**EDIT Wed Dec 9 00:28:16 UTC 2009 **

The notification system has been fixed in the new release... we are currently processing the queue, which is upwards of 12m jobs... please bear with us while our workers chew through this large queue and get your notification / emails out. Some may come more quickly than others due to weights on the notifications themselves, but we are hoping in the next 24 hours to have all the queues cleared and all notifications delivered that had been queued up over the past few days.

Again I apologize for this inconvenience, but we are almost out of the woods as soon as we are done clear cutting some of the forest ;)

Thanks,

** END EDIT**

Hey Guys,

Unfortunately with our last release, and its instability, we were forced to roll back releases. Unfortunately in doing so, it would seem that our notification system has been broken somehow. Our engineers are working on this issue as quickly as possible. We hope to have a patch within the next day, so we can deploy our code and fix the notification system at the same time. Please *bear* with us ;)

Currently all notifications are being queued up so they can be processed as soon as the fix is pushed and verified to be working correctly.

Thank you,

So, uh, where's the snow guys?

At long last, what I have been waiting for: SESSMOM!!!! (There was also some stuff with Kouga's final appearance and Inuyasha angsting but we will leave all that aside.)

I really don't have time to talk about this because I have work to do, but love her voice, particularly the part where she really let Sesshoumaru have it. "Did you think you were king of the world just because you had this sword, you little peon?" (Those may not be exact words.) And Sesshoumaru just stands with his figurative tail between his legs because what else can he do? Mom owns him! (Looking at her, I totally see Sessmom owning Inupapa too. Heehehe.) I really enjoy having ancient youkai around so it's not just these young idiots blundering about all the time.

I kinda wanted "Omoi no Hate ni" to play as the BGM when Sesshoumaru tells Rin everything's ok now, but it was just a big silence there. Boo. At least Rin was uber-cute when she woke up. (I also secretly wish I could hear "hahaue" coming out of Sesshoumaru's mouth because he's always "chichiue" this and "chichiue" that, but alas. Isn't it crazy that just the thought of Sesshoumaru saying "mother" is kind of weird?)

Ok, enough from me. Off to work!

comments || Leave a comment.

Me: Dad, make smoothies!
Dad: ...sure. That'll use up the almost-dead apples in the fridge.
Me: Yum! *drinks two cups* .........I'm COLD!
Dad: ...why did you want a cold smoothie then? -_-;

Me: It's cold!
Dad: Thermometer says it's less than 50 inside the house.
Me: I guess we should turn on the heater, let's just make sure all the windows are closed.
Dad: how high?
Me: 60?
Dad: We are so cheap.
Me: You know, I had this conversation on the phone with mom yesterday and she said we shouldn't be this cheap.
Dad: ...65?
Me: Let's do 60 for now, I can always put on another jacket.

In other non-cheap news, my laptop is in Kentucky!!! :D :D :D I spent a lot of time this weekend revisiting Saiunkoku in preparation for my Secret Santa fic...I REALLY hope my laptop gets here soon, because it feels like one of those waffy stories best written in bed with a cup of hot tea on the table. :D

And! I'm eating a lot of Cuties oranges! They are so sweet, I never knew. o_0; My dad only bought them because for some reason he thought they were 5lb for a dollar when they were actually 5lb for $5. In this case I think it was worth it though because it's seriously like eating candy.@_@

And now, to make some dents on my to-do list.@_@

majo

It's been, what, a month? I have a lot to say but not much time nor inclination to say it. Nonetheless, I will make a game attempt, in order of significance:

Firstly, America makes a jackass of itself.

Exhibit A. Courtesy of atiko: The United States is now officially able to spy on the financial transactions of EU citizens, and there's nary a bit of English language coverage on the matter. For more exposure, I'm linking to Sorako-san's most recent entry on this issue. Friends and family, pass it along because it is WTF. I think it's almost more WTF because I expect this sort of thing from the US when it comes to dealing with non-Western (and usually poorer) countries, but against countries of the EU?? This entire thing's disgraceful because I feel like the EU is one of the few entities that can actually go against the US successfully, but it just didn't.

