Believe it or not, I'm still out here somewhere! Despite still having an anagrammed X name, I do exist! Nothing like a good existential crisis to remind you that you're still alive!

Now that that joke's gone on far too long and made me look far more desperate than I actually amm...hi! Yeah, it's been a ridiculously long time since I've updated this journal, and I blame the fact that updating here actually takes some amount of cohesive thought and effort. I haven't had a lot of that to spare lately. Most of it's going to work, where we're wrapping up two massive summer projects. Classes start again on Friday, which means teachers come back Thursday, which means all of our lives up in the tech department are about to get insanely busy. That's going to be interesting. Most of my waking hours have been going to that, and I'm probably going to do some working from home this weekend in order to get things done. Things should calm down again on the work front in...October, maybe...so that'll be nice.

The other thing that's eaten my life, at least for about a week, was the release of KH3D. If you're friends with me on Facebook, you saw a bit of my frustration; if you have me on Plurk, you got the full-on screaming fury. I was even swearing at things IRL, which surprised the hell out of my roommate. I don't usually get that profane about...anything, really. I won't give spoilers here (though I'd be happy to link the exceedingly spoilery plurk rants if anyone wants them), but as far as final thoughts go, I really did enjoy this game. It gave me quite a bit to think about in terms of character development; it had a battle system that I both enjoyed and hated by turns (I cannot tell you how many times I died while waiting for Cure to recharge); I spent way too much time naming and feeding and petting and generally loving upon my Dream Eaters and enjoying the hell out of that; and it played Devil Went Down to Georgia on my heartstrings, but this is Kingdom Hearts and that's a given at this point. There are still a few massive WHAT IS THIS EVEN scenes and plot points I need to watch again and discuss with someone, and I do think they need to rename the Xanatos Gambit the Xehanort Gambit, but overall it wasn't too terribly difficult to follow. (Though, really, I thought Storm of Swords had given me a pretty bad Everything You Know Is Wrong moment, and then I played 3D. Wow.) Overall, I give it an A and I will probably play through it again in very short order.

As for the usual IRL stuff, health is about the same as usual (imperfect but I'll live, way the hell better than December was), work is busy as mentioned but still much better than my last job, and apartment things are pretty chill. My mom actually came down last weekend for three days with me at Disneyland; of course, it had to be 95 degrees for those three days, so we were pretty much melting from heat the entire time. It was still a ton of fun - we have bizarre and hilarious ride photos down to an art now - and it was nice to have Mom down here for a change, even if avoiding political discussions is much the same as tango-ing around the elephant in the room and my (exceedingly sane by California standards) driving does terrify her. Still! Good times.

As far as writing and fandom activities go...yeah. I have a long list of fics to finish and an even longer list of edits to make on my NaNo fic in progress so I can continue working on it and hopefully finish it this November. (Synchro, you are a saint for having looked over all of that. Seriously.) RP drive has also been flagging a bit, but that's something else I need to sit down and parse out for a bit and today is just not that day. At some point, yes, but not now.

Finally, I am running a music blog and a Disneyland blog! If you have a tumblr, please follow my ridiculous stuff; if you have a tumblr or a plurk or a Twitter or if you're on Adagio (yes, tea, it's awesome), give me your username and let's be friends there too :Db

I should probably start updating this more than once in a blue moon, huh. |D

I'm up to 90 minutes a night of internet time on my self-imposed online restriction. It gives me a bit more time to do tags and whatnot, but it's still not enough to really hang out and chat. I think what I miss doing most is just turning on AIM and reading a book or something while holding the occasional conversation. I feel like I have to be focused while online or I am Wasting Time. It's a different way to look at things, certainly; tbh, I just miss multitasking.

COMIC CON IS IN FIVE DAYS HOLY CRAP. WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN. I think this is the most convoluted and detailed any of my cosplays have ever been, and even now I'm still assembling bits. I live for the last minute, don'cha know 8Db It should be fun, though, and I'm looking forward to seeing all sorts of people and meeting bouncy_erbear! Because awesomeness attracts awesomeness, yes? Yes.

