I quite enjoyed today's Zero Punctuation. And I envy those in that other hemisphere.

So, last night I dreamed that I was the puppeteer for the character of the two-headed dragon at an owl exhibition at this really really big zoo. You actually had to be a certified harrier to even ATTEND this owl show, which was especially strange because it was all puppets and no living creatures at all. No owls. There weren't even any puppets of owls. Go figure.

The troublemaker dragon head could breathe fire, and the straight-laced dragon head could blow frustrated steam out his ears. I guess I was the third head, the middle head, but all I really ever did was carry the other two heads around.

Eh. it's a living.

Oh, and Lolli was there, but she didn't work there. We just ran into her there.

Elf bought us a tree! A real tree!

Well, not a real tree. Not in the usual sense. Which is for the best, because A) I disapprove of cutting the damn things down just so people can have festering corpses rotting in their living rooms for half a month or so, B) they absolutely reek of pine, which is one of the most horrific scents in creation, and C) the bloody things, being freaking TREES, were never meant to fit inside living rooms and tend to be huge.

It's actually one of mini-trees, the artificial kind, with the fiber-optic tips that oscillate with different pretty colors.

Our Christmas Twig now decorates one of the sconces in the living room. I set the new tree up in place of pride on the gear table. Three of Kaust's traditional army men immediately volunteered to defend its perimeter against any lumberjacks, chipmunks, or Jehova's Witnesses that might come within 300 yards.

As for an angel, well, Guido is already stationed atop Sprinkles' tree...so...

Well. It was really only a matter of time before  ( this ) wound up on top of a Christmas tree.

Good little gentile boys and girls get presents. The bad ones get a Hand of Fate right upside their naughty little heads. Heeheehee.

It occurs. My KH character is a heart manifest. other such creature may come into play as i develop the story, if i decide to bother... dependign on the actions of squarenix...

Anyway... The very strong of heart seem to maintain atleast a perception of their identity as a heartless... heartless xehanort and nobody xehanort were not the same person... One was made of pure negative emotion the other of pure thought and memory with no emotion at all... (which doesnt work, you need emotion to have motivation, anyway) but more then that they had different personalities...for one, the heartless "Ansem" seemed to think that really was his identity.

So.. If the person that was Echo before he was lost in the darkness was strong enough for the keyblade to choose him, for what ever traits it happened to find apealing in him, he must have had an exceptionally strong heart. I imagine he does have a heartless running around somewhere, and it probably has an identity all its own, which probably remembers who it was, but is warped..more then a shade, a Revenant. The question is...would it be able to wield a keyblade...heartless xehanort did, but he was kinda living parasitically through riku...

still.. the old adage.. the nearer you come to the light, the more you cast into shadow.

Called the traffic lawyer (yes, under dire circumstances, I CAN pick up a phone). Got some answers.
First of all, turns out unless it's a criminal charge, I have 90 days to deal with it, not 30. Good to know. Second, the fine they put on the ticket is way more than the normal fine for how fast I was going, the sneaky bastards were just trying to pull a fast one.
I DO still have to pay the ticket, but they say they'll definitely be able to get the fine reduced (to less than it would normally be, never mind the exorbitant amount the cop tried to charge me). Perhaps not by enough to make up for their own fee, but it won't be by much more, and that's well worth it to keep a clear record, not incur any stupid points, and not have to go to that insipid traffic school. If memory serves, that would cost me another 50$ or so anyway, so really, my options are paying around 300$ I don't have, or paying around 200$ I don't have. Not exactly a difficult choice.
Besides, having them put all this through the works, they said, means I won't have to pay the fines/fees until around March, which works a fuck of a lot better for me than the middle of the holidays.
I'm gonna do this.
I understand Bert was somewhat upset to learn of this ticket when Mom and Jared told him. Apparently, because I hadn't (Important note: Jared does NOT get to snip at ME for keeping secrets from Bert).
Honestly, I don't really understand WHY he'd be upset. Until today, when I went over the details with the lawyer, I didn't even know if there were going to BE any points on the license to drive up the stupid insurance, so I really had nothing to tell him. That I GOT the ticket was no secret, I told the world the day it happened. People, the reason I HAVE a blog is so that anyone who cares can find out what's going on in my life. Not MY fault he doesn't read it.
And anyway, he said himself, when he found out that my email address had changed because Mom stopped paying the Comcast bill, that I was old enough to start dealing with my own problems and not rely on Mom to take care of them for me anymore (which I already HAD done, incidentally, by switching email accounts). Come to think of it, I told him THEN that I rarely used email, and to read my blog if he wanted to know what I was up to.
Sigh.