Exhibit B. Apparently Hollywood thinks it's a good idea to cast Keanu Reeves as Rama. Yes, I mean Rama from the Ramayana. Avatar of Vishnu, Rama. In what universe is this a good idea?? Oh, I forgot, in the United States/Western culture universe, where it's perfectly natural to conceive of an Indian god as white since those darned Indians need to be ruled over by white people anyway. Where it's also perfectly natural to consider all other religions and/or cultures as fodder for books, movies, and every sort of entertainment without any sort of acknowledgment whatsoever. (Hey, a book based almost entirely on the Mahabharata? Let's not mention the fact and see if anyone will notice. Why, nobody says anything when a story's obviously ganked from the Bible or Shakespeare! How could this possibly be offensive?? Hint: The reason nobody says anything when a story written here bases itself on the Bible or Shakespeare is because everyone knows. Don't tell me people here are as familiar with Hinduism as they are with Christianity. Don't tell me they know Journey to the West as well as Shakespeare. Just don't even go there.) Incidentally if you want to bring up manga as an example of, "Hey, stealing stuff from other people is ok," allow me to remind you that 1. Japan is not a superpower with its culture encroaching on all other parts of the world whether those parts like it or not, resulting in the superpower's interpretations of things often being considered the "right" one; 2. Japan, and the surrounding countries, have more knowledge of Western culture than vice versa, because folks from the West kept coming over and sticking their oars in. Believe it or not, the wrongness of this "using stuff from other cultures" thing has more to do with an unequal power differential than with the actual use itself (also, Japan tends to acknowledge its sources). People here keep acting like this world is equal - it is not. Stories told here get heard more and are given more credence.

Secondly, I am one step closer to candidacy!

I successfully completed the presentation on my first-year project this past Tuesday, a thing that has been plaguing me and weighing my mind down after submission of my NSF grant application (early November). Sprouting grey hairs over that was the reason why I was less than thankful on Thanksgiving and disinclined to post a list of gratitude towards life. But in any case I was thankful of the usual: friends, family, health, lack of debt. And now I'm also thankful for the fact that I'm done with this presentation. SO THANKFUL. (Incidentally my Thanksgiving actually didn't suck because there was a small gathering of folks at a friend's house, where we celebrated with soup, a whole roast chicken, roast turkey breast, mashed potatoes, string beans, and finally, a pumpkin pie.)

Thirdly, I am 25 now and several people were more thoughtful to me than I deserve!

majochan bought me this wonderful Medusa t-shirt from Dylan Meconis, which I'd been coveting for quite a while. Then Dylan herself (quirkybird), upon finding out that it was my birthday through an email inquiry about shipping (from me, that is), gave me this beautiful Ariana print for free! (Along with a chicken sticker and an Ariana/Family Man postcard thingy.) And I'm not even a friend of hers! (I just follow her LJ and her webcomic and think she's really cool. Hopefully I don't give off creepy vibes.)

Next, unicorntapestry bought me this 500 Handmade Dolls book that had been on my Amazon wishlist. It was such a lovely surprise to receive a package coming home one day - I love surprise gifts! :D

Finally, a friend from grad school treated me to Ethiopian food for my birthday dinner. We stuffed our faces on "all-you-can-eat" for nearly 2 hours. It was nothing short of awesome.

Fourthly, I went to a concert performing Handel's Messiah for the first time today. All three hours of it!

It was an amazing performance. I mean really, really excellent. I think I'm going to make this an annual tradition. I also made a social faux pas because I didn't know we're supposed to stand up during the Hallelujah chorus. I thought people were standing because they were planning to sing along (it said the audience could do this in the program). Then halfway through I realized everyone was standing but not everyone was singing, and by then it was really weird to stand up. This is what comes of trying to do your own thing sometimes. Next year I am conforming like the dickens - and yes, even if I am not remotely Christian and have no interest in ever becoming one. I just believe that one must accord religions and customs the respect they deserve. Expecting everyone else to follow the axiom, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" when they come to this country, but completely failing to do so when visiting other countries is the sort of obnoxious behavior I'd like to avoid.

