding this:

Pictured: an abusive relationship

If you've ever played TiTOL or TiTOLT, you'll understand the comparison.  It's frustrating, intriguing, clever, and ALWAYS obnoxious.
This kept my attention span for about another hour.

Now I know this is a terrible place to stop, but I was supposed to have Alien's oreo balls finished by Valentine's Day, and I kind of owe him for the awesome present he got me.  I'll talk about that later, but I'll say this much: it has to do with Minecraft.

I've done a bad thing

I'm spending a frightening amount of time reading Allie's blog, which I'm chancing to post here, in hopes you wont all go read her blog instead and abandon me.  But that's what I've been doing, and it really is quite funny, so I thought I'd share.

I'll make a real post within the week.
PROMISE
:D

Time for Confessions

See, I told you I was going to fail in my quest to post more often.  But I didn't forget about you.  No, I thought about you everyday, thinking, "Maybe I'll post today.  It wouldn't even have to be a new post!  You could just finish up that one about the oatmeal cookies or Japanese class.  Come on!  It will be fun!"

I can't make the "my-class-schedule-is-so-rigorous-oh-woe-is-me" argument either, because when it gets down to it, twelve credit hours just isn't that hard to shoulder.  Especially when I compare it to Alien's schedule, because I'm pretty sure he's taking at least eighteen credit hours and his classes are all way harder than mine.

But I think I've pinned down my source of blog-block, and it is this:

When I do something I have been told I am proficient at, I feel like I'm showing off.

I tried to re-write that sentence several times, and it still doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  So let's give you a scenario.


Cactus is going to worship night with Alien.  This is fine and good, because God calls us to fellowship with other believers, and Cactus REALLY likes to sing.  Problem is, she has been selected for several top notch singing groups in the past, so whenever she sings, she feels like she's bragging.  So Cactus and Alien arrive at the worship night, and a silly-ly (does silly have an adverb?) ridiculously obvious observation is made: Alien is carrying his bass.  Alien plays in the worship band, so he won't be able to hear her sing.  So Cactus stumbles through the first set because she doesn't really know the songs, but she enjoys herself  because she likes singing.

When Alien comes back, he asks her if they sounded alright, and she says yes, because she doesn't want to hurt his feelings, but she wasn't really listening for the bass line, and she's really bad at hearing the bass line even when she's paying attention.  But for now she said yes and Alien smiles, and she smiles back and they listen to the speaker for the next hour.

Once the speaker is finished, Alien goes up for the second set, and Cactus goes back to happy singing mode.  She knows the song this time, so she switches to alto line (because cactus has sung alto for a really long time and alto is even more fun than the melody).  After that song is finished, one of the girls standing next to her leans over and says, "wow, you have a

--PAUSE--

and says, "wow, you have a really pretty voice!" For stranger girl, this was an honest comment by which she meant nothing but to improve my day and the human condition as a whole.  For Cactus, this was a bombshell.  She thinks I have a good voice.  Does she think I'm showing off?  What if I sing terribly now and she wants to retract her statement, but she can't because of the laws of society?  I should stop sing-NO, I LOVE SINGING.  I shall only sing quieter.


So for the rest of the evening, I toned down my be-praised voice.  Because I felt like the compliment meant I was showing off.


Writing is the same way for me.  In third grade (I was like what, ten?) I won third place in a writing contest.  Which wouldn't be much of an accomplishment if the contest wasn't district wide and the other 37 prizes were given to snobs from the same private school.

I write quick, and I just edit as I go.  My friends struggle to make a page for reports and I can whip these off like nobody's business.  But putting it out there makes me feel like a show off.

In fact, the only reason I'm managing to type this now is because no one else is here around me.  The pause up there?  That was because Alien walked in the room and he started playing his music super loud.  And I can't focus when he does that but I didn't want to ask him to turn it down because he was doing homework.  And then Earrings and Italian wanted to play Magic, so Alien and I had to head downstairs to a study room because his room is too messy for company.  And too small.  Because it is a dorm room.

My blogging head space is a very fragile thing indeed.


UPDATE: Cat's out of the bag.  Alien, Earrings, Italian, and Javelina all know i have a blog now.  Italian saw His Real Name - Italian and he kind of lost his marbles.  So I told them all.  And the world didn't collapse in on itself.  So I guess I'll keep writing for now... I do enjoy writing =)

The Holidays Are Over

...and School is back in session

As a spur of the moment and far overdue resolution, I decided an hour ago (as of this writing), to try and keep myself to a schedule for posting.  I will fail at this, as I have with all other resolutions, including the time I decided to lose weight in seventh grade, and took "before" pictures of myself New Years Eve for the impending "after".  There never was an after.  I was back to soda and cheeseburgers within the week.

Got engaged over Christmas break (and it is CHRISTMAS break.  Not that I don't respect the rest of you, but I tend to vote with the majority).  Alien proposed on the 22nd while we were out looking at holiday lights.  It was very mushy gushy and I bawled and it was wonderful, but I'm not here to talk to you today about love and steak dinners and blue diamond rings (though they may have their day here at some point)  Today I'm here to discuss my guilty pleasure.  I play Facebook Apps.

Pictured: Treachery and Deceit

Even now I am restocking my supplies in Cityville (and isn't it always SOMETHINGville?  Zynga made half the stinking games, you'd think they would liven up the titles a bit). Despite my greatest efforts and Alien's... shall we say "discouragement", I can't pin down what it is about these silly fifteen-minute-a-pop games attracts me.  What I can pin down is this:

Why "Social Networking Games" are More Like a Boomerang Boyfriend Than a Legitimate Form of Entertainment

I feel as though I should start this section with the definition of a Boomerang Boyfriend, as it is a concept urban dictionary has failed to define.  Imagine a girl from your high school, middle school, or equivilant crowded young-person location.  She might be a girly girl, a woe-is-me emo kid, or even a preppy cheerleader.  The trait they all share is the astonishing inability to learn from past mistakes.  They home in on a single boy to claim as their own, and despite the way he treats her (be it complete ignorance to actual abuse), she just keeps coming back for more.  The boy she is dating is a boomerang boyfriend.  Facebook Apps are similar to these unfortunate couples in a few ways.