Well. I'll talk to him Christmas and tell him this much then, if he wants to make a fuss. By then I'll have retained the lawyer, so it'll be a done deal. Which means he can't complain that it isn't being handled...though he may complain about how I'm handling it. He's Bert, he'll find something to nitpick. But when I point out that he himself suggested that I start handling such things myself, it'll probably shut him up. I just hope he doesn't suggest that I start paying the insurance myself. Because that would suck.

Incidentally, I get paid Christmas eve. Woot. Major woot, and a last-minute shopping spree, because I still don't have gifts for Sprinkles, Ken, the Kevins, or Kaust, and it turned out I ordered the wrong thing for Roger.

So that's TWO gifts I'll be keeping. Usagi got Skitty a Ripstick, without consulting anyone and five days before Christmas, neatly puncturing mine and Grin's gift idea (which we'd already purchased). But it's okay for him to do that, of course, because he 'doesn't celebrate Christmas'.

Ass.

Oh, well. Got myself a Ripstick now. So we can all go riding together, and two of us can ride at a time, instead of all taking turns on the Toys R Us floor model. I predict many collisions.

Sadly, I'm out of star stickers. It needs more stars. Could have sworn I had more somewhere...

Oh my GODS, my roommates and I just cut, stood, and decorated a pine twig.

WE HAVE A FREAKING CHARLIE BROWN TREE.

We also decorated it with a pokeball and a few action figures.

AMAZING.

The only downside is that the twig isn't strong enough to support Guido. I'm thinking of dragging him along to Anne's on Christmas day and sticking him on top of her tree when nobody's looking. :)

LETS DO THE TIME WARP AGAAAAAAIN! Here it is, as proof that humanity will one day gain the power to travel through time...i present to you, Sprinkles, in 40 years.
<.<...>.>...O.O! *ducks and runs for the cover* halp! dont hurt the Echo puppy! *whiiiines and hides in the safety of undersofa* 9.9

I just dreamed that Mom lived in a lighthouse, or a silo, or some sort of tower. Every level had a floor made of a net of woven rope. Each level was accessible via a ramp of more woven rope that wound its way up the tower in a spiral, through holes in the floor, and there was a hole in the center of each level, with a firepole.

Pretty nifty, actually. I think I want one.

You may recall a conversation i had with you about  there being a key for every lock. Im not sure what Way to the Dawn is from, but probably from the shores of darkness, or possibly the destiny islands... remember, sora's key unlocks the door to light...As for kairi...i dont know... But isn't it lovely? I would even go so far as to call it....Radiant...

Bugger. I forgot to keep track of the date. I was planning on throwing a party that day, too.

I turned 10,000 days old on April 22nd of this year.

That was important to me, dammit. Now I have to wait 'till next lifetime.

Sigh.

Left eye is bothering me. Of course.

Replacement bionic parts are out of the question and will remain so for many months to come, but I do have the option of taking the lens out and cleaning it, while giving my eye time to get over whatever the fuck its problem is.

The only issue there being, should I do so, there's, oh, I'd say about a 35% chance that I won't be able to put the lens back IN. There could be something wrong with it, it could tear, it could get misplaced, or maybe my eye will just refuse to cooperate (you contact wearers in the audience know what I'm talking about).

Thus, methinks I'll be putting this operation off for a day when I won't have to do a lot of driving for a while...the soonest such time being Monday night, after returning home from G!M!N!. The grace period before having to get back behind the wheel won't be enough to buy me any new lenses...not even close...but it does buy my eyeball a little more time to recuperate before giving reinsertion another shot (assuming that reinsertion is still an option).

I have never tried driving with one lens in, nor have I tried it whilst wearing glasses. I'm not particularly looking forward to either endeavor, so here's hoping the thing goes back in. The time at which the matter becomes critical is that point at which I feel that I would drive better with one lens missing than with one lens faulty.

Although, to be perfectly honest, I'm reasonably sure I could drive (well enough not to crash, anyway) without any corrective lenses at all. I can tell what color the traffic lights are, I can tell how far away are the taillights of the car in front of me, and I can make out the lines on the road (especially at night, when the reflectors flash).

My only issue would be reading the street signs, which I have enough trouble doing with my lenses IN.

*From credit boards*

" *blink*....Girls....i'll never figure out your species, i swear to the gods i wont."

This i have to admit is somewhat odd being that i have...somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain, a personality that identifies its self as female... granted she doesnt seem to be talking to me right now...

Well....fuck.

Yeah. So, my old flash drive? The one that holds less than half a gig and is, my all modern standards, a joke? Yeah, through an unfortunate turn of events, it became...bent. And now no longer functions.

This also happened to hold all the most recent, finalized, and in-progress copies of all my stories. All of them. ALL OF THEM.

The part that bent is the USB connector...the chip itself appears undamaged. So everything's probably still saved on there.