ANYWAY the choir was spectacular. And the soloists were incredibly talented too - particularly the countertenor who just blew me away every time he opened his mouth. Actually, everyone there did that. It was 3 hours of Yayoi being blown away. (There were also moments of Yayoi wistfully thinking that it would be great if she could one day go to a concert where they performed traditional Chinese music of that caliber, but let's not be a wet blanket all of a sudden.)

Fifthly, 2 coils are misfiring in my car and replacing them will take $415, hence, no presents for the siblings or the maternal unit this year.

My sister's present will be the fact that this piece of crap car will be hers come next July (when I will buy a new car if it's the last thing I do - but hopefully it won't actually be the last thing I do because then I won't get to drive it), and I'm basically fixing it all up for her. Whenever I look at this piece of shit car right now, all I can think of is dad and what a @!^$%# he was to have bought the damned thing. If you know me personally, you already know the gist of my complaints. My brothers' presents will be the fact that, I dunno, I'll make parts of the Christmas dinner and they get to eat it. Mom's present will the be the fact that I'll make parts of the Christmas dinner so she won't have to. Or maybe I'll buy her a new travel mug so she'll stop using that old, stained, and crappy one already.

I have more to say, believe it or not, but they mostly run along the lines of, "Oh hey, so Inuyasha!", so I'll leave that for some other time. Should really go to bed now. :p

comments || Leave a comment.

My life, it is cold.@_@

1. HAHA the Portfolio Analysis job that I wanted, but was canceled???? Recruiter calls us back Wednesday, a full month later to ask for interviews. Toooooo late, but it's good to know I would've at least made the first pass. XD
2. It'ssssssss coldddddddddddd
3. The job thing distracted me so I didn't really think about it until a RL friend posted a link to an article in the local papers about the rash of burglaries in town. My dad and I realized there was probably an attempt on our house Wednesday, which was cut short when my dad got home. At least they left really quick and nothing happened....but we're going to go look at some alarm systems this weekend anyway.
4. Now I'm worried about my laptop!!!!!!!!!! Laptop!!!!!!!!!111oneEleven! (not that it's even shipped yet)
5. Co-workers took me out to a Greek place in town, it was really good!
6. I need to make my 2010 goals. Goaaaaalllllllsssss
7. I need to stop eating chocolate two giant bars at a time.@_@

I wish I have a laptop, because the weather is perfect for sitting in bed with all the blankets and a heat-generator. *sad*

Majo

My goals for tonight:

1. shower
2. clean room
3. work on anthology
4. research: roth IRAs, rollover from 401K, gyms in the new-work area, etc
5. make shopping list
6. chop veggies and fruit!
7. scrub sink

**EDIT Thu Dec 3 23:24:15 UTC 2009 **

Hey Everyone, we are about to run the last alter job that we need to on our database servers. This will effect userpics / scrapbook / vgift images for the next few hours. Have no fear, your images aren't lost, there is just a really intensive process running on the servers which store the information for mogilefs. Thank you for your understanding and all the LJ love...

Hey LJers,

I just wanted to let you all know that we are going to be performing some mogilefs maintenance over the next few days. We will be upgrading our current version to latest stable as well as changing some db config information to better handle the amount of files we are currently hosting. This shouldn't cause a big impact on site stability, but you may see some minor delays with userpic / scrapbook images appearing or other requests associated with our mogilefs. We would love to not have that happen, but unfortunately with some of the steps we need to take we have to cause a delay with images. I figured this was a better solution than taking down all of LiveJournal because well lets face it, we all need our daily LJ fix ;)

Thanks,

Since I'm seeing it float around...:D

I'm actually not going to put anything that can be bought here, since I plan to buy my own stuff for myself this year (that, and possibly pay off my car. MY BEAUTIFUL CAR *coo*. And my laptop! HEHEHEHEHEHE). But if any of you reading this feel inspired to grant my little holiday wishes, I will be forever thankful!