I realize my writing style may alienate some of the Y's out there, so just bare with me.  Or just replace the "BB"s with "BG"s

BB's and FB Apps are both masters of the Bait and Switch.

Face it, SOMETHING about the guy attracted the girl in the first place.  For the boy, it might have been good looks or a particularly effective pick-up line.  For the app, it  it's pretty colors and quickly earned levels.  Either way, it isn't long before it dumps you into a world of monotony.  At first it seems like a low time commitment, but the minutes add up.  Before you know it, you're skipping big time commitments, like watching your favorite soap opera, and forgetting to eat.  Eventually it shall be all consuming.  But the unwitting one within the situation is blind to this.

It's demanding.

Just like a BB, FB Apps love keeping you to a schedule.  The expect you to check in every four hours ON the hour, or there'll be hell to pay.  BB's punish time spent away with searing remarks and a harsher schedule to keep their girlfriend to, where apps tend to just do something silly like wither your crops.  But you planted those dang things, and you want the experience from them, cause it really isn't your fault Aunt Bert came to visit for the week and swept you off to the antique store.  But the BB and the FB App don't care.  All they know is they were expecting you, and you fell short of their expectations.

It isn't there for you when you want it.

On the flip side, a BB and a FB App isn't always keen on an spending an evening together.  Even though it wants you there when IT needs you, it just doesn't have the stamina to put up with you for too long.  A game isn't a very efficient form of spending your leisure time if it "runs out of energy" ten minutes in.  

They aren't really good for anything.

Apps use no strategy, very little problem solving, and absolutely no luck.  Really, they're just a filler in your life.  Similarly, you tell yourself that you're keeping a BB around because he's reassuring, and he's just misunderstood, etc, etc.  But when you get down to brass tacks, the BB isn't really DOING anything.  He's just kind of... there.

They irritate all of your friends.

Sure they'll tolerate the annoyance.  They won't be mean to your face, because they want to be supportive, since it seems to make you happy.  But in the end, they wish you would just drop the habit.  You know they aren't good for you, so why waste your time?

I have taken my third hiatus from FB Apps.  May I never go back to them.  Amen.

Bicycles (and Nebraskon)

Before I get continue with my actual post for today, I have to say Anime Nebraskon was phenomenal once again.  Alien and I spent the whole weekend doing the Gym Leader Challenge up in the game room.  We were two of the six people to beat all eight leaders and get a shot at the Elite Four on Sunday.  None of the six could beat them, but Alien was the closest, so he won a big Dialga figurine.  It's pretty =)

Preeeeety =)

And now onto our discussion topic of the day.

Most college students enjoy sleeping, and do so until the last few minutes before class in the morning.  I am no exception to this rule, though I do have a way of coping with this extended-sleep-no-time-to-wake-up preference.

I have a bike.

Like this, only faded, rusty, and one working break

Something strange seems to occur whenever I don my helmet.  The Pedestrian Cactus is gone, and replaced with the Cyclist Demon.  The Cyclist Demon has but one goal in life: to reach point B.  She will stop at nothing to achieve this goal.  She does not idly pedal her way through the world, taking in sights and sounds.  She is a thing possessed (or a thing possessing, your call) with the need to be there, and to be there yesterday.

The Demon is very elitist, looking down upon of all the bipeds around her.  Watch as one walks down the middle of the sidewalk, as if they own the world!  Here come two walking this direction, refusing to shuffle to one side.  Do they not see the Demon?  They would not hesitate to move out of the way of a car going as quickly as she, and yet here they walk, dumbfounded, until the Demon, tires squealing, scares one onto the grass.  She is disturbed by the delay in her goal, but wastes not another thought on the two.

The Cyclist Demon and I have come to something of an agreement.  In the case we actually DO run into someone (an elderly gentleman, a wandering student, and an oblivious high school campus tourist have thus far been victims) I get to take over.  The interaction goes something like this:

Demon: (to self) LOOK at the imbeciles, the way they strut down the LEFT side of my sidewalk.  There is order to be had here!  They must conform to societies rules of transport!  Yes, bicycle, intimidate them with the Squealing Break.  Ah, see now how they jump aside!  Fool freshman, never seen a cyclist before, they know not to listen to the click of the chain.  Ah yes, the joy of an empty sidewalk. Now we're picking up speed.  Cactus shall be pleased to make it to the dining hall before these pathetic pedestrians in our wake...

Cactus: Demon?  There's an old man up ahead.

Demon: You DARE question MY observational skills!  Of course I've seen the man ahead.   I had sensed him from a mile away, back in the classroom even-

Cactus: He's getting closer Demon.  I think we should slow down-

Demon: NEVER!  We are on the downhill slope, this inertia shan't be wasted on such a pathetic mortal as he!

Cactus: DEMON!  CHOOSE A SIDE!

*collision with the old man*

Cactus: OH SIR I'M SO SORRY SIR ARE YOU ALRIGHT I'M SO SOR-

Old Man: *hrumph* (walks away)

Cactus: You see Demon!  You just slowed us down in the end anyway!

Demon: But he was so slow... so INFERIOR-

Cactus:  He was a PERSON Demon.  Slow down next time.  You're going to get us hurt

Demon:*whimper*

Fin

Also, I don't ever have road rage.  Just bike rage.