TBH, aside from freaking out about Comic Con and the upcoming move, nothing much of note is going on in the Life and Times of Kia. Work is work is work, and I usually get home from that and work on something - editing or cosplay or whatever needs working on. The huge Disney tribute is on hold for now, as is every other editing project I have going on, on account of - you guessed it - SDCC being right around the corner. My priorities might be a tad skewed, but I do have them. Also, most anime conventions won't let you enter a Disney music video, yes? It probably has to be mostly anime or game footage.

RP is...we're screwed. Just gonna lay that down. We are screwed. |D Also, I might not be tagging Jason for a bit because of recent NSFW Extremely Not Okay happenstances in this season of True Blood, so don't wait on me there.

Does anybody know what's going on at kh_drabble? It's a fun challenge, and we've had quite a few entries, but I don't remember any other time when there've been virtually zero comments on any of them. Is everyone just busy this week? \O_o/

Because this entry isn't disorganized enough: cosplay! Razor Wit finally arrived today, which means I went out of my mind for about an hour unpacking it and squeeing like a moron and trying to figure out picture poses (and subsequently scraping up one arm, but hey, worth it). I have odds and ends for most of my costumes, but my big thing's been putting together costumes for amorsinseramada. She's agreed to join our Friday MLP group, so I'm getting a Pinkie Pie costume together for her, and she chose her other one going solo, so I'm making her a Candlejack getup. That's bound to be hila

It's been a while, huh. I need to quit neglecting this journal. As it is, it's after midnight and I have work in the morning, so this'll be a pretty quick rundown.

My dad is doing fine! He's been taking it easy and not working ridiculous hours anymore (glory hallelujah) and he's doing a lot better, at least according to mom. They've also found a house and put a bid on it, so we'll see how that goes. Will they be moved before the family reunion? Probably not, but they've definitely got their eyes on it.

My first video shoot went pretty well, all things considered. We shot video for a project at work on Friday - rented out a studio and everything. The talent we cast (that I spent time interviewing and basically got first say on who played who, yeah baby) worked really well together, and we got thirty scenes shot in about six hours - not bad at all, actually. There were a few tense moments, and one in which I managed to spill makeup on an actor's suit jacket (note to self: Leslie is doing the makeup from now on because ARGH), but overall it went pretty well. Rick was happy, Leslie was happy, Terrence was happy, and I was bushed, so I figure life is good.

In other news, getting LA County workers together for a conference call is like herding cats. I kind of want business cards with "professional cat herder" on them now. (And yes, I have seen the commercial, and yes, it is hilarious.)

Disneyland with lynxgriffin on Sunday! It was pretty low key, though I spent more on souvenirs then I think I ever have at Disneyland - blame it on getting my Disneyland In A Box prize together for my help_japan winner. The POTC preview that they have is amusing, Blackbeard freaks me the hell out and I love it, and the show beforehand is cute and hilarious by turns. On the downside, there is no group rate for special seats for Fantasmic, so I either need to finagle something or give up on that one for my birthday. We'll see how things go there. I do love spending time at that park, though - so lovely and relaxing. ♥

In RP news, I've got Jason Stackhouse in Second City - we've only gotten as far as him thinking Pinkie Pie is somehow a drug flashback, and I don't want to handwave things until that thread gets a little further, so we'll see. Linkara is in over his head - per usual - Rarity is loud and abuses italics like whoa - per usual - and Rosette...I'm really tempted to drop her, if only because nothing is happening with her. I think I'm past the point where I can successfully get into her head and play her well - my lack of interest and her lack of CR have pretty well made that obvious. Honestly, I think DC might've closed the book on things with her, and I've been trying to find an epilogue instead of enjoying it for the fantastic story it was. Again - and I have been using this phrase far too much - we'll see.

Finally, as if I don't do enough writing, I'm thinking of picking up one of those 100 Themes challenges and getting one down every day. Even if they're not all that good, if all else fails, it'll at least guarantee that I write 100 words every day, and I think I need something constant like that.

Yeah, that's about it. Bedtime now, I think.