Things you can get/do for me:
1. Drop a line and say hi! :D I know I'm horribly bad at replying, but it's been awhile since I last did a meet-and-greet on this journal. Whether I know you or not, feel free to comment!
2. Recommend some good stories/fics/art! My interests are in my LJ profile, and as everyone knows there's good stuff in every fandom, it might just take a little digging. :D Currently I'm enamored with Silver Diamond, Katekyo Hitman Reborn, and I always love FMA, Saiunkoku, etc, stuffs!
3. Recommend some good stories/articles/art for non-anime/manga stuff! For articles I like economics, math and science stuff. Animals are great too!
4. Draw or write me something, any length or size no matter how great or small. ^_^
5. Recommendations/links for cool clothes: I'm looking for a medium coat (something between 'thin hoodie' and 'fur trimmed jacket' on the warmth scale), jeans (I saw people wearing them...jeans with flare hems with rivets! :D But any sort of neat/unique jeans would be fine), and punky bracelets (skull/cross/other motifs)
6. Recommend your favorite easy recipes!
7. Tell me what you want! That way if it's something I can give back, I can work on it.^_^

I've gotten myself my laptop (it's just not here yet whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy)^_^ and will be doing the clothes shopping as sales permit. I'm hoping I'll get some wishlists in return so I can shop for the people I'm giving gifts to.^_^

Ahhh, now. To bed!

Majo

My life in short!

1. Thanksgiving - Had ramen! :D
2. Black Friday - Got a Thinkpad!!!!!!!!!!!111!!!one!eleven! (it's not scheduled to ship until 12/11 though)
3. Gained weight! <-expected
4. ....I think I made it for November's sketch-a-day in terms of count of sketches. Of course the majority of the pictures were done in this last week, so................<-cheated
5. I'm actually now behind on Bleach, KHR, Naruto, Kekkaishi, FMA, and most of the other manga I was reading. However! I am still mostly up to speed with Silver Diamond and I stopped somewhere on vol. 9 of DAQ. Ironically I cannot solve the mysteries because I suck, BUT I guessed random plot things about characters! :D
6. I don't know if this is...ah, what the hell. XD This is hilarious because it's TRUE
Disclaimer: I obviously did not draw this. It's Dilbert.
( Read more... )

Ok, now to shower and enjoy my last minutes of quiet before dad comes home. We have tons of leftovers.@_@

majo

As of today, I've done all my cards. Yay for getting things done! Just have to address the ones I can't hand over personally... So, usa_ko, your address still the same as it was last year? =D

In other news - I have failed at my attempt for National Novel Writing Month this year. Just had way, way too much going on to properly sit down and attempt to do a book, sadly. So I'm just going to keep the tiny amount I have(like 2.10 pages and character notes), and try again next year. Hopefully, next year when it comes around, my month won't be so ultra-busy that I can have the focus and mental clarity needed to just crank it out.

Turning in the personal history packet for a job tomorrow morning, hoping that one turns out okay - I need the dough, and the sense of structure and purpose. Plus it's just, y'know, way past time. Crossing my fingers and sending up some major prayers...

I has dem. Poke me at darkbunny at gmail dot com if you'd like one.

After some prayer, I have resolved that I should be making better use of my creative talents. To that end I will be focusing some significant time on writing in this coming semester. To aid this I am going to take classes that will help inspire me creatively. Most of my current classes fit that bid, but I did drop my GE Math class. I have a feeling I will need the energy that class would have cost me if I want to do my creative stuff.

I am not sure what I will do with Philosophy. The teacher said I was on top of the waiting list and was thus almost assured a spot. I might need to drop something else if I take that class though... again, 16 credits, for me, would probably be too taxing to do much creatively. Unless all my classes turn out to be pretty low key. At any rate, I will wait until I get a feel for my current schedule before making more decisions in this department, but I feel really good about dropping math for this semester.

Kodiak goal is still in full force. Planning to devote some research time to it over the break, and if I am lucky I should have a better view of financial type things by then as well.