So...anyone have any idea as to how I can get this thing working again, if only for long enough to pull all that off?

*Waves to everyone*
Back from the other side of the world, gonna crash now but I'll give my commentary on it later.

Ordered Bert's gift. Finally scored some wrapping paper.

Eight names to go.

Well, seven names, one of them twice. How DOES the girl date someone with the same name as her father? Doesn't it feel weird shouting THAT particular name in bed?

Anyway. One last round of shopping to go. Scraping the bottom of the money barrel now.

Also, I heard back from that lawyer regarding my speeding ticket. They say they can keep my record spotless, no points on the lisence (a word I can never seem to spell and am too tired to bother trying right now), and no driving school, for a fee of 99$.
Sounds like a sweet deal, if not for the little addendum of "...the most you'll have to pay are some court fees.".

Yeeeeah....Mr. Lawyer Person? We're gonna have to talk some more about that. 'Some court fees' is just a little too vague for my liking. Could be anything from 50$ to 500$. And if it's going to be more, combined with your 99$, than the ticket fine, then I should just pay the ticket and not even bother.

Someone remind me to give them a call on Monday, hmm?

Riku, equipped with way to the dawn, kicks truly monstrous levels of ass

So...took a bunch of blanketed pigs in for lil sis's Christmas party at school... Mom told me to let her stay as long as she wanted. I took this to mean "hang around till she decides she wants to come home"...apparently by the bitchfest i was mistaken but shes been yelling at me all day, though for at least one thing i deserve it. Anyway. So, being that I refused to eat anything (taboo subject) I had to find something else to pass my time sense none of the parents would talk to me. Mom would have gone but she had a doctors appointment. So, yeah, I've discovered something. You want to be the most popular person in a classroom full of preteens? Whip out a DS "*Collective GASP and whisper* he has a DSI!"



I think I had half the class hovering over my shoulder at one point or another. "How many games you got? whats that game? Whats that game about? Is it a Halloween game? Can you get online with that? What all does it do?" So on, so forth. Even the teacher made the comment that she should let me teach class and go home to take a nap. Finally I decided it was best i grabbed Angel and left. I like kids, being an overgrown 10 year old my self (all be it with an over sized vocabulary* and flare for quantum physics) its hard not to, but general wisdom is to avoid other peoples spawn if it isn't your job to be around them, which is hard when you have been besieged by them. *Vocabulary and Grammar are not the same thing, Vocabulary is knowing a word's meaning and using it correctly, Grammar is using it in the correct order, with punctuation, compared to other words. Just because you cant read Echonese doesn't mean he isn't right ^.^ My spelling is a taboo subject which will not be approached unless you want me to start yelling in catmacro.

IT'S THE 21ST CENTURY AND IT HAS BEEN FOR TEN FREAKING YEARS.

We're living in the goddamned future, people! Where the HEL are the flying cars?! The anti-gravity boots? The robot butlers? Hoverboards? Sentient computers? Holographic billboards? Cyborg limbs? Projected-energy weapons? Force fields? Food synthesizers? Teleportation pods? ANYTHING?

I've said it before, the only piece of technology that's actually kept up with the hype has been the cellphones. Everything else? Pathetic! Cars? Pfft. Not a one can drive itself. Computers? Please. The stupid things were supposed to be able to think and talk and have psychotic episodes by now. I can't even find a stupid space heater that works! 21st century technology is a total rip. I swear, I want to sue every single piece of media that's been made in the last fifty years for false fucking advertising!

Japan! I'm looking at you! YOU were supposed to be taking care of all this! What have you been doing all this time, feeding your goldfish? Get on it! I want a mechanical dog that can turn into a plasma rifle and also make me a caramel latte, and I want him NOW!

I am reading Glee fanfiction.

I'm trying to decide if this is a step up from when I was hooked on LazyTown fanfic, or a step down. I'm thinking it may be a lateral move.

What's really worrying about this is the fact that a fanfic has no sound, and that therefore Glee's kickass soundtrack can't possibly factor into my desire to read this, which implies that I actually give a shit about these characters.

Now THAT is a scary thought.

Also, the Phineas and ferb Christmas special was pretty good. I especially like Dr. Doofenshmutz's 'I Really Don't Hate Christmas'.

The new blades are too long for my hacksaw and the titanium drillbits are too small for my dremel.

So fuck this shit, at least for a while. Maybe when I can be buggered, I'll get my hands on an actual drill and a longer...

Hey, wait. I think my hacksaw can actually extend to accommodate a longer blade. Let me check...

Good news! I am slightly less inclined to brutally murder the next living thing to cross my path with a useless hacksaw blade. Now I just need to borrow somebody's drill and we'll see how well this works.