Somebody please remind me to never do a paper at four in the morning again. That was just. Argh. ;;;

Although DDR on heavy mode after about five hours of sleep gets very interesting very quickly. :D

Now I just have my rhetoric paper and my take home final for Shakespeare and then I'm papered out for the semester (and left with three finals to study for, huz-zah).

Also, I finally bit the bullet today and made an appointment with the head of the Religion division to talk about Daughrity. I need to pull out my List of Grievances again, but I think for the most part that it'll go well.

And a note to whoever signed up for three appointments in a row (two of which were mine) and did not show up for any of then: way to fail. Dead Week is our busiest week out of the semester and you're taking up time we could be using to help other students. Thank you for being irresponsible and selfish.

...I should catch up on tags today. |D

Somebody start checking the sides of milk cartons for my RP drive, because I don't know where the hell it's gone.

I keep putting Paixao off, because Paixao is slow, right? I don't think that has to be the case - I think it's that way because people don't post, because Paixao is slow, because people don't post...it's a vicious damn cycle and I seem to be stuck in it.

Daisychain, I just seem to be running from my fail, and there's a good bit of that.

It's easy to blame all of this on work, especially since I'm working more this week than I have been all month, but that's the problem - it's easy to do that, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's to blame.

It's also easy to blame this on all the errands I've been running to get ready to go back to college. Furnishing an entire apartment is no small task, after all...but again, it's too damn easy to do that too.

I think what's really to blame is my work ethic and the fact that I don't seem to have one. All you'd need to do to know that is take a look at my to do list - there's stuff on there I've had to do for going on a month now and with fast approaching deadlines, and is it done? Hell no.

The long and short of this is, I do good work sometimes and it may well be time to call hiatus until school starts. We'll see how things go.

I am obviously too easily amused.

I just got a call from somebody (she sounded young) asking to be connected to the lab. Okay.

I plug "Lab" into my wonderful campus wide search engine and get about twenty entries, most of which are specific rooms (Lab KSC 130, for example). "Okay, which lab?"

"Well, I'm studying hematology specifically, so that one."

...Great. Okay. "Alright, um...what branch of science is that?" Because I figure I'll just connect her to the science department that covers hematology. The English major in me knows diddly about science, but she does know her word stems, and "hema-" and "hemo-" are generally used in conjunction with blood, so this is either natural science or biology. I'll be the first to admit I don't know the difference between the two, so I figure I'll ask the girl - after all, she's studying it, she should know. Right?

"I don't know. It's hematology specifically." LSAKGNAWROG YOU ALREADY TOLD ME THAT IT AIN'T HELPING.

So I explain the idea of connecting her to the general department and ask her if it's natural science or bio.

"I don't know...I guess I'll do some more research and call you back." Click.

A quick trip to Wiki tells me it's Bio. Really, shouldn't you at least know what you're studying before you decide to make it your college career?

Or maybe it's just time to refuel the Logicmobile, I dunno. Either way, that made me grin.

...first of all, I really don't like this show. Saving Grace, for all of its Joan of Arcadia-ish-ness, is really very boring.

But that's not what I wanted to write about tonight.

For those of you whom I don't talk to all that often IRL, there's a reason I've not been at work (and subsequently writing about work) lately. We had a bit of a fire. Somebody left something on the grill at closing, and it caught fire at about 3 a.m. There wasn't very much fire damage, but smoke damage hit both the front and back of house (i.e. part where people sit and eat and kitchen). This happened last Wednesday. We're supposed to open on Tuesday. I'm not earning any money. ;;;

It was nice to have a few days off (even though I spent one of those cleaning the nine drawers of my desk in all their packrat-afflicted glory), but I'm really looking forward to going back to work.

Ratatouille is even better the second time around. I didn't think it was possible, but it was.

Transformers is made of an unbelievable amount of win. I would totally go see that again, if anybody wants to come with.

I can't wait for the ninth to roll around - I get to put everybody back in action in Paixao again.

I find it unbelievably ironic that, now that we have this thunderstorm of absolute death in Econtra, we've had five amazingly terrible thunderstorms here in three days.

And finally, for those of you who're wondering, the title of the post is from an AMV I made a looooooong time ago. Chrno Crusade for the win. :3