What kind of served as a catalyst for some of this was the emotional drive I always get when I finish a good story. In this case, Shakugan no Shana, an anime I really really loved. Like the vast majority of anime I have seen, it had what I would call a rather inconclusive ending; a "we'll keep living just like we always do" sort of thing. I don't have a problem with that artistically, but personally it drives me bonkers. I want to see the characters' romance come to more of a fruition, and I want a solid sense of ending instead of feeling like there was more story but they just decided to stop telling me. I'm sure it is deeply tied into how my brain processes the world, but this is what I want. Sadly, Japan appears to be a land that doesn't go in for the concept of ending with "and they lived happily ever after."

Now, here's the thing. Sure, happily ever after isn't realistic. But, so what? This is anime. Schoolgirls with flaming katanas fighting giant monsters doesn't bespeak a high focus on realism to me anyways. So, a more conclusive and romantic ending and a happily ever after type deal wouldn't go amiss, to my thinking. And when I say "happily ever after" I don't mean actually SAYING "and they lived happily ever after". What I mean is, showing enough for the audience to get a good feeling that the characters are/will be living a relatively happy life, and if they had a romance plot it will be resolved enough that we know they are happily "together." I don't think that would be a bad thing myself.

Which is not to say the bittersweet or "keep on living" type endings that don't conclude as much are all wrong or shouldn't ever be the case. But I would like to see more of the other than I do (which is to say, I see almost none that are at all conclusive). And I do think certain styles of anime, especially when romance is such a big part of the story (like in Shana), could do with leaning more towards conclusionism.

That being said, Shana, at least, has a second season. So while I have some trepidation that they'll go the whole second season refusing to resolve these things and end inconclusively AGAIN, I will watch it anyways and hope for the best.

*pant pant* Massive doodle dump! And I really...hate my sketchbook now.-_-; That Moleskein's ruined me for everything else...But, I think I'm caught up for Sketch-a-day...

Silver Diamond
( Read more... )

KHR/KH/Xenosaga/DGM/Saiunkoku
( Read more... )

Original stuff
( Read more... )

As usual, comments and crits welcomed

Majo

Ronnie James Dio diagnosed with stomach cancer.

Be strong, Ronnie.

I don't know about anyone else, but I can't imagine a world without Ronnie James Dio. May he slay this dragon, and go on to give us many more years of good music and memories.

NY Times recently covered Claudette Colvin, a woman who quietly lived in the Bronx as a nurse for 35 years. She lived her life simply, but before that, she was from Alabama where she refused to give up her seat to a white woman on the bus. She did this on March 2, 1955, nine months prior to Rosa Parks' monumental spark that heralded what many consider the start of the civil rights campaign.

Why not Colvin? Martin Luther Kind Jr. came to her aid, and she went to Rosa Parks' apartment to seek solace on occasion. Colvin was even a key witness in ending the segregation laws in the ensuing legal battles. Colvin's mother, however, stressed, "let Rosa do it."

She drifted back into obscurity, as she was not right to be the poster child of the movement. Parks did too, though newspapers remembered her more fondly, thus launched her into civil rights celebritydom.

Overall, you learn something every day.

Happy thanksgiving to you all!

..........Bro's gotten some quotes for me for the desktop build, but I'm spending tonight looking at laptops. So far it's between Vaio, Thinkpad and Dell...Dell's the cheapest, but the Sony and Thinkpad have better specs when it comes to processing power and the Sony and the Dell have the same harddrive space...

I also just ate pie (again)...so I'm too full to think.@_@ Today's Thanksgiving dinner was spicy beef ramen! Yum!

Now I want ice cream, even though I'm so full...@_@

Majo

Thanksgiving to-dos!

Make a list of things I'm thankful for
( Read more... )

Work on the sketch-a-day backlog
Start Secret Santa Fic Exchange assignment
....clean house as time and circumstances allow =_=;;;
Eat pie!

Not an ambitious list, but it'll do.^^ I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

majo

...Can't vouch for the quality on this batch, scan-wise. They all turned out pretty decent in the sketchbook, though.

In series order:

KHR
( Read more... )

Saiunkoku
( Read more... )

Slayers
( Read more... )


Silver Diamond
( Read more... )

As usual, comments and crits welcomed. Now to see if I can draw another 7...@_@

